In the Beginning

An article in New Scientist explores the question, "Has the cosmos existed forever, or did something bring it into existence?" The article points out that scientists believe that the universe started as a quantum fluctuation but then poses this additional question:

If the universe owes its origins to quantum theory, then quantum theory must have existed before the universe. So the next question is surely: where did the laws of quantum theory come from? "We do not know," admits [cosmologist Alex] Vilenkin. "I consider that an entirely different question." When it comes to the beginning of the universe, in many ways we're still at the beginning.

The consensus view is that the universe experienced a "Big Bang" but that this event was not the actual beginning. The beginning was in fact a hot, unimaginably dense state which produced the "Bang," but what then caused this state and why did it produce the universe when it did?

Vilenkin and others are coming to the conclusion that the universe is not eternal, that the original hot, dense state came into existence at some point, but how and why is still a mystery. There is at this stage of our knowledge no physical mechanism that's a plausible candidate for the initial cause.

Hmmm. I wonder, then, if there could be a non-physical cause that brought it all into being.

Religious Studies Today

I don't know if there was ever a time when a student could take a course in religious studies in an American university and actually learn something important about Christianity, but if ever there was, it's long past.

An article at The College Fix surveys 316 religious studies courses in a dozen major American universities and finds them pretty much devoid of any content that could be considered mainstream religious. Instead, what the researchers found were:

2 classes on witchcraft and shamanism;
2 classes on yoga and meditation;
3 classes on sex and religion;
3 classes on death and afterlife beliefs;
4 classes on religion and doubt/various conflicts;
5 classes on science and religion;
5 classes on mysticism;
12 classes on women/gender and religion; and
14 classes on religion and culture.

Some of the electives, the report says, are too difficult to even classify, such as: emergence, from biology to religion; suffering and transformation; anthropology of body and pain; religious dimensions in human experience; sport and spirituality; and a history of apocalyptic thought and movements.

University of Colorado at Denver’s 40-plus religious studies classes include “whores and saints,” “theories of the universe,” “Freudian and Jungian perspectives in dream analysis,” and “spirituality and the modern world.” No electives focused exclusively on Jesus, however.

Tne article goes on to describe the offerings at other schools similar to those at U. of Colorado. What the researchers didn't find in any of the schools surveyed were many courses that seriously addressed traditional Christianity, or the person of Jesus, who, despite the evident lack of academic interest in him, was easily the most influential individual to have ever lived.

It's a shame that universities have wandered so far from their original mission to teach the "best that has been thought and written" in Western civilization. It's equally lamentable that people pay money to have their kids take such courses that neither nourish their minds nor teach them much of anything useful.

Birth Rate Decline

The folks at the Pew Research Center have come up with some startling statistics about birth trends in the U.S. Here's a quick overview:

The U.S. birth rate dipped in 2011 to the lowest ever recorded, led by a plunge in births to immigrant women since the onset of the Great Recession. The overall U.S. birth rate, which is the annual number of births per 1,000 women in the prime childbearing ages of 15 to 44, declined 8% from 2007 to 2010. The birth rate for U.S.-born women decreased 6% during these years, but the birth rate for foreign-born women plunged 14%—more than it had declined over the entire 1990-2007 period. The birth rate for Mexican immigrant women fell even more, by 23%.

Final 2011 data are not available, but according to preliminary data from the National Center for Health Statistics, the overall birth rate in 2011 was 63.2 per 1,000 women of childbearing age. That rate is the lowest since at least 1920, the earliest year for which there are reliable numbers. The overall U.S. birth rate peaked most recently in the Baby Boom years, reaching 122.7 in 1957, nearly double today’s rate. The birth rate sagged through the mid-1970s but stabilized at 65-70 births per 1,000 women for most years after that before falling again after 2007, the beginning of the Great Recession.

There's much more at the link along with lots of charts.

The population replacement rate is about 2.1 children per couple. We fell below that for the first time in the U.S. in 2008. If birth rates are continuing to decline that'll have serious consequences for the future of the country. Fewer people means fewer consumers and fewer taxpayers which means a poorer nation. It also means that entitlement programs for the poor are going to be hard pressed to find the wherewithal to sustain them. It also means that there'll be less revenue coming in to the Treasury to support programs like Social Security and Medicare.

