Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson For more than a century, the Supreme Court and Congress have ruled against any policy that discriminates based on race. Therefore, the current attempt by this administration to pursue such a policy seems at odds with our laws, Supreme Court decisions, and the Constitution. Let’s start with the Civil Rights Act of 1866. It prohibited the federal government from modifying property rights and contract rights solely based on race. The 1964 Civil Rights Act further prohibited discrimination based…

Penna Dexter When are America’s established, successful and reliable corporations going to stop generating PR disasters for themselves by wading into woke gender politics? State Farm Insurance Company operates on the franchise model with thousands of agents serving tens of millions of customers. The company is about to celebrate its 100th anniversary. Until last week, State Farm’s famous claim, “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there” seemed a pretty good fit. Then the company made headlines when a consumer…

Kerby Anderson Governor Ron DeSantis recently signed a bill that designates November 7 as “Victims of Communism Day.” But there is much more to the legislation than the establishment press has reported. In fact, you might suspect there is more to the bill given the amount of controversy it has generated. Of course, just about anything he has said or done has been controversial to liberal politicians and the press. In April, he signed a bill attempting to prevent students…

Kerby Anderson Jeff Bezos has been supportive of Joe Biden, but even his support only goes so far. That was evident with the recent verbal back-and-forth between the Biden administration and the Bezos administration. Commentators have begun to call the financial empire of Jeff Bezos an administration because the annual revenue for Amazon exceeds the GDP of most European countries. The Biden administration wants to raise taxes on corporations. But then argued that raising taxes would lower inflation. Let’s see…

Kerby Anderson Why are woke ideas and wokeness more prevalent in some institutions and not in others? One way to answer that, according to Dan McLaughlin, is to understand the phenomenon of bundling. You have experienced this before in the consumer market. Companies will bundle multiple products into a single package. Cable companies offer cable, phone, and the Internet in one package. Insurance companies bundle home insurance with car insurance. A problem arises when a company has a virtual monopoly….

Kerby Anderson More than a decade ago, I did an interview with Mark Bauerlein about his book, The Dumbest Generation. Last week we focused our attention on his new book, The Dumbest Generation Grows Up. The ignorance and faulty logic of young people in college has now made its way into the young adult culture. He reminds us that social commentators predicted that the millennial generation would make a significant impact on society because they were coming of age in…

Kerby Anderson Today is Memorial Day. For many Americans, it is merely a day off. For others, it marks the start of summer. But hopefully for many of you, it is a day to honor those who fought for our freedom and especially for those who paid the ultimate sacrifice. Sure we can enjoy our picnics and go for a walk or go for a swim. But we should take some time to put up a flag, make a banner,…

Penna Dexter Over time, Target Corporation has made a string of marketing and policy decisions that blur gender lines — and more. First, the company stopped separating children’s clothing according to sex. Boys’ and girls’ departments ceased to be specifically identified and much of the clothing for kids skewed androgynous. This didn’t generate much controversy but, in April 2016, Target made a public announcement that did. Management said bathrooms and dressing rooms would open for use by customers and employees…

Kerby Anderson This week I spent some time talking about misinformation and disinformation. Therefore, it is worth mentioning a commentary by John Lott with the appropriate title “When Misinformation Drives Bad Policy.” He is the author of books and scholarly research on many topics but is probably best known for his research and writing on guns, crime, and gun policy. He has been on my radio program many times, and I trust his careful research. You can imagine my surprise…

Kerby Anderson Earlier this month, Netflix posted a memo to its employees that suggests that some companies are pushing back against progressive culture warriors within their organizations. The memo explained that: “If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you.” Charles Cooke responded with the comment: “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Of course, it shouldn’t be that hard. As he observes, “If you don’t like soft drinks, it…

Kerby Anderson Two weeks ago, the Washington Post ran an op-ed by a student at George Washington University calling for the administration to change the name of the university. He also wants to change the motto, the mascot, and even the names on some of the buildings on campus. The reason as you might have guessed is racism. A few commentators have pointed to the irony of the fact that the student’s op-ed that wanted to change the university’s name…