Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Monday, June 27, 2016
Finally, a Little Good News
I would actually enjoy being a purveyor of good tidings, but, as a rule, I would have to engage in deceit to do so. But even I was over-whelmed by the amount of positive feedback I generated when I wrote the truth about Mohammad Ali. Apparently, a lot of you shared the piece with friends and relatives because I heard from a lot of strangers. But what made the response really terrific was that only one person took me to task. But he proved himself a pinhead because he made no attempt to counter my arguments against the glorification of Ali, but simply called me a few names.
Sunday, June 26, 2016
Paul Krugman’s Democratic Party
Paul Krugman may understand the Democratic Party better than most Democrats do. The New York Times editorial writer describes Democrats as a “coalition of social groups, from teachers’ unions to Planned Parenthood, seeking specific benefits from government action.” More often than not, what these groups want from government is at someone else’s expense. That isn’t just a characteristic of the party. *That’s what the Democratic Party is.*
Britain’s Welcome Revival of Nationhood
The Leave campaign won the referendum on withdrawing Britain from the European Union because the arguments on which the Remain side relied made Leave’s case. The Remain campaign began with a sham, was monomaniacal with its Project Fear, and ended in governmental thuggishness. The sham was Prime Minister David Cameron’s attempt to justify Remain by negotiating EU concessions regarding Britain’s subservience to the EU. This dickering for scraps of lost sovereignty underscored Britain’s servitude and achieved so little that Remainers rarely mentioned it during their campaign.
Saturday, June 25, 2016
A Blow Against Unilateral Government
Critics of Donald Trump worry what would happen if a man with little regard for the Constitution and a willingness to impose his personal will on a hot-button issue like immigration became president. This isn’t a far-fetched scenario — in fact, it has already happened. A deadlocked Supreme Court let stand a lower-court order blocking President Barack Obama’s unilateral bid to grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants in a wholly outrageous violation of our constitutional norms.
A Little Brit Stronger
The war for Britain’s independence didn’t involve muskets and cannons, but ballots. And [Thursday] night, the U.K. cast plenty of them in favor of leaving the suffocating authority of the European Union (E.U.). In a blockbuster vote that came down to the wire, the British people rocked the world with the decision to stand on its own in an increasingly dangerous world where autonomy could literally save people’s lives.
Trump vs. Reagan: Unprincipled vs. Principled
In my previous piece in this series, I quoted a Ronald Reagan speech to CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, from February 6, 1977, where Reagan defined conservatism. Among his crucial points in that speech — a point he would reiterate for years to come — is that conservatism was an ideology of principle, grounded in principles, and thus conservatives, too, must be grounded in principle. Looking to win the White House for conservatism after the wilderness years of Nixon and Ford and now amid what would be a disastrous Jimmy Carter presidency, Reagan said it was time at last for a principled politics for conservatives. They needed “to present a program of action,” one that included both social conservatism and economic conservatism.
A Nation of Narcissists
We have become the most self-absorbed people the world has ever known. Galileo was persecuted because he had the gall to declare that the sun, not the earth, was the center of our solar system. But, today, he would have most of the country, not merely the Catholic Church, condemning him as a heretic for suggesting that each of us is not the center of the universe.
June 23rd: Britain’s Independence Day
As you know, there is a great conflict that has the entire Western world in turmoil. On one side are powerful forces of big government, big business and big media. Unanimously, they are telling us that borders are old fashioned, that everyone in the world has a right to migrate to wherever they wish, that nation-states are antiques. They behave as if major decisions should be entrusted to government bureaucrats who claim to know what is best for us. And in the minds of these elites, Western Civilization owes a debt to the rest of the world for its oppression.
Supreme Court Upholds Race-Based Discrimination in College Admissions
The Supreme Court issued its disappointing decision in Abigail Fisher’s case on Thursday against the University of Texas at Austin. In an opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy, four members of the court ruled that the university’s race-conscious admissions program does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito wrote dissenting opinions (Chief Justice John Roberts joined the latter; Justice Elena Kagan was recused from the case).
Friday, June 24, 2016
Obama’s Amnesty Plan Effectively Struck Down
In a 4-4 split vote, the Supreme Court has affirmed the judgment of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the preliminary injunction issued by federal district court Judge Andrew Hanen in the case brought by Texas and 25 other states challenging the Obama administration’s attempt to give legal status and work authorizations to almost 5 million illegal immigrants. After Congress repeatedly refused to pass the DREAM Act, which would have enabled illegal aliens brought to the United States as children to receive relief from deportation or removal proceedings, President Barack Obama decided to take matters into his own hands.
