Frontier Justice

It's hard not to feel sympathy for this woman although when you read the details it turns out she probably could have handled the situation a little less violently:

Tammy Gibson will be spending three months behind bars for taking a baseball bat to a sex offender for talking to her then-10-year-old daughter last summer.

Is this Puyallup, WA, mom remorseful or scared? "I'd do it again, if not better," she tells ABC News Seattle affiliate KOMO-TV.

If the man, who the story tells us is 7'3" tall, had been talking to the daughter when the mother attacked him her behavior may not have gotten her any jail time at all, but actually that wasn't the case. The police had passed out flyers saying the man was living in the neighborhood, and she recognized him from the flyer as a man she had seen talking to her daughter some time before.

She then went to his house with the bat and started beating him and even threatened to kill him. Doubtless the man's intentions in talking to her little girl were not innocent, yet he hadn't actually molested the girl so the mother probably should have handled the situation differently.

At least, most of the commenters think she should have handled it differently. They think she should have killed him.

RLC

More Progress with Stem Cells

Progress continues apace on the stem cell front. In 2007 scientists developed a way to turn ordinary skin cells into pluripotent stem cells - cells that can develop into other kinds of tissue. This was a giant step in rendering the use of embryonic stem cells unnecessary and thereby avoiding the ethical problem creating by destroying human embryos in order to harvest the cells. There was a catch, however. In order to insert the requisite genes into the skin cells to induce the transformation viruses had to be used as a shuttle, but the virus was a potential trigger for cancer.

Now this obstacle seems to have been overcome:

Researchers said on Sunday they had found a safer way to transform ordinary skin cells into powerful stem cells in a move that could eventually remove the need to use human embryos.

It is the first time that scientists have turned skin cells into induced pluripotent stem cells or iPS cells -- which look and act like embryonic stem cells -- without having to use viruses in the process. The new method also allows for genes that are inserted to trigger cell reprogramming to be removed afterwards.

Stem cells are the body's master cells, producing all the body's tissues and organs. Embryonic stem cells are the most powerful kind, as they have the potential to give rise to any tissue type. However, many people object to their use, making iPS cells an attractive alternative, provided they can be made safely.

Researchers have known for some time that ordinary skin cells can be transformed into iPS cells using a handful of genes. But to get these genes into the cells they have had to use viruses, which integrate their own genetic material into the cells they infect. This can cause cancer.

The alternative approach ... appears to avoid the risk of such abnormalities.

Let's all hope so. The promise stem cells offer for healing disease and other infirmities is breathtaking.

RLC

End of an Affair

David Brooks of the New York Times is just back from the Damascus road where the scales have apparently fallen from his eyes:

Those of us who consider ourselves moderates - moderate-conservative, in my case - are forced to confront the reality that Barack Obama is not who we thought he was. His words are responsible; his character is inspiring. But his actions betray a transformational liberalism that should put every centrist on notice. As Clive Crook, an Obama admirer, wrote in The Financial Times, the Obama budget "contains no trace of compromise. It makes no gesture, however small, however costless to its larger agenda, of a bipartisan approach to the great questions it addresses. It is a liberal's dream of a new New Deal."

Brooks goes on to explain his disillusionment with the man he supported for the presidency last year. It's a remarkable essay as much for its tacit admission of inexcusable ignorance as for its criticism of Obama's radicalism. How could anyone who follows politics as closely as Brooks does not know what kind of an agenda Barack Obama would seek to implement once elected? It's as if all the evidence was there to be seen, but, like an infatuated teenage girl swooning over the class playboy, Brooks was so smitten by Obama's charms that he simply failed to see what was obvious to just about everybody else on both the left and the right.

And he's not the only one. Christopher Buckley is having second thoughts as well. Now that the intellectual psychotropics are wearing off, these erstwhile conservatives are emerging from their stupor, blinking their eyes, and wondering what happened to them.

Well, one thing that happened to them is that they pretty much lost whatever credibility they once had.

RLC

Good Intentions

For some reason that perhaps psychologists who specialize in the phenomenon of "enabling" could explain, 75 countries have pledged $5.5 billion to rebuild Gaza. The Obama administration, still flush with the excitement of having pledged to spend a couple of trillion dollars we don't have, is chipping in $900 million of the total. This would be a benevolent gesture if it weren't so foolish. There's no way to insure that the money will reach the Palestinian people and every reason to think that the bulk of it will go to finance Hamas' ongoing war against Israel.

Never mind, though. The current administration seems to care less what they spend money upon than that the money gets spent. Pouring almost a billion dollars into Gaza will allow us to feel like we're actually helping the suffering people of that wretched place and also make us feel good about ourselves. We'll be able to bask in the good feeling, at least for a time, that accompanies the conviction that we're "striving for peace." Throwing money at the Gazans is a way of purchasing moral self-righteousness. So what if no one knows whether the money will go for schools and hospitals or for rockets and suicide bombs - at least our intentions are good.

