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 …
Exactly So
When Scripture prohibits adultery, this presupposes the validity of the bonds of marriage. Without marriage, there is no such thing as adultery, and the prohibition becomes nonsensical. These marriage bonds are established by God (“what God has joined together”) and are to be recognized by the state. When the state refuses to honor the institution …
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 …
Stay Me With Flagons
ABC News is going to be shilling for the White House’s health care reform proposals, nothing new there. But they are going to be doing it by broadcasting straight from the White House, which you can read about with your very own peepers here. But overlooked in all this is the sad fact that the …
Them Jews
Yesterday, a white guy with issues that go all the way down walked into the Holocaust museum in Washington and opened fire, killing a security guard. A notebook was found in his nearby car, claiming that Obama was being controlled by “his Jew owners.” Various natterers in the media were quick to blame the tragedy …
First Federal MounteBank
As much as I loathe and despise what the current administration is doing to our economy, and as much as I reject the flowering fascism that is unfolding every evening on the news, let us not fall for hackneyed talking points from what is purported to be the other side. Obama is now in the …