Partial-Birth Abortion

Late in pregnancy the baby's body is removed from the mother except for its head. Scissors are then inserted into the base of the skull, killing the child. The brains are then vacuumed out, the head is crushed, and removed from the mother.

This is called dilation and extraction or partial-birth abortion.

Most people, if they understood the details, would call it infanticide, but it had been legal until 2003 when President Bush signed legislation that banned it. Challenges to the law wound their way through the courts until finally yesterday the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the law prohibiting this barbaric practice was constitutional.

How did the major candidates for President respond? All of the Republican candidates - McCain, Giuliani and Romney - praised the decision. All of the Democrats deplored it. Senator Clinton saw it as an erosion of our constitutional rights. Senator Obama said that he strongly disagreed with the Court's ruling. John Edwards said he could not disagree more strongly and that "This hard right turn [!] is a stark reminder of why Democrats cannot afford to lose the 2008 election. Too much is at stake - starting with, as the Court made all too clear today, a woman's right to choose."

Indeed. In the last year from which statistics are available, 2000, there were 2200 of these gruesome procedures. Edwards is telling us that if a Democrat is elected president in '08 the next Supreme Court justice to be nominated will be one who thinks partial-birth abortion is just fine. Perhaps this is why some people are saying that the Democrats have embraced the culture of death.

This is also why elections matter and why it matters whether Republicans or Democrats control the levers of power. Both of George Bush's Supreme Court appointees voted to uphold the law banning this procedure but now that the Democrats control the judiciary committee there's very little chance that a like-minded justice will be appointed to fill the next opening.

RLC

Christian Terrorists

The tragedy at Virginia Tech reminded me that in every case of terrorism in American schools the perpetrators have been, as far as we know, atheistic nihilists.

So, that being the case, if you are a public school administrator planning a mock drill for your school to prepare your students for a terrorist assault and you want to make the exercise as realistic as possible who would you cast in the role of the murderous gunmen?

If you said nihilists, or even Muslim fanatics, then you're not thinking like some public school administrators.

The obvious selection would be a Christian conservative in that role, don't you see? That's the scenario scripted by several public schools around the nation, at any rate. Of course there have been exactly zero instances, at least that I'm aware of, where Christians have actually stormed a school and perpetrated violence, but that's a detail that seems to have escaped the notice of these administrators.

See here and here for details.

Not incidentally, there's apparently some evidence that Cho Seung-Hui hated Christianity, as did at least one of the Columbine killers. When is it going to dawn on the MSM that the problem isn't just the availabilty of guns, it's a worldview whose logic entails that life is meaningless, there is no moral value, there is no life after death, that human beings have no worth or dignity, and which hates Christianity because it holds that all of these assumptions are false?

RLC

Overly Hasty

My friend Byron writes to point out, correctly, that I overstated the case when I said that Michelle Malkin "has the goods" on Barack Obama's hypocrisy. Obama did indeed meet with the vulgar rapper Ludicris, and they evidently talked about "empowering youth", but there's no hard evidence in the story Malkin cited that Obama does anything but deplore the misogynist and violent lyrics that have made Ludicris wealthy. It may even be that Obama condemned Ludicris in their meeting for the toxic waste dump that is his "art", but the article doesn't say one way or the other, and I was overly hasty in assuming that he gave Ludicris a pass.

I thus should not have implied that Obama was hypocritical in condemning Don Imus for calling the Rutgers women "nappy-headed 'hos", and I apologize to Mr. Obama, if he's listening.

RLC

What Can We Do <i>Now</i>?

Yesterday we considered some possible causes of the school shootings that we experience every year in this country and argued that, in the long-term, we need to do two things: We need first to recover our confidence in, and commitment to, the Judeo-Christian worldview because only this provides us with a ground for valuing other human beings.

In the Judeo-Christian tradition human beings are valuable because they are made in the image of God and are loved by Him. Since we are prized by the Creator, to the point of sacrificing the life of His Son for us, we have tremendous value. Moreover, since this life is not all there is our lives have meaning. They're not just the meaningless exercise in absurdity that they would be were there no God and no immortality.

The second thing we said that we need to do is to utterly repudiate the culture of death, violence, and horror that has enthralled so many of our young people. Constant exposure to death and its accoutrements, along with video simulations of killing, coarsen and harden people, inuring them to the suffering and humanity of others.

Whether our culture ultimately turns itself around and accepts the need to do these two things or not, there are some short-term measures which have been suggested. The most common proposals are these three:

1. We can make it illegal to manufacture, sell, or own guns, and try to eliminate guns from society.
   
2. We can pass more laws restricting gun ownership.
   
3. We can loosen gun regulations so that school officials and some staff can have access to firearms.
   

Number one would be the ideal, of course, but it is virtually impossible. If gun manufacture was banned in the U.S. manufacturers would simply move off-shore and guns, like drugs, would still be available to those who wanted them, which would be primarily thugs and other criminals.

Number two is pointless as long as criminals still have guns. It's foolish to prevent responsible gun owners from protecting themselves as long as criminals still have the means to terrorize the innocent. People have a right to defend themselves and their families, and any government that takes that right away and leaves people defenseless against armed criminals makes itself ipso facto an illegitimate government.

Number three may not be ideal but it is certainly the most practical of the three options. Last October I wrote on Viewpoint that:

[Researchers have found] that greater efforts to restrict guns leads, counter, perhaps, to conventional opinion, to more gun crime. [These researchers] make a good case that the "gun-free zones" set up around schools are a farce. Such feel-good nostrums accomplish nothing more than to assure the psychopaths who roam the halls of every large public school in the nation that if they decide to go on a killing rampage there'll be no one able to hinder them.

The allure of exerting total, unstoppable power over others is irresistable to certain twisted minds, and "gun-free zones" don't do anything to keep them from bringing weapons into schools to carry out their horrific fantasies. They only prevent school staff from being in a position to stop them once the carnage begins.

Anyone who smuggles a gun into a school can massacre students for a long time before police arrive, and despite all the precautions that schools take to prevent such tragedies there's really no practical way an unarmed staff can prevent a student who wishes to murder his fellow students from actually doing it.

As a parent of a high school student I know I would feel better if I knew that at least some appropriate school personnel had been thoroughly trained in the use of firearms, particularly in a school environment, and were allowed to keep weapons, under lock but easily accessible, in the building. If they were, the chances that someone would attempt, or succeed in an attempt, to perpetrate mass murder in the halls and lobbies of a school would be greatly diminished.

Some people will understandably blanche at the idea of having guns in school, but they're already there. Some schools have armed guards roaming their hallways and some have armed kids roaming the hallways. A lot of schools probably have both. The question is not whether we will have guns in our schools - we already do. The question is who in the school do we want to have access to them.

Public school administrators, provided they are trained and licensed, should be allowed to keep firearms under lock and key in their office and properly trained college instructors should be allowed to do likewise. Had anyone in that classroom building at Virginia Tech been armed who knows how many lives could have been saved.

Guns are probably here to stay in our culture, and as long as they are criminals and psychopaths will be able to get them. The answer is not to declare schools off-limits to guns, but to let those who would commit mayhem in a school know that they would probably not get far before they were challenged.

Virginia's legislature recently defeated a proposal that would have allowed college students as well as staff to carry arms. I think this was a ridiculous proposal and should have been defeated. I can't imagine allowing students to walk around campus armed, but I do think that staff should have quick access to weapons, if they so choose.

The deterrent effect would no doubt be substantial. It's only because most school killers know that they'll be able to have their way for at least half an hour before the police arrive to stop them that they even try it. If they knew that they'd have only a minute or two they might not think those few minutes worth the cost.

If someone had been allowed to confront Cho Seung Hui with a weapon in the halls of that classroom building on Monday it might have saved dozens of lives and prevented untold grief. That, it seems to me, is the direction in which we should move until the day comes when we need no longer fear to send our children to school.

RLC

Plenty to Go Around

There seems to be a surfeit of hypocrisy among Don Imus' detractors (though none here at Viewpoint, of course). Michelle has the goods on two of the big fish, Al Sharpton and Barack Obama.

For readers who may not realize the kind of sleaze rappers like Ludicris put out on the air waves to be soaked up by our kids, Michelle also offers some lyrics at the Obama article. For strong stomachs only.

RLC

Why?

The tragedy at Virginia Tech conjures up a flood of thoughts. Two questions in particular are on everyone's mind: Why do these things happen? What can be done to stop them?

Like a lot of people, I think that the answer to the first question is two-fold. First, too many young people are in the grip of a murderous nihilism because as a society we have rejected the only belief system which gives us any basis for valuing human life and for treating others with respect and kindness.

Secondly, our young are immersed in a culture of violence and death in which they hear about killing, talk about killing, laugh about killing, and practice killing in their video games for hours every day.

