The Editors
Articles by The Editors
Conservative Wisdom from an Original Radical
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Last Friday, Tom Hayden, co-founder of the Students for a Democratic Society, principal author of 1962's Port Huron Statement (or, if you Big Lebowski fans…
God and Country
The splendid university where I’ve been privileged to spend the past semester proudly proclaims its commitment to “God, Country, Notre Dame” and means what it says. If not identical, God’s…
Benedict XVI – Porcher
From an address calling for a renewal of agricultural work by Pope Benedict in November, 2010: "To this end, it is essential to cultivate and spread a clear ethic that…
Still on the Line
In which I attend a Glen Campbell concert. As a Christmas bonus, two tunes from the displaced Arkansan's haunting valedictory album: here and here.
Life Under Compulsion: Human-Scale Tools and the Slavish Education State
When he was governor of Maine, Angus King made sure that there was a computer on the desk of every middle-school child in the state. As I write these words,…
Life Under Compulsion: If Teachers Were Plumbers
This is Part IV of a series of essays. For previous installments of "Life Under Compulsion," see Part I, Part II, and Part III. “Good morning, Mr. Jones,” says the man…
After Romney: Republican Soul-Searching
These remarks were delivered before the Notre Dame College Republicans at a panel devoted to discussing the future of the Republican Party. As an independent, I am not especially interested…
Memory and the Damming State
The family’s life in this village had come to an end when the lake was dammed in 1958. One wonders who would consider such things worth it.
A Post-Election Symposium
The following is a series of reflections and ruminations on Decision 2012, courtesy of FPR writers-at-large. Winnebago County, IL. Following Standard Operating Procedures, Republican bosses in Washington [and their lackeys…
Life Under Compulsion: The Billows Teaching Machine
Charlie Chaplin is working on an assembly line. He tightens bolts with a pair of wrenches. He does this without stop, over and over, for hours on end. The repetitive…
Considering the Alternatives: The Editors on the Election
If Americans don’t vote in record numbers in this year’s election it won’t be because they haven’t been reminded. Bob Schieffer concluded the third debate with an admonishment to vote.…
Of Bees and Boys
My brother Brett and I were polite but rambunctious children who made a game of killing bees and dumping their carcasses into buckets of rainwater. Having heard that bees, like…
What’s Paleo About Evangelicalism?
The Baylor University historian, Thomas Kidd, wrote a post recently in his regular column at Patheos about evangelicals who are neither liberal nor comfortable with the GOP. He referred to…
Limits and Conscientious Consumption
Lincoln, I was informed when I was nine years old, freed the slaves. I learned that lesson well; I was an excellent student. Lincoln freed the slaves and, in my…
Finger Foods
Set in the heart of the Burned-Over District, the Finger Lakes region of New York is among the culturally, historically, and culinarily richest parts of the country. Now it has…
Life Under Compulsion: From Schoolhouse to School Bus
“Imagine,” said my friend, “how long it takes the bus to go from Little Anse,” a village at the extreme end of the island where my family and I spend…
George McGovern, RIP
My 2006 profile/interview of the patriot from Mitchell, South Dakota: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/come-home-america-2/.
The Passing of Two Great Intellectual Historians
News of the passing of Gene Genovese and Henry May took the wind out of these aging sails. In addition to reading these historians while in grad school almost thirty…
Intellectual Historians on Intellectual Conservatism
Seth Bartee over at the U.S. Intellectual History blog has a piece on the Intercollegiate Studies Institute which includes a reference or two to FroPo conservatives: Essentially neo-conservatives successfully homogenized…
Leaving Washington
Notre Dame, IN. It was on the virtual “pages” of the Front Porch Republic that I announced last February that I was leaving Georgetown University, in Washington D.C., to accept a…
Life Under Compulsion
In 1940, when the Nazis attacked their supposed racial kinfolk in Norway and set up a puppet government under the odious Quisling, the novelist Sigrid Undset fled to the countryside…
A Goodman is Hard to Find
I’m happy to report that New York Review Books has just reprinted Growing Up Absurd (1960), Paul Goodman’s classic plea for the human scale against the postwar corporate and military-industrial…