Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Do You Speak Conservative?
Newt Gingrich knows the lingo. He makes conservative audiences roar with approval when he compares the efficiency of FedEx and MasterCard to the post office and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He never loses an opportunity to attack the press for its moral preening. Conservatives adore this table turning. Nothing makes them angrier than to be derided as heartless by people who define virtue by their willingness to give away other people's money. Rick Perry quickly lost his own conservative luster when he used the word "heartless" about his Republican rivals.
What's Really at Stake: Leviathan's Appetite
Make no mistake. The raging controversy over the Obama Administration's refusal to exempt religious organizations from onerous health care mandates is a big deal. A very big deal. But why? What's really at issue here? Despite what the media and the Obama Administration are telling you, it's not just a battle between the so-called "archaic beliefs" of the Catholic Church on the one hand and advocates of women's health on the other. It's not just about access to abortion-inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization, bad as that is.
Freedom From Religion
WASHINGTON -- "We don't need you, so shut up!" That's the message the Obama administration has sent loud and clear to America's Roman Catholics. And it's a message now being sent to U.S. military chaplains -- to the detriment of our armed forces. During World War II, the War Department and the Department of the Navy urged -- the operative word is "urged," not "ordered," mind you -- U.S. military chaplains to encourage soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen and Marines that God was on our side in the global battle against fascists, Nazis and the godless heathens running rampant across Asia and the Pacific. The hymns "Onward, Christian Soldiers" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" were sung with fervor at chapel services regardless of denomination.
Gay by Choice? Wait a Minute...
For years we have been told that homosexuality is something people are born with -- like the color of one's skin -- and that it can't be changed. Gay-rights activists insist this is so, because, they say, if people don't choose to be gay, it would be wrong to discriminate against them in things like marriage, adoption, and legal benefits. And heaven help those who disagree. Just ask actress Cynthia Nixon, who in a recent New York Times Magazine article, had the gall to admit that she chose to be gay.
Liberals are the True Aggressors in Culture Wars
If you're not with us, you're against us. President Bush popularized this expression after 9/11 to describe his foreign policy doctrine: Countries couldn't support or indulge terrorists and be our friends at the same time. But his detractors quickly turned it into a fairly paranoid vision of domestic political life, as if Bush had been talking about domestic opponents and dissenters. The irony is that few worldviews better describe the general liberal orientation to public policy and the culture war. The left often complains about the culture war as if it's a war they don't want to fight. They insist they just want to follow "sound science" or "what works" when it comes to public policy, but those crazy knuckle-dragging right-wingers constantly want to talk about gays and abortion and other hot-button issues.
GOP Must Convince Young People It's the Party of Options
The Republican presidential candidates, except for Ron Paul, haven't been paying much attention to young voters in the primaries and caucuses so far. But any Republican nominee -- which is to say probably Mitt Romney, or maybe Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum -- had better be paying attention to them in the summer and fall. The reason three of the four Republicans haven't paid much attention to young voters is that the under-30 folks have been turning out in the Republican contests in miniscule numbers.
The Delousing of a Movement
WASHINGTON -- As the tents were coming down at McPherson Square, the dead rats and mice being retrieved, the urine and feces and filthy bedding disposed of by District of Columbia employees dressed in hazardous-materials suits like their contemporaries at Fukushima, I thought of the left-wing press. You see, I read the left-wing press. Not the urban throwaway rags, but I read The Nation, The Progressive, The American Prospect, and more -- I read them all. They have been raving for months about the exciting prospect of a great wave of reform coming out of the Occupy movement. It was here to stay, and for a while, silly old me took them seriously.
The Secular Media vs. Religious Liberty
The Obama administration is waging war on Christianity. Somehow, the networks haven't seen this as newsworthy. On Jan. 20, Obama's Department of Health and Human Services announced its perverse attempt to force Catholic schools, hospitals and other charitable agencies to finance sterilization, abortifacients and contraceptives in their insurance plans starting in 2013. Speaking for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Timothy Dolan roared like a lion in a press statement: "In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences." He asserted, "To force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable."
GOP's Murky Rhetoric on National Defense
WASHINGTON -- Through 11 presidential elections, beginning with the Democrats' nomination of George McGovern in 1972, Republicans have enjoyed a presumption of superiority regarding national security. This year, however, events and their rhetoric are dissipating their advantage. Hours -- not months, not weeks, hours -- after the last U.S. troops left Iraq, vicious political factionalism and sectarian violence intensified. Many Republicans say Barack Obama's withdrawal -- accompanied by his administration's foolish praise of Iraq's "stability" -- has jeopardized what has been achieved there. But if it cannot survive a sunrise without fraying, how much of an achievement was it?
Aren't Republicans Supposed to Be Colorblind?
"Which of our Hispanic leaders would you consider to serve in your Cabinet?" A woman attending the last Republican debate in Florida asked this of the four Republican rivals. Oh, for crying out loud! Ethnic-based Cabinet appointees? Do we still need to go out and "seek" people of a certain color or religion to show "fairness and inclusion"? What about considering the best people possible -- isn't that the only appropriate answer to that question? But Republicans go all Democrat, all too often, in front of black and brown audiences. They say things to show how empathic they are, rather than promote their principles as beneficial to all, regardless of race or gender or ethnicity.
