Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
The Pope Strikes a Blow for San Francisco
To find the heart of San Francisco, you need to head south of Market Street, not to the Castro District teeming with people who very publicly define themselves by the perverse acts in which they engage, but to the Mission District. Here is where the most beautiful of American cities was founded -- not by 49ers, beatniks, hippies or homosexuals, but by devout and dedicated Spanish Franciscans who crossed half the world to bring their faith to a new land. Mission Dolores is not just the heart of San Francisco, she symbolizes its soul. The Franciscans founded the mission on June 29, 1776, just as American patriots on the other side of the continent were preparing to declare their independence from England with a document that said all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.
The Feds' War on ... Buckyballs!
It's come to this: In the name of protecting parents from their own lack of responsibility and common sense, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is waging all-out war on an innovative consumer product company in New York. The vengeful, destructive feds won't stop until the world is safe from tiny, magnetic Buckyballs -- and until every last job created by the firm is wiped out. Where are the defenders of American innovation and entrepreneurship when you need them? While the White House doles out billions of taxpayer dollars to failed crony ventures, this phenomenally successful toy maker is fighting for its life.
Heckling Romney Abroad
Mitt Romney might have thought it was eminently sensible in an NBC interview in London to repeat exactly what the TV networks had already reported on security at the London Olympics, namely, that there was room for concern. Romney succeeded only in demonstrating how unbelievably shameless and partisan our "objective" media can be. The networks and national newspapers aggressively declared Romney had committed a diplomatic fiasco overseas and repeated London tabloid headlines heckling Romney with insults, such as "Mitt the Twit."
What's Behind Hatred of Obama?
What drives Barack Obama's "doubters and haters"? So asks Obama biographer David Maraniss in a recent op-ed article for the Washington Post. By doubters and haters he means the people who think Obama wasn't born in the U.S., that he's a secret Muslim or that he's a closet socialist. He has an answer: "Some of it can be attributed to the give-and-take of today's harsh ideological divide. Some of it can be explained by the way misinformation spreads virally to millions of like-minded people, reinforcing preconceptions. And some of it, I believe, arises out of fears of demographic changes in this country, and out of racism." True enough! Some people are no doubt driven by such motivations and anxieties; "some" is a gloriously accommodating word.
Myths We Live By
The Olympics have gone smoothly despite -- gasp! -- America's team wearing clothing made in China at the opening ceremony. "I'm so upset," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "Take all the uniforms, put them in a big pile, and burn them. ... We have people in the textile industry who are desperate for jobs." Here, Reid demonstrates economic cluelessness. It seems logical that Americans lose if American clothing is made overseas. But that's nonsense. First, it's no surprise the uniforms were made in China. Most clothing is. That's fine. It saves money. We invest the savings in other things, like the machines that Chinese factories buy and the trucks that ship the Olympic uniforms.
Milton Friedman's Centenary
If Milton Friedman were alive today -- and there was never a time when he was more needed -- he would be one hundred years old. He was born on July 31, 1912. But Professor Friedman's death at age 94 deprived the nation of one of those rare thinkers who had both genius and common sense. Most people would not be able to understand the complex economic analysis that won him a Nobel Prize, but people with no knowledge of economics had no trouble understanding his popular books like "Free to Choose" or the TV series of the same name. In being able to express himself at both the highest level of his profession and also at a level that the average person could readily understand, Milton Friedman was like the economist whose theories and persona were most different from his own -- John Maynard Keynes.
Freedom Makes All the Difference
Palestinian leaders were understandably insulted when Mitt Romney, noting the huge gap in wealth between Israel and the West Bank during a speech in Jerusalem on Monday, declared, "Culture makes all the difference." Although culture plays an important role in economic development, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee overlooked another key variable: government. Good government establishes conditions that are conducive to production, innovation and trade. I am not talking about the roads, bridges and public schools cited by President Obama in his notorious "you didn't build that" speech. I am talking about a more basic kind of infrastructure: the rule of law, protection of property rights, enforcement of contracts, honest and open government, tolerable taxes and a minimum of interference with transactions between consenting adults.
