Who We Are

Thinking Outside the Boxe is a private, independent research and commentary organization. We publish the arguments that conventional outlets leave out, and we test them against evidence, cost, and the long interest of a constitutional people. No party owns the work. No donor writes the conclusions.

What We publish

The Weekly Correspondents’ Forum puts one question to a standing group of correspondents, from the Plains to the Gulf Coast to the old industrial towns of the Ohio Valley. Each answers in their own voice and from their own trade.

The Annual Symposium and the Champagne Summits are something the country has too little of: ordinary people sitting at one table, debating the questions of the day, and disagreeing without contempt. We publish each correspondent’s opening remarks as delivered. The debate that follows stays in the room.

Why it exists

A free people need more than the approved range of speech. Public argument is too often closed by fashion, by credential, or by fear, and too much of what passes for analysis is a position looking for a reason. We start from the other end: the incentives, the costs, and the gap between the official account and what can be observed.

Our correspondents disagree with one another, sometimes sharply, and we publish the disagreement. What they share is a refusal to treat We the People as a problem to be managed.

They are ordinary working people from both major parties, not paid analysts. They take positions, propose solutions, and in election years say whom they support and why. Thinking Outside the Boxe publishes what they conclude. It does not lobby, and it does not tell them what to think.

Under new stewardship

After a period of quiet, Thinking Outside the Boxe has resumed work under the stewardship of Digger Cartwright. The mission is unchanged. [Read the statement →]