What Is Truth?

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air notes that Obama told at least three whoppers during last night's debate. He denied having launched his political career with Bill Ayers' help, he denied having given $800,000 to ACORN, and he misrepresented the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act which he voted against.

Morrissey has details at the link if you'd like to check them out.

For my part, I'm a little reluctant to call Obama a liar, as Morrissey does, but I'm beginning to think that his problem (and thus ours) runs even deeper than lying. I'm beginning to think that Obama has a very pragmatic, Rortian view of truth. In this view, if a particular fact is unpleasant or inconvenient or impedes achieving the goals one has set for oneself then it's simply not a fact. It's not true for him. Truth is what works and obviously the sorts of claims that McCain was making about Obama's association with terrorist Bill Ayers, his support for ACORN, an organization which is being investigated all across the country for voter registration fraud, and his vote on the BAIP act, which is essentially a vote to permit infanticide, are not helpful to his candidacy. Thus he's able to persuade himself, and say with a straight face, that such claims are not "true", they're not "facts".

Truth, according to the late philosopher Richard Rorty, is whatever your peer group will let you get away with saying. Obviously, Obama's peer group of radical leftists, socialists and media liberals have no problem with what he says and thus tacitly validate his claims. The truth for him as well as for many of those who want to see him attain the presidency is simply not the same as what is true for his critics. Therefore, his denial of the facts McCain cites is probably not technically a lie since he believes he's telling the "truth", or at least what's true for him.

I don't know, then, that it's quite accurate to call Obama a liar, a charge I deem to be very serious in any event, but he certainly does appear to be epistemically challenged.

RLC

Hiding in the Tall Grass

Senator Obama and his allies are fond of laying the blame for the subprime lending fiasco at the feet of Republican fondness for deregulation, but although a supine MSM has largely let him get away with this misrepresentation of the historical truth, Peter Wallison at The Wall Street Journal does not.

In a column that deserves to be read in its entirety because it sets the record straight on several mythical elements of the Democrats' campaign narrative, Wallison says this:

In the summer of 2005, a bill (co-sponsored by Senator McCain) emerged from the Senate Banking Committee that considerably tightened regulations on Fannie and Freddie, including controls over their capital and their ability to hold portfolios of mortgages or mortgage-backed securities. All the Republicans voted for the bill in committee; all the Democrats voted against it. To get the bill to a vote in the Senate, a few Democratic votes were necessary to limit debate. This was a time for the leadership Sen. Obama says he can offer, but neither he nor any other Democrat stepped forward.

Instead, by his own account, Mr. Obama wrote a letter to the Treasury Secretary, allegedly putting himself on record that subprime loans were dangerous and had to be dealt with. This is revealing; if true, it indicates Sen. Obama knew there was a problem with subprime lending -- but was unwilling to confront his own party by pressing for legislation to control it. As a demonstration of character and leadership capacity, it bears a strong resemblance to something else in Sen. Obama's past: voting present.

Not willing to buck his party's leadership the senator refused to do the right thing. Instead he laid low, hiding in the political tall grass. His behavior in this episode displayed neither leadership nor political courage. Indeed, Senator Obama has never done anything to evince either of these virtues yet somehow he has managed to persuade a majority of American voters that he has both of them in abundance.

Is it that we are gullible, naive, or stupid? Or are we all three?

RLC

Voting for Change

A friend passed along this thought:

George Bush has been in office for just under eight years. For the first of them the economy was pretty good. For example, a little over one year ago:

• Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high
• Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon
• The unemployment rate was 4.5%
• The DOW hit a record 14,000+
• Americans were buying new cars, taking cruises, overseas vacations overseas, etc.

But we wanted change. So, in 2006 we voted in a Democratic Congress. Since then:

• Consumer confidence has plummeted
• Gasoline rose to over $4 a gallon
• Unemployment rose to 6.1% (a 10% increase)
• Americans have seen their home equity drop by $12 trillion dollars and prices are still dropping
• 1% of American homes are in foreclosure
• The DOW is below 8500. $2.5 trillion dollasrs has evaporated from stocks, bonds, mutual funds and other investment portfolios

The president has no control over any of this. Only Congress could have done anything to prevent it but Congress has been preoccupied with trying to find Bush administration officials that they can put in jail.

