May I Suggest Impeachment?

In the long-term, the Democrats will be hurt by what Harry Reid is saying [i.e. "this war is lost" ] and what other senior Democrats are not saying. -- Rich Galen, townhall.com, 4/26/07

Nothing Short of Victory

One of the things we have learned from the action in Iraq is that weakness is seen by our enemies as . . . weakness. Our enemies are not looking for a path to peace to coexist with the West in a Shangri La. -- Rich Galen, townhall.com, 4/26/07

Liberalism 101

In the liberal world, inefficiency in government is a good thing. It means more government employees, probably unionized. It means more money going through their hands. It means more and more people under their control. What’s not to like?

Never, ever believe a liberal or moderate when they say that government services could be better if we just reformed the system; the liberal is lying, and the moderate is delusional. Government bureaucracies almost always have interests fundamentally in conflict with the people they supposedly serve. Individuals are almost always better off if they can provide for themselves or go into the competitive market to get a service, rather than depend upon government. Bureaucracies are always better off the more people who depend upon them and lack alternatives.

-- David Strom, townhall.com, 4/25/07

What Driving Costs

In 2005, 43,200 people died on American highways. (John Crawley,"U.S. traffic deaths hit 16-year high in 2005," Reuters, 20 April 2006.) If we were fighting a war in which 40,000 people died every year and it had gone on that way for the past twenty years, wouldn't you join the anti-war movement? And this is a war in which the victims are children, teenagers, elderly people, adults in their prime. Men and women in equal numbers. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for people from 4 through 33 years old. -- Orson Scott Card, ornery.org, 4/8/07

Reid's Political Greed

It's hard to tell anymore whether the Democrats' deplorable actions are motivated more by their psychological predisposition against recognizing evil in the world (except among American political conservatives), or their raw quest for power. But perhaps Sen. Reid's recent statement to reporters sheds some light on the question.

"We're going to pick up Senate seats as a result of this war," said Reid. "Sen. Schumer has shown me numbers that are compelling and astounding."

Enough said.

-- David Limbaugh, townhall.com, 4/24/07

Pay Attention To China

The Chinese aren't coy about their long-term plans. Beijing last year announced its army will move "from regional defense to trans-regional mobility," including "long-distance maneuvers, rapid assaults and special operations." Its air force will expand "its capabilities in the areas of air strike, air and missile defense, early warning and reconnaissance, and strategic projection."
China now spends an estimated 4.5 percent of its $2.5 trillion GDP on defense (the United States spends 3.9 percent). To continue protecting our interests, we'll need to devote at least 4 percent of our GDP to defense. That's more than we've spent since 1995. But it's been a while since we faced a rising threat like the one China poses today. It's a serious military threat that demands serious military spending. -- Ed Feulner, townhall.com, 4/24/07

How America is a Threat

[According to world opinion surveys by the Pew Research Center and others,] huge majorities of more than 80 percent of people in Indonesia, Uganda, Kenya, Senegal, Egypt, and Turkey say they want to protect their values from foreign assault. The Pew study concludes that there is a "widespread sense" that American values, often presented as the values of modernity itself, "represent a major threat to people's traditional way of life." These sentiments are felt very keenly in the Muslim world. . . .

There seems to be a growing belief in traditional cultures that America is materially prosperous but culturally decadent. It is technologically sophisticated but morally depraved. . . .

As these observations suggest, the main source of Muslim rage is not American foreign policy but American popular culture as it is projected around the world.

-- Dinesh D'Souza, townhall.com, 4/10/07

The Last Best Hope

The leadership of the free world was thrust upon us two centuries ago in that little hall of Philadelphia. In the days following World War II, when the economic strength and power of America was all that stood between the world and the return to the Dark Ages, Pope Pius XII said, "The American people have a great genius for splendid and unselfish actions. Into the hands of America, God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind." We are indeed, and we are today, the last best hope of man on Earth.” -- Bill Bennett, townhall.com, 4/17/07

America's Underlying Foundation

The Bible is the foundation, the Declaration is the “why,” and the Constitution is the “how” of this wonderful experiment in liberty and self-government known as the United States of America. . . .

