The Inaugural Prayer

Steve Waldman's got an essay up today, at the Wall Street Journal, on the changing practice and cultural significance of the inaugural prayer.

The Bible upon which President Abraham Lincoln was sworn in for his first inauguration is displayed at the Library of Congress in Washington December 23, 2008. On January 20, 2009, President-elect Obama will take the oath of office using the same Bible Lincoln used.

I found two points of particular interest:

1) The interactive graphics include a discussion of the Bibles used by key presidents, and the scriptural passages upon which they laid their hands. President Dwight D. Eisenhower opened his Bibles (in 1953 and 1957) to Psalm 33:12: "Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; and the people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance."

2) The discussion of Reverend Franklin Graham's decision to offer a less-inclusive prayer at the inauguration of George W. Bush in 2001:

By 2001 conservative evangelicals had become a powerful force in American politics, instrumental to electing George W. Bush to the presidency. Part of the evangelical identity, increasingly, was a pugnacious sense that they were being persecuted and should not be cowed into suppressing their faith. "I knew stating that there is no other Name by which an individual can be saved grate on some ears and prick some hearts," Franklin Graham wrote about his inaugural prayer in his book, "The Name." "However, as a minister of the gospel, I was not there to stroke the egos of men. My role was to acknowledge the all powerful One and please Him....I want to please my Father in heaven no matter the cost." The country's growing religious diversity left evangelical Protestants feeling more defensive and inclined to strut their theological stuff.

January 20th: Inaugural Indoctrination Day

My campus has sponsored a set of inaugural activities to celebrate Barack Obama's accession to the presidency.

One of these is a talk by Dr. Julian Del Gaudio on the morning of the inauguration, "Democratic Presidents, Economic Crisis, and the Possibilities for Progressive Change."

Professor Del Gaudio teaches history in my department. He is co-chair of LBCC's "Campus Progressives," which is a local affiliate of International ANSWER. One might infer that the "progressive change" mentioned in the title of the lecture seeks to move society much further to the left than the current left-right centrism of the traditional American party system.

In any case, it's funny how we never had inauguration celebrations on campus in 2001 or 2005, when President Bush was elected. That's no surprise, of course, but it bears mentioning.

In any case, check out this essay from Sally Zelikovsky, "January 20th, Indoctrination Day," which includes this letter to parents at an unidentified elementary school announcing Obama-related activities:

Dear Parents:

As we begin our 2009 school year, we do so with new hope! As a school community we will celebrate the spirit of CHANGE! We have six days of activities planned for our students, culminating in the viewing of the inauguration of our new president on January 20, 2009. We will all be in our Multipurpose Room, watching together as Barack Obama takes the oath of office.

You will be getting more information in the next few days. Most importantly, we invite you to join your child as we view the inauguration festivities. We will open our doors at 7:00 am on January 20, 2009. We will be showing the event live on our large screen in the Multipurpose Room. Beginning at 8:10, all children will gather, and we will have a variety of events taking place: explanations by guests, singing, music performances, etc.

Our fifth grade students will be leaving for outdoor education camp following the inauguration. Parents of fifth graders will be getting detailed information of the schedule for the day including sleeping bag/suitcase drop off, etc.

Third and fourth grade students are asked to dress in "formal attire" ready for the inaugural ball at lunchtime!! This attire can be as simple as a pair of white gloves, a jacket, a bow tie. During lunch recess there will be "ball" activities for all!

Building up to our inaugural event, we will all participate in a Character/Citizenship Week. We will remember that we are all called to "think wisely", "care" and "grow". Children will be asked to bring "change" for "change" (proceeds for global projects).

There will also be a student bake sale and daily fun events during lunch recess (see flyer below for schedule)

We invite all of you to be part of this historic event. Join us on January 20th in our Multipurpose Room as we celebrate together!

On Barack Hussein's Patriotism

As Barack Hussein prepares for his inauguration (the President-Elect will use his full name), Bernard Chapin suggests we should be "Questioning Obama's Patriotism":

The case of Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann was a cautionary tale. Mrs. Bachmann, while speaking to Chris Matthews on his television show Gutterball, stated, “I’m very concerned that he [Obama] may have anti-American views. That’s what the American people are concerned about. That’s why they want to know what his answers are.” Matthews, ever the partisan Democrat and by far the most devout of Barack Obama’s biased media protectors, referred to this banal statement as “an extraordinary claim.”

Well is it? Of course not. Given Obama’s career, his words, the tone of his autobiography, and his associations with ardent America-haters like Father Michael Pfleger, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Frank Marshall Davis, and William Ayers, Bachmann’s words were intuitive and anything but extraordinary. That Obama deems America — in its current configuration — a spurious venture appears to be about as controversial as believing that water is wet.

In the president-elect’s vision, we only will become a great nation if we alter ourselves into becoming another nation, one that precisely matches Obama’s desires and expectations. Regardless, Bachmann faced a reelection donnybrook and was forced to apologize. Recant aside, her expressed opinion was one a sizable plurality of her peers share.

Granted, the pusillanimous nature of the average Republican politician (excluding Bachmann) appalls, but there is no cause for the rest of us to retreat on this issue. In the hopes of clarification, let me state with absolute certainty that the reason we should question the political left’s patriotism is that they are not patriotic.

On a plethora of policies, from immigration to missile defense, the Democratic stance suggests that they do not have a dog in the fight when it comes to America’s national security. Were they not so embarrassed by our history, along with the unfashionable folks who inhabit our non-urban enclaves, they might well think differently.

On a plethora of policies, from immigration to missile defense, the Democratic stance suggests that they do not have a dog in the fight when it comes to America’s national security. Were they not so embarrassed by our history, along with the unfashionable folks who inhabit our non-urban enclaves, they might well think differently.

Moreover, the president-elect’s recent selection of Leon Panetta to become future director of the Central Intelligence Agency underscores this eventuality. It exposes the Achilles heel of the post-sixties Democratic Party. Mr. Panetta has practically no experience of working with the intelligence community in any capacity and neither does our impending director of national intelligence Dennis Blair. Obama argued that Panetta would be “committed to breaking with some of the past practices.”

Which qualifies him for what? Further, what practices need be terminated? Hopefully, the traditional practice of entrusting those who know how to do their jobs with defending the frontiers is not what he had in mind. In all probability, Panetta’s status as a loyal Democrat and one devoted to the Change.gov religion is what necessitated his nomination, but placing him near the apex of our national security apparatus is about as rational as the Detroit Lions hiring me to play cornerback. If Mr. Ford can overlook my not being able to cover receivers and withstand punishment, then he definitely will profit from my never rooting for the other team or leaking information to the Packers.

