Badgering Barney

Via Hot Air, Jason Mattera goes after Massachussetts congressman Barney Frank. Mattera, who has written a book titled Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation, really is irrepressible, but as Hot Air notes, at least Frank kept the conversation going, even if he did distort some of the facts.

A little background before you watch: About twenty years ago Frank's romantic partner was arrested for running a homosexual prostitution ring out of the apartment he shared with Frank. Frank claimed to have no knowledge of his partner's activities and was exonerated. Subsequently he developed a relationship with an employee of Fannie Mae, the agency Frank's committee was tasked with overseeing. Mattera alludes to these relationships in his "interview" with Frank.

The fist bump was a nice touch.

RLC

Co-Option

Well, I'm not sure, given the etymology of "tea-bagger" (this is a family blog so don't ask me if you don't know) that I agree with the tactic portrayed in the video, but I guess one way to defuse an insult is to co-opt the term. This is what police back in the sixties did with the pejorative "pig," and what homosexuals have done with "gay" and "queer," so I guess the thinking is that it's one way to blunt some of the derision directed at the tea-party movement:

Personally, I'd rather they not go this route. The more their opponents refer to them as "tea-baggers" the sleazier their opponents appear in the public eye. The epithet does more to diminish and discredit the people who use it than it does the people at whom it's directed.

HT: Hot Air

RLC

Antony Flew (1923-2010)

Philosopher Antony Flew was perhaps the most prominent and accomplished atheistic thinker of the latter half of the twentieth century. He subsequently went on to roil the academic world when in 2004 it became public that he had renounced atheism and embraced a sort of non-Christian theism. His 2007 book There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed his Mind attributed his journey from atheism to theism to his being convinced that there was no naturalistic explanation for the origin of life. Throughout his career he insisted that one should always go where ever the evidence leads and it had led him to the existence of a Creator. His former colleagues among the atheist community reacted to his conversion with a mixture of astonishment and opprobrium, but Flew was not deterred.

In an interview given in October of 2007 he explained his move this way:

There were two factors in particular that were decisive. One was my growing empathy with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientists that there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe. The second was my own insight that the integrated complexity of life itself - which is far more complex than the physical Universe - can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source. I believe that the origin of life and reproduction simply cannot be explained from a biological standpoint despite numerous efforts to do so. With every passing year, the more that was discovered about the richness and inherent intelligence of life, the less it seemed likely that a chemical soup could magically generate the genetic code. The difference between life and non-life, it became apparent to me, was ontological and not chemical. The best confirmation of this radical gulf is Richard Dawkins' comical effort to argue in The God Delusion that the origin of life can be attributed to a "lucky chance." If that's the best argument you have, then the game is over. No, I did not hear a Voice. It was the evidence itself that led me to this conclusion...

Antony Flew died April 8th at the age of 87. The Telegraph UK has an informative obituary, and Denise O'Leary at Uncommon Descent lists a number of links to pieces she's written on Flew over the last couple of years.

RLC

Against All Odds

Casey Luskin at Evolution News and Views has a video of Roger Penrose, one of the most accomplished theoretical physicists of our time giving a lecture on the initial conditions of the universe. Luskin notes that Penrose is not, as far as he knows, sympathetic to intelligent design, but when you hear what he says about the initial entropy of the universe you have to wonder why not.

Penrose says that the entropy just after the Big Bang was calibrated to a tolerance of 10000000000 to the 123rd power. Entropy is a measure of how ordered the initial explosion was, and if the value had deviated from the value it actually had by one part in 10000000000^123rd the universe would never have formed. This is, as Penrose notes, incredible precision.

To give you an idea of the size of that number consider that in the entire universe there are approximately 10^80 atoms.

I once read somewhere that scientists usually reject something as having occurred by chance if the odds of it happening randomly are 1 in 10^17. Evidently, though, if the alternative to believing in chance is the existence of an intelligent architect of the universe then it doesn't matter to a lot of people what the odds are against chance explanations, they'll be clung to with all the tenacity of a man gripping a cliff face with his fingertips lest he be plunged into the abyss.

RLC

Whatever Happened to Truth?

