RE: THE LEFT“But as he moves into the lead for the Democratic nomination, however much we may delight in seeing the air deflate from the Clinton dirigible, we must ask: What would a President [Barack] Obama look like? Much of his rhetoric is lighter than air — almost content free. It’s the past versus the future, hope over fear, one nation not two, yes we can, turn the page, and so forth. But when you get past the music and really focus on the lyrics, Obama emerges as an utterly conventional, down-the-line liberal Democrat. He claims to be all about the future, but his policy ideas are about as modern as disco and the leisure suit.” — Mona Charen
INSIGHT“The goal of the ‘liberals’ — as it emerges from the record of the past decades — was to smuggle this country into welfare statism by means of single, concrete, specific measures, enlarging the power of the government a step at a time, never permitting these steps to be summed up into principles, never permitting their direction to be identified or the basic issue to be named. Thus, statism was to come, not by vote or by violence, but by slow rot — by a long process of evasion and epistemological corruption, leading to a fait accompli.” — Ayn Rand
FAMILY“Those who are quick to say that the traditional family is nearing extinction would be wise to check out the latest report from the Census Bureau. According to the most recent data, a majority of American children (70%) live in two-parent homes and the vast majority (90%) of those live with both of their biological parents. This means that of all American children, 63% are living with both their biological parents (60% married biological parents, 3% cohabiting biological parents). The other bit of good news is that the intact married family is getting stronger among Asian-Americans, where the proportion increased significantly between 2001 and 2004, from 76.4% to 80.5% — making the strongest family ethnic group even stronger yet. The rest of the news is not as optimistic. For all American children in all ethnic groups, there has been a slight decrease (1.4%) between 2001 and 2004 in the proportion living in the married, intact family. White American children are the second strongest group, after Asian-Americans, with 65.9% (down from 67.1%) living with their married, biological parents. Hispanics are next at 57.1 % (down from 58.2%) and African Americans last at 28.2 % (down from 29%).” — Tony Perkins
LIBERTY“The massively cruel and ruinous communistic experiment of the Soviet Empire would not have been necessary if philosophers and intellectuals had not ignored a basic truth about human nature: Human beings, as a derivative of the instinct to survive, are innately driven to act in their own self interest. Notwithstanding propaganda, conditioning or brute force, any government or institution which runs head on against the grain of this basic human drive is doomed to fail. We seem not to have learned a basic lesson of history: Capitalism harnesses human self interest; socialism exhausts itself trying to kill it. The bureaucrats, who seize and dole out other people’s assets, initially see themselves as humanitarians. Eventually, they conclude they are indeed superior to others, and treat themselves accordingly. They make laws to which they are not subject; they vote themselves and their wards privileges and benefits. Then, they no longer serve — they rule a nation of the government, by the government and for the government.” — Linda Bowles
THE GIPPER“Leadership is a great burden. We grow weary of it at times... But if we are not to shoulder the burdens of leadership in the free world, then who will?... We grew from that small, weak republic which had as its assets spirit, optimism, faith in God and an unshakeable belief that free men and women could govern themselves wisely. We became the leader of the free world, an example for all those who cherish freedom. If we are to continue to be that example — if we are to preserve our own freedom — we must understand those who would dominate us and deal with them with determination. We must shoulder our burden with our eyes fixed on the future, but recognizing the realities of today, not counting on mere hope or wishes. We must be willing to carry out our responsibility as the custodian of individual freedom. Then we will achieve our destiny to be as a shining city on a hill for all mankind to see.” — Ronald Reagan
OPINION IN BRIEF“Which of these three options is more likely to prevent further murderous rampages: a) making universities closed campuses and increasing the police presence on campus (as the president of [Northern Illinois University] has promised to do); b) making guns much harder to obtain; or c) enabling specially trained students and faculty to carry concealed weapons on campus? Because political correctness has replaced wisdom at nearly all universities, colleges are considering options a and b. But the only thing the first option will accomplish is to reduce the quality of university life and render the campus a larger version of the contemporary airport. And the second option will have no effect whatsoever since whoever wishes to commit murder will be able to obtain guns illegally. But if would-be murderers know that anywhere they go to kill students, there is a real likelihood that one or two students will shoot them first, and if in fact some would-be murderer is killed before he can murder any, or at least many, students, we will see far fewer such attempts made. Even though many of these murderers end up killing themselves, they don’t want to die until they have first murdered as many students and teachers as possible. Of course, there is virtually no chance that the uniformly left-thinking individuals who run our universities will ever consider this option. To do so would mean abandoning what is essentially a religious-like conviction that guns are immoral rather than the people who use them immorally.” — Dennis Prager
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