Clear Thinking and Good Citizenship
Thomas Sowell recently wrote an article in which he suggested that “thinking” is an activity whose time has come and gone.  Yet if he is right—and I believe that he is—then it isn’t only the intellectual virtue of analytical rigor of which we deprive ourselves. The 17th century French

posted 9:39:37pm May. 12, 2013 | read full post »

If Thinking is Obsolete, So is Virtue
In one of his more recent columns—“Is Thinking Obsolete?”—Thomas Sowell takes note of the intellectual laziness that appears to have consumed our culture. “It is always amazing,” he writes, “how many serious issues are not discussed seriously, but instead simply generate assertions

posted 9:35:29am May. 08, 2013 | read full post »

Byron York's Belated Discovery: GOP Does Not Have an Hispanic Problem
Even had Republicans won the much coveted Hispanic vote in November, Mitt Romney still would have lost. Thus declares Byron York while writing in the Washington Examiner last week. Using a New York Times’ calculator devised by Nate Silver, York reports that even if Romney “had been able to

posted 3:45:57pm May. 06, 2013 | read full post »

What's Terrorism? Who's a Terrorist? II: Response to Critics
Recently, I wrote an article on “terrorism” that was rejected by a publication that typically accepts my submissions. In my piece, I make two points. First, in spite of the confidence with which everyone presumes to know its nature, there is anything but agreement over what “terrorism”

posted 9:33:26pm May. 02, 2013 | read full post »

What is Terrorism? Who is a Terrorist?
The word “terrorism” is not all that easy to define. Yet we wouldn’t know this given the wild indiscriminateness with which it’s applied.  The following five scenarios supply us with examples of this. (1)Those Muslims on the battlefields of such places as Iraq and Afghanistan are Islamic

posted 11:11:46am Apr. 30, 2013 | read full post »