Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Random Thoughts
Random thoughts from wise thinkers: "We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish." (F.A. Hayek) "Many respectable writers agree that if a man reasonably believes that he is in immediate danger of death or grievous bodily harm from his assailant he may stand his ground and that if he kills him he has not exceeded the bounds of lawful self-defense. That has been the decision of this court." (Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Brown v. United States, 1921)
Racial Tension
"Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago...if a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario...both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different." With those words, President Obama once again stepped into the role of Racial Divider-in-Chief. After days of pressure from black activists to "express the anger and frustration of their community," Obama made an unannounced press appearance at the White House late last week to discuss the Trayvon Martin case.
The New Brainwashing: Women Like Hookups
Noting the comeback campaigns of Eliot Spitzer and Anthony Weiner in New York, feminist author Hanna Rosin wonders why "50 years into the sexual revolution" women politicians lag so far behind men in the sex scandal tally. She notes biological and evolutionary explanations only to reject them in favor of the idea that women are just too unused to power to abuse it in that way. She's cheered though by surveys showing that younger women are cheating on their spouses almost as much as men and confidently looks forward to the not-too-distant day when we'll "find ourselves willing to look past the indiscretions" of women philanderers, too.
The President's Take on Race
President Obama rarely misses an opportunity to insert himself into an issue. Last Friday, he appeared in the White House pressroom to comment on the George Zimmerman verdict. The president said he could have been Trayvon Martin. Not likely, given his private schooling and the way he was fast-tracked to success. The president said the history of African-Americans partially explains the way many black people view the case. He spoke of blacks hearing car doors lock as they cross the street and of white women who clutch their purses tightly when a black person enters an elevator.
Thatcher Gets Her Due in New Biography
The first volume of Charles Moore's authorized biography of Margaret Thatcher, covering her life up to Britain's victory in the Falklands, is out, just weeks after her death. It takes its place among the finest political biographies of all time. Thatcher gave Moore full access to her papers and to all her friends and relatives, on condition that she never see the book. It was a wise precaution.
Monday, July 22, 2013
Victory Layne for Guardsman in Marriage Fight
How far is the military willing to go to silence men and women of faith? According to Air National Guardsman Layne Wilson, they'd rather deny his sick wife medical care than tolerate his opinion on same-sex "marriage." In a shocking twist to the story we highlighted last week, Wilson's superiors not only rescinded his six-year contract with the Guard for his opinion on marriage, but broke off the health coverage that his wife -- who is suffering from stage four breast cancer -- depended on.
Why the Left Wants Obamacare to Fail
There is stirring on the left. Now that the odds that ObamaCare will crash and burn have ticked up a notch or two, the words "single payer" are being heard more frequently. [For those who have been living under a rock, "single payer" is what we used to call "national health insurance," and before that "socialized medicine" and before that "government-provided health care," by people who today call themselves "progressives" but used to call themselves "liberals" and before that "socialists" in some cases -- all in the hope that continual re-labeling will make the ideas actually seem sensible.]
Detroit's Present, America's Future
Why the country is headed for the same dem-designed disaster.
Mandela's Moral Leap
Nelson Mandela turned 95 last week, spending his birthday in a Pretoria hospital where he has been fighting a lung infection since June. His illness unleashed a worldwide wave of international concern and well-wishes. The most revered statesman in Africa's history may be physically in decline, but the heartfelt tributes make clear that Mandela's moral stature, and his legacy as one of the great peacemakers of the modern age, remains undiminished.
Unintended Consequences Often Bedevil Reformers
With ObamaCare so much in the news lately, we should all keep in mind that Nancy Pelosi told us that the Affordable Care Act, as it was originally called, would have to be passed before we'd know what was in it. A lot of people thought she was kidding. I wasn't one of them. For one thing, she isn't even as funny as Harry Reid. For another, there are a lot of nutty people in Congress, but not one of them is crazy enough to sit down and read a 2,000 page piece of legislation. While it's true that L. Ron Hubbard's "Mission Earth" is even longer, at least it had something of a plot. ObamaCare, on the other hand, *was* a plot, conceived as a way to take over a sixth of our economy, thus redistributing wealth, and turning us into Greece.
Saturday, July 20, 2013
A Kemp Growth Plan for Detroit
With Detroit filing for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, everybody knows major root-canal cutbacks are coming. Cutbacks of out-of-control government spending, pensions and health benefits. *Major cutbacks.* We know that. We also know that the downfall of Detroit is *again* proof positive that the public-union collective-bargaining model has utterly failed. Unions just loot the benefit lockbox at taxpayer expense. That was the message of Gov. Scott Walker's victorious crusade in Wisconsin. If any good comes out of the Detroit debacle, it will be the spread of that message across the country.
