Basil's Car ... and Justice

This post is offered in fulfillment of an implied promise I'd made to 'Crude' to "dig up and post my analys/smackdown of Richard Dawkins' "Dangerous Idea"."

Gentle Reader may, at his leisure, peruse Mr Dawkins' "Dangerous Idea" in his essay 'Let's all stop beating Basil's car.'

And, in contrast, here is C.S.Lewis' 'The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment.'

There are three main points I wish to make here:

1. Richard Dawkins is a liar (worse than a mere liar, actually, as I'll explain) ... and that he admits so, in print;
2. Richard Dawkins' "Dangerous Idea" is inhumane, and anti-human, and anti-justice; it is a sure 'Road to Hell' for any society to operate as though his assertions were true;
3. Richard Dawkins' atheism compels him to assert these false and wicked things which he doesn't himself believe.

(I'll explain point #1 last) #2 Richard Dawkins' "Dangerous Idea" is inhumane, and anti-human, and anti-justice; it is a sure Road to Hell for any society to operate as though his assertions were true The introduction to Dawkins' essay:

Ask people why they support the death penalty or prolonged incarceration for serious crimes, and the reasons they give will usually involve retribution. There may be passing mention of deterrence or rehabilitation, but the surrounding rhetoric gives the game away. People want to kill a criminal as payback for the horrible things he did. Or they want to give "satisfaction' to the victims of the crime or their relatives. An especially warped and disgusting application of the flawed concept of retribution is Christian crucifixion as "atonement' for "sin'. Retribution as a moral principle is incompatible with a scientific view of human behaviour. ...

Punishment primarily for the sake of "deterrence" or "rehabilitation" is immoral, it is wicked (see Lewis' essay). The proper end of punishment is exactly "retribution," which is to say, "just deserts." Any moral, just, and proper rationale for inflicting punishment on a person must primarily involve the fact that he deserves it; if the punishment should happen to accomplish other good, that is bonus. But notice: Mr Dawkins is trying to raising a moral objection (to be more precise, moralistic, rather than moral) to retribution-as-justice; which is to say, he is objecting to justice, period. He is not putting forth an argument, mind you, but merely making an objection -- though one that gets any force it may ever have from his reader's willingness to be emotionally cowed or shamed by the baseless assertion that one is somehow immoral and/or "unscientific" if one believes that retribution is fit and proper when deserved. On a side note, the Christian understanding of the meaning of the Crucifixion may be incomplete, but that is a very different thing from being flawed, warped, or disgusting. AND -- considering what he wants *you* to believe to be true about the nature of reality -- where does he get off asserting that the Christian understanding of the meaning of the Crucifixion is "[a]n especially warped and disgusting application of the flawed concept of retribution," anyway? IF his other assertions in the article are true, then this assertion about Christianity is, at best, meaningless. Richard Dawkins holds forth with the "argument" for his "Dangerous Idea:"

... Retribution as a moral principle is incompatible with a scientific view of human behaviour. As scientists, we believe that human brains, though they may not work in the same way as man-made computers, are as surely governed by the laws of physics. When a computer malfunctions, we do not punish it. We track down the problem and fix it, usually by replacing a damaged component, either in hardware or software. ... Why do we not react in the same way to a defective man: a murderer, say, or a rapist? Why don't we laugh at a judge who punishes a criminal, just as heartily as we laugh at Basil Fawlty? Or at King Xerxes who, in 480 BC, sentenced the rough sea to 300 lashes for wrecking his bridge of ships? Isn't the murderer or the rapist just a machine with a defective component? Or a defective upbringing? Defective education? Defective genes? Concepts like blame and responsibility are bandied about freely where human wrongdoers are concerned. When a child robs an old lady, should we blame the child himself or his parents? Or his school? Negligent social workers? In a court of law, feeble-mindedness is an accepted defence, as is insanity. Diminished responsibility is argued by the defence lawyer, who may also try to absolve his client of blame by pointing to his unhappy childhood, abuse by his father, or even unpropitious genes (not, so far as I am aware, unpropitious planetary conjunctions, though it wouldn't surprise me). But doesn't a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility, whether diminished or not? Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment. Don't judicial hearings to decide questions of blame or diminished responsibility make as little sense for a faulty man as for a Fawlty car? Why is it that we humans find it almost impossible to accept such conclusions? Why do we vent such visceral hatred on child murderers, or on thuggish vandals, when we should simply regard them as faulty units that need fixing or replacing? Presumably because mental constructs like blame and responsibility, indeed evil and good, are built into our brains by millennia of Darwinian evolution. Assigning blame and responsibility is an aspect of the useful fiction of intentional agents that we construct in our brains as a means of short-cutting a truer analysis of what is going on in the world in which we have to live. ...

