The NIE

The recently released National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) made the claim that Iran gave up its ambitions to develop a nuclear weapon four years ago and primarily for this reason the document has drawn a lot of critical attention. Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, for example, levels some pretty serious criticism of its alleged flaws in a column in the Washington Post, to which I refer readers interested in seeing why the document has generated so much skepticism.

Rush Limbaugh also points out that not only are the authors of the document politically hostile to the current administration but one of them was drawing exactly the opposite conclusions about iran only four months ago:

On July 11, 2007, roughly four or so months prior to the most recent NIE's publication, Deputy Director of Analysis Thomas Fingar, one of the three authors of the NIE, gave the following testimony before the House Armed Services Committee: 'Iran and North Korea are the states of most concern to us. The United States' concerns about Iran are shared by many nations, including many of Iran's neighbors. Iran is continuing to pursue uranium enrichment and has shown more interest in protracting negotiations and working to delay and diminish the impact of UNSC sanctions than in reaching an acceptable diplomatic solution. We assess that Tehran is determined to develop nuclear weapons -- despite its international obligations and international pressure. This is a grave concern to the other countries in the region whose security would be threatened should Iran acquire nuclear weapons.'

according to the Wall Street Journal, Thomas Fingar is one of the three officials who were responsible for crafting the latest NIE. The Journal cites 'an intelligence source' as describing Fingar and his two colleagues as 'hyper-partisan anti-Bush officials.'

What's even more strange about the NIE is the reaction to it by Bush's political opponents. They're alleging that somehow this report discredits Bush's Iran policy, but how is that so? What exactly is Bush's Iran policy? It's to muster international pressure to insure that Iran does not pursue nuclear weapons. His opponents say that this is now pointless because Iran's not pursuing nukes. They then go on to add that now we can stop the "saber-rattling" and use diplomacy. Well, when has Bush rattled any sabers over Iran? And if Iran is not pursuing nukes what do we need diplomacy for? The call for diplomacy seems bizarre coming from people who believe that there's nothing to negotiate with Iran about.

Even if Bush's diplomacy did involve saber-rattling, why is that bad? Surely diplomacy with Iran without the credible threat of force is useless. What incentive does Iran have to behave itself unless it fears punishment? This question brings us to another interesting point about the NIE.

In their eagerness to use this report against Bush his political detractors have overlooked the fact that if the report is to be believed Iran gave up its nuclear program in 2003. There was no U.S./Iranian diplomacy taking place in 2003. The only thing that took place in 2003 was that we invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam Hussein in less than a week. That sent shock waves through the axis of evil and if Iran dropped its nuclear ambitions that year then there's every reason to believe that they did so because they didn't want to be next.

If the NIE is right in recent years Iraq and Afghanistan have been liberated from tyranny, and Libya, North Korea, and Iran have all stepped down their march toward nuclear weapons. That's a pretty good legacy, perhaps unprecedented, for whatever administration supervised it, but don't expect the left to give Bush credit. They're more likely to argue that it was out of fear of a diplomatic offensive from future president Hillary Clinton that moved these wise leaders to capitulate to her years in advance than they are to acknowledge that George W. Bush is responsible for a truly remarkable and historic achievement.

RLC

Let a Thousand Questions Bloom

So much has been made of Mitt Romney's Mormonism that he felt it necessary yesterday to give a speech about it. Mike Huckabee, too, has had to explain his beliefs to journalists who seem discombobulated by the fact that convictions that have been commonly held by intelligent Americans for two thousand years are still held by some today.

I think these inquiries into the faith commitments of the candidates for leadership of the free world are a good thing. We should know what resources these people draw upon to help them through difficult times and to shape their view of the world, and I would enjoy hearing the media ask Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton exactly what are their views of the person and nature of Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, I don't think this is going to happen. The point of the media asking Romney and Huckabee about their faith, I suspect, is to embarrass them among the elites. If they can make them look like religious "extremists" or exotic rubes they may undermine their appeal with a group of voters to whom they might otherwise be attractive. On the other hand, they don't want to undermine the Democrat candidates' appeal among the great unwashed so they won't risk asking them a question that might make them look unsympathetic to the superstitions of the masses.

On a related matter, the protestations of those who complain that we shouldn't care about a person's religion or that the constitution prohibits religious tests for the office of the presidency are getting tiresome. I doubt very much if those who insist we shouldn't delve into a person's deepest beliefs would still say that if a Wahhabist Muslim was running for president. I think the religion-is-irrelevant crowd would be falling all over themselves to demand that such a candidate clarify his religious views ad infinitum. And they should.