In 2006 America voted for change and we got it.

Now Barack Obama promises that he is going to deliver real change.

Just how much more change can we stand?

RLC

Without God (I)

Among the indictments of religious believers recently registered by skeptics such as the coterie of anti-theists lead by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, et al. is that belief in God is at best irrational and at worst pernicious. Theism is all faith and no evidence, the believer is condescendingly assured, but should a theist try to pin down his antagonist and ask him exactly what he means by "evidence", it often turns out that the word is being employed as a synonym for "proof."

Well, of course there's no proof that there is a personal God, as if God's existence were the conclusion of a deductive syllogism, but that's hardly a reason not to believe that one exists. We have proof for very little of what we believe about the world, yet we don't hold our beliefs less firmly for that.

The skeptic's claim that there's no evidence for God and that theistic belief is thus irrational is, ironically, the reverse of the truth. It is actually, in my view, more rational to believe that a personal transcendent creator of the universe exists than to disbelieve it. Moreover, if what I will argue in this series of posts over the next week or two is correct, the logical consequences of atheism turn out to be psychically and politically toxic.

Indeed, though it may come as a surprise to some readers, almost all the evidence that counts on one side or the other of the question of belief in God rests more comfortably on the side of the believer. This is because almost every relevant fact about the world, and every existential characteristic of the human condition, makes more sense when viewed in the light of theism than it does on the assumption of atheism.

Put differently, the conclusion that theism is true is what philosophers call an inference to the best explanation. I don't mean to suggest that there are no facts about the world that militate against the existence of God - there are, of course. The existence of evil is the most troubling example. Nor do I mean to suggest that atheism can offer no account at all of the facts of human existence that I discuss in what follows. Perhaps it can. I only argue that on the assumption of atheism the facts are more difficult to explain, in some cases exceedingly so, than they are on the assumption of theism. If that is the case, it follows that it's more reasonable to believe that the explanation for them is the existence of a personal God.

The first of these facts, then, is our intuitive conviction that the universe must have had a cause and that it didn't cause itself. The universe is contingent, or seems to be. It's therefore prima facie reasonable to think that the universe's existence depends upon something beyond itself, something which transcends space and time. It's possible, perhaps, that the universe somehow created itself, but that seems both counter-intuitive and ad hoc.

Many atheists tell us that the existence of the universe is just a brute fact and that nothing is gained by positing a Creator since the Creator itself requires an explanation. As Del Ratzsch points out, however, this sort of reply, as common as it is, is not very compelling. He invites us to consider an analogy to the discovery on Mars of a perfect ten-meter cube of pure titanium. Most people would think that the cube was produced by aliens and would regard the cube as virtual proof that aliens existed. Suppose, though, that there are those who deny either the existence or relevance of aliens, claiming that the cube is just there - a brute fact of nature. Suppose, too, that when pressed for some further explanation, their reply was to point out that the advocates of the alien theory had no clue as to where the aliens came from or how they had manufactured the cube and that until they can offer some account of the aliens the skeptic is under no obligation to believe they exist. Most reasonable people would think that the inability to say anything much about the aliens doesn't count at all against the theory that intelligent agents were responsible for the cube nor does it mean that the alien theory is on philosophical par with the brute fact theory. The existence of an intelligent alien manufacturer of the cube would be a reasonable inference and would seem to be the most plausible explanation even if it could not be proven.

Likewise, given the contingency of the universe, the existence of a transcendent cause responsible for the universe is a reasonable inference. The alternatives, that the universe is eternal or that the universe brought itself into being, are possible but scientifically and philosophically no more compelling, and perhaps much less so, than the view that the universe had a transcendent cause.

More tomorrow.

