Labor Day Snippets

"Adam Smith [once] said, 'Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.' That lesson seems to have been forgotten in America ... where so many people seem to have been far more concerned about whether we have been nice enough to the mass-murdering terrorists in our custody than those critics have ever been about the innocent people beheaded or blown up by the terrorists themselves. ... Those who are pushing for legal action against CIA agents may talk about 'upholding the law' but they are doing no such thing. Neither the Constitution of the United States nor the Geneva Convention gives rights to terrorists who operate outside the law. ... So many 'rights' have been conjured up out of thin air that many people seem unaware that rights and obligations derive from explicit laws, not from politically correct pieties. If you don't meet the terms of the Geneva Convention, then the Geneva Convention doesn't protect you. If you are not an American citizen, then the rights guaranteed to American citizens do not apply to you. That should be especially obvious if you are part of an international network bent on killing Americans. But bending over backward to be nice to our enemies is one of the many self-indulgences of those who engage in moral preening. But getting other people killed so that you can feel puffed up about yourself is profoundly immoral. So is betraying the country you took an oath to protect." --economist Thomas Sowell

"Obama's advisors think the answer to every problem is more cowbell, if by 'cowbell' you mean 'Obama.' It's like Obama guru David Axelrod is the Christopher Walken character from the 'Saturday Night Live' skit about Blue Oyster Cult (if you don't know the reference, Google 'cowbell'). Every time someone comes up with an alternative to throwing Obama on TV, Axelrod says, 'No, no, no. Guess what? I got a fever, and the only prescription ... is more Obama!' ... But what is lacking is not cowbell, it's substance the American people can support. Obama will reportedly be 'more specific,' but he won't commit himself to any particular piece of legislation. This suggests that the White House still thinks it has a communication problem, and if only it dispels the cloud of 'lies' belched up by the opposition, there will be nothing but blue skies ahead. Funny how the people who run the most sophisticated communication operation in the history of the presidency keep concluding that their difficulties stem from their inability to get their message out and never from what their message actually is. And so, rather than change the substance of the message, they're grabbing an even bigger megaphone: an address to a joint session of Congress. ... Just seven months into Obama's presidency, the White House is turning up the speakers on the cowbell as loud as they will go. And, heck, if you love cowbell, it's going to be a real treat. But in all the ways that matter, it may just end up being more noise." --columnist Jonah Goldberg

I think this last one is so true. I am so tired of hearing the left, Howard Dean in particular, blame any opposition to Obama policies on right-wing organized groups, people responding to myths/lies about policies and basically people just not knowing what is really good for themselves. Maybe people disagree with Obama's agenda for one very simple reason - it isn't good for them or this country. What is so hard to understand about that? Simply amplifying a wrong message doesn't get us anywhere. Go back to the drawing board.