What’s Good for the Noose is Good for the Pander

Recently, Ann Coulter wrote a controversial column suggesting that numerous Republican losses in the 2012 election cycle could be tied to the GOP stance on abortion. After lamenting the problem, she suggested a solution: the GOP should officially abandon its opposition to the so-called rape exception to a ban on abortion.

Ann’s position on this matter is wrong for three reasons. First, it is unprincipled. Second, it will not be received with the popular support she envisions. Third, it is not the best political response to the problem. After elaborating on each problem associated with Ann’s position, I propose an alternative. It is one that I consider to be more viable, so to speak.

1. It is the not the principled position. Conservatives don’t believe that we should be punished for the actions of others. We believe that we should be held responsible for our own actions. I should not have to bail out my neighbor if he cannot pay his mortgage. I should not have to pay for welfare programs if my neighbor refuses to work. I can help my neighbor if I so choose. But I ought not to be forced to do so. The consequences of my conduct should fall upon me, not upon others.

Ann does not claim we should adopt the rape exception as a compromise. Ann actually claims that the rape exception is the principled position. She makes this claim entirely on the basis of the principle that it is wrong to force the rape victim to carry the rapist’s baby to term. But no one wants to apply force to the rape victim. True conservatives want to ensure that no one applies force to the innocent child before he or she can be given up for adoption. Why? Because the baby is innocent. The baby has never committed a rape. Therefore, the baby should live. And if the baby defaults on her mortgage in adulthood, she should bear the consequences, not someone else.

2. It is not the majority position. Ann Coulter has asserted that the rape exception is popular. She has even gone so far as to suggest that 99% of the people agree with it. That is an assertion, which is unsupported by evidence. It is also patently false. No one who is pro-choice is in favor of the rape exception to a rule banning abortion. The reason is simple: they cannot favor any exceptions to a rule they don’t actually favor.

When you add a) the forty-something percent of the population that rejects the exception because they reject the rule and b) the sizable portion of pro-lifers who reject the exception as a matter of principle, then what do you get? You get a majority rejecting the rape exception. That’s the reason you don’t have a bunch of unbathed rape exception supporters huddling on Wall Street shouting “we are the 99 percent!”

3. It is not the best political position. Ann has been going wobbly on us in recent years. This sort of thing goes with the territory when you live in Manhattan and serve on the board of gay political organizations. She should not be suggesting that we retreat on the rape exception in order to avoid the accusation that we are soft on rape. She should be joining me in a legislative blitz that will prove conclusively that Democrats care less about rape than Republicans. My plan is simple: we push to legalize the execution of rapists who impregnate women through force, instead of executing “their” babies.

The Supreme Court has banned executions for rape – even aggravated child rape since 2008. They did it because most states – almost all of them, in fact – did not allow that option. It’s called evolving standards of decency. When a punishment falls out of favor with the states, the Court bans it across the board. The solution is simple: all Republican-led legislatures need to pass new laws providing for the execution of rapists who impregnate women. The evolving standard of decency is a door that should swing both ways. If the effort is shot down in the capitol or the courtroom it will be liberals, not us conservatives, who do it. Let them tie the noose around their own necks, in a manner of speaking.

If this goes like I plan then the Democratic Party will be exposed and damaged for caring more about preserving unrestricted abortion than stopping sexual assault. Republicans might even attract the votes of illegal immigrants who are currently known as undocumented Democrats.

Mike Adams

Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts “Womyn” On Campus.

http://townhall.com/columnists/mikeadams/2012/11/14/whats_good_for_the_noose_is_good_for_the_pander/page/full/

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

“Be on your guard…a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” Luke 12:15

One of my all-time favorite moments in the life of Jesus was when a man in the crowd asked Him: “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me” (Luke 12:13).

I have always thought that if I had one chance to talk with Jesus, getting more money for me might not be the best topic to choose. But nevertheless, the guy in the crowd was ticked that he hadn’t gotten his full share; and instead of taking the opportunity to go deep with Jesus, he could only think of how deep his pockets would be if Jesus would put the hammer to his brother.

As usual, Jesus took the opportunity to teach about the real essence of life and true riches. He replied, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15).

Which reminds me of one of my all-time favorite non-Bible stories.

