Fundamentalist Sumbitches

William Dembski posts Notre Dame philosopher Alvin Plantinga's well-known discourse on the definition of "fundamentalist" found in his Warranted Christian Belief:

We must first look into the use of this term 'fundamentalist'. On the most common contemporary academic use of the term, it is a term of abuse or disapprobation, rather like 'son of a bitch', more exactly 'sonovabitch', or perhaps still more exactly (at least according to those authorities who look to the Old West as normative on matters of pronunciation) 'sumbitch'. When the term is used in this way, no definition of it is ordinarily given. (If you called someone a sumbitch, would you feel obliged first to define the term?) Still, there is a bit more to the meaning of 'fundamentalist' (in this widely current use): it isn't simply a term of abuse. In addition to its emotive force, it does have some cognitive content, and ordinarily denotes relatively conservative theological views. That makes it more like 'stupid sumbitch' (or maybe 'fascist sumbitch'?) than 'sumbitch' simpliciter.

It isn't exactly like that term either, however, because its cognitive content can expand and contract on demand; its content seems to depend on who is using it. In the mouths of certain liberal theologians, for example, it tends to denote any who accept traditional Christianity, including Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Barth; in the mouths of devout secularists like Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett, it tends to denote anyone who believes there is such a person as God. The explanation is that the term has a certain indexical element: its cognitive content is given by the phrase 'considerably to the right, theologically speaking, of me and my enlightened friends.' The full meaning of the term, therefore (in this use), can be given by something like 'stupid sumbitch whose theological opinions are considerably to the right of mine'.

Of course a fundamentalist is one who emphasizes and remains loyal to the basics, the fundamentals, of his craft or his convictions and is loath to be cajoled away from them. In that sense, there are fundamentalists in every endeavor, and in every ideological, political, and religious quarter. Since the word has pejorative connotations, however, it's used frequently by people who are given to the use of polemical abuse as a way of insulting people who are conservative in their religious or political views without having to resort to calling them a sumbitch.

Grounding Natural Rights

Carlos Alberto Montaner considers himself to be an agnostic but he nevertheless writes an essay whose point is that God is a sine qua non of moral judgment, a theme we have often written about ourselves here at Viewpoint. Montaner argues that human rights are contingent upon a transcendent moral authority and that if there is no such entity the whole notion and discussion of rights, as well as, we might add, right and wrong themselves, are little more than subjective blathering about personal preferences and arbitrary tastes.

Here are two paragraphs from Montaner's column:

The whole philosophical and juridical structure that supports liberal democracy hinges on the existence of a superior being from whom emanate the ''natural rights'' that protect individuals from the actions of the state or from the will of other people. If the premise of God's existence disappears, the theory of the existence of natural rights is automatically eliminated and the door is flung open to all kinds of abuses.

It's just that simple. If there are no natural rights, it may be acceptable to enslave prisoners, discriminate against women and execrate foreigners or homosexuals. All that's required is a decision by a legitimate source of power, such as a majority in numbers, for instance, or a group of notable and petulant wise men.

And, of course, if there is no God then there is no such thing as a natural right. Everyone would have the "right" to do whatever he or she has the power to do. Might would make right. If right is not grounded in something objective and transcendent, it simply doesn't exist other than as a matter of mere personal predilection.

You can read the rest of Montaner's article here.

Iconoclasm

Some readers may be familiar with Jonathan Wells and his book Icons of Evolution which drove the Darwinists into paroxysms of vein-popping rage. It was a good book.

The web site Intelligent Design: The Future is running Wells' response to his critics. Part I is up, and if you've never read it before and you're interested in the sorry legacy of Darwinian duplicity in high school biology textbooks, you might wish to check it out.

Total Depravity

Michelle Malkin notes how the fine human beings at Democratic Underground are responding to the news of Margaret Thatcher's failing health. It's hard to believe that people could sink as deep into the sewer as some of the people at that site who consider themselves compassionate, humane, and sophisticated liberals. If this is what liberalism and liberals have become then it's time to start treating liberals like the moral basket-cases they keep showing themselves to be and ostracize them completely from our political discourse.

If you have the stomach to visit the link be sure to scroll down through the comments to get a real sense of the degeneracy that resides on the left. It'll make you a convert to the Calvinist doctrine of total depravity.

And then there's Pat Oliphant, perhaps the most untalented, unfunny, immature political cartoonist, after Ted Rall, to disgrace the pages of our national newspapers. It astonishes me that any paper carries this guy. Does anyone who has attained adulthood think he's anything but an insipid, juvenile sleaze merchant?

Terrorists' Dream, America's Nightmare

We have written on this subject before, but it bears repeating. The most horrifying threat we face today is a single blast from a nuclear weapon detonated at high altitude over the North American mainland. Here's why:

EMP (ElectroMagnetic Pulse) is produced by atmospheric detonation of a nuclear device. The nuclear explosion sends out a spike of electromagnetic pulse - a wave - that shocks electronics and creates electrical currents in the earth. Effects are direct and indirect. The electrical devices themselves are rendered inoperable. This begins what the Commission report calls "unprecedented cascading failures of major infrastructures." In other words, if a power grid is fried, then systems depending on that power grid: lighting, water purification and delivery, communications, banking, hospitals, emergency - all these and more are affected. If the initial explosion is large enough, the Commission concludes, "the degradation of infrastructure could have irreversible effects on the country's ability to support its population."

