Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. -1 Corinthians 16:13 Sobering voices tell us nowadays that the civilization in which we participate is not long for this world. Many countries have fallen under the domination of squalid oligarchs; other lands are reduced to anarchy. “Cultural revolution,” rejecting our patrimony [...]
From the “Introduction” to Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea, by C. Bradley Thompson (with Yaron Brook). Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea is unique because it is the first and only book to present neoconservatism as a comprehensive and integrated political philosophy with its own system of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and politics. It tells the [...]
Relativists are an endangered species on America’s campuses, and in 30 years they will probably be extinct—or, if not, then sequestered in made-up departments that are denigrated by the rest of the faculty and eyed predatorily by budget directors on the lookout for programs to cut. The Yale English department is a good example. In [...]
Mitt Romney has conceded that his thoughts, expressed at that Boca Raton, Fla., fundraiser, were “not elegantly” stated. Those mocking him might concede he has tabled one of the mega-issues of our time. Can America continue down the path President Obama is taking us on, to a time soon and certain when a majority of [...]
Paul Volcker The Republicans have put some serious oomph in their presidential campaign over the last month. First Mitt Romney picked Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate, a move which not only fired-up a very good portion of the electorate, but by all accounts lifted Romney’s own spirits on the trail. Now the Republicans [...]
The judicial branch has a particularly vital function of securing the balance of powers necessary for liberty to triumph, and so that branch’s propensity to overreach and simply dictate new law has led to an imbalance in the system as designed. The result is a broken constitutional framework for American democracy. Popular support for the [...]
When the Obama Administration began its Kulturkampf against American Catholics my husband suggested to me that if the Church is forced to pay for its employees’ contraceptives then there should be an option clause for practicing Catholics. An equivalent amount of the Church’s money spent on other people’s recreational sex should be given to faithful [...]
One does not have to jump into the Great Books by starting at the beginning. One does not have to start with the longest most difficult Philosophical work, or an 800 page literary masterpiece. It might be wise to begin with one of the shorter, richer selections. A teaching found throughout Scripture and the Great Books is [...]
The Question: What has the Ethics to do with the Declaration? As the subtitle indicates, we are to examine whether or not Aristotle spoke to the founding generation. Sadly, I must be rather blunt: Aristotle had almost no direct influence on the Founding or the founding generation. And, when he did speak to them, [...]
My purpose is to set forth and explore the ramifications of two different conceptions or paradigms of American federalism whose roots can be traced to The Federalist essays of both Hamilton and Madison. Certain conclusions flow from this analysis that, in my judgment, are important to the conservative approach and thinking about centralization. Perhaps the [...]
Patriotism and Public Spirit: Edmund Burke and the Role of the Critic in Mid-18th Century Britain, is a groundbreaking study of the great political philosopher Edmund Burke. The book provides a scholarly advancement of existing knowledge regarding Burke and the intellectual milieu that was so important to his development as a thinker. Chapter one offers an [...]
The Silver Surfer was one of Jack Kirby’s inventions for Stan Lee's Marvel Comics, a silver-skinned alien on a flying surfboard endowed with the “Power Cosmic” (the ability to play around with–reshape and transform–matter and energy). This meant he could generate really big explosions if needed, and was basically much more powerful than most other [...]
Wealth & Poverty: A New Edition for the 21st Century Even if it wished to, the government could not capture America’s wealth from its one percent of the one percent. As Marxist despots and tribal socialists from Cuba to Greece have discovered to their huge disappointment, governments can neither create wealth nor effectively redistribute it, [...]
Raphael’s School of Athens When asked what he thought about the cultural wars, Irving Kristol is said to have replied, “They’re over,” adding, “We lost.” If Kristol was correct, one of the decisive battles in that war may have been over the liberal arts in education, which we also lost. In a loose [...]