Tag: Public Morality

Topics

Books

Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– The Louisiana State University Press, 1957; reprinted, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1969.
This book examines the First Amendment and issues of liberty and the American Founding. Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments I           Censorship: A Classic Issue… More

Book Review: Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– Rene de Visme Williamson, Louisiana Law Review 18:2 (February 1958).
Excerpt: In an age when conflicting ideologies are competing for the support of mankind and when constitutional issues regarding civil liberties are dividing the American people in opposing… More

Pornography Vs. Democracy: The Case for Censorship

– Public Interest 22 (Winter 1971), 3–24.
Excerpt: The case against censorship is very old and very familiar. Almost anyone can formulate it without difficulty. One has merely to set the venerable Milton‘s Areopagitica in… More

Free Speech and Free Government

– The Political Science Reviewer 2:1 (Fall 1972).
Excerpt: It is unfortunate, and a measure of our contemporary difficulties, that too many Americans today would hesitate to agree with Gladstone that the American Constitution was… More

Two Mills and Liberty

– Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 1975.
Excerpt: “On Liberty and Liberalism: The Case of John Stuart Mill” tells the astonishing story of John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty,” which is a story about the book (one of the… More

Religion and the Founding Principle

– The Moral Foundations of the American Republic, Robert H. Horwitz, ed. (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1977, 1986).

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– William J. Bennett, Commentary (May 1977).
Abstract: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

The Role of the Court

– William J. Bennett, Commentary, May 1977.
Excerpt: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

The Need for Public Authority

– Modern Age 24:1 (Winter 1980); reprinted in Freedom and Virtue: The Conservative and Libertarian Debate, George W. Carey, ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984; reprinted, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2004).
Excerpt: Some ten years ago, I resigned from Cornel1 University; at that time the university had just been taken over by students carrying guns, and first the administration and then the… More

Liberal Censorship

– Public Interest 65 (Fall 1981), 146–49.
Excerpt: One would have thought that the censorship issue had been settled in the liberal societies of the West. In theory pornography may be proscribed by the law-in the United States, for… More

Religion, Ethics and Politics in the 1980s

– Morality of the Market: Religion and Economic Perspectives, Walter Block, Geoffrey Brennan, and Kenneth Elzinga, eds. (Vancouver, Canada: The Fraser Institute, 1985).
Proceedings of an International Symposium on Religion, Economics and Social Thought, held August 9-11, 1982, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

No One Blushes Anymore

– George Will, Washington Post, September 15, 1985.
Excerpt: Walter Berns, the political philosopher, asks: What if, contrary to Freud and much conventional wisdom, shame is natural to man and shamelessness is acquired? If so, the… More

Re-evaluating the Open Society

– Order, Freedom, and the Polity: Critical Essays on the Open Society, George W. Carey, ed. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute and University Press of America, 1986).
Abstract: A series of essays which critically examine the concept of the open society as ‘the crowning achievement of Western civilization.’ Analyzes the open society theory… More

Learning to Live with Sex and Violence

– National Review, November 1, 1993.
Excerpt: Many years ago, at a supper club in Chicago, I asked a waiter (decked out, as I recall, like some character from the Arabian Nights) why they served their steaks on flaming… More

Dirty Words

– Public Interest 114 (Winter 1994), 119–25.
Excerpt: The world has never had a good definition of liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in need of one.” What Abraham Lincoln said in 1864 about liberty in general can… More

Blue Movies

– Public Interest 119 (Summer 1995), 86–90; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: Hollywood Censored,  we are told on the book’s dust jacket, examines how hundreds of films–Mae West comedies, serious dramas, and films with a social… More

Marriage Anyone?