The ridiculousness of Obama’s choice was even apparent to Senator Dianne Feinstein, who observed, “I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the CIA director. My position has consistently been that I believe the agency is best served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time.” One would presuppose that the United States would benefit from having a CIA director who was familiar with both the military and the war on terror, but such an assumption fails to take into account the weltanschauung of our president-elect.

To Obama, the CIA job is merely a patronage position. Panetta is a Washington, DC, version of a “soldier for Stroger.” His is a superfluous appointment. As with all leftists, Obama regards America’s principal enemies as being the politicians in the opposition party. The critics of the progressive movement on these shores — as opposed to Islamo-fascists or the dictators of rogue states — are the real threat. After all, what’s a dirty bomb or a hundred thousand Katyusha rockets in comparison to those who correctly deride Obama’s plans for a twenty-first-century economy as “socialism” — which we all know is really a code word for “black.”

Yes, the critics of "progressives"?

That sounds familiar ...

Obama to Facilitate Forced Abortions in China

John McCormack links to a BBC report indicating that more Chinese women would like to have more than one child. Beijing's one-child policy, of course, has drawn condemnation from around the world.

According to McCormack:

Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush all refused to fund the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) because the organization helps China execute its one-child policy (and because the UNFPA also funds the occasional unseemly eugenics program). But Barack Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, has pledged to reverse the course of his Republican predecessor and fund the UNFPA. It's somewhat ironic that feminist organizations are the interest groups pushing most strongly for UNFPA funding.

Apparently, if thousands of Chinese women are forced to abort their unborn children--and baby girls, in particular, are targeted for death--well that's just collateral damage in the cause of "women's rights", in the view of groups like NOW. Of course, to be fair, feminists claim that UNFPA does not directly support forced abortions in China. I'm skeptical that UNFPA equipment and funds do not aid some of the doctors performing forced abortions, but it's indisputable that that the Communist party gives local bureaucrats population control goals to meet. When number of births exceeds the desired limit, the bureaucrats sometimes decide to round up women and abort their children. For example, in April 2007 in Guangxi province, "61 pregnant women were injected with an abortive drug after being dragged to local hospitals".

If Obama funds China's population control program without requiring China to prosecute those performing forced abortions--or, ideally, requiring China to do away with its one-child policy altogether--there will be a lot more horrifying stories coming out of China--brought to you, in part, by the American taxpayer.

The last thing we'll see on this is Democratic-leftists protesting Obama's pledge on the UNFPA. The progressive-left devalues life and champions moral depravity, not just in the protection of life, but in traditional family values and the sanctity of moral goodness.

This particular Obama policy pledge is truly an abomination, and it's one more reason folks should be concerned about the coming to power of "The One," and reason as well to oppose the nihilist left mercilessly.

Eric Holder and the Terrorists

Joseph Connor, at the Los Angeles Times, offers one of the more powerful personal stories of the loss from terrorism I've read:

In 1975, when I had just turned 9, my father was killed by terrorists.

He was supposed to be home early on that Jan. 24 for a family celebration of my birthday and that of my brother, who had just turned 11. Instead, while my father was at a business lunch at the historic Fraunces Tavern in New York's financial district, a bomb exploded, killing him and three others. One of my father's colleagues was decapitated, and silverware from the table was lodged in the torsos of the other victims. The Armed Forces of National Liberation, or FALN, a Puerto Rican terrorist group, claimed responsibility.

My father was just 33. Up to that point, his life had been an American success story. The only child of immigrants, he was raised in Washington Heights, a blue-collar section of Manhattan. He worked his way through college and went on to a job at J.P. Morgan, a firm at which his mother had worked nights as a cleaning lady. He was a terrific father. His death has left a gaping hole in our lives.

Now my family is facing a blow of a different kind.

President-elect Barack Obama has nominated a man to be his attorney general who was closely involved in former President Clinton's decision as he was leaving office to pardon 16 FALN members convicted on conspiracy and weapons charges. Though no one was ever charged specifically with the Fraunces Tavern bombing, the FALN proudly claimed responsibility for it amid more than 100 others. Its attacks killed six people and wounded scores of others. Tellingly, the bombings stopped after 10 FALN members were convicted of conspiracy and weapons offenses and sent to prison in 1981. They were among those Clinton chose to pardon.

At the time of the pardons, Eric H. Holder Jr. was deputy attorney general. In considering his department's recommendation on clemency, he met with supporters of the terrorists but ignored their victims. He pushed staff members to drop their strong opposition to a presidential pardon for the FALN members and alter a report they had prepared for the president recommending against clemency. Today, although two turned down their pardons because they were unwilling to renounce violence, many of the convicted FALN members walk free. And a man who was instrumental in their release may become the highest law enforcer in the land.

You have to read the rest at the link.

Needless to say, Connor is not pleased. He works in the New York financial sector, and he lost friends on September 11, 2001. I doubt he'd appreciate being attacked by leftists as a "fearmonger."

President George W. Bush: Farewell Address

Here's the video of President George Bush's farewell address to the nation:

See also the coverage at Memeorandum, including the New York Times', "A Somber Bush Says Farewell to the Nation."

Copies of the text are here and here:

The decades ahead will bring more hard choices for our country, and there are some guiding principles that should shape our course.

While our Nation is safer than it was seven years ago, the gravest threat to our people remains another terrorist attack. Our enemies are patient and determined to strike again. America did nothing to seek or deserve this conflict. But we have been given solemn responsibilities, and we must meet them. We must resist complacency. We must keep our resolve. And we must never let down our guard.

At the same time, we must continue to engage the world with confidence and clear purpose. In the face of threats from abroad, it can be tempting to seek comfort by turning inward. But we must reject isolationism and its companion, protectionism. Retreating behind our borders would only invite danger. In the 21st century, security and prosperity at home depend on the expansion of liberty abroad. If America does not lead the cause of freedom, that cause will not be led.

As we address these challenges – and others we cannot foresee tonight – America must maintain our moral clarity. I have often spoken to you about good and evil. This has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere.

Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This Nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense and to advance the cause of peace.

Gay Activists Plan Obama Inaugural Celebrations

Fox News reports that homosexual activists are pulling out all the stops for inaugural-night parties on January 20:

Unprecedented inaugural celebrations for President-elect Barack Obama by gay activist groups, social organizations and ordinary citizens suggests many view his election as a signal of a forthcoming sea change for the gay rights movement in America.

Not surprisingly, the story indicates that these "gayla" party events may not be so family-friendly. According to Americans for Truth (cited in the Fox News article), the Doubletree Hotel Washington will host an inaugural weekend "pig sex" orgy to run concurrently with the "Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend," the latter being described as "an annual homosexual sadomasochistic celebration" at the Washington Plaza Hotel in D.C.

