Tom Brady and The Reality of Living in a World of Trade-Offs

Tom Brady was drafted by the New England Patriots in the unimpressive 6th round of the 2000 NFL draft out of the University of Michigan. No one predicted that the slow-footed, lumbering QB in this footage from pre-draft workouts that year would become one of the greatest players in the sport’s history. Continue Reading...

Vice, Virtue, and Shareholder Activism

King Louis XIV censored Moliere’s 1664 play Tartuffe after determining audience members might too easily confuse the titular priest’s hypocritical nature with every priest in real life. According to the king, some priests’ “true devotion leads on the path to heaven,” while others’ “vain ostentation of some good works does not prevent from committing some bad ones.” Continue Reading...

George Washington’s Example on Religious Liberty

For George Washington’s birthday, Julia Shaw reminds us that the indispensable man of the American Founding was also an important champion of religious liberty: All Presidents can learn from Washington’s leadership in foreign policy, in upholding the rule of law, and—especially now—in the importance of religion and religious liberty. Continue Reading...

Would Hayek Have Supported Obamacare?

“You can be for markets without being against redistribution,” says Erik Angner, a philosophy professor at George Mason University. Angner argues that the Nobel-winning economist Friedrich Hayek offers an alternative to contemporary liberals and leftists on the one hand and conservatives and libertarians on the other. Continue Reading...

Morality and the Origins of the Second Amendment

Some politicians are calling for new regulation and restrictions on firearms, but why and how does the Second Amendment strengthen liberty? In a thoughtful post at the Carolina Journal today, Troy Kickler offers this historical assessment: What did early jurists and constitutional commentators say regarding the Second Amendment? Continue Reading...