For more on how our benevolence is essentially contributing to the murder of Israeli civilians see here.

RLC

Perpetual War

Since Israel ceased military operations in Gaza Hamas has demonstrated the extent of their desire for peace by launching a total of 81 missiles at Israeli civilians. Why anyone still thinks there can be peace in the Gaza region is hard to understand. Short of Divine intervention the only way peace will be achieved there is if the Jews either abandon Israel to the Arabs or if the Israelis wipe out Hamas.

Of course, even then it's doubtful there'd be peace. If the Palestinians take over the land currently called Israel they'll only set about fighting amongst themselves, and if Israel rids itself of Hamas some other group, just as virulent as Hamas, will quickly take its place.

As long as there are Arabs and Jews living in proximity to one another there will be war. The best that the Israelis can hope for is to keep their enemies so weak that they can't mount a serious threat. When the day arrives that the Arabs have nuclear weapons, and it eventually will, on that day they will use them and Israel will cease to exist.

That anyone in Washington thinks otherwise is a symptom of an inability to learn the lessons of history and an inexplicable refusal to take the Arabs at their word.

RLC

Exploiting the Fairness Doctrine

Despite a crushing vote against the Fairness Doctrine in the Senate last week, a lot of Democrats are nevertheless pining for the return of some form of the policy so they can either shut up Rush Limbaugh and his epigones or at least neutralize them.

We probably haven't heard the last of this issue but Clarice Feldman at The American Thinker shows how utterly unworkable and ludicrous such attempts at censorship are.

She writes:

Much has been made of the possibility of a revival in one form or another of the Fairness Doctrine, an obvious ploy to diminish the considerable impact of conservative radio hosts, notably Rush Limbaugh, whom the President has pointedly named as a key source of information for his opponents.

I agree that the revival of this concept would be a disaster for free speech and debate, that whatever merit it might have had in another media era is certainly lost today where, among other things we have hundreds of cable channels and almost infinite broadcast opportunities. Only fools would rush into the thicket of reviewing and weighing free speech opportunities for liberals in a media which, in any event, is overwhelmingly dominated by them.

Ever vigilant for new ways to rake in dough, however, I see in this deluded notion a rare opportunity to enhance my coffers while having fun.

Here are the openings for me to make money in my new career as a liberal, openings which show what an utter joke the entire concept of airwave "fairness" is.

Read the rest at the link to learn about both her "plan" and why the Fairness Doctrine and its spinoffs (like "localism") make no sense.

RLC

Carrying the Load

The Associated Press did an analysis of Obama's speech the other night and uncovered a few whoppers along with a number of lesser prevarications. Among the former is his claim that:

"We have launched a housing plan that will help responsible families facing the threat of foreclosure lower their monthly payments and refinance their mortgages. It's a plan that won't help speculators or that neighbor down the street who bought a house he could never hope to afford, but it will help millions of Americans who are struggling with declining home values."

The AP responds:

If the administration has come up with a way to ensure money only goes to those who got in honest trouble, it hasn't said so.

Defending the program Tuesday at a Senate hearing, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said it's important to save those who made bad calls, for the greater good. He likened it to calling the fire department to put out a blaze caused by someone smoking in bed. "I think the smart way to deal with a situation like that is to put out the fire, save him from his own consequences of his own action but then, going forward, enact penalties and set tougher rules about smoking in bed."

Similarly, the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. suggested this month that it's not likely aid will be denied to all homeowners who overstated their income or assets to get a mortgage they couldn't afford. "I think it's just simply impractical to try to do a forensic analysis of each and every one of these delinquent loans," Sheila Bair told National Public Radio.

Translated, this means that those who played by the rules, limited themselves to living within their means, denied themselves the opportunity to "move up" to a nicer home in order to avoid debt, are going to have to pay for the homes of those who didn't do any of these things.

The analogy Mr. Bernanke should have used is this: Your neighbor smokes in bed and his house burns down. The government then comes to you and says you have to pay to rebuild his house since he doesn't have any insurance.

Listening to callers on the various talk-radio shows throughout the day one gets the feeling that there's an awful lot of resentment accumulating among people who play by the rules (PPRs) toward people who don't. The PPRs feel, with some justification, that they're each carrying on their backs a half dozen or so others whose inability to pay their own way is due not to misfortune but to a series of stupid choices that they've made in their lives.

The PPRs, if I'm reading them correctly, are tired of subsidizing those who declined to take advantage of the education paid for by the community and consequently were too poorly educated to get a decent job. They're tired of paying for food, housing, and medical care for those who decided to have children without benefit of a husband (Nadya Suleman is simply the most egregious example). They're tired of paying for the damage done by those who choose to drink or abuse drugs, who commit crimes, who use our public roads, bridges, etc. without paying taxes. They're tired of having to pay for addiction treatment centers, abuse shelters, prisons, alternative education, and hospital care for people who can't pay for it themselves but whose lifestyle choices cause them to require the services these facilities and institutions provide. They're tired of spending trillions of dollars to meliorate the condition of such people only to see very little change in the lives of those who receive their help.

