In this column I pose questions and raise issues. I don't always agree with the conclusion, implied or stated. The purpose is to put a slightly different spin on each item and to promote discussion.

---

• Conservatives monopolize the news. Well, expect for all the major television networks, a hundred-odd cable television channels other than FOX News, most radio stations, at least half of all newspapers, and about half of all news magazines. But the tyranny of conservative sub-dominance is about to end, thanks to Airhead America, the liberal answer to the big question, "If a liberal slant dominates most of the news and entertainment, where's the conservative conspiracy?"
• Should all the rights of citizenship go only to those who fulfill all the obligations, such as voting?
• The vermin of Fallujah that murdered and mutilated four American contractors hope that the U.S. will either cower and run, in which case they will be heroes, or attack and kill them, in which case they will be martyrs. We should deny them both. Our forces should take captive these murderers, burn their city to the ground, then put them in a prison where they must watch but neither resist nor enjoy the transformation of Iraq. A worse punishment they are unlikely to imagine.
• Ivory tower talk about how, on principle, we all ought to support free trade is very fine, but the American government owes first allegiance to the American people, and America's economic policies should serve the American people, first.
• Rush Limbaugh, and everybody who, like him, encourages casual everyday use of SUVs, is guilty of harming our national security by making America more dependent on foreign oil. Our dependence makes us vulnerable, and that's a threat to our national security.
• To dismiss concerns about poverty and wealth distribution in America by noting that poor people here would be considered rich in other parts of the world serves the agenda of those who want to reduce American workers to Third World income levels.
• Most complaints against Indian tribes arise from opposition to state regulations that don't apply to tribes. Their real gripe is with the state, but they take it out on Indians.
• Conservative commentators correctly criticize the pervasive disregard for the consequences of casual sex, yet let women off the hook, pin all the blame on men, and ignore the fact that feminists are largely responsible for this by absolving women of all responsibility while militantly promoting the "you go, grrl!" mentality.
• Dr. Laura says feminists have taught women to be moody, petty and too demanding. Tom Leykis says men need to put women in their place ‑ which is equal to, rather than superior to, men ‑ by learning to give women the cold shoulder and not give in to their demands. This demonstrates how men have as much of a civilizing influence over women as women have over men, and just as much responsibility to do it.
• Corporations and foreign nations lobby politicians every day, and most Americans say nothing, but let a few Indian tribes do it, and otherwise apathetic voters rage "unfair" and demand termination for all tribes. Meanwhile, few care to ask why the average life-expectancy of an American Indian man is only 45.
• When police profile, it's a crime, but human resource management departments profile based on personality all the time.
• Many people dismiss Indian rights as originating with issues from long ago that matter no more. They are wrong on many counts, among them that these rights arise from events that happened within the life times of people who were known by many of us alive today. Hence, they are not from "long ago ancestors," but from recent memory.
• How much of the alleged difficulty American employers have in finding qualified applicants in the American workforce is the result of Human Resource Management departments rejecting otherwise capable workers for being politically incorrect or having the wrong personality?
• Feminists said they hate hierarchy, and that the pyramid-shaped organization is patriarchal and oppressive. So organizations worked to flatten it out, but instead fattened it out, by replacing the pyramid with a cylinder, in which too many people manage, and too few people work.
• Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is symbolic of how monsters in society are made, and how we react ignorantly to them. Liberals use the sentiment this arouses to excuse and molly coddle the monsters; conservatives, however, counter that while we should destroy the monsters, we should also learn to do what we can to prevent making more monsters.
• Social experiments in education, the application of liberal theory on our children, has created educational institutions that teach less, do a worse job of preparing children for life as an adult, and necessitate importing more people from other countries to work.
• Capitalism, which was first conceptualized by Karl Marx, is the conjoining in practice of two concepts that are opposed in principle: free enterprise and government chartered enterprise. Champions of corporate capitalism, like Rush Limbaugh, embrace the benefits provided by the government charters, but, in the name of free enterprise, rant against the limitations they impose.
• As high as the cost-to-career can be to conservatives for their creed, the price imposed in predominantly liberal communities, like Seattle, on Indians who reject liberalism, can be extraordinarily harsh, from getting fired to black-listing to denial of jobs.
• To be consistent, every person who demands that Israel must dismantle all their "settlements," should also demand that the American people must withdraw from all territories where land was gotten from American Indians through illegal means. Idiotic? You bet! But the case for this is far stronger than for an Israeli withdrawal.
• The uproar over the "medicare news clips" seems odd given that the "real" news is so heavily slanted already, and that news personalities, like Paul Harvey, present commercials in a news format.
• Outlawing tobacco would create a huge black market, just like the black market in other drugs that are now illegal.
• Whites in America will soon be out-numbered by Asians and Hispanics. But "Hispanic" is a cultural distinction, not racial, and many Hispanics are white. And, in any event, they're all Americans, so who cares?
• Many believe, and some argue, that homosexuality was "created by God," and so religious institutions should embrace it. But that same logic can be applied to pedophilia and bestiality. Where do we draw the line?
• We should not forget that in France there was a lot of anti-Semitism and support for fascism before the German occupation.
• Despite that he voted to authorize the war in Iraq, John Kerry voted against the bill to pay for it, yet now he criticizes Bush for failing to send enough flack jackets to Iraq.
• Martha Stewart broke the law, and she will pay. Meanwhile, former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio, who broke no laws that can be proven, but made hundreds of millions of dollars at the expense of thousands of jobs and hundreds of thousands of investors when he drove US West into the ground, gets off scott free.
• On the issue of gay marriage, Conservatives keep falling back on religious and common sense arguments, which are doomed to fail. The issue isn't common sense or religion, but social stability, which feminists and liberals have already damaged too much.
• The Liberal response to the growth of the Conservative news media is to call it a "right wing conspiracy." All this because Liberals merely dominate rather than own the news.
• Colleges and Universities that do not offer evening and weekend programs are elitist and biased against working people.
• Mexico's Vicente Fox will keep making ludicrous demands until we say no.
• Some "conservative" talk show hosts, such as Rush Limbaugh, make much noise about how they don't dance to the corporate tune, that what they say is based on conservative principles, but too often their conservatism comes out only when they're running to catch up with the bandwagon. On issues of substance, they will side with the money most of the time.
• Gay marriage is not in the best interests of the children. Reason: it would promote and legitimize a lifestyle which, in the case of lesbians, produces higher than heterosexual levels of domestic violence, and in the case of gays, produces a lower than heterosexual lifespan.
• By pushing things too far, the proponents of gay marriage are provoking a backlash.
• England, France, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Iraq, all were empires, once, which imposed their will through conquest. The American empire, such as it is, starts with diplomacy and foreign aid. The empires of old spread through force and military power, while the American empire spreads through commerce and competition. So, of course, proponents of the old empires oppose us. The American way is good for most, but it is not best for all.
• The National Governors Association estimates that $35 billion could be collected this year from taxing Internet sales, but only politicians and brick and mortar retailers are complaining. Let Indians make a single tax-free sale, however, and suddenly everybody's a critic.