Speaking Truth to Democratic Big Government

Here's how the Los Angeles Times described the Democratic majority's economic stimulus package last week:

With Congress moving toward passage of an $800-billion-plus economic stimulus plan, big government is back. Unabashed. With a vengeance.

The stimulus is bigger than the Pentagon's entire budget. It's more than the United States has spent on the war in Iraq. And its hundreds of provisions reach into almost every aspect of American life - including workers' paychecks, local schools, digital television and modernizing medical records.

Perhaps not since the Great Depression has Congress set out to expand and redefine so dramatically the government's role in the economy, all in one bewilderingly complex blueprint.

Now, this morning's Washington Post reports that a number of top economists concur on the virtually unprecedented scale of the left's stimulus agenda:

With Congress moving closer to adopting a $820 billion stimulus package and the Obama administration poised to unveil a new bank bailout plan, economists say that the federal government is taking its biggest role in the economy in a generation.

States that once aspired to blaze trails independent from Washington are turning to it for money, banks and businesses that once decried regulation now are seeking federal capital, grants or tax cuts and individuals are looking for tax relief.

"This is a seismic shift in the role of government in our society," said Allen Sinai, chief global economist for Decision Economics. "Those who believe the government can be an effective, positive instrument for good will have another chance to try it," said Sinai, a political independent.

To reiterate Sinai's comment above, this is indeed a "seismic shift," and it foretells a major reorientation of the relationship between government and the individual in society.

Yet, there's a fundamental level of disingenuity in all of the public debate on this. People do not like identifying the ideological implications of this shift to unprecedented state expansion. When conservative commentators attacked the Democrats in 2008 as "socialist" for their big government planning, on health care, tax increases, and government regulation, the left-wing media and bloggers attacked them with an existential ferocity.

This week's cover story at Newsweek continues the essential dishonesty, "We Are All Socialists Now." Authors Jon Meacham and Evan Thomas name not President Barack Obama and the Democrats for our current shift to a European socialist state, but ... wait for it ... George W. Bush:

The U.S. government has already—under a conservative Republican administration—effectively nationalized the banking and mortgage industries ....

We remain a center-right nation in many ways—particularly culturally, and our instinct, once the crisis passes, will be to try to revert to a more free-market style of capitalism—but it was, again, under a conservative GOP administration that we enacted the largest expansion of the welfare state in 30 years: prescription drugs for the elderly.

This is so dishonest, it's almost sick. Republicans in Congress, during last year's bailout debate, wanted to use big government to rescue markets (and base conservatives howled in disgust every step of the way). Democrats today want to use big government to expand the welfare state to levels that put the Great Society to shame.

The left, in other words, wants to nationalize markets in furtherance of its ideological and programmatic foundations. A look at the House Appropriations Committee's press release, "Summary: American Recovery and Reinvestment," with its smorgasbord of big goverment, pork-barrel spending largesse, should put to rest talk of conservatives as creating the "biggest expansion of the welfare state in 30 years." The Johnson administration created Medicare in 1965. Both parties have accepted the need to support the health care of American retirees.

But recall it was also the same "conservative GOP administration" that campaigned for an entire year, unsuccessfully, for the privatization of Social Security as the marquee program in a conservative shift to an "ownership society." The Wall Street Journal laid out the scope of the Bush administration's vision in its essay, "In Bush's 'Ownership Society,' Citizens Would Take More Risk":

President Bush's campaign to revamp Social Security is just the boldest stroke in a much broader effort: To rewrite the government's social contract with citizens that was born of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and expanded by Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

In what Mr. Bush calls an "ownership society," Americans would assume more of the responsibilities - and risks - now shouldered by government. In exchange, the theory goes, they would get the real and intangible benefits of owning their own homes, controlling their retirement savings, and using tax credits or vouchers to shop for education, job training and health insurance.

The emphasis would be on the individual, supplanting a 70-year-old approach in which citizens pool resources for the common good - and government doles out benefits. In the Bush vision, the nation's social safety nets would still exist, but on a smaller scale, targeting the most needy. Others would move to private-market alternatives of their own choosing.

I have seen really nothing in the last year of economic turmoil to convince me that conservatives have abandoned the lost hopes of the Bush administration's vision for an even greater society of individualism and prosperity.

And if there's any evidence that hopes for an opportunity society have been abandoned, it's in the the priorities of the current Barack Obama administration, who has called the challenges facing the country today unequaled in history, and he's announced an unprecedented agenda for massive governmental change to avoid a "catastrophe."

So, while folks may indeed take issue with Republican craveness at Wall Street bailouts - as well as the party's larger historical capitulation to the welfare state since Barry Goldwater's defeat in 1964 - at the most basic level of ideology, today's left is on the cusp of achieving it's wildest dreams of the quasi-Marxist Europeanization of American life.

It's time for a little honesty about all of this.

Two Weeks of Obama's New America

Melanie Phillips, discussing President Barack Obama's first two weeks in office, asks, "America - what have you done?" After cataloging the president's multiple missteps, his ethereal mirage of propriety and rectitude, and not to mention the administraion's abandonment of clarion calls for "hope and change," here's the payoff line:

I have argued before however that, given Obama’s radical roots in the neo-Marxist, nihilist politics of Saul Alinsky, it is the undermining of America’s fundamental values that is likely to be this President’s most strategically important goal. I have also suggested that, since this agenda is promoted through stealth politics which gull the credulous middle-classes while destroying the ground upon which they are standing, his second-tier appointments should be closely scrutinised.

Phillips then goes on to discuss Obama's selection of David Ogden for deputy Attorney-General. Ogden has argued apparently that "it was an unconstitutional burden on 14-year old girls seeking an abortion for their parents to be notified - because there was no difference between adults and mid-teens in their ability to grasp all the implications of such a decision."

America, what have you done? is right...

How New Deal Policies Prolonged the Depression

There's an interesting, albeit typical, meme this weekend across the leftosphere suggesting that the easing of Democratic public works spending in the late-1930s was the main causal factor precipitating the "Roosevelt Recession" of 1937-38.

Responding to Senator Mitch McConnell's remarks this week that "big spending programs of the New Deal did not work," Glenn Thrush wrote yesterday:

Lots of historians, economists and bloggers disagree of course, saying that the Depression was, in fact, eased by FDR's programs - and the "Roosevelt Recession" of the late 30s was the result of his scaling back on public works too quickly.

Thrush's post set off a round of rebuttals to Senator McConnell's thesis.

