The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary
Many libertarians and classical liberals regard St. Thomas Aquinas as one of the enemies of liberty, of economic liberty in particular. According to these critics (and to some self-described Thomists), Thomas is supposed to have devised an abstract and systematic theory of an ideal state, which would have the power to regulate the marketplace by establishing a quasi-Marxian “just price” for all goods and by prohibiting all interest on investments. This opinion of Thomas’s economic views is substantially wrong, both in the details and in its overall point of view. Although Thomas was far from being a classical liberal, his moral and political philosophy, once properly understood, gives no support to statism in any form.
The year 1978 was five years after the Roe vs. Wade abortion-on-demand edict of the Supreme Court, a legal and moral outrage still not revoked. And today even children can access the worst pornography on a cell phone. The American birthrate keeps dropping well below the replacement level. Europe is even worse.
In this first of a two-part mini series on Euripedes, Dr. Fleming discusses what (little) we know about Euripedes, his relationship in the mind of the Greeks to Aeschylus and Sophocles, the themes he most frequently considered, and why he’s important for us to study today.
What’s noteworthy is how both GOP candidates are going over the top identifying with Trump and his issues, while demonizing the other guy as a tool of Pelosi. One Rohrabacher campaign flyer features pictures of him as a young speechwriter standing next to President Reagan; next to that is a picture of Trump. The words highlight three issues: “Leading the fight against illegal immigration….Working to end the unfair ‘Gas & Car Tax’…. Supporting President Trump.”
In this third episode on the Aeneid (Episodes 1 and 2 available here and here) Dr. Fleming discusses similarities between the Odyssey and Aeneid and why Aeneas must press forward, through geographic and intellectual wanderings, even though he finds some of his fellow Trojans building “Parva Troia” and finds a beautiful queen in Dido who tempts him to end his journey. Book III is an essential background for understanding the work.
This is an old story – exactly two years old, to be exact – but I completely missed it when it was unfolding, and something tells me the gentle reader was likewise napping even as mischievous Pan was sounding his pipes. In June 2016 the Alps played host to a variety of dignitaries, including Germany’s Angela Merkel, France’s Francois Hollande, and Italy’s Matteo Renzi, at the opening ceremony for the $10 billion St. Gotthard tunnel, at 57 kilometers through solid rock the world’s longest and most ambitious. This six-hour-long theatrical spectacle had been choreographed by a German called Volker Hesse,...
The little lies that buttress the Great Lie of equality.
I had intended to stay out of politics for a while, what with the Sicilian peach season in full swing and all the rest of nature’s palliatives to hand, but then it occurred to me that unless I have my say on this particular subject, nobody in the whole wide world will. It’s really the question of the century, as far as I’m concerned, and consequently I find few things more astonishing than the unbroken silence surrounding it.
Rex Scott gives his own unique take on the Cicero Summer Symposium. Warning: Content not recommended for persons over the mental age of 15.
From Under the Rubble with Dr. Fleming and Rex Scott: “Pigs is Pigs, Part I.” Original Air Date: May 21, 2018 Show Run Time: 31 minutes Show Guest(s): Dr. Thomas Fleming Show Host(s): Rex Scott The Fleming Foundation · From Under the Rubble, Episode 25: Pigs is Pigs, Part I From Under the Rubble℗ is a Production of the Fleming Foundation. Copyright 2018. All Rights are Reserved.
