The Real Lesson of Prohibition

In 1919 Congress passed the Volstead Act enforcing the Eighteenth Amendment, prohibiting, for almost all purposes, the production, sale, and distribution of alcoholic beverages. There are two erroneous things everybody has learned from Prohibition, says Anthony Esolen: “First, it is wrong to try to legislate morality. Continue Reading...

How Conservatives Can Become Storytellers

“The plural of anecdote is not data”, claimed toxicologist Frank Kotsonis, in an attempt to correct sloppy thinking. While Kotsonis has provided a useful aphorism, it can obscure the equally interesting fact that the singular of data is anecdote. Continue Reading...

The Devil and Antonin Scalia

In Stephen Vincent Benét’s 1937 short story, “The Devil and Daniel Webster“, the famous American statesman not only gets Jabez Stone, a farmer who sold his soul to the devil, out of the contract, he gets Mr. Continue Reading...

Curing What Ails Us: Obamacare

Sally C. Pipes, president of the Pacific Research Institute, is interviewed at National Review regarding her new book, The Cure For Obamacare. NRO’s Kathryn Jean Lopez interviews Pipes about what Obamacare means for the US, and whether or not there is a better way. Continue Reading...

Presuppositions Matter, So Let’s Work Together

It is truly amazing to encounter Protestants who believe that their views on theology and justice are objective and neutral — as if the Fall did not happen. In a recent discussion about the sacraments, a leader of an international ministry said to me, “If hermeneutics involves being taught to believe a certain theology, then it is not true hermeneutics. Continue Reading...