Quote of the Day - (Formerly) Great Britain Edition

From Sultan Knish's A Tale of Two Englands via Instapundit:

The child rapists did not believe that their actions were wrong under Islamic law. And they weren’t.

The Manchester City Council and the GMP just accepted this reality as they have accepted it so often. They buried the minutes, shut down the investigation, and walked away from the screams of the girls.

They did it for multiculturalism, integration, and community relations. They did it for social justice.

We know that no real action was taken because the girls were troubled. They didn’t matter. And their bodies and lives could be sacrificed for the greater good.

The real tragedy is not that the rapists didn’t understand it was wrong. It’s that the UK no longer does.

Quote of the Day - Attorney General Bill Barr Edition

From his Federalist Society speech last week:

In any age, the so-called progressives treat politics as their religion. Their holy mission is to use the coercive power of the State to remake man and society in their own image, according to an abstract ideal of perfection. Whatever means they use are therefore justified because, by definition, they are a virtuous people pursing a deific end. They are willing to use any means necessary to gain momentary advantage in achieving their end, regardless of collateral consequences and the systemic implications. They never ask whether the actions they take could be justified as a general rule of conduct, equally applicable to all sides.

I've been saying this since at least 2010. See: Al Gore, Pied Piper of the Unconstrained Vision, and Human Redemption Through Government.  This is holy war - jihad, if you will - for the Left.  This is why the Right is not wrong, not misguided, not ignorant, but evil.  And every Republican President after Eisenhower is literally Hitler.

Eric Hoffer observed in his book The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements:

Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents. It pulls and whirls the individual away from his own self, makes him oblivious of his weal and future, frees him of jealousies and self-seeking. He becomes an anonymous particle quivering with a craving to fuse and coalesce with his like into one flaming mass. (Heinrich) Heine suggests that what Christian love cannot do is effected by a common hatred.

Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil. Usually the strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the vividness and tangibility of its devil. When Hitler was asked whether he thought the Jew must be destroyed, he answered: "No.... We should have then to invent him. It is essential to have a tangible enemy, not merely an abstract one." F.A. Voigt tells of a Japanese mission that arrived in Berlin in 1932 to study the National Socialist movement. Voigt asked a member of the mission what he thought of the movement. He replied: "It is magnificent. I wish we could have something like it in Japan, only we can't, because we haven't got any Jews."

Quote of the Day - P.J. O'Rourke Edition

Kathy Jackson of the Cornered Cat blog pointed me to this one on Facebook.  It ties into something I've been working on the last few weeks, but I thought I'd post it here as QotD:

Now the Bible might seem to be a strange place to do economic research—particularly for a person who is not very religious and here in a country that is not predominately Jewish or Christian.

However, I have been thinking—from a political economy point of view—about the Tenth Commandment.

The first nine commandments concern theological principles and social law: thou shalt not commit adultery, steal, kill, etc. All religions contain such rules. But then there’s the tenth commandment: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covert thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.”

Here are God’s basic rules about how the Tribes of Israel should live, a very brief list of sacred obligations and solemn moral precepts, and right at the end of it is, “Don’t envy your friend’s cow.”

What is that doing in there? Why would God, with just ten things to tell Moses, choose, as one of them, jealousy about the things the man next door has? And yet think about how important to the well-being of a community this commandment is. If you want a donkey, if you want a meal, if you want an employee, don’t complain about what other people have, go get your own. The tenth commandment sends a message to collectivists, to people who believe wealth is best obtained by redistribution. And the message is clear and concise: Go to hell.

A Half-Bubble Off Plumb?

Okay, this post is about how I can believe in the power of prayer and still remain a small "a" atheist.

I am alive today, I am completely convinced, because thousands of people who I know and who I am completely unfamiliar with were pulling for me to survive. They prayed, they thought hard, they all wished me to recover.

I cannot believe in a God that allows young children to suffer agonizing death. Nothing in me can find justification for that to occur. Therefore I must believe that whatever "greater power" exists in the universe, it must be unconscious, uncaring, in fact not a thinking being at all. It's just a mechanism inherent in the design,if you wish to call it that, of the universe.

The three laws of thermodynamics state in effect:

You can't win
You can't break even
You can't get out of the game.

Those are the laws of entropy, the measurement of total disorder in a closed system. However if this were factually accurate then stars and galaxies could not form in our universe. All it would have is a cloud of cooling gas. So in localized areas, reversal of entropy is possible as long as the total entropy of the closed system continues to be the same.

Now It gets weird.

In subatomic physics they have broken the components of atoms down to particles called quarks. Each particle has multiple dimensions described by physicists with names like flavor, color, spin, etc. If two such quarks share precisely the same dimensions, as I weakly understand it, and one quark is affected by an outside influence, its matching quark, no matter how far away, responds as if it has received the same influence. It does not matter how far apart the two quarks are.

This is the idea behind Science Fiction's instantaneous communicator. It violates Einstein's "no faster than light" limitation. It means that instantaneous communication across vast distances is possible. It has been tested in laboratories and is freaking out the physics community. It may mean that faster-than-light travel is possible.

Here's my theory: 

We as thinking beings are able by thinking the same thing at the same time, to affect local entropy levels and reverse entropy in a localized space. In my particular case, me.

Scott Adams, author of the Dilbert comic strip, set himself a goal through what he calls "the power of positive thinking" to become the highest-paid cartoonist in America. The odds against him were astronomical, but apparently he pulled it off. By himself. (But maybe his fans helped.)

I am firmly convinced that all these people out there wishing me best, praying for my recovery, and asking thousands of others who do not know me at all to do the same are responsible for reversing entropy and saving my life.

