Racist Assumptions

Justin sends along a link to a site called Philosophical Misadventures which documents the racist assumptions of two giants in Western philosophy, David Hume and Immanuel Kant. The views they express would get them both thrown out of any modern day university, one would assume, but then again, maybe not. After all, Charles Darwin held similar views, and I can't imagine any American college so audacious as to give the great naturalist the boot.

Anyway, here are a couple of relevant passages from Hume and kant:

I am apt to suspect the Negroes to be naturally inferior to the Whites. There scarcely ever was a civilized nation of that complexion, nor even any individual, eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the Whites, such as the ancient Germans, the present Tartars, have still something eminent about them, in their valour, form of government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction between these breeds of men. Not to mention our colonies, there are Negro slaves dispersed all over Europe, of whom none ever discovered the symptoms of ingenuity; though low people, without education, will start up amongst us, and distinguish themselves in every profession. In Jamaica, indeed, they talk of one Negro as a man of parts and learning; but it is likely he is admired for slender accomplishments, like a parrot who speaks a few words plainly.

The above quote comes from a footnote in Hume's essay Of National Character. Kant plays off of Hume in his Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime:

The Negroes of Africa have by nature no feeling that rises above the trifling. Mr. Hume challenges anyone to cite a single example in which a Negro has shown talents, and asserts that among the hundreds of thousands of blacks who are transported elsewhere from their countries, although many of them have even been set free, still not a single one was every found who presented anything great in art or science or any other praiseworthy quality, even though among the whites some continually rise aloft from the lowest rabble, and through superior gifts earn respect in the world. So fundamental is the difference between these two races of man, and it appears to be as great in regard to mental capacities as in colour. The religion of fetishes so widespread among them is perhaps a sort of idolatry that sinks as deeply into the trifling as appears to be possible to human nature. A bird's feather, a cow's horn, a conch shell, or any other common object, as soon as it becomes consecrated by a few words, is an object of veneration and of invocation in swearing oaths. The blacks are very vain but in the Negro's way, and so talkative that they must be driven apart from each other with thrashings.

Can you imagine such sentiments being written by an academic today? Keep these quotes in mind so that when people insist on telling you that we live in a racist country you can show them what real racism looks and sounds like.

RLC

Mind/Brain Thought Experiments

The debate between those who believe that everything is reducible to material substance and those who believe that there's more to reality, especially the human being, than just matter is one of the most interesting of the perennial controversies in philosophy. It goes back at least to the ancient Greeks and has popped up repeatedly throughout the history of Western philosophy.

In 1714 Gottfried Leibniz, one of the greatest philosophers and mathematicians in history invited us to consider an interesting thought experiment that he, and many others, believed shows the inadequacy of physicalism (i.e. the belief that everything is explicable in terms of purely physical or mechanical processes):

Suppose that there be a machine, the structure of which produces thinking, feeling, and perceiving; imagine this machine enlarged but preserving the same proportions, so that you could enter it as if it were a mill. This being supposed you might visit its inside; but what would you observe there? Nothing but parts which push and move each other, and never anything which could explain perception.

The machine, of course, is analogous to the brain. If we were able to walk into the brain as if it were a factory, what would we find there other than electrochemical reactions taking place along the neurons? How do these chemical and electrical phenomena map, or translate, to sensations like red or sweet? Where, exactly, are these sensations? How do chemical reactions generate things like beliefs, doubts, regrets, certainty, or purposes? How do they create understanding of a problem or appreciation of something like beauty? How does a flow of ions or the coupling of molecules impose a meaning on a page of text? How can a chemical process or an electrical potential have content or be about something?

Regarding the first question in the preceding paragraph, consider another thought experiment, this one a paraphrase of one authored by philosopher Frank Jackson:

There is a distant planet in which there are no colors except shades of black and white. A brilliant scientist who has lived his entire life on that planet has spent his career receiving radio transmissions from colleagues on earth explaining to him the chemistry and physics of color and what it does to the neurochemistry of the brain so that the scientist knows everything there is to know about the color red. One day he has the opportunity to come to earth where he finds himself surrounded by colors as he disembarks from his spaceship. As he looks around would he be able to identify red or distinguish it from blue? Would there still be something about red that he doesn't know, namely, what it looks like?

The point is that you can know everything about the physical characteristics of a phenomena, you can know what effects are triggered by certain wavelengths of energy in your brain, but still not know what red actually is. An exhaustive physicalist description of red is still incomplete. It does not tell us everything there is to know about red. This suggests that no amount of physical understanding of the material brain can account for qualia, i.e. the sensations we experience by virtue of the functioning of our senses. There is, therefore, good reason to think that there is more to our conscious experience than just the workings of the brain.

If you believe you have a mind (or a soul) nothing in the materialist point of view should intimidate you into giving that belief up.

RLC

A Modest Proposal

Over the next couple of weeks there will be much talk about immigration reform, but the prospects for achieving meaningful reform are muddled by the divergent wishes of the two parties. Democrats want amnesty and a path to citizenship for illegals, Republicans want a secure border and, most of them, no amnesty. There is a middle ground, perhaps, which would be fair to everyone involved in this awful situation, including the illegals themselves, the businesses which hire them, and the people who must foot the bills for them. It starts with the premise that any plan that fails to secure the border is a non-starter, as is any plan that grants citizenship to twenty million people who are here in violation of our laws.

