Townhall Review | Commentaries

We're living in "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism." That's the title of a book by Shoshana Zuboff whose thinking has shaped my own as we look on the growing power of Big Tech.

The biggest flaw in most tech companies' business models is a general willingness to loot an individual's personal information-and thus his or her privacy-without payment for this data and without informed consent.

Did you know that a small percentage of apps provide your consent to remotely turn on your phone's microphone and record you after you signed their terms and conditions?

I imagine your response is like mine? "what?! I'd never agree to that."

I am certain a hard line on personal privacy would have a greater appeal to the public than many other issues currently separating the parties. Watch that vast uncharted space and which party moves to restore data that has been taken and to repair walls of privacy that were breached long ago.

Whoever gets there first will be a long-term winner.

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In one of the more disgraceful corporate episodes in recent history, during their recent earnings call, Nike CEO John Donahoe described his company as follows: it’s “a brand of China and for China.”

This happened even as the Chinese forcibly closed Apple Daily, Hong Kong’s pro-democracy paper. The Chinese imprisoned Apple’s owner, Jimmy Lai, a self-made millionaire who fled Communist China at the age of 8.

And among its other human rights abuses, China has oppressed the Uighurs, interning them in camps, raping and torturing them, and subjecting them to forced labor. It’s been reported that Nike has benefited from that forced labor.

Certainly Nike profits handsomely from China. But it could never have become a global powerhouse without the American system: capitalism and the rule of law.

None of that seems to matter to Nike now. Maybe that “brand of China” should reincorporate under Chinese rule—and hope for a better fate than Apple Daily and the Uighurs.

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Juneteenth—short for June 19th—is the new federal holiday marking the emancipation of slaves in America. It is also known as Jubilee Day, based on the Biblical year of Jubilee which also liberated slaves. There’s a debate raging right now as to whether Juneteenth is intended to, or should, replace July 4th. 
 
I think this argument really misses the point. The emancipation is not in competition with the Declaration, it is the logical extension of it. June 19th occurs before July 4th in our calendars, but the ideas we celebrate on Independence Day come before the ideas we celebrate on Jubilee Day. Juneteenth isn’t a replacement; it’s a sequel—or a culmination.
 
In fact, the Liberty Bell’s quote, “Proclaim liberty throughout the land” comes from Leviticus 25, the Jubilee Year passage in the Bible. The bell that was rung then, is what led to liberty for all later. Maybe we should go back to calling it Jubilee Day, or at the very least Liberty Day. 

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Once again, Americans are ready to celebrate the 4th of July. Very ready indeed. But let's remember that the holiday is actually known as Independence Day, marking the anniversary of the act of American Patriots in declaring independence from Great Britain. 

The Declaration of Independence is the nation’s birth certificate. More than that, Independence Day marks a momentous event in human history. For the first time a new nation was established upon the premise that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

For more than 200 years, the United States of America has been learning how to fulfill that promise. But on Independence Day, we celebrate the fact that this world-changing promise was made and a new nation was born. A nation founded upon liberty, dignity and self-government. Happy Independence Day.

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The assault on religious liberty continues in our increasingly secular America. The left openly derives religious freedom as an impediment to its moral revolution. And the mainstream media now often use the term religious liberty only in scare quotes as if it isn't even real. But religious freedom is our first freedom upon which all other liberties depend. Our nation's founders understood that, enshrining religious liberty in the very First Amendment to the US Constitution.

Nevertheless, the recent unanimous decision of the US Supreme Court defending the religious liberty of a Catholic adoption ministry has brought scorn from the left. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school of the University of California at Berkeley said that he feared the decision is, "Part of a trend expanding the protection of free exercise of religion at the expense of other crucial government interests." Other crucial government interests?  That is ludicrous, but that is the challenge we now face. Religious freedom is not just a government interest. It is a constitutional right.

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This is Carol Platt Liebau for Townhall.com.

The Olympics have long been a source of national pride here in the United States.