Also, while it is true that the constitution prohibits a religious test for the office of president that proscription is a legal limitation. A person cannot be legally prevented from being elected president just because of his religion, but that doesn't mean that voters can't or shouldn't base their vote upon what a candidate believes.

In the case of Mitt Romney, who I happen to like, no one argues that he should be barred from running because he's a Mormon, but it doesn't follow that his beliefs should therefore be considered irrelevant by the voters.

RLC

Adam Rutherford: Stazi Agent

Atheist Adam Rutherford writing in The Guardian comments on the denial of tenure to Guillermo Gonzalez by Iowa State University:

Saying, whether in 4004 BC or 13 billion years ago, that "God made it" is not falsifiable and therefore not science.

No, it's not a scientific belief, but what of it? Neither is the statement that the universe just popped into existence of its own accord a falsifiable assertion. It, too, is an affirmation of a particular metaphysical commitment. So why is one non-falsifiable assertion enough to get one exiled from the scientific community but the other is perfectly acceptable?

Rutherford's column gets worse:

I know that, were I in a position to offer Guillermo Gonzalez tenure, I would deny it for the precise reason that his, yes, religious views about purpose in the universe explicitly mean he is a crap scientist, regardless of his ability to generate valid data.

Rutherford is, astonishingly enough, claiming that whether or not someone is a good researcher, whether or not they are a good teacher, whether or not they can "generate data," they are a "crap scientist" and should be fired if they don't embrace the particular metaphysical view of the world that he favors. Since when must scientists be atheists and view the universe as a purposeless machine? Since when is there a philosophical litmus test for who can teach science?

Mr. Rutherford's take on the nature of science is breathtakingly narrow-minded. His bigotry would have led him to deny tenure to Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler, Michael Faraday, Robert Boyle and a host of other brilliant thinkers who saw the cosmos as the handiwork of a Creator.

Nor can Mr. Rutherford adduce any empirical evidence to show that the inference of intentionality drawn from the structure of the cosmos is mistaken. Nevertheless, even if it were mistaken, it'd be mistaken about a philosophical interpretation of the scientific data, not about the science itself.

Inquisitors like Rutherford, however, don't care about such distinctions. For them science is not just about producing data, it's about promoting with missionary zeal a metaphysical worldview that science itself can in no way justify or support. It's about evangelizing the masses on behalf of a materialistic atheism. The religion of materialism wraps itself in the garb of science hoping that no one will notice and pronounces all challenges to its hegemony to be illicit attacks on the sacred cow of science. Conflating metaphysics with empirical science the self-appointed preachers of materialistic orthodoxy set out like Torquemada to punish as heretics anyone who deviates from their doctrine by sending their careers up in flames.

There's a wonderful movie out titled The Lives of Others. It's about how the tyrannical East German secret police, the Stazi, punished citizens who flouted official communist doctrine or who were so indiscreet as to utter an irreverent word about the East German government. Watching the movie one is astounded at the pettiness and small-mindedness of the people who made up this oppressive apparatus. Sadly, they were people whose minds worked just like that of Adam Rutherford.

At the end of the movie the Berlin Wall has fallen and the communists are thrown out of power. A victim of the Stazi oppression encounters a former official, a vindictive man who was in charge of rooting out political heretics. The victim, with palpable and justifiable disgust, says to this odious and pathetic figure, "To think that people like you once actually ran a country." Reading Rutherford's column those words echoed in my mind - to think that people like this actually dictate what beliefs are philosophically acceptable among scientists.

RLC

Fat and Fit

Here's good news for all of us who find that our shoes seem to have receded progressively further from our hands, harder to see, and harder to tie as the years have passed:

Being fit helps you live longer - even when you're fat, an American study has found.

Striking findings show the fittest fat men and women aged 60 and over are more likely to live to a ripe old age than their averagely weighted or slim - and less fit - peers.

The message seems to contradict current anxieties about an obesity epidemic and constant messages to lose weight.

But U.S. researchers led by Dr Steven Blair claim all older people, including those who are obese, can benefit from increasing their activity levels.

I wonder if increasing one's visits to the refrigerator counts as increased activity.

RLC

Evil in Everyday People

Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters discusses a book by Barbara Oakley in which Oakley tells this story about her sister:

My sister stole my mother's boyfriend. It wasn't as if the boyfriend, Ted, was any great catch. At 85, he trundled about with a nose tube and oxygen tanks, hacking and snorting as he nursed his emphysema. Then there was the age gap - Ted was 40 years older than my sister. So what was the attraction? As it turned out, it was the gift Ted had planned for my mother - the Parisian vacation she had always dreamt of.

