Free Will and Determinism

Terrifying story showing the madness of determinism

Capitalism After the Crisis

National Affairs

Most lobbying seeks to tilt the playing field in one direction or another, not to level it. Most lobbying is pro-business, in the sense that it promotes the interests of existing businesses, not pro-market in the sense of fostering truly free and open competition. Open competition forces established firms to prove their competence again and again; strong successful market players therefore often use their muscle to restrict such competition, and to strengthen their positions. As a result, serious tensions emerge between a pro-market agenda and a pro-business one, though American capitalism has always managed this tension far better than most.

Political Philosophy

Ed Feser: Libertarianism's Claims to Neutrality

Barnett really seems to be saying is not that ‘moral rights’ and ‘consequentialist’ libertarian theories are compatible, but rather that although they are incompatible as they stand, they can and ought to be reinterpreted – specifically, in an instrumentalist ‘problem-solving’ fashion – so that the incompatibilities disappear. But the ‘neutrality’ between moral theories that results is bogus, in two respects. First, it is not a neutrality between existing moral theories – which is surely what matters if libertarianism is to be impartial in some interesting sense – but only between theories that Barnett thinks should exist in the place of the ones that actually exist.

Patrick Deenen FPR: Phillip Blond and Subsidiarity

[O]ur time is defined by a pincer movement mutually arising from, on the one hand, liberalism’s tendency to understand the human creature in individualistic and monadic terms, and on the other, the rise of a centralized Nanny State. Our current political alignments regard these two as opposites, the one the philosophy of heroic Randian individuals, the other, the specter of the Nanny State – or (as described from another perspective), on one side, greedy industrial plunderers, and on the other, the Government as protector of and provider for the people. The pincer movement is directed against all intermediary and binding associations: both the Market and the State seek to be monopolistic in their spheres, disempowering or dislocating intermediary identifications. Community, family, church, society – all are to be remade in the voluntarist image, and their functions are to be replaced by the State.

And similarities to Robert Nisbet

Economic Inequality

God's law respecting economic inequality

The law given by God to Moses that are given to ensure general equality, or social justice. For example:

• If using “poor and destitute” day laborers, Israelites were to pay their wages at the end of every day “before sunset because they are poor and counting on it.” (Deuteronomy 24:14-15)
• During the harvest, Israelites were not to go back over their fields a second time or glean the edges of their fields. They were not to beat their olive trees twice, or go back a second time after picking grapes from the vine. All the gleanings were left to the “foreigners, orphans, and widows.” (Leviticus 19:9-10, 23:22; Deuteronomy 24:19-22)
• Every three years, the entire tithe of Israel’s harvest was to be given to Levites, as well as “to the foreigners living among you, the orphans, and the widows in your towns, so that they can eat and be satisfied.” (Deuteronomy 14:28-29)
• Every seven years, all debts were to be cancelled among the Israelites and all male Israelite slaves who had sold themselves released. God specifically warned against reticent lending when the time for cancelling debts grew near, because “If you refuse to make the loan and the needy person cries out to the Lord, you will be considered guilty of sin.” (Deuteronomy 15:1-11)
• Every 50 years (or, the seventh debt-cancelling cycle), the Israelites would celebrate the Year of Jubilee, when not only would all debts be cancelled, but all land would be returned to its original family assignments. This did not apply to houses in walled towns, but only to land in the countryside that could support agriculture. I believe this provision had an incredibly powerful leveling effect in Israelite society because the ability to produce and accumulate wealth was based on the land. If someone lost their land, they would be reduced to a day laborer or tenant farmer with little hope of escaping their situation. In agrarian economy, the Year of Jubilee ensured there was not a huge gap between rich and poor, where the rich get ever richer. God did not prohibit wealth, but He did make vast inequality impossible. (Leviticus 25:8-55)

Heavy Metal Conversions

Not nuclear physical ones :)

Evil

The final two words from this woman. Chilling.

"Today's saints are pioneeers of the restoration of authentic Catholic education"

Real Catholic Education

TV? Who Needs It?

Prime Time TV Objectifies and Fetishises Underage Girls: Study Shows

Conscience: Prof. Carroll

The Catholic Thing: On Conscience

Liberal Catholic turns Orthodox

Orthodox Catholics and Humanae Vitae: God is the Lord of Creation and of our Sexuality

The Wonders of the Perennial Philosophy

Physics and Aristotelian-Thomism

Introduction to A-T Philosophy

Teach Teens the Faith

Teen Angels New Weekly Standard: Eve Tushnet