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July 20, 2009

Hate-crime Laws Expand, Freedom Contracts

By Selwyn Duke

The Senate has just passed the greatest expansion of federal
hate-crime "protections" since the legislation's inception in 1968.
While the original law was limited to crimes motivated by race,
religion, and ethnicity, the current measure will increase federal
scope to cover "sexual orientation," "gender," "gender identity," and
disability.

With even some conservatives accepting the concept of hate crime,
such an expansion is not unexpected. But it also should be lamented.
I've pointed out in the past that, as it is generally used, "hate
crime" is a misnomer. And the Senate bill is a good example as to why.
If the goal is to eliminate crimes motivated by hate (most crime?), why
specify categories of people at all? Why not just say that if hate is
the motivating factor in a crime, the perpetrator will be punished more
harshly?

Read the rest here.
July 20, 2009

Should Taxes Pay for Abortion, Secularism?

By Selwyn Duke

Washington, D.C., would be able to use tax money to fund abortions
under a $768 million spending bill passed by the House on July 16. An
AP story carried by FoxNews.com and other media reports:
“The measure passed by a narrow 219-208 margin, with many anti-abortion
Democrats voting against it because of the move by Democratic leaders
to permit the D.C. government to use locally raised tax revenues to
provide abortions — reversing a long-standing ban imposed by Congress.”

And like so many bills in Congress, this one contains a hodge-podge
of different provisions. According to AP, other provisons in the bill
are designed to:

Read the rest here.
July 20, 2009

Guest Piece: Work, Jobs, and Wealth

By Bruce Walker

The
Left has long confused work, jobs, and worth. The Stimulus Package, the
grand catastrophe, was intended to create and preserve jobs which could make
America poorer, not richer. A century ago nearly everyone in America had a “job,”
and most had jobs on farms. Men, women, and children got up before
sunrise. Women slaved with iron stoves to make breakfast, while men and
boys ate in preparation for a long grueling day of generally boring work.
Then the women, after doing all their chores, prepared lunch, and at sundown,
they made supper.

(more…)
July 18, 2009

The Prejudice of Atheists

By Selwyn Duke

Ever since the separation-of-church-and-state ruling in 1947, there
has been an ever-intensifying effort to denude our public sphere of
religious symbols and sentiments. The latest attack is a lawsuit to
prevent “In God We Trust” and the Pledge of Allegiance from being
engraved on the newly-built Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C.

Filed by the Freedom from Religion Foundation, the suit claims that
the mere presence of such engravings is an unconstitutional endorsement
of religion. FoxNews.com reports
on the story, telling us that the House and Senate passed resolutions
earlier this month authorizing the engraving “in response to critics
who complained Congress spent $621 million on the new three-story
underground center without paying respect to the nation’s religious
heritage.”

Read the rest here.
July 17, 2009

Libtalker Lynn Samuels: Obama is ‘Lying’ Over True Place of Birth
http://youtube.com/v/Y0CKj72GQLI
For those of you who don’t know of Lynn Samuels, she’s just about as liberal as they come. She used to host a talk show here in New York (on WABC, I believe) and would often accost us with leftist opinions delivered with an unmistakable New York accent. Yet even she says that Mr. Hussein is lying about his place of birth.

Although I don’t care for Samuels’ beliefs, I have to give her credit for speaking the truth on this issue.

Hey, Mr. Hussein, just produce the darn birth certificate. The Truth will set you free. Or, at least, it’ll set us free.
July 17, 2009

Bailing Out Minority Broadcasters

Selwyn Duke

If you understand the relative
superiority of the free market, none of our government's recent business
bailouts will find favor with you. Yet, while Uncle Sam's involvement in the
auto and banking sectors is bad enough, nothing is more bone-chilling than
proposals to bailout media.

The
reason for this should be obvious. If auto manufacturers become dysfunctional,
our cars may break down. But if media become so, society can break down. After
all, we make decisions as to what policies and politicians to support based on
the information at our disposal, and that information — or misinformation, as
the case may be — is delivered by the media. If we had to rely on word of
mouth, how much would we know about the war in Afghanistan, global warming
theories or the death of abortionist Dr. Tiller? How much of an impetus would
there have been for hate-crime laws if the media hadn't manipulated people with
gratuitous and tendentious coverage of politically incorrect crimes? Would we
have the present affirmative action for women if we hadn't been inundated with
misrepresentations relating to the male/female wage gap? It's said that
knowledge is power, and we should note a correlative: those who deliver
knowledge are powerful. The fact is that the media can shape public opinion
(and, in fairness, the public can shape the media).

Read the rest here.
July 17, 2009

A Chicken in Every Pot and Healthcare for All

By Selwyn Duke

You're going to be healthy — whether you like it or not. The Obama
administration is pushing for a national healthcare bill this summer
and Democrats in the Senate are responding, with a Health, Education,
Labor and Pensions committee measure that would make healthcare both a
right and a responsibility.

Writes the San Francisco Chronicle,
"The health panel's $600-billion measure would require individuals to
get health insurance and employers to contribute to the cost. The bill
calls for the government to provide financial assistance with premiums
for individuals and families making up to four times the federal
poverty level, or about $88,000 for a family of four, a broad
cross-section of the middle class." The bill passed by a 13-10 margin,
with all the Republicans on the committee voting nay.

Read the rest here.
July 16, 2009

Can Obama Spell “Failure”?

By Selwyn Duke

There actually was a time when
an “e” ended a political career. Or, at
least, the misuse of an “e.” I refer to
that fateful day in 1992 when Vice President Dan Quayle told a 12-year-old
schoolboy that “potato” was spelled with an “e” at its end. While the reality is that a flash card Quayle
had been given bore the misspelling, the mistake was seized upon by the media
and used to cement the eye-candy-and-air image of the boyishly good-looking
vice president. It was a silly way to
measure a man, but image is everything in politics.

(more…)
July 14, 2009

U.S. News and Hot, Sexy Chicks

By Selwyn Duke

If you’ve ever seen the movie Idiocracy, the title of this piece may
seem familiar. The film is a dystopian
comedy about a futuristic America in which complete ignorance is the norm. People are inarticulate to the point where
even those of status — politicians, doctors, etc. — mangle the language and use
profanity to fill in gaps when expressing themselves. The president is a porn star and
ex-professional wrestler who wears a muscle shirt, the society’s number-one
rated show features nothing but an endless array of groin shots, and the
farmers water their crops with a sports electrolyte drink called “Brawndo: The
Thirst Mutilator” and yet can’t figure out why they fail to grow. And, to illustrate how people have become
consumed with frivolity and sex — and frivolous sex at that — the title of a
certain famous news magazine that just recently curtailed its print publication
(in reality) has been changed to “Hot Naked Chicks & World Report.”

(more…)
July 13, 2009

Bruno: Some Dare Call It Art

By Selwyn Duke

If art imitates life, then life is starting to seem an awful lot like death. This occurs to me when I think about Bruno, the latest film disgorged by English comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

Cohen, known for doing mock interviews as the characters Ali G and
Borat Sagdiyev, has always specialized in outrageous, often politically
incorrect humor. In Bruno, however, critics tell us that he has
created not just the outrageous but an outrage, a movie so vulgar that
some wonder how it managed its R-rating.

Read the rest here.