Right Opinion
The best of conservative opinion and commentary, updated daily.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Call Our Troops Homophobes
The Pentagon's poll on "don't ask, don't tell" is beyond idiotic. Instead of asking whether the troops support repeal of DADT, the Pentagon asked only if they can learn to play nice with the gays. Even more absurdly, the Pentagon polled all military "personnel" -- and their spouses! Only a small portion of what is known as "the military" actually does the fighting. The rest is a vast bureaucracy along the lines of the DMV.
Questions for Democrats
The "grand bargain" agreed to by the White House to preserve the Bush-era tax rates, extend unemployment insurance for another year and reduce the payroll tax for 2011 doesn't get to the heart of the country's main financial problem: overspending. The Irish were told this week they are going to have to bite the bullet and sharply reduce their expectations of what government can do for them, as it cuts spending and broadens the tax base. But liberal Democrats in the United States remain on a different track: increasing debt and waging nonstop class warfare. Did they miss the message of last month's election?
A 12-Step Program for Recovering Liberals
Most 12-step programs start out by requiring that people have to understand that they're powerless over their addiction and that only by turning their lives over to a Power greater than themselves can they be restored to sanity. Far be it from me to suggest that I am that Power, but clearly someone has to step in and try to rescue these poor liberal souls. Even the most harebrained among them deserves that much.
Why Not Soak the Rich?
For the last two years, $250,000 in annual income has become an arbitrary line in the sand of a renewed class war. Those above it must alone have their income taxes raised. Those below are deemed more virtuous and so deserving of a tax cut. But what exactly is "rich"? Zillionaires such as Warren Buffett, Bill Gates or George Soros surely are. But these wealthiest individuals have so much money at their disposal that they don't care much about income tax rates. Their tax lawyers have found ingenious ways to divert millions of what would be owed to Uncle Sam by funding tax-free pet causes, private foundations and favored charities -- in a way not true of those who make far less than a million dollars a year.
Hoosier on a Mission
WASHINGTON -- On a midweek afternoon in February 2009, a month into the Obama presidency, Republican Rep. Mike Pence arrived at Columbus in his east-central Indiana district for a town hall meeting, the sort of event that usually attracted a few dozen constituents. Surprised to see the hallway outside the room crowded with people, "their arms folded and brows furrowed," Pence shouted down the hall to an aide, asking him to get a janitor to open the room. The aide shouted back that the room was open -- and overflowing. Congress had just passed the stimulus (Pence voted no) and Hoosiers were stimulated to anger. Soon the tea party would be simmering.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Want to Win? Masquerade as a Conservative
"I'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president," President Obama told Diane Sawyer of ABC News in January 2010. Liar. President Obama has a pattern when it comes to his political rhetoric. If he talks about foreign policy, he tells the truth; if he talks about domestic policy, he lies. That's because President Obama feels that while the rest of the world deserves honesty, the American people can be manipulated for their own good.
Walter Williams' Memoir
Walter E. Williams is my oldest and closest friend. But I didn't know that his autobiography had just been published until a talk show host told me last week. I immediately got a copy of "Up from the Projects," started reading it before dinner and finished reading it before bedtime. It is the kind of book that you hate to put down, even though I already knew how the story would end.
Assange's Media Allies
On Dec. 7, the notorious radical mastermind of WikiLeaks turned himself in on a sexual assault charge in London. But in the liberal media, the condemnations are few. There are no real enemies to the media elite's left, especially if they can be (very loosely) identified with journalism. Julian Assange may be highly motivated to cripple American "imperialism," but his relentless efforts to disrupt American foreign policy is a good thing when the media are manipulating the government's reaction by choosing which leaks they will publish and promote.
Small-Biz Killers: Who Pays for Jobless Benefits?
There is no such thing as a "free" government benefit. Ask small-business owners who are footing skyrocketing bills for bottomless jobless benefits. While politicians in Washington negotiate a deal to provide welcome temporary payroll, income and estate tax relief to America's workers, struggling employers wonder how long they'll have to pay for the compassion of others -- and whether they can survive. The Beltway deal hinges on extending federal unemployment insurance for another 13 months. This would mark the sixth time that the deadline has been extended since June 2008.
President Obama's Next Two Years
In the last week or two, an eccentric debate has been dividing Democratic Party pols and commentators in Washington: In 2011, should President Obama strive to be more like Harry Truman in 1947 or Bill Clinton in 1995? Apparently, they have given up on FDR or Abe Lincoln as plausible role models for the president. They should be careful. The way the economy seems to be going, a year from now, they could be down to deciding between Carter and Hoover as role models.