There's much talk in the news about the impending "fiscal cliff," but there's a population cliff looming off in the middle distance, which, if it remains unaddressed, will guarantee that people in their twenties today will be much worse off financially when they hit their forties than were their parents and grandparents.

Rubio's Reply

The Wall Street Journal recently ran an op-ed by Dr. Josh Swamidass, a professor in the Laboratory and Genomic Medicine Division at Washington University in St. Louis, on the response given by Senator Marco Rubio to a question asked of him by an interviewer from GQ magazine. Rubio was asked how old he thinks the earth is, a strange question to ask of a politician to be sure, especially since Democrats rarely get asked these sorts of questions, at least not by journalists. Rubio was taken aback and gave a rather desultory reply which offended Dr. Swamidass and a host of other commentators as well. He writes:

Sen. Marco Rubio recently touched a land mine in America's culture wars: evolution, creation and the age of the Earth. When GQ magazine asked him how old the planet is, Mr. Rubio's winding response never directly answered the question. Instead, he noted his lack of scientific qualifications ("I'm not a scientist, man"), posited a need to teach the "multiple theories out there on how the universe was created," and settled into the platitude that the Earth's age is an unsolvable "mystery."

Mr. Rubio's answer enabled his critics to cast one of the Republicans' fastest rising stars as an ignorant religious nut. It also provided an opportunity for those hostile to Christians to lampoon them for trusting their sacred text more than science.

I'm sure this is indeed how the Democrats would like to portray every conservative, but they can only get away with it by making sure their media allies don't ask them the same sorts of questions routinely employed to flummox Republicans. How, for example, would Senator Harry Reid, a Mormon, have answered that question? Or Nancy Pelosi? Or Vice President Biden? Does anyone think these pols have any idea at all what the scientific consensus is on the age of the earth or the age of the universe? Why should a politician be expected to know this anyway? What difference does it make whether someone believes the earth is thousands, millions, or billions of years old? What else should they know? The Gravitational Constant and the Planck Time? The GQ question is absurd and so has been the reaction to Rubio's reply.

The number that journalists should be asking our politicians is the size of the national budget deficit and the national debt. As it turns out, Mr. Obama was asked this very question and he didn't know the answer (start at the 2:00 minute mark):

That the president couldn't even give an approximate answer to the question - he's being paid, after all, to get this number under control - should have generated howls of outrage from the media, but it scarcely mustered a yawn.

Coincidentally, Mr. Obama was also asked, as a U.S. Senator, the same question that Marco Rubio was asked, though presumably not by a journalist. In a 2008 forum at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, Senator Obama was served this version of it:

Senator, if one of your daughters asked you...“Daddy, did God really create the world in 6 days?,” what would you say?

His answer is scarcely different than Senator Rubio's. Senator Obama replied:

What I've said to them is that I believe that God created the universe and that the six days in the Bible may not be six days as we understand it … it may not be 24-hour days, and that's what I believe. I know there's always a debate between those who read the Bible literally and those who don't, and I think it's a legitimate debate within the Christian community of which I'm a part. My belief is that the story that the Bible tells about God creating this magnificent Earth on which we live—that is essentially true, that is fundamentally true. Now, whether it happened exactly as we might understand it reading the text of the Bible: That, I don't presume to know.

Here's Rubio, in his interview for the December 2012 issue of GQ:

Q: How old do you think the Earth is?

A: I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.

Why is it that Senator Rubio's reply elicits howls of derision and Senator Obama's reply creates nary a ripple? The only thing I can figure is that it has something to do with whether there's an R or a D after their names.

Now He Tells Us

Pastor Rick Warren has had a political Damascus Road experience of sorts:

Saddleback Church founder and author Rick Warren, who once praised President Barack Obama's "courage" for inviting the conservative pastor to give the invocation at his inauguration and hailed his "commitment to model civility," has drastically changed his tone on the man who helped make him a familiar name to many Americans.

Obama is "absolutely" unfriendly to religion and his administration's policies have "intentionally infringed upon religious liberties," Warren said in an interview Wednesday.

Well, yes, but we've pretty much known this for about a year now. It may have been helpful had Pastor Warren declared his disenchantment with Mr. Obama in, say, September. Maybe he did and I just missed it.

