SPRT - Science in Pursuit of Religious Truth

MomsRising gets my blood pressure rising

2007-04-01T18:52:00.000-05:00

I was recently invited by another mom who also has two children in the same church preschool program, to attend a film called “The Motherhood Manifesto” at a local library. “Come hear about the policies that make it so hard to be a mom these days,” the invitation said, along with a cheery request to bring something “yummy” and an offer to provide babysitting.

The word “manifesto” in the title sent up red flags for me, as anyone who is taking a page from Karl Marx’s playbook probably doesn’t share my views. (The fact that it the film is narrated by actress Mary Steenburgen was my second clue.) But I went to the recommended website – www.momsrising.org – to see what the components of the “manifesto” are. Cleverly, the website’s authors have used “MOTHER” as an acronym for their demands: M = (paid) Maternity and paternity leave. O = Open, flexible work. T = TV and afterschool programs. H = Healthcare for all kids. E = Excellent childcare. R = Realistic and fair wages.

“Manifesto” was the right word for it, all right. Virtually everything on the site advocates government regulation of business and taxpayer-funded social services. The site is filled with factoids about Canada’s allegedly wonderful health care system, how many school-age children are home alone each afternoon (14 million!), the need for government censorship of the (40,000) TV commercials children see each year, and so on.

Even worse, I read through everything on the site and wondered, where in any of this is the ‘mothering’?

I considered going to the event, and expressing my views there, but decided that a Saturday afternoon was better spent with my two toddlers. So I declined, and drafted the following response to the mom who had invited me instead:

“Thank you for the invitation, but I went to the website and discovered quickly that I don't share most of the views expressed there. One notable example - but by no means the only one - is the site's apparent advocacy for "universal health care" - meaning, presumably, government-provided health care. I was a law professor and free-lance writer in Detroit in the 1990s, and I can attest that Canada's plan is hardly the model plan that MomsRising.org seems to think it is. In Detroit, we saw the hordes of Canadians come across the border to avoid months waiting for necessary surgery, for a choice of doctors, or to obtain America’s demonstrably better medical research. Canada's system is a failure for the same reason the United Kingdom's is a failure: when people perceive that something is "free" (because the costs are hidden to them), they use much more of it than they would if they had to pay for it.

A universal health care system paid for in this country by tax dollars would collapse in an astonishingly short time. You only need to look at the impact of medical malpractice insurance on obstetrics. In the 1980s, we began to see multi-million-dollar jury verdicts in questionable cases (where malpractice was unclear or even unproven) because the jury knew that an insurance policy would pay the verdict. But this drove the premiums up to the point that doctors could not - and cannot - afford them.

No doctor - no matter how successful – is going to stay in a specialty where the insurance premiums are over $100,000 per year. And this is now the case in many high-risk specialties like obstetrics and neurosurgery. Doctors cannot pass the costs of those premiums on to patients in the form of fees; patients cannot pay them, Medicare and Medicaid will not pay them, nor will HMOs or PPOs, all of whom have fixed prices for what they will pay. Once the cost of an hour's work for a physician is greater than what he or she can make - they close their doors. After this started happening across the country, legislatures began passing laws to cap pain and suffering awards in malpractice cases.

My point is that while there is much wailing and moaning about prices, no one pays any attention to costs. You can clamor all you want to fix or control or cap prices, but the costs are what they are - and once the price you can charge for the service is less than the cost of providing it, the business or practice is gone. Unless, of course, you are going to have the government order people to stay in business, and it is not difficult to imagine the catastrophically poor care that we would get with people forced to stay in medical practice.

And the economics is just as bad in the MomsRising site's claims about "fair wages," the "mommy tax," and "excellent child care." When wages are adjusted for time that mothers spend out of the work force at home with their children, women in the same jobs make dollar for dollar what men do. (See Thomas Sowell's excellent work in this area.) It is absurd for women to want to be paid to be home with their children, and then also to be paid as much as men who did not leave the work force for any amount of time.

For example, many of my female law colleagues took time off to be at home with their babies. Some stepped off partnership track altogether. Others took longer to get there. Some did part-time or flex-time while their children were young. These are all great options. But if I elect one of these options, and choose to go up for partnership in 10 years rather than seven, it is manifestly unfair to the man (or woman, for that matter) who went up for partnership three years before I did, for me to demand that I now be paid as much as they are. They worked a 60-hour work week the entire time I was on leave, or part-time, or flex-time.

And the economic prescriptions for lower income women make even less sense -- women who don't make enough in their jobs to pay for someone else to take care of their children while they work. I find it incredible that women are both demanding to be paid MORE for their positions, in order to pay for childcare that they admit is already inadequate and too expensive, and they want the child care to be "excellent," which will make it even more expensive, and oh, by the way, someone else should pay for it. If you make less than $25,000 per year (as MomsRising.org claims is true of one-quarter of families with children under six), then how is it logical to pay someone else between $4000 and $10,000 per year per child (another MomsRising statistic)? Wouldn’t it make more sense to stay home and take care of your children yourself?

All of these economically disastrous prescriptions are supposed to be motivated by our recognition that motherhood is terribly important. I happen to think that motherhood is the most important profession, and that our culture doesn't even give lip service to it. But I also think as mothers we do a terrible disservice to our children by farming them out all day long. More to the point, it's pathologically hypocritical to claim some moral high ground for motherhood while working tirelessly to make it possible - and desirable - for mothers to be everywhere except with their children.

Here's a sample "tidbit" from the MomsRising.org website:

"A recent study found a widespread scarcity of quality, affordable infant-toddler child care in all communities."

What's shocking to me about that statement is that there is NO shortage of quality, affordable infant and toddler care in any community - it's called "parents."

To my way of thinking, very little at MomsRising.org celebrates being a mother. What it does attempt to do is use having a baby as a moral bludgeon to trumpet for government control over childrearing. I cannot think of anything worse. It is no substitute for mothering (or parenting in general), psychologically and emotionally catastrophic for children, and economically disastrous for the country.

What galls me most about so many of these women-driven and allegedly mother-centric initiatives is that they betray American women’s complete lack of understanding of basic economics. As long a some public policy pronouncement is “for the children” or accompanied by a compelling story of a family’s struggle or financial hardship, we’re supposed to be all for it, even if it brings the government and the economy to the brink of collapse.

I truly wonder sometimes: where is the intellectual depth and political leadership that was supposed to have come with giving women access to education and the right to vote? Women’s “understanding” of politics seems to extend only to the existence of a constitutional “right” to destroy their own offspring, and of economics, that everyone else should pay to raise their children if they deign to have them.

If The Motherhood Manifesto is any indication, a real appreciation for motherhood in the United States is falling, not rising. And, sadly, women must bear much of the blame.”

Courtesy versus the courtroom

2006-04-22T07:29:00.000-05:00

Everyone's talking about the current potboiler over the Duke lacrosse players accused of rape, and the conflicting stories of the strippers who were there. Columnist Kathleen Parker has a recent article in which she describes the peculiar and somewhat hypocritical public response to the scandal. Is it "boys will be boys"? Blame the victim? Make her a martyr? A cause celebre? (Certainly a celebrity.) A feminist icon?

What's going on here?

The whole thing reminds me of an incident that happened a few years ago, when I was a law professor in Detroit. There was a scandal in Grosse Pointe (the tony suburb east of the city) in which several senior high school boys hosted parties for the incoming crop of freshman girls, at which alcohol (and, some alleged, hidden drugs) were served. Of course, the girls got hammered and sexually assaulted.

Apparently, this had been a local ritual at this high school for some time. And earlier groups of girls had said nothing. But this time, one of the girls told her parents. And the proverbial Shinola hit the fan.

As sad as the event itself was, the public's reaction was what startled and disturbed me. As soon as the authorities found out about it, investigations began. And arrests. And then, the recriminations. One of the boys, Daniel Granger, had already been accepted to the University of Michigan for college. (Ironically, he was a high school lacrosse player.) UM revoked the acceptance pending the outcome of the criminal prosecution.

As sad as the event itself was, the public's reaction was what startled and disturbed me. As soon as the authorities found out about it, investigations began. And arrests. And then, the recriminations. One of the boys, Daniel Granger, had already been accepted to the University of Michigan for college. (Ironically, he was a high school lacrosse player.) UM revoked the acceptance pending the outcome of the criminal prosecution. (Granger was convicted in the criminal trial and lost a subsequent civil suit as well.)

Everyone was up in arms. People were furious. At the girls. For telling.

And when I say furious, I mean that the girls' parents reported being screamed at by other students' parents. Things along the lines of How dare you ruin these boys' lives? They watched as grown-ups drove through their yards and threw trash and dog feces. They received hate mail and anonymous phone threatening phone calls.

In the face of this public onslaught, at least one of the girls switched schools. Another family decided that it wasn't worth subjecting their children to it, and moved out of town.

I was horrified. And apparently I was not alone. I remember reading an editorial written by a local woman who summed up the community's attitude well: What were the girls thinking? What did they think was going to happen when they went to a party with senior guys, no chaperones, alcohol and drugs?

Yes, the girls were stupid, this writer admitted. But being stupid is not a crime.

That, for me, was it in a nutshell. The girls were unsupervised, out too late on a weekend night. And underage. The boys were older - all 18 and 19. That transforms the incident from a matter of juvenile stupidity to a crime, like it or not.

Did the local community care about that rarified distinction? Not much. And that, my friends, is the difference between law and life. Conduct can still be criminal. But the criminal code will protect neither girls nor boys in a society in which courteous behavior and sexual restraint are not instilled by parents and reinforced by the other institutions that adults control. Like schools. Movies. Music. Literature. You get the idea. (In fact, speaking as an attorney, I routinely complain that we no longer wish to instill courtesy, and instead, want the legal system to penalize discourteous conduct. But that's a column for another day.)

It also demonstrates - sadly - the way that we, as a culture, have deceived ourselves, removed societal sanctions necessary to protect our children and, unwittingly therefore, left them to twist in the wind.

For good or for ill, society's attitude about male sexuality seems to be "boys will be boys." And even with today's modern feminist sensibilities (or, indeed, because of them), the responsibility for deflecting or protecting against predatory male sexuality falls to young women. Who get mixed messages on the matter, to say the least (dress like a whore! flaunt your body! be as promiscuous as you want! sue for sexual assault!)

I personally deplore this attitude and, as the mother of a boy, I don't intend to raise him that way. But that means instilling my son with a firm and dutiful conscience, as opposed to a sense of entitlement; with the obligation to act like a gentleman instead of the license to be a cad; with respect for the human body (his, and others'); and with the understanding that sexuality is intimate conduct that belongs between husband and wife, as opposed to recreation fueled by bravado, alcohol and testosterone.

If we throw up our hands and let society tell our daughters it's "cool" to dress like strippers and our sons that it's ok to pay them to take off their clothes and parade naked in front of them, we can't be surprised when, instead of being courtly, they end up in court.

Wrongful choice, wrongful death, wrongheaded reasoning

2006-04-09T20:37:00.000-05:00

Kathleen Parker wrote last week about a groundbreaking case in Illinois. According to news reports in the Chicago Sun-Times, a woman named Michelle Williams has sued John Manchester for wrongful death for the abortion she had after a car accident she was in for which Manchester was at fault. According to Williams, her doctors explained that her fractured pelvis required surgery. The choices they offered her were all unpleasant: abort her child and have the surgery to avoid potential risks to the child from x-rays, surgery or drugs, wait until later in the pregnancy for the surgery - but this might mean needing to rebreak her bones, which might not then heal properly, or have the surgery and hope for the best for the pregnancy. Ms. Williams chose to abort, and then sued. Although the parties settled on the matter of her personal injuries, Mr. Manchester is claiming that he is not responsible for the abortion, as that was Ms. Williams' choice (there's that word again) and not the direct consequence of the accident itself (apparently, Ms. Williams' unborn child was not injured in the accident).

The trial court judge dismissed Ms. Williams' claim, and she is appealing. As this is a case of first impression in Illinois, the appellate court's decision will be interesting to observe.

In her article, Parker seemed stunned that the judge threw out Ms. Williams' claim for wrongful death. But it would seem that she doesn't understand the law. A lot of other folks don't either, so let me try to explain things here as I see them.

I grieve for Ms. Williams. But I am afraid that I agree with the judge. (At least the result - I haven't read the opinion, so it's not clear to me what her reasoning was.) And for two important reasons: one, the pressure she received from the doctor was very possibly misplaced. And two, a decision to the contrary would be bad law and bad precedent.

I say this because I have heard of case after case in which doctors - legitimately terrified of being sued for any possible outcome - "warn" patients about every possible outcome, no matter how implausible or unlikely. When a doctor says, "It's possible your unborn child has already been damaged by x-rays," you can hear the wheels turning a mile away.

I heard similar warnings with both of my recent pregnancies - as an "older" mother in my 40s - and I can't even count the number of people I know personally who were "warned" by their doctor of possible bad outcomes for their unborn children -- (the pressure to abort under those circumstances is enormous -after all, doesn't the doctor know best??) -- and who (like me) have gone on to have perfectly healthy babies.

Like a lot of others, I am incensed at the way litigation has warped the medical - and particularly obstetrical - profession to the extent that you are literally encouraged more strongly to abort your baby than to have it. And I am speaking here as an attorney! What makes me sickest about this whole story is the fact that there was probably nothing wrong with this woman's child, and that there was at least some chance that her child would have come through her surgeries unscathed. My own sister had to have major ovarian surgery in very early pregnancy, and her child was fine.

But turning again to the issues that Kathleen Parker writes about. To my way of thinking - as an attorney AND as a mother - it's one thing to be warned of the risks of surgery necessary to repair broken bones and other incidents of a bad car accident, have the surgery (a perfectly logical and moral choice under the circumstances), and lose the baby.

Under those circumstances, if she sues the driver of the other vehicle, she has every legal right to collect from him for the death of her child. As to Kathleen Parker's comment that it seems "equally cruel" to burden poor Mr. Manchester with the death of the other driver's unborn child, we have an expression in the law for that: "You take the plaintiff as you find him [or her]."

In other words, it is his misfortune if he hits a car with a pregnant woman in it, and she miscarries as a direct result of the accident, or of the surgery necessary to save her life or repair her broken body.

But it is another thing altogether for this woman to say, "Well, I'm not going to take the chance that I lose the child in surgery, or that the x-rays, medication or surgery might damage my child, still so small in the fetal stage of development. So I am going to terminate the child myself." That is NOT an inevitable consequence of Mr. Manchester's negligent driving. It is what we call in the law an "intervening cause."

None of this is to suggest that Ms. Williams should be "punished" for being "selfish." She was well within her legal and moral rights by even the strictest interpretation to receive medical care for her injuries. But frankly, how is the legal rationale different if Ms. Williams' baby had been born, had been in the car with her when she was hit by Mr. Manchester, and so severely injured that the doctors warned her her baby might not survive the surgery they were recommending for it? Would we allow her - or her surgeon - to simply smother the infant with a pillow as a preemptive measure and then sue the other driver for wrongful death?

I know that some attorneys reading this will disagree with me. And so will many others, both pro-choice and pro-life. Strongly. Pro-choicers will resent the above argument that I use, and say, "but a first trimester fetus is not the same as a born infant." Ok, fine. Then why should Ms. Williams be allowed to collect for its wrongful death? Pro-lifers will agree with me that an unborn child is entitled to at least some of the same legal protections as a born one, and that the loss of one is just as painful as the loss of the other. So they won't appreciate my argument that under these circumstances Ms. Williams should not be able to recover from the other driver for the loss of her baby.

To both camps, I say that for the judge in the Williams case to have decided otherwise would have set a terrible precedent - encouraging people to abort and thus convert what should have been a straightforward personal injury case into a wrongful death case for reasons having to do more with a choice by the mother than negligent conduct by the defendant. That is a bad result. Even if it does tell the world that unborn children are - or were - human beings of inestimable value.

Sandra Day O'Connor once said famously that the legal framework of Roe v. Wade was "on a collision course with itself." Ms. Williams, her unborn child, and Mr. Manchester are all victims of just that sort of collision.

Maybe it's not the teachers; maybe it's you

2006-03-18T05:31:00.000-06:00

I posted this article on Townhall.com yesterday. What a response! I'll bet I received at least 100 e-mails in my mailbox - and overwhelmingly positive. What was especially gratifying was to see how many came from teachers. But many, many came from parents as well.

There seems to be a consensus that the public school system is broken. I received a lot of interesting suggestions about how to fix it. I'll print some of them.

In my article I do not proscribe any solutions. But that's because, as a Libertarian, I avoid one-size-fits-all recommendations (that inevitably tend to be about government programs). And besides, my article is about parenting. Every family is different. Every child is different. The question becomes, what do YOUR children need from you?

What discourages me most about parents today is how many of them talk incessantly about their own needs. My answer is, YOU'RE THE GROWNUP! YOUR KIDS' NEEDS COME FIRST! And I am not talking about a stay-at-home mom who needs some adult interaction on a regular basis, or a working parent who needs to get some exercise, or the single parent who needs a babysitter so he or she can enjoy an evening out once in a while. I am talking about the ones who justify the parade of new men or women in their lives with the word "needs," or the ones who use alcohol or drugs because of their psychological "needs," or the ones who are never home because of their "needs." And to hell with the fact that they've brought helpless, dependent little people into the world who need to be educated, loved, developed as full human beings. Their needs come dead last.

Instead, parents tend to give in to kids' WANTS. And that is a very different thing altogether.

Anyway, my article from yesterday follows. I'll put up another post with some of the "Best of" the e-mail responses I received.

In Martha Zoller's recent column, she writes that parents should assert the control that they have by right over the government schools we fund through our taxes. I couldn't agree more. But she makes one comment that merits a challenge:

"America is tired of being told we have lousy parents, bad kids and we can’t do anything without the help of government ..."

While I'd be the first one to dispute the effectiveness of government “help,” I have enough friends and colleagues who are public school educators to say with confidence that there are many, many good teachers out there, and they are struggling to teach children who do have lousy parents.

America has now produced at least two generations of post-WWII children who have grown up with a sense of entitlement to perpetual adolescence. There are vast wellsprings of immaturity, irresponsibility and selfishness in these generations, and their children are the proof.

My colleagues who are primary school educators tell me with chagrin that it is increasingly difficult for them to teach. Not only because their days are dominated by unhappy and unruly children. But also because in the face of larger numbers of children who arrive at school with emotional and psychological problems, teachers are saddled with regulations and bureaucracy intended to address the fact that parents aren't being parents. And so teachers are being forced to try to be parents.

When I say that "parents aren't being parents," I mean that in the most basic sense: children come to school not properly fed; their clothes aren't clean; no one makes them do their homework or go to bed at a decent hour each night; there is no discipline or organization (and children desperately need both).

Then there are the parents whose night lives (read what you want into that) send a very clear message to their children about insecurity and promiscuity - not to mention priorities. Oh, and did we mention the parents with substance abuse problems? Or those in and out of jail whose children have been passed from relative to relative or have been in and out of foster care?

And this is not a function of socioeconomic class. There are plenty of wealthy parents who indulge their children with expensive material items to attempt to compensate for the time they don't spend with them.

Neglected, rejected, ignored or abused, these children are needy, angry, resentful, depressed, enraged, aggressive and difficult if not impossible to control. They require extra time. Trips to the principal’s office. Reports. Meetings with parents and social workers and psychologists. Student aides. Conflict resolution training. They are often disrespectful, disruptive and even violent.

How are teachers supposed to do the job they are being paid to do? A teacher with 25 students in a class who has 45 minutes to teach geography, or arithmetic, or reading and who routinely has to contend with even a small handful of students whose antics eat up five or ten or fifteen minutes of that class time is hard pressed to meet his or her obligations to the students who are not causing problems. Add to that the pressures of “teaching to tests” (as teachers refer to the obligations imposed by “No Child Left Behind” and other well-intentioned legislation), and one can begin to understand the teachers’ plight.

Private and sectarian schools will go back to the parents and demand accountability, because they have a model that consists of standards and consequences. Public schools, on the other hand, have lost their way – and their will. Too few of them take a hard line with parents; a stand in which they say, these are OUR responsibilities – and those are YOURS. And if a school’s administration, or district, won’t take that position, individual teachers certainly won’t, either for fear of not getting tenure, or the threat of litigation.

For too long, public education has followed a top-down management model that operates on the principle - as Zoller intimates - that higher taxes and more regulations will enable government to parent - if not better than, then at least as well as - the parents themselves.

Teachers know better.

The combination of irresponsible parents, pie-in-the-sky theorists and Education Department bureaucrats has turned public schools into laboratories where problems fester, education decays, teachers are set up to fail, and all children – yes, even those without emotional, psychological or development problems - suffer.

Unfortunately, America does have lousy parents. But a substantial number of these parents could be – and should be -- held accountable for their children’s problems. This would enable teachers to be teachers again.

Yes, there are some ineffective teachers. It’s true that we will always have some children who need special help. And we will always need school lunches, social workers and other remedial and supplemental programs. Perhaps it’s even true that public schools will never be models of stellar education. But if more parents would grow up, step up to the plate, and be parents, schools would certainly be able to do a better job than they can now.

Don't take my word for it. Ask a teacher.

Babies and Christmas, continued

2005-12-24T20:36:00.000-06:00

My goodness. I was surfing a variety of websites that I had seen but not visited this evening (taking a breather from wrapping gifts), and I came across this wonderful quote from Amy Welborn:

Back to our key questions. God took human form; and he took it not simply as a baby, but as the tiniest of all human beings, a mere biological speck, so small and so undeveloped that it could be mistaken for a laboratory artifact, a research specimen, an object for human experimentation. But this speck was God; this complete genetic human organism, in its primitive and undeveloped form, was so much "one of us" as to bear the existence of the Creator. He dignified humanity by taking the form of this creature he had made in his image; and he did it at the most inauspicious and feeble point in the human life story. At the heart of the Christmas celebration lies the fact of all facts, that God became a zygote.

