The Poster Boy of the Shallow Left

In a sense, I am not interested in the story that has dominated the media next to the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. After all, who cares what happens in a Democratic primary in a distant state? As a conservative one may well argue that Ned Lamont and Joe Lieberman are—to use a vernacular expression—“the same difference.” And they are for the most part. As Senator Lieberman reminded us in his appearance on PBS’s News Hour with Jim Lehrer after he lost the primary, he has a very liberal voting record on taxes, environmental policy and social security reform, to name but a few issues. In other words, Lamont or Lieberman will make little difference in many respects.

Yet, on the other hand, the fact that Connecticut Democrats selected Lamont, a prime representative of the Shallow Left, to represent their party on the November ballot indicates that the party as a whole is being tugged very much to the nutty left by what The Weekly Standard refers to as the “nutroots.” The involvement of organizations like The Daily Kos, popular stomping ground for left-wing pseudo-intellectuals, can hardly be overestimated.

The Connecticut primary was defaced by unfair and ad hominem attacks against Sen. Lieberman. Considering the heavy anti-Lieberman involvement from powerful liberal interest groups and their adept use of the always complicit liberal media, this primary was, as an election, much more of a sham than the last two general elections, which Democrats and other liberal movers love to refer to as a “stolen election.” Rather than a primary on the question which Democrat could best represent Connecticut, the Kos crowd turned it into a lynch party for Lieberman. Not the candidates’ platform counted, but the fact that Lieberman needed to be punished for his support for the War in Iraq.

Conservative commentators have been raising their eyebrows about this one for a while now. None of them—myself included—have a great liking for Lieberman. He is the wrong man to represent Connecticut because he goes in for what Senator Rick Santorum in his book It Takes a Family calls No-Fault Freedom.

Lamont is decidedly worse, even if only for the signal it sends to the national Democratic party. The selection of Ned Lamont is a coup by the Loonie Left which is finally trying to take the party. If even avowed liberals like Lieberman are considered too moderate by that crowd, one can only shudder what direction the Democratic Party is going in.

In addition, of course, Lamont represents the cut-and-run policy of those intellectually shallow Democrats who had rather win congressional seats by bringing back loved ones from the battlefield than listen to military experts and do what is necessary to extinguish a growing forest fire in the Middle East. Yes, Iraq is burning, but fires that are not put out tend to spread. Bringing the boys back now may be better for the boys and the families in the short run but will certainly—without a doubt—lead to more casualties in the medium and long-distance future.

So what are the consequences of Lieberman running as an Independent? Democratic Party officials are probably justified in their fears that Lieberman will take votes from Lamont and thus increase the chance that the Republican candidate will take Lieberman’s seat. But that is definitely not a given. The idea of a Republican carrying Connecticut is somewhat unlikely. Connecticut is firmly blue and will almost certainly stay blue.

Lieberman stands a chance, if those voters who did not go out to the primary show up and decide to prefer him over Lamont after all. Although I care for neither of these two, and would advise all conservatives to vote for the appropriate conservative candidate—even if he has no chance of being elected, such as third-party candidates—, it is imperative that Lamont not be elevated to a place where he can do great damage as the puppet of the Loonie Left. Even electing Lieberman would be a powerful rebuke to that dastardly group of conspirators.

The Crucifixion of Mel Gibson

Hollywood is outraged over Mel Gibson’s behavior. The orthodox Roman Catholic actor, already ostracized for his independent production of The Passion of the Christ, was arrested this past week for drunk driving. But what outraged the politically correct Left Coast Hollywood establishment even more was Mr Gibson’s anti-Semitic statements during his arrest. Together with what they consider the anti-Semitic nature of The Passion, Mr Gibson is now branded an anti-Semite. The media are talking of serious repercussions for the actor, such as becoming ineligible for awards.

I am the last one in the world to condone either the drunk driving or the anti-Semitic remarks, but it seems that Hollywood is a little too trigger happy here. Mr Gibson admits his bad behavior and is repentant. He does not deny his anti-Semitic remarks but has given the very plausible remark that the booze was doing the talking and that he disgraced his family by “saying things he does not believe to be true.”

Mr Gibson will be punished for the drunk driving by the proper authorities. Let’s not call for the public crucifixion of a drunk man merely on basis of the incoherent statements made by him in that state of intoxication, no matter how offensive they may have been. I certainly do not believe that we can now somehow piece together evidence that proves Mel Gibson is a congenital anti-Semite. All the arguments I have heard in favor of that proposal were based on the notion that The Passion of the Christ was offensive to Jews because it portrayed the Jews as guilty for Christ’s crucifixion.

I have not seen the movie (out of principle: I consider visual portrayals of God the Son as a violation of the second commandment), but neither have most of Mr Gibson’s accusers. Yet reading the New Testament account, I can only come to the conclusion that while the Romans did the actual crucifying, the Jewish crowd forced Pontius Pilate’s hand even while he was ready to acquit Jesus. Surely, it would not be disingenuous to attach some guilt to that behavior? That means that Mr Gibson’s portrayal of the events—at least in this respect—is merely biblical and factual and can lead to no conclusions about his personal views. Unless one wanted to accuse all Christians of being anti-Semites? Ah, there’s the rub with Hollywood liberals.

A Screaming (and False) NYT Headline on Abortion

I guess the Times article isn’t so bad, but the headline “Senate Removes Abortion Option for Young Girls” is a grave distortion of the facts. The law would not make abortions for young girls in any way illegal. In fact, the law has nothing to do with abortion as such. It is a law that protects the rights of parents not to have their children abducted across state lines. Considering that the real crime addressed is abduction, the proposed punishment for the kidnappers of up to one year in prison is lenient, since it is classified as a misdemeanor, rather than a felony.