You can accept that or reject it, I do not care. This explanation works for me. I cannot stop thinking in a manner I consider to be rational.

Please argue away in the comments.

Happy Eoestre!

I Like the Cut of Her Hijab!

She's probably going to get stoned later.

(Stolen from Wirecutter.)

Recommended Reading

I was pointed at this piece in an exchange over at Facebook. I'm not through with reading it yet, but it's interesting enough for me to recommend it to my readers who have attention spans. Situational Assessment 2017.  Excerpt:

I use John Robb’s term “Trump Insurgency” here to highlight the fact that the election of 2016 was not an example of “ordinary politics”. Anyone who fails to understand this is going to be making significant errors. For example, the 2016 election is not comparable to the 2000 election (e.g., merely a “close” election) nor to the 1980 election (e.g., an “ideological transition” election). While it is tempting to compare it to 1860, I’m not sure that is a good match either.

In fact, as I go back and try to do pattern matching, the only real pattern I can find is the 1776 “election” (AKA the American Revolution). In other words, while 2016 still formally looked like politics, what is really going on here is a revolutionary war. For now this is war using memes rather than bullets, but war is much more than a metaphor.

This war is about much more than ideology, money or power. Even the participants likely do not fully understand the stakes. At a deep level, we are right in the middle of an existential conflict between two entirely different and incompatible ways of forming “collective intelligence”.

As I said, interesting.

Quote of the Day - Liberals & Muslims Edition

Via Mad Mike Williamson on Facebook:

You can see the similarity between liberals and Muslims.

Only a handful of each are violent, but the peaceful ones won't do anything to stop them.

They both believe in religions that have long since been debunked by reality.

They both want the entire world to embrace their faith, by force if necessary.

They both have large elements who believe that the rule of law shouldn't apply to them, only their own internal law.

They both think it's okay for famous people to molest kids.

THAT should leave a SCAR.

The Death of Civility

Remember the calls for increased civility following the 2011 shooting in Tucson where Congresswoman Giffords was wounded and 18 others were shot?  Obama called for "a new era of civility." The University of Arizona (Tucson) opened a new "National Institute for Civil Discourse."  "Political Civility" was the new buzzword - and, of course, all of the incivility came from those troglodytes on the Right.  In an early example of "fake news," the shooting was blamed on "right-wing rhetoric" because Sarah Palin "targeted" Giffords in campaign literature. Never mind that the shooter was mentally ill, politically to the Left, and absolutely not a Palin supporter.

Well, there's been a lot of the same rhetoric recently.  But why now?

Because Tough History is Coming.

In 2002 Charles Krauthammer defined the political divide this way:

To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.

Thomas Sowell, who refers to the movers and shakers in the "progressive" movement as "the Anointed" stated in his book Intellectuals and Society:

Because the vision of the anointed is a vision of themselves as well as a vision of the world, when they are defending that vision they are not simply defending a set of hypotheses about external events, they are in a sense defending their very souls - and the zeal and even ruthlessness with which they defend their visions are not surprising under these circumstances. But for people with opposing views, who may for example believe that most things work out for the better if left to free markets, traditions, families, etc., these are just a set of hypotheses about external events and there is no huge personal ego stake in whether those hypotheses are confirmed by empirical evidence. Obviously everyone would prefer to be proved right rather than proved wrong, but the point here is that there is no such comparable ego stakes involved among believers in the tragic vision. (That would be those of us on the putative "right." - Ed.)

This difference may help explain a striking pattern that goes back at least two centuries - the greater tendency of those with the vision of the anointed to see those they disagree with as enemies who are morally lacking. While there are individual variations in this, as with most things, there are nevertheless general patterns, which many have noticed, both in our times and in earlier centuries. For example, a contemporary account has noted:

Disagree with someone on the right and he is likely to think you obtuse, wrong, foolish, a dope. Disagree with someone on the left and he is more likely to think you selfish, a sell-out, insensitive, possibly evil.

Psychologist and blogger Robert Godwin once wrote:

The philosopher Michael Polanyi pointed out that what distinguishes leftism in all its forms is the dangerous combination of a ruthless contempt for traditional moral values with an unbounded moral passion for utopian perfection. The first step in this process is a complete skepticism that rejects traditional ideals of moral authority and transcendent moral obligation--a complete materialistic skepticism combined with a boundless, utopian moral fervor to transform mankind.

David Horowitz spoke in 2013 at The Heritage Foundation.  For those unfamiliar with Mr. Horowitz, he was a "red diaper baby" - his parents were card-carrying Communists in the 50's - though he says they only referred to themselves as "Progressives" - and until he had his own epiphany in the 70's he himself was a committed Leftist.  No longer.  Here's a pertinent excerpt from that speech:

Progressives are focused on the future, and what's the chief characteristic of the future? It's imaginary! The future they are focused on never existed in human history, and as conservatives we understand it can never exist. It's an impossible dream and a very, very destructive one, as we know from the history of Progressive movements in the 20th Century which killed a hundred million people in peacetime.

--

It is, as I've said in many places, a crypto-religion. "The world is a Fallen place, and we're gonna save it."

This is what makes them so dangerous. They see themselves as Savior. A decent - I would say "authentic" religion says that the world is a really screwed up place and human beings are incapable of unscrewing it.

--

People who believe that Redemption will take place in this life, and they're going to be part of it, that's the Hitlers, that's the Lenins, that's the Maos. And unfortunately it's the ideology, moderated of course, but the ideology - moderated for the American framework - of the Democratic Party and the Progressive Left:  'If we have the power, we can do it.'

