Articles

If an established academic truth is challenged by new scientific insights, should authorities allow classroom discussion of such challenges? That was the question many people believe was placed on the national stage by the famous Scopes Trial on evolution in Dayton, Tennessee in 1925. Three-quarters of a century later, the questions are the same, only now the issue is whether Read More ›

What does an enlightened citizen believe about God at the end of the 20th century? The topic is of growing interest as the millennium approaches and the Baby Boom generation ages. Print and broadcast media have discovered a growing appetite for news about religion in all its manifestations, and they have been feeding and encouraging that appetite. Some deep anxiety Read More ›

There they were on C-Span, the Republican Congressional Leadership, all waggish smiles. The atmosphere in the Capitol Rotunda implied champagne and balloons. You would have thought they had just won the World Series, World War III or at least a national election. The “Contract with America” is vindicated, they announced. They were all hugging each other like, well, Democrats. It Read More ›

This time the national passenger rail system, Amtrak, really is heading for a train wreck. So badly in debt is the public corporation that the General Accounting Office (GAO) and a host of other observers see it as functionally bankrupt. Congress and the Clinton Administration have been warned repeatedly of the need to plan ahead for the kind of privatization Read More ›

We made up political buttons that said, “I am an Extreme Moderate.” Our antagonism to big government was genuine, but more, well, moderate than those of our friends and adversaries on the GOP right. Tender of years in the early 1960s, we at Advance magazine and, later, the Ripon Society seldom got much media attention, unless we were criticizing the Read More ›

Published on May 1, 1991, Centesimus Annus returns to the themes of a lapidary encyclical of 100 years before, Rerum Novarum, which refuted Marxism long before it had refracted into a global plague of tyranny and murder. The critique of socialism, however, did not signify an affirmation of capitalism. The `new things’ to which the Pope devoted his attention more Read More ›

The Presidents’ Summit for America’s Future that begins in Philadelphia this Sunday promises to provide prestigious encouragement for broad citizen volunteering, a worthy purpose, we can all agree. But here’s a caveat that should, and possibly will not, be heard: Don’t let the government continue to invade–define, finance, direct–voluntary associations. We already are well down that path and it leads Read More ›

Could jaywalking contribute to a climate of lawlessness? Could public drunkeness? When a former mental patient wielding a sword on a downtown street can tie up traffic and the police for 11 hours, as happened recently in Seattle, can we see any relevance to our laws on involuntary treatment? The answer is “yes” to all these questions. Increasingly, law enforcement Read More ›

Law enforcement authorities in a number of American cities, including New York and Seattle, decided in the early 90’s to throw a half century of relativist theory out the window and try some common sense and practical experience for a change. Guess what they found? A) If you make law breakers responsible for their actions they will behave more responsibly. Read More ›