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Do We Still Celebrate the Berlin Wall’s Collapse 20 Years Later?

Twenty years ago today the Berlin Wall came down. Not exactly breaking news for my well-informed readers, but the significance of the event is hard to overstate. For five minutes of valuable reflection on the power of freedom with a stirring Beethoven soundtrack, check out this terrific video from the Competitive Enterprise Institute: … [Read more...]

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“It’s Too Hard”: Democrats Shoving Health Care Takeover Down our Throats

You can almost hear Democratic Senator Max Baucus pouting in a high-pitched, whiny voice: "It's too ha-ard...." What, you ask, is too hard for one of the 100 most powerful people in Washington DC, who supposedly represents the people of the great state of Montana, and nearly all of his Democratic colleagues on the Senate Finance Committee? From yesterday's Washington Examiner:A proposal by Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., that would have required the Senate Finance Committee to post the final language of the $900 billion health care reform bill, as well as a Congressional Budget Office cost analysis, on the committee’s website for 72 hours prior to a vote was rejected 12-11.... Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., himself admitted that “This … [Read more...]

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Is Obama Striving to Make Jimmy Carter Look Good on Foreign Policy?

I spend very little time on this page analyzing foreign affairs, but I just want to take the chance to go on the record now before returning to my regularly scheduled blogging on state and national domestic policy and politics.... For those who believe America primarily has been a force for evil in the world and should kowtow to foreign dictators, leave no doubt Barack Obama is your man. It's hard to find any rationale for yesterday's pathetic U.N. speech, other than Obama might be trying to build up former president Jimmy Carter's self-esteem or that possibly he's trying to rewrite history to make Woodrow Wilson look like a foreign policy realist. If Obama believes what he said, it's scary about where he wants to take our nation. If … [Read more...]

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Sober Reminder: Iran Nearing Nuclear Warhead Detonation Capability

Here's some sobering news to end the weekend with -- from the Times of London:Iran has perfected the technology to create and detonate a nuclear warhead and is merely awaiting the word from its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to produce its first bomb, Western intelligence sources have told The Times. The sources said that Iran completed a research programme to create weaponised uranium in the summer of 2003 and that it could feasibly make a bomb within a year of an order from its Supreme Leader. The clock is ticking. It's time for strong leadership. In the midst of serious debates about health care, energy, taxes, government spending, and Supreme Court nominees, the world remains a very dangerous place. … [Read more...]

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UNCRC – Imminent Threat

Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, declared last week that the Obama administration is looking for ways to ratify the UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child). The Obama administration's operational strategy is to appeal to peer pressure.  We are embarrassed to be the only nation besides Somalia that hasn't ratified the treaty, aren't we?  No. The mistaken focus is on the means, rather than the end.  If there are facts about how American and Somalian children are poorly treated due to the countries not ratifying this treaty, please come out with them. Otherwise, this argument doesn't explain why we should ratify this treaty.  (And by the way, ParentalRights.org explains that Somalia doesn't … [Read more...]

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Come Meet Daniel Hannan, British Voice for Liberty, Friday in Denver

That's MEP Daniel Hannan, a breath of fresh political air from the other side of the pond. And he'll be in our Rocky Mountain backyard at the end of this week. Hannan will be the guest of honor and speaker at a Denver reception sponsored by the Independence Institute. You're invited! Stirring oratory ... a voice for liberty and fiscal sanity ... with a British accent. Sounds like a winning trifecta to me. Hope to see you there. … [Read more...]

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Continuing the Tiller & Long Discussion

Update, 6/4: Thanks to a comment left by Politically Correct Death author Francis Beckwith, I refer you to his newer and more relevant book Defending Life. I'll have to check it out myself very soon. Update, 9:30 PM: My final thought (for now) on the matter, from Doug Wilson: "The question is whether you would be willing to reduce a society to anarchy for the sake of saving that kid, when you (should) know that the anarchy you introduce is going to be responsible for the deaths of far more children than you managed to save." And for further edification, I will commend the thoughts of Dr. Albert Mohler as being squarely right on the matter. Thanks to one of the more thoughtful liberals I know, David Thielen, a link to this morning's … [Read more...]

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Lessons: Unparallel Treatment of George Tiller & William Long Murders

No two events are perfectly parallel, but seldom are two such similar and terrible stories juxtaposed for our edification. Within 24 hours and within 500 miles from each other, two notable murders occurred -- both evil acts perpetrated in public by two different men, but both for apparent ideological reasons, both sudden and horribly unexpected events for the families and loved ones of the victims, both suspects quickly brought into custody. That's where the parallels end. What's most informative is some of the prominent responses to the two incidents: … [Read more...]