In his comments to PAW, Yoram Hazony ’86 describes liberalism as “a preposterous doctrine because it was devised by men who knew little about [real life]. Hobbes, Locke, Spinoza, and Kant never had children ….”

Well, Jesus Christ, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the adherent popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, and nuns of Roman Catholicism “never had children,” either. One inference we could draw is that like liberalism, Christianity is a preposterous doctrine devised by men who knew little about real life. Another is that a person can have children but lack even a minimal sense of intellectual responsibility. Such a person might well say whatever played to the peanut gallery of the moment, regardless of the fallacies it expressed, and regardless of its connection to reality.

As a former editor-in-chief of The Princeton Tory amply familiar with “The Founder,” I incline toward the latter inference in this case. For present purposes, I only suggest that a choice be made between the two inferences, and I invite readers of PAW to make it.