National Review Online’s Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnoru examine the roots of American exceptionalism and big government’s threats to the “American character.” ”The Obama Administration’s Assault on American Identity” is a robust beginning and a powerful defense of today’s conservatives (classical liberals) as bulwark against the corrosive effects of today’s liberalism (classic socialism).

Other contributors join the debate. John O’Sullivan is wracked by unease about hiding behind visions of American exceptionalism to brush off concerns about the debilitating effects of big government. O’Sullivan worries that appeals to American exceptionalism lead to a false sense of invincibility and an isolationism premised on a cultural “Fortress America” that is particularly attractive to conservatives. But “It can’t happen here,” is disproved by history. O’Sullivan gently chides Lowry and Ponnoru for omitting the danger from such complacency:

“But one aspect of it, though mentioned, is somewhat underplayed by Lowry and Ponnuru, maybe because it is an aspect of Anglospheric rather than narrowly American exceptionalism. The political and economic orthodoxy of the Anglosphere — sound finance, property rights, the rule of law, free trade and free capital movement — has been the dominant global orthodoxy for more than two hundred years. Twenty years ago this orthodoxy looked likely to be dominant for another two centuries. But it is now seriously challenged by a very different tradition associated with Colbertian France and Wilhelmine Germany: state direction, economic and trade regulation, capital controls, protectionism, industrial cartels, etc. These ideas are highly appealing, for rather obvious reasons, both to undemocratic governments and to international organizations. And their threat to the freedoms of the Anglo-American tradition will not stop at the water’s edge when national sovereignty is also under attack.”

The danger comes from Obamism. The tea party movement is a healthy reaction of the body politic against this statist virus, but it remains to be seen whether or not it is enough to inoculate the more passive elements of American society against the draw of the plantation mentality of elitist American leftism that promises to take care of the slaves as long as they, in turn, work for the master and don’t get uppity. Obamism, after all, is simply the latest ideological manifestation of Progressivism, whose theorists were also honorees in the pantheons of socialism and fascism, as Jonah Goldberg has so convincingly demonstrated in Liberal Fascism. Progressivism, socialism, and fascism transcend national boundaries, and, like other malevolent and harmful agents, they do not stop at this nation’s shores, as Obamism has made abundantly clear.

James Bennett adds thoughts about the lost personal liberties as other citizens of the Anglosphere allowed themselves to be trapped in the tentacles of Leviathan. Britons now living in a condition where they are frightened to defend themselves from personal attack or to speak up against violent and separatist subgroups within their society lest they be subjected to the full force of ever-more intrusive and oppressive laws, not long ago carried handguns at least as casually as Americans do now.

If this sounds rather Steynian, it is. Like John O’Sullivan, Steyn cautions that the bravado of some conservatives that big government-induced decline cannot happen in the United States is meritless when one examines comparative political systems in the Anglosphere that, after all, shares historical roots with the U.S. Steyn mentions Canada and Scotland, two once-self-reliant cultures brought down by the nanny state. Adding his trademark humor, Steyn avers that the history of Canada post-World War II is neatly portrayed in Monty Python’s “Lumberjack Song.”

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected the latest attemptby the frustrated litigant, the atheist Michael Newdow, to rid schools of the Pledge of Allegiance that contains “under God,” words so terrible in Newdow’s mind that merely to hear others recite them wreaks havoc with little children. The opinion was 2-1, including a dissent, as was almost predictable, by Stephen Reinhardt. Reinhardt is the oft-reversed guy in the oft-reversed Ninth Circuit whose strategy in constitutional cases is to push far-out liberal positions under the theory that “they [the Supreme Court] can’t catch them all.” [Here is the opinion.]

The court decided that the Pledge is not a religious exercise but an expression of patriotism that pays respect to our form of government. Judge Reinhardt in dissent spent over 130 pages reprising his decision in the earlier case brought by Newdow that was eventually thrown out by the Supreme Court in 2004. Based on selected statements by members of Congress and by President Eisenhower, he saw the addition of “under God” by Congress in 1954 as an attempt to introduce religion into the Pledge.

