Veritas Forum

If you want to sexually use children and get away with it, work for the UN.

Some good info on out-of-wedlock births in this piece, and on the relation of politics and religion to charitable giving in this piece.

Still, a couple bits of good reading today.

Mark Steyn is, as usual, a delight to read.

Also, Ted Kennedy is a traitor. But you knew that already. And no, I'm not using that term lightly, as do the assorted moonbats (remember when Robert Novak was called such over the nothing that was Plamegate?). Senator Kennedy directly gave aid and comfort to the greatest enemy the United States ever faced, the USSR. He ought to be hung.

No really.

The liberal mind is a funny thing. On the cover of the mag is some actress covering her bare breasts with her hands; inside is a bunch of models trying to made the head to toe Islamofascist garb for women look sexy.

My piece for Celebrate Life makes what seems to me to be a very obvious point: Intellectual honesty demands that pro-choice Catholics either become pro-life or else they should leave the Catholic church.

Two pieces of note in the Washington Post today.

First, a piece on the polygamy movement. A key excerpt: "Valerie and others among the estimated 40,000 men, women and children in polygamous communities are part of a new movement to decriminalize bigamy. Consciously taking tactics from the gay-rights movement, polygamists have reframed their struggle, choosing in interviews to de-emphasize their religious beliefs and focus on their desire to live "in freedom," according to Anne Wilde, director of community relations for Principle Voices, a pro-polygamy group based in Salt Lake."

What? You mean that gay marriage might encourage the legaleization (or at least the normalization) or polygamy? I thought such notions were a "red herring."

There's also a piece about the decline of marriage in France. There's lots of nice spin on it (no mention, for instance, that couples who live together without benefit of clergy are much more likely to separate than married couples). I found this statistic depressing, "Last year, 59 percent of all first-born French children were born to unwed parents, most by choice, not chance. The numbers were not driven by single mothers, teenage mothers or poor mothers, but by couples from all social and economic backgrounds who chose parenthood without marriage vows."

Doomed. Western Civillization is doomed, I tell you.

First, Stanley Kurtz has some good comments about a long New York Times piece yesterday on nontraditional families.
Next, a fellow over at the WaPo's offbeat wonders if beastiality will be acceptable in the future. And for a section that's supposed to be devoted to weird hilarity, he's disturbingly serious. "If we share similar sexual interests with other species, is it possible that some day interspecies relationships may become acceptable behavior? To many, such a radical idea is unconscionable, but let's not forget, 50 years ago it was taboo for a white woman to marry a black man, and 5 years ago it was illegal for a white woman to marry a black woman. Is it possible that 50 years from now it will be okay for a white woman to marry a black bear? Some opponents of same sex marriage have argued that sanctioning certain "moral transgressions" will open the door to others, and given recent history they may be right. But if our evolving morality is a slippery slope, perhaps it's as inevitable as gravity that we will eventually slide down it."
Meanwhile, this belongs in The Onion.

Nicaragua has shown itself to be more civillized than the US, by banning all abortions. And Ortega at least claims to have become Catholic, so his impending presidency won't likely do anything about this.

And since I haven't posted an Islamic outrage for a few days (they've still been happening, I've just neglected to post) here's one for you. "In the showcase “moderate” Islamic state of Indonesia, a Jakarta mosque ended Friday prayers yesterday with a little dramatic skit, featuring Osama bin Laden humiliating George W. Bush"

Milton Friedman died today at the age of 94. Ben Bernanke, former Chair of Princeton’s Economics Department, once remarked, “The worst pitfall in reading Friedman today is to fail to appreciate the originality and even revolutionary character of his ideas in relation to the dominant views at the time.” Before Friedman, Lord John Maynard Keynes’ collectivist notions were considered not just a compelling economic argument, but the only economic argument; Friedman challenged the supremacy of Keynes’ ideas and shattered the collectivist consensus. Freidman’s ideas regarding political and economic freedom have become the dominant force, the ruling paradigm, in public policy. Friedman reframed the debate in terms of economic and political freedom, revamping the nation’s presuppositions regarding public policy and forming a new framework within which economic problems are discussed and solved prompting William F. Buckley, Jr. to call him simply "my hero."