Breathtaking, really. There in all its simplicity is why abortion is a grave evil, along with embryonic stem cell research. God's presence in the simplest, earliest and most elemental human form sanctified it forever.

I personally believe that each human being's life would be sacred without Christ ever having taken human form. (And thus believe that every human being who lived before Christ was sacred.) And there are plenty of non-religious, scientific, legal, philosophical and utterly secular reasons why destroying humans at any time before they are born is deeply and profoundly wrong.

But on this, the eve of Christ's birth, His existence is the only reason that need be mentioned. My prayer for Christmas this year is greater love for our children, and recognition of the Divine in each and every single one of them.

Babies and Christmas

2005-12-22T22:14:00.000-06:00

I don't usually post such personal observations here, but I can't resist.

I have a beautiful 5-month-old baby daughter. I's almost 10:30 p.m., and she is sleeping, and I love to peek at her. Because it's the Christmas season, nearly all of the images of Christ that we see are of him as a newborn babe, and I just can't help scooping her up and kissing all over her sweet little pudgy baby face, and thinking that that's what Christmas is all about: babies. New life, and innocence, and complete vulnerability, and transformation.

Yes, transformation. Because that's what becoming a mother (parent) does - it transforms you. With absolutely everything I do with both of my children, I tell myself that God is watching -- would He be proud of the way I am treating the children He has entrusted to me, those precious angels that I waited so long for?

And there you are -- yet another way in which Christmas is about babies -- they are the penultimate gift.

There is much more that I feel I want to say, but it's late, and I am not sure how to articulate it. I guess I can say that I am ecstatically grateful to have these two beautiful children in my life. And I am ashamed that there was ever a time in my life when I thought I didn't want children. I am saddened beyond words that we live in a culture that treats babies like trash. And I feel discontented, in that I want to do more about that, and am not sure how to go about it.

I read this evening a post in my friend Ashli's blog, in which a reader offered a prayer in the spirit of the season - something about room at the inn - and in the heart. That seems very powerful to me. When our children come to us, do we make room for them? Isn't every child's creation in some small part the arrival of God in our midst over and over again?

I wish I would have felt like this twenty years ago. I wish I would have felt like this my whole life. I hope I can raise my beautiful son and daughter to feel their whole lives the way I feel now.

Shades of Ayn Rand: Oil dependence and a failed drug policy

2005-12-18T20:12:00.000-06:00

In today's news on Fox.com, there's a story about the presidential election in Bolivia and left-wing candidate Evo Morales who boasts that, if elected, he intends to become "a nightmare" for the United States.

You may wonder - and rightly so - how a little country like Bolivia could even be an annoyance to the United States, much less a "nightmare."

I can answer that question with two words. Oil. Cocaine.

Morales is a Socialist who claims that if he is elected, he intends to nationalize Bolivia's oil and natural gas industries. At this writing, he is the leader by a substantial margin in the presidential election. This is unsurprising, given the number of poor in Bolivia. Socialism is only popular among the ignorant and the arrogant.

Morales also claims that he will legalize the production of coca.

There are two steps that should be taken immediately to defuse Morales' ambitions, and they are both unpopular.

The first obvious problem is that our dependence on foreign sources of oil and natural gas puts us constantly at the mercy of every two-bit tinpot nutcase with a chip on his shoulder and a reservoir of fossil fuels in his backyard.

Lefties claim that the answer is to reduce consumption. Ain't gonna happen. Get over it. We need to tap our own reserves in Alaska. We can do so cleanly and with minimal interference to the wildlife there. Yes, yes, that will be more expensive. But nowhere near as expensive as having to go begging to the Saudis, Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales.

Ayn Rand predicted this in Atlas Shrugged years ago. In her novel, Americans were heavily invested in industries in South America that were nationalized (and subsequently destroyed), and that - amongst other things - contributed to the collapse of the American economy.

The second step that should be taken is that the "War on Drugs" should be declared a total failure, and ended. And yes, I am talking about decriminalization, regulation and taxation. The United States has spent billions trying to end coca production in countries all across South America. The end result is that we've created a black market that has crippled entire economies, devastated legal systems (how many Colombian judges have been murdered?), destroyed the livelihood of any number of indigenous peoples, and directly contributed to the rise of murderous drug cartels and bloodthirsty paramilitaries.

And all of this without ending the demand here in this country.

We should simply legalize drugs, regulate and tax it as the industry it is, and subject it to the tort system. Hell, if we can bring "Big Tobacco," the makers of asbestos and silicone breast implants, almost the entire obstetrics practice in the United States, Wal-Mart, and Microsoft to their knees, surely we can handle a few drugmakers.

It's inevitable. We can do it the smart way, or the stupid way. The stupid way is to wait until we simply run out of money.

Why not be proactive about it? Take those billions, and put them into rehabilitation and border security. The money would be much better spent.

Of course, assuming that drug use in the U.S. stays at current levels, that won't solve the problem of Bolivia's delusions of grandeur; it would just change the commodity we're dependent on.

On second thought, maybe that is the solution to the drug problem. A Socialist president a la Morales would likely respond by nationalizing the coca industry. And nothing would destroy it faster.

Get your children out of "government schools"

2005-11-13T13:18:00.000-06:00

Milton Friedman has long referred to public schools as “government schools.” Some object to this term, considering it ridiculously authoritarian – even Soviet-sounding.

But the latest absurdity (or should I say obscenity) from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals make it clear that Friedman is right. And so are those who consider the term “government schools” to sound like a Soviet gulag.

In Fields v. Palmdale School District, parents sued after discovering that their primary school-aged children had been administered a questionnaire that asked them, amongst other things, how frequently they had, “touched their private parts too much,” “thought about having sex” or “thought about touching other people’s private parts.”

(Side note here: does someone explain to the seven-year-old who doesn’t know, what “having sex” is?)

Although the parents had authorized their children’s participation in the survey, they were not told that it contained sexual content; rather, in what has become all-too-common public school deception, they were told that the survey was evaluating children’s “exposure to early trauma (for example, violence).” The parents who sued only found out about the survey’s contents after their children told them about it.

The parents’ lawsuit claimed that the school had violated their constitutional rights to control the upbringing of their children, particularly with regard to sexual matters. The school board and other defendants responded, saying that, “… there is no deeply rooted and fundamental right of parents ‘to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex in accordance with their personal and religious values and beliefs.’”

Oh, you may say, but surely the court did not agree with that position.

Oh, and you would be wrong. Here’s what the court said:

"Parents have a right to inform their children when and as they wish on the subject of sex; they have no constitutional right, however, to prevent a public school from providing its students with whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise [emphasis added], when and as the school determines that it is appropriate to do so."

And just in case you didn't catch that the first time, the court concludes:
"In summary, we hold that there is no free-standing fundamental right of parents 'to control the upbringing of their children by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex in accordance with their personal and religious values and beliefs,' and that the asserted right is not encompassed by any other fundamental right."
And that “other fundamental right” that the 9th Circuit is referring to here is the much-vaunted right of privacy – the same right that gives us the right to abortion on demand. In other words, although your 15-year-old daughter may have the right to kill her unborn child – and your grandchild – without your knowledge or consent, you have no right to determine how your children are exposed to sexual matters – even sexual matters beyond their intellectual or emotional comprehension.

And when do you lose that right? When you drop your children off at the government school door:

“As the First Circuit made clear in Brown, once parents make the choice as to which school their children will attend, their fundamental right to control the education of their children is, at the least, substantially diminished.”

Still think it’s not a gulag? Parents, if you have any hope of raising your children with some shred of your own values instilled in them, pull your children out of government schools, and put them someplace where the instruction – and the culture – is consistent with those values.

The Supreme Court: Procedure, Precedent and Giving the Devil His Due

2005-09-07T02:56:00.000-05:00

This is a copy of an article I wrote for Townhall.com

Over the past few weeks, the United States Supreme Court has dominated the news, displaced only by Cindy Sheehan’s Cirque du Crawford, and the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s impending retirement, and former Chief Justice Rehnquist’s recent passing from thyroid cancer have politicians and pundits of all political stripes obsessing over the best replacements for them.

John Roberts – who President Bush named first as O’Connor’s replacement, and now Rehnquist’s -- will begin his hearings before the U.S. Senate this week. In a climate fraught with hyperbole and accusation, it is worthwhile to revisit the question of what, precisely, the United States Supreme Court should be doing. And what, precisely, conservatives should be looking for in a Supreme Court Justice.

Unfortunately, liberals and conservatives both obscure the issue.

Liberals want a Justice who supports their pet causes: affirmative action, taxation, expanding government. But let’s face it – the Holy Grail of Supreme Court jurisprudence for the Left is abortion. They want someone who is pro-choice and unwilling to overturn Roe v.Wade.

Similarly (although there is more disagreement on the abortion issue among Republicans than Democrats), conservative Republicans want a pro-life Justice who is also sympathetic to business, opposed to increases in taxation, and willing to rein in government expansion.

The purpose of all of the vetting, and of the hearings themselves, is no longer to establish the nominee’s professional qualifications. It is to try to pry out his or her political leanings, in the hopes that he or she will “vote the way we want.”

That’s perfectly appropriate for candidates for public office. And utterly beside the point for a Supreme Court justice.

(I’ll pause here, while the conservatives reading this sputter, choke, and spit out their coffee.)

Conservative writers pay lip service to the idea that Supreme Court justices are not placed on the bench to implement their personal views. True. But what most non-lawyers don’t realize (and what many politicians try to ignore) is that it is not the role of the Supreme Court to resolve individual disputes.

In essence, the United States Supreme Court is more a forum of procedural than of substantive law. The Court’s role is to interpret law – both case law and statutory law – to determine if it is consistent with Constitutional permissions and limits. If any law so challenged does not defy the U.S. Constitution, then it must stand – despite whatever the individual justices may think of it.

That’s fine as far as it goes. But the other purpose of the Court is to provide consistent precedent for the lower courts – both federal and state – to follow. To be concerned with procedural consistency and precedent means not only that the justices’ personal views on what substantive law ought to be are moot. It also means that the decisions handed down by the Supreme Court establish clear rules that are easily understood and followed by the lower courts.

Scalia understands this. Thomas understands this. Rehnquist understood it. O’Connor did not. And this is where she - and indeed much of the U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence over the past twenty years (especially where O’Connor was the “swing vote” in 5-4 decisions) – has failed miserably.

Ashcroft v. Raich (later Gonzales v. Raich) is a good example. That case challenged the Justice Department’s right to criminalize the medical use of marijuana, despite California’s statute explicitly permitting it. The case turned on Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause.

Many were surprised that Scalia – an open advocate of limited federal government and states’ rights – voted with the majority in holding that Congress did, in fact, have the power to regulate purely in-state medical use of marijuana. But Scalia’s concurring opinion makes clear that, despite whatever his personal views on medical marijuana might be, fifty years of Supreme Court precedent states clearly that the Commerce Clause does extend to such use. Although he might think it should be otherwise, that would require explicitly overturning half a century of Supreme Court precedent, which he knew the majority was unwilling to do.

Justice Clarence Thomas dissented. But, as with Scalia, Thomas recognized that the Commerce Clause had been interpreted to extend to this sort of in-state production and consumption of commodities like marijuana. Thomas’ dissent addressed the reasons why the Supreme Court’s fifty years of precedent on this issue ought to be overturned as being inconsistent with the original intent of the Clause.

O’Connor, in typical fashion, did neither. She did dissent. But while she acknowledged that the Supreme Court’s earlier decisions supported a broad interpretation of the Commerce Clause, she nevertheless attempted in her dissent to carve out a very narrow, fact-dependent exception. The problems with her legal reasoning in Raich are too complex to go into here, but suffice it to say that her interpretation of the Commerce Clause, and the line of earlier Supreme Court cases interpreting it, would leave legal scholars, state legislators and lower courts scratching their heads.

O’Connor has often been praised for her “nuance.” For conservative legal scholars, this is a synonym for “mishmash.” O’Connor has a deep sense of justice and fairness, and a profound desire to produce what she views as the “right” result in any particular case. But this motivation, however admirable, is better suited to an arbitrator than a Supreme Court justice. O’Connor’s impulses produced jurisprudence that is inconsistent, complicated, completely fact-dependent, and thus impossible to follow. The result is that, while a case that makes it up to the Supreme Court is decided, hundreds and thousands of similar cases in lower courts will still thereafter have to be litigated, to the extent that their facts differ oh-so-slightly.

Some states’ rights advocates and Libertarians were horrified by Scalia’s “betrayal” of the cause. But this is precisely what conservatives should wish for in a Supreme Court justice. If a law is not inconsistent with the Constitution, then it must stand. Opponents must resort to the legislature to change the law. And if Supreme Court precedent is itself in contravention of the proper understanding of the Constitution, then the precedent must be overturned – not endlessly distinguished on factual minutiae. And overturning Supreme Court precedent is not something that a conservative Justice would do lightly.

Conservatives need to remember this, as they dissect what they think, hope or fear are John Roberts’ – or any other nominee’s -- views. This is not to say that cases like Raich or Roe v. Wade ought not be overturned. I personally think that the Supreme Court has been wrong for fifty years about the Commerce Clause. And regardless of what you think about the morality of Roe v. Wade, it is a horribly reasoned decision, its arguments unsubstantiated, and its jurisprudence vacuous. But at the level of the United States Supreme Court, it is the procedural integrity that must be preserved. If conservatives are willing to dispense with proper judicial process in order to obtain the substantive result they want, they will end up with neither – as we are discovering now. It is the process that protects us.

There is compelling historical precedent for this. Roberts, a Roman Catholic, no doubt knows that Sir Thomas More is considered to be the patron saint of Catholic lawyers. His story is related in Robert Bolt’s screenplay, A Man for All Seasons.

More was the highest ranking officer of the law in England under King Henry VIII. Henry, a Catholic, sought to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, who had borne him six daughters but no sons, in order to marry his mistress, Anne Boleyn. The king’s sycophants and yes-men – many of whom resented More – wanted More to declare the king’s second marriage lawful. More’s own family, devout Catholics, insisted that he denounced Henry’s actions as immoral.

More, highly principled, but also pragmatic, sought a different alternative. His job, as he saw it, was to enforce the existing law – not his or anyone else’s view of morality. In the following exchange, More parlays with his wife Alice, his daughter Margaret, and his excessively zealous son-in-law, William Roper.

Margaret More: Father, that man's bad.
Sir Thomas More: There's no law against that.
William Roper: There is: God's law.
Sir Thomas More: Then God can arrest him.
Roper: Sophistication upon sophistication.
Sir Thomas More: No, sheer simplicity. The law, Roper, the law. I know what's legal not what's right. And I'll stick to what's legal.
Roper: Then you set man's law above God's!
Sir Thomas More: No, far below; but let me draw your attention to a fact - I'm not God …
Alice More: While you talk, he's gone!
Sir Thomas More: And go he should, if he was the Devil himself, until he broke the law!
Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you - where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast - man's laws, not God's - and if you cut them down - and you're just the man to do it - d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

In the end More is tried and executed for treason, not because he denounces the king’s second marriage (he says nothing, in fact), but on the perjured testimony of another man.

There is a lesson for Roberts here: that political men often loathe principled ones, and would rather see them destroyed than enjoy the benefit of their counsel. If Roberts is the principled man and practical jurist his supporters claim, he risks inciting the wrath not only of the Democrats who will oppose him because he does not share their views, but also of those on the Right who don’t mind taking pages from the Left’s playbook if it means they get what they want.

But the larger lesson is for conservatives: if they truly want a Supreme Court Justice who understands his role, who respects legal procedure, and who reads his or her script by the light of the United States Constitution, then they must accept that Roberts, like More, will enforce the law – not rewrite it to conform to his personal views. Liberals deliberately ignore this. Conservatives must not, even if it means that, at times, Chief Justice Robert’s votes will not please them.

Hurricane Katrina and the Second Amendment

2005-09-04T13:50:00.000-05:00

Much has already been said about the dismal response of local, state and federal authorities in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and the terrible suffering that tens of thousands of people are enduring as a result. I don't intend to add to that thread. Instead, what has struck me about this disaster is that it has demonstrated what Second Amendment defenders have been saying for years:

The government and the police cannot protect you.

Reliance on government and police power is the standard line of so-called "gun control" enthusiasts. This is a lie even under the best of circumstances. (Here's a link to a site with some excellent information on the subject.)

But post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans proves that when the most basic infrastructure - i.e., government - is gone, you'd better have a way to protect and defend yourself, your loved ones, and your property, because otherwise, you'll just be a statistic.

The armed lowlifes that are preying on the sick, the weak, the homeless and isolated are not even deterred by common decency in the face of widespread suffering. They thrive on chaos. They are firing at police, at National Guardsmen, at rescue helicopters, at food and relief vehicles, at the hundreds of ordinary folk who showed up in their own boats to help transport victims. Does anyone seriously think that these creeps will pay attention to gun control laws?

Of course not.

I have family and friends in New Orleans, and they are all saying the same thing: The media is not telling you how bad it really is down here. And they are not referring to the heat, the lack of basic services, the fetid water, the corpses floating in it, and the alligators. (Although I don't think the media is talking about the alligators much, either.)

They are talking about the armed gangs - the would-be looters, rapists and murders who have come out in the dark like roaches in the absence of police, electricity, and alarms. New Orleans has become a third-world country. Ordinary folk have taken to defending their homes and neighborhoods with guns. In sections of New Orleans and the surrounding suburbs where the flooding has not been as bad, residents have stayed in or returned to their homes and posted signs on them: You loot - we shoot. And they do. Stories like the one Mona Charen recounts are popping up everywhere. Can you imagine what it would be like if the citizens of New Orleans could not defend themselves?

Watching this unfold, I could not help but think -- If Osama bin Laden and his cronies are smart - and I think they are - they are saying to themselves, "We don't need to destroy their country. We just need to knock out a few basic city services. And then we can just sit back and watch while they destroy themselves."

Gun control advocates - wake up. And those of you who believe that there is a reason the Second Amendment protects citizens' right to bear arms, you'd better speak up. As New Orleans goes, so goes the rest of the nation.

Science, the pursuit of truth, and humility

2005-09-01T05:05:00.000-05:00

There have been a number of news articles recently that demonstrate, in my view, the relationship between science, humility in the pursuit of truth, and some religious beliefs.

The first is the recent article about fetal pain in the Journal of the American Medical Association which has caused such a commotion. In it, the authors claim that the unborn child cannot feel pain until at least seven months' gestation or so. But some researchers hotly dispute these conclusions. And many are questioning the authors' conclusions - and their biases - by virtue of their connections to abortion-rights organizations. (One of the co-authors actually owns an abortion clinic in San Francisco.)

Have these writers' scholarship methods been compromised by their views? An interesting question. But it's not the one I am addressing here.

What struck me about the position taken in this article was not only that it was counterintuitive, but that it reinforced how wrong SCIENCE has been about the developing infant - both in and out of the womb. And this is where two other recent articles make that point even more effectively.

Just a few days after the JAMA article was released, another study was published in the journal, Archives of Disease in Childhood - Fetal and Neonatal Edition which argues that unborn children actually cry in the womb. Information about the article can be found here. And here is the link to the actual ultrasound footage showing the fetus crying. (As the mother of a six-week-old infant, I was astonished at this footage, which shows a child doing exactly what my baby daughter does when she cries.) This study made headlines, because everyone believed that babies did not cry in the womb.

According to one article, New Zealand pediatrician Ed Mitchell, who contributed to the study, was quoted as saying, "We actually still do things to babies without anaesthesia. Maybe this is a wake-up call to obstetricians and neonatologists."

Duh. If you need further proof that science is often wrong in this area, you need only read the recent article in the August 8th issue of Newsweek magazine entitled, "Your Baby's Brain." In the feature article, the authors describe an experiment in which infants just a few months old exhibit jealous behavior when confronted with their mothers holding dolls. The researchers were shocked to see that infants could feel jealousy; this was not the prevailing medical view. A quote from the article:

"A wealth of new research is leading pediatricians and child psychologists to rethink their long-held beliefs about the emotional and intellectual abilities of even very young babies."

It was not always so. Thus:

"It was a notion that held for nearly a century: infants were simple-minded creatures who merely mimicked those around them and grasped only the most basic emotions—happy, sad, angry. Science is now giving us a much different picture of what goes on inside their hearts and heads. Long before they form their first words or attempt the feat of sitting up, they are already mastering complex emotions—jealousy, empathy, frustration—that were once thought to be learned much later in toddlerhood."

You can read the article to find out more. Jealousy, empathy, object permanence - all things that science now understands babies can feel. But scientists did not always believe this.

And so it was for pain, as well. Until relatively recently, doctors did not believe that newborn infants were sensitive to pain, either. So little boys who were circumcised were not given anaesthesia.

This seems asinine to me, and always has. Anyone who has had any dealings with babies knows that they feel pain. (What was all that screaming about when you cut the foreskin, then? Wounded pride? Please!) And fear, and jealousy, and sympathy. It is only when one is blinded by science that one could hold such obviously untenable views. Scientists who made those early claims remind me of the villagers who all agreed that the naked Emperor had a beautiful new suit of clothing - despite what their own eyes told them - because everyone else said so.

An anecdote. I was a freshman in college when my youngest brother was born. (Late babies are a tradition in our family!) In my sophomore year, I took a Child Psychology course. My little brother was about 9 months old at the time. It was fascinating to me, because I had firsthand knowledge of what the books, the professor, the "experts" were talking about, in terms of child development - and they were all wrong. My baby brother could do things and exhibit skills and feelings and behaviors well before what the "experts" said. And while I know my brother was a bright child, and children advance at difference paces, I remember distinctly that the timetables the scholarly literature presented were so off-base that they were utterly discredited for me.

Now here we are - some 25 years later - and gee whiz, science has finally caught up with what an adolescent older sister (and parents everywhere) could see without an experiment, a study, or a doctorate.