The court also rejected, 3-0, Newdow’s suit that claimed the motto “In God We Trust” violated the Establishment Clause. The theory there was that the motto is merely ceremonial, without any religious message. Reinhardt concurred only in the result.

I agree with the court’s decision. I never saw the phrase as a religious sentiment, but as a reflection of the message of the Declaration of Independence that individual rights come from God and of the country’s sense of its exceptionalism. There is, as well, the American heritage of being descended from religious dissenters who sought to establish a new Jerusalem in the New World.

But I see other problems, not with “under God,” but with the Pledge as a whole. The Pledge currently is “voluntary” for school children. So were school prayers and Bible readings that the Supreme Court struck down over the years as Establishment Clause violations. The Court rejected the “voluntariness” of those professions, claiming that school children would be loath to decline to join in reciting the prayer or Bible reading for fear of ostracism by their peers. That same argument can be made about the Pledge, with or without “under God.” The Supreme Court has often said that government cannot coerce political orthodoxy in violation of the free speech clause any more than it can coerce religious orthodoxy in violation of the free exercise and establishment clause cases. The Court has already declared a mandatory Pledge to be unconstitutional. If a “voluntary” prayer is not truly voluntary for school children, a “voluntary” Pledge is not, either. That would appear to be the true weakness of the Pledge’s constitutionality.

Some bad news for the Democrats from the Senate parliamentarian. Reconciliation is a no-go in the Senate unless the house first passes the Reid bill and gets it to the President for his signature. The problem is that there is little trust by House members in the Senate’s dependability to address their concerns through a reconciliation bill if they accept the current Reid bill passed by the Senate in December. Of course, the parliamentarian can be overruled by unanimous consent (won’t happen) or by a Joe Biden power-play (definitely could happen, but will destroy Senate collegiality for years to come).

The problem? The dumbing down of higher education. The solution, according to this article? “Ill-prepared and unmotivated as many applicants are, colleges are eager to have them. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to stay afloat financially. Admitting throngs of weak students, however, leads to an array of problems for non-selective schools….Instead of just trying to maximize “access” to college, we ought to limit government loans to those who seem to have the ability to benefit from higher education.”

On a not entirely unrelated topic to the above: The inflation in the number of law professors over the last decade. Up by 40%, far more than the number of students. Number of classes taught per professor has dropped to allow more research into, mainly, esoterica that feeds the perception of quality necessary to raise scores in the U.S. News rankings that law students crave and which they obviously are willing to pay higher tuition for. At least for now. No specific figures on the increase in the number of school bureaucrats, though it is agreed that the number has risen. Quite a bit, from my observations.

The struggle for basic civil rights continues. Civil rights and equal opportunity for all. There must be no bars to happiness, and people must be able to find happiness in bars.

One of the reasons for the administration’s inability to get their health care plan through the House of Representatives is the dislike that many House Democrats have for the entrenched leadership, many of whom come from gerrymandered California districts that produce ultra-liberal representatives far to the left of the swing district Democrats.

First there is the supermajority to cut off the filibuster. That takes 60 votes to get Obama/Reid/PelosiCare. If that doesn’t work, there is reconciliation, a sleight of hand that evades the usual rules. That takes 51 votes. If that doesn’t work, there is “staple-and-bind.”

From Scrappleface, Obama urges a majority vote. On the Constitution. No more of that pesky supermajority requirement that stands in the way of health care reform. A straight up-or-down vote.

Not wanting to enhance viewer numbers and thereby possibly encourage the Celebutards and anti-American directors in the film industry (which seems to encompass a discouragingly large proportion of them), I do not watch the Academy Awards marathons. To get some overview of the atmosphere at the most recent event, I am relying on Carbolic Smokeball and its Teen Film Critic. [Caution: Content warning.]

