If you want to understand why borders are important, all you need to do is look at what is happening in Europe. The chaos that resulted from a flood of refugees from Syria and other countries illustrates why borders and border security are important.

Yet in the midst of this chaos, we have the head of the European Union declaring that: “Borders are the worst invention ever made by politicians.” Some believe his outrageous comment will make it hard for the EU chief to remain in his position. Perhaps that is true, but it does illustrate the mindset of many leaders who want to open the borders of every nation to everyone. Last year, for example, George Soros referred to national borders as “the obstacle.”

These remarks are the complete opposite of what other leaders in Europe have been voicing. They realize the obvious reality that a country without borders isn’t really a country. They want to tighten their borders after seeing a million refugees pouring into their countries and creating havoc.

In this country, we occasionally hear protesters in the streets call for open borders, but we rarely hear politicians make such bold statements about borders being a problem. However, some politicians do play rhetorical games by assuring us that we have secure borders even when there is evidence that America’s borders are quite porous.

President Obama, for example, has claimed that the U.S. borders are more secure than they have ever been. Yet, we read that over 30,000 immigrants have come “from countries of terrorist concern” just in the last year. We see children from Mexico and other Latin American countries walk across our border.

It is easy to look at what is happening in Europe and be grateful we aren’t facing the problems of refugees flooding into countries with open borders. But we should also realize we can have similar problems if we don’t pay attention to our country’s borders.

Imagine the challenge you face if you want to implement strict gun control policies. The American people aren’t interested in what amounts to gun bans. So you need another strategy to get rid of guns. There might just be a way.

A professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health says that it is dangerous for our senior citizens to own a gun. She believes that California’s Gun Violence Restraining Orders provide a way that families can have guns confiscated from older relatives.

It turns out that gun ownership is most common in America for those who are age 50 or older. You might remember that it was a senior citizen in Chicago who challenged that city’s handgun ban and won at the Supreme Court level.

Nevertheless, the professor and other gun control advocates argue that senior citizens should not have a gun for three reasons. They might use it on themselves to commit suicide. They might use in on someone what is in the home for a legitimate purpose (e.g., a caretaker). And, there is also the danger that a grandchild might find the gun.

A similar discussion has been taking place about whether college students should be allowed to have access to a gun. After all, a spirited debate on campus might lead to a murderous rampage. College students are notorious for wild behavior and even binge drinking. That should be reason enough to keep guns out of their hands.

Any adult with children probably shouldn’t have a gun in the home because a child might find it and use it. You can even find a discussion about whether single women should have a gun since they may be too weak to hold it and may be incapable of using it effectively.

Perhaps now you can see what the next strategy for gun control will entail. Make citizens fearful of what a senior citizen might do if armed, and you have all the justification you need for taking Granny’s gun.

Could it be that nearly everything we have been told about sexual orientation and gender identity is wrong? A new report published in the journal, The New Atlantis, seems to challenge conventional secular perspectives on these issues. The paper by Dr. Lawrence Mayer and Dr. Paul McHugh surveys over 200 peer-reviewed studies done in various social science disciplines.

Ryan Anderson of the Heritage Foundation summarizes the paper’s results. He says the major takeaway is that “some of the most frequently heard claims about sexuality and gender are not supported by scientific evidence.” Here are four of the most important conclusions from the paper.

First, the “belief that sexual orientation is an innate, biologically fixed human property” is not supported. In other words, people are not “born that way.”

Second, the “belief that gender identity is an innate, fixed human property independent of biological sex—so that a person might be a man trapped in a woman’s body or a woman trapped in a man’s body—is not supported by scientific evidence.”

Third, “only a minority of children who express gender-atypical thoughts or behavior will continue to do so into adolescence or adulthood.” It goes on to say that children should not be encouraged to become transgender. They also should not be subjected to hormone treatments or surgery.

Fourth, people who are homosexual or transgender “have higher rates of mental problems (anxiety, depression, suicide), as well as behavioral and social problems (substance abuse, intimate partner violence), than the general population.”

The paper only focuses on the scientific research, but it obviously has implications for public policy. Incorrect scientific claims have been used to justify court rulings, government policies, and medical practices concerning sexual orientation and gender identity. They have not been based upon sound science.

Student debt is a major problem today for the younger generation, and it has become a significant campaign issue. An op-ed by Susan Dynarski in the New York Times changed my perspective on the issue of student debt.

Let’s consider the basic numbers. Politicians often cite two numbers: one trillion and seven million. Student borrowers owe more than $1 trillion. Seven million of these borrowers are in default. It is tempting to connect these two facts and conclude that more debt leads to more default. That is not the case.

It turns out that the biggest borrowers tend to become the highest earners. Students with the smallest debts are the ones who actually have a bigger problem paying it back.

For example, borrowing is the highest for people who go to graduate school. Forty percent of new loans go to graduate students. Those who graduate from medical school or law school generally have high salaries and are therefore able to pay back their student loans. Their percentage of default is much lower than for other students who took out loans for college.

Even college graduates do fairly well in repaying their loans. The typical college graduate earns tens of thousands of dollars more each year than the typical high school graduate. Their default percentage is relatively low as well.

The highest percentage of student defaults are concentrated among the millions of students who go to college but drop out before they get a degree. They have smaller debts than many of the other students I have mentioned, but they also have the highest rate of default on student loans.

There is a policy application to these numbers. We shouldn’t be trying to get all students to borrow less. Those going to graduate school or planning to graduate with a marketable degree are a much lower risk. This is an important fact to keep in mind when politicians talk about student debt and even propose free tuition.

Bill Nye is known as “the science guy.” His recent YouTube video makes him more of the “pro abortion guy” who attempts to argue for abortion on the basis of his scientific understanding. Professors Robert George and Patrick Lee point out in a recent column, it appears “the science guy” is the one who doesn’t understand logic and science.

Bill Nye’s video many times uses a non sequitur to make a point. This is a logical fallacy where the conclusion does not follow from the original statement. A good example is his discussion of the many fertilized embryos that do not result in newborn babies. Robert George and Patrick Lee remind us that “the fact that many human embryos die at an early stage of development” does not mean, “they are not embryonic human beings.” The high rate of infant mortality in many parts of the world doesn’t mean these infants were not human beings.

At the core of his video is his attempt to pit religion against science. Those of us who are pro-life he argues have nothing more than “deeply held beliefs” based on a “book written 5,000 years ago” that says that, “when a man and a woman have sexual intercourse, they always have a baby.” Is any of this true? Many who are pro-life come to that conclusion apart from the Bible based upon the scientific fact that a human being begins at fertilization. Even the oldest parts of the Bible weren’t written 5,000 years ago.

What about his last statement? Robert George and Patrick Lee remind us that “no one who is familiar with the Bible would dream of attributing to it any such nonsense, because it prominently includes stories of married couples (such as Abraham and Sarah) whose desire for children is frustrated by infertility.”

This video illustrates the lengths to which pro-abortion advocates must go in order to make their case. Science and logic are actually on the side of those who are pro-life.