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Clayton Cramer's BLOG

Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).




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Saturday, August 30, 2003
 
Spoiled Rotten

One of the great nuisances of being a scholar is keeping photocopies of your source documents. If a question comes up after you have published something (especially if there is some question about whether you have accurately quoted or represented a work), you want to go back to the originals. If you rely upon documents that are scattered across dozens of libraries, as I do, this means that you need to keep copies of these documents.

I've been doing this for some time now, and so I have accumulated many feet of documents, neatly organized in binders where I can pull them out again on short notice. But I'm already awash in more paper than there's room for, so I have been working for the last few months on scanning these documents in, so that I can burn them to CD-ROM.

Fortunately, I am using an HP LaserJet 4100 MFP. MFP stands for "MultiFunction Printer," and it includes not only a laser printer, but also a scanner and copier. The scanner has an automatic document feeder on it, so I can put in a stack of 30-40 pages, and tell it to scan and email me the documents as a PDF file.

The 4100 MFP expects to send these documents to an SMTP server as an email message. Rather than sending them to the SMTP server on my ISP, I cajoled a nice person who built an SMTP server into modifying it so that it grabbed these incoming files, and stuffed them directly into whatever directory I wanted. If you find that you need any of the tools that he sells, it wouldn't break my heart to hear that you are giving him some business.

In any case, I now have the factory hard at work, sucking vast quantities of early American history in, and storing them in a form that I can burn to CD-ROM.

posted by Clayton at 11:32 PM permalink

 
More Signs of Totalitarianism

Someone isn't going along with the program of smiling like a Stepford Wife and saying, "Yes, we think your sexuality is so cool!"
A lesbian couple alleges that O'Hara Catholic School in Eugene, Ore., refused admission to their 4-year-old daughter because of their sexual orientation. The couple has complained to the Eugene Human Rights Commission and the Oregon Child Care Division. One of the women, Lee Inkmann, said O'Hara principal Dianne Bert told her in mid August that having a family with two mothers at the school would confuse other children and that gay unions are in conflict with Vatican teachings.
The ACLU, of course, is anxious for the chance to tell a private school who they are allowed to refuse:
The city's ordinance prohibits discrimination in housing, employment, city contracting, and public accommodation on the basis of a list of characteristics, including actual or perceived sexual orientation. Whether a private school falls under the mantle of "public accommodation" is open to interpretation, but Dave Fidanque, executive director of the Oregon American Civil Liberties Union, says it should. A Catholic school, he said, "is essentially a business that provides service to the public at large."
One of the big problems with the left is that they refuse to distinguish public from private. This Catholic school is having the arrogance to assert that it is allowed to hold and act on opinions different from the government--and for this, there will be punishment.

A few years back, there was an annual "Women's Music Festival" (which really meant, lesbian music festival). They had a rule prohibiting males over ten years of age from being present. (Apparently, the participants didn't feel comfortable being around men--a perfectly understandable prejudice if, as I suspect, lesbianism is a reaction to child sexual abuse, but completely irrational if women are just "born that way.") This doesn't seem to be just ancient history, either, as these instructions from this year's Michigan Womyn's Music Festival show:
Brother Sun Boys Camp operates from 8am-midnight with a program of outings, crafts, cookouts, music and sports for boys aged five through ten. Located in a mix of forest and meadow, the camp offers a fun, welcoming and secluded area for boys while preserving womyn's space in all other Festival areas. Please respect that all boys five and over, and their families, camp in Brother Sun for the week.
There's no provision for boys over ten, and all the language on the website talks about "womyn" attending and participating--it's pretty clear that men wouldn't be allowed, no matter how supportive. (There are women's music festivals that aren't discriminatory, however.)

Since one of these discriminatory women's music festivals was held in a national park, eventually, questions were raised about sex discrimination, and they had to move to private land. But can you imagine the ACLU filing suit to prevent a "Women's Music Festival" from discriminating against men? OF course not, because the ACLU and friends aren't interested in ending discrimination, they are interested in suppressing disapproving voices about homosexuality.

If you want some laughs--sad laughs, I'm afraid--visit this site, where "transgendered" sorts complain that one of the women's music festivals has adopted a policy of "womyn-born womyn only" for excluding men.

Labels: ,


posted by Clayton at 12:50 PM permalink

 
Iraq As Flypaper For Terrorists

Others have suggested that whether this was an intentional U.S. goal or not, Iraq has turned into a type of flypaper for terrorists: they just come running to have a chance to attack U.S. forces. This AP news story reports something that leftists have been denying for months: a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda:
NAJAF, Iraq (AP) - Iraqi police have arrested four al-Qaida-linked suspects in the bombing of Iraq's holiest Shiite Muslim shrine, a senior police official told The Associated Press on Saturday.

The official, who said the explosion death toll had risen to 107, said the men - two Iraqis and two Saudis - were caught shortly after Friday's car bombing.

The attack killed one of the most important Shiite clerics in Iraq, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, who had been cooperating with the American occupation force.

...

American officials believe militants from Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran are coming to Iraq to attack Western interests. President Bush said earlier this month that more foreign "al-Qaida-type fighters" have moved in.

Last week, a shadowy group that takes its name from the alias of Mohammed Atef, Osama bin Laden's top deputy, claimed responsibility for the U.N. headquarters bombing.

The Abu Hafs el-Masri Brigades - one of three groups to claim responsibility for the attack - made its claim on a Web site, but U.S. officials said they could not authenticate it and it remained unclear if the group exists or has any link to al-Qaida. Atef was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan in November 2001.
UPDATE: The AP now reports at last 19 non-Iraqis, all admitting al-Qaeda association, have been arrested for the bombing. You will notice that they didn't even attack the U.S., but another Muslim.

