The Case for Conservatism

Washington Post | George Will | May 31, 2007

Conservatism’s recovery of its intellectual equilibrium requires a confident explanation of why America has two parties and why the conservative one is preferable. Today’s political argument involves perennial themes that give it more seriousness than many participants understand. The argument, like Western political philosophy generally, is about the meaning of, and the proper adjustment of the tension between, two important political goals — freedom and equality.

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The American Liberal Liberties Union

Wall Street Opinion Journal | Wndy Kaminer | May 23, 2007

The ACLU is becoming very selective about what it considers “free” speech.

“ACLU Defends Nazi’s Right to Burn Down ACLU Headquarters,” the humor magazine The Onion announced in 1999. Those of us who loved the ACLU, and celebrated its willingness to defend the rights of Nazis and others who had no regard for our rights, considered the joke a compliment. Today it’s more like a reproach. Once the nation’s leading civil liberties group and a reliable defender of everyone’s speech rights, the ACLU is being transformed into just another liberal human-rights group that reliably defends the rights of liberal speakers.

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The Subjection of Islamic Women

THe Weekly Standard
|Christina Hoff Sommers | May 14, 2007

The subjection of women in Muslim societies–especially in Arab nations and in Iran–is today very much in the public eye. Accounts of lashings, stonings, and honor killings are regularly in the news, and searing memoirs by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi have become major best-sellers. One might expect that by now American feminist groups would be organizing protests against such glaring injustices, joining forces with the valiant Muslim women who are working to change their societies. This is not happening.

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The Kennedy Catastrophe: Banishing Religion from the Public Square

Townhall.com | Ken Connor | May 6, 2007

For quite some time in America, frank public discussions about candidates’ religious views have been deemed verboten. The trend began in 1960, when John F. Kennedy found that his Catholic faith was proving to be a liability with Protestant voters. Kennedy was the first Roman Catholic to run for president since Al Smith’s landslide defeat in the 1920s, and throughout the campaign he met significant resistance from detractors who were deeply suspicious of the Catholic faith. Hundreds of anti-Catholic tracts were sent to millions of homes across America discouraging voters from supporting Kennedy. Many refused to vote for the young Senator from Massachusetts because they did not agree with his religious beliefs, and this created a crisis for the campaign.

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Jim Wallis: Polarizer or Unifier?

Townhall.com Janice Shaw Crouse April 17, 2007

Jim Wallis has devoted his whole career to trying to force the round peg of leftist ideology into the square hole of biblical orthodoxy. When he wrote his “vision” designed to “transcend” the ideologies of the religious left and right, he ended up further polarizing instead of unifying the two evangelical movements. He rails against the “political language” of the right as well as the tendency of conservative evangelicals, in his opinion, to claim their use of scripture as authoritative. In so doing, Wallis hoists himself on his own petard.

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