Common Sense Conservative Blog

Dalai Lama, Garbage & Hawaii

If ever a picture were worth more than a thousand words, this is it. Here is the Dalai Lama, last week escorted from the White House past a heap of garbage. Is this the way to treat the Dalai Lama? It sure is. If the White House staffers who choreograph such visits planned it this way, they deserve our kudos. If it just happened, well, then we were just lucky. What’s puzzling is that many conservatives, including prominent pundits, have been rallying to Mr. Lama and criticizing the Obama White House. They are, to be blunt, wrong and seem unaware of how to pursue our national interests.

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Climate Change: Injecting Common Sense Agnosticism

America’s headlong rush towards a sweeping climate change “solution” appears to be on hold as Democrats regroup after losing the Senate seat from Massachusetts. That’s very good news. It’s time to catch our breath and look beyond both the climate-change Alarmists and the climate-change Deniers to inject a heavy dose of American–style agnosticism. “If not, we may saddle ourselves and future generations with a near-crippling burden. The pending “cap and trade” proposals on Capitol Hill and from the White house would impose huge long-term costs and massive inconveniences on America’s households and business. Some say that this all is a price worth paying to spare our civilization the ravages of inexorable global warming. They may be right – but only if their assumptions are right: (1) That the earth is steadily warming and (2) That human activity (such as industrial production and burning gasoline in autos) causes this warming. If the assumptions are flawed, then so are the solutions. And then unwarranted is the price we’re being asked to pay.

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China’s Mounting Censorship: How Much Should We Care?

Increasingly, China is censoring how its citizens use the Internet. This is a serious problem for China, not for the U.S. The U.S. China policy must remain focused sharply on issues that protect and advance America’s interests. China’s internet censorship will hurt China greatly, stiffling the creativity China needs to continue its growth. Censorship, while possibly ensuring China’s rulers’ a bit longer control over their people, will impose huge penalties on China’s development, retarding China’s emergence as a true economic (and thus, political) superpower.

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Brown’s Senate Win: New Life for the GOP?

Republican Scott Brown’s surprise Senate victory in Massachusetts can give the GOP renewed life if it learns that big-tent, inclusive Republican candidates can win even in heavily Democrat constituencies. If the GOP intends to be a national party, it must reflect America’s 300,000,000 plus people. It must be, as Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp repeatedly urged, inclusive, not exclusive. It must be a tent big enough for many views on social and economic issues. A small tent, exclusive party, rooted in just one or two regions of the nation, cedes to the Democrats and left the control of national policy. If Brown’s victory signals a return of the big-tent GOP, if it signals the waning of self-destructive culture wars and litmus tests, then Brown’s victory is a victory for the GOP and America.

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Obama & Foreign Affairs: So Much Sniping

Why so much sniping at Barack Obama’s handling of foreign affairs. By reading op-eds and blogs, by listening to some radio and TV commentary, one would think that we’ve lapsed back to the dark dismal days of Jimmy Carter. The only possible answer: It’s simply political partisan sniping, aimed at wounding a Democrat president. A candid assessment would find, at this still early date, Obama’s foreign policy a mixed bag which, in balance, should give Americans more reason to be pleased than alarmed. And, when it comes to Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, that Obama in 12 months has not yet succeeded where Bush in eight years had failed is hardly cause for giving Obama foreign policy low grades. An “Incomplete, But Shows Promise” would be more warranted.

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The Christmas Terrorist: A Wake-Up Call

The terrorist’s fumbled Christmas attempt to blow up the Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines plane has been a homeland security wake-up call. What we should be waking-up to is the reality that there’s nothing we can do to shield ourselves 100 percent and that by trying to do so, we unacceptably may erode our freedoms and liberty. Yet any attempt to create an impervious shield either will fail or will impose what should be unacceptable burdens on our lives, freedoms and living standards. In the eternal tensions and trade-offs between security and liberty, America’s tilt always should be to liberty.

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Climate Change: “Thank you, China & India”

The much-ballyhooed Copenhagen Conference on climate change is now over. The conference was a flop. Meaning: We Americans dodged a bullet. For that we must say, “Thank you China, Thank you India,” for refusing to be stampeded into signing an agreement imposing huge restraints on economic growth and massive intrusions into sovereignty. Sad to say, the U.S. delegation cared little about how much an agreement would reduce American living standards, would cost taxpayers and would allow other nations to meddle in our affairs. We were ready to sign. But China and India, concerned mainly (and rightly) about their own well-beings, saved us from ourselves. So what do we do now? First, we buy time to allow serious, unbiased scientific investigation and unfettered debate about whether there is global warming and, if there is, whether it is caused by human activity. Second, we research ways of dealing with global warming’s effects so we will be ready to confront and adapt – as humans have adapted to changing climate throughout the eons. This will be vastly less punishing to our society than attempts to reverse global warming – and it’s something we can do ourselves, without the need for international agreements or intrusion on our sovereignty or payoffs to poor countries.

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Holocaust Deniers & the Economy

“The economic crisis was phony.” “The dangers to the economy were grossly exaggerated.” Such refrains are sung by a growing chorus which denies that America and the global economy were facing tsunami-scale dangers in September 2008. Clearly, it is not only the Nazi’s widely-documented campaign to exterminate Europe’s Jews that can be denied by those ignoring just about every available solid fact, it is also something as current as the economic crisis of 2008, whose aftershocks we’re still painfully feeling. The only antidote to the denier is repeated recollection of history and facts. While facts won’t convert or silence the denier, they do keep the rest of us anchored solidly in reality. It is thus important to recall what was happening 15 long months ago, in September 2008, when we were tossing violently about in the center of a perfect economic storm.

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Afghanistan: If We Fight, We Should Pay

Barack Obama has made his case for sending 30,000 more American fighters to Afghanistan. His proposal is contentious. Some critics say that 30,000 are not quite enough, others that they are too much. Who’s right? It’s a close call. Surely, if we up our ante in Afghanistan, we should do so only if [...]

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The 21st Century Takes Shape: U.S. China. India.

In just ten days, America deftly demonstrated how it plans to remain the globe’s most powerful strategic player well through the 21st Century. An American president first solidified U.S. relations with China, the world’s most populous country and soon-to-be #2 economic power, and then effusively welcomed the leader of India, on track to exceed China in population by mid-century and on-track too to become the world’s #3 economic power. For both China and India, the U.S. has become the most important relationship – and, significantly, vice versa. Washington, in the decades ahead, if it is smart, sensitive and perceptive, can use its unique relations with each Asian giant to keep America at the center of global power and, as critical, to keep unavoidable U.S.-China, U.S.-India, China-India differences and rivalries from degenerating into conflicts. It thus greatly serves U.S. interests to keep upgrading America’s ties with India and China.