A young investor stood looking out into the cool Gulf waters on the end of pier in a small coastal Mexican village. Having spent the last several months working hard toward gaining his securities license, he left for a few days of sun-soaked pleasure in Western Mexico. As the sun sank into the pale horizon,he a single fisherman docked his boat along the far side of the pier. The young Wall Street banker walked over to the boat and saw several large yellow fin tuna gasping for air. The young executive complimented the tanned fisherman, a wise-eyed, weathered man, on the quality of his fish and asked how long it had taken to bring in the catch.

“Not long at all,” the fisherman replied.

“Well, why not stay out longer and catch more fish?” the young New Yorker asked smiling.

“I have enough for today,” said the fisherman, “this is what I need to feed my family.”

“What do you do with the rest of your time?” the young man asked curiously.

“I sleep late, fish a little, play with my children, take a siesta with my wife, Maria, and stroll into the village each evening where I enjoy some wine and laughter with friends. It’s a full and happy life,” the fisherman replied.

“Well, I’m a Harvard MBA and have just completed my investment securities training. I could help you. You could spend more time fishing and with the proceeds from the larger catch, buy a bigger boat. Then you could catch even more fish. With those profits you could buy several more boats and hire captains to fish for you, and eventually you could open your own cannery. Then you would control the product, processing, and distribution. You would need to leave this small coastal village and move to Mexico City or LA or even New York where you could run your expanding enterprise.”

“How long would that all take?” asked the somewhat bewildered fisherman.

“Fifteen, maybe twenty years, max.”

“But then what?”

“Well, when the time was right, you could announce your IPO, sell your company stock to the public, and become very rich. You could be worth millions,” retorted the proud young investor.

“Millions? Then what?”

“Then you could retire and move to a small coastal village like this one where you could sleep late, fish a little in the morning, play with your grandkids, take a siesta, and enjoy wine and music with your friends in the evening.”

The fisherman grinned, tipped his hat at the young advisor, and shook his head as he walked off the pier without a reply.

When Jesus finished His warning about the emptiness of a life that is driven by greed, He told the story of a rich man who built bigger barns to hold all his stuff. To the surprise of His audience, Jesus called him a fool, not because he had lots of stuff but because he had lots of stuff and was not rich toward God!

Which makes me wonder, if you had one shot at talking to Jesus, would you want Him to make you rich, or would you want Him to lead you in the prosperous pursuit of becoming rich toward God?

YOUR JOURNEY…

• Whose work ethic more closely resembles yours—the village fisherman’s or the New Yorker’s?
• Would you rather be rich by the world’s standards or rich toward God? How are you proving the accuracy of your answer by the way that you spend your time and attention?
• Just for fun, put yourself in the shoes of the man in the crowd. If you could go up to Jesus and ask one question, what would it be?

http://getmorestrength.org/daily/who-wants-to-be-a-millionaire/

Obama Campaign Goes Racist, Anti-Semitic

Mitt Romney‘s selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate has utterly unhinged the Obama campaign. Last week they were happily jabbering about Romney’s record at Bain Capital, implying that he had killed a man’s wife, stating that he was a tax cheat and blaming him for outsourcing jobs. This week they’re stuck defending Barack Obama’s $700 billion cuts to Medicare and spending addiction.

That leaves the Democrats with one solution: get ugly.

Joe Biden led off the festivities in Virginia this week, where he informed the population of 49-percent-black Danville that “he said in the first 100 days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules — unchain Wall Street. They gonna put y’all back in chains.” That last line is a direct transcription — Biden lapsed into a heavy southern accent, clearly making a slavery reference. According to the Obama campaign, then, Romney’s Wall Street plans are the same as placing Americans in chains. If that isn’t insulting to black Americans, nothing will be.

But the Obama campaign wasn’t done. The same day Biden unleashed his inner race-baiter, the Obama campaign’s Julianna Smoot send out a mass email accusing Ryan of “making a pilgrimage” to Las Vegas to “kiss the ring” of Jewish mega donor Sheldon Adelson. This was an obvious attempt to drive a wedge between Ryan and blue-collar Catholics by invoking anti-Semitic imagery; the implication is that Ryan, instead of making a pilgrimage to Rome to kiss the ring of the Pope, was heading to Vegas to kiss the ring of a wealthy Jew. Ryan, the email implied, was a Judas willing to sacrifice religion for money in the Sodom and Gomorrah of Vegas.

This isn’t just nasty campaigning. It’s vile campaigning.

