CATEGORY: THE FOUNDING (5 min)

A sanitized past

Plato’s Republic urged nations to build up a positive national mythos by creating stories of their heroic ancestors. Whether true or not, these tales would strengthen patriotic spirit and encourage belief in the state, according to Plato.

But can boiling down our forefathers to palatable nuggets have negative effects too?

In The Imaginative Conservative, Jerry Salyer argues that the political establishment has reduced one famous American to a mere platitude… and that this development has helped feed cancel culture. Salyer says Thomas Jefferson now simply stands for his one most famous line: “All men are created equal.”

So, Salyer asks, what of everything else Jefferson said?

Salyer recounts Jefferson’s beliefs about the dangers of a centralized government, his love of American agrarianism, and his controversial thoughts on slavery… thoughts which many today refuse to repeat. And Salyer believes it is not the liberal orthodoxy that has canceled Jefferson. Instead, he blames the conservative establishment for censoring the third president’s thoughts.

Discover why Salyer argues this is a dangerous trend right here.

CATEGORY: ENVIRONMENTALISM (6 min)

Trashing a bad idea

You’re probably familiar with those sets of three-color trash receptacles. The blue one will ask for cans and bottles, the green for paper, and the black for everything else: “trash.” You’ve probably had the old adage hammered into your head, too.

Reduce, reuse, recycle.

But now, you’re supposed to throw all the plastic away too. Believe it or not, that’s directly from Greenpeace.

John Tierney, writing for City Journal, reveals Greenpeace’s confession in a recent report.

“Mechanical and chemical recycling of plastic waste has largely failed and will always fail,” Greenpeace’s press release says.

Tierney is not surprised. He has been criticizing plastic recycling for years, pointing out expert evidence that the overcomplication and intensive labor of collecting plastic has made it wildly inefficient and extremely expensive.

Not only is plastic recycling fiscally irresponsible, but it also ends up being environmentally irresponsible. Tierney cites reports showing that American recycled plastic ends up in third-world countries who don’t have the resources to dispose of it safely. Just throwing away our plastic would actually be better for the environment, Tierney argues.

Read his evidence… and Greenpeace’s concession… right here.

A Debate: Should America Embrace Free Trade?

The conservative movement has long been divided over questions of trade.

The end of the Cold War was thought to have ushered in an epoch of global free trade and “rules-based order,” made possible by American military power and strong international institutions like the World Trade Organization and the World Bank.

However, the rise of global competitors such as China have raised new questions about national economic policy, which resulted in tariffs and new trade deals during the Trump era, reinvigorating the free trade debate on the Right.

Join ISI in a debate over these perennial considerations as free market stalwart and Professor of Economics Julia Norgaard debates the Coalition for a Prosperous America’s Jeff Ferry, moderated by Nate Hochman. T

The debate begins at 7:30 pm Eastern time and will be live-streamed on YouTube as part of our Diana Davis Spencer Debate Series and co-sponsored with our partners at the Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy. 

Because our student editors and writers are bravely bringing conservative ideas to their campuses, we’re highlighting their efforts here.
 

CATEGORY: FEDERALISM (15 min)

Hurrah for the states

Thomas Jefferson believed and fought for many more ideas that most modern pundits now seldom repeat. One of the most important to Jefferson, an issue that he wrote about up until the year before his death, was the power of the states and state legislatures.

Kevin Gutzman surveys the breadth of Jefferson’s efforts on behalf of the several states, most notably his own state of Virginia, in our Intercollegiate Review archive.

Gutzman begins at the end of Jefferson’s life, with his 1825 “Draft Declaration.” In it, Jefferson reminded the public that the U.S. Constitution was supposed to keep the states “foreign,” “each to the others.” He lambasted the federal government for repeatedly overstepping its power by stripping rights from the states.

Gutzman then rewinds all the way back to 1774, when Jefferson was a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, the oldest continuous legislative body in America. Even at the young age of 31, Jefferson urged his fellow delegates to protect their individual legislative power against the centralized authority of the United Kingdom.

Investigate the rest of Jefferson’s lifelong effort to defend state power here.

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