Steve Benen parrots Thrush:

It's especially interesting to hear McConnell say WWII improved the economy. How, exactly, does McConnell reconcile this? FDR's government spending didn't help the economy, but FDR's government spending for a world war did help the economy? As Krugman recently explained, World War II was an "enormous public works project ... which finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy's needs."

But check out Matthew Yglesias:

To be precise, the historical record shows that throughout FDR’s first term, the country was on a path to recovery—albeit from a very low point. Then there was a recession-within-a-depression associated with efforts to return to McConnell-style policies of fiscal restraint. By 1940, things were much better than they had been in 1932. But still, as he says, not very good. Thus far we don’t have a very solid case against stimulus spending. And now things get worse. The conclusion McConnell wants is that “big spending programs” couldn’t help fight the Depression. But World War II was, among other things, a huge spending program.

I just love how Democrats love wartime spending when it works to make the case for big government. Amazingly, all those attacks on out of control deficit spending disappear upon change of party control in Washington. Even Yglesias himself included a $1.2 trillion projected budget defict for 2009 as part of the "wreckage" of the Bush administration!

As for public works spending and the 1937 recession, let's check in with economists Harold Cole and Lee Ohanian, and their essay, "How Government Prolonged the Depression":

Some New Deal policies certainly benefited the economy by establishing a basic social safety net through Social Security and unemployment benefits, and by stabilizing the financial system through deposit insurance and the Securities Exchange Commission. But others violated the most basic economic principles by suppressing competition, and setting prices and wages in many sectors well above their normal levels. All told, these antimarket policies choked off powerful recovery forces that would have plausibly returned the economy back to trend by the mid-1930s.

The most damaging policies were those at the heart of the recovery plan, including The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), which tossed aside the nation's antitrust acts and permitted industries to collusively raise prices provided that they shared their newfound monopoly rents with workers by substantially raising wages well above underlying productivity growth. The NIRA covered over 500 industries, ranging from autos and steel, to ladies hosiery and poultry production. Each industry created a code of "fair competition" which spelled out what producers could and could not do, and which were designed to eliminate "excessive competition" that FDR believed to be the source of the Depression.

These codes distorted the economy by artificially raising wages and prices, restricting output, and reducing productive capacity by placing quotas on industry investment in new plants and equipment. Following government approval of each industry code, industry prices and wages increased substantially, while prices and wages in sectors that weren't covered by the NIRA, such as agriculture, did not. We have calculated that manufacturing wages were as much as 25% above the level that would have prevailed without the New Deal. And while the artificially high wages created by the NIRA benefited the few that were fortunate to have a job in those industries, they significantly depressed production and employment, as the growth in wage costs far exceeded productivity growth.

These policies continued even after the NIRA was declared unconstitutional in 1935. There was no antitrust activity after the NIRA, despite overwhelming FTC evidence of price-fixing and production limits in many industries, and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 gave unions substantial collective-bargaining power. While not permitted under federal law, the sit-down strike, in which workers were occupied factories and shut down production, was tolerated by governors in a number of states and was used with great success against major employers, including General Motors in 1937.

The downturn of 1937-38 was preceded by large wage hikes that pushed wages well above their NIRA levels, following the Supreme Court's 1937 decision that upheld the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Act. These wage hikes led to further job loss, particularly in manufacturing. The "recession in a depression" thus was not the result of a reversal of New Deal policies, as argued by some, but rather a deepening of New Deal polices that raised wages even further above their competitive levels, and which further prevented the normal forces of supply and demand from restoring full employment. Our research indicates that New Deal labor and industrial policies prolonged the Depression by seven years.

Today's leftists seem to be overlooking arguments like this (although they can't pass up the chance to trash McConnell). What's interesting is how these folks almost universally cite Paul Krugman (and just Paul Kruman) as their source of authority, as did Josh Marshall as well, a few days back, in an attempt to smear Republicans as obstructionist.

But what do you know?

Via Memeorandum, here comes Krugman now with a just-in-time take down of the "centrists" in the Senate who have cut some pork out of the Democratic stimulus package, which was apparently, "already too small." On top of that, Firedoglake's got a follow-up smear against this "gang-of-four," Senators Collins, Specter, Lieberman, and Nelson, who have used their "power to deny Americans between three-quarters and one and a quarter million jobs."

Smells like more calls for "Stimulus Socialism" to me?

As always, I'll have more later ...

Afghanistan: Graveyard of Islamist Extremism

Last week's Newsweek cover story featured a sensational Fareed Zakaria essay comparing Afghanistan to Vietnam: "The analogy isn't exact. But the war in Afghanistan is starting to look disturbingly familiar."

The analogy is, of course, that the U.S. might well lose the Afghan war. After toppling the Taliban in 2001 amid warnings that the American military, like all previous great powers, would be bogged down in the "graveyard of empires," the U.S. is again on target for another quagmire.

Upon reading Zakaria, I was immediate struck by another analogy: Opponents of the Iraq war made the same argument from 2003 to 2006, that the war in Mesopotamia was "America's next Vietnam."

Taking up the new round of Vietnam analogies, Max Boot responds in his essay today, "Deja vu in Kabul":

It is striking the extent to which the arguments now being made about Afghanistan were previously made - and discredited - in the case of Iraq. The only thing we haven't heard yet is a proposal to dismember Afghanistan into mini-states. But with Joe Biden in the White House, we can expect that brainstorm to pop up soon.

Actually, another "Joe" has been brainstorming, but in the direction of victory. In his Wall Street Journal essay yesterday, Senator Joseph Lieberman argued that the real quagmire in Afghanistan will be al Qaeda's:

... there are already whispers on both the left and the right that Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires, that we should abandon any hope of nation-building there, additional forces sent there will only get bogged down in a quagmire.

Why are these whisperings wrong? Why is this war necessary?

The most direct answer is that Afghanistan is where the attacks of 9/11 were plotted, where al Qaeda made its sanctuary under the Taliban, and where they will do so again if given the chance. We have a vital national interest in preventing that from happening.

It is also important to recognize that, although we face many problems in Afghanistan today, none are because we have made it possible for five million Afghan children - girls and boys - to go to school; or because child mortality has dropped 25% since we overthrew the Taliban in 2001; or because Afghan men and women have been able to vote in their first free and fair elections in history.

On the contrary, the reason we have not lost in Afghanistan - despite our missteps - is because America still inspires hope of a better life for millions of ordinary Afghans and has worked mightily to deliver it. And the reason we can defeat the extremists is because they do not.

This, ultimately, is how the war on terror will end: not when we capture or kill Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar - though we must do that too - but when we have empowered and expanded the mainstream Muslim majority to stand up and defeat the extremist minority.

