Articles Archive
Fired for the Natural Law, Part I: Against the Laws of Nature
The precincts of higher education have become so well known for their enormities and absurdities in the pursuit of political correctness that one may almost breeze past the latest episode…
Roger Ebert on the Visceral Beauty of Chicago Architecture
In architecture I am a reactionary.
What’s the Matter With Connecticut?
A riff on Thomas Frank’s thesis in "What’s the Matter With Kansas?," asking why wealthy voters in Blue States like Connecticut have been apparently voting against their economic interests by…
Gutshot in the Gulf: The Information Age Springs a Definitive Leak
This leak at the bottom of the sea is a mirror held up to our uncomprehending selves.
Arguing about the Suburbs
Are suburbs random or a product of design?
CLS v Martinez, Again
I am going to try something largely inadvisable and possibly impossible, which is to explain the Court’s speech related First Amendment jurisprudence in accessible layman’s terms.
An Homage to Chesterton
For Chesterton the birds of nature were always singing about the rightness of things and so softly correcting modern man’s unnatural despair of the created order and his egregious confidence…
March of the Ciceronians
A reader asks: anyone interested in joining the Ciceronian Society, a new APSA-affiliated group?
Swimming with Sharks
Today many Americans seem smitten with the notion that Washington holds the answer to the many dangers circling in the water.
More on CLS vs. Martinez
CLS vs. Martinez is part of a long-term effort to eviscerate all fundamental human associations. Only the radical individual and global state are regarded as legitimate.
Of Humility and Gratitude: Dana Gioia at Notre Dame
Dana Gioia's brief but worthy address at Notre Dame.
Up Against the Wall
No one was barred from the conversation back when there was a conversation. No dispatch ever read, “Wingnut Henry David Thoreau today issued a manifesto from his compound near Walden…
Independence Day Eve
Whenever I hear someone claim that “our enemies hate us for our freedom,” I think first of the USS Vincennes and July 3rd, 1988. Twenty-two years ago today, Vincennes was…
Knowing One’s Place at the Ballot Box
The prevailing model of local voting has deep defects, which often work against strong communities. The modern standard is one person, one vote, one place. While this standard is simple,…
A Tale of Three Restaurants
I prefer the waiter at Galatoire’s who told us to avoid the trout because it wasn’t very good that day. That’s useful information. But it’s simply impossible to imagine a…
Food: The Cornerstone of Christian Credibility
This spring, Joel Salatin spoke at Patrick Henry College on "Food: The Cornerstone of Christian Credibility." I'm happy to be able to make an audio recording of this lecture available…
Progressivism vs. Conservatism?
That some "progressives" may be conservatives, while most "conservatives" are actually progressives.
The Anti-Propaganda of Calvin Coolidge
In a wonderful little essay on Calvin Coolidge (Calvin Coolidge: Puritanism de Luxe) written in 1926, Walter Lippmann described the president as having mastered the “technique of anti-propaganda” by sapping…
Philanthropic freedom, freedom of association, and CLS v. Martinez
I hope that a Porcher will react at length to today's dispiriting, but not too surprising, Supreme Court ruling in CLS v. Martinez, which upheld a public institution's -- the…
A Garden of Remembrance
I was just a boy with spindly limbs and boney knees, but I knew the importance of stories, so I sat with my grandparents on the porch, and drank sweet…
Dr. Krustian, Phd.
Over on the hip lefty Sojourner's blog, Chris Rice douses the fires of American sin with the holy waters of sanctimony in an entry ominously and alliteratively titled: "The War, the Well, and…