The new pro-abortion meme

Abortion mongers have shifted their rhetoric rather dramatically in the past couple of months. It is a major change in the terms of the debate, in a way that we on the pro-life side may not fully realize.

Abortion proponents have been dumping the "pro-choice" canard for a new, and much more effective, lie.

Fashionista Nanette Lepore got the memo, and she explains:

... January marks the 40-year anniversary of the historic U.S. Supreme Court decisionRoe v. Wade that legalized abortion. Young women have grown up assuming that abortion access is a given -- that every woman should be able to make decisions about her pregnancy and her health. They don't know what our nation was like when abortion was illegal -- when women died from unsafe abortions -- when a woman's decision about her pregnancy was up to the politicians who decided the abortion laws in any given state. In my hometown, abortion was performed by strangers pretending they were doctors. 

Nearly half a century of safe and legal abortion has been empowering for women, and has allowed us to lead our lives on our own terms. Whatever we decide about our pregnancies -- these are decisions that a woman can make because of the historic Roe decision. It's something that I recognize as so important for women everywhere, but it's also something I'm very aware needs to be protected. 

Because unfortunately, politicians continue to try and undermine women's health care access -- in state after state, we've seen relentless attempts to chip away at access to abortion. Just last month in Michigan, state legislators came together behind a bill that would create burdensome restrictions on abortion providers in the state -- a thinly veiled move aimed at limiting a woman's access to abortion that has nothing to do with improving women's health and everything to do with denying them care. We've seen similar attempts across the country -- from my home state of Ohio to Texas and beyond. 

This is wrong. And it's dangerous. 

I will not let this most personal of health care decisions be undermined by politicians. I want this medical option to be safe and legal for young women today and for generations of young women to come to consider if and when they need it. As a longtime supporter of Planned Parenthood, I have seen that they work tirelessly to protect access to safe and legal so that women can make their own health care decisions.

The abortionistas are rebranding baby-killing as "women's health".  Why? The rhetorical effectiveness of "choice" may be diminishing, but I think that there is a more important reason for the change in tack.

Obamacare.

"Choice" is a counter-productive term in a socialized health care system, because of course the things that you "choose" need not necessarily be paid for by the government (i.e. your fellow taxpayers). The meme: Plastic surgery is a "choice". Abortion is a medical necessity.

Abortion-mongers are rebranding abortion as necessary life-saving (!) women's healthcare, to guarantee that it will be funded and protected by our new government healthcare apparatchiks.

Defining a procedure which isn't successful unless someone dies as "life-saving healthcare" should make you spit your coffee, but this is Obama's America.

Euthanasia will be included eventually, as well. Get used to it.

Oh, and I hate to use "meme" in the title for this post, but since it suggests a viral infection of the mind, it seems to fit.

David Attenborough: 'Sorry, there's just too many of you'.

Sir David Attenborough, reporting from England, which population control cranks predicted
would cease to exist 13 years ago. 

From the Reich Chancellery Press Office:

David Attenborough - Humans are plague on Earth 

Humans are a plague on the Earth that need to be controlled by limiting population growth, according to Sir David Attenborough.

By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent

The television presenter said that humans are threatening their own existence and that of other species by using up the world’s resources. 

He said the only way to save the planet from famine and species extinction is to limit human population growth. 

“We are a plague on the Earth. It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It’s not just climate change; it’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now,” he told the Radio Times. 

Sir David, who is a patron of the Population Matters, has spoken out before about the “frightening explosion in human numbers” and the need for investment in sex education and other voluntary means of limiting population in developing countries. 

“We keep putting on programmes about famine in Ethiopia; that’s what’s happening. Too many people there. They can’t support themselves — and it’s not an inhuman thing to say. It’s the case. Until humanity manages to sort itself out and get a coordinated view about the planet it’s going to get worse and worse.”

Malthusians have perhaps the most consistent record of predictions of any fringe movement. If you look at Malthusian predictions dating back to the late 18th century, every one has been the opposite of what has actually happened. From Malthus to Ehrlich, every population control nut has gotten it wrong: the food supply didn't increase arithmetically, but exponentially. Population growth in developed areas naturally slows, and does not increase exponentially. Population density has no correlation whatsoever with human flourishing. The predicted famines in the developed world in the 1970's and 1980's never happened. In the developing world, food security has improved markedly in the past half-century, thanks to the Green Revolution. 

Attenborough's asylum-mates in the population control movement have quite a record:

In 1968, Paul R. Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb and declared that the battle to feed humanity had been lost and that there would be a major food shortage in the US. “In the 1970s … hundreds of millions are going to starve to death,” and by the 1980s most of the world’s important resources would be depleted. He forecast that 65 million Americans would die of starvation between 1980-1989 and that by 1999, the US population would decline to 22.6 million. The problems in the US would be relatively minor compared to those in the rest of the world. (Ehrlich, Paul R. The Population Bomb. New York, Ballantine Books, 1968.) New Scientist magazine underscored his speech in an editorial titled “In Praise of Prophets.”

Claim: “By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people … If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” Paul Ehrlich, Speech at British Institute For Biology, September 1971. 

Claim: Ehrlich wrote in 1968, “I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971, if ever.” 

Data: Yet in a only few years India was exporting food and significantly changed its food production capacity.

Population controllers' theories may be a joke, but their methods are not. Hundreds of millions of people in China, India, and Peru have been victims of brutal one-child policies, forced sterilization and abortions, coerced infanticide, and incessant totalitarian propaganda campaigns-- all crimes against humanity. 

Take these people seriously. They pay lip service to voluntary methods, but their 'solution' for overpopulation is totalitarian to the marrow, and they mean to do serious harm.

"who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?"

Sometimes atheists and Darwinists are just so stupid and hypocritical that it takes your breath away.

Darwinist fanatic Jeff Shallit blogs about a non-credit course titled "God and Reason" organized by four Christian professors at the University of Waterloo where Shallit is a math professor. The course addresses the questions of God's existence and the relation of theology to reason.

Shallit is skeptical that the course will address atheism fairly:

In thinking about this course more, I think there is a big dilemma for the instructors. All four of them are respected and accomplished researchers and scholars. But a scholar, by definition, must explore the literature both for and against any point of view. If there are arguments with some merit against your thesis, you must address them. 

On the other hand, a Christian evangelical usually feels no such obligation. Their primary goal is to convert you to their belief, not to explore themes with scholarly detachment. 

So, which will it be in this course? So far I am not very optimistic that scholarship will win out over Christian apologetics. For one thing, the textbook is Timothy Keller, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism which, at least judging from the reviews, is not an academic or scholarly text that addresses the other side fairly. Second, no opposing point of view is given as recommended reading. Third, the whole exercise is sponsored by "Power to Change Ministries". And finally, no one associated with the course is a skeptic, non-believer, or even non-Christian. 

