The following is from Commentary magazine’s November issue. Forty-one symposium contributors were asked to respond to the question: Are you optimistic or pessimistic about America’s future? _____________ In 1993 I helped William J. Bennett assemble The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators, which provided an empirical assessment of the social condition of American society. It provided

I had a recent conversation with my colleague Yuval Levin about gratitude, and in the course of our conversation he said that he considers it to be among the foremost conservative virtues. I agree, and would add that it's one of the more neglected ones. The link between gratitude and conservatism is based on the

Robert Jeffress is a prominent Southern Baptist pastor. He’s also a prime example of why people of the Christian faith are sometimes embarrassingly unequipped for American politics. Jeffress has created quite a stir by declaring Mormonism is a “cult” and because Mitt Romney is a Mormon, evangelical Christians should support Texas Governor Rick Perry over

What makes this particular moment in politics particularly interesting and important is that we’re engaged in a fundamental debate about the role of state in our lives. The Obama presidency has created something of an inflection point. We have to choose which path we want America to travel down—one that resembles the European welfare state

Earlier this week, David Brooks wrote a fascinating column on young people’s moral lives, basing it on hundreds of in-depth interviews with young adults across America conducted by the eminent Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith and his team. The results, according to Brooks, were “depressing”—not so much because of how they lived but because of “how

Now more than halfway through his third year in office—with the economy flat-lining, American prestige evaporating, and public anxiety spiking—Barack Obama is the most vulnerable incumbent president since Jimmy Carter. The election is still 14 months away, but it’s not too early to see the broad outlines of the GOP’s case against the president. Economic

In his remarks at China’s Sichuan University, Vice President Biden, in response to a question, said, “Your policy has been one which I fully understand—I’m not second-guessing—of one child per family. The result being that you’re in a position where one wage earner will be taking care of four retired people. Not sustainable.” This is a

Mr. Wehner’s commentary is the latest in a Spotlight on Poverty and Opportunity series entitled “Poverty and Society: A New Inquiry into an Old Question.“   In thinking through the best way to help truly disadvantaged Americans regain access to the American Dream, it’s helpful to disaggregate the issue and identify its shifting nature. There

The duties and responsibilities of commander-in-chief have never come easily to Barack Obama. We saw it in 2009, when the president struggled for months, seemingly unable to make a decision on the surge of troops in Afghanistan. Eventually he (mostly) agreed to the requests of his military commanders, but in the process Obama put in

Can you champion human rights while at the same time denying natural rights? This is a core question of political philosophy. It was raised anew for me while re-reading Conversations with Isaiah Berlin, a dialogue with one of the 20th century’s leading political theorists and historian of ideas. Professor Berlin, a man deeply committed to