Year: 2007

Why Democrats Can’t Be Trusted to Protect You

Calvin Freiburger Democrats, national security, War on Terror
The laundry list keeps growing…
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ITEM 1: Pelosi Shills for Syrian Despot
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The Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi recently met with Syrian President Bashar Assad, and is wasting no time in parroting his line: “We were very pleased with the assurances we received from the president that he was ready to resume the peace process. He’s ready to engage in negotiations for peace with Israel.” And by the way, the trip is legal grounding for Pelosi’s impeachment (or, if the Bush Administration had threatened to stop her, even imprisonment). Not that our current crop of “leaders” will stand up to her.
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ITEM 2: House Dems Vote to Allow Intimidation of US Citizens in Favor of Muslim Pressure Groups
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In response to the lying imams’ desired lawsuit against the terrified passengers who reported their suspicious conduct, Rep. Peter King offered a proposal to protect those who report potential terrorist activity from legal action. Though it passed the House, more than half of the Democrats voted against it—and surely there are more than a few liberals waiting to follow suit once it gets to the Senate.
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Outrageous, yet all-too common these days.

Moonbats and Military Service

Calvin Freiburger 9/11, blog, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, liberalism, military, moonbats, War on Terror
An eloquent, thoughtful fellow named “Anonymous” has just left this pearl of wisdom on the same-sex marriage article I recently posted:
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“Hey hotshot. You’re such a flag-waving, “God-Bless-America’ing, Bush-loving, war-supporting, sabre-rattling 19-year-old, why haven’t you joined the armed forces yet? Put that money where that mouth is, chicken-boy. College indeed!”
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I’d actually like to thank our mysterious friend for his comment, because it helps me illustrate just how loony the Left can get without having to sift through the moonbat mud that is the Daily Kos.
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First: Notice how the comment has nothing to do with the topic? I guess we’re just in a bitter mood and feel the need to vent about it.
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Second: I assume that each “ing” he attributes to me denotes a particular trait he finds objectionable. Sadly, he hasn’t articulated exactly what is objectionable about each of them. Folks, if you expect to be taken seriously in life, coherency is key.
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Third: Bush-loving? It’s true that I’ve defended the president when justified, but I haven’t been a stranger to blasting him, and on several occasions. It’s too bad that the Left so often doesn’t bother to look for background to support what they’re talking about.
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Fourth: This is a good opportunity to address one of the Left’s most common propaganda tactics: This oft-parroted line, that if you’re not a soldier you aren’t entitled to have an opinion favorable to military action, needs to be challenged. For one thing, whether or not somebody serves says nothing about whether or not his positions are right. Oliver North, John McCain & Sam Johnson view the Iraq War in a fundamentally-different way than do John Kerry, Jack Murtha & Max Cleland. They’re all military veterans, yet they obviously can’t all be correct.
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So why haven’t I joined the military? Simple: like many Americans, I don’t have what it takes. I freely admit that. The fact that I’m not serving my country in uniform is one of the reasons why I’ve dedicated myself to saving America another way: by using my particular God-given strengths—writing, debate, commentary, etc.—to the fight against internal threats to our nation’s survival. I’m proud of what I do here on CFO, in the Reporter’s opinion pages, and elsewhere, but I have never made an attempt to present my work as anything more than what it is. I will always stand in awe of the true heroes willing to trek halfway across the world, endure grueling conditions away from their families, and risk death & suffering to keep us safe & free.
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I do not know of a single conservative who views such sacrifice lightly. I certainly don’t—several friends of mine have enlisted (or will enlist), and the possibility that they might die in combat someday scares me to death. But I look at my friends and neighbors, my parents and family, and the possibility of their murder scares me to death, too. I don’t want my little goddaughters or my future children to inherit a world where madmen can slaughter whomever they deem religious heretics with reckless abandon—which is exactly what happened on a Tuesday morning six years ago.
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So while the bravest of our society fight the War on Terror, I’ll keep on fighting the War of Public Opinion. You think I’m wrong? Fine. Show me where. But if you think I’m going to apologize for what I believe, or for doing my (relatively small, admittedly) part for America’s survival, think again.