On hearing that my mother was planning a trip to Paris, my sister Carolyn suddenly realised that she, too, had always wanted to go to France. And what my sister wanted, she had a way of getting. When Carolyn clicked her spotlight on Mum's boyfriend, he was dazzled. Soon, my sister was tucked beside Ted and his breathing apparatus en route to Paris. Apr�s Paris, of course, Carolyn dropped Ted like a hot rock.

My mother withdrew, shamed and saddened by this ultimate humiliation. Not long after, she passed away.

I link to this because as I read it I was stunned that someone could do such a maliciously despicable thing to her 85 year old mother. It's truly astonishing how cruel and selfish people can be. I wonder if Oakley wrote the book at least in part in order to get some measure of retribution for her mother by exposing her sister's depravity. If so, I hope it works.

RLC

Enjoying Better Mental Health

People who enjoy good mental health tend to gravitate toward the Republican party, or vice versa. That's the finding, anyway, of a recent Gallup poll:

Republicans are significantly more likely than Democrats or independents to rate their mental health as excellent, according to data from the last four November Gallup Health and Healthcare polls. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans report having excellent mental health, compared to 43% of independents and 38% of Democrats. This relationship between party identification and reports of excellent mental health persists even within categories of income, age, gender, church attendance, and education.

The differences are quite significant.... While Democrats are slightly less likely to report excellent mental health than are independents, the big distinctions in these data are the differences between Republicans and everyone else.

Correlation is no proof of causation, of course. The reason the relationship exists between being a Republican and more positive mental health is unknown, and one cannot say whether something about being a Republican causes a person to be more mentally healthy, or whether something about being mentally healthy causes a person to choose to become a Republican (or whether some third variable is responsible for causing both to be parallel).

But the key finding of the analyses presented here is that being a Republican appears to have an independent relationship on positive mental health above and beyond what can be explained by [other] demographic and lifestyle variables [such as income level]. The exact explanation for this persistent relationship -- as noted -- is unclear.

So, liberals, evidently, are more likely than conservatives and moderates to consider themselves mentally ill. Interesting. Anyone have any suggestions as to why they feel this way?

There's a lot more information about the poll at the link.

RLC

Huckabee's Illegal Immigration Statement

Regular readers of Viewpoint know that we consider illegal immigration to be among the most critical issues our country faces and that any presidential candidate has to take a strong stand on securing our borders in order to gain our support. Readers also know that we've been tentatively touting Mike Huckabee's candidacy for the past couple of months as we wait to learn more about his position on illegal immigration in general and border security in particular. We were disappointed to read that a lot of immigration organizations are opposed to him because they believe him too soft on border security and too likely to grant amnesty to illegals.

It was encouraging, therefore, to find the follow summary of his views at his web site:

• Securing our borders must be our top priority and has reached the level of a national emergency.
• I support the $3 billion the Senate has voted for border security. This money will train and deploy 23,000 more agents, add four drone planes, build 700 miles of fence and 300 miles of vehicle barriers, and put up 105 radar and camera towers. This money will turn "catch and release" into "catch and detain" of those entering illegally, and crack down on those who overstay their visas.
• In this age of terror, immigration is not only an economic issue, but also a national security issue. Those caught trying to enter illegally must be detained, processed, and deported. As Governor, I ordered my state troopers to work with the Department of Homeland Security to arrest illegals and enforce federal immigration law.
• I oppose and will never allow amnesty. I opposed the amnesty President Bush and Senator McCain tried to ram through Congress this summer, and opposed the misnamed DREAM Act, which would have put us on the slippery slope to amnesty for all.
• I oppose and will not tolerate sanctuaries for illegals. The federal government must crack down on rogue cities that willfully undermine our economy and national security.
• I oppose giving driver's licenses to illegals and supports legislation to prevent states from doing so. In 2005, I signed legislation that prevents illegals in Arkansas from getting driver's licenses.
• I will stop punishing cities which try to enforce our laws and protect the economic well-being, physical safety, and quality of life of their citizens.
• I oppose and will not tolerate employers who hire illegals. They must be punished with fines and penalties so large that they will see it is not worth the risk.
• I oppose the economic integration of North America that would create open borders among the United States, Canada, and Mexico. I will never yield one iota or one inch of our sovereignty.
• I will take our country back for those who belong here. No open borders, no amnesty, no sanctuary, no false Social Security numbers, no driver's licenses for illegals.

