CDS

Carrie Prejean, Sarah Palin, George Bush, and Tim Tebow all have some things in common. They're all outspoken about their Christian faith and the liberal media seems to punish them for it. We've talked here at Viewpoint on occasion about what might be called Christian Derangement Syndrome as it relates to Prejean, Palin, and Bush, but we've never really discussed CDS as it has been directed at Tebow.

Stuart Schwartz at American Thinker has done the legwork for us, however, and his column is worth a read, especially if you think journalists are open-minded and tolerant of beliefs they don't themselves share.

Tim Tebow, as most readers probably know, was an outstanding college quarterback at the University of Florida and was drafted in the first round of the NFL draft by the Denver Broncos. Here's Scwartz's lede:

What do women, Tim Tebow, and evangelical Christians have in common?

They are all largely despised by the sports journalism division of our media elite. The continuing controversy over the first round selection in the National Football League draft of quarterback Tim Tebow by the Denver Broncos is a reminder that sports journalists are simply smaller and often nastier versions of their elite brothers on the serious side of the business.

Get accused twice of rape (Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh), repeatedly abuse your wife (Michael Pittman, Tampa Bay), regularly strangle and drown hapless dogs (Michael Vick, Atlanta)? Ah, well, boys will be boys, it is society's fault -- and besides, women and dogs don't wear Super Bowl rings. But pray, work with the poor, and refuse to engage in casual sex -- there's something seriously wrong with you. Or, as one Sports Illustrated writer put it, you are a certified "wackdo."

And so the controversy has swirled around "wackdo" Timothy Richard "Tim" Tebow, the evangelical Christian whose Denver Bronco jersey has become the top NFL merchandise seller before he set foot on Invesco Field at Mile High Stadium. Fans love this clean-cut, home-schooled son of Christian missionaries as much as the sports journalism establishment despises him.

I wonder if the SI writer would refer to a Muslim athlete as a "wackdo." Probably not. Anyway, you should read the rest of Schwartz's column on the sorts of things that've been said about Tebow for no other reason than that he's not shy about talking about his faith.

One of the interesting ancillary points Schwartz makes concerns misogyny among sports journalists - he claims that it's almost exclusively a liberal phenomenon. This comes as no surprise, actually, since liberals so often display what can at best be described as maladroitness and at worst be described as bigotry when it comes to matters of both race and religion. They may as well complete the trifecta and be sexists, too.

RLC

The Lonely Black Female

Byron puts me on to an interesting article in The Economist about the plight of black women. The difficulty they face is that there is tremendous competition among black women for the shrinking pool of marriageable black men which leads to a number of very regrettable social consequences:

Imagine that the world consists of 20 men and 20 women, all of them heterosexual and in search of a mate. Since the numbers are even, everyone can find a partner. But what happens if you take away one man? You might not think this would make much difference. You would be wrong, argues Tim Harford, a British economist, in a book called "The Logic of Life". With 20 women pursuing 19 men, one woman faces the prospect of spinsterhood. So she ups her game. Perhaps she dresses more seductively. Perhaps she makes an extra effort to be obliging. Somehow or other, she "steals" a man from one of her fellow women. That newly single woman then ups her game, too, to steal a man from someone else. A chain reaction ensues. Before long, every woman has to try harder, and every man can relax a little.

Real life is more complicated, of course, but this simple model illustrates an important truth. In the marriage market, numbers matter. And among African-Americans, the disparity is much worse than in Mr Harford's imaginary example. Between the ages of 20 and 29, one black man in nine is behind bars. For black women of the same age, the figure is about one in 150. For obvious reasons, convicts are excluded from the dating pool. And many women also steer clear of ex-cons, which makes a big difference when one young black man in three can expect to be locked up at some point.

The article concludes that this disparity is largely responsible for the explosion of unwed motherhood in the black community and matriarchal families:

Black women tend to stay in school longer than black men. Looking only at the non-incarcerated population, black women are 40% more likely to go to college. They are also more likely than white women to seek work. One reason why so many black women strive so hard is because they do not expect to split the household bills with a male provider. And the educational disparity creates its own tensions. If you are a college-educated black woman with a good job and you wish to marry a black man who is your socioeconomic equal, the odds are not good.

"I thought I was a catch," sighs an attractive black female doctor at a hospital in Washington, DC. Black men with good jobs know they are "a hot commodity", she observes. When there are six women chasing one man, "It's like, what are you going to do extra, to get his attention?" Some women offer sex on the first date, she says, which makes life harder for those who prefer to combine romance with commitment.

The Economist opines that the solution is to stop incarcerating black men for non-violent crimes, but I don't see how that helps. It makes more men available, perhaps, but it does nothing to improve the quality of the marriage pool. Educated black women looking for a quality male are not going to be helped by increasing the number of unincarcerated criminals in the pool.

Perhaps it will soon get to the point where such women get tired of the social inhibitions in the black community against dating white men and start competing with white women for white males. If that happens there could be serious sociological consequences for African-American society as the most "desirable" black women move out of that community to marry white men. Those left, both male and female, will be poorer, less educated and more dysfunctional, but how else can this problem be solved?

RLC

Stoking the Flames of Division

You've heard, no doubt, that Los Angeles is boycotting Arizona over their new immigration law which, like our attorney general who seems never to pass up an opportunity to erode our confidence in his judgment and competence, the good people of L.A. probably haven't read.

I wonder if, when California comes hat in hand to the federal government to bail them out of the fiscal mess they've spent themselves into, they'll demand that no Arizona tax dollars sully the offering we make toward sustaining their welfare state. I wonder, too, if Los Angeles will boycott the nine or so other states considering measures similar to the Arizona law.

Perhaps Los Angeles should just secede from the union and become a part of Mexico. I, for one, would not object. Or, borrowing an idea advanced by Hot Air, perhaps L.A. might be persuaded to take in all of Arizona's illegals so Arizona doesn't have to send them back to Mexico and points south. The city fathers of L.A. are so irate that Arizona may be deporting people who shouldn't be in the U.S., maybe they should show how deeply compassionate they are by doing something substantive and volunteering to house, feed, clothe, and educate them themselves. Do you think they will?Neither do I.

