Founding Fathers: Without Virtue There Is No Freedom

Written by Joshua Charles

The Founding Fathers believed one thing was absolutely essential to a free society: virtue. Sometimes the term they used was “self-government.”

What did it mean? Informed by thousands of years of philosophy and theology, first with Greeks like Aristotle, and later by Christian theologians such as Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, the Founders understood “virtue” to be behavior (more specifically, habits) in accordance with the good—which both Aristotle and Aquinas, among others, defined as behaving according to “right reason.” Virtue was thus the willing sacrifice of one’s passions to a higher good, namely “right reason.”

Traditionally, the four “cardinal virtues” of antiquity were prudence, courage, temperance; and justice.… Continue Reading

How to Fundamentally Transform a Country

Written by Daniel Horowitz

All things in life, even good things, have a limit to their utility and a point at which they become liabilities. Think of tasty spices in a dish or other ingredients in a melting pot. Quantities count, particularly over a specific period of time. Immigration is no different.

Recent Census data released from the 2017 American Community Survey (ACS) shows that immigration has grown to shocking, wholly unprecedented levels. Is it too much to ask that we engage in a mature policy discussion after five decades of record immigration with no end in sight?… Continue Reading

George Washington Taken from the Heights

Written by Michael Curtis

By Jove, by Jing, by George is the thing!  Can we say it isn’t so?  We thought we knew Washington.  As the proverb says, a good name is rather to be chosen than great riches.  It’s taken some time for the truth to be revealed, though no doubt a special counsel searching for less in good names would have taken even longer to find out whether, among other things, the father of the United States was in collusion with the Russians.  … Continue Reading

Liberals’ Memories Are Very “Fuzzy”

Written by Robert Knight

Socialism is still in vogue, regardless of its sorry record all over the world for the last century.  The Free Stuff Army is on the march, especially in the United States.

There’s something about deploying the government as a mugger to obtain the fruits of someone else’s labor that appeals to the worst in us.  But it invariably leads to poverty, dishonesty and even tyranny.

Years ago, I visited Jamaica when it was under a socialist government. … Continue Reading