How Times Have Changed
Having been born in 1936 has allowed me to witness both societal progress and retrogression. High on the list of things made better in our society are the great gains in civil liberties and economic opportunities, especially for racial minorities and women. People who are now deemed poor have a level of material wealth that would have been a pipe dream to yesteryear's poor. But despite the fact that today's Americans have achieved an unprecedented level of prosperity, we have become spiritually and morally impoverished compared with our ancestors. Years ago, spending beyond one's means was considered a character defect. Today not only do people spend beyond their means but also there are companies that advertise on radio and TV to eliminate or reduce your credit card and mortgage debt. Students saddled with college loans have called for student loan forgiveness. Yesterday's Americans would have viewed it as morally corrupt and reprehensible to accumulate debt and then seek to avoid paying it. It's nothing less than theft. What's worse is there's little condemnation of it by the rest of us.
How About a Chicken Sandwich?
Only in America. Meaning, naturally, 21st- century America, the country where you postulate your own view of reality and people with different views -- older views, especially -- *better agree with you or else keep their so-and-so-ing mouths shut, the so-and-so-ing rednecks!* That would bring us to the Chick-fil-A question. Chick fil-A. Hmmm. Being no patron of fast food, I wasn't sure until fairly recently how one was supposed to pronounce the name. Chick Fill-Uh? We certainly know better now. It's what comes of outraging advocates of same-sex unions by deferring to God when it concerns the purposes of marriage and getting yourself hauled before the Court of Fashionable Opinion.
Sandusky Abused Children, NCAA Abuses History
One of the NCAA's punishments of Penn State was the vacating of all its football team's wins from 1998 through 2011. It was in 1998 that Penn State coach Joe Paterno and university officials became aware of the accusation that assistant coach Jerry Sandusky had showered with a young boy. As a result, Penn State's 112 wins are no longer wins, and Joe Paterno is no longer the coach with the most wins in college football history. Instead of 409 victories, his record shows 298. Before explaining why this decision is morally wrong, I should note that I consider what Jerry Sandusky did to be an indescribable evil. I recognize that Joe Paterno and the university officials enabled this evil to continue. And I do not take issue with the other NCAA punishments of Penn State.
Romney Shines in Israel
I am pumped up about Mitt Romney's speech in Israel -- for both political reasons and policy ones -- and believe it may represent a turning point in the campaign. Politically -- and this is important because it is critical that he win, or he won't be able to implement any policies and set America back on the road to recovery -- Romney has shown again he is going to take the gloves off, deal with the issues directly and draw a stark contrast between his policies and Obama's record. The significance of this cannot be overstated. Some of the reasons John McCain lost in 2008 were his lackluster campaign, his refusal to showcase Obama's extreme liberalism and, thus, his failure to demonstrate why he would make a better president than Obama.
The Left Engineers Another Housing Crisis
The Obama administration again sets minorities up for financial ruin with "social justice" lending regulations.
Al-Rahim and Chicago Values
When Muhammad al-Rahim mentioned in an interview with a Muslim newspaper that he supported the traditional Muslim conception of marriage -- no more than four wives per man, "That's the Quranic way"-- he never expected the storm of criticism that erupted. Within days, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that, "Rahim's values are not Chicago values" and supported a move by Alderman Proco "Joe" Moreno to block the planned opening of one of Rahim's chain of convenience stores. Emmanuel explained that, "What the CEO has said as it relates to gay marriage and gay couples is not what I believe, but more importantly, it's not what the people of Chicago believe. We just passed legislation as it relates to civil union and my goal and my hope ... is that we now move on recognizing gay marriage. I do not believe that the CEO's comments ... reflects who we are as a city."