– First Things, April 1996.
Excerpt: Almost 70 percent of the American people have indicated their opposition to “same—sex” marriages (males with males, females with females), but neither they nor their elected… More

On the Future of Conservatism

– Commentary, February 1997.
Excerpt: Years ago (how many, I do not remember) I was on a panel with the late Russell Kirk, the doyen of the paleoconservatives, and sitting behind him when, at the podium, he outlined… More

Taking Virtue Seriously

– Public Interest 128 (Summer 1997), 122–26.
Excerpt: In 1790-91, Supreme Court Justice James Wilson delivered a series of lectures on the law at what was to become the University of Pennsylvania and before an audience that included… More

Clothes for Working Women–or Working Girls?

– Wall Street Journal, October 27, 1997.
Excerpt: On Oct. 8, The Wall Street Journal ran an article with the headline, “Will Working Women Wear This Stuff?” The “stuff” in question — “vixenish… More

The Cultivation of Citizenship

– Public Morality, Civic Virtue, and the Problem of Modern Liberalism, T. William Boxx and Gary M. Quinlivan, eds. (Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000), reprinted in Citizens and Statesmen: An Annual Review of Political Theory and Public Life, James R. Harrigan, ed. (2006).
Liberalism, the central political philosophy of American and Western society, is a philosophy based on human freedom, equality, and the natural rights of individuals. Yet liberalism needs… More

James Madison on Religion and Politics

– James Madison and the Future of Limited Government, John Curtis Samples, ed. (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2002), 135–46.
Americans are once again rediscovering the wisdom of the founders who wrote and ratified the U.S. Constitution, which has stood the test of two centuries. James Madison’s efforts in… More

Walter Berns’ Constitution by Christopher DeMuth

– Remarks by Christopher DeMuth at a Constitution Day seminar in honor of Walter Berns, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.
Excerpt: In America today, the Constitution has come to mean constitutional law. Most Americans venerate their Constitution and realize that it is an important source of their liberties and… More

Walter Berns, Teacher and Patriot by Leon Kass

– Leon R. Kass, The American, September 27, 2011.
Excerpt: It is absolutely fitting and proper to honor Walter Berns in connection with Constitution Day. The U.S. Constitution, and the underlying ideas and ideals of… More

Berns on Free Speech

– Bradley C. S. Watson, remarks from Claremont Institute APSA roundtable, September 2015.
Excerpt: Like few others, Walter Berns made it his life’s work to remind us of the reciprocal relationship between rights and duties, individualism and the common good, civil liberties… More

Essays

Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– The Louisiana State University Press, 1957; reprinted, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1969.
This book examines the First Amendment and issues of liberty and the American Founding. Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments I           Censorship: A Classic Issue… More

Book Review: Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– Rene de Visme Williamson, Louisiana Law Review 18:2 (February 1958).
Excerpt: In an age when conflicting ideologies are competing for the support of mankind and when constitutional issues regarding civil liberties are dividing the American people in opposing… More

Pornography Vs. Democracy: The Case for Censorship

– Public Interest 22 (Winter 1971), 3–24.
Excerpt: The case against censorship is very old and very familiar. Almost anyone can formulate it without difficulty. One has merely to set the venerable Milton‘s Areopagitica in… More

Free Speech and Free Government

– The Political Science Reviewer 2:1 (Fall 1972).
Excerpt: It is unfortunate, and a measure of our contemporary difficulties, that too many Americans today would hesitate to agree with Gladstone that the American Constitution was… More

Two Mills and Liberty

– Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 1975.
Excerpt: “On Liberty and Liberalism: The Case of John Stuart Mill” tells the astonishing story of John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty,” which is a story about the book (one of the… More

Religion and the Founding Principle

– The Moral Foundations of the American Republic, Robert H. Horwitz, ed. (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1977, 1986).

