Wallis on Afghanistan

Over at The Washington Post's blog, On Faith, Jim Wallis argues that the war in Afghanistan is immoral and that we should get out. His conclusion may be correct, but the reasons he gives for it are, in my opinion, weak and irrelevant.

Wallis opens his essay with this puzzling remark:

But to begin a war and then an occupation of Afghanistan was the wrong policy, quickly killing more Afghan innocents than the American innocents who died on September 11.

I don't know how he knows how many innocent Afghan civilians were killed by American troops, but grant that the number exceeds the three thousand killed on 9/11. Of what importance is that? Does Wallis think that we went to war in Afghanistan in order to kill as many of their civilians as the al Qaeda terrorists killed of ours? By Wallis' reasoning we should have stopped fighting WWII as soon as we killed as many Japanese civilians as were killed at Pearl Harbor.

Here's the metric: Has our primarily military policy in Afghanistan and Iraq killed more terrorists than it has recruited? I think we know the answer to that.

Well, if we do I don't know how we do, and I doubt that Wallis does either. The implication is that going to war has generated and inspired more terrorists than would have been arrayed against us had we not gone to war. How could Wallis, or anyone, know this to be the case? Could it not be just as plausibly argued that had we not gone to war, Islamic youth by the millions would have smelled weakness and joined up with Osama bin Laden to be in on the destruction of the Great Satan?

A new strategy in Afghanistan that focuses on humanitarian assistance and sustainable economic development, along with international policing, was also never tried. It could have been led by NGOs, both faith-based and secular, who have been in the region for years, have become quite indigenous, and are much more trusted by the people of these countries than are the U.S. military. But such assistance would have to be provided, as much as possible, by independent civilian and non-governmental organizations -- both international and local -- rather than using aid as a government adjunct to military operations.

Here again Wallis makes a claim for which he fails to offer any support. How does he know that the Afghan people trust these NGOs more than they trust the military? If the Taliban are kidnapping their leaders or stealing their property who do the people turn to, do you think, to get it stopped? NGOs or the American military? Moreover, if Wallis thinks that we have not already spent a fortune on aid to the people of Afghanistan then he just hasn't been reading the same stuff everyone else has.

Yes, after taking over the country, we do have a responsibility not to simply walk away. There are ethical and moral issues that need to be considered: legitimately protecting Americans from further terrorism; protecting the lives of U.S. servicemen and women; protecting the Afghan people from the collateral damage of war; defending women from the Taliban; genuinely supporting democracy; and of course, saving innocent lives from the collateral damage of war, to name a few.

And if all these missions require 100,000 troops, numerous operations and lots of dead Taliban should we declare that the price is just too high? Wallis says, on the one hand, that we should get out of Afghanistan for moral reasons and on the other that we need to stay there for moral reasons. Well, which is it?

Non-military strategies should have led the way, rather than the other way around, as counter-insurgency doctrine requires. We should not have made aid and development weapons of war by tying them so closely to the military; rather, we should have only provided the security support needed for the development work to succeed -- led by respected, well-established international organizations with strong local connections.

This is pie-in-the-sky nonsense. The fact is that we went in to Afghanistan to get the people who launched 9/11, not to deliver hot lunches to Afghan shepherds. Once we drove al Qaeda and the Taliban out we had an obligation to keep them from flooding back into the country as soon as we left, so we have tried to create a secure environment for the people of Afghanistan. We undertook to strengthen both the government and the nation's infrastructure. Humanitarian efforts only work in areas which are free of the fear of the Taliban, which means our first mission has to be to pacify the countryside. No international organization is going to be keen on sending their workers into areas where they're likely to lose their heads as soon as they show up.

The article told story after story about families being separated by repeated deployments in an endless war. Soldiers who are fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters are dying for a wrong-headed, ineffective, failed, doomed, arrogant, theologically unjust, and yes, immoral war policy. And of course, the ones dying are not the young people headed for our best universities and successful professional careers, but rather they are the ones who have fewer options, or who see the military as their only option. Those with the least opportunities, and their families, are again the ones to sacrifice and suffer. It's not right and it's not fair.

