Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Evangelicals Against God
I was driving near the Washington Beltway recently behind an evangelistic atheist. It was not the Obama-Biden bumper sticker that gave this driver away, but the one just below it: "You don't need God -- to hope, to care, to love, to live." That seemed an oddly defensive bit of secular scripture, and since the bumper sticker also promoted a website (livingwithoutreligion.org), I decided to see what the Godless were preaching. "We who are nonreligious lead meaningful lives without reliance on the supernatural," said the website.
The Post-Newtown Witch Hunt
In the aftermath of the horrific Newtown, Conn., school massacre, Americans from all parts of the political spectrum agree that we need to pay more attention to mental health issues. Public death threats and incitements to violence must be taken seriously. The incendiary witch hunt against law-abiding, peaceful gun owners is neither noble nor effective. It's just plain insane. Over the past week, I've witnessed a disturbing outbreak of off-the-rails hatred toward gun owners and Second Amendment groups. Whatever your views on guns, we can all agree: The Newtown gunman was a monster who slaughtered his own mother, five heroic educators and 20 angel-faced schoolchildren. He ignored laws against murder. He bypassed Connecticut's strict gun control regulations, and he circumvented the Sandy Hook Elementary School's security measures. Every decent American is horrified and heartsick by this outbreak of pure evil.
The Year of 'Our Savior' Obama
The year 2012 was defined by the calculated re-emergence of Obama worship, no matter how obvious his failures in office. After his re-election, the actor Jamie Foxx let it all hang out in a tribute at the BET Awards on November 25: "First of all, give an honor to God and our lord and savior, Barack Obama!" For that President Jesus gasbaggery, Foxx was selected as one of the winners of the Media Research Center's Best Notable Quotables of 2012, a collection of liberal foolishness selected by 46 judges of distinction in the conservative media. Foxx won the "Barbra Streisand Political IQ Award for Celebrity Vapidity."
Flash Suppressors Do Not Kill People
"These tragedies must end," says President Obama, referring to Adam Lanza's horrifying assault on Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., last Friday. Although it is hard to disagree with that sentiment, the measures Obama favors cannot reasonably be expected to prevent such thankfully rare but nevertheless appalling outbursts of senseless violence. After the massacre, press secretary Jay Carney reiterated Obama's support for reinstating the federal "assault weapon" ban that expired in 2004, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., promised to introduce a bill aimed at doing so next month. But we know for sure that an "assault weapon" ban would not have stopped Lanza or made his attack less deadly, because it didn't.
"Forward" to the Past?
The political slogan "Forward" served Barack Obama well during this year's election campaign. It said that he was for going forward, while Republicans were for "going back to the failed policies that got us into this mess in the first place." It was great political rhetoric and great political theater. Moreover, the Republicans did virtually nothing to challenge its shaky assumptions with a few hard facts that could have made those assumptions collapse like a house of cards. More is involved than this year's political battles. The word "forward" has been a political battle cry on the left for more than a century. It has been almost as widely used as the left's other favorite word, "equality," which goes back more than two centuries.
On Newtown, Mourn First, Then Act
On Friday, in his moving and heartfelt statement in response to the horrific shooting in Newtown, Conn., President Obama said, "As a country, we have been through this too many times. ... And we're going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics." There's just one problem: In a democracy, politics is a synonym for "democracy." It is through politics that people with strong feelings and strong interests peaceably hash out their disagreements. When politicians say they want to do something regardless of the politics, or that they want to go "above" or "beyond" politics, what they generally mean is they want to do something regardless of the normal rules or what their opponents have to say or, often, the facts. This, after all, is the point of the expression "a crisis is a terrible thing to waste."
The Bullying Left Exploits Sandy Hook
The horror of the massacre of innocents at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. struck at the fabric of the American tapestry. Virtually every American has spent the last few days in a haze -- shocked at the nature of evil, confused and frustrated by the inability to prevent such an atrocity, fearful at the possibility of such a monstrous occurrence repeating itself. It is only natural in such times to discuss what we can do differently to prevent such things from happening. Nobody wants to see dead children, grieving parents or bullet-riddled schools. Nobody. We may disagree about what the proper solutions are, but we all want solutions. So why can't those on the left admit that?
It's the Spending, Stupid!
Listening to progressive media pundits, I'd think the most evil man in the universe is Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform. His crime? He heads a movement that asks political candidates to pledge not to raise taxes. I think Grover accomplished a lot. But I wish he'd convinced politicians to pledge not to increase *spending.* President Obama says raising taxes to cut the deficit is a "balanced" approach. Balanced ...