So here is a suggestion to the organizers. Live up to your obligations and reputations as scholars, and, for each session, list some suggested readings for "the other side". For example, for the next lecture, you might mention Jordan Howard Sobel's recent book, Logic and Theism: Arguments for and Against Beliefs in God, which is available here for free if you are a student or faculty member at the University of Waterloo. I could list many more. 

After all, "who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?"

Free and open encounters are the heart and soul of scholarship. And I have no doubt that the professors will address atheist and theist arguments fairly and in some detail-- that seems to be the whole point of the course.

How about this, Dr. Shallit: let's apply the same enthusiasm for free and open encounters to evolutionary biology courses, offering students I.D. books and books on theistic and Thomistic evolution as well as the implicitly atheist Darwinist gruel.

'Teach the controversy' should apply to evolution as well as to apologetics. 

Please pray for the people in Brazil

There's been a horrible nightclub fire in Brazil that has killed 233 people. Reportedly it was caused by pyrotechnics used by the band, like the horrendous Station Nightclub fire ten years ago in Rhode Island. Why are bands allowed to use pyrotechnics anymore?

Please pray for the victims and their families of this heart-breaking tragedy. 

But the F-16's won't be able to hold more than ten bombs each...

The Obama administration is approving the delivery of 20 American F-16's and 200 tanks to Egypt.

Irony. The administration doesn't trust American citizens even with fake assault rifles and more-than-ten-round magazines, but it gives highly lethal warplanes and tanks to violent Islamist anti-Semite 9-11 truthers who sponsor terrorists.

Makes ya' wonder... 

We Shall Not Weary, We Shall Not Rest

The best and most moving manifesto of the pro-life movement I have read, from a speech given on January 8, 2009 to the convention of the National Right to Life Committee by Fr. Richard John Neuhaus of First Things.

We Shall Not Weary, We Shall Not Rest

Once again this year, the National Right to Life convention is partly a reunion of veterans from battles past and partly a youth rally of those recruited for the battles to come. And that is just what it should be. The pro-life movement that began in the twentieth century laid the foundation for the pro-life movement of the twenty-first century. We have been at this a long time, and we are just getting started. All that has been and all that will be is prelude to, and anticipation of, an indomitable hope. All that has been and all that will be is premised upon the promise of Our Lord’s return in glory when, as we read in the Book of Revelation, “he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be sorrow nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.” And all things will be new. 

That is the horizon of hope that, from generation to generation, sustains the great human rights cause of our time and all times—the cause of life. We contend, and we contend relentlessly, for the dignity of the human person, of every human person, created in the image and likeness of God, destined from eternity for eternity—every human person, no matter how weak or how strong, no matter how young or how old, no matter how productive or how burdensome, no matter how welcome or how inconvenient. Nobody is a nobody; nobody is unwanted. All are wanted by God, and therefore to be respected, protected, and cherished by us. 

We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until every unborn child is protected in law and welcomed in life. We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until all the elderly who have run life’s course are protected against despair and abandonment, protected by the rule of law and the bonds of love. We shall not weary, we shall not rest, until every young woman is given the help she needs to recognize the problem of pregnancy as the gift of life. We shall not weary, we shall not rest, as we stand guard at the entrance gates and the exit gates of life, and at every step along way of life, bearing witness in word and deed to the dignity of the human person—of every human person.

Against the encroaching shadows of the culture of death, against forces commanding immense power and wealth, against the perverse doctrine that a woman’s dignity depends upon her right to destroy her child, against what St. Paul calls the principalities and powers of the present time, this convention renews our resolve that we shall not weary, we shall not rest, until the culture of life is reflected in the rule of law and lived in the law of love.

It has been a long journey, and there are still miles and miles to go. Some say it started with the notorious Roe v. Wade decision of 1973 when, by what Justice Byron White called an act of raw judicial power, the Supreme Court wiped from the books of all fifty states every law protecting the unborn child. But it goes back long before that. Some say it started with the agitation for “liberalized abortion law” in the 1960s when the novel doctrine was proposed that a woman cannot be fulfilled unless she has the right to destroy her child. But it goes back long before that. It goes back to the movements for eugenics and racial and ideological cleansing of the last century.

Whether led by enlightened liberals, such as Margaret Sanger, or brutal totalitarians, whose names live in infamy, the doctrine and the practice was that some people stood in the way of progress and were therefore non-persons, living, as it was said, “lives unworthy of life.” But it goes back even before that. It goes back to the institution of slavery in which human beings were declared to be chattel property to be bought and sold and used and discarded at the whim of their masters. It goes way on back.

As Pope John Paul the Great wrote in his historic message Evangelium Vitae (the Gospel of Life) the culture of death goes all the way back to that fateful afternoon when Cain struck down his brother Abel, and the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” And Cain answered, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” And the Lord said to Cain, “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground.” The voice of the blood of brothers and sisters beyond numbering cry out from the slave ships and battlegrounds and concentration camps and torture chambers of the past and the present. The voice of the blood of the innocents cries out from the abortuaries and sophisticated biotech laboratories of this beloved country today. Contending for the culture of life has been a very long journey, and there are still miles and miles to go. 

The culture of death is an idea before it is a deed. I expect many of us here, perhaps most of us here, can remember when we were first encountered by the idea. For me, it was in the 1960s when I was pastor of a very poor, very black, inner city parish in Brooklyn, New York. I had read that week an article by Ashley Montagu of Princeton University on what he called “A Life Worth Living.” He listed the qualifications for a life worth living: good health, a stable family, economic security, educational opportunity, the prospect of a satisfying career to realize the fullness of one’s potential. These were among the measures of what was called “a life worth living.” 

And I remember vividly, as though it were yesterday, looking out the next Sunday morning at the congregation of St. John the Evangelist and seeing all those older faces creased by hardship endured and injustice afflicted, and yet radiating hope undimmed and love unconquered. And I saw that day the younger faces of children deprived of most, if not all, of those qualifications on Prof. Montagu’s list. And it struck me then, like a bolt of lightning, a bolt of lightning that illuminated our moral and cultural moment, that Prof. Montagu and those of like mind believed that the people of St. John the Evangelist—people whom I knew and had come to love as people of faith and kindness and endurance and, by the grace of God, hope unvanquished—it struck me then that, by the criteria of the privileged and enlightened, none of these my people had a life worth living. In that moment, I knew that a great evil was afoot. The culture of death is an idea before it is a deed.

