Even a democracy can undermine freedom and foster the unethical rule of power. America’s founders saw this, and placed in our Constitution a Bill of Rights to preserve civil rights and protect us all from the tyranny of the majority. Gay “marriage” is often regarded as a civil . . . . Continue Reading »
“If we were pacifists, we would have been in the wrong jobs, because I don’t think it’s advisable to have pacifists in the White House, particularly for situations like 9/11. In government, you take an oath to protect your fellow citizens and you have to take that . . . . Continue Reading »
I know it is a fact, but it is nonetheless hard to picture: Had he lived, Martin Luther King, Jr. would now be seventy-three years old. Everybody of a certain age has memories, if only of television images; many were there when he spoke, others marched with him in Selma or Montgomery, and some of . . . . Continue Reading »
It’s a sad but unavoidable question: Where did the civil rights movement go wrong? A cause that, at its modern origins in the 1950s, no decent person could oppose has over the years taken turns that even many of its most committed advocates find morally problematic. It’s been a long downhill . . . . Continue Reading »
First Principles: The Jurisprudence of Clarence Thomas.By Scott Douglas Gerber.New York University Press. 201 pp. $30.It should be no surprise that a book devoted to winnowing the law and politics arising from Justice Clarence Thomas’ appointment and tenure on the Supreme Court was written . . . . Continue Reading »
The process of nominating and confirming Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court served to underline the debate about public philosophy ongoing among black Americans. The fact is that Thomas, a black of humble origins and an avowed conservative, met with vehement opposition from much of the black . . . . Continue Reading »
News stories of recent months underscore the fact that the place of Martin Luther King, Jr. in our national mythology is still not secure. Perhaps that should not surprise us. Myth-making in a nation so large and various as ours takes time. In that light, the twenty-three years since Dr. King’s . . . . Continue Reading »
(Editors’ Note: This paper was originally presented on February 12, 1990, as the Black History Month lecture at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.) Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders, and the sin that so easily . . . . Continue Reading »
Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts about the Sixtiesby peter collier and david horowitzsummit books, 352 pages, $19.95 The retroactive glorification of the 1960s has been gathering momentum over the last decade. It reflects and in turn re-enforces what has become the conventional wisdom of a . . . . Continue Reading »
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