No Solution to the Falling Dollar

Bill posts an excellent piece by way of reply to the article titled The Falling Dollar posted on Saturday. Bill's essay is very informative and rather disturbing. Readers are urged to check it out in our Feedback Forum.

The Usual Suspects

It's now official. Yushchenko was poisoned with dioxin. Word is that MoveOn.Org will soon reveal proof implicating the nefarious Bush administration in this attempt on the Ukrainian's life.

Intelligent Design and Religion

Joe Carter at Evangelical Outpost poses this question: If a scientist were able to produce an organism from scratch in the laboratory how could other scientists tell that it had been designed by an intelligent agent rather than by nature? There must be some distinctive characteristics of naturally designed organisms, Carter argues, which distinguish them from artificially designed objects. How else, he wonders, can Darwinians justify their certainty that organisms are only fashioned by natural processes and never intelligent ones?

His question points up a crucial element in the current controversy between Intelligent Design (ID) theorists and Darwinians. How do we recognize intelligently designed structures whenever we encounter them? How, if we didn't otherwise know, could we be certain that Mt. Rushmore was the product of intelligent artisans whereas we might not arrive at that same conclusion about The Old Man in the Mountain?

Intelligent Design theorists like William Dembski are attempting to remove design recognition from the realm of the intuitive and to ascertain exactly what it is that enables us to distinguish purposely designed objects from those which may be the products of random, purposeless processes. They are seeking to discover how it is that we manage to distinguish intelligent agency from the work of mindless forces.

Once the criteria of design recognition are established, at least in broad outline, they may be turned toward living organisms and the structures found in those organisms. No one denies that biological structures are designed. The question at issue is whether the designer is mindless chance and physical law or whether it is some form of intelligent mind.

ID theorists conclude that complex, specified arrangements or patterns are the hallmark of intelligent provenience and that organisms possess these qualities in abundance down to the tiniest microscopic bio-machines which cram living cells. They conclude that it is therefore at least as plausible that these structures are somehow the result of intelligence as that they are not.

ID advocates go on to argue that public schools shouldn't implicitly foreclose the possibility of an intelligent agent being responsible for nature's architecture by refusing to acknowledge that possibility to their students. This certainly seems reasonable, but, nevertheless, there is opposition.

The resistance stems from the fact that if ID is correct then it leads to certain philosophical conclusions about the ultimate nature of reality which are unpalatable to scientific materialists. Thus there is a major effort to prohibit such instruction by those who fear that in any fair consideration of the evidence the hypothesis that natural processes are perfectly adequate to account for the myriad of molecular machines we observe in our microscopes will look pale in comparison to the alternative.

Consequently, in order to prevent such comparisons, strenuous efforts are made, whenever the spectre of Intelligent Design looms up, to characterize it as religion while simultaneously packaging the materialist hypothesis as science. The fact is, of course, that materialism is not science and ID is not religion. They are both philosophical or metaphysical hypotheses which rely upon empirical data for their conclusions.

Consider a few ways in which ID has been mischaracterized:

1) It's argued that ID should not be taught in public schools because the Supreme Court has prohibited it, but this is not true. In Edwards v. Aguillera the Supreme Court explicitly said that teachers are free to teach creationism if they wish. The Court merely prohibited state legislatures from mandating it. Creationism has a strong religious component, depending as it does upon the Bible. ID has no such component, so if teachers are free to teach creationism they would certainly be free to teach ID.

2) ID is philosophical, and philosophical concepts have no place in the science classroom. This objection belies a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of philosophy in science. The two are very nearly inseparable. If science teachers cannot introduce philosophical concepts into their classrooms then they cannot talk about what science is, the scientific method, the basic assumptions of cause and effect, the principle of sufficient cause, the principle of uniformity, the law of parsimony, the criteria of a good scientific theory, the laws of logic, and so on. All of these, and much more that might come up in an intellectually vivacious science class, are philosophical topics. It's very strange that all manner of philosophy is admitted into our classrooms without raising alarm, yet the notion that there might be an Intelligence responsible for the structure of the universe sends half the population into a panic.

3) If ID is correct then it lends support to the belief that there is a God. This is true, but it's irrelevant. We don't prohibit teaching Darwinian evolution on the grounds that it lends support to the belief that there is no God. Simply because a field of study has implications for religious belief it does not follow that the study is itself religious.

