Recent Viewpoints

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…

Penna Dexter New national polling by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy shows that fathers have tremendous influence — more influence than mothers — over whether or not their daughters engage in premarital sex. This is an organization that assumes teens will have uncommitted sex and is all about promoting birth control to teens. Kudos to them for highlighting this crucial conclusion revealed in their study. The group’s CEO, Ginny Erlich writes that “dads can provide positive…

Kerby Anderson Not only is the U.S. government in debt, but many of its citizens are in significant debt as well. Economists announced that credit card debt for Americans has now reached a new height of $1.02 trillion. Matt Schultz is a senior industry analyst at CreditCards.com. He says, “This record should serve as a wake-up call to Americans to focus on their credit card debt.” He adds, “Even if you feel your debt is manageable right now, know that…

Kerby Anderson When the U.S. debt officially reached $20 trillion, some listeners asked who owns this debt. In the past, we were assured that the national debt wasn’t a big deal since “we owe it to ourselves.” I didn’t think that comment was very reassuring then. It simply isn’t true now. The U.S. borrows heavily from foreign countries, especially the Chinese. And this creates the first problem: foreign influence. One former member of Congress put it this way, “whoever pays…

Kerby Anderson For the last five years, First Liberty Institute has published a document with the title, Undeniable: The Survey of Hostility to Religion in America. It provides an overview of the various documented examples of religious hostility. The idea for the document came from testimony given to a U.S. Senate subcommittee. After some of the examples of religious hostility were presented, some of the senators asked if the testimonies represented more than just a few isolated incidents. Back then,…