Over the past several days, I found myself unexpectedly drawn to the events surrounding King Charles III’s state visit to the United States. As someone never particularly sympathetic to monarchy, I approached his appearances with skepticism. Yet I was pleasantly surprised by the tone and substance of his two principal speeches—one at the White House […]
Last week, The Gem State Patriot ran an essay by Robert Neugebauer unpacking a word most Americans had never heard: “stochastic.” It may be one of the most important concepts for understanding why our politics now feels one step away from bloodshed. In statistics, a stochastic process is about probability, not certainty. You cannot say […]
The careless use of the term “Christian nationalism” has become a rhetorical shortcut—one that obscures more than it clarifies. In contemporary discourse, it is too often deployed as a catch-all epithet, flattening important distinctions in American constitutional thought and moral philosophy. There is, in fact, a meaningful difference between invoking one’s faith as the moral […]
As we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our country’s founding, let us not forget how deeply our Founders believed in the guiding hand of Divine Providence. In the Declaration of Independence, they staked their project on a theological claim, insisting that “we hold these truths to be self‑evident, that all men are created equal, [that] […]
A natural way to think about politics is not as a pyramid, but as a web. Instead of starting with “the state” and working downward, imagine a landscape of “nodes” or pockets of civic energy that grow from the inside out—bottom‑up rather than top‑down. These nodes are the precincts, churches, voluntary associations, local media outlets, […]
When experts speak, they seldom preface their assertions with the words, “This is my opinion.” In every sphere of life, experts disagree—scientists, lawyers, theologians, generals, and even Popes. Yet we often treat their statements as if they were final, unquestionable truths. In my own life there have been three places where adding the phrase “in […]
I write in response to a recent e-mail that asks me to reflect on the Beatitudes and the command to love our neighbor and even our enemy, and to address a frequent misunderstanding: that Christian charity requires passivity in the face of evil. Loving our neighbor and our enemy, rightly understood, often requires confronting evil […]
A Hayekian Case Against Idaho’s Marijuana Act In economics, Friedrich Hayek distinguished between two kinds of knowledge. “General” or scientific knowledge is abstract and law‑like what economists, engineers, and scientists know about general relationships of cause and effect, production functions, and technological possibilities. “Particular” or local knowledge concerns the “circumstances of time and place”: concrete, […]
Christians and Jews have faced recurring waves of persecution from the first century to the present, sometimes even twisting their own traditions to persecute each other. In every era, shifting political, religious, and social pressures have found ways to target those whose ultimate loyalty is to God rather than the state or the dominant culture. […]
“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose,” Shakespeare warns in The Merchant of Venice. The line echoes the Gospel story of Christ’s temptation, where Satan quotes the Psalms to serve his own ends. It is a reminder that even sacred words lose truth in the mouths of the self-righteous. That came to mind this past week […]
Politics has always been a contact sport. But today the screaming and yelling we see from demonstrators in the streets, pundits in the media, and—most disappointingly—during congressional debate and in courtrooms across the country reflects something deeper than ordinary rough‑and‑tumble. It reveals a collapse of civility and the rise of undisciplined minds that have never […]
Over the past few days, I’ve found myself bewildered—though not surprised—by the hypocrisy, naïveté, and lack of self-awareness exhibited by many of our legislators and those inside the Governor’s Office. As the state’s budget shortfall dominates attention and agency funding requests come under scrutiny, the same old games are being played while the public remains […]