Comments on politics, the culture, economics and religion by Paul Tuns -- in short, everything about the human endeavour from a non-hyphenated conservative perspective. I am Toronto-based writer and editor, whose articles, columns and reviews have appeared in more than 35 publications. I am editor-in-chief of The Interim, Canada's life and family newspaper, author of Jean Chretien: A Legacy of Scandal and a regular contributor to the book pages of the Halifax Herald.

 
The most important day for Canadian journalism

Is just one week away. My June editor's column explains why the B.C. Human Rights Commission complaint is so important. It is not yet available online, so I'm posting it here.


Reining in the human rights commission industry
The Editor's Desk
Paul Tuns
June 2008
The Interim

In recent months, the media have finally begun covering the goings-on of human rights commissions, thanks to separate complaints by different Muslims against Ezra Levant (the former publisher of The Western Standard), Maclean’s magazine and now the Halifax Chronicle-Herald newspaper. It took a complaint against one of their own tribe for journalists to finally wake up to the danger that this country’s federal and provincial human rights commissions present to our essential liberties.
I won’t go into the details of these cases or the problems with how human rights commissions operate -- see our February cover story for that information. What I’d rather do now is explain why this battle must be won and why human rights commissions must be, at the very least, reformed.

This month in British Columbia, Maclean’s magazine is defending itself before that province’s human rights tribunal for publishing an excerpt of Mark Steyn’s best-selling book, America Alone. The book and the article warned that there is a clash of civilizations (between the Muslim world and the West) which Europe and Canada could very well lose, in part because of our lousy demographic trajectory, in part due to our lack of unifying cultural values. Steyn quoted European imams and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi saying things to the effect that Europe will one day be Muslim.

One may or may not agree with Steyn. One might accuse him of being overly selective in his quotes and sensationally provocative in the presentation of his alarming thesis. One might even find it irresponsible of Maclean’s to republish a portion of his book. But what right does that give the critics to use the state – for that is what human rights commissions are – to tell a private magazine what it may or may not publish.

The complainants want an article of equal length to run in Maclean’s unedited, rebutting Steyn’s argument. No publication would concede to this and no publication should be made to do so. This is not just a freedom of the press issue, although that is vitally important in a free and just society. Rather, it is a private property issue: does a magazine or newspaper have the right to run its publication in the manner it sees fit?

(The same could be said of, say, a Knights of Columbus hall that refuses to rent its facilities to a lesbian couple or a printer who wants the right to refuse clients because he disagrees with the message of the work he would do or a political party and the messages it chooses to present on its website.)

Although technically, the complaint against Maclean’s is not against the author (Steyn), but the magazine and its editor/publisher Kenneth Whyte (who has shown admirable resolve in the face of this bullying), Mark Steyn has been the public face and effective spokesman of the defendant in this case. He recently wrote that the magazine will probably lose the case, after which the it will probably be required to run an opposing viewpoint and restricted in the future about what it can say about fanatical Islam and jihad. Steyn and Whyte say this is outrageous and it is. If human rights commissions decide they can require a particular magazine to publish a particular story, they can decide that any magazine can be susceptible to similar treatment.

While the complainant against Catholic Insight is not asking for rebuttal privileges, there is nothing to stop some future gay activist from doing so. And why stop at gay rights activists? Why not require Catholic Insight to print articles by atheists espousing godlessness? Why stop at Catholic Insight? The Interim might be required to print commentary by abortionist Henry Morgentaler. But why stop there? The Toronto Star should be made to run columns by businessmen promoting capitalism, by polluters to trash Greenpeace and gang leaders to defend violence in schools.
Isn’t that silly? Yes, it is. But once the principle that human rights commissions can interfere with editorial judgments of newspapers and magazines in some circumstances, why not permit it in all circumstances when an aggrieved group is offended by the material a publication produces?

The answer is simple: some groups are privileged to have the human rights commissions do their bidding and others are not. But that makes them even worse because it puts the HRCs in the position of promoting some causes and views over others, creating a class of permissible, even near-official views, and a class of impermissible and possibly punishable views.

