Right News and Views

My wife and I recently saw Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I was sitting there, enjoying the film and minding my own business, when a thought suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks. This thought concerned Dolores Umbridge, the overbearing, nasty, narcissistic, and snobbish new professor of the Defense against the Dark Arts class at Hogwarts who later becomes “Grand Inquisitor” of the school.

It is impossible not to dislike Umbridge. Indeed, it is very easy to outright despise her and I could not help but see parallels between her behavior and the actions of certain politicians. Consider the following points and you’ll see what I mean.

First, she believes that creating more rules – laws – is the answer to every problem – or, in many cases, perceived “problems.” She is part of the “Ministry of Magic,” after all- in Harry Potter-speak that means “Congress.” At Hogwarts she has rule after rule after rule posted in glass cases on one of the hall walls in attempt to first simply control but then later to actually target students. One of the best scenes in the film occurs when all these rules come crashing down around her- and all of the students she has suppressed cheer at the sight.

Secondly, she seeks to portray those who disagree with her as liars. By obscuring the truth through control of the student’s speech she seeks to stifle all descent. She devises a particularly nasty means to keep Harry Potter from continuing to warn others about the coming danger. Not as nasty as influencing by lying through most of the media outlets but nasty nonetheless.

Thirdly, she means well but fails to see how much chaos and harm she is actually causing. The school becomes a virtual prison with more and more of the student’s freedom suppressed. Much the way Congress, through high taxes, stifles the freedoms of the people.

Lastly, and most serious of all, she denies the obvious truth that a clear and present danger, Voldemort, threatens a great many lives. Despite the obvious evidence of this danger she blissfully refuses to consider even the possibility that an enemy exists who is bent on killing all that refuse to join his dark regime.

Sound familiar? If you’ve realized JK Rowling must have patterned Umbridge on well-meaning but short-sighted liberals then go to the head of the Defense against the Dark Arts Class.

In my latest column, I discuss the hypocrisy of Democrats who have attacked Bush on the pardon of Libby. Republicans practice similar behavior, of course, but Democrats are worse.

Peter J. Wallison’s What We Pre-Empted makes an excellent point (one of many, many excellent points) in support of the initial invasion of Iraq. He claims that “almost no outcome in Iraq would be as adverse to the interests of the United States as today’s world with Saddam still in power.”

That’s a “well, duh” to me but liberals don’t understand this. They somehow imagine in their fevered minds that everything would be just perfect if the bad old Bush was not in the White House. Yes, of course, the Texan is the problem- not the genocidal dictator. This extreme, even gross, lunacy and shortsightedness is dangerous to our national interest, not to mention our very lives.

It’s just amazing, that’s all. To a liberal, government can solve any problem if we just give them more of our money and more of our freedom. But let the government decide to use the military to solve a problem and then suddenly, like the children they are, they cry, wine and moan unceasingly.

The deficit falls! Blast those pesky “tax cuts for the rich” - they are spurring our economy to grow.

Tony Blankley offers an excellent example of how things are verses how things were not in World War II. But it is to be expected when effeminate, weak, cowardly, and shortsighted politicians rule the Congress. Glad Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and the rest of the Iraqi genocide pushers were not in power then or there would be no Jews left on earth and we would be speaking German- or Japanese.

Amazing – frightening, really - how ignorant of history our leaders are, isn’t it?

Patrick Poole makes a very interesting point in his op-ed Media Silence on Antiwar Violence. A soldier – one of the men that insures we continue to enjoy our freedoms – gets shot by an a gunman intending to make an antiwar statement and you don’t hear a thing about it on the news. But had the soldier “been an abortionist or homosexual, this story would be front page news for the New York Times and the lead story on CBS News with Katie Couric for at least the next month.”

The gunman committed suicide- which, though it would have been better for him to have been caught and put to death by our justice system – is good enough for me. Truly sad thing to say and feel but, as we know, our twisted society would have failed to give him the death penalty for wonton, premeditated attempted murder. Indeed, he would probably have gotten off completely if he could have somehow made it to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. They might have even given him a medal- the socialist, amoral sickos…

“This is not our fight,” says Hillary Clinton and Robert Byrd in a recent op-ed calling for genocide to begin as quickly as we can pull our troops out of Iraq. The message from the two dim.. excuse me, Dem Senators? “Let them die, en mass, we don’t care.”

Ah, but they are interested in war. The so-called “war on poverty” is a fight they can really sink their fangs into. If people only have one television or they work at minimum wage – well, that’s a huge problem to Democrats- far bigger than the mass death which is what surely will occur if we abandon Iraq.

Democrats say they care – which is how they justify stealing out of our paychecks – but it seems to me that people who actually care would choose preventing genocide over making sure the poor get more of the wealth. Poverty is, clearly, sad- but I would rather be poor and alive than tortured and killed.

The passive evil of the Democrats rivals the active malice of Hitler. How many of the unborn, how many Iraqis, and how many other innocents are going to have to die before Americans see these people for what they are?

And the supporters of genocide march on… blind to the death and ghastly nightmare they will unleash if they are successful.

Ignorant and blind doesn’t even begin to cover their short sightedness.

