The Free Enterprise System is dynamic. It is disruptive, yet also full of opportunities in its competitive nature. It requires hard work and virtue in order for it to be possible. If capitalism is to rise above cronyism, a proper understanding must not only be cultivated but also promoted. Dr. David Azerrad offers us such an [...]
The Religion of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by [...]
We are told to be careful with our words, to be aware of how our words might make other people feel, or of how we might be misunderstood. However important is this advice (and it is both important and grossly overused), these are not the primary reasons we should be thoughtful about our language. Words [...]
We should learn from the political credo of the Venetians, who never forgot the history that had made them a special nation. To be a patriot is to embody our connection to the national bond through devotion to a "practice." It is good to be enthralled by dogmas of the quiet past, remembering who and [...]
We face great challenges at this moment in history. We face cyber threats. We face a resurgent Russia under Vladimir Putin. We face a jihadi threat. We face the growing threat of nonstate actors, who now can carry out massive attacks and are as able to play on the global stage as state actors. We [...]
It is an unfortunate truism that the longer one remains in the legal profession, the less educated he becomes. The law, as the saying goes, is a jealous mistress: She does not permit solicitors to invest time in rival passions—e.g., philosophy, history, and literature—let alone cultivate the niceties and nuances of expression that distinguish the [...]
Liberty and equality are the uncontested “values” of the modern world. They have been paid lip service to by all the parties, including the Communists, who did so much to smother them in the course of the twentieth century (hence the ubiquitous “people’s republics” that brought untold misery to a third of the globe). Some have even argued that we [...]
Some time ago, back in October 2014, in the wake of Scotland’s referendum on independence from the rest of the UK, I wrote an essay for The Imaginative Conservative entitled “Voting for the Devil.” I began by saying that I had predicted, prior to the referendum, that the Scots would vote “no” to independence, in [...]
The issues now being debated in the 2016 elections are framed as if the country revolved around a great big cookie jar. The benefits and promises candidates offer are like cookies that must be substantial, instantly gratifying, and abundant. All the problems the nation faces seem to be reduced to who has access to the [...]
Many good and worthy people in the past have found the experience of imprisonment a crucial and definitive period on their road towards faith and religious conversion, or as a means of deepening an already existing faith. Saint John of the Cross springs to mind, as does Miguel Cervantes, and the great Nicolae Steinhardt, whose [...]
Like many people I found the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference a little unsettling. And yet, unlike many people, my concerns had little or nothing to do with the issue of climate change itself. Whether global warming is actually happening or not, and whether, if it is happening, it is caused by manmade pollution, [...]
Long used as a justification for affirmative action, diversity is in many ways more useful and sustainable as a freestanding program of action for those hostile to our inherited traditions. It sounds self-justifying. Who could be against diversity in a polyglot society such as ours? The Supreme Court currently is considering the case of Fisher [...]
In denouncing Republicans as “scared of widows and orphans,” and castigating those who prefer Christian refugees to Muslims coming to America, Barack Obama has come off as petulant and unpresidential. Clearly, he is upset. And with good reason. He grossly, transparently underestimated the ability of ISIS, the “JV” team, to strike outside the caliphate into the [...]
Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose. Not when they are escaping to some wild west. The most unfree souls go west, and shout of freedom… The shout is a rattling of chains… Liberty in America has meant so far the breaking [...]