Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
The Obama Inaugural Address
To understand leftism, the most dynamic religion of the last hundred years, you have to understand how the left thinks. The 2013 inaugural address of President Barack Obama provides one such opportunity. --"What makes us exceptional -- what makes us American -- is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, 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.'" What American does not resonate to a president reaffirming this magnificent statement from our Declaration of Independence?
Immigration Policy: Reality Bites
The problem with reality is that it can get so, well, real. As when it storms through the door, kicks over a chair or two and demands recognition, when the problem of immigration has done, as signified by eight senators, both Republicans and Democrats, this week. The process of normalizing, so to speak, the status of 11 million illegal immigrants now in the United States is not an unusually attractive one, particularly to those who set store by observance of laws and norms. What the alternative may be, one isn't sure. To eject 11 million people from the country? I do not think anybody has ever believed that can happen. Something messy and disagreeable to many would get done instead. That was always the muted, mumbled understanding. Reality has crossed the United States border demanding admission.
GOP: R.I.P.?
Some political commentators are dancing on what they believe to be the grave of the Republican Party, claiming that the only way the GOP can have a viable future is for them to behave like Democrats. Last weekend, National Review magazine sponsored a "conservative summit" in Washington. They should have held it elsewhere. Prior to speaking at that event, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal addressed the Republican National Committee's annual winter meeting in Charlotte, N.C., where he proposed a new strategy for Republicans and conservatives that begins, not in Washington, but at the state level. Jindal said the Republican Party loses when it plays on the liberal Democrats' turf, allowing them to set the agenda.
Shouting Louder
An old-time trial lawyer once said, "When your case is weak, shout louder!" Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shouted louder when asked about the Obama administration's story last fall that the September 11th attack on the U.S. ambassador's quarters in Benghazi was due to an anti-Islamic video that someone in the United States had put on the Internet, and thereby provoked a protest that escalated into violence. She shouted: "We had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they'd go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?" Students of propaganda may admire the skill with which she misdirected people's attention. But those of us who are still old-fashioned enough to think that the truth matters cannot applaud her success.
The Stuff of Third World Tyrants
President Barack Obama is not just a radical leftist; he is obviously so ensconced in his ideology that he believes -- or wants you to believe -- that anyone who opposes him must have sinister motives. One of his recurring themes is that some Republicans would work with him but can't do so for fear of reprisal from Grover Norquist on taxes, the National Rifle Association on guns, the conservative House caucus, radio talk show hosts and your garden-variety racists, who allegedly oppose Obama just for sport. In mid-January, Obama accused the "gun lobby" of "ginning up" fears that the federal government would use the Newtown, Conn., shooting tragedy to seize America's guns, saying, "It's certainly good for business." Is that how presidents should talk?
Tale of Two Cities
It isn't often that you get reading suggestions from a United States senator, but that's what happened this past weekend for those who attended the National Review Institute's summit meeting in Washington, D.C. The three-day conclave, part election post-mortem and part revival meeting (that is, reviving conservatism and America), featured a bracing dose of conservative intellectuals along with activists, campaign professionals and office holders. Newly minted Senator Ted Cruz of Texas spoke in his characteristic fashion -- fluidly without notes or podium. Cruz, while praising Mitt Romney in general and acknowledging that anyone can have a slip of the tongue, zeroed in on the 47 percent gaffe. It is precisely to those who are striving for something better, Cruz argued, those who are poor or unemployed, to whom Republicans should aim their message of opportunity and growth. They are the ones who stand to benefit most from policies that promote growth.
Monday, January 28, 2013
'Green' Stimulus Money Funds Chinese Tech Advancement
Cutting edge military technology to be sold to the People's Republic.
The Most Important Amendment
We all know the term "The Bill of Rights" which are the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution although few of us (including me) could name them. Hint: None of them start "Thou shalt not ..." Rather they tend to start "The Government (or Congress) shalt not ..." Keep that in mind. The First Amendment is a catch-all of rights upon which the Congress may not trample: It protects an individual's freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press, as well as the right to assemble and to petition the government. The American press corps is very, very focused on the First Amendment and will go to great lengths to make sure that right is not diminished.
America Needs a New Birth of Freedom
It is no accident that as the American welfare state grew, the American family collapsed.
Quote, Unquote
As a rule, I prefer relying on my own words, but there are times when I'd regard myself as the worst sort of miser if I didn't share other people's thoughts with my readers. For instance, Carl Sagan, the eminent astronomer, once stated the case for religious belief as succinctly as this: "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." Someone I can't identify once, in comparing actors and politicians, pointed out "If they can learn to fake sincerity, they have it made." Eric Hoffer, the late longshoreman/philosopher who wrote my favorite work of non-fiction, "The True Believer," observed: "If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must know how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, attitudes, values and fantasies on everyday life."
