Part I Although he was born on April 1, 1753, Joseph de Maistre was no fool. He was born in Chambéry, a province of Savoy in the kingdom of Sardinia. He was the eldest surviving son of an important senator, and it was decided that he should follow the example of his father. After he was protored by Jesuits in his youth, he went to Turin in 1769 to study law. In 1772 he became a magistrate in Sardinia. In... Read more
During college, I had two professors whose mix of Christian witness and philosophical rigor served as an inspiration to me and helped to rejuvenate my at that time rather lax and limpid faith. Neither of these professors were Catholic at the time, though both have since become so. One of the two, Prof. Rob Koons, recently appeared on the EWTN program The Journey Home and explained the course of his conversion from Missouri Synod Lutheranism to Catholicism. Audio of his... Read more
Courtesy of Dani Rodrik, one of the best development economists in the business: (more…) Read more
But the people who urge these arguments are doing no more than setting themselves up as judges over the judges appointed by the Autarch, judges with less training in the law and without the authority to call witnesses. They demand that we disobey the real judges and listen to them, but they cannot show that they are deserving our obedience. –Gene Wolfe [1] For several of the centuries preceding Vatican Council I, political thinkers developed new notions about authority and... Read more
This video starts out weird. But don’t worry, it gets weirder as it goes along. (HT: Megan McArdle) Read more
Possibly my lack of shock was from growing up in a University town. In ad lib remarks, Barack Obama made the statement that he wouldn’t want his daughters punished with a child or an STD if they were to have teenage sex. For me, I took it to mean analogously that if one of his daughters was drunk driving he didn’t want them punished by wrapping their car around a tree and dying. I think it is perfectly natural to... Read more
Part 1: Historical Context A Brief Look at Henri de Lubac: Recapturing the Catholic patrimony Henri de Lubac—French priest, scholar and cardinal—stands at the center of the Ressourcement movement in Catholic theology. While he certainly was not the progenitor of Ressourcement, there seems to be little doubt that de Lubac is its most important and influential exponent. When one attempts to lay hold of the very heart of Ressourcement, one can do no better than to begin with de Lubac’s... Read more
Whatever the explanation, consistently doing any activity that requires self-control seems to increase willpower — and the ability to resist impulses and delay gratification is highly associated with success in life. New York Times. Read more
Wisconsin just finished a particularly nasty Supreme Court election. Now begins the retrospectives on how special interests soured the campaign and made it nasty. In the case of this election, private interests spent $5 for ever $1 the candidates spent. While I’m not particularly opposed to regulation addressing some of this, I want to go in a slightly different direction. This could end tomorrow if people really wanted it ended. The problem is people don’t want it ended. No, I’m... Read more
Finally, the infamous John Yoo torture memo was been declassified and released. Wrapped up in legal niceties, Yoo’s philosophy boiled down to a simple point: the president can do whatever it takes to protect US security. “Any effort by Congress to regulate the interrogation of enemy combatants would violate the Constitution’s sole vesting of the Commander-in-Chief authority in the President….Congress can no more interfere with the President’s conduct of the interrogation of enemy combatants than it can dictate strategic or tactical... Read more
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