Wildlife Habitat

Here's part of an interesting news release from the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service that raises some interesting questions about climate change and related environmental concerns:

The preliminary estimate of total ducks from the 2009 Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey was 42 million, which is 13 percent greater than last year's estimate and 25 percent greater than the 1955-2008 average, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today. (emphasis added)

Blue-winged teal

Overall, habitat conditions for breeding waterfowl in 2009 were better than conditions in 2008. The total pond estimate (Prairie Canada and United States combined) was 6.4 million. This was 45 percent above last year's estimate of 4.4 million ponds and 31 percent above the long-term average of 4.9 million ponds.

This heartening news is no doubt largely the result of increased rainfall this spring which may well be a consequence of global climate change. If so, it's yet another example of how climate change is producing positive environmental and ecological benefits. The assumption in the media is that any change to our climate is going to be harmful, but as we've argued before there's no reason to think that that's true.

I remember, speaking of ecological matters, reading as a young man about the awful environmental damage that strip mining inflicted upon the earth. And so it did, I suppose, but damage is not always permanent. I had occasion last week to visit an area in Pennsylvania that was largely a reclaimed strip mine, and if this is what happens with old strip mines then I wish we had more of them. The area has been converted into a beautiful and extensive grassland that is habitat for species of birds that can be found almost nowhere else in the state except on these old mines.

Henslow's sparrow

I might also mention that much of the best wildlife habitat in the area in which I live is owned and managed either by the water company or by electrical utility companies who use part of it to house nuclear and coal generated power facilities. When some of this land was purchased back in the sixties and seventies I was deeply disappointed to see the farmland get gobbled up. Now I wish the utilities would gobble up more of it before the developers get it.

The same thing can be said of landfills. No one likes landfills near their home, but some of the best grassland habitat for birds and butterflies in my county sits atop an old landfill. It takes a lifetime to fill these up, but once they're full there's not much else they can be used for, and if the community makes wise decisions, they become oases for wildlife in the midst of a desert of suburban sprawl, and the natural habitat they provide will be enjoyed for generations to come.

The point I'm trying to make is that before we go running around trying to save the environment by destroying coal and other industries and throwing capitalism overboard in favor of socialism we should reflect for a moment that much of what we have in terms of natural treasures in this country we have because of the wealth generated by capitalism and the civic-mindedness of corporations that preserve or create natural lands for public enjoyment. If we want to see what ecological disaster looks like we need only look at those countries, like China, Russia and much of the third world, which impoverish themselves, and consequently their natural environment, by their embrace of socialism.

RLC

Flying by the Seat of Our Pants

Kevin Williamson at NRO quotes from an Obama speech pre-stimulus:

Economists from across the spectrum have warned that if we don't act immediately, millions more jobs will be lost, and national unemployment rates will approach double digits. More people will lose their homes and their health care. And our nation will sink into a crisis that, at some point, we may be unable to reverse.

Well, Williamson notes, we acted immediately. Millions more jobs were lost. National unemployment rates are approaching double digits. So now what?

Williamson quotes the New York Times' economic poobah Paul Krugman:

"O.K., Thursday's jobs report settles it. We're going to need a bigger stimulus."

Well, I'm glad that's settled. A trillion dollars hasn't worked (Of course, the wiser heads were telling us it wouldn't work from the beginning) so the problem must be that we haven't yet dug ourselves deep enough into debt. Let's spend a couple trillion more that we don't have and see what that does for us.

And this guy won a Nobel Prize in economics. It just goes to show that in this amazing country anybody can get to the top.

Back when I learned to fly airplanes I was taught that when visibility is poor you must trust your instruments, not your senses. Trying to keep the plane straight and level based on what feels right will quickly cause you to become disoriented and spiral into the ground. Flying by what your body is telling you instead of by the objective data provided by your instruments is called flying by the seat of your pants, and that's what Krugman sounds like he's doing. Despite Mr. Krugman's intrepid willingness to go where no economist has gone before, the economic results of flying by the seat of your pants are pretty similar to the aerodynamic results.

RLC

Israel Grows Closer to Strike

Drudge links to a Times Online article which reveals that Saudi Arabia has given the Israelis permission to transit their air space to launch an attack on Iran's nuclear weapons facilities. It's in the Saudis' interests to have these facilities destroyed and since President Obama doesn't seem too resolved to do much to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the region, the Saudis are apparently content to let Israel do it.

The Obama administration, if Vice-president Biden can be relied upon to have been speaking for the president, seems to have given Israel a green light to do what it is loath to do itself.

Perhaps the Israelis will hold off for a while, however, since the instability in Tehran may yet cause that regime to topple and be replaced with one that'll have a more sensible position on nukes. But if it appears after three or four weeks that the regime is simply consolidating its power, the Israelis will probably feel they are being left with no choice but to launch a strike, or series of strikes, to destroy Iran's ability to produce weapons of mass destruction.

