Political Thought
I think an important distinction needs to be made in this discussion about re-invigorating the Rhode Island Republican Party by “defining conservatism.’ The attempt to excise the social aspects from the holistic definition of conservatism–essentially smaller government and traditional morality–indicates that it’s not conservatism that is being defined so much as Rhode Island Republicanism. The…
The comments to my most recent post on same-sex marriage rapidly branched off into discussion of a Westerly Republican politician who is, apparently, homosexual. Having not researched the man for myself, I won’t presume to offer analysis; I’ll merely explain that the initial question posed by a commenter, Bryan, was: “How can a man who…
The comments sections of Part I: The Difference Between Religious Freedom and Religious Tolerance Part II: Are We Hostile Toward or Encouraging Religious Belief? Part III: Consequences of Excluding Religion from the Public Square of this Theocrats, Moral Relativism & the Myth of Religious Tolerance series, plus Justin’s Favoring the Non-Participatory posting, offer up many…
Part I in this series discussed how there is an important distinction between “tolerance” and “freedom.” Justin, in a subsequent email to me, described it this way: Tolerance asserts authority; freedom implies autonomy, perhaps even precedence. Part II in this series noted how both the role of religion in the public square of our society…
In a comment to the Part I posting, Joe Mahn writes: …From my simple perspective and I think in the context of the actual events of the time religious freedom meant that no State in the Union under the Constitution could force, by law, any citizen to participate in, confess, or otherwise practice any particular…
Do we believe in reason and the ability to distinguish between right and wrong? Do we believe in and teach the uniqueness of our Western Civilization tradition? Or, has the relativism of multiculturalism dumbed it all down to where there are no standards of excellence or truth discoverable by some combination of reason or faith?…
The New Republic’s Open University is a new blog with the goal of providing a place for “the magazine’s contributors and friends in the professoriate comment on current events, bring their expertise to bear on Topic A, and discuss the academic issues of the day.” As one with a bit of “policy wonkishness”, my interest…
This posting is Part VII in a series of postings about economic thoughts. This posting contains excerpts from Chapter 2 of Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman’s 1962 classic book, Capitalism & Freedom in which he discusses the role of government in a free society: …To the [nineteenth-century] liberal, the appropriate means are free discussion and voluntary…
This posting is Part V in a series of postings about economic thoughts. This posting contains excerpts from the Introduction of Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman’s 1962 classic book, Capitalism & Freedom in which he begins a discussion about the relationship between economic freedom and political freedom: …The free man will ask neither what his country…
To lessen the lack of clarity in the immigration debate about what it means to be an American citizen, let’s go back to the first principles of the American Founding. The Claremont Institute has developed a web-based overview of the Declaration of Independence which includes these sub-sections: A Guide to the Declaration of Independence Issues…