6-24-2009

Robert Tracinski and Tom Minchin: As the US Congress considers the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, the Australian Senate is on the verge of rejecting its own version of cap-and-trade. The story of this legislation’s collapse offers advance notice for what might happen to similar legislation in the US—and to the whole global warming hysteria.

Scott Johnson: Paul Rahe is the distinguished intellectual historian and professor of history at Hillsdale College. “The people of Iran were witness to the emergence within Iraq of a secular republic sponsored by an Iranian cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, possessed of an erudition and an authority rivaling and arguably surpassing that of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran. They were witness to elections that were really free and to public debate open in ways that debate within the Islamic Republic is not. Moreover, in Quom, the stronghold of the Shiite clergy, the clerics who most fully command respect have long rejected, as contrary to Shiite tradition and the interest of Islam, the path of direct clerical rule pursued by Khomeini.

Victor Davis Hanson: So, Mr. President, do not talk to a thug unless you absolutely have to. Do not apologize to — or put our trust in — one. And whenever people rise up against a thug, speak out immediately and forcefully on their behalf — and let the thug, not America, worry about the consequences of the spread of freedom.

Filed under: Chip by Chip