Free Republic

It has been said that opinions are like a certain anatomical feature (that good manners prevents naming) because everybody has one, and “they all stink” (except, of course, one’s own). The first half of that formulation is a quantitative measure – something that can be counted; whereas the latter half of the adage is a qualitative measure – a statement of value. Good debate should contain both elements, but good debate is increasingly hard to find these days. Mark Twain is reputed to have said that the world can be divided into two groups: those that divide the world into...

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley. What’s the most important thing most of us will do? The answer is, obviously, raise our kids. And that’s what New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote in his New Year’s Day column, but believe it or not, he caught all sorts of grief. Brooks was responding to a recent piece in the American Prospect by Linda Hirshman of Brandeis. She criticized the idea that “staying home with the kids is just one more feminist option.” For Hirshman, “the family—with its repetitious, socially invisible, physical tasks— . . ....

Even if one suspected that the feminists were not being entirely candid in this obeisance to traditional moms, it was hard to come up with the proof, specific statements of disdain from them for women’s traditional roles in the family. Not anymore. In a recent New York Times column, David Brooks reported on Linda Hirshman, a retired Brandeis professor who has decided the time is right to push the feminist case to the next plateau, to, as she says, “radicalize feminism.”