Rev. Ben Johnson is an Eastern Orthodox priest and served as executive editor of the Acton Institute from 2016 to 2021. His work has appeared in a wide variety of publications, including National Review, the American Spectator, The Guardian, National Catholic Register, Providence, Jewish World Review, Human Events, and the American Orthodox Institute. His personal websites are therightswriter.com and RevBenJohnson.com. You can find him on X: @therightswriter.
Posts by Rev. Ben Johnson
January 06, 2020
This morning, as Americans go to work for the first Monday of the New Year, a growing number will see their wages rise to $15 an hour or more – thanks, not to higher minimum wage laws, but to the bustling free market.
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January 03, 2020
As a new decade begins, it bears pausing to celebrate the strides the human race has made toward eradicating poverty at home and around the world. This is doubly important, as the television retrospectives not only omit our growing prosperity, but so many people believe things are actually getting worse.
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January 03, 2020
Although it was intended to be an Easter composition, the “Hallelujah” Chorus from Handel’s
Messiah has become the musical diadem of the Christmas season. It has already in early January vanished from the radio, because the modern West pre-celebrates all its holidays.
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January 02, 2020
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio began 2020, the year he intended to become president, by asserting that Domino’s Pizza “exploited” New Year’s Eve revelers in Times Square by selling pizzas for $30 apiece.
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December 31, 2019
Did liberty increase or decrease in each nation, and globally, in 2019? How has the last decade impacted freedom around the world?
The Cato Institute measures the freedom of each nation in the world and publishes the results.
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December 27, 2019
Jim Henson’s beloved
Emmett Otter’s Jugband Christmas first entered the hearts of Canadian children in December 1977 and made its U.S. debut on HBO one year later. The musical Muppet adventure tells the story of widow Alice Otter and her tenderhearted son, Emmett, who decide the only way they can afford Christmas presents this year is to win a talent competition – with an exacting entrance fee.
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December 23, 2019
In the Christmas season, the secular West begrudgingly nods toward its faithful past. Yet amidst the darkness, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas joined with one the nation’s most distinguished colleges to highlight the compatibility of faith and reason.
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December 23, 2019
When government becomes sufficiently large, its impact on private citizens is not just harmful; it’s self-contradictory. U.S. policy toward dairy farmers offers a poignant example.
Joseph Sunde recently explored one aspect of U.S.
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December 20, 2019
The sixth Democratic primary debate featured seven presidential hopefuls and four references to wine caves. The candidates’ rhetoric should bring the issue of wealth and political power into greater clarity than a Swarovski crystal.
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December 19, 2019
On Thursday, December 19, 2019, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II delivered her 66th Queen’s Speech. The speech – which followed her last Queen’s Speech by just two months – set out the policy agenda of the newly emboldened Prime Minister Boris Johnson for this term of Parliament.
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