Editorials

World Cup Visitors Get It; The Pope and Socialists Don’t

Several things have taken place over the past week that shore up the importance of understanding what has truly made the United States of America the most prosperous country in human history. First, we have the foreigners visiting the U.S. to cheer on their teams in this year's World Cup soccer championship. As I wrote last week, it's been heartwarming to see how much these people love America, and how surprised they've been to find that Americans are warm, welcoming, generous and kind people. Another aspect of America that has astonished our guests is the number, size and variety of ...

A look at the past

Research for a project like our upcoming America 250 publication is always interesting work. It is interesting to look back at old newspapers and see what the important issues of the time were. The challenge, of course, is that it is hard to stay on task, and the temptation to read through all of the old stories and study the old pictures is usually too great. It can turn what starts out as a straightforward search for a specific topic into many minutes spent reading about the past. That was the case when a copy of our Progress Edition from 1975 turned up. Dated Feb. 28 of that year, ...

Editorial cartoon

A Republic or an Empire?

The Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776, embraces two value sets. The first is natural rights, and the second is limited government. After 250 years, neither value has survived, and the opposite of each currently prevails in America. Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration in three days while staying at a rooming house in Philadelphia. He had been greatly influenced by the British philosopher John Locke. Locke is the godfather of the theory of natural rights, which he extrapolated from the natural law teachings of Aristotle, Augustine and Aquinas. Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) ...

Not Following the Example of President James K. Polk

A president orders the onset of hostilities -- war -- without authorization of Congress and without much in the way of making a case with the public. His troops win important victories and decapitate large parts of the government of the enemy. But in the enemy capital, no one surrenders or will even negotiate seriously. That leaves the president with the unhappy choice of launching a new military attack on the central focus of the enemy, one riskier and less certain of success than those before, or of declaring an incomplete victory, well short of his essential objective, and just ...

For Americans and Our Guests, the World Cup Runneth Over

Psalm 23:5, one of the best-known biblical passages, says, "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup overflows." It would be hard to find a passage that better reflects this year's World Cup soccer (OK, OK -- "football") championship, which the U.S. is hosting for the first time since 1994. But not because the other nations participating in this year's World Cup are our "enemies." To the contrary, the reactions of the athletes and fans from other countries who have traveled to and through the U.S. to compete and to cheer ...