Ben Shapiro: Volume I
Table of Contents
A Note From the Publisher
What to Expect in 2014
Why Socialism Is on the Rise
Negotiating With Space Nazis
Abortion and the Suicide of the West
How Hollywood Is Killing Same-Sex Marriage
Letter to My Newborn Daughter
Why Democrats Hate Work
The Left Preaches the Great Apocalypse of Global Warming
Piers Morgan Is the American Left
The Faculty Lounge Administration
The Entertainment President
Why No One Minds His Own Business Anymore
Time for Congress to Telecommute
Why Hillary Clinton Will Win in 2016
The Rise of American Totalitarianism
Why Conservatives Win Elections and Lose the War
Why Bundy Ranch Is Just the Beginning
Of Donald Sterling's Racism and the Rise of Thoughtcrime
The Left's Phantom Wars
How the West Won the Great Hashtag War of 2014
Will Detroit Be Healed by Searching for 'Subtle Racism'?
Does Obama Care About the Troops?
Barack Obama, Judge of Life or Death
Prosecute the President
How Fatherhood Made Me a Better Person
Welcome to the Executive Dictatorship
About Ben Shapiro
Ben Shapiro: Volume I
Ben Shapiro
Creators Publishing
Hermosa Beach, CA
creatorspublishing.com
A Note From the Publisher
Since 1987, Creators has syndicated many of your favorite columns to newspapers. In this digital age, we are bringing collections of those columns to your fingertips. This will allow you to read and reread your favorite columnists, with your own personal digital archive of their work.
-- Creators Publishing
What to Expect in 2014
January 1, 2014
2013 was a year of revelations, a year of possible turning points. For nearly two decades, since Ronald Reagan left office, America moved steadily in the direction of the left, both culturally and politically. When the Soviet Union fell, optimistic scholars believed the world had shifted inexorably in the direction of free markets and liberal democracy. Instead, the West gradually embraced bigger government and weaker social bonds, creating a fragmented society in which the only thing we all belong to, as President Barack Obama puts it, is the state.
All battles for the soul begin with culture. And while the battle against Obama's unprecedented growth of government started with the tea party victories of 2010, the cultural battle against the left didn't truly take until 2013. The seeds were planted for this cultural battle in earnest in 2012, when Obama and his Democratic Party allies put race, sexual orientation and abortion at the core of his reelection campaign. Americans were told by the media that Obama's competence mattered less than the fact that half the country was mean, nasty, racist and homophobic. Todd Akin's absurd comments on conception via rape were the issue, Americans were told, not the imminent takeover of the health care system; Obama's sudden support for same-sex marriage was the issue, not his devastating regulatory state; George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin were the issue, not the destruction of entire swaths of the United States via leftist governance.
And it worked. Conservative Americans, bludgeoned into silence on cultural battles, decided to focus entirely on Obama's economic buffoonery. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work; culture, as my friend Andrew Breitbart was fond of stating, is upstream of politics.
2013 marked a turning point. From Chick-fil-A to "Duck Dynasty," conservative religious Americans found their footing: Whether you are for or against same-sex marriage, it is plainly un-American to override someone's religious beliefs in the name of your politics. Conservative Americans seemed to realize, for the first time in a long time, that the battle over same-sex marriage came wrapped in a larger battle over religious freedom. And they fought back, and won.
Meanwhile, conservatives began to fight back against the left's uncorroborated assertion of right-wing racism. While MSNBC focused laser-like on one Confederate flag at an anti-Obamacare rally, those same MSNBC hosts laughed at Mitt Romney's adopted black grandchild (Melissa Harris-Perry), suggested that someone ought to "p***" and "s***" in Sarah Palin's mouth (Martin Bashir), used anti-gay slurs (Alec Baldwin), shook down businesses over race (Al Sharpton) and labeled words like "black hole" and "Chicago" racist (Chris Matthews). Race, the right realized, was an obsession only for the left.
And in the aftermath of the left's successful 2012 "war on women" meme, the right began to fight back, too. Beginning with the left's attempted deification of amoral Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis, who filibustered for 11 hours on behalf of the murder of 21-week-old fetuses, the right refused to be cowed. Abortion is a real moral issue with real lives at stake, and no amount of leftist badgering could back conservative Americans off their attempts to protect the unborn.
The cultural battles gradually made their way into the political arena, too. Freed from the burden of the beige and blundering Romney campaign, conservatives stood up against the growth of government on moral, not merely practical, grounds. Obama's signature program began to collapse the moment Americans awakened to the deep immorality of government-controlled medical care. Sen. Ted Cruz's government shutdown strategy, right or wrong, highlighted conservative opposition to the state as cradle-to-grave caretaker. American distrust of government, for the right reasons, soared.
This does not mean the battles are over for conservatives. They're just beginning. The media have already geared up toward nominating Hillary Clinton in 2016 (The New York Times whitewash of Benghazi this week was only the beginning). The DC-run Republican Party has a disheartening way of crippling its own conservative base in order to cut deals. But 2013 could go down as the year that conservatives moved beyond standing athwart history shouting "stop," and began shoving in the opposite direction, which could make 2014 historic.
