Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, January 24, 2014
Wendy Davis's Struggles
"I came from a place of struggle," insisted Texas gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis after The Dallas Morning News revealed that key details of the life story she had successfully shopped to the mainstream media were false. She wasn't a 19-year-old mom when she was first divorced, but 21. She lived with her second husband in the very comfortable Mistletoe Heights neighborhood of Fort Worth, Texas, not in a trailer park made famous by a thousand admiring profiles. She lived in the trailer park for just a few months. One of Davis' struggles, apparently, is with the truth.
The Pope & Liberal Pap
I'm aware that a lot of people, including Charles Krauthammer, who happens to be Jewish, and the editors at Time magazine, no doubt secularists, who selected him Person of the Year, are apparently nuts about Pope Francis. I'm just curious what American Catholics honestly think of him. I don't happen to be Catholic, but I certainly hold no ill feelings towards the Church. But if I were a Catholic, I know I'd be conflicted about a pope who doesn't think it's his place to judge abortions and homosexuality, but well within his purview to condemn free market capitalism, as he did during his year-end address.
Fact-Free Liberals: Part IV
One of the things that attracted me to the political left, as a young man, was a belief that leftists were for "the people." Fortunately, I was also very interested in the history of ideas -- and years of research in that field repeatedly brought out the inescapable fact that many leading thinkers on the left had only contempt for "the people." That has been true from the 18th century to the present moment. Even more surprising, I discovered over the years that leading thinkers on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum had more respect for ordinary people than people on the left who spoke in their name.
Gov't Overreliance: The Devil Is in the Details
The Constitution is powerless against Satan. Earlier this month, the state of Oklahoma received a proposal from New York-based Satanists to build near the state Capitol a 7-foot-high statue of Baphomet, a goat-headed pagan idol. The Satanists' letter boasted that, "The statue will also have a functional purpose as a chair where people of all ages may sit on the lap of Satan for inspiration and contemplation." Now, while the Satanists are real, there's a lot of fakery involved. It's a stunt -- a clever one -- exploiting the constitutional injunction against governmental favoritism towards religion.
Stop Kicking Canada Around
Fixated as we Americans are on Canada's three most attention-getting exports -- polar vortexes, Alberta clippers and the antics of Toronto's addled mayor -- we've somewhat overlooked a major feature of Canada's current relations with the United States: extreme annoyance. Last week, speaking to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Canada's foreign minister calmly but pointedly complained that the U.S. owes Canada a response on the Keystone XL pipeline. "We can't continue in this state of limbo," he sort of complained, in what for a placid, imperturbable Canadian passes for an explosion of volcanic rage.
A Culture That Celebrates Abortion Wills Its Own Destruction
At a time when more and more Americans are coming to an awareness of how evil abortion is, President Barack Obama, the most fiercely pro-abortionist president in our history, is digging his heels in further. This week, he made his annual statement glorifying this hideous practice on the anniversary of the infernal 1973 Supreme Court decision, Roe v. Wade, which greatly restricted abortion laws. Obama's statement was as unapologetic as it was grotesque, celebrating an abominable procedure that ought to be outlawed -- not glamorized, as the left does with it. Before you accuse me of hyperbole, be advised that Democratic National Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz wished Roe v. Wade a happy 41st birthday. "Happy"?
Abortion Defines the Political Parties, 41 Years After Roe V. Wade
It is 41 years since the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision, effectively legalizing abortion everywhere in the United States. Ever since, it has been a source of controversy -- and confusion. Some of that confusion is owed to the fact that the opinion was written by Justice Harry Blackmun, the only one of America's 112 Supreme Court justices to sped most of his prejudicial legal career defending doctors, as counsel for the Mayo Clinic. Doctors, not women, were the targets of abortion prosecutions. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted last year, Roe "wasn't woman-centered, it was physician-centered." And, as she has noted, abortion law was already rapidly changing when the case was decided in January 1973.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Brewing the Perfect Cup of Climate Coffee
According to a very wise advisor of mine, the perfect cup of coffee is not scalding hot, and most likely contains a bit of sweetener and cream. I have come to realize that this applies to more than just a cup of coffee. I tried to explain to him that in the climate debate, an extended hand is often met with a slap in the face. However, I am once again going to try and extend a hand and brew a perfect cup of coffee by revealing two ideas that the man-made global warming crowd would have some credibility in trying to use. Keep in mind, the coffee I like is still going to be darn hot and is more espresso than latte. So let me start by stirring the pot.
America's Dying Economic Freedom
The country hits an all-time low in free market integrity.
Standing Strong to Right What's Wrong
After a night of brutal cold, the sun rose over Washington Wednesday, lighting up the national mall and the crowds of people who braved the snow to promote life. Even the frigid temperatures couldn't keep pro-lifers away, as hundreds of thousands spilled out into roads that could barely contain them for the 41st annual [March for Life](http://marchforlife.org/). "Unless Roe v. Wade is cancelled due to weather," one leader tweeter, "the March for Life won't be either."