Colleges and Tyranny

Michael Barone surveys two new books at NRO both of which expose how ideological liberalism at our colleges and universities both harms and tyrannizes students. Barone writes:

In recent weeks, two books have appeared about another of America’s gleaming institutions, our colleges and universities. Either of them could be subtitled “The Shame of the Universities.”

In Mismatch, law professor Richard Sander and journalist Stuart Taylor expose, in the words of their subtitle, How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It. In Unlearning Liberty, Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), describes how university speech codes create, as his subtitle puts it, Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate.

Mismatch is a story of good intentions gone terribly awry.

Sander and Taylor document beyond disagreement how university admissions offices’ racial quotas and preferences systematically put black and Hispanic students in schools where they are far less well prepared than others.

As a result, they tend to get low grades, withdraw from science and math courses, and drop out without graduating. The effect is particularly notable in law schools, where large numbers of blacks and Hispanics either drop out or fail to pass the bar exam.

University admissions officers nevertheless maintain what Taylor calls “an enormous, pervasive and carefully concealed system of racial preferences,” even while claiming they aren’t actually doing so. The willingness to lie systematically seems to be a requirement for such jobs.

It might be pointed out that affirmative action is insidious in another way. It tacitly diminishes the achievement of those minorities who do succeed in college. They're stigmatized both in school and beyond graduation by the suspicion that the only reason they succeeded is because they were given preferential treatment. This stigma is an extremely painful insult to have to bear throughout one's life, and the fact that colleges nevertheless continue to perpetuate it by continuing the practice of affirmative action in their admissions is an example of how liberal good intentions actually result in acts that are basically cruel to the people the liberal thinks he's helping.

Barone goes on to discuss campus speech codes:

The willingness to lie systematically is also a requirement for administrators who profess a love of free speech while imposing speech codes and penalizing students for violations.

All of which provides plenty of business for Lukianoff’s FIRE, which opposes speech codes and brings lawsuits on behalf of students — usually, but not always, conservatives — who are penalized.

Those who graduated from college before the late 1980s may not realize that speech codes have become, in Lukianoff’s words, “the rule rather than the exception” on American campuses.

They are typically vague and all-encompassing. One school prohibits “actions or attitudes that threaten the welfare” of others. Another bans e-mails that “harass, annoy or otherwise inconvenience others.” Others ban “insensitive” communication, “inappropriate jokes,” and “patronizing remarks.”

“Speech codes can only survive,” Lukianoff writes, “through selective enforcement.” Conservatives and religious students are typically targeted. But so are critics of administrators, like the student expelled for a Facebook posting critical of a proposed $30 million parking garage.

There's much more at the link. When liberals have authority they tend to use it to control other people's lives in order, they think, to bring about a just world. They want to control what people say as well as what they do, but the more they try to control individual speech the more oppressive they become and the less freedom people have. Barone cites a survey that shows that only 30% of university seniors feel they're free to voice opinions at variance with the university orthodoxy.

Liberalism's insistence on conformity is the greatest threat to freedom in the Western world today, but unfortunately too many students have grown up thinking that the way things are is the way they should be. They lack the time horizon to see how much their freedom is eroding, and, like the frog in the pot of boiling water, too many of them are unaware, or unconcerned, that it's happening.

Is ID Science?

If you've ever heard the criticism of Intelligent Design that it's not a scientific theory and should therefore not be taught in public schools you might be interested in perusing the information at Evolution News and Views.

Casey Luskin amasses a formidable array of resources which collectively make the case that ID is every bit as much a scientific theory as is anything else.

Along the way Luskin mentions the demarcation problem which, to my mind, makes the whole question of the status of ID moot. The demarcation problem is the challenge of trying to determine what it is about science that separates it from non-science. Most philosophers of science agree that there really is no clear boundary or demarcation and that the best way to define science is to say that it's simply whatever it is that scientists do.

If that's the case then it seems a bit futile to insist that ID is not science.

Not Over Yet

It looks like there'll be yet another challenge to the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) before the law is fully implemented:

President Obama’s national health care law will be back at the U.S. Supreme Court by next fall, according to a lawyer for Liberty University, which is challenging the constitutionality of the law on different grounds from the recent major health care suit.