Moreover, though ID is compatible with belief in the God of traditional monotheism, it doesn't require it. It claims only that life is the product of intelligence. That intelligence may be the God of Judeo-Christian tradition or it may be the God of jeffersonian deism, or it may be extra-galactic beings which somehow seeded life on this planet, as some scientists have suggested. Anyone who takes the design inference beyond the conclusion that life exhibits the impress of intelligent manufacture is making a philosophical leap that ID neither sanctions nor opposes.

This is why the allegation that ID is just a form of creationism is misinformed. Creationism says explicitly that the God of the Bible created everything in the space-time universe. Some forms of creationism go even further and claim that God created the major taxa pretty much as we see them today and that He did this relatively recently and very quickly.

ID makes no such claims. It does not affirm that the world is created by God, it asserts nothing about how the world or life were created nor how quickly or long ago. Some ID theorists are evolutionists (though not Darwinian evolutionists). They believe that life has descended from primitive ancestors pretty much the way Darwinians claim, but they reject the notion that natural processes alone are sufficient to explain it.

The basic claim of ID is that however life came to be as it is, it must have involved intelligent input. It did not happen by the action of purely physical or material causes. If people wish to see support in this for a belief in God, that is their decision, just as it is their decision if they find support in Darwinism for their belief that there is no God.

4) Similarly, the claim that ID is religious is frequently raised, but how do we know it is religious? What is a religion? How do we recognize one? Not one person in a hundred who voices this objection can give a compelling definition of what "religion" is. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy acknowledges that religion eludes definition. Some religions have a moral code, some don't. Some religions have a god, some don't. Some religions involve worship of their deity, some don't. Given the inability to specify exactly what characteristics a religion possesses it seems a little absurd to say that ID possesses them. ID neither entails the existence of a god nor does it prescribe worship of one. Doubtless many ID adherents are religious as individuals and would like to see ID used as a means to point others to the Judeo-Christian God, but then many Darwinians are atheistic and see Darwinism as a useful tool for turning people toward materialism or naturalism.

5) ID is a Trojan horse for sneaking religion into schools. Even if it were true that ID is somehow religion, it should nevertheless be asked why Darwinism enjoys immunity against the same charge. Why should it not be seen as a Trojan horse for sneaking atheism into schools? Why are the alleged aims of one illicit while those of the other are deemed acceptable? Darwinism states that the universe, life, and the diversity of life are all solely the product of unguided, unintelligent, purposeless and purely natural forces. No God is necessary to account for anything that exists, and indeed Darwinism insists that the universe is closed to any non-natural intervention. Such a view has profound religious implications. It is an explicit denial of the basic tenets of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and it implicitly endorses atheism since there is no point in believing in any metaphysical entity which serves no unique function. Even if one could salvage from the periphery of the Darwinian world-view a minimal divinity of some sort, it clearly remains a view of reality fraught with religious implications, since it denies the existence of the God of most monotheisms.

Intelligent Design entails no deity, it enjoins no worship, it promotes no sacraments, it possesses no scriptures, it teaches no dogma, and it is affiliated with no church. It is not a religious hypothesis. Its critics point to the fact that many of its advocates are theists or deists and claim that this demonstrates the religious underpinnings of ID, but the fact that there are many theists among the ID ranks no more disqualifies it as a legitimate topic of discussion in a science classroom than the fact that so many Darwinians are atheists disqualifies it from being taught.

Biology teachers, when they talk about cell biology, for instance, should seek to instill in their students a sense of awe at the wonders of the natural world. They should then point out that there are two ways of thinking about how those wonders came to be. They are either the result of eons of random chance and physical forces or they are the product of a superintending intelligence acting in concert with those forces. Let's teach our students the beauty and complexity of the biological world, present them with the competing metaphysical explanations of random chance or intelligent purpose, and let them decide for themselves.

For more on this topic see several essays from the Viewpoint archive, specifically this one, this one, and this one.

The Falling Dollar

This article in the New York Times(subscription may be required)instructs us in the negative consequences of a falling dollar:

America's trade imbalance can be corrected, the current reasoning goes, with a much cheaper dollar - perhaps 30 percent cheaper than it is today. The idea - supported by Treasury Secretary John Snow and Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman - is that this would raise the price of imports for Americans, who would thus buy less from abroad. A cheaper dollar would also supposedly allow us to sell more to the world by making our exports less expensive.

Here is what's wrong with this analysis.

A falling dollar is unlikely to curtail imports as much as hoped. It is more likely instead to act as a consumption tax. About one-quarter of the United States import bill arises from oil purchases, which are priced in dollars. A rapidly depreciating dollar thus means lower earnings for OPEC producers. In response, the cartel might well raise prices. Goods from Asia, especially China, account for at least another 25 percent of our import bill. Because these computers, machine tools, TV's and toys are essential to our work and lifestyle, chances are that we will still buy them, even at higher prices.

