Chris Matthews Redefines Shamelessness

We stated in a post a couple of days ago titled Sinking in the Mire that the NYT was positively shameless in their obsession to hand Bush a defeat by trying to mine scandal in the adoption records of John Roberts' children.

A day later Chris Matthews decided he would not be outdone by the Times. On his MSNBC show Hardball, which after last night might be called Sleazeball, Matthews interviewed the parents of a young Marine killed in Iraq less than 24 hours before.

The tenor of his questions made it clear that Mr. Matthews sought to exploit the grief of this couple in order to score cheap political points against the administration. The questions he asked follow below. I've omitted the parents' responses, which were pretty much what Matthews was hoping for, because those parents should be given our sympathy, not our criticism. If the reader wishes to see how they answered the questions the complete transcript can be found at the link.

Ms. Palmer, did you sense that this war was very dangerous for your son, even before yesterday?

What made you feel that the danger was growing?

Let me ask you, Mr. Schroeder, why do you think we're in this war? What do you think is the real reason for this war in Iraq?

Rosemary, let me ask you what is your feeling about this war and the goal of trying to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people? And do you think that was a smart thing for us to try to do?

Do you think that the war is going to get any better now that your son - I mean, you have paid the ultimate price? And, by the way, thank you. I don't know what it means to say thank you for your service, except I mean it. The courage of these young guys and some women over there is unbelievable. And I guess everybody wonders about the conduct of the war, whether these lives are being wasted or these lives are being put to good purpose. What is your feeling about that now?

The way you describe it [the war], it is like pouring water into a sand hole on the beach and having it drain right through and start over again. It seems like a repetitive process that doesn't seem to be getting anywhere.

What should be the reaction of the American people who pick up their newspapers, watch television, and learn of these horrors? What should they do as a result of seeing that news, Mr. Schroeder?

It's hard to come to any other conclusion than that these questions, aside from being dumb, were designed to elicit criticism of the Bush administration and its conduct of the war. That Matthews used people who had just learned that their son had been killed to achieve this purpose is unconscionable. The only good thing about this sordid affair is that scarcely anyone watches MSNBC.

Marine Losses

Bill Roggio has some details on how the six Marines were lost in fighting several days ago and also some thoughts on the war in Anbar province.

You'll also want to read Wretchard's analysis of a Department of Defense news briefing with General Carter Ham about the ambush. You'll also want to read Wretchard's analysis of a Department of Defense news briefing with General Carter Ham about the ambush.

Roggio and Wretchard are far more informative than anything you'll find on the evening newscast.

Plantinga on Schonborn

Alvin Plantinga, one of the best known epistemologists in contemporary philosophy, enters the lists on behalf of Cardinal Schonborn:

A renowned philosopher from the University of Notre Dame supports recent comments by Cardinal Christoph Schonborn that belief in evolution as accepted by some in science today may be incompatible with Christian beliefs.

"Cardinal Schonborn has it right," said Alvin Plantinga, the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy and one of the world's leading scholars in the philosophy of religion. "Evolution means different things to different people. Some of these things are perfectly consistent with Christian belief, but others are not.

"Some think of evolution as the theory of common ancestry: Any two living things share ancestors, so that we and the poison ivy in our back yard, as well as other living creatures, are cousins. This is surprising, but compatible with Christian belief."

Problems arise, according to Plantinga, when "scientists and others take evolution to be a process that is wholly unguided and driven by chance, so that it is simply a matter of chance that rational creatures like us exist. This is not compatible with Christian belief, according to which God has intentionally created us human beings in His own image. He may have done so by using a process of evolution, but it isn't by chance that we exist."

Plantinga adds that the idea that "human beings and other living creatures have come about by chance, rather than by God's design, is also not a proper part of empirical science. How could science show that God has not intentionally designed and created human beings and other creatures? How could it show that they have arisen merely by chance. That's not empirical science. That's metaphysics, or maybe theology. It's a theological add-on, not part of science itself. And, since it is a theological add-on, it shouldn't, of course, be taught in public schools."

This last paragraph is especially pertinent. Darwinism is the view that natural processes are sufficient by themselves to have produced the entire biosphere. This assertion, however, is completely untestable. No observation could serve to confirm it or to refute it. It is, as professor Plantinga notes, pure metaphysics which is why it must not be allowed a position of privilege in public school science classes. It is no more scientific nor less theological than the Intelligent Design theorists' claim that natural processes by themselves are inadequate as explanatory mechanisms for the structures, pathways, and processes we find in the biosphere.

<i>Argumentum Ad Snarkum</i>

Our local newspaper, The York Dispatch, ran an editorial on the president's perfectly sensible comments on teaching Intelligent Design last Wednesday that might best be described as argumentum ad snarkum. The editor wrote:

Yet here's the president of the United States, saying schools should teach both "theories" on the creation and development of life.

And global warming has no scientific basis, mercury pollution is not the threat most scientists say it is, drilling for oil in the Alaskan Arctic Wildlife Refuge will have no effect on one of the world's last great wildernesses -- and are there really such things as endangered species?

Well, maybe so. If sarcasm was a reason to accept an implied conclusion then the paper would have a strong case against the Bush administration's attitude toward science-related issues, but it's not and they don't. Each of these issues is framed by the writer in a highly tendentious way. The controversy surrounding global warming, for instance, is not about whether it's happening but about its cause. No one claims that drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge will have no effect. The debate is over whether the effect will be significant and permanent. Part of informing one's readers is accurately presenting the facts, but this the editorial fails to do, preferring the rhetorical appeal of snarkiness to the difficult work of thinking.

The writer then gets to the point he/she really wishes to make:

Intelligent design is not a "theory," but strictly a religious concept that may have its place in Sunday school and in the home -- not in high school biology class.