No one should misunderstand. It's not that the PPRs are uncharitable. They are, in fact, the most charitable people in our society. Rather, it's that they believe that they, not government, should decide who will get their help. They want to know that their money isn't going down a rat hole or going to pay the salaries of bureaucrats.

They want to be assured that their charity isn't being squandered as were welfare payments in the eighties and nineties when only 27 cents of every dollar was reaching the person in need, and even then there were no strings attached to the money. There were no demands that recipients give anything back to society or make strides to raise themselves out of their need. The PPRs simply subsidized dysfunctional behavior and when you subsidize something you not only get more of it, you get a lot of resentment on the part of the people who are required to pay for it.

The American people are a longsuffering breed, but their patience and largesse have limits. There's a growing sense that a government which demands that those who have worked hard for what they have give it up for those who haven't is a fundamentally unjust government. Thomas Jefferson's words in the Declaration of Independence have more resonance with more people today than perhaps at any time in the last sixty years of our history:

[M]ankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

The PPRs can only carry the rest of the population for so long and then, like an overburdened pack horse, they'll simply stop.

Perhaps it's time once again to refamiliarize ourselves with the central theme of one of the most famous novels ever written about just such a grand refusal. Perhaps it's time to relearn some of the lessons of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

The Democrats seem determined to pile more free-riders, more baggage, on the backs of the steeds that carry the load and pull the wagon. Eventually those workhorses are either going to refuse to be burdened any further or they're simply going to collapse under the strain. Either way, it's a bleak future toward which this new administration and its congressional and media allies are leading us.

UPDATE: I just came across a link to this article which claims that sales of Atlas Shrugged are booming in the current economic climate. Little wonder.

RLC

Flight 1549

This is a computer animation of the flight of US 1549. It's very well done.

RLC

Betty and Jennifer

Mary Eberstadt comments on the fascinating similarities and polarities in the way we treat food and sex in our culture. She shares her insights in a wonderful article in Policy Review where she explains how our attitudes toward both have, in the space of fifty years, completely reversed. To illustrate this reversal Eberstadt tells us a story about a hypothetical woman, Betty, and her granddaughter, Jennifer:

To begin to see just how recent and dramatic this change is, let us imagine some broad features of the world seen through two different sets of eyes: a hypothetical 30-year-old housewife from 1958 named Betty, and her hypothetical granddaughter Jennifer, of the same age, today.

Begin with a tour of Betty's kitchen. Much of what she makes comes from jars and cans. Much of it is also heavy on substances that people of our time are told to minimize - dairy products, red meat, refined sugars and flours - because of compelling research about nutrition that occurred after Betty's time. Betty's freezer is filled with meat every four months by a visiting company that specializes in volume, and on most nights she thaws a piece of this and accompanies it with food from one or two jars. If there is anything "fresh" on the plate, it is likely a potato. Interestingly, and rudimentary to our contemporary eyes though it may be, Betty's food is served with what for us would appear to be high ceremony, i.e., at a set table with family members present.

As it happens, there is little that Betty herself, who is adventurous by the standards of her day, will not eat; the going slogan she learned as a child is about cleaning your plate, and not doing so is still considered bad form. Aside from that notion though, which is a holdover to scarcer times, Betty is much like any other American home cook in 1958. She likes making some things and not others, even as she prefers eating some things to others - and there, in personal aesthetics, does the matter end for her. It's not that Betty lacks opinions about food. It's just that the ones she has are limited to what she does and does not personally like to make and eat.

Now imagine one possible counterpart to Betty today, her 30-year-old granddaughter Jennifer. Jennifer has almost no cans or jars in her cupboard. She has no children or husband or live-in boyfriend either, which is why her kitchen table on most nights features a laptop and goes unset. Yet interestingly enough, despite the lack of ceremony at the table, Jennifer pays far more attention to food, and feels far more strongly in her convictions about it, than anyone she knows from Betty's time.

Wavering in and out of vegetarianism, Jennifer is adamantly opposed to eating red meat or endangered fish. She is also opposed to industrialized breeding, genetically enhanced fruits and vegetables, and to pesticides and other artificial agents. She tries to minimize her dairy intake, and cooks tofu as much as possible. She also buys "organic" in the belief that it is better both for her and for the animals raised in that way, even though the products are markedly more expensive than those from the local grocery store. Her diet is heavy in all the ways that Betty's was light: with fresh vegetables and fruits in particular. Jennifer has nothing but ice in her freezer, soymilk and various other items her grandmother wouldn't have recognized in the refrigerator, and on the counter stands a vegetable juicer she feels she "ought" to use more.

Most important of all, however, is the difference in moral attitude separating Betty and Jennifer on the matter of food. Jennifer feels that there is a right and wrong about these options that transcends her exercise of choice as a consumer. She does not exactly condemn those who believe otherwise, but she doesn't understand why they do, either. And she certainly thinks the world would be a better place if more people evaluated their food choices as she does. She even proselytizes on occasion when she can.