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– William J. Bennett, Commentary (May 1977).
Abstract: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

The Role of the Court

– William J. Bennett, Commentary, May 1977.
Excerpt: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

The Need for Public Authority

– Modern Age 24:1 (Winter 1980); reprinted in Freedom and Virtue: The Conservative and Libertarian Debate, George W. Carey, ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984; reprinted, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2004).
Excerpt: Some ten years ago, I resigned from Cornel1 University; at that time the university had just been taken over by students carrying guns, and first the administration and then the… More

Liberal Censorship

– Public Interest 65 (Fall 1981), 146–49.
Excerpt: One would have thought that the censorship issue had been settled in the liberal societies of the West. In theory pornography may be proscribed by the law-in the United States, for… More

Religion, Ethics and Politics in the 1980s

– Morality of the Market: Religion and Economic Perspectives, Walter Block, Geoffrey Brennan, and Kenneth Elzinga, eds. (Vancouver, Canada: The Fraser Institute, 1985).
Proceedings of an International Symposium on Religion, Economics and Social Thought, held August 9-11, 1982, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

No One Blushes Anymore

– George Will, Washington Post, September 15, 1985.
Excerpt: Walter Berns, the political philosopher, asks: What if, contrary to Freud and much conventional wisdom, shame is natural to man and shamelessness is acquired? If so, the… More

Re-evaluating the Open Society

– Order, Freedom, and the Polity: Critical Essays on the Open Society, George W. Carey, ed. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute and University Press of America, 1986).
Abstract: A series of essays which critically examine the concept of the open society as ‘the crowning achievement of Western civilization.’ Analyzes the open society theory… More

Learning to Live with Sex and Violence

– National Review, November 1, 1993.
Excerpt: Many years ago, at a supper club in Chicago, I asked a waiter (decked out, as I recall, like some character from the Arabian Nights) why they served their steaks on flaming… More

Dirty Words

– Public Interest 114 (Winter 1994), 119–25.
Excerpt: The world has never had a good definition of liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in need of one.” What Abraham Lincoln said in 1864 about liberty in general can… More

Blue Movies

– Public Interest 119 (Summer 1995), 86–90; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: Hollywood Censored,  we are told on the book’s dust jacket, examines how hundreds of films–Mae West comedies, serious dramas, and films with a social… More

Marriage Anyone?

– First Things, April 1996.
Excerpt: Almost 70 percent of the American people have indicated their opposition to “same—sex” marriages (males with males, females with females), but neither they nor their elected… More

On the Future of Conservatism

– Commentary, February 1997.
Excerpt: Years ago (how many, I do not remember) I was on a panel with the late Russell Kirk, the doyen of the paleoconservatives, and sitting behind him when, at the podium, he outlined… More

Taking Virtue Seriously

– Public Interest 128 (Summer 1997), 122–26.
Excerpt: In 1790-91, Supreme Court Justice James Wilson delivered a series of lectures on the law at what was to become the University of Pennsylvania and before an audience that included… More

Clothes for Working Women–or Working Girls?

– Wall Street Journal, October 27, 1997.
Excerpt: On Oct. 8, The Wall Street Journal ran an article with the headline, “Will Working Women Wear This Stuff?” The “stuff” in question — “vixenish… More

The Cultivation of Citizenship

– Public Morality, Civic Virtue, and the Problem of Modern Liberalism, T. William Boxx and Gary M. Quinlivan, eds. (Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000), reprinted in Citizens and Statesmen: An Annual Review of Political Theory and Public Life, James R. Harrigan, ed. (2006).
Liberalism, the central political philosophy of American and Western society, is a philosophy based on human freedom, equality, and the natural rights of individuals. Yet liberalism needs… More

James Madison on Religion and Politics

– James Madison and the Future of Limited Government, John Curtis Samples, ed. (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2002), 135–46.
Americans are once again rediscovering the wisdom of the founders who wrote and ratified the U.S. Constitution, which has stood the test of two centuries. James Madison’s efforts in… More

Walter Berns’ Constitution by Christopher DeMuth

– Remarks by Christopher DeMuth at a Constitution Day seminar in honor of Walter Berns, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.
Excerpt: In America today, the Constitution has come to mean constitutional law. Most Americans venerate their Constitution and realize that it is an important source of their liberties and… More