The Heroism of Wendy Davis
Wendy Davis, the Texas state senator running for governor, became a liberal superhero last June when she filibustered a bill to prohibit abortions after 20 weeks. (This was the *good* filibuster, not that awful filibuster three months later by Ted Cruz -- *that* was just grandstanding.) Apart from her enthusiasm for abortion (and you have to admit, abortion is really cool), the centerpiece of Davis' campaign is her life story. Also the fact that she's a progressive woman who doesn't look like Betty Friedan.
Blessed by an 'Amazing Community'
I've always liked Rudyard Kipling's 1895 poem "If—" , with its four stanzas of rugged, Victorian-era paternal advice. But it wasn't until this month, when my older son Caleb went missing for 80 hours and my wife and I were frantic with worry and fear, that I gained a real appreciation for the virtue with which Kipling's poem opens: "If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs..." Never before has the quality of levelheadedness meant quite so much to me. As my mind lurched among nightmare scenarios and my gut churned with anxiety, it took an effort of will just to process what was happening. I had no idea how to formulate a plan of action going forward. What are you supposed to do when your teenager has been gone for hours -- six hours, 12 hours, 24 hours -- and hasn't been seen or heard from? When you've called in the police and given them all the information you can think of? When you've checked your child's usual haunts and come up dry? When his friends, realizing that something is wrong, are beginning to sound the alarm on Facebook and Google Chat? And when the temperature outside is in the single digits -- and falling?
Our Fierce Urgency of Now
President Obama has invoked Dr. King's powerful phrase -- the fierce urgency of *now* -- as a spur to get his troops in line for the takeover of health care. They achieved their purposes to the extent that they rammed through Congress a monster of a bill -- around the corner, over the walls, and parachuting down the chimney, if necessary, as an entranced Speaker Nancy Pelosi gushingly told us. They knew they had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make it happen. And they did.
Bike Lane Indignados
There are many different indicators of an unhappy society. Sociologists point to crime rates, suicide rates, the incidence of divorce, even the frequency of customers leaving the lights on in public restrooms. Economists point to economic growth rates, unemployment rates and the University of Michigan's monthly economic outlook for the United States. One of my own personal favorites is the sudden transformation of the republic's healthy, happy, rosy-cheeked bicycle riders into a mob of angry cranks. It happens every few decades and is a sure sign of an unhappy society.
Cuomo to Conservatives: Leave New York
Everyone "knows" it is conservatives who are mean-spirited, intolerant, censors of speech with which they don't agree, anti-gay, anti-black and anti just about everything else, right? We know this because the left keeps telling us so. Which is why in this era of increasingly corrosive language -- note the overuse of the f-word in the film "The Wolf of Wall Street" -- and acidic political discourse, recent comments by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.), ought to shock and outrage everyone, regardless of party affiliation or ideology.
Sorry About Calling You 'Uncle Tom'
The Rev. William Barber, head of North Carolina's chapter of the left-wing NAACP, recently said this about black, tea-party-supported Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, S.C.: "A ventriloquist can always find a good dummy." Sounds like Barber might have mentored an ex-high school classmate with whom I recently had the following exchange: Ex-Classmate: "Uncle Tom in its purest form, that's Larry Elder, you hate your own people, need your ass kicked. ... I remember you from Crenshaw High. Your politics are so predictable. Man, you're such a phony. White folks don't accept you like you assume. When I lived in Orange County, you were kind of a joke."
Robert Gates and the Taint of the Insider Tell-All
For all hysteria over former Defense Secretary Robert Gates' new insider memoir of his tenure during the Bush and Obama administrations, the disclosures are more breaches of trust than earth-shattering revelations. Much of "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War" is the ordinary stuff of public service. What little gossip in the book that may be controversial -- revelations that both Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama cynically opposed the successful Bush-era surge in Iraq on political grounds, or that Vice President Joe Biden is a buffoonish blowhard -- was already common knowledge to many Americans.
Fact-Free Liberals: Part III
Since this year will mark the 50th anniversary of the "war on poverty," we can expect many comments and commemorations of this landmark legislation in the development of the American welfare state. The actual signing of the "war on poverty" legislation took place in August 1964, so the 50th anniversary is some months away. But there have already been statements in the media and in politics proclaiming that this vast and costly array of anti-poverty programs "worked." Of course everything "works" by sufficiently low standards, and everything "fails" by sufficiently high standards. The real question is: What did the "war on poverty" set out to do -- and how well did it do it, if at all?
For Judges: Throw the Flag
Disabusing the Republican Party of a cherished dogma, thereby requiring it to forgo a favorite rhetorical trope, will not win Clark M. Neily III the gratitude of conservatives who relish denouncing "judicial activism." He, however, and his colleagues at the libertarian Institute for Justice believe America would be more just if judges were less deferential to legislatures. In "Terms of Engagement: How Our Courts Should Enforce the Constitution's Promise of Limited Government," Neily says America is not "a fundamentally majoritarian nation in which the ability to impose one's will on others through law is a sacred right that courts should take great pains not to impede." America's defining value is not majority rule but individual liberty.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Israel Bash-Fest Comes to Washington
Leading purveyors of Jewish Lobby conspiracy theories meet for a "historic" summit.