This means mass starvation because food deliveries cease, urban deaths by dehydration as water systems fail, collapse of medical systems, breakdown of police functions, ineffectiveness of firefighters, loss of bank records, inability to move physically other than by foot, and a return of America to a "pre-industrial age" state. Americans who live in rural environments might survive. The larger the cities and the more densely populated they are, the greater the probability of mass death. An EMP attack, in other words, could be many times worse than nuclear explosions at ground level that intend to use explosive force to kill. Such an attack is indeed a terrorist's dream - and an American nightmare.

It's not like we're just learning about EMP. Soviet and American nuclear scientists first discovered this effect during atmospheric testing in the early 1960s. An American detonation, Starfish, over Johnson Island, had the unpredicted side effect of knocking out street lights, alarms, and power generation facilities in Oahu almost 100 miles distant. As recently as 1995, a Russian general threatened EMP attack during raucous negotiations with US representatives, noting that it "would only take one" weapon to knock out America.

Technically, a large enough weapon detonated at 75-400 kilometers above the US would induce serious EMP damage. The larger the weapon and the higher the detonation, the greater the circle of damage emanating from it. Only a single large weapon detonating over mid-America could permanently cripple the country. The result would be direct and indirect deaths of millions of Americans and the transformation of the US in an eye-blink to a pre-19th century environment.

So why is this a terrorist threat? Isn't EMP attack something that would come from a more sophisticated country, one, like Russia or China, that stands to lose as much as we do by such actions? And should we more properly worry about suitcase nucs and such from terrorists? The alarming answer is that delivery of an EMP weapon requires less than state-of-the-art technology. A rocket simply has to carry a nuclear payload to altitude and detonate it. Aiming can be very general, unlike targeting an installation or even a city. Alarmingly, such missiles exist, engineered by North Korea and sold to countries like Iran, Syria, and - we fear - soon to Venezuela.

The missiles do not have to be launched from land. They could, with rather conventional engineering modifications, be launched from the deck of a freighter off-shore from the American coastline. Terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda already possess a modest fleet of merchant ships. Both Iran and North Korea are furiously working to develop deliverable nuclear weapons. In the opinion of many, it is not a matter of if we are attacked by EMP but when. America has a surfeit of capable enemies - communists, dictators, and terrorists - and they form a deadly connection committed to our demise.

How do we stop this threat? There is no simple answer. America does not possess anti-missile capability of significance. If a Navy Aegis-class ship was in the neighborhood it might be able to intercept the terrorist missile attack. But to rely on such serendipitous circumstances to protect this country is madness. We could harden our infrastructure and try to protect against EMP attack, but because of magnitude that would be a futile undertaking.

The only sure defense, as General George Patton said is a "good offense." And, he concluded, "the quality of that offense depends on the warlike souls of those conducting it." As a country we need to make certain that we have sufficient steel in our backbones to take on and to defeat the threat from Islamofascists and rogue states before they are able to launch a missile at this country. In short, we need to change our mentality from that of complacent peacetime and assume an aggressive War Footing. And we need to do so before our enemies can exploit our weakness.

For more info go here and click on "view video." While you're watching it bear in mind that Iran is currently building two nuclear reactors that will enable them to produce nuclear weapons.

The Iranians simply can't be permitted to develop the capability of destroying the United States with a single strike. If they have it they will surely use it. I think President Bush and his team understand this. I doubt very much if the Democrats do.

Paranoia Will Destroy Ya

Abraham Foxman suffers from clinical paranoia. How else can we explain his belief that the biggest threat to Jews in the United States is the "religious right"? A Washington Times article says this:

A group of Jewish leaders meets in New York this week to develop a response to the religious right, which they say is eroding civil liberties and planning to "christianize America." Led by Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the private meeting is set for today, said an assistant to Mr. Yoffie.

Both men were unavailable for comment Friday, and neither organization would divulge details of the meeting, including who else is attending and where it is being held. But the meeting is the culmination of a month of attacks by Mr. Foxman and Mr. Yoffie on conservative Christian groups, starting with Mr. Foxman's speech Nov. 3 at an ADL function in New York.

"We face a better-financed, more sophisticated, coordinated, unified, energized and organized coalition of groups in opposition to our policy positions on church-state separation than ever before," he said. "Their goal is to implement their Christian worldview. To Christianize America. To save us."

The chief villains, he said, were the Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family; the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defense Fund; the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association; and the Family Research Council, based in Washington. "This issue is serious enough for us to develop a strategy, and, clearly, our first task is to win the support of the American public," Mr. Foxman said. "We also need to come together with other Jewish organizations ... and to find allies beyond our community."

On Nov. 19, Mr. Yoffie compared the religious right to Nazis. "We understand those who believe that the Bible opposes gay marriage, even though we read that text in a very different way," the rabbi said. "We cannot forget that when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things that he did was ban gay organizations."

So, Christians are essentially Nazis. If Christians acquire much more political power in this country look for extermination camps for Jews to sprout up next to the local Wal-Mart.