Some of the raunchy orgiastic activities planned are sexual escapades featuring "rimming stations" used to facilitate oral-anal sodomy in the hotel's business conference rooms (one man lies on the floor with his face pointing up, as seen in the photo above). A more explicit description of the gay orgy activities is found here, in an e-mail announcement of the sadistic event.

No doubt that "No on 8" backers and their "progressive" allies are jumping for joy at all of this gay rights "inclusion."

Meanwhile, the inaugural celebration for Barack Obama is expected to be the most expensive in history, at $150 million, which will put the costs of George W. Bush's second inauguration in the shade ($43 million). Note that Obama takes office amid the most serious downturn since the Great Depression, which raises questions of propriety amid hardship. Of course, we won't be seeing anti-inaugural protests amid the grand splurging, unlike in 2005, when the GOP administration was attacked for "inaugural excess."

It's all double-standards and "rimming-seats" for the Democrats, naturally. Who would want to spoil the progressive-left's rainbow celebrations?

Public Prefers Spending Over Tax Cuts, Poll Finds

From the Wall Street Journal, "Obama, Stimulus Proposals Enjoy Broad Backing in Poll":

Americans support the economic-stimulus plan being pushed by President-elect Barack Obama but worry the government will spend too much money and widen the budget deficit, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found.

Overall, the poll found strong public backing for the stimulus plan and its major planks, particularly proposals to spend more federal money to create jobs.

As Mr. Obama prepares to take office next week, he enjoys enormous good will and higher approval ratings than his predecessors enjoyed upon entering the White House.

The poll found that the handful of problems Mr. Obama's transition has encountered have had little, if any, effect on his standing with the public. And even before the Illinois Democrat is sworn in as the nation's first African-American president, the poll found a large increase in the number of Americans who view race relations positively.

The survey of 1,007 adults was conducted Jan. 9-12 and has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

As a whole, the nation's mood remains glum, with three out of four people surveyed expecting the recession to persist for at least an additional year.

Asked about the economic-stimulus package, now estimated to cost $850 billion over two years, 43% of people surveyed called it a "good idea," while 27% said it is a "bad idea." The rest didn't have an opinion.

Even Republicans and independents think GOP lawmakers should work to move the legislation forward. Asked whether Republicans in Congress should do everything to stand firm for their party's principles and oppose the legislation, or look to compromise with the Obama administration, 68% of Republicans and independents chose compromise, with 20% picking standing firm.

By a nearly 2-to-1 ratio, people preferred government spending to create jobs over tax cuts to give Americans more money to spend. Large majorities endorsed many details in the plan, with 89% saying they like the idea of creating jobs through increasing production of renewable energy and making public buildings more energy efficient.

At the same time, the survey suggests many remain concerned about the potential impact on the government's budget. Sixty percent said they worry more that the government will spend too much money and worsen the deficit, while 33% said they worry more that the government will spend too little.

Read the whole thing, here.

Secular Progressivism in Comparative Perspective

Peter Berkowitz offers a useful analysis of secular progressive ideology in his new essay, "The European Left and Ours." It's an important discussion, especially since hardline American leftists routinely offer the European socialist states as models for the progressive revolution they advance in the American state and society:

The election of Barack Obama as president of the United States marks a dramatic victory for the progressive left in America and a resounding repudiation of George W. Bush’s presidency and the Republican-controlled Congress with which he governed for six years. Obama’s election also represents an historic moment for the United States.

Many have been celebrating throughout the nation, and for good reason, because America, by electing a black man to the highest office in the land, has taken another impressive stride to overcome the last, lingering legacies of slavery and Jim Crow. To be sure, it would have been better if more progressives had bothered to notice, let alone take pride in, how far their country had come when George W. Bush — white, southern, and conservative — named in his first term Colin Powell secretary of state and Condoleezza Rice national security advisor, and in his second term elevated Rice to secretary of state. But the stirring fact remains that Obama’s triumph crowns a half century of steady progress in fulfilling the Declaration of Independence’s grand promise of freedom and equality for all, and in realizing the Constitution’s aspiration to build a more perfect union through representative government. At the same time, Obama’s election reaffirms the reality, frequently denied or derided by progressive anti-American sentiment at home and abroad, that the United States is a land of golden opportunity.

But winning elections is one thing. Governing is another. One reason for apprehension about whether Obama and the congressional Democrats are prepared for the enormous power they will exercise is structural ....

The structural temptation for Obama and his party to take their principles to an extreme is especially worrisome given the propensity for extreme positions and principles that the left of late has shown ....

Perhaps encouragements to moderation will come from other quarters. With President Bush’s departure from the White House, Bush hatred, along with its many ugly symptoms, may subside. The constraints of office and the realities brought home by daily intelligence briefings on America’s enemies may effectively counsel caution and sobriety. And the centrist Democratic candidates who decisively contributed to victory in the 2006 congressional elections and who, with election 2008, now represent a conservative bloc within the Democratic Party, may exercise a restraining influence on the Obama administration.

Unfortunately, the likelihood is small that Obama will receive encouragement from the intellectual class to reach out to the elected representatives of the 46 percent of the country who, on November 4, voted for John McCain and Sarah Palin. Dominated by left-of-center partisans, the mainstream media in Election 2008 frequently abandoned its traditional watchdog function, ignoring, deflecting, or suppressing even reasonable criticism of Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, while pursuing and amplifying even trivial criticisms of McCain and Palin. Meanwhile, colleges and universities, also dominated by left-of-center partisans, remain bastions of intellectual conformism, stigmatizing, where they can’t formally punish, speech and speakers that depart from campus orthodoxy.

The left, though, displays other worrying signs beyond the media’s failure to objectively report the news and our universities’ failure to promote vigorous exploration of all sides of the moral and political challenges the nation confronts. Unfortunately, it is not rare these days for progressives to indulge in a mocking disdain for traditional religious faith and to blithely regard fellow citizens who hold opposing views about abortion, embryonic stem cell research, and same-sex marriage as ignoramuses unfit for civilized discourse. In addition, the left has shown an unwillingness to examine responsibly the tradeoffs between security and liberty the nation has made and will have to continue to make in the struggle against Islamic extremism and mega-terror. It has been all too ready to join forces with the vilifiers of Israel, as demonstrated by its enthusiasm for Stephen Walt’s and John Mearsheimer’s fact-challenged and poorly argued claims, according to which for decades “the Israel Lobby” has dictated American foreign policy in the Middle East while Cold War containment of the Soviet Union and maintenance of the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf, apparently, had little or no impact on America’s conduct in the region. And it is disposed not merely to criticize the U.S. when the country is in the wrong, but to see the country as in the wrong grossly and constantly, and, from Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay abroad to race relations and immigration reform at home, it exhibits a penchant for enthusiastically trumpeting the most sensational accusations against America.

There's more at the link.