Walter Berns, Teacher and Patriot by Leon Kass

– Leon R. Kass, The American, September 27, 2011.
Excerpt: It is absolutely fitting and proper to honor Walter Berns in connection with Constitution Day. The U.S. Constitution, and the underlying ideas and ideals of… More

Berns on Free Speech

– Bradley C. S. Watson, remarks from Claremont Institute APSA roundtable, September 2015.
Excerpt: Like few others, Walter Berns made it his life’s work to remind us of the reciprocal relationship between rights and duties, individualism and the common good, civil liberties… More

Commentary

Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– The Louisiana State University Press, 1957; reprinted, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1969.
This book examines the First Amendment and issues of liberty and the American Founding. Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments I           Censorship: A Classic Issue… More

Book Review: Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– Rene de Visme Williamson, Louisiana Law Review 18:2 (February 1958).
Excerpt: In an age when conflicting ideologies are competing for the support of mankind and when constitutional issues regarding civil liberties are dividing the American people in opposing… More

Pornography Vs. Democracy: The Case for Censorship

– Public Interest 22 (Winter 1971), 3–24.
Excerpt: The case against censorship is very old and very familiar. Almost anyone can formulate it without difficulty. One has merely to set the venerable Milton‘s Areopagitica in… More

Free Speech and Free Government

– The Political Science Reviewer 2:1 (Fall 1972).
Excerpt: It is unfortunate, and a measure of our contemporary difficulties, that too many Americans today would hesitate to agree with Gladstone that the American Constitution was… More

Two Mills and Liberty

– Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 1975.
Excerpt: “On Liberty and Liberalism: The Case of John Stuart Mill” tells the astonishing story of John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty,” which is a story about the book (one of the… More

Religion and the Founding Principle

– The Moral Foundations of the American Republic, Robert H. Horwitz, ed. (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1977, 1986).

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– William J. Bennett, Commentary (May 1977).
Abstract: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

The Role of the Court

– William J. Bennett, Commentary, May 1977.
Excerpt: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

The Need for Public Authority

– Modern Age 24:1 (Winter 1980); reprinted in Freedom and Virtue: The Conservative and Libertarian Debate, George W. Carey, ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984; reprinted, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2004).
Excerpt: Some ten years ago, I resigned from Cornel1 University; at that time the university had just been taken over by students carrying guns, and first the administration and then the… More

Liberal Censorship

– Public Interest 65 (Fall 1981), 146–49.
Excerpt: One would have thought that the censorship issue had been settled in the liberal societies of the West. In theory pornography may be proscribed by the law-in the United States, for… More

Religion, Ethics and Politics in the 1980s

– Morality of the Market: Religion and Economic Perspectives, Walter Block, Geoffrey Brennan, and Kenneth Elzinga, eds. (Vancouver, Canada: The Fraser Institute, 1985).
Proceedings of an International Symposium on Religion, Economics and Social Thought, held August 9-11, 1982, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

No One Blushes Anymore

– George Will, Washington Post, September 15, 1985.
Excerpt: Walter Berns, the political philosopher, asks: What if, contrary to Freud and much conventional wisdom, shame is natural to man and shamelessness is acquired? If so, the… More

Re-evaluating the Open Society

– Order, Freedom, and the Polity: Critical Essays on the Open Society, George W. Carey, ed. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute and University Press of America, 1986).
Abstract: A series of essays which critically examine the concept of the open society as ‘the crowning achievement of Western civilization.’ Analyzes the open society theory… More

Learning to Live with Sex and Violence

– National Review, November 1, 1993.
Excerpt: Many years ago, at a supper club in Chicago, I asked a waiter (decked out, as I recall, like some character from the Arabian Nights) why they served their steaks on flaming… More

Dirty Words

– Public Interest 114 (Winter 1994), 119–25.
Excerpt: The world has never had a good definition of liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in need of one.” What Abraham Lincoln said in 1864 about liberty in general can… More

Blue Movies

– Public Interest 119 (Summer 1995), 86–90; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: Hollywood Censored,  we are told on the book’s dust jacket, examines how hundreds of films–Mae West comedies, serious dramas, and films with a social… More

Marriage Anyone?