In short, with regard to food, Jennifer falls within Immanuel Kant's definition of the Categorical Imperative: She acts according to a set of maxims that she wills at the same time to be universal law.

Betty, on the other hand, would be baffled by the idea of dragooning such moral abstractions into the service of food. This is partly because, as a child of her time, she was impressed - as Jennifer is not - about what happens when food is scarce (Betty's parents told her often about their memories of the Great Depression; and many of the older men of her time had vivid memories of deprivation in wartime). Even without such personal links to food scarcity, though, it makes no sense to Betty that people would feel as strongly as her granddaughter does about something as simple as deciding just what goes into one's mouth. That is because Betty feels, as Jennifer obviously does not, that opinions about food are simply de gustibus, a matter of individual taste - and only that.

This clear difference in opinion leads to an intriguing juxtaposition. Just as Betty and Jennifer have radically different approaches to food, so do they to matters of sex. For Betty, the ground rules of her time - which she both participates in and substantially agrees with - are clear: Just about every exercise of sex outside marriage is subject to social (if not always private) opprobrium. Wavering in and out of established religion herself, Betty nevertheless clearly adheres to a traditional Judeo-Christian sexual ethic. Thus, for example, Mr. Jones next door "ran off" with another woman, leaving his wife and children behind; Susie in the town nearby got pregnant and wasn't allowed back in school; Uncle Bill is rumored to have contracted gonorrhea; and so on. None of these breaches of the going sexual ethic is considered by Betty to be a good thing, let alone a celebrated thing. They are not even considered to be neutral things. In fact, they are all considered by her to be wrong.

Most important of all, Betty feels that sex, unlike food, is not de gustibus. She believes to the contrary that there is a right and wrong about these choices that transcends any individual act. She further believes that the world would be a better place, and individual people better off, if others believed as she does. She even proselytizes such on occasion when given the chance.

In short, as Jennifer does with food, Betty in the matter of sex fulfills the requirements for Kant's Categorical Imperative.

Jennifer's approach to sex is just about 180 degrees different. She too disapproves of the father next door who left his wife and children for a younger woman; she does not want to be cheated on herself, or to have those she cares about cheated on either. These ground-zero stipulations, aside, however, she is otherwise laissez-faire on just about every other aspect of nonmarital sex. She believes that living together before marriage is not only morally neutral, but actually better than not having such a "trial run." Pregnant unwed Susie in the next town doesn't elicit a thought one way or the other from her, and neither does Uncle Bill's gonorrhea, which is of course a trivial medical matter between him and his doctor.

Jennifer, unlike Betty, thinks that falling in love creates its own demands and generally trumps other considerations - unless perhaps children are involved (and sometimes, on a case-by-case basis, then too). A consistent thinker in this respect, she also accepts the consequences of her libertarian convictions about sex. She is pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, indifferent to ethical questions about stem cell research and other technological manipulations of nature (as she is not, ironically, when it comes to food), and agnostic on the question of whether any particular parental arrangements seem best for children. She has even been known to watch pornography with her boyfriend, at his coaxing, in part to show just how very laissez-faire she is.

Most important, once again, is the difference in moral attitude between the two women on this subject of sex. Betty feels that there is a right and wrong about sexual choices that transcends any individual act, and Jennifer - exceptions noted - does not. It's not that Jennifer lacks for opinions about sex, any more than Betty does about food. It's just that, for the most part, they are limited to what she personally does and doesn't like.

Thus far, what the imaginary examples of Betty and Jennifer have established is this: Their personal moral relationships toward food and toward sex are just about perfectly reversed. Betty does care about nutrition and food, but it doesn't occur to her to extend her opinions to a moral judgment - i.e., to believe that other people ought to do as she does in the matter of food, and that they are wrong if they don't. In fact, she thinks such an extension would be wrong in a different way; it would be impolite, needlessly judgmental, simply not done. Jennifer, similarly, does care to some limited degree about what other people do about sex; but it seldom occurs to her to extend her opinions to a moral judgment. In fact, she thinks such an extension would be wrong in a different way - because it would be impolite, needlessly judgmental, simply not done.

On the other hand, Jennifer is genuinely certain that her opinions about food are not only nutritionally correct, but also, in some deep, meaningful sense, morally correct - i.e., she feels that others ought to do something like what she does. And Betty, on the other hand, feels exactly the same way about what she calls sexual morality.

As noted, this desire to extend their personal opinions in two different areas to an "ought" that they think should be somehow binding - binding, that is, to the idea that others should do the same - is the definition of the Kantian imperative. Once again, note: Betty's Kantian imperative concerns sex not food, and Jennifer's concerns food not sex. In just over 50 years, in other words - not for everyone, of course, but for a great many people, and for an especially large portion of sophisticated people - the moral poles of sex and food have been reversed. Betty thinks food is a matter of taste, whereas sex is governed by universal moral law of some kind; and Jennifer thinks exactly the reverse.

