John Jay's views on politics and the church

My latest post over at American Creation:  John Jay on politics in the pulpit.

Russell Kirk on education

"Much of Kirk’s work on education defended wisdom and virtue against rapacious drives to transform education into a vehicle of social engineering with narrow utilitarian ends."  So writes David Bonagura, Jr. in this discussion of Kirk's views of education and education reform: The Sword of Education. Well worth a read.  In an age where education in the humanities is, frankly, dying if not already dead, Kirk's robust defense of liberal education and moral imagination is much needed.

A quote for our time

“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”

-Frederick Douglss (1818-1895), former slave, abolitionist and political activist.

Given the Obama administration's attack on the Catholic Church, this is a very good principle for people of faith, and Catholics in particular, to keep in mind.

Russell Kirk on moral imagination

A worthwhile read posted over at The Imaginative Conservative.  One of the many areas where Kirk is a breath of fresh air in light of our current cultural preoccupations is his clear focus on the importance of literary endeavors in renewing culture and sustaining a conservative worldview.

Is Pope Benedict XVI leaning towards libertarianism?

The Pittsford Perennialist says as much in the title of this post:  Pope Ratzinger, Libertarian.  I think that the proprietor of that blog is overstating his case a bit, though.  Benedict XVI is no libertarian, although I think it is fair to characterize him as somebody with profound concerns regarding the limitation of coercive state power. This, of course, is a result of the experience that Ratzinger went through as a young man, enduring life in totalitarian Germany under the Nazis.

But a concern over the limitations of the state does not a libertarian make.  In addition to a commitment to limited state power, there must be a corresponding commitment to the notion of individualism and social atomization.  And Ratzinger displays neither of those ideas.  Indeed, if one looks at the political party within Germany most closely aligned with the American idea of libertarianism -- the Free Democratic Party -- it is difficult to characterize Ratzinger as libertarian.

A new hero for my personal Valhalla

His name is Dick Proenneke, and he lived as a hermit in the Alaska wilderness.  There's a movie about him, with footage of his life and cabin that he had filmed himself using a movie camera.  He died in 2003, but his cabin is still there, now part of the national park system.

Here's an excerpt from the movie, Alone in the Wilderness:



For health reasons, I could never do what this guy did, and I've got a wife and extended family to be a part of.  But if I was healthy enough, and single without family around, I would love to be able to do what this guy did.