Yesterday was the birthday ofWilliam Penn, the influential English Quaker and founder of Pennsylvania. This year also marks the 300th anniversary of his death. Although Penn was an Englishman, he became, as Gary M. Galles says, the first great champion of American liberty. As Galles notes, When Charles II died, a large debt to Penn’s father was settled in 1681 by granting him what would e Pennsylvania. Penn implemented his authority over the colony in his 1682Frame of Government, Pennsylvania’s...

Since the War of Independence, the American self-image has set individual liberty against oligarchic power. Abraham Lincoln encapsulated this when he described the American experiment as a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” Perhaps it was inevitable that populism, in the form of the People’s Party, was born on U.S. soil – and that, as it experiences a modern-day resurgence, it begins in the United States. The original Populists described themselves as “the plain people” fighting...

This article is written by Josep Mª Castellá Andreu and translated by Joshua Gregor. It was originally published by RedFloridaBlanca and is republished with permission. Nineteenth-century Spanish constitutionalism is usually interpreted as a pendulum swinging between liberal or progressive constitutions and moderate or conservative ones. This interpretation highlights constitutional instability and the minimal impact of constitutional documents on the nation’s political and social life. Former Constitution Square in Barcelona French writer Théophile Gautier (1811-1872) described Spain’s constitutional reality very well...

Father Paulo Ricardo is a very sympathetic man. Always smiling, he is tall, thin, and balding. His austere appearance reminds us of priests portrayed in the films of the 1960s. Father Paulo could easily pretend to be Dom Camilo, the wise Italian priest created by Giovannino Guareschi and immortalized in the cinema by the brilliant French actor Fernandel. Like Dom Camilo, Father Paulo is a provincial priest, far from the axis of Rio de Janeiro – Sao Paulo, who lives...

When Jair Messias Bolsonaro walked into TV Cultura’s studio in July, no one had any idea of ​​the political tsunami that would engulf Brazil 90 days later. The “Roda Viva” is the oldest talk show on Brazilian television; a group of eight journalists sit on a wheel-shaped bench and in the center lies the interviewee. That Monday, Bolsonaro spoke about how he would toughen criminal laws, turn back the sexual revolution, and restore Christian morality. He admitted to not understanding...

One of the leading philosophers of our time says Western culture will have to be handed down outside the ivory towers and college lecture halls – and he has strong reason to believe that its promulgators will be successful. Sir Roger Scruton’s optimism is not unfounded; he found the dissident, underground munities munist-dominated Europe had a greater thirst for truth and Western culture than their contemporaries in the politically correct West. Scruton reminisced about his career as a pioneering thinker...

Note: This is post #97 in a weekly video series on basic economics. Warning for young people: having a college degree no longer guarantees you’ll be able to find a good job, much less have a promising career. Four-year college graduates with entry-level jobs actually earned more in 2000 than they’re earning today. Choosing a good career requires planning beyond getting a college education, says Tyler Cowen of Marginal Revolution University. In this video he explains why you’ll want to...

It was in Brazil’s 2010 elections that the majority of the voters first learned about Silas Malafaia. It was also the election in which the left-wing president Lula da Silva reached the height of his political power. Lula was one of the most successful left-wing populist leaders of Latin America in the first two decades of the 21st century. He had all the pragmatism of a Tammany Hall boss. He could be applauded by a crowd of Communists one day...

This is the fifth in a series celebrating the work of Russell Kirk in honor of his 100th birthday this October. Read more from the serieshere. During the twentieth century, one man in particular took it upon himself to make a project of defining and perhaps re-invigorating an American conservatism which the prominent cultural critic Lionel Trilling dismissed as “a series of irritable mental gestures.” I remember picking up a copy of Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mindmany years ago. As...

On this episode of Radio Free Acton, Dan Hugger, Research Associate at Acton, speaks with Larry Reed, President of the Foundation for Economic Education, about the question that seems to be cropping up everywhere nowadays: Was Jesus a socialist? Then, Bruce Edward Walker talks to James Matthew Wilson about his new volume of poetry and on why poetry is important today. Check out these additional resources on this week’s podcast topics: Read “Jesus would have voted socialist, says Germany’s Left”...