“Unless incentives suddenly stopped mattering during this recession, says Casey B. Mulligan, an economics professor at the University of Chicago, “it appears that the expanding social safety net explains some of the excess nonemployment among unmarried women who are heads of households.”
Read more on Marital Status and the Social Safety Net…

In a political climate dominated by debates about individual mandates and restrictions on religious freedoms, an issue like road privatization isn’t likely to be on the top of anyone’s list of major concerns. But the excellent post on “The Mirage of Free-Market Roads” by Timothy B. Lee, a writer with Ars Technica and the Cato Institute, is worth reading even if you don’t care about toll roads. Lee provides an intriguing example of why we need to think clearly about how we apply principles to policy:
Read more on How “Free-Market Roads” Can Restrict Freedom…

“The state’s appetite to find solutions from the center lures it to create positive rights out of thin air,” says Ismael Hernandez, president and founder of the Freedom and Virtue Institute, “even at the expense of a narrower space for civil society.”
Read more on Obamacare Lets the Government Decide What’s Moral…

Michael Gerson on what the Obama administration’s view of religious liberty shares with John Locke:

Read more on John Locke and the Contraceptive Mandate…

“The past year has marked a shift in religious liberty debates,” notes Sarah Pulliam Bailey at Christianity Today, “one that previously centered on hiring rights but became focused on health care requirements.” Bailey put together a helpful timeline that shows a number of actions the government took in the past year, setting precedents and priorities on various issues affecting religious freedom.

Read more on Obama Administration Actions Affecting Religious Freedom…

Because you had party balloons at your 7-year-old’s birthday party, you many not be able to get a MRI scan by the time your 70. At least that is the conclusion of some scientists who say the world supply of helium, which is essential in research and medicine, is being squandered because we are using the gas for party balloons:
Read more on How Using Party Balloons Today Could Affect Healthcare Costs Tomorrow…

“The power of population,” wrote the Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus in 1798, “is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.” In other words, unless population growth is checked by moral restraint (refraining from having babies) or disaster (disease, famine, war) widespread poverty and degradation inevitably result. Or so thought Malthus and many other intellectuals of his era.

Unfortunately, methods of population control range from the unpleasant (disease, famine, war) to the downright horrifying (abstinence).
Read more on Malthus and the Contraceptive Mandate…

In an Acton Commentary last month, Jordan Ballor presented a helpful explanation of the differences between “capitalism” and “corporatism”, a capitalist system that has been corrupted:

Read more on Where Corporatism and Crony Contraceptives Collide…

While working on an article today, I read Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s 2005 homily right before the was elected Pope.

I wanted to recall a section about truth that cannot be repeated enough. It is especially pertinent in light of the Obama Administration’s so-called compromise on the HHS mandate. The compromise changes nothing. It is political sophistry. It still forces people to act against their conscience and support moral evil. The truth about good and evil cannot be swept away by an accounting trick.

Read more on Can’t be said too often ……

In the seventeenth-century, the Dutch lawyer, magistrate, and scholar Hugo Grotius advanced Protestant natural-law thinking by grounding it in human nature rather than in the divine commands of God. As he claimed, “the mother of right—that is, of natural law—is human nature.” For Grotius, if an action agrees with the rational and social aspects of human nature, it is permissible; if it doesn’t, it is impermissible.

This view of law shaped his writings on jurisprudence, which in turn, had a profound influence on the shape of the law in the West. The Founding Fathers of America considered Grotius’s jurisprudence to be authoritative and relied on it when forming their perspectives on such areas as international law. One of the principles that Grotius advanced—and that was enshrined in our common law—was the concept that for a formal contract to be legally binding it must be entered into freely and with the consent of all parties involved.

In certain circumstances, such as when entering into commercial contracts, consent is considered to be inviolable precondition. If a person who is incapacitated and is unable to give consent or makes an agreement under duress, the contract is rendered invalid. Today, we consider this principle to be such a basic legal axiom that it seems inconceivable that anyone would challenge it.

And yet, that is precisely what the Obama Administration is doing with its inclusion of an “individual mandate” in the Affordable Care Act.

Read more on Hugo Grotius vs. ObamaCare…