A Leaner Leviathan
Before it began its work eight months ago, one of the main knocks against the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform was that it could do no more than recommend changes to Congress. In the end, it could not even do that, falling three votes shy of the 14 needed to officially submit its plan for congressional consideration.
Murderers' Row
What was the greatest baseball team in history? The 1927 New York Yankees regularly lead the list of nominees for that distinction. The sluggers at the heart of the Yankee line-up came to be known as Murderers Row: Earle Combs (CF), Bob Meusel (LF), Babe Ruth (RF), Lou Gehrig (1B), and Tony Lazzeri (2B). The names still ring in the annals of the game, or rather resound -- like the crack of a bat.
Save the North Koreans!
If North Koreans were pandas, would we have let them suffer so? In October 1993, Edward N. Luttwak wrote a brilliant essay for Commentary magazine asking a similar question: "If the Bosnian Muslims had been bottlenose dolphins, would the world have allowed Croats and Serbs to slaughter them by the tens of thousands? If Sarajevo had been an Amazonian rainforest or merely an American wood containing spotted owls, would the Serbs have been allowed to blast it and burn it with their artillery fire?
Why Do the Poor Stay Poor?
Of the 6 billion people on Earth, 2 billion try to survive on a few dollars a day. They don't build businesses, or if they do, they don't expand them. Unlike people in the United States, Europe and Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, etc., they don't lift themselves out of poverty. Why not? What's the difference between them and us? Hernando de Soto taught me that the biggest difference may be property rights. I first met de Soto maybe 15 years ago. It was at one of those lunches where people sit around wondering how to end poverty. I go to these things because it bugs me that much of the world hasn't yet figured out what gave us Americans the power to prosper.
WikiLeaks' Bottom-Line Revelation
Julian Assange, the man behind the WikiLeaks dump of secret US State Department cables, has been frank about his reasons for releasing thousands of classified -and stolen -- documents. Assange says he wants to seriously damage the United States. If this damage forwards America's ultimate destruction, so be it. The son of leftist America-haters, Assange was born and weaned during the Cold War. Then the wrong side won. What the superpower Soviet Union failed to do with its armies, he, a super-empowered individual, will accomplish via the information anarchy of the Internet.
Moral or Immoral Government
Immorality in government lies at the heart of our nation's problems. Deficits, debt and runaway government are merely symptoms. What's moral and immoral conduct can be complicated, but needlessly so. I keep things simple and you tell me where I go wrong. My initial assumption is that we each own ourselves. I am my private property and you are yours. If we accept the notion that people own themselves, then it's easy to discover what forms of conduct are moral and immoral. Immoral acts are those that violate self-ownership. Murder, rape, assault and slavery are immoral because those acts violate private property. So is theft, broadly defined as taking the rightful property of one person and giving it to another.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Culture Challenge of the Week: Playing the Hate Card
Children know instinctively that "hate" is a bad thing. And they understand that hating a classmate, teacher, or neighbor is nothing like "hating" the broccoli on the dinner plate. Real hate is a deliberate choice: it wishes evil and foments dark, angry feelings towards another person. And ultimately, it extinguishes any light and all love from the hater's heart.
'F--- You' From the Music Industry
The nominees to receive the most prestigious awards in the music industry, the Grammy Awards, were just announced. Among the five nominees for Record of the Year is a song titled "F--- You," with the F-word, of course, spelled out and pronounced.
Two Shots at History
It was pleasant -- and frankly a little shocking -- to see The Washington Post editorialize over the weekend about the new film "Fair Game," which purports to be the true story of Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame. Noting that Plame has labeled the movie "accurate" and that Wilson had expressed the hope that the film would help people "who don't read" or have "short memories" to understand the period, the Post blasted them both. "'Fair Game' ... is full of distortions -- not to mention outright inventions ... Hollywood has a habit of making movies about historical events without regard for the truth; 'Fair Game' is just one more example."
Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Care
People who take polls for a living will tell you that depending on the methodology, the sample, how a question is asked and the understanding of the ones being polled, the outcome can pretty much be predetermined. If you are dependent on a superior for your job and that superior tells you he wants a certain conclusion reached about a policy he wishes to implement, that, too, can affect the outcome.