Religion & Liberty Online Archives

Individual Liberty

March 12, 2013

Byzantium Wasn’t Particularly Byzantine

Writing in The Guardian, historian Peter Frankopan looks at how the Byzantine Empire, which had “the distinction of being one of the very few realms to survive for more than a millennium,” might offer clues to a way out of the current Eurozone crisis. Continue Reading...
March 11, 2013

Guns and Ammo as a Taxable ‘Sin’

Need to justify a new sin tax or raise an existing one? Adam J. Hoffer,William F. Shughart II, and Michael D. Thomas recently explained in U.S. News and World Report how it’s done: Claim that consuming some good or engaging in some activity contributes to ill health or harms the environment. Continue Reading...
March 11, 2013

Women of Liberty: Hildegard of Bingen

(March is Women’s History Month. Acton will be highlighting a number of women who have contributed significantly to the issue of liberty during this month.) “This strange child” is how Hildegard was once described. Continue Reading...
March 07, 2013

Architecture, Human Flourishing, and Health Care

In a recent issue of Metropolis Magazine, Thomas de Monchaux tells the story of an amazing lesson about innovation that Americans can learn from Rwandans. This is no surprise, but readers will learn that burdensome government regulations stifle innovation and undermine human flourishing. Continue Reading...
March 05, 2013

Lawmakers Push for Conscience Rights to be Included in Budget Bill

Fourteen members of Congress—including 13 women—sent a letter to the House leadership today asking that conscience rights be included in the upcoming budget bill. They mentioned specific violations of conscience rights, including the HHS Mandate: “This attack on religious freedom demands immediate congressional action,” the 14 lawmakers wrote. Continue Reading...
March 04, 2013

The Faulty Moral Arithmetic of the GOP

Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, has an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal that every conservative should read—and heed: Conservatives are fighting a losing battle of moral arithmetic. Continue Reading...
February 27, 2013

Legal Constraint and True Liberty

In today’s Acton Commentary, I explore the Christian conception of law as a necessary palliative to the anti-social effects of sin. “Since we do not always govern ourselves as we ought to, in accord with the moral order, there must be some external checks and limits on our behavior,” I write. Continue Reading...