RLC

Maybe She's Had Enough

Sarah Palin has resigned as Governor of Alaska. The reasons are as yet obscure, but if I may speculate I imagine that she's finally had enough of the indescribable crudity and cruelty of the "progressives" in our culture. She didn't give that as her motive for resigning, but it's not unreasonable to think that it factored into her decision.

A decent, honest, woman who sought to serve her state and her country, she became a target for those who, like cockroaches scuttling away from the light, are repelled by the values she lives by. Her family has been humiliated as one vile low-life after another climbed out of the septic tank to laugh at her mentally retarded son, to criticize Palin for birthing him, to joke about her daughter being raped, and to harass her with incessant and asinine ethics probes. Lest you think that I'm stretching things a bit take a look at what the diseased mind of someone named Erik Nelson put up at Huffington Post.

Why would any decent human being want to serve in public office in this country when good people are treated like the left has treated Palin and her family? Why doesn't the media demand that people stop this insanity? Why aren't Democrats insisting that those who are registered in their party and who vote for their candidates stop acting like a pack of cowardly, giggling hyenas unleashed on a helpless victim? Why doesn't our culture demand that the vulgarians on the left be held to the same standard of decency to which Republicans and conservatives would be held? Imagine for a moment that Republican bloggers were saying the same things about Michelle Obama and her daughters that are being said at Huffington Post, Daily Kos, or on the Letterman show about the Palin family. There would be blood in the streets.

It's a shame that Palin has decided to resign because it means that the haters, the sick people, win. They've hounded her from office. Even so, I don't blame her. To engage in politics in this country today means one has to suffer being bespattered with the sewage thrown at you daily by creatures who feel perfectly at home wallowing in the stuff. Until the left disowns these people our political environment will continue to coarsen and deteriorate, but it's doubtful that the left really wants to disown them or they would have done so long ago.

RLC

Freedom

Today is Independence Day, a day which honors our nation's declaration of freedom from oppressive, meddling government. Lots of people will be picnicking and watching fireworks, but it would be good if everyone set aside a few minutes to read either the Declaration itself or perhaps the Bill of Rights appended to the Constitution a decade and a half later, or both. Wikipedia has a good summary of the history behind the Declaration and the people who signed it.

Like a church liturgy recited every Sunday, we've heard the main points of the founding documents so many times that we tend not to think about the significance of the words when we hear them again. Yet on this day we should take time to let them sink into our hearts and minds. Here, for example, is the best known passage in the Declaration:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Some of the men who undersigned these words paid dearly for it. They lost all they owned and in some cases, even lost their lives and the lives of their loved ones. Rush Limbaugh posts an outstanding essay (adapted, I believe, from a piece by Paul Harvey) which describes what the signers endured in order to secure our freedom. I urge you to read it to get a sense of the sacrifice these people made.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember about freedom and individual liberty is this: In every generation there are those who seek to diminish liberty in order to promote what they think to be the collective good or to consolidate their own power. The struggle for freedom is not a once and done fight. It's an ongoing battle, like the contention between a rocky shore and the ceaseless pounding of the waves. The struggle may take different forms, the price to be paid might be greater or less depending on how far freedom's erosion has been allowed to advance before it's arrested and reversed, but it's the same struggle. It's the conflict between those who value being a free people and a state that inveigles us with grand promises of bread and circuses if we will but lay our freedom at their feet.

We live in a time when many citizens of this country have no memory of the cost of freedom and no particular love of the traditions and values which made this country great. Some of these persons have ascended to positions of political influence. For them the great beacons of the past are not our founding fathers but rather people like Karl Marx who argued vehemently for the abolition of individual rights and the establishment of a state where everyone was kept at the same level of economic and personal achievement. These individuals desire to establish a state in which those who get an education, work hard, stay married and sacrifice for their children can be exploited and pillaged in order to bail out those who choose not to order their lives this way, and that's what they've dedicated their lives to working for.

Individual freedom and liberty are under continual assault, even in the United States of America, and the Fourth of July offers us the perfect opportunity to reaffirm our vigilance and our commitment to protect our liberties and to maintain the values and traditions that have made this the greatest nation in the history of human civilization.

RLC

Liberal Racism

Charles Krauthammer skewers Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dissenting opinion in the New Haven firefighters case (Ricci vs. DeStefano):

The defenders of the old racial order, led by Ginsburg, objected sternly, declaring that the white firefighters "had no vested right to promotion." Of course they didn't, but they did have a vested right to fairness, to not being denied promotion because of their skin color.