With these things in mind I think the following two-stage proposal has the merit of being compassionate, just, and politically doable. I also think it would have a lot of support among the American people. It would look something like this:

The first stage would guarantee that a border fence be built and the border secured. This is the sine qua non of any serious immigration reform. There's no point in painting the house while the ceiling is still leaking. Once our borders are impervious to all but the most dauntless and determined, and once this has been duly certified by a trustworthy commission, then the situation of those already here could be addressed - but not until.

After the border is secured, a plan for those already in the country illegally could be crafted to avoid the worst consequences of amnesty and yet demonstrate compassion for people desperate to make a decent living. To that end, once we have taken control of our border, Congress should enact legislation that would allow illegals to stay in the country indefinitely as "guest workers" with no penalty if, and only if, the following provisos were also adopted and enforced:

1) Illegal aliens would be required to apply for a government identification card. After a reasonable grace period anyone found to be without proper ID would be subject to deportation. This would be a one-time opportunity so that aliens entering the country illegally in the future would be unable to legally acquire a card.

2) No one who had entered the country illegally would at any time be eligible for citizenship (unless they leave the country and reapply through proper channels). Nor would they be entitled to the benefits of citizens. They would not be eligible to vote, or to receive food stamps, unemployment compensation, subsidized housing, AFDC, earned income tax credits, social security, medicare, etc. They would have limited access to taxpayer largesse, although churches and other charitable organizations would be free to render whatever assistance they wish, particularly in providing for medical care. Whatever taxes the workers pay would be part of the price of living and working here.

3) Their children, born on our soil, would no longer be granted automatic citizenship (This would, unfortunately, require a constitutional amendment), though they could attend public schools. Moreover, these children would become eligible for citizenship at age eighteen provided they graduate from high school, earn a GED, or serve in the military.

4) There would be no "chain" immigration. Those who entered illegally would not be permitted to bring their families here. If they wish to see their loved ones they should return home.

5) Any criminal activity, past or future, would be sufficient cause for immediate deportation, as would any serious infraction of the motor vehicle code.

6) There would be no penalty for businesses which employ guest workers, and workers would be free to seek employment anywhere they can find it. Neither the workers nor their employers would have to live in fear of ICE. In other words, anyone with an ID card would no longer be in the country illegally and families would no longer have to fear being split up due to one member being deported.

This is just an outline, of course, and there are details the lawyers would have to work out, but it's both simpler and fairer than other proposals that have been floated by Congress. Those who've followed the rules for citizenship wouldn't be leap-frogged by those who didn't, and guest workers who have proper ID would benefit by being able to work without fear. The long-term cost to taxpayers of illegal immigration would be considerably reduced, trouble-makers among the immigrant population would be deported, and American businesses would not be responsible for background investigations of job applicants. It would also provide incentive for American youngsters to get an education and acquire skills so they don't have to compete for jobs with unskilled immigrants willing to work for lower wages. The one group that would "lose" would be those politicians who wish to pad their party's voter rolls. They'd be out of luck.

Of course, this proposal won't satisfy those who insist that we send all illegals packing, nor will it please those who think the requirements for letting them stay are too stringent, but it seems a more simple, practical, just, and humane solution to the problem than most other plans that have been suggested.

To be sure, it entails a kind of amnesty, but it doesn't reward illegals with the benefits of citizenship as have previous proposals. The "amnesty" is contingent upon first stopping the flow of illegals across the border and also upon immigrants keeping themselves out of trouble while they're here.

If, however, the conditions for being allowed to stay and work in this country sound too onerous, if illegal immigrants conclude they could do better elsewhere, they would, of course, be free to leave.

RLC

Pig Latin Epithets

You recall the allegation made by Representative Andre Carson that he had heard the "N-word" hurled at him and Representative John Lewis at least fifteen times by racist tea-party protestors demonstrating against passage of Obamacare. The tea-party housewives and grandparents were so intimidating that Mr. Carson fully expected to have "rocks thrown" at him. Well, in this postmodern world when an allegation is made that confirms the liberal narrative it becomes their "truth" whether there's any substance to it or not. Thus, Rep. Carson's allegations have become part of "what everyone knows to be true" about the tea-party movement.

Unfortunately, for the diminishing remnant of liberal Americans who still think that serious allegations should have at least a little bit of supporting evidence in their favor beyond just one politician's sayso, it turns out that Mr. Carson's version of events lacks what might be called empirical warrant. Some folks at Patterico did a little investigating and here's what they came up with:

Of course we must keep in mind two things: First, to many on the left evidence simply doesn't matter. It just clutters and complicates things. What matters is whether an allegation has purchase, whether it's useful, and charges of racism are, of course, always useful. Second, the lack of evidence in these videos only proves how subtle and sneaky these white bigots really are. You can't hear the "N-word" because people were probably yelling it in pig latin so that it was garbled on the video, but resonated with perfect clarity in Mr. Carson's finely-tuned ear.