Not a theory? Does the editor mean that ID is not a proposed explanation for a set of observations? Does the editor know what a theory is? Has he/she ever actually read anything written on ID by a prominent advocate?

And what about ID makes it a "strictly religious concept"? Is it religious because some wish to use it to promote a religious agenda? Is Darwinism fascist because some have employed Darwinian principles like survival of the fittest to justify the extermination of the less fit? Is ID religious because it posits a Designer? How, exactly, would that make it religious?

The president's view on intelligent design would, no doubt, warm the heart of William Jennings Bryan, the three-time presidential candidate and anti-evolution champion in the Scopes trial who saw Darwin's theory as heralding the end of western civilization.

But for a man who presides over the most powerful and most scientifically advanced nation on earth to be spouting such a fundamentalist mantra in the name of "improving" education is more than unseemly, it's irresponsible and embarrassing.

Why is it irresponsible for the president to state his personal views on this issue when asked to do so? He didn't say that ID should be federally mandated. He merely opined that it would be a good thing to stimulate students to think about a very important question. Why is it embarrassing to hold a view consonant with the opinion of the majority of people one leads? Is it that the editor is embarrassed that the president lacks the same level of scientific enlightenment possessed by his/her fellow sophisticates in the media?

Moreover, what does the Dispatch mean by calling the president's words a "fundamentalist mantra"? Does the paper mean to suggest that only creepy fundamentalists believe that an intelligence underlies the world of our observation and that it's appropriate to mention this possibility in a science class? If so, what epithet does the editor assign to those who think it perfectly appropriate to discuss in science classes the view (called Darwinism) that no such intelligence is required to explain the biological phenomena we observe?

What is really "unseemly, irresponsible and embarrassing" is lazy, otiose polemic masquerading as informed argument. The editor of the Dispatch knows nothing of what he/she is talking about so, like a middle schooler caught in an argument over matters he does not understand, the writer just sputters insults. It's pretty immature, actually.

For a more adult response to President Bush's comments go here.

NYT Hot on the Scent of Scandal

Michelle Malkin wonders why the NYT has the time and resources to devote to looking into John Roberts' adoptions of his children but have been absolutely mute, as has been almost the entire liberal media, about the scandal involving the liberal radio network Air America. Good question.

You'll find lots of links to other commentators on this story as well as a statement of quasi-explanation by the Times at Michelle's site.

Wallis' Advice to Dems: Become Conservatives

Jim Wallis is a good guy, I'm sure, but he says several things in a NYT editorial that suggest that he's just not the guy to be giving Democrats advice. He writes:

Because the Republicans, with the help of the religious right, have captured the language of values and religion (narrowly conceived as only abortion and gay marriage), the Democrats have also been asking how to "take back the faith."

If Wallis really thinks that values and religion means only "abortion and gay marriage" to conservatives then he's too uninformed to serve as an effective advisor to the Democrats on these matters. If he's deliberately distorting what conservatives value then he's being dishonest. Conservative values encompass a wide range of moral issues, both social and economic. They include, but are not limited to, maximizing economic freedom, equality under the law, equality of opportunity, minimizing the corrosive effect of the entertainment industry, strong commitment to one's family and God, a commitment to individual and property rights, a bias in favor of innocent life and a commitment to justice for those who harm others, peace through strength, the importance of hard work and charitable giving, a willingness to help those who are willing to help themselves and a reluctance to help those who aren't, and a belief in the wisdom of abiding by the original intent of the constitution written by the founding fathers. This is a little more comprehensive than Wallis' insulting caricature but much more accurate.

The discussion that shapes our political future should be one about moral values, but the questions to ask are these: Whose values? Which values? And how broadly and deeply will our political values be defined? Democrats must offer new ideas and a fresh agenda, rather than linguistic strategies to sell an old set of ideologies and interest group demands.

Wallis is implying, in other words, that Democrats must cease to be liberals. After all, how can they "offer new ideas and a fresh agenda" without changing who they are?

To be specific, I offer five areas in which the Democrats should change their message and then their messaging. First, somebody must lead on the issue of poverty, and right now neither party is doing so....Democrats need new policies to offer the 36 million Americans, including 13 million children, who live below the poverty line, as well as the 9.8 million families one recent study identified as "working hard but falling short."

Is this the new vision Wallis is offering the Dems? Do something for the poor? I'm sure that Democratic pols everywhere are saying, "Gee, why didn't I think of that?"

In fact, the Democrats should draw a line in the sand when it comes to wartime tax cuts for the wealthy, rising deficits, and the slashing of programs for low-income families and children. They need proposals that combine to create a "living family income" for wage-earners, as well as a platform of "fair trade," as opposed to just free trade, in the global economy....Many Americans, including religious voters who see poverty as a compelling issue of conscience, desire such a platform.

Mr. Wallis' "new ideas" for the Democrats sound very much like the old ones. Resist tax cuts for the wealthy, resist welfare reform, and establish a guaranteed income. Anyone who wonders how this is any different from what the left has been advocating ever since Karl Marx gets a star.

Similarly, a growing number of American Christians speak of the environment as a religious concern - one of stewardship of God's creation. The National Association of Evangelicals recently called global warming a faith issue. But Republicans consistently choose oil and gas interests over a cleaner world. The Democrats need to call for the reversal of these priorities. They must insist that private interests should never obstruct our country's path to a cleaner and more efficient energy future, let alone hold our foreign policy hostage to the dictates of repressive regimes in the Middle East.

The environment is more than just clean air, and it's not in trouble because it's getting dirtier. In many ways it's healthier now than it's been in the last 700 years, at least in the developed world. The chief environmental problems we face today are the loss of terrestrial habitat for many species of wildlife and the depletion of ocean fisheries. These problems have little to do with oil. Even so, if Mr. Wallis wants a cleaner more energy efficient future the simplest, most effective long term means to that end is to build more nuclear power plants. The first Democrat willing to support that please raise your hand.

