Editorial writers have an advantage over journalists. Journalists, at least in the days when fact checking was an honored part of the profession, had to get their stories straight. Writing an opinion column that reads like a news story has become fashionable. Opinion trumps facts. The latest entry into fantasy land is an article by Leonard Pitts who writes for the Miami Herald. He takes on the so- [...]

In March 2000, the Georgia Supreme Court overturned the death sentence in a murder case because an assistant district attorney urged jurors to follow certain biblical mandates related to the death penalty. “During closing arguments in the penalty phase of the trial, D. Brandon Hornsby, the assistant district attorney, cited passages from the books of Romans, Genesis, and Matthew, telling jur [...]

Question: The other day, in a discussion about God’s covenant promises and their application to the United States, a guy told me that 2 Chronicles 7:14 had no application. This didn’t sound right to me and I was wondering what your thoughts were. Answer: How could this verse not apply today? Are not Christians God’s people? The Bible also says “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LO [...]

In case you’ve forgotten or you’ve never heard the story, Mary Jo Kopechne was a “friend” of Senator Ted Kennedy. Coming back from a cook-out for campaign workers on Chappaquiddick Island, Kennedy was accompanied by Mary Jo Kopechne who had worked for Robert Kennedy. Things went terribly wrong as they crossed a narrow bridge close to midnight. The car left the bridge and plunged into the deep pond [...]

I can remember when there were only three television networks: ABC, CBS, and NBC and their local affiliates. Reception was so bad in our area that we had a tough time pulling in the NBC signal at night. This meant that I never saw an episode of Bonanza or Star Trek until I went off to college. But during the day, the NBC signal (channel 11 in Pittsburgh) came in as clearly as the other two. [...]

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, speaking at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on March 15, 2005, weighed in on the latest Supreme Court ruling on the death penalty. If you recall, a majority of the justices (5–4) ruled that the death penalty could not be applied to anyone under the age of 18. The March 1 ruling was based on “evolving notions of decency.” The logic of the r [...]

The libertarian humorist P. J. O’Rourke says, “When you think of the good old days, think ‘dentistry.’” The greatest invention of the modern world is anesthetics. Prior to 1844, in preparation for an operation, you drank booze until you passed out–hopefully. Then the physician – “sawbones,” he was called –got started hacking away.[1] Michael Crichton, best known for The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Th [...]

I received the following email from someone who came across American Vision’s website: “I don’t trust any site that doesn’t allow comments on articles.” I responded by stating that I try to answer every email that comes across my computer. It may take me some time to get to all of them, but I try. He wrote back, not satisfied with my answer: “I believe people have the right to know how [...]

A number of letter writers have weighed in on the Ten Commandments controversy. Ed Buckner, secretary of the Georgia chapter of Americans united for Separation of Church and State, writes that “nowhere in or on the [Supreme Court] building is to be found any version of the text of the Ten Commandments.” This is true. Let’s suppose that there were crosses on government buildings o [...]

The Supreme Court is going to rule whether copies of the Ten Commandments can hang in government buildings. This is the same court that’s ruled it’s OK for a girl under the age of 18 to murder a preborn baby, but it’s not OK to execute a murderer if he or she is under 18. The Court has just made anyone under 18 the most dangerous group in America. So don’t get your hopes up on this Ten Commandment [...]

I wanted to like Million Dollar Baby. If you haven’t seen the movie, and you have plans to see it, you might not want to read any further. I love movies with twists and turns. Being fooled plot-wise is a great artistic vehicle. My first encounter with the motif was with Charles Eric Maine’s science fiction novel The Man Who Owned the World,[1] a book I read when I was 13. [...]

Susette Kelo owns a house that she doesn’t want to sell. You would think that if she doesn’t want to sell something, she shouldn’t have to. The Constitution’s Fifth Amendment gives the power of “eminent domain” to governments. This allows governments to seize property as long as “just compensation” is given and the property will be put to “public use.” Historically, public use has meant railroads, [...]

John Harrison, who is a senior at Druid Hills High School in DeKalb County, a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, was miffed when he was rebuffed by parents at a private school when they refused to purchase a discount coupon for Domino’s Pizza. The money was to go to his public school’s art program. They told him, “We already contribute through taxes, and we pay for our children to go to school, so why do [...]

A German zoo was planning to introduce male penguins into a group of female penguins because the female penguins seem to be attracted to one another. Homosexual rights groups are angry with the plan because theybelieve the zoo’s actions are trying to turn the penguins straight. Here’s the premise: Whatever animals do in nature is natural. What’s natural is normal. What’s normal is moral. So if pen [...]

“The lesson the President has learned best—and certainly the one that has been the most useful to him—is the axiom that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. One of his Administration’s current favorites is the whopper about America having been founded on Christian principles. Our nation was founded not on Christian principles but on Enlightenment ones. God only entered the pic [...]

I’ve been watching the debate over privatizing some parts of Social Security and have been amazed at the reaction of liberals. The head of NOW does not support any type of privatization. When she was asked to explain her position in light of her pro-abortion stance of “choice,” she offered a smile and said the government is needed to protect citizens in their retirement years. Bu [...]

Death penalty opponents are protesting the use of doctors in executing criminals convicted of capital crimes. Because of the medicinal way executions are carried out in our more civilized day, doctors are needed to assist the administration of the deadly chemical cocktail that sends the condemned on his way to His Maker. The doctors do not actually inject the drugs. The Department of Corrections i [...]

Humphrey Bogart, playing the hard-boiled detective Philip Marlow, had some great lines in the film adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s novel The Big Sleep. This is one of my favorites: “He’ll kick my teeth out, and then punch me in the stomach for mumbling.” No matter what happens, even when the bad guy does it to him, Marlowe can’t win. They’ll be no satisfying the opposition even when the oppositio [...]

Writing a daily column for this website is a perilous enterprise. While most of the emails I get in response are complimentary, there are always a few spoilers. One letter writer was stridently opposed to my article on “Why We Need Rich People”. Like most socialists, he quotes the Bible sparingly and most often out of context. Here was my response (with some modifications): Dear Chris, Thanks for [...]

Germany is using Gestapo tactics against Christian families who want to educate their children at home. If talks with German officials break down, there’s a good chance that the children will be taken from their parents and turned over to the State. All of this sounds frightenly familiar. We’ve seen this before. By capturing the youth through education, Adolph Hitler knew that his dreams of [...]