Saving Marriage

Calvin Freiburger Blankenhorn, culture, gay marriage, marriage, society, Weekly Standard
An important piece by David Blankenhorn from the latest Weekly Standard:
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Defining Marriage Down Is No Way to Save It
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Does permitting same-sex marriage weaken marriage as a social institution? Or does extending to gay and lesbian couples the right to marry have little or no effect on marriage overall? Scholars and commentators have expended much effort trying in vain to wring proof of causation from the data–all the while ignoring the meaning of some simple correlations that the numbers do indubitably show.
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Much of the disagreement among scholars centers on how to interpret trends in the Netherlands and Scandinavia. Stanley Kurtz has argued, in this magazine and elsewhere, that the adoption of gay marriage or same-sex civil unions in those countries has significantly weakened customary marriage, already eroded by easy divorce and stigma-free cohabitation.
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William Eskridge, a Yale Law School professor, and Darren R. Spedale, an attorney, beg to differ. In Gay Marriage: For Better or for Worse?, a book-length reply to Kurtz, they insist that Kurtz does not prove that gay marriage is causing anything in those nations; that Nordic marriage overall appears to be healthier than Kurtz allows; and that even if marriage is declining in that part of the world, “the question remains whether that phenomenon is a lamentable development.”
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Eskridge and Spedale want it both ways. For them, there is no proof that marriage has weakened, but if there were it wouldn’t be a problem. For people who care about marriage, this perspective inspires no confidence. Eskridge and Spedale do score one important point, however. Neither Kurtz nor anyone else can scientifically prove that allowing gay marriage causes the institution of marriage to get weaker. Correlation does not imply causation. The relation between two correlated phenomena may be causal, or it may be random, or it may reflect some deeper cause producing both. Even if you could show that every last person in North Carolina eats barbecue, you would not have established that eating barbecue is a result of taking up residence in North Carolina.
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When it comes to the health of marriage as an institution and the legal status of same-sex unions, there is much to be gained from giving up the search for causation and studying some recurring patterns in the data, as I did for my book The Future of Marriage. It turns out that certain clusters of beliefs about and attitudes toward marriage consistently correlate with certain institutional arrangements. The correlations crop up in a large number of countries and recur in data drawn from different surveys of opinion.
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Take the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), a collaborative effort of universities in over 40 countries. It interviewed about 50,000 adults in 35 countries in 2002. What is useful for our purposes is that respondents were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with six statements that directly relate to marriage as an institution:
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1. Married people are generally happier than unmarried people.
2. People who want children ought to get married.
3. One parent can bring up a child as well as two parents together.
4. It is all right for a couple to live together without intending to get married.
5. Divorce is usually the best solution when a couple can’t seem to work out their marriage problems.
6. The main purpose of marriage these days is to have children.
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Let’s stipulate that for statements one, two, and six, an “agree” answer indicates support for traditional marriage as an authoritative institution. Similarly, for statements three, four, and five, let’s stipulate that agreement indicates a lack of support, or less support, for traditional marriage. –
Then divide the countries surveyed into four categories: those that permit same-sex marriage; those that permit same-sex civil unions (but not same-sex marriage); those in which some regions permit same-sex marriage; and those that do not legally recognize same-sex unions.
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The correlations are strong. Support for marriage is by far the weakest in countries with same-sex marriage. The countries with marriage-like civil unions show significantly more support for marriage. The two countries with only regional recognition of gay marriage (Australia and the United States) do better still on these support-for-marriage measurements, and those without either gay marriage or marriage-like civil unions do best of all.
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In some instances, the differences are quite large. For example, people in nations with gay marriage are less than half as likely as people in nations without gay unions to say that married people are happier. Perhaps most important, they are significantly less likely to say that people who want children ought to get married (38 percent vs. 60 percent). They are also significantly more likely to say that cohabiting without intending to marry is all right (83 percent vs. 50 percent), and are somewhat more likely to say that divorce is usually the best solution to marital problems. Respondents in the countries with gay marriage are significantly more likely than those in Australia and the United States to say that divorce is usually the best solution.
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A similar exercise using data from a different survey yields similar results. The World Values Survey, based in Stockholm, Sweden, periodically interviews nationally representative samples of the publics of some 80 countries on six continents–over 100,000 people in all–on a range of issues. It contains three statements directly related to marriage as an institution:
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1. A child needs a home with both a father and a mother to grow up happily.
2. It is all right for a woman to want a child but not a stable relationship with a man.
3. Marriage is an outdated institution.
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Again grouping the countries according to the legal status of same-sex unions, the data from the 1999-2001 wave of interviews yield a clear pattern. Support for marriage as an institution is weakest in those countries with same-sex marriage. Countries with same-sex civil unions show more support, and countries with regional recognition show still more. By significant margins, support for marriage is highest in countries that extend no legal recognition to same-sex unions.
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So what of it? Granted that these correlations may or may not reflect causation, what exactly can be said about the fact that certain values and attitudes and legal arrangements tend to cluster?
