Political Philosophy For Autodidacts

For anyone interested in pursuing an education at home in political philosophy Dr. Greg Forster offers a wonderful annotated reading list of the most important works in the field. Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost hosts Dr. Forster's piece. Don't overlook the comments from readers at the end.

Great News From Afghanistan

Afghanistan has come an astonishing distance since the spring of 2002. We don't hear about this part of George Bush's historic humanitarian mission on the evening news, of course, unless there's a setback to report, but the story that we're not told is truly a testament to the goodness of the American people, this administration, and the resilience of the Afghan people.

There are other nations chipping in to do good works, of course, but none of their efforts would have materialized, or even been possible, were it not for the work of the Bush administration and the efforts and sacrifice of the American military. The only historical analogy we can think of to what we've undertaken in Afghanistan and Iraq is the Marshall Plan in Europe after WWII. No other nation in history has a record like that compiled by the United States since 1945.

You can read about it here.

The Left's Selective Reverence

Viewpoint has stated that although we believe the media outrage over shabby treatment of the Koran in our detention camps amounts to unwarranted hysterics, nevertheless, our troops should show the Koran respect, not so much for the book itself, which many scholars have determined is probably a plagiarized Old Testament, but out of respect for people around the world who revere it.

Even so, we have to wonder why liberals are so beside themselves over this issue. As a caller to the Glenn Beck program pointed out this morning, when Andres Serrano placed a crucifix in a jar of urine and incensed many Christians, the Left yawned and called it art. When another "artist" defiled a picture of the Virgin Mary with elephant dung Christians who complained were called narrow-minded xenophobes.

Now we read of several dubious cases where there may have been irreverent treatment of a Koran and the Left is thrown into high dudgeon. Why is this? The Left, being predominately skeptics and atheists, don't give a fig about the Bible much less the Koran. Nor do they care about the sensibilities of religious believers whom they largely regard as rubes and dolts. At least they don't care about the sensibilities of Christians, why should they care about those of Muslims?

The only reason for their loud ululations over the fact that a Koran may have been "defiled" is that these allegations present themselves as a club with which to beat the administration over the head. They are so bereft of weapons with which to fight their ideological campaign against Bush and Co. that they'll grasp at anything that offers itself, no matter how flimsy the tool and no matter how cynical, hypocritical, and dishonest using it makes them look. And they think we should vote for them to run the country.

T-Shirts

A friend passes along the "Best T-shirts of the summer":

So Many Men, So Few Who Can Afford Me

I Fought the Lawn and the Lawn Won

I Suffer Occasional Delusions of Adequacy

God Made Us Sisters, Prozac Made Us Friends

If They Don't Have Chocolate In Heaven, I Ain't Going

At My Age, I've Seen It All, Done It All, Heard It All. I Just Can't Remember It All

My Mother Is A Travel Agent For Guilt Trips

I Just Do What The Voices Inside My Head Tell Me To Do

If It's Called Tourist Season, Why Can't We Hunt 'em?

Princess, Having Had Sufficient Experience With Princes, Seeks Frog

No, It Doesn't Hurt (on a "well-tattooed gentleman")

(on the back of a passing motorcyclist) If You Can Read This, My Wife Fell Off

I Used To Be Schizophrenic, But We're OK Now

Veni, Vedi, Visa: I came. I Saw. I Did a Little Shopping

What If The Hokey Pokey Really Is What It's All About?

I Didn't Climb to the Top of the Food Chain to Be a Vegetarian