Right Left Whatever

Brief Comment on Alito's Nomination

Yea!! Bush pleases conservatives (aka "right-wing base") and infuriates liberal special interest groups, which is as it should be.

Religion, Government, and the Religious Test

Kevin Seamus Hasson, author of The Right to Be Wrong: Ending the Culture War Over Religion in America discusses religion and politics in an interview with National Review Online.

His opinion of the greatest threat to religious libery:

The biggest threat comes from people who think that religious truth is the enemy of human freedom — that the only good religion is a relativist one.

My experience in the Unitarian Universalist Association introduced me to many people who share that opinion, some of whom even told me that it was "wrong" for Christians to vote according to their religious beliefs (I think he meant "incorrect" rather than "illegal", at least I hope so). Of course, there is no way consistent with freedom of conscience to disallow votes of religious believers, and the prohibition of the "religious test" by our Constitution is a limitation of the powers of government, not on individual voters, who are free to vote any way they wish.

How does the "religious test" prohibition apply to the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court? The "religious test", proscribed by our Constitution, does apply to members of the Senate in their confirmation vote, as Hasson notes, however I think it also applies to President Bush. Of course the President is to be allowed the prerogative to select a nominee for whatever reason he thinks makes a person well-qualified (including their personal beliefs), but that prerogative does not extend to allowing the issue of religious belief to be a justification of her nomination in the face of critical questioning. Justifying her nomination on the basis of her religious belief is in effect asking the Senate to apply a religious test in her favor. I don't really care that she is an evangelical Christian (well actually I do, but not in respect to her SCOTUS nomination), I just want her to know the Constitution, and interpret it in a way consistent with the way Alexander Hamilton and James Madison did (authors of The Federalist Papers so we know what they were thinking), and to be able to defend her decisions with solid reasoning, and not appeals to personal belief of "the right thing to do". Based on what I've read about her so far, I'm inclined to say that she should not be confirmed.

The William Bennett kerfuffle

LaShawn Barber has an excellent and very thorough post on the reaction to William Bennett's remarks.

One point I'd like to make which I haven't heard anyone else make: isn't it ironic that by and large the people who are demanding the silencing of Mr. Bennett are the same ones who were complaining of a culture of censorship post-9/11?

Comments on the Judicial Nominations

I haven't spoken out on President Bush's judicial nominations, at least not since John Roberts was nominated, though I was disappointed in the NARAL ad smear against him. I was glad that he stood his ground against the liberal interest groups which demanded that he disclose how he would rule on key issues (read abortion), and insisted that he respect the precedent Roe vs. Wade. My belief is that the precedent of Roe vs. Wade is worthy of as much respect as the precedent of Dredd Scott vs. Sanford, and liberals should be accountable to that outcome of their thinking, that they have no respect for precedent when it goes against their ideals. Indeed, there have been many SCOTUS decisions which have overturned precedent they've cheered over the years.

I'm impressed with Chief Justice Roberts mainly for his view of the judge as an umpire, judging the game by a fixed set of rules, and not a partisan player who wishes the rules to be rewritten in their favor as the game is played. I don't have a firm opinion on the Miers nomination yet, except to say that I'm disappointed that President Bush did not nominate a younger nominee. I was actually hoping for a Miguel Estrada nomination. After the way he was treated in his appellate court nomination, I think he deserved vindication.

Manuel Miranda, a former assistant to Senator Frist, has written an excellent series of columns in OpinionJournal, of which this is his last (To see previous columns, look for his columns appearing MWF starting about the time of the Roberts nomination).

Errors and Corrections:
Dredd Scott vs. Sanford was originally entered as Dredd vs. Scott. It's corrected above.

Politics Test

I saw this quiz linked from Susan B.'s Lilac Rose site, and took it myself: Here's my score:

You are a Social Moderate (43% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (75% permissive) You are best described as a: Capitalist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Returning

I've been gone a long time, dealing with a number of things, among which I include a general dissatisfaction with the quality of news reporting and commenting in the news, mostly with the reporting around Katrina, and the outrageous accusations of racism directed toward the Bush administration, for not doing what local and state officials (who were Democrats btw) failed to do. Rather than make matters worse, I just elected to keep quiet about it all.

Still, I'm rather late coming back, too late, and it's time to change that.

So, speaking of Katrina, some writers, such as those at The Nation, are calling for a massive reworking of our thinking about poverty in America, urging a more compassionate government, as if our government could reach into its wallet and write a check with no pain, the rich uncle Sam. Of course, the image is false. Our uncle has no money of his own - the only money he has to give is taken from other citizens - our other cousins, brothers, and sisters in this image. If I were to give $500 to the Red Cross, that could be considered an act of compassion. If I were to go into my neighbor's house and take $500 from his wallet and send it in, I think a lot fewer people would consider it so. How anyone can think that when the government does the same thing it suddenly becomes compassionate is beyond me.

Here's another statement of this point of view, better expressed by Matt Kaufman at Boundless.

John Bolton's First Day

James Lileks recaps John Bolton's first day at the UN. Don't be drinking while reading this, it may wind up on your screen! (Hat tip: NRO's The Corner)

Smearing the Federalist Society

I've got to admit I'm a bit perplexed by the MSM treatment of the Federalist Society. The leftists have been complaining for four years now of a climate of intimidation and censorship, yet it is they who are performing a witch hunt against a man, accused of membership in a legal society which has as much right to function as the liberal groups many of these leftists are themselves members of, such as People for the American Way.

The Federalist Society is an open organization, whose members believe that the Constitution is the supreme law of our land, in divided government, but who otherwise disagree on many policy questions. There is no secret agenda to take over the country, and any such ambitions by individuals within the society are certainly shared by their counterparts on the left, such as George Soros who dedicated millions of dollars to defeat President Bush in the last election.

Related links:
New York Times link
Federalist Society response (PDF)
David Horowitz comment

And related to the Roberts nomination: how in the world can anyone justify asking a nominee about his religious beliefs when the Constitution explicitly forbids a religious test? The words "Catholic" and "religious beliefs" should be banned from the questions asked to any nominee to the courts.

A Comment on Bolton

President Bush made the right call in appointing John Bolton as the US representative to the UN. Critics of the move seem to have more affection for the UN than for the US, and the criticism of Bolton descended to the petty. I'd hate to have a man in that office who had a reputation for being nice. Nice is not what a corruption-ridden organization needs. Nice people, unwilling to get involved, let the Srebenica massacre happen.

Here's the opinon of Ian Williams, writing at The Nation.
A quote:

...although Bush is by no means the first President to abuse the prerogative, it is clear that recess appointments were meant to be be used in cases of unexpected emergencies, not to bypass the confirmation process.

In Williams's view, recess appointments are only alright if made by Democrat Presidents. However, I'd say that the sudden lurch of the Senate Democrats to the left may qualify as an unexpected emergency, especially since Democrats seem to have more sympathy for a corrupt non-working UN, and the tyrannical governments who have weaseled their way into power there, than for America itself.

Another quote:

Almost as worrying is the implicit message of encouragement to the know-nothings on the extreme right of the Republican Party, who get their news and geography from Rush Limbaugh and Fox, and see the UN as a cabal of gun-reforming, gay-liberating, abortion-peddling, US Constitution-undermining foreigners.

Fits for me, though I don't get my news from Rush Limbaugh, as he's a commentator. The UN did try to do a gun grab several years ago, and it was only stopped because President Bush sent a strong person there to say our Second Amendment would not be compromised. The UN pushes abortion with its family-planning programs, and supports China's one-child policy. To the list I could add that the UN is anti-Semitic (a conference was in progress back in 2001, on 9-11 in fact, which would have equated Zionism with racism), incompentent (Srebenica for example), and pro-tyranny. Several tyrannical governments hold special positions within the body. Sudan for example is on the UN Commission for Human Rights. Slavery and genocide, both of which are done in Sudan, are incompatible with the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. If the UN had any ability to pass meaningful judgment, Sudan would be kicked off this Commission, along with many others.

Do we need a critic of the UN as the US ambassador to the UN? Of course we do.

Morality and Big Government

Many religious-left bloggers have been criticizing religious-conservative voters, saying that if their faith truly drove their religious views, they must support government programs like national health care, higher minimum wage laws, and higher taxes on the rich. I disagree.

Government programs, implemented for the intention of compassion, are rarely compassionate in practice. President George H.W. Bush was right when he compared a system of national health care to a combination of the Dept of Motor Vehicles with a hospital. A recent case in England drives the point home, where a man with a terminal illness is being denied a feeding tube because his care is deemed to be too expensive for the state to keep him alive. Is this the patient's choice? No. Compassionate? Of course not. It's all about saving money for the state.

