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A State That Co-opts and Crushes Civil Society?
A State That Co-opts and Crushes Civil Society?
Aug 29, 2025 3:27 AM

John Zmirak, author and Editor-in-Chief of The Intercollegiate Review, wants voters to know exactly what is at stake in the looming Presidential election. In a guest blogger piece at the National Catholic Register, Zmirak pointedly states that the choice between the two candidates isn’t just about whose economic agenda seems more reasonable or who won which debate:

…it’s about what America means: At heart of our Constitutional democracy is the freedom of individuals, even those with unpopular opinions, to pursue the good as they choose—and their right to form groups outside the government and push back against its policies. That’s why we have munities, Catholic schools, associations of kosher butchers, hippie home-schools, gun clubs, organic farms… and all the other free institutions that build up our “ordered liberty.” Take all that away, quash every organization that displeases the federal government, and what you have is a country full of naked individuals, shivering in every wind that blows from Washington, D.C.

Read “First they came for the Catholics” at the National Catholic Register.

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