Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
Jews, Outnumbered by Muslims, Suffer Under Mob Rule
In the wake of the terrorist attack on a kosher market in Paris, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked French Jews to come home. I don't particularly like that advice. I think it would be a tragedy if centuries of Jewish French culture had to die out because Jews were chased out by Islamist thugs. The French government agrees -- for now at least -- and has posted armed soldiers everywhere Jews live and gather. Still, what Netanyahu understands is that there is strength in numbers. The more Jews there are in Israel, the stronger Israel will be. The flip side is that the fewer Jews there are in France -- or Europe or America -- the weaker Jews as a whole will be.
Early Presidential Prospects
With 2015 just getting under way, the buzz of political activity makes it seem almost as if we are already in the midst of the 2016 presidential campaign. Among the Democrats, Hillary Clinton is honing her message to appeal to the mindset of the left wing of her party, whose support she will need in her second attempt to get the nomination as the Democrats' presidential candidate in 2016. The left wing's true believers would of course prefer Senator Elizabeth Warren, who gives them the dogmas of the left pure and straight, uncontaminated by reality. But she says she is not running.
Will the West Defend Itself?
Leftists and progressives believe that the U.S. should become more like Europe. They praise Europe's massive welfare state, socialized medicine and stifling economic regulation and accept its unwillingness to defend itself against barbarism. I wonder whether America's leftists and progressives want to import some of Europe's barbaric extremism associated with its Muslim population. Several European countries have what are called "no-go zones." No-go zones function as microstates governed by Shariah. The host countries' authorities have lost control over these areas. In some cases, they are unable to provide even police, firefighting and ambulance services.
Whiners & Sore Winners
(Thomas Sowell, David Clarke, Hamas, John Boehner, Daniel Webster, Rudy Giuliani)
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
The Shared Benefits of Tax Reform
A simplified system would enhance the prosperity of families and businesses
How These Green Companies Are Gouging Consumers With the Government's Help
Solar panels are being installed on the roofs of homes and businesses all across America at a record pace. The fad is the latest way for families to "go green" -- the energy equivalent of blue recycling bins. The Solar Energy Industries Association likes to tout the industry's "amazing success" -- but it's holding a "Shout Out For Solar" social media event Friday as it sees an "uncertain future." That's because its continued success depends on a cascade of government subsidies, including a 30 percent federal investment credit that expires at the end of 2016.
When Freedom Doesn't Ring
While Americans celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr., the rest of the world is a long way from his peaceful legacy. Terror swept across Africa and Asia over the weekend, as radical Muslims set fire to churches, smashed glass, destroyed villages, and brutally murdered innocent Christians in protest of France's Charlie Hebdo. Pastor Zakaria Jadi, whose church was engulfed in flames, told the BBC, "I just rushed and told my colleagues to take away their families from the place… When I came back I just discovered that everything has gone. There's nothing in my house and also in the church." In Niger, there were smoldering ashes where 45 churches used to be, charred bodies inside one Cathedral, and a Christian orphanage leveled in retaliation for the West's millions-strong march for freedom.
American to the Core
The final words of his final speech, delivered from the pulpit of the Mason Temple Church of God in Memphis on April 3, 1968, eerily foreshadowed the next day's catastrophe. "Like anybody, I would like to live a long life," the Rev. Martin Luther King told his listeners, who had braved a thunderstorm to be there. "Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain…. I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!"
Same-Sex Marriage: Too Big a Job for the Court
A grand misconception is embedding itself in the public brain: To wit, the Supreme Court soon will clue us in to the true meaning of marriage. Nope. No way. Isn't so. Can't be so. This despite the court's intention, announced last week, to decide whether gays and lesbians merit constitutional entitlement to wed. I am obliged to note the discrepancy between, on the one hand, what commentators blatantly suggest is going on here and, on the other hand, what the most solemn assemblage of judges you ever set eyes on has actual power to do.
Oxford and the Crisis of the University
I spent Thanksgiving debating at the Oxford Union. Oxford University is the most prestigious university in the world. And the Oxford Union, hosting debates since 1823, is the world's most prestigious stage for competing ideas. These facts made what transpired all the more depressing. The proposition debated was: "Hamas is a greater obstacle to peace than Israel." When first apprised of the topic, I was so certain that an error had been made that I called both my debating partner, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, and Oxford to confirm it. Outside of the Muslim world and the far left, who would even think to argue that Hamas is not the greater obstacle to peace?
Republicans Must Unify on Major Issues
If we can't have a wholly unified Republican Party, can the GOP at least agree on some major issues that are essential to the Republican brand and, more importantly, help to get this country back on the right track? If we can't come together on some of the basic issues that have always defined us, how do we effectively oppose President Obama's ongoing destructive agenda? How do we sell ourselves in 2016 as not just a plausible but an imperative alternative? Part of our problem, especially in presidential races, is that too many among us are fearful that if they advocate truly conservative solutions, we'll be scorned by the media, the PC culture, the finger-wagging Democratic Party and the liberal establishment and lose elections. They simply don't believe in the power of our ideas anymore.
President Obama Sings the Same Old Song
Here's a suggestion for Joni Ernst, the new Republican senator from Iowa, who will deliver the GOP response to the State of the Union address Tuesday night. Get a chorus together and open with this old Sammy Cahn-Jule Styne number: "It seems to me I've heard that song before; it's from an old familiar score, I know it well, that melody." Advance leaks of the president's address indicate he will call for higher taxes on the wealthy and successful in order to pay for programs for the poor and middle class. This is boilerplate Democratic wealth redistribution we've heard since New Deal days, which appeals more to emotions than it does to principles with a long history of success.