Of course no one has a vested right to promotion. Isn't that why they gave those tests in the first place? Isn't that why for the past, oh, 125 years we have been using objective civil service exams to allocate government jobs not on the basis of right -- or patronage or favoritism or racially discriminatory advantage -- but on the basis of merit and job-related skill?

It's the Ginsburg dissent that, in effect, grants a vested right to promotion -- to African Americans, simply because of their race -- and makes the frustration of that specious right the basis for denying promotion to white (and Hispanic) firefighters who had objectively qualified for promotion.

Krauthammer then goes on to predict the twilight of affirmative action:

The major conundrum of the civil rights age remains. The 14th Amendment bans discrimination on the basis of race. But the Civil Rights Act, which bans "disparate impact" discrimination -- procedures (such as exams) that yield racially unbalanced results -- affirmatively mandates racial favoritism to undo those results. The evil day will come, writes Justice Antonin Scalia in his concurrence, when this contradiction will have to be resolved.

He is right. For decades we have been finessing the issue with a mess of compromises, euphemisms, incoherences and pretenses such as banning racial quotas but promoting racial "goals." Anyone who has ever had to make hiring or admission decisions knows that this angel-on-the-head-of-pin distinction is 95 percent a matter of appearances, gestures and lawsuit-avoiding paperwork.

As Krauthammer explains, it's hard to see why we still need affirmative action in an age when blacks hold the highest office in the land as well as the highest office in many of our major cities. Yet old ideas die hard on the left. Yesterday while on the road I was listening to a radio show out of Buffalo and heard a liberal guest named Brad Bannon opine that Ricci was poorly decided by judge Sotomayor and her colleagues, but that what New Haven should have done to ensure that blacks did well on the test is award them points at the start so that their final scores would be competitive. He was completely serious.

This is classic progressive thinking. It is at once manifestly unfair to whites and grossly insulting, and harmful, to blacks. It tells blacks that they shouldn't be expected to study hard for a promotion like everyone else. It tells them that expecting them to actually know something is an injustice. It tells them that they're too dumb, by virtue of being black (or Hispanic), to compete intellectually with whites and Asians so the city will give them a head start. I can't imagine being black and not being deeply insulted by this. It's exactly the sort of dopey racism-with-a-smile that many whites remember cringing at when they heard it from their parents and grandparents, and it still exists today among progressives like Ginsburg and Brad Bannon.

RLC

Science and God

Lawrence Krauss has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that attempts, rather lamely, to show that science and theism are incompatible. Despite the philosophical dubiety of this view it's so widespread among materialist scientists today that Krauss' piece deserves some scrutiny.

He writes:

Last week, I had the opportunity to participate in several exciting panel discussions at the World Science Festival in New York City. I ended up being one of two panelists labeled "atheists." The other was philosopher Colin McGinn. On the other side of the debate were two devoutly Catholic scientists, biologist Kenneth Miller and Vatican astronomer Guy Consolmagno. Mr. McGinn began by commenting that it was eminently rational to suppose that Santa Claus doesn't exist even if one cannot definitively prove that he doesn't. Likewise, he argued, we can apply the same logic to the supposed existence of God.

It really is quite embarrassing that a philosopher of some note would make such a silly argument. The difference between Santa Claus and God is that there is no evidence of the existence of Santa Claus, no rational argument that can be given in support of the proposition that Santa Claus exists, and lots of reasons to think that he does not exist, including the fact that we have the historical record of his genesis in folklore. Nor is there anything like the historical universality of belief in God to be explained in the case of Santa Claus. McGinn just trivializes the debate by making such a statement and Krauss does nothing to elevate the tone by sniggering at it.

[People like] Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins are simply being honest when they point out the inconsistency of belief in an activist god with modern science.

J.B.S. Haldane, an evolutionary biologist and a founder of population genetics, understood that science is by necessity an atheistic discipline. As Haldane so aptly described it, one cannot proceed with the process of scientific discovery if one assumes a "god, angel, or devil" will interfere with one's experiments. God is, of necessity, irrelevant in science.

But why would any scientist, even if he were a theist, assume that God would interfere with his experiments? Did Newton, or Galileo, or Faraday, or Boyle, or any of dozens of other Christian scientists make such an assumption? Krauss and Haldane are making the elementary mistake of confusing the possibility of divine interference with the probability of such interference. The fact that it's possible that God could intervene does not make it very likely that He would. The assumption that there will be no supernatural interference with one's experiments is based on the further assumption that what almost always has happened in the past will continue to happen and what has almost always happened, as far as we know, is that God has chosen not to interfere with scientific experiments.

Faced with the remarkable success of science to explain the workings of the physical world, many, indeed probably most, scientists understandably react as Haldane did. Namely, they extrapolate the atheism of science to a more general atheism.

Yes, but of course this is an illicit, indeed a ridiculous, assumption. From the fact that nature exhibits certain regularities which it is reasonable to assume will hold whenever Nature is put to a test it hardly follows that there is no God.

