Facebook Twitter Instagram Youtube Rss
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.

“Operation Absolute Resolve” and Just War Tradition 

By
Read More

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

Subscribe
Subscribe
Subscribe
Subscribe
Subscribe

Facing the World Squarely: Understanding the “History of Now”

By
In The Best of Times, the Worst of Times, historian Michael Burleigh refuses to play favorites, calling on all conscientious citizens to demand the highest possible standards from their leaders. He does not always tell readers what they want to hear, only what they need to hear—and for that they should be very thankful.

Man Does Not Live By Economic Growth Alone

By
“Economic piety” has led to an overemphasis on consumption, writes Oren Cass in The Once and Future Worker. If we value family and community life, we need a labor policy that is explicitly intended to sustain them.

Who Wants to Limit the Power of the Courts?

By
Perhaps the real source of liberal anxiety is not simply that a conservative-dominated Supreme Court will become activist in the opposite direction. Rather, a more far-reaching consequence for the American left would be a repositioning of the judicial branch as equal—not superior—to the legislative branch.

A Pact with a Thief, a Deal with the Devil: The Vatican’s Pending Agreement with China

By
The Vatican should not cede selection of bishops in China to the Communist Party.

No, Legislatures Cannot Abolish Marriage

By
Common-law marriage can never entirely be abolished. The duties of marital relations are generated and vested by the actions of the parties themselves.

Remembering the Jonestown Massacre

By
The fortieth anniversary of the Jonestown massacre should remind us to beware of utopian causes with totalitarian methods, on either political extreme. Though they promise social justice, they only deliver deadly power.

Charles de Gaulle and the Return of the Nation

By
In an age when supranational technocrats, utopian globalists, leftists contemptuous of patriotism, and tribal populists seem locked in relentless struggle with each other, we need individuals like Charles de Gaulle more than ever.

Immigrant Assimilation in the United States: Reihan Salam’s Melting Pot or Civil War?

By
Melting Pot or Civil War? is a policy book. It’s a good one, to be sure. But our immigration crisis needs more than just policy. When making policy changes that relate to immigration, we need to consider the human cost.

How the Dust Bowl Undermined the Libertarian Ideology of Plains Farmers

By
Eighty-five years ago, staunchly self-reliant American farmers encountered a crisis-the Dust Bowl-they simply could not overcome on their own. The story of the Dust Bowl is a story about American grit and perseverance, but also about the limits of libertarianism.

How Slavery Is and Isn’t in the Constitution

By
There was an opportunity in 1787 to have torn up slavery by its roots, and that opportunity was missed. But the missing came as much through overconfidence that the march of opinion would wipe out slavery on its own, and as much through the miscalculations of political compromise, as through any conscious policy to foster or promote slavery.

Muslims, the Bladensburg Cross, and the Preservation of Order

By
American Muslims must seek to preserve the American constitutional settlement against encroachments by totalitarian secularism because doing so means preserving what remains of a civilizational order that proceeds from belief in God.

Natural Rights, Self-Defense, and the Right to Own Firearms

By
We have a moral right to own guns.

Disagreement, Discrimination, and Polarization: An Open Letter to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

By
Justice Ginsburg’s claim in Masterpiece Cakeshop is deeply troublesome and problematic. Mistakenly asserted, it adds to the aggravated polarization within the United States.

C.S. Lewis and Aristotle on Civic Friendship

By
Aristotle described three types of friendship. In a season of increased polarization and even calls for incivility from national political leaders, perhaps we need a fourth.

Politics & Law: The Way of Public Discourse

By
For ten years, Public Discourse has drawn on the insights of academics and scholars, political and legal advocates, and men and women of letters to offer the reading public thought-provoking reflections on the timeliest issues and the most timeless dilemmas of our public life.

Our Universal and Particular Constitution

By
Understood as an expression of the common law commitments on which it was built, our Constitution still supplies common terms in which we might re-transform our civic discourse into something rational and productive. The second in a two-part series.

The Parallels Between Karamazov and Kavanaugh

By
Justice is something we must establish every day—in the way we live with others, in the way we speak humbly and attend to all the facts patiently, in deference to reality and the truth of things.

The Thousands-Year Old Constitution

By
Our Constitution is not just positive law, stipulated and contingent on political will. American constitutions do incorporate pre-positive law, often expressly. And that law is neither mere text, nor axioms, nor political ideals. The first in a two-part series.

The Great Revolt: Understanding Real Trump Voters

By
The country’s ruling elites misunderstood or ignored the concerns of a significant segment of the electorate. The Great Revolt suggests that those elites should move beyond lamenting the misfortune (to them) of Trump’s elevation to the presidency and ponder the mistakes on their part that made it possible.

Deicide on the Right

By
Jonah Goldberg makes a fundamental mistake by tossing out God in the opening sentence of his latest book, Suicide of the West.

How Legislatures Can Combat the Problem of Judicial Supremacy and Protect Human Rights

By
Though Legislated Rights is primarily written for legal philosophers, it bears important lessons for all who work to secure human rights in law. It challenges conventional views about the supremacy of courts in specifying and vindicating rights, arguing that legislatures can best accomplish this task.

Originalism, Kavanaugh, and Virtue Ethics: A Response to Michael Sean Winters

By
Virtue ethics can help originalism maintain its integrity.

Is It Possible to Reconcile Nationalism and a Commitment to Universal Human Dignity?

By
Can nationalistic love of one’s country be integrated into a moral framework of universal human dignity? Yoram Hazony’s new book tackles this question, but his answer is unsatisfying.

The Church Cannot Teach That Capital Punishment is Inherently Wrong: A Reply to John Finnis

By
The Catholic Church insists that even popes have no authority to introduce novel doctrines. To teach that capital punishment is inherently immoral would manifestly be a novel doctrine—not simply going beyond but explicitly contradicting what the Church, scripture, and tradition have taught for two millennia.

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