Those two toxic elements form a time bomb in a person, a binary weapon, which, when the ingredients are mixed, becomes an explosive killer.

By abandanoning the Judeo-Christian worldview that was the mortar which held society together for three centuries, and replacing it with an atheistic materialism that offers no ground at all for morality, no basis for conferring worth on other people, we stripped our young of any basis for thinking of others as valuable in their own right.

In the absence of a God, people are valuable only to the extent that others value them, but atheistic materialism offers no reason why anyone should value another human being. If we're nothing but animals then, like animals, we can be slaughtered if someone has the power and the inclination to do it.

Add to this spiritual emptiness an entertainment culture of film, music, and video games so many of which are grotesquely violent and pornographic and the surprise is not that young people wantonly kill but that they don't do it more often than they do.

People immersed in what passes for entertainment in much of our culture become desensitized to death. They learn to see others as targets to be "blown away", not as people to be loved.

Some will object that lots of people play these games, listen to violent music, watch movies depicting mass slaughter, and yet they don't kill others. But this misses the point. People reside on a spectrum at one end of which are the most psychopathic among us. The more we revel in bloodshed and horror the more the spectrum gets shifted. Everyone becomes a little more desensitized, a little more hardened. Everyone tends to see others as a little less valuable than they would have, and some who would not otherwise be inclined to actually carry out their murderous fantasies now are and others who would not otherwise be inclined to harbor such fantasies now do.

Tragedies like yesterday's will recur as long as we continue to erode away the religious foundation upon which any morality must stand and substitute in its stead a culture that glories in violence, death, and horror. Just as we are what we feed our bodies, we are what we feed our minds.

If this is correct, and I'm convinced that it is at least a major part of the problem, then the long-term solution to mass murders in our schools is to recapture the spiritual understanding that we have lost in this country and to reject the culture of death the adults among us so blithely tolerate and our young so eagerly embrace.

We'll take up the short-term solution in another post.

RLC

The Imus Execution

I don't agree with everything Pat Buchanan says in this essay, but I agree with much of it. Don Imus deserved censure and firing for what he said, but the hypocrisy surrounding his lynching has grown galling. His offense was not that he uttered racist remarks or called the girls "nappy-headed." His offense, in my mind, was that he called the girls "whores," a gratuitous insult that was utterly reprehensible.

Imus lived by the arrogant, mean aspersion and he died by it, so it's hard to feel sorry for him. Had he called my daughters what he called the Rutgers women, I would have been incensed. But, having said that, to have this episode magnified into an act of vicious racism, which it was not, and to have the media set up Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, two of the most shameless race baiters and bigots of our time, as moral inquisitors is worse than absurd.

The real problem, as Buchanan points out, is not with people like Imus - who has done much good despite his execrable radio persona - the real problem is with a dysfunctional, degenerate entertainment culture, populated in large measure by black rappers, actors, actresses, and music video dancers, which facilitates and celebrates the degradation of women. Yet these people not only don't get punished, they are often richly compensated. Not only do the Sharptons and Jacksons of the world not demand that the financiers and enablers of this debasement of our culture stop rewarding those who actually do the dirty work, but they are not infrequently seen enjoying their company.

But read Buchanan's column. He says it better than I can. And see here and here for more of our views on this whole sordid affair.

RLC

Christ Killas

The latest attempt to employ art in the cause of destroying Christianity is a loathsome piece of work by a person named Eric Medine who has produced a video game that depicts Christ as a homocidal maniac that the player needs to shoot in order to win. The game is called "Christ Killa."

The press release of the gallery displaying the game says this:

Described as the ultimate arbitration between politics and Christianity, "Christ Killa" is a video game linked to video projectors and television monitors. A first person shooter in which the player shoots hordes of homicidal Jesus Christs, the game landscape is filled with Googled images of Christian propaganda posters, religious shrines such as St. Peter's in Rome, and clichèd representations of Christ who constantly mumbles messages of tolerance and compassion.

The audience is invited to participate in the carnage by playing the video game and watching short videos of the game in action. The winner with most Christ kills will be awarded with a trophy at 9:00PM.

Sounds like great fun, I suppose, for those of a certain warped and undeveloped mentality. Michelle Malkin, after showing other memorable examples of art that sought to degrade or demean the person of Christ, issues this challenge to the edgy and intrepid "artist," Mr. Medine:

You want edgy? Go ahead and create "Mohammed Killa." Replace the Homicidal Jesus Christs with Homicidal Mohammeds mumbling clichèd messages of peace from the Koran. Fill the "game landscape" with Googled images of Muslim propaganda and sacred mosques while the Homicidal Mohammeds blow themselves up in crowded schools, restaurants, buses, and markets.

Put that on exhibit. Go ahead. Be a maaaverick "artist." Show us how brave you are at offending all people of faith.

Of course, people like Medine generally decline such invitations as Michelle's. They'd rather stick to offending people who are no threat to them. To do "Mohammed Killa" would require a degree of courage beyond the attainments of most emotional and psychological juveniles.

RLC

Will the Real Conservative Please Stand <i>Out</i>

Jason sends a link to a column by Jonah Goldberg in which he laments that conservatives have no dog in the 2008 fight. Goldberg's right about this, of course, and in fact, conservatives haven't had a dog in the fight since 1984. The Bushes (W. and H.W.) are more conservative than Michael Dukakis, Al Gore or John Kerry, but they're actually something of an ideological hybrid. Nor are any of the top three candidates in this year's Republican field conservatives, at least not on most economic and social issues.

Whether this is good or bad we leave to the reader to decide for him or herself. We mention it only to contrast it with the MSM's inability to distinguish between Republicans and conservatives. In the MSM's world there are the good guys in the Democratic party and there are conservatives who must be defeated by any means necessary. The conservatives can be identified because they have the scarlet letter R (for Reprobate, perhaps) next to their name.

Goldberg points out why this is such a false picture of the way things really are and why, at this moment in history, liberalism actually dominates both political parties. It's an interesting essay.

RLC

Reasons For Unbelief (Pt. I)

Some atheists, like Sam Harris, insist that the reason for their unbelief is that there's just not enough evidence to persuade them that there is a God, but how much evidence would be enough? Would any amount of evidence ever suffice to persuade those who don't wish to believe? Blaise Pascal once said that the fact of the matter is that there's enough evidence to convince anyone who's not already dead set against it. Whether this is true or not, one has the suspicion that the alleged lack of evidence often serves as a rationalization for skepticism about a God that the skeptic doesn't want to believe in anyway.

Be that as it may, there are, of course, other reasons people offer as justifications for disbelief. Three of these are:

1. The problem posed by human suffering
   
2. Christian exclusivism
   
3. Bad experiences with Christians and/or churches

Setting aside the question of whether any of these is an understandable explanation for why a person may wish to have nothing to do with Christians or the Christian church, it should be mentioned that, except perhaps for the first, these are not good reasons not to believe in God. The matter of God's existence is an issue entirely independent of the question of the truth of any sectarian religious doctrine.

Even so, let's consider them in reverse order. Some who hold no belief in the existence of God argue that Christians have too often shown themselves to be no better than anyone else, and of course there's much truth to this. Christians are sinners just as others are. All of us are weak, we stumble, we fail - often. How does it follow from this, though, that there is no God?

The poor behavior of some Christians is irrelevant to the question of whether there is a good and just Creator. It is instead simply an indication that some Christians, like most people, have a hard time synchronizing their behavior with their beliefs.

Likewise, the murderous behavior of Muslim extremists who claim to be acting on behalf of God does not in any way make it less likely that God exists. At most, it only makes it much less likely that their conception of God is accurate.

One moral advantage, however, that Christian theists have over skeptics is that they have an objective ideal (Christ) of what they should be like toward which to strive and a powerful motive (gratitude) for doing so. The non-theist has neither of these. He has no moral reason to behave other than in ways which conform to his feelings. If the Christian theist feels like doing something hurtful to another he might do it, but he knows it's wrong, and he feels guilt. The non-theist has no reason to think it's wrong and no reason to feel guilty.

The person who rejects God because of disillusionment with Christians is making an irrational choice. The rational course would be to ask God to connect her with people who take their faith seriously and who strive, however imperfectly, to live their lives in conformity to the ideal set for us in Jesus Christ. There are, after all, multitudes of them out there.

More on this topic later.

RLC

Feedback

There are some good replies to recent posts on our Feedback page. Check it out.

RLC

From Darwin to Hitler

I recently finished Richard Weikert's outstanding book From Darwin to Hitler (2004). Weikert has written a tour de force in which he argues compellingly that the Nazi holocaust was not an isolated historical aberration but was rather a logical consequence of the conflation of two streams of thought that had been flowing through Germany for seventy years.