Here's my point: Judeo-Christian religious belief and traditional morality tell us that the unborn child - like human beings at all stages of life - is a human being of inestimable value. Today there are those who would use science to try to demonstrate this this isn't true; that the unborn child, the neonate, the infant, the disabled, the elderly, are all somehow "less" human, because they don't feel, perceive, sense, convey things the way "we" (presumably adult, fully-functioning and sentient human beings) do.

There are any number of things wrong with this approach. One can certainly make the moral argument (too long to go into on this particular post) that it shouldn't matter, from the standpoint of worth and value, what the human being's stage of development or capacity is.

But - because I am interested in the places where religious belief is supported by scientific proof - what's critical to me is the fact that the "scientists" are often wrong. They were wrong about infant pain. They were wrong about infant cognition and development. And - I have no doubt - they are wrong in their assessment that a child in the fetal stage of development feels no pain. In other words, even if one were to accept the premise (which I don't) that sentience is a prerequisite for human worth and value, then it is interesting that more recent scientific proof seems to shore up the belief that the unborn - as well as newborns and older infants - feel and understand a good deal more than conventional scientific wisdom believed.

A little humility, then, in the pursuit of scientific truth, would seem to be a good thing. And although a belief in Something Greater is by no means a guaranty of humility (as many humble atheists can attest), it is often a good place to start.

Evolution and Intelligent Design

2005-08-20T07:55:00.000-05:00

I am one of those "religious" types who sees absolutely no conflict between the idea of evolution (if, in fact, this is the way things came about) and a belief in a Creator-God. Perhaps that comes from having been educated in the Roman Catholic tradition of Saint Augustine, Saint Augustine, the Jesuits, the Holy Cross fathers and other educational orders of nuns and priests. The Catholic educational traditional has a long, long history of challenging prevailing thought, asking probing questions and embracing the scientific method.

So, to me, this whole debate is a tempest is a teapot.

But be that as it may, everyone is caught up in the discussion now. That seems to me to be a good thing. Why not discuss things? Public consciousness and understanding can only benefit. And in any case, the debate focuses on the relationship between religious belief and science. And that is what motivated me to create this blog in the first place! So it's tailor-made for me to explore here.

As a start, this link from Tech Central Station interested me, precisely because the author, Lee Harris, seems to be coming from the same starting point that I am - i.e., that he sees no essential conflict between religious faith and a willingness to pursue the theory of evolution. And further, that he thinks the two sides ought to be able to "get along," as it were.

That may be ambitious and idealistic (a possibility he acknowledges). There are some on the "scientific" side of things for whom atheism is the absolute price of admission to their club. They want no commerce with those who believe in any sort of God, or have any religious faith. To them, I suppose, one must say that since they cannot prove that God doesn't exist, that principle has become, for them, an article of faith. And by their own standards, no one else can be compelled to believe this.

Similarly, there are those on the religious side of the debate who refuse to accept anything other than the precise wording of the King James version of the Bible - in other words, that God created everything in six 24-hour days, etc., etc., etc., and anyone who believes anything else is a heretic. They posit that the world is only a few tens of thousands of years old, not millions or tens of millions of years old, as scientific evidence seems to suggest.

I had a professor in law school who believed this. He told our class once that he believed the planet was only about 40,000 years old. I raised my hand. "What about carbon dating?" I asked. "Doesn't that seem to prove scientifically that the planet is much, much older than that?"

"God is omnipotent," my professor replied. "He could certainly create the planet to make it look as if it were that old."

I raised my hand again. "Yes, but why would He?" I asked in all sincerity. "I mean, it's not as if He were pressed for time, or anything."

My professor ended the discussion at that point with a comment to the effect that this was a matter of faith. (And this was perfectly appropriate, of course - the discussion had been tangential to the topic of the class that day, and I am sure he didn't plan to let us take up the entire class time on this point.)

The larger issue to me, as I have indicated here on other topics, is that if one believes God is the Creator, then anything that can be proven scientifically must be (again, to the believer) of divine origin. To me, that should translate to a fearlessness in pursuing theories like evolution, natural selection, etc. If it is false, that will come to light eventually. And if it is true, then what is to be feared about it?

I can - and will write more about this. I also hope to make reference to some good discussion of the issue in the recent press. For now, please read the article linked above. It's a long article, and an interesting one. Enjoy.

Welcome to my newest little one

2005-08-20T07:47:00.000-05:00

I am delighted to announce the birth of my litle daughter Celeste Sophia - who was born on July 19th - my 44th birthday! (I still can't get over that.) She was 8 days early and a perfect, healthy little girl, for which I am extraordinarily grateful. My husband and I are blessed.

I don't expect anyone to be reading this, given how sporadically I have blogged for the past few months. But that's ok. I blog mostly to record my own observations in any case. And I wanted to commemorate Celeste's birth here in some fashion!

Nevertheless, I expect to start blogging again with some regularity soon.

In the meantime, I am toasting moms everywhere - and us "older" moms in particular!

Yes, I'm still here - and still fuming

2005-06-30T21:10:00.000-05:00

Anyone who is a university professor knows that the end of the semester is a crazy time. Thus, from mid-April through mid-May, I was consumed with finals, grading papers, exams, etc. And thereafter, I had to kick into high gear for three solid weeks of doing workshops in entrepreneurship. Whew! And after that, I started having pre-term labor contractions - at 32 weeks along in this pregnancy.

Oy vey - it's been a tough couple of months.

There are so many things I've been wanting to blog about - most notably the three U.S. Supreme Court cases decided in the past month. But those will have to wait. However, for the moment, at least, I have a post from my Townhall Soapbox. That will have to do. (And as soon as this baby is born, I'll have 12 blissful weeks of maternity leave. I intend to do nothing besides take care of our newest little one, try to lose pregnancy weight, and blog!)

And now for something completely different (with apologies to Monty Python):

I was listening to Rush today, and he was playing excerpts from miscellaneous Dems' reactions to President Bush's speech on Tuesday night. They are outraged - outraged, I tell you! - that the president dared to connect the events of September 11, 2001 and the war in Iraq.

It's just like their purported indignation at Karl Rove's comments about liberals not supporting aggressive (read "military") responses to 9/11.

Well, they have to act outraged and indignant, now, don't they?! Because they know full well that Americans will rally behind whatever is necessary to avenge 9/11 and prevent another one. They don't want the footage of 9/11 shown on network television anymore, because they think that Americans are so stupid that we won't make the connection between the terrorist attacks on Americans here, and the conduct of the terrorists (uh -- the MSM calls them "insurgents") in Iraq.

Yes, it was so easy to stand on the Capitol steps and sing "God Bless America," wasn't it? But that's pretty much the extent of the liberal Democrats' commitment to the War on Terror, isn't it? Isn't that what they point to when they huff and puff about anyone "questioning their patriotism"? But it's all blather, smoke and mirrors. After all, what exactly have they proposed that we do?

They don't want us in Iraq, they don't want enemy combatants held in Guantanamo Bay. They don't want Americans to notice that the 9/11 attackers, the persons being detained at Gitmo, and the bloodthirsty individuals attacking GIs and Iraqi civilians (including children) all across Iraq claim the same loyalty (to Al Qaeda), purport to practice the same "religion," [placed in quotes out of respect for peace-loving Muslims everywhere], use the same tactics, and espouse precisely the same objectives.

Bush has never said that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks. Those of us with memories longer than a fruit fly's know this. What he has said is that the same people who attacked us here were - and are - being harbored and supported there. And this has been proven true, over and over again. He also said (famously) that if we do not fight the War on Terror on our terms and their turf, then we will be fighting it on their terms and our turf.

The Dems know all of this, of course. And they are wailing and gnashing their teeth not because it isn't true, but because it is, and Bush knows it, and the majority of American people know it, and because the Dems have absolutely nothing to offer as an alternative in the way of policy. (Damn those terrorists, anyway! If it weren't for those blasted Islamofascists, we could still win elections using race-baiting, discredited Marxist economic theories and class warfare!)

And guess what? Boo hoo! This doesn't bode well for them in 2006, much less 2008. But they don't want you to notice this. So like spoiled toddlers, they think they can deflect attention away from the truth by throwing a collective temper tantrum.

Waaaaa-a-a-a-a-a-ah. We're not stupid. And we're not buying it.

John Paul II, Rest in Peace

2005-04-02T19:41:00.000-06:00

He has been the only pope I can really remember - the Pope since I was a senior in high school. He was respected and loved. He combined orthodoxy with compassion, political savvy with apostolic leadership. He feared no issue, no debate, no political ideology, no government - not even those who wished him dead. He was a lion among men, and a saint even among popes.

He will be sorely missed. May God bless and guide the cardinals who must now choose his successor.

The aftermath of Terri Schiavo, part I

2005-04-02T06:11:00.000-06:00

As I have mentioned before, I am a weblog contributor to Townhall.com, and frequently post there - mostly brief comments and references to other Townhall commentators and columnists. But every now and again when my post is a long one, I will cut-and-paste it here, too. Here's yesterday's:

You heard it here first

There have been so many astute and accurate observations about the Terri Schiavo case posted on Townhall over the past couple of weeks. It is important not to lose sight of the battles that are forthcoming that will still need to be fought, and why. The reactions to the Schiavo case demonstrate this. Let me offer just a few examples:

On March 24th, Peggy Noonan wrote in her column on OpinionJournal online (linked through Townhall):

"I do not understand the emotionalism of the pull-the-tube people. What is driving their engagement? ... Why are they so committed to this woman's death? ... What does Terri Schiavo's life symbolize to them? What does the idea that she might continue to live suggest to them? ...Why does this prospect so unnerve them?"

Fair questions. Thomas Sowell, in his column posted on Townhall on March 24th, gave some of the clearest and most concise reasons why the Left was salivating (if you'll excuse the metaphor) at the prospect of pulling Terri's tube, and so adamant that she must die. He said:

"Terri Schiavo is being killed because she is inconvenient to her husband and because she is inconvenient to those who do not want the idea of the sanctity of life to be strengthened and become an impediment to abortion. Nor do they want the supremacy of judges to be challenged, when judges are the liberals' last refuge."

And today, he is proven correct. In an article published by LifeSiteNews.com, it states that Planned Parenthood offices in Florida e-mailed their supporters, asking them to write and thank the Florida legislators who voted to refuse to intervene to save Terri Schiavo's life. Ask yourself - why would Planned Parenthood have any vested interest in the life of a severely disabled woman who certainly needed no advice or services in the area of "reproductive rights"?

Relatedly, I and others here have remarked time and time again at the idiocy of those who insist that "government shouldn't get involved," as if a judge, a court system, and a police force aren't arms of government. When interviewed by David Bereit, a director of the American Life League, a Florida Planned Parenthood representative who sent out the e-mail said:

"I think probably the majority of our supporters feel that there should not be government intrusion, that the court should be the ones handling this issue, as it has, and so that's why I did it."

Duhhhhh.

And last week, I predicted that, now that we as a nation have accepted the courts' power to starve a disabled individual to death, the next step would be calls for faster and "more merciful" methods than the two weeks it takes someone to die by starvation and dehydration. Specifically, the way I put it was:

"There have already been scads of doctors and nurses who have attested in news articles that death by starvation and dehydration is NOT 'painless.' A few more Terri Schiavos, and we will begin to hear the drumbeats for methods that are in fact 'quicker,' more 'merciful,' and genuinely painless. And then, the lethal injections will start."

I was off by a bit. Just three days ago, an editorial by Radley Balko appeared on FoxNews.com, in which he says:

"Death by starvation might be the most excruciating kind of death imaginable. ... What’s most troubling about this case is the way we’re letting Terry Schiavo die. There’s no need for her to starve to death. ... For the sake of argument, let’s assume that Terry Schiavo had a living will, and that it explicitly said she’d have no desire to be kept alive in the condition she’s in today. In theory, her doctors could put a solution in her IV drip that would end her life peacefully, painlessly and quickly. In theory, doctors could do that for any terminal patient who’d rather die than battle on. But in our twisted conception of medical ethics, that wouldn’t be acceptable. 'First, do no harm' makes passive, undignified, and sometimes painful death by starvation, dehydration, or asphyxiation the norm. It makes measures that could bring a quicker, more peaceful death a crime. What in the world is wrong with us? We treat convicted murderers better than this. Most states now understand that state-sanctioned killing ought to be merciful, brief and painless. Most use lethal injection. But we can’t extend that same consideration to the most helpless and vulnerable among us. That, apparently, would be unethical. ... It’s time we stopped mingling our morals and our medicine."

Balko not only assumes away the very legal issue at stake (Terri Schiavo's complete lack of a written advance directive), but also criticizes the first - and some would say paramount - element of the Hippocratic Oath, and argues that medicine should be divorced from morals. If this is the direction that the medical community is headed, then it is even more important that there be serious reforms in the legal system - starting with the courts.

Terri Schiavo dies

2005-03-31T09:48:00.000-06:00

After years of trying, Michael Schiavo was finally successful at killing his wife. And he would not even let her parents and brother be with her when she died. I cannot think of enough bad things to wish upon him, that sadistic son of a bitch.

And please spare me the criticisms that the above is not a "Christian" sentiment. Says who? Sometimes people deserve the epithets levelled at them.

In this country, we chop babies up into pieces and starve disabled people to death. I am completely disgusted.

Pro-lifers - this is a chance not to be missed

2005-03-26T22:37:00.000-06:00

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.

Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945

When I was a law professor living in Michigan in the 1990's, I became heavily involved with the movement to defeat the assisted suicide initiative that was being placed on the Michigan ballot. I was largely involved via a number of Catholic organizations. But one of the most active groups joined with us was Not Dead Yet, a disability rights organization.

As part of that consortium, the assisted suicide ballot initiative was defeated. And in the process, I learned plenty - about disabled people's viewpoints, about hospice, about palliative (pain-relief) care for the terminally and chronically ill. It was an education that has stayed with me and shaped my views to this day. Some said then that the alliance of pro-life Catholics and disability rights advocates was an uneasy one. I didn't see why then - and I still don't see why now.

And yet over the past few days I have read article after article written by advocates for the disabled that bespeak the same discomfort now. The Not Dead Yet crowd is incredibly nervous about being aligned with "the Christian right" in opposing the starvation and dehydration of Terri Schiavo.

Don't take my word for it. Here's a great link to a number of articles - and they all say the same thing:

http://www.notdeadyet.org/ (Scroll down to the links below the header which reads, "SCHIAVO: PUBLISHED OPINION from the disability community")

And here's why - in one article from the Boston Globe, reporter Nina Easton interviews Diane Coleman in the following exchange:

Disability rights groups have struck an uneasy alliance with Christian conservatives and are prepared to use the partnership to press for broad legislation restricting the ability of families to remove life-sustaining treatments from patients unable to communicate their wishes.

'Both sides of the culture war want to make this about their issues,' said Diane Coleman, whose group, Not Dead Yet, was named for the same refrain in the movie 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail.'

Disabled-rights supporters 'as a whole lean toward being prochoice' on abortion, Coleman said, but worry about protecting individual rights of incapacitated people who might be considered a burden to both relatives and authorities. Coleman added that the partnership with Christian conservatives is 'very awkward.'"

Fascinating. And that's why I included the Niemoller quote at the top of this post.

I remember very well that in the pro-life movement thirty years ago (and during all the decades since), those arguing against abortion said that once courts could declare unborn children "non-persons" for purposes of letting other people kill them, it would only be a matter of time before those same arguments would be used against others - the ill, the disabled, the elderly.

Apparently, the disability crowd didn't get the message. But maybe they get it now.

Guess what? Now they're coming for YOU.

But this is not a time to say "we told you so." This is an opportunity for those on the side of life to reach out to the disabled, the ill, the elderly, the vulnerable. Life in all its imperfections (and we are ALL imperfect in one way or another) is deserving of RESPECT, is worthy of PROTECTION, is inherently of VALUE.

If advocates for the rights of the disabled can get over their love affair with abortion, perhaps they will be able to see that the alliance with pro-life Christians and like-minded others is a natural alliance, not an uneasy one.

Quotes to remember about the Schiavo case

2005-03-26T21:42:00.000-06:00

Some of those who have written about the Schiavo case in recent days and weeks have summed up the situation beautifully. A lot of those writers have asked, in one form or another, the question, "Where are the liberals, those self-proclaimed defenders of the weak, the forgotten, the oppressed, the downtrodden?" I have decided to post excerpts from those articles I have found.

From Thomas Sowell:
"Terri Schiavo is being killed because she is inconvenient to her husband and because she is inconvenient to those who do not want the idea of the sanctity of life to be strengthened and become an impediment to abortion. Nor do they want the supremacy of judges to be challenged, when judges are the liberals' last refuge."

From the Independent Women's Forum:
"'We are appalled that the Florida courts have not removed Mr. Schiavo as Terri’s guardian,' says Nancy Pfotenhauer, president of the Independent Women’s Forum. 'There is an inherent conflict between the interests of Mr. Schiavo, his live-in girlfriend, his children with this woman, and the needs of his wife. Given this conflict of interest, it shocks the conscience that Mr. Schiavo still controls whether Terri lives or dies.

'All organizations that claim to speak for women should be outraged at this injustice. Effectively, Terri is being sentenced to an early grave because her husband would prefer her death to a divorce,' Pfotenhauer continued.

'Why is there no outcry from so-called women’s organizations about Terri’s rights? Where are N.O.W, the Feminist Majority, the National Council of Women’s Organizations and the National Women’s Law Center in defending her?' Pfotenhauer added."

From Eric Cohen in The Weekly Standard:
"Procedural liberalism (discerning and respecting the prior wishes of the incompetent person; preserving life when such wishes are not clear) gave way to ideological liberalism (treating incompetence itself as reasonable grounds for assuming that life is not worth living). ...

A true adherence to procedural liberalism--respecting a person's clear wishes when they can be discovered, erring on the side of life when they cannot--would have led to a much better outcome in this case. It would have led the court to preserve Terri Schiavo's life and deny Michael Schiavo's request to let her die. But as we have learned, the descent from procedural liberalism's respect for a person's wishes to ideological liberalism's lack of respect for incapacitated persons is relatively swift. Treating autonomy as an absolute makes a person's dignity turn entirely on his or her capacity to act autonomously. It leads to the view that only those with the ability to express their will possess any dignity at all--everyone else is 'life unworthy of life.'

This is what ideological liberalism now seems to believe--whether in regard to early human embryos, or late-stage dementia patients, or fetuses with Down syndrome. And in the end, the Schiavo case is just one more act in modern liberalism's betrayal of the vulnerable people it once claimed to speak for. Instead of sympathizing with Terri Schiavo--a disabled woman, abandoned by her husband, seen by many as a burden on society--modern liberalism now sympathizes with Michael Schiavo, a healthy man seeking freedom from the burden of his disabled wife and self-fulfillment in the arms of another."

From Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal online:
"I do not understand why people who want to save the whales (so do I) find campaigns to save humans so much less arresting. I do not understand their lack of passion. But the save-the-whales people are somehow rarely the stop-abortion-please people.

The PETA people, who say they are committed to ending cruelty to animals, seem disinterested in the fact of late-term abortion, which is a cruel procedure performed on a human.

I do not understand why the don't-drill-in-Alaska-and-destroy-its-prime-beauty people do not join forces with the don't-end-a-life-that-holds-within-it-beauty people.

I do not understand why those who want a freeze on all death penalty cases in order to review each of them in light of DNA testing--an act of justice and compassion toward those who have been found guilty of crimes in a court of law--are uninterested in giving every last chance and every last test to a woman whom no one has ever accused of anything.

There are passionate groups of women in America who decry spousal abuse, give beaten wives shelter, insist that a woman is not a husband's chattel. This is good work. Why are they not taking part in the fight for Terri Schiavo? Again, what explains their lack of passion on this? If Mrs. Schiavo dies, it will be because her husband, and only her husband, insists she wanted to, or would want to, or said she wanted to in a hypothetical conversation long ago. A thin reed on which to base the killing of a human being."

And here's an interesting one. If the disabled gay community has to complain, the liberal abandonment is complete, is it not?

From Not Dead Yet's website, a statement from Disabled Queers in Action:

"MARCH 23, 2005 4:30 a. m. -- In a 2-1 decision, the court ruled early this morning that Terri has no right to eat, thus no right to live. Although our justice system presumes innocence until proven guilty, Terri has been tried and convicted without any charges against her -- for the capital offense of being disabled. Society and the courts have deemed her "better off dead than disabled". America was built upon presumed checks and balances, yet for people with disabilities like Terri, those balances failed again and again.

Today is one of the darkest hours in disability history for three reasons:

(1) This is a civil rights issue.

Let's answer the following logic puzzles to determine various civil rights.

a. If "B" is an African American, should she be denied food and water because of her race? Yes or No. NO of course not.
b. If "I" is a woman, should she be denied food and water due to her sex? Yes or No. Absolutely NOT.
c. If "A" is an alleged criminal, should he be denied food and water because of his legal status? Yes or No. NO- that is cruel and unusual punishment-he is not yet proven guilty.
d. If "S" is a mother with 2 children, should she be denied food and water because of her being a mother? Yes or No? That is absurd.
e. If "E" is 18 years old and just coming out as gay, should he be denied food and water because of his sexual orientation? Yes or No? Even the most radical antigay person would say no.
f. If "D" is disabled, and thus can not speak, should she be denied food and water? Yes or No? According to the court's illogical rulings, the answer is YES.

Solely based on her perceived disability, she was denied the rights afforded to other classes of people. The court deems her 'non-human' and thus will not feel pain to not eat or drink. Does anyone know with 100% clarity that Terri will not feel anything or even wants to die? Oddly enough for 15 years without any life supports, she continues to live. She deserves food, water, and civil rights.

Research shows that non-disabled people and medical professional devalue the quality of life of disabled people, yet the court took only the word of non-disability experts-those who historically have devalued people like Terri. Those 'experts' the court deemed more reliable are exactly those that research demonstrates devaluing people with disabilities.

(2) There was 'reasonable doubt' on Terri's wishes and conflicting testimony from her husband.

