Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
The Ideologue in the Oval Office
I know everyone is sick of hearing about the debt-limit negotiations. Lord knows I am. When I turn on the news these days, I feel like one of the passengers seated next to Robert Hays in the movie "Airplane!" By the time we get to the phrase "in the out years," I'm ready to pour a can of gasoline over my head. Still, regardless of how things turn out with the negotiations, what we are witnessing is the rollout of the Obama re-election campaign's theme: Obama is the pragmatic voice of reason holding the ideologues at bay.
No More Washington Tricks
In Atlanta, the teachers cheat on exams so the students don't have to. It doesn't raise the knowledge level of our children, but it gets the school system past the next exam -- even as the system continues its death spiral. We will know the spiral has reached its terminal station when there is full unionized teacher employment and complete student illiteracy. Now, in this same spirit of treating the symptoms at the price of the patient soon dying, Moody's credit rating agency, according to Reuters, has proposed that the United States "eliminate its statutory limit on government debt to reduce uncertainty among bond holders."
McConnell's 'Plan B' Is a Humiliating Abdication of Legislative Responsibility
Only in Washington, D.C., would Mitch McConnell's Rube Goldbergian plan to capitulate on the national debt limit without admitting it be taken seriously. The Senate minority leader's "Plan B" is Exhibit A in the case against Congress, which dodges responsibility with the alacrity of a roach dodging a shoe. Like the congressional response to Barack Obama's unauthorized intervention in Libya's civil war, which has elicited disapproving noises but no decisive action one way or the other, McConnell's solution debases the legislative branch by letting the president do what he wants without officially endorsing it.
A Businessman for President?
Herman Cain has an impressive record in the business world. He was a successful vice president at Pillsbury and Burger King, then he turned around the failing Godfather's Pizza. Is that the kind of person the country needs as president? Cain thinks so. I spoke with Cain last week. As a businessman, Cain saw firsthand the harm that government interventions like the minimum-wage inflict. People lose their jobs without even realizing why.
Rick Perry's Christianity Is Good for America
For those who couldn't tell from my name, I'm a Jew. Not only am I Jew, I'm an Orthodox Jew. I pray three times a day to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I keep kosher. I wear phylacteries in the morning, and I say the Shema at night. And I love Texas Gov. Rick Perry's "The Response."
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Good Things
Life has many good things. The problem is that most of these good things can be gotten only by sacrificing other good things. We all recognize this in our daily lives. It is only in politics that this simple, common sense fact is routinely ignored. In politics, there are not simply good things but some special Good Things -- with a capital G and capital T -- which are considered always better to have more of.
Ten Ways Progressive Policies Harm Society's Moral Character
While liberals are certain about the moral superiority of liberal policies, the truth is that those policies actually diminish a society's moral character. Many individual liberals are fine people, but the policies they advocate tend to make a people worse. Here are 10 reasons: 1. The bigger the government, the less the citizens do for one another. If the state will take care of me and my neighbors, why should I? This is why Western Europeans, people who have lived in welfare states far longer than Americans have, give less to charity and volunteer less time to others than do Americans of the same socioeconomic status.
Big, Bad Government
To quote The New York Times: There is across the land "both pessimism and cynicism about the state of [federal debt ceiling] negotiations in Washington, resignation about the partisan jousting, and more confusion than conniption about what exactly will happen" if there's no deal by Aug. 2. Take, for instance, Stephanie Perone of San Francisco, "who was drinking wine with a friend during Friday's happy hour. 'I have no interest in it ... it's just the same thing over and over.'"
What Democrats Must Ignore or Deny
To be a Democrat means to live in denial. Consider all of the things you must ignore or explain away. The PIGS. Not the chauvinist pigs whose transgressions preoccupied 1970s feminists, but PIGS as in Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain -- nations facing sovereign debt crises because they pursued exactly the sort of policies Democrats favor for this country. The PIGS share bloated government sectors (In Greece, the government employs 33 percent of workers.), generous unemployment packages, high minimum wages, dire pension obligations and a shrinking tax base. Each week brings fresh news of turmoil in the streets.
A Good Debt-Ceiling Deal
As uncertain and unruly and disheveled as the debt-ceiling debate may be, there are still good grounds to reach a deal. It could help the economy. It could keep the policy ball moving in the direction of smaller government. It could add a key business tax incentive for economic growth. And it could even stabilize the dollar. There really are two problems here: First is raising the debt ceiling to avoid default. (That's a real good idea.) Second is stuffing enough spending and deficit reduction into the deal to accommodate the newly militant demands of S&P and Moody's, which want roughly $4 trillion in cuts over 10 years in order to keep our AAA rating.