Likewise, higher minimum wage laws are not effective in lifting the poor out of poverty. They create a barrier to entry for those entering the labor market (such as high school and college-age youty, and those seeking a career change), and also increase unemployment for those in jobs which just cannot justify the higher wage. For those who get raises without any increase in productivity, the higher wages result in higher prices, so the new wages ultimately become meaningless so a few years later the same complaints about not getting a living wage are still heard. No one, including me, likes to see people not be able to make ends meet, but a much better approach is to improve peoples' mobility; better job training, helping a person out in seeking a new job, and decreasing the dependency people have on company benefits. There are those who will still sit in a dead-end job, expecting it to meet all their needs, but there also comes a point where personal initiative has to intervene as well, and a recognition that a person's choices and attitude will have an effect on their standard of living. Given all that, I'm not in favor of a minimum wage of $0. There should be a floor. I'm just arguing that that floor should not be risen arbitrarily, year after year after year, with the motivation of making all people equally well-off. That just isn't going to happen, and any attempt to make it so via wage regulation is only going to result in higher unemployment and inflation. Laws have unintended consequences.

And regarding higher taxes: The extra money taken from the rich may make activists feel good, but they're fooling themselves if they think that money actually goes into the wallets of the poor. There is an old fable of a man who was given a wish. His request was to see his rich neighbor's house burn down. Did this wish make him better off? No, it just satisified his lust for getting even. The socialist system, being confined to government, which is inherently unproductive, can only make people equal by making everyone poor.

Matt Kaufman has an excellent essay at Boundless, Setting Priorities, talking about the viewpoint differences of religious progressives and traditionalists. He says it's not at all obvious that a viewpoint of compassion requires a commitment to national health care, among other things.

In today's Opinion Journal, Joseph Loconte discusses how "The Angry Left finds religion, and the result isn't pretty."

Happy Independence Day

Michael Graham writes at National Review Online about what Michael Moore would sound like if he lived in 1776.

More on that filibuster deal

I'm not really all that angry about that filibuster deal, but here some opinions from commentators I respect who disagree with me:

Peggy Noonan, Mr. Narcissus Goes to Washington, says it's all "sheer exuberant egotism", echoing a comment I heard elsewhere that it's all about saving their re-election prospects than about preserving the Constitution.

Hugh Hewitt, Non-Nuclear Fallout, discussing the "aftermath of a sell-out".

Charles Krauthammer, The flinch heard 'round the world, who describes the seven Republicans who worked out this deal,

"We will soon see glowing stories in the mainstream press about how they have grown in office. (In Washington parlance, the dictionary definition of ``to grow'' is ``to move left.'')"

The New York Times seems to be two-faced about protecting the rights of the minority, arguing in favor of the concept when it's about Democrats, and against it when it's about people of faith opposed to embryonic stem cell research. The argument about protecting minority rights might have some credibility if it had come up when the Democrats were the majority. I don't remember anyone in the MSM saying that back then however. (hat tip Best of the Web)

My take on it is still that of resigned acceptance of it and a desire to move on. I'm disappointed in Congress, as is today's WSJ, but I'm learning to keep my expectations low as far as politicians go. One good thing about an ineffective Congress is that they can't do much harm either.

That filibuster deal

Ok, I've finally made up my mind. I like it, though I'm influenced by Judge Owen's confirmation, and this, and this. The NOW criticism of President Bush's judicial nominees contains not one single talking point about respecting the Constitution, and many about "women's rights" and anti-corporate cases. Maybe Judge Owen was wrong, maybe she wasn't, but it isn't how to choose a judge. It's just ideological crap, "give me what I want or you're an extremist". Give me a confirmed quote that Priscilla Owen doesn't respect the written Constitution, and I'd support a vote to throw her overboard. At least the UUA Washington Office respects the deal, now they're just trying to get their loyal subjects to phone their Senators to vote no. Funny thing is, I actually did that a couple of weeks ago. I called Senator Lautenberg's office to say "Stop the filibuster - if you don't like the nominee vote no, but end the filibuster now". Seems my phone call fell on deaf ears. No compromise for him, he (and 17 other Democrat Senators, including NJ's Senator Corzine) voted against cloture even after the filibuster deal came down. Not even Senator Clinton is that dedicated to obstructionism. Move on already! Now let's vote on Janice Raymond Brown and William Pryor. And I'd like to see Justice for Miguel Estrada too.

Issues for the blog today

Let's fill the page up today.

1. My former denomination, the Unitarian Universalist Association is very shrill about church-state separation, but wait, that's only for those churches with plus signs on them. Seems it's perfectly ok for the UUA Washington Office to distribute a church bulletin insert telling UUA members how to lobby their Senators to oppose the Republican effort to end the filibuster. Somehow I doubt Barry Lynn, of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, will be on their case.

2. Lino Graglia writes on the real lawmakers in America, our judges, and opines that our Constitution has become a dead letter because of four words in the Fourteenth Amendment that have a very fluid meaning.Death by Due Process.

3. Wesley J. Smith, of the Discovery Institute writes in the Weekly Standard The English Patient, a case where a patient may face involuntary death by dehydration against their will because in a system of socialized medicine, life and death matters do not belong to patients, but to the doctors treating them.

4. Links on the filibuster deal:
   Senator John Cornyn
   Andrew McCarthy.
   Polipundit.
   National Review Online editors' opinion.
   My opinion: Don't know what to think yet. I'm glad to see Priscilla Owen and William Pryor in. I don't like that filibusters are likely to continue. The Democrat's idea of "extreme" is "anyone nominated by President Bush" or who believes the Constitution is actually a written document with words that mean something and not something else.

5. Mark Davis - Where the Bible Meets the Ballot Box. (Dallas Morning News, subscription required) God is not a Democrat either it seems. Here's an excerpt:
   

   there are plenty of issues that don't have natural roots in faith. No preacher can claim to know God's wishes on taxes, Social Security reform, gun control or a host of other concerns. They can try, as when the left tries to measure compassion only through the lens of government expenditure.

   Most Republicans – and most people of faith – believe genuine compassion comes from our individual hearts and pocketbooks. And the most genuine path of devotion to the Christian God leads right through the church of the believer's choice.
   

6. Dish up a bowl of Frosted Flakes and curl up with the original animated The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Thurl Ravenscroft, the voice of Tony the Tiger and who sang "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" (without credit) has passed away. A grrreat voice indeed.

7. What do I think about Star Wars ROTS? (Would it make more money if they made Star Wars ROCKS?) I'll be more generous than most reviewers. I thought it was basically an entertaining movie, though the path to the dark side for Anakin was a tortured process which defies believability, though maybe I should give it a break. I did something similar a long time ago, turning my back on God, and looking back on that time of my life, I find it hard to believe I believed "the emperor's promise" too. Ok, it's plausible, but still he seems to do a most egregious thing (I won't mention it here) too easily, just after crying out "What have I done?" after doing something a smidge less evil. Not impossible, but clumsy, unless the Dark Side had some kind of enchanting force on him. As for the Jedi Council, what a real bunch of idiots they were. Trusting Skywalker to spy on the emporer while denying him the role of Jedi Master? What were they thinking? Spoilers? Not many to worry about; you know how it ends if you saw Star Wars Episode IV, and in that sense, it's kindof weird watching this movie. The only new thing to learn in this movie is how Darth Vader gets his suit.
   
   
   
   Posted by Joel Fuhrmann at 12:14 PM | Comments (0)

That Middle-Finger Speech

I've looked at the speech given by PepsiCo CFO Indra Nooyi and find myself not liking what I read. Though she claims in her statement of defense that she is merely encouraging "each of us as citizens to take a constructive role in whatever we choose to do in life to ensure the U.S. continues as the world’s “helping hand.” ", that isn't what came out of the original allegory. When describing Asia, Europe, South America, and Africa, in terms of a human hand, she talks about them in collective terms, and then mentions the USA in similar language, and then clarifies her point by suddenly shifting to the "rude American" image, describing a conversation between Americans in a hotel in China. By the end of the speech, she is just passing off her bias in a broad sterotypical view of Americans as rude and arrogant (all but saying those traits are unique to us). While I agree that it would be good for us to take a constructive role, I'd argue that it is good advice for the rest of the world as well, perhaps with a bit of emphasis on those states that support terrorism. I'd certainly like them to take a more constructive role.

(Hat tips: Susanna Cornett and Power Line Blog)

Say a Good Word about B.XVI and look what happens...

Stanley Kurtz writes in National Review Online on how the Secular Left is demonizing conservative Christians (what the NYT, which claims to be a newspaper, calls the "Religious Right"). I'd add to his comments that conservative Christians are also demonized by the "Religious Left" as well, by organizations such as the Unitarian Universalist Association, which loves to represent itself as a religious organization, but lobbies from its Washington office for gay marriage, abortion on demand, and higher taxes.

I just had a spat with a commenter on a post below, where I only wanted to post a congratulatory word on the election of Pope Benedict XVI, and suddenly I find myself all but accused of gay-baiting. How'd that happen? One little word in a sentence buried deep in this doctrinal statement, which when taken out of context, accuses me of saying that - let's quote the comment verbatim: "I'm astonished that you believe that homosexuals are violent people over and above what heterosexuals are." Did I actually say that? Or imply that by agreeing with the Vatican's statment? Let's look closer at the Vatican statement, at the one and only occurence of the word "violence" (the context is adoption of children by homosexual partners):

As experience has shown, the absence of sexual complementarity in these unions creates obstacles in the normal development of children who would be placed in the care of such persons. They would be deprived of the experience of either fatherhood or motherhood. Allowing children to be adopted by persons living in such unions would actually mean doing violence to these children, in the sense that their condition of dependency would be used to place them in an environment that is not conducive to their full human development. This is gravely immoral and in open contradiction to the principle, recognized also in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the best interests of the child, as the weaker and more vulnerable party, are to be the paramount consideration in every case.