Earlier on Monday, the Supreme Court ordered the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia to rehear a suit brought by Liberty University challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare.

“We’ll probably be back before the Supreme Court in fall of 2013, about a year from now,” Mathew Staver, the lawyer representing Liberty University, predicted in a phone interview with the Washington Examiner.

When the Supreme Court upheld the law’s individual mandate this past June, it did not address other issues raised by the suit brought by the Christian college.

In addition to challenging the individual mandate, Liberty has argued that the additional mandate forcing employers to offer their workers federally-approved health insurance or pay a penalty violated the Constitution. Should judges reject the argument that the employer mandate is broadly unconstitutional, Staver emphasized that the university is also making the narrower argument that the individual and employer mandates are unconstitutional “as applied” to religious institutions, because the law forces them to pay for abortions. This, Staver said, “collide(s) with the free exercise of religion.”

There's more at the link. "Fundamentally transforming" the country is a messy and difficult business, of course, and lots of obstacles stand in the way of seizing power and control over people's lives.

It's an interesting historical footnote that it seems that it's always religious institutions and individuals motivated by religious principles that get in the way of those who wish to aggrandize more power to themselves and to the state. It's doubtless one reason why there are, and will probably continue to be, so many martyrs.

A Couple of Rarities

The winter season often brings rare birds to my part of the country and this year has not disappointed. Two of the unusual species to be spotted in Pennsylvania so far this season are shown below.

The little fella pictured below is a Pacific-slope flycatcher. They're normally found in the Pacific coast states but recently one turned up in Cumberland county in Pennsylvania almost three thousand miles out of its usual range. The Pennsylvania bird was only the second confirmed sighting of this species in the state.

Another rare bird found to be visiting Pennsylvania recently was a Calliope hummingbird, the smallest North American bird and the smallest long-distance migrant bird in the world. The Calliope is only about three inches long and is normally only found in the western mountain states. The first picture shows an adult male Calliope, the second shows a juvenile, which is what turned up in Chester county a couple of weeks ago.

Great Review of Absence

Emails like this one from a reader named T.J. just make my day:

I finished reading In the Absence of God yesterday, which isn't anything to marvel at other than the fact that I also started reading In the Absence of God yesterday. I don't think I've ever read an entire book in one sitting before, and I certainly wasn't planning on reading this book in one day, but I simply couldn't put it down. Also, I don't think a book has ever affected me so deeply as this one has. I cannot stop thinking about the ideas that were presented throughout In the Absence of God.

I was nervous when I started reading the book that I would be bored by an abundance of philosophical ideas, but the conversations in the book were engaging and masterfully weaved throughout the action and plot. The speech at the end by "Smerk" gave me chills as I was reading it, and I was deeply disturbed by how true it was that this was the logical conclusion of a materialist worldview.

I identified with Professor Weyland in that I have been through some very difficult struggles with my faith because it seems as though the more "intellectual" and "logical" way to look at the world is through the lens of materialism. This book answered many questions that I've been asking for a long time, and I feel stronger in my faith because of it.

One quote in particular stuck with me as I finished the book, "For so much of his life Weyland simply took for granted that atheism made so much more sense, was so much more reasonable, so much more intelligent, than theism, but he could no longer think that. He'd never again be able to think his rejection of God, if that was the choice he ultimately made, was because atheism was so much more appealing or satisfying. What appeal is there in a worldview that has no answer to life's most important questions?" This describes where my mind was before reading this book.

Thank you for writing this book and reminding me of the truth I should have known all along.

If you'd like to read more about In the Absence of God click on the link at the upper right of this page. It'd make a fine Christmas gift.

Finding Out What's in It

Bethany Mandel at Commentary points out one way that the Affordable Care Act is harming the very people it was intended to help, especially those workers in the restaurant business:

Since the president’s reelection earlier this month, four large restaurant chains, Papa Johns, Applebee’s, Denny’s and Darden Restaurants (the company that owns the Olive Garden, Red Lobster, and LongHorn Steakhouse chains) have all recently released statements about their companies’ plans to respond to the increased costs of complying with Obamacare regulations.

