Dakota Beacon

A little less than a century ago, the West entertained the notion that WWI would be “the war to end all wars.”  Insofar as this was seriousness and not just selling point, it was naiveté.  Obviously, a military solution cannot solve a moral problem – nor can it change man’s nature.  And while we should realize this today, we now fall victim to another flight of fancy.  This is the idea that a political solution can solve a moral problem.

As with the “nation-building” efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the unrest in Egypt has placed the issue of political change front and center.  While longtime American ally Hosni Mubarak clings to power, some Americans risk Iranian revolution redux as they cling to a dream.  Thoroughly democrazy, they believe that democracy, a means to an end, is the end itself; they sometimes even behave as if it’s a cure-all.  For example, I’ve actually heard liberals say, “You conservatives are hypocritical; you only believe in democracy until it yields an outcome you don’t like.  If the Egyptian people vote for the Muslim Brotherhood, we have to accept it.”  Ah, what principle. 

What consistency. 

What bunk.

You see, I seem to remember something called Proposition 8, that marriage-protection amendment passed by the people of California.  Now, perhaps my memory fails me, but I don’t quite recall liberals passing the bong and saying, “Well, the people voted for the measure, so we have to accept it, dude.”  But I do recall the gnashing of teeth, acerbic vitriol, and violent protests against the people’s democratically rendered decision.   

The point is that only the most pathetic sheep accept a decision – whether made democratically or not – they consider immoral.  Poison is poison, whether inflicted or chosen; consensus cannot make a bad politician or policy good.  Yet the belief in democracy as panacea is widespread, so we need to explore the matter more deeply.

Now, some have said that the difference between 1979 Iran and 2011 Egypt is communication technology.  With widespread access to the Internet, young people are exposed to the outside world and other ideas – and they know about “freedom.”  And, these optimists tell us, à la George Bush, that everyone (“most people” is more accurate) wants freedom.

Ah, ‘tis true, most everyone wants freedom.  So does an animal.  Yet civilization cannot be safe when animals roam free, which is why the beasts within it are generally leashed, penned in or imprisoned in a zoo.  For wanting and acquiring are very different things.  (And being able to manage something is different still.)   Everyone wants health, but many still eat, drink and smoke themselves to death.  Everyone wants wealth, but many still lack the discipline to apply themselves to a skill or hold down a job.  And everyone wants good government, but some still glom onto demagogues who promise bread and circuses.

The problem is that a people may want better than what they are, but they cannot be better than what they are.  As Edmund Burke said, “It is written in the eternal constitution that men of intemperate minds cannot be free.  Their passions forge their fetters.”  This great truth isn’t hard to understand.  It’s as in Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s story about a large group of schoolboys who get stranded on an uninhabited island and must fend for themselves.  They start out as a democracy, voting for their leader, but quickly degenerate into a brutal dictatorship governed by a demagogue.  But they are only children, you say?  That is the point.  They simply weren’t mature enough – and “maturity” actually refers to moral development – to maintain a democratic society that enjoys proper freedoms.  Their passions forged their fetters.

The truth is that morality is the fertilizer of the tree of liberty, while the monster of tyranny feeds on man’s vice.  I explained this relationship in-depth in 2008, writing:   

Think about the task of raising a child.  We are born savages, acting on impulse, screaming out when sad, striking out when angry.  Left to his own devices, a child might drink detergent or put his hand on a hot stove, and he certainly wouldn't brush his teeth or clean his bottom.  He is incapable of "self-government."  So his parents must micromanage his life, watch his every move – hence baby monitors and the use of cribs or gates or harnesses to limit his movements – and do for him what he cannot do for himself, which is a lot.  They must be his "nanny state."

As he grows, however, many rules and restrictions can be eliminated.  His parents may still have to ensure he does his homework and takes a bath, but over time even this will be unnecessary.  As he matures morally and increasingly starts to impose proper rules and standards on himself, the need for a parent to impose them diminishes proportionately.  Then, finally, if his parents have succeeded, he can enjoy the full freedoms of adulthood. He will actually choose to eat his vegetables.

But what happens when his parents don't do a good job?  Or when, despite their efforts, outside influences corrupt the child?  He then will have weak internal governance.  …And, should his impulse control be poor enough, the overgrown savage beyond the crib may run afoul of the law, perhaps by driving drunk, buying illegal drugs, or stealing.  Then, incapable of adequate self-government, he may find himself back in a crib. The authorities will lock him up, and he will once again be controlled from without.  Thus, you might say that parents' job is to civilize their children, for people of intemperate minds will lose their freedom.  Moreover, if there are enough such overgrown savages, they may bring civilization down with them.

Civilize is an interesting word.  What is true civilization?  One could say it is when a majority of people have become morally advanced enough to attain true adulthood.  The goal of raising a civilization is only realized when enough people reach the goal of raising a child: to create citizens who may live beyond the crib.  …the more we can govern ourselves from within collectively, the less we will have to be governed from without.

Unless we understand the aforementioned, we not only won’t know what kind of government other nations can sustain, we won’t even be fit to sustain our own.  And those at America’s helm cannot even begin to grasp the morality/government relationship because, being moral relativists, they don’t believe in morality.  (They certainly do believe in government, though.)   

But the great thinkers of ages past understood it.  This is why, when Benjamin Franklin emerged from the Constitutional Convention and was asked by a woman what kind of government he and the other founders had given us, his reply was, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”  If you can keep it….  Franklin grasped an important truth: Virtue in the people is worth ten thousand laws and vice ten thousand usurpations.  The boys in Lord of the Flies couldn’t keep their democracy for long.  And all over the West modern man descends into moral relativism – which leads to moral primitiveness – and thus moral juvenility.  As a result, we are losing our republics.  We are increasingly being treated as children, controlled more every year with burgeoning laws, mandates and regulations. 

As for Egypt, can it have democracy?  Perhaps…for at least as long as Golding’s island boys, anyway.  And here I think of what former leader of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf said after being pressured to institute reforms (I’m paraphrasing): “What good is so-called democracy if Pakistan becomes a failed state?”  Democracy is no guarantor of good government.  Egyptians may get the vote and Islamists may get the power – and the demo-crazies may nevertheless break out cigars.  And the Mideast may go up in smoke. 

Of course, when observing the tinderbox that is that region, it’s comforting to believe in a happily-ever-after system to end all wars.  And, oblivious to how Western nations are even now treading that well-worn path from democracy to tyranny, it’s easy to think democracy is that system.  But the utopians among us miss an important truth: There is no happily ever after this side of the great divide.  Foreign policy, arranging and perpetuating civilization, and maintaining peace are never-ending poker games; you play the hand you’re dealt, and sometimes the best you can manage is a pragmatic dictator, pacified and paid for – and always provisional.

Something must be remembered about a government of the people, by the people and for the people: It will look like the people.  So the question is, does Egyptians’ collective face look better than Mubarak?  If the answer is no, you’re better off keeping him than agitating for a republic that wouldn’t be kept long, anyway.

Except for those still caught in the web of the media matrix, it’s no secret that the Fossil Press seeks to destroy conservatism, tradition and Christianity.  It’s also plain that central to this are unrelenting attacks on the Catholic Church.  But a February 5 piece in The Independent written by one Michael Day reaches a low worthy of Cold War commissars.

The article concerns the fact that Pope Benedict XVI’s status as an organ donor ended when he ascended to the papacy and is titled, “Pope's organs are too holy to donate to mortals, says Church.”  Wow, that sounds really bad.  It must be an example of the Church hierarchy superciliously placing itself above the hoi polloi.  Except that a discerning person may smell a rat; in this case, a journalism-school rat who would never let the Truth get in the way of a cherished agenda.  And, sure enough, while Day repeats the supposed Vatican sentiment in his first paragraph, a little ways further down is the real explanation for the Church’s policy:

Archbishop Zymunt Zimowski, a member of the Vatican health council, said it was because the body of the Pope effectively belonged to the entire Catholic Church. "It's understandable that the body of the Pontiff should rest intact because, in his role as successor to Saint Paul and universal pastor of the Catholic Church, he belongs entirely to the Church in spirit and body," he told La Repubblica.

Obviously, the Church never stated what Day attributed to her.  And while the writer goes on to claim that the Vatican hasn’t always adhered to this policy and thus lacks credibility, the real issue is his lack of journalistic credibility.  If his piece were an op-ed, such a presentation would be bad enough.  But note that it is supposed to be hard news.  It’s more like hard propaganda.

Day might try to lawyer the matter and point out that he didn’t include quotation marks around the “Church” statement, but he knew exactly what he was doing.  A reader not very careful or inclined toward anti-Christian bigotry would likely be left with the impression that the statement is the Church’s.  So I guess we know what The Independent is independent of: integrity.

As for religious teaching, lots of faiths have doctrines that raise secular eyebrows – but not all faiths get Day’s treatment.  As to this, I wonder when he’ll pen a story about how Muslims often consider infidels unclean and don’t even want to touch a Koran that has been defiled by kafir hands.  Something tells me we may have to wait for that one, as Day and his militant secular ilk haven’t finished destroying Western civilization yet. 

These dummies just can’t wait to be dhimmis, can they?  

Increasingly, our government reminds me of a certain old Star Trek episode.  It was titled “I, Mudd,” and in it the Enterprise explorers found themselves in the grip of seemingly perfect androids determined to serve man.  The automatons informed the crew that humans were “self-destructive,” needed their “help” and couldn’t be trusted with freedom.  One of the mechanical masters concluded by telling Captain Kirk, “we shall serve them [humans] and you will be happy…and controlled.”

I don’t know if the episode was meant as big-government allegory, but it could serve as such.  And there’s no shortage of nanny-state intrusion stories to bring it to mind.  For example, consider a proposal by a New York City senator to prohibit citizens from using gadgets such iPods, cellphones and music players while walking.  You read that right – not while driving or operating buses or trains.

Walking.

The senator is Brooklynite Karl Kruger, and his proposal is in response to the death of Jason King, a hapless 21-year-old man struck by a truck while listening to his iPod.  Kruger said, reports CBS News, “We have people who are literally dying in the street.”  Yikes. 

Now, while it doesn’t match the number of people dying in NYC wombs, the senator is onto something (or on something).  Why, I can think of four people I’ve known (including myself) who were hit by vehicles.  It should be pointed out, however, that none of them were using electronic devices at the time.  But there was a common thread: They all had unlicensed legs. 

Such proposals aren’t unusual for nanny localities such as NYC.  We all know about the android Mayor Bloomberg’s desire to serve the flawed beings and about how San Francisco is unhappy about the Happy Meal, and last year a New York State senator proposed that a person shouldn’t be allowed to smoke in his own car if children are present.  (There really does seem to be something in the water up here, which is why I’m glad I drink only soda and other sugary drinks…which, incidentally, NY State wants to tax for our own good.)

