Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Students for Liberty
On Saturday, some 1,500 students from all over the world gathered to discuss freedom at the Students for Liberty Conference in Washington, D.C. Economist Donald Boudreaux showed the students a department store catalog from 1958 to underscore how the free market, while contributing to income inequality, also dramatically improved the lives of the poor: "The typical American worker back then had to work 30 hours to buy this vacuum cleaner. Today, a worker has to work only six hours to buy a much better vacuum cleaner. And that's true for clothing, food, all sorts of things."
Hung Up on 'Stand Your Ground'
At the center of the case against Michael Dunn is a disappearing shotgun. The middle-aged software developer claims 17-year-old Jordan Davis threatened to kill him with it during an argument over loud music at a Jacksonville, Fla., gas station in November 2012. But police never found a gun, and no witness reported seeing one. It seems at least one juror nevertheless found Dunn's story plausible, because his trial ended last week without a verdict on the murder charge related to his shooting of Davis. But it is hard to see how that outcome could be attributed to Florida's "stand your ground" self-defense law, which has been widely blamed for hanging the jury.
The Free Beacon Offends the Clintons
Media liberals are howling at the apparent injustice of the "anti-Clinton" Washington Free Beacon website, which has dared to paw through old Hillary Clinton history. The hypocrisy is stunning. Let us recall the avalanche of mean-spirited and sleazy "fair game" the networks assembled for us just a few years ago in the last election cycle. Sarah Palin? She didn't even run, but NBC and Savannah Guthrie needed no documentary evidence to repeat every scurrilous accusation of leftist author Joe McGinniss: She was a horrible mother who used her children as props. Her marriage was a mess of incessant fighting on the verge of divorce. Both Palins used cocaine. And Sarah Palin once slept with pro basketball player Glen Rice.
Minimum Wage Hike Attacks Young and Industrious
In his weekly address last Saturday, President Barack Obama described his proposal to increase the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 per hour in language suggesting this would not be a tax increase. "It would lift millions of Americans out of poverty, and help millions more work their way out of poverty, without requiring a single dollar in new taxes or spending," said Obama. Perhaps he is right. "Tax" may not precisely describe Obama's proposal. "Attack" might be more accurate.
An Officer, but Not a Gentleman...
After more than a decade of war, the military is combating a new threat: ethics violations. It seems U.S. officers aren't just taking fire -- they're being fired for record cases of misconduct. The Associated Press furrowed plenty of brows with the news that the military's character problems start at the top, as internal investigations have caught hundreds of top brass in webs of gambling, corruption, drug and alcohol abuse, sexual assault, and taxpayer waste. According to internal documents, the lapses in judgment have exploded in the last three years, as the number of misconduct firings tripled. The crisis of character seems to be taking the biggest toll on the Army, which lost as many as 387 officers in 2013 (a far cry from the 119 forced departures in 2010).
Concealing Evil
Evil acts are given an aura of moral legitimacy by noble-sounding socialistic expressions, such as spreading the wealth, income redistribution, caring for the less fortunate, and the will of the majority. Let's have a thought experiment to consider just how much Americans sanction evil. Imagine there are several elderly widows in your neighborhood. They have neither the strength to mow their lawns, clean their windows and perform other household tasks nor the financial means to hire someone to help them. Here's a question that I'm almost afraid to ask: Would you support a government mandate that forces you or one of your neighbors to mow these elderly widows' lawns, clean their windows and perform other household tasks? Moreover, if the person so ordered failed to obey the government mandate, would you approve of some sort of sanction, such as fines, property confiscation or imprisonment? I'm hoping, and I believe, that most of my fellow Americans would condemn such a mandate. They'd agree that it would be a form of slavery -- namely, the forcible use of one person to serve the purposes of another.
Breaking Unions' Grip
This year's most important election will not occur in November, when more than 90 million votes will be cast for governors and national legislators. The most important election, crucial to an entire region's economic well-being and to the balance of the nation's political competition, has already occurred. Last week, at a Tennessee factory, workers rejected representation by the United Auto Workers union. The 712-626 vote -- an 89 percent turnout -- against unionizing the 3-year-old Chattanooga Volkswagen plant was a shattering defeat for the UAW, for organized labor generally, and for liberalism nationally. It was a commensurate victory for entrepreneurial federalism.
Obama, the Shrinking Imperialist President
Of all the time-honored failings for which we criticize sitting presidents -- by "we" I mean pundits, academics and other members of the chattering phylum -- two charges stand out: imperialism and shrinkage. Usually it's one or the other. When the president is unpopular or when he's lost control of his agenda or when he just seems inadequate to the demands of the job, the headline "The Incredible Shrinking Presidency" proliferates like kudzu. When the Republicans lost control of Congress in 2006, the Economist proclaimed "The Incredible Shrinking Presidency" of George W. Bush on its cover. Barack Obama has been diagnosed with presidential shrinkage many times, including in Politico, the New York Times and my own National Review.
Cruz Control?
Freshman Senator Ted Cruz says many things that need to be said and says them well. Moreover, some of these things are what many, if not most, Americans believe wholeheartedly. Yet we need to remember that the same was true of another freshman Senator, just a relatively few years ago, who parlayed his ability to say things that resonated with the voters into two terms in the White House. Who would disagree that if you want your doctor, you should be able to keep your doctor? Who would disagree with the idea of a more transparent administration in Washington, or a President of the United States being a uniter instead of a divider? There are many things like this that freshman Senator Barack Obama said that the overwhelming majority of Americans -- whether liberal or conservative -- would agree with. The only problem is that what he has actually done as President has repeatedly turned out to be the direct opposite of what he said as a candidate.
Enough With the Darn 'Gates'!
