Marketplace of Ideas

My editors asked if I planned to write about the election, and I said yes. Perhaps they hoped I would pen something about the need to vote, a topic I’ve tackled before. But that seems unnecessary. Look at how many people have already voted. We all know the stakes in 2020. At this point,... Read more

Professors Miller and Salzman of Creighton University (Midlands Voices essay, Oct. 27) have come to a conclusion about candidates for whom to vote this year. We should each approach this important act of citizenship prayerfully, having formed our consciences according to the age-old beliefs of... Read more

This week’s New Yorker carried an article by Andrew Marantz whose main thrust was that Facebook is not doing a good job of moderating its content. The result is that all sorts of people and groups that, in the view of many experts the reporter interviewed, should not be... Read more

The New York Post published an explosive story last week reporting that, on the basis of files recovered from a laptop allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son Hunter, then-Vice President Biden met with executives from Burisma, a Ukrainian energy firm for whom his son worked... Read more

Facebook is after the Babylon Bee again. Here's the article they pulled: https://babylonbee.com/news/senator-hirono-demands-acb-be-weighed-against-a-duck-to-see-if-she-is-a-witch Yes, really. Facebook deleted the post for "inciting violence," Babylon Bee appealed, an actual human... Read more

Last week, Loyola University Maryland announced that it is renaming the Flannery O’Connor Residence Hall on campus. In an email to the Loyola community, President Brian F. Linnane, S.J., stated that he made this decision based on “information coming forward recently” which “revealed... Read more

In one black Portland police officer’s frontline experience, the Black Lives Matter protests in his city are not about helping black people attain better lives. What this officer sees is privileged white kids infiltrating communities that don’t belong to them to burn stuff, break things,... Read more

I try to reply cordially to every letter WORLD members send me. During June I briefly apologized 20 times to reprimands for a mistake I made, but with letter 21 something broke, and I responded at greater length. Thanks for your note. I was inaccurate to say George Floyd “by all accounts... Read more

Harper’s magazine has published a letter July 7 in defense of free speech signed by more than 150 public intellectuals, which has already fallen victim to the kind of virtual mob-rule that it decries. Ironically, a number of signatories have asked that their names be removed... Read more

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the late John Paul II’s birth, it’s worth underscoring that one theme which permeated his pontificate from its beginning to the end was that of truth. Many remember Pope John Paul II as playing a crucial role in Eastern Europe’s liberation... Read more