While Kruger’s proposal probably won’t pass, even in NYC, this story follows the blueprint for enabling nanny-state intrusion.  We have a statesman who thinks success in politics means authoring as many laws as possible (everyone likes seeing his name in print), when it actually should mean authoring as few as possible.  After all, a law by definition is the removal of a freedom.  And then we have a media outlet, CBS, doing the marketing.  CBS begins its reportage by tugging on heartstrings, quoting friends of Jason King who talk about how wonderful he was and how they miss him.  He is the poster boy for the anti-walkie-talkie bill.  The news outlet then discovers a couple of people sympathetic to it, which, given that virtually all of the hundreds of respondents below the article are opposed, may be an investigatory accomplishment in league with finding bin Laden and oil in Israel on the same day.  One of these two people is 14-year-old Charles Tabasso, who says “I would probably get run over right now if it weren’t for my awesome parents.”  

Well, the humility is refreshing.

The other is his mother, Tullia Tabasso, who chimed in, “As a parent, I am definitely in favor of banning these things.”  Translation: I’m not an awesome enough parent to say no to my child and control his behavior, so I want the government to do it for me.

Now, some will say I’m insensitive.  But I’m sure Jason King had many fine qualities, and death is always tragic.  I’m sure the Tabassos are probably nice people.  I’m also sure, however, that this should have nothing to do with legislation affecting millions of other nice people.  But try telling this to liberals.  

Here’s how it works in their universe: Some tragedy or mishap instigated by one person occurs in our land of 308 million.  It hits the news.  It could be something innocent such as what befell Jason King or the evil perpetrated by Jared Lee Loughner, but, whatever the case, the lone incident is somehow thought cause for legislation.  Forget about how haste makes waste.  A deep breath and a count to 10 before acting?  That’s a big New Yawk fugetaboutit!  Something must be done.  Now.  Can’t you see that, you idiot!  Lives are at stake!

The problem is a common one.  People instinctively think about achieving new levels of safety but seldom worry about losing old levels of freedom.  And the result is not necessarily greater safety but greater levels of tyranny.  I call this the New Red Light Syndrome.  This is because it’s much as when a locality identifies the most dangerous intersection in town.  The traffic planners, realizing that something must be done immediately lest a person who means so much to those around him meet an untimely end (as opposed, I guess, to someone whose demise is desired by all and sundry), erect a new traffic light as remedy.  This does seem to make sense and is hard to argue against.  It saves lives, right?  The problem is that even if it does, now some other spot is “the most dangerous intersection in town.”  Thus, there can always be justification for another red light.  

But trying to eliminate life’s every perilous intersection is a dangerous road to travel.  There’s a Brazilian saying, “It’s better to live 10 years at 1000 mph than 1000 years at 10 mph.”  Those raunchy in Rio Brazilians can be a bit racy, you say?  Okay, but oughtn’t we at least be able to live life at 80 mph and leave our departure from this fold up to God?  But the nanny-staters want a red light at every “dangerous” intersection…when gun meets hand, when hand meets unruly child’s behind, when unruly child walks and talks or trespasses on property with swimming pool. 

And when child meets world.

Remember that the biggest cause of danger to human life is conception.  When life becomes a reality so do danger and death, as the world beyond womb – and increasingly the one within it – is a perilous place.  You risk your life just by living.      

And there is always a most dangerous intersection.  When guns are gone (from legal hands), hand will still meet knife, and the next red light will be knife control, as proposed in Britain.  When spanking is outlawed, harsh words will still meet child, and perhaps the self-esteem police will monitor parenting with cameras, as being done with “troublesome” families in Britain.  And when cellphone use is banned in vehicles, the next red light is to forbid the two-legged walkie-talkies, as New York mimics the land of the first York.  

So do we want a traffic cop at every life corner?  If not, we have to give lawmaking the red light because nanny-state lawmakers have no brakes.  Just consider, for instance, Senator Kruger’s justification for his anti-walkie-talkie law: “When people are doing things that are detrimental to their own well being, then government should step in,” said he.  Wow.  If the senator really believes this, he’ll have to mandate how much fat, sugar and other unhealthful foods people can consume; how much TV they can watch; how much exercise they must get; and he must ban them from riding motorcycles, going hang-gliding and rock-climbing and engaging in other high-risk activities.  And this is the danger of having such busybodies in office, people who, as C.S. Lewis warned, “torment us for our own good [and thus] will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”  Mr. Kruger’s statist mentality will give us a nightmare on every street.    

Of course, we do need a few red lights at both literal and metaphorical intersections.  And if we want but a few, we must realize that old levels of freedom require old levels of virtue.  But our nanny-staters are content to destroy virtue and make the whole nation a red-light district, a place defined not just by licentiousness but by license to do little but indulge it.  Their government will change the signal to green if and when you can go.  And you will be happy…and controlled.

In keeping with the demagogue’s credo “Never let a good tragedy go to waste,” some among us are extracting as much mileage from the Jared Loughner massacre as they can.  It is being used to raise money and reduce freedom, with the latter amounting to calls for gun and speech control.  And among these calls is the proposal to resurrect the Fairness Doctrine (FD).

The basic idea behind the legislation is that if a radio station airs some controversial opinion, time must be provided for the “other side.”  And quite coincidentally, I’m sure, this is only to be applied to talk radio, an arena in which the “other side” happens to be the left side.

Conservatives, of course, are opposed to this, and, with their control of Congress, the FD won’t emerge from that chamber.  But they are missing a grand opportunity, a chance to exhibit that much ballyhooed thing called bi-partisanship.  I suggest that we don’t have to fight over the FD, as we can come together over the following proposal: Not only reinstitute the legislation – expand it.  

Here’s how it would work: We’ll apply the doctrine not only to radio but newspapers, television and the Internet as well.  Remember that when the FD was first introduced in 1949, TV was in its infancy and so was Al Gore (the Internet would have to wait).  But while radio was the big thing back then, it has now been eclipsed by the TV and the Web, which together inform – and misinform – many more minds than radio does (note: “Talk” is the format of only three percent of radio stations nationwide).  And isn’t it preposterous to assert that only one form of media can peddle unbalanced information?  Fairness for all, I say.

And here’s how this would work on the ground.  Imagine that a newspaper wanted to print a hit piece on Sarah Palin or, as is the The New York Times’ wont, frequently feature a story on a sex crime committed by a Catholic priest (while ignoring the corresponding scandal in the government-school system).  Well, as the case may be, Palin, or the Catholic League, Opus Dei, or the local diocese, would be afforded equal time to respond.

But that’s just the beginning.  As the left likes to say, everyone has a “perspective.”  And as the left will also emphasize, it isn’t enough to focus on the perspectives; we must focus on people.  We’re told we must ensure that women and minorities aren’t underrepresented in the media, otherwise the groups from which they’re drawn will get short shrift.  Likewise, the other side will never get equal time as long as the media is dominated by one side.  So, by all means, institute policy that will force radio stations to hire Airhead America types, but the same forces must be brought to bear on the mainstream media.  After all, with 89 percent of Washington journalists voting for Bill Clinton in 1992, 92 percent supporting him in 1996 and with Democrat reporters outnumbering Republican ones by a 3-to-1 margin even beyond the beltway, discrimination obviously reigns in the media. 

What is the remedy?  It isn’t enough to merely ensure that 50 percent of reporters and pundits are Republicans.  Remember that while 40 percent of Americans describe themselves as conservative, only 21 percent self-identify as liberal.  Moreover, leftists have long emphasized the principle of “proportionality” (such as when they want to apply it to Title IX).  Thus, I’m sure they will agree that our media contingents should reflect the ideological composition of the wider population. And this wouldn’t be hard to achieve, either.  For instance, all a paper such as The New York Times would have to do is fire columnists such as Paul Krugman and Nicholas Kristof in favor of Selwyn Duke and S.L. Duke. 

Some will say this is silly, as there is no comparison between brash, hyperbolic radio men and the plodding press corps. And they’re right – there’s no comparison.

The fellow who hides his bias is much more to be feared.

I once explained why using the analogy of the barker and the shill, writing: 

[The barker and the shill] were carnival employees who both worked to entice customers into entering the mysterious realm of the sideshow, only, their methods were very different.  The barker – the correct terminology is the ‘talker’ – was a P.T. Barnum-like character, a bold salesman who sang the praises of the exhibits.  Although he was given to the hyperbole of marketing, he made no bones about his agenda: He wanted your business.

The shill was a very different animal.  His job was to stand amidst the crowd and pose as one of their number; he would then feign awe as he claimed to have seen the show and that it was truly a jaw-dropping experience.  He was trading on his illusion of impartiality, knowing it lent him a capacity to convince that eluded the talker with his obvious agenda.

… [Now] [r]adio hosts are the talkers; they wear their banners openly as they proclaim who and what they are.  …You know what they're sellin' and if you're buyin'.

The mainstream media, however, is a shill.  …They masquerade as impartial purveyors of information, almost-automatons who, like Joe Friday, are just interested in the facts, ma'am.  …and we are to believe God graced them with a singular ability to render facts uncolored by personal perspective.

In reality, though, the Shill Media are about as impartial as an Imam in a comparative religion class.

…  [And] [t]he Shill Media are infinitely more dangerous because of their illusion of impartiality.  There's a reason why we trust what Consumer Reports says about Buick a lot more than what Buick says about Buick.  And if we discovered that Buick's marketing arm was masquerading as a consumer advocacy magazine, we'd want the subterfuge revealed. Remember, brainwashing is only effective if you're not aware it's occurring.

The reality is that radio talk-show hosts are targeted partially because they commit a sin of which the mainstream media is rarely guilty. 

They’re honest about what they are.

This is why I’m sure the Left will join me in promoting a truly fair Fairness Doctrine; call it FD 2.0.  I mean, you folks on the left actually want fairness, right?  After all, applying it only to a medium dominated by a particular ideology would be as crazy as, oh, I don’t know, scrutinizing only counties dominated by a particular ideology during a vote recount.

Then again, we could take a different route.  We could understand that touting the importance of the “other side” reflects a naïve dualist mindset, the idea that the world consists of but two equal sides, right and left, when it actually consists of two unequal categories, right and wrong.  Why, taking our relativistic, modern, everything-is-perspective, other-side notion to its logical conclusion, we could hear God tell us that Satan is evil and then broadcast, “Tune it at 8:00 PM for the Devil’s response.”

Moreover, there is a reason why we say the Truth but a lie: “Wrong” is a category encompassing many lies.  No matter how much you mandate “equal time,” there isn’t enough time to give every “side” a hearing.  Will making room for the liberal or conservative side satisfy the communists or Nazis?  There is only one side we should be interested in: the eternal one. 

Of course, some will ask, in grand relativistic style, “Who will decide what’s Truth!?” That is the question, isn’t it?  In answering, consider that, despite slavery being one of the world’s oldest and most widespread practices, we don’t hear pro-slavery advocates on the radio.  This isn’t because government banned such commentary but because the marketplace of ideas did.

