American Leadership in Crisis

By |2020-03-08T20:49:59-05:00March 8th, 2020|Categories: American Republic, Democracy, Donald Trump, Government, Leadership, Politics, Presidency|

History teaches that chosen leaders can unite and divide nations. Unfortunately, discussions on what true leadership must mean for America have been lacking. There is no dearth of leaders in America. Countless platoons representing special interests that range from wealth preservation to sexual orientation favor their own version of a leader. Much of the country [...]

Making the World Safe for Democracy?

By |2020-02-22T18:59:10-06:00February 23rd, 2020|Categories: American Republic, Democracy, Government, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors, War, Western Civilization, World War I, World War II|

The belief that wars can be fought to defend democracy or to make the world safe from tyranny retains its potency and still has political mileage. It is indeed a large part of the rationale for the neoconservative worldview. Nonetheless, it is worthy of serious consideration. The tragedy of war is that it is self-perpetuating, [...]

Christian Democracy and the Future of Europe

By |2020-01-11T18:21:34-06:00January 11th, 2020|Categories: Christianity, Conservatism, Democracy, Europe, Joseph Pearce, Politics, Senior Contributors|

In mid-December, I had the pleasure and honour of taking part in a public debate in Hungary on Christian Democracy and its role in contemporary European politics. I was one of a panel of five “experts,” which included a German, a Pole, a Hungarian, and, last but not least, a fellow Englishman, Theodore Dalrymple, who [...]

The Spontaneous Disorder of Kansas-Nebraska

By |2019-11-22T11:38:12-06:00November 19th, 2019|Categories: American Republic, Civil War, Democracy, History|

Stephen Douglas’s faith that democratic self-government on the American frontier would create a spontaneous order of lawful and virtuous communities, especially in the face of divisive issues like slavery, was disastrously misplaced and played a significant role in starting the Civil War. The Kansas-Nebraska Act passed 165 years ago this past spring, and as cannons [...]

The Totalitarian Temptation in the Groves of Academe

By |2019-11-21T19:44:16-06:00November 13th, 2019|Categories: American Republic, Communism, David Deavel, Democracy, Liberalism, Politics, Senior Contributors|

Ryszard Legutko gained fame this spring when he was informed by Middlebury College’s president that his lecture was canceled. Though 40 brave students gathered to hear Prof. Legutko speak in a classroom, the irony was that the episode confirmed his very point that liberal democratic societies have become in many ways just as barbarous and oppressive [...]

Seeing the West as a Millstone: Sketches of Solzhenitsyn in Exile

By |2020-12-10T15:45:19-06:00October 16th, 2019|Categories: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Conservatism, Democracy, Joseph Pearce, Literature, Political Philosophy, Politics, Senior Contributors, Western Civilization|

“Sketches of Exile” is a real gift for those who admire Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, enabling us to see his first years of exile, in Switzerland and the United States, through his eyes. We should be grateful for these sketches and the insight they offer, as well as for their glimpses of the lovable man behind the publicly [...]

China is Fighting for Its Life—and Its Soul

By |2020-06-03T21:10:47-05:00September 28th, 2019|Categories: Christianity, Civilization, Communism, Democracy, Foreign Affairs, Politics|

Today, China has entered a period of general crisis. It was brought about not merely by slow economic growth and its attendant problems, but by a total upheaval touching every aspect of life in the Middle Kingdom: economic and political, intellectual and religious. Mark this date on your calendar: November 19, 2023. This date would [...]

The Horrors of Modern Public Opinion

By |2021-03-14T20:29:36-05:00August 16th, 2019|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christopher Dawson, Democracy, Fascism, Government, Politics, Senior Contributors, War, World War II|

Christopher Dawson believed that the free peoples of the Allied Powers in World War II had become too accustomed to employing scientifically-formed propaganda to create public opinion: “Public opinion can itself be the greatest enemy of freedom, as well as of peace, as soon as it becomes dominated by the negative destructive forces of fear [...]

Critiquing Robert Kagan’s Enlightenment Liberalism

By |2019-10-30T12:06:44-05:00May 6th, 2019|Categories: Conservatism, Democracy, Donald Trump, Liberalism, Natural Rights Tradition, Politics, Tyranny|

While Robert Kagan basically dismisses church and community in the development of liberalism, can there be any sadder but more important concession than his own admission that “liberalism has no particular answer” for what can legitimize its rights? An essay is meant to be very, very important when it consumes four giant pages in the [...]

Progressivism and Democracy

By |2019-11-21T19:44:25-06:00March 10th, 2019|Categories: American Republic, Capitalism, Defining America Series, Democracy, Economics, History, Mark Malvasi, Politics, Senior Contributors|

Could democratic government solve, or even effectively address, the problems of a modern society? For decades, this question vexed Progressive reformers as they navigated the transformation of the United States from a country of small farms and rural communities to a nation of factories, corporations, and cities. Before the Civil War, Americans never doubted that [...]

Public Opinion in James Bryce’s “The American Commonwealth”

By |2019-11-21T19:44:26-06:00February 7th, 2019|Categories: Books, Community, Democracy, James Bryce, Political Philosophy|

We see that the creation of one’s own opinions is to a large degree a community affair. According to James Bryce, the individual has a powerful role in crafting a nation’s political discourse, but can only be involved in doing so if they act in concert with others. This neither denies the possibility of conflicting beliefs [...]

Versailles, a Century Later

By |2021-12-04T10:07:28-06:00January 1st, 2019|Categories: Civilization, Democracy, Europe, History, Mark Malvasi, Nationalism, Senior Contributors, War, Western Civilization, Woodrow Wilson, World War I, World War II|

The Great War, in Woodrow Wilson’s view, had to become precisely what the delegates to the Congress of Vienna feared: a moral crusade, an instrument of social and political revolution. For American president Woodrow Wilson, the First World War was the “war to end all wars” by making “the world safe for democracy,” not least [...]

Understanding Voegelin’s Critique of Locke

By |2019-11-21T19:44:32-06:00November 30th, 2018|Categories: American Republic, Books, Democracy, Eric Voegelin, John Locke, Philosophy, Political Philosophy|

No matter how conservative intellectuals try, they just do not seem able to escape John Locke. Jonah Goldberg’s well-received Suicide of the West proudly called America’s Declaration of Independence “echoes of” the great English Enlightenment philosopher John Locke, saying U.S. history was “more Locke than anything Locke imagined.”  He inspired “a government but not a state”: a government with power [...]

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