Acton Line

We bring you a conversation between Acton’s Director of Communications, Eric Kohn, and the Jack Miller Family Foundation’s Director of Freedom Initiatives, Rabbi Jonathan Greenberg. In this episode, they discuss a new surge in antisemitic violence in America as tensions between Israel and Gaza continue to grow.

Jews have been beaten in broad daylight, synagogues have been vandalized, pro-Israel demonstrations have resulted in riots, and major cities across the Unites States have experienced explosive growth in antisemitic attacks.

Journalist Bari Weiss wrote in her new article, “We saw them on Thursday, when pro-Palestinian protesters threw an explosive device into a crowd of Jews in New York’s Diamond District. We saw them on Wednesday, when two men were attacked outside a bagel shop in midtown Manhattan. We saw them on Tuesday, at a sushi restaurant in West Hollywood, when a group of men draped in keffiyehs asked the diners who was Jewish, and then pummeled them. And in a parking lot not far away, when two cars draped in Palestinian flags roared after an Orthodox man fleeing for his life. And in the story of the American soccer player Luca Lewis, cornered by a band of men in New York demanding to know if he was a Jew.”

How did this happen, and why is this hate becoming a trend? 

How to Fight Anti-Semitism: Bari Weiss  

The New Furies of the Oldest Hatred 

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National Review: Action Institute's Father Robert Sirico Cautions Against Despair 

Chilling video captures the moment socialism morphs into anti-Semitism 

Terror in New York: Is anti-Semitism on the rise? 

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We bring you a conversation between Acton’s Director of Communications Eric Kohn and Congressman Peter Meijer, who took office in January as the representative for Michigan’s 3rd congressional district, and recently visited the Acton Building. They discuss bipartisanship, leadership, the often counterintuitive incentive structure that exists in the US Congress and much more.

Representative Peter Meijer

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Does hard work pay off? Do workers enjoy the fruits of their labor? Can a child living in poverty grow up to be financially successful? These are the questions Dr. Michael R. Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, answers in his new book, The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).

Populists on both sides of the political aisle routinely announce that the American Dream is dead. According to them, the game has been rigged by elites, workers can’t get ahead, wages have been stagnant for decades, and the middle class is dying. 

This rhetoric is dangerous and wrong. Dr. Strain shows that on measures of economic opportunity and quality of life, there has never been a better time to be alive in America.

Markets, populism and a fading American dream – Acton Institute PowerBlog 

The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It) - Book

AEI - American Enterprise Institute 

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Police reform, police training, foot pursuit policy, how to comply, lack of parenthood, and why we are so preoccupied with race. It’s been a year since the death of George Floyd and a lot has changed and a lot hasn’t. Dr. Anthony Bradley from King’s College presents effective solutions on how we can promote human flourishing in black communities.

Acton Line podcast: Anthony Bradley on George Floyd, police reform, and riots 

When police get it wrong (repeatedly): The rule of law and police reform 

How Christians should think about racism and police brutality 

Derek Chauvin guilty, but riots will hurt Minneapolis for generations 

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Acton Line brings you a conversation with Dylan Pahman and Alexander Salter. Pahman is a research fellow here at Acton Institute and serves as executive editor of our Journal of Markets and Morality. Salter is an associate professor of economics at Texas Tech University, and research fellow of the university's Free Market Institute. 

In this episode they discuss the relationship between money and liberty. In his article, The American Tradition of Ordered Liberty, Salter writes that “The United States is an experiment both in revolutionary freedom and communal virtue. In other words, our public institutions reflect an ongoing quest for ordered liberty. Without understanding the sources of ordered liberty, we cannot come to grips with our own institutions.”

This “source of ordered liberty” is found in the four pillars that Russell Kirk writes of in his book, Roots of The American Order. The first pillar is Jerusalem where we derive our Judeo-Christian tradition. The second is Athens with our classical Greek intellectual tradition. Third, is Rome, giving us our Roman legal tradition, and the fourth is London — our English constitutional tradition. 

“Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London — these are the antecedents of ordered liberty in America. Each tradition left its mark on American social and political institutions, and continues to influence them today.”

The American Tradition of Ordered Liberty – AIER 

Money and the Rule of Law - Salter’s book

Free Market Institute  

Reading Russell Kirk – Acton Institute PowerBlog 

Sirico on Russell Kirk and populism – Acton Institute PowerBlog 

Video: Samuel Gregg on Russell Kirk’s contributions to conservatism 

The History of Freedom in Antiquity - Lord Acton

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Today, we’re bringing you a conversation between our director of communications, Eric Kohn, and Nate Hochman about young conservatives and what’s happening today on the young right.

Nate is a Publius Fellow at the Claremont Institute, a previous contributor to Acton’s Religion & Liberty magazine, and, in my opinion, one of the sharpest and most interesting voices among the young conservatives out there.

