Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, July 2, 2015
Keep Calm and Clerk On
The five justices of the Supreme Court weren't the only ones with a strong opinion on marriage. And dozens of county clerks are risking everything to prove it. Five days after five justices bulldozed the votes of 50 million people, the Left was wrong to assume everyone would just fall in line. They didn't count on an army of local officials standing in the wreckage of judicial activism, refusing to budge. For most of them, it wasn't a question of *if* their beliefs would come under attack, but *when*. Like Jennifer Schoenrock, the wife of a disabled veteran and family breadwinner, they knew the day was coming when they'd have to choose between their convictions and their career. "I want to do the right thing," Jennifer explained. And that means obeying God's law — not man's. After last week, these clerks take seriously the reality that their offices are the new front lines in the battle for religious liberty — and many of them have no intention of going quietly. As far as they're concerned, a lot of things have changed since Friday, but their First Amendment rights weren't one of them.
Corporate Welfare and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation
Now that the Export-Import Bank's charter has expired, it's time to examine other programs that should follow in Ex-Im's footsteps. The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a federal agency that subsidizes U.S.-owned overseas businesses with taxpayer-backed financing, is ripe for termination when its charter expires on September 30. Immediately focusing on a new target on the heels of Ex-Im's expiration is important. As Heritage Foundation's analyst Diane Katz expressed to me in an email, "We should certainly celebrate the success of blocking Ex-Im from doling out yet more subsidies, but the victory may be temporary and is certainly incomplete. Ex-Im is only one of dozens of corporate welfare programs, such as OPIC, that must be ended."
SCOTUS: Congress Doesn't Want to 'Destroy' Our Health-Care System? Oh, Yes, It Does!
For the second time, Chief Justice John Roberts breathed life into Obamacare and rescued it from the Constitution. In the first big Obamacare ruling, Roberts called Obamacare a "tax," and therefore lawfully enacted as consistent with the powers of Congress — and not a violation of the Commerce Clause. Never mind the Obama administration sold Obamacare with the assurance that individuals who failed to purchase health insurance would incur a penalty — not a tax. On this latest ruling, Roberts takes the words "established by the State" to mean "established by the states or by the federal government" — even though the last five words appear nowhere in the law passed by Congress and signed by President Obama.
What Was So Dreadful About Last Week?
If you dutifully read the weekend newspapers and watched the Sunday morning gasbags on television, I suspect you departed the chaos with a terrible headache. Possibly you departed for the bar. Typical of the news stories was one The Washington Post headlined: "GOP Struggles For Footing As Cultural Ground Shifts Leftward." Who was doing the shifting? Well, a couple of delusional Supreme Court justices supported by a homicidal maniac seated in someone's backyard flying the Confederate flag over his puny shoulder and a narcissistic self-promoter who recently changed his/her name to Caitlyn. Such are the dynamic forces driving history in America today — at least in the eyes of the Hollywood-New York-Washington axis.
Repeating Myself on an Iran Nuclear Deal
Am I allowed to repeat myself when it comes to the negotiations over the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal? Why not, since that is what Iran's leaders are doing. They are repeating themselves by refusing inspections of some of their facilities where only a fool would believe nuclear weapons are not under construction. They are repeating themselves when they demand all sanctions be lifted on the day any deal is signed. And let's not forget Iran's weekly "Death to America" chants at Friday prayer services, though publicly politicians in Tehran are said to denounce them. Why would anyone in his right diplomatic mind believe anything these subsidizers of terrorism say, especially when they appear to believe their religion requires them to build a bomb, obliterate Israel, eliminate America and subject the world to Sharia law?
Media Hide Facts, Call Everyone Else a Liar
When Donald Trump said something not exuberantly enthusiastic about Mexican immigrants, the media's response was to boycott him. One thing they didn't do was produce any facts showing he was wrong. Trump said: "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems to us. They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." The first thing a news fact-checker would have noticed is: THE GOVERNMENT WON'T TELL US HOW MANY IMMIGRANTS ARE COMMITTING CRIMES IN AMERICA. Wouldn't that make any person of average intelligence suspicious? Not our media. They're in on the cover-up.
