Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, October 3, 2014
Hailing the First 'Great' Transgender TV Show
The London Daily Mail reports Amazon.com now issues a content warning to viewers before they live-stream the second volume of classic "Tom and Jerry" cartoons. Viewers are lectured the cartoons "may depict some ethnic and racial prejudices that were once commonplace in American society. Such depictions were wrong then and are wrong today." If you think this makes sense, dear reader, you, too, have lost your mind. The same Amazon.com is also releasing a new 10-part Web series called "Transparent," about a 70-year-old father of three who decides he's a woman named Maura. There are no content warnings for this. There is only progressive euphoria. TV critics and the wider media are falling all over themselves expressing glory and praise for this cultural landmark.
Can We End the Crazy Diversity Visa Lottery Yet?
Ebola has reached our shores from Africa. Dozens of children are reportedly suffering paralysis from a deadly virus with unknown origins. Medical providers across the country have warned of a looming public health crisis as communicable diseases spread unmonitored and uncontrolled. Other countries are cracking down. But America is stuck on open-borders stupid. The Diversity Visa (DV) program, to take just one glaring example of government insanity, is still going. On October 1, the State Department opened the annual DV random lottery to applicants from around the world. Yes, it's completely random like a Powerball drawing. Up to 55,000 lucky winners will snag permanent residency visas (green cards), which put them on the path to American citizenship ahead of millions of other foreigners patiently waiting to come to this country.
Let's Cut to the Chaste!
It wasn't enough for liberals to demand free birth control for adults. Now, the Left is gearing up for an even bigger sales pitch -- for young girls. America's daughters are the next stop on Congress's high-speed train of sexual irresponsibility, thanks to a new study from the Washington University School of Medicine. Researchers there insist that if teenage girls had access to free birth control implants like IUDs and hormones, the pregnancy rate would nosedive. "When costs are removed, young people and families will use these effective methods," said Dr. Mary Ott of Indiana University. Like the American Academy of Pediatrics, which just threw its support behind these more invasive kinds of contraception for kids, Ott is part of a growing movement of doctors determined to remove the barriers to early sexual activity. While researchers cheered the lower birth rates they saw from the free implants (35 out of 1,000 compared to the national average of 158 per 1,000), they were suspiciously mum on the rate of sexually transmitted diseases.
Wrong Ideological Choice Has Cost Obama Dearly
Barack Obama had a choice between liberalism and the Democratic Party. He chose the latter and it cost him dearly. Liberalism, as an ideology, insists that government can do good and great things for the people and the world, if the people running the government are smart liberals. The Democratic Party says the exact same thing. But liberalism is an ideal, while the Democratic Party is that ideal's representative here in the real world, and in the real world political parties disappoint. Just to be clear -- and to avoid a lot of "Oh, yeah? What about Republicans?!" responses -- this is true of the GOP, too. Conservative ideology holds that government should only do those things that only government can and should do, and that list is very short. For instance, government shouldn't be in the business of playing favorites in the economy. It shouldn't "pick winners and losers." Rather, it should be a fair umpire and let competition work its magic. Alas, Republican politicians routinely fall short of this ideal, preferring to be pro-business rather than pro-market. That, in so many words, is why the Export-Import Bank is immortal.
The Real Mythmakers
Two articles I read this week vindicate my decision to write my new book, "Jesus on Trial: A Lawyer Affirms the Truth of the Gospel." It's not just Christianity's values that are under attack but its core claims. I was well aware when undertaking this project that some Christians would be put off by the very idea of Christian apologetics. According to them, we don't need to defend the faith. Respectfully, that's not what the Bible says. Peter tells us, "Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 3:15).
The Real Reason Winning the Senate Matters
You can win midterm elections without a positive agenda. You can't win presidential elections that way. It is therefore vitally important for Republicans to win the Senate in 2014. Here's why. In midterms, it's all right to be the party of no. The 2010 election, for example, was a referendum on the liberal overreach of the first two Obama years. Result? A Democratic "shellacking," said President Obama. The massive stimulus, (the failed) cap-and-trade and Obamacare created a major backlash that cost Obama the House and, with it, the rest of his ideological agenda. It's been blocked ever since.
