Constitution Day, which falls on September 17, is the national observance holiday that most Americans have never heard of. Yet this year, 2018, it may well be our most important holiday. For the Constitution is threatened more now than at any time since seven Southern states seceded from the Union and Civil War broke out on April 12, 1861. To …
‘I rarely have an urge to whisper,” says George Gilder — loudly — as he settles onto a divan by the window of his Times Square hotel room. I’d asked him to speak as audibly as possible into my recording device, and his response, while literal, could also serve as a metaphor: Nothing Mr. Gilder says or writes is ever Read More ›
We live in decadent times. Universal human rights have not been fully attained, yet radical environmentalists insist that flora, fauna and even geological features and structures should be deemed legal persons, a meme known as “nature rights.” The drive to grant rights to the entirety of the natural world has already achieved stunning victories. In 2008, Ecuador granted human-type rights to “nature” Read More ›
Imagine two science teachers. Mr. Smith teaches straight out of the textbook. He expects students simply to memorize and correctly regurgitate. The other, Ms. Jones, supplements her teaching with challenging mainstream material that casts the textbook’s position in a new, more critical light. She asks students to weigh some of the evidence for themselves, like real scientists do. Which sounds like the better teacher? This is a question that lawmakers have considered in a series of legislative battles across the country over academic freedom for high school science instructors. The idea that students are well served by creative, challenging instruction would seem uncontroversial. Except, that is, when the subject is evolution. Then all hell breaks loose.
Read More ›
No one can say when exactly the modern age began, but it was clearly tied to the Reformation, Renaissance, and the Scientific Revolution which had their roots in 14thand 15th century Europe.
The reformation of church corruption and pursuit of spiritual truth promoted by Martin Luther had its analog with the pursuit of truth regarding the physical universe by contemporary Nicholas Copernicus, who is credited as a key founder of the scientific revolution. Copernicus’ empirical evidence and reasoning upset the prevailing geocentric view that the earth was the center of universe with the heliocentric model that took its place — placing the sun at the center, with the earth and other planets orbiting it.
The Reformation and Renaissance set in motion a cultural awakening as well as an unusual concentration of human genius and extraordinary wisdom that culminated in the birth of a new nation, the United States — dedicated to the rule of law, separation of powers and limited government, and accountability to its citizens whose rights were God-given and thus unalienable and not subject to infringement by the state — a truly revolutionary model that subsequently influenced other nations worldwide well into the 20thcentury.
Read More ›
In the 1985 classic American science fiction film Back to the Future, Marty McFly travels back in time in a DeLorean time machine, and with the help of its inventor, the eccentric scientist “Doc,” history gets repaired so that when McFly returns to the present he finds healthy relations restored, providing optimism for the future and a happy ending. As a film Read More ›
July 4th is a generally more festive American holiday — with cookouts, parades, parties, and fireworks — than other patriotic holidays, such as Memorial Day or Veterans Day.
Most people forget that when the Declaration of Independence was drafted and signed on or about July 4th 1776 it was both a revolutionary and a somber occasion. It was revolutionary in being the first political doctrine in human history to assert that the rights of the people come from God, and not the state — which made those rights natural, absolute, and “unalienable.”
Read More ›