But the New York Times thinks it is more important to pander to its extremist pro-abortion readership by producing such a screaming and patently false headline. Abortion remains legal—by judicial fiat—even for young girls for whom medical complications are much more likely. And NARAL can relax: these young girls can still go and have their babies killed, even if there are no truly medical complications because girls under 18 can always plead emotional or social hardship and have that declared a medical emergency. (Then again, so can women over 18.) They will then be rewarded by the general cheers of a bunch of crazy middle-aged feminists for this first step on feminist womanhood.

We Must Stand with Israel

Let there be no doubt about it: in the current conflict between Israel and various Arab groups in Gaza and Lebanon the blame lands squarely and exclusively with the Arab thugs. This is no reflection on other Israeli policies with which I may or may not agree.

The current conflict was triggered by open terrorism by Hizb’allah (commonly known as Hezbollah), Hamas and the puppet masters in Syria and Iran who control these groups. Nor do I believe that Israel’s reaction to the Arab provocations has been disproportionate. Whereas Hezbollah is sending rockets indiscriminately into Israel, hoping to kill and maim as many innocent Israelis as possible, Israel has targeted the infrastructure in places where there would be maximum inconvenience for the terrorists and minimum chance of civilian casualties. One prime example of this Israeli strategy is the bombing of fuel depots at Beirut airport: little chance of innocent civilians being in the way but it immediately disrupted air traffic in Lebanon. It underscores Israel’s measured response.

The US and the West should stand with Israel unconditionally. After all, Israel’s demands are no new demands. They want Hezbollah to be dismantled and disarmed. And it is not like they are being unreasonable in demanding this. The United Nations passed a resolution (Security Council Resolution 1559) to this effect years ago and no one has ever done anything about it. So now that Israel is finally enforcing this UN resolution, it is Israel that is supposed to be the aggressor? Come off it. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization and can be no partner in any conference or talk. It must be shunned by government leaders and its members should be hunted down and arrested or killed.

It is especially disheartening that many supposedly moderate regimes in the Middle East are supporting Hezbollah. Even Iraq’s fledgeling government has announced its support for Hezbollah and the Palestinians, blaming the Israelis for everything that is going on now. It is yet another dark cloud over the troubled attempts to set up a responsible democracy in a country wracked by internal strife and terrorism stirred up by foreign (read: Iranian and Syrian) agents.

There is no doubt in my mind that Israel will not solve the conflict “once and for all,” as many naive people phrase it. The Israelis will rattle many cages in the process and stir up trouble in new quarters. I refuse to accept this argument—which I acknowledge—as a reason for Israel to desist from its current actions. Israel has no choice but to stamp out this source of terrorism. Hezbollah’s only aim is to eradicate Israel and drive the Jews into the sea.

Though other anti-Semitic groups will undoubtedly be encouraged on other sides of the Israeli state by the determined military actions of the Israeli government, this brush fire must be extinguished before it becomes a forest fire. Conditions in the Middle East being as they are, this is the only sort of containment one can hope for. Any talk of “cease-fires” or “once and for all” solutions, and arguments based on these views are irresponsible, emotional slogans that will cost hundreds and thousands of lives. Secretary Rice is very correct in perceiving this and refusing to call Israel to stop fighting.

We must stand with Israel in its attempt to destroy Hezbollah, at least for the present. This hydra will return, no matter what, but it could take a while—even if only five or ten years—and this would buy the Middle East some important time to move forward with substantive peace negotiations. That should be the goal because only this route will lead to long-term containment of Islamo-fascist terrorism.

Stem Cells and the Presidential Veto

The New York Times published a letter of mine about this subject (third letter down). It is clear that my opinion is in the minority here and that the Times seems to think I and the president are in the minority in the country, too. Ah well, we’ll throw in a gratuitous reference to the War in Iraq to discredit the president and ridicule this incomprehensible trait he has that he calls “morality.” Now, what’s that again?

The Courts and Guantanamo

Well, I have been busy for a while. No time to update the blog. But here is a link to an article I penned on the recent Hamdan ruling by the Supreme Court (you'll need Acrobat Reader). A Dutch translation of it was published in the Dutch daily newspaper Nederlands Dagblad on July 5.

Needless to say, I was not too impressed by all the grandstanding by Democrats and their allies in the media over the way the Supreme Court "disciplined" the bad little boy of the class, George W. Bush. I have my own cavils with W.'s treatment of detainees in Guantanamo, but one cannot help but wonder what is worse: attack by terrorists from abroad or an underhanded power grab by unelected judges. The country will just as much cease to be democratic and turn into a dictatorship either way.

Hillary Shrillary

Ever wanted to read a good summary of where Hillary Clinton stands politically? Then don’t read The Washington Post’s May 30 article by Dan Balz about Senator Clinton. Instead, go ahead and read the thoughtful article by L. Brent Bozel III. Nope, Hillary really is not the centrist Democrat the mainstream media have pretended she is. She is at least as much a left extremist as John Kerry, possibly as bad as Ted Kennedy. Or worse. She will vote against anything rational and reasonable and will support any cause advanced by NARAL and the ACLU. You may well call her a puppet senator. Bought and paid for and others are pulling the strings. And people talk about electing her to the White House? I wonder who is the ventriloquist doing the talking here.

It is really baffling how people refuse to see the rampant liberal bias in the nation’s media. I recently looked at my browser bookmarks and noticed that the internet thugs had sneaked in a few free bookmarks with my latest browser update, so that the always crazy alternet.org soap box is now listed as one my preferred media outlets. Don’t you believe it. However, I think I’ll leave the bookmark in my list. I can always do with a laugh.

To make a short story long, when, curious what had driven AlterNet into the meanstream, I visited their marbled halls, I noticed the special coverage section on the rampant conservative bias in the nation’s media. I’m still laughing. In a long, very shrill article about the anti-Democratic bias of the media, specifically about the maltreatment of John Murtha, no mention is made of the fact that Rep. Murtha appeared on CNN three times in one day, each time being treated as if he were still a respected veteran instead of a dribbling senile old man who has completely lost his marbles. Ah well.

