Evil Still Exists

Over at Ricochet, Mollie Hemingway offers up an important point that tends to be purposely glided over today:  evil still does exist.  The media seems to have a propensity to call anyone who does anything that used to be regarded as an evil act as insane; this is especially true in the case of the Norway mass murdered Anders Breivick.  In Breivick's case, however, the worst charge the media could level against him was that he was a "Christian" (Ann Coulter promptly destroyed this argument here).  Here is more on the important distinction between evil and insanity:

I've noticed how quickly reporters try to claim that any terrorist is mentally imbalanced or alienated. In a world where everyone is diagnosed as mentally ill and we pathologize what used to be called sin or evil, this is what you do. It's so much easier to call someone crazy or a victim of a child abuse or something than to deal with their evil.

But a society that is incapable of properly responding to evil, to sin, is one that worries me. [Anders] Breivik didn't start the movement that he hoped to, thankfully, but evil people will use terror even more if we don't refute it and respond to it. Norway is choosing an easy route out of this, but at what cost?

The slow elimination of the idea of evil tacitly takes away any grounding of condemnation of any act, and instead, we are lead to sympathize with the perpetrators because of the environment they grew up in or their bad upbringing.    

The Devil Went Down to Georgia

The latest allegations against Herman Cain come from Ginger White, who claims that she and Cain just recently ended a 13 year affair.  Cain came out yesterday on CNN, two hours before the news broke, to defend himself against the charges.  Cain's lawyer, Lin Wood, later issued a ridiculous statement that basically all but admits that something had taken place between Cain and Ms. White.  Here is an excerpt:

Mr. Cain has been informed today that your television station plans to broadcast a story this evening in which a female will make an accusation that she engaged in a 13-year long physical relationship with Mr. Cain. This is not an accusation of harassment in the workplace – this is not an accusation of an assault – which are subject matters of legitimate inquiry to a political candidate.

Rather, this appears to be an accusation of private, alleged consensual conduct between adults – a subject matter which is not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or the public. No individual, whether a private citizen, a candidate for public office or a public official, should be questioned about his or her private sexual life. The public’s right to know and the media’s right to report has boundaries and most certainly those boundaries end outside of one’s bedroom door.

Mr. Cain has alerted his wife to this new accusation and discussed it with her. He has no obligation to discuss these types of accusations publicly with the media and he will not do so even if his principled position is viewed unfavorably by members of the media.

Cain's attorney must have graduated from the Gloria Allred School of Law.  As Leon Wolf at RedState points out, "Either Mr. Cain and his attorney are basing their views on what is an appropriate subject of media scrutiny for political candidates on the way politics work on another planet (perhaps another galaxy, even), or they are basically trying to telegraph to us that he completely did it."  But all kidding aside, Cain had to approve every word of Lin's statement so that should say something. 

Good News First

The good news:  Rep. Barney Frank today announced that he will not be running for re-election in 2012.  He is one of 17 Democrats--compared to 6 Republicans--who won't be running for re-election. 

The bad news:  Rep. Maxine Waters will be replacing Frank as the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee. 

Here one of Waters' more memorable moments:

OWS, Diversity, and Equality

This is a very interesting observation about the Occupy Wall Street movement that, curiously, hasn't come to light yet:  only 1.6 percent of the protestors are black.  Furthermore, only 2.6% are Asian, only 6.8% are Hispanic, and (surprise, surprise) only 2.4% say they are Republicans.  Of course the major stories involving the Tea Party was the supposed racism of its members because of the lack of diversity.  Where are the same stories about the lack of diversity regarding the OWS mob?

The Left seems only concerned with diversity when it applies to others, not to themselves.  But as far as it goes, this critique of liberal hypocrisy--which is the typical conservative critique--doesn't really get at the heart of the matter.  How about this critique:  It is wrong by nature to categorize people based on something like skin color, which does not have any bearing whatsoever on their moral character, or capacity for reason.  Skin color, an accident of nature, does not determine anything about a person.  We can't reasonably infer anything about a person based on attributes that have no bearing on them as a moral person.  So, for example, we cannot infer anything about the intentions of a group of people simply on the basis of their racial composition.  The Left's obsession with race in order to achieve equality, ironically, furthers and engenders racial animosity and leaves us farther away from the principle of all men are created equal.

