Humanize

The homelessness and addiction catastrophes on our city streets seem intractable. Unhygienic squatter tent cities. Human waste on our sidewalks. Used needles littering our parks. Crime. Collapsing commercial districts. It’s enough to make one turn away in despair and allow areas of our once most beautiful cities to become no-go zones. But some refuse to yield. One is veteran independent Read More ›

It is no secret that American politics are in crisis. Polls show that Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives are increasingly estranged from each other, conservative red states and progressive blue states are enacting public policies that are dramatically dichotomous, and millions of people no longer trust the integrity of our electoral system. As this program is being recorded, there Read More ›

It’s no secret that American education is in a profound crisis. From dismal academic performance, to bitter contention over gender ideology taught in elementary school, the damage caused by COVID school lockdowns, a collapse in discipline, and fear of violence, “school days” have become much more complicated than reading, writing, and arithmetic.

A vibrant and engaged media is essential to protecting American liberty—which is why the First Amendment provides such a strong protection for freedom of the press. If the media are to carry out their societal responsibilities, journalists must have the trust of news consumers. But these days, trust is in low supply. An October 2022 Gallup Poll found that only Read More ›

Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy once opined that freedom of religion has “a double aspect—freedom of thought and action.” In other words, to be truly religiously free, one must not only be at liberty to believe, but act consistently with those beliefs. This concept of religious freedom—the right to live and act according to one’s faith—has historically been assaulted by totalitarian government Read More ›

The COVID pandemic has been one of the most politically and culturally divisive events in American history. Adding to our woes, the proper approach to scientific inquiry and policy makers’ relationship with the expert class became badly skewed. Once an orthodoxy was declared by the World Health Organization or the Center for Disease Control, government leaders, the mainstream media, and Read More ›

The United States has become the world’s most adamant promoter of what is now called “gender-affirming care” for children and adolescents who identify as being other than their born sex. This approach ranges from “social affirmation”—the use of preferred pronouns, for example—to “medical affirmation,” such as puberty blocking, to radical “surgical affirmation,” meaning mastectomies, facial feminization or masculinization cosmetic procedures, Read More ›

In his first term as California’s governor, Jerry Brown famously said back in 1975, “There is no free lunch. This is an era of limits and we all had better get used to it. Small is beautiful.” Was Brown right? These days, it seems that establishment thinking and most of the content on mainstream media believes it is so. Threats Read More ›

The environmental movement is growing ever-more extreme. Radical ideas such as granting rights to nature—including geological features like rivers, lakes, and glaciers—are gaining popularity as a means of “saving the planet.” But is there another way? Can we fulfill our human duty to be good stewards of the environment without undermining human exceptionalism and impeding our thriving? According to my Read More ›

Western Civilization is in crisis. It is becoming unmoored from its Judeo-Christian roots and the belief in the unique dignity of every human life, leading to destructive progressive social policies that some believe threaten us with a form of therapeutic authoritarianism. One such commentator is my guest today on Humanize. Rod Dreher is an American journalist and best-selling author. He Read More ›