During the State of the Union speech, the President took the opportunity to criticize an opinion by the Supreme Court, Citizens United, to the faces of the six justices assembled there as guests of the Congress. Obama’s partisans, the Democratic House members sitting near the justices, showed the same lack of class as the President by jumping up and cheering wildly. Some seemed almost to be dancing. Per protocol, the justices are not supposed to react, but to sit there impassively, which all did, save Justice Alito. Alito managed to mouth (correctly) that what Obama said about the decision was “not true.” True to the tackiness that seems to characterize the White House, they quickly prepared a “response” to Alito in an effort to get in the last word, a response that tried to change what Obama had said. After that incident, I posted my thoughts, including the speculation that next year the justices’ seats at the speech would be empty. Justices Scalia and Thomas already declined to come because of the political circus the speech has become.

Appearing at the University of Alabama on Tuesday, Chief Justice Roberts addressed the incident at the State of the Union speech in a response to a thoughtful question by a law student. “I have no problems with that [criticizing Supreme Court opinions],” he said. “On the other hand, there is the issue of the setting, the circumstances and the decorum. The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court - according the requirements of protocol - has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling.” “I’m not sure why we’re there,” he continued.

As expected, as the article shows, the pathetic Pillsbury doughboy of presidential press secretary, the buffoonish Robert Gibbs, has to try to get in the last word.

I  would at this point consider an appearance by the justices at next year’s State of the Union speech extremely unlikely, which will only cause further embarrassment to Obama by detracting from his event. Instead, people will be reminded of his boorishness at this year’s speech.

I have received a couple of reader requests for commentary on a new fashion phenomenon brought into public consciousness by that accomplished American personality, Jennifer Love Hewitt. To meet reader demand, and to re-assure those among you who are concerned that the economic end-times are upon us that things cannot be too bad if people are spending money on this procedure, here are my thoughts. With apology to Elizabeth Barrett Browning for my “sampling” of her work. [CAUTION: Content warning.]

At the door she met him, excited and flushed,
“I’ve got a surprise,” she whispered, and blushed.
Now inside, his hands clasp hers, full of love,
But as they embrace, he moves down from above.

After venturing to her mountains of bliss,
A stay that is followed by many a kiss,
His hands travel south for more exploration,
A mysterious canyon the next destination.

The terrain in that area once was quite bushy,
But now is smooth as a baby’s tushy.
Or was. Now his hands come upon a protrusion,
Then another, and more, adding to his confusion.

So many bumps he can feel all around,
He has to see what his hands there have found.
On gazing upon her, his eyes are bedazzled,
Like Jennifer Hewitt, she’s got “vajazzled.”

Decorating much of her southern region,
Are crystals galore, their number legion.
At first he is puzzled, he must admit.
Still, their sensuous sparkle is quite a hit.

Though if they go down from her mound of Venus,
That quite could annoy a visiting penis.
“They’re just on the hill,” she explains with a titter,
“The canyon below is pristine, without glitter.”

No longer content with a monologue,
The feminine private part’s now on this blog
And everywhere else, as an object of passion,
With fashion that’s art, and art that’s fashion.

How can one love it? Let me count the ways.
It might be left natural, or trimmed, waxed, or shaved.
But, ladies, if you just don’t want to go plain,
Don’t tattoo or pierce. Vajazzling’s no pain.

A Kafkaesque result from the political correctness rampant in California. The political correctness is the hamfisted intrusion into family life under California law that overreacts to mere accusations of “child abuse,” yet too often seems not to prevent the real cases of abuse. “A California couple wrongly accused of abusing their teenager was arrested and had their other children removed from their home. They’ve since been cleared of the charges, but no one seems to know how to take them off the state’s list of child abusers. Under California law, local authorities are required to add to the list anyone even accused of abusing children, even if they’ve yet to be charged. The problem is that the law apparently offers no guidance on who has the authority to remove people once they’ve been cleared.” Meanwhile, as the author notes, California proposes to add a similar registry for animal abuse. The totalitarianism of the law becomes more stultifying every day. One of Instapundit’s commenters offers a solution: “Let’s all go accuse our assemblymen, see if that fixes the problem.”

