Anton v. Gutzman?

Was there a substantial debate between the two?

American Gnosticism?

The Foundering of the American Republic (essay by Andrew Latham) https://t.co/SR2Ba1L8Iv

— ImaginativeConservat (@imaginativecons) September 23, 2020

The Imaginative Conservative

Immanentizing the eschaton? Or revolutionaries just trying to bring about their political goals? Does everything need to be intellectualized in an abstract manner to create a genealogical narrative?

Debating the American Founding

Does America equal Locke? And is Lockean liberalism a friend or foe to authentic human flourishing? You’ll find these two questions running throughout much of the conversation about liberalism. https://t.co/mgD22HMMGK

— Public Discourse (@PublicDiscourse) July 26, 2020

Natural Law and the American Founding

Is Natural Law Sufficient to Defend the Founding? (essay by Donald Devine) https://t.co/YWG7XPP48T

— ImaginativeConservat (@imaginativecons) July 27, 2020

Nathanael Blake reviews America’s Revolutionary Mind by C. Bradley Thompson

CWR

It is unfortunate that C. Bradley Thompson’s "America’s Revolutionary Mind" has been marketed as a genuine American history, rather than the libertarian fan-fiction that it is, writes Nathanael Blake.https://t.co/cgI52I3DUs

— Catholic World Report (@cworldreport) July 22, 2020

The Education of John Adams

AmConMag: The Most Endearing Of The New Englanders Who Won Our Independence by Kevin R.C. Gutzman
Author R.B Bernstein details the life of John Adams, a serious intellectual, lawyer, and devout patriot.

The Most Endearing Of The New Englanders Who Won Our Independence: Kevin Gutzman at @amconmag reviews 'The Education of John Adams' by R.B. Bernstein https://t.co/lVv9Q7e7xV pic.twitter.com/PDBLbhZrMy

— Glynn Young (@gyoung9751) July 6, 2020

OUP: The Education of John Adams by R. B. Bernstein

American Revolutions by Alan Taylor

WN Norton

Rarely do authors give the full perspective. American Revolutions by Alan Taylor gives one of the better overviews of what led to the revolution https://t.co/piBCOVYnXk

— Scott Greer (@ScottMGreer) July 5, 2020

The First Congress

Abbeville Institute: The First Congress By Brion McClanahan

A review of The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government (Simon and Schuster, 2016) by Fergus Bordewich Amateur historians usually write excellent histories. Left unshackled… »

The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government

Inspired by Liberty and Virtue

Archbishop Chaput at It Again

Pushing his erroneous immigrant myth about the United States -- Things To Come: Faith, State, and Society in a New World

The full text of the inaugural Religion and Public Life Lecture delivered today at the Matthew J. Ryan Center at Villanova University.

What's a Patriot to Do?

I was thinking about Born on the Fourth of July. I did not react well to the depiction of Ron Kovic (played by Tom Cruise) the first few times of watching the movie. His suffering seemed to be expressed as self-indulgent whining. As I've gotten older, I've come to sympathize with him a bit more; he lost much after being duped into imperialism, not patriotism, and his loss was sufficient to provoke a crisis of faith (he seems to have rejected his Catholicism) as a part of existential crisis. Did he ever return to the Catholic faith? Does he offer a solution to war that is not statist? If it is not statist, is it more like an alternative (or false) religion or spirituality with a utopian vision of humanity?



‘Born on the 4th of July,’ Ron Kovic’s Searing Vietnam Memoir Turns 40
‘Born on the Fourth of July’ vet’s account disputed by comrades

If patriotism requires localism and a true community, then violence may be needed to protect the community -- are more wars likely if the number of self-ruling communities is increased? Even if that were the case, would these wars reach the scale of war-making attained by the industrialized nation-states of the 20th century?




VD: What Independence Day
For the fourth of July let’s mourn the Constitution. It’s dying.
American Counter-Revolution by Clyde Wilson
The Fourth Of July Is Beloved Of Americans–But Not All “Citizens” Think Of Themselves That Way
The Virginia Ratifying Convention and the Birth of the Tenth Amendment

Kevin Gutzman on Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton Takes Broadway By Kevin R.C. Gutzman
A Founding Father gets his due—in a hip-hop musical.



Hamilton

Also, America's Kingly Constitution.

The Canonization of Junipero Serra - Rewriting American History

History is written by the victors... in this case the immigrants who overwhelmed the natives, though perhaps their victory is not complete yet.

Pope Francis pauses before the statue of St. Junipero Serra in the United States Capitol Building on Thursday.

Posted by Vatican Radio - English Section on Thursday, September 24, 2015

Pope Francis canonized Junipero Serra at a Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in...

Posted by Vatican Radio - English Section on Thursday, September 24, 2015

Dr. Wilson on the American "Reaction"

Society Precedes Government: Two Counterrevolutions by Clyde Wilson

He begins his “Disquisition” by discarding the notion that all men are born free and equal, not because he wants to defend slavery, but because he wants us to begin in the right place. All of us are born as helpless babes who cannot survive a day without society. God has created man a social animal. He needs society to survive, much less to realize his highest potential. Societies are a given, created by history and human nature. But men have selfish as well as social feelings, which demand inevitably a government of some kind to keep the peace and enforce justice. While society is created by God, governments are only creations of men, existing for the protection of society. And since those entrusted with government have selfish feelings like all other men, a good government will have a constitution, not so much a grant of power as a statement of the limits of power.

Can't agree with Calhoun on the origin of government for this reason -- it's not simply because of protection, though that is one of its functions in the fallen world, but for the sake of legislating for the common good.

The New England Push for Secession

A Sympathy for Disunion By Vito Mussomeli

Mel Bradford on National and State Establishment of Churches

The Imaginative Conservative: Mel Bradford, Religion, and Original Intentions by Mark DeForrest

Nomocracy in Politics: “What Did the Declaration of Independence Do?” By Bruce P. Frohnen

The Declaration of Independence

Recovering the Declaration of Independence by Sean Busick & Lee Cheek Jr.

Related:
Thomas Jefferson and the American Declaration of Independence: The Power and Natural Rights of a Free People by Ross Lence

John Médaille on Triumph Magazine

and his memories of Frederick D. Wilhelmsen - Radical Traditionalists: The Fall of Triumph Magazine

I think that the problem for Triumph—and the lesson to be drawn from its failure—lies in its relationship with movement conservatism. For conservatism is a very difficult thing to do in a country like America which traces its founding back to the most radical liberals of their day. Our founding document, the Constitution, aims not at a polity of virtue, but one were vice checks vice; the checks and balances are designed to pit one avaricious group against another not for the purpose of eliminating avarice, but merely to ensure that the grumbling hive does not shake itself apart. A conservatism forced to defend such a founding on anything but pragmatic or historic grounds finds itself in a contradictory position. Most American conservatives are, at best, Lockeans, that is, heirs of the Scottish Enlightenment. And many conservatives, even many Catholic conservatives, have gone over completely to the dark side to extol such atheist “philosophers” as Ayn Rand, or such atheist and anti-Catholic thinkers like Ludwig von Mises, who excoriated Jesus Christ as “nihilist” and who described himself as “a man of 1789,” that is, of the French Revolution.

I can somewhat agree with his assessment of mainstream conservatives and their ideologies but not with the intellectual history.

The Imaginative Conservative: The Start of Something Big: Jamestown by Bruce P. Frohnen

Review of The Jamestown Project by Karen Ordahl Kupperman.