On the issues that Republicans have turned into election-winning "wedges," Democrats will win back "values voters" only with fresh ideas. Abortion is one such case. Democrats need to think past catchphrases, like "a woman's right to choose," or the alternative, "safe, legal and rare." More than 1 million abortions are performed every year in this country. The Democrats should set forth proposals that aim to reduce that number by at least half. Such a campaign could emphasize adoption reform, health care, and child care; combating teenage pregnancy and sexual abuse; improving poor and working women's incomes; and supporting reasonable restrictions on abortion, like parental notification for minors (with necessary legal protections against parental abuse).

Not only are none of these suggestions new, Wallis gives us no clue as to how any of them are to be accomplished. What he seems to be advising his fellow Democrats is that they should accept what conservatives have been advocating and working toward for decades. Fat chance of that happening.

As for "family values," the Democrats can become the truly pro-family party by supporting parents in doing the most important and difficult job in America: raising children. They need to adopt serious pro-family policies, including some that defend children against Hollywood sleaze and Internet pornography. That's an issue that has come to be identified with the religious right. But when I say in public lectures that being a parent is now a counter-cultural activity, I've found that liberal and conservative parents agree.

In order to do what Wallis recommends Democrats would have to repudiate no-fault divorce, moral relativism, their sympathy for single parent households, and much of modern feminism. They would also have to endorse at least some form of censorship and consequently antagonize their deep-pocket friends in Hollywood and elsewhere in the entertainment industry. In other words, once again Wallis' advice to liberals is to become conservatives.

Rather than fighting over gay marriage, the Democrats must show that it is indeed possible to be "pro-family" and in favor of gay civil rights at the same time.

The two things he advises here are mutually exclusive. How do Democrats stop fighting for gay marriage and still demonstrate to the left that they support gay civil rights? Conservatives have been opposing gay marriage while supporting other civil rights for gays for a couple of decades now, and as far as the left is concerned they're all just a bunch of homophobes. To ask the Dems give up the fight for gay marriage is to ask them to cast off another one of the boards in the liberal tree-house.

Finally, on national security, Democrats should argue that the safety of the United States depends on the credibility of its international leadership. We can secure that credibility in Iraq only when we renounce any claim to oil or future military bases - something Democrats should advocate as the first step toward bringing other countries to our side.

This is just nonsense. We've had bases in Europe and Asia ever since WWII and so far from detracting from our leadership of the world, it has insured it. As for the need to renounce any claim to Iraqi oil, what claim is there to renounce? The U.S. has made no claim to the oil in Iraq, and for Wallis to insinuate that such a claim exists is bizarre.

While Republicans have argued that international institutions are too weak to be relied upon in the age of terrorism, Democrats should suggest reforming them, creating a real International Criminal Court with an enforcement body, for example, as well as an international force capable of intervening in places like Darfur.

Yet again Wallis is trying to revivify leftist ambitions that have long been moldering in the museum of bad ideas. What's novel about the proposal for a strong ICC? It's a terrible suggestion, but it's not new. What's new about the idea of an international quick reaction force? The U.S. has been trying for decades to cajole the United Nations into being something other than a slush fund for corrupt bureaucrats to wallow in, but to no avail. Unless the United States is prepared to use its military muscle no other western nation will. Even if we do employ our power most other nations are content to sit back and say let's you and him fight. The institutions Wallis is talking about don't need reformed, they need abolished.

Stronger American leadership in reducing global poverty would also go a long way toward improving the country's image around the world.

The question must be asked again: Exactly what does Wallis suggest we do that we haven't done? Hurl money at the problem like Live 8 urges us to do? To what end? Throwing money at poverty only lines the pockets of dictators and undermines the ability of indigenous farmers and tradesmen to make a living because they can't compete with the cheap goods that flood their markets from the donor countries. The U.S. has been the chief agent in trying to alleviate poverty around the world for fifty years and our image is what it is. Tossing more money overseas isn't going to change it. As long as we're successful and they're not their resentment will cause them to hate us. Giving people help only exacerbates the resentment because it makes them feel inferior to have to rely on us and underscores the disparity between our accomplishment and their failure.

Until Democrats are willing to be honest about the need for new social policy and compelling political vision, they will never get the message right. Find the vision first, and the language will follow.

Unfortunately, Wallis offers nothing in this essay in terms of either vision or solutions. To the extent that he proffers any substantive advice at all it's that Democrats either need to adopt the same old failed nostrums that leftists have been proposing for the last century and a half or transform themselves into conservative Republicans. The latter course seems much the wiser, but liberal readers of the Times surely aren't likely to follow it.

Sinking in the Mire

Just when you think the left can't sink any lower it surprises you:

The NEW YORK TIMES is looking into the adoption records of the children of Supreme Court Nominee John G. Roberts, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. The TIMES has investigative reporter Glen Justice hot on the case to investigate the status of adoption records of Judge Roberts' two young children, Josie age 5 and Jack age 4, a top source reveals.

Judge Roberts and his wife Jane adopted the children when they each were infants. Both children were adopted from Latin America. A TIMES insider claims the look into the adoption papers are part of the paper's "standard background check."

Roberts' young son Jack delighted millions of Americans during his father's Supreme Court nomination announcement ceremony when he wouldn't stop dancing while the President and his father spoke to a national television audience. Previously the WASHINGTON POST Style section had published a story criticizing the outfits Mrs. Roberts had them wear at the announcement ceremony.

One top Washington official with knowledge of the NEW YORK TIMES action declared: "Trying to pry into the lives of the Roberts' family like this is despicable. Children's lives should be off limits. The TIMES is putting politics over fundamental decency."