It's difficult to imagine any of the current top-tier candidates taking a stronger position than this. More on his thoughts on this issue as well as his stance on all other major issues can be found at the link.

RLC

Informal Logic 101

In rhetoric or logic when one person responds to a claim or an argument from another by simply insulting the other instead of trying to answer the claim or refute the argument it's called the fallacy of ad hominem abusive. This article contains a textbook example of the tactic:

Kerry spokesman David Wade issued the following slap down today in response to Rush Limbaugh, who said on his radio show that Kerry's Swift Boat attackers in 2004, "were right on the money and nobody has disproven anything they claimed in any of their ads, statements, written commentaries, or anything of the sort."

Now set aside the question of whether Limbaugh is correct in saying this and look instead at the Kerry spokesman's response. Rather than seeking to show that Limbaugh is wrong Mr. Wade launches a stream of insults aimed at Limbaugh. Here's what he said:

"At first I thought, that's not Rush, that's just the OxyContin talking. Nonetheless, this is a despicable but unsurprising new lie from a man whose closest brush with combat came when customs officials tried to take away his Viagra.

This portly peddler of hate is once again wrong on the facts. John Kerry served his country with honor in Vietnam, and has fought for his fellow veterans ever since. The lies and smears of the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush were disproved conclusively in 2004 by the men who fought by John Kerry's side in Vietnam, by the military's own records, by investigative journalists, and by the incredible contradictions that exposed these right wing smear artists. It is long past time that we end the politics of fear and smear that we have seen used against decorated veterans from John McCain to Max Cleland and John Kerry.

Rush Limbaugh's ignorance and determination to divide Americans is just another reminder that you can't spell 'Rush Limbaugh' without the letters L-I-A-R."

Wade engages in much name-calling but he offers not a single rebuttal to Limbaugh's claim. He simply states that it has been rebutted by others and proceeds to prove it by calling Limbaugh a liar. Wade evidently possesses a black belt in the art of ad hominem. He has mastered the technique of filling the air with sufficient invective so as to convince the listener that the person on the receiving end of the insults must surely be wrong because he's apparently so despicable.

One of the sad things about this tactic is that it often works.

RLC

A Whiff of Totalitarianism

The New Republic has an interesting article by Damon Linker titled Atheism's Wrong Turn.

There are a few minor matters with which one might quibble - for instance his imputation of atheism to Socrates is puzzling - but his overall point is a good one:

"[T]he new atheism" is not particularly new. It belongs to an intellectual genealogy stretching back hundreds of years, to a moment when atheist thought split into two traditions: one primarily concerned with the dispassionate pursuit of truth, the other driven by a visceral contempt for the personal faith of others.

Today's atheists, he writes, have followed the second of these traditions and as such stand in defiant opposition to the grand tradition of classical liberalism. Their implicit desire to expunge from public life every vestige of religious faith and practice fills the pages of their books with more than a whiff of the totalitarian impulse.

Read Linker's article to find out why.

RLC

The Road to the Woodshed

After years of declaring the war in Iraq a failure and months of denying that there was any progress being made there, old John [Offer-Me-the-Bribe-Later] Murtha has had something of a Damascus Road experience:

U.S. Rep. John Murtha today said he saw signs of military progress during a brief trip to Iraq last week, but he warned that Iraqis need to play a larger role in providing their own security and the Bush administration still must develop an exit strategy.

"I think the 'surge' is working," the Democrat said in a videoconference from his Johnstown office, describing the president's decision to commit more than 20,000 additional combat troops this year. But the Iraqis "have got to take care of themselves."

Violence has dropped significantly in recent months, but Mr. Murtha said he was most encouraged by changes in the once-volatile Anbar province, where locals have started working closely with U.S. forces to isolate insurgents linked to Al Qaeda.

Kudos to Rep. Murtha for his honesty, but it probably is not very much appreciated by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Majority Leader Harry Reid for whom, Murtha's candor cannot be good news. No doubt they will soon be taking old John to the woodshed for some "counselling" on the importance of keeping such politically unhelpful epiphanies to oneself. It's a fact of political life that the Damascus road often leads straight to the woodshed.

RLC

Uh Oh

We've noted that Mike Huckabee's chances of winning the Republican nomination depend largely on his views on illegal immigration. This article doesn't make us sanguine about those chances:

Groups that support a crackdown on illegal aliens haven't settled on their champion in the race for the White House, but there's little doubt which Republican scares them most - former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

"He was an absolute disaster on immigration as governor," said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, a group that played a major role in rallying the phone calls that helped defeat this year's Senate immigration bill. "Every time there was any enforcement in his state, he took the side of the illegal aliens."