NAJAF, Iraq (AP) - Police have arrested 19 men - many of them foreigners and all with admitted links to al-Qaida - in the car bombing of the Imam Ali shrine in the holy city of Najaf, a senior Iraqi investigator told The Associated Press on Saturday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said two Iraqis and two Saudis grabbed shortly after the Friday attack gave information leading to the arrest of the others. They include two Kuwaitis and six Palestinians with Jordanian passports. The remainder were Iraqis and Saudis, the official said, without giving a breakdown.

"Initial information shows they (the foreigners) entered the country from Kuwait, Syria and Jordan," the official said.

"All those arrested belong to the Wahhabi sect (of Sunni Islam), and they are all connected to al-Qaida," the official said. Wahhabism is the strict, fundamentalist branch of Sunni Islam from which al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden draws spiritual direction.

posted by Clayton at 12:11 PM permalink

Friday, August 29, 2003
 
Cruelty to Animals

Someone pointed out to me this argument about laws that prohibit cruelty to animals:
If religious and moral views are not an acceptable basis for making laws, then is there any way to outlaw dogfighting, bullfighting, or cockfighting?

There is no injury to another person. If the bull is properly paid for there is no theft of property. Other cultures enjoy the sports so it is not innately repugnant to mankind. Morally, i think inflicting intentional cruelty for sport is wrong. But why would those views be OK if written into law, but not my views on abortion or gay marriage?
The libertarian, of course, wouldn't ban these sort of activities. Liberals, I think, would just argue that animal cruelty really is wrong, while homosexuality isn't.

UPDATE: I have received email from someone asserting that there is a diversity of opinion among libertarians about prohibiting cruelty to animals, with some arguing that animals have rights. If animals have a right not to be tortured, abused, etc., then they certainly have a right not to be killed for food. (Note carefully: a "right" isn't the same as, "Humans pass rules to prohibit abuse because we think it's horrifying to cause unnecessary suffering to an animal." A right is a much, much stronger claim--one that can only be taken away through some sort of individualized judicial process.)

I haven't been involved with the Libertarian Party in a number of years. A lot of LP activists that I met were vegetarians, but none of them was prepared to argue that animals have rights. There were a number of fairly bizarre sorts that were LP activists--although some of this may have been because I was active in the LP in California, a state with lots of bizarre fringe movements--but I don't recall anyone making the animal rights argument. Have things changed that much in libertarian circles? Or is my correspondent misreading the state of libertarian thought on animal rights?

So we get back to the original question: on what basis would a liberal or libertarian ban cruelty to animals, without admitting that it is lawful to pass laws based on, "That's disgusting!" The only theory that makes sense is an animal rights theory--which necessarily requires a ban on eating meat, on hunting, insecticides, flyswatters, mouse traps, etc.

UPDATE 2: My friend Jim March, a libertarian, responds:
There's a lot of good scientific evidence of a link between animal
cruelty leading up to cruelty (or worse) against humans. The link is well enough documented in criminology and psychology that one can
reasonably argue for a ban on animal abuse "just for the hell of it" on public safety grounds. A similar link does not exist for legitimate hunters, butchers and the like...but show me a guy that tortures kittens for fun, and I'll show you a guy that scares me even more than the NAMBLA freaks (and that's saying a lot).
I've seen the same claims about the link between animal cruelty and similar barbarism against humans, and I don't find it hard to believe. Jeffrey Dahmer was molested at about age eight, and shortly thereafter started torturing animals. Unsurprisingly, his sexuality was twisted, and he eventually graduating to torturing, killing and eating guys he picked up in gay bars.

But let's put on the "you're just a bigot" hat that some use to attack my views. "Not every animal sadist escalates to human beings, and it's just bigotry to criminalize everyone that engages in animal sadism." Indeed, I can find descriptions of something called Anti-Social Personality Disorder that seems to fit this model:
Usually males. Criminal behavior. Deceitful. Violates social norms. Poor work behavior. Reckless. Lack of remorse. Promiscuous (>10 partners/yr). Can't diagnose until age 18, but in childhood: bedwetting, setting fires, truancy, conduct disorder, and torturing animals. Blue-collar ASPD fades after age 45. White-collar ASPD worsens with age.
It's apparently in DSM-IV, but I'm sure that with enough lobbying, we can get it removed.

There are a number of similar situations out there where our laws prohibit certain things based on what can only be called bigotry (or common sense). Does every convicted felon misuse a gun? No--but often enough that we still prohibit convicted felons from possessing a gun, and few people would argue the point.

posted by Clayton at 8:17 PM permalink

 
Invisible Hand

I was explaining to my class today about the Enlightenment view of physical law, human law, and how both reflected what thinkers of the time regarded as God's structuring the universe. Certainly, that's how Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776) viewed it, with his denunciation of slavery's inefficiency, because the only labor that the slave gave above and beyond his own subsistence had to be beaten out of him. Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) explained that the Invisible Hand (capitalized in Wealth of Nations) was God; creating a society in which the greatest good for the greatest number came from God having created humans so that free exchange was part of our nature.