One top Republican official when told of the situation was incredulous. "This can't possibly be true?"

One would think it couldn't be true, one would think that no one would stoop this low, but then one reminds oneself that these are liberals we're talking about, and for these people standards of decency are all relative to the political demands of the moment.

The New York Times has embraced the ethics of the National Enquirer and has become the journalistic equivalent of dumpster divers.

The War in Western Iraq

Bill Roggio at The Fourth Rail gives a little background to the fighting in western Iraq which led to the deaths of two dozen Marines in the last several days. He also discusses a meeting of disparate insurgent groups that took place recently in Lebanon to try to find some common ground. Apparently there was none to be found.

Details of that meeting can be found at Iraq the Model.

Some Hard Evidence, Please

Front Page Magazine's Jamie Glazov has an interview with Joseph Farah of World Net Daily in which Farah claims that the Islamists have plans to detonate nuclear weapons in American cities and that the weapons are already here waiting for the signal.

Such claims are much easier to make than to refute, but I came away from this interview disturbed. Not just because of the nature of Farah's alarm call, but also by his refusal to really explain what his basis is for believing that such a calamity is on the way.

His evidence seems to be that we all know that al Qaida wants to execute a spectacular strike murdering tens of thousands of Americans. We know that Russian nukes are missing. We know that our Mexican border is porous. We know that people like Dick Cheney have said that another terror strike is inevitable. Therefore, Farah concludes, a nuclear strike is imminent. Well, maybe, but the evidence Farah gives us is pretty thin.

Nor does he enhance his credibility when he slyly implies that George Bush hasn't sealed our borders because he's part of a master plan "for global governance being plotted in meetings of groups like the Council on Foreign Relations. You can read its reports. And, I believe this open-borders policy is a direct result of those plans, which have been secretly adopted by our highest leaders, including President Bush."

This response as well as the hemming and hawing he tries to pass off as answers to Glazov's request for supporting reasons for his dire prophecies makes one wonder whether Farah isn't just a part of the black helicopter crowd.

He may be right, of course, or he may be just guessing. There's no way to falsify his claim since no matter how long we go without a strike he could still argue that it's going to happen soon. One way to measure his accuracy, though, is by seeing what happens on August 6th. Farah says this:

Again, according to captured documents and captured al-Qaida leaders -- and some defectors -- the plans are to detonate multiple nuclear weapons in major U.S. cities -- either all at once or over a period of days. You can guess most of the prime targets -- New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc. The only surprise, according to my sources, is that al-Qaida's list is not based on the cities with the most population. The list is based on where most American Jews live. So you see some cities like Miami and Las Vegas and San Francisco on the list. Dates are very important to al-Qaida, as we have come to know, and one of the dates mentioned in connection with this "American Hiroshima" plan is Aug. 6, the anniversary of the U.S. nuclear attack on Hiroshima in 1945. No year has been set, but it is worth noting that this Aug. 6th is the 60th anniversary of that attack.

Of course, if nothing happens on the 6th that doesn't mean that it won't happen next year on the 6th. Or the year after that.

In any case, Farah hopes he's wrong. So do we. We just think that unless he had more to go on than what he shares with us in this interview it would have been better to have not said anything. Conservatives don't need to have their spokespersons passing off their own speculations as if they were solid fact. One does not go about scaring the bejabbers out of people without having credible reasons for doing so. Credibility, especially in a matter as frightening as this, is too precious to squander.

That Was Then, This is Now

Teddy Kennedy can always be counted upon to look foolish the more closely one reflects upon his pronouncements.

The Senator has said of President Bush's recess appointment of Ambassador John Bolton that it was "a devious maneuver that evades the constitutional requirement of Senate consent."

However, according to the sleuths at Powerline, in 1999 things were different. Back then he urged the recess appointment of Bill Lann Lee to the top civil rights post at the Department of Justice. Republicans, who constituted a majority of the Senate, were unwilling to confirm Lee because of his advocacy of racial quotas. According to the Washington Times of November 5, 1999, Kennedy stated, "I have long urged recess appointments to break this logjam -- this irresponsible, unconstitutional Republican leadership position which fails to give people their due and fails to meet the constitutional standard." President Clinton eventually gave Lee a recess appointment.

Perhaps the Senator's brains are so pickled he can't recall what positions he held six years ago. Or perhaps he just doesn't care about either consistency or truth. There are, after all, no Geneva accords governing the rules of engagement in political combat.

Teaching Intelligent Design (Pt. I)

The inestimable Charles Krauthammer falls victim to the temptation to disregard Dirty Harry's dictum that "A man's got to know his limitations." Krauthammer, who's right about so much he comments upon in the political sphere, makes the mistake of wading into unfamiliar philosophical waters with all the confidence of one who has tested them many times before. He writes:

To teach faith as science is to undermine the very idea of science, which is the acquisition of new knowledge through hypothesis, experimentation and evidence. To teach it as science is to encourage the supercilious caricature of America as a nation in the thrall of religious authority. To teach it as science is to discredit the welcome recent advances in permitting the public expression of religion. Faith can and should be proclaimed from every mountaintop and city square. But it has no place in science class. To impose it on the teaching of evolution is not just to invite ridicule but to earn it.

Krauthammer simply embraces here the old canard that Darwinian evolution is science and Intelligent Design is religion when in fact neither proposition is correct. Both views might perhaps be best understood as important hypotheses in the philosophy of science. As such, either they're both suitable for discussion in a science class or neither are. I've argued on numerous occasions on Viewpoint that the former position is the more sensible. When science instruction ignores the philosophical implications and underpinnings of the empirical side of science it reduces to a sterile, barren collection of facts of significantly less interest to students than it would otherwise have.