The first stream was an increasing secularism that reduced Christianity and Christian morality to an irrelevance. The Christian emphasis on compassion for the weak, poor, and oppressed was supplanted by an emphasis, deriving in large part from Neitszche, on strength and will. The Christian belief that morality was grounded in the will of a benevolent, omniscient God was replaced with the belief that morality was a product of the struggle for advantage among groups competing for their very survival. Once German intellectuals lost faith in a transcendent moral authority it was but a short step to an egoistic, pragmatic version of might makes right.

This meshed neatly with the conlusions of a Darwinian world-view which stressed the survival of the fittest, the inferiority of some kinds of people vis a vis others, and the possibility of improving the fitness of the human species through genetic selection and the removal of competitors.

These ideas manifested themselves in the 19th century in the German eugenics movement which sought to improve mankind through selective breeding and the abortion and euthanization of the sick, infirm, and deformed. As the twentieth century approached more German scholars and opinion makers extended these principles to the competition between races so that "inferior" peoples were seen as subject to the Darwinian laws of extinction. It was no distance at all from there to the conclusion that war against the inferior kinds of humans was morally justified in Darwinian and Neitszchean terms.

In a secular world might makes right and the interest of the stronger is the only defensible ethic. Survival in the competition for resources and living space was ipso facto proof of one's fitness and the ends of survival and dominance justified any means for many prominent Germans prior to the 1920s.

Weikert doesn't simply assert these historical and philosophical trends, he documents them from the writings of numerous infuential German thinkers from the 1860s through the 1920s. In fact, if the book has a shortcoming it is that after awhile the mountain of evidence Weikert amasses begins to get in the way of reading the history.

The author is at pains to insist that Darwinist materialism doesn't necessarily lead to Hitler. It might not have, of course, but what he shows beyond cavil is that the path that history followed was indeed widened, paved, and lit by the ideas of Darwinists and atheists following their assumptions to what they saw as their logical conclusions. It was an historical march made much easier by the demise of a robust Church in Germany and by the notion that any morality worthy of the name had to be grounded in the improvement of the human species.

Whether Weikert is right or wrong I leave to historians to decide but that he is persuasive cannot be gainsaid.

His book is scholarly, and the reader looking for something casual or light will probably find it difficult to finish. Reading it to the end, however, will surely repay anyone who perseveres.

RLC

Not Hard to Refute

Due to the number of people who have written to tell me that they didn't think that the argument in Hard to Refute was hard to refute at all, I feel I need to announce that the post was a parody.

RLC

Duke's Shameful Legacy

Vincent Carroll of The Rocky Mountain News offers his opinion of what he sees as the most astonishing feature of the Duke rape case:

...the most astonishing fact, hands down, was and remains the squalid behavior of the community of scholars at Duke itself. For months nearly the entire faculty fell into one of two camps: those who demanded the verdict first and the trial later, and those whose silence enabled their vigilante colleagues to set the tone. K.C. Johnson, a history professor at Brooklyn College, has followed every twist in the Duke scandal on his Durham-in- Wonderland Web site. He chronicles the faculty's performance as the hysteria mounted.

"In late March (2006)," Johnson writes, "Houston Baker, a professor of English and Afro-American Studies, issued a public letter denouncing the 'abhorrent sexual assault, verbal racial violence, and drunken white male privilege loosed amongst us' and demanding the 'immediate dismissals' of 'the team itself and its players.' A week later, on April 6, 88 members of Duke's arts and sciences faculty signed a public statement saying 'thank you' to campus demonstrators who had distributed a 'wanted' poster of the lacrosse players and publicly branded the players 'rapists.' By contrast, no Duke professor publicly criticized Nifong's conduct."

David Evans, one of the accused, told 60 Minutes that he moved out of the house where the rapes of a black stripper allegedly occurred because of menacing mobs. The Duke president, no profile in courage, canceled the lacrosse season and fired the coach. As recently as a few months ago President Richard Brodhead was still defending the 88 professors who trampled on the presumption of innocence, going so far as to describe some of them as victims, too.

A few Duke professors did acquit themselves well or eventually locate some semblance of a spine. Law professor James Coleman denounced Nifong's handling of police lineups. Seventeen members of the Duke economics department signed a letter in January criticizing Nifong and assuring student athletes they were welcome in their classrooms.

But for the most part the faculty either supported the branding of three athletes as racists and rapists, didn't care enough about their plight to speak out, or were cowed into suppressing any call of conscience.

Would those athletes, facing a similarly dubious claim of rape, have fared any better at America's other elite universities? The idealist yearns to answer yes. The realist, sad to say, knows better.

As we said the other day, the faculties of elite American universities are predominately leftists for whom the most important thing in life is their ideology. They have committed themselves to certain core assumptions about gender, race, and class that led them to conclude prior to the production of any evidence, and solely on the basis of a black woman's allegation, that those young white men were guilty as charged.

Everything else followed as night follows the day. The university president fired the lacrosse coach, holding him responsible for the putative sins of his players. The young students were made the object of invective and slander by such stalwart defenders of the rights of the accused as the New York Times. The leftist community across the nation, quick to march on behalf of convicted cop-killers like Mumia Abu-Jamal, had no time for the Duke white kids.

Some of them are still convinced that the young men are guilty. A lawyer on television last night said that she's convinced that "something happened in that house." Well, yes, I'm sure something did happen. I'm sure that some of the people in the house, perhaps the three that were charged, wanted her to do more than she was willing. They probably insulted her when she refused and maybe even called her nasty names, inspiring her, out of anger, to concoct the rape story as a means of revenge. If so, their behavior was shameful and degrading, but it wasn't illegal. Nor was it much different, unfortunately, than what happens on campuses all across the nation every weekend.

District Attorney Mike Nifong, and the Duke faculty and administration, would have happily put these students in prison for a dozen years or more, simply on the assumption that if a black woman claims that rich white boys raped her then it must be true. It's true because leftists have inculcated into each other for decades that women don't lie about rape. It's true because it captures what the left believes has been the narrative of race, class, and gender in this country throughout our history (For a modest example, see the second part of this essay). It's true because all truth must be interpreted through the lens of that historical experience - there are no "objective" facts of the matter which we need be concerned about.

The sacrifice of these students on the altar of ideology served a higher purpose. Belief in the guilt of these privileged, white males has "purchase," it "resonates" with and validates the left's entire worldview, and, like their unwavering belief in the innocence of Alger Hiss, the tale of what happened in that house will live on in the mythology of the left for generations to come.

RLC

Hard to Refute

How can anyone doubt that living things, or at least bananas, are intelligently designed after seeing this?

RLC

The Un-Principle

Allahpundit throws down the gauntlet to the Pelosicrats: He asks them, in effect, to please explain precisely what principles guide their policy on foreign interventions. His request was triggered by this astonishing statement by Senator Joseph Biden:

Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a Democratic presidential candidate, called Wednesday for the use of military force to end the suffering in Darfur.

"I would use American force now," Biden said at a hearing before his committee. "I think it's not only time not to take force off the table. I think it's time to put force on the table and use it."

In advocating use of military force, Biden said senior U.S. military officials in Europe told him that 2,500 U.S. troops could "radically change the situation on the ground now."

"Let's stop the bleeding," Biden said. "I think it's a moral imperative."

Allahpundit wants to know why it's a moral imperative to intervene in Darfur where we have no national interest but not a moral imperative to stay in Iraq even though leaving there too soon could precipitate a humanitarian disaster that would far exceed the one in Darfur.

He also wonders what guides the Dems' decision to refuse to talk to George Bush about funding our troops in Iraq when they're willing to travel all the way to Syria to talk to the murderous tyrant Bashar Assad who supports Islamic terrorism throughout the world. The Dems also refuse to debate on Fox News but they have no qualms about being seen and feted in Damascus, the hub of world terrorism. Exactly what principles are consulted in the making of these decisions?

The Democrats seem totally incoherent about how the U.S. should exercise its power and influence in the world because, I suspect, their prescriptions are not arrived at as a result of the application of any kind of principle at all, except the principle of political expediency. The rule seems to be: Observe what George Bush is doing, condemn it, and urge something different. That's a principle of sorts, I guess, but not one that commends the moral or intellectual gifts of those who govern by it.

RLC

Conclusive Proof

The debate is over. The Darwinians have won. This computer simulation proves it. All those who invested their epistemic lives in Intelligent Design must now slink abjectly onto the dust heap of history.

If you watch the sim be sure to read the comments. My favorite is #7: "...how showing something that was programmed to change proves that things change without programming is beyond me." Me too.

RLC

NorK Defectors

According to Strategy Page high-ranking defections are becoming a real worry in North Korea:

April 8, 2007: The North Korean regime has issued a strong "reminder" to its diplomats, and other personnel stationed abroad, that they are not to have more than one child with them on a foreign posting. This suggests North Korea is worried about possible defections by diplomats, consular officials, business agents, etc., who've got their wives and kids with them in some foreign country. If they can only take one child with them, those that remain home essentially become hostages to their good behavior. The North Korean government has become increasingly alarmed at the number of diplomats defecting and, even worse, those who stick around, but in the pay for American, South Korean and Chinese intelligence agencies.

