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Fear and Mass Surveillance: Our Constitutionally Toxic Political Cocktail0
- January 18, 2018
At 12:51pm on January 18, 2018–just a day before it was set to expire–the Senate followed the House’s lead and reauthorized the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act (FAA) Section 702 mass surveillance program for another six years by a vote of 65-34. Writing for JustSecurity.org in October 2017, I made this prediction about the then-looming
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Did the Catholic Church Invent Propaganda?0
- History
- January 18, 2018
“The Church created propaganda.” This is the charge leveled by French philosopher and sociologist Jacques Ellul in his 1964 book The Technological Society, which now has the infamous distinction of being Unabomber Ted Kaczynski’s favorite book. Is the charge true? Yes and no. As you might expect, propaganda has been used in one form or another
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Patrick Deneen: Why Liberalism Has Failed0
- Culture
- January 17, 2018
Patrick Deneen’s thoughtful book poses a challenge to libertarians. Deneen, a political theorist who teaches at Notre Dame, has with great force identified a fundamental tendency of our times. Destruction of traditional attachments to family, local institutions, culture, and virtuous behavior isolates individuals and makes them dependent on an all-powerful government. In arguing in this
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Master’s Degrees in Janitorial Science?0
- Economics
- January 17, 2018
There has been mounting evidence that the financial payoff from the traditional bachelor’s degree is declining, particularly for men. For example, Census Bureau data suggest that, from 2005 to 2016, the average earnings differential for male workers holding bachelor’s degrees compared with those holding high school diplomas fell from $39,440 to $37,653 (in 2016 dollars)—at
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California Has the Highest Poverty Rate in America. Why?0
- Economics
- January 17, 2018
Can you guess which state has the highest poverty rate in the U.S.? Many people would say Mississippi. That’s how I would have responded if you had asked me this morning, and I would have been right in a sense. There are two different ways to measure poverty, you see. One accounts for cost-of-living in
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7 Timeless Life Lessons from Marcus Aurelius0
- Education
- January 17, 2018
Marcus Aurelius (121-180 A.D.), the last of Rome’s Five Great Emperors, was a study of contrasts. In many ways he was the paradigm of Plato’s philosopher king, yet his reign—which began in 161 A.D. following the death of his adopted father, Antonius Pius—was marred by war and revolt. He was heavily influenced by the thinking
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3 Out of 4 Terrorists Since 9/11 Are Foreign-Born0
- Politics
- January 17, 2018
About three-fourths of those convicted on terrorism charges since 9/11 are foreign-born—and more than half of those aren’t U.S. citizens, according to a new report from the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Still, the joint report issued Tuesday finds that prosecutors lodged more than half of all terrorism charges—295 out of 549—against
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When Feeding the Homeless Becomes a Crime0
- Politics
- January 16, 2018
More than a dozen people were recently arrested in El Cajon, California. Their crime? They were feeding the homeless. “The arrests come in the wake of a newly enacted city ordinance banning people from feeding the homeless in public,” a local news station reported. The group was aware of the ordinance, the report said, but
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The FBI’s Attacks on MLK, Jr. Are Helpful Reminders for Today0
- History
- January 16, 2018
Writing for the Wall Street Journal in 2005, federal judge and former U.S. deputy attorney general Laurence Silberman recalled how he was “shocked” to discover the extent the FBI abused its power to spy on Americans. Speaking of the first time he reviewed the files of J. Edgar Hoover, Silberman writes how Hoover tasked “his agents with reporting
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