To argue that the philosophy of science has no place in a science class is as silly as arguing that the history of science has no place in a science class. Yet we wouldn't dream of stripping our discussions of Newton, Boyle, Faraday, Kepler, and Darwin of their historical context. No one would suggest that we should henceforth omit all mention of dates because they're not matters subject to experimentation. It's absurd to suggest that Galileo's disagreement with the Church or the story of the Manhatten Project or an account of the work of the early alchemists is inappropriate in a science class. If it's perfectly appropriate to discuss the historical background of scientific ideas and progress then by what logic do we not extend the same acceptance to discussions of the philosophical context and ideas of science?

President Bush has recently urged that ID be discussed in school along with Darwinism. He presumably has no more expertise in this area than does Krauthammer, but he certainly has better instincts.

In another post I'd like to discuss a few ways in which I think ID could be presented by science teachers without frightening the children, or liberals, with the boogeyman of religion.

Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah

Hamas, like any benevolent organization might, runs summer camps for children:

"The main reason for Hamas summer camp is just for fun, to take them from the killing environment. They've gone through things they weren't prepared for," Salah, the Hamas education chief, said. "The main thing is to teach them to love their nation, Palestine. We're all one nation." But while Hamas leaders point to their social programs as the reason for the camps' popularity, Israelis -- and some Palestinians -- are far more critical of what the young campers are learning besides horseback riding and the backstroke.

At one beach camp, attended by approximately 100 kids, an instructor wore a heavy flannel shirt under which a webbed belt could be seen strapped to his stomach. Asked by a reporter what it was, he answered, with a broad smile, "Boom!"

The instructor led a group of young teenagers through marching drills on the sand -- facing movements, close quarter drill. With a smile at the reporter, he put a megaphone to his lips.

"What are you?" he called.

"Monsters!" the kids replied.

"What are you?!"

"MONSTERS!"

As the instructor, Sa'eb Dormush, stepped aside for an interview, a youth in the group shouted out "moqawama!" -- resistance. "That is the first word they learn when they are born," Dormush said with a laugh. "This is the next generation."

Across camp, a group of younger children -- most between 10 and 12 -- sat in a circle in the sand singing one of the "intifada songs" they learn at camp. One boy sang verses in a rolling soprano as the others joined in on the one-word chorus.

"We don't want to sleep.

HA-A-MAS!

We want revenge.

HA-A-MAS!

Raise it up.

HA-A-MAS!

Rifle fire.

HA-A-MAS!

If it will take a thousand martyrs.

HA-A-MAS!

Kill Zionists.

HA-A-MAS!

Wherever they are.

HA-A-MAS!

In the name of God.

HA-A-MAS!"

Of course, the curmudgeonly Israelis fail to appreciate the benefits being bestowed on the little tykes:

Such activities prompt Israeli officials to look harshly at the camps, especially when combined with statements from Hamas officials such as Gaza leader Mahmoud al-Zahar, who said in a recent interview that despite the current shaky hudna (truce) with Israel, Hamas will continue to attack Jewish settlements in the West Bank until Israel disengages from that area. He also said that he remains devoted to the elimination of the state of Israel altogether.

"These summer camps are an industry of a culture of hatred," said Gissin, Sharon's spokesman. "They don't teach them how to fly kites; they teach them how to become walking bombs."

What a slander. To think that the Zionists would sink so low as to accuse peace-loving Palestinians of being so depraved that they would actually encourage their children to become suicidal killers. No wonder there's no peace in the Middle-East.

Is Islam the Problem?

"If the Boy Scouts of America had 1,000 Scout troops, and 10 of them practiced suicide bombings, then the BSA would be considered a terrorist organization. If the BSA refused to kick out those 10 troops, that would make the case even stronger. If people defending terror repeatedly turned to the Boy Scout handbook and found language that justified and defended murder -- and the scoutmasters responded by saying 'Could be' -- the Boy Scouts would have been driven out of America long ago."

"Today, Islam has whole sects and huge mosques that preach terror. Its theology is openly used to give the murderers their motives. Millions of its members give these killers comfort. The question isn't how dare I call Islam a terrorist organization, but rather why more people do not."

Talk show host Michael Graham who was suspended by WMAL for repeatedly accusing Islam of being a terrorist organization.

See more here.

As if to affirm Graham's allegation that the problem is not just fringe Islamists but Islam itself even some so-called moderate imams are refusing to face reality. The most senior Islamic cleric in Birmingham claimed recently that Muslims were being unjustly blamed in the war on terrorism and that the eight suspects in the two bombing attacks on London "could have been innocent passengers":

Mohammad Naseem, the chairman of the city's central mosque, called Tony Blair a "liar" and "unreliable witness" and questioned whether CCTV footage issued of the suspected bombers was of the perpetrators.

Mr Naseem, who was speaking after police seized Yasin Hassan Omar in Birmingham, delivered his unprompted outburst when he was invited to a press conference with West Midlands police and Birmingham city council to help calm fears of racial or religious tension after the arrest.

His comments shocked senior police officers. Sources said that attempts to encourage Muslims to pass them information on the bombers' activities would be hindered. One said: "We are trying to gain the trust of the Muslim community and these kinds of comments have the opposite effect. All they do is encourage communities to close ranks against us."

To the obvious embarrassment of council officials and police standing next to him, Mr Naseem said the Government and security services "were not to be relied upon". He said: "Tony Blair has told lies on going to Iraq and in a court of law if a witness has proved to be a liar he ceases to be a reliable witness. So we cannot give our blind trust to the Government.

"To have that trust it is important that the process of law should be independent, open and transparent. I am also sad that unfortunately the impression has been given that Muslims are to be targeted in this war against terror. There seems to be a directive to target Muslims. Why do we not have an open mind about this?

