Posts by Rev. Ben Johnson
March 24, 2020
However unique their history or circumstances, communities experiencing high unemployment are pockmarked by the same sights: shuttered factories, rows of abandoned homes bulldozed or set ablaze by arsonists, and a debilitating hopelessness. Continue Reading...
March 20, 2020
Spain learned the wrong lessons from the ‘yellow vests’
With COVID-19 ushering in a new era of social distancing, the idea of a mass demonstration seems as quaint as a delivery from the milkman. However, as recently as last month the memory of France’s gilet jaunes—the yellow-vested protesters who blocked French intersections over proposed fuel taxes—inspired Spanish farmers to block streets and wring ill-conceived concessions from the government. Continue Reading...
March 19, 2020
How to turn social distancing into love
The most ubiquitous phrase popularized by the coronavirus epidemic, “social distancing,” carries connotations of shunning or anti-social behavior. The isolation of the elderly particularly tugs at our heartstrings. The widely shared photo of 88-year-old Dorothy Campbell speaking through a nursing home’s window to her 89-year-old husband, Gene, poignantly depicts the deep-seated need for human contact amid the obstructions of anti-virus protocols. Continue Reading...
March 18, 2020
Just the facts about the coronavirus
Coronavirus, or COVID-19, has invited people around the world to take a sober approach to life and social relations. But it has also spread a potentially worse contagion throughout society: panic. Continue Reading...
March 12, 2020
End the BBC’s monopoly status
The UK’s exit from the European Union opened a new era of liberty by empowering the British people to control their own destiny. However, state monopolies undermine their newfound autonomy by removing them from key decisions that affect their lives. Continue Reading...
March 11, 2020
Cleveland church must stop helping the poor or stop being a church: City govt
After being thrown out of a Cleveland church that doubles as a homeless shelter, a vagrant used a pistol to force his way back inside. Unfortunately, the gun-wielding intruder wasn’t the biggest threat to the facility’s survival: Its own government was. Continue Reading...
March 06, 2020
Bernie Sanders’ pagan view of charity
Bernie Sanders holds a pagan view of charity. I mean that not in a pejorative but in a denotative sense: Sanders’ preference for government programs over private philanthropy echoes that of ancient pagan rulers. Continue Reading...
March 06, 2020
The Green New Deal sits on a throne of lies
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez intended the Green New Deal to cement her position as the intellectual leader of the democratic socialist movement, but even passing scrutiny caused the $93 trillion proposal to fade into obscurity. Continue Reading...
March 04, 2020
Acton Commentary: Liberty for AOC but not for thee
During a congressional hearing late last week, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez likened Christians who refuse to perform medical procedures that violate their religious beliefs to Klansmen, segregationists, and slaveholders. But in this week’s Acton Commentary, Rev. Continue Reading...
February 28, 2020
Clayton Christensen: ‘If you take away religion, you can’t hire enough police’
The Founding Fathers understood, in the words of John Adams, that “we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.” An Ivy League professor recently heard the same conclusion repeated by a Chinese Marxist. Continue Reading...