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Public Discourse

Supreme Court Nominations and the Virtues of a Resolute Senate

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Liberal activists claim that the Senate must consider an Obama nomination to the Court. In fact, it would be unprecedented for a Supreme Court justice to be confirmed under a divided government during a term-limited president’s final year in office.
Public Discourse

The National Parks: “America’s Best Idea”

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We will benefit most from the national parks if we can remember their role as natural cathedrals that orient us to the crucial relevance of “Nature” for politics and society.
Public Discourse

Crony Capitalism: Inefficient, Unjust, and Corrupting

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Cronyism in the marketplace not only damages the economy. It is also unjust and deeply corrupting of the body politic—perhaps especially of democracies.
Public Discourse

The Troubling Stakes of the Originalism-Living Constitutionalism Debate

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Any defense of constitutional originalism depends on accepting the principles of natural law and natural rights on which the Constitution was founded. Unfortunately, these principles no longer have meaning for most judges, politicians, and ordinary citizens today—which has troubling implications for the future of our republic.
Public Discourse

Why Trump Persists

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No amount of lecturing about principles will persuade voters who think that their interests are under assault—and that Trump is the only candidate taking their interests seriously.
Public Discourse

The Politics of Passion: A Lesson from The Federalist Papers

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In an era when Americans seek political leaders who display “authenticity” rather than prudence, a look back to the Federalist Papers makes clear the importance of a politics based on moderation rather than passion.
Public Discourse

Presidential Elections, Party Establishments, and Demagogues

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The American Founders created a careful system to prevent the election of the power-hungry. Progressive-led changes to the electoral process in the twentieth century, however, make it all too easy for ambitious demagogues to seize control—as first Obama did, and now Trump is doing to far worse ends.
Public Discourse

Goodnight, Vienna: What’s Wrong with Saying That Corporations Are People

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Corporations, and civic associations in general, are necessary bulwarks between governmental power and individual citizens—but they’re not people. Now more than ever, we must recover a clear understanding of what it means to be a human person with inherent dignity and natural rights.
Public Discourse

Don’t Eliminate the Filibuster–Restore and Reform It

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With a simple change, the Senate can restore its republican bona fides, give minority points of view an audible voice, greatly reduce the number of filibusters, make incremental gains in the passage of bills important to the majority, and improve the quality of debate.
Public Discourse

The Living Constitution Revisited

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Justice William Brennan’s vision of a living constitution continues to dominate contemporary constitutional interpretation, in spite of its troubling inconsistencies.
Public Discourse

Four Score and Seven Years Later: Reflections on Martin Luther King Jr.

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Today we are called to reflect anew on the vision and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., not in mere deference to ceremonial custom or civic piety but instead as Lincoln reflected on the Founders, mindful of the crisis of the times.
Public Discourse

Corporations are People, Too

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The contemporary left’s extreme anti-corporation position is hostile to the traditional legal culture of American liberty, which advances the common good by protecting the rights of both individuals and formally organized groups of people.
Public Discourse

The American Dream in Crisis: It’s Time for a New Moynihan Moment

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The American Dream is in crisis because the American family is in crisis. We must commit to a national—not purely governmental—effort to promote strong families.
Public Discourse

Could America Survive without Religion?

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Can freedom survive in a society in which most citizens believe that human beings, who are supposed to have inalienable rights, are merely material beings inhabiting a universe of purely material and efficient causality?
Public Discourse

Uncivil Discourse: Modern Media’s Ideological Junkspace

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Political discussions in the public realm have become increasingly shallow: something more akin to a children’s mud fight than the rational discourse America’s founders hoped would characterize the civic life of the American republic.
Public Discourse

What’s Conservative about Radical Traditionalism?

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There are deep flaws in the narrative of decline that blames the Founders’ natural-law liberalism for today’s cultural and political decay.
Public Discourse

Conservatism, Free Markets, and America’s Post-Obama Economy

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Instead of settling for damage control, now is the time for conservatives to outline a far-reaching pro-market economic reform agenda. Not only should conservatives explain how America’s economy can be changed in ways that promote lasting growth and wider prosperity, but they should also speak in moral terms, presenting a convincing normative alternative to progressivism’s social democratic vision.
Public Discourse

The Unsoundness of Judicial Supremacy

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Decisions of the Supreme Court that go beyond power delegated to the judicial branch or are contrary to the Constitution are null and void. To protect our constitutional republic, citizens, states, and the other branches of the federal government must resist any such decision.
Public Discourse

Religion and the Republic

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A true republic respects religious speech. Such speech represents a different authority from governing power and affirms its limited nature.
Public Discourse

The Practical Wisdom of Chief Justice Ellsworth: Reconsidering the Separation of Church and State

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If good morals are essential for a free republic to endure, and if a certain group of institutions successfully promote those morals, then it follows that a well-governed state may be friendly to those institutions—even if they are churches.
Public Discourse

Public Debt, Political Paralysis, and the West

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The West’s struggle with high public debt highlights the inertia and indecision of both governments and citizens in the face of difficult economic choices.
Public Discourse

Professor Paulsen and Justice Scalia: A Qualified Defense of the Smith Decision

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There are some problems in the reasoning of Justice Scalia’s opinion in the 1990 religious freedom case. But in its holding, and in its rejection of a quarter century of jurisprudence that could not be squared with the First Amendment, the judgment was correct.
Public Discourse

There Is No Fundamental Right to Marry

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It’s easy to confuse fundamental rights with intensely-desired goods—and thus to wrongly invest the latter with the moral urgency and primacy of the former.
Public Discourse

Catholicism, Capitalism, and Caritas: The Continuing Legacy of Michael Novak

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In a time of intense debate about global capitalism and the power of economic elites, Michael Novak’s work is essential reading for those who seek to work for free and virtuous societies. Novak’s life is also a lesson in charity.