On all lists of the best science fiction and fantasy writers of the twentieth century, Ray Bradbury is always present, and usually at the top. However, popular acclaim does not always translate into high literary craft. The discerning reader should carefully look at the full body of Bradbury’s writings to determine if all, or even [...]
Ultimately in Russell Kirk’s thinking one is confronted with the fundamental differences between the pridefulness of secularism and the transcendent, enduring, and sacrificial love of the biblical view. This accounts for his powerful dissent on any proposition that conservatism and libertarianism are theoretically compatible. Born on October 19, 1918, in Plymouth, Michigan, the son of [...]
The contrast in the ways historians John Patrick Diggins and Robert Griffith describe Eisenhower seems odd. How could the pictures of one president who served a half-century ago diametrically oppose each other? The answer lies in the fundamental difference in the way the two historians practice history. The Imaginative Conservative recently published Dr. John Willson's [...]
Barack Obama & Jack Kemp “Governor, when it comes to our foreign policy, you seem to want to import the foreign policies of the 1980s, just like the social policies of the 1950s and the economic policies of the 1920s.” So said President Obama to his Republican challenger Mitt Romney, in the debate [...]
“At any moment a comet may come too close to the earth and set our little globe turning topsy-turvy in a hectic course, or choke its men and fleas with fumes or heat; or a fragment of the smiling sun may slip off tangentially–as some think our planet did a few astronomic moments ago–and fall [...]
Knute Rockne “College football would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity.” — H.L. Mencken, 1922 We will confound [...]
Pat Buchanan Early in Ronald Reagan’s second term, Bill Rusher, the publisher of National Review, was interviewing the president in the Oval Office for a documentary on the conservative movement. Rusher asked how he would describe Barry Goldwater’s role. Reagan thought a moment and replied: I guess you would have to call him [...]
On the whole, at the opening of the twenty-first century, Western women enjoy a power, education, and privilege unprecedented in human history. And much of this unprecedented power and freedom has resulted from women’s political activism on behalf of themselves and other women. Just as the social institutions of the West have both impeded and [...]
So I’ve gotten a lot (meaning several) emails complaining that I haven’t gotten around to keeping my promise of talking about Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind. Well, sorry. Here’s one reason why. I’m actually teaching that fascinating—and flawed—book right now, and I thought you’d learn more if I waited until after I [...]
Power has shifted from Congress to the presidency; the modern, “heroic” presidency represents the greatest threat to the Republic. The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power, by Gene Healy (Cato Institute, 2008, 262 pages) “Taken by and large,” Edward Corwin wrote, “the history of the presidency is a history of aggrandizement, [...]
Our tendency to concentrate power in the hands of a few men deeply concerns me. We can be conquered by bombs or by subversion; but we can also be conquered by neglect—by ignoring the Constitution and disregarding the principles of limited government. I am convinced that most Americans now want to reverse the trend. I [...]
Because of its sober and realistic assumptions about human nature and the human condition, the American republic of the Constitution of 1789 is not designed to do the big things typical of empires. It is especially not designed to do that which has most characterized empire: conquer. When America does pursue empire, it undermines the [...]
“The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.” For books on Politics and Economics visit The Imaginative Conservative Bookstore. We hope you will join us in The Imaginative Conservative community. The Imaginative Conservative is an on-line journal for [...]
‘Mob’ is an interesting word because of its dual meaning. It means not only ‘organized crime’, that is, a small group of men working corporately and criminally in their own self-interest, but it also means a large group of rancorous, disgruntled people rioting for special interests they share in common. This irony is particularly interesting [...]