Though the scientific process may be compatible with the vague idea of some relaxed deity who merely established the universe and let it proceed from there, it is in fact rationally incompatible with the detailed tenets of most of the world's organized religions.

Krauss here pulls a little bait and switch. His argument is that science is incompatible with belief in the existence of God, but finding that a difficult case to make, he subtly changes the argument to a discussion of the incompatibility of science and religion.

As Sam Harris recently wrote a "reconciliation between science and Christianity would mean squaring physics, chemistry, biology, and a basic understanding of probabilistic reasoning with a raft of patently ridiculous, Iron Age convictions."

Well, let's play along. Which primitive convictions does Harris have in mind, those of the Christian or those of the atheist? Perhaps he's referring to the very modern conviction that the incredible fine-tuning of the universe is the product of mind rather than the Iron-Age conviction, promoted by ancient Greeks and Romans like Leucippus and Lucretius, that it is the unimaginably improbable product of chance and matter. Perhaps he has in mind the very modern conviction that the emergence of information in the first living things is most likely the product of intelligent direction rather than the Iron-Age conviction that it's just a fluke of blind, purposeless nature. Or maybe he's confusing the contemporary view that human consciousness derives ultimately from a transcendent consciousness with the conviction of the ancients that it derives from inanimate stuff. Which of the Iron-Age convictions, still held by modern atheists, do Krauss and Harris have in mind here?

When I confronted my two Catholic colleagues on the panel with the apparent miracle of the virgin birth and asked how they could reconcile this with basic biology, I was ultimately told that perhaps this biblical claim merely meant to emphasize what an important event the birth was. Neither came to the explicit defense of what is undeniably one of the central tenets of Catholic theology.

What his Catholic colleagues should have done is ask Mr. Krauss what principle of basic biology is violated by a miracle like the virgin birth? Does biology teach us that an unfertilized ovum can never develop into a zygote? Actually, it doesn't. Does biology say that it's impossible that a woman could conceive without benefit of a man? In fact, it does not and can not, and Mr. Krauss should know this elementary philosophical fact.

What biology and other sciences tell us is that nature operates in certain highly regular ways unless it's subject to some outside interference. A moving object, for example, will continue to move forever, in a straight line, unless acted upon by an outside force. The only way biologists could say that a virgin could never conceive is if they know a priori that there are no outside forces involved. In other words, miracles like the virgin birth are impossible only if we know there is no God, but if Krauss knows that there's no God, he's certainly not telling us how he knows it. Unless you count this odd piece of reasoning:

So while scientific rationality does not require atheism, it is by no means irrational to use it as the basis for arguing against the existence of God, and thus to conclude that claimed miracles like the virgin birth are incompatible with our scientific understanding of nature.

Krauss is arguing in a circle. He claims to refute the Christian's belief in God by saying that miracles are impossible, but he can only know they are impossible if he already knows there is no God: Because there is no God miracles are impossible, and because miracles are impossible there is no God. Indeed.

Finally, it is worth pointing out that these issues are not purely academic. The current crisis in Iran has laid bare the striking inconsistency between a world built on reason and a world built on religious dogma. Perhaps the most important contribution an honest assessment of the incompatibility between science and religious doctrine can provide is to make it starkly clear that in human affairs -- as well as in the rest of the physical world -- reason is the better guide.

This is interesting. Global atheistic communism claimed to be built on reason and even though religion, specifically Islam, has had a terrible history in the last century, it recedes to insignificance compared to the atheistic ideologies based on reason. More people were butchered in the twentieth century in the name of a rational atheistic communism than died in all the wars motivated by religion in modern history.

I wouldn't want to live in a world built upon the dictates of religious leaders but would want even less to live in a world built on the dictates of political leaders who seek to promote a political philosophy built upon atheism and reason. Atheism and reason have led us to the deaths of twenty million Russians, forty million Chinese, six million Jews, five million Cambodians, and thirty million miscellaneous human beings just in the twentieth century alone. I think I'll pass, Mr. Krauss.

Reason is a wonderful gift, but to paraphrase Einstein "Reason without religion is blind. Religion without reason is lame."

RLC

Prager on Soraya M

Dennis Prager offers a powerful endorsement of the recently-released The Stoning of Soraya M. Here's the heart of his column:

If you want to understand the type of people who run Iran, see this film. If you want to understand why men and women risk their lives to demonstrate against the fascist theocracy that rules Iran, see this film. The film is about the type of people who become "supreme leader" (Ali Khamanei) or president of Iran (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad). It is about their mendacity, their use of religion to commit barbarity, and, of course, their despicable treatment of women.

