Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Lessons for Holocaust Day
Yesterday, Jews around the world observed Holocaust Day. This day ought to be universally observed because the lessons of the Holocaust are universal. Here are some of them: 1. People are not basically good At any time in history, the belief that people are basically good was irrational and naive. To believe it after the Holocaust -- and after the Communist genocides in China, Korea, Cambodia, and the Soviet Union, the Turkish slaughter of the Armenians, and the mass murders in Rwanda, the Congo, Tibet and elsewhere -- is beyond irrational and naive. It is stupid and dangerous, and therefore inexcusable.
Magnificent Maggie
The point to keep in mind about people such as Maggie Thatcher is that their like don't really die. To live large is to live on: a point easy to grasp in an age when the doing of great deeds, the taking up of mighty tasks, passes as a personal eccentricity. Consider the prime minister's reaction to caution flags hoisted by her own foreign office as the Royal Navy, in 1982, prepared to take back the Falkland Islands from the Argentines. Mrs. Thatcher allowed in her memoirs that certain of the cautions had force; e.g., "the risk of the Soviets becoming involved, the disadvantage of being looked at as a colonial power." Yes? Really? "(W)hen you are at war you cannot allow the difficulties to dominate your thinking: you have to set out with an iron will to overcome them. And anyway what was the alternative? That a common or garden dictator should rule over the Queen's Subjects and prevail by fraud and violence? Not while I was Prime Minister."
'Proportional' Response
Since when has it been considered smart to tell your enemies what your plans are? Yet there on the front page of the April 8th New York Times was a story about how unnamed "American officials" were planning a "proportional" response to any North Korean attack. This was spelled in an example: If the North Koreans "shell a South Korean island that had military installations" then the South Koreans would retaliate with "a barrage of artillery of similar intensity." Whatever the merits or demerits of such a plan, what conceivable purpose can be served by telling the North Koreans in advance that they need fear nothing beyond a tit for tat? All that does is lower the prospective cost of aggression.
Gun Laws and Human Nature
In 1983 when President Reagan ordered the deployment of missiles in Europe as part of his "peace through strength" strategy to counter the Soviet Union, the very liberal town of Takoma Park, Md., declared itself a "nuclear free zone." City officials passed an ordinance known as The Takoma Park Nuclear Free Zone Act, which said, "...work on nuclear weapons is prohibited within the city limits..." If North Korea follows through on its threat to nuke the United States (or had Russia in the '80s launched a nuclear attack), Takoma Park would not be "nuclear free" for long, but the ordinance made some people feel as though they were doing something constructive, something meaningful, about the nuclear threat, and wasn't that their point?
Shame on You, Terry McAuliffe
Career influence peddler and political mercenary Terry McAuliffe is at it again; and this time he's pushed the bare-knuckled, gutter politics he's known for to a new low. Last month saw the 4th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals overturn an anti-sodomy statute in Virginia law that can be used to prosecute sexual predators who prey on our children, with a ruling handed down by a three-judge panel as opposed to the full bench. Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli subsequently appealed the decision, sparking a headwind of media chatter, driven by far-left websites like Mother Jones.
Thatcher, Freedom and Free Markets
Many profound and detailed admiration pieces will be written about the late Margaret Thatcher, and they'll be much deeper than this one. But I want to get on record with my own esteem for Thatcher, whose character, philosophy and achievements made her one of Britain's greatest prime ministers. Way back in the early 1990s, at a National Review conference on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, I had the great honor to serve on an economics panel that Thatcher moderated. (Paul Craig Roberts was also on that panel, although I can't remember the name of the third panelist.) The topic was free markets and freedom, areas in which Margaret Thatcher made huge contributions, so I had a lot to live up to. And how did it go? Well, following the discussion, I got to sit next to Thatcher during the luncheon. And she told me, "You know, Kudlow, you did rather well in that talk." Naturally, I was thrilled.