That is the opportunity we have in Afghanistan today: to make that country into a quagmire, not for America but for al Qaeda, the Taliban and their fellow Islamist extremists, and into a graveyard in which their dreams of an Islamist empire are finally buried.

Obama's Stimulus Alarmism

Here's President Obama's message to nation today, via YouTube:

I've written previously on the Democrats' sky-is-falling stimulus alarmism, but Fred Barnes nails it, arguing that Obama sounds like Al Gore on global warming:

The more the case for man-made warming falls apart, the more hysterical Gore gets about an imminent catastrophe. The more public support his bill loses, the more Obama embraces fear-mongering. "The failure to act, and act now," the president said last week, "will turn a crisis into a catastrophe."

The "catastrophe" meme is reprised again at the video.

Sexual Subtext in Obamessianism

Conservatives have made a cottage industry out of ridiculing the Democratic-left for its freaky cult of Obama. But seriously, in reading Judith Warner's essay on "dreams of Obama," we can see that it's much, much worse than previously imagined:

The other night I dreamt of Barack Obama. He was taking a shower right when I needed to get into the bathroom to shave my legs, and then he was being yelled at by my husband, Max, for smoking in the house. It was not clear whether Max was feeling protective of the president’s health or jealous because of the cigarette.

Ed Driscoll responds to this, saying:

Who dreams of having the President of the United States in their shower while their spouse is yelling at him for smoking? Worse, who admits to this in public?

Yep, it's a bit freaky, but note that Warner sought feedback on this via e-mail inquiries, and the results indicate a pandemic scope to the left's psychological disfunction:

Many women — not too surprisingly — were dreaming about sex with the president. In these dreams, the women replaced Michelle with greater or lesser guilt or, in the case of a 62-year-old woman in North Florida, whose dream was reported to me by her daughter, found a fully above-board solution: “Michelle had divorced Barack because he had become ‘too much of a star.’ He then married my mother, who was oh so proud to be the first lady,” the daughter wrote me.

But read the comments at the post, where thankfully not everyone's lost their minds:

Thank goodness I skipped the fantasy stage and went straight to contempt , oh, sometime back in 2007 when I was about 80 pages into the carefully packaged story line of “Dreams from My Father.” The man is a phony, through and through. Just about every word he speaks is hollow.

Stimulus Socialism

We are now roughly three weeks into the Barack Obama presidency, and with the push for a radical socialist makeover in the Democratic stimulus package, the contours of this nation's partisan and ideological chasm are now on full display.

Let's first take stock of where things stand: Unemployment is pushing 8 percent, and the scope and speed of job losses compared to the 1990-1991 and 2001 recessions is said to be "unprecedented." Meanwhile, the latest public opinion data show Americans are "are more concerned about losing their jobs than at any point in more than a decade."

Given all of this, it'd be hard to argue against the need for a vigorous governmental response on the economy. The real question is what to do, and as the administration and Congress have shown throughout the debate on the stimulus package, leftist ideological fundamentalism has turned the focus away from economic recovery toward Democratic pork-barreling and interest group socialism.

The morning's lead editorial at the Wall Street Journal captures the administration's tremendous lost promise on economic leadership, "The Stimulus Tragedy":

Everyone agrees that some kind of fiscal stimulus might help the economy, and that running budget deficits is appropriate in a recession ... [but] Mr. Obama chose to let House Democrats write the bill, and they did what comes naturally: They cleaned out their intellectual cupboards and wrote a bill that is 90% social policy, and 10% economic policy ....

Some Democrats claim these transfer payments are stimulating because they go mainly to poor people, who immediately spend the money. Tax cuts for business or for incomes across the board won't work, they add, because those tax cuts go disproportionately to "the rich," who will save the money. But a saved $1 doesn't vanish from the economy, unless it is stuffed into a mattress. It enters the financial system, where it is lent to others; or it is invested in the stock market as capital for businesses; or it is invested in entirely new businesses, which are the real drivers of job creation and prosperity.

This is simple economics and common sense. Yet, the Democratic-left is so determined to use its power to satisfy every pent-up demand for social spending that reason be damned.

I looked around at some of the top radical blogs for a flavor of the demands for economic redistribution on the left.

Here's Firedoglake responding to opponents of the bill:

Fantastic. Not only is this a failure of basic humanity, it's a failure of economics as well. For all the Republicans' and conservative Democrats' wailing about all the "wasteful" and "un-stimulative" spending in the bill, none of them see any problem with the $300 billion in tax cuts, despite the fact that they're roughly one-fifth as effective as those food stamp increases that just got whacked.

These cuts to the stimulus aren't economics, they're conservative politics: "You don't want the government taking your hard-earned money and giving it to Those People, do you? It should be given to the corporations so they can create more jobs!" These wankers would rather let us spiral into another Depression than give kids and poor people even a fraction of the compassion they gave the pirates and clowns who got us into this mess.

Here's Obsidian Wings on potential cuts to porcine state social programs:

It honestly boggles my mind to see so much money taken out of this particular category. Again, these cuts would be palatable if there were some semblance of a policy rationale for doing so. But there’s none. Instead, the fate of state budgets everywhere must take a backseat to the desires of Senators Nelson and Collins to be perceived as very serious centrists. Forty billion dollars is a lot to pay to help protect two Senators’ ideological self-image. Perhaps the two Senators could write a sympathy card to laid-off state workers reminding them of how important abstract concepts like centrist budget hawkery are to the nation's well-being.

Now, check out Kathy at Liberty Street with a bit of authoritarian outrage:

With the Senate dithering and Majority Leader Reid not forcing the Rep “Do-Nothing” ublicans to actually filibuster, we really need to be more concerned with our government failing ... $800 billion is not a big enough stimulus plan, especially with 42% of it going to tax cuts. Maybe it is time to eliminate the Filibuster Rule (Sen Bill Frist threatened to do that a few years back) and just steam roll the obstructionists.

Actually, before last night's recissions the proposed legislation stood at $920 billion and counting. That's more money that the United States has spent in nearly six years of fighting the war in Iraq.

So all of this leftist outrage is quite revealing of partisan loyalties and ideological commitments. For the left, attacks on conservative budget policies and "deficits" are merely cudgels with which to trash the GOP for its alleged disregard for the "less fortunate" and to advance a socialist takeover of the state. Meanwhile, simple economics indicate that a careful combination of tax cuts and targeted spending for critical infrastructure would be best for stimulating the economy.

**********

Photo Credit: "LONG LINES: Applicants wait for interviews at a jobs fair in McLean, Va. The nation's unemployment rate hit 7.6%, new data showed. Treasury moved to revamp its bank-bailout plan as the Senate was poised to vote on Obama's economic-stimulus package" (Wall Street Journal).