When, we have to ask, have Christians talked about banning gay organizations (as distinct from gay marriage)? How, exactly, are Christians a threat to Jews? Neither Foxman nor Yoffie explain. In our post-modern, PC world there is no distinction between leveling an allegation and substantiating it. The fact that these men eagerly embrace the narrative of Christian tyranny and feel oppressed by a Christian hegemony that exists entirely in their febrile imaginations is all that's necessary to validate their claims.

Don Feder, president of Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation, succinctly highlights the silliness of the fears voiced by such as Foxman and Yoffie when he says this:

"Foxman loves to whine about the religious right and how they're destroying religious liberty in America. Is wanting to keep God in the Pledge of Allegiance Christianizing America? Is opposition to gay marriage Christianizing America? Are efforts to keep public displays of the Ten Commandments Christianizing America? If so, Moses was a Christianizer."

The Times' article continues:

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder of the Chicago-based International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ), pointed out that evangelicals are Israel's best U.S. friends. His group raised $44.9 million in 2004, mostly from evangelicals, for pro-Israel causes. In 2002, the IFCJ commissioned a poll of 1,200 Americans that found that "conservative church-going Christians" had the highest rates of support for Israel (62 percent) among non-Jewish religious groups. In 2002, Mr. Foxman penned "Evangelical Support for Israel Is a Good Thing" for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Conservative Christians and Jewish groups have united over Israel, foreign policy and the threat of Islamic terrorism, said Kristi Hamrick, spokeswoman for American Values. "It's common knowledge that no other non-Jewish community in the country supports Israel as loyally and generously as do evangelicals," said Paul Hetrick, vice president of media relations for Focus on the Family.

But no matter. For the paranoid conspiracy theorist all this is just proof of the cleverness of the plot. Christians are lulling Jews into a false sense of trustworthiness before they treacherously spring the Final Solution upon them.

2004 Republican electoral successes and President Bush's faith-based initiatives have made some Jewish organizations nervous about evangelicals' ultimate aims. "It's absolutely an issue," said Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director of the Shalom Center in Philadelphia. They aren't using outright violence themselves," he said of the religious right. "But they are one step down from people who are ready to use the coercive powers of the state to impose their own religious outlook."

Don't ask for evidence for any of this. That would just be a sign that you've already been co-opted by the conspiracy and are probably even working for the evil Dr. Dobson and his holocaust-loving minions.

Here's what this sort of Jewish antipathy toward Christians is going to produce: Eventually, Christians are going to get weary of it and are going to ask themselves whether their support for Israel is really worth the constant threat of terrorism on our soil. Wouldn't it be easier to just abandon Israel to her enemies and take care of things at home, they'll wonder. When that day of decision comes, the attacks by Jewish leaders on American Christians are going to do absolutely nothing to incline those same Christians to hang tough with Israel. If this country ever walks away from its commitments to Israel the Israelis will be able to give a hefty thank you very much to the likes of Abraham Foxman.

None Dare Call it Treason

The Democrats insist on being the party of defeat and defeatism. Now they are bent on becoming the party of treason as well. Here's the party chairman Howard Dean:

Saying that the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong," Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean predicted today that the Democratic Party will come together on a proposal to withdraw National Guard and Reserve troops immediately, and all US forces within two years.

Dean made his comments in an interview on WOAI Radio in San Antonio.

"I've seen this before in my life. This is the same situation we had in Vietnam. Everybody then kept saying, 'just another year, just stay the course, we'll have a victory.' Well, we didn't have a victory, and this policy cost the lives of an additional 25,000 troops because we were too stubborn to recognize what was happening."

Dean says the Democrat position on the war is 'coalescing,' and is likely to include several proposals.

"I think we need a strategic redeployment over a period of two years," Dean said. "Bring the 80,000 National Guard and Reserve troops home immediately. They don't belong in a conflict like this anyway. We ought to have a redeployment to Afghanistan of 20,000 troops, we don't have enough troops to do the job there and its a place where we are welcome. And we need a force in the Middle East, not in Iraq but in a friendly neighboring country to fight (terrorist leader Musab) Zarqawi, who came to Iraq after this invasion. We've got to get the target off the backs of American troops.

Dean didn't specify which country the US forces would deploy to, but he said he would like to see the entire process completed within two years. He said the Democrat proposal is not a 'withdrawal,' but rather a 'strategic redeployment' of U.S. forces.

Imagine that you are an American soldier in Iraq and you hear the leader of the Democratic Party announce that there's no way you're going to win the fight you are engaged in. What effect do you suppose that would have on your morale? What would those words from one of your nation's key political leaders do to your will to fight and your willingness to risk your life one more day in Iraq?

Now imagine that you are an insurgent, a terrorist, and you hear the leader of the Democratic Party say that America can't win and that we need to commence an immediate pullout. What effect would that have on your determination to keep fighting at least until the 2006, and maybe the 2008, elections to see if they bring Democrats back to power. You know that if the Democrats regain political dominance they will quit the war, their leader has said as much. Would you not feel encouraged to stick it out, to keep killing Americans as long as you can, to see if the Democrats prevail?

Howard Dean is undermining our troops and encouraging the enemy. He's either committing treason or he's a fool. When will his party tire of his reckless and irresponsible bombast and show him the door?

