Elizabeth Matthew

Jan 20, 2025 | lawliberty.org | Reuven Brenner |David Schaefer |Elizabeth Matthew |Emina Melonic

Politicians and economists promise higher standards of living. Are there reliable, objective measures to help determine when their policies are achieving this goal? At present, most analyses of the question draw primarily on aggregate numbers computed regularly in every country, offered with little commentary on their reliability, either conceptual or in measurement.

Jan 20, 2025 | lawliberty.org | Timothy Snyder |David Schaefer |Elizabeth Matthew |Emina Melonic

It is always a shame when an author one respects for his main writings, publishes a book that is an absolute disappointment. This is what happened when reading On Freedom by Timothy Snyder, the Yale historian and author of rightfully acclaimed books such as Bloodlands, on the genocidal twentieth-century history of the region between Central Poland and Western Russia. In contrast, On Freedom is a political pamphlet, a peculiar mix of memoir, history, philosophy, commentary, and societal criticism.

Jan 13, 2025 | lawliberty.org | Elizabeth Matthew |Emina Melonic |Austin Raynor |Alex J. Pollock

In 1967, my mother was 10 years old. By that time, she had for about a year been taking a city bus alone, from her residential neighborhood to Philadelphia’s city center, where she would walk and window shop. She had also been babysitting her two younger siblings—alone in the house, not as a mother’s helper—from the age of seven. Even by 1960s standards, this was a lot of childhood freedom and responsibility.

Dec 5, 2024 | thehill.com | Elizabeth Matthew

A few summers ago, I took my oldest two children to a water park. One of the sections was labeled “ages seven and up.” My boys were then five and seven. I knew that the one who was five looked at least seven; he stood eye to eye with his big brother, and they weighed the same. He talked and carried himself like the average nine-year-old, and he was beginning his first season as a competitive swimmer. So, I quietly disregarded the “seven and up” sign.

Nov 11, 2024 | thehill.com | Elizabeth Matthew

When I was in high school in the early 2000s, my dad and I commuted together. He’d drop me off at school and pick me up after sports, on the way home to our quiet neighborhood just outside Philly. In the mornings we (and by we, I mean he) often listened to sports radio. These shows’ audiences were of almost exclusively male listeners, mostly but not all white and mostly sans college diploma, calling in to complain about what the Philadelphia Eagles had done wrong the previous Sunday.