"Muslim bashing seems to be more earnest than the need for national unity and harmony. Terrorists can be anybody - we will have to see [whether the bombers are Muslims]. The process is not open; the process is not transparent; the process is not independent. I do not have faith in the system as it stands."

Mr Naseem is one of the most respected Muslims in the city and is considered a moderate. He has regular meetings with the chief constable to discuss religious harmony. Mr Naseem said that while it was vital that terrorism was stamped out and that there was never any justification for it, the Government had not helped by going to war in Iraq.

Dismissing the Prime Minister's insistence that the war had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks, he said: "Tony Blair ... is not going to be perceived as a reliable witness. His comments could motivate someone to take the law into his own hands."

"Some people have been caught but I have not seen any evidence. The process of law is not open," he added. Asked about the suspects' DNA being found at the scene of the first attacks, he said: "DNA can match you, but that does not mean you are going to commit a crime. Thousands of youths are passing by and caught on CCTV, so how do you know it is them?"

And, in an editorial in The Dawn, the central mosque's newsletter, Mr Naseem writes: "Where is the evidence that four youths whose pictures were caught on CCTV cameras...were the perpetrators? How did we reject the possibility they were just innocent victims of this terrible happening? They had bought return train tickets."

Meanwhile, the imam at one of the largest east coast mosques, a supporter of Hamas, Shaker Elsayed, rejected any suggestion that Islam needs to reform and should use any means necessary to defeat its enemies.

Islamists like Elsayad and Naseem see world-wide Islam as within their grasp as long as they don't lose heart and do not allow themselves to be deterred from the goal. Thus they must not give an inch to the infidels no matter how stupid their obstinence makes them sound.

The Privileged Professor

How does the University of Rhode Island justify paying this guy? Forget about the fact that, if Mr. Nelson is telling the story accurately, he's a disgrace to the teaching profession. Forget that he's an incredibly sleazy and contemptible human being. Ask yourself what the university would do if he were a heterosexual male making similar remarks to female students. Change everything in this column so that the references were to heterosexual behavior by a heterosexual male and the university would have had his bags packed and desk cleaned out within an hour of the opening of classes whether a student filed a formal complaint or not.

Why are promiscuously homosexual professors so privileged at this school that they are permitted to violate the canons of professional ethics governing teacher-student relationships and defraud their students of an education and still get paid for it? We know what kind of man professor Vocino is, but what kind of place is the University of Rhode Island? It sounds like an academic sewer.

Air America Update

Michelle Malkin has links to all the latest news on the Air America scandal.

Question: Have you heard anything, anything at all, about this scandal on the evening news or read anything about it in your local paper? We didn't think so. Do you remember reading about Rush Limbaugh's drug addiction and subsequent legal troubles? Of course. Why is the elite media only interested in scandal when conservatives are the principal players?

Iraqi Factionalism

Strategy Page has an analysis of the current political situation in Iraq. Here's an important excerpt:

The struggle to write a new constitution by the August 15 deadline is focused on issues like the power of conservative Islamic religious organizations (who want control of the courts, and lifestyle) and autonomy of the Kurds (and exactly how large "Kurdistan" will be). All the Islamic conservatives (Shia and Sunni) fear democracy, for they know that most Iraqis do not support the conservative Islamic lifestyle. The majority of Iraqis (the 80 percent who are Arabs) do not support a lot of autonomy for the Kurds either. And by next summer, the Iraqi armed forces will be some 250,000 troops and police, with armored vehicles and warplanes. The Peshmerga will still be about 100,000 men, armed with light weapons. The U.S. will not allow the Peshmerga to get heavier arms. A war with the Kurdish and Shia militias will eventually be hopeless for the militias.

Eventually, the Kurds and Shia religious conservatives will have to work out a compromise with the majority of Iraqis. But first the Sunni Arab terrorists have to be destroyed. That won't take much longer, because the Iraqi security forces get stronger month by month, and more and more Sunni Arab leaders abandon support (active or passive) for the Sunni Arab rebels. But never forget that Sunni Arab terrorists are only the first act in the struggle to create a democratic Iraq. The second act involves dealing with Shia religious conservatives, and independent minded Kurds.

Nobody said it would be easy, but if it happens in Iraq the whole world will change. If it fails, the Islamic world will descend into a chaos which will reverberate across the globe.

60th Anniversary of Hiroshima

As we approach the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Max Hastings offers us an excellent essay upon which to reflect. He argues that there are good arguments both to justify and to condemn the use of the atomic bomb on Japan and anyone interested in the continuing debate on this historical watershed should read his column. He closes it with an important observation:

Those who today find it easy to condemn the architects of Hiroshima sometimes seem to lack humility in recognizing the frailties of the decision-makers, mortal men grappling with dilemmas of a magnitude our own generation has been spared.

In August 1945, amid a world sick of death in the cause of defeating evil, allied lives seemed very precious, while the enemy appeared to value neither his own nor those of the innocent. Truman's Hiroshima judgment may seem wrong in the eyes of posterity, but it is easy to understand why it seemed right to most of his contemporaries.

It's hard to disagree with what Hastings writes. I think we have an obligation to try to understand the circumstances the men who made the decision to drop the bomb found themselves in. Even so, there is something Hastings omits from his column which I think is of overriding importance in judging what happened, not just at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but also at Tokyo, Dresden, Hamburg and many less noted cities.

In all of these, there was a conscious decision to deliberately target civilians for death. It doesn't much matter, in my opinion, whether the death was administered by conventional or nuclear explosives, the salient point is that the intentional killing of non-combatants, women and children, is prima facie morally unjustifiable. I am not saying that it is absolutely wrong. There may be circumstances which would make such a measure necessary, and perhaps such circumstances obtained in August of 1945, but it's not obvious that they did.