Trying to Keep the Cat in the Bag

According to George V. Coyne: "In the third paragraph of his op-ed article in the NY Times, 7 July 2005, Cardinal Schoenborn mistakenly defines neo-Darwinian evolution as 'an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection' and then condemns it. If you arbitrarily define something in a condemning way and then condemn it, you make dialogue pretty difficult." [From circulated e-mail.]

Okay. Well, let's ask some questions of Mr. Coyne. Is he saying that evolution is actually guided and planned? What evolutionary mechanisms carry out this extraordinary task? What is it, exactly, in the Cardinal's definition that is incorrect? And what percentage of evolutionary biologists would disagree with the Cardinal's definition?

The fact of the matter is that unless there is an intelligent agent behind the origin and evolution of life it must perforce be unguided, unplanned and purposeless. There is nothing in the mechanisms of neo-Darwinian evolution that can foresee the future, that causes them to work toward some goal, or that follows some plan. Life is a product of fortuitous serendipity, according to the Darwinians, and for Coyne to complain because the Cardinal correctly identifies this as their position is rather odd.

Indeed, we wonder if Coyne complained when Elie Weisel drafted a letter signed by 38 Nobel Prize winners to protest attempts to insert ID into public schools in Kansas. In the letter the signatories state that "evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection." Was Mr. Coyne distressed over the difficulties the definition employed by these worthies posed for dialogue? We doubt it.

The reason Mr. Coyne objects to identifying this truth about Darwinian evolution, of course, is that he recognizes that this description removes evolution from the field of empirical science and places it squarely in the realm of metaphysics. As such, it's theoretical status is identical to that of intelligent design, and if this description, the description most biologists use for evolution, is allowed to be taught in public school classrooms, there can be no justification for excluding ID.

Shameful Gestures

That left-wing lawyer Ramsey Clark has never met an enemy of the United States that he didn't like, or a tyrant that he didn't fawn over, is a matter of historical record. Thus it comes as no surprise that this former attorney general under Lyndon Johnson has traveled to Iraq to help defend Saddam Hussein as he stands trial for numerous atrocities against his people.

Clark's supporters will insist, of course, that everyone deserves a fair trial, but it doesn't follow that someone who has a decent respect for mankind and a sympathy for all the grieving family members Hussein has left in his murderous wake should go so far out of his way to insure it himself. Nor does it mean that Clark should feel the need to show deference and respect for a man whose crimes are universally acknowledged and beyond all reasonable doubt. Indeed, Clark has even tacitly admitted that Saddam is guilty of the crime he is presently defending himself against. Yet that's the sort of person Ramsey Clark is. For him, evil, if it is in the cause of opposing the United States, deserves respect:

At the start of Monday's [trial] session, Saddam walked into the court with a smile, carrying a copy of the Quran and greeted everyone there. Most of the defendants and several of the defense lawyers, including Clark, al-Dulaimi and al-Nueimi, stood up out of respect when Saddam walked in.

Ramsey Clark has disgraced himself with this gesture and has embarrassed all those who have considered him over the years to be a champion of human rights. For more evidence indicting Clark's character read Christopher Hitchens' piece here.

Short Stories

Joe Carter's latest contribution to cultural literacy is a list of his twenty five all-time favorite short stories. Here are his selections:

1. Flannery O'Connor, Parker's Back (The last story [of] Flannery O'Connor is the first in my estimation of great short stories.)

2. Leo Tolstoy, Three Questions

3. Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

4. Frank Stockton, The Lady or the Tiger?

5. Ambrose Bierce, An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge

6. W. W. Jacobs, The Monkey's Paw

7. Stephen Vincent Benet, The Devil and Daniel Webster

8. George Saunders, Pastoralia

9. Jonathan Lethem, Hardened Criminals(A strange tale that describes a prison whose walls are made entirely out of convicts.)

10. Flannery O'Connor, Good Country People (A Cinderella story -- Southern Gothic style)

11. Ring Lardner, Haircut

12. Shusaku Endo, The Final Martyrs (A great tale of cowardly regret by one of Japan's greatest Christian writers.)

13. Ernest Hemingway, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place

14. Thom Jones, The Pugilist at Rest

15. Franz Kafka, A Hunger Artist

16. Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

17. Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Birth-mark

18. James Thurber, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

19. Shirley Jackson, The Lottery (One of the best examples of an undderrated genre: Horror.)

20. Jack London, To Build A Fire

21. Richard Connell, The Most Dangerous Game

22. John Cheever, The Swimmer (On first reading this story I could see what all the fuss was about. But years later I still can't forget the haunting ending.)

23. Flannery O'Connor, Good A Man Is Hard To Find

24. George Saunders, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline

25. Jonathan Lethem, The Happy Man (The soul of the main character in this strange story makes occasional visits to hell. His body, though, remains behind in a zombie-like state to be cared for by his exhaustively patient family. A peculiar, moving tale of speculative fiction by one of the best writers in America.)

I stand in awe of the extent of Carter's reading and his familiarity with films. I haven't read too many of the selections on this list myself, but almost anything written by Flannery O'Connor deserves to be on it.