Note, first, that nowhere in his essay does Mr Dawkins actually present a logical argument supporting what he wants to convince his reader to believe to be the truth about the human condition and the nature of reality. Now, on my point here, rather than reinventing the wheel from scratch, I first direct Gentle Reader's attention to C.S.Lewis' 'The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment.' The thrust of Dawkins' "Basil's Car" argument, such as it is, is not that punishing people for their behavior may be ineffective in modifying their behavior, but rather that the concept of punishment is a category error. For, he starts with the assertion that human beings are not agents, any more than an automobile is; and since (as he asserts) humans are not agents, then they logically cannot be morally responsible for their behaviors. From the "Basil's Car" pseudo-argument, it is clear that Dawkins would have no philosophic difficulty with inflicting upon "criminals" the sorts of unpleasant conditions we already do ... just so long as it's not conceived as deserved punishment, but rather as therapy; that is, to "track down the problem [of their behavior] and fix it." Punishing (or, as we should say, "punishing") people for the primary purpose of modifying their behavior (i.e. "track[ing] down the problem and fix[ing] it") is exactly what Lewis is arguing against in 'The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment.' To punish a miscreant because he deserves to be punished is to affirm that he is a moral and rational being (and that we all are); to subject persons to certain conditions for the express purpose of "track[ing] down the problem [of their behavior] and fix[ing] it" is to deny all humans' status as moral and rational beings; it is to subvert actual justice. Once the immoral and unjust "therapeutic" model of "criminal justice" fully supplants the moral and properly just "retributive" model, there remains no philosophic hindrance to "punishing" some persons for "crimes" which they did not commit. For, after all, under the "therapeutic" model the philosophic rationale for the "punishment" is not actually to deservedly punish behavior which has occurred, but rather to deter behavior which has not occurred. And "punishing" the innocent may oftentimes be even more effective for that end than punishing the guilty. #3 Richard Dawkins' atheism compels him to assert these false and wicked things which he doesn't himself believe In the "Basil's Car" pseudo-argument, Dawkins asserts:

1. that ALL things are fully explicable in terms of physics and mechanistic processes working out the effects of "antecedent conditions" -- that is, he asserts that materialism is the truth about the nature of reality;
2. that there as no such things as 'good' and 'evil,' as men have always understood those terms, and certainly not with respect to morality;
3. that we imagine the terms 'good' and 'evil' refer to real things is but the result of a "mental construct" -- constructed by a mindless and goalless mechanistic "process" -- and is similar to the fact that we breathe and eat;
4. that agency is a fiction we construct in our brains about ourselves and others -- that is, he asserts that we ourselves do not actually exist, but that even if we did exist, we could not *choose* to do or not to do;
5. that assigning blame (or praise!) is an aspect of the fiction that we, and others, are agents;
6. that we construct this fiction to avoid knowing the truth about ourselves.

His implicit reasoning behind these assertions is logical, his assertions/conclusiosn logically follow from his mechanistic/materialistic view of the nature of reality; the problem is in his false foundational premise: atheism. And YET, for all that these assertions are logically consistent with his foundational premise, the whole structure of it is all vastly incoherent -- FOR human beings exist and these claims are about us, and they are false with respect to us. For one thing, if we are not really agents, then we cannot *ever* understand anything -- if we were indeed not agents, then we could never know that we are not agents. (I've explored this logical inevitability at more length in this post: You Cannot Reason.) The point now is that the claims he advances in this essay -- that concepts such as 'right' and 'wrong' and 'blame' and 'responsibility' are "outmoded" and false and "unscientific," for these and similar concepts refer to non-existent things -- follow directly from atheism. As I have explained in the You Cannot Reason thread:

GIVEN the reality of the natural/physical/material world, IF atheism were indeed the truth about the nature of reality, THEN everything which exists and/or transpires must be wholly reducible, without remainder, to purely physical/material states and causes.