So, according to Joel Thomas, since the Vatican says that an environment void of sexual complementarity is harmful to children, and I agree with it, I'm admitting that gays are violent people by nature, more than heterosexuals? Sorry, but I don't see that there. First off, the Vatican is not specifically criticizing homosexuals in the sentence, it is criticizing an environment, that of a household without sexual complementarity. If I can't criticize that without being all but accused of homophobia, he's just trying to cut off the debate. So much for critical thought. If you can't beat your opponent with reason, just smear them with some charge of political incorrectness. Calling someone a homophobe wins a lot of arguments; thin-skinned people will shut up when they're called that. As far as actually having a logical point, he's reading a lot more into that statement than I see there. He'll have to provide a better quote from the Vatican, or from me, to prove his case.

Joel Thomas's response to all this can be found here. He seems to be complaining about the heated rhetoric. Well I agree with that, I remember a lot of name-calling growing up myself, and I don't like it either. I remember the recent goings on of the Episcopal and Methodist Conferences, and it seems to me that the gay activist groups were spouting off a lot of heated rhetoric too, including breaking a communion chalice, and calling conservatives a lot of names, so it seems unfair to me that conservatives are the ones branded with the "divisive" and "mean" labels. I know, I know, the Good News flap about "amicable separation", but what the gay activists won't admit is that they're trying to redefine the traditional positions of two churches that are as old as America (and the Catholic church which is as old as Christianity itself) and basically recreate them. Basically that means to me "if you won't welcome us, we'll takeover your church and your conservative beliefs will no longer be tolerated here" or "you can't be a Christian without supporting our liberal social agenda". That seems pretty divisive to me.

I respect Joel Thomas's right to free speech, but I wonder if he respects mine. He seems to think I shouldn't speak out because the heated rhetoric hurts people. Well, so what if it does? I'm sorry people are hurt, but I happen to believe more people would be hurt if conservatives ignored the issues of homosexual marriage and adoption. To take another example, should I be able say that the American Red Cross (ARC) is right to discriminate against gays by not letting them donate blood? If the ARC starting letting gays donate blood, and the public said "sure ok, gotta let you do that, to do otherwise would be hateful", a lot more people would get HIV, or at least that's the ARC's rationale for rejecting blood donated by gays, and that policy doesn't seem to be based on gay-baiting to me, just solid science. Gays are a high-risk group for HIV, so the ARC does not allow them to donate blood (they also don't allow other high-risk behaviours or situations as well). It seems to me that it's proper and good to fight for something when something is worth defending, such as children growing up with moms and dads. I respect civil debate, but debate means a discussion of ideas, not rabid charges of political incorrectness. I don't think I should have to shut up just because someone disagrees with me, especially when they quote me out of context or say I said something I didn't say. I've got a right to defend myself when that happens.

For what it's worth, here's an apology to Joel for deleting his last comment. Joel, I'm sorry. Here's what you said:

Well, for you and the Catholic Church to use the word "violence" in such a fashion seems to go against the commonly accepted defintion of the word. However, I'll play along, and on any matter in which you don't support matters that I think are conducive to the psychological well-being of gays I will simply say that you are inflicting violence on them. From here on out, I pronounce your opposition to gays in the military as an act of violence against gays. I am not accusing you of being a violent person, however. ;-)

To which my response is: There are many arguments for being against gays in the military. They are not all based on hate. To blame my opinion on homophobia is pretty simple-minded (Definition #1, so don't accuse me of calling you stupid or mentally impaired)

Links on Terri Schiavo

I have been too silent on the subject of Terri Schiavo's plight, thinking I didn't have anything to add. Now I think I should at least express my opinion and link to others who have said so much.

[Updated 3/23: The following paragraph has been revised after further review, elaborated on at the bottom of this post. Struck text is original, followed by a revision in italics.]

First, my opinion. This is all but an act of murder by her husband who has refused to give her proper medical care, has denied visitation rights to her family, who has left her in order to start a family with another woman while refusing to divorce Terri (I think this should be a disqualifying factor in his legal status as her guardian), and who stands to make a bit of money when she dies. His claims that Terri is in a vegetative state (PVS) are disputed. I don't know Michael Schiavo's motivations for his actions, but I don't think that he is acting in her best interests given some of his behaviour during this ordeal, such as his previous refusal to pay for rehabilitation, attempting to refuse her parents visitation rights, and starting a family with another woman while refusing to divorce Terri (I think this should be a disqualifying factor in his legal status as her guardian). Yet I am commanded to love this man, who I consider to be an enemy of God, because Jesus told me I should. Does love imply agreement? No, love does not imply tolerance of evil, but rather confronts it. In this case, with no personal contact between this man and me, I think it implies I should be praying for his soul. Maybe there would be more hope for Terri that way.

When I hear someone say that she deserves death with dignity, my reaction is "According to whom?" Terri didn't ask for this fate. Before my father passed away last November, I saw what had to be done in Texas before someone could be denied food and water. There were lots of papers and instructions, that had to be in order before treatment could be denied. That ensured that the dying person had left clear instructions on how to handle their fate. No word of mouth hearsay could be used to justify letting them die with no treatment. Unfortunately, the judge letting Mr. Schiavo do this to Terri has done just that, admitting as binding a word-of-mouth recollection of a passing comment, witnessed only by someone who stands to benefit from her death, and contradicted by testimony from her family.

Now for some links:
Susan b. has written a lot about Terri Schiavo, start here and go down.

blogs4God has a post from Mean Dean and links to other bloggers' posts.

And blogsforTerri has a roundup of all the latest news and advocacy information.

Update 3/23/2005: Joel Thomas comments below, "You are being dishonest when you claim that Terri's husband stands to benefit. ... Although I think the court should have ruled the other way, I believe that Terri's husband was motivated by love, not be greed."

Based on his comment, and on this letter sent to John DerbyShire, of National Review Online, I'll admit I don't know Michael Schiavo's motivation, whether it be money or trying to honor a verbal promise to a loved one. So I've revised the post. Thank you for reading, Joel, and your comment.

Thoughts on the SOTU

I want to put down some of my thoughts quickly this morning before I read a lot of other opinions. I thought it was a great speech, and I think the President, together with the recent Iraqi election, came out with a complete vindication of his case for the war against Saddam Hussein.

The scene of the Safia Taleb al-Souhail, whose father was killed by the Hussein regime, and Janet Norwood, whose son was killed in Iraq, hugging and crying together was moving, showing that our war was not against the people of Iraq, but rather against a tyrant who was denying them the liberty which is their right.

President Bush made his case for private retirement accounts clearly. The Democrats who booed him were pathetic. Several years ago, under President Clinton, it was undisputed that Social Security would need to be fixed. Now that we have a Republican President who actually has made a proposal to do just that, all of a sudden Social Security is solvent? No way. The Democrat's response to the President's proposal is pure partisan bickering. And those who think all the money is going to be invested in Enron are distorting the issue too. Enron is not representative of the investments which will be made with these private accounts, nor is it representative of the US stock market in general. A more accurate picture would be a mixture of investments in the Standard & Poors (S&P) 500 Index and investment grade bonds, balanced appropriately for one's age. The S&P 500 Index growth rate is overwhelmingly positive and consistent when looked at in the long term. Even the stock market crash of 1929 is a small blip in the constant growth of this index. To look at it another way, if something catastrophic were to happen to make the stock market go into an unrecoverable decline, it would have to be such an overpowering economic event, more severe than the Depression, that nothing in America would have any value. Basically, it would be the end of the American economic system. Social Security in its current state would not be a sustainable option in that scenario either.

My information on the S&P 500 and the benefits of long term investing are based on data presented by Jeremy Siegel in his book Stocks for the Long Run, which I recommend everyone read before calling the stock market a roulette wheel. And now the obligatory disclosure: I work in the financial services industry, however I am not a licensed financial advisor. I'm in IT.

Update: Joshua Claybourn notes that Paul Krugman quotes Jeremy Siegel, claiming he isn't as optimistic as before. Josh corrects the context of the quote, and I affirm it. I've heard Professor Siegel speak at an investing symposium, and I heard him answer a question about this quote. When he said, "returns on stocks over bonds won't be as large as in the past," he wasn't referring to a comparison to the long-term rate of return, which is consistently about 7% above inflation, but rather to the supersized returns of the 1990s.

Congratulations!

I wasn't ignoring the news, I've just been away from the blog, and I actually wrote this last night but kept it in draft mode, thinking I'd add to it today. I'm real happy to hear of the enthusiastic turnout for the Iraqi election. I pray for them, that they will have a government that respects righteousness, justice, and liberty.

My co-author and brother-in-law, Rick Penner, writes that this event is as big as the fall of the Berlin Wall. I think he's on the mark there, though I didn't have quite as intense a reaction as what I remember from November 9, 1989. Still it's wonderful, and making it sweeter still, according to the Washington Times (hat tip James Taranto at OpinionJournal's BOTW), we haven't heard from former President Carter, or his best friends Michael Moore and George Soros, whose silence speaks volumes about how American leftists really view "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".

