Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Studying China's Intentions
NEWPORT, R.I. -- Scholars at the Naval War College here probably nodded in vigorous agreement with a recent lecture delivered at another military institution 130 miles away. Speaking at West Point to leaders of tomorrow's Army, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said "any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as General MacArthur so delicately put it." This underscored Gates' point that "the most plausible, high-end scenarios for the U.S. military are primarily naval and air engagements -- whether in Asia, the Persian Gulf, or elsewhere." Here at this 127-year old college, where the American practice of war-gaming began in 1887, the faculty members are professional worriers, especially about Asia, meaning China. Its naval doctrines, procurements and deployments invite inferences about its geopolitical intentions. Faculty members were interested that when Libya descended into chaos, China sent a frigate through the Suez Canal to be in position to assist Chinese nationals in distress. This was the first time the People's Republic had positioned a high-end combatant ship for a possible evacuation.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Let There Be Light
During a Senate hearing last week, Rand Paul complained about the federal energy standards that will force conventional incandescent light bulbs off the market during the next few years. "I can't buy the old light bulbs," the Kentucky Republican said. "That restricts my choice." The response from an Energy Department official nicely illustrated the paternalistic, know-it-all attitude Paul was criticizing. "I'm pro-choice on bulbs," insisted Kathleen Hogan, the deputy assistant secretary for energy efficiency. "My view is, what you want is lighting." And the government, in its infinite wisdom, will tell you what kind of lighting is best for you.
Why Congress Must Stop $105.5 Billion in Automatic Obamacare Spending
Thanks to the irrepressible Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, who is emerging as the most energetic and principled conservative leader of the 112th Congress, the Congressional Research Service published a report on Feb. 10 detailing how the Obama administration is planning to spend $105.5 billion that was put on an appropriations autopilot in the health care legislation the Democrat-majority Congress enacted last year. Unless the Republican-controlled House in this Congress can force President Obama to sign new legislation forbidding disbursal of this $105.5 billion, the administration will spend it to lay the basic foundations for a socialistic health care system in the United States.
The Deep, Virulent Evil of the United Nations
Blood on the bed. That's what 12-year-old Tamar Fogel saw last week when she opened the door to her parents' bedroom in Itamar, Israel. The blood covered the blankets and the bodies of her father, Rabbi Udi Fogel, and her 3-month-old sister, Hadas. In the other room, her mother, Ruth, lay murdered. So did her brothers, Yoav, 11, and Elad, 4. Five members of the Fogel family were slaughtered in their home last week because they dared to live on historic Jewish land. They were not murderers and were not occupiers. They were people who simply wished to leave in peace and be left alone to bring up their children. Now those children have been buried along with their parents.
John Kerry's Recycled Government Slush Fund Recipe
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has once again earned his nickname: Thurston B. Howell III. He's elite, effete and so hopelessly out of touch with reality that his latest solution to America's fiscal profligacy is ... more fiscal profligacy, of course, Lovey! On Tuesday, Kerry introduced a $10 billion infrastructure bank bill that would engineer yet another federal taxpayer boondoggle benefiting Big Labor and favored Big Business interests. Kerry finagled support from Texas GOP Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, AFL-CIO brass knuckler-in-chief Richard Trumka, statist U.S. Chamber of Commerce head Tom Donohue, and the far-left Center for American Progress. Like spinning straw into gold, the Kerry coalition promises to leverage $10 billion in unidentified funds into $640 billion for crumbling roads and bridges.
Talk About a Meltdown
When a loved one dies (as my brother did last month), one of the standard pieces of advice is to not make any big decisions. Don't reorganize your life in a moment of existential panic or remorse. Take your time. Cope. But when thousands die, or when some sudden calamity befalls us, the tendency of politicians, journalists, policymakers and experts is to seize on the moment to advocate some radical changes. "A crisis," Rahm Emanuel famously declared in the early days of the Obama administration, "is a terrible thing to waste."
Blacks and Republicans
San Francisco's irrepressible former mayor, Willie Brown, was walking along one of the city's streets when he happened to run into another former city official that he knew, James McCray. McCray's greeting to him was "You're 10." "What are you talking about?" Willie Brown asked. McCray replied: "I just walked from Civic Center to Third Street and you're only the 10th black person I've seen."
NPR's Ridiculous Denials
In the public policy conversation today, there is nothing funnier than hearing the leadership of National Public Radio deny there's a liberal bias at play over there. Even when the Daily Caller posted sting video of their top fundraiser Ron Schiller describing America as remarkably undereducated and the Republicans as ruined by racist, gun-toting, phony Christians, NPR's reaction was repeating Sentence One: Who, us, biased?
Continuing Stubborn Ignorance
Within the past decade, I've written three columns titled "Deception 101," "Stubborn Ignorance," and "Exploiting Public Ignorance," all explaining which branch of the federal government has taxing and spending authority. How can academics, politicians, news media people and ordinary citizens get away with statements such as "Reagan's budget deficits," "Clinton's budget surplus," "Bush's budget deficits and tax cuts" or "Obama's tax increases"? Which branch of government has taxing and spending authority is not a matter of rocket science, but people continue to make these statements. The only explanation that I come up with is incurable ignorance, willful deception or just plain stupidity; if there's another answer, I would like to hear it.
