Freedom Conservatism

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2/2 For more information about Loconte and other #FreeCon signatories, go here: freedomconservatism.org/p/anniversary-…

1/2 @JosephLoconte is a Presidential Scholar in Residence at New College of Florida and the C.S. Lewis Scholar for Public Life at Grove City College. A senior fellow at the Trinity Forum, Loconte is also a @FreeConTalk signatory. Among the books he’s authored are the bestseller “A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-1918” and its follow-up “The War for Middle-earth: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Confront the Gathering Storm, 1933–1945.” In a recent piece for @WSJ, Loconte reflected on the 500th anniversary of the arrival in England of William Tyndale’s translation of the Bible into English. Because the authorities banned Tyndale’s work, it had to be smuggled into the country. “The effect of his New Testament was electrifying and empowering,” Loconte wrote, “as men and women read or heard aloud the words of Jesus in English for the first time in their lives.” “The democratization of Bible reading,” he continued, “became a potent force of liberation. Reformers soon wielded the Bible to confront oppressive political and religious regimes. The Protestant defenders of England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688, which deposed an autocratic monarch and established a constitutional government, were armed with a biblical text deeply rooted in Tyndale’s translation. “So, too, were colonial Americans. As the historian Daniel Dreisbach has observed, the King James Bible was ‘the most accessible, authoritative, and venerated text in early colonial society.’ Thus in 1776, even Thomas Paine, a religious skeptic, drew from the Bible to make his famous case for American Independence. ‘That the Almighty hath here entered his protest against monarchical government is true,’ he wrote, ‘or the scripture is false.’” #FreeCon

@mungowitz 2/2 For more information about Munger and other #FreeCon signatories, go here: freedomconservatism.org/p/anniversary-…

1/2 Michael Munger (@mungowitz) is a professor of political science and director of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics certificate program at Duke University. He is also a @FreeConTalk signatory. A past president of the Public Choice Society and former North American editor of the journal Public Choice, he also hosts the podcast “The Answer is Transaction Costs.” In a recent piece for @TheIndReview, Munger discussed @johanknorberg’s book “Peak Human” in the context of prior attempts to describe and explain “golden ages,” including Edward Gibbon’s magisterial “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” the first volume of which was published 250 years ago. Munger wrote that Gibbon “changed the classic view (‘Rome fell because men declined’) into what we would now recognize as a social science-based comparative statics argument: ‘Rome fell because institutions changed incentives.’” “A number of modern authors, including most prominently Mancur Olson, have taken up this approach and applied it fruitfully in new contexts.” Norberg’s “Peak Human” belongs to the same tradition as Gibbon and Olson, Munger continued, but “departs from both in important ways. Norberg is less fatalistic than Gibbon and less mechanistic than Olson, while nonetheless sharing their skepticism toward teleological accounts of history.” “Peak Human offers a synthesis that neither Gibbon nor Olson quite achieved. It combines Gibbon’s sensitivity to historical contingency with Olson’s attention to incentive-driven institutional decay, while adding a cultural and ideological dimension that explains why societies so often choose restriction over discovery.” #FreeCon

@IndependentInst 2/2 For more information about Boudreaux and other #FreeCon signatories, go here: freedomconservatism.org/p/anniversary-…

1/2 Donald J. Boudreaux is a research fellow at the @IndependentInst and professor of economics at George Mason University. He is also a @FreeConTalk signatory. In the latest edition of The Independent Review, Boudreaux contributed an essay to a symposium on the 250th anniversary of the publication of Adam Smith’s “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.” “It’s no astonishing coincidence,” he wrote, “that Wealth of Nations appeared in the same year as America’s Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson’s manifesto, which Milton and Rose Friedman described as ‘the political twin of Smith’s economics.’” #AdamSmith “clearly saw that the obvious and simple system of natural liberty was to be given unprecedentedly full rein in the fledgling new nation,” Boudreaux continued. About Revolutionary-era Americans, Smith wrote that “they are become statesmen and legislators, and are employed in contriving a new form of government for an extensive empire, which they flatter themselves, will become, and which, indeed, seems very likely to become, one of the greatest and most formidable that ever was in the world.” An insufficiently appreciated fact about Wealth of Nations, Boudreaux wrote, “is that Smith did more than merely notice the market’s ability to incite strangers to cooperate productively with one another and to inform them about how best to carry out this cooperation; Smith was gobsmacked by this social cooperation. “We — 250 years later — should be even more gobsmacked. Much more. The extent of the market and the number of its participants are far larger today than they were in the eighteenth century. And we have the much-higher standard of living to prove it.” #FreeCon

Then their compensation will increase, which will attract more people to the job. If that doesn't happen, look for government regulations or union contracts preventing it from happening.