Set aside the fact that despite what he might think of himself, Wallis is not a prophet. He doesn't know that this effort is "wrong-headed, ineffective, failed, doomed, arrogant." We should remember that this is exactly what the progressive opponents of George Bush were saying about Iraq, which Joe Biden is now claiming as an Obama administration success. We should also bear in mind that we have a volunteer military which means that the people fighting this war chose to make the sacrifices that Wallis enumerates. Moreover, his claim that the ones who are making these sacrifices are young men and women who see the military as their only option is utter nonsense. They joined the military because they saw it as a good option, not their only option. Wallis, like Senator Kerry in 2004, would have us believe that our troops are really life's losers. It says more about Wallis' view of those who go into the military than it does about the young men and women themselves.

Neither has Wallis made even a glimmer of an argument that the Afghanistan war is "theologically unjust, and immoral." He simply asserts it and expects us to nod our heads in agreement. But, never mind. As I said at the outset, almost the entire thrust of his essay is irrelevant. I say that because Wallis is a pacifist and would oppose any use of force in Afghanistan no matter how it was carried out. In other words, his argument is disingenuous. He's not opposed to the way our troops have been used, he's opposed, in principle, to any use of troops. It would be nice if he had the forthrightness to tell us that up front, rather than try to convince us that the reason he thinks we should leave Afghanistan is that the war is being managed badly, that it can't be won, and that the military is not being employed to maximum effect.

RLC

When the Bush Tax Cuts Expire

The Heritage Foundation has sent out a mailing in which they make the following claims about the consequences for you and me when the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire in January. I have no link for this, but according to what they say:

When the cuts expire it will be the equivalent of a $2.4 trillion tax increase on families, seniors and businesses.

One hundred million families will face an average tax increase of $1716 per year.

Seventeen million seniors will see their taxes rise an average of $2034.

Small business owners will be socked with an average increase of $3637.

Set aside Mr. Obama's promise that he would not raise taxes on those with incomes less than $250,000 a year. Few believed he was telling us the truth when he made that promise anyway. The question now is, what effect will this additional financial burden have on poverty levels and the average standard of living in this country? The former will necessarily rise and the latter will perforce decline.

Where does this money go? Well, in 2009 $19.6 billion went for frivolous "pork" projects that rewarded special interest groups. Much of it also goes to pay for the administration's stimulus programs that have been such a colossal failure in creating jobs, and, of course, a bloated federal bureaucracy takes their cut.

If you complain that you're being bled dry by our congressional phlebotomists, that you won't be able to manage on what you have left over, then you're told that you're not being patriotic, or that you're just callous, mean-spirited and unwilling to help the less fortunate. Besides, the country voted for hope and change, and, by golly, the Obama administration is going to give it to us. So shut up, stop complaining, fork it over, and have a nice day.

RLC

Black Haters

Imagine that our Department of Justice decided not to prosecute a couple of white klansmen who were intimidating blacks at the polling booths. Imagine that the klansmen had already forfeited, amounting to a guilty plea, and all that the white Attorney General needed to do was sentence them, but he inexplicably dropped the case. Imagine the outrage that would be fulminating across the airwaves until the administration relented.

Of course, something very much like this did happen in the Obama/Holder administration and the only place there's any outrage is on Fox News. Everywhere else, all one hears is the sound of crickets. Nothing from MSNBC, the New York Times, Jim Wallis. Just silence.

Who was the racist whacko that Holder let go? Watch him in action and marvel at the racial double standard in this country. What white racist would be allowed to do or say what this creep is saying?

If a white guy was doing this he'd be hauled off the street and thrown in jail for incitement to violence, as he should be. Not only that, but he would be justly pilloried for 24/7 on the nation's cable news shows his savage and moronic beliefs. In Obama's America, however, black haters get a pass from the liberal left. Why? Are liberals so racist themselves that they think that this is somehow just blacks being blacks? Or are they so otiose that they think we can improve race relations by holding blacks to a lower standard than we hold others?

