Recent Viewpoints

More and more people are getting their news from social media. While there is nothing wrong with that, some people are getting fooled by what could be called “fake news sites.” I get emails from people asking me if a particular story is true. Sometimes people who call my radio program quote from a fake news site and don’t understand the satire used in the story. This commentary is a public service to help you and your friends know which…

America’s stated military policy has always been to minimize civilian casualties. Last year, the Obama administration even went further by establishing a policy that required “near certainty” that there would be no civilian casualties before an air strike takes place. Over the last few months, the U.S. has called upon Israel to follow the same policy. That is why you heard comments from the administration that the Israeli army was “not doing enough.” As someone traveling to Israel, I appreciate…

Christians have a civic responsibility since we are both citizens of heaven and citizens of earth. Unfortunately, many Christians do not seem to understand that good citizenship involves voting intelligently in each election. Last week, I had Ralph Reed on my radio program to talk about some of the important races around the country. Then I asked him to give us the bad news about how many Christians actually voted. No doubt you have heard the statistics in the past….

Christians depend on their pastors for spiritual guidance. But if they are looking for guidance in how to think about cultural and political issues, most of them will be disappointed. That is what George Barna has found in his latest surveys. Through the American Culture and Faith Institute, he has focused on what pastors believe and what they have been teaching. When it comes to cultural, social, and political issues there is often a significant disconnect. He found that an…

As we are getting closer to the open enrollment period for Obamacare, it might be good to go back and evaluate the claims made during the debate on the Affordable Care Act. We were told that the costs would go down, competition would increase, millions would enroll, and policies wouldn’t be cancelled. Robert Moffit, writing in The Daily Signal, says that health care costs have increased significantly. “Huge increases in deductibles in policies sold through the exchanges were a big…

The influence William Shakespeare has had on the English language is well known. In a previous commentary, I talked about the number of words he created or coined. He also is responsible for so many everyday phrases we use. Christina Sterbenz provides the context for these phrases we often use and forget were from Shakespeare. When we use the phrase “catch a cold,” we mean that we are getting sick. In one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known plays someone says that should…

Yesterday I talked about why millennials might not buy insurance. The cost under the Affordable Care Act is much more than what they would have paid in the free market. But there is another reason why they (and many others) might not buy insurance. They won’t need it because of provisions requiring insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions. While that is an admirable requirement, it leads to a fear many proponents and opponents of Obamacare have about how Americans will…

Lexi Cory titled her article: “Wake Up Millennials, We’re the Ones Paying the Bill.” The bill she was talking about is the Affordable Care Act. She wonders if her fellow millennials really understand the consequences of Obamacare. Many articles and commentaries have documented the costs and subsidies in the Affordable Care Act. There were promises of lowering the premiums by up to $2,500. That hasn’t happened. There were those who argued that it would harm the economy and increase the…

Most of the concern expressed about Obamacare focuses on the immediate impact while ignoring the long-term effects of the law. Dr. Merrill Matthews explains in a recent column that the bigger problem will arise in a few years. Insurance actuaries call this problem a health care “death spiral.” In the near term, many will experience “sticker shock” when they discover how much their insurance premiums will cost them. Those most affected will likely be young and healthy people who live…

In his book, Godonomics, Chad Hovind finds engaging ways to illustrate economic facts. In his book and on my radio program he answered question like: What would God say to Adam Smith? What would God say to John Maynard Keynes? In a chapter on the money supply he compared inflation to the experience parents and kids have at Chuck E. Cheese. You and your kids arrive at the arcade restaurant and purchase twenty dollar’s worth of tokens. The kids spend…

Perhaps you have read the short story “I, Pencil” by economist Leonard Read. He takes you through all the steps necessary to make a pencil and concludes that “nobody knows how to make a pencil.” To make something as simple as a pencil requires knowledge and technological expertise in fields ranging from forestry to mining to engineering to chemistry. And yet pencils are made day after day, even though no one knows the whole process from start to finish. The…