ARTICLES
Below are links to articles and essays I have published.
Bioethics, public policy, philosophy, religion, society, culture, health and human flourishing.
TEACH ME YOUR SUFFERING
CATHOLIC EXCHANGE
March/April 2025
A seven part weekly Lenten series on the Christian meaning of suffering and the Cross.
THE CLOSING OF THE INTERNET MIND
THE AMERICAN MIND
May 22, 2024
The definition of online freedom has been depressingly constricted over the last thirty years.
March 28, 2024
The government’s relationship with social media is not analogous to government interactions with print media.
February 29, 2024
"We should do more to develop affordable medical interventions for infertile couples—options that will not involve the creation of "excess" embryonic human life, condemned to either exist indefinitely in a frozen state of suspended animation or be discarded with the morning's trash. A civilized society should not condone cryogenic nurseries."
October 20, 2023
"Our post-truth, hyperpolitical world arose from elites’ stifling of free speech and robust debate. Until we acknowledge the source and address its causes, no calmer politics is on the horizon."
September 26, 2023
"The government's claim that the injunction limits public officials' own speech is absurd misdirection. The government can say whatever it wants publicly; it just cannot stop other Americans from saying something else. Free speech matters not to ensure that every pariah can say whatever odious thing he or she chooses. Rather, free speech prevents the government from identifying every critic as a pariah whose speech must be shut down."
BEHEADING LEVIATHAN
THE AMERICAN MIND
August 23, 2023
Curbing censorship will require a full-scale assault on the surveillance state.
THE CENSORSHIP EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
THE FEDERALIST
July 12, 2023
Recent ‘analysis’ frames Missouri v. Biden in entirely partisan terms, revealing an inadequate understanding of First Amendment guarantees.
REBELLION, NOT RETREAT
THE AMERICAN MIND
June 27, 2023
Blueprints for flourishing in the midst of a decaying civilization.
June 4, 2023
Our Missouri v. Biden court case exposes the government-led information war to censor what Americans think.
THE WHITE HOUSE COVID CENSORSHIP MACHINE
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Jan 8, 2022
Newly released emails show how officials coerce social-media companies to toe the government line.
DR. FAUCI'S AMNESIA
COMPACT
December 15, 2022
This is a great place to showcase a sample of your written work or write a short description about your project. Did you collaborate on a print or multimedia project? If so, dazzle your visitors with images and video. Make sure to include a link to the full live project or document so readers can enjoy the entire piece.
TECHNOCRACY AND TOTALITARIANISM
THE AMERICAN MIND
November 17, 2022
An excerpt from my new book, The New Abnormal: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State
OUR DIGITAL PANOPTICON
AMERICAN GREATNESS
October 29, 2022
How digital surveillance is gaining power for the biomedical security state.
UNIVERSITY VACCINE MANDATES VIOLATE MEDICAL ETHICS
WALL STREET JOURNAL
June 14, 2021
College students aren’t guinea pigs.
HOW COLLEGE COVID VACCINE MANDATES PUT STUDENTS IN DANGER
THE FEDERALIST
5 July 2021
The excessively narrow medical exemptions for COVID vaccine mandates at many colleges put students at unnecessary risk of serious complications, including hospitalization and death.
18 August 2021
For one, the immunity of those who have recovered from COVID and their ability to transmit the virus are not proven to be different than that of the vaccinated.
THE IMPOSSIBLE ETHICS OF PANDEMIC TRIAGE
THE NEW ATLANTIS
April 3, 2020
Is there a formula for deciding which patients doctors try to save?
THE OTHER PANDEMIC: THE LOCKDOWN MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS
PUBLIC DISCOURSE
October 4, 2020
Our leaders cannot abdicate responsibility for difficult decisions and simply hide behind infectious disease epidemiologists. We have a mental health epidemic to also contend with, not to mention the economic and social effects of lockdowns. It is past time for us to reckon with these devastating realities.
BATTLEFIELD PROMOTIONS
THE NEW ATLANTIS
March 18, 2020
A call to action for medical students during the Covid pandemic.
THE PHYSICIAN'S VOCATION
MERCATORNET
Sept 14, 2018
An address given to the incoming medical students at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine White Coat Ceremony on August 3, 2018.
