Category Archives: Liberty

In Venezuela the Church Still Endures

Posted on May 13, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

Yesterday I had coffee with a new friend, who is himself Catholic, and in a wide-ranging conversation you have when you are surprised by stumbling upon a kindred spirit, I recalled this article I wrote about the Catholic Church in … Continue reading →

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Levy, Intellectuals and Paris

Posted on April 20, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

This should have been marketed and sold as a booklet. Essay selections rarely work in book form, few writers can pull this off and Bernard Henri Levy is no exception. I would have been disappointed, except Levy began the book … Continue reading →

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The Pandemic is Over

Posted on March 6, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

Last night I attended a musical event hosted in Alexandria, VA by Common Sense Society, an organization dedicated to promoting the civilizational virtues of liberty, prosperity and beauty. Celtic music, love songs from times of war and hardship on the … Continue reading →

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To Talk of Many Things… (Vol. #12 – Chile)

Posted on December 20, 2021 by Joel D. Hirst

Latin America never misses a chance to miss an opportunity. How do you take the most prosperous nation in the region and ruin it? It’s a story that is told over and over until the telling is really not even … Continue reading →

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On Vargas Llosa and Writing

Posted on December 17, 2021 by Joel D. Hirst

What makes great writers great? I’ve often wondered that. I’ve stumbled across dusty stories once-translated and lost to time in the ancient bookstalls of Armenia that are breathtaking; then I try and re-read Hemingway every other year, realizing that life … Continue reading →

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The Commission On Unalienable Rights

Posted on May 9, 2021 by Joel D. Hirst

One of the most extraordinary things that came out of the 45th President’s Department of State was the Commission on Unalienable Rights (and its subsequent report – find it here). The commission was set up in 2019 and the final … Continue reading →

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On Oppression

Posted on May 8, 2021 by Joel D. Hirst

Last night I was reading the Bible to my little boy – we are now in the life of Jesus – the story about when the Pharisees tried to trick him by asking him whether a good Jew should pay … Continue reading →

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The First Man

Posted on May 3, 2021 by Joel D. Hirst

I’ve never been a fan of Albert Camus; I didn’t really understand what all the fuss was about. I found Plague and Stranger interesting, but not particularly noteworthy. I am changing that impression for the record here. I just finished … Continue reading →

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To Be Burned Twice

Posted on November 13, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

“For, to be burned twice in one’s lifetime, is, after all, a rare distinction.” I recently finished reading Arthur Koestler’s two-part auto-biography, P1 “Arrow in the Blue” and P2 “The Invisible Writing”. Finished when he was only thirty-five years old … Continue reading →

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The Sadness of Hong Kong

Posted on September 17, 2020 by Joel D. Hirst

“You need to visit Hong Kong” my parents would say. They were wont to go there; a waystop between the obsidian totalitarianism of Harbin and the nihilistic desperation of Nagasaki before heading into the ancient rotting darkness of Irian Jaya. … Continue reading →

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