Greg Forster

David  and Rusty , I think you’re exactly right about the new IAV manifesto. Because of what you point out—the manifesto says good things but will nonetheless have negative rather than positive consequences for marriage—this could be a fruitful dialogue opportunity. The . . . . Continue Reading »

Joe , as a ten-year-and-counting member of the school choice movement, I appreciate your defense of tax-credit scholarships. But I don’t think the “it’s my money until Uncle Sam touches it” argument works. If government can give tax credits at all, it must have the right to . . . . Continue Reading »

Matthew, thanks for your thoughtful critique of my defense of George Bailey . Here’s what I would say: 1) This goose is happy to meet the gander : You ask, “why the implicit confidence that this process, which ‘liberated’ the nuclear family from a number of wider ties, . . . . Continue Reading »

During the Christmas break, Patrick Deneen published a bill of indictment against George Bailey here at FT. The defendant stands accused of destroying Bedford Falls and its tradition-bound, permanence-seeking culture with his soulless suburbs. My brief for the defense appears over on TPD this . . . . Continue Reading »

During the fiscal cliff negotiations, DC-area Starbucks stores wrote “Come Together” on their drink cups. Mickey Kaus worries that this anodyne gesture was a violation of the moral rights of Starbucks workers; Joe Barista ought to have the liberty to punch the clock for a . . . . Continue Reading »

Several commenters on this post object to my characterization of C.S. Lewis’s views of modern science in The Abolition of Man . I wrote that Lewis “explicitly compared modern science to demonology” and then, at the end, reduced this to the more streamlined statement “science . . . . Continue Reading »

Joe , no doubt you’re right about Lewis, who explicitly compared modern science to demonology. However, I think you misread Locke, whose views of labor and property are deeply scriptural and well within the mainstream of historic theology—-especially the mainstream Anglicanism of the . . . . Continue Reading »

Matthew , the greatest part about that Rand quote is how it shows how Randians and Keynsians basically agree in endorsing the central fallacy of twentieth-century economics: that the core drive of economic activity is the desire to consume, to gratify desires. She even praises Christmas because . . . . Continue Reading »

Jonathan Rauch has turned a lot of heads with this article on the economic challenges of the working class. One of his major themes is how those challenges relate to the breakdown of marriage among that population. Three cheers to him for owning that issue, and sounding the alarm about what a . . . . Continue Reading »

Matthew , if the apportionment requirement is an insuperable obstacle to direct federal property taxes, then perhaps it is not so “idiotic” after all—-and its “historical origins” are not necessarily “obscure,” n’est-ce pas ? On a more serious note, . . . . Continue Reading »