“Irreconcilable Differences”: The political minefield of forcing health care changes through the Senate. By the way, those problems are why I think that those who believe that the administration and the Democratic leadership will not use reconciliation are correct. The success or failure of the vote on Obama/Reid/PelosiCare will depend on their ability to bamboozle or frighten enough House Democrats into voting for the monstrosity that the Senate already has passed, with the promise of changes to come through the reconciliation process, a process that, after the House then votes to adopt the current Senate bill, never happens.

Health care, like any good that is at least to some extent “scarce,” if for no reason than that there are constant innovations available to only a few initially, must be rationed. In a private market, the rationing device is price. Under government, rationing occurs through other means (bureaucratic rules and sclerotic administration, nepotism and other corruption, political influence peddling and bribes, and, yes, sub rosa pricing through gifts, favors, and bribes) as well as more traditional price rationing through emerging black markets and other ways to escape more rigid government programs. Eventually, as always, to save government health care, privatization is needed.

From the archives, musings from Stratfor.com about the reasons for the Western European infatuation with Barack Obama that resulted in him being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, an infatuation not shared by all Europeans and doomed to disappointment by the intervention of the realities of national interests.

Not long ago, former Vice President Dick Cheney opined off-hand that Barack Obama would be a one-term wonder. Since then, I have heard a similar point made on occasion by other speakers. It just so happened that I was wondering the same not long before I read of Cheney’s remark.

Mr. Obama as a one-termer has been, of course, a hope of the more fevered denizens of the swamps of the conservative hinterland since November 5, 2008, the day after the election. I was scornful of the likelihood that their hope would be realized, and, on balance, I continue to believe that the President will be re-elected. But what shook my previous confidence in having to prepare myself for eight years of an Obama White House was the increasingly obvious combination of toxic ideology, incompetent administration, and personal detachment that emanates from Mr. Obama and his minions.

Looked at historically, it is very difficult to dislodge an incumbent who chooses to run for re-election. The task becomes almost impossible if that incumbent succeeded a President from the opposing party. In the twentieth century, only four incumbent Presidents were defeated for re-election. Three of those defeats, involving William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, and George H. W. Bush were cases where they had gained the White House after Presidents from their own party. Party fatigue had set in after twelve years or more of the same party in the White House. In both Taft’s and Bush’s defeats, there were strong third party challenges that affected the outcomes. In those races, the winner received substantially less than 50% of the vote. Of the three, only Herbert Hoover, running in the political gale of the Depression, lost decisively after one term.

There has been only one instance in well more than a century of an incumbent president losing a re-election bid when that incumbent had taken over the White House from the opposite party. That loser was Jimmy Carter in 1980. Leaving aside the odd sequence (and diversion of popular and electoral votes) of the Grover Cleveland-Benjamin Harrison contests in 1888 and 1892, there arguably has not been another case where an incumbent President of a major party lost re-election after succeeding someone from the opposing party. (President John Tyler lost his re-election bid in 1844, but he ran as a third-party candidate and abandoned his campaign before the election.)

The standard for losing as an incumbent, then, is set by the inept Jimmy Carter. Short of sinking to that level, Mr. Obama should be assured of re-election. How close to the Carter standard an incumbent can safely get depends also on the quality of the opposition. Carter was faced with Ronald Reagan, a powerful campaigner and Teflon candidate. There is no Republican of similar political potency on the scene. Sarah Palin comes close, and a comparison of the dismissive treatment she receives with that directed at Reagan yields remarkable similarities. However, Palin is on balance a more polarizing figure than Reagan, which would make it more difficult for her to make the same kind of pitch to close the deal with independents and Democrats that Reagan made in his debates against Carter. In addition, Obama is a much better campaigner and presents a more likable persona than Carter was able to do in a side-by-side comparison with Reagan.

