Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Triumph of the Vulgarians
Newspapers are among the last places in America that have close to zero tolerance for [expletive deleted]. I could give you a hint about what word is between the brackets, but I'd best not for fear of arousing the ire of the editing Comstocks. About twice a year, I quote a profanity from a public figure, using just the first letter of the word and then some bowdlerizing asterisks for the rest. No dice, my editor tells me. You're writing for a family newspaper.
The Disappearance of Leisure
Amazon made headlines recently for its futuristic plans to use drones to deliver packages. Whatever you may think of a sky full of flying delivery machines, Amazon's innovation is a sign of a bigger trend: the 24/7 business world. Amazon seems bent on changing the business cycle -- or at least the delivery cycle -- to an 'always-on' model. In fact, it has already struck a deal with the U.S. Postal Service to deliver packages on Sundays in some metropolitan locations.
Celebrity Hypocrites
I'm annoyed that so many Hollywood celebrities hate the system that made them rich. Actor/comedian Russell Brand told the BBC he wants "a socialist, egalitarian system based on the massive redistribution of wealth." Director George Lucas got rich not just from movies but also by selling Star Wars merchandise. Yet he says he believes in democracy but "not capitalist democracy."
Our Fragile Planet
Let's examine a few statements reflecting a vision thought to be beyond question. "The world that we live in is beautiful but fragile." "The 3rd rock from the sun is a fragile oasis." Here are a couple of Earth Day quotes: "Remember that Earth needs to be saved every single day." "Remember the importance of taking care of our planet. It's the only home we have!" Such statements, along with apocalyptic predictions, are stock in trade for environmental extremists and non-extremists alike. Worse yet is the fact that this fragile-earth indoctrination is fed to our youth from kindergarten through college. Let's examine just how fragile the earth is.
Sandy Hook Sympathy and Secrecy
This Saturday marks the first anniversary of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Yet recordings of the 911 calls placed from the school that day were released only last week, thanks to a misguided and lawless attempt to conceal this information. While investigating Adam Lanza's horrifying attack, State's Attorney Stephen Sedensky became so concerned about the feelings of the victims' families that he lost sight of his legal obligations. Sedensky used disingenuous arguments to keep the 911 recordings under wraps, in blatant violation of Connecticut's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which creates a presumption in favor of making public records public.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
For Cake Shop, a Make or Bake Moment
As the owner of Masterpiece Cakes, Jack Phillips is used to making batter. What he's not used to is being battered for his beliefs. Unfortunately for Jack, the two now go hand in hand under a ruling many would argue is its own masterpiece of religious intolerance. The case had been brewing since July 2012, when two homosexuals stormed out of Phillips's shop, irate that Jack wouldn't make a cake for their upcoming "wedding."
Two Mandelas
When John Lofton of The Washington Times and I were granted an interview with Nelson Mandela inside Pollsmoor Prison near Capetown, South Africa, in August 1985, it was a rare occurrence, personally approved by then-South African President P.W. Botha over the objections of his foreign minister. Mandela gave us a tour of the prison. The guards, apparently, allowed him to roam almost at will. He showed us a small garden he tended of which he seemed proud.
Obama Abandons Friends Abroad in Hopes of Appeasing Foes
Watching the twists and turns of American foreign policy while reading Christopher Clark's "The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914" is an unnerving experience. Clark's history, unlike many on the outbreak of World War I, starts not with the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in June 1914, but a dozen or so years earlier. He examines the muddled internal politics behind the foreign policies of major and minor powers -- and how often they were incomprehensible to each other.
Christmas Books
As Christmas approaches, the shopping mall can become a shopping maul. One of the ways of buying gifts for family and friends, without becoming part of a mob scene in the stores, is to shop on the Internet. However, for many kinds of gifts, you want to be able to see it directly, and perhaps handle it, before you part with your hard-earned cash for it. One gift for which that is unnecessary is a book. Books are ideal Christmas presents from the standpoint of saving wear and tear on the buyer.