Gay Marriage Amendment

It is almost unbearable to watch the discussions on TV news shows about the same-sex marriage amendment which is being debated in the Senate today. One gay activist after the other is paraded on the nation’s liberal media platforms, with a ‘liberal’ sprinkling of so-called ‘actual gay families,’ to underscore the evil of discrimination against a ‘whole class of people.’ I had to switch CNN off this afternoon.

In the meantime, Democratic senators huff and puff that the whole discussion is a waste of time because other, more important concerns (that are more politically convenient for liberals) are not on the agenda: the war in Iraq, illegal wiretapping of US citizens, immigration reform, etc. Of course, all these senators make sure they use up the full allotted speaking time. Just to make a point about exactly how much of a waste of time this marriage amendment is.

I heard Senator Leahy complain that under US law the question of marriage is a state matter and could never be brought to a federal court anyway. So why are the Republicans suddenly abandoning federalism to ram a federal law through the voters’ throats? Besides, he said, if the amendment passed, the same “Republican judges” (his actual words) of whom the Republicans are so afraid would have to do the judicial mopping up of lawsuits arising out of the amendment. Of course, Leahy had argued that since the majority of federal judges have been appointed by Republican presidents, these judges themselves are Republicans too. In your dreams.

I believe a constitutional amendment against gay marriage is necessary. I am not sure whether this amendment is the one to go for because it does not go far enough and does not rule out civil unions. And that is quite apart from the fact that the amendment will not pass. For constitutional amendments 67 votes are needed. There are barely 55 votes in the Senate. Yet it is clear that within a few years, judges will rule in favor of gay activists and rule existing state bans unconstitutional. That is not so much because these bans are in fact unconstitutional but because many judges, who are on the bench already, believe in the “living Constitution” theory, which teaches that the Constitution means what the ACLU decrees it means. So, if the First Amendment talks about the government not passing any laws infringing on the freedom of religion, this living Constitution theory clarifies this text for the modern American (thanks to the ACLU) to read that Christians can only worship if they do so behind closed doors in their church building and do not profess their religious beliefs in public.

As we can see, with this sort of irrational philosophy being swallowed whole—because politically convenient—by scores and droves of jurists, even a constitutional amendment is not safe. But there is no better defense against the hallucinations of the gay rights movement. Leahy’s argument that the federal courts have no jurisdiction is absolutely laudable. I agree with him. But while the ACLU might agree that now outdated theories of the Constitution (theories that hold to the idea that the text means what it says it means) do also lead to this conclusion, more evolved human beings know innately that federal judges have the moral duty to ignore such narrow legalistic views and come to the aid of suppressed minorities. A higher law trumps petty rules such as the Constitution.

This state of affairs is pathetic. It means that the Democrats are in essence right when they say the amendment is superfluous. Yet the amendment is necessary just to bolt the door against activist judges. As the old Latin saying goes, “Who will guard the guards?” so the modern American saying goes, “Who will keep judges’ fingers out of the law?” If everyone played by the rules, such draconian measures would not be necessary. But Liberalism has long thrown out the rule book and plays only by its own rules.

The Brewing Gay Power Grab

It is a sad time we live in when one has to start with this announcement: I know and have known quite a few gay people and get along with almost all of them.

I say this merely to forestall the accusation of homophobia from those on the loonie left fringe. Disagreeing with the gay rights’ movement is not a crime yet but it most likely will be soon, judging by recent developments in society. The thought police over at the Human Rights Campaign and their agents across the political establishment have now managed to squeeze Boston Catholic Charities out of the adoption business. Their method is as shocking as the headlines announcing the charity’s withdrawal as an adoption agency: by imposing pro-gay compliance laws on society.

A highly recommended feature article by Maggie Gallagher in the May 15 issue of Weekly Standard explains exactly how Boston Catholic Charities were forced to throw in the towel. Needless to say, the judicial tyranny that reigns in Massachussetts has much to do with it. When that state’s Supreme Court ruled that restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples was unconstitutional homophobia, it automatically granted gay couples the right to adopt. The Catholic charity, which excludes such couples from their adoption services, thereby came to be in violation of Massachussetts’ non-discrimination laws. Rather than wait for the first lawsuit to be brought against them, they decided to save the money and disband the adoption service altogether. A sad but wise move because already the gay rights’ movement is so powerful that a court case would have been a long drawn out affair and almost certainly have led to a gay victory in yet another court.

At the same time, gay rights activists elected to the California state Senate have managed to push a bill through the legislature that would make gay indoctrination mandatory in California’s schools. The state assembly is less likely to follow orders from the gay rights lobby, but chances that the bill is approved are not so slim as to laugh it off as another stunt. If it is approved and Gov. Schwarzenegger cannot find the backbone to veto it, children as young as primary school age could be taught the virtues of the same-sex lifestyle as soon as 2012—by government decree.

These are very scary developments. In the name of equality, the gay rights movement is twisting more and more political and judicial arms to impose dictatorial laws requiring compliance with the gay goose step on more and more parts of the country. Make no mistake, the California bill and the Massachussetts gay marriage ruling are as much symptoms of the breakdown of democracy as any other example of dictatorial repression you can think of.

Of course, what gay rights activists are saying is that gays are persecuted by unjust laws in the same way that black people were persecuted by Jim Crow. It’s a despicable accusation. African Americans were denied equal rights in equal situations. This is not the case with gay people. It is already illegal to discriminate against gay people in situations where sexual preference is irrelevant. Gay people already have the right to marry—just as soon as they find an opposite-sex partner they can go to any justice of the peace to get married, like any heterosexual person. Gay people are not denied anything that heterosexual people are not denied also.

It is important to realize that gay rights activists want extra and new rights specifically for them. Not only do they want to live together with their same-sex lover (against which there are no laws), they also want to have the state-recognized rights and benefits of heterosexual marriage, despite the fact that they do not qualify for the terms and conditions of marriage. Already many states and corporations award health benefits to unmarried couples of the same sex. Interestingly enough, these same institutions deny these same benefits to unmarried couples of the opposite sex. Special privileges for special people.