RLC

Ghost Writer

Jack Cashill at The American Thinker does a literary analysis of Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father and draws two interesting conclusions: Obama didn't write it and Bill Ayers probably did. If Cashill's correct, and he seems to have done some homework, the finding is significant. First, Senator Obama's reputation for intellectual brilliance is predicated largely on the grace and style of Dreams, and, secondly, it gives the lie to the senator's claim that he didn't have a very close relationship with Ayers.

The circumstantial evidence that Cashill amasses is, by his own admission, not dispositive, but it's much more than merely suggestive. Read his case for yourself and make your own judgment.

RLC

Only Eight

How many times will we have to hear that Obama was only eight years old when Bill Ayers committed his crimes before someone asks what that has to do with anything? No one thinks that Obama participated in Ayers bombings so why does his age at the time they happened matter? Would it be exculpatory if someone friendly with German nazi war criminals during the 1960s was only eight when the crimes were committed? Would we be saying that it doesn't matter that the man associated with nazis decades later since he was only eight when the nazis were perpetrating their evil?

It's an indication of the weakness of the case that is made in Obama's defense that he and his supporters have to grasp at such an inane and irrelevant excuse.

Meanwhile, the candidate pretty much admits he's a Marxist socialist:

From each according to his ability. To each according to his need.

RLC

Prelude to <i>Without God</i>

Recently, I wrote a trio of posts titled Hurtling Toward the Cliff in response to an article by physicist Stephen Weinberg titled Without God. Over the course of the next two weeks or so I'd like to elaborate on this theme in a series of posts which will examine a number of facts about the world and human existence and consider these facts in the light of both atheism and theism. The series will borrow for its title Weinberg's Without God.

It'll be my contention in the series that theism offers a far superior account of these facts, that it makes better sense of them, than does atheism and that the theistic view of the world is therefore more intellectually satisfying and more rational than is it's opposite. Seventeen facts or phenomena about the world and human life will be considered:

1. The fact that the universe had a beginning
   
2. The fact of cosmic design
   
3. The fact of biological information
   
4. The fact of human consciousness
   
5. The joy we experience in an encounter of beauty
   
6. The fact that we believe our reason to be reliable
   
7. Our sense that we have free will
   
8. Our desire for answers to life's deepest questions
   
9. Our sense of moral obligation
   
10. Our sense of guilt
    
11. Our belief in human dignity
    
12. Our belief in human worth
    
13. Our belief that there are basic human rights
    
14. Our desire for justice
    
15. Our need for meaning and purpose
    
16. Our belief that we have an enduring self
    
17. Our desire to survive our own death
    

In what follows it will be argued that theism provides an easier, more comfortable explanation for each of the above than does atheism. When taken together they add up to a powerful case for the proposition that it's eminently reasonable to believe that a personal mind, a mind similar to that imputed to the God of Christian theism, undergirds the world.

The first installment of the argument will be posted tomorrow.

RLC

More on the Right to Health Care

A few days ago I made the comment that Senator Obama's view that people have a fundamental right to health care/insurance strikes me as ill-considered. A couple of readers thought this sounded a bit callous and uncompassionate, but I think it's Obama's view, though no doubt well intentioned, that is the less compassionate. Here are a few reasons why:

1) A right held by one person entails an obligation owed by another. By conferring a right to health care on one person we obligate everyone else, including others who may be struggling to make ends meet, to fork over even more of their income to the person with the right. In other words, we give people who may or may not be in genuine need a claim on your wallet. That may seem compassionate to the recipient, but it's decidedly uncompassionate to the person who must hand over his purse rather than be allowed to use his resources to help his own family.

2) When someone feels they have a right to receive a benefit from the state it stifles gratitude. They expect the taxpayer to pay up, indeed they come to believe they're owed the benefit and are aggrieved if the taxpayer resists. Rather than fostering gratitude for the sacrifice others make on their behalf the right cultivates instead a sense of entitlement in the recipient.

3) Since a right to health care puts the taxpayer in relation to the recipient like a debtor stands in relation to the person he owes, the taxpayer tends quite naturally to feel resentful at the transfer of his resources to people who demand that he do so. This not only serves to foster bitterness between classes but, to the extent that the classes break along racial lines, it nurtures a seething racial animosity.

