Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Unlock The Terrorist's Phone
One school of thought years ago was that the Large Hadron Collider, the enormous contraption built to bash particles together, might inadvertently become a doomsday device. The collider has been in operation since 2008 and hasn't yet destroyed the Earth by creating microscopic black holes or wreaking other planetary mayhem. But now, according to Apple CEO Tim Cook, an almost equally dangerous threat has emerged: that the iconic tech company might cooperate with the FBI in a terrorism investigation.
The 'Itching Ears' of Trump Followers
Since religious language has again infected this unpredictable and turbulent political season, here is a verse that could describe the followers of Donald Trump. It is found in Paulâs second letter to his protege Timothy (or as Trump might call it, Two Timothy): "For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." All politicians tell voters what they want to hear. It is one reason for the anger many voters feel for members of both political parties. These voters believe Washington has let them down, promising things it has not, or cannot, deliver in exchange for their support.
February Clarifies Both Parties' Nomination Races
In 2008, Barack Obama's great victories in February primaries — Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Virginia and Wisconsin — gave him an unstoppable delegate lead for the Democratic nomination. In 2012, Mitt Romney's wins in Florida (technically on Jan. 31) and Michigan sent him on his way to the Republican nomination. This year, with the foreshortened schedule, there are a couple of February contests to go. But the Feb. 20 Republican primary in South Carolina and the Democratic caucuses in Nevada make it plain what this cycle will look like, even if it's not entirely clear who the winners will be. Let's start with the Democrats. Hillary Clinton prevailed over Bernie Sanders, 53 percent to 47 percent, in Nevada. This was identical to her percent share of the vote there against Obama in 2008.
Paranoid Politics
Amid all the media analyses of the prospects of each of the candidates in both political parties, there is remarkably little discussion of the validity — or lack of validity — of the arguments these candidates are using. It is as if what matters this election year is the fate of a relative handful of people-- currently seven — running for their respective parties' nominations. Meanwhile, the fate of the 320 million Americans who are going to be affected by the outcome of this year's election fades into the background. The fact that Hillary Clinton's election prospects, for example, depend on her ability to get the black vote has been talked about in the media numerous times. But what about the fate of millions of black people, and how that will be affected by the way Hillary Clinton is trying to get their votes?
Strange Appeal of Socialism
When I was a smart-aleck college student, I had a sign on my dorm-room door that read: "Reality is for those who can't handle drugs." Maybe the 2016 version should go like this: "Bernie Sanders and socialism are for those who can't handle reality." Socialism's comeback is mystifying to most clear-thinking people. Do people who support Sanders and socialism walk around with shutters over their eyes so they don't have to observe the reality of what is happening in the world around them? The remarkable thing about the rise of Bernie Sanders is that his popularity runs in the counter-direction to how socialism is actually working.
Results: Nevada
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won the Nevada Democrat caucuses Saturday by a larger than expected margin of 53% to 47%. Two recent polls showed Clinton and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders were tied in Nevada, and the Sanders campaign desperately wanted to prove that New Hampshire wasn't an aberration. But it just wasn't in the cards. Reports suggest Clinton got a big boost from behind-the-scenes efforts orchestrated by Senator Harry Reid, who got a number of unions off the sidelines at the last minute.
Suggested Cruz Campaign Reboot: Show, Don't Tell
I don't believe I've ever presumed to offer unsolicited advice on campaign strategy to a presidential candidate, especially in a public forum, but I've decided to make an exception today. I am an unabashed Ted Cruz supporter and believe he is a man of character, integrity and strong principles who is as close to the ideal antidote for what ails America as we're likely to see. But since the Iowa primary I've been worried. After talking to many of those who have Ted's best interests in mind, in real life and on Twitter and Facebook, I think I have a handle on what the major concerns are, and I think the campaign must address them.
Male Sexual Nature and the Left's Culture of Denial
On New Year's Eve in Cologne, Germany, more than 400 German women were sexually attacked and at least three raped by gangs of male immigrants, most of them from Arab countries. There are two truths that need to be confronted, but because we live in the Age of Denial of Unpleasant Truths, they won't be. One is the denial of the low view of women in the Arab Middle East and many other parts of the Muslim world. This denial is the product of multiculturalist moral relativism, which posits that no culture or value system is morally superior to any other.
Factions Speak Louder Than Words
If there's one thing President Obama has done for evangelicals, it's motivate them. Frustrated by almost eight years of attacks on their faith and their values, America's Christians are fired up to make a difference in the 2016 election. And with record turnout numbers, they are. In South Carolina, conservative voting was up 12 points — shattering the marks set in 2012. In the southern states where the race rolls next, schools in Virginia and elsewhere are so concerned about the number of primary voters that they're canceling classes — a move usually reserved for the general election.
Monday, February 22, 2016
America Faces a Historical-Global Crossroad
The Vietnam War provides lessons in how to lose. The United States never planned to defeat its opponents, the indigenous southern Viet Cong guerrillas and their northern supporters the Peoples' Army of Vietnam. Instead, from 1964 until 1969 — during President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration — we sought to compel our enemies to stop their aggression against the Saigon regime and negotiate an end to the conflict. To avoid "a wider war" and fearing Chinese or Soviet intervention, President Johnson limited the bombing of North Vietnam to a series of tactical half-measures. He failed to stem Hanoi's source of weapons by not bombing railways and highways near the Chinese border and not mining Haiphong Harbor. Administration policy also forbade pursuing enemy forces into sanctuaries in Cambodia and Laos from which they attacked South Vietnam. The U.S. strategy of "containment" rendered a stalemate.
