The US State Department issued its annual religious freedom report late last week (HT). And earlier this month, Paul Marshall of the Hudson Institute discussed the ing book, Religious Freedom in the World 2007. He had this to say about economic and religious freedom: If you take the worst 30 countries in terms of economic freedom, every one scored low with religious freedom. The top 30 countries all scored high. Why is that? We see two connections. First, wealth could...

In an attempt to oppose legislative action on tort reform, Nebraska Democratic State Senator Ernie Chambers “filed a lawsuit against God in Douglas County Court.” “The Constitution requires that the courthouse doors be open, so you cannot prohibit the filing of suits,” Chambers says. “Anyone can sue anyone they choose, even God.” I don’t think it quite works that way. In order to have standing to bring a suit, you not only have to be affected, there has to be...

Here’s a justly famous quote from C. S. Lewis on why the danger posed by a nanny government can be much more oppressive than that posed by the consolidation of economic power: Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but...

Related to last mentary and blog post, check out this WSJ piece, “Gates Crafts Long-Term Iraq Plan, With Limited Role for U.S. Forces,” in which Defense Secretary Robert Gates says, “My view is that whatever works economically ought to be tried.” ...

In what is shaping up to appear like court imposed taxation, Microsoft lost its appeal in a major anti-trust case at Europe’s second highest court yesterday. The European Union’s Court of First Instance backed the European Commission’s 2004 decision to fine Microsoft and order the software giant to change its Windows operating system to make it patible with rival systems. The 2004 verdict imposed a record fine on Microsoft in the amount of $497 million. The long feud appears, by...

In college I wrote a paper for a Latin American Politics class titled, Barnum & Bailey Circus bailouts. The paper took the position that another financial bailout of Mexico would be a huge mistake and would not be money well spent. The paper was probably a little flippant because I interwove within the framework of the paper some characters with top hats, traveling bands of political circuses, and other outlandish theatrical symbolism. I was trying to make light of what...

I did a brief interview yesterday with Greg Allen of The Right Balance and have a couple more scheduled for next week. It’s kept me thinking about some of the issues surrounding the debate about Christianity, democracy, and Iraq. In the piece I wrote I pointed to some of the rather guarded opinions of representatives from the Christian tradition, namely John Calvin, Abraham Kuyper, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, on the possibility of finding the “best” form of government. But I’ve also...

In his recent and fascinating book Five Minds for the Future, Harvard professor Howard Gardner outlines the 5 basic types of intelligence people have: 1. The Disciplinary Mind: the mastery of major schools of thought, including science, mathematics, and history, and of at least one professional craft; 2. The Synthesizing Mind: the ability to integrate ideas from different disciplines or spheres into a coherent whole and municate that integration to others; 3. The Creating Mind: the capacity to uncover and...

It’s perhaps serendipitous that I’m beginning to read Gertrude Himmelfarb’s The De-Moralization of Society: From Victorian Virtues to Modern Values on the same day that the first Values Voter Debate is going to be held in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. You might think of the so-called V2 debate as an answer to Jim Wallis’ Presidential Forum on Faith, Values, and Poverty, which featured leading Democratic presidential candidates (although Wallis’ promotional materials promised a similar event including Republican candidates, such a forum...

“Is American higher education doing its duty to prepare the next generation to keep America free?” Apparently not, according to researchers at the University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy (UConnDPP), in a missioned by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s (ISI) National Civic Literacy Program. In a survey of 14,000 freshman and seniors at 50 colleges and universities across the country, every school scored poorly. Also, college seniors, sadly, scored little better than freshman. The average senior score was a failing...