It seems that, in the words of George Orwell, the gay rights movement believes that “some animals are more equal than others” after all.

‘Othercott’ the “Da Vinci Code” Movie: See “Over the Hedge”

I will be brief about this issue. On May 19 The Da Vinci Code movie opens in theaters across the United States. The book and the movie are a monument of America’s anti-Christian elite. Billed as a spy thriller, the story describes Christianity as one big conspiracy concocted in AD 325. For those of you who don’t worry about this (yet), let me inform you that the story is not considered fiction by most scholars on America’s campuses. In fact, the three prevailing theories used to interpret the New Testament rest on exactly the same premise as The Da Vinci Code. Scholars merely bicker and argue about what parts of the New Testament were written by whom and at what time—naturally ruling out a priori that the authors identified as such in the various Scriptures were the real authors. Anything to debunk the most powerful religion of America, because thumbnosing Christians is very important to the anti-Christian, pro-gay, pro-choice, pro-New Age spirituality liberal elite.

I believe the best way to sink this movie is not to boycott it but to ‘othercott’ it. That is to say, don’t stay home on May 19 and don’t merely protest the movie. Go out to the movie theater and see another movie. Highly recommended is “Over the Hedge,” an animated family movie. Or pick another acceptable movie, to make sure that the Da Vinci Code move does not rank high in the box office results.

Seventy four-year Old Jailed for Pro-Life ‘Activism’

I stumbled into this worrying story from Britain. Edward Atkinson, a 74-year old man, was convicted last week on charges of sending malicious mail and anti-social behavior. The man, described as a militant anti-abortion activist in the London Sunday Times, had sent pictures of aborted fetuses to the chief executive of Queen Elizabeth Hostpital in King’s Lynn, Norfolk.

Not only is it worrying that this man was jailed at all, but that the London newspaper described the incident as “evidence of the shock tactics being used by hardline anti-abortionists.” Americans especially must be somewhat amused by this description since this usually refers bomb-crazed loonies being dragged off by ATF agents from an abortion clinic. Mr. Atkinson’s most active part in his “shock tactics” was licking an envelope and putting a stamp on.

For those of you who had failed to realize that Britain is rapidly becoming a totalitarian country outlawing religion, or in fact, everything that cannot be proved ethical from Karl Marx’ Das Kapital, here is the evidence. Britain has a law that can send a 74-year old man to jail for “sending malicious mail.” The recipient of the mail, Ruth May, was in tears as she described the “very upsetting and offensive literature” Mr. Atkinson had sent her. Well, of course the mail was upsetting. But could it be more upsetting and offensive than the practices the literature depicted? After all, as the person in authority in the hostpital she is in charge of the abortions performed there. In other words, it is legal to abort babies, but illegal to tell people about it?

People of Britain, wake up!

UN Report Calls It As It Is: Guantánamo Is Illegal

It would be easy as a conservative to deride the UN report on Guantánamo Bay as a piece of irrelevant foreign politicking. In a sense, it is, of course. The United Nations have no jurisdiction over the United States, and considering that the opinions in the report were reached without a visit to the prison facilities at Guantánamo, one might well wonder whether anyone should take notice of it at all. Also, the UN are rapidly becoming merely the international arm of the Democratic Party.

That, I say, would be easy. It would also be very unhelpful. Sadly, reputable conservative magazines like National Review have taken the stance that Guantánamo is a perfectly sane place. Deroy Murdock, in a contribution in the online version of the magazine, argued, in his opening sentence, no less:

“As a new United Nations Human Rights Commission report demands the closure of
the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, President Bush should
go in the exact opposite direction and announce a brand-new policy: None of Camp
Delta’s 490 enemy combatants shall be released until America wins the War on
Terror. ”

I must strenuously disagree. The prison facility at Guantánamo Bay is illegal, at least the way it is currently run. I take no position on the question whether prisoners are actively tortured there. However, I do vehemently oppose the very existence of this facility. Since Guantánamo Bay is considered foreign soil, the government can claim that US law does not apply and that, therefore, prisoners there do not have any rights.

Since this is the same type of reasoning that is applied to human fetuses by the liberal loonies of the country, it is eyebrow-raising, to say the least, that a Republican government can consider some humans to be ill-qualified to be treated fairly. If the phrase “equality under the law” is to mean anything, the government should allow detainees at Guantánamo access to judicial review of their case. I reiterate the position I have taken before, that some secrecy rules may be imposed, in the interest of national security. But a basic right to challenge one’s detention is an absolute must. There can be no compromise on this. US policy as it stands now is in violation of the Constitution, not to mention general (Judaeo-Christian) morality.

Whether the US close Guantánamo is not relevant; what matters is equality under the law. As long as the Bush government continues to hide behind “commander-in-chief authority” to deprive a whole class of people indiscriminately of basic human rights, the rule of law is impaired. Conservative or not, I must protest.

Alito Confirmed... But at What Price?

(Originally posted February 3, 2006 - recovered February 17, 2006)

Finally, on the last Tuesday in January, after an exceptionally long confirmation process, Samuel Alito was confirmed as the 110th Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. The vote in the Senate followed pretty much the same pattern as the one in the Judiciary Committee, that is to say, almost perfectly along partisan lines.

This, I believe, is the true story. Not the so-called scandals the Democrats wouldn’t tire of dragging up out of the distant past of the candidate. That is not to say that Samuel Alito is perfect in every respect. I am sure that some of the ‘scandals’ in the man’s past turn out to have more than a grain of truth in them. Let’s face it: he probably made mistakes. But that should not stand in the way of concluding that now Justice Alito was eminently qualified for the Supreme Court. It is not as if you have to be perfect to make it to that court or that Supreme Court justices never make a mistake. After all, five justices made a most lamentable mistake when they ruled to enshrine Roe v. Wade in American law.

