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Human rights

• 07.22.08
  Bill Clinton’s conspicuous absence
  Clinton scandals, Human rights (0)

  The lead story in the pulp (paper) edition of today's WSJ is "Kazakhstan Corruption: Exile alleges new details." It's an amazing story. No, the corruption itself isn't amazing. What's amazing is that two WSJ reporters wrote all those words without once mentioning Bill Clinton. They mention Frank Giustra the Canadian businessman who is buddy to both Bill Clinton and to President Nazarbayev. They mention Nazarbayev, of course. He is the one whom his former son-in-law ratted on for the WSJ. But nothing was said about Clinton's controversial appearance with Nazarbayev in September 2005. The ...
  
  
• 07.05.08
  Unsafe Fourth
  Human rights (0)

  Before GWB, conservatives liked to quote Benjamin Franklin: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." More recently their tune has changed. Now, the only deciding factor on whether to enact warrantless wiretaps is whether they will make us safer. Whether they will make us freer is not discussed. Conservatives defend the right to gas-hogging SUVs for the sake of safety, never mind that they aren't so safe for soldiers who have to go overseas to defend our oil supplies. Once upon a time the Fourth of July was ...
  
  
• 04.01.08
  Pressures for change
  Human rights (0)

  "The Olympics will only intensify the 'pressures for change,'" they said. Matthew Continetti at The Weekly Standard ("Gold Medal in Tyranny") recounts this and all the other rationalizations as to why it was good that China would host the Olympics. And he points out how the results have been just the opposite of what was predicted. I think it could have worked out the way the apologists wanted. The trouble is, there too many people are so eager to make money dealing with China that they are willing to overlook or even cooperate in repression. It's to ...
  
  
• 02.09.08
  The Stasi and tax rates
  Clinton scandals, Human rights, Limits on government power (0)

  Wired magazine tells about a $30 million project to piece together a billion pieces of paper records that were torn up by the East German Stasi, but which they hadn't gotten around to destroying. And the destroyed records amount to only about five percent of its files: the agency had generated perhaps more paper than any other bureaucracy in history — possibly a billion pages of surveillance records, informant accounting, reports on espionage, analyses of foreign press, personnel records, and useless minutiae. There's a record for every time anyone drove across the border. The main reason we need lower ...
  
  
• 02.08.08
  Real ID and health care
  Health care reform, Human rights (0)

  The real problem with nationalized health care is not that it will decrease the quality of health care and raise costs, though it will do that, judging by how it has worked everywhere it has been tried. But some people are willing to accept that, in exchange for the benefits. No, the real problem is the threat to civil liberties. Here is an example of how it makes a tempting kudgel for the government to use to keep people in line: WHEN THE Department of Homeland Security came out with the final REAL ID regulations last month, a top ...
  
  
• 02.07.08
  Don’t think about Ezra Levant
  Bash the Messenger, First Amendment, Human rights (0)

  An article by Lee Harris in The Weekly Standard got me to checking for the latest news on the Ezra Levant case in Canada. Ezra Levant has a blog which he tells us is getting a lot of hits: in the past month, I've had 152,000 "unique visitors" of whom 49,000 are "returning visitors". According to Haloscan.com, I've had more than 1,500 comments. And then there's the YouTube videos, 471,000 views amongst them." (That happens to be more hits than this blog gets.) And a liberal MP (Keith Martin) has submitted a motion to remove the section of the Human Rights Code that allows the ...
  
  
• 02.01.08
  The Sacrament of Abortion
  Brave New World, Human rights (0)

  Since at least as far back as 1999 I've been referring to abortion as the Holy Sacrament of the Left. (I got this idea from watching the Senate Judiciary Committee, among other things.) For the Clintons, as for the rest of their party, keeping abortion legal supersedes all else: The Bill of Rights, our national security, all considerations of honor and truth, the safety of our children -- everything. Everything else is subordinated to the great and bloody sacrament of the left: killing fetuses. I even predicated that there would soon be ...
  
  
• 01.20.08
  Ezra Levant, a hero for our time
  First Amendment, Human rights (0)

  If we stop short of the totalitarian abyss, it will be thanks to the courage and eloquence of people like Ezra Levant. I got the following YouTube links from In The Agora . It's the entry titled "Nothing Short of Incredible" by Joshua Clayborn. Levant takes on the speech police in the misnamed Alberta Human Rights Commission. (I've only watched the first two so far.) Part I: Opening Statement Part II: What was your intent? Part III: The real violence in Edmonton Part IV: I don't answer to the state Part V: "You're entitled to your opinions" Part VI: Attributes ...
  
  
• 11.20.07
  Freedom vs prosperity
  Free markets, Human rights (0)

  What if freedom and prosperity don't go together? Here is a paragraph from The China Mode, by Rowan Callick, at The American In the May/June edition of the american, Kevin Hassett, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, explained that evidence is emerging that developing “countries that are economically and politically free are underperforming the countries that are economically but not politically free.” China, of course, is in the lead of the economically free but politically unfree nations. Hassett wrote, “The unfree governments now understand that they have to provide a good economy to keep citizens ...
  
  
• 11.07.07
  Clyburn advocates thought control
  First Amendment, Human rights (0)

  In case anyone ever doubted, this is not about non-discrimination in the workplace. It's about thought control. It's not even enough for the government to regulate your speech. They want to regulate your thinking, too.  Rep. Clyburn says as much.   He wants to regulate sentiments, not just words and actions. Backers of the House bill proclaimed it a major civil rights advance for gays. "Bigotry and homophobia are sentiments that should never be allowed to permeate the American workplace," said House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C. House passes job bias ban against ...
  
  

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