What has happened here?

Well, Ms Eberstadt goes on to explain in an astonishing display of scholarly breadth and depth exactly what it is she thinks has happened. It's an excellent read, full of insight and wisdom.

RLC

Understanding Rush

Countdown with Keith Olberman gave us a great glimpse into the liberal mindset the other night. Olberman's guest was Janeane Garofalo who, with Olby cheering her on, conducted a Freudian analysis of Michael Steele, Rush "Limbow," and anyone who listens to Limbaugh, including the women who love him. It was quite a tour de force.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

There's something immensely amusing about a woman covered with tattoos saying that other people have problems. She admits that she despises herself, but so does Rush, she avers, and besides she's a much better person than he is, presumably because she's a liberal and her hatred, directed as it is at conservatives, is socially and politically correct.

Watch the whole thing. It's rare that liberals so plainly put on display their own confusions and distempers.

RLC

Four Crises

Terence Corcoran at National Post sees four crises which will result from the implementation of President Obama's economic vision. The four are these: Fiscal, Investment, Financial, and Energy.

Here's what Corcoran says about the first two:

Fiscal crisis: Mr. Obama is clearly using the current economic mess as cover for scores of leftist programs and projects. Americans don't like to be called leftists or socialists, especially American leftists and socialists. They're liberals. Whatever they call themselves, they will drive the United States into a succession of trillion-dollar increases in the national debt, on bailouts, stimulus and health care. Nothing wrong with debt in principle, but it's a recipe for a fiscal nightmare if the debt and interventions undermine growth. No growth, no tax revenue to pay down the debt, equals debt spiral.

Investment crisis: The stock markets have already pronounced on the Obama economic strategy. If a live market ticker had been running through his Tuesday night speech, viewers could have watched confidence drain out of investors in real time. The Dow Jones average plunged almost 200 points in opening trading yesterday.

While claiming to support enterprise and entrepreneurship, Mr. Obama promised to continue waging ideological war on capitalism, on bankers, high income earners, Wall Street, the financial system, investors and free trade.

He warped concepts, dishonestly calling tax cuts to high-income earners "an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy." Cuts actually mean not taking wealth from the wealthy. He promised to raise taxes on the top 2% of American income earners, as if trillions were sitting in the pockets of Bernie Madoff's clients.

No one, not even Paul Krugman, Obama's most enthusiastic cheerleader at the New York Times, thinks Obama will be able to limit tax hikes to just the wealthy. Krugman, in one of the most self-contradictory editorials I've read in a while, doesn't see how the administration can refrain from imposing a middle class tax hike down the road.

I know, Obama promised he wouldn't do that, but he also promised transparency in government, an end to lobbyists in his administration, and an end to earmarks in appropriations bills. So much for promises.

RLC

Economics 101

Economics is an arcane, daunting field of study. Many find it incomprehensible, and even some of us who don't serve in Washington are mystified by it as well.

As a public service, therefore, Viewpoint offers this simple lesson on the various economic systems that will make some general principles of the "dismal science" perfectly plain. The lesson teaches the differences between the major economic "isms" of the world. Here's how they work:

SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.

COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk. You wait in line for hours to get it. It's expensive and sour. Meanwhile, no one works and the cows drop dead of starvation.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government seizes both, sells you the milk, and shoots you if you complain.

OBAMANOMICS: You have two cows. First the government pays you not to milk them. Then it regulates what and how much you can feed them. Then it taxes you for the cows until you can no longer afford them. Eventually, the government takes both cows, uses one for food, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Meanwhile, you go on welfare.

AMERICAN CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

Simple, no?

RLC

Clash of Civilizations

As if the news isn't depressing enough these days the results of a new poll of world-wide Muslim opinion has recently been released. Details can be found here.

It turns out that moderate Muslims are to Islam what fiscal moderates are to the Democratic party. They may exist but not so as you'd notice. This quick summary will give you a sense of the flavor of the results:

Almost 40% of the Muslims in the Palestinian territories, which, mind you, are about to receive $900 million of our tax dollars courtesy of the Obama administration, favor, or at best have mixed feelings about, killing American civilians in the U.S. Eighty seven percent of Palestinians supported the attack on the USS Cole.

Almost half of all Pakistanis (some 86 million people) support killing European civilians.

Big majorities want strict Sharia law imposed in all Islamic countries (Sharia allows for murdering converts to Christianity, executing homosexuals, and other such acts of love, tolerance and human brotherhood). Large majorities also have positive feelings toward bin Laden.

There's much more from this poll to dampen any multicultural enthusiasms to which you may be clinging. Check it out at the link.

The survey was taken in Muslim countries which may not be indicative of Muslim beliefs elsewhere. I wonder what a canvass of Muslims in the U.S. would reveal. Would the results be significantly different? Let's hope.

RLC

Are We <i>Crazy</i>?