@washingtonpost @RameshPonnuru 2/2 For more information about Ponnuru and other #FreeCon signatories, go here: freedomconservatism.org/p/speaking-vol…

1/2 At the @washingtonpost, @FreeConTalk signatory @RameshPonnuru observed that Democratic candidates are again offering voters the promise of Medicare for All — even though its “political and policy deficiencies become impossible to ignore as soon as the debate moves beyond slogans.” A big one is that the policy “requires the government to kick 181 million people off their employer-provided insurance, 36 million off their individually purchased policies and 35 million off their Medicare Advantage plans. Surveys regularly find that an overwhelming majority of those enrollees like their coverage.” #FreeCon

@InsightsIssues @rlorenc 2/2 For more information about Lorenc and other #FreeCon signatories, go here: freedomconservatism.org/p/speaking-vol…

1/2 At @InsightsIssues, @FreeConTalk signatory @rlorenc argued that the embrace of socialism by members of Generation Z should come as no surprise. “Social media focuses intensely on the alleged sins of capitalism — greed, ever-rising prices, unfairness — while largely ignoring its vast and no less tangible benefits: abundance, freedom, innovation, opportunity, expression, and variety,” wrote Lorenc, the president and CEO of Lexandria, an education nonprofit that seeks to reignite the American spirit through innovative classroom content and tools. “It’s time for both a truce and the truth. If social media influencers wish to expose the system’s flaws (and they should!), they also should expose its virtues. “It’s also time for the adults in the house to tell Gen Zers to ‘take a deep breath and show us what you’re made of.’ And remind them: If you make the economy grow, you’re free to share your wealth however you see fit.” #FreeCon

My first time writing in @thedispatch is on the tariffs at their one year anniversay: The record of Trump’s tariffs becomes that of just another federal incursion into the private sector, one that brings neither liberation nor desperation, only more pressure on the world’s most impressive economy. Worryingly, it is also an incursion that is sustained by the guilt and grievances of a political class that vows to manipulate the economy for its own purposes. thedispatch.com/article/libera…

@ITRFoundation 2/2 For more information about Ginn and other #FreeCon signatories, go here: freedomconservatism.org/p/speaking-vol…

1/2 The @ITRFoundation seeks to apply “the principles of limited government, free enterprise, and the rule of law to public policy” so that “all Iowans will have the opportunity to succeed.” Earlier this month, the organization posted a point-counterpoint about the future of the American Right. Its policy director, John Hendrickson, argued that National Conservatism represents that future best, by preserving “what freedom alone cannot.” Conservatives “should be cautious of free-market fundamentalism,” he wrote. “While markets are powerful tools, they are not ends in themselves.” In his piece, @FreeConTalk signatory @VanceGinn argued that “Freedom Conservatism beats National Conservatism every time.” “Progressives have long preferred rule by executive action: agencies, emergency declarations, sweeping orders, and regulatory shortcuts,” wrote Ginn, who served as chief economist at the Office of Management and Budget during the first Trump administration. “What’s different now is how many on the right are tempted to use the same tactics for ‘good’ ends. That should set off alarms.” National Conservatism is right to be concerned about “alienation, fragility, and institutional rot,” he continued, but “it’s wrong about the prescription. Executive-heavy populism, tariffs, and industrial planning are not a return to ordered liberty. They’re a new version of top-down management. “Freedom Conservatism is better because it trusts people more than politicians. It protects the constitutional separation of powers. It rejects hidden taxes like tariffs. And it keeps the moral center of conservatism where it belongs: liberty under law, limited government, and free enterprise that lets people prosper.” #FreeCon