Obama Statecraft Equals 'Just Plug the Hole and Leave Me Alone'
I have long contended that President Obama is in charge on his big-ticket agenda items but disengaged as to policy and implementation details. Recent news reports vindicate my position. A Government Accountability Institute report found that Obama has not had a one-on-one meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius since the passage of Obamacare more than three years ago. Breitbart reports that veteran Washington adviser David Gergen, who is usually sympathetic to Obama, says the report is an indictment of the entire White House operation and shows that the administration has bordered on "malfeasance."
How to Fight Inequality and Enhance Happiness
President Barack Obama spoke about income inequality in a recent address but failed to mention one of the most significant contributors to rising inequality in America: the marriage gap. Jobs are changing, international competition has driven down wages, top executives are pulling down enormous salaries, but it is cultural patterns -- specifically personal decisions about cohabitation and marriage -- that are most responsible for deepening the divide between haves and have-nots in America. The contrast between the highly educated and the rest of the nation has become so pronounced that some are now calling marriage a "luxury good." If it becomes that -- if the collapse of marriage as a norm continues among the poor and the broad middle class -- much more than income inequality will result. We will institutionalize a productivity deficit, a healthy community deficit, a schooling deficit and a happiness deficit.
The Left Learned Wrong Lessons From Nazism
The only way to understand what is happening to America in our time -- and for that matter, in Europe since World War II -- is to understand the left. And one way to understand the left -- and its enormous appeal to many decent people -- is to understand what it learned from World War II and the Nazi experience. The lessons people draw from history go a long way toward explaining how they view the world and how they behave. Unfortunately, virtually everything the left learned from the unique evil known as Nazism has been wrong.
No Free Lunch After All!
The late, great Milton Friedman used to say, there's no such thing as a free lunch. The ancient Romans had another pointed saying: "Quod erat demonstrandum," meaning, roughly, remember now what I told you, doofus? To put it another way, is there room for surprise in the report that high deductibles may contribute to making Obamacare something less than the divine blessing its authors meant it to be? For all the comforting promises out of D.C., relayed to the general public with profound sweetness, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Someone always pays. To believe otherwise is a) to believe money grows on trees, or b) not to care, so long as someone else picks up the check.
Monday, December 9, 2013
The Ever-Expanding Gender Gap
Although I readily acknowledge that there are many things that women do as well or better than men, voting is not one of them. Moreover, things only seem to be getting worse. In 2008, women gave Obama 56% of their votes, a mere 43% to McCain, while men at least made it close, 49%-48%. But whereas men came to their senses last November, voting for Romney 52%-45%, the women remained faithful to the cool dude by a 55%-44% margin.
GOP Suffers From Feud Poisoning
The only thing that belongs under a "big tent" is a circus. And that's apparently what Republican leaders are aiming for. Unfortunately for conservatives, the GOP's latest sideshow comes at the expense of the party's greatest opportunity: capitalizing on America's disgust for ObamaCare. While Democrats try to change the subject from their epic failure, Republican leaders seem intent on helping them out by splitting the party over controversial candidates. The timing couldn't be worse for an internal spat, as polling shows the public moving conservatives' way on a host of issues. Making matters worse, it's a debate the party doesn't need to have.
Obama Agenda Promotes Unfairness
When presidents give speeches, the affair is choreographed like a Broadway production. The message is not just the words of the speech, but where it is given and who happens to be the chosen audience. So it was not by accident that President Obama chose a theater in a poor black neighborhood in Washington, DC, where the average income is barely half the national average, to speak this week about economic opportunity and fairness.
He Who Walketh Amongst Us
It takes a lot to creep me out, as the expression goes. But in the space of a single week, four stories have painted a rather disturbing picture with regard to the kind of person Barack Obama really is. And one other story epitomizes the extent to which our hopelessly compromised mainstream media are willing to go to shield Americans from that reality.
Is Poverty Really the Result of Bad Luck?
On Thanksgiving eve, a Nicholas Kristof editorial instructed us on how to think about poverty in The New York Times. The main reason there is poverty, he tells us, is bad luck. We don't choose our parents, after all. Or the household or neighborhood we are born into.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Paul Krugman Is Wrong Yet Again About Obamacare
What I'm about to show you is in my opinion an embarrassment to the economics profession and I wish more of my colleagues would express their strong disapproval. Take a look at the blue line in the chart below. It shows the annual rate of change in U.S. health care spending.