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What Atheists Know

gressor and for the passive victim, thernwoman has the greater right to rid herselfrnof the transgressor by whateverrnnreans are necessary.rnThe grand and vicious irony is thatrnwhen the pro-hfe side rails against Roe v.rnWade, it accepts the moral rationalityrnthat necessarily leads to the conclusionrnof Roe and its companion decision DoernV. Bolton: that a woman has the...

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What Atheists Know

know.” “This problem of translation revealsrnthe extent to whieh thernchurch/state dilemma . . . is a problemrnof epistemology itself.” the authors explain.rnThinkers engaged in reasserting thernfact of religion as a legitimaternsouree of moral knowledge in the publiernarena insist that it find some eonceptuallyrnneutral language in which tornexpress this knowledge. Mensch andrnFreeman cite Richard John Ncuhaus,rnwho...

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Sins of Omission

REVIEWSrnSins of Omissionrnby John LoftonrnThe Scandal of the l^vangelical Mindrnby Mark A. NollrnGrand Rapids: Eerdmans;rn288 pp., $19.99rnThe Scandal of the Evangelical Mindrnis that, as Mark Noll puts it, “therernis not much of an evangelical mind”;rnthat, despite all their other virtues,rn”American evangelicals arc not exeinplarrnfor their thinking, and thev havernnot been for several generations”; andrnthat, at...

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Lucky Him

that as Theonomists or Reconstructionistsrnthey tried to offer “practical proposalsrnfor public life” by “insisting on carefullyrnformulated theological foundationsrnfor political action” pushing “toward arnmore self-conscious political reflectionrnthan is customary in the evangelicalrntradition.” But this is an inexcusablernunderstatement. Much more needs tornbe said of these men and their influence.rnBoth Rushdoony (whom I havernknown personally for over 10...

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Letter From Bosnia

CORRESPONDENCErnLetter From Bosniarnby Momcilo SelicrnFrom Beyond the PalernWe saw them at dawn: a dozen men inrnragged camouflage, lugging dull blackrnweapons glinting like poised snakes.rnTheir faces rugged like Arizona bluffs,rndark brown or brick red, they movedrnwithout a sound, like the mist rollingrnout of the forest. Large and beefy, theyrnstood around our campfirc and smiled atrnus. A...

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Letter From Bosnia

World War III was what was happeningrnriglit now, but onlv the Palians andrnMarkan and the Jahorina soldiers knewrnit: not e’en mv friends in Belgrade werernaware of it, let alone anvone in Austria,rniMigland, or the States. Confident thatrndestiny eould be either outwitted orrnfinessed awav, thev all tended to theirrnbusiness, like ants in an anthill in thernpath...

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Letter From Italy

this war, Bosnian Serbs possessed nothingrnbut their own selves, their families,rnkin, friends, and their history, ahvays anrnawful shape upon God’s Earth, a tough,rnthrashing entity stretched through thernTime of the Short Duration, recallingrnTroy, Athens, Singidunum (Celtic Belgrade),rna Rome whose Coliseum remainedrna stony shell, only dimly reminiscentrnof its true shape and glory, like arnrotten rib cage of...

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Letter From Italy

contrary, the DC has smoothed the wayrntoward national secularization and madernit possible for subversive radicalism tornadvance at a steady pace, despite thernfact that Italy is still a Christian andrn”conservative” nation. At the very least,rnthe DC allowed this process to grow. Itrnlet the radicals and the communists gainrnpart of the cultural and political powerrnin the country,...

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Letter From Italy

present-day policy. If we fail to grapplernwith the Risorgimento (the long historicalrnand ideological process that led tornirational iirdependence and unity in thern19th century) and its aftermath—thern”reconstruction” of Italian people whenrnthe heirs of the Jacobins won the warrnagainst traditional Italians—wc will neverrnbuild a sound “conservative” alliancernto rule the country. And any reformsrnwill be superficial.rnBut even if...

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Letter From the East Village

cesses, not unlike subversion, deconstruction,rn;ind reolution. To turn backrn;i 50-c;ir tide is tantamount to going forward,rnfor in the words of G.S. I lalifax inrnhis Political, Moral and Miscellaneousrn’ihoughts and Reflections, “the bestrnQualification of a Prophet is to have arngood Meniorv.” We must look deeperrninto our national past, which wc will bernable to do onlv after...

