Townhall Review | Commentaries

NFL players kneeling to protest the national anthem isn’t going away. Two owners say their players must stand; now the Commissioner wants a rule requiring all NFL players to stand. Vice President Pence famously walked out on the protest.

But here’s one thing you should know that many don’t: Even though the phrase free speech is thrown around, the players have no constitutionally protected right to protest the anthem.

The First Amendment prohibits the government from limiting free speech, not a football team. In fact, sports teams are businesses and their leagues may regulate all kinds of things, from tucking in your shirt to what patches you wear. If there is any legal angle here, it is a matter of labor negotiations between the players’ union and management or the League. But it’s not a matter of constitutional law under the First Amendment.

Sadly our society knows so little about the Constitution, but this teachable moment is about free speech.

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In Alabama’s special election Senatorial race, the big news has been voters’ decision to make the controversial figure, Justice Roy Moore, the Republican nominee for the Senate seat.

But I would suggest that the mainstream media are doing their best to stay away from the really big story here. And that is that the Democrats’ nominee, former U.S. Attorney Doug Jones, is not only avowedly pro-abortion, he actually opposes the Hyde amendment that would protect American taxpayers being forced to pay for abortion.

On “Meet the Press Daily” Chuck Todd pressed the question of abortion to Jones, asking, “So you wouldn’t be in favor of legislation that said, ban abortion after 20 weeks or something like that?”

Jones said he would not support such legislation. In fact, he said once the child is born, he would “be there for that child.” In the astounding statement Jones said, “That’s where I become a right to lifer.”

That means that there is no point before the birth of the child when Doug Jones running for the United States Senate in Alabama would consider himself pro-life.

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So far this year, Republicans in Washington have been unable to fulfill their promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. It’s been a source of great frustration to those around the country who have suffered under the weight of higher health insurance premiums, and fewer health care choices.

To help address these problems, President Trump signed an executive order that will, hopefully, increase access to lower-cost plans and expand choices for consumers across America. It would make it easier for employers—particularly small businesses—to band together to offer cheaper insurance. The order would also expand access to so-called “short-term” plans that offer fewer benefits for a limited duration of time, but at much lower cost.

Is the executive order the same as repealing and replacing Obamacare? Of course not. But could it have an impact for some Americans who have struggled under conditions created by Obamacare? Absolutely. Congress should continue to work with President Trump to deal with the challenges and problems created by Obamacare. The future health of our health care system depends on it.

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In another inane choice for the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian Nobel Committee selected an organization known as ICAN—the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. The idea of “abolishing” nuclear weapons is absurd, of course: if the world enacted the restrictive treaties proposed by the campaign, then decent, law-abiding nations would be disarmed while rogue states like North Korea and Iran would continue developing the nuclear weapons they might use with impunity.

Similar flawed logic underlies the current gun debate: just as they wish nukes had never been invented, so too many liberals passionately wish that firearms had never been designed or manufactured. But that’s a childish fantasy, since you can’t magically “abolish” a familiar, well-established technology, or prevent destructive forces from accessing it. As with dreams of “abolishing” nuclear weapons, attempts to regulate guns out of existence will leave the bad guys much stronger while the good guys became vastly more vulnerable.

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The United States recently witnessed a tragic example of hypocrisy in high office on the question of the sanctity of human life.

Pennsylvania Republican Congressman Tim Murphy has a voting pattern of defending the sanctity of human life and only lately was amongst those who voted to ban abortion after 20 weeks.

However, divorce proceedings revealed that when Congressman Murphy discovered that his mistress may be expecting a child, he repeatedly suggested that she abort the unborn baby.

The political pressure became increasingly heavy after this revelation.

Initially, Representative Murphy announced he would retire at the end of his term. Subsequently, he told Speaker of the House Paul Ryan that he’d resign effective October 21.

This kind of hypocrisy at this level on the question of the sanctity of human life is not only immoral, it’s downright deadly. Day by day, vote by vote, headline by headline, America’s soul on the question of the dignity and sanctity of human life is becoming more apparent.

