Offering commentary on current developments and controversies in politics, religion, philosophy, science, education and anything else which attracts our interest.
Kyle suggests (Re: The Most Insidious Drug) that we treat pornography like we treat tobacco and alcohol - tax it. We might also mount the same sort of campaign against pornography that's been mounted against smoking:
[T]he issue of pornography reminds me of the issue of tobacco smoking. Through anti-smoking ads and taxation, smoking has significantly decreased in America. So my plan is to begin by taxing pornography. With a 97 billion dollar a year industry, a tax is going to provide some significant income. With that money, let's start doing some meaningful and powerful research on the subject. Conclusively get the pros and cons of pornography and show the world our results. I think we're all pretty confident that it is harmful. After that, begin to use the money to target sex offenders, provide recover programs for those addicted to pornography and sexual addiction...
Neo-atheist Sam Harris delivers a lecture on morality in which he argues, sometimes sensibly, against moral relativism. Unfortunately, he seeks to ground his argument in the belief that somehow science can tell us what is objectively right and what is objectively wrong. He sets human flourishing as his summum bonum and then argues that whatever promotes that flourishing is right and whatever impedes it is wrong.
But why should we think that human flourishing is the summum bonum? His answer seems to be because we just feel that it is, and anyone who doesn't feel this way is wrong. Not only is this unpersuasive, it also leaves unanswered the question of why, if flourishing is indeed the greatest good we can pursue, I shouldn't pursue it just for myself or why our nation shouldn't pursue it at the expense of other nations. Why should anyone care about the flourishing of others? Why is it wrong to subordinate other people's flourishing to my own? And if death is the end what does it matter how we live anyway? Why not maximize whatever pleasures are to be found in life and let other people take care of themselves?
Harris, unfortunately, doesn't address those questions, but they really are at the heart of the metaethical debate between theists and atheists. Atheism has no answer to questions like why I should care for the poor, or why we should conserve the earth's resources, or why I should contribute to Haitian earthquake relief. The fact is that there's simply no reason why one should sacrifice anything for others unless it's in his own self-interest somehow to do so.
Here's Harris' lecture:
It's a peculiarity among science-oriented atheists like Harris that they so often argue that we should all behave in certain ways because, well, it feels to them like we should. The oddest thing about the lecture, though, is that he was given a standing ovation at its conclusion. Having listened to nothing significant for twenty five minutes or so the audience jumped to their feet to express their approval. Pretty funny.
A crowd of people lolling about on a beach in mid-morning takes no notice of the modest swell far off on the horizon. The weather's a little cloudy, but the forecasts in the newspapers and talking heads on tv are chattering on about how everything is soon going to be beautiful on this bright summer day, how the weather is improving, and how beach-goers will soon be basking in the glorious light of the summer sun.
A note of concern ripples through the crowd, however, when some notice that the surf appears to be draining out to sea, as if someone pulled the plug. Even so, the vacationers go on about their business applying tanning lotion, building sand castles, reading a pulp novel, listening to music, eating and drinking. But soon the surf line is a hundred yards or more further out than it was just a few minutes ago, and the crowd grows puzzled. Something is happening. They look around and see a few people hurriedly leaving the beach. Suddenly, someone yells to look out toward the ocean and to their horror a huge mountain of water, a 100 foot tsunami, is rising up and rushing headlong toward the beach. The people panic and try to scramble inland to safety, but it's too late. The tsunami crashes down upon them with unimaginable force crushing and sweeping away everything.
This is a parable of what is in store for us as a result of the incomprehensible fiscal recklessness of the last year and a half. But don't take my word for it, instead take about ten minutes to read this speech given by Rep. Paul Ryan on March 31st. Ryan is like one of those tsunami detectors that have been placed out in the ocean to alert coastal populations to the threat of an imminent tsunami. His speech is the equivalent of a three-credit college course and his warning is more valuable than any course any college offers.
If you care about your future and that of your children you should read it. You can find it here.
For at least fifty years conservatives have been supporting reform of our tax structure. One of the most popular ideas that has been around for a while is to switch from the current labyrinthine complexity to a simple flat tax. The flat tax has so many advantages that it's hard to understand why we don't adopt it, other than that too many powerful people make too much money off the current system. The flat tax would replace all the confusing forms, deductions, regulations, exceptions, etc. with one simple post card size form. Instead of pages and pages of tax tables everyone would simply pay 17% of their gross income in taxes. The guy who makes 100 times what you make would pay 100 times more than you pay.