We Are All Californians Now
California keeps reminding us what has gone astray with America in recent years. The state is in the midst of a crippling four-year-old drought. Yet California has built almost no major northern or central mountain reservoirs since the New Melones Dam of 1979. That added nearly 3 million acre-feet to the state's storage reserves — a critical project that was almost canceled by endless environmental lawsuits and protests. Although California has almost doubled in population since the dam's construction, its politicians apparently decided that completing more northern and Sierra Nevada water projects was passé. So the parched state now prays for rain and snow rather than building reservoirs to ensure that the next drought won't shut down the state.
Wednesday, July 1, 2015
You Can't Compromise With Culture Warriors
I loved reading the "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" books to my daughter. The somewhat Aesopian theme is that if you give the mouse what it wants — a cookie — it will just want more: a glass of milk, a straw, etc. The story came to mind last week, a week that began with many vowing to inter the Confederate flag and ended with the Supreme Court mandating that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage. As far as culture war victories go, the flag news was big, but the marriage ruling was tantamount to VE Day.
Deferring to Congress, Roberts Takes Over Its Job
The Chief Justice Saves Obamacare by Rewriting the Law
Heroes, Villains
Have you seen the new Jurassic Park movie, "Jurassic World?" It had the biggest opening of any movie in history. The movie tells how a reckless biotech company releases dinosaurs that kill its customers. Its tale of heroes vs. villains made me think about how America has changed since our independence, the anniversary of which we celebrate this weekend. We call the men who fought the British "heroes." But we no longer consider the British "villains." We don't even seem to hate monarchs anymore. Disney princesses and royal babies are all the rage. Hollywood needs heroes and villains, and over time those roles changed. It was once cowboys vs. Indians, then Americans soldiers vs. Nazis and "Japs," then Russians, then Arabs, then ...
Fewer Traditional Values Means More Government
More unsettling than the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges directing states to recognize same-sex marriage is the reasoning that went into the decision. It would be nice to believe that the men and women who wear black robes and occupy seats on America's highest court are serious people — or that they are wise. But going forth, unfortunately, it should be clear that the real thought leaders of America are in Hollywood, and that our Supreme Court, save three conservatives, is just a ship that rides the wave of public opinion.
The Real Goal of the Same-Sex Marriage Movement
Late last week, after the Supreme Court of the United States declared without any Constitutional basis that the Constitution mandates same-sex marriages be state legitimized across the nation, a disquieting level of triumphalism broke out from coast to coast. The president shined lights representing the gay pride rainbow flag on the White House — a gross boot-on-the-throat display from an anti-religious leader. Corporations, undoubtedly fearful of the consequences of ending up on the wrong side of the riotous left, began tweeting out rainbow symbols. News outlets similarly embraced the rainbow symbol, as though it were uncontroversial to do so; BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, and Mashable all turned their logos rainbow, with BuzzFeed's Ben Smith explaining, "We firmly believe that for a number of issues, including civil rights, women's rights, anti-racism, and LGBT equality, there are not two sides." Let's move beyond the romantically idiotic language of Justice Kennedy's decision. The notion that gay rights advocates and their allies, who have spent decades suggesting that the institution of marriage represents patriarchal oppression, love and respect marriage so much that they wish to join in its binds, is inane. And the idea that the gay rights movement desperately seeks the tax assistance available to male-female married couples was made false long ago with the promises of civil unions.
The Hidden Message of Same-Sex Marriage
The four dissenters in Obergefell v. Hodges lucidly expressed the profound offense against constitutional law and representative democracy the ruling represents. In short, five lawyers, accountable to no one, chose to legislate on a profoundly consequential matter that the people were just beginning to address through democratic means. As Chief Justice Roberts wrote: "Who do we think we are?" If justices cannot resist the urge to legislate, let's drop the pretense that constitutional law is guided by neutral principles and at least give the people the option to vote justices in (and out). That the court has struck a blow for gay rights is true enough (and treating homosexuals with respect is long overdue). Unfortunately, the claim that this ruling also strengthens marriage is almost certainly false. To understand why is also to answer the question so often pressed as a taunt by gay marriage supporters: How can extending marriage to gays possibly affect your marriage? The answer lies in the hidden message.
The Media, the Court and the Slippery Sex Slope
Back in 2003, the Associated Press gave serious aid and comfort to a vicious campaign against Sen. Rick Santorum over an interview he granted them dealing with the gay rights issue. AP spent a week promoting calls to remove Santorum from the Senate GOP leadership for this fraction of their interview: "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery." AP hyped this comparison by adding the word "gay" between "consensual" and "sex." Santorum's point was philosophical: Where is a line drawn on sexual consent? Is there a line at all? And when you seek to erase any line, what does this do to society?