So, let’s make a clean breast of it: Samuel Alito has, like any other human being, some stupid mistakes in his past. His involvement in the racist Conservative Alumni of Princeton is reprehensible, as is the fact that in 1985 he chose to list this as an accomplishment on a job application. But the assertion that these incidents are indicative of a pattern of bad or even bigoted judgments is a bold-faced lie. They are individual exceptions on an otherwise exemplary record.

Thus, the real story is the irrational resistance put up by all but three Democrats. For what reasons did they oppose this nomination? Do we really believe those bogus statements about his judicial record showing a bias in favor of big corporations and the federal government and against the little guy and the oppressed minorities? I certainly do not. On the hot-button issue of abortion, Alito sided with the pro-choice argument more frequently than with the pro-life movement, simply because the laws as they exist left him no other room. Yet Planned Parenthood came out and said that the man would undoubtedly “turn back the clock” to the time of “illegal, back-alley abortions.”

The Democratic representation of the man’s failings is nothing short of a distortion, and totally—let me repeat: totally, one hundred percent—based on irrelevant, emotional or political arguments. That the man is a Roman Catholic and considers abortion murder nevertheless did not stop him from upholding the secular abortion laws of the country. In other words, in this and other matters, he has shown his ability to separate his private beliefs and political preferences from judging the law as it is.

And then there is that catchphrase that Democrats love to bandy about, that this man is “out of the mainstream.” What does that mean? Are liberal political ideas the mainstream? Surely, the phrase is a euphemism for “not in our looney liberal in-crowd.” It can hardly stand for “average American” since the party is dominated by wealthy New Englanders and Left Coast university professors. Every time Ted Kennedy opened his mouth to paint Alito “out of the mainstream,” I had to wonder: How do you know? You’re a spoiled, overweight, rich drunk who’s part of a famously dysfunctional family. I have one word for you: Chappaquiddick.

The sad thing is that all this posturing by the Democrats has sincerely cheapened the whole meaning of congressional democracy in the country. Since they have apparently thrown out the rule book, what is to keep the Republicans from ignoring all decorum and good manners when it suits them? It sets a scary precedent that may have actually brought the end of civilized political processes a lot closer than we think. The Democrats have resorted to arrogant temper tantrums, running around with their fingers in their ears rather than participating in the political system. By doing this they have given legitimacy to this kind of puerile contempt for dignified debate that is already rampant on the country’s university campuses where the leaders of the future are currently being bred. When they come to power, or maybe even before, a bunch of them might just, in a sort of righteous anger, decide to by-pass the elections and simply march to the Capitol to demand the power they believe is coming to them. That’s the kind of politics they were taught.

That is the truly scary upshot of the Alito confirmation. He won the seat but with a nation of spoiled teenagers stopping their ears with their fingers, whatever he says may not be that important after all.

Devotional Blog Started

This New Year I have started a non-political devotional blog at calvinchristian.blogspot.com.

George Lakoff’s Nightmarish Vision

Drawn to the local Borders by the lure of a 50%-off second item coupon, I stumbled into a quite enlightening, if frightful, book. I left the bookstore, not unexpectedly, without cashing in the coupon for I am not quite ready to spend money on such spying expeditions into the mind of the hard, if not, atrified Left. And though in some sense I consider the 45 minutes I spent perusing the book and reading excerpts from it lost, I have gained a valuable insight into the true state of the nation. The book in question is George Lakoff’s Moral Politics (second edition, 2002).

Although Lakoff—a noted linguist at Berkeley in the sense of “noted” which generally detracts from the value of the noun it modifies—claims to give an unbiased look at both sides of the political aisle, his openly professed liberalism has clearly caused him to have a view of the world that I cannot agree with. Not only that, it is one which I am convinced is, to use a term he would expect from a conservative Christian, and abhor, wrong.

Lakoff describes politics in the early twenty-first century as building on two completely different understandings of morality. So far so good. Unfortunately, his way of defining these different moralities is skewed by his own preconceptions of right and wrong. This is ironic because as the expert socio- and psycholinguist, the main purport of his book is to uncover a ‘hidden’ mechanism of the human mind by showing how our preconceived notions, informed by our moral frameworks, causes us to frame debates in our choice of topics, viewpoints, and even vocabulary.

For Lakoff the US consists entirely of people who subscribe to either one or the other of two mutually contradictory moralities: Strict Father morality and Nurturing Parent morality. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which of these two in Lakoff’s binary, I daresay, dualist universe is the yin and which the yang, which the good and which the evil. His caveat that there may be variations on the general pattern he describes does nothing to diminish his absolutist statement. Lakoff ordains ex excelsis.

In a lengthy treatment this expert then applies the two moralities to all the contentious political issues of our time and ‘proves’ that Liberalism is far superior to Conservatism. He shows the inner inconsistency of Strict Father morality, in that it does not apply to parenting. Conservatives are bad parents as scientific studies have shown, Lakoff claims. Liberals, who subscribe to the Nurturing Parent morality, which foreswears punishment of all kinds, churn out far superior offspring, much better prepared for a society in which all problems can be solved, even prevented, by just loving (nurturing) everyone, regardless of race, gender, age, sexual preference or criminal record or inclination.

That is, if they churn out any offspring at all and refrain from exercising their perfectly moral decision to abort their “clusters of cells” or “embryos,” who, Lakoff claims, are not identifiable and individually existing members of the species. In a ridiculously off-hand and short chapter, Lakoff deals with abortion, possibly the number one contentious moral issue of our age. Instead of dealing with actually used arguments or referring to any medical evidence, our linguist merely notes that there are two different vocabularies employed by our two main choruses.

