Constitutional issues

Constitutional issues

Deciding Abortion

The key questions.

By Daniel Oliver

National Review

May 2nd 2005

 

The pro-abortion and anti-abortion forces are warships passing in the night. Their slogans, “pro-choice” and “pro-life,” don’t engage the central issue that divides them, which is, what actually happens in an abortion. Neither group really disagrees with the other’s slogan. None of the opponents of abortion would object to a woman’s choosing to do what she wanted with a tumor or some other unwanted tissue growing on or in her body. On … Read more

Conservatism and Civil Rights

By Daniel Oliver

Claremont Review of Books

Fall 2008 issue

As I read William Voegeli’s piece on William F. Buckley, Jr., and the civil rights movement, I thought, “Come on, Voegeli, make up your mind. Was Buckley right or wrong?” I concluded that Voegeli’s answer would be, “Yes.” Then I decided that, given the record, Buckley and the conservatives probably got a more balanced treatment from Voegeli than they would, and perhaps will, get from a lot of people.

No responsible person can regret … Read more

What’s Your Metric?

How do you measure freedom?

By Daniel Oliver

The American Spectator

September 2009

How do you watch freedom?  How do you watch it grow? How do you watch it shrink? What’s the metric? What’s your metric? What do you think the metrics of your fellow citizens are? If you have no idea what their metric is, how do you talk to them about freedom with any sense of urgency?

Milton Friedman’s metric was the percentage of GDP spent by government.

Friedman said we could … Read more

Lash and Chain Morality

The last refuge of a self-regarding socialist — and the only argument left to the Obamacare crowd.

By Daniel Oliver

The American Spectator

March 10th 2010

David Ignatius writes in the Washington Post that President Obama should try to shift the health care argument to what Ignatius calls the high ground: morality. He says that what is lacking is the sense that Congress must act because health care for all is a matter of social justice, “required by our moral conscience.”

Ignatius cites the … Read more

Alphaomegaizing the Conservative Movement

By Daniel Oliver

The American Spectator

June 2010 issue

“For one thing, we learned that the modern conservative movement, which dominates the modern Republican Party, has the emotional maturity of a bratty 13-year-old.”
– Paul Krugman, New York Times, Oct. 4, 2009

“The ‘movement’ — that began 50 years ago with the founding of Bill Buckley’s National Review; that had its coming of age in the Reagan Years; that reached its zenith with Bush’s victory in 2000 — is falling apart at the seams.”… Read more

Rand Paul and Halitosis

What he said and didn’t say to Ms. Rachel Maddow.

By Daniel Oliver

The American Spectator

July 12th 2010

Now, while the body of Senator (and former Exalted Cyclops) Robert Byrd (KKK, WVA) is still as warm as a smoldering cross on a black family’s lawn, and the memory of his record-length service in the U.S. Congress as fresh as a clean white sheet on a Grand Imperial Wizard — now is a good time to take a cold look at the comments on … Read more

Corn vs. Coronary Bypass Surgery

All you can eat, according to the Obama socialist in residence, Dr. Ronald Werrbick, MD.

By Daniel Oliver

The American Spectator

July 28th 2010

It is argued here and there that President Obama is not a socialist. But with the incredible recess appointment last week of Dr. Ronald Werrbick to head the newly created American Center for All-American Food Excellence (“American CAFÉ”), the charge of socialism is becoming difficult to refute. Dr. Werrbick will direct an agency that oversees all food production and distribution … Read more

Reading the Constitution

Focusing the nation’s attention on some astounding facts.

By Daniel Oliver

The American Spectator

January 12th 2011

The formal reading of the Constitution in the House of Representatives is one of those events that bring a knowing smile to the face of sophisticated liberals, the sort of people who curl up next to an eco-friendly fire on Sunday morning with their hard-copy New York Times Book Review while their partner reads the New York Review of Books and most Americans are taking their children … Read more

All That Gold

Mountains and mountains of federal regulations wait to be attacked by Republican politicians as they move to save American from financial ruin.

By Daniel Oliver

The American Spectator

January 24th 2011

As Republican politicians look frantically for ways to solve the country’s financial problems, they should not overlook the mountain of gold towering before them. That mountain is the accumulation of federal regulations that now occupies more than 82,000 pages in the Federal Register.

No one knows for sure what the cost of all … Read more

Intelligent Design

By Daniel Oliver

The Claremont Review of Books

Summer 2012 issue

If William F. Buckley, Jr., was the light shining from the lighthouse of the conservative movement, William A. Rusher was the lighthouse. If Buckley designed the lighthouse, Rusher built it. If Buckley was the “conservative,” Rusher was the “movement.” And move he did. As political scientist David Frisk shows in his biography, If Not Us, Who?, Rusher moved as much as Buckley, and that’s moving. Rusher was less frenetic, but more focused. He … Read more