J. Christian Adams was an attorney in the Department of Justice who resigned because he refused to be complicit in the corruption of the DOJ's Voting Rights Division. He writes:

Based on my firsthand experiences, I believe the dismissal of the Black Panther case was motivated by a lawless hostility toward equal enforcement of the law. Others still within the department share my assessment. The department abetted wrongdoers and abandoned law-abiding citizens victimized by the New Black Panthers. The dismissal raises serious questions about the department's enforcement neutrality in upcoming midterm elections and the subsequent 2012 presidential election.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has opened an investigation into the dismissal and the DOJ's skewed enforcement priorities. Attorneys who brought the case are under subpoena to testify, but the department ordered us to ignore the subpoena, lawlessly placing us in an unacceptable legal limbo.

Most disturbing, the dismissal is part of a creeping lawlessness infusing our government institutions. Citizens would be shocked to learn about the open and pervasive hostility within the Justice Department to bringing civil rights cases against nonwhite defendants on behalf of white victims. Equal enforcement of justice is not a priority of this administration. Open contempt is voiced for these types of cases.

Some of my co-workers argued that the law should not be used against black wrongdoers because of the long history of slavery and segregation. Less charitable individuals called it "payback time." Incredibly, after the case was dismissed, instructions were given that no more cases against racial minorities like the Black Panther case would be brought by the Voting Section.

Refusing to enforce the law equally means some citizens are protected by the law while others are left to be victimized, depending on their race.

What Adams reports here is contemptible and frightening. Under President Obama and Attorney General Holder the chief law enforcement institution in the nation is subordinating equal justice to racial preference. I can think of no better way to stoke the fires of racial hatred and violence in this country than to abandon the principle of equality under the law and to turn a blind eye to black crime.

Congress needs to be looking at ways to remove Mr. Holder from his position and the American people need to be looking at ways to remove Holder's party from Congress in November and from the White House in 2012.

RLC

Religion of Peace

I'm sure there are moderate Muslims who just want to live in a country where their children can grow up without having clerics making their lives miserable. Unfortunately, there are also too many like this Australian fellow:

How many Muslims just like this guy are we hosting in this country - here illegally, living off the taxpayers, and plotting to kill as many of us as possible? But don't let it worry you, lots of Muslims are moderates.

RLC

Religion of Compassion

We have on several occasions talked about the film The Stoning of Soraya M. a true account of the judicial murder of an Iranian woman in the 1980s falsely accused of adultery. Now history is about to repeat itself as another Iranian woman, Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani, having already been lashed 99 times and imprisoned for five years for alleged adultery has now been sentenced to die by stoning:

Keep in mind two things: The barbaric laws that enjoin such punishments are precisely what millions of Muslims, even in this country, wish to foist on the rest of the world, and the people who do this sort of thing to women will soon have nuclear weapons unless the world does something to stop them.

Check out Hot Air for more on this horrific case.

RLC

Life at the Lighthouse - Day 11 (Conclusion)

I do apologize for being so off topic lately. I know full well you don't come to Viewpoint to read such mundane drivel. Unfortunately, circumstances necessitated that I give some of the parties involved an Internet presence in an effort to "persuade" them to be more reasonable. The good news is that it appears there is a satisfactory solution in the works.

Further, I hasten to add that no such coaching was needed for All My Sons Moving & Storage of Raleigh, NC to step up to the table to make things right.

I contacted Kenon Furlong, Manager of All My Sons Moving & Storage of Raleigh, NC and to my surprise, not only did he agree to a 3-way split but also raised the bar by offering to assume 50% of my share of the responsibility! He went on to encourage me to ask Mid-American Apartment Communities to do likewise, which would relieve me of the entire obligation!