There is the factual, scientific vocabulary of the medical world, used by the cowboys in the white hats, which includes words such as “embryos” and “fetus.” Use of these words indicates, our linguist notes, that one is engaging the situation in a rational way. Conservatives never use these medically correct terms but instead use the emotional—and factually incorrect—term “baby” to refer to all stages of pregnancy. Lakoff then proceeds (one almost imagines him doing some casual cartwheels as he treats this topic) to explain why it makes sense for conservatives to reason in such a way about abortion.

After all, Lakoff claims, conservatives see it from the Strict Father’s perspective: the unwanted pregnancy is the result of the woman’s stupidity or disobedience of well-rehearsed rules (beaten into her). Thus, the knee-jerk response of any consistent conservative must be to enforce the appropriate rule (punish). The much preferred liberal’s approach is, naturally, to sit down calmly with the distressed woman who is “in trouble” (this is the actual term Lakoff uses), and come to a rational conclusion. Any liberal will want to nurture this woman and do for her whatever she needs. Getting rid of a “cluster of cells” or “embryo” is, of course, a viable option, if not doing so would stand in the way of the woman’s full potential.

Yada, yada, yada. Lakoff goes on like this for a good many pages on many topics. His second edition includes an “afterword” in which he ‘explains’ to the poor befuddled liberal intellectual why the Republicans were after Clinton in the Lewinsky affair and why George W. Bush, the illegitimate president, used all means, fair and foul, much better to his advantage to beat the wooden Al Gore. The latter includes profiting from the five Strict Father worshipers on the Supreme Court who “arbitrarily” chose to elect him president regardless of the perfectly legal recount ordered by the Nurturing Florida Supreme Court that would have put Gore in the White House.

Perhaps his most jaw-dropping chapter is on Christianity. Of course, being the academic intellectual that he is, Lakoff has to show his respect for the diverse religions in the country and rescue the Bible from the clutches of the Strict Fathers in order not to upset influentual liberal Christian elites. Thus, conservative Christianity is merely the natural result of a Strict Father morality imposed on the Bible. The Bible alone, he argues, endorses neither morality—it is completely and utterly neutral morally.

Yes, that is what Lakoff actually writes.

If you happen to be a poor befuddled conservative picking up your jaw from the floor right about now, let this be a wake-up call. This truly is the extent of the lunacy of the Left and this is how influentual it is on American campuses. This reasoning is completely in line with what is preached in all the mainline denominations, except possibly Southern Baptists (who are not considered “mainline” by Lakoff), and in academia. After all, the deconstructionist movement in literature of the latter half of the twentieth century has pushed to the extreme the idea that texts only “come to be” in the interaction with the reader. Thus, the Bible, like any text, has no internal meaning. Only every individual reader can impose this on the text by means of his ideas, biases and preconceived notions.

I do not know whether Lakoff, being the trained linguist that he is, actually believes this ridiculous philosophy, but it is clear that he has no intelligent relationship with certain key passages in the Bible, such as, “You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal.” Sound morally neutral to you?

In short, Lakoff’s book is probably a must-read reference book, and I may have to go back and buy it after all (though my wallet groans at the idea of being used for this purpose). Lakoff is clearly completely loopy. He makes fun of conservatives who hold to such ridiculous notions as exclusive truth claims, yet his entire book is a neon sign testifying to his own belief that only liberalism is true and conservatives are just plain wrong. The book is a tissue of such undigested logical contradictions.

But then, the deconstructivists and post-rationalists who now populate America’s universities (no, these are not made-up names, there are real groups of academics who hold to philosophies by those names), have taken leave of sense: their senses, to be exact.

Movie Review: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

I do not venture into a movie theater very often, especially now that we have an infant in the house. Nevertheless, my wife and I joined a friend today to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I can heartily recommend the movie.

Some Puritan hotheads have already vented their complaints about the supposed blasphemous nature of the movie and C.S. Lewis’s heretical Christianity, but I am not impressed by their arguments. If Lewis’s Narnia series cannot be considered wholesome Christian literature, then I do not think there is much to read beyond the Bible and the Nicene Creed. It is a view of culture that I do not think is warranted by the Bible, since it leads to cultural withdrawal and monasticism.

The movie—the cinematic portrayal of the first in the series—is a great success. It is a sound product on various levels. The special effects are wonderful (done by the same crew that worked on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings), the casting is spot-on, and the movie is very faithful to the book.

That is not to say that one could not split hairs about some things in the movie. I will not render a verdict on the question whether it is theologically sound to have Christ portrayed as a lion. This allegation, from the conservative quarters mentioned, hinges on the supposition that the Narnia series are a straightforward allegory of the gospel and that author wrote it as an evangelistic tool. Seeing as C.S. Lewis categorically denied the accusation of allegory, I do not think we need go any further into this argument.

Of course, for those who carefully pick their theater visits, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe will be compared to Lord of the Rings. In that comparison, the latter is decidedly the better production. But it is important to realize that this is an unfair comparison. The Tolkien trilogy is a whopping one thousand pages, written primarily for adults, whereas Lewis’s Narnia series is a much lighter creation, aimed at children. If printed in comparable lettertype, all of Narnia is about a third the size of the Lord of the Rings.

Thus, it must be accepted that the Narnia series does not have the same realistic depth as Lord of the Rings. Indeed, the characters in the movie The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, are not as well-developed as those in the Ring movies. Others might also cavil at the looser relation between book and movie, but one really must make allowances for the ‘padding’ the producers had to employ to make a feature-length movie out of a 100-page children’s book.

The great compliment that can be made in view of these minor defects is that Narnia really comes alive. What we meet really is the Narnia of the books, the Narnia I was longing to see. The stern rules about faithfulness to the book imposed on the producers, and the intimate involvement of Douglas Gresham, Lewis’s stepson, in the production, has paid off.

Anyone who, when seeing the film, does not have the feeling of meeting old friends and having come home, has been splitting too many hairs.

Bringing Down the White House

With the indictment of Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff, Lewis Libby, many opponents of the Bush government are now hopeful that a dramatic political shift could come soon.