Why Socialism Is on the Rise
January 8, 2014
It took capitalism half a century to come back from the Great Depression. It's taken socialism half that time to come back from the collapse of the Soviet Union. In New York City, avowed socialist Mayor Bill de Blasio has declared that his goal is to take "dead aim at the Tale of Two Cities" — the gap between rich and poor. In Seattle, newly elected socialist city Councilmember Kshama Sawant addressed supporters, explaining, "I wear the badge of socialist with honor." To great acclaim from the left, columnist Jesse Myerson of Rolling Stone put out a column telling millennials that they ought to fight for government-guaranteed employment, a universal basic income, collectivization of private property, nationalization of private assets and public banks.
The newly flowering buds of Marxism no longer reside on the fringes. Not when the president of the United States has declared fighting income inequality his chief task as commander in chief. Not when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said that America faces "no greater challenge" than income disparity. Not when MSNBC, The New York Times and the amalgamated pro-Obama media outlets have all declared their mission for 2014 a campaign against rich people.
Less than 20 years ago, former President Bill Clinton, facing reelection, declared "the era of big government" over. By 2011, Clinton reversed himself, declaring that it was government's role to "give people the tools and create the conditions to make the most of our lives."
So what happened?
Capitalism failed to make a case for itself. Back in 1998, shortly after the world seemed to reach a consensus on the ineffectiveness of socialist schemes, economists Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw wrote
that the free market required something beyond mere success: It required "legitimacy." But, said Yergin and Stanislaw, "a system that takes the pursuit of self-interest and profit as its guiding light does not necessarily satisfy the yearning in the human soul for belief and some higher meaning beyond materialism." In other words, they wrote, while Spanish communists would die with the word "Stalin" on their lips, "few people would die with the words 'free markets' on their lips."
The failure to make a moral case for capitalism has doomed capitalism to the status of a perennial backup plan. When people are desperate or wealthy, they turn to socialism; only when they have no other alternative do they embrace the free market. After all, lies about guaranteed security are far more seductive than lectures about personal responsibility.
So what is the moral case for capitalism? It lies in recognition that socialism isn't a great idea gone wrong — it's an evil philosophy in action. It isn't driven by altruism; it's driven by greed and jealousy. Socialism states that you owe me something simply because I exist. Capitalism, by contrast, results in a sort of reality-forced altruism: I may not want to help you, I may dislike you, but if I don't give you a product or service you want, I will starve. Voluntary exchange is more moral than forced redistribution. Socialism violates at least three of the Ten Commandments: It turns government into God, it legalizes thievery and it elevates covetousness. Discussions of income inequality, after all, aren't about prosperity but about petty spite. Why should you care how much money I make, so long as you are happy?
Conservatives talk results when discussing the shortcomings of socialism. They're right: Socialism is ineffective, destructive and stunting to the human spirit. But they're wrong to abandon the field of morality when discussing the contrast between freedom and control. And it's this abandonment — this perverse laziness — that has led to socialism's comeback, even though within living memory, we have seen continental economies collapse and millions slaughtered in the name of this false god.
Negotiating With Space Nazis
January 15, 2014
On Tuesday, the Iranian government announced that it had reached a secret agreement with the West on its nuclear development. The details of the agreement were not released, but suffice it to say that the Iranians could not contain their glee. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani celebrated the deal with an English-language tweet claiming that the "world powers surrendered to Iranian nation's will"; Iranian Army Commander Maj. Gen. Ataollah Salehi said the diplomatic breakthrough resulted from American military "weakness"; and the Iranian foreign minister laid a wreath at the tomb of the Beirut Marine barracks bomber.
Meanwhile, President Barack Obama urged the United States Congress to "give peace a chance." After weeks of sending out his pacifist minions, including faux pro-Israel group J Street, to tell Americans that support for sanctions meant support for war, Obama himself echoed that message. "My preference is for peace and diplomacy," the apparent flower-child-in-chief stated. "And this is one of the reasons why I've sent the message to Congress that now is not the time for us to impose new sanctions. Now is the time for us to allow the diplomats and technical experts to do their work." He said that a rational, reasonable Iran would be "willing to walk through the door of opportunity that's presented to them."
Only Iran is not rational or reasonable. It is delusionally anti-Western and anti-Semitic, which means that America is now in negotiations not just with a terror-supporting state but radicals with more than a hint of insanity.
To prove this point, on Sunday, the Iranian semiofficial news agency FARS, which bills itself as independent but is effectively regime-run, ran a news article explaining that since the end of World War II, America had been run by a shadow government of Nazi space aliens. Seriously.
Basing its report on documents supposedly culled from National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, FARS reported that there was no "incontrovertible proof" that the American foreign policy agenda was driven by an "alien/extraterrestrial intelligence agenda."
