Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
With Crime Down, the Nation Moves to Ease Get-Tough Policies
Americans change their minds on some issues. One of them is crime and punishment. It's an interesting issue because, while it's sometimes a subject of discussion in national politics, state legislatures and governors, county prosecutors (usually elected and often prominent figures in their communities), and local government law enforcement handle it in a largely decentralized way. Nonetheless, there are national trends. In the middle 1960s, as the civil rights movement made most Americans uncomfortably aware that they had been mistreating their black fellow citizens, or had been averting their gaze from that mistreatment, they also started to get softer on crime.
Monday, September 2, 2013
Syria(sly)
I decided to run the annual Back to School issue on Friday because I thought events surrounding Syria were moving too quickly. For the first time in over 15 years, I was correct.
What Happened to Miley?
Miley Cyrus, who became famous as the wholesome TV character "Hannah Montana," is growing up. So what's the fuss? At least that's pop star Justin Timberlake's take on Miley's sexually explicit dance routine during last week's MTV Video Music Awards show. "I like Miley. I like her a lot. I think, you know, she's young. She's letting everyone know that she's growing up."
A Policy Change to Build Black Wealth
One potential benefit that can come from last week's March on Washington 2013, which commemorated the 1963 civil rights event, is the various data publicized about the current state of affairs of black America vis a vis the rest of the country. In particular, it has been an eye opener for many to see how little progress has been made over the last 50 years in closing the economic gap, on average, between blacks and whites.
Where's That Darn Flit Gun?
From 1928 through 1945, "Quick, Henry, the Flit!" was the tagline in ads for a popular insecticide. Interestingly, Theodor Geisel did the original artwork, which typically showed people being menaced by large whimsical-looking critters. Mr. Geisel went on to graduate from a make-believe medical school and become better known as Dr. Seuss. I swear, every time I see a politician on TV, especially one who insists on calling himself a public servant, I find myself reaching for the Flit. What a bunch of mealy-mouthed, money-grubbing, hypocrites! Apparently doing nothing but posturing and posing for TV cameras takes so much out of these phonies that, come August, they'd have you believe that their very survival calls for a five week vacation we have to pay for.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
The Legacy of Liberalism
The decline of racial barriers in the job market and throughout the economic system -- at least outside the south -- had very little to do with liberal legislation. But the lack of economic progress by the black community as a whole is in many ways the result of the liberal approach to politics. On balance, liberalism has been an obstacle to black progress, not a help.
Voices From the Scarlet Calamity
WASHINGTON -- On Oct. 27, 1947, thousands of caskets were unloaded from a ship in New York. The bodies of soldiers from the European theater, writes Rick Atkinson, "then traveled by rail in a great diaspora across the republic for burial in their hometowns." Three young men, killed between the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944 and April 1945 in Germany two weeks before the war in Europe ended, were destined for Henry Wright's Missouri farm: "Gray and stooped, the elder Wright watched as the caskets were carried into the rustic bedroom where each boy had been born. Neighbors kept vigil overnight, carpeting the floor with roses, and in the morning they bore the brothers to Hilltop Cemetery for burial side by side by side beneath an iron sky."
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Idle and Not So Idle Thoughts
When older people compare contemporary times with days gone by, they usually report that when it comes to child-rearing, general civility, education, popular music and patriotism, things were far better in the 40s and 50s. The areas in which modern times tend to win the day are life-saving pharmaceuticals, dentistry and surgical procedures. One of the worst things about modern life, I think we'd all agree, is the four-hour window we have all come to accept. Whether it's some form of home repair or having a major appliance delivered and installed, you have to decide whether you want to wait around from 8 a.m. to noon or 1 p.m. to five. I have no idea when it happened that we not only had to pay these people, but allow them to dictate our lives. Especially in this economy, you would think it would work just the opposite, with the person writing the check getting to say "I want to see you at my front door at 2:30 or forget about it."
From The Comedy Store
President Obama refused to consider sending U.S. troops to Syria. The country has colonial ties to France, military ties to Russia, Iranian support and al-Qaeda rebels. For once America's blessed to have a leader from Chicago with experience in this situation.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Feds Forced Churches to Get Baptism Permits
For as far back as anyone can remember, Missouri Baptists have gathered on river banks for Sunday afternoon baptisms. The preacher leads the new believers into the water, draped in white robes as a choir sings, "Shall We Gather at the River." It's the way it's been done for generations -- baptizing in creeks, lakes, and rivers "in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."9 But now the long-cherished tradition of "taking the plunge" has been drawn into a controversy with the federal government.