This is democracy in action: Millions of consumers “voting” on what ideas will hold office in media nationwide through their use of radio tuners, remotes, computer mouse and money.  In contrast, those advocating government control would replace these “elections” with rule by oligarchic decree, placing judgments about what should be broadcast in the hands of a small group of bureaucrats.  It is profoundly undemocratic.

Is this to say that the market is an infallible purveyor of Truth?  Not at all.  Mankind has always toddled along in that regard, often stumbling, sometimes falling.  But I’ll sooner trust the common man to ferret out common sense than I would the entire Oxford philosophy department.      

It’s ironic that the people who recoil at historically present censorship – of obscene images, for instance – advocate the 1984 variety.  They have things exactly backwards: Censorship of unpopular political, social and religious commentary is the very thing the First Amendment was designed to forestall.  And what is “fair” anyway?  It isn’t to give both godly and devilish ideas equal time.  It is to separate Truth from lies and hope that, one day, it will have all the time.

Just about two years ago, people were speaking of a new era: post-racial America. Well, it occurs to me that if we get any more post-racial, we’ll have a race war. And the latest on this front is a new exhibit at the Boston Museum of Science (MOS) called “RACE – Are we so different?” Reports American Thinker’s Peter Wilson:

The exhibit offers a fascinating window into the fun-house mirror world of race theorists, racial "scholars," and a good part of the anthropology profession.  Even a sympathetic reviewer in the Boston Globe admits that "there's a wearying didacticism to the show," and it's no surprise that the didactic lessons about race are all slanted toward the left.

As for that Globe reviewer, Mark Feeney, he writes:

[There is] a display called "Affirmative action: undoing inequality.'' That's not science or even sociology; that's politics. Right or wrong, some people think affirmative action furthers inequality. Another display is called "White – the color of money.'' It shows stacks of dollar bills whose height corresponds to the relative wealth of whites, Asians, blacks, Latinos, and "others'' in US society. A section on discrimination and real estate has two street signs, "Privilege Place'' and "Racism Road.'' It's like an MSNBC production of "Sesame Street.''

Now, question: What would be the reaction if the MOS erected a display entitled “Jewish – the religion of money”? It would be called anti-Semitic. But if such a presentation would create animosity toward Jews, why would anyone think that MOS’ display doesn’t create animosity toward whites?

Whatever the target, the implicit message is that the group somehow achieved its success through oppression and exploitation. Yet this is simply not true. While there are individual exceptions (criminals), successful people of all races generally behave in a certain positive manner: They get an education, develop a marketable skill, follow just laws, obtain gainful employment, avoid destructive behaviors and don’t squander wealth. If the MOS had simply used a certain group as an exemplar of this success ethic, it would be one thing. They, however, engaged in race-baiting.

But the MOS display is just the latest example of the modern West’s racial contradictions. We’re told we shouldn’t generalize about race; that is, until it’s time to blame whites for the world’s ills. The very people who tell us to be colorblind are the first to ask for racial identification on all sorts of applications, surveys and census forms. And while these social engineers condemn discrimination, they want this information so they can more effectively discriminate in school admissions, hiring and the affording of benefits. 

The kicker here is that this contradiction is on stark display within the MOS exhibit itself. While the museum seems very sure about the validity of racial categorization when speaking of “white” privilege, its stated goal is to advance an idea currently very popular among half-baked intellectuals: that “race” is a “social construct” with no biological basis. Writes Wilson:

A typical exhibit, in an online video, shows students from Cambridge attempting to guess the racial make-up of people in photographs. In one case, students guess "Filipino," but in fact, the young man is "Hawaiian, Chinese[,] and German." According to the show's creator, the American Anthropological Association, this undermines our racist belief that seven billion humans fall neatly into four or five categories.

Actually, it might undermine the belief that anthropologists know word definitions. “Filipino,” “Chinese” and “German” are nationalities, not races.

Now, when promoting social-construct theory, anthropologists will point out, writes theory critic Armand Marie Leroi, “that most human genetic variation can be found within any given ‘race.’ …the difference between an African and a European would be scarcely greater than the difference between any two Europeans....” Sure, and there’s no difference at all if their sample includes only white Afrikaners or Frenchmen of Nigerian descent. But since by “African” and “European” they mean “black” and “white,” their theory is self-refuting. After all, to compare the genetic make-ups of different “races” is to tacitly acknowledge that race exists. Of course, some may say that they’re studying groups categorized based on what we call race. But then, is it simply semantics that troubles them? What is the “what” to which we’ve applied the term? A rose by any other name….

As for genetic differentiation, of course “most human genetic variation can be found within any given ‘race’” – we’re all human. But when it comes to genetics, a dab ‘ll do ya’. We share 96 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees, yet no one says that we can’t distinguish between man and ape. And the disruption of one single gene among our 30,000 can cause a severe form of mental retardation. Heck, we share about 50 percent of our DNA with the banana and have about the same amount of it as a peanut (which, actually, may help explain San Francisco). I should also add that genetic analysis of DNA can now very easily reveal the race of the individual from which a sample is taken.

So are these anthropologists a bit heavy on the chimp DNA? No, they’re not stupid. They just don’t want to know the Truth.

I’ll introduce this with a hypothetical: If evidence appeared showing definitively that one race were more intelligent than another, would you accept it? Would you at least acknowledge in your own mind that it was possibly true? Or would your own private church consider this truth such heresy that you’d banish it to the dungeon of your subconscious?

The anthropologists in question would do the latter. The damning truth is that much of social science today is an effort to deny reality in deference to ideological imperatives. For example, the idea of traditional sex roles contradicted the feminist agenda, so we were told that they, too, were merely “social constructs.” In fact, psychologists once preached that boys and girls were identical except for superficial physical differences; this lasted until hard science showed that these soft scientists were soft in the head.  

And the equality agenda is also at work in the non-study of that non-existent thing, race. There are many (insofar as good intentions drive the science) who fear that research demonstrating aptitude differences among the races would lend legitimacy to bigotry and discrimination, so they would spin such data. And, they figure, a sure way to eliminate “racism” is to simply eliminate the concept of race.

The philosopher G.K. Chesterton addressed this thinking when he wrote, “Since the modern world began in the sixteenth century, nobody's system of philosophy has really corresponded to everybody's sense of reality; to what, if left to themselves, common men would call common sense.” And the problem is that delusion, even when scientifically crafted, also won’t work. You can’t remedy real problems by denying reality.

And it’s no coincidence that this denial has become common during a secular time in which equality is felt to be the highest value. You see, when people believe in nothing beyond this world – which includes no morality, as the concept implies God – then the things of this world assume paramount importance. It then follows that your yardstick for judging others’ worth will more likely be worldly measures, such as ability, intelligence, success and income. Thus, by this world view’s lights, when certain people are thus lacking, they are deficient in the very thing that determines their value. They aren’t merely less gifted – they’re actually worth less.

This explains modern secularists’ frenzied attempts to rationalize away group differences. It also explains why they try to silence those who speak of them; not only does such discussion shatter their rationalization, but, when you say that a group’s underperformance in an area may be partially due to innate ability, they interpret it as a claim that the group is worth less – ergo bigotry.

But the problem is theirs: They simply cannot view people as they are, warts and all, and love and value them equally anyway. This is why, when dealing with individuals they look down upon, secularists make the worst snobs. It is why, when they want to feel good about themselves by promoting equality, they make the worst social engineers. And it is why, when they have power and have shed this emotional imperative, they become the worst killers (e.g., eugenics, forced abortion).

The real solution here is not to deny group differences but embrace them as part of God’s plan. It is to understand that people are valuable not because of what they can do but because of what they are: children of God, created in His image.

As for those anthropologists, what they are is sad. Imagine, spending money and studying hard for a Ph.D. all so you can deceive self and others with credibility.

The obvious villain in the Gabrielle Giffords tragedy is the man who caused it, the very disturbed Jared Lee Loughner.  Sadly, though, there have been villains in the response to it, too – many villains.  And while it’s hard to make a pick for this Black Hat Award, one man who has certainly distinguished himself is Pima County, Arizona, Sheriff Clarence Dupnik.

As you may know, Dupnik has been busy warning of how speech has consequences while in the same breath blaming conservatives for the actions of Loughner.  Now, I don’t blame the sheriff for asking why.  It is fine to look for reasons.  It is not fine to be reckless and wrong.  And it’s a sin when it’s born of indifference to Truth.  

To be precise, Dupnik implicates right-wing talk radio – he mentioned Rush Limbaugh – and cable news in the Giffords shooting.  Yet a number of obvious things seem to have eluded this man, this supposed professional investigator.  For starters, if we’re actually going to analyze the politics of Loughner, we should note that one of his former classmates, Caitie Parker, describes him as a “left wing” “political radical” and “pot head”; moreover, Parker — who had been in a band with Loughner — states that he was a fan of the radical leftist punk-rock band Anti-Flag.  Note here that Loughner did, in fact, echo that band's ideas on his YouTube page.  Also note that on that page Loughner had listed as one of his favorite works The Communist Manifesto.

Now, question: How can one imply that an apparent leftist was provoked to violence by rightist prodding?  Aw, heck, I know – it’s Bush’s fault.

Yet there’s something even sillier here.  I’ve picked up the gauntlet the left threw down, but, really, examining Loughner’s political motivations is much like discussing a man who jumped off a roof because he thought he was a bird and pondering how his grasp of aeronautics might have influenced his decision.  Loughner’s above-linked video makes it painfully clear that he is clinically insane (he’ll probably be diagnosed with “bi-polar disorder” or “paranoid schizophrenia”) and that he was influenced not by his fellow man but by his inner demons.  Did this obvious fact also elude you, sheriff?  Columbo you’re not.

Now, Dupnik seems to be very troubled by inflammatory rhetoric; except, he only seems to thus define words when they inflame him.  I wonder, did Dupnik notice when militant atheist Christopher Hitchens said after Rev. Jerry Falwell’s death, “I think it’s a pity there isn’t a hell for him to go to” or when another of his leftist friends, Julianne Malveaux, hoped that Clarence Thomas’ wife would feed the justice a high-fat diet so he’d die of a heart attack?  Does Dupnik stay up at night worrying about Barack Obama’s statement, “If they [the Republicans] bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun” or about how the president referred to American political opponents as “enemies”?  Probably not.  After all, he seems to be of one mind and tongue with Obama, having opposed AZ’s original immigration law, calling it “racist,” “disgusting” and “stupid.”  And imagine, Dupnik’s Pima County abuts Maricopa County, home of “America’s Toughest Sheriff.”  Just cross a border and you go from Joe Arpaio to a jawing pie hole.

