Green, I’ve heard people say, is the new Red. That is to say that the modern environmentalist movement is the latest manifestation of Communism and extreme Leftist political thought. Such statements are indicative of the fact that the Green movement fails to resonate with the thinking side of the political spectrum: the Right. Modern environmentalism is regarded by the right as nothing more than a tyrannical component of Left-wing political thought whose purpose is to impose more and more control on the proletariat, which is the goal of the Left. The debate about climate change, global warming, or whatever it’s being called today is an example of why the Right has these feelings.

That’s not to say that conservatives are “anti-environment” as the Left proposes. No one supports allowing people to litter, or businesses to pollute heavily. The effects of these are apparent to anyone who pays attention. Certain chemicals also need to be regulated so that their release into the environment is controlled or prevented. There aren’t many who dispute that.

The problem isn’t pro- or anti-environment, it’s how the extremists handle themselves, primarily by trying to scare us into believing in the impending doom that is inevitable if we don’t radically change course. The problem is their credibility suffers with those who employ even a token amount of critical thinking, and here are some examples as to why:

• Because every natural disaster anymore is associated with Global Warming.
  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. posited that Hurricane Katrina was not only the result of Global Warming, but that its landfall near New Orleans was nature retaliating against the US for President Bush’s refusal to send the Kyoto Treaty to Congress. Someone attributed the 2004 Tsunami to Global Warming. (Finding that reference is very difficult anymore, partly because even the mainstream extremists realize how ridiculous a proposition that is). Environmentalists even tried to attribute the relatively minor Hurricane Isabel to Global Warming.
• Because even most weather anomalies are attributed to Global Warming.
  Hot summers, cold winters, floods, droughts, more hurricanes than normal (2005, including Katrina), fewer hurricanes than normal (2006), all of these are examples of things that have been caused by Global Warming. If you pay attention to the news, any time there’s some unusual pattern to the weather, Global Warming is usually the culprit.
• Because they keep changing their story.
  This is a big one. In the ‘70s it was global cooling. Soot was going to collect in the atmosphere and block out the sun. They posited this because temperatures were falling at the time. Nowadays, the story is consistent about what’shappening, but not so much on when, or how much. If we were to believe the people who first posited Global Warming in the late ‘80s, we would already have seen 20-foot rises in sea level and millions of dead humans because of it. The catastrophe gets pushed back and the temperature curve gets adjusted to fit whatever is most politically expedient. 
• Because they ignore historical climate changes.
  Earth has been warmer in the past than now. Some estimates put the average temperature during the Jurassic period at something like 96° F. Much more recently, we had the Ice Age 10,000 years ago, and a “Little Ice Age” that ended somewhere around 1850. Furthermore there was a general warming trend before the early 1400s. Were these fluctuations the result of human activity? Of course not. Why, then, must any current warming be the result of human activity?
• Because the most vocal proponents of Global Warming are not scientists but politicians and entertainers.
  For all the scientific “consensus” it’s amusing that scientists rarely go in public touting Global Warming theory. The vast majority of those who support the theory in public are left-wing politicians and actors. None of these people are credible on such ventures because (a) they are not scientists, and (b) they have a political motive for wanting Global Warming to be fact. If it’s true then the politicians can increase the power of the government to intrude on the lives of the people. Furthermore, the ones who support the Global Warming notion the loudest are the ones who travel from one gigantic mansion to another in their private jet and take their Hummer limousine to and from the airport.
• Because the only solutions offered are politically motivated band-aids, at best.
   The Kyoto Accords, which would have affected the US disproportionately to its contribution to the problem, exempted third-world countries, and was rejected by the other two of the top three polluters (China and India), would, had they been put into full effect, have merely delayed the catastrophe something like 10 years past the 100 years it was expected to take. Moving extinction from 100 years to 110 years away is hardly worth wrecking the global economy, particularly since, within 100 years, the economy might be able to solve the problem, and without the economy running as it does now (even in its current recessed state) innovation and science will suffer greatly. On the other hand, economic disaster is often followed by more serious problems, like war, famine, and pestilence. What is needed is not some politically motivated “solution” intended to make the US economy worse and allow our adversaries to improve dramatically. What we need, if Global Warming is, in fact, true, is a real, permanent solution. It would probably be good to reduce fossil fuels even if Global Warming doesn’t exist. But taxes on energy, restrictions on energy usage, and other government mandates won’t help. Things like Water and Nuclear power (which don’t spit out “greenhouse gasses”) or workable solar and wind power (which don’t exist yet for large-scale applications) will help.
• Because they come up with some of the most idiotic theories on “How You Can Help.”
  So far, I know we’ve heard “inflate your tires to use less gas” and “Paint your roofs white to reflect the sun’s rays back into space.” That such ideas are patently ridiculous is obvious.

None of this is to say definitively that Global Warming doesn’t exist or that the Trifecta ((A) It exists, (B) it’s man-made, and (C) it’s inevitably catastrophic) is without merit. All I’m saying is that the presentation lends itself to people disbelieving it. If you want global warming to be solved, start offering real solutions, not just ways to move carbon emissions from one place to another.

August 16, 1977. On that day, Elvis Presley died, suddenly, at the age of 42. Elvis was, quite possibly, the most famous entertainer, perhaps the most famous human being in the world at the time. Even people who didn’t follow rock ‘n’ roll music at least knew who he was. He’d been performing for more than 2 decades, since he was 18, and his popularity was immediate and lasting. His distinctive baritone voice and signature dance moves brought him both acclaim and criticism from many corners, and his music essentially defined a genre. The Rock ‘n’ Roll sound of the 50s and 60s was greatly influenced by Elvis’s music and performance style. He lived in his massive “Graceland” estate, which was modeled to his liking. He was an icon of his age and was called, among other things, the “King of Rock.”

June 25, 2009. On that day, Michael Jackson died, suddenly, at the age of 50. Jackson was, quite possibly, the most famous entertainer, perhaps the most famous human being in the world at the time. Even people who didn’t follow popular music at least knew who he was. He’d been performing for more than 3 decades, since he was 11, and his popularity was immediate and lasting. His distinctive high-tenor voice and signature dance moves brought him both acclaim and criticism from many corners, and his music essentially defined a genre. The Pop sound of the 80s and 90s was greatly influenced by Jackson’s music and performance style. He lived in his massive “Neverland” ranch, which was modeled to his liking. He was an icon of his age and was called, among other things, the “King of Pop.”

I can honestly say that I do not count myself among the legions of either Elvis Presley or Michael Jackson fans. Neither man’s music is on my iPod. That’s not to say that I believe either man to have been untalented. On the contrary, both were very good singers and entertainers as attested by their lasting popularity, even well beyond the primes of their careers. I don’t dislike their music; it’s just not something I go out of my way to hear. Of course, I’m not here to act as a music critic, but to write about the loss of a cultural icon.

Michael Jackson’s and Elvis Presley’s lives have some very interesting parallels, which you should have noticed above. An immediate rise to world-wide fame. Staying power reserved only for the greats in entertainment. The famous mansions in which they lived. The drugs, the health problems, and the changes in appearance. The unflattering sexual reputations. The entourages of handlers. The eccentricity of their later lives. The suddenness of their deaths. The deserved appellations of “King” of their genre.