Intimidation and Homosexual 'Marriage'
From the time we are children until our dying day, we will find ourselves subjected to ridicule and hate when we dare to stand for what is right. And when it happens, we also painfully discover that decent bystanders are often silenced by fear. All it takes is one bully accompanied by a few noisy and nasty cohorts to intimidate the multitude of honest players scattered across the playground.
Fixing the Present, Ensuring the Future
PLYMOUTH NOTCH, Vt. -- If your disgust over America's crushing debt and the irresponsible leaders who refuse to reduce unnecessary spending has reached the fed-up point, there is an easy solution beyond whatever compromise might be reached in the current standoff between President Obama and congressional Republicans. Vote Republican in 2012. But don't vote for just any Republican, rather vote for conservatives who believe the foundational principles of America still work and can rescue us from default, placing the country back on a track that leads to prosperity and greater liberty.
U.S. Default Wouldn't Be Carmageddon II
If Washington fails to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling and default follows, the results won't mirror that of L.A.'s "Carmageddon" weekend (when Angelenos stayed home in response to a major freeway closure and then blamed the media for over-hyping the story). A default on the federal debt means interest rates will rise, the cost of borrowing will balloon -- and the only sure outcome will be that voters will blame Republicans. Hence, the House Republicans' debt-ceiling package -- the Cut, Cap and Balance Act of 2011 -- is the bonehead play of the year.
America's Financial Restoration vs. Obama's Ideology
There is an overarching reason we can't move toward a balanced budget, which underscores why we face ongoing stalemates over debt ceilings and continuing resolutions: President Obama doesn't want to balance the budget. I don't say this out of extremism or to be gratuitously controversial or even provocative. It's just that his words and actions lead to the inescapable conclusion that he is unwilling to curb his appetite for big government. In the absence of any such restraint, our alarming budget trajectory cannot be reversed. The debt ceiling may be the last clear chance before the 2012 elections to force meaningful budgetary reforms.
Letters Dept.
Dear Professor, It was wholly a pleasure to get your email seconding the motion that we permit the study of the Bible in the public schools. It gives me an opportunity to write a few words in defense of what used to be called First Things. But we will always have with us those who argue that teaching the Word, right out in public and all, as in public schools, would violate the separation of church and state. I'm rather attached to that wall myself. As a Jewish kid, I grew up under its protection.
Monday, July 18, 2011
It's About Jobs, Stupid!
America has a growth deficit. As the latest job report shows unemployment reached 9.2% -- the highest rate of 2011 -- investors and employers continue to react negatively to this bad news. During the three years of the Obama administration, in this dismal economy millions of Americans have been forced to take jobs which they are overqualified for or they have simply given up looking for work entirely. If you include those workers, the real unemployment rate is higher than 16.2% by conservative estimates.
What the Debt Limit Battle Is All About
It's hard to keep up with all the arguments and proposals in the debt limit struggle. But what's at stake is fundamental. The bedrock issue is whether we should have a larger and more expensive federal government. Over many years, federal spending has averaged about 20 percent of gross domestic product. The Obama Democrats have raised that to 24 or 25 percent. And the president's budget projects that that percentage will stay the same or increase far into the future.
You Call These Servants?
In the land of the blind, it's said that the one-eyed man is king. In our own land, it seems that hypocrisy trumps sight. Americans, whose ancestors fought a war to free themselves of monarchs, now find themselves under the thumb of kings, queens, dukes and earls, who deign to pass themselves off as public servants. Consider that in spite of a dire economy, Obama keeps adding White House staff. The number of fetch-and-carriers is now 454, at a cost to the taxpayers of $37 million-a-year. So, how about the next time the Obamas decide to host a gala for the well-heeled likes of Tom Hanks, Paul McCartney and Jerry Seinfeld, the guests at least pay for their own drinks?
Against Process
I went to the Arkansas Writers Conference the other day to talk about writing. Talk about writing? Rather defeats the purpose, doesn't it? Like driving somewhere to walk. Or attending a conference to learn how to pray in solitude. But I accepted the invitation anyway. I had a few things I wanted to say about the current tendency to teach writing as a process. Much like churning out pre-cast concrete, no doubt. Or producing a political speech that, you can tell, has been written by asking all the politician's advisers for their, to use another unfortunate term, Input. Because that's the accepted Process. As in processed cheese.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Not Cruel and Unusual, but Costly, Punishment
Democratic California state Sen. Loni Hancock is pushing legislation to end California's death penalty. "Capital punishment is an expensive failure and an example of the dysfunction of our prisons," she explained in a statement. "California's death row is the largest and most costly in the United States. It is not helping to protect our state; it is helping to bankrupt us." You have to hand this to death penalty opponents: For decades, capital punishment opponents have tried to thwart California's 1978 death penalty law with frivolous appeals that clog courts, delay punishment and burn through taxpayers' dollars. They now have been so successful that they can argue that California's death penalty doesn't work and costs too much.