Not "alien" as in foreigner. "Alien" as in little green men from Mars. FARS quotes Snowden as stating that there "were actually two governments in the U.S., one that was elected, and the other, secret regime, governing in the dark." This shadow regime had been run by space aliens — also known as "Tall Whites" — who were operating their regime from Nevada after emigrating from Nazi Germany after World War II. These space aliens, FARS stated, built the Nazi war machine's submarines.
This would be hilarious were it not part of a piece. Large swaths of the Islamic world also buy the myth that Jews use the blood of non-Jewish children in both their Passover matza and Purim hamentashen. "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" remains a best-seller throughout the Islamic world. Iranian television routinely broadcasts Holocaust denial, while Iranian press outlets proclaim that the Zionist regime is producing another Hitler.
Assume for a moment that the Iranian regime actually believes the propaganda it spouts. Why, then, would it negotiate in good faith with space alien Nazis who drink Muslim blood?
Many pacifists in the West, including Obama, apparently assume that no one rational would continue to develop nuclear weapons in the face of world opposition, especially when offered a way out. What Obama fails to recognize is that Iran is far from rational — and, more importantly, Obama's own assumptions about Iranian intentions put America and the West in a position of weakness. This weakness will be on display for all the world to see when Iran goes nuclear.
Abortion and the Suicide of the West
January 22, 2014
Jenelle Evans, 22, had an abortion this year. Originally featured on MTV four years ago as a pregnant teenager, Evans, who loves to party, had a son, gave the son to her mother to raise, got into heroin, got married and went to jail; her husband ended up in jail as well on drug charges. They got divorced. He didn't know that Evans was pregnant. She got an abortion. He found out about it on the commercials for "Teen Mom 2."
Now she's pregnant again. With a third guy. Who may or may not be seeing another woman on the side.
Since the legally and morally despicable decision of the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade in 1973, American women have aborted some 56 million children. The vast majority of these children have been aborted for reasons that have nothing to do with rape, incest or the health of the mother. We have destroyed an entire generation of children purely for self-worship. Children are difficult; therefore, they can be done away with. Children are burdensome; therefore, they don't exist in the womb. Or, as President Barack Obama once put it regarding his own daughters, "If they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."
Meanwhile, the same society that has busily anesthetized millions to the murder of the unborn casually pushes social costs onto the next generation — a generation that, increasingly, does not exist. According to the 2010 census, just 24 percent of the American population is under age 18, compared with 39.4 percent that is 45 and older. America is aging, and aging quickly.
And what of the young? Their chief concerns these days are legalization of marijuana, state-sponsored same-sex marriage and provision of birth control. If we think the demographics and economics of the country look bad now, wait until America relies on a generation of overprivileged, underachieving Americans convinced of their own moral rectitude based on a puerile libertarianism freed of libertarianism's consequences. Sex and drugs have replaced building for the future; abortion and the welfare state have replaced consequences.
In the end, this philosophy will lead to the dominance of the state. There are only two types of society that can survive. First, there is the heavy-entitlement, heavily regulated society, in which compulsion takes the place of free choice. Second, there is the free society, in which individual actions carry individual consequences. America used to be the second type of society. As we realize that there is no next generation to foot our bills, we will transition more toward the first.
So, how can we solve all o
f this? Not through the law — the law follows culture. The only way to restore an American future is to restore the social and religious institutions that fostered genuine American values. This means fighting back against the tyranny of those who conveniently proclaim to "live and let live" while simultaneously demanding that Americans with traditional values shut the hell up. This means emboldening our churches and synagogues to once again speak out on behalf of virtue. This means treating family as a priority rather than an afterthought or punishment.
Evans is a victim of the society that built her — a society that has enabled her misdeeds and rewarded her sins. But she cannot be the basis of America's future. If she is, America will, quite literally, have no future.
How Hollywood Is Killing Same-Sex Marriage
January 29, 2014
In May 2012, Vice President Joe Biden floated a political trial balloon: He came out in favor of same-sex marriage. In the process, he stated that the way had been paved for the same-sex marriage movement by Hollywood. "I think 'Will & Grace' probably did more to educate the American public than almost anything anybody's ever done so far." Biden, of course, was absolutely right: Hollywood's personalization of the societal issue of same-sex marriage has shifted millions of minds.
Now, unfortunately for same-sex marriage advocates, Hollywood is busily shifting those minds back.
On Sunday, the Grammys tooted its self-proclaimed righteousness by trotting out Queen Latifah to officiate the mass wedding of 33 couples, including gay couples. She did so as new Grammy winner Macklemore shouted cloyingly sanctimonious antireligious slogans into his microphone: "The right-wing conservatives think it's a decision / And you can be cured with some treatment and religion ... Playing God, aw nah, here we go / America the brave still fears what we don't know / And God loves all his children is somehow forgotten / But we paraphrase a book written 3,500 years ago." To top off the marriages, Madonna then staggered out to warble "Open Your Heart."