Tag: Democracy

Class Warfare, An American Tradition

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We are no more partisan today than we were at the nation’s founding.

by Bruce S. Thornton // Defining Ideas 

Are we more “polarized” and “partisan” than we were in the past? Political commentators think so. In a recentAtlantic profile, conservative pollster Frank Luntz attributed his cynicism about American politics to the unprecedented polarization of the American people he has seen in his recent work with focus groups. They are “contentious and argumentative,” don’t “listen to each other as they once had,” and are not “interested in hearing other points of view.” The fault lies in Washington, where the people are “picking up their leads.” Continue reading “Class Warfare, An American Tradition” →

The Inequality Smokescreen

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by Bruce S. Thornton // FrontPage Magazine 

Desperate for a diversion from the disasters of Obamacare, the president has conjured up the old leftist “income inequality” cliché. His court-pundits complain that “the richest nation on earth is starting to resemble a banana republic,” according toThe New Republic, while Berkeley Professor Robert Reich has thundered against “casino capitalism,” blaming it for “the greatest concentration of the nation’s income and wealth at the very top since the Gilded Age of the nineteenth century, with the richest 400 Americans owning as much as the bottom 150 million put together.” Continue reading “The Inequality Smokescreen” →

Nuclear Gangbangers

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Hostile countries with nuclear capabilities have the upper hand on the global police.

by Victor Davis Hanson // National Review Online 

The gangster state of North Korea became a nuclear power in 2006–07, despite lots of foreign aid aimed at precluding just such proliferation — help usually not otherwise accorded such a loony dictatorship. Apparently the civilized world rightly suspected that, if nuclear, Pyongyang would either export nuclear481px-Trident_C4_first_launch material and expertise to other unstable countries, or bully its successful but non-nuclear neighbors — or both.

The United States has given billions of dollars in foreign aid to Pakistan, whose Islamist gangs have spearheaded radical anti-American terrorism. Ever since a corrupt Pakistan went nuclear in 1998, it has been able to extort such foreign-aid payouts — on fears that one of its nukes might end up in the hands of terrorists.

By any measure of economic success or political stability, without nuclear weapons Pakistan would not warrant either the cash or the attention it wins.

An observant Iran appreciates three laws of current nuclear gangbanging:

1. Nuclear weapons earn a reputation.

2. The more loco a nuclear nation sounds, the more likely it is that civilized states will fear that it is not subject to nuclear deterrence, and so the more likely that they will pay bribes for it to behave. Gangbangers always claim they have nothing to lose; their more responsible intended targets have everything to lose.

3. As of yet there are no 100 percent effective nuclear-defense systems that can guarantee non-nuclear powers absolute safety from a sudden attack. The nuclear gangbanger, not the global police, currently has Continue reading “Nuclear Gangbangers” →

Vote for Me Or Else: Patterns between Egypt and Pakistan

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by Raymond Ibrahim // Gatestone Institute 

In what seems to be a pattern in many Muslim nations of finding new pretexts to justify anti-Christian—and “anti-Other”—behavior, Egypt’s Christians and their churches are under attack, ostensibly because Christians joined the June 30 Revolution, which led to the ouster of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Lesser known is that, even before the revolution back during the 2012 presidential elections, Christians were often threatened and sometimes attacked simply for not voting for the Muslim Brotherhood—an absurd expectation considering that it has long been the Brotherhood and its many Islamist/jihadi offshoots that have terrorized Egypt’s Christians for decades. Continue reading “Vote for Me Or Else: Patterns between Egypt and Pakistan” →

Democracy’s Dog Days

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by Victor Davis Hanson // PJ Media

We all want democracy to thrive and flourish, but can it?

The Obama administration was quite pleased that the anti-democratic Mohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood had come to power through a single plebiscite. That confidence required a great deal of moral blindness, both of the present and past. Continue reading “Democracy’s Dog Days” →

Lies Subvert Demovracy

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Obama and his team have subverted the government they pledged to serve.

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

Truth is the lifeblood of democracy. Without honesty, the foundations of consensual government crumble. Continue reading “Lies Subvert Demovracy” →

Hope for Change in Syria

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Once again, Obama has proven more of an idealist than an implementer.

by Victor Davis Hanson

National Review Online

Remember when President Obama used to warn Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to stop his mass killing and step down? Continue reading “Hope for Change in Syria” →

Where Does Republican Foreign Policy Go From Here?

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by Bruce S. Thornton

FrontPage

The GOP’s continuing analysis of last November’s debacle has now sparked a debate about foreign policy. Continue reading “Where Does Republican Foreign Policy Go From Here?” →

Democracy Promotion or Islamist Promotion?

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by Bruce Thronton

Frontpage Magazine

The hope that democracy would bloom in Egypt following our collusion in removing Hosni Mubarak looks more and more delusional every day. Even our foreign policy wishful thinkers are no longer peddling the canard that the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood is “secular” and “moderate,” thus proving that Muslims devoted to the global expansion of Islam and illiberal Sharia law can be liberal democrats friendly to our interests. But despite being mugged by the Islamist reality, too many democracy promoters in the West still refuse to acknowledge that the Iranian Revolution, not the American Revolution, is the likely model for the so-called “Arab Spring.” Continue reading “Democracy Promotion or Islamist Promotion?” →

Explaining the Democrats’ Success

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by Bruce Thornton

Frontpage Magazine

The election postmortem has identified all manner of causes for the Republicans’ defeat, from the “woman problem” and the “Hispanic problem,” as Peggy Noonan put it, to Romney’s fatcat persona and his inept campaign. But there’s a simpler reason, one consistent with the critics of democracy starting in ancient Athens — Obama and the Democrats promised voters more free stuff. Continue reading “Explaining the Democrats’ Success” →