Sauron, Saruman, and their fundamental (dis)similarity. From the pen of Carl Benjamin comes an article on the Scouring of the Shire, here in Islander VI. The main topic of the article will be getting a Creational Story article (as yet
Build on rock or on sand. Henry Martin’s article in Islander VI, “Influence Is Not Power,” is a 10/10, go read right now sort of article. I have, frankly, no disagreement with what is said (unless I’ve missed something), and
We can’t just talk reformation into being. Calum Darroch’s article in Islander VI received one article already; here, again, I focus on it to bring what is in small part a disagreement but in larger part a development of the
Why ‘conservative’ isn’t enough. “Perhaps your favorite Substack essayist,” Calum Darroch writes, “is not being entirely serious when he suggests you can live like a Roman patrician, but you certainly wouldn’t know it.” As Darroch lays out in this excellent
Human loyalty too easily incorporates hate. The question of loyalty lies deep in the human soul. Loyalty, at the end of the day, is a force potentially far more powerful than fear, than lust, than hatred, than contempt, than pride,
If you want racism, suppress it. The number of issues which the mainstream in modern politics refuses to acknowledge, except to ridicule. Politicians, leaders, all the apparatus of the conventional world, refuses to address these problems; they make them worse
We’ve a bigger foe in the West. Worry about Islam’s rise in the West is a bit of a chorus in certain parts of the conservative right. I do not discount the validity of these worries, in themselves. Islam’s star
We must do it. One common talking point in geopolitics punditry is the impossibility of negotiating with somebody who will not keep his word. Without trust, they say, actual agreements are just not possible; all they represent are concessions whose
We cannot edit the law. Many of us have sympathy for the Biblical civil law’s list of crimes. We find murder, rape, theft, adultery, theft, and even blasphemy highly objectionable, and we can see how at least a little punishment
Discretion can become rebellion. A certain strain of Christian Nationalism (and its adjacent positions) places a strong emphasis on the necessary adaptation of principle to circumstance. Stephen Wolfe, for instance, speaks of a necessary discretion, adapting natural and divine law