Michael D. Brown

In his famous 1977 interview economist and Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman discusses the history of mankind living under tyranny. That famous interview is always worth re-watching and I have embedded it below for those of you who have not yet seen it. One of the professor’s most poignant contentions is that mankind has predominately lived [...]

The Reverend Dr. Matthew C. Harrison, President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod testified today before Congressman Issa’s (R-CA) House committee looking into the Obama Administration’s contraceptive mandate for religious institutions. His testimony is excellent and along the lines of The Rev. William Lori who told the committee, “It is absurd for someone to come [...]

I have been to one – that’s 1 – professional hockey game in my life and that was a Colorado Avalanche game years ago. Interesting and exciting, but as I say, I’ve been to one. Maybe it’s time to reevaluate my ambivalence toward hockey. Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas first caught my attention when he [...]

Protesting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) an appropriately misnamed piece of legislation designed to give the federal government censorship over the Internet, former Senator Chris Dodd, now the CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) today showed us just how perverted some people view the Constitution. Wikipedia and other Internet sites went [...]

Lexicology, the study of words and their meaning, or the relationship between words, is a fascinating world when different languages and cultures intersect one another. In the United States words are now the subject of a Supreme Court case in which the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) rules about obscenity and indecency are under review by [...]

Before I get to the substance of the Court’s decision this week, here are the facts as cited by the Court in prohibiting high school students from wearing an American flag t-shirt: On Cinco de Mayo in 2009, a verbal exchange and altercation arose between a group of predominantly white and a group of Mexican [...]

The headlines are almost overwhelming. Americans are accused of Islamaphobia, Jews are persecuted around the world, Holocaust deniers continue to push their garbage, and honor killings in the United States continue but rarely reported. And in my own backyard, the Air Force Academy capitulates to political correctness over a toys for tots program sponsored by [...]

As I dug through the news tonight I was struck by one recurring theme – the squandering of freedom we are accepting here and around the world. As the world becomes less free, as it always has been, our own internal destruction of freedom becomes more pronounced. So bear with me as we go through [...]

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution reads as follows: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of [...]

A quintessential aspect of American life has been the intellectually debating of issues of all kinds. The importance of debate and the free flow of ideas was recognized by the Founding Fathers when they incorporated the right of free speech as the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Debate and competition between ideas leads [...]