At any rate, the president's role in this contretemps has been very disappointing. He should have and could have been a healer in the midst of conflict. He could have talked about how the federal government needs to be more responsive to the needs and frustrations of Arizonans and more responsible in enforcing the law. He could have talked about how immigrants need to obey our laws and enter the country properly. He could have talked about how Americans and legal immigrants could work together to find solutions to this difficult problem. He could have actually read the law before he piped up about it, and pointed out that the worst fears of the Hispanic community about the law are unwarranted. But no. Regrettably, like a good disciple of Saul Alinsky he chose instead to be incendiary and suggest that the people of Arizona were bigots, that the law was irresponsible, and that Hispanics would be oppressed and hassled by the police as a result of it.

His words provided all the encouragement that the left and Hispanics needed to take to the streets and start demanding that Arizona be punished for not allowing itself to be overrun by hordes of poor people and criminals. Now, as a result of the president's demogoguery, we have states pitted against each other, people on all sides are extremely angry with each other, and inter-ethnic hatreds are swelling. Well played, Mr. President.

Anyway, here's Allahpundit at Hot Air suggesting that this episode is actually, if you can imagine it, being manipulated by our leadership for political gain:

[T]he left isn't interested in the facts about this. That was my point yesterday about Holder admitting that he hasn't read the statute. If he reads it then he's accountable for smearing it; better to stay ignorant and smear away for as long as possible and then, when called on it, grudgingly chalk it up to being misinformed. Besides, ever since the law was amended to ban racial profiling, the critique has shifted to how it'll be applied in practice by cops, not how it looks on the page. Even if it's found constitutional - and it very well may be - it'll take months of proper enforcement by Arizona police before that point can be factually challenged. For another thing, there's too much political skin in this game for the hysterics to relax. A Univision poll shows that 67 percent of Latinos oppose the law even though national majorities are strongly in favor. Democrats aren't going to pass amnesty this year so screaming "Nazi!" is their best chance to lock in Hispanic voters for the midterms and beyond. Look at it this way: When you've got the Simon Wiesenthal Center issuing statements deploring the sort of rhetoric being tossed at Arizona, you're way too far into Godwinland ever to make it back out. As a wise man once said, you can't reason a man out of that which he wasn't reasoned into...

At some point people have just got to say that they no longer care what the liberal elites say or think of them. They're going to do the right thing, they're going to enforce the law, they're going to protect themselves and their state from financial ruin, and if Los Angeles and the President don't like it they can go pound sand. We need more people in positions of leadership like, well, like New Jersey's Governor Chris Christie, for example:

Gov Christie calls S-L columnist thin-skinned for inquiring about his 'confrontational tone'

Maybe New Jersey will pass a law like Arizona's. I hope so. I'd love to hear Christie's reaction to a threat from Los Angeles to boycott New Jersey.

RLC

None Dare Call Them Radical

One of the reasons so few conservatives have confidence in Attorney General Eric Holder's judgment is that, though he had no trouble calling white America a nation of cowards and the Bush administration a bunch of war criminals, he just can't bring himself to say that Muslim terrorists are radical Islamic extremists, or even acknowledge that the phrase is meaningful:

It really shouldn't be hard to attribute acts of terror by people like the Times Square bomber, the Christmas bomber, or the Fort Hood shooter to Islamic extremism, a term which seems to some Americans to be a redundancy.

Islamists, i.e. the millions of Muslims who embrace or support militant jihad, see themselves as engaged in a holy war against religious infidelity. The Koran encourages them to kill those who refuse to accept the teachings of the Prophet, especially the Jews and whoever supports the Jews. Those who in the 1990s attacked the World Trade Towers, the U.S.S. Cole, and the Khobar Towers, those who hijacked the planes on 9/11, and all those who have come after, share one thing in common - they believe they're doing the will of Allah. They are radical Islamists. Holder's reluctance to admit this is deeply troubling, especially since he leaves us with only a narrow range of possible explanations for his demurral:

He's either very naive, very uninformed, very dumb, or, most troubling of all, very reluctant to impugn people with whom he feels a measure of sympathy. Whichever of these is the case, it's not good.

RLC

Myth of the Moderate Muslim

David Horowitz is a Jew and former communist who today speaks and writes about the threat of Islamic extremism, not just abroad but on American campuses. A few days ago he was confronted by an American Muslim student whose answer to a question he poses is both chilling and clarifying. It certainly shows that some people who look moderate and sound moderate are in their hearts just as murderous as any terrorist who blows up school busses in Israel:

There is a myth that has gained currency in this country, especially among liberals, that holds that the overwhelming number of Muslims are peace-loving folk who condemn terrorism, Hezbollah, and Hamas. I say it is a myth because although I believe that such Muslims probably exist, and certainly hope that they do, it's very difficult to actually find one of them. It's especially hard to find them on our university campuses.

Check out Horowitz's website FrontPage Mag where he documents many of his encounters with Muslim students, and you'll understand what I mean.

RLC

Looting the World

Bill adds a very important observation to our post titled Death Spiral:

On your Death Spiral post, I just wanted to mention that while all of what you wrote is probably true, you may have missed a not so insignificant fact. The bail out of Greece is not actually a bail out of "Greece" rather it's a bailout of the banks, primarily in Germany and France, that have leant Greece money by buying Greek bonds.

It's no different than what happened in this country. For example AIG had insured investments that Goldman Sachs had made and when those investments went bust, AIG couldn't pay so the taxpayer footed the bill. Tens of billions of dollars of the bailout to AIG went directly to GS. GS didn't lose a penny. The interesting thing about this is that when the bonds from a company go bad (AIG), the bond holders (GS) ALWAYS take a haircut by negotiating for some percentage of pennies on the dollar. Not so in this case, and the banks were made completely whole as the US Treasury and the Fed didn't even attempt to negotiate a settlement.

The same thing is happening with Greece. The moral hazard has gone over the top. The banks know that they can make whatever investments they choose and all losses will be paid for by the public. The big banks have firmly fixed the IV into the arm of the public and will slowly suck out every drop of blood. Unfortunately, nobody seems interested in doing anything about this.

