Thought For A Sunday

Taken from The Power of the Spirit or A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life by William Law.

Self is the root, the tree, and the branches of all the evils of our fallen state. We are without God, because we are in the life of self. Self-love, self-esteem, and self-seeking, are the very essence, and life of pride; and the devil the first father of pride, is never absent from them, nor without power in them. To die to these essential properties of self, is to make the devil depart from us. But as soon as we would have self-abilities have a share in our good works, the satanic spirit of pride is in union with us, and we are working for the maintenance of self-love, self-esteem, and self-seeking.

All the vices of fallen angels and men have their birth and power in the pride of self, or I may better say, in the atheism and idolatry of self; for self is both atheist and idolator. It is atheist, because it has rejected God; it is an idolator, because it is its own idol. On the other hand, all the virtues of the heavenly life are the virtues of humility. Not a joy, or glory, or praise in heaven, but is what it is through humility. It is humility alone that makes the unpassable gulf between heaven and hell. No angels in heaven, but because humility is in all their breath; no devils in hell, but because the fire of pride is their whole fire of life.

What is then, or in what lies the great struggle for eternal life? It all lies in the strife between PRIDE and HUMILITY: all other things, be they what they will, are but as under workmen; pride and humility are the two master powers, the two kingdoms of strife for the eternal possession of man.

And here it is to be observed, that every son of Adam is in the service of pride and self, be he doing what he will, till a humility that comes solely from heaven has been his redeemer. Till then, all that he doth will be only done by the right hand, that the left hand may know it. And he that thinks it possible for the natural man to get a better humility than this from his own right reason (as it is often miscalled) refined by education, shows himself quite ignorant of this one most plain and capital truth of the gospel, namely, that there never was, nor ever will be, but one humility in the whole world, and that is the one humility of Christ, which never any man, since the fall of Adam, had the least degree of but from Christ. Humility is one, in the same sense and truth, as Christ is one, the mediator is one, redemption is one. There are not two Lambs of God that take away the sins of the world. But if there was any humility besides that of Christ, there would be something else besides him that could take away the sins of the world. "All that came before me," says Christ, "were thieves and robbers": we are used to confine this to persons; but the same is as true of every virtue, whether it has the name of humility, charity, piety, or anything else; if it comes before Christ, however good it may pretend to be, it is but a cheat, a thief, and a robber, under the name of godly virtue. And the reason is, because pride and self have the all of man, till man has his all from Christ. He therefore only fights the good fight, whose strife is, that the self-idolatrous nature which he hath from Adam may be brought to death, by the supernatural humility of Christ brought to life in him.

The enemies to man's rising out of the fall of Adam, through the Spirit and power of Christ, are many. But the one great dragon-enemy, called anti-Christ, is SELF-EXALTATION. This is his birth, his pomp, his power, and his throne; when self-exaltation ceases, the last enemy is destroyed, and all that came from the pride and death of Adam is swallowed up in victory.

There has been much sharp looking out, to see where and what anti-Christ is, or by what marks he may be known. Some say he has been in the Christian world almost ever since the gospel times, nay, that he was even then beginning to appear and show himself. Others say he came in with this, or that pope; others that he is not yet come, but near at hand. Others will have it, that he has been here, and there, but driven from one place to another by several new risen Protestant sects.

But to know with certainty, where and what anti-Christ is, and who is with him, and who against him, you need only read this short description which Christ gives of himself." (1) I can do nothing of myself. (2) I came not to do my own will. (3) I seek not my own glory. (4) I am meek and lowly of heart." Now if this is Christ, then self-ability or self-exaltation, being the highest and fullest contrariety to all this, must be alone the one great anti-Christ, that opposes and withstands the whole nature and Spirit of Christ.

What therefore has everyone so much to fear, to renounce and abhor, as every inward sensibility of self-exaltation, and every outward work that proceeds from it. But now, at what things shall a man look, to see that working of self which raises pride to its strongest life, and most of all hinders the birth of the humble Jesus in his soul? Shall he call the pomps and vanities of the world the highest works of self-adoration? Shall he look at the fops and beaux, and painted ladies, to see the pride that has the most of anti-Christ in it? No, by no means. These are indeed marks, shameful enough, of the vain, foolish heart of man, but yet, comparatively speaking, they are but the skin-deep follies of that pride which the fall of man has begotten and brought forth in him. Would you see the deepest root, and iron-strength of pride and self-adoration, you must enter into the dark chamber of man's fiery soul, where the light of God (which alone gives humility and meek submission to all created spirits) being extinguished by the death which Adam died, satan, or which is the same thing self-exaltation became the strong man that kept possession of the house, till a stronger than he should come upon him. In this secret source of an eternal fiery soul, glorying in the astral light of this world, a swelling kingdom of pomps and vanities is set up in the heart of man, of which, all outward pomps and vanities are but its childish transitory playthings. The inward strong man of pride, the diabolical self, has his higher works within; he dwells in the strength of the heart, and has every power and faculty of the soul offering continual incense to him. His memory, his will, his understanding, his imagination, are always at work for him, and for no one else. His memory is the faithful repository of all the fine things that self has ever done; and lest anything of them should be lost or forgotten, she is continually setting them before his eyes. His will, though it has all the world before it, yet goes after nothing, but as self sends it. His understanding is ever upon the stretch for new projects to enlarge the dominions of self; and if this fails, imagination comes in, as the last and truest support of self, she makes him a king and mighty lord of castles in the air.

