Throughout the debt crisis debate, President Obama has clung to a tried-and-true political slogan of the left: The rich can do more. He has insisted on what he calls a “balanced approach,” which in fact is a proposal to raise taxes only on the rich while leaving the rest of the population’s tax rates untouched. (more)
The events of the past few days have unmasked modern British politics as the Faustian bargain that it has always been. The illusion of a third way — the notion that somewhere between freedom and totalitarianism is a perfect balance where there exists both universal healthcare and free markets, guaranteed entitlements and individual liberties — is unraveling at an alarming, if not unsurprising, rate. (more)
“What happened to Obama?” The title of liberal professor Drew Westen’s unintentionally humorous essay in Sunday’s New York Times is not so much a question as a lament. And while the mainstream media’s narrative during the debt crisis has been how negotiating with Tea Party conservatives is like negotiating with terrorists, Westen’s piece inadvertently reveals how negotiating with at least some liberals is like negotiating with children. (more)
Default Day looming, partisans right and left are in ill humor over the prospect of a grand, bipartisan budget deal. They’re right to grumble. The real debt ceiling isn’t measured by a number on a piece of legislation, but by the faith and credit of the American people in our two great political myths. (more)
I am a bleeding heart libertarian. Like libertarians in general, I believe in free markets, private property, strong civil liberties and limited government. But unlike standard libertarians, and like progressives, I believe in social justice. I believe, in other words, that the legitimacy of political and economic institutions depends on their being justifiable to all persons who are subject to them, including, and perhaps especially including, the poor and vulnerable. (more)
From a dirt poor farm in Mississippi to a Gold Coast Chicago penthouse, Oprah Winfrey worked hard, took risks and built a media empire. Her brand is instantly recognizable. She’s a businesswoman par excellence, and a generous philanthropist. (more)
We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive. (more)
Victor Davis Hanson writes at Pajamas Media of the cradle-to-grave-welfare-state disaster that California has become. In specific, he writes of California’s underground economy and of the widespread unemployment in the San Joaquin Valley. Like me, Hanson has watched unfettered illegal immigration, generous entitlement handouts, and one-party Democratic rule destroy the state. (more)
Some liberals are trying to give all of the credit for the death of Osama bin Laden to Barack Obama and his enlightened leadership. But if we had fought the war on terrorism the way liberals wanted us to fight it, bin Laden would still be alive today and we wouldn’t have the first clue of how to find him. (more)
When Congress was debating Obamacare, the left needed cover against those who pointed out that the bill, in many places, would lead to health care rationing. The media happily provided that cover. (more)
A schism of Grand Canyon proportions has opened up between those who possess rational thought and those on the left. (more)
Not Again? Robert Lerman, one of the first post-Great Society liberals to argue for replacing welfare with work, thinks the government should … encourage low-income homeownership. Really? Housing prices are low relative to rents, Lerman argues, which means (more)
Every once in a while, a tyrant decides to voluntarily give up power. (more)
These days, it’s rare that my conservative beliefs cause me any grief. As a rule, after all, my social interactions with liberals tend to be limited to tennis and poker games, where there’s little or no political chitchat. (more)
Lady Gaga has ended her exclusive relationship with Target. She has decided to walk away from a lucrative business arrangement because of her political agenda. Gaga, and some liberal special interest groups, are drawing attention to their political beliefs by waging war on one of America’s most recognized and respected businesses. (more)
Proof that you don’t have to live in New York or Hollywood to be a left-wing knothead was the decision by a Chicago high school to boycott a basketball tournament in Arizona because someone — the principal perhaps — opposed Arizona’s immigration policy. A policy, as we all know, that is the mirror image of federal law. Then, having shown the world what they think of those racists in Arizona, they went off to play an exhibition game in a country that serves as a role model for freedom-loving people everywhere . . . China! (more)
The Left faces an examination in the coming days, and peaceful survival for all of us depends on its registering a passing grade: can the Left comprehend that, while we embrace Muslims — the people — as siblings in humanity, simultaneously we can and must circumscribe the lethal ideology that derives from a frank reading of the Quran and Muhammad’s hadith? (more)
It is time for those protesting against Governor Scott Walker to be given a reality check much colder than the perfectly timed snow. Governor Walker is too diplomatic to say it, but private citizens have the luxury of hammering the truth home. (more)
The too-long-tolerated crime of leftist university students depriving invited speakers of their freedom of speech by drowning them out with shouts and threats of violence is finally getting its day in court. And, true to form, that great defender of freedom of speech, the American Civil Liberties Union, is defending the very students who showed no appreciation whatsoever of others’ freedom to express views contrary to their own.
Don’t think for a minute that Jim Gilchrist of The Minutemen is finally getting long-delayed justice for being shouted down and physically assaulted by Columbia University student radicals in 2006. No, it doesn’t look like prosecutors in New York are ready yet to bring charges against liberals who silence conservatives. But in California’s Orange County, things are different, and DA Tony Rackauckas has refused to drop charges against eleven Muslim student radicals who are charged with conspiracy and disrupting a public event when they forced Israel’s soft-spoken ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, from the stage on Feb. 8 of last year. The students all have been charged with two misdemeanors, and face only minor penalties — probably a few months of probation and a few days of community service or, at worst, six months in jail. (more)
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