Culture Clips - May 23, 2006

Harry Reid and the End of Liberal Thought

The highest-ranking Democrat in America, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, described the Senate bill making English the national language of the American people as "racist." And the New York Times editorial page labeled the bill "xenophobic."

Welcome to the thoughtless world of contemporary liberalism. Beginning in the 1960s, liberalism, once the home of many deep thinkers, began to substitute feeling for thought and descended into superficiality.

One-word put-downs of opponents' ideas and motives were substituted for thoughtful rebuttal. Though liberals regard themselves as intellectual -- their views, after all, are those of nearly all university professors -- liberal thought has almost died. Instead of feeling the need to thoughtfully consider an idea, most liberal minds today work on automatic. One-word reactions to most issues are the liberal norm.

This is easy to demonstrate.

Here is a list of terms liberals apply to virtually every idea or action with which they differ:
Racist
Sexist
Homophobic
Islamophobic
Imperialist
Bigoted
Intolerant

And here is the list of one-word descriptions of what liberals are for: Peace
Fairness
Tolerance
The poor
The disenfranchised
The environment

Dennis Prager

Townhall

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/dennisprager/2006/05/23/198416.html

Putting Patients in the Game

Imagine selecting your own health plan, rather than simply accepting the one your employer picks for you. Picture a plan that you own -- that follows you from job to job and place to place. Envision a plan that reflects your moral beliefs and doesn’t force you to pay for anything that violates your conscience. A pleasant daydream? For now, perhaps. But if policymakers act on the principles outlined in a major new paper from The Heritage Foundation, “Patients’ Freedom of Conscience: The Case for Values-Driven Health Plans,” it could become reality.

In short, it’s time to put the patient in charge. Heritage experts Robert Moffit, Jennifer Marshall and Grace Smith demonstrate how the current, employer-based model of health care is ill-equipped to give Americans the freedom they need to make ethical health-care choices in a world of troubling biomedical advances, from cloning embryos to genetic engineering.

Why? Because many of the decisions made about our health care remain out of our hands, made by individuals whose top priority is saving money, not lives. Not that this should surprise anyone: It’s how the system works. The government gives each American a tax break for health insurance -- but only if you get it through your job. Self-employed? Tough. Change jobs? Better hope your new employer has a good plan. And if you get any choice at all (many workers don’t), it’s probably between just two or three plans -- none of which may be right for you, and all of which may violate your ethical beliefs.

Rebecca Hagelin

Townhall

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/rebeccahagelin/2006/05/23/198410.html

Mary Cheney’s New World

Anyone still harboring doubts that we need a Federal Marriage Amendment should read what Mary Cheney has to say about it in her new book. No, you don't have to buy it. A five-minute skimming session in the bookstore is all it will take.

In a few breezy sentences, Mary Cheney confidently relegates a few thousand years of religious tradition regarding the nature of marriage to an historic footnote and curiosity. According to her, legal formalization of this traditional arrangement would abrogate freedom and be discriminatory.

Cheney effortlessly transforms traditional marriage and family from the core institution on which our free society is built into an instrument of oppression.

With little thought, she glosses over the truth that this is not about freedom but about the exchange of one source of authority for our laws and values for another. Will it be the bible or Mary Cheney's youthful passions and impulses?

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/StarParker/2006/05/22/198242.html

The Web’s Worst New Idea

Enter Net neutrality, which has so far found its only official expression in a nonbinding policy statement issued by the FCC last year. The FCC statement says, "consumers are entitled" (our emphasis) to the "content," "applications" and "devices" of their choice on the Internet. They are also "entitled to competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers."

Take a moment to pause over this expansive list of "entitlements." If we take the FCC at its word, access to online pornography is now a right, even though in a different context the FCC is increasingly preoccupied with policing "decency" standards on television. We'd have thought FCC Chairman Kevin Martin would find all that entitlement talk a little embarrassing, given his campaign for decency standards.

But at least the FCC's guidelines were just that--guidelines. Increasingly, and with the backing both of the Moveon.org crowd and "Don't Be Evil" Google, a movement is afoot to give these entitlements the force of law. Congressman Ed Markey has introduced a bill to "save the Internet" by codifying Net neutrality principles in law. The FCC would be charged with enforcing "non-discrimination" and "openness" rules.

Under a law like this--variations are floating around both houses of Congress--the country could look forward to years of litigation about the extent and nature of the rules. When the dust settled we'd have a new set of regulations that could span the range of possible activities on the Net. What's more, the rules aren't likely to stop with the phone and cable companies that have Mr. Markey and his friends at Moveon.org so exercised.

Opinion Journal

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110008391