The Cato Institute has put together this video with Dan Mitchell to briefly explain how a flat tax works and what its advantages are:
Not the least of the advantages would be that the bloated IRS would be reduced in size to a fraction of its current bulk.
Another option that has excited a lot of people is something called the Fair Tax. It, too, would be a great improvement over the current system, but it might require repeal of the 16th amendment. In any event, the current system is nothing more than a full-employment mechanism for the IRS and tax lawyers. There are better, more just ways, of doing raising revenue, and we should implement them.
I have from time to time confessed that I have a very difficult time listening to radio talker Sean Hannity. His reliance upon rhetorical tics that have the same cumulative effect as Chinese water torture, the way his voice goes into unmodulated screed mode as soon as his show opens and continues for three hours, his ersatz humility, the unctuous piety with which he lectures callers about moral issues, and his rude, arrogant treatment of callers who fail to kiss his ring often have me reaching for the radio's off button after about five minutes of being subjected to his assault on my sensibilities. Even so, a lot of people like him, and that has made him a target for the Left. Unfortunately, when the Left selects a target, truth isn't allowed to get in their way.
A week or so ago MSNBC was breathlessly reporting irregularities in Hannity's charitable work, but their allegations were soon shown to be absurd. Unabashed, they've now latched on to an even more ludicrous allegation - that Hannity expressed sympathy on his show for Timothy McVeigh. This charge is so laughable, given the context in which Hannity made his allegedly inculpatory remark, that you have to conclude that his critics, specifically a couple of lefty radio talkers named Mike Malloy and Ed Schultz, are either incredibly dumb or maliciously dishonest, or both (Schultz avowed last January that he'd be willing to cheat to keep Scott Brown from being elected in Massachussetts, so we're not dealing here with a man known for scrupulosity. This video will give you further insight into what sort of person Ed Schultz is).
Anyway, what Malloy and Schultz want you to believe to be so breathtakingly scandalous was something Hannity said to a bunch of tea-party types at a rally recently. Here's the quote:
"When you think of the vast majorities that they [the Democrats] have in Congress, and they had to bribe, backroom deals, corruption [to pass health care]. That's all because the tea party movement, the people, all these Tim McVeigh wannabes here, as they say."
The audience applauded.
Hannity was clearly using sarcasm - a weapon he admittedly wields with an unfortunate lack of dexterity - to make fun of the Left's portrayal of tea-partiers as violent extremists. His jab was, however, either too subtle for Malloy and Schultz to grasp or else they're so desperate to find something they can twist and distort that they're willing to seize any reed, no matter how slender, that might be pressed into service to discredit him.
Whatever one thinks of Hannity, the behavior of Malloy and Schultz reported at the link has the distinction of being mean, oafish and farcical all at once.
Speaking of farcical, consider MSNBC's Chris Matthews who's all beside himself because Rush Limbaugh has taken to referring to the Obama administration as a "regime." Matthews was so irate about Limbaugh's use of the pejorative that he recently felt driven to name-calling. Byron York of the Washington Examiner recounts the details of Matthews' tirade:
"I've never seen language like this in the American press," [Matthews] said, "referring to an elected representative government, elected in a totally fair, democratic, American election -- we will have another one in November, we'll have another one for president in a couple years -- fair, free, and wonderful democracy we have in this country.... We know that word, 'regime.' It was used by George Bush, 'regime change.' You go to war with regimes. Regimes are tyrannies. They're juntas. They're military coups. The use of the word 'regime' in American political parlance is unacceptable, and someone should tell the walrus [Limbaugh] to stop using it."
Matthews didn't stop there. "I never heard the word 'regime,' before, have you?" he said to NBC's Chuck Todd. "I don't even think Joe McCarthy ever called this government a 'regime.'"
Well, as Mr. York reminds the forgetful Mr. Matthews, during the Bush administration the term saw the light of day over 6,700 times. It was used dozens of times in the New York Times, The Washington Post, and on Matthew's own network, MSNBC, in reference to Mr. Bush's presidency. In fact, it was used several times on Matthews' own show and, amusingly enough, at least once by Matthews himself.
I leave it to the reader to decide how best to describe Mr. Matthews' chastisement of Mr. Limbaugh for invoking a term that Matthews himself has chosen to employ.
Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, an atheist and co-author of What Darwin Got Wrong, has a piece at Spiked Review of Books that claims that Darwinism is a secular religion whose devotees brook no questioning or challenges. As a prelude to his argument he recounts this story:
Some months ago an American philosopher explained to a highly sophisticated audience in Britain what, in his opinion, was wrong, indeed fatally wrong, with the standard neo-Darwinian theory of biological evolution. He made it crystal clear that his criticism was not inspired by creationism, intelligent design or any remotely religious motivation. A senior gentleman in the audience erupted, in indignation: 'You should not say such things, you should not write such things! The creationists will treasure them and use them against science.' The lecturer politely asked: 'Even if they are true?' To which the instant and vibrant retort was: 'Especially if they are true!' with emphasis on the 'especially'.
