The Fifth American War by Victor Davis Hanson

The Fifth American War by Victor Davis Hanson

Now we are engaged in yet a fifth revolutionary divide, similar to, but often unlike, prior upheavals. The consequences of globalization, the growth of the deep state, changing demographics, open borders, the rise of a geographic apartheid between blue and red states, and the institutionalization of a permanent coastal political and culture elite — and the reaction to all that — are tearing apart the country.

When VDH talks, I listen.

A Mother and Father Say Goodbye to Their Fierce, Stillborn Daughter by Jeremy Lott

A Mother and Father Say Goodbye to Their Fierce, Stillborn Daughter by Jeremy Lott

Like so many other things about this pregnancy, Cecelia’s end surprised me. I had assumed that she faded away. But like philosophers, we writers imagine and mothers know better.Anj tells me it was a bang, not a whimper. As so many things failed her, Cecelia gathered up all of her strength and kicked really hard, in protest, one last time. It was the internal equivalent of “That one left a mark.” And after that, she was gone.

 How can you not weep at this touching story?

How Evangelicals Invented Liberals’ Favorite Legal Doctrine by Matthew Lee Anderson

How Evangelicals Invented Liberals’ Favorite Legal Doctrine by Matthew Lee Anderson

The value of such an account is that it requires a more complicated assessment about who is to blame for various features of our culture war. Describing the progressive Left as the “aggressors” in the culture war has the dual effect of preserving the Religious Right’s purity and establishing its victim status. Yet Compton makes it clear that on at least one of our deepest culture war fronts—theories of constitutional interpretation—matters are far more complicated than that simplistic narrative allows. The idea that the progressive Left invented the doctrine of the living Constitution ex nihilo in the 1920s plays well, but only at the expense of letting our own history and tradition off the hook.

Good cautionary tale to be careful of what you wish for. Christians can be just as guilty as the Left in pursuing Utopia, with the resulting bad effects.

We can’t save the public school system. We can only save our children from it by Matt Walsh

We can’t save the public school system. We can only save our children from it by Matt Walsh

The proof is in the pudding. The typical young adult in today’s society — aside from being barely sentient, as we’ve already covered — has given up on marriage and religion, has no discernible skills, has been an avid porn user since middle school, and spends ten hours of his day playing video games, watching Netflix, and scrolling through Snapchat and Tinder. This is not only the fault of public school, but it is not a coincidence that the public school system seems dedicated to producing exactly the sort of people it does in fact produce. 

Ouch. He pulls no punches, and I'm afraid he's right. I recently said, "We give students textbooks they don't read, and ask them to answer questions we don't grade, and we give them tests they don't pass. We call that 'education'."

The Conscience of a Valet by Mike Kerrigan

The Conscience of a Valet by Mike Kerrigan

Only now do I realize the question is irrelevant. Only now do I know why Sean smiled. He wouldn’t even have minded getting stiffed. Sean had already made up his mind when he started running. His character wasn’t for sale.

Love this awesome display of character!

Student Riots Slashed Mizzou Enrollment 35 Percent In Two Years. Watch For More by Joy Pullman

Student Riots Slashed Mizzou Enrollment 35 Percent In Two Years. Watch For More by Joy Pullman

Normal people watching this saw some of the most privileged teenagers in the world — Yale undergraduates — scream cursewords and vicious accusations at professors, and their university, purportedly one of the nation’s leading institutions, reward the tantrum-throwers for “improving race relations” after quietly letting the professors go. They saw students chase down and attack an elderly campus guest and professor, giving the professor whiplash, then menacingly thump their SUV and roll concrete traffic weights in their way as they attempted to get away from the bedlam. They watched students at a public college menacingly circle a professor and scream racial epithets at him, march around campus shouting “Black power” with fists pumped, barricade public buildings against police, and hold the college president hostage while presenting him their “demands for racial justice.”
At Pomona College (and elsewhere), students in their demands claimed that the concept of truth is itself racist.

People are noticing that the colleges are cesspools. Some good news for a change!

Trump’s Anti-Cairo Speech by Victor Davis Hanson

Trump’s Anti-Cairo Speech by Victor Davis Hanson

In sum, Trump’s anti-Cairo message is that only a disciplined, strong West — confident in its past and sure of its present success — will deter enemies, appeal to neutrals, and keep friends. Trump should not have had a need to deliver such a self-evident but now rare message. That he alone had the courage to state the obvious — and was criticized for doing so — reminds us that the corrective to our Western malady is seen as the problem, not the cure.

While the article has obvious political implications, the heart of it is a defense of Western Civilization.

