When es to free trade, critics insistthat it hurts the American worker — kicking them while they’re down andslowly eroding munal fabric of mom-and-pops, longstanding trades, and factory towns. Whether es from a politician, labor union, or corporate crony, the messaging is alwaysthe same: Ignore thelong-term positive effects, and focus ontheCapitalist’s conquest of the Other. Trouble is, the basic logic of such thoughtleads straight back to the Self. I recently made this point as it pertains to immigration, arguing thatsuch...

The impending encyclical of Pope Francis has many Christians thinking how man should relate to our environment. But the discussions tend to focus on issues like man-made climate change, which can cause us to overlook equally important environmental stewardship concerns, such as the welfare of animals. Why should Christians care about the ethical treatment of animals? Because animals are the second most important aspect of creation, says Randy Alcorn, and the first most important thing, outside of other humans and...

As the number of Republicans vying for the presidency reaches new levels of absurdity, candidates are scrambling to affirm their conservative bona fides. If you can stomach the pandering, it’s a goodtime to explore the ideas bouncing around the movement, and when necessary,prune off thepoisonous limbs. Alas, for all of its typical promotions of free enterprise, free trade, and individual liberty, the modern conservative movement retains a peculiar and ever-growing faction of folks who harbor anti-immigration sentiments that contradict and...

June is a busy month for the Supreme Court. The Daily Signal has given us a tidy round-up of seven cases to keep an eye on. Reed v. Town of Gilbert: This is a free speech case.The Good News Community Church in Gilbert, Ariz., uses signage to promote events at the church. The town has codes regarding signage, and the church says they are not fair. For example, the church is allowed to put signs for only 12 hours before...

The summer of 2014 saw an overwhelming amount of children making their way, illegally, across the southern U.S. border. Thousands of children and adolescents overwhelmed the Border Patrol and social service agencies. Are we gearing up to see the same type of event this summer? It’s beginning to look that way. We are not nearly at the numbers we were last year, but it looks like we are in the opening stages. We had two groups equal a little over...

On this edition of Radio Free Acton, your humble hostbravely battles a late-spring cold to bring you an interview with Jonathan Witt, Managing Editor at TheStream.org, and author of The Hobbit Party: The Vision ofFreedom that Tolkien Got and The West Forgot. Was Frodo a small-government type? Was Tolkien a card-carrying member of the local Republican party? Or were the hobbits short-statured hippies who really enjoyed their pipe weed and the free healthcare provided by the Shire’s smooth-running, benevolent bureaucracy?...

I was reading through Abraham Kuyper’s inaugural speech at the founding of the Free University in Amsterdam, in which he lays out his vision of “sphere sovereignty,” and this passage struck me as particularly noteworthy. It is reminiscent of the appeal that Aslan makes to the “Deeper Magic” wrought at the dawn of creation in Narnia (and by which, incidentally, he es the tyrannical claims to absolute sovereignty made by the White Witch): Sphere sovereignty defending itself against State sovereignty:...

You may think that if you’re a law-abiding citizen, the concept of “bail” may be irrelevant. Well, maybe you forgot to pay your car insurance. Or maybe your license lapsed. You get pulled over because your tail light is out. It’s not a violent crime – a lapse in judgement, or a lack of money, perhaps. And suddenly you need bail. $1000, the judge tells you, or you have to go to Rikers Island, New York’s main plex. You and...

“New York Times writer David Brooks’ new book, On the Road to Character, examines what it takes to create a virtuous life,” says Elise Hilton in this week’s Acton Commentary. “The author’s central question: Does a person of character focus solely on building on one’s strengths or does he confront and improve his weaknesses?” It is an interesting topic for a man who makes his living writing pithy, sometimes political, columns in a very secular newspaper. While Brooks is Jewish,...

On June 18, 2015, Pope Francis will issue the encyclical,Laudato si’. Here are some answers to questions people who aren’t Catholic—like me—may have about the document: What is an encyclical? The term encyclical (from the Greek egkyklios, kyklos meaning a circle) refers to a circular letter, that is, a letter that gets circulated to a particular group. A papal encyclical is a letter written by the Pope to a particular audience of patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops of the Catholic...