For at least this gentleman, who sounds like no one so much as Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor, truth is not as important as is maintaining the viability of the materialist dogma. The dogma must not be questioned lest faith in materialism wane among the masses. The dogma's weaknesses must not be publicized lest its opponents be encouraged thereby.
John Stuart Mill, perhaps the paradigmatic classical liberal, wrote in his great essay On Liberty that:
[T]he peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: If wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit; the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.
Mill goes on to say that when a belief is insulated from criticism, suffering no fresh and living conviction to challenge it, it does nothing for the mind or heart except stand sentinel over them to keep them vacant. Mill was thinking here of theistic religion but the admonition applies just as much to modern naturalistic religion as well. Maybe moreso.
The answer to the question in the title is, "Whenever Democrats do it."
When it was thought that the Bush administration was engaged in profiling terrorist suspects, or whenever it was suggested that we should profile (which, of course, we should), the left-leaning media got all in a swivet about infringements of civil rights and other such pretensions. Now the Obama administration is actually going to profile airline travelers, though they won't call it that, and you probably haven't heard much more than subdued tsk tsking from the Left:
While trying hard to avoid admitting to "profiling," the Obama administration has introduced new measures for screening US-bound air travelers based on how closely their personal characteristics match intelligence on potential terrorists. Nationality, age, certain physical characteristics, recently visited countries and partial (Muslim-sounding) names will be used alongside the no-fly list to step up flight security.
Here's a rule of thumb for understanding how the Left interprets any security policy enacted by an administration: If Republicans do it it's ipso facto an outrageous threat to our civil rights. If Democrats do it it's ipso facto a perfectly reasonable effort to guarantee our safety.
If these people ever need to supplement their income maybe they should consider stand-up comedy. They're good at it.
This post originally appeared on Viewpoint on Easter 2005:
Jon Meacham of Newsweek, perhaps chastened by the criticism he received following his foray into Christian theology over Christmas, pens a much less offensive column about the Resurrection of Jesus in the current issue. He notes that the tomb of Christ was almost certainly empty that first Easter morning. If it were not, he observes, the opponents of Christ had only to produce the body to abort the religious turmoil that the sect of Christians was beginning to arouse. This they did not do, a startling historical fact, really, which leads us to the obvious conclusion that they couldn't do it. This leads us in turn to ask why not.
No naturalistic explanation of the empty tomb makes sense. The most common of these is that the disciples stole the corpse, but this hypothesis is plausible only if one assumes a priori that non-natural explanations are impossible. To believe that the disciples stole the body one must believe that a band of terrified fishermen overpowered an armed military guard, a crime for which they were never arrested or charged, stole the cadaver, and eventually underwent torture and martyrdom for preaching around the world what they knew to be a lie. People will die for a lie they believe to be true, but only men suffering from some form of dementia would die for a lie they knew to be a lie, and there's no reason to think these men were demented.
Surely, if the authorities believed the disciples had stolen the body they would have brought irresistibly persuasive techniques to bear to coerce them into divulging its whereabouts. Yet there's no indication whatsoever in the historical record that this was even attempted.
The skeptic says, as was noted above, that no matter how implausible a given naturalistic explanation may be it's still more believable than the claim that a man rose from the dead. This objection, however, rests on the assumption that there is no God, an assumption that is much easier to make than to defend. If, contrary to the skeptical view, it is possible that God exists then miracles are indeed also possible, and if they are possible, we have to examine the evidence for an alleged instance of one, especially one as significant as the resurrection of Jesus, to determine whether it is, in fact, credible. The evidence for the historical, physical revivification of Christ, many scholars have concluded, is at least as powerful as that for any other event in antiquity.
Other attempts to avoid the conclusion that a miracle actually occurred are equally unimpressive. Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code adopts a version of the swoon theory, that after some thirty six hours without medical care, Jesus somehow recovered from his wounds, including the spear thrust, with sufficient vigor to roll away the heavy stone blocking the tomb. He accomplished this astonishing feat without being detected by the Roman guard, and subsequently appeared to the disciples and dozens, even hundreds, of others, looking so hale and hearty that they believed that he had conquered death and was the very Son of God.
