By Alan Silverman on June 21, 2009
Beneficence… is less essential to the existence of society than justice…. [M]ercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.—Adam Smith
It is with a pious fraud as with a bad action; it begets a calamitous necessity of going on.—Thomas Paine
The modern debate over the death penalty in America seems to be a contest less of [...]
Posted in Editorials, Essay | Tagged November 2002, Volume I Number I
By Alan Silverman on April 5, 2004
At a time when the principles of federalism are in disrepair, it is important to recall the centrality of these principles to our constitutional heritage and their intimate relationship with conservative thought. Today, of the two major political parties in the United States, it is the Republican Party that is identified with states’ rights. That [...]
Posted in Features | Tagged April 2004, Volume II Number V
By Alan Silverman on April 5, 2004
Having attended Brown University for nearly two years, and having sampled the political discourse here for just as long, I have learned a great deal about the power of labels. In the last four months, I have also learned how easily labels can mislead. For most of my time at Brown, I thought of myself [...]
Posted in Essay | Tagged April 2004, Volume II Number V
By Alan Silverman on November 10, 2003
But man, proud man,
Drest in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d,
His glassy essence, like an angry ape,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven
As make the angels weep.
William Shakespeare
Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene II
Often, when I discuss next year’s presidential election with my conservative friends, they seem assured that 2004 will [...]
Posted in Essay | Tagged November 2003, Volume II Number III
By Alan Silverman on August 1, 2003
The people’s good is the highest law.
—Marcus Tullius Cicero
By general law life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb.
—Abraham Lincoln
When it comes to a decision by the head of the state upon a matter involving [...]
Posted in Features | Tagged August 2003, Volume II Number I
By Alan Silverman on May 1, 2003
The only liberty I mean, is a liberty connected with order; that not only exists along with order and virtue, but which cannot exist at all without them.
—Edmund Burke
Conservatism is the doctrine of pragmatic pessimism. A conservative sees the human race as nature’s flawed sensation—a race whose talents have brought phenomenal progress, yet whose defects—primarily [...]
Posted in Features | Tagged May 2003, Volume I Number III