Fame has killed any number of entertainers, whether immediately by drugs or suicide, or longer term by the abuse through which they put their bodies. It seems that neither Jackson nor Elvis escaped the Grim Reaper’s diamond-encrusted scythe. We are right to mourn their loss and pray for their souls.

The King is dead, long live the King.

Another example of why not to emulate the European Left:  

In a perfect example of the Left’s disdain for private property rights, the EU parliamentary elections resulted in one seat being won by Sweden’s “Pirate Party.” The aims and goals of the Pirate Party, you ask? Well, the Pirate Party is to intellectual property law what the gay privileges movement is to marriage: take a long-established tradition and scrap it because your lifestyle doesn’t jive with conventional wisdom. Specifically, they want to loosen copyright law and do away with patents. Of course, the consequence of that would be disaster.

Here are the basics of intellectual property. Everything costs something to produce, whether it’s money, material resources, energy, time, or some combination. The value of the product is based not in what it cost to produce, but what its purchaser will pay for it. It could cost, say, $50,000 per unit to produce a 1987 Yugo, but no one would pay more than $5,000 to purchase that car. Therefore, not only is the value of the car only $5,000, but because of that, the seller would be foolish to try to market the car. It would cost him $45,000 in losses for each vehicle, and you’d be left in a situation where you lose more money by selling more product.

Intellectual property, whether copyrights, patents, or trademarks, work the same way. It takes time, effort, and money to write a book and produce it in sellable quantity. So much time, that fiction writers frequently do not have “day jobs” and rely on the proceeds from their sales to live. The best talent (that is, the ones who sell the most books) live very well off those proceeds. The same is true for patents. Individuals or companies invent things that may be marketable. Often, particularly in technology and pharmaceuticals, the purpose of a business is to invent new solutions to problems, and the research and development into new products costs money. Viagra, for example, costs $10 per pill, a cost the consumers will support, and an income level the producers can accept. The reason the price is high, though, is that it cost Pfizer a lot of money to research the drug, and they needed to recover the costs. In fact, marketing it as a vanity drug (as I call Viagra and its cousins), has kept the costs down for those who actually need Viagra for cardiovascular problems (for which it was originally intended).

Copyrights have been around for centuries. Copyright litigation is known from the 6^th century, AD. Modern copyright law began in Britain in 1709. This isn’t some new construct of modern man. Patent law is even older, dating from at least the 5^th century BC, with modern patent law dating from 1474. Again, not something peculiar to modern man. 

Human society is based on incentives, both positive and negative. Punitive law is intended to give a disincentive to commit crime. Free-market economies are based on the monetary incentives gained when a product is sold. If you sell enough product you make money. If nothing was gained in selling products. If you only sold products at cost, not making any profit, businesses would not exist. Patents and copyrights are a way for inventors and authors to make money selling their product. It is that income that provides the incentive to write or invent. Civilization existed for almost 6,000 years without the automobile, the airplane, the personal computer, the television, the DVD player, the refrigerator, the train, the radio, the electric light etc. Those contrivances exist not because of a need, but because they are profitable. Think about the “format wars” that have occurred in the last 30 years in portable media. Eight-track vs. four-track cassettes, VHS vs. Beta, HD DVD vs. BluRay. In each case the one consumers would purchase is the one that won, not necessarily the higher quality option. Without patents, none of them would exist, because the inventors would have no incentive to invent them.

The world the Left wants is a world where everyone gets everything they need and no one lacks for anything. “From each according to his talent to each according to his need,” as Marx’s saying goes. They want to eliminate incentive and ensure everyone gets an equal share (with the Leftist elites getting a “more equal” share than us proles). What they don’t get is that without incentive, nothing is accomplished. If you get the same result regardless of whether or not you work hard (or at all) at it, what’s the incentive to work? Sure, there are a few who do what they do because they love it, and would do it free of charge if their basic needs (food, water, shelter, clothing, healthcare) were taken care of. But that small minority cannot support the other 99.5% of us who need something more than job satisfaction to get up at 0400 every morning to come in to work.

The elimination of patent and copyright law eliminates any incentive for innovation. Writers won’t write if they can’t expect to see the fruits of their labors. The same holds true for potential inventors. Businesses such as the entertainment and media industries would suffer greatly with a loss of intellectual property rights. The end result would be the government swooping down to fill the void of information dissemination and invention. The days of state-run media and entertainment, and state controlled inventions would be inevitable without patents and copyrights. That’s a world I’d just as soon not see.

Anyone who has read either my blog or my postings on Townhall knows that I am about as anti-abortion as it gets. I believe that abortion is a gravely evil act and I am sickened by the support it gets from some people who purport to be mainstream, including our current Commander in Chief. The problem is that killing abortion doctors and burning abortion clinics is also wrong, and should be treated as such.

For the Conservatives: Christians are not like Muslims. We are not instructed to carry out God’s divine justice here on earth. We are to leave that to God. We are also not to carry out man’s temporal justice unless we are duly commissioned to do so as police, attorneys, judges, juries, etc. Roeder’s alleged act (he has not been convicted, so we can’t say for sure that he’s the guilty party) should be punished to the fullest extent of the law, and if Roeder was the culprit, he (or the actual perpetrator, if it wasn’t Roeder) should spend the rest of his miserable life in prison (whether or not the state hastens the end of his life sentence is inconsequential to me.) And he may be surprised to discover that he’s sharing a room with Tiller in the afterlife if he doesn’t make his amends to God. Those of us who are good, practicing Christians understand that what Roeder (or whoever) did puts his soul in mortal jeopardy of eternal damnation, and that’s reason number 1 not to go randomly killing abortionists.

For the Liberals, who don’t buy all this “immortal soul” garbage: Tiller’s murderer has done 3 things. He violated the law. He took a father and grandfather from a family that loved him. And he harmed the movement he purported to represent. On the first, murder is as serious a crime as it gets. That’s why we have death penalties in some states. Whether it was Scott Roeder or someone else, the perpetrator of this crime should be punished severely, precisely because a person was killed. It doesn’t matter what the person’s political beliefs, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, job, criminal record, or whatever, were. A person was killed and the law needs to come down heavily on the killer. On the second, killing someone always has consequences outside the immediate victim. The victim’s family is gravely harmed, and society as a whole is harmed because law and order are reduced whenever anyone commits a crime. The only solution is to punish the criminal. On the third, of course the Left will take this one isolated incident and paint all people who think like I do with the broad brush of bigotry. Every time something like this happens, the Left pulls out the stereotype card, calling those who support the restriction of abortion “extremists” and lending credence to Janet Napolitano’s memo calling conservatives “dangerous.” Far from saving the innocent unborn lives that Roeder (or whoever) intended to save, it will now be harder to get anti-abortion laws passed, and there will always be another Dr. Tiller. These sorts of things just make the abortion problem worse, because it makes martyrs of abortionists.

