Place. Limits. Liberty.
Join us for FPR’s 2025 Conference on “Work and Leisure”

Articles Archive

Save Detroit. Start a Farm.

Detroit is a mess. The auto industry is collapsing. Crime is rampant. Anyone who could get out has left. Buildings are vacant. Large tracts of land, once formerly known as…
Mark T. Mitchell
November 3, 2009

FPR at Notre Dame this Weekend

Devon, PA.  I'm pleased to announce that FPR will be holding a panel discussion at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture's Annual Conference -- Summons to Freedom: Virtue,…

Social Injustice

{This column appears in today's Hoya, Georgetown's student newspaper.  My column is published fortnightly.} If there is one thing about which we are certain that we are pursuing at Georgetown,…
Patrick Deneen
November 3, 2009

Bourgeois Beauty and Bourgeois Relativism

Devon, PA.  For those FPR readers interested in keeping up with my ongoing series, Art and Beauty against the Politicized Aesthetic, the third and fourth parts have appeared on First…

Third Party?

Kearneysville, WV. The race for New York’s 23rd Congressional District’s open seat has garnered national attention. The Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, is currently running a few points behind Doug Hoffman,…
Mark T. Mitchell
November 2, 2009

The Front Porch Agenda?

With all the talk about "what is to be done," in terms of a decentralizing political agenda, I thought I'd throw some ideas out there, with the intent only of…
November 2, 2009

Jawboning: A Tale of Two Hardware Stores

Hamilton, Ontario. The other day I was standing in a cavernous mega-chain hardware store looking for gardening supplies. This was not an easy task because the store, which we can…

Empire’s Heir?

As the old saying suggests, be careful what you ask for, because you may get it.  The hubristic here in China are well on their way to discovering some uncomfortable…
October 29, 2009

Who Was the Real Winner in the New York 23rd Race?

There were several. But this biggest, I think, was: The American party process....The New York state GOP by-passed the primary process, and got slammed for it. A third party candidate…
October 28, 2009

The Stories We Tell…

Philadelphia, PA. If you have read just one of Wendell Berry’s novels or short stories, then you have glimpsed this Kentucky farmer’s love for family, place, and story.   In a contemplative…

Defending (Local) Prohibition(s)

Jacob Weisberg, in Slate, says that the spirit of Prohibition is dead, and those laws which still maintain elements of that spirit--stopping gay people from marrying, stopping sick people from…
October 27, 2009

You’re Probably Looking For Porn

Claremont, CA. If you don’t want to read the new report from Harvard Business School, titled “Understanding Users of Social Networks,” you can just listen to the song from Avenue…
October 27, 2009

Halloween Reading

"I love Old October so, I can't bear to see her go---" ---James Whitcomb Riley Via The American Conservative: http://www.amconmag.com/article/2009/dec/01/00050/ Subscribe, won't you? And your favorites.....?
October 26, 2009

What’s Local?

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…

Populist Revival?

JEFFERSON COUNTY, KS.  In light of Rod Dreher's kind "shout out"---that is, I believe, the proper blog parlance---it seems appropriate to re-run this essay that appeared in Rod's paper three years ago…
October 23, 2009

Progressive Liberalism Or: How to Stop Worrying and Learn to Love Big Government

American Liberalism:  An Interpretation for Our Time by John McGowan.  (Chapel Hill:  The University of North Carolina Press, 2007). Moorpark, CA. If the current administration is liberal, it matters what kind…

On Hospitality

As a founding editor of this here social club---the site's name is derived from the subtitle of one of my books---I just wanna say that the contributions and fellowship of…
October 22, 2009

James Poulos Says Something Very Important

"Straussians in basic agreement with Kristol answer yes to the first question. Though no great critics of Plato, pro-Tocquevillian Straussians must concede that Tocqueville’s vision of democratic despotism significantly qualifies…
October 22, 2009

Paul Gottfried Says Something Very Important

"While I’m not declaring that the battle against our enemies is irreversibly lost, I’m definitely saying that paleoconservatives will not win the battle they began."
October 22, 2009

Obama v. Fox News

Kearneysville, WV. It’s official. The Obama White House has declared that Fox News presents a slanted view of the news, one congenial to the Republicans and antagonistic to the administration.…
Mark T. Mitchell
October 22, 2009

The Pagan Church

Richard Spencer: "I guess I just respect and admire the church more when it’s in a bold, aggressive, “pagan” mood, and less when its leaders demand universal tolerance and cry…
October 21, 2009

Gauntlets

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…
Patrick Deneen
October 21, 2009

The “One Salvation” of Ludwig von Mises

There is no doubt that the Catholic Church supports the idea of a just social order, and has expounded on that order in the great Social Encyclicals. However, and despite…

The Final Word On Cell Phones

Rock Island, IL In the early days of FPR, and then again more recently, I was impertinent enough to write disparaging remarks about cell phones, which as everyone knows are…
Jason Peters
October 21, 2009