In that moment, I knew that I had been recruited to the cause of the culture of life. To be recruited to the cause of the culture of life is to be recruited for the duration; and there is no end in sight, except to the eyes of faith.

Perhaps you, too, can specify such a moment when you knew you were recruited. At that moment you could have said, “Yes, it’s terrible that in this country alone 4,000 innocent children are killed every day, but then so many terrible things are happening in the world. Am I my infant brother’s keeper? Am I my infant sister’s keeper?” You could have said that, but you didn’t. You could have said, “Yes, the nation that I love is betraying its founding principles—that every human being is endowed by God with inalienable rights, including, and most foundationally, the right to life. But,” you could have said, “the Supreme Court has spoken and its word is the law of the land. What can I do about it?” You could have said that, but you didn’t. That horror, that betrayal, would not let you go. You knew, you knew there and then, that you were recruited to contend for the culture of life, and that you were recruited for the duration. 

The contention between the culture of life and the culture of death is not a battle of our own choosing. We are not the ones who imposed upon the nation the lethal logic that human beings have no rights we are bound to respect if they are too small, too weak, too dependent, too burdensome. That lethal logic, backed by the force of law, was imposed by an arrogant elite that for almost forty years has been telling us to get over it, to get used to it.

But “We the People,” who are the political sovereign in this constitutional democracy, have not gotten over it, we have not gotten used to it, and we will never, we will never ever, agree that the culture of death is the unchangeable law of the land.

“We the People” have not and will not ratify the lethal logic of Roe v. Wade. That notorious decision of 1973 is the most consequential moral and political event of the last half century of our nation’s history. It has produced a dramatic realignment of moral and political forces, led by evangelicals and Catholics together, and joined by citizens beyond numbering who know that how we respond to this horror defines who we are as individuals and as a people. Our opponents, once so confident, are now on the defensive. Having lost the argument with the American people, they desperately cling to the dictates of the courts. No longer able to present themselves as the wave of the future, they watch in dismay as a younger generation recoils in horror from the bloodletting of an abortion industry so arrogantly imposed by judges beyond the rule of law. 

We do not know, we do not need to know, how the battle for the dignity of the human person will be resolved. God knows, and that is enough. As Mother Teresa of Calcutta and saints beyond numbering have taught us, our task is not to be successful but to be faithful. Yet in that faithfulness is the lively hope of success. We are the stronger because we are unburdened by delusions. We know that in a sinful world, far short of the promised Kingdom of God, there will always be great evils. The principalities and powers will continue to rage, but they will not prevail.

In the midst of the encroaching darkness of the culture of death, we have heard the voice of him who said, “In the world you will have trouble. But fear not, I have overcome the world.” Because he has overcome, we shall overcome. We do not know when; we do not know how. God knows, and that is enough. We know the justice of our cause, we trust in the faithfulness of his promise, and therefore we shall not weary, we shall not rest. 

Whether, in this great contest between the culture of life and the culture of death, we were recruited many years ago or whether we were recruited only yesterday, we have been recruited for the duration. We go from this convention refreshed in our resolve to fight the good fight. We go from this convention trusting in the words of the prophet Isaiah that “they who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength, they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not be weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

The journey has been long, and there are miles and miles to go. But from this convention the word is carried to every neighborhood, every house of worship, every congressional office, every state house, every precinct of this our beloved country—from this convention the word is carried that, until every human being created in the image and likeness of God—no matter how small or how weak, no matter how old or how burdensome—until every human being created in the image and likeness of God is protected in law and cared for in life, we shall not weary, we shall not rest. And, in this the great human rights struggle of our time and all times, we shall overcome.

"Birth Control on the Bottom" Yogurt

This is very funny:



HT: The Cut

More astrobiology junk science

From the Telegraph:

'Strongest evidence yet to there being life on Mars' 

Martian rocks from a crater hit by a meteorite may contain the strongest evidence yet that there is life on Mars.


Prof John Parnell, 55, has co-written a theory with Dr Joseph Michalski, a planetary geologist at the Natural History Museum, that suggests they have discovered the best signs of life in the huge McLaughlin Crater on the surface of Mars.

The document, published today in Nature Geoscience journal, describes how they assessed the crater, created by a meteorite which smashed into the surface of Mars, flinging up rocks from miles below.

The rocks appear to be made up of clays and minerals which have been altered by water - the essential element to support life.

Speaking from his laboratory at the University of Aberdeen, geochemist Prof Parnell said: "We could be so close to discovering if there is, or was, life on Mars.

"We know from studies that a substantial proportion of all life on Earth is also in the subsurface and by studying the McLaughlin Crater we can see similar conditions beneath the surface of Mars thanks to observations on the rocks brought up by the meteorite strike.

Yea. That's all they have. We know already that there is water on Mars. Mars has polar ice caps. Obviously some of the water is in the ground as well as on the surface. These scientists have found clays and minerals altered by water, which would happen if... Martian water were present to alter the clays and minerals, all of which we know.

So what's the headline about? Where's the evidence for life?

Nada.

Astrobiologists (practitioners of an odd scientific discipline that studies things not known to exist) make the bizarre inference from things known on earth to be associated with life-- subsurface water and clays and minerals-- to the existence of life.

But there is no evidence for the existence of life on Mars. 

Perhaps we will find evidence someday. It would be an extraordinary discovery. But there is no evidence now. And this science-by-press-release brings us no closer to finding it.

The degradation of scientific professionalism is remarkable. Scientists used to be cautious prudent professionals, their own most severe critics. They could be trusted. Now they resemble the frauds hocking skin rejuvenators on infomercials, or crazy preachers proclaiming the apocalypse. Instead of prudent responsible research, we get headlines touting the missing-link-fossil-that-finally-proves-evolution of the week, and the new date for the heat death of Gaia, and the latest evidence for life on Mars that isn't evidence for life on Mars.

The damage done to real science is incalculable.

"Happy Anniversary Baby. Lookin' good for Forty."

A charming ad celebrating Roe vrs Wade, from the Center for Reproductive Rights.



This helps clarify things, just in case you were beginning to forget that the abortion movement is pure evil. 

A banner year for Planned Parenthood

Looks like the bad economy doesn't have everybody down.

Congrats On Your Banner Year ... In AbortionsMollie Hemingway, Ed. · 5 hours ago

You did it! You helped pay Planned Parenthood a record amount in taxpayer funding. For their part, Planned Parenthood performed a record number of abortions during 2011-2012. 

The Susan B. Anthony List breaks down the numbers from the PPFA annual report: 

During fiscal year 2011-2012, Planned Parenthood reported receiving a record $542 million in taxpayer funding in the form of government grants, contracts, and Medicaid reimbursements. Taxpayer funding consists of 45% of Planned Parenthood’s annual revenue. 

