Front Porch Republic » Politics & Power

What’s Wrong With Iowa? (A Transplanted Professor Knows)

Jason Peters — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 04:54:25 +0000

Across the River from Iowa… The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a story recently about the travails of Stephen Bloom, a professor of journalism at the University of Iowa, who, in a piece he wrote for The Atlantic, all but

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Iowa is for Peace-Lovers BURNED-OVER DISTRICT, NY—Our daughter will be spending the snowy months...
Iowa… Place of the Drowsy Ones OWEN TOWNSHIP, WINNEBAGO COUNTY, ILLINOIS…: According to one legend, the...
Allan Bloom and Homogenizing Nature What is the purpose of education? ...

Conservative in America

Mark T. Mitchell — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:21:35 +0000

Kearneysville, WV.… As this election cycle grinds on, and as Washington prepares for CPAC’s 2012 event, each Republican candidate continues to claim that he best represents the conservative ideal. In this on-going contest over a word, the various contenders have

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What is a Conservative? The Atlantic offers characteristics of conservatives. How does the Porch...
Is There a Conservative Tradition in America? The answer is hardly obvious....
Why I am a Conservative If you love place, limits, liberty, and think they are...

The GOP in Limbo: How Low Can You Go?

Jeff Taylor — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:43:47 +0000

Newt Gingrich is a master of righteous indignation although he’s far better at being indignant than being righteous. What's going on with conservative Christians?

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Post-Iowa Advice for the Paul Campaign Ron Paul didn't win Iowa but he did well. What...
Talkin’ Pauken At last, true localist and traditional voice from the land...
The Best Foreign Policy is No Foreign Policy Or, Domestic policy is the only policy....

The Closing of the Republican Mind (A Séance)

Elias Crim — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 05:30:58 +0000

Lucky me, to be invited to try the beta version of Google’s newest and coolest app — Séance! After a quick download and install, I wasted no time in launching my first “collaboration,” picking three figures from the spirit world:…

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The Closing of the Conservative Mind? No fan of Frum am I, but this is disturbing....
Closing the Circle: An Economy of Values, and Where to Look for It It is no surprise that many of us connected with...
And the Jays Have it (Republican Bunning Hazards the Impolitic) As one of literary bent and so frequently guilty of...

Globalize or Localize? Beyond the Post-American World

Carl L. Bankston III — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 05:09:02 +0000

In the January 9, 2012 issue of Time magazine, Fareed Zakaria comments on what he calls “A Post-American World in Progress.” Zakaria observes that none of the world’s rising powers, including the rapidly growing BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and…

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Monarchy and the American Constitution The American Constitution, as it was originally written and understood,...
Foreign Policy and the Gift of the World Devon, PA. …In February 2007, as the Iraq war...
Science and the Decline of the Liberal Arts The hidden connection between our two academic orthodoxies - post-modernism...

In November, None of the Above

Jason Peters — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 05:34:29 +0000

There is no one worth spending a vote on.

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Flowers (Potatoes?) in November? The Southern Tier Efflorescence The dank and drear of Election Day and its...

Agrarian Hypocrisy and the Evils of Distributism

Mark T. Mitchell — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:52:01 +0000

One thing that has amused me in these first three years of FPR’s existence is the tendency of some readers to single out one or two articles and lament that FPR was once a promising venture but has now taken…

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Wendell Berry and the New Urbanism: Agrarian Remedies, Urban Prospects The problem is a result of the underlying specialization—not of...
Agrarian Politics: Why I Care Interest in agrarian politics can start in childhood. As feminists...
On Feeling “Forgotten”: Agrarian Aspirations in the Andes “The more things change, the more they remain the same.” ...

Post-Iowa Advice for the Paul Campaign

Jeff Taylor — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:08:52 +0000

Ron Paul didn't win Iowa but he did well. What should he do now?

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Rootedness & Rand Paul What does it mean to be a Kentuckian, or a...
“Even mainstream Democrats have no time for Mr. Paul . . .” Devon, PA.… We face only two feasible policies in America’s engagement with...
Iowa is for Peace-Lovers BURNED-OVER DISTRICT, NY—Our daughter will be spending the snowy months...

