In what sense are all men created equal? America’s Declaration of Independence calls it a self-evident truth. But to look around the world, nothing could seem to be less the case, empirically speaking. Some of us are born to wealthy parents, others into poverty; some of us with 170 IQs, others a little slow on the uptake. The genetic lottery, as some call it, does not distribute prizes equally.
November 2015 will be remembered as the month in which the world woke up. The year began with the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris on January 7 and 8, an atrocity which drew millions to the streets of the French capital to stand in solidarity on behalf of civil liberty and freedom of speech. Militant . . . . Continue Reading »
Brian Leiter's Why Tolerate Religion? is a crucial book in the area of law and religion—published in 2013, it defends the view that there is no compelling moral or legal reason to provide special protection to religion as such.
Neither political party is speaking to the collective interests of America's wage-earners. Each party, in its own way, is playing wage-earners off against one another. America's wage-earners deserve a party which recognizes that the working-class (and Americans generally) share common interests and . . . . Continue Reading »
Shortly after jihadist murderers killed over 130 people in Paris, seven of the terrorists blowing themselves up in the process, President Obama spoke to the nation and described the massacres as “an attack on all of humanity and the universal values that we share.” No, Mr. President; with all . . . . Continue Reading »
I am glad you feel you are ‘standing still’ in your spiritual life. I should be still better pleased if you felt you were losing ground! Whatever makes for humility is so much to the good.”
Previous generations of Americans married the boy or girl next door—literally. According to one study from 1932, one-third of married couples grew up within five blocks of each other. But things have changed. Now, boy and girl are matched by an app; boy texts girl. Girl schedules a meeting. Or she . . . . Continue Reading »
The day after the brutal terrorist attacks in France by ISIS, French President Hollande gave his country’s immediate response:My dear compatriots. What happened last night in Paris, and in Saint Denis by the Stade de France, is an act of war. . . because it was attacked cowardly, shamelessly, . . . . Continue Reading »
On the first night after Daron Babcock moved into the depressed south Dallas area of Bonton, one of his neighbors, high and belligerent, accosted him in his home. It ended in a fight on Babcock’s front lawn. The next morning the neighbor was back on his doorstep, not to fight but to apologize and . . . . Continue Reading »
In 1975 I decided I was going to get me a refugee, and I did. A lot of them it turned out, two related families, ten people altogether, not counting the 11-year-old boy I got later who became my son. Saigon fell in April and the U.S. evacuated upwards of 136,000 South Vietnamese to the United . . . . Continue Reading »
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