RLC

What the Law Actually Says

Those who find themselves in the position of not knowing what to believe about the Arizona immigration law might want to read a New York Times op-ed written by one of the drafters of the measure. It offers an excellent summary of the law's provisions. The author is Kris Kobach, a law professor at the University of Missouri. Kobach begins with this:

On Friday, Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona signed a law - SB 1070 - that prohibits the harboring of illegal aliens and makes it a state crime for an alien to commit certain federal immigration crimes. It also requires police officers who, in the course of a traffic stop or other law-enforcement action, come to a "reasonable suspicion" that a person is an illegal alien verify the person's immigration status with the federal government.

Predictably, groups that favor relaxed enforcement of immigration laws, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, insist the law is unconstitutional. Less predictably, President Obama declared it "misguided" and said the Justice Department would take a look.

Presumably, the government lawyers who do so will actually read the law, something its critics don't seem to have done. The arguments we've heard against it either misrepresent its text or are otherwise inaccurate. As someone who helped draft the statute, I will rebut the major criticisms individually.

Read his response to the critics at the link. I think the dissenters know that the law is not the totalitarian bogeyman they're making it out to be, but they're upset because they don't want any enforcement of immigration laws. They want amnesty and open borders, and the Arizona legislature seems to be moving in the opposite direction. Thus the hue and cry about racial profiling, arbitrary searches and all the rest.

The law makes sense, Arizonans and other Americans overwhelmingly support it, and I imagine other states are looking to adopt similar legislation.

RLC

Re: Nerdiness

Lest anyone have thought my comments in the Nerdiness post concerning the low priority given to education by the administrators of our public schools a bit exaggerated, one of my students, writing of her own high school experience, said this:

Sadly, I would agree with your statement that education is usually not the first priority in most high schools. A prime example of this in my high school happened during the musical season of my senior year. Our show that year was "The Secret Garden," and many of the songs (even those for the chorus) were high and complex. As a result, the choral director for the show began scheduling rehearsals for the songs during the school day in addition to our after-school rehearsals. Many of the teachers did not complain about this; however, my AP English teacher did. Our AP English class had about 12 students in it - 8 of us were involved with the musical. When we all asked to be excused for the mandatory rehearsal, he was outraged. Not only were we not allowed to go to the rehearsal, but we were also forced to sit and listen to him rant about how extracurricular activities seemed to take precedence over his class, and other classes for that matter. (The irony is that he wasted his valuable class time ranting).

At the time, his refusal seemed unfair and silly; however, looking back now I realize how right he was. Extracurricular activities often were given higher priority over classes. In addition to the choral director pulling us for rehearsals, we also missed almost an entire day of classes to perform the show for senior citizens. In addition, the band director pulled kids for individual lessons, and the sports teams were excused early for away games. Students involved with SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) and STAAT (Students Taking Action Against Tobacco) were allowed to miss class to visit other schools to talk about their causes. Student Council always took a day long trip to New York City (mostly for shopping), and chorus members went to see a show on Broadway. Additionally, pep rallies often caused shortened instructional periods in order to allow ample time for showing off the football or basketball teams.

As an education major, of course, I do not believe that learning should come after extracurriculars on the priority list. However, I think that extracurricular involvement plays a vital role in the college application and acceptance process; perhaps this fact is partially to blame for grades and smarts being knocked down a few notches. I remember that throughout high school we were constantly being told to be well-rounded individuals, to be involved. It was not enough just to get the good grades. When we applied to colleges, they weren't just looking at GPA-they wanted to know our extracurricular activities. Scholarship applications were like this, too. I know it is important to be involved, but high schools cannot let their students lose sight of the fact that extracurriculars aren't the only things that matter. Chances are that the singing stars and the football quarterback aren't going to have opportunities to excel in those activities forever. High schools need to find away to bring the focus back to education and keep extracurriculars as afterschool activities. Perhaps then nerds will have a chance to show how their intelligence and good grades are the popular things to have.

This student didn't go to the high school at which I taught, but judging from her experience she could have. In fact, she could have gone to just about any high school with which I'm familiar. If taxpayers want better educated students they might campaign to have schools keep students in the classroom. It would increase the amount of learning that takes place, and it wouldn't cost a cent.

By the way, I would have been honored to have had her AP English teacher for a colleague. He sounds like a man after my own heart.

RLC

Why Illegal Immigration Is Troubling

Hispanic groups are forecasting huge rallies across the country this Saturday on behalf of amnesty and in protest of laws like that recently passed in Arizona. President Obama has expressed profound concern about the rights of illegal aliens flooding into Arizona. There have been few expressions of concern, however, about the right of Americans to live in safety and security in their own country, and few media commentators seem interested in publicizing the frustrations and fears that have led the people of Arizona and elsewhere to support this law by huge majorities.

Here are some statistics from Pat Buchanan's book State of Emergency that should be kept in mind by anyone who thinks that the Arizona law is too draconian:

� In 2005 there were 687 assaults on border agents, twice the figure for 2004.

� In 2004 160,000 non-Mexicans were caught illegally crossing our border. Only 30,000 were returned.

� Federal agents are required to release illegal immigrants if their home countries refuse to take them back.

� In George Bush's first 4.5 years in office approximately 4 million people entered this country illegally.

� Police in so-called "sanctuary cities" are prohibited from apprehending known illegal or criminal aliens. Gang members in L.A. who are in violation of deportation orders may not be arrested by police.

