The Domestic Consequences of Foreign Wars

By |2017-06-12T16:12:04-05:00July 31st, 2010|Categories: Foreign Affairs, Glenn Davis, Robert Nisbet, War|Tags: |

There is no quicker way to get the blood up than to question the integrity of our nation’s war policies. Yet, on the political right, it used to be respectable, without being narrowly isolationist or pacifist, to examine and challenge the wisdom of military engagement, especially abroad. We need mention just a few names to [...]

Dangers of Expansionism: An Isolated, but not a Pacifist, Query

By |2017-06-12T16:06:57-05:00July 31st, 2010|Categories: Bruce Frohnen, Foreign Affairs, War|

It seems we have our first glimmering of a controversy on this journal. The republishing on an article by Pat Buchanan, coming fast on the heels of George Carey’s strong, reasoned critique of American foreign policy has spawned combox charges of “neopacifism” and, of course “isolationism.” There is much worth discussing and arguing about, here. [...]

Kirk’s Sanctuary for Academic Leisure: Books, Wine, Beer

By |2017-06-12T16:01:50-05:00July 31st, 2010|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Education, Featured, Liberal Learning, Russell Kirk|

As I prepare for a forthcoming Liberty Fund colloquium, celebrating the venerable institution’s 50th anniversary, I’ve had the honor of reading an article on higher education by Russell Kirk–a piece I had never come across before. Entitled “The Revitalized College: A Model,” Kirk outlined his ideal college. As he always does, beginning with first principles, [...]

Robert Nisbet, War, and the American Republic

By |2022-09-28T23:57:21-05:00July 30th, 2010|Categories: Featured, Federalist Papers, Foreign Affairs, George W. Carey, Robert Nisbet, War|Tags: |

Winston does well in bringing Robert Nisbet’s teaching to bear upon the basic problems we confront (War, Crisis and Centralization of Power). An assigned reading in my contemporary American conservative course at Georgetown is Nisbet’s The Present Age. While this work incorporates much of his previous thought and findings, I assign it primarily because it is [...]

T.E. Hulme: The First Conservative of the Twentieth Century

By |2020-09-15T15:36:47-05:00July 30th, 2010|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christian Humanism, Conservatism, Culture, Modernity, T.E. Hulme, T.S. Eliot|

History should never have forgotten T.E. Hulme, and we would do well to remember him and what he wrote. Indeed, the German shell that took his life in the early autumn of 1917 might have changed a considerable part of the twentieth century by removing Hulme from it. Our whole “Time of Troubles” as Kirk [...]

Gather Round the Hearth to Enjoy Things

By |2017-06-12T15:51:15-05:00July 28th, 2010|Categories: Glenn Davis, Old Republic, Richard Weaver, Russell Kirk|Tags: |

Our pessimism begins with the realization that very few of our neighbors subscribe to such views today, maybe excepting the “loathing of public debt, taxes, and excises.” As Professors Frohnen and Birzer state, with the Louisiana Purchase, the original republican himself, Jefferson politically succumbed to the impulse to expand the nation and inflate the desires [...]

On War, Crisis and Centralization of Power

By |2020-04-06T11:37:58-05:00July 27th, 2010|Categories: Foreign Affairs, Robert Nisbet, War|

No one can miss the degree to which war becomes increasingly an anodyne for internal torments and frustrations. As the way out of economic crisis, political division, and intolerable social disintegration, war, despite its consecration of force and violence, its raw disciplines, and its heavy blanket of regimentation upon a social order, becomes attractive to [...]

Friendship & New Englanders

By |2017-06-12T15:44:58-05:00July 26th, 2010|Categories: Community, Culture, Friendship, John Willson|

Most of us learn about friendship from our families, just as we learn about everything else worth knowing from our families. Mine is an old New England family, farmers and preachers and doctors and lawyers, and tradesmen, not many in commerce. Nobody up to my generation was ever rich, nobody particularly poor, so there was [...]

Is It Too Late for the American Republic?

By |2017-06-12T15:43:09-05:00July 26th, 2010|Categories: American Republic, Politics, Russell Kirk, W. Winston Elliott III|

I find myself in a difficult position in replying to Brad Birzer’s essay “Westward, The Loss of the Republic.” First, I have great respect for my very good friend Dr. Birzer and agree with him on the essence of conservatism and most other important questions. Secondly, he is usually the hopeful one and, to put [...]

Westward, the Loss of the Republic

By |2023-05-21T21:31:02-05:00July 23rd, 2010|Categories: American Founding, American Republic, Bradley J. Birzer, Foreign Affairs, Politics|

How can one look back at the piercing light radiating from Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 and believe we have upheld the gifts of the Founders with any dignity or integrity? Confession of confessions, we simply can’t. The question then becomes, where did it all go wrong? After having spent a week with some [...]

Britain’s Leader Carves Identity as Budget Cutter—NY Times

By |2017-06-12T15:32:41-05:00July 23rd, 2010|Categories: Economics, Political Economy, W. Winston Elliott III|

Below is an excerpt from a NY Times article (7/20/10) on the new British Prime Minister’s plan to cut government spending 25% and shrink government bureaucracy (I added a few comments in all caps). Tough economic times are the only reason such a plan has a chance. Wait a minute, aren’t we having tough economic [...]

“Where is the Hope for Conservatives?”

By |2017-06-12T15:29:40-05:00July 22nd, 2010|Categories: Bruce Frohnen, Conservatism|

I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Elliott’s latest essay (“A Conservatism of Hope?”). Pining and whining are pastimes of great expense to the soul. To give the doomsayers their (perhaps I should say “our”) due, however, the question remains, “where should we look in our quest for hope?” For too long conservatives have looked to a political [...]

A Conservatism of Hope?

By |2017-06-12T15:27:56-05:00July 22nd, 2010|Categories: Conservatism, Russell Kirk, W. Winston Elliott III|

 by Winston Elliott III Winston Elliott III “Long before our own time, the customs of our ancestors moulded admirable men, and in turn these eminent men upheld the ways and institutions of their forebears.  Our age, however, inherited the Republic like some beautiful painting of bygone days, its colors already fading through great [...]

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