Even if something like this could have happened, the disciples would have known that Jesus had not "risen from the dead" in any theologically significant sense. He would have eventually died (or, as Brown has it, absconded to France with his beloved Mary Magdalene), and his dead body would be proof that he was not the Messiah. This, then, brings us back to the question above: Why would people have been willing to be tortured and martyred for a man they would have realized was a false messiah?
Skeptics scoff at miracles, but the most important miracle in the history of Christendom is one which defies any attempt to explain away. The most plausible explanation for the empty tomb, unless one holds an a priori commitment to atheism, is that God actually did raise Jesus from the dead just as we are promised that we will be. Because death did not result in the annihilation of His being we have the hope that neither will it result in ours.
This is the wonderful significance of the event Christians celebrate every Easter. Have a wonderful Resurrection Day.
The story of Phoebe Prince, the Massachussetts 15 year-old immigrant from Ireland who was bullied and harassed to the extent that she took her life is heart-breakingly sad. The girls who drove her to suicide exhibited a phenomenon common enough to have been given a name, "mean girls," apparently after a movie by that title which was also about girls who behave abominably.
There's been a lot of talk about the culpability of the school officials in Prince's death, but the question we might better ponder is why girls behave like this in the first place? What kind of human beings would hound a girl to her death and then continue to mock her on Facebook afterward? Are packs of girl's pushing other girls to total desperation now a normal part of an already fetid and effete culture? Why were these girls so cruel, why did they have so little empathy, so little compassion or kindness in their hearts?
Of course it's human nature to be cruel and resentful of outsiders. Compassion and acceptance of others have to be taught. These virtues have to be instilled in our children as a duty, and a culture that has abandoned the basis for moral duty, i.e. a Christian understanding of the world, is generally going to do a poor job of teaching that we have any such obligations to others.
Courtesy, forgiveness, selflessness, generosity and magnanimity in giving the benefit of the doubt all require a conviction that this is the proper way to conduct oneself, but if someone asks the question why one should comport oneself this way our post-Christian culture can give them no answer other than to say that it's nice to do so. In other words, we should be nice, we try to convince our children, because it's nice. That's going to fail to persuade a lot of young people, but it's the best we can do without invoking socially proscribed religious sanctions.
Consequently, our young people absorb their ethics from their cultural role models, and these are often, though not always, foul-mouthed, slutty, selfish, materialistic and petty. Many young girls learn at an early age that the most important thing in life is to look good and be popular and the best way to be popular is to be hard, loose, and hot. Failing that, the best way to consolidate one's status in the social hierarchy is to display power over another, and the best way to do that is by showing that you can hurt them. Young women weaned on this Darwinian view of what life's all about have little warmth in their hearts and little room for compassion in their souls.
As tragic and disgusting as the behavior of the culprits in Massachussetts was, no one should be surprised by it. Simply look at how too many of their role models behave, look at who and what the entertainment media incessantly promote, consider that many kids grow up with no real moral instruction and no foundation for whatever instruction they do get, and the wonder is that more girls aren't as cruel and repellent as the South Hadley High School nine.
Those readers with an interest in theology will be saddened by this news. Thomas Oord writes at his blog that:
Clark Pinnock is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Clark sent John Sanders and me the following note:
Dear Tom and John:
I want to inform you that I am now middle stage Alzheimer's. I will not be able to do my writing etc. I am 73 years now, and I've enjoyed my biblical three score and ten. I am not bitter. I have had a good life. I'll meet you over Jordan if not before.
You are free to make this news known.
With love,
Clark
Clark Pinnock was an extremely influential theologian during the latter half of the twentieth century, especially among Evangelicals. He was most well-known, and most controversial, as a champion of the view called Open Theism or Open Theology.
Oord pens a splendid summary of Pinnock's view on this issue on the same page that he features his email. Those interested in the subject will find Oord's treatment very helpful.
The Weekly Standarddiscerns a distinct hostility in the Obama administration toward business, wealth and achievement:
This animus toward accomplishment is producing significant political consequences. The February issue of Trends Magazine included an article titled, "The War on Achievement and its Building Backlash."
"For 250 years, America has been known throughout the world as the place where anyone could work hard, scrape together a little money and invest in a great idea," the Trends writers observe. "But a creeping kind of governmental interference has seriously threatened this ideal," they argue. In other words, the Trends writers continue, "the very bedrock concept underlying what's typically called 'the American Dream' is threatened by these measures."