I was surprised to find that the phrase "invisible hand" is frequently used in Revolutionary and early Republic documents in this exact same sense, of God's intervention into human affairs. From the diplomatic correspondence of Dumas to Livingstone:
The three ostensible exciters of the Cockade Conspiracy, protected by an invisible hand, have escaped from justice, and fled to Cranenberg, a village in the Duchy of Cleves.
From a letter from a member of the Continental Congress:
Oh Mr. P[resident] that we were wise, that we would but take notice of the precipice along which we are now driving. Oft Sir have we unknowingly in the night & in the day with our eyes wilfully shut rowled upon the extreem verge of this dreadful height-an invisible hand restrained our passing it. May I be permitted to say we have long enough trifled with Providence, trifled with our generous constituents & indulged our private feelings?
From Washington's address to the House of Representatives, May 5, 1789:
We feel with you the strongest obligations to adore the invisible hand which has led the American People through so many difficulties, to cherish a conscious responsibility for the destiny of republican liberty; and to seek the only sure means of preserving and recommending the precious deposits in a system of legislation founded on the principles of an honest policy, and directed by the spirit of a diffusive patriotism.
This phrase to refer to God's intervention in human affairs is still in use as late as 1865.

posted by Clayton at 5:02 PM permalink

 
George Washington on Religion

Those who like to fantasize that Washington was a Deist (in the sense of believing that God does not intefere in the affairs of men) may be disheartened by his First Inaugural Address:
Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe--who presides in the councils of nations--and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States, a government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes: and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success, the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own; nor those of my fellow citizens at large, less than either. No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the affairs of men, more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude, along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking, that there are none, under the influence of which, the proceedings of a new and free government can more auspiciously commence.

posted by Clayton at 4:36 PM permalink

 
Jefferson On the Illuminati Conspiracy

No kidding, Jefferson actually wrote a letter to the Rev. James Madison (cousin of the more famous James Madison, I think) on the subject of the Illuminati conspiracy:
Wishaupt believes that to promote this perfection of the human character was the object of Jesus Christ. That his intention was simply to reinstate natural religion, & by diffusing the light of his morality, to teach us to govern ourselves. His precepts are the love of god & love of our neighbor. And by teaching innocence of conduct, he expected to place men in their natural state of liberty & equality. He says, no one ever laid a surer foundation for liberty than our grand master, Jesus of Nazareth. He believes the Free masons were originally possessed of the true principles & objects of Christianity, & have still preserved some of them by tradition, but much disfigured. The means he proposes to effect this improvement of human nature are "to enlighten men, to correct their morals & inspire them with benevolence. Secure of our success, sais he, we abstain from violent commotions. To have foreseen, the happiness of posterity & to have prepared it by irreproachable means, suffices for our felicity. The tranquility of our consciences is not troubled by the reproach of aiming at the ruin or overthrow of states or thrones."

posted by Clayton at 4:10 PM permalink

 
Thomas Jefferson's Religious Beliefs

Jefferson is often given as an example of one of those freethinking Deists that founded our country. He was, indeed, what would be considered a pretty liberal thinker on religion today. But to those who wish to claim him for a non-Christian, you'll have to argue with Jefferson himself, in this letter he wrote to Benjamin Rush April 21, 1803:
Dear Sir,--In some of the delightful conversations with you, in the evenings of 1798--99, and which served as an anodyne to the afflictions of the crisis through which our country was then laboring, the Christian religion was sometimes our topic; and I then promised you, that one day or other, I would give you my views of it. They are the result of a life of inquiry & reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions. To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; & believing he never claimed any other.
By denying Jesus was the Son of God, Jefferson certainly fits into the more liberal denominations of Christianity today. But remember: Jefferson was among the most liberal of the Founders on the subject of religion.

posted by Clayton at 3:33 PM permalink

 
Well, So Much For the Napoleon Complex Explanation

The guy arrested for this latest viral attack on the Internet doesn't fit the "little guys making up for their shortcomings" theory:
Parson — a physically imposing presence at 6-foot-4 and 320 pounds — told the FBI he built into his version a method for reconnecting to victim computers later, according to court papers. Infected computers automatically registered themselves with Parson's Web site so he could keep track of them.

posted by Clayton at 2:43 PM permalink

 
I Love This! The Answer to Bob's Big Boy!

This sits in front of a Dallas restaurant now.

In case you can't read what it says at the bottom: "America Won." You can read more about how the statute ended up there by going here.

This reminds me of a very, very clever advertising campaign by the afternoon San Francisco paper (the Examiner, I think) in the early 1990s. The caption was, "a lot can change between 9 and 5" and it showed a scene somewhere in Moscow with the famous statute of Lenin exhorting the masses--and then another picture, with Bob's Big Boy in the same place.

posted by Clayton at 11:23 AM permalink

 
Chris Rock Makes a Joke Of It; What Would Dr. King Have Said?

From the Washington Post's coverage of the MTV music video awards show:
Besides Madonna, Spears and Aguilera's bump-and-grind performance, there was 50 Cent's pimp-a-licous performance of "P.I.M.P.," during which he was joined onstage Snoop Dogg, the ubiquitous former pimp Bishop Don Magic Juan, members of his G-Unit posse - and a bevy of half-naked women.

"Today is the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream' speech - isn't it nice to see that his dream has finally come true?" cracked host Chris Rock after their performance.

posted by Clayton at 9:54 AM permalink

Thursday, August 28, 2003
 
Congressional Budget Office Deficit Estimates

There's a lot of screeching about the size of the deficits that Bush is inflicting on the U.S. economy with his tax cut. (Hearing this from Democrats is very rich, after having lived through the 1970s and 1980s.) Yup, CBO is estimating $480 billion next year. But why don't we ever hear about the subsequent year estimates? Buy long-term bonds next year--this looks like a real win, as deficits fall.