Materialism, Muslims, and ID

Turkish writer Mustafa Akyol adds an interesting Islamic perspective to the Intelligent Design controversy at National Review Online. His whole essay is excellent, but these two paragraphs are particularly good:

From all this, one can see that the much-debated cultural gap between the West and the Muslim world is actually a two-sided coin: While the latter has some extremely conservative or radical elements that turn life into joyless misery, the former has extremely hedonistic and degenerate elements that turn life into meaningless profligacy. And if we look for a rapprochement between Westerners and Muslims, we again have to see both sides of the coin: While Muslim communities need reformers of culture that will save them from bigotry, the Western societies need redeemers of culture that will save them from materialism. Of course, the manifestations of the former (such as support for terrorism) are far more dangerous and intolerable than those of the latter, but as root causes, both must be acknowledged.

As the history of the cultural conflict between the modern West and Islam shows, ID can also be a bridge between these two civilizations. The first bricks of that bridge are now being laid in the Islamic world. In Turkey, the current debate over ID has attracted much attention in the Islamic media. Islamic newspapers are publishing translations of pieces by the leading figures of the ID movement, such as Michael J. Behe and Phillip E. Johnson. The Discovery Institute is praised in their news stories and depicted as the vanguard in the case for God, and President Bush's support for ID is gaining sympathy. For many decades the cultural debate in Turkey has been between secularists who quote modern Western sources and Muslims who quote traditional Islamic sources. Now, for the first time, Muslims are discovering that they share a common cause with the believers in the West. For the first time, the West appears to be the antidote to, not the source of, the materialist plague.

It's worth taking the time to read the whole piece.

Pouting Pundits of Pessimism

Bryan Westbury has a piece in the WSJ that those Bush critics who say that he is presiding over "the worst economy ever," etc. etc. should find embarrassing, but won't. Here are just a few of the highlights:

During a quarter century of analyzing and forecasting the economy, I have never seen anything like this. No matter what happens, no matter what data are released, no matter which way markets move, a pall of pessimism hangs over the economy.

It is amazing. Everything is negative. When bond yields rise, it is considered bad for the housing market and the consumer. But if bond yields fall and the yield curve narrows toward inversion, that is bad too, because an inverted yield curve could signal a recession.

If housing data weaken, as they did on Monday when existing home sales fell, well that is a sign of a bursting housing bubble. If housing data strengthen, as they did on Tuesday when new home sales rose, that is negative because the Fed may raise rates further. If foreigners buy our bonds, we are not saving for ourselves. If foreigners do not buy our bonds, interest rates could rise. If wages go up, inflation is coming. If wages go down, the economy is in trouble.

This onslaught of negative thinking is clearly having an impact. During the 2004 presidential campaign, when attacks on the economy were in full force, 36% of Americans thought we were in recession. One year later, even though unemployment has fallen from 5.5% to 5%, and real GDP has expanded by 3.7%, the number who think a recession is underway has climbed to 43%.

The trade deficit was supposed to cause a collapse in the dollar; but the dollar is up 10% versus the euro in the past eight months. The budget deficit was supposed to push up interest rates; yet the 10-year Treasury yield, at 4.5%, is well below its 2000 average yield of 6% when the U.S. faced surpluses as far as the eye could see.

Sharp declines in consumer confidence and rising oil prices were supposed to hurt retail sales; but holiday shopping is strong. Many fear that China is stealing our jobs, but new reports suggest that U.S. manufacturers are so strong that a shortage of skilled production workers has developed. And since the Fed started hiking interest rates 16 months ago, 3.5 million new jobs and $750 billion in additional personal income have been created. Stocks are also up, which according to pundits was unlikely as long as the Fed was hiking rates.

One key reason the U.S. economy has outperformed other industrialized nations, and exceeded its long-run average growth rate during the past two years, is the tax cut of 2003. By reducing taxes on investment, the U.S. boosted growth, which in turn created new jobs that replace those that are lost as the old economy dies.

Tax cuts! How can they work? They just increase the deficit, or so we've been told by those who oppose tax cuts because they can't stand to see the wealthy get to hold onto their ill-gotten booty.

It's astonishing that Bush inherited an economy that was going into recession and was subsequently punched in the face by 9/11, war, oil price rises, Katrina, Rita, and a host of lesser jabs, and yet it's still chugging right along producing jobs and goods. No wonder the Democrats are up in arms over reports that the military planted a few stories in Iraqi newspapers. That's about all they have to complain about and complain they must. It's in their blood.

The Solution

The solution to the Intelligent Design/ evolution controversy in our public schools, according to Andrew Coulson of the Cato Institute, is school choice. Read his argument here.

Bashing Fundies With Public Money

You may have heard that the University of Kansas was initiating a course to be taught by the chairman of their religious studies department who is, of course, an atheist. The class was intended to be a parody of Intelligent Design and creationism - as if having an atheist chair the religious studies department isn't parody enough for one university - with a rollicking assault on students' religious beliefs thrown in. Denis Boyles captures the flavor of the course and the professor who proposed it in an article in National Review Online:

Personally, I think it's a good thing that universities are finally being used for satire rather than self-parody, and on this point I appear to agree with the chairman of KU's religious-studies department, Paul Mirecki, and the campus group he mentors, the 120-member "Society of Open-minded Atheists and Agnostics" - a.k.a. SOMA.

Mirecki announced plans earlier this month to teach "the fundies" - as he referred to his theological enemies - a lesson by offering a course called "Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies." The course announcement was instantly picked up by AP, CNN, and a bunch of daily papers and TV stations across the country. "The KU faculty has had enough," Mirecki told reporters with gusto.