Nor will a cheaper dollar encourage domestic production that can replace imports, as some argue. Auto parts, for instance, are increasingly produced in Mexico and other developing nations. These plants, part of a highly specialized global supply line, are not likely to be replaced by suppliers in the United States just because of temporary currency movements.

American exports, meanwhile, will not be spurred as much as most forecasters hope. Because currencies' values are relative to one another, the lower the dollar gets, the higher the euro and yen rise. As the currencies of Europe and Japan strengthen, the exports of these nations will become more expensive. That could easily translate into slower growth in those already slow-growing regions - and less money to buy our exports.

There's lots more analysis at the link, and reading the whole piece really is an education in macroeconomics.

Humvee Armor and Troop Levels

When we wrote yesterday (see here) that the question with which Secretary Rumsfeld was confronted the other day was a good one and shouldn't be dismissed because of the devious way it came to be asked, we noted that there may be a good answer to the query but that, if so, Mr. Rumsfeld didn't give it.

Now a reader, Loren K., writes to advise us to check out this site (caution: strong language) for an answer to the armor on the Humvees question as well as answers to some of other puzzlements which have popped up along the way. The blogger is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and certainly knows what he's talking about. His account of the Humvee armor situation is very good, but his explanation as to why we don't have more troops in Iraq is even better (scroll up to find it). He doesn't absolve the administration completely on the matter of troop levels, but he does explain the difficulty with simply committing all available troops to the theater. We wonder why the administration can't find people who can explain these things as clearly. They could save themselves a lot of trouble if they did.

Moving On Up

The Democratic Party continues its long march leftward, ensuring its permanent irrelevance.

MoveOn.Org, angry with the current party leadership which displays every now and then a vestige of moderation, has pronounced its ownership of the Democratic Party. They bought it, they own it, and they're taking it back.

Republicans are doubtless delighted at the news.

Fighting Back

Every year for the last twenty, secularizers have been busy sucking the life out of the celebration of Christmas until, in its public expression, it has become little more than an empty shell of what it was for generations past. Like a debased paper currency with no precious commodity to support it, it has been inflated in importance but has no longer any real value. It is devoid of content, context, and meaning. If all the Christmas season signifies is a time for retailers to balance their books then what's really the point? What is it, exactly, that we celebrate? The winter solstice? Tim Allen movies? Christmas in the twenty first century is little more than Santa Claus, pretty lights, and Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, and if the trend toward removing all public traces of spiritual meaning continues there will be no public Christmas fifty years hence. A celebration which is a perversion of the thing celebrated will eventually whither and die.

The religious awe formerly inspired by the Christmas story has moved generations of Christians to create beautiful art, beautiful music, and beautiful lives. The secular world view has nothing to compare to it, and as they continue to denature this magical, mystical eve and day, they're succeeding in doing what they always do, they're turning something beautiful and wonderful into something tawdry, garish, and banal.

Secularism possesses the Midas touch in reverse. It turns what is priceless into dust and sand. It's little wonder that many people are fed up with the whole Christmas experience. Attaching no particular religious meaning to the day, they come to realize that the season is an obscene orgy of gratuitous consumption and synthetic joy. Indeed, it is dawning, perhaps, on some Americans that in the absence of the birth of the Savior there really is nothing to be joyful about.

Christians, however, are beginning to rebel. They're made as hell, and they're not going to take it any more. Or so it would seem from a couple of recent news reports, one from New Jersey and one from Colorado.

In New Jersey, members of the Columbia High School brass ensemble were not allowed to play Christmas carols at their holiday concert this year - not even instrumental versions. At a school board meeting Monday night, parents and students alike expressed their outrage.

"This is censorship at its most basic level and political correctness to its extreme," said student Ryan Dahn.

"When you close that door you are supporting ignorance, and I think it's a very sad thing," said parent Melanie Amsterdam.

The controversy is by no means an isolated case. The role of religion during the Christmas season is a source of annual angst. But this year, people in "red," or Republican, America - particularly Christian conservatives - are in an unprecedented uproar.

The "uproar" has spread to Denver, Colorado where the proletarian masses revolted at an annual "holiday" parade which had banned all religious trappings. The crowd lining the streets had the temerity to defy the town fathers by conducting a hymn sing and talking about the fact that Christmas means nothing at all if it doesn't celebrate God becoming man and dwelling among us to share in our humanity and ultimately dying for our sins so that we may have eternal life. That is, of course, the meaning of Christmas, the only meaning that can inspire genuine joy and wonder. It's a meaning that's a bit more worth celebrating, we should think, than that Santa was able to cajole Rudolph into guiding his sleigh onto every rooftop before dawn.