Already a majority of Americans thinks the president is doing a bad job on all fronts, and that includes the War in Iraq. The anti-war protests on campus last Wednesday were part of a growing discontentment with the president’s insistence on staying the course. After the media reports about the White House leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent, most people have become convinced that the current administration has more than just a few drops of blood on its hands when it comes to Iraq and the reasons for going to war.

Not surprisingly, the Libby indictment is considered evidence of a White House cover-up of the government’s lies about pre-war intelligence. Many media present it as the first step toward bringing down the White House. The Minneapolis Star Tribune exhorted senators on Thursday to refuse debate on the Alito nomination until the White House comes clean on the leak scandal. The secret session forced upon the Senate by Democratic leaders this past week was interpreted by some as a reminder to the Republicans that the Democrats are not impressed by threats of the “nuclear option” in case Judge Alito is filibustered. But minority leader Harry Reid used the Iraq War as the grounds for his request.

However, what is perhaps even more troubling than the indictment of a White House official on felony charges is the fact that Americans are now listening to only one side of the media. Ever more Americans are digging into partisan trenches and accuse the media of being biased, yet are astonishingly willing to believe those media that play tunes to their political liking.

Many Americans believe that, in the media, there are only sources of Truth and sources of the Lie, yet the opposing political sides identify these sources differently, of course. This simplistic representation of the media and their role in politics is doing little for a critical engagement with the news. It is important we get our heads out of the partisan sand.

Take the CIA leak scandal. Joe Wilson’s repeated appearances on national TV recently are quite sickening. Just because it was the right-wing Weekly Standard that revealed a number of disconcerting inconsistencies in Mr Wilson’s version of his trip to Niger and subsequent government actions, does not mean we have further justification to hail him as a whistle-blower against White House corruption.

Nobody has to get a subscription to the Weekly Standard, but their arguments in this case are compelling and they suggest that the former ambassador and his wife are more than up to a very dirty game of bluff poker with the White House. Right now, they have already won several hands, thanks to the mainstream media’s gullibility and disinterest. On this topic, American media has its fingers in its ears, shouting, “Bush is a liar! Bush is a liar!”

Indeed, I believe that the Bush administration has been wrong on many things concerning Iraq. But the a Senate Intelligence Report from July 2004 also drove a small truck through Mr Wilson’s tearjerker op-ed piece. Nobody takes any notice of it because it is politically more convenient to enlist Mr Wilson in the all-important cause of bringing down the Bush White House.

I cannot help but protest that it does matter whom you enlist. The political left hailed the indictment of Lewis “Liar” Libby as a victory of justice. The reason: it is the first step toward cleaning out White House corruption. Joe Wilson can hardly be an advocate for truth and accountability, considering his shady part in the affair.

Mr Wilson and his ilk are not going to convince moderate conservatives like myself to join the campaign to hold the Bush administration accountable. As long as this campaign is dominated by people who can only shout mindless choruses against the current president, we are not making any progress, and you will not see me outside Coffmann Union to protest the war.

Call me crazy, but I would like a little more substance and intelligence in politics. The idea that demonstrations and revolutions are the only way to effect political change is a rather quaint Bolshevik fantasy.

As for Iraq, let’s put our thinking caps on and think of a way to bring back America’s soldiers without leaving the terrorists dancing and singing in Iraq. And as for the current administration, continue the protests, naturally. I would also advocate regular visits to factcheck.org, a non-partisan media watchdog project at the University of Pennsylvania, to get a reality check on the media bias that permeates all news in this country.

For one thing, they show that the famous “16 words” in the 2003 State of the Union were certainly factually incorrect but, fair is fair, that at the time President Bush had good reason to believe his claim about WMD in Iraq was accurate. There is a huge difference between being wrong and consciously lying.

There is no point in replacing one lie with another. If we want real change, let’s first do our homework. Don’t just rely on the Cliff’s Notes to current politics. You’ll miss the all-important details.

Miers Withdrawal a Good, If Ungraceful Thing

Harriet Miers and President Bush have to be applauded for finally doing the right thing. Although conservative commentator and Law professor Hugh Hewitt complains in today’s New York Times that Miers’ withdrawal of her nomination for the Supreme Court was an outrageous act of sabotage by other conservative commentators—he specifically accuses National Review—there was little doubt left that Ms. Miers was not the right choice for this seat.

One can come up with many reasons to reject Ms. Miers. Some right-wing Christians have complained about her unknown stance on abortion but we should ask whether that would be a fair reason to reject her. I have advocated that a nominee’s stance on abortion should be an important litmus test and I will stand by it. Abortion is abominable and should be recriminalized. However, this discussion should be embedded in a thorough view of constitutional law. After all, if we want a safe anti-abortion activist on the court we might as well nominate James Dobson. We have no doubts about his position.

Thus, the complaint that Ms. Miers was fuzzy on abortion is not good enough. What we really need to know is a nominee’s views on the way US law, and especially the Consitution, works. Mere opposition to abortion is not good enough. What we need to see is a developed legal opinion about the Supreme Court precedents that caused the legalization of a practice that kills unborn people. Abortion is an outrage, but there is a second, separate outrage that should teach us something about the anti-child forces that advocate special rights for women to kill their babies. This outrage is that pro-choice activists and politicians are willing to ignore the plain words of the Constitution in order to invent these special rights. In other words, I am charging that you can only support legal abortion if you are willing to throw out US law and make the Constitution inferior to special rights for women.

Thus, what we need in a new nominee is a candidate who can see through these legal implications. That means that we should not expect any candidate, to mix some metaphors, to put his or her head in the noose before the pack of wolves known as the US Senate and proclaim to be anti-abortion. But it does mean that we have a good compass to navigate on, with plenty of leeway to find out where the nominee stands on abortion without asking him or her. It also means, however, that the nominee should be comfortable operating on the knife-edge between politics and sound judicial practice.

