Lessons of War

It is worth stating something plainly because people often assume political views appear fully formed. They rarely do. Mine certainly didn’t.

Preemptive. Defensive. Pick one.

Today Marco Rubio walked up to the microphones and delivered what might be the cleanest example of Orwellian doublethink you can fit into a single sentence: the United States struck Iran “pre-emptively” because we believed Israel was going to strike first, and Iran would retaliate against U.S. forces—so we hit them before they hit us. In other words, the “imminent threat” was the retaliation expected after the attack we expected.

Read that again slowly.

Proud to be American

I just watched USA win hockey gold and want to reflect on patriotism.

The Academy vs Courthouse Steps

When I was a graduate student at UF, I didn’t set out to become a “politics and religion” guy. I set out to restart a student group that had gone dormant, because it felt unhealthy—intellectually and civically—to let “religion” be treated as the default, unquestioned atmosphere.

Inscrutable AI, Deep Math, & A Legitimacy Problem

This morning I ran into a Rousseau quote that felt like it had been smuggled out of a sci-fi novel.

Theonomy Goes Mainstream

The phrase Christian nationalism is having one of those weeks where it stops being an abstract grad-seminar category and becomes a live description of power.

Tariff Man Faces Reality Check

Today’s Supreme Court ruling is the kind of event that forces a blunt question: do we believe in the Constitution as a real governing framework, or as a ceremonial prop we invoke when it flatters our side?