Homelessness has reached crisis proportions. Few issues of human dignity are as heart wrenching as the wretched scenes in our most prosperous cities — San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle — where one can drive down main thoroughfares and be confronted with tent encampments lining streets that provide scant shelter for thousands of destitute people. The crisis is as multifaceted as it is seemingly intractable. What is the role of mental illness in the crisis? What about drug addiction? Is the rising cost of housing part of the problem, and if so, what can be done about it? What protections does society owe these vulnerable people based simply on their humanity and what responsibilities, if any, do they owe to greater society? It’s all such a mess, it is tempting to throw up one’s hands in despair. Thankfully, there are people willing to tackle the seemingly helpless cause. Wesley’s guest on this episode of Humanize, Robert Marbut, Jr., is one such man. Marbut is a renowned expert on homelessness and a senior fellow of Discovery Institute’s Center on Wealth & Poverty. He has a PhD in Political Behavior and American Political Institutions and his career has been marked by bipartisanship having served as Chief of Staff for San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros in the 1980s, as a White House Fellow under George H. W. Bush, and most recently as the Executive Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness from 2019 to 2021 under both the Trump and Biden administrations. Additionally, he served on the Board of Directors of the United States Olympic Committee from 1992 to 2004. Marbut is a tenured professor of government at Northwest Vista College in San Antonio, TX. Economics | Discovery Institute (wealthandpoverty.center) Most Cities’ Responses To Homelessness Actually Enable Even More Homelessness USICH Expanding the Toolbox Biden Administration’s ‘Free Crack Pipe’ Scheme Hurts the Homeless and Harms Society Jim Palmer of the Orange County Rescue Mission on causes and cures for America’s homelessness crisis
In this episode of Humanize, Wesley has a wide-ranging a conversation with his close friend Joseph Bottum, one of our most well read and original thinkers, a true intellectual in the best sense of that term. Their conversation ranges from the new field of cyber-ethics, to poetry, to the importance of cemeteries in maintaining human community, to how the laughter of a little girl he never met changed the course of Bottum’s life. Bottum is one of the nation’s most widely ranging thinkers, with hundreds of essays, reviews, poems, and short stories in publications from the Atlantic to the Washington Post. He is the former Books AND Arts Editor for the Weekly Standard and Editor of the religious journal, First Things. He is the author of the sociological study, An Anxious Age, and more recently, The Decline of the Novel. He is also a Christopher Award-winning writer of children’s verse. His popular writing ranges from obituaries in The Times of London to political essays in our leading journals, to a #1-bestselling sports essays in Amazon’s Kindle singles series, and numerous short stories. He is also a music lyricist, whose work has been performed by singers from Nashville to Carnegie hall. A native of south Dakota, Bottum holds a B.A. from Georgetown and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Boston College. He is an associate professor at Dakota State University, and currently directs the Classics Institute, a think tank at Dakota state university for the study of cyber-ethics, that views the computer revolution as an advance in civilization, while being cognizant of its effects. And if that’s not enough, Bottum is also the poetry editor for the NY Sun. Here are the links: CLASSICS Institute – Dakota State University (dsu.edu) The Immorality of Bad Software Design | Washington Examiner “The Morning Watch,” by Joseph Bottum – Mockingbird (mbird.com) The Pig-Man Cometh | Washington Examiner An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America – Kindle edition by Bottum, Joseph. Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. The Decline of the Novel: Bottum, Joseph: 9781587311987: Books (amazon.com)
Perhaps no field in society has the naked power, as does bioethics, to impact our individual lives and those of the ones we love. Bioethics focuses on the challenges of mortality, how we care for the ill and vulnerable, and the rights and responsibilities that flow from being a member of the human family. The problem is that there is little agreement about how to define these issues and the policies that best promote human thriving. The mainstream view in bioethics rejects the intrinsic dignity of human life — and supports policies in accord with that view. The minority of the field argues that being human is — in and of itself — a crucial objective category to properly understanding our rights that compels us us to undertake crucial responsibilities toward each other, society, and the world at large. Wesley’s guest in this episode is, Dr. O. Carter Snead, is one of the world’s premier thinkers in the latter camp. He is the William P. and Hazel B White Director of the Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, at Notre Dame University, where he also serves as a professor of law and concurrent professor of Political Science. He is also a fellow at the Hastings Center and a member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, the principle bioethics advisory body to Pope Francis. He has written more than 60 journal articles, book chapters, and essays. His scholarly works appear in such publications as the New York University Law Review, the Harvard Law Review Forum, the Vanderbilt Law Review, Constitutional Commentary, and the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law and Ethics. Snead served as general counsel to The President’s Council on Bioethics. In 2008, he was appointed by the director-general of UNESCO to a four-year term on the International Bioethics Committee. The IBC is the only bioethics commission in the world with a global mandate. Snead is the author of What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics, which was named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the “Ten Best Books of 2020.” O. Carter Snead | The Law School | University of Notre Dame (nd.edu) What It Means to Be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics – Kindle edition by Snead, O. Carter. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. Protect the Weak and Vulnerable: The Primacy of the Life Issue – Public Discourse (thepublicdiscourse.com) To heal America’s wounds, we need to recall that we belong to one another (nypost.com)