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Here’s an analogy. Find some teenagers who smoke, and you can confidently predict that they are more likely to drink than their nonsmoking peers. Why? Because teen smoking and drinking tend to hang together. What’s more, teens who engage in either of these activities are also more likely than nonsmokers or nondrinkers to engage in other risky behaviors, such as skipping school, getting insufficient sleep, and forming friendships with peers who get into trouble.
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Because these behaviors correlate and tend to reinforce one another, it is virtually impossible for the researcher to pull out any one from the cluster and determine that it alone is causing or is likely to cause some personal or (even harder to measure) social result. All that can be said for sure is that these things go together. To the degree possible, parents hope that their children can avoid all of them, the entire syndrome–drinking, smoking, skipping school, missing sleep, and making friends with other children who get into trouble–in part because each of them increases exposure to the others.
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It’s the same with marriage. Certain trends in values and attitudes tend to cluster with each other and with certain trends in behavior. A rise in unwed childbearing goes hand in hand with a weakening of the belief that people who want to have children should get married. High divorce rates are encountered where the belief in marital permanence is low. More one-parent homes are found where the belief that children need both a father and a mother is weaker. A rise in nonmarital cohabitation is linked at least partly to the belief that marriage as an institution is outmoded. The legal endorsement of gay marriage occurs where the belief prevails that marriage itself should be redefined as a private personal relationship. And all of these marriage-weakening attitudes and behaviors are linked. Around the world, the surveys show, these things go together.
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Eskridge and Spedale are right. We cannot demonstrate statistically what exactly causes what, or what is likely to have what consequences in the future. But we do see in country after country that these phenomena form a pattern that recurs. They are mutually reinforcing. Socially, an advance for any of them is likely to be an advance for all of them. An individual who tends to accept any one or two of them probably accepts the others as well. And as a political and strategic matter, anyone who is fighting for any one of them should–almost certainly already does–support all of them, since a victory for any of them clearly coincides with the advance of the others. Which is why, for example, people who have devoted much of their professional lives to attacking marriage as an institution almost always favor gay marriage. These things do go together.
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Inevitably, the pattern discernible in the statistics is borne out in the statements of the activists. Many of those who most vigorously champion same-sex marriage say that they do so precisely in the hope of dethroning once and for all the traditional “conjugal institution.”
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That phrase comes from Judith Stacey, professor of sociology at New York University and a major expert witness testifying in courts and elsewhere for gay marriage. She views the fight for same-sex marriage as the “vanguard site” for rebuilding family forms. The author of journal articles like “Good Riddance to ‘The Family,'” she argues forthrightly that “if we begin to value the meaning and quality of intimate bonds over their customary forms, there are few limits to the kinds of marriage and kinship patterns people might wish to devise.”
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Similarly, David L. Chambers, a law professor at the University of Michigan widely published on family issues, favors gay marriage for itself but also because it would likely “make society receptive to the further evolution of the law.” What kind of evolution? He writes, “If the deeply entrenched paradigm we are challenging is the romantically linked man-woman couple, we should respect the similar claims made against the hegemony of the two-person unit and against the romantic foundations of marriage.”
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Examples could be multiplied–the recently deceased Ellen Willis, professor of journalism at NYU and head of its Center for Cultural Reporting and Criticism, expressed the hope that gay marriage would “introduce an implicit revolt against the institution into its very heart, further promoting the democratization and secularization of personal and sexual life”–but they can only illustrate the point already established by the large-scale international comparisons: Empirically speaking, gay marriage goes along with the erosion, not the shoring up, of the institution of marriage.
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These facts have two implications. First, to the degree that it makes any sense to oppose gay marriage, it makes sense only if one also opposes with equal clarity and intensity the other main trends pushing our society toward postinstitutional marriage. After all, the big idea is not to stop gay marriage. The big idea is to stop the erosion of society’s most pro-child institution. Gay marriage is only one facet of the larger threat to the institution.
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Similarly, it’s time to recognize that the beliefs about marriage that correlate with the push for gay marriage do not exist in splendid isolation, unrelated to marriage’s overall institutional prospects. Nor do those values have anything to do with strengthening the institution, notwithstanding the much-publicized but undocumented claims to the contrary from those making the “conservative case” for gay marriage.
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Instead, the deep logic of same-sex marriage is clearly consistent with what scholars call deinstitutionalization–the overturning or weakening of all of the customary forms of marriage, and the dramatic shrinking of marriage’s public meaning and institutional authority. Does deinstitutionalization necessarily require gay marriage? Apparently not. For decades heterosexuals have been doing a fine job on that front all by themselves. But gay marriage clearly presupposes and reinforces deinstitutionalization.
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By itself, the “conservative case” for gay marriage might be attractive. It would be gratifying to extend the benefits of marriage to same-sex couples–if gay marriage and marriage renewal somehow fit together. But they do not. As individuals and as a society, we can strive to maintain and strengthen marriage as a primary social institution and society’s best welfare plan for children (some would say for men and women too). Or we can strive to implement same-sex marriage. But unless we are prepared to tear down with one hand what we are building up with the other, we cannot do both.

