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The iPhone and Us

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On this tenth anniversary of the birth of the first smartphone, the day of reckoning is at hand: how will we Millennials produce the next generation of great books when the smartphone has killed our capacity to concentrate?

The Physiophobe: Modern Man Against Reality

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We are physiophobes: we are afraid of, or we detest, the way things are. We take no delight in the real. We do not revel in boys being boys and girls being girls, and their coming together in marriage, the real thing, to make children, real children.

Ten (Bad, But Popular) Arguments for Abortion

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A philosophy professor reflects on the poor arguments that convince his students of the justice of abortion.

National Sovereignty and the Challenge of Immigration

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The idea of national sovereignty is indispensable to any coherent discussion of immigration policy.

St. Louis’s Unholy War on Religious Liberty

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An ordinance passed in St. Louis, Missouri, prohibits discrimination in housing or employment on the basis of “reproductive health decisions.” Promoted as an anti-discrimination measure, the law’s actual purpose is to destroy the self-government of religious and pro-life organizations.

The Human Rights Campaign Rewards Walmart for Having the Same Bathroom Policy as North Carolina

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If major leaders in the gay movement cannot keep up with its constant invention of new “rights,” then they certainly can’t shame others for failing to do so.

Pursuing Unity: Race and the American Story

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The primary cause of American disintegration is not the proliferation of sources of division, but rather the absence of sources of unity to counterbalance and contextualize them. The racial divide is the most productive place to start in recovering the American mission and restoring national unity.

In Defense of Elizabeth Harman: Taking Pro-Choice Philosophers Seriously

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If we believe that all human beings deserve respect, we ought to act like it. That means we should use our rational faculties to understand and answer bad arguments, not ridicule those who make them.

Reason, Faith, and the Struggle for Western Civilization

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Any defense of the West must be clear about those core commitments to reason and the reasonable God that are central to its identity.

Religion and Politics at the Dinner Table: Challenging the Old Maxim

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In an age increasingly marked by incivility, we need places where we can learn (or relearn) the practice of civil disagreement. The family is uniquely suited to serve as a training ground for this crucial virtue.

American Abortion, American Freedom

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Like slavery, abortion has become in the leftist mind the central political issue, on which the economic and social liberties of the modern United States all hang.

Unconventional Women: Documenting the Diversity of the Pro-Life Movement

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A new book showcases the diversity of the pro-life movement by documenting the unconventional pro-life activism of five women.

Qatar: America’s Troublesome Little Ally

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The Saudi-Qatari feud is empowering Turkey and Iran, thereby changing the geopolitical map of the Middle East.

A Fascist in the White House? Federalism as an Antidote to Authoritarianism

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Any scholar or commentator who truly worries about the prospect of fascism or nationalist tyranny should favor the restoration of a more robust American federalism, with more powers exercised by the states and fewer powers assigned to the national government.

A Tale of Two Sams: You Should Not Actively Euthanize Your Baby

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Philosopher Gary Comstock reports that, in hindsight, he would have actively euthanized his terminally ill son. I’ve known his anguish; my son, also named Sam, was also diagnosed with trisomy 18. He took his final breaths five hours after his birth, as I held him in my arms. But I reject the remedy Comstock offers as a solution to this suffering.

Does the Right Have a Future? Assessing the Conservative-Libertarian Debate

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Nathan Schlueter and Nikolai Wenzel’s book-length conservative-libertarian debate is a helpful tool for understanding an important conversation and provides the basis for a robust defense of liberty in the public sphere.

The Constitution Already Prohibits Abortion: An Originalist Case for Prenatal Personhood

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Justice Antonin Scalia, an originalist, famously held that the Constitution neither permits nor prohibits abortion. On the contrary, unborn babies are “persons” within the original public meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment, and they are consequently owed due process and equal protection on constitutional grounds.

Contraceptive Access and Declining Teen Birth Rates: A Connection Still Unproven

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Among sexually active teens, birth control use is on the rise and teen pregnancy on the decline. While the media have jumped at the chance to suggest that the one is the cause of the other, the studies cited—explicitly—do not bear out this conclusion.

The Rolling Revolution in Sex and Gender: A History

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Radical feminist attempts to divorce identity from sex put in motion a rolling revolution in marriage and family life whose latest turn is toward transgender rights.

Do Involved Parents Subvert the American Dream?

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The happiest, freest, and most prosperous future available to Americans might not be the most egalitarian.

Transgender Suicides: What to Do About Them

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I have personally experienced gender dysphoria, and I explored transition in my early twenties. I am aware of the emotional struggle, but I am also aware of the empowering realization that I alone control how I perceive the world.

Understanding the Election: The How and the Why of 2016

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Political scientists James W. Ceaser, Andrew E. Busch, and John J. Pitney, Jr., take a hard look at the 2016 election, adding another book to their series of insightful election analyses.

Sexually Violent Predator Laws and Indefinite Confinement: Insights from C.S. Lewis

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Sexually violent predator laws permit the indefinite confinement of persons who have already served a sentence for their crime. They are a perfect example of what C.S. Lewis called the humanitarian theory of punishment, replacing punishment and desert with treatment and therapy.

Recovering America’s Vital Center: Between Religious Nationalism and Radical Secularism

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The antidote to hyper-partisanship is a recovery of America’s tradition of civil religion. A new book by Philip Gorski takes up this difficult and subtle project.