Actual 200220032004200520062007200820092010 201120122013
Total Deficit (-) or Surplus-158-401-480-341-225-203-197-170-145-9161211

posted by Clayton at 5:10 PM permalink

 
Maine Carry Permit Arrived in the Mail

So, I now have five permits valid in a total of 29 states.

posted by Clayton at 2:01 PM permalink

 
I Keep A Few Batteries Around the House for Blackouts...

but not batteries like this one.
The rechargable battery, which at 2,000 square metres is bigger than a football pitch and weighs 1,300 tonnes, was manufactured by power components specialist ABB to provide electricity to Fairbanks, Alaska's second-largest city, in the event of a blackout.

Stored in a warehouse near the city, where temperatures plunge to -51 degrees Centigrade in winter, the battery will provide 40 megawatts of power - enough for around 12,000 people - for up to seven minutes.

posted by Clayton at 12:16 PM permalink

 
"They'll Know We Are Christians by Our Love"

If you recognize the title of this lovely hymn, you'll appreciate the disappointing nature of the email that Instapundit received concerning the question of religion and the Constitution. He was a little gullible, but if Christians can't be civil on this, we aren't going to be terribly effective at persuading those who are already skeptical of Christianity.

posted by Clayton at 10:38 AM permalink

 
If You Want To Understand Why Hollywood Is So Fiercely Left...

Read this Washington Post article about Al Franken:
But beginning with his 1996 book "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot," which rocketed to the top of the New York Times bestseller list, Franken has increasingly staked out the angry-man territory on the left.

"I'm extremely lucky," Franken said. "I'm lucky God gave me some gifts. I don't have a formal religion, even though I'm Jewish, but I've been extremely blessed. I have a wife I've been married to for 27 years and two great kids. But the idea that this is all my doing and I don't owe anything to anybody for it. . . . That fuels the anger against people who are wealthy and equally blessed. They believe they don't owe anything to anybody else. They're entitled to their tax cut at a time when people at the bottom are losing Medicaid." And he's off and running again.
The problem is that Al Franken, like a lot of people in the entertainment industry, have become wealthy without having to work all that hard at it (as defined by his hourly wage--the usual standard that the left uses when attacking corporate officer salaries)--and assumes that everyone else who has anything more than the essentials of life must have been similarly fortunate.

I will tell you that I have become more sympathetic to the problems of the poor (at least, those poor people who haven't spent their lives getting loaded instead of getting jobs) as I have become wealthier. I suppose that if I had become wealthy almost overnight, like many in Hollywood, I might feel a bit like Al Franken. Perhaps the most effective way to solve the limousine liberal problem is to scrap copyright law. Without it, the entertainment industry would still make some money--but you wouldn't see actors earning $10,000,000 for making a movie, or musicians traveling about in their personal jets.

UPDATE: Oh yeah, Franken's all upset about dishonesty by conservatives, hence the title for his new book: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. But while gathering material, Franken wrote false letters to, among others, Attorney-General Ashcroft, misrepresenting the nature of the book he was writing. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: hmmm. Sounds like projection by Al Franken.

posted by Clayton at 8:17 AM permalink

 
Arnold's Skeleton is Out of the Closet

Both the Washington Post and the Smoking Gun are covering this. (If you are easily shocked, or don't want even a blacked picture of a naked woman on your monitor, I would visit the Washington Post article.)

You'll recall that I had some remarks a few weeks ago about Arnold's wild 1970s life, although I was unwilling to relate the rumors that I had heard. These accounts are only part of the story.

I'll be curious to see if the Democrats ("I did not have relations with that woman") are prepared to make hypocrites of themselves by fussing and fuming about Arnold's wild sex life in order to win the election.

posted by Clayton at 8:06 AM permalink

Wednesday, August 27, 2003
 
Roy's Rock and the Alabama Constitution

Instapundit thinks that the Alabama Constitution prohibits Roy's Rock also:
That no religion shall be established by law; that no preference shall be given by law to any religious sect, society, denomination, or mode of worship; that no one shall be compelled by law to attend any place of worship; nor to pay any tithes, taxes, or other rate for building or repairing any place of worship, or for maintaining any minister or ministry; that no religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under this state; and that the civil rights, privileges, and capacities of any citizen shall not be in any manner affected by his religious principles.
I don't see where that says anything contrary to Roy's Rock. I think Chief Justice Moore is doing this for political purposes, and I wouldn't have done what he did, but "established by law" has a pretty precise meaning (special privileges, special legal status, special funding).

The "no preference" clause says, "any religious sect, society, denomination, or mode or worship." It's hard to see that the Ten Commandments (shared by hundreds of Christian denominations, and several branches of Judaism) fits that bill, either. If this provision had specified that no particular "religion" would enjoy preference, he might have a case there, but I suspect that an examination of the history of this clause will show why it is narrowed down to the much smaller divisions of "any religious sect, society, denomination, or mode of worship...."

posted by Clayton at 10:36 PM permalink

 
A Really Good Point About Originalism By Prof. Randy Barnett

A really good response by Randy Barnett about originalism:
First, most of the changes to the original meaning of the Constitution to which originalists object have NOT come about by the evolution of the English language. They have come about by systematically ignoring the original clauses altogether. So, for example, courts have excised the 9th Amendment and the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the 14th Amendment. The Privileges or Immunities Clause got "reinterpreted" into nothingness in The Slaughter-House Cases (read the dissents), decided 5 years after its enactment. The English language had not evolved. The 14th Amendment was redacted. The same is true with the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause. The latter clause was misinterpreted by Chief Justice Marshall some 30 years after ratification. (For detailed analysis of its original meaning click here.) The meaning of "commerce" in the Commerce Clause was unchanged up to the 1940's and even then was never officially abandoned. (For the original meaning of the Commerce Clause click here and here.) What happened was the Necessary and Proper Clause got expanded to reach beyond "commerce . . . among the several states." This was not because the contemporary meaning of either "necessary" or "proper" had fortuitously changed in such a way as to justify New Deal legislation.
Worth reading in full, especially because I was just lecturing (boring?) about original intent today in Constitutional History class.