Sadly, these bailouts don't fix anything, rather they simply kick the debt can down the road for a couple of years and the same thing or worse will happen again. If Greece was ready to default today, what are they going to do that will enable them to pay off their present debt (that they can't pay today) along with an additional hundreds of billions that will come due in two years? Giving them the loans just enables them to continue to be grasshoppers.

All that had to be done was for Greece to default and leave the ECU and the Euro until they got their fiscal house in order at which time they could rejoin the union. Greece would have been better off, the ECU and the Euro would have been better off, but the banks would have lost some money. Guess we can't have that now, can we?

The ECU really screwed up because they have sent the message to the world that they aren't really serious about a solid Euro currency. It's just another fiat currency with no discipline...just like the dollar. The Euro price is dropping like a rock as people are bailing out, and that's primarily why the price of gold is going up.

Further, look what's happening every Friday afternoon on the FDIC website where they announce the closing of banks for the week. It doesn't take much to figure out that the assets of the closed banks are being assumed by other banks with the FDIC assuming the garbage assets that aren't wanted.

So what we're getting is more and more banks growing bigger and bigger as the smaller ones go under. The big fish are eating the little fish. At some point all of them will be too big to fail.

The banks are looting the world...

Meanwhile the president, all his tough talk notwithstanding, does nothing to stanch the looting, which isn't surprising given the number of former Goldman Sachs bigwigs with which he has stocked his administration.

RLC

Petty

It's human nature, I suppose, to whine and complain about how tough things are, how boring life is, how there's nothing to do, how awful George Bush was, and so on. Next time you're tempted to complain about your life perhaps you'll recall a story told me by one of my students, an immigrant from one of the most hellish places on earth - Sudan. He recounted an event that happened to him when he was a boy (he's thirty-something now). His name is Jacob, and here's what he said:

When the Muslims attacked our people and drove us out of our villages, we walked hundreds of miles as a group to safety. One time we were being chased by the militia so we were running to cross the river to get away. Most of us had not learned to swim and the river was full of crocodiles so the crossing was full of danger but we had to cross because the militia was coming upon us with guns and swords. Then, on the other side came Arab soldiers to shoot us when we got across. It was a terrible time. Some strong men carried a rope across the river for people to hang onto as they crossed. Some of us were killed by crocodiles. Many older men, women and children drowned. Many others were shot in the water from both sides of the river. I was a boy at the time and fortunately I knew how to swim. I do not know how, but I got across the river even though my two friends were killed. I was able to climb to safety on the other side along with the others who got across safely. I believe it was God's power that saved me on that day!

Kind of makes many of our concerns and troubles seem petty, doesn't it.

RLC

Mirror Images

Why do some atheists think it's a bad idea to draw too close a relationship between naturalism and Darwinism? One possible reason is they fear that eventually some astute judge will realize that Darwinism is essentially of the same philosophical genre as intelligent design and will conclude that if ID is religious then so, too, must Darwinism be. This judicial epiphany will ultimately eventuate in the loss of Darwinism's position of privilege in publicly funded schools.

Casey Luskin makes this point in an interesting essay at Evolution News and Views.

The fact that Darwinism and ID are philosophical mirror images should be obvious to all but the most otiose of observers, but for some reason, it's not. Darwinism claims that physical processes and forces are capable of explaining all of the biological facts of nature. ID is simply the denial of this claim. Why, then, should the latter be ruled "religious" while the former is not? How can one claim be deemed to be science, while it's negation is deemed to be religious?

If the courts ever realize how simple this matter is they're going to find themselves in the awkward position of having to rule that either ID is science, even if it's false (Richard Dawkins' position), or that Darwinism is essentially religious, even if it's true. It'll be interesting to watch judges and lawyers trying to massage that porcupine.

RLC

Econ 101

Here's a fast-paced primer on why our economic predicament is so dire. It's good, but I advise that you use the pause button to allow you to digest the information:

Whether it's Greece or California, it seems clear that excessive spending and borrowing leads only to disaster. I can't think of any example from history when it hasn't. So why has the Obama administration, and to a lesser extent the Bush administration, nevertheless spent us to the brink of catastrophic collapse? Are these people economic or historical illiterates? Are they stupid? Are they deliberately trying to destroy our economy? Are there any other possible explanations?

RLC

Flight of the Intellectuals

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks historian Paul Berman, a man of the Left, wrote a book titled Terror and Liberalism in which he punctured the pretensions of his fellow liberal intellectuals for their fascination with terrorism and their reluctance to think ill of the people who perpetrate it.

Now Berman has come out with a follow-up book titled The Flight of the Intellectuals which, I understand, picks up where his first book leaves off.

I haven't read the second book yet but I have read Terror and Liberalism and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to understand the strange relationship between liberalism and radical Islamism and the motives behind this infatuation.

I also urge readers to read through an interview Berman does with journalist Michael Totten on the themes of his two books. It's an extraordinary piece. Berman has his predilections and prejudices but he is one of the most fair-minded people I've ever encountered. He didn't like George Bush much at all, and that certainly comes through in the interview, but he doesn't hesitate to give Bush credit for his clear-sightedness in the war against Islamic terrorism.

Here's an excerpt taken from a portion of the interview in which Berman and Totten are talking about the mindset of a certain group of liberal intellectuals who are willing to celebrate tyrants if the tyrants are anti-American. Berman observes that:

[T]here's another idea that appeals to many people, which is based not on our own feeling of superiority, but on our own inferiority. We look at ourselves in the Western countries and we say that, if we are rich, relatively speaking, as a society, it is because we have plundered our wealth from other people. Our wealth is a sign of our guilt. If we are powerful, compared with the rest of the world, it is because we treat people in other parts of the world in oppressive and morally objectionable ways. Our privileged position in the world is actually a sign of how racist we are and how imperialistic and exploitative we are. All the wonderful successes of our society are actually the signs of how morally inferior we are, and we have much to regret and feel guilty about. So when we look at the world, we should look at it in a spirit of humility and remorse, and we should recognize that other people have been unfairly treated.

We should recognize the superiority of those other people over ourselves. Money-wise, we may be richer. But, morally, the other people are richer. And so, we should despise ourselves, and we should love the other people -- the people who possess qualities so superior to our own as barely to be human. And then, filled with those very peculiar ideas, we set about looking for messianic figures who might express the superior culture of the other people, and might lead the human race to a higher stage of development. And if someone objects to this analysis, we say, oh, we inferior Westerners are incapable of understanding the mysterious thought-patterns of those other people, so who are you to judge?

