Joseph Knippenberg

I’m inhabiting a particularly unpleasant circle of grading hell at the moment, but a series of student papers has given me the opportunity to escape for a moment of throughtful reflection. The assignment—given to sophomores in a core course—required students to connect the . . . . Continue Reading »

In a recent column , Jonah Goldberg ruminates about why Asian-Americans overwhelming supported President Obama in his reelection effort. His suggestion: “Whenever a Gujarati or Sikh businessman comes to a Republican event, it begins with an appeal to Jesus Christ,” conservative . . . . Continue Reading »

This article makes the case that addressing income inequality is the (perhaps not so) hidden heart of President Obama’s agenda. What it doesn’t explain is what his arguments for greater equality in our income distribution are. In the history of political philosophy, there are at . . . . Continue Reading »

This is a complicated national holiday with religious overtones, though they’re all too easily forgotten and are increasingly swallowed by the commercialization of Christmas, which is (of course) increasingly swallowed—if not altogether obliterated—by its own commercialization. . . . . Continue Reading »

Here’s the federal district judge’s ruling in Hobby Lobby’s suit against the HHS mandate. Non-religious corporations don’t have religious liberty under the First Amendment and aren’t persons protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The . . . . Continue Reading »

Florida Senator Marco Rubio has attracted a lot of unwelcome attention by equivocating in response to a question regarding the age of the earth: I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst . . . . Continue Reading »

In their very different ways, Michael Gerson and Jonah Goldberg ask us to contemplate going back to the future. Both suggest that perhaps the much-maligned George W. Bush was onto something when he asked us to think a little differently about the relationship between government and civil society. . . . . Continue Reading »

We’ve heard a lot lately about how the Obama campaign profited immensely from the assistance of some very smart and sophisticated behavioral and social scientists.  Sasha Issenberg is a very enthusiastic guide to the various techniques that arguably helped the Democrats to their . . . . Continue Reading »

Legendary film critic Pauline Kael is once said to have remarked that she didn’t understand how Richard Nixon was elected President. No one she knew—and her circle of acquaintances all lived east of the Hudson River—had voted for him. Here comes Sarah Westwood , a . . . . Continue Reading »

Some commentators—both conservative and liberal (or, I guess, “progressive”)—have suggested that this election hammers some nails in the coffin of the long-standing notion—a bedtime story we conservatives like to tell ourselves?—that America is a center-right . . . . Continue Reading »