@ajtfosp 2/2 For more information about these and other #FreeCon signatories, go here: freedomconservatism.org/p/speaking-vol…

1/2 Here are some recently published and upcoming works by @FreeConTalk signatories and key allies: @ajtfosp (pictured nearby), a #FreeCon signatory and political scientist at North Carolina State University, is the author of “A Tolerance for Inequality: American Public Opinion and Economic Policy,” published last November by the University of Chicago Press. Taylor’s book “breaks new ground and makes a significant intellectual contribution by focusing on those areas where the connections between economic and political inequality are least established,” said Matt Grossman. • FreeCon signatory @bradleybirzer, Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies and Professor of History at Hillsdale College, is the author of ‘The Declaration of Independence: A Radical Experiment in Liberty,” due out in May from the American Institute for Economic Research. “Influenced by classical learning, the English constitutional tradition, Protestant political culture, and the philosophy of natural rights,” this book “presents the Declaration of Independence as both radical and deeply rooted in inherited traditions.” Birzer‘s previous books include “Russell Kirk: American Conservative” (2015), “Neil Peart: Cultural (Re)Percussions” (2015), and “J.R.R. Tolkien’s Sanctifying Myth” (2003). • @StephenKentX, a FreeCon signatory and principal of Better Media LLC, is the author of “Great Escape: How Stoicism and Timeless Stories Can Change Your Life, If You’ll Let Them,” due out later this year from Post Hill Press. His prior work includes “How the Force Can Fix the World: Lessons on Life, Liberty, and Happiness from a Galaxy Far, Far Away.” • @sladesr, a senior editor at Reason, is the author of “Fusionism: Liberty, Virtue, and the Future of the American Right,” which will be published in September by the University of Notre Dame Press. Slade “brilliantly illuminates the truth that the free society is made possible by the creative tension between liberty and virtue,” raved Yuval Levin of the American Enterprise Institute. “This book is essential reading for conservatives of all parties.” • @HelloFrankLavin, a FreeCon signatory and former federal official and ambassador, is the author of “Inside the Reagan White House: A Front-Row Seat to Presidential Leadership with Lessons for Today,” published last year by Post Hill Press. • @CalebFranz, a FreeCon signatory and program manager at Young Voices, is writing “Becoming Ulysses: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of Young Ulysses S. Grant.” His first book was “The Conductor: The Story of Rev. John Rankin, Abolitionism’s Essential Founding Father.” • @LexiOHudson, a FreeCon signatory and author of “The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves,” is currently working on a follow-up book for young readers entitled “Heroes and Villains: The Soul of Civility for Young Citizens.”

@_JackSalmon_ 2/2 For more information about Salmon and other #FreeCon signatories, go here: freedomconservatism.org/p/column-itches

1/2 In a recent Substack post, @FreeConTalk signatory @_JackSalmon_ explained that nearly all of the federal government’s projected deficits are attributable to spending growth, not tax cuts. “As federal revenues are forecast to be notably higher than the point of neutral budget balance by 2055,” wrote Salmon, a research fellow at @mercatus, “98% of the long-term structural deficit can be attributed to spending policy decisions, while just 2% is attributed to tax policy. “Specifically, 67% of the long-term structural deficit is attributed to growth in net interest payments on the debt, while the remaining 31% is attributed to growth in mandatory spending programs” — with Medicare the primary driver. #FreeCon

@chicagotribune @sarawynne 2/2 For more information about Albrecht and other #FreeCon signatories, go here: freedomconservatism.org/p/column-itches

1/2 At the @chicagotribune, @FreeConTalk signatory @sarawynne argued that the Trump administration should immediately refund its illegally levied taxes on imports — and to do so the “right way.” “Tariff refunds should follow the legal payment trail,” wrote Albrecht, who chairs a public-interest legal firm, the @LJCenter, that represented plaintiffs in the tariff case. “They should be returned to the importer of record — whether that is a small business directly or a customs broker or carrier clearing goods on its behalf. Those intermediaries can then reconcile accounts with their customers under the contracts that governed those transactions. And then businesses should be trusted to decide what comes next.” #FreeCon