Friedman’s many accomplishments include reviving the monetarist theory of money supply, predicting the “stagflation” of the 1970s, and creating the Chicago School of economics, based at the University of Chicago, where he taught. In 1976, on the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the publication of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, Friedman was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. Since then, twelve members of the economics school at the University of Chicago have followed in his footsteps and been awarded the same honor.

An intellectual of the highest order, he shunned the sometimes totalitarian mindset of the American academy, professing a loyalty to tolerance and freedom. In his seminal work Capitalism and Freedom, Friedman argued that economic freedom and political freedom were inseparable. A champion of limited government, Friedman was a staunch supporter of FIRE, remarking:

Over the course of a long lifetime, I have witnessed a serious decline in tolerance and respect for freedom of speech in the academy. FIRE is currently the most effective force countering that trend. It deserves the support of every believer in a free society.

Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, legal equality, due process, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience—the essential qualities of individual liberty and dignity at the core of FIRE’s mission—are safer today because of the work of Milton Friedman. John Maynard Keynes famously said that we are unconsciously ruled by dead economists. If so, we can consider ourselves lucky as long as Milton Friedman’s ideas rule us.

(A similar tribute appears on FIRE's Torch about him.

The man that William F. Buckley Jr. simply referred to as "My Hero" has passed away at the age of ninety-four.

Can Stephen Harper save Canada? The Nation makes a strong case that he can.

From George Will's column today,

"There should be two Supreme Courts, one to reverse the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, the other to hear all other cases."

It's a few months old, but this piece by George Weigel is excellent.

"Culture War A"--is a sharper form of the
red state/blue state divide in America: a war between the postmodern
forces of moral relativism and the defenders of traditional moral
conviction. The second--"Culture War B"--is the struggle to define the
nature of civil society, the meaning of tolerance and pluralism, and
the limits of multiculturalism in an aging Europe whose
below-replacement-level fertility rates have opened the door to
rapidly growing and assertive Muslim populations.

The aggressors in Culture War A are radical secularists, motivated by
what the legal scholar Joseph Weiler has dubbed "Christophobia."^1
They aim to eliminate the vestiges of Europe's Judeo-Christian culture
from a post-Christian European Union by demanding same-sex marriage in
the name of equality, by restricting free speech in the name of
civility, and by abrogating core aspects of religious freedom in the
name of tolerance. The aggressors in Culture War B are radical and
jihadist Muslims who detest the West, who are determined to impose
Islamic taboos on Western societies by violent protest and other forms
of coercion if necessary, and who see such operations as the first
stage toward the Islamification of Europe--or, in the case of what
they often refer to as al-Andalus, the restoration of the right order
of things, temporarily reversed in 1492 by Ferdinand and Isabella."

Read it all.

"Parents could be forced to go to special classes to learn to sing their children nursery rhymes, a minister said.
Those who fail to read stories or sing to their youngsters threaten their children's future and the state must put them right, Children's Minister Beverley Hughes said.
Their children's well-being is at risk 'unless we act', she declared.
And Mrs Hughes said the state would train a new 'parenting workforce' to ensure parents who fail to do their duty with nursery rhymes are found and 'supported'."

Now, my children will grow up with plenty of music, and lots of books and bedtime stories, etc... But if a nursery rhyme enforcing social worker shows up at my door to check whether the quotas are being met, I'm going to start shooting. Forget banning the import of British beef, its the literal nanny state we should concentrate on containing.

Missouri State University has folded under a lawsuit by my former boss David French, director of the Alliance Defense Fund's Center for Academic Freedom. A professor had required his students in MSU's school of social work to sign a letter to the state legislature supporting homosexuals' right to be foster parents. A Christian student refused and was subjected to two and a half hours of beration because her religious beliefs were supposedly at odds with those of the National Association of Social Workers' code of ethics. Professors asked her invasive questions such as "Do you think homosexuals are sinners?" and "Do you think I'm a sinner?" In order to be allowed to graduate she was required to sign a contract stating that she would conform to the NASW's code of ethics. She refused.

