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A friend of mine has been getting pushback from libertarian readers who dislike his use of the term “liberal” in its modern American meaning. I have nothing against anyone who wants to defend the honor of an older usage, but the history of Anglo-American political ideas is more complicated than my friend’s critics realize. Not [...]
Filed under: Ideology
“David Hume and the Conservative Tradition,” by Donald Livingston, makes a compelling case for the Scotsman as the lodestone of anti-ideological conservatism. It also reminds us that “American” exceptionalism has sources across the Atlantic: Hume was at odds with the Whig establishment of his time, which subscribed to the contract theory of government (a form [...]
Filed under: Ideology, Philosophy
The tail end of last week was a busy time for TAC staff. Thursday, which was also the first day of CPAC, was our print date. I made it to the conclave just long enough to emcee Thomas DiLorenzo’s talk, “Lincoln on Liberty: Friend or Foe?”, before hotfooting it back to the office for a [...]
Filed under: Ideology, Philosophy, The Left, War
There’s an irony worth pointing out in the story of the “Net Book Agreement,” which sounds like it ought to be something dealing with e-books but was actually a pact between British publishers and booksellers agreed to in 1899. The NBA specified that shops should sell books for prices set by the publishers; any discounting [...]
Filed under: Books, Ideology, Philosophy
I’ve just posted this in the comments of the item below, but it’s worth repeating here: If all a Tanenhaus wants is a Right that is a.) a little abashed about how Iraq turned out, but not really repentant, and b.) in favor of a “pro-family” welfare state, then he already has much of what [...]
Filed under: Ideology, Politics, Uncategorized
G.K. Chesterton never did say that the problem with atheism is not that it leads men to believe in nothing but that it leads them to believe in anything. That’s just as well, because the truth in that cliche is broader than the words themselves (in any permutation) denote. A more general statement might be: [...]
Filed under: Ideology
St. Louis blogger Thomas Knapp has two questions for the “birthers” who believe that Barack Obama is not a “natural born citizen” of the United States. His second is especially pointed: does it really make sense to be exercised about this particular clause of the Constitution if you don’t care about the constitutionally dubious character [...]
Filed under: Ideology
Austin Bramwell thinks the writers of Takimag missed the mark in parodying NRO for April Fool’s Day. Rather than analyze his critique point by point, allow me to suggest, as straight-facedly as I can, what the actual NRO credo looks like. The ideology sketched below is not just good for Lowry, Ponnuru, and Goldberg, however [...]
Filed under: Ideology
From a rather interesting 1977 essay by Jeane Kirkpatrick in Commentary: Research has established that the party regular is attached to politics by social as well as ideological incentives (and sometimes also by material incentives) and that such attachment encourages the virtues of the good team member: cooperation, perseverence, loyalty, service, and the will to [...]
Filed under: Ideology
The English-language Moscow alternative magazine that’s as much samizdat for the West as it is for Russians is under threat from the authorities. Mark Ames, editor and co-founder (with Matt Taibbi, lately of Rolling Stone) blogs about it here. (And here.) There’s a campaign afoot to save the eXile, as an online zine if not [...]
Filed under: Elections, Ideology, Liberty, magazines, Websites