As Ron Gray, leader of the Christian Heritage Party and the target of a federal human rights commission complaint, has said, this is the road to tyranny.

And speaking of tyranny, there is also the issue of human rights commissions operating as official censors, taking certain topics off the table. We have already seen this when it comes to the issue of homosexuality. In recent years, Hugh Owens and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix were punished for running an amateurish advertisement against the sins of homosexual behaviour, while Stephen Boissoin and the Red Deer Advocate were castigated for discussing the homosexual lifestyle – the paper promised to never run another letter to the editor critical of homosexuality and no paper in Alberta can run Boissoin’s letters on the topic. This censorship goes way beyond the original mandate of human rights commissions to address housing and employment discrimination. They have become Orwellian thought police, punishing those who deviate from politically correct norms.

As Steyn and fellow Maclean’s columnist Andrew Coyne have both said, it is easy to turn a blind eye to the abuses of human rights complaints when it involves some “kook” neo-Nazi or a poor, solitary opponent of the gay agenda. But it’s becoming more difficult to turn away when the rights of “mainstream” journalists and editors are threatened.

That is why people like Ezra Levant and myself are hopeful something can be done to rein in the whole corrupt human rights commission industry. Now that the media is taking notice, the public will realize that these commissions are not benign entities stamping out legitimate hatred, but a clear and present danger to our liberties. Change is at hand. Be patient, but be diligent. And continue to press your MPs on the issue to ensure they stand up for the freedom of Canadians.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:51 AM

 
Libertarians are amusing

Because they are a little weird. Consider David Weigel's three dispatches from the Libertarian convention in Denver -- one, two, three -- and he is sympathetic.

The party's purity caucus reminds me of the PR-oblivious, heads-in-the-sand variety of social conservatives who simply do not care that the rest of society has no time for them because, darn-golly, they're right and that's all that matters.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:44 AM

 
What I'm reading

1. Economic Facts and Fallacies by Thomas Sowell. A typically Sowellian examination of various (pet) issues with his usual cut-through-the-BS facts and logic -- some neat facts such as this one: Houston, despite higher growth in both population and wealth than the national average, has successfully held down housing prices in recent decades due to the absence of zoning laws.

2. "The Fall of Conservatism: Have the Republicans run out of ideas?" by George Packer in the May 26 New Yorker. Everyone is reading it even though it appears to be intellectually lazy or dishonest, conflating conservatives with Republicans, and missing the point that policy debates are a sign of vigour not weakness.

3. "Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business," by Chris Anderson in the February 25 Wired. Anderson is consistently interesting, if not always convincing.

4. "Brazil Rainforest Analysis Sets Off Political Debate," by Alexei Barrionuevo in the May 25 New York Times. A federal bureaucrat has said that deforestation is growing while a Brasilian businessman wants to contribute to the country's phenomenal economic growth of recent years -- growth that is, in part, dependent on cutting down the rainforest.

5. "The Klein Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Polemics," a Cato Institute briefing paper by Johan Norberg that demolishes Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine, an anti-capitalism screed that (I would say intentionally) misrepresents the ideas of Milton Friedman.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:37 AM

 
In praise of the peanut butter sandwich

Donna Jacobs in the Ottawa Citizen:

"Behold the peanut butter sandwich.

On whole-grain bread, this portable fast-food marvel is a complete source of all 20 protein-building amino acids found in meat, fish, eggs and cheese.

The 'PBS' is the modern take on the ancient cultural discovery that has saved mankind over millennia: Mix a grain (wheat, corn, rice, oats and barley) with a legume (beans, peas, peanuts, soybeans) and you get a complete set of amino acids."

And it can save lives, as it has in parts of starving Africa. Jacobs explains the effort to get Plumpy'nut to malnourished children. As one report explains, "they have been revolutionizing emergency care .... by taking care out of crowded field hospitals and straight into mother's homes," curing 89% of malnourished children compared to traditional recovery rates of one-quarter to four-tenths. A four-week supply is $20 and does not require the use of (often dirty) water for mix as traditional treatments do.

