It seems far too bizarre to be true: an entire town where on-going child molestation continued for years, despite the fact that the molestation was no secret. Children were doused in gasoline and told they’d be set on fire. They were sexually abused, trafficked to other countries, passed around from abuser to abuser. And on and on. For years. Somebody on the Rotherham Borough Council finally had the brains and guts enough to request an inquiry and report. Council leader...

I have spoken in the past in favor of net neutrality, writing, Whoever is responsible for and best at enforcing it, net neutrality had this going for it: it was a relatively stable, relatively open playing-field petition…. [T]he fact panies tried to get around it via copyright protection privileges shows that it was, in fact, doing something to enforce freedom petition. Now, without it, there is an opportunity for concentration of power…. As [Walter] Eucken illustrated, concentration can lead to...

It may not be the silver bullet for every financial challenge facing states at the present, but those states adopting right-to-work (RTW) legislation are ing petitive. In your writer’s native Michigan, for example, RTW was signed by Gov. Rick Snyder in December 2012, and the results have been impressive. The American Legislative Exchange Council’s recently released 2014 “Rich States, Poor States” report places the Great Lakes State 12th out of 50. ALEC’s 2013 report placed Michigan at 25 between 1999...

S. Truett Cathy, the founder of Chick-Fil-A, died on Monday at the age of 93. He once said, “We live in a changing world, but we need to be reminded that the important things have not changed.” Extremely profitable and popular, Chick-Fil-A has given $68 million to charity since its founding. Cathy was a master at forging relationships and he noted in his book Eat More Chikin: Inspire More People, “Courtesy is cheap, but it pays great dividends.” The profits...

In the United States, we’veonly begun to see how impediments to religious liberty can harm and hinder certain businesses and entrepreneurial efforts. Elsewhere, however, particularly in the developing world, religious restrictions and hostilities have long been a barrier to economic growth. To identify theserealities, Brian Grim of Georgetown University and Greg Clark and Robert Edward Snyder of Brigham Young University conducted an extensive study, “Is Religious Freedom Good for Business?,” which concludes that “religious freedom contributes to better economic and...

Cooperation and creativity are essential for both a well-functioning market and the celebration of the Eucharist, says Rev. Gregory Jensen in this week’s Acton Commentary. As he has done in the past, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in his encyclical for the beginning of the Orthodox Christian ecclesiastical year (September 1) meditates on “the ongoing and daily destruction of the natural environment.” Environmental damage is the poisoned fruit of “human greed” and the pursuit of “vain profit,” the patriarch writes. Given our...

We now live in a world where a child is modity. It is an item to be coveted, sought out, assembled and purchased. Found a partner? Check. Got the house? Check. Career going well? Yup. Let’s get a child plete the package. And like the rest of our lives, we want only the very best. And of course, we have a right to the very best our money can buy. Does this sound futuristic or dystopian? Tell that to baby...

Those of you in West Michigan with a taste for libertarian cinema may want to to join local restaurateur Tommy Brann for a special screening of “Atlas Shrugged 3: Who is John Galt?” Brann is hosting the showing at Celebration Cinema North at Knapp’s Corner tomorrow (Sept. 12) at 7 p.m. Tickets are $7.75 and email [email protected] to reserve your seat. Before you go, read Rev. Robert A. Sirico’s essay “Who Really Was John Galt, Anyway?” published at in 2011....

In his Epidemics, Hippocrates, the father of western medicine, wrote that the physician has two special objects in view: to do good or to do no harm. That same principle should be the special object of every educator. While they may not always know what is required to do good, the least they can do is to do no harm. By applying that standard, it es inexplicable why educators are pushing for Common Core standards. A study released last year...

The great British statesman Edmund Burke claimed that “to love the little platoon we belong to in society is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections.” Burke was referring to the mediating social institutions that that lie between the individual and the state. These “little platoons” include not only the family but our churches, labor unions, charity organizations, and other voluntary associations. Since the dawn of modernity, intellectuals and politicians have been hostile to mediating structures...