Even so, the process of reeducating a public which has forgotten the essence of Christmas promises to be long and arduous. Consider the sentiments expressed by Lori Brocesky at the Denver parade:

"Religious or not doesn't matter - it's the traditions that I want," said Mrs. Brocesky, a Denver resident who has come to the parade for the last eight years with her husband, Drew, and until this year never really found much to complain about. Now, she said, she wants to start a petition, to allow new voices and new perspectives from all sorts of groups, including churches.

Surely this is a start, but we can't help wonder what satisfaction one can take in the Christmas tradition unless that tradition emphasizes its religious heritage. But never mind. We're gratified that the proles are finally sticking their thumb in the eyes of the religiophobes at the ACLU, the officious bureaucrats on their town councils, and pusillanimous school administrators everywhere and are beginning to demand that they be given back the country in which they grew up.

Good Question

Rush made a big deal today about the fact that the National Guardsman who posed the question to Secretary Rumsfeld about the lack of properly armored humvees in Iraq was put up to it by a journalist, and Sean Hannity, as is his wont, followed the big guy's lead. We think they're wrong on this one.

Granted that it was not exactly admirable conduct on the part of the journalist, the fact is the journalist's ethics are of only minor concern. The important point, the one that we wish the talk radio guys would have stressed, is that the question itself was a very good one.

It's difficult to understand why all of our humvees haven't been armored by this time to give them at least some protection from IEDs and RPGs. There may be a good reason why they haven't, but Secretary Rumsfeld didn't give it, and we're glad the question was asked, regardless of the machinations behind it. Certainly anyone with a son in Iraq must appreciate that the military and our civilian leadership are having their feet held to the fire on this matter of life or death importance.

Backsliding Philosopher

Antony Flew, the renown British philosopher and outspoken atheist, has publicly embraced deism. There are several things interesting about this. First, Flew is 81 years old which is pretty far along to be undergoing a world-view shift. Second, he has gone from atheism to deism which is the reverse of the normal flow of traffic, and third, he seems to have been influenced to change his mind by the overwhelming evidence of design in the universe and the difficulty of trying to imagine a naturalistic origin of life:

There was no one moment of change but a gradual conclusion over recent months for Flew, a spry man who still does not believe in an afterlife.

Yet biologists' investigation of DNA "has shown, by the almost unbelievable complexity of the arrangements which are needed to produce (life), that intelligence must have been involved," Flew says in the new video, Has Science Discovered God?

The first hint of Flew's turn was a letter to the August-September issue of Britain's Philosophy Now magazine. "It has become inordinately difficult even to begin to think about constructing a naturalistic theory of the evolution of that first reproducing organism," he wrote.

Flew told The Associated Press his current ideas have some similarity with American "intelligent design" theorists, who see evidence for a guiding force in the construction of the universe. He accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate origins of life.

Huh. No wonder secularists are fighting so hard to keep Intelligent Design out of public schools. Bad enough that an 81 year-old philosopher at the end of his career is astonished by the remarkable, awe-inspiring fine-tuning of the universe and the specified complexity of living cells. We certainly don't want to be exposing impressionable youngsters to the possibility that there's more at work here than just atoms spinning aimlessly in the void.

Last week, Richard Carrier, a writer and Columbia University graduate student, posted new material based on correspondence with Flew on the atheistic www.infidels.org Web page. Carrier assured atheists that Flew accepts only a "minimal God" and believes in no afterlife.

Well, that's a relief to atheists, we assume, although one wonders what comfort they can take in one of their most prominent members rejecting their most fundamental conviction, i.e. that there is no God, minimal or otherwise.

The Python and the Rat

Bill Roggio at The Fourth Rail discusses the strategic importance of our military presence in Iraq> His key points:

Invading Iraq also accomplished another very important objective: establishing a beachhead in the Middle East. The significance of Iraq in the War on Terror is twofold. The establishment of democracy in the heart of the Middle East places political pressure on neighboring states to reform from within. Iraq can serve as a base of operations against terror sponsoring states of Syria and Iran if diplomatic and political options fail, as well a base of operations against Saudi Arabia if it is overtaken by an Islamist revolution or is complicit in another terrorist attack.