This is that full-born natural self, that must be pulled out of the heart, and totally denied, or there can be no disciple of Christ; which is only saying this plain truth, that the apostate self-idolatrous nature of the old man must be put off, or there can be no new creature in Christ.

Now what is it in the human soul that most of all hinders the death of this old man? What is it that above all other things strengthens and exalts the life of self, and makes it the master and governor of all the powers of the heart and soul? It is the fancied riches of parts, the glitter of genius, the flights of imagination, the glory of learning, and the self-conceited strength of natural reason: these are the strongholds of fallen nature, the master-builders of pride's temple in the heart of man, and which, as so many priests, keep up the daily worship of idol-self. And here let it be well, and well observed, that all these magnified talents of the natural man are started up through his miserable fall from the life of God in his soul. Wit, genius, learning, and natural reason, would never have had any more a name among men, than blindness, ignorance, and sickness, had man continued, as at first, an holy image of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Everything then that dwelt in him, or came from him, would have only said so much of God, and nothing of himself, have manifested nothing to him but the heavenly powers of the triune life of God dwelling in him. He would have had no more sense or consciousness of his own wit, or natural reason, or any power of goodness in all that he was, and did, than of his own creating power, at beholding the created heavens and earth. It is his dreadful fall from the life of God in his soul, that has furnished him with the substantial riches of his bestial appetites and lusts. And when the lusts of the flesh have spent out their life, when the dark thick body of earthly flesh and blood shall be forced to let the soul go loose, all these bright talents will end with that system of fleshly lusts, in which they begun; and that of man which remains will have nothing of its own, nothing that can say, I do this, or I do that; but all that it has or does, will be either the glory of God manifested in it, or the power of hell in full possession of it. The time of man's playing with parts, wit, and abilities, and of fancying himself to be something great and considerable in the intellectual world, may be much shorter, but can be no longer, than he can eat and drink with the animals of this world. When the time comes, that fine buildings, rich settlements, acquired honors, and rabbi, rabbi, must take their leave of him, all the stately structures, which genius, learning, and flights of imagination, have painted inwardly on his brain and outwardly on paper, must bear full witness to Solomon's vanity of vanities.

Let then the high accomplished scholar reflect, that he comes by his wit, and parts, and acute abilities, just as the serpent came by his subtlety; let him reflect, that he might as well dream of acquiring angelic purity to his animal nature by multiplying new invented delights for his earthly passions and tempers, as of raising his soul into divine knowledge through the well exercised powers of his natural reason and imagination.

The finest intellectual power, and that which has the best help in it towards bringing man again into the region of divine light, is that poor despised thing called simplicity. This is that which stops the workings of the fallen life of nature, and leaves room for God to work again in the soul, according to the good pleasure of his holy will. It stands in such a waiting posture before God, and in such readiness for the divine birth, as the plants of the earth wait for the inflowing riches of the light and air. But the self-assuming workings of man's natural powers shut him up in himself, closely barred up against the inflowing riches of the light and Spirit of God.

Yet so it is, in this fallen state of the gospel church, that with these proud endowments of fallen nature, the classic scholar, full fraught with pagan light and skill, comes forth to play the critic and orator with the simplicity of salvation mysteries; mysteries which mean nothing else but the inward work of the triune God in the soul of man, nor any other work there, but the raising up of a dead Adam into a living Christ of God.

