Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Words to Transform the World
One summer morning in Albany in 1831, two young French noblemen traveling through the United States were awakened by a din of gunfire, artillery explosions, and pealing church bells. It was the Fourth of July in New York's state capital, and the visitors -- Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont -- were about to see an American community celebrate the nation's birthday. In their journals and letters, they wrote of the Independence Day parade, a procession that included political dignitaries, nine companies of firefighters, and a profusion of floats and delegations from all the local trade and professional associations. At the head of the parade rode a few aged Revolutionary War veterans -- "whom the city preserves like precious relics," Beaumont observed -- and with great pomp was displayed "an old American flag, bullet torn, which has come down from the War of Independence."
The Worst Ruling Since Dred Scott
Last week, Chief Justice John Roberts blatantly ignored the Constitution and the law, and he purposefully rewrote Obamacare in order to rule it legal. He called Obamacare a "tax" instead of an individual mandate; he then proceeded to blithely expand the government's power to tax to encompass a tax on breathing, which is what Obamacare is. Now, I had warned conservatives years ago that Roberts was a rotten pick for the Supreme Court. "Roberts is not an originalist," I wrote in 2005. "There is nothing in his very short jurisprudential record to indicate that his judicial philosophy involves strict fidelity to the original meaning of the Constitution." Nonetheless, Roberts' decision was stunning.
Can Christians Live Freely in Obama's America?
Two hundred and thirty-seven years ago, a group of Americans representing what were then English colonies gathered in Philadelphia and agreed to risk all they had on a certain proposition. "We hold these truths to be self-evident," they said, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
Distrusting Government
Recent opinion polls demonstrate a deepening distrust of the federal government. That's not an altogether bad thing. Our nation's founders recognized that most human abuses are the result of government. As Thomas Paine said, "government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil." Because of their fear of abuse, the Constitution's framers sought to keep the federal government limited in its power. Their distrust of Congress is seen in the governing rules and language used throughout our Constitution. The Bill of Rights is explicit in that distrust, using language such as Congress shall not abridge, shall not infringe and shall not deny and other shall-nots, such as disparage, violate and deny. If the framers did not believe that Congress would abuse our God-given, or natural, rights, they would not have provided those protections. I've always suggested that if we see anything like the Bill of Rights at our next destination after we die, we'll know that we're in hell. A perceived need for such protection in heaven would be an affront to God. It would be the same as saying we can't trust him.
I Shrugged
Many libertarians, outraged by how our government spies on us, call me a "traitor" because I'm not very angry. I understand that the National Security Administration tracking patterns in our emails and phone calls could put us on a terrible, privacy-crushing slippery slope. But we're not there yet. Some perspective: We are less closely watched by government than citizens of other countries. There are about 3,000 government security cameras around New York City, but London has 500,000.
The Mindset of the Left: Part II
The political left has long claimed the role of protector of "the poor." It is one of their central moral claims to political power. But how valid is this claim? Leaders of the left in many countries have promoted policies that enable the poor to be more comfortable in their poverty. But that raises a fundamental question: Just who are "the poor"? If you use a bureaucratic definition of poverty as including all individuals or families below some arbitrary income level set by the government, then it is easy to get the kinds of statistics about "the poor" that are thrown around in the media and in politics. But do those statistics have much relationship to reality?
Rescuing Citizenship and Civic Virtue
As we celebrate our nation's 237th birthday, a crucial facet of American life has all but vanished. We have forsaken, in any systematic and deliberate public manner, one of our most fundamental duties: fostering civic virtue in each and every one of our citizens. What does it mean to be an American? Politicians in both parties keep pushing to create a new "path to citizenship" for millions of illegal aliens. But if sovereignty and self-preservation still matter in Washington, citizenship must be guarded ferociously against those who would exploit and devalue it at every electoral whim.
Inhospitable Earth -- Compared to What?
You just can't out-gloom an environmentalist. The Atlantic invited some luminaries to answer the question "How and when will the world end?" Some contributions were funny. Others simply plausible -- a volcanic eruption from underneath Yellowstone National Park is frightfully overdue. But only an environmentalist like Bill McKibben could be a killjoy about the apocalypse itself. The environmental activist and writer declares the question moot: "In a sense, the world as we knew it is already over. We have heated the Earth, melted the Arctic and turned seawater 30 percent more acidic. The only question left is how much more fossil fuel we'll burn, and hence how unfamiliar and inhospitable we'll make our home planet."
Justice Kennedy's Federalist Feint
I agree with the Supreme Court that the federal government should recognize state-approved gay marriages. But I am not persuaded by the court's rationale for concluding that such a policy is constitutionally required. In fact, I'm not sure what its rationale is. For supporters of gay marriage (most of us, according to recent polls), the fuzziness of the court's reasoning can be seen as an advantage, since it opens the door to requiring state as well as federal recognition of same-sex unions. But if and when the court takes that step, the lack of a clear and convincing constitutional argument will invite discord and disrespect.
