Articles 356
Health Subsidiarity, or Solidarity, or Socialism (Take Your Pick)
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wichita, KS The debate over health care reform in the Senate has moved into overdrive, with one possible compromise following another in rapid succession. The…
Burn the Vineyard
I have just returned from one of the most remarkable journeys of my life, a ten day tour of Romania to promote an anthology of distributist and localist essays, Economic…
Homewreckers
County Kildare, Ireland. A couple I know – we’ll call them Bob and Nancy -- lived in a century-old house in the middle of their town, a few miles from…
Foreign Policy and the Gift of the World
Devon, PA. In February 2007, as the Iraq war crept to the end of its fourth year, I published this short essay, proposing a few notions on foreign policy that…
Words, Meaning, and Power
Kearneysville, WV. The publication of Sarah Palin’s autobiography, Going Rogue, provides an opportunity to discuss contemporary political rhetoric, especially the use of certain words that have the effect of shutting…
My Favorite Marsden
In today's Wall Street Journal I review Elyssa East's Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703939404574566772944605580.html. Among her subjects is the New England painter Marsden Hartley,…
Imitation and the Art of Flattery: the Cold War of the Imagination
Washington, Connecticut. At the end of his introduction to a re-publication of the Marquis de Custine’s "Empire of the Czar, A Journey Through Eternal Russia," George F. Kennan recalls a…
Sewers and Leashes: A Local Story
Hillsdale, MI. This is a true story. It happened once upon a time in a place I do not now live. After an arduous campaign I was elected to the…
The Grinch Who Moved Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving---or pre-Christmas, as it is known in marketing circles---is upon us, and between reading Truman Capote ("A Thanksgiving Visitor") and Lydia Maria Child ("Thanksgiving Day") and tossing around the football…
Localist Principles, Populist Words (or, The Problem Defined)
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] I suppose Front Porch Republic is experiencing growing pains, because all the talk lately is about "what's next?"--what cause, what platform, what principles or agenda…
Nuts
"What a good country or a good squirrel should be doing is stashing away nuts for the winter. The United States is not only not saving nuts, it’s eating the…
Is America Ungovernable?
Otto von Bismark, the 19th century Iron Chancellor and architect of modern Germany, once remarked that “If you like law and sausages, you shouldn't watch either being made.” One could…
Education as Moral Formation: A Localist Proposal
Holland, MI. I heard many fine presentations at Notre Dame’s Center for the Study of Ethics and Culture from November 12-14, and one in particular that piqued my interest was…
The Control of Nature
As reported in today's New York Times, New Orleans plaintiffs in a civil suit against the U.S. Government are elated at a ruling that has held the Government liable for…
… Neither Proud Nor Lonely
C.S. Lewis noted that “If you had asked Lazamon or Chaucer ‘Why do you not make up a brand-new story of your own?’ I think they might have replied (in…
Three Political Principles
Kearneysville, WV. This is a crucial moment in our nation’s history. People of all political stripes recognize that something is deeply amiss. Obama ran a successful campaign championing the idea…
Homo Economicus
On today’s campuses, the reigning principle on most academic matters is to avoid meddling in the affairs of others. Beyond very broad curricular requirements, we are to allow respective experts…
Ethos or Movement?
Overheard last night at the American Spectator Gala. "Conservatism must remain a movement. If it ceases to be a movement, it will become nothing more than an ethos." --R. Emmett…
Iron Mountain
Hillsdale, MI. Today the folks at NPR are having a grand old time remembering the Fall of the Wall. German rockers, Hungarian revolutionaries, Romanian artists--many stories of suffering and heroism,…
A Global Mea Culpa
I screwed up but I don’t know how to apologize to the parties involved. In this age of global communication, highspeed networks, and outsourcing, the people who I offended are…
False Economics and Malignant Growth
Patrick Deneen's excellent post this morning on populism, directly invoking Kansas, gives me the occassion to repost a short essay I wrote last year for my on again off again (more off…
What’s Not the Matter With Kansas
Tonight I happened to attend a pair of extremely interesting, and strikingly juxtaposed, events. The first was a Bradley Lecture at AEI delivered by Peter Berkowitz entited "The New Progressivism."…
The Fall of the Wall
In my misspent youth, I was a politician. And in my role as a politician, I did all the things that politicians do. Well, not all the things; I say…
Ah, Let the Courts Do it
In the continuing argument over what should or shouldn't be the responsibility of the government--and what government, whether local or state or national, should be responsible for it--there is, I…