IF atheism is the truth about the nature of reality, THEN however it is that the world, and all that is in it, happens to exist, it is not (and cannot be) the result of an intention or intentions (I've explored this logical inevitability at more length in this post: The First Question), and *everything* must be wholly explicable and reducible, without remainder, to purely physical/material states and causes -- because, logically, that would be *all* "the universe" ever has with which to "work." Of course, were atheism/materialism the truth about the nature of reality, then we cannot state, and certainly cannot grasp the truth of, the prior paragraph. Dawkins' assertions listed above are false, but they inescapably follow from the denial that there is a Creator -- this is why so many so-called atheists like to wave around the word 'emergence' as though it were a magical talisman. That the majority of self-professed atheists refuse to grapple with the logical entailments of atheism is quite irrelevant to the truth of the matter -- one simply cannot be a logically consistent atheist and simultaneously believe that any person is responsible for any behavior or choices. Another way to put this is that one simply cannot be a logically consistent atheist and believe that "free will" exists. Another way to put this is that if atheism is the truth about the nature of reality, then there are actually no such things as choices, as we have always understood them to be, for there exists nothing with the ability to choose. But, notice also, that if one is a logically consistent atheist, them one must, perforce, be irrational and incoherent! To be logically consistent (as an atheist), one must choose to become illogical! It's mind-boggling, isn't it? #1 Richard Dawkins is a liar, and admits so, in print This is easy to show. Let us now ignore the content of Mr Dawkins' "Dangerous Idea" and his argument (such as it is) aiming to convince others of its truth, let us ignore its inhumane implications, and consider merely the conclusion of the piece:

"... My dangerous idea is that we shall eventually grow out of all this [i.e. believing certain allegedly "unscientific" concepts] and even learn to laugh at it, just as we laugh at Basil Fawlty when he beats his car. But I fear it is unlikely that I shall ever reach that level of enlightenment."

Now, what does it mean to allege that some person lacks "enlightenment" with respect to some idea or concept? It is to assert that he does not (at least yet) understand it, and thus does not (at least yet) grasp the alleged truth of it, and therefore does not (at least yet) believe it to be true. But, this is not *me* asserting that Mr Dawkins lacks "enlightenment" about this or that; this is Mr Dawkins asserting about himself that he lacks "enlightenment" about the very thing he's trying to convince you to believe is the true picture of yourself and of everyone you know and of all reality. The man is a liar, and he admits so in print: He seeks to convince you to believe -- on the basis of nothing more substantial than the "authority" of his prestige and social status -- that which he admits that he does not himself believe, and recognizes that he probably never shall believe. Mr Dawkins says, on one hand, that the rational and "scientific," and hence *right* thing to do, is to reject the God of the Bible and the morality which follows from that God. And then, on the other hand, he seems to be saying that he hopes to one day arrive at a place where he no longer holds moral convictions at all -- including the "moral" convictions that we *ought* to reject God and accept "Darwinism." The man's not only a liar, and worse than a liar: he's incoherent and irrational. #1a Richard Dawkins is worse than a mere liar This goes back to something I'm forever, it seems, talking about: the moral and rational distinction between mere lying and intellectual dishonesty. Mere lying is episodic; but intellectual dishonesty is systemic. Mere lying is episodic: The man who is a mere liar lies about this or that truth-claim. To be sure, he may lie constantly, he may lie when there in "no percentage" (as the saying goes) to doing so, he may even lie when doing so defeats his own self-interest. He may act outraged when caught out ... but his lies depend upon truth being truth and reason being reason. On the other hand, intellectual dishonesty is systemic: The man who is intellectually dishonest, such as a Dawkins or an Obama, lies about the very natures of truth and reason themselves. To be sure, the intellectually dishonest man lies about this or that truth-claim, but the main thrust of his lies is to murder truth itself, to make rational reasoning difficult or impossible. As hypocrisy is to morality, so intellectual dishonesty is to reason. Intellectual dishonesty is hypocrisy with respect to truth and reason. Consider just this one assertion he has made in the article: "But doesn't a truly scientific, mechanistic view of the nervous system make nonsense of the very idea of responsibility, whether diminished or not? Any crime, however heinous, is in principle to be blamed on antecedent conditions acting through the accused's physiology, heredity and environment." Now, consider his purpose in this article: to assert (and browbeat the reader into assenting) that it is blameworthy for human beings to hold to the supposedly primitive and outmoded and "unscientific" concepts of blame and responsibility, and punishment. According to this paragon of reason (and we know he is, for he has told us so!), no one is blameworthy -- or praiseworthy! -- for anything; rather, all behaviors of human beings are due to "antecedent conditions acting through the [person's] physiology, heredity and environment." But, at the same time, *you* are blameworthy if you do not agree with the prior assertion. ===========
(On a really weird side-note, the MS Word spellchecker knows that "Dawkin" or "Dawkin's" is a misspelling.)

The meaning of the Passion

Edward Feser: The meaning of the Passion

And, as an added bonus, I have some related thoughts I wish to share with Gentle Reader --

These thoughts are something I've been thinking about for a while. I've expressed the basic idea somewhere or other, but not yet as fleshed-out as below.

In the comments section of Mr Feser's 'The meaning of the Passion' thread, 'Horatio' said:

The Res, whatever it is, is nothing like the Death of Socrates--indeed Feser suggests as much, by insisting on the miraculous nature.