Roger Gardner: America Besieged

Roger Gardner is the publisher of Radarsite and an occasional commenter at this blog. He's been battling cancer and was originally told by doctors that he had little time left. It turns out his course of medical treatment has been successful beyond hope - with God's blessing no doubt - and Roger's been back to blogging a bit, about politics and the meaning of life. I wish him well in health and life, and he'll be in my prayers tonight.

Roger's got a post up today that's a lazer beam of moral clarity, and I'm pleased to share it with readers in light of the backlash we've seen here in the comments against some of my posts. Tim, Repsac3, and Truth 101 have formed something of a nihilist trio this past couple of days, and the comment threads have not been without fireworks of vituperation. I have recieved an e-mail from one reader who has observed all of this and has decided to stay on the sidelines. This reader repeatedly thanks me for my essays, and commends me for my patience in fending off the many brutal screeds that sometimes fill (pollute?) these threads.

In any case, Roger's essay today provides a perspective on things that's more powerful than I can offer. So please read and consider this excerpt from his post, "Chemo Thoughts: The End of My World?":

Earlier today a friend emailed me to ask how I was doing. I assume they were referring to my ongoing battle with leukemia. I answered that I was doing fine. I had determined early on when I got that first lethal prognosis that I was not going to use the pages of Radarsite for a continual updating on the morbid details of my chemotherapy. So I answered that I was doing fine. But, I wonder, how am I really doing? Am I really doing fine?

Nothing concentrates the mind like a death sentence. Especially one that is so close at hand and almost certain. Priorities are immediately questioned and reshuffled. What seemed of great import yesterday may have lost much or all of its weight today. The love and closeness of family and friends becomes paramount; whereas the opinions of strangers become less and less relevant. The often frenetic muddle of everyday life is quickly subsumed into the greater battle for life itself. There's only enough space left in your life for those things of real value, or perhaps for those values which are real. There's just not enough time left for empty rhetoric or endless gentlemanly debate. In whatever time is left you must embrace your family and your values and hold them dear ....

How do I feel? My friend asks. Here's how I really feel. From those very first days I have accepted my personal prognosis completely and without complaint. I am grateful for the endlessly fascinating life I have been allowed to live. But I have not yet accepted the dire fate that awaits my beloved country. I am filled with shame and disbelief at what we have become, what we are becoming, what we are giving up, what we have forgotten. My usually dependable inherent optimism has been all but eroded by the preposterous events of these last few years. That America I have so long loved and respected has been turned upside down. Those values that separated us from the rest of the world have either been ingloriously degraded or completely abandoned. We no longer know who we are or what we stand for. We allow others to define us, we allow our sworn enemies -- both within and without -- to determine our national agendas. We are in the fateful process of completely losing our national identity. And according to our recent elections, this makes half of our population happy. Half of our population considers our formerly-precious American identity to be the problem. America is what's wrong with this world. To fix the world we must therefore change what it means to be an American. Change we can believe in.

We are presently besieged by savage enemies. Islamists, Marxists, Anarchists, cruel dictators and criminal tyrants. We are besieged by alien cults of death who nurse apocalyptic visions of destruction. Everything that we hold dear is under attack and threatened. But the most dangerous and shameless enemy of all lives right here amongst us. Our very own treacherous patriots, who rush to give the keys to the kingdom to the barbarians at our gates. The idiots, the fools, the delusional liberals, and those elitist amoral progressives who honestly believe that by utterly destroying the fabric of this great nation they will somehow save it. They have traded our pride for guilt and our strength for safety. And I despise them for it. I despise them more than I despise our sworn enemies, because our sworn enemies do not disguise their motives under the cloak of patriotism.

And what of our innocent children? Our beloved grandchildren? What godless world have we bequeathed to them? What is our message to these innocents? There is no right or wrong. Everything is relative. All peoples and all belief systems are morally equal. There is no such thing as good or evil, just different points of view. War is morally wrong, no matter what its purpose. To defend yourself with violence is as unjustifiable as to attack one with violence.

How do I feel? I have been told that my life is coming to an end. So be it. I can deal with that. But can I deal with the prospect of my beloved country coming to an end? Is my beloved country eagerly embracing its own demise? Will our new America truly be willing to fight for its survival in this savage world? Or, as it seems to me now, have we chosen the ignoble road of appeasement and dishonor? Is there still hope for us?

Now, I can't add to much to Roger's elegy to traditionalism without dishonoring his words.

I will say that in my writing, when I characterize secular progressives as "nihilist," I think Roger's essay captures my meaning. As Merriam-Webster's dictionary indicates, nihilism is " a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially of moral truths." Despite the protestations of the aforementioned commenters at this blog, Roger's "elitist amoral progressives" are one and the same with those who would deny "any objective ground of truth and especially moral truths."

Perhaps this will clarify some things, and thanks so much to Roger for offering his fine and meaningful musings on life, family, and the universal good.

Obama Was for Gay Marriage Before He was Against It

I've argued a couple of times that Barack Obama will capitulate in due time to the hard-left's demands for gay marriage rights. Obama's official "Change" website features the most comprehensive homosexual rights platform of any incoming presidential administration, and while Obama has argued against same-sex marriage while campaigning, by ideology and inclination he's favorably disposed to the gay marriage agenda.

It's no surprise, then, that the news this morning features a number of stories highlighting Obama's past endorsement of full-blown homosexual marriage rights:

In 1996, during his run for Illinois state Senate, Obama offered a progressive gay rights agenda, which is outlined in the memo above in a response to queries from the now-defunct newspaper, Outlines. The Windy City Times, the paper's successor, has the full story, "Obama Changed Views on Gay Marriage" (see also Ben Smith's report).

The Windy City Times claims that it searched its hard-copy archives for the "missing" questionnaires of the Chicago-area candidate positions for that year's elections. In the case of Obama, with the documents just now coming to light, this could be one of the most momentous bait-and-switch operations in American history.

I argued earlier that at some point, given Obama's language of tolerance and his inherent style of finessing the issues, we'd see a push for gay marriage under a new Democratic administration, starting with the repeal of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, the federal law the relieves states of official recognition of the gay marriages of citizens of another state. As I argued:

The DOMA says that the federal government will not recogize same-sex marriages as coequal to traditional marriages, and it holds that states need not recognize same-sex marriages that have been lawfully authorized by legislatures of other states.

Should the Obama administration repeal DOMA, the gay marriage movement will become legitimized under a creeping federalism of No on H8 intolerance, as more and more states recognize same-sex weddings across the nation - that is, an Obama administration will give the green light to the destruction of this country's traditionalism by legitimizing claims to homosexual marriage equality.