posted by Clayton at 10:33 PM permalink

 
Even Less Intelligent by Email Than His Newspaper Column

I mentioned yesterday a column in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by someone who claimed, "Liberals are where the brains are, and the brains are where liberals are."I was so startled by the many errors of fact that I wrote an email to this self-identified smart liberal person.
It's not often that I get such a wonderful example of bigotry and historical ignorance in such a neat little bundle. My MA is in History; I have five books published. I also teach constitutional history at Boise State University. My areas of specialization include black history and the Civil War. A detailed list of your errors of fact would run on to many pages. Here's a start.
Then I gave him a link to my blog entry about his astonishing ignorance of history, while congratulating himself on how smart liberals are, and how stupid conservatives are.

His response demonstrates that, indeed, he's just another liberal who got rich, and thinks that means he's intelligent. His response (the lines with the >) and my response:
----- Original Message -----
From: "TOPICS Entertainment Information"
To:
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2003 2:45 PM
Subject: FW: just saw your column in the Post-Intelligencer


> I read your response as well as some of your other writings. utter idiocy.
> you obviously miss the point: it was not about specific little points to be
> dissected, but about how folks think, and where the brains are located, and
> it is basically a fact that the smart folks in this country (not folks like
> yourself that spend their lives on micro facts) live in and around the big

Microfacts? You mean subjects upon which you express opinions in the newspaper, without a shred of actual knowledge?

> liberal cites on both coasts. fact bubba. (how's Idaho these days?)

Hmmm. Bubba. Idaho. It's called stereotyping when you do that based on race, but I guess it's a sign of your intelligence and liberalism when you do that based on where someone lives.

Here's the bad news: you would be hard pressed to see any obvious difference between the people that live here, and the people that live in Seattle. I don't recall seeing anyone missing any of their teeth recently; it's illegal to marry your sister her; and yes indeed, we do have running water and indoor plumbing.

Oh yeah, one other sign of what "bubbas" we are in Idaho, as opposed to smart and liberal Washington: our crime rates are a good bit lower.

For 2001, crime rates per 100,000 people:



murderforcible raperobberyaggravated assault
Idaho2.332.218.5190.1
Washington3.043.499.1209.5

Trust me, you don't want me to show you the numbers for some of the other liberal smart people states, like California.

> And, the judge in Alabama should get rid of the 10 commandments in his court
> room.
> GJ

Oh dear. Another one of those "micro facts" that smart people like you don't bother with: they aren't in his courtroom. ("Courtroom" is usually one word, at least in "Bubba land" and other places where they still teach spelling.) But people as smart as you don't have to actually bother getting the facts right to have strong opinions, do you?
I didn't have the heart to tell him that Idaho students did better than the national average on their ACT and SAT scores. (The SAT scores, of course, tend to be somewhat atypical of Idaho students, but not the ACT--required of all our students now.)

posted by Clayton at 7:45 PM permalink

Tuesday, August 26, 2003
 
Instapundit Is Getting Gullible

Instapundit has a whole bunch of quotes about religion and the founding of the United States.
As George Washington noted, "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."
The nice thing about the Library of Congress is that they have the complete set of Washington's papers online, and searchable by word and phrase. You can also search the complete text of the Journals of the Continental Congress, House and Senate journals through 1873, a gobs of other documents here. Guess what? That phrase "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion" doesn't show up in either collection. Sorry, but with the choice of believing the Library of Congress, or someone with a strong antireligious bias (Instapundit's correspondent), I think I'll trust the Library of Congress more.

There's a Franklin quote in Instapundit's blog as well:
Or Franklin, who said "When a religion is good, I conceive that it will support itself; and, when it cannot support itself, and God does not take care to support, so that its professors are obliged to call for the help of the civil power, it is a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."
Look up the quote, however, and you see that it is out of context. Franklin was talking only about the question of state governments paying the salaries of ministers (as Massachusetts was still doing in 1780--and would for another 50 years). Of course, there are some quotes from Franklin about religion and the founding of the American Republic, but I don't expect Instapundit will have the courage to present this one starting here:
In this situation of this assembly, groping, as it were, in the dark, to find political truth, and scarce able to distinguish it when presented to us, how has it happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once thought of humbly applying to the Father of lights to illuminate our understandings? In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time, and, the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth--that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that "except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed, in this political building, no better than the builders of Babel. We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded; and we ourselves shall become a reproach and by-word down to future ages. And, what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom, and leave it to chance, war. and conquest.

I therefore beg leave to move that, henceforth, prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven, and its blessings on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested to officiate in that service.[Elliot's Debates 5:253-4]
Instapundit also quotes one of his readers:
Or maybe it was Jefferson, who said "Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law"?
But this is utterly irrelevant to the Founding of America. The common law was worked out by about 1300, harmonizing regional differences in local law in England, and no one has ever pretended it was Christian at its roots. It was more customary law of the sort common among Germanic peoples.

There's a lot of dishonesty that is at the core of how the atheists try to reimagine America's founding without Christianity. Unfortunately, Instapundit seems to be pretty gullible.

UPDATE: The supposed Washington quote "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion" turns out to be from the Treaty of Tripoli, negotiated by Joel Barlow in an attempt to head off a religious war between the U.S. and the Barbary States, and didn't appear in the U.S. until after John Adams was President. The quote is therefore not from Washington. When you read the rest of the sentence from which this is taken, you can also see how misleading it is to use this quote to advance this claim:
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

posted by Clayton at 9:47 PM permalink

 
SPAM THIS GUY!

