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Thursday, April 26, 2007
Abortion; gun laws; and HOPE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s free-for-all Friday. Pick a topic:
• No taxpayer should ever, under any circumstances, agree to a tax that can be extended 15 years when two of three local governments agree. Most of the voters who elected to tax themselves and their guests for MARTA are dead and gone. Before it’s extended from 2031 to 2047, the living ought to have a say. The tax was approved by a 471-vote margin in Fulton and DeKalb 36 years ago. By the time this newest tax expires, the youngest voter who could have extended permission will be 94 years old.
• No alarm here that about one-third fewer students will qualify for HOPE because their grades don’t measure up. Somewhat tougher standards get the credit. The HOPE voucher is not yet an entitlement for breathing.
• The fight between two lobbyists after the end of this year’s General Assembly came about 2 in the morning. Ever notice how many bad things happen to people between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.? Most involve booze and bad judgment. But not to worry. The governor of Virginia, Timothy Kaine, will close the “loophole” that keeps “mentally unstable” people from buying guns, including those “mentally unstable” people who have never been committed to a mental hospital. As soon as that feat is perfected, we’ll buy the software and offer it to bartenders so they can determine which boozers are a threat to us.
• Indicators that the Depression-era generation is thinning and their debt-avoidance admonitions are departing with them: The Atlanta Braves now sell partial-season tickets on a 90-days-same-as-cash basis. Home equity loans were used to finance almost 3 percent of personal consumption, according to a government study of consumer spending between 2001 and 2005.
• U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s “War is Lost” Democrats defines, again, the difference: If there’s trouble or threat, real or brewing, in the world, put a Republican in the White House. If day care is in crisis and money is the answer, elect a Democrat.
• The Georgia State Senate, exercising its advise-and-consent authority, declines to accept Gov. Sonny Perdue’s renomination of a special interest group lobbyist to the board of the Department of Natural Resources. Said lobbyist and her soul mates are chagrined. Hmm. Should the Marlboro marketer have a designated seat on the board of the Department of Community Health? Or the road builders on the Department of Transportation board?
• I regret that any Korean or American of Korean heritage feels any explanation or apology necessary for Seung-Hui Cho.
• Now I understand why cops here work part-time jobs. It’s to pay their lawyers in the event they use their guns. Or to pay funeral expenses when they guess wrong, and don’t.
• When a union spokesman raises alarm about staffing levels, whether in schools, police departments or government agencies, the skeptical taxpayer wonders: Is this a real problem and, if so, does it require a monetary or a management fix? Too few State Patrol troopers for all-night coverage of the interstates? That’s a concern expressed by a state Fraternal Order of Police official. A problem? Not a “specific” one that various police officials can cite. Another option: Use state troopers only for interstates, round-the-clock, and ban city and county police from patrolling them.
• The insistence by liberal Democratic women that those who hold different views aren’t legitimately “women,” when deciding what “women” want is as amusing as the claim by liberal Democratic blacks that skin color confines an entire race to party and ideology. The wrath of “women” is prompted by a proposed constitutional amendment by, uh, a woman, if political correctness allows me to use that word to describe state Rep. Charlice Byrd (R-Woodstock), who is neither liberal nor Democrat. Her resolution would establish a right to life beginning at the moment of creation.
• For me, the stereotype that teen parents are irresponsible is indeed dispelled when the unmarried couple includes their child in the high school prom photos.
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Conservatives can’t be purists
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For conservatives, there’s no perfect presidential candidate. But who can be a purist? Those 5-4 decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court, with a wobbly Anthony Kennedy as the new Sandra Day O’Conner in the crap-shoot muddle, and a “the war is lost,” Democratic majority leader who gives the bad guys a sound-bite to love, stakes are clear in the 2008 presidential election. And that’s before considering the domestic ramifications of a Hillary or Obama presidency.
Influential conservatives among Catholics and evangelicals are beginning to get pragmatic about 2008, according to a Cybercast News Service account by Kevin Mooney. Those leaders “are attaching special value to electability,” he writes.
He quotes Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, as saying that “social conservatives are going into this campaign with some degree of reservation, if not trepidation. But when push comes to shove, there is a day and night difference” between leading Republican and Democratic candiates. He continues:
“The problem with the pro-life movement is that some people are purist, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re detrimental to the cause. It’s important to be principled, but it’s also important to be prudential.”
There’s no question Donohue is right. Mitt Romney’s religion or questions about his willingness to change positions, the multiple marriages of Rudy Giuliani or Newt Gingrich, or the various doubts about some aspects of the style or views of others in the field, make the Republican nomination a wide-open race.
It’s time to get practical, though. Any national Democrat capable of getting the nomination is not somebody you want leading this nation in time of war. Too, until another strict constructionist is appointed to the Supreme Court, that body is aimlessly adrift. And for those who bear the burden, higher taxes are a certainty with a Democrat in the White House.
The message comes early: The stakes are far too high in 2008 to sulk over the absence of a perfect conservative. The difference that matters is electability.
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