Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, January 3, 2014
Sarah Silverman's Insult Act Gets Old
Sarah Silverman celebrated Christmas in her usual mode: mocking Christians and religion in general. On Twitter, she wrote "Happy Birthday, Jesus! I'm sorry (you) were murdered by people afraid of new ideas!" Her last HBO special in 2002 was even mockingly titled "Jesus Is Magic." Her new special is called "We Are Miracles." Once again, in the new show, she makes fun of the death of Jesus, as a Jew: "You're welcome. If we hadn't killed him, he wouldn't even be famous."
Obama's Afghanistan Mess
Is President Obama sleeping well on his Hawaiian holiday? I can think of many families of American soldiers who might not be enjoying the same bliss right now. That's because 2014 opens with alarming news that the Afghan government will free an estimated 650 prisoners from a Bagram detention facility -- including scores involved in deadly attacks on our men and women in uniform. The White House handed over control of the jihadi-clogged prison to the Afghan government last spring. Some 3,000 notorious Taliban and al Qaeda killers call the jail home. Surprise, surprise: After the Obama administration supposedly secured "private assurances" that no dangerous criminal operatives would be released, U.S. officials are now balking that the agreement has been broken. Everyone, put on your shocked faces.
Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants Is Not Enough
Does it make sense to allow someone who has broken our immigration laws to be admitted to the practice of law? Most people would answer "no," but then not much makes sense when it comes to the morass of immigration policy these days. This is why the decision by the California Supreme Court this week to admit Sergio Garcia to the practice of law in the state should come as no surprise. Garcia came illegally to California as a 17-month-old baby, brought by his migrant worker parents. He lived in California until he was 9 years old, and then returned with his family to Mexico in 1986. In 1994, at age 17, he accompanied his father back to California to work in the fields picking almonds. By then, the father had obtained legal status in America and immediately applied for legal status for his son.
Answering Liberal Race Exploitation
A number of news items from the past few days underscore the painful reality that liberals are wholly unrepentant about their exploitation of the race issue and have no intention of changing their ways. John Nolte, on Breitbart, reported that MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry and her panel grotesquely lampooned a photo of Mitt Romney with his extended family because one of Romney's grandchildren, pictured on his knee, is Kieran Romney, an adopted child who is black.
Will States' Rights Go to Pot?
On Jan. 1, the Centennial State (it hasn't yet changed its nickname to "The Rocky Mountain High State") became the first place in the country to legalize marijuana sales for recreational purposes. And Brandon Harris is stoked. The 24-year-old Harris drove 20 hours from Cincinnati, along with a smoking buddy, to be the first Ohioans to buy legal pot in Colorado.
Congress Defends Religious Freedom for the Troops
It was a rare and welcome victory for religious freedom for our all-volunteer military. Congress approved -- and President Obama the day after Christmas signed -- the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This new law contains stronger language than ever before that assures our service members do not have to give up their own freedoms while protecting ours. This new law contains some of Sen. Mike Lee's (R-Utah) provisions to assure better implementation of freedom guarantees. In the past, the Obama administration has largely ignored protections for service members. This law provides clear deadlines for the Defense Department to issue new regulations. Military commanders should no longer be in doubt about America's historic commitment to religious freedom in the ranks.
Stop the Bailout -- Now
First order of business for the returning Congress: The No Bailout for Insurance Companies Act of 2014. Make it one line long: "Sections 1341 and 1342 of the Affordable Care Act are hereby repealed." End of bill. End of bailout. End of story.
Impervious to Evidence, Liberals Ride Again
"We will restore science to its rightful place ... " So intoned a "dismissive and derisive" President Barack Obama in his first inaugural. It's been oft quoted in the five years since (frequently by me, I'll confess) for its arrogance and condescension, which has continuing relevance, but before turning to the left's latest departure from scientific rigor, I cannot resist a fuller quotation. The second part of this sentence from Obama's first inaugural reads " ... and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost." Hmm.
Democracy and Peace Pushed Farther Away
In 1793, the envoy Lord Macartney appeared before the Qianlong emperor in Beijing and asked for British trading rights in China. "Our ways have no resemblance to yours, and even were your envoy competent to acquire some rudiments of them, he could not transport them to your barbarous land," the long-reigning (1736-96) emperor replied in a letter to King George III. "We possess all things," he went on. "I set no value on strange objects and have no use for your country's manufactures." The emperor had a point. China at that time, according to economic historian Angus Maddison, had about one-third of world population and accounted for about one-third of world economic production.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
The Anus Monologues
Unable to comment on the "Duck Dynasty" controversy last week due to my hectic Kwanzaa schedule, I am able to sweep in at the end and comment on the commentary. Anyone who utters the mind-numbingly obvious point that A&E's suspension of "Duck Dynasty" star Phil Robertson doesn't involve the First Amendment because a TV network is not the government, should be prohibited from ever talking in public again. You can bore your few remaining friends with laborious statements of the obvious, but stop wasting everyone else's time.