If no God, then no Creator, no natural rights, and no equality. If no Creator, then evolution. If evolution, then all rights are positive rights, expressions of power rather than authority. And, if evolution, then no equality since the different races evolved separately, and no human exceptionalism – man is but an animal. Meaning, if man were to consider himself on a higher moral plane than the brutes, he would be guilty of the highest form of racism: speciesism.

Ultimately, rights come from either God or Government. If rights come from God, then government is under God, since it is the role of government to secure those rights. But, if government is the source of rights, then what is granted can be withdrawn. Rights would be alienable, only temporary. Similarly, laws are either divine or positive. All positive laws are expressions of power, while all divine laws are claims of authority. The Founders understood these things better than anyone before or since – they are the greatest political philosophers in history. . . .

Consider an Atheist’s Declaration of Dependence:

We claim these opinions to be our relative truth, that most men are to be considered equally evolved, that they are granted certain temporary rights by government, that among them are generally life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to create, define, and enforce these rights, governments are instituted to rule over men, deriving their powers from the ruling elites, that whenever any form of government is threatened, it is never the right of the people to alter and abolish it, for they are to never institute new government. For it is the power and authority of government to create and destroy all rights, and to always determine what is in the best interests of the people. For the people are forever dependent upon government for all things.

. . . It is a high, noble and an especially American thing to do to reject secularism, atheism, evolution, and other ideologies of the Left – for such thinking could never have drafted the Declaration of Independence.

-- Frank Pastore, townhall.com, 4/8/07

The Myth of Ignorant Freedom

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free ... it expects what never was and never will be.
-- Thomas Jefferson

Science in Denial

Here's the raw truth:

All the computer [climate] models are wrong. They have not only failed to predict the future, they can't even predict the past. . . . The only way to make them "work" is to take the known results and then fiddle with the software until it finally produces them. That's not how honest science is done. . . .

Science isn't done by consensus. It's done by rigorous testing. When a hypothesis -- or a computer model -- fails to correspond to the actual real-world data, you throw them out. That's what the real climate scientists are doing. They have found, in recent years, a very close correspondence between global climate and variations in the amount of radiation the Earth receives from the Sun.

What matters right here and now is that it is time for the world's scientists to apostatize from the Church of Global Warning. It is a false religion. It is based on lies, and its leading prophets know that it is because they're the ones faking the data or stretching it to ridiculous lengths to pretend that the real world hasn't already ruled against their claims.

-- Orson Scott Card, meridianmagazine.com, 3/13/07

Honor and Iraq

It hasn't been always brilliant, this campaign waged in Iraq. But its mistakes can never smother its honor, and no apology for it is due the Arab autocrats who had averted their gaze from Iraq's long night of terror under the Baath. -- Fouad Ajami, opinionjournal.com, 4/11/07

The Wisdom of Doubt

In a world where there are few absolutes, and where knowledge of fact can become yesterday's mistaken assumption, a wise man will temper his wisdom with perpetual self doubt. If a wise man stands rigidly on nuggets of reasoned wisdom, for rigidity's sake, that man may find himself standing on lumps of fool's gold when the new day dawns. -- Phil Harris, townhall.com, 4/8/07

Islamic Jihad Means Blood . . . Much Blood

Anybody who still believes that nonsense about how jihad is a personal, internal struggle will find out what a stupid lie that is and always was. Islam prevails in this world only in places where force of arms conquered, or where the religion was forced on the people by their rulers. And there is no shortage of proof that the "conversion" of Europe will be a bloody one. And Islam has never been rolled back except by force of arms. Anybody who finds himself ruled by Muslim conquerors will suddenly discover that Crusades are actually a pretty good idea -- unless you want to convert to Islam yourself, of course. -- Orson Scott Card, ornery.org, 4/1/07

Honor

Honor is something Republicans believe in, so it can be used to destroy them. But because the elitists who run the Democratic Party don't care about honor, it costs the Democrats nothing to break their word.

. . . But in all the world, only two nations that can be called major powers are known to stand by their word no matter what the cost: The United States of America, and Great Britain. . . . Part of the reason we are a great power is that we are known as keepers of our word, relentless defenders of freedom and human rights.

