Russell Kirk would agree that what is happening these days is civil liberty (gone astray) prioritized over public morality. Kirk urged the rising generation to take up the defense of the moral order and the social order, the order of the soul, and the permanent things. It’s a faith worth fighting for. In the opening [...]
In her postscript, Midge Decter acknowledged that the questions of the modern world are not simple.How should we combine the good things of the new world with the parts of our nature that were acknowledged in the old but now left behind? The recent death of Midge Decter at the age of 95 had me [...]
Glenn Ellmers has written an enlightening biography of the late Harry Jaffa, a political theorist whose views on the American Founding have become conventional wisdom in certain conservative circles. But I find Willmoore Kendall’s views more persuasive, and his warning about the danger of the Jaffa thesis more prescient. The Soul of Politics: Harry V. [...]
President Trump’s decision to withdraw American troops from Syria, if it holds, is one of the few genuinely courageous acts of his presidency… My first thought when I heard that President Trump was finally taking our troops out of the quagmire called Syria was that he was not really serious. Given how frequently and unpredictably [...]
The nation-state, along with a broadly Christian culture, has always been the surest foundation for a classically liberal order. America’s ideals depend not on tribal loyalty to universal propositions but on loyalty to the tribes—and little platoons—from which our ideals arise... How do you gauge the health of a civilization? There are geographic and demographic, [...]
Neither the leftist Marxist multiculturalists nor the Neoconservatives reflect the genuine beliefs or inheritance left to us by those who came to these shores centuries ago. Both reject the historic conservatism of the South, which embodied that inheritance and the vision of the Founders… No discussion of Southern conservatism, its history and its relationship to [...]
The nexus between the Straussians and neoconservatives has been overstated for partisan ends, but it is still nonetheless there. Sociologically and culturally, the two movements are largely indistinguishable… The Truth About Leo Strauss by Catherine and Michael Zuckert (University of Chicago Press, 2006). In The Truth About Leo Strauss, Catherine and Michael Zuckert, both professors holding [...]
Given the hysteria of so many, it may seem surprising to note that what Donald Trump promised was a return to political sanity. If not a full-scale conservative program, Mr. Trump’s is a crucial program for the preservation and possible renewal of the American way of life… Now that Donald Trump is President-elect, there is [...]
Listening to George Will pontificate recently on Fox News about his “conservative” principles, I had to ask for the millionth time what Mr. Will and his likeminded friends mean by “conservative.” And I don’t ask this question as a neophyte, having published more on the subject of conservatism than probably anyone else on the planet. But [...]
Neoconservatives have garnered a fair amount of media coverage in recent weeks for their determination to keep on with the #nevertrump fight. Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and son of neoconservative founder Irving Kristol, has been especially vocal in his determination to launch a third party challenge to Donald Trump and the eventual [...]
They’re all around us No one will look you in the eye You don’t know who to trust I’m looking around me And don’t like what I see Corruption all around me cause these, These are the signs of the times — “Sign of the Times,” Cro-Mags Background [...]
Imaginative Conservative senior contributor, Claes Ryn, recently discussed the pernicious influence of neo-conservatism—or the “New Jacobinism”—on the American republic. Click below to watch parts one and two of this video: “A conservative is normally somebody who is quite respectful of tradition because tradition is seen as providing importance guidance and support in our efforts to [...]
In recent years a heated debate has erupted about American foreign policy and about what moral purpose should inform our conduct of international relations. While analysts Robert Kagan, Michael Mandelbaum, and Stephen Schwartz insist the United States should use its power, where possible, on behalf of “democracy,” other commentators have rejected this approach. James Kurth, [...]
Over on the First Things blog, Robert George has blessed us, yet again, with the conventional and convenient wisdom of (Catholic) neoconservatism. The post, titled “No Mere Marriage of Convenience: The Unity of Economic and Social Conservatism,” is a sustained argument for just how convenient this marriage of utility and principle really is, and why [...]