The War on Poverty at 50
In his State of the Union address on Jan. 8, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared a "war on poverty." Today, with roughly the same number of people below the poverty level as in 1964 and with many addicted to government "benefits," robbing them of a work ethic, it is clear that the poor have mostly lost the war. In 1964, the poverty rate was about 19 percent. Census data from 2010 indicates that 15.1 percent are in poverty within a much larger population. The lack of government programs did not cause poverty, and spending vast sums of money has not eliminated it.
What Political Ignorance Delivers
It was naughty of Winston Churchill to say, if he really did, that "the best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter." Nevertheless, many voters' paucity of information about politics and government, although arguably rational, raises awkward questions about concepts central to democratic theory, including consent, representation, public opinion, electoral mandates and officials' accountability. In "Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter" (Stanford University Press), Ilya Somin of George Mason University Law School argues that an individual's ignorance of public affairs is rational because the likelihood of his or her vote being decisive in an election is vanishingly small. The small incentives to become informed include reducing one's susceptibility to deceptions, misinformation and propaganda. And if remaining ignorant is rational individual behavior, it has likely destructive collective outcomes.
The Republican 'Agenda' -- and the Youth Vote
Michael Steele, then-chair of the Republican National Committee, criticized Obama's stimulus plan as "a wish list from a lot of people who have been on the sidelines for years ... to get a little bling, bling." Steele, who wanted to expand the GOP's appeal to young voters, used the expression to, in Steele's words, "take the party to the streets," while making the GOP more "relevant" to "urban-suburban hip-hop settings." In 2008, Obama took 66 percent of the 18-to-29-year-old vote, and 60 percent in 2012. To broaden the GOP's appeal, consultants hold forums, town halls and focus groups to figure out ways to attract the youth vote. Is it the core message -- low taxes, low regulation, secure boarders and strong national security -- that young voters find off-putting? Is it the messenger? Former Democratic Chair Howard Dean once referred to the GOP as the "white" party.
Woman of the Year
"What you're seeing is how a civilization commits suicide," observes Camille Paglia, the learned iconoclast and professor of humanities at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. She made that observation in a lengthy interview with The Wall Street Journal, the highbrow newspaper that proves daily that intelligent journalism in America is neither dead nor near bankruptcy as long as it holds to the right values. Paglia was talking about our civilization, and I have nothing to add save one caveat. I recall the late 1970s, when America was pretty much in a heap. Suddenly, along came the oldest president in American history -- a president whom his friend William F. Buckley adjudged too old to govern -- and that president, Ronald Reagan, won the Cold War, revived the economy and still managed long naps in the afternoon.
Four New Year's Resolutions for the Press
"I have been in almost constant practice as a journalist since the year 1899," wrote H. L. Mencken in the spring of 1920. He had "held every editorial job that newspapers have to offer, from that of drama critic to that of editor-in-chief," and the experience had convinced him that the news business wasn't as bad as its harshest detractors claimed -- it was worse. "The average American newspaper, even of the so-called better sort, is ... devious, hypocritical, disingenuous, deceitful, pharisaical, pecksniffian, fraudulent, knavish, slippery, unscrupulous, perfidious, lewd, and dishonest." He would be hard-pressed, Mencken said, to name five papers that conducted themselves as fairly and honestly "as the average nail factory."
The Year of the Dud
Lots of things that should have happened in 2013 did not. We were supposed to have long ago reached "peak oil" and an age of always-higher gas prices. Wind and solar power -- and a reduced lifestyle -- were our dismal future. But someone or something did not cooperate with gloomy government predictions. After all the failed subsidized green companies, the postponement of the Keystone Pipeline, the radical restrictions of new gas and oil leasing on federal lands, and the promises for radical climate-change legislation curtailing carbon energy use, the United States nevertheless seems awash in old energy.
Like Shooting Sitting Ducks
Because I'm a conservative, it figures that I am going to be highly skeptical of anything Barack Obama or his sock puppet, Jay Carney, says, but are there any liberals who still believe a word they utter? For instance, when those two guys claim that everything Republicans do and say is based solely on partisan politics, surely there must be at least a few Democrats in or out of Congress whose gut response is, "Hey, look who's talking." Listening to Obama and Carney whine about the other side being blinded by partisan politics would be like hearing Al Capone and old Joe Kennedy complain that people weren't obeying the Prohibition ban on liquor consumption.
Wednesday, January 1, 2014
The Alarming Growth of Government
No matter how we label ourselves -- conservative, liberal, moderate or none of the above -- we all must grapple with the ever-expanding size and scope of government. America has reached a tipping point. The federal government has grown exponentially, not just in spending, but in its reach. Government intrudes into virtually every aspect of our daily lives, from the type of toilet we can buy, to the mix of fuel we put in our cars, to the kind of light bulb we can use.