American law has never recognized a pure understanding of rights in which they are universally valid and subject to no limitation whatever. It has especially not been recognized in the contexts of foreign affairs and immigration. And there's reams of jurisprudence saying so.

Critics of Trump's takeover plan are right that violent crime in D.C. is falling by all the available measures. But in their haste to attack him, they've ignored exactly how bad violence in the city is. My latest in The Atlantic:

Liberalism’s roots aren’t as populist as they may seem. “Liberalism, from the beginning, has been an elitist claim for intellectual liberation from the common bonds of religion, morality, and tradition.” —Peter Augustine Lawler modernagejournal.com/liberalism/244…

Answering a friendly critic on my protectionism. Yes, free trade began as a liberal cause and it has largely maintained those liberal horizons as it was imported into the American right. . nationalreview.com/2025/08/the-re…

Dr. Nicholas Mosvick reflects on "McCarthy and His Enemies: The Record and Its Meaning", the result of a rigorous 18-month research project by the great William F. Buckley, Jr. and his brother-in-law L. Brent Bozell. The two poured over files from Senator McCarthy...

"The conservative views most policy as an expedient, and government as an art. Classical liberals, upon encountering a Tory mind, instinctively view the reasoning as corrupt because it doesn’t refer exclusively back to principles, but reasons from history and experience."

Looking for documentation for "30-year-low" claim. NYT links to this justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/vio… which links to this mpdc.dc.gov/page/district-… which only shows homicides way ABOVE 2009-2019 years, and "recovered firearms" way above 2015-2019. (2015=1706, 2024=2895). What am I missing?

“It must never be forgotten that Western society is not at all modern, but that modernity is a growth within it, in opposition to the classic and Christian tradition”. Eric Voegelin, "New Science of Politics", p.176

Living through this was like a fever dream