Fudging the Numbers
The Obama administration is touting the latest unemployment numbers released last week by the U.S. Department of Labor as proof its policies are working. But a closer look at the actual number of able-bodied people who are willing to work, but are not, reveals a different picture. As economist John R. Lott has written, not only is the drop in the unemployment rate from 8.5 percent to 8.3 percent still half a percentage point higher than when President Obama took office three years ago, the number of unemployed is higher. Compared to January 2009 when 11.6 million Americans were jobless, today, writes Lott, "there are 12.8 million unemployed and 43 percent have been out of a job for more than six months. The average length of unemployment has increased dramatically since the recovery started. Back in June 2009, 'only' 29 percent of the unemployed had been unemployed longer than six months."
The Anti-Romney Vote
A funny thing happened to Mitt Romney on the way to his coronation as the inevitable Republican candidate for President of the United States. Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado happened. Rick Santorum beat him in all three states on the same day -- and beat him by huge margins in two of those states, as well as upsetting him in Colorado, where the Mormon vote was expected to give Romney a victory. The Republican establishment, which has lined up heavily behind Romney, has tried to depict him as the "electable," if not invincible, candidate in the general election this November. But it is hard to maintain an aura of invincibility after you have been vinced, especially in a month when pundits had suggested that Romney might build up an unstoppable momentum of victories.
Plutocrat Dems Attack Romney as 'Richie Rich'
Having given up on pillorying Mitt Romney for plundering his way to vast wealth -- because, unfortunately, it isn't true -- the NFM (Non-Fox Media) seem to have settled on denouncing him as a rich jerk. Liberals are disgusted by people who made their own money, as Romney did at Bain Capital. But they admire ill-gotten gains, which is how John Kerry, John Edwards, Jon Corzine, John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt and innumerable other spokesmen for the downtrodden amassed their fortunes.
Iran 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0
On the campaign trail, presidential candidate Barack Obama once called for a "reset" policy with Iran. Supposedly, the unpopularity of the Texan provocateur George W. Bush and his administration's inability to finesse "soft power" had needlessly alienated the Iranian theocracy. After all, the widely quoted but highly politicized 2007 National Intelligence Estimate claimed that Iran had ceased work on a bomb in 2003 and would not have a weapon for the foreseeable future. That flawed analysis fueled another popular talking point: that the Bush-Cheney warmongers were looking for more phantom weapons of mass destruction in Iran of the sort that had led them into Iraq.
A Little More Heat
It seems to me that what is missing in the top two contenders for the Republican presidential nomination is passion. While Ron Paul speaks with passion of the Federal Reserve and Rick Santorum speaks with passion about life, Newt Gingrich speaks passionately mostly about Mitt Romney; and Mitt, it seems, merely speaks in sound bites. I don't know about you, but I want to see them seek to build their own shining city on a hill such as that my dad envisioned, and not simply attempt to recreate that vision and make it their own.
CPAC Braces for Union & Occupier Chaos
The annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) will be held in Washington, D.C. at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel for three days, beginning today. It will feature a number of conservative speakers, from politicians (including three of the four presidential candidates) to columnists and conservative celebrities. Yet it may also "feature" something else as well: according to the Heritage Foundation's Lachlan Markay, the "Occupy DC" offshoot of the OWS movement is planning to disrupt the meetings. How far will they go? "Speakers will be physically assaulted, not just verbally confronted," a source told Heritage in an email.
Was Idi Amin Smarter Than Martha Stewart?
As I have stated in other articles, I hate the over-use of the word "alleged." I understand that those in the media are compelled to use it, for fear of lawsuits, when referring to people who have been indicted but not convicted, lest the jury neglects to find the person guilty. But when it is readily apparent to one and all, except for the 12 goofballs in the jury box, that, say, O.J. Simpson or Casey Anthony is guilty as sin, couldn't the TV reporter at least wink or giggle when using the word? It would be a way of letting us know that they know that it isn't the defendant's guilt that should be called into question, but, rather, the sanity and commonsense of the jurors.
Did Mass. Constitution Authorize Romney to Mandate Health Insurance?
You can now divide Americans into two groups: Those who believe government rightfully has the power to force people to purchase goods and services they do not want and those who don't. Among the former are two subgroups: Those who believe only state governments have this coercive power and those who believe the federal government has it, too. President Barack Obama is in the latter subgroup. He signed a health care law that forces Americans to purchase health insurance.
Economic Chaos Ahead
Let's think about the kind of mess that we're in. Federal 2010 Medicare and Medicaid expenditures totaled $800 billion. The projected annual growth of both programs is about 7 percent. Social Security expenditures are more than $700 billion a year. According to the 2009 Social Security and Medicare trustees reports, by 2030, 49 percent of federal revenues will go for Social Security and Medicare payments. The unfunded liability of both programs is already $106 trillion.
Is the Constitution for Everybody?
According to The New York Times, the American Constitution is losing popularity with people around the world. "The Constitution," writes Adam Liptak, "has seen better days ... its influence is waning." Liptak points out that in 1987, over 160 of the 170 countries on Earth had cribbed from the Constitution -- but today, few countries do. Why? Liptak suggests, quoting Professor David Law of Washington University in St. Louis, that our Constitution is "Windows 3.1." It's difficult to amend, and it doesn't guarantee so-called "positive rights," such as healthcare, housing and education. Justice Michael Kirby of the High Court of Australia said that he relies more on the legal framework of India, South Africa and New Zealand than on that of the United States.