Recent Viewpoints

How important is it that we define our terrorist enemies? Some believe that accurately defining our enemy isn’t worth the effort. One network commentator even ridiculed the idea. Lieutenant Colonel Allen West (also a former member of Congress) says he finds this attitude disconcerting. As a young officer, one of the books on the mandatory reading list was The Art of War by Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu. This is what he says about defining the enemy. “If you know…

The Supreme Court is poised to redefine marriage and force Christians to serve same-sex marriage ceremonies even if they have moral objections. Is this what Americans want? A recent survey clearly shows that is not what registered voters want. The WPA Opinion Research found that a majority (53%) agreed with this statement: “I believe marriage should be defined only as a union between one man and one woman.” I took the time to look at the demography breakdown of the…

Now that the FCC has passed regulations concerning net neutrality, some are not only calling for Congress to challenge the regulations, they are calling for Congress to challenge the FCC itself. Tom Giovanetti of the Institute for Policy Innovation, for example, even says it is “Time for Congress to Gut the FCC.” Even if you don’t understand the concept of net neutrality you have to be concerned about the process by which the current FCC issued their regulations. We have…

If you can’t enact gun control through Congress, then perhaps you can achieve the same effect by banning certain types of ammo. That seems to be the strategy being used by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). A spokesman for the National Rifle Association put it this way: “The Obama Administration was unable to ban America’s most popular sporting rifle through the legislative process, so now its trying to ban commonly owned and used ammunition through regulation.”…

Recent articles and announcements remind us how dangerous ISIS has become, and why we should pay more attention to these radical Muslim terrorists that used to be described as merely a JV team. Graeme Wood’s article in The Atlantic explains “What ISIS Really Wants.” He says “that the Islamic State is Islamic. Very Islamic. Yes, it has attracted psychopaths and adventure seekers, drawn largely from the disaffected populations of the Middle East and Europe. But the religion preached by its…

We talk about the threat gay marriage poses to the institution of marriage. But what’s happening to gray marriage. Marriage in the over 50 set isn’t as stable as it used to be. A Wall Street Journal spread entitled “Gray Divorcés” points out that,    “For the new generation of empty nesters, divorce is increasingly common.” The overall divorce rate spiked in the 1980’s and has been dropping ever since. But divorce in couples over 50 is higher than ever. In…

While reading the book, The Happy Christian, I came across the story of Professor Jack Chambliss at Valencia College. Each year he begins the class by asking his students to write a ten-minute essay on what the American dream looks like to them and what they want the federal government to do to help them achieve that dream. I would recommend that you ask young people you know to do the same. I think you will be shocked. The professor…

Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is a Muslim and the president of Egypt. He grew up in the midst of the Muslim world and in the world’s center of Sharia scholarship. So when he called for a religious revolution within Islam, his words had great significance. In his speech in Cairo’s premier center of religious learning, he called for a change and revolution. He argued that Islam is in “need of a religious revolution. You imams are responsible before Allah. The entire…

Yesterday I talked about how some commentators have been trying to minimize the threat from terrorism. Today I would like to talk about how others are trying to minimize Muslim terrorism. The most common method is familiar to all of us. Don’t use the word Muslim when talking about terrorism. Our nation’s foreign policy sounds like something from a Harry Potter book. We are fighting “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.” It will be hard to win a war on terrorism if you cannot describe…

I have noticed over the last few months that a number of commentators have been trying to minimize the threat from terrorism. Perhaps they are doing it because they don’t want us to over-react to the social media videos of burnings and beheadings. Some may not want America to be drawn into another war.  Whatever the reason, there seems to be a concerted effort to minimize the terrorist threat. One writer calculated that since 9/11, “a grand total of 30…

Last week the issue of wage equity was in the news. First, it was the Oscar speech by Patricia Arquette that seemed to come out of nowhere. She said that it’s “time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America.” This was followed by an investigative story that reminded future voters that the women in Senator Hillary Clinton’s office were paid less than the men working in her office….