Three timewasters that will help you gauge where your affinities lie on the political spectrum. The varied results will show you just how much the formation of the questions affects how you are categorized. The links follow along with my score for each (post your scores in the comments section if you feel so inclined).

Read more on Where You Stand Politically…

Following up on yesterday’s entry about Ronald Aronson’s call for a renewed socialism in American politics, I offer this paragraph from J. Budziszewski’s book, What We Can’t Not Know.

Discussing the principle of subsidiarity as first explicitly articulated by Pius XI in the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, Budziszewski writes,

Read more on Budziszewski on Subsidiarity…

Ronald Aronson argues that the political left in America needs to get back to its true socialist roots in order to become a coherent and clear alternative in this article from The Nation, “The Left Needs More Socialism.”

Read more on Socialism Redivivus…

Over the weekend, the Daily Telegraph’s Charles Moore asked, “Why should the Left win the scramble for Africa?” :

[T]he trouble with this subject – perhaps this is why the Left dominates it – is that it attracts posturing. Africa is, among other things, a photo-opportunity. As our own educational system makes it harder and harder to get British pupils to smile at all, so the attraction for politicians of being snapped with rows of black children with happy grins grows ever stronger. The dark continent is awash with “goodwill ambassadors” who fly in for a couple of days to cure Aids before flying out to make the next movie.

Read more on Moral Posturing on Africa…

On January 21, 2006, Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse, author of Smart Sex: Finding Life-long Love in a Hook-up World and a Senior Fellow in Economics at the Acton Institute, gave this lecture at the Centesimus Annus Conference in Rome. Dr. Morse talks about the failure of the European welfare state to sustain economy and the demographic implications resulting from the “marginalization of the family.” Dr. Morse covers quite a bit of ground in this lecture, beginning with a critique of the evidence of a failing “European Social Model” and following up with the “Catholic alternative.”

Read more on Family and the New Economy…