Although it’s clear that the left wins the inflammatory-rhetoric title hands down (although my last sentence just helped my side narrow the gap), it’s obvious that we all can be acid-tongued.  Having said this, guess what?  Dupnik is right.

Words do have consequences.

And we should watch what we say. 

The problem is that Dupnik & Co. have no idea on what basis we should self-censor.  It’s not a matter of avoiding inflammatory rhetoric because, as with certain topical medications, what inflames some may soothe others.  Besides, is it really always wrong to inflame passions?  Let’s examine the matter.

We’ve all heard about that exception to First Amendment rights: We can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded movie theater.  But there’s an exception to that exception.

When there really is a fire.

This brings us to the point.  When discussing what should and shouldn’t be said, everyone forgets the most important question.  It isn’t whether a statement is cruel or kind, controversial or conciliatory, inflammatory or soothing. 

It is whether it’s true or untrue.

You see, sheriff, we traditionalists don’t call Obama a Marxist to be inflammatory but because his history indicates such.  And we don’t call advocacy of his health-care takeover tyrannical to be truculent; we do it to be truthful.  We yell “Fire!” because, despite what Billy Joel said, he and the rest of you liberals really did start the fire.  America is burning and we have the big red truck.

Of course, Dupnik would have you believe that such talk is un-American.  He actually said in this Fox interview that politicians got together and worked for the good of the country when he was younger.  But how frequently was American politics really defined by sweetness and light?  The Founding Fathers could attack each other viciously, and one little spat resulted in vice president Aaron Burr slaying Alexander Hamilton in a famous 1804 duel (you know, men such as Dupnik can make one pine for those days).  And an earlier disagreement involving inflammatory rhetoric led to even more bloodshed.  It was something that often happens when one entity tyrannizes another and won’t listen to reason (much like what’s happening today), so we may not want to blame the rhetoric.  I think the date of that little event was 1776.  And I think the inflammatory words started with, “When in the course of human events….”  

Speaking of which, isn’t it odd that the sheriff would find anti-big-government rhetoric inflammatory?  Our nation was born of violence instigated by men who despised big government.  They forged a constitution designed to forestall the development of big government.  Thus, to rail against big government is not “inflammatory rhetoric.”  It is American rhetoric.  It is so American, in fact, that if you have a problem with it, you should wonder if you’re American at all.

As for violence, let’s discuss what really sparks it.  And I don’t refer to the mindless Jared Lee Loughner brand but the 1776 variety – or the 1984 variety.  By the latter I mean that violence can take many forms, such as an immoral majority enforcing its will at the ballot box.  This is still called “democracy” but it can and does lead to the rise of bad politicians and policy that can kill far more than any lone gunman (the violence called abortion, failure to secure borders, etc.)  It can also lead to the loss of the ballot box, which is when 1984 violence comes to full flower.

If we wish to avoid this, we must understand the following.  There are only two ways of settling man’s inevitable disagreements: by the word and by the sword.  It’s preferable to reason things out, of course, but a condition for this is that both sides are reasonable.  As soon as one side exalts emotion, saying “If it feels good, I’ll do it – and Truth be damned” and refuses to yield to reason, the countdown to 1776 or 1984 begins.

Our countdown began long ago because a certain side in our nation did reject Truth and placed us all in a very untenable position.  I’ll explain that position like this: What if someone tries to feed your child poison?  What if you explain it’s poison, that it will kill the child and that he needs to stick to the diet of his forebears, but the poisoner is immune to reason?  Okay, so you try to insulate your child from him, but he manages to find your kid wherever he may be.  How is this all going to end?

Alright, now what if some group tries to feed your civilization poison?  What if you explain it’s poison, that it will kill the civilization and that our nation needs to stick to the diet of its forebears, but the poisoners are immune to reason?  Okay, so you try to insulate your civilization from the group, but it manages to inject ever more toxins into the body politic despite your best efforts.  How is this all going to end?  With the 1776 solution or 1984 dystopia.

The above is a metaphor for what you, Dupnik, and the rest of your leftist ilk are visiting upon our once-great nation.  Do you really want to prevent violence, sheriff?  Then drop the inflammatory-rhetoric artifice and stop the immoral actions.  Stop attacking Western culture and traditions.  Start believing in and seeking Truth, yielding to reason and abiding by the Constitution.  Stop the lies and deceit.  We yell fire because you and your fellow travelers really are pyromaniacs.  Pick up a hose and help, or America will be hosed down by 1984 – or 1776 – whether you, I, or anyone else likes it or not. 

                                                            Contact Selwyn Duke

It seems that our neutered, post-Christian culture just can’t do enough to vindicate Muslims’ accusation of Western decadence.  And the latest affront to common sense and Truth is an attack upon the family: The State Department will remove the terms “father” and “mother” from passport applications and replace them with “gender neutral terminology.”  Reporting on the story, Fox News writes:

“The words in the old form were ‘mother’ and ‘father,’” said Brenda Sprague, deputy assistant Secretary of State for Passport Services. "They are now ‘parent one’ and ‘parent two.’"

A statement on the State Department website noted: “These improvements are being made to provide a gender neutral description of a child’s parents and in recognition of different types of families [emphasis added].”

Improvements?  A real improvement would be eliminating the Brenda Spragues from government.

Yet Sprague insists that political correctness had nothing to do with the decision, explaining, writes Fox, “We find that with changes in medical science and reproductive technology that we are confronting situations now that we would not have anticipated 10 or 15 years ago.”  Ah, what an intellectual girl. 

Yes, this is all the result of a deeply cerebral process that draws upon the most serious scholarship.  I’m sure the fact that the homosexual group the Family Equality Council (FEC) had been lobbying for years to get the passport applications altered had nothing to do with this decision whatsoever.

In justifying the change, executive director of the FEC Jennifer Chrisler said that the “government needs to recognize that the family structure is changing.”  This is nonsense.  It’s much like addressing our growing obesity problem, saying that the “government needs to recognize that physiques are changing” and then casting corpulence as normal.  (With this analogy, I’m not implying that Michelle Obamaesque nanny-state intrusion is justified, only that government should not be actively undermining people’s sense of what is normal and healthy.)  Government has no business encouraging bad health.

Likewise, insofar as government is going to be involved in influencing the family, it has a duty to not undermine familial health.  The family is the central building block of civilization, and nations rise and fall with its fortunes.  And as with obesity and other physical problems, familial anomalies will inevitably exist (e.g., single-parent households).  But this doesn’t mean they should be normalized.

So this is where we stand as a society in 2011, Reader One, Reader Two, etc.  We’re so darn inclusive, we’re including the poison pill in the software of civilization.  This is Writer One, signing off. 

One of the problems with the idea of “American exceptionalism” is that it exacerbates a kind of complacency common to man.  This is the phenomenon whereby people often view themselves as exceptions, saying, after some tragedy, for instance, something such as “I never thought it could happen to me.”

On a national level — and this especially plagues great nations — this manifests itself in the notion that “it” could never happen here.  Oh, the “it” could be descent into tyranny, domination by a foreign power or dissolution.  Or, maybe, it could be the election of a leader who is a Manchurian candidate, a traitor within, someone bent on destroying the nation that gave him everything.  That…“it”…couldn’t happen here.  In fact, the idea is so preposterous to many Americans that, if such a threat loomed, they would never see it coming.  And they would call a person who warned of it a nut.

So I want to present you with a hypothetical.  Let’s say a leader were elected who had, during his childhood, been mentored by an avowed Nazi.  Let us further say that his guardians had chosen this mentor for him, indicating that they likely were sympathetic to the man’s beliefs.  Now, let us say that upon reaching college, this future leader gravitated toward Nazi professors.  Moreover, we then find out that a man who knew the leader as an undergraduate and was, at the time, a Nazi himself, said that the leader was “in 100 percent, total agreement” with his Nazi professors and was a flat-out Nazi who believed in old-style Brownshirt tactics.

Okay, we’re almost done.  After graduating, the leader-to-be spends 20 years sitting in a white-power church, has an alliance with a self-proclaimed Nazi and ex-terrorist and, apparently, becomes a member of a National Socialist party for a while.  And then, upon being elected, he appoints an avowed Nazi to his administration and also a woman who cites Adolf Hitler as one of her two favorite philosophers.  Now, here’s the million-depreciated-dollar question:

What would be nuttier, to claim that this man was a Nazi or that such an assertion was a radical statement?

Furthermore, if people appeared unconcerned about the leader’s radical past, what would be the most likely explanation?

A. They’re sympathetic to Nazism.

B. They’re ignorant of his personal history.

C. They’re rationalizing away a frightening reality.

D. Some combination of the above.

Let’s now transition to the actual.  Here is a fact: If you took the above description of my hypothetical leader and replaced “Nazi” with “communist,” “flat-out Nazi” with “flat-out Marxist-Leninist,” “Brownshirt tactics” with “communist revolution,” “white-power” with “black-power,” “National Socialist” with “socialist” and “Adolf Hitler” “with Mao Tse-tung,” you would have an accurate description of a leader in power today.

His name is Barack Obama.

We’ll start from the top.  Obama’s childhood mentor was chosen by his guardians, his grandparents, and was avowed communist Frank Marshall Davis.  Obama did in fact gravitate toward communist professors in college; moreover, we now know about ex-communist John Drew, a contemporary of Obama’s at Occidental College who verifies that Obama was “in 100 percent, total agreement” with his communist professors and was a flat-out “Marxist-Leninist” who believed in old-style communist revolution.  

We also know that upon graduating, Obama spent 20 years in a black-power church, Trinity United of Reverend Jeremiah Wright fame and had an alliance with self-proclaimed communist and ex-terrorist Bill Ayers.  It also appears — and I have yet to see anyone address and disprove this association — that Obama was a member of the socialist New Party in Chicago in the 1990s.  Then, upon being elected, Obama appointed avowed communist Van Jones to his administration and also Anita Dunn, who cited mass-murderer Mao Tse-tung as one of her two favorite philosophers.  There’s more, too, but greater detail is hardly necessary.

It also shouldn’t be necessary to ask the question, but I will:

What is nuttier, to claim that this man is a communist or that such an assertion is a radical statement?

What is the obvious conclusion?

Now, some may say that a person can change markedly over a 30-year period.  This is true.  Yet not only do we have the recent evidence of Obama’s radical communist appointments, but there’s something else as well.  It hit me just the other night.

Just as we would demand that our leaders completely reject Nazi ideas, all good Americans should agree that complete rejection of communist ideas is a moral imperative as well.  Losing a little youthful zeal or adding a dose of pragmatism just isn’t enough.  A pragmatic communist, in fact, could be more dangerous than an old-guard type.

Yet a transition from flat-out “Marxist-Leninist” to someone who rejects the red menace is a pretty big change, don’t you think?  In fact, wouldn’t such a personal evolution — some might say revolution — be a kind of conversion?  I think so.

