Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Rich Socialists and the Bernie Sanders Moment
California is the land of hypocrites. As I pulled into the parking lot adjacent to my radio station in Los Angeles, I noticed a Mercedes R500 sitting next to me. Between the Mercedes symbol and the R500 label sat a big, fat bumper sticker: "BERNIE SANDERS 2016." The Mercedes R500 retailed at $71,000 back in 2006, when the well-off young gentledriver's parents presumably purchased it. Now, their kid pulls up to the pricey Equinox gym (sticker price: $160 per month) with a bumper sticker touting the virtues of redistribution of wealth.
Donald Trump: The Only People Who Like Him Are the Voters
Most Republicans running for president have only one idea: Be like Reagan! Unfortunately, they seem to remember nothing about Reagan apart from the media-created caricature of a slightly addled old man who somehow mesmerized an imbecilic public with his sunny optimism. Jeb! goes around saying, "I believe we're on the verge of the greatest time to be alive."
Was Margaret Sanger a Racist?
When I write about Margaret Sanger's May 1926 speech to the women's chapter of the KKK in Silverlake, New Jersey — [as I did again recently](http://patriotpost.us/opinion/37242) — liberals get upset. They accuse me of distortion and even making up the whole thing. Many of them cannot find it within themselves to condemn this sordid moment. One writer in the Huffington Post, who was highly unimpressed with, went so far as to assert that the KKK "was almost a mainstream group then, if still clandestine."
A Mission to Reform Lives Behind Bars
About a mile from where the Cleveland Indians test their fans' patience, there is a facility that expresses Ohio's attempt to temper justice with patience. The facility resembles a school, except for the razor wire. This prison contains 619 women, one of whom, Jessica Torok, mother of three sons — in the third year of her four-year sentence for manufacturing methamphetamines — says: "I've changed things I didn't even know needed changed," so "now I can go home and be the mother I should have been." Until she goes home she will "live the Army values." Here, she says proudly, "we live military style."
Migration Monotony
There is a tragic monotony to the latest massive human migration, this one involving Syrians fleeing their war-torn country. Whether the migrants are from Mexico, the Islamic world or elsewhere, it is always the same: Migrants flock to the West. Mexicans who elect to leave their country do not hop trains to Guatemala. Fleeing Libyans do not head for the Congo. And Syrians do not go to Russia or China.
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Your Life Expectancy and Your Social Security
According to a recent report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, life expectancy in the United States is the longest ever, approaching 79 years. This was highlighted in the recent Time cover story, "This Baby Could Live to Be 142 Years Old." With very few exceptions — such as the flu pandemic of 1918, which caused the life expectancy to temporarily plummet by a dozen years — our life expectancy has continued with a positive trend line throughout our nation's history.
University of California Totalitarians Strike Again
In yet another descent into Orwellianism, on Thursday, the Regents of the University of California's Committee on Education Policy will attempt to formulate an agenda for students and faculty that amounts to nothing more than a censorship free pass by establishing a right not to be offended. The "Statement of Principles Against Intolerance" is a compendium of progressive contradictions that begins by stating the University of California (UC) "is committed to protecting its bedrock values of respect, inclusion, and academic freedom," as well as free expression and the open exchange of ideas that are "principles enshrined in our national and state Constitutions" and "part of the university's fiber."
How Obama Has Fundamentally Transformed American Politics
In this presidential cycle, voters in both parties, to the surprise of the punditocracy, are rejecting experienced political leaders. They're willfully suspending disbelief in challengers who would have been considered laughable in earlier years. Polls show more Republicans preferring three candidates who have never held elective office over 14 candidates who have served a combined total of 150 years as governors or in Congress. Most Democrats are declining to favor a candidate who spent eight years in the White House and the Senate and four as secretary of state.
Ted Cruz Is Right on Planned Parenthood Funding
Ted Cruz is once again talking about government shutdown. This time it is about funding for Planned Parenthood. And once again it is not going over well with some in his party. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has called a strategy to withhold funding for the federal government unless taxpayer funds are pulled from Planned Parenthood an "exercise in futility."
Law and Border
How many wars can we fight? Our presidential candidates demand "stronger action" against both illegal immigration and illegal drugs. But those goals conflict. The War on Drugs makes border enforcement much harder! America's 44-year-long Drug War hasn't made a dent in American drug use or the supply of illegal drugs. If it had some positive effect, prices of drugs would have increased, but they haven't. American authorities say drugs are more available than ever.