And don't see it solely in order to understand what the dissidents in Iran are fighting -- though that would be an entirely valid reason. See it also because it is a powerful theatrical and emotional experience. Washington Post reviewer Dan Zak wrote that he wept while watching the movie. The Wall Street Journal described "The Stoning of Soraya M." in these words: "This is classic tragedy in semi-modern dress that means to horrify, and does so more successfully than any film in recent memory." Los Angeles Times film reviewer Kevin Thomas wrote that the film, achieves "the impact of a Greek tragedy through its masterful grasp of suspense and group psychology, and some superb acting." And Claudia Puig of USAToday called the film "emotionally explosive," a "shattering and powerful drama."

On the other hand, Amnesty International loathed the film. Which is another good reason to see it. This organization is morally confused. It has become a leftist organization in the guise of a human rights organization. It calls the film "sensationalist" because "the audience response is likely to be disgust and revulsion at Iranians themselves, who are portrayed as primitive and blood-thirsty savages." I wonder if there are 10 people who see this film who will then conclude that Iranians in general -- as opposed to many religious fundamentalists among them -- are "primitive and bloodthirsty savages."

Furthermore, Amnesty International argues, Iranians and foreign human rights organizations are already fighting for women and against such atrocities as stoning. Therefore, the film is unnecessary. If you don't follow that argument, you are not alone.

Finally, the most important reason to see the film could be this:

Many of us lament Hollywood's lack of courage, its lack of moral seriousness, and its political correctness. Here, then, is a courageous, morally deep, and politically incorrect film that mainstream reviewers -- as cited above -- have lavished praise on. It should be the ideal film for serious Americans who properly complain about Hollywood's offerings. But if a riveting drama with a courageous theme, Oscar-level acting, which is as relevant as today's headlines, fails at the box office, Hollywood will have been vindicated.

As of now the film is restricted to http://www.thestoning.com/theaters/ major markets, but it should make its way to a theater near you sometime this summer. You can view the trailer here.

By the way, did anybody follow Amnesty International's reason for not seeing the movie? Why on earth would they not want people to see it? If this were a movie about the horrors of apartheid or some Jewish murder of a Palestinian I doubt that AI would have any problems with it at all, even if it were fictional. The only people who would seem to have a motive for discouraging viewers from seeing this film would be Muslim extremists and those who fear upsetting them.

Okay. Maybe I've answered my question.

RLC

N.T. Wright on Deism and Darwin

Bill Dembski at Uncommon Descent posts this video of renowned theologian N.T. Wright discussing deism and Darwin. It's pretty good:

RLC

What Is a Christian?

Matthew Mullins at Prosblogion, a blog given to questions and issues in the philosophy of religion, contemplates the necessary and sufficient conditions for being a Christian. He concludes that among the necessary conditions is this:

It shouldn't be the case that one have eternal salvation and not be a Christian.

To translate this from philosopherese into English what Mullins is saying is that only Christians have eternal life, but surely this is false.

Unless one is prepared to argue that infants and mentally retarded individuals do not have eternal life then there must be lots of people who have salvation who are not Christians (assuming that being a Christian requires a willful assent to Christ). Nor is it hard to imagine the universe of eternally saved individuals being expanded further to include people like the heroes of the Old Testament. If one is a theological inclusivist one might also expand the universe still further, as C.S. Lewis does in The Great Divorce, to include all whose hearts are open to God even if they've never heard of Christ or, for reasons psychological and/or sociological, have never made a commitment to Him.

At any rate, whether one's theology goes that far or not, it still seems highly unlikely that the proposition quoted above is true since it excludes innocents who die in infancy or who never possess the mental capacity to understand what being a Christian entails.

There are some who would argue that whoever is saved is ipso facto a Christian. Lewis, for example, talks about people who are "anonymous" Christians, but this seems to me to empty the concept of Christian of most of its unique content. Suppose, for the sake of discussion, that universalism were true - i.e. the view that everyone is ultimately saved is true. If that were the case then everyone would be a Christian, which seems, to me at least, exceedingly odd and would certainly seem odd to Muslims, Jews and atheists.

I think it makes more sense to simply think that eternal life might be available to others besides Christians.

RLC

Just War Poll

Christianity Today has a poll up in which they ask readers to vote Yes or No on whether the Iraq war met the conditions of a Just War. As I write this it's 58% No and 36% Yes.

I wonder exactly which of the Just War criteria those who voted No think the Iraq war violated.

In fact, I wonder how many of the respondents even know what the criteria of a Just War are.

RLC

Gay Adoption

Frank Lombard, you may or may not have heard from the major media, is the associate director of Duke University's Center for Health Policy who, over the internet, recently offered his five year-old adopted son to pedophiles who wished to molest him. Lombard himself has admitted to molesting the boy and photographs have been found of his cruel perversions.