Power-Dressing is Back!

These guys are not models. They are Michael Gardner and Bill Brewer, hiring partner and co-founder at Bickel & Brewer, the law firm featured in the Wall Street Journal's, "Inside a Bastion of Old-School Power Attire."

The return of old-school power dressing is something of a "duh" moment for Bill Brewer, co-founder and managing partner of the law firm, which has offices in Dallas and New York City. He never really got the appeal of khakis and rubber-soled Gucci loafers at the office. He prides himself on custom three-button suits with a center vent and shirts from Bruce Clark in New York. His voice tightens with disdain when he describes "those square-toed club shoes" that some young recruits wear to the office.

"I think people expect high-powered lawyers to look like high-powered lawyers," Mr. Brewer says. "Anything else is sending the wrong signal."

This is a great article.

I noted the other day that when I first started teaching at Long Beach City College I wore a coat and tie every day, and some days I wore a blue pin-striped suit. For various reasons I'm dressing much more casual now (mostly it's because I'm heavier, I need a new wardrobe, and my mood has been somewhat out of it), but when the time is right, I'm going to get all decked out again for lectures. There's just nothing that compares to feeling like a million bucks teaching in a crisp ensemble with a pair of spit-and-polish cap-toe oxfords (my dad wore Brooks Brothers and Cable Car suits when I was a kid, so there's some family history there).

In any case, Christina Binkley, the author of the article, also has an interesting blog post on Bickel & Brewer, and parents should be sharing this passage with their kids:

We’re not all litigators, but many of us in public or client-facing jobs communicate our professional roles through our clothes. Research once showed that Dan Rather’s evening newscast was deemed more trustworthy when he wore a sweater or sweater vest. I was dismayed several years ago when the orthopedic surgeon treating my son was wearing shorts under his white smock. He might have been being practical — dressing both for work and his after-work hike? — but I wondered how focused he was on his work that day.

In recent years, workplaces have transformed themselves to take employees’ lifestyles into consideration. Casual dress codes are comfy and it’s nice to have a sense of ease in our increasingly hectic, demanding world. I’m writing this in blue jeans and a black turtleneck. Still, it can be comforting, when hiring a lawyer, doctor, accountant and other professionals, to not be introduced to their lifestyle. Sometimes, we only want to see their game face.

Western Enablers of Palestinian Psychopathology

Sigmund, Carl and Alfred have an interesting read on the psychology of Western enabling of the hatred, racism, and bigotry of Palestinian psychopathology. Here's a snippet:

The West must return to embracing and standing for the values and freedoms that have lead to their unquestioned economic and societal success and the greatest level of human happiness in the history of the world. We must not compromise those values of reverence for life or liberty; nor must we cooperate with those who would enslave the human mind and limit the pursuit of happiness in this world.

If peace is ever to come to the Middle East, we must treat the real and underlying issue, the hate and bigotry that permeates the region and which distorts and cripples the humans who live there.

Social Conservatives Abandoning Republican Party?

Tony Perkins offers some provocative comments on the tenuous ties between the social conservative right and the Republican Party under new RNC Chairman Michael Steele:

There is not the strong connection to the Republican Party that there once was. I'm more representative of the younger generation and I don't have as strong allegiance to the Republican Party. And to the degree that they try to avoid the values issues and put them at the back of the bus, I don't have a lot of desire to mess around with that ...

Read the whole thing (via Memeorandum). I'm surprised at Perkins' generosity toward Barack Obama, who represents a presidential beachhead for the left's war on traditionalism in this country.

But see also Robert Schlesinger's essay, "Republican Party and Religious Right Heading for a Split?":

Conservatives have for a long time argued that Republicans talk the talk at election time to get votes, but are insufficiently committed when it comes to actual policies ...

... this also illustrates the broader dilemma facing Republicans right now: For what do they stand? The tensions between the various conservative coalition members were easier to smooth over when the movement was ascendant, but there's nothing like unceremoniously getting kicked into the wilderness to exacerbate tensions. Having to map a route back to power means having to resolve the differences inherent in the minimal government portion of the party—cut taxes and don't regulate things—and the religious conservatives who are less wary of using government provided it's a means to God's ends.

This is a no-brainer for me.

The GOP must stay true to core values. Party attempts to stay competitive by embracing disastrous leftist social policies will kill the party, and the various remnants of the political right will end up composing a fractured party system resulting in a long-term consolidation of Democratic Party dominance for a generation or more. I can foresee something like the turmoil on the populist left during the Second Party System of the mid-1850s, where factional competition and social strife among the Democrats split the party's coalition and paved the way for a Republican realignment in 1860 under Abraham Lincoln.

That outcome, while troubling for the direction of the country, is nevertheless preferable to the GOP's capitulation today to the culture of death that's central to the Democratic Party's agenda, as demonstrated by the rationalization of pro-abortion advocacy so extreme that live babies are being thrown away in toxic waste bags after botched late-term abortions at zip-and-rip "family planning" clinics in Florida.

Executing Rush Limbaugh?

Well folks might remember my essay on the left's derangment with Fox News, "Fear and Imbalance! Fox News is the Enemy!"

Well Captain Fogg, the subject of our earlier investigation, is at it again, making death wishes for Rush Limbaugh and the folks at Fox News:

There's often some good to be found in our increasingly entropic economy - like a pearl in a tainted oyster. I take comfort in the cosmic joke that is our mortal life; knowing that Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney and everyone at Fox News will go the way of Pol Pot, Nicolae Chaucescu [sic], and Madman Muntz in due time.

I'm not sure about the "Madman Muntz," but I vividly remember the execution of Nicolae Ceauşescu, on Christmas Day, 1989. Only liberals could compare a conservative media star like Rush Limbaugh to Pol Pot and Nicolae Ceauşescu. Indeed, check out Maggie's Farm's post, "Lynching Rush," and the link there to George Reisman:

Serious Leftists, i.e., those who want to establish and maintain actual government ownership or control over the economic system are all implicitly totalitarians. On the one hand, they want to take total control over people’s lives under the pretext of improving and enriching their lives. But their policies are so bad, cause so much destruction and human suffering, that the potential is created for an explosive outburst of hatred and vengeance against them once the public draws the logically inescapable conclusion that it is they and their policies who are responsible. To stay in power and keep socialism in existence, they have to prevent this from happening by crushing all possibility of dissent.

Limbaugh is a major thorn in the side of the Left. They need to remove him, because his criticisms serve to slow their advance and might even help to stop them in their tracks.

That sounds about right.