Conservatives were irate, of course, but universities - well, what can you do? The class would have passed into the archive of goofy courses all colleges offer for whatever reason. However, Mirecki had made the strategic error of using SOMA's Yahoo usergroup to post his view that the purpose of the course was not education. It was theater:

"To my fellow damned," he wrote to the students, "Its [sic] true, the fundies have been wanting to get I.D. and creationism into the Kansas public schools, so I thought 'why don't I do it?' I will teach the class with several other lefty KU professors...The fundies want it all taught in a science class, but this will be a nice slap in their big fat face...I expect it will draw much media attention. The university public relations office will have a press release on it in a few weeks, I also have contacts at several regional newspapers.

The forum post was forwarded to an ad-hoc group of conservative Kansas bloggers and writers led by John Altevogt, a former Kansas City Star columnist and a political activist. Altevogt blew the whistle and the embarrassing post caused KU chancellor Bob Hemenway - a fervent backer of the course - to blink. Calling voters "fundies" wasn't helpful to a public university.

After nearly a week of backpedaling, Mirecki apologized for the statement: "I have always practiced my belief that there is no place for impertinence and name calling in a serious academic class," he wrote. "My words in the email do not represent my teaching philosophy or the style I use in class." The word "Mythologies" was dropped from the description. The chancellor said he would conducting a "review" of Mirecki's e-mail. The university insisted the show would go on.

But the cat was out of the bag. As Hemenway was telling reporters the course was "serious," Mirecki was telling readers of his SOMA list - at least until a few days ago apparently open to any who wished to join and read it - "This thing will be a hoot." Conservatives had set about conducting a review of their own, sorting through and circulating the rest of Mirecki's SOMA posts on the Internet, and they came away more concerned than ever. "These aren't just lighthearted messages," said Altevogt.

There's much more to the story, and indeed it gets better. It is astonishing, as Boyles' article informs us, that the entire religious studies department at Kansas is comprised of atheists and agnostics. As Boyles puts it, it's like having a bunch of David Dukes in the African-American Studies department. Paul Mirecki sounds like a pretty sorry excuse for a college professor although he's probably fairly typical of the left-wing genre.

Anyway, for the condign denouement of this sordid tale go here.

Keeping People Passive and Obedient

This sounds like it was written by someone in the scientific establishment talking about Neo-Darwinian evolution:

"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum." Noam Chomsky

Evolutionists remind us often that there's lots of disagreement among scientists with respect to the tempo and mode of evolutionary change and the extent to which mutation and genetic drift are acted upon by natural selection to bring about change. The debate is lively enough but conducted within strict limits. Only blind, unguided causes are allowed into the discussion.

The true believers passively accept the orthodox dogmas and meekly submit to them. As soon as someone seeks to add intelligence to the mix of mechanisms believed to explain living things, however, the cries of heresy ring out and stakes piled high with kindling are prepared. Any evidence that points within an arc of 180 degrees of a cosmic intelligence or a deity is excluded a priori. Evolutionists are not interested in truth wherever it may lie, they're interested in promoting a physicalist metaphysics whose truth they refuse to question.

Why Major in Philosophy?

In the course of my teaching I often encourage students to consider an undergraduate philosophy major because I believe that a study of the questions philosophers have addressed provides the most important background a thoughtful and intelligent student could acquire. Students often ask, though, what they can do with such a degree. My reply is that most majors don't do anything professionally with their degree but rather they find it excellent preparation for the sorts of careers they do choose to pursue. Employers in most occupations prefer to train their employees themselves in the skills they'll need, and most professions require graduate level work in a specific field. Philosophy prepares a student for well for either path.

A friend sent along a link to a post by Dr. Roy Clouser, author of the outstanding book The Myth of Religious Neutrality, and professor of philosophy at Trenton State College, in which he addresses these same questions. His post is entitled Why Major in Philosophy? and it contains a lot of good advice for a young high schooler or undecided undergrad who thinks they might enjoy philosophy but who isn't sure if it will prepare them for making a living. Clouser writes:

For most students arriving at college, philosophy is the one subject they've never had before so it's natural that it's one of the last they consider majoring in. It's also natural to wonder what the major is good for--after all, few people ever plan to be professional philosophers! Yet, year after year, students switch their major to philosophy, and others tell us they wish they'd discovered it sooner so they could have done so.

What these students discovered - surprising as it sounds - is that philosophy is the single most useful major in the entire undergraduate curriculum! (Yes, useful!)

It's true, of course, that not many people become professional philosophers. But neither do most history majors become historians or English majors go on to become novelists. The fact is that most students don't pick a major because they plan to make their living in that field. They choose a major based on their interests and on how well it will prepare them for the widest possible number of occupations after college. If you are deciding that way too, we can say this for certain: If you have the interest, philosophy is best possible major - hands down.

Let me explain.

Philosophy deals with theories about the most basic beliefs and values that people have. These include topics like the nature of reality and human nature, the nature and sources of knowledge and morality, the proper structure for society and government, and the nature of religious belief. It also studies theories about the nature of science, art, language, and law. In this way, every philosophy major is exposed to the most influential interpretations of the most important issues people face across the entire spectrum of human experience.