It wasn’t surprising, of course — not after the Obama campaign seemingly worked hand-in-glove with a super PAC to release an ad accusing Romney of murdering Joe Soptic’s wife of cancer after Bain Capital fired Soptic and Soptic lost his health insurance. It wasn’t surprising after the vulgarities that seem to spout daily from the Obama headquarters; their emails suggest that they must win the “damn” election and their staffers call Obamacare opponents “mother—ers.” No hope and change to be found here — just vulgarity and racism.

Just because the Obama campaign is running a disgusting campaign doesn’t mean it will hurt them. Negative campaigns remain extraordinarily effective. But it won’t work against the revitalized Romney-Ryan ticket. Ryan is simply too likeable — 50 percent of Americans like him, as opposed to 32 percent who don’t — and he is highly intelligent and scrupulously honest. That means he’ll be tough to categorize with the left’s three favorite anti-conservative insults: stupid (Palin), corrupt (Nixon) and mean (Bush). Ryan isn’t extreme; he’s praised by people like … Barack Obama and Erskine Bowles.

The question that remains for the American public is whether they can be polarized by the divide-and-conquer rhetoric of the Obama campaign. If Obama can’t convince Americans that Romney-Ryan will destroy America, he’ll have to destroy America himself to ensure re-election by separating Americans by race, sexuality and religion. That’s precisely what he’s doing.

Ben Shapiro

Ben Shapiro is a regular guest on dozens of radio shows around the United States and Canada and author of Project President: Bad Hair and Botox on the Road to the White House.

http://townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/2012/08/15/ben_shapiro/page/full/

The Tingle’s Gone, Baby

Obama’s latest mea culpa just confirms how far gone this presidency is.

In an interview with CBS’s Charlie Rose, Obama says that the problem he’s had isn’t with the failed policies of his first term, but rather that he failed “to tell a story to the American people,” according to a report in the Christian Science Monitor.

“The mistake of my first term – couple of years – was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right. And that’s important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times,” said the president.

We’re paying White House staffers $38 million yearly, according to Politico, plus looking at roughly $750 million to a billion dollars in campaign spending to support this president- and the best excuse he can come up with for his failed presidency is that he’s not a good story-teller?

This is a man who largely won the presidency on nothing other than a fantastic and unbelievable story he sold to America via willing accomplices in the press.

Remember the story about Chris Matthews and the tingle that ran up his leg when Obama spoke?

That was a true story; a sad story, but still true.

But being president in one way or another, and at some point in time, for us grown ups in TV land, should become about truth, policy and the American way- not leg tingles.

Leg tingles are great for a romance, but they don’t create jobs; they’re no substitute for an energy policy; they don’t make medical bills magically disappear; they don’t pay the student loans the administration tricked students into taking; they don’t win the war in Afghanistan when you surge more troops into the country and more American troops die; they don’t solve the banking crisis; or make green investments smart; nor do leg tingles restore confidence in government and industry.

But what can you expect from an administration that has nothing to offer but new stories about it being someone else’s fault?

Leg tingles? Forget it.

That was 2008.

For 2012 the tingle is entirely different.

“Because that’s how you play the game in Washington,” admitted then-candidate Obama according to a transcript of his 2008 “closing argument” speech released by the Chicago Sun Times. “If you can’t beat your opponent’s ideas, you distort those ideas and maybe make some up.”

Indeed you do, Mr. Obama.

Because you can’t take the horror story that’s become Obama’s War-on-Everything and sell it as a children’s tome, or a feel good drama or even as a journey of personal discovery- as we were once warned about by Sarah Palin.

Because the story that led to those leg tingles has turned into one that makes the hair on the back of our neck stand straight up after three-and-a-half years.

And we can all feel the tingle now.

It’s the tingle of coal miners without jobs, teachers being laid off, public pension crunches, businesses, small and large, struggling with the most massive government intervention in this history of our country- outside of war- to what purpose?

So Obama can tell us that the only problem is that he hasn’t told us the right story yet.

Save it for your next, navel-gazing book, Mr. President.

And the sooner you write it, the better.

Because there’s another way to tell the story.

It’s the only way that really matters to all of us- regardless of our political persuasion.

You want money for roads and bridges and policeman and pension payments and health benefits already promised to retirees? You want money for teachers and new hospitals and wellness programs?

Then let’s try telling a story about prosperity.

For that story we’ll have to write a new chapter in the book of life; a chapter without President Barack Hussein Obama, and the new, improved massive federal government.

