It’s the end of the semester. A degree of giddiness creeps in. My students and I have been working through the political systems of a variety of nations. Yesterday, we talked about China. China is a wonderful subject because any professor pletely sold out to Marxist fantasy gains the license to speak judgmentally about Mao’s ridiculous policies of The Great Leap Forward (in which the nation stopped producing food and tried to manufacture steel in backyards) and The Cultural Revolution...

With Afghanistan, health care, and economic distress devouring the attention of media, politicians, and the electorate, school choice may seem like yesterday’s public policy headline. Yet the problems in America’s education system remain. In fact, plummeting tax revenue highlights the necessity of increasing public school efficiency, while unemployment and falling household es heighten the recruitment challenges facing tuition-funded private schools. And quietly, the movement for school choice—improving education by returning power to parents—continues to make progress. This week, news from...

The well-known evangelical theologian and historian John Stackhouse has added his name to the ranks of Christians who don’t find much to like about the Manhattan Declaration. There is a twist in this case, though. He plaining about the alliance between evangelicals and Catholics, for example. (Thank you, Lord.) However, one of Dr. Stackhouse’s major objections is equally perplexing. While he declares himself to be pro-life and pro-traditional marriage, he believes the call to enshrine those positions in the law...

My essay in today’s American Spectator Online looks at why Ben Bernanke should not be confirmed to a second term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve: Two planks in Bernanke’s recovery strategy: Expand the money supply like a banana republic dictator and throw sackfuls of cash at panies with a proven track record of mismanaging their assets. The justification? According to the late John Maynard Keynes, this is supposed to restore the “animal spirits” of the cowed consumer, the benighted...

The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! Those lines begin a William Wordsworth sonnet written in what English Department’s characterize as “The Romantic Age.” Romance is wonderful. It’s that time in a relationship when faults are unseen. (Later, they may be ignored.) But, if affection is not bolstered by something deeper, the...

Heather Wilhelm of the Illinois Policy Institute examines the usefulness of Ayn Rand for political engagement by friends of the market economy in a WSJ op-ed, “Is Ayn Rand Bad for the Market?” She concludes, Rand held some insight on the nature of markets and has sold scads of books, but when es to shaping today’s mainstream assumptions, she is a terrible marketer: elitist, cold and laser-focused on the supermen and superwomen of the world. Wilhelm’s picture of Rand underscores...

I think the country IS discovering its inner Dave Ramsey. The savings rate keeps going up. People are self-consciously trying to protect themselves from uncertainty. At first, it was to protect against a private sector meltdown. Now, it is an attempt to protect against public sector profligacy. In both cases, this new found habit of saving keeps the economic motor running slow and low. Government attempts to e that instinct are bound to fail. The only thing that will loosen...

In advance of the Acton Institute’s conference, “Free Enterprise, Poverty, and the Financial Crisis,” which will be held Thursday, Dec. 3, in Rome, the Zenit news agency interviews Dr. Samuel Gregg, Director of Research. Recipe for Ending Poverty: Think, Then Act Scholar Laments Lack of Reflection in Tackling Issue ROME, NOV. 30, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The recipe for alleviating poverty is not a secret, and yet much of the work being done to help the world’s poor is misdirected, according to...

If you’re looking to catch up on the Climategate scandal, one of our interviewees from The Effective Stewardship DVD church curriculum, Steven Hayward, has an excellent summary and analysis here at The Weekly Standard. Also, our friend Jay Richards has a good piece at today’s Enterprise Blog, which explains why attempts to settle the global warming debate by appeals to scientific consensus merely increase public skepticism. And looking ahead, Paul Mirengoff of Powerline explains why the global warming lobby won’t...

I recently gave an interview to the Georgia Family Council (where I worked as a younger fellow) about my book for their website. Here is an excerpt I think might interest readers: What made you decide to write your book The End of Secularism? I wrote this book for a few reasons. I detected that the moment might be right for someone to lay out a very rigorous critique of secularism. While it was once plausible to people that secularism...