While very few modern conservatives—especially those who sell conservatism as a consumer product—even remember the movement’s founder, Russell Kirk, those who do remember him often do so by envisioning him as an antiquated relic, having passed from this world long after he had contributed much to it. At best, Kirk might well represent a pre-1960s [...]
The national debt has surged more than half a trillion dollars in the last three weeks, as the suspension of the debt ceiling in late October has allowed the government to borrow as much as it wants. — Report in The Washington Examiner America’s national debt is approaching $19 trillion, and has surged over the least [...]
A condescending attitude towards common people is typical of today’s political Left, while the Right’s heroes have always been champions of protecting the common man against all sorts of enemies, including an encroaching state. I have always loved listening to Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man. It is simple and sincere, noble and hopeful. [...]
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness. Editor’s Note: Ronald Reagan delivered the following televised speech on October 27, 1964, in support of [...]
David Brooks, the in-house Republican at the New York Times, recently wrote an angry column aimed at conservatives (whom he dubbed “right-wing radicals,” among other unfriendly epithets). Elsewhere it has been pointed out, in essence, that someone like Mr. Brooks who pronounced Barack Obama suited for high office on account of the amazingly sharp crease in [...]
Editor’s Note: The following interview was given by Joseph Pearce, author of Small is Still Beautiful (ISI Books), to the French journal, L’Homme Nouveau. Question: Through international bodies or global economical and financial networks, a certain human conception seems to be imposed onto humankind. Is this conception your finding? Mr. Pearce: Yes. The whole of human [...]
It requires no special genius to observe that the American political system has become dysfunctional. Although never fond of those who sit across the aisle, Democrats and Republicans have rarely vilified and demonized each other as they now do. Long regarded as the essence of American democracy, compromise has become all but impossible. This partisan [...]
In a recent essay* for the Christian Post, “The Christian Right: A New Hope for the Republican Party,” Napp Nazworth argues that Christian political conservatism offers the best resource for expanding the party’s base among non-whites. Citing the demography deficit within the Republican Party, Nazworth argues “social conservatives are most attuned to the sympathies of [...]
Will we, before it is too late, use the vitality and the magic of the marketplace to save this way of life, or will we one day face our children, and our children’s children when they ask us where we were and what we were doing on the day that freedom was lost? Ronald Reagan [...]
I have added my name to a friend of the court brief in the case of Little Sisters of the Poor vs. Burwell. Professor Nathanial Oman of the law school at William and Mary proposed and took the lead in writing this brief, which was joined by a number of concerned law professors. It was [...]
As a Catholic priest, who is also a graduate of Bob Jones University (BJU), I caught with interest Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s question when oral arguments about same-sex marriage were being heard in May. Justice Alito referred to the 1983 case in which the Supreme Court decided that Bob Jones University’s ban on inter-racial [...]
Having spent a few weeks teaching here in Iceland, a few things are becoming clear. First, Icelanders are a friendly people who have managed to maintain a society with very little crime or violence, in which children are very safe and in which there is an extremely strong sense of community. Second, it is a [...]
One of the most famous speeches in American political history was delivered by William Jennings Bryan on July 9, 1896, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. His subject was the free coinage of silver at a ratio of silver to gold of 16 to 1. (This inflationary measure would have increased the amount of [...]
I am spending much of the summer teaching in Iceland. It is an interesting country for many reasons, not least the fact that it has the oldest still-active legislature in the world. A group of us took a tour that included a visit to the site of the original Althing and the probable site of [...]