Proponents of massive government programs like Medicare for All often present their schemes as though there were no alternative to state intervention. Thankfully, a life-affirming, healthcare practice shows that the free market has a superior answer about how to care for vulnerable women and their babies. Chris Gast of Right to Life of Michigan drew my attention to the story of Mark Blocher, a Christian bioethicist who believes medical practices should reflect their faith, something often difficult even in our...

I recently flew from Grand Rapids to Los Angeles on Delta. With the exception of some extra frisky TSA agents here in Michigan, the experience was largely positive. My flights were on time, the crew was helpful, and the planes were clean and well equipped. Even for those of us sitting in the back, the seating fortable. Bonus—I had a whole row to myself on the trip home! All of this got me thinking about a news article that blipped...

The Founding Fathers understood, in the words of John Adams, that “we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.” An Ivy League professor recently heard the same conclusion repeated by a Chinese Marxist. “I had no idea how critical religion is to the functioning of democracy,” the economist told Clayton Christensen. Christensen, who died last month at the age of 67, taught business administration at Harvard Business School and served...

Reducing food insecurity and improving overall nutrition continue to be key priorities in the fight to alleviate poverty, particularly given the continued rise of diseases like diabetes and their increased prevalence among e and disadvantaged populations. Among the proposed solutions, few are more prominent than the goal of reducing “food deserts”—a term for neighborhoods that lack traditional grocery stores or affordable and nutritious food options. Given that more than half of e neighborhoods fall in this category, it’s a worthwhile...

If you’ve traveled to Washington, D.C., before, it’s likely that you’ve flown through Washington Dulles International Airport, named after President Eisenhower’s Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles. In fact, more than 60,000 people travel through Dulles airport every day, but not many people know much about its namesake. John Foster Dulles served in the early years of the Cold War and pursued a vigorous foreign policy meant to isolate and undermine international, expansionist Communism. Undergirding his foreign policy was mitment...

When people talk about politics, they are usually discussing passions and interests, often with a whole lot of passion and interest. This is why prohibitions exist in polite society against talking about politics. Political discussions about issues, parties, or candidates are often performative recitations of opinion: yesterday’s knowledge, right or wrong, applied to today’s situation. These debates can be engaging, enraging, or enjoyable. It is this sort of politics that, as Henry Adams observed, “as a practice, whatever its professions,...

It’s almost two months since the death of perhaps the twentieth century’s most important conservative philosopher, Sir Roger Scruton, but discussion of the significance of his work and life continues to occupy a great deal of space in journals, opinion pieces and on the airwaves. Like many others, I have found myself looking again at many of Scruton’s great books, such as his classic “The Meaning of Conservatism” (1980), the very reflective “England: An Elegy” (2000) and the aesthetic arguments...

Bernie Sanders faced political crossfire during the debate in South Carolina on Tuesday night, some of it because he lavished praise on Communist dictators in Cuba, Russia, and Latin America. This week’s Acton Commentary, “The key to understanding Bernie Sanders,” details his history of moral equivalence between Marxist dictators and Western democracies – and explains the socialist reasoning that fuels it. “This specious moral reasoning rings a deep, discordant bell among all those who encountered or are conversant with the...

During a congressional hearing late last week, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez likened Christians who refuse to perform medical procedures that violate their religious beliefs to Klansmen, segregationists, and slaveholders. But in this week’s Acton Commentary, Rev. Gregory Jensen writes that it is the congresswoman who shares the Jim Crow tactics of using the government to deny other people their inalienable rights. In a video clip that went viral, AOC, a democratic socialist, said that Christians lack the right to live according to...

Bernie Sanders’ reflexive defense of Marxist dictators has raised concerns literally left and right. Democrats on the considerable space to his right worry that Sanders’ apologies will cost them the election, while leftists worry his rhetoric will cause people to equate socialism with tyranny. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, socialists have done all they can to encourage a social amnesia about the crimes of Marxism. Academia and the media have been happy to oblige. However, as Sanders said...