As mentioned yesterday in A New Containment, the occupation of Iraq has completed the encirclement of Saudi Arabia. A look at the map of the Middle East will show that an American presence in Iraq also has the same effect on Syria and Iran. With American forces in Iraq, the line of communications between Syria and Iran has been severed. Syria is now surrounded by nations with an American military presence, and none of them are particularly friendly; Turkey to the north, Israel to the south, Jordan and Iraq to the east, and the United States Navy's 6th Fleet to the West in the Mediterranean.

Iran faces a similar military problem, with Turkey, Iraq and Kuwait to the west, Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east, the Gulf states and the 3rd and 5th Fleets to the south. The north remains open via Turkmenistan and the Caucasus states, however neither of these nations is likely to be supportive of Iran in the event of an American led military action. Iraq, Afghanistan and the Caucasuses may also provide another level of unconventional containment against Iran, as there are plans to host ground based anti ballistic missile systems to defend against Iran's nuclear missile program in the event the program is not stopped.

It is no accident that Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia have been divided and surrounded in this manner. These nations have been ringed with a series of logistical bases, naval, air and special operations bases and prepositioned military equipment. These facilities provide the support and logistical chain needed in the event that military operations must be executed against these nations from the spearhead in Iraq. Without Iraq, threat of invasion into Iran was limited to amphibious assault from Indian Ocean or Persian Gulf. While not militarily impossible, an amphibious assault would require enormous resources and increase the risk to Naval assets and the assault force. The American ground presence in Iraq provides for increased flexibility and safety if future operations are required.

The American military is slowly and inexorably, like an encoiling python, wrapping itself around the chief Middle-East malefactors and will soon, perhaps, begin to squeeze the life out of the rats who foment hatred and subsidize terror in these savage lands. The squeeze will probably not be anything so noisy as overt military action, but rather a silent and subtle constriction of the ability of the thugs to brutalize their people. As the masses of Syria and Iran see the fruits of freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq they will ardently wish the same for themselves.

The presence of the American military so close to their borders will give pause to those tyrants who might otherwise counsel suppression of the people through armed force. They will find themselves between a rock and a hard place, unwilling to yield to the demands of the pro-democracy populace and unable to suppress their protests without risking a punishing blow from the American air force or a special ops surgical strike against their nuclear facilities. Let's hope that the Mullahs in Tehran and the Baathists in Damascus fall victim to the popular will before any serious application of American power is warranted.

Random Act of Kindness

Would you like to do something truly helpful and kind this Christmas season for the young men and women who've suffered wounds in the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq? Hugh Hewitt has a great suggestion:

The number ONE request at Walter Reed hospital is phone cards. The government doesn't pay long distance phone charges and these wounded soldiers are rationing their calls home. Many will be there throughout the holidays.

Walmart has good prices on AT&T cards, Sam's Club is even better, if you are a member. Send phone cards of any amount to:

Medical Family Assistance Center

Walter Reed Medical Center

6900 Georgia Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20307-5001

They say they need an "endless" supply of these -- any amount, even $5, is greatly appreciated.

We think this is a wonderful idea and we hope that our readers do, too.

More Troops, Please

Gregory Djerejian at The Belgravia Dispatch argues that we just don't have enough troops in Iraq to do the job we have to do as effectively as we could be doing it. Part of his argument is this:

Yes, we are busier reacting to the insurgents then proactively stamping them out via overwhelming force. Because we don't have enough resources on the ground to do so. Kerry would have, in all likelihood, drawn-down our force posture in Iraq. Bush, at least, has increased it. But extending tours is devastating to morale. And relying so heavily on relatively inexperienced Guard and Reserve units is far from ideal. Taking Fallujah but allowing insurgents to flee to parts south of Baghdad (because we didn't have enough troops to blanket both areas simultaneously) is evocative of what McCain is getting at when he says we are in something of a "reactive" posture.

We took the fight to the enemy in Fallujah, yes. But not having enough troops to keep the bad guys who escaped from getting to new sanctuaries has mitigated the success of the Fallujah offensive. It was an important victory, to be sure. But not an overwhelming one. Put differently, it's not that we are losing so much as we aren't decisively winning. If such a situation is allowed to fester for too long, of course, there will be a tipping point. We aren't there yet. But it's clear that, going into a period of heightened violence with elections looming, it wouldn't hurt (to say the least) if we could have more non-Guard, non-Reserve troops on the ground. Grown-ups like Chuck Hagel, Richard Lugar, and John McCain get this. We must hope the President does too.

But I'm concerned. The lack of accountability at the Pentagon is a somewhat worrisome sign. But the Kerry alternative was even bleaker. So here we are. Who will have the courage to say what is so obvious and act on it? Our military is too small for the tasks it currently confronts. We are simply too stretched.