Trump Relishes Wrecking Republicans
Lyndon Johnson simply was exasperated. Barack Obama's mischief was methodical. Four days before the 1966 congressional elections, Johnson, asked about criticism from Richard Nixon, testily responded: "I do not want to get into a debate ... with a chronic campaigner like Mr. Nixon." Johnson's disparagement endeared Nixon to Republican voters, thereby propelling him toward the presidency. Four days before Saturday's South Carolina primary, Obama improved Donald Trump's standing with Republicans by volubly deploring him and cannily placing him in the Republican mainstream: "He says in more interesting ways what the other [Republican] candidates are saying." Not exactly.
Politics for Dummies
New Hampshire has spoken. As a result, my two favorite candidates, Carly Fiorina and Chris Christie, are out of the race. I never expected either of them to win the GOP nomination, but that didn't prevent them from being my favorites. The fact is that I am voting for anyone who garners the nomination, and that includes Mr. Trump. Still, I can't help thinking that, overall, the candidates who have dropped out along the way — Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Lindsey Graham, Rand Paul, Fiorina and Christie — stack up better than the survivors — Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Jim Gilmore and Jeb Bush.
Sunday, February 21, 2016
It's a Miracle! Hollywood Finally Tells a Great Bible Story
Let's be honest. Hollywood does not exactly have the best track record when it comes to producing accurate faith-based movies. Remember the giant rock creatures from "Noah"? So when I heard that Sony Pictures was about to release a faith-based film called "Risen," I was a bit skeptical. Typically faith-based movies are faith-bashing movies. And when "Risen" earned three-and-a-half stars from the left wingers at the Seattle Times, I was incredulous. But when I saw the film's trailer, I was astonished — Hollywood got it right.
Has The New York Times Become a Democratic Party Newspaper?
In the early days of the American republic, newspapers were actually started by political parties, leading political figures and even presidents — to get their point of view across. Alexander Hamilton, for example, helped establish The Gazette of the United States, "a paper of pure Toryism," according to Thomas Jefferson, "disseminating the doctrines of monarchy, aristocracy, and the exclusion of the people." To offset this influence, Jefferson and Madison helped establish the National Gazette, an outspoken critic of the administrations of Adams, Hamilton, and Washington, and an ardent advocate of the French Revolution.
Executive Overreach Meets Resistance
Notice the Newtonian physics of America's Madisonian system. Barack Obama's Woodrow Wilsonian hostility to the separation of powers, expressed in his executive authoritarianism, is provoking equal and opposite reactions from the judicial and legislative branches. The Supreme Court has inflicted on Obama a defeat accurately described as the court's most severe rebuke of a president since it rejected Harry Truman's claim that inherent presidential powers legitimated his seizure of the steel industry during the Korean War. The court has blocked Obama's Clean Power Plan, which rests on the rickety premise that the Clean Air Act somehow, in a way unsuspected for four decades, empowers the Environmental Protection Agency to annihilate the right of states to regulate power generation.
Saturday, February 20, 2016
Rites and Wrongs
The fireworks over Justice Antonin Scalia's replacement have already started, but for the hundreds of people lined up at the Supreme Court, [Friday] was about one thing: honoring a man who can never be replaced. Under a flag-draped casket, a veteran of a different war now lays — a hero in the struggle to protect the world's longest-surviving Constitution, a fight to which Scalia gave 30 brave years. Through unimaginable changes to our culture, this legal warrior stood his ground, sometimes alone, for the charter he swore to defend.
Goodbye, Nino
The body of Justice Antonin Scalia was brought [Friday] morning to the Supreme Court, where it will lie in repose until his funeral [today]. My heart breaks for his wife, Maureen, their nine children and 36 grandchildren. It is difficult to imagine the Supreme Court without him. He was the court's conservative anchor for almost 30 years.
A Government We Deserve — or One We Need?
A critic of the French Revolution, Joseph de Maistre, is said to be first to proclaim that "a country gets the government it deserves." The same observation actually was made much earlier by numerous figures in the Bible. And what was true about ancient rulers and kings is probably just as germane to democracies like the United States today. In general, people support leaders that tell them what they want to hear. But what people hear and want to hear is not always what they need to hear. Additionally, what they hear and accept is affected by standards of behavior, cultural norms, media, and educational systems that are shaped and accepted by the ruling class.
Charitable Giving and the Fabric of America
Private philanthropy is crucial in making America the unusual country that it is. Let's start with some numbers. Our nonprofit sector now comprises eleven percent of the total United States workforce. It will contribute around six percent of gross domestic product this year. To put this in perspective, the charitable sector passed the national defense sector in size in 1993, and it continues to grow. And these numbers don't take volunteering into account: charitable volunteers make up the equivalent — depending on how you count — of between four and ten million full-time employees. So philanthropy is clearly a huge force in our society.
The Vagina Monologues II
In 1996, Eve Ensler wrote "The Vagina Monologues," which was performed on a stage, but was less a play than a series of vignettes in which she discussed love, sex, rape, menstruation, masturbation, incest, orgasm and other related topics. In the beginning, Ms. Ensler was alone on stage, but as feminists glommed onto the script, it was suddenly being performed around the world with different women reciting the words, often with one actress per vignette. Twenty years later, the show is still being performed somewhere on earth. Each year, Ensler, who's now 63, adds a new vignette, one of the last ones dealing with the persecution of women by the Taliban.