“Who would actually think they are able to do a job of this significance and this difficulty?” Gayle recently spoke with former Senator Rick Santorum about faith, politics, the presidency, and life. Click here to listen to our fifteen minute discussion or read the . . . . Continue Reading »
One last response to Witherington’s criticisms of Defending Constantine , and I’d be an ingrate if I didn’t express my appreciation for the many positive things that Witherington said about the book. I’m grateful that he thought the book worth interacting with at all. His . . . . Continue Reading »
Alasdair MacIntyre’s comment is often quoted, and exaggerated in a curmudgeonly way, but it gets at so much of the truth of modern politics that it’s worth another citation: “The modern nation state, in whatever guise, is a dangerous and unmanageable institution, presenting itself . . . . Continue Reading »
Why can’t we just close off the border with Mexico? William Cavanaugh suggests a cynical explanation: We don’t want to, because they serve an essential purpose. A porous border does what neither an open border nor a closed border can do. Closed borders would keep out the laborers we . . . . Continue Reading »
In his latest book ( Migrations of the Holy: God, State, and the Political Meaning of the Church ), William Cavanaugh offers an intriguing analysis of the liturgy of war memorials. Drawing on Marvin and Ingle’s Blood Sacrifice and the Nation: Totem Rituals and the American Flag (Cambridge . . . . Continue Reading »
It’s the heyday of the hidden camera.Though it is by no means a new phenomenon (Richard Nixon gave us the audio, and Marion Barry was busted in black and white), this week’s hidden camera/hidden microphone stings of National Public Radio executives seem to be symptomatic of the new norm . . . . Continue Reading »
“If we were pacifists, we would have been in the wrong jobs, because I don’t think it’s advisable to have pacifists in the White House, particularly for situations like 9/11. In government, you take an oath to protect your fellow citizens and you have to take that . . . . Continue Reading »
In his Discourses on Livy , Machiavelli speculates nostalgically that the anemic modern attachment to freedom is due to the insipidity of modern sacrifice: “When I meditated on the reason why people were more in love with freedom in those ancient times than they are now, I saw it was because . . . . Continue Reading »
In the January 24 issue of The New Yorker, Atul Gawande reports on the work of Jeffrey Brenner, a medical doctor in Camden, New Jersy, who discovered that the toughest patients used an astonishing proportion of the health care dollars in Camden: “He made block-by-block maps of the city, . . . . Continue Reading »
The Canadian philosophy George Grant viewed Roe as “poison” to liberalism because of its “unthought ontology.” He elaborates: “In adjudicating for the right of the mother to choose whether another member of her species lives or dies, the judge is required to make an . . . . Continue Reading »
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