The mystery to us is why there is so much resistance in the White House to sending more troops to Iraq. The opinion that there are too few seems almost universal. Everyone seems to share it except Don Rumsfeld and George Bush, the only two who matter. Why can't the troops stationed in Germany, or South Korea, or Okinawa, or wherever be sent to Iraq? We never seem to get any answer to this question except a vague demurral that they're not needed. Isn't it better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them?

American Natalism

David Brooks offers a fascinating account of natalism in the U.S.A. By this he means the trend among many families to actually wish to produce and cherish children. It is, to be sure, an odd sociological development in our narcissistic times, but evidently there are substantial numbers of folk out there, mostly in red states, who actually embrace this way of life. Here's how Brooks describes them:

They are having three, four or more kids. Their personal identity is defined by parenthood. They are more spiritually, emotionally and physically invested in their homes than in any other sphere of life, having concluded that parenthood is the most enriching and elevating thing they can do. Very often they have sacrificed pleasures like sophisticated movies, restaurant dining and foreign travel, let alone competitive careers and disposable income, for the sake of their parental calling.

You can see surprising political correlations. As Steve Sailer pointed out in The American Conservative, George Bush carried the 19 states with the highest white fertility rates, and 25 of the top 26. John Kerry won the 16 states with the lowest rates.

In The New Republic Online, Joel Kotkin and William Frey observe, "Democrats swept the largely childless cities - true blue locales like San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Boston and Manhattan have the lowest percentages of children in the nation - but generally had poor showings in those places where families are settling down, notably the Sun Belt cities, exurbs and outer suburbs of older metropolitan areas."

Natalists are associated with red America, but they're not launching a jihad. The differences between them and people on the other side of the cultural or political divide are differences of degree, not kind. Like most Americans, but perhaps more anxiously, they try to shepherd their kids through supermarket checkouts lined with screaming Cosmo or Maxim cover lines. Like most Americans, but maybe more so, they suspect that we won't solve our social problems or see improvements in our schools as long as many kids are growing up in barely functioning families.

Like most Americans, and maybe more so because they tend to marry earlier, they find themselves confronting the consequences of divorce. Like most Americans, they wonder how we can be tolerant of diverse lifestyles while still preserving the family institutions that are under threat.

What they cherish, like most Americans, is the self-sacrificial love shown by parents. People who have enough kids for a basketball team are too busy to fight a culture war.

There's much more about this strange and exotic species of American in Brooks' essay. Although Brooks doesn't mention it, there is implicit in his column a real danger that if this trend catches on, all of the good work of the radical feminists over the last thirty years in persuading women that children are an encumbrance will unravel. Perhaps it is time to send out the call to once again, uh, man the barricades.

Imposing Our Values

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has catalogued reaction by Arabs throughout the Middle East to the Global Antisemitism Review Act of 2004 signed by President Bush in October. Under this act, the U.S. will "continue to strongly support efforts to combat antisemitism worldwide through bilateral relationships and interaction with international organizations such as the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Union, and the United Nations." In addition, the State Department is directed to appoint a special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism around the world.

MEMRI notes that the preface to the law states that it has been observed that "acts of antisemitism in countries throughout the world, including some of the world's strongest democracies, have increased significantly in frequency and scope over the last several years, and the sharp rise in antisemitic violence has caused international organizations ... to elevate and bring renewed focus to the issue." So the act is not singling out Arab nations for censure.

The MEMRI summary goes on to explain that:

According to the act, by mid-November 2004 a one-time report on acts of antisemitism around the world, and on the actions taken by the respective governments to counter these acts, is to be submitted to the Senate and to the House of Representatives. Further, a section on antisemitism is henceforth to be added to the annual U.S. State Department Country Reports on Human Rights Practices and annual reports on International Religious Freedom; this section is to include "a description of the nature and extent of acts of antisemitism and antisemitic incitement that occurred during the preceding year, including descriptions of a) acts of physical violence against or acts of harassment against Jewish people, and acts of violence against or vandalism of Jewish community institutions, including schools, synagogues, and cemeteries; b) instances of propaganda in government and non-government media that attempt to justify or promote racial hatred or incite acts of violence against Jewish people; c) the actions, if any, taken by the government of the country to respond to such violence and attacks or to eliminate such propaganda or incitement; d) the actions taken by such government to enact and enforce laws relating to the protection of the right to religious freedom of Jewish people; and e) the efforts of such government to promote anti-bias and tolerance education."