According to the healthcare law, every full-time employee must be provided with comprehensive medical coverage if the company employs more than 50 full-time workers. If a company refuses to comply, they will be faced with fines of $2,000 per year, per employee, as of January 1, 2014.

According to Mandel, it's coming as a bit of a shock to the left that Obamacare has severe economic consequences for lowly employees, but, of course, it does:

Appearing on Fox News Business early last week, Applebee’s CEO Zane Tankel explained the steps his business would have to take in order to stay in operation:

The costs of fines or healthcare for dozens of employees per restaurant have the potential to bankrupt individually owned chains across the country. The Applebee’s in New York City would face fines of $600,000 per year if insurance isn’t provided for full-time staff, and estimates for offering federally approved insurance would cost “some millions” across the Applebee’s system.

The restaurant industry, already operating with razor thin margins, doesn’t have the ability to absorb tens of thousands more in healthcare expenditures without a considerable increase in sales. It’s a basic realty of economics: more has to be coming in than going out.

The only solution for restaurants that want to stay open and maintain competitive pricing would be to cut employee hours to part-time status. This is the conclusion already reached by several large chains–companies that provide jobs to tens of thousands of working class Americans.

This would be devastating to many of those workers, however:

If workers are moved to part-time status, the onus for paying for insurance would then be placed on employees who have suddenly seen their incomes reduced drastically. Another provision of Obamacare is the requirement for Americans to purchase insurance or face a financial penalty, a tax as defined by the Supreme Court.

Some of these employees may qualify for Medicaid and would be exempt from the tax specifically designed to compel Americans to purchase insurance, regardless of their desire to do so. Cash-strapped states would then be on the hook for expanding Medicaid in order to fulfill the needs of the estimated 11-17 million Americans newly enrolled on Medicaid thanks to Obamacare.

These workers, directly pushed further into poverty by Obamacare via reduced hours would then be enrolled in a system with the worst healthcare outcomes in the country, including the ranks of the uninsured. The costs of providing millions more with insurance would then be passed on by states unable to afford the Medicaid loads they already have. As a result, residents should expect fewer services from their states or higher taxes, if not both.

Nancy Pelosi said that we had to pass Obamacare in order to find out what's in it, and she rammed it through the House of Representatives without a single Republican vote. Now it's the law and we're starting to discover what's in it. Inter alia, the very people the Democrats claim to care so much about - young, poor, single moms struggling to make ends meet for their children - are going to get clobbered. They shouldn't feel too bad though. They can take comfort in knowing that liberals care about them.

Why Does Homosexuality Exist?

The Supreme Court decides this week whether to hear an appeal of the California Supreme Court's ruling that Proposition 8, the 2008 voter initiative that limited marriage to a man and a woman, is unconstitutional.

In addition to the constitutional questions surrounding gay marriage, there are some interesting biological questions to be asked about homosexuality as well. For instance, given the assumption that homosexuality is genetically based and the further evolutionary assumption that traits that confer no reproductive advantage eventually die out in a population, why does homosexuality exist in the first place?

Evolutionary biologist David Barash tackles this question at The Chronicle of Higher Education. He writes:

If evolution is true then homosexuals, who of course reproduce at far lower rates than do heterosexuals, should not exist, but of course they do.

This is a vexing enigma for evolutionary theorists and Barash surveys the various speculations scientists have advanced to explain the existence of a phenomenon which, evolutionarily speaking, should not exist. The speculations he adduces sound unconvincingly feeble, but they're evidently the best that the theorists have been able to come up with.

Barash admits that the solution to the mystery of the existence of a trait that confers no reproductive benefit has eluded our best scientific minds:

The sine qua non for any trait to have evolved is for it to correlate positively with reproductive success, or, more precisely, with success in projecting genes relevant to that trait into the future. So, if homosexuality is in any sense a product of evolution — and it clearly is, for reasons to be explained — then genetic factors associated with same-sex preference must enjoy some sort of reproductive advantage. The problem should be obvious: If homosexuals reproduce less than heterosexuals — and they do — then why has natural selection not operated against it?

Anything that diminishes, even slightly, the reproductive performance of any gene should (in evolutionary terms) be vigorously selected against. And homosexuality certainly seems like one of those things. Gay men, for example, have children at about 20 percent of the rate of heterosexual men. I haven't seen reliable data for lesbians, but it seems likely that a similar pattern exists. And it seems more than likely that someone who is bisexual would have a lower reproductive output than someone whose romantic time and effort were devoted exclusively to the opposite sex.