Big Lies in Politics
It was either Adolf Hitler or his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, who said that the people will believe any lie, if it is big enough and told often enough, loud enough. Although the Nazis were defeated in World War II, this part of their philosophy survives triumphantly to this day among politicians, and nowhere more so than during election years. Perhaps the biggest lie of this election year, and the one likely to be repeated the most often, is that the income of "the rich" is going up, while other people's incomes are going down. If you listen to Barack Obama, you are bound to hear this lie repeatedly.
The 14th Victim at Fort Hood
I have written recently of President Obama's "covert zeal" for the spread of abortion. I took that phrase from Abraham Lincoln's description of how President Franklin Pierce and Sen. Stephen A. Douglas sought--covertly--to spread slavery in the 1850s. In that column, I noted specific actions of this president to advance abortion-on-demand and to force us all to pay for it. Now, I want to focus on something Mr. Obama is *not* doing. He is not charging Nidal Hasan, the accused Fort Hood killer, with violation of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act (UVVA). This law was passed and signed in 2004. After the highly publicized conviction of Scott Peterson in California for the murder of his wife and her unborn child, the law was named the Laci and Conner Peterson Unborn Victims of Violence Act.
Olympian Activities
From Newport Beach, California, Home of Two of the World's Most Beautiful Granddaughters
Busted: Mr. Pfeiffer and the White House Blog
WASHINGTON -- Shortly after 9/11, President George W. Bush received from Prime Minister Tony Blair a bust of Winston Churchill as an expression of British-American solidarity. Bush gave it pride of place in the Oval Office. In my Friday column about Mitt Romney's trip abroad and U.S. foreign policy, I wrote that Barack Obama "started his presidency by returning to the British Embassy the bust of Winston Churchill that had graced the Oval Office." Within hours, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer had created something of a bonfire.
2012 Campaign Very Different Than Kerry vs. Bush
Does the 2012 campaign look a lot like the 2004 campaign? Many Democrats think so. And there are some resemblances. As in 2004, current polling suggests a close race and shows only about a dozen states in contention. As in 2004, the incumbent has been running negative ads against the challenger, hoping to disqualify him as Bill Clinton disqualified Bob Dole in 1996. Many Democrats think that Barack Obama's attacks on Mitt Romney's business career will have the same effect that they think the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads had on John Kerry in 2004.
Stupidity Sold as Common Sense
For me, there's nothing quite like an ideological argument whose final destination brings us to terminal stupidity sold as common sense. Two of my personal favorites are playing themselves out right now, one courtesy of the atrocity in Colorado, the other courtesy of the 2012 election. Once again, the issues of gun control and the economy are at the forefront of the national conversation. And once again, both illuminate the utter bankruptcy of progressive ideology. Let's begin with gun control. Actually, the words "gun control" are a bit misleading. Government-imposed "self-defense control" would be a far more accurate statement of what the American left is attempting to foist on the public. Only a progressive could imagine that limiting a law-abiding citizen's right to own a firearm would reduce the amount of gun violence, inasmuch as the law-*ignoring* citizen (or non-citizen, for that matter) would be completely unaffected by such restrictions. Perhaps progressives, as is their wont, envision a society with no guns at all, as if the proverbial toothpaste can somehow be squeezed back into the tube.
A Dust-Up Over Gays
I concluded a recent article, "Things That Bug Me," with the following three paragraphs: "Speaking of political cowardice, isn't it high time that judges and legislators stopped coddling homosexuals? While it's true that, as a rule, being childless, they have a fair amount of money to contribute to those politicians who bow to their wishes, it's not as if they represent a lot of votes outside of San Francisco, L.A. and New York. "Frankly, I don't know just when it was that sodomites became a protected class, but it's rather obnoxious when politicians curry favor with them by promoting same-sex marriages and pretending that it is the equivalent of uprooting slavery and repealing Jim Crow laws. "One of the sillier things about homosexuals is the way they like to insist that inside every heterosexual is an interior decorator screaming to be let out. If you buy that, perhaps you also believe that inside every liberal nutcase is a rational conservative begging to be set free."