A Hundred Percent of Nothing
JoAnn Watson, Detroit city council member, said, "Our people in an overwhelming way supported the re-election of this president, and there ought to be a quid pro quo." In other words, President Obama should send the nearly bankrupted city of Detroit millions in taxpayer bailout money. But there's a painful lesson to be learned from decades of political hustling and counsel by intellectuals and urban experts. In 1960, Detroit's population was 1.6 million. Blacks were 29 percent, and whites were 70 percent. Today, Detroit's population has fallen precipitously to 707,000, of which blacks are 84 percent and whites 8 percent. Much of the city's decline began with the election of Coleman Young, Detroit's first black mayor and mayor for five terms, who engaged in political favoritism to blacks and tax policies against higher income mostly white people. Young's successors, Dennis Archer and Kwame Kilpatrick, followed his Third World tyrant policies, but neither had his verbal vulgarity. Kilpatrick (2002-2008) went to jail and is on trial today on charges of corruption. Mayor David Bing is making an effort to revive Detroit. His problem is that he's not God.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
PC Insanity Cripples Our Military
Green-on-blue deaths of coalition soldiers blamed on our "cultural insensitivity."
How Flexible Is Vladimir Putin?
Last May, the world was treated to an unprecedented spectacle. President Obama was meeting in Seoul, South Korea, with leaders of the G-8 (G-10? G-20?) He was caught on a live mic talking with then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. Mr. Obama wanted no disturbances in foreign policy to roil the waters. He wanted smooth sailing to re-election in November.
Invincible Ignorance
Must every tragic mass shooting bring out the shrill ignorance of "gun control" advocates? The key fallacy of so-called gun control laws is that such laws do not in fact control guns. They simply disarm law-abiding citizens, while people bent on violence find firearms readily available. If gun control zealots had any respect for facts, they would have discovered this long ago, because there have been too many factual studies over the years to leave any serious doubt about gun control laws being not merely futile but counterproductive. Places and times with the strongest gun control laws have often been places and times with high murder rates. Washington, D.C., is a classic example, but just one among many.
Explaining Evil
Trying to explain an evil act like the one that killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., is on a par with explaining how the universe was formed. The natural human reaction after extending sympathy and prayers for the victims and their families is to ask what actions might have been taken to prevent the massacre. More gun laws? Connecticut already has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation. Those laws did not prevent a man with evil intent from carrying out his heinous act. Some will blame TV and video game violence. Depictions of murder and other violent acts on TV and in the movies have grown in recent years, but people killed people long before TV and movies. Such explanations are too easy.
Entertainment Control
In the wake of past mass shootings, when the "national conversation" has focused exclusively on guns, I have argued that our appallingly inadequate mental health system was a better subject of reform. At least half of the shooters in the rampage killings that are ripping our hearts out are young men with serious mental illnesses, and our system has neither the legal nor the financial resources to get them the treatment and/or restraint that they, and we, desperately need. This time, mental health reform has received passing mention, along with the usual pleas for gun control, better security at schools, and so forth.
The Problem of Evil
The notion of the president as comforter-in-chief fits snugly with the notion of political "solutions" -- e.g., gun control -- to essentially moral and theological problems -- e.g., schoolhouse massacres. In a well-meant message of consolation delivered Sunday at Newtown, President Obama declared that "These tragedies must end. And to end them we must change." He again used the word "change," in gainsaying the idea that America does enough to protect its children. "We are not doing enough," said the president, "and we will have to change." "Change" what, exactly? That would be the question, wouldn't it? Change the laws? By instituting really tough, really meaningful gun control, whatever "meaningful" means in a nation that constitutionally protects the right to own and carry weapons? Possibly we could put a cop (with arms-carrying authority) in every school; on every bike path, every street corner. We've yet to hear the details.
Conscience, Not Guns
From the moment Americans learned of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre last Friday, the entire left -- editorialists, columnists, broadcasters, politicians -- used the occasion to promote one idea: gun control. For the left, the primary reason for just about all American gun murders is the availability of guns. I have no interest in debating gun control here. I only wish to ask the left one question: We have a massive system of drug control laws. Yet, the left is the first to argue that the war on drugs has been a failure. And whether or not one deems it a failure, the war on drugs surely hasn't prevented tens of millions of Americans, including teenagers, from obtaining drugs illegally. Why, then, does the left believe that a war on guns would be any more effective than the war on drugs?
God Suffers With Us
I can't imagine anything more painful for a person than the loss of one's child, and so I won't pretend that I can adequately express the horror of the savage murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. When such tragedies occur, most of us engage in sober reflection about the preciousness of life and especially of our own loved ones. As much as we hurt for the families who lost children at the hands of this murderer, we thank God our children are safe. But we know it can happen to any parent; these victims did absolutely nothing to provoke this wanton act of evil.
Monday, December 17, 2012
Plenty of Blame to Go Around
There is nothing good about the Newtown, Connecticut shootings. President Obama said what I thought my President should have said and the way I wanted my president to have said it in his remarks there last night. I am no longer worried about my son. But my son is worried about his two little girls. They are not yet old enough for school, but sending a seven-year-old to school should not be a cause to worry all day that he or she will come home safely. Unfortunately, the level of untimely deaths in America may lead those who are, at a minimum misguided, and at a maximum mentally unstable, to believe that violence is an acceptable way to show one's unhappiness.
John Kerry: Assad's Man in Washington
After the senator's romance with the butchers of Vietnam came his romance with the butcher of Syria.