It's a great success story and the article rewards the time it takes to read.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:38 AM

 
Middlebrow

The concept is explored by Publius at Gods of the Copybook Headings and is worth grabbing a coffee and reading.
posted by Paul Tuns at 9:13 AM

 
A sign of recession?

From the U.S. Department of Transportation: Americans drove "11 billion miles less in March 2008 than in the previous March ... the sharpest yearly drop for any month in FHWA [Federal Highway Administration] history."

Calculated Risk says that the year-over-year decline in vehicle miles traveled might be an indicator of a major recession; both previous YoY declines (1973 and 1979) were linked to increasing oil prices and were followed by the two largest recessions since World War II.

(HT: Marginal Revolution)
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:37 AM

 
And the first knife in Brown's back comes from ...

David Miliband. The Times (London) reports:

"David Miliband is preparing to throw his hat into the ring in a leadership contest to “save new Labour” after the party’s disastrous defeat in last week’s Crewe & Nantwich by-election.

The foreign secretary has confided to friends that he is prepared to stand for the leadership if a critical mass of backbenchers turn against Gordon Brown.

He is discussing a strategy to position himself for the top job without personally engineering the prime minister’s downfall.

It comes as senior Labour insiders claim that at least half the cabinet have privately concluded that Brown cannot win the next general election."

Once cabinet ministers are openly musing about a premature leadership test for a sitting prime minister, you know the PM is toast.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:34 AM

 
Crime in London,
Or, letting the inmates run the asylum

Two stories from the Telegraph, the first about the latest teenage victim of knife crime:

"Robert Knox, 18, who acted alongside Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, became the 28th teenager killed in Britain this year, and the 10th in London to die from stab wounds."

We are not even halfway through 2008 and already there have been nearly 30 teens killed and 10 stabbing deaths. Sounds serious and it demands a response. Oh, yes, the Home Office and new mayor Boris Johnson have already proposed counter-measures to the increased violence, including giving making it easier for police to search youths suspected of having knives on them and using knife scanners in schools, clubs and other places frequented by adolescents. But wait: the children's commissioner has problems with the proposals, namely that it might antagonize some youth. Sir Al Aynsley-Green has said:

"There is a balance here. On the one hand for young people to feel safer by having the presence of the police - but on the other hand making sure the new powers don't create further antagonism by increased stopping and searching."

Aynsley-Green has called for more 'research' although the pertinent data -- 28 teenagers dying in just under six months, 10 stabbing deaths -- might be all that are need to convince many Londoners, including parents, of the wisdom of the clamp down, which is already under way in some high crime areas.

Boris Johnson was elected, in part, because the liberal elite refused to take street safety seriously. There's a new sheriff in town and BoJo is cleaning up. The fear of ticking off some already problematic adolescents should be of little concern to a policy that protects safety ahead of hurt feelings.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:24 AM

 
Where do we draw the line

A scene from multicultural Toronto from the pages of the Toronto Star:

"It took a minute for the news to sink in. Then she called her husband of 14 years, demanding to know if what she had just been told was true – that while she spent a year in Egypt raising their four children in a more Islamic environment, he had used it as an opportunity to marry not just one, but two other women in Toronto.

'Yes, I'm married,' he said, quashing all her dreams of their future together.

He told her he was married in a small ceremony 20 days earlier, officiated by Aly Hindy, a well-known Toronto imam, at his Scarborough mosque.

'I cried for six days straight. Lost my appetite, ignored the kids, even had to start taking antidepressants,' said [Safa] Rigby, 35. 'What I couldn't understand was how such a thing could happen in Toronto, my hometown, where polygamy is supposed to be illegal.'

It was easy. He simply found an imam willing to break a Canadian law, in exchange for upholding an Islamic one.

'Polygamy is happening in Toronto; it's not common, but it's happening,' said Hindy, imam at Salahuddin Islamic Centre."

How does a country that officially promotes multiculturalism prevent polygamy? Prevent imams from willingly breaking the law? Can it?
posted by Paul Tuns at 5:44 PM

 
1001 books

In the New York Times, William Grimes tears apart Peter Boxall's atrocious 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Grimes criticizes the very concept of the exercise but also the content and difficulty of following Boxall's advice. As Grimes notes, a fairly well read individual (such as himself) who has read about a third of the books on the list would take 55 years to read the rest of them if he or she read one book a month (to note overly disrupt one's existing reading plan).

