The following is a summary of the June 2025 issue of The St. Croix Review.
Barry MacDonald, relates a podcast discussion: “Joe Rogan Talks to Kash Patel, Director of the FBI.” During the Biden Administration, tens of thousands of Americans died of Fentanyl poisoning because of government fecklessness.
Menippus Revivivus in “The Lost Art of Sprezzatura,” deploys an unusual word, in the context of military campaigns, that means to hit fast, hard, and with style; in “Rant on the Airlines,” he laments the gross indignities of airline travel; in “Sibling Science and the Romanovs,” he contemplates the blessing of elder sisters for a brother; in “Paean to Alcibiades,” he presents the perfection of masculinity; in “Against the ‘Nation of Laws,’” he explodes the myth of “equally” applied law; in “The Constipation of the Libertarian,” he exposes the snobbishness of libertarians; in “The Spinster,” he marvels at a destructive force.
Josiah Lippincott, in “The Blessing of Neutrality,” argues for greater abstention in U.S. foreign policy.
Johann Kurtz, in “Inequality Is Good and Just,” makes a Christian case for responsibility in the exercise of power and property.
Philip Vander Elst, in “God and Totalitarianism,” offers a meditation on the relationship between atheism, evil, and totalitarianism that opposes God and moral order.
Paul Kengor, in “Peace Be with You”: The Deep Meaning in Leo XIV’s First Words,” heeds the first public words of Pope Leo XIV, noting in the Pope’s words a hopeful shift in tone from one papacy to the next.
Mark Hendrickson, in “Should Harvard Be Allowed to Host Foreign Students?” believes that President Trumps goes too far in preventing all foreign students from attending Harvard, but he agrees with the president that anti-Semitism on camps, and intellectual theft on campus at the instigation of the Chinese Communist Party are valid concerns; in “Elon Musk’s and His Proposed America Party,” he credits Musk’s good-hearted intentions, but doubts this methods; in “Why USAID Should Be Shut Down,” he points out the usual futility of foreign aid that is spent by bureaucrats who lack business sense: The money is stolen by corrupt rulers or squandered; in “Remembering Solzhenitsyn’s Warning to the West,” he reviews the courageous life of the Soviet exile and Russian Noble Prize-winning author.
Allan Brownfeld, in “The Challenges We Face as We Approach the Constitution’s 250th Anniversary,” reviews the writing of Russell Kirk, one of the founders of the modern conservative movement.
Tyler Scott, in “The Life and Legacy of Jay Parker, Black Conservative,” writes of one of America’s black pioneers of the conservative movement.
Timothy S. Goeglein, in “America’s Educational Freefall Continues,” declares that America’s educational system is broken — family breakdown, smart phones, bureaucracy, and the neglect of the genuine learning are causes.
Francis DeStefano, in “French Film Noir,” reviews four films about French criminals who would have liked to leave crime behind but found that they couldn’t; in “Leni Riefenstahl: “Triumph of the Will,” he uses the famous Nazi propogandist to explore the nature of indoctrination.
Jigs Gardner, in “Letters from a Conservative Farmer: Versed in Country Things — A Peopled Summer,” presents the end of his farming adventure in Vermont, and the burst bubble of the illusion of the Beautiful Simple Country Life.