Gatewood Galbraith, Tertium Quid, RIP

Katherine Dalton — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 15:01:49 +0000

You who think that all of the principle and most of the color have gone out of politics never had the opportunity to vote for Gatewood Galbraith.

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The Front Porch Agenda? With all the talk about “what is to be done,”...
Table Games and the Politics of Corruption Jefferson County, WV. …In December my county will hold a...
New York Green Fest If you’re lucky enough to be near beautiful Allegany County,...

Gas Bag

Patrick J. Deneen — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 04:32:50 +0000

George Will has penned an end-of-year pick-me-up for conservatives, counseling them that the likely prospect of Republican Presidential electoral defeat in November (given their sad slate of potential nominees) ought not to get conservatives down in the mouth. Rather, things…

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More of the same old energy policy Obama's energy initiatives offer little change, and less hope. Large...
Against the Environment Alexandria, VA …The other night I happened to catch the...
The Long Run Alexandria, VA …It has become a commonplace to observe that...

Iowa is for Peace-Lovers

Bill Kauffman — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:40:02 +0000

BURNED-OVER DISTRICT, NY—Our daughter will be spending the snowy months rehearsing her role as Marian the Librarian in her high school’s production of Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man,” that tuneful Iowa-placed warhorse—no, parade horse—of community theater. (The flaw in community…

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What’s Wrong With Iowa? (A Transplanted Professor Knows) Across the River from Iowa… The Chronicle of Higher Education...
Iowa… Place of the Drowsy Ones OWEN TOWNSHIP, WINNEBAGO COUNTY, ILLINOIS…: According to one legend, the...
Michael Jackson’s Front Porch Moment http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmXP9Y1HdWE Okay, so he never did go back to Indiana,...

Electing Beaver: The Politics of Place in the Public Square

Matthew Dill — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 05:57:33 +0000

“The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what he saw in a plain way …” John Ruskin… I do not know William “Beaver” Watkins, supervisor of a bucolic township where

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Symposium on Place and FPR’s Role in the “New Right.” The spring issue of The New Atlantis features a symposium...
Who Was the Real Winner in the New York 23rd Race? There were several. But this biggest, I think, was: The...
Politics Reformed A review of a fine book by Glenn Moots which...

The Euro: Crisis and Opportunity

Mark T. Mitchell — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 13:56:45 +0000

The Euro is in trouble, and the news just keeps getting worse. There is now open talk of a post-Euro Europe, and such a turn would be a serious strike against any robust European Union. After an all-night session last…

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“Never Let a Good Crisis Go To Waste” Is there really any limit to political consolidation, when the...
Volcanoes, Airlines, and Poetic Injustice It’s hard not to look with bemused satisfaction at the...
Austerity Measures Spark Riots in Europe Shades of things to come?...

Occupy Oligarchy!

Emil Kramer — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 05:09:17 +0000

The “Occupy Wall Street” movement has proved to be significant in its appeal – a majority of Americans support the movement, even though it has been less than articulate in delineating its positions. Why is that? I suspect it’s because…

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Who Says College Isn’t Transformative? “In 2000, 56 percent of entering college students backed it....
Pining For the Fleshpots of Reagan? What a country!...
Occupy Food! (And Other Simple Things) [Cross-posted to In Medias Res] As Christmas and the end...

If Not Exceptional, How about Unusual

Darryl Hart — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 05:52:32 +0000

I am loathe to dissent from Mark Mitchell’s thoughtful piece on American exceptionalism, true FroPo that I am. And I could simply add a comment to the post along with the rest of FPR’s readers. But my dissent may call…

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Liberated From Community? Was Nisbet wrong about the quest for community?...
He Deserved It [Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wichita, KS That’s a terribly...
Working Group Meetings on Confederational Thought in Seattle As promised, here are the dates and times for our working...

Mafia Among the Mountain Folk, Part II

Adam K. Webb — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 06:31:13 +0000

“I don’t care if you bring the president of Peru and a thousand police—we’ll be carried out dead before you dig here!” Thus was the position of the twenty or so irate villagers gathered around us. The intense Andean sun…

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Mafia Among the Mountain Folk What ironies of fate converged that morning, such that a...
Iron Mountain Hillsdale, MI. …Today the folks at NPR are having a...
Sitting Inside a Mountain Breaking free from the voices, soundtrack, machinery, and plastic of...