Latest Articles

'Attention Must Be Paid...'

February 19, 2010  •  The American

Within hours after Joe Stack had crashed his plane into the Internal Revenue Service building in Austin, Texas, the American political class began a mad scramble to figure out what political ideology had motivated his action. Stack was a terrorist, most agreed, but was he a conservative terrorist or a liberal terrorist?

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Why We Still Argue About Darwin (And Why We Should)

February 12, 2010  •  The American

Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of the English naturalist Charles Darwin. To be widely remembered two centuries after your birth is not the usual lot of mortals, and it is rarer still to be a subject of intense and often quite bitter controversy. Had Darwin been content to remain a wealthy country gentlemen with a taste for dogs, no one today would be arguing about him, or celebrating his birthday. But Darwin was more than that. He was a natural thinker—a kind of tinkerer in ideas.

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Speaking of Islam
Liberty and grievance in Canada

November 2, 2008  •  The Weekly Standard

The English-speaking peoples are justifiably proud of their tradition of free speech. When Thomas Macaulay reviewed the achievements of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, he observed that the victorious English Whigs had shown how "the authority of law and the security of property" could be reconciled with "a liberty of discussion and of individual action never before known."

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A Question of Religion

January 22, 2008  •  TCS Daily

Some years ago I was asked a question that has haunted me. It came during a telephone conversation I had with a young man whose Internet book club has selected one of my books to read. The young man wanted to find out more about me, and he began asking what I thought about various subjects. Finally, hesitantly, he said, "Would you mind if I asked you a very personal question?" How personal, I wondered briefly, but gave my consent anyway. His question was, "Are you for or against religion?"

I have lost a clear recollection of my reply, but I recall being shocked at the radical and remorseless either/or with which I had been confronted: Either a person is for religion, or a person is against it.

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Why We Are Still Arguing About Darwin

January 10, 2008  •  TCS Daily

Today, almost one hundred and fifty years after the publication of The Origin of Species, we are still arguing about Darwin. How is this possible? If Darwin's theory of natural selection is a scientific theory, as its defenders claim, then why hasn't it been able to establish itself securely in the public mind? Why, in short, is Darwin still the subject of continuing controversy and acrimonious debate?

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Books by Lee Harris