So if you believe that social institutions can change things by getting enough power, then when you look at your opponents, who are the people who are not going along with the program? You see yourself as the army of the Saints. Who are they? They are, YOU are the party of Satan!

If you want to understand a so-called liberal, just think of a hellfire and damnation preacher and his mentality. That's what it is. That's why they're rude, they're always interrupting, that's why it doesn't bother them in the least that there are no conservatives on their faculty. Because conservatives are evil, they're spreading ideas that are evil, that are keeping people from enjoying this paradise on Earth that they're going to bring about.

And, from the post A Thumbnail History of the Twentieth Century at the now-defunct blog Canus Iratus, this piece I've quoted repeatedly:

The rise and fall of the Marxist ideal is rather neatly contained in the Twentieth Century, and comprises its central political phenomenon. Fascism and democratic defeatism are its sun-dogs. The common theme is politics as a theology of salvation, with a heroic transformation of the human condition (nothing less) promised to those who will agitate for it. Political activity becomes the highest human vocation. The various socialisms are only the most prominent manifestation of this delusion, which our future historian calls "politicism". In all its forms, it defines human beings as exclusively political animals, based on characteristics which are largely or entirely beyond human control: ethnicity, nationality, gender, and social class. It claims universal relevance, and so divides the entire human race into heroes and enemies. To be on the correct side of this equation is considered full moral justification in and of itself, while no courtesy or concession can be afforded to those on the other. Therefore, politicism has no conscience whatsoever, no charity, and no mercy.

David Horowitz would disagree with the assertion that "the rise and fall of the Marxist ideal is rather neatly contained in the Twentieth Century," but other than that, I cannot disagree with Glen Wishard's analysis of "politicism."  Neither does Jonah Goldberg.

Why was the Tea Party so reviled?  Because a lot of them figured this out.  Goldberg in his 2008 book, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change said:

Progressivism, liberalism, or whatever you want to call it has become an ideology of power. So long as liberals hold it, principles don't matter. It also highlights the real fascist legacy of World War I and the New Deal: the notion that government action in the name of "good things" under the direction of "our people" is always and everywhere justified. Dissent by the right people is the highest form of patriotism. Dissent by the wrong people is troubling evidence of incipient fascism.

Andrew Breitbart certainly understood it, and was the target of so much hatred they made a documentary about it.  (Recommended, by the way.  Strongly.)  Alaska had an invasion of "investigative reporters and scandal-chasers" when Sarah Palin was announced as McCain's pick for Veep, according to MotherJones in September, 2008.  Politico noted at about the same time:

The Palin sleuthing in and around Wasilla is getting a little ridiculous, said T.C. Mitchell, an Anchorage Daily News reporter who covers Wasilla and Palmer and was waiting in the Palmer courthouse clerk’s office to make copies of the Richters' file. He had been there earlier in the day and inspected the most pertinent parts, but wanted to make sure he didn’t miss a peripheral detail and get scooped by the suddenly ubiquitous national press.

Mitchell said the Daily News received a call from a media outlet seeking the rules of the Miss Wasilla Pageant, presumably to determine whether Palin cheated when she won it in 1984.

There’s a growing backlash in and around Wasilla to the prying of the national media into the life of their native daughter and her family.

As journalists from ABC News — and, of course, Politico — on Wednesday leafed through bound copies of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman at the local newspaper’s Wasilla office looking for a 1996 story detailing then-Mayor Palin’s conversations with the local librarian about censorship, Frontiersman reporter Michael Rovito said he was not going to write about the pregnancy of Palin's 17-year-old daughter Bristol.

As a commenter at the Columbia Journalism Review said at the time:

.... now if someone would start digging though some garbage cans in Chicago. Silly me!

Yes, silly him.

So the American public was told everything the muckraking media could dig up (or invent) about Palin during the race, yet just a few days prior to the election, former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw commented during an interview with PBS talking-head Charlie Rose that "we don't know much about Obama."  He was speaking about Obama's foreign policy positions, but Charlie Rose later said:  "I don't know what Barack Obama's worldview is."  Brokaw responded, "No, no.  I don't either."


We knew everything there was to know about Sarah Palin, though much of it was wrong - "fake news," but no one could be bothered to talk to anyone about Obama's relationships with Bill Ayers or Rev. Wright, much less find out about his college admissions, transcripts or anything he'd ever written for the Harvard Law Review.  Mitt Romney and the 2012 election?  He put his dog on the roof of his car, and he didn't pay his taxes.  Oh, and he had "binders of women," the sexist.

Albert Gore wrote in a 2010 New York Times op-ed:

From the standpoint of governance, what is at stake is our ability to use the rule of law as an instrument of human redemption.

Human redemption. The deliverance of humans from sin. By use of Rule of Law. Yeah, no gulags implicit in that.

The thought chills, and he said it in perfect seriousness.

Two years prior to that, Barack Obama stated, after winning the Democrat primary race:

...I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth.

I can't help but think he was talking only about the Progressives.

Now we have President-elect Donald J. Trump, largely elected by the people who made up the Tea Party and who were contemptuously rejected by the Republican establishment, not to mention reviled by the Progressive Left.  And the Left is going batsh!t.  The source of today's QotD delves further into this Church of Progressivism theme.  A further excerpt from that piece:

The Blue Church is panicking because they've just witnessed the birth of a new Red Religion. Not the tired old Christian cliches they defeated back in the '60s, but a new faith based on cultural identity and outright rejection of the Blue Faith.

For the first time in decades, voters explicitly rejected the Blue Church, defying hours of daily cultural programming, years of indoctrination from the schools, and dozens of explicit warnings from HR.

We've been trained since childhood to obey the pretty people on TV, but for the first time in decades, that didn't work.