However, to make way for parts, criticism, and language-learning, to have the full management of salvation doctrines, the well-read scholar gives out, that the ancient way of knowing the things of God, taught and practiced by fishermen-apostles, is obsolete. They indeed wanted to have divine knowledge from the immediate continual operation of the Holy Spirit, but this state was only for a time, till genius, and learning entered into the pale of the church. Behold, if ever, "the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place!" For as soon as the doctrine is set up, that man's natural parts and acquired learning have full right and power to sit in the divinity chair, and to guide men into that truth which was once the only office and power of the Holy Spirit, as soon as this is done, and so far as it is received, it may with the greatest truth be said, that the kingdom of God is entirely shut up, and only a kingdom of scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites, can come instead of it. For by this doctrine the whole nature and power of gospel religion is much more denied, than by setting up the infallibility of the pope; for though his claim to infallibility is false, yet he claims it from and under the Holy Spirit; but the Protestant scholar has his divinity knowledge, his power in the kingdom of truth, from himself, his own logic, and learned reason. Christ has nowhere instituted an infallible pope; and it is full as certain, that he has nowhere spoke one single word, or given the least power to logic, learning, or the natural powers of man, in his kingdom. He has never said to them, "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven"; never said to them, "go ye and teach all nations," no more than he has ever said to wolves, "go ye, and feed my sheep." Christ indeed said of himself, according to the flesh, it is expedient for you that I go away. But where has he said of himself according to the spirit, "It is also expedient for you that I go away, that your own natural abilities and learned reason may have the guidance of you into all truth?" This is nowhere said, unless logic can prove it from these words, "Without me ye can do nothing," and, "Lo, I am with you to the end of the world."

The first and main doctrine of Christ and his apostles was, to tell the Jews, "that the kingdom of God was at hand," or was come to them. Proof enough surely, that their church was not that kingdom of God, though by God's appointment, and under laws of his own commanding. But why not, when it was thus set up by God? It was because it had human and worldly things in it, consisted of carnal ordinances, and had only types, and figures, and shadows of a kingdom of God that was to come. Of this kingdom, Christ says, "My kingdom is not of this world"; and as a proof of it, he adds, "if it was of this world, then would my servants fight for me"; which was saying, that it was so different in kind, and so superior in nature to this world, that no sort of worldly power could either help, or hinder it. But of this world, into which the kingdom of God was come, the holy one of God says, "In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good comfort, I have overcome the world." Now how was it that Christ's victory was their victory? It was, because he was in them, and they in him, "Because I live, ye shall live also; in that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you."

Babel

I finally got around to viewing the highly acclaimed 2006 movie Babel the other night. It was hard to watch in many respects, but it's also a masterful film. Loosely put, it's the story of four families from different parts of the world connected by a single act of reckless boyhood stupidity, the consequences of which ramify throughout the movie. It's The Bridge of San Luis Rey as if written by William Shakespeare and put on screen.

For those who may not have seen it, a Japanese big game hunter gives a high powered rifle to his Moroccan guide as an expression of gratitude for the guide's service. The guide sells it to a goat-herder friend of his who gives it to his young sons, one of whom on impulse uses it to shoot at a distant tour bus, striking an American tourist (Cate Blanchett). The injured woman's two children in San Diego are meanwhile being cared for by a Mexican nanny who takes them across the border to her son's wedding and winds up getting lost in the desert.

These events all happen over the course of a day and the film focusses on members of each family as they struggle with the effects of this and other tragedies in their lives. The decision by the boys to shoot at the bus has many interwoven results, some of which are horrific, some of which are blessings, and most of which are completely unforeseeable. One interesting aspect of the film is that all the main characters are good people who get caught in agonizing predicaments, not because any of them do bad things, but mostly because people around them, and they themselves, do really dumb things.

An interesting twist in Babel is that although there are big name actors (Brad Pitt plays Cate Blanchett's husband) they're not the heroes of the movie. The real heroes, unusual as it may be in movies, are several of the secondary characters. The Moroccan tour guide and a Japanese police officer display a goodness and moral strength that change the lives of people they touch. This was for me one of the most important messages of the film - real heroes are just ordinary people who do the right thing and don't expect anything in return. Another important mesage was that human goodness has a redemptive and healing effect on others.

Babel has, perhaps, only two shortcomings. It contains some gratuitously explicit sexuality, which demeans the viewer, in my opinion, and it creates two or three mysteries which are never satisfactorily resolved. We're left to speculate on why, for example, the daughter of the Japanese hunter lies about the manner of her mother's suicide and what she wrote on the note to the police officer. Nevertheless, Babel tells an otherwise wonderful story about average people caught in the trap of being human in a fallen world.

RLC

Top Ten Stories On Design

Access Research Network (ARN) lists the top ten news stories related to Darwinism and Design for 2007. The list provides a good overview of some very important issues in the debate about the nature of design in the biosphere.

RLC

This Is Your Brain on PC

This story from Wired gives the reader good insight into the corrosive effects of political correctness on the cognitive powers of the human brain. It's the story of an excellent tool that helps police solve crimes by narrowing the list of suspects. Unfortunately, the technology involved identifies the race of the suspect and this is a definite no-no in some precincts of our society:

In the summer of 2002, the FBI, the Baton Rouge Police Department, and several other agencies began a massive search for a serial killer suspected of murdering three women. Based on an FBI profile and an eyewitness report, they upended southern Louisiana looking for a white man who drives a white pickup, collecting DNA from more than 1,000 Caucasian males. They found nothing. Meanwhile, the killer struck again.

