Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Corruption Feeds Crises Worldwide
What links the Arab Spring rebellions with political agitation in China and at least another five dozen simmering or emerging crises? If your answer is "the Internet," you have identified one of the key information technologies that spread the flames. However, the common human fire in these disparate struggles is intense disgust with embedded corruption. Tyrants maintain control by isolating and intimidating their subjects. However, since the advent of the printing press and increasing public literacy, preserving tyrannical isolation has become a bit more difficult.
Is Democracy Viable?
The media have recently been so preoccupied with a Congressman's photograph of himself in his underwear that there has been scant attention paid to the fact that Iran continues advancing toward creating a nuclear bomb, and nobody is doing anything that is likely to stop them. Nuclear weapons in the hands of the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism might seem to be something that would sober up even the most giddy members of the chattering class. But that chilling prospect cannot seem to compete for attention with cheap behavior by an immature Congressman, infatuated with himself.
AmeriCorps' Favorite Scandal-Plagued Mayor
A prominent Democratic politician who was banned from receiving federal aid three years ago over fraud charges is once again raking in government funds from the very same program he abused. It pays to be a FOTO -- Friend of the Obamas. Our publicly subsidized con artist is Sacramento mayor and former NBA star Kevin Johnson. He donated the maximum individual amount to Obama for America, campaigned across the country for Obama in 2008, and bragged to California media during his mayoral run about his friendship and access to both Barack and Michelle Obama. The Obama administration's Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) recently bestowed Johnson's city with an AmeriCorps grant worth more than $650,000.
'Just One More Thing ...'
Thomas Friedman was right. The world is flat, or at least it seemed so last week when the news came that Peter Falk, aka Columbo, had died at 83. For 30 of those years, he had regularly delighted television audiences as a not-as-dumb-as-he-looks detective. Every third week, he invariably caught the killer, who of course was depicted as the very soul of sophistication, and at the end of the show wound up as surprised as viewers weren't to find that this cop wid a working-class accent had outwitted him.
Next Step: Persecuting Churches?
When the New York legislature passed a law last Friday legalizing same-sex marriage, all of New York's Roman Catholic bishops signed a statement warning that they now expect efforts to enact laws attacking churches that defend the truth. "We strongly uphold the Catholic Church's clear teaching that we always treat our homosexual brothers and sisters with respect, dignity and love," said the bishops.
A New Day in Politics
Most Americans used to call themselves Republican or Democrat. These days, more call themselves independent. What does that mean for American politics? A lot. "Independents are everywhere, and they're becoming the largest single voting bloc in the country," Reason magazine Editor Matt Welch says. " (T)hey can determine every national election and every ... election for state office. So independent voters -- people who refuse to say, 'I'm a Republican or I'm a Democrat' -- that's where all the action is."
Ignorance, Stupidity or Manipulation
Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., referring to his race and the Constitution on John Stossel's recent show "The State Against Blacks," said, "I wasn't even considered three-fifths of a guy." The Rev. Al Sharpton, debating on Sean Hannity's show, said, "Any black, at any age at any stage, was three-fifths of a human." Even eminent historian John Hope Franklin charged the Founders with "degrading the human spirit by equating five black men with three white men." Statements such as those either represent ignorance or are part of the leftist agenda to demean the founding principles of our nation by portraying the nation's Founders as racists. Let's look at the origin of the three-fifths clause.
Rage Against the TSA Machine
The backdrop for my favorite science-fiction novels, Frank Herbert's "Dune" series, is something called the Butlerian Jihad. Some 10,000 years before the main events of the story take place, humanity rebelled against "thinking machines" -- intelligent computers -- controlling people's lives. The revolution was sparked because a computer decided to kill, without the consent of any human authority, the baby of a woman named Jehanne Butler. I bring this up because I'm wondering why we can't have a Reppertian Jihad.
When It Comes to Oil, Where's the Beef?
It is said that there are no atheists in foxholes. In that context, the recent rise in oil prices seems to have turned the Obama administration into true believers (at least rhetorically) when it comes to the best method to keep gas prices down and the American economy growing. With oil at more than $100 a barrel, the White House announced last week that it was going to increase oil supply by withdrawing 30 million barrels a month from our strategic oil reserves and put that oil into the world market.