In 2011, Planned Parenthood performed a record high 333,964 abortions. 

You had a great year, you and Planned Parenthood, working together to perform one million abortions in three years! And don't forget all those adoption referrals -- the one for every 150 abortions performed -- great ratio! 

The mainstream media and pundit class helped spread the message that Planned Parenthood is all about contraception and mammograms, a remarkable feat for a group that performs, well, no mammograms. We can assume the media will not publicize that contraceptive services dropped by 12 percent since 2009. 

But we can rest assured that if anyone else tries to extricate itself from the abortion business, like Susan G. Komen did when it tried quietly to stop giving the group a few hundred thousand dollars a year, the media will go to bat for the abortion business. They almost assuredly will not mention that Planned Parenthood has reported $87.4 million in excess revenue and more than $1.2 billion in net assets. 

That can be our little secret. 

Just think what we can do next year, with your money and Planned Parenthood's abortion business and motivation (and continued Planned Parenthood intervention in federal races to the tune of $7 million a cycle!).

A third of a million American children did not live to see a birthday this year. To put it in perspective, the number of kids Planned Parenthood killed this past year was equal to a Newtown massacre in every state every day.

 And you paid for it.

In Memoriam

On this sad anniversary-- 40 years now since the beginning of America's holocaust with the Roe v Wade decision-- here is a beautiful video showing the growth of a child from conception to birth.

May God bless and keep the 50 million children who never saw a birthday.

Happy Martin Luther King day!

Today we celebrate the life and accomplishments of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. Let us celebrate his dream that men will be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

That struggle against race-based laws and racial discrimination continues-- the struggle against all distinction among human beings on account of race-- and it is a struggle that is essential to our nation's future. Rev. Dr. King said it with astonishing eloquence:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." 

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. 

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. 

I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. 

I have a dream today. 

I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor's lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers. 

I have a dream today. 

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. 

This is our hope. This is the faith with which I return to the South. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. 

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

It has been said that the Civil Rights Movement was organized in and derived its strength from Christian churches. Reverend King-- pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta and the Dexter Avenue Baptist church in Montgomery, as well as the president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference-- brought his deep faith in God to his work for civil rights. At the core of the struggle for human rights is the recognition that God created all men equal, and has endowed all men with same unalienable rights.  The Christian understanding of man has long been the root of the anti-slavery movement and the Civil Rights Movement.

May God bless Dr. King, and may America make real his dream of a nation without discrimination based on race.

Self-replicating meat-sack ponders theodicy

Atheist Susan Jacoby on The Blessings of Atheism:

IN a recent conversation with a fellow journalist, I voiced my exasperation at the endless talk about faith in God as the only consolation for those devastated by the unfathomable murders in Newtown, Conn. Some of those grieving parents surely believe, as I do, that this is our one and only life. Atheists cannot find solace in the idea that dead children are now angels in heaven. “That only shows the limits of atheism,” my colleague replied. “It’s all about nonbelief and has nothing to offer when people are suffering.”...

[Yet it] is primarily in the face of suffering, whether the tragedy is individual or collective, that I am forcefully reminded of what atheism has to offer. When I try to help a loved one losing his mind to Alzheimer’s, when I see homeless people shivering in the wake of a deadly storm, when the news media bring me almost obscenely close to the raw grief of bereft parents, I do not have to ask, as all people of faith must, why an all-powerful, all-good God allows such things to happen. 

It is a positive blessing, not a negation of belief, to be free of what is known as the theodicy problem. Human “free will” is Western monotheism’s answer to the question of why God does not use his power to prevent the slaughter of innocents, and many people throughout history (some murdered as heretics) have not been able to let God off the hook in that fashion.

Jacoby is wrong. Atheism offers no explanation for evil in the world. Without God, without a moral law that  is independent of mere human opinion, there is no real evil and no real good. There are just different ways of looking at things, different chemical reactions in self-replicating meat-sacks. Adam Lanza had his take on things, the kids' moms and dads had theirs. Who's to say what's right and wrong? How crazy for those teachers to give their lives shielding other peoples' little gene-sacks! What a mockery of natural selection. Evolutionary mistakes, those teachers!

If God does not exist, there is no objective good or evil. Moral law is a human creation. Some humans create moral law with love and self-giving, others create moral law with AR15s. It's all relative.   

Theodicy is hard for Christians. But explaining evil is impossible for atheists. Why, for example, would a coherent atheist weep at the killings in Newtown? If man is evolved by Darwinian processes, the slaughter of other people's children is a goal, not a tragedy.

In fact, the literal slaughter of other people's children-- by our ancestors or by nature-- is, in the atheist creation myth, how we came to be, how we became who we are. We are, in the atheist/Darwinist myth, self-replicating meat-sacks spraying our selfish genes. Nature red in tooth and claw is our family narrative. It doesn't get any redder than Sandy Hook Elementary.

But nobody celebrates Sandy Hook. Not even atheists. Atheists grieve when other peoples' kids die, just like Christians grieve, because, on some level, even atheists know that atheism is bullshit. 

"What did you think of Obama's inauguration?"

Jimmy Kimmel interviews folks about what they thought of Obama's inauguration, before it happens.

They voted for Santa Claus. What's a few other delusions along with it?

Bill Clinton named "Father of the Year"; immediately adopts three new daughters.

(Dissociated Press) Former President Bill Clinton was honored last week as "Father of the Year" by the National Father's Day Council. The Council honors fathers whose "lives are dedicated to family, citizenship, charity, civility, responsibility and reverence.”

In keeping with his role as Father of the Year, the former Chief Executive announced today his adoption of three Ukrainian ex-children (photo above). Mr. Clinton said he was moved by the girls' long struggles in foster care, and said that he intends to provide a loving and nurturing home for them in his one-bedroom apartment overlooking Riverside Park in Manhattan.

Previous recipients of the National Father's Day Council's Father of the Year Award include (I'm not making this up) David Petraeus, John Edwards, and Hulk Hogan. 

"If Good and Evil Exist, God Exists"

The guy is right.

What counts as evidence?

Commentor Hoo:

How do you know that the rights in the US Constitution are indeed God-given? I understand that the framers proclaimed them to be so, but there is no evidence that they received them from God. Do you know otherwise? 

... I would be curious to look at whatever evidence you have.

So much of atheist polemics consists of denying that faith in God is a reasonable belief.

Which raises a very important question that atheists must answer before we can have a coherent discussion of God's existence and His agency in nature:

What counts as evidence for, or against, God's existence? 

