Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, September 12, 2014
Actually, Senators, You're the Ones Who Threaten the Country
We are, as it always seems, "at a pivotal moment in American history." At least that's what Sens. Tom Udall and Bernie Sanders maintained in a melodramatic Politico op-ed last week as they explained their efforts to repeal the First Amendment. Let me retort in their language: It's true that building the United States has been long, arduous and rife with setbacks. But throughout the years, the American people have repelled efforts to weaken or dismantle the First Amendment. We have weathered the Sedition Act of 1918, a law that led to the imprisonment of innocent Americans who opposed the war or the draft. Since then, we have withstood numerous efforts to hamper, chill and undermine basic free expression in the name of "patriotism." We have, however, allowed elected officials to treat citizens as if they were children by arbitrarily imposing strict limits on their free speech in the name of "fairness."
Christianity Grounded in the Historical Fact of the Resurrection
Jesus' apostles and other disciples were willing to die for him. But so what? Haven't the followers of other religious leaders and even some political leaders been willing to die for them, as well? What makes Jesus' followers so unique in this regard? I address this very question in my new book, "Jesus on Trial: A Lawyer Affirms the Truth of the Gospel," because I used to wonder about this, too. What, if anything, distinguishes the Christian martyrs? New Testament scholar Gary Habermas offered an insight that I hadn't considered before, and I find it enormously probative.
Large Gov't Out of Place in a Society Based on Small Technology
"Twentieth-century technology," writes economic historian Joel Mokyr in the Manhattan Institute's excellent City Journal, "was primarily about 'large' things." Large in physical size, that is. Mokyr's examples include the diesel engine and the gas turbine, shipping containers, communications satellites launched by giant rockets, oil-drilling platforms, massive power stations, giant steel mills and huge airplanes. Most are familiar sights today, but if we try to see them with the eyes of someone in 1914, they are awe-inspiring. This summer, I drove past the ruins of Henry Ford's Highland Park plant, the largest manufacturing plant in the world when it opened in 1910. There, Ford set up the first auto assembly line and in 1914, the same year Europe went to war, started paying his workers $5 a day.
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Living Under Imperfect Law & Leadership
The US Constitution begins with the words, "We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union..." Our founding fathers acknowledged the imperfection inherent in all societies. Their goal was not the unrealistic one of forming a perfect, or utopian union. Instead, they aspired to establish a *more perfect* one. In fact, they set up the Constitution with provisions for revision. They knew -- perhaps even hoped -- that future generations would amend the Constitution to continue making it more perfect. The nature of our imperfect union evokes two responses. One is challenging; the other is a source of great pride and hope. The former is the thought that our nation is undeniably imperfect. Meaning our armed forces, political leaders, and adults and children alike standing with their hands over their hearts pledge their service and loyalty to something that is not only flawed (our imperfect union), but also vulnerable to further corruption, even tyranny. The founders knew that democracy and self-government were experiments, and the nature of an experiment is that it can fail. (You cannot call yourself a genuine patriot until you wrestle with this difficult truth.)
9/11 -- Utterly Anathema to Progressive Ideology
On September 11, 2001 the forces of radical Islam perpetrated the worst domestic attack in the history of the nation. Thirteen years later, the reasons for that attack remain utterly anathema to progressive ideology. Nothing reveals the utter bankruptcy of the progressive love affair with moral relativism, non-judgmentalism and multiculturalism better than 9/11. For the briefest of moments, it became utterly impossible to convince the American public that evil is in the eye of the beholder, that we mustn't reach any larger conclusions about those who killed nearly 3,000 Americans, or that Islamo-fascism and American exceptionalism have a more or less equal status in the panoply of world cultures. For the briefest of moments, American were snapped out of their self-absorbed and self-inflicted torpor, their pettiness, and their reflexive ideology. For the briefest of moments, the nation was united by a steely resolve, borne first out of fear, but morphing quickly into righteous anger.
Get Angry Now
President Obama now says he will wait until after the November elections to implement an "executive amnesty" for 11 million illegal aliens, so as not to hurt Democrats' chances this year. Instead of waiting to be enraged in December, voters, could you please be enraged now? Once the holiday season kicks off, you'll be too busy going to parties and Christmas shopping to notice that you're suddenly living in Mexico. Getting Obama to postpone a rancid idea isn't something to celebrate. *Yay! We did it! We forced him to delay doing something the country doesn't want for SIX WEEKS!* Every Republican candidate better be jamming Obama's threat down the throats of their Democratic opponents.