And that’s my final point. While the murder of anyone is tragic, I am frustrated by the media’s portrayal of Dr. Tiller as some kind of hero. The manner of his death aside, he still performed a great evil that under other circumstances would rise to the level of a crime against humanity. He was no hero in any sense of the word. Those he killed were truly defenseless. He killed them neither quickly nor painlessly. He, in fact, enjoyed a much easier death than did any of his victims. He did a great disservice to society by perpetuating the lie that abortion is OK, and like all other abortion supporters, the blood of countless millions is on his hands.

Yes, Dr. Tiller’s death was tragic. Yes, his killer should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Yes, his family is right to grieve for their loss, and we are right to grieve with them. But to call him a hero, to prop him up as a martyr to a good cause is to ignore the evil that he has done, and to ignore that evil is the final disservice you can do him. Because if you don’t realize the evil he committed, you don’t know to pray for his soul.

If Samuel Alito had said in a private conversation 30 years ago that he was a better judge than Thurgood Marshall because Alito is white and Marshall was black, Judge Alito would not only never have become Justice Alito, he’d probably be forced to resign in disgrace. Conservatives would decry this decision precisely becauseit was 30 years ago and a private conversation, but the Left would say that such statements offer absolute proof of racism and, of course, racism is the greatest evil any white man can commit.

President Obama’s first nominee to the Supreme Court, a leftist activist judge named Sonia Sotomayor, however, being a leftist activist judge who also happens to be a Hispanic Woman, gets a pass for saying precisely the same thing… 8 years ago… in public.

Sotomayor said in a 2001 lecture at the University of California at Berkeley (go figure), “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.” In other words, coming up from a background of poverty and being of a particular race and sex makes one better at rendering impartial decisions. Again, if a white, male, conservative judge had said the same thing in a private conversation 30 years ago he’d be thrown off the bench. Ask former Senator George Allen, Jr. (R-VA) what happens when a conservative is alleged to have said something racially insensitive 30 years ago. 

Republicans need to treat President Obama and his administration, particularly his nominees, with all the respect and deference that he and his Democrat cronies paid to President Bush. You can’t lay down and play nice and expect the other side to do the same thing. It hasn’t worked yet, and it’s unlikely to in the future. They need to remember that the next President will hopefully have handed President Obama a resounding defeat and, as a result, the venom hurled at him will make the vitriol aimed at President Bush look like high praise. So, rather than pretending that the Democrats will play nice with the next Republican president, they need to do everything they can to make it troublesome for the current Democrat President.

And to start, they need to demolish Judge Sotomayor on her blatantly racist attitude and the Democrats for supporting her given their normal attitude toward racism. We neither need nor want a racist justice on the highest court in the land. And what we’re likely to get is a justice who holds the belief that race, class, and sex mean more to a judge’s ability than education, experience, and understanding of the law. 

Oddly, according to the Associated Press, the New Hampshire state legislature yesterday voted down a bill that was intended to authorize same-sex “marriage” in that state. I say it’s odd, because the bill was expected to pass with about as much resistance as that offered by wet ice. What’s even stranger is that it was defeated by proponents of same-sex “marriage” siding with conservatives. At least that’s strange until you find out why.

Apparently Governor John Lynch (D), understanding the magnitude of the situation, wanted to insert language allowing religious institutions to actually practice their faith and refuse to perform gay marriages and counsel gay couples. The conservatives, of course, voted down the law on the principle that a man cannot logically marry a man. The gay privileges activists believe that the bill doesn’t given them enough privileges, since they can’t use the law to force a Catholic Church to “marry” two men or give them “marital” counseling.

“But all they want is equal rights,” right? Bull. Same-sex “marriage” proponents have spent tons of time and effort trying to make us believe the lie that they simply want the same rights as everyone else, that they only want to be left alone, and that they don’t intend to infringe on other people’s rights. Well, the lie was revealed in Concord yesterday for all the world to see. 

In case I haven’t been explicit enough on this topic, here’s what gay privileges activists want given their record in speeches, protests, and legislative actions. They want to redefine “marriage” to mean any two (possibly “or more”) people who wish to share an abode and legitimize their sexual relationship. They want to be able to serve in the military as gays first, soldiers second. They want all references to the wickedness, wrongness, perversity, or depravity of homosexuality to be expunged from society. They want to be able to force churches to recognize and accept homosexual behavior as moral, healthy, and normal. They want a crime against a gay person to be prosecuted more strongly and punished more severely than for the same crime against a straight person. They want their behavioral tendencies to be considered inherent traits that cannot be used for discrimination. They want all those who disagree with homosexuality to be silenced in the interests of Tolerance and Diversity.

This isn’t some slippery-slope argument taking from the aether the idea that if we allow same-sex “marriage” society will inevitably fall. This is based on the pattern of behavior that has been repeated for every leftist cause since slavery. An inch is given (gays are allowed to live their lifestyle) and a mile is demanded (gays demand same-sex relationships be called “marriage”). Now that the mile is being given, they want the league (suppression of the rights of people and institutions that don’t buy into the “it’s OK to be gay” mantra.) What happens then? What will they demand after we get hate-crime laws in place and force churches to change their teachings on homosexuality?  I’d say it’s a pretty far leap to say they’ll start outlawing normal sexual relationships, heterosexual sex is needed for the species to survive. Then again, in vitro fertilization is technologically possible, thus it is possible for a woman to have offspring without actually engaging in the procreative act. Besides, who would have thought someone would decide that a man can marry a man?

One of my pet peeves with the Left during the Bush-the-Younger administration was the incessant call for his and Vice President Cheney’s impeachment. I suppose that part of it was to exact revenge for the impeachment of their previous Lord and Savior, Bill Clinton, and part of it, at least late in the game, was to rid Washington of both individuals and replace them with a potential President Pelosi – which would have been just a brilliant move, mind. (Could you imagine a world where Nancy Pelosi has actual authority? I’m sure I don’t want to.) My problem with the calls for impeachment is that they were rarely attached to any accusations of any actual crimes. They wanted Cheney out because he was once associated with the Halliburton Oil Company that was making money in Iraq. The best they could come up with for President Bush was “violating our civil rights” ostensibly for the provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act that allowed federal wiretapping of out-going international calls to the Middle East. The problem is that no crimes were committed – unlike Bill Clinton, who had, in fact, committed perjury in a civil trial, while President.

Well, I’m here to tell you that I have the same opinion of the “Impeach Obama” bumper stickers I’m starting to see. We don’t live in a parliamentary democracy; we live in a Federal Republic. We can’t just use Congress to impose a vote of “No Confidence” in the President to remove him from office. If the President, whether his name is George W. Bush or Barack Obama, commits a crime, he should be impeached and removed from office. We don’t have a system that calls for the removal of the President when he loses favor in Congress. On the contrary, our system separates the President from Congress so that we don’t change leadership every time Congress wants to throw a temper tantrum. And, you Liberals who think it would have been fine, keep in mind that it would have resulted in Bill Clinton having been “No Confidenced” in 1994. If you don’t like the President, you shouldn’t have voted for him, and you should vote for the other guy when he comes up for re-election, and vote for the opposition party in Congress next time.

