Natural disasters and security threats seem to beg for a response that is massive, coordinated, and centralized. If so, how can the consolidation of state power be tempered and the principles of localism advanced?

A homogeneous global consumer culture flattens its victims. And, perhaps in the same vein, our meanderings around the dying furniture capital of Yecla turned up nothing: virtually everything on display fitted what has become the decorative style of contemporary Spain: the sort of stuff one might find in a Copenhagen dentist’s office.

Rock Island, IL
Obviously there is a fortune out there waiting to be made by someone who can take well-known poems and re-write them for discriminating readers. Poets are already living high off the hog; I see no reason…

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res]
Wichita, KS
The debate over health care reform in the Senate has moved into overdrive, with one possible compromise following another in rapid succession. The two crucial issues upon which the ability of the…

Michael Lind over at Salon suggests a disparity between populism and the “liberal left.” Given Sarah Plain’s new book, in which she continues to posture as a populist (see Rod Dreher’s discussion on her cultural populism) as well as recent…

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res]
I suppose Front Porch Republic is experiencing growing pains, because all the talk lately is about “what’s next?”–what cause, what platform, what principles or agenda or policy, if any, FPR should support? The ideas…

In my misspent youth, I was a politician. And in my role as a politician, I did all the things that politicians do. Well, not all the things; I say that in case there are law-enforcement agents who read this…

In the continuing argument over what should or shouldn’t be the responsibility of the government–and what government, whether local or state or national, should be responsible for it–there is, I think (or, at least, I hope) one thing most of…

Kearneysville, WV. Last week I published a piece suggesting ten positions that might serve to constitute a platform for those who are disillusioned by both major political parties and who long for an alternative that includes, among other things,…

“I never saw an instance of one of two disputants convincing one another by argument.  I have seen many, on their getting warm, becoming rude, and shooting one another.” –Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson Randolph
“Anyone who observed…

Hillsdale, MI. A Mormon friend of mine once argued that the LDS prohibition of alcohol was right and proper not only because it was revealed, but because he had tried alcohol once and had ended up puking in the…

A great many comments have been posted in response to my posting, “Subsidizing Localism.”  I think the question I sought to pose – and for which I do not have a very good answer – is at the core of…

A great post over at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen by “Will.”  Beyond his reliance on a clearly excellent source (ahem), I strongly endorse his closing reflection:
Given the inter-connectedness of subsidies and local communities and the inherent advantages…

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res]
Wichita, KS. No one, I think, has ever summed up the longing for a life with front porches–the localist longing which is this blog’s raison d’être–better than Christopher Lasch did, in this plaintive passage…

Virginia schools are opting for local produce and ingredients over cellophane-packaged mystery meals. Are these elementary schools adopting a version of localism?

This post is dangerously close to turf already claimed by Bill Kaufman and Jason Peters. But the appeal of Richard Russo is so strong that if FPR readers do not know about the contemporary novelist who sets many of his…

This is, at last, the last chapter of my new book, Equity and Equilibrium: The Political Economy of Distributism. I post it here because so many questions have arisen on this site as to whether distributism is just another…

It is no surprise that many of us connected with FPR welcomed the release in mid July of Pope Benedict XVI’s latest encyclical, Caritas in Veritate.  As John Médaille and Patrick Deneen have both noted, it touches on many…