G.K. Chesterton’s Socialist Friend: Robert Blatchford
Today’s enthusiasts for a socialist America will not be likely to know the name of Robert Blatchford or his story. If they did, they might think twice about their current enthusiasm. […]
The Hounds in Full Cry: Roger Scruton’s Conservatism
In almost every way, Sir Roger Scruton was a thorn in the side of modernity and post-modernity. With Burke, he fought a “forlorn but dignified resistance to the tides of history.” He sought a future in which the national loyalty would endure, holding things together, providing all of us with sources of hope. No one [...]
Using Impeachment to Make America Ungovernable
The impeachment trial was not about the President himself or his alleged wrongdoings. It was not even about his shortcomings. It was about the vision of America that he represents. The bizarre impeachment drama is over, and most Americans still cannot make sense of it. The exhausting proceedings took America on an emotional roller coaster [...]
The Dark Road From Abortion to Infanticide in American Law
The contemporary frequency of parents, especially mothers, killing their children—not only newborn babies but toddlers too—is a new phenomenon. Does this have something to do with the relentless loosening of abortion laws in America since Roe v. Wade? We live in an era where we pretend that we do not know when life begins, but [...]
The 2020 Election Will Render a Verdict on Progressivism
Conventional wisdom has it that the 2020 election will be a referendum on Donald Trump. Perhaps so. But the result could also prove to be a referendum on something ultimately much more important than Mr. Trump. A Trump victory—or a Trump defeat—could prove to be a referendum on the larger phenomenon of modern progressivism. [...]
We’re From the Government—and We’re Here to Help the Workers!
California’s AB-5 law severely limits the type of freelance work that people can do. Several other blue states, including New York and New Jersey, are considering some variation on this unintentionally harmful law. It would be nice if legislators aiming to help workers would recall the adage, “First, do no harm.” Is schadenfreude, the phenomenon [...]
Donald Trump and Religious Liberty
Many of America’s founders defended religious liberty, believing it grounded on the duty men and women have to worship their Creator. As late as the 1990s, Democrats and Republicans were able to work together to protect that liberty, but unfortunately, the political left has begun to abandon religious freedom. As the 2020 presidential campaign heats [...]
A Nation With No Memory Has No Future
Since nations are first and foremost cultural realities, the long-term viability and sustainability of nation states depends on the existence of healthy and living national cultures. If the culture withers and decays, the nation state will wither and decay in the culture’s wake. There are good practical and pragmatic political reasons for retaining the presence of [...]
Impeachment, the End of an Era, and the Conservative Challenge
It is difficult to know when an era has ended. The events dominating the news today—presidential impeachment, deep state subversion of secret surveillance courts, confused and prolonged wars, out-of-control debt and government spending, and a radicalized educational and media culture—suggest something quite profound is threatening American governance. But it is not so clear precisely what. [...]
F.A. Hayek & Social Justice: A Missed Opportunity and a Challenge
Our age is undergoing what many have described as a “Great Realignment.” This is nowhere more true than among conservatives. The fusion that brought together under Ronald Reagan social conservatives, free marketers, and national defense hawks has largely un-fused of late. Many conservatives have begun to talk about a “dead consensus.”[1] Given the nature of [...]
Viktor Orbán, Defender of Christianity
Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary links the persecution of Christians in other parts of the globe to the increasing hostility towards mainstream Christianity in Europe. A “mysterious force seals the lips,” he asserts, not only of politicians in the West to this persecution, but also of most of those in the media. Is there, [...]
Hobbes’ “Leviathan”: A Collectivist Horror
With the loss of traditional religion as the guiding force of the Western world, following the collapse of the Medieval around 1350, politics quickly became not just a substitute, but a religion in and of itself, a proto-ideology serving as a glue for the emerging nation-states of Europe. Certainties that the Medievals had taken for [...]
The Myth of “Coequal” Branches of the Federal Government
The popular myth, retold almost daily by members of Congress, that the Constitution established three separate, but equal branches, of government has no basis in fact. The true intent of the Framers was for the Congress to be supreme because it is the nature of representative government that the most representative branch should be most powerful. [...]
How America Went to War Against Itself
That Americans cannot reach consensus on gun control, immigration policy, and climate change are symptoms of societal collapse, not from physical causes, such as the mindless destruction of a vital resource or a colder climate, but rather the splitting of a people’s storytelling into two opposed morality plays. The stable standoff between these two stories [...]