n>We have arrived at an ominous moment, when the very legitimacy of the American political order has come under systematic assault. America is on trial in ways that few of us could have imagined even several months ago, when Robert Reilly’s fine new book saw the light of day. In his compelling defense of the intellectual and moral foundations of the American regime, Reilly principally takes aim at a group of Catholic scholars and intellectuals, Michael Hanby and Patrick Deneen chief among them, who reject the American proposition in toto, dismissing it as metaphysically corrupt (Hanby) or as “a poison pill” or “ticking time bomb” bound to unleash all the corrupting “acids of modernity,” to recall Walter Lippman’s memorable phrase from 1929. But in our present moment of nihilistic discontent, as statues topple and angry mobs set the tone of public and private life, the assault comes almost exclusively from the Left, now best defined as those who reject every aspect of our civic and civilizational patrimony. No matter: Reilly has provided a learned, serious, and passionate defense of the tradition bequeathed to us by our Fathers, political, religious, and philosophical. He has provided vital arguments for responding to the assaults on the American proposition from both the secular Left and the traditionalist Right. I welcome and applaud his achievement even if I cannot assent to every step in his argument. Read Full Article »