In March 2003, investigators turned to Tony Frudakis, a molecular biologist who said he could determine the suspect's race by analyzing his DNA. Uncertain about the science, the police asked Frudakis to take a blind test: They sent him DNA swabs from 20 people to see if he could identify their races. He nailed every one.

On a conference call a few weeks later, Frudakis reported his results on their killer. "Your guy could be African-American or Afro-Caribbean, but there is no chance that this is a Caucasian." There was a prolonged silence, followed by a flurry of questions. They all came down to this: Would Frudakis bet his life on his results? Absolutely.

Despite the success of the technique it has failed to catch on among police departments in the nation's cities. Why? Read on:

DNAWitness (the name of the technique)touches on race and racial profiling - a subject with such a tortured history that people can't countenance the existence of the technology, even if they don't understand how it works.

"Once we start talking about predicting racial background from genetics, it's not much of a leap to talking about how people perform based on their DNA - why they committed that rape or stole that car or scored higher on that IQ test," says Troy Duster, former president of the American Sociological Association.

"This is analyzing data derived from a crime scene," Frudakis counters. "It's just a way for police to narrow down their suspect lists." But his position, rational as it may be, is no match for the emotions that surface with any pairing of race and crime.

Tony Clayton, a black man and a prosecutor who tried one of the Baton Rouge murder cases, concedes the benefits of the test: "Had it not been for Frudakis, we would still be looking for the white guy in the white pickup." Nevertheless, Clayton says he dislikes anything that implies we don't all "bleed the same blood." He adds, "If I could push a button and make this technology disappear, I would."

Read the rest of the story. It never ceases to amaze how addled the thinking of some people can be, especially about race. Here's a question for the prosecutor who would prefer that the DNA technology not exist: If he could push a button and make everyone blind so that they can't see the color of the people committing crimes would he do that? If not, what's the difference?

HT: Hot Air.

RLC

Change Agent

A lot of people this morning are pointing out the irony of Sen. Clinton advertising herself as the agent of "change" while surrounded by various relics of her husband's administration. In the photo below she's flanked, inter alia, by Wesley Clark, Madeleine Albright and, of course, Bill. How much change does that suggest?

P.S. Any candidate who promises "change" in Washington should be automatically disqualified from the race and hooted off the stage. Not only does such a claim barely rise to the level of rhetoric in a middle school student council election, it's about as ridiculous as John Edwards' promise in 2004 that if John Kerry were elected president quadriplegics would walk again.

RLC

Celebrating Diversity in Kenya

Another African nation appears on the verge of going up in flames:

Dozens of people seeking refuge in a church in Kenya were burned to death by a mob on Tuesday in an explosion of ethnic violence that is threatening to engulf this country, which until last week was one of the most stable in Africa.

According to witnesses and Red Cross officials, up to 50 people died inside the church in a small village in western Kenya after a furious crowd doused it with gasoline and set it on fire.

In Nairobi, the capital, tribal militias squared off against each other in several slums, with gunshots ringing out and clouds of black smoke wafting over the shanties. The death toll across the country is steadily rising.

Witnesses indicate that more than 250 people have been killed in the past two days in bloodshed connected to a disputed election Kenya held last week.

The Kenya celebrated for its spectacular wildlife and robust economy is now a land of distress. Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes, and some are so frightened that they have crossed into Uganda.

"We've had tribal fighting before, but never like this," said Abdalla Bujra, a retired Kenyan professor who runs a democracy-building organization.

As for the people burned alive in the church, Mr. Bujra echoed what many Kenyans were thinking: "It reminds me of Rwanda."

Well, it reminds us of the predictable outcome in most societies in which people divide themselves along religious, ethnic, racial or tribal lines. The multiculturalist ideal of different cultures all living harmoniously together is very difficult to find in the real world. It's an ideal which repeatedly fails to survive its encounters with human nature.

This is why any society that wishes to endure needs to thoroughly assimilate minorities, speak a common language, and emphasize the things that make them alike rather than the things which make them different. People will tolerate each other as long as things are going well, but when difficulties arise superficial ethnic or racial cohesion dissolves and is often replaced by an ugly and brutal us vs. them conflict. This has happened so often around the world that one is quite amazed at the steadfastness in the face of counter-evidence of those who think that having multiple languages, customs and cultures within a polity is a good thing.

RLC

Another American Success

This article contains significant information about a crucial development in the war in Iraq - stopping the flow of foreign terrorists into Iraq from Syria and North Africa. The article discusses several reasons for the decline in infiltration rates and points to economic ties between Iraq and Syria as providing much of the incentive for Syria to crack down. Some key points of the article:

General David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, is crediting efforts by the Syrian government, along with stepped-up counter-terrorism activities in other Arab states, with cutting the flow of al-Qaeda terrorists entering Iraq.