The interview is a little long, but it'll be the most intellectually profitable 15 minutes you'll spend today.

RLC

Death Spiral

Newsweek's Robert Samuelson discusses the causes of the crisis in Greece, and what he describes sounds eerily like the situation the United States will find itself in about four years. The problem is fewer workers supporting more and more non-workers and a profligate spending binge leading to ever increasing budget deficits.

Here's an excerpt from Samuelson's column:

Budget deficits and debt are the real problems; and these stem from all the welfare benefits (unemployment insurance, old-age assistance, health insurance) provided by modern governments.

Countries everywhere already have high budget deficits, aggravated by the recession. Greece is exceptional only by degree. In 2009, its budget deficit was 13.6 percent of its gross domestic product (a measure of its economy); its debt, the accumulation of past deficits, was 115 percent of GDP. Spain's deficit was 11.2 percent of GDP, its debt 56.2 percent; Portugal's figures were 9.4 percent and 76.8 percent. Comparable figures for the United States -- calculated slightly differently -- were 9.9 percent and 53 percent.

There are no hard rules as to what's excessive, but financial markets -- the banks and investors that buy government bonds -- are obviously worried. Aging populations make the outlook worse. In Greece, the 65-and-over population is projected to go from 18 percent of the total in 2005 to 25 percent in 2030. For Spain, the increase is from 17 percent to 25 percent.

The welfare state's death spiral is this: Almost anything governments might do with their budgets threatens to make matters worse by slowing the economy or triggering a recession. By allowing deficits to balloon, they risk a financial crisis as investors one day -- no one knows when -- doubt governments' ability to service their debts and, as with Greece, refuse to lend except at exorbitant rates. Cutting welfare benefits or raising taxes all would, at least temporarily, weaken the economy. Perversely, that would make paying the remaining benefits harder.

But we shouldn't worry. Eat, drink, and be merry. Revel in hope and change. Enjoy American Idol. No great superpower lasts forever. After a while, all governments spend themselves into oblivion. Those among our elites who so admire Europe and European ways can take comfort in the fact that we're on course to follow them right down the drain.

RLC

Elena Miers Kagan

When George Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme court the firestorm of protest was so hot that she withdrew her name from consideration. Ms. Miers, it was argued from both the right and the left, had almost no relevant experience to qualify her for the court. Surely, many observers opined, there must be others more qualified than Ms Miers who was awarded the nomination, it was widely suspected, simply because she was a friend of George Bush's.

Well, now Barack Obama has nominated a woman, a friend of his, with no judicial experience and little courtroom experience to be the next Supreme Court Justice. Elena Kagan has no written body of work upon which anyone can base an assessment of her qualifications. She is Barack Obama's Harriet Miers - and also his dopplegänger - with one exception. No one among congressional Democrats thinks her selection is anything less than "superb" as Senator Leahy inexplicably declared.

When Bush nominated Miers, Republicans let him know how disappointed they were that he didn't select the best candidate in the field. He eventually came to his senses and gave us the brilliant Samuel Alito instead. When Obama nominated Kagan, on the other hand, Democrats all lined up to praise the nominee, but none of them can say exactly what it is they're praising her for. It's certainly not her qualifications to sit on the highest court in the land. I guess they feel that in the age of Obama qualifications for high office are just so 20th century.

RLC

Backwards Reasoning

One of the arguments against the idea of an intelligent designer, going back at least to David Hume, is that if such a designer exists it must be incompetent given all the "bad" designs found in nature. One of the prized exhibits in this argument has for years been the "backwards" design of the retina, but, unfortunately for many authors who've hitched their Darwinian wagon to it, this old horse appears headed for the glue factory.

An article in New Scientist explains why:

It looks wrong, but the strange, "backwards" structure of the vertebrate retina actually improves vision. Certain cells act as optical fibres, and rather than being just a workaround to make up for the eye's peculiarities, they help filter and focus light, making images clearer and keeping colours sharp.

Although rods and cones are responsible for capturing light, they are in a curious position. Hidden at the base of the retina, they are covered by several layers of cells as well as the bed of nerves that carries visual information to the brain. One result is a blind spot in our visual field, leading the vertebrate retina to be listed among evolution's biggest "mistakes".

Light clearly gets through, however, and in 2007 researchers analysing the retinas of guinea pigs reported that the glial cells which nourish and physically support the bed of neurons also act as optical fibres for the rods and cones. These M�ller cells are funnel-shaped, with wide tops that cover the surface of the retina and a long slender body that guides light to the receptors below.

Now Amichai Labin and Erez Ribak of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa have used data from human eye cells to model the workings of the retina. Their findings suggest that sending light via the M�ller cells offers several advantages.

The rest of the article gives a very interesting explanation of the two advantages these researchers have discovered. Besides these there are other excellent reasons for wiring the retina the way it is that have been understood for some time and which are discussed in this article.

One might think that theists would be heartened by such findings since they seem to support the idea that a designer played some role in the creation. Not so Ken Miller, however. Miller is a theistic evolutionist whose career is heavily invested in persuading people that there's absolutely no evidence for intelligent design in biology, particularly in the human eye, and he's adamant that we not draw any inferences from the research cited by New Scientist that would support ID:

However, Kenneth Miller, a biologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island cautions that this doesn't mean that the backwards retina itself helps us to see. Rather, it emphasises the extent to which evolution has coped with the flawed layout. "The shape, orientation and structure of the M�ller cells help the retina to overcome one of the principal shortcomings of its inside-out wiring," says Miller.

Well, this is certainly an odd take on the research. One might think that the backwards wiring of the retina is only backwards if it impedes vision, but this system actually aids vision. Nevertheless, Miller assumes it's still backwards, apparently because it's not how he would have designed it, and then marvels at how evolution has compensated for the engineering error.

I think probably the retina is less backwards than is Miller's reasoning. If Professor Miller wants my advice it would be to stop digging, throw down his shovel, and pretend that he never heard of the retina.

