Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
The Second Amendment Without Scalia
This week, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz warned that Antonin Scalia's death leaves us "one justice away from the Second Amendment being written out of the Constitution altogether." Although I share the Texas senator's concern about the fate of the right to keep and bear arms if a Democrat nominates Scalia's replacement, the short-term consequences may be less dramatic than Cruz implies. Writing for the five-justice majority in District of Columbia v. Heller, the 2008 decision in which the Supreme Court recognized that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to armed self-defense, Scalia said that right was violated by a law that banned handguns and required owners of long guns to disable them with trigger locks or keep them unloaded and disassembled. But he strongly implied that nearly every other existing gun control law would pass constitutional muster.
If Obama Really Wants to Reduce 'Meanness,' Now Is His Chance
In Springfield, Ill., last week, President Obama commemorated the ninth anniversary of his bid for the White House. He admitted that one of his "few regrets" was his inability "to reduce the polarization and the meanness in our politics." To conservative ears, Obama's comments fell somewhere between risible and infuriating. Obama has always done his best to demonize and marginalize his opponents. Either the president honestly cannot see that, or he's cynically pretending that the fault lies entirely with his critics. If only there were some way to figure out whether he's sincere. Well, let no one say the moral arc of the universe does not bend toward second chances.
Clinton and Sanders and Progressivism
Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders seek to claim the "progressive" mantle. Both claim the other is not a true progressive. Clinton teased Sanders as being the "self-proclaimed gatekeeper for progressivism." Bernie Sanders said that Hillary Clinton can't be both a moderate and a progressive and that most progressives don't take millions from Wall Street. But let's talk about the origins of progressivism. It's only historical ignorance that could explain black affinity for progressivism.
Robot Cars
The Tesla S is the closest thing to a totally driverless car available now. I had to leave my state to test-drive it. New York's archaic laws forbid taking both hands off the wheel. Once outside New York, the Tesla representative in the passenger seat had me turn on the autopilot. Suddenly, I was doing nothing. The car drove itself. Actually, I didn't do *nothing*. I hyperventilated. It's not natural to sit passively while "driving" at 65 mph. Then came my accident! In a narrow tunnel, the car drifted left, and a tire banged against the side of the tunnel. If I hadn't quickly grabbed the steering wheel, we would have crashed.
McConnell Must Hold Ground on Court Nomination
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is doing the nation a service by announcing he will work to block President Obama's appointment to replace Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia and delay until after the election. The inevitable resulting clash between the Senate and the White House, made sharper in the midst of an election, is a confrontation vital for the nation. This is more than raw politics, Democrats versus Republicans. It is about ideology and bringing clarity to what the country has become and where it is headed. America is extremely polarized today compared to where it was just 20 years ago.
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
The Death of Antonin Scalia: An Inestimable Loss for Constitutionalism
Justice Antonin Scalia's death leaves the Supreme Court without one of its most courageous and colorful conservative legal minds. First, he was a staunch defender of the separation of powers, which, like the American founders, Justice Scalia saw as a bulwark against government tyranny. It made no difference to Scalia which branch's powers were being threatened by the encroachment of another branch. He relied upon the clear language of separation in the Constitution. The founders vested legislative power in Congress (Article I), executive power in the president (Article II), and judicial power in the Supreme Court (Article III). That unequivocal proclamation of separation is found in the first sentences of each article and Justice Scalia refused to allow it to be ignored.
'White Privilege': Part II in a Series of Widely Held Beliefs That Are Either Untrue or Meaningless
A pillar of contemporary leftism is the notion of "white privilege." Given that a generation of high school and college students are being taught that a great number of "unearned privileges" accrue to white Americans — the charge of white privilege demands rational inquiry. The assertion turns out to be largely meaningless. And more significantly, it does great harm to blacks. First, no reasonable person can argue that white privilege applies to the great majority of whites, let alone to all whites. There are simply too many variables other than race that determine individual success in America.
Evangelicals Are Not the Boogeyman
I realize that as an evangelical Christian I have a dog in this fight, but I want to say a few words about evangelicals and the unfortunate effort afoot to make them the political boogeyman. There are so many misconceptions about "evangelicals" — from the definition of the word to the intentions of the people themselves — but the most damaging myth is that we evangelicals seek a theocracy for the United States of America, which couldn't be further from the truth. I'll get back to that, but first a little background.
Tragedy and Choices
Amid the petty bickering, loud rhetoric and sordid attack ads in this year's primary election campaigns, the death of a giant — Justice Antonin Scalia — suddenly overshadows all of that. The vacancy created on the Supreme Court makes painfully clear the huge stakes involved when we choose a President of the United States, just one of whose many powers is the power to nominate justices of the Supreme Court. Justice Scalia's passing would be a great loss at any time. But at this crucial juncture in the history of the nation — with 5-to-4 Supreme Court decisions determining what kind of country America will be — Scalia's death can be catastrophic in its consequences, depending on who is chosen to be his successor.
Republicans Launch Sharp Attacks in South Carolina Debate
The CBS presidential debate in Greenville, South Carolina, started off with a moment of silence in memory of Justice Antonin Scalia, whose death was announced earlier in the day. And the debate that followed was a sort of tribute to the late jurist. Not that Scalia was much talked about. Every candidate agreed that the Senate should not confirm an Obama nominee, and all but John Kasich promised to appoint a conservative originalist. But the back-and-forth had a certain resemblance to Supreme Court arguments in which Scalia typically peppered lawyers with sharp questions from the get-go.