That said, Mr. Obama is doing his remarkable best to imitate Jimmy Carter. The drip, drip, drip of news about botched anti-terror efforts (The ludicrous “The system worked” declaration by Janet Incompetano as a response to the Crotchbomber), missteps in trials for accused terrorists such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the cluelessness of reaction to the Honduran constitutional dispute, the continuing debacle of healthcare “reform” in which the administrations comes up with patently absurd claims, all undermine the public’s confidence in Obama’s administrative competence. His weakness in foreign relations, complete with bowing before sundry monarchs and dictators; his failure to constrain Iran; his apparent appeasement of Russia; his coziness with Latin American leftists; his nuclear disarmament and anti-missile technology decisions; his decisions of interrogations of terrorists; his (and Eric Holder’s) attempted or threatened moves against Bush administration officials and against CIA interrogators, and his 2009 Obama World Apology Tour all show a profound weakness, stemming from personality and ideology, in protecting American interests. If they have not hurt the President yet, and I think they have hurt in the public’s perception of him, they present catastrophic political danger to him, should there be an attack on the U.S.. They at least present persistent, if not catastrophic, political danger through their cumulative negative effect.

Every administration has periods of good luck and bad. So, timing means a lot. Assuming that Mr. Obama has had neither extraordinary good nor bad luck overall as measured by “events” so far, he is early on showing a lot of Carteresque tendencies. Assuming also that those tendencies continue in approximately similar manner, Mr. Obama could be in trouble in 2012, something that seemed to exist only in the realm of fantasy a year or even six months ago.

But being as bad as Carter will not defeat Obama. There is one thing that Obama has that Carter did not, and which will give him 10% of the vote that Carter could not get. That thing is Obama’s race. The additional turn-out among Blacks, along with an even more heavily pro-Democrat tilt than usual among that group, will account for some of the boost. Similar increases, though perhaps less significant, will manifest themselves among other racial minorities. But many Whites, too, will refuse to vote against the first, at least partially, African-ancestry President. Riddled with racial guilt, these liberals will not vote to confirm Obama’s political failure and their own failure to recognize their candidate’s lack of experience and qualification for the office that was so glaringly apparent to less partial observers. As already has been made clear by various journalists, well, by Chris Matthews, immediately after Obama’s inauguration, for them, Obama the “Black President” is too important and big to fail.

If I recognize this, Mr. Obama’s savvy political advisers will know it at least as well. They will make sure that the racial undercurrent remains in full flow in 2012. Opposition to, or criticism of, the President will once again be slammed as racist by Obama, his minions, and the newspapers, TV networks, and other parts of the media wing of the Democratic Party. This will serve to drive such doubting liberals and weak-kneed moderates back into the party line. In short, then, Mr. Obama can be as bad as Jimmy Carter, and not worry about re-election. To vote Mr. Obama out of office would require disasters far worse than the economic malaise and the national security weaknesses that characterized the Carter years. What might suffice as a big enough disaster is hard to say. But an unemployment rate even of 10%, a high inflation rate, an Iranian nuke, an Iranian attack on its neighbors, a new 9/11, or a Russian, North Korean, or Chinese invasion of their neighbors probably won’t pry loose enough Obama disciples to turn him out of office. Some of his former supporters will turn against him or not show up to vote, but, as the religious imagery associated with support of the “Black Jesus” demonstrates, for too many (including, perhaps, the President himself) Obama is not merely a politician, but a movement or cause.

For those reasons, primarily the reason of his race, I do not believe that Obama can be defeated in 2012. The Republicans will not be facing Jimmy Carter, but a Jimmy Carter simulacrum that benefits from affirmative action. That said, I think that there is a 10% chance that Mr. Obama will not be President in 2013. The reason is Mr. Obama himself. He may opt not to run again.

It has become abundantly clear already that he does not enjoy being President. For all the idle comparisons between Obama and FDR or John Kennedy, those others enjoyed the job itself, not just the perks. They brought a “vigah” (in Kennedy’s phrasing) to the position that the incumbent does not. Even before the election, Obama had a reputation of not wanting to work at the hard stuff. He produced no significant legislation in the Senate. His absenteeism was legendary. He made a habit of voting “present” in the Illinois legislature. Earlier in his life, he did not like the temporary jobs working in finance and law. On a more benign level, he appears to be genuinely committed to his family. He enjoys more leisurely intellectual contemplation.