Mr. Robert Donnelley from Mid-American Apartment Communities Customer Relations contacted me and, for the first time, I felt I was speaking to someone from that company who had a soul. He asked what I thought would be a fair arrangement. While it went against my sensibilities, I suggested a 3-way split of the expense by the moving company, the Lighthouse apartment complex, and myself. I mentioned Mr. Furlong's suggestion and he responded that it was a reasonable proposal! Mr. Donnelley even went so far as to suggest that my electric bill be adjusted for the cost of running three industrial-strength fans and a dehumidifier for several days to dry the place out. Finally, this issue is behind me.

There's so much more I'd like to mention about the good people and the bad that we encountered in this nightmare story but rather than dwell on that, I'll post an article or two from brother Dick who forwarded them to me before going out of town.

Thanks for reading,

Life at the Lighthouse - Day 9

This is an open letter to the Board of Directors, the Management Team, and Investor Relations at Mid-America Apartment Communities.

Mid-America Apartment Communities
6584 Poplar Avenue
Memphis, Tennessee 38138
Mid-America Apartment Communities

Ladies and Gentlemen:

Yesterday I received my first threat of eviction by the Hatchet Lady, Laura Hulsey - Community Manager laura.hulsey@maac.net (904) 278-6006. She informed me that if the $750 bill for water damage cleanup is not paid, she cannot accept my rent check. Since she cannot accept the rent check, we will be evicted for not paying the rent. Showing that her heart (if she has one) is in the right place, she quickly offered to structure the cost into four "easy" payments. What a sweetheart!

The plumbing broke while the clothes washer hose was being connected to it. Note that it has not been determined precisely how or why the pipe broke. It was initially determined and claimed by the emergency service man - Guy, that the moving company that was installing the washer tightened the hose to the plumbing excessively. Were that the case, I wouldn't have much to write about, however, the next day I met with Guy and asked him if any tools were required to remove the broken plumbing from the washer hose to which he replied "No". So, in fact, the washer hose was "finger tight" and not tightened excessively. Several other stories have been crafted in attempts to explain what happened, each one contradicting the other. The latest version being that the man installing the washer "must have been standing between the washer and the wall and after hooking up the hose to the plumbing, either tripped on the hose while trying to climb out from behind the washer or tipped the washer over while climbing over it putting excessive stress on the plumbing". Well which is it? Neither, because the instant the leak began, my wife and I could see the man reaching over the washer trying to turn the water off.

All of the attempts to explain the cause of the problem are engineered to place the blame on the moving company (and me) and away from the apartment company.

All that is truly known at this point is that it could have been abuse of some nature but the fact that the hose was finger tight suggests no reason to suspect abuse. That leaves the possibility of faulty plumbing given the age and stress from people having moved in and out connecting and disconnecting their washers for the last ten years.

But Hatchet Lady, Laura Hulsey will not be reasoned with. Her position is that she will not be confused by the facts. Nor, sadly will Mr. Glenn Evers - Regional Manager glenn.evers@maac.net (904) 363-2300.

You can read the background of events here...Day 6 here...Day 8 and here...Day 9

And so now I appeal my case to you ladies and gentlemen. I want to know if there is someone at Mid-Atlantic Apartment Communities that still has a sense of ethics and a grasp of the meaning of integrity.

Thank you,

Update 2

Well, today marks the one-week anniversary of our moving debacle but I have to say I had a delightful conversation with Mr. Kenon Furlong, Manager - All My Sons Moving & Storage, Raleigh, NC yesterday and he has offered assurances that "they will not let us hang out to dry" regarding the expense of water damages that occurred when we moved into our apartment. As a matter of fact, perhaps 25% of the conversation was "business" related and the rest ended up being about unrelated topics of interest that we discovered were common to both of us. (See Viewpoint for the background of this thread. This is very encouraging as it gives us reason to believe there are still some business people of integrity. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same thing for the folks at The Lighthouse at Fleming Island in Florida.