Some years ago a book about the post-modern subjectivization of truth titled Whatever Happened to Truth? was published. I thought of that title when I read an article at Breitbart recently about how opponents of the tea party hope to smear and discredit it, not by countering their arguments, not by offering a better way forward, but by infiltrating their rallies and shouting bigoted remarks that an otiose media can be depended upon to impute to conservative bigotry.

The Breitbart article notes that the group's website states that:

"whenever possible we will act on behalf of the tea-party in ways that exaggerate their least appealing qualities (Misspelled protest signs, wild claims in tv interviews, etc.) to further distance them from mainstream America and damage the public's opinion of them. We will also use the inside information we have gained in order to disrupt and derail their plans."

The Breitbart piece adds this:

Opponents of the fiscally conservative tea party movement say they plan to infiltrate and dismantle the political group by trying to make its members appear to be racist, homophobic and moronic.

Jason Levin, creator of crashtheteaparty.org, said Monday the group has 65 leaders in major cities across the country who are trying to recruit members to infiltrate tea party events for April 15-tax filing day, when tea party groups across the country are planning to gather and protest high taxes.

"Do I think every member of the tea party is a homophobe, racist or a moron? No, absolutely not," Levin said. "Do I think most of them are homophobes, racists or morons? Absolutely."

Levin has quite artfully shot himself and his movement in the foot by inadvertently managing to cast suspicion on every allegation of tea-party misbehavior both past and future. Why, given the tactics that this group is embracing, should we believe that the insults and threats that congresspersons alleged they heard during the health care fracas actually came from opponents of the bill? Why should we think that any such excesses that occur in the future should be imputed to tea-partiers and not to lefty imposters? The left has Levin to thank for disarming them of one of their more potent propaganda weapons.

In any event, Levin's behavior is rather typical of the secular left. Sensing that they have no arguments with which to counter the tea-party's fiscal conservatism they plan to resort, essentially, to lying about it. Let's see who on the left is willing to condemn Levin and his group for their despicable contempt for the truth and their appalling willingness to defame and libel their opponents. Perhaps the condemnations will start rolling in shortly, but if they don't it'll imply that a lot of liberals don't see anything wrong with what Levin is proposing. If that's the case then we'll have learned (or confirmed) something very important about the character of people on the left, i.e. too many of them need more than what they have.

RLC

Winners and Losers

In the brave new world of the coming decade things look bright for the 47% of Americans who pay no income tax. Like candidate Obama said, everybody's better off if we spread the wealth around.

Well, maybe not quite everybody, but life is certainly going to get better for the people lounging in the wagon and a lot harder for the people pulling it:

It's only fair.

RLC

The Art of Compromise

From time to time the complaint is aired that conservatives have been too unwilling to compromise with the Obama administration on policy, most recently health care reform. Republicans, at least to the extent that they're conservatives, are labeled intransigent and unwilling to bend in order to reach a modus vivendi to help the American people.

What's usually elided or not understood is that compromise between liberal progressives and conservatives is not a compromise at all. A compromise occurs when both sides give up something in order to gain a little, but in any "compromise" between left and right all that happens is that the country moves further to the left than they were before.

Political compromise is an instance of the Hegelian dialectic in which thesis and antithesis fuse to result in a new synthesis which moves the whole system further away from the old status quo, even as a new status quo is established.

The move leftward may be slow, but it's inexorable. This is because progressives, no matter how much change they have achieved, are always promoting more. There's no point at which they can say that we have arrived or that they are satisfied. If there were they would then no longer be progressives, instead they would morph into reactionaries.

Conservatives, on the other hand, are simply trying to hold on to whatever they can. They've bought the notion, at least Republicans have, that we can not roll back any of the "progress" we've made in the last century. Thus the arrow of change flies ineluctably in only one direction. As long as conservatives are persuaded that compromise is politically necessary the country will continue it's long march leftward.

Any compromise between conservative and liberal can only benefit the liberal. The dialectic ensures that compromise is always a victory for the liberal and always a defeat for the conservative. It's as if a man, let's say a Republican, has a hundred dollars in his wallet and wants to keep it. A Democrat approaches him, however, and asks that the Republican donate the hundred dollars to the Democrat. The Republican refuses so the Democrat, not wishing to appear unreasonable, says "Okay, let's compromise. You give me $50, and I'll be satisfied." The Republican refuses that demand as well, but neither does he wish to seem unreasonable, so he agrees to give his colleague $20. The Democrat, in the spirit of bipartisanship, accepts the compromise.

