The American Spectator

Hmmm. Does that include the construction and “waste management” industries in Northern New Jersey and the New York metro area? Just wondering.
— Chuck

PAYING FOR CALM
Re: Stacy Cline’s Money Business:

“Throughout the less-developed world there are similar payoffs. That this is hot news for the Obama foreign policy establishment shows its naïveté.”

Democrats naive? I thought they invented the age-old practice of zagat, aka extortion. Why would they be surprised to see our forces in Afghanistan paying zagat to protect infrastructure?

Maybe it’s just the intellectuals in the State Department who are confused. Here is a quick lesson for them.

Imagine a Democratic senator from a far-away land who, for some inexplicable reason, is forced from his seat of power. We don’t have to use our imagination, let’s use Tom Daschle.

Though forced from power, he is still armed with knowledge and influence that can be exploited for profit. Enter Alston & Bird. These guys know who is vulnerable and operating in unfamiliar terrain. Alston & Bird gently persuades them to pay large fees to have their emissary broker protection. Insurance outfit United Health is roughly analogous to our armed forces paying for calm. Zagat!
— Dan Martin
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvnia

Ms. Cline in her humorous allusion, “Government can give, and it can also take away,” offers greater truth than the collective of The One’s rhetorical greatest hits. Of course, Ms. Cline is ironically replacing the term Lord with that of government, but in many minds, including explicit denial of God by the Left, government has sincerely replaced God.

When the absolutes of God are replaced with the relativistic morality and situational ethics of government, man can (and does) make up the rules as he goes along. Abortion, no matter what trimester, is no longer a question of morality but of unfettered rights (and none of those pesky responsibilities). When the kleptocracratic government chooses to run up huge deficits and spend money to buy off the populace, consideration of the rights of present or future citizens need not be given: the administration needs to be kept in power, and buying votes is simply the way things are done. (Many a Caesar spent opulently on bread and circuses; they believed they were accountable to neither man nor God.) Decisions by the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (“Death Panels”) as to what is “best” for the elderly who are no longer productive enough, become acceptable with simple (if not despicable) logic: “Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious discrimination; every person lives through different life stages rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25 years.” The are not the words of just any man on the street, but a doctor, and not just any doctor, but Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, President Obama’s choice for Health Care Czar. As long as man’s wisdom supersedes God’s word, the outcome will be disastrous.

Certainly the Left is guilty of marginalizing and denying God, but the Right is not without fault. As Ms. Cline points out, “Where there is gain to be had, people will find a way to gain it.” The problem with capitalism is the capitalists who cannot see anything but gain and loss. The cause of capitalism gained greatly by the words of Ayn Rand and her Objectivism, but Rand purposely denies a higher power and higher calling. When government (as an entity) acts in its own self-interest, putting aside all God given morality and responsibilities, the people become servants to the state. By what reason or moral does one rail against government if it serves one’s personal interests? Without God, the answer is silence. Capitalism, unchecked and unbalanced by a higher purpose, is also a danger to our forming a more perfect union.

Taking a teleological view, man is best served when we pay unto Caesar that which is his and also pay unto God His portion.
— I.M. Kessel

P.J. O’Rourke said it best:

“As long as buying and selling are controlled by law, the first things bought and sold will be the lawmakers.”
— Martin Owens
Sacramento, California

OLD PRODUCT, NEW PACKAGE
Re: Quin Hillyer’s Alabama Byrne-ing:

We now know how Mr. Byrne stands on education. Where does he stand on other issues? Right to life? Cutting taxes? The Second Amendment?