Of all John Adams' published writings, two works provide an especially fruitful resource for an inquiry into his deepest political reflection. Imacon Color Scanner As a political writer, John Adams is most remembered today for the constitutional prescriptions by which he helped to solidify the American Revolution. His Thoughts on Government was widely circulated [...]
The city of Santa Rosa, just north of San Francisco, has declared a “homeless emergency.” This entails “allowing” the homeless to live in their cars year-round instead of only in winter and inclement weather. There also will be some additional services for homeless people. San Francisco itself decided to address this growing problem by adding [...]
On Tuesday of this week, the second-largest class in the history of Wyoming Catholic College arrived on campus, most of them with their parents. The new students are a wonderful-looking group, enthusiastic and full of spirit. After a week of preparation, they leave this weekend for the twenty-one-day trip into the Wind River Mountains that [...]
Jackson had remained generally aloof from national politics. As a slaveholder, he was aware of the congressional debate over slavery in the territories, but not deeply versed in it. He was like many ordinary Virginians of his day: a moderate states’-rights Democrat who favored keeping Washington’s nose out of Virginia’s business and working within the [...]
Recently, I went with a group of friends to a concert of American choral music based on black spirituals. At the intermission, my friends and I spoke excitedly about what we experienced. The sole musician amongst us praised the balance of the ensemble and the conductor’s energy. One woman noticed how nervous the lead soprano [...]
No one disputes the fact that the nation is polarized and coming apart. This is evident, especially in light of the 2016 election cycle. Likewise, no reasonable person can deny that we need to return to the order of social bonds that mitigate the effects of extreme individualism, especially the erosion of our national unity. [...]
Issue one! To understand John McLaughlin, it was helpful to have been a 13-year-old entering an all-boys Jesuit school in the 1950s. For when John yelled “Wronnng” at me from his center chair of “The McLaughlin Group,” it hit with the same familiar finality I had heard, many times, from Jesuits at the front of the [...]
How fallen we are, from Dante and Beatrice to John Hinckley and Jodie Foster. “We did the best job with what we had to work with,” the twenty-two-year-old jury foreman said after the unanimous decision that Hinckley was innocent by reason of insanity. And surely that is a conclusion we must come to, examining the [...]
If I had to use a single word to describe what is fundamentally wrong with government today, I would use the word fraud. Certainly nowadays—perhaps in every age—government is not what it claims to be (competent, protective, and just), and it is what it claims not to be (bungling, menacing, and unjust). In actuality, it [...]
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 [...]
Thou hast committed — Fornication: but that was in another country, And besides, the wench is dead. (The Jew of Malta) I Among the smoke and fog of a December afternoon You have the scene arrange itself—as it will seem to do— With "I have saved this afternoon for you"; And four wax candles in [...]
I have become increasingly cynical about my fellow Americans’ praise of freedom. “Freedom,” it seems to me, has become a meaningless jingoistic slogan that is used to excuse most anything. “Our boys died defending our freedom!” they cry as yet another flag-draped coffin is unloaded from the plane. Did that boy die defending our freedom? [...]
The patrimony of a civilization can be lost at the very moment of that civilization’s material triumph. In any culture worthy of the name, men must be something better than the flies of a summer; generation must link with generation. Some men among us are doing whatever is in their power to preserve and reinvigorate [...]
In the first chapter of Understanding Media (1964), called “The Medium is the Message,” Marshall McLuhan begins the book by explaining his most famous aphorism. Over time, the proposition has acquired the status of a cliché, such that its original meaning and intent can become obscured. But as W. Terrence Gordon, the editor of the Critical [...]