Good reads
FreeCon authors outline agenda for securing America’s future
Among the 250+ signatories to the Freedom Conservatism Statement of Principles, you will find a wide variety of activists, scholars, journalists, public servants, and other leaders. We come from many different places, generations, and roles within the movement.
What we share in common is a commitment to “the distinctive creed that made America great: that individual liberty is essential to the moral and physical strength of the nation.”
Many FreeCons have written books that explore the history and meaning of that creed, apply it to specific issues of public policy, or defend the other traditions and social institutions — such as family, faith, and work — that make it possible for Americans to thrive and freedom to flourish.
Today, we spotlight some of our wonderful authors.
Revolutionary mind
C. Bradley Thompson is a professor of political science at Clemson University, where he teaches political philosophy. He is also the executive director of the Clemson Institute for the Study Capitalism and the founder of the Lyceum Scholars program.
During his academic career, he has also been the Garwood Family Professor in the James Madison Program at Princeton University, a John Adams Fellow at the Institute of United States Studies (University of London), and a fellow of the Program in Constitutional Studies at Harvard University.
In his book America's Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It, Thompson identifies and analyzes the modes of reasoning, the patterns of thought, and the new moral and political principles that served American Revolutionaries first in their intellectual battle with Great Britain before 1776 and in their subsequent efforts to create new Revolutionary societies after 1776.
The book reconstructs what amounts to a near-unified system of thought ― what Thomas Jefferson called an “American mind” — and explains its continuing relevance to contemporary political controversies.
“This American mind,” Thompson writes, was “united in its fealty to a common philosophy that was expressed in the Declaration and launched with the words, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident.’”
Let communities lead
Tony Woodlief is senior executive vice president at State Policy Network and senior for its Center for Practical Federalism.
He previously served as president of the Bill of Rights Institute, the Market-Based Management Institute, and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. His work has appeared in media outlets including Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, National Review, and C-SPAN’s Washington Journal.
In researching his book I, Citizen: A Blueprint for Reclaiming American Self-Governance, Woodlief conducted extensive research on public opinion. He found that Americans are more united than divided, despite what the pundits tell us, and traced the source of our perceived animosity to a small minority of dedicated partisans within the political establishment of Washington, DC.
“The federal government certainly has an important role to play in American life,” Woodlief writes, “but it stumbles every time it tries to enforce blanket policies — be they federal minimum wages, election-supervision schemes, or child-care subsidies — to address problems that state and local leaders understand more clearly, know how to prioritize more realistically, and can address in more targeted ways.”
“Rather than pushing our states and communities aside, how about letting them lead for a change?”
Corrective course
James R. Copland is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and director of legal policy. In those roles, he develops and communicates novel, sound ideas on how to improve America’s civil- and criminal-justice systems.
Copland has testified before federal, state and local lawmakers. He’s also authored many policy briefs, book chapters, articles and opinion pieces in a variety of publications such as Harvard Business Law Review and the Wall Street Journal, and made hundreds of media appearances in such outlets as PBS, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg, C-Span, and NPR.
Prior to joining MI, he was a management consultant with McKinsey and Company. Copland has been a director of two privately held manufacturing companies since 1997 and has served on many public and nonprofit boards.
In his book The Unelected: How an Unaccountable Elite Is Governing America, Copland chronicles the rise of “independent” administrative agencies that churn out thousands of new regulations a year. Courts have enabled these agencies to expand their powers beyond those authorized by law.
“No ordinary citizen today can know what is legal and what is not,” Copland writes. His book explains how unelected actors have assumed control of the American republic ― and where we need to go to chart a corrective course.
Created purpose
David L. Bahnsen is founder, managing partner, and chief investment officer of the Bahnsen Group, where he oversees the management of over $4.5 billion in client assets.
He previously spent eight years as a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley and six years as a Vice President at UBS. He is consistently named one of the top financial advisors in America by Barron’s, Forbes, and the Financial Times.
Bahnsen is a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox News, and Fox Business, and is a regular contributor to National Review. He hosts the popular weekly podcast, Capital Record, dedicated to a defense of free enterprise and capital markets.
He is a founding Trustee for Pacifica Christian High School of Orange County and serves on the Board of Directors for the Acton Institute.
Bahnsen’s latest book is Full-Time: Work and the Meaning of Life. In it, he argues that our understanding of work and its role in our lives is deeply flawed, unmoored from what he calls “created purpose.”
“It is in work,” he writes, in “effort, service, striving” that we discover meaning and purpose. “A significant and successful life is one rooted in full-time productivity and cultivation of God’s created world.”
A reading list
Dozens of other FreeCons have published books about limited government, free enterprise, the rule of law, ordered liberty, and related topics. A sampling:
Democracy or Republic?: The People and The Constitution by Jay Cost.
The Next American Economy: Nation, State, and Markets in an Uncertain World by Samuel Gregg.
The Conservative Sensibility by George Will.
Suicide of the West by Jonah Goldberg.
The Conservatarian Manifesto by Charles C.W. Cooke.
The Utopian Conceit and the War on Freedom by Juliana Geran Pilon.
Conservatism in a Divided America: The Right and Identity Politics by George Hawley.
A Generation Awakes: Young Americans for Freedom and the Creation of the Conservative Movement by Wayne Thornburn.
Ronald Reagan's Enduring Principles: How They Can Promote Political Success Today by Donald Devine.
The Age of Reagan series and M. Stanton Evans: Conservative Wit, Apostle of Freedom by Steve Hayward.
Is Capitalism Sustainable? by Michael Munger.
Filthy Rich Politicians: The Swamp Creatures, Latte Liberals, and Ruling-Class Elites Cashing in on America by Matt Lewis.
The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves by Alexandra Hudson.