Townhall Review | Conservative Commentary On Today's News

The rise of childlessness is reaching increasingly alarming levels in Europe. The Economist recently noted that “just 9 percent of English and Welsh women born in 1946 had no children. But, for the cohort born in 1970, the proportion is 17 percent. But now in Germany, 22 percent of women reach their early 40s without children; in the German city of Hamburg 32 percent do.” The fact is, no society can survive without an adequate number of children being born, and that there is a very real prospect, as we already see in a nation like Japan, the childlessness leads to an eventual demographic and economic disaster. The Economist, however, defends childlessness saying, “The childless are thus a small but useful counterweight to the world’s parents, who perpetuate social immobility by passing on their social and economic advantages to their children.” Let me just point out that the only way to resolve that passing on of what’s identified here as social immobility is for the society to come to an absolute end through childlessness. That’s the embrace of nihilism. Let’s face it for what it is.

Senator Bernie Sanders has recently introduced “Medicare for all” legislation, which would enroll all Americans into the nation’s Medicare program within four years. Senator Sanders argues that his proposal would create a system that “works not just for millionaires and billionaires, but for all of us.” As Democrats and other policy makers debate the merits of Senator Sanders’s proposal, here are a few important observations about international systems that they ought to consider. First, a vanishingly small number of countries actually have single-payer systems. In fact, almost all feature some role for private-sector insurance companies and providers. Second, single-payer countries have also failed to control rising health care costs. This is important, given that Mr. Sanders’s proposal was released without a cost estimate or financing plan. Third, it is simply untrue that single-payer systems produce a better quality of care across the board. All Americans should bear one important precept in mind: If the Sanders plan sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Townhall Review – September 21, 2017 President Trump gives a speech of a lifetime at the UN General Council. Mike Gallagher invites North Korea expert Gordon Chang on his show to weigh in on Trump’s comments about the dangerous North Korean regime. Dennis Prager also looks at a few of the great moments of President Trump’s speech. Mark Davis invites Michael Anton, senior national security official in the Trump administration, to discuss how diplomatic and economic pressures are being applied to North Korea. Ben Shapiro shares with Michael Medved his disturbing experience while speaking at UC Berkeley. Mark Davis speaks with James Hohmann, a national political correspondent for the Washington Post, about Hillary Clinton’s new book. Jake Tapper, Chief Washington Correspondent for CNN, shares with Michael Medved about what cultural bias that hurts people on the Left. Dennis Prager laments about the breakdown of order which leads to a humanity that can’t figure out what gender actually is.

CBS News recently reported that the country of Iceland has almost completely eradicated Down syndrome. What they really mean is that Iceland has almost completely eradicated people with Down syndrome. The story explains, “Since prenatal screening tests were introduced in Iceland in the early 2000s, the vast majority of women—close to 100 percent—who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy.” There are many in Iceland, including some medical ethicists, who are trying to deny that this is really a big moral issue at all. One medical authority in Iceland said this, “We don’t look at abortion as a murder. We look at it as a thing that we ended . . . And I think that is more right than seeing it as a murder — that’s so black and white. Life isn’t black and white. Life is grey.” Well actually this is very black and white. It is life and death. It is just that distinct. Iceland is murdering babies in the womb simply because they are seen as being genetically deficient, insufficiently valuable in order to have a right or privilege to be born.

After several unsuccessful attempts this year, Republicans have one last chance to deliver on their seven-year old promise to repeal and replace ObamaCare. Legislation recently introduced by Senators Lindsey Graham, Bill Cassidy, Dean Heller and Ron Johnson eliminates some of ObamaCare’s most unpopular provisions and enacts reforms that will help to lower costs, expand choices, promote federal fiscal responsibility, and put power back in the hands of states and consumers. The Graham-Cassidy bill’s biggest strength is its adherence to the idea that states are uniquely equipped to design and implement the health care reforms that best suit their residents. It collapses the Obamacare federal funding into a single block grant, which states can use for a wide variety of health reforms. Graham-Cassidy is not a perfect proposal. But Republicans no longer have the luxury of waiting for perfect. The legislation before them is the most thoughtful and conservative health reform plan they have encountered in their years-long effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare. Now, they must act quickly to pass it and finally get the job done.

