Paul Tuns There are many unhyphenated conservatives in both the Conservative Party in Canada and Republicans in the United States, that is citizens who are both socially and fiscally conservative. I hope to write about conservatism and libertarianism in a future issue of the dead tree edition of this paper. For now I want to bring attention to Ben Woodfinden's fine essay [...]
By John Carpay Interim writer, John Carpay, Law Matters Those wrestling with the morality of lockdowns could benefit from the profound insights provided by Bishop John Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, a Notre Dame Law School professor, and vice-president of the Illinois Catholic Health Association. Bishop Paprocki notes that government officials give dire warning about a virus that can kill the [...]
Paul Tuns A few weeks ago, Amazon abruptly stopped selling When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment by Ryan T. Anderson and refused to provide a reason why, although few doubted that it was because it questioned the transgender ideology. That suspicion has been proven correct. The Wall Street Journal reports: Amazon. AMZN -1.40% com Inc. said it recently removed a three-year-old book [...]
By Rory Leishman In First Corinthians 14:9, Paul admonished the faithful to speak the truth plainly: “For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound,” he observed, “who shall prepare himself for the battle?” Like Paul, José Gómez, Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles and president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), is not given to making uncertain sounds about the [...]
By Andrew Lawton Companies used to go through painstaking lengths to avoid entering the political fray. Now, they’re encouraged to leap into it – so long as they leap left, that is. A Minnesota company is paying a steep price for going the other way. It’s a high-stakes pillow fight. If you’ve listened to talk radio or watched cable news in the [...]
By Paul Tuns I hope you are both informed and entertained by our large feature, “20 ways COVID is changing society.” Without getting into it too much, I want to point out that most, if not all of the changes, in society are the result of the anti-pandemic measures taken by governments around the world in response to the outbreak, rather than the [...]
By Rick McGinnis Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements The “OK Boomer” meme – a condescending, dismissive internet catchphrase that’s supposed to be generational kryptonite when employed by millennials against anyone over 55 - is not new. OK Boomer began, as far as we know, on either reddit or 4chan – the very nerdy, largely boomer-proof online bulletin boards that are lumped [...]
Paul Tuns The Equality Act passed in the House of Representatives last week amends the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to add "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" as protected classes under federal nondiscrimination statutes. There has been a great deal of criticism that by adding special protections for transgenderism, the law could undermine or erase women's rights by opening female institutions from [...]
BY JOE CAMPBELL Interim writer, Joe Campbell, Light is Right I don’t know economics. Although introduced to it at university, I don’t know it, let alone understand it. Economics is about scarcity. For several months I studied it. For the rest of my days I lived it. Scarcity means you can’t have everything you want. You have to choose, presumably after [...]
BY RICK McGINNIS Interim writer, Rick McGinnis, Amusements You have to assume that Ronald Diebert was being provocative by calling his book about the internet in a time of social and political crisis Reset. Presented as a series of lectures this past year in the middle of the unfolding coronavirus pandemic, the title evokes the concept the “Great Reset” – [...]
BY JOSIE LUETKE Interim writer, Josie Luetke, Talk Turkey I’m writing this column for precisely the reason I didn’t want to: the information available on vaccines in general, and particularly the COVID-19 ones, is immensely confusing and contradictory (even without journeying down the rabbit hole into conspiracies about nanoparticles, cryptocurrency, and 5G antennas—don’t ask). If I had trouble sifting through [...]
BY ANDREW LAWTON Interim writer, Andrew Lawton, Laying Down the Lawton In keeping with the theme of the last four years of politics, the final weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency were needlessly eventful. A protest against the process by which Joe Biden was declared the winner of last year’s election turned into a siege on the United State Capitol, which [...]
BY JOHN CARPAY Interim writer, John Carpay, Law Matters What drives some religious leaders to ignore the harm and suffering that lockdowns are inflicting on their congregations, and on all of society? We are now 10 months into the daily and ongoing violation of our human rights and fundamental freedoms. Depending on what province you live in, it’s illegal to [...]
BY PAUL TUNS Republican President Richard Nixon referred to the “silent majority” in 1969, but it was a liberal Hollywood producer who gave it voice in a sitcom that would dominate television for a half-decade in the 1970s. Norman Lear created All in the Family after hearing about, but not seeing, the British sitcom Till Death Do Us Part. The British show [...]
BY PAUL TUNS In his under-rated and under-appreciated sociological treatise, Passion and Social Constraint, Ernst van den Haag, notes that “though the culture of each society differs from that of others, some institutions are needed in all societies to perform, in however varied ways, functions essential to any social life.” He observed that “all societies that have offspring have the institution of [...]