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State vs. Family: The Tyranny of the “Emerging Orthodoxy”

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State agencies used to intervene in family life only when it was in the “best interests of the child.” Now, however, their power is being exercised to advance an ideological agenda.

Parallel Societies: How the American Military and Civilian Worlds Parted Ways

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The military is no longer a populist artifact but a plaything of political elites, and deep fissures have formed between it and the citizens that it used to represent.

Banking on the Margins or the Core of Human Flourishing?

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Samuel Gregg’s new book makes it clear that the fundamental purpose of finance, as of all civic practices and institutions, is the good of human beings.
Public Discourse

Mercy for Dylann Roof

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Showing mercy to Dylann Roof by refusing to impose the death penalty would respect the acts of both his victims, who showed him welcome, and their families, who showed him forgiveness. In this way, good could be drawn from evil, and the sinfulness of Dylann Roof’s actions could be overcome by love.

On the Bipartisan Inadequacy of Governing Elites: A General Theory of Trump’s Victory

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A bipartisan record of inadequacy by governing elites incapable of admitting their failures led to the election of Donald Trump. Thankfully, America is vast, diverse, and free enough to give itself a new governing elite if the old one can’t learn.

Who’s on Which Side of the Lunch Counter? Civil Rights, Religious Accommodation, and the Challenges of Diversity

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In many ways, so-called progressives are comparable to lunch-counter segregationists, and proponents of religious exemptions are the heirs of civil rights activists.

Love, Liberal Education, and the Secret of Human Identity

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True liberal education should teach us that we do not only give ourselves away: we become ourselves by the gift. We become who we are by forgetting to think about who we are.

Checking the Court: What Can Be Done to Rein in the Supreme Court?

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Michael Stokes Paulsen has identified six courses of action that might effectively curb the Supreme Court’s abuse of judicial authority.

Double Standards on Abortion and Animal Rights

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Abortion rights dogma can obscure human reason and harden the human heart so much that the same person who feels empathy for animal suffering can lack compassion for unborn children who experience lethal violence and excruciating pain in abortion.

The Liberalism of the Founding Fathers Is Not to Blame for Our Current Problems

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If today we see ill effects of individualism, it does not mean that we should blame them on the founders. Our problem is a cultural one, not some deep, all-encompassing flaw in our political system.

Giving Thanks for Eight Years of Public Discourse

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This Thanksgiving season, Public Discourse will continue to commit itself to the peaceful and rational persuasion of our fellow man in the cause of the common good. Will you join us?

Universities and the Dangers of Docility

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We need docile teachers and students, those unafraid of the fundamental questions and the highest things: those who want truth.

The Constitutional Power of the Electoral College

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The framers of the Constitution designed the elector system to balance the need for the people to have a voice and the desire to have a refined, informed body actually choose the president in order to avoid the election of a demagogue or charlatan.

Reason and the Existence of God

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Are traditional arguments for the existence of God at least suspect—if not false—in the light of what modern philosophy tells us about the limits of human understanding?

The Decline of Movement Conservatism and the Rise of the Alt-Right

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Donald Trump’s election has made one thing clear: right-wing politics, conservatism, and the Republican Party are not interchangeable.

The Promise and Peril of Making America Great: On Trumpism and Hamiltonianism

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Donald Trump’s approach to politics has real roots in American political history. Yet, as Alexander Hamilton warned, it is very dangerous to undermine a democratic people’s confidence in their own governing classes.

Common Core Catastrophe

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It is time to refocus President Trump’s attention upon Common Core and persuade him to ignite a national movement to roll it back. Catholic education, in particular, is undermined by adopting these national standards.

Don’t Let Assisted Suicide Come to the Nation’s Capital

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DC’s assisted suicide bill is the most expansive and dangerous our country has yet seen.

Make Religious Freedom Great Again

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Donald Trump should commit to protecting the free exercise of religion for all Americans of all faiths.

Modern Virtue Ethics Isn’t Really Aristotelian

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Jonathan Sanford argues that contemporary virtue ethicists ought to return to the work of Aristotle as a foundation for moral judgments.

Science: What Went Wrong?

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Since the seventeenth century, Rousseau’s influence has changed the way scientists approach their discipline—ironically, given that he based his theories on emotion and conjecture rather than observation and data. A return to rigorous standards of inquiry, unbiased by personal agendas, would restore science to its former position of strength.

Tea Party Elegy

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Our Constitution alone will not be adequate protection if we allow the left to sweep through our mainstream culture and our institutions.

What’s Religion Good For? Progressives Weigh In

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The answer many progressives give to the question, “What’s religion good for?” is troubling in at least two ways. Not only does it conflict with traditional understandings of religious freedom, it also does harm to the integrity of religion itself.

Declaring Equality Without Supplying Its Ground: Danielle Allen’s Our Declaration

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Our fundamental equality as rational created beings is the source of our inalienable rights. Failure to understand this makes it impossible to truly understand the Declaration or the principles of limited government.