A deal is struck and everyone basks in the eudemonia that flows from the harmonious resolution of the disagreement. The Republican feels good that his negotiation prevented him from losing his entire $100. He fails to notice that he has gained nothing and is in fact poorer than he was. Months later the Democrat returns and asks that the Republican donate the $80 remaining in his wallet. The Republican, not wishing to appear niggardly and unreasonable, and caught up in the exuberant spirit of bipartisan compromise, refuses to give the $80 but gladly parts with another $20.

And so it goes until one day the Republican realizes that he has nothing left. He's "compromised" it all away. Conservatives realize that compromise is just a strategy liberals employ to incrementally nudge the country leftward. Unfortunately, a lot of Republicans, eager for the public to see them as wise and moderate, don't see that they're being played for suckers at all.

RLC

Does God Torment the Innocent?

Philosopher of religion Alexander Pruss constructs an imaginary dialogue at Prosblogion between "Ari" and "Cal" on the question whether, given the truth of Calvinism, God can still be just. Here's the opening exchange:

Ari: Consider this horrific theology: God forces Sally to sin, in a way that takes away her responsibility, and then he intentionally causes eternal torment to her.

Cal: I thought you were smarter than that. That isn't Calvinist theology! Calvinism holds that God intentionally causes people to sin in a way that retains their responsibility, and then punishes some of them.

Ari: I didn't say it was a Calvinist theology. You agree that this is a horrific theology, I take it?

Cal: Yes, of course.

Ari: Why?

Cal: Because God is punishing an innocent.

Ari: I said nothing about punishment. I said God intentionally caused eternal torment. I didn't say that the torment was a punishment.

Cal: How does that make it not be horrific?

Ari: I agree it's horrific. I just want to get clear on why. It's horrific because eternal torment is intentionally imposed on an innocent, right?

Read the rest at the link, but Calvinists are forewarned that they will not like the way it goes. Be sure to check the comments as well.

RLC

Metaethics

In the course of a critique of the Sam Harris TED video about which we posted the other day, atheist philosopher Massimo Pigliucci of the City University of New York makes the following claim:

So, how do we ground moral reasoning? This is the province of a whole area of inquiry known as metaethics, and I suggest that Harris would benefit from reading about it....Just as we don't need a good answer to the question of where mathematics comes from to engage in mathematical reasoning, so it is not very productive to keep asking philosophers for "the ultimate foundations" of what they do (if this sounds like an easy way out to you, remember that neither math nor science itself have self-justifiable foundations).

Well, yes, but this sounds as if Pigliucci seems to realize that as an atheist he has no grounds for making moral judgments, especially those which involve anyone but himself, and doesn't want anyone taking the trouble to point this out.

He's also confusing apples and oranges in comparing the grounds for one's ethical judgments with the grounds for mathematics. We don't keep asking for an explanation for the ultimate foundations of mathematics because the assertions in mathematics are self-evident or derived from self-evident axioms. It is these that form the ultimate foundation of the discipline, and, unlike the ultimate foundation of many ethical theories, they're neither arbitrary nor subjective preferences. They're objective and universally accepted. There's no dispute about them, but it's not so with the grounds for our ethical claims.

It's silly to ask someone who has just pointed out that 1 + 1 = 2 to explain why he believes that, but it's not at all silly to ask someone who insists, for instance, that families should limit themselves to two children to give an account of what he's basing this moral adjuration upon.

No general ethical claim is self-evident. There are some, of course, that have powerful intuitive appeal, like the assertion that it's always wrong to torture children, but intuitive appeal doesn't make the claim self-evident in the sense that 1 + 1 = 2 is. To see this, consider that in any possible world 1 + 1 would still equal 2, but there are possible worlds, as unpleasant as they may be to imagine, in which torturing children would not be wrong. For example, such behavior would not be wrong in a world in which there are no moral duties, which is precisely the sort of world this world would be were there no God.