On the morning after the flood, I visited Laura Hulsey - Community Manager laura.hulsey@maac.net (904) 278-6006 and instead of expressing any concern or interest for our situation, any inquiry as to our well-being, she matter-of-factly made it clear in no uncertain terms that I would be receiving an invoice for the costs of the water damage cleanup. My lightening-quick instincts (LQI) told me this was an evil, otherworldly creature that relishes every opportunity to abuse and oppress tenants. One look into that cold, stupid, lifeless stare of hers makes it intuitively obvious to even the casual observer that this is so.

Years ago I learned what I call the customer's algorithm. Here's the pseudo code...

while (level of service not = acceptable) do {

escalate efforts by contacting someone higher up the corporate food chain

if ((unethical mentality flows from top down = true or

entire corporate culture = polluted or

evidence of integrity = false) or

(satisfied))

then {

quit

}

Update

We recently moved to Florida and thought it good to rent an apartment for a bit while we get familiar with the area after which we will buy or build a home. The chaos mentioned in my earlier post was because while the movers were installing our clothes washer, the fitting and pipe broke causing the apartment to flood. It was about 6:00 pm and the main office was closed so we called the complex's emergency service and twenty minutes later a service man managed to turn the water off. On his way here he called the carpet service they deal with who eventually arrived to begin the clean up by tearing up the carpet and padding in several rooms and setting up industrial strength fans and a dehumidifier which ran for 48 hours.

After the place was dry the carpet service put down new carpet padding and reinstalled the carpet. Five minutes after they left an envelope was slid under the front door by the apartment management containing a bill for the work that had been done. As of this writing, the apartment management believes we are responsible for the expense of the cleanup.

Note that no tools were used to tighten the washer hose to the plumbing nor (as per the emergency service man) were any required to remove the broken piece from the hose. It was "finger tight".

I have contacted the moving company as well as the regional manager of the apartment complex and communicated what happened while trying to avoid the issue of liability and pointing fingers. If all of this can be resolved in a reasonable and fair manner, I will post an article to that effect giving credit where it is due.

If not, I will be posting weekly articles (with graphics) that will give all parties involved an Internet presence they would probably rather not have. I envision a section to the left of Viewpoint's web page either above or below the Hall of Fame titled Hall of Shame with a link to a page that displays a running compilation of all of the posted articles. I will provide the names of the businesses and individuals involved (and email addresses should you chose to express your outrage) so as to be sure they receive the credit they are due. And of course I will email a permalink to the BBB, apartment guides, organizations that review apartment living, and certainly the "We're On Your Side" television news programs, etc.

Stay tuned,

Hello

We're back!

I apologize for the delay getting the server back on line...this last week has been rather chaotic. I'll follow up with more info shortly.

Hiatus

Today marks the last day Viewpoint will be available until July 10th. Please check back with us then.

RLC

Incredible Shrinking Presidency

In previous posts we wondered why the administration has been so slow to respond to the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, especially after the criticism this president heaped on President Bush for his dilatory response to Hurricane Katrina.

Well, it has turned out that there were two big reasons for refusing offers of help from the Dutch and both of them are disgraceful. The first is that the Dutch skimmers remove a tiny fraction less oil from the water than EPA regulations permit and the second is that the use of Dutch skimmers would have meant that unionized American crews would be excluded from the work, which circumstance offends the labor unions in whose pocket our president is ensconced.

Tens of thousands of Gulf coast residents are losing their livelihoods but, hey, the unions are happy.

There's much more in the article at the link to cause you to despair of the competence and intelligence of the people in the White House who seek to assure us that they've been on top of this disaster from day one.

Democratic pollster Pat Caddell said recently that the administration has shown so much incompetence in their handling of the oil clean-up that it'll be a long time before anyone has any confidence in the government's ability to manage a crisis.