Paul Ryan's Way
There is a mystery about Congressman Paul Ryan's new and very good book, "The Way Forward: Renewing the American Dream." Perhaps there are several mysteries. Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee and Mitt Romney's vice presidential running mate, begins by writing at length about the place he has lived all his life, Janesville, a town of 60,000 in southern Wisconsin. It is rural, but it also has industry. Moreover it has Ryans. Sixty-seven of his cousins live nearby. The Ryans have lived there for generations along with other Catholics, Protestants and presumably citizens utterly oblivious to religion's call. But the point is that most of the citizens of Janesville are decent, law-abiding, can-do citizens. Ryan describes it as an ideal community to grow up in and to discover the American Idea. It is his idea of how we live as Americans. It is also the Founding Fathers' idea, and the basic idea of modern conservatism, of which Ryan is a leading member.
Secretary Clinton: Stop Digging!
It's one of the oldest rules in politics. And it's one that her husband, Bill Clinton, made famous: "When you're in a hole, stop digging!" So why is Secretary Hillary Clinton continuing to dig away? Her book tour was bound to be rocky. With a tin ear for the nuances of young feminists, she titled her book, *Hard Choices*. But the Washington Post recently published Janet Harris' column urging all liberals to "stop saying abortion is a difficult choice." If you talk like that, Harris says, you are putting the focus on the fetus. Well, we can't do that! Difficult Choice? Hard Choices? Her very book title is off-key in the pro-abortion chorus. Even worse, Hillary Clinton famously told Newsweek in 1994 (October 31st issue) that "abortion is wrong." She had never said it before and she has never said it since. But she said it. And that spells trouble with the Left that will not provide legal protection for a single one of the 57,000,000 unborn children whose lives have been sacrificed to choice. Then, there's young Rob Goodman's piece in Politico. It's titled "Duck this Dynasty." That's pretty clever, I'll admit. And the argument this activist makes is most interesting.
Reverse Race Card: NBA Owner Outs Himself -- as a 'Racist'
The NBA's Atlanta Hawks owner has discovered that he is, Lord help him, a "racist"! How do we know this? He tells us. Owner Bruce Levenson "outed" himself by producing an email he wrote back in 2012. Now, to the untrained eye, this email might read like a standard analysis of how to attract a larger and more diversified market share. But Levenson now realizes that he was practicing ... racism! So in the interest of purging the NBA of all "racist" owners, Levenson is reluctantly now offering to sell his team. What exactly did the "incendiary" memo say?
New Buckeye Poll Reminds Leaders Where Buck Stops...
A new poll shows that not only is the debate over marriage far from over, but it now threatens the reelection prospects of a Republican senator who stunned his constituents last year by endorsing marriage's redefinition. While many in the media are declaring the marriage debate over, those who vote in GOP primaries are again saying, "Not so fast!" My good friend Phil Burress with Citizens for Community Values Action (CCVA) just released the new survey that asked Ohio Republican likely voters whether they support Senator Rob Portman's (R-Ohio) move to support same-sex "marriage." Only 15% of Republican voters supported his decision compared to 72% who opposed his decision to abandon natural marriage. "Senator Portman has alienated conservatives and is very likely to lose in 2016 because the conservative base will not vote for him. Senator Portman should step down before the 2016 election so that conservatives can support a pro-life / pro-natural marriage candidate," CCVA Chairman Burress told the media. "In short, Portman is placing a Senate seat at risk to lose to a potential liberal Democrat."
The Sacking of Ray Rice
The "indefinite suspension" of Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice for knocking out his then-fiancé, now wife, in an elevator at an Atlantic City casino has again provoked debate about domestic violence and what the National Football League tolerates when it affects a star player. Ravens head coach John Harbaugh, who last spring testified to Rice's good character, says a new video has "changed things." Rice was initially suspended for two games after part of a video showed Rice dragging fiancée Janay Palmer from the elevator. When TMZ released the rest of the video, it showed Rice punching Palmer in the face inside the elevator, knocking her unconscious. The video also shows her spitting at him and both of them exchanging obscenities.
Few Interests, Fewer Friends in Middle East
Try figuring out the maze of enemies, allies and neutrals in the Middle East. In 2012, the Obama administration was on the verge of bombing the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. For a few weeks he was public enemy No. 1 because he had used chemical weapons on his own people and because he was responsible for many of the deaths in the Syrian civil war, with a casualty count that is now close to 200,000. After Obama's red lines turned pink, we forgot about Syria. Then the Islamic State showed up with beheadings, crucifixions, rapes and mass murders through a huge swath of Iraq and Syria.
