Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson One argument used to prove systemic racism is the extent of racial disparities. On the Internet you will find lots of charts that show differences between black and white that are then used to prove racism. One way to respond to those charges is to look at one of the last columns ever written by black economist Thomas Sowell with the provocative title “Football and Fallacies.” He talks about the reaction from the players in the NFL when…

Kerby Anderson A term being used by certain pollsters is the “shy Trump voter.” It designates voters who plan to vote for Donald Trump but aren’t telling pollsters how they will vote. Some pollsters believe these voters exist, while most pollsters reject the idea. One writer at FiveThirtyEight said their polling organization “found little sign of shy Trump voters.” Another report from the American Association for Public Opinion Research found no evidence of such voters. David Catron counters that this…

Kerby Anderson Yesterday I talked about a new book by Rod Dreher. In it, he talks about a book by Hannah Arendt on The Origins of Totalitarianism published after World War II. She documented what happened in Germany and the Soviet Union. It helps us see when totalitarianism is coming. Here are a few warning signs. The first is loneliness and social atomization. Totalitarian movements are “mass organizations of atomized, isolated individuals.” Twenty years ago, Robert Putnam published his book…

Kerby Anderson A new book (Live Not by Lies) by Rod Dreher warns Christians about the coming “soft totalitarianism.” He explains that this is different from what we read in novels like Brave New World or in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The old, hard totalitarianism came from the state (Germany, Russia) and was dedicated to the eradication of Christianity. This new totalitarianism usually comes from the left in society but is also dedicated to the eradication of Christianity. The soft totalitarianism of…

Penna Dexter This election we’ve heard discussions of some radical, far-left ideas on the campaign trail.  But it was a real shock last week to hear a presidential candidate voice support for a right to gender transitions for 8-year-olds. At the ABC townhall in Philadelphia, the mother of a third-grader who identifies as transgender asked candidate Joe Biden, how he, if elected president, would protect the rights of people who claim a different gender under U.S. law. Vice President Biden…

Kerby Anderson The US economy is doing better than most economists predicted. Harrison Dunn says we are witnessing the “sharpest economic snapback in US history.” This isn’t what many pundits and economists predicted. Most assumed we would still be trying to dig out from the devastation of the pandemic lockdowns. This economic snapback may also explain why the Gallup poll that I mentioned in a previous commentary has 56 percent of voters believing they were better off today than they…

Kerby Anderson Critics of mass mail voting point to problems with government efficiency and the potential for voter fraud. The quick response often is a throwaway line that many states have been doing mail-in voting for years with no problems. The editors of the Wall Street Journal then ask: “What do they have the rest of us lack? Well, for one thing, check out their solid deadlines.” For example, registered voters in Colorado are to be mailed a ballot by…

Kerby Anderson It took a while, but common sense has broken out at the World Health Organization. Dr. David Nabarro acknowledged that the members of “the World Health Organization do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus.” In fact, he argued that “lockdowns just have one consequence that you must never ever belittle, and that is making poor people an awful lot poorer.” He did admit they might have a purpose when a short time…

Kerby Anderson The charge from liberal professors and progressive activists is that this country and this president are racist. That prevents non-white minorities from experiencing true economic opportunity. Minorities face economic discrimination. Stephen Moore is a finance and economics columnist who pulled together the latest Census Bureau reports to show how well minorities have been doing. Some of that has been hard to see of late because of the economic downturn created by the pandemic lockdowns. The Census Bureau reports…

Kerby Anderson Sometimes presidential debates can be helpful. But the Commission on Presidential Debates is not helpful. I was thinking about this the other day and then came upon a commentary by Newt Gingrich with a similar concern. He persuasively argues that the “time has come to recognize how arrogant, biased, and obsolete” the debate commission has become. The members of the commission decided recently to require a virtual debate after no consultation with the Trump campaign. That effectively killed…

Penna Dexter As the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court progresses, a couple of developments reveal the stakes for religious liberty. Jim Obergefell is the named plaintiff in Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 case that culminated in a 5-4 decision mandating that every state recognize same sex marriage. He teamed up with Alphonso David, president of the Human Rights Campaign, to write an opinion piece which the Washington Post published last week, warning that Judge Barrett’s confirmation…