MORAL GUIDANCE ON PRIORITIZING CARE DURING A PANDEMIC
PUBLIC DISCOURSE
April 5, 2020
In the next few weeks, as the pandemic perhaps reaches its zenith, we will have the opportunity to decide once again what sort of society we intend to be. We should eschew all invidious discrimination and recommit ourselves to treating all who are ill as bearers of profound, inherent, and equal worth and dignity.
CARD-CARRYING PRECADAVERS
FIRST THINGS
June/July 2018
"It has been almost twenty years since I dissected a dead human body. It still seems strange: My first encounter with a human body to learn the art of healing was an encounter with a corpse. What is more, I took this body to pieces. In any other context, this act would have been a felony..."
REFOUNDING SOCIAL SCIENCE
FIRST THINGS
10 August 2021
Review of Jesse Signal’s ‘The Quick Fix: Why Fad Psychology Can't Cure Our Social Ills’
POLICE BRUTALITY AND THE SUICIDE OF REVOLUTIONARY VIOLENCE
PART I OF III IN THE SERIES, "THE CRISIS OF OUR TIMES"
ARC DIGITAL
June 4, 2020
Why has the normalization of violence become one of the most characteristic features of our time?
REVOLUTIONS VS. THE TOTAL REVOLUTION
PART II OF III IN THE SERIES, "THE CRISIS OF OUR TIMES"
ARC DIGITAL
June 26, 2020
Why do today’s misbegotten revolutionary ideologies produce only nihilism?
THE LATENT FASCISM OF TODAY’S ANTI-FASCISTS
PART III OF III IN THE SERIES, "THE CRISIS OF OUR TIMES"
ARC DIGITAL
REPUBLISHED IN FOUNDATIONS
June 26, 2020
Why do so many contemporary social movements come to resemble their enemies?
FIRST TAKE NO STAND
THE NEW ATLANTIS
June 2023
On assisted suicide, the medical profession ducks behind “neutrality.”
DYING OF DESPAIR
FIRST THINGS
August/September 2017
"On November 4, 2014, sixteen-year-old Cameron Lee, a popular, athletic, straight-A student at Henry M. Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California, leapt in front of a commuter train. His suicide note provided no clear reason for his act; there were no apparent signs of mental illness, and he was not a bullied misfit."
APOSTOLATE OF DEATH
FIRST THINGS
April 2015
"On November 1, after posting a Facebook message stating, 'Today is the day I have chosen to pass away with dignity in the face of my terminal illness, this terrible brain cancer,' twenty-nine-year-old Brittany Maynard took a lethal dose of barbiturates, prescribed by an Oregon physician, and ended her own life."
WONDER WOMAN VS. KAMILA HARRIS
CITY JOURNAL
December 30, 2020
A new superhero movie subverts the core message of modern Western life.
THE DANGEROUSLY CONTAGIOUS EFFECT OF ASSISTED-SUICIDE LAWS
THE WASHINGTON POST
November 20, 2015
The debate over doctor-assisted suicide is often framed as an issue of personal autonomy and privacy. Proponents argue that assisted suicide should be legalized because it affects only those individuals who — assuming they are of sound mind — are making a rational and deliberate choice to end their lives. But presenting the issue in this way ignores the wider social consequences. What if it turns out that the individuals who make this choice in fact are influencing the actions of those who follow?
WHY ARE DOCTORS AFRAID OF THE WORD “DEATH”?
THE WASHINGTON POST
October 26, 2015
When I began as a medical student on the wards, I discovered that there was a word that physicians almost never used. In fact, they often played elaborate language games to avoid it. My first encounter with this occurred one night on call. The resident and I were eating dinner in the cafeteria when he got a page. He excused himself saying, “I need to go declare a patient …” I remember thinking, “You need to ‘declare’ a patient … what?” He avoided saying that he was going to declare a patient dead.
THE ERA OF THE NARCISSIST
FIRST THINGS
February 16, 2010
"'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,' saith the preacher. 'Hell, yeah, I’m hot!' saith the Facebook home page. This is vanity on steroids, and it is becoming the norm.... Either we will become the salt and light that purge and dispel the insipid narcissism that surrounds us, or our culture will continue to descend deeper into the loud, crass, and aggressive cult of self-worship."