4) When people feel the government owes them a benefit it stifles their initiative. People who know that others will provide for their needs are much less motivated to work to provide them for themselves. If we didn't learn anything else from Lyndon Johnson's Great Society programs we should have at least learned that dependency destroys the work ethic.

5) When charity becomes a government function it harms the church. Churches which have robust charitable ministries are often strong and vibrant, but churches which have had their outreach to their communities co-opted by the state often grow flaccid, weak, and cold. Charity should be the role of the church and people should turn first to churches when they're in need of help. Churches are then in a position to help these people not only with financial assistance but also to teach them how to manage money, how to parent, and instruct them in many other of the virtues necessary to rise out of poverty. When the government takes over this role, however, recipients have no expectations placed upon them and thus often fail to rise above the station in life to which they were born.

Marvin Olasky's Tragedy of American Compassion should be required reading for anyone who thinks that government "compassion" is the only way, or even the best way, to help people.

RLC

Losing Faith

Edward Heathcote Amory of The Mail Online summarizes David Freddoso's book, The Case Against Barack Obama, and declares that it has disabused him of his infatuation with the Illinois senator. Somewhat amazingly, in light of what Amory reveals about Obama, he still hopes Obama wins. Oh well.

Read the column at the link. You'll learn some things about Obama you probably didn't know and they're not pretty.

RLC

Insane Rage

I don't know if you've been watching any of the talking-head shows lately, but there's been a lot of handwringing about how McCain and Palin are inciting mobs and stirring up hate and whatnot at their rallies. Yet, despite the terrible climate of "insane rage" that the Republicans have allegedly been fostering, no one who has made such allegations on any of these shows has been able to give a single example of anything either candidate has said that was inflammatory. In fact, as far as I'm aware, there was only one incident involving one person at one campaign event who shouted a single ugly remark, but this single episode has been amplified by the media to the point that a casual observer might think that Republican rallies are typically Nazi-like hate-fests.

Meanwhile, the media turns a completely blind eye to the "discourse" on the left which is frequently as vile and hateful, and far more common, than anything you would find coming out of a GOP rally. No Republican sounds anything remotely like Barack Obama's pastor, the racist hate-monger Jeremiah Wright. Nothing any Republican has said or done is remotely similar to the movies made about assassinating Bush or the ugly things said about Todd and Sarah Palin. The media ignores the threats, for instance, by Sandra Bernhard who describes the grisly fate that awaits Governor Palin if she shows up in Bernhard's city.

Michelle Malkin lays out many of the disgusting details of what has become an almost typically despicable discourse emanating from the American secular left.

The Democrats and their supporters in the blogosphere, of course, are trying to intimidate the Republicans into so softening their criticism of Obama that it does no damage. They want McCain to lob marshmallows at their candidate. By failing to give any balance or perspective to the reports of howling mobs of frenzied, spittle-spitting Republicans, the media is doing their part to help the cause.

The irony in this is that, if anything, McCain has been far too timid in his willingness to cast a probing eye on Obama's associations with Ayers, Rezko, Wright, Pfleger, et al. He seems willing to allow his opponents to dictate what is acceptable criticism and what isn't.

It reminds me of the time I watched a hawk swoop down and seize a chipmunk. Once the chipmunk was caught it didn't even struggle, it just acquiesced in its fate. McCain has been acting like the chipmunk caught in Obama's talons. If he's not going to fight he ought never to have run for the nomination.

RLC

Oomph

Ramirez captures the plight of the American taxpayer:

If taxpayers feel squashed by free-falling corporate CEOs just wait until Obama gets into the White House. His promise that no one making under $250,000 will see a tax increase is very hard to believe.

If the Obama plan is implemented taxes will go up on almost every business in the country which means that employees will be laid off and prices will rise. Being unemployed and having to pay more for goods is just as much a tax increase as is having to pay the tax directly to the government.

