four theses on immigration
The following are some core points about immigration that I hope can cut through the rhetoric that both sides of the issue tend to elide. The solutions I have on offer are not easy, nor do I expect they can...
The Right Thing Has a Real Cost: Abortion Politics and Social Welfare
This essay was originally published in 2015 at Canon and Culture, a project of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission under the title “The Right Thing Has a Real Cost”. I was unable to find it on Wayback Machine. I...
why “education doesn’t work”
If you’ve ever been tempted to read Freddie deBoer’s book The Cult of Smart, I have some good news for you: you don’t have to! America’s favorite Twitter-drydrunk has summarized the most important bits of his book in this essay,...
the liberal order and its haters
I’ve had several conversations in the past year in person and online in which I referenced “the liberal order” or “liberalism” as me and some of my buddies understand it, only to find that I have engendered confusion with this...
The Batman: LA Confidential meets Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
I really wanted to like this movie. I was, I will admit, looking forward to it more than was reasonable. I will also admit that this post might have been a series of tweets if it were not for Lent....
patriotism good, nationalism bad?
There is a recurrent discourse about nationalism and patriotism that I generally find stultifying. In general, many have (following C.S. Lewis) declared that patriotism is a good love of one’s country and people, while nationalism is the bad belief that...
looking for better mind-readers
There is a strain of commentary that has been more or less constant for the past decade or so, and its thesis is basically thus: A certain group of Christians, by virtue of their cultural position, are embarrassed by the...
a few different and possibly useful categories of idea-expressers
Here is a list roughly in ascending order of how much attention I think these different sorts of people who express their ideas deserve. You, of course, have every right to engage with ideas and the people who express them...
could i interest you in everything all of the time? [because everything is the same]
By now you’ve probably watched “Welcome to the Internet”, Bo Burnham’s hilariously disturbing song about… well, the Internet. It’s funny, but I’ve stopped laughing at the jokes but still keep listening to it. If you haven’t already seen it and...
things that can be true at the same time
I’ve made these points at greater length in other essays, but I can’t seem to get people who disagree to push back in a meaningful way. So I’m trying a different strategy, for the skeptics who seem to think that...