Install
First Principles
75 posts, newest first (page 1 of 4).
Common Sense Is a Philosophy Too, and It Shaped the Founders' Plain TalkHow Thomas Reid's answer to Hume reached the Founders through John Witherspoon, and why conservatives trust the plain judgment of ordinary citizens. Gratitude Is a Conservative Virtue, and Ingratitude Fuels Every RevolutionA conservative starts from thanks for an inheritance he did not earn, a revolutionary from grievance, and the two moods build two different kinds of politics. A Thought Experiment, the Nation That Planned Breakfast From One OfficeA labelled satire about a federal Office of Breakfast, and what the invented shortages teach about Mises, Hayek and the real record of planned economies. Tradition Is Not Nostalgia, and Five Other Myths About ConservativesSix charges against conservatives, from worshipping the past to opposing all change, tested against Burke, Lincoln's Cooper Union speech and the record. Greed Is Good Was a Movie Villain's Line, and Other Myths About CapitalismSeven popular claims about capitalism, from greed to zero-sum trade, tested against Adam Smith, a 1987 movie and the long record of market economies. Aristotle Said the Best Republic Rests on a Large Middle ClassTwenty-three centuries ago Aristotle argued that stable free government needs citizens of moderate property. His case, his errors and his Founding-era heirs. The Rule of Law Has Eight Marks, and Lawmakers Can Fail at Every OneLon Fuller listed eight ways a ruler can fail to make law at all. Each is explained with history, tied to the Constitution and tested on a code no one can read. Madison's 1792 Essay Says Your Conscience Is Your Property TooMadison wrote in 1792 that a man has property in his opinions, faith and faculties as well as his land. Read closely, it joins economic and religious liberty. Unalienable Means You Cannot Even Give Your Rights Away, and Here Is WhyThe Declaration's one odd word does heavy work. It means certain rights cannot be sold, signed away or voted away, and that limits even a democratic majority. Rights Are Not Social Constructs, and Here Is the Answer to That ClaimBentham called natural rights nonsense on stilts. The positivist case at its best, then four answers: the Declaration, Nuremberg, the abolitionists, the stakes. FDR's Second Bill of Rights Turned Freedoms Into Claims on NeighborsRoosevelt's 1944 call for rights to jobs, housing and medical care, stated fairly, then answered: a right that needs a provider is a claim on someone. Milton's Areopagitica of 1644 Is Still the Best Case Against Licensing SpeechThe blind poet's 1644 speech to Parliament made the first great English argument that truth wins in a free encounter. We read its key passages, and its limits. Seven Myths About Edmund Burke That His Fans and Critics Both RepeatBurke was a Whig, a reformer, a friend of the colonies and of Irish Catholics, and he never wrote the line about good men doing nothing. Seven claims tested. Myths About the Enlightenment That Get the American Founding WrongThe Founding was not a French import. Seven popular claims about secular reason, Rousseau and Locke, tested against the documents and the Founders' citations. James Wilson Lectured on Natural Law While Washington Was PresidentA signer of both founding documents and an original justice told America where law comes from, with the President reportedly in the room. He was right. Woodrow Wilson Wanted a Darwinian Constitution, and Conservatives Said NoWilson argued in 1908 that government should be a living organism, not a Newtonian machine of checks. His case at its best, then an answer from Federalist 51. Coolidge's 1926 Declaration Speech Is the Best Answer to Progress TalkOn July 5, 1926 Calvin Coolidge told Philadelphia that the Declaration's truths are final, so moving beyond them means moving backward. A close reading. Lincoln's Apple of Gold Fragment Explains the Declaration and ConstitutionIn a private fragment around 1861 Lincoln called liberty the apple of gold and the Constitution its silver frame. A close reading of the passage. Cato's Letters, the Newspaper Essays That Taught the Colonies LibertyTwo London journalists wrote 144 essays after a stock-market crash, and colonial printers kept reprinting them. What Cato argued, and how it reached Zenger. Algernon Sidney, the Executed Englishman the Founders Kept QuotingBeheaded in 1683 partly over a manuscript nobody had published, Sidney became one of Jefferson's named sources for the Declaration. His career, trial and ideas. Hume Doubted the Social Contract, and Conservatives Learned From HimHume argued in 1748 that governments rest on habit and opinion, not a signed agreement. What a natural-rights conservative should take from him, and leave. Self-Government Starts With Governing Yourself, the Founders InsistedThe Founders held that a republic needs citizens who can restrain themselves, and that virtue was a political necessity. They were no secular rationalists. Rousseau's General Will Is the Idea Behind Every Power Grab for the PeopleRousseau said the general will is always right and a man may be forced to be free. The Jacobins tried it; Madison's Federalist 10 is the republic's answer. Hobbes and Locke Wrote Two Social Contracts, and America Chose OneBoth start in a state of nature, yet one ends in an absolute sovereign and the other in limited government. A table, then the proof of which the Founders took.
Other categories
- The Constitution and the Founders
- The Courts and the Rule of Law
- Economy, Taxes and Free Markets
- Big Government and the Administrative State
- Border, Immigration and Sovereignty
- Faith, Family and Life
- Education, Parents and Kids
- Culture, Media and Free Speech
- Crime, Policing and Justice
- The Second Amendment
- National Security and Foreign Policy
- Energy, Environment and the Land
- Health Care and Personal Responsibility
- American History and Heroes
- Elections, Civic Action and the Comeback
- Life, Work and Money