Across cultures, the proportion of the population who are homosexual is roughly the same. What maintains the genetic propensity for the trait?

Nor can we solve the mystery by arguing that homosexuality is a "learned" behavior. That ship has sailed, and the consensus among scientists is that same-sex preference is rooted in our biology.

The author continues at some length to try to explain the inexplicable fact of homosexuality. He's adamant that homosexuality is a product of evolution, but despite his promise to explain why he offers no substantive evidence to support the claim. He also insists that it's a genetically based phenomenon but offers scant evidence to support that view.

Maybe someone ought to call the departed ship back to port and give it another look.

Book Signing

I'm pleased to announce that I'll be doing a book signing/meet and greet on behalf of my book In the Absence of God at Hearts and Minds bookstore in Dallastown, PA on the evening of December 14th starting at 7:00pm.

My friend Byron Borger, the proprietor of Hearts and Minds, has graciously offered to host this event at his bookshop, and I hope many of you can make it, especially if you live close-by. It'll be an evening of good conversation, light refreshments, an opportunity to make new acquaintances, and an opportunity to browse the shelves of perhaps the most charming bookstore you'll ever visit.

It's also a great place to do some Christmas shopping, and In the Absence of God may make the perfect gift for someone who prefers novels to non-fiction and who's interested in questions about God. For more information on the book click on the link at the upper right of this page.

The address of Hearts and Minds is 234 East Main Main Street, Dallastown, PA. I hope to see you there.

Why the Israelis Stopped

Debkafile has a fascinating piece on what precipitated Israel's agreement to commence a cease-fire in the recent hostilities with Hamas. Here's the lede:

Binyamin Netanyahu agreed to a ceasefire for halting the eight-day Israeli Gaza operation Wednesday night, Nov. 21, after President Barack Obama personally pledged to start deploying US troops in Egyptian Sinai next week, debkafile reports. The conversation, which finally tipped the scales for a ceasefire, took place on a secure line Wednesday morning, just hours before it was announced in Cairo. The US and Israeli leaders spoke at around the time that a terrorist was blowing up a Tel Aviv bus, injuring 27 people.

Obama’s pledge addressed Israel’s most pressing demand in every negotiating forum on Gaza: Operation Pillar of Cloud’s main goal was a total stoppage of the flow of Iranian arms and missiles to the Gaza Strip. They were smuggled in from Sudan and Libya through southern Egypt and Sinai. Hostilities would continue, said the prime minister, until this object was achieved.

Earlier, US officials tried unsuccessfully to persuade Israel to accept Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s personal guarantee to start launching effective operations against the smugglers before the end of the month. The trio running Israel’s Gaza campaign, Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, were willing to take Morsi at his word, except that Israeli security and intelligence chiefs assured them that Egypt has nothing near the security and intelligence capabilities necessary for conducting such operations.

There's much more to this development at the link. Debkafile notes three significant consequences of the American deployment:

1. A US special forces operation against the Sinai segment of the Iranian smuggling route would count as the first overt American military strike against an Iranian military interest.

2. The US force also insures Israel against Cairo revoking or failing to honor the peace treaty Egypt signed with Israel in 1979.

3. It essentially makes the U.S. a partner in the blockade of Gaza.

The debkafile article doesn't mention it but the deployment to the Sinai also puts American troops in harm's way on behalf of Israel. Until now we've managed to keep out of Israel's neighborhood but will now be seen as intervening directly on their behalf. This is not a reason not to do it, but rather a significant change in what has been the United States' position heretofore and a very significant change in the Obama administration's attitude toward the conflict in the Middle East. At the very least it sends a message to Iran that Mr. Obama is not unwilling to use force against their interests, a consideration that should make their pursuit of nuclear weapons a bit more problematic.

Lincoln

Last Wednesday my wife and I went to see the movie Lincoln and came away impressed once again with Steven Spielberg's ability as a story-teller and filmmaker. To my untutored eye everything about the film seemed genuine, from the sets, to the costumes, to the dialogue, to the corrupt way politics was done in the 19th century (and in the 21st century).

