First Principles

Articles

• The Quest for Community in the Age of Obama: Nisbet’s Prescience

  • Ross Douthat
  • January 30, 2012
  • “Conservatives are cracking open Atlas Shrugged and shouting about socialism, but they seem to have lost the appetite for thinking through the problem of community in an individualistic age—which is, of course, precisely the problem that make socialism so appealing in the first place.” . . . Ross Douthat on The Quest for Community.

• A New Republic: The Progressive Assault on the Founders’ Principles

  • Matthew Spalding
  • January 9, 2012
  • In many circles, especially among our intellectual, cultural, and political elites, the principles of America’s Founding have been largely abandoned. How—and why—did this come to be? The answer is to be found in profound changes over the course of the twentieth century in how we think of ourselves, our past, and the underlying principles of our nation. . . .

• Common Ground: The Founding Era

  • George W. Carey
  • January 5, 2012
  • The Constitution was not ordained or sanctioned by the gods. The American people were obliged by circumstances to think about fundamental political values and to make authoritative and strategic decisions that would bind subsequent generations. . . .