D.C. Attorney General to David Gregory: gun laws are just for the little people

From Bill Jacobson at Legal Insurrection:

District of Columbia Attorney General Irvin Nathan issued a lengthy lettertoday explaining the decision not to prosecute David Gregory “despite the clarity of the violation of this important law,” despite rejecting NBC’s claims of a subjective misunderstanding of the law, and despite vowing vigorous enforcement of gun laws. 

Emily Miller of The Washington Times, who has written extensively about the overly aggressive enforcement of D.C. gun laws, including as to high capacity magazines, reacted as follows: 

"It is shameful that the politicians running the nation’s capital have sent the clear message that there are two systems of justice in the city: one for the rich and powerful and one for everyone else."

Just to rub salt in the wound, here's a picture of Attorney General Irvin Nathan taken in 2011 with Beth Wilkinson, with whom Irvin participated in a mock trial for the D.C. Shakespeare Theatre Company, at a party:

Beth Wilkinson is David Gregory's wife, with her arm around the Attorney General who would let her husband walk “despite the clarity of the violation of this important law”.

Friends will be friends. No conflict of interest there.

Want to know more about Ms. Wilkinson-Gregory?

Wikipedia:

In 2006, Fannie Mae recruited Wilkinson as parts of its effort to rebuild its relationship with regulators after accounting scandals and complaints about its corporate culture. Her compensation at Fannie Mae was not disclosed when she was hired.[7] She served asFannie Mae's executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary from February 2006 until September 2008.[8] 

She resigned her position at Fannie Mae along with three other senior executives on September 19, 2008, after the troubled mortgage giant was taken over by the government.[9]

Mrs. Wilkinson-Gregory was no doubt paid handsomely (how many million? Guess-- it's fun!) with your money for her work "to rebuild [Fannie Mae's] relationship with regulators after accounting scandals".

Gregory's wife shilled for the Fannie Mae crooks who brought our economy down. And made a pretty penny doing it. And of course her husband, as moderator on Meet the Press, reports on the economic collapse regularly, not mentioning that his wife made a ton of money working for the swindlers who caused it.

Connections. Laws are for the little people.  

BREAKING NEWS: Hollywood actress announces that she is attracted to people most like herself...

Jodie Foster comes out as gay at Golden Globes

"(Reuters) - Hollywood actress Jodie Foster confirmed long-running speculation that she is gay by coming out at the Golden Globes awards on Sunday, but joked she wouldn't be holding a news conference to discuss her private life. 

The notoriously private Foster stunned the audience of stars and Hollywood powerbrokers..."

"Notoriously private...", except when she gets on an actual podium and announces her sexual practices to the world.

:-/

Besides, I already knew she was gay. 

Lawrence O'Donnell has a point

Lawrence O'Donnell is outraged-- outraged-- that a Christian pastor who holds views uncongenial to the LGBT movement was asked to speak at the upcoming Presidential Inaugural.



I share O'Donnell's concern about giving fringe wackos a platform to speak at the Inaugural. While of course I don't agree with O'Donnell that Pastor Giglio is a fringe wacko-- after all, his views are clearly right and are those of the majority of Americans-- there are other wackos who should be denied a forum for their views at this historic ceremony.

We should deny to opportunity to speak at the Presidential Inaugural anyone who pretended to share mainstream American beliefs against gay "marriage" in order to get his current job, and then repudiated those beliefs when it became advantageous to do so, who has a lifetime intimate association with a flaming far-left American-hating anti-Semitic hate-mongering preacher, and anyone who began their current career with a fund-raiser in the living room of admitted serial terrorists who feel they "didn't do enough" bombings, and who lied to 300 million people about the death of a subordinate in a foreign country in order to deflect criticism from his own gross mismanagement.

We need to be careful of who we let speak at the President's Inauguration.   

"I Don’t Believe God Exists"

Fr. Dwight Longnecker:

Did that headline getcha? 

What I mean is that I do not believe God exists in the way that I exist, or in the way that my mother exists or that tree or flower or mosquito exists, or the way the planet Jupiter or the Milky Way or the sand on the seashore exists. 

It is not that God exists, but that God is Existence itself. He is that power or source of Life by which and through which all things exist that do exist. As such he is who he is. He is Being Itself. As he said to Moses, “I AM who I AM”. This is Yahweh–the one Who is Existence. 

Consequently, the question, “Does God exist?” answers itself. He does not exist as any dependent being exists. Instead he is Existence. Can his existence be proved? Can we offer scientific evidence for his existence? To ask for this is to suppose that he exists out in the sky as some sort of big extraterrestrial. Sadly, this seems to be the concept of divinity that is held by most scientific atheists. They ask for “proof of God’s existence” as if he were the big guy out there who can be measured in some way. 

To ask such a question or make such a demand makes about as much sense as saying, “If there is such a thing as Beauty why can’t we take its temperature?” or to say, “If there is such a thing as Life why can’t we weigh it?” 

The Judeo-Christian claim is that the one God is the essence of existence itself, and that we can know this Existence through our own lesser existence in an analogical way. We discern the triune nature of this Existence through contemplation on our own self knowledge. There are three aspects to my self: 1. The self 2. Self consciousness (whereby I can observe and have knowledge of myself) 3. Self love – in which I can appreciate, be unified and be at peace with my self. 

Self contemplation of my own existence therefore reflects the triune self contemplation of God–who is the essence of Existence. His Existence is a dynamic of self-revelation and self knowledge–and this dynamic relationship we recognize and call The Trinity.

Fr. Longnecker stresses a central truth of Christian theology. God is not a "thing". He does not "exist", in the sense that things exist. He is the ground for existence. He is not dependent on another for his existence, as we are, as trees and rocks are.

God is existence, loosely phrased. More rigorously, God's essence is existence. For every created thing, the essence of the thing (what it is) must be conjoined to the existence of the thing (that it is). 'What something is'-- a round stone in my hand or a butterfly in my garden-- is a different assertion than "that something is'-- the fact that there is a round stone in my hand or a butterfly in my garden. Essence of things does not necessarily imply existence of things. We can describe the essence of unicorns quite precisely-- horse-like, a horn on the nose, wings, etc. Unicorns don't exist, though. Essence and existence are not the same.

This is one of the fundamental insights of Thomas Aquinas. He pointed out that the Ground of existence cannot be itself something with contingent existence. The Ground of existence does not depend on another to join its own essence to an act of existence.

God is the Ground of existence. The Ground of existence is not a thing. He will not be found under a microscope or glimpsed by a scientist.

Modern art meets the cleaning lady

The million-dollar piece of... art

From Yahoo News:

A million-dollar mistake in German museum

File this one under "O" for "Oops." A cleaner with the best intentions accidentally destroyed a piece of art worth more than $1 million when she removed what she thought was a "stain" from the installation. Spoiler alert: It wasn't really a stain.