The Thought We Hate
The words Chief Justice John Roberts just used in Snyder v. Phelps will surely find their way into the law books. For he was defending the very essence of freedom of speech, which is freedom not for the ideas we approve of -- they're in no danger of being suppressed -- but freedom for the ideas we loathe. They're the ones people want to censor. The chief justice was defending the right of a little group of fanatics out of Topeka, Kan., who tour the country picketing military funerals and collecting headlines. Funerals like the one for Lance Corp. Matthew Snyder, USMC, whose father sued the group/family/sect that calls itself Westboro Baptist Church for the emotional damages they'd inflicted.
Deficits, Promises and Destiny
In about a month, the Republican majority on the House Budget Committee will present its concurrent budget resolution for fiscal year 2012, which by law will include their proposed 2012 annual budget and their projection of the budgets (spending, revenues and the resulting deficit, surplus or balance) for the following nine years. It may not be overstatement to assert that this presentation may determine whether Republicans win or lose the 2012 elections and whether the United States government acts in time to save our economic future from ruin.
End the Drug War, Save Black America
One key to getting past the race issue in America is to end the war on drugs. John McWhorter says it's the most important thing we could do. Cato's Letter features a lecture by McWhorter in which he calls for an end to the war on drugs. (It's really a war on certain people.) McWhorter, the former Berkeley linguistics professor and now senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, specifically indicts the war on drugs for "destroying black America." McWhorter, by the way, is black. The "main obstacle(s) to getting black America past the illusion that racism is still a defining factor in America" are, he says, "the strained relationship between young black men and police forces" and the "massive number of black men in prison."
Gadhafi's Cyrenaica Offensive: A Gift to Dictators
In March 1941, Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps broke out of western Libya (Tripolitania) and attacked to the east, into Cyrenaica. By the mid-April 1941, the Germans reached the port of Tobruk and surrounded it. Moammar Gadhafi's March 2011 offensive isn't precisely following Afrika Korps' tank tracks. However, the principal objectives of a military offensive in Cyrenaica have not changed: Libya's coastal cities. Rommel had targets well beyond Cyrenaica -- he intended to blitz Egypt and seize the Suez Canal. Fantasists in Berlin suggested Rommel might continue on toward Persia (Iran).
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Obama at Wheel of Father's Oldsmobile
At Friday's news conference, President Obama tried to connect with the common man coping with rising gasoline prices. Instead, the president left little doubt that he is clueless about cars. "You may want to buy a fuel-efficient car," quoth Obama, "but you may not be able to afford it. And so you're stuck with the old clunker that's getting 8 or 10 miles a gallon." Eight to 10 mpg? Which clunker would that be? I wondered. An old Hummer? Your father's father's Oldsmobile? A late-model Lamborghini? It takes a luxury brand, a boat-sized machine and/or a few decades to approach those dismal mileage numbers.
The 'Redevelopment' Hoax
Why are so many people who are opposed to development nevertheless in favor of "redevelopment"? The short answer is that development involves decisions made in the market by large numbers of people in the general population, in their own personal interests, while redevelopment involves taking decisions out of the hands of the population at large and putting the power to make those decisions in the hands of elites.
Teachers and Parents
Our national weeping and wailing over education spending cuts, public employee unions, and such like cause minds of a certain vintage to stop still and wonder. When were the divorce proceedings between home and classroom filed anyway? And who filed them, and why? It can be argued that the current traumas of education proceed from that divorce: further testimony to the general understanding that it's the kids who get hurt worst in divorce. The divorce between home and public school classroom -- accomplished by the end of the '70s -- was a national calamity. To put it another way, once public education lost in great degree the robust support of the middle class, there was nowhere for things to go but downhill. And so they have slid for decades. Teachers parading around the Wisconsin capital like Jimmy Hoffa's truck drivers? It not only wouldn't have happened in ye olde days -- it didn't happen.
State Is AWOL on Religious Liberties
Last May 31st in Afghanistan, a world away from American backyard barbeques and military parades, Sayeed Mussa vanished into thin air. Mr. Mussa was spirited away to an unknown location to be executed for his faith in Jesus Christ. No, his captors were not the Taliban insurgents but Afghanistan government officials, bankrolled by US taxpayers and defended by American troops. As President Obama proclaimed January 16th to be "Religious Freedom Day," he declared that "the United States stands with those who advocate for free religious expression and works to protect the rights of all people to follow their conscience, free from persecution and discrimination." If the Obama Administration is working to promote religious freedom across the globe at all, it's not working very hard.
Sexual Pressure
Parents got some good news last week: A new report from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) reveals that more teens and young adults are choosing virginity over casual sex. "Among youngsters between the ages of 15 and 24, 27 percent of males and 29 percent of females said they had never experienced any sort of sexual contact." The report draws from 2008 data, the latest available. By comparison, in 2002, 22 percent of males and females chose virginity.
Short Bursts
It would be wrong to say this president had no policy toward the revolution in Egypt. On the contrary, he's had many. One for every day. Every hour. He still does. Just as he now does for Libya. X X X Germany's otherwise quite competent and quite popular defense minister has been forced to resign. It seems his university revoked his doctoral degree after it was discovered that "he had violated academic standards in his thesis by failing to sufficiently credit some of his sources," which is a polite way of describing what a plagiarist does. He had to go.
The Other Tsunami
It is very difficult to hate babies. It takes a special person. As morally wrong as it is to murder innocent adults, mankind seems to have a built-in revulsion against killing babies. If a baby does not evoke any tenderness, if a baby is regarded as worthy of being deliberately hurt or murdered, we know that we have encountered a degree of evil that few humans -- even among murderers -- can relate to. That is why what Palestinian terrorists did to a Jewish family on the West Bank this past weekend deserves far more attention than it received.