Are You Smarter than an Arizona High School Student?

To determine students’ level of basic civic knowledge, The Goldwater Institute surveyed Arizona high school students with questions drawn from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) item bank, which consists of 100 questions given to candidates for United States citizenship. You can download a copy of the citizenship bank of questions here. The longstanding practice has bee [...]

Radicalism Goes Mainstream

![“Artim:](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/artim-20090707-saul-alinsky-liberals-america-takeover-government-leftists-tactics.jpg" ““Artim:”) Why does the Left sympathize with radical Islamic extremists? Over the July 4th weekend a story about how a recent New York City Council resolution that recommend the city’s school system shut down to commemorate two [...]

How Not to Help the Poor

![“Artim:](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/artim-20090706-poor-working-class-liberals-big-government-spending-reduce-taxes-spread-wealth.jpg" ““Artim:”) Alan Colmes, who co-hosted with Sean Hannity on FOX’s “Hannity and Colmes,” claims that Jesus “believed the rich should give to the poor.” Obama and most of Congress seem to agree. Let’s assume that Colme [...]

And They Call This Science

As a young boy, I loved science. On standardized tests, I always scored highest in the science category. Astronomy was a favorite interest, but it didn’t take me long to realize that astronomy is a spectator sport. While the moon is near enough, there was no way that I was ever going to hop scotch through the universe. I soon turned my scientific interests to electricity, short wave radios, and Mo [...]

Were the Founders Deists?

July 4th brings out the historical revisionists. One of the more kooky revisionist claims is that our Founding Fathers were Deists. Deism is a philosophical belief system that claims that God exists but is not involved in the world. While God created all things and set the universe in motion, He is no longer involved in its operation. Given this definition of deism, which of the founding fathers w [...]

Give me Money!

![“ArtIm:](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/artim-20090701-economy-taxes-greed-money-power.jpg" ““ArtIm:”) The Bible does not minimize the importance of economics. The Garden of Eden makes mention of gold and precious stones: “The gold of that land is good” (Genesis 2:11-12). Jesus used money as a teaching device in many of His parables. John MacArthur, pa [...]

It Can't Happen Here

![“ArtIm:](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/artim-20090630-conservatism-big-government-democracy-spending.jpg" ““ArtIm:”) Sociologist William Brustein went to Berlin a few years ago to tour the city. As his bus tour passed the bunker where Hitler spent his last days, the guide told how Hitler had seized power and fooled the German people. He assured the to [...]

Losing Faith in the Future

The brick-and-mortar Christian book business is in trouble. You could see the steady decline year after year at the International Christian Retail Show (ICRS) run by the Christian Booksellers Association. In fact, in 2008, Thomas Nelson, the largest Christian retailer, did not attend. This year, ICRS will meet in Denver “to significantly lower numbers—of both vendors and attendees.” Of course, muc [...]

The First Principles of Economics

What is the first principle of economics? Some economists will claim that it’s supply and demand, while others insist that it’s scarcity or the division of labor. The first principle of economics is “thou shalt not steal.”The word economics is derived from two Greek words: oikos, meaning “house,” and nomos, meaning “law.” Combined we get “rules or laws of the house.” Economics is ethical before it [...]

"Monsters from the Id"

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-2009june23.jpg" ““Article”) Michael G. Zey of Montclair State University in New Jersey writes: “People want to believe that there is superior life in the universe, and that these aliens will be able to upgrade our own lives. This is a form of wish fulfillment.”[1] This is especially true since, as [...]

Watch the Skies!

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-2009june22.jpg" ““Article”) “Pop-culture fiction, not academic nonfiction, is now the cutting edge of public discourse on spirituality.”[1] For several months I have been working on an extended project that explores the relationship of pop-culture to societal norms and worldview shifts. In addition [...]

Why Young People are Leaving the Church

Ken Ham, who believes in a literal six-day creation that happened around 6,000 years ago, says the church opened a door for the exodus of youth, beginning in the 19th century, when it began teaching that “the age of the Earth is not an issue as long as you trust in Jesus and believe in the resurrection and the Gospel accounts.” Ham concedes that “salvation is not conditioned on what you believe ab [...]

Moral Polytheism

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-2009june16.jpg" ““Article”) A number of articles have been published about the demise of the church in America. Newsweek, copying the cover design of the April 12, 1966 of Time magazine’s “Is God Dead?” cover, carried an article on The Decline and Fall of Christian America in its April 13, 2009 iss [...]

Media Matters

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-2009june09.jpg" ““Article”) For years, liberals have been telling us that screen scenes depicting gratuitous sex, sadism, nihilism, despair, violence, militant secularism, and blasphemy have little or no effect on the opinions and behavior of viewers. Those who make these claims are some of the sam [...]

Why Paying Attention to the Constitution Matters

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-2009june08.jpg" ““Article”) I received the following portion of a longer email from someone who disagreed with me on the interpretation of the Constitution related to the relationship between the Federal government and the states. He opened his email with this statement (my response follows his com [...]

The Terror Legacy of the Left

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-2009june03.jpg" ““Article”) In the July 11, 1968, issue of The Village Voice, Marvin Garson, the pamphleteer of the Free Speech Movement, recounted with pride the bombings which had been the calling card of campus radicals from Berkeley and its environs: The series of successful and highly popular [...]

Selective Condemnation

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-2009jun02.jpg" ““Article”) Paul Hill, convicted of murdering abortionist John Britton and his bodyguard in 1994, considered himself to be a twentieth-century John Brown. Brown, if you recall, was the self-appointed avenger of God who was fond of quoting Hebrews 9:22: “All things are by the law purg [...]

The Christian America Debate Continues

![“Article](“http://assets.americanvision.org/mediafiles/article-image-2009june01.jpg" ““Article”) Every society is founded on some ultimate principle. It might be the absolutism of a single ruler, the majority-rule concept of a pure democracy where the “voice of the people is considered to be the voice of God” (vox populi, vox dei), or an oligarchy where a self-appoi [...]

Wimps for Jesus Need Not Apply

The following news item from the OneNewsNow site should bring a cheer. We are not to be doormats for Jesus. WASHINGTON, DC - The group Americans United for Separation of Church and State wants the Internal Revenue Service to review Liberty University’s tax-exempt status because the Christian school revoked its recognition of a student-run Democratic club. Americans United made the request in [...]

Say No to Latinas, Italians, African Americans, and One-Legged Men

So a “Latina” has been nominated by Barack Obama to replace the retiring David Souter. Please explain to me how her ethnicity should make any difference. If Sonia Sotomayor were living in Puerto Rico, would her ethnicity be a factor? Of course not! So why should it matter in the United States? It shouldn’t. Her judicial philosophy should. But in today’s political climate, it’s all about ethnic and [...]