MSU's president suspended the professor of all administrative duties (he was chair of the department) and has commissioned a committee to investigate the School of Social Work. Furthermore, he has agreed to wave the tuition for the plaintiff's graduate studies and agreed to pay legal fees and a lump sum to cover the student's living expenses until she finishes her graduate work. Owch.

It's good to see Christians pushing back. Sometimes we're prone to take abuse from such administrators in the spirit of "turning the other cheek." However, this isn't a matter of taking an insult graciously to be a witness for Christ, it is a matter of asserting one's privileges as an American citizen. Paul was not afraid to assert his Roman citizenship to avert punishment and the stifling of the Gospel (see Acts 28:24-25). This is a wise precedent for American Christians and an admonition to take full advantage of their right to freedom of conscience, to allow their beliefs to shape their opinions and practices.

This began life as a column, but I got too distracted by events (elections...) to finish in a timely manner, so I just patched the end together and have posted it here.

“Oh, we always give our testimony. We always manage to give that somehow, even if it is discredited by the witness....We are the miserable race of poets, of writers, of men who think they have something to say….Far away upon the terraces of Antiquity, the voice of our father Ovid cries aloud for all the poets, his children: Video meliora proboque; deteriora sequor—‘The better things I see and I approve them; but it is the baser that I follow.’”

G.K. Chesterton was a master of many a memorable phrases, and the above passage, from his delightful play, The Surprise, is particularly poignant for we of that “miserable race.” For Christians who preach, instruct, and opine for a living, the gap between the moral standard we proclaim and our behavior ought to be a constant spur to humility. In an inversion of the centurion’s encounter with Christ, it is we, the unworthy, who must speak the Word.

=> Read more!

JC has a good post on sex, marriage, and children (and why they should go together).

Some more information on a old Islamic outrage.

British foreign secretary Margaret Beckett:
"But let us deny the terrorists the historical importance they claim to themselves. They have no right to speak for the great and noble faith of Islam. This is a not a battle between civilisations but a stand-off between the whole of society on the one hand and a fairly small and particularly nasty bunch of murderers and criminals on the others.
In practical terms that means avoiding the temptation to artifically polarise debate.
I've seen it so often in the long-running debate on climate change: wheel out the resident sceptic, however unrepresentative or discredited, to generate tension and voice provocative views in the name of editorial balance.
It makes for more heated exchanges and louder headlines. But it is not the way to build a common consensus on the ground we share. And when it comes to counter-terrorism that is positively dangerous. It buys into the twisted rhetoric of division, so assiduously fostered by those who are the enemies of us all.
So when the next story about relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in this country hits the headlines lets look for other voices than those that represent a tiny minority viewpoint on one side or the other – and offer the microphone to measured, mainstream voices who have the credibility and influence to tackle extremist distortions and offer a genuinely more balanced interpretation of events.
In other words, we should let the extremists bark in the night while we, the vast moderate majority, find a common way to defeat them and the terrorism they espouse.
Ladies and Gentlemen
The extremists talk of a clash of civilisations, of an implacable war between Muslims and non-Muslims.
But there is no such clash, no such war.
There is only the determined struggle of the vast majority of civilised people in the world who want to live, work and prosper together against a few who would drag that world into chaos.
One of the most chilling statements I have ever heard was made by one of the British men responsible for last July’s bombing, Shezhad Tanweer. He was repeating a mantra used many times before by Al Qaeda. He said that those who sent him to his death would be victorious because 'We love death in the same way that you love life'.
No. And that is why the terrorists will lose. Whatever their religion or creed, whatever their colour, the peoples of every country in the world love life with a ferocity that the terrorists will never match."