Big Daddy
When it comes to monitoring their children's media diets, some parents worry about sex, while others worry about violence. I worry more about inane sitcoms featuring smart-alecky kids and dumb adults, which is why I have blocked the Disney channel. Different parents have different standards, and the same parents are likely to have different standards for different children, depending on their age, maturity and personality. Because of this diversity, policies that aim to bolster parental authority by restricting minors' access to material the government deems inappropriate, such as the California video game law that the Supreme Court overturned this week, would be doomed to fail even if they did not violate the First Amendment.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
New York's Marriage Scam
Marriage in New York State, by act of its legislature, and in spite of everything you've always heard, is for everybody, and every combination of everybodies. Except, you know what -- it's not. And, what's more, won't ever be. For all the legislature's grandeur and power, and the fervent encouragement of The New York Times, no aggregation of human beings enjoys the power to redefine marriage.
New Jersey Miracle: What About the Rest of Us?
Something astonishing happened in New Jersey last week. A majority Democratic legislature and a Republican governor agreed on a measure that will cut benefits for the state's 750,000 employees and retirees. Like Wisconsin and other states that are being forced to deal with large budget deficits caused mostly by sweetheart deals struck in more prosperous times between politicians who need votes and labor unions who deliver them, New Jersey couldn't afford to go on like this.
Wrong Marriage Debate Again
If only lower income heterosexuals were as keen to marry as some homosexuals, the United States would be a much stronger country. Supporters of gay marriage (most prominently The New York Times, which reported New York's legalization of such unions last week with about as much hoopla as it did the Japanese surrender in 1945) are ecstatic.
Why Was a Man in Panties and a Bra Allowed to Fly?
On June 9, a man boarded a US Airways flight from Fort Lauderdale to Phoenix, dressed in women's panties, a bra and thigh-high stockings. No US Airways employee at the Fort Lauderdale airport asked him to cover himself. Nor did any flight attendant ask him to do so. And obviously, no one demanded that he get off the plane. US Airways spokeswoman Valerie Wunder was asked how the airline allowed a nearly naked cross-dresser to board a plane and sit next to other passengers who, one assumes, did not appreciate being seated next to an exhibitionist.
July 4th
The Fourth of July may be just a holiday for fireworks to some people. But it was a momentous day for the history of this country and the history of the world. Not only did July 4, 1776 mark American independence from England, it marked a radically different kind of government from the governments that prevailed around the world at the time -- and the kinds of governments that had prevailed for thousands of years before.
What Was Chris Wallace Driving At?
I was disappointed that Chris Wallace asked Michele Bachmann whether she is a flake, but Wallace's behavior is hardly the most important issue involved. What he was trying to get at is another matter. It is no secret that a good number of people regard Bachmann as a loose cannon who is given to gaffes and hyperbole. And it's not just Bachmann. Indeed, there is an enormous elephant in the room of GOP presidential politics, which is that despite their individual popularity, both female contenders, Bachmann and Sarah Palin, are dismissed in many circles as cartoon characters.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Like Chauncey Gardiner, Obama Is Profoundly Aloof
Which past leader does Barack Obama most closely resemble? His admirers, not all of them liberals, used to compare him to Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. Well, Obama announced his candidacy in Lincoln's hometown two days before Abe's birthday, and he did expand the size and scope of government. But no one seriously compares him with Lincoln or FDR anymore. Conservative critics have taken to comparing him, as you might imagine, to Jimmy Carter. The more cruel among them, like The Weekly Standard's Jay Cost, say the comparison is not to Obama's advantage.
The Mass Media Is a Mess
Recently, it occurred to me that liberals regard the federal government as a huge non-profit organization. It's the same way that normal people look at the Red Cross or groups dedicated to eradicating dread diseases. Those on the Left believe it's up to the government to eliminate poverty by taking from the rich and giving to the poor. It's known as the Robin Hood theory of economics.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
A Texan's 'Exceptionalism'
SAN ANTONIO -- In the 1850s, on the steps of the Waco courthouse, Wallace Jefferson's great-great-great-grandfather was sold. Today, Jefferson is chief justice of Texas' Supreme Court. The governor who nominated him also nominated the state's first Latina justice. Rick Perry, 61, the longest-serving governor in Texas history and, in his 11th year, currently the nation's senior governor, says these nominations are two of his proudest accomplishments. French cuffs and cowboy boots are, like sauerkraut ice cream, an eclectic combination, but Perry, who wears both, is a potentially potent candidate for the Republican presidential nomination because his political creed is uneclectic, matching that of the Republican nominating electorate.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
From The Comedy Store
Congress investigated gun-running to Mexico and called ATF agents to testify. The lawmakers found out that fifty percent of the guns found in Mexico come from the United States. At the same time fifty percent of the people found in the United States come from Mexico.