As evidence of the bias of the media, I submit that when gas prices were going up, and up, and up during the Bush administration, the media focused on the doom and gloom. “Pain at the Pump” reports were played daily on local DC area news radio stations.  Every year, during times of high demand, and, thus higher prices, we’d hear about how gas was going to hit $5.00 a gallon by year’s end – which it inevitably would not. We heard that oil companies were gouging prices and that the President had to “do something” about it. Then-Senator Obama said he’d institute a windfall-profits tax if elected.

Then, when prices fell precipitously late last year before President Obama could take office – and credit, I remember a conversation on the news going like this, “Q: Isn’t it good that oil prices are going down? A: No, it’s a sign that the economy is in really bad shape.” So Bush couldn’t win. Prices going up is bad, and prices going down is bad. 

So, now that oil is, again, starting to rise and gas is climbing over $2.15 a gallon in my neighborhood (up from around $1.80 only about 2 ½ weeks ago), rising oil prices are “a sign of a good economy.” So under Bush rising energy prices are bad, but under Obama the same rising energy prices are good? It’ll be fun to see what the media says about oil prices if they crack the $3 and $4 barriers in the next couple of years.

There’s an internet legend running around that I can only hope is true, but probably isn’t. It goes something like this:

T. B. Bechtel, a City Councilor from Newcastle, Australia, was asked on a local live radio talk show, just what he thought about allegations of torture of suspected terrorists? His reply prompted his ejection from the studio, but to thunderous applause from the audience.

HIS STATEMENT:

If hooking up one raghead terrorist prisoner's [family jewels] to a car battery to get the truth out of the lying little camel[lover] will save just one Australian life, then I have only three things to say: Red is positive, black is negative, and make sure his [boys] are wet.

Unfortunately, in researching this claim, I discovered that Mr. Bechtel is apparently a Councilman in at least Newcastle, New South Wales, London, Ontario, and Midland, TX, simultaneously, so I suspect this is a made up story. Funny thing is, I suspect it was made up by some Liberal to cast dispersions on conservatives (noting the applause of his audience, and the association with Midland in some of the versions. Do London, ON, and Newcastle, NSW, have similar reputations for conservatism?), but there were a number of hits on Google that seemed to indicate a general agreement with the alleged Bechtel’s statements.

By the way, I only hope it’s true because I’d like just once to see a politician in the West have the [boys] to be blunt about what to do with terrorists.

That half a dozen or so of you who actually read my stuff probably don’t believe this, but I can be wrong. Understand that when I say that, I’m not saying you think I’m right all the time, but that you, reasonably, think that I think I’m right all the time. To be honest, I believe I’m wrong more often than people who know me and like me think I am. And I am here to note a particularly pertinent instance where I may have been wrong. But, then, so were many of the people on Townhall.

Last week we had the continuing saga of the Stimulus package and its harsh realities. Most noteworthy was the firing of the CEO of General Motors by President Obama. Now, taken at face value, the idea of the US President having the authority to demand the resignation of any employee of a private company – whether the CEO or the junior receptionist – is horrifying. And a great many people made similar statements, from yours truly to the likes of Ann Coulter and Thomas Sowell.

But, I had a revelation last night. And with that revelation, I must not only disagree with myself, but with Ms. Coulter and Dr. Sowell. As it turns out, I would say that President Obama was in his rights to demand the resignation of GM’s CEO, who had an obligation to consider that demand and react accordingly. Now, before you start looking for me at happyjake.moveon.org, I do have a perfectly logical, and reasonably conservative, explanation for what, on its face, is a very leftist opinion.

Over the last several years we’ve heard about universities (particularly Harvard Law School) whine about having to accept military recruiters at university job fairs. The reason is that those universities accepted federal funds, and as a condition of accepting federal funds, you must, for example, accept federal recruiters who might not be of the same political bent as you on, say, Tolerance and Diversity. If you don’t want to host military recruiters, people said, don’t accept federal funds. Conversely, if you want federal funds, you have to host military recruiters.

To me, this situation is no different. The federal government supplied funding to GM. As a condition (or a result) of receiving that funding, GM’s CEO was forced to resign by President Obama. If GM’s CEO wanted to stay around, he should not have accepted the federal money.

You see, it’s not that President Obama fired the CEO of a private firm that should bug us, it’s that the private firm allowed themselves to be put in that position by accepting your money to patch up problems that they created. President Obama has actually done the conservative movement a favor by showing the inevitable result of making a deal with the Devil. The Devil always gets what he wants. 

If you don’t want Congress or the President coming to your corporate office and making organizational changes, don’t accept federal funds. If you do take the quick and easy path, just remember to get a receipt when you check your soul at the door. 

There was once a time when you could count on high-profile Catholic priests to know right from wrong and make decisions based on morals and Church teaching rather than politics and expediency. Unfortunately, sometimes that’s a less certain position than it ought to be. 

Apparently, Rev. John I. Jenkins, CSC, has chosen to put prestige, popularity, and political expediency above doing the right and moral thing. Father Jenkins, you see, is the president of the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, IN. That’s the University of Notre Dame, the most important Catholic university in the United States. Apparently, Father Jenkins has invited President Barack Obama to speak at the commencement ceremony this summer, and is expected to award the US President with an honorary doctorate.

Keep in mind that President Obama has the most radical pro-abortion record of any Presidential candidate (never mind the winners) ever. His beliefs regarding abortion and related topics include: supporting a bill that will usurp the constitutional authority the several states have to regulate abortion, opposing all restrictions as being “undue burdens” including parental and spousal notification and restrictions on transporting minors across state lines, opposing laws that require doctors to treat the live born victims of failed abortions, support for the idea that abortion should be readily available to anyone, anytime, regardless of age, marital status, or ability to pay, supporting the use of taxpayer dollars to fund abortions both here and overseas, and supporting the use of taxpayer dollars to fund destructive research on live human embryos.

Priests – and clerics in other religions, whatever their title may be – have the responsibility of being the moral leaders of their congregations. They are the ones to go to about what is right and what is wrong. Someone who cannot do that fails in their primary responsibility to their flock. It’s more than simply saying Mass and doing confession. That’s why I get on the case of other Christian denominations who ordain open, active homosexuals. Furthermore, a priest in an important position, like the president of a university has the duty to uphold the teachings of his faith because he is a very public representative of that faith.

So when a priest picks a politician, any politician, to speak at the commencement of his university, that implies a tacit approval of that politician’s message. The politician in question has positions that go directly against the teachings of the Catholic Church, and such tacit approval should not be given to him, even if … no, let’s try particularly because he is the President of the United States. 

I would encourage any Catholics out there to express their concerns to Father Jenkins. His office can be contacted at this website: http://president.nd.edu/contact-us.  There is also an online petition at http://notredamescandal.com/Home/tabid/437/Default.aspx that I would encourage people to sign. 

Catholics, clergy and laity alike, need to stop the “progressive” idea that Catholicism is an a la carte religion.  If you want a la carte become a Unitarian. If you want to save your soul, I’d stick with the Church.

