Anthony Fauci’s alleged malfeasance is an inevitable consequence of the bureaucratic regime, metastasized into our broader culture, especially in progressive cities. In the late 1980s, while I was finishing my PhD at Claremont Graduate School, President Ronald Reagan appointed my thesis advisor, Dr. William Barclay Allen, to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. A [...]
Eric Voegelin stressed that progress falsely demands the sacrifice both of man and God. With history and progress as false gods, the man who would attempt to derail or thwart history is the sinner and may thus, justifiably, be removed, even if by bloody force. In my previous essay, I considered the ways in which [...]
The last three centuries have proven that imposing an ideological vision upon any civilization is cataclysmic. So we must conclude—annoyingly—that no formula can resurrect a Christian culture, but only a Christian response to the concrete needs of real people. Part One: The Rule of Necessity and the Rule of Love Most diagnoses of our current [...]
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 [...]
The original progressives presumed that a permanent federal bureaucracy would be politically neutral. That hasn’t been the case for a very long time. Therefore, real progress today should lead to seriously trimming what is accurately called our administrative state and dramatically increasing the number of political appointees. While the latest round of “no kings” rallies [...]
Saying that government cannot educate is not a partisan political position, but a simple statement of fact: government cannot educate, because government cannot love. Even more bluntly, government should not even try to run institutions of love, because, slowly but surely, its administrators inevitably pervert them in their desire for security or lust for power. [...]
The currently pervading approach to American history presents America in the worst possible light, distorting the full truth of our past and damaging our political health. Our K-12 schools need a restoration of temporal continuity, the key to revitalizing history and civics education that forms young people who both appreciate the gifts of the past [...]
For the Progressives, checks and balances were merely a hindrance to efficient government. How could it be wrong to act in accordance with the spirit of history? As “experts” replaced statesman, the whole idea of “the consent of the governed” became less important, even a stumbling block for the plans of Progressive reformers. Recently, Wyoming [...]
It’s entirely possible to imagine Theodore Roosevelt becoming President of the United States, even a Rushmore-eligible president, with an entirely different set of female loves. But it’s much less likely. The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women Who Created a President, by Edward F. O’Keefe. (446 pages, Simon and Schuster, 2024) Try as he might, [...]
Fareed Zakaria’s book is a defense of liberalism in the European sense of a regime of limited government, free markets, rule of law, moral indifference, maximized freedom, and unending progress. He turns all those who support the conservative cause into resentful, racist individuals left behind by progress. Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash From 1600 [...]
Morality only “progresses” as a phenomenon of gift, in which what is good and worth doing is seen as good and worth doing by a subsequent generation, which takes on the morality of their fathers and repeats it, as their own morality. But this means that progress in morality is never assured. It may not [...]
Although Christians cannot be above the fray because we are part of it—called and commanded to love our neighbours, and even our enemies—we are nonetheless beyond the fray in the sense that we are called to something beyond it. “My own view is that Christianity is all about progress,” wrote ‘Eric’ in a comment on [...]
Could I ask a small favor? Could we either retire the adjective “progressive” whenever it is used in a political context or, if not, could we apply it more universally? Confused? Stay tuned. To be sure, the word has a lengthy history In American politics. That history stretches back to the early days of the [...]
No society can survive if its people cannot achieve general consensus on certain fundamental understandings regarding the nature of the person and of society itself. It may seem too much to say that our country has never been as divided as it is today. Anti-war protests, race riots, and especially a bloody Civil War would [...]