� In L.A. 95% of all outstanding warrants for homicide, some 1200 to 1500, are for illegal aliens.

� 66% of the 17,000 outstanding fugitive felony warrants in L.A. are for illegal aliens.

� 12,000 of the 20,000 members of the 18th Street Gang in California are illegals.

� Between 300,000 and 350,000 "anchor babies" are born to illegal aliens each year. These children, one in every ten babies born in the U.S., are automatically citizens and qualify for all benefits of citizenship.

� Between 10% and 20% of all Mexican, Central American, and Caribbean peoples have moved to the U.S.

� One in twelve illegals caught by the border patrol has a criminal record. It's estimated that 300,000 felons have crossed into the U.S. in the last five years.

� Mara Salvatrucha, a gang responsible for numerous rapes, murders, mutilations and other crimes, has 8,000 to 10,000 members in 33 states. The illegal aliens in this gang are almost immune to police arrest and deportation because they operate in sanctuary cities. The gang is comprised primarily of El Salvadoran illegals.

� Illegals are bringing diseases that had been virtually eradicated in the U.S. Malaria, polio, hepatitis, tuberculosis, leprosy, syphilis and other diseases are all skyrocketing in the southwest. From 1960 to 2000 there were only 900 reported cases of leprosy in the U.S. In the first three years of the 21st century there were 7000.

� Since few illegals have health insurance and since hospitals are obligated to care for them, 84 California hospitals closed their doors between 1994 and 2003 because they could not afford to provide free medical care for the numerous illegals who needed it.

� Immigrants in general, and illegals in particular, are depressing the wages of low-skilled Americans by almost 8% according to Paul Krugman of the NYT.

� It's a myth that immigrants help the economy by paying taxes. The cost of schooling, health care, welfare, social security and prisons, plus the costs of pressure on resources like water, land, and power far exceed the revenue that immigrants, legal and illegal, contribute. The net cost to the taxpayer, imposed by immigrants, has been estimated at around $108 billion for 2006.

Moreover, while our economy lost five million jobs last year there are still eight million jobs currently filled by illegal aliens that could go to unemployed Americans. Why we should not only permit, but actually encourage, this state of affairs to continue is a mystery. We're losing control of our country and the dereliction in Washington has been bipartisan.

RLC

How Mexico Treats Aliens

Michelle Malkin, commenting on the outcry from Mexican authorities over the recently passed Arizona law that empowers local police to enforce the nation's immigration laws, writes that:

Mexican president Felipe Calder�n has accused Arizona of opening the door "to intolerance, hate, discrimination, and abuse in law enforcement." But Arizona has nothing on Mexico when it comes to cracking down on illegal aliens. While open-borders activists decry the new enforcement measures signed into law in "Nazi-zona" last week, they remain deaf, dumb, or willfully blind to the unapologetically restrictionist policies of our neighbors to the south.

The Arizona law bans sanctuary cities that refuse to enforce immigration laws, stiffens penalties against illegal-alien day laborers and their employers, makes it a misdemeanor for immigrants to fail to complete and carry an alien-registration document, and allows the police to arrest immigrants unable to show documents proving they are in the U.S. legally. If those rules constitute the racist, fascist, xenophobic, inhumane regime that the National Council of La Raza, Al Sharpton, Catholic bishops, and their grievance-mongering followers claim, then what about these regulations and restrictions imposed on foreigners?

Read the rest of Malkin's column to find out how Mexico treats its illegal aliens. Mexican policy makes Arizona's law by comparison seem like a borough ordinance to purchase parking meters.

RLC

Death of God, Death of Liberty

Philosopher Daniel Fernand adumbrates the long war against God waged by materialist philosophers from Thales to Nietzsche and argues that the death of God will lead inexorably to the death of liberty.

He concludes his pr�cis with this:

In George Orwell's 1984, Comrade O'Brien describes The Party as "the priests of power," with power itself as their god. Power is simultaneously the method and goal of this new secular religion. As O'Brien tells Winston Smith, "Power is not a means; it is an end. ... If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face -- forever".

I've been seeing that picture quite a bit, lately. It is the quintessence of the present-day power-mad, anti-intellectual radical left. In "killing" God, the left was merely taking out the competition, Tony Soprano-style -- and now they've upped the ante.

That metal-on-metal sound you hear every time you are careless enough to waste precious, irredeemable seconds watching CNN, MSNBC, or Robert Gibbs' smarmy mug is the left sharpening its knives for Liberty herself.

Indeed, once God is banished from human ethics there's nothing left but the exercise of power. In the might-makes-right world without God whoever possesses power is free to do whatever he wishes. The secularists don't intend it, perhaps, but the world they would create is the world described by Thomas Hobbes as a war of every man against every man. A world in which life will be inescapably nasty, brutish and short.

That's the trajectory the secular impulse propels us along and the omega point toward which our post-modern world is headed. We should not go gently, or quietly, into that dark night.

RLC

Closer to the Truth

I've recently come across a great website run by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, an MIT PhD in brain science and author of over 30 books. The site is called Closer to the Truth and consists largely of a library of 4 minute PBS interviews with philosophers and scientists who address questions of God, Consciousness and the Cosmos. Kuhn himself is a theological agnostic seeking answers on these important questions, and his search has led him to interview people all across the theological spectrum from theists to atheists.