To request that a person making a moral judgment explain the foundations upon which the judgment rests is to safeguard against having them bind the rest of us to their own arbitrary, personal preferences. It's also a guard against allowing them to persuade us that they're really saying something meaningful about the world - as opposed to merely telling us something about their own subjective tastes - when they declare a particular behavior right or wrong.

Perhaps Pigliucci wants to be able to make moral judgments without having to defend the fact that his judgments are either hanging in mid-air or piggy-backing upon a theistic understanding of morality, but, if so, he really shouldn't be permitted to get away with it.

RLC

Feedback

There are some thoughtful reader responses to recent posts on our Feedback Page. Please check them out.

RLC

How You Can Tell If You're an RBH

Jim Wallis at God's Politics blog grieves the regrettable nastiness of our current political rhetoric and offers readers a chance to sign a "Covenant for Civility" which I encourage our readers to check out.

Wallis writes:

Just a few months ago, a deeply concerned, veteran member of Congress called me to express real despair about the alarming level of disrespect, personal attacks, and even hateful rhetoric that was occurring among her colleagues - reflecting a degeneration of public debate in our national culture. This month, another member of Congress called to express real fear about threats of violence he and other elected officials had experienced against themselves and their family members. Political debate, even vigorous debate, is a healthy thing for a democracy; but to question the integrity, patriotism, and even faith of those with whom we disagree is destructive to democratic discourse, and to threaten or even imply the possibility of violence toward those whose politics or worldview differs from ours is a sign of moral danger, and indeed, a sign of democracy's unraveling.

I join with Wallis in lamenting the deplorable ugliness of much of our politics, but if we're going to change it we have to recognize what has engendered it. In my opinion, much of the ugliness is due to the refusal of many on the left to accurately characterize their conservative opposition. The attempt to distort in the public mind exactly what it is that conservatives believe goes back at least to the Robert Bork confirmation hearings in the 1990s and continues through contemporary depictions of the tea-partiers. Those who disagree with liberal philosophy and policy are often disparaged as "extremists" or, worse, "right-wing" extremists. And it goes without saying, of course, that extremists are ipso facto racists, bigots, and homophobes. After a couple of decades of listening to this sort of slander it begins to grow tedious.

One can only endure being called a lout for so long before one realizes that he is conversing with people who are either dishonest or who think only in stereotypes, and at that point dialogue just breaks down. Anyway, here's a little test to see if you fit the description, widely circulated on the left, of a right-wing, racist, bigot, homophobe (RBH) extremist.

You know you are such a creature if:

You believe that the Constitution matters and that it means what it says, not what creative jurists think it should say.

You think that people who come to this country should do so through proper legal channels, that we should control who comes in, and that we should give preference to those who have skills to contribute.

You believe that we should value life and that laws should err on the side of protecting it.

You think it is reckless and foolish to spend excessively more than we have - even if what we spend it on is a good thing - and to burden our children with a mountain of crushing debt.

You want the 47% of the households in this country which don't pay any income taxes to get out of the wagon every now and then and help push.

You believe that the best way to create jobs is to make it easier for businesses to make money and that the worst way is to shackle businesses with high taxes and onerous regulations.

You believe that everyone should be treated equally under the law. There should be no favoritism shown to anyone on the basis of race and that all people in any field of endeavor should be held to the same standard to which we hold those of the majority race.

You believe that the science regarding climate change has been politicized and is far from conclusive, particularly as it concerns both the causes and effects of global warming.

You believe that after thousands of years of settled opinion about marriage we don't need to tinker with it now.

You believe that much of the major media slants toward the political left and that this bias causes them to give a distorted, often unfair, view of politics and policy.

You hold religious convictions which you take seriously and which inform your views on everything else in your life.

You believe that terrorists are not criminals but deadly enemies who should not be accorded the same rights we give American citizens.

You believe that the problems in education are generally exacerbated rather than ameliorated by government bureaucracy.

You believe that the United States has been a force for good in the world, that we should continue to be, and that a necessary condition for remaining so is maintaining a powerful military.

You believe that big, bloated government is like a millstone around a society's neck, and that that government is best which is loath to extend its power unless a clear consensus exists that it is in the common interest to do so.

You believe that people of sound mind and body who are made dependent upon government for their needs and wants are generally hurt more than they are helped.

