Minnesota has become a case study in how a virtuous society can lose its bearings without quite noticing when the slide began. The state’s recent convulsions—a sprawling fraud scandal and mounting street-level confrontation around immigration enforcement—prompted Catholic Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester to issue a stark warning: the situation is “untenable,” and unless all sides […]
When Governor Orval Faubus used the Arkansas National Guard in 1957 to block nine Black students from entering Little Rock Central High School, he was not “standing up to Washington”; he was openly defying federal law and a binding Supreme Court ruling. President Eisenhower responded by federalizing the Guard and sending in the 101st Airborne […]
Matthew 7:3–5 asks why we notice the speck in a brother’s eye while ignoring the log in our own. It is a question about hypocrisy, but also about responsibility. Before we condemn others for tragic outcomes, we must ask how our own failures—political, institutional, cultural—helped lay the tracks that led to those moments of crisis. […]
We often say America is a “nation of immigrants,” but we rarely ask what made our earlier waves of immigration work—and why our current system is failing so many newcomers and citizens alike. The answer, I believe, lies in an old-fashioned word that has nearly vanished from our policy debates: sponsorship. Ellis Island in 1904 […]
When serving as a junior officer aboard the USS Virginia (CGN-38), it was possible to watch two very different leadership styles under two commanding officers with equally impressive résumés. One captain went on to become a vice admiral: the other retired into mediocrity. The contrast between them offers a useful lens for looking at how Idaho’s government […]
For several years, there has been growing concern about the tenor and aggressiveness of a particular class of activists who relentlessly assert their own moral authority through public denunciations and emotional theatrics—what are now commonly labeled “virtue signals.” Their rhetoric often feels less like moral insight and more like a performance of superiority, backed by […]
F. A. Hayek once observed that while you can have capitalism without liberty, you cannot have liberty without capitalism. The moral foundations for both are remarkably similar: rule of law, enforceable contracts, the sanctity of private property, and the core virtues of justice, charity, prudence, and courage. For centuries, some have said that liberty and […]
The Midwestern Farmer–Labor tradition began as a defense of ordered liberty and local independence and, over time, was captured by centralized, progressive forces that now use its rhetoric to justify bureaucratic control and dependency. Understanding that transformation is essential if families today are to teach their children to be both pious and patriotic, and to […]
Dependency, Corruption, and the Bill Coming Due The national news is now reporting roughly a billion dollars in suspected waste, fraud, and abuse in Minnesota’s state‑administered programs that distribute federal money—SNAP, Medicaid, rental assistance, and small‑business COVID loans, particularly in Somali communities in Minneapolis and its suburbs. Even more troubling are whistleblower claims from inside […]
Does your interlocutor believe in a universal moral law binding on all human beings? That single question determines whether political argument will rest on reason or dissolve into pure passion. A moral predicate is the foundational moral assumption on which all subsequent reasoning depends. Without some shared base, rational debate becomes impossible. The historical foundations of the American […]
Stop Scouting the Opposition—Start Perfecting Our Own Game Plan When the great UCLA basketball coach John Wooden was asked how much time he spent scouting opposing teams, his answer was direct—none. “We spend all our time thinking about what we do, and we hope our opponents spend all their time thinking about what we do.” […]
Every Christmas Eve since 1949, The Wall Street Journal has reprinted former editor Vermont Royster’s timeless essay, “In Hoc Anno Domini”. It reminds readers that the world changed forever on the night Jesus was born—and that from that moment began humanity’s long, uneven march toward freedom. Reprinted often in The Gem State Patriot News, Royster’s piece remains worth pondering […]