Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Riot Rationalization Misses the Mark
Riots are fascinating things. How lawless greed, cruelty and violence suddenly set fire to the minds of men is one of the most mysterious, almost magical (though not in the positive sense) manifestations of human behavior. And because they are a manifestation of human behavior, riots are as old as human nature. They were a common affair in cities before ancient Rome was new. This should invite humility in anyone purporting to know why riots happen.
There Is Just No Satisfying Liberals
What is 2011 if not a dramatic global outworking of the abysmal failures of liberalism? Their failures are everywhere, but liberals are no closer to abandoning their political theology than they were, say, five years ago. Every marginally intelligent person must know that events unfolding in Britain are a likely foreshadowing of what's in store for us if we don't radically alter our ways. Unchastened and undaunted, liberals keep their collective foot on the big-government accelerator. There's no governor on the liberal golf cart.
From Crisis to Malaise
The big news last week was what didn't happen. The United States of America didn't default on its national debt. What did happen was bad enough. The politicians in Washington tied themselves in the usual knot. Out in the country, Americans watched with the usual mixture of boredom and disgust. Some of our politicians drummed up anger, others fear, some both. The usual spectacle played itself out in the Capitol and White House till the knot was untied, and the usual, unsatisfying deal made.
Unfulfilled Expectations
WASHINGTON -- Sixty-six years ago, Aug. 14, 1945, the bloodiest war in human history finally ended with a radio broadcast by President Harry S. Truman. Even before the instrument of surrender was formally signed aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2, 1945, plans to demobilize the 16 million American men and women in uniform were being carried out. Though the conflict claimed nearly 50 million lives -- including more than 400,000 American dead and another 670,000 wounded -- it was the beginning of an era of great expectations for our "Greatest Generation" and its progeny.
Jesus Was Not a Serial Killer
This fall, the Showtime movie channel will air its sixth season of "Dexter," their show glorifying a just serial killer. They recently finished a fourth season of a show called "Californication." It debuted in 2007, with a dream sequence in which the lead character receives oral sex from a nun in a church. So it might seem surprising (or...perhaps not) that Showtime's new promotional package for the fall wraps Showtime characters around...Christianity. The new slogan is "Showtime Saves."
Thursday, August 11, 2011
The Sun Never Sets on the British Welfare System
Those of you following the barbaric rioting in Britain will not have failed to notice that a sizable proportion of the thugs are white, something not often seen in this country. Not only that, but in a triumph of feminism, a lot of them are girls. Even the "disabled" (according to the British benefits system) seem to have miraculously overcome their infirmities to dash out and steal a few TVs.
Blame Obama
President Obama, the Democrat party and their members of Congress have spent years blaming former President George W. Bush for the nation's current economic woes, which is akin to blaming the bank's tellers for a bank robbery, or for the dishonesty of their bosses, the bank's executives who were looting the till. Nobody in the left-dominated media bothers to note that in the last years of the Bush presidency Democrats controlled the Congress and thus had a death grip on the nation's economy, having complete control over the nation's purse strings. They spent and spent and spent the yet-uncollected taxes of future generations -- as well as our own -- as if there were no tomorrow.
Parsimonious Albion
LONDON -- The chancellor of the exchequer has a dry, sly sense of humor. George Osborne, 40, says Britain escaped the sort of housing bubble and crash that staggered America because, whereas America recklessly expanded its housing stock, "We were saved by the fact that you can't build anything in this country." He exaggerates, somewhat, Britain's regulatory impediments to dynamism, just as he exaggerated, somewhat, his prediction, when he became chancellor 15 months ago, that in six months he would be Britain's most unpopular man. His and Prime Minister David Cameron's wager is one that should interest Americans -- the bet that Britain can simultaneously shrink the state and stimulate the economy.
Not Just Whistlin' Dixie!
Advocates for extending marriage rights to same-sex couples think they are on a roll with New York State's action. Lawmakers and lobbyists cut a midnight backroom deal to push a marriage bill through Albany. They would not dare to submit this issue to New York voters. Some of them remember how state voters turned back the ERA in the Empire State thirty years ago. Of course, New York is home to our liberal media elites. They naturally think the Big Apple is the center of the world and shape of things to come. The heroes who defended marriage there were former New York Giant David Tyree, who is black, and Democratic state Sen. Ruben Diaz, a Pentecostal minister. The sellouts were Republicans.
The Growing Bipartisan Consensus on Obama
Washington: Who on Aug. 18, 2010 -- almost one year ago -- said, "I now think it is clear even to official Washington that President Obama is the worst president of modern times. President Jimmy Carter is redeemed"? Yes, it was I. And I threw the entire weight of The American Spectator behind that asseveration, putting both Jimmy and Barry on the cover. Now, of course, others are stepping forward and drawing the awkward comparison. On the left, there is Maureen Dowd in The New York Times quoting an anonymous Democratic senator who laments that "we are watching him turn into Jimmy Carter right before our eyes." Apparently, the left-wing fussbudget Eric Alterman made the same comparison in U.S. News and World Report.