The response to this order was startling; many of these parents have refused to send children back to North Korea. To old North Korea hands, such defiance to authority is startling. But these North Korea government officials know their country is a basket case, and are willing to risk losing their jobs, rather than send any of their children back to a home country that is, day-by-day, becoming a hellish parody of the communist "workers paradise."

Historians of communism consider North Korea the pinnacle of police state perfection. Josef Stalin would be envious, or maybe proud, because Stalin was one of the founding fathers of North Korea. The degree of state control in North Korea is far in excess of anything ever achieved in the Soviet Union. But this was achieved using a population already disciplined by centuries of efficient feudalism, and several decades of Japanese colonialism. The Japanese were very disciplined, very strict and very brutal.

By comparison, the North Korean communist government was something of a relief. Moreover, the North Korean communists worked the nationalist and cultural angle successfully. Because of the total control of the media, the North Korean communists created an alternate universe for their subjects to live in.

As small numbers of North Koreans managed to escape over the years, and make their way to South Korea, usually via China, it was amazing to see the culture shock. The North Korean refugees were numbed by the degree of difference between the fantasy view of the outside world created by the North Korea communists and the reality.

But in the last decade reality has seeped into the Perfect Police State, changing the attitudes of the guards as well as the inmates. True Believers have been gradually replaced by Practical Pretenders. What's happening now, with North Korean government officials openly defying their government while pretending not to, is the best example of how North Korea culture is evolving. It's weird, it's wretched, and, in a perverse way, wonderful.

Yes but is it enough to cause them to give up their pursuit of nuclear weapons?

RLC

Einstein's Religion

People on both sides of the debate about the existence of God occasionally cite the views of Albert Einstein as providing support for their side. This is tricky business since Einstein's views were unorthodox. He was not a theist who believed in a personal God nor was he an atheist who discarded the idea of God altogether.

He was, in fact, a good example of a modern deist who believed that there is some force or intellect which established the moral and physical laws of the universe but which does not interfere with those laws in any way. Einstein did not believe in life after death and did not believe that humans possessed free will, although he did believe that we have to live as if we are free.

The current issue of Time has an interesting column by Walter Isaacson on Einstein's religion which explores these beliefs in more detail. It's worth a read for those curious as to what, exactly, Einstein thought about God.

RLC

It's All Your Fault

I was watching Meet the Press last Sunday morning and was appalled to hear Chuck Todd of NBC News suggest that were he a Republican what he would advise them to do is let the Democrats have their way on the Iraq war, let things devolve into chaos after we pull out, and then capitalize on Democratic ineptitude in the 2008 election.

I was astonished that a prominent news commentator would so baldly place political success above peoples' lives. Rarely is a public figure willing to be seen as so utterly unprincipled as to sacrifice tens of thousands of innocent lives in order to make political hay out of the debacle. Yet that's what this Democrat cynically advises the Republicans to do.

Here's the exchange, which was triggered by discussion of Bush's promise to veto the Democrats bill authorizing funding for the troops and setting a timetable for withdrawal:

MR. CHUCK TODD: What I don't understand [about] what the White House is doing is that every time Democrats propose something that allows them to potentially take co-ownership of the war, Bush actually stops them, and politically it actually puts the Democrats in an advantageous position because they can sit there and say, "Well, you know what, we've tried to take some responsibility for this war. The president won't do it. He's vetoing this legislation. This is still Bush's war. This is still a Republican war." And that's sort of the frustration that I'm sensing from some Republicans, not, not inside the White House, but on Capital Hill and on the campaign trail a little bit, to sit there and say, "Guys, let the Democrats share some ownership of this thing or this war's going to make 2006 seem like a party." In 2008 it's going to be a real death knell for the Republican Party.

MR. RUSSERT: So if you're a real cynic, you can say all right, let the Democrats have their way, let them set the deadline of March or August of '08.

MR. TODD: And let them own this war. That's right.

MR. RUSSERT: Start bringing the troops home then. Chaos breaks out, you say that's the Democratic solution.

MR. TODD: That's right. "We tried it - we tried it - we tried it your way," and then suddenly it's a referendum on, well, do you want the Republicans to run this war or the Democrats to run this war? And you've gotten a taste of what it would look like if the Democrats ran this war.

And then what? What does Todd think we should do when Iraq spirals into chaos and the whole Middle East is in flames - point fingers at each other and say, "It's all your fault"? This is an incredibly repugnant piece of advice, as impractical as it is immoral. Todd, of course, would love to see the president acquiesce to timetables for withdrawals and he's trying to argue that this would in fact be a good political move for the president. On the contrary, it would be utterly reprehensible and Todd's cynicism should be lambasted by his media colleagues.

But of course it won't be.

RLC

He Didn't Like it Here*

It was hard to have come of age in the 60s without having read something by Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut's novels Cat's Cradle (1963), God Bless You Mr. Rosewater (1965), and SlaughterHouse Five (1969) captured the spirit of that turbulent time better than perhaps anything else that young people were reading. Among other contributions his work made these novels presaged the ripening of modernity's twin fruits of nihilism and meaninglessness that have afflicted European and American culture since the 70s.

Vonnegut died yesterday from brain injuries suffered during a fall some weeks ago. So it goes.

*Read the poem at the link.

RLC

Justice for Nifong

What sort of person must a man be who knowingly destroys the reputations of three young men, wrecks the lives of all their families, ruins an athletic season for dozens more, all on the testimony of a notoriously unreliable witness who the man, a district attorney, had every reason to know was lying? It seems hard to believe that anyone could be that contemptible but that's precisely what Michael Nifong did in the Duke "rape" case.

What his motives were is unclear. Some speculated that he saw a political opportunity to ingratiate himself with the African-American community and the ideological left by pressing charges against privileged white males accused of raping a black woman. It turns out that the woman was a liar, both emotionally and mentally unstable, and whatever Nifong's intentions were in prosecuting this case he clearly was guilty, at best, of total incompetence and at worst of prosecutorial abuse in being willing to destroy the lives of people he knew were innocent.

Now he faces eviction from the North Carolina Bar as well as civil suits which will almost certainly be brought against him by the families of the students. His career as a lawyer and a politician is evidently over. He'll doubtless be paying damages to the families for the rest of his life. If so, he'll be getting what he deserves.

We might hope that next somebody gets after the 88 Duke faculty who signed a letter condemning the accused boys before the whole world, and the craven president of the university who acted as if the students were guilty before any evidence had been produced against them.

We might also hope that somebody calls to account the various race hustlers, like Jesse Jackson, who were so blinded by their own racism that they assumed that a black girl known to be of dubious virtue was more credible than the protestations of innocence of privileged white boys.

The whole episode highlights the moral poverty and intellectual bankruptcy of common liberal assumptions about race, class and gender and the utter fatuousness of political correctness. Many liberals are so invested in the dogma that a woman who claims rape is not lying, they're so committed to the mythology of the exploitation of black women at the hands of white men, that the young Duke students were, in their minds, guilty as a matter of course.

What is on trial in the Duke imbroglio is more than the abuses of one arrogant, cruel, and stupid prosecutor. What is on trial in Durham is the mindset of many in the secular far left which demands that justice be subordinated to ideology. A lot of people have, in this sordid episode, vividly demonstrated that they are willing to believe anything, no matter how vile, about wealthy white men if the allegation against them is made by a black woman. That tells us a great deal about where the locus of racism and sexism is to be found in this country.

RLC

More on Demeaning Blacks

Our post Demeaning Blacks elicited a number of questions about what, exactly, my point was. Did I think it inappropriate to compliment blacks, some wondered. Am I so PC that I think that anything a white person says to a black person is automatically suspicious?

Well, no, but I do think that there are assumptions buried in much of what we say about matters of race, and some of those assumptions would surprise us if we were aware of them. I think they would especially surprise liberals since these folk often make a special effort to demonstrate that they are certainly not racist, even if those rednecks for whom they have such disdain are.

The basic purpose of our original post was to observe that when someone says about a black man that he's "articulate," the tacit meaning of the statement is that "he's articulate for a black man." This is a compliment to the individual, I suppose, but in my view it's an insult to blacks in general. The assumption on the part of the speaker is that it's not the norm to find a black man who can speak properly. The fact that one rarely hears whites described this way is evidence that articulateness is taken for granted among whites but not among blacks and that the speaker is mildly surprised to encounter a black man who expresses himself in standard English.

When I was growing up I used to hear people say about some handsome celebrity that he's "a good-looking black man." They didn't say that he's a good-looking man but that he's a good-looking black man. What they were actually asserting, without realizing it, probably, was that the celebrity was good-looking for a black man, as if black attractiveness is to be measured on a different, and doubtless more relaxed, scale than that of whites.