I was a bit concerned at the outset when it looked as if the film was going to wallow in political correctness and white guilt, but it didn't, or if it did, it didn't seem to detract at all from the story of how Abraham Lincoln and his supporters in Congress managed to get the 13th amendment to the Constitution passed.

The movie captures dramatically the enormous pressures Lincoln (played magnificently by Daniel Day-Lewis) was under not only because of the carnage of the Civil War, and not only because of the uphill political battle he was fighting, but also because of his marriage to the emotionally troubled Mary Todd (also played magnificently by Sally Field). Despite these pressures he was able somehow to keep himself calm and focused on the tasks set before him - preserving the union and freeing the slaves.

Historians may find this or that detail to quibble about, but one comes away from the theater with a renewed appreciation for Lincoln as a man and a leader. If there was one thing that I'd caution potential viewers about it's that it might be difficult to follow the story unless one has a little background knowledge of who some of the key players are. Spielberg sets a fast pace that doesn't suffer a wandering mind.

Another thing that struck me and made me wonder if it was intentional was that Spielberg seemed insistent on impressing upon the viewer that the opponents to the 13th amendment were almost all Democrats. He seemed at times to go out of his way to point this out. It was a bit odd since Spielberg is himself a Democrat, but it's an interesting historical tidbit that the party that African-Americans are so loyal to today is historically the party which, had they had their way, would have kept blacks in slavery and would have kept them as second class citizens once they were freed.

Anyway, Lincoln is an outstanding film and I encourage you to see it.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'd like to wish all our readers a very meaningful Thanksgiving. I can think of no better way to observe the day on VP than to repeat our annual post of the Thanksgiving proclamation of one of the greatest Americans who ever lived:

THANKSGIVING DAY PROCLAMATION OF 1789 BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor - and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me "to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness."

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be - That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks - for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation - for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war - for the great degree of tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed - for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions - to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually - to render our national government a blessing to all the People, by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed - to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord - To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and Us - and generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

George Washington

No doubt those who like to believe that this country was not founded by religious men nor upon Judeo-Christian presuppositions would rather you not read this, but there you have it.

I encourage each of us to take time this day to reflect upon all that we have to be grateful for, having been born in this country or having come to reside here, and to reflect, too, upon the nature of our relationship to the God from whom all our blessings flow.

I urge each of us to take a moment to pray for those of our acquaintances who find themselves grieving a loss or suffering in pain that God may hold them especially close to His bosom and give them consolation and comfort.

Finally, we should also keep in mind those who languish in poverty, either physical, psychological, or spiritual and ask God that He show us what He would have us do to bring relief where we can.

Have a great Thanksgiving.

Why I'm Not Neutral

With the onset again of open warfare in the Middle East I've been told that the moral position is to remain neutral between the Palestinians and the Israelis and have been challenged to explain my reasons for thinking that neutrality is neither wise nor moral. Here are ten reasons why I think that anyone who believes morality matters and that we should support those who strive to do the right thing should support the Israelis:

The Israelis

• Did not initiate hostilities.
• Do not vow to exterminate the Palestinians.
• Do not teach their children in school to hate the Palestinians.
• Do not deliberately target civilians with their munitions.
• Do not send rockets on a daily basis into Palestine.
• Do not try to cross the border to murder Palestinian children.
• Do not act like savages toward those who support and abet Hamas.
• Do not use their civilians as human shields behind which they hide themselves and their weapons.
• Do not strap bombs to their children and send them off to blow themselves and other children to bits.
• Would never say something as perverse as "they [the Israelis]love life, we love death."

The Palestinians, mutatis mutandis, have done all these things.

Israel is a nation founded on principles of freedom and democracy. It's a tiny life raft of human achievement fighting for survival in a sea of frothing hatreds, savagery, and dysfunction.

But what of the Israeli blockades, the wall, the closed borders? Don't the Palestinians have a legitimate grievance because of the hardships these place on the people? Perhaps, but why have the Israelis adopted these measures? Is it realistic to think that the Israelis would undertake this expense and be willing to suffer the censure of the world just to punish the Palestinians for the sake of punishing them? Is it not more plausible to think that such measures are the only way to stop the importation of weapons and to prevent suicide bombers from committing mayhem among the civilian population of Israel? None of these impositions would exist were it not for the fact that they've been made necessary by the fanatical hatred of the Palestinian Arabs who will exploit any opportunity to kill Israelis.