Evil is a topic that is not well understood in this modern, secularist, humanist age. The actual definition of the word evil is, by itself, a difficult one to articulate succinctly. What it encompasses becomes cloudy. 

In the era before the Age of “Reason” – when the secular-humanist movement gained ground and purported to expose the irrationality of religion – evil was much better understood by the populace, because an understanding of “that which goes against God” was all that was necessary to define evil. But that definition falls on deaf ears when the populace regards God as either an imaginary construct of unreasonable people to add comfort to their otherwise depressing lives, or an aloof, uncaring, or otherwise uninvolved creator who remains unaffected by the acts of men and admits all but the truly vile into heaven.

Evil is defined as being of a morally wrong or bad quality, or of being injurious or harmful. It can also be associated with general misfortune – as an “evil wind” – or even with simple anger or irritability – as an “evil” temper. The definition including moral wrongness is the closest, but, as I said, to the humanist, nothing a person does is morally wrong unless they believe it to be so.

More than simply definition, application of the word evil is poorly understood. Too often a person is described as evil without an understanding of what it means, or a thing is described as evil, which is impossible.

The simplest way to define evil is to start by how and where it can be applied. (Keep in mind, I am neither a philosopher nor a theologian, I am simply an observer. Most of what I write comes from elsewhere.) First and foremost for evil to be committed, an act of the will is required. This doesn’t have to be court-provable intent, and the person need not regard the act as an evil one, but it must be willful. Animals, lacking the ability to make moral judgments, cannot commit an act of evil. Animals act in response to their surroundings without considering the moral implications of their acts. Inanimate objects, which have no will or intellect also cannot commit evil acts. This rules out natural phenomena (the 2004 tsunami, for example), and individual objects like handguns, cigarettes, alcohol, and money. Inanimate objects and forces cannot be evil, and neither can animals.

Humans, on the other hand, can be evil and, in general, are. That is human nature. Left to ourselves, without any moral compass to guide us, we are violent, hedonistic, lazy brutes who act solely for our own preservation and pleasure. There have been only two humans to walk the earth without committing evil, Jesus, Himself, and Mary, the Mother of God. On the other hand, making a blanket statement that all humans, save the two I mentioned, are inherently evil falls, to my understanding, into the category of “judge not lest ye be judged.” So I will caveat it by saying not so much that all humans are evil, but that all humans are capable of evil acts, and the vast majority have committed them in the past. In my mind, a distinction needs to be made between an evil person and a person who has committed evil acts.

The big differentiator is repentance. A “good” person knows he has done evil things, is truly remorseful, and repents, repairing the damage done (if any) as far as possible. An “evil” person either (a) knows what he has done is evil and does not care or (b) is so twisted in his morality to believe that his evil act is actually a good act. In either case, he does not believe he has the need to repent. This lack of a need to repent allows that person to continue to commit greater and greater evils without what is commonly referred to as a guilty conscience. Adolph Hitler, Osama bin Laden, and John Allen Muhammad all committed acts of great evil, and none has, as yet, repented of those evil acts. That makes them obviously evil people. They aren’t the only ones, to be sure, but they are obvious examples.

Apart from evil people, actions can be evil. The vast majority of evil committed in this world is not by unrepentant evil people, but by otherwise “decent” people who fall. Everybody falls, and we must never forget that, particularly about ourselves. There are a whole host of evil acts, which religious people call “sins,” so listing them here would be a futile effort. The most important thing to remember about evil acts is that they do not necessarily have to bring about direct harm to another person or thing. Privately renouncing belief in God is an evil act, even though no one we can see is directly hurt by the act. The humanist’s mantra of “if it doesn’t hurt anyone else, it’s OK” fails here. It also fails because some harm is neither obvious nor immediate. It may appear, for example, that homosexual acts are not inherently harmful, and, thus, morally neutral, but the harm that they cause is not obviously apparent, nor is it necessarily immediate. AIDS, however, is evidence of what harm homosexual sex can do. 

Another point of contention about evil is what acts constitute the “most evil” acts that could be committed. The humanist usually believes that the murder of a fully developed human being is the highest degree of evil a person could commit. By extension, genocide, the mass murder of a defined group (race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, political leanings, etc.) is unspeakably horrific. But, murder, as bad as it is, is still not adequately depraved to be considered the worst evil. Dante Alighieri, in his Inferno, puts betrayal as far worse than murder. In fact, in Inferno, murderers occupy the outer ring of the 7^th circle (or level, if you will) of Hell, while those who betray their kin, countries, guests, or masters and benefactors (in that order) end up in the 9^th.  More importantly, fraud, sorcery, simony (the selling of church favors and positions), barratry (like Rod Blagojevich), sewing discord, suicide, blasphemy, and sodomy are all punished more severely than murder.

I must disagree with both the humanists and Dante. I, personally, find the worst possible sin to be scandal, the leading of another into evil. A single murder can be (and frequently is) performed by one person. Even serial killers usually act alone. But genocide cannot be committed by one man. No one individual has ever killed over 1,000 people by his own hand without help. That help comes from the recruitment of others into an evil act. Recruitment into evil harms not only your own soul, but the souls of those you recruit. And, again, tangible harm is not the only standard that describes evil. The gay privileges lobby recruiting believers in same-sex “marriage” is an act of great evil.  The same goes for those politicians and activists who support abortion. It’s probable that many of the politicians who vote against abortion restrictions have never experienced abortion, but they champion it as morally neutral, or even, in the case of extremists, a moral good.  As such, they are, collectively, responsible for the 41 million abortions performed in America since 1973.

This leads me to another point about evil that is wildly misunderstood. There is great confusion – some intentional, some not – about what, exactly, is an evil act. First and foremost, passivity toward evil – that is simply remaining silent about an evil act, or “I don’t want to get involved” syndrome – is itself an evil act. It goes to the deadly sin of sloth, because we are supposed to prevent evil. Bigotry, prejudice, and discrimination are all evil acts, but so is the “tolerance” of sinful behavior. It is wrong to judge another person as evil because we have enough evil in our own hearts. By the same token, it is wrong not to speak out against evil acts, like homosexuality or abortion. Homicide – the killing of another human being – is not necessarily an evil act. Yes, you read that correctly. Certainly, killing someone for gain is evil, as is killing out of rage or vengeance. But the state killing a murderer according to its own laws, which laws are applied and followed equally for all people in that society is inherently neutral, neither a particular good nor a particular evil. The same is true for an individual killing in the defense of himself, his family, those under his care (Like a teacher shooting back at someone shooting up a school) or his country. A soldier fighting in a war and shooting enemy soldiers who are trying to shoot him has not committed an evil act. Sexual acts outside the bounds of marriage, particularly if adultery is involved, are evil. This includes, but is not limited to homosexual activities. Blasphemy, is, of course, evil, as is committing evil acts in the name of God. But calling on people to reject sin and embrace Christ is not. The expectation of a day’s pay for a day’s work is not evil, even if the day’s pay is very high. Disloyalty is, of course, evil, as is wishing ill on someone else (a political opponent, for example.) Lying, particularly under oath or from a position of public trust, is evil, though the degree of evil varies by the effect of the lie. Lying under oath is a far greater sin than lying about whether your wife looks fat in that dress. Presumption – the belief that you either do not need or do not deserve God’s forgiveness – is also evil, and probably the evil that is most common in the human condition today. It’s among the worst because if you never repent your presumptiveness you will never feel the need to repent anything else. With that, your sins will not be forgiven, and you’ll receive an unpleasant surprise when you meet St. Peter. I could go on, but I only have so much time.