The True Party of No

In his latest op-ed, Charles Krauthammer touches on a point that should be endlessly repeated by Republicans until the 2012 election:  the Democrats are the true do-nothing party.  Here is Krauthammer:

As regarding the supercommittee, Obama was AWOL — then immediately pounced on its failure by going on TV to repeat his incessantly repeated campaign theme of the do-nothing (Republican) Congress.

A swell slogan that fits nicely with the Norquist myth. Except for another inconvenient fact: It is the Republicans who passed — through the House, the only branch of government they control — a real budget that cut $5.8 trillion of spending over the next ten years. Obama’s February budget, which would have increased spending, was laughed out of the Senate, voted down 97– 0. As for the Democratic Senate, it has submitted no budget at all for two and a half years.

Who, then, is do-nothing? Republicans should happily take on this absurd, and central, Democratic campaign plank. Bring Simpson-Bowles to the House floor and pass the most radical of its three deficit-reduction alternatives.

It's amazing that the Democrats have been able to get away with slandering Republicans as the Party of No (I happen to think this says more about the Republicans' inability to counter these claims than the strength of the claims themselves).  But it will be tough to change this narrative of things when the mainstream media bases their reporting on the Democrat perspective as well. 

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

I would recommend reading Washington's Thanksgiving proclamation or Lincoln's Thanksgiving proclamation and reflect on the great blessings bestowed on this nation and the reasons for those blessings.  We all need to give thanks to God on this day--and not just today--for His mercy and justice without which, we would truly be lost.

Debate Thoughts

At Powerline, Steve Hayward has some thoughts on the Republican debate last night:

So when Ron Paul, the crazy uncle of the field, said in the opening exchange that criminal law had “worked well” with Timothy McVeigh, your could see Newt across the stage coil up like Alex Rodriguez seeing a slow hanging curveball coming toward the plate.  You could see this coming a mile away: “Timothy McVeigh succeeded.  He killed a lot of Americans.”  Newt went on to make the obvious point (paraphrasing here): I don’t want a law that says we get you after you’ve destroyed an American city.  We need a body of law that enables a president to stop it from happening.  Newt established his dominant position right out of the gate.

I could detect Ron Paul audibly snort when Rick Santorum, weighing in on this same thread, rather foolishly but approvingly said that Lincoln “ran over civil rights” during the Civil War.  Never mind instructing Santorum here: had I the chance, I would love to ask Ron Paul, “Why do you belong to the Party of Lincoln if you share the view that Lincoln was a Constitution-shredding president who is the primary author of big government in the US?”  (It’s a commonly held view among the most extreme and simplistic libertarians.)

And:

Another minor flub that got a flinch was Rick Perry saying that “Afghanistan and India are working together” on Pakistan.  Um, I doubt many Indians would conceive the matter that way.  And the idea of free trade zone as a remedy for the region’s instability seems a tad goofy, too.

On Syria, Herman Cain said one thing we ought to do is “stop buying oil from Syria.”  I guess he thinks all Arab nations must have oil because they’re Arab.  And then he managed to change the subject to economic growth at home.  I was sure we were about to get “nine-nine-nine,” but Cain restrained himself.

I want to add a little more to Hayward's very prescient thoughts.

Herman Cain's answers were all about "listening to his commanders on the ground" but after that, there was nothing of substance whatsoever.  The real question is this:  how does Cain know that his commanders on the ground are correct?  Does Cain just want the commanders then running the show in place of the executive?  During the Civil War, Lincoln surely listened more than to just his commanders on the ground  and in some cases, he removed those commanders.  There has got to be a standard of judgment outside of what the commanders say.  Cain doesn't seem to fully realize this.

Santorum is sometimes doing well and other times not.  He really needs to cut it out with the I-am-not-getting-enough-air-time-routine; that really marginalizes him as a candidate.  And he also stated that under his watch, he would have the TSA profile all Muslims...but how does one do that?  Religion is not like race or gender.  A person doesn't have their religion stamped on their forehead.

Rick Perry said he would end sending "blank checks" to Pakistan.  Memo to Rick Perry:  that's not how it works.  Surely foreign aid should be on the table when cuts to the federal budget are being debated, but he should give a realistic assessment of how it's actually done, not a simplistic reproduction.