Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
More Cutting, Less Taxing
Another Tax Day, another check to Uncle Sam. For at least one day out of the year, Americans are reminded -- often painfully -- how much government costs. But is it as bad as it seems? No. It's worse. What most Americans pay in income taxes can give them a distorted view of just how much government they're paying for. If policymakers didn't engage in "deficit spending" -- i.e., borrowing money that taxpayers will have to pay back, with interest -- our tax bill this year would be much higher.
Debt Ceiling? It's Time for GOP To Let Chips Fall
The governing class in Washington has no excuse for not having addressed our spending issues and formulating a comprehensive federal debt retirement plan before we approached another debt ceiling threshold. At every possible opportunity, politicians convince themselves that it's always better to kick the can down the road -- Democrats because they aren't remotely serious about debt reduction, Republicans because they're afraid of their own shadow.
Sharia Compliance in Dearborn, Mich.
The RINO (reverend in name only) Terry Jones is like his fellow RINO, Fred Phelps, but in political drag. Jones, the "pastor" (PINO?) of the tiny and inconsequential Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., was jailed last week in Dearborn, Mich., "following a jury trial that found he was likely to create a 'breach of the peace' for plans to protest outside the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn," according to the Detroit News. Jones and his associate Wayne Sapp were taken into custody after they refused to post a $1 "peace bond." A judge then barred Jones and Sapp from entering the property of the Islamic Center -- the largest mosque in the U.S. -- for three years. The two posted bond and were released, but they promised to return on Friday.
What Would Jesus Cut?
It wasn't that long ago when Democratic members of Congress were warning about conservative colleagues trying to insert their religion into politics by trying to cut funding for Planned Parenthood. For issues concerning family planning, the left generally agrees that it is wrong to impose religion on politics. I don't think you'll be hearing the same scolds directed at the Sojourners' crusade against the House GOP budget and its orange bracelets that ask, "What would Jesus cut?"
The Filthy Rich
I haven't investigated, but I'm sure of it. A pollster in ancient Babylonia was sampling the citizenry on a proposal to raise money by taxing the vineyards and flesh pots of the obscenely rich. I don't know a word of ancient Babylonian, but can we doubt the response went something like, "You bet! Go for it! Get those miserable shekel-grubbing sons of camels!"? In other words, there never was a human instinct that didn't continue to play out, century after century, millennium after millennium. Class resentment included: which explains polls purporting to demonstrate that a majority of Americans want to fight the federal deficit by raising taxes on those earning $250,000 a year.
The Trump Card
The boomlet for Donald Trump as a Republican nominee for President of the United States ought to be a wake-up call for Republican candidates and Republican Party leaders alike. Why has Trump surged ahead of other Republican candidates and potential candidates in the polls? It is not likely that his resurrection of the issue of Barack Obama's birth certificate has aroused all this support.
The Welfare State and the Selfish Society
In the contemporary world, where left-wing attitudes are regarded as normative, it is a given that capitalism, with its free market and profit motive, emanates from and creates selfishness, while socialism, the welfare state and the "social compact," as it is increasingly referred to, emanate from and produce selflessness. The opposite is the truth. Whatever its intentions, the entitlement state produces far more selfish people -- and therefore, a far more selfish society -- than a free-market economy. And once this widespread selfishness catches on, we have little evidence that it can be undone.
Obama Foreign Policy: Moral Muddle
The Obama foreign policy is a mess. In the first 12 months of his term -- let's call it the contra-Bush era -- the president's chief aim seemed to be to undo, to the degree possible, what his predecessor had done. The U.S. would close Guantanamo; eschew the term "war on terror"; withdraw from Iraq on a fixed timetable; befriend Iran, Syria, China, Russia, and even Sudan; stiff-arm Israel; and make a concerted effort (via the Cairo speech among other things) to ingratiate America with the Muslim world. It didn't work. Guantanamo remains open. Changing the name didn't change the fact of the war on terror. American troops will remain in Iraq and Afghanistan for a long time. Iran has become even more belligerent, and so forth. Has experience affected the administration's approach?
Monday, April 25, 2011
Let the Revolution Begin
It was the great George Orwell who observed, "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." I agree. That is why I have a problem with Republican politicians allowing Nancy Pelosi to get away with insisting that Republicans are looking to starve six million senior citizens to death when they insist that Obama and his loony left-wing enablers quit flushing American tax dollars down the toilet. I realize that she is a major entity in her party, but when you show deference to an idiot, albeit one of the female variety, you don't come off looking statesmanlike or even chivalrous, you just come across like a bunch of spineless wienies.
The Death of the 'Defined Benefit'
The defined benefit is dying. Barack Obama is struggling to keep it alive, but it's apparent that it's something that even as bounteously rich a society as ours can't afford. Yes, I know that "defined benefit" is not a common household phrase. But most people know what a defined benefit pension is. It's when your employer promises to pay you a certain amount of money, pegged to your salary or according to some other formula, when you retire.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
The Kansas City Closer
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- John Covington hesitated before becoming this city's 26th school superintendent in 40 years. A blunt-talking African-American from Alabama, he attended the Broad Superintendents Academy in Los Angeles, which prepares leaders for urban school districts, and when he asked people there if he should come here, their response, he says, was: "Not 'no,' but 'Hell no!'" He says they suggested that when flying across the country he should take a flight that does not pass through this city's airspace. How did this pleasant place become so problematic? Remember the destination of the road paved with good intentions.