RLC

Values Clarification

Thomas Sowell reflects upon his childhood and suggests that the moral distance we've traveled in the last seventy years or so is inversely correlated to how educated we've become. Here's his lede:

One of the many fashionable notions that have caught on among some of the intelligentsia is that old people have "a duty to die," rather than become a burden to others.

This is more than just an idea discussed around a seminar table. Already the government-run medical system in Britain is restricting what medications or treatments it will authorize for the elderly. Moreover, it seems almost certain that similar attempts to contain runaway costs will lead to similar policies when American medical care is taken over by the government.

Make no mistake about it, letting old people die is a lot cheaper than spending the kind of money required to keep them alive and well. If a government-run medical system is going to save any serious amount of money, it is almost certain to do so by sacrificing the elderly.

There was a time-- fortunately, now long past-- when some desperately poor societies had to abandon old people to their fate, because there was just not enough margin for everyone to survive. Sometimes the elderly themselves would simply go off from their family and community to face their fate alone.

But is that where we are today?

Sowell goes on to illustrate with a poignant anecdote how we have shifted from a focus on helping others to focussing on living for ourselves. Check it out.

It's a modern conceit that somehow education and technology have, in ways that matter, made us superior to our forebears. This attitude is a naive bit of chauvinistic self-congratulation. Knowing more about physics makes us neither wiser nor more ethical than those who lived prior to the knowledge explosion. Indeed, more people can read today than at any time in history, we can enjoy films, we can surf the web, we can drive cars, but how do we use these wonderful gifts? Much of what we read and watch is junk. For all of our knowledge, wealth, and technology we're certainly no happier than were our grandparents, our families are less stable, and our mental health much more precarious.

Why is that? Perhaps it's because our grandparents knew something that many moderns don't: Happiness is not something that one can obtain through deliberate pursuit. It's not a drug, nor is it the result of the accumulation of knowledge or goods. It is, rather, a by-product of living a life of virtue, meaning, and caring for others.

Modernity, however, scoffs at this. Moderns believe that we should look out for #1 and that when other people stand in the way of our well-being they need to be shoved out of the way. That's why the abortion industry is so lucrative and why there's political presure to limit the care we provide to the elderly. Moderns also deny that there's any such thing as virtue and they hold that meaning can be injected into life by gratifying one's desires, whether sensual or material.

Unfortunately, there's not much evidence to support these beliefs. Surely Shakespeare was correct that, if death is the end of our existence, life is simply "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Sowell thinks the modern world has lost something crucially important to human flourishing. I think he's right.

RLC

New Moral Categories

Dennis Prager observes that those who are miffed with the tea party folks who oppose expnsive government power regularly note that tea partiers are overwhelmingly white. This criticism, Prager claims, is intended by opponents to disqualify the tea parties from serious moral consideration (MSNBC's Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann come immediately to mind in this regard.). In the course of explaining his case Prager notes something about the way lefties often think that's helpful to those who wish to understand how the liberal mind works.

He writes:

The fact that the Left believes that the preponderance of whites among tea partiers invalidates the tea party movement tells us much more about the Left than it does about the tea partiers.

It confirms that the Left really does see the world through the prism of race, gender and class rather than through the moral prism of right and wrong.

One of the more dangerous features of the Left has been its replacement of moral categories of right and wrong, and good and evil with three other categories: black and white (race), male and female (gender) and rich and poor (class).

Therefore the Left pays attention to the skin color -- and gender (not just "whites" but "white males") -- of the tea partiers rather than to their ideas.

As a Leftist rule of thumb -- once again rendering intellectual debate unnecessary and impossible -- white is wrong or bad, and non-white is right and good; male is wrong and bad, and female is right and good; and the rich are wrong and bad, and the poor right and good. For the record, there is one additional division on the Left -- strong and weak -- to which the same rule applies: The strong are wrong and bad, and the weak are right and good. That is a major reason for Leftist support of the Palestinians (weak) against the Israelis (strong), for example.

Presumably, then, in the eyes of many on the Left if you're a rich white male you're automatically suspect (despite the peculiar fact that so many Lefties are themselves rich, white males). If a powerful nation has a grievance with a weaker nation then the powerful nation is assumed to be in the wrong until they prove themselves innocent. If a largely white American legislature passes a law that would prevent poor, dark-skinned people from pouring across the border, it's the white legislature that's assumed to be wrong, not those who break the law to enter the country.

I can see why some people would find this an attractive formula. It has a number of advantages, not the least of which is that it relieves those who embrace it of the responsibility of having to actually think.

Read the rest of Prager's column at the link.

RLC

O Brother Where Art Thou?

A lot of folks in the conservative media are wondering where the President has been while Nashville suffered through a major disaster last week.

Mr. Obama was quick to send aid to Haiti and to claim that the government is doing all it can to force BP to clean up the Gulf oil spill. Yet a once in a century flood has devastated Nashville, and it doesn't seem to be prominently featured on his radar screen. Some cynics think that the reason the man who was quick to criticize President Bush for waiting a day or two too long to rush aid to New Orleans has been dilatory on Tennessee is because Tennessee is a red state and not likely to vote Democratic. I don't know if that's true, but I hope it's not. I don't like to think that our president is that small-minded and vindictive. Such a motive would, moreover, be counterproductive for the president since administrative indifference is a good way to insure that Tennessee never votes Democratic.

I think, though, that the reason for the lack of apparent concern for the people of Tennessee in the administration and the media may be something that is at once less political and more subconsciously sinister. Perhaps, as with the Mississippi river floods a couple of years ago, people just assume that the victims in these regions don't need government help to cope, that they're a self-reliant, proud breed capable of taking care of themselves, which may well be true. But if this is what's in the back of the minds of administration officials what does that say about their attitude, no doubt subliminal, toward the victims in New Orleans and elsewhere as a result of Katrina? Were those people helpless to do anything to help themselves? Why, with fleets of school busses available couldn't the local authorities evacuate their people? Why couldn't the citizens of the city provide care for each other? Were they so lacking in initiative, so dependent on the federal government, that they just sat around in their City Hall offices and their houses waiting for the government to come in and rescue them?

If that's so, then we need to ask why it is so. Is it because the New Orleans victims were poor, or is it because they've been behaviorally conditioned by a paternalistic welfare state to accept a permanent lassitude, indolence and child-like dependency that the proud people of Nashville and elsewhere disdain? Just wondering.