Lombard and his gay partner (who seems to have been unaware of Lombard's behavior) adopted the boy, a fact which may explain the media's reluctance to make much of the story, since it certainly wouldn't do much to advance the cause of gay adoption. Mike Adams points out that the child is black and goes on to write that:

If this case goes to trial, it could be an interesting one to watch. But it will be just as interesting to watch the Duke faculty respond to these allegations. It didn't take them long to respond when several white Duke Lacrosse players were accused of raping a black stripper. A whopping 88 professors signed a statement accusing the players of both racism and rape. Such was their regard for the presumption of innocence.

Perhaps even more stunning was the response of some professors after it became apparent that the white lacrosse players were innocent. After that became so obvious the school had to readmit the students, Professor Kate Holloway resigned her committee assignments in protest.

So it will be interesting to see how Duke faculty members respond to Frank Lombard. Because he is white, Lombard is fair game at Duke, isn't he? But Lombard is also gay, so will that complicate things?"

I think it much more likely that if this case goes to trial it will make nary a ripple on the evening news. If white males are accused of raping a black female then that's worth 24/7 coverage, but if a gay white man rapes a black child, well, those things happen, unfortunately, and we really shouldn't try to draw any larger meaning from it. So let's all move on to more important matters like what Michael Jackson will be wearing at his viewing.

RLC

Liberty and Tyranny

I've on occasion voiced my uneasiness with the on-air habits of radio and TV talkers who use rudeness as a substitute for dialogue. I'm put off by the shouting, name-calling, and talking over each other that some talkers, both left and right, seem to employ as standard procedure. Even so, despite my misgivings, I purchased a book written by one of the worst offenders (Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, by Mark Levin) which has been riding the New York Times best-seller list for a couple of months now.

I wasn't much impressed at first since it seemed in the beginning to be a little long on rhetoric and a little short on specifics, but as I worked my way into it I found myself becoming more and more intrigued. Having now finished it, I can say that it's as fine a book on what it means to be a Conservative as I've read. It may turn out to be for the first half of the twenty-first century what Barry Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative was for the latter half of the twentieth century.

Levin's aim is to explain for the current generation what Conservatism is, to discuss what Conservatives tend to hold in common and to contrast Conservative principles with the beliefs held by those he calls "Statists." Levin eschews the term "liberal" because there's too much confusion surrounding the word. Classical liberals were anti-authoritarian, which is a better description of modern Conservatives than of modern liberals who tend to be enamored of the power of the state, a proclivity which makes them the antithesis of classical liberals.

At any rate, Levin explains that, contrary to popular belief, Conservatives do not oppose government: "The Conservative does not despise government, he despises tyranny. This is precisely why the Conservative reveres the Constitution and insists on adherence to it."

Neither do Conservatives oppose change. Indeed, they desire it since much of the status quo is the result of Statist policies inimical to liberty: "The Conservative seeks to preserve and improve the civil society, not engage in a mindless defense of the status quo inasmuch as the status quo may well be a condition created by the Statist and destructive of the civil society - such as the 1960s cultural degradations which are all too prevalent today. It is the Statist, who rejects even minor change if such change promotes the civil society, thereby challenging his authority."

He quotes C.S. Lewis who describes the danger posed by the Statist thus: "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under the omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

Beginning with chapter 3 Levin undertakes to clarify some important truths about the role of faith in the founding of the country, the crucial importance of fealty to the Constitution, and the importance of federalism and free markets. He also explains modern attempts by the Statist to undermine each of these.

Toward the end of the book he offers a compelling critique of the welfare state, enviro-statism, and lax immigration policies. He concludes with a chapter on the need for a strong national defense and, what some readers might find the most useful part of the book, a succinct statement of Conservative principles arranged in the format of a manifesto.

The book should be required reading for every student of political theory. It should also be read by everyone who wishes to understand the Conservative worldview and everyone on the left who thinks he knows what Conservatism is, but whose criticisms often reveal an unfortunate ignorance and lack of understanding.

RLC

Birds of a Feather

After posting The Common Thread which speculated on the similarities between Barack Obama's reaction to the Iranian protests and his reaction to the removal of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya, I came across this political cartoon by Michael Ramirez.

A picture certainly is worth a thousand words.

RLC

Negative Arguments

Over the years one criticism made by Darwinian evolutionists of any theory of divine agency in creation has been that the creationists rely on negative argumentation. Creationists don't offer evidence for divine agency, critics allege, so much as offer arguments against naturalistic evolution.

I've always thought this a strange objection because, in fact, negative arguments, properly understood, are a perfectly legitimate way to argue.

Creationists and other theists often employ the following disjunction: Either the universe and life are best explained by divine agency or they're best explained solely by natural processes and forces. Natural processes and forces, however, are inadequate by themselves to explain either the existence of the universe or many of the facts about life. Therefore these are best explained by a divine agency.