The Christian faith has a pretty good handle on evil, and what it entails, unlike secularism. Just remember one thing, a description of evil shouldn’t make you feel good about yourself, because we all commit evil acts. If your understanding of evil excludes anything you, personally, do, you need to rethink your definition, because there’s no one who doesn’t commit evil acts. 

A good place to start understanding what is evil is what Catholics call the examination of conscience. It is a simple questionnaire a Catholic gives himself before Confession. It is essential to the sacrament so that the penitent doesn’t forget to mention some serious sin he has committed. An example can be found here.

Repentance of evil is critical to salvation. Recognition of evil is the key to repentance. 

The California Supreme Court is hearing a case that could set a catastrophic precedent for those interested in protecting the basic rights we hold dear. The same-sex marriage ban has come before the Court, and the court is being asked by the plaintiffs – those who believe that redefining marriage to fit one’s peculiar sexual tendency is a basic human right – to declare a portion of the Constitution of California unconstitutional. I’ve written about this before, but what I said then bears some repeating.

Just for a moment, let’s take the fact that this has to do with same-sex “marriage” out of the argument. It wouldn’t matter what the issue was, the problem here is the same. So let’s look at the problem.

Liberals are accused by conservatives, myself included, of wanting to shred the Constitution. Their ideas on speech codes, hate-crime laws, gun control, government regulation, welfare, abortion, same-sex “marriage”, and capital punishment are all used as evidence to this claim. Conservatives are often accused of the same thing by liberals, but it usually comes up when some liberal policy, like abortion, same-sex “marriage,” or gun control, comes under attack. It is often apparent that many people don’t understand what a constitution is, never mind what a particular one says. 

When asked what the Constitution of the United States is, most people will repeat what they heard in 7^th grade civics class: “The Constitution is the law of the land.” While a technically accurate statement, it fails badly at describing what it actually does. Any constitution (small “c”) is a document that lays out the rules and guidelines for forming the particular government for which it is written. The Constitution of the United States, first and foremost, lays out the plan for how the government is, well, constituted. It establishes the three branches of government: the Congress, the Presidency, and the Courts. It describes how the Congress is divided into the House of Representatives and the Senate, provides rules for the selection of their members, describes how their numbers are to be determined, establishes eligibility criteria, and enumerates their duties and powers. It describes how the President and Vice President are selected, enumerates their duties and powers, and establishes their eligibility criteria. It describes how the Judiciary is formed, describes how judges are selected, and establishes the jurisdiction of the Federal Judiciary. The one law that was originally made in the Constitution was the prohibition on and description of treason – this because treason is a very serious crime and they did not want the government to decide from time to time what treason was or was not, lest some Congress decide that simple disagreement with the President was treason.

The Constitution of the United States does not grant a single right to the people. Not one. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say “Everyone has the right” or “The people have the right” or anything of the sort. Those Constitutional rights you hear about do not come from the Constitution, they preexisted it. The Constitution simply denies the government the authority to violate those rights. The same is mostly true with state constitutions, though the wording in some newer states, like Arizona or Alaska, does, for some rights say “the people have the right” to something, and even then, there is typically a “this right shall not be infringed” clause.

Any constitution is superior in authority than the government it creates. A good government recognizes that fact. Having said that, no constitution is infallible. There can be a need to change it, and those change procedures are listed in the particular constitution. In the case of the US Constitution it requires a 2/3 vote in both houses of Congress and ratification by convention in 3/4 of the several states. In, California, amendments to the state constitution can be proposed by 2/3 vote in the legislature, by a constitutional convention set up by a 2/3 vote in the legislature, or by ballot initiative. In all cases the amendment is enacted by the will of the people. In no case can the courts change the Constitution.

And that’s the trouble here. The courts are supposed to be inferior to the law and the constitution. Judicial review – the declaration that a law is invalid – is only intended to apply to laws that violate the constitution. For example, if there was a law establishing Roman Catholicism as the official state religion in the US, that would violate the provision that “Congress shall pass no law respecting the establishment of religion…” Therefore, that law can be invalidated by the courts. If, however, 2/3 of Congress and 3/4 of the states amended the Constitution to state that Roman Catholicism is the State Religion of the United States, the courts cannot undo that change, because that wouldn’t be a law created by Congress under its enumerated powers, it would be a part of the document that authorized the court in the first place.

The courts, particularly a supreme court (a state supreme court, for example) have no higher authority. Judges and justices are appointed by the executive and approved by the legislature in most cases, and often, except at the lowest level in the states, do not have to answer to voters or the other two branches of government. Further, their power has been construed as to overrule those of the legislature and the executive. Whenever a law is declared unconstitutional, the common reaction is to consider them invalid, even if there is no real constitutional basis for that determination – as in the abortion debate. That the courts can apply such loose standards to the constitutionality question makes them already much more powerful than the executive or the legislature, neither of whom can dismiss a judge, particularly a Supreme Court Justice, without impeachment for misbehavior. Judges answer to no one, except the constitution that gives them their powers. If it is to be accepted that the constitution can be declared constitutionally invalid by judges, what recourse do the people have?

Reverse the positions, if you like. Pretend, for a moment that the people of California voted in constitutional amendment allowing a pairing of two men or two women to be on equal standing with one man and one woman vis a vis marriage. Now, imagine if the Religious Right sued to declare that constitutional amendment unconstitutional. Should the court rule in favor of the Religious Right? If you said “no”, you should also disagree with the court ruling in favor of the gay privileges lobby. 

The issue here far transcends whether or not Adam can marry Steve. The issue here is “Can a court invalidate a provision in the constitution?” Regardless of your position on the individual provision, the only correct answer is “NO!”

I’m going to go a little off-topic for a moment. I am a sports fan, as you may gather from reading other posts. I listen to sports radio because it only occasionally (instead of usually) makes me angry, and with traffic in the DC area being what it is, anger at the radio is usually not a good idea. 

Well, I heard a couple of comments this weekend that tend to drive home the point about media bias. This isn’t the standard Leftist media bias we normally hear about, but it works the same way.

In the first commentary the host (whose name escapes me) on ESPN Radio was comparing the coverage of NFL quarterback Bret Favre with the coverage of baseball players Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez. Favre, an 18-year veteran who announced his retirement from the NFL (again) earlier this month, has been a media darling. He engages the media and treats them well. As such, so stated this host, the uglier points in Favre’s career have been glossed over: His year with Atlanta where he played very poorly in 1 game as a backup, his addiction to painkillers in the late 90s, and his on-again-off-again retirement last season. Bonds and Rodriguez, on the other hand are both disliked by the media. Bonds because of his generally surly attitude toward reporters and Rodriguez for his extremely large contract and his inability to play well during big games. The host I was listening to indicated that the sports media were salivating when the steroid allegations for both players surfaced, and the sports media establishment was ready to totally invalidate both players’ careers based on the drugs, despite the fact that both players were great even before they are alleged to have started using drugs. The host made the point that anyone who believes that there is no bias in the media (he did not say “sports media”) isn’t paying attention, and that reporters frequently decide how any individual or situation gets covered. So the miserable reputation garnered by George W. Bush as compared with the current Obamania doesn’t seem so far fetched.

