The observations made by the Denver's archbishop are hardly anything new or unreasonable, but the Rocky Mountain News reports that his words are stirring up the blogs (which ones? not clear):Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput told a Canadian audience this week that some Catholics are treating President Barack Obama with a "spirit of adulation bordering on servility." "In democracies, we elect public servants, not messiahs," he said. [link added] And:"Americans, including many Catholics, elected a gifted man to fix an economic crisis. That's the mandate. They gave nobody a mandate to retool American culture on the issues of marriage and the family, sexuality, bioethics, religion in public life and abortion," he said. [emphasis … [Read more...]
1861 Was Not 1776: An Essay
Update: An astute observer has corrected a factual mistake. James Madison wrote "much of" - not "most of" - the Federalist. Alexander Hamilton wrote more, though Madison wrote many of the key essays that frame the meaning of Union. My faux pas. The following is adapted and expanded from an email listserv essay I wrote recently, inspired initially in response to the following phrase someone had written: "The American Republic created by the founding fathers was destroyed by the civil war...." Here is my argument why libertarians should think long and hard before embracing a defense of the Confederate cause: Quite simply, the noble libertarian impulse to champion resistance to government encroachment on people's freedoms has led many … [Read more...]