Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson Yesterday I talked about envy and the irony of politicians using it to advance their progressive agenda. Today I would like to extend this discussion based on some of the insights from Anne Hendershott who writes about this in her essay and book. First, let’s distinguish the difference between greed and envy. In so many cases, people who are greedy may ruin their lives but not necessarily the lives of others. By contrast, envy can contaminate many more…

Kerby Anderson Years ago, I decided to put together a sermon that dealt with the subject of envy. I wasn’t sure I had ever heard a message on envy, even though it is considered one of the seven deadly sins. To be fair, I have heard messages on coveting, which is after all one of the Ten Commandments. Envy isn’t just a biblical subject. Envy is also a political subject. A quarter century ago, Doug Bandow (Cato Institute) wrote his…

Kerby Anderson American presidents often confront this painful lesson: They may have political plans but those plans often crash into political reality. This week was supposed to be the final orderly withdrawal of US troops and civilians from Afghanistan. Next month, Congress was to pass the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. At least that was the plan. It is too early to tell how the debacle in Afghanistan will affect the Biden administration’s legislative goals. What is happening in Afghanistan might…

Penna Dexter The vaccine brought temporary relief from Covid anxiety. Now, as Covid’s Delta variant spreads, Americans — vaccinated and unvaccinated — have been shaken out of any comfort zone we thought we had attained. Breakthrough cases were supposed to be rare. So, it was jarring when it dawned on us that they’re not. Breakthrough cases were also said to be mild and not readily spread. But the Centers for Disease Control’s recent report on the Delta outbreak shows that…

Kerby Anderson A frequent phrase used these days is that we need “to trust the science.” But I have found that often “trust the science” really means “trust the model” which is not the same thing. Computer models are used to predict everything from the climate to the economy. Often, they are inaccurate. Asking legitimate questions about these models and their assumptions is appropriate and not “anti-science.” When I was in graduate school, many of us worked with professors who…

Kerby Anderson G.K. Chesterton once observed that, “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing; they believe in anything.” Dennis Prager starts off with that quote to illustrate that nature has become a substitute god for many today. That’s not surprising. Many pagan religions had some form of nature worship. They worshipped the sun god, the moon god, or the goddess of fertility. Today there is a religious foundation to the environmental movement. We need to protect…

Kerby Anderson The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued its latest report and the media has dutifully raised the alarm level. The editors of the Wall Street Journal humorously described it this way: “The climate Apocalypse is nigh, humanity is to blame, and unless the world remakes the global economy, havoc and death are inevitable. Repent of your sins all ye who enter here.” They say that is only a mild overstatement of the media’s “fire-and-brimstone accounts” of this…

Kerby Anderson China and the Chinese Communist Party have been stealing the wealth from America and American companies for years. But the establishment media have generally done a poor job of covering this important issue. Fortunately, a public hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee brought needed focus on this issue. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) estimated, “China is stealing between $300-600 billion a year of American technology and intellectual property.” He concluded that this is “the biggest illegal wealth transfer from…

Kerby Anderson Former President George W. Bush once said that the political left often viewed minorities with what could be described as “the soft bigotry of low expectations.” We see it in studies that discover that white teachers are much less likely to see black students as college material. Derek Hunter argues in a recent commentary that “the soft bigotry of low expectations” has been replaced with “the hard bigotry of no expectations.” This was inevitable once you accept the…

Penna Dexter For three years, I have been following the story of James Younger. James is nine years old. He has a twin brother, Jude. The boys’ father, Jeff, has been fighting for custody of them because their mother, a pediatrician, is socially transitioning James to live as a girl. She treats James as a girl, dresses him as a girl, and calls him “Luna.” Jeff Younger is desperate to prevent James from being subjected to the first step in a…

Kerby Anderson For months we have been told to “trust the science.” The reaction from many of us is that we believe in science, but we aren’t as convinced of the scientific validity of some of these admonitions. This has led to frustration from political leaders and the media. One example of this frustration surfaced on a Twitter post. The author stated: “If you think you don’t trust scientists, you’re mistaken. You trust scientists in a million different ways every…