It's good stuff, and you'll want to bookmark the page. Those who love thinking about these matters could spend several evenings going through all the videos. Here's one chosen pretty much at random featuring theistic philosopher William Lane Craig talking about the concept of the multiverse.

Enjoy.

RLC

Irresponsibility

This is beyond parody. Weary of the futility of pleading with Washington to do something to get a handle on the tidal wave of human poverty flooding their state, Arizonans, with vast public support, passed a tough measure on their own to enable them to enforce laws against illegal immigration.

But the president who has irresponsibly failed to enforce the laws that control the flow of immigrants across our borders, the president who has irresponsibly burdened our children and grandchildren with a debt they'll never be able to repay, the president who called Massachusetts police "stupid" for arresting Henry Gates, the president who has let Iran and North Korea develop nuclear weapons which will almost surely be used somewhere in the world, the president who embarrasses our allies and grovels before those who wish us ill, that president is calling the citizens of Arizona "irresponsible" for passing a law that will take back a little bit of the control the feds have forfeited:

Obama said [Friday] the federal government must act responsibly to reform national immigration law - or "open the door to irresponsibility by others."

"That includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona, which threaten to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and their communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe," Obama said.

Keeping us safe is one thing Mr. Obama seems disinclined to do. As illegal immigration has boomed, so, too, have crimes like kidnapping, rape, and murder, not to mention automobile accidents caused by unlicensed motorists. Vicious gangs now roam the streets of once sleepy cities and towns striking fear and intimidation into the hearts of their citizens.

The economic burden incurred by those towns as they struggle to deal not only with crime but also the stress that immigrants place on schools, housing, and medical care facilities is crushing.

Meanwhile, Mr. Obama expresses concern about none of this. All he seems to care about is the putative irresponsibility of Arizonans who have given up hope that the federal government will do its job and have decided instead to try taking control of their lives themselves.

One wonders who it is in this contretemps who has the corner on the market of irresponsibility.

RLC

Real Hate

You may have heard that Lance Baxter, the voice of the Geico gecko was fired by Geico for placing a call to the tea-party group FreedomWorks and leaving an insulting message on their voice mail.

What you probably didn't know is that his firing so incensed the gentle folks on the left that, taking their anger out on FreedomWorks, filled their voice mail with the most vile messages imaginable. Tabitha Hale who works at FreedomWorks put together a montage of the messages and emails along with some classic photos of lefty protest images in a video that can be viewed here.

I must caution you, though, that the language and hate speech are pretty bad - though standard stuff for the secular left, I suppose. It's so disgusting, in fact, that I can't in good conscience put the video on Viewpoint.

I direct your attention to it because the media, and even the White House, would have us believe that it's the tea-partiers who are promoting hatred and divisiveness in this country. They want us to think that it's people like Rush Limbaugh who are inciting acts of violence. What is happening, however, is that the vulgarian left, in an act of desperation, is projecting their own worst character flaws onto their ideological opponents in order to smear them in the eyes of the public.

I guarantee that nothing you've ever heard on talk radio or seen at a tea party comes anywhere close to what's on Hale's video. If you watch it you'll want to take a shower afterward. Being in the presence of these people, even across cyberspace, makes you feel like you need one. The next time someone calls some conservative a racist, or a bigot, or a hater, because the conservative is upset about what's happening to his country, you can laugh at their ignorance and link them to this.

Unfortunately, you won't be hearing about the video from the major media. When they're not reporting on alleged slurs hurled by tea-partiers that no one heard, they're all caught up in the Tiger Woods and Ben Rothlisberger sagas.

One other caution: I can't prove that this video isn't fabricated. I'm taking FreedomWorks at their word that they actually received these messages. If anyone has solid evidence to the contrary please let me know about it.

RLC

Eyjafjallajokull

The Big Picture has a series of 35 photos taken of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull. Some of them, like the one below, are absolutely stunning:

Thanks to Uncommon Descent for the link.

RLC

Golden State No Longer

City Journal has a fine column by Steven Malanga which explains how California has been brought to the brink of economic collapse.

The Cliff Notes summary is this: A triumvirate of greedy unions (teachers, SEIU, and public safety workers) have managed to buy enormous influence in the California state legislature and have thwarted almost all attempts at reforming the enormous salaries and pensions they have inveigled from the taxpayers of the state. In order to pay these contractual obligations municipalities have raised taxes which has in turn driven businesses out of the state thus depleting the tax base. Meanwhile, the unions still gorge themselves at the public trough.

Here's a taste:

Only too late have Californians recognized the true magnitude of their fiscal problems, including a $21 billion deficit by mid-2009 that forced the state to issue IOUs when it temporarily ran out of cash. In the municipal bond market, fears are rising that the Golden State could actually default on its debt.

Municipalities around the state are also buckling under massive labor costs. One city, Vallejo, has already filed for bankruptcy to get out from under onerous employee salaries and pension obligations. (To stop other cities from going this route, unions are promoting a new law to make it harder for municipalities to declare bankruptcy.) Other local California governments, big and small, are nearing disaster.

