Townhall Review | Commentaries

If it weren’t on video, you wouldn’t believe it. Students at Stanford Law School shouted down a federal appeals court judge—and the associate dean summoned to restore order actually supported them in doing it.

Before becoming a judge, Kyle Duncan of the Fifth Circuit represented clients and made arguments that offended leftist students. So, he was screamed at and jeered. The associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion sided with the protestors, pondering whether he should be speaking at all.

This disgraceful episode isn’t an isolated incident. Worse, college administrators aren’t just failing the young people they’re supposed to be educating. They’re failing all of us.

A functioning representative democracy depends on citizens capable of more than insulting and shouting down others. A functioning legal system depends on lawyers capable of rational analysis and hearing opposing arguments.

Too many students are learning none of these skills. It will hurt all of us in the end.

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The Democratic party has an extremism problem. In a country with only two major parties, this means America has an extremism problem, and it’s fueled by the Democrats. 

Here in Arizona: you can see this in sharp relief. 

Last week, in the wake of the latest, horrific school shooting we saw the press secretary for Katie Hobbs—our new Democratic governor—tweet out a video of a gun-toting woman saying “Us when we see transphobes.” She was encouraging violence within hours of the shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School by someone claiming to be transgender.

Just last summer, the Democratic party of Pima county here hosted a “F* the Fourth” [can we say: “expletive-the fourth”] party to commemorate Independence Day.  For today’s Democrats, America is not something to be celebrated but condemned.   

What really ought to be condemned is this sort of extremism, coming from leaders within today’s Democratic party.

Remember: Exhibit A: Arizona.

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In sobering news for our country’s future, a new Wall Street Journal poll says our national values have shifted radically over the last 25 years. In 1998, 70 percent of Americans deemed patriotism very important and 62 percent said the same of religion. Now, only 38 percent find patriotism very important, and only 39 percent said the same of religion. 

The share of Americans who holds childrearing and hard work as very important values has also fallen dramatically. Young Americans are the least religious, least patriotic, and least committed both to hard work and to having children.

Not surprisingly, they are also more anxious and depressed. Could it be because many have rejected the stabilizing values and commitments that make life worth living?  

It’s sad for them—and a resounding failure on the part of all of us charged with equipping them for lives of meaning and purpose. We need to turn this ship around. Fast.

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Has NPR turned into Narrative Public Radio? They claimed this weekend that only “limited scientific evidence” exists for the physical advantages of males in sports competition. Their report attempted to cast a critical look at steps taken by the World Athletics Council to restrict access to women’s competitions to biological females. What they really offered was clear look into narrative journalism and agenda-driven “news.”

We have at least a century of data on sports competition that conclusively proves an advantage. We keep separate records on such events and offer sex-exclusive competition in sports based on the obvious biological advantages in strength, speed, and stamina in those records. All of this allows women meaningful opportunities to compete and excel in sports. 

The science for a counter-argument is completely lacking.

Even a study NPR quotes shows that adult males maintain their advantages after two years of hormone treatments. 

Rather than acknowledge that and report the truth about transgender athletics, NPR chose to lie about it to support their political agenda. It’s shameful, destructive and evidence of corruption in taxpayer-funded NPR.

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In a win for parents nationwide, last week the Parents Bill of Rights passed the House of Representatives. The legislation simply establishes what should be obvious: parents have a right both to know what their children are being taught in school, and to have a say in school policies. The law also requires parents to be notified if school personnel are acting to change a child’s gender.

Remarkably, not a single Democrat supported it. Some denounced it hysterically. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez invoked fascism; House Minority Leader Hakim Jeffries insisted Republicans want to keep children from learning about the Holocaust.

How ridiculous. No one wants to ban books.  Parents just want to know if sexually explicit books are in their child’s school library.

The Parents’ Bill of Rights highlights the contrast between Democrats and Republicans. One party believes parents’ rights are paramount. The other is—first and foremost—the party of big (and bossy!) government.

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The free exercise of religion is foundational—indeed our Constitution explicitly protects it. But schools regularly violate the religious liberty rights of students and teachers alike.

One teacher fought back. And it took him seven years for the Supreme Court to vindicate his rights. 
 
Coach Joseph Kennedy was fired from his high school football coaching position because he engaged in silent personal prayer on the field after a game. He sued. And last year he won big at the Supreme Court. A 6-3 ruling declaring that the public school had violated his Free Exercise and Free Speech rights.

Earlier this month that public school district had to pay. Big time. $1.7 million dollars is what they’ve agreed to pay Coach K. And, best news of all, he’ll be back on the football field this Fall. 
 
Coach K is an example that when the government violates our rights, we should fight back. And win

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We are witnessing a major realignment on the world stage.

I’m referring to Vladimir Putin’s developing friendship with China’s Xi Jinping—and the two leaders' recent meeting in Moscow.

China and Russia have something important in common—something far more important than their shared border. That is: a basic opposition to the United States and to the West.

The nations of the world are aligning themselves with China and Russia on one side and then the United States and our Western allies on the other. It’s happening fast, right before our eyes, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult for nations to be non-aligned.

After the Soviet Union had fallen, at the end of the 20th Century, many—naively—believed all those alignments would now be rearranged in a world of globalization driven by commerce and a common culture.

Simply put: Globalization didn’t deliver on its promises.

We are, once again, looking at a great ideological—a great worldview—cleavage. 

All Americans—left, right and center—ought to be paying very close attention.

I guarantee you Russia and China are.

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President Biden has issued only one veto so far, and he used it to protect gigantic Wall Street firms such as Blackrock who use an approach to investing called ESG, which imports social factors into financial decision-making. 

The Trump administration had—rightfully—told pension managers that they could only use ESG in the investment process if they could make the case that such factors would likely improve the financial returns for retirees. 

That’s the standard to which pensions have historically been held. Managers have a fiduciary duty to focus on one thing: The financial good of retirees. 

When, for example, a state treasurer is making decisions about the future retirements of school teachers and firefighters, politics should be left out of it. Retirees and their widows and orphans deserve nothing less. 

The president’s veto sided with the big boys and against the little guys—and with woke politics over faithful fiscal management.

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After the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and its well-connected venture capital interests, pressure mounted for the federal government to make everyone whole regardless of FDIC insurance caps. Elizabeth Warren followed up by proposing to lift deposit insurance caps from 250 thousand dollars to as high as ten million dollars.

Not only would that amount to a bailout of the wealthy, it would create a number of unintended consequences. FDIC insurance would skyrocket, as would capital controls, in ways that would likely force most community and regional banks out of business. The consolidation that followed would create a handful of too-big-to-fail banking institutions and concentrate even more economic and political power into fewer hands.

The FDIC exists to protect individual depositors, not the wealthy bankers and speculators from the consequences of their own folly. Bailouts—especially of the sort Warren is proposing—create moral hazards that result in more failures in the future. We should have learned that lesson in 2008.

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It looks like Donald Trump is going to be arrested for having paid hush money to Stormy Daniels during the 2016 campaign. Trump’s detractors—and there are many—are salivating at the prospect of his being fingerprinted and mug shot.

But there’s something considerably more important at stake here. The United States has never behaved like a banana republic, where the opposing party rushes to prosecute former leaders the minute it gains power. But with the Mar-a-Lago raid and these charges—which even some left-leaning legal analysts call trivial—that tradition’s evaporating.

This kind of foolish political gamesmanship erodes our standing in the eyes of our adversaries and allies alike. America comes off as weak, hyper-partisan, and obsessed with petty political vendettas. Not the profile of a world leader.

Great powers remain great powers only as long as they command respect by behaving like great powers. That’s something Democrats should bear in mind.

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