In the Tradition of Liberty.
In the Tradition of Liberty.
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FUSION’s archive of commentary.
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Nourished in the seclusion of backroom negotiations, the long-rumored bipartisan Senate border bill soon wilted in the blazing sun of public attention. The border proposal had been intended to convince Republicans to vote for a bigger package that included military aid for Ukraine and Israel. Yet the measure was proclaimed dead within days of being unveiled by lead negotiators Chris Murphy (D-CT), James Lankford (R-OK), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ). The border bill has provoked considerable controversy. Its proponents say that it is a major step toward border control that…
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Did students benefit from the “heavy-handed government schemes” endorsed by the technocratic leftists who masquerade as education reformers? Authors of the new book, Getting Education Right, Frederick Hess and Michael McShane answer this important question in their essay on the past and future of education reform. Given the current state of K-12 education, the answer is a resounding no. Conservatives must acknowledge the consequences of faux bipartisanship in the past and take bold action going forward. Our schools are in freefall. Historically low state, national, and international test scores,…
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In their essay “The Past and Future of Education Reform“, Hess and McShane are reasonably clear-eyed about the past, but the lessons they draw from it are a bit blurrier and their vision of the future is long on aspiration but slightly dimmed by ideology. Looking back, the authors intentionally skip from the progressive era to A Nation at Risk, which has the unfortunate effect of eliding much of relevant changes that occurred between World War II and Ronald Reagan’s arrival in the Oval Office, including much that implicates conservatives…
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When the French statesman Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand was asked for his thoughts on the Bourbon royal family in exile, he replied, “Ils n’ont rien appris, ni rien oublié.” They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing. The Bourbons hadn’t learned the lessons of the French Revolution or grasped what it revealed about their nation. Worse, they carried an enduring grudge for all that the Jacobins had done. It was the worst possible combination, a recipe for disaster. Too often, as we note in our new book Getting Education Right, Talleyrand’s Bourbons…
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Among the most ominous recent examples of our cultural collapse was the extreme popularity of the movie Barbie. No motion picture earned more money at the domestic box office in 2023 than this Mattel-sanctioned live-action elaboration of the life and times of a fashion doll dreamt up by Ruth Handler towards the end of the Eisenhower administration and popular, in various incarnations, with American girls ever since. In fairness, director and co-writer Greta Gerwig cannot be faulted simply for finding cinematic interest in a cheap plastic toy. The detritus…
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The status of the good is at the heart of today’s debates about “liberalism.” Both defenders and critics take for granted that liberalism somehow defers questions of the right way to live, both individually and collectively. While classical political philosophy (so the story goes) focused on arranging society according to the common good, liberal modernity is thought to center on material interest, diversity of opinion, and individual choice. In one of the most influential distillations of this theme, John Rawls argued at the end of the 20th century that the…
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Since at least the 1791 publication of the Life of Samuel Johnson, a pioneering biography of the English man of letters, scholars have debated the value of biography as a genre of history. Many writers and readers like the chronological order and narrative focus that biography usually imposes. Yet historians sometimes criticize biography for emphasizing individual character at the expense of broader networks of association, formal institutions, and broader social conditions. Analysis, so they say, gives way to hagiography. Stanford historian Jennifer Burns has published remarkable biographies that largely belie critiques…
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For a generation or two, America’s favorite Christmas movie was Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life (1946) and it’s easy to see why. The movie stars Jimmy Stewart, the most all-American star in old Hollywood, and shows him at his best. He has a lovely family and his drama is the drama of self-government, the test of an American national character then still thought to be defined by small town life. The movie is much harder to recognize today, in a country not only urbanized, but also globalized. For one…
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It seems like nearly every installment of Star Trek included at least one scene where the USS Enterprise, damaged by conniving villains or mysterious nebulae, is listing through space without the use of its warp drive. Ideally, the ship would be hauled into dock and outfitted with a new core. But in the meantime, emergency measures are called for. Very few superweapons out of science fiction could threaten worse damage than a future where both people in Western and Eastern civilizations are increasingly choosing not to partner or reproduce. It’s…
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In early December several TikTok videos went viral depicting young couples declaring “we’re DINKs!” That is: Double Income and No Kids. Under that moniker, they were able to list dozens of examples of the freedom and consumption their lifestyle allowed. This display caused a storm of backlash, leading to comments like “Have fun dying alone” and “I’m sure your extra appetizers and drinks will bring you a lot of fulfillment.” Apparently, not all Americans are ready to embrace the DINK lifestyle. Nevertheless, as Catherine Pakaluk notes in “The Pulse of Natality,”…