Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'rights'

December 14, 2015

Children Are a Gift to Civilization

With our newfound economic prosperity and the political liberalization of the West, we have transitioned into an era of hyper consumerism and choice. This involves all sorts of blessings, to be sure, but it brings its own distinct risks. Continue Reading...
July 10, 2014

The Last Article on the Hobby Lobby Case You’ll Ever Need to Read

Are you sick to death of hearing about the recent Hobby Lobby contraceptive mandate kerfuffle? Me too. Yes, it’s one of the most important religious liberty cases in decades. But the constant debates about the case on blogs, newspapers, TV, radio, and social media, has left even those of us concerned about freedom beaten and exhausted. Continue Reading...
March 31, 2014

Four Decades with Thomas Jefferson

20th Century historian Dumas Malone praised Thomas Jefferson as the exemplar of liberty. “To all who cherish freedom and abhor tyranny in any form, [Jefferson] is an abiding hope that springs eternal,” declared Malone. Continue Reading...
January 21, 2013

Do Plants and Animals Have Civil Rights?

Earlier this month I attended the First Kuyper Seminar, “Economics, Christianity & The Crisis: Towards a New Architectonic Critique,” in Amsterdam. One of the papers presented was from Jan Jorrit Hasselaar, who discussed the inclusion of non-human entities into democratic deliberation in his talk, “Sustainable Development as a Social Question.” I got the impression (this is my analogy, not Hasselaar’s) that there was some need for a kind of tribune (for plants instead of plebeians), who would speak up for the interests of those who could not speak for themselves. Continue Reading...
May 28, 2012

Memorial Day and the Right to Be Wrong

Last week I wondered about the student protests here in Quebec and the logic of the welfare state. In some conversations on these topics, I was challenged to consider the social meaning of phenomena like this (e.g. Continue Reading...
September 03, 2009

Health Care and ‘Rights’ Talk

I’m becoming more and more convinced that the talk of health care as a ‘right’ is so vague as to border on willful and culpable obfuscation. I certainly advocate a rich and complex description of ‘rights’ talk, such that simply calling something a ‘right’ doesn’t end the ethical or political discussion. Continue Reading...
August 06, 2009

The Right to Health Care is Wrong

History shows us that civil rights can exist as nothing more than legal fiction. Take, for example, the right to vote. Although suffrage was extended to African-Americans under the Constitution in 1870, that right was little more than a nice idea until the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Continue Reading...