Category: Free Content

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Autodidact: Filmer’s Patriarcha

I have been asked, many times, to explain my objections to John Locke and his  theory of natural rights and the social contract.   One way to address that question is the discussion of Sir Robert Filmer Patriarcha I undertook some years ago.  I am revising and condensing those pieces for our newer and better project.  Patriarcha was actually written before Locke’s Treatises, which effectively debunks the mythology.  During the month of June, I will be posting paragraphs of the work, making comments, taking questions and comments from participants in the discussion.  The book is available online at http://www.constitution.org/eng/patriarcha but...

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Join the Counter-Revolution Against 500 Years of Treason

Revolution & Resistance   Dear Friend and Fellow-Reader: “The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.”   Sir Edward Grey’s famous remark was inspired by the outbreak of World War I, the European civil war that was the beginning of the end of our civilization.  Now that we are closer to the end than to the beginning of our descent into the abyss, it is more vitally important than ever to understand what has happened, or rather, what we have done to ourselves.   At our first Summer School, we...

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Ask the Autodidact, #1 (FREE)

Ask the Autodidact This column is a work in progress.  I have invited several teachers and home-schooling parents to work together in improving the reading list, posting articles on important aspects of the classical  inheritance, and to take part in discussions initiated by questions Brother Martin, who works in a classical academy, writes in to ask: Would you mind sharing your thoughts on an educational issue, namely, the length of the school day, amount of homework, and such things.  When you have time, would you mind sharing your thoughts on an educational issue, namely, the length of the school day,...

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The Balkans Powder Keg, Again (FREE CONTENT)

It’s a complete mess! The Balkans are becoming once again the powder keg of the European continent.   In the turbulent nineties, the peninsula experienced the creation of several artificial states, such as Kosovo, Bosnia and FYROM, that became cradles of Islamic terrorism as well as headquarters for criminal organizations.  Now, once again, Balkan governments are undermining the stability of Europe. Everywhere we look, there is trouble. Belgrade is plagued by antigovernment rallies and protests. The population of tiny Montenegro sharply is divided over NATO membership.  In Athens the leftist gang in power has opened the Greek and therefore European border...

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The Imperial and Momentary We by Clyde Wilson (FREE)

By

This piece was originally published in Chronicles Magazine, October 2012.  It has been republished on the website of the Abbeville Institute.  Prof. Wilson has also given permission to put it on Fleming.Foundation in the hope that it will stimulate a lively discussion. “O Fame, O Fame! Many a man ere this Of no account hast thou set up on high.” —Boethius “It is a kind of baby talk, a puerile and wind­blown gibberish. . . . In content it is a vacuum.” —H.L. Mencken on Warren G. Harding’s speeches Americans are a practical people. They don’t want to hear your...

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In Memoriam Frank Schier (FREE)

This is a slightly revised version of my brief tribute delivered on Sunday, April 2, 2017 at a memorial gathering in Rockford the Mendelsohn Club.  Frank Schier was for many years the editor and publisher of the local weekly The Rock River Times.   My name is Tom Fleming, and I was for many years Frank Schier’s friend, sparring partner, and occasionally punching bag.  We once hosted a television show that must hold the record for the smallest audience, and for a brief period, I wrote restaurant reviews for his newspaper.  Perhaps that fact will be recorded on my own...

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Samuel Johnson, Our Greatest Moralist, Part D: The Problem of Pain (FREE)

Rasselas is probably Dr. Johnson’s most accessible piece of moral philosophy.  Since we shall be posting a podcast on the work, the treatment here can be quite limited.  Rasselas is a sort of a picaresque novel that tells the story of a young Abyssinian prince who, with his sister and mentor, leave the Happy Valley, an earthly paradise where the prince, his sisters, and their companions and attendants, enjoy every possible comfort and pleasure.  Rasselas, however, is not happy but is  possessed of what seems to be a romantic delusion that he should desire something.  He imagines that there is...

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Can Trump Repeal and Replace Obamacare? (FREE)

Obamacare is giving us the worst of both systems: The expense of capitalism and the deadly incompetence of socialism. President Trump’s attempt to fulfill his campaign promise to “repeal and replace” Obamacare – made during the election at every rally before voters – has descended into Cheyne-Stokes. Here’s a reality check. We’ll now see how good President Trump’s deal-making prowess really is. He’s attempting something Republicans never have been able to do: repeal, or at least sharply scale back, an entitlement, in this case Obamacare. The general history of Republicans long was to be the “adult in the room,” paying...

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The Xanthippe, Part 3

Part III Socrates:  Well then, Xanthippe, now  that we have silenced this childish ruffian–would that we could do the same to Anna and all her teachers and disciples–we can talk like adults.  We are not random strangers, we Athenians, but fellow citizens in a commonwealth founded by the goddess Athena and the earthborn king  Erechtheus and unified by Poseidon’s son, the hero Theseus.  The bones of heroes are buried on our territory, and their spirits and the ghosts of our ancestors watch over us, but more important than these heroes and ghosts are the nomoi, the traditional laws and customs...

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Properties of Blood I.4: Hate as the Instrument of Self-Defense, Part A (Free)

I find to my chagrin that in rearranging the parts of this book project, I neglected to post the chapter on Self Defense, which precedes the chapters on Revenge and Defending Honor.  Fortunately, anyone sufficiently interested will be able, some time in the not too distant future,  to read it as a print volume or ebook.   I.4 Defending the Self But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on they right cheek, turn the other to him [Mat 5:39] Human beings are not, as John Donne famously observed, islands separated by vast stretches...