This change in Syrian behavior has occurred at a time when the Iraqi government and the regime of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad have been increasing their diplomatic and economic engagement, and when relations between Jordan and Syria also have been warming.

"The progress that has been made against al Qaeda-Iraq this year is very significant, .... It has been helped, I should note, by the way, by actions in a number of source countries, including Saudi Arabia, some of the Gulf states, and some north African countries, who have conducted operations against so-called foreign fighter facilitators, financiers, and others who have supported and provided money and individuals to al Qaeda-Iraq. And also, by Syria, which has taken more aggressive action against al Qaeda-Iraq in the networks in Syria that take individuals through Damascus Airport and then on into Iraq."

In a December 7 interview with the Guardian, Petraeus credited Islamic fatwas "condemning extremism" issued in countries such as Saudi Arabia along with efforts by the Syrian government to take "more aggressive action against some of the foreign fighter facilities there" with helping to cut the flow of al Qaeda terrorists entering Iraq.

The paper cited U.S. officials as saying that between August 2006 and September 2007 about 700 foreign terrorists had entered Iraq from Syria. Since then, the flow has been cut dramatically.

At a December 21 Pentagon press briefing, Marine Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also credited Syria with helping to stop the flow of terrorists into Iraq. Cartwright suggested that Iraqi-Syrian commercial relations were beginning to supplant the flow of terrorists.

"I still think there are challenges along the Syrian border, but not to the extent that there were," said Cartwright. "Again, out in that area, the flow has turned heavily to commerce and to the returning refugees and not so much to fighters moving back and forth, which is what we experienced six months ago."

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari is quoted as saying that:

"They numbered between 80 and 100 persons a month and this figure dropped at present to less than 30. In other words, there is still infiltration but at a lower rate. These are suicide bombers and dangerous criminals who targeted the innocent with booby-trapped vehicles and explosive belts and posed a very dangerous security threat."

Zebari suggested that the change was the result of a political decision taken by the Syrian regime to accept the new Iraq, which led to increased diplomatic, economic and security engagement between the two countries.

"We said from the beginning that the security and economic cooperation between Syria and Iraq could not be achieved if there was not a political will and if no political understanding was reached as well as acceptance of the new reality in Iraq and dealing with it in a realistic way," said Zebari. "We noticed that there is a right movement in this direction. A greater understanding between the security services was achieved from the series of visits made by Iraqi leaders and Syrian officials and as a result of the bilateral efforts and also the neighboring countries' conferences."

Zebari said, as reported by Al Hayat, that the agreements made between the two countries included "measures at the borders, airports, and border crossing and the interrogation of suspects, their ages, and the circumstances of their travel."

He also credited the assistance of other Arab states from which terrorist recruits had been coming to Iraq. Iraq, he said, "is working with countries of origin in North Africa, the peninsula, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Countries to control the movements of these people. The efforts do not include Syria alone but other countries too."

In December, Syria and Iraq agreed to reopen the Kirkuk-Banyas oil pipeline that carried Iraqi crude from Kirkuk to a port on Syria's Mediterranean coastline. In November, the two countries agreed to establish a joint Syrian-Iraq bank.

If this continues it'll be hard not to see it as yet another foreign policy success for the Bush administration. It'd be hard to believe that these developments just happened without the U.S. being deeply involved in the negotiations which led to the decisions in the relevant countries to improve economic relations and to stem the flow of terrorists to Iraq. At least it'll be hard for fair-minded observers not to credit the administration for this success. I doubt that many of the administration's critics on the left will have any difficulty withholding their kudos.

RLC

America's End

Left-wing celebrity Naomi Wolf has written a book about America's slide into fascism titled The End of America. If Jacob Laksin's review is anywhere near a fair evaluation Wolf's book should be shelved under "humor" in libraries and book stores across the land. According to Laksin, Ms Wolf apparently has only a passing acquaintance with the facts upon which she tries to build her case, but read the review and decide for yourself.

RLC

Top Ten Science Breakthroughs

Wired lists the top ten scientific advances of 2007. Number one, of course, was the development of stem cells from skin cells, but number two was an observation of chimps making spears to hunt small animals. This was deemed more important, oddly enough, than the discovery of a technique that can turn any blood type to type O - a technique which has enormous implications for medicine - a potential cure for Rhett's syndrome which afflicts one female in every 10,000, the discovery of a new lightweight composite of incredible strength, and a breakthrough that will enable Intel to make microprocessors about a third smaller than they are currently made. All of these have enormous implications for human health and quality of life.

