Acton’s vision is the liberal vision, a vision of a society that is beyond the state. It sees individual souls above the state and that God rules it all through his providence. Acton’s vision is still worth defending and offers hope to us now in thesepolarizedand troubled times. Read More… Today, January 10, 2022, is Lord Acton’s 188th birthday. This difficult era ofa global pandemic,a crisis in institutions, andcivil unrestseems a strange time to look back on the life and...

When the financial guru justified raising rents on his properties to “market rates,” even if it meant some tenants might have to hit the bricks, a lot of people asked what was more important to him: God or mammon. But was that fair? Read More… The tweet heard ’round the world last week involved a clip of Dave Ramsey arguing that a Christian landlord can, ethically, raise rents to market levels even if it means that the renter has to...

If you thought good and evil were superstitious binaries that will one day be married, a new theatrical adaptation of Lewis’ parable will have you pining for a divorce. Read More… Humans are incredibly skilled at rationalizing sin. We prefer to gloss over sin rather than face it. And for good reason! To grapple with the true weight of our sin is a heavy burden indeed. And even when we do recognize sin, we are more likely to note the...

Needless to say, spoiler alerts galore! Read More… In superhero movies, it’s a given that the good guys will try to save innocents from the bad guys. Sometimes they save individuals, sometimes they save cities, and all too often—especially in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)—they save the entire planet or, increasingly, the entire universe. (Once you’ve raised the stakes so high and swatted them back down, every subsequent threat on that scale seems less threatening because more unreal.) But what...

The topic of reparations is often a nonstarter for many conservatives, but it shouldn’t be. There are classical liberal alternatives to simple government payouts that can begin to repay black Americans still suffering from the repercussions of Jim Crow racism. Read More… Today we mostly associate the idea of reparations for America’s black population with left-wing politics, and that’s no surprise. Only Democratic candidates for president, such as Marianne Williamson, mention reparations as part of their political platform. However, the...

A signal force in bringing market economics and limited government ideas to Latin America, Ramón P. Díaz’s legacy offers hope for a continent sinking into a mire of socialism and authoritarianism. Read More… January 7, 2022, marks the fifth anniversary of the death of a man who played a major role in spreading throughout Latin America the key ideas that underpin the free society. Intellectual, lawyer, journalist, economist, university professor, and public servant, Ramón P. Díaz (1926–2017) has good claim...

The severe ideological divide that makes even debate impossible can only be bridged by a return to civility in dispute. Strong opinions civilly expressed is the best first step. Read More… One of the sadder deaths in 2021 was that of former Kansas senator Bob Dole. Wounded war-hero and long-serving politician, Dole was widely respected from people across the political spectrum not only for his skills but also for his willingness to try and work across divides to mon objectives....

The following is an edited-for-length version of the lecture delivered by the Rev. Dr. Juhana Pohjola, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland, as part of the 2021 American Lecture Tour sponsored by the International Lutheran Council. Read More… On April 29, 2021, the prosecutor general of Finland decided to bring charges against me and Member of Parliament Mrs. Päivi Räsänen. We will be summoned to the Helsinki district court for the court session on January 24, 2022....

Imprisoned entrepreneur, publisher, and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai has been highlighted as the most urgent case when es to threats to press freedom in China, this as the world is about to focus on Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympics. Read More… Every month, the One Free Press Coalition issues its “10 Most Urgent” list, ranking the most harrowing challenges to press freedom from around the world in order of urgency. Jimmy Lai, a 74-year-old Hong Kong entrepreneur and pro-democracy...

If you haven’t seen “She’s Funny That Way,” and you probably haven’t, then you’re in for both a treat and a retreat into the world of Old Hollywood farce in the spirit of Sturges and Lubitsch. Read More… Peter Bogdanovich has died, America’s only famous chronicler of Old Hollywood, a young friend of Orson Welles and an admirer of John Ford, and a director in his own turn of celebrated dramas like The Last Picture Show (1971), ing-of-age story about...