This episode is a little different from previous episodes of Acton Line in that it’s much more a conversation between Nate and Eric than the typical interview we host. We hope that you find it interesting and revealing about where some of the intellectual energy is amongst young conservatives, what’s informing how they see the world, the state of the nation and of American culture, and how they think our national political and cultural problems should be addressed.

Toward a Conservative Environmentalism - Nate Hochman 

Nate Hochman on Twitter (@njhochman)

Is Critical Race Theory un-American?

Rise of the national conservatives with Matthew Continetti 

The particular genius of conservatism 

The Virtue of Liberalism 

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In this episode we speak with Helen Raleigh on her new book, Backlash: How China’s Aggression has Backfired. This book sets out to provide a comprehensive overview of China’s domestic and international aggressions and how they overplayed their hand. We discuss China’s actions in the South China Sea, their cultural tyranny with their social credit system, oppressive international trade, and their handling of the Covid-19 outbreak. 

Raleigh was born and raised in communist China, and has 1st hand experience of the cultural and political changes and the socialist experiments that millions of Chinese people had to endure - including her family.

In her book she writes, “The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) likes to compare itself to the sun. The party has wielded the power to determine the life and death of over one billion people for more than seventy years and is resolved to maintain such control for many more years to come. No matter how many skyscrapers arise in China, no matter how much China’s economy has shifted to depend on international trade and access to international markets, the nature of the Chinese Communist Party has never changed and it never will.” 

There are ongoing protests in Hong Kong, and an overwhelming international distrust in the CCP. The United States future with China is a great unknown with a new administration in the White House. 

Backlash: How China's Aggression Has Backfired - Book

The Coming Global Backlash against China - Helen Raleigh  

Helen Raleigh on how China is destroying Hong Kong's freedom - Acton Line

Helen Raleigh on how Communist China's coverup caused a pandemic - Acton Line  

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Adam Smith once said, “Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own interest in his own way, and to bring both his industry and capital into competition with those of any other man.”

In this episode, Acton brings you a conversation with political scientist and scholar, Dr. Donald Devine and Eric Kohn, director of communications here at the Acton Institute. Devine’s new book, The Enduring Tension: Capitalism and the Moral Order, is a much needed commentary on the sustaining nature of morality and the free market.  Devine states that in order for free markets to thrive, there are two missing components: morality and tradition.

In his book, Devine writes, “The moral assumptions of the Western traditional mythos, in which individuals have been created free and equal, are indispensable to legitimizing a pluralist, federalist, traditionalist, capitalist society with free markets and localized powers under a limited central state — a society where liberty and order coexist in creative tension. If its legitimizing source is forgotten or denied, civilization will likely fail.” If our culture continues toward this steep path of socialism, what is left is an oppressive bureaucracy, and a centralized totalitarian government.

Devine writes that what truly sustains humanity derives from Judeo-Christian beliefs, beginning with the initial doctrine of God who made us in His own image, endowing us with a moral worth that exists permanently in every person. This was the faith of the American Founders.

The Fund for American Studies - Donald Devine 

The Enduring Tension: capitalism and the moral order 

Journal of Markets & Morality

Is there an intrinsic morality of the free market? - Acton Commentary  

Free-market Economics - Acton Research 

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Acton Line brings you a conversation with theologians Darrell Bock and Jonathan Armstrong, and Dan Churchwell -- Acton’s director of program outreach. In this episode, they discuss the pros and cons of virtual reality and its impact on Christian worship.

Bock and Armstrong recognize that the world is changing faster each day as we discover new ways of navigating this seemingly infinite digital space. According to the World Economic Forum, we are entering into a Fourth Industrial Age. This age is characterized by a fusion of technologies that blur the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. 

In their book, Virtual Reality Church, Bock and Armstrong layout a strategy on how to joyfully communicate the teachings of Jesus Christ through disruptive technologies in this new digital age. They examine how this can affect how we worship in person, but also how we can leverage virtual reality to evangelize the Christian faith where many are persecuted. Virtual Reality Church is a guide on how to integrate revolutionary technologies into our everyday Christian life to be better evangelizers. 

Virtual Reality Church 

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What is the difference between propriety and virtue, and how does this relate to the constant abuse of free speech we see today? According to economist and philosopher, Adam Smith, propriety is the extent to which our actions accord with social expectations; which themselves are subjective and you could say are relationally determined. Virtue, on the other hand, is the extent to which an action is well-intended and the extent to which it produces that intended result. 

Acton Line brings you a conversation with Acton Institute’s Dylan Pahman, research fellow, and Eric Kohn, director of communications.  Pahman is also the managing editor of the Journal of Markets and Morality, a peer reviewed academic journal published by The Acton Institute, that promotes intellectual exploration of the relationship between economics and morality from both a social science and theological perspective. 

In this episode, they discuss free speech, the cancel culture, and the difference between propriety and virtue.

Journal of Markets & Morality 

Clobbering free speech with the Constitution 

The constitutional way to defeat cancel culture 

The solution to ‘cancel culture’ is true community

Why do we embrace ‘cancel culture’?

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