Alexis de Tocqueville believed that Americans had cause to fear in their leaders, not “tyrants, but rather tutors.” Democratic individualism would cause men to pursue vulgar pleasures and material well-being. Such men would surrender their self-government and even their self-will, and society would eventually devolve into mere savagery. What should a democratic people fear in [...]
President Trump and many “conservative” Members of Congress believe that it is the duty of the federal government to see to it that every American receives healthcare, regardless of cost. Anyone opposing the healthcare entitlement must be willing, or even happy, to see people die in the streets… There is much noise coming from Washington [...]
Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser [...]
We Americans are no longer members of a consensual society, devoted to limited government and the rule of law. So, is the filibuster still a guardian of our freedoms?… After eight years of the most radical President in American history, our “fundamentally transformed” nation can no longer afford to allow use of the filibuster for [...]
It is understandable that confirmation hearings should sometimes become contentious and even partisan. But the past half-century has seen the infection of the process by serious contentions that go to the heart of constitutional governance itself. Confirmation hearings have a noble place in the American political tradition. They are necessary so that Senators may see [...]
By insisting that judges are responsible for fixing bad laws, rather than interpreting all laws with fairness and respect for standards of due process, progressives gather to themselves the power to impose their vision on the nation. I find this originalist judicial philosophy to be really troubling. In essence, it means the judges and courts [...]
The nation-state is a fact of life today. It is a necessary protection for people, in their communities, as they face dangers from foreign powers and state-less international elites. But we must remember that it is necessary to guard the guardian of our freedom, and to maintain our own virtue if we are to guard [...]
For the most part, the term “checklist conservative” is used to imply that the person criticizing a Trump Supporter is an Establishment Conservative. But is this new insult justified?… A new political insult has emerged in recent months: “checklist conservatism.” It is a charge leveled at all kinds of self-identified conservatives whenever they accuse members [...]
President Trump rarely uses the language of restraint, but his limited agenda makes clear the vast room available for a renewal of state and local politics as a necessary ground and embodiment of self-government… We continue to witness the left’s refusal to come to grips with their loss of electoral power in Washington, D.C. Childish and [...]
The myth of civil service neutrality, like the myth of an unbiased press, has fostered the growth of an arrogant, self-interested governing class and structure than can and will defend its own interests… In less than three weeks, the Trump administration has suffered a Niagara of leaks from the White House to the press. Backroom [...]
Textualism is a compromise, or rather a lowest common denominator, that can allow for a renewal of the rule of law. Still, it rests on a great loss—that of the common mind of our people… Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s nominee to fill late Justice Antonin Scalia’s spot on the Supreme Court, might follow other recent [...]
So long as the government continues subsidizing radical groupthink through its tax, research, and other policies, we will continue to see our children indoctrinated into an ideology that denies reality, precludes self-awareness, and undermines ordered liberty… The Organization of American Historians (OAH) has responded to the Trump presidency in a manner showing all the seriousness [...]
Until Members of Congress rediscover the most basic virtue necessary to fulfill their role in our constitutional government, no amount of tinkering can hope to restore our republic… As the late George Carey and I were writing our recently published Constitutional Morality and the Rise of Quasi-Law, we were convinced that we would be criticized [...]
California's coastal cities have not only grown, but they have attracted cultural leftists from the world over, and in vast numbers, who have made a point of disenfranchising the “deplorables” in their midst. In the middle of winter, as the ice grows thick in Ohio, I begin to miss my youth in California. Then again, [...]