Two facts illustrate the folly of Boxall's list: Half the books were published after World War II and among those are Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire, Philip Roth's tedious The Breast, and seven Don DeLillo novels (which happens when with a list with 500 books published after the mid-1940s).

Part of the problem is the bias for post-modern authors exhibited by the editors and academics Boxall consulted, but the other is the sheer number (1001!). A list of 100 or even 200 would be both realistically attainable and an enumeration of truly great books. At the same time, the 1001 list means lots of arguments about the inclusion of this or that (over one that was omitted), but as Grimes points out, part of the exercise is also to show off ('look at what I read').

I looked at 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, because like the Brits Grimes complains about, I'm a sucker for literary lists. I read a few entries thoroughly, glanced through the list, and put it down. I don't recall Boxall's criteria, so I can't complain about the inclusion of Mario Puzo's The Godfather (a case could be made that a culturally literate individual in 2006 should have read the novel).

Anyway, from what I recall about the book, the Grimes essay is much more thought-provoking and interesting.
posted by Paul Tuns at 5:22 PM

 
Bush's pro-free trade talk

Yesterday President George Bush made a necessary and politically brave speech defending free trade with Colombia. It was fine as far as it went and I understand that the president has to make the domestic case for free trade and that in the context of Colombia, most imports are already duty-free. But I get a little frustrated when the primary argument being offered in favour of free trade is that it creates jobs in America by opening up foreign markets. The purpose of free markets is not to expand employment or even to allow businesses to make profits, but to provide products and services at competitive prices for consumers. A U.S.-Colombia FTA would would expand consumer choice and improve living standards in both countries most importantly by making it easier for poorer Colombians to access and afford more American products. To take one of President George Bush's examples, if an American-made tractor costs $15,500 less, a farmer might be able to increase his productivity. Or to take another, if the tariffs on foreign fruits and vegetables are cut in Colombia, the people of that country will pay less for oranges and broccoli. That should improve nutrition.

There's a lot more to free trade than promoting manufacturing jobs in the Midwest; it is about improving the living conditions of people around the world. It is shameful that Democrats are standing in the way of this and that Bush could not defend that more vigorously. And the case is even stronger for American politicians to open up the U.S. market to foreign products because there are many more consumers than there are factory workers or farmers.
posted by Paul Tuns at 4:36 PM

 
Steven Spielberg as a red-baiting, Cold War warrior?

From the AP:

"Members of Russia's Communist party are calling for a boycott of the new Indiana Jones movie, saying it aims to undermine communist ideology and distort history.

Moscow Communist legislator Andrei Andreyev said Saturday, 'It is very disturbing if talented directors want to provoke a new Cold War'."

I watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Wednesday at midnight with my two sons. It was fun (unrealistic and silly in parts, but Indiana Jones-fun) but I can't imagine that it will spur a new Cold War.
posted by Paul Tuns at 4:06 PM

 
I don't buy this at all

New York magazine says New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is being eyed by both Barack Obama and John McCain as a possible running mate. Whatever positives -- his wealth, bipartisanship and his religion -- there are enormous downsides. As the article's author John Heilemann says:

"For both Obama and McCain, to be sure, there are obvious downsides to pairing up with Bloomberg. A pro-choice, pro-gun-control running mate would only exacerbate the suspicions about McCain on the true-believing right. And the Democratic base would hardly jump for joy at the sight of a plutocratic former Republican (however much of a charade that affiliation always was) hand-in-hand with Obama onstage at the convention in Denver."

I think there Bloomberg's problems are much bigger than that. I'm not sure that America is ready for a ticket with a black man and Jew. I'm not sure America is ready for a bachelor in a position of being next-in-line for the presidency (see Bob Kerrey in 1992). I think Bloomberg is too liberal not just for the Republicans but for the Democrats because he is too closely associated with several nanny-state, culturally liberal issues and causes for a Democratic party aching to reach out to independent voters. I think Bloomberg is too effeminate. But most importantly -- and not just for Democrats -- is the billionaire thing; many American voters would be uneasy about his enormous wealth. A lesser problem would be the rest of America's love/hate relationship with New York City, which could taint his candidacy.

