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February 4, 2020|Alexis de Tocqueville, American Conservatism, Edmund Burke, Ideologues, Liberalism

A War of Ideas?

by John G. Grove|

A dark sky over the U.S. Capitol building dome in Washington DC (shutterstock.com).
Rather than focus on what set of ideas America must revive or reject, we might focus instead on the concrete realities which define our political life.

January 28, 2020|American Conservatism, Herbert Hoover, Progressivism

Establishment Conservatism, circa 1920

by Bruce P. Frohnen|

President William H. Taft in the Oval Office, c. 1910 (Everett Historical/Shutterstock.com).
Postell and O'Neill have produced a volume that perpetuates the unfortunate “Wall Street vs. Main Street” divide in American conservatism.

January 22, 2020|American Conservatism, Constitution, Harry Jaffa

A Learned but Dismissive Take on Conservative Constitutionalism

by Vincent Phillip Muñoz|

Harry Jaffa (Image: Hillsdale College).
It is disheartening to realize that the academic Left can’t conceive of conservative constitutionalism as reasonable or intellectually defensible.

October 16, 2018|American Conservatism, Barry Goldwater, Bohemian Tory, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, James E. Person, Russell Kirk

Letters from Piety Hill

by James Matthew Wilson|

Russell Kirk at home.
A rich, entertaining, and often instructive selection of Russell Kirk’s correspondence.

January 15, 2015|Abraham Lincoln, American Conservatism, Aristotle, Barry Goldwater, Crisis of the House Divided, Declaration of Independence, Equality, Harry Jaffa, Leo Strauss, Martin Diamond

Harry V. Jaffa: An Inconvenient Thinker

by Ken Masugi|

 

Harry V. Jaffa, who died January 10, at 96, may well be American conservatism’s most consequential thinker, for having attempted to re-found conservatism on the basis of its most philosophic principles and most revered figures. He was also one of the most dismissed, berated, and scorned of scholars, earning derision from former friends and those who knew him only from his writing, much of which had become acerbic.

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January 24, 2014|American Conservatism, Bill of Rights, Economic Freedom, Leo Strauss, New Deal, Pareto, Ronald Coase, Woodrow Wilson

Friday Roundup, January 24th

by Richard M. Reinsch II|

Don't miss this month's Liberty Law Forum on the Constitution's structural limitations of power and the Bill of Rights: Contributions from Patrick Garry, Ed Erler, Michael Ramsey, and Kenneth Bowling. How should contemporary defenders of limited government and the rule of law understand and learn from the New Deal's revolutionary movement? The current Liberty Law Talk with Gordon Lloyd, co-author with David Davenport of The New Deal & Modern American Conservatism, discusses this question. Liberty Law Reviews: William Atto on Scott Berg's Wilson:  In 1879 . . . he published his essay “Cabinet Government in the United States,” in the International Review. Clearly…

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January 17, 2014|American Conservatism, Constitution, Franklin Roosevelt, Free Markets, Freedom Betrayed, Great Depression, Herbert Hoover, New Deal

Crusading Against Collectivism: A Lost Memoir by Herbert Hoover is Published

by George H. Nash|

In 1964 Herbert Hoover died at the age of ninety. He had lived a phenomenally productive life, including more than half a century in one form or another of public service. It was a record that in sheer scope and duration may be without parallel in American history.

His life had begun in humble circumstances in 1874 in a little Iowa farming community, as the son of the village blacksmith. Orphaned before he was ten, Hoover managed to enter Stanford University when it opened its doors in 1891. Four years later he graduated with a degree in geology and a determination to become a mining engineer.

From then on, Hoover’s rise in the world was meteoric.

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January 16, 2014|American Conservatism, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, New Deal, Progressivism, The New Deal & Modern American Conservatism, Tocqueville

The New Deal & Modern American Conservatism

by Gordon Lloyd|

This next Liberty Law Talk is with Gordon Lloyd of the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine on his new book, co-authored with David Davenport, The New Deal & Modern American Conservatism (Hoover Press, 2013). Much has been made, and rightly so, of the example set by Calvin Coolidge in his confrontation with the forces of taxing and spending and nascent regulatory attempts to cartelize certain markets, among other challenges he faced. However, might it be that Herbert Hoover and his "American System" articulated in the 1932 campaign, along with his subsequent attempts to repeal the New Deal, offers the…

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December 15, 2013|American Conservatism, Democrats, Paul Ryan, Republicans, Ruling Class, UniParty

Breaking The UniParty

by Angelo M. Codevilla|

Yet again, for the nth time, Republican Congressional leaders and their Democrat counterparts produced a Trillion dollar, multi-thousand-page spending bill that was voted immediately after being unveiled, without having been read. Republican 2012 vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan authored the latest edition along with Democratic Senator Patti Murray. Republican leader John Boehner preempted Democrats by preemptively accusing Republicans who opposed the bill of wanting to shut down the government. He topped off this feat of leadership by declaring political war on the conservatives who had given Republicans the majority that had made him Speaker of the House – a war that Republican leaders cannot sustain.

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September 7, 2012|American Conservatism, Ken Kersch, Theodore Lowi

The Conservative Crack-Up That Wasn’t

by Michael S. Greve|

Over at balkinization, my buddy Ken Kersch has a post on the punditocracy’s talk, apparently rampant this election season, about the contradictions within American conservatism—e.g. Congressman Ryan’s fondness for Ayn Rand and Roman Catholicism (not to mention  headbanging music).  A political movement that contains such disparate intellectual traditions and forces—plus neocons, business folks, etc.—can’t possibly hold together, thumb suckers surmise.  As Ken notes, though, predictions of this sort have proven wrong for quite some time now. In 1995, political scientist Theodore J. Lowi predicted The End of the Republican Era and the disintegration of conservative politics.

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Book Reviews

A Mirror of the 20th-Century Congress

by Joseph Postell

Wright undermined the very basis of his local popularity—the decentralized nature of the House—by supporting reforms that gave power to the party leaders.

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The Graces of Flannery O'Connor

by Henry T. Edmondson III

O'Connor's correspondence is a goldmine of piercing insight and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks.

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Liberty Classics

Rereading Politica in the Post-Liberal Moment

by Glenn A. Moots

Althusius offers a rich constitutionalism that empowers persons to thrive alongside one another in deliberate communities.

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James Fenimore Cooper and the American Experiment

by Melissa Matthes

In The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper defended democracy against both mob rule and majority tyranny.

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Podcasts

Stuck With Decadence

A discussion with Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat discusses with Richard Reinsch his new book The Decadent Society.

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Can the Postmodern Natural Law Remedy Our Failing Humanism?

A discussion with Graham McAleer

Graham McAleer discusses how postmodern natural law can help us think more coherently about human beings and our actions.

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Did the Civil Rights Constitution Distort American Politics?

A discussion with Christopher Caldwell

Christopher Caldwell discusses his new book, The Age of Entitlement.

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America, Land of Deformed Institutions

A discussion with Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin pinpoints that American alienation and anger emerges from our weak political, social, and religious institutions.

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About

Law & Liberty’s focus is on the classical liberal tradition of law and political thought and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons. This site brings together serious debate, commentary, essays, book reviews, interviews, and educational material in a commitment to the first principles of law in a free society. Law & Liberty considers a range of foundational and contemporary legal issues, legal philosophy, and pedagogy.

The opinions expressed on Law & Liberty are solely those of the contributors to the site and do not reflect the opinions of Liberty Fund.
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