History is strewn with the wrecks of nations which have gained a little progressiveness at the cost of a great deal of hard manliness, and have thus prepared themselves for destruction as soon as the movements of the world gave a chance for it. —Walter Bagehot, Physics and Politics

We suspect that few readers of The New Criterion follow The Coup, a popular “hip-hop” group whose expostulations are said to exhibit “a strong anti-capitalist bent.” Our readers may therefore have missed the band’s web page. Until recently, it featured a picture meant as advance publicity for its forthcoming album “Party Music.” In the foreground were shown two members of the group, one of whom smirks as he presses a button on a detonator. In the background was an image of the twin towers at New York’s World Trade Center exploding.

That image was removed soon after the twin towers were destroyed by te ...

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