The Least Interesting Fact About Margaret Thatcher
President Obama's statement honoring Margaret Thatcher was an example of the chameleon-like nature of liberalism. Rewriting history is a liberal specialty. Just as the anti-Cold War liberals were miraculously transformed into cold warriors after the war had been won, yesterday's anti-Thatcherites are today morphing into something else. The president's statement praises Thatcher as one the "great champions of freedom and liberty" and goes on to observe "she stands as an example to our daughters that there is no glass ceiling that can't be shattered." So today we all celebrate Margaret Thatcher as a feminist icon? This is revisionism of a high order.
The World Is Upside-Down
What right-minded person can deny the current uncanny applicability of the admonition by the Prophet Isaiah, uttered some 2,700 years ago, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness"? Increasingly today, what is undeniably evil is depicted as good and what most traditionalists, at least, used to agree is good passes often for evil. What's striking to me is that many aren't merely rationalizing evil in an attempt to excuse their indefensible actions. They have systematically turned our entire moral code upside down. They have attacked the very basis for that code and declared that belief in its divine author itself is evil -- and dangerous.
Monday, April 8, 2013
The Vigorous Virtues of Margaret Thatcher
WASHINGTON -- She had the eyes of Caligula and the lips of Marilyn Monroe. So said Francois Mitterrand, the last serious socialist to lead a major European nation, speaking of Margaret Thatcher, who helped bury socialism as a doctrine of governance. She had the smooth, cold surface of a porcelain figurine, but her decisiveness made her the most formidable woman in 20th-century politics, and England's most formidable woman since its greatest sovereign, Elizabeth I. The Argentine junta learned of her decisiveness when it seized the Falklands. The British, too, learned. A Tory MP said, "She cannot see an institution without hitting it with her handbag."
Swallowing Camels/Straining at Gnats
Some media types these days don't like "Bible thumping." But there are times when, as the author of Cultural Literacy, Prof. E. D. Hirsch noted, the Bible can be a useful communications tool. The retired University of Virginia prof made a splash with his thesis that people in India needed to read the Bible to understand their only common language: English. Let's take that Jesus phrase, "swallow camels while straining at gnats." That's a pretty succinct way of describing our all-too-human tendency to commit huge mistakes in judgment while getting choked up on lesser things. Take the current controversy over sequestration. Our colleague, Tony Perkins, president of Family Research Council, notes that the Obama administration is releasing prisoners who have entered the U.S. illegally. But this Obama administration wants to deport a family of German refugees who are living a quiet and godly life in Tennessee.
Murder for Hire
I am a fan of the Central Intelligence Agency. More precisely, I am a fan of the officers and analysts who, along with uniformed service members and Foreign Service Officers are at the dangerous, too often deadly, pointy end of the sword in promoting American foreign policy as enunciated by the President. Whomever the President happens to be. A book about the CIA's drone program will be published tomorrow and an harrowing excerpt was published over the weekend in the New York Times.
Reject Gang of 8 Immigration Reform Deal
A bi-partisan group of Senators, known as the Gang of 8, have put together a framework for the immigration reform that supposedly America is waiting for. Provisions of the agreement have been widely leaked and, from what I see, these Senators should return to the drawing board. If we are going to tackle immigration reform, there should be agreement at the outset on what objectives should be achieved. In my view, there should be three. It should enhance the freedom, fairness, and security of the nation. If not, why bother? The Gang of 8 proposal makes no gains on any of these fronts, and on at least one -- fairness -- makes a bad situation even worse.
Lunacy Is a Growth Industry
It really is a shame that the U.S. economy isn't growing at the same rate as insanity. Instead, we have Barack Obama threatening to shut down tours of the White House to school kids, blaming that old devil, Sequester. At the same time, as the Wall Street Journal points out, he green lights a junket for Department of Agriculture employees to attend the 26th California Small Farm Conference, in Fresno, where they'll have the opportunity to sip "exceptional wines" and sample "tasty dishes" whipped up by "special guest chefs." At the same time that Obama gave the finger to school kids and other Americans who planned to visit the place that used to be called "The People's House" before the Obamas moved in, he sent $300 million to Egypt's Mohamed Morsi, shortly after the creep referred to Christians and Jews as pigs and monkeys.