I'm sure Capt. Fogg and his allied henchmen would love to line up Limbaugh and O'Reilly, et al., just like the Romanian mob did with Ceauşescu. That's the comparison that works here, not this notion that Rush Limbaugh is a genocidal dictator or that "America is failing, Fox News is why."

Ruth Bader Ginsburg's (Hot) Replacement

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was treated for early-stage pancreatic cancer on Thursday. Ginsburg, who is 75, recovered from colorectal cancer in 1999, but the prognosis for pancreatic malignancies is poor even with early detection.

So, naturally, speculation has turned to Ginsburg's replacement on the Court, and, wouldn't you know it, identity politics is already driving early speculation:

If Ginsburg is the next justice to retire, we'll no doubt hear a lot of nonsense about how her replacement should be the "best-qualified person" for the job, as if that concept were meaningful. It isn't, because there are thousands of people who would be fine SCOTUS justices, and whether any one of them in particular ought to be chosen depends on a myriad of factors, including the (in my view correct) judgment that it's not acceptable to have an all-male SCOTUS, any more than it would be acceptable to have an all-female one.

Okay, the Court is already down one "girl" seat with Alito's replacement of Sandra Day O'Connor in 2006, so the pressure is on. But, seriously, is identity politics and HOTNESS more important than merit? I guess so, since Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm's is already leading the list of possible replacements for Ginsburg (via Memeorandum).

Now that would be fun (see Jennifer Granholm as Sarah Palin?"). Having run Michigan into the ground, it would defy reason for President Obama to appoint the the former "Miss San Carlos." But hey, if Representative Hilda Solis can make the grade for Labor Secretary after 16 years of unpaid tax liens, anything's possible.

Neoconservative Derangement

Now this is what blogging's all about!

John Podhoretz, in "The Daily Dearborn Independent Dish," responds to Andrew Sullivan's anti-neocon hysteria:

Andrew Sullivan no longer is interested in winning in Iraq, in fact is probably quietly eager for a defeat there, doubtless out of a combination of a certain degree of conviction, a ravenous hunger for leftist Web traffic, and because having decided a few years ago he’d picked the wrong horse in supporting it, he finds it unbearable to imagine that the wrong horse may prove to be the right horse after all.

So he must hold the neoconservatives to blame, first, for gulling him into support — you know, we Jews are fiendishly clever, with our Svengali hypnotic powers overcoming the will of poor, weak-minded Catholic bloggers — and must now be held to account for holding views about Israel and Iraq and democracy we never held and have, in fact, been attacked by some of our oldest friends who do hold them. But of course, those attacks by our old friends aren’t real, nor are the divisions among neoconservatives real. Because we Jews are all in it together.

At least Henry Ford knew how to make a car.

The Ford reference is to the car manufacturer's anti-Semitic journal, "The Dearborn Independent," which published the English version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Sullivan long ago went over to the dark side, so I don't have a lot to add to Podhoretz. What's interesting is that Sullivan's post starts with a quote from E.D. Kain at the Ordinary Gentlemen, "The Democracy Fallacy."

E.D.'s current writing is of the kind that generates a lot of heat but little light, and that's too bad, considering his estimable talents.

Things didn't have to turn out this way, however. It's turns out that E.D.'s an intellectual hanger-on. He's joined up with the progressive nihilists at Ordinary Gentlemen for some fun and exposure, or so it seems. Up until a couple of weeks ago E.D. was the publisher of NeoConstant, which was originally an online magazine of neoconservative commentary and opinion. He had solicited essays from American Power for publication there, but E.D.'s apparently caught some strain of neoconservative derangement, with a special affliction of antiwar ideological recoil, so he deleted the entire blog a few days back. The domain name has remained the same (neoconstant.com), but the blog's new incarnation is the lame "New Constantine," whatever that's supposed to mean. I guess the name's a reference to the Roman Emperor, Constantine the Great (306–337), who relocated the heart of the empire to the "Second Rome" at Constantinople in 330 a.d. I think E.D.'s historical analogies are less precise than his single-minded effort to eradicate any evidence of his former neoconservative identification.

Note that E.D. deleted NeoConstant without a word of notification to those he had approached for syndication at the site, so his actions are not just unprofessional, but immature as well.

That's to be expected for someone who's been completley hoodwinked by folks like Freddie de Boer and the Young Turks of the Culture 11 fiasco.

I hadn't planned on engaging E.D. He's a nice guy, but like Sullivan, he too has gone over to the dark side. And now that he's instigating such supreme flame wars, well, the blogging gloves are coming off.

More later ...

Sarah Palin's Cultural Populism

I have to congratulate Yuval Levin, writing at Commentary, for his breathtakingly accurate analysis of Sarah Palin's vice-presidential candidacy, and especially the cultural prairie-fire she stoked with her rise to national prominence. The essay's entitled, "The Meaning of Sarah Palin."

There are a number of passages I'd like to quote at length, but Levin's discussion of the visceral revulsion to Governor Palin's candidacy, and her potential ascent to within a heartbeat of the presidency, is just priceless:

Palin’s social conservatism had never been the core of her political identity in Alaska. She always expressed general support for traditionalist views in interviews and debates, and it was widely known that she had also chosen to proceed with her fifth pregnancy after discovering the child had Down syndrome—a discovery that in about nine of ten cases leads parents to opt for abortion. But Palin never went out of her way to raise abortion or other social or cultural issues, and in her first two years as governor had not sought to change state policies in these areas. She was a good-government reformer with social conservative leanings, not the other way around.

But this was not how Palin was received on the national scene. Instead, her views on matters of cultural and social controversy very quickly became the chief focus of media attention, liberal criticism, and pundit analysis. Palin was assigned every view and position the Left considered unenlightened, and the response to her brought into the light all manner of implicit liberal assumptions about cultural conservatives. We were told that Palin was opposed to contraception, advocated teaching creationism in schools, and was inclined to ban books she disagreed with. She was described as a religious zealot, an anti-abortion extremist, a blind champion of abstinence-only sex education. She was said to have sought to make rape victims pay for their own medical exams, to have Alaska secede from the Union, and to get Pat Buchanan elected President. She was reported to believe that the Iraq war was mandated by God, that the end-times prophesied in the Book of Revelation were nearing and only Alaska would survive, and that global warming was purely a myth. None of this was true.

Her personal life came under withering assault as well. Palin’s capacity to function as a senior elected official while raising five children was repeatedly questioned by liberal pundits who would never dare to express such views about a female candidate whose opinions were more congenial to them. Her teenage daughter’s pregnancy was splattered all over the front pages (garnering three New York Times stories in a single day on September 2). Some bloggers even suggested her youngest child had not issued from her, but from her daughter instead, and that she had participated in a bizarre cover-up. I attended a gathering in Washington at which a prominent columnist wondered aloud how Palin could pursue her career when her religious beliefs denied women the right to work outside the home.