So why are the chimpanzee spear-makers deemed so important? Just guessing, but I suspect it's because some people at Wired, as elsewhere, are desperate to show that humans and chimps are closely related so that the unwashed won't get any notions about the uniqueness of human beings. The more similar we are to the simians the less likely we are to be in any way "special" and the easier it is to accept other aspects of the Darwinian hocus-pocus.

Maybe not, but I fail to see any other explanation for why spear-making among chimps would be ranked higher in importance than breakthroughs that actually have implications for human well-being.

RLC

Socrates and Fred!

As we enter the first primary of the season, today's Iowa caucuses, I thought it appropriate to comment on a frequently heard criticism of one of the GOP candidates, Fred Thompson. The complaint is that Thompson doesn't seem to really want to be president badly enough, he doesn't have the fire in his belly, he's not willing to get out and pretend like he genuinely cares about the opinions of the old guy in the diner or the twelve year old at the school-yard rally. Actually this vice, Thompson's alleged indifference to his success as a candidate, should be regarded by the American public as a virtue, especially since it seems like most of the other candidates want too much to be president and are too willing to debase themselves in order to acquire the power and fame the office affords.

Plato, in his great work of political philosophy titled Republic puts these words into the mouth of Socrates:

"[M]oney and honour [i.e. public praise] have no attraction for them; good men do not wish to be openly demanding payment for governing and so to get the name of hirelings, nor by secretly helping themselves out of the public revenues to get the name of thieves. And not being ambitious they do not care about honour. Wherefore necessity must be laid upon them, and they must be induced to serve from the fear of punishment. And this, as I imagine, is the reason why the forwardness to take office, instead of waiting to be compelled, has been deemed dishonourable. Now the worst part of the punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself. And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to take office, not because they would, but because they cannot help--not under the idea that they are going to have any benefit or enjoyment themselves, but as a necessity, and because they are not able to commit the task of ruling to any one who is better than themselves, or indeed as good. For there is reason to think that if a city were composed entirely of good men, then to avoid office would be as much an object of contention as to obtain office is at present .... the State in which rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are the most eager, the worst."

There is indeed something unseemly about lusting for the power to govern others. A candidate who yearns to be president gives us good prima facie reason to withhold our vote from him or her. A qualified, conscientious candidate who could otherwise either take the job or leave it, I think, has exactly the kind of attitude toward governance that we should admire in our politicians.

RLC

Liberal Scorn

Here's Marty Peretz, publisher of The New Republic magazine, trying to show off his scientific sophistication by doing what liberals love to do which is make fun of the rubes who believe in things like the uniqueness of human beings:

Who is the most repellent Republican?.... I must say that Romney strikes me as the smarmiest. But it seems to me that it's Huckabee, although he does have a certain charm, the charm of the primitive. My minimum condition for and from a plausible president is that he accept that men and women are descended from apes and monkeys. Huckabee surely doesn't. But, then, I'm not sure that George Bush does either.

Perhaps no single paragraph in the political literature of the last half-century does a better job of illustrating all at once the arrogance, pomposity, superciliousness, scorn, contempt and sense of superiority many liberals hold for their fellow man. It also reveals Peretz's own ignorance of the matter upon which he chooses to pontificate.

It turns out that Peretz's minimum standard would disqualify any Darwinian who knew what he was talking about, which Peretz obviously does not. No informed Darwinian, no matter how fervent a believer he may be in the theory of evolution, believes that man descended from apes and monkeys. Evolutionary theory teaches instead that apes, monkeys and man all descended from the same common ancestor. The simians are our cousins, according to the theory, not our ancestors.

Somebody please inform Mr. Peretz of this before he ridicules somebody else for not believing what nobody else but him believes either.

RLC

Junkie Quiz

Joe Carter has a quiz for all the political junkies out there who'd like to have their knowledge of the various candidates' (GOP) positions tested. Check it out and see how many you get right. Carter is working for the Huckabee campaign but that is irrelevant to the quiz except insofar as it may have colored the questions he chose to ask.

RLC

Movies in 2007

Greg Veltman of Comment magazine discusses his favorite films of 2007. I only saw four that are on his list, but I agree that each of them are well worth watching. The four are Amazing Grace, Blood Diamond, The Lives of Others, and Ratatouille.

