It’s almost two months since the death of perhaps the twentieth century’s most important conservative philosopher, Sir Roger Scruton, but discussion of the significance of his work and life continues to occupy a great deal of space in journals, opinion pieces and on the airwaves. Like many others, I have found myself looking again at many of Scruton’s great books, such as his classic “The Meaning of Conservatism” (1980), the very reflective “England: An Elegy” (2000) and the aesthetic arguments...

Super Tuesday – the single day in the U.S. presidential primaries with the most delegates at stake – e and gone, and so have quite a few presidential candidates. Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) both dropped out before Tuesday and endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden. After lackluster performances on Tuesday, both former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his debate nemesis, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have dropped out, as well. The...

During a congressional hearing late last week, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez likened Christians who refuse to perform medical procedures that violate their religious beliefs to Klansmen, segregationists, and slaveholders. But in this week’s Acton Commentary, Rev. Gregory Jensen writes that it is the congresswoman who shares the Jim Crow tactics of using the government to deny other people their inalienable rights. In a video clip that went viral, AOC, a democratic socialist, said that Christians lack the right to live according to...

The Founding Fathers understood, in the words of John Adams, that “we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.” An Ivy League professor recently heard the same conclusion repeated by a Chinese Marxist. “I had no idea how critical religion is to the functioning of democracy,” the economist told Clayton Christensen. Christensen, who died last month at the age of 67, taught business administration at Harvard Business School and served...

Last week, a federal district court judge in Ohio declared that the city of Toledo’s move to establish a Lake Erie Bill of Rights, or LEBOR, was invalid. Judge Jack Zouhary put it this way: Frustrated by the status quo, LEBOR supporters knocked on doors, engaged their fellow citizens, and used the democratic process to pursue a well-intentioned goal: the protection of Lake Erie. As written, however, LEBOR fails to achieve that goal. This is not a close call. LEBOR...

When people talk about politics, they are usually discussing passions and interests, often with a whole lot of passion and interest. This is why prohibitions exist in polite society against talking about politics. Political discussions about issues, parties, or candidates are often performative recitations of opinion: yesterday’s knowledge, right or wrong, applied to today’s situation. These debates can be engaging, enraging, or enjoyable. It is this sort of politics that, as Henry Adams observed, “as a practice, whatever its professions,...

Adam MacLeod, a law professor at Faulkner University in Alabama, wrote a couple of years ago in the New Boston Post of “chronological snobbery,” the idea that “moral knowledge progresses inevitably, such that later generations are morally and intellectually superior to earlier generations, and that the older the source the more morally suspect that source is.” We don’t have to look too hard to see how widespread this attitude is now. No other age has had the hubris of ours....

I recently flew from Grand Rapids to Los Angeles on Delta. With the exception of some extra frisky TSA agents here in Michigan, the experience was largely positive. My flights were on time, the crew was helpful, and the planes were clean and well equipped. Even for those of us sitting in the back, the seating fortable. Bonus—I had a whole row to myself on the trip home! All of this got me thinking about a news article that blipped...

In recent years, a rift has opened within American conservatism, a series of divisions animated in part by the 2016 presidential election and also by a right concern with an increasingly progressive culture. Among these divisions is a growing split between self-professing liberal and illiberal conservatives as some on the right scramble to give explanation for a culture which has e hostile to civil society and traditional institutions, most notably the family. One movement which has grown out of this...

Proponents of massive government programs like Medicare for All often present their schemes as though there were no alternative to state intervention. Thankfully, a life-affirming, healthcare practice shows that the free market has a superior answer about how to care for vulnerable women and their babies. Chris Gast of Right to Life of Michigan drew my attention to the story of Mark Blocher, a Christian bioethicist who believes medical practices should reflect their faith, something often difficult even in our...