Conservative Minds

We've been away a while, but we're back and working on new episodes. In the meantime, here are our thoughts from last summer about the Dobbs decision when it was first handed down.

While most discussions of liberty center on government power, the subject of Mill's essay is the nature and limits of society's power over the individual. Society exercises control over the individual through prevailing opinion. Mill also argues that individuals should be allowed to participate in any activity they choose, so long as it does not harm others.

Goldberg explains that fascism is an offshoot of socialism and, rather than being conservative, is just another variety of far-left thought.

Haidt writes about social media and the downfall of normal society.

Rachel Bovard serves as Senior Director of Policy at the Conservative Partnership Institute.

For our centennial episode, we read God and Man at Yale, a 1951 book by William F. Buckley Jr., based on his undergraduate experiences at Yale . Buckley criticized the school for forcing collectivist, Keynesian, and secularist ideology on students. We discuss this and how it relates to current debates about politcis in the academy.

Mearsheimer argues that liberal hegemony — the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the Cold War ended — is doomed to fail. It would be better, he says, for America to practice restraint in the foreign policy sphere based on a sound understanding of how nationalism and realism constrain great powers. We also discuss Ukraine and both agree that American solidiers do not belong in the conflict.

Strain questions Trump's trade and immigration policies. We disagree on whether he's right.