Palin became the embodiment of every dark fantasy the Left had ever held about the views of evangelical Christians and women who do not associate themselves with contemporary feminism, and all concern for clarity and truthfulness was left at the door.

To be sure, some criticisms of Palin were entirely appropriate. She had no experience in foreign or defense policy and very little expertise in or command of either. In a time of war, with a seventy-two-year-old presidential candidate who had already survived one bout with cancer, this was a cause for very real concern. And Palin did perform dreadfully in some early interviews. Some of her more level-headed critics did make their case on these grounds. But the more common visceral hostility toward her seemed to have little to do with these objections. Rather, the entire episode had the feel of a kind of manic outburst; it was triggered by a false understanding of who Palin was, and once it began, there was no stopping or controlling it.

The reaction to Palin revealed a deep and intense cultural paranoia on the Left: an inclination to see retrograde reaction around every corner, and to respond to it with vile anger. A confident, happy, and politically effective woman who was also a social conservative was evidently too much to bear. The response of liberal feminists was in this respect particularly telling, and especially unpleasant.

Don't even think about skipping the rest of this fantastic piece. Levin is equally penetrating on Palin's extraordinary impact on the conservative right, the raw, even primeval, partisan emotion she exposed among American conservatives in search of a savior.

I'm going to lean a little on Yuval in challenging his claims of Palin's faults and the McCain ticket's weaknesses (for one thing, I'd argue the GOP ticket had more of "core vision" than Yuval allows), but if nothing else, the essay's explication of the nation's social fissues across the economic and cultural realms is pure masterwork. So again, readers should be sure to take time for the whole thing.

Hat Tip: Conservatives for Sarah Palin.

Disillusionment With Obama

I'm still figuring it out, but Barack Obama's the first president in memory to have his "presidential honeymoon" come to an end before the second week of the new term.

Chris Bowers was throwing his hands up in frustration on Tuesday, asking "What Does Obama Want Us To Do?" Josh Marshall's reverted to the tried-and-true psychological escape, blame, asking "why would Republicans be trying to drive the country off a cliff?"

But especially interesting is the comments from Theda Skocpol:

Obama is, sadly, much to blame for giving the Republicans so much leverage. He defined the challenge as biparitsanship not saving the U.S. economy. Right now, he has only one chance to re-set this deteriorating debate: He needs to give a major speech on the economy, explain to Americans what is happening and what must be done. People will, as of now, still listen to him -- and what else is his political capital for?

Speaking as a strong Obama supporter who put my energies and money into it, I am now very disillusioned with him. He spent the last two weeks empowering Republicans - including negotiating with them to get more into Senate and his administration and giving them virtual veto-power over his agenda -- and also spending time on his personal cool-guy image (as in interview before the Super Bowl). The country is in danger and he ran for president to solve this crisis in a socially inclusionary way. He should be fighting on that front all the time with all his energies - and he certainly should give a major speech to help educate the public and shape the agenda. That is the least he can and should do. Only that will bypass the media-conserative dynamic that is now in charge.

Skocpol's a well-known Harvard political scientist (her name's pronounced "Scotch-pol"), so to see her admit to her own Obamessianism is striking. While she pins the responsibility on Obama for his own failings, notice that dig there at the end on the "media-conservative dynamic."

In any case, the president has apparently forsaken his cool-guy image-building momentarily with his essay this morning at the Washington Post: "The Action Americans Need" (via Memeorandum).

But for the political analysis of the administration's predicament, see Jeanne Cummings, "Obama Losing the Stimulus Message War."

Remembering Karen Carpenter

The Educated Shoprat has a great post tonight reminding us that today's another important "day the music died," in this case the loss of Karen Carpenter, February 4, 1983.

Shoprat writes:

I did not realize the magnitude of this tragedy until several years later when I began to realize just how incredibly talented this lady was.

Oh, I get sad thinking about how much I miss Karen Carpenter.

When "Close To You" was on the charts in 1970 I was 9 years-old. I dreamed that she was singing about me, and that the angels would sprinkle golden starlight in my hair and girls would love me. I don't know if that's strange to say it, but that's how I felt. Over the next few years The Carpenters were playing regularly on the family turntable. When Karen Carpenter died, like Shoprat, the impact of the loss wasn't immediately apparent. But nowadays, when I hear their songs, I'm transported back to an age of innocence in my own life that few other sounds of music can do. Very few other vocalists - living or dead - leave me so rejoiced as does the beauty of Karen's vocals. My favorite today is "For All We Know," not just for the incredible, quiet wonder of Karen's voice - and the song's simple essence affirming that our lives are bound by love - but also because my wife selected the Carpenters to play at our wedding. It was a church wedding, and our minister was reluctant, but it ended up okay after all.

Iraqi Women Raped Into Suicide Jihad

I'm interested to see how the left's peace advocates will spin this: Australia's Herald Sun reports that Samira Jassam, known as "the mother of the believers," orchestrated the rape and forced recruitment of 81 women into suicide martyrdom operations in Iraq:

A WOMAN suspected of recruiting more than 80 female suicide bombers has confessed to organising their rapes so she could later convince them that martyrdom was the only way to escape the shame.

John at Powerline responds: "Our enemies can sink to depths of depravity that most of us would be hard-pressed even to imagine ... This is the kind of thing that makes me skeptical that the solution to the problem of Islamic terrorism is diplomacy."

But check out Warner Todd Huston at RedState:

This is the sort of corruption that liberals and Barack Obama do not understand. In order to further “Jihad” these people are willing not only to kill themselves and others, but to rape even their own women in order to destroy their mental balance so that they are more easily brainwashed to become suicide bombers.

What sort of religion encourages the rape and death of its own children?

Democrats cannot conceive of this sort of corruption of the soul employed for religious control and power over a people. So, instead of facing reality, they bury their heads in the sand and pretend that the enemy is really “just like us,” after all.

No lefties are commenting at Memeorandum, but Libby Spencer applauds such innovations, so I'll keep my eyes open.

Democratic Economic Incompetence

President Barack Obama warned the nation today of economic "catastrophe" if Congress fails to pass the disastrous economic stimulus package under consideration in Washington.

