THE FOUNDATION

“Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.” — Alexander Hamilton

INSIGHT

“Science is the search for truth—it is not a game in which one tries to beat his opponent, to do harm to others. We need to have the spirit of science in international affairs, to make the conduct of international affairs the effort to find the right solution, the just solution of international problems, not the effort by each nation to get the better of other nations, to do harm to them when it is possible.” —Linus Pauling

FAMILY

“Kenneth Lowe is a young man with a message—and a rather stark message at that. He has written a powerful essay that serves as an indictment of his parents’ generation. The issue is divorce and the emotion is intense. Writing in his college newspaper, Lowe holds nothing back in making his argument. ‘If there’s one thing I need no citation or research to prove,’ he asserts, ‘it’s that our parents have done a pretty horrendous job bringing us up. I mean this as a whole, and not necessarily every single parent individually.’ ‘I have experienced divorce myself from the child’s point of view,’ he says, ‘and it isn’t anything I’d care to inflict on anybody else.’ He went on to predict that his generation would do much harm if they ‘repeat the misbehavior’ of their parents. That is language from the heart—language meant to get attention and make a point. Did it get your attention?” —Albert Mohler

CULTURE

“Compassion in social policy almost always produces unfair results. Compassion for murderers allows them to keep their lives after taking the life of another. Compassion for minorities leads to affirmative action, which means that individuals who are not members of a designated minority will be treated unfairly. Compassion for immigrant children led to bilingual education, which subsequently prevented most of those children from advancing in American society. Compassion as the primary determinant of behavior is effective in personal life. In making public policy, it is a morally and socially destructive guideline. In fact, it is so bad that thinking people must conclude that its primary purpose is to enable policy makers who are guided by compassion to feel good about themselves.” —Dennis Prager

LIBERTY

“After four years of war in Iraq, some Christians are more insistent in their claim that the Bible requires pacifism. Some say that if we gave peace a chance, we’d live happily ever after. Others, aware of the presence of international murderers, still say we should not resist them, for Jesus did not resist his. What to make of this? For one thing, it runs counter to much of the Bible, where God and Israel regularly resist evil. In the book of Exodus, when Egypt’s pharaoh mandated slavery and ordered infanticide, God liberated the Israelites and destroyed the Egyptian army. In the book of Judges, God regularly ordained leaders to fight back against oppression… The New Testament is not pro-militant, but it’s also not anti-militant. The apostle Paul wrote that civil government is to wield the sword for justice. Although arguments from silence can be misleading, it’s worth noting that Jesus and Peter commended Roman centurions and did not tell them to go and sin no more… Many great students of the Bible—Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and Calvin, for example—saw some form of war as inevitable, because of what the Bible teaches about the depravity of human nature. Assuming that we would always have fighting, Christians developed codes of ‘just war’ that emphasized the use of necessary means of warfare but the avoidance of savagery. ‘Just war’ theory was also pragmatic: Leaders were to ask whether success was likely.” —Marvin Olasky

THE GIPPER

“[I]t doesn’t require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? Such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.” —Ronald Reagan

OPINION IN BRIEF

“Under the headline ‘San Franciscans Hurl Their Rage at Parking Patrol,’ The New York Times recently described the verbal abuse and physical violence—there were 28 attacks in 2006—inflicted on parking enforcement officers in a city that has a surplus of liberalism and a shortage of parking places. Parking is so difficult that George Anderson, a mental health expert, has stopped holding lectures there because his audiences arrive seething about their parking frustrations. Anderson represents the American Association of Anger Management Providers. Of course. San Francisco, a showcase for expressive individualism, is full of people bristling with rights and eager to rebel against oppressive authority, but having a hard time finding any. The only rules concern parking. No wonder Americans are infatuated with anger: It is democratic. Anyone can express it, and it is one of the seven deadly sins, which means it is a universal susceptibility. So in this age that is proud of having achieved ‘the repeal of reticence,’ anger exhibitionism is pandemic.” —George Will

GOVERNMENT

“Wisconsin’s governor wants to outlaw reality. And by golly, if reality doesn’t cooperate, he’s going to fine the oil companies! Maybe imprison some oil executives! That’s how determined Governor Jim Doyle is about this. Along with all the other new taxes he’s rooting for, Governor Doyle wants a fat new tax on oil companies. Well, that’s not original. But he not only wants that new tax, he wants to ban oil companies from ‘passing on’ the tax to consumers. Huh?… Prices don’t just show up on the ticker tape. Nor do companies determine prices unilaterally. Prices are determined by supply and demand, with costs of production as only one major factor… Firms do have to cover the cost of doing business, and in this sense costs are invariably ‘passed on’ to customers. The alternative is operating as a charity. Or, I guess, begging the government for a subsidy to cover taxes the business is not allowed to regard as a cost. Even though they are a cost. This reality stuff is hard.” —Paul Jacob

