Ideology is not only lazy, it is, at heart, criminal. There never was an ideology that allowed for the fullness of man. Always, ideology denigrates the truth and the dignity of the human person. One of the most dangerous things to come out of the French Revolution was the notion and norm of an ideology. [...]
Whatever his failings as an imaginative thinker, President James Monroe’s own convictions were rooted deeply in the spirit and the letter of the U.S. Constitution. As he entered the White House in March 1817, he had little (well, less) use for James Madison’s newfound love of nationalism. While he entered the presidency too late to [...]
As a theory of history, progressivism always believes in conflict and violence and antagonism. Progressivism, then, not surprisingly, is wrapped up in bigotry, racism, and violence. “Progress! Did you ever reflect that that word is almost a new one?” asked an enraptured Woodrow Wilson in 1913. “No words come more often or more naturally to [...]
At the heart of Alexis de Tocqueville’s thought lies the “restless mind”—a mind that sees the essence of humanity in the realization that each of us “dies alone” and that life is but a fleeting moment hedged in between the abysses of the pre-born and the dead. The Restless Mind: Alexis de Tocqueville on the [...]
The determined move to abolish the hereditary lords is part of a process of self-destruction. The lords are part of the mythical bulwark that sustains England. When the current session of the British Parliament ends this spring, the nation will abruptly bring to a close a 700-year institution. On March 10, the House of Commons [...]
It took Edmund Burke a very little time to decide that French Revolutionary philosophy posed a massive threat to civilization and social stability throughout Europe. By the end of his life, eight years after the storming of the Bastille, his fears of Jacobin contagion had led him to ask for a secret grave, removed from [...]
As I looked around that room in Washington, filled with so many powerful people, I realized that one day in Mother Teresa’s life brought more good to the face of the earth than all our efforts combined for a lifetime. It was utterly ludicrous, stepping out of a chauffeured White House limousine to go hear [...]
The king’s task is to weave the two kinds together, bringing out the good qualities in their opposite temperaments, so that virtues of both courage and moderation may be found together in each individual soul and in the city. Interrogated by the governor for political treason, the lowly Nazarene simply responds, “My kingship is not [...]
The West's primary threat still lies in the East. And yet, like the late Romans and Byzantines—and the Roman captives whom Saint Patrick encountered—we are poised to surrender people, churches, monuments, and lands rather than stand our ground. Last Spring, I read a biographical novel about Saint Patrick. We do not have much firsthand information [...]
Not only do democracies invade every aspect of life and politicize them, they always and everywhere—from Athens to America—serve as an impetus to imperialism. If the will of the majority is to rule at home, why not enforce such rule the world over? John Adams & Benjamin Franklin “Remember Democracy never lasts long. [...]
A political system, however efficient, cannot be good if it clashes with ethics. We have to work for the restoration of local autonomy. There are things in which centralized control is necessary and beneficent; but there is a vast multitude of things in which it is unnecessary, and derogatory to human freedom and responsibility. Man [...]
None of us wants a theocracy, nor do we wish to have a totally secularized order. But both secular and sacred are to be joined in some way, the only question being how and to what extent. Have we still got a Christian consensus around which Americans of every possible persuasion can rally round? A public [...]
On March 8, 1983, Ronald Reagan delivered a speech that shocked many, amused some, and inspired more. Attending the annual meeting of the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida, Reagan decided to address the topic of sin and evil in the modern world. Drawing significantly upon C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, Reagan offered a [...]
What is it that finally holds a society together? What enables it to cohere? Nothing less, St. John Henry Newman reminds us, “than a common reverence for a certain sacred possession.” Does anyone know what the central myth of America might be? I mean, isn’t there a story out there we tell ourselves about our origins? Our [...]