Democrats, LGBT Activists’ Sinister Plan to Crack Down on Christian Schools
If California Democrats have their way, Christian colleges and universities will no longer be allowed to require students attend chapel services or require them to profess a relationship with Jesus Christ. Senate Bill 1146 would close a loophole that lawmakers say allows Christian universities to discriminate against students based on their gender identity, gender expression or sexual orientation. “All students deserve to feel safe in institutions of higher education, regardless of whether they are public or private,” said Senator Ricardo Lara, the author of the legislation. “California has established strong protections for the LGBTQ community and private universities should not be able to use faith as an excuse to discriminate and avoid complying with state laws.”
Republicans: Save Your Party, Don’t Give to Trump
“There’s an old adage about a vat of wine standing next to a vat of sewage. Add a cup of wine to the sewage, and it is still sewage. But add a cup of sewage to the wine, and it is no longer wine but sewage. Is this what Donald Trump has done to our politics?” —Martha Bayles, in the Claremont Review of Books. Yes, as Republicans should remember when their convention opens in less than a month, on the one-year anniversary of Donald Trump’s disparagement of John McCain as unheroic because he was “captured.” McCain was captured (with a broken leg and two broken arms) when North Vietnamese shot down his plane. He chose extra years of torture, refusing to leave when his torturers wanted to release him because he was an admiral’s son.
Hillaryism
“I believe in an America always moving toward the future.” —Hillary Clinton, June 21. This was not the most important line in Clinton’s Ohio economic policy speech, only the most amazing. Surely there cannot be a more vacuous, meaningless piece of political rhetoric. Every terrestrial entity from nematode to the United States of America moves forward into the future quite on its own, thank you. Where else is there to go?
Free Condoms — What Could Go Wrong?
Remember when the left passionately insisted that public schools distribute free condoms to students on the bizarre theory that they were going to have sex anyway and we might as well make it safe? Well, the results are in, and the left isn’t looking too great. When this nation was first experiencing the AIDS scare, liberals were adamant that we had to saturate the culture with condoms for teens to prevent the spread of the deadly disease. They ignored warnings that this massive giveaway program would publicly sanction and, thus, encourage teen promiscuity. They rejected reports that condoms are hardly fail-safe in preventing the spread of this disease.
Democrats: We Will Overcome the Constitution
Nothing stirs the passions of Democrats these days quite like the prospect of gutting the Constitution. In an unprecedented act of pretend political bravery, House members held a catered sit-in, demanding that Republicans allow a vote to strip away protections of Second, Fifth and Sixth Amendments of the Constitution. It was quite the scene.
Amnesty Blocked — For Now
A divided Supreme Court split 4-to-4 on Barack Obama’s executive orders granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants. It is outrageous that four justices apparently believe the president had the power to unilaterally re-write immigration law. That said, the split decision leaves in place the ruling of the lower appellate court, which declared the president’s orders unconstitutional. So the president’s unilateral mass amnesty has been blocked. For now. Depending on the outcome of the November election, we could well be revisiting the issue next year. And the next president and Senate will nominate and confirm the justice who could decide the case. So, once again, we see just how critically important this election is. Will we be governed by our elected representatives or by a president’s pen and phone?
Loose Lips Could Sink Gay Ships
After weeks of indecision, ABC announced on May 12 that it would renew the Catholic-bashing sitcom “The Real O’Neals,” which is loosely based on the childhood of zealously gay sex columnist Dan Savage. But then, Noah Galvin, the 22-year-old gay actor who plays the gay son, Kenny, gave an interview to New York Magazine’s Vulture blog that was so rude that The Hollywood Reporter said ABC is considering its options, like reducing the number of episodes ordered for season 2.
We Must Rethink Guns
How many children were gunned down in Newtown, CT? Then there was Aurora, CO, where a gunman went into a theater and began shooting the place up. In Orlando, FL, two weeks ago, roughly 50 people were murdered. All of these shootings are overshadowed by the night after night mounting death toll in Chicago and young black men kill each other. America, we have a gun problem. To solve it, we can and should do one thing immediate. We should make it vastly easier for law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms. We need many, many more guns in America in the hands of law-abiding citizens who know how to use them.
Men at Work ... or Not
We’ve heard a great deal this campaign year about the plight of the working class. The left tells a story about the middle class being destroyed by predatory millionaires and billionaires who are soaking up 99 percent of the “income gains” (as if national income were one giant Big Gulp and the 1 percent managed to nab the biggest straws). Donald Trump tells a different story. The jobs that once provided a stable middle-class income have been outsourced. If people are unemployed, it’s because the factories are all in Guangzhou or Juarez. Trump promises that he will bring those jobs back.