Of course, creationists offer reasons for believing that natural processes and forces are inadequate, but basically their argument can be represented as: Either P or Q; not Q; therefore P, and it's a proper, logical form of argumentation.

So, it's odd that Darwinians would object to it, but their objections are even odder given the fact that, as Cornelius Hunter at Darwins' God points out, the Darwinians argue in exactly the same manner for which they criticize creationists.

Hunter points out that because the evidence for naturalistic "molecules to man" evolution is so thin those who believe it frequently resort to the same disjunction I outlined above. The difference is that their argument goes more like this: Either God had a role in the creation or everything is the result of natural processes. God did not have a role, the Darwinians argue, therefore it must all be the result of natural processes even if we can't explain how it all happened.

It seems to be a case of "Only we Darwinians can argue this way. You creationists can't."

Of course, the only way anyone could conclude that God had no role in the creation of the universe is if one knew a priori that God did not exist. So, it turns out that the defense of Darwinism is often predicated upon the theological assumption of atheism rather on scientific justification.

Yet many people think that if we let creationism or intelligent design into the public schools we'll be introducing religious ideas into the classroom. It's ironic that they don't see that religious ideas are already there. They've been smuggled in via the Trojan horse of Darwinism.

RLC

Letting the Process Work

President Obama all but swore on the Bible during the campaign that he would not raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 per year. Now it appears that that promise, like others made by candidate Obama, may have an expiration date:

Pity poor Robert Gibbs having to go before an increasingly skeptical White House press corps and avoid saying that the President is breaking a fundamental promise of his campaign when, in fact, it looks as though that's a real possibility. It's pretty humiliating to be the subject of hoots of derision from people you thought were your friends.

RLC

The Common Thread

Maybe there's a relevant difference between Honduras and Iran that eludes me, but I thought I understood President Obama's reasoning for not interfering rhetorically in Iran on the side of freedom and democracy, until he turned around and became actively involved in Honduras to help a president, an acolyte of Hugo Chavez, circumvent the law to stay in power. Perhaps the appearance of inconsistency is only superficial. There is, after all, one common denominator here: In the case of Iran President Obama's silence (until it was really too late to make any difference) essentially aided the dictators. In the case of Honduras his interference also would have had the effect of supporting a would-be dictator:

The Obama administration and members of the Organization of American States had worked for weeks to try to avert any moves to overthrow President Zelaya, said senior U.S. officials. Washington's ambassador to Honduras, Hugo Llorens, sought to facilitate a dialogue between the president's office, the Honduran parliament and the military.

Soldiers stormed the house of leftist President Manuel Zelaya in a predawn raid Sunday, arresting him and removing him from power amid a growing crisis over Mr. Zelaya's plans to try to get re-elected.

The efforts accelerated over the weekend, as Washington grew increasingly alarmed. "The players decided, in the end, not to listen to our message," said one U.S. official involved in the diplomacy. On Sunday, the U.S. embassy here tried repeatedly to contact the Honduran military directly, but was rebuffed. Washington called the removal of President Zelaya a coup and said it wouldn't recognize any other leader.

The U.S. stand was unpopular with Honduran deputies. One congressman, Toribio Aguilera, got prolonged applause from his colleagues when he urged the U.S. ambassador to reconsider. Mr. Aguilera said the U.S. didn't understand the danger that Mr. Zelaya and his friendships with Mr. Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro posed.

On the other hand, maybe the Obama administration understood perfectly the significance of those friendships, and wanted very much for them to thrive. Mr. Obama's ideological sympathies lean much closer toward the Zelayas, Chavezs, Castros, and Ortegas of the world than toward those who oppose them, a fact which makes one wonder what schemes may be afoot to keep President Obama in power beyond his own constitutional term limit.

RLC

Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah

The Timesonline informs us of a summer camp in England designed for atheist kids. The camp is funded by famous militant atheist Richard Dawkins whose book The God Delusion enjoyed the distinction of being perhaps the most poorly argued book ever to be a smash best-seller.

Here are some excerpts from the Times' article:

One parent said of his children, "I'm very keen on not indoctrinating them with religion or creeds," he said this weekend. "I would rather equip them with the tools to learn how to think, not what to think."

The emphasis on critical thinking is epitomised by a test called the Invisible Unicorn Challenge. Children will be told by camp leaders that the area around their tents is inhabited by two unicorns. The activities of these creatures, of which there will be no physical evidence, will be regularly discussed by organisers, yet the children will be asked to prove that the unicorns do not exist. Anyone who manages to prove this will win a �10 note - which features an image of Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary theory - signed by Dawkins, a former professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University.

