Month: March 2012

March 26, 2012

HHS Mandate Fits Bigger Pattern

Both the original and compromise versions of the Obama administration’s health insurance mandate (the HHS mandate) coerce people into paying, either directly or indirectly, for other people’s contraception. The policy may have been pushed along by exigencies of Democratic Party constituency politics, but I suspect there’s also a worldview dimension to the mandate, one embodied in one of President Obama’s more controversial appointments—Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren. Continue Reading...
March 23, 2012

Europe: A Turtle on its Back?

Would dissolving the European common currency, as proposed by the French free-market economist and entrepreneur Charles Gave in his book Libéral mais non coupable (“Liberal But Not Guilty”) free the Old Continent to stand upright on its financial feet again?  Continue Reading...
March 22, 2012

Miller: Here I Come to Save the World Bank

In The American Spectator, Acton Institute’s Michael Matheson Miller throws his hat into the ring as he launches a tongue-in-cheek candidacy for World Bank president, but also raises serious questions about the institution’s poverty fighting programs. Continue Reading...
March 22, 2012

Willingness and Ability to Serve in the Armed Forces

I saw the fine film Act of Valor last month, and I was struck by the level of sacrifice displayed in the lives of the service members featured. I have wondered in the meantime whether the scale of the sacrifice that’s been required of American service persons over the last two decades is sustainable. Continue Reading...
March 22, 2012

John Witherspoon and the Early American Understanding of Religious Liberty

With the concept of religious liberty being treated as an antiquated and obsolete notion, it’s refreshing to be reminded of the great, but oft-forgotten, Founding Father John Witherspoon. As John Willson writes, Witherspoon—who was a signer of the Declaration, member of Congress, and President of Princeton—had a profound understanding of how the government should relate to religion: Continue Reading...
March 21, 2012

Commentary: Human Nature: The Question behind the Culture Wars

Why do people so readily assume the worst about the religious motives of their fellow citizens? Why do we let partisanship take precedence over implementing policy solutions? In his new book, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and attempts to show the way forward to mutual understanding. Continue Reading...
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