In 1993, he won $750,000 to care for Terri by promising to bring her home and care for her. "She's my life and I wouldn't trade her for the world. I believe in my marriage vows." Yet after he received the money, he started living openly with a fiancee and has fathered two children by her.

After this malpractice award, he refused to allow even the most basic rehabilitation and then requested court authorization to starve her to death.

At the 2000 trial, Schiavo suddenly remembered that Terri would not want "to live like that."

The court-appointed guardian ad litem found that Schiavo had a conflict of interest, since he would inherit the money intended for her care. Upon Schiavo's request, the judge dismissed the guardian and never appointed another! Terri Schiavo has had no representation ever since.

Over $500,000 of the money intended for Terri's care has been spent on lawyer fees trying to have her killed. $400,000 has gone to the traveling "better dead than disabled" lawyer.

(3) She has never been judged by a jury of her peers -- which would be people with disabilities.

The courts in essence used Jim Crow methods -- non-disabled people to judge, assess, and condemn her.

Not Dead Yet's briefs with more than 26 disability groups fell upon 'deaf' judicial ears.

Today is the 6th anniversary of my mother's death. She too was declared 'in a vegetative state" like Terri. Yet for the three months in the hospital with this diagnosis, the medical staff nagged us daily to 'pull the plug'. However my mom made clear her wishes and kicked out her abusive husband without any of our family there -- the nursing staff called us to inform us how my mom cussed him out and told him to never visit again. Then she went back to "sleep". When we saw her that day, she smiled, spoke about her kicking him out, then back to "sleep". She hung on, in various ways, until she decided to die -- after everyone in our family visited her and told her she was loved, and we respect her decisions, whatever they were.

No one knows exactly what Terri is thinking or feeling, but it's clear -- she has an amazing power to hang on to life without any 'life supports'. She is not terminally ill except for the court's ruling. Why can't we give her the benefit of the doubt, and follow the logic that she should not be killed for the crime of being disabled?"

Yet another of my posts from Townhall.com's weblog

2005-03-26T21:33:00.000-06:00

Since I seem to be doing a lot of my writing for Townhall at the moment, I am cutting and pasting again. It occurred to me this evening that a lot of non-lawyers might well be asking, "Why aren't any of these judges and courts doing anything for Terri?" So I decided to try to answer that question.

Standard of review is no standard at all for Terri Schiavo

What a lot of people do not understand about what's been happening with the Terri Schiavo case over the past week is related to what is commonly known in the legal process as the "standard of review." This relates to the criteria that appellate courts use to evaluate what was done at trial. And what most people also don't know is that it is very, very difficult to overturn the decision of a trial court.

Thomas Sowell alludes to this in his recent column, when he argues that you can't claim Terri's case - including evidence that was excluded during the original hearings - has been "heard" by a large number of judges, as some claim. In fact, what has happened - over and over again - is that the other courts, using some version of the standard of review, have refused to reexamine the case.

There are a number of different applicable standards - too complicated to go into here - but suffice it to say that an appellate court will not overturn the factual findings of a trial court unless they represent "clear error". (Or, when a jury is involved, if the verdict of the jury is "against the manifest weight of the evidence.") And just so you know how tough a standard that is to meet, you need only read a batch of appellate cases (as everyone who has been to law school and practiced law has to have done), to see over and over again that appellate courts will say, we cannot overturn the factual findings of the trial court even if we, with the same evidence, would have found differently.

This has nothing to do with the Schiavo case in particular; it is the standard operating procedure for appellate courts in general. In general terms, it is simply very difficult to win on appeal if you lose at trial. (And this is despite what Hollywood would have you believe from films and TV.)

The decisions that Judge Greer in Florida state court has made - that Terri Schiavo is in a persistent vegetative state, that she expressed her intent not to be kept alive - even with basic nutrition and hydration - these are not determinations of law; these are findings of fact. And it is precisely for that reason that no other courts have been willing to step in and overrule Judge Greer. It is also why those of us who understand the legal process in detail have held out little hope for any turnaround in this case on the part of the judiciary.

This is also why Congress drafted the "midnight statute" granting the federal court subject matter jurisdiction to hear Terri's case de novo - in other words, as from the beginning. (Congress - and only Congress - has the Constitutional authority to give the federal trial and intermediate appellate courts their subject matter jurisdiction.) Congress recognized that without some special grant of authority, the federal courts would do just what the Florida appellate courts have done - which is defer to the findings of fact made by the trial court judge - in this case, Judge Greer.

And even despite this grant of Congressional authority, the federal district court (in an opinion written by Judge Whittemore) refused to reexamine Terri's case.

That has left Terri's family with few legal options, except to ask the trial court - i.e., Judge Greer - to revisit his own findings of fact, by showing that they have new evidence, of Terri's condition, of improper or inadequate diagnoses, of her expressed intent to stay alive. But, as Judge Greer has demonstrated over and over again, trial judges are not eager to overturn themselves, either.

So, what we have left, as I have indicated in previous weblog posts, is a situation where the original findings of fact - that Michael Schiavo is a proper guardian, that he has Terri Schiavo's best interests at heart, that Terri Schiavo is in a "PVS," that she wants to be starved and dehydrated to death - are all but carved in stone.

The standard of review is intended to preserve the integrity of the trial process, acknowledging that appellate courts do not get to hear testimony, see witnesses, evaluate their demeanor and their credibility. All sensible. But this standard leaves no protection for someone like Terri Schiavo, who was unrepresented by independent counsel at trial, and whose "guardian" is the very person she needed to be protected against.

Jurists March Us Cheerfully Down the Slippery Slope

2005-03-24T07:08:00.000-06:00

I posted on Townhall's weblog today (where I am a contributor), and the post was so long that it occurred to me it really belonged on my own weblog. So here it is, reproduced in its entirety.

As an attorney and a former law professor, I have never been so disgusted with the legal process in my life. By that, let me be clear - I mean the court system. Throughout nearly twenty years of being an attorney, I have always defended "the process," even when I disagreed vehemently with the results. But that is because the process, to me, always seemed to have a certain basic integrity.

The Terri Schiavo case has changed all of that. I have heard the most appalling lack of concern for basic legal procedures on the part of Judge Greer in Florida state court - such as excluding evidence that tends to discredit Michael Schiavo as a dispassionate guardian of his wife's best interests (as if his living situation and his spending her rehabiliation money on his legal fees isn't enough), refusing to order basic medical tests, refusing to hear any new evidence at all. But the worst part of all is rendering a decision - that Terri Schiavo "wants" to die by two weeks of starvation and dehydration - despite her lack of any written directive or will, on the basic of an alleged comment she made in passing to her husband after watching a movie. Nothing in writing. No witnesses. You would think, then, that the only person - the only witness - who could attest to such a statement would have to have profound credibility, and no conflicts of interest, in order for the court to starve and dehydrate someone to death on the basis of his or her testimony.

But you would be wrong. Instead, the Florida court has taken the word of a philandering, adulterous bigamist with a financial incentive to see his "wife" dead, and called that "legal process." And as Ann Coulter points out beautifully in her column today, everyone - from the Florida legislature to the federal district and appellate court, to journalists across the country - is falling all over themselves calling for respect for that decision under the guise of "the rule of law" and "states' rights."

Although support for letting Terri Schiavo starve and dehydrate to death comes mostly from the left (who, it must be noted, would not be frothing at the mouth with respect for a Florida court's decision if it permitted parents to prevent their teenage daughter from getting an abortion, or ordered Intelligent Design to be taught in tandem with evolution in public schools), it does not come entirely from the left. In fact, a significant number of conservative commentators have expressed support for "letting Terri die," including (today) Neil Boortz.

They offer different reasons. Some echo the "states' rights" argument. Neil Boortz argues that those who believe in eternal life should be comforted at the notion that Terri would be going home to God.

What rot. I rarely find myself at such odds with conservative commentators, but that is the biggest bunch of garbage I've read so far. If we believe in eternal life, then why not kill a lot of other people, for a lot of other reasons? I can see it now: "My father has Alzheimers" Well, you believe in God, don't you? "My mother has a brain tumor." Ah, well, there's always eternal life. "My brother was paralyzed in a motorcycle accident." He'll be whole again, in Heaven.

Two days ago during Rush Limbaugh's program, he asked, "where will we go next?" I can tell you where we're going next. There have already been scads of doctors and nurses who have attested in news articles that death by starvation and dehydration is NOT "painless." A few more Terri Schiavos, and we will begin to hear the drumbeats for methods that are in fact "quicker," "more merciful," and genuinely painless. And then, the lethal injections will start.

Oh, but don't worry about that, the advocates for starving Terri (like Michael Schiavo's attorney George Felos) will say. This is a liberty interest. A matter of personal freedom. We're only going to kill those who have said they want to die. Uh-huh. With no better evidence than that produced in Judge George Greer's kangaroo court.

But there's more. There will be people - plenty of them - who are sick, or disabled, and who will, in fact say that they "want" to die, because they fear becoming a burden on their families. An emotional burdern. Or perhaps a financial one. The pressure is already mounting from all sides. In fact, information was released this week that now says the Social Security system will go bankrupt a year earlier than was previously anticipated. And in response to rising health care costs, there is an increasingly loud clamor (from the left, of course) for "single-payer" (read "government-controlled") health care. So, then the government will decide what treatment you merit? Who lives? Who dies? And what it costs?

Doesn't the confluence of all of these trends bother anyone? It damn well should. The slippery slope has never been laid out for us so clearly. Or so closely.

But this is the root of my disgust with the court system in the Schiavo case. Because historically, even if the "average Joe" didn't see the impending threats to his life or liberty on the horizon by what seemed (at the time) to be a banal case, jurists always did. That's their job. And they would seek to protect against government incursions against those liberties in the way they decided those cases.

But no more. The Florida courts, and the federal courts that have participated in Terri Schiavo's case have abandoned that esteemed tradition. And they should all be ashamed. More to the point, they should be afraid. Because what will come next will be worse. And they, unlike the protestors outside Terri's hospice, unlike Governor Jeb Bush, unlike this Congress, and unlike President Bush, will have to view themselves as complicitous in the impending erosion of the rights and protections for the elderly, the sick, the dying, the disabled, and the vulnerable of all stripes.

I can't speak for the medical profession (although I am sure there are those that can), but I think this is a sad day for the American legal profession.

FoxNews poll shows Americans side with Michael Schiavo

2005-03-05T11:36:00.000-06:00

Depressing. Completely depressing. But understandable, I suppose. FoxNews has just released a poll which shows that a majority of Americans (59%) would remove Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. Even more (74%) say that they would want the feeding tube removed if they were in Terri Schiavo's position.

And this, I think, is what is driving the poll numbers - people are trying to figure out how they themselves would feel if they were completely incapacitated. And for most people, the prospect seems horrifying - to be trapped in a body that no longer functions, with a mind that no longer functions, or (worse yet, in many people's minds) with a mind that does function.

I am sympathetic. I can completely understand this perspective. I might even share it. But it doesn't negate the points that I was making earlier. First, that Michael Schiavo has abdicated whatever rights he once had to determine what is in his "wife's" best interest. He has too many conflicts of interest.

And second - and this is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING. No one - no spouse, parent, family member, friend - should have to be in the position of guessing what a loved one would want in Terri Schiavo's position.

If 74% of the American public would want nutrition and hydration removed were they in Terri's shoes, then I sure hope that that 74% of the population has a living will.

Well? Do you?

Wild horses could drag me into liberals' camp...

2005-02-26T12:42:00.000-06:00

Oh, how I love it when an issue comes along that makes me jump the political fence. It doesn't happen very often, so it's great fun when it does.

I read a news story on MSNBC recently that disturbed me a great deal. Apparently, an old law that protected the American West's wild mustangs from slaughter has recently been repealed, leaving thousands of them now subject to being killed for horsemeat.

You've got to be kidding me. Is this the best we can do?

Wild mustangs aren't like grizzly bears or mountain lions, which, magnificent animals though they are, pose a danger to humans if there are too many in proximity to towns and cities. Nor are they like deer, which proliferate like mad, and are (unfortunately) rather dumb beasts with a propensity for running out into traffic.

Wild mustangs are, like bald eagles, one of the most powerful and majestic symbols of the American landscape. And now we want to slaughter nearly 10,000 of these gorgeous creatures?

For Heaven's sake, America. We decimated the buffalo population. We wiped out the carrier pigeon. We brought the bald eagle to near-extinction. Haven't we learned our lessons yet? I am all for farming and ranching, but surely it isn't necessary to slaughter our beautiful mustangs to accommodate more cows.

What's Wrong with Judge Greer?

2005-02-25T07:31:00.000-06:00

Like a lot of others, I have been following the Terri Schiavo case with interest for months now. But during all of the legislative, executive, and judicial tapdancing about whether Governor Jeb Bush could step in, whether the so-called "Terri's Law" was unconstitutional, my mind was elsewhere.

And now, it seems - finally? - the attention has come to the issue that has baffled me for months: Why is Michael Schiavo still Terri's guardian? Why was he ever named her guardian? Why has he not been removed as her guardian and someone else replaced? What's the matter with Judge Greer that he has been unwilling to do this?

As an attorney - and one who has served as a court-appointed guardian ad litem ("guardian at law") years ago, I know that it is not uncommon to have family members named as guardians in cases involving disabled loved ones. But I also know that, whether the named guardian is a relative, spouse or stranger, they must have the represented individual's best interests at heart, and can have no conflict of interest.

Michael Schiavo fails this test on multiple counts.

First, there are allegations of possible spousal abuse. It remains to be seen whether this can be proven from the bone scans and the investigation that the Florida Department of Children and Family has asked for. But I don't think it's necessary to prove that to disqualify Michael as Terri's guardian.

Years ago, Terri won a jury verdict of at least several hundred thousand dollars, which was to have been used to support her and provide her with rehabilitative care. After a brief aborted effort, Michael Schiavo abandoned all attempts to rehabilitate Terri, and the rest of that money is just sitting there. And this despite the testimony of numerous doctors who attest that at least some improvement in Terri's condition is possible. Who gets the money if Terri dies? As surviving spouse, Michael does. This is a clear-cut conflict of interest. Why is Judge Greer overlooking this?

And this brings us to another matter that Judge Greer seems completely unwilling to consider. Is Michael still married to Terri because he loves her? Clearly not. He has long since abandoned her, taken up with another woman and fathered two children with her. So why not divorce Terri? Because then he wouldn't get her money when she dies.

Michael claims that he is fighting this battle to preserve his wife's wishes. Garbage. If he really loved her, he would have spent every dime they were awarded on her care and rehabilitation. He would not have gotten involved with another woman and started another family. And if he were even just a garden variety sort of cad, he would have quietly divorced her, turned her assets over to her parents who want desperately to care for her, and moved on with his life.

But Michael Schiavo is not a garden variety cad. He is the lowest sort of creep. It isn't enough to cheat on his disabled wife. He won't rest until he has her killed and takes her money. And he wants the sanction of the legal profession on this.

And this person is the individual that Judge Greer continues to prop up as Terri's rightful guardian? The one that the legal system claims is best positioned to protect her interests? We know what kind of person Michael Schiavo is - now the question is, what kind of jurist is Judge Greer?

It is often said that "hard cases make bad law." Some say that the Terri Schiavo case is a "hard case." As an attorney, I don't think so. Under Florida law, Terri could have, if she wished, made out a living will and other corresponding legal documents that told medical care professionals she would not wish to receive nutrition and hydration if she were ever in the state in which she is now.

But she did not do that. And so the Florida legal system is scrambling to try to figure out, after the fact, what she would have wanted.

The legal answer to this question should be simple - either you provide written documentation of your wishes in advance, or the law will protect you - and others like you - by keeping you alive. If you find that prospect horrifying, well, that's an added incentive to get your paperwork in order.

Anything else opens up the horrifying prospect we now see playing out in Terri Schiavo's case - elderly, sick or disabled individuals unable to defend themselves against people trying to kill them who have a financial interest in doing so. As an attorney and a judge, Judge Greer should see this as the horrible precedent it is.

Judge Greer should remove Michael Schiavo as Terri Schiavo's guardian immediately, and without further delay.

I'm back, after a long hiatus

2005-02-25T06:32:00.000-06:00

I am finally able to post again, after about three months away. Funny how that coincides almost precisely with the first trimester of the pregnancy I am currently in.

Yes, that's right, folks. We have another one on the way. And although I was sick when pregnant with my second son, it was nothing like this. Forget blogging - it was all I could do to hold body and soul together, hold down a job, keep a house, care for a husband and a toddler. Thank God for Zofran - that's all I can say. It's an antiemetic (that's anti-vomiting for the rest of you lucky people) drug that is frequently given during chemotherapy, and they are having some success using it to treat morning sickness. (By the way, who coined that phrase, "morning sickness," anyway?? How about "all-day-every-day sickness"?)

Anyway, I am back now, and hope to begin doing regular posts again. I know it will take awhile for my former regular visitors to drop by again. That's ok.

Pornography and proof

2004-11-19T13:22:00.000-06:00

Happy day - the scientific proof just keeps on coming in. (As they used to say in "The X-Files," The truth is out there.) Now will anyone listen?

Here is a great article which describes testimony before Congress yesterday about the effect of pornography on the human brain. According to Dr. Mary Ann Layden, who is co-director of the Sexual Trauma and Psychopathology program at the University of Pennsylvania, it has much the same effect as addictive substances like heroin and crack cocaine.

Another witness, Professor James Weaver of Virginia Tech, was quoted as saying:

"We're so afraid to talk about sex in our society that we really give carte blanche to the people who are producing this kind of material."

Uh. Not exactly. There can be all kinds of talk about sex - as long as it is the right kind of talk - which means, of course, glorifying multiple partners, advocating promiscuity and lack of commitment, handing out condoms to adolescents, mocking abstinence and monogamy, nudge-nudge-wink-winking about infidelity and adultery, and generally refusing to make value judgments about the type and nature of sexual activity in the name of "tolerance," "diversity," "equality" or (worse yet, in the case of youth) "education." And of course - holding up the Holy Grail of abortion as the consummate fallback position.

What people are afraid to do, is to speak up against these messages about sex. To do so is to risk being labelled old-fashioned, Puritanistic, fundamentalistic, extremist, bigoted, discriminatory, judgmental, uncool and anti-intellectual.

But as I continue to maintain, if something is true, then it ought to be scientifically demonstrable. If pornography is destructive, then we should be able to get psychological and sociological data to that effect. Sounds to me like the evidence is starting to come in.

Call me "anti-intellectual," if you will; it's hard to argue with facts.

Well, gee - young girls acting like whores - and you're surprised?

2004-11-18T17:45:00.000-06:00

I'm currently working on a long post that discusses (further) the implications of adults acting like adolescents - and the fact that this forces children to act like adults. Or, more accurately, to confront what should be adult issues which they are not emotionally, physically or psychologically prepared for.

While I am working on that, here's a link you might want to check out in the same vein:

http://www.pittnews.com/1vnews/display.v/ART/2004/10/28/418044f26b3ae

The article describes the rise of the preteen female "playa" (think "player" said with a thug accent) and "pimp." As you'll read, very young girls have taken the message of the extreme left feminist movement and Planned Parenthood to heart, to wit: sex has no meaning outside of power, boys use you for sex to have power, you are equal to boys, you too can use them for sex to have power. (Unspoken, but obviously behind all of this is that abortion is a fallback for unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy.)

So 13-, 14- and 15-year-old girls are now having sex with guys for pocket change and car rides. They pride themselves on their callous attitude about sex. And about their number of conquests. Even on the same day. And sexual assaults of boys by girls in schools has become an acknowledged problem. I did not say sexual harassment; I said sexual assault.

And - *gasp!* - Planned Parenthood is suddenly aghast. Why? Because, they say, of the rise and spread of sexually transmitted diseases among teenagers and pre-teens, many of which cause infertility later in life. (What's the matter, PP - you afraid all that infertility is going to cut down on your business?)

Recall that I had a long post about the connection between promiscuity and infertility some time ago here.

Read the whole article. It's disturbing. Of course.

I'll have my own post up by this weekend.

The election: it was really about adolescents versus grown-ups

2004-11-08T15:39:00.000-06:00

Oh, how the talking heads have been all abuzz for the past week. Bush was reelected!? And got a majority of the popular vote? Look at that swath of red! What could it all mean?

According to all news reports, the stunned Democrats (with the exception of dashing newcomer Barack Obama) have fallen back to regroup, lick their wounds, and try to figure out how on earth they could have lost despite two candidates with great hair, millions contributed by bored billionaires, major television and newspaper installations willing to shill for their side, a parade of rock stars and Hollywood actors, an army of academics and other intellectuals, and a one-man propaganda machine armed with a Palme d'Or.

A post-election poll seems to indicate that a majority of Americans thought the most important election issue was so-called "moral values." This has provided what is fast becoming the latest "conventional wisdom." If you're a Republican, that translates to: Religious Americans came out in record numbers! Americans are opposed to gay marriage! Voters reject the Democrats' vision for America! Hooray for our side!

And if you're a Democrat, this apparently translates to: Right-wing nutcases came out in record numbers! Red-state denizens are homophobic, gay-hating bigots! And/or too stupid to understand the Nazi ambitions of the Republicans! We're smarter, more sensitive, smarter, more creative, smarter, more tolerant - and did we mention smarter? It's Gavin Newsom's fault. And the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Hooray for our side! Now let's all move somewhere else before the Inquisition starts. But where? Someplace liberal. How about the Netherlands? (Well, gee, then Michael can't go.) Canada then?

I hate to be the one to rain on everybody's parade and/or pity party, but I think both sides have oversimplified the election results. As David Brooks remarked recently, "moral values" could mean anything you want it to. And it does not explain the large number of people who voted for Bush, including Libertarians and those who do not view themselves as particularly religious. A more accurate way of phrasing it, in my opinion, is that "moral values" are simply a subcategory of the larger debate that determined this election.

In my view, this election was about grown-ups versus adolescents.