Here's a list, in no particular order, of the films I watched (or watched again) this past year. Some of these, depending on taste and interest, are highly recommended. Some are entertaining but not particularly memorable. Others were not worth the time. Those with a single asterisk I thought offered a message or technical effects that made them stand out. The double asterisk indicates that, for me, the movie was exceptional:

• Cinema Paradiso*
• Legends of the Fall
• Maria Full of Grace*
• Blood Diamond**
• Beyond the Gates*
• The Talented Mr. Ripley
• Human Stain
• Lives of Others**
• 300*
• Dune
• Bourne Identity*
• Bourne Supremacy
• Emperor's Club
• A Beautiful Mind**
• Salvador*
• Failure to Launch
• 13Tzameti
• The Pianist**
• Stalingrad*
• Ratatouille**
• Pirates of the Caribbean*
• Gangs of New York*
• Nowhere in Africa
• Algiers
• The Great Raid*
• Wyatt Earp
• Amazing Grace**
• Casino Royale*
• No Man's Land*
• Tears of the Sun*
• Kingdom of Heaven*
• Die Hard: With A Vengeance
• Russia House
• Bang Rajan
• I, Robot
• David Copperfield*
• The Last King of Scotland
• Apocalypto*
• Troy*
• Hunt For Red October*
• Babette's Feast
• Jackal
• Training Day*
• Sum of All Fears
• Lucky Number Slevin
• Das Boot**
• City of God*

On the recommendation of friends I tried to watch Damon/Affleck's Good Will Hunting, but found it so gratuitously vulgar that I couldn't make it past the first ten minutes.

RLC

Books in 2007

The New York Times has published its list of the top ten books for 2007. I confess that I haven't read any of them.

For what it's worth, here's a list of the books I did read this year. I found most of them well worth the time and recommend them to anyone interested in the topics they're written about. The ones marked with an asterisk were especially good reads:

• For the Glory of God: Rodney Stark (Christian History)*
• The Victory of Reason: Rodney Stark (Christian History)
• From Darwin to Hitler: Richard Weikert (History of Ideas)*
• The Edge of Evolution: Michael Behe (Biology - Evolution/Intelligent Design)*
• A History of Christianity: Paul Johnson (Christian History)*
• Erasmus and the Age of Reformation: Johan Huizinga (Biography)
• Deliver Us from Evil: Ravi Zacharias (Social/Religious Commentary)
• Can We Trust the Gospels: Mark Roberts (Theology) Nature, Design and Science (Reread): Del Ratszch (Philosophy of Science)*
• When God Says War Is Right: Darrell Cole (Ethics - Just War Theory)
• Epicenter: Joel Rosenberg (Dispensational Eschatology)
• David Copperfield: Charles Dickens (Classic Literature)*
• Atheist Manifesto: Michael Onfray (Sociology of Religion)
• The Kite Runner: Khaled Hosseini (Novel about Afghanistan under the Taliban)*
• The Spiritual Brain: Mario Beauregard & Denyse O'Leary (Philosophy of Mind/ Psychology)
• Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe: Simon Singh (Cosmology)*
• Boys Adrift: Leonard Sax (Sociology)*
• There Is a God: Antony Flew (Biography/ Philosophy of Religion)
• The Bottom Billion: Paul Collier (Analysis of Global Poverty)*
• Heroic Conservatism: Michael Gerson (Political Ideology/Memoir)*
• My Grandfather's Son: Clarence Thomas (Autobiography)*

RLC

Intellectual Progress

Ramirez notes that we've come a long way in 235 years:

RLC

Poverty in America

Byron sends along this sobering essay by Bart Campolo about his work for justice among the poor. It reminds us in this season of good will that we have a moral obligation to help - in whatever way we feel most competent - those who are in need.

Unfortunately, any long term solution to the plight of America's disadvantaged is going to involve more than providing goods and services and other forms of temporary relief to destitute people. Somehow, the culture into which these individuals are born has to be changed. A culture that breeds babies without fathers, which breeds dependency on government or on the benevolence of people like Campolo, which breeds a lack of discipline and a disdain for education and learning, which fosters a terrible work ethic, which fails to place a premium on family, which glorifies the "gangsta" lifestyle, which nurtures a dependency upon drugs and alcohol, which normalizes promiscuous sex and gratuitous violence, is a culture which dooms the people trapped in it to generational poverty.

I wish someone knew how to get the urban poor out of that culture. Unfortunately, anyone who calls for tearing down the prison walls within which our poor are stuck, especially if that person is white, is often dismissed as a racist, an elitist, a cultural chauvinist, an insensitive boor who's guilty of blaming the victim, etc. Consequently, nothing much gets done beyond the tut-tutting that occurs in the wake of a disaster like Katrina or publication of the latest homicide statistics out of Philadelphia.

I sure don't know what all the answers are, but I'm convinced that the first step toward winning the "war" on poverty is a loud, sustained national condemnation of the deracinated, dysfunctional culture which, like the muck in a swamp, makes it hard for these people to lift themselves out of the mire and into the middle class. It'd be worth suffering the obloquy of the race-hustlers and other small minds who will be quick to condemn anyone who spoke in such accents if doing so eventually broke the shackles that chain so many in the miseries of poverty.