Now, many people do experience conversions.  I think here of erstwhile radical-leftist David Horowitz; ex-liberals Michael Savage and Robin of Berkeley; and President George W. Bush, who accepted Christ as an adult.  And then there’s me: I was never a liberal, but I did transition from being a scoffer at religion and an agnostic to a devout Catholic. 

There’s an interesting thing, however, about conversions.

You hear about them.      

You see, a conversion is a sea change, a rebirth, a turning point in your existence.  You may become, as Christians say, a new creation, and you’re at least a reformed old one.  And you reflect your new state of being and often want to voice it.

And those around you will know about it.

As for this writer, everyone who knows me would say that my religious conversion was a seminal point in my life.  Horowitz has spoken of his rejection of the “loony left,” Bush’s conversion is well known, Savage has talked about his on the radio and Robin of Berkeley can’t stop talking about hers.  A conversion becomes part of your life narrative.

Now consider something.  Barack Obama is one of the most famous, most discussed individuals on the planet. 

But we have not heard about any soul-changing conversion in his life.

Not a whisper.

Nothing. 

Nothing that could reconcile the flat-out Marxist-Leninist he was in his college days with the man he supposedly is today.  There’s no one who says, “Yeah, man was he was a radical guy in his youth, and I just couldn’t believe how he became disenchanted with his old ideas.”  There are no stories about a great epiphany, an overseas trip that opened his eyes or a personal tragedy that inspired growth.  There’s nothing to explain how a radical Marxist became a reasonable politician.  And if there is such an explanation, it’s the most elusive of missing links.

So could “it” happen here?  And is it really nutty to ask if, just maybe, it already has?

This article originally posted at The American Thinker:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/the_missing_link_in_the_evolut.html

In the film “The Devil’s Advocate,” Satan poses as a powerful attorney bent on undermining man through the law.  When he finally reveals himself to the main character toward the movie’s end, he delivers a self-adulatory monologue during which he proudly states, “I’m a fan of man.  I’m a humanist.  Maybe the last humanist.” 

Speaking of devilish actions, by now most Americans have heard of Clay Duke (no relation!), the gunman who opened fire at a Panama City, Florida, school board meeting.  We know that he was upset about his wife’s dismissal from a district job and that he wanted to exact revenge on those he deemed responsible.  We also know that no innocents were harmed and the only fatality was Duke himself, who, after being wounded by a brave security guard, died by his own hand.

What few know, however, is Duke revealed that he had the philosophical foundation of what we today call “leftism”: On his Facebook page, he listed his religion as “Humanism.”

Before I explore the meat of the matter, there’s something I must mention.  Some will roll their eyes and call the above fact irrelevant, but what would the left’s reaction be if Duke had listed his religion as “Catholic,” “Evangelical” or, better yet, if he had expressed an affinity for the Tea Party?  If the last thing, the media would have had an orgiastic propaganda feeding frenzy.

The reality is, though, that claiming oneself a humanist is usually far more significant than a traditional religious identification.  After all, people may be born of Catholic or Jewish parents and, therefore, identify themselves in that manner even if they have no faith.  Hardly anyone, however — and especially not 56-year-old Southern boys — is born into “humanism.”  When you thus identify yourself, it indicates that the designation reflects what your beliefs truly are.

And what are humanist beliefs?  In our time, humanism has become almost synonymous with atheism; it rejects religion and, consequently, any moral standard above man.  Thus, moral relativism — the idea that what we call right and wrong are a function of man’s opinion — is one of its corollaries. 

Now, the reality of relativism is that it’s simply a pseudo-intellectual way of saying there is no right or wrong.  Many atheists, or humanists, try to deny this, but it is one of those rarest of things that can actually be called “philosophical fact.”  After all, if man is the author of what we call “right and wrong,” how is it any different from taste?  As I wrote in my 2002 essay “The Nature of Right and Wrong”:

Think about it: If 90 percent of humanity said it preferred chocolate ice cream to vanilla, it wouldn't mean that chocolate was "right" and vanilla "wrong."  Nor would it mean that chocolate was better in any objective sense — it would simply mean that people happened to like chocolate better.  It's illogical to say otherwise.  But would it be any more logical to say that murder was wrong for no other reason than the fact that 90 percent of all people preferred that others not kill in a way that we call unjust?  Of course not.  But if the idea that murder is wrong is simply a function of man's collective preference, it then falls into the exact same realm as the collective preference for a type of ice cream: the realm of taste.

This applies to all moral principles, of course; it is the corner into which atheists paint themselves.  I call it The Atheist’s Box.

And it’s one from which there is no escape.

That is, except by acknowledging the divine — for if morality is real, it must have a source.  The Source.

The only other alternative is the sociopath route: claiming right and wrong are just an illusion and that the credo “If it feels good, do it” is as good a guide as anything else.  After all, to accept modern humanism’s relativism is to render humanism irrelevant.  For if “morality” is “values” and values are tastes, on what credible basis can you advance humanism’s priorities?  Why should we believe that human advancement or dignity is important?  Who is to say?  Hey, don’t impose your values on me, you intolerant humanist!  This is why any relativism-based conception of virtue — or, as the atheists would say, “value system” (Do you know the difference between virtues and values, Chris, Richard and Bill?  Bueller?  Bueller?) — collapses upon itself.  To put it paradoxically, if humanism is true, humanism is false.

The problem with the relativistic folly of humanism, atheism, existentialism — call it what you will (some isms are a pseudo-intellectual effort to escape The Atheist’s Box, but they’re all getting a bit stale) — is not just that it’s a virus causing the crash of a poorly written philosophical program.  It’s that it causes the crash of civilization.  For we could say that it discredits its isms, but remember that it discredits everything and nothing — and justifies everything.  After all, rape, kill, steal, spend the nation into oblivion or, maybe, shoot up a school-board meeting?  Hey, why not?  It’s whatever works for you, dude.  And a whatever-works-for-you-dude civilization is not long for this world.

At this point, atheists may pull a Hitchens and point to all the evil, real and imagined, perpetrated by Christians.  But they miss the point: You can disagree with Christianity’s conception of moral reality, but at least it has one.  Thus, for a Christian to commit mindless violence, he must violate his world view’s prescriptions and proscriptions.  All an atheist has to do is note that his world view has none.

While still a teen, the budding serial killer and cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer said to his parents, “If there’s no God, why can’t I just make up my own rules?”  How is it that a man who lived the stuff of horror films understood the implications of atheism better than “scholars” such as Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins?  The answer lies not in superior intellect, but in superior intellectual honesty.  He simply had scraped away the pretense and explored the boundless universe of atheism to its fullest.  And this is expressed in an encapsulation of what Dostoevsky’s Ivan Karamazov believed: If there is no God, everything is permitted.

So, yes, I certainly could believe that the Devil is a humanist.  Unfortunately, he is far from the last.

                   Contact Selwyn Duke

All Selwyn Duke’s work, including more than 20 of his Savage Nation radio appearances, can be found at http://www.SelwynDuke.com.

This article originally appeared at The American Thinker

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/12/citizen_class_warrior_florida.html

One thing that saddens me about the TSA security controversy is that we’re missing a great opportunity.  Sure, the insanity of patting down three-year-old, blonde-haired lasses and octogenarian grandmothers with prosthetics has caused a great backlash, as more and more people are realizing that our government’s common-sense-blind approach is born of a deadly allegiance to political correctness.  In fact, I’ve even heard a few usually very careful pundits float the idea that we should think about profiling Muslims.  Unfortunately, though, they invariably drop the ball in the debate.

The problem is that they don’t believe they occupy the moral high ground.  Instilled with the idea that advocating “racial profiling” (a propaganda term) amounts to bigotry, they generally back down as soon as someone looks askance at their suggestion.  This is especially frustrating to me because I’ve long been promulgating an airtight argument that, not only refutes the racial-profiling propaganda, but also illustrates why the moral high ground actually belongs to our side.  So I’ll present the argument again in the hope that it will now receive a better reception.  Here it is:

Actually, what is discriminatory is to not profile Muslims.  Why?  Well, consider that group-specific profiling is nothing unusual; for instance, law enforcement looks more suspiciously upon men and young people because those groups commit an inordinate amount of crime.  Yet do we hear complaints of “sex profiling” or “age profiling”?  Of course not, as we know that such practices are just common sense.  But if this standard can be applied to men and youth, it’s only fair and just to apply the exact same standard to all other groups that commit an inordinate amount of a given crime.  And when we refuse to do so — when we say that certain groups must receive a special dispensation from life’s realities because they enjoy privileged status — that is where the real discrimination lies.  That is what’s unfair.  That is a travesty of justice.

Now, contrary to popular belief, fellow politics wonks and pundits, no one has to pay me royalties when using the above.  There’s no truth to that rumor whatsoever.  In all seriousness, though, the argument isn’t the greatest thing since Aristotle; it’s just common sense.  And this is why the fact that it’s so uncommon is so distressing.  Because the argument does have one great flaw: It only works when used.

Of course, if we want to deepen understanding of profiling further, we could point out that there’s no such thing as “racial profiling.”  Rather, there are only two types of profiling:

Good profiling and bad profiling.

You see, profiling is simply a method by which law enforcement can determine the probability that an individual has committed a crime or has criminal intent.  And when making this determination, good profiling considers many different factors, such as dress, behavior, the car being driven, tattoos that might be displayed, sex, age, race and ethnicity.  Whatever the details, however, good profiling is practiced in accordance with sound criminological science.  And what happens when we refuse to consider certain factors in deference to political correctness, social concerns or “feelings”?

It becomes bad profiling.

It becomes unfair.

It becomes a mockery.

It becomes the TSA.

Conclusion: When rooting out terrorists, profiling Muslims is the right thing to do.

It is the moral thing to do.

It is the only thing to do.

And what if CAIR and other Islamist sympathizers are offended?  Too bad.  Did moral men or youths ever complain about the profiling of their group?  For that matter, do we hear shouts of “racial profiling” when whites are targeted (e.g., when they cruise inner-city neighborhoods in nice cars, they are often suspected of wanting to buy drugs)?  There’s only one set that should take exception to the fair and equitable application of criminological science: criminals.  As for me, I have no problem with my group being profiled as long as the same standard is applied to all other higher-crime-incidence groups.  And if CAIR will not say the same, they arouse suspicion and deserve more scrutiny themselves.

Now, at this point, the critics are often left with just one argument.  They like to say that profiling is a waste of time because if we target a certain group, the terrorists will simply use members of a different group in their operations.  Okay, now, how is this supposed to work?  Do telemarketers call people and say (cue the professional infomercial voice), “Hello, sir, how would you like to sacrifice your life for the jihadist cause today?  We’re prepared to offer you a trip straight to Paradise where you’ll be met by 72 voluptuous virgins!  But respond now because this offer expires December 14^th.”? 