Perhaps we'll see more sky-is-falling desperation from the administration, given that the public is quickly souring on this larded-legislative boondoggle. Gallup's new poll finds huge public consensus on the need for government action, but only 10 percent of Americans believe Obama's plan "will improve the economy in 2009" (source). Nancy Pelosi's rank dishonesty certainly can't be helping the Democratic agenda either:

So, what's a hard-left partisan do? Why, cry wolf and blame the GOP, of course:

Behind all the back and forth over the Stimulus Bill is a simple fact: the debate in Washington is rapidly moving away from any recognition that the US economy - and the global economy, for that matter - is in free-fall ...

The other key into the current debate is that the Republican position is ominously similar to their position on global warming or, for that matter, evolution. The discussion of what to do on the Democratic side tracks more or less with textbook macroeconomics, while Republican argument track either with tax cut monomania or rhetorical claptrap intended to confuse. It's true that macro-economics doesn't make controlled experiments possible. And economists can't speak to these issues with certainty. But in most areas of our lives, when faced with dire potential consequences, we put our stock with scientific or professional consensus where it exists, as it does here. Only in cases where it goes against Republican political interests or economic interests of money-backers do we prefer the schemes of yahoos and cranks to people who study the stuff for a living.

Of course, at some level, why would Republicans be trying to drive the country off a cliff? Well, not pretty to say, but they see it in their political interests. Yes, the DeMints and Coburns just don't believe in government at all or have genuinely held if crankish economic views. But a successful Stimulus Bill would be devastating politically for the Republican party. And they know it. If the GOP successfully bottles this up or kills it with a death of a thousand cuts, Democrats will have a good argument amongst themselves that Republicans were responsible for creating the carnage that followed.

It's not too smart to deny the reality that this legislation is the Democrats' folly. They passed it in the House, and they'll be thanking the GOP from saving them from utter disaster if it fails in the Senate.

The real pleasure of seeing the extreme incompetence of this administration, and so soon, is only surpassed by the equally-extreme mortification on the radical-left that their historic moment of revolutionary transformation is evaporating faster than one of candidate Obama's ethereal post-partisan stump speeches.

No Male Heterosupremacy Outrage in Octuplets Case?

When I first saw the story of Nadya Suleman I was just fascinated by the medical science of multiple birth pregancies. Also particularly interesting was the mother's adamant prior refusal to "reduce" the number of fetuses during pregancy. Eight was enough, and she wasn't going to settle for less.

But then the Los Angeles Times ran some stories on the background of of the mother and the reproductive ethics of the case, and it's all turned out to be something of a tragedy of social commentary. Ms. Suleman is by no means a typical candidate for the aggressive fertilization she received, and her personal life - including six children already - has raised all kinds of questions of impropriety, to say the least.

I wasn't hip on the feminist angle, however. Via Robert Stacy McCain, it turns out the radical feminists have been silent on the ethics of Ms. Suleman's case, what Darleen Click calls "an unethical abdication of responsibility."

On Jan 26 when Kaiser Permanente announced the arrival of surviving octuplets the story has run from increasingly creepy details and outrage about the mother to sudden articles about ethical concerns. It has been interesting to note what, or who, has been fairly quiet on this event.

The radical feminist (aka Vagina Warrior) blogsphere.

Ace noted the lack of commentary, figuring since there was no male villain in the piece there was little for the VW’s to focus on.

But hints of what is really the core issue for VW’s - who have no problem with nasty mockery of Michelle Duggar - can be found with series of entries on Slate’s XX (as in female chromosome) blog space and then confirmed by Salon’s Judy Berman who curiously posits …

Meanwhile, feminists are asking serious questions about what Suleman and her octuplets mean for the future of women’s health.

… then immediately focuses on law and questions of racism.

Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women — “What I would check if I had the time is the extent to which coverage of this story — whether negative or positive — is framed as a question of ethics. When the pregnant woman is not brown or black and the drugs/technologies are provided by big pharma, the discussion focuses on questions of ethics. But if the issue is childbearing by low-income women of color, and the drug is homegrown/ illegal then the debate is a question of punishment through the criminal justice or civil child welfare system.”

Darleen links to Amanda Marcotte's post at Pandagon, "Not a Biological Clock Gone Haywire," which is worth reading for insight into the mindset of today's feminism. Even better, though, is this essay on Michelle Duggar (a mother of 18 and the subject of a reality show on TLC) over at Women’s Space, "Why is Michelle Duggar Fair Game?":

I think it might be a worthwhile exercise to do some thinking on why it is that Michelle Duggar seems to be fair game for pretty much everyone, including for feminists. It’s open season on the woman – mock her, make fun of her hair, her appearance, her clothes, her body, her reproductive organs, other of her internal organs, her vagina, attack her, depict her as a pig, call her brainwashed. (If you haven’t seen this, then look here for the latest, also here, here, here, and sadly, here and be sure to read the comments.) ...

Long discussion of other cultures, with pictures, then ...

Instead of scapegoating this one woman and targeting her as though she is the enemy, why not make it our business to critique the real enemy – systems and institutions of male heterosupremacy which make the choices Duggar and women like her have made the best deal they feel they can cut?

I thought I kept up with this stuff ... whew!

Obama Restart Hopes to Avert Self-Inflicted Meltdown

The Los Angeles Times reports that President Barack Obama, humbled by scandalous missteps, hopes to put the political spotlight back on his economic stimulus agenda:

In only his second week in office, Barack Obama is punching the restart button on his presidency.

On Tuesday, Day 14 of a tenure that began with high hopes and soaring promises of bringing a new competence to Washington, Obama essentially admitted that he had lost ground in confronting his biggest challenge - fixing the country's crippled economy - due to the "self-inflicted injury" of naming appointees who had failed to pay their taxes.

He shed two of those appointees and then took to the airwaves - conducting not one but five Oval Office network television interviews in which he sought to seize control over the economic stimulus debate. Republicans have found traction on the issue by painting themselves as defenders of taxpayers and homeowners, while portraying Democrats as frivolous big spenders.

"I'm frustrated with myself, with our team," Obama told NBC's Brian Williams in a comment that was typical for his afternoon of televised mea culpas. "But ultimately my job is to get this thing back on track, because what we need to focus on is a deteriorating economy and getting people back to work."

The frustration's not likely to end anytime soon, given the supercharged expectations the Obama campaign banked on during the election.

In fact, as Victor Davis Hanson argues, this administration's off to one of the worst starts ever, and without a downshifting of Democratic hype, a full-on political meltdown is practically inevitable:

Some of us have been warning that it was not healthy for the U.S. media to have deified rather than questioned Obama, especially given that they tore apart Bush, ridiculed Palin, and caricatured Hillary. And now we can see the results of their two years of advocacy rather than scrutiny.

