Andrew Ferguson: Am I the only one who sensed the spectral presence of Bill Clinton (pre-bypass) hovering over George W. Bush as he delivered his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention? The speech, or at least its second half, has been widely praised as a stirring justification for the country’s continued vigilance in the…

The Big Hominid has a very thoughtful post on 9/11 and the events that have unfolded in its wake over the last three years, managing to avoid the cliches of left and right (n.b.: some bad language). I have very little to add to the cacophany of commentary on the anniversary of 9/11. Suffice it…

That’s what’s happening in the Netherlands according to Wesley J. Smith writing at the Weekly Standard: In the Netherlands, Groningen University Hospital has decided its doctors will euthanize children under the age of 12, if doctors believe their suffering is intolerable or if they have an incurable illness. But what does that mean? In many…

Aeon Skoble at Liberty & Power offers a much more reasonable and nuanced version of the “libertarian hawk” position: We have rights prior to any political structures. Political structures maintain power through force, which much be justified by consent. Consent can only be legitimately given if the power-structure which is being consented to protects rights.…

The war creates no absolutely new situation; it simply aggrivates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed…

[I]t is good to be reminded from time to time—good for persons like me, with certain pre-modern prejudices—that our relations with the liberal democratic order can be cordial to a degree, but are at best provisional and fleeting, and can never constitute a firm alliance; that here we have no continuing city; that we belong…

The New Atlantis is an online journal that covers the moral and social implications of technology. Two articles of note from the current issue: “Stem Cells and the Reagan Legacy” by Gilbert Meilaender “The Pornography Culture” by David B. Hart

I wrote before, “Since war entails significant evil in the form of death and destruction, the good to be achieved has to outweigh this evil for the war to be considered morally licit.” Put more concretely, in addition to the 1000+ American lives that have been sacrificed for the current mission in Iraq, it is…

Here’s an interesting report on the failure to uncover mass graves in Kosovo, the war which, you’ll recall, was justified on the grounds of Serbian ethnic cleansing and impending genocide. According to the report: In alleged ethnic cleansing exercises by Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, as many as 100,000 to 200,000 civilians were said to have…

Joe Carter at the Evangelical Outpost has a fascinating post about the recent intellectual development of philosopher Antony Flew. Flew has long been known as one of the fiercest critics of natural theology (especially during the heyday of the “falsification” debate). He now appears to be on the verge of accepting a version of the…