As Mr. Huckabee rises in the polls, his opponents are beginning to take shots at him on immigration. Just as problematic for the former Arkansas governor, however, is that the independent interest groups that track the issue are also giving him the once-over, and don't like what they see.

"Huckabee is the guy who scares the heck out of me," said Peter Gadiel, president of 9-11 Families for a Secure America, a group instrumental in fighting for the REAL ID Act that sets federal standards for driver's licenses.

Some leaders said Mr. Huckabee reminds them of President Bush, who pushed for legalization of illegal aliens and a new supply of foreign guest workers, despite his base calling for better border security and enforcement.

"I would say that Huckabee comes from the same perspective on the issue that George W. Bush came from - that out of a strong sense of compassion, he tries to identify with someone who comes to the United States, even if they came illegally," said Steven A. Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies.

Huckabee gives a defense of his position in the article.

RLC

Failure to Launch

My final column in the series I've been doing for the local paper was on a book, Boys Adrift, that I posted on about a month ago and appeared in yesterday's paper. I'd like to link to it but I can't find it on the their web site so here it is:

In the movie Failure to Launch, Matthew McConaughy plays a 35 year-old man named "Trip" still living with beleaguered parents who are growing increasingly desperate to have him leave the house. Unfortunately, McConaughy is in no hurry to give up this comfortable arrangement, and so the parents hire the services of a professional "interventionist" (played by Sarah Jessica Parker) to woo him out of the nest.

The movie is humorous, but Leonard Sax, a family physician and research psychologist, takes the theme seriously. In his book Boys Adrift he cites considerable evidence to support the claim that there's a growing and worrisome epidemic of boys and young men who seem listless, alienated from school, and unmotivated toward doing the things that one must do to achieve success in life. It's not that these boys aren't bright, many of them certainly are. It's not that they're completely unmotivated, many of them are highly driven, though not toward goals that parents and teachers would prefer or toward goals suitable for meaningful employment, marriage or fatherhood.

Sax assumes that boys themselves haven't changed much in the last thirty years but that their environment has. He discusses five changes in particular that have had a profound effect on young males and which he believes to be largely responsible for the lassitude many of them exhibit. Not every boy is affected to the same extent by these five factors nor do the five affect every boy, but, Sax argues, enough boys are harmed by at least one of them to have created a serious problem for many parents and teachers, not to mention the boys themselves. He concludes the book with some advice as to what parents might do to help their drifting sons.

The five factors Sax discusses are these:

Pedagogical changes: Many schools, Sax maintains, particularly in the early grades K through 2 or 3, are not structured to accommodate the normal need for boys of that age to be running and playing outdoors. Consequently, some boys fall behind early, and develop a dislike for school that they never overcome.

Video games: Sax points out that gaming often takes over a boy's life. He can have success, power, and thrills through video games that other activities can't come close to providing. As a result he's often motivated to do nothing but play the game and this he might do for hours every day to the exclusion of more important activities.

Medications for ADHD: Adderall and Ritalin are often over-prescribed and are now believed, according to Sax, to be damaging to a boy's brain.

Endocrine disruptors: Some of the chemicals which leach out of the clear plastic bottles which package so much of the liquid we drink mimic female hormones. Some scientists believe this might be at least in part responsible for the decline in male fertility in much of the developed world. It has also, Sax suggests, had a number of other side effects harmful to male development.

Revenge of the forsaken gods: Recent generations of boys are unique in our history in that many have grown up without positive male models in their lives to pass on what it means to be a man. They have few masculine heroes and many boys are isolated from older men and surrounded instead only by their peers. Such boys tend to become either "slacker dudes" or they seek to emulate Akon, 50 Cent and other thugs.

Sax doesn't mention this but one reason for the dearth of heroes in some boys' lives is that our media is simply uninterested in telling the stories of the heroism occurring almost daily in Iraq and Afghanistan. We read and hear plenty about the flaws and foibles of our sports and movie stars, but we rarely see specific accounts of the tremendous courage and toughness displayed by average young men who do absolutely astonishing things under the unimaginable strains of combat. Boys need to hear those stories, and our media are failing our society by refusing to publicize them.

There's much more to each of these five factors than what I've sketched above, and the material Sax lays out for the reader in each of the chapters devoted to them is often fascinating.

Perhaps the most interesting section is Chapter 6 in which Sax shares e-mails and other correspondence he has received from parents, girlfriends, and wives of boys and young men who exhibit the characteristics he describes in the book. The e-mails are riveting in their pathos and their tragic accounts of wasted lives.