The critics have it exactly backwards.  It’s virtually impossible to convince a normal person to kill himself to destroy others (unless, that is, you can first convince him to convert to Islam); it’s very easy to convince a person who is willing to kill himself to destroy others to do so in a different way.  So the truth is that if we focus on methods, the terrorists will just change their methods.  (As to this, it has just been discovered that Al Qaeda hopes to surgically implant bombs in terrorists.)  Methods don’t have a will; people do.  Methods don’t reject agendas; people do.  Conclusion?  It’s a waste of time to focus solely on methods.  We must focus on people.

Yes, on people, in just the way we do when the higher-crime-incidence group is men, youths or whites.  Of course — and those on the left who believe the Constitution is malleable ought to love this — a profile is a living, breathing thing.  It’s not set in stone.  If the facts on the ground change — if, let’s say, massive numbers of alabaster-skinned, Christian Norwegians become suicide bombers — the profile will change.  As of now, however, those willing to sacrifice themselves to blow up an airplane are 100 percent of the time Muslim and 99 percent of the time non-white.  That’s called a strong correlation.  That’s called the world’s most specific profile.  It’s called something you ignore at your own peril.      

So this is how you win the profiling debate.  Memorize the block-quoted argument in the third paragraph — verbatim if necessary.  Then, don’t just use it; shout it from the mountaintops.  Hang it around the left’s neck.  You must be just as vocal and zealous about spreading the Truth as the destroyers of civilization are about spreading lies.  And it shouldn’t be difficult.  Unlike liberals, you’re not asking for special treatment, just equal treatment.  And unlike CAIR and its enablers, you’re not asking for TSA dhimmitude for infidels, just a little fidelity from your government.

             Contact Selwyn Duke

All Selwyn Duke’s work, including more than 20 of his Savage Nation radio appearances, can be found at http://www.SelwynDuke.com.

Since I’m well aware of how leftists’ claims of erudition are as empty as their ideology, not many of their failures surprise me.  But an exception came last Tuesday when Whoopi Goldberg was interviewed by Bill O’Reilly.  The two were discussing their differing views on the nature of the Islamic threat, with O’Reilly maintaining that we have a “Muslim problem” and Goldberg insisting that, no, we have a “terrorist problem.”  In typical leftist style, she even went so far as to rationalize away the threat, implying at one point that terrorists were as likely to be white guys as anyone else.  But as ridiculous as this denial of reality is, it was followed by an admission of ignorance that was truly staggering.  It occurred during the following exchange:

O’Reilly: Do you know what a madrassah is?

Goldberg: No, I don’t.

O’Reilly: Okay, a madrassah is a school that teaches Islamic jihad, and there are madrassahs all over the Muslim world.  They teach four and five-year-old kids to hate people.

Goldberg: Bill, Bill, that may be true.

O’Reilly: It is true!

Goldberg: It may be true; I can’t prove it.  You’ve…you’ve clearly been to them, and I’ll take your word for it.

Goldberg had no idea what a madrassah was.  Wow.  Just wow.  Could you imagine if Sarah Palin exhibited such a striking lack of knowledge?

Now, if some readers didn’t know what a madrassah was, while I would recommend boning up on the subject, it’s a different matter: They’re not professional commentators (plainly, Goldberg isn’t, either).  But this is a woman who obviously feels qualified to render opinion publicly on the Muslim threat, and she knows nothing about entities that serve as perhaps the main transmitters of jihadist propaganda to Muslim youth (there are 10,000 madrassahs across Pakistan alone). 

And, of course, this has to reflect her knowledge base in general.  If she didn’t even know about madrassahs’ existence, how much has she actually read about the Muslim threat?  It’s fair to assume that she knows nothing of the history of Islam.  Could she possibly be acquainted with the Islamic conquests, from 632 A.D. onwards, of the old Middle Eastern Christian lands?  Could she know about how the Muslim hordes then swept across North Africa (also Christian at the time), invaded Spain and Portugal (then Iberia), crossed the Pyrenees Mountains into France (then Gaul), and got within 130 miles of Paris before being stopped by Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732?  And could she have any idea that these continued conquests were what inspired the launch of the Crusades in 1095?  No, she probably believes that those defensive campaigns were animated by rapacious, imperialistic Europeans who suddenly got in into their heads that they wanted to convert those practitioners of the religion of peace.  (Note: Earlier this year, I addressed this in a magazine essay titled “The Crusades: When Christendom Pushed Back.”)

It’s also hard to imagine that Goldberg could know anything about the Islamic canon’s eternal prescriptions for jihad, how Muslim thought involves Sharia law, or how dhimmitude is the inevitable lot of “infidels” in Dar al-Islam.  In fact, after the O’Reilly interview, I very much doubt she knows what dhimmitude is.

Now, Goldberg was very pleasant in the interview; she’s not a person of ill will.  But while she did seem willing to listen to what O’Reilly had to say — she obviously wanted to make amends for an earlier blow-up during O’Reilly’s last appearance on The View — there is a difference between listening and trying to comprehend.  It’s clear that, like all leftists, Goldberg subordinates Truth to her ideology; thus, when the two conflict, instead of amending her ideology, she rationalizes away the Truth.  Put more simply, this is when something goes in one ear and out the other.

The ancient Chinese sage Confucius once said, “Wisdom is, when you know something, knowing that you know it; and when you do not know something, knowing that you do not know it.”  Sadly, Goldberg is ignorant of her ignorance.  What’s even sadder, though, is that such people can find a place in today’s media.

Now that “Don’t touch my junk!” has become a rallying cry, I must ask a question: What’s with this youth-culture tendency to refer to male genitalia as “junk”?

Since I keep my nose to the ground, I noticed this slang innovation long before John Tyner drew his line in the sand; it seems to be a phenomenon of the last five years or so.  And it’s one I’d like to put on the junk heap.

If I have any junk, it won’t be on my body and probably will end up in the trash bin.  And if the TSA wants to rummage through it, hey, be my guest.  It’s said that you can tell a lot about a person by examining his refuse.  So you can touch my junk — but let’s be a bit more careful when we lay our hands on the language, shall we?

When complaining about this, I must admit I’m a little self-conscious.  I really don’t want to sound like the über-sensitive professional complainers who say that the term “black hole” (density-approaching-infinity-so-not-even-light-can-escape-it hole is a little clumsy, dontcha think?) is insensitive to blacks or, God forbid, like the harridan feminists who would have us supplant “snowman” with “snowperson” (Frosty the snowperson was a San Francisco soul….).  But something needs to be said about this, and if I don’t say it, perhaps no one will.

Does it strike anyone else as strange that we’re now referring to male genitalia with a word that means “garbage”?  Oh, I know dictionaries indicate that this usage of “junk” can refer to female genitalia as well, but in the real world it seems to be used almost exclusively for the male variety. 

Some may roll their eyes and say I have to be hung-up to be focusing on this.  If that’s your attitude, then I hope your interest in reading further will at least be piqued by the idea that you’re viewing the musings of a very strange man. 

But, look, what’s truly strange is that we live in an age of intense anti-male sentiment.  This shouldn’t require illustration in 2010, but as evidence I can cite Christina Hoff Sommers’ book The War Against Boys; the continual portrayals of men as dolts in movies, on shows and in commercials; the pieces I’ve written on the subject; 11-year-old student Sam Besserman’s firsthand account; the acceptance of anti-male t-shirts sporting sentiments such as “Boys are stupid; throw rocks at them!”; or products such as the “All Men are Bastards” knife block, which gives the happy housewife the opportunity to keep her kitchen knives handy by sticking them in the body of a male figurine.  And these are just a handful of examples.    

Given the above, is it mere coincidence that this anti-male age sees a phenomenon whereby that which symbolizes manhood, at least physically, has come to be called “junk”?  And what might we conclude about this anti-male environment’s psychological effect on recent generations of boys and young men when they will readily refer to that symbol of their manhood (in fact, a fellow’s privates are sometimes called “his manhood”) with a demeaning term?  My self-image has never been so bad that I wanted to characterize part of my body as garbage.

Having said this, I won’t fall into the feminist trap of taking my own psychological analyses as gospel.  Perhaps this phenomenon is driven by nothing more than the notorious adolescent desire to be “cool” (it doesn’t seem likely, however, although it certainly is a contributing factor).  You also shouldn’t think I’m offended by it; I’ve always echoed the apocryphal saying, “Offense cannot be given, it can only be taken.”  I just think it’s stupid beyond words.  And it certainly doesn’t represent healthy social change.      

Moreover, given that feminist women don’t even like being called “girls” — when that’s just the equivalent of “guys” — I can just imagine how the “womyn” at NOW would react if the word “junk” was widely used to describe a female body part.  Oh, not that I blame this on them, or on normal women.  While the Online Etymology Dictionary doesn’t yet have an entry for this junky usage of “junk,” I’m guessing it was originated by a young man.  And men are certainly the ones who most use it.

I also don’t expect men to do much about it.  You could say that my sex rolls with the punches, that we really will take these things “like a man.”  Then again, you could also say that many of us have been feminized to the point where we’re ineffectual doormats.  This is why we’ll listen to blather about “racial profiling” without ever pointing out that men are profiled six ways to Sunday and that what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.  And nothing will change until we junk the politically correct junk and stop acting like capons.

This article originally appeared at The American Thinker: 

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/11/you_can_touch_my_junk_but_noth.html

With all the bad press the TSA has received recently, we can’t be sure if the acronym stands for Transportation Security Administration, Touches Sensitive Areas or Truly Scandalous Attention.  But, for sure, its pat downs and sci-fi radiation screeners give many of us another good reason to avoid the increasingly unfriendly skies.  Yet while the TSA right now has supplanted the IRS as the bureaucracy we most love to hate, its policies are merely part of a longstanding cultural trend: the failure to recognize that the good of the many outweighs the good of the few.

It’s the same reason why certain cities, most notably London, are now surveilling their residents with thousands of video cameras.  If you’re not willing to administer punishment sufficient to deter all the criminally inclined save a few intractable miscreants, some of whom you can catch, the only other solution is to have an all-seeing Big Brother that can catch all.  It’s much like treating a cancer: If you cannot target just the affected tissue, the only other solution is to treat the whole body. 

Because the former is preferable not just in medicine but also law enforcement, behavioral-sciences specialists long ago developed the method called “profiling.”  Unfortunately, social-engineering specialists soon after discredited the universal application of profiling with a method called propaganda.  Consequently, when we want to administer targeted treatment in the effort to thwart terrorism, we’re told that it’s “racial profiling” and beyond consideration.  This is utter nonsense. 

As I have said before, “racial profiling” is much like “assault weapon”: It’s an emotionally charged term designed to manipulate the public.  In reality, there are only two types of profiling: good profiling and bad profiling.  What’s the difference?  Good profiling is a method by which law enforcement can accurately determine the probability that an individual has committed a crime or has criminal intent; bad profiling makes that determination less accurate.  Good profiling considers all relevant factors — age, sex, dress, behavior and, yes, race, religion and ethnicity — without regard for political or social concerns.  Bad profiling subordinates common sense, criminological science and security to political correctness.

