Kerby Anderson
The world keeps getting increasingly more dangerous. Robert Clark provides several examples. There is the “war in Ukraine; China’s increasingly bellicose actions in the South China Sea and its little-talked-about nuclear proliferation; and Iranian aggression that threatens the existence of Israel, the lives of U.S. forces and their allies in the Middle East, and the security of global shipping lanes.”
All of that is enough for any of us to avert our eyes and focus on something else. But his argument is “The World Needs the West.” We may not want to think about foreign policy, but the future of a stable world depends on us electing the right politicians and appointing the right cabinet officers.
After the Cold War, we enjoyed a “peace dividend.” That allowed many European countries, along with this country, to reduce defense spending. This loss of military capability led to a loss of a credible deterrent. Many Americans don’t want to go to war. Perhaps the best way to avoid war is to have enough military might that will deter aggression.
The editors of the Wall Street Journal put it this way: “Mr. Biden talks about a world at risk from autocracies, but he acts like this is 1992 and the Soviet Union just collapsed. The world today is more like the late 1930s, as dictators build their militaries and form a new axis of animosity, while the American political class sleeps.”
The editors are also aware of our national debt and argue that what is currently spent “for defense in 2025 is a fraction of what Congress has blown on social programs over the past three years.” They argue we need an informed debate about priorities.
During this election year, we need to remember what is at stake not only in this country but around the world.

Kerby Anderson
When school is out, that is a time when administrators should establish needed policies before schools and colleges reconvene. High on the list is to develop policies concerning student walkouts.
In a recent article, Stanley Kurtz reminds us how the country has been swept up in successive waves of disorder and lawlessness on campuses. These range from protests about racism to protests about the election of Donald Trump to high school walkouts about guns to recent pro-Hamas demonstrations.
He reminds us that missing from all of this is any trace of accountability. Speakers are shouted down. Jewish students and conservative students are threatened. And high school students not only walk off campus but are often praised and even authorized by faculty.
In many cases, civic education in the schools has been co-opted and converted into a pretext for political activism under euphemisms like “civic engagement” or “action civics.” Students are not only encouraged to protest but are often given course credit for protesting or lobbying.
The Supreme Court has ruled in Tinker v Des Moines that students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door. But that case involved students wearing black armbands to class, not allowing students to just walk out of class and head to a protest off campus without any supervision from the school.
Also, that case assumed that the public schools would be neutral, but we now have cases of schools promoting protests and taking sides. Students face teacher pressure and peer pressure, along with pressure from outside the school. And there is a concern over student safety and the school’s liability.
It is time for accountability. It is time to develop and promote policies concerning student walkouts.