Opinion

The Buckley Program hosted Matthew Continetti for a seminar series on the History of American Conservatism from October 1st to 15th. Mr. Continetti is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. A prominent journalist, analyst, author, and intellectual historian of the right, Mr. Continetti was the founding editor and the editor-in-chief of The Washington Free Beacon. Previously, he was opinion editor at The Weekly Standard. Mr. Continetti is also a contributing editor at National Review and a columnist for Commentary Magazine. By: Libby Snowden Despite my liberal leanings, I love to engage with conservative thought—there’s a reason I’ve found myself in the Buckley Program. Plus, I have a strong affinity for history, particularly for U.S. and political history. As such, I w...

The Buckley Program hosted Professor Patrick Deneen for a seminar series from March 12th to 26th. The seminar was titled "Reviving the Mixed Constitution: How to Overcome the Elite-Populist Divide." Patrick Deneen is Professor of Political Science and holds the David A. Potenziani Memorial Chair of Constitutional Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He has written four books and edited three others. His books include The Odyssey of Political Theory, Democratic Faith, Conserving America?, and most recently, Why Liberalism Failed. By: Pablo Trujillo On March 12th, 19th, and 26th of 2021, I had the opportunity to participate in the Buckley Program’s March Seminar with Notre Dame Professor Patrick Deneen.  In 2018, Professor Deneen released a thought-provoking book on political t...

The Buckley Program hosted Dr. Michael Auslin for a seminar series on the Turbulent Pacific from February 12th to 26th.  Michael Auslin, PhD, is the Payson J. Treat Distinguished Research Fellow in Contemporary Asia at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. A historian by training, he specializes in US policy in Asia and geopolitical issues in the Indo-Pacific region.  He is a longtime contributor to the Wall Street Journal and National Review, and his writing appears in other leading publications, including the Financial Times, The Spectator, and Foreign Policy. Previously, Auslin was an associate professor of history at Yale University, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and a visiting professor at the University of Tokyo. By: Oleksii Antoniuk Prompted b...

By Hovik Minasyan What is the name of your state senator? How about your councilmember? I dare say most Americans cannot name a single local representative. This is a massive problem. The roads in your city, the schools that your kids go to, and sales tax that you pay are all decided at the local level. Local and state governments have a massive impact on the day to day lives of everyday Americans, but it seems that the only thing we care about is what is happening at the Whitehouse, the Supreme Court, or the Capitol building. This was the topic of discussion during a recent dinner seminar with Professor Jonathan Wharton, a political science professor at Southern Connecticut State University. I had a chance to sit down with Professor Wharton to discuss his thoughts on the current sta...

By: Vienna Scott Recently, keeping with the tradition of Buckley himself, the Wiliam F. Buckley Junior Program hosted a Firing Line Debate between Professor June Carbone and Professor Brad Wilcox on the topic “Why has America retreated from marriage?”  Dr. Carbone is the Robina Chair in Law, Science and Technology at the University of Minnesota Law School, where she specializes in contracts, family law, remedies and bioethics. She has published books on this subject including Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture and Marriage Markets: How Inequality is Remaking the American Family. Dr. Wilcox is Professor of Sociology and the current director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia. He is also a visiting scholar a...

Throughout the fall semester, Buckley fellows had the privilege of engaging with five lectures and five seminars by Dr. Steven Hayward on the rich history of conservatism and its intersection with contemporary issues. Steven Hayward is currently a Senior Resident Scholar at the University of California Berkeley’s Institute of Government. He is also the Thomas Smith Distinguished Fellow at the John M. Ashbrook Center at Ashland University. Before this work, Dr. Hayward worked as the FK Weyerhauser Fellow in Law and Economics at the American Enterprise Institute. Dr. Hayward has also written many books on topics ranging from the environment to President Ronald Reagan. Finally, he has been extensively published in the National Review, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal, among ot...

On Wednesday, October 24, 2018, Dr. Art Laffer '63 delivered a talk on "Trump, Taxes, and Trade." Dr. Laffer served as a member of President Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board for both of his terms in office (1981-1989), and was the architect of the administration's tax cuts in the 1980s. His accomplishments have earned him the distinction of being called "The Father of Supply-Side Economics." By: Ward Hanser Dr. Laffer began his talk by giving a broad overview of his personal economic philosophy. This is highlighted by his 5 Pillars of Economics, which, he explains, are the foundation we must build upon if we are to achieve sustained and reproducible economic growth. The 5 Pillars are a low rate; broad base flat taxation to minimize personal and economic negatives; restrained spend...

On Friday, September 21, 2018, the Buckely Program hosted Joseph Blocher and the Clark Neily for a Firing Line debate on gun control.  Joseph Blocher is a Professor of Law at Duke University and a graduate of Yale Law School. He focuses primarily on Second Amendment law and legal history. Mr. Blocher provided much of the legal thinking behind the D.C. government's argument that their handgun ban was constitutional in the landmark Supreme Court case D.C. v. Heller. Clark Neily is the Vice President for Criminal Justice at the Cato Institute and served as co-counsel to the plaintiff in Heller. By: Grant Gabriel First, a formality, I recognize the elephant in the room: a “Firing Line” debate on gun control… it is hardly subtle. Indeed, given our present political climate, the prop...