Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson Just over a week ago, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban went into a Los Angeles studio to try to explain why he wasn’t aware of sexual harassment in the corporate offices of the Mavericks. The press conference to address the ruling by the NBA was in Dallas, but Mark Cuban (who was taping Shark Tank) stayed in LA to appear on an ESPN program. The fact that he couldn’t make it to Dallas for the press conference should…

Penna Dexter This past summer, the American Library Association renamed its Laura Ingalls Wilder Award. The prize is now called the Children’s Literature Legacy Award. The ALA says Wilder’s body of work, is inconsistent with its “core values of inclusiveness, integrity and respect, and responsiveness.” At issue are three instances in which characters in Wilder’s beloved Little House on the Prairie series say, “the only good Indian is a dead Indian” and other statements that hardly anyone would defend today. References…

Kerby Anderson The suicide rate in America is increasing. That not only makes it an important public health issue. It has also become an election year issue. Antonio Delgado is a congressional candidate in New York. His tweet explained that, “Suicide rates increased in nearly every state from 1999 through 2016, including an increase of 29% in NY. We must commit funding to help those suffering from mental health conditions and let them know that they are not alone.” Illinois…

Kerby Anderson During the confirmation hearings for Judge Brett Kavanaugh we saw lots of protesters screaming outside the hearing room. Senator Dick Durbin declared that, “What we heard is the noise of democracy.” Actually, what we heard was a noise of a mob. And this is exactly what the Founders of this country feared. First, we need to remind our citizens that we are a republic and not a democracy. We elect representatives to federal, state, and local governments to…

Last week I talked about the difference between the terms “liberal” and “leftist.” I wanted to revisit that discussion because I have found that it helps explain what is happening in the political scene. The other day, I had someone say that she doesn’t even think there is a Democratic Party anymore. I think what she meant was that it doesn’t look anything like the political party she remembers when she was growing up. Yes, there have always been liberals…

Kerby Anderson Conspiracies have been around for centuries, but the Internet has made it much easier to promote a conspiracy that has the potential of going viral before rational people can begin to tamp down the hysteria. The older conspiracies were presented and promoted primarily by people who believed the government wasn’t telling the whole truth. The National Treasure series of movies and television shows like The X-Files probably even fed into some of that skepticism. The latest conspiracies are coming from…

Kerby Anderson Whenever you are having a debate or discussion, it is essential that you define your terms. This is especially true in any discussion about socialism. Actor Jim Carrey recently said he was tired of hearing talk show commentators say that socialism is a failure. He concluded that, “We have to say yes to socialism: to the word and everything.” Anders Hagstrom (Daily Caller News Foundation) in one of his videos asks, “What does socialism mean to him?” He…

Penna Dexter New research reveals that the politically correct way we’re responding to teens who come out as transgender —  affirming that decision and “treating” them with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones — is not helping them. In fact it’s increasing their suffering and is dangerous. Even faced with this evidence, the Left won’t see it that way. The new study titled “Transgender Adolescent Suicide Behavior” was published in the September issue of Pediatrics, the official peer-reviewed journal of the…

Two weeks ago I happened to turn on a campaign rally where President Trump was speaking. As usual, he talked about “fake news” and made a statement that I knew would be criticized by historians. He said, “You know when Abraham Lincoln made the Gettysburg Address speech, the great speech, you know he was ridiculed.” The point he was making is that there was “fake news” then so we shouldn’t be surprised we have it today. He then went on…

Kerby Anderson One axiom in the news business is the reality that good news isn’t really news. Thousands of airplanes land safely. That is not news. An airplane crashes. That’s news. Because of this we rarely hear good news about our world. We certainly hear lots of bad news. This is especially true in an election year when challengers paint a dismal picture of our world so that you will elect them instead of the incumbents. After Jim Geraghty wrote…

Kerby Anderson In our political discussions we often tend to use the terms “liberal” and “leftist” interchangeably along with other terms like “progressive.” Dennis Prager has provided a public service by defining and distinguishing the two. A year ago, he wrote about this and more recently put it in one of his Prager University videos. His argument is that traditional liberalism has far more in common with conservatism than it does with leftism. Here are just three examples he uses…