Yet--if Christ is God (and capable of supernatural acts his entire life--as scripture makes clear--ie feeding 5000 with a few loaves, walking on water, etc), then He must be sort of...acting. He could at any time stop the proceedings. And He knows how it will turn out! He predicts the betrayal. In effect, He produced and starred in his own movie, and is playing ...everyone.
So He must be a bit of a masochist.

However the traditional catholic narrative insists on the pain, misery, suffering, etc.; the trad. catholics are the ones who humanize Christ (as the docetists realized--their messiah was no mere human....but the Word made flesh).....so who are the real blasphemers??

Responding to Horatio's post seemed to me an appropriate place to express these ideas:

Horatio: "Yet--if Christ is God ..., then He must be sort of...acting. He could at any time stop the proceedings. And He knows how it will turn out! He predicts the betrayal. In effect, He produced and starred in his own movie, and is playing ...everyone."

Horatio,
The Christ was not play-acting when he lived among us and allowed us to murder him.

And, as he was not play-acting, and as he really was tempted in all ways as other men are tempted, then he really might have sinned. For, if it were impossible that Jesus the Christ might have sinned, then it is meaningless to assert that he was tempted.

But, had he sinned, what would that mean? Why, it would mean the non-existence of all created things ... and of the Creator; for if “the ground of all being” is self-contradictory, then all being contradicts itself, denies itself, refutes itself. Christ was not play-acting; and there were real things at stake in the Incarnation.


Christ was not play-acting when he lived among us and allowed us to murder him. And, in fact, Christ has *always* -- and not merely when we murdered him -- made himself vulnerable to his creation. For Christ, by whom, and through whom, and for whom all that is created is created, continuously upholds the creation. All that exists exists because Christ participates in its existence (*). In creating/upholding the creation, Christ has always given himself into the hands of that creation; Christ has “always* placed himself at our (ahem) mercy -- we, who do not even have the standing to pass judgment, nor therefore to grant mercy, have *always* been given the ability to wound the Creator. And we have always done so; he has always been wounded for us, and by us.


(*) For, Christ is not "up there" ... watching our lives as though we were entertainment. He is, always, right here, living it with us. He lives it with us when we are betrayed ... and when we betray. Our sinfulness is so vile precisely because we drag The Holy One into the mud with us.


Horatio: "So He must be a bit of a masochist."

He has *always* loved you. He has always *known* you, and still he loves you. So, I guess, he must be a bit of a masochist.

A Myth of Victimization

"No Irish Need Apply": A Myth of Victimization

Abstract

Irish Catholics in America have a vibrant memory of humiliating job discrimination, which featured omnipresent signs proclaiming "Help Wanted--No Irish Need Apply!" No one has ever seen one of these NINA signs because they were extremely rare or nonexistent. The market for female household workers occasionally specified religion or nationality. Newspaper ads for women sometimes did include NINA, but Irish women nevertheless dominated the market for domestics because they provided a reliable supply of an essential service. Newspaper ads for men with NINA were exceedingly rare. The slogan was commonplace in upper class London by 1820; in 1862 in London there was a song, "No Irish Need Apply," purportedly by a maid looking for work. The song reached America and was modified to depict a man recently arrived in America who sees a NINA ad and confronts and beats up the culprit. The song was an immediate hit, and is the source of the myth. Evidence from the job market shows no significant discrimination against the Irish--on the contrary, employers eagerly sought them out. Some Americans feared the Irish because of their religion, their use of violence, and their threat to democratic elections. By the Civil War these fears had subsided and there were no efforts to exclude Irish immigrants. The Irish worked in gangs in job sites they could control by force. The NINA slogan told them they had to stick together against the Protestant Enemy, in terms of jobs and politics. The NINA myth justified physical assaults, and persisted because it aided ethnic solidarity. After 1940 the solidarity faded away, yet NINA remained as a powerful memory.
...

Of course, the folk who *need* to know this will choose to disregard it.

I'd actually read this before, some time ago, possibly even via this blog-post from Kathy Shaidle: 'If United 93 had been an Air Canada flight...' Some exceprts:

...
But then again, the Left draws most of its motivating energy from imaginary problems, like global warming, DDT, back alley coat hanger abortions, and the chronic boredom of American housewives in 1950s suburbia.

The Left is very concerned about something they like to call “social justice”, which I define as the stubborn application of unworkable solutions to imaginary problems.

Like Spinal Tap’s second drummer, who famously “choked to death on someone ELSE’s vomit,” Canadian leftists have always resented their neighbors in the United States for having a romantic, large scale Civil Rights Movement during the 60s and 70s.