Donald Trump won because flyover America wants their culture back, and Blue Team has not been rejected like that before.

The younger ones have grown up in an environment where Blue Faith assumptions cannot even be questioned, except anonymously by the bad kids on Twitter.

But now the bad kids are getting bolder, posting funny memes that make you laugh even though John Oliver would not approve, like passing crude dirty pictures under the table in Sunday School.

Meryl Streep is panicking because for the first time voters have rejected HER, and everything her faith has taught her to believe.

There is a new faith rising on the right, not an explicit religious faith like old-school Christianity, but a wicked kind of counterculture movement. We laughed at the hippies in 1968, but by 1978 they were teaching in classrooms and sitting behind school administrator desks.

Where will the hippies of 2016 be sitting after eight years of Trump? How many of the shitposting Twitter bad boys will start up alternative media outlets, until one of them becomes the new Saturday Night Live?

Sam Hyde tried it on Adult Swim, but that was just the early prototype, like Mad Magazine was for the left. There will be many others after him, and they won't be stopped by network filters. They'll come "out of nowhere" on the web, from the secret places that the inquisitors at Google can't shut down.

And that's what Meryl Streep is really scared of. She's not truly aware of it, just like fluttering housewives couldn't really understand the counterculture threat in 1968. But they feel that something is changing in their safe little world, and they know they have to fight it, because this threat isn't just passing pointless budget resolutions and selling pointless platitudes about family values - these guys mean business, and they're fighting on her turf.

And once again "political civility" is on the tongues of the media talking heads, and the waves of incivility are being blamed on Trump's supposed legions of hatey-hatemonger racist homo-xeno-gender-phobes in a renewed " 'Shut up,' they explained" campaign. Never mind the actual evidence.

But we won't shut up anymore.  We're now in a war of religions, Red vs. Blue, and we know how "civil" those are.

It's going to be an interesting four years.

UPDATE:  Read this associated piece.  Much more in-depth.

Pastafarians Rejoice!

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is now approved to perform marriages in New Zealand! 

Texas Pastafarians are allowed to wear the sacred colander on their heads when getting photographed for driver's licenses, will marriage here in the States be far behind?

Freedom of from Religion

Still playing over at Quora.com.  Here's a recent question:

Why, despite its clear violation of the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, is there still "In God we trust" on US currency and in courtrooms?

The Free exercise Clause:
'GOVERNMENT shall make no law respecting any organization of religion or prohibit the free exercise there of.'

AND The CONGRESS ACTION THAT WAS PASSED UNCONSTITUTIONALLY AND IN BLATANT VIOLATION OF OUR INALIENABLE RIGHTS:!!!

As a result, the 84th Congress passed a joint resolution "declaring IN GOD WE TRUST the national motto of the United States." The law was signed by President Eisenhower on July 30, 1956, and the motto was progressively added to paper money over a period from 1957 to 1966.

Federal endorsement of a deity or religion violates THE US CONSTITUTION.
So, in light of this should be removed asap.

I replied:

You are aware that from the founding of the nation the Senate and the House of Representatives have each had, at government expense, a chaplain? And one of the duties of that chaplain is to open each session of each legislative body with a prayer?

Are you familiar with the "Original Public Understanding" theory of Constitutional law? I suggest you look it up. Your understanding of the First Amendment is flawed.

A reader took exception:

Lisbeth Salandar wrote:

No Kevin, ACTUALLY having a chaplain say a prayer in a secular government body is also severly unconstitutional you history oblivious fool.
My understanding of the first Amendment is based entirely on the words contained within it cûlt boy.
You are competely entitled to your opinions which are not supported by evidence.
But the moment you spread that opinion as fact you are a liar.
And if you spread it as fact knowing well it is an opinion you are both a liar and a fraud.

Government shall make no law respecting any organization of religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof.

Can you read?
It isn't a bible you can just be an apologist for later and say is metaphor Ya non- reasoning dolt it's an INALIENABLE RIGHT-not subject to your falsifiable and cûlt deluded opinion.

Well! As Randall Munroe observed:  I can't go to bed, someone is wrong on the internet! So of course I had to respond:

Well, so much for Be Nice, Be Respectful. 

Apparently you're under the impression that I belong to a "cûlt."  I assume from this (having had some experience in this arena) that you mean I'm religious, probably some form of Christian.  However, I assure you I am an atheist, but apparently not of the same sect as you.  My beliefs are obviously heretical to yours, thus your need to verbally burn me at the stake for denying your TRUTH.

So your understanding of the First Amendment is based entirely on the words contained in it?  How nice.  You're not a lawyer, then?  Well, neither am I, but I've studied American Constitutional law on my own for about the last twenty years.  I've read enough court decisions to make one's eyes bleed, and I've read the non-judicial statements of judges and Justices in great stacks. 

And you propose to stand here and tell me that you would argue to James Madison, "Father of the Constitution," that the First Amendment prohibits the offices of Chaplain of the House and the Senate, and he'd agree with you?

Sorry.  Not buying.  Not even close. 

The law is NEVER based exclusively on the text.  That invites "reinterpretation" over time - the so-called "living Constitution" theory.  Let me throw some quotes out to you:

"Our Revolution commenced on more  favorable ground. It presented us an album on which we were free to write what we pleased. We had no occasion to search into musty records, to hunt up royal parchments, or to investigate the laws and institutions of a semi-barbarous ancestry. We appealed to those of nature, and found them engraved on our hearts. Yet we did not avail ourselves of all the advantages of our position. We had never been permitted to exercise self-government. When forced to assume it, we were novices in its science. Its principles and forms had entered little into our former education. We established however some, although not all its important principles. The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press." -- Thomas Jefferson pp.46 - 47, The Living Thoughts of Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey, presenter.

