The Editors

Congress has created the Christopher Columbus Quincentenary Jubilee Commission. To date, twenty-two states have established similar commissions to coordinate a wide range of activities celebrating the discovery of America. The National Council of Churches (NCC) is having none of it. In May the . . . . Continue Reading »

Socialism is dead, and, except within certain academic and religious circles, there will be few mourners. A system that in Marx’s vision would result in economic abundance and political liberation wound up in practice as economically ruinous and politically tyrannical. The world is well rid of it. . . . . Continue Reading »

The nation braces itself for yet another round of moral indignation against moral indignation. The first indignation is that of publishers, booksellers, and sundry civil libertarians in a state of alarm about the second group of indignants who are doing battle against smut. The first indignants howl . . . . Continue Reading »

A terrible linguistic confusion has set in following the Revolution of 1989, and we will likely just have to bear with it for a while. That doesn’t mean it should not be challenged, but a calm and clear approach to the problem is in order. The problem, briefly stated, is that the collapse of . . . . Continue Reading »

No sooner had George Bush declared a “war on drugs” and appointed William Bennett to lead the charge than voices were raised to question the entire enterprise. To be fair, some of those voices—such as economist Milton Friedman and, with less assurance, William F. Buckley, Jr.—have . . . . Continue Reading »

From beneath the rubble of crumbling Marxist tyrannies come voices long silenced. They are voices of rejoicing in new found freedoms, voices of confusion about what to do next, and, as might have been expected, voices of inquiry and accusation. About the most massive and sustained despotism in human . . . . Continue Reading »

The end of the Cold War (how matter of fact those words already appear) requires reconsiderations in every aspect of American political life. Dean Acheson wrote of his postwar generation that its members were “present at the creation” of a new world. So also, it seems, are we, and the occasion . . . . Continue Reading »

When in the course of human events . . . .” Thus Jefferson and his associates, evincing a “decent respect to the opinions of mankind,” began their explanation of what they were up to. To be sure, launching a new journal is not on a par with launching a new nation. Nor do we have any illusions . . . . Continue Reading »

Beginning with the Supreme Court’s Webster decision of last July, Americans were delighted, distressed, or simply puzzled to discover that abortion was back in the political arena. It had been abruptly “removed from politics” by the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, when it became a question . . . . Continue Reading »