Cult of 'Three Cups of Tea' Should Have Known Better
The first tip-off that Greg Mortenson's memoir "Three Cups of Tea" has some credibility issues comes in the book's introduction. Co-author David Oliver Relin writes that as Mortenson is flying over Pakistan, the helicopter pilot marvels to Mortenson, "I've been flying in northern Pakistan for 40 years. How is it you know the terrain better than me?" The pilot also confides, "Flying with President Musharraf, I've become acquainted with many world leaders, many outstanding gentlemen and ladies. But I think Greg Mortenson is the most remarkable person I've ever met."
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Commonsense, We Hardly Knew Ye
It used to be that the difference between the two political parties merely indicated a divergence when it came to major issues. Today, however, it has come to mean a schism of Grand Canyon proportions between those who possess rational thought and those on the Left. Liberals believe, in spite of a century's worth of contradictory evidence, that socialism is a humane and viable economic system. They believe that America is a racist country in spite of the fact that we have an ostensibly black president; a black attorney general, and that two of our last three secretaries of state have been black.
Friday, April 22, 2011
The Racing Form, 2012
WASHINGTON -- Unified Field Theory of 2012, Axiom One: The more the Republicans can make the 2012 election like 2010, the better their chances of winning. The 2010 Democratic shellacking had the distinction of being the most ideological election in 30 years. It was driven by one central argument in its several parts: the size and reach of government, spending and debt, and, most fundamentally, the nature of the American social contract. 2010 was a referendum on the Obama experiment in hyper-liberalism. It lost resoundingly.
Trump, Birthers, and the Truth
Is Donald Trump a closet Obama supporter? That's the only logical conclusion to draw from the Donald's recent foray into presidential politics. If he keeps up his kooky bid for the GOP nomination, he'll damage the party and its chances to win the White House in 2012. And if he's seriously considering running as an Independent -- as he's hinted he would if he fails to win the Republican nomination -- he virtually guarantees Barack Obama's re-election. Trump may be entertaining -- millions of fans of his reality television shows seem to think so, though the appeal eludes me. But it's one thing for Trump to play rich bully for ratings and another to use his celebrity status to peddle wacky conspiracy theories that harm political discourse.
Easter in the East
WASHINGTON -- Easter morning sunrise services are part of a long tradition in Christianity. For millenniums, believers around the globe have gathered in the open at dawn on Easter Sunday to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ and profess their faith. This year, there will be far fewer such assemblies in the Middle East and southwest Asia. For this we can thank what President Barack Obama calls the "Arab spring." One of the rarely reported consequences of the "democracy movement" sweeping across the southern Mediterranean coast to the tip of the Arabian Peninsula and up the Persian Gulf has been an increasing threat to indigenous Christian communities -- some of which date back nearly 2,000 years. This Holy Week, the Obama administration was quick to profess "outrage" at the Gadhafi regime for killing and wounding journalists in Misrata, Libya. Yet neither the White House nor our NATO allies have condemned a spike in violence against Christians throughout the region.
The Unhappy President
The list of people I feel sorry for is long. It includes not just all of the people I know personally who are suffering from one misfortune or another, but the billions around the world who're having a rougher time than they ought: Japanese earthquake victims, targets of ethnic cleansing, etc. Then there's the supplemental list, which includes everyone from fans of "Lost" who were ripped off by the series finale to the guy in the middle seat on a long flight. But one guy who doesn't make the list is Barack Obama.
A Melting Pot Gone Cold
Our British and European cousins are wrestling with a problem we don't have -- yet. How far can the state go to require religious beliefs to conform to basic law? You don't have to be a civil libertarian to feel a chill down your back in even putting the dilemma in such blunt terms. France has become the second European country, after Belgium, to ban the niqab, the Muslim sack that Sharia law requires women to wear to hide everything but their eyes from the sight of (horrors!) men. Spain, Switzerland and the Netherlands are expected to follow. The larger question, for which no one has an answer, is how to assimilate an alien culture in the absence of the melting pot.
It's All Up to Republicans Now
In 1994, in a close race for governor of Florida between Democrat Lawton Chiles and Republican Jeb Bush, a late blitz of robo calls may have put Chiles over the top. The calls, which Chiles at first disavowed, but later -- in the face of a subpoena -- acknowledged, were aimed at older voters. They "informed" voters that Bush's running mate favored eliminating Social Security and that Bush himself was a tax cheat. Neither was true. But Chiles won. It's a hoary Democratic formula for winning elections -- frighten seniors that Republicans are gunning for their Social Security or Medicare -- and has been deftly deployed by Bill Clinton, Dick Gephardt, Nancy Pelosi, and countless others over the years. In 2010, some Republicans couldn't resist stealing the tactic themselves -- warning voters that Obamacare would result in cuts to Medicare. It wasn't a false charge -- Obamacare does slice $500 billion from Medicare to pay for its new entitlement -- but it was unseemly coming from the party that claims to be for fiscal responsibility.
To Retire Our National Debt, We Must Retire Obama
Everyone but the blind and reckless agrees that the United States faces a dire financial crisis. But only one of the two major political parties is offering a plan that has a reasonable chance of averting this crisis and restoring the nation to financial health. Obama's ever-changing proposals, allegedly designed to tackle the problem, simply could not work. One of the following must be true: He doesn't agree that the crisis is grave, doesn't understand that his policies can't work, doesn't have the same vision about America as most of us, or doesn't intend for his policies to work. Some people believe he's intentionally damaging America, because they believe he's too smart not to know that we face a crisis and that his policies can't work.