Good profiling is also fair.  That is to say, it discriminates on the correct basis: If a group — any group — commits an inordinate amount of a given crime, it receives greater scrutiny.  Period.  Bad profiling is invidiously discriminatory.  It says, “Hey, if you’re male, you’ll be viewed with a jaundiced eye.  If you’re young, then you, too, will be viewed more suspiciously.  Don’t like it?  Take it up with those in your group who commit crimes!”  There is no talk of stamping out “sex profiling” or “age profiling.”  But when we propose applying the same criteria to higher-crime-incidence groups sheltered by the thought police’s umbrella of protection, we hear shouts of “racial profiling!”  There then are news stories and Dept. of Injustice investigations, and people lose their jobs.  

Good profiling is also nothing unusual; it’s just the application of common sense within the sphere of law enforcement and something we all do continually.

If you cross the street upon seeing a bunch of rough-hewn young men walking your way, you’ve just engaged in profiling.  You’ve also done so if you cut a wide swath around a leashed dog; after all, he may be a very nice pooch, but, since canines are known to sometimes bite, your action is prudent.  And it doesn’t mean you’re hateful or bent on discriminating against rough young men and dogs but simply that you’re in a situation in which the cost of obtaining more information would be too great.  Consequently, as Professor Walter Williams wrote, “We can think of profiling in general as a practice where people use an observable or known physical attribute as a proxy or estimator of some other unobservable or unknown attribute.”  He then goes on to write:

Let's look at a few profiling examples to see which ones you'd like outlawed. …Some racial and ethnic groups have higher incidence and mortality from various diseases than the national average. The rates of death from cardiovascular diseases are about 30 percent higher among black adults than among white adults. Cervical cancer rates are five times higher among Vietnamese women in the U.S. than among white women. Pima Indians of Arizona have the highest known diabetes rates in the world. Prostate cancer is nearly twice as common among black men as white men.

Knowing patient race or ethnicity, what might be considered as racial profiling, can assist medical providers in the delivery of more effective medical services.

Now, should doctors be prosecuted for taking these statistics into consideration when delivering medical care?  If not, why would we prosecute law enforcement for considering racial and ethnic factors (along with sex, age and other characteristics) when tackling the moral disease known as criminality?

This brings us back to our current security concerns.  The profile here is very specific, as it’s a rare person who will sacrifice his life to destroy an airplane.  Protestants aren’t doing that.  Catholics aren’t doing it.  Nor are Buddhists, Taoists, Zoroastrians or Hare Krishna.  In our age, this is a method of people who 100 percent of the time are Muslim jihadists and 99 percent of the time are non-white.  And only the idiotic — or the suicidal — ignore such correlation.

Now, we all know what kind of suicidal idiocy engenders such blindness: a politically correct brand that panders to the sensitivities of vocal, politically favored minority groups such as Muslims.  But what about the sensitivities of millions of Americans who have to tolerate intrusive body scanning and pat-downs and watch their children subjected to same?  And the kicker is that when Janet Incompetano was asked if Muslim women sporting hijabs would have to go through the same full-body pat downs, she equivocated and said, “adjustments will be made where they need to be made” and “With respect to that particular issue, I think there will be more to come.”  Are you kidding me?  Is this Total Recall meets One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?  Muslim women are the demographic second-most likely to commit Islamic terrorism.  If they aren’t subjected to scrutiny, what is the point (besides “security theater”)?

Moreover, why should Muslim’s imperative of modesty be respected but not others people’s?  Not only do devout Catholics place a premium on the quality as well, but millions of other individuals find it very offensive to be exposed in front of strangers and groped.  Yet we’re told that the very group criminological science dictates should receive more scrutiny may receive less due to political correctness. And if this actually happens, it will be yet another example of de facto Sharia law in deference to an alien culture and dhimmitude for us infidels.  

Of course, I realize that Incompetano’s equivocation doesn’t necessarily mean a Muslim dispensation is in the offing (although I put nothing past leftists), as she might simply have been overcome by the typical liberal reluctance to express unfashionable truths.  But is this an excuse?  If she expects Americans to tolerate the indignity of intrusive security screening and basically tells them it’s tough luck if they don’t like it, she has a duty to be just as firm with the over-coddled Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and its minions.  And to not be so was a slap in the face to you, me and anyone who has ever fought for our freedoms.  How dare she?

To cement this point, I’ll say that this is not first and foremost about whether a given security measure is or isn’t prudent.  It’s also unrealistic to think that we can have satisfactory security without some inconvenience.  The point is that whatever methods are settled upon — screening devices, bomb-sniffing dogs, pat downs, etc. — political correctness must not factor into the decision.  But it does, and this robs the government of all credibility.  And I, for one, do not take its efforts seriously.

The truth is that we don’t just have security theater but, sadly, war-on-terrorism theater.  We launch foreign military campaigns while leaving our back door to Mexico — through which terrorists and WMDs can pass — unsecured.  We even announce the charade by calling the conflict “the war on terror.”  As Ann Coulter once pointed out, using this euphemism is much like having called the WWII conflict with Imperial Japan “the war on sneak attacks.”  Terrorism is a method, not an enemy —Islamists are the enemy.  And if we’re too effete to even name names, it’s no surprise that we won’t identify groups.

What I’ve expressed here is just common sense, but it will remain uncommon unless we experience a cultural transformation.  Until the politically correct must keep their death-cult ideology to themselves for fear of scorn, social ostracism and career destruction — the very tactics they’ve used to silence others — nothing will change.  We will continue to exhibit a lack of seriousness about what is a life-or-death issue, a failing that will lead to an inevitable outcome: a mushroom cloud over an American city.  When that happens, it will have been enabled by those who gave us our cultural mushroom cloud, ushering in a cold winter of lies and preventing people from seeing the light.  And come that time, I hope we remember to thank them appropriately. 

Previously posted at The American Thinker: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/11/profile_muslims_or_pat_down_th.html

Really, I must be a glutton for punishment.  During the past couple of weeks, I wrote two articles on libertarianism and made the point that for a law to be just, it must have a basis in morality.  These commentaries evoked quite a response, ranging from lauding me as brilliant to lambasting me for not having two brain cells to rub together.  And the negative responses were most notable.  For daring to mention morality and law in the same breath, some implied I was like the Taliban, one respondent called me a “neoconservative” and a blogger said I was a socialist (yes, really, yours truly!).  Pretty funny that, when talking about a man who proposed the Defense against Tyranny Amendment.

Now, to review the morality/law nexus in brief, I previously wrote (I recommend reading the first two pieces, here and here, for background):

…a law states that there is something you must or must not do, ostensibly because the action is a moral imperative, is morally wrong, or is a corollary thereof [emphasis added].  If this is not the case, with what credibility do you legislate in the given area?  After all, why prohibit something if it doesn't prevent some wrong?  Why force citizens to do something if it doesn't effect some good?

In response, libertarians emailed me and said that they didn’t impose morality but rather prohibited “force,” protected “property rights” or prevented “harm.”  But unless one objects to governmental use of force to apprehend a murderer or citizens’ exercise of self-defense, moral distinctions must be made.  Moreover, we couldn’t credibly prohibit force, protect property rights or prevent harm in the first place unless unjustly using the first, violating the second or causing the third wasn’t “wrong.”  Ergo, morality.

Another argument I heard was that not all law reflects morality; the example given was law mandating that we drive on the right side of the road.  Yet this is where the “corollary thereof” part comes in. Without such a law, more people will be harmed in accidents, and we believe it’s “wrong” to allow people to get harmed.   

To be fair, a couple of libertarians (one of whom is running for office) wrote me and stated that their informed ideological brethren understand that law must have a moral basis, such as the “non-aggression principle.”  Yet, while I realize many different conceptions of libertarianism exist, absent an authoritative “Church of Libertarianism” to establish official dogma, I have no choice but to draw my conclusions from libertarians’ consensus pronouncements.  After all, there are textbook/dictionary definitions of liberalism that sound pretty good, too, yet they describe no liberals I’ve ever met.  I live in the real world; if you seek a denizen of textbook dream-world, I suggest you visit your local college campus.  

And if you look at these pronouncements, something becomes clear: The problem here isn’t just one of libertarians but of moderns themselves.  It is a deep problem that concerns not just the nature of man’s law.  It concerns the nature of morality itself.

And, certainly, someone is confused.  Some respondents said it was me, and one quoted Ayn Rand, writing, “A code of values accepted by choice is a code of morality.”  But think about what this implies.  Hint: The idea isn’t merely that it’s not moral to impose morality, but that it isn’t morality if it’s imposed.

So let’s start an analysis of the nature of morality.  I ask you: Who or what determines what we call “morality”?  I addressed this in “The Nature of Right and Wrong,” writing:

[There are only two possibilities:] [e]ither man does or something outside man does.  The idea that man determines right and wrong is known as "moral relativism"; this means that morals are relative to the time, place and people.  The idea that right and wrong are determined by something outside of man is known as "Absolute Truth."

And, of course, the latter implies God.  After all, if we’re saying that “Truth” is something existing apart from man, is inerrant and that we must abide by it — which means it’s above man — what are we actually describing?  But, now, what are the implications of relativism?  I continued:

… [Moral relativism] states that morality is determined by man; what is rarely recognized, though, is that if this is so then there is no right and wrong, objectively speaking.  Think about it: If 90 percent of humanity said it preferred chocolate ice cream over vanilla, it wouldn't mean that chocolate was "right" and vanilla "wrong." Nor would it mean that chocolate was better in any objective sense — it would simply mean that people happened to like chocolate better.  It's illogical to say otherwise.  But would it be any more logical to say that murder was wrong for no other reason than the fact that 90 percent of all people preferred that others not kill in a way that we call unjust?  Of course not.  But if the idea that murder is wrong is simply a function of man's collective preference, it then falls into the exact same realm as the collective preference for a type of ice cream: the realm of taste.

Now, the Founding Fathers, men much admired in libertarian circles, understood this well.  They realized that if man is the measure of what is called “morality,” then it is merely opinion and based on nothing but air.  This is why George Washington stated, “Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.  Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”  It is why James Madison, known as the father of the Constitution, said in 1785, “Religion is the basis and Foundation of government.”  And it is why the framers emphasized that men’s rights are “endowed by their Creator,” as it is this — and only this — that could make them “unalienable.”  A person has a right to life not because some government somewhere thinks it’s cool, because it might cool on the idea 10 years hence.  Rather, it can only be a right because there is that eternal, unchanging moral injunction “Thou shalt do no murder.”  (Note: “killing” isn’t necessarily murder and can be justifiable in self-defense or during the prosecution of a just war based on “The Principle of Double Effect.”)  So the truth is that the founders would have been confused by only one thing in my block-quoted explanation and asked, “What is ice cream?”