The piece of art, titled "When It Starts Dripping From The Ceilings," features a series of wooden planks and a (formerly) discolored plastic bowl. The artist, the late Martin Kippenberger, intended for viewers to understand that the bowl had been discolored by water running over the pieces of wood.

Unfortunately, the bowl isn't so discolored anymore. A spokesperson from the art museum in Dortmund, Germany, remarked that "it is now impossible to return it to its original state." The cleaner was apparently unaware that she was supposed to stay at least 20 centimeters away from the works of art.

Kippenberger died at the age of 43 in 1997, but he left behind a large collection of work. Roberta Smith of the New York Times said he was "widely regarded as one of the most talented German artists of his generation." Like many of the greats, his work has grown more valuable since his death. In 2005, a Kippenberger painting went for more than $1 million.

Beyond parody. We too have an modern "art exhibit" here at Stony Brook. One of the pieces is an old broken television set with a cracked screen on a cheap wood table. There are security devices that protect it.

Art is like dreams in Freudian psychology-- it is the royal road to the unconscious, in this case the road to the metaphysical abyss into which modern secular society is swirling. Less and less are we taking seriously the fundamental questions of life-- how can we know God-- what does He want of us-- what is our destiny? These questions were reflected in the astonishing beauty of Christian art in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

We are forgetting the questions. We accept transparently idiotic arguments that there is no objective moral law and that everything came from nothing. Our inner life is turning to junk. Our art reflects it.

Tom Wolfe had another take on modern art. In the Painted Word, Wolfe suggests that modern art is the currency of the dialogue among the narcissists of the art world and their wealthy patrons. Modern art is not meant for us, and it's not about us, Wolfe observes.

But I think it is about us.

Tyrants, not deer.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

The historical reality of the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms is not that it protects the right to shoot deer. It protects the right to shoot tyrants, and it protects the right to shoot at them effectively, thus, with the same instruments they would use upon us. If the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto had had the firepower and ammunition that the Nazis did, some of Poland might have stayed free and more persons would have survived the Holocaust.

Most people in government reject natural rights and personal sovereignty. Most people in government believe that the exercise of everyone’s rights is subject to the will of those in the government. Most people in government believe that they can write any law and regulate any behavior, not subject to the natural law, not subject to the sovereignty of individuals, not cognizant of history’s tyrants, but subject only to what they can get away with.

Did you empower the government to impair the freedom of us all because of the mania and terror of a few?

Please read the whole thing.

Napolitano gets it right: the Second Amendment is about defense against tyrants, not about hunting or sporting clubs. This explains a remarkable dissonance: the very politicians who are most in favor of gun control to stop gun violence are the politicians who have given us the most gun-violent municipalities in our country. In Chicago and Washington and New Orleans and East St. Louis, only the bad guys and the government have guns. That is, only the Democrats have guns.

I believe that the bizarre obsession of the Left with AR15s and high-capacity magazines has nothing really to do with stopping spree killings. After all, the same folks who push gun control are the ones who created the gun-free zones that spree killers love and who have given us the most violent cities in our country.

Gun controllers are nervous about armed free citizens with a right to keep and bear arms. Such a right is an impediment to government power, which is the altar at which the Left-- the faction of government--worships.

The Left hates the Constitution, and works to dismantle it. They understand the impediment that the Second Amendment poses to their agenda. What is disturbing is the vigor with which they are attacking the Second Amendment, which is a measure of their ultimate intentions for the Constitution.

Lately, they've become quite explicit about what they intend to do with the Constitution.

What? No swastika?

New European Union poster

From Dan Hannan:

Take a close look at this promotional poster. Notice anything? Alongside the symbols of Christianity, Judaism, Jainism and so on is one of the wickedest emblems humanity has conceived: the hammer and sickle. 

For three generations, the badge of the Soviet revolution meant poverty, slavery, torture and death. It adorned the caps of the chekas who came in the night. It opened and closed the propaganda films which hid the famines. It advertised the people's courts where victims of purges and show-trials were condemned. It fluttered over the re-education camps and the gulags. For hundreds of millions of Europeans, it was a symbol of foreign occupation. Hungary, Lithuania and Moldova have banned its use, and various former communist countries want it to be treated in the same way as Nazi insignia. 

Yet here it sits on a poster in the European Commission, advertising the moral deafness of its author (I hope that's what it is, rather than lingering nostalgia). The Bolshevist sigil celebrates the ideology which, in strict numerical terms, must be reckoned the most murderous ever devised by our species. That it can be passed unremarked day after day in the corridors of Brussels is nauseating.

Communism is the most murderous and pervasive tyranny in human history. The  Lefties at the EU(SSR) consider it an integral part of the Union. It serves to remind that although state communism fell in the late eighties and early nineties, the ideology that vitalized it-- atheist collectivism-- is very much alive.

It infests the corridors of power the West, and it is rising again. 

Why did Al-Jazeera pay Al Gore $100 million for his share of a crap cable T.V. channel?

Clarice Feldman at American Thinker has some thoughts:

It's hard to conclude that this $500 million Al-Jazeera purchase is anything other than a payoff for effectively hampering the exploitation of American carbon fuels and advocating openly for giving a cable entrée to this Arab-broadcasting network. Current TV isn't worth anything like the price paid for it...

Buying up the almost worthless Current TV at an exorbitant price and securing the advocacy of Al Gore is only part of the Middle East oil producers' efforts to halt our use of shale gas. Other strategic moves including getting celebrities, style setters and opinion makers onboard.

The first fairly public effort in this direction is the ridiculous anti-fracking film starring Matt Damon financed in part by OPEC member United Arab Emirates.

Please read the whole thing.

The irony is that Big Green Al sold his share of a cable T.V. channel for a cool $100 million payday from Big Oil. Muslim Big Oil, to be exact. The new owner, Al-Jazeera, is a mouthpiece for the Muslim Brotherhood, a viciously anti-Semitic cabal that would love to have a foothold in the American media market. 

In an unrelated story:

Saudis Sweating Bullets As Energy Revolution Changes The Rules. 

The US shale gas boom, drastically cutting the cost of gas, is shaking the foundations of the Saudi Arabian economic model -- and more is coming. The highly profitable $100bn Gulf petrochemical industry is taking a hit as its biggest customer -- the U.S. -- is importing less and relying instead on domestic production. 

US petrochemical companies, propelled by cheaper access to raw materials, are competing effectively against companies like the Saudi Basic Industries Corp (Sabic), the world's largest chemical maker.

Nothing to see here, folks. Just move along...