So the HRCs became the Canadian Left’s state-sponsored version of the Woolworth’s lunch counter sit ins but, without the stirring LIFE magazine photos and crappy folk music soundtrack.

Going against that tide, in the US, Barry Goldwater bravely voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act on principle.

As one author explained:

Most of the twenty-seven senators who voted against the Civil Rights Act were Southern segregationists. Goldwater was not a segregationist, nor was he any kind of racist. He was, in fact, a lifelong opponent of racial discrimination. He desegegrated his family’s department store back in the 1940s; he was a member of the N.A.A.C.P.

But Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Act because he believed, as a conservative, that the federal government did not have the power to compel states to conform to its idea of racial equality, or to dictate to individuals whom they must associate with.

Such “Love One Another Or Else” laws, from the Civil Rights Act to our own Section 13, inevitably bend under pressure from that other, higher, law: the Law of Unintended Consequences.

The fallout ranges from forced busing and white flight to those everyday resentments that simmer just below the surface as people cluster themselves into victim identity groups and complain about each other in whispers.

Human Rights Commissions were supposed to HELP the multicultural causes of tolerance and diversity. Instead, they pit groups against each other as they vie for favored victim status and the pitiful spoils that such status imparts.
...
The problem with the HRCs is most commonly presented as an issue of freedom of speech. However, I’d like to raise two additional aspects that don’t get as much play.

First, the HRCs are engaged in class warfare. The majority of “hate speech” cases are brought by highly educated, highly privileged white liberals -- against less educated, working class, blue collar “reactionary” whites, who insist on speaking to each other about topics like immigration, using old fashioned, politically incorrect language.

Therefore, the enforcement of Section 13 is an expensive exercise in state sponsored snobbery, in which citizen’s own hard earned tax dollars are used by their “betters” to scold and shame them. ...
...
The other problem rarely discussed in terms of the HRCs is that besides being an affront to freedom of speech, many cases violate the right to private property.

But conveniently enough, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms does NOT recognize the right to private property anyhow. Thank you, Ed Broadbent.

Canadians therefore had to endure the spectacle of, for example, a man claiming the “human right” to smoke marijuana on the premises of someone else’s restaurant. The difference between that and insisting on being served at a Woolworth’s lunch counter is only a matter of degree.

Again, Barry Goldwater warned about this sort of thing but of course he was just an “insane” fascist right winger...

Of course, there is one vital and distinct difference of kind in regard to the Woolworth's lunch counters. And that is that, irrespective of whether the owners of Woolworth's wished to exercise their moral right to behave immorally by treating black Americans with contempt merely because they were black, the lunch counters were segregated under color and force of law.

Was it *really* necessary to permanently pit all Americans against one another, on a group basis of race or ethnicity, to correct that legalized injustice? How did "more of the same" solve the problem? How does that work, in actual reality?

"Justice, justice shalt thou seek," commands haTorah (Deut 16:20) -- one of the meanings of which is that we cannot seek/pursue justice by unjust means; we just can't make that work.

Educationists ... bad for education

This is so true: Dressing Up Standards, Dumbing Down Schools

Blogging for Cathy

Blogging for Cathy ... Or, It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over

Over at April's (the Hyacinth Girl) blog, Cathy made a comment which I wish to share with Gentle Reader --

Now, and of course, April has far more readers (and commenters) then I -- for I have only you, my Gentle Reader -- but comments may easily be lost in all that bustle. Here, in the undisturbed peace and quiet of my tranquil (i.e. dusty) little corner of the blogosphere, one may more easily reflect at leisure.

First, for context, we need April's post:

While it would be superawesome if this guy were right, (the guy Steyn quotes, not Steyn), I’m not holding my breath. Perhaps I’m too cynical, but with our near-permanent welfare class and a generation of kids who’ve been told that they are children into their late 20’s, I cannot imagine a prolonged revolt against Obamacare. As I’ve said before, ultimately. free candy wins. Of course, there will still be the core of the Tea Party, but when the outrage wanes, a lot of people are going to tell themselves that, well, if the government is giving things away, they might as well get in on it.

I mean, why fight it? If it’s going to happen anyway, might as well benefit from it. Culturally, we readily accept the idea that we must follow the whims of our “betters”-how else do you explain the thousands of “Rachels” roaming the country throughout the ’90’s? How else do you explain the persistence of Hollywood to dictate public policy and influence presidential elections? Barack Obama is our first cool president, put into office by the endorsements of our self-appointed betters. Celebrities are our new royalty, and sadly for this nation, the opinion of Jennifer Aniston is a lot more important than cold, hard facts.