And the chapter will start like this:

Once upon a time there was a business that sold things to people. After a long struggle, it made money and sold more things to people; and so it hired more people to sell more things; and it made a very nice profit for Bain Capital, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, and so Wall Street and Main Street rejoiced alike.

That’s a story every president should believe in.

And never tire of telling us.

It’s a story that Obama will never understand.

John Ransom

John Ransom is the Finance Editor for Townhall Finance. You can follow him on twitter @bamransom and on Facebook: bamransom.

John Ransom

John Ransom is the Finance Editor for Townhall Finance. You can follow him on twitter @bamransom and on Facebook: bamransom.

Thou Shall Not Covet

Thou shall not covet your neighbor’s house, your neighbor’s wife, not “anything that is your neighbor’s.”

Not anything.

If talk of Biblical Commandments makes you feel uncomfortable, then let’s call them “Ten Helpful Guidelines.”

On purely secular and practical grounds, is it better or worse for a society to follow the “Helpful Guideline” to not covet?

Imagine you are in a dark alley and you are approached by a gang.  Would you feel better or worse if you knew that gang followed the Helpful Guideline to not covet your wallet?

What if it’s an “Occupy Wall Street” gang?  Coveting is the foundation of their movement.  A movement that – in a short few months of public coveting – has already racked up multiple counts of assault, rape, murder – and stealing wallets.

Which alley would you rather be in?  Which society would you rather be in?

In November, when a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters shouted at President Obama, the President took their side and shouted back:  “You’re the reason I ran for office.”

Taking the President at his word, is there any evidence – in his words, deeds or policies – of coveting?

“At a certain point you’ve made enough money.”  Says who?  The President of the United States.  He also said, “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”  In a CBS News story entitled “Obama Versus the ‘Fat Cats,’” President Obama “ratcheted up his rhetoric against Wall Street” calling them “fat cat[s]” and scolding them for not showing “‘a lot of shame’ about their behavior and outsized compensation.”  And Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign is built almost entirely on coveting – the promise to reach into the wallets of rich “Fat Cats” and take their money away.

I interviewed Economics Professor Walter E. Williams, a regular guest host on the Rush Limbaugh Show, and asked him what he thought about government playing the “Covet Card” to demonize so-called rich “Fat Cats.”  He said: “Politicians use so much demagoguery along these lines.  I’ve said to people: Bill Gates is the richest man in the world.  What can Bill Gates make me do?  Can he force me to send my kids to a school that I don’t want to send them to?  Can he force me to use 1.8 gallons to flush my toilet…what can he do?  But, by contrast [the] government…can make my life miserable.  So, when people talk about the power of the rich, and government has to protect us against the rich, that’s BS.”

When you and I covet, it’s a sin.  When government covets, it’s policy.

Government has the power to turn its covetous policies into coercive action.

Like the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform’ Act (which empowers the government to literally “occupy” Wall Street).  Its co-author Barney Frank revealed the true covetous nature of the Bill to NPR: “When it comes to Wall Street’s bottom line, yes; if we do not see some reduction in profits at some of the largest financial institutions as a result of this Bill, I’ve wasted a year.”

The central theme of President Obama’s re-election campaign is coveting.  His word for it is “fairness.”  What’s “fairness?”  According to the Ten Helpful Guidelines: it’s none of your business.  Nor is it the business of the President.

If we minded our own business, and followed the Helpful Guideline to not covet, it would not matter to us if our neighbors had more.  There would be no class warfare.  We would never descend into the covetous madness of declaring what’s “fair” between what our neighbors have and what we don’t have.  Following this one Guideline alone would end the most corrosive debate of our time: the covetous urge to take away from the “haves” and give to the “have-nots” in pursuit of some mythical fantasy of fairness in a world that has never been fair – not once, not for a second – since our Ten Helpful Guidelines were first etched into stone.

President Obama is not a stupid man.  Therefore he knows that his covet-based promise of “fairness” is an empty promise.  A manipulative ruse.  A lie.

There’s a Helpful Guideline against that, too.

Tags:                 2012 Election            ,                                    Bible             ,                                    Barack Obama            ,                                    Occupy Wall Street

Michael Prell

    Michael Prell is a writer and strategist with the Tea Party Patriots and the author of the book Underdogma: How America’s Enemies Use our Love for the Underdog to Trash American Power www.under-dogma.com

http://townhall.com/columnists/michaelprell/2012/01/30/thou_shall_not_covet/page/full/