I thought this was insulting to blacks then, and I think the "articulate" compliment is, for the same reason, insulting now - not to the individual, of course, but to African-Americans in general.

The funny thing is that neither the person who insults by voicing the compliment nor the person who is complimented usually realizes what's really being said and what assumptions give rise to it.

Perhaps it would be interesting when we hear someone say that so and so is "articulate" to ask them if that surprises them. The question might help to expose the unfortunate assumptions that underlie their observation.

RLC

Dispelling the Myths

Our Feedback page has an interesting reply from a student to a post from a while back that addressed several myths about intelligent design. The student believes that these claims are not myths at all, but are indeed accurate criticisms of ID. I encourage readers to check out his argument.

I've copied my reply to him here:

Excellent reply A_. I'm very impressed with your knowledge of this issue. Let me see if I can respond to your critique of the three myths you address.

You wrote that:

Myth #1: The theory of intelligent design is a modern version of Creationism.

Right or wrong it is true that in our country the modern interpretation of ID comes from fundamental creationist Christians. The Dover trial clearly proved this. This does not mean that ID is not true. It only means that in our society, the vast majority of those that buy into the "faith" in ID happen to be Christians. It may be true that abstractly ID goes back deep in history, but it is not a myth that the modern rebirth of ID is a Christian mechanism to reduce what Christians see as the corrupting influence of Darwinism on the youth.

It is true that most, though not all, proponents of ID are Christians and that ID can trace it's lineage back to earlier creationists. It does not follow, however, that ID is a modern version of Creationism any more than the fact that chemistry can trace its lineage to alchemy or astronomy to astrology means that these sciences are modern versions of their predecessors. Chemistry is not alchemy and ID is not Creationism.

The theoretical structure of Creationism is completely different than that of ID. Creationism depends upon the literal truth of Genesis and upon the creator being the God of the Bible. ID doesn't. Creationism is incompatible with macroevolution. ID isn't. If Genesis were shown to be false and God not to exist, Creationism would be destroyed, but ID as a theory would be unscathed.

The fact that most ID proponents are Christians is irrelevant to the validity of the theory. Suppose most evolutionists were Christians (many are). Would that count against the truth of evolution? Or suppose that most atheists are Darwinians (which they are). Does that count against the truth of Darwinism?

You also wrote:

Myth #2: The theory of intelligent design claims that the designer is the God described in the Bible.

Well, in fact, the modern view is indeed a Christian invention. The modern ID movement is one that has been fueled almost entirely by "The Discovery Institute". There is no dispute over the fact that the Discovery Institute is a Christian based organization.

If one were to simply ask Americans that believe in ID the question: if there is an intelligent designer what or who do you think it is? ....it is undeniably true that the vast majority of those Americans would answer that the designer is none other one or all of the Holy Trinity. Even though, at a philosophical level it is true that ID in no way implies any specific God or even a God at all.

The fact that the DI is comprised of Christians or that many ID proponents believe that the designer is the Judeo-Christian God does not mean that it must be God. There is nothing in ID theory or literature which makes a necessary connection between the two. The fact that most people believe that the designer is God does not weigh against the theory of ID any more than the fact that most people believe that Lee Harvey Oswald had an accomplice when he shot JFK weighs against the theory that he acted alone.

The designer could be an alien residing in some other galaxy, it could be an inhabitant of the multiverse, it could be a Platonic demiurge, it could be a Hegelian universal spirit, or it could be the God of Christianity. ID takes no position on the identity of the designer.

Myth #3 "Conservatives and Christians necessarily accept the intelligent design argument".

This would only be a myth if it said that all Christians accept ID. Nevertheless, it does seem true that very few non-Christians or non-conservatives believe in the ID "religion".

The word necessarily means the same thing as logically must so the above sentence in the myth is equivalent to saying that all Christians logically must accept ID; they cannot be a Christian and not accept it. It's like saying that if a figure is a triangle then it must have three angles. It cannot be a triangle and have four angles. It is not the case, of course, that Christians must accept ID in the same way that they must accept that a triangle has three angles and that's why it's a myth to say that the two are logically connected. Indeed, some of ID's most effective opponents are Christians (Ken Miller of Brown, for example).

Likewise, from the fact that few non-Christians accept ID one cannot conclude that therefore Christians must accept it. That would be like arguing that because few Democrats support the president that therefore Republicans must (in the logical sense, not the practical sense) support him.

Anyway, you did an outstanding job with this critique, A_, and I hope you continue to follow the debate on this issue. We post on it often at Viewpoint. ID may in the end turn out to be false. It may be that it's not good science (though it's certainly philosophy of science), but right now it's a much more powerful and compelling idea than it's detractors would have us believe, and few of the arguments against it seem, to me at least, very convincing.

RLC

The World as Information

Here's an abstract of an article by Carlos Gershenson on information in the biosphere. It's interesting that, though Gershenson is not, as far as I know, sympathetic to Intelligent Design, he finds it much easier to think of the world as information than as matter. Yet information (specified complexity) is invariably in our experience produced by minds, not physical forces.

ABSTRACT: This philosophical paper discusses the benefits of describing the world as information, especially in the study of the evolution of life and cognition. Traditional studies encounter difficulties because it is difficult to describe life and cognition in terms of matter and energy, falling into a dualist trap. However, if matter and energy, as well as life and cognition, are described in terms of information, evolution can be described consistently as information becoming more complex. Moreover, information theory is already well established and formalized. The paper presents five tentative laws of information, which are generalizations of Darwinian, cybernetic, thermodynamic, and complexity principles. These are further used to discuss the notions of life and cognition, including their origins and evolution.

Having in mind that we are using metaphors, this paper proposes to extend the concept of information to describe the world: from elementary particles to galaxies, with everything in between, particularly life and cognition. There is no suggestion on the nature of reality as information. This work only explores the advantages of describing the world as information.

He goes on to say in his paper that:

...the difference between biological and physical systems is given by the meaningful information content of the former ones. Not that information is not present in physical systems, but...information is passive in physics and active in biology. However, it becomes complicated to describe how this information came to be in terms of the physical laws of matter and energy. In other words, it is not obvious to describe information in terms of physics, as it requires an interpreter to "decode" the information.

...if we cannot relate properly matter and energy with life and cognition, we are forced to see these as separate categories. Once this breach is made, there is no clear way of studying or understanding how systems with life and cognition evolved from those without it. If we see matter and energy as particular, simple cases of information, the dualist trap is avoided by following a continuum in the evolution of the universe.

Unfortunately, the author defines information as any stimulus detected by any entity. Thus the negative charge of an electron is information when it is reacted to by another electron. Thus everything is information, and if everything is information then nothing is.

Even so, the important point in all this is to note that materialists are finding it more and more difficult to account for the world solely in terms of matter. The world has the aspect of that which is produced by minds even if the materialist recoils from so blunt a concession and even if he resists following the implications to their logical conclusion in a creative mind.

HT: Uncommon Descent

RLC

An IPod in Every Pot

The Detroit News doesn't think that the state Democrats' plan to buy every kid in Michigan his/her own ipod while the state faces a $1 billion deficit is such a good idea:

We have come to the conclusion that the crisis Michigan faces is not a shortage of revenue, but an excess of idiocy. Facing a budget deficit that has passed the $1 billion mark, House Democrats Thursday offered a spending plan that would buy a MP3 player or iPod for every school child in Michigan.

No cost estimate was attached to their hare-brained idea to "invest" in education. Details, we are promised, will follow.

The Democrats, led by their increasingly erratic speaker Andy Dillon of Redford Township, also pledge $100 million to make better downtowns. Their plan goes beyond cluelessness. Democrats are either entirely indifferent to the idea that extreme hard times demand extreme belt tightening, or they are bone stupid. We lean toward the latter.

We say that because the House plan also keeps alive, again without specifics, the promise of tax hikes.

We wonder how financially strained Michigan residents will feel about paying higher taxes to buy someone else's kid an iPod.

This is actually mild rhetoric compared to the title of the column which you can see at the link. Even so, it's hard to disagree with the paper's assessment of the foolishness of the state legislators' proposal.

RLC

More on Imus

Yesterday I wrote about the Don Imus imbroglio (see below), and I thought I should explain that the purpose of that post was to point out the disparity in treatment between Imus's suspension and the punishment meted out to others whose offenses were far less racially offensive than was his.

Having said that, I want also to point out that I don't think Imus, for whom I have no sympathy, said anything in the present episode that was racist or malicious (although his producer, I think it was, uses a racist epithet that should have gotten him fired). Imus's remark was racial, to be sure, but not racist, and much of the commentary that I've heard on this incident, by mistakenly focussing on it's alleged racism, misses the really outrageous aspect of it.