– First Things, April 1996.
Excerpt: Almost 70 percent of the American people have indicated their opposition to “same—sex” marriages (males with males, females with females), but neither they nor their elected… More

On the Future of Conservatism

– Commentary, February 1997.
Excerpt: Years ago (how many, I do not remember) I was on a panel with the late Russell Kirk, the doyen of the paleoconservatives, and sitting behind him when, at the podium, he outlined… More

Taking Virtue Seriously

– Public Interest 128 (Summer 1997), 122–26.
Excerpt: In 1790-91, Supreme Court Justice James Wilson delivered a series of lectures on the law at what was to become the University of Pennsylvania and before an audience that included… More

Clothes for Working Women–or Working Girls?

– Wall Street Journal, October 27, 1997.
Excerpt: On Oct. 8, The Wall Street Journal ran an article with the headline, “Will Working Women Wear This Stuff?” The “stuff” in question — “vixenish… More

The Cultivation of Citizenship

– Public Morality, Civic Virtue, and the Problem of Modern Liberalism, T. William Boxx and Gary M. Quinlivan, eds. (Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000), reprinted in Citizens and Statesmen: An Annual Review of Political Theory and Public Life, James R. Harrigan, ed. (2006).
Liberalism, the central political philosophy of American and Western society, is a philosophy based on human freedom, equality, and the natural rights of individuals. Yet liberalism needs… More

James Madison on Religion and Politics

– James Madison and the Future of Limited Government, John Curtis Samples, ed. (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2002), 135–46.
Americans are once again rediscovering the wisdom of the founders who wrote and ratified the U.S. Constitution, which has stood the test of two centuries. James Madison’s efforts in… More

Walter Berns’ Constitution by Christopher DeMuth

– Remarks by Christopher DeMuth at a Constitution Day seminar in honor of Walter Berns, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.
Excerpt: In America today, the Constitution has come to mean constitutional law. Most Americans venerate their Constitution and realize that it is an important source of their liberties and… More

Walter Berns, Teacher and Patriot by Leon Kass

– Leon R. Kass, The American, September 27, 2011.
Excerpt: It is absolutely fitting and proper to honor Walter Berns in connection with Constitution Day. The U.S. Constitution, and the underlying ideas and ideals of… More

Berns on Free Speech

– Bradley C. S. Watson, remarks from Claremont Institute APSA roundtable, September 2015.
Excerpt: Like few others, Walter Berns made it his life’s work to remind us of the reciprocal relationship between rights and duties, individualism and the common good, civil liberties… More

Multimedia

Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– The Louisiana State University Press, 1957; reprinted, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1969.
This book examines the First Amendment and issues of liberty and the American Founding. Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments I           Censorship: A Classic Issue… More

Book Review: Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– Rene de Visme Williamson, Louisiana Law Review 18:2 (February 1958).
Excerpt: In an age when conflicting ideologies are competing for the support of mankind and when constitutional issues regarding civil liberties are dividing the American people in opposing… More

Pornography Vs. Democracy: The Case for Censorship

– Public Interest 22 (Winter 1971), 3–24.
Excerpt: The case against censorship is very old and very familiar. Almost anyone can formulate it without difficulty. One has merely to set the venerable Milton‘s Areopagitica in… More

Free Speech and Free Government

– The Political Science Reviewer 2:1 (Fall 1972).
Excerpt: It is unfortunate, and a measure of our contemporary difficulties, that too many Americans today would hesitate to agree with Gladstone that the American Constitution was… More

Two Mills and Liberty

– Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 1975.
Excerpt: “On Liberty and Liberalism: The Case of John Stuart Mill” tells the astonishing story of John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty,” which is a story about the book (one of the… More

Religion and the Founding Principle

– The Moral Foundations of the American Republic, Robert H. Horwitz, ed. (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1977, 1986).