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Letter From the East Village

for cotton fields” and black gids thatrn”taste so good.” Now an appalling grouprncalling itself “They Might Be Giants,”rnpopular with the snidely pious collegerncrowd, whines about “Your RacistrnFriend.”rnAcross the table from me I heard thernculmination of a discussion about AIDS.rnI knew what was coming. I had heard itrnbefore. After some preparatory comminationsrnon the danger of the...

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War: Russia’s Chechen Crisis

VITAL SIGNSrnWARrnRussia’s ChechenrnCrisisrnby Wayne AUensworthrnRussia’s ill-fated decision to intervenernin the Chechen civil war hasrnprecipitated a political crisis at least asrnheated, and far more bloody, than thern1993 presidential-parliamentary showdown.rnConsider the following; all thernmajor “democratic” parties, includingrnformer prime minister and Yeltsin backerrnYegor Gaidar’s “Russia’s Choice,”rnhave denounced the intervention andrncalled for a halt to militarv operations,rnleaving only ‘ladimir...

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Economics: The Flat Tax

Chechens, who at their peak could barelyrnpopulate an American city, while usingrnthe sternest possible measures o cr arnperiod of roughly a centur- and a half,rnperhaps we should rethink the notionrnthat a few Big Macs, a pair of Nikernsneakers, and some Madonna CDs, togetherrnvyith enough English to makernone’s way through K-Mart, arc enoughrnto eonycrt untold millions...

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Economics: The Flat Tax

Speaker Gingrich has been planning hisrntakeover of Congress for more than tworndecades, just about all the country’srnproblems should have been rectified bvrnnow. Alas, the 100 davs are nearly pastrnas we go to press and tax day is almostrnhere, but the much-vaunted contractrnhas done nothing to alleviate the incomerntax burden on the average Americanrn(although Gingrich and...

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Law: National Lawyers Association

Help Us FightrnOur oouthem Â¥rno Saverneritage!rn”Civil Rights” groups have launched a campaign to eliminaternALL symbols of Confederate history and heritage, including thernremoval of all Confederate monuments from public property!rnIf you’re ready to fight back, then Join A Winning Team!rnThe Heritage Preservation AssociationrnHPA is a nonprofit, national membership organization thatrnutilizes educational, legal and political resources to...

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The Hundredth Meridian

The Hundredth Meridianrnby Chilton Williamson, Jr.rnThe Land of Oil and WaterrnA sign above the cafe adjacent to thernmotel across the highway from the railroadrntracks in Lordsburg, New Mexico,rnproclaimed the good news in faded redrnletters on a flaking white background.rn”Whiskey and water,” I told the waitressrnwhen she came with her pencil andrnpad. “No bar,” she explained....

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The Hundredth Meridian

junkyard hulks, passed noisih’ in thernnorthbound lane, and a carefullv parkedrnsedan burned quietlv b itself at therncurb along the main thoroughfare. InrnAgua Prieta young men with vacantrnfaces leaned on iron lamp posts risingrnfrom narrow sidewalks built on highrnstepped curbs above drains clogged byrngarbage. Eighteen years ago three membersrnof a Douglas ranching familyrnnamed Hanigan, the father...

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The Hundredth Meridian

W^ MmmHrni i i T i i « i i i ; i i i i i n i i Â¥ « i i i – r TrnNATIONy^L CONSERVATIVErnSTUDSMfrnCOMF£f Add to Favorites

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The Hundredth Meridian

(CTTTTHENyou. reread a classic you do nc t see more in the book than WTHENyrndie you did before; you see more in you than there was before.”rn—Clifton Fadiman, Any Number Can PlayrnSTART WITH DICKENS’ /rnGreat Expectationsrnfor onlyrn$2.^’rn1 *M Ot*ll!>rnt>l’SI >»rn/WBSI* IM! MUli’lS,rnJrn^Jr ‘rnV warn/^ TTET^ a century and a half,rn/-i nothing in Enghsh Hterature hasrn%-^...

