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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.

The Judicial Oath and the Judgment of History

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Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization

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Any defense of the West must be clear about those core commitments to reason and the reasonable God that are central to its identity.

Qatar: America’s Troublesome Little Ally

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The Saudi-Qatari feud is empowering Turkey and Iran, thereby changing the geopolitical map of the Middle East.

A Fascist in the White House? Federalism as an Antidote to Authoritarianism

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Any scholar or commentator who truly worries about the prospect of fascism or nationalist tyranny should favor the restoration of a more robust American federalism, with more powers exercised by the states and fewer powers assigned to the national government.

Does the Right Have a Future? Assessing the Conservative-Libertarian Debate

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Nathan Schlueter and Nikolai Wenzel’s book-length conservative-libertarian debate is a helpful tool for understanding an important conversation and provides the basis for a robust defense of liberty in the public sphere.

The Constitution Already Prohibits Abortion: An Originalist Case for Prenatal Personhood

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Justice Antonin Scalia, an originalist, famously held that the Constitution neither permits nor prohibits abortion. On the contrary, unborn babies are “persons” within the original public meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, and they are consequently owed due process and equal protection on constitutional grounds.

Understanding the Election: The How and the Why of 2016

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Political scientists James W. Ceaser, Andrew E. Busch, and John J. Pitney, Jr., take a hard look at the 2016 election, adding another book to their series of insightful election analyses.

Sexually Violent Predator Laws and Indefinite Confinement: Insights from C.S. Lewis

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Sexually violent predator laws permit the indefinite confinement of persons who have already served a sentence for their crime. They are a perfect example of what C.S. Lewis called the humanitarian theory of punishment, replacing punishment and desert with treatment and therapy.

Recovering America’s Vital Center: Between Religious Nationalism and Radical Secularism

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The antidote to hyper-partisanship is a recovery of America’s tradition of civil religion. A new book by Philip Gorski takes up this difficult and subtle project.

Capitalism and the Quest for Community

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Defenders of capitalism need a more humane anthropology, sensitive to man’s social and communal nature, lest they forget to ask the crucial question of what economics is for.

What Tocqueville Prescribes for Our Crazy American Souls

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A new book by James Poulos reveals both the greatness and the limitations of Tocqueville.
Public Discourse

Renouncing Fatalism: Trump and Tocqueville in Poland

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Trump did well in Poland to eschew all talk of “the wrong side of history” and instead to emphasize the real power, for good and ill, that we have over our own destiny. By doing so he defended our dignity and upheld our humanity.

Closing the Meaning Gap: Toward a Reconciliation of Communitarianism and Libertarianism

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Libertarian insights may be able to help communitarians close the meaning gap and build communities that matter.

The Urgency of Restoring the Biblical Values of America’s Founders

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Our nation was founded on biblical principles as a haven for devoutly religious dissidents. We forget our Judeo-Christian origins and the founders’ commitment to freedom of religion at our peril.

Cakes and Consciences: The Case of Jack Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop

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The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear the case of Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, who declined to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding reception. There is no need to coerce artists to employ their abilities in ways contrary to their religious beliefs.

The Patriotism We Need: Principled and Spirited

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A timely book on the thought of Harry Jaffa and Walter Berns reminds us that patriotism needs to be about ideas and principles, but it cannot only be about ideas and principles. To win—and deserve to win—elections, conservatism must also inspire love of country and serve the immediate interests of the ordinary man.

Support the Work of Public Discourse

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A note from the editor on our need for your support.

Paving a Playground, and Weeding the Unruly Garden of Religious Liberty

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This week’s 7-2 decision in favor of Trinity Lutheran Church goes a long way toward restoring order to the Supreme Court’s religious liberty jurisprudence.

Decrypting Jefferson

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Understanding the author of America’s Declaration of Independence is easier said than done. He may have hated big government, but big government was born of the rationalism that he loved.

John Stuart Mill’s Intolerant Faith and the Religion of Liberalism

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John Stuart Mill foreshadows the deeply intolerant faith and agenda of contemporary liberalism.

The Utopian Aspirations of the Fight Against Climate Change: A Call for Moderation

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The effort to combat climate change aspires to feats of social control, coordination, and foresight that are unprecedented in the history of politics. Our expectations for the movement ought to be tempered by our knowledge of human limitations.

Bernie’s Relativism Test Is Bad for Muslims and All Religious Believers

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Those trying to block the nomination of Russell Vought are not protecting religious pluralism but are rather demanding that all public servants be relativists.

US Soccer’s Rainbow Pride Jerseys Exclude and Divide

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Athletes should be judged on talent, heart, and work ethic—not politics. Our national sports teams should represent the whole country, not any one political niche.

Making Sense of the Founders: Politics, Natural Rights, and the Laws of Nature

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It is often alleged that the American founders lacked a unified and coherent political theory. To the contrary, a recent book by Thomas West shows that the founders broadly agreed on a philosophy of natural rights, calling for both the protection of liberty and the promotion of virtue.

Ted Cruz Is Right: The “International Community” Did Not Create the United States

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In a heated Twitter exchange with Senator Ted Cruz, Harvard professor Joyce Chaplin recently claimed that recognition by the “international community” created the United States in 1783. From an international lawyer’s standpoint, this is nonsense.

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