RLC

No Evidence Required

A friend writes to chide me for making the claim that many liberals don't require evidence to believe what they believe. They often think as they do, I averred, simply because it comports or coheres with their liberal worldview. My friend thought this was tantamount to calling liberals liars. On the contrary, I certainly was not saying that many liberals are liars - although if pressed I'd have to agree that some surely are and that many of these even endorse lying as a strategy (read, for instance, Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals).

In my post, however, I was making the more modest claim that many on the left are simply uncritical and gullible. For example, here's a list of ten beliefs many liberals hold, sometimes devoutly, despite the fact that they have little or no evidence for them:

1) That candidate Obama was qualified to hold the highest office in the land.

2) That President Obama is a natural born citizen of the U.S. (This is not to say he isn't, but rather that belief that he is requires an act of faith since he refuses to present his birth certificate).

3) That the Democrats' health care reform proposal will be good for the country.

4) That global warming is caused by human activity and is an imminent threat to the world.

5) That the Arizona law will result in oppressive police tactics against innocent Americans.

6) That intelligent design is just gussied up creationism (Most lay-people who believe this know nothing about ID. They just know that it's wrong.).

7) That tea-partiers are racists.

8) That George Bush and the CIA were behind the 9/11 attacks on New York.

9) That the Palestinians genuinely desire to live in peace with Israel.

10) That an unborn child is nothing more, ontologically speaking, than a blob of tissue.

You can probably think of more examples. If so, please feel free to share them with us.

RLC

Not Funny, Mr. President

Arizona governor Jan Brewer responds to President Obama's criticism of her state's attempt to get a handle on the problem of illegal immigration with this ad:

Perhaps the president's disdain for Arizona's frustration lies in part in the fact that he's pretty much sympatico with the organization La Raza, a radical racial supremicist group which opposes all attempts to limit the flow of Hispanics across our southern border and which holds that much of the southwest actually belongs to Mexico.

HT: Right Wing News

RLC

Interests and Desires

Here are some questions for the metaphysical naturalist: On naturalism (or materialism) what is it that gives human beings inherent value? Where do the unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness come from? Why should we think that all must be equal before the law? What gives us the right to to be treated respectfully and justly?

Some naturalist philosophers have answered that it is the fact that human beings have "interests and desires" that confers upon them these rights, but it's a mystery as to how that could be. What does the existence of our interests and desires have to do with the obligation of others to treat us respectfully? It's hard to see what the connection might be. If one asks why, exactly, I should care about the interests of others, the answer is likely to amount to some variation of "We just should." The attempt to ground my moral duties in the fact that others have interests and desires strikes me as a purely arbitrary, and desperate, attempt to salvage human rights from the nihilism to which naturalism inevitably leads.

But suppose for a moment that we accept the answer. What follows? Are not some interests and desires more valuable than others? Is not the satisfaction of some interests and desires more worthy than others? If so, then what obligates us to respect equally the life, liberty and happiness of those whose interests and desires are less worthy?

The fact of the matter is that unless our worth and our rights derive from a transcendent source, then they are grounded in nothing. Apart from a transcendent ground we have no dignity, no inherent value, no matter how many interests and desires we have. John Locke and Thomas Jefferson both recognized this which is why both men based human rights in a Creator God.

When secularists and atheists go blathering on about human rights and equality they are like men who are attempting the intellectual equivalent of walking on water. It would pretty remarkable if they could pull it off, but we, and they, are pretty sure they'll accomplish nothing more than making themselves look foolish.

RLC

Twenty Most Brilliant

College Crunch, which bills itself as "the best college resource online...ever," features a listing of the Twenty Most Brilliant Christian Professors. I don't know how they arrived at their selections, but it is indeed an impressive list.

Unfortunately, many of the luminaries are either retired or semi-retired, but there are others, many others, I'm sure, who are currently in the prime of their careers and who merit being on such a list.

Lucky is the student who gets the chance to study under one of them.

RLC

Family Tree

One of the difficulties with most theories of human evolution is that they assume that many of the alleged early hominids were members of different species, and that each of these species gradually gave way to another over millions of years on the way to producing modern man.

The problem is that the concept of a species is so nebulous as to be almost useless in these speculations. The textbook definition of species is a reproductively isolated population. In other words, if members of two disparate populations are unable, for whatever reason, to produce fertile offspring they are said to be reproductively isolated and thus belong to different species.

This definition entails that organisms isolated by geographical, physical, behavioral, or even temporal factors would be different species even if they were genetically compatible. Two individuals would be reproductively isolated if they were separated from each other by either distance or time (as are members of different generations of humans), or if they were physically incompatible, or if behavioral idiosyncrasies prevented synchronization of mating cycles.

This being the case it's a little absurd to think that just because two different hominids were physically different and/or lived at different times that they were therefore different species, but that's the assumption that's almost always made in the study of human evolution. Now, however, comes a story in the New York Times that bodes ill for this assumption. The report explains that indeed two different lines of hominids actually did interbreed and, though the Times never draws this conclusion, were thus conspecific:

Neanderthals mated with some modern humans after all and left their imprint in the human genome, a team of biologists has reported in the first detailed analysis of the Neanderthal genetic sequence.

The biologists, led by Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have been slowly reconstructing the genome of Neanderthals, the stocky hunters that dominated Europe until 30,000 years ago, by extracting the fragments of DNA that still exist in their fossil bones. Just last year, when the biologists first announced that they had decoded the Neanderthal genome, they reported no significant evidence of interbreeding.

Scientists say they have recovered 60 percent of the genome so far and hope to complete it. By comparing that genome with those of various present day humans, the team concluded that about 1 percent to 4 percent of the genome of non-Africans today is derived from Neanderthals.

It's interesting that the implications of this discovery are not mentioned in the article which insists on referring to "human-Neanderthal" interbreeding as if Neanderthals were not humans. The fact is that if such unions produced viable offspring then Neanderthals were human, and if that's the case then there wouldn't seem to be much warrant for treating Homo habilis and Homo erectus as different species from H. sapiens.