RLC

'Twas a Very Good Year

Lawrence Kudlow writes that President Bush has had a very good year in 2007:

The troop surge in Iraq is succeeding. America remains safe from terrorist attacks. And the Goldilocks economy is outperforming all expectations.

At his year-end news conference, Mr. Bush said with optimism that the economy is fundamentally sound, despite the housing downturn and the subprime credit crunch. The very next day, that optimism was reinforced with news of the best consumer spending in two years. The prophets of recessionary doom, such as former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, Republican adviser Martin Feldstein, ex-Democratic Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, and bond-maven Bill Gross have been proven wrong once again.

Calendar year 2007 looks set to produce 3 percent growth in real gross domestic product, nearly 3 percent growth in consumer spending, and more than 3 percent growth in after-tax inflation-adjusted incomes.

Meanwhile, headline inflation (including food and energy) will have run at 21/2 percent, with only 2 percent core inflation.

Jobs are rising more than 100,000 monthly and the stock market is set to turn in a respectable year despite enormous headwinds. Low tax rates, modest inflation, and declining interest rates continue to boost Goldilocks, which is still the greatest story never told.

Mr. Bush's optimism is well-earned, in Congress too. He has stopped a lot of bad legislation on higher taxing and spending. He won on S-CHIP (State Children's Health Insurance Program) and the alternative minimum tax. He mostly prevailed on domestic spending. And he got much of what he wanted on war funding without any pullout dates.

On the other hand, Ambrose Evans Pritchard foresees catastrophe looming on the near horizon. I haven't talked to him recently about this, but I know what my brother Bill would say: Invest in precious metals.

RLC

Nasty, Brutish and Short

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto causes us to wonder anew why Islamic countries seem unable to advance beyond what passed for civilized behavior in the 6th century and why Western nations have.

Perhaps the reason is that the Christian worldview which shaped the West has fostered, albeit unevenly, a culture of technological, economic, and moral progress. Christian nations have been concerned with advancing the condition of the people who live in them, and, perhaps more to the point, Christianity has taught that we are to love our enemies, forgive those who offend us and tolerate those who disagree with us.

Islam has never been much concerned with progress, which Muslims often see as a path leading to apostasy. Nor have they been overly concerned with love and tolerance. Instead, Islam has throughout its history placed religious purity above all else, and in its radical modern mutation, at least, stresses not love, but hatred of one's enemies. A religion or ideology based on hatred will never advance nor progress. Its votaries are too busy settling scores and ridding themselves of heretics to be concerned with science and other progressive pursuits. For such people war, so far from being a necessary evil as it is often seen in the West, becomes a way of life. War and death in the cause of jihad become the whole point of earthly existence. In such a culture no progress is possible. It calls to mind the masterful cadences of Thomas Hobbes in his Leviathan:

"Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain; and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."

If it weren't for the fact that many Muslims, at least in the Arab world, happen to be living on top of vast deposits of oil, which they by themselves could neither extract, refine, or ship to market, they'd still be subsisting just as their ancestors did a thousand years ago, living in tents and merrily slaughtering each other whenever the opportunity arises.

RLC

The Right Word

There are a number of adjectives which come to mind to describe the kind of people who kill themselves in order to kill others - deranged, cruel, evil, vicious, sick, scum - but what they most emphatically are not is cowards. Anyone who is prepared to die to accomplish his purpose, no matter how twisted and malevolent that purpose may be, is not a coward. Why President Bush insists upon calling them that, most recently in his remarks on Benazir Bhutto's murder, is beyond me.

Perhaps he's just taunting the terrorists, but if so, it would make more sense to use some other pejorative. There are plenty of them available which would accurately describe these vermin without having to use one that doesn't describe them at all.

RLC

Huckabee Hints at Pardon

Mike Huckabee has a knack for co-opting issues guaranteed to endear him to social conservatives even though many fiscal and secular conservatives are very much put off by him. His latest example of this is to suggest that he would pardon Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, two border agents serving 10 to 12 years for shooting a drug smuggler in the buttocks and trying to conceal that they had violated some rules of engagement. Let's hope Huckabee's being sincere.

It is one of the most disgraceful legacies of George Bush's tenure that he has failed to pardon these men and anyone who says he'll do what Bush has refused to do is going to score big with conservatives. Perhaps they should have been suspended without pay. Perhaps they should have been fired, but they don't deserve to be doing twelve years in jail where one of them has already been severely beaten by inmates. Bush, to his shame, has commuted the sentence of Scooter Libby but refuses to get involved with Ramos and Compean.

Huckabee doesn't always say the right thing, in fact, he frequently says the wrong thing, but his Christmas ad and the hint of a pardon for Ramos and Compean show a certain political adroitness that keeps him in the race.

RLC