Back to School - 2013
This column, first written, in 2000, has held up through the years. This year, I got all the way to the second bullet before I got teary. Enjoy. * * * The children of America have gone back to school. And, in nearly every household, there is at least one person who is standing over the kitchen sink in tears, wondering where the years have gone.
The Content of Our Character
They wouldn't seem to have much in common, the 50th anniversary commemoration of the March on Washington and Miley Cyrus' disgraceful performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, but both show how culture trumps law in influencing our lives. For those of us old enough to remember life before the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the dream was that if we could outlaw discrimination on the basis of race and sex, the lives of blacks and women would be improved dramatically. And they were -- up to a point. As President Obama noted in his speech at the Lincoln Memorial, "To dismiss the magnitude of this progress -- to suggest, as some sometimes do, that little has changed -- that dishonors the courage and the sacrifice of those who paid the price to march in those years."
Forever Tawdry MTV
The tawdry sexual dancing of Miley Cyrus on the 2013 edition of MTV's Video Music Awards has been denounced by nearly everyone -- conservatives, liberals and libertines (who flunked it for lacking "hotness"). That theme is exhausted. Let's shift the discussion back to where it belongs: the cultural cesspool that is MTV. Every year, MTV prepares sleazy awards show stunts like this to acquire buzz for itself. There's Madonna and Britney Spears having a long onstage kiss, Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis grabbing each other's private parts on stage and Sacha Baron Cohen "accidentally" hanging upside down with his bare buttocks exposed right in the face of the rapper Eminem.
Does GOP Need Solutions for Black Voters?
This week, I heard a conservative commentator "admitting" that Republicans don't do enough for black voters. "Why don't conservatives offer solutions?" asked this person. It bothers me that otherwise-sound conservative thinkers fall into this trap -- unwittingly ceding the turf of the debate to their liberal counterparts. The assumption is that unless we offer liberal solutions -- catering and pandering specifically to blacks -- we have nothing to offer.
How Many More Nidal Hasans in Our Ranks?
A military jury sentenced unrepentant Fort Hood jihadist Nidal Hasan to death on Wednesday. But if another murderous Muslim soldier's case is any indication, Hasan may be sitting in the catbird seat for years to come. And our men and women in uniform will remain endangered by Islamic vigilantes in their own ranks. Remember Sgt. Hasan Akbar? On March 23, 2003, this hate-filled soldier with the 326th Engineer Battalion lobbed stolen hand grenades and shot his M-4 automatic rifle into three tents filled with sleeping commanding officers at the 101st Airborne Division's 1st Brigade operations center in Kuwait. The grenade attack claimed the lives of two American patriots: Capt. Christopher Seifert and Maj. Gregory Stone.
What's So Great About Coalitions?
This week the United Kingdom, with the support of the U.S. and France, scrambled -- in vain -- to get the approval of the United Nations Security Council for a military strike on Syria. I can certainly understand why some see this as a legal or political necessity. International law says that nations should seek approval of the Security Council before attacking other nations. That means if the United States attacks Syria without U.N. approval, President Obama will open himself to the charge from the left of being even more of an international war criminal than George W. Bush, who at least could plausibly claim U.N. Security Council support for the Iraq war.
Shamed Into War?
WASHINGTON -- Having leaked to the world, and thus to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a detailed briefing of the coming U.S. air attack on Syria -- (1) the source (offshore warships and perhaps a bomber or two), (2) the weapon (cruise missiles), (3) the duration (two or three days), (4) the purpose (punishment, not "regime change") -- perhaps we should be publishing the exact time the bombs will fall, lest we disrupt dinner in Damascus. So much for the element of surprise. Into his third year of dithering, two years after declaring Assad had to go, one year after drawing -- then erasing -- his own red line on chemical weapons, Barack Obama has been stirred to action.
March on Republicans
Gathering on the 50th anniversary of the speech that made Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. an icon, a crowd of Democratic partisans, including the president of the United States, attempted to hijack King's legacy for cynically narrow ends. The march, or what The Washington Post dubbed a "Washington Entertainment-Political-Celebrity event" was organized by a coalition of mostly leftist groups -- Al Sharpton's National Action Center, the Urban League, the Rainbow Push Coalition, the NAACP and the Children's Defense Fund, among others. The speakers roster featured the usual suspects: Benjamin Jealous, Sidney Poitier, Julian Bond, Randi Weingarten, Caroline Kennedy, Al Sharpton, Oprah Winfrey, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and President Obama.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Obama's Jim Crow Education System
How is banning school vouchers for poor black students a fulfillment of MLK's dream?