Conservatism

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ObamaCare is American democracy at its finest

ObamaCare is the law of the land, now and forever. Well, at least until the country goes broke and the entitlement state falters.

The Supreme Court’s second upholding of President Obama’s health care law was as comical as it was predictable. Conservatives fumed over Chief Justice John Roberts’ dereliction of duty. Liberals basked in the victory, with the president proclaiming, “The Affordable Care Act still stands, it is working, and it is here to stay.”

And stay it will. The left already knows it. King vs. Burwell marks a huge victory in the march for progress. Many on the right are still unwilling to accept the loss, and can’t wrap their heads around the fact that the highest court in the land just effectively changed a law’s wording, thus legislating from the bench, instead of judging the law as it was. Such a maneuver represents a complete abandonment of the American conception of rule of law. For those who believe law should be strict and straight-forward, this was a devastating blow.

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D.C. cyclists are the worst

The 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta has got me thinking a lot about our society’s interconnectedness. There is a great scene in Jerome K. Jerome’s comedy tale Three Men in a Boat where the weary boating men come across the riverbank where King John, surrounded by indignant bishops and barons, was forced to grant Englishmen their God-given liberties. That one moment can be traced to today, and all the arguments we Americans have over keeping our country intact.

Here in Washington D.C., the ancient lineage upon which our country was founded is practically forgotten. The typical American no longer sees himself as a part of unfolding history. Instead, thanks to liberalism, he is a hyper-autonomous individual who works for himself and no one else.

This point is best illustrated by a recent article in Washington City Paper. The topic is bicycling, a favorite activity among the yuppy, progressive D.C. denizens. With total obliviousness, author Will Sommer asks, “Riding a Bike on the Sidewalk Makes Sense. Why the Hate?” Sommer is dismayed at the anti-bicycle attitude so prevalent in the city. He’s also perturbed that a police officer once stopped him for the crime of riding his bike on a sidewalk. To him, non-cyclists don’t get it. Even though it’s illegal to bike down the sidewalk in some parts of the city, Sommer is undeterred. “I still bike on the sidewalk…because riding on the sidewalk has its place everywhere in the city,” he asserts.

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Rachel Dolezal is a victim, but not a black one

The tragic murder of nine black Americans in a church in Charleston, South Carolina has taken the wind out of the controversy surrounding the borrowed identity of Rachel Dolezal. The fire isn’t out completely. But national attention is slowly being diverted away from Dolezal, and back to matters of importance.

This is good because the less attention given to Dolezal, the better. Rather than slink away after being exposed as a fraud, the woman who spent decades pretending to be black has gone on national television to defend her charade. She refuses to believe that just because she was born to a white family in Montana, she can’t just up and switch races. Her intransigence speaks to the larger issue of what we mean when we say “race” and what it means to be black in America.

Conservatives have a point in all this hubbub: if race is a pure social construct with no biological foundation, Dolezal should unquestionably be able to claim the mantle of blackness. Anyone who challengers her is a bigot, ignorant of basic social science. Thus, Dolezal might have been born to a white family and grew up white, but can still identify as black without the fear of being unaccepted. That’s the logical conclusion of the “race is not biology” meme.

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Chris Cillizza is wrong: the rampant infidelity of the political class matters

Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post’s “The Fix” tries really, really hard to be a nice guy.

A ham on Twitter, Cillizza does what many journalists can’t do: he pokes fun at politics while also taking it far too seriously. For one, he despises the Netflix series “House of Cards.” As a journalist, he hates the idea that Washington is run by a bunch of overpaid narcissists driven by “self interest, money, power or some combination of all three.” He believes there are plenty of good people in D.C. who work in the shadows, running the country while glory hogs take all the credit. That’s a cute notion, but totally detached from the disease-filled swamp that is the nation’s capital.

Cillizza isn’t just blind to the depravity that exists in and around Washington, he’s an active apologist for the worst kind of behavior. Recently, Mississippi senator Thad Cochran announced his marriage to his long-time aide Kay Webber. The two were rumored to be in a relationship last election cycle, as Cochran fought off a primary challenge from State Senator Chris McDaniel. During the race, a McDaniel supporter snuck into a retirement home to snap a picture of Cochran’s then-bedridden wife, Rose Cochran. The would-be photographer and amateur gossip hound wanted to prove that Sen. Cochran was involved with his aide while his wife suffered from progressive dementia. The late Mrs. Cochran had been living in the home since 2000.

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Ireland first, with the United States not far behind

Thanks for nothing, Ireland. Your people are the first in the West to approve of same-sex marriage through the ballot box. And with it, you’ve continued the social revolution – I don’t mince words when I say “revolution” – that is surely to be affirmed by the United States Supreme Court this summer.

American social conservatives may balk, but their time is limited. Liberalism has won the culture war. The proof is overwhelming. A recent Gallup poll showed that for the first time in decades, more Americans identify as socially liberal than conservative. Big Business is now firmly on the side of pro-gay marriage. In the recent uproar over Indiana’s religious freedom law (which was subsequently watered down to the point of being ineffective), few national Republicans supported Governor Mike Pence. The one political party that’s supposed to protect religious liberty was too cowed by public perception.

Barring an extraordinary event like World War III, the Supreme Court will end all state bans on same-sex marriage this June. Only naïve simpletons living under a rock still believe the high court will defer to states on marriage. Our robed overlords will somehow find the right to gay nuptials in the Constitution. And just like that, America will take yet another turn away from its generic Christian cultural background and one step forward to egalitarian enlightenment. Liberals will rejoice. Conservatives will recoil as an institution two millennia old has been turned into a contractual love fest in the span of only 7 – yes, 7! – years.

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Mad Men was a depraved and decadent show that gave us an incredible portrayal of humanity

The AMC television series “Mad Men” came to a close this past Sunday. After eight years, the critically-acclaimed show culminated in a dreamy reairing of Coca-Cola’s famous “Buy the World a Coke” ad from 1971. Critics panned it, but I saw the scene as a fitting end for a show about America’s cultural declivity into the hell of moral relativism. In its prime, the sentiment of the sing-songy Coke ad was nice, but the idealism of the post-1960s was too infantile to work, as we now know four decades later.

Within the show’s context, the ad didn’t represent world peace. Rather, it was one of the resolutions sought by the show’s main characters. It was the end product of protagonist Don Draper’s journey to the pits of sorrow and back. To use the cliché phrase, it also represented the End of an Era (the show’s timeline spanned from 1960 to 1970). Though the series finale was ambiguous and not entirely conclusive, “Mad Men” as a show contained some of the hardest lessons learned in life. In between the drinking, impropriety, womanizing, scams, backstabbing, and licentiousness, there were acute moments of actual humanity.

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