If you're a parent, grandparent, teacher, or one who simply cares about boys, Boys Adrift is a must-read. It may be the best Christmas present you can give a parent of a boy you care about.

RLC

Thought For A Sunday

Taken from The Spirit of Prayer by William Law.

And all this, to make it known through all the Regions of Eternity, that Pride can degrade the highest Angels into Devils, and Humility raise fallen Flesh and Blood to the Thrones of Angels. This, this is the great End of God's raising a new Creation, out of a fallen Kingdom of Angels; for this End it stands in its State of War, a War betwixt the Fire and Pride of fallen Angels, and the Meekness and Humility of the Lamb of God: It stands its Thousands of Years in this Strife, that the last Trumpet may sound this great Truth, through all the Heights and Depths of Eternity, "That Evil can have no Beginning, but from Pride; nor any End, but from Humility."

Oh what a Blindness there is in the World! What a Stir is there amongst Mankind about Religion, and yet almost all seem to be afraid of That, in which alone is Salvation!

Poor Mortals! What is the one Wish and Desire of your Hearts? What is it that you call Happiness, and matter of Rejoicing? Is it not when every thing about you helps you to stand upon higher Ground, gives full Nourishment to Self-esteem, and gratifies every Pride of Life? And yet Life itself is the Loss of every thing, unless Pride be overcome. Oh stop a while in Contemplation of this great Truth. It is a Truth as unchangeable as God; it is written and spoken through all Nature; Heaven and Earth, fallen Angels, and redeemed Men, all bear Witness to it. The Truth is: Pride must die in you, or nothing of Heaven can live in you. Under the Banner of this Truth, give up yourselves to the meek and humble Spirit of the Holy Jesus, the Overcomer of all Fire, and Pride, and Wrath. This is the one Way, the one Truth, and the one Life. There is no other open Door into the Sheepfold of God. Everything else is the Working of the Devil in the fallen Nature of Man. Humility must sow the Seed, or there can be no Reaping in Heaven. Look not at Pride only as an unbecoming Temper; not at Humility only as a decent Virtue; for the one is Death, and the other is Life; the one is all Hell, and the other is all Heaven.

So much as you have of Pride, so much you have of the fallen Angel alive in you; so much you have of true Humility; so much you have of the Lamb of God within you. Could you see with your Eyes what every Stirring of Pride does to your Soul, you would beg of everything you meet, to tear the Viper from you, though with the Loss of an Hand, or an Eye. Could you see what a sweet, Divine, transforming Power there is in Humility, what an heavenly Water of Life it gives to the fiery Breath of your Soul, how it expels the Poison of your fallen Nature, and makes Room for the Spirit of God to live in you, you would rather wish to be the Footstool of all the World, than to want the smallest Degree of it

The Cost of Immigration

An article at NewsMax offers up some disturbing statistics about immigration in general and illegal immigration in particular. Here is a condensed version of the report:

A new study by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), based on the latest Census Bureau data, shows the number of immigrants in America, both legal and illegal, has swelled to a record 38 million this year - making one of every eight U.S. residents an immigrant.

The new numbers indicate the highest level in more than eight decades - with a third of those being illegal aliens.

One third of immigrants are on some form of welfare, costing states nearly $20 billion a year, the study claimed, adding that efforts to legalize the spiraling number of illegal aliens will only increase the amount of uneducated, uninsured legal immigrants burdening America's welfare rolls.

Since 2000, more than 10 million immigrants have entered the U.S., more than half of them illegally, according to the CIS. With no change in U.S. immigration policy, another 15 million immigrants will likely arrive in the next 10 years.

Almost 60 percent of the Illegal aliens entering the U.S. come from Mexico.

The numbers portend a major shift in American demographics. More than 72 percent of native U.S. residents are white, 13 percent are black, 10 percent are Hispanic and 2 percent are Asian. But among the burgeoning immigrant population, over 48 percent are Hispanic, 23 percent are Asian, 21 percent are white and 7 percent are black.

Camarota, research director at the CIS, a Washington think tank that favors immigration restrictions along with improved services for legal immigrants, says immigrants now make up one in every five school-age children in America. Immigration accounts for all of the increases in public school enrollment nationwide over the past 20 years, the CIS reports.

In places such as Los Angeles County and New York City, the children of immigrant fathers make up nearly 60 percent of the school-age population.

