At the Intersection of Faith and Culture

Obama’s Scandals and Saul Alinsky

Jack Kerwick — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:02:26 +0000

In recent weeks, scandal after scandal has rocked Barack Obama’s administration. His presidency might be imperiled. Or it might not be. Obama steadfastly remains an activist, a “community organizer.” Nor has he forgotten that which he learned from the godfather of all community organizers, Saul Alinsky. In his Rules for Radicals, Alinsky writes that the goal “of the organizer is to maneuver and bait the establishment so that it will publicly attack him as a ‘dangerous...

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Politically Correct Christians vs. Sober Thought

Jack Kerwick — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:00:05 +0000

A few weeks ago, Thomas Sowell wrote an article in which he implied that thinking—serious thinking—is an activity whose time has come and gone. If ever we needed proof of this, the Reverend Elizabeth Mollard supplies us with it in spades. On May 12th, The Lancaster New Era edition of The Intelligencer Journal published a letter by Mollard that expressed her displeasure with the paper’s columnist, Paul Gottfried. Interestingly enough, it is Gottfried’s critique of none other than...

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Neither Marco Rubio Nor His Amnesty Plan are Conservative

Jack Kerwick — Wed, 22 May 2013 02:23:06 +0000

Not so long ago, such conservative movement notables as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and many of their colleagues were singing the praises of Florida Senator Marco Rubio. The latter, we have been told, is a rock-ribbed conservative and GOP star who could very well be the next president of the United States. Doubtless, it is courtesy of the pivotal role that he’s played in promoting the amnesty agenda of “the Gang of Eight” that accounts for why the enthusiasm for Rubio among movement...

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Clear Thinking and Good Citizenship

Jack Kerwick — Mon, 13 May 2013 01:39:37 +0000

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 philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote that “thought” is “the essence of morality.” Thinking is no different than any other activity inasmuch as it requires both lots of practice as well as the...

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If Thinking is Obsolete, So is Virtue

Jack Kerwick — Wed, 08 May 2013 13:35:29 +0000

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 and counter-assertions.” Sowell identifies “television talk shows,” where “people on opposite sides often just try to shout each other down” as a particularly salient illustration of this...

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Byron York’s Belated Discovery: GOP Does Not Have an Hispanic Problem

Jack Kerwick — Mon, 06 May 2013 19:45:57 +0000

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 make history and attract 50 percent of Hispanic voters,” he “still would have been beaten, 283 electoral votes to 255.” And had he “been able to do something absolutely astonishing for a...

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What’s Terrorism? Who’s a Terrorist? II: Response to Critics

Jack Kerwick — Fri, 03 May 2013 01:33:26 +0000

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” could possibly mean, for the word has been applied in connection with both those Muslims who have killed agents of the American government as well as with those who have killed civilians. The...

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What is Terrorism? Who is a Terrorist?

Jack Kerwick — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 15:11:46 +0000

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. Obviously, they are also killing, or trying to kill, American soldiers. Therefore, they are terrorists. (2) An enraged mob attacks an American embassy in Benghazzi on September 11, 2012. An...

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Question to Stephen Hawking: Why is there Something Rather than Nothing?

Jack Kerwick — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 00:42:00 +0000

Last week, world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking addressed legions of enthusiastic students and others at Caltech. According to reports, the gist of his speech was that “general relativity” and “quantum theory” can enable us to account for the origins of the universe without positing the existence of God. According to The Daily Mail, Hawking ridiculed the religious position on this topic by likening it to the myth of an obscure African tribe whose God “vomited the Sun, Moon,...

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Lindsay Graham v the Tsarnaev Brothers: Who is the Bigger Threat to Our Liberty?

Jack Kerwick — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 01:56:25 +0000

Immediately upon Boston bomber Dzokhar Tsarnaev’s capture, Republican Senator Lindsay Graham was demanding that the suspect’s Miranda Rights be waived. The bomber, Graham contended, must be treated as an “enemy combatant.” He tweeted that the “The Law of War” permits the United States government to withhold “Miranda warnings” and legal “counsel” from those suspected of being “potential enemy combatant[s].” Unfortunately, Graham’s position is no anomaly. Within...

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