virtue

April 06, 2023

Dungeons & Dragons and the Death of Honor

The most popular entertainment for boys not yet overtaken by the miserable ideology of our times is the tabletop game Dungeons & Dragons, a source of friendship and adventure. It became a part of pop culture with Stranger Things recently but turned out to be of little importance to that show. Continue Reading...

March 03, 2022

Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro’s Nightmare Alley is a dead end

Guillermo del Toro won Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for The Shape Of Water (2017), a movie infamous for a leading lady so desperate for intimacy that she makes love to a fish, probably the best metaphor for the ongoing moral collapse of the women who like such movies. Continue Reading...

December 08, 2021

Christmas 1991: The birth of freedom in the death of the evil empire

“You can have a very quiet Christmas evening,” wished Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to American President George H. W. Bush. “I am saying good-bye and shaking your hand.” It was a long-distance handshake, done via telephone. Continue Reading...

September 21, 2021

Should morality be legislated?

Should governments legislate morality? It depends on how we define our terms. If “legislate morality” is simply defined as “making laws that are moral,” then it is obvious that we should legislate morality. Continue Reading...

September 15, 2020

The government should scratch the lottery

State lotteries may seem like a good thing. They raise money for government programs like public schools. People contribute their money voluntarily (unlike most forms of taxation), which removes the moral weight involved in forcing people to hand over their money. Continue Reading...

September 11, 2020

David French’s Christian vision for economic freedom

Given the recent wave of populism and protectionism sweeping across the American Right, we see increased criticism of free markets among conservatives – complete with lengthy debates about the purpose of the nation-state, the role of the market in civil society, and whether classical liberalism has any enduring value in an age of technological disruption and globalization. Continue Reading...

July 31, 2020

6 quotes: Milton Friedman on woke capitalism, racism, and equality

Milton Friedman was born on July 31, 1912. His work in pioneering monetary theory at the University of Chicago would win him the Nobel Prize for Economic Sciences in 1976 and popularize a new school of free-market economics, “The Chicago School.” Continue Reading...

March 24, 2020

Review: ‘America Lost’ and the crisis of faith and work

However unique their history or circumstances, communities experiencing high unemployment are pockmarked by the same sights: shuttered factories, rows of abandoned homes bulldozed or set ablaze by arsonists, and a debilitating hopelessness. Continue Reading...

January 03, 2020

Star Wars and self-interest

Recent installments in the Star Wars universe directly raise the theme of self-interest, and specifically the formation or deformation of the self. These instances help us ask the important question, “Who puts the ‘self’ in self-interest?” Continue Reading...

November 25, 2019

There is no moral difference between eating Chick-fil-A and a McChicken

I am grateful to Fr. Ben Johnson for his thoughtful response to my recent post, “The social responsibility of Chick-fil-A is to make delicious sandwiches.” He adds some extra nuance, but I still stand my ground. Continue Reading...

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