Today marks the 55th anniversary of Rosa Parks’s refusal to move to the back of the bus. As she explained in her book, Quiet Strength: Our mistreatment was just not right, and I was tired of it. Institutionalized by racist laws and upheld by racist governments, especially across the American South, such humiliations were...
Read More »

A Buttonwood column in the new issue of The Economist, “Taking von Mises to pieces: Why is the Austrian explanation for the crisis so little discussed?,” discusses the enormous relevance of the Austrian School of economics, including the work of F.A. Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, and Lawrence White in explaining the current economic crisis....
Read More »

In a roundtable discussion on the U.S. National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (“Deficit Reduction Commission”), Nobel Prize laureate and hyper-Keynesian economist Paul Krugman came clean on his view on ABC’s “This Week with Christiane Amanpour,” regarding how to reduce the gigantic federal deficit that he has been so supportive in seeing created:...
Read More »

Justice is among the oldest ideals in Western thought. Although philosophers have long debated its meaning and application, they have usually agreed that justice deals with individual merit or individual actions. The perennial question has been: by what standard should someone’s actions be praised or blamed, rewarded or punished? not: whom should society provide...
Read More »

Here Is the Final Part Continued from Part 2: Part 1 Scientism For Lewis, science should be a quest for knowledge, and his concern was that in the modern era science is too often used instead as a quest by some for power over others. Lewis did not dispute that science is an immensely...
Read More »

Continued from Part 1: Part 3 Moral Relativism and Utilitarianism Of central importance in Lewis’s discussion of natural law is his critique of the moral relativism of utilitarianism (“the end justifies the means”) as a theory of ethics and guide to behavior. Lewis claimed that the precepts of moral ethics cannot just be innovated...
Read More »

For decades, some Christians, both “conservative” and “liberal,” have unfortunately embraced an ill-conceived “progressive” (i.e., authoritarian) vision to wield intrusive government powers as an unquestionable and even sanctified calling for both domestic and international matters, abandoning the Christian, natural-law tradition in moral ethics and economics. In contrast, the Oxford/Cambridge scholar and best-selling author C....
Read More »

A new book has rocketed to the the top of my already too-long reading list: Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea. It is already winning praise from across the political spectrum ranging from Richard Epstein, the distinguished professor of law at the University of Chicago to Thom Hartmann, an Air America Radio Network host....
Read More »

David, Stewart’s bit was indeed insightful and encouraging, one of the best he’s done in a while, and I found it very funny and compelling. All your points are well taken. But I must nitpick Stewart’s comparison of Obama to Frodo. It was hilarious, but it seems to be a bit too charitable. While...
Read More »

In an excellent article in the American Spectator, British philosopher and author Roger Scruton discusses his superb new documentary, Why Beauty Matters, that has recently been shown on the BBC. Scruton incisively examines the importance of beauty in the arts and our lives, including fine arts, music, and architecture. In the process, he illuminates...
Read More »