Obama's Budget to Nowhere
Barack Obama's last budget is nothing if not is a grandiose visionary document. No one — least of all, Congress — paid much attention to it, because no one cares where this lame-duck president wants the country to go fiscally. But the $4.1 trillion Obama manifesto deserves some inspection, if only because it is crammed with so many awful ideas. Americans should be very clear about what the progressive left wants to do next if they retain the White House, and Obama has proudly shown his hand.
Hillary's Manservants, Exposed
Liberals who remember "Doonesbury" surely recall the joke about George H. W. Bush pledging to "put his manhood in a blind trust" so he could be Ronald Reagan's vice president. But when it comes to covering Hillary Clinton, reporters now have been exposed putting their own manhood in a blind trust. It turns out they submit to orders made by her longtime publicist, Philippe Reines. They have tossed aside all vestiges of objective journalism — in fact, journalism itself — to please the boss.
Not the America I Knew
Envy is defined by Dictionary.com as "a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another's advantages, success, possessions, etc." That perfectly characterizes the entire political philosophy of the Democratic progressive left. Listening to presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, I often hear the principles I grew up with and practiced being disregarded, even denounced. In his victory speech following his New Hampshire primary win, Sanders said America was founded on the principle of fairness. No it wasn't. You don't find the word "fairness" in the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution. The word you do find is "liberty." The Founders wanted Americans to be liberated from oppressive, intrusive, dictatorial government and to be free to pursue happiness, according to their definition of the word.
Monday, February 15, 2016
Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!
"Liar, liar, pants on fire!" The schoolyard bully that would be president, Donald Trump, now daily reaches such new lows of sophomoric language and behavior that even seasoned political watchers who have "seen it all" are shaking their heads. He's being so childish that it would have been no surprise had he added the "pants on fire" part to his tantrum against Ted Cruz Saturday night. If the stakes weren't so high, it might be amusing to watch the Donald have his temper tantrums: from the bright red face, to the dagger stares, to the wagging finger and explosive yelling, I half expected Mr. Trump to spontaneously combust during the South Carolina debate. In his attempt to lure Evangelical voters — many of whom are NOT doing their homework — the Donald became irate with Senator Cruz after Cruz exposed Trump as a supporter of Planned Parenthood, the now notorious seller of baby body parts.
Scalia and the Constitution
I had the great privilege to hear Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia speak on three separate occasions and once to meet him in person after hearing him announce a decision. You can learn a lot about someone by reading his or her work, but some things have to be seen to be fully understood. Scalia was known for his public role as an associate justice and a staunch originalist. But he should be appreciated for much more than that — as a man with a genuinely wonderful sense of humor, as a man who loved his family, and who loved God. However, most of us only really know Scalia through his public work on the Supreme Court, and his insightful, sometimes biting opinions.
A Jurist of Colossal Consequence
Antonin Scalia, who combined a zest for intellectual combat with a vast talent for friendship, was a Roman candle of sparkling jurisprudential theories leavened by acerbic witticisms. The serrated edges of his most passionate dissents sometimes strained the court's comity and occasionally limited his ability to proclaim what the late Justice William Brennan called the most important word in the court's lexicon: "Five." Scalia was, however, one of the most formidable thinkers among the 112 justices who have served on the court, and he often dissented in the hope of shaping a future replete with majorities steeped in principles he honed while in the minority.
The President Without a Party
John Tyler's presidency was born in a fog of constitutional confusion. On April 4, 1841, President William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia, just one month into his term as the nation's ninth chief executive. It was the first time a president had died in office, and no one could say with certainty what was supposed to happen next. The relevant language in the Constitution was murky: "In case of the [president's] death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office," commands Article II, Section 1, "the same shall devolve on the vice president."
Musing About the Arts
Because I recently wrote a piece in which I fessed up to being less than impressed with so-called great art, I may as well go all the way and admit that even middle-brows would consider me low-brow, while high-brows wouldn't consider me at all. For instance, although I have enjoyed some foreign language films, and even a few from the days of silent movies, most of my favorites starred people like Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Irene Dunne, Jimmy Stewart, Jean Arthur, Myrna Loy, William Powell, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Alan Ladd, and Laurel and Hardy.
Sunday, February 14, 2016
The Progressives' Itch to Regulate Speech
Bernie Sanders, greedy for power to punish people he considers greedy, has occasioned 2016's best joke (reported in Bloomberg Businessweek): "In the Bernie Sanders drinking game, every time he mentions a free government program, you drink someone else's beer." But neither Sanders' nor Hillary Clinton's hostility to the First Amendment is amusing.
Bernie Sanders Is Not a Social Democrat; He's a Marxist
When is the last time you were in Denmark? Or Norway? Or Sweden? If you have had the pleasure of visiting these lovely places you may have noticed something really odd. Nobody there talks the way Bernie Sanders talks. Sanders frequently points to northern European countries, especially Denmark, as examples of how he would like to remake the United States economy — by which he mainly means higher taxes and more social services.