Indeed, with every passing day both the confidence Americans have in government's ability to solve problems and the stature of President Obama diminish apace. Mr. Obama has become the political embodiment of the Incredible Shrinking Man, and nothing he says about the spill means anything to anyone any more. Maybe it's time for him to retreat to the links for another round of golf and just let the governors of the affected states handle the clean-up.

RLC

Who Did We Gain Our Independence From?

Jay Leno asks some people (including a college instructor!) some basic questions about American history, and the results are as depressing as they are funny. I know you can't draw sweeping conclusions from a small data set, but still ....

It's scary to think that these people probably vote. Gosh, come to think of it, I wonder who they voted for in the last presidential election.

Exit question: Is there some sociological significance in the fact that the only one on the film who knew the answers was the grandpa?

Thanks to Hot Air for calling our attention to the video.

RLC

Fourth of July Meditation

Most Americans know that Thomas Jefferson, at the age of only 33, was tasked with composing the Declaration of Independence, but we probably don't know much about how his selection came about. The following is a letter John Adams wrote to his secretary of State Thomas Pickering summarizing the selection process (and also giving a few hints as to Adam's personality, a personality captured very well, by the way, by Paul Giamatti in the excellent HBO miniseries titled John Adams).

Adams writes:

"You inquire why so young a man as Mr. Jefferson was placed at the head of the committee for preparing a Declaration of Independence? I answer: It was the Frankfort advice, to place Virginia at the head of everything. Mr. Richard Henry Lee might be gone to Virginia, to his sick family, for aught I know, but that was not the reason of Mr. Jefferson's appointment. There were three committees appointed at the same time, one for the Declaration of Independence, another for preparing articles of confederation, and another for preparing a treaty to be proposed to France.

Mr. Lee was chosen for the Committee of Confederation, and it was not thought convenient that the same person should be upon both. Mr. Jefferson came into Congress in June, 1775, and brought with him a reputation for literature, science, and a happy talent of composition. Writings of his were handed about, remarkable for the peculiar felicity of expression. Though a silent member in Congress, he was so prompt, frank, explicit, and decisive upon committees and in conversation - not even Samuel Adams was more so - that he soon seized upon my heart; and upon this occasion I gave him my vote, and did all in my power to procure the votes of others. I think he had one more vote than any other, and that placed him at the head of the committee. I had the next highest number, and that placed me the second. The committee met, discussed the subject, and then appointed Mr. Jefferson and me to make the draft, I suppose because we were the two first on the list.

The subcommittee met. Jefferson proposed to me to make the draft. I said, 'I will not,' 'You should do it.' 'Oh! no.' 'Why will you not? You ought to do it.' 'I will not.' 'Why?' 'Reasons enough.' 'What can be your reasons?' 'Reason first, you are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. Reason second, I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. Reason third, you can write ten times better than I can.' 'Well,' said Jefferson, 'if you are decided, I will do as well as I can.' 'Very well. When you have drawn it up, we will have a meeting.'

A meeting we accordingly had, and conned the paper over. I was delighted with its high tone and the flights of oratory with which it abounded, especially that concerning Negro slavery, which, though I knew his Southern brethren would never suffer to pass in Congress, I certainly never would oppose. There were other expressions which I would not have inserted if I had drawn it up, particularly that which called the King tyrant. I thought this too personal, for I never believed George to be a tyrant in disposition and in nature; I always believed him to be deceived by his courtiers on both sides of the Atlantic, and in his official capacity, only, cruel. I thought the expression too passionate, and too much like scolding, for so grave and solemn a document; but as Franklin and Sherman were to inspect it afterwards, I thought it would not become me to strike it out. I consented to report it, and do not now remember that I made or suggested a single alteration.

We reported it to the committee of five. It was read, and I do not remember that Franklin or Sherman criticized anything. We were all in haste. Congress was impatient, and the instrument was reported, as I believe, in Jefferson's handwriting, as he first drew it. Congress cut off about a quarter of it, as I expected they would; but they obliterated some of the best of it, and left all that was exceptionable, if anything in it was. I have long wondered that the original draft had not been published. I suppose the reason is the vehement philippic against Negro slavery.