This is both good news and bad news. Unfortunately for the Democrats, my take on things is still mostly bad news for them. But the good news for the Democrats (if they'll listen, which I doubt) is that it will be bad news for the Republicans if they blunder badly by misunderstanding the mood of the 58 million-plus that voted for Bush this time.

The Democrats are losing elections because they have become the party of perennial adolescence. Note I did not say "youth." An "adolescent," as defined by the American Heritage Dictionary, is "a young person who has undergone puberty but who has not reached full maturity." And Merriam-Webster online defines "adolescence," as "emotionally or intellectually immature."

One need only look at the Democrats' conduct after the election to see what I mean. Sullenness, moping, melodramatic posturing, temper tantrums, profanity, threats, name-calling, ridiculous and baseless accusations, insults, insults and more insults, and threats to leave the country. If you've ever raised a teenager (for that matter, if you've ever been a teenager), this conduct should seem painfully familiar. It's as if every left-leaning citizen of this country got grounded by their parents, screamed, "I HATE YOU!" and stormed up to their rooms in a fit of pubescent pique.

But the larger issue is the nature of the Democratic Party's positions in general. Which is to say, the platform they were running on during the election. Because it was this that the American public rejected. And will continue to reject.

Before we examine the specifics, let's consider the general differences between adults and adolescents: Adults make responsible decisions. And take responsibility for their decisions. Adults pay their bills, and don't ask others to pay those bills for them. Adults appreciate the difference between self-sacrifice and self-indulgence. They also understand the difference between liberty and license.

Adults understand that actions have consequences, and adjust their conduct accordingly. Adults might well expect polite tolerance for their differences - whatever those are - but they do not need others' approval. Adults don't mind making unpopular decisions, especially where other people's well-being is concerned. For that matter, adults don't need to be popular. Or "cool." Adults understand that all too often, the people deciding what is considered "popular" or "cool" are just using a crowd to hide their own insecurity.

Adults are capable of having a conversation - or an argument - without resorting to insults, profanity, baseless allegations or nonsequiturs. Adults aren't interested in how many parts of speech one can create using the word "f**k." Adults have long since realized that their generation did not invent the various methods of sexual congress, and so they do not need to flaunt their personal predilections in other people's faces.

Adults also understand human nature. They know that when people are offered something for free, they'll use more of it, whether they need it or not. They grasp that some people are unreachable through reason, and must simply be avoided or protected against. Adults understand the difference between prudence and cowardice, between caution and corruption. Adults understand that the truth is not always a matter of opinion.

So - in that vein, what policies did the Democrats run on? What are their messages?

1. They want ever-higher taxes for those who produce, grow businesses, create jobs. And as if that weren't bad enough, insult - literally - is added to injury by demonizing these people as "greedy," "selfish," or "exploitative."

2. Those taxes are necessary to fund social programs that undermine restraint and reward destructive behavior.

3. They want to teach your school-age children sexual license with no consequences. Sexually-transmitted diseases are simply a failure to spend enough of your tax dollars on research, or to distribute enough condoms. Abortion is a backup for unintended pregnancy. Abstinence is unrealistic. Everyone's doing it. All sexual activity is equal.

4. It is not enough if you have gay friends and/or family members, love them, support them, would be perfectly happy to see them in committed relationships, have no objection to however they wish to convey their property, create a power of attorney, or designate a beneficiary. You must approve of their sexual activity. You must teach your children about their sexual activity. You must pay taxes so that government schools can teach your children about their sexual activity (in a value-neutral fashion, of course). You must subordinate your belief in God, your faith and your responsibilities to your children, to adhere to their dictates.

5. For that matter, Democrats insinuate that if you believe in God, and try to conduct your affairs accordingly, you are an ignoramus, a Neanderthal, an inbred retard. (Unless, of course, the only thing you use God for is to be non-judgmental or to justify higher taxes for social programs. In which case, that's okay.)

6. Despite the exposure of all of the lies that gave rise to abortion in the first place, and in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence of the humanity, the separateness, the development of the unborn human child; despite exposure of the barbaric brutality of all methods of abortion; despite the growing number of women who admit that abortion was disastrous for them, Democrats scream shrilly that killing her unborn child is a woman's civil right, if not the high water mark of her identity.

7. They insist that African-Americans cannot perform at the same academic levels as whites, Asians or other minorities, and that they must be held to lowered standards. Then they call those who believe in the unlimited potential of all children "racists" and "bigots."

8. They think you can believe bullies who promise not to hit you again as long as they can extort something from you, or if you're willing to sit by while they attack someone else. And they purport to trust the United Nations to protect our security despite its historical reluctance to make decisions, its vacillation in the face of slaughter, its under-the-table deals with despots, and its corruption.

And as if further proof were needed that the Democratic Party is the party of adolescence, just look at the way the campaign was run. Hey, lookie here! Rock stars! Wow - a guy who makes movies! Here's good idea for a "get out the vote" effort - let's encourage people to have lots of meaningless sex with registered voters.

Pathetic.

The thing is, in a booming economy, in peacetime, facing no threats from without, Americans are a live-and-let-live enough bunch that they are willing to tolerate a bunch of adolescents running things.

But this is a war, folks. Time to put the adults in charge.

Were "moral values" an important issue? Of course they were. But the larger issue is that we are under attack. If Republicans understand those things, they will remain the party in power.

And if the Democrats don't like that, and want to change it, then I have just two words for them:

Grow up.

Legal protection for life: "tenets of faith" versus scientific truth

2004-11-05T11:17:00.000-06:00

I have been meaning to comment for some time about Senator Kerry's frequent admonition that while he believes certain things as a member of the Catholic Church, he cannot "legislate his morality" or "impose those beliefs" on persons who are not members of that faith. This is the bait-and-switch that is often used by pro-choice Catholic politicians (and probably pro-choice politicians from other faiths as well) as a reason why they do not advance or support legislation to protect unborn children from abortion, human embryos from stem-cell research, or the elderly or sick from euthanasia.

There are any number of gaps in this argument, all of which are large enough to drive a fleet of tanks through. Here are just a few:

1. This is a straw man argument most notably because all law is a reflection of a moral judgment. Something as apparently secular as having red, yellow and green lights at traffic intersections reflects a moral judgment. Not just about the niceties of order or taking turns at intersections. But because lack of such order will result in injury and loss of life - something we decide, morally, is a "bad" thing.

2. This is further demonstrated in that a whole host of other laws, all of which reflect moral judgments, do find support amongst "pro-choice" politicians. Laws against theft, for example. (Unless the government does it in the form of taxation or eminent domain. But that's a topic for another day....) Are politicians and legislators unwilling to create or enforce laws against theft, because they legislate morality?

3. Furthermore, these same politicians and legislators explicitly refer to "morality" when arguing in favor of economic policies. And in so doing, they often cite the very "authorities" (the pope, the Vatican, prominent religious philosophers or Protestant ministers) whose religious beliefs they disdain in matters of personal or sexual morality.

4. But the most important reason that the whole I-can't-impose-my-religious-beliefs-on-others argument regarding abortion turns on the distinction between a statement that is purely a matter of religious belief (or what I have called a tenet of faith), and one which is demonstrably - even scientifically - true, from which certain legal or moral positions can be derived, regardless of one's particular religious faith, or lack thereof. This is an oft-overlooked distinction, but a terribly important one.

Since Kerry is a Roman Catholic, it is instructive here to compare these two types of principles in the context of Catholicism. (Side note: I would welcome information on comparable principles from other faiths!)

A tenet of the Catholic faith - which is to say, a belief unique or distinctive to the Catholic faith - would be something like transubstantiation: the belief that the ordained Roman Catholic priest presides over the transformation of the bread and wine at a Catholic Mass into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ. Or the belief in the inherent and eternal sinlessness of Christ's mother Mary, which Catholics refer to as the "Immaculate Conception." Or the related belief that Mary's body, by virtue of having been a vessel of God in the form of Jesus Christ, was incorruptible even after death, and thus did not decay, but was assumed intact into Heaven.

Such beliefs are tenets of the Catholic faith, and as such only Catholics are asked to believe them. Therefore, it would be sensible for a Catholic lawmaker to state that he or she would not draft or support legislation which required all Americans to adhere to such beliefs, any more that he or she would support legislation that required belief in Odin, or the existence of Nirvana (the state of being, not the band), or practices of ancestor worship.

But there is a vast difference between those beliefs, which are matters of faith and scientifically unprovable (at least at this juncture), and principles which have a basis in scientific fact.

The terms "embryo," and "fetus" are simply designations for what are undeniably, scientifically, human beings at a particular stage of development (just as we might say, "baby," "toddler," or "teenager" at later stages of development). So, too, is someone who is chronically or terminally ill, or simply old, still scientifically a human being.

In other words, Catholic Church (to use, again, Senator Kerry's religion) does not ask Catholics to believe that human beings in an embryonic, fetal, diseased or geriatric state are human beings simply because it says so, despite the absence of scientific proof. Quite the contrary, in fact. The Catholic Church recognizes the scientific reality of the human being.

Pro-choice activists have tried to deceive the public on this point, originally referring to unborn children as only "products of conception," or a "cluster of cells," (each one of us is a cluster of cells) or "uterine contents," as if this disproved their humanity. This is scientifically false. And as with all scientifically false statements, was disprovable, and has been disproven. As have the claims that human beings in the fetal stage of development do not have brainwave activity, feel pain, move, smile, sleep, etc. Ultrasound and other medical advances blew a hole through those fallacious claims.

From there, then, pro-abortion activists and their pawns in public office have attempted to make distinctions between types of human beings - those that get legal protection for their lives, and those that don't. They argue as if such distinctions are commonplace in our legal system.

While such distinctions have been and are made, they are the exception to the rule, and have been shameful and/or hotly contested, and I would bet that most pro-abortion activists don't want to be associated with them. Slavery was just such a stain on this country's past. Slaves were not defined as non-humans; just humans that didn't have the same legal protections as other people. Similarly, people convicted of heinous crimes and given the death penalty are deprived of their lives by the law.

Do abortion activists really want to associate themselves with this precedent? Does John Kerry? I doubt it.

But that's the only legal precedent they have to stand on. Because otherwise, in our legal tradition, all human beings, regardless of their state, stage, or condition of life, are entitled to a certain minimum of legal protection.

It is important to note here that law and morality intersect most closely at a level created to ensure minimum standards of behavior. (Some would argue that the Ten Commandments are a good reflection of such an intersection. ) Beyond that rock-bottom level of basic decent conduct, however, the law rarely ventures. There, in the aspirational realm, morality holds more sway.

Thus we view the purpose of the law as to insist upon certain minimum standards of conduct. And while it is true that these standards of conduct do reflect a moral judgment (it is bad to injure others, it is bad to kill, it is bad to steal, it is bad to make promises and break them); they could just as easily be discerned through the application of self-interest. In other words, I don't kill because I don't want to be killed; I don't steal because I don't want anyone stealing from me; I don't stab someone with a knife because I don't want to be stabbed with a knife.

Such promises reflect a social compact as much as they do a moral judgment. We insist upon certain minimum standards of conduct from others that mirror our own desires and fears. The law - at a minimum - enforces that social compact.

The legal protection of all human life is one of the most fundamental principles of American law. Indeed, I would argue that it is the most fundamental principle, since nothing else comes into play without it.

Laws protecting human life, therefore, simply acknowledge the scientific reality of the human being, and impose a corresponding necessary minimum standard of conduct (do not kill) required for a civilized society. There is a fundamental truth present in such laws. And religions whose beliefs match these laws do so by virtue of their commitment to that same truth, not some aspirational morality or unique, obscure religious tenet.

If belief in the basic legal protection for all human life were merely a tenet of Catholicism, you would not expect to see this belief outside the Catholic faith. (Just as you do not find many other Christians who adhere to the Catholic belief in the infallibility of the pope on some matters, in transubstantiation, the Immaculate Conception or the Assumption.)

But the fact of the matter is that belief in the necessity of giving legal protection to all human life is not limited to a particular religious tradition. Or even to people who follow any religious tradition. (Here is a good article in that respect.) This isn't surprising, given the self-interested nature of such laws. (And the fact that one can find religions which or individuals who do not advocate protection for human life does not disprove it. You can find pockets of people who don't believe in all kinds of scientifically demonstrable facts.)

So here's the bottom line: It is specious for John Kerry or other politicians to claim that support for laws which protect all human life is purely a matter of religious faith. It isn't. And they know it. Now you do, too.

The next generation of Democratic voters???

2004-11-04T11:35:00.000-06:00

I asked in the last post where the Democratic Party will get its supporters, assuming (as I do) that they continue their heedless march leftward.

Here's my take on it...

People in recent months have speculated about the so-called "Roe effect" - the theory that pro-abortion Democrats are in essence killing off their future base by aborting their own children. I think this theory is nonsense. Its underlying assumption is that pro-abortion parents are more likely to raise pro-abortion children. But this ignores the ugly reality that, over the past thirty years, a huge percentage of pro-life parents have raised pro-abortion children. How did that happen?

The answer to that question is also the answer to where the ultra-Left Democrats are going to get their future base. They don't need to have their own children. Because they have yours.

They control the media, they control the entertainment business, and, most significantly, they control the content of the government schools and most colleges and universities where you are sending your children to learn.

Let me be clear who I am speaking about here. I am not talking about your local Democrat state representative, senator or precinct committee chair. I am not talking about your garden-variety schoolteacher or administrator. And I am certainly not talking about the average American who votes Democratic. I am speaking about the elite, the privileged few, the self-appointed "visionaries" behind the scenes.

These "visionaries" of the Left are not worried about the party losing this or that election. Nor are they in a lather to "pull Right." They believe - and I think they are right - that the real battleground for hearts and minds is NOT in the polling booths, but in the books your children read, the music they listen to, the actors and singers they idolize, and in what they learn in school.

And the messages they want your children to be taught are crystal clear: Belief in God is anti-intellectual. There are few rules (except for the ones they make up from time to time). There is no such thing as truth. All morality is relative. Sex should be easy, casual, devoid of emotional commitment and divorced from its consequences. Everybody's doing it. The worst sin is to be "judgmental." Disapproving of anyone's conduct on moral grounds is discriminatory, ignorant, bigoted, and possibly even criminal. Killing your children is, alternately, a civil right, a blithe choice, an unfortunate necessity, a way to be cool, a joke (read the lyrics to one of popular singer Usher's latest songs), or even a sacred ritual.

According to their view, America is not a bastion of freedom and opportunity, a country whose sons and daughters have been willing to fight and die to liberate others, but an evil oppressor of the poor, and an exploiter of other countries. Freedom and opportunity are illusions. Tolerance for diversity is the only universal value (as long as it is not a conservative or traditional viewpoint that is being tolerated). Corporations are not the greatest distributors of wealth in the history of human civilization, but the root of all evil. Entrepreneurs and innovators are not creative people who have raised the standard of human living all over the globe, but are greedy, selfish robber barons. Private property and ownership should be regulated, heavily taxed, minimized, or abolished. Big government is the answer to all human problems. And they, of course, should control the government. (As you might have noticed after Election Day, Left-wing intellectuals are all in favor of "the people" deciding, except when "the people" decide differently than they would have them do.)

These leftist ideologues, like many revolutionaries, are patient. They know that they do not have to change their views to appeal to those of us who see their lies for what they are. We will grow old and die. In the meantime, they have enormous control and influence over what our children believe. Those are tomorrow's voters. And they have tomorrow's voters in the palms of their hands.

Many have complained over the past few decades that movies and music have become insipid, profane, excessively violent, and sexually depraved. And that schools have abandoned the real work of education, and replaced it with brainwashing, intimidation and indoctrination. Do you think this is an accident?

So - Election 2004 is over. Now what? For those of us with children, the stakes have never been higher. Here are my suggestions. Some are doable for everyone, some are not. But everyone with an interest in their children's future should be able to do something.

1. First and foremost, take control of your children's education. This means doing your homework. As follows:

(a) Know everything you can about the programs and activities sponsored at your children's school, the texts used, the classes taught. Don't be fooled by bland names like, "Safety training" or "health education," which can be masks for social or moral indoctrination with which you don't agree. Ask to preview texts to be distributed, or insist that the school have screenings of new educational films for parents in advance.

(b) Read your children's textbooks when you help them with their homework. Be on the lookout for fallacies, specious arguments, unprovable assertions (especially social and political ones) and subtle - or even overt - attempts to politicize the class content. Point out bias and falsity to your child. (It is a good thing for children to learn to question what they read, in any case.)

(c) Become an active member of your PTA/PTO.

(d) Run for the school board.

(e) If you can't do that, then at least involve yourself in the election and operation of the school board. Know every single issue that comes before the board each year. Attend as many school board meetings as you can. Many parents who attend school board meetings are shocked to discover the policies that are being considered and implemented.

(f) Push for charter schools and for vouchers in your state. These allow lower-income parents to choose better public schools or even private schools for their children.

(g) While we're on the subject, don't assume that because the school you've chosen is private that your children are receiving an education that is consistent with your values. Your chances may be better, but there is no guarantee. The major difference is that if you challenge a practice, text, course or program in a private school, you are not being forced to take on the state government, and so you have a much better chance of making your case successfully.

(h) If you're considering a private school for your children, Don't be afraid to check out schools with a religious affiliation that is different from your own. I have (for example) many Protestant and Jewish friends who are quite comfortable sending their children to Catholic schools. They simply do not participate in the religious instruction.

(i) Then of course, for the most ambitious among us, there is always the option of homeschooling your children. But whether you choose this option or not, support homeschooling in your town or city however you can.

(j) Finally, rigorously screen any college or university that your child is interested in attending. Do not assume that because it is highly ranked, the education your child will receive there will be excellent. At most highly-ranked colleges and universities, an excellent education (and by that I mean challenging, rigorous, and devoid of vapid sociopolitical indoctrination) is still possible, but it will depend on the major, unit, or program in which your child ultimately enrolls. Engineering may be outstanding, while sociology is a joke. Determine what your child's academic interests are. Get information about the school's programs in that area. Read the course descriptions. (You'd be surprised how much you can determine just from the title of the courses.

2. Second, you need to protect your children from the all-out media assault on your values that permeates our culture.

(a) Listen to the CDs they want before you allow them to purchase them. (You can usually do this at most record stores and bookstores that sell CDs.) You can also look up the lyrics on the internet.

(b) Don't let your children see R-rated movies. Go to PG-13 rated movies before they do, or read reviews in reputable media outlets.

(c) Limit your children's exposure to TV. Ideally? Throw out your television. Prime-time television has virtually nothing to offer children and adolescents. And while there are some wonderful channels on cable, a lot of it is garbage. Have family book, game or puzzle night instead.

(d) And while we're on the subject of cable television, call your U.S. senator or Congressman and ask him or her to sponsor a bill that would allow consumers to purchase only the cable channels they want. Can you imagine what control this would give parents over their children's exposure to unwanted content?

(e) Treat TV, music and computers in other people's homes the way you treat guns in other people's homes. Call the parents of your childrens' friends and ask - do their children have a TV in their room? Cable? Or a computer? Ask what controls they have on their computer, or how they monitor their childrens' channel surfing or computer use. If the answer is that they don't, or they don't know, or they're otherwise vague, or defensive, or for any reason you're not satisfied with their answers, then insist that the children play at your house, or else they don't play together at all.

All of this takes work, admittedly. But the question is not whether your children will learn their values, but what values they will learn, and when, and how, and in what context, and from whom?

Will your children learn the truth? Or falsehoods? Will they get their values from you? Or from someone else? Will the left-wing ideologues be able to make your children easy prey for their lies, deceit, manipulations and distortions?

Will they be able to create the next generation of angry, dissolute, profane, amoral slobs who vote the way they're brainwashed to? Or are you going to do something about it?

Political post-mortems: Now what for the Democrats?

2004-11-04T06:21:00.000-06:00

I am trying to get up at ridiculous hours of the morning and blog. We'll see how this goes. But it doesn't do me much good to send out my blog address to people if I'm only going to post monthly. So I'm going to try for something a bit more frequently, but still doable. Weekly, perhaps? Or even twice a week. My problem, of course, is that I am an editorial writer, really, and so just posting a snippet with a cross-link or two just doesn't cut it for me. I am used to sitting down for an hour or two, composing my thoughts and writing them down.

So those of you who have taken the time to visit here, bear with me! I will do the best I can to write as much as I can. I'd like to make it worth your while to type this URL into your web browser.

Ok, that nonsense being dealt with, let's get on with the business of political post-mortems.

I reviewed Instapundit yesterday and came across guestblogger Michael Totten's list of links to left-wingers' blogs, where some prominent (at least in the blogosphere) Kerry backers offered their reactions to Bush's reelection. I went to every single one and read each one's entry for the day. What an education that was. I have never read such a pile of stinking vitriolic slop in my life. Think of it as the web-browsing equivalent of being in that Chicago sightseeing boat that passed under the bridge just as a tour bus opened up its sewage storage tanks. Insults, profanity (of course - always profanity), condescending and degrading remarks. Those who think you can "reach out to" people like this are deluding themselves.

And let's be clear about just who is being degraded and insulted here. Bush and Republican politicians? Of course. But that's not the real story. It is those of you who comprise the 54 million-plus Americans who voted for Bush. Most (not all) of the people writing the entries on the blogs I read yesterday loathe you with a fanatical hatred that makes Osama bin Laden and Al-zarqawi look like a couple of Mormon missionaries.

Describing them doesn't do them justice. Here's the link to the Instapundit archive where you can read them yourself. Scroll down until you come to the November 3rd entry that begins with the title, "Left Wing Blogosphere Reactions." Do yourself (and me) a favor and peruse a few of them before you continue here ....

...

Now then - let's ask ourselves a couple of questions. Do you really think that there's going to be any "healing" for people like that in this country over the next four years? I personally believe that millions of people voted for John Kerry because they are good, decent people who are frustrated with the economy, feel angry about being in a preemptive war in Iraq, and were desperate to believe someone who said he had a "plan" to fix those and other problems despite the fact that he was less than forthcoming about what those "plans" would be, exactly. People who fall into that branch of the Kerry camp are reachable. They are open to argument, receptive to facts. I am not referring to them.

