There is a lot of intellectual fuss about ‘authoritarianism’ nowadays, because of the rise of Donald Trump and what appears to be the overthrow of traditional ‘fusion’ conservatism. A long essay by Amanda Taub in “Vox” is the most thorough […]
Conservatism
Trump and Sanders: Where You’ve Seen Them Before
The rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders is kind of a shock to the American system. But a European would know exactly, in my opinion, where they fit in. Trump is not at all a conservative according to the […]
Heterosexual Cohabitation and The Church – After Obergefell
The historic church, evangelical, Catholic, and Orthodox, has taken a dim view of ‘cohabitation,’ which used to be called ‘shacking up’ or ‘living in sin.’ The faithful churches in fact generally try to deny the Sacrament to those in cohabitation. […]
Edward Kleinbard Says, Don’t Soak the Few and the Rich
Edward Kleinbard, a professor at the University of Southern California, has pointed out that despite and in the face of extreme income inequality, not only is America’s tax system fairly ‘progressive’, its spending is fairly progressive in that the less […]
Hasn’t it Always Been Babylon?
Rod Dreher, one of our favorites on this site, has written a column called “From Israel to Babylon” of which the sources are largely drawn from the Southern Baptists. The younger Southern Baptists expect to be a religious minority, which, […]
No, “New Urbanism” and “Smart Growth” are Not the Same
There are two political movements in urban development that have a lot of overlap but are not the same. ‘New Urbanism’ advocates the legalization and building of communities resembling the 19th century American town, with a fair number of single […]
My Great Art Epiphany of 1995
I think I must have read, somewhere before 1995, that arts institutions were taking the place of religious institutions among the upper classes of this country. But it did not stick with me until an important epiphany I had in […]
Michael Lind’s New Paradigm, and the ‘End’ of Social Conservatism
Michael Lind has released a new essay titled “The Coming Realignment” in The Breakthrough Journal, one of the most innovative magazines around today. He predicts that social conservatism as we know it will fade away, but that we will not […]
Why Social Conservatives are Still Needed
David Frum, who has written an e-book called While Romney Lost, says here that social conservatives [for which read Christians] are still useful, because they are the ones more likely to call attention to inequality and the declining living standard […]
Why I am not a Communitarian
A philosophy called ‘communitarianism’ has often been proposed recently as an alternative to the growing libertarianism of our time. This philosophy, they say, can combine social conservatism and economic moderation, as well as potentially reviving an emphasis on the local […]