Let me be sure I understand this. On top of the original bank bailout of $700 billion came the $800 billion stimulus (which included nothing directed to help the biggest job generator in the nation, small business). Then yesterday the House passed a $410 billion spending bill with almost 9000 earmarks that President Obama in his speech the other night said would no longer be acceptable. Now comes word that we're going to spend almost a billion dollars to rebuild Gaza. On top of that the administration is putting together a plan to revamp health care that will cost another $640 billion just to get it started.

By the time this is all done we will have spent trillions of dollars that we don't have. I'm not a politician so I don't understand how you can just keep spending money you don't have, but I know if my family did this on our credit card we'd eventually lose everything we have. I also know if my neighbor did this I'd conclude that he's insane. Bernie Madoff ruined hundreds of lives and is going to prison for doing something just like this. Yet the Democrats, along with of a handful of Republicans, are doing pretty much the same thing.

Set aside the folly of nationalizing health care, subsidizing Hamas, wasting money on earmarked lard, and bailing out people who chose not to play by the rules, there's simply no way we can pay for all this without either inflating the currency, and/or piling ruinous debt on our children and grandchildren, and/or raising everyone's taxes.

President Obama says that only the very rich are going to have their taxes raised, but if he's to be believed, which I'm beginning to doubt more everyday, that still leaves us trillions of dollars in debt. In other words, the Democrats in Congress and the White House are leading this country toward a massive train wreck, and all much of the media seems to be able to do is make fun of Republicans, like Louisianna governor Bobby Jindall, who don't want to go along for the ride.

It's time to pray.

RLC

Science Vs Religion (Pt. V)

This is our fifth and final post on materialist biologist Jerry Coyne's essay in The New Republic on the alleged incompatibility between science and religion. Previous installments can be found here, here, here, and here.

Coyne observes in his piece that:

Beginning with Plato, philosophers have argued convincingly that our ethics come not from religion, but from a secular morality that develops in intelligent, socially interacting creatures, and is simply inserted into religion for convenient citation.

With all due respect to Professor Coyne, the term "secular morality" is gibberish. There can be no secular morality except insofar as a group of people arbitrarily agree upon certain rules that have no basis in anything other than the subjective preferences of the people who agree to them. There's no reason to think that a morality so arrived at imposes any kind of obligation upon anyone and there's no reason to feel guilt if one breaks the rules. Only morality grounded in something transcendent can obligate us. So far from secular morality being inserted into religion, it actually piggy-backs on religion, claiming itself to be independent but all the while relying on religion to carry it and give it credibility.

He continues:

In the end, then, there is a fundamental distinction between scientific truths and religious truths, however you construe them. The difference rests on how you answer one question: how would I know if I were wrong? Darwin's colleague Thomas Huxley remarked that "science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact." As with any scientific theory, there are potentially many ugly facts that could kill Darwinism. Two of these would be the presence of human fossils and dinosaur fossils side by side, and the existence of adaptations in one species that benefit only a different species. Since no such facts have ever appeared, we continue to accept evolution as true. Religious beliefs, on the other hand, are immune to ugly facts. Indeed, they are maintained in the face of ugly facts, such as the impotence of prayer.

I doubt very much that Darwinians would be dissuaded by the discovery of any of the things Coyne mentions. All such discoveries would do would be to inspire the true-believers to become more creative with their hypotheses. If human fossils were found together with dinosaur fossils then we would read about the possible mixing of rock strata or the surprising survival of dinosaurs long after they had previously been thought to have gone extinct. The Darwinist metanarrative certainly wouldn't be falsified by such finds, only a particular part of the overall theory would be considered in need of an adjustment.

But let's apply Coyne's "How would we know we were wrong" test to Darwinian beliefs about the origin of life. How would we know that life did not arise through blind, impersonal forces if, in fact, it did not? What "ugly fact" would falsify the claim that life is the product of those blind, impersonal forces? No one can offer a candidate, but Darwinian materialists nevertheless continue to insist that their speculations on the matter are scientific. Since no discovery could possibly falsify their belief that life arose purely mechanistically must we not disqualify such beliefs about abiogenesis from the domain of science?

Professor Coyne adds this:

There is no way to adjudicate between conflicting religious truths as we can between competing scientific explanations. Most scientists can tell you what observations would convince them of God's existence, but I have never met a religious person who could tell me what would disprove it. And what could possibly convince people to abandon their belief that the deity is, as Giberson asserts, good, loving, and just? If the Holocaust cannot do it, then nothing will.

I'm not sure what this is supposed to demonstrate other than that religious faith is not the same sort of thing as empirical science, but then nobody said that it was. Coyne is comparing apples and oranges. All anyone he has quoted in his article has said is that science and religion are compatible, not that they're identical. The appropriate comparison is between theistic belief and materialism. The very same phenomena that would falsify materialism, an unmistakable appearance by God, say, would serve to verify theism. On the other hand, if theistic belief cannot be falsified that simply means that materialism cannot be verified. So given this epistemic symmetry why does Coyne believe so adamantly that a scientist can consistently be a materialist but not a theist? How is a scientist's materialism any more compatible with his practice of science than would be his theism? They're both theological.