Where to start, where to start? With her attempt to denigrate terrorists and their supporters by comparing them to people who don't toe the liberal line on global warming?
With the various polls that show a significant minority of British Muslims to be terrorist sympathizers?
Those would be good, but I think the most ridiculous statement has to be the last sentence I quoted. Western Europe clearly doesn't love life enough to pass it on by having children...

First, for a death in the family. Since my main contribution to his life was to annoy my sis-in-law by suggesting the making of hammie-ka-bobs out of him and his kin, I probably shouldn't say much more.

As for the elections: The Republicans deserved to lose; the Democrats didn't deserve to win. America loses.

Your Islamic outrages of the day are here and here.

"Separating anatomy from what it means to be a man or a woman, New York City is moving forward with a plan to let people alter the sex on their birth certificate even if they have not had sex-change surgery."

I have no comment, except to quote Nursey from Blackadder II.

"When you popped out of your mummy's tummykins, everybody shouted 'It's a boy, it's a boy!' But then someone said, 'But it hasn't got a winkle.' And I said, 'Heavens be praised, it's a miracle, a boy without a winkle.' And then Sir Thomas More pointed out that a boy without a winkle is a girl."

This evening I'm giving you two for the price of one, plus throwing in a free suicide of the West story. You can't beat this offer.

First, in Thailand, we're seeing the results of the non-violent coup play out, and they're, well, violent. Islamists are killing Buddhists and Muslims they don't think are Muslim enough. The rise of the new government, whose leader is a Muslim, has the radicals pushing hard.

In India, a mother of four has been driven out of her village because she was raped.

Finally, in Norway, groups are pushing for the use of quotas to increase the number of gay and lesbian clergy in the state church. The Brussels Journal is a little wobbly on understanding Christianity, but they appreciate just how damaging this sort of thing is, and close with a nice line: "Next time God tries to save the world, He had better send His lesbian daughter who does not believe in Him or in her brother."

So a radio host was fired for calling a nutty Green-Rainbow party candidate a "fat lesbian." Well, the lady in question is openly a lesbian, and objectively fat. I'll agree that calling her fat isn't very nice, but it's hardly worth firing someone over. And calling her a lesbian shouldn't even be an insult, right?

CNN is trying to clean this story up, but it can't hide the ugly truth. Hamas terrorists issued a call for women to serve as human shields for them, and they had plenty of ladies (though that term really can't be applied to these barbarians) show up. I feel no sorrow at the news that one of them was shot and killed; she was as much a terrorist as the Hamas thugs she died for.

Related news: here's my Liberty column.

Behold Planned Parenthood's "video game" about Plan B. This is probably the worst I've ever played. I could code something more interesting in Visual Basic using only my nose to type in the code and my tongue to move the mouse. In five minutes or less. This is like having a fat white 50-year-old in a golf outfit trying to make it in the rap scene.
Come on, couldn't they rip off Pac-man and have Mrs. Pac-man (or is that Ms.?) going around eating up birth control pills while Catholic bishops and evangelical pastors take the places of the ghosts trying to catch her? Sure it might be copyright infringement, but it would be marginally entertaining.

"A Saudi court has sentenced a gang rape victim to 90 lashes of the whip because she was alone in a car with a man to whom she was not married."
Also, "A male friend of the rape victim was also sentenced to 90 lashes for being alone with her in the car. The court heard that the victim and her friend were followed by the assailants to their car, kidnapped and taken to a remote farm, where the raping occurred."

This woman was lucky, though. At least she wasn't charged with adultery, which is the usual fate of women who are raped in Muslim nations.

I wrote this column on why pro-lifers in Oregon should vote third party about a month ago for the Liberty; but as the election nears it seems that it won't be published in time. As such, I'm just posting it wherever in case my efforts can do some good. :)

Voting for the Party's Soul:

=> Read more!

A message to John Kerry from our troops in Iraq.

First, Buckley makes all the right points about Webb's novels.

Next, Stanley Kurtz has a good two part series about how gay marriage activists mean to destroy marriage.