Some specific pillars in the anti-achievement platform appear popular when polled - like raising taxes on the wealthy. Yet that's because higher taxes on the wealthy is never linked with any costs for the middle class in these surveys. Once voters understand there is a point at which taxing the rich or other perks produces negative economic consequences, the poll numbers would shift dramatically. Just ask the cocktail waitress in Vegas how Obama's tax and bonus rhetoric affects her economic prospects.
Rather than protecting the middle class, Obama's policies threaten their long-term ambitions through piling up unprecedented levels of debt justified by scorekeeping gimmicks. The president and his staff argued the health bill would reduce the deficit over the first ten years. But that's only because it includes ten years of taxes and spending cuts but only six years of benefits. Has Bernie Madoff become the Democrats' bookkeeper?
There's more at the link. Thanks to Jason for passing it along.
Actually the situation is even more dire than this article suggests. Keep checking back for more articles on the coming day of fiscal reckoning with which our government has put us on a collison course. We have to wonder why they're doing this. What is their justification for burying our children under mountains of debt?
All we get from the President are assurances that we've "turned the corner" on the recession even as his policies virtually guarantee that any recovery is going to be very short-lived. It's all very troubling.
A writer at National Review discusses her conviction that her husband's addiction ruined her family:
Imagine a drug so powerful it can destroy a family simply by distorting a man's perception of his wife. Picture an addiction so lethal it has the potential to render an entire generation incapable of forming lasting marriages and so widespread that it produces more annual revenue - $97 billion worldwide in 2006 - than all of the leading technology companies combined. Consider a narcotic so insidious that it evades serious scientific study and legislative action for decades, thriving instead under the ever-expanding banner of the First Amendment.
According to an online statistics firm, an estimated 40 million people use this drug on a regular basis. It doesn't come in pill form. It can't be smoked, injected, or snorted. And yet neurological data suggest its effects on the brain are strikingly similar to those of synthetic drugs. Indeed, two authorities on the neurochemistry of addiction, Harvey Milkman and Stanley Sunderwirth, claim it is the ability of this drug to influence all three pleasure systems in the brain - arousal, satiation, and fantasy - that makes it "the pi�ce de r�sistance among the addictions."
The drug, of course, is pornography. The writer, a psychologist who wishes to remain anonymous, continues:
According to Dr. Victor Cline, a nationally renowned clinical psychologist who specializes in sexual addiction, pornography addiction is a process that undergoes four phases. First, addiction, resulting from early and repeated exposure accompanied by masturbation. Second, escalation, during which the addict requires more frequent porn exposure to achieve the same "highs" and may learn to prefer porn to sexual intercourse. Third, desensitization, during which the addict views as normal what was once considered repulsive or immoral. And finally, the acting-out phase, during which the addict runs an increased risk of making the leap from screen to real life.
The article is as arresting as it is important. When pornography began to be mass-produced back in the sixties it was common to hear it defended by liberals as a harmless outlet for pent-up urges. Well, we've had the outlet around now for almost fifty years. It has metastasized via the internet and film throughout the culture to the point that it's hard to avoid it, and every study I've read about gives the lie to those who assured us way back then that pornography was no big deal. Like alcohol it's addictive and devastating, not only to the person who consumes it but also to the consumer's family and, in an increasing number of cases, other innocent women and children.
Read the rest of the essay. If you're a young woman dating someone you might want to enquire about his attitudes toward pornography. If you think he might be viewing it, you could be very likely setting yourself up for a lot of heartbreak if you continue in the relationship.
Jason Mattera is at it again. This time he confronts Virginia Democratic Congressman Jim Moran about the $6.4 billion of stimulus money that went to congressional districts that don't exist. Rep. Moran insists it was just a "clerical error."
Hey, what's a few billion dollars of taxpayer money when you're spending trillions?
I wonder what would have happened had Mr. Moran's aides not been there to keep the two men apart.
Congressman Paul Ryan, the ranking member on the House budget committee, knows the recently passed health care reform bill inside and out. In a recent column in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he explains to his Wisconsin constituents the enormous costs that loom ahead:
Premiums in the individual [insurance] market would rise from 10% to 13% for families. Our debt and deficit crisis - driven by $76 trillion in unfunded liabilities [mostly Social Security and Medicare] - would accelerate from the creation of a brand new entitlement and an increase in the federal deficit by $662 billion, when the true costs are factored in. National health expenditures will increase by an additional $222 billion over the next decade, according to the president's own chief actuary, and $2.4 trillion in the decade after the new entitlement is up and running.
The entire architecture of this overhaul is designed, unapologetically, to give the government greater control over what kind of insurance is available, how much health care is enough and which treatments are worth paying for.