054jrjsrv@ronsrapidcity.biz
054jrjsrv@ronsrapidcity.biz
054jrjsrv@ronsrapidcity.biz
054jrjsrv@ronsrapidcity.biz
054jrjsrv@ronsrapidcity.biz
054jrjsrv@ronsrapidcity.biz
054jrjsrv@ronsrapidcity.biz

There, I feel better. This jerk doesn't just spam me "Don't Miss Your Chance for Valiumm and Xanaxx Prozacembedded", but forges the mail headers so that the Errors-to: and Return-to: fields are my email address, which means that I can tell McAfee SpamKiller to reject anything from his email address--but it appears to use the Errors-to: or Return-to: fields.

This isn't the first of these spammers to do this.

There comes a certain point where the pursuit of profit with no concept of morality (with Amazon.com's selling of a book promoting child molestation being one of the starker examples) is so absurd that I can't take the more extreme forms of libertarian ideology very seriously.

posted by Clayton at 8:38 PM permalink

 
Coward!

Professor Volokh admits that his attempt to draw the Hindu/homosexual parallel "brought an avalanche of e-mail, including some pretty sophisticated arguments." But, he's busy getting packed to move to Harvard, writing a law review article, and going to a wedding:
If I were doing serious scholarship on this subject, I would feel obligated to respond to all serious counterarguments in my original draft; and if I sent out a prepublication version and someone raised a new serious counterargument, I would feel obligated to incorporate a response into my piece. That would be just part of the scholarly duties of the job that I'm paid to do.

Unfortunately, when one is blogging as a side project, real work and real life are more likely to get in the way; one can therefore spend only so much time both composing the original post and following up on it. On top of that, many posts tend to get more responses than many law review articles -- which is good, but which further limits the amount of time one can spend on each one. So while I feel bad dropping the argument in the middle, and while I can understand that respondents might feel understandably annoyed when no reaction to their detailed counterarguments are forthcoming, I'm afraid that such abandonment is often inevitable, sad to say.
For those of you who saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the temptation is strong to yell, "Come back and fight like a man!"

posted by Clayton at 3:39 PM permalink

 
Heart Warming Story of a Soldier Coming Home

Description by Lt. Smash of his recent return home from duty liberating Iraq.

posted by Clayton at 3:31 PM permalink

 
Roy's Rock Again

Instapundit is having great fun with this "alternative universe" where a pagan religion is sitting in the Alabama court building. But it's not an alternative universe; it's ancient history. Symmachus and Ambrose, Bishop of Rome, had a similar argument back around the 4th century AD. The debate is quite interesting, and much like the debate today. I first read it in a medieval history book, but you can read it here. The arguments are (except for being reversed) shockingly similar to the arguments used today.

The difference, of course, is that the people of the Roman Empire had largely changed faith by that point to Christianity. Only the intellectuals have made that sea change of faith in America, but the intellectuals aren't going to let that get in their way.

posted by Clayton at 2:33 PM permalink

 
No Wonder My Books Only Sell a Few Thousand Copies

Wrong topic. Regular visitors to my website and blog will know that I disengaged from a mildly lucrative bookselling arrangement with Amazon.com a few months back because they were selling a child molestation advocacy book--and their answers to my queries as to why were reminiscient of the response of a gay politician in San Francisco some years ago, when asked why the NAMBLA Bulliten was for sale in gay bookstores if San Francisco, if NAMBLA wasn't part of the gay movement.

Now, I see that the book is selling ominously well:
Publishers SafeHaven Foundation Press claim the book, by David L Riegel, is aimed at researchers and educators.

...

In the 108-page book, which has sold 150,000 copies, Mr Riegel describes paedophiles as "sincere, concerned, loving human beings" who have probably been born with "a sexual orientation neither understood nor accepted by most others".
It has sold 150,000 copies? There are that many "researchers and educators" out there that needed this book? I think I can see the future--and it's very, very evil.

posted by Clayton at 1:49 PM permalink

 
Misunderstanding the Role of the Ten Commandments in Modern Christian Thought

Professor Volokh makes the assertion that:
My sense is that the overwhelming majority of conservative Christians believe the Ten Commandments are generally binding, and not just on Jews -- which is why there are so many moves to place the Ten Commandments in public places, and extol them as fonts of American law.
There haven't been that many moves to place the Ten Commandments in public places, other than Roy's Rock down there in Montgomery, Alabama; most of this has been an effort to keep copies of the Ten Commandments in public places where they have been for decades.

The Ten Commandments have a symbolic significance that is more important than their actual standing as laws. As an example, few Christians want to criminalize worshipping false gods (and those that do, I suspect, haven't thought this through very carefully); that would make us too much like the left's favorite countries, where the only legitimate idols were the State, Mao, or Stalin. (Read Nien Cheng's Life and Death in Shanghai for an illuminating discussion of how the Red Guards kept using Chinese words associated with religion to describe the Great Helmsman Mao.)

The symbolic signficance of the Ten Commandments is that American law is built at least partly on the Judeo-Christian notions of law. As an example, American concepts of first and second degree murder come out of the Levitical code distinctions, as do some of the laws that prohibit various acts of extramarital sexuality. Even the notion that laws apply equally to everyone in the society, even strangers passing through, was a revolutionary concept when Judaism first broached it. (See Darwin's discussion of the notion of murder, law, and strangers among primitive tribes of South America in The Descent of Man for a reminder of how revolutionary this was.)

Whether you think these Judeo-Christian based laws still make sense or not, they were the structure upon which the U.S. Constitution was constructed, and many Americans correctly recognize that the left's current campaign to remove all visible expressions of that bedrock are an attempt at gutting the ideological origins of American law and society.