God bless Iraq.

More Disclosure Required

As an example of how conservative columnists shouldn't expect to satisfy the left simply by disclosing any government sources of income, here is The Daily Outrage from The Nation, where today's outrage from Ari Berman is that William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer had the audacity to speak about President Bush's inauguration speech on Fox News without disclosing that they were consulted. Horrors!

I didn't note it yesterday, but in Eric Alterman's post, his point about not disclosing having sex with animals because no one has asked about it seems to undermine his conclusion that everything should be disclosed. The reason people don't ask about sex with animals is because it's irrelevant (unless one is an apologist for the act), and many of the things that the left are demanding be disclosed are also irrelevant, things like the case noted above, where a person consulting on a speech has to admit it before being allowed to comment. The disclosures are getting to be bigger than the news. It's not just that conservatives are being held to different standards than liberals, it's that there are no standards at all. These attacks from people like Ari Berman and Eric Alterman are practically speaking, ad hominem attacks, similar to efforts to discredit John Lott's research (on gun rights) for being funded by the Olin Foundation. This is actually a favorite attack from the left. Don't attack an argument for its reasoning, attack it for who is saying it, or paying for it. Now this isn't to say that we should ignore the source of all we read or hear - it's wise to be suspicious of propaganda, however just because an argument comes from an ideological opponent doesn't make it ipso facto wrong, and that's the mistake the left is making in judging people like Maggie Gallagher, John Lott, William Kristol, and Charles Krauthammer.

Speaking of disclosure, I'd just to rant for a bit about double standards. I've never noticed any particular outrage from the left about PBS receiving government funding and not disclosing how much of that money goes to pay its news anchor, Jim Lehrer. Shouldn't Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg disclose how much money she is given for being a speaker for the National Organization for Women? And shouldn't she recuse herself from abortion-related cases for that reason alone? I've never heard the New York Times complain about that (the LA Times noticed it however), though there was plenty of outrage that Dick Cheney spent a day duck-hunting with Justice Scalia.

Finally, some links on the subject I've read today:
In National Review, Jonathan Adler notes that the media have missed the real payola story. How about disclosure from NGOs for how much government money they get to "research" their causes (which invariably demand more government money to address those causes)?

Newsmax notes the names of several journalists who were on the Clinton payroll during the Clinton administration.

And finally, I guess I should disclose this to please Eric Alterman:
I hereby disclose that I received government-provided funds through a job I had with a defense contractor back when Ronald Reagan was President. I do not consider this a conflict of interest, but just in case you do, now you know.

Defending Maggie Gallagher

David Frum defends Maggie Gallagher's actions, saying there is nothing wrong with a knowledgable person working for the government.

I've looked at this story now for more than a day without commenting, and have concluded that Mrs. Gallagher has done nothing wrong. She has done research on marriage, and been paid for it. Some of that work was for the government, and some was for herself and the organization she represents. I'm sure there are a lot of people who work for liberal think tanks and also worked for the Clinton administration. Should she have disclosed it? She admits it would have been proper to. But to attack her credibility because she didn't is pure nonsense. Even if she had disclosed it, her attackers would have still been looking for something else to attack her for, as Eric Alterman all but admits here (a question that would actually be relevant for Princeton University's Peter Singer to answer). You can never disclose enough to please your critics.

This sounds to me like a case of one side, namely those who want to tear traditional marriage down, making up new rules as the game is played, rules that apply only to the other side, similar in tone and practice to those who insisted on getting money out of politics, until that money came from a liberal.

UPDATED: link to Eric Alterman's post added after noticing it on Opinion Journal's Best of the Web.

Memogate Revelation

Remember how about a year ago, Manuel Miranda was forced to resign from his job as a staffer for Senator Frist when it was found out he had read documents written by Democrat Senators urging obstruction of judicial nominees? And the files were publicly available. There were no computer restrictions on the computer resources, and Mr. Miranda notified the administrators who setup the network of this before the documents were publicized. I remember reading David Corn (sorry, cannot find link. Will update post if I find it) in The Nation that it was the equivalent of someone taking a file from the computer I use at work at my desk. Corn was wrong - my computer is password-protected under a corporate security policy, and if I share any of my resources, I cannot claim that anyone who has legal access to them is guilty of stealing them.

Now it has been found out that Democrats have been reading Republican-written memos for years. (full text of Congressional memo here) How did they get away with it? Because the network was never made secure by its administrators, and if a computer network's resources are shared (in this case shared among both Democrat and Republican personnel), then people who have legal access to those shared resources cannot be accused of wrongdoing for reading those files. At least that's the way it was when the Democrats were doing the "document perusal". But let a Republican staffer read a Democrat-written memo and all hell breaks loose.

Manuel Miranda deserves his job back, and the text of the memos, which deal with the subject of liberal special interest groups unduly influencing the judicial nominating process, deserve special consideration.

UPDATE:
David Corn's reaction to Memogate in The Nation
Manuel Miranda's statement

Abortion marketing and lies

David Kupelian tells how the abortion industry sold itself. (Hat tip: Dawn Eden)

It's ironic that pro-abortion anti-gun liberals rant and rave about the gun industry making millions of dollars for a killing industry and completely ignore that the abortion industry does the same. It's also ironic that the right to bear arms is explicitly stated in the Second Amendment, and treated as non-existent by gun control groups and the ACLU ("Our job is to conserve America's original civic values - the Constitution and the Bill of Rights" - except Amendment #2-Ed.), while many (but not all) of the same groups, including the ACLU, insist that abortion is a rock solid basic human right, and a non-revokable constitutional right at that, due to stare decisis. As if a decision by the Supreme Court could not ever be overturned. If that were true, we'd still have slavery, segregated education, and sodomy being illegal which were all established by previous Supreme Court decisions, all of which were literally overturned by later decisions, and without any complaints from the same people who insist that Roe vs. Wade is untouchable.

Also, in a related column, Chuck Colson exposes some abortion myths, the first of which is that abortion is first and foremost a woman’s issue, or one has to be pro-abortion in order to respect womens' rights. Susan B. Anthony was a pro-life feminist, and there are others today, along with pro-life Democrats and pro-life libertarians. In fact, since libertarians respect individual rights for all people, it isn't a question of whether pro-abortion is a libertarian / or non-libertarian position. It all boils down to answering the question, "Is the unborn child a human being in possession of unalienable rights, the same as which I have?" If an honest libertarian answers that question affirmatively, they will be pro-life.

Inauguration Day

The Inaugural Speech

My favorite paragraph:

Some, I know, have questioned the global appeal of liberty - though this time in history, four decades defined by the swiftest advance of freedom ever seen, is an odd time for doubt. Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals. Eventually, the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul. We do not accept the existence of permanent tyranny because we do not accept the possibility of permanent slavery. Liberty will come to those who love it.

I like this paragraph because I've heard some people say that freedom isn't all that important - there are other things more important, such as controlling population growth, saving the environment, or stringent economic equality. I note that these people, one prominent example being Michael Moore, are usually in a position of freedom or opportunity for themselves, whereas they would gladly deny it to others.

UPDATE: Added a link on Michael Moore's name, for the news I just read about one of his bodyguards being arrested for carrying an illegal handgun. I wonder if it's because of what Clint Eastwood said.

Senator Hatch on changing the filibuster rules

Senator Orrin Hatch makes a strong case for revising Senate rules on cloture. He notes that the 60-vote cloture rule has not always been so, such rules have been changed in the past. I've always opposed the filibusters, though I haven't spoken out for the "nuclear option" where the rules are changed to eliminate that possibility in the case of judicial nominations. Senator Hatch has just about swayed me however, but I don't see how a Senate whose 45 Democrats are so dedicated to obstructionism will let it happen.

As Senator Hatch says, the argument that doing away with the filibuster amounts to "rubberstamping" the President's appointments is nonsense. Each Senator still has a "yes" or "no" vote in a roll call. If they want to defeat a nomination, they should do it with 51 votes, not 41.

No inauguration boycott for me!

Boycott the inauguration? Not me! I was originally thinking of taking the day off and going down to Washington -- then I saw the price for a ticket, and I don't think I could get close to it without one. The clincher however, was when I heard of this "do nothing, buy nothing on Jan 20" campaign. When I heard about that, I decided that not only will I go to work that day, I'll also write a check out to a faith-based charity. I'd go shopping, but the whole idea of boycotting, or anti-boycotting, can go only so far. I'd only buy something I'd need anyway, the same as what the boycotters will be doing on Friday or Saturday. No one will have missed their business once the week is done.

Democrats for Life

Last November, I wrote, in this post, "I wish the Democrats would also reconsider their fanaticism for abortion." One of my commenters said it was the most absurd statement she had ever heard. Oh really?

What are the Democrats saying now?
Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are both backing Tim Roemer, a pro-life Democrat, for leadership of the DNC. Of course, there is dissent from the usual quarters, such as Planned Parenthood. But Planned Parenthood is not a proxy for the Democratic Party, even though they've effectively tried to make it so. Pro-life Democrats, Democrats for Life of America, are finally being heard by the party.