You take seriously your rights and obligations as a citizen to be involved in the affairs of your government and to hold your representatives accountable for the quality of service they render.

To the extent that you agree with these seventeen characteristics of "right-wing extremists," I'm afraid you are, in the eyes of many in our media and on the political left, a raging, hateful RBH and should be embarrassed to show your face in public.

RLC

Rod Dreher on Bruce Waltke

Rod Dreher at BeliefNet has an interesting post on the case of Bruce Waltke a theologian at Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando who has recently resigned his position due to controversial statements he made in a video on BioLogos, a blog started by Francis Collins to promote theistic evolution.

Dreher writes:

Shocking news from the world of Protestant theology: Bruce Waltke, arguably the pre-eminent Old Testament scholar in the field, has resigned from the Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando. Why? It's not clear, but this comes right after he was excoriated by other conservative Protestant figures for statements made in a video posted to the BioLogos website.... According to an eyebrow-raising statement on the BioLogos site, Waltke stated in a video commentary that had been posted to the site that the church needed to come to terms with the fact of evolution, explaining that "if the data is overwhelmingly in favor of evolution, to deny that reality will make us a cult...some odd group that is not really interacting with the world.

And rightly so, because we are not using our gifts and trusting God's Providence that brought us to this point of our awareness." He said that refusing to deal with science as it is will marginalize Christians.

Everything Waltke is quoted as saying here seems true enough, but it raises the question whether the data really is "overwhelmingly in favor of evolution" and the even deeper question of what Waltke means by the term "evolution." There's much empirical data to support belief in common descent, but common descent is not what most people mean by evolution. The word is usually used to refer to the progression from simpler to more complex forms of life driven by purely mechanical processes with no input at any point along the way by an intelligent agent.

This is more accurately called Darwinian evolution and it's very hard to see how this view could be compatible with a Christian worldview.

Moreover, for this claim there is actually no empirical evidence, nor can there be. It's impossible to demonstrate or test the assertion that no intelligent agent was involved in calibrating the values of physics or in generating the information upon which life is based. Yet Darwinism assumes the truth of that assertion. It is therefore not a scientific claim, it's simply a religious affirmation of a faith commitment.

Dreher adds the following comments:

[E]ven though I would agree that Waltke's controversial remarks were overstated, it is all but incomprehensible that in 2010, any American scholar, particularly one of his academic distinction, could be so harshly bullied for stating an opinion consonant with current scientific orthodoxy. Doesn't Waltke at least have the right to be wrong about something like this? Don't mistake me, I believe that any and every religion, and religious institution, has the right, and indeed the obligation, to set standards and to enforce them. But is this really the hill these Reformed folks want to die on?

To be sure, the intolerance goes both ways, as Dr. Richard Sternberg can attest. Still, Waltke was not questioning basic Christian dogmas, only asserting the importance of religion reconciling itself with science. As 2010 Templeton laureate and eminent scientist Francisco Ayala recently said, he's had university students who, when they learn about evolutionary science, come to believe quite wrongly that they have to choose between science and their faith. However well meaning, the people who have apparently pushed Waltke out of the seminary over this are not protecting the integrity of the faith; they're badly compromising it.

I share Dreher's concern about bullying as well as his concern about picking our fights carefully, but I also wonder about his characterization that this was not a matter of "questioning basic Christian dogmas, only asserting the importance of religion reconciling itself with science." Is it really a question of reconciling religion with science or is it a question of capitulating to a pervasive naturalistic zeitgeist? Is it the empirical facts about the history of life that the people at Reformed Theological Seminary are resisting or is it the interpretative framework into which those facts are placed that raises their concern? I think these are relevant and important questions.

Dreher concludes with this:

I spoke with an ex-Evangelical friend about this today, telling her how mysterious Waltke's bullying was to me. She said it's not the least bit surprising to her. "You didn't grow up with it, so you have no idea how central Biblical literalism on this stuff is," she said. "It's all about Biblical inerrancy. If Genesis is not literally true in every respect, in their minds the whole thing falls apart. They can't give an inch on this."

Maybe so. The concern his friend expresses reminded me of the words of Augustine commenting on the difficulties of interpreting Genesis:

"In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines our position, we too fall with it."