This would be a huge step toward consolidating a national religion of secular humanism at the federal level of American government and politics. Indeed, this is exactly the outcome demanded by radical same-sex activists. We will see a new national polity built on an ideology of cultural relativism, no longer that great shining City on a Hill, but just one more run-of-the-mill postmaterialist industrial state with an anything-goes program of amoralism nationalism.

Here again, are the stake before us ...

It's only a matter of time before we see Barack Obama shift his position back to favoring the gay marriage agenda. Whether this begins with DOMA or with legal challenges to gay marriage bans in the states, my sense is that Obama's early statements on homosexual rights reflect his core beliefs, and he'll use his office to advance that agenda as a matter of personal principle. Strategically, he might delay this step until after reelection in 2012, but a first-term repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" could set the tone at the federal level for a major public relations campaign by the Obama administration in the years ahead.

I Know What You're Doing, Baby

A couple of the comments threads are getting a little testy today, so I thought we'd better lighten things up with some sounds. Please enjoy Dionne Farris, "I Know" (video starts shortly):

I know what you're doing yeah yeah
I know why you dialed my number
I know what you're doing yeah yeah
I know why you care

I know what you're doing yeah yeah
I know why you say you love me
I know what you're doing yeah yeah
And I don't think it's fair

I know why you dialed my number
I know why you say you're mine
I know what you're doing,

And it's not, gonna work, this time (2)

I know what you're doing yeah yeah
I can never sing in that key
I know what you're doing yeah yeah
And you're the one to blame

I know what you're doing yeah yeah
I know why you can't forgive me
I know why you're singing lost love
The lyrics haven't changed

1-I can recognize the symptoms
You should know I've changed my mind
I know what you're doing
And it's not, gonna work this time
Hey hey hey, said it's not gonna work this time...

I know what you're doing, baby
I know why you call my name
I know why you say you love me
but I can't say the same
(repeat 1)

President Bush to Leave With Dignity and Grace

President Bush gave his last press conference yesterday morning.

The meeting is getting some big play online, very little of it positive.

That's the way it is for this president, who has been hammered relentlessly on his decisionmaking and policies, on issues ranging from tax cuts to warrantless wiretaps. It's not just the left, of course. Many on the right see the Bush years as an epitaph for conservatism. Not me. The country needs a new direction, but the new administration represents cyclical change. The GOP's dominated politics for decades, in both ideas and power. The Democrats will have a go of it now, and there may of a realignment of sorts depending on how successful the Barack Obama administration is.

But I have no doubts this administration's legacy will be great and profound. I've written recently on President Bush's moral clarity, and I'm sad to see this unyielding advocate of American exceptionalism leave the presidency. I'm not one of those conservatives who have soured on Bush. I understand some of the constraints in foreign policy and war that have derailed other administration initiatives in international relations, but as we see in the video above, Bush has understood that the president must often lead rather than follow, especially on public opinion. The war in Iraq is turning out to be a phenomenal achievement, and it will rightly be the centerpiece of the Bush legacy of standing up against rogued regimes who flout the will of the international community.

We are continuing to see, of course, calls for war crimes prosecutions on the left, and the press conference had the tone of a truth commission, where journalists hectored Bush to admit his "failings." When Bush counted out a few lesser flops, that wasn't enough. Dana Milbank criticized Bush for not admitting the "big mistakes." Jennifer Rubin responds, noting President Bush's dignity and grace as he nears exit from office:

Opinion is sharply divided on the Bush presidency, and many of us don’t yet have a firm grasp on how large the failures will loom and how significant the accomplishments may seem in hindsight. But if there were ever a more graceful exit by a president — both in the tone of his interviews and the magnanimous and robust cooperation with his successor (who excoriated him during the campaign in the most personal terms) — I can’t recall it. That too will be part of the legacy.

It will be a monumental legacy. I have no doubt.

Remedial Classroom Civility

I'm back to school this week so I thought I'd share this piece on the absence of student decorum in the classroom.

The essay, "Remedial Civility Training," is not new. I came across it while reading another excellent article in the latest issue of the NEA's teaching journal. But I like the idea of "remedial civility," and the essay's the best piece on the topic I've seen in a long time:

I think it is a serious problem that many public schools - and private ones - have just about given up teaching many of the academic skills that were once considered basic for every high-school graduate, not just the ones going to college. But what really troubles me is that schools - no doubt, mirroring the broader culture - have given up cultivating the ordinary courtesies that enable people to get along without friction and violence.

Instead, I see among my students a dispiriting amount of cynicism about teachers and contempt for learning except as a hurdle over which one must jump on the road to some lucrative career. Some students imagine they will advance on the basis of having a degree, even if their words and manners indicate that they are unsuitable for any kind of job that involves dealing with people. They seem completely unaware that knowing how to behave will have a serious impact on their future prospects.

This is not about the simple rules governing which fork one should use but about norms of behavior about which nearly everyone used to agree and which seem to have vanished from student culture.

There are the students who refuse to address us appropriately; who make border-line insulting remarks in class when called upon (enough to irritate but not enough to require immediate action); who arrive late and slam the door behind them; who yawn continually and never cover their mouths; who neglect to bring books, paper, or even something with which to write; who send demanding e-mail messages without a respectful salutation; who make appointments and never show up (after you just drove 20 miles and put your kids in daycare to make the meeting).

I don't understand students who are so self-absorbed that they don't think their professors' opinion of them (and, hence, their grades) will be affected by those kinds of behaviors, or by remarks like, "I'm only taking this class because I am required to." One would think that the dimmest of them would at least be bright enough to pretend to be a good student.

But my larger concern here is not just that students behave disrespectfully toward their professors. It is that they are increasingly disrespectful to one another, to the point that a serious student has more trouble coping with the behavior of his or her fellow students than learning the material.

In classrooms where the professor is not secure in his or her authority, all around the serious students are others treating the place like a cafeteria: eating and crinkling wrappers (and even belching audibly, convinced that is funny). Some students put their feet up on the chairs and desks, as if they were lounging in a dorm room, even as muddy slush dislodges from their boots. Others come to class dressed in a slovenly or indiscreet manner. They wear hats to conceal that they have not washed that day. In larger lectures, you might see students playing video games or checking e-mail on their laptop computers, or sending messages on cell phones.

I could share dozens of stories on this stuff, and at some point I will, but right now I have to get ready for my 7:30am lecture. I'll be back online this afternoon.

Fanatical Islam's Tightening Grip in Britain

This essay probably won't be the most heartwarming bedtime reading, but Francesca Segal's essay on growing anti-Semitism in Britain is vital reading:

I am a secular, liberal, identifying British Jew. My parents would have taken great pleasure if my acting talents had landed me a starring role in the primary school nativity play; on Christmas Day, we gather at home eating smoked salmon bagels and mince pies. There is no conflict whatsoever between my religion and nationality. On the contrary, they have always supported and echoed one another in terms of the values and moral structure they promote. Judaism has taught me to value liberalism, education, tolerance, family and charity. All Jewish religious services and celebrations include a heartfelt toast to the Queen, because Jews in this country have felt safe, well-assimilated and, most of all, grateful.