We are a lazy, spoiled, ADHD culture-soft and uninterested in thinking for ourselves. At least my generation is. I’ve met women my age who are almost proud of “knowing nothing about politics.” A mom told me once, “Can you just write up a list of people we should vote for?” Her playdates, soccer games, and story times at the bookstore were much more important. Obviously.

Sooner or later, the outrage runs out. The relentless media rebranding of the “Teabaggers” as angry, racist, uneducated, violent militants becomes mainstream knowledge and a pushback against the gaping maw of massive government and taxpayer debt becomes the last gasp of the marginalized, unnecessary white male. (Which is, paradoxically, sometimes led by an attractive, young, strong and well-spoken woman. But it’s best not to think about that for too long.)

As a society, we’ve accepted the idea that the famous are better than the normals. certain educational levels render one more or less credible to form a coherent thought, where one’s diploma is from further underscores the previous point, the wealthy are inherently smarter than the poor, and that journalists have our best interest at heart, and since they’ve got degrees, we should really listen to them.

So I’m not buying the idea that Obama is effing up in phenomenal fashion and taking the Democrat party with him. If a coordinated attack on the American mainland and the deaths of over 3,000 civilians doesn’t rouse (and maintain the interest of) a sleeping giant, what makes you think that the (relatively) instant gratification of unsustainable, expensive entitlements will?

First, a side comment about the "teabagger" smear of which the "liberals" are so fond: like most normal persons, I'd never heard of "teabagging" before Anderson Cooper decided to make the smear. Nevertheless, I'm fairly confident that I understand what "teabagging" -- as a social phenonenon -- is about: it's a display of dominance and submission.

SO: if the leftists see *us* as the "teabaggers," that must mean that they see themselves as the "teabagees." They call us "teabaggers" because they're afraid of us. They call us "teabaggers" because they *know* we can win this battle for the soul of America.

And now, without further adieu, Cathy's comment:

OK, so here’s what I’m thinking.

April is half-right (wait!), and so are we ALL when we say things about “the American People”, “the voters”, “our society” ETC.

As dissatisfied as we may be with the current administration, we just discourage ourselves when we say “This is what we did to ourselves,” when actually, it was only a little over half of the electoral college that did it to all of us.

When we say “the people want” we are generalizing inaccurately, just as the majority of the media, with their “mainstream knowledge”-inducing relentless repetition of spin, “suggestion”, un-checked-gossip-as-news, and occasional blatant B.S. (corrected on page 17), intend.

It may be “half true” that Americans are” soft and uninterested in thinking for ourselves.” But if we convince ourselves that this is true for everyone, instead of the maybe-half of the society around us, we forfeit the battle, unfought, to those who want to see ALL of us “infantilized” - dependent on, and uncritical of, an increasingly socialized system.

It’s not as though all the other people who voted for Not Obama left the country. Admittedly, there may be a variety of reasons “Tea Partyers” gather to protest legislation and denounce politicians. As Ilion points out in a comment at his blog:

If the people showing up are simply protesting the hit to their own pocketbook, the nation is doomed; if the people showing up are [] protesting on *principle* we may ride out the Obamanation storm.

But the fact that they DO gather, means that they share common ground; they DO think, they DO care, and they are NOT NECESSARILY going to give up and decide “If you can’t beat ‘em…”.

And the fact that those who do attend the meetings, and rallies, and “town halls”, statistically represent many others who feel as they do, means that a reversal in the leftward trend in this country’s institutions is still possible.

But no matter how long the outrage holds out, the battle cannot be won on outrage alone.

The hard part will be recognizing that an election in seven moths, or in two-and-a-half years, might not be all it takes to put things right. The hard part will be creating a slow, steady program of reasonable, rational persuasion, by conservative voices who have not undermined their credibility with hyperbole and histrionics, and by conservative politicians who have not already demonstrated the fragility of their convictions. The hard part will be finding leaders who can draw together Americans worried about the Constitution and Americans worried about their pocketbooks; American concerned about the availability of medical coverage for their children, and Americans concerned about the tax burdens their children will bear.

The GOOD part is, the job for those leaders is already half done.

Remember this, always: just because many American should-be citizens have already sold their minds (and liberty) for the chimera of statist promises of "security," does not mean that all have. Just because many should-be citizens wish to sell your and my liberty for those worthless and empty promises, does not mean that all do.

There are still Americans!

And the Fat Lady doesn't even want to sing.

(Michael W. Smith: 'There She Stands')

Oh! Those perfidious 'birthers'...