The city of Orange, with a budget of just $88 million in 2009, spent $13 million of it on pensions and expects that figure to rise to $23 million in just three years. Contra Costa's pension costs rose from $70 million in 2000 to $200 million by the end of the decade, producing a budget crisis. Los Angeles, where payroll constitutes nearly half the city's $7 billion budget, faces budget shortfalls of hundreds of millions of dollars next year, projected to grow to $1 billion annually in several years. In October 2007, even as it was clear that the area's housing economy was crashing, city officials had handed out 23 percent raises over a five-year period to workers.

There are lessons to be gleaned from all this, not the least of which is that modern liberalism, the ideology in which public employee unions are marinated, is totally hostile to the economic well-being of the people who pay their salaries. One gets the distinct impression from Malanga's essay that virtually every ill that afflicts California was aided and abetted by liberal Democrats and their union masters.

Read the article and catch a preview of the peril much of the rest of the country will find itself struggling to escape over the next decade.

RLC

Obama's Boondoggle

Grace-Marie Turner at National Review Online summarizes a startling report on Obamacare by HHS Chief Actuary Richard Foster and the prognosis looks bleak.

Turner opens with this assessment:

Not one of its major programs has gotten started, and already the wheels are starting to come off of Obamacare. The administration's own actuary reported on Thursday that millions of people could lose their health insurance, that health-care costs will rise faster than they would have if the law hadn't passed, and that the overhaul will mean that people will have a harder and harder time finding physicians to see them.

She goes on to itemize some of the liabilities. Here are just a few:

People losing coverage: About 14 million people will lose their employer coverage by 2019, as smaller employers terminate their plans and workers who currently have employer coverage enroll in Medicaid. Half of all seniors on Medicare Advantage could lose their coverage and the extra benefits the plans offer.

Huge fines for companies: Businesses will pay $87 billion in penalties in the first five years after the fines trigger in 2014, partly because they can't afford to offer expensive, government-mandated coverage and partly because some of their employees will apply for taxpayer-subsidized insurance.

Higher costs for consumers: Tens of billions of dollars in new fees and excise taxes will be "passed through to health consumers in the form of higher drug and devices prices and higher premiums," according to Foster. A separate report shows small businesses will be hit hardest.

Spending increases: Under the new law, national health spending will increase by $311 billion over the coming decade. And instead of bending the federal spending curve down, it will move it upward "by a net total of $251 billion" over the next decade.

There's much more in Foster's report, which, be it remembered, was written by administration actuaries, using actual costs and revenues, not the numbers contained in the bill which the CBO has to use. Moreover, it was on the news today that this report was in the hands of the administration a full week before the vote, but the most transparent administration in history chose not to make it public.

Obamacare is shaping up to be a fiscal disaster. It should be repealed and every congressperson who foisted it upon us deserves to be turned out of office for their incompetence and irresponsibility. They knew the plan was deeply flawed, but they did as their leadership advised and repeated like robots that it would reduce spending. As the Foster report makes clear this was totally false.

They had every reason to know they would be enacting a massive failure, they had plenty of precedents to examine in Europe and elsewhere, and still they voted to saddle us with this millstone because either they lacked the courage to buck Obama, Reid, and Pelosi or they were simply bought off.

With luck they will all be sent back to private life at the earliest possible date which, I don't need to remind you, comes up for many of them on the first Tuesday in November.

RLC

Harsh Law?

Is it immoral to enforce our immigration laws? Sojourners' Jim Wallis thinks so. In the sort of essay that gives liberalism a bad name Wallis writes:

The harshest enforcement bill in the country against undocumented immigrants just passed the Arizona state House and Senate, and is only awaiting the signature of Governor Janet Brewer to become law [Update: She signed the bill into law on Friday].

Senate Bill 1070 would require law enforcement officials in the state of Arizona to investigate someone's immigration status if there is "reasonable suspicion" that the person might be undocumented. I wonder who that would be, and if anybody who doesn't have brown skin will be investigated.

Wallis wastes no time poisoning the well with unsubtle intimations of racism. This is a classic ploy of the left. When you have no argument substitute for the deficiency with allegations of racist motivations lurking in the dark hearts of your opponents. It used to work but somebody should tell Wallis that the tactic has worn threadbare and has become risible in all but the leftmost precincts of the progressive fever swamps.

He continues:

Those without identification papers, even if they are legal, are subject to arrest; so don't forget your wallet on your way to work if you are Hispanic in Arizona. You can also be arrested if you are stopped and are simply with people who are undocumented - even if they are your family. Parents or children of "mixed-status families" (made up of legal and undocumented, as many immigrant families are out here) could be arrested if they are found together. You can be arrested if you are "transporting or harboring" undocumented people. Some might consider driving immigrant families to and from church to be Christian ministry - but it will now be illegal in Arizona.

Of course this is as it should be. It should be a crime to harbor and transport illegal aliens (Wallis prefers to call them "undocumented" which is simply a sophism that allows him to refer to them without calling attention to the fact that they are here illegally. He doesn't seem to want to admit that they are breaking the law.).

