President Obama has been diligently doing whatever he can do to stay out of the fracas that erupted in Iran after their elections, and he took this stand because of the history of American interference. The Iranian chokeholders were shooting down protesters in the streets, which our president was pleased to call a “debate.” Perhaps …
My Old Mentor Bugs Bunny
I need to get a few words down about Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky. Two of his disciples now respectively occupy the main seat in the Oval Office and the chair behind the desk belonging to the Secretary of State, and so I thought it was high time to go back in time and …
All Sermon on the Mounty
As I have been writing about health care, the point undergirding everything I have been saying against “affordable health care for all” is this: violence in order to achieve such laudable ends is still objectionable. One commenter asked what the point of health care was. Was it to provide health care to those who need …
Making Hypocrisy Possible is a Cultural Virtue
Paul Begala has said that the GOP should stop lecturing everybody about sex — because of the hypocrisy recently manifested in the behavior of Sen. Ensign and Gov. Sanford. But this overlooks the important role of hypocrisy in every decent society. As it has been well observed, hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to …
Quality Health Care Grows Out of the Barrel of a Gun
The other day I saw the president fielding a question about his health care deform, and he said the kind of glib thing that appears to be all the rage these days. He said, in response to a question about his proposal putting private companies out of business, that he didn’t understand what the fuss …
A Fat Roll of Twenties
I was speaking with a friend the other day about some of the economic muddles that our sorry republic is currently being pelted with, and he said something like, “But isn’t it true that our health care system is broken?” Well, yes and no. Big chunks of it, like Medicare, are not so much broken …
What’s Wrong With Rights?
A judge in France recently declared that access to the Internet was a basic human right. This is simply the ad absurdum of a lot of political chatter these days, what with rights to affordable housing, the right to health care, the right to a living wage, and so on. Rights sound so noble, so …
Bronze Tint Notwithstanding
You know, technically, there wasn’t anything wrong with what she said — at least not in the sound byte part. “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” I too would …
Capernaum Had No Gay Pride Parades
It used to be possible to say that the issue of homosexuality was one on which few believing Christians were confused. However, there was still a problem, and it led to our current cultural impasse. Over the years, much of the strength of Christian opposition to homosexuality has been instinctive and cultural, rather than a …
You Only Wind Up Driving the Porcelain Bus
“But of course, alcohol had few romantic possibilities. It wasn’t exotic, and everyone, practically, took it. To be a mere drunk was not compatible with the Romantics’ thirst for world-significant angst” (Dalrymple, Romancing Opiates, p. 83).