Permission to Die
California Could Become the Fifth State to Misidentify Suicide as a Medical Treatment
The Balance of Fear
There exists in America today what can be called a balance of fear, and it is nowhere better described — through the acts of young Christians who overcome it — than in Tony Perkins' new book, "No Fear: Real Stories of a Courageous New Generation Standing for Truth." In political relations between nations, there is a balance of power. It is the place where conflict ceases because one nation, or alliance of nations, has sufficient power to intimidate others from acting against it. Or: It is when one nation, or alliance of nations, has sufficiently obvious power that it can compel others to do what it wants them to do without having to put its power into action.
Kerry's Credibility, Left-Wing Activist Kills Cop, Muslim Migration
As you know, Secretary of State John Kerry was our chief appeaser — Whoops! I mean negotiator — during the Iranian nuclear talks. We and other critics of the deal believe Kerry was fleeced by his Iranian counterparts. During the talks, Kerry made a number of bizarre comments. For example, he denied that Iran really intends to destroy Israel. He recently told a reporter that Hezbollah has tens of thousands of rockets but it hasn't used them. Here is further evidence of his naivete. Shortly after the Iranian deal, Kerry spoke with Russian leaders and announced that the Russians were committed to resolving problems in Syria.
The Media's Weird Iran 'Victory' Bandwagon
On Sept. 11, The New York Times demonstrated once again the media's peculiar sense of patriotism. The 9/11 attacks were not remembered at all on the front page. Instead, the top-right headline in capital letters read "DEMOCRATS HAND VICTORY TO OBAMA ON PACT WITH IRAN." The House of Representatives voted against it. The Senate voted against it. The American people are overwhelmingly against it. None of that mattered.
Smack Down: 13-Year-Old Busted for Stolen Kiss
A 13-year-old Maryland boy is facing an assault charge after he planted an unwanted kiss on a female classmate. The criminal kiss happened at Pikesville Middle School between the eighth grade boy and an eighth grade girl. The young Casanova told police he stole the kiss on a dare, the Baltimore Sun reports.
Message in a Battle
In my new book *No Fear*, I tell the story of Lila Rose, who, as an 18-year-old UCLA student, walked into a Planned Parenthood clinic in Southern California with a mission to expose the illegal activity of the nation's largest abortion provider. Her courage to stand up for life has played a key role in bringing our nation to where we are today: 10 installments into the Center for Medical Progress's undercover videos of Planned Parenthood. We are without excuse when it comes to what our laws and tax dollars are facilitating — the trafficking of aborted baby body parts. The question now is whether Republican leaders have the courage to walk into the Capitol and challenge President Obama over his commitment to keep the federal dollars to Planned Parenthood flowing.
Hollywood Lib Matt Damon's 'Diversity' Drama
Oh, this is schadenfreude-licious. Outspoken celebrity Democratic activist/donor Matt Damon opened his mouth and let the truth about the left's superficial commitment to "diversity" slip out. Now, liberal ideologues are furiously whacking the relentless GOP-bashing actor for his "white privilege." There's even a Twitter hashtag — "#damonsplaining" — that erupted this week to mock his unforgivable political transgression.
The Guggenheim and Sesame Street
My wife and I are concluding our trip through Spain in a grand way. I am bowing to her wish that we see the celebrated Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. The museum is devoted to the most up-to-date modern art, and she likes modern art. I like it, too. It usually shows me how our arty elites have decayed, and how some of our billionaire philanthropists are being taken to the cleaners by conmen and self-promoters. Far better that they should give their billions to the hucksters of art rather than some other category of modern crank, say the urban terrorists or jihadists.
Opportunity Versus Outcomes
A hostile review of my new book — "Wealth, Poverty and Politics" — said, "there is apparently no level of inequality of income or opportunity that Thomas Sowell would consider unacceptable." Ordinarily, reviewers who miss the whole point of a book they are reviewing can be ignored. But this particular confusion about what opportunity means is far too widespread, far beyond a particular reviewer of a particular book. That makes it a confusion worth clearing up, because it affects so many other discussions of very serious issues.
Is Joe Biden Really the Answer to Democrats' Problems?
The wheels haven't come off Hillary Rodham Clinton's bus quite yet, but they're getting wobblier. Hence the Joe Biden boomlet. As a columnist, never mind as a conservative, I think it's a fantastic idea. (A Biden vs. Trump debate would cause a national popcorn shortage.) But is Biden really the answer to the Democrats' problem? That depends. As with any malady, the right treatment hinges on the correct diagnosis. You don't recommend better diet and exercise for a shark bite. Biden is a treatment for one symptom, not the whole disease.