UPDATE: PunchTheBag, writing at In The Agora, notes that Senator Ted Kennedy wants abortion to be rare. Problem is, that viewpoint is based on the desire that abortion be unnecessary due to widespread use of contraception, not on actual respect for an unborn, yet living, human being.

It's the Exurbs -- Stupid!

How did President Bush find so many votes out there in “the sticks”?

How is it that the Democratic Party and the prognosticators of the mainstream media “missed” all those people in the Red States -- in “nowhere country”?

Well, if you want a clear view of what happened, consider this demographic reality: for some time, now, the nation’s cities have been bleeding out middle-class people -- fleeing the urban life in droves.

They had to go somewhere.

They went out to those “country” spaces that have been filling up with massive, spread-out, newly built semi-towns -- both residential and work areas -- called “exurbias” (“extended suburbs”).

The people going there are mostly young, with children; they're often upwardly-mobile, sometimes entrepreneurs, and are looking to own their own homes and join giant mega-churches and find space and safety in a new life: but with the values-atmosphere that supports them rather than undermines them (as the big cities did). There are more of these people than the nation’s cultural elite ever suspected.

The political fallout has been explosive.

David Brooks anticipated the phenomena in a book (that I highly recommend) published just before the election: On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense [New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004].

He discussed this in his 11/9/04 column in the New York Times -- “Take a Ride to Exurbia” (site needs registration), where he said:

“My book started with Witold Rybczynski's observation that America's population is decentralizing faster than any other society's in history. People in established suburbs are moving out to vast sprawling exurbs that have broken free of the gravitational pull of the cities and now exist in their own world far beyond.

“Ninety percent of the office space built in America in the 1990's was built in suburbia, usually in low office parks along the interstates. Now you have a tribe of people who not only don't work in cities, they don't commute to cities or go to the movies in cities or have any contact with urban life. You have these huge, sprawling communities with no center. Mesa, Ariz., for example, has more people than St. Louis or Minneapolis….

“I was about to give a reading in Berkeley when I asked a few of the bookstore employees if they sold many copies of Rick Warren's book, ‘The Purpose-Driven Life.’ They weren't familiar with the book, even though it has sold millions and millions of copies. I realized there are two conversations in this country. I was in the establishment conversation, but somehow I needed to get into the Rick Warren conversation….

“That's why I'm so impressed by Karl Rove. As a group of Times reporters demonstrated in Sunday's paper, the Republicans achieved huge turnout gains in exurbs like the ones in central Florida. The Republicans permeated those communities, and spread their message.”

Joel Kotkin has written an excellent piece -- “Democrats out of touch with America” in the 11/7/04 Arizona Republic -- available on his website that points out:

“Much of the story can be seen in three sets of statistics -- demographic, economic and finally political. Wherever there has been strong economic and demographic growth, generally speaking, the Republican tide flowed. Where job and population increases have been weak, the Democrats scored big….The economic and demographic fault lines in California and elsewhere do not favor the Democrats in their current configuration.”

Here are some extended quotes from Kotkin’s article:

“Even in California, which went for Kerry but not as overwhelmingly as might have been expected, the political fault-lines followed these same patterns. Kerry piled up huge majorities in the San Francisco Bay area, which has lost hundreds of thousands of jobs and has experienced strong net out-migration since 2000. Bush won handily in Riverside-San Bernardino and the Central Valley, winning upward of three-fifths the vote in the emergent ‘Third California’ that is experiencing the bulk of the Golden State's population and job growth.

“These inland areas are where Arnold Schwarzenegger won his election during the recall and where, by 2008, a Republican like a John McCain or Rudy Giuliani could sweep the nation's most populous state back to the GOP. If that happens, the Democratic Party as we know it will be all but moribund….

“Like Boston, many Democratic strongholds -- Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Chicago -- all lost population since 2000. Some of these cities had much ballyhooed revivals during the late 1990s with often highly celebrated, but statistically tiny, increases in downtown lofts, arts venues and other measurements of urban ‘hipness.’ But viewed from a regional perspective, these regions continued to lose both jobs and middle-class families to the periphery.

“In contrast, the sprawling metro areas -- from Atlanta to Phoenix and California's Inland Empire -- have continued to gain both population and jobs. The Southeast, for example, now stands as the home to more large corporate headquarters than any region, confirming a shift in economic fortunes from the urban boutiques of the Northeast and the Pacific Coast.

“The Democrats increasingly have identified themselves ever more with stagnant or shrinking urban centers. The most overwhelmingly Democratic cities, like Seattle, Boston or San Francisco, are also the cities with the lowest percentages of children. This allows them to take their signals on social issues such as gay marriage from the reigning hip-ocracy, often alienating voters with children.

“In contrast, many GOP strongholds, particularly outer-ring suburbs and exurbs like San Bernardino Riverside, have been becoming favored grounds for raising families. These voters represent roughly two out of five voters, and far outweigh the population of gays or young singles. Concentrated in the suburbs, these voters went more for Bush this year than in 2000.

“Overall, Democrats increasingly seem clueless in finding ways to appeal to people with children or those seeking a new life in an affordable place. Instead they often ask suburbanites to subsidize trendy downtown development and attack their way of life as anti-environmental ‘sprawl.’ Suburbanites on the periphery are accorded little honor among Democrats; not surprisingly, they were not well-rewarded for their attitudes….

“Nor, finally, did the Democratic economic message resonate as well with people in the suburban hinterland. The attack on the ‘rich’ -- odd enough from a man married to a billionairess who pays a smaller share of her income in taxes than the average housepainter -- were rightly interpreted by many small-business people as an attack on either their current income, or on where they hoped to be in a few years.

“The Kerry economic plan was more convincing to other constituencies such as public employees, subsidized artists, downtown property speculators, public bond traders and university researchers, all of whom might well have benefited from more public spending on higher education, subsidies for cultural institutions and other favored amenities. Not surprisingly, educated people, particularly academics and others with post-graduate degrees, emerged as both Kerry's largest source of funding and his strongest political base.

“Given these realities, is there any hope -- or even a need -- for a Democratic Party? The answer is assuredly yes, but only with massive changes….At very least, the nation deserves some progressive alternative to the baldly pro-corporate policies of the Republican Party.

“This can occur only in a Democratic Party that espouses middle-class values, not elite values, that celebrates upward mobility, not celebrity. It must be a party that can communicate with middle-class people where they live and work….

“More than anything this will require a redefinition of the party's core constituency and its priorities. Today, the Democrats' true center lies with the most privileged portions of society -- Hollywood, the Wall Street municipal bond traders, the professoriate, the major media moguls. The issues that these people care most about are those that reflect their personal interests, such as keeping their neighborhoods and recreational playgrounds pristine, helping gay friends get married, sending more public funds to elite educational institutions or financing medical research for diseases and the aging process that money alone can not ward off.

“These causes, however valid, do not constitute a winning political platform. Even worse, the overwhelming elite influence has also proved pernicious, since many among them also possess an instinctive dislike for American military power, and favor a more European approach to defending America's national interests.”

Post-Election Links

What the Evangelicals Want, by James Jewell The Rooftop Blog. (Hat Tip: James Jewell himself, via email, thank you!)

To My Fellow Democrats, by Andrew, The Backseat Philosopher, a new blog. (Hat Tip: Mark Shea)

Post-Election comments - Finally!

I voted Tuesday around 6:30 am, had to wait in the longest line I ever faced here in East Windsor NJ (about four people). Then went on to work and called Amy and invited her to come over for lunch, and we would all go, Amy, Rebecca (the royal daughter), and me, to Washington Crossing State Park. Beautiful day. Rebecca seems to love the fall, and I really enjoyed the playtime, especially since that was the last light of day I would see, for I was doing some benchmark testing in our computer lab as soon as I got back to work, and I would be there till after 9pm. It was a busy afternoon, and the testing took a long time. After 5:00 pm, with the second half of the testing about to commence, I holed myself up in the lab and started watching election results. Lots of thoughts to blog about, but I can't multitask too well, and wanted to get out of there before 10, so I just didn't bother. These are my first thoughts to write down.

So, what do I think? I'm glad for the results, but I don't see them as a reason to gloat, just as I think it would be wise for the left to refrain from making silly excuses or making fearful predictions of doom. I've held off on commenting for three reasons mainly: 1) I can't write fast enough to cover the election as well as others can, 2) I've been real busy at work, as noted above, and 3) I just wanted to digest it all so I don't put my foot in my mouth.

I think the values-based voting was a real factor this year, but not the only one. When the Unitarian Universalists and other religious progressives started their Faithful Democracy project, the whole concept of voting one's values was vindicated, what religious conservatives have been doing for years. Did the kickoff of this project imply that the "religious left" weren't voting their values in the past? That's hard for me to believe. Of course they were voting their values; all that project did was to vindicate the position of those who said all along that it was proper and right to do so.

What would I like to see as a result of this election? Based on the Senate results, and Tom Daschle's defeat, I would love to see an immediate renomination of every judicial nominee subjected to the Filibuster. In my opinion, this was the gravest injustice committed by the Democrats' minority in the Senate. I called Senator Frist's office today to urge him to stop the chairmanship of Arlen Specter to the Judicial Committee, and urge everyone concerned about judicial integrity to do so as well.