ESPN is back in the news—not for its perpetually declining ratings, but because of comments by two female anchors. Jemele Hill caused a stir when she called President Trump a “white supremacist” and identified his close associates in the same terms. Linda Cohn, a longtime anchor, observed—accurately—that some viewers may be tuning ESPN out because of its left-leaning coverage. ESPN reacted differently to the two journalists, issuing a statement about Hill, while suspending Cohn. There’s a strange double standard operating in American culture today. If athletes and celebrities voice progressive views, they’re activists for social justice. They get a gold star. But if they support anything right of center, they’re often labelled as politically divisive, and they get sidelined. Tons of viewers turn to ESPN for dunks, heroic comebacks, and witty exchanges. Maybe the network should leave the idea-silencing to police states. There may still be time to “Make ESPN Great Again.” Maybe.

The New York Times recently noted the death of a prominent feminist, Kate Millett, who died at 82. The obituary rightly points out that Millett’s book “Sexual Politics” became known as the Bible of Feminism in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s. In her book, published in 1969, included her words, “Patriarchy’s chief institution is the family. It is both a mirror of and a connection with the larger society; a patriarchal unit within a patriarchal whole.” What she called for was an overthrow of patriarchy, which would involve the complete overthrow the family and marriage and the normativity of heterosexual relationships, and the expectation of having children. In the end, Kate Millett died a very sad life. The passing of Kate Millett reminds us of how these kinds of ideas and come into our culture and of the toxic effects that they often have. But very sadly, it also reminds us that any worldview that sees the having and raising of children as a problem and as a burden rather than as a blessing cannot but end in sadness.

Godzilla has landed. Ben Shapiro spoke Thursday night at the University of California-Berkeley. Prior to the young conservative’s talk on free speech, local press noted that the university had added major concrete fortifications to handle protestors. In addition, 76 campus faculty members signed a letter urging students to sit out Berkeley’s “Free Speech Week” and stay home. Responding to press coverage, Shapiro compared the reaction to his talk as one befitting Godzilla. In truth, Godzilla might have proved less scary than a thoughtful voice promoting the free exchange of ideas. Irony abounds in Berkeley. Violent leftists associated with Antifa do their darndest to supposedly oppose violence. Faculty members who demand that their views be heard show no such fairness to others. But, some students today are still thinking for themselves. They’re seeing tolerance play out that is no tolerance at all. Perhaps the next generation is not lost. Let’s engage them. Let’s make the case for sound principles and permanent things. We’ll talk to anyone—even Godzilla.

The Townhall Review – September 16, 2017 Michael Medved takes a close look at the 60 Minutes interview between Steve Bannon, the former White House Chief Strategist and executive chairman of Breitbart News, and Charlie Rose of CBS. Mike Gallagher invited former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich on his show to explain the prospect of Trump betraying his own to help fund the recovery efforts, post Hurricane Harvey and Irma. Mark Lilla of Columbia University and author of, “The Once and Future Liberal,” joined Michael Medved to discuss varying political identities and how they can become a way of looking at the world. Guy Benson of Townhall.com turned to David French of the National Review to discuss sexual assault and the abandonment of due process on the college campus. Dennis Prager speaks with Evergreen State College Biology Professor Bret Weinstein about the joke college campuses are making themselves out to be. Ben Shapiro, Founder of the Daily Wire, shares with Mike Gallagher about his upcoming event at Cal Berkley’s chapter of the “Young America’s Foundation.” Michael Medved invites Douglas Murray to answer questions from his new book, “The Strange Death of Europe.” Finally, Hugh Hewitt interviews a special consultant in nuclear security, Jim Talent, about the miniature nuclear warheads that North Korea now processes.

After a miserable summer for movies, with box-office down some 15 percent across the board, September brought a big surprise: a modestly budgeted fright-fest with no big names smashed all records for horror films or for September releases in general. “It,” based on a 1986 Stephen King novel and a ’90s TV miniseries, centers on an ageless cannibal clown who arises from the sewers of a Maine town every 27 years to murder and mutilate local children. A group of outcaste 13-year-olds does battle with this demonic force, while the film’s only adults engage in incest, sadism, attempted rape, child abuse, and wanton cruelty. As in many Stephen King stories, supernatural power functions only on the dark side, never balanced by the goodly or the godly. The only genuinely scary aspect of the whole “It” phenomenon is the public reception for this mediocre product: the $117 million in opening weekend business is as grotesque as anything on screen.