Sons of Anarchy
PORTSTEWART, Northern Ireland -- Some have compared the riots in the UK to the London Blitz. It's a flawed comparison. The strategic bombing of London in 1940 came from an external enemy, Nazi Germany. Enemies from within are carrying out the free-for-all that began in Tottenham, England on Saturday -- quickly spreading to London and other parts of the UK -- following the shooting death of suspected gang member Mark Duggan by Metropolitan Police. Theresa May, the British home secretary, rejected calls for water cannons and more forceful methods to help overwhelmed police quell the chaos. Interviewed on Sky News May said, "The way we police in Britain is not through use of water cannon. The way we police in Britain is through consent of communities." If that sounds completely feckless, that's because it is.
Mitt, Apologize for RomneyCare -- or Forget the Nomination
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney wants to be president. And a plurality of Republican voters want him to be president. Recent polls show Republican nominee Romney beating President Barack Obama. Three big issues, however, threaten to implode the GOP front-runner's nomination, let alone general election victory: RomneyCare, RomneyCare and RomneyCare. Few things unite the tea party, the GOP caucus/primary activists and the knock-on-doors, hang-the-signs, ring-the-phone volunteers more than their universal hatred of ObamaCare. Most Americans want ObamaCare repealed, some because it lacks a "public option." But the tea party-like Republicans -- and even regular Republicans -- overwhelmingly support ObamaCare repeal. It is up there with the worst legislation ever signed.
Oh, No, Obama!
Recently, in my morning email, I received a fake quiz. It consisted of 10 quotes and I was being asked to figure out which of the quotes should be attributed to Sarah Palin, Dan Quayle, Barack Obama or George W. Bush. It wasn't hard to guess that Obama was the source for all 10. The joke, of course, was that, according to liberals, Palin, Quayle and Bush, are all dunces, whereas Obama has been widely praised by nincompoops in the media for his brilliance and eloquence. So, now, with no further ado, I take great delight in presenting the brilliant, eloquent and charismatic, Barack Obama:
National Popular Vote -- Law or Ploy?
California Gov. Jerry Brown believes that "the occupant of the White House should be the candidate who wins the most votes." On Monday, he signed a bill that could hand the state's 55 electoral votes not to the candidate who wins California, but to the candidate who wins the most votes nationally. If states representing a majority of electoral votes -- the magic number is 270 -- pass similar legislation, the California bill will activate. To date, eight states and the District of Columbia -- representing 132 electoral votes -- have passed laws to join an interstate popular-vote compact. (The beauty of the interstate compact, proponents argue, is that it does not require a hard-to-muster amendment to the Constitution, as the compact still allows states to choose how their electors vote.)
Random Thoughts
Theodore Roosevelt said that his foreign policy was to speak softly and carry a big stick. Barack Obama's foreign policy in Libya has been to speak loudly and carry a little stick. Too often Obama's foreign policy around the world looks like children happily playing with fire. Class-warfare politics is bad enough when it is for real. But often it is as phony as a three-dollar bill, when the same politicians pass high tax rates on "the rich" to win votes -- and then get financial support from "the rich" to create loopholes that enable them to avoid paying those high tax rates.
Wall Street Analyst Ends Up in Hot Tea Pot
Wall Street analyst Meredith Whitney has ventured into an area she should have avoided -- political analysis. The results were not pretty. Deprived of the hike in revenue they so desired from the recent debt-ceiling legislation, the nation's left-of-center political wing now is intent on getting their hands on more taxes from "the rich." Expect them to increasingly use class warfare rhetoric and degradation of the tea party as a means to reach their goal.
What if the President Liked Businesspeople?
The U.S. stock market has nose-dived. Congress just approved the highest debt ceiling in American history, allowing the government to carry over $16 trillion in national debt -- prompting the credit-rating agency Standard & Poor's to downgrade America's multitrillion-dollar debt for the first time in 70 years. Unemployment is still over 9 percent. Private-sector businesses may have more than $1 trillion in cash, but they will be scared into not hiring or buying as long as they fear a new tax, a new regulation, a new entitlement obligation, a new plant shutdown -- or a new harangue.
How Iowa's Straw Poll Can Lead to the Presidency
Why Iowa? It was the 29th state to be admitted to the Union, it is the 30th state in population, it has given the nation Grant Wood's "American Gothic" and Meredith Willson's "The Music Man." It has long been the nation's number one corn- and hog-producing state. But nothing in the Constitution says that Iowa gets to vote for president before any other state. It just does. For years, Iowa like many states had precinct caucuses that elected delegates to county conventions, which in turn elected delegates to the state convention, which then elected delegates to the national convention.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Mr. Green Jobs Boondoggle Rides Again
Van Jones, President Obama's disgraced green jobs czar, is back with a radical progressive plan to rescue America ... from his old boss. The problem, posits Jones, is that his fellow community organizer in the White House hasn't spent enough, regulated enough or taxed enough to achieve their perverse version of the "American Dream." What the country needs to "get the economy back on track," according to Jones and his league of leftists, is more government-created make-work. Oh, and a hefty side of Big Labor pork.
Aborting the Monroe Doctrine?
For almost two hundred years, the Monroe Doctrine has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy. First proclaimed in December, 1823, the message from President James Monroe to the imperialist ruling houses of Europe was bold and unmistakable: The western hemisphere, including Latin American colonies throwing off European rule, was not open to further colonization. The U.S. government said we would view any attempt by Europeans to extend their existing colonies into independent American states, or to interfere with those states striving to achieve their independence, as hostile acts against us, the United States of America.