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What a 700-year-old fresco can teach America

There are moments when history reaches across the centuries with startling clarity. Standing in the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena, Italy, and looking at Ambrogio Lorenzetti's "Allegory of Good and Bad Government," I had one of those moments. Nearly 700 years old, the series of fresco paintings includes a depiction of a bustling city that illustrates the effects of good government, as well as representations of the decay that results from arbitrary and unjust rulers. The visual treatise on political economy holds important lessons for us today. Lorenzetti's city isn't thriving because its ...

cartoon for 7-15

Defending America’s founding principles in divided age

The United States nation faces threats that extend beyond the familiar divide between Democrats and Republicans. Increasingly, two ideological movements -- one on the far left, one emerging on the populist right -- share a willingness to undermine the principles that have long defined the American experiment. On one side stands the Democratic Socialists of America, whose influence within the Democratic Party has grown dramatically. This is no longer simply a debate over tax rates or entitlement programs. The party's activist wing has become increasingly hostile to the ideas that have ...

Only one revolution ended in liberty

Two hundred and fifty years ago, men in powdered hair and knee breeches did what no colony had ever done successfully. They broke away from the most powerful empire on earth. They were not bloodthirsty radicals. They had petitioned again and again to remain loyal subjects of the Crown. They fought for what was already theirs. Now look at the revolutions. Ours in 1776. France in 1789. Russia in 1917. China in 1949. Four attempts to tear down an old order and build something new. Only one ended in liberty. Only one. The French stormed the Bastille shouting about the rights of man, and ...

Editorial Cartoon

Editorial Cartoon

Sinner claims another Wimbledon title

LONDON — A year ago, it was a matter of bouncing back after wasting three match points in a devastating loss to Carlos Alcaraz in the French Open final and showing that he could still win a Grand Slam after a three-month doping ban. This year it was about demonstrating that he still has ...