--

"On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p. 322 Paul K. Sadover

--

"It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those intrusted with its administration to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.... If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield." - George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

--

"Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government." - James Madison

--

"The Constitution is a written instrument. As such, its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when it was adopted, it means now." — South Carolina v. US, 199 U.S. 437, 448 (1905)

And finally, Antonin Scalia:

"It is literally true that the U.S. Supreme Court has entirely liberated itself from the text of the Constitution.

"What 'we the people' want most of all is someone who will agree with us as to what the evolving constitution says.

"We are free at last, free at last.  There is no respect in which we are chained or bound by the text of the Constitution. All it takes is five hands.

"What in the world is a ‘moderate interpretation’ of the text?  Halfway between what it really says and what you want it to say?" - Antonin Scalia, excerpts from a speech quoted in the New Orleans Times-Picayune, 3/10/04

I've engaged on several occasions with what I like to term the acolytes of Dawkins - the radical anti-theists who hate all religion, but most especially Christianity - and the place at which we clash most often is with respect to Constitutional law.  They seem to feel that judges in black robes sitting at benches can unilaterally dispense TRUTH upon the masses - in short, that the Court system acts as the clergy of the Church of State, solely responsible for the well-being of our - for lack of a better word - souls.

Columnist George Will gave a speech a few years ago that hit upon this.  Let me quote:

"Madison asserted that politics should take its bearings from nature, from human nature and the natural rights with which we are endowed that pre-exist government. Woodrow Wilson, like all people steeped in the nineteenth century discovery (or so they thought) that History is a proper noun with a capital 'H,' that history has a mind and life of its own, he argued that human nature is as malleable and changeable as history itself, and that it is the job of the state to regulate and guide the evolution of human nature, and the changeable nature of the rights we are owed by the government that in his view dispensed rights.

"Heraclitus famously said 'You cannot step into the same river twice,' meaning that the river would change. The modern progressive believes that you can't step into the same river twice because you change constantly. Well those of us of the Madisonian persuasion believe that  we take our bearings from a certain constancy. Not from, well to coin a phrase 'the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.'

"That has become, that phrase from Justice Brennan, has become the standard by which the constitution is turned into a 'living document.' A constitution that no longer can constitute. A constitution has, as Justice Scalia said, an anti-evolution purpose. The very virtue of a constitution is that it is not changeable. It exists to prevent change, to embed certain rights so that they cannot easily be taken away.

"Madison said rights pre-exist government. Wilson said government exists to dispense whatever agenda of rights suits its fancy, and to annihilate, regulate or attenuate or dilute those others. Madison said the rights we are owed are those that are necessary for the individual pursuit of happiness. Wilson and the progressives said the rights you deserve are those that will deliver material happiness to you and spare you the strain and terror of striving.

"The result of this is now clear. We see in the rampant indebtedness of our country and the European countries what someone has called 'a gluttonous feast on the flesh of the future.' We see the infantilization of publics that become inert and passive, waiting for the state to take care of them."

So no, cûlt-girl, the mere words of the text are not all that matters, no matter how strongly you believe.

Curios to see if he/she/it responds further.

UPDATE:  Yup:

Lisbeth Salandar wrote:

Religions are all cults by design definition- Just large ones. INFACT that's what a religion is technically- when a cult gets too big to contain by authorities it gets relabeled as a religion- Pickup a dictionary or look at how any religion forms. What is it that you think these organizations provide to make such huge dividends? Needless fear.
Not to burst your bubble- but this has nothing to do with me you and my perceived ego- it has to do with accuracy and honesty and a blatantly disregarded HUMAN RIGHT.
I could care less what you delude- about your percieved sect of atheism- right there you show yo don't know what atheism is but at least you figured out part of the truth.
I didn't have a bad experience with cults- I have to read, participate and basically evangelize about a deity being trusted everyday- understand how that is unconstitutional?

My response:

No, I don't.  We're discussing Constitutional law as it applies to religion here in the U.S.  Your argument is that the government cannot even mention anything religious, but from the founding of the nation we've opened sessions of Congress with state-paid clergymen offering prayer to a Big Invisible Friend.

Your argument is invalid.  The "original public understanding" of the First Amendment's defense of freedom of religion is not equal to your conception that it protects a freedom from religion.

You live in a society where a significant majority believe in a god or gods.  The First Amendment protects their belief.

So suck it up, buttercup.  Grow a thicker skin.  If your atheism is so delicate that it cannot withstand evangelization and must be protected from same by government force, then I suggest it isn't all that solid to begin with.

UPDATE II:  The conversation is also going on in the comments to the original question.

UPDATE III:  Original comment thread DELETED.  Why am I not surprised?  Here's the rest of the exchange:

Lisbeth Salandar wrote:

Government shall make no law respecting any establishment of religion or prohibit the free exercise thereof.
That answers what I think.
Endorsement of monotheism on legal tender is without QUESTION UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Why do you think we have a free exercise clause? So cults and non-reasoning illiterates as an ignore it? Surely not.

To which I replied:

And, once again, where do you get your oddly worded version of the First Amendment? I assure you it does not use the word "organization." The word used is "establishment," oh great Constitutional Textualist. Do some research on the "Establishment Clause" in Constitutional law.

The premise of your argument is flawed. All other error flows from there.

