Recent Viewpoints

Kerby Anderson One lesson we should learn from history is that we should believe what dictators say. I don’t mean that we should believe all the propaganda they and their governments spew. But I do mean that if a dictator says he will attack a country, we should believe it. The editors of the Wall Street Journal put it this way: “Take autocrats literally and seriously when they tell us what they intend to do.” They say we really shouldn’t…

Penna Dexter Bob Chapek, CEO of the Walt Disney Company had a bad week recently. Unlike his predecessor, Robert Iger, he prefers to stay out of politics. What happened last week shows how difficult that can be in the current woke corporate environment. Disney’s most famous property is in Florida and Bob Chapek didn’t mean to get in a public fight with the state’s Governor Ron DeSantis. But it happened. Florida’s legislators passed a popular bill that prohibits classroom instruction…

Kerby Anderson In the 21st century, warfare doesn’t always happen on the battlefield. Cyberwarfare is becoming an important tool for many countries. That is why we have been seeing warnings about cyberattacks against the West and the US. With US sanctions being used against Russia, Professor Ryan Wright (University of Virginia) predicts that “it is only a matter of time until the US is targeted more directly. This may mean attacks on your personal device through ransomware but also attacks…

Kerby Anderson In a recent essay, Lathan Watts talks about the value of free expression. He begins with a discussion of religious liberty, since he is a lawyer with First Liberty Institute. He quickly explains that freedom of expression involves much more than religious free speech. His organization has seen these situations. A baker can lose her business because of her religious convictions about marriage. A football coach can be fired for kneeling in silent prayer at the end of…

Kerby Anderson Why did Vladimir Putin decide to invade Ukraine? There are many reasons. One that is often ignored is the Afghanistan humiliation. The American military doesn’t want to mention it. They are responsible for much of it. The establishment press doesn’t really talk about it. That is old news and the focus is always on the present. In an ideal world, the American military is supposed to act as a deterrent. Dictators and terrorists should think twice before challenging…

Kerby Anderson College students have been convinced they face danger everywhere. A comment becomes a microaggression. A name on a university building is a link to the country’s racist past. But the greatest threat is a student without a mask. A recent column talks about how danger has become “the woke weapon on campus.” University restrictions due to the pandemic have essentially become institutionalized. Now that some of the restrictions are being lifted in many parts of the country, administrators,…

Kerby Anderson As I have been out speaking, one question surfaces with some regularity. People wonder if what happened to the truckers in Canada could happen to citizens in the US. I always acknowledge that anything can happen in this country if we aren’t working to defend our liberties, but there is an important difference between these two countries. We share a great number of similarities in our language and even in our legal and political structure. Although there is…

Penna Dexter State of the Union addresses remind me of how often governments get involved in matters that, in a market economy, are not their business. It’s a big country. We have companies and professionals to assess and meet people’s individual needs. Government is too big and remote for that. Case in point. In President Biden’s address last week, he touted, among other things, an anti-Covid initiative called “Test to Treat.” The idea is that people would get tested for…

Kerby Anderson Jeffrey Tucker reminds us in an essay that talking about economic warfare last year would be quickly labeled a conspiracy theory. Events in Canada changed that. One crowdfunding platform raised $9 million but then was shut down. Another platform also raised millions until it was hit with denial-of-service attacks and hacked. Then the Canadian Broadcasting Service decided to follow up with donors, which became a ploy for critics to doxx and threaten anyone who donated to the cause….

Kerby Anderson Over the last 15 years of doing this commentary, I occasionally use the famous quote from G. K. Chesterton; “Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.” A corollary might be don’t defund a program or institution merely because you haven’t used it in some time. We live in a dangerous world. But it is easy to forget that if you live in a safe neighborhood and haven’t seen a war break…

Kerby Anderson Ask a politician or government official a serious question, and you are likely to get deflection that includes changing the subject. Sometimes you get what commentators describe as a “word salad.” That’s what NBC News anchor Lester Holt received from President Biden when he asked about inflation. The conversation wandered off to something about computer chips and supply chains. The latest polls show that Americans believe inflation to be the most urgent issue. But you wouldn’t think the…