We are quite literally after two weeks teetering on an Obama implosion—and with no Dick Morris to bail him out—brought on by messianic delusions of grandeur, hubris, and a strange naivete that soaring rhetoric and a multiracial profile can add requisite cover to good old-fashioned Chicago politicking ....

This is quite serious. I can't recall a similarly disastrous start in a half-century (far worse than Bill Clinton's initial slips). Obama immediately must lower the hope-and-change rhetoric, ignore Reid/Pelosi, drop the therapy, and accept the tragic view that the world abroad is not misunderstood but quite dangerous. And he must listen on foreign policy to his National Security Advisor, Billary, and the Secretary of Defense. If he doesn't quit the messianic style and perpetual campaign mode, and begin humbly governing, then he will devolve into Carterism—angry that the once-fawning press betrayed him while we the people, due to our American malaise, are to blame.

Mark Thompson and the Scientific Falsification of God

It's certainly cliche to suggest that faith in the public square is in retreat. Of course, while polls show that Americans by a huge majority "believe in God or a universal spirit," there's nevertheless an extremely vocal and increasingly influential contingent on the progressive left that is intent not only to deny the potential epistemological basis for religious faith but to excoriate anyone who deigns to make a reasoned case to that effect.

I normally don't get involved in these tussles, but with the vicious neo-Stalinism we've seen on the left in response to California's Proposition 8 and the Warren invocation (and that's just for starters), it's pretty clear that the hordes have swept over the windswept passes of the barbarian steppes and folks of good standing need to stand a post and do battle in defense of eternal goodness and right.

What got me going on this is Mark Thompson's crudely pedestrian essay, "Falsifying the Unfalsifiable," over at the Ordinary Gentlemen.

Readers may recall that Mark is the publisher of Publius Endures. Once a staunch libertarian, Mark has sold out to the Obamessianism that has engulfed the land following "our national holiday from reason that was the Obama presidential inauguration" (to quote myself). In one of the strangest introductions to a blog post I've ever seen, Mark cites Homer Simpson - that's right, that Homer Simpson - as an authority on the ontology of religious faith and evangelical trust, arguing that the Simpson's get right to "the crux of the problem." And to think, Robert Stacy McCain generously called these guys "intellectuals." Go figure?

In any case, here's a key snippet of the point that Mark is trying to elaborate (and elaborate ... frankly, ad nauseum, at least 25 times at the piece):

For the religious person, there is simply no way to prove through science that god exists or does not exist - as long as there is something in the universe that cannot rationally be explained, there is a basis for trusting in the existence of god. For the atheist, there is likewise simply no way to prove through science that god exists or does not exist - as long as a scientific or rational explanation for anything in the universe is theoretically possible, there is a basis to trust in the ability of reason to explain everything, and no basis to trust in the existence of god.

And this is why I think Chris - and E.D. - are absolutely correct in stating that the proper response to the question of the existence of god is “Who Cares?” The existence of god simply cannot be proven or disproven through pure reason, and neither side does themselves any favors when they insist otherwise.

I think Mark wants to say "there is no basis for trusting in the existence of God" in the first paragraph, but if it's not clear in the passage cited, we've got redundancies galore at the post to confirm the point.

And this is why I'm spending time to correct Mark, and, frankly, to reveal him even further as the rank nihilist that he is.

I'm still figuring out where Mark and his gang are coming from, but they certainly aren't conservative, despite the circle-jerk exclamations for Culture 11 found repeatedly at the blog. Think about this in the context of this essay from the Calgary Herald, "At Least Atheists Got Mentioned":

People appear very keen for a lot of things to change on the Obama watch. One of those hopes is that Christianity would revert more to a private choice rather than the state religion it often appeared to be under George W. Bush.

Now before I debunk this slimy palaver, I just came across Troy Anderson denouncing those of faith who respond to such bunk as "Christian apologists."

Really, Christian apologists?

So we've got those on the left hip to the "Age of Obama" who are looking to see Christianity revert to a "private choice" rather than a "state religion"? And those who debate in favor of the existence of God are "Christian apologists"?

Sometimes I doubt this is the same United States of America where I grew up?

When Mark Thompson slops out such intelletually deadening prose as " the lunacy of religion attempting to masquerade as science," I'm frankly at a loss at the metaphysical methodology of the enterprise.

The fact remains, and it has thus been, that there is no epistemological basis for asserting religion as science in the first place. It's a sickly straw man to posit intelligent design as threatening nearly fifty years of post-Engel secularism in U.S. constitutional jurisprudence. If we see science as the scholarly generation of explanatory theory based on logically derived predictions based on observable phenonomen, it makes little sense to suggest religion is "masquerading as science." There is no data with which to subject the claim that "God exists" to falsification. Sure, we can debate the scientific legitimacy of the Gospels, but to find proof for the verity of the divine is nonsense. Perhaps Mark Thompson can clarify the point in a future post, but thus far he's been too busy playing ring around the rosie with Freddie and the rest of this nihilist gang.

The larger question in any case is the problem of Judeo-Christian ethics. When Christopher Hitchens argued early this decade for the morality of regime change Iraq, it's unlikely he was drawing on any other well of fundamental right outside of the Biblical narrative of Mosaic universality.

It is, of course, precisely this Western Judeo-Christian heritage that the progressive left seeks to destroy. Andrew Sullivan is no conservative when he promotes a gay radical licentiousness that knows no moral boundaries. Thus, the solution: just rebrand the model in your own image and label adherents to classic teachings as "Christianists." I mean really, Mark Thompson cites E.D Kain as suggesting "who cares"?

Well, excuse me, but damn! I'd think we all would. The West is best. QED.

I'll have more on this later, so I'll close with Licia Corbella's rebuttal to the privileging of atheism over religion in the public square:

The atheist ethic has killed more people than any religion by a staggering margin. Fascism, Nazism and Communism have murdered many tens of millions of people. Think of the former Soviet Union, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Nazis, Communist China etc. Mao Zedong's regime alone murdered 70 million countrymen. Stalin, 20 million. Their successors millions more. To this day, Falun Gong and Christians are jailed in China and then killed to harvest their organs.

It's no coincidence the freest, most prosperous nations in the world are virtually all Christian-based, not atheist or even Muslim, Buddhist or Hindu. As the Bible says: "Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

With the exception of Japan, which had its democratic system imposed on it by the U. S. after the Second World War, and Israel, which is Jewish, no non-Christian country is truly free.

Atheists make up a very small minority of the "believers" in our society and yet it is their religion that is constantly being rammed down the throats of the majority.

They better be careful what they wish for. So should all people who love freedom, regardless of what they believe.