That explains why he likes to get out of D.C. so much and why just two weeks into his term he explained his visits to local schools by confessing that he did not like being in the White House. That explains also his incessant campaign mode, his campaign-style political speeches with their hard edges and political platitudes and generalities (see, for example, the State of the Union address), and the meetings and “summits” where Obama presides like a professor in a seminar.

The there is the outward appearance of lack of passion to the job. His supporters initially saw this as a surfeit of “cool.” We more skeptical types considered it aloofness, even coldness, that was a reification of his psychological elitism. By now, I have read of even some of his supporters active in the media and in politics grousing about this detachment and “above the fray” approach and comparing Mr. Obama unfavorably in that regard to George W. Bush. In political whispers behind cupped hands, such people point with reluctant respect to Bush’s leadership, his emotional commitment to his work that allowed people to know where he stood, and, despite some notable failures, his ability to get things done even with a Democratic Congress. Mr. Obama, they say, lacks these qualities. His coolness has become a liability.

Being President is hard work, and Presidents age visibly. Pictures of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush in the first and eighth years of their Presidencies show remarkable physical changes far greater than can be attributed merely to the lapse of seven years. Bush was battered politically and fanatically for eight years by his opponents and had to deal with serious challenges to the country’s national security. I am not sure that Obama has either the, shall one say, “flexible” personality and the ability to lose himself in personal “diversions” of Bill Clinton, or the orneriness and strong sense of self of W.

Obama has made his name in American history as the first “non-White” President. If he is faced with four more years of a sour economic mood, and if he has either completed his ideological agenda that will (negatively) transform the U.S. domestically and internationally, or he has found that the agenda cannot be completed, he may decide that there are better ways to spend his time. Given the likelihood that, after 2012, he will face a Republican Congress or at least a Congress composed of Republicans and enough unhappy Democrats that his political agenda is a dead letter, he may not want to continue. He does not have the political inclinations toward true compromise (”bipartisanship” not being the same as compromise) or the political skills of triangulation that Mr. Clinton possessed. Nor is it likely that his “A” team would continue with him into a second term; subsequent hirees often do not possess the personal loyalties to the President, the political skills, or the calibrated ideological commitment of the initial group.

Presidents almost universally get frustrated in their second term, for some combination of various reasons, such as public fatigue, their quasi-lame duck status, the accumulation of unfinished projects and the passage of time, the departure of trusted individuals, the inevitable scandals involving present or former associates or acquaintances, media feeding frenzy for stories, economic cycles, rivalries and conflicting interests with Congressional barons eager to share your successes and distance themselves from your failures, the constant baying from the opposing party, and on and on. Perhaps President Obama decides that the journey was more enjoyable and personally satisfying than the destination. A second term, then, would be an unnecessary punishment.

Would it not be much better, he might say, to seek an appointment to the Supreme Court rather than re-election to the White House? He could make history as only the second President to be a Supreme Court justice. He could enjoy a lifestyle much more suited to his temperament. He could seek to have his agenda of a transformed “positive” Constitution adopted just by persuading four other justices. That would allow him to seek to impose on the American people various elements of his vision of socialized health care, environmental restrictions, expanded constitutional protections for unlawful enemy combatants, and racial spoils systems that he might not be able to attain democratically. He would be, for the most part, among other academically-inclined intellectuals. He would rejoin, and interact with, for the rest of his life, members of the legal elites and adoring laws students. True, he could still do that after a second term as President. But why wait if, as appears, he really does not like his current job?

It is unlikely to happen. But if Barack Obama is not the President after January, 2013, it is more likely due to his decision not to seek re-election than to having suffered a defeat in an active campaign for the office.

While Women’s Studies courses at American universities (or Women and the Law courses at law schools) seek out the latest difficult-to-detect vestigial effect of long-past sex discrimination as a basis for wild denunciations of patriarchal domination, discrimination looks a little starker for women in many parts of the world. Leaving aside the legal and social positions of the fair sex in most Islamic countries, there is in many countries a more troubling epidemic. Primarily in China, South Korea, and India, but to some extent in other parts of the world, there is an imbalance between the sexes. Tens of millions of females that should have been born and reached maturity based on historic (and natural) proportions between males and females are simply not there. They are the victims of sex selection.