Her return volley:

Lisbeth Salandar wrote:

There fixed it. Thanks- but you are dead wrong about the rest.
Monotheism establishes a singular God. Be honest would you- that is establishing MONOTHEISM excluding all else; hence a direct violation brainiac.
Monotheism is established as being only one God worshipping. That isn't religious establishment to you? It is to everyone who doesn't have schizophrenia and even a smidgen of science literacy.

And the reply that, I think, caused her to delete her initial comment:

So we've established that you, self-proclaimed Constitutional Textualist, cannot accurately quote the particular Constitutional clause you're basing your position on, that you accuse ME of being a "history oblivious fool," (though you've now deleted said comment), you accused me of belonging to a cult - sorry, "cûlt," for not agreeing with you, and now you're banging your MONOTHEISM! gong.

But we were discussing LAW. As I pointed out, what the law meant when it was adopted is what the law means NOW, unless and until that law is CHANGED through legislation - NOT by the proclamation of some robed priest sitting at the judicial bench handing down Truth.

Is "In God We Trust" unconstitutional? I very much doubt it, given the HISTORICAL FACT that both houses of Congress have government-paid clergy on staff, and have had since the inception of those legislatures. The law DID NOT MEAN WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS when it was adopted. It doesn't mean that now. I'm sorry that this historical FACT harshes your mellow, but there it remains.

You want to change that? Lobby and get new legislation passed. Don't go looking for the solution in the courts.

Quote of the Day

From What Scares the New Atheists, an op-ed piece by author John Gray in the UK's Guardian:

It has often been observed that Christianity follows changing moral fashions, all the while believing that it stands apart from the world. The same might be said, with more justice, of the prevalent version of atheism. If an earlier generation of unbelievers shared the racial prejudices of their time and elevated them to the status of scientific truths, evangelical atheists do the same with the liberal values to which western societies subscribe today – while looking with contempt upon “backward” cultures that have not abandoned religion. The racial theories promoted by atheists in the past have been consigned to the memory hole – and today’s most influential atheists would no more endorse racist biology than they would be seen following the guidance of an astrologer. But they have not renounced the conviction that human values must be based in science; now it is liberal values which receive that accolade. There are disputes, sometimes bitter, over how to define and interpret those values, but their supremacy is hardly ever questioned. For 21st century atheist missionaries, being liberal and scientific in outlook are one and the same.

It’s a reassuringly simple equation. In fact there are no reliable connections – whether in logic or history – between atheism, science and liberal values. When organised as a movement and backed by the power of the state, atheist ideologies have been an integral part of despotic regimes that also claimed to be based in science, such as the former Soviet Union. Many rival moralities and political systems – most of them, to date, illiberal – have attempted to assert a basis in science. All have been fraudulent and ephemeral. Yet the attempt continues in atheist movements today, which claim that liberal values can be scientifically validated and are therefore humanly universal.

If the topic interests you, RTWT.

Suck on This

Edited to add:

No, Ann. Just, NO.

Ann Barnhardt bloviates about the election:

Look, you can tell me about how the United States is “turning it around” when abortion is a capital offense and sodomy is recriminalized. You can tell me all about how the U.S. is on the road to recovery when there are people in the streets weeping and sobbing on their knees begging the Triune Godhead for His mercy and forgiveness for spending the last fifty years proverbially kicking God in the crotch non-stop.

(*SIGH*)

I don't want her on "my" side.

Coexist?

Remember this?


Found this one tonight via Facebook:


Guess they didn't take the advice.

Quote of the Day - "Artistic Bravery" Edtion

Found via SayUncle:

You want to impress me? Dress up as Mohammed on the top part, with your pubes shaved into a crescent, and hand out rape whistles. Then I’ll be impressed with your edginess.

No Catholic is going to come and chop your head off for dressing up like the Pope. -- Phelps

George F. Will on Religion and Politics

Former Blogger Jed Baer sent me an email New Year's Eve with a link to a recent speech given by George F. Will at St. Louis' Washington University for their John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics.  I respect Mr. Will quite a bit, having quoted him numerous times on this blog including the entire text of his keynote speech at the Cato Institute's biennial Milton Friedman Prize dinner from May of 2010.  I won't do that again, even though I have much better PDF version of this speech from which to work than I had of the previous one.  No, this time I'll just embed the video.

Mr. Will explains that he is "secular," by which I assume he means small-"a" atheist or agnostic, but his defense of religion in America had me nodding along throughout the speech.  If you're interested in this topic, I highly recommend the speech and Q&A that follows:


I will excerpt a short bit, though, to whet your appetite:

When people today speak of nature, they generally speak of flora and fauna, of trees and animals and other things not human.  But the Founders spoke of nature as a guide to and and a measure of human action.  They thought of nature not as something merely to be manipulated for human convenience, but rather as a source of norms to be discovered.  They understood that natural rights could not be asserted, celebrated and defended unless nature, including human nature, is regarded as a normative rather than a merely contingent fact.

This was a view buttressed by the teaching of biblical religion,  that nature is not chaos, but rather it is the replacement of chaos reflecting the mind and will of the Creator.   This is the creator who endows us with natural rights, that are inevitable, inalienable, and universal, and hence the foundation of democratic equality.  And these natural rights are the foundation of limited government, government defined by the limited goal of securing those rights so that individuals may flourish in the free and responsible exercise of those rights.

A government thus limited is not in the business of imposing its opinions about what happiness or what excellence the citizens should choose to pursue.  Having such opinions is the business of other institutions, private and voluntary institutions, especially religious ones that supply the conditions of liberty.   Thus the Founders did not consider natural rights reasonable because religion affirmed them, rather the Founders considered religion reasonable because it secured natural rights.

There may, however, be a cultural contradiction in modernity.  The contradiction is that while religion can sustain liberty, liberty does not necessarily sustain religion.  This is of paramount importance because the seminal importance of the Declaration of Independence.