RLC

Tackling a Taboo

ESPN's Jemele Hill dares to rush in where more timorous observers fear to tread. In a column at ESPN's Page 2 she wonders about something that everyone knows, but few are willing to talk about - the dearth of white running backs in major college and pro football.

Hill considers both the possibility that the disparity between white and black at some positions is due to a kind of discrimination as well as the possibility that it's due to genetic advantage, but, though she doesn't seem persuaded of the former possibility, she seems shy about drawing the full conclusions from her speculations about the latter explanation.

The idea that white football players are excluded from playing running back (or corner back) because of discrimination is silly. If whites had the talent to play these positions they'd be in them. It seems obvious to anyone who has ever been involved in sports that the ratio of whites to blacks at positions requiring speed is due to a difference in physical endowment that is racially linked. Blacks of West African ancestry are simply better suited, by virtue of their genetic gifts, for sports that require running and jumping.

Hill's article quotes a researcher who draws the right conclusion but then moonwalks away from it by asserting that genetic endowment is not a matter of race but a matter of one's ancestral environment. For example, people who come from high altitude regions, this researcher opines, are better suited for sports involving endurance. This, however, is flummery. It's like arguing that the lack of melanin in whites is not due to their race but due to having descended from people living in northern Europe. Regardless of how a race of people came to have the genetic characteristics they do it's simply nonsense to think those traits are not linked to their race.

Indeed, we've become so fearful of talking about race in this country that we are loath, like the people called out to gaze upon the emperor's new clothes, to note obvious truths even when no one doubts them. This seems absurd, perhaps, but there's a reason for it, maybe even a good reason.

Hill doesn't push her speculations this far, but it seems likely that we shrink from talking about the physical advantages that blacks have in sports like football and basketball because there's a very distasteful inference lying just down the road. If the success of blacks in certain sports is due to physical superiority then the inability of whites to compete with them is due to physical (i.e. genetic) inferiority. If we're intrepid enough to follow this inquiry further we find ourselves forced by consistency to acknowledge that the paucity of blacks in other areas of endeavor, like the technical fields and sciences, suggests a general inability to compete intellectually that must also be genetic. If the physical inferiority of whites is genetic then there's no reason to think that intellectual inferiority is not also genetic.

This is such an unwelcome conclusion, fraught as it is with so many unpleasant sociological implications and so vulnerable to abuse, that most people think it's safer to just not bring the matter up, which is why so few people ever remark out loud on the complete absence of white running backs in the NFL.

Hill's article makes a couple of bows to political correctitude but is overall an interesting read. It's certainly unusual that someone would be willing to take on this topic. I wonder what the reaction to her article would be had it not been written by an African-American woman.

RLC

Five Million Illegal Mortgages

Here's encouraging news:

Some five million fraudulent home mortgages are in the hands of illegal aliens, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

It's not known how many of those have contributed to the subprime housing mortgage meltdown, but it has affected every state, including Arizona.

The problem began years ago when banks were forced to give mortgages without confirming social security numbers or borrower identification. As a result, illegal immigrants were able to obtain home mortgages which they could not afford.

One illegal alien was arrested this year in Tucson after allegedly using a stolen social security number to buy two homes and rack up over $780,000 in bad debt.

So, let me see if I have this right. Millions of people are losing their life savings in part because many illegal aliens, whose presence in this country, we were told, will boost our economy, were not required to have any credit standing or social security number.

Unlike the financial debacle, which can largely be laid at the feet of Democrats, the illegal alien mess is truly non-partisan. Few in Washington, including the president and both of his would-be successors, have any inclination to do much about it. Like Nero, our political leadership is content to fiddle while Rome burns.

And it is burning. Illegals are placing an enormous burden on our police, hospitals, schools and other tax-payer funded facilities, especially in the southwest. Illegals kill thousands of Americans every year either by murder or by automobile accidents. Now it seems they're also partly responsible for the mortgage mess for which the tax-payers also have to pay.