That’s why it was so wrong of women’s Olympic hammer-thrower Gwen Berry to turn her back to the American flag as our national anthem was being played at the U.S. Olympic Trials.

Berry calls herself an “activist.” She protests what she calls “systemic racism.”

Her behavior stands in stark contrast to Jesse Owens, the American athlete who competed in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Hitler wanted to use the occasion to showcase the superiority of the so-called “Aryan race.”

Owens, who was black, became the first American track and field athlete to win four gold medals at a single Olympic Games.

But when there really was systemic racism in the U.S. – in the form of Jim Crow – Owens still had the patriotism and character to salute the flag he represented.

Berry could learn a thing or two from Jesse Owens. She should step down from the U.S. Olympic Team.

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The Wall Street Journal ran an op/ed titled, “Why I Stopped Hiring Ivy League Graduates.”  The author explained how woke Ivy League graduates are troublemakers in the workplace—but conservatives aren’t much better. They suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome and have learned either to counterpunch too aggressively or never to say what they’re actually thinking.

With all the overpriced nonsense the Ivies are force feeding America’s young people, it’s fair to ask: How much value are they actually adding? Precious little. Heaven help the Ivy League as more employers reach this conclusion—and parents realize it. Then the parents who care about their kids’ future will have a decision to make. Do they want their children well-credentialed, or well-educated?

The answer is easy. Especially because—given their declining standards and the intellectual junk the Ivies are peddling—there’s no guarantee that two decades from now, an Ivy League diploma will continue to be the credential it once was.

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Many Americans may remember the Obama-era IRS scandals, when the tax agency was targeted conservative nonprofits for political reasons. Let’s hope the IRS isn’t up to its old tricks.  

Recently, a top IRS official denied a Christian group’s application for tax-exempt status. Its justification, in part, was an interesting one: That quote “Bible teachings are typically affiliated” unquote with the Republican party.  Has anyone asked Democrats like Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi—who make much of their Catholic faith—if they agree?

Of course, the IRS’s claim is ludicrous. By its reasoning, if the Republican Party’s values are consistent with the Bible, then promoting Biblical principles is somehow practicing politics! Presto! Every church in America just became a de facto outpost of the Republican National Committee. 

What nonsense.

Joe Biden recently proposed doubling the IRS workforce. If he hopes to generate any support for this plan, he’d better convince Americans that the agency isn’t just playing politics. Again.

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How desperate will Joe Biden be to re-embrace Barack Obama’s Iran deal? New Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi declared he will not come to the table unless the Biden administration lifts all current sanctions, removing current economic pressure to reopen talks. Raisi further refused to negotiate on other issues at all—including Iran’s ballistic missile program and its funding of terrorism in the region.

Israel’s new prime minister understands the stakes. Naftali Bennett reminded the West that Raisi acquired the nickname “The Hangman of Tehran” for “leading the death committees which executed thousands of Iranian citizens.” 

The Sunni Arab nations will take the measure of Biden in what he does next. If Biden capitulates to Raisi, the efforts to create a counterweight to Iranian pretensions of dominance in the Middle East will collapse, with catastrophic results to American interests. As Bennett declared, this is the last chance for the West to wake up to the extent of the threat from Iran. 

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The Supreme Court recently dispensed with a challenge to Obamacare’s constitutionality, and the law has now survived a myriad of legal challenges since it was enacted over eleven years ago. 
 
Where should conservatives who have qualms about how much power and authority ObamaCare puts in the hands of the federal government turn their attention now? 
 
The answer is the states. Governors and state legislatures across America are looking to enact common-sense reforms that would lower costs, expand access to coverage, and modernize our health care system. The focus on costs, in particular, is an important one as we come out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Too many Americans are still paying too much for health care in this country, and more needs to be done by policymakers to address this challenge. Unfortunately, Washington politicians have shown themselves incapable in this regard.  
 
It’s time to look forward—not backward—if we want to make our health care system better.  

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