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– William J. Bennett, Commentary (May 1977).
Abstract: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

The Role of the Court

– William J. Bennett, Commentary, May 1977.
Excerpt: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

The Need for Public Authority

– Modern Age 24:1 (Winter 1980); reprinted in Freedom and Virtue: The Conservative and Libertarian Debate, George W. Carey, ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984; reprinted, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2004).
Excerpt: Some ten years ago, I resigned from Cornel1 University; at that time the university had just been taken over by students carrying guns, and first the administration and then the… More

Liberal Censorship

– Public Interest 65 (Fall 1981), 146–49.
Excerpt: One would have thought that the censorship issue had been settled in the liberal societies of the West. In theory pornography may be proscribed by the law-in the United States, for… More

Religion, Ethics and Politics in the 1980s

– Morality of the Market: Religion and Economic Perspectives, Walter Block, Geoffrey Brennan, and Kenneth Elzinga, eds. (Vancouver, Canada: The Fraser Institute, 1985).
Proceedings of an International Symposium on Religion, Economics and Social Thought, held August 9-11, 1982, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

No One Blushes Anymore

– George Will, Washington Post, September 15, 1985.
Excerpt: Walter Berns, the political philosopher, asks: What if, contrary to Freud and much conventional wisdom, shame is natural to man and shamelessness is acquired? If so, the… More

Re-evaluating the Open Society

– Order, Freedom, and the Polity: Critical Essays on the Open Society, George W. Carey, ed. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute and University Press of America, 1986).
Abstract: A series of essays which critically examine the concept of the open society as ‘the crowning achievement of Western civilization.’ Analyzes the open society theory… More

Learning to Live with Sex and Violence

– National Review, November 1, 1993.
Excerpt: Many years ago, at a supper club in Chicago, I asked a waiter (decked out, as I recall, like some character from the Arabian Nights) why they served their steaks on flaming… More

Dirty Words

– Public Interest 114 (Winter 1994), 119–25.
Excerpt: The world has never had a good definition of liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in need of one.” What Abraham Lincoln said in 1864 about liberty in general can… More

Blue Movies

– Public Interest 119 (Summer 1995), 86–90; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: Hollywood Censored,  we are told on the book’s dust jacket, examines how hundreds of films–Mae West comedies, serious dramas, and films with a social… More

Marriage Anyone?

– First Things, April 1996.
Excerpt: Almost 70 percent of the American people have indicated their opposition to “same—sex” marriages (males with males, females with females), but neither they nor their elected… More

On the Future of Conservatism

– Commentary, February 1997.
Excerpt: Years ago (how many, I do not remember) I was on a panel with the late Russell Kirk, the doyen of the paleoconservatives, and sitting behind him when, at the podium, he outlined… More

Taking Virtue Seriously

– Public Interest 128 (Summer 1997), 122–26.
Excerpt: In 1790-91, Supreme Court Justice James Wilson delivered a series of lectures on the law at what was to become the University of Pennsylvania and before an audience that included… More

Clothes for Working Women–or Working Girls?

– Wall Street Journal, October 27, 1997.
Excerpt: On Oct. 8, The Wall Street Journal ran an article with the headline, “Will Working Women Wear This Stuff?” The “stuff” in question — “vixenish… More

The Cultivation of Citizenship

– Public Morality, Civic Virtue, and the Problem of Modern Liberalism, T. William Boxx and Gary M. Quinlivan, eds. (Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000), reprinted in Citizens and Statesmen: An Annual Review of Political Theory and Public Life, James R. Harrigan, ed. (2006).
Liberalism, the central political philosophy of American and Western society, is a philosophy based on human freedom, equality, and the natural rights of individuals. Yet liberalism needs… More

