Category Archives: Morality

‘The Economics of Ann Romney’

Democrats, Economy, Elections, Family, Feminism, Gender, Morality, Republicans

“Ann Romney is economically a hell of a lot smarter than Hilary Rosen,” concludes Kevin D. Williamson, in a neat column wherein, taking into account “scarcity of economic resources and scarcity of parental time,” and weighing these against the utmost top dollar the lovely Mrs. Romney might have commanded, Kevin calculates that Ann Romney would have been stark raving mad to have abandoned her gorgeous kids to the deprivations of daycare.

Not when the much-maligned Mr. Romney was bringing in “about $6,400 an hour at Bain Capital.”

Nice, if reductive, column, for after all, it is indeed likely that the Romneys would have made the same decisions were Mitt less successful. Values are irreducible.

“Democratic operative Hilary Rosen — who sneered that [Ann Romney] ‘has actually never worked a day in her life'”—wishes she were a quality babe who could attract a catch like Mitt Romney.

(Tinny ideologues should note that I do not support Romney, but this does not rob me of objectivity, as it does the robotic ideologue. I appreciate many of Mitt Romney’s qualities.)

UPDATED: “Trayvon Martin’s Filthy Porno-esque Tweets” (Facts Vs. Context)

Criminal Injustice, Justice, Law, Morality, Pop-Culture

“Trayvon Martin’s Filthy Porno-esque Tweets,” writes the uncompromising Debbie Schlussel, “would make even Larry Flynt blush.”

Read on.

UPDATE (March 29): Eric, you are correct. As I write in my upcoming weekly column, “Granted, Trayvon’s tweets are not germane to the facts of his slaying. They are, nonetheless, telling.” The Courts in recent decades have moved to strip a prosecution or a defense of the legitimate contextual arguments (such as priors) that go to character and motive. For example, the stripper in the Duke lacrosse case was a shady sort who shook down others. This, we are supposed to believe, had no relevance in the Nifonging of the players. So I think a full picture of this boy and his shooter are relevant to the inquiry. I’m for more, not fewer, facts, so long as they are not confused with the facts of the crime.

Check back for the column tonight.

In a Perverse Way, Afghan Justice Is Less Perverse

Christianity, Crime, Justice, Law, Middle East, Military, Morality, Natural Law

“As a Christian,” reasons Thomas Fleming, in his highly recommended Mail-Online blog, “I can say plainly that Afghans have a truer sense of justice than the catechisms of most Christian churches today. As post-Christian savages without a sense of justice, we were quite wrong to conquer this primitive people.”

“The Afghans do not pretend to see beyond the end of their nose or outside the limits of their settlement. Their simple and wholesome ethic is: You kill my people, I kill you. They are demanding nothing less than the transfer of the killer to Afghan jurisdiction. After a speedy trial and conviction, he will be turned over to the relatives of the victims to kill in whatever way they see fit.”

“Americans may pretend to understand this demand as a temporary outburst of grief and rage, but, when they do not relent, in a few weeks we can expect to hear condemnations of the primitive Afghan understanding of justice. We shall be reminded of the Talibans’ mass executions in sports stadiums. ‘They don’t want justice,’ we shall cry, ‘only vengeance,’ and no one will spend half a minute explaining what the difference is.”

“Here in the enlightened West,

we know that the purpose of a criminal justice system is two-fold: to rehabilitate the criminal and protect the public. It was not always so. The ancients believed that a criminal act–murder, assault, robbery, rape–put the universe out of joint. The purpose of punishment was to put it right again. Killers are killed, robbers robbed, beaters beaten.
It was not always so simple as “an eye for an eye,” and Roman and Christian law made allowances for motives, circumstances, and appropriateness of punishment, but they never forgot the primary purpose of punishment was retribution or, to use a simpler word, vengeance.
Leftist Christians will howl in protest, citing, “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord,” little understanding that the same Lord, according to St. Paul, delegates the power to punish evil to the rulers of the world. Not in vain, Paul declared in an authoritative chapter of Romans, does the ruler hold the sword, nor is it a terror to the good but only to the wicked. It follows that a ruler who casts away the sword on a humanitarian whim is no longer a legitimate ruler. The Church always begged for mercy in specific cases, but never disputed the right and duty of kings and parliaments to execute criminals.
Even Imanuel Kant, who got most things wrong, saw through the lies of all the liberal theories of punishment:
“Judicial punishment can never be used solely as a means to promote some other good for the criminal himself or for society, but instead must in all cases be imposed on a person solely on the ground that he has committed a crime….woe to him who rummages around in the winding paths of a theory of happiness looking for some advantage to be gained by releasing the criminal from punishment or by reducing the amount of it….

MORE.

Money: Mitt’s Mark of Cain

Individual Rights, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Morality, Private Property, Socialism, Taxation

Mitt Romney is a marked man in socialist-minded America. Over the past two years, he paid a “mere” 15 percent on $42.7 million, “because his income was derived almost entirely from capital gains and dividends from his extensive portfolio of investments.”

Of this $42.5 million fortune made over the past two years, seven million was given to charity. More than Mitt paid in taxes. Of that generosity mainstream morons disapprove because Romney’s charities tend to be Mormon related.

Contrast Mr. and Mrs. Romney to the miserly Joe Biden and his lefty wife. The latter gave between 0.1% and 0.3% of their income to charity. Not exactly the two tithes the Romneys spare for the poor.

There is a lot wrong with Mitt’s political philosophy. There is not a lot wrong with Mitt the Man.