When Shrugging is Not an Option
- May/June 2025
- April 30, 2025
Religious Right watchdogs may remember the flap in late 1996 and early 1997 over a symposium in Richard John Neuhaus's journal First Things. I argued in the pages of Liberty (September/October 1997) that two constituencies of what could be termed broadly the Religious Right were demonstrating very different loyalties. Neuhaus and his fellow Christian neo-
READ MORESo far this millennium has packed a sprightly pace of events into the opening months (I choose to begin it with this year and not the next, as do some of the purists who are out of step with public perception, which is, after all, the only meaningful measure to something that is an artifice
READ MORE"If they are but another voice in the crowd, their power comes only from the ability to shout down the others–and they shall never prevail, because after they shout them down, the others will assemble a larger crowd next time and shout them down. And the contest becomes a never-ending struggle for what is presumed
READ MOREThe young woman, like so many others before her, brushes past the older woman on the sidewalk, averting her eyes from a sign with a baby's picture and the words "Why, Mom–When I Have So Much Love to Give?" "We have only about seven seconds to try to make a contact with them," says 52
READ MOREThere's nothing like the excitement surrounding the first day of school-it's an American tradition. Across the nation, millions of students enter a new season of classes, books, and exams after a long summer's rest. But late last August this tradition hit a speed bump for 4,000 private parochial school students in Cleveland, Ohio, when U.S.
READ MOREAsk the question again of the remnants of that same Second Ranger Battalion, now reinforced and assigned to Hill 400 in eastern France, late in November. The First Army had already thrown four divisions at Hill 400 with crushing losses. The conditions were even worse than at the Pointe. Still the Rangers went in, knowing
READ MOREA Warm Fuzzie I read your "Millennium Man" piece and felt that you must be named after Abraham Lincoln since some of the stardust of the Gettysburg address fell onto your pen for that piece … well done! LARRY PAHL via E-mail [Whoever said ego has no place in editing never got such an endorsement.
READ MOREThe moment had a surreal quality to it. It happened at Phoenix airport back in March. In transit on my way back to the Washington, D.C., area, I decided to spend some time in the frequent fliers' lounge. The general concourse was flooded with Sunday travelers, and noisy with discussion. But no amount of noise
READ MOREWhat Is a Good Citizen? The continuing American cultural debate on what is good and bad in the body politic again brings up the question that the first Christians asked in their totally different and hostile milieu. The great early American statesman and orator Daniel Webster once stated that "whatever makes men good Christians makes
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