There are many other things I'd love to see, making the tax cuts permanent, killing the inheritance tax, making true school choice available, a Federal Marriage Amendment. And speaking of that Marriage Amendment, I'm glad that people are speaking up and saying they don't want the courts to decide this issue for them, and I agree with the thoughts expressed by Rush Limbaugh, quoted in a post below by Rick Penner, who said that the push to decide this issue in the courts would inevitably end up in a backlash.

For the Democrats, I think Nancy Pelosi should lose her job as the House Minority leader. Her strategy of taking the party left after the 2002 elections was clearly a mistake. I'd like to see the Democrats drop their class-warfare rhetoric. I wish the Democrats would also reconsider their fanaticism for abortion. I was a Democrat once, was even on the pro-choice bandwagon, but their vitriol for anyone who expressed a pro-life viewpoint drove me away (and this came from people who "worship" tolerance). I actually converted to the pro-life worldview before becoming a Christian. This issue is not a mere "article of faith".

That's all I want to say for now, but here's some links to others whose opinions I respect:
Joshua Claybourn credits the "culture war".
Joe Carter The Evangelical Outpost credits moral issues, such as embryonic stem cell research, abortion, and same-sex marriage.
Susan b. Lilac Rose talks about her two issues: security and social issues, claiming both as reasons for voting for Bush.
La Shawn Barber urges the President to be strong, lead boldly, and ignore those who tell him to compromise.
Larry Kudlow credits the evangelical vote.

Good ‘ole Rush Limbaugh said something interesting on the morning after the election --

as to WHY the Democrats lost. Speaking of the Kerry supporters among the Baby-Boom Generation, he said (from his web-site):

“They didn't want the discomfort of going to war but they also saw an opportunity. Here's another war they disagreed with, ‘America caused it; America is wrong. Our youth was well spent!’ It is because of idle time and prosperity that they have the time to devote their self-thoughts to this stuff, and they became obsessed with negativism, and because of all of this, the combination of negative doom and gloom outlook on life, ‘Oh, woe is us! Oh, how hard is our life!’ coupled with the fact that they are so self-absorbed, that they don't understand having to win in the arena of ideas. They think that what they are should automatically be, and so I was telling this person [a liberal friend] last night: ‘You've got a lot of problems, not just in the baby boom generation, but liberalism in general. You have the idea in your head that because the country rejected via a popular vote what you believe in, that the country is no longer yours. Have you ever thought about fighting for what you believe in? And I don't mean the way you have, but have you ever thought about fighting it in the sense of actually persuading people to try to agree with you? The way you've gone about gay marriage has been guaranteed to defeat it. You have gone and had Supreme Court judges in Massachusetts tell legislators what laws they must pass and by when, laws that the people would not vote for themselves, laws that the people would not approve of. You had a mayor in San Francisco force illegal marriages against the law for a period of time. You think this doesn't have a backlash? This is not how things happen in this country. You think just because you want it -- baby boomers, self-absorbed, selfish generation: Whatever you wanted, you got -- just because you want it, it should be there, and when you don't get it, it's, ‘Oh, woe is us?'" [Emphasis added.]

The Religious Vote, Voting Guides and other comments

The Institute for Religion and Democracy has three informative links on their site.

Steve Rempe and Alan Wisdom critique the voting guides put out by several denominations.

Diane Knippers talks about how God isn't a Democrat or Republican, and criticizes those who use that statement to marginalize their opponents. For my part, I have never claimed that one must be a conservative to be a Christian. The original motivation for this weblog, originally called "Religious Left Watch" was to criticize those who claim the opposite, that one cannot be a Christian (or "faithful") and a conservative.

And finally, an article by Mark Tooley describing a last-minute rally for the "religious left", conducted from the National Cathedral in Washington DC.

Jonah Goldberg's latest column

I endorse this opinion, not only because I agree with it, but because our daughter, Rebecca Dong Lan, is almost the same age as Lucy Tighe, and I feel the same way with respect to my daughter.

Faith and Politics

Charles J. Chaput, archbishop of Denver, has an op-ed in the online New York Times, Faith and Politics.

The theologian Karl Barth once said, "To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world."

That saying comes to mind as the election approaches and I hear more lectures about how Roman Catholics must not "impose their beliefs on society" or warnings about the need for "the separation of church and state." These are two of the emptiest slogans in current American politics, intended to discourage serious debate. No one in mainstream American politics wants a theocracy. Nor does anyone doubt the importance of morality in public life. Therefore, we should recognize these slogans for what they are: frequently dishonest and ultimately dangerous sound bites.

Yellow Ribbon Theory

Also mentioned in The Corner today: a theory that those yellow ribbons that say "Support Our Troops" are on cars belonging to Bush supporters. I think there's something to that. Starting around mid-September, I've been counting the number of cars that have both a Kerry bumper sticker (or anti-Bush) and a "Support Our Troops" ribbon. So far I've seen just one, and I work near a blue-state town where there are many more Kerry signs in yards than Bush signs. Seems none of them are willing to say "Support Our Troops" however.

Students for Life

A pro-life ad in the Daily Princetonian, Princeton's campus newspaper, is mentioned in The Corner. I agree, and it's good to hear such a clear and strong message for life here in a pro-abortion state.

The Nuisance Issue

So, Senator Kerry thinks terrorism is a nuisance.

James Lileks fisks this horrendously naive sentiment.

And I'll add one more. This is a grand nuisance. Look at the time of this post. This is what I'm working on right now.

Abortionists for Kerry

Abortion providers are supporting John Kerry, and for good reason. His administration, if he is elected, will be better for their business.

And just this little note: anytime someone suggests a common-sense restriction on abortion, such as stopping late-term abortions, groups like Planned Parenthood responsd to the effect that there are hardly any late term abortions done. But this statement hides an important viewpoint, to groups like the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC) and the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), late-term abortion providers like George Tiller are heroes, and they are dedicated to continuing their work.
An excerpt from a prayer by Unitarian Universalist minister Deborah Mero at the 30th anniversary service of Roe vs. Wade cited in link above:

We honor those who brought us choice, Sarah Weddington, Fay Wattleton, Justice Harry Blackmun and all of this generation, Kate Michelman, Gloria Feldt, Dr. George Tiller, Dr. LeRoy Carhart, and Frances Kissling who have worked tirelessly to affirm women's right to choose abortion and provide safe and legal reproductive health options. And we vow to carry on their work.

Now before anyone attacks me for justifying the violence done to Tiller or his clinic, let me just say this right now: I do not support violence against any person or their property, and I support the prosecution of people who conduct such violence. However, being a victim of violence is not a virtue. Tiller is no hero.

VP Candidates' Debate

Dick Cheney won this hands down. Edwards looked polished, but exasperated by Cheney's calm enunciation of his conservative principles and common sense. Edwards kept complaining about Cheney's association of Iraq and Al-Qaeda, but Cheney corrected him that regardless of Saddam's involvement with 9/11, he was still a supporter of terrorism, citing his financial aid to families of Palestinian suicide bombers. When Edwards mentioned the tenuous link for the third time, he was sounding desperate.

Edward's criticism of the Federal Marriage Amendment was lame. He says he supports a man/woman definition of marriage, but Senator Kerry voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, so the record seems to say that they would do nothing to defend it.

I don't remember hearing it come up, but on another issue, abortion, here's how the Democrats voted on two abortion-related bills during the last year:
Partial Birth Abortion Ban:Kerry Nay, Edwards did not vote
Unborn Victims of Violence Act:Kerry Nay, Edwards Nay
It is interesting that Edwards, who made tons of money putting OB/GYNS out of business, seems to be able to channel the thoughts of the unborn (Best of the Web, third item) (NYTimes) while not even considering them to be deserving of legal recognition when their life is ended by an act of murder.

Presidential Debate

I've been real quiet - pretty much like out trip to Lancaster PA last week. I've been back, but computers have been kindof stressful lately so I've often left it turned off when I got home or just read news and stuff - also haven't had any subjects jump out at me to blog about.

The Presidential debate was a big disappointment to me. I haven't changed my mind, I'm still voting for President Bush, but I thought he came off sounding unprepared. It was bad enough that I turned off the TV after an hour and read the closing comments on NRO the next morning. I thought Kerry sounded very polished. Comparing the debate to sports, I think I would describe it as hitting a single. He's on base, another batter up tomorrow. The debate was not a victory however. There are a few problems Kerry has though, and he can't change them through any amount of preparation or smooth speech: his voting record, his varying positions, and his statements to the Winter Soldier Investigation. I was talking with one of my erstwhile Unitarian Universalist cohorts last night at a dinner party (imagine someone like Ellsworth Toohey from Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead), who said that he really appreciated the debate, it was so much more democratic than all that ugly campaigning. On the other side of the room, another woman was talking about how great the 527 groups were, inspiring grassroots participation, and her involvement with George Soros's America Coming Together. At one of these dinner parties last year, the discussion was centered around the need for more campaign finance reform, to get private money out of politics, and to have publicly financed campaigns. Amazing how the outlook has changed when the rich donor is supporting Democrats.