When Terri Schiavo collapsed with a cardiac arrest in 1990, she could have had no idea that 32 years later people all over the world would know her name and care very much about the manner in which she died. What began as a private family tragedy ultimately exploded into an international cultural conflagration and what was perhaps the most important legal case involving American bioethics since Roe v Wade. When it was over, Terri was dead, society was bitterly divided, and our culture changed fundamentally. Wesley’s guest on this episode of Humanize, journalist and best-selling author Lynn Vincent, spent more than a year researching the Schiavo case for her new podcast Lawless, which examines “the frightening fact of American life that not all crime is against the law.” In 14 detailed episodes, Vincent explores the facts, controversy, and meaning of the Terri Schiavo case. Vincent is the #1 New York Times best-selling writer of eleven nonfiction books with more than 16 million copies in print. Lynn’s latest book is INDIANAPOLIS: The True Story of the Worst Sea Disaster in U.S. Navy History and the Fifty-Year Fight to Exonerate an Innocent Man (Simon and Schuster 2018.) Written with National Geographic historian Sara Vladic, was chosen as one of the Best of 2018 by Barnes and Noble, Kirkus Reviews, Military Times, Amazon, and NPR. Among Vincent’s other bestselling books are Same Kind of Different as Me (with Ron Hall and Denver Moore) and Heaven is for Real (with Todd Burpo.) Both were released as major motion pictures. While on active duty with the U.S. Navy, Vincent served during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Her military experience proved critical in writing Dog Company: A True Story of American Soldiers Abandoned by Their High Command, written with former 101st Airborne infantry commander Captain Roger T. Hill, Dog Company. A veteran journalist, Lynn’s investigative pieces have been cited before Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court. She has been profiled in major media outlets, including Newsweek and The New Yorker. Lawless is available for listening on all podcast platforms. Lawless: Not Every Crime is Against the Law Bio – Lynn Vincent Books Archive – Lynn Vincent The Great Terri Schiavo Divide | Wesley J. Smith | First Things
It is no secret that our country is badly divided and riven by profound moral, religious, and political differences about what constitutes the good, the best means of promoting human flourishing, and even the proper meaning of the term, “civil rights.” The question thus becomes: How do we maintain mutual respect and comity, and retain sufficient cohesion to be considered a true society? Read More ›
The usual canard about the pro-life movement goes something like this: “Pro-lifers care so much about babies before they are born, but not much after. The thing about canards is that, by definition, they are not true. Pro-lifers also work hard to protect the lives of born people—often in coalition with activists and organizations that do not oppose abortion–ranging from crisis pregnancy centers that help mothers after their babies are born, to the fight against assisted suicide and opposing the dehydration of cognitively disabled patients like Terri Schiavo. Most pro-life organizations also work against so-called “futile care” hospital protocols. Futile Care–also known as medical futility and inappropriate care–is a utilitarian bioethical policy that allows doctors to remove wanted life-sustaining treatment based on the doctors’ own beliefs about suffering, the value of life, and the costs of care. In this sense, futile care protocols are a form of ad hoc health care rationing Texas is a pro-life state. Yet, the state has the most egregious law in the nation allowing doctors to impose futile care treatment cut offs on unwilling patients. Texas Right to Life has been striving for many years to repeal this law legislatively, so far with only partial success. (Full disclosure, Wesley has testified several times in the Texas Legislature in support of this effort.) But now, the organization has brought a lawsuit that may bring about the demise of futile care in Texas involving a baby named Tinslee Lewis, attacking the constitutionality of futile care laws, which could point the way forward in other states that allow futile care impositions. Texas Right to Life also promoted and helped enact the famous (or infamous, depending on one’s point of view) “Texas Heartbeat Bill” that forbids abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, and which allows for private enforcement through civil litigation. The law remains in effect despite repeated efforts in the courts to enjoin such lawsuits. Wesley’s guest is leading these efforts in the legal trenches on behalf of Texas Right to Life. East Texas native and attorney, Emily Cook has devoted herself to the pro-life movement since 2007, when she volunteered with a local crisis pregnancy center. A graduate of Stephen F Austin Texas State University and Baylor University Law School, Emily has worked numerous legislative sessions on behalf of Texas Right to Life and currently serves as the organization’s General Counsel, for which she focuses on nonprofit corporate governance law, campaign finance law, and patient advocacy issues. Texas Right to Life | Statewide Builders of a Pro-Life Texas Baby Tinslee wins in Texas Supreme Court, temporary injunction protecting her life still stands | Texas Right to Life California Gun Bill Significantly Different from Texas Heartbeat Act | Texas Right to Life Texas Hospital Impeding Mother’s Attempt to Save Baby’s Life (theepochtimes.com)