The massive expansion of the federal government into the personal health care decisions will drive providers out of business and force employers to dump their workers on to government - controlled exchanges. Because Washington doesn't approve, millions of Wisconsin seniors will lose their Medicare Advantage plans and millions more will lose the consumer - friendly high-deductible health plans they enjoy.
There is another personal cost to this deluge of new government spending and control. Wisconsin remains in dire need of sustained job growth and robust economic recovery. This legislation will hit our economy with $569 billion in tax increases - tax hikes that will hit workers, families and job-creators alike.
Ryan concludes his piece with an important explanation as to why the Democrats were so determined to foist this crushing burden upon us and our children:
The yearlong partisan crusade - right through its ugly conclusion - revealed that this debate was never about policy but rather a paternalistic ideology at odds with our historic commitment to individual liberty, limited government and entrepreneurial dynamism. The proponents of this legislation reject an opportunity society and instead assume you are stuck in your station in life and the role of government is to help you cope with it. Rather than promote equal opportunities for individuals to make the most of their lives, the cradle-to-grave welfare state seeks to equalize the results of people's lives.
Apparently so, but since Congress has exempted some of their own members from the bill they must think that they're more equal than the rest of us. A great way to achieve the equality they wish to impose on us is to return them to private life in November.
Dennis Prager surveys the current cultural and political scene and concludes that we're in the midst of a non-violent civil war. This assessment shouldn't come as a shock to anyone who has been paying attention to the culture wars that've been raging in our society for the last thirty years.
What Prager says, and what many have been saying for decades now, is that the Left is at war with traditional America. Their values and ambitions are inimical to the principles upon which the country was founded and upon which five generations of Americans have been raised.
It's important to note that by the term "Left" Prager doesn't mean liberals:
Liberalism believed in American exceptionalism; the Left not only does not believe in it, but opposes it. (President Obama, when asked if he believes in American exceptionalism, replied, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.")
Liberalism believed in creating wealth; the Left is interested in redistributing it. Liberalism believed in a strong defense. The Left believes in cutting defense and relying on a strong United Nations.
How have we gotten to the point where those who want to fundamentally change the things that have made life in America so much better for so many people now have the power to do it? Perhaps it's largely because for too long too many of our citizens have taken little interest in matters beyond the scope of their own families, workplaces, and communities. The average American is woefully uninformed about the larger culture, particularly the political culture, and has failed and been failed in his education by both school and church.
Too many students graduate from high school, for example, with an understanding neither of the Constitution nor of American history. Too many Americans sit in pews every Sunday without ever hearing a sermon on the crucial importance of religion as a basis for moral virtue, or, for that matter, on the need for moral virtue in our personal and corporate lives. Instead, much of our understanding of matters both of faith and politics is left to be shaped by a mostly toxic and inane pop culture.
Too few Americans have ever read The Federalist Papers, Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Mill's On Liberty, Locke's Second Treatise on Government, or Smith's Wealth of Nations. Without at least a passing familiarity with works like these by men whose ideas informed the American experiment, it's hard for people to grasp how much different the Left's principles are from the principles of those who founded this country.
Too few Americans know even two or three of the amendments to the Constitution. Too few even care what they are or would be much concerned if they heard that they were all to be repealed tomorrow.
Our ignorance about how our nation came to be and how it works makes us vulnerable to the corrosive acids of a leftist ideology that abhors the very freedom that has made America a great nation and the hope of people all around the globe. Representative John Dingell gave us a peek into the leftist mindset the other day when he let slip that the goal of health care was to "control the people." Individual freedom is the furthest thing from the minds of too many of our political leaders. For such as Mr. Dingell the opportunity to govern is all about the power to control:
If the Left is successful in reducing this country to the status of, say, France or England the world will pay an awful price. There'll be no economic powerhouse to deliver to the world's destitute the food, medicine, and other charitable benefits they need to survive. There'll be no military strong enough to serve as a check on Islamic terror and expansion or to deter war in the Middle East or between India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan, Turkey and Greece, or Russia and Europe. An economically enfeebled America would be a militarily crippled America and our weakness would invite chaos and bloodletting on a massive scale around the globe.
This is the direction the Left, under Obama, Pelosi and Reid, is taking us, whether purposely or not. Our national indebtedness will, in a decade or so, be so high, our government will be so top-heavy, that all our wealth will either be siphoned off to creditors like China, or sucked into the vast bureaucratic machinery of the social welfare state. There'll be little left over to spend on defense or charitable relief and little incentive for individuals to work hard and take risks.
Edmund Burke once said, "All that's necessary for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." Perhaps the last year has roused Americans from their traditional torpor and inspired them to start caring. At least we can hope.