As expected Arab reaction was largely, but not entirely, unfavorable. Typical of the critics is Egyptian journalist Hassan Abu Taleb, editor of the Arab Strategic Report, who criticized the act in the Saudi daily Al-Watan, claiming that the U.S. is trying to force its values upon the world:

"This is not the first time that the American legislative authority has set itself up as the legislative authority of the entire world. It is forcing its patronage on the world, and showing particular perceptions that stem from the distinct American experience, which it is trying to force on the rest of the countries....It is acting to oblige national governments to accept [these perceptions] as if national sovereignty were meaningless, and treats these national governments as if they are only local governments in an American state."

"We have seen this behavior in the past, in the American law on religious freedom in the world. This law assumes that the situation of religions across the world is like the American model, where anyone can establish a religion as he pleases...without addressing the fact that there are sacred monotheistic religions that must not be harmed in any way, and anyone who is not a member of them and does not believe in them is forbidden from expressing an opinion on them...."

There you have it. America passes a law that calls for monitoring and publicizing acts of antisemitic violence and hatred, and some Muslims interpret this as an assault on Islam. Islam, the esteemed editor of the Arab Strategic Report suggests, should be immune from criticism when it announces its fatwahs and imprecations upon the Jews, when it proclaims that the Jews must be killed wherever they are found, and that they must ultimately be driven out of Palestine.

Abu Taleb complains that America is seeking to force its values upon the rest of the world. Let's hope he's right.

Iraq the Vote

How do Iraqi Shi'a feel about the pending election? The Washington Post has this report on how Shi'a leaders are trying to educate and mobilize the vote. Here are a few excerpts:

As Iraq's first nationwide elections in more than a generation near, Hamra and other Shiite clergy, perhaps the country's most powerful institution, have led an unprecedented mobilization of the Shiite majority population through a vast array of mosques, community centers, foundations and networks of hundreds of prayer leaders, students and allied laypeople. The campaign has become so pitched that many Iraqis may have a better idea of Sistani's view of the election than what the election itself will decide.

The clergy are advocating elections 100 percent," said Sami Shamousi, the prayer leader of a Shiite community center in downtown Baghdad. "It has become a religious responsibility for us to encourage participation in the elections." At his worship hall, he has distributed about 200 leaflets printed by the Ghadir Foundation, a community organization that is based in the sprawling slum of Sadr City and is loosely supervised by Sistani and other senior ayatollahs. Stacks of posters with Sistani's portrait were piled in dimly lit rooms, darkened by an electrical outage. On shelves were bundles of leaflets and pamphlets that present questions and answers about the vote: "What are we electing?" and "What does proportional representation mean?"

In a second-floor office sat Sayyid Hashem Awadi, 38, a gaunt cleric in black turban and gray gown who directs the foundation's staff of 30. For 65 days, he said he had been too busy to return to his home in Najaf. "This stage is too critical," he said. "We're afraid of failure."

On his desk was an Arabic-language pamphlet on civil society, a phrase that usually describes a vibrant give-and-take between citizens and their government. The pamphlet, printed by his foundation and emblazoned with a map of Iraq, notes the term was imported from the West. But it adds, "In reality, the crises sweeping our societies force us to seek help though other people's experiences."

Awadi, whose speech shifts effortlessly from Western thought to Islamic principle, nodded his head in agreement. Iraq, he said, was long a militarized society, where in Hussein's days "you either obeyed orders or you are killed." Awadi's vision was a society in which opinions were respected and disputes were "not a reason for killing each other." The way to create that society was through the elections in January, he said, a process in which people's opinions would be respected.

"It's a matter of the people's choice," he said. "What do the people want?"

"Our job and our task is to explain these things," the young cleric went on, raising his voice over the cascading sound of the traffic jam that poured through his window. "There are many questions in the minds of the people."

The Shi'a, of course, are a majority in Iraq and will probably dominate the new parliament, so their enthusiasm is understandable. It'll be interesting to see how they handle the power they will acquire after having been oppressed for so long by the Sunni minority.

Constitutional Hand-Me-Down

A wit suggests that we can save the Iraqis a lot of trouble as they embark upon the task of drafting a constitution. He asks, "Why don't we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it's worked for over 200 years, and we're not using it anymore."

A friend e-mails to tell us that the real reason that we can't have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse is that you cannot post "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not commit adultery" and "Thou shalt not bear false witness" in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.

Lose, Lose For Vlad

According to a recent article in The Weekly Standard Putin loses no matter who wins in the Ukraine. Interesting analysis.

