Daily Archives: 12 March 2026

“Homilies Won’t Liberate Iran”

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That’s the headline of William McGurn’s Monday Wall Street Journal op-ed, and he’s right. His laid out his case early on.

This may sound harsh, but it’s necessary to say. The Catholic Church and its last few popes have understood only the destructive force of war. They appear to have given little thought to the terrible consequences for innocent people when soft words are offered as a substitute for tough but necessary action.

Pope Leo earlier this month, proving McGurn’s point in advance:

I am following with deep concern what is happening in the Middle East and in Iran during this tumultuous time. Stability and peace are not achieved through mutual threats, nor through the use of weapons, which sow destruction, suffering, and death, but only through reasonable, sincere, and responsible dialogue.

Dialogue with whom, exactly? With terrorists who have no concern about the lives of innocents beyond their propaganda value as dead bodies? With terrorists whose agreements and commitments with others are routinely and at convenience violated? The only thing the Iranian government’s terrorists are sincere about is their desire for the destruction of the Great and Little Satans—the US and Israel. The only dialogue they’re interested in being responsible for is negotiations as stall and distraction tactic.

McGurn’s response [emphasis his]:

Stability and peace are achieved only through dialogue? Is that what history tells us? It seems more accurate to say that the kind of rightly ordered world the pope desires can’t be built by armies alone—but can almost never be built without armies and without the threat of force. Most often it is force or the threat of it that makes dialogue possible.

I branch off from that, slightly. In the end, the Pope’s teaching, the Catholic Church’s teaching, the teachings of most any Christian or Jewish faith are important to maintaining the virtuous and religious populations that a republican democratic nation (or popular democratic nation, come to that) needs in order to survive. But, morals don’t win—can’t win—wars for survival, however critical they are to maintaining the backbone and endurance necessary to persevere and win those wars.

Winning wars comes down to physical, kinetic activities of one side being better and stronger and more lethal than those of the other side. And, yes, assuredly yes, some wars are just wars, even are wars that are required by morality to be fought.

As a man asked some time ago, then, how many divisions does the Pope have? Better if, instead of generalized moralizing, he offered concrete solutions and concrete mechanisms for achieving them along with his explanations of the morality underpinning them.

Equal Time is Obsolete

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That’s the claim of Thomas Hazlett, an economics prof at Clemson University and chief economist at the FCC late century, in his Sunday Wall Street Journal op-ed.

Critics say it has outlived its usefulness, as today’s media landscape offers a cornucopia of platforms unknown in 1920s America. The critics are right, except for one thing: The rule has never been useful and has always functioned mostly to suppress coverage for challengers.

On the contrary, the media routinely suppresses coverage, not just for challenger politicians in general, but for politicians on the right side of American politics, whether candidate or incumbent—and not just in politics: media routinely suppresses coverage of much of the discourse, on any subject, from the right.

We have The New York Times announcing around the time Donald Trump was campaigning in 2016 that there no longer could be balanced news reporting; news writers must take (the Left) side.

We have broadcast network anchors announcing that there are not two sides to arguments, in many cases there is only one side—and news anchors Know Better what that correct side is.

We have major newspapers announcing that they will no longer publish letters to their editors that dispute man-caused climate warming; that science is, those editors pronounced, settled.

We have media in general spiking stories that disputed the Russia hoax and the reality of the Hunter Biden laptop.

We have social media actively censoring posts from the right, even canceling the social media accounts of Conservative Presidential candidates and a variety of other accounts containing postings of information from the right.

Hazlett added this claim:

“Equal time” requirements tax free speech and turn debates into media circuses. The networks won’t broadcast them, and major-party candidates boycott them.

This is risible on its face. The former is the “media’s” decision, and their decision to not broadcast the debates is an obvious argument for the equal time law. The latter is a politician’s decision and is wholly irrelevant to the question of equal time legitimacy. Equal time requires outlets to offer equal time to all candidates; it does not require all candidates to participate.

The Radio Act of 1927 might need tweaking to bring it into the 21st century, but its principle—equal time for political candidates—remains highly useful.