As if trying to be a citable example of sports media bias, another host on the same network made a statement that defies all logic and understanding of history proving the bias held by ESPN reporters. ESPN has been accused of what is known as “East Coast bias” primarily because of its location in Stamford, CT. The allegation is that the network pays more attention to New York and Boston, which are the local teams for Stamford, than it does for the rest of the country. The NFL’s Patriots, Giants, and Jets, the NBA’s Knicks and Celtics, and Baseball’s Yankees, Mets, and Red Sox are said to garner far more coverage than other teams in their respective leagues. An argument can be made that the teams they have focused on have been very good.  For example, the Yankees were a very good team in the late 90s, the Red Sox have won 2 of the last 4 World Series, the Celtics were the best team in the NBA last season, the Patriots have been the best team in the NFL for several years (before 2008) and were the third NFL team ever to win all of its regular season games playing 13 or more, and the Giants won the 2008 Super Bowl (for the ‘07 season) and were very good in the 2008 regular season.

On the other hand, continuing over-coverage of the Yankees who have been merely above average since 2000 (their last World Series championship) speaks to that bias. In particular the coverage of the pending and actual departure of Joe Torre as manager before 2008 was over-the-top. The network devoted 2 weeks of non-stop “Joe Torre is still the Yankees’ manager” coverage followed by 4 weeks of non-stop “Joe Torre quit as Yankees’ manager” and gave the impression that they thought the rest of the sports nation cared who managed the Yankees. The same year, ESPN covered the woefully inept New York Knicks basketball team more than some teams that made the playoffs.

The comment that really struck this New York bias home this weekend was about NBA star LeBron James. James plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers, a usually middle-of-the-road team in a not-so-glamorous city. James skipped college, being drafted into the NBA right out of high school in the greater Cleveland area. His high school exploits were covered extensively by ESPN, and the network even broadcast some of his games. He is currently known as one of the top players in basketball today, and was a member of the Gold Medal winning USA Olympic basketball team, all of whose players were mobbed by Chinese fans of the game.

The host on Sunday (a different one than the “sports media is biased” host I mentioned earlier, but no less anonymous to me) said that James was not a “world renowned” player and wouldn’t be until he “comes through New York,” presumably as a player on the afore-mentioned Knicks.

The idea that the rest of the country cares a wit about New York sports teams, particularly above their own local franchises, is ludicrous. The idea that general sports fans (those who don’t have a particular allegiance to their local team) care more about New York teams than the rest of their leagues is absurd. The idea that a “subway series” (that is, a World Series played between the New York Yankees and the New York Mets) will garner huge ratings nationwide is provably false (the last time it happened, in 2000, few people watched outside New York.) The idea that an athlete must play for a New York franchise to be considered “world renowned” is absolutely preposterous.

Here’s a sampling of very famous athletes that never played for New York teams:

Larry Bird                      Boston Celtics

Barry Bonds                   Pittsburgh Pirates/San Francisco Giants

Terry Bradshaw             Pittsburgh Steelers

Tom Brady                     New England Patriots

Jim Brown                      Cleveland Browns

Roberto Clemente          Pittsburgh Pirates

John Elway                    Denver Broncos

Brett Favre                     Green Bay Packers

Wayne Gretzky              Edmonton Oilers

Bo Jackson                     Kansas City Royals/Los Angeles Raiders

Michael Jordan               Chicago Bulls

Ervin “Magic” Johnson Los Angeles Lakers

Steve Largent                 Seattle Seahawks

Mario Lemieux               Pittsburgh Penguins

Ronnie Lott                    San Francisco 49ers

Peyton Manning             Indianapolis Colts

Joe Montana                   San Francisco 49ers

Shaquile O’Neal             Orlando Magic

Alexander Ovechkin      Washington Capitals

Walter Payton                Chicago Bears

Jerry Rice                       San Francisco 49ers

Cal Ripken, Jr                Baltimore Orioles

Johnny Unitas                Baltimore Colts

Athletes who don’t play for New York hardly wallow in obscurity until they are displayed in the blinding light of the City that Never Sleeps. Many world renowned athletes go to New York after they gained their notoriety, particularly in baseball. The idea that New York teams find all this obscure, unknown talent and finally put them on the world stage after years of languishing in tiny markets like Los Angeles, Chicago, or Washington, DC just doesn’t make any sense.

When are people going to realize that the more PR spin you have to put on something, the more detrimental that thing is to society as a whole. And when you think hard enough about the things that require the most spin, you find that it’s far more often than not the Left’s policies behind it.

Let’s look at some examples. We’ll start with the topic at hand, Muslim violence. They say (whoever “they” are) that Islam is a “religion of peace.” They claim that it’s only a small handful that do the horrible things like September 11, 2001. They say that the ones who commit violence are desperate people who feel oppressed by American imperialism or Israeli fascism, that absent that oppression they would make their best efforts to live in peace and harmony with the rest of the world, and that they are no different from Christians, particularly “fanatical” Christians with regards to violence. You never hear about the fact that by most estimates at least 10% of the approximately one billion Muslims out there are of the extremist, fanatical, death-to-America variety. That’s roughly equivalent to a third of our population, including illegal immigrants. And it doesn’t have to be the poor, destitute Muslims to plan or carry out violence. Osama bin Laden has hundreds of millions of dollars at his disposal. The guy who just decapitated his wife was a TV exec living in a posh Buffalo suburb. John Walker Lindh was a snobby rich brat from California before he turned traitor to fight with the Taliban. 

For the best possible illustration, let’s remember the Great Cartoon Riot of 2006. Remember that? A Danish newspaper published a few cartoons that put Mohammad and Islam into a less than stellar light, and Muslims around the world rioted in the streets. Now, consider all the movies and TV shows in the last 25 years that Hollywood has produced that have been insulting to Christians in general or Catholics in particular: The Last Temptation of Christ; Priest; Nothing Sacred; Dogma; The Pope must Die(t); The DaVinci Code; Nacho Libre; Happy Feet, just to name a few. Has Hollywood burned to the ground? Has Michael Eisner been beheaded? Is Jack Black living in hiding for fear of retaliation from violent Christian fanatics (not that that would necessarily be bad)? 