As you justly observe, there is not an idea in it but what had been hackneyed in Congress for two years before. The substance of it is contained in the declaration of rights and the violation of those rights in the Journals of Congress in 1774. Indeed, the essence of it is contained in a pamphlet, voted and printed by the town of Boston, before the first Congress met, composed by James Otis, as I suppose, in one of his lucid intervals, and pruned and polished by Samuel Adams."

Rich Lowery has a brief but informative piece on the Declaration at NRO in which he says this:

Jefferson's words were more than rhetorical theatrics; they laid the philosophical bedrock of the American republic. In the space of three magnificent sentences in its preamble, the Declaration packs enough content to fill volumes of treatises on political theory.

In declaring that "all men are created equal," it insists that there's no such thing as a natural ruling class. Put another way, it tells us, as Jefferson wrote near the end of his life, "that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately by the grace of God."

Lowery also discusses several other of Jefferson's phrases and notes that they were borrowed from the writings of John Locke, particularly his Second Treatise on Government, in whose thought the Founding Fathers had been steeped. Lowery omits mention, though, of what may be Locke's most important idea: the notion that our rights are rooted in, and given to us, by God. This is important because if the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (Jefferson replaced Locke's "property" with "pursuit of happiness") are grounded in anything else then they are not "unalienable." We can only have enduring, unalienable rights if they are endowed by our Creator. Nature certainly confers no rights upon us, and the rights bestowed by men are ephemeral and arbitrary.

Philosopher Todd May, in a rather peculiar essay on the Declaration at the NYT's Opinionator, declares that:

Most philosophers now agree that the rights we have are not rooted in nature or in a divine being but in our social practices, our ways of living together.

May might be correct that this is the view of most philosophers today, but if so we should be deeply troubled. Rights that are grounded in nothing more than our social practices are mere words on paper that can change with the social conventions of the time. Philosophers, and Supreme Court Justices, who think that the rights we have in the Constitution are rooted in 18th century social practices are not going to be zealous in defending and perpetuating those rights. Indeed, this is what Elena Kagan seems to believe, and it's one of the deepest concerns with her nomination. Such a view of the nature of rights, a view that grounds them in the shifting mores of social custom and fashion, is a path that leads straight to the might-makes-right philosophy of tyrants.

In any event, I urge you to take a few minutes this Fourth of July weekend to reflect upon the meaning, the grounds, and the contemporary threats to those freedoms and rights bequeathed to us by the founders of our nation.

RLC

How to Achieve Full Employment

In the course of explaining the benefits of unemployment compensation Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi teaches us something I'll bet few really knew or appreciated: Unemployment benefits are a job creator:

Why hasn't anyone thought of this before? All we need do to achieve full employment is to lay everyone off and send them an unemployment check. What could be easier? When next the Nobel Prizes are awarded for economics I hope the committee gives Ms Pelosi due consideration.

RLC

Honey Bee Declines

Honey bee populations around the world are in decline, which is a serious agricultural problem since bees are one of the main pollinators of flowers of all kinds, including food crops. A parasitic mite had been believed to be the culprit, but now there's another suspect: Cell phones. Bees use earth's magnetic field to navigate and cell phones and towers generate electromagnetic radiation that may interfere with the pigment in bees which is involved in sensing the magnetic field. In some studies this has caused the bees to be unable to find their way back to their hives.

If this indeed turns out to be the problem it's possible that changing the frequencies at which cell phones operate will solve the problem, but no one knows for sure.

Go here to read a fuller account of the research that has led to cell phones being implicated in the crash of bee populations.

RLC

Feedback

A friend, former student, and current law school student named Caleb sends along some thoughtful comments on several of our recent posts. His letter can be read on our Feedback page. Check it out.

