The obligations and purposes of law and government are to protect public health, safety, and morals, and to advance the general welfare—including, preeminently, protecting people’s fundamental rights and basic liberties. At first blush, this classic formulation (or combination of classic . . . . Continue Reading »
At the outset of On the Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche reports that his polemical book of pseudo-history, pseudo-anthropology, and pseudo-psychology is an exercise in knowing ourselves. We cannot simply investigate morality and Christianity, as if these were topics we could entertain with . . . . Continue Reading »
Marriage and Caste in America: Separate and Unequal Families in a Post-Marital Age by kay s. hymowitz ivan r. dee, 192 pages, $22.50 The foundations of national morality must be laid in private families,” wrote John Adams in 1778. Adams recognized, as did many of the founders, that the . . . . Continue Reading »
Equations from God: Pure Mathematics and Victorian Faith by daniel j. cohen johns hopkins university press, 256 pages, $50 It is tempting to treat mathematics as though it existed in a socio-historical vacuum, unaffected by what happens to people and societies. Though, like any other . . . . Continue Reading »
For reasons quite plausible, even to people on the pro-life side, Rudolph Giuliani persists in standing well ahead of the pack of the Republican candidates for president. He has sounded the traditional Republican themes: preserving the Bush tax cuts, seeking free-market solutions to problems such as . . . . Continue Reading »
Contrasting judgments often arise from studying the Niagara of words that justified the American War for Independence—together with all the words that circulated anxiously during the parlous years under the Confederation Congress—which rose to a great flood in the period 1787 to 1790 in . . . . Continue Reading »
The Oberlin conference on The Nature of the Unity We Seek, which met fifty years ago, in September 1957, marked an important stage in the ecumenical movement. For the first time, the churches in North America in large numbers committed themselves to the quest for Christian unity. The composition of . . . . Continue Reading »
Benedict XVI: The Man Who Was Ratzinger by michael s. rose spence, 182 pages, $22.95 The author of Goodbye, Good Men, a scathing and much discussed account of homosexuality in American seminaries, provides a frequently astute evaluation of what might be expected from the new pontificate. Rose’s . . . . Continue Reading »
Nothing is more common in life than a seeming tension between the freedom of individuals and the authority of communities and their designated leaders. From individual citizens who must set aside their own desires and obey laws they think unwise, to athletes who must subordinate their individual . . . . Continue Reading »
Nat Hentoff From the beginning, so very long ago, of the 2008 presidential campaign, many of the horde of self-proclaimed independent journalists reported that the Democrats were strategically moving toward the center, seeking some sort of common ground even with pro-lifers. Yet, when the Supreme . . . . Continue Reading »
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