RLC

Only in America

This may be very hard for those still in possession of their rational faculties to believe but five high school students were threatened with suspension by their high school administrators the other day because they wore T-shirts that sported an American flag and refused to turn them inside out. Why were they told to turn them inside out? Because it was Cinco de Mayo and the California school they attended has a large Mexican-American population, and the principals were afraid that the Mexican students would be insulted by the shirts, which, of course, some of them were.

Here's an excerpt from the news report:

But to many Mexican-American students at Live Oak High School, this was a big deal. They say they were offended by the five boys and others for wearing American colors on a Mexican holiday.

"I think they should apologize cause it is a Mexican Heritage Day," Annicia Nunez, a Live Oak High student, said. "We don't deserve to be get disrespected like that. We wouldn't do that on Fourth of July."

As for an apology, the boys and their families say, 'fat chance.'

"I'm not going to apologize. I did nothing wrong," Galli said. "I went along with my normal day. I might have worn an American flag, but I'm an American and I'm proud to be an American."

Let's understand. These were American kids in an American school paid for by American taxpayers, but they weren't allowed to wear an American flag T-shirt because it was offensive to Mexican-American students who came to this country ostensibly to be Americans, or so we're always told.

I wonder if the school also took down the American flags around campus so as not to offend the sensibilities of Mexican students. I wonder if they ran a Mexican flag up the flag pole that morning. I wonder if they recited the pledge of allegiance in their classrooms to start the day.

Can you imagine Mexican officials threatening Mexican students for wearing Mexican flags on their shirts on the Fourth of July in a school in which there's a sizable minority of American students? Me neither.

At any rate, the district administrators were apparently appalled by the poor judgment and shameless, abject political correctness of their building principals. In a move that must have been a considerable embarrassment to the principals the district overruled them:

The five boys and their families met with a Morgan Hill Unified School District official Wednesday night. The district and the school do not see eye-to-eye on the incident and released the following statement:

The district does not concur with the Live Oak High School administration's interpretation of either board or district policy related to these actions.

The boys will not be suspended and were allowed to return to school Thursday. We spotted one of them when he got to campus -- and, yes, he was sporting an American flag T-shirt.

At least someone in that district has some common sense.

RLC

How Liberals Think

Robin, the Berkeley psychoanalyst and recovering liberal, is back with another penetrating analysis of the liberal mind. It'd be hard to argue with her even were I inclined to do so.

She offers a lot of interesting and humorous insights into the mysteries of the liberal psyche, one of which is her explanation of why liberals so despise Sarah Palin: Apparently it's because she's more of a man than they are, and they know it.

Anyway, read the rest of Robin's ruminations at the link.

Meanwhile, this is making the rounds - McDonald's new Obama Value Meal: The guy ahead of you in the drive-thru orders anything he wants and you have to pay for it.

RLC

Race Matters

A report out of Ann Arbor, Michigan simply defies belief. Apparently, an elementary school took students to hear a successful scientist speak on how one becomes a successful scientist. Astonishingly, though, since the scientist was white, the principle, who is also white, did not allow black students to go along. He felt they would not be able to relate to what was essentially a white experience.

I think we can all agree that this man is either incredibly stupid or deeply bigoted, or both. In either case he should not be the principal of a dog kennel let alone an elementary school.

The principal even allegedly belittled a Muslim girl who complained about being excluded from the trip.

He defended his decision to irate parents of black students by explaining that those who were selected to go on the field trip were members of a club exclusively for white students who the school felt needed to have an experience that would expose them to successful role models. As such, black students would be out of place. As you might imagine, this did little to mollify the parents.

Perhaps you think this episode is so bizarre and outrageous that you doubt that it really happened, but you can read about it for yourself here.

I don't know why this story isn't national news and this principal isn't being pilloried in the press.

Well, that's not quite true. I think I do know why. I cheated by switching the races in the story. In point of fact, the principal, students and scientist were all black and the excluded students, including the Muslim girl, were not. In our race-obsessed society, and the media which services it and abets the obsession, it makes a huge difference which race is being favored and which discriminated against. The story has gained little purchase in the media, I suspect, because discrimination against white students is acceptable, or at least understandable, in the ideological waters in which they swim.

This is the sort of attitude, however, which only serves to exacerbate racial friction in this country. We'll never get past these frictions until we get over our preoccupation with skin color. Indeed, in my opinion, one way to tell if one is a bigot is by reflecting on your reaction to this story. If you were outraged by the way the story was represented in the above paragraphs but not so outraged when you learned the truth then you're probably a bigot. You can also tell if someone is arrantly liberal if he thinks the race of the students and the principal in this tale should actually matter.

RLC

A Pair of Rarities

I had the pleasure in the last several days of viewing two birds which are both very uncommon in my part of Pennsylvania. The first find was a Wilson's phalarope discovered in a pond near the town of Hershey.

The phalarope is not only rarely seen in south central Pennsylvania but is also very unusual in that the female is the more brightly plumaged of the two sexes and leaves to the male the tasks of nest-building, incubating the eggs, and raising the young. I don't know if this is what people mean by "transgendered," but it's certainly unusual behavior in the animal kingdom, and one wonders how this sex-role switch ever came about. They also have an odd way of feeding. They'll sometimes paddle quickly in a tight circle in the water causing insects and other food items to be drawn to the surface where they can be easily caught and eaten.

The second bird is an Upland sandpiper found in a grassy, reclaimed landfill in southern York County. The Upland sandpiper is related to the shorebirds one sees on beaches and mudflats, but it itself is rarely seen near water. Instead, this is a bird of dry, grassy, upland fields. They're very uncommon in Pennsylvania and especially so in the south-central part of the state.

The Upland sandpiper gives a unique call that sounds almost exactly like a "wolf-whistle," which is a little disconcerting when you hear it because it doesn't sound like something that would come from a bird.

RLC

Heading South

While Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and their merry band in Congress continue their transformation of America and rub their hands in anticipation of transformations yet to come, others are much less sanguine at the direction in which they are taking the country. The Ludwig von Mises Institute is an organization of political libertarians who are growing increasingly dismayed at the rapid growth of the state and some are so exasperated that they're now talking seriously about expatriation.

Libertarians are people who believe that government should be minimally intrusive in people's lives, including their economic and moral lives, and that the Obama administration has greatly accelerated a process of state expansion that has been ongoing since WWII.