In August 2001, I turned 21 and my parents gave me a Star of David necklace. Then a month later, the world changed and my mother, with remarkable foresight, began her campaign to rescind the gift, begging me to take it off because she was frightened it would make me a target in the wake of mounting evidence that fanatical Islamism was tightening its grip on the country. My argument was always the same - when I am no longer safe being identifiably Jewish on the tube, I don't want to live in England.

Now it's happening and I am devastated. It was bluster. I am resolutely, irreducibly British. I love Marmite and Labradors and Sunday lunch. If you step on my foot, I will reflexively apologise. New York, where I will go if I have to leave the UK, does not feel like home for me nor, I suspect, could it ever. But as the British establishment sides with the appeasing of Islamism at home and abroad and as the word Zionism is increasingly bastardised, hijacked by a new definition comprising traditional antisemitic libels and demonising conspiracy theories, and as the liberal media and campaigning groups single out Israel disproportionately among all other countries for criticism, perpetuating the myth that Israel is responsible for mushrooming anti-western sentiment, I feel increasingly that I cannot stay.

There's more at the link.

Also, don't miss Melanie Phillips' latest post as well, "Peace and Hate," on the anti-Israel demonstrations in London.

Today's "Antiwar" Movement

Some folks may have noticed amid all the protests against Israel in Gaza is that the main sponsor of the demonstrations in the U.S. is the ANSWER coalition. Saturday's pro-Palestinian demonstration in Westwood, for example, was sponsored by "the Free Palestine Alliance and Answer L.A.", according to this report in the Los Angeles Times.

A Times photo of yesterday's demonstration depicts protesters holding signs sponsored by CAIR, the country's top Islamic lobbying group and "front organization for Hamas."

I'm one of those who view the "peace" protests with a wide angle.

A look at the protesters at these demonstrations indicates it's never just about one isolated injustice, military campaign, or alleged gay rights abuse. We routinely see any and all protests ultimately engagint the secular left's most radical forces in their attempts to take down the entire system. Some folks on the Democratic-left, who might call themselves "liberals," minimize the neo-Stalinist totalitarianism in ANSWER's agenda. Folks who supported Barack Obama and the Democrats knowingly support the ANSWER agenda while simultaneously and hypocritically denouncing the actual demonstrators at the barricades as "fringe activists." Natually, for those who consider themselves respectably antiwar and pro-choice, while advocating "universal" healthcare, there couldn't possibly be any connection between their "progressive" agenda and the antiwar demonization parades taking place routinely across America's cities.

In any case, John Bruhns, a veteran anti-Iraq activist, calls baloney on the "peace" movement at the Philly Daily News:

I support people protesting what they think are injustices, but all issues aren't linked. It's not a good tactic to force people to stand under an umbrella of issues, all of which that they may not support.

By alienating the silent majority, the current anti-war movement has dealt itself a bad hand that essentially diminished its credibility.

In a democracy, strength is in numbers. This anti-establishment and absolutist view of the political process is likely to be the real cause of their implosion.

As someone who's been fighting for years for an end to the war in Iraq, I find this tragic because we need the voices of millions to put pressure on our elected officials to end the conflict and fix the many problems facing our country. But those voices have to be credible to be taken seriously, and circus acts never are.

What pains me the most about the self-destruction of the anti-war movement is the fact that the people behind it genuinely want an end to the war. They're not phony front groups or partisan hacks using the war as an advantage to promote their political party, in my mind a worse sin than dragging in all those irrelevant issues.

But the truth is that the "real" anti-war movement has become far too radical to be effective.

They've pushed themselves into a corner where there's no possibility of meeting an opposing side halfway. If they ever hope to regroup into a force capable of generating a strong political will, they'll need to accept that it's 2009, not 1969 - and be more tolerant of other opinions.

Readers can judge the degree of Bruhns' naïvety. It sounds quaint to hear someone announce - after eight years of the most bitter denunciations of the "evil BusHitler regime" - that the movement's gotten too "radical."

The angry activists we've seen in the latest wave of demonstrations against Proposition 8 and now Israel are not good people, frankly. Their agenda is revolutionary, plain and simple. Some of these forces are willing to cooperate with "bourgeoise" democratic-left parties and interest groups, but the most hardline factions allied around ANSWER actively support terrorist movements and armed resistance to American power, seen most recently in the vicious attacks on Jews at the antiwar rallies the past few weeks.

These people are the "nihilists" I routinely excoriate. The backlash I get on this blog from netroots nuts who call me a "fascist" or "wingnut" expresses solidarity with left-wing extremism. The most positive development I've seen in American politics since the election is Barack Obama's strong repudiation of the most radical street activists, their netroots allies, and their extremist policy agenda on such issues as gay marriage and torture-trials for Bush administration officials.

We'll likely see Obama burned in effigy as the new administration hews to a more traditional centrist orientation than the far left. But don't be surprised to see a few congressional Democrats manning the barricades.

*********

UPDATE: Zombietime has a new photo-journalism expose of San Francisco's Israel-Gaza protest from January 10th. Lots of pictures, but this passage reiterates my argument above (via Memeorandum):

Throughout the rally, there was a new name that cropped up all over: Oscar Grant. He was the unfortunate victim of a New Year's Day shooting by a local BART (subway system) policemen (which was either intentional or accidental, depending on whom you ask). Just a few days before this rally, there had been a protest against Oscar Grant's shooting in Oakland that had degenerated into a riot. That protest, unsurprisingly, had been co-organized by ANSWER as well. Almost overnight, Grant has become the new icon of the far left, the poster child for police brutality, and comparisons between Oakland and Palestine and Grant and the Palestinians were commonplace throughout this protest, which theoretically had nothing to do with Oscar Grant or his shooting. This sign was a prime example: "End Government Sponsored Murder in the Ghettos of Oakland and Palestine."

And the protesters have denounced Barack Obama:

Why? Because he's not left-wing enough! In particular, Obama's campaign appearance at a meeting of AIPAC (the pro-Israel lobbying group) infuriated many potential far-left voters who hoped that he would change U.S. policy and be pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel once elected.

On the Decision to Remain "Child Free"

Van Zan, one of my commenters, made an interesting observation yesterday about my repertoire of posts:

I like your posts when they are in common sense non-ideological mode - where everything is not somehow a Left-wing post-modernist plot of equivalence without moral clarity. Refreshing.

So, let me throw this out to readers: Does the passage below on child-bearing and family values raise questions of common sense or postmodernism (or something else)?

