Pillar

Politics & Law

The third pillar of a decent society is a just system of politics and law. Such a government does not bind all persons, families, institutions of civil society, and actors in the marketplace to itself as subservient features of an all-pervading authority. Instead, it honors and protects the inherent equal dignity of all persons, safeguards the family as the primary school of virtue, and seeks justice through the rule of law.

Learn more about Politics & Law: get your free eBook today!

One of the unfortunate poisons that feminism leached into the culture is hostility between the sexes. We need to rescue feminism from that. We need to stress the importance of raising boys and girls who are open-hearted, respectful, and comfortable with themselves and each other. Adapted from an interview with Mona Charen conducted by Ana Samuel during The CanaVox state leaders meeting.
The temptation to shoot a wayward cop for victimizing an unarmed civilian may be very real. But it is precisely by refusing this temptation and hewing to the better angels of our nature—winged not with retaliatory violence but with patience and love—that society will change.
There are reasons to care which denizens of the wasteland hold political authority, but rejuvenating the wasteland is the more important task. Without recognizing the decadence of our culture, denouncing (or defending) the latest tweet from the president is just a desultory wind swirling dust and ashes.
Politicians are saying Californians of many religions are causing people who identify as LGBTQ to exhibit mental health disparities. The research does not support this claim.
Christians cannot support so-called “Fairness For All” for this overarching reason: it is grounded in an unbiblical conception of the human person. The Scripture will not allow us to see any ungodly “orientation” or “identity” as essential to our humanity, as directed toward our flourishing, and thus enshrined in law as a protected category.
“This Land Is Our Land” challenges the immigration status quo and presents conservatives and liberals alike with the opportunity to examine an immigrant’s take on the number one issue dividing our nation.
In a nation whose communities have declined, and in a republic in which disagreement on first principles now includes topics that previous generations imagined could not be contested, the moral order must be rebuilt in local communities.
Christians should be wary of the substitution of the nation for the church. Instead, they should seek a vibrant localism allows people to find meaning in their local communities—especially religious communities—and impart that sense of purpose and belonging that nationalists rightly perceive is missing for many citizens.
Surrogacy is dehumanizing to both birth mother and child, because it reduces them to commodities. By design, it denies mother and child what they need to flourish as human beings.
David French, Sohrab Ahmari, and others who are debating the future of conservatism are right to think that the challenges facing our nation are grave. Still, we need not feel forced into cheering for one side or the other, into viewing this as a matter of “teams.” We conservatives need to keep the main focus on ideas, not personalities, and engage each other both robustly and charitably. We need to think prudently about practical steps we should take—here and now, given all the givens—that will promote the common good.
Unless adults are willing to make dramatic changes to their own moral and legal rules about pornography, we shall keep playing what amounts to game of Russian roulette with the formation of our children when it comes to one of the most precious parts of their lives.
In order to flourish economically, property rights must be secure and the rule of law must exist.
Among the universal, fundamental rights every person enjoys is the right to leave his nation of origin. Yet the right to leave does not entail the right to enter a specific nation.
The 1619 Project points us to the need for the 3395 Project—the project of constructing a new and stronger American identity that incorporates both the experiences, perspectives, and distinctive contributions of the descendants of enslaved Africans (1619) and also the aspirations and ideals enunciated by European Americans in the Declaration of Independence (1776).
Law students shouldn’t be content with shallow conceptions of law. Instead, they should look deeper, asking questions about the nature and destiny of the human person, and the connection between our human nature and the legal enterprise.
Like Abraham Lincoln, a growing number of our young people are “unchurched.” As a result, our “us vs. them” politics functions as a substitute for religious observance, membership, and devotion. If there were more authentic religious practice in our society, there might be less of the bitterly partisan politics that divide our country.
The people most harmed by this agenda are seriously ill people hearing from society and physicians that death by overdose will end their problems; other patients suffering from a reduced commitment to care; people with disabilities who are next in line to be seen as a “burden” on others; and lonely and depressed people of any age, seduced by the message that suicide is a positive solution. Adapted from a lecture delivered in June 2019 at the Vita Institute, an educational program for pro-life leaders sponsored by the University of Notre Dame's de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture.
If we want to rebuild our country, we must rebuild our local communities. To rebuild communities, we must rebuild a culture of reasoned discourse.
Hannah Arendt has been unjustly transformed into a political partisan for the liberal causes that are in vogue today. Letting Arendt speak for herself recovers her intellectual independence as someone who defined herself apart from and against the political traditions of her day—including progressive liberalism.
A sexual orientation discrimination case could upend religious freedom for all the countries in the Americas in the near future . . . and nobody knows about it.
Whole blocks in densely populated cities like New York are designed primarily for the movement and storage of vehicles. These massive amounts of land would be better used as community parks.
Only natural law stands “between gods and men.” It employs human reason and observation, yet it admits of a divine creator behind nature—and therefore something inherently normative about naturally given ends. Without this intermediary, neither conflicts between divine law and human law nor conflicts between different religions can end in anything other than continuous conflict.
If we are wondering why conservative women are not “showing up,” we should start by revisiting the concept that women’s nature is uniquely oriented toward private, family-oriented pursuits—and asking whether it’s worth holding onto.
Pro-life Democrat Michael Wear is right to be concerned about the 2020 Democratic candidates’ radical positions on abortion. But Wear’s suggestions for those candidates are long on political expediency and short on actual pro-life conviction. Pro-life voters shouldn’t let themselves be taken in by the deceptive “messaging” he recommends.

Get your free eBook for The Human Person

"*" indicates required fields

Get your free eBook for Sexuality & Family

Get your free eBook for Politics & Law

Get your free eBook for Education & Culture

Get your free eBook for Business & Economics