Year: 2013

January 10, 2013

Media Bias in the HHS Mandate Fight? Say It Ain’t So

USA Today has a piece today on the HHS mandate battle. What I noticed was not so much the story, but the photo the newspaper chose to run. It’s an AP photo by Derik Holtmann from a rally held last spring, about the same time as numerous other rallies were taking place around the country. Continue Reading...
January 10, 2013

Self-Denial in the Age of Self-Help

I recently discussed the importance of aligning ourselves to God before getting too carried away with our own plans for economic restoration. We should instead seek to supplant the personal for the divine, embracing a transcendent framework through which we can pursue what we already recognize to be transcendent ends. Continue Reading...
January 09, 2013

Valjean, Lord Acton, and the Common Moral Code

In this week’s Acton Commentary, “The Mundane Morality of Les Misérables,” I explore the new musical film and in particular a transitional episode where the main protagonist, Jean Valjean, is faced with a moral dilemma: “If I speak, I am condemned. Continue Reading...
January 09, 2013

The Fiscal Cliff and the Fifth Commandment

America’s recent fiscal crisis has been delayed, not averted. Even if action is taken within the next few months to cut spending and/or raise taxes, the day of reckoning will only be slightly delayed since no one is willing to touch the three programs that constitute almost half the federal budget: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Continue Reading...
January 09, 2013

New E-Zone Unemployment Rates Should Raise American Alarm

Record unemployment rates in Europe have been published and they should alarm Americans. Why? Because we are headed in the same direction. Nile Gardiner, of The Telegraph, is quite sure of this: The United States isn’t just gliding towards a continental European-style future of vast welfare systems, economic decline, and massive debts – it is accelerating towards it at full speed. Continue Reading...
January 08, 2013

The Fiscal Cliff Deal and Intergenerational Justice

So … what happened? With regular coverage of the US “Fiscal Cliff” running up to the new year, PowerBlog readers may be wondering where the discussion has gone. While I am by no means the most qualified to comment on the matter, I thought a basic summary and critique would be in order: With six minutes to read this 157 page bill, the US House of Representatives passed it. Continue Reading...
January 08, 2013

Is the Government Making Us Fat?

It’s that time of year: we’re making resolutions to get on the treadmill, join the gym, eat an apple every day. And yet, Americans are getting fatter and fatter. Is it the government’s fault? Continue Reading...