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January 08, 2016

Samuel Gregg: Russell Kirk and Twentieth-Century American Conservatism

At The Public Discourse, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg reviews Bradley J. Birzer’s new book Russell Kirk: American Conservative. The book, Gregg writes, amply shows how “Kirk’s broad scope of interests was matched by genuine erudition that enabled him to see the connections between, for instance, culture and American foreign policy, or the significance of moral philosophy for one’s commitments in the realm of political economy.” Continue Reading...
January 07, 2016

Angus Deaton, World Poverty and the Crusade against Fossil Fuels

For this writer, kissing last year goodbye was less a buss on the cheek than it was a kick in Old Man 2015’s behind. The previous year was chock-full of banalities and trivialities regarding religious shareholder activists and their opposition to fossil fuels and the companies that bring them to market – all while hypocritically traversing the globe in their luxe tour buses and big jet airliners to lend supposed Divine authority to the religion of Gaia. Continue Reading...
January 06, 2016

North Korea’s H-bomb of ‘justice’

North Koreans might not have food to eat this year, but their government has announced that it has successfully tested a miniaturized hydrogen bomb. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) released the following statement earlier today in Vienna: “Our monitoring stations picked up an unusual seismic event in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) today at 01:30:00 (UTC). Continue Reading...
January 06, 2016

Religious Activists Wage War on Oreos, Triscuits, and Ritz Crackers

Every so often your writer is reduced to scratching his head bemusedly at what leftist religious shareholder activists deem worthy of prioritization. Whether based on religious faith or not, it always seemed to me shareholders’ concerns should be maximization of return on investments rather than reshaping the world into a progressive utopia. Continue Reading...
January 06, 2016

Cultural Stewardship and Institutional Scrutiny

In today’s Acton Commentary, I have some further reflections on the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. The basic thrust of the piece is to encourage institutional thinking. We should expect that humans are going to institutionalize their goals because humans are natural institution builders, or culture makers. Continue Reading...
January 06, 2016

Letter from Rome: The end of fusionism?

The American political writer Frank S. Meyer is known as the father of “fusionism,” which is usually defined as the synthesis between traditionalist and libertarian thought in modern conservatism. In practical political terms, it brought together social conservatives, free-market advocates, and proponents of a strong national defense to fight against Communism abroad and the welfare state at home and formed the basis of Ronald Reagan’s governing coalition, as well as of think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute and the Acton Institute. Continue Reading...