At the risk of seeming too parochial, I want to outline the dimensions of a problem that has been of special concern for me and other conservative students of the American political tradition, broadly defined. This concern is not as narrow as it may at first seem. Nor, by any standard, is it insignificant; it [...]
Winston Elliott inquired whether I would like to update an article I wrote for Modern Age in 2005, “The Future of Conservatism”. I have gladly accepted his invitation since it allows me to emphasize and expand upon certain of its central points that I believe deserve our close attention, as well as to express my views on an [...]
A survey of the present American political scene provides, I believe, the background and point of departure for examining more permanent and basic aspects of American institutions and politics that pose enormous obstacles to the realization of principles long associated with traditional conservatism. More specifically the eclipse (some might say the disappearance) of traditional conservatism [...]
Power has shifted from Congress to the presidency; the modern, “heroic” presidency represents the greatest threat to the Republic. The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power, by Gene Healy (Cato Institute, 2008, 262 pages) “Taken by and large,” Edward Corwin wrote, “the history of the presidency is a history of aggrandizement, [...]
My purpose is to set forth and explore the ramifications of two different conceptions or paradigms of American federalism whose roots can be traced to The Federalist essays of both Hamilton and Madison. Certain conclusions flow from this analysis that, in my judgment, are important to the conservative approach and thinking about centralization. Perhaps the [...]
Two posts by our good friend Winston Elliott serve as my point of departure. The first (on 3 May) was entitled, “What is the proper role of military power for a Republic?,” and raised salient considerations in seeking an answer to that question; the second (appropriately enough on Memorial Day) emphasized the responsibility of the [...]
There is no dearth of studies on the political thought of the American founding era. Yet there is no consensus on what theories, values, or goals were uppermost in the minds of the founding generation. On the contrary, on a number of critical theoretical issues and concerns, there appears to be an inverse relationship between [...]
The recent flap over the WikiLeak disclosures reminded me of lessons I drew from my experiences as a communications officer in the Marines with top secret crypto clearance. When I was with the 6th fleet in the Mediterranean during the period of Hungarian revolt and the Suez crisis I would often have the responsibility of [...]
My good friend, Bruce Frohnen, poses a question (“An isolated, but not Pacifist, query”) that I take the liberty to reformulate as follows: Aren’t the American people—whom I had held up as our best hope for putting an end to mindless imperialism (“Nisbet, War, and the American Republic”)—really to blame for the mess we are [...]
Winston does well in bringing Robert Nisbet’s teaching to bear upon the basic problems we confront (War, Crisis and Centralization of Power). An assigned reading in my contemporary American conservative course at Georgetown is Nisbet’s The Present Age. While this work incorporates much of his previous thought and findings, I assign it primarily because it is [...]