In the end, though, I think Dreher is a bit too hard on Reformed Theological Seminary. After all, if the seminary has a statement of faith, and if Waltke has wandered beyond its limits and refuses to conform himself to it, whether the statement is reasonable or not, whether it contains hills they'd be better off not fighting over or not, it's probably appropriate that they part company.

RLC

Intellectual Hares and Tortoises

Have you ever been in the presence of someone really smart whose mental agility and power were so impressive that it made you feel, well, hopelessly slow? Have you known people so quick in their ability to analyze and solve problems that you felt like an intellectual tortoise by comparison? Well, if you're a tortoise don't despair. Research is suggesting that the cause of slower thinking is also a cause of greater creativity. Here's the nub of the New Scientist report:

As far as the internet or phone networks go, bad connections are bad news. Not so in the brain, where slower connections may make people more creative.

Rex Jung at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and his colleagues had found that creativity correlates with low levels of the chemical N-acetylaspartate, which is found in neurons and seems to promote neural health and metabolism.

But neurons make up the brain's grey matter - the tissue traditionally associated with thinking power, rather than creativity. So Jung is now focusing his creativity studies on white matter, which is largely made of the fatty myelin sheaths that wrap around neurons. Less myelin means the white matter has a lower "integrity" and transmits information more slowly.

Several recent studies have suggested that white matter of high integrity in the cortex, which is associated with higher mental function, means increased intelligence. But when Jung looked at the link between white matter and creativity, he found something quite different.

Jung found that the most creative people had lower white-matter integrity in a region connecting the prefrontal cortex to a deeper structure called the thalamus, compared with their less creative peers.

Jung suggests that slower communication between some areas may actually make people more creative. "This might allow for the linkage of more disparate ideas, more novelty, and more creativity," he says.

The results are surprising, given that high white-matter integrity is normally considered a good thing, says Paul Thompson at the University of California in Los Angeles. He acknowledges that speedy information transfer may not be vital for creative thought. "Sheer mental speed might be good for playing chess or doing a Rubik's cube, but you don't necessarily think of writing novels or creating art as being something that requires sheer mental speed," he says.

So, next time you're in the presence of a really outstanding thinker, don't be jealous. Console yourself with the thought that you're quite possibly more creative than he is.

RLC

Coal vs. Nukes

The West Virginia coal mine accident is a terrible tragedy, but for those of us not directly touched by the loss of life it might not be insensitive to reflect on a statistic:

The number of workers known to have died in the West Virginia coal mine tragedy is now at 25.

The average number of coal mine deaths per year since 2000 is 30.

The number of people known to have died in the U.S. as a result of accidents in the 40 year history of electricity generated by nuclear power is 0.

And yet we refuse to build more nuclear power plants because we're afraid that nuclear power will pose a hazard to people, both the plants themselves and the storage of the waste. Yet we continue to mine coal even though we know that coal poses a hazard, both to those who mine it and to the environment into which the combustion products are dumped.

As if this weren't inscrutable enough, President Obama wants to solve the problems coal poses to human safety and the environment by simply eliminating both coal and nuclear power as a source of energy. How we will light our homes once he has ushered in the golden age of a nuclear-free and fossil fuel-free world he hasn't yet explained to us, but we can be sure that he knows what he's doing.

RLC

Transcending Race

The New York Times confirms that Barack Obama is indeed the nation's first black president, having inexplicably checked "Black" to identify his race on his census form. I say "inexplicably" because the man who was going to bring us together and end all of that ugly divisiveness that plagues our politics, the man who was going to transcend race, could have checked "Other." Instead, he chose to identify with the black father he never knew, and spurn the white family that raised him.

Doesn't that seem faintly racist, if I may be forgiven for asking? If someone had one white parent and one black wouldn't it be inaccurate and arbitrary to call oneself white?

A student once asked, if every president until Mr. Obama had been black would everyone be calling President Obama the first white president?

Nah.

RLC

Re: The Most Insidious Drug

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...

Interesting idea.

RLC

Harris on Morality

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.

RLC

The Looming Tsunami

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.

RLC

Flat Tax

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.

RLC

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Smear 'Em

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.

RLC