Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'America'

August 24, 2011

Gregg: Two Principles Candidates Must Hold Dear

Director of Research Samuel Gregg has a piece in Public Discourse today as part of a series on the 2012 presidential election. “Fix America’s Economy: Two Principles for Reform” explains why limited government is better government, and how the principle of subsidiarity can guide regulation that governments undertake. Continue Reading...
July 13, 2011

Acton Commentary: Commodifying Compassion

In this week’s Acton Commentary, “Commodifying Compassion,” I look at the instinct to judge a society’s commitment to charity by the level of material expenditure, particularly by the government. One of the things I think is true in this conversation is that our material commitments do show something about our spiritual concerns. Continue Reading...
July 01, 2011

On Independence Day

It is no claim to Manifest Destiny, nor act of hyper-nationalism or xenophobic patriotism to say that America is the boldest, most liberal (in its original etymology), most successful and most prosperous experiment in human experience. Continue Reading...
June 30, 2011

American Independence and the Spirit of Liberty

Ralph Waldo Emerson quipped “There is properly no history; only biography.” It’s a line that lends to exaggeration for effect but speaks to the centrality of narrative and story. One of the great books I had the pleasure of reading about in regards to our story of independence is Paul Revere’s Ride by David Hackett Fischer. Continue Reading...
May 25, 2011

Acton Commentary: Little Plots of Liberty

In this week’s Acton Commentary I briefly survey the prospects for urban gardens and farming in the city of Detroit. As Aaron M. Renn wrote in New Geography a few years ago, Detroit represents one of the places where significant urban innovation is possible. Continue Reading...
May 06, 2011

Goodbye, steeple. Goodbye, people.

We might need an update to the children’s rhyme: “Here is the church, / here is the steeple, / open the doors, / and see all the people.” Before I got wrapped up in ongoing conversations here, there, and seemingly everywhere about the nation’s budget, I noted that the ripple effects from the economic downturn were beginning to hit churches in a serious way. Continue Reading...
November 04, 2010

Video: Sirico on Christian Anthropology (and some thoughts on Election 2010)

Another election has come and gone, and once again the balance of power has significantly shifted in Washington, D.C. and statehouses across America.  Tuesday’s results are, I suppose, a win for fans of limited government, in that a Republican House of Representatives will make it more difficult for President Obama and his Democrat colleagues in the Congress to enact more of what has been a very statist agenda.   Continue Reading...
November 02, 2010

The Audacity of Austerity

The title of this post borrows from a phrase I employ in the conclusion of tomorrow’s Acton Commentary on the prospects for austerity in America after today’s mid-term elections. (I can’t claim to have coined the term, since about 4,270 other instances of the phrase show up in a Google search, but I like it nonetheless.) Continue Reading...
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