I acknowledged that Senator Kerry did a good job in the debate, but I also expressed the point of view that negative campaigning serves a purpose.

He said "no! It's just a bunch of lies and distortions."

I said "so? A person's voting record is public. Public statements and so on."

He said "yes, but it's distorted. There's all sorts of compromises and details missed in examining one's voting record."

And I said, "But still, how one votes over a long period of time reveals core beliefs, and should be a picture of how one would vote in the future"

I acknowledge that a lot of what this man said is true. There are lots of convolutions in legislative procedures, but there are strong currents of belief underlying those votes. John Kerry has consistently voted pro-abortion. He voted against the Defense of Marriage Act. These votes speak louder than his token statements that "life begins at conception" but he isn't willing to impose his values on others (he hasn't thought through what that implies morally, or he literally thinks it should be legal to murder people if one has no religious compunction against doing so), and his statement that marriage is between a man and a woman (but isn't willing to take any action to prevent a court from mandating otherwise). And of course there are the Senator's votes to cut intelligence spending and defese spending. My sparring partner seemed to think that none of this should matter. Zell Miller's speech? "Doesn't count! He was angry, not honest" (as if one can't be angry and honest - sheesh!).

Still, he would not be convinced. He asserted that the candidates' statements should be considered at face value, with absolutely no consideration of their past (yeah, right), their character, or their ability to deliver what they promise. Actually, it's more likely he's going to vote for the letter "D", and I think it's likely he's voted that way for a very long time now.

Amazing -- Sickening -- Thrilling: Kerry Collapses Into Black Hole

Up until July, Senator Kerry appeared to have a strategic advantage over President Bush….

But now it’s obvious: Kerry doesn’t have a strategy; Bush does.

Before August, the incumbent was the issue. Kerry’s vagueness could work for him because he didn’t have to explain what he would do if elected; he only had to plant questions in the electorate’s mind that questioned the President’s policies and credibility.

“Kerry’s Wager” appeared to be the underlying premise: bet on the existence of hidden dynamite within the voters that’ll set off explosions with your deft touch. Suspicion -- in the electorate’s mind -- is the secret weapon; it was created by the Bush Administration’s inability to explain the lost weapons of mass destruction (Bush hadn’t been forthright about the “real reason for the war”). Booby-trapped to this was a deeper angst in the voters’ souls: fear of a long war with an implacable foe. And rigged to that -- the deepest fear of all: we’re losing.

Along the way Democrats betrayed their one true love -- the one who would have given them an honest and satisfying campaign, ending with an honest and satisfying defeat -- and gambled instead on the tall lanky stranger (they didn’t really like) who promised something grand: a “win” based solely on his military record long ago. (They didn’t know much about him.)

Howard Dean was the boy next door. John F. Kerry was the handsome “Mister Gray” with the diamond cane -- haughty but smooth -- who rode into town on a carriage.

Well, all’s fair in love and war….

It turns out the general election voters know the difference between authentic commitment to victory and the mere claim of loyalty.

Still, the gimmick appeared to work for a while: from January to July while the missing WMDs were declared and the Abu Ghraib scandal raged, the Republicans and the President appeared before the nation exhausted, inarticulate, hesitant -- unable to explain their policies. Kerry’s voice seemed to rise and soar.

When the GOP convention arrived, however: Republicans attacked with a blast that broke like the first thud on a new battlefield. They were unanimous in their strategic formation. Their aim was true.

As Kerry supporter Peter Beinart (aka “TRB”) sadly explains in his 9/17/04 article “Character Acting” at New Republic Online:

“What…[Bush] wants, I suspect, is to make this election a referendum on ‘character’ -- the same issue that helped him so much in 2000. It's just that, after September 11, foreign policy is the easiest way to do that….[Bush] largely ignores the substance of Kerry's critiques of the Iraq war. Instead, he turns the variation in Kerry's critiques into an indictment of his opponent's character. Rather than asking voters to make a judgment on the wisdom of the war, Bush poses a choice between Kerry's ‘flip-flops’ and what he called last week in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, his ‘clear moral purpose.’”

What’s interesting is how every major speaker at the GOP convention followed this exact same strategy (look up the speeches).

Of course, one can question Beinart as to what extent the “substance of Kerry’s critiques” are clear and compelling -- I find them murky and ambiguous, myself -- but still, Kerry’s apparent “strategy” at his convention seemed obvious and sound (at the time): offer a policy view of Iraq that differed little from the President’s (getting the war, itself, off the table); attack the President because of what the missing WMDs and the “worsening” situation in Iraq says about Bush’s character, and create the space to talk about domestic issues.

But this approach was abandoned within days. The plans scattered at the sound of the GOP convention’s first shot.

If Kerry’s going to keep the war off the table and stress Bush’s “characterless” leadership -- then he must be disciplined in sticking to the Democratic convention strategy. OR: if he wants to bring the war to the table -- then Kerry’s “critiques” of the war have to be consistent and clear and contain a definite point of view (for or against).

Instead, Kerry ignored the original “convention” strategy -- and led with war critiques that are smoky in their equivocation. Kerry is trying to please ALL factions of the Democratic Party and anyone else out there who’ll listen. But the Democrats are divided on the war. He can’t please everybody. His pronouncements have become a blur. This isn’t a strategy.

In fact, we can now see that most likely: KERRY REALLY HAD NO GAME PLAN TO BEGIN WITH!

Karl Rove may be right when he said recently of Kerry: "The problem is not his staff, it's him."

Dick Morris makes this point in his New York Post column of 9/17/04 -- “Why Shakeup Won’t Save Kerry” -- where he says: “Kerry's basic problem is that he has no overview of how he's going to win. His consultants and staff confuse a pile of ammunition with a strategy.”

And Robert Novak notes in his Chicago Sun-Times article of 9/16/04 -- “Kerry’s Left Turn Scares Democrats” -- that Kerry’s campaign is throwing anything it can get its hands on helter-skelter at Bush without an organizing principle:

“Last Friday, Sen. Kerry abruptly returned to the safely buried gun control issue by decrying President Bush for permitting the assault weapons ban to end. On Saturday, he addressed the Congressional Black Caucus with a liberal harangue. On Sunday, Kerry rested. On Monday, Kerry was back boosting gun control, scolding Bush for letting the assault weapons ban expire at midnight. Only two explanations are possible….Kerry could be making a conscious, though counterproductive, decision to reassure his liberal base. Or, he could be trapped by the calendar of events -- talking gun control because a deadline had been reached and talking civil rights because the Black Caucus invited him. Democratic strategists are particularly concerned by the latter explanation, suggesting a mindless campaign….If John Kerry's course last weekend was determined by events that happened to be on the calendar, he has no victory plan.”

Kerry’s directionless chaos is swallowing him up.

I Never Get Tired of Eric Hoffer

I’ve been reading Eric Hoffer recently (again) -- an American social/political author (1902-1982) who wrote The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (1951) as well as 10 other books, including a book of aphorisms titled The Passionate State of Mind.

He was born poor in the Bronx and moved to California when his father died in 1920; he became a migrant worker and Longshoreman. He had little formal education; educating himself in public libraries.

On 9/27/77 he established the "Eric Hoffer-Lili Fabilli Essay Award" at the University of California, Berkeley, with the following letter:

******************************

Dear Mrs. Bloomberg,

Wordiness is a sickness of American writing. Too many words dilute and blur ideas. An average American book is twice as long as a British book on the same subject. The same is true of articles. (Compare Commentary with Encounter.)

There is not an idea that cannot be expressed in 200 words. But the writer must know precisely what he wants to say. If you have nothing to say and want badly to say it, then all the words in all the dictionaries will not suffice.

Do not count a, of, the, and, etc. Averaging the number of words in a line is O.K.

Warm regards,

Eric Hoffer

***************************

This web site provides an introduction to his works.

The following are some of his aphorisms at the site; I’ve chosen these because they express his MAIN psychological/social/political idea; one he repeats in different forms throughout his writing:

"Our quarrel with the world is an echo of the endless quarrel proceeding within us."

"We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails."

"Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self."

"The less satisfaction we derive from being ourselves, the greater is our desire to be like others."

"Only the individual who has come to terms with his self can have a dispassionate attitude toward the world."

“You accept certain unlovely things about yourself and manage to live with them. The atonement for such an acceptance is that you make allowances for others -- that you cleanse yourself of the sin of self-righteousness."

"The end comes when we no longer talk with ourselves. It is the end of genuine thinking and the beginning of the final loneliness."

"When we leave people on their own, we are delivering them into the hands of a ruthless taskmaster from whose bondage there is no escape. The individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself."

"The devil personifies not the nature that is around us but the nature that is within us -- the infinitely ferocious and cunning prehuman creature that is still within us, sealed in the subconscious cellars of the psyche."

"We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves."

Military Service

Was talking with a Kerry supporter last week, and the story of the National Guard came up. She said that it was a shame that Kerry's patriotism was being smeared while our President shirked serving his country.

I wish I had asked this question: "Why did you vote for Bill Clinton?"

CYA?

Donald Sensing says no one would put CYA in the subject line of a memo, so he doubts the authenticity of the Bush memo presented on 60 Minutes.