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Polemics & Exchanges

EDITORnThomas FlemingnMANAGING EDITORnTheodore PappasnSENIOR EDITOR, BOOKSnChilton Williamson, jr.nEDITORIAL ASSISTANTnMichael WashburnnART DIRECTORnAnna Mycek-WodeckinCONTRIBUTING EDITORSnHarold O.]. Brown, Katherine Dalton,nSamuel Francis, George Garrett,nE. Christian Kopff, Clyde WilsonnCORRESPONDING EDITORSnBill Kauffman, Jacob Neusner,nJohn Shelton Reed, Momcilo SelicnEDITORIAL SECRETARYnLeann DobbsnPUBLISHERnAllan C. CarlsonnPUBLICATION DIRECTORnGuy C. ReffettnPRODUCTION SECRETARYnAnita CandynCIRCULATION MANAGERnRochelle FranknA publication of The Rockford Institute.nEditorial and Advertising Offices:n934 North Main Street, Rockford,...

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Cultural Revolutions

Kathy Mattea.nThe same sort of “fine tuning” is applicablento my observation on supermarkets,netc. Here in Rockford, there arenseveral local supermarket chains, wherenCHRISTMAS is the time when thenbureaucrats and judges who rule thenUnited States launch their perennialnwar on Christianity. A recent skirmish innBoulder, Colorado, may give a hintnof future directions the war may take.nBoulder is a...

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Cultural Revolutions

in proportion to their size and the numbernof illegals.nBut what few critics of illegal or legalnimmigration ever mention is how immigrantsnaffect the country culturally. ThenUrban Institute again cast some light onnthe subject, in a study released in May:n”The number of people who speak a languagenother than English at home grewnby 37 percent—from 23.2 million to...

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Cultural Revolutions

troops running all over the world. Nornwas this the fault of Ron’s advisors (Reagannwas Reagan) or of Democrats innCongress (who consistently cut WhitenHouse spending requests). As governornof California, he was a big taxer and a bignspender too. It was Ron’s leviathan thatngave birth to Proposition 13, as PhilnCrane pointed out when he opposednReagari in the...

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Turning Rights into Wrongs

PERSPECTIVEnTurning Rights into Wrongsnby Thomas FlemingnHow Democracies Perish was the subject, as well as the title, reform and suppress the state and local jurisdictions that stoodnof an important book by Jean-Francois Revel. M. Revel • in the way of establishing a power monopoly in Washington,nis a hardheaded journalist who takes little interest in political One...

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Turning Rights into Wrongs

United States, where taxes are collected at the local, state, andnnational level, to support government schools where the religiousnand ethical views of most citizens cannot be taught andnwhere the “philosophy” of the ruling class is spooned out asntruth, science, and the American way? For want of a betternname, this religion can be called Liberalism, a...

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Turning Rights into Wrongs

had any doubts about the constitutionality of school prayer andnrelated matters, he only has to read Mr. Rehnquist’s dissent,nwhich establishes the true intent of the religion clause and thenindifference of the Framers both to religious establishments innthe states and to Christian prayers and practices within thenfederal government. He concluded on a somber note:nIf a constitutional...

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Turning Rights into Wrongs

-m’n^^,nv^-n.*-^n19 94 IN REVIEWnPROTKCTED BV SMIIH & Vi!;SSON: LiFE, LlBl-RTV,nAND PROPr.RTV—January 1994—^Thomas Flemingnon Hie home as one’s eastle, Roger D. MeGratli onnthe virtue of armed communities, and RieliardnMaxwell Brown on the “no duty to retreat”ndoctrine in American law. Plus SamuelnFrancis on the new populism and a reviewnof Walter Laqucur’s Black Hundred: ‘ThenRise of the Extreme...

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Angels to Govern Us

If men were angels,” James Madison wrote, “no governmentnwould be neeessary.” Or, “if angels were to governnmen, no controls on government would be necessary.” Madisonnbelieved that men are about as good as they can ever be,nand since no angels are available to rule, we need checks andnbalances.nThomas Jefferson added the idea that “man cannot be...

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Angels to Govern Us

Constitution, they inextricalDly intertwine themselves witli thendocument they interpret. Tlie Court’s opinions routinely employnthe fietion that, when the Justices speak, it is really thenConstitution speaking through them. The practical result isnthat when challenging the Court, one appears to challenge thenfundamental document itself. The natural reluctance to challengenthe Constitution discourages a political response to thenCourt’s rulings;...