Please Don't Vote
Most Americans don't really care about contemporary political issues or the rudimentary workings of their government. But they sure do love voting. And the biggest fans of "democracy" treat this orgy of vacuous lever pulling as if it were sacred or patriotic. It is neither. In 2013, President Barack Obama, who's often argued that voting should be easier, issued a decidedly undemocratic executive order to create a commission that was tasked with investigating how to expand participation. The report, for example, suggests that no one in the country should have to wait longer than 30 minutes to cast a ballot -- or, in other words, voting should entail 15 minutes less exertion than ordering Chinese takeout. Nowhere within the recommendations -- or elsewhere, for that matter -- do we ever ponder whether voters have a civic responsibility to know who the vice president is before getting an "I voted" sticker.
It Looks Like a GOP Wave; the Question is How Far it Goes
Republicans seem to be pulling away in the race to win a majority in the U.S. Senate. At least this week. In mid-September, several polls seemed to be going the other way. The well-informed Washington Post analyst Chris Cillizza wrote that for the first time in this election cycle, odds favored the Democrats keeping their majority. Two weeks later, he was singing another tune. Analysts at the Post, the New York Times and FiveThirtyEight, in addition to psephologists Charlie Cook, Stuart Rothenberg and Larry Sabato, all agreed.
Footballs: Political & Pigskin
Much, I'd say too much, has been made of the incident in the elevator involving Ray Rice and his then-fiancée. I believe that most of us agree that men should not slug women and women should not spit on men. But in a world where men are being beheaded and women are being stoned, whipped and sold into sexual slavery, I think we should all get a grip. In the wake of the incident NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell stood a good chance of losing his job. As I sit here, the question hasn't yet been answered and, unless you're a friend or relative of Mr. Goodell's, it will be of no concern to you.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
You Can't Keep a Good Myth Down
We're interrupting our Republican Senate 2014 Marathon this week for a brief note on the media. (But contribute to Scott Brown immediately, and please don't vote for the third-party, tea party candidate in Louisiana, right-wingers! Remember: Obamacare cannot be repealed without 66 votes in the Senate.) I've barely been paying attention to the news, except to check Senate polls every night, because, as some of you may have noticed, I've been in the bat-cave under Swiss Guard protection, writing my next book. But based on only about an hour of media consumption a week, I've recently noticed mainstream "news" outlets telling huge whoppers, long ago disproved and forgotten.
Lib Policies Torpedo Navy Morale
The Navy has plenty of destroyers -- but low morale may be the biggest one of all. Stressed and stretched thin, most sailors say they're fighting another kind of enemy: distrust and dissatisfaction. For most service members, the last six years have been an emotional roller coaster -- not only because of the external conflicts, but because of the internal ones that threaten to tear apart an already fragile fighting force. In a survey of 5,536 Navy personnel, only 27% say morale is "good" or "excellent," a freefall from past responses, where strained troops still managed to keep their spirits up. Now, a half-decade deep into the President's social experiment with the military, the scars are starting to show. Almost half of enlisted troops said they "distrust senior leaders" -- an opinion shared by 40% of officers. And the wave of pessimism threatens to affect more than just the Navy.
Obama Spreads the Blame Around for ISIS Rise
"No one should be ashamed to admit they are wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that they are wiser today than they were yesterday." -- Alexander Pope President Obama is known for wanting to "spread the wealth around," but he has now gone a step further. He is spreading blame around for his failure to notice the rapid rise of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. On "60 Minutes" last Sunday night, the president, who tends to use the personal pronoun when taking credit for perceived successes, blamed his Defense Intelligence Agency chief, James Clapper, for bad intelligence about ISIS.