Thus, to whatever extent and in whatever way the founders were libertarians, they were not libertines.  The truth is that today’s average secular libertarian has as much in common with those “classical liberals” (the actual political-science description of the founders) as modern liberals do.  In fact, how many degrees of separation are there between most moderns and the founders?  Probably about 24 — the number of the 56 signatories to the Declaration of Independence who held seminary degrees. 

If you libertarians feel unloved, I’ll emphasize that you didn’t invent relativism; it is the characteristic philosophical mistake of our time, with a poll sometime back showing that even 62 percent of so-called “Christians” don’t believe in Absolute Truth.

The latter fact is ironic, too, since relativism is joined at the hip with secularism.  And this is why the Sultans of Secularism, from Richard Dawkins to Rand (yes, Atlas shrugged and Rand slipped), do their dance of self-deceit.  They don’t want to come to terms with the implications of their atheism, with the meaninglessness of it, that its corollary of moral relativism negates any and all ideas about what is a right life, a right law, a right government, or a right right.  For it would all be taste.  Yet neither will they accept God’s existence and dominion.  So in an effort to lend the atheistic world view meaning and construct a moral foundation within it, they wiggle and jiggle, twist to and fro, jump through hoops and over hurdles, doing intellectual contortions extreme enough to create a sideshow between their ears.  All this because they insist upon trying to create the tree without the roots.  And this has been done many times — but it is always an artificial tree.

And it begets a superficial life.  It is thus not surprising that Objectivist Ayn Rand once said, “Nothing existential gave me any great pleasure.  And progressively, as my idea developed, I had more and more a sense of loneliness.”  No doubt.  The reality is that Jeffrey Dahmer, when he was a brutal serial killer, had a better understanding of philosophy than tree-without-roots secularists such as Rand.  For, when he was a teen he stated to his parents, “If there’s no God, why can’t I just make up my own rules?”  Now that is Objectivism in action.

As for lawmaking in action, to recognize that true leaves cannot exist without the roots isn’t to advocate descent into nanny-state nightmares; it is just to express an obvious truth.  And it’s one that people obviously are rationalizing away.  But why do they do so?  Pride is a factor, of course, as is attachments to long-held ideology.  Another factor, however, is that many people believe that if they acknowledge the morality/law link, it will open the door for the legislation of an excessive number of values.  And while I understand their fear, they have it exactly backwards.  Insofar as our government does legislate — which should be a rare occurrence — it must impose morals, not just “values” (which can be positive or negative).  For it is only when government imposes morals residing within its legitimate domain that laws are just; when it imposes merely values, they may be unjust.  But how can we ensure it will be the former?  Well, we must first be in touch with moral reality.  Only then will we understand when and what the government should be legislating.  But there is little hope society at large will understand something if a social-pressure gag order is placed on discussion of it.  This is why I emphasize understanding every aspect of this matter: the nexus between morality and just law; the immorality of excessive law; and, first and foremost, understanding what morality actually is.  Because to deny reality for fear it could be twisted is itself a twisting of reality — and the consequences are likely just as severe.

And doesn’t history bear this out?  Note that there were relatively few laws in far more Christian, “Bible-thumping,” morality aware early America.  Yet, as our society departs from discussion of morality and the concept itself — even replacing the term with “values” — laws proliferate.  It’s no surprise, either.  How can we expect those unschooled in morality (liberals, for instance) to understand the immorality of excessive lawmaking?

So people who want Rand can have her.  I’ll side with George, James and the rest of those Taliban, neocon socialists of dead-white-male fame.

                                                        Contact Selwyn Duke 

This article origianally appeared at The American Thinker:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/yes_folks_we_all_would_legisla.html

In a piece I recently wrote about the dangers inherent in libertarianism, I pointed out that libertarians, by applying their live-and-let-live philosophy to the moral sphere as well as the governmental, do nothing to maintain the societal moral framework that enables people to govern themselves from within and that ensures Big Brother won’t have to do so from without (I recommend you read the piece).  Not surprisingly, this provoked some angry responses and fallacious counter-arguments.  This article is my response to them.

I will start with the one thing that characterizes libertarians as much as anything else: a misunderstanding about the nature of law.  To illustrate the point, consider the commentary of “End the Fed,” a “devout libertarian” who posted under my first piece.  He wrote:

I don't spend a lot of time dwelling on whether people should smoke crack or have abortions. My choice is drug free. My choice is not to have abortions. And if you want to do those things, I won't criticize or judge you.

I simply accept the fact that those things exist whether I want them to or not.

OK, now what if I said:

I don't spend a lot of time dwelling on whether people should commit murder or rape.  My choice is to respect life.  My choice is not to commit rape.  And if you want to do those things, I won't criticize or judge you.  I simply accept the fact that those things exist whether I want them to or not.  I'm a good Libertarian.

Understand that all I did was take End the Fed’s reasoning to its logical conclusion.  After all, what do murder, rape and abortion have in common?  They are all moral matters — as is the stuff of all legitimate laws.  As I explained here:

A law is by definition the imposition of a value (and a valid law is the imposition of a moral principle). This is because a law states that there is something you must or must not do, ostensibly because the action is a moral imperative, is morally wrong, or is a corollary thereof. If this is not the case, with what credibility do you legislate in the given area? After all, why prohibit something if it doesn't prevent some wrong? Why force citizens to do something if it doesn't effect some good? You'll never see a powerful movement lobbying to criminalize chocolate ice cream or broccoli.

To provide a concrete example, what is the possible justification for speed laws? It isn't simply "me no like speedy." Rather, there is the idea that it is wrong to endanger others or yourself, and, in the latter case, it could be based on the idea that it's wrong to engage in reckless actions that could cause you to become a burden on society. Of course, some or all of these arguments may be valid or not, but the point is this: If a law is not underpinned by a valid moral principle, it is not a just law. Without morality, laws can be based on nothing but air.

So here is how you fall into the philosophical trap that has ensnared virtually all libertarians (and many others):

Step 1 — Believe in a mythical separation of morality and state.

Step 2 — Accept the laws you agree with and believe necessary, not realizing they’re an imposition of morality.

Step 3 — Turn around and oppose laws you disagree with, not on the basis that the values they reflect are wrong or are not the government’s domain, but simply because they’re an “imposition of morality.”

In truth, something doesn’t have to be proclaimed by a thunderous voice from the heavens, a bishop or Charlton Heston in a Cecil B. DeMille film to be christened “morality,” nor does something cease being so (or at least a conception thereof) because it has become the stuff of academia or wins a popular vote.  A moral does not cease to be a moral because it becomes a meme.

This is precisely, however, why we reflexively accept the impositions of morality known as laws against murder, rape and theft: These moral principles are seamlessly woven into civilization.  But this wasn’t always the case.  At one time, pillaging other peoples, à la the Vikings, was status quo, and the murder, rape and theft involved therein were simply part of doing business.  I mean, sure, perhaps you didn’t thus abuse a fellow tribesman, but foreigners were fair game. 

The lesson here is that most of the morality we take for granted is part of the Judeo-Christian ethic and for most of history would have been received like an injunction against masturbation is today.  Yet this fact eludes most because man’s default is to be a child of his age.  In fact, were today’s average good libertarian raised in a cultural milieu in which abortion was outlawed and universally equated with murder, he’d no doubt accept its criminalization as he accepts the illegality of murdering those occupying a place safer than the womb.  And were he living in ancient Rome, he might very well say, “I don't spend a lot of time dwelling on whether people should have men fight to the death in the arena.  My choice is not to attend the games.  And if you want to, I won't criticize or judge you.”  And when the Christians tried to end the games — which they were ultimately successful in doing — who knows, he might complain about how they were imposing their values on others.

Now, another argument I occasionally hear is, “Laws are not based on morality!  They’re based on property rights.  You mustn’t kill or steal from me because I own myself and my belongings.”  OK, but what if I said I didn’t think it wrong to not respect your property rights?  I’m sure you’d passionately retort, and if you were philosophically sound you might even mention Truth, or Natural Law.  Really, though, I don’t care what your arguments would be, only that you’d reflexively tried to prove a certain thing: that such a trespass is wrong.  Without a second thought, you would put forth a moral argument for laws prohibiting violation of property rights.

You see, the property-rights argument is, like so many other things, a dodge we use to avoid frank discussion about the real issue: What is good?  G. K. Chesterton addressed this in his 1905 book Heretics, writing, “Every one of the popular modern phrases and ideals is a dodge in order to shirk the problem of what is good.”  He then offers as examples the buzzwords “progress,” “education” and also, well, read it in his own words:

We are fond of talking about "liberty"; that, as we talk of it, is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good . . . .  The modern man says, "Let us leave all these arbitrary standards and embrace liberty." This is, logically rendered, "Let us not decide what is good, but let it be considered good not to decide it.

I might add that the property-rights argument can be summed up as: Let us not decide what is good, but, please, whatever you do, don’t touch my goods!

The point is that libertarians tend to live in an unreal world, one without the understanding that political battles are merely the front lines in a values death match that, ultimately, has definite winners and losers; it’s a world in which there is a disconnect between religious belief and morality and morality and law.  As an example, End the Fed also wrote:

Articles like yours continue the 'insane idea' that at some point the two warring factions, the left or the right, will somehow- someday impose their will and cause the other side to capitulate. That has not and will not ever be the case. So go on ahead and believe what you want to believe- I'm ok with that. After all, I am a Libertarian.

Actually, as the communists proved in 1917, the Nazis proved in 1933, Europeans prove with hate-speech laws and Islamists prove the world over — and as history has consistently taught — ideological conquest is, has been and always will be the case.  The story of man is one of spiritual, cultural, political and physical warfare, and each chapter has victory and vanquishment.  Zoroastrianism was extinguished by Islam, the Ainus have largely been subsumed by the Japanese, and the Maldives’ native Giraavaru culture is now only a memory.  Just like animals, countless languages, cultures, beliefs and peoples have become extinct, often the victims of invasive entities that, through superior morality or might, won that inevitable battle. 

And that is the battle for civilization.  It may sound very noble to say, “. . . believe what you want to believe — I'm ok with that.  After all, I am a Libertarian,” but when enough people believe the wrong things, you will not be OK with it.  You will be living under a regime that enshrines those things in law — you’ll be living in tyranny. 

Like it or not, imposing values is what arranging civilization is all about.  And like it or not, you’re part of this process.  The only difference among any of us is in what and how much we impose — and in that some of us actually understand this is precisely what we’re doing.

So we can avoid talk about morality if we want, but it will do nothing to ensure that morality won’t be imposed on us.  It only guarantees a descent into error that, ultimately, ensures that immorality will be. 

                                                    Contact Selwyn Duke

Originally published at The American Thinker:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/10/what_libertarians_misunderstan.html