More than 31 percent of adult immigrants have not completed high school, compared to just 8 percent of U.S. natives. Since 2000, immigrants have boosted the overall number of workers who lack a high school diploma to 14 percent.

Camarota's findings on the quality of life for uneducated immigrants shows that attempts at so-called amnesty for the current population of 12 million illegal aliens would prove costly and provide little benefit.

"Immigrants who have legal status, but little education, generally have low incomes and make heavy use of welfare programs," the CIS report states. "If we decide to legalize illegal immigrants, we should at least understand that it will not result in dramatically lower welfare use or poverty.

"Those who advocate such a policy need to acknowledge this problem and not argue that legalization will save taxpayers money or result in a vast improvement in the income of illegal aliens," the report continues. "Legalized illegals will still be overwhelmingly uneducated and this fact has enormous implications for their income, welfare use, health insurance coverage, and the effect on American taxpayers."

True to the CIS charter, Krikorian stresses that there "is no excuse whatever for intolerant attitudes toward legal immigrants -- we admitted them according to the rules established by our elected representatives, and we must, and will, continue to embrace them as Americans in training.

"Even illegal immigrants must be treated humanely as they are detained and returned to their homes," Krikorian says. "But future legal immigration is a different question -- mass immigration is simply not compatible with the goals of a modern society and should be minimized to the extent possible."

It's a somewhat droll aspect of this issue that those who don't wish to see America turned into a northern extension of Central America are often branded bigots and "nativists" for wishing to preserve their heritage and for being reluctant to push this nation to economic ruin. It's okay for citizens of every country in the world to wish to preserve their traditions and character except for the citizens of the U.S. and Israel. Any measures taken by them to prevent either of their two countries from being culturally overwhelmed by their neighbors are, for some reason, roundly condemned as racist or zionist. It's very odd.

RLC

Peggy Misfires

My friend Jason writes to share this column by the often wonderful Peggy Noonan who thinks that the intense interest in our political candidates' religious faith is both novel and unseemly. I think she's not quite correct on either count. She writes:

...we have come to an odd pass regarding candidates and their faith. It's not as if faith is unimportant, it's always important. But we are asking our political figures--mere flawed politicians--to put forward and talk about their faith to a degree that has become odd. We push them against the wall and do a kind of theological frisk on them. We didn't use to.

We have the emphasis wrong. It's out of kilter. And the result is a Mitt Romney being harassed on radio shows about the particulars of his faith, and Hillary Clinton--a new-class yuppie attorney and board member--announcing how important her Methodist faith is and how much she loves wearing her diamond cross. For all I know, for all you know, it is true. But there is about it an air of patronizing the rubes and boobs.

No one cared, really, that Richard Nixon was a Quaker. They may have been confused by it, but they weren't upset. His vice president, Spiro Agnew, was not Greek Orthodox but Episcopalian. Nobody much noticed. Nelson Rockefeller of New York was not an Episcopalian but a Baptist. Do you know what Lyndon Johnson's religion was? He was a member of the Disciples of Christ, but in what appeared to be the same way he was a member of the American Legion: You're in politics, you join things. Hubert Humphrey was born Lutheran, attended Methodist churches, and was rumored to be a Congregationalist. This didn't quite reach the level of mystery because nobody quite cared.

If we didn't care it was because no one thought that most politicians took their faith too seriously. We didn't think that their religious beliefs would make any substantive difference in how they governed. Moreover, we didn't care too much because everyone shared a common value system. Almost every candidate for president was a protestant until Jack Kennedy in 1960 and then there was a lot of concern about his Catholicism.

We should also note that many of the people who are making an issue of Romney's Mormonism or Huckabee's evangelicalism are opponents, or potential opponents, hoping to make these men look weird or otherwise attempting to drive a wedge between the candidate and the electorate. On the other hand, those who point to Hillary's manifestations of faith are often trying to make her look mainstream so that religious voters don't shun her.

In any event, on the question whether a candidate's religious assumptions should be talked about during a campaign, of course they should. The problem isn't that candidates are being asked about their faith, it's that the questions they're being asked are often about trivial aspects of their beliefs. They're too frequently being asked questions by people who themselves lack a fundamental understanding of the significance of religion in a believer's life and unfortunately that tends to cheapen the discourse.

One's religious convictions shape who a person is. A man who believes that Armageddon is just aound the corner may govern very differently than someone who doesn't believe Armageddon is going to happen at all. A man who believes we have an obligation imposed by God to work for peace, preserve our natural lands and help the poor is going to be a very different president than one who believes that God helps those who help themselves. A man whose belief in a personal God leads him to be pro-life and in favor of traditional marriage is probably going to make different appointments to the Supreme Court than someone whose concept of God is vaguely deistic.

