If the Bill of Rights was intended to place strict limits on federal power and protect individual and locality from the national government the 14th Amendment effectively defeated that purpose by placing the power to enforce the Bill of Rights in federal hands, where it was never intended to be.
Ilana MercerStill - and for all Obama's heavy hinting to the contrary - Islam has no "human rights." The ideas of individual rights and the dignity of man are distinctly Western, an outgrowth of the Enlightenment. And while dialogue is dignified; dhimmitude is not, even if it achieves a desired, if temporary, effect.
Ilana Mercer...the West has its share of liars and poseurs, the ablest of whom congregate in government.
Ilana MercerThe strength of ideas rests on their relationship to reality. MacKinnon’s unrealistic fulminations against a phantom patriarchy exist in the arid arena of pure thought.
Ilana MercerIncarcerating people for their [drug] consumption choices has the consistency of arresting a survivor of suicide for attempted murder.
Ilana MercerLiberals can always be trusted to see God in Mumia Abu-Jamal and the devil in the Pope.
Ilana MercerA crucial difference between lite libertarians and the right kind is that to the former, the idea of liberty is propositional - a deracinated principle, unmoored from the realities of history, hierarchy, biology, tradition, culture, values. Conversely, the paleolibertarian grasps that ordered liberty has a civilizational dimension, stripped of which the libertarian non-aggression axiom, by which we all must live, cannot endure.
Ilana MercerWhether it is committed by a group operating within or without the law, terrorism is still terrorism.
Ilana MercerIn the rare event that the Supreme Court refuses to play along [...] there is always a perfectly legal, extra-constitutional, quasi-legislative, quasi-executive, quasi-judicial, "independent" regulatory commission or executive agency to kill off or override constitutional protections.
Ilana MercerIn a free society, the “vision thing” is left to private individuals; civil servants are kept on a tight leash, because free people understand that a “visionary” bureaucrat is a voracious one and that the grander the government [...] the poorer and less free the people.
Ilana MercerCognitive consonance is what writing in the Age of the idiot is all about. The key to success in the scribbling profession is to strike the right balance of mediocrity in writing and thinking, which invariably entails echoing one of two party lines, poorly.
Ilana Mercerfree market is a market in which groups and individuals are differently represented. Parity in prosperity and performance between differently able individuals and groups can be achieved only by playing socialist leveler.
Ilana MercerIf women with the same skills as men were getting only 78 cents for every dollar a man earns, men would have long-since priced themselves out of the market.
Ilana MercerWhether arrived at through reason or revelation, natural law is the highest law known to man. It is anchored in the very existential nature of man and is therefore a priori just.
Ilana MercerIslamic terrorism is the handiwork of people who've heeded, not hijacked, Islam. Or so says [Wafa] Sultan.
Ilana MercerInviting an invasion by foreigners and instigating one against them are two sides of the same neoconservative coin.
Ilana MercerAntitrust laws ought to be deployed, not against business, but to bust this two-party monopoly, which subverts competition in government and rewards the colluding quislings with sinecures in perpetuity.
Ilana MercerLike or dislike her, the British Queen is harmless. Her role is purely ceremonial. Conversely, life and death are in the hands of the monarch who sits in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Ilana MercerThe great Roman statesman Cicero observed that, 'Not to know what happened before one was born is to be always a child.' In our ignorance of the values that form part of our history and heritage, we Americans have become perpetual children.
Ilana MercerThe Big-Media collective, however, is slow, stupid and shackled by ideology. Reality must bite them before they’ll recognize it, much less report it.
Ilana MercerThe rights to life, liberty and property were not meant to be subject to the vagaries of majority rule.
Ilana MercerChristianity in our country is a lot like what the Ducksters profess. No longer doctrinaire or demanding, the mishmash of pop-religion practiced in churches across America is an extension of the therapeutic culture: festooned with feelings, mostly misdirected. Untempered by intelligent interpretation of scripture... American pop-theology: light on doctrine, heavy on hellfire and damnation.
Ilana MercerAny opinion writer worth his salt would have rejected the quaint notion that certain eternally aggrieved identity groups have exclusive linguistic rights to words in the English language.
Ilana MercerLiberals retain a totemic attachment to the Freudian idea that traumatic toilet training is destiny.
Ilana MercerThe much-maligned price system works not only to secure supply but to conserve. [...] Profits and prices are the street signs of the economy. Only fools flout them.
Ilana MercerDemographics need not be destiny. The waning West became what it is not by out-breeding the undeveloped world. We were once great not because of huge numbers, but due to human capital - people of superior ideas and abilities, capable of innovation, exploration, science, philosophy.
Ilana MercerThe only time Republicans will shake fists and point fingers is over a war delayed, one that isn't led by the US, or a war waged without the necessary conviction (read collateral damage).
Ilana MercerSocialism is humanity's second nature. All politicians do is turn human vice into votes.
Ilana MercerLike environmentalists, politicians generally privilege flora and fauna over folks. (NIMBYs excepted. Senator Edward Kennedy is a not-in-my-backyard environmentalist: he opposes wind farms in Nantucket Sound, offshore from his Hyannis Port compound.)
Ilana MercerThe Little Guy, behind whom politicians strategically coalesce — thumping majorities prevail in a democracy — cannot abide by a reality in which greater wealth affords greater "access."
Ilana MercerAdding an overarching tier of tyrants - the EU - to European governments has benefited Europeans as a second hangman enhances the health of a condemned man.
Ilana MercerThere are just too many Americans grubbing for free stuff and a preponderance of Republicans eager to parcel it out in exchange for power.
Ilana MercerRound and round will Americans be compelled to ride on a mindless, manufactured, racial carousel... for without it, the edifice of an industry built upon grievance and excuse-making is destined to collapse.
Ilana MercerWe're not all the same. A common liberal refrain is that differences between individuals are statistically more significant than those between cultural, ethnic, and racial groups. I don't see why the fact of inter-individual differences would nullify inter-group variance. That's liberal logic for you.
Ilana MercerBig media are all about the angle, the spin. Look to the overarching theme that runs through each and every news story. Be hip to the meta-narrative peddled.
Ilana MercerThe free flow of people across borders is not to be confused with the free flow of goods across borders. Free trade is a positive-sum game. Contrary to illegal immigration, it is always invited, consensual and hence mutually beneficial to the parties involved.
Ilana MercerRights give rise to legal claims. Ultimately, the more rights animals are granted, the greater the legal lien exercised on their behalf against the liberty and property of people.
Ilana Mercer