Dad Takes on Petri

Calvin Freiburger Dad, Iraq, Petri, reporter
Like father, like son:
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Nothing to do with ‘free thinking’
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Bill Zeleske labels Jim Kiser (outgoing Fond du Lac County Republican Party vice chair) and Holly Schwefel (outgoing Fond du Lac County Republican Party chair) blind partisans for condemning Rep. Tom Petri’s Iraq resolution vote.
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Mr. Zeleske’s ridiculous, overblown rhetoric is itself a pretty good example of blind partisanship. But a much bigger problem is when Democrats (assisted by enablers like Petri) put their desire to damage the administration ahead of the good of the country.
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Is there any excuse to be where we are after four years in Iraq? None.
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Is it fair to condemn the administration for its handling of the war? Absolutely.
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However, there is a big difference between identifying the administration’s failings and signing on to a resolution that will serve only to give hope to those fighting our troops: The terrorists believe that they can wait us out if they keep killing, every death bringing them closer to the day the American people give up.
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I believe that Petri stuck his finger in the air and acted accordingly. There is no honor in decision by public opinion poll, made when no other course of action appears to be politically safe. Mr. Petri has not offered leadership regarding the war over the last four years. He now believes that jumping to the anti side is politically expedient.
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Petri offers the partition of Iraq as a solution, but this is just a shabby device to cover our exit. Anyone who thinks that the Iraqis will neatly divide themselves into three, absent the force of American arms, is delusional.
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Would Zeleske and (David) Beaster be praising Petri for showing “personal integrity” had he openly criticized the president for not fighting hard enough in Iraq? Of course not.
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Their attack on Kiser and Schwefel has nothing to do with “free thinking” politicians or “personal integrity”, but rather is about their own lack of it.
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Paul Freiburger

Media Bias Consumption

Calvin Freiburger bias, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, media, reporter
Editorial: Another ‘451’ lesson: As mainstream media struggles, democracy wanes
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As Fond du Lac Reads! reaches its closing chapter, we stand in awe of author Ray Bradbury’s fortune-telling capabilities.
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In his “Fahrenheit 451” masterwork, he envisioned a culture in which literature — and, by extension, serious journalism — are as obsolete as the democracy that once relied upon them.
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We take that message seriously. The names you see at the top of this page represent the editorial board of this newspaper, and not one of us lives in a gilded ivory tower. We are quite aware of the public’s perception of what we do and how we do it, day in and day out.
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Depending on whom you ask, The Reporter is either too liberal for conservatives OR too conservative for liberals; either pandering to the needs of minority communities OR not sensitive enough to the increasingly diverse face of Fond du Lac; either spending too much time focused on outlying communities OR ignoring everyone but our urban center. The paradoxes seem endless.
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If I had a nickel for every time I heard this line! Media lefties love to turn criticisms against themselves into “he said/she said” affairs: who’s to say who’s right?
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In short, our daily newspaper is confronting the same challenges faced by every other “traditional media” outlet in the country, if not the world — from the New York Times to the local evening broadcast. It is the bane of any news gathering organization that tries to appeal to a broad swath of the public at a time when “custom,” “niche” and “segmentation” are the new buzzwords of choice.
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Indeed, the hunger for information, entertainment (and their devilish offspring “infotainment”) has never been higher.
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 What has changed — what Bradbury so wisely foresaw — is the way in which consumers want it presented. Objectivity, be damned:
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– Those on the left end of the political spectrum can read The Progressive or Mother Jones, tune in to the BBC or Air America each night and, perhaps, read Anna Quindlen’s latest novel. Nary a right-leaning thought need ever enter their heads.
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– Those on the far right can consume The Weekly Standard or The American Spectator, savor the witticisms of Rush Limbaugh, enjoy the Fox News Network and kick back with Ann Coulter’s most recent opus. Any whiff of liberalism can be scrubbed from their existence.
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Calling the Fox News CHANNEL a right-wing venue actually exposes that the Reporter editorial staff does indeed have a liberal bias. For one thing, FNC’s resident “conservative” Bill O’Reilly believes in global warming & denounced the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. For another, they employ more than a few liberals & other pundits who clearly aren’t conservative: Geraldo Rivera, Alan Colmes, Greta Van Susteren, Mort Kondracke, Mara Liasson, Nina Easton, Neal Gabler, Jane Hall…Fox Senior Judicial Analyst, Judge Andrew Napolitano, commonly offers legal interpretations unfavorable to the Right. Fox’s straight reporting does give both sides of the story, and with regular guests like Jane Fleming, Bob Beckel, Wesley Clark, Ellis Henican, Laura Schwartz, Al Sharpton, Jonathon Turley, and that Farrakhan henchthug who’s on Hannity & Colmes all the time, the Left is always amply represented.
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And, for the first time in U.S. history, individuals on both sides of the socio-political spectrum can spend a lifetime without having exposure to a thought, notion, idea or position that in any way offends their sensibilities.
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This, of course, is an exciting prospect from a consumer point of view. Imagine a world where niche after niche after niche is tailored specifically to our personal biases, thus freeing us from having to cope with anything that might be “disconcerting” or “off-putting.”
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Kate hit this nail on the head: “No doubt there are some who read, or watch, only things that agrees with their point of view. However, any reasonably intelligent conservative also reads the ‘other side’.” Also, most conservative commentary I’m aware of tackles the Left’s arguments head-on.
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God forbid we wrestle with any issues that might make our days — how shall we put this? — less pleasant. Indeed, why sweat the future of Social Security when, oh, we can get live graveside coverage of Anna Nicole Smith’s burial?
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As Ray Bradbury presciently stated in his 1953 novel: “If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him: give him one. Better yet, give him none … “
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As the segmenting of America continues, we fear the loss of the proverbial “town square,” that safe place where neighbors of all creeds, beliefs and stripes can converge to exchange ideas and weigh them in a civil manner. (Too many nightly news shows suggest that the “winners” of such debates aren’t those with the best arguments, but the pundits who yell the loudest).
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Ah, the obligatory “Loudmouth O’Reilly” slap! Has anyone at the Reporter even sat through an entire episode of the Factor?
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Simply put, “Fahrenheit 451” foresaw the death of “we, the people” when individual citizens only care about “I, the person.”
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Indeed, the novel’s cautionary message rings more true today than it did more than a half century ago.
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And if that doesn’t frighten you, it should.