We were outraged on 9/11 when 3000 civilians lost their lives to Islamic terrorists. We were incensed that the hijackers targeted innocent people. We called them cowards (which they certainly weren't). We called them evil (which they certainly were), but in what morally significant ways did their deed differ from the fire-bombing of children in Dresden or Tokyo?

I sympathize with the difficulty of the decision those men had to make during WWII. I don't know what I would have decided myself, especially if I had a son slated to take part in the impending invasion of Japan. But I do think we can spare those men harsh judgment without withholding moral assessment of their deed. If we seek to justify deliberately killing innocents now it will only make it easier for us to yield to the temptation to do it again. Even as I write Rep. Tom Tancredo is defending his call to nuke Mecca if a terrorist uses a nuclear weapon in an American city.

We are fortunate to be in possession of precision weapons today that our fathers did not have and which enable us to target combatants without deliberately harming non-combatants. We have, as best as can be discerned, used these with great care and effectiveness. They have relieved us somewhat of the moral burden previous generations of Americans carried. Even so, there are many times in war when the temptation to kill indiscriminately must seem overwhelming. To the extent we excuse what was done in WWII we make it more likely that it will happen again today in the war against Islamic terrorists.

Heaven Knows

Niall Ferguson, a professor of history at Harvard, sounds the tocsin and wonders what has happened to Christianity in the land of Wesley and Whitefield, Lewis, Tolkein, Chesterton and Stott. The concern he voices is remarkable in no small part because Ferguson identifies himself as a materialist. His lack of belief notwithstanding his article is titled, Heaven knows how we'll rekindle our religion, but I believe we must:

Contrary to popular belief, it was not G. K. Chesterton who said: "When men stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing. They believe in anything." But he should have said it. Chesterton - who is nowadays best remembered, if at all, for his Father Brown stories - viewed atheism with the utmost suspicion. Those who disbelieve in God on supposedly rational grounds, he argued, merely become prey to pseudo-religions and superstitions. His neatest formulation was probably in The Miracle of Moon Crescent when he wrote: "You hard-shelled materialists [are] all balanced on the very edge of belief - of belief in almost anything."

I am a hard-shelled materialist myself, I suppose. But I was reminded of Chesterton last week by a report of a conversation between one of the would-be Islamikaze bombers, Muktar Said-Ibrahim, and a former neighbour of his in Stanmore, the suburb of north London where he grew up. "He asked me," Sarah Scott recalled, "if I was Catholic because I have Irish family, and I said I didn't believe in anything, and he said I should. He told me he was going to have all these virgins when he got to Heaven if he praises Allah. He said if you pray to Allah and if you have been loyal to Allah you would get 80 virgins, or something like that."

Now it is the easiest thing in the world to make fun of the notion, apparently a commonplace among jihadists, that a suicide bomber who successfully blows up a decent number of infidels is rewarded in heaven with 80 virgins. (I personally can think of nothing more terrifying than 80 virgins; I can just picture the belles of St Trinian's running amok.) But is it, I wonder, significantly stranger to believe, like Sarah Scott, in nothing at all?

Miss Scott's recollected conversation with Said-Ibrahim is fascinating because it illuminates the gulf that now exists in this country between a minority of fanatics and a majority of atheists. "He said," she recalled last week, "people were afraid of religion and people should not be afraid." I am not sure that British people are necessarily afraid of religion, but they are certainly not much interested in it these days. Indeed, the decline of Christianity - not just in Britain but right across Europe - stands out as one of the most remarkable phenomena of our times.

There was a time when Europe would justly refer to itself as "Christendom". Europeans built the continent's loveliest edifices to accommodate their acts of worship. They quarrelled bitterly over the distinction between transubstantiation and consubstantiation. As pilgrims, missionaries and conquistadors, they sailed to the four corners of the earth, intent on converting the heathen to the true faith. Now it is we who are the heathens.

According to the Gallup Millennium Survey of Religious Attitudes, barely 20 per cent of West Europeans attend church services at least once a week, compared with 47 per cent of North Americans and 82 per cent of West Africans. Less than half of western Europeans say God is a "very important" part of their lives, as against 83 per cent of Americans and virtually all West Africans. And fully 15 per cent of western Europeans deny that there is any kind of "spirit, God or life force" - seven times the American figure and 15 times the West African.

The exceptionally low level of British religiosity was perhaps the most striking revelation of a recent ICM poll. One in five Britons claims to "attend an organised religious service regularly", less than half the American figure. Little more than a quarter of us say that we pray regularly, compared with two thirds of Americans and 95 per cent of Nigerians. And barely one in 10 of us would be willing to die for our God or our beliefs, compared with 71 per cent of Americans.

Of course, these surveys make no distinctions between creeds, so they almost certainly understate the decline of British Christianity. Last year, do not forget, it was revealed that, in an average week, more Muslims attend a mosque than Anglicans go to church. Small wonder our talented but frustrated local minister has just announced that he is leaving the Church to become a lawyer: a true sign of the times.

The de-christianisation of Britain is in fact a relatively recent phenomenon. For most of the first half of the 20th century, Anglican Easter Day communicants accounted for around 5 to 6 per cent of the population of England; it was only after 1960 that the proportion slumped to 2 per cent. Figures for the Church of Scotland show a similar trend: steady until 1960, than falling by roughly half. As those figures suggest, British Protestants were not especially observant (compared, for example, with Irish Catholics), but until the late 1950s established church membership, if not attendance, was relatively high and steady.

Prior to 1960, most marriages in England and Wales were solemnised in a church; then the slide began, down to around 40 per cent in the late 1990s. Especially striking is the decline in confirmations as a percentage of children baptised. Fewer than a fifth of those baptised are now confirmed, around half the figure for the period from 1900 to 1960. For the Church of Scotland the decline has been even more precipitous.

