Category Archives: morality

A Mistake

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Would a partitioned Iraq be a better pawn for Iran?  Or would a freed-up, independent Iraqi Kurdistan serve as a buffer to mitigate Iranian influence in the area—and an impediment to an Iranian road to Damascus and on to Latakia and Tartus on the Mediterranean Sea?  And an impediment to that road, passing as it would, right by Israel via Hezbollah?

An Iraq weakened by the partition would be easy prey for Iran?  No, that’s a wash for the weakened Iraq that’s already in Iranian sway, via all those Shiite “militias” that are funded and armed by Iran’s terror support organ, the Iranian Republican Guards Corps.

Recall two things: one is the Peshmerga and their courage and battlefield skill and tenacity in rescuing Yazidis from a mountain “island” during the initial Daesh barbarians’ rout of the Iraqi “army,” in stopping the barbarians’ rush east into Kurdish Iraq, in helping clear Mosul, and other events and campaigns.

The other thing is that all of this was done without support from Baghdad, done even with active Baghdad obstruction of US arms going to the Kurds so they could better fight the Daesh, who already were armed with American heavy weapons, courtesy of the Iraqi “army” which had abandoned all of that as they abandoned their duty and ran south before the Daesh, like grains of sand on a desert wind.

Now President Donald Trump is professing American neutrality as Baghdad, supported by Iranian forces (those “militia”) and Iranian weapons, moves into territories liberated by the Kurds from the Daesh and seeks to subjugate the Kurds, once again, to Baghdad’s diktat.

We don’t like the fact that they’re clashing.  …  We’re not taking sides.

And: what is the stability in the region before Iran’s advances with Iraq riven by civil war rather than stabilized by a settled Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan?

Where would an Iraqi Kurdistan, or even a subjugated Kurdish region, be regarding its policy toward the US were we to betray them in the present situation, as we betrayed them after the first Gulf War, implying they should revolt against a surviving Saddam Hussein government only to stand by while he gassed them into submission?

And there’s this bit from a Wall Street Journal editorial:

A central tenet of the Trump foreign policy, a work in progress, has been that the US would rebuild its relationship with America’s allies.

Who are the Kurds, if not an American ally?  Who are the Kurds, if not one of the staunchest allies we’ve had?

One More Reason

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…for charter and voucher schools, this time provided by the Biloxi (public) School District.  They’ve banned Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird from its 8th grade classrooms.  Why?

…some of the book’s language “makes people uncomfortable.”

Never mind that proper education must make people uncomfortable because it challenges their preconceived notions, it makes them think, it makes them think for themselves.  It even confronts students with uncomfortable aspects of our history, like Atticus Finch explaining to his daughter, Scout, the term “nigger-lover.”  Or Tom Robinson referring to himself, ironically, as a nigger.

No, we have to raise precious little snowflakes unable to take care of themselves in adulthood.

Never mind, either, that the Web site associated with the district says that

To Kill A Mockingbird teaches students that compassion and empathy don’t depend upon race or education.

Instead, the school has ducked the question:

School board Vice President Kenny Holloway says other books can teach the same lessons.

No, very few do, and those that do don’t do it nearly as well.

Protests

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Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says that NFL players should voice their concerns about racial injustice without “alienating” people.

Whatever the players were trying to do in drawing attention to these issues, it’s gone another way now in that people have stopped listening to each other.

Indeed, the players’ “protest” could go no other way since their path centered on attacking our nation’s flag and anthem and insulting those who fought for what these symbolize.

The best form of protest against racial injustice, or any other form of injustice, is to succeed, loudly and publicly, despite the bigotry.  Like folks like Condoleezza Rice; Muhammad Ali; Martin Luther King, Jr; Jackie Robinson; and a potful of others, including old, dead guys like Martin Luther, Galileo, et al., have done.

The second best form of protest is to protest the injustice itself rather than going off message to protest via something else in an effort to cutesify the message.

Progressive-Democrats and Harvey Weinstein

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I’m not going to comment on Weinstein’s guilt or innocence—after all, all we know is what the press has chosen to publish on that particular: women’s accusations and other Weinstein associates’ professions ignorance of his behavior (while lately claiming to be appalled after the Left disputed their ignorance).  I’m a throwback—innocent until proven guilty at trial, not guilt by woman’s accusation.

What interests me in this case is the status of Weinstein’s donations to Progressive-Democrat candidates for office.

Some have kept the money and are staying quiet about it: the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial and Congressional Campaign Committees, and Hillary Clinton, for instance.  Some have returned the money to Weinstein or to his donating organization and chosen not to wallow in their martyrdom about it.

However, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D, NY), Senator Elizabeth Warren (D, MA), Senator Cory Booker (D, NJ), Senator Al Franken (D, MN), Senator Martin Heinrich (D, MN), Richard Blumenthal (D, CT), and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D, NY) have chosen to give money equivalent to the donation amounts they received from Weinstein to charity.

Notice that: they’re not returning the money.  No, they’re touting their alleged generosity in this scandal by making tax deductible donations with this tainted money.  They’re pocketing some of that Weinstein money and making us pay, with our tax money, for the “donations.”

Hmm….

Health Plan Coverage and Contraception

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The Wall Street Journal has noted that the Trump administration has taken regulatory action to reduce, if not eliminate (the Supreme Court still has to do its job vis-à-vis a Little Sisters of the Poor case, as does Congress legislatively, contra a short handful of Republicans who prefer Obamacare intact over any step toward getting rid of it), the requirement that health plan providers provide contraception to women at no cost to those women coverees and do so regardless of any question of conscience or religious tenet.

Naturally, Progressive-Democrats and the Left generally have their collective panties in a wedgie over that.  However, they carefully ignore certain inconvenient facts.

One inconvenience is the actual cost of contraception—to the user, not the rest of us who must pay for these “free” items.  Contraceptive pills can be had at places like Walmart for $9/mo, vaginal contraceptives are cheaper, condoms (don’t men have a role here, too?) are $6.50 the dozen.  These are not prices that will shatter anyone’s piggy bank.

Contraceptives are used to treat medical conditions, and they can be terribly expensive?  That’s the other inconvenience.  No they aren’t; those aren’t contraceptives.  They’re medications used for treating a medical condition; they happen to have a (if not the) major side effect of being anti-conceiving.  Insurance plans already covered such meds, and Obamacare could have, too, but the Progressive-Democratic Party eschewed that when they rammed through Obamacare.

In the end, there’s no reason anyone should pay for contraceptives other than the users.  Full stop.