Apparently, even Mrs Obama is a "birther" --

Here is Mrs Obama, in 2008, referring to Kenya as Barack Hussein Obama's "home country" (see the :40 to :47 mark):


The fact is, none of us has any good reason to believe that Obama meets the Constitutional requirements to occupy the office of the Presidency, but we do have good reason to suspect that he does not.

Anyone who is not a “birther” proves thereby that he does not really care about the US Constitution. Anyone who mocks or disparages the “birthers” for simply asking for the relevant evidence proves thereby that he despises the US Constitution … and the citizens of the US.

The meaning of the Resurrection

Edward Feser: The meaning of the Resurrection

As with Christ’s Passion, people are always trying to attach to His Resurrection various counterfeit meanings. But it is, in this case, harder to do it with a straight face. Were you present at the crucifixion, you would have seen what on the surface required no supernatural explanation – a man nailed to a cross, as so many had been before by the Romans. Were you present at Christ’s tomb on that first Easter Sunday, you would have seen a corpse returned to life. “Keep hope alive!” “Jesus is still with us in our hearts!”“You can’t keep a good man down!” and all the other banalities liberal pastors will waste their congregations’ time with today rather fail to convey this central fact about the Resurrection. It was a divine suspension of the natural order, a miracle, or it was nothing. “If Christ is not raised,” St. Paul tells the Christian, “your faith is worthless.” And by “raised” he meant raised – reanimated, brought back from the dead – not eaten by wild dogs but remembered fondly, or whatever it is the John Dominic Crossans of the world want to put in place of what Christianity has always claimed. The Christian faith has, historically, laid everything on that line: Accept the Resurrection, and you must accept what Jesus Christ taught; reject it, and you must reject Him too as a fraud.

Thus, while the Resurrection is an affront to naturalism, it is not primarily that...
...
The Resurrected Christ will not be dialogued with. He will be worshipped, and obeyed, or He will simply be rejected as one would reject the ravings of a Jim Jones or David Koresh. Politely rejected, perhaps, at least this side of the grave; we can concede to the dialoguers their good manners. But rejected, and in no uncertain terms. “Let your Yes be Yes and your No, No.” Unless you are prepared to call Him your Risen Lord, seek no religious meaning in His life and teachings. Nor in His death; for the Passion is what it is only in light of the Resurrection. If we who did not know Him in the flesh worship at the foot of His cross, it is because we have worshipped first at His empty tomb.

I Don't Worry About The Constitution On This

"I Don't Worry About The Constitution On This"

"I Don't Worry About The Constitution On This"

Meet Congressman Phil Hare (D-IL). He actually appears to be dumber than the guy who is worried about Guam capsizing.

Very rarely has so much stupid been packed into just a little more than 3 minutes.


Now meet Bobby Schilling, he's the Republican running against Hare.

The district is a Democrat leaning one but not by an insurmountable margin (D+3). It's right next door to the district that's home to Caterpillar's corporate HQ, so I'm guessing the whole $100 million in health care charges thing might come up a time or two during the campaign.

I hope the congressman enjoys his moment in the limelight.

As the man behind the camera says: "Jackpot, Brother!"

Hasn't this fellow just *admitted* that he perjured himself with his oath of office? Hasn't he just *admitted* that he doesn't belong in Congress ... but may, perhaps, belong in prison?

Is there really *any* Democrat, anywhere, who worries about the Constitution? On any matter?


As a general rule, "liberals" care very much about optional rules, about bureaucratic rules, about rules which are at best of secondary importance (and I think care even more about tertiary rules) -- say, an EPA bureaucratic ruling which effectively shuts down hundreds of square miles of farmland. But, the rules which are primary? The rules which are non-optional? They shrug about those rules.

The Democratic Party *needs* to be destroyed. We can worry about putting the Republican Party out of business on the next day: but if we want America to survive and prosper, we *must* put the Democratic Party out of business, permanently.


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In the spirit of the "environmental impact statements" which are now required (under what Constitutional authority?) before most economic development may procede, I offer Gentle Reader --

The 'Constitutional Impact Statement' amendment to The United States Constitution
1) Every bill submitted before Congress shall explicitly defend all its provisions by demonstrating at least one Constitutional power and authority under which each of the provisions is justified.
2) No bill shall be voted upon by Conrgess except it shall have been read aloud, by a living human being, in full, in its final form, in a normal speaking voice, before each Chamber of Congress.
3) No member of Congress who shall not have been physically present for the full and final reading of any bill before Congress shall have the ability to vote upon the bill.

Of course, that third provision does have a bit of a loophole, in that it doesn't require that Congresscritters be attending to the reading, or even that they be awake. The purposes of this provision are to "encourage" the Congresscritters to write short bills, and, in keeping with the spirit of The Founders, to put another roadblock in the way of Congress passing bills in the first place.

