The relationship between virtue and institutions has been debated for many years, even centuries, by political thinkers, not to mention even clergy. For Christians this is a particularly important issue. To what extent can we rely on the arrangement of political and legal institutions to “check ambition” and prevent mischievous abuse of power? Do we […]
Archives
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Quote of the Day (and Comment)
21 Jul 2015
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The “Reality Crisis” and the Christian
20 Jun 2015
I am going to make an argument here that we have now as a society encountered—for perhaps the first time in history—an “ontological crisis.” What do I mean? I mean a crisis about reality. Now I don’t believe this crisis is particularly influential for most ordinary people, nor for most subjects of investigation. A philosopher […]
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It began when the current Pope, Francis, succeeded Benedict XVI and proceeded to issue an encyclical dealing with economics. Many at the time defended him and argued that he could be interpreted in such a way as not to be overly critical of markets and capitalism. But Francis seems to have continued down an interesting […]
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Labels are both handy and hated. In economics, we teach that branding and labels are ways to economize on the costs of information search. So, for example, I go into the voting booth and on many lower-level candidates, I may not have much, if any, information on their positions. But if I see a “D” […]
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So asks Don Boudreaux over on Cafe Hayek. And with very good reason. You should read all of his post, the logic is impeccable if perhaps graphic. I share his post because it is a lament I had the other night while out walking the dog with my wife. I wasn’t thinking of Mr. Boudreaux’s […]
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Ted Cruz, Rights and the Media
30 Mar 2015
Looks like the Media—short for Mainstream Media or MSM—are at it again, this time getting hot and bothered over Ted Cruz’s speechifying about our God-given rights, exceptionalism, and all that. The so-called “God-made” Constitution left several of the MSM hooting with ridicule. Their reaction of course was (predictably) to say that the Constitution and the […]
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Earlier in the week I asked what the Keystone pipeline decision says about Mr. Obama. I now want to offer my answer to the question I raised: the basic problem we have with Mr. Obama’s leadership is we have the first ideologue president. I have written on this before, so it might be useful to […]
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Did He Really Say That?
11 Feb 2015
Have we come to this point in our culture or is this just an “outlier”? Yesterday, Representative Elijah Cummings (D-Md) made the following statement in a speech to Federal union members: “People do not seem to understand that so many people come to government knowing that they are not going to make the kind of […]
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Legal Niceties? Or Necessities?
29 Jan 2015
It now seems that in at least a few locations in the United States—not Great Britain—we are seeing “voluntary” Sharia law courts. As one journalist put it, this is how the formal Sharia law courts began in England. First it was simply voluntary. One could opt to have one’s case heard by a group of […]
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“The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil”
18 Dec 2014
D.A. Carson has a gem over on the Gospel Coalition, which is well worth a read. RATHER NAIVELY, SOME OF US THINK that if Jesus were alive today, our tolerant culture would not give him a really rough time, much less crucify him. We would simply marginalize him, treat him as if he were a […]
Bert Wheeler
Jeff Haymond
Marc Clauson
Mark Caleb Smith
Tom Mach