Regrets

Our apologies to those readers who tried without success to access Viewpoint this afternoon. We regret the world-wide panic which doubtless ensued when millions found themselves unable to receive their daily dose of wit and wisdom. An electrical storm in North Carolina knocked out our server until Bill was able to administer first aid.

The Power of the Dollar

Those who might be looking for charitable organizations to which they might contribute this Christmas season, or places to do their Christmas shopping, might find this article at Religious News Service helpful. Bob Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, has eliminated the United Way from his gift list and Target stores from his shopping spots. He explains that his decision to stop giving to United Way is due to the charity's refusal to fund the Boy Scouts of America while openly supporting numerous pro-homosexual groups with its money. Here are some excerpts from the article:

"I don't know why people still give to United Way," Knight says. He contends that people are already giving to government bureaucrats by paying taxes, so he asks, "why would you give to a group of private bureaucrats who have decided as a group that the Boy Scouts are worthy of being kicked out of various chapters across the country."

The Scouts had been a long-time beneficiary of United Way funding, until pressure from the homosexual community led to the BSA groups nationwide being cut out because their national organization promotes faith and moral values and prohibits homosexuals from serving as scoutmasters. Since then, at least 50 United Way chapters across the U.S. have excluded the Boy Scouts from a share of their fund-raising drives, claiming the BSA's Christian values are discriminatory.

But it is the apparent discrimination against the Scouts by the United Way that has angered Knight. Although not all the nation's United Way chapters have severed ties with the BSA, he points out that "the national headquarters has done nothing to stop the trend." Meanwhile, a major portion of the money the charity collects is being given to pro-homosexual groups.

[T]he United Way is not the only major U.S. organization that is drawing the pro-family leader's ire. In a recent interview on the Christian Broadcasting Network, he mentioned the recent announcement by Target that the retailer would not be allowing non-profit groups to solicit outside its stores this year. This means the familiar Salvation Army bell ringers will not be able to set up their kettles and collect donations at Target locations this shopping season.

Knight feels people of faith should be outraged over the retailer's actions. "Millions of Christians give Target millions of dollars," he says, "and what have they gotten from Target in return? A lump of coal. I think they ought to be ashamed of themselves, and I think consumers ought to take this into account when they do their Christmas shopping."

"One Salvation Army officer said to me that the Target money that's raised in his community represents 75 percent of the income that he has in that community," said Major George Hood, a spokesman for Salvation Army. "When you begin to strip budgets of 75 percent of a revenue stream, it means that some very difficult decisions will have to be made in those local communities about what they will be able to do during the holidays with families, and what they will be able to do all year long once the Christmas season is over."

Knight is certainly correct in assuming that if people are going to effect change in our society we have to do more than bemoan the cultural deterioration we are witnessing and actually use what tools we have to bring pressure to bear on those who would hasten the slide. One of those tools, perhaps the most effective, is how we spend our money.

Maybe it would be instructive, not only for United Way and Target, but also for those other charities and businesses which are looking on, to see how much of an impact popular dissatisfaction makes at Target's cash registers and United Way's mailbox. If Target takes a hit this year, you can bet that the Salvation Army will be welcome at their competitor's stores and will probably be back at Target next year. As for the United Way, who needs them? It's as easy, and more efficient, to write a check directly to the recipient as it is to go through the middle man.

Update on the Fight Against Cancer

Here's some good news from the front of the war on cancer, specifically Leukemia. Leukemia occurs as a result of blood cells, usually white blood cells, mutating and reproducing out of control and crowding other cells to the point that they can't function properly. Treatment often consists of using a drug called Gleevec which binds with an enzyme in cancerous cells thereby interfering with their growth and proliferation. Unfortunately, some of the cancerous leukocytes mutate so fast that the Gleevec can't wipe them out.

Now a new drug has been developed which is able to attach to many of the cells that Gleevec misses:

The new drug is being tested in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia, which affects about 4,400 Americans a year and 10,000 people around the world. The drug is known by its experimental name BMS-354825. During the trial, also financed by Bristol-Myers, 31 of 36 patients with advanced CML who had not been helped by Gleevec had a complete hematologic response, meaning their bodies stopped producing leukemia cells.

This is a good illustration of why government must not take the profit out of drug R&D by imposing onerous regulations and unreasonable caps. Companies like Bristol-Myers have to have the economic incentive to create these products or else they'll simply stop working on them. It would be nice if we lived in a world where everyone was motivated by love and research had no cost associated with it, but we don't. So perhaps we can live in a world where lawyers can't sue drug manufacturers out of business or cause the manufacturer's insurance premiums to go so high that the average person can't buy the drugs or can't buy their own insurance to pay for the drugs.