Boston's Taxicab Mess – and the Oligopoly Behind It
So the mayor of Boston, channeling his inner Captain Renault, is shocked -- shocked! -- to find that Boston's taxi industry is a rigged and pitiless racket. Why, until he read about it in the Boston Globe, Tom Menino never had a clue that in the city he has presided over for 20 years, cabbies are commonly treated like serfs, abused by multimillionaire owners who flout the law with impunity. If it hadn't been for the Spotlight team's detailed exposé, the mayor still wouldn't know about all those besieged Boston cab drivers, most of them immigrants, who have to work exhaustingly long shifts as "independent contractors of earning a living wage. He still wouldn" without benefits or job protection -- and with no assurance't know about the bribes and swindles many cabbies are forced to endure if they wish to stay employed. Or about the grossly underinsured cabs that put passengers and pedestrians at grave financial risk. Or about the Boston police regulators who do nothing -- and claim to know nothing -- about the corruption endemic in a system that empowers fleet moguls to gouge drivers in much the way that unscrupulous landowners gouged sharecroppers in the post-Reconstruction South.
Mexico Becomes a Stable, Politically Diverse Neighbor
We Americans are lucky, though we seldom reflect on it, that we have good neighbors. In East Asia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines face challenges from China over islands they have long claimed in the East China Sea. In Europe, Germany and other prosperous nations face demands for subsidies from debt-ridden nations to avoid the collapse of the Euro. When Southern Europeans look across the Mediterranean, they see Muslim nations facing post-Arab spring upheaval and disorder.
Sunday, April 7, 2013
Pro-'Choice' Intolerance
We know Johns Hopkins University is devoted to diversity, because it says so. Its "Diversity and Inclusion Statement," a classic of the genre, says the university is "committed to sharing values of diversity and inclusion ... by recruiting and retaining a diverse group of students." Hopkins has an Office of Institutional Equity and a "Diversity Leadership Council" that defines "inclusion" as "active, thoughtful and ongoing engagement with each other." Unless you are a member of Voice for Life, an anti-abortion group.
Malpractice Law Is Bad for Your Health
One of the worst features of the American health care system is the sorry state of medical malpractice law. Fewer than 2 percent of injured patients ever file a lawsuit. Of those that do, only one in 15 receives compensation. More than half of every dollar goes to cover the cost of litigation, rather than to the injured and their families. Ironically, the medical malpractice system is inordinately focused on whether someone was at fault when an injury or accident occurs. Of the estimated 187,000 deaths and 6 million injuries that occur in hospitals each year, about one in four are considered negligent (malpractice). Another one-fourth (such as certain types of infections) is judged to be "preventable," even though no one is guilty of negligence. Almost half of adverse medical events are "acts of God" -- no one was at fault and there is no obvious way of preventing them.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Bloom(berg)ing Idiots
A New York Supreme Court judge, Milton Tingling, as you may have heard, has overruled Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ban of large drinks, calling it "arbitrary and capricious," which is legal-speak for dopey and asinine. For his part, Bloomberg announced he will appeal the ruling, which is Bloomberg-speak for "How dare he! Doesn't he know who I am?!"
From The Comedy Store
The Associated Press removed the phrase illegal immigrant from its style-book this week. The editors feel the label is stigmatizing. From now on, all Associated Press reports will simply refer to an illegal immmigrant as a person diagnosed with Happy Feet.
Friday, April 5, 2013
Small Cities in Small Counties
I love county-level political events. Unlike major Washington, DC-based events or national political conventions, the people who come to Lincoln Day (on the GOP side) or Jefferson-Jackson Day (for the Dems) dinners, or county picnics during the summer, or participate in parades are the people who are truly the backbone of American politics. The tickets to the event here at the local Shrine hall were, I think $35 per head. Silent auction, extra. The meal itself would have cost $85 each at a restaurant in downtown Washington.