fbpx
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!

Charles Kesler’s new book shows that President Obama’s grandiose progressive ambitions, like those of his progressive predecessors, accord neither with the American character nor with human nature.
Religious liberty litigation against the HHS mandate undermines the initial, reason-based arguments of religious objectors. Objectors would do well to refocus the debate on those arguments. The second in a two-part series.
Current lawsuits against the HHS contraceptive mandate may undermine religious liberty in the long run. Not all religious objectors to the mandate are likely to be exempted even if the lawsuits are successful, and judges violate the core meaning of religious liberty when they assess plaintiffs’ religious character. The first in a two-part series.
Conservatives should embrace the cause of equality of opportunity, not sameness of opportunity.
Economic liberty is necessary for achieving the real, non-economic goods of individuals and associations in civil society. Not the collectivist “we” of government, but the many “we’s” of civil society are the true ground of a just, and good, society.
Applying new governance methods to medicine will undermine physician autonomy and make doctors more liable to malpractice claims. The second in a two-part series.
Obamacare purports to improve medical quality through dynamic processes that involve government-supported private actors, quality benchmarks, and participation by practitioners and patients. The first in a two-part series.
A pilot program in New York City to give minors emergency contraception in school without telling their parents is an ineffective response to a non-existent “epidemic” of teen pregnancy.
The Hebrew Scriptures, read as a work of political theory, offer egalitarian, communitarian, and individualistic themes; two recent books incompletely capture the presence of all three.
Constitutional law has often been used to shape economies, but there are limits to the law’s ability to influence economic culture, especially when societal priorities no longer accord with constitutional principles.
Is inequality the cause of our worst social ills?
Slavery was a great evil, but the Constitution was neither its source nor its guarantor.
The authors of the Hebrew Scriptures shape their presentation of God by using three metaphors from the political realm: law, covenant, and teaching.
Praise for Bill Clinton’s recent address at the Democratic National Convention overlooks the fact that his promiscuity and perjury as president make his presence there a scandal.
A recent address encouraging Democrats for Life to re-elect President Obama is marked by flawed reasoning and misleading statistics.
A California bill allowing children to have three legal parents will not help children, but instead will unnecessarily complicate their lives. The supposed need for California’s SB 1476 flowed directly from the drive to normalize same sex parenting and recognize same sex unions.
Though many liberals are eager to denounce regulations of the right to vote as “voter suppression,” requiring citizens to show that they can cast a properly-informed ballot ensures that the right to vote, like other rights, is exercised prudently.
A new book of essays by 45 American Muslim men provides a timely response to popular anti-Shariah rhetoric by showing that American Muslims love their country and their fellow citizens.
Criticism that Republican justices have only hurt the pro-life cause is misguided, because Republican presidents from Reagan onward have deliberately tried to advance judicial conservatism through federal court appointees—a commitment that has brought victories both for judicial conservatism and the pro-life cause. The second of a two part series.
Legalized, unrestricted abortion can’t be blamed on conservative judicial policy just because Republican justices voted for it. Judicial conservatism as we now understand it came after Roe. The first of a two-part series.
Governor Christie’s recent veto of a bill that would lower restrictions on gestational surrogate mothers should prompt us to consider surrogacy’s harmful effects on mothers and children.
Work is at the core of our humanity, and our ownership of what we produce precedes laws demanding that we give it back to “community” in the abstract.
Ellen McCormack’s 1976 presidential campaign offers today’s pro-lifers a valuable example of incrementalist strategy.
For Emile Durkheim, God and religion were nothing more than the idols of the tribe and the tribe's own self-worship; why do so many Western intellectuals take this as the last word on the subject? The second in a two-part series.

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