. . . Indeed, almost from the beginning of this war, the American Elite -- the people who are too cool to care about honor or patriotism, except when someone accuses them of not having any -- have done all that was within their power to strip us of any sense of honor.

. . . Now the Democrats in Congress are breaking their word to the American people (in the form of those candidates who pretended to be moderates when they are now proving they are not), in order to try to force President Bush to break our national word to Iraq and, in the long run, to the whole world.

If they succeed, here is where we'll be:

1. The power of the Presidency will have been shattered, along with the Constitutional separation of powers. If Democrats think they can destroy the Presidency while a Republican holds it, and then have all that power back when a Democrat has it, they are sadly mistaken.
2. We will be exposed to the whole world, once and for all, as an unreliable ally. Who will dare to bet on us again? It was hard enough to persuade Shiites in Iraq to trust us after President Bush, Sr., did nothing to support them when they revolted against Saddam. It will be at least a generation, if ever, before we recover our national honor.
3. Our enemies will be so greatly encouraged by the fact that Osama was absolutely, completely right in his assessment of us, that their attacks against America and America's interests throughout the world will vastly increase in number. They will think this jihad is a war they can win -- that they will be able to finish the job that was stopped at the gates of Vienna in 1660 -- the Muslim conquest of the world.

. . . We are at war whether we like it or not. We not only have to win in Iraq, we have to win in Iran, and very soon, or we will truly hate the cost we pay later, as an army of draftees instead of volunteers fights under far worse circumstances against a far more powerful enemy.

Remember the name "Nancy Pelosi." It will stand someday beside the name "Neville Chamberlain" in the pantheon of deluded fools whose poll-following stupidity led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of their own nation's citizens, and the deaths of millions of others who would have lived if those deluded fools had done what was necessary to preserve their national honor.

-- Orson Scott Card, ornery.org, 04/01/07

Better Than the Weatherman?

The current alarm [over global warming] rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman's forecast for next week.
-- MIT meteorology professor Richard Lindzen

Perspective Lacking

Too many Americans lack perspective... They ignore real problems and challenges and contrive silly ones. They praise people who are truly evil and demonize people, flawed though they may be, who are trying to do good. They lack the ability to discern. And if America doesn't regain its perspective, it will lose the overwhelming blessings it continues to receive. -- Tom Purcell

HUMANE WARFARE

If you want a shorter rebuilding process, then we're going to have to wage less humane wars. The enemy -- as well as innocent civilians -- must be bombed into quivering terror. Otherwise, we displace aggression but don't destroy it. ... If we're going to have humane wars, they are going to take a little bit longer. -- Ann Coulter, townhall.com, 4/5/07

MAKE THIS DAD PRESIDENT

I've seen my Dad [Mitt Romney] in action, not just in one crisis, but in dozens. I don't think there is a person alive in whom I'm more confident in placing my trust.

Take a look back to 2002. That was the year he put on an incredible Winter Olympics with a $100M surplus (right after 9/11, and despite a major scandal that almost ruined the games before he took them over), won as a Republican Governor in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, and turned a $3B budget deficit into a surplus without raising taxes.

Ask yourself who you want leading our nation over the next decade as we face the following challenges: a Jihadist enemy intent on destroying our way of life; liberal elites and activist judges attempting to break down the social values and norms that have existed for centuries; an exploding immigration problem; a serious threat to our status as economic and military superpower from Asia; a looming energy crisis; out-of-control spending in Washington.
What kind of person should we want to be leading our nation at this time of challenge and opportunity? The answer seems obvious – we want someone strong; someone who recognizes our challenges and is willing to deal with them head on; a fiscal conservative; a social conservative; someone whose personal integrity and moral values are unquestioned; someone who has been tested; someone who isn't a career politician; and someone who will get the job done.

There is only one person I believe can do all of that. There's no question that I'm biased—I love my Dad. But my love hasn't blinded me. Like Lincoln in 1860, Roosevelt in 1901, and Reagan in 1980, Mitt Romney is the right leader at the right time for our great nation. He may not be Superman. But he's close enough for me.

-- Taggart Romney, townhall.com, 4/2/07