Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson Nine years ago, I quoted historian Niall Ferguson in one of my commentaries. His book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, explained that Western Civilization succeeded because of six “killer apps—competition, modern science, the rule of law and private property rights, modern medicine, the consumer society, and the work ethic.” These are the secret sauce of Western Civilization. Last week he explained this in a PragerU video with the title “Why the West Won.” Since you probably won’t…

Kerby Anderson Kristen Day asked former mayor Pete Buttigieg an important question. She is the executive director of Democrats for Life. She explained that there are 21 million pro-life Democrats and wanted to know if he would support “more moderate platform language in the Democrat Party to ensure that the party of diversity, of inclusion, really does include everybody.” He was not interested in changing the language. None of the other Democrat candidates for president show any interest in returning…

Kerby Anderson There was a time in the past when political leaders of both parties talked about the importance of religion in the founding of this country. Terry Jeffrey found a speech by an urban northeastern Democrat that illustrated this so well. The candidate proclaimed that “a devotion to fundamental religious principles has characterized American thought and action.” He argued that the nation’s greatest leaders understood the “essential religious idea” of our founding. “Our earliest legislation was inspired by this…

Kerby Anderson At this point in the election season, it is difficult to predict what will happen once the votes are counted in November. The president could be reelected or defeated. Republicans might win back the House and keep the Senate. Or the opposite could occur. It is likely that we will once again have a divided government like what we currently have. That will mean very little will get done legislatively. But it is worth explaining to the younger…

Penna Dexter A new study about the state of the family leads to an unexpected conclusion. Researchers Wendy Wang and Bradford Wilcox studied trends in progressive California because, they write, “California has been at the vanguard of family change in America.” The study is titled: “State of Contradiction: Progressive Family Culture, Traditional Family Structure in California.” Their surprising conclusion: California has “a higher share of stable, married families than the nation as a whole.” Drs. Wang and Wilcox found that…

Kerby Anderson John Stossel says the problem is “bad laws.” Rafael Mangual describes it as the “overcriminalization of America.” Both are talking about the same problem and teamed up to produce a video that highlights an issue that needs to be addressed. To put it simply, we have too many laws on the books, many of which are outdated and need to be removed. For example, there is a law in South Carolina that bans 18-year-olds from playing pinball. Taking…

Kerby Anderson One weapon used by progressive activists is the “cancel culture.” It is an organized attempt to ruin your reputation or destroy your business. Vince Vaughn was the target of leftists because he was caught on camera talking to President Trump and shaking his hand. Another example was the attempt by students at Oberlin College to put Gibson’s bakery out of business. Vince Vaughn’s career will probably survive, and a court actually awarded the Gibson family millions from the…

Kerby Anderson The impact of the big tech companies on this election may be more than we have ever seen before because so many Americans are on social media. Two-thirds (68%) of adults use Facebook and nearly three-fourths (73%) use YouTube. The percentages for those under the age of 50 are even much higher. The tech companies have enormous power to select the information we read and share with others. Peter Hasson is the editor at the Daily Caller and…

Kerby Anderson How will history judge the impeachment of President Trump? When I saw the headline, my first thought was that asking such a question was premature, at best. But since the article was written by Hans von Spakovsky, who I respect, I decided to start reading. He is obviously speculating. But he uses the 19th century impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson to provide a context. Johnson was hated by many in Congress because he began to implement Abraham…

Kerby Anderson At the National Prayer Breakfast earlier this month, many people made comments and criticisms of the speech by President Trump. Most of those comments were accurate but they all ignored a very good message by Dr. Arthur Brooks. He is a Harvard professor and former president of the American Enterprise Institute. He has been on radio with me, and I often quote from his books and articles. He attempted to diagnose the political division and social upheaval in…

Penna Dexter During the past decade or so, pro-life state legislators have been passing laws placing commonsense, often very modest, restrictions on abortion.  It’s sad to see a lot of this progress wiped out when a different party comes into power. This is happening right now in the state of Virginia. The new democratic majority in Virginia’s house and senate is working to pass a package of bills that will reverse these protective laws. One bill removes Virginia’s requirement that…