James Madison on Religion and Politics

– James Madison and the Future of Limited Government, John Curtis Samples, ed. (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2002), 135–46.
Americans are once again rediscovering the wisdom of the founders who wrote and ratified the U.S. Constitution, which has stood the test of two centuries. James Madison’s efforts in… More

Walter Berns’ Constitution by Christopher DeMuth

– Remarks by Christopher DeMuth at a Constitution Day seminar in honor of Walter Berns, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.
Excerpt: In America today, the Constitution has come to mean constitutional law. Most Americans venerate their Constitution and realize that it is an important source of their liberties and… More

Walter Berns, Teacher and Patriot by Leon Kass

– Leon R. Kass, The American, September 27, 2011.
Excerpt: It is absolutely fitting and proper to honor Walter Berns in connection with Constitution Day. The U.S. Constitution, and the underlying ideas and ideals of… More

Berns on Free Speech

– Bradley C. S. Watson, remarks from Claremont Institute APSA roundtable, September 2015.
Excerpt: Like few others, Walter Berns made it his life’s work to remind us of the reciprocal relationship between rights and duties, individualism and the common good, civil liberties… More

Teaching

Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– The Louisiana State University Press, 1957; reprinted, Greenwood Publishing Group, 1969.
This book examines the First Amendment and issues of liberty and the American Founding. Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments I           Censorship: A Classic Issue… More

Book Review: Freedom, Virtue and the First Amendment

– Rene de Visme Williamson, Louisiana Law Review 18:2 (February 1958).
Excerpt: In an age when conflicting ideologies are competing for the support of mankind and when constitutional issues regarding civil liberties are dividing the American people in opposing… More

Pornography Vs. Democracy: The Case for Censorship

– Public Interest 22 (Winter 1971), 3–24.
Excerpt: The case against censorship is very old and very familiar. Almost anyone can formulate it without difficulty. One has merely to set the venerable Milton‘s Areopagitica in… More

Free Speech and Free Government

– The Political Science Reviewer 2:1 (Fall 1972).
Excerpt: It is unfortunate, and a measure of our contemporary difficulties, that too many Americans today would hesitate to agree with Gladstone that the American Constitution was… More

Two Mills and Liberty

– Virginia Quarterly Review, Winter 1975.
Excerpt: “On Liberty and Liberalism: The Case of John Stuart Mill” tells the astonishing story of John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty,” which is a story about the book (one of the… More

Religion and the Founding Principle

– The Moral Foundations of the American Republic, Robert H. Horwitz, ed. (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1977, 1986).

The First Amendment and the Future of American Democracy

– William J. Bennett, Commentary (May 1977).
Abstract: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

The Role of the Court

– William J. Bennett, Commentary, May 1977.
Excerpt: The recent First Amendment decisions of the Supreme Court have met with criticism both from those who think the Court has gone too far and from those who think it has not gone far… More

The Need for Public Authority

– Modern Age 24:1 (Winter 1980); reprinted in Freedom and Virtue: The Conservative and Libertarian Debate, George W. Carey, ed. (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984; reprinted, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2004).
Excerpt: Some ten years ago, I resigned from Cornel1 University; at that time the university had just been taken over by students carrying guns, and first the administration and then the… More

Liberal Censorship

– Public Interest 65 (Fall 1981), 146–49.
Excerpt: One would have thought that the censorship issue had been settled in the liberal societies of the West. In theory pornography may be proscribed by the law-in the United States, for… More

Religion, Ethics and Politics in the 1980s

– Morality of the Market: Religion and Economic Perspectives, Walter Block, Geoffrey Brennan, and Kenneth Elzinga, eds. (Vancouver, Canada: The Fraser Institute, 1985).
Proceedings of an International Symposium on Religion, Economics and Social Thought, held August 9-11, 1982, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

