I am in the curious position of being a blogger who distrusts opinions. The late yoga master B.K.S. Iyengar put it best when he wrote, “An opinion is yesterday’s right or wrong knowledge warmed up and re-served for today’s situation.” Too often opinion is divorced from both personal experience and rigorous thought. F.A. Hayek’s essay “The Intellectuals and Socialism” is an attempt at defining the nature and function of professional opinion-havers. His description of them as, “second hand dealers in...

The week after Donald Trump tweeted a message proclaiming himself the ing of God,” I decided to say a prayer to the “King of Israel” (although quietly, since my bishop encouraged me to pray so softly that no parishioner would hear me). I am assured that literally thousands of priests in this country have joined me in standing before our altars and whispering an identical prayer, using the same moniker. This is not a confession of idolatry nor an insider’s...

Congregations in China’s officially recognized Protestant church have been forced to replace mandments to Moses with a quotation about the triumph of socialism, according to a religious liberty watchdog. The action literally substitutes socialism as an idol, in violation of the First Commandment.The Chinese government’s attempt to change the teachings of the60,000-church Three-Self Patriotic Movement unmasks how socialism crushesreligious liberty and reduces Christians to subservience – or elevates them to martyrdom. The magazineBitter Harvestreports: The Ten Commandments are the basis...

On this date in 1796, near the end of his second term as president, George Washington published The Address of Gen. Washington to the People of America on His Declining the Presidency of the United States. Better known subsequently as his “farewell address,” it is his announcement of retirement from the presidency and from public life. He says, moreover, that he had wanted to retire after his first term but that considerations of duty had dissuaded him: “The strength of...

“If you are a socialist, and you are toying with the idea of writing a book – now is the time to do so,” writes Kristian Niemietz. “There seems to be an infinite demand for this message right now,” he states in a new book review posted atReligion & Liberty Transatlanticat the author’s request. Niemietz, the head of political economy at the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), reviews The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era...

“If you want less of something, tax it,” the old adage goes. If that is the case, why is a prominent European newspaper reporting that the number of millionaires increased after one nation introduced a wealth tax? “Number of super-rich in Spain grows 74% since reintroduction of wealth tax,” a headline in Spain’sEl Paisreportedrecently. Here are the facts: Background Spain introduced a wealth tax (Patrimonio) in 1977 as a “temporary” measure. In 1991, lawmakers admitted the 14-year-old tax would be...

In this week’s Acton Commentary, Acton Research Director Samuel Gregg looks at how “scientism” treats the scientific method as the only way of knowing anything and everything. Without dismissing the real achievements of modern science, he notes that “one side-effect of these triumphs was that some began treating the empirical sciences as the only form of true reason and the primary way to discern true knowledge … ” Notwithstanding these serious flaws with scientism, its acceptance has two effects on...

Since my book Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization appeared in June this year, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the reception. The book seems to have touched upon topics that, while not at the forefront on daily political debate, are on many people’s minds and underlie some of the bigger questions that are to be found just beneath the surface of many contemporary discussions in Western countries. It turns out that subjects like the relationship between reason and...

The debate between Sohrab Ahmari and David French has sparked a useful conversation about the means and ends of liberty. In that discussion, both men make valid criticisms and both sometimes fall short, but a recent column by Ahmari reveals perhaps the most glaring error in his perspective. Ahmari believes both economic interventionists (“progressive liberals”) and those who oppose state intervention (“conservative liberals”) share the same goal of maximizing freedom apart from state coercion. AtFirst Things, he writes: Progressiveliberals are...

In August, the New York Times launched the ‘1619 Project,’ an initiative that includes school curriculum, videos, and a podcast, which aims to “reframe” the history of America’s founding around slavery. The Times claims that since the year 1619, “[n]o aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the years of slavery that followed.” So what is the Times trying to plish with the ‘1619 Project’? Ismael Hernandez, founder and director of the Freedom &...