The birth of a child is life’s greatest joy – unless a dictator is asking you to have children to increase his personal power base, and he has destroyed the economy so badly that you can’t feed yourself. That is the situation in Venezuela. “Every woman should have six children for the good of the country,” said Bolivarian socialist Nicolás Maduro in March. He urged the nation’s women to “give birth, give birth” in order to “grow the country.” In...

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 has brought with it enormous costs. These include, first and foremost, an enormous cost in the terms of human life, with more than 178,000 deaths from the coronavirus in the United States alone, and at least 814,000 deaths worldwide, as of late August 2020. But also, with the pandemic e significant economic costs, fiscal costs, and personal costs to our happiness and quality of life. Why is living under quarantine so...

The 42nd Republican National Convention, the first virtual convention in GOP menced on Monday in Charlotte, North Carolina. Its lineup of speakers highlighted the fact that the American dream is an enduring reality for minorities and immigrants, the harms that teachers unions inflict on students (and some teachers), and the patibility of socialism with Christian teaching. 1. Christianity and socialism are patible. Maximo Alvarez, the Cuban emigré who became a successful American businessman, recounted the way socialism came to dominate...

This is part two of our series, “The Political Theology of Global Secularism.” You may read part one here. Check back frequently for ing installments. – Ed. David Foster Wallace wrote of our secular age: [I]n the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. In the first part of this series, I distinguished different facets...

The final night of the 2020 Republican National Convention included powerful lines promoting the Trump administration’s drug price policies. President Donald Trump claimed that his recent executive orders on drug prices “will massively lower the cost of your prescription drugs.” His daughter Ivanka likewise said that her father “took dramatic action to cut the cost of prescription drugs.” In 2015, U.S. Americans spent more than twice the OECD average on prescription drugs. Trump signed a price control-based executive order in...

Perhaps the only positive thing e from the COVID-19 global pandemic has been the way it exposed a raft of never-needed regulations imposed by every level of government. Unfortunately, rather than repealing one such ordinance which could contribute to the spread of the coronavirus, the UK’s Conservative government has literally doubled down. The government-mandated cost of single-use plastic bags at groceries and stores will double, from five pence each to 10, beginning next April. Environment Secretary George Eustice also announced...

Widespread civil unrest, social media fueled hysteria, and political polarization have infected our public life. Vice President Joe Biden suggested on Monday that these problems have been fomented by his opponent. President Donald Trump likewise suggested that it is his political opponents, including Vice President Biden, who are responsible. Both answers are politically convenient for the candidates but fail to take into account the international nature of the revolt of the public against elites of all parties and cliques. Our...

Like his fellow Hong Kong citizens, Jimmy Lai faces a date with destiny. A Chinese judge will decide on Thursday whether the Catholic dissident publisher goes to jail for up to five years over trumped-up intimidation charges. Lai stands accused of purportedly intimidating a reporter at a Tiananmen Square memorial in 2017. But the evidence shows Lai should have felt threatened. The Apple Daily founder says the reporter has stalked him for years on behalf of rival Oriental Daily News,...

Kellyanne Conway likely gave her last public speech in her role as White House adviser on Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention. The Conway clan’s political divisions mirror the growing bitterness that has e ingrained in families nationwide as America es more politicized, more secular, and less tolerant of philosophical diversity. The Conway family’s carnage has played out painfully on social media. Kellyanne Conway distinguished herself as a pollster before guiding Donald Trump’s successful presidential campaign. She has served...

Karl Marx famously concluded in his 1845 Theses On Feuerbach with his eleventh thesis: “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.” How this change from analysis to activism can be justified in light of Marx’s own materialist conception of history is an enduring puzzle. Lester DeKoster, in his always insightful Communism & Christian Faith, states it is, “a problem more easily ignored than explained.” Marx’s tomb itself has literally etched this...