But the "elites" - the media, Hollowwood, and the self-proclaimed intellectuals in our country will never relinquish their death grip on hatred and fury. In terms of "reaching out" and "healing," they are a lost cause; don't waste your time.

Having said that, however, there are things that can be done. In that vein, I was listening to Sean Hannity interviewing Newt Gingrich last night, and Sean asked what direction the Democratic Party would take, given its sound trouncing at the polls two days ago. Sean and Newt discussed various options - would the Dems try to pull back to the center? Would they abandon their ultra-left trajectory? Would they try to change their message to re-appeal to their traditional base (farmers, union workers, middle and lower-middle-class Americans)?

Here's my opinion: No way.

Any current pragmatic party leaders are facing the greatest challenge of their political careers. Because the Dems have become the party of irate, populace-loathing "intellectuals" and Big Lefty Money (George Soros and Hollowwood), they have sold their souls to a group of people whose two major issues are unabashed Marxism and abortion. They cannot, at this point, come back to the center, because to do so would be to lose their wealthiest, most vocal, and most active supporters. This is what I meant when I said in yesterday's post that the Democratic Party has lost the South for good, and that organized Labor would not be far behind.

That's why you will never, ever see the Democratic Party put up candidates like Zell Miller or Joe Lieberman for president. Their biggest backers hate virtually everything that traditional Democrats like that stand for.

So where is their future support going to come from?

My views on that question in the next post.

Observations about the election ...

2004-11-03T10:43:00.000-06:00

There are a number of things that I think can be said about the 2004 election at this point. These are not in a particular order of importance:

1. President George W. Bush was diplomatic and gracious in his not calling the election until John Kerry conceded. Yes, his operatives spoke, but he waited behind the scenes.

2. John Kerry was gallant and statesmanlike in conceding in the face of (admittedly overwhelming) evidence that there were no statistical chances that counting provisional ballots in Ohio (or any other state) would make any difference at all. Some may challenge me on this, but I think it is a point worth mentioning. After the 2000 election, the contentiousness of this campaign, and the "hordes" of attorneys poised to challenge any apparently questionable result or practice (not to mention the shrill threats and exhortations by the left-wing PACs and 527s), I think all of us can easily contemplate John Kerry or his advisers having made a different decision. I would submit that his conduct today is more "presidential" than anything he did during his entire campaign.

3. The Electoral College is a vibrant and necessary device in our representative democracy. One need only look at the vast swaths of red, versus the tiny corridors and isolated pockets of blue, to see that from a geographical perspective, the Electoral College affords states with smaller populations the sort of voice and participation that does make - and should make - presidential candidates stand up and take notice. The popular vote, as significant as it is, should not be enough to elect a president. Let's hear it for the "winner take all" arrangement.

4. Fox News is, far and away, the best news organization of any of the major networks. I watched from 7:00 p.m. last night until nearly 3:00 this morning, and I was impressed with the entire panel. Brit Hume is the best news anchor on television. Last night he was thorough, suitably prudent and realistic. He governed his panel with a light but firm hand. Bill Kristol, Juan William, Mort Kondracke and Fred Barnes offered a broad spectrum of insights into positions and possibilities and did so without sounding insulting, condescending, or as if they were in shock or denial! (And we thought it couldn't be done.) Their observations were equally insightful, complimentary to and critical of both President Bush and Senator Kerry. They debunked the "exit polls" before any of the other major networks did. And Michael Barone deserves an MVP award for keeping up with and tossing out more statistical information on precinct demographics and voting projections than I thought was humanly possible.

Fox did all of this for hours without compromising the integrity of the polls that had yet to close, superimposing their personal political views on the election, or casting aspersions on members of the electorate with whom they disagree.

In sum, Fox demonstrated itself to be worthy of its oft-maligned slogan, "Fair and Balanced." Never has it been more obvious that they report and we decide. Bravo to that entire team.

5. Much has been made of Bush now having a "mandate," having garned both an electoral majority and a majority of the popular vote. With all due respect to this president, I think that is an overstatement, understandable as it may be in the heady rush of victory. What I think this election gives President Bush is legitimacy in the eyes of many of his detractors. Finally. Make no mistake, this is no small accomplishment. Some claimed that despite the contested election in 2000, Bush got legitimacy after 9/11. But as people like George Soros, Michael Moore, ACT-UP, Moveon.org and others made abundantly clear, a significant and vocal segment of the American population continued to believe that his initial election was "stolen," and his presidency was illegitimate. As such, they felt free to make the claim that his tenure was an aberration which this election would demonstrate not only to the United States, but to the world. They can still moan and complain about 2000, but their arguments will have lost all of their persuasiveness (if not their fervor) after yesterday. They continue to maintain these specious claims at the expense of their credibility.

6. And this is probably a good place to insert my observations about the media elite, intellectuals, Hollowwood (oops, sorry - Hollywood) and the Democratic Party in general. I have said this before (in my last post for example), but this election makes the point undeniable and unmistakable: the Democratic Party has lost its base. If, even in an election as contentious as this one was, with an economic struggle and an unpopular war and a bitterly divided electorate, the Democrats lose seats in both houses of Congress as well as the Presidency, something is desperately wrong. Look at the results:

(a) The Democratic ticket with a contender for Vice President from North Carolina cannot even carry that state for the presidency. Not only that, but the Democratic senate seat he vacates is filled -- by a Republican.

(b) The State of Louisiana - as traditionally Democratic as they come - sends a Republican to the United States Senate for the first time in the state's history. And, he garners over 50% of the vote in a three-way content, eliminating even the need for a run-off.

(c) The incumbent United States Senate minority leader is defeated -- for the first time in decades.

There are a lot of reasons for this, but the number one reason is that the Democrats have completely abandoned even the thinnest pretense of morality. By way of example, everything is negotiable with the Democratic Party except for abortion. The Democrats are in thrall to NARAL and NOW, and have never seen a reason to kill babies that they don't like. Abortion? You bet. For any reason? Sure. For all 40 weeks? Yup. Even if elective? Of course. Partial-birth abortions included? Partial-birth abortions especially. If a child happens to survive an abortion, we want to allow doctors to let that child die - or even take affirmative steps to kill it outside the womb. And while we're at it, let's allow criminals to attack pregnant women, gravely wound or kill their unborn children, and allow them to walk away with less of a penalty than they would have gotten for killing a beloved pet or taking out a mailbox. Oh yes, and let's not forget - let's spend taxpayers money to create and clone new, genetically distinct human beings and destroy them to harvest their tissues.

I could go on, but you get the idea. For the overwhelming majority of Americans, these are at best, issues fraught with deep emotional conflict and profound reservation, and at worst, grave evils. And science - that bastion of Democratic rationalism - rather than weakening the moralists' arguments, is only strengthening them, as ultrasound enables people to see unborn children in the womb, as viability is pushed to earlier and earlier stages of pregnancy, as fetal surgery offers hope in more and more cases of disabilities, as we learn more about the perils of cloning, and the genetic makeup of each human being.

And this is not even mentioning the issue of gay marriage, which brought so many voters to the polls yesterday.

Democrats ignore, deny and belittle the seriousness of these issues at their peril. And their ignorance (deliberate or negligent) is further proof of their staggering arrogance and detachment from reality.

This morning, I listened to Andy Cohut on NPR describe the Democrats' surprise upon discovering that, "moral issues were the sleeper issues of this campaign." I heard that comment with stunned amazement. If the Democrats thought that moral issues were sleepers, then they were absolutely not listening.

This, however, is not altogether surprising. Because guess what, middle America? Democrat higher-ups are not listening to you; they are listening to each other. When one examines Karl Zinsmeister's and Tom Wolfe's recent essays, it is abundantly clear that Democrats have become the party of entertainment and media elites who have long since ceased to believe that the rules of polite society or the tenets of stable families apply to them. And although it is bad enough that they conduct themselves with this sort of amoral abandon, this is made worse by the fact that that have the audacity to preach to the rest of us, and treat us like knuckle-dragging cretins for daring (duhhhhh) to think differently.

The Democratic Party has lost the South. For good. And although there are still pockets of loyalty in the Rust-Belt midwest, these are tied largely to labor. And as Reagan proved, labor votes also have core values to which Republicans, increasingly, can appeal. The South has fallen; Labor will be next.

And after that, I predict, the African-American vote. Forty years of blaming the "rich," insulting black potential, and snatch-and-grab tax policies with no accountability are starting to take their toll. Manifestly bad government schools in inner cities further weaken Dem's hold on black voters. And some commentators are saying that Democratic support for gay marriage will be the straw that breaks the camel's back here. I suspect that this is a ways away. But stranger things have happened. And as yesterday also proved, Democrats can no longer either count on African-American support, or win even when they have it.

7. Bravo, bravo, bravo to the American public. For coming out. For staying out. For speaking out. For the biggest voter turnout in years. Perhaps ever. Early, late, in the dark, in the rain. For voting quietly, calmly, without violence, vandalism (for the most part) or lawyers!

8. And a big raspberry to those members of the "international community" who thought they could influence our election by insulting us (the Guardian) or threatening us (OBL). We stick our collective tongues out at you. We offer a few other succinct gestures, as well.

We have much -- MUCH -- to be proud of here. And now, much work to do. Let's do it.;

I have known this for a long time!

2004-10-26T15:17:00.000-05:00

Well, well, well. People are starting to notice that Democrats are no longer the party of "the little guy," while Republicans' appeal is no longer limited to "the rich"? Check out this quote from Karl Zinsmeister's article in The American Enterprise:

Federal Election Commission data show that many of the very wealthiest political players are now in the Democratic column. Today's most aggressive political donors by far are lawyers--who donated $98 million dollars to 2004 political candidates as of June. (By comparison, the entire oil and gas industry donated $13 million.) And rich lawyers do indeed tilt strongly Democratic: 71 percent of their contributions went to Democrats, 29 percent to Republicans.

Migration of the rich and powerful to the Democrats has been so pronounced that Democratic nominee John Kerry has actually pulled in much more money than sitting President George Bush this spring and summer. Kerry's monthly fundraising totals have routinely doubled or even tripled Bush's totals. And the money on the Kerry side has come much more from rich individuals, while Bush has relied on flocks of small donors. So which is the party of the people now?

Read the whole thing.

Margaret Sanger and Alfred Kinsey: Cohorts in Depravity

2004-09-23T18:24:00.000-05:00

Two of the most depraved individuals whose stain needs to be removed from our culture are Margaret Sanger and Alfred Kinsey.

Today's Townhall.com has a great article by Mike Adams (I confess, one of my favorite columnists there) about Margaret Sanger, the "foundress" and patron taint of Planned Parenthood. As those of us on the pro-life battlefield know, Sanger was no friend of women, blacks, the poor, or children. Her writings rank right up there with the delusional rants of Joseph Goebbels. As with everything they do, Planned Parenthood has sanitized and sterilized Sanger's background and beliefs to make them palatable to the unsuspecting public.

I intend to read the book Adams refers to in his article today.

As far as Alfred Kinsey is concerned, the best resources available that I know of are available through Dr. Judith Reisman's website. You have to read her writings. You will not believe what Kinsey was allowed to get away with. Kinsey's work is even more sordid than Sanger's, and yet he is deified in academic circles. Not to be a plot spoiler, but here's a question that might provoke you into doing a bit of research on your own: didn't anyone wonder or question how Kinsey got information about 2-year-old children allegedly having multiple orgasms in 24 hours???

If you find that question - or its answer - appalling, then you owe it to yourself to check out Reisman's site. And spread the word. Thanks to Reisman's work, as well as a documentary called "Kinsey's Paedophiles" produced by British Television just a few years ago, Indiana University (the site of the Kinsey Institute) is feeling the heat. They have had to resort to claims that any "illegal" research was not done at the Institute. Well, I certainly feel better!

And now a new film about Kinsey starring Liam Neeson in the lead role is in production. You can rest assured that the purpose of the film will be to portray Kinsey as a cultural champion and an intellectual giant, instead of the deviant and fraud that he was.

Anyone with a shred of concern over the education of their children should bring themselves completely up to date on the real works, beliefs and writings of Margaret Sanger and Alfred Kinsey - the stuff that's hard to find. Not the prettied-up, edited versions that Hollywood and Big Media spew out.

Science in support of abstinence

2004-09-19T17:16:00.000-05:00

By way of reminder, my position in (and reason for creating) this blog is that science and religion should have an easier alliance, and that the most critical connection between the two is the pursuit of truth.

People of faith are frequently characterized in popular media as being indifferent or even hostile to scientific truths - as if they are inclined to believe things despite their being able to be disproven. As I have mentioned previously, this is not faith, but superstition.

And yet, in my observation, it is often people who purport not to subscribe to any particular religious faith (or, indeed, to have none whatsoever), and who also claim to worship only science, who have the greatest disregard for truth. As in scientifically demonstrable truth.

As I have argued here before (and will again), nowhere is that clearer than in matters of sexuality and popular culture. Abortion is perhaps the most extreme example. A human baby in utero is referred to - even in medical literature! - as a "product of conception" or "uterine contents." In no other context that I can think of is a human being treated like an inanimate object. Even when dead. (Can you imagine a funeral director asking the deceased's grieving family what burial outfit they would like to place on the "coffin's contents"?)

But many issues of sexuality as exalted by our culture are deceptions. And (as is so often the case), science is our ally here.

One could certainly derive the desirability of abstinence until marriage and monogamous fidelity thereafter from looking at medical risks associated with multiple sexual partners. The list of sexually transmitted diseases alone should be enough to prove the point that promiscuity is antithetical to human health. Syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes, the 60-plus strains of human papilloma virus (some strains of which manifest as genital warts, and at least two of which are linked to cervical cancer). And then of course, there is HIV/AIDS. In that case, promiscuity is death. Lovely stuff.

Those who advocate the sexually libertine lifestyles manage rarely to discuss this, except in conjunction with the discussion of teaching children to use a condom, or demanding government funding (read: more money from all of us) to find cures for things we wouldn't have in the first place if we weren't sleeping around.

Over 20 years ago, my mother related to me a conversation she had with a pathologist at a clinic in our hometown. He told her that he was seeing shocking numbers of cellular abnormalities in the pap smears of college-aged young women. He said that they had already had multiple partners by the time they were in their 20's, and that this was already causing problems with the cellular development in their cervixes. "The human female body is not made to have large numbers of sexual partners," he asserted. "The body begins to develop antibodies and reject sperm. Many of these young women are going to find it difficult if not impossible to get pregnant. We are going to see an epidemic of infertility in the next ten to fifteen years," he said.

Certainly, there are news articles all the time now about the rise in infertility. Some is no doubt attributable to women waiting until later in life to try to get pregnant. But how much? Is there a correlation between promiscuity and infertility? Is anyone even talking about it?

In this vein, there is an excellent article in the Spring 2004 issue of the Human Life Review. In his article, "The Supreme Court and the Assault on Marriage," Donald DeMarco (Professor Emeritus in Philosophy at St. Jerome's University, Waterloo, Ontario) uses immunology in support of his argument that marriage (and sex) is meant to be between one man and one woman, and that the expression "the two shall become one flesh" is not merely a theological statement, but also a biological expression of a scientific truth. The article is available online, but I want to excerpt a passage from his article here:

The contributions of immunology on the nature of two-in-one-flesh warrants further elaboration. Our immune system, certainly one of the great marvels of nature, equips us with 100 billion (100,000,000,000) immunological receptors. Each of these tiny receptors has the uncanny ability to distinguish the self from the non-self. Consequently, they are able to immunize or protect our bodies against the invasion of foreign substances that could be harmful to us.
Marvelous as nature is, it is never extremist. From a purely immunological point of view (from the standpoint of an all-out defensive strategy), a woman's body would reject the oncoming sperm, recognizing it as a foreign substance. But this is precisely the point at which nature, we might say, becomes wise. If our immune system regards sperm as a potential enemy, then fertilization would never take place, and the human race would have come to an early demise with the passing of Adam and Eve.
But something extraordinary occurs, which makes fertilization and the continuation of the human race possible. Traveling alongside the sperm in the male's seminal fluid is a mild immunosuppressant. Immunologists refer to it as consisting of "immunoregulatory macromolecules." This immunosuppressant is a chemical signal to the woman's body that allows it to recognize the sperm not as a non-self, but as part of its self. It makes possible, despite the immune system's usual preoccupation with building an airtight defence system, a "two-in-one-flesh" intimacy.
Isn't it plausible that a woman's receipt of immunosuppressant molecules from 5, 10, 20, 50 men would affect her immune system's ability to distinguish "self" from "non-self"? Isn't it possible that years of sexual activity with many sexual partners could render a woman either immunologically compromised, or else incapable of receiving a man's sperm once she decides she actually wants to conceive?

Yes, this is dense and complex stuff. It is difficult to understand. But it is the truth. And I don't hear about anyone adding this to the public school's "health" curriculum.

Who Do You Work For, Good or Evil? And How to Tell....Part 2

2004-08-01T09:33:00.000-05:00

Part II: Have you been educated? Or brainwashed?....

I know it's been a few weeks since I wrote Part I of this essay. But I want to take some time with this one, and time is a scarce commodity in my life these days.

Be that as it may, let's review here for a moment. I ended Part I by saying that the first thing to ask yourself in order to know if you're working for good or evil is whether or not you're telling the truth.

Sounds simple enough. But of course, it isn't. Over the past 40 years, the very idea of truth has been systematically attacked by our educational institutions. Students are no longer educated. They are indoctrinated.

To be educated is to be taught how to think. This means how to challenge, to question, to test, to prove and to disprove.

To be indoctrinated is to be taught what to think. This, of course, obviates the necessity of doing any of the above things.

As an initial matter, students are being brainwashed into believing that there is no such thing as truth. They are fed examples of how great thinkers, theologians and philosophers have been factually wrong on any number of issues. And these examples are used to shore up the idea not only that there is no such thing as truth, but that to believe in truth is to be "narrow-minded," "provincial," "judgmental" and (oh condemnation worse than all others) "intolerant."

So, in order to be tolerant, one must accept the proposition that Person A's "truth" is no different than Person B's "truth" - neither better nor worse. Just different. (There are all kinds of inconsistencies even within the faithful believers of this movement, but more on that at another time.)

The consequences of these teaching methods cannot be overstated. When young people are indoctrinated into believing that there is no such thing as truth, they are left completely vulnerable to every passing fancy, every dangerous falsehood, every specious argument. And they are utterly unable to defend themselves, argue against it, or attack it on its merits. No matter what they say, they are met with a "well, that's your opinion."

Having taught law at the graduate level, I was under the impression that this was limited to students who received degrees in the so-called "social sciences." (I say 'so-called,' because the methodologies I am referring to are the most unscientific possible.) I found out recently that I was terribly wrong.

I now teach an Introduction to Law class to undergraduates in engineering. Last year, during the first day of class, I asked my students whether some laws were more "valid" than others. And if so, on what basis one could make that determination? All of the students believed that some laws are valid, and some are not. But when pressed to say why, they could not. Or would not. The reason, I discovered, is because to do so would invalidate the ONLY tenet that they have been brainwashed to believe - and that is that there no such thing as "truth."

Everything in their world view was relativistic, a "matter of opinion." So, for example, if slavery was "wrong," it was because a majority of people thought so. "And if a majority of people come to think it's right, then is it?" I asked.

"And anyway," I continued, "who decided that what the majority wants is the right thing? Why shouldn't I make you all do what I want? By force, if necessary?"

Oh, they all disagreed with that, of course. Because force means violence, and pain, and death. And we can all agree that those are 'bad' things.

"Says who?" I countered. "I don't agree with that. And you've already told me there is no such thing as truth. That everything is relative and a matter of opinion. So it's only your opinion that inflicting violence and pain on others is a 'bad' thing."

I held up a black folder. I asked them, "Is this black?" One student said, "It's your opinion that it's black." Another said, "I feel that it's black, but I can't be sure. No one can ever be sure of anything."

I tried one last time. "Ok," I said. "Let's say you go to the emergency room with an enlarged appendix that needs to be surgically removed before it explodes. Do you want a surgeon who says, 'No one can really know if this is your appendix. Maybe it's your heart. Or your spleen. Or maybe I feel I can cure your appendix by taking out your brain.'"?

They just looked at me. Their positions could be debunked logically. But it didn't matter to them. These students were completely unable or unwilling to question or let go of an empty philosophy. They clung to it the way abused children continue to cling desperately to violent parents. And these, mind you, are science students.

This demonstrates the difference between education and indoctrination. An person who has been educated to believe a particular theory - as well as being taught a scientific method for testing and challenging that theory - will have no difficulty letting go of it once it has been disproven.

A person who has been indoctrinated, on the other hand, will be emotionally attached to whatever he or she has been brainwashed to believe. He or she will only let go of that belief with the greatest difficulty - if at all.

So you see, answering the question, "Who do you work for, Good or Evil?" is a bit tougher than you think.

I'm kind of on a roll here. So I think I will continue with Part III next time. In which we will assume (at least for the sake of argument, and ever finishing this essay) that there is such a thing as truth. And then move on.

Amy Richards and the Culture of Death

2004-07-24T08:16:00.000-05:00

I haven't had much time to blog lately. A busy one-year-old doesn't leave much time! And yet I wouldn't change it for the world. In fact, when we first got pregnant, I had hoped for twins. Oh, I knew first-hand how much more work that would be - my sister has twin boys. I have always referred to them as "a baby and a buddy." They seemed to come into the world pre-packaged with a friend for life. How lucky for them! And how lucky for their mom and dad.

Seems rather appropriate to start with that this morning, as I address the article "everyone's talking about" - the cold, calculating and murderous admissions of the (now) infamous Amy Richards in the New York Times a few days ago. You all know the story - she got pregnant with triplets - a set of twins and a "stand-alone" and opted to abort the twins and carry the third baby to term. The article is an abomination. Richards expresses no hesitation, no regret, no remorse. If she has any grasp of her others childrens' possibilities as human beings, there is no proof of it in her writing. Her tone throughout is whiny, smug, defiant and callous.