The Israelis have been criticized because their response to Palestinian terror seems "disproportionate." Far more Palestinians are killed by Israeli bombs, people say, than Israelis are killed by Palestinian rockets. As much as I admire the principles of Just War theory, the principle of proportionality in Jus in Bello, at least as some interpret it, is an anachronism.

It entails that if your enemy fires at you with a pistol you must return fire only with a weapon of comparable firepower. According to the interpretation some give the concept, the use of anything more powerful, like an automatic rifle, would be immoral. In the present case the fact that over a hundred Palestinians have died but "only" three Israelis have been killed is cited as proof that the Israelis have responded "disproportionately."

This is nonsense. If followed to its logical conclusion it would mean that the victor in every war has acted immorally, even if he was acting in self-defense, since his success is disproportionate to that of the loser, since he has probably killed more of the enemy than he has lost to the enemy, and since he has employed superior manpower, firepower, and/or tactics.

What the proportionality criterion should mean is that no more damage be inflicted upon the foe than is necessary to subdue him and to gain his defeat. Gratuitous killing and destruction is to be condemned. It's not at all clear, however, that anything the Israelis have done is in any way gratuitous. They have the right to live in peace and if the Palestinians refuse to let them, if the Palestinians persist in trying to kill them, then the Israelis have the right, the duty even, to do what's necessary to stop them and the Palestinians must bear the consequences of their hatreds and of the leadership they have elected.

I feel deeply sorry for those among the Palestinian people who do want peace and who have suffered grievously because those to whom they have handed power are filled with so much hatred. But while I sympathize with and pray for those people I do not wish to see Hamas prevail. It would be a catastrophe for the people of Israel and for civilization in general.

Down the Drain

A friend told me I should watch this video but not, he cautioned, if I was having a good day. The video would be certain to ruin it. He was right, the video does induce a certain angst for the future of our nation, but I couldn't help laughing at it anyway.

It's titled "Why Our Country Is Going Down the Drain," and if the young man who appears before Judge Judy is in any way typical of the rising generation of Americans then the title is hard to dispute. He seems to be completely unaware that when he's given taxpayer money to use for a specific purpose that he then has an obligation, both legal and moral, to use it for that purpose:

I don't know if the country's going down the drain, but the $70,000 spent on this fellow's education certainly seems to be going for nought.

Reagan's Vindication

In the last ten years thousands of rockets have been launched at Israel from Gaza. In the four days leading up to yesterday 846 rockets were fired into the country out of which 302 were intercepted by the Iron Dome antimissile system. The system is able to calibrate which incoming missiles pose a threat to populated areas and which will fall where they're unlikely to cause harm. The system then launches an interceptor missile at the dangerous rockets and ignores the others. Israeli officials say that 90 percent of the attempted interceptions have worked, thus providing life-saving protection for population centers like Tel Aviv.

Those of a certain age might remember the ridicule President Reagan took for advocating an antimissile system to protect us against Soviet ICBMs. Scoffers derided the idea that such a system would ever work, they mockingly labelled it Reagan's "Star Wars" program, but Reagan was convinced it was a way to protect human life that we could ill-afford not to develop. He was confident that the nay-sayers would be proven wrong and they were. Today "Star Wars" is a term of approbation and its understandably hard to get those who lampooned the idea in the 1980s to admit to their poor judgment.

Anyway, the Israelis are certainly glad Reagan went ahead with the R&D because the technology developed to intercept ICBMs is today being used to save lives throughout the tiny nation of Israel.

I, Pencil

Most of us take the products we use everyday for granted. We never give a moment's thought to how they came to be or how many people were involved in their production. The Competitive Enterprise Institute has taken a story by Leonard Read about the simple lead pencil and turned it into an excellent video illustrating how complex and intricate free markets are.

They're like ecosystems, and, like ecosystems, they're vulnerable to human interference, particularly to interference by a government which thinks it can somehow control some aspect of the process without disrupting the whole system.

Thanks to Mary Katherine Ham at Hot Air for posting the video.