To be sure, particular religious beliefs may be incompatible with certain scientific beliefs, just as contrary scientific beliefs can be incompatible with each other, but it's one thing to say that a particular tenet of religion is incompatible with a tenet of science, it's quite another to say, as Coyne does, that religious belief is incompatible with science.

RLC

The NAACP

Rita Kramer, at The American Thinker, gives us a fascinating history lesson on the origins of the NAACP. Here are her opening paragraphs:

This is Black History Month, perhaps an appropriate time to call attention to an aspect of black history that has been papered over and all but forgotten in the official accounts and in what is taught in schools.

How many people today, black or white, know that the National Association for Colored People was founded by three white folks, two WASPS and a Jew, and that it was led and funded until well into the last century by whites, many of them Jews? It is understandable that after a hundred years some degree of historical Alzheimers may appear in the memory of the organization-as it does on its web-site-but perhaps it is time to remember the truth about how it all happened.

Exactly one hundred years ago, on the centenary of Abraham Lincoln's birth and just one hundred years before a man of color would be elected to the Presidency of the United States, the situation in the Southern states was dreadful for dark-skinned Americans. Most eked out a living as tenant farmers, exploited by the owners of the land they worked. They were prevented from voting and their children, if they attended school at all, went barefoot to ramshackle buildings with few books or other supplies. Negroes (the polite term then, which we will adopt for this article) were subject to arson, rape, and mob murder by lynching, with little or no interference by the elected authorities. In many places it was a crime for black and white to frequent the same place at the same time. The South was a society of complete and brutally enforced segregation.

Northern indignation was roused by a race riot at Springfield, Illinois in the summer of 1908. It began when the local newspaper ran a story about a white woman who claimed she had been raped by a black man. Police arrested the accused man and took him to the city jail. A crowd of angry white citizens gathered and demanded the prisoner, but the local Sheriff had been able to secretly transport him to safety. Enraged, the crowd trashed homes and businesses belonging to Jews downtown and to Negroes in black neighborhoods. A man who tried to defend himself was killed, his barber shop burned and his body hung from a tree. By this time an estimated crowd of 12,000 people had gathered to watch black-owned homes burning. Realizing that the local authorities were powerless in the face of the crowd, the governor called out the state militia. Order was restored, but not before an elderly black man married to a white woman had been lynched. The riots left 40 homes and 24 businesses in ruins. A grand jury indicted nearly 80 individuals for participation in the riots but only one man was convicted. He was a Russian Jew who peddled vegetables, and he was convicted of stealing a sword from a member of the militia. The woman whose story had started it all later admitted that her accusation was false.

Out of these and other injustices and atrocities the NAACP was born. Get the rest of the story at the link. It's a good read and an appropriate way to conclude Black History Month.

RLC

Schiff for Senate

We have several times, at Bill's behest, linked to interviews of Peter Schiff a maverick economist known for his gloomy but accurate economic forecasts. Now according to an article by James Pethokis at U.S. News there is a movement to get Schiff to run for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut. Given that his potential opponent would be Chris Dodd, a man largely responsible for the financial meltdown, such a race would be extremely enlightening. Here's Schiff's agenda as taken from his website:

For the last several years, Peter Schiff had been predicting a severe correction in the stock, credit, and housing markets. These predictions were highly unpopular; he was often mocked and ridiculed by other so-called investment experts. In late 2008, Peter's predictions were largely vindicated, and a shocked consensus took notice.

While it's important to recall that he was accurate in these particular predictions, his solutions are often lost in the media frenzy. In his books, op-ed pieces, and countless television interviews, Peter has offered the following set of solutions to restore economic viability to our great republic.

1. Increase savings and production. People need to start saving and paying down credit card debt, and the US needs to become a net producer and manufacturer of goods once again.

2. Vote no on all bailouts. Instead, the government should begin eradicating grotesque budget deficits and national debt by reigning in profligate spending.

3. Allow the recession to run its course and rebuild quickly from a fresh start. "Let it collapse today so it can prosper tomorrow." To use a crude analogy, wildfires are devastating in the short term, but they are extremely beneficial in the long run for the entire ecology. Currently, the trillions of dollars of new government spending is akin to pouring gasoline on the fire. It will only serve to exacerbate the problem and delay meaningful recovery.

4. Let the free market operate without inefficient, ineffective, and cumbersome government involvement. The government should enforce the integrity of free markets, not manipulate them.

5. Drastically cut federal spending. It's time to quit over spending and over borrowing and start living within our means.

6. Cut corporate and personal income taxes to spur savings, job growth, and real industrial production.

7. Minimize corporate regulation. If you allow the free market to operate, businesses and banks which accrue massive debt will fail. More efficient and fiscally responsible banks and institutions will prevail and restore prosperity to the economy.