Her castrated boyfriend seemed to want all three children, but she dismissed that possibility out of hand, hissing that that would condemn her to a life buying big jars of mayonnaise at Costco. (I frankly think this whole article is an insult to Costco, and if I were the President of that company, I'd go on record saying so.)

Isn't that just peachy? A father has no rights - only responsibilities. He wants his children. But the woman's "choice" trumps everything else. But why should this surprise us? If these two childrens' lives don't prevail against her bodily discomfort and inconvenience (however severe), why on earth would a father's interest in his own sons andor daughters mean anything?

I can't add anything meaningful to the chorus of horrified voices that have spoken out about Ms. Richards' actions. But I do have a different perspective that I would like to add.

Does anyone wonder why The New York Times published this piece? Does anyone wonder why on earth Richards-the-Baby-Butcher wrote it? If abortion is supposed to be this deeply private decision between a woman and her doctor (*chortle, snort, cough, gag*), then why the hell does a women choose to publish that story in one of the most widely-circulated newspapers in the world?

Is it just because controversial stories sell more papers? I don't believe that for a second. Is it to provoke the ire of pro-lifers everywhere? Please. Pro-lifers already oppose abortion. And even under dire circumstances, such as the (admittedly rare) conception resulting from rape, or a severely-deformed child, the most consistent among us still maintain that abortion is the wrong response; that you don't punish a child for his or her father's sins; that you don't destroy a human being because he or she is less than "perfect." How much more, then, would your garden-variety pro-life American cringe at this story?

No, the purpose of the story is to create support for poor, poor Ms. Richards. And yet I wonder if it won't create precisely the opposite reaction.

In that vein, it's interesting to note what poll after poll is showing these days - that more Americans think abortion ought to be more limited than it is. Some polls show that a majority of Americans think abortion should be illegal after 20 weeks (or "viability," the definition of which continues to be earlier in the pregnancy, thanks to technological advances). And overwhelmingly, Americans do not support abortion for whimsical reasons like sex selection, or for minor problems like cleft palate.

But - even in these polls, the results seem to indicate that a majority of Americans are uncomfortable criminalizing or outlawing abortion in all cases - or very early in the first trimester. (New advances in ultrasound technology may change that collective view, as well.)

The point is that even the majority of those Americans who consider themselves "pro-choice" have limited - and even conflicted - support for it. And if you look at polls conducted over the past five years or so, increasing numbers of Americans oppose abortion in ever greater circumstances. And this is in spite of abortion's easy availability.

This terrifies the hard-line pro-abortion movement. They have always wanted complete support for abortion on demand for all 40 weeks of pregnancy. Knowing full well that they would not get this right away, they started with the "hard cases" - rape and incest. Then, it was for deformed or otherwise "imperfect" children. (After all, who would mandate such a hardship as caring for a "special-needs" child?) And whenever a child (or more than one child) would cause a possible detriment to a mother's health. Including, of course, "mental health." Or personal inconvenience. And then they threw the lovely slogan, "Every child a wanted child," at us. Oh, boo hoo. We are supposed to feel better because the mother had her child killed. And this is preferable than being born unwanted (whatever that means).

Some of the voices of the pro-abortion crowd are more forthcoming than others. The so-called "Center for Positive Sexuality" (thanks to Ashli from The S.I.C.L.E. Cell for pointing this one out) proclaims proudly that any reason to have an abortion is a good enough reason.

CPS may be one of the few that says it out loud. But their position is the ultimate goal of the pro-abortion movement. The first step was to get a large percentage of Americans to accept the inviolability of others' "choices." Having done that, they continue to try to whittle away at American' discomfort with certain types of abortions, or with abortions for certain reasons (viewed, perhaps, as frivolous).

There have been two ways to approach this. The first was by lying, dissembling, covering up the truth. There is no question but that the pro-abortion crowd has kept pregnant women and the American public at large deliberately ignorant about the number of abortions, the nature of the procedures, the percentage of late-term abortions, the level of fetal development, and other significant facts. But the testimony in the recent cases challenging the Partial Birth Abortion Act has made that a more difficult challenge.

So, the other approach has been to desensitize Americans to abortion - at all times, using any and all methods, and for any reason whatsoever.

It's the old "camel's nose under the tent" approach. Once you agree that an unborn child has no rights under the United States Constitution, once you agree that a woman's right to "privacy" encompasses her "right" to have her children killed, once you agree to the premise that one's "personal morality" cannot be legislated (the consummate absurdity) - you have lost any basis for objecting to any abortion at all.

The Richards piece is just the next link in a long, long chain. The purpose of writing it, and the purpose of publishing it, is to continue to push the envelope of acceptance for abortion.

But even if, as the polls cited above seem to indicate, Americans' support for abortion is waning, not waxing, the advocates of death will not be still. As many have already argued for years, it will not stop with abortion. If we are expected to be "tolerant" of a woman's unilateral decision to have a shot of potassium chloride administered to the hearts of two unwanted (but completely healthy) unborn children, then why not born but "imperfect" children? Why not Grandma, suffering from Alzheimers'? Why not Uncle Carl, paralyzed in a motorcyle accident? Why not Mom, who is incontinent?

We are becoming a nation of nice Nazis. "Nice," because we presently couch our decisions to terminate people's lives on high-minded premises like being deformed or unwanted, rather than racial supremacy or lebensraum. And (in the case of the so-called "right to die" movement) on apparently compassionate grounds like "a life worth living" or "ending someone's suffering."

Oh, how dare you draw that comparison!, the death advocates charge in a fit of false indignation. The eugenics and genocide policies of the Third Reich were imposed from above! Against people's will! While we, only do away with the unwanted! We harvest their tissues not to make lamps, but to help the disabled! And we enlist the support of the doomed in their own demise! And even where they haven't spoken their intent to die, we have self-interested, unfaithful spouses, ready and able to testify in court on their behalf!

I am not persuaded. The spirit of the Nazi death camps is alive and well in this country, insidiously pervading every aspect of our culture like smog. We've been living in it for so long that we can't even see it anymore.

We already have hundreds - perhaps thousands of our own Mengeles. They are in my town and yours - the doctors willing to cut little babies up into pieces.

We have the political supporters - the Democratic Party has sold its soul to the pro-abortion movement, and virtually no one in it has the balls to stand up to them anymore. (And I am not exonerating the "pro-choice" Republicans, either.)

For those who need religious sanction, we have some established American churches which have come out in favor of "choice."

We have a well-oiled propaganda machine. Witness the New York Times - and 90% of the rest of the media. (Go ahead and try to name five newspapers from major cities that have a stated pro-life editorial position.)

Why, we even have our very own crematoria!

It's true that we don't have Hitler. But with people like Amy Richards, we don't need him. For the moment, anyway, we seem to prefer to create our Culture of Death from the ground up.

... and my response to my friend

2004-07-01T22:48:00.000-05:00

You know, one of the things that I think needs to be mentioned is the frequent use of the Bible quotation, "Judge not, lest ye be judged." My (now former?) friend closed her last e-mail to me with that quote.

I see it used all the time by people who want to hide behind it - to avoid taking a position on a controversial topic. Sort of like, "Abortion? I'm personally opposed, but I wouldn't impose my morality on anyone else." If there's nothing wrong with abortion, then why be personally opposed? It's like being personally opposed to spaghetti or shag carpet. People who say that want it both ways - they want acknowledgment of both their higher moral standard and their "tolerance." Because, in this day and age, "tolerance," is the only universally-mandated virtue.

But there is a big difference between not evaluating someone's - or your own - culpability before God, and not evaluating the rightness or wrongness of particular conduct.

Let me offer an example that cuts the other way. In this day and age, we have explanations for certain types of wrongful conduct. For example, we know that people who were abused as children are far more likely to abuse their own children. Some charge that that is just an "excuse." But there is a big difference between an explanation and an excuse. Just because we understand what might drive someone psychologically to abuse their children doesn't mean that it isn't wrong, that we don't try to protect the children, or need to punish abusers.

By the same token, even if we are not to "judge" someone in the eyes of the Creator, we are still able to identify conduct that is destructive. And certainly conduct from which we want to protect our children.

My friend's fury at my June 28th message stunned me. Particularly because she oddly characterized it as being about homosexuality, when I was speaking largely about heterosexual promiscuity in middle-school-age kids, never even discussed homosexuality, and made only a passing reference to legal scholars discussing gay marriage.

I don't know if I will ever know what made her go off like that. But, in the interests of closure, this was my response:
********************
"Ohhhhhhh-kaaayyyy. Whatever.

I will take you off of my e-mail list. But since this is the last e-mail you will get from me, I will set the record straight about a few things. For starters, I don't know where you got the idea that my last e-mail had anything to do with being gay, per se. Most of the behavior that I was decrying - particularly the promiscuity I know of that is going on at the middle school level - was definitely heterosexual. Otherwise, the political movement I was describing was among pedophiles. If being gay is a sensitive issue with you, well, okay. On the other hand, if you're trying to tell me that we need to be sensitive to the needs of pedophiles, we will have to agree to disagree.

And you can spare me the righteous indignation - I am not claiming to "know everything," or that I am "right" and everyone else is "wrong." What I am telling you, I am telling you as a lawyer. I did not bring up anything about gay marriage in the last e-mail. But regardless of how you feel about gay marriage (for example), the polygamists, polyamorists and pedophiles are already crafting the constitutional Due Process and Equal Opportunity arguments that will analogize their sexual preferences and civil rights to those of homosexuals. And I can tell you as a lawyer that there is no meaningful distinction between the "civil liberty" and "privacy" arguments made by homosexuals in favor of gay marriage, and those which will be made by the others. And for those who claim that consenting adults ought to be able to do as they please as long as it does not hurt anyone else (an argument with which I agree as a Libertarian, by the way), so this will knock out pedophiles, I can tell you that that argument is a house of cards. They will argue that there are already laws which have eliminated statutory rape, and which allow children under 18 to get judicial emancipation, as well as laws that allow girls as young as 13 to get abortions without their parents' consent. These laws, it will be argued, are justification for the elimination of age-of-consent laws. Once those are removed, pedophilia will have to be stricken from the penal codes, removed from the psychological literature as a pathology, and taught as just another "sexual preference" entitled to respect and compassion. I have read the law review articles; I know what's coming. It has nothing to do with being "right," and everything to do with being informed. If you're cool with that, that's your deal; I am not.

But, once again, nothing in my last e-mail dealt particularly with being gay. I will tell you that there are gay people in my life whom I love dearly. I was raised by "Christian" parents to be that way. I would raise my children to do the same. And of course, if one of my children was "born" gay, then they would still be my child, and I would still love them, of course. But if you read any of the social science (and I am not talking about "Christian" social science, but psychiatric and psychological journals), you will know that an enormous amount of homosexual conduct - and yes, even perceived orientation - is a direct result of childhood or adolescent sexual abuse. So, incidentally, is heterosexual promiscuity. Child psychologists know this. So do educators. But instead of eliminating the abuse, as a society we are moving toward legal protection of it. And you think that's okay?

My indignation has nothing to do with "judging" gay people and everything to do with my firm belief that it is the role of parents to inculcate children with their beliefs - parents who are in a position to put all of their teachings about love and tolerance in a context - not the role of government schools, who teach the latest social theory du jour, unattached to any morality of any kind, "Christian" or otherwise. It is precisely because the schools have become unmoored from any particular moral code (pick one, I don't care - Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, whatever) that things have gone as far as they have. Because the alternative is not a different, equally firm, secular standard of conduct; the alternative has been no standard.

I am not blindly mouthing some garbage that got forwarded to me from some crackpot URL. I have been in education for 13 years, ****, and in that time I have seen a steady decline in academic standards, as well as standards of conduct. By way of example, one of [my sister's] friends teaches here at [a local middle school]. He told her about an incident in which a mother who was there for a parent teacher conference walked into the girl's bathroom to find a girl fellating one boy while taking it up the a** by another. Tell me what this has to do with being gay. Tell me there is not a significant problem in our public schools.

Instead of addressing the problem, the response has been to castigate those who want to maintain strong academic and conduct standards and a healthy environment for all children - black, white, poor, wealthy, whatever - as "racists," "sexists," "religious bigots," "judgmental all-knowings" and, clearly, the other sorts of labels you would like to saddle me with. Fine. At 43 I have seen plenty, and I can deal with what others think of me, rightly or wrongly. But the fact is that it is the very poorest citizens who suffer most, because they are not in a position to pay taxes and tuition at any sort of private school. If what I am describing is not the case with the public schools in Milwaukee, then you can consider yourself very fortunate. (Although I know that the school voucher movement has a very strong leader in an African-American woman from Milwaukee named Polly Williams, so I suspect things are as bad there as they are elsewhere.)

I also have good friends (whose politics are significantly different from mine, if that makes you feel any better) and who are schoolteachers in the public school system here. They admit to me - reluctantly - that there is not enough time in the day for math, science, reading, geography, etc., because their time is consumed with other so-called "social" programs mandated by the school system - self-esteem training, sensitivity training, "diversity" training, sexual orientation training, and related irrelevant nonsense. In their more honest, even desperate moments, they confess that they cannot do what they were hired to do - which is teach - because they are expected to do what parents used to do, and they can't. More and more children are coming to school unprepared, hungry, dirty, sexualized and sexually-abused, violent, uncivilized and amoral. There was a time when it was parents' responsibility to feed their children, bathe them, wash their clothes, help them with their homework, teach them right and wrong, protect them from exposure to materials they were not emotionally and psychologically prepared for (and yes, I think that other people's sexual practices and sexual orientations are among those).

But since the parents aren't doing it, schools think they should. And there's the problem. Because without any moral context (which legally, they cannot give) and only 7 hours in a school day, this is doomed to failure. The result is a system where diminishing academic effort has given way to ineffective - and in many cases, oppressive - social programming. (Speech codes come immediately to mind.) Parents are irresponsible, schools are ineffective, and everyone is gradually giving up civil liberties with little or no thought to the consequences.

If, in all of that, all you saw was some homophobic rant, then you read it with blinders on. Clearly I hit some nerve for you. Or maybe I am just bearing the disproportionate brunt of all the ire you have saved up from the "99%" that you've deleted and ignored. I am sorry about that, but that's the way it goes, I guess. You and I have known each other for 18 years, and shared many a story about intimate and painful personal faults and failings - ours and others. You know me well enough to know that this "judge not" nonsense is just that - nonsense. If one misperceived e-mail is all it takes for you to respond by saying, "maybe it's time I chose those I keep close to my heart more carefully," then you are obviously reacting to something other than that one message from me.

As per your request, you will not hear from me again.

Lost a friend today ...

2004-07-01T22:24:00.000-05:00

Well, this was a complete surprise. I have a good friend whom I have known for 18 years. We were at each other's weddings (well, receptions - she married on a Caribbean island!)

I sent her a copy of my post from June 28th ("On sex education in the public schools"), and received this e-mail from her in response:
*****************
"You cannot depend upon the schools to keep your children safe. You have to do it yourself. We all do. And it is getting to the point where school is what we have to keep them safe from. God help us."

God help YOU, ****. And God help your children if they ever realize they were BORN gay.

I saw that Oprah show (I hasten to add, it just happened to be on one day while I was ironing). In my opinion, you strongly misrepresented it.

I always knew we had differences of opinion on certain things, but this dissertation that you so desperately needed to send to "educate" the rest of us is an insult to me and, quite frankly, is infuriating.

I really could go on, but I TRY to make it a policy not to mix politics/religion and friendship. I have many friends who feel differently on issues than myself, but there is an unspoken rule that you keep these things to yourself.

I do not fill up my friends' mailboxes with my opinions (yes, they are your OPINIONS, yet spoken as fact) but am bombarded daily with those who choose to preach to me through forwarded emails and who basically use this forum as their soapbox at my expense. 99% of the time I delete them and ignore it, but this mail enraged me to my breaking point.

After going over this for two days in my head (...do I write an equally long dissertation and send it back to you? ...do I write it and send it to ALL of my family and friends in order to set my "beliefs" record straight? ...do I write it and send it to all my like-minded friends? ...do I write it just to get it out of system and then delete it? ...do I really have time for this kind of thing at ALL?), I have come to the conclusion that I have to say to myself: "I have a lot of friends; maybe it's time I chose those I keep close to my heart more carefully."

I'll end in saying that although I no longer follow a structured religion, it is for this very reason: I cannot associate myself with judgmental, all-knowing, so-called "Christians" who feel they have the right to tell myself and others how right they are and how WRONG others are.

So here are my bible quotes: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" and "Judge not others lest ye be judged." Think about those...

Please take me off your email list."

*********
How very sad. I did answer. My answer is in the next post.

Science firmly on the side of the pro-life cause

2004-06-29T06:30:00.000-05:00

I still haven't finished part II of my earlier blog, entitled, "Who Do You Work For, Good Or Evil? And How to Tell..." But if you've read that far, you know that I've said your first test is whether or not you are telling the truth. Good has nothing to hide; evil always does. So, telling the truth is the best indicator of who you're working for.

As the title of this weblog indicates, my objective here is to find scientific support for beliefs, conduct, moral values, etc., that are considered to be purely "religious." And I maintain that one need only look for the truth to find this support. Science should be firmly on the side of truth.

In matters of life - and abortion - it is.

The more people who find out the scientific truths about conception, pregnancy, gestation and fetal development in the womb, the more they reject the lies that the death advocates pump into the public consciousness. They refer to themselves as "pro-choice," but like everything else, this is demonstrably untrue; they systematically and categorically oppose any and all efforts to get more information into the hands of pregnant women considering abortion. But truth never sleeps, and science marches on.

In that vein, let's get some good news out on the table right away. There is a news article in the BBC today about a new ultrasound scanning technique that shows elaborate three-dimensional images of unborn babies in the womb.

Here is the link to the story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3846525.stm

As a follow-up, if you'd like to see some of these images, here is another BBC link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/3847319.stm

These photos show quite clearly that unborn babies in the first trimester have what the story called "complex behaviors": they yawn, stretch, swim, "walk." Weeks earlier than doctors originally thought, we now know that babies in utero can open their eyes. Doctors have believed that infants could not smile until weeks after birth, and yet the photos produced by the London researcher show babies smiling in the womb.

Widespread access to this technology would - and WILL - have a dramatic impact on women considering abortion, especially those who continue to believe the lie that it's "just a clump of tissue" or "a mass of cells." (Ok, who ISN'T a 'mass of cells'?)

Abortion advocates will oppose the access to this technology. Indeed, with their characteristic deceit, they already have. Alison Herwitt, the Director of NARAL Pro-Choice America, in response to a proposed bill that would distribute these "4D Ultrasound" machines to crisis pregnancy centers all over the country, was quoted as saying, "They don't want women to go to Planned Parenthood, where they'll get their full range of options. They just want them to go to crisis pregnancy centers, where women will be exposed to this weapon at taxpayers' expense."

Fascinating. A curette, a suction vacuum tube, a pair of Metzenbaum scissors are just "choices." But a picture of a baby sucking her thumb in utero is a "weapon"?

Well, if the truth is a "weapon," then so be it.

Let's face it. Abortion advocates cannot tell the truth. They have to lie, dissemble, obfuscate, and (when all of that fails) scream obscenities to deflect attention away from what abortion really is. The callous and gruesome testimony [much more on this later] of abortion "doctors" in the recent federal cases challenging the Partial-Birth Abortion Act stands as the best evidence of what they are really doing - butchering tiny human beings by the millions, not only in that particular procedure, but in all abortions. Which is precisely what they are afraid the public will find out.

So they lie. Here are just a few examples ...

The "pro-choice" movement says that the PBA Act is unlawful because it gets in the way of a decision that should be made by a woman and her doctor. Their first line of attack has been to say that the procedure is sometimes "medically necessary."

Lie.

Members of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have testified before Congress and in federal cases that this procedure is never "medically necessary."

Then, they argue that so-called "partial-birth abortions" (the official name is "dilation and extraction") are "safer."

This is not exactly a lie. But it nevertheless begs the question: safer than what? This is a harder question to find the answer to, because they don't want you to know. They never tell you. Unless, of course, they are asked under oath and forced by Congress or a judge to answer.

The answer is, "safer" than the usual methods of abortion at that stage. The usual methods of dilation and curettage involve dilating the cervix and ripping the unborn baby's body to pieces with a sharp curved blade called a curette.

In the second trimester and later, the baby's body is more fully developed - the cartilege, bones and tendons are tougher to cut, and in addition to the butchery of the unborn child that is going on during this procedure, there are apparently risks of (amongst other things) perforation of the woman's uterus from bone fragments, and infection from piece of the baby's body that could be left behind - a real risk, since the doctors cannot really "see" what they are doing.

Obviously, this is not a problem if the doctor pulls the baby's body nearly completely out of the woman's body, pierces its skull with a pair of Metzenbaum scissors, vacuum suctions out its brains, crushes its skull and then pulls the dead baby all the way out. Much safer. Unless, of course, you're on the receiving end of the scissors.

More lies.

The "pro-choice" advocates scream about the Partial-Birth Abortion Act that its advocates are simply maneuvering to "take all abortion away from women." But what they are really afraid of is that by virtue of the testimony in the cases they themselves filed, women will find out what goes on in the other abortion procedures; in the abortion procedures in the first and early second trimesters.

Because as soon as women find this out, they may not make the choice for abortion.

If you consider yourself pro-choice, don't you find it curious that the so-called "pro-choice" movement doesn't want you to have any information about abortion except for its availability? Don't they have any confidence in your ability to make an informed choice? If they are all in favor of choice, why do they oppose informed choices? If truth is on their side, why are they so afraid of it?

(1) Doctors - even "pro-choice" doctors - have demonostrated a link between abortion and breast cancer. Lawmakers try to pass laws requiring doctors to inform their patients about these risks. "Pro-choice" advocates oppose this.

