What cops really do, and more

• Old war correspondent Fred Reed on what cops really do.
• Pat Buchanan: How to defeat ISIS. An intelligent alternative to another war or hand-wringing. Hold the Saudis (the fundamentalist Sunnis who were most of the 9/11 hijackers) and others accountable. A smart cop knows how to de-escalate (don't meddle in Mideast politics, and stop supporting Israel, and there will be no more 9/11s; stop the "homeland security" political theater), and anyone who's been in a war doesn't want to go again.
• The rise of the state. The period covered is 1300–1648, and Van Creveld begins with the struggle against the church – a struggle against faith in the church and toward faith in the state, it seems. Of course opposing faith and reason — the common-knowledge "history" of the Renaissance and "Enlightenment," "freeing" us from the church... for what? — is a strawman. St. Thomas Aquinas' thought is the epitome of reason, standing on the shoulders of Aristotle: seeing the world as it really is and conforming yourself to objective truth.
• From Fr. Longenecker:
  • Religion: Is it all in your head?
  • Why women can't be patriarchs. Of course women's ordination and gay marriage are connected; they're the same denial of reality.
• Mormonism. Also, Fr. Gommar De Pauw.
• The decline of stoicism during status-striving times. It can be cold but there's something to be said for northern European reserve. Also, humility, a Christian virtue, vs. the well-meant self-esteem our kids are fed.