Subsidiarity and Repair

Too many essays about [name your American institution (in this essay, it was scouting)] end with the same refrain: It isn’t what it used to be, so I’m leaving. Sometimes, that’s the right decision. Institutions can lose their way, and there are moments when fidelity to conscience requires us to walk away. But increasingly I wonder whether our first instinct has become departure rather than stewardship. Progressives are often criticized for believing institutions can simply be rebuilt from scratch. Yet conservatives sometimes make the opposite mistake: assuming that once an institution has changed, it is beyond salvaging. Both forget that institutions become what people make of them. Stated simply, institutions endure only when people remain long enough to preserve what is good and patiently reform what is not.

Can Scouting Still Raise Boys?, LuElla D’Amico, The Dispatch, July 6, 2026

“A Muslim, a Christian, and a Jew Walk Into a Bar”

Worth your time. Noah Eckstein, Harvard 2026:

“To Thine Own Self…” (Polonius was a real ass)

Jonah Goldberg

The older concepts of civic virtue emphasized self-mastery, conquering your impulses to serve a higher cause. Today’s politics treats self-mastery as suspect, a form of fakery or selling out, while asinine self-exposure is proof of depth and authenticity. The older republican tradition asked whether a man could govern himself before entrusting him with power. The new authenticity politics asks whether he seems sufficiently ungoverned to be trusted. [See, e.g., Graham Platner]

“Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law” is the line from “America the Beautiful.” That idea is a joke…, increasingly, in Washington.

C’est vrai

A very David-French-y column (that’s a positive adjective in my personal dictionary):

In fact, as the show [Hacks] illustrates, concentrating on differences and even mutual interests is a bit beside the point. The question isn’t “How much are we alike?” Rather, it’s “Can I appreciate and even love the person you are?”

This resonates

Matthew Crawford, via Damon Linker

Capital is concentrated to the point that it operates in quasi-governmental ways, abetted by ever more powerful information technology. Arguably, one of the most important functions of the (actual, elected) government, now, is precisely to restrain and regulate the explosion of unaccountable governmentality in our dealings with outsized commercial enterprises.

The World Beyond Your Head

Ah! If only…

Good Question

The pope tried to put an end to this craziness several times. He insisted that he did not speak on world affairs as a politician (and still less a global umpire) but as a witness to gospel truths. He made quite clear that he would not be cowed by the Trump administration, even as he reminded the scribes and influencers that he did not pick a fight with the president. And in doing so, he suggested, if subtly, that there was something a bit awry about the endless media obsession with the president. Did everything and everyone in the world have to be parsed by reference to Donald J. Trump?

George Weigel, “The First Leonine Year” - Dispatch Faith newsletter, May 3, 2026

Pretty simple, no?

Before, the Straits of Hormuz were open to international shipping. A good thing, generally speaking. Now President Trump has successfully given Iran sovereignty over the Straits and they’re closed. Unequivocally, not good. The Art of the Deal!

Overwrought NYT

This, from Adam Liptak and Jodi Kantor, strikes me as unwarrantedly high-strung. Read the SCOTUS memos: they’re pretty standard legal back-and-forth based on reasonable arguments on both sides. Nor does the Times show how this led to the Supremes’ “Shadow Docket.”

Chill, kids.

There you have it

Poorly Drawn Lines by Reza Faramand