OrthodoxNet.com Blog

FrontPageMagazine.com | Barry Loberfeld | Aug. 13, 2008

For defenders of the Constitution, the free market, and individual liberty, no single issue has thus far proved more defeating – on both the intellectual and electoral battlefields – than that of poverty. It has handed one unearned (and by no means inevitable) victory after another to the unconstitutional statism of collectivist liberals.

The conquest of poverty (to borrow the title of Henry Hazlitt’s classic) requires just two weapons: wealth and compassion. So the only real question is: Who can better provide these – civil society (”the market”) or the political state?

The answer as it regards wealth has now been settled: “[C]apitalism has won,” conceded left-aligned economic historian Robert Heilbroner in 1989. “Socialism,” conversely, “has been a great tragedy this century.” Continue Reading »

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Time | Nancy Gibbs | Aug. 17, 2008

Watching Barack Obama and John McCain handle Pastor Rick Warren’s questions about abortion, you could see the whole presidential race in miniature taking shape before our eyes. The clear answer beats the clever one any time … unless you worry about the chaos that clarity can bring.

Before a friendly but still skeptical evangelical crowd at Warren’s Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., on Saturday night, McCain won a roar of approval when Warren asked him at what point a human being gets human rights: “At the moment of conception,” McCain replied. The answer was clear, unequivocal and a great relief to restless Republicans who had endured a week of indigestion on the issue. Continue Reading »

An Orthodox priest places the horrors and evil of Abortion in its proper perspective.

OrthodoxNet.com | Fr. Jason Kappanadze | Aug. 13, 2008

There is evil, injustice, pain, suffering and unfairness everywhere, and our Christian hearts must be wounded by all of it. But would you consider the argument that the worst of these is abortion?

Imagine if a terrible disease began to spread through the country, resulting in 50,000,000 suffering deaths — the equivalent of 1,851 OCAs. Imagine that the disease was able to mutate, avoiding every attempt to eradicate it, and able to appear in different forms at will so as to infect as many victims as possible. What if there was no end in sight for this death machine? Would the headlines or office talk be about health insurance, or global warming, or distribution of wealth? I think not! Continue Reading »

Townhall.com | Dennis Prager | Aug. 12, 2008

The following is a list of beliefs that I hold. Nearly every one of them was a liberal position until the late 1960s. Not one of them is now. Such a list is vitally important in order to clarify exactly what positions divide left from right, blue from red, liberal from conservative.

I believe in American exceptionalism, meaning that (a) America has done more than any international organization or institution, and more than any other country, to improve this world; and (b) that American values (specifically, the unique American blending of Enlightenment and Judeo-Christian values) form the finest value system any society has ever devised and lived by. Continue Reading »

FrontPageMag | Mark D. Tooley | Aug. 7, 2008

Christianity, Judaism and Islam do all commend helping the poor, of course. But the Book of Deuteronomy, a law book for the ancient Hebrews’ theocracy, does not provide detailed policy guidance for modern political parties. How interesting that left-leaning religious groups can quote from the Old Testament and its supposed counsel about welfare programs and environmental regulations. In contrast, conservative religious groups that cite the Scriptures about their moral and political issues are widely derided as aspiring theocrats. Continue Reading »

OrthodoxNet.com | Fr. Demetrios Carellas | Aug. 12, 2008

Late in the evening yesterday, the Lord brought these words spontaneously to my sinful heart; and before I had time to ponder on what was the Lord’s purpose, I believe He immediately revealed it to me: that these holy words, from the Word, apply to all human life — from conception onwards. Then I experienced pain in my soul, as I reflected on what has happened to 50 million of His “brethren” since January 22, 1973: they have been brutally murdered within – and sometimes almost completely outside – the wombs of their mothers. What was their crime? They were conceived! And six of the U.S. Supreme Court Judges (May God have mercy on their souls.), determined that a woman’s “right to privacy” (no where found in the U.S. Constitution) superseded the child’s “right to life” (as stated in the Declaration of Independence). Continue Reading »

TaxProf Blog | Paul L. Caron | Mar. 24, 2008

The Tax Foundation has released U.S. States Lead the World in High Corporate Taxes:
Many states impose state corporate income taxes at rates above the national average of 6.6%. Iowa, for example, imposes the highest corporate tax rate of 12%, followed by Pennsylvania’s 9.99% rate and Minnesota’s 9.8% rate.

When added to the federal rate, these states tax their businesses at rates far in excess of all other OECD countries. When compared to other OECD countries… 24 U.S. states have a combined corporate tax rate higher than top-ranked Japan. Continue Reading »

WorldNetDaily | Patrick J. Buchanan | Aug. 11, 2008

In the Pennsylvania primary, Barack Obama rolled up more than 90 percent of the African-American vote. Among Catholics, he lost by 40 points. The cool, liberal Harvard Law grad was not a good fit for the socially conservative ethnics of Altoona, Aliquippa and Johnstown.

But if Barack had a problem with Catholics then, he has a far higher hurdle to surmount in the fall, with those millions of Catholics who still take their faith and moral code seriously.

For not only is Barack the most pro-abortion member of the Senate, with his straight A+ report card from the National Abortion Rights Action League and Planned Parenthood. He supports the late-term procedure known as partial-birth abortion, where the baby’s skull is stabbed with scissors in the birth canal and the brains are sucked out to end its life swiftly and ease passage of the corpse into the pan. Continue Reading »

Human Events | Aug. 8, 2008

Barack Obama worked to allow a gruesome practice, in which babies born alive after attempted abortions are left to die without medical care, to continue in Illinois. National Review journalist David Freddoso’s new book, The Case Against Barack Obama, exposes the lengths to which Barack Obama went to protect this ghastly procedure.