"The unicorns are not necessarily a metaphor for God, they are to show kids that you can't prove a negative," said Saman-tha Stein, who is leading next month's camp. "We are not trying to bash religion, but it encourages people to believe in a lot of things for which there is no evidence."

I have an idea for another activity Ms Stein might consider. Take the children to a garden where all the flowers are planted in the form of mathematical equations and then ask them to imagine a plausible way this could have come about purely by chance, wind, rain and erosion without the input of an intelligent agent. Offer the little nippers a million dollars if they can come up with a theory. She won't have to worry about paying the prize, of course, since no one else has been able to do it, either - not even the revered Dr. Dawkins.

Stein, 23, a postgraduate psychology student from London, was inspired to work at an atheist summer camp in America after reading The God Delusion, the bestselling book that sealed Dawkins's reputation as Britain's most prominent non-believer.

Camp Quest was founded in America, where Bible classes and Christian retreats are widespread, by Edwin Kagin, an atheist lawyer from Kentucky. Since launching in 1996, Camp Quest operates at six different US sites, with a new camp due to open in Florida at Christmas.

Amanda Metskas is currently supervising 71 children at a Camp Quest project in Clarkesville, Ohio. Her classes include a session called Socrates Cafe, which debates issues such as definitions of knowledge, art and justice.

I wonder what Ms Metskas' definition of justice is, or more to the point, what reasons she offers to the children as to why anyone, in a world without God, should be just if they can get away with being unjust. That would be a very interesting campfire talk to listen in on.

Moreover, at these camps campfire dialogues are sprinkled with jokes like this one: How many atheists does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to change the bulb and the other to film the work being done so the fundamentalists won't claim that God did it.

What a hoot. I'll bet that has the tots doubled over in stitches.

The counsellors also teach the children that lots of famous people were atheists:

"We teach them that even people like Sir David Attenborough are religious sceptics," said Metskas.

Wow. David Attenborough an atheist? How inspiring that must be for the little ones. I wonder if Ms Metskas also mentions that Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler, and most of the people who wind up in our jails were atheists at the time they committed their crimes.

RLC

Historical Irony

I'll bet you didn't know that the discoverer of evolution by natural selection was an intelligent design advocate. No, not Charles Darwin - Alfred Russel Wallace. David Klinghoffer provides us some of the relevant history:

To judge from previews, the new Darwin biographical movie Creation will emphasize the challenge Darwinian theory posed from the beginning to religious belief. Yet the life of evolution's co-discoverer, Alfred Russel Wallace, suggests that properly understood, and that's a major proviso, evolution needn't upset faith at all. On the contrary, Wallace reasoned from what he knew about life's history to a belief that an "Overruling Intelligence" guided life's development, much as intelligent design (ID) does today. Science historian Michael A. Flannery calls Wallace's evolutionary thinking a "preamble" to ID.

An opportunity to evaluate this provocative claim is now before us in the form of Flannery's new edition of Wallace's great work, A World of Life (1910), which slims the dense and massive volume down to a manageable size and includes an illuminating introduction by Flannery. His book is Alfred Russel Wallace's Theory of Intelligent Evolution: How Wallace's World of Life Challenged Darwinism (Erasmus Press).

Wallace famously arrived at his own version of evolutionary theory while Darwin was still sitting on his. When Wallace made contact and shared his thoughts, Darwin panicked and rushed to make his theory public so as not to be scooped. Yet the two men did not formulate their ideas in exactly the same way.

Read the rest of Klinghoffer's essay if this is a topic you're interested in. He packs a lot of very good information into it.

UPDATE: Part II of Klinghoffer's discussion with Flannery is even more interesting than Part I. It can be read http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/06/how_evolutions_codiscoverer_di_1.html here.

RLC

Coup?

One might get the impression from the Reuters report of events in Honduras that right-wing military types have launched another coup to oust an innocent progressive president.

Before concluding that that's the whole story it might be helpful to read the explanation at Fausta's blog. What Reuters chose not to tell us is that apparently the Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, was making an illegal, unconstitutional grab for power, and the entire governmental apparatus of the country opposed him. Zelaya was seeking to have a referendum on whether he should be allowed to serve another term as president, but the Honduran constitution cannot be changed by popular referendum. The Supreme Court ruled the referendum illegal and Zelaya went ahead with it anyway. The Court then issued an order for his arrest.

Left-wing leaders in the region - Daniel Ortega, the Castros, and Hugo Chavez, for instance - don't like it very much, presumably because lefties believe as an article of faith that a left-wing leader is entitled to keep power by any means necessary once he has it. Even so, this was a coup initiated by the Honduran judicial system to keep a man from acquiring almost dictatorial power and becoming another Hugo Chavez. It appears, at least as far as I can tell at this point, to be a step taken to preserve democracy and the rule of law, not one taken to circumvent them.

Maybe Reuters will print a clarification today.

RLC