I'm often asked whether it's hard to find topics for a weekly column. Actually, the problem is the opposite--having too many to choose from.
Hence columns like this one, where opinions are spewed on a random array of things.
• Donald Trump couldn't be more wrong on the issue of trade. We should be signing trade agreements with just about any country that wants to, on behalf of the goal of a global free-trade system.
Expand NAFTA throughout the rest of the Western hemisphere, link up across the Atlantic with the EU (already in the works in the form of the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP), ratify the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and work from the top down within the World Trade Organization (WTO) to remove all remaining impediments to the free flow of goods, services, and labor.
"Globalism" isn't the problem, it's part of the solution. If free trade and markets enhance prosperity here at home, why shouldn't the same principles prevail abroad?
As for the alternative, which Trump apparently endorses, can we all say "Smoot-Hawley" and "Great Depression?"
• Has anyone noticed the contradiction at the heart of the Supreme Court's recent upholding of racial preferences in Fisher v. University of Texas? We don't allow the police or airport security to engage in "racial profiling" to combat crime and terrorism, but the amorphous "diversity" rationale cited to uphold racial preferences in college admissions is built entirely upon such profiling/stereotype logic--more precisely, that your views and experiences and thus contribution to diversity on campus flow from the color of your skin.
So some forms of racism are good and others bad? And achieving diversity, reflected in a skin-deep bean count, matters more than the provision of security, the primary function of government?
• The idea of Donald Trump as commander-in-chief with control over our nuclear arsenal is terrifying, not so much because of what he might do, but what the leaders of other countries might think he might do.
• Trump's vice-presidential choice is going to be complicated. There are likely few prominent Republicans who would accept that role, on the assumption that teaming up with Trump would be a career-destroying move. On the other hand, given the high probability that, if he somehow managed to win in November, he would be impeached by this time next year, wouldn't we want someone of experience and competence to step in?
Joe Biden has been half-jokingly referred to as "Obama's impeachment insurance" because no one wanted him near the presidency; Trump's choice works on the precise opposite logic.
• It was depressing to see so many lefties, including our president, try to change the subject while the bodies were still warm after the Orlando massacre. It was never about guns. Or some free-floating "hate" directed against gays. Or bathroom policies for transgendered people, either.
It was about one thing and one thing only--radical Islamic terrorism.
• That we are even debating whether global-warming skeptics should be criminally prosecuted for their views is disgraceful and reveals how far we have digressed from a society-wide belief in free debate, open inquiry, and the marketplace of ideas.
So why not just burn the skeptics at the stake and be done with it?
• The attempt by the Obama administration to delete references to Islam from the Orlando massacre transcripts would have fit nicely in Stalin's Soviet Union or Mao's China, where the party line dictated what information was and wasn't allowed and truth was defined purely by ideological utility.
It's bad enough to refuse to speak honestly about the linkage between radical Islam and terrorism, even worse to prevent the terrorists themselves from speaking it.
As if we needed any more evidence that Barack Obama is more concerned with (mostly imaginary) "hate" directed toward Muslims than the (alas, very real) violence committed by radical Muslims. Lest we forget, it isn't the job of the president of the United States to preserve the good reputation of Islam.
• The tarmac meeting between Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch was inexcusable. Clinton is, of course, the spouse of the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, who, at that time, was the subject of an ongoing investigation by the FBI, which Lynch oversees.
It wasn't just bad optics, it was terrible judgment and a threat to the integrity of the rule of law.
• Finally, with respect to that rule of law thing, can anyone persuasively explain why the FBI failed to recommend the indictment of Hillary Clinton? As former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy noted, she "checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793 (f) of the federal penal code (Title 18)."
FBI Director Comey said it was because she didn't intend any harm to her country. But no one said she did, and the statute in question contains no intent requirement; gross negligence in the handling of classified material (which she clearly committed) is sufficient. As McCarthy put it, Comey "told the public that because Mrs. Clinton did not have intent to harm the United States we should not prosecute her on a felony that does not require proof of intent to harm the United States."
So, again, can anyone explain why? Or is that simply too naïve a question?
------------v------------
Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.
Editorial on 07/11/2016