A "fantastic step forward"

British Health (sic) Secretary Jeremy Hunt

From the UK Mail Online:

60,000 patients put on death pathway without being told but minister still says controversial end-of-life plan is 'fantastic' 

Pathway involves the sick being sedated and usually denied nutrition and fluids 

Families kept in the dark when doctors withdraw lifesaving treatment 

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said pathway was a 'fantastic step forward' 

Anti-euthanasia group said: ‘The Pathway is designed to finish people off double quick'

In comments that appeared to prejudge an official inquiry into the LCP, the Health Secretary said ‘one or two’ mistakes should not be allowed to discredit the entire end-of-life system. 

But Elspeth Chowdharay-Best of Alert, an anti-euthanasia group, said: ‘The Pathway is designed to finish people off double quick. It is a lethal pathway.

Up to 60,000 patients die on the Liverpool Care Pathway each year without giving their consent, shocking figures revealed yesterday.
A third of families are also kept in the dark when doctors withdraw lifesaving treatment from loved ones.

Despite the revelations, Jeremy Hunt last night claimed the pathway was a ‘fantastic step forward’...

The pathway involves withdrawal of lifesaving treatment, with the sick sedated and usually denied nutrition and fluids. Death typically takes place within 29 hours.

We have an intimate experience with "end of life systems" in the 20th century. They have been remarkably effective. They always involve these principles: 1) they are targeted against people who are viewed as extraneous or an impediment to progress 2) they are couched in scientific euphemisms-- final solutions, euthanasia, population control, end of life systems... 3) they are portrayed as necessary and inevitable, cloaked in a bureaucratic freight train that few dare resist 4) people who oppose them are labeled as cranks, anti-progress or anti-science.

And this: such "end of life systems" are never-- never-- put in historical context. Each idea is new, pristine, practical, scientific, never done before.

A remarkable and terrifying pattern is emerging. It was first apparent with eugenics, and it is now happening in other anti-human crusades. Evil learns. It refines its methods, across generations, like a science grows more sophisticated with time.

The early eugenicists were crude oafs, explicitly calling for the elimination of the poor, the sick, the "feebleminded". The Nazis got ahead of their time, and civilization recoiled. So eugenicists changed tactics. They championed positive eugenics-- "voluntary unconscious selection", "every child a wanted child"-- making the families of handicapped kids in the womb want to have their child culled, for his/her sake, for the sake of the family.

We are a eugenic society beyond the dreams of the Davenports and the Sangers and the Himmlers. Ninety percent of babies with Down's Syndrome never see a birthday, and fewer and fewer children with diagnosable serious birth defects escape the abortionists' curette. We are sorting pre-implantation embryos for genetic hygiene.

Now we are working on the other end of life-- culling the elderly sick, starving them, to be exact. But we don't call it that. The Pathway is designed not to offend, but to be effective in a quiet way. This will be the legacy of socialized medicine-- not access, but denial. Splicing medical care to a state-run economy makes illness a  fiducial matter for the government. End of life care, and care for chronically handicapped persons, will be one of the few things that governments will won't finance lavishly.

They're getting better and better at this stuff. At killing.

Evil learns. 

Professor Seidman's Final Exam in Constitutional Law 101

GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL  

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 101 

PROFESSOR SEIDMAN'S CLASS

FINAL EXAM

Please indicate the correct answer using a two pencil. There is only one correct answer for each question.

1) The First Amendment right to freedom of speech is

a) an unalienable right of liberty, endowed by our Creator, according to the Declaration of Independence
b) essential to our representative democracy
c) a basic human right that no government may abrogate
d) a pleasing nostrum prescribed by rebellious slave owners 230 years ago that is not legally binding on the U.S. government.

2) The First Amendment right to free exercise of religion is

a) our first freedom-- freedom of conscience-- on which all of our other freedoms depend
b) the right of Americans to live according to the dictates of their faith without undue interference by the government
c) a corollary to the prohibition of an Establishment of Religion, which emphasizes the Constitution's prohibition against government interference with religious life in America
d) a superfluous dictum penned by eighteenth century Deists to mollify religious radicals in the colonies, of no binding relevance to modern American law.

3) The Right to a Speedy Trial by an Impartial Jury is

a) a pillar of American jurisprudence
b) an essential protection for citizens from illegitimate prosecution
c) a reflection in the criminal justice system of the ultimate sovereignty of the American people
d) a quaint habit derived 230 years ago from English common law that is optional in modern American jurisprudence

4) The right to Equal Protection of the Law is

a) the assurance that the law will be applied equally to all American citizens regardless of accidents of race, sex, wealth, etc.
b) the explicit Constitutional expression of a fundamental principle of justice
c)  the basis for the Incorporation Clause, which applies the Bill of Rights to the states
d) a sop given by guilt-ridden dead white men to blacks after the Civil War, that is no longer binding on legislatures or courts

5) Even for a law professor who openly incites sedition, tenure is

a) an absolute right which can never be abrogated.
b) an absolute right which can never be abrogated.
c) an absolute right which can never be abrogated.
d) an absolute right which can never be abrogated.

Venerable Paul VI

From William Doino Jr. at First Things. 

On December 20, 2012, Pope Benedict declared Paul a Christian of “heroic virtue,” granting him the title, “Venerable.” Paul VI is now one approved miracle away from beatification, and a second from formal canonization...

Against a world (and even Church) largely seduced by the errors of the sexual revolution, Paul publishedHumanae Vitae, the most prophetic papal document of modern times, and certainly one of the bravest. He upheld and championed priestly celibacy; re-affirmed and explained the importance of an all-male priesthood, while advancing the true dignity of woman in all other ways; issued a clear declaration on sexual ethics, and a decree against abortion and on behalf of life. Both John Paul II and Benedict built upon his teachings, and extended them to the modern world. 

Pope Paul VI has been called a weak and indecisive pope, but no one who lacked true courage could have issued the powerful statements he did, or done so under the circumstances he faced.

Humanae Vitae is the most courageous and prophetic document of modern times. Venerable Paul VI defied the zeitgeist of the 20th century to tell the truth about sexuality. I pray for sainthood for this brave and holy Pope.

An excerpt from Humanae Vitae, on the consequences of contraception:

Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and ageneral lowering of moral standards. 

Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. 

Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.

Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them,they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife.

Limits to Man's Power 

Consequently, unless we are willing that the responsibility of procreating life should be left to the arbitrary decision of men, we must accept that there are certain limits, beyond which it is wrong to go, to the power of man over his own body and its natural functions—limits, let it be said, which no one, whether as a private individual or as a public authority, can lawfully exceed. These limits are expressly imposed because of the reverence due to the whole human organism and its natural functions, in the light of the principles We stated earlier, and in accordance with a correct understanding of the "principle of totality" enunciated by Our predecessor Pope Pius XII.