And he goes on to explain why.

Worth your ninety minutes.

15 Questions for Atheists

I just saw this over at the Nerd's place, and instead of reading LabRat's responses, I thought "I'd better do the same thing and hit these questions fresh."  I recently received a quite complimentary email from a new reader who is unabashedly Christian, and seemed to assume I was as well.  I don't know what it says about me that I didn't dissuade that belief with an immediate response, but I didn't.  So, here we go:

1. Why are atheists so obsessed with religion?

If life were meaningless and ends at the grave, why even bother. If life is just a monopoly game that's going to be put up, why even try to take the property and money of others (in a metaphoric sense, of course)? It doesn't make much sense. Given atheism, nothing really matters since it's not going to last. So, again I ask you, why bother with religion and its negative effects?

Well, I don't. This question is directed at those I term anti-theists, or "Big-A" Atheists like Dawkins and Bill Maher. The only time that I ever concern myself with religion is when someone is trying to force theirs upon me.

2. Why are atheists so obsessed with monotheistic religions?

Why only the big three? If all religions are equally false, why only bother with Christianity, Judaism, and Islam? What about Hinduism or deism? Again, it doesn't make much sense. Perhaps there's a reason that atheists are so amazingly obsessed with Christianity?

Again, see the answer to Question 1. Personally, one of the reasons I'm an atheist is that I cannot grok, given the myriad of gods from which to choose, how anyone can be so convinced that the dominant god of their culture must be the "one true God." But that's just me.

3. How do atheists explain the beginning of the universe?

Often atheists have pointed to the Big Bang to justify their worldview, but the Big Bang actually proves theism. Here's a simple syllogism:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause
2. The universe began to exist
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

There is great evidence for the Big Bang. We can be led to it by first stating this fact: The universe is either eternal, or it is not. If it's not, than my argument is scientifically supported. The universe cannot be eternal because of the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which states that energy is running out. If the universe is eternal, it should've run out a long time ago. The Big Bang proves God because it proves the universe came into being from nothing, and nothing cannot create nothing, for it is nothing. Therefore, Something must have caused the Big Bang. So how do you explain away this evidence for the existence of God?

How do I explain the beginning of the universe? I don't. THAT it happened, I don't doubt. HOW it happened I don't know. Why cannot the religious be comfortable with not knowing? Let's look at that syllogism. OK, the universe was "created" by something, and that "something" was, ipso facto, "God?"

Where did God come from? And if the Creator of the Universe is God, why is He the God of Abraham? Isn't that quite the logical leap?

Here's an image by a somewhat more militant Atheist than I that expresses (poorly and unfortunately offensively, but generally accurately) my problem here:


(Click for full size)
So you accept the Big Bang, but all of it was just to create Earth? That doesn't strike you as just a bit hubristic?

4. How do atheists explain away objective moral values?

Objective moral values are ones that are independent of human thought. If God doesn't exist, they wouldn't exist either. There'd be no one in charge to make a universal standard of right and wrong. It'd simply be a matter or opinion. But moral relativism fails. For one, it says that moral claims are only a matter of opinion but it asserts that as a fact. Also, we know things such as rape, murder, and child abuse are wrong, and if everyone agreed that they were right, they'd still be wrong. We know things are objectively wrong because we feel guilt when we do what is wrong; If morality was just our opinion, we wouldn't feel guilty, for we would be doing what is right for us. So how do atheists justify the fact of objective morality?

"Objective moral values are ones that are independent of human thought." BZZZZT! Oh, I'm so sorry! That's a non sequitur. Morals are HUMAN VALUES. They CANNOT EXIST outside of human thought, unless they belong to non-human sapients. I've covered part of this discussion before. I don't have to "explain away objective moral values." I remain unconvinced of their existence. Those seemingly universal ones are the result of experience through the relatively short history of humanity, and even those aren't truly universal.

5. How do materialists justify immaterial realities?

Logic, math, morality, and other things such as free will, human dignity, and time exist. These things are all immaterial. We can't put the number 7 or the Law of Noncontradiction in a test tube. But if God doesn't exist, matter would be all there is, since there'd be nothing to be the foundation of immaterial things. Everything would come through by matter, and thus, be matter. How can atheists give an answer to this argument?

I don't grok the question. I do not grasp the (or the need for) the indivisibilty of the immaterial and the ecclesiastical. Logic, math, morality and other things such as free will and human dignity are human. Are you saying "Thou art God"?

Time? Time exists whether we do or not. This is a deeply odd question.

6. How do atheists explain the existence of the universe?

If atheism is true, there isn't a reason for anything. It's all an accident. There isn't any purpose. But if there weren't a purpose for anything, how do things exist? If God does not exist, the universe would have no meaning for its existence, and would, thus, not exist. So how can we living in a universe that both exists and has no reason for its existence?

This is a rewording of question #3. My answer remains the same: I don't try to. I accept the fact that it IS, and that it's AWESOME, and I hope some day to sail among its stars.

7. How do you explain away circumstantial evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus?

Here are just two facts that help lead up to the conclusion that Christ is risen: 1. The early Christians died for their belief that He rose from the dead. You don't die for what you know is a lie. No one does, and no one ever could. 2. Christianity started in Jerusalem. If the tomb weren't empty, the Jewish pharisees could've proved it and ended the Christian movement. But they didn't. How can an atheistic worldview explain this?

And atheists are obsessive about Christianity? We go from "Where'd the Universe come from" to "But what about the resurrection of Christ"? That's quite a leap.