The COVID pandemic has been one of the most politically and culturally divisive events in American history. Which seems odd. Usually, a universal external threat unite societies and rallies populations to focus on the common foe. Instead, American society fractured into different tribes, which often coincided with our preexisting political factionalism. 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 Big Tech circled the wagons to prevent dissenting views from being aired — and even seeking to punish those with differing opinions. One of those caught in this cultural oppression was Wesley’s guest on this episode of Humanize. He and Wesley discuss how COVID was treated differently than other pandemics, the personal costs of taking a heterodox view on the best approach to the pandemic, how science has been corrupted by politics, and Bhattacharya’s views on the safety of the COVID vaccines and the wisdom of vaccine mandates. It is an illuminating discussion with a highly credentialed expert about one of the most dramatic scientific events in recent world history. Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya is a Professor of Health Policy at Stanford University and directs Stanford’s Center for Demography and Economics of Health and Aging. Dr. Bhattacharya’s research focuses on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations, with a particular emphasis on the role of government programs, biomedical innovation, and economics. Dr. Bhattacharya’s recent research focuses on the epidemiology of COVID-19 as well as an evaluation of policy responses to the epidemic. He has published 135 articles in top peer-reviewed scientific journals in medicine, economics, health policy, epidemiology, statistics, law, and public health among other fields. He holds an MD and PhD in economics, both earned at Stanford University. He is also a co-author the Great Barrington Declaration, published in the fall of 2020, to great controversy, which dissented against the reigning public health policies being brought to bear against the virus, and offered a heterodox approach that would recommended reopening society as we continued to protect our most vulnerable members from illness. Related Great Barrington Declaration (gbdeclaration.org) We Cannot Stop the Spread of COVID, But We Can End the Pandemic ⋆ Brownstone Institute The Emergency Must Be Ended, Now ⋆ Brownstone Institute The Collins and Fauci Attack on Traditional Public Health ⋆ Brownstone Institute Fauci Wants UN to ‘Rebuild the Infrastructures of Human Existence’ (theepochtimes.com)
Adoption didn’t used to be a matter of significant controversy. Public and private adoption agencies worked diligently to place children needing families with those who wanted to love them. Private adoptions often happened without a hitch. These days, adoption has been caught up, at least to some degree, in the culture wars surrounding abortion and gay rights. Adoption of children from foreign countries also sometimes gets caught up in disputes among nations, leaving wanted children unadopted and yearning parents heartbroken. But we all need families. There are still children desperately needing permanent and loving homes in which to grow up and thrive. Adoption is an important issue about which more information needs to be known. So, in this episode of Humanize, Wesley explores the issue from all angles, including those involving controversial areas, such as those touching on LGBT issues as well as inter-racial adoption, and the abortion issue. It is an extremely informative conversation with one of the nation’s premier experts on adoption that anyone interested in adoption and the families that benefit from opening their hearts to children will want to hear. Ryan Hanlon is Acting CEO and President of the National Council for Adoption where he oversees NCFA’s educational projects, including the annual National Adoption Conference for adoption professionals, and online educational programs, training, and resources. He also leads NCFA’s research initiatives, and our federal legislative and policy work. Additionally, Ryan serves as liaison to NCFA’s members including adoption service providers and adoption attorneys across the United States. Hanlon came to NCFA with over thirteen years of experience as an adoption professional. Prior to NCFA, he served as the Executive Director of a Hague-accredited agency that focuses on both domestic and intercountry adoption. He has experience serving as a foster care caseworker as well as with child protective services. In the field of adoption, Ryan has been a speaker at national conferences, and has worked on accreditation issues and state licensing matters. After receiving his B.A., Hanlon earned a MA in Liberal Arts, a MS in Nonprofit Management, as well as a Master of Social Work degree. He earned a PhD in social work from The Catholic University of America. He has served as a social work field instructor and an adjunct professor of social work to both undergraduate and graduate students. Links Home – National Council For Adoption (adoptioncouncil.org) House Bill and Senate Bill NCFA action center for all legislative issues