Watching the video of Imus it's clear that he was, in his mind, actually praising the girls on the Rutgers basketball team. He was using what he doubtless thought was black street-slang in order to compliment their prowess on the court. This is what I think the media is missing, and what is so despicable about the incident.

It is only in a degenerate culture that someone of Imus's stature, much less the millions of young people who use language like he used, could think that he was being complimentary by calling these young women "whores."

We have feted and celebrated rap culture to the point now where millions of people think that it is high praise to call a young woman a whore and a lot of young women are no doubt flattered by being called one. "Artists" in this culture dehumanize women by treating them as little more than receptacles for male libido and then the larger pop culture treats the artists as though they are some sort of prophet.

The depressing thing about the Imus incident is that the media, missing the point as usual, is trying to turn Imus's words into a manifestation of racism when in fact they're nothing of the kind. It's really an instance of the language of a sleazy, depauperate American popular culture bubbling to the surface.

Imus should indeed be censured by his employers, but not, in this instance, for being racist or racially hateful, but for perpetuating the demeaning, degrading, dehumanizing view of women rampant in a sub-culture that the media itself has helped spawn.

RLC

Slap on the Wrist

Rush Limbaugh was fired from ESPN for claiming that the media overrated Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb because they wanted to see a black QB succeed in the NFL. Trent Lott was fired as Senate Majority leader because he said at Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday that he would've made a fine president when he ran for the office back in 1948. Jimmy the Greek and Tom Brookshier lost their jobs as sports announcers, the first because he suggested that blacks were bred during slavery for physical excellence and Brookshier because he suggested that the members of a college basketball team, all of whom were black, weren't too bright.

Think what you will about any of these firings for real or alleged racially offensive remarks, none of them was anywhere near as repugnant as Don Imus's remark calling the members of the Rutgers girls basketball team "nappy-headed 'hos." So, what punishment did the reliably anti-Bush Imus get from his employers at the very liberal MSNBC? Two weeks suspension and that only after there was an outcry from the African-American community over Imus' outrageous insult of these girls.

When it comes to race it seems that some people get a pass and some don't. No matter how egregious your remarks, if you're on the right (actually left) side of the ideological divide you get a slap on the wrist. No matter how innocuous your words, if you're on the wrong side you get crucified.

By refusing to can the perpetually offensive Imus MSNBC is saying that calling a group of black female athletes "whores" on national radio/television is not that big a deal.

RLC

Journalistic Embarrassment

Journalists need to write to justify their paycheck, to be sure, but most journalists prefer to write about things they know something about so as not to make themselves look utterly foolish. Few of them are as eager to display their ignorance, narrow-mindedness, and contempt for the concept of the free exchange of ideas as eagerly as is Lee Cullum of the Dallas Morning News.

Consider this passage from her recent column on the Intelligent Design conference to be held at Southern Methodist University:

"Those who favor intelligent design seek to prove that evolution is impossible because the complexity of human systems is beyond the capacity of the Darwinian process to accomplish. Hence, humankind must have been created by a supreme designer."

In just two sentences she manages to make at least four errors all of which she could have avoided had she taken the trouble to do a little research:

1. ID proponents do not seek to prove evolution is wrong. Many of them are themselves evolutionists. The seek to show that the materialist assumptions which undergird contemporary evolutionary theory are inadequate.

2. It is not the complexity of living systems that is at odds with physicalist versions of evolution such as Darwinism, rather it is the ubiquity of specified complexity - complex arrangements of things in specified patterns - that makes the claim that physical mechanisms like natural selection and genetic mutation are all that are needed to account for life implausible. Specified complexity, i.e. information such as we find in DNA and proteins, has never been shown to be a product of blind, mechanical forces, but is always the product of intelligence.

3. It is not just the specified complexity of human systems which needs to be explained, as anyone with even a minimal knowledge of the subject is aware, it is the specified complexity found throughout the entire biosphere as well as the exquisite fine-tuning of the cosmic constants, force strengths, and other parameters that have led many scientists and philosophers to the conclusion that there is an intelligence behind it all.

4. ID says nothing at all about who or what the designer is. To suggest that it is a supreme being is to go well beyond what ID posits. The designer could be a "demiurge" as Plato thought, or the impersonal prime mover of Aristotle, or it could be a universal mind such as the European Idealists envisioned, it could be an alien in our own universe, or it could be an inhabitant of one of the universes in the multiverse, or it could be the Judeo-Christian God. On the identity of the designer ID is officially silent.

Ms. Cullum, having acomplished the remarkable feat of having proved herself to be a journalistic lightweight in just two short sentences, is nevertheless unabashed. She plods resolutely on, determined to make herself look as benighted as one person can possibly look. She declares, for example, that:

"Their [ID proponents] mistake is presenting themselves as a science and Charles Darwin as their natural enemy when, in fact, they are arguing from a religious base."

It's not clear how people can present themselves "as a science" but leave her maladroit syntax aside. What exactly does it mean to argue from a "religious base"? Does the fact that most IDers are believers disqualify them from advancing a theory about biology or cosmology? Does Richard Dawkins' anti-religious "base" disqualify him from talking about origins? Of course not, but perhaps we're expecting Ms Cullum to have thought matters through more thoroughly than she is accustomed.

Maybe this is what she means by ID's "religious base":

"The principal funder of the Discovery Institute in Seattle, sponsor of this confab along with the Christian Legal Society at SMU's Dedman School of Law, is Howard Ahmanson, who long has shown interest in conservative religion."

Ah. Well, that settles that. The driving force behind the conference is a man of traditional religious views. It's an outrage that a Methodist school would host a scientific conference financed by a man who is a Christian. Imagine. Someone with conservative religious views, in Ms Cullum's world, should not have the same rights to support his ideas as everyone else, and if a religious person funds an academic institute then that Institute is perforce religious and thus out of place in a Methodist university. I wonder what John Wesley thinks of all this.

Much of the remainder of the column is pretty much incoherent but there are a few lines worthy of note. She says, for instance, that:

"If advocates of intelligent design would assemble a conference with their own speakers and professors versus, say, Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and an evolutionary biologist, that would be a solid and fascinating program."

Does this mean that if the organizers sought to make this a religious debate rather than a discussion on the philosophical assumptions of science that that would meet with Ms Cullum's approval? As long as it were an entertaining conference then SMU would be justified in hosting it? Are all academic conferences at SMU required to offer platforms to opposing points of view? Would Ms Cullum place the same demand upon a conference of Darwinians? The questions raised by Ms Cullum's column are endless and none of them flatter her.

Interestingly, the organizers of the conference did issue an invitation to each science department at SMU, including the anthropology department, to debate the issues during the conference. None has accepted. Perhaps Ms Cullum would be willing to step in and fill the void by debating, say, Bill Dembski or Michael Behe, since the Darwinians at SMU have suddenly realized that they're busy that evening and since she obviouisly, being a journalist, has a great deal of expertise in these matters.

Undaunted, Ms Cullum presses on:

"Intelligent design is not science, and SMU, though unassailable in its defense of free speech, needs to rethink its policy regarding future use of its facilities and their implied prestige."

So, if a theory is not a scientific theory in Ms Cullum's thinking then it has no business using SMU's facilities to air it's ideas. Does she editorialize against allowing historians, or literary scholars, or philosophers use of the university's facilities? Even if it were granted that ID is not science, a concession I'm not convinced is necessary, it is at least philosophy of science. Has the materialist inquisition whose water Ms. Cullum is carrying suddenly decreed that philosophy of science is intellectually and academically disreputable?

"The university does not have a First Amendment obligation to provide a venue to intellectually suspect arguments, unless they are framed in a way that does not violate settled history (the Holocaust) or settled science. Care must be taken, of course, in discerning which bodies of knowledge are rooted in fact and which are not. But an institution devoted to the life of the mind does have a right and a duty to make those choices."

There are two things about this paragraph that merit comment. First, Ms. Cullum's rule would have prevented Albert Einstein from speaking at SMU, or, for that matter, Charles Darwin. It would also have banned the early advocates of quantum theory and the Big Bang and modern advocates of string theory and science writers like Paul Davies who support the idea of the multiverse. Each of these has certainly "violated" settled science.

Second, Ms Cullum glides seamlessly from declaring ID to be extra-scientific to declaring it therefore to be intellectually suspect. This is a fine example of scientism - the view that whatever is not scientific is intellectually inferior and not suitable for discussion at an academic institution.

Since Ms. Cullum has set herself up as an authority on what is called the demarcation problem in science perhaps she'll be so gracious as to answer a couple of questions about it.

ID's fundamental claim is that natural processes by themselves are not adequate to explain the fine-tuning of the cosmos nor the specified complexity of the biological world. If that claim isn't science, then how does its denial, the claim that natural processes are sufficient to explain these things, qualify as science? Indeed, how would one scientifically test the claim that natural processes alone produced our world?

I doubt Ms. Cullum has an answer to those questions, but we won't press her any further. She's embarrassed herself enough already.

