Blog Roundup: Will the Real Alexis de Tocqueville Please Stand Up

It’s Friday! Nothing else needs to be said, really.

Over at Postmodern Conservative , Peter Lawler takes a hard look at Patrick Deneen’s latest piece for the American Conservative , commenting: “I . . . think that Tocqueville’s famous chapter on soft despotism and all was a kind of thought experiment more than a prediction of the American future.” Carl Scott thinks about judge-rulers (conclusion: bad) and Citizens United (conclusion: not that bad).

Maureen Mullarkey dislikes Halloween: “Bad graphics do me in every time.”

Peter Leithart , now reading N.T. Wright, has put up a series of posts about Stoics , including two on Seneca and Epictetus .

Read Dr. Boli on the true meaning of irony .

Meanwhile, here at First Thoughts , Greg Forster sticks up for religion without God .

And On the Square today, John Daniel Davidson resurrects American philanthropy, while Wesley J. Smith disapproves of the v-word .

That’s it! We’ll see you next week.