Ms. Miers was not that candidate. She is undoubtedly a smart women with many credentials but not the judicial credentials she would have needed as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court. I agree with Hewitt about the disgraceful and ungraceful way she was brought down by another pack of wolves, the (religious) right. No Christian has a right to use slander and lies to destroy a person’s reputation (Ninth Commandment, Sixth Commandment) and the agents in question should understand their reprehensible, anti-Christian, and hence sinful, behavior. The process should have been allowed to run its course. The Senate Judiciary Committee would have rendered their verdict on the resubmitted questionnaire, there would have been hearings and—if the senators had retained any logic and dignity—Ms. Miers would have been soundly voted down by a majority.

Mr. Bush should never have nominated Harriet Miers and Mr. Hewitt points out the most important objection to this month-long excursion into nowhere: it delays the replacement of pro-choice Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. No-one would have expected her to be still on the Supreme Court in November, least of all O’Connor herself, who resigned after the previous Supreme Court Session last summer. But because she promised to remain on duty until her replacement is confirmed, she will likely be around to cast her vote against New Hampshire’s parental notification law in Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood to be argued next month. With the way the votes are lined up on the present Supreme Court, Justice O’Connor will likely cast the 5th and deciding vote against the constitutionality of parental notification. That will be the real tragedy in the Miers debacle.

Pledge of Allegiance Thrown Out Again

A federal court in California has—again—ruled that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional. According to judge Lawrence Karlton, the words “under God” in the Pledge are a violation of the First Amendment. Reciting the Pledge would mean forcing a “coercive requirement to affirm God” on all students, according to the judge.

Christians and conservatives have not unexpectedly condemned the ruling. Legally, they say, this ruling is suspect at the very least since the judge claimed that he was bound by precedent. The precedent in question was the ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which ruled on this same question in 2002. However, conservatives claim that this precedent was overturned when the Supreme Court ruled that the plaintiff in that case—the atheist Michael Newdow who is now representing two other plaintiffs in this case—had no legal standing to bring the case.

But quite apart from the legal squibbling, Christians are outraged that the judge has now declared affirming God in public an offense. It is seen as another step on the increasingly slipperly slope toward official prohibition of visible religion. Although the term “God” can be taken as a very non-descript title of the Divine in general, there is hardly any doubt that in a Christian country like the US, Christians are the main victims of this ruling.

So, what are we to think of this ruling? The first observation that needs to be made is that the ruling is hardly a surprise. All the same actors were on the scene and the California courts are hardly known for their conservative leanings. Whether or not the 2002 ruling was rendered inoperable by the Supreme Court ruling, the same facts were presented to substantially the same court by the same people. One could hardly have expected the same liberal court to suddenly take a shine to affirming God.

Yet we need to look a bit deeper than that because the outrage vented by the conservative critics is virtually the same as the very shallow objections raised by Democrats this week against Supreme Court nominee John Roberts. Just as the Democratic senators continued asking the judicial nominee Roberts questions about his political views, so the critics of judge Karlton’s ruling have complained about its ethical and moral insufficiency rather than its legal value. Regardless of whether judge Karlton is Christian or anti-Christian, he had to decide this case based on the laws available to him. And like it or not, the notion that the First Amendment prohibits reciting the words “under God” in a public school is legally quite compelling.

After all, the relevant words in the First Amendment are as follows: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It can certainly be argued that at the basis of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance there is no act of Congress so that there is no legal coercion. But such an argument would be restricted entirely to a very legalistic, quite frankly pharisaical view of law. In actual fact, Congress has passed many laws regulating the mandatory school attendance of America’s youth and regulates the public—and even private—schools with numerous laws and rules. American children who find themselves in a public school classroom where the Pledge of Allegiance is recited are not there of their own accord and cannot effectively influence the school system that arranged for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I believe, therefore, that as a legal ruling, based on current American law and the Constitution, judge Karlton’s ruling is correct and will be upheld if it is appealed. If it should reach the Supreme Court, newly appointed Chief Justice Roberts would almost certainly uphold the ruling. Probably not because he agrees with the sentiment of the ruling, but because he would be bound to do so based on the laws as they are on the books now.

One may wonder why the Pledge of Allegiance has ‘suddenly’ become unconstitutional when it has been recited for decades. Of course, speaking from a very principled point of view, the Pledge has always been unconstitutional. But no judge in the 1950s would ever have ruled it so. Before the rampant outbreak of postmodernism, which rejects all authority and truth, including relgious truth, it has probably not occurred to anyone that the words “under God” might be in violation of any law or right. America, even liberal America, simply had not become allergic to religion yet. The Pledge flew under the radar until Michael Newdow went into his now infamous anaphylactic shock over the word “God” and decided to do what he believed was the American thing to do: sue.

Thus the tragedy in this case is not so much the ruling. Judge Karlton probably had no choice. The tragedy here is the fact that American culture has degraded to such a level of rabid secularism that religion offends some people to such an extent that it excites them to acts of anti-religious vengeance. Mr. Newdow could not let the Pledge slide. In his view, it is so odious and dangerous that it needed to be eradicated from society.

It is a tragedy that America has let society get to this point. More than likely, we are paying the price for a number of very unrighteous acts performed in the name of Christ in the past that religion is so hated by a large chunk of the general public. But then again, it is in man’s nature to rebel against God and so perhaps it is merely the decadence of twenty-first century luxury that allows some of the most ardent rebels to elevate their wickedness to higher levels. After all, as Agur said in Proverbs 30: 8-9,

Remove falsehood and lies far from me;
Give me neither poverty nor riches—
Feed me with the food allotted to me;
Lest I be full and deny You,
And say, “Who is the Lord?”
Or lest I be poor and steal,
And profane the name of my God. (NKJV)

Perhaps America, which is getting obese on whopping amounts of unhealthy food, is getting full.

Robert Daniel van der Hoek

Today at 7:49am (CET) my son Robert Daniel was born. He was 19.5 in and 7 lbs 2 oz at birth.