politics

March 21, 2023

C.S. Lewis on the Specter of Totalitarianism

It is safe to say C.S. Lewis is not known first of all for his treatment of totalitarianism. We are familiar with Lewis the Christian apologist, Lewis the writer of children’s stories and science fiction fantasy, Lewis the literary critic and Oxford don, and then chair of medieval and renaissance literature at Cambridge. Continue Reading...

January 05, 2023

True Liberty Demands Respectful Disagreement

In his classic The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, Michael Novak offers an observation about an ongoing struggle in a pluralistic society: the absence of a unified vision of the good. Continue Reading...

December 15, 2022

King Jesus and Political Discipleship

Our current political reshuffling has been dizzying, perhaps even more in the Christian community than among Americans in general. The conservative shift toward populism under Trump empowered both a push for real nationalism—blood, soil, industrial policy—as well as even more fringe movements such as the medieval romanticism of the Catholic integralists. Continue Reading...

August 19, 2022

Natural law limits government and arbitrary power

Any discussion of the nature and ends of liberty and justice inevitably touches upon the role of government and law in society. A good place to begin reﬂecting upon natural law’s approach to these questions is Aquinas’ understanding of law. Continue Reading...

July 21, 2022

The end of Roe is the beginning of new life for citizens and their duties

Weeks after the Supreme Court’s landmark 6-3 ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), which held that the Constitution of the United States does not confer a right to abortion, the nation is still struggling to come to grips with its consequences. Continue Reading...

March 15, 2022

Put the State of the Union address out of its misery

In the fable of “The Bell and the Cat,” a group of mice discuss how best to protect themselves from a rapacious, predatory cat who has been hunting them down. One mouse suggests they put a bell on the cat so they’ll know when the cat is approaching. 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...

August 26, 2021

How America’s ‘creative class’ learned to love conformity

In 2000, columnist David Brooks wrote Bobos in Paradise, hailing the dawn of a new phase in America’s longstanding story of meritocracy. The “bobos” were a peculiar breed — part bohemian, part bourgeoisie — blurring class divides in a way that would introduce a new form of enlightened, activist citizenship in a country with an otherwise ambivalent middle class. Continue Reading...

June 19, 2021

Tyranny, by any other name

Many of us have noticed a trend toward the political misuse of words, both in legacy media and on social media. This isn’t a modern trend. In the 6th century B.C., Continue Reading...

June 16, 2021

The necessity of boring politics

Movie audiences experience high emotional engagement when they identify personally with the characters. The same is true in modern American politics, which increasingly have become treated as a source of social identity and entertainment. Continue Reading...

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