But more than simply learning about these issues, philosophy includes a keen training in logic and critical thinking - in the ability to argue and debate the truth of the various theories and viewpoints that are studied. It sharpens one's ability to spot difficulties, pose questions, and to weigh the evidence for and against the reasons given for any view on any topic. (A bank V.P. once told me that his logical training was the most valuable thing he got in his entire undergraduate education - even more valuable than his business courses.)

Even from this short description you may be able to see why a philosophy major is the best possible background for anyone who wants to deal with the public or who wants to write - whether as a novelist, or news reporter. It is also the very best major for those thinking of pursuing any sort of career in religion. And it should come as no surprise that law schools consider it the best background for the Law SAT and a career in law. (Speaking of standardized tests, the highest GRE scores consistently come from three majors: math, physics, and philosophy.)

But there's more. It seems that a solid background in the influential viewpoints over a wide range of issues, and an ability to think logically about them, is also splendid training for a career in business according to several top business schools. But what may be most surprising of all is that the records of some of the best medical schools show philosophy as the undergraduate major of some of their most outstanding alumni!

So, if you have doubts about the major that's best for you - especially if you are presently an undeclared major - why not make an appointment at the philosophy department to talk over your interests with one of our faculty? Philosophy might, at least, be the ideal minor subject for you even if you decide not to major in it.

I offer only one caveat. Philosophy departments, like departments in any of the humanities, often are loaded with instructors who favor a particular school or style of philosophy. Some of these styles may be deadly dull to students who expect their philosophy experience to be an exciting intellectual excursion into the best that's been thought and written about life's most important questions. The student who wants to major in philosophy would do well to check out what approach the department is inclined toward before committing him or herself to majoring in it.

Sudden Death

Proving once again that terrorism is a tough way to make a living, the CIA has just sent al Qaeda's number three head-chopper off to enjoy his seventy two virgins:

Al-Qaeda's third-ranking leader has been killed by a missile fired by an American drone in Pakistan, near the Afghan border, NBC television news reported yesterday.

Egyptian-born Abu Hamza Rabia, who is said to head al-Qaeda's international operations, was among five people killed in a blast at a house where they were hiding in North Waziristan on Thursday. President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan confirmed Rabia's death yesterday.

Quoting unnamed officials, NBC said Rabia was killed by a missile launched from an unmanned Predator drone controlled by the US Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA would not comment. Tribal witnesses in Pakistan said a "hail of missiles" struck the mud house in the village of Haisori. Other witnesses told NBC that missile remnants bearing US markings remain in the area. They also said they had heard six explosions, but it is uncertain how many of these were the result of missile attacks and how many may have been explosives detonating inside the house.

Rabia, in his 30s, took over al-Qaeda's number three spot, behind Osama bin Laden and his Egyptian deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, after the capture of Abu Faraj Farj al-Liby in Pakistan in May, said US and Pakistani security officials.

"Rabia's international portfolio included planning attacks against the United States," said a US official, adding that his death would be a serious blow for al-Qaeda. Rabia was involved in two attempts on President Musharraf's life two years ago and security forces had been hunting him for some time.

The life expectancy of middle and upper management in the terrorist ranks has dropped in the last six months to about four weeks. This is not a very reassuring statistic for those aspiring to move up the organizational ladder. Try to imagine what it must be like for these ambitious young jihadis who, after retiring for the evening, every evening, must lay in bed wondering whether there is even now a missile headed straight for their bedroom window. It must make for a fitful night's sleep no matter where in the world they try to take their rest. Every unexpected noise, every rustle of the wind, must rouse them awake with a start. And you thought sleep apnea would be an insufferable affliction. What these guys have to endure must be pure psychological hell.

It just occured to us: Would the threat of sudden death count as cruel and inhuman treatment under the McCain amendment?

Adopting the French Strategy

The editors at National Review Online have treated us to this clarifying portrait of the Democrats' strategy and good advice as to how President Bush should respond:

One of the most stirring lines from Bush's Iraq speech the other day was his vow, "America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins so long as I am your commander-in-chief." In his response to the speech, John Kerry denounced the line as an attack on a straw man: "No one has ever suggested or believes that we should run in the face of car bombers or assassins." Oh, really? Almost simultaneously on Capitol Hill, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was endorsing Rep. John Murtha's call for an immediate pullout and vouchsafing that most of his fellow House Democrats support it too. And so the balance of the Democratic party is swinging behind the very position that John Kerry says no one supports.

The battle lines are being drawn with increasing clarity on Iraq. More and more Democrats will give up on their former posture of denouncing Bush's handling of the war without offering any real alternative of their own, and instead forthrightly enunciate their own favored policy: quitting. There is a kind of honor in this - at least it is the position many of them have always believed in. But it is their shame that it has taken a dip in support for the war in the polls for them finally to be frank about it.

This is a debate that Bush can win. He will have to remain fully engaged in it, not letting his attention lapse as it has at various times over the last year. Yesterday's speech was an impressive entry into the debate, the sort of explanation and argument Bush will have to repeat again and again. It was specific. It admitted errors, which it would be pointless to try to deny. It emphasized that Bush's resolve doesn't mean a lack of flexibility in tactics. And it made clear his continued determination to achieve victory.