Readers under the age of 25 might never have heard of Jaime Escalante, and even many over 25 probably never heard of him either. Even so, he was a role model for a generation of teachers who wanted to do everything they could to give their students the best education they could get.
There are teachers who just want to put in the time and collect a check. There are teachers who want to teach, but are unwilling to work much beyond what the contract calls for, and then there are teachers like Escalante who view teaching much like most coaches view coaching. He was ready and willing to put in whatever time and effort were needed to win, and it paid off. Escalante was an immigrant from Bolivia who struggled with English. He taught math in inner city L.A., and through sheer hard work, determination and personality brought many of his students to a point where they were passing the AP calculus exam as a matter of course. His was a wonderful, moving story made into a movie in 1988 starring Edward James Olmos and titled Stand and Deliver.
If you're planning to be a teacher or if you just want to be inspired by what one man can accomplish when he's determined to achieve, rent Stand and Deliver.
Jaime Escalante died Tuesday in his native Bolivia at the age of 79.
I understand Rep. Hank Johnson is not a well man, infected as he is with hepatitis C. This is tragic, of course, but it doesn't make it any the less embarrassing that this fellow is a United States Congressman. In this video clip from last week he expresses his concern that putting too many military personnel on Guam might cause it, being a small island, to tip over in the ocean. I know you don't believe that he really said that so watch the video:
Reflect now upon the fact that the honorable gentleman from Georgia is also an enthusiastic supporter of health care reform. Yikes.
Seriously, whether Rep. Johnson's fears about Guam capsizing are a result of the effects of his illness (though I don't know how hepatitis would addle one's brain) or whether he's simply simple-minded, we should have compassion for him, but compassion surely does not extend to allowing Mr. Johnson to have a say in formulating the policies by which the rest of us must be governed.
To listen to MSNBC and the people who write for the New York Times you would think that nasty, threatening rhetoric was actually invented by tea party conservatives. Never mind that it has proven very difficult to document most of the worst allegations made against tea-party protestors, let's give the Paul Krugmans and Keith Olbermanns of the world the benefit of the doubt and concede that there have indeed been some mean things said about our President and our congresspersons.
After all, some individuals have certainly expressed doubt about Mr. Obama's birthplace and thus the legitimacy of his holding the office of President; people are calling him awful names like socialist; many are so angry with his policies that they're threatening to launch a political "Armageddon" in November and "target" Democrats for defeat; people are portraying the President as the Joker, and they're doing and saying other unimaginable things as well.
All of this, we're given to believe, is a novel development in our politics, a quantum leap in vitriol and hate. Well, hardly. The tea partier rhetoric, such as it is, is the mere cooing of doves compared to what the Democrat rank and file treated us to during the Bush era. For those with short memories we offer this video as a sampling of what Democrat activists were saying in 2004. As you watch ask yourself if the media wouldn't be going off like a Roman candle if every time one of these people said "Bush," or "Left," or whatever, they had actually used the corresponding noun "Obama" or "Right," etc:
When Democrats use hateful rhetoric, well, that's to be expected. It scarcely makes the news, but if conservatives use it then the liberal media Chicken Littles scurry about covering the ears and screaming that they've never heard such terrible things ever in our whole modern history. These people are beyond parody.
Some time ago we did a post based on a remark made by a woman named Tanya on another blog. I thought that as we approach Good Friday it might be worth running the post again, slightly edited.
Tanya's comment was provoked by an atheist at the other blog who had issued a mild rebuke to his fellow non-believers for their attempts to use the occasion of Christmas to deride Christian belief. In so doing, he exemplified the sort of attitude toward those with whom he disagrees one might wish all people, atheists and Christians alike, would adopt. Unfortunately, Tanya spoiled the mellow, can't-we-all-just-get-along mood by displaying a petulant asperity toward, and an unfortunate ignorance of, the orthodox Christian understanding of the atonement.
She wrote:
I've lived my life in a more holy way than most Christians I know. If it turns out I'm wrong, and some pissy little whiner god wants to send me away just because I didn't worship him, even though I lived a clean, decent life, he can bite me. I wouldn't want to live in that kind of "heaven" anyway. So sorry.
Tanya evidently thinks that "heaven" is, or should be, all about living a "clean, decent life." Perhaps the following tale will illustrate the sophomoric callowness of her misconception:
Once upon a time there was a handsome prince who was deeply in love with a young woman. We'll call her Tanya. The prince wanted Tanya to come and live with him in the wonderful city his father, the king, had built, but Tanya wasn't interested in either the prince or the city. The city was beautiful and wondrous, to be sure, but the inhabitants weren't particularly fun to be around, and she wanted to stay out in the countryside where the wild things grow. Even though the prince wooed Tanya with every gift he could think of, it was to no avail. She wasn't smitten at all by the "pissy little whiner" prince. She obeyed the laws of the kingdom and paid her taxes and was convinced that that was good enough.