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Marriage: Owning the Past and the Future
Last week's Supreme Court's decisions on marriage were truly outrageous. But the damage done is partly our own fault. Let's be clear, first, on what the Court did. The "Supremes" struck down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and refused to hear the appeal of California's Proposition 8 for lack of standing, thus clearing the way for homosexuals' demands for federal marriage benefits. These decisions, in the words of dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia, were "jaw-dropping." They put the Supreme Court in the role of supreme moralizer, free to disregard the Constitution and the will of the American people.
The Gay Marriage Sham
Whoever would rend his garments over the Supreme Court's gay marriage decisions is certainly welcome to do so, but I wouldn't advise spending undue time and emotion on such an enterprise. Rarely does a democratic government, in its embrace of some daring new notion, truly outrun the voting public. A little, sometimes, just not wildly, outrageously so. This is to say America's, not to mention the Western world's, astounding embrace of gay rights is the main element in the two marriage cases decided last week. That our highest court would have given a big, ripe Bronx cheer to a society wedded overwhelmingly to the historic concept of marriage as ordained solely for a man and woman only -- I think not.
Justice Is Swerved
If "fair and balanced" is too much to ask for, how about "honest and factual?" The mainstream press hasn't seemed interested in either since last Wednesday when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its pair of rulings on marriage. Thanks to a new Pew Research study, we know that media bias isn't a figment of our imagination -- especially when it comes to marriage. And for the past five days, the major outlets have set out to prove Pew right with embarrassing coverage and half-truths that only tell part of the story. Even former solicitor general Ted Olson, who joined CBS's "Face the Nation" on the same segment as I did, tried to paint the Proposition 8 case -- which the Court *dismissed* -- as a victory of historic proportions.
The Left, Bert and Ernie and Children's Innocence
If a Martian were to observe the human condition, he would have to conclude that the left has an agenda to deprive children of their innocence. The Martian would have no other explanation for the premature sexualizing of children that the left has engaged in for decades, and which seems to increases almost weekly. The most recent example is the cover of the current issue of the New Yorker, which depicts the Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie. They are seated on a couch snuggling with Bert's head on Ernie's shoulder watching television. The TV features a picture of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The GOP's Identity Crisis
As one who supports traditional values and a conservative political agenda, I'm more worried about the right wing's erosion of resolve and moral courage than I am about the left's relentless assault on our values and ideas. Surely, no one can dispute that the political left has been tirelessly chipping away at America's foundational values for years and ruthlessly demonizing conservatives. But if Republicans truly believed in themselves and fought with the same conviction as Democrats, it would be a different story.
The Mindset of the Left
When teenage thugs are called "troubled youth" by people on the political left, that tells us more about the mindset of the left than about these young hoodlums. Seldom is there a speck of evidence that the thugs are troubled, and often there is ample evidence that they are in fact enjoying themselves, as they create trouble and dangers for others. Why then the built-in excuse, when juvenile hoodlums are called "troubled youth" and mass murderers are just assumed to be "insane"?
In U.K. but Not U.S., Young Voters Turn Against Big Gov't
A trip to London provides an occasion to compare and contrast British politics and attitudes with those in America. Both have, in different ways, divided government. The Democratic president has been frustrated by the Republican House of Representatives and is likely but not certain to be until January 2017. Britain's ruling coalition has been occasionally strained by disagreements between the dominant Conservatives and the junior Liberal Democrats but seems likely to survive until the general election scheduled for May 2015.
Gratitude
The very wise Yuval Levin, editor of National Affairs, describes the differing dispositions of liberals and conservatives this way: Liberals are moved by outrage at what is wrong with their society; conservatives feel gratitude for what is right. "You need both," Levin allows and generously reminded a conservative audience, "We should never forget that the people who oppose our various endeavors and argue for another way are well intentioned, too, even when they're wrong, and that they're not always wrong."
Monday, July 1, 2013
Seizing the High Ground
The president's recent climate speech has rekindled the fire of the anthropogenic global warming (AGW) debate. I believe skeptics have the high ground scientifically, ethically and economically -- yet they fail to seize it. So how would I respond if I were in charge? Let's analyze each area.
Feinstein No Einstein on Marriage
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has toppled part of DOMA, House and Senate liberals are trying to finish the job. Hours after five justices struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act, two leaders rushed to file bills that would do what the Supreme Court did not: wipe the *entire* law off the books. If they succeed, same-sex couples could apply for federal marriage benefits no matter where they live, imposing same-sex "marriage" on every state in the nation. For the first time in American history, states would be forced to recognize "marriages" performed in other states -- regardless of what their local laws may be.