I have had a lot of response to my column on Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s book Democracy — The God That Failed, most of them enthusiastic. A surprising number of citizens of this democracy have lost faith in the state, democratic or otherwise. It is amazing how seldom we ask the most basic questions: What is a state, [...]
My recent article on the relative merits of monarchy and democracy brought an array of comments from both ends of the political spectrum. At one extreme I was berated for suggesting that the absolutist view of monarchy, rooted in the political theory of the divine right of kings, was wrong. The person who made this [...]
With Hillary Clinton scrambling to explain her missing emails, much of America is wailing, “Please don’t make us watch this movie again!” Why, then, would the Republican Party, with a chance to sweep it all in 2016, want to return us to the nightmare days of George W., which caused America to rise up and [...]
For more than a century now there has been a slow drift toward Presidential government in the United States, motivated by the desire to “get America moving,” to have “progress” through “efficient” government that is not saddled with the constitutional limits on which our entire way of life was based. It would appear that, at [...]
Like many modern people, or, at any rate, like many modern people in England, I would describe myself as a monarchist and, at the same time, as a believer in democracy. Am I therefore an idiot? Am I guilty of holding two mutually exclusive positions simultaneously? Like many modern people, or, at any rate, like [...]
I urge you to beware the temptation of pride—the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between [...]
In making preparations to run for President, the latest Bush (Jeb, in case you missed it) told the press that he looked forward to having some “adult conversations” about what needs to happen in Washington, DC to break gridlock and “solve” the various problems America faces. He cast aspersions, of course, on Tea Party activists [...]
The murder of two New York City police officers continues to reverberate in that city and in many parts of the nation. Officers have publicly turned their backs on a mayor who sides with race-hustler Al Sharpton, even hiring Mr. Sharpton’s former aide (herself living with a boyfriend who is a convicted murderer) against them. [...]
The recent high-profile controversies touched off by the HHS Mandate have elicited excellent debate regarding the meaning, importance, and application of the American idea of religious liberty. They have not, however, elicited any substantial debate regarding the rational grounds for opposing the use of contraception in itself. In the numerous conversations I have had on [...]
Some of you know that I have talked about “selective nostalgia” before. I have “borrowed” the term from Mark Henrie, although I think I’m more selective in my nostalgia than Mr. Henrie is. Selective nostalgia is, of course, aroused in anyone who takes seriously Tocqueville’s “things pretty much are usually getting better and worse” mode of [...]
Marriage is being redefined by the United States Supreme Court and the lower federal courts. And with that redefinition has come a redefinition of the separation of powers and maybe of “the power of our people to govern themselves,” as Justice Antonin Scalia said in his dissent in United States v. Windsor, the homosexual marriage case, [...]
A plausible interpretation of America and the world at the moment is that the imperatives of the 21st century global marketplace are so powerful they trump anything religious and political leaders say or do. Techno-economic change does not, to be sure, trump anything and everything that nature might do. We recently had the near-miss of [...]
The financial crisis and lingering economic malaise have resulted in an extended debate as to the proper sphere of markets and government in society. Unsurprisingly, a large number of social critics have ignored the degree of government intervention that existed in financial markets on the eve of the crisis, falsely caricaturing the financial panic as [...]
Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred, by John Lukacs. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. 248 pp. There are few scholars whose intellectual achievements are so respected that their intuitions are as highly regarded as their more formal scholarship. John Lukacs is one of these rare individuals. He brings to his work a lifetime of devotion [...]