Tranquillitas Ordinis
Saint Thomas and the Common Good
In Catholic Social Teaching and Catholic political philosophy, the common good is a key concept. But, it often seems to us moderns like an impossibly gassy abstraction.
Yesterday, I came across a nice summary of St. Thomas Aquinas’ teachings on the common good, which I think can help. See’s
The Long View 2008-12-29: Happy New Year
John J. Reilly was a big proponent of public order, or what post-liberals right now term the common good. John was in favor of universal healthcare because he deemed it a public good, rather than a right. Building, and perhaps more importantly, maintaining all the vast infrastructure of manufacturing and
The Long View 2008-11-29: Mumbai and the Tranquility of Order
In retrospect, I have criticized John and a lot of other people for the things they said or the courses of action they took in the years after 9/11. However, if you get yourself back in the mindset you might have had at the time, something like the 2008
The Long View 2008-01-28: Iraq as Parable; The Grossraum Fallacy
I do find it interesting that John J. Reilly’s comment here on a primary function of government, the promotion of just order:
The Iraq War might stand as a metaphor for the whole episode of Movement Conservativism in American history. It started well enough, and it got rid of
Stryker's War Book Review
What use is the valor of brave men in the service of evil goals? Stryker’s War is the most gut-wrenching book in the Order of Centurion series so far because it takes a good hard look at the reality that not everything that can get a soldier killed is
The Long View 2003-02-27: What Would Jesus Do?
This is one of the posts I turned to often when I was considering converting to Catholicism. My own reading of the Gospels matched up entirely with John's description here: Jesus of Nazareth said some astonishing things, even at the distance of 2,000 years. I'm not sure I know