Month: June 2010

June 15, 2010

Public Schools: Adult Employment Programs

I’ve long argued that school choice is the quintessential bipartisan cause, with boundless potential to transform American primary and secondary education. Yet, for various reasons (all of them bad), it has failed to live up to that potential—its significant successes in various places notwithstanding. Continue Reading...
June 11, 2010

Review: William F. Buckley Jr.

Lee Edwards calls William F. Buckley Jr. “The St. Paul of the conservative movement.” No other 20th century figure made such a vast contribution to the intellectual force of political conservatism. Continue Reading...
June 10, 2010

Acton Commentary — Europe: The Unjust Continent

This week’s Acton Commentary from Research Director Samuel Gregg. +++++++++ Europe: The Unjust Continent By Samuel Gregg In recent months, the European social model has been under the spotlight following Greece’s economic meltdown and the fumbling efforts of European politicians to prop up other tottering European economies. Continue Reading...
June 10, 2010

Acton on Tap: Tolkien and the Free Society

A reminder that tonight’s Acton on Tap promises to be another good one. Jonathan Witt, writer and Research Fellow at the Acton Institute, will lead a discussion about J.R.R. Tolkien’s views on freedom, capitalism, socialism, and distributism, and he will look at some of the ways those views have been misrepresented. Continue Reading...
June 07, 2010

Acton Lecture Series: Alinsky for Dummies

We’re posting the audio from Mr. Joseph Morris’ excellent May 6 Acton Lecture Series presentation, Alinsky for Dummies: His Persistent Influence and Its Meaning for American Society and Politics. As Lord Acton warned that power corrupts, Saul Alinsky — the father of modern “community organizing” — rejoiced that corruption empowers. Continue Reading...
June 03, 2010

Ecology and Economy

I just finished writing a review of Robert H. Nelson’s book, The New Holy Wars: Economic Religion vs. Environmental Religion in Contemporary America (Penn State University Press, 2010) that will appear later this year in Calvin Theological Journal. Continue Reading...
June 02, 2010

Acton Commentary: Reappraising the Right

In this week’s Acton Commentary, I reviewed a new book by George H. Nash on the history of the American conservative movement: Reappraising the Right By Bruce Edward Walker In his 1950 work, “The Liberal Imagination,” Lionel Trilling famously stated that American liberalism was the one true political philosophy, claiming it as the nation’s “sole intellectual tradition.” Continue Reading...
June 01, 2010

Self-Sufficiency in Sand Lake

This is a really intriguing story about a small community beset by an unfriendly local tax environment, “Sand Lake civil war: Move to dissolve village comes down to taxes.” The village government of Sand Lake, Michigan, is threatened with dissolution. Continue Reading...