This is the type of story that a magazine that covers New York City runs and it is harmless and kind of fun. But it also shows the gaping chasm between the Big Apple and the rest of America that it could not conceive of the serious downside of Bloomberg.
posted by Paul Tuns at 11:41 AM

 
There's nothing new under the sun

Barack Obama claims to be part of the New Politics which doesn't demonize opponents. Jennifer Rubin at Contentions says not so fast:

"Barack Obama represents New Politics. But really, it is one small bit of a larger picture. Obama is against villifying opponents? But he accuses McCain of not wanting to be generous to veterans. Obama doesn’t like 'cut and paste' politics and playing gotcha with out of context phrases? But he perpetuated the 100 years debate for weeks. He swears age shouldn’t be an issue ? Yet the DNC attack dog Howard Dean dwells on it at every turn. And while Obama doffs his cap to McCain’s years of service, a parade of military-bashing surrogates steps forward to ding McCain.

At some point even the media will notice the disconnect and begin to question the New Politics mantra, right? Well perhaps the public will figure it out on their own."

Some of Rubin's points are more valid than others -- his attacks on McCain are more valid than criticizing Obama for his surrogates' attacks. But at some point Obama needs to distance himself from those surrogates because there is nothing new about having others do dirty work on one's behalf. It is, in fact, a well-worn tactic to allow candidates to wash their hands of the responsibility of certain attacks.
posted by Paul Tuns at 11:19 AM

 
Killing by the numbers

Andrea Mrozek at ProWomanProLife looks at Canada's abortion numbers in a way that should cause people to squirm a little:

"By now you’ve heard the story that the abortion rate in Canada declined in the most recent survey period. Good, and yet, really–not good enough.

If we take the Guttmacher Institute’s (research arm of Planned Parenthood, an American group) reasons for why women have an abortion, and we take the number of abortions in Canada, 96,815 for 2004-2005, approximately the following number of people were not born in Canada for the following reasons that year:

(please note we have no Canadian equivalent of the Guttmacher stats so this is all very approximate)

20,330 people died for inadequate finances

20,330 people died because the woman isn’t ready

15,490 people died because the woman’s life would change too much

11,618 people died because there are problems in the relationship; the woman is unmarried

10,650 people died because the girl is too young

7,745 people died because the woman has all the children she wants

2,904 people died because the woman has a health problem

2,904 people died because the baby has health problems

968 people died because of rape or incest

3,873 people died for 'other' reasons.

(Average number of reasons given, 3.7)

I gather this is why we’re not allowed to question 'a woman’s choice': once you begin to question that, you wonder whether these are good reasons for killing people. Everyone, of course, draws their own line in the sand somewhere."
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:36 AM

 
Kathy Shaidle's must read post

Here. Its about political conservatives ignoring the real issues that affect real people and about which normal people with jobs and families regularly talk about. Read the whole post but here is the meat and potatoes:

"Here's the real problem with Establishment/Movement Conservatism:

It refuses to address the very issues that working class people bitch about among themselves and that the elites won't even acknowledge:

* racial/cultural divides and differences, such as taxpayer sponsored serial unwed motherhood that's become an institution among blacks, hispanics and lower class whites

* illegal and legal immigration, its effect on everyday life ('press one for English') and the resentments these effects engender among immigrants vs citizens

* tort reform (because most politicians are lawyers, we'll never see that happen)

* the sense of entitlement that seems to be the one thing all Americans have in common anymore, from the 'right' to hog the sidewalks with their goddamn giant baby strollers to the 'right' to blast their goddamn rap music out of their ugly cars while talking to their stupid friends on their stupid cellphone. Jezuz."