Reporter Point-Counterpoint

Calvin Freiburger Clifford, reporter, scandal, WI Supreme Court, Ziegler
Two opinions on the state Court race today. First, Senator Glenn Grothman weighs in:
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The election for Supreme Court on Tuesday is one of the most important in years.
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Governors serve for four years, state legislators for two or four, but Supreme Court justices serve for 10 years. As courts become more activist, they can do more harm to our business climate than government bureaucrats. They can order government to spend more money and drive up taxes.
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Little old Wisconsin has attracted national interest in the Wall Street Journal for having one of the worst Supreme Courts in the nation.
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I’ve known Judge Annette Ziegler for 10 years and am confident she will stand up for justice against the activist wing of the court. Her opponent is being supported by the same Madison trial attorneys who have created the current mess.
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Please join me in voting for Annette Ziegler.
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Why would Clifford continue the activist mess? Maybe it has something to do with this story…or this one…
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And in this corner, we have Ted & Hedy Eischeid:
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We have watched the current State Supreme Court race between Linda Clifford and Annette Ziegler with some interest.
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Such non-partisan races can be tough ones for voters trying to make the best choice. In addition, several interest groups are running ads for both candidates that simply make the choice more confusing.
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However, there is one standard that decides who we will vote for and that is integrity. Judicial candidates can’t speak about how they will vote on future cases, but we as voters can look at their records and decide which of the candidates will be a fair judge who will decide cases with intelligence and integrity.
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Given this perspective, we will be voting for Linda Clifford. Mrs. Clifford has an outstanding legal record, one of integrity and intelligence. Unfortunately, her opponent, Annette Ziegler, has clearly violated the Judicial Code of Conduct multiple times.
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If Judge Ziegler can’t follow a simple ethical code expected of all judges, how can she fairly hear cases brought before the highest court in the state? We don’t care how much experience she has as a judge — flawed ethical behavior as a judge equals a flawed judge. Judge Ziegler’s version of integrity simply doesn’t pass the smell test.
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Based on this critical issue of integrity, we will be voting for Linda Clifford on April 3. For the State Supreme Court, integrity does matter. Vote for a breath of fresh air on Tuesday.
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OK, class, what’s missing in this letter? Anyone? If your guess was “What ethical violations?” you’re correct!
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For more information on the scandals of the race, check out this article from Fact Check, which says that while “The investigation by the Wisconsin Judicial Commission may clear that up, albeit after the election,” there’s currently “no evidence that the Zieglers got any financial benefit from her rulings.”