Is Gov't Recreating the Housing Bubble and Financial Crisis?
What caused the financial crisis? How can we prevent another one from happening again? The answers you most often hear to those questions are (1) greed and deregulation and (2) the Dodd-Frank law. But they're patently inadequate. Greed -- or the desire for monetary gain -- has always been with us and always will be. And no one has convincingly linked financial deregulation to the crisis. Dodd-Frank, enacted to increase regulation, confers too-big-to-fail status on very large financial institutions, which incentivizes unduly risky behavior and penalizes smaller competitors.
'Diversity' in Action
Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe, and European governments' counter-attacks are more than just a passing news story. Europe is currently in the process of paying the price for years of importing millions of people from a culture hostile to the fundamental values of Western culture. And this is by no means the last of the installments of that price, to be paid in blood and lives, for smug elites' Utopian self-indulgences in moral preening and gushing with the magic word "diversity." Generations yet unborn will still be paying the price, whether in large or small installments, depending on how long it takes for the West to jettison Utopianism and come to grips with reality.
A Week's Worth of Progressive Insanity
As is my inclination, I am more than happy to mock progressive ideology for its utterly distorted view of human nature, its overarching hypocrisy and its intellectual bankruptcy. That being said, three stories from last week are so off the charts they make you wonder if radio talk show host Michael Savage's assertion that liberalism is a mental disorder is accurate. Personally, I think it's an insult to people with such disorders because one can feel a measure of sympathy for people struggling with life's vicissitudes. Liberals/progressives? Not so much. Let's begin with our leftist comrades eating their own. In Hollywood, better known as progressivism's Ground Zero, accusations of racism are flying hot and heavy, because all of the Oscar nominees in the acting categories are of the Caucasian persuasion. Hence the race hustlers are out in force, buoyed by the Sony Pictures hack during which it was revealed co-chairman Amy Pascal and producer Scott Rudin exchanged racially "insensitive" emails. Emails that precipitated a visit from America's foremost racial arsonist, aka Al Sharpton, who never lets the opportunity to precipitate a shakedown go to waste. A subsequent meeting between Sharpton and Pascal led to the formation of a working group that gives Sharpton input into how Sony makes motion pictures, to combat what Sharpton characterized as an "inflexible and immovable racial exclusion in Hollywood."
Monday, January 19, 2015
Americans Deserve a Fair Shot. Government Should Get Out of the Way.
Growing up, most Americans are taught to treat everyone fairly and recognize the importance of equality under the law. Despite political disagreements and the headache of elections and campaigns, we learn that a free society plays no favorites. Most of us still believe in that. Unfortunately, many in Washington, D.C., don't. You can see it in the way the federal government treats businesses, from Wall Street to internet search engines. Politicians rail against corporations and vow to protect taxpayers, investors, and users with tough new regulations. They need help crafting legislation, so they turn to the big players -- whether they're banks, tech companies or manufacturers -- and ask for expert advice.
Show the World That Americans 'Choose Life'
This Thursday, January 22, hundreds of thousands will march in Washington, DC, in the annual March for Life. This notes the 42nd anniversary of the Roe V. Wade decision, which legalized abortion and began a barbarous era in which 57 million unborn American human beings have been lost. As I type these words on my Apple computer, I consider the likelihood that this device would not sit in front of me if abortion was legal in 1955 when Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was born to an unwed graduate student and put up for adoption. There is one message that these "pro-lifers" who will arrive in Washington, DC, will convey to their nation and, yes, to the world at large.
The IRS Has Around 100,000 Employees. And Yet It's Still Incredibly Incompetent.
Imagine that a retail store or company like Best Buy or Home Depot announced that it has plans to slash customer service, that it will make people stand in lines for at least a half hour, and that any customer due a refund will have to wait several weeks. Oh, and it may not be able to prevent identity theft. That company would probably soon find itself in bankruptcy as shoppers fled to other banks or stores or restaurants where they can get first class service. That's what America is about, and every businessman and woman knows the customer always comes first.
Duke Dynasty: Tolerance Run Amok
No document was more instrumental in America's founding than the Declaration of Independence. But if there was a close second, Thomas Jefferson wrote it too: the Virginia Statute on Religious Freedom. If you asked Jefferson, he would say it was one of his proudest achievements. That might surprise Americans today, who wrongly believe that our third President wanted to divorce the government of all religious expression. On the contrary, what Jefferson wrote in Fredericksburg some 230 years ago was such a groundbreaking defense of freedom that the men who drafted our Constitution relied on it for the framework of the First Amendment.
The Energy Deniers
We hear it all the time from the liberal left: those of us who legitimately question man's impact on alleged global warming and call out the scandal plagued, phony facts used to support their hypothetical theories, are routinely labeled as, "Climate Deniers." Well, I have new term in 2015 for our friends on the left: "Energy Deniers." In 2015, the "Energy Deniers" in the White House, the EPA, and the U.S. Senate are out in force. Our misguided President, along with Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and EPA Director Gina McCarthy, are elbowing each other for face time in front of network TV cameras to announce plans to deny the Keystone XL Pipeline, deny access to vast energy resources on federal lands, and deny our potential energy and manufacturing renaissance.