No presidential candidate who shrugs his shoulders when confronted by this onslaught deserves to president. Unfortunately, one of them will be. At least McCain is willing to build the fence along the border. Obama isn't even interested in doing that.

RLC

Idiots?

A while ago we noted that Democrats were dependent upon the least educated members of our society for their electoral success and thus shouldn't asperse the intelligence of Republicans. We received a bit of criticism after this post for suggesting that idealistic young community organizers would be so cynical as to deliberately seek to exploit the poor and uneducated for political purposes. Well, read this:

In a confidential internal memorandum obtained by Face The State, the Colorado Democracy Alliance outlines a roster of "operatives" who worked for Democratic victory in the 2006 general election. The document outlines specific tasks for various members of the state's liberal infrastructure, including a campaign to "educate the idiots," assigned to the state's AFL-CIO union. Among the operation's intended targets: "minorities, GED's, drop-outs."

Individuals named in the document, marked "CONFIDENTIAL," "for internal use only," and "DO NOT DISTRIBUTE," are high-level elected Democrats including House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, former Senate President Joan Fitz-Gerald, as well as Gov. Bill Ritter's press aide and former campaign chief Evan Dreyer. All are specially marked as "off-the-record or covert."

It's interesting that these "progressives" regard their electoral base as "idiots". That's the same language that Lenin used to describe the people who swallowed communist propaganda and wrote favorably of the communist revolution in newspapers and magazines. Lenin reportedly referred to them as "useful idiots".

Read the whole report and you find nuggets like this which indicate that the agenda of the Colorado Democracy Alliance is not dissimilar from Lenin's:

Laurie Hirschfeld Zeller, the newly installed executive director of CoDA, explains her organization's mission. "Our job is to build a long-term progressive infrastructure in Colorado while we're conceding nothing in the short term in terms of progressive goals at the ballot box."

The Bell Policy Center, a liberal think tank involved with CoDA, was praised for its work fighting to dismantle Colorado's Taxpayer's Bill of Rights. She characterized Colorado's constitutional requirement for voter approval of tax increases as "arcane."

In the opinion of this left-wing progressive woman it's "arcane" to allow taxpayers to decide through the ballot whether they will be taxed and by how much. In other words, for her and others who share her ideological outlook representative, democratic government and political freedom is outdated and obsolete.

Liberals and Progressives, like the old Soviets, use words like "democracy" as code. What they mean by it is what the rest of us mean by "tyranny".

RLC

How to Steal an Election

CNN's Drew Griffin is doing some of the best investigative journalism of this election cycle. He's looked into the allegations of voter registration fraud against ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) and shares his findings with Campbell Brown:

The "good" news is that ACORN is active in all of the battleground states. Good luck Senator McCain.

RLC

Klunky Comparison

Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC were gleeful the other evening over a video (see below) which shows an Obama spokesperson named Robert Gibbs making an inept comparison between Obama's association with uncontrite terrorist Bill Ayers and Hannity's association with some unsavory guests on his show.

Apparently, Olbermann and Maddow think that somehow Gibbs' attempt to show that Hannity's asociation with his guests is no different than Obama's association with Ayers is successful, but it seems to me that a child could distinguish between the cases. Obama was allegedly friends, or at least friendly, with Ayers, they were exchanging e-mails and phone calls up to 2005. They are ideologically sympatico. Hannity is not connected to his more odious guests in any way except as an interviewer. How the two cases could justify the sort of snide contempt at which Olbermann is so adept is beyond me.

Take a look for yourself (first four minutes):

HT: Hot Air

RLC

Lieberman Dishes and Disses

Every conservative's favorite liberal senator, Joe Lieberman, has some thoughts on Barack Obama, the Democratic party, and his future in it:

Sen. Barack Obama's "na�ve" world view could embolden America's enemies during one of the most dangerous periods for America since the 1930s, U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman told Newsmax in an exclusive television sit-down interview Tuesday.

Lieberman, visiting Fort Lauderdale, Fla., also told Newsmax that he is so disappointed with the Democratic Party, he will consider whether to bolt the Democratic Senate caucus next session.