RLC

Sam Harris and Self-Refutation

An L.A. Times article quotes anti-theist writer Sam Harris as saying that, "Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music."

Apparently Harris embraces the credo of evidentialism, famously expressed in William Clifford's (1845-1879) syncopated cadences, that "it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence."

The problem for Harris and Clifford is that they both deeply believe this proposition even though they can not cite an iota of evidence in support of its truth. What evidence could possibly be adduced in support of the claim that it is always wrong to believe anything on insufficient evidence? In fact, the evidentialist claim, ironically enough, is an article of faith.

This puts our evidentialist friends in an awkward philosophical pickle: If their credo is false then obviously Harris and Clifford should not believe it since it's not true. But if it is true they still should not believe it because they have no evidence for it. Either way, Harris clearly believes something he should, by his own standard, not believe. This is how we define a very confused man.

Mr. Harris is featured in the current Newsweek in a conversation with Pastor Rick Warren moderated by Jon Meacham. The conversation was supposed to be about the question "Is God Real?" but unfortunately the interlocutors wandered off on digressions into the truth of the Bible and Christianity and other matters even less relevant to the question of God's reality. Even so, Harris' confusion was prominent in this piece when he insisted that:

"I'm not at all a moral relativist...I think there is an absolute right and wrong. I think honor killing is unambiguously wrong...."

Now this is very odd. If there is no transcendent moral authority how can anything be wrong at all much less absolutely wrong? What Harris is doing is simply expressing his personal dislike for "honor killing" (killing a daughter or sister who has brought sexual disrepute upon the family - a practice not uncommon in the Arab world). He's declaring that honor killing displeases him and is offensive to his tastes, but he has no grounds for saying that the practice is "wrong" unless he wants to argue that whatever displeases him is ipso facto morally wrong. This move, however, would require an extraordinary measure of hubris, even for Mr. Harris.

Harris believes honor killings and so on are wrong because they are the negation of human empathy which is a product of evolution, but just because evolution gives rise to some trait like empathy, assuming that it does, is no reason to think that that trait is morally incumbent upon us, and certainly no reason to think it is absolutely so. To reason this way is to try to derive an "ought" from an "is." It is to say that because things are a certain way that therefore they ought to be that way. In logic this error is called the naturalistic or genetic fallacy, and it's really quite surprising to come upon a well educated person in this day and age who still commits it.

RLC

Johnny Hart (1931-2007)

One of the best cartoonists in the business died Saturday while working at his storyboard. Johnny Hart, creator of the comic strip B.C., died at the age of 76. Michelle has details and a lot of background on Hart. His characters were always among my favorites, and it seems like I had been reading his stuff ever since I can remember. He'll be missed.

RLC

Re: Amazing Grace

A student of mine, Eric, replies to our recent post on the movie Amazing Grace with this very thoughtful and insightful essay:

I was also moved and inspired after seeing the movie. After reading an article or two and talking with one of my professors, I appreciate and respect Wilberforce all the more. Reading a few snippets from his book, Real Christianity, I was even further impressed and challenged. With Wilberforce as an example, I wonder how effectively most Christians (myself included) are living their convictions. It seems that the majority of evangelicals (especially in America) should be at least a bit more existential than they presently are.

What I have in mind, particularly, is how the existentialist, because of his conviction, is compelled toward authenticity. For Wilberforce to attempt to portray "real" Christianity is just another way of stressing the importance of "authentic" Christianity, a Christianity that is so ingrained in an individual that it makes a difference in one's life and world.

It seems that, like the existentialist, the Christian should be compelled to live out his or her beliefs. How can this be done? I think that again we should turn to existentialism. The existentialist is affected and molded and driven to action by his or her worldview precisely because the individual has faced honestly what he or she perceives to be the reality of the situation: be it meaninglessness or something else. There has been no attempt to makes things prettier.

Just like the existentialist, the Christian needs to realize the ugliness of the situation of existence (though it may be for different or additional reasons than the existentialist acknowledges). But in the end, the predicament is the same. The Christian and the existentialist (or, for that matter, the Christian existentialist) both see something, or many things, that disturbs their consciences. They are disturbed because the situation does not match how "things are supposed to be."

For the existentialist, he or she knows that the better part of the world's people do not recognize their responsibility to create meaning for themselves. People live blindly in ignorance and perpetual meaninglessness. For the Christian also, the world is not as it should be. It continues, for the most part, outside the recognition and experience of a loving and personal God who desires relationship with the beings created in his imago dei. The result, among other things, is a failure to participate in loving relationship with God and a failure to then extend that [love] to our fellow human beings. Likewise, the result of this is prevalent and intentional evil done by humans against humans.

How is all of this related to Wilberforce and an authentic Christianity? Wilberforce lived his faith, he faced the problems straight on. He saw the evil mankind does to itself (in his case, slavery) and the failure of the bulk of the Christian community to respond authentically according to their convictions. Then he did something about it. He didn't let twenty years of failing to get his bill passed stop him.

And this is how he was authentic. Those twenty years were not true failure because, while he was unable to affect change in British society, he continued to live an authentic Christianity. Such an individual is an inspiration to me, and I hope, to many other Christians as well. Wilberforce recognized the horror of the real situation before him, that things were not the way they should be, and he confronted it with authentic conviction. And that's what we should all be compelled to do.

EB

God Is Love

In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.
1 John 4:9

When one stops to consider that the Creator of heaven and earth, of the universe, of all that is, our Creator who knew us from before the foundations of the world loved us to this degree, it is, quite simply, unfathomable. Perhaps the only way we can grasp such a thought is to try to understand and believe that God is, in fact, love.

7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
8 He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love.
1 John 4:7-8

Easter Sunday is a significant day of honor for it celebrates the resurrection of Christ. Everything in Christianity hinges on the resurrection of Christ. The resurrection completes the work of God and His plan for our salvation and, at the same time, marks the defeat of Satan as predicted all the way back in the book of Genesis. If the resurrection didn't actually happen, then Christ was a fraud and the Bible is just a bad joke. Verse 9 of John 20 is the key. Your either believe that the resurrection occurred or you don't. We're not going to argue the point at this time.

1 The first day of the week cometh Mary Mag'dalene early, when it was yet dark, unto the sepulchre, and seeth the stone taken away from the sepulchre.
2 Then she runneth, and cometh to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and saith unto them, They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.
3 Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre.
4 So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.
5 And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in.
6 Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie,
7 and the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.
8 Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed.
9 For as yet they knew not the Scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.
10 Then the disciples went away again unto their own home.
John 20:1-10

Easter is also a time to dwell on the love of God.

10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
1 John 4

It is relatively easy for us to love God, isn't it?. It costs us little to love God, and it's amazing that so many don't, but God loved us, even as we were sinners rejecting Him, and He loved us to the degree that He sent His Son to pay the price for our sins so that we might be restored to Him. And Jesus loved us so, that He submitted completely to the will of the Father, even unto death on a cross.

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
John 3:16-17

You've probably heard the following many times most likely being read during a wedding. It's a template, if you will. A model of perfect love, of the love of God. It provides an insight into the being of God, an aspect of His perfection. On this Easter Sunday, let's reflect on this passage and ponder its message.

4 Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
5 doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;
6 rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
7 beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8 Charity never faileth:
1 Corinthians 13: 4-8

Already?!

We think this is a little premature, but ....

RLC

Felonious Speaker

Robert Turner, writing in the Wall Street Journal, thinks Mrs. Pelosi violated the Logan Act in going to Damascus and is thus guilty of a felony:

The Logan Act makes it a felony and provides for a prison sentence of up to three years for any American, "without authority of the United States," to communicate with a foreign government in an effort to influence that government's behavior on any "disputes or controversies with the United States."

Ms. Pelosi and her Congressional entourage spoke to President Assad on various issues, among other things saying, "We came in friendship, hope, and determined that the road to Damascus is a road to peace." She is certainly not the first member of Congress--of either party--to engage in this sort of behavior, but her position as a national leader, the wartime circumstances, the opposition to the trip from the White House, and the character of the regime she has chosen to approach make her behavior particularly inappropriate.

Of course, not all congressional travel to, or communications with representatives of, foreign nations is unlawful. A purely fact-finding trip that involves looking around, visiting American military bases or talking with U.S. diplomats is not a problem. Nor is formal negotiation with foreign representatives if authorized by the president....Ms. Pelosi's trip was not authorized, and Syria is one of the world's leading sponsors of international terrorism. It has almost certainly been involved in numerous attacks that have claimed the lives of American military personnel from Beirut to Baghdad.

Whether Mr. Turner's charge would stick against the Speaker is, in my opinion, doubtful, but that she violated the spirit of the act is not. USA Today seems to agree.