(2) Lawmakers attempt to pass laws requiring a minimal waiting period, so that women will consider the decision they are making, which is permanent, irreversable, and fatal. Thounsands of women attest to the regrets they have about their abortions. Who could oppose taking 24 hours to consider taking the life of your unborn child? "Pro-choice" advocates, who say, "women don't need any more time."

(3) If "every child should be a wanted child," as "pro-choice" advocates claim, then there should be punishment for killing a wanted child, should there not? And yet, when Congress was endeavoring to pass the Unborn Victims of Violence Act ("Laci and Connor's Law"), "pro-choice" advocates opposed it.

So, the "pro-choice" advocates oppose any and all information, laws or technologies that might provide women with:

(a) information about what their unborn children really are, can do, look like in the womb;

(b) facts about what is really being done to these children in the name of "choice";

(c) time to consider the decision to take the lives of their unborn children

(d) punishment for those who commit acts of domestic or random violence that take the life of their unborn child.

And these people claim they're for "choice"? As I said above, demonstrably untrue.

Oh, but this latest technology will throw an even bigger wrench into their works. If you go to this link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/03/special/politics/sp_politics_herwitt060503.htm

You will be able to read the transcipt of an online interview with Alison Herwitt of NARAL Pro-Choice America. In this discussion, she says, "When considering this debate, it's important to remember that most abortions happen very early in pregnancy. Ninety-nine percent take place before the 20th week."

The 20th week is halfway through the pregnancy, and two months into the second trimester. These are the abortions that Herwitt and others want the public to believe are less troublesome than the nasty, gory, bloody, ugly partial-birth abortion that is the subject of so much debate at present.

But, as I indicated, it is precisely because the advocates of death do NOT want anyone to know what happens during any abortion that they dissemble on these issues. "Dilation and extraction almost never happens," they say (as if that somehow makes it acceptable). "It's dilation and curettage that is used 99% of the time."

So - go take a look at the 4D Ultrasound pictures in the BBC article above. Then ask yourself - is it any less bloody, gory, gruesome, monstrous or murderous to take a curved blade to those tiny babies in utero and cut them apart limb from limb?

Of course not. But you don't have to take my word for it. The proof is right there before your eyes. And that's the scientific truth.

On sex education in the public schools

2004-06-28T14:33:00.000-05:00

Here is an article some of you may find interesting...

http://www.aim.org/media_monitor/1684_0_2_0_C/

I saw the Oprah show in question. (I hasten to add that I never watch Oprah, but I was at my health club on the treadmill, and it was on.) The description is right on the money. Isn't this great? Someone or something creates a sense of sexual or gender confusion in your child, and instead of getting to the bottom of the trauma/problem, you'll have government officials, school administrators and media celebrities advocating that you get your child a sex-change operation. (And here I thought it was rather scandalous that people are buying their teenage daughters boob jobs!) Watching the show, it was so clear how desperate the parents were. They would believe and do anything at that point.

Those of you with your children in public schools had better pay close attention to what they are being taught. Not what they tell you they are teaching the children; what is actually in the materials themselves. And what those who write and espouse these materials really have as their primary objectives. It is not education, it is indoctrination, brainwashing and yes, recruitment. Sad, but true. And we have proof, although no one wants to talk about it.

Much of what has passed for "sex education," in this country in the public schools for the past 30 years, has produced little besides precocious promiscuity, teen pregnancy and abortions, the rapid spread of STD's among teenagers, and a staggering rise of infertility in women in their 20's and 30's that is directly related to sex with multiple partners at a young age. (When was the last time you read an article by an OB-GYN describing this? But it is true, nevertheless...)

It was bad enough when these self-proclaimed experts were arguing in favor of distributing condoms and demonstrating their use to high schools students. Remember that at the time (and still today), the argument was that, "They are doing it anyway, so we need to teach them how to do it safely." Uh-huh. Sure. And now, it has moved to middle school. And why? Because, of course, "they are doing it anyway." How many of us have NOT heard a horror story of an 8th grade co-ed party involving alcohol and fellatio (just to give one example), or the exploitative sexual experimentation that someone comes across in a public school bathroom? (If you haven't heard anything like this yet, you are either very lucky, you have no friends with middle-school-age children, or you live in the woods and homeschool your children.)

If "they are doing it anyway," it is because they live in a culture that does nothing but advocate irresponsible sexual conduct, and then abortion to pick up the pieces (if you will excuse the extremely ugly and unintended pun). Isn't it ironic that all across the country, middle-school-age children are engaging in oral sex, and telling those who catch them in the act, "we thought it wasn't sex"? Remember where that one came from?

In the 1960's and 70's, the "sexual revolution" was for adults and college students. But that wasn't enough. In the 1970's, and 80's it was high school students. But that wasn't enough. In the 90's and today, this insidious mindset has moved into middle school.

And they will not stop there. As those on the Oprah show and the sex education experts argue, it is time to move into the grade schools.

What I am telling you, my friends, is that there are people out there with their sexual sights set on your children - the younger the better - and if you think this isn't true, you are deluding yourselves. It is NOT about educating them or making them "safe," despite all that obfuscating blather to the contrary. (Check out the journal Paedika if you don't believe me or think I am exaggerating. That is, if you can stomach knowing what the paedophiles' social and political agenda really is.) It is about increasing social tolerance for deviant and destructive conduct by indoctrinating the youngest among us. You may say, and with good reason, that this does not describe your beloved teachers, or your trusted administrators. And this is probably true. But if your beloved teachers or your trusted administrators buy into the whole, "they're doing it anyway, so now we have to teach them how to do it safely," or "we have to teach them not to discriminate," shtick, then they are the sexual predators' and social "engineers" unwitting pawns.

You cannot depend upon the schools to keep your children safe. You have to do it yourself. We all do. And it is getting to the point where school is what we have to keep them safe from. God help us.

In support of and response to Ben Shapiro

2004-06-16T09:56:00.000-05:00

I am still working on Part II of the "Who Do You Work For?" blog. The rest will come. But in the meantime, I have other things to say. As you can tell if you've read what I have written so far, it's clear that I am setting up a scientific argument in opposition to abortion. Or, more specifically, an argument that demonstrates that the theological arguments opposing abortion have a scientific basis.

So, with that in mind, any chance I get to write something about abortion, I will do. With that in mind, here's today's post:

I always read Ben Shapiro's columns on www.townhall.com. (Actually I read ALL of the columns on TownHall.com. Even Bruce Bartlett's.) And I am constantly impressed with his cogent analyses. So impressive for someone so young! His recent column , posted today (June 16, 2004) on TownHall, piqued my interest.

Please read his article. Here is my response...

Dear Mr. Shapiro:

I am an administrator and lecturer in law at [a university somewhere in the midwest], I appreciated your recent column on the issues that the American Jewish population needs to address and be realistic about. As a Roman Catholic and a strong Israel supporter, I was gladdened to see an Orthodox writer speak out for the support American Christians give to Israel and the Jewish faith generally. I was also glad to see one Jewish person tell so many others that the political party American Jews seem best to identify with - the Democratic Party - has long since abandoned the principles that drew people to it in the early part of the 20th century.

But the problem, it seems to me, is in the distinction between persons practicing the Jewish faith, and those who have identified themselves as "cultural Jews," (as my non-practicing Jewish colleagues have termed it to me).

I feel as if I am watching the same sort of divide take place among Jews in America as I am seeing among Roman Catholics. There are those who continue to adhere to precepts that are thousands of years old, which take their meaning from Scripture. And then there are those who want to define their beliefs for themselves, even when this means accepting conduct that is abhorrent and clearly contrary to common decency - much less Scripture. There are any number of examples, but I am referring specifically to abortion.

As you know, the official position of the Roman Catholic church is and always has been in opposition to abortion; that it is a grave evil, justifiable only when so doing would be necessary to save the life of the mother (which is extraordinarily rare). But many Catholics are abandoning this position, calling for "choice." How many other Christian church leaders/members are still staying strong on this position? Many of the mainstream Protestant denominations are going to an official or unofficial "pro-choice" position.

Where is the Jewish leadership on this issue? Where is the American Jewish voice on this issue? What is profoundly disturbing to me is to see the number of American Jews who are intimately, integrally, visibly, vocally involved in the abortion business. How many ACLU lawyers suing on behalf of Planned Parenthood are Jewish? How many abortion practitioners, or clinic owners? How many so-called "feminist", pro-abortion spokespersons? (At least, as they might say, "culturally.")

This is heartbreaking to me, to see so many of the children of Abraham; so many who have inherited the mantle of Holocaust survivors, bathed in the blood of innocent unborn children. Abortion is America's holocaust; where are the Jewish voices decrying it?

There are some, thank goodness. You and Dennis Prager, just to name two. I receive the World Jewish Digest (based out of Chicago) and read it faithfully - there are many Jewish commentators in it who support life.

But on the whole, it appears that far too many American Jews - whether because of their loyalty to the Democratic Party (which has become a one-issue party; they will brook NO disagreement on the abortion issue), or for some other reason - seem not only comfortable with the deaths of 40+ million unborn children, but committed to it.

I hope, Mr. Shapiro, that you will continue your vigilance on this issue, as well as the others you address so articulately.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
[my name]

Who Do You Work For, Good or Evil? And How to Tell....Part 1

2004-06-09T08:06:00.000-05:00

All of the recent legal activity surrounding the Partial Birth Abortion Act has had me thinking. (I am a lawyer and a professor; I think about things for a living...)

Abortion is bad law because it is bad science. And of course, because it is bad science, it is horrendously bad morality. It is evil, pure and simple. And in my opinion, it is the single greatest evil facing American civilization. Yes, worse than poverty, worse than illiteracy, worse than racism or discrimination - all of which abortion supporters throw up as straw men to distract from the real, more basic issue. And none of which even become relevant unless one is allowed to live. You can bring yourself out of poverty. You can overcome discriminatory preconceived notions others have about you, your race, your color, your culture. But you can't do any of this if you are dead.

The writers of our Declaration of Independence knew this, and said so explicitly. That is why the Declaration of Independence says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..."

Note how this has been phrased:

1) "We hold these truths to be self-evident" In other words, the rights that are described in the D/I are not subject to debate and not in need of proof. The writers wanted to eliminate the possibility that anyone could come behind them and argue that some people are not entitled to life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness.

2) "... that all men are endowed by their Creator..." "Men" here means mankind, despite what some have tried to argue. And the fact that the rights articulated in the D/I are "endowed" by a "Creator" means that we are not permitted to take these rights away from other people without grave justifications. Furthermore, note that although the writers mention a "Creator," they do not name any specific deity. Whether they believe in one (or many) or not, all persons are deemed to have these same rights and protections.

3) " ... and among these..." This is terribly significant, and often overlooked. Lawyers use language like this a lot. This is to say that the rights articulated (in this case, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all of the rights to which human beings are entitled; merely that these are the most important ones we can identify at the moment.

4) "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The order here is critical. LIFE IS FIRST. Liberty is second. And neither the Declaration of Independence nor any other document or law guarantees happiness. But the D/I at least acknowledges that we have the right to pursue it. As long, of course, as in so doing, we are not infringing someone else's right to life, or liberty.

The writers of the Declaration of Independence maintained that the above statements are TRUE. It stands to reason, then, that the test of whether a law is a good one or a bad one, depends upon whether it is consistent with this TRUTH; with the nature of humanity and the proper role of government.

In law, as with every other science, the objective should be the pursuit of TRUTH. And to pursue the TRUTH is to pursue God, whether that is one's intention or not.

So, in order to answer the question, "Who do you work for?" the first thing you need to ask yourself is whether you are telling the truth.

More about this in Part 2.

/Prairy P.

On science, faith and miracles - a response to Simple Simon

2004-06-05T10:41:00.000-05:00

I received a lovely, thoughtful response to my second post. Many thanks to that first visitor! They identify themselves only as Simple Simon. Here is what they said:

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At 12:33 PM, Simple Simon said...
"I don't want to call into question the entire premise of your forum here, but where do you go in your specific pursuit if your faith leads you to the conclusion that, with the appropriate faith, you can suspend the laws of nature and science -- (to quote Christ) with faith the size of a mustard seed you can ask a mountain to get up and move and it will obey you?

If a law of science that is discovered or proven in 2004 confirms the faith held by people for 2,000 years, and then a prophet or other messenger of God asks God to suspend that scientific law for some purpose (say conversion) and God grants the prayer, then what is the ultimate value of the particular scientific law in your ultimate pursuit?

Have you considered whether it is an unproven scientific fact that all laws of science can be suspended with the appropriate faith?"

/Simple Simon

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And here is my response...

Dear Simple Simon:
I suspect that many who might visit here would call into question the entire premise of this weblog. That's okay.

I do not have a simple (if you'll excuse the expression) answer to your query. But what I'll try to do here is to craft an answer consistent with my theory that science and religion can be reconciled.

I don't purport to be able to translate Christ, but it has often occurred to me that much of what He said two thousand years ago has a scientific foundation that is demonstrable today.

Take, for example, His statement that "the sins of the fathers will be visited upon the sons until the fifth generation." This statement disturbed me profoundly as a child. I could not understand why God would punish children for things their parents or grandparents did.

Later, when I was studying psychology in college, I came across the established research showing that children who are abused are much more likely to become abusers themselves. Just to use one example.

What if Christ was not making a statement about God's punishment, therefore, as much as he was telling us about human nature? It would seem to be an admonition to (amongst other things) raise our children properly, to avoid the emotional damage and psychological disease that could take generations to eradicate. According to my theory, Christ would not have told the people of that era anything about human psychology, or the "hard-wiring" of the neural network in a child's brain, or behavioral patterning - this would have made no sense to them.. What he COULD do, however, was to put it in terms that they could understand - sin. His phraseology is significant, to that end. He says, "the sins of the fathers will be visited upon the sons." It is a statement in passive voice. He speaks of an effect.

Christ does this in other places as well. Recall the story where the crowd brings a crippled man to Christ. (I am going to have to paraphrase here…) He says to the man, “Rise – your sins are forgiven.” The crowd begins to mutter in astonishment, and Christ hears them saying things like, “Who is this man, that he thinks he can forgive sins?” And Christ says to the crowd and to the man, “Which is easier, to say ‘your sins are forgiven’ or ‘take up your bed and walk’? But, so you will understand that I have the power to forgive sins, Rise – take up your bed and walk – your sins are forgiven.” And of course, the man does in fact pick up his mat and leave the crowd on his own two legs.

Thus does Christ show us the connection between the spiritual and the physical. The people gathered there cannot understand how a “sin” – which is unseen – can be forgiven. They can, however, see the “miracle” of a man physically cured of a visible disability. By showing them things they can see, Christ wants to get them to believe in the things they cannot see.

So, let us turn to your quote about having faith the size of a mustard seed, and moving mountains with it. Is Christ speaking literally? Is He speaking metaphorically? Is He using terms or expressions that make sense in the context of the culture in which He appeared, but which we might understand differently?

My short answer to your question would be that if "faith" can "suspend" natural laws (or science, as we know it), then there is some scientifically demonstrable scientific law behind that suspension that we do not yet understand.

Some of Christ’s other comments are instructional in this regard. He says in one place, “All things will be revealed,” and in another, “Be not afraid.” And how many times does He say, “Love one another”?

We must put ourselves in the position that Christ’s contemporaries were in. Would they have thought it was possible for hundreds of thousands of pounds of steel and fuel to fly? What would they have thought if they had seen a commercial airliner? And if a “prophet” in their day were to have said to them, “Believe! If you only have faith the size of a mustard seed, you shall one day be able to fly like birds” would this not have sounded like an absurdity? Would people not have fallen into two groups – those who thought this “prophet” was mad, and those who thought that flying was physically impossible, but with enough “faith,” they could do it anyway?

But both groups would have been wrong. Flying isn’t physically impossible. Two thousand years later we see it every day, and do not much marvel at it, because we understand aerodynamics. How many other commonplace things in our culture would the people of Christ’s time have thought were suspensions of “natural law”? Laser surgery? Space flight? Antibiotics? Robotic machinery? Roller-ball pens?

Never did Christ say that our faith was to be separated from our study. Did he ever tell the scholars in the temples not to study? Or the doctors to stop trying to heal their sick patients?

To come back to the present day, then, is it not plausible that there are phenomena today that we do not understand, only because we still do not have the technology to see, identify, measure them? I would draw your attention to recent studies that have been discussed extensively in the medical community, looking at the effect of prayer on healing. These studies compared the healing and cure rates of patients who were not being prayed for by others, with rates for patients who WERE being prayed for. The study's results were interesting in at least two respects:

First, the patients who were being prayed for healed faster or were cured at a higher rate than those who were not being prayed for. And secondly, this was true even when the patients DID NOT KNOW they were being prayed for, and when those praying for them were at a great distance (physically) from them.

We have just begun to scratch the surface of things like nanotechnology and the study of different types of energies. What will the future bring in these sciences? Isn’t it possible that the things we call “miracles” today – inexplicable things like spiritual healing, or extra-sensory perception are just types of energy, the properties and functions of which we do not understand?

I want to be clear about what I am not saying. I am not saying that if something is explicable, then there is no God, or that Jesus Christ was just a really nice man. To me it is not inconsistent to believe that God would take human form to show us who He is, who we are, what we are capable of, meant for, and that death is not the end.

Would I be skeptical of anyone who claimed to be a messenger of God, and who wanted to show it with “signs?” Yes. Would I pay attention to what he or she said and did? Of course. “By their deeds ye shall know them.” My standard operating line in this regard is that God gave me a brain and He expects me to use it. You must use your brain and your heart. Faith and reason. Fides et ratio.

A thousand years from now, we may be able to heal with a touch, as Christ did. We may be able to move large objects with our mere thought. If we believe. If we are not afraid. If we love one another. And if we don’t destroy each other first. Particularly in the name of our religions – a fate looming before us these days. But that is a blog for another day.

And that’s My Take On Things.

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On a completely different note, I have much to say about recent events. I hope to start blogging about those this weekend.

More later!
/Prairy P.

Introduction to SPRT, continued ...

2004-05-30T22:28:00.000-05:00

OK, so let's address some of the things that I know people will say to the idea that religion and science are (or should be) pursuing the same end.

Many people of faith find science threatening, because it suggests a lack of faith. In other words, you ought to be able to believe without proof. (After all, isn't that what Christ said to Thomas? "You believe, Thomas, because you have seen; blessed are those who believe who have not seen.")

True enough. But in my view, faith is that which you hold on to while you are seeking proof. And when I say "you," I mean the human race. As I intend to discuss herein, many of the things that we have been admonished to do - and not to do - as a matter of faith or religious belief, turn out to be firmly grounded in science. Over the hundreds or thousands of years that passed before those things could be proven, faith in the rightness of those admonitions kept people healthy and society strong.

By contrast, there are those in the scientific community that look upon everything that cannot be proven (now, yet) as mere superstition.

It is this, more so than anything else, that brands Christians and other believers as "ignorant," "backward," "stupid," etc.

But there is a critical difference between faith and superstition.

"Faith" is a belief in things that (in theory) CAN be proven, but which have not YET been proven.

"Superstition" is belief in things that can be (and/or have been) DISPROVEN.

Big difference.

Thus, there is no inconsistency between being a person of faith and a person of science. Indeed, even in purely secular matters, there are scientists who pursue their theories despite their colleagues' insistence that their research is pointless, or futile. In the absence of proof, what keeps these vigourously curious men and women going, if not a form of faith?

What I hope to do here, is to arm persons of faith with the scientific and rational support for some of the views they espouse. In the arguments about issues we face in the present day, the more support one has, the better. To a lesser extent, I hope that the scientific skeptic who finds himself or herself visiting this site might be able to admit of the possible existence of spiritual realities, the proof for which we simply don't have at present.

We shall see.

More tomorrow!
/Prairy P.

Welcome to SPRT!

2004-05-30T11:13:00.000-05:00

Hello, and welcome to SPRT - Science in Pursuit of Religious Truth. That's the name of this blog, and here's our slogan:

"The only thing keeping you from seeing SPIRIT here is two i's."

Rather catchy, huh? It just came to me a couple of weeks ago, and I decided it was worthy of a blogspot.

Let me tell you a little bit about what this weblog is for. The name may sound counterintuitive, but it is born of my own personal experiences.

As an educated woman, an attorney, a professor, and a free-lance writer, I have often found myself struggling to explain and justify Christian (and Catholic) positions on various issues on the basis of science, rather than tenets of any particular religious faith.

I've always been amazed - and disappointed - at the "conflict" between science and religion. Why should these two be at odds with each other?

My thought is, if, as we believe, God is the Creator of all things, then God is also the author of the systems by which all things work. From gravity to psychology to nuclear physics, God would be behind it all. To seek the truth, then, through science, is a profoundly religious quest. And to test the validity of religious beliefs through the scientific method is neither blasphemously skeptical nor an expression of impermissible doubt. Instead, it is utilizing the faculties that God gave us.

Any religion that claims to have the truth should embrace science, not fear it. For to find truth is to find God. If the beliefs of a particular religion cannot withstand scientific scrutiny, then those beliefs will of necessity be discarded, or else the religion itself will eventually wither and die.

(Galileo's proof that the earth revolves around the sun - and not the other way around - comes to mind immediately. The Catholic Church excommunicated him for this. But it was proven to be true. And lo and behold, the Catholic Church survived this "revelation".)

Religions that depend upon their members remaining uneducated or ignorant cannot survive. Humans cannot remain deliberately ignorant indefinitely. It is against our nature. Our Created nature.

I can already hear the heated objections of the scientific skeptics and the believers. And I intend to argue my points against these objections, one by one.

Additionally, I intend to use this weblog as a place to find scientific evidence in support of positions taken by those of religious faith on social, moral, legal and political issues wherever possible.

I have a number of thoughts that I intend to post later tonight - or perhaps tomorrow. But this is enough for now. In closing my very first weblog posting, I welcome all persons of good cheer, benevolent intent, and sincere intellectual curiosity, whether you consider yourselves to be persons of faith or not.

More later!
/Prairy P.