I used to work in the defense industry, but it's true everywhere: you can speak it, but don't ever put it in writing: The three little letters CYA (I'm assuming all adult readers know what they mean) indicate a failure to do one's job, and an effort to whitewash that fact. They would never be written in a memo which could be seen as evidence of incompetence or wrongdoing.

Back again

Back from the Poconos again.

On Friday morning, I read that President Bush was going to be appearing at a campaign stop in Lackawanna County, less than a half-hour away from where my wife's mom owns the property we use as our summer getaway. Oh how I wish I had taken an extra day so I could have attended that rally! It was well written up in the newspaper the next day, so I got to read all about it. Major emphasis on stopping medical malpractice abuse, and a word of support for the Second Amendment! Yea!

We go to several baseball games at that stadium each year, and know that area well, except for downtown Scranton, where we got lost Saturday looking for the Italian festival. Got there eventually, and it was really cool to see all the folks wearing their Bush-Cheney t-shirts and buttons (I wore the one with W branding the donkey, plus a Bush-Cheney balloon for Rebecca). There were quite a few Kerry supporters, but I think if Scranton voters had their way, President Bush would have PA's votes this November. Of course, Scranton isn't the biggest city in Pennsylvania, so it is a big-time battleground state.

Thoughts on Terrorism

Some other quick thoughts, then I'm out of here:
La Shawn Barber is angry with the media, including us bloggers, for not reporting the terrorism incident in Russia, where Islamist terrorists have taken children hostage. I'm guilty too, due only to light blogging, and maybe a bit of (I'm ashamed to admit) - it's over there, so why worry? I'm wrong to think that, cause too much of that type of apathy will only result in it happening over here too. So I mention the story now. Thanks, La Shawn, for your rebuke. La Shawn covers the story well in a later post.

Here's a way to make such acts of terrorism less likely: arm our teachers, as Israel and Thailand have done for several years now.

One last post before packing it in...

I want to write my thoughts on President Bush's speech before going up to the Poconos today, so a quick blog from work during lunch (which I'm forgoing so I can eat on the road later).

The President gave a good speech, but it left me a little disappointed. It sounded pretty much like a State of the Union speech. I like his vision of an ownership society with people owning their own retirement, their own medical savings plans. I wish he would have spoken up louder for the benefits of free enterprise on a global scale as he has done earlier in his presidency. When he spoke of a health center in every community, my immediate reaction was "How are you going to pay for that?"

The major issue for me though is the Global War on Terrorism. President Bush nailed it when he said, "I believe the most solemn duty of the American president is to protect the American people. If America shows uncertainty and weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This will not happen on my watch." Indeed, it is not just the most solemn duty of the American President, it is also the most solemn duty of the government. Zell Miller spoke at length on Wednesday on a certain Senator's handling of that duty.

Senator Kerry complains that speeches like Senator Miller's are questioning his patriotism. What a crock of soup. No one at the convention is questioning Kerry's patriotism; they're questioning the soundness of his voting record. Here's some things I heard: Kerry called the Reagan years eight years of "moral darkness" (from Bush's speech), opposed Reagan's support for the Nicaraguan Contras, made broad sweeping (and unproven) accusations of war crimes in Vietnam, wrote a book called "The New American Soldier", where he said, "We will not quickly join those who march on Veterans' Day, waving small flags, calling to memory those thousands who died for the greater glory of the United States. We will not readily join the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars." So he contemns our veterans in a post-Vietnam book, refuses to retract any of his remarks, and deals with the controversy by seeking to remove that book from circulation, and the book published by his critics, "Unfit for Command" (the irony! He does all this while complaining about John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act).

UPDATE: Bill Hobbs says it's all about liberty (Hat tip to Donald Sensing, One Hand Clapping)

Thoughts on the RNC

Apologies for light blogging. Our TV and computer are on opposite sides of the house, and we haven't gone wireless yet, so it's always been too late to blog when I turn off the TV.

That said, let me say what I think of the convention so far:
Fine speeches by everyone I've heard (I missed Monday night, but read Rudy Giuliani's speech later).

Arnold Schwarzenegger's speech was fantastic. I'd like to own that one on video. Zell Miller's and Dick Cheney's too, though Senator Miller upstaged the Vice President. I'm sure he won't mind in November.

I was reading a critique of Miller's speech in The Nation this morning. They make a comment that Miller lied about Kerry's post-war testimony, that he wasn't attacking veterans, but rather the Pentagon. Yeah, right.

Laura Bush gave a fine speech, but I can't remember any of her lines. Her speech was excellent for the grace and dignity she portrayed. She makes me proud of my Texas heritage. The Bushes are former "neighbors" of mine - I grew up in Hereford Tx, and they're from Midland, about 200 miles south. When I was in college at Texas Tech, George Bush ran for Congress in my district.

No blogging till next week. Have a wonderful Labor Day.

Kerry's Character

Marvin Olasky comments on our Presidential candidates' character, as well as on his own.

China, girls, and adoption

From the Wall Street Journal, China realizes infanticide isn't such a good idea.

As the father of a girl from China, I welcome any attempts to curb the number of abortions done to girls in China, and especially the outlawing of abortions done for the purpose of sexual selection. The issue of providing taxpayers' money to the UN for family planning, which President Bush has stopped, is also a huge factor in my vote. I will be voting for President Bush, and for Representative Chris Smith this November.

A couple of weeks ago I was with my daughter, Rebecca, at a local playground, and a young girl, maybe about ten years old, started talking with me about her:
is she really our daughter? yes she is.
Why does she look different? she only looks different because she was born in China and we adopted her.
Do you know her birth parents? No, her birth parents gave her up
That's terrible! They could have done worse - they could have killed her, but instead they put her in a place where she would be found and cared for; and we've forgiven them for leaving her. We choose to be thankful for the gift they gave to us instead.
How could you forgive them? Well, forgiving them isn't the same as saying what they did was right, and like I said, they could have done worse. Instead they gave her to us, without even knowing it.

If I could have talked with her longer, I would have liked to told her about Joseph and how he was sold into slavery by his own brothers, yet that egregious act was used by God to save his family. What often looks awful to us, God uses for a greater good. Maybe we'll run into her again. She seemed to be moved by seeing our daughter and learning about what is happening over there.

Rock the Vote

I used to think it was silly to boycott products because of the ideology of their producers. I know people who won't drink Coors solely because of Joseph Coors' founding of the Heritage Foundation. Of course, they completely disregard the fact that he did it with his own personal money, and that the Coors corporation is owned by, and employs, a lot of people who undoubtably give money to both liberal and conservative groups. (A lot different than Ben & Jerry's which pledges a certain percentage of its corporate profit to leftist causes)

However, I'm revising my opinion of boycotts when it comes to art, because today's artists are using their status for trashing my country. I will not knowingly support an artist who uses their celebrity to promote views I disagree with.

When Chrissie Hynde said that she hoped the USA would lose the war in Iraq, I swore I would never listen to another Pretenders song again. When Bruce Springsteen announced his "Vote for Change" tour, and several other bands got on board, I decided to boycott any group that participated.

Now I read that Larry Gatlin, a country-music star, is critical of Springsteen's project (sorry, link requires a subscription). I'm converting to country music. Actually, I've hated modern rock for a long time now, and have converted to Christian contemporary music, but when I move dial off that station, I'm looking for a country music station to call home.

Wait a second, an older rock star attempts to redeem the medium. Go, Alice!

Thoughts on the Kerry speech

I just saw John Kerry's acceptance speech for the first time today, finding a link for it on the George W. Bush campaign website. Some rambling thoughts:

Regarding tax cuts: Rather contradictory to promise tax relief to small businesses and also rescind the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans since there is a large overlap between these two groups. I'd like to see him explain how a waitress at the Americana Diner is helped out by her employer having to pay higher taxes, and thus unable to give her a raise. And for that matter, not having any money to create a new job. If you want to create new jobs in America, Senator Kerry, then you've got to let the money that pays for those jobs stay in the economy - not go to Washington. I heard his line about not raising taxes on the middle class. Clinton said the same thing, and I saw the townhall where he told a young woman why he was raising her taxes "I didn't know..." Yeah, right. He knew, he just said what he had to say to win the election. He waffled, and so will Kerry, for the same reason.

Regarding unity and division: I can't believe people associate divisiveness with the Republicans, given how the Democrats love to divide the country with techniques like class warfare and pandering to every special interest group, not to mention the harm caused by Al Gore's legal shenanigans. John Kerry doesn't want to mess with the Constitution. Fine, but he also says he's against same-sex marriage, but doesn't articulate any plan for doing anything about it except leaving it up to the states. He's going to fiddle away on this issue while judges decide the issue, and likely against the majority of the people. The truth is that he's for it, or willing to accept it, and won't say so.

And a brief digression on the subject of same-sex marriage:
It's really inconsistent the way organizations like the Unitarian Universalist Association boast about how they respect the democratic process, and then file briefs in court in support of same-sex marriage. They justify it by saying that it's a civil right, but to them every liberal desire is a civil right; Abortion, same-sex marriage, freedom from religion, health care for everybody. By framing everything they want as a civil right they define the conservative point of view out of consideration. Their definition of democratic dialogue is whet