My understanding of reproduction is that it is the basis of the institutions of marriage and family, and those two provide the moorings to the structure of gender and sexual oppression. Family is the social institution that ensures unpaid reproductive and domestic labour, and is concerned with initiating a new generation into the gendered (as I analyzed here) and classed social set-up. Not only that, families prevent money the flow of money from the rich to the poor: wealth accumulates in a few hands to be squandered on and bequeathed to the next generation, and that makes families as economic units selfishly pursue their own interests and become especially prone to consumerism.

So it makes sense to say that if the world has to change, reproduction has to go. Of course there is an ecological responsibility to reduce the human population, or even end it , and a lot was said about that on the blogosphere recently (here, and here), but an ecological consciousness is not how I came to my decision to remain child-free.
Because reproduction is seen as a psychological need, even a biological impulse, that would supposedly override any rational concerns arising out of a sense of responsibility, ecological or otherwise, I would like to propose emotional conditioning to counter such a need or impulse to reproduce. Using my own life as a case study, I conclude that I came to a resolve not to reproduce through largely unconscious emotional reactions . I like children, but every time I fantasized of having one, I felt pangs of guilt over how for this 'impulse' of mine, someone else would have to put their body on the line.

Cassy Fiano has this (via Memeorandum):

Modern feminism is no longer about equality or letting women choose their own paths; rather, modern feminism is a hate group that looks at all men as potential rapists and abusers, sees a traditional nuclear family as dangerous, wants to make stay-at-home mothers a permanent thing of the past, and wants to force all women to make the lifestyle choices they dictate they should have.

Hopes for Bush Prosecutions Fade, Left Crestfallen

In his interview this morning at "This Week," Barack Obama signaled the supreme unlikelihood of war crimes prosecutions against top Bush administration officials. I'm making the rounds of all of the commentary and we see hand-waving at Democratic impropriety, with lamentations of anticipated GOP stonewalling, and harrumphing disgust that Republicans have issues with the shameful terror-enabler and attorney general-nominee Eric Holder (and that's not mentioning Glenn Greenwald, who's always the worst of the worst).

I've hammered Barack Obama almost a year, but he'll do the country a huge favor if he continues to ignore the unhinged fringe of the Democratic Party (folks who want justice not so much as revenge). In any case, the most pithily insightful thing I've read on this is from Charles Fried, who prefaces his argument against torture trials as such:

If you cannot see the difference between Hitler and Dick Cheney, between Stalin and Donald Rumsfeld, between Mao and Alberto Gonzales, there may be no point in our talking.

Not much to add there, except, "BAM!", to borrow from a well-known culinary expert.

Self-Preservation on Airlines and Elevators

I took my oldest son to the movie last night. We saw "Defiance," which is a phenomenal picture, and I'll have more about it in a later post.

What I want to talk about here Brian's post at Incertus, "On Flying While Arab," where he denounces racial profiling against ethinic minorities in airline safety as "racist":

Patrick Smith, who writes "Ask the Pilot" for Salon, spent the second half of his column today talking about how some American travelers are a bit too uptight when it comes to reacting to people of a particular ethnicity on airplanes.

He calls them irrational and foolish. I call them racist. And part of the reason it's a problem is because passengers get their irrational feelings reinforced by those in power. Profiling adds to the problem, because it makes the ignorant feel justified in suspecting a group of people based on nothing more than their physical appearance.

I don't really like Brian, from what I see in his essays. He embodies all that is wrong with today's brainless, politically-correct neo-Stalinism on the "progressive" left. In reading this blog, I've yet to see a post that breaks from the orthodoxy of the angry demonic partisanship of the netroots.

Now, my son and I drove to Los Angeles to see the film, which is playing exclusively at The Grove until general realease next week. We hung out at Barnes and Noble after the film was over, and headed for home around 11:00pm. The Grove is a cool Westside shopping mall with an old-town theme. We were especially impressed by the trolley cars and the outside dining by the lake and fountain. It's a country feel, amazingly, just South of Beverly Boulevard. Parking at the complex is facilitated by a huge parking structure, and as usual, we wound up parking near the top, on the 7th level. The night view over West L.A. and the Hollywood Hills was spectacular.

Anyway, as we were leaving, approaching the elevator to take us back up to the top of the structure, I noticed three black youths with heavy athletic jackets, loose jeans, and basketball shoes. I realized right then, before my son pushed the button to call the elevator car, that we'd be riding up with these guys in close proximity. I looked more carefully at them. The guys were playing with each other, having fun. There didn't seem to be an "alpha" leader of the three, and the shorter of the three friends jumped on his buddy's back and playfully bopped him on the head. I didn't notice any of sign of that big, phat urban swagger-stroll, which is inherently menacing, and it's a walk I see all too often in the classroom halls of my college. The guys weren't paying any attention to us, and I held the door open for them as we all hopped on the elevator. Another gentleman hurried to get on, and he pressed level 8 on the control panel, so I knew he'd be riding all the way to the top.

Now readers, am I racist for checking my surroundings and sizing up the safety situation for myself and my son? We rode the elevator up without incident. It was a non-event, no more significant than if a petite elderly Jewish couple had ridden up with us (keep in mind I chatted with just such a couple while waiting in line before we entered the movie house to watch the film, so the example is simply one that comes to me after seeing a movie about WWII Jewish partisans). But let's be honest? How many others out there would have waited for another elevater car? Young black male youths out for some fun at the mall on a Saturday night right? Or, gang-bangers strolling their turf while packing metal underneath their Starter jackets, or whatever other urban gear is the latest status symbol among inner-city coolsters?

Am I then "too uptight"? Well, before the PC troll police attack me for racial insensitivity, remember what Jesse Jackson, a paragon of racial sensitivity, said in 1993:

There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery - then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.

My sense is that self-preservation trumps political correctness, and I think most people, culturally-aware sensitive people, would make the exact same calculations I made last night 50 miles from home, at an unfamiliar shopping center, in an unfamiliar neighborhood, on L.A.'s Westside.

But back to Brian and Arabian airline travelers: Are Americans justified in their concerns and attendent ethnic-profiling of Middle Eastern passengers on commercial airliners? Considering that almost all airline hijacking in the last 35 years (not to mention our most recent terrorist suicide attacks on 9/11) have been staged by young Middle Eastern terrorists, who can you blame? Brian at Incertus blames the Bush adminstration's fearmonger, where ...

... our government, using the power of the TSA, has ingrained in a lot of people [an irrational fear of ethnic difference], which is that we should be more suspicious of brown people with unfamiliar names and accents who want to get on planes.

Actually, it's not irrational at all for people to worry about those who are statistically most likely to do them harm, whether this be young black youths on a cloistered elevator ride at an urban parking garage or Muslims on a post-9/11 commercial flight.

