Oh the irony. Mr Sowell writes an article decrying people who make arguments that are just assertions with no facts or sourcing. His lengthy article on the subject contains no facts, as far as I can find, and consists of only questionable assertions that are just a rehash of conservative orthodoxy. This is a problem with Townhall articles. Because it caters to the faithful, its articles make no effort to actually prove their assertions. If Sowell is going to complain about empty assertions, he could at least provide an example of an article that does not rely exclusively on them.

Yes, thank you.

"The old man in his dark shop wasn't really interested in selling anything, just sitting there and stroking his merchandise." Yes, exactly. The AT faithful would rather sit and harbor terrible fantasies of succession and creating a hell on earth of the once patriotic south. Of course, the average American wants no part of this and so the extreme conservative is left "stroking his merchandise" alone.

I would say Mr Barber is the one with a "dark void" in this soul. And BTW, the Christian sexual ethic hasn't been followed by Christians for 60 years. And no fault divorce has done more damage to marriage and the family than gay marriage could ever do. But Christians never want to talk about no fault divorce because they like it. Nonewithstanding his blowharding, Mr Barber is right that in some limited cases, Christians and others have been sued by gay couples for not wanting to participate in a gay wedding. This is an injustice, however, in most places where gay marriage has been made legal they have put exemptions for wedding chapels and other wedding vendors.

From what I know about Mr Carson, he seems like an impressive man and one with a long list of professional accomplishments. If he can frame his message correctly he might help some in the black community. If he wants to be a politician though, he is going to have to get better at it. If he wants to take pages from Michelle Bachmann or Allan West's playbook and just use inflammatory rhetoric, his political career will be short.

In his haste to blame Obama for everything under the sun, Mr Ransom apparently forgets that legalizing marijuana was been a state peragotive. The federal government has played no part in pot legalization except to try and slow it down. How many marijuana dispensories were raided in California by the DEA. A lot. The few states that have legalized pot did so through state referendum or state legislatures. Explain how Obama is responsible for that.

Cyprus and Greece and are not "collapsing" and are not going to collapse. The Mayans collapsed. Easter Island collapsed. Note they are not here anymore. Greece and Cyprus will still be here for the foreseeable future. In the modern world, countries that take on excessive debt may come to the brink of not being able to service their debt. Either they default as Argentina once did or they seek help from an entity such as the IMF or the EU. They will loan the country money in exchange for adopting austerity measures and better practices. In either case, this does not represent a collapse of the country. Asia, Argentina, Phillipines, Mexico and others have been through this process and are still with us today.

Freedom! The clarion call of the conservative. We all must have freedom. Except, however, when it comes to things that conservatives do not approve of. Then freedom is a bad thing. I will admit that the handful of network channels can be a bit racy. No one is forcing you to watch them. Why bring the government into this? And what about your beloved free market? With 200 available channels, can't these cable channels make something family friendly that you like? After all, the free market rushes to fill any voids in the market place, right?

How could Mr Shapiro write an entire editorial about citizen's rights and not mention the constitution one time? The guarantor of our rights is the constitution, not the popular will of the people. Neither the executive nor legislative branch nor state referendum can maintain a law that is judged to be unconstitution by the judicial branch, which is the federal court system and the supreme court. When Obama says he is constrained by our system he is talking about the supreme court. Obama might confiscate guns if he could but the supreme court reaffirmed a couple of years ago that citizens may keep guns at home. They are not going to change their minds now. The only issue left is which guns are appropriate for use by ordinary citizens.

I would love to see someone take control of our government debt and stop the deficit spending completely. But who is going to do it? Normally, we would turn to republicans for this type of thing but they badly disappointed me the last time they controlled the government. Though during Bush's term they controlled the house and senate, they made no attempt to control spending and instead found time for No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part B. No suddenly republicans are raising the roof about deficit spending and debt. They only seem to care about the subject of debt when they are out of power. I voted for Romney, but with little faith that he would do anything about our pitiful financial situation.