This article thoroughly analyzes the history, reasons, and effects of this imbalance. The reasons for the preference for male offspring are cultural and, often, economic. In China the reasons are rooted strongly in the one-child policy that still holds sway more or less formally in different parts of the country. The possible effects of this imbalance that will shortly result in a cohort with a huge excess of young men are nothing short of alarming. Large numbers of unattached males that are unable to build families will result in more crime, more repressive policing, the potential for military conflict, a demand for prostitution, and trafficking in women for marriage (particularly from abroad). While a silver lining to this cloud may be to raise the status of women in the affected countries, as scarcity always increases the relative value of such a good when demand exceeds supply at current values, the costs of the immediate dislocation will continue to be felt for a long time.

Some say that the sexual imbalance is due to infanticide, something beyond the pale in civilized countries. That may be true. But there is abortion. As sonograms become relatively cheap and widely available, sex selection can be done through abortion. Many of our progressives treat abortion as the most sacred of human rights, and it should come as no surprise that, if anything, sex selection became more pronounced in those countries as prenatal testing allowed for easy abortion. Some countries seek to ban abortion for sex selection. They are spitting into the tide. As long as the culture of death continues to treat abortion as some basic human right instead of a moral abomination that nevertheless may have to be accommodated in some instances, it is difficult to chide those who would use this procedure for sex selection.

Of course, we in the United States may want to begin to take a look at the thirty year war waged by feminists on American boys, the fruits of which are becoming glaringly obvious. After decades of special treatment for girls; the ideology of perpetual female victimhood that results in official dogmas of ego-building empowerment; the complete feminization of the American educational system that does not tolerate the active methods of instruction under which boys thrive; the brainwashing of males that they are at fault for whatever ails American feminists; the perpetually cartoonish portrayals in popular culture of husbands and fathers as incompetent and hapless buffoons; and the social and legal disaster of the family law system that calls for women to be treated as equals but then proceeds to rely on outdated stereotypes of women as nurturing homebodies and hothouse flowers and of men as brute paycheck earners, all in the process of outrageously stacking the deck against men, we, too, have a serious problem of a large cohort of lost young males who will not be able to integrate successfully into society. Though our problems are not identical, they are similar, and they are caused by the same fraudulent utopian thinking that underlies much leftist ideology. Whether in China or the U.S., the “progressive reformers” think that they can achieve the dream of totalitarians throughout the ages and play God by reconstructing what they perceive to be a malleable human nature into something more perfect. Through their efforts based on finite and imperfect knowledge, the human condition inevitably worsens until, at the end, the distortion of the natural order cannot be maintained and the laws of nature (including as they relate to the facts of human nature) reassert themselves and restore a more harmonious balance.

When science fiction becomes science and technology: New terrorist and other unconventional military threats.

Supporters of Obama/Reid/PelosiCare dredge up tales of people who have somehow suffered some economic injury because their insurance company would not pay for a procedure Some of those tales at least might contain kernels of truth about the incompetence of insurance company bureaucracies. Of course, given the long and ample track record of government bureaucracies, there is no reason to believe that they will perform better, and plenty of reasons to fear the opposite. In the meantime, there are many documented instances to show that government health care kills. Often brutally. And with, at best, perfunctory remorse by the bureaucrats in charge. Why would one expect any different from people for whom patients are merely intrusions into their lives of bureaucratic apathy and somnolence.

President Obama has left at least some House liberals with the impression that his current health care proposal is only the first step towards more comprehensive government health care.

Governor Mitch Daniels (IN), former Representative John Kasich (OH), ex-Ebay CEO Meg Whitman (CA), Governor Bobby Jindal (LA), Governor Haley Barbour (MS), Governor Tim Pawlenty (MN), Governor Rick Perry (TX), and Senator Jim DeMint (SC). All names that are still unfamiliar to many Americans. Plus Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul. And, of course, Sarah Palin. The Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes muses about potential Republican presidential candidates for 2012.