Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson Some social movements go through cycles. That is certainly the case with the latest outrage concerning “book banning.” Liberals have been at the forefront of college speech codes as well as cancel culture. It seems a bit hypocritical that they are suddenly outraged that some school districts have balked at putting certain progressive books in the school libraries. Some of the school districts that have been attacked are just down the road from where I do my daily…

Kerby Anderson Students at Yale Law School launched a protest and disrupted speakers on a panel last month. Of course, we have seen this before. But what made this mob protest so ironic was the fact that the panel was put together to show how lawyers from different ends of the political spectrum could agree on issues like free speech. One panelist was Monica Miller, who is a secular progressive associated with the American Humanist Association. The other panelist was…

Kerby Anderson The editorial board of the New York Times created quite a controversy with their editorial on free speech. One critic called for a correction followed by a mass resignation. Others wanted the editorial board to retract their statement and then resign. What caused this commotion? The editors argued the “America Has a Free Speech Problem.” You can read the editorial for yourself and will probably conclude that their argument had many salient points. “For all the tolerance and…

Kerby Anderson The Russian invasion of Ukraine is providing a lesson worth repeating. “Unfree societies are weak.” That is one of the comments by Kevin Williamson in his commentary on “Autocracy’s Fatal Flaws.” When dictators or other autocrats are in power, they may look strong. But they have an inherent weakness. These strong men never allow people with contrary information to talk to them. They surround themselves with people to flatter them and encourage them. Kevin Williamson asks, “Does Russia…

Penna Dexter A couple of weeks ago, University of Pennsylvania senior Lia Thomas won an NCAA championship in women’s swimming, setting an Ivy League time record for the 500-yard freestyle. Thomas, a former male swimmer for Penn, has dominated the female competition this year. Commentator and podcaster Matt Walsh observed Lia’s demeanor at the winner’s podium: Thomas, he writes, did not “make any effort at all to sound or appear womanly.” He was “accepted as a woman because he declared…

Kerby Anderson Since it’s April first, you might conclude that the Democratic party is engaged in an elaborate April Fool’s joke. But it appears that the leadership is serious. The latest polls show that a majority (61%) of American voters agree that President Biden and Democrats are “out of touch with hardworking Americans” and “have been so focused on catering to the far-left wing of the party.” The poll also found that a majority of voters (54%) explicitly say they…

Kerby Anderson As we come to the end of the first quarter of 2022 (January to March), I think we can say we learned a few economic lessons that we should apply in the future. One lesson comes from Canada, and the other lesson comes from Russia. The controversy over the truckers in Canada revealed some economic lessons to us about Western democracies that used to be disregarded as nothing more than conspiracy theories. The response from Justin Trudeau showed…

Kerby Anderson We live in an age of fear. Often at the top of the list, is fear of climate change. Bjorn Lomborg says one picture summarizes this age of fear. It is a girl holding a sign that says, “You’ll die of old age. I’ll die of climate change.” The message from environmental activists and much of the media is that climate change is destroying the planet. And using the language of the apocalypse, the warning is that we…

Kerby Anderson You might assume that since parents around the country have objected to critical race theory (CRT), that there would be no chance it would be taught in public schools. But there is a bill before Congress that could federalize CRT. That is the conclusion of Stanley Kurtz, who has been researching CRT for years and alerted members of Congress to its inclusion in the Civics Secures Democracy Act. Back in May, I talked about his concern with the…

Kerby Anderson An education bill in Florida has created lots of controversy, partially because the critics have never read the bill and believe the slogans used to condemn it. The bill has the title “Parental Rights in Education.” But you may never have heard that name for the bill because LGBTQ critics and most of the establishment media only refer to it as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. For the record, the words “don’t say gay” don’t appear anywhere in…

Penna Dexter Workers in the technology industry have long known that working remotely was feasible. But the Covid-19 pandemic made it a daily reality for millions. The Wall Street Journal’s technology writer, Christopher Mims, explains how transformative this is turning out to be. He brings to bear the results of recent surveys by economists from several top universities in an article titled “The New Tech Hubs.” For decades, tech companies were clustered in what Mr. Mims calls “superstar cities” in…