The rise of “Islamic extremism” in France, the reemergence of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the recent drift toward Islamist politics—political efforts to enforce an orthodox interpretation of Islam on society—in Turkey have revived the debate about Islam’s relationship with democracy and liberty. Continue Reading...
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July 13, 2022
Do we really need another brand of conservatism?
Sisyphus was the first conservative, Claremont Review of Books editor William Voegeli wryly observes, because the lot of the conservative is one of short-lived, temporary victories. Conservatives certainly have no shortage of examples. Continue Reading...
July 12, 2022
We know what women are. They don’t. Now what?
“Nature always tells us the truth, even if we don’t want to hear it.” So begins the latest cinematic offering from the Daily Wire, What Is a Woman? The documentary is stirring up controversy with its sarcastic cultural analysis and skillful showcasing of extreme social absurdity. Continue Reading...
July 08, 2022
Tony Sirico, 1942-2022
Tony Sirico, the renowned actor and older brother of Acton Institute co-founder and president emeritus, Rev. Robert A. Sirico, passed away on July 8, 2022. He was 79 years old.
Watch the livestream of the funeral of Tony Sirico on Wednesday, July 13, at 10:30am ET here:
Sirico was best known for his role as “Paulie Walnuts” Gualtieri in HBO’s The Sopranos, for which he won two Screen Actors Guild Awards for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. Continue Reading...
July 08, 2022
An economist’s summer reading list
If you attended Acton University, you saw the treasure trove of books for sale. Several of those books made it onto both my credit card and my summer reading list. Even if you weren’t able to join us at AU, you can still find most of the books here. Continue Reading...
July 08, 2022
Yes, abortion is about race, but not in the way progressives think
As I was watching a film with my son the other day, we began to hear chanting below us. We looked out the window and saw protesters marching in the streets shouting, “Hey Hey! Continue Reading...
July 07, 2022
Twenty-five years after promising autonomy, China has turned Hong Kong into China
On January 1, 1997, Hong Kong, effectively seized by Great Britain in war a century before, reverted to Chinese rule. Only recently liberated from the madness of Mao Zedong’s rule, Beijing promised to preserve Hong Kong’s separate “system” for 50 years. Continue Reading...
July 06, 2022
Supernatural thriller Stranger Things shows the all-too-human evil of communism
The final installment of the fourth season of Netflix’s Stranger Things was released on July 1. According to Variety, season 4’s first installment “of the Duffer Brothers’ hit sci-fi series was viewed for 287 million hours during the week of May 23–29, landing in the No. Continue Reading...
July 04, 2022
How Frederick Douglass found hope on the Fourth of July
On July 5, 1852, nearly a decade before the start of the Civil War, Frederick Douglass, a freed slave and statesman-abolitionist, offered a profound speech on seeing the Fourth of July through the eyes of a slave. Continue Reading...
June 30, 2022
Does The Godfather believe in America?
This month the Tribeca Film Festival celebrated the 50th anniversary of the premiere of The Godfather, an important movie, a movie we at some point got in the habit of calling iconic, and we might remember it made stars of a number of actors, starting with Al Pacino. Continue Reading...