When Paul Became Muhammad
When I was growing up in South-Central Los Angeles, "Paul" was one of my closest friends. In grade school and junior high, he and I spent countless hours together. He helped me become a slightly better athlete, and I helped him with math and biology. But when I returned home from college, Paul had become "Muhammad." But pre-Muhammad, Paul starred on the high school basketball, baseball and football teams. As the basketball team's starting point guard, he was a prolific scorer and a tenacious defender, a combination college recruiters drool over. Big basketball power schools -- UCLA, Notre Dame, Marquette and others -- scouted him. Paul talked incessantly about the destiny to which he felt entitled ... the NBA, the money and the glamour. But Paul had a problem -- temper and arrogance.
Can It Happen Here?
Can it happen here? It *is* happening in Europe where French polls show that the National Front's Marine Le Pen would win the election for president if elections were held tomorrow. Something like it *has* happened in Italy where an anarchist comedian, the happily named Beppe Grillo, garnered 25 percent of the vote last year. Most spectacularly, it *almost* happened in the United Kingdom last month. What am I talking about? An election in which the lowly voters overcome the professional pols and vote their minds. Now there is evidence that it can happen here. In the United Kingdom last month 45 percent of Scottish voters voted "yes" to break up their union with England, a union that has endured more than 300 years. Eight-five percent turned out to vote. Only a last minute rescue mission by the leadership of all London's political parties saved the United Kingdom, but at a high price. Owing to London's promises, the Scots have come very close to home rule. Can Northern Ireland and Wales be far behind? Moreover, the United Kingdom's professional pols face another challenge in next year's elections when its Euroskeptics again challenge them. The Conservative Party, Labour, and the Liberal Democrats, then will have to contend with their dynamic fourth party, UKIP, which already has 24 of Britain's 73 seats in the European Parliament. UKIP is the broadly conservative and libertarian party to the right of the Conservative Party. It has a rough equivalent on this side of the Atlantic, the tea party!
None Can Call It Treason
A couple of weeks ago at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, several hundred people went to their feet to applaud a speech delivered by David H. Koch. The occasion was the opening of the Met's new facade on Fifth Avenue. It runs four city blocks, and is complete with new fountains, paving, lighting, landscaping and seating areas for visitors. Mr. Koch contributed the entire $65 million cost of the project, which took years to complete. And the people kept applauding. For several minutes. They wouldn't stop in their gratitude for Koch's generosity toward New York and one of the world's great museums.
Bomb or Occupy -- or Neither?
Wars usually end only when the defeated aggressor believes it would be futile to resume the conflict. Lasting peace follows if the loser is then forced to change its political system into something other than what it was. Republican Rome learned that bitter lesson through three conflicts with Carthage before ensuring that there was not going to be a fourth Punic War. Germany fought three aggressive wars before it was finally defeated, occupied and reinvented. America defeated Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and Imperial Japan, inflicting such damage that they were all unable to continue their resistance. And then, unlike its quick retreat home after World War I, America occupied -- and still has bases in -- all three.
A New Case for Term Limits
"The legislative department is everywhere ... drawing all power into its impetuous vortex." -- James Madison, Federalist 48 Unfortunately, Congress' vortex now spins the other way, throwing off powers that the executive scoops up. Hence this autumn's spectacle: Feverish House and Senate candidates waging ferocious campaigns to win or retain offices that are of rapidly diminishing significance. It is official: America "is at war." We know this because the president's press secretary says so. Congress has not said so, but many members say that the Islamic State must be countered and that they may have more to say about this in a few months.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
'Who Will Rest and Who Will Wander'
There is a transfixing passage in the High Holy Day liturgy, recited on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which depicts God sitting in judgment of mankind, reviewing each person's deeds and deciding who will live and who will die. Ominously, the ancient prayer enumerates the awful ways a life can end. "Who by water and who by fire; who by sword and who by beast; who of hunger and who of thirst; who by earthquake and who by plague…" Then comes a shift. Something else is at stake: "Who will rest and who will wander."
State Dept. Rejects Netanyahu's Mideast Diagnosis
The administration throws the Israeli prime minister under the bus.
The Constitution, the Great Charter of Liberty
The document’s excellence is proved by its longevity