In an article sent along by brother Bill, libertarian Lew Rockwell writes:

[T]he rise of emigration, expatriation, and citizenship renunciation is a trend that is not going away. It is rising and will get more significant. In some ways, it is completely expected. When regimes overcontrol, overtax, overregulate, they gnaw at the innate sense of the right to be free. When this gets worse and worse, people tend to look around for better environments.

We've all known people who talk about it openly. It is becoming cocktail conversation, the once unthinkable now standard fare. It's not just an impression. State Department records show that 502 people gave up citizenship in just the last quarter of 2009. That is more than twice the total for 2008. That might not seem like a lot, but what stands out here is the trend line, which is soaring. I also hear reports of year-long bureaucratic delays in approval, and, of course, plenty of people leave without permission.

What does Rockwell attribute this exodus to? Take a look:

Far more frightening is the sense that financial calamity is around the corner. A look at the data seems to suggest that. Vast reserves are sitting in the banking system, waiting to be unleashed to create what could be total destruction of the dollar. The deficit is rising so fast that it is hard to chart.

The jobs situation is terrible, especially for young people (and adults often make decisions based on what is best for their kids' future). Personal income is falling and falling. Investment is not recovering after its cliff dive in 2009. The social-welfare state is broke. Private debt is rising even though lending has not restarted.

The policies of the fiscal and monetary authorities are absolutely terrifying. The Fed is keeping rates at zero. The government is spending and spending beyond belief. Tax receipts are falling as never before, unleashing the greedy hand of the predator state to extract every last dime.

And look at what the US Congress and president are doing about this terrible mess: they are working to socialize healthcare, start a war with Iran, impose tariffs on China, and otherwise tax, regulate, inflate, and control more more more. An economy that is heavily capitalized and driven by the entrepreneurial spirit can stand a surprising amount of abuse. But that reserve capital is being drained away into new bubbles, and the entrepreneurial spirit is being crushed at every turn.

Based on all these facts, the sense of impending doom is hard to avoid. And consider that most people are thinking only about today, this month, and this year. But among the rich and entrepreneurial we find a class of people who specialize in thinking outside the box, and for the very long term. It is among the ranks of these people that we are seeing the renunciation trend take hold. The smart money is giving up on the US political system.

Whether Rockwell is correct or not I certainly can't say, but it would be interesting to know whether he himself is preparing to leave. In any event, if the geese that lay the golden eggs in our economy all start migrating south the U.S. will be pretty much dead in the water as a vibrant haven of prosperity and freedom. It will instead start to resemble one of those European basket-cases like Greece or Portugal, or maybe even Mexico.

That's not the hope and change that most Americans voted for.

RLC

Time Travel

The faster one travels the slower time passes for the traveler. This is a fundamental, if bizarre, entailment of Einstein's theory of relativity, and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, his brilliant mind still active despite a body wracked by Lou Gehrig's disease, thinks this makes time travel into the future possible.

Of course, this isn't a new idea. It's been the premise for movies like Planet of the Apes and others of that genre for decades.

Even so, it's interesting to read Hawking's thoughts on it and why he doesn't think travel into the past is possible. Read the story here.

RLC

Stupid Reasons

Washington Post writer Eugene Robinson spends an entire column arguing rather desultorily against constructing a wall along the border with Mexico. His brief against the barrier is summarized by this paragraph:

It would be possible to build a 2,000-mile-long Berlin Wall, complete with watchtowers. But it would be stupid and counterproductive. The U.S.-Mexico relationship is vitally important, economically and politically, and the border has to be permeable enough to permit a massive legitimate daily flow of goods and people.

That building the wall would be stupid, Mr. Robinson is certainly entitled to believe, but anyone who offers the sorts of arguments he does in this essay should be more judicious about how he employs the word.

In the first place, the analogy to the Berlin Wall is at best awkward. The Berlin Wall was built to imprison people, to keep them from getting out. The border wall would keep no one in but rather keep out those seeking to enter the country illegally. It's like having a lock on the front door of your house.

In the second place, despite what Mr. Robinson evidently believes, our commerce with Mexico does not transpire in the desolate areas of the desert, it occurs at entry points on highways supervised by customs agents. These would still exist whether a border fence were built along the desert or not. The only commerce that would be effected by a fence would be the nefarious trafficking in drugs and human beings.

One could, perhaps, make a case against building a wall by arguing that it would be prohibitively expensive and/or it wouldn't work, but both of these are very difficult cases to support. Compared to the trillions that the current administration is spending to bail out the unions at GM and their cronies on Wall Street a couple of billion for the fence would be relative pocket change. Whether a wall would work or not would depend, of course, on how it is patrolled and maintained, but none of these details matter to Robinson who sees no problem on our borders in the first place.

He cites the fact that a police chief in the border town of Nogales tells him that violence isn't high in his jurisdiction, and concludes from this that there's no real reason for concern about illegal immigration. This is breath-takingly obtuse. Arizona has become known as the kidnapping capital of the world, and the perpetrators are almost all illegal aliens. Moreover, contrary to what Robinson must think, the bad guys don't settle in the border towns, they move on to America's heartland cities where there's more profit to be made from their mischief. Finally, the problem is not just the criminals that are coming across illegally, but the vast hordes of poor people who flow into this country in need of goods and services which the taxpayer has to provide.

Trying to solve our illegal immigration problems without turning off the spigot is like trying to contain the Gulf of Mexico oil slick without capping the gusher that's producing it. Thankfully, the people trying to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf don't think it's "stupid" to do so.

RLC

Racist Assumptions

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

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

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

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

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

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

RLC

Mind/Brain Thought Experiments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RLC

A Modest Proposal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RLC

Pig Latin Epithets

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

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

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

RLC

What the Law Actually Says

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

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

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

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

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

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

RLC

Re: Nerdiness

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

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

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

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

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

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

RLC

Why Illegal Immigration Is Troubling

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RLC

How Mexico Treats Aliens

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

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

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

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

RLC

Death of God, Death of Liberty

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

He concludes his pr�cis with this:

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

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

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

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

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

RLC

Closer to the Truth

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

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

Enjoy.

RLC