The literar)’ nihilists, the artists of disorder, enjoin iis to degeneraterninto the lower forms of life, which are brutish. One mayrndiscern in any day’s newspaper some item that is evidence of arnwidespread “intellectual” hostility toward religious belief andrntoward true humanism. Leading book publishers puff up worksrnof fiction meant to convince us that indeed we are but nakedrnapes, and works of political polemics intended to repudiate ourrnsocial order and bring on, at best, what Tocqueville calls “democraticrndespotism.” Reviewers simper at the obscene and revilernintemperately—or ignore altogether—books that attemptrnto work a renewal of mind and conscience. The oligarchs of thernantagonist world, in the realm of letters, are eager to attractrnmore dupes.rn—from Russell Kirk, “The Literature of Order,” February 1985rnAmerica’s abilit)’ to compete in the world was also affected by itsrnhigh rates of violent crime. By 1985 it had five times morernhomicides, ten times more rapes, and 17 times more robberiesrnthan Japan. New York City had twice as many homicides as inrnall of Japan, hi the five years of the early 1980’s, United Statesrnbusiness had to hire 602,000 security officers just to keep peoplernfrom ripping them off. This crime wave was costly both to therncitizens’ psyche and to the efficiency of the economy.rnBy 1986 Japan’s taxpayers supported 50,000 inmates, includingrnpretrial detention inmates, while the United States supportedrn580,000 adult prisoners. If you were to take all the prisonersrnin the United States in 1986 and put them in one place, itrnwould have been a cit)’ larger than Detroit. That city had twornsuburbs—West Probation and East Parole—that contained anotherrn3.7 million people. One out of 35 American males inrn1986 was on probation or on parole. Such figures were hardlyrnconducive to quality products.rn—from Richard Lamm, “Decline of the West: A Western Viewrnon the Fall of American Civilization,” February 1989rnAt the moment there are 540 municipal employees in the cityrnwork force for every 10,000 people in the cit}’. Tliat ratio doesn’trnmean very much until it is compared to the second highest suchrnratio among American cities. Detroit has 206 municipal workersrnfor every 10,000 in the population. New York is by any measurernthe last and most entrenched bastion of socialism in thernworld. There are more school administrators (5,400) at 110 LivingstonrnStreet, the nerve center of the city’s school system, thanrnthere are from Portugal to the Ural Mountains.rn—from Herbert 1. London, “Letter From New York City:rnLife as Pathology,” July 1993rnI grew up in a Los Angeles that had very little crime. We lockedrnthe door to our house with a skeleton key, when we remembered.rnI often think of the contrast with today when listening tornrebroadcasts of the Dragnet radio series that originally aired inrnthe early 1950’s. It was one of my favorites then and still beatsrnTV now. Jack Webb stuck close to real cases and was a sticklerrnfor detail. As Sergeant Joe Friday, he went after murderers andrnrobbers, to be sure, but much of the time he was tracking suchrnpublic enemies as shoplifters, bicycle thieves, check forgers,rndrag racers, teenage rowdies, and the like. Call the LAPD todayrnand report that your bicycle has been stolen! Cars are stolen sornoften (nearly 200 a day) that the LAPD does nothing more thanrnlist the vehicle on a “hot sheet” and wish the victim good luck.rnKorean merchants complain that customers brazenly walk outrnof their stores without paying for merchandise because theyrnknow that the police will not respond to a call for help. The policernare simply overwhelmed by the volume of crime and arernkept more than fully occupied by murder, armed robbery, andrnrape.rn—from Roger D. McGrath, “Treat Them to arnCood Dose of Lead,” January 1994rn•, j^^m-‘iMm^S •• MttirnM^rn&rnr« If JrniHrn^lyjrnjdlLii ”’I’drn^HK’iinffllrn ..LJ^i-jk’ %’rnBack row (from left): E. Christian Kopff, Clyde Wilson,rnWilliam Mills, Thomas Fleming, Harold O.]. Brown,rnAndrei ISavrozov, Paul Gottfried. Front row: John SheltonrnReed, Bryce Christensen, Joseph Schwartz, KatherinernDalton, Russell Kirk.rnThe buffalo has become a symbol for th[e] recognition of arnmodern devastation. We are told by Peter Matthiessen thatrnthere were an estimated 60 million buffalo on the Great Plainsrnwell into the 19th century, “probably the greatest animal congregationsrnthat ever existed on earth.” The animal is extinct inrnthe wilds now. That is a fairly impressive record no matter howrnyou look at it: destroying the greatest animal congregation thatrnever existed on earth. This we managed, we must remind ourselves,rnwith merely horses and rifles. Now we have . . . well,rnprobably no need to go into all that.rnA large number of people lately feel that the genie has got outrnof the bottle and he is us. It’s as if you have the buffalo bull byrnthe tail, and as he races across the prairie, someone is yelling,rn”Turn him, turn him.” Such a sense of helplessness has generatedrnan urgency on the part of many for a myth that can engenderrnresponsibility for the present and the future. . . . It is clearrnthat thoughtiess narcissism (protecting animals that look morernlike us), or a detached urban puritanism (one lady was madrnabout a polluted swamp out our way, and the “pollution”rnturned out to be duckweed), is not going to serve. Our greatrngrasslands, like our swamps and arctic “wastes,” had until recentiyrnbeen ignored while we went about paving the rest of therncountry. They were thought to be forbidding, not in the top-tenrnplaces to go; but now that is changing. .. .rnMany people are under the impression that once Superfundrnmoney is spent on a cleanup, that’s the end of it. Wrong. ThernU.S. government turns around and sues all of the individualrnproperty owners to get the money back, even though they mayrnhave acquired the land after the damage was done by someonernelse. Which brings us back to Burke’s flies of a summer. “Unmindfulrnof… what is due to their posterity, [the temporary possessorsrnand life-renters] [w]ould act as if they were the entirernmasters.” Some of the pioneers could be right messy. Theyrnwere on the way elsewhere, toward something over the horizon.rnPerhaps more land, more water, more gold, even something intangible,rnboundless. After all, shouldn’t a man’s reach exceedrnhis grasp? On the way, however, the scene sometimes resemblesrnthe aftermath of recent barbarians whizzing down the interstate,rndumping McDonald’s portable, disposable dinner ser-rn54/CHRONICLESrnrnrn