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One does not need to revisit the drastic consequences that ensued from COVID-19 policies to be reminded of the failures and mistakes of the progressive constitutional framework that issued them.
As Americans begin to familiarize themselves with this new front in higher education—one that can no longer be marginalized or dismissed out of hand—it is my hope that wrongheaded media criticism will eventually give way to the clear positive impact that schools of civic thought are having.
Any system of jurisprudence must find its ground in these anchoring truths that we can reliably know, because they are true of necessity. They are the principles of reason that mark the natural law, the law that underlies our positive law. And any scheme of natural law built on these grounds then cannot be, as Andrew Koppelman labels it, a mere “theory” of the natural law. It would be the real thing.
Law necessarily has a moral foundation. Exploring that foundation can help us understand what law can and should be. The project of finding anchoring truths is well worth undertaking, and the natural law tradition has something to contribute to that.
It is past time to restore some semblance of order to the law of religion.
The transformation of the original Constitution into the living Constitution is revolutionary, not evolutionary, a bloodless coup deliberately launched by progressive intellectuals bent on undermining the founders’ Constitution.
The problem with drug use is not just its grave danger to our bodily and psychological well-being, nor that it constitutes a radical assertion of self-will, but that it is a flight from the adventure of the moral life
Those of us who think the stakes in our cultural conflicts are high, whichever side of those conflicts we are on, frequently find ourselves furious. But what are we angry about? Our responses to that question have to do not just with the latest news, but with deeper intuitions about the nature of the human person and its relation to the moral life of our society.
Each of these books presents valuable and insightful contributions to ongoing conversations about the role of the Constitution in contemporary American political life.
Paradoxically, the progressive effort to overcome constitutional limits on government power—purportedly justified on grounds of efficiency—hardly seems to have enabled government to govern well. Instead, the unwieldy and often conflictual morass of agencies and officials in the administrative state has more often than not resulted in governmental paralysis, perhaps thankfully leaving Americans as ungovernable as we have always been.
Is government by consent irretrievably lost? I maintain that the principle of consent is not lost and that we can rebuild a different sort of social contract theory from amid the ruins.
Smith's book is an excellent reminder that conservatives should never prioritize an idealized individual or nation. Rather, we must work to preserve those institutions that point us to better lives.
Rana’s history prompts us to reflect on how we ought to conceive of American identity and defend the Constitution’s anti-majoritarian checks and balances in the twenty-first century.
Our postmodern academy is never going to bring back traditional prosody on its own, so we should probably be thinking hard about how to use the Internet to bring the traditional tools of English poetry back to the people.
The original rationale for summer camp is more valid than ever. Young people are struggling with mental health, addiction to technology, disconnection from the body, isolation, and many other painful realities. Summer camps cannot fix these problems. But for many adolescents, the experience of traditional summer camps might help them see that life is about more than accomplishment, and that is a start.
Israelis celebrate their writers, artists, scientists, jurists, industrialists, and statesmen who fought wars of life and death. And of course there are other ways to serve—caring for the mentally ill, for abandoned children, for the elderly and sick. I am grateful for all of these exemplars. But for me, it will always be specifically the young men and women who go to the army intending to return (many, alas, do not return) to their studies when their missions are done. These people go on to have families, large ones, and jobs of all kinds, and different hobbies and interests and vocations. Their commitments are ordered by a conscious dedication to the Lord of all flesh.
David Hackett Fischer’s Albion’s Seed appropriately decries the antebellum American South’s practice of slavery, while acknowledging the South’s production of Americans who have also served the cause of freedom and truth.
As Americans prepare to mark the 250th anniversary of the nation’s birth, in 2026, some argue there’s more to criticize than celebrate. Guelzo's latest book provides ample evidence of what Lincoln found worth celebrating about the American experiment, and what Guelzo finds worth celebrating about Lincoln.
Conservative economics, unlike the fundamentalism that supplanted it, embraces reason. As conservatives, we begin with a confident assertion of what the market is for and then consider the public policies necessary for shaping markets toward that end.
If the stories can change, it stands to reason that they can improve—or deteriorate. Responsible cultural elites of the Left and Right alike would do well to consider not only what claims they make explicitly, but what kinds of stories underlie those claims, and whether these are the right stories to tell.
Although one might find oneself disagreeing with Smith, as I have on occasion, one will be better for it. And I can say that with a clear conscience.  
The early women’s rights advocates sought to challenge, accompany, encourage, and support their sisters in the pursuit of the good life, in choosing good and rejecting evil. They sought to help them understand that they did not have to be the slaves of necessity, but that they could virtuously choose to undertake difficult but worthwhile endeavors, including the hardships of motherhood.
Is there friction between the social proclivities generated by our liberal institutions and the demands of Christian faith and teaching? It is perfectly reasonable to argue that there is—though there may be fruitful interaction as well, in which the politics of freedom and the virtues of faith foster one another.
The stronger the truth the Left seeks to counteract, and the more irrational the fantasy it promotes, the larger and stronger the government it requires. Whether it will achieve its ends remains to be seen.