When times are tough, people look for scapegoats. Today the Obama Administration leaders are lambasting the racist elements of the Tea Party Movement and encouraging African-Americans to be more “intense” in their demands for better health care, education and job opportunities. For an Administration billed as “post-racial” we are seeing familiar agitprop and a refusal to condemn the hate speech of racial radicals on the Left. The failure of Attorney General Holder to prosecute the New Black Panther leaders in Philadelphia for voter intimidation is only one example of the preferential politics of this “post-partisan” regime.

For seven years I have commented on current events, waxed philosophical about creative and disturbing trends and tried to be a faithful “messenger to the thoughtful.” As we celebrate America’s 234th birthday, we are watching the erosion of ideals and institutions that have held our experiment in liberty together. I will continue to try to move the conversation from anger to action, from subjective feelings to principled thinking and from collectivist control to personal freedom.

Freedom is fragile. Throughout history, most people have lived in cultures or under regimes where blood, religion and soil have determined beliefs and behavior with no room for dissent. In the past 500 years, Judeo-Christian and Enlightenment affirmations of full liberty of conscience, private property and personal virtue have brought enormous good to the world.

Today at Acton I attended a lecture by Mustafa Akyol, a writer for the the Turkish Daily News and author of the forthcoming book, The Islamic Case for Freedom. He represents the most hopeful thinking I have heard from Muslims who seek to live peacefully alongside people of all faiths or none. Akyol uncovered some important historical sources of progressive Islamic thought, from the seventh to the twentieth centuries. There are multiple voices of pluralistic and tolerant thought that have been silenced by radicals throughout the centuries. He and I did not agree on every issue, but I have found a real partner for peace, a Muslim who does not want Jews and Christians in dhimmitude and rejects all forms of coercion in matters of religion.

Today at the Action Institute I attended excellent presentations on a range of topics, from evangelical environmental and social ethics to the challenges of globalization and the need for ethical entrepreneurship as one key to liberating persons from poverty. The insights and principles were important and well-stated and I will be using this knowledge immediately in classes and communication.