For many apologists, though, it’s just easier to call the jihadists “crazy.” Here’s Vox’s Ezra Klein, long-time purveyor of progressive orthodoxy, opining on the Paris murders. He fingers “the madness of the perpetrators, who did something horrible and evil that almost no . . . Continue reading →
Civil Liberties
Of Phobias And Victims
Simply put, victimology is the language and currency of our politics. Fighting for victims is a calling and minting new victims and grievances is a trillion-dollar industry. Heroism, fidelity, courage, duty, temperance: Their stock value may be volatile but the long-term trends . . . Continue reading →
Utopia Always Morphs To Dystopia
As long as human beings are unique, as long as even one of them thinks independently of others, Utopia is a total pipe dream. Compliance must be forced. Or human beings must cease to be human by giving up their uniqueness. Either . . . Continue reading →
Political Correctness Uses Social Vilification To Silence Dissent
PC compliance automatically invalidates non-PC views and reinforces the bad habit of condemning all who disagree. By shutting out all but one train of thought, political correctness attacks individuality and ends up pushing people into the oblivion of a collectivized and controllable . . . Continue reading →
Chaplain Punished For Mentioning His Faith
The Army has disciplined a military chaplain for making references to the Bible during a suicide-prevention seminar last month. …The chaplain, Capt. Joe Lawhorn, conducted the training session on suicide prevention Nov. 20 at the University of North Georgia. During the session, . . . Continue reading →
Political Correctness Serves Only The Centralization Of Power
If you think it through, I think you’ll also come to realize that civil discourse is the biggest impediment to centralized power. How so? When people fear expressing their innermost thoughts to others, friendships cannot develop. Personal associations are nipped in the . . . Continue reading →
On What Political Correctness Really Is
“Political Correctness” is a euphemism for the silencing tactics of power elites who are pushing power-consolidating agendas. It works by isolating and marginalizing anybody who might get in the way of those agendas, through smears and threats and psychological manipulation. I think . . . Continue reading →
Caution Against Social Revolution Via The Judiciary
This is a case about change—and how best to handle it under the United States Constitution. From the vantage point of 2014, it would now seem, the question is not whether American law will allow gay couples to marry; it is when . . . Continue reading →
From Tolerance To Compulsion
We’ve gone from tolerance to compulsion,’’ the Giffords’ lawyer, James Trainor, told me. “State government should not be forcing people to violate their own religious beliefs, nor should they be forced to make a choice between making a living and violating their . . . Continue reading →
Shi’a Islam Celebration Of Ashura (Caution: Hard To Watch)
This is part of the Shia observance of Day of Ashura.
Ben Says Thanks
Spanking Children Shouldn’t Be A Crime
That rational, logical, research-based position will satisfy some, but it will not satisfy anti-spanking activists, who would have the government tell parents how they may and may not discipline their children. They see no difference between two open-handed swats to a child’s . . . Continue reading →
A Growing Cloud
With the ongoing stramash surrounding Gordon College and its accreditation, the pressure is building on institutions of higher education with religious affiliations. The only question now seems to be: how many will stand firm? If an institution as prestigious and powerful as . . . Continue reading →
A Flaw Inherent In The 1964 Civil Rights Act
When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, there were a few people like Barry Goldwater who opposed it on principled libertarian grounds. These were not southern rednecks or Dixiecrats, and they were glad to see the end of Jim Crow. . . . Continue reading →
It’s About Power And Conformity
The theory behind gay marriage, in short, was theory behind the entire secular left: society and the state are the all-powerful forces on which the life of the individual depends, and the most important political task—indeed, the most important task in life—is . . . Continue reading →
Dark Thoughts About The Future
Viewed objectively, these two recent controversies represent skirmishes rather than major invasions of religious freedom. But all of us view them with dark thoughts about the future. Our foreboding is justified. Progressives have long dominated an important American subculture: the university. It’s . . . Continue reading →
Idaho Ministers Must Perform Homosexual Weddings Or Go To Jail. In America (UPDATED 10/23/14)
“For profit wedding chapels are in a position now where last week the ban would have prevented them from performing gay marriages, this week gay marriages are legal, pending an appeal to the 9th Circuit,” Warren Wilson with the Coeur d’Alene City . . . Continue reading →
Another Significant Threat To Constitutional Liberties (UPDATED)
In May of this year the Houston city council passed the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (HERO) that requires businesses and workplaces to make available restroom facilities not according to sex but according to gender identity. A group of Houston area pastors has . . . Continue reading →
What American Journalists Once Did
The Big Factory
The Left’s model of society is still the model of Marx and Bismarck: one big factory to be managed by experts. The government schools are an assembly line for human widgets, who are in theory there to be taught what the state . . . Continue reading →