Now, I can understand why the left is so interested in doing so. Once these ideas are no longer relevant, the left thinks that one of the big obstacles to the leftist agenda--bestiality, child molestation, same sex marriage--will be out of the way. A defining characteristic of the left is the belief that all culture is plastic; with enough pressure, enough indoctrination, and enough threats, you can suppress any idea that gets in the way of remaking mankind. That's why this entire effort is under way: to shame the majority of Americans who define themselves as Christians into shutting up, so that the depraved monsters can have their way.

Unfortunately, a lot of intelligent people who are libertarians have become so trapped in their beautiful theories that they refuse to see the nature of the intolerant leftist thugs for whom they are the intellectual shock troops. I've had enough experience talking with homosexual activists over the years to see what sort of society they have in mind, and it is not one that tolerates any difference of opinion. You will tell them they are wonderful, marvelous, and absolutely fine the way they are, or you will fined, jailed, or terrorized into silence.

posted by Clayton at 12:14 PM permalink

 
Understanding The Role of Religion in the Era of the Framers

Any sort of originalist understanding of the U.S. Constitution, and therefore its relationship to disputes such as the Ten Commandments in public places and "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, needs to consider what the people of the time believed and understood to be the proper role of religion in the public sphere. From the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780:
A Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Article I. All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.

Art. II. It is the right as well as the duty of all men in society, publicly and at stated seasons, to worship the Supreme Being, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe. And no subject shall be hurt, molested, or restrained, in his person, liberty, or estate, for worshipping God in the manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience, or for his religious profession or sentiments, provided he doth not disturb the public peace or obstruct others in their religious worship.

Art. III. As the happiness of a people and the good order and preservation of civil government essentially depend upon piety, religion, and morality, and as these cannot be generally diffcused through a community but by the institution of the public worship of God and of the public instructions in piety, religion, and morality: Therefore, To promote their happiness and to secure the good order and preservation of their government, the people of this commonwealth have a right to invest their legislature with power to authorize and require, and the legislature shall, from time to time, authorize and require, the several towns, parishes, precincts, and other bodies-politic or religious societies to make suitable provision, at their own expense, for the institution of the public worship of God and for the support and maintenance of public Protestant teachers of piety, religion, and morality in all cases where such provision shall not be made voluntarily.

And the people of this commonwealth have also a right to, and do, invest their legislature with authority to enjoin upon all the subject an attendance upon the instructions of the public teachers aforesaid, at stated times and seasons, if there be any on whose instructions they can conscientiously and conveniently attend.
From the Virginia Constitution of 1776:
SEC. 16. That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other.
I was also pleased to find the following materials at the Library of Congress web site:
The country's first two presidents, George Washington and John Adams, were firm believers in the importance of religion for republican government. As citizens of Virginia and Massachusetts, both were sympathetic to general religious taxes being paid by the citizens of their respective states to the churches of their choice. However both statesmen would have discouraged such a measure at the national level because of its divisiveness. They confined themselves to promoting religion rhetorically, offering frequent testimonials to its importance in building the moral character of American citizens, that, they believed, undergirded public order and successful popular government.
From Washington's Farewell Address:
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
Here's another shocker, because it appears on the Library of Congress website:
It is no exaggeration to say that on Sundays in Washington during the administrations of Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) and of James Madison (1809-1817) the state became the church. Within a year of his inauguration, Jefferson began attending church services in the House of Representatives. Madison followed Jefferson's example, although unlike Jefferson, who rode on horseback to church in the Capitol, Madison came in a coach and four. Worship services in the House--a practice that continued until after the Civil War--were acceptable to Jefferson because they were nondiscriminatory and voluntary. Preachers of every Protestant denomination appeared. (Catholic priests began officiating in 1826.) As early as January 1806 a female evangelist, Dorothy Ripley, delivered a camp meeting-style exhortation in the House to Jefferson, Vice President Aaron Burr, and a "crowded audience." Throughout his administration Jefferson permitted church services in executive branch buildings. The Gospel was also preached in the Supreme Court chambers.

Jefferson's actions may seem surprising because his attitude toward the relation between religion and government is usually thought to have been embodied in his recommendation that there exist "a wall of separation between church and state." In that statement, Jefferson was apparently declaring his opposition, as Madison had done in introducing the Bill of Rights, to a "national" religion. In attending church services on public property, Jefferson and Madison consciously and deliberately were offering symbolic support to religion as a prop for republican government.

posted by Clayton at 9:26 AM permalink

Monday, August 25, 2003
 
First We Learn That Conservatives Are Mentally Disturbed; Now We Learn That They Are Stupid

From a column in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
Is this some kind of conspiracy or is it just a fact that you get many more liberals where the education levels are the highest and where the concentrations of the brains are? Is it a coincidence that most of America's big liberal cities such as Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Boston are also the centers of high tech and the nation's best universities? Even in a conservative state such as Texas, the fastest growing big PC company in the world -- Dell -- is located in Austin, the most liberal, and educated, city in the state. I'm all for open and free discussions on the subject, but from all the anecdotal evidence around, one thing seems to be obvious: Liberals are where the brains are, and the brains are where liberals are.
Oddly enough, I've worked in high-tech companies in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Los Angeles area, and now in Boise. While liberals were certainly dominant among the general population in California, they weren't all that dominant in the high-tech companies, although they weren't rare, either. The nonsense continues:
From a historical perspective, conservatives were the folks who clung to the idea that the Earth was flat. They opposed the end of slavery. They thought it was a bad idea that women be allowed to vote, and more recently, they opposed the end of segregation and the civil rights movement.
Huh? This is news to me. Clung to the idea that the Earth was flat? This hasn't been in dispute for several thousand years. No educated European disputed with Columbus that the world was round; this had been known since classical times. The only dispute was about the size of the Earth (Columbus was wrong).