RLC

Headless Chickens

James Carville's outburst a couple of weeks ago appears to have legitimized Democratic criticism of the Obama White House for its lackadaisical response to the oil spill. One recent example is Democrat House member Gene Taylor who calls Obama's response to the spill incompetent:

As oil spread as close as 1.5 miles from Jackson County's coast Saturday, U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor called the response to the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster "incompetent."

"I'm having a Katrina flashback," said the Bay St. Louis Democrat after an aerial survey of the Mississippi Sound and barrier islands Saturday morning. "I haven't seen this much incompetence since Michael Brown was running FEMA."

All those boats are running around like headless chickens. None of them are skimming for oil. It is criminal. Between the amount of money, the amount of wasted effort, there shouldn't be a drop of oil in the Mississippi Sound, but because of this incompetence, it is there."

It's hard to understand the congressman's complaint, actually. The President has assured us that he's been on the case from "day one" and is not resting until, well, until he's kicked somebody's fanny.

Maybe there are some headless chickens running around in the West Wing, too.

RLC

Three Questions

Justin Taylor over at Evangel relates part of an interview he had with theologian Gerald Bray. During their conversation Bray explained the three overarching questions which we should bring to our reading of any passage of the Bible. If we do this, he says, passages which seem otherwise to have no meaning will become meaningful. Taylor then challenges Bray to apply his method to the genealogies in I Chronicles which certainly seem to have no purpose other than to make the reader's eyes glaze over.

Bray's three questions are these:

The first question we must ask of every biblical text is simply this-what does it tell us about God? What does it say about who he is and about what he does?

The second question is: what does this text say about us human beings? What are we meant to be and what has gone wrong?

The third and final question is: what has God done about this and what does he expect of us in the light of what he has done?

Asking these questions and seeking answers to them will help us interpret the Spirit's message to Christ's people and to each of us as individuals.

Bray's application of these to the I Chronicles genealogies is interesting. Give it a look.

RLC

More Bureaucratic Bungling

Dick Morris paints us a picture of the sort of ineptitude on display by the federal government as it does its best to turn the Gulf oil crisis into a tale straight out of a Franz Kafka novel. I doubt that even the greatest satirist in the history of western literature could have constructed a parody to match what the feds are doing in real life:

According to state disaster relief officials, Alabama conceived a plan - early on - to erect huge booms off shore to shield the approximately 200 miles of their state's coastline from oil. Rather than install the relatively light and shallow booms in use elsewhere, the state (with assistance from the Coast Guard) canvassed the world and located enough huge, heavy booms - some weighing tons and seven meters high - to guard their coast.

[Unfortunately, two days after James Carville complained about the lack of effort to stop the oil from spilling into Louisiana marshes the Coast Guard moved those booms to protect the Louisiana coast.]

So, Alabama decided on a backup plan. It would buy snare booms to catch the oil as it began to wash up on the beaches.

But...the Fish and Wildlife Administration vetoed the plan saying it would endanger sea turtles that nest on the beaches.

So, Alabama - ever resourceful - decided to hire 400 workers to patrol the beaches in person scooping up oil that had washed ashore.

But ... OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Agency) refused to allow them to work more than twenty minutes out of every hour and required an hour long break after forty minutes of work so the cleanup proceeded at a very slow pace.

[E]very agency - each with its own particular bureaucratic agenda - was able to veto each aspect of any plan to fight the spill with the unintended consequence that nothing stopped the oil from destroying hundreds of miles of wetlands, habitats, beaches, fisheries, and recreational facilities.

Where was the president? Why did he not intervene in these and countless other bureaucratic controversies to force a focus on the oil, not on the turtles and other incidental concerns?

Good questions. They're questions that Mr. Obama needs to be forced by the media to answer. Until he does he simply looks uncaring, disengaged, and incompetent. What's worse for the Democrats in November, it won't be long before bumper stickers start appearing referring to the president as President Obungler.

BTW, these are the same people who are trying to lead us out of the economic doldrums and who have recently arrogated to themselves the power to manage your health care. That should make you feel good.

RLC