Tolerance: It's Not Just for Liberals Anymore!
If there's one thing the Supreme Court accomplished last Friday (besides unleashing cultural chaos on America), it was ending the liberal media's charade. Whatever scrap of journalistic impartiality existed flew out the courtroom window Friday when the press decided these five justices not only invented a right to same-sex marriage but to censorship too. Less than a week after the Court trampled the Constitution, one of the biggest stories of the ruling is the industry tasked with relaying it — the mainstream press. After years of trying to drive out debate, the liberal media is using the cloak of the Court to do it. Desperate to take away the voice of Christians at the public table, the Left is already on the march to undermine the very freedom that gives breath to the speech it now enjoys.
America Had More Married Couples With Kids in 1963 Than in 2014
There were more married couples with children in the United States in 1963 than there were in 2014, according to data published by the U.S. Census Bureau. Fifty-two years ago, there were 24,321,000 married couples in this country who had at least one child under 18 living in their home, according the bureau's Table FM-1. Last year, despite a significantly larger national population, there were only 23,933,000. The Census Bureau numbers dramatically demonstrate America's abandonment of the traditional family. When measured as a percentage of all American households, the presence of married couples with children in our society has been more than cut in half since the post-World War II heyday of the traditional family.
Fanning the Flames of Another Black Church Arson Hoax
America is still reeling from the horrific Charleston, S.C., massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church that claimed the lives of nine innocent people. The last thing the community and our country need are hysterical journalists compounding the pain with inflammatory reporting on an unsubstantiated "epidemic" of black church arsons. On Monday, a Baltimore Sun lead editorial decried "a series of mysterious fires at African-American churches across the South" in the wake of the Charleston murders. The newspaper cited a "pattern" of attacks, including what it claimed was an "uptick in attacks on 37 black churches in the South" in the 1990s that "prompted President Bill Clinton to set up a church-arson investigative task force."
Constitutional Ignorance and Dereliction
The nation's demagogues and constitutionally ignorant are using the Charleston, South Carolina, AME church shooting to attack the Second Amendment's "right of the people to keep and bear Arms." A couple of years ago, President Barack Obama said, "I have a profound respect for the traditions of hunting that trace back in this country for generations." That's a vision shared by many Americans, namely that the Constitution's framers gave us the Second Amendment to protect our rights to go deer and duck hunting, do a bit of skeet shooting, and protect ourselves against criminals. That this vision is so widely held reflects the failure of gun rights advocates, such as the NRA and Gun Owners of America, to educate the American people. The following are some statements by the Founding Fathers. You tell me which one of them suggests that they gave us the Second Amendment for deer and duck hunting and protection against criminals.
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
The Formal End to Judeo-Christian America
The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on the redefinition of marriage seals the end of America as the Founders envisioned it. From well before 1776 until the second half of the 20th century, the moral values of the United States were rooted in the Bible and its God. Unlike Europe, which defined itself as exclusively Christian, America became the first Judeo-Christian society. The American Founders were Christians — either theologically or culturally — but they were rooted in the Hebrew Scriptures. Even Americans who could not affirm traditional Christian or Jewish theology affirmed the centrality of God to ethics. Americans, from the Founders on, understood that without God, there is no moral truth, only moral opinion — and assumed that those truths were to be gleaned from the Bible more than anywhere else.
Marriage and the Rule of Law(yers)
They were God's covenant colors — a warm arc of reds, oranges, yellows, greens, blues, and purples — transformed and splashed across the White House in a defiant display of pride. It was a stark contrast to how the Supreme Court was lit up — with the candles of hundreds of men and women gathered to pray. Heeding a call that spread like wildfire through social media, Christians from across the city made their way to a vigil until the sidewalks were covered with the lights of God's people. One by one, they pleaded for mercy, protection, and forgiveness in these difficult days. "God's not looking for a lot of people," FRC's Chase Jennings said, "He's looking for a faithful people." And those faithful people have an important mission: showing the love of Christ by speaking the truth of Christ. But to do it, the church needs to rise up and realize that this isn't the end of the struggle for marriage — but the beginning of the fight for freedom.