We live in intellectually mediocre times, when commitment to true debate as a means of ascertaining truth — and the understanding that reasonable people can have different opinions — has been replaced by a desire among the culturally powerful to stifle heterodox thought and punish unapproved opinions. Wesley’s guest on this episode of Humanize refuses to yield to such intellectual straightjacketing. A true polymath, Dr. David Berlinski advocates heterodox ideas and thought, ranging from questioning Darwinism, to espousing the once-self-evident truth that there is such a thing as human nature. He and Wesley discuss the philosophy of mathematics, the corruption of science, and the causes of the ongoing devolution of Western society. Berlinski is stupefied to learn of the new environmental movement known as “nature rights,” which he rightly brands as “idiotic.” It’s a fascinating conversation with Berlinski, who is rightly considered one of the great minds of our time. David Berlinski received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University and was later a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics and molecular biology at Columbia University. He is currently a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. Dr. Berlinski has authored works on systems analysis, differential topology, theoretical biology, analytic philosophy, and the philosophy of mathematics, as well as three novels. He has also taught philosophy, mathematics and English at such universities as Stanford, Rutgers, the City University of New York and the Universite de Paris. He is author of numerous books, including A Tour of the Calculus, The Advent of the Algorithm, Newton’s Gift, A Short History of Mathematics, The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions, The King of Infinite Space: Euclid and His Elements, and his most recent, Human Nature, published in 2019. He is also the author of too many essays to count and the subject of innumerable interviews. Links David Berlinski | Writer, Thinker, and Raconteur Human Nature: Berlinski, David: 9781936599714: Amazon.com: Books The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions: Berlinski, David: 8601300280028: Amazon.com: Books
Is criminal justice a “human dignity issue?” Wesley’s guest, Pat Nolan makes a compelling case that it is and for improving the manner in which—and attention we pay to—the care and rehabilitation of incarcerated people. In their conversation, Nolan discusses his upbringing in a tough Los Angeles neighborhood and how that led him to a career got in politics as a means of protecting society from criminal predators. But when Nolan was incarcerated for a campaign finance violation, he saw the issue from the other side of the prison cell. Prisoners are too often treated in a demeaning and cruelly unjust fashion, he says, that not demeans their essential humanhood but which also does violence to their souls, making them more likely to commit crimes after they are released. While in prison, Nolan was recruited by the late Chuck Colson to work for his Prison Fellowship ministry on issues of criminal justice reform and methods of improving prisoner rehabilitation, a work that took a distinctly Christian approach which he continues years after his mentor’s death. Nolan was instrumental in helping to pass the First Step Act, signed into law by President Trump, a criminal justice reform measure that is already reducing recidivism and improving community safety. And he’s not done yet. “I will go out with my boots on,” he tells Wesley. Nolan explains his commitment to help those who many scorn in this compelling conversation about an seemingly intractable and uniquely American issue. Pat Nolan is the Director Emeritus of the American Conservative Union Foundation’s Nolan Center for Justice. Launched in 2014, The Center informs and mobilizes public support for criminal justice reforms based on conservative principles, and works with government officials to effectively implement those reforms. Nolan is a leading voice on criminal justice reform, highlighting the skyrocketing costs of prison, fiscal responsibility in the criminal justice system and reforms for non-violent offenders. He is a leader of the Right on Crime project— a national movement of conservative leaders supporting sensible and proven reforms to our criminal justice system – policies that will contain prison costs while keeping the public safe. Previously, he served for 15 years in the California State Assembly, four of those as the Assembly Republican Leader. He was a leader on crime issues, particularly on behalf of victims’ rights, was one of the original sponsors of the Victims’ Bill of Rights (Proposition 15), and was awarded the “Victims Advocate Award” by Parents of Murdered Children. Nolan was targeted for prosecution for a campaign contribution he accepted which turned out to be part of an FBI sting. He pleaded guilty to one count of racketeering and served 29 months in federal custody. Before entering prison a friend of his told him that “for centuries Christians have left their day-to-day world, humbled themselves, done menial labor, prayed and studied their faith. We call that a monastery. View this time as your monastic experience.” Pat credits this friend with helping him enter prison in a frame of mind which allowed him to put the time to good use/ Nolan is the author of When Prisoners Return, which describes the important role of the Church in helping prisoners get back on their feet after they are released. He is a frequent expert witness at Congressional hearings on important issues such as prison work programs, juvenile justice, prison safety, offender reintegration and religious freedom. He has lectured at many judicial conferences and legal conventions. His opinion pieces have appeared in numerous periodicals including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the National Law Journal, National Review Online, and the Washington Times. He is a frequent guest on television and radio shows, including Fox Network News, Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, Michael Reagan, and Sean Hannity. Pat earned both his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and his Juris Doctorate at the University of Southern California. Links Testimony Before the U.S. Sentencing Commission of Pat Nolan (ussc.gov) Policy Center | (conservativejusticereform.org) The Conservative Spearheading Criminal-Justice Reform | The New Yorker President Trump’s Pardon of Pat Nolan — A Great Moment for Criminal Justice Reform – The American Spectator | USA News and Politics The American Conservative Union Nolan Center for Justice