In The Democrats’ own brand of racism Star Parker really hits the nail on the head. Democrats don’t believe in people taking control of their own lives; they believe more government is the answer. “Every problem — black unemployment, education, crime and incarceration, AIDS — had one answer. More government programs and spending,” Parker writes. But it’s not just African American problems- any thing that faces anybody- white, black, young, old, male, female- what have you – Democrats think government is the answer.

Democrats want to enforce their totalitarian “fairness doctrine” to suppress natural market forces and destroy conservative radio. They want to enforce their totalitarian views of freedom from religion on everyone. They want to enforce their totalitarian retirement program (Social Security) on those wise enough to invest their money elsewhere (and don’t mind lying and frightening Senior Citizens to do it). They want to enforce their totalitarian views on the redistribution of wealth on those who work hard to get where they are. Government, to them, knows best- for just about every aspect of your life.

“It’s like blacks do not exist as individuals,” Parker said. And she’s right- but to Democrats there is no such thing as the individual – black or white - period. As Hillary Clinton recently said, she prefers a “we all in this together society.” A great sound bit- but the nuts and bolts of her plan is pure socialism.

Cindy Sheehan is at it again. I hope I am never so overwhelmed by grief at the death of a loved one that I would push for the wanton genocide of others. Maybe she should go to Iraq and talk to the mothers that lost sons AND husbands, sisters AND brothers, friends AND cousins to torture chambers and rape rooms. Think that would give her a different perspective? Bush is more the hero than villain – but some are so amazingly, stubbornly, and willfully deranged that reason gets shuffled to the side in their scramble away from reality. Decent people want peace but wise people understand that peace comes at a price.

This woman needs help. And if she is a symbol it is not so much of the anti-war movement but of someone who truly needs serious grief counseling.

Sheehan’s son died trying to bring peace, freedom, and democracy to a people long chained to the walls of a tyrants rape rooms and torture chambers. He is a hero- not an object to be used to push an agenda in a brief, opportunistic moment of fame.

The Democratic “leaders” in Congress are seeking to begin negotiations on lobbying and ethics reform. Ethics? How they plan to discuss something they barely even recognize is beyond me.

Nothing will significantly change- you heard it here first.

Weakness in certain people is to be expected – they lack either the will or the moral strength to make tough decisions and stick with them. This is natural and to be expected out of some. But in a political leader- one at the head of his party in the Senate, this weakness can be projected onto our very nation itself. That is exactly what Harry Reid is doing to our country.

There is no single nation on this planet that the United States cannot defeat militarily- and I doubt there are any two combined we could not handle. But that doesn’t matter to Reid, who is again pushing for as quick an American defeat as possible- since it won’t happen on the battlefield Reid has to make it happen in the halls of Congress. Despite the evidence that the surge is beginning to work, to Reid we have to proclaim defeat now. No delay! Surrender must happen now- the surge cannot be allowed to make any further progress. What a sad little dream to have to see your country humiliated by poorly equipped, backwards, and fanatical nut jobs.

Ah, I love it when the “earth is dying!” crowd gets a proverbial punch in the nose. This past weekends Live Earth event proved to be less than… hot (no pun intended) as attendance fell dismally short of expatiations. Seems a lot of people just aren’t buying into the theory that we’re destroying the earth. And still others aren’t buying into the “concern” of celebrities and politicians whose hypocrisy in their conspicuous consumption of jet fuel, etc. doesn’t match their rhetoric of self-denial.

Thomas Lifson sums it up nicely in this piece from RealClearPolitics.com.

A great case that the political doctrine of liberalism must be wiped from the face of the earth. Plus, it’s just fun to read about fuming Democrats.

No surprise here that liberals what to force conservative talk radio to shut up or, at least, get equal airtime with the socialist, amoral liberals. Rush Limbaugh and those like him have been exposing these socialists and their inane ideas for years. And it seems as if the baby killers and tax and spenders have decided to do something about it! They want to reintroduce what is known as the “fairness doctrine.” A better name might be the “forget reality doctrine” as Air America went belly up despite being backed by millions of investment dollars.

My theory explaining this embarrassing failure of liberal radio– I admit I have no evidence for this gut feeling - is that more conservatives have jobs than liberals. In addition to explaining why liberals want to steal so much money out of our paychecks to continue their unemployed lifestyle, this explains why talk radio (listened to by most people, I presume, in their cars going to and from work is predominantly conservative. Of course, this is, again, just a theory. More likely it is just that thoughtful, well-informed people are more likely to be conservative and therefore listen to the issues presented on radio than, say, listen to music or who spend more time watching sitcoms on television.

Don’t believe this? Ever listen to one of Sean Hannity’s “Man on the Street” segments? They are frightening! One woman last week could not name which war we fought to gain our independence (her answer, more than a century off, was World War I). But she knew that she would vote for Hillary Clinton (of course, she could not name one single thing Clinton had accomplished that she liked, but she was still going to vote for her just because she was a woman).

No wonder our country is in the shape that it is in- and no wonder we need conservative talk radio. But what we don’t need is a “fairness doctrine” that mandates the equal time presentation of liberal lunacy. Besides, life is not fair- it never has been and, no matter what the liberals do, it NEVER will be. Best to grow up and deal with it rather than give up your freedoms to government in hopes they can impose it upon you.