Latest Posts

Religious liberty in Japan

For the past several decades in the United States many parents have gravitated toward one extreme or the other in terms of allowing religion in public schools. It is generally understood these days that our public school system is not a religious organization, and should not promote one religion as a state religion, over others. Continue Reading...

Coercing charity

This section from Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics strikes me as quite true: The coercive factors, in distinction to the more purely moral and rational factors, in political relations can never be sharply differentiated and defined. Continue Reading...

Ecobits

Two quick bits for your Tuesday: – Federal judges on green junkets at your expense? CRC says so! – Is “steady state ecological economics” the answer to environmental and economic woes? Continue Reading...

Spelling relief II

Jordan pretty well covered the territory in his earlier post on gas prices. But with the silliness from both Republicans and Democrats ongoing, it can’t hurt to suggest two additional sensible treatments of the subject: Thomas Nugent on National Review Online, and Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute on Fox News. Continue Reading...

Faith-based funding politicizes religion

Rev. Robert A. Sirico looks at the Bush Faith-Based Initiative following the departure of Jim Towey, who headed the office. “I would far rather see a president rally people to give more to charity than rally voters to support government programs that go to religious organizations, and to create incentives and lessen penalties when they do give,” Rev. Continue Reading...

Anthony Bradley discusses Duke lacrosse on Fox

Anthony Bradley, a research fellow at the Acton Institute, was interviewed on “Heartland with John Kasich” on Fox News last Saturday. He was talking about the need for a “hero to emerge” from the Duke lacrosse team in the wake of a sexual assault scandal. Continue Reading...

Religion, economics, and the zoo

Ota Benga Sometimes the spirit of an age prevails with such force that it moves the highest pinnacles of cultural influence to support the grossest indignities. Consider the early 1900s. During this time, the prevailing zeitgeist of Darwinism gave rise to the tragic dehumanization of a Pygmy named Ota Benga. Continue Reading...

Economic turmoil in Zimbabwe

Where in the world would you pay $145,750 for a roll of toilet paper? According to an article in the New York Times, inflation in Zimbabwe is soaring higher than ever — about 900 percent since President Mugabe began seizing land from wealthy landowners in 2000. Continue Reading...