I wonder if Ms Noonan has really thought this matter of the role of religion in a political campaign through very far. Suppose the Muslim congressman from Minnesota, Keith Ellison, were to run for nationwide office. Would Ms Noonan think then that certain inquiries as to his religious beliefs would be unseemly, out of place, or irrelevant? I doubt it.

RLC

Re: Sudanese Orcs

Kelly asks a good question about Islamic outrage over the Teddy bear named for Mohammed on our Feedback page. Meanwhile, the teacher who allowed her students to name the bear was sentenced to fifteen days in jail and is to be expelled from Sudan.

The savages are not happy with the sentence, however:

Thousands of Sudanese, many armed with clubs and knives, rallied Friday in a central square and demanded the execution of a British teacher convicted of insulting Islam for allowing her students to name a teddy bear "Muhammad." In response to the demonstration, teacher Gillian Gibbons was moved from the women's prison near Khartoum to a secret location for her safety, her lawyer said.

The protesters streamed out of mosques after Friday sermons, as pickup trucks with loudspeakers blared messages against Gibbons, who was sentenced Thursday to 15 days in prison and deportation. She avoided the more serious punishment of 40 lashes.

They massed in central Martyrs Square outside the presidential palace, where hundreds of riot police were deployed. They did not try to stop the rally, which lasted about an hour.

"Shame, shame on the U.K.," protesters chanted.

They called for Gibbons' execution, saying, "No tolerance: Execution," and "Kill her, kill her by firing squad."

That she was put in prison at all is an outrage although being expelled from Sudan is surely a great blessing.

RLC

Cure For Big Egos

Stefan links us to this video which takes the viewer through a size comparison of various celestial bodies. It gives a whole different perspective to life on earth and shows how microscopically puny our world and its inhabitants really are.

There are some other videos on the same page which are also pretty impressive.

RLC

More Media Bias (Yawn)

CNN hosted the Republican debate Wednesday evening and, through either incompetence or appallingly bad journalistic ethics, utterly squandered whatever credibility they had as an objective news organization. No less than four of the people they had ask questions of Republican candidates were Democrat plants and one was even a Hillary campaign worker.

It's hard to imagine CNN allowing Republicans to ask questions of Democrat candidates and it's just as hard to imagine them allowing Republicans to represent themselves as "undecideds" when in fact they aren't undecided at all. Indeed, it's also hard to imagine CNN allowing Democrats to be subjected to any of the questions that were asked of the Republicans the other night.

Michelle has the goods.

RLC

Morris Defends Huckabee

Dick Morris was Mike Huckabee's political advisor in the early nineties so he knows him pretty well. He argues that, contrary to a lot of the sniping at Huckabee for being a tax and spend populist, he really is a fiscal conservative:

A recent column by Bob Novak excoriated Huckabee for a "47 percent increase in state tax burden." But during Huckabee's years in office, total state tax burden - all 50 states combined - rose by twice as much: 98 percent, increasing from $743 billion in 1993 to $1.47 trillion in 2005.

In Arkansas, the income tax when he took office was 1 percent for the poorest taxpayers and 7 percent for the richest, exactly where it stood when he left the statehouse 11 years later. But, in the interim, he doubled the standard deduction and the child care credit, repealed capital gains taxes for home sales, lowered the capital gains rate, expanded the homestead exemption, and set up tax-free savings accounts for medical care and college tuition.

Most impressively, when he had to pass an income tax surcharge amid the drop in revenues after Sept. 11, 2001, he repealed it three years later when he didn't need it any longer.

He raised the sales tax one cent in 11 years and did that only after the courts ordered him to do so. (He also got voter approval for a one-eighth cent hike for parks and recreation.)

He wants to repeal the income tax, abolish the IRS, and institute a "fair tax" based on consumption, and he opposes any tax increase for Social Security.

Huckabee is gaining momentum because he appears to be one of the few genuine social conservatives in the race. If he turns out also to be a fiscal conservative he will be a force to be reckoned with in the Republican primaries. It remains to be seen, though, what his detailed position on illegal immigration is. On that issue very few candidates find themselves in harmony with the electorate and it could prove to be the undoing of more than one of them.

The rest of Morris' column can be read here.

RLC

Henry Hyde (1924-2007)

A good man has passed away and we would be remiss if we didn't note his passing. Henry Hyde died today at the age of 83. This column describes part of Hyde's contribution to the pro-life movement.

RLC