Parenting: Are We Getting a Raw Deal? by Rhonda Stephens

Parenting: Are We Getting a Raw Deal? by Rhonda Stephens

We just don’t have the cojones our parents had. We aren’t prepared to tell our kids that they won’t have it if they don’t work for it, because we can’t bear to see them go without and we can’t bear to see them fail. We’ve given them a whole lot of stuff; stuff that will break down, wear out, get lost, go out of style, and lose value. As parents, I suppose some of us feel pretty proud about how we’ve contributed in a material way to our kid’s popularity and paved an easy street for them.

This is spectacular. In education, there is a lot of talk about instilling "Skills for the 21st Century: problem solving, creativity, analytic thinking, collaboration, communication, ethics" (which are really the same skills they wanted in the 19th and 20th Centuries, maybe for all the centuries). Perhaps, schools can only do so much when parents work overtime to undermine those very skills. I'm just as guilty as anyone of wanting to smooth the path for my kids. But how can we raise "problem-solvers" when we never give them a problem to solve?

Yes, They Really Do Despise Their Civilization by Rod Dreher

Yes, They Really Do Despise Their Civilization by Rod Dreher

Don’t misunderstand me here. The West is certainly no utopia, nor ever has been. It is necessary to criticize ourselves constructively, for the sake of growing in virtue. But that is not what these people are doing. By anathematizing any and all who cherish the culture and history of the West, they will ultimately force conservatives to embrace Reaction as the only bastion of resistance to their nihilistic crusade. But they don’t see it anymore than the Social Justice Warriors grasp that their militant illiberalism is calling up and equal and opposite reaction from the people they have demonized.

We are losing our minds!

The Dangers of Arrogant Ignorance by Jonah Goldberg

The Dangers of Arrogant Ignorance by Jonah Goldberg

It is a common human foible to think you know more than you do and to assume that when someone, particularly someone you don’t like, says something you don’t understand that the fault must be in the speaker, not the listener. “It’s a universal law — intolerance is the first sign of an inadequate education,” observed Alexander Solzhenitsyn. “An ill-educated person behaves with arrogant impatience, whereas truly profound education breeds humility.”

This is why I teach history. I think it's the single most important subject to creating good citizens!

A Love Letter to America by Annika Hernroth-Rothstein

A Love Letter to America by Annika Hernroth-Rothstein

I know what happens when government trumps the individual, I know what it means when you apologize for the values that built your land, and I have seen the horrific results of a nation equating exceptionalism with brutality and deeming values moronic and obsolete. And I know one thing especially well: If you grow up in a country that doesn’t ask anything of you, you end up living an entire life without asking anything of yourself — expecting nothing, excelling at nothing, with no repercussions for failure and no incentive for growth. And it kills your very soul.

If we don't teach our students love of country and the duty they owe it, we will kill the soul of our country as well as the soul of our kids.

Francis Chan Goes Into Detail With Facebook Employees on Why He Left His Megachurch by Sheryl Lynn

Francis Chan Goes Into Detail With Facebook Employees on Why He Left His Megachurch by Sheryl Lynn

Today, Chan leads a house church movement in San Francisco called We Are Church. There are currently 14 to 15 house churches, he said, and 30 pastors (two pastors per church) — all of whom do it for free. Each church is designed to be small so it's more like family where members can actually get to know one another, love one another and make use of their gifts.

I love everything about Francis Chan's take on church.

A Blue-Collar, Middle-Class Truck Driver’s Rant On America’s Health Care Mess by Matthew Garrnett

A Blue-Collar, Middle-Class Truck Driver’s Rant On America’s Health Care Mess by Matthew Garrnett

I’m a truck driver who spends his weeks away from his family to earn a living wage. Yet if one of us gets really sick, we’re sunk. Dying slowly in America has become a very, very expensive proposition. What’s more is, I fear this has all been concocted by design. The only thing that makes a lick of sense is that this is a gargantuan transference of wealth. It is not robbing the rich to give to the poor. It’s not even robbing the middle-class to give to the poor. It’s robbing the middle-class to keep politicians elected for “doing something” that somehow constantly seems to make the problems worse.

This guy for president!

How Vacation Bible School Drove Millennials Away From Church by Peter Burfeind

How Vacation Bible School Drove Millennials Away From Church by Peter Burfeind

Seen as a critical tool for outreach, the eternal hope is that congregations will recruit little salespeople as kids go home celebrating all the fun things they did at that church up the street. Unchurched parents, meanwhile, with faint memories of grandma’s faithful church attendance, love the free child care. Rarely does a biblical image so singularly justify a church practice as the seed imagery does for VBS, because as an outreach strategy, VBS is usually a flop, but still the chorus echoes across the country, “At least we planted the seed.”

Are VBS weeks planting the seeds of faith or doubt? Interesting iconoclastic take...