Some of the greatest British writers of the 20th century anticipated this decline. Evelyn Waugh knew, once he had finished his wartime Sword of Honour trilogy, that he had written the epitaph of a particular ancient kind of English Catholicism. C S Lewis wrote The Screwtape Letters in the hope that mocking the Devil might keep him at bay. Both sensed, understandably enough, that the war posed a grave threat to Christian faith. Yet it was not really until the 1960s that their premonitions of secularisation came true.

Why have the British lost their historic faith? Like so many difficult questions, this seems at first sight to have an easy answer. But before you blame it on "The Sixties" - the Beatles, the Pill and the mini-skirt - remember that the United States had all these earthly delights too, without ceasing to be a Christian country. To be frank, I have no idea what the answer is. But I do know that it matters.

Chesterton feared that, if Christianity declined, "superstition" would "drown all your old rationalism and scepticism". When educated friends tell me that they have invited a shaman to investigate their new house for bad ju-ju, I see what Chesterton meant. Yet it is not the spread of such mumbo-jumbo that concerns me half so much as the moral vacuum our dechristianisation has created. I do not deny that sermons are sometimes dull and that British congregations often sing out of tune. But, if nothing else, a weekly dose of Christian doctrine will help to provide an ethical framework for your life. And I certainly do not know where else you are going to get one.

Over the past few weeks we have all read a great deal about the threat posed to our "way of life" by Muslim extremists like Muktar Said-Ibrahim. But how far has our own loss of religious faith turned this country into a soft target - not so much for the superstition Chesterton feared, but for the fanaticism of others?

Perhaps one reason for the difference between Europe and America is that America has a strong tradition of independent and non-liturgical churches, which Europe does not. Indeed, were it not for non-denominational or weakly affiliated congregations in the United States church attendance would look no less bleak here than there. Most of the religious dynamism, enthusiasm, growth and teaching in this country is found in congregations that are organizationally autonomous, or nearly so, and which are in any case certainly not under the oversight of the state.

These assemblies tend toward a high view of scripture and a theological and moral conservatism which has largely been abandoned among their mainline brethren, especially in their seminaries and among the church hierarchy. People want something solid to believe in, they want to belong to a church where the people and the pastor act as if they really believe what they say they believe and they're attracted to the non-traditional congregations that are sprouting up all across the American landscape which offer a stout set of convictions.

The religious or spiritual energy generated by these institutions and their congregants also seeps into more formal mainline churches by neighbors talking to neighbors and through the expansive literature being produced by pastors and lay leaders outside the mainline denominations. This intercourse injects a measure of vitality into more traditional congregations, especially at the lay level, which would otherwise become moribund.

I doubt there's anything much like this phenomenon in Europe, and it's probably the reason why Christianity in America, though not what it should be, is nevertheless considerably healthier than it is there.

Thought For Today

The development of microelectronic manufacturing technology has enabled researchers to produce ultra high purity materials. When gold was purified to the limits of the technology, it had the appearance of clear glass and was completely transparent.

This fact is a particularly interesting and a curious revelation if one considers a passage in the King James Bible that was written ~1,900 years ago: "...and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass" (Revelation 21:21).

Hmmm...

Freud's Absurdity

Sigmund Freud, writing about religion in The Future of an Illusion, asked, "Am I to believe in every absurdity? If not, why this one in particular?"

Even though he was talking about belief in God his question has resonance beyond its implicit criticism of theism. Consider, for instance, just a few of the absurdities that an atheist, like Freud, often chooses to believe:

He often chooses to believe that there are moral values that somehow transcend human subjectivity even though there's no basis for believing such things exist in a world without God. Unless there is a God the only morality that makes any sense is one based upon "might makes right."

He often chooses to believe that his daily existence has some meaning when in fact an eternal death nullifies all meaning and significance in life. Life can only have genuine meaning if physical death is not the end of one's existence.

He often chooses to believe that consciousness can arise out of brute material substance, as if a test tube full of the appropriate chemicals could produce a hope or a wish. There is no materialist explanation for human consciousness. It is a mystery. Why then is it less absurd to believe it somehow arises out of matter than to believe it somehow arises out of the mind of a Creator?

He often chooses to believe that even though everything in his philosophy tells him that we are just lumps of mud and blood, nevertheless we have dignity. On the contrary, human beings have no inherent dignity. Whatever dignity we possess is simply what we and others choose to confer upon ourselves.

He often chooses to believe that human rights somehow exist apart from the whims of the people in the state who wield power. He believes this even though any rights that the state chooses to grant its citizens are purely arbitrary and grounded in nothing more than human sentiment. We only have real rights to the extent they are granted to us by a transcendent moral authority.

He often chooses to believe that though this universe in which we live is so incredibly and exquisitely fine-tuned for life it is nevertheless just an accident of chance. He seeks to evade the powerful testimony of the universe's amazing physico-chemical properties by speculating that there are a near infinite number of worlds and that therefore at least one must have the astonishing collocation of properties, laws, and forces that this one has. He believes this despite the complete absence of any evidence for any world (universe) other than this one.

He often chooses to believe that the origin of life, the emergence of whole libraries of information contained within the walls of a microscopic cell, was a result of blind, unguided processes, as if feeding magnetic scrabble letters into a blender could eventually churn out the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Like consciousness, the origin of life is a complete mystery.

The Christian theist believes that the universe is not an incomprehensible coincidence, that consciousness is not an emergent property of matter, that life has meaning, human beings have worth, and morality and human rights are warranted because all these things are created by and/or grounded in an intelligent, personal God.

So we may ask Freud why it is more absurd to believe that there is an intelligent Creator than it is to believe that meaning, morality, the cosmos and life, human dignity and rights, all exist apart from any apparent or plausible ground or explanation for them. The fact is, it is the atheist who, in the light of what we know about the world today, must embrace absurdity.