Republican Annihilation Is Not Likely
These days, our political parties are defined by their presidents. Their policies and their programs tend to become their respective parties' orthodoxies. And the perceived success or failure of those policies and programs tends to determine how the parties' candidates, even those who don't support many of them, do at the polls. This has been especially true in the past two decades, in which fewer Americans have been splitting their tickets or changing their minds from election to election than was the case from the 1950s to the 1980s. For years, white Southerners voted Republican or for a third-party candidate in presidential elections and Democratic in congressional and state contests. Now they're solidly Republican.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Recipe for Conservative Revival
Happy days are not here again, but they are coming for conservatives. Barack Obama -- with the lowest approval rating (according to Gallup, 50 percent, four points lower than that of the National Rifle Association) of any re-elected president when inaugurated since the Second World War -- has a contradictory agenda certain to stimulate a conservative revival.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Bad Parents, Poor Kids
Am I the only one who thinks it is immoral to bring children into the world if you don't have the means to support them? I must be one of the few. I rarely see anyone else make the point. Before anyone objects, let me concede up front that a lot of things in life are unpredictable. Women become pregnant despite their best efforts to avoid it. Women can lose their husbands from accidents, war and even homicide. Few of us have a tenured job. Few of us are safe from the economic reversal that would attend the loss of a job.
Obama's Declaration of Collectivism
One of the least remarked upon aspects of President Obama's inaugural speech was his attempt to co-opt the Founding Fathers' Declaration of Independence to bolster his liberal-left agenda. '...[F]idelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedom ultimately requires collective action." ... The "collective" is a socialist idea, not a free-market capitalist thought. And the story of the last quarter of the 20th century was of the absolute breakdown and end of the collectivist model. Collectivism was thrown into the dustbin of history by the weight of its own failure.
A Stroll Through My Brain
This past year may have set a record for shootings involving multiple victims. The worst of these was the massacre in Newtown, CT, where Adam Lanza murdered 20 little children and seven adults, including his mother, before finally killing himself. A short time later, William Spengler burned down his house in Webster, NY, in order to lure firefighters to their death. Before he killed himself, he murdered two firemen, wounded two others and a policeman, and left seven families homeless on Christmas Eve when his house fire spread to theirs. In the aftermath of all this senseless violence, politicians decided what was needed were more gun control laws and the gumption to stand up to the NRA. That's because politicians share a number of characteristics with sheep; what they lack is the ability to provide the world with mutton, wool and lamb chops.
From The Comedy Store
President Obama issued two dozen executive orders to try to curb gun violence. It could affect the Super Bowl. The president banned the pistol offense, the shotgun formation, the bullet pass, the long bomb and any quarterback with a rifle arm.
Friday, January 25, 2013
Changing the Guard
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration is changing the guard. Minutes after the president retook the oath of office, he formally submitted nominations for his new secretary of state, secretary of defense and CIA director. Two days later, remnants of red, white and blue inaugural bunting, bleachers and security fences were still up at the U.S. Capitol and along Pennsylvania Avenue when Congress came back to "work." Temporary barricades, snow fence, partially disassembled Jumbotrons and hundreds of miles of cables and wires -- the detritus of "the longest inaugural parade in history" -- didn't deter our elected representatives from "investigating" the Sept. 11, 2012, murders of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, and conducting "hard-hitting, fact-finding" confirmation hearings for the new guardians of our national security.
How Things Work
**Editor's Note:** *In the original version I said that Dee Dee Meyers was representing Jill Kelly. I was wrong -- or, as we like to say, mistakes were made. Judy Smith, head of Smith & Company, is handling Mrs. Kelly. Ms. Meyers is representing Paula Broadwell. Thanks to another pro, Amy Weiss, for pointing out the error. Herewith the corrected version:* A couple of things happened in Our Nation's Capital this week that caught my eye, and might be of use to you as you prepare for your Public Relations 312 midterm exams.
The Diversity Cult's Attack on the Military
The Center for Military Readiness reveals the destructive agenda behind putting women in combat.
Rotten to the Core (Part 2): Readin', Writin' and Deconstructionism
*(This is the second part of an ongoing series on federal "Common Core" education standards and the corruption of academic excellence.)* The Washington, D.C., board of education earned widespread mockery this week when it proposed allowing high school students -- in the nation's own capital -- to skip a basic U.S. government course to graduate. But this is fiddlesticks compared to what the federal government is doing to eliminate American children's core knowledge base in English, language arts and history. Thanks to the "Common Core" regime, funded with President Obama's stimulus dollars and bolstered by duped Republican governors and business groups, deconstructionism is back in style. Traditional literature is under fire. Moral relativism is increasingly the norm. "Standards" is Orwell-speak for subjectivity and lowest common denominator pedagogy.