Extremism in Defense of Re-Election
Since Barry Goldwater, accepting the Republicans' 1964 presidential nomination, said "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice," Democrats have been decrying Republican "extremism." Actually, although there is abundant foolishness and unseemliness in American politics, real extremism -- measures or movements that menace the Constitution's architecture of ordered liberty -- is rare. This week, however, extremism stained the Senate. Forty-eight members of the Democratic caucus attempted to do something never previously done -- amend the Bill of Rights. They tried to radically shrink First Amendment protection of political speech. They evidently think extremism in defense of the political class's convenience is no vice.
The Extremely Uncivil War
When I see that even now a great many Americans feel it's their duty to parrot the lie that most Muslims are peace-loving people, I find myself wondering how many times these yokels have purchased the Brooklyn Bridge. Nobody, after all, would suggest that every single Muslim in the world dances a jig each time jihadists tunnel into Israel with the aim of kidnapping and killing women and children or that they all celebrated the recent beheading of James Foley. But what proof do we have that they don't? When you realize that Muslims in the west have never stopped donating to Islamic terrorist groups or stopped joining their ranks, why shouldn't we suspect the worst of them?
Mob Rule Economics
While we talk about democracy and equal rights, we seem increasingly to let both private and government decisions be determined by mob rule. There is nothing democratic about mob rule. It means that some people's votes are to be overruled by other people's disruptions, harassments and threats. The latest examples are the mobs in the streets in cities across the country, demanding that employers pay a minimum wage of $15 an hour, or else that the government makes them do so by law. Some of the more gullible observers think the issue is whether what some people are making now is "a living wage." This misconstrues the whole point of hiring someone to do work. Those who are being hired are paid for the value of the work they do.
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
Why Is Dependency Rising, and Can It Be Reversed?
Often during an economic recovery, welfare caseloads fall as jobs return. In this recovery, welfare caseloads kept climbing through 2012. That's the message of a new Census Bureau report released last week, which found that, at the end of 2012, the number of Americans in households collecting "means tested" welfare assistance was officially 109 million. That's close to the number of people huddled around TV sets to watch the Super Bowl. It's also 35 percent of all households that receive at least one form of public assistance -- food stamps, Medicaid, supplemental security income, nutrition programs for kids, housing aid, and so on. Many tens of millions receive multiple forms of aid.
Is the Penn Mightier Than the Sword?
Penn State may be considered "higher education," but they still have a lot to learn about the First Amendment. This month, Penn State opened a new chapter (and verse) in the fight over religious censorship. After decades of keeping the Bible in campus lodging, officials announced that they'd booted Gideon Bibles from rooms after threats from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) -- the same organization that pressured the U.S. Navy (unsuccessfully) to pull its books from hotels on base.
Cheap Politicians
The recent bribery convictions of former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell and his wife are only the latest in a seemingly never-ending series of convictions of government officials. A little item on the Internet featured government officials in prison, either currently or in recent times. Among them were a mayor of New Orleans, a mayor of Detroit and a mayor of Washington; a governor of Connecticut, a governor of Louisiana, two governors of Illinois and four members of Congress. However much these and other government officials may have richly deserved being behind bars, the country does not deserve to have its confidence in government repeatedly undermined. A country with 100 percent cynicism about its government cannot be governed. And nobody wants anarchy.
Favors and Loot for Sale
At a July fundraising event in Chicago, Mrs. Michelle Obama remarked, "So, yeah, there's too much money in politics. There's (sic) special interests that have too much influence." Sen. John McCain has been complaining for years that "there is too much money washing around political campaigns today." According to a 2012 Reuters poll, "Seventy-five percent of Americans feel there is too much money in politics." Let's think about money in politics, but first a few facts. During the 2012 presidential campaign, Barack Obama raised a little over $1 billion, while Mitt Romney raised a little under $1 billion. Congressional candidates raised over $3.5 billion. In 2013, there were 12,341 registered lobbyists and $3.2 billion was spent on lobbying. During the years the Clintons have been in national politics, they've received at least $1.4 billion in contributions, according to Time magazine and the Center for Responsive Politics, making them "The First Family of Fundraising."
One Thing Hillary Clinton's Memoir Doesn't Explain About Benghazi
In her memoir, "Hard Choices," former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton included a chapter on the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, 2012. But she failed to specifically explain why Amb. Chris Stevens was there that day. "U.S. ambassadors are not required to consult or seek approval from Washington, when traveling within their countries, and rarely do," she wrote. "Like all chiefs of mission, Chris made decisions about his movements based on the security assessments of his team on the ground, as well as his own judgment," she said. "After all, no one had more knowledge or experience in Libya than he did. He was well aware of the lawlessness in Benghazi, including a series of incidents earlier in the year against Western interests. Yet he understood Benghazi's strategic importance in Libya and decided that the value of a visit outweighed the risks."