Character

The riots and demonstrations by Antifa and Black Lives Matter are certainly a dominant theme in today’s news. The alleged aggression against people of color has, if one trusts the media, created an image of a galvanized and very angry people who have been woefully treated for far, far too long. Martin Luther King’s descendants often appear to use their star power to support and provoke the demonstrations to still further extents of fury and self-justification. However, the children and grandchildren are not echoing what their father wanted.

Man is, as Aristotle said, the social animal, not because he is kind-hearted and community-minded. Homo sapiens is social, kind-hearted, and community-minded precisely because he is sapient: wise enough to understand that his own interests are better served through cooperation and peace than through isolation and predation.

When was the last time you heard a sermon against envy or observed a media figure casually recognizing its evils? Condemnation of envy as a motivating force for the destruction of life and property has nearly entirely vanished from the culture. This is probably because so much of modern public policy is based on it and depends on encouraging it. What was once one of the seven “deadly sins” is now a baked-in part of our public ethos.

Freedom in Latin America has been endlessly threatened throughout history. In many ways, people who have come to power, have felt the omnipotence above the individual to decide and govern on behalf of "the people": that intangible being but omnipresent in all the speeches of a populist. Here, FEE President Lawrence W. Reed discusses his take on the socialists that have taken over many parts of the continent.

The terms of the big political debates of our time miss the point entirely. 

Political correctness seems to invite trolling. At the same time, it's pretty obvious that the more pleasant conversation is, the more we're likely to converse constructively. But where do we draw the line between plain good manners and political correctness?

Real free market capitalism recognizes and respects the rights of the individual and is that economic system that offers humanity the most moral system of human association imaginable by and for man.

The degradation to our culture far outweighs any short-term, tribal political benefit. The message sent when conservatives defend the indefensible is exactly the message the Democrats sent as they propped up the Clinton machine through scandal after scandal: Only winning matters.