For the first time, all law enforcement officers in the state will be enlisted to hunt down undocumented people, which will clearly distract them from going after truly violent criminals, and will focus them on mostly harmless families whose work supports the economy and who contribute to their communities. And do you think undocumented parents will now go to the police if their daughter is raped or their family becomes a victim of violent crime? Maybe that's why the state association of police chiefs is against SB 1070.

How does Wallis know that enforcing this law will be a distraction? Here's a more realistic scenario: A policeman investigating a motor vehicle accident finds that the driver is an illegal alien so instead of letting him go, as they do now in many places, he simply hauls him in and turns him over to Immigration and Customs. Doesn't sound like much of a distraction nor does it sound like the police are focussing on "harmless" families.

As an aside, my brother was almost killed in an accident by an illegal alien driving without license or insurance. Nothing happened to the guy because for some reason illegals have in his state become a favored minority.

At any rate, Wallis has thus far failed to give a single reason why the law itself is bad. Everything he's said is an irrelevant appeal to pity, camouflage for the fact that Wallis favors an open border that people can cross freely.

This proposed law is not only mean-spirited - it will be ineffective and will only serve to further divide communities in Arizona, making everyone more fearful and less safe. This radical new measure, which crosses many moral and legal lines, is a clear demonstration of the fundamental mistake of separating enforcement from comprehensive immigration reform.

Everyone will be more fearful and less safe? What world does Wallis live in? Seventy five percent of Arizonans favor the law including a majority of Hispanics. As things now stand many Arizonans living along the border fear for their lives. Indeed, a prominent rancher was murdered by illegals a couple of weeks ago. Wallis' speculation notwithstanding, I think American citizens are going to be quite relieved that their government is finally doing something to protect them.

Moreover, what moral and legal lines does it cross? Wallis hasn't yet told us. How is it mean-spirited to require people who come here to do so legally? Is it mean-spirited to ask of people who call at your house to refrain from just walking in and helping themselves to your refrigerator? Is it mean-spirited to lock the doors to your home and car? Is it mean-spirited if you return to your home and find that a stranger has taken up residence in your kitchen to ask that he please leave?

Wallis will say we are supposed to be hospitable to strangers and so we should, but our hospitality should be on our terms, not the stranger's. Our wish to help someone should be our choice, not his entitlement.

We all want to live in a nation of laws, and the immigration system in the U.S. is so broken that it is serving no one well. But enforcement without reform of the system is merely cruel. Enforcement without compassion is immoral. Enforcement that breaks up families is unacceptable.

We can all agree the system needs reform and we can all agree that cruelty is bad and compassion is good, but how is that relevant? If family members of legal residents are sent back home then those who love them and are here legally are free to go with them if they wish. Wallis makes it sound as though babies will be ripped from their mother's arms and forever separated from her bosom. He has no reason to say this other than he wants to put the Arizona law in the worst possible light.

And enforcement of this law would force us to violate our Christian conscience, which we simply will not do. It makes it illegal to love your neighbor in Arizona.

This is, of course, absurd. Nothing is stopping Arizonans from loving their neighbors. Nothing prevents them from giving of their resources to help meliorate the sometimes desperate conditions of others, but this can all be done without flooding the country with millions of people who place unsustainable burdens on public services, hospitals and schools.

There's much to lament in the rickety logic of Wallis' brief against the Arizona law, but it at least has the merit of confirming the suspicion of those who wish for stronger enforcement of our borders that there's no good argument against that position.

RLC

Why Isn't the Media Interested?

David Klinghoffer wonders, with more than a little justification, why the major media is so uninterested in the David Coppedge story we wrote about a couple days ago here. After summarizing the tale of blatant religious discrimination against Coppedge, Klinghoffer writes:

[H]ere we have government and government-contracted agencies, NASA and JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), denying constitutional rights to a citizen, punishing and humiliating him for exercising his right to free speech. Yet the story as of yet has merited no significant attention from any prominent local or national news source. Why not? Well, obviously because this isn't a story that fits the larger narrative as favored in prestige circles like those of the media. In that favored narrative, it's always Darwinists, never Darwin doubters, who fall afoul of censors, persecuted by powerful forces in academia arrayed against orthodox evolutionary theory. Yeah, you know those powerful forces. They're over there, in a shoebox under the bed.

Fictionalized to begin with, this story was first told fifty years ago in Inherit the Wind. In the social demographic that champions it, it hasn't been looked at critically since. Thus, as readers of ENV know well, you can have a string of genuine and grievous cases of discrimination and suppression directed at Darwin doubters in research and teaching positions -- Sternberg, Gonzalez, Crocker, Marks, Minnich, Dembski, now Coppedge, along with other suppressed scientists yet to be named and still others too worried about reprisals to let themselves be identified -- and this entirely escapes liberal media attention. It's like a dog whistle. The favored narrative sets an audible frequency range beyond which, blast away as long and as "loud" as you like, a dog's owner simply can't hear anything even as the dog himself comes running.

