Rev. Ben Johnson (@therightswriter) is an Eastern Orthodox priest and served as Executive Editor of the Acton Institute (2016-2021), editing Religion & Liberty, the Powerblog, and its transatlantic website. He has extensively researched the Alt-Right. Previously, he worked for LifeSiteNews and FrontPageMag.com, where he wrote three books including Party of Defeat (with David Horowitz, 2008). His work has appeared at DailyWire.com, National Review, The American Spectator, The Guardian, Daily Caller, National Catholic Register, Spectator USA, FEE Online, RealClear Policy, The Blaze, The Stream, American Greatness, Aleteia, Providence Magazine, Charisma, Jewish World Review, Human Events, Intellectual Takeout, CatholicVote.org, Issues & Insights, The Conservative, Rare.us, and The American Orthodox Institute. His personal websites are therightswriter.com and RevBenJohnson.com. His views are his own.
Posts by Rev. Ben Johnson
June 07, 2018
Some mental images are especially vivid. One phrase stands out in the war of words preceding the brewing U.S.-EU trade war. “Global trade is not a gunfight at the O.K. Corral,” said French finance minister Bruno Le Maire last Thursday, after President Trump imposed new tariffs on steel and aluminum.
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June 05, 2018
“Someone who has never won an election is now prime minister of the government,” said outgoing prime minister Mariano Rajoy, as he turned over his office to the head of the nation’s Socialist Party, Pedro Sánchez.
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June 04, 2018
Late last week, President Donald Trump announced he would impose steel and aluminum tariffs against U.S. allies across the transatlantic sphere. Here are the facts you need to know:
President Trump applied a 25 percent tariff on steel and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum against the European Union, as well as NAFTA trade partners Canada and Mexico.
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May 31, 2018
One of Europe’s most robust welfare states may be proving that government intervention and true social solidarity are inimical forces.
Many economic interventionists on both sides of the Atlantic cite the Catholic social teaching of “solidarity” – or, at least, their own conception of it – to justify far-reaching government policies of wealth confiscation and redistribution.
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May 29, 2018
In
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis described the dreary state of Narnia under the curse of the White Witch as “always winter but never Christmas.” His assessment may soon apply to the National Health Service (NHS), whose annually intensifying “winter crisis” threatens to become permanent, according to the UK’s leading doctors’ association.
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May 21, 2018
This Friday, May 25, Irish voters will decide in a national referendum whether to repeal Article 8 of the Constitution, which “acknowledges” the rights of all living human beings in Ireland, including unborn children, and encourages lawmakers to enact “laws to defend and vindicate that right.”
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May 18, 2018
What are the details of the royal wedding, and where can I watch?
The royal wedding of Prince Harry, 33, to actress Meghan Markle, 36, will take place inside St. George’s Chapel, Westminster, on Saturday, May 19 at 12 noon London time (7 a.m.
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May 17, 2018
Violations of religious liberty, including physical assaults against church buildings, increased in 2017, according to a report from a watchdog based in Spain.
Socialists perpetrated many of these attacks – which ranged from vandalism to attempted fire-bombings with Molotov cocktails – to protest both the Roman Catholic Church’s stance on social issues and its impact on economics.
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May 16, 2018
First, the chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences said, “Right now, those who are best implementing the social doctrine of the Church are the Chinese.” Now, Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Germany has credited Karl Marx with helping craft Catholic social teaching.
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May 10, 2018
Many people acclaim Adam Smith as the father of economics. Others trace the origins of economics to the eighteenth century Physiocrats, while others look back far as Aristotle. “The real founders of economic science actually wrote hundreds of years before Smith,” wrote Lew Rockwell at Mises.org.
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