CATEGORY: GOVERNMENT (10 MIN) 

Fiscal and future responsibility

American government has always aimed at a delicate balance between the power of the people and limitations on their excesses. The very structure of a bicameral Congress reflects this difficult tension. In a political moment filled with emphasis on populism, this age-old tightrope act remains treacherous. 

For Law and Liberty, Richard Reinsch extols the virtue of prudence as a necessary complement to rising populism. Reinsch recognizes the legitimate concerns and breakdowns in trust that have led to the modern populist revival. But he cautions populists that they must respect existing institutions or else risk radical harm. 

“[T]o compromise on the Constitution is to lose everything, every opportunity for reform, and our continued existence as a people,” Reinsch writes. 

As a prudential example, Reinsch discusses the tremendous difficulty of reining in government spending. He argues for a measured approach that appreciates the government’s propensity for spending but creates guideposts for the gradual reduction of the deficit. 

Discover Reinsch’s full petition for prudence here. 

CATEGORY: POLITICS (5 MIN) 

New order or same lord?

The recent trends in the conservative movement have largely characterized themselves as pushing back on the fusionist friendliness to classical liberalism. In the fields of trade, law, economics, and many others, trendy thinkers question the existing liberal consensus. However, are they going far enough? 

Adrian Vermeule doesn’t think so. In Compact, Vermeule excoriates various segments of the new right for failing to sufficiently challenge liberal tendencies. He focuses on modern thinkers’ unwillingness to overturn the apple cart and actually change long-standing institutions and traditions. 

Vermeule believes classical liberals are more than willing to allow their critics to practice some kind of protest in their own lives. But if such a protest remains “safely domesticated,” Vermeule says it will have no chance of changing America. And, he argues, it certainly will not threaten the powers that be. 

The only current movement that has a chance of effecting societal and political change, Vermeule claims, is integralism (or “political Catholicism”). He says it has the right mindset about truly developing a new order. 

Read Vermeule’s full argument here. 

Gender: Who Decides?
A Debate on Transgenderism & Womanhood

What does it mean to be a man or a woman? Can you be born a man and actually become a woman? Is identity tangibly attached to something inherent in us, or is it intangible and subjective? Is it merely some social construct or is it embedded in our genes, in our biological identity itself? ​​​​Can we actually conquer our human nature and identity in the same way we seemed to have conquered the other realms of nature? If we try, what are the consequences? 

Join the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in Pittsburgh, PA on April 18th at 7 PM as Michael Knowles and Deirdre McCloskey debate womanhood and transgenderism. Register here to attend in-person or online.

Join us in Pittsburgh >>>

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CATEGORY: INTERVIEW (17 MIN) 

A prescient politician

In the 1990s, a Republican candidate built a platform that foresaw much of the future of the modern conservative movement. His name was Pat Buchanan, and he argued for American greatness through protectionism and strong borders long before Donald Trump made them much more public. 

In this week’s Intercollegiate Review archive, we return to a fall 2020 interview with Buchanan on his political history, his economic theories, and his takes on the woke world we now live in. Buchanan discusses his interactions with Presidents Nixon and Reagan, his return to the Republicanism of the 1800s, and his belief that the modern Democratic Party will collapse. 

Buchanan focuses, though, on the difficult situation that our nation finds itself in with a lack of unifying forces. 

“[W]hen you get to a situation where you have no religious basis for your community, and no moral basis of the community upon which all agree, and you disagree on the most basic things, you don’t have a country anymore,” he says. 

Learn Buchanan’s thoughts on many different topics in his full interview here. 

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