Opposition to the end of slavery? What this guy knows about subject would fit into a thimble. The division in the U.S. about the end of slavery wasn't a simple dichotomous line, and many of the opponents of slavery in the North were supporters of free markets, limited government, and capitalism--closer to conservatives than modern liberals.

Conservatives opposed the end of segregation? What? Democrats in the South certainly opposed the end of segregation, and many could be called conservative, but conservatives in a lot of parts of the U.S. actively supported the end of governmentally imposed segregation. The rest of this column by Greg James, self-professed smart guy, just goes on and on with this same set of ignorance:
Conservatives generally oppose family planning and are in favor of tightening our borders but have no real answer to a world population that increases by 100 million people per year and who will naturally end up looking for new places to settle.
Oppose family planning? What? I know that the Catholic Church has some objections to any form of unnatural contraception, but Catholics aren't necessarily conservative, and most conservatives aren't Catholics. Oddly enough, most conservatives I know have 2-3 children. Conservatives generally support restrictions on immigration to the U.S.--they want the existing immigration laws enforced. But even on this, there is a bit more diversity within conservatives than this idiot thinks, and even among liberals, there are more than a few who want immigration reduced to protect the environment.

The only thing more sad that than the Seattle Post-Intelligencer thought that this was a good use of a newspaper column, is that this guy is so ignorant of history that he thinks he sounds intelligent. Instead, he sounds like what he probably is: another liberal who has gotten rich, and therefore thinks he must be really, really smart.

posted by Clayton at 10:10 PM permalink

 
Professor Volokh Tries To Compare Homosexuality With Hinduism

It's a clever piece of reasoning, if the primary objection to homosexuality were religious. It's certainly not my primary objection, and I don't think it is of most Americans.

The big problem with Professor Volokh's analogy is that no one really worries that Hindus, because they are Hindu, are going to molest their kids. Part of the reason that people that don't worry about this is that Hindus don't spend a lot of time debating whether child molestation is part of their religion or not. At least among homosexual activists, this seems to be a serious question for debate.

Another difference: Hinduism, whatever its other faults, doesn't seem to be a major source of public health expenses. The same can't be said for male homosexuality, which is a major player in the continuing spread of not just AIDS, but also syphilis.

Yes, there are heterosexual behaviors that represent major public health problems. That's one of the reasons why prostitution is illegal (with many of the current laws dating to World War I, and not because of America's Puritan past).

Can you imagine if smokers demanded anti-discrimination laws to protect them in employment? What if anyone that expressed disapproval of this disgusting habit was called a bigot and prejudiced? Sure, I know a lot of people who smoke are perfectly decent people, and I certainly wouldn't argue for locking them up for their filthy and repulsive habit. (My father was a smoker.) But that's no reason to pretend that there's nothing wrong with it, and that's what homosexuals want: everyone in America to smile stupidly and say, "Yes, what you do is perfectly fine, and it doesn't bother us at all."

posted by Clayton at 5:23 PM permalink

 
What A Disgraceful Health System!

I saw this article on Drudge Report, and I was furious:
A black woman who is to undergo a foot amputation was initially offered a white artificial replacement because they were cheaper, a hospital admitted tonight.... A ... spokeswoman said: "She was originally told she would have to pay more for any other colour, but that has now been resolved."
What a disgraceful health insurance system. Why can't we have a humane and less greedy system, like Britain's National Health Service? Oh. That was Britain's National Health Service.

UPDATE: Here's the original story in the Guardian.

posted by Clayton at 8:47 AM permalink

Sunday, August 24, 2003
 
Alabama Chief Justice Moore--A Wily Old Coot

There are people who think Moore is a fool. I think he knows exactly what he is doing. This is going to be a Pyrrhic victory for the ACLU and similar groups that are pursuing this issue around the country.

The ACLU and similar groups are attacking a symbol at the core of what at least 70% of Americans regard as positive (the Ten Commandments), even if much of that 70% has some problem following more than one or two of them. Chief Justice Moore picked a case that he must know would be the hardest to defend with the current case law on the subject--much harder to defend than many of the similar cases around the country where "historical significance" is tied to the presence of these plaques where they have been for decades. Even going so far as to bring Roy's Rock into the building under cover of darkness, without any discussion with the other justices of the Alabama Supreme Court--that's obviously not going to put him in a strong position in court, and he has to know that.

Moore didn't want to win in court, I am convinced; he wanted the plaintiffs to win, and make himself into a victim (and next U.S. Senator from Alabama), knowing that the overwhelmingly majority of Alabamans would be on Moore's side. (That is, after all, how he got himself elected Chief Justice--by running as the Ten Commandments judge.) The secularists are creating enormous bad publicity for themselves, by attacking a symbol that most Americans defend reflexively.

I'm not comfortable with the somewhat manipulative way that Moore has done this--I don't think it reflects well on our faith--but I can admire the political saavy involved.

UPDATE: Good column over at National Review Online saying much the same thing, with a bit more detail, because the writer knows Justice Moore.

posted by Clayton at 8:24 PM permalink

 
Blogging a Bit Less, Now That The Semester Is Starting

I start teaching tomorrow, so I will be a bit busier than I have been in the past. I've received a number of compliments on the high signal-to-noise ratio, and I suspect that it will improve even more, now that I am too busy to blog the merely entertaining.

posted by Clayton at 8:08 PM permalink

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