No offense, but let me comment here: "The early Christians died for their belief that He rose from the dead. You don't die for what you know is a lie." How many devout Muslims have strapped on explosives and gone to their 72 Virgins in the sincere belief that "There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger"? Belief in something is no guarantee that belief is true. "If the tomb weren't empty, the Jewish pharisees could've proved it and ended the Christian movement. But they didn't. How can an atheistic worldview explain this?" I don't have to. I don't know what happened to the body. The Mormons said Jesus came to North America after the Resurrection. Are they wrong? Can you prove it? This seems to me another version of "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?".

8. If the gospels are just pieces of historical fiction, why are there embarrassing details in there?

Jesus being accused of being a demon. A prostitute wiping Jesus' feet, which was seen as a sexual approach. Peter being called "Satan" and denying Jesus three times. Jews being told to pay taxes to the Roman empire. One criteria of finding a historical truth is to see if the text is embarrassing to the writer. If it is, they probably didn't make it up. Could you clear this up for me?

Nope. Didn't realize that was a requirement. What about all of the scrolls that didn't make it into the final edition? Can you explain to me what was left out and why?

9. If we are just matter, and not souls, why would some atheists support life-sentences?

The matter in our body is totally changed out every seven years. If Cartesian dualism—a view I embrace—is false, and we are just matter, that means I am not the same person as I was seven years ago. And this is also true for a criminal.The justice system is completely futile if atheism is true. If matter is who we are, why don't we change as our matter changes?

It so happens that I agree with you on the topic of Cartesian dualism (and cannot prove it either), but that doesn't mean I'm automatically a Christian, or even religious. However, short of traumatic brain injury, we remain the people we are because of the way our brains are wired, not due to the specific wiring components. And, realistically, the "me" of today is not the "me" of fifteen years ago, but what I did fifteen years ago, I did, and not some other "me."

Personally, I think life without parole is a particularly cruel sentence, but given the fact that it takes decades sometimes to get someone through the appeals process, it can be less expensive to just house and feed them till they die a natural death.  And hey, the system has been wrong before.  Death is irreversible.  You can get out of prison if you're not dead.

10. Why do so many atheists deny historical facts?

The common view today that most atheists hold is that Jesus didn't exist. But Jesus did exist. How do I know this? Historically reliable sources such as Josephus, Tacitus, Lucian, the Jewish Talmud, and Pliny the Younger wrote about Jesus. So why do atheists hold to the Christ-myth hypothesis in spite of what we know through historical facts?

Don't know. Why do so many people deny that Mohammed was God's messenger? Doesn't fit their worldview. Personally, I find it highly doubtful that Jesus didn't exist. I just question his divinity.

11. Why do most atheists, such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Denette, equivocate evolution with atheism?

Evolution does not prove God exists, nor does it prove God doesn't exist. Darwin did not kill God. Most Christians accept evolution. Why, then, do so many atheists point to evolution as if it disproves Christianity?

I don't believe "equivocate" was the word you wanted to use there. "Equate" was. Freudian slip?

Why do so many Christians insist that evolution is a tool of Satan? That's always flipped me out.

Evolution says precisely nothing about the origin of life, it just explains the mechanism of speciation. If you're good with it, so am I.

12. Why don't atheists actually question everything?

They're always advocating skepticism, but fail to question their own views, including that of skepticism. If we should doubt everything, why not doubt atheism?

Those weak sisters are called "agnostics."

Just kidding.

Doubting atheism does not equate to faith. I've done this before, but here are two statements:

I believe there is no God.
I do not believe there is a God.

See the difference? One is an active belief. The other is not. One is an act of faith, the other is skepticism.

13. Where do rights come from?

Most atheists are supporters of the gay rights movement, and are furious when someone denies a homosexual of his or her rights just because of their sexual orientation. So it's pretty clear that atheists believe inalienable rights exist. But where do they come from? How can they be explained naturally?

Oh, Jesus. (No pun intended.) See the left sidebar over there under "the 'Rights' Discussion." I've written probably a hundred thousand words on the topic, and I'm not reproducing them here.

14. How can there be no objective evil, but religion causes it?

A top argument in the atheist arsenal is that religion causes evil. This doesn't prove a thing, for Pythagoras caused evil but no one doubts that a² + b² = c². But when atheists argue against religion by pointing out its sins, they assume that objective morality exists. If morality were a matter of opinion, there'd be no point in asserting it as a fact. So why do atheists use religious evil to try to disprove theism, when it actually does the opposite?

Because a lot of atheists are assholes? And a lot of ostensibly Christian people are hypocrites? Can you, for instance explain "Thou Shall Not Kill" and "Kill them all, God will know his own"?

A lot of the problem that big-"A" Atheists have with the religious is the amount of slaughter done in the name of some deity, but as one of my readers has pointed out, Atheists have done some major slaughter of their own, once they got their hands on the levers of power. They haven't had as long a history at it, but they've slugged at way over their weight in the short time they have had.

15. Why are there no good reasons to believe atheism is true?

Whenever I ask an atheist to disprove God, they can't do it. When something is true, there are good reasons to think it is true. But there are no good reasons to believe God does not exist. So why do non-believers count me as irrational when I embrace theism?

Because belief without evidence is, by definition irrational. OK, you've convinced yourself that you've come to Christianity rationally. You are not alone. But faith is only faith if you can believe no matter what. Faith says "nothing can shake my belief." This requires irrationality. Bear in mind, this is not a judgmental word, merely descriptive.

I am an atheist because I cannot bring myself to believe, and I won't fake it.

Well, THIS is Different

Wow. I think the Democrats really pissed off the Pope.

I Agree With Pat

Give 'em hell, Pat.