Kenneth L. Connor is the Chairman of the Center for a Just Society, 1220 L St. NW, Suite 100-371, Washington, DC 20005. Email: info@centerforajustsociety.org and website: http://www.centerforajustsociety.org.
They say there are only two sure things in life: death and taxes. Try as we might, it’s virtually impossible to escape the clutches of the Grim Reaper or the Tax Man. Both will get you eventually. And as anyone who has been through an IRS audit or suffered a tax penalty can attest, the [...]
Thanks to a renewed interest in the works of Ayn Rand and high-profile figures like John Stossel, Glenn Beck, and Rand Paul, libertarianism is enjoying a moment in the political sun. And just like America’s two major parties, libertarians can often be blind to faulty logic and flaws within their own ideology. Timothy P. Carney [...]
“You see, boys forget what their country means by just reading The Land of the Free in history books. Then they get to be men they forget even more. Liberty’s too precious a thing to be buried in books . . . . Men should hold it up in front of them every single day [...]
Last week, I wrote a column entitled “Brutality in the Brave New World” discussing an appalling movement within the scientific community in which researchers are exploring the “therapeutic” potential of the eggs of aborted baby girls. In a similar vein, a bioethicist writing for the Huffington Post in 2009 famously suggested that pregnant women wanting [...]
In his seminal work, Nichomachean Ethics, the philosopher Aristotle begins his meditation on the subject of morality and the ultimate end of human life with an observation that certain first principles of ethics are self-evident to a person who has been raised up in a virtuous manner. A good man simply “knows” certain things to [...]
For people of faith in America, the Obama administration’s birth control mandate represents an unprecedented assault on religious conscience. It seems that the President and his surrogates have little appreciation for the role that faith plays in the lives of many Americans, and even less respect for the Constitution’s protection of religious liberty. As if [...]
This past week, health care journalist Charles Ornstein wrote a compelling piece for the Washington Post detailing his personal experience with heart-wrenching end-of-life medical decisions. Ornstein’s story of his mother’s death highlights the complexity of this little-discussed topic, and should serve as a wakeup call to every American family: End-of-life issues should not be avoided [...]
The recent spate of mass shootings has prompted President Obama and his allies in Congress to pursue new gun control laws with special urgency. Mr. Obama is correct in sensing that the American people are ready for serious action on this issue, but he is mistaken in thinking that they are in agreement with him [...]
“Your freedom is likely to be someone else’s harm.” So says bioethicist Daniel Callahan of the Hastings Center, responding to the recent controversy over provisions in Obamacare that penalize smokers. In the era of the Bloomberg ban on Big Gulps, the proper role, if any, that government should have in the lifestyle decisions of [...]
“Theological courage calls the inner-man to ignore his buckling knees and take theologically driven stances that, while potentially controversial, are righteous in nature.” So write Owen Strachen and Andrew Walker in a recent article discussing Hobby Lobby’s stance against Obamacare’s onerous trampling of religious liberty. The idea of martyrdom, be it physical, social, or [...]
Americans’ affirmation of the “right to choose” is a feature of our national identity. No matter where you go or what you’re doing, chances are you are confronted with a plethora of choices. Go to the supermarket and you are confronted with a dizzying array of options for each and every product you wish to [...]
During the months leading up to the passage of Obamacare, Sarah Palin was mocked and excoriated for her use of the term “death panels” to describe the comparative effectiveness approach embraced by architects of the legislation. Granted, the phrase sounds a bit hyperbolic, and downright macabre. Who could possibly be in favor of faceless bureaucrats [...]
In the wake of President Obama’s decisive reelection, the GOP is engaged in some serious soul-searching. Pundits on the Right and Left are cautioning Republicans that their party is facing extinction unless some major changes are made. They maintain it’s evolve or die for the GOP. The question is, how much can an institution change [...]
President Obama has said many times that this election represents a choice between two very different visions for America. Do we want to go back to the same policies that got us in so much trouble in the first place or do we want a fresh start for America, a new vision leading to a [...]
Unless you’ve been living under the rock for the past month or so, you’ve probably noticed that the campaign season has kicked into overdrive. One of the critical voting blocks being targeted by Democrats are women. The airwaves are clogged and mailboxes stuffed with the message that the crusty old white men who comprise the [...]
A lot of people, conservatives in particular, tend to idealize the past. We like to wax lyrical about simpler times, the “good old days.” Of course, if we are honest we have to admit that those good old days weren’t always so great. The passage of time and progress of society have brought many blessings [...]
The results of a recent survey of parents of children with disabilities ran cross-grain to the mentality that characterizes our society’s culture of death. Published in the medical journal Pediatrics, the survey included parents of 272 children suffering from the extreme genetic conditions Trisomy 13 and Trisomy 18—conditions where a child is born with an extra 13 [...]
In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” -Acts 20:35 (NIV) Government provision of food stamps has become the second-largest welfare program in the country and is [...]
In his 2007 book Boomsday, Christopher Buckley writes of a fictional future where an overwhelming number of elderly baby boomers are given tax incentives to end their lives early. With recent developments out of Switzerland, Buckley’s tongue-in-cheek novel may prove all-too-prescient. The Swiss canton of Vaud just passed a law mandating that doctors in hospitals and nursing homes provide [...]
“Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” Acts [...]
With each passing day it becomes more apparent that President Obama has little respect for the intelligence of his ideological opponents. If you don’t agree with him, he assumes it is because you “don’t understand the issue.” In other words, you are ignorant, or misinformed, or both. We saw this attitude at work during the [...]
With Mitt Romney now the presumptive Republican nominee, the battle for the 2012 Presidency has begun in earnest. And, as is not uncommon, the outcome of this year’s race is expected to hinge on that that slice of the electorate that doesn’t pledge fealty to any political party, the so-called independent voters. According to a [...]
Last week, President Obama made news when he suggested that it would be “unprecedented” for the Supreme Court to declare unconstitutional a law passed by a “strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.” His comments were prompted by the less than favorable reaction of the Supreme Court during oral arguments on the constitutionality of his [...]
They say what goes around comes around, or to paraphrase the Good Book, you reap what you sow. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in recent global data on abortion. For years, feminists have maintained that women will not be truly free or equal unless they are free to abort their unborn children. They have sought [...]
