Political Culture

January 27, 2022

We all hate cancel culture now, even the pope

In the classic way of religious institutions, the pope picked up the term just as it seems to be going out of regular usage. It feels a bit like yesterday’s news. Continue Reading...

January 24, 2022

COVID-19 has exposed politicians who think themselves above the law

Each morning’s headlines in the British press bring new details of parties happening inside Boris Johnson’s government while the rest of the United Kingdom and much of the world was locked down in isolation because of the COVID-19 pandemic in late 2020 and well into 2021. Continue Reading...

January 20, 2022

The twilight of Christianity, the loss of authority, and our fragmented selves

Political theorists have engaged in much debate concerning the “quarrel between the ancients and the moderns,” such quarrel evidence of the opposing claims of the two worlds. Leo Strauss, the best known articulator of an absolute rupture, counterposed classical Greece to modern liberalism and its culmination in Nietzsche. Continue Reading...

January 16, 2022

Bob Dole left a legacy of civility and cooperation that is sorely needed today

One of the sadder deaths in 2021 was that of former Kansas senator Bob Dole. Wounded war-hero and long-serving politician, Dole was widely respected from people across the political spectrum not only for his skills but also for his willingness to try and work across divides to achieve common objectives. Continue Reading...

January 03, 2022

As SCOTUS mulls Maine religious discrimination case, anxious parents wait across the U.S.

Earlier this month the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Carson v. Makin. The appellants in this case, co-represented by the Institute for Justice and my firm First Liberty Institute, are parents and students in Maine who have been denied a state benefit available to residents of rural areas unable to support publicly funded secondary schools. Continue Reading...

December 11, 2021

What the Kyle Rittenhouse trial taught America about assumptions, keeping peace

On Nov. 19, Kyle Rittenhouse was found not guilty on all charges related to the fatal shooting of two men and the wounding of another on the third day of widespread rioting and civil unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August last year. Continue Reading...

December 06, 2021

Religion in the public square strengthens public discourse

Religious expression in the public square is currently challenged by two competing concerns. On the left, some worry that religion is an anti-rational monolith, quietly subverting legitimate expressions of democracy. Others, on the right, worry that religious diversity destroys cultural cohesion, which they see as necessary to democracy. Continue Reading...

November 16, 2021

“Political Catholicism,” liberalism, and the myth of neutrality

On Twitter and in essays at The American Conservative, Sohrab Ahmari has argued that the debates about liberalism, post-liberalism, and integralism are “exhausted,” and that what he calls “political Catholics” are taking “these battles in other, more concrete dimensions.” Continue Reading...

October 20, 2021

We are a fractured nation, but there is still hope

It’s become a commonplace observation that while we are indeed a divided nation, we have been divided before and, some claim, in much worse ways. The first part is undoubtedly true, while the second seems more debatable, and this particularly in light of a recent poll coming from the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) at the University of Virginia that shows roughly half of Americans on both sides of the political spectrum seriously indulging fantasies of secession. Continue Reading...

October 15, 2021

Privilege and price controls make USPS too big to fail

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has come under criticism for extending first-class delivery times as part of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s 10-year plan to revitalize the agency. According to Tyler Powell and David Wessel at Brookings, “The USPS has operated at a loss since 2007.” Continue Reading...

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