America has “bad-faith open borders.” We limit immigration but we enforce those limits only sporadically. Fred Bauer argues that this “is a distorted hybrid of the United States’ tradition of ordered borders and of the transnationalist aim of entirely open borders.” The distortion is real, but it is not rooted entirely in transnationalism. It is also rooted in a certain kind of American exceptionalism that has a history on the right, but that conservatives don’t talk about very much. Getting past “bad-faith open borders” will require rejecting romanticism and looking to the facts of the American present. Continue Reading »
With cynicism about politics widespread, it’s good to have James Skillen’s seasoned, balanced reminder of The Good of Politics. A few excerpts.At the outset, Skillen questions the common separation of politics and culture: “can political really be distinguished as a realm separate . . . . Continue Reading »
Our political leaders generally discuss education in terms of economic development and competitiveness. Adam Smith, arguably the founder of modern economics, did not. Continue Reading »
Milbank’s Beyond Secular Order: The Representation of Being and the Representation of the Peoplepresupposes that there is a homology between metaphysics and politics. He identifies four assumptions of modern philosophy: “(1) the univocity rather than analogy of being; ( 2) knowledgeby . . . . Continue Reading »
One thing that struck me about presidential elections in the post-1984 era was that, of the candidates who have serious hopes of winning their party’s nomination, the Democrats tried to seem more moderate than they really were while the Republicans tried to seem more radical than they . . . . Continue Reading »
Two National Review reporters have taken prominent positions in right-leaning institutions. This is good news for the country.Over the last eight or so years, a group of conservative writers (Ross Douthat, Yuval Levin, Reihan Salam, Ramesh Ponnuru and many—-though not enough—-others) . . . . Continue Reading »
I’ve been down with the flu, so not much from me this week,1. If I ran a national television news division, I would immediately hire Mollie Hemingway to do lengthy reported pieces.2. Imagine you are in your late teens or early twenties. You are in the top third of your age-group for intelligence . . . . Continue Reading »
For Sedulius Scottus (On Christian Rulers), royal piety was both royal and pious. He urged rulers to practice Christian virtues in their political lives.He encourages kings to a life of prayer, giving several examples of how the Lord “shielded [men] from the dangers of death by holy prayers . . . . Continue Reading »