On the other hand, if a story can be squeezed, molded, and manipulated so that an editor or news gatherer is reminded of the Scopes trial as depicted in Inherit the Wind, then yes -- that does merit attention. Thus when Old Testament scholar Bruce Waltke resigned from Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, after the BioLogos Foundation trumpeted a video interview with him on "Why the Church Must Accept Evolution," that won Professor Waltke a phone call from Diane Sawyer with ABC News. Waltke had not been forced out for endorsing evolution -- he had not been forced out at all -- and indeed he hit the ground running (at age 79) with a teaching offer from another seminary. But there was an imagined scent of Scopes about the matter and so, despite the fact you can be sure no one on Diane Sawyer's producing staff previously had any clue who Bruce Waltke or the Reformed Theological Seminary is, it merited attention from ABC World News. (To his credit, Waltke declined to be interviewed by Sawyer and sought to clarify his views on Darwinism.)

The media, of course, are just being what they are. To borrow Klinghoffer's metaphor they're simply deaf to the dog whistle of discrimination coming from the Darwinian left. They hold stereotypical views about who intelligent design advocates are and what they believe, and they lack the wit or motivation to question their own stereotypes.

Exit exercise: Raise your hand if you think Coppedge would have been demoted by the JPL had he been a Muslim (See below). Me neither.

RLC

Selective Courage

The bold, brash, intrepid souls at Comedy Central frequently, I'm told, exhibit their fearlessness for all to see by mocking Christianity on shows like South Park. Of course, it takes no courage at all to mock Christianity because there's no price to pay for it. Christians don't issue fatwas. They don't threaten murder. They simply pray for those who go out of their way to offend them.

So to get an accurate gauge on CC's courage we need to look at what they do when faced with genuinely dangerous people, like, say, angry Muslims. Well, it seems the steel spines at Comedy Central suddenly turn to wet pasta when members of the religion of peace give them the evil eye.

It's still okay, apparently, to satirize Jews, Christians, tea-partiers, and anyone else who'll turn the other cheek, but the cringing execs at Comedy Central would not dream of being so insensitive as to offend the religious sensibilities of our Islamic brethren whose religion must by all means be treated with utmost respect.

Hot Air reports:

Comedy Central bleeped out all references to the Prophet Muhammad in Wednesday night's episode of the animated show "South Park."

In addition to bleeping the words "Prophet Muhammad," the show also covered the character with a large block labeled "Censored."

Abu Talhah al Amrikee, the author of the post [on the Muslim website threatening the creators of the show], told Foxnews.com he wrote the entry to "raise awareness." He said the grisly photograph of [Theo] van Gogh [a Dutch filmmaker who spoke out against Islam and wound up being murdered by a Muslim] was meant to "explain the severity" of what Parker and Stone [South Park's creators] did by mocking Muhammad.

"It's not a threat, but it really is a likely outcome," al Amrikee said, referring to the possibility that Parker and Stone could be murdered for mocking Muhammad. "They're going to be basically on a list in the back of the minds of a large number of Muslims. It's just the reality."

What a bunch of poltroons those Comedy Central folks are - brave, courageous, and bold against gentle Protestants and Catholics and quivering blobs of jelly in the face of murderous Muslims. If they lack the guts to mock Islam then they should have the decency not to mock any other faith.

By the way, those of a certain age will recall a time when it seemed like every other day liberals in this country were self-righteously proclaiming their willingness to fight to the death for the right of people to say things with which the liberals themselves disagreed. They apparently never thought, however, they might be called upon to actually do that. It's certainly rare to hear a liberal declare such devotion to the principle of free speech today. Perhaps it's because, like good dhimmis, they're too focused on groveling before their Muslim masters.

RLC

The Real Enemies

Who does the president consider the real enemies of our nation to be? To answer that perhaps we should look at whom he directs his harshest rhetoric and at whom he appears most antagonistic.

Lisa Benson and Ramirez think they've discerned the answer to the question:

RLC

Small Minds, Closed Minds

Why is it, if Darwinians are so confident that they have truth on their side, that they feel the need to censor, stifle, demote and fire anyone who disagrees with them? What are they so afraid of?

The movie Expelled documents how the spirit of free enquiry and free speech has been trampled by academic Darwinists, and there are numerous examples of it beyond those discussed in the film. Guillermo Gonzalez, a much published astronomer at the University of Idaho, was denied tenure a year or so ago, largely through the efforts of an atheist colleague, because he co-authored the book The Privileged Planet which argues that the earth is uniquely, and perhaps, deliberately situated for the study of the heavens. Richard Sternberg of the Smithsonian was punished because the journal he edited ran a paper that argued on behalf of intelligent design.

The most recent casualty of the Darwinian thought police is David Coppedge, a project leader at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Coppedge has been demoted for nothing more, apparently, than offering to share some intelligent design DVDs with co-workers.

Philosopher Jay Richards comments:

It's hard even to figure out what David Coppedge is supposed to have done wrong. There were no complaints against him by people to whom he had lent these documentaries. He wasn't proselytizing. He wasn't even, so far as I can tell, actually doing anything naughty that he had been told not to do. It's not like he had been told not to lend out copies of the documentaries and had continued to do so (even though such an order would itself have been outrageous). Can you imagine any other legal subject on which such an action would be treated as anything other than unjust discrimination?

To read more on this travesty go to Evolution News and Views and scroll down.

When people know that their side of an argument is persuasive they rely on their argument in open debate to win the hearts and minds of their audience. On the other hand, when they know that their case is weak and unpersuasive they often resort to just shutting up the other side whenever they can. It's interesting that so many Darwinians feel they have to follow the latter course.

RLC