Then there are the issues of life and death. Abortion and euthanasia are couched in terms that make them both look like moral goods, or even moral imperatives. Those in favor of abortion claim to favor “a woman’s right to choose.” Those opposed are called misogynists. President George W. Bush was accused by a Hollywood actress (Cameron Diaz, I believe) of being prepared and willing to legalize rape because of his anti-abortion views. Abortion is portrayed as a woman’s ultimate expression of freedom in a patriarchal society.   It is also portrayed as a right equal to, or possibly even superior to, the right to free speech. Euthanasia is similarly portrayed. The “right to die with dignity” is considered an important right in the Leftist pantheon. “Assisted Suicide” and other right-to-die laws are demanded so as to protect the “terminally ill” from “undue suffering.” (If you’re wondering why I use the derisive quotes around terminally ill, read my “Desperation, Despair, and the Culture of Death” parts I and II.) They don’t tell you that abortion is a form of death that makes anything done at Auschwitz (never mind Guantanamo Bay) look humane. They try to explain that the aborted child feels no pain, despite visual evidence to the contrary. They try to show the developing child as simply a parasitic mass of cells and squawk at the idea of the newest sonogram technology (that which shows 3D images of the child with real-time movement). They claim that laws requiring clinical sterility at abortion mills put an undue burden on women who want abortions because clinically sterile abortion mills are not all that common (please note that the part about clinical sterility is buried deep within the referenced Washington Post article).

Taxes are another commonly spun issue. Across-the-board tax cuts are cast as disproportionately affecting the rich, and making the “rich” pay higher taxes is cast as being their social responsibility. Of course the definition of rich may vary depending on whether you are the taxor or the taxee. When being spun, tax increases for the rich are shown only to affect people who make Bill Gates or Warren Buffett money. When actually enacted, it commonly means families making more than $100,000 a year. That’s a lot in most jurisdictions, but in places like DC, New York, LA, Seattle, or San Francisco, that’s barely upper-middle class. For example, most married GS employees in the 9 and up range (like my wife) in the DC area have a family income well in excess of $100K. High 13s, 14s, and 15s can make 100K by themselves. Trust me, with a house, kids, and a long commute, $100K isn’t nearly as much as you think it is. And those families who do make that kind of cash are not, in a major metropolitan area, anyway, “rich” by any measure.

Government sponsored healthcare requires a great deal of spin. The first part of the spin is the proof that it is necessary. The Left talks a lot about the “crisis” in which we find US healthcare. They talk about how decisions are made by insurance companies and how people who don’t have any money can’t get healthcare. They talk about drug companies who inflate the prices of medications. They talk about how doctors charge exorbitant rates for their services. They don’t tell you that the American healthcare system is, except for those parts controlled by the Government (Medicare, Medicaid, the FDA, and the court system) better by an order of magnitude than most anywhere else. They don’t tell you that the profits drug companies make on some drugs go to research on other drugs. They don’t tell you that most public hospitals take uninsured patients, and ERs are generally required to. They don’t tell you that the primary reason for high costs of healthcare is not greedy doctors, it’s greedy lawyers who sue for malpractice judgments in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and the resultant excessive cost of malpractice insurance. They don’t tell you that your healthcare decisions will be taken out of the hands of your doctor and your insurance company and put into the hands of an unfireable mid-level government bureaucrat who has a 33% chance of being at least minimally competent for his job (the other 67% being utterly incompetent).

Gay privileges is probably the one issue requiring the most leftward spin to make it appealing. The spin, as with most leftist ideas, encompasses both propping up the Left’s utopian position, and tearing down positions based in real life. Homosexuals are held up as being the civil rights leaders of the modern era. Their “plight” is cast to mirror the actual oppression of blacks under slavery and Jim Crow laws. Their lifestyle choices are portrayed as “genetically programmed” and, therefore, totally outside their control. Because their genetic programming is “different” (not “faulty,” mind, but “different”) they expect to be accorded special accommodation for their “differences.” They want marital relationships to be redefined to include same-sex couples. They cast opposition to their way of life as “intolerant.” The Bible has been called “Hate Speech” because of its condemnation of homosexual sex. The homosexual lifestyle is cast as functionally, morally, ethically, and biologically equivalent to heterosexuality. What they don’t tell you (and generally consider hate speech to state) is that there is no equality between homosexuality and heterosexuality. It is considered hate speech to state that a society made up entirely of homosexuals cannot survive, certainly not without significant artificial help. It is considered hate speech to deny that there is any genetic coding for homosexuality, or that the supposed genetic coding is, as yet, undiscovered. It is considered hate speech to point out that there is an infinitely greater historical and modern basis for the inclusion of polygamy and adult-child marriages than for same-sex marriages, despite the fact that no one with any sense supports the former two in this country. 

EFCA is, according to its proponents, intended to facilitate the organization of workers into unions. If passed and enacted, it will surely make unions easier to form. The important part of the bill is this text (My emphasis):

[W]henever a petition shall have been filed by an employee or group of employees … wish to be represented by an individual or labor organization for [collective bargaining] purposes, the [National Labor Relations] Board shall investigate the petition. If the Board finds that a majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for bargaining has signed valid authorizations designating the individual or labor organization specified in the petition as their bargaining representative and that no other individual or labor organization is currently certified or recognized as the exclusive representative of any of the employees in the unit, the Board shall not direct an election but shall certify the individual or labor organization as the representative …

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) currently requires that 30% of employees publicly sign a petition to be represented, and then an election by secret ballot is held amongst all employees to be represented. EFCA will do away with the secret ballot and simply make the publicly signed petition the place where the majority is counted. 

Let me say that again: EFCA replaces a secret ballot with a public petition. So your choice whether or not to be represented by a union is out there for all to see. The union bosses and the company bosses get to see every name that voted for the union and extrapolate those who voted against, particularly if they don’t stop collecting signatures at 50% + 1, or, worse, if the Union measure fails.

Freedom to choose necessitates a secret ballot. Open ballots leave opposition voters in a position to be intimidated before the election or harassed afterward. The core of our democracy is that we only reveal whom we voted for because we choose to, not because our name is associated with the vote. The idea that anyone in a democratic government would support a measure replacing a secret ballot with a public one is horrifying. And, yes, I would say the same thing if the measure were supported by Republicans. The potential for abuse in a system like that is astounding.

Let’s think about it this way, how comfortable would you be casting an open ballot for your preferred candidate in a given election? What if your candidate were to lose the race? Would it make you feel good that his opponent has access to your choice? What’s to prevent that candidate (the one you didn’t vote for) from trying to bribe or intimidate you into voting for him next time around? Perhaps he floods your home with spam, junk mail, and phone solicitations. Perhaps you start getting calls or letters claiming you owe back taxes, or are being fined for some traffic violation caught on camera. It’s not necessarily true that something like that would definitely happen with every politician. But to believe that an open ballot would never cause someone that sort of trouble is to believe terrorists would never hijack planes and fly them into buildings. 

Sure, this only covers union election. For now. But if open ballots are good enough for union leaders, why aren’t they good enough for other elections, like city council, state legislature, Governor, Congress, or the President? Do I think the one will inevitably lead to the other? Certainly not, but it’s one possible course and you know that there are politicians out there that would love to know the names and numbers of people who voted against them. 

Like every other “freedom” initiative pushed by the Democrats, the Employee Free Choice Act has nothing to do with individual freedom and everything to do with pushing some leftist agenda item, Big Labor in this case, and increasing Left’s power over the lot of us.