Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'power'

November 07, 2008

10 Questions on Economics and Morality

Posted at the Center for a Just Society (notice courtesy the National Humanities Institute), Dr. Mark T. Mitchell asks a series of questions focused on the intersection between morality and economics in light of the recent financial crisis. Continue Reading...
October 16, 2008

The Death of ‘Conservatism’

In the wake of the global financial crisis, stories from the pundit class and blogosphere abound proclaiming the imminent death of the conservative movement. This is part of a longer and broader discussion with roots in the post-Reagan era of American politics. Continue Reading...
September 16, 2008

Pope Bendedict warns France on money, power and greed

Pope Benedict’s visit to secular France and its reformist President Sarkozy has proved to be successful above all expectations, as reported by Vatican newspaper L’Osseservatore Romano. During his Paris homily, at the Esplanade des Invalides, the Holy Father encouraged the 250,000 faithful in attendance to turn to God and to reject false idols, such as money, thirst for material possessions and power. Continue Reading...
September 15, 2008

The rise and fall of Kwame Kilpatrick

There’s a good read from a state politician familiar with Kwame Kilpatrick, the former Detroit mayor accused of all manner of illicit activity, in the Sep. 12 newsletter (PDF) from Michigan state senator Mickey Switalski (D-Roseville). Continue Reading...
July 08, 2008

Review: Civilization IV

It took awhile, but after its release in 2005, the latest installment of the popular computer game Civilization IV was received warmly by many cultural commentators. Civilization IV, or CivIV for short, was hailed alternatively as “a video game for the ages,” and “a kind of social-sciences chessboard that blends history and logic into a game that demands a long, long attention span.” Continue Reading...
June 26, 2008

J. K. Rowling on power

Awhile back I passed along some insight into J. K. Rowling’s view of tyranny, as expressed in the words of Albus Dumbledore. Here’s another bit from Rowling’s wizard on the related topic of power: I had proven, as a very young man, that power was my weakness and my temptation. Continue Reading...
August 13, 2007

Evangelizing the Powers

As one might infer from Lord Acton’s maxim, the question has been raised: Did proximity to political power corrupt Billy Graham’s chaplaincy to the presidency? GetReligion’s Douglas LeBlanc surveys the recent attention paid by the mainstream media to this part of Graham’s pastoral mission, and concludes in concord with Randall Balmer, “The gospel is better served when religious leaders keep a healthy distance from political power. Continue Reading...
February 23, 2007

Trickle-down decadence

Anthony Esolen, from the March issue of Touchstone: The most bountiful alms that the rich can give the poor, apart from the personal donation of their time and means, are lives of virtue to emulate. Continue Reading...
October 09, 2006

Creating Equality by Consolidating Power

Can you find the tension in the lead sentence from this WSJ story on the annual Communist Party meeting in China? Here it is: “China’s ruling communist elite opened an annual meeting that will focus on policies for spreading the nation’s newfound prosperity more evenly and on President Hu Jintao’s attempts to further consolidate his power.” Continue Reading...
October 03, 2006

Be Careful What You Wish For

Reading through the narrative of king Saul in 1 Samuel, it occurs to me that it is in part an object lesson of Lord Acton’s dictum about the corrupting influence of power, in this case political. Continue Reading...