Because of a loophole, doctors in Illinois had no legal obligation to treat these babies. Under the law, they were non-persons. Illinois legislators tried to close this loophole with a bill mandating that babies born alive during an abortion would have to be treated just like every other baby born prematurely. The same laws and the same rules of medical ethics would apply to these born, living babies as to any other born, living human being. Continue Reading »

American Thinker | Paul Kengor | Aug. 10, 2008

In a tribute I wrote earlier, posted at National Review, I noted that it is impossible to capture in one column what Solzhenitsyn meant, experienced, and how he went about translating it to the West. Professors like me know such frustration well, as we struggle to fully convey the impact of such a man to a classroom of students born after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In my earlier piece, I talked about The Gulag Archipelago, Solzhenitsyn’s shocking firsthand account of the Soviet forced-labor-camp system, where he himself had been held captive, and where tens of millions of innocents perished. In a disturbing way, that book may have made Solzhenitsyn the most significant of all Russian writers, quite a prize when one considers the caliber of the company. Continue Reading »

American Thinker | Kyle-Anne Shiver | Aug. 8, 2008

If Barack Obama presents a target-rich environment in his inflated balloon of media hype over one non-accomplishment after another, John McCain presents the opposite. No hype. No hot air. No blathering, bloated claims about ethereal change and meaningless hope in government to save us. None of this Hollywood stuff for McCain.

McCain is scrappy. He’s a scrounger. He’s downright humble. Rather than touting his formidable experience, or the fact that he has had three sons in the military, quietly serving their Country, John McCain presents a true model of decency, self-respect and laudable humility, in the same all-male bundle. Continue Reading »

Acton.org | John Couretas | Aug. 6, 2008

The world justly celebrates the life of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a great man whose work and witness seems most aptly summed up in a single word: prophetic. But, as prophets are in a habit of doing, he made some people feel the needle who were sure they didn’t deserve it. This was especially so for Western liberals who, in the eyes of Solzhenitsyn, were indifferent to — if not supportive of — communist oppression. Continue Reading »

Wall Street Opinion Journal | Robert Conquest | August 8, 2005

Those of us who had long been concerned to expose and resist Stalinism, in the West as in the USSR, learned much from Alexander Solzhenitsyn. I met him in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1974, soon after he was expelled from the Soviet Union — the result of his novel, “The Gulag Archipelago,” being published in Paris. He was personally pleasant; I have a photograph of the two of us, he holding a Russian edition of my book, “The Great Terror,” with evident approbation. He asked if I would translate a “little” poem of his. Of course I agreed. Continue Reading »

The Times | Tony Halpin

Last struggle is over for Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

He was the conscience of a nation whose writings exposed the horrors of the Communist Gulag and galvanised Russian opposition to the tyranny of the Soviet Union.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s long struggle for his beloved Russia ended last night at his home in Moscow, 14 years after he had returned in triumph from exile imposed by the Soviet regime that he had helped to bring down. His son Stepan said that the Nobel laureate had suffered heart failure, aged 89.

The former dissident had been in failing health for some years. He lived long enough to be fêted by a Kremlin that had once condemned him to slave labour. The former Russian president, Vladimir Putin, once a KGB officer, travelled to Solzhenitsyn’s home to present him with the State Prize for humanitarian achievement last year, thanking him for “all your work for the good of Russia”. Continue Reading »

The Wall Street Journal | Aug. 1, 2008

Hell — otherwise known as Congress — has officially frozen over. For the first time since the 1950s, Members will skip town today for the August recess without either chamber having passed a single appropriations bill. Then again, Democrats appear ready to sacrifice their whole agenda, even spending, rather than allow new domestic energy production. Continue Reading »

American Thinker | David J. Rusin | Aug. 3, 2008

Persuading Western Muslim leaders to repudiate Shari’a-sanctioned violence against apostates can be a frustrating exercise, as Prince Charles discovered in 2004. Troubled by the treatment of Muslims who convert to Christianity in Islamic nations, the prince convened a summit of senior figures from both religious communities. It ended in disappointment. The Islamic representatives failed to issue a declaration condemning the practice, which the Christians had requested; they also cautioned non-Muslims not to discuss such matters in public, arguing that moderates would be more likely to make progress if the debate were kept internal. Continue Reading »

American Thinker | Steven M. Warshawsky | Aug. 2, 2008

America recently marked the third anniversary of one of the most controversial Supreme Court decisions of recent memory: Kelo v. City of New London. Kelo is the now-infamous “takings” case, in which the Supreme Court declined to rule unconstitutional a Connecticut town’s decision to use the power of eminent domain to take property away from a group of working-class homeowners and give it to a private development corporation for use as part of a government-approved “economic revitalization” project. Continue Reading »

The Totalitarian Global Warming Cult Following Democrats in California tried, yet again, to impose their unfounded religious beliefs and leftist dogma on the entire public education system.

Mercury News | John Boudreau | July 26, 2008

California public students will stick to reading, writing and arithmetic, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger decided as he vetoed a bill late Friday that would have required climate change be added to schools’ curriculum.

The measure, sponsored by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, also would have required future science textbooks to include climate change as a subject. Continue Reading »

Investor’s Business Daily | Phyllis Schlafly | July 25, 2008

The nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, attracted 9,000 delegates to its annual convention in Washington, D.C., over the July Fourth weekend. Delegates sported buttons with provocative slogans such as “Gay marriage causes global warming only because we are so hot,” “Hate is not a family value,” “The Christian right is neither” and “Gay rights are civil rights.”

The delegates passed dozens of hard-hitting resolutions that now become the NEA’s official policy. The resolutions authorize NEA members and employees to lobby for those goals in the halls of Congress and state capitols. Continue Reading »