One thing about the issue of immigration: literally everywhere I've gone in the last month from socials hosted by think tanks to my grandmother's 80th birthday party, the issue of immigration has featured prominently in conversation. But seldom is the issue covered in the media and when it is, it never reflects the discussion that regular folks are having about it. I do not think there is an issue in which the gap in popular and elite opinion is as large as it is on immigration and the political party that can tap into this anxiety will probably be able to translate it into major votes.

And another thing: while regular people are concerned about the environment, they generally don't talk about it and they are certainly not willing to pay much or inconvenience themselves to protect the planet from their own consumption.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:23 AM

 
Veep musings

Politico looks at what many consider three of the front-runners for the job as Senator John McCain's running mate: Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, Florida Governor Charlie Crist and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. A few quick thoughts.

1) There is so little happening on the GOP side, that political reporters and pundits are reduced to making stuff up. This might be dressed up as analysis, but this is really fiction. Such lists become 'facts' because they are repeatedly mentioned by pundits -- something newsy and true because jouranlist say it is. And pundits musing about potential vice presidential candidates are less real analysis based on the presidential candidate's criteria than the analytical basis by which journalists think about such things: McCain needs Florida so Crist helps; McCain needs youth/colour/a real conservative on the ticket so Jindal fills three needs in one shot; Romney is appreciated by conservatives and he might heal the rift with the grassroots that McCain's maverick reputation has led to. The problem is no one knows whether John McCain is using this criteria.

2) Jindal would be a great choice for substantive, symbolic and superficial reasons. But he can do more good by continuing to make policy reforms in Louisiana; if McCain is elected, Jindal can always be named to head some federal department. I'd rather see Jindal make a real difference where he can than risk (at this point in time) a shot at a nominally important job.

3) I'd wager real dough that none of these three are the vice presidential candidate. Seldom are the early, obvious choices the actual choice. In 1988 no one was talking about Dan Quayle (except George F. Will) three months before the convention; I don't recall Al Gore being on many people's lists for Bill Clinton in 1992 or Joseph Lieberman or Dick Cheney being played up by the pundits in the Spring of 2000. There is so much more involved in the decision than that which is allowed for by the superficial analysis of pundits (geography, age, ideology balance or reinforcement).
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:14 AM

 
A headline not from The Onion...

But from the Daily Telegraph: "Man admits having sex with 1,000 cars."

Edward Smith, a 57-year-old American man who is not sexually interested in men or women, has had sex with automobiles since he was 15. (How does he get their consent?) Some of the cars he shagged belonged to strangers or were in showrooms. Smith explains: "There have been certain cars that attracted me and I would wait until night time, creep up to them and just hug and kiss them." He once dated a woman but could not 'consummate' the relationship. As he says, "Cars are just my preference." The paper reports, "He says that his most intense sexual experience was 'making love' to the helicopter from 1980s TV hit Airwolf." According to the story, there are 500 such enthusiasts, a British documentary on the phenomenon and there was a mechaphilia rally in California.

Five years ago, I would have found this outrageous. Sadly, now I shrug and smirk. And, as I have noted before, I feel sorry for those trying to write satire in 2008: it is difficult to one-up reality nowadays.
posted by Paul Tuns at 2:03 PM

 
It's not easy being green

From Wired a reconsideration of several green ideas:

Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What it Means to Be Green
1: Live in Cities
2: A/C Is OK
3: Organics Are Not The Answer
4: Farm the Forests
5: China Is the Solution
6: Accept Genetic Engineering
7: Carbon Trading Doesn't Work
8: Embrace Nuclear Power
9: Used Cars — Not Hybrids
10: Prepare for the Worst

There are brief stories on each of these that are worth reading -- click on the links down the center of the story.
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:23 PM

 
Free trade in clothes hangers

From NPR a few weeks back: "Wire hangers are getting more expensive due to import tariffs on cheaper hangers from China." C'mon. Restricting the trade of wire hangers? Doesn't Washington have better things to do? Or not do?

Such protectionism has real-life costs:

"Since the tariff was imposed, nearly every dry cleaner in the U.S. has had to pay more for hangers, on average about $4,000 a year. But Magnus says most customers probably won't notice it."