Out beyond the countryside, however, dwelt dreadful, awful orc-like creatures who hated the king and wanted nothing more than to be rid of him and his heirs. One day they learned of the prince's love for Tanya and set upon a plan. They snuck into her village, kidnapped Tanya and sent a note to the king telling him that they would be willing to exchange her for the prince, but if their offer was refused they would torture Tanya until she was dead.
The king, distraught beyond words, told the prince of the horrible news. Despite all the rejections the prince had experienced from Tanya, he still loved her deeply, and his heart broke at the thought of her peril. With tears he resolved to his father that he would do the exchange. The father wept bitterly because the prince was his only son, but he knew that his love for Tanya would not allow him to let her suffer the torment to which the ugly people would surely subject her. The prince asked only that the father try his best to persuade Tanya to live safely in the beautiful city once she was ransomed.
And so the day came for the exchange, and the prince rode bravely and proudly bestride his steed out of the beautiful city to meet the ugly creatures. As he crossed an expansive meadow toward the camp of his mortal enemy he stopped to make sure they released Tanya. He waited until she was out of the camp, fleeing toward the safety of the king's city, oblivious in her near-panic that it was the prince himself she ran past as she hurried to the safety of the city walls. He could easily turn back now that Tanya was safe, but he had given his word that he would do the exchange, and the ugly people knew he would never go back on his word.
The prince continued stoically and resolutely into their midst, giving himself for Tanya as he had promised. Surrounding his steed they set upon him, stripped him of his princely raiment, and tortured him for three days in the most excruciating manner. Not once did any sound louder than a moan pass his lips. His courage and determination to endure whatever agonies to which they subjected him were strengthened by the assurance that he was doing it for Tanya and that because of his sacrifice she was safe. Finally, wearying of their sport, they cut off his head and threw his body onto a garbage heap.
Meanwhile, the grief-stricken king, his heart melting like ice within his breast, called Tanya into his court. He told her nothing of what his son had done, his pride in the prince not permitting him to use his son's heroic sacrifice as a bribe. Even so, he pleaded with Tanya, as he had promised the prince he would, to remain with him within the walls of the wondrous and beautiful city where she'd be safe forevermore. Tanya considered the offer, but she decided that she liked life on the outside far too much, even if it was risky, and she didn't really want to be in too close proximity to the prince, and, by the way, she asked the king, where is that pissy little whiner son of yours anyway?
A Washington Timesarticle by David Dickson confronts us with some very troubling fiscal facts. According to last Thursday's Congressional Budget Office report President Obama's fiscal 2011 budget will generate nearly $10 trillion in cumulative budget deficits over the next 10 years - $1.2 trillion more than the administration projected - and raise the federal debt to 90 percent of the nation's economic output by 2020.
The federal public debt was $6.3 trillion when Mr. Obama entered office. It currently totals $8.2 trillion, and it's headed toward $20.3 trillion in 2020, according to the CBO's deficit estimates. This translates to a debt of $170,000 per household in ten years. How in the world does our political leadership think we're going to pay for that? If they were deliberately trying to drive this country over the cliff, as some think is the case, what would they do differently?
Hot Air's Ed Morrissey, in commenting on Dickson's column, offers some historical perspective:
The worst deficit under a Republican Congress was $400 billion in FY2004. It's also worth noting that the last budget produced by a Republican Congress spent $2.77 trillion (FY2007), and had a deficit of less than half of that peak. While Republican Congresses added almost $800 billion in annual spending to the budget in six years - an indefensible expansion - that pales in comparison to the $1.1 trillion added by Democratic Congresses in just three years. Under those conditions, the massive budget deficits shown in the CBO's graph are simply unavoidable, and the best of the next ten years is double the worst of the Republican Congress from 2001-7.
Don't expect that debt to come cheap, either. We're already seeing signs that our interest rates will have to go up in order to sell more paper, which will cause the deficit projections here to actually fall short of reality. We could be looking at a collapse scenario where we can't borrow enough to keep up with our interest payments by the time this decade concludes.
This CBO graph, from Hot Air, pretty much sums up the fiscal predicament the Obama administration has placed us in:
Pretty soon those of us who can remember will be waxing nostalgic for the good old days of the Carter presidency.
