http://blog.acton.org "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:12:01 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The other day I was tracking down a quotation I heard repeated at a local gathering and came across an interesting book published in 1834. On the title page of the "Googled" Oaths; Their Origin, Nature and History someone had scribbled "full of information... a superior work." The introductory paragraph ... http://blog.acton.org/archives/13023-oaths-lies-and-social-responsibility.html With the health care debate heating up once again, and a vote pending on the legislation on Saturday in the US Senate, here are a few bits of commentary on the process from Acton's audio archives that will help you to understand some of the important issues at stake: September 10, ... http://blog.acton.org/archives/12942-health-care-principles-to-remember.html This morning, Kishore Jayabalan - Director of Acton's Rome office - joined hosts Melanie Morgan and Ernest Istook on America's Morning News to discuss the ongoing controversy over abortion coverage in the hotly debated Obama/Pelosi/Reid health care bills currently under consideration by Congress, and to give some perspective on ... http://blog.acton.org/archives/12939-catholics-abortion-and-the-health-care-debate.html A common criticism of Catholic social teaching from businesspeople is that it remains too vague or abstract to provide concrete guidance for daily practice. There's a new blog at CatholicCulture.org, where Peter Mirus, as a businessman, reflects on the moral dimensions of various aspects of his work. Here, for example, ... http://blog.acton.org/archives/12935-catholic-business-blog.html [caption id="attachment_12923" align="alignright" width="240" caption="\'Waiting to be shot\' by Nikolai Getman"][/caption]I linked Daniel Crandall's fine commentary on the paucity of films devoted to the Gulag in this week's Acton News & Commentary (sign up here). But do to an, ahem, editing error the link did not send readers to The ... http://blog.acton.org/archives/12922-the-gulag-lives-on-%e2%80%93-but-not-in-our-culture.html It’s over a year now since the 2008 financial crisis spread havoc throughout the global economy. Dozens of books and articles have appeared to explain what went wrong. They identify culprits ranging from Wall Street financiers overleveraging assets, to ACORN lobbying policy-makers to lower mortgage standards, to politicians closely connected ... http://blog.acton.org/archives/12917-the-financial-crisis-what-we-still-haven%e2%80%99t-learned.html How do we restore confidence in free markets? Formulate a robust explanation of their moral value. Read Economic Liberalism and its Discontents on Public Discourse. In his recent book The Creation and Destruction of Value, Princeton University’s Harold James observes that the 2008 financial crisis resulted in more than the devastation ... http://blog.acton.org/archives/12856-economic-liberalism-and-its-discontents.html This weekend's Grand Rapids Press featured a story about the release of the NIV Stewardship Study Bible. Ann Byle writes, Three Grand Rapids-based organizations and numerous local residents joined forces recently to create a study Bible that focuses on stewardship. The Acton Institute, the Stewardship Council and Zondervan brought the NIV Stewardship ... http://blog.acton.org/archives/12852-studying-stewardship-in-scripture.html Black leaders constantly remind Americans of our racism. Should not these same leaders protest the expansion of government control contained in the health-care reform bill currently working its way through Congress? Here’s why. Notwithstanding their rhetoric of freedom and empowerment, many prominent black leaders appear content to send blacks back to ... http://blog.acton.org/archives/12847-acton-commentary-government-health-care-back-to-the-plantation.html The Economist marked the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by observing that there was “so much gained, so much to lose.” As the world celebrates the collapse of communism, who would have imagined that in less than one generation we would witness a resurgence of socialism ... http://blog.acton.org/archives/12841-acton-commentary-after-the-berlin-wall-the-enduring-power-of-socialism.html