But don't mind me, I'm trying not to inflame anyone's racial sensibilities.

Movies, Moral Clarity, and the Reproduction of Culture

"Not everything has to be a judgment through the prism of 'moral equivalence'."

That's Wordsmith, at my post yesterday, differing with my take on Clint Eastwood's "Letters From Iwo Jima."

Actually, he's right: We don't have to look at everything through a lense of morality, but since the media, Hollywood, and the global film industry will do it for us anyway, it pays to be on guard against the pernicious influence of mass media relativism - doubly so considering the powerful impact movies have on the popular imagination of our younger generations.

With that, I think folks need to read Bill Whittle's essay on Hollywood's reproduction of political culture, "The Workshops of Identity." It's a lengthy piece, but brilliantly explosive in its blatant and triumphant exaltation of American cultural and material power, and of our (providential) exceptionalism. It's also a reminder of our responsibility as a nation not to discard that inheritance:

There was a time when America broadcast its virtues to the world. Films like It’s a Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, even Star Wars and Spider-man, were films about common, decent people – Americans, obviously, for we all know that even Luke Skywalker was an Iowa farm boy – who find themselves in dangerous and evil places and whose fundamental decency corrected this wrong in the world and restored a sense of hope and optimism, a sense that we are masters of our own destiny. It is an idea so powerful that even French intellectuals, who seemed then and seem today to be incapable of a single positive or upbeat thought, could watch in wonder and contempt as legions of their countrymen flocked to see them.

Those days have gone. No longer does Hollywood broadcast America’s mythic virtues to the world. No, the flow is reversed now. Now the great creative driving force of Hollywood is to present to America the anti-American hatred of the intellectuals watching in impotent fury out in the rest of the world,

Of the six or seven war movies made during the last few years, all – save one – were spectacular failures. Many were the reasons given for this, but perhaps, someday, while sitting in a hammock in the Cayman Islands, even a studio executive might be just intellectually aware enough to catch a flash of what is obvious to a pharmacist in Des Moines: that maybe, just perhaps, these films failed not because of war weariness or denial or rank stupidity on the part of the American people, but rather – are you sitting down? – that most of the country, unlike Hollywood, has sons and daughters and fathers and brothers in the military and know for first-hand fact that they are not rapists or murderers, hicks, dullards, losers, or broken and victimized children but rather the bravest, the most capable, the most decent and honorable and just plain competent people we have.

And perhaps, just perhaps, it might enter that navel-gazing, self-centered, dim little brain to reflect that the one war movie that did out-of-the-park business was the one that showed the Marines as the good guys, winning on the battlefield, defending their people and their culture against long odds and full of the heroism and sacrifice that used to be so commonplace in this city… even if the Marines in question wore loincloths and funny helmets and advanced with spears and round shields.

If America simply led the world military to the degree that it does today, well, that would simply be historical. That it should have both economic and military might, and use them so much more often for good than for ill, would unique and awe-inspiring. That it could couple military and economic strength with such leadership in science and medicine is simply unheard of in the annals of history, and for it to be the military, economic, scientific and cultural beacon that is is not only unheard of, it simply almost defies imagining – would, in fact, defy imagining to anyone who had not grown up in it, as we have, and seen it with their own eyes.

I have said all of that simply to say this: I know my people and I study our history. The single thing that makes America so exceptional is the belief of its people in American exceptionalism. It is a simple cause and effect relationship, easy to understand from using your own common sense and the examples in your own life. The confident and the bold do bold and confident things. The shameful and self-loathing? Not so much. And Hollywood as it exists today is using all of its vast talent to turn us from the former into the latter.

America is not just a cauldron, but a reactor. From all over the earth, men and women have risked their lives to immerse themselves in this great experiment in freedom and individuality, and the results, by any measure, have produced more goodness, more security, more prosperity and more raw happiness than society or combination of societies in history.

Stars, like our sun, are reactors too: the tremendous, monumental energies and pressures they generate would blow them to pieces in a millisecond, but for one thing… the immense gravity that holds these fiery atoms together and strikes the balance of force and pressure that creates all the light and life in the universe.

The American reactor of individuality and freedom of expression would also fly apart too, but for one thing: the deep love of country that has bound it together and liberated the best of the human spirit. Destroy that love of country and the idea of America – for that is what she is, in the end… simply an idea of freedom and the pursuit of happiness – eliminate that binding love and the reactor will explode. And when it does, there will be no more light – no more medicine, no more art and poetry, no more iPhones and MRI scanners and jet travel, no more Fifth and First Amendment rights, no more security and peace… in fact, no more hot running water.

Readers should absorb the whole thing, here.

This is probably the best essay I've read on American exceptionalism and the primacy of morality in culture. And in reading this, readers can see why I take issue with Tim, my commenter at the post, who says:

Donald: I believe, truly, that there is room for war films that are both triumphant and morally ambiguous. You're sounding a bit grandpa-ish here. By the way, what's wrong with showing something from another perspective? Isn't that one of the goals of art?

Bill Whittle's essay above provides the answers for Tim that in my sense shouldn't be so elusive.

Newshoggers and the Neo-Totalitarian Left

It's not suprising anymore that you'd get quotes like this from Cernig at Newshoggers:

It seems obvious that this war in a fishbowl, where civilians have nowhere to run to by Israeli design and so Israel can continue to allege that Hamas is using them as "human shields" instead of coming out into the field to fight fair and receive a proper ass-kicking, is entirely counterproductive to Israel's longterm aims if those aims are indeed to see an end to Palestinian extremism and terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians.

Read the whole post, which cites the extreme left-wing (and morally corrupt) LGM for support, and then ask yourself this: Did Israel's IDF and Mossad brainwash Nizar Rayyan's four wives and 11 children to pledge eternal death to the Hamas ringleader in the event of surgical strikes on his compound? As INN reports:

When Hamas leader Nizar Rayyan was assassinated in an IAF strike last week, his four wives and 11 of his children died with him. According to his surviving children, the death of the Rayyan family children was not an accident: Rayyan had trained his wives and children to die with him as "martyrs."

It's been a sickening couple of weeks with all the calls to put the Jews back in the ovens. At protests at home and abroad, anti-Semitic, anti-American nihilist extermination has again reared its head in a preview of the campaign of neo-totalitarianism we'd see if these folks seized total power across the globe, beginning with the destruction of Israel. The blogging contingents on the radical left - led by Cernig and Scott Lemiex, among many others - only serve to provide a web presence of ostensibly acceptable "progressive" thought, which is really the malevelent eruption of the kind of anti-rationalism that the U.S. defeated in World War II.

It's sad - almost tragic - that the left's contemporary discourse has turned authoritarian and reactionary, but this is the concatentation of ideological evil that the conservative forces of good, right, and tradition will face in the years ahead.