by Mark Frank At risk of irritating my wife . . .  again . . . it is time for my annual baseball column. Major League Baseball is well underway and the TinCaps have opened their home season. I have moved my “baseball” TV out of winter storage to the back porch where my baseball addiction is less irritating. Some random thoughts on the new season: My MLB network subscription has been renewed at no…

Politics From the Pews POLITICS IS SOMETHING we don’t talk about in my church — “verboten” my Lutheran grandmother would say. That has never made sense to me. I understand why a pastor may not want to politicize from the pulpit, but Christianity is so entwined with Western Civilization that it would seem a good idea to keep tabs on how things are going. A friend declares this political silence in the pews to be unnatural. He has…

Consent of the Governed  “The United States Government faces growing difficulty in fulfilling its purpose because at least some of its powers are no longer derived from the consent of the governed.”  This was the topic taken on by my Socratic discussion group in March and it proved a difficult one. We never completely resolved it. We immediately got stuck on answering these fundamental questions: That kept us busy for our allotted two hours. The…

The Democratic Illusion “NO KINGS” RALLIES are gearing up in Indiana for this weekend. It’s a big deal. Forty events are scheduled. Ten Indiana newspapers have signed on with promotional advertisements. It is a good time to review the state of democracy. It’s in bad shape, obviously. We can’t agree on even whether or not elections should be “fair.” Still, nobody, or very few of us, would dare defend the alternative of monarchy. That’s why the social-justice warriors of…

The Political Distraction of Youth THERE IS SOMETHING about the middle-aged mind that imagines it can transmit seamlessly to the next generation the observations, wisdom and judgment of a lifetime. The reality, for better or for worse, is that each generation makes up its own mind in its own time. Nonetheless, we continue to launch grand projects in the name of youth, ignoring that the young by definition lack serious influence, resources or attention span. Plus, they change their addresses and their…

by GARY VARVEL  The First Commandment is clear: “You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3). Obedience to this principle is the foundation of a stable society; conversely, replacing God with any earthly power is a form of idolatry doomed to ultimate failure. While the first five men in this series rejected the God of the Bible through science, psychology, or social theory, John Maynard Keynes achieved it through economics. His philosophy effectively replaced…

Gen. Wayne: An ‘Acceptable’ War “Whoever has a sword should take it.” (Luke 22:36) SOME OF US acknowledge the concept of a “just war” while realizing that it becomes mere semantics when swords clash and gunpowder ignites. The destruction of Iran’s Islamic regime would fit the definition, though. As would the arrest of Nicolás Maduro and the expulsion of the Communist Party from Cuba.  Still, mankind being mankind, the ultimate outcomes of even victorious wars are uncertain. You…

Justice for the Tattoo-less “Feminism liberated women from the natural dignity of their sex and turned them into inferior men.” — Francis Parker Yockey IF YOU ARE TRYING to catch up with the times, you may be having trouble determining when it is proper to discriminate. Indeed, you may have assumed that we had eliminated discrimination entirely. My assistant, Grok, counts more than a dozen laws at the federal level outlawing discrimination beginning in 1964 with Title VII of…

by GARY VARVEL  Proverbs 23:7 says, “For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” How do you “fundamentally transform” a nation? Answer: Through education. As the saying goes, “The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will become the philosophy of the government in the next.” Transforming the next generation became the mission of John Dewey, known as the Father of Progressive Education and the fifth man listed in Dave Breese’s book “Seven…

The Pampered Civic Mind Chesterton’s Fence: A principle advising against removing any law, institution or custom unless you first understand why it was put in place. A HANDFUL OF STUDENTS at a local high school organized a protest this week against imagined activity of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents (there hasn’t been much). The students carried signs quoting the absurdly ingenuous Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, “No More Kids in Cages.”  Truly, youth is wasted on the young. The superintendent fired off a sternly…