Posts by Rev. Ben Johnson
November 13, 2017
Following its 100th anniversary, Communism is experiencing a public relations boon, and it has just recruited its most significant Spokesman: Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Jesus (Who, one must assume, was not consulted on the sponsorship) is said to have been the first and most vociferous Scourge of free enterprise and Advocate of socialist economics. Continue Reading...
November 09, 2017
The Paradise Papers: A moral assessment of tax havens from Richard Teather
To hear politicians across the Atlantic tell it, the dark specter of Paradise is haunting the world. The Paradise Papers reveal precisely how wealthy individuals and corporations – including the Queen of England, U2’s sainted front man Bono, the less-than-saintly Madonna, and scores of others – have used offshore tax havens to limit their tax liability. Continue Reading...
November 07, 2017
100 years of false religion
Today – November 7, 2017 – marks the hundredth anniversary of the Russian Revolution, touching off worldwide events mourning or celebrating the event. At its centenary, Communism deserves to be remembered as the most successful false religion to take root in the West in two millennia, unparalleled in the swiftness of its destruction and unequaled in its potential to generate misery from abundance. Continue Reading...
November 06, 2017
Spain: Remembering the forgotten Red Terror
As the world remembers the hundredth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Spain commemorates the thousands of Christians martyred by the Communists during the Spanish Red Terror. Historian Stanley G. Payne called this period the “most extensive and violent persecution of Catholicism in Western history, in some way even more intense than that of the French Revolution.” Continue Reading...
November 03, 2017
Renewed covenant or populism? Rabbi Lord Sacks on the West’s alternatives
The deepest division running through the West is not between Right and Left, or liberty and collectivism. Western civilization must choose this day whether it is grounded in a covenant or a degraded and authoritarian form of populism, according to the former Chief Rabbi of the UK. Continue Reading...
October 31, 2017
Make Maximilian Kolbe of Auschwitz ‘the patron saint of entrepreneurs’: Petition
Fr. Maximilian Kolbe is well-known for volunteering to die in place of another prisoner at Auschwitz. However, his history as a pioneering entrepreneur, who used the latest technology and managerial techniques to increase his ministry’s outreach, has inspired a new movement for the pope to name him “the patron saint of entrepreneurs and start-ups.” Continue Reading...
October 30, 2017
Venezuelan political prisoners awarded top EU human rights award
The EU has taken a symbolic stance against the worst human rights tragedy in South America, awarding its top human rights prize to the political prisoners and defiant opposition in Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela. Continue Reading...
October 27, 2017
‘Religion will return’ to the West: former chief rabbi of the UK
Some 23 percent of Americans, and a higher percentage of Europeans, say they belong to no religion in particular. Although this is the result of a centuries-long retreat from faith, one of Europe’s most prominent religious spokesmen believes that the process may have come full-circle. Continue Reading...
October 26, 2017
State licensing laws hurt minorities, the poor, and…monks?
What do monks and ex-cons have in common? Both have been denied the right to earn a living in their chosen fields thanks to state laws requiring people to have a state license. Continue Reading...
October 24, 2017
Government regulations in a fallen world
The number of federal regulations in the United States broke an all-time record last year. A total of 97,110 pages were added to the Federal Register in 2016. The Competitive Enterprise Institute calculates the compliance costs and economic impacts of federal regulations at $1.89 trillion. Continue Reading...