The slow disintegration of our legal system will continue apace until and unless judges, in particular, cease acting as if the legal system they serve either does not need or does not deserve their active support. Americans’ attitudes toward lawyers and the legal system are filled with ironies. We complain that lawyers are money-grubbing sophists [...]
Because of the extraordinary valor shown by so many young men on that distant beach, America stood singular and tall in the saddle. It was her finest hour and for that at least we must be grateful. General Mark W. Clark, whose Fifth Army led the capture of Rome in June of 1944, was the [...]
Today I honor the men and women of the United States military who have sacrificed their lives while doing their duty to the Republic. For them, and their families, I ask God to bless them and keep them. And for the fallen of the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army [...]
The erosion of history is the first necessary step to the left’s transformation of the foundations of culture and society—a transformation that sees an ahistorical all-powerful government replacing all other traditional civic institutions. A recent report of the National Assessment of Educational Progress revealed a dramatic fall in history test scores among eighth graders. Given [...]
Natural law terrifies the left, which assumed it had long ago died. Leftists cannot admit that there might be those who welcome ordered liberty and restraint. They cannot see that nihilism awaits on the other side of a flawed legal positivist system that will lead to every mode of emptiness and despair. The left is [...]
We believe in a Europe of nations. The only remedy is to strengthen nations—not only Hungary, but nations in general. This is the basis of Western culture, this is the basis of Western competitive advantage, this—the nations—is what made the West great. On May 5, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán was interviewed on the Kossuth Radio [...]
The true statesman embodies in the depths of his soul the cardinal virtues—courage, temperance, prudence, justice—as well as a commitment to political liberty or self-government and a principled and passionate opposition to the negation of civilized life that is tyranny in its various forms. The founding fathers of modern republicanism had no qualms about appealing [...]
Niccolo Machiavelli may help modern man to think more clearly about power and prudence, and to remember that the world is a dangerous place where all is not as it seems. An argument can be made that Niccolo Machiavelli’s sinister reputation is unjust. This is not to gloss over the very deep flaws in the [...]
Orestes Brownson so esteemed New England people, customs, and institutions that they dominated his writings and fit at the heart of his political ideas. The danger of majoritarian tyranny hangs over republics. The dilemma of constituting a virtuous republic while also restricting interests, sects, and factions’ use of unchecked political power possessed eighteenth century American [...]
Even in this darkness, there is hope. Because liberalism is a Christian heresy, it has held and still does hold the breach between the peace and the coming darkness, when anti-Christian technocratic power will be all in all. And in this time that liberalism has bought us, we can act, pray, and by the power [...]
A history of the transformation of American liberalism over the past half-century could well be told with just a focus on free speech and censorship. But this story of changed attitudes toward censorship yields lessons far beyond just the liberal attitude toward free speech. Aside from the inevitability of death and taxes, there is another [...]
The cloistered nun reminds us that, despite appearances, the purpose of our lives is not to be useful—not for the liberal project, nor even for the Church. Rather, the meaning of every vocation is simply to "be" for God alone, a "being-for that," as the monastery reveals, is never really useless in the end. Liberalism cannot [...]
Centering our national politics on the culture wars is unhelpful because in the end it simply is not cut out for this. The optimal jurisdictional sphere for resolving many of our cultural battles will be localities, not states. Localities must be empowered boldly to operate and experiment within the immense gray areas that the questions [...]
President Joseph Biden’s creating and inserting of his student loan forgiveness program, which his Department of Justice solicitor general accurately just called a “benefit” program, into last fall’s midterms elections received a thorough hearing in the Supreme Court on Tuesday. In defense of the program, the government’s case turned on what statutory words normally mean [...]