Those costs are getting passed onto consumers. All to protect the one -- one! -- Alabama-based company that produces wire hangers in the United States. Has it helped? Consider these staggering numbers: "Last year, the United States imported 2.7 billion wire hangers from China — up 52 percent from 2006."
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:05 PM

 
With just a little more than five months to go...

Over at the Weekly Standard blog: "Rasmussen’s daily tracking poll offers some good news today, showing John McCain with a 4 point lead over Barack Obama." Getting excited about a four point lead on May 22?

But Dean Barnett redeems himself:

"Dick Morris foresees a “GOP senate massacre” this year, one that will possibly be 'even greater than the worst of previous GOP years: 1958, 1964, 1974, 1986 and 2006.' As you know, I too have foreseen serious troubles for the Republican party this cycle. But if there’s one thing I know about politics, it’s that Dick Morris is always wrong. So perhaps his essay offers a glimmer of hope."
posted by Paul Tuns at 1:01 PM

 
22 million meaningless dollars

Jennifer Rubin at Contentions, Commentary's blog:

"Last night, there were lots of numbers Hillary Clinton was pleased to see: 250,000 (the number of poular votes she gained in Kentucky) and 35 (the percentage/margin of difference in Kentucky) were two of them. But maybe the most surprising? 22 million. That’s 22 million dollars she collected last month, long after the pundits declared her mathematically eliminated. That’s extraordinary, because it reflects not just a distaste for Barack Obama (as do the Kentucky numbers) but a remarkably devoted following.

What does it mean? Possibly nothing."

There's more, but that is the amazing thing: donors gave the former first lady $22 million in a seemingly hopeless (Quixotic?) campaign.
posted by Paul Tuns at 3:50 PM

 
On 'personally opposed' Catholics

Denver Archbishop Charles J. Chaput at First Things' On the Square:

"In the years after the Carter loss, I began to notice that very few of the people, including Catholics, who claimed to be 'personally opposed' to abortion really did anything about it. Nor did they intend to. For most, their personal opposition was little more than pious hand-wringing and a convenient excuse—exactly as it is today. In fact, I can’t name any pro-choice Catholic politician who has been active, in a sustained public way, in trying to discourage abortion and to protect unborn human life—not one. Some talk about it, and some may mean well, but there’s very little action. In the United States in 2008, abortion is an acceptable form of homicide. And it will remain that way until Catholics force their political parties and elected officials to act differently."

The whole thing is worth reading.
posted by Paul Tuns at 3:45 PM

 
Who buys porn anymore?

Over at the Freakonomics blog, Daniel Hamermesh says:

"A California state assemblyman has proposed dealing with the state’s huge budget shortfall by taxing pornography, including the production and sale of pornographic videos — by 25 percent.

To an economist this initially sounds like a good idea: An ideal tax is one that doesn’t cause any change in behavior — doesn’t generate any excess burden on the economy. I believe the demand for pornography is quite inelastic, so I don’t expect sales to be reduced much if porn prices rise as producers try and succeed in passing this tax along to consumers."

And he goes on to consider the issue of whether porn producers will head out of the Golden State -- perhaps Montana or Utah? -- if the cost of producing pornography also increases. All fine -- this is what freakonomists do. While reading this, though, I'm thinking that in the age of the internet, who buys porn anymore?

I'm also not sure that demand for pornography is inelastic, especially considering its easy, free availability on the internet.
posted by Paul Tuns at 2:00 PM

 
I like the matter-of-factly introduction of this editorial

From the Ottawa Citizen:

"Today, 15 new members will be elected to United Nations Human Rights Council. And, as always, at least a few of those new members will be rights-abusers."

The fact that this is assumed with 100% confidence explains why the UN is a joke.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:44 AM

 
The green religion

Jonah Goldberg on how environmentalism is a religion to the true-believers:

"Environmentalism’s most renewable resources are fear, guilt, and moral bullying. Its worldview casts man as a sinful creature who, through the pursuit of forbidden knowledge, abandoned our Edenic past. John Muir, who laid the philosophical foundations of modern environmentalism, described humans as “selfish, conceited creatures.” Salvation comes from shedding our sins, rejecting our addictions (to oil, consumerism, etc.) and demonstrating an all-encompassing love of Mother Earth. Quoth Al Gore: 'The climate crisis is not a political issue; it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.'

