Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'freedom'

April 05, 2010

Roepke: Beyond Technique

First Principles, the excellent Web-based resource from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, has posted another “classic” from its extensive archive of journal articles, this one by Wilhelm Roepke. I’m snipping a kernel from “The Economic Necessity of Freedom” (Modern Age, Summer 1959) because it so succinctly and powerfully sums up why a moral framework — and our “highest values” — are necessary for a market economy that is not only efficient, but humane. Continue Reading...
March 08, 2010

An analogy for good government

Riffing off of Lord Acton’s quote on liberty and good government, I came up with an analogy that was well-received at last month’s inaugural Acton on Tap. In his essay, “The History of Freedom in Antiquity,” Acton said the following: Now Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together; but they do not necessarily go together. Continue Reading...
February 26, 2010

Popes Say No to Socialism

Popes in Rome have attempted to steer the Catholic flock away from the “seductive” forces of socialist ideologies threatening human liberty, which since the  late 1800s have relentlessly plucked away at  “the delicate fruit of  mature  civilizations” as  Lord Acton once said. Continue Reading...
November 09, 2009

The fall of the Berlin Wall: Reminiscence and reflection

Excerpts from remarks delivered at the Acton Institute annual dinner in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Oct. 29, 2009: Twenty years ago today, a growing tide of men and women in Eastern Europe and northern Asia were shaking off the miasma that had led so many to imagine that central economic planning could work. Continue Reading...
August 05, 2009

Acton Commentary: Healthcare, Democracy, and Freedom

With health care continuing to be a hot button issue, Hunter Baker brings to light a new argument in his commentary.  While Baker provides us with many prudential reasons to oppose the expansion of government health care, such as the currently proposed government plan not having any provision for preventing the trial lawyer windfalls that have helped contribute to medical inflation, he also articulates the fundamental problems that arise with the expansion of government health care: If we move from being a republic where certain freedoms (not only freedom of speech and religion, but also freedom of contract and freedom to own private property) are basically non-negotiable, to a simple mass democracy in which shifting coalitions of voters extract resources from their opponents, then we have lost the American genius of ordered liberty. Continue Reading...
July 01, 2009

Acton Commentary: The paradox of liberty

Liberty is something we have valued for years in the United States, and the recent events that have occurred in Iran and Honduras demonstrate there are many people throughout the world who wish they were blessed to live in a country that protects and values liberty.  Continue Reading...
February 25, 2009

New Short Video from Acton Media

The latest in the Birth of Freedom Video Shorts Series, this new video from Acton Media asks the question, “Was Abraham Lincoln a reluctant abolitionist?” William B. Allen, Professor of Political Science at Michigan State University gives the answer, discussing Lincoln’s views on human rights and equality.This Continue Reading...
August 25, 2008

CRC Sea to Sea tour week 8

The eighth week of the CRC’s Sea to Sea bike tour has been completed. The eighth and penultimate leg of the journey took the bikers from Grand Rapids to St. Catharines, Ontario, a total distance of 410 miles. Continue Reading...
August 04, 2008

Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008)

Solzhenitsyn “During all the years until 1961, not only was I convinced that I should never see a single line of mine in print in my lifetime, but, also, I scarcely dared allow any of my close acquaintances to read anything I had written because I feared that this would become known. Continue Reading...