(James Fetherolf, Desert Scene, oil on canvas) I hope you all had a wonderful Christmastide and a terrific Sunday. My contributions have decreased somewhat since I’ve increased my load over at The Hipster Conservative. Additionally, I’ve taken to writing western fiction. Fiction is something I am not used to writing so finding the right voice for it… Read More Writing Update

The 24-hour news cycle rarely gets dominated by anything of substance but the issue of family separation at the border has taken hold lately. Regrettably, many pieces are hastily written to serve whatever narrative the writer has chosen. In this void, there is misinformation on each side, which is quickly used to justify ignoring the… Read More Family Separation: Unnecessary & Unjust?

What Do I Mean By Evangelical Evangelical is a tricky word. It is used in a host of different settings, each meaning something either slightly or substantially different. In an academic context, it usually means Protestants who emphasize the Bible as the highest authority, the necessity of evangelization and the substitutionary atonement of Christ’s work… Read More Why I Am Not An Evangelical

New piece up over at The Hipster Conservative. A modest proposal: let the lads smoke their cigs. I would like to venture a modest, if only slightly ironic, defense of tobacco use. I think a reasonable vindication can be made on three grounds (note to Big Tobacco: we have yet to receive your payoff. Please deliver… Read More On Blasting Cigs

I don’t have any essays lined up soon so keeping in tradition with the day I figured I would list out some of my favorite Irish writers and books. So without further ado; Favorite Irish/Irish-American writers Thomas Kinsella Seamus Heaney (his translation of Beowulf is my favorite. Here is Part I of Heaney reading it aloud) Jonathan… Read More Favorite Irish writers and books.

Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick Deneen. Yale University Press, 2016. 198 pages. After Rod Dreher’s review in The American Conservative, I was intrigued enough to buy Dr. Deneen’s book and it was well worth the purchase. It definitely helps cement my slide from quasi-libertarianism to full-blown Toryism. It definitely strikes the correct tone though I… Read More My Review of “Why Liberalism Failed”

I haven’t had as much opportunity to write as I would have liked in 2017 and I am looking forward to remedying that. Here are the top 5 essays, as ranked by you, the dear readers of Musings On The Right; On Selling Your Soul This was yet another marker that signifies why I am… Read More Top Essays of 2017

Seeing Republicans I know try to justify or equivocate on Roy Moore’s sexual deviancy and predation is frankly depressing. Even given how terrible our current political moment is, I did not think, in this the 2017th Year of Our Lord, that Americans would have to litigate just exactly how much sexual involvement with minors is… Read More On Selling Your Soul

Like Sumantra Maitra, I too have decided to become the Internet’s worst person. See how you like it. The Chechens are a tough people. Persecuted by various empires, historically stateless and mistreated, they remain in their homeland. For the uninitiated the Chechens are a Muslim people from the North Caucasian region of Eastern Europe. They… Read More On the Rohingya Crisis, Or “Contra The Federalist”