RLC

What to Do About Illegal Aliens

The column I wrote for last Sunday's paper was on the demographic calamity that illegal immigration is wreaking on our nation. Democrats and most Republicans, both in congress and the White House, seem indifferent to what many others perceive to be a growing sociological tsunami.

Since I've criticized our political leadership for their lassitude on this issue it's fair to ask what I think should be done about the problem. I favor the middle ground between total amnesty and mass deportations. In my view the current Permanent Resident laws, with modifications, could form the basis for a just solution to a problem that may at this point be almost insoluble. Here's what such a solution might look like:

We need first to seal the border. This is the sine qua non of any solution. There's no point in cleaning the carpets while the ceiling is still leaking. Once the border is relatively impervious to all but the most dauntless and determined then we can address the situation of those already here. I am not opposed in principle to rounding them all up and sending them home, but I'm not sure how feasible that is.

Perhaps a better course, one that avoids the worst elements of amnesty and yet allows us to demonstrate compassion for people who are simply trying to make a living and feed their families as best they can, is to tell those illegals among us that they can stay as long as they like with the following provisos:

They must apply for a Green Card (Permanent Resident card). After a certain grace period anyone without proper ID would be subject to deportation.

They will not at any time be eligible for citizenship nor any of the benefits of citizens. Ever. Nor will their future children, born on our soil, be granted automatic citizenship, though they will be able to attend public schools. Moreover, they would be eligible for citizenship when they become adults provided they graduated from high school.

Any infractions of the criminal code will be sufficient cause for immediate deportation.

At the same time there will be no penalty for businesses who employ them and they will be free to seek employment anywhere they can find it. They would, in essence, be permanent guest workers.

If illegal aliens were willing to accept those conditions they would be permitted to stay without having to hide and skulk and live in fear of the INS.

Although it would require a change to the constitution to prohibit granting citizenship to children of "illegal" aliens it would be a "win" for almost everyone. The immigrants would benefit from being able to work without fear of deportation. The American taxpayer would not be compelled to subsidize welfare and other programs for illegals, the worst elements among them would be deported, and American businesses would not have to be burdened with the task of doing background investigations of every employee to make sure they're legal.

This will not please those who demand that we send them all packing, but it seems to me to be the most practical and humane solution to a problem that has been allowed to fester far too long.

Yes, it entails a kind of amnesty, but it doesn't reward illegals with citizenship as other amnesty programs do, and the amnesty is contingent upon first shutting off the flow of illegals across the border and also upon the aliens keeping themselves out of trouble while they're here. If these conditions would be unacceptable to them they would, of course, be free to return home.

RLC

Demeaning Blacks

I was watching a bit of tennis on television the other night and Serena Williams happened to be one of the players. In the course of play the commentator averred that Ms Williams was "articulate." I have never heard Ms Williams speak so I cannot vouch for this assessment, but I do know that were I an African-American I would be incensed at the condescension and stupidity that drips from those words every time they're uttered. Rarely, after all, does one hear a white person described as articulate. It is simply assumed to be the norm for whites.

Joe Biden describes Barack Obama as "articulate." People like J.C. Watts, Harold Ford, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, even John Lee Malvo, have their ability to speak the English language noted and praised with annoying regularity. Implicit in the superficial compliment is the assumption that articulateness is unusual for a black person and thus noteworthy when it's found in one. The ability to speak well is not something expected of blacks, so a lot of people - especially, it must be said, liberals - find themselves noting the eloquence of the extraordinary black person and thus tacitly acknowledging their hidden assumption that blacks are generally inarticulate, even without realizing they're doing it.

As I said, if I were a black man I'd be outraged at this back-handed, mindless racial insult every time I heard it. It'd be like someone saying of me that I'm a black man and I've never been to prison. Not being black, however, I find it merely irritating.

RLC

A Modern Parable for Good Friday

Last Christmas I posted a modern parable about a man named Mike. I thought it would be an even more appropriate story, mutatis mutandis, for Good Friday:

A man named Michael, a father of a teenage daughter, Jennifer, had been a member of a top-secret anti-terrorism task force in the military and his duties caused him to be away from home much of the time Jen was growing up. He was serving his country in a very important, very dangerous capacity that required his absence and a great deal of personal sacrifice. As a result, his daughter grew up without him. Indeed, his wife Judith had left him a couple of years previous and took the girl with her.

Finally, after several years abroad, Mike was able to go home. He longed to hold his princess in his arms and to spend every possible moment with her to try to make up for lost time, but when he knocked on the door of his ex-wife's house the girl who greeted him was almost unrecognizable. Jen had grown up physically and along the way she had rejected everything Michael valued. Her appearance shocked him and her words cut him like a razor. She told him coldly and bluntly that she really didn't want to see him, that he wasn't a father as far as she was concerned, that he had not been a part of her life before and wouldn't be in the future.

Michael, a man who had faced numerous hazards and threats in the course of his work and had been secretly cited for great heroism by the government, was staggered by her words. The loathing in her voice and in her eyes crushed his heart. He started to speak but the door was slammed in his face. Heartbroken and devastated he wandered the streets of the city wondering how, or if, he could ever regain the love his little girl once had for him.

Weeks went by during which he tried to contact both his ex-wife and his daughter, but they refused to return his calls. Then one night his cell phone rang. It was Judith and from her voice Mike could tell something was very wrong. Apparently, Jennifer had run off with some unsavory characters several days before and hadn't been heard from since. Judy had called the police, but she felt Mike should know, too. She told him that she thought the guys Jen had gone out with that night were heavily into drugs and she was worried sick about her.

She had good reason to be. Jen thought when she left the house that she was just going for a joy ride, but that's not what her "friends" had in mind. Once they had Jen back at their apartment they tied her to a bed, abused her, filmed the whole thing, and when she resisted they beat her until she submitted. She overheard them debating whether they should sell her to a man they knew whom they thought sold girls into slavery in South America or whether they should just kill her now and dump her body in the bay. For three days her life was a living hell. She cried herself to sleep late every night after being forced into the most degrading conduct imaginable.

Finally her abductors sold her to a street gang in exchange for drugs. Bound and gagged, she was raped repeatedly and beaten savagely. For the first time in her life she prayed that God would help her, and for the first time in many years she missed her father. But as the days wore on she began to think she'd rather be dead than be forced to endure what she was being put through.

Mike knew some of the officers in the police force and was able to get a couple of leads from them as to who the guys who she originally left with might be. He set out, not knowing Jennifer's peril, but determined to find her no matter what the cost. His search led him to another city and took days - days in which he scarcely ate or slept. Each hour that passed Jennifer's condition grew worse and her danger more severe. She was by now in a cocaine-induced haze in which she hardly knew what was happening to her.

Somehow, Michael, weary and weak from his lack of sleep and food, managed to find the seedy, run down tenement building where Jennifer was imprisoned. Breaking through a flimsy door he saw his daughter laying on the filthy bed surrounded by three startled kidnappers. Enraged by the scene before his eyes he launched himself at them with a terrible, vengeful fury. Two of the thugs went down quickly but the third escaped. With tears flowing down his cheeks, Mike unfastened the bonds that held Jen's wrists to the bed posts. She was barely alert enough to comprehend what was happening, but too groggy to respond. Michael helped her to her feet and led her to the doorway.

As she passed into the hall with Michael behind her the third abductor appeared in front of her with a gun. Michael quickly stepped in front and told Jennifer to run back into the apartment and out the fire escape. The assailant tried to shoot her as she ran, but Michael shielded her from the bullet, taking the round in his side. The thug fired twice more into Michael's body, but Mike was able to seize the gun and turn it on the shooter.

Finally, it was all over, finished.

Slumped against the wall, Mike lay bleeding and bruised, the life draining out of him. Jennifer saw from the fire escape landing what had happened and ran back to Michael. Cradling him in her arms she wept and told him over and over that she loved him and that she was so sorry for what she had said to him and for what she had done.

With the last bit of life left in him he gazed up at her, pursed his lips in a kiss, smiled and died. Jennifer wept hysterically. How could she ever forgive herself for how she had treated him? How could she ever overcome the guilt and the loss she felt? How could she ever repay the tremendous love and sacrifice of her father?

Years passed. Jennifer eventually had a family of her own. She raised her children to revere the memory of her father even though they had never known him. She resolved to live her own life in such a way that Michael, if he knew, would be enormously proud of her. Everything she did, she did out of gratitude to him for what he had done for her, and every year on the anniversary of his death she went to the cemetary alone and sat for a couple of hours at his graveside, talking to him and sharing her love and her life with him. Her father had given everything for her despite the cruel way she had treated him. He had given his life to save hers. His love for her, his sacrifice changed her life.

And that's why Christians celebrate Good Friday.

RLC

A Crucifixion Day Meditation

"It costs God nothing, so far as we know, to create nice things: but to convert rebellious wills cost him crucifixion... You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse... You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God." ---C.S. Lewis

RLC