No One Blushes Anymore

– George Will, Washington Post, September 15, 1985.
Excerpt: Walter Berns, the political philosopher, asks: What if, contrary to Freud and much conventional wisdom, shame is natural to man and shamelessness is acquired? If so, the… More

Re-evaluating the Open Society

– Order, Freedom, and the Polity: Critical Essays on the Open Society, George W. Carey, ed. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute and University Press of America, 1986).
Abstract: A series of essays which critically examine the concept of the open society as ‘the crowning achievement of Western civilization.’ Analyzes the open society theory… More

Learning to Live with Sex and Violence

– National Review, November 1, 1993.
Excerpt: Many years ago, at a supper club in Chicago, I asked a waiter (decked out, as I recall, like some character from the Arabian Nights) why they served their steaks on flaming… More

Dirty Words

– Public Interest 114 (Winter 1994), 119–25.
Excerpt: The world has never had a good definition of liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in need of one.” What Abraham Lincoln said in 1864 about liberty in general can… More

Blue Movies

– Public Interest 119 (Summer 1995), 86–90; reprinted in Democracy and the Constitution: Landmarks of Contemporary Political Thought (AEI Press, 2006).
Excerpt: Hollywood Censored,  we are told on the book’s dust jacket, examines how hundreds of films–Mae West comedies, serious dramas, and films with a social… More

Marriage Anyone?

– First Things, April 1996.
Excerpt: Almost 70 percent of the American people have indicated their opposition to “same—sex” marriages (males with males, females with females), but neither they nor their elected… More

On the Future of Conservatism

– Commentary, February 1997.
Excerpt: Years ago (how many, I do not remember) I was on a panel with the late Russell Kirk, the doyen of the paleoconservatives, and sitting behind him when, at the podium, he outlined… More

Taking Virtue Seriously

– Public Interest 128 (Summer 1997), 122–26.
Excerpt: In 1790-91, Supreme Court Justice James Wilson delivered a series of lectures on the law at what was to become the University of Pennsylvania and before an audience that included… More

Clothes for Working Women–or Working Girls?

– Wall Street Journal, October 27, 1997.
Excerpt: On Oct. 8, The Wall Street Journal ran an article with the headline, “Will Working Women Wear This Stuff?” The “stuff” in question — “vixenish… More

The Cultivation of Citizenship

– Public Morality, Civic Virtue, and the Problem of Modern Liberalism, T. William Boxx and Gary M. Quinlivan, eds. (Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2000), reprinted in Citizens and Statesmen: An Annual Review of Political Theory and Public Life, James R. Harrigan, ed. (2006).
Liberalism, the central political philosophy of American and Western society, is a philosophy based on human freedom, equality, and the natural rights of individuals. Yet liberalism needs… More

James Madison on Religion and Politics

– James Madison and the Future of Limited Government, John Curtis Samples, ed. (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2002), 135–46.
Americans are once again rediscovering the wisdom of the founders who wrote and ratified the U.S. Constitution, which has stood the test of two centuries. James Madison’s efforts in… More

Walter Berns’ Constitution by Christopher DeMuth

– Remarks by Christopher DeMuth at a Constitution Day seminar in honor of Walter Berns, hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, September 20, 2011.
Excerpt: In America today, the Constitution has come to mean constitutional law. Most Americans venerate their Constitution and realize that it is an important source of their liberties and… More

Walter Berns, Teacher and Patriot by Leon Kass

– Leon R. Kass, The American, September 27, 2011.
Excerpt: It is absolutely fitting and proper to honor Walter Berns in connection with Constitution Day. The U.S. Constitution, and the underlying ideas and ideals of… More

Berns on Free Speech

– Bradley C. S. Watson, remarks from Claremont Institute APSA roundtable, September 2015.
Excerpt: Like few others, Walter Berns made it his life’s work to remind us of the reciprocal relationship between rights and duties, individualism and the common good, civil liberties… More