RE: THE LEFT

“Forget the war for a minute. What’s the second most important issue for liberals today? Global warming, of course. For example, Sen. John Kerry claims that he’s not running for president in ‘08 so that he can dedicate himself to the issues of Iraq and climate change. John Edwards says global warming will make world war look like heaven. Hollywood donors who hate the prospect of sweating in greenhouse gases as they walk to the gangway of their private jets think that global warming is the defining issue of our age. So now’s the time to solve global warming, right?… If Kyoto’s such a priority, why hasn’t Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid fought to take it up?… Of course, Kyoto would never pass even a Democrat-controlled Senate because it would wreak havoc on the economy. Other Democratic betrayals in the making face similar problems. Democrats could never repeal the Defense of Marriage Act or the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy. But that’s the ironic part. Republicans went soft because doing what the base wanted was too damn hard. It seems the same fate awaits Democrats.” —Jonah Goldberg

POLITICAL FUTURES

“Thinking about the Constitution as a guide to policy has almost gone out of style, except in the appointment of judges and the current debate over war powers, a welcome throwback, in its way. One would have to go back to the Reagan era, and before that to the 1960s, to find Republican leaders opposing major government programs on constitutional grounds. But the alternative to reviving constitutionalism is to make policy with no limits except for the judges’ whims, and with no guide except our leaders’ visions, distilled from their constituents’ desires. The alternative to constitutionalism, in other words, is to play politics according to the Democrats’ rules. That’s a losing game…[C]onservative candidates might start to change the rules and play a winning game, beginning with national defense. Granted, you cannot deduce defense policy from the Constitution, but it does convey a sense of priorities and the means (an energetic executive) to pursue them. National defense is the national government’s most urgent and fundamental priority… But conservatives ought to do better than that. National defense is central to constitutionalism in a way that entitlement spending is not. Defense spending needs to grow dramatically, and if that forces a hard look at entitlements and domestic discretionary spending, all the better.” —Charles Kesler

FOR THE RECORD

“If you establish that the Earth is warming, it doesn’t necessarily follow that we have a moral duty to reduce emissions. What should follow is an informed debate about the costs and benefits of various policies to address that warming—reducing emissions is just one possible answer. Another debate should focus on those policies’ economic costs. Al Gore doesn’t want to have those debates, because the majority of evidence suggests that emissions reduction will be very costly and will have little effect… Meanwhile, 2 billion people around the world go without electricity. About 3 million die each year because of fumes given off by primitive stoves. The U.S. economy sneezes when gasoline hits $3 a gallon. If we have a moral duty, it’s to keep energy affordable here and to expand access to it overseas. That’s the real moral truth, however inconvenient for Al Gore.” —Iain Murray

SELECT READER COMMENTS

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“Thank you for your article, ’Democrats fear Fred Thompson… and should.’ I had considered writing, requesting you give all Patriots a biography, both personal and political, of this distinguished Tennessean. Friday, I found that you were reading my mind. It is encouraging to me, and I am confident this applies to many others across the nation, that a leader like Fred Thompson is in the wings, available to save us again from the liberals who have abandoned the American ideals and liberties we hold so dear. Please step up Fred, we need you.” —Chattanooga, Tennessee

“Thanks for your column on Sen. Fred Thompson’s potential candidacy. Indeed, Democrats have good reason to fear Thompson. As you noted, his landslide victory to fill the seat vacated by Al Gore speaks volumes to his stature among not only conservatives, but a broad swath of Democrats. Thompson is charismatic, clear and conservative. One clarification regarding his film credits listed in your essay: Thompson starred in the Clancy novel-turned-movie ‘The Hunt for Red October,’ not ‘Clear and Present Danger’.” —Bay Minette, Alabama

Editor’s Reply: You are correct—the film credit should have been “The Hunt for Red October”… a much better film!

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“Congratulations on ten years producing The Patriot. Sorry I had been unaware of its existence, and therefore missed the first nine. Perhaps your archives can fill the void? Great and valued journalism!” —Indian Harbour Beach, Florida

Editor’s Reply: Our archives are available online at http://archive.PatriotPost.US/

THE LAST WORD

“Everyone knows Hillary Rodham Clinton, and everyone has a different reaction to her. Some find her as irritating as fingernails on a chalkboard. Some find that she makes their skin crawl. Some run screaming from the room. And some want to drink a gallon of rat poison while lying across a railroad track. The conventional wisdom is that the former first lady will be a formidable presidential candidate because she has lots of money, veteran campaign aides, a shrewd political sense and a close connection to a president beloved by Democrats. But those may be nothing next to a couple of fairly major factors operating against her. The first is that many people in both parties see her as ideologically repellent. Conservatives think she’s an arrogant busybody with an addiction to big government. The Left regards her as a cynical trimmer who can’t admit when she’s wrong. The second is that many people, again in both parties, just can’t stand her. You want a uniter, not a divider? Hillary has a way of uniting people who ordinarily would be pelting each other with eggs. That explains the appeal of the new YouTube ad, modeled on Apple’s famous ‘1984’ Super Bowl commercial, which portrays her as a blandly sinister Big Sister on a giant screen, uttering phony platitudes to an army of robotic slaves. It ends happily when a blonde female athlete sprints in and hurls a sledgehammer at the screen, obliterating the image… As the campaign proceeds, some people will be hoping for her to succeed. But I’m betting a lot more will be rooting for the blonde with the sledgehammer.” —Steve Chapman

Veritas vos Liberabit—Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for The Patriot’s editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm’s way around the world, and for their families—especially families of those fallen Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen, who have died in defense of American liberty, while prosecuting the war with Jihadistan.)