Is it too much to ask that the media stop adding "gate" to every political scandal? Has everyone forgotten that Watergate was actually the name of the building where Nixon's plumbers, who clearly channeled their inner Three Stooges, broke in to the DNC headquarters. I mean, if the place had been, say, the Park Sheraton, would every subsequent scandal have had "Sheraton" pinned to it? I suppose I should be grateful that the recent furor over the former Defense Secretary's expose wasn't labeled Gatesgate. Still, I say 40 years is long enough; it's time for the media to move on because it has become something of a tritegate.
Obama(S)care: Con Artists and Criminals in Charge
Question: If Obamacare officials cannot prevent accused embezzlers from infiltrating their offices, how can they protect enrollees from grifters, con artists and thieves in the federal health insurance exchange system? Here in my home state, a director of Connect for Health Colorado -- the state-sponsored Obamacare health insurance exchange -- was just put on administrative leave. No, Christa Ann McClure did not go on leave over the chronic problems plaguing the cursed Connect for Health website. She's on leave because she has been indicted for filching funds from her last employer in Montana.
Free Speech Under Attack
Remember the recent IRS scandal? The IRS admitted to improperly targeting conservative and libertarian organizations, individuals and their families. And not just groups involved in the political process - they even targeted the family counseling radio show, FamilyTalk, on whose board of directors I serve. Yet, President Obama told Bill O'Reilly in an interview (Bill is one of the best searchers for the truth on the planet, btw) that there is "not even a smidgen of corruption" in the IRS. Now the IRS is proposing regulations to make its illegal efforts to silence conservatives an official part of regulatory code.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Climate Change and the Liberal Mind
Gee. Gosh. And my, oh, my, as my grandmother might have exclaimed in wonder and awe. All we need to know about global warming is what John Kerry tells us? In Jakarta over the weekend, our secretary of state exposed the irrelevance and blindness of any who questions what he calls "the science" on climate change. These folk represent "loud interest groups" -- i.e., "big companies" that "don't want to change and spend money" to prevent the melting of the ice caps and the withering of the planet. They are "a tiny minority of shoddy scientists" and "extreme ideologues." "The science is unequivocal!" Unequivocal; do you hear that?! "(T)hose who refuse to believe it are simply burying their heads in the sand. We don't have time for a meeting anywhere of the Flat Earth Society."
Fighting for What's Right on Defense
Conservatives can thwart bad policies with better ideas
Romney Gives Marriage Reinforce Mitt
Mitt Romney may not be running for president again, but there is one issue he's still campaigning for -- marriage. The former governor, who was criticized for not doing more to try to stop the Massachusetts Supreme Court from imposing same-sex "marriage" on his state, is not mincing words. With state amendments being attacked one-by-one in the era of Obama lawlessness, Romney is back in the spotlight, speaking up for the millions of Americans who feel like they're losing their voice. The Republican nominee wasn't willing to concede marriage then -- and, on NBC's "Meet the Press," he showed he isn't willing to now either.
Judges, Hubris, and Same-Sex Marriage
In 2006, 57 percent of Virginia's voters voted to amend their state's constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Last week, U.S. District Judge Arenda Wright Allen ruled the amendment unconstitutional. In 2004, 76 percent of Oklahoma's voters voted to amend their state's constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. On Jan. 14, 2014, U.S. District Judge Terence Kern ruled the amendment unconstitutional. In 2004, 66 percent of Utah's electorate voted to amend their state's constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. On Dec. 20, 2013, U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby ruled the amendment unconstitutional.
The Failure of Obama's Aristocracy of Merit
The roots of American liberalism are not compassion, but snobbery. That's the thesis of Fred Siegel's revealing new book, "The Revolt Against the Masses: How Liberalism Has Undermined the Middle Class." The standard account from liberal historians over the years, and more recently in bestsellers by Glenn Beck, is a linear story: Government expansion starts with the Progressives of a hundred years ago, accelerates through the New Deal and the Great Society, and is followed up by the Obama stimulus and Obamacare.
Another Galling Betrayal
The Afghanistan government's recent release of dozens of imprisoned terrorists, many of whom had killed Americans, was a galling betrayal of those Americans who died defending Afghanistan against the Taliban terrorists -- as well as those Americans who have returned home with arms or legs missing, or with minds traumatized beyond repair. If we learn nothing else from the bitter tragedy of the war in Afghanistan, it should be that we should put an end forever to the self-indulgence of thinking that we can engage in "nation-building" and creating "democracy" in countries where nothing resembling democracy has ever existed.
Michele Bachmann: Undeterred and Undiminished
With less than a year left in her fourth and final term in Congress, it's a little early for an exit interview, but not too early to get the views of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on issues dear to a "founding mother" of the Tea Party movement and on how to beat Hillary Clinton in 2016, if the Democrat decides to run. Bachmann remains confident and resolute despite many political setbacks. We met in her office while much of Congress was fleeing the Capitol Building ahead of a major storm that eventually dumped a foot of snow on Washington. The snow was a big deal to residents of the nation's capital, but little more than flurries to a Minnesotan like Bachmann.
Overreach Prevents Obama From Solving Problems
There are many reasons President Barack Obama's presidency has proven so ineffectual even by its own standards -- boosting economic growth, improving health care, preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, enhancing America's world reputation. One reason is that Obama is the most ideologically rigid president in American history. He believes in all the wrong ideas, and holds to them with mulish tenacity. But there's a second reason that was on vivid display the past few days -- overweening arrogance. This president has no patience with attempting to solve the actual problems that afflict the people he was elected to serve. That's small beer. A great, world historical figure like himself cannot be tending to trivial matters, like whether Healthcare.gov will actually work, or whether there might be something the federal government can do to alleviate the effects of drought in California.