But, it's the first and second which shall go furthest in taking back, and securing, our liberty, by requiring and forcing Congresscritters to perform their Constitutional duties to uphold and defend the US Constitution.


Also, we need a Constitutional provision that no new bureaucratic rule may be promulgated or enforced except it has been read in full before Congress and explicitly approved by Congress.

I have long wondered

I have long wondered how long it would take for this particular chicken to come home to roost.

The chicken I have in mind is the Kelo decision; what I have wondered is how long it would take before some State government sees the implications of the Kelo decision and then chooses to act upon those implications.

Apparently, Utah has: Utah gov. OKs eminent domain use on federal land

SALT LAKE CITY — Fed up with federal ownership of more than half the land in Utah, Republican Gov. Gary Herbert on Saturday authorized the use of eminent domain to take some of the U.S. government's most valuable parcels.

Herbert signed a pair of bills into law that supporters hope will trigger a flood of similar legislation throughout the West, where lawmakers contend that federal ownership restricts economic development in an energy-rich part of the country.

Governments use eminent domain to take private property for public use.

The goal is to spark a U.S. Supreme Court battle that legislators' own attorneys acknowledge has little chance of success.

But Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and other Republicans say the case is still worth fighting, since the state could reap millions of dollars for state schools each year if it wins.

More than 60 percent of Utah is owned by the U.S. government, and policy makers here have long complained that federal ownership hinders their ability to generate tax revenue and adequately fund public schools.

Utah spends less per student than any other state and has the nation's largest class sizes. Under the measure Herbert has approved, the state will set aside $3 million to defend the law.

Lawmakers recently slashed education funding by $10 million and raised taxes on cigarettes by $1 a pack. Democrats have decried the eminent domain measure as a waste of money, and Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Peter Corroon is making it an issue in this year's special election.

But if the law is as bad as Democrats say it is, a court will quickly overturn it and the state won't have to spend much money defending it, Herbert said.

Initially, the state would target three areas for the use of eminent domain, including the Kaiparowits plateau in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which is home to large coal reserves.

Many people in Utah are still angry that then-President Bill Clinton's designated the area as a national monument in 1996, a move that stopped development on the land and greatly pleased environmentalists as he ran for re-election.

Utah lawmakers contend the federal government should have long ago sold the land it owns in the state. Because it hasn't, the federal government has violated a contract made with Utah when statehood was granted, they say.

Eminent domain would also be used on parcels of land where Interior Secretary Ken Salazar last year scrapped 77 oil and gas leases around national parks and wild areas.

It's a "BFD"

Cathy brings this to our attention: Health Reform Is a BFD...Says Democratic Party T-Shirts

The signing ceremony for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on March 23rd was supposed to be a winning moment for President Obama. Unfortunately for the President, his historic victory after a 14-month legislative battle was momentarily overshadowed by Vice President Biden's accidentally audible profanity. Many Americans were put off by the gaffe, a purportedly inappropriate slip during such a historic moment. Others were nonplussed. President Obama laughed off the comment, telling reported he wished he'd said it himself. Nobody issued an apology.

A week later, the Democratic National Committee is trumpeting Biden's gaffe in commemoration of Obama's health care victory. The DNC released a series of sponsored Google ads today for T-shirts marking Obama's health care victory. Among them was this gem:



"There are things that are a big deal -- birthdays, anniversaries, the NCAA Championship game. And then there are things that are a BFD, like delivering health insurance to 32 million Americans."

When reached for a comment, Organizing for America National Press Secretary Lynda Tran said that the shirt was designed to be "a little tongue in cheek fun, something supporters could connect with."

"We agree with the vice president," said Tran. "We think that this was a really big deal that we passed reform, and we want people to be excited for the future."

Cathy's comment was: "Ah, the ever-tasteful Left."

My response was:
The Leftists are both ever-tasteful and ever-short-sighted -- for, the *other* (and primary!) meaning of calling something a "BFD" is denegrate it as being of no account and/or contemptable.

So, yes, let us all agree: the "health" "care" "reform" pseudo-law is, indeed, a "BFD."


A related thought --
So, thanks to the great public service of the Gaffe-o-matic, in informing the whole world that the "health" "care" "reform" pseudo-law is a "BFD," we can see that the various "Deals" offered by "progressive" politics seem to be going down hill:
TR -- the Square Deal
FDR -- the New Deal
Truman -- the Fair Deal
Zero, The Won -- the Big F***in' Deal

Another thing to notice about all those "Deals" is that they see the (purported) citizen as standing in the relation of a supplicant to, and client of, the federal government.