8. Restore the value of the US dollar. Since 2002, the US dollar has been devalued by nearly 30%. Put a stop to the Federal Reserve setting artificial interest rates and printing trillions of dollars out of thin air. Instead, get the Fed out of the markets and bring back balanced budgets, low taxes, and robust production.

If these policies continue to be rejected, Peter predicts a complete collapse of the U.S. dollar and extreme hyperinflation sooner rather than later (or much sooner than expected). Hyperinflation, due to a devalued dollar, is nothing more than an invisible tax on our future prosperity. However, if these solutions are enacted, a period of short term pain will be followed by a sustained economic boom, based not on artificial bubbles, but real value. Considering he was right about the stock market, credit, and housing bubble collapse, we should take a long, hard look at his proposed alternatives.

If Schiff decides not to run in Connecticut I wonder if he'd be interested in moving to Pennsylvania to run against Arlen Specter. I'd be willing to pay his way.

RLC

Re: The Chimp and the Stimulus

The post on the Chimp Cartoon has elicited some interesting feedback. Among my students who have responded, the African-American students, not surprisingly, disagreed with my contention that there was no reason to think that racial malice was intended by the cartoonist. White students, however, overwhelmingly thought that the contretemps was an attempt to make something out of nothing.

One thing this controversy has confirmed is that postmoderns are right when they remind us that how we see things is colored by our experience and our perspective. It's so hard to find common ground on some of these issues because the narratives we live by have such a powerful grip on how we see events. What we see depends on who we are and what we have experienced. This being so, one wonders what purpose is served by having the kind of conversation on race that Attorney General Holder desires. Without common ground, without common understandings, the postmodern tells us, seeking to change minds is futile. All we can do is bring power to bear to force our interpretation on those who disagree with us. If this is right it's a real tragedy for our nation.

Anyway, I've posted some representative replies on our Feedback page. Feliz lectura.

RLC

It's All Relative

It may come as a surprise, but the economic news isn't all bad. It happens that as bad as it seems here in the U.S. it's considerably worse everywhere else. Floyd Norris explains why in a New York Times article:

In the fourth quarter of last year, the American economy shrank at a 3.8 percent annual rate, the worst such performance in a quarter-century. They are envious in Japan, where this week the comparable figure came in at negative 12.7 percent - three times as bad.

Industrial production in the United States is falling at the fastest rate in three decades. But the 10 percent year-over-year plunge reported this week for January looks good in comparison to the declines in countries like Germany, off almost 13 percent in its most recently reported month, and South Korea, down about 21 percent.

Even in the area of exploding mortgages, the United States has done better than some countries, particularly in Eastern Europe. There it is possible now to owe twice what a house is worth - even if the house has not lost much of its value.

Well, what about the stock market? We're doing very well there, too. We've only lost about 50% of our investment value. For most countries it's worse: Consider how much money you would have left if you had put $100 into the stocks in the leading market indexes of major countries at the end of 2007, less than 14 months ago.

In the United States, you would now have about $53. That fact - coupled with the reality that more Americans than ever are depending on the stock market to pay for their retirement - has severely depressed sentiment and spending.

But it merits one of the top grades in this world. Among major markets, only Japan, at $59, has done better. In Britain, France, Spain and Germany, the figure would be around $45. In Italy, it would be $37. About a quarter of the money would still be there in countries like Ireland, Greece and Poland.

Remember the BRIC countries, where growth possibilities seemed limitless not long ago? The stars there are Brazil and China, where about $46 or $47 remains. In India, the figure is $35, and in Russia it is $23. At least they have all done a lot better than Iceland, where you would have just $3 left of your hypothetical $100.

Now don't you feel better?

RLC

Where's the Change?

Imagine the distress on the left. First came word that a study commissioned by President Obama has found that detainees in Guantanamo receive treatment that satisfies the standards of the Geneva Conventions. This means there really isn't much reason to shut the base down except that Obama promised the lefties during the campaign that he would without really knowing why, except that they wanted it.

Now we learn that the Obama Justice Department has ruled that detainees held in Afghanistan do not have rights under the United States Constitution. Wasn't President Bush declared a war criminal for holding essentially this same position?

There are two kinds of Americans: Those who hoped Obama's policies vis a vis terrorists would be a radical departure from those of President Bush and those who feared they would be. The first group has reason to wonder what happened to the Obama they campaigned for. The second has reason to think that the president, at least with regard to the handling of terrorists, might not be a complete disappointment after all.

Add to this President Obama's backtracking on an Iraq pullout, his planned surge of troops into Afghanistan, and his expanded use of predator drones to attack terrorist targets in Pakistan, and the left must be beside themselves. This is not what they thought Obama was going to do.

Maybe they'll soon start superimposing Obama's face on all those "General Betray-Us" posters they have left over from a year or so ago. Or maybe they'll just start telling us that they're cool with whatever Obama does to keep this country safe. After all, it's not like he's "BushHitler" or anything.

Thanks to Hot Air for a couple of the above links.

RLC