Since the Trump Administration announced the end of President Obama’s DACA policy, the nation now turns to Congress to determine what should be done about the “dreamers,” those 800,000 young people brought illegally to the U.S. as children who are now hoping for a future in America. It is vital that we make an important distinction made often in our American courts: namely, the distinction between what is constitutional and what is right. Justice Antonin Scalia is famous for saying that a policy can be stupid but not unconstitutional. Similarly, a policy may achieve a righteous end, but the means of doing so may be unconstitutional. Such is the case with DACA. There has to be a way of getting to what the DACA policy was attempting to do, but that does not circumvent Congress, and it’s now Congress’ responsibility. President Trump has given Congress six months to act legislatively and decisively to guarantee the same kind of security to DACA recipients. Now is the time for Congress to act.

This summer, Commentary magazine published a forum on the question: Is free speech under threat in the United States? Ironically, in a country where the Constitution and the courts carefully protect free speech, many people do not feel free to speak freely. Why? Because of a smothering blanket of political correctness that starts in our colleges and permeates our society. Speakers with points of view that differ from the liberal orthodoxy are not welcome on many campuses, and in some cases have been subject to threats and violence. Students are supposed to be protected from so-called trigger words and microaggressions in the classroom. So much for free speech and the open debate of competing ideas. The problem is that the First Amendment protects free speech from limitations by government, but the big challenges to free speech come from our culture and our campuses. It will take a strong fight to protect free speech, which is clearly under threat.

The sharpest divisions in politics today aren’t based on race or economic status, but on religion. Last year’s exit polls showed 26 percent who described themselves as Evangelical Christians, and they preferred Donald Trump by a crushing margin of 81 to 16 percent. Among the rest of the electorate—the 74 percent who said they were NOT evangelical or born-again—Hillary won a landslide, 60 to 34 percent. Why the difference, when few fervent Christians viewed Trump as a paragon of virtue, or a person of deep faith? The answer involves pervasive fear about threats to religious liberty—with people of faith alarmed at attacks on individuals, businesses and even religious organizations that espouse politically incorrect views on same sex marriage, abortion, or public prayer. Unless liberals begin standing up for religious liberty and freedom of conscience, and stop treating religious believers as the enemy, people of faith will continue to swing elections to the GOP as a matter of self-defense.

At key turning points in history, dramatic events seem to come together to force cooperation between even the most reluctant partisans. In the face of devastation from Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma, for instance, even a brief governmental shutdown would have been unthinkable, so Republicans and Democrats came together to provide disaster relief, to pass a budget, and to raise the debt ceiling. Meanwhile, the H-bomb explosion by North Korea means that all sides should rally behind the President in his strong economic or military response to the brutal regime in Pyongyang, and to build-up our armed forces. Finally, there’s the new six-month deadline for so-called “Dreamers”: the prospect of deportation of 800,000 gainfully employed young Americans who've been raised since childhood in the US, would do major economic and social damage, so liberals must work with conservatives for meaningful immigration reform and enhanced border security. Big challenges require big and bi-partisan responses, including better coordination between Congress and the President.

President Trump has ended DACA and given Congress six months to take action on the issue of illegal immigration. As Congress works to write and pass a bill, they must recognize the moral necessity of building a border wall—a border barrier—a border fence. In July alone, there were 18,000 arrests at the border. Imagine how many were not arrested—made it past. I’m not certain how many people were swept away by Hurricane Harvey while trying to come into this country illegally, but it had to be a significant number, drawn here by the promise of easy access across that border. If we do not secure the barrier, we will continue to attract people to make the arduous and sometimes deadly trip that ends for too many in a Walmart parking lot, dead in the back of a truck from asphyxiation, or swept away in a flood. We have a moral imperative to remove the incentive. The policy that German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a couple of years ago was essentially if you can survive the journey to Europe, you can stay here. What kind of policy is that? America can and must do better. We must be better than that. It’s time to build that barrier.