Economics & Empire 369
Multiply Your Associations and be Free
My review of Robert Nisbet's classic The Quest for Community was just published at the On-Line Library of Law and Liberty, whose stated purpose is "to bring together high-caliber conservative…
The Music of The Spheres and The Terminally Tone-Deaf
I was watching a film called Chartres Cathedral and the Geometry of the Sacred the other day. For some reason, the Gothic gargoyles put me in mind of the Republican…
Wes Jackson, Localism, and the Carbon-Based Community
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] A couple of days ago, I had the lucky opportunity to listen up close to Wes Jackson, founder of The Land Institute here in Kansas,…
“Freedom or Virtue?” Revisited
About this time last year, Mitch Daniels, the Republican Governor of Indiana, stirred some controversy by calling on conservatives to declare a truce on so-called “social issues” so that they…
Running for President? How About Running Somewhere Else.
Holland MI. As if my beloved state of Michigan hasn’t had enough problems, we now have Republican presidential candidates skittering across our fair soil and bucolic shorelines, plugging up our phone…
There is No Such Thing as a Bank Loan
“Dexia” is not a word familiar to most Americans, and if told that it is a French bank in need of a fresh bailout, the knowledge would likely elicit no…
The Closing of the Republican Mind (A Séance)
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…
Democracy and Coercion
Like other readers here at FPR, and across the web, I have been following the Great Salyer/Carter Debate of 2012 with much interest. I thought Mr. Salyer’s original article was…
In Beauty We Should Damn Well Trust
Washington, Ct. The recent contretemps between the blessedly described “liberal conservatives” at the First Things web site and our own clutch of barking mongrels here at the homespun Porch revealed…
Friends and Strangers: A Meditation on Money
I start my meditation with a true story that will serve as a parable. On his 21st birthday, the nature writer Francis Thompson was presented by his father with a…
Agrarian Hypocrisy and the Evils of Distributism
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…
Gas Bag
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…
Occupy Food! (And Other Simple Things)
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] As Christmas and the end of 2011 approaches, I find myself thinking gratefully about what Leroy Hershberger has enabled my students and me to learn…
“Even mainstream Democrats have no time for Mr. Paul . . .”
Devon, PA. We face only two feasible policies in America's engagement with the world. We can seek to be a bomb-throwing hegemon until the money, and the credit, and the bodies, run…
Occupy Oligarchy!
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…
Compensation: The Cultural Contradictions of Philanthrocapitalism
Every excess causes a defect; every defect an excess. — Ralph Waldo Emerson It is appropriate that Robin Rogers begins her informative essay on the state of philanthrocapitalism with a…
Cars, Individualism, and the Paradox of Freedom in a Mass Society
The automobile squared perfectly with a distinctive American ideal of freedom—freedom of mobility.
Global Warming, Local Farming, and Naomi Klein: A Trip to the Land Institute
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wichita, KS A couple of weeks ago some fine intellectuals, political figures, journalists, and activists associated with this blog gathered together to talk about localism,…
A Question for David Brooks
Alexandria, VA On Monday night of this week, New York Times columnist David Brooks spoke at Georgetown University at the invitation of the program that I founded and direct, "The…
On the Use of a Grim Joke and a National Elegy
Until then you’ll welcome into your homes the talking heads who, loving an abstraction, spread a pestilential hatred.
Nine Eleven
Alexandria, VA September 11, 2001, we are frequently told, is the day that "changed everything." For the 3,000 people in New York City and Washington D.C. who were killed on…
The Dangers of Professional Philanthropy
Maybe you are the kind of donor who supports nonprofits in your community. Like many Americans, you give or tithe through your church or temple. You support local human-service organizations…
Interstate Commerce and Arizona Wine
The federal courts' extraordinarily broad interpretation of the Constitution's interstate commerce clause has long posed a problem for localists -- which is to say, for community self-governance. That has never…