I heard Gore on NPR recently. He was asked about evangelical pastor Joseph Hagee’s absurd comment that Hurricane Katrina was God’s wrath for New Orleans’s sexual depravity. Naturally, Gore chuckled at such backwardness. But then the Nobel laureate went on to blame Katrina on man’s energy sinfulness. It struck me that the two men are not so different. If only canoodling Big Easy residents had adhered to The Greenpeace Guide to Environmentally Friendly Sex.

Environmentalists insist that their movement is a secular one. But using the word 'secular' no more makes you secular than using the word 'Christian' automatically means you behave like a Christian. Pioneering green lawyer Joseph Sax describes environmentalists as 'secular prophets, preaching a message of secular salvation.' Gore, too, has been dubbed a 'prophet.' A green-themed California hotel provides Gore’s 'An Inconvenient Truth' next to the Bible and a Buddhist tome."

And we haven't even got to how buying carbon off-sets are the modern equivalent of indulgences.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:37 AM

 
Levant -- the one-man anti-HRC machine

You should be reading Ezra Levant who is taking on the human rights commissions daily in his indispensable blog. A few days ago, though, he had a must-read post on all the goings-on against the human rights commissions and why he is confident that there will be real reform of these monstrosities. I am not sure I share his optimism, but he points to a number of positive developments, including simple publicity and the fact that previously uninterested journalists are now starting to ask questions.
posted by Paul Tuns at 6:31 AM

 
The challenge for conservatives in the future: over-coming their own success

Ramesh Ponnuru in Time:

"In truth, Newt Gingrich's Republican party was declining in the 1990s. Once welfare reform passed and crime dropped, middle-class Americans stopped seeing the federal government as a threat to their interests and values. They began to look more kindly on government activism. Bush's 'compassionate conservatism' was a response to this public mood. Its inadequacy is now obvious to almost everyone. But Bush saw his party's problems more clearly than many of his conservative critics now do."

That is, many problems were solved and that many of the ones that remain seem intractable to the public. Conservatives could still point out that many remaining problems are, at the very least, made worse by government. But this is harder to do considering that the success of the Contract with America, policy-oriented Republican government (combined with reforming governors at the state level) in the 1990s which has made the American public less anxious about an over-bearing, expensive and incompetent state.

Now that competency in handling the ship of state is the question rather than what the specifics of policies is the most important consideration in politics, the drift (to put it kindly) of the Bush administration and GOP Congress in recent years, hands a huge advantage to the Democrats. To counter this advantage, the Republicans will need some really good, really big ideas.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:54 AM

 
Finally someone has said it

Melanie Phillips has a great column in the Daily Mail criticizing efforts to further liberalize Britain's reproductive technologies regulations, which are all too often promoted by appeals to assist the infertile (who would benefit from relaxing rules on assisted reproduction) and the sick (who would benefit from the treatments that are promised by enthusiastic supporters of the unethical). Phillips says:

"Of course, we should have intense sympathy for people and families afflicted by childlessness or terrible disease. But they must not be allowed to use this as emotional blackmail and hold an entire society and its moral codes to ransom."

She says that real ethical discussion is trumped by emotional appeals. She's right but few people recognize this.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:51 AM

 
Even the Germans don't like Germany

From the Daily Mail:

"The figures showed 165,180 German citizens migrated elsewhere last year, an increase of nearly 10,000 from 2006, with Switzerland, the United States, Poland and Austria the top destinations.

A total of 111,291 Germans returned from abroad, resulting in a net loss of 53,889 citizens in 2007, the third straight year in which more Germans have left the country than returned."

A libertarian might say that Germans are looking for opportunities abroad because high taxes, oppressive regulation and a rigid labour market make it difficult to get ahead in the Fatherland. Mark Steyn might say it is because Germany is becoming less German and therefore less attractive to the krauts (he would probably use that word, too). An alternative explanation is that Germany is too German. Whatever the reason, it is significant that so many German are leaving Germany.
posted by Paul Tuns at 10:46 AM