The Church was and is right about sexual morality, and specifically was right about contraception. The Pill has ushered in a fundamental change in civilization-- a tipping point. By every imaginable measure of human sexual well-being-- divorce rates, marriage rates, rates of sexually transmitted diseases, rape, sexual abuse and molestation, pornography-- the Church's warnings about the consequences of contraception were obviously right.

The irony, of course, is that the people who got it right, and still get it right, are ridiculed and despised for their wisdom.

St. Peter explained it (1 Peter 4:3-4):

... what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you.

"Rally Against Apathy Draws Small Crowd"

Wisdom from the Fourth Estate.

About as good a reason as I can think of for immediately firing a tenured law professor...

Professor Louis Michael Seidman at the Georgetown School of Law:

Let’s Give Up on the Constitution

AS the nation teeters at the edge of fiscal chaos, observers are reaching the conclusion that the American system of government is broken. But almost no one blames the culprit: our insistence on obedience to the Constitution, with all its archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions...

Our obsession with the Constitution has saddled us with a dysfunctional political system, kept us from debating the merits of divisive issues and inflamed our public discourse. Instead of arguing about what is to be done, we argue about what James Madison might have wanted done 225 years ago. 

As someone who has taught constitutional law for almost 40 years, I am ashamed it took me so long to see how bizarre all this is. Imagine that after careful study a government official — say, the president or one of the party leaders in Congress — reaches a considered judgment that a particular course of action is best for the country. Suddenly, someone bursts into the room with new information: a group of white propertied men who have been dead for two centuries, knew nothing of our present situation, acted illegally under existing law and thought it was fine to own slaves might have disagreed with this course of action. Is it even remotely rational that the official should change his or her mind because of this divination?

I was waiting for this. Liberals have shown utter disdain for the Constitution for a very long time now, and now this a**hole-- a law professor at a major law school-- is proposing that we formalize it. Chuck the Constitution in the garbage.

A law professor who proposes ignoring the Constitution is analogous to a doctor who proposes killing patients or a pilot who proposes crashing airliners.

If we can chuck the Constitution, surely we can chuck little things like tenure, academic freedom, etc.

Professor Seidman should be fired immediately. He should never be allowed near a law student again. 

"Why not prevent HIV like we do smoking?"

My friend Wesley Smith has a refreshingly commonsensical suggestion to stop the spread of AIDS:

[H]ere’s an idea from a non-expert based on what I think is common sense. Why not treat HIV like we do smoking? We don’t wring our hands about smoking. We don’t tell our young people that we would prefer that they didn’t smoke, but if they choose to, we hope they will use a filter cigarette. Rather, from early childhood, we unequivocally tell kids: “Don’t smoke! It’s bad for your health. It’s bad for those around you. It’s bad for society.” In part, that is why smoking rates have plummeted.

Perhaps, we should similarly stop treating at HIV-risk youth as if they were fragile egg shells and bluntly warn about the dangers of promiscuity by saying unequivocally: ”Don’t sleep around! It’s bad for your health. It’s bad for those you sleep with. It’s bad for society.”

Perhaps if we employed the same social strategies against HIV that we have successfully used to combat smoking, we would see similar results.

So much commonsense, so little chance of implementation. You can imagine a public health campaign with one of those signs with a red circle around a guy's butt, with the slash across it: "Just say no!"

Never happen. Ordinary effective methods of stopping epidemics of behaviorally-spread diseases will never be applied to AIDS. Chastity would end the AIDS epidemic overnight. But the political forces opposed to treating AIDS like other epidemics are too strong.

AIDS is the only epidemic with a political constituency that facilitates the spread of the disease.  

Get well Hillary!

As you may have surmised, I'm no fan of Hillary Clinton's politics.

But she is ill, and this is a matter that transcends politics. The Secretary of State is in Presbyterian Hospital in New York being treated for what is reported to be a dural venous sinus thrombosis-- a blood clot in a vein that drains the brain.

The prognosis is generally good for this condition, and she is in the best of hands at Presbyterian.

It is quite likely that her hectic schedule and exhaustion contributed to her illness. She has been serving our country with vigor.

Please pray for her speedy and complete recovery.

"Most Racial America"

James Taranto has a great post on Democrat racial politics and the ugliness it is bringing to our nation. Of course, Democrats have always done racial politics-- sowing racial division is simply what it means to be a Democrat politician.

"Colorblind" is the one value Democrats have never embraced and will never embrace.

Glenn Reynolds understands:

The Democrats gave us Jim Crow. Demonization and division are what they know. It’s easier to change the objects than to change the strategy.

Why should Democrats change the strategy? Race-baiting works. Slavery, Jim Crow, the KKK, Segregation, lynching, affirmative action, race-baiting. On and on. Only the favored and disfavored races change. Racial division and race-baiting have worked well for them for 200 years.

Still does. And with the economy in long-term shambles and government dependency (and the increase in government power inherent to dependency) exploding, race-baiting politics makes it a trifecta of Democrat demagoguery.

It has been said that the Republicans are the stupid party. In many ways they are stupid politically, or at least they are unwilling to push the racial and class divisiveness and dependency-enslavement of voting blocks that is needed to play the Democrat game. Republicans aren't willing to divide us and to destroy Americans' self-sufficiency to get their votes.

Some Republicans really do believe in small(er) government, free(er) enterprise, and a color-blind society. Not all or even many, but some. No Democrat believes in any of those things.

It's why I'm a Republican. Repubs have a lot of faults, but they stop short of the abject demagoguery-- and the shamelessness-- of the Democrat party. 

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all of our readers and commentors. May this New Year be safe and prosperous for you and yours. 

"Demand a plan-- demand celebrities go f*ck themselves"

A very clever video based on a gun control ad made by a bunch of Hollywood stars-- people who, it seems, have made personal fortunes glorifying gratuitous gun violence.



Note to Hollywood stars: give back the tens of millions of dollars that you have personally made glorifying gun violence to millions of people, likely including Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, James Holmes, and Adam Lanza. Donate the money to the families of the kids killed by gun violence-- violence that you personally have glorified your whole career.

And when you tell ordinary people who haven't gotten rich glorifying gun violence that they can't own guns to protect themselves and their families, how about giving them the armed security teams that guard you?

How about voluntary gun-control in the movies? Oh, what's that you say... 'We'd love to, but then we'd make a lot less money...'

Hollywood stars get rich off of extolling gun violence, and then tell us ordinary people that we haven't been "anti-gun" enough. Gun laws apply to the little people. Not for the criminals, not for the journalists, not for the rich Hollywood elites.