Independent Institute Research Fellow Allan C. Carlson is probably America’s top intellectually-serious social conservative thinker, as he has demonstrated over the years as former President of the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society and author of books such as The Family in America and The New Agrarian Mind. Dr. Carlson’s first essay in the...
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Gloomy Conservatives
“A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt This is a very disturbing book, concluding that “America will one day be ‘one with Nineveh and Tyre,'” and that the general principles of conservatism will only reappear “when circumstances favorable to civilization return.” The...
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Giving and Giving In
My first reaction to reading this book is, what has all the controversy been about? Patterns is an empirical study of corporate giving to public interest—as opposed to traditional health and welfare—charities. Mr. Bennett has shown great ingenuity in constructing a paradigm of such giving that he does not claim to be formally representative, but...
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A Federalist Agenda
After eight years in power, conservatives are down in the mouth. The right feels as out in the cold as it was during the wilderness period, fifteen years ago; and this time it does not even have much of a communist menace to fall back upon. Establishment Republicanism, as personified by George Bush, is in...