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Angels to Govern Us

gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional,nand what not, not only for themselves in theirnown sphere of action, but for the legislature and executivenalso in their spheres, would make the judiciary andespotic branch.nLearned Hand largely agreed with Jefferson’s analysis of judicialnreview. In The Bill of Rights (1958), Hand argued that...

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Angels to Govern Us

tions; when the effect is to fetter and degrade the state governmentsnby subjecting them to the control of Congress” andnwould constitute “this court a perpetual censor upon all legislationnof the States.” hi less than 20 years, however, the Courtnreversed itself and took up the “perpetual censor” role it enjoysntoday.nThe 14th Amendment was also the wedge...

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Angels to Govern Us

timing woman.” In Campbell v, Acuff-Rone, Justice Souter said:n”The later words can be taken as a comment on the naivete ofnthe original of an earlier day, as a rejection of its sentiment thatnignores the ugliness of street life and the debasement that it signifies.”nThe Court’s words can be taken as a comment on hownfar judges...

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Anywhere, U.S.A., 1973

dividuals are safer in the hands of the majority than in thenhands of appointed guardians.nWith power goes responsibility. Tlie Court, Professor Corwinnwrote, has “made itself morally unanswerable for the safetynand welfare of the nation to an extent utterly without precedentnin judieial annals.” A free society, wrote beamed Hand, “willnfind its own solutions more successfully if...

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Congress vs. the Second Amendment

Congress vs. the Second Amendmentnby Jerry Woodruffn”A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right ofnthe people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”n—The Second AmendmentnWB^—–jTjjffnr iJ^rnii:!ni^T* nifln\ V. r 1n[^n’nYn1n%si.n1 [L/Jnff mn,— .n=ij»- Ji^^’j^nImiin^flUsr^MnWimJ^n^zL^^^^^SMKB^S^^^^^nn.^^”7n/ # ^nLike a recidivist criminal free to strike at will, the UnitednStates Congress...

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Congress vs. the Second Amendment

and pistols were useless for duck hunting. “These weapons andnlarge capacity clips have no legitimate civilian use, period.nThey are useless to hunters—five rounds fired into a duck willnonly make duck soup,” he said.nBut congressmen who denounce semiautomatics for beingnmore portable than other guns (which of course they are not),nand who think rifles and pistols are...

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Congress vs. the Second Amendment

committed between 1985 and 1993 in her city, none was committednby a rifle of any kind, according to D.C. police. But factsnare irrelevant. For her, mere ownership of these guns by thenlaw-abiding causes death among the young. “[C]hildren are beingnkilled by the existence of tliese weapons,” she claimed.nIn a spectacularly goofy moment not rare in...

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Congress vs. the Second Amendment

Maloney (D-NY) claimed, “The ‘R’ in NRA no longer standsnfor ‘Rifle.’ I say it stands for ‘Reprehensible.'” With a viciousnessntoward the citizenry rarely exhibited by public officials,nMaloney charged the NRA with endorsing the murder ofnschoolchildren: “[T]he NRA argument [is] that the SecondnAmendment should allow some screwball with a ‘streetsweeper’nto blow away whole playgrounds full of...

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Federalism vs. Secession

Federalism vs. Secessionnby Ronin Colmann”The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibitednby it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people.”n—The Tenth AmendmentnFollowing the passage of the national gun ban wrapped innpork, Representatives Gingrich and Gephardt congratulatedneach other for their bipartisan cooperation and remarkednhow much...

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Federalism vs. Secession

party (much less the Beltway intelligentsia), the federal governmentnhas assumed limitless de faeto power over the affairs ofnthe states and the activities of their citizens. Last March, ColoradonState Representative (now State Senator) Chades Dukendecided to do something about this. He introduced HousenJoint Resolution 94. When it passed in May, as H.R. 1035, thenColorado legislature served...

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Federalism vs. Secession

does not appear to hold much hope for its success. “Cougressnwill not fix this problem,” writes Governor L.eavitt. “Congressnhas every incentive to continue the trend toward centralization,nand the federal bureaucracy has even more. And we cannot dependnon the courts. Over the last 60 years, the federal courtsnhave generally not been friendly to states in their...