"I believe he's na�ve to think that people like [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad and Tehran will somehow become America's friends by talking to them - a warm embrace and a cup of tea. It's not going to work that way," said Lieberman.

In a wide-ranging interview, Lieberman also said:

� It's important for the political process to question Obama's ties to former Weather Underground bomber Bill Ayers: "I think these are very fair questions and it's now up to Senator Obama to answer them."

� Barack Obama is clearly 'not ready' yet to be commander in chief, and the country's adversaries, including Iran "will not fear him" if he were to become president.

� McCain should tout his economic plan that will emphasize tax cuts and job creation - exactly what a troubled economy needs. He said it would be foolhardy to raise taxes in a recession, as Obama has promised.

� The Republicans must emphasize that his plan for energy independence will create "hundreds of thousands, I think millions of new jobs."

"The Democratic Party of today is not the Democratic Party that I joined in the '60s under my hero President Kennedy, and it's not the Democratic Party of my dear friend Bill Clinton," Lieberman said.

You can read the whole thing at the link.

RLC

Day Labor

It might soon come to this:

RLC

The One

Alpha and Omega? Are these young men in their camouflage pants and military style drill arrogating to Obama the title by which God describes himself in Revelation 21:6?

Fascism often begins with paramilitary groups indoctrinating their members in a cult of personality. But fascism is not just paramilitaries investing a leader with a reverence usually reserved for the deity. It also involves propagandizing the young to regard the leader as a savior, the repository of all their hopes for a grand future. Watch this:

We are actually witnessing in the parents of these children an apotheosis, the promotion of a man with no record of achievement to Mt. Olympus. Maybe Obama himself is embarrassed by all this, maybe not, but it certainly says something important about many of the leftists who support him. Like the ancient Roman emperors, Obama has become more than a cult figure to them, even more than a savior. In the minds of the people who choreograph these performances he's sung and talked about in the same tones employed by religious people to sing and talk about God. It'd be funny if it weren't so serious. As it is it's truly scary.

Do rank and file Democrats not feel uneasy about this?

RLC

A Right to Health Care

In Tuesday night's debate Barack Obama surprised many viewers who had not yet fallen asleep by declaring that Americans have a right to health care. I wonder what he meant by that. Surely it's not a constitutional right, since nowhere in that document can we find such a right enumerated (of course, neither is it stated in the constitution that a woman has a right to kill her unborn child, but that omission doesn't mean much to liberals who reason that since it should be there we can safely act as if it is there).

Maybe Senator Obama meant that health care, or health insurance, is a human right, but, if so, where does he get that idea? It can only be a right of any kind if the rest of us are somehow obligated to provide it, but what could possibly obligate you to pay for my health insurance? Perhaps Obama derives the obligation from his Christian faith, but if so he's importing into the public square religious reasons for public policy, and that's illegitimate, as we've all come to learn from the good people at the ACLU.

Moreover, why would there be a human right to health insurance or care but not, say, to food or transportation or shelter? These are more basic needs than health insurance which many people can do without for years. Once we agree with Senator Obama that each of us has a right to be insured do we not also have to agree that the government, i.e. you and I, has a deeper obligation to provide everyone with a house, a car, and a full refrigerator?

Senator Obama has inadvertantly given us an object lesson in the injustice inherent in liberalism. Liberals, in order to win votes, persuade the masses that they will open up to them the public purse. This sort of demagoguery appeals to the great bulk of the population, but it's totally irresponsible and only encourages the masses to believe that they must also have a right to every other amenity in life. Of course, liberals encourage this thinking and believe it a grand act of compassion to take from those who work and give it to those who don't, or can't.

No one has a problem with helping those who are physically or mentally unable to help themselves, but the idea of helping those who choose not to help themselves, who make consistently bad choices in life and then expect the taxpayer to shield them from the consequences of those choices, rankles. The liberal solution, Obama's solution, is to tell us that the people who have worked hard and played by the rules have an obligation to support those who don't. A lot of folks see this as grossly unjust.

RLC