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Common Sense Is a Philosophy Too, and It Shaped the Founders' Plain Talk How Thomas Reid's answer to Hume reached the Founders through John Witherspoon, and why conservatives trust the plain judgment of ordinary citizens. A Thought Experiment, the Nation That Disarmed to Prove It Meant Peace A labelled satire about a country that disbands its army and sends a strongly worded letter, followed by the real record of the 1920s and 1930s. Tradition Is Not Nostalgia, and Five Other Myths About Conservatives Six charges against conservatives, from worshipping the past to opposing all change, tested against Burke, Lincoln's Cooper Union speech and the record. Cato's Letters, the Newspaper Essays That Taught the Colonies Liberty Two London journalists wrote 144 essays after a stock-market crash, and colonial printers kept reprinting them. What Cato argued, and how it reached Zenger. Colorblind Law Is Not a Code Word, It Is Harlan's Dissent Made Good Colorblindness was the civil-rights movement's own legal argument, and the strongest objection to it fails against Harlan, the Brown briefs and the 1964 Act. Richard Weaver Said Ideas Have Consequences and Traced Them Back Centuries Weaver's 1948 book blamed modern decline on abandoning universal truth. His argument, his case for property, and the fair charge that he was too sweeping. Oakeshott Said Being Conservative Is a Temperament Before It Is a Program Oakeshott described conservatism as a disposition to prize the familiar. His skepticism is a useful friend but a limited guide for Americans with a creed. Will Rogers Mocked Congress for Thirty Years and Never Lost the Room The Oklahoma cowboy humorist teased both parties and every Congress until 1935 and stayed America's favourite. He shows how to be funny without being cruel. Satire From Aristophanes to Swift Has Always Been the Weapon of the Underdog Satire is how the governed answer the governing, every age that tried to suppress it lost, and today it comes more and more from the right. The Disinformation Governance Board Lasted Four Months, and That Was Too Long A federal board meant to referee disinformation was paused in weeks and dissolved in months, and it shows why government must never referee true speech. Seven Words Reporters Use to Tilt a Story Without Telling a Single Lie Bias rarely hides in false facts. It hides in seven small words, and here is a substitution test that exposes each one. The Ideas Came First, How Magazines and Think Tanks Built the 1980 Landslide Reagan's 1980 win and a Republican Senate were the harvest of ideas planted long before the campaign: magazines, think tanks and ballot measures.