The Founders were right to posit that a breakdown of the limits of government would cause a breakdown of consent. Only 22 percent of likely voters say the current government has the consent of the governed. Across many decades, my mind’s eye sees Professor Samuel Beer pacing the lecture hall stage at Harvard, talking about [...]
The Princess of All Lands by Russell Kirk On the surface, these are mere ghost stories, tales written, in Kirk’s words, “mainly in the hope of discomforting an old man on a winter’s night, or a girl in the bloom of her youth.” Most have in fact seen publication in popular magazines such as The [...]
As we continue to approach the November elections, political ideas (mostly incoherent and ephemeral) whiz by us at speeds beyond comprehension. The internet has helped encourage this speeding up process, but it has also allowed many of us to find some breathing space, a haven of sorts in which we can digest the ideas, [...]
Understandably, these days there is a great deal of political analysis swirling around. This morning, I read Pat Buchanan’s article, “Obama’s America – And Ours.” I was struck by this statement: From Jamestown in 1607 to Yorktown in 1781, there was no federal government. There was no United States. Yet generations of colonists had built forts, cleared [...]
M.E. Bradford It is a paradox of our times that close observers of the American literary scene residing beyond our borders receive, from the self-appointed guardians of “high” culture and the life of the mind within this country, so little really useful direction or assistance in identifying what American writing is worthwhile or [...]
“If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” Mitt Romney fell on this Obama quote like an NFL lineman on an end zone fumble during the Super Bowl. And understandably so. Had Obama been channeling Isaac Newton—“If I have seen further than others it is because I am standing [...]
Well, Imaginative Conservative readers, I must admit, this post makes me sad. I have been thrilled to promote the work of Greg Spawton, David Longdon, Dave Gregory, Andy Poole, Nick D’Virgilio, and the entire Big Big Train team (Rob Aubrey, Kathy Blanchard, Jim Trainer, Sandra Olma, and others). Not only have they been utterly professional in [...]
There will be ample disputation at this week’s and next’s presidential nominating conventions, but one point is virtually sure to unite them: a rhetorical commitment to the “War on Terror” and, particularly, to the troops fighting it. Already, Paul Ryan has offered up the obligatory salute to the troops who have “defended our freedom”—which is, [...]
John Taylor of Caroline During a recent meeting of the Academy of Philosophy and Letters in Baltimore this summer, radio personality and [r]epublican man of virtue, Mike Church, called for a revival and remembrance of the thought of John Taylor of Caroline. Perhaps, Church persuasively argued, we might very well find some answers and solutions [...]
In Defense of the Constitution, by George Carey (214 pages, Liberty Fund, 1995) Most Americans are puzzled that their belief in limited government is not matched by government officials who persistently intrude into their daily lives. Also, their settled beliefs regarding what is right— what they are permitted to do— and what they must not do, [...]
American Politics On the Democratic side, heading the ticket is a candidate known more for overblown, soapy rhetoric about class unfairness than for actually getting the economy moving, even with the nation stuck in torturous recession for four long years. In the vice-presidential spot is an Easterner with a dubious reputation who will [...]
In the last of his Four Quartets, “Little Gidding”—arguably the finest work of art to emerge in the twentieth century—the Anglo-American poet, T.S. Eliot, offered the following: A people without history Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails On a winter’s afternoon, in a [...]
Founding Federalist: The Life of Oliver Ellsworth by Michael C. Toth When American schoolchildren study the Constitutional Convention, they typically learn a few names—Madison, Randolph, Patterson, Washington—and few main events—the formation of the legislature, the Three-Fifths Compromise, and the creation of the presidency. The first event is usually called “The Great Compromise” that melded Madison’s [...]
Was the American War of Independence a revolution? In the view of Edmund Burke and of the Whigs generally, it was not the sort of political and social overturn that the word “revolution” has come to signify nowadays. Rather, it paralleled that alteration of government in Britain which accompanied the accession of William and Mary [...]