Sunday, May 5, 2013

The way we live now

The way we live now: (Scott Johnson)
Visiting the site of the William F. Buckley, Jr. Program at Yale to watch Professor Donald Kagan’s farewell lecture, I found the video below — the first of four, the rest following automatically — of George Will’s lecture to the group this past January. The lecture provides a short course in the Constitution and the revolt of the Progressives against it, from Wilson to TR to FDR to LBJ and to Obama. It is learned and vivid, with some pungent quotes from prominent authors including the late James Q. Wilson. Charles Kesler provides a tour of the horizon to similar effect in I Am The Change: Barack Obama and the Crisis of Liberalism. I could quibble with a point or two that Will makes, particularly with respect to the Machiavellian roots of the Constitution, but I would prefer to say only that this lecture is worth your time. It is excellent.