Prioritizing Our Concerns
It seems to me that a lot of people are worrying about the wrong things these days. Instead of concentrating on an administration that aided and abetted in the murder of Ambassador Stevens and three of his colleagues in Libya; an IRS that gave up any semblance of political neutrality by targeting conservatives; and the singling out of news organizations and individuals for intimidation; they're going nuts over a computer program aimed at tracking down communications between jihadists. Now, I grant I am an atypical case. For one thing, I rarely use a telephone. I don't like them. They're too intrusive. Unlike email, they carry on like babies yowling to be picked up. They demand your attention here and now, totally unconcerned that you are otherwise occupied. The truth is that if it weren't for receptionists reminding me that I have a doctor's or dentist's appointment the next day, and those damn telemarketers , my phone wouldn't ring for months at a time.
From The Comedy Store
Food experts blamed Mexican obesity on McDonald's, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. Hey, the population of Mexico knew when they decided to move to the United States it wasn't going to be risk-free.
Friday, July 19, 2013
Detroit. Bankrupt.
The City of Detroit filed for bankruptcy yesterday afternoon. It owes as much as $20 billion and there is no conceivable way that debt will ever be paid. The city offered its debtors 10 cents on the dollar but the debtors refused. A good deal of the blame -- rightly or wrongly -- will be placed at the feet of municipal workers -- sanitation, water, sewer, cops, firefighters and so on. The pressure of ever-rising wages for no additional work, leading to ever-rising pension costs, plus ever increasing benefits and ever more closely defined work rules will likely be found to be at the bottom of all this.
Rolling Stone's Jihadist Rock Star
A liberal magazine's twisted romance with an Islamist killer -- and how it backfired.
Why Pay Clintons Top Dollar for No Answers on Jerusalem?
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is commanding big speaking fees. She regularly gets $200,000 for unburdening her mind on important topics of the day. Bill Clinton has topped all former presidents, however, in speaking for dollars. He can command as much as $500,000 for a 45-minute address. That ain't chopped liver.
Terrorist Rocks Rolling Stone
The dwindling number of people still reading Rolling Stone knows that just as MTV no longer is a music station, this is not just a music magazine. Nevertheless, the magazine's covers are almost always rock and pop stars, and sometimes movie and TV actors. In recent months, that list has included glamorizing shots of Jay-Z, Rihanna, Bruno Mars and Justin Bieber (who's now "Hot, Ready, Legal"). But nearly every issue also carries political commentary from fiercely frothing leftist writers like Matt Taibbi. When the editors decided to put Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the cover, they knew they were courting controversy. They must have known they were chasing notoriety by insulting people who lost relatives or their own limbs in Dzhokhar's terrorist attack.
The 'Insanity' of Obamacare
Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank recently poked some fun at the GOP and its tenacious -- and, evidently, hopeless -- insistence on voting to roll back provisions of Obamacare. Surely, you've heard about Albert Einstein's apocryphal quote defining insanity as doing something over and over again and expecting different results. The left, you may notice, rarely holds that sort of defeatist attitude about "the law of the land" -- not on gay marriage or immigration or No Child Left Behind or, well, any other injustice Washington throws at it. Persistence is a virtue in those cases. In this case, for Republicans (and more than 20 insane Democrats who voted to delay the individual mandate for another year), the choice is madness or surrender.
Slavery in America, Saudi-Style
Yes, there's a war on women in America. But it's not the phony "war" that tampon-hurling feminists are always shrieking about -- as they did last week in Texas to protest tougher regulations on dangerous late-term abortion clinics. No, I'm talking about a real war on women waged by Saudi royals and elites who've imported human trafficking and abuse of domestic workers onto U.S. soil. Meet Meshael Alayban of Saudi Arabia, wife of Abdulrahman bin Nasser bin Abdulaziz al-Saud. She apparently thought we Americans would look the other way at human trafficking and abuse of domestic workers -- you know, the way they do in her misogyny-infested home country. The wealthy Meshael Alayban thought wrong.
Inciting Racial Paranoia
In speaking to the NAACP last week in the wake of the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin, Attorney General Eric Holder performed a serious disservice to his audience and to his office. By suggesting that the Department of Justice might pursue civil rights charges against Zimmerman for Martin's death, Holder encouraged the belief that racism motivated the shooting. Calling the shooting "tragic and unnecessary," Holder said, "Independent of the legal determination that will be made, I believe this tragedy provides yet another opportunity for our nation to speak honestly -- and openly -- about the complicated and emotionally charged issues that this case has raised."