Conservatism should be a reality-based philosophy, and the movement will be better off if it recognizes that facts really do matter.

It is harder to explain why free markets create wealth than it is to pander to workers who have been displaced by global competition.

For years, Republicans have effectively outsourced their thought leadership to the loudmouths at the end of the bar. But perhaps the most extreme example of that trend has been the issue of guns, where the party has ceded control to a gun lobby that has built its brand on absolutism.

During dull moments at school, I admit, I not only drew soldiers shooting one another but also tanks, bombers, fighters, and even the occasional space ship with planet-destroying powers.