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Jury-Rigging

Throughout our legal history we are familiar with incidentsnof jury-tampering, the act of buying off or frightening onenor more of the 12 men good and true called upon to decide ancase. I’his is done to predetermine a verdict, usually to assure an”not guilty.” We have heard of vicious gangsters, corrupt unionnbosses, and crooked politicians conspiring...

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Jury-Rigging

Hispanic.nTlie jurors had never met before, but they knew each otliernwell enough. They are, after all, neighbors, working middleclassnfolk. They earn from 20 to 60 thousand dollars a year andnrange in age from 21 to 65. They dress in a similar neat suburbannfashion, slacks, open-collared sport shirts, sweaters, skirts,ndresses. They dine in many of the...

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Jury-Rigging

into them like a tiger.n”What kind of setup is this?” he fumed. “If I didn’t knownbetter I’d swear the fix was in. And you,” he said scathingly tonthe juror who had dozed during the trial, “how dare you evenntalk when you slept through the testimony! That defendant isnan animal, guilty as sin. And you all...

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Up From the Ice Age

The Bell Curve: Intelligencenand Class Structure innAmerican Lifenhy Richard j. Herrnstein andnCharles MurraynNew York: The Free Press;n845 pp., $30.00nRace, Evolution, and Behavior:nA Life History Perspectivenhy j. Philippe RushtonnNew BrunswicknTransaction Publishers;n334 pp., $34.95nFor about four years before the publicationnof The Bell Curve last fall,noccasional news reports dribbled out tidbitsnof information about the book andnits coauthor. The...

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Up From the Ice Age

absence of various social pathologies andndysfunctions. They support these argumentsnby close statistical analysis of datanpertaining to “cognitive ability” (intelligence)ncorrelated with other data onnsocioeconomic status, childhood and educationalnbackground, criminal history,noccupational achievement, and familynformation. Through statistical analysisnthey argue that social dysfunctionsn(poverty, unemployment, injury rates,ncrime, broken families, child neglect andnabuse, illegitimacy) are more closelyncorrelated with low IQ than...

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Up From the Ice Age

tlie taboos it lias sliattered, not from itsnintrinsic merits. The authors’ curiousnunwillingness to go beyond what theirnnumber-crunching substantiates onnsome subjects, coupled with their speculativenleaps about the future shape ofnAmerican society, their compulsion tonqualify every generalization, their equivocationsnabout race, their timidity at thenprospect of being accused of any sort ofnantiliberalism, and their persistent allegiancento essentially egalitarian...

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Up From the Ice Age

tific theories,” he writes, “do not causenpeople to commit murder. Nonetheless,nall ideas can be used to justify hatred.nBut here, religious and egalitarian ideasnhave just as bad a history. The Reign ofnTerror following the French Revolutionn(1789) and the 70 years of communistndictatorship following the Russian Revolutionn(1917) show how readily idealismncan be perverted. Thus, it is totalitarianismnin...

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That Bestial Visor

Philip Larkin: A Writer’s Lifenby Andrew MotionnNew York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux;n570 pp., $35.00nSelected Letters ofnPhilip Larkin 1940-1985nEdited by Anthony ThwaitenNew York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux;n791 pp., $40.00nIn the popular memory the interwarnyears in Western Europe were a periodnof instability, inertia, and poverty or, asnAuden described the 1930’s, “a low dishonestndecade.” ‘ One seldom hearsnabout...

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That Bestial Visor

long-standing, complicated relationshipsnwith Maeve Brennan and Monica Jonesnhe sometimes wrote each of them thensame day, and often on successive days,nplaying them off against each other andnkeeping himself less than fully committednto either of them.nObvious as it is that Thwaite’s andnMotion’s fat but selective volumes mustnrepresent editorial and authorial perspectivesnrather than any kind of objectivenview of...

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A Pig in a Poke

A Pig in a Pokenby Arnold BeichmannOn the Make: The Rise ofnBill Clintonnby Meredith L. OakleynWashington, D.C.: Regnery;n592 pp., $24.95nNever did I appreciate so much tliengenius of the Founding Fathers asnafter finishing this remarkable biographynof President Clinton. The authors of thenConstitution created a governmentnwhich makes it impossible for the UnitednStates to be transformed into a...