Cogent speeches, however, can only go so far. There is no substitute for progress on the ground in Iraq. That requires a coordinated political-military strategy, and the administration has one. It is a sign of how badly the rhetorical fight has been going that the "no strategy" meme has gotten the traction it has. The administration is working to keep the political process on track to create a legitimate, permanent Iraqi government; forge a national reconciliation that limits Sunni disaffection; train Iraqi forces so that they can take over security functions from us. Not only is this a strategy, in its broad outlines it is the only strategy that makes any sense. Even a persistent critic like Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria says this strategy is making headway in Iraq.

All that said, the American public probably won't be convinced that we are making progress until we begin to draw down American troops. This creates a temptation for the administration to engage in a wishful evaluation of the state of Iraq to justify troop withdrawals. It should be resisted. The strategic gains we have made in Iraq have been bought with too much blood and treasure to give them back in the hopes of winning a bump in the polls here at home. But there is a confluence of both American and Iraqi domestic politics on the question of American troop levels - it will help the political situation in both countries to have fewer U.S. troops in Iraq, so long as the reductions are justified by conditions and not made according to an artificial timetable that will only encourage our enemy.

America now has two choices before it: attempting to see the war through, or running from car bombers and assassins. Bush has staked his claim, and so have the Pelosi Democrats. The battle is joined.

The Dems are gravitating toward their natural place, having put into motion what might be called the French/Dem Strategy: When the going gets tough, the Dems, like the French, quit and get out. Murtha and Pelosi are the vanguard. Most of the rest will join them as soon as they think it is politically safe to do so. This is the same party, ironically, that once claimed the allegiance of John F. Kennedy, author of a book titled Profiles in Courage.

A Time For Compassion, Not Ridicule

Although mean-speak is almost exclusively a province of way-far lefties who call for soldiers to train their guns on their officers and who say the vilest things about their political opponents (whom they see as "enemies"), sometimes even fine people succumb to the temptation to cross the line with their rhetoric. We hope the good folks at Le Sabot Post-Moderne would reconsider the wording of this post on the Christian Protest Team members who have been kidnapped in Iraq and who are threatened with death by their captors. They write:

In an ideal world, active treason would have consequences. For example, take Americans and Brits who go to a war zone and "work against" the American and British troops fighting and dying there. In a perfect world, really bad things would happen to such people. Well, sometimes the world can be downright ideal.

This is the truly amazing part about these chuckleheads. . . They went there to collaborate with the bad guys. The Islamists in turn kidnapped them and are threatening to kill them.

Whatever CPT's motives for being in Iraq, the kidnap victims should receive our compassion rather than our scorn. These are people who are doubtless quite frightened and who have families which must be beside themselves with worry for their loved ones. We should be praying for their rescue rather than gloating over their foolishness and naivet�.

We agree with Le Sabot Post-Moderne that CPT's presence in Iraq is unhelpful and perhaps even a hindrance, but this moment calls for Christians to express our love, not our judgment.

Even harsher is the language used at this site. It's not so much the sentiments or even the words chosen to express them that are offensive, but rather the circumstances under which the sentiments are voiced. When the lives of people hang in the balance Christians, it would seem, have an obligation to show that we care more about the people themselves than we do about their ideology.

Recognizing Willful Stupidity

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost has begun a series of posts on how not to argue. His first recommendation is to avoid hyperbole because it just makes you sound stupid. He says this about the use of gross exaggerations in an argument:

An example of a rule of thumb that I find to be particularly useful in helping to avoid problems is to avoid, whenever possible, willfully stupid people. Intelligence is, of course, a relative concept and everyone (except for the World's Smartest Person) is just a little less bright than someone else. Willful stupidity, however, is distinct from IQ because it consists of a moral failing: Choosing to be dumber than you have to be.

One way to recognize a willfully stupid person is to examine the role hyperbole plays in their rhetoric. Take, for example, those who, like Pulitzer-nominated author Stephen Pizzo, say that "George Bush is the worst president of the United States of America, ever. Hands down." Whenever I encounter such people I walk the other way for fear that such stupidity might be contagious. For anyone to make such a claim would require a basic understanding of Presidential history, an objective standard for comparing other Presidents to George W, and an ability to make nuanced judgments. In other words, it requires the very skill set that would generally prevent a person from making such an inane claim in the first place.

(I should note that this is not just a failing of left-leaning progressives. Willful stupidity is certainly not a partisan issue; we heard the same sort of claims about Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. The only difference is that Bush became President during the Age of the Blogosphere when the effects of echo-chamber ranting became more pronounced.)

The problem with making such a hyperbolic claim is that such exaggerations are not meant to be taking seriously. When the person who makes them treats them as if it were a rational claim then it shows that they themselves are not worthy of being taken seriously.

[If you're] inclined to disagree with this particular rule of thumb....I recommend you consider how you apply it in your own life. Think of the people whose analysis and judgment you most trust, the ones you consider to be sober and scrupulous thinkers. Now think of the people who are most prone to exaggeration and to making comments that amplify certain aspects out of proportion to reality. I suspect that, like me, you won't find much overlap between the two groups.

Good advice. We always thought that people who use wild and crazy exaggerations in their arguments were the dumbest people ever. Hands down.