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The New York Times recently reported on allegations of shameless sexual harassment by Oscar-winning movie mogul Harvey Weinstein from dozens of young women.

In his bizarre response, Weinstein acknowledged that he “caused a lot of pain” and planned to temporarily step back from corporate power in order to concentrate on therapy. He also promised to compensate for his wrong-doing and “channel that anger” by launching a major campaign against the NRA, while pledging “to make a movie about our president” in order to force Trump’s retirement.

In other words, the guilt-ridden executive hoped for redemption by bashing political opponents rather than improving himself, implying that however badly he behaved, conservatives are worse. He thereby embraced the classic leftist fantasy: that political correctness matters more than destructive personal behavior, no matter how loathsome.

Emphasizing public posturing above private conduct can’t deliver either personal happiness or societal decency.

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Republican leaders are now out with their proposal for tax reform.

The good news is the plan is pro-growth. It really could get us out of the lurch, giving corporations a mechanism to bring almost 3 trillion dollars home from abroad, and to reinvest that money right here … in America.

The bad news—or the concerning news—is we’re running out of time.

The plan allows businesses to fully expense many equipment purchases. But until the tax passes, business are going to take a “wait and see” approach:

Why buy equipment now if you can wait till tax reform passes?—when you can then buy and deduct the expense right away?

If the tax reform takes too long to pass, the economy will slow, and the GOP could enter a mid-term election in the midst of a slow-down or even a recession—and they’ll pay a price.

No, this tax plan is not perfect, but it’s a vast improvement over what we have now.

Republicans and moderate Democrats ought to move quickly to pass it.

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Something is happening to the American family.

Claire Cain Miller, writing at the New York Times, reports that—quote: “Marriage, which used to be the default way to form a family in the United States, regardless of income or education, has become yet another part of American life reserved for those who are most privileged.”

Back in the 1960s, it was the children of privilege who declared themselves independent of marriage. But as it turned out over time, those who have a greater economic investment tend to be far more conservative in terms of their actual lifestyle choices.

So the more education and income one has, the argument goes, the more an individual has to lose by making bad choices. Conversely, someone with very little income and who sees very little opportunity in the future effectively has less to lose by making those same bad choices.

In reality—as Brad Wilcox from the University of Virginia argues—there is a well-defined success sequence: finish school, get married, then have kids. Breaking that success sequence is one of the most fundamental problems we now face.

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Last week, Republican leaders announced their tax reform plans.

The good news is that they’re pro-growth: US corporate tax rates are today the highest in the developed world, and our current system perversely punishes American companies for bringing profits back from their foreign sales. The GOP plan fixes that problem. It also cuts taxes for what has been labeled “flow through” businesses —small and family-owned businesses often use that form. My own family business uses it. The reason it’s important to cut taxes these types of small businesses is because American jobs are almost all created the same way: by small businesses becoming big businesses.

It’s been a pretty bad decade for the U.S. economy: a terrible recession followed by barely a whiff of a recovery.

That lost decade has cost us standing abroad and frayed the social fabric at home. We can end that by embracing the growth model of JFK, Reagan and Gingrich/Clinton.

Americans can’t afford another lost decade.

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President Trump made a very important point in his response to the recent shooting in Las Vegas when he called it an “act of pure evil.”

The judgment of evil here, real evil, should be beyond dispute.

Evil is a fact, too. The secular worldview cannot use the word with coherence or sense. The acknowledgement of evil requires the affirmation of a moral judgment and a moral reality above human judgment. If we are just accidental beings in an accidental universe, nothing can really be evil. Evil points to a necessary moral judgment made by a moral authority greater than we are — a transcendent and supernatural moral authority: God.

It is both telling and reassuring that secular people, faced with moral horror as we see now in Las Vegas, can still speak of evil as a moral fact—even if they continue to deny moral facts in the classrooms and courtrooms. No one can deny that the horror in Las Vegas came about by an act that was evil, pure evil, and evil as a fact.

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