Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson You may have noticed that the contentious issues in the culture war seem to be coming faster and with more intensity. In a recent commentary, Kevin Williamson validates that observation. He begins by reminding us how long it took for homosexuality to become mainstream. The decision by the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual took place in 1973. But homosexual acts were still listed as criminal for an additional 30 years until…

Kerby Anderson For more than 200 years, candidates have been running for election in districts that were gerrymandered. The term comes from the name of the governor in Massachusetts. In 1812, Governor Gerry signed a bill that changed the district lines for candidates. One of those contorted districts in the Boston area resembled the shape of a salamander. Thus the term “gerrymander’ was born. Recently I learned that gerrymandering goes all the way back to the first congressional elections and…

Kerby Anderson Last month, Nicholas Kristof stirred the political waters when he wrote an op-ed with the title, A Confession of Liberal Intolerance. The response to his piece led to a second one with the title The Liberal Blind Spot. He began his first piece by acknowledging that: “We progressives believe in diversity, and want women, blacks, Latinos, gays, and Muslims at the table — so long as they aren’t conservatives.” He concludes that liberals are fine with people who…

Kerby Anderson A third of all young adults are single, broke, and living in their parent’s home. That’s how some are describing the latest results from the Pew Research Center study of the millennial generation. More young adults are now living with their parents than with a spouse or a partner. This is a tipping point for the first time in modern history. About 32 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 are living in their parents’…

Kerby Anderson Neal Gabler, writing in The Atlantic, begins his essay with this disturbing statistic from a survey conducted by the Federal Reserve Board. The survey asked respondents how they would pay for a $400 emergency. They found that 47 percent of respondents said they would cover the expense by borrowing or selling something. In other words, they could not come up with the $400 any other way. Gabler asks: Who knew? He then answers that he knew, because he…

Penna Dexter The spectacles created on football fields as players kneel, sit or raise fists during the national anthem are the latest evidence of the Left’s success in undermining institutions and traditions that Americans once held dear. These grown men are unwitting pawns of the progressive left in pursuit of its anti-American agenda. The Left employs many tactics to undermine the unity that’s so desirable in a nation. One is to encourage minorities to embrace victimhood, to divide the society…

Kerby Anderson For decades, sociologists have documented the phenomenon of extended adolescence. This is where someone who is an adult still acts like a teenager. One classic example would be a 35-year-old who has part of their rent and bills covered by parents and continues to take college classes. Jean Twenge in her latest research on the trailing edge millennials (who she calls iGen) are extending this phenomenon even further. She documents that teenagers are becoming adults even later than…

Kerby Anderson You can ask millions of Americans if they would like a better job, and the resounding answer is yes. Unfortunately, many of them are unqualified for that job for reasons other than their academic training. The U.S. Labor Department says there are a record 6.2 million jobs currently available in this country. Many of those jobs won’t be filled because the unemployed don’t have the right academic credentials, but many others won’t be filled because many candidates lack…

Kerby Anderson Many universities have been using various regulations and excuses to restrict free speech on campus. What may surprise many Americans is the fact that so many millennials believe restricting free speech on campus is necessary. Nearly half of the millennials polled in a recent University of Chicago survey say that colleges should limit freedom of speech “in extreme cases.” This would include limiting what they perceive as offensive language or even costumes that stereotype certain racial and ethnic…

Kerby Anderson Americans don’t know much about the Constitution, and it apparently is getting worse. Nine years ago, I wrote and recorded a commentary about constitutional illiteracy. Back then I quoted John Whitehead (Rutherford Institute) who testified before a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee concerning the rule of law. He provided some alarming statistics based upon a survey done about ten years ago. They found that only one in four Americans could name more than one of the freedoms…

Kerby Anderson I think it is fair to say that our culture has managed to politicize just about everything. The last two weeks of NFL football are merely the latest vivid illustration of how everything has become political. This didn’t begin with Colin Kaepernick refusing to stand for the national anthem. And it certainly began long before Donald Trump became president and intensified the debate with his speeches and tweets. And it even began before ESPN decided to act more…