World War III

            If I predicted that World War III will begin in the Middle East, I wouldn't be the first. All that's needed is for someone to light the fuse.

            We have war in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have Syria abetting Hezbollah's ascendancy in Lebanon. We have a revolution in Tunisia. Yemen is in turmoil and Libya is shaky. Are Algeria and Morocco next? Or Jordan?

            The recent developments in Egypt are most alarming. If the Islamic Brotherhood takes over in that country, it could block oil deliveries through the Suez Canal. And above it all we have Iran repeating its clear intent to wipe out Israel.

            This raises all sorts of questions for us:

1. If the Islamic Brotherhood closes the Suez Canal, how high would the price of gasoline have to soar before the United States intervenes? With President Obama having encouraged Mubarak's ouster, would he intervene at any price?

2. How far should the United States go to protect Israel in the event of an all-out war in the Middle East?

3. Would we be justified in supporting Israel in a preemptive strike against Iran?

4. Will it take World War III for President Obama to realize that his policy of appeasement doesn't work, that his praise of Islam only invites contempt, and that engagement with the enemy is no substitute for strength in the face of aggression?

The Challenge of Secularism

            While we recognize the restrictions placed on our behavior by the legal system, laws are broken everywhere and every day. Yet, law breakers respect authority, whether it's in the form of a police car, a notice from the IRS, or the judgment of a man in a black robe wielding a gavel.

            On a national level, we have challenges to our form of government that would impact our familiar way of life. We have already seen how a radical move to the Left in the past two years can alter the role of government and repress individual freedoms. Socialism and Communism certainly represent a challenge to our Constitution and our democratic republic. Fortunately, in a Judeo-Christian nation such as ours, an aroused electorate can still rise to such a challenge.

                This brings into question the impact of secularism on our democracy. Does the insistence on freedom from religion necessarily entail a separation not only of church and state, but also from the Judeo-Christian tradition that is the basis of our civilization and the laws that govern us? If there is no divine authority, what prevents us from breaking the links with our Founders' vision and establishing a perfectly secular system of government?

            One might point to the consequences of the French Revolution as an answer to that question. Closer to home, we might also remember how the American Revolution was the result of an experiment in self-government that ultimately rejected the divine right of kings. America proved that authority is not divine if it denies the inalienable God-given rights of man. Communism has been a failure everywhere precisely because it does deny them.

Madness and Depravity

            I watch very little network television. I can't stand laugh tracks or dramas that dish out gore and vice as their regular fare. One program I do watch is Blue Bloods, a show about a family of cops starring Tom Selleck as New York's Police Inspector. It deals with crime, but focuses on family values above all.

            In the episode airing January 19th, Selleck's character said (I think I have it right), "What diminishes most the quality of life is the taking of a life." He was referring to a murdered child, but also to his own son who had been killed in the line of duty. He might just as well have been referring to the massacre in Tucson or to the story in the next day's news about Dr. Kermit Gosnell.

            Gosnell, a Philadelphia abortionist, was arrested, along with nine of his employees, and charged with the murder of one woman and seven babies. The reports said that he had been in the business for over 30 years and specialized in late-term abortions. Babies born alive were killed by snipping their spinal cords with scissors. Although most of his records had been destroyed, it is said Gosnell killed hundreds of living babies in this way.

            You would not want to read the gruesome and barbaric details of this story on a full stomach.

            I am not going to get into the pros and cons of the 2nd Amendment, Roe v. Wade, or capital punishment. I certainly don't have anything to add that will convince the advocates of either side to change their minds. It just seems to me, however, that at the center of all these arguments is the value of life itself.

            Life is the greatest gift of all. We may feel justified in killing in self defense or in defending our country in a just war. But in either case, there is no denying that humanity itself takes the hit. There is something much worse, however, in choosing to take an innocent life. The madness of Loughner and the depravity of Gosnell diminish us all as members of the human race.

            If there is such thing as the wrath of God, He has just been sent an in engraved invitation.

Tucson

            To his credit, President Obama set the right tone in his speech in Tucson when he said, "At a time...when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do, it's important for us to make sure that we are talking to each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds."

            It's too bad the President didn't say that before the Left blamed talk radio and the Tea Party for a lunatic's atrocities in Arizona. When it was proven shortly afterwards that there was absolutely no connection between Loughner and the Right, the accusations should have ended right there with the total embarrassment of the Left for its obscene show of political opportunism.

            Conservatives fought back, of course, even when they didn't have to. Sarah Palin and Michael Savage went so far as to accuse the Left of "blood libel," which I thought was way over the top. But the vitriol didn't end there.

            On the very day that President Obama spoke to the nation, Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald found yet another way to attack the Tea Parties. When Judson Phillips, a Tea Party activist, tried to preempt an attack on the Tea Parties, Pitts saw this as "a certain guilt of conscience, a tacit acknowledgement that political discourse in this country has become a national disgrace, hateful, poisonous and coarse. And...the tea party movement bears a lion's share of the onus for that...If the movement did not cause Saturday's tragedy, it did create the  atmosphere that made such a tragedy feel...inevitable."

            Pitts, who regularly sees every conflict through the prism of racism, misogyny, and homophobia, makes the case for what George Will calls McCarthyism of the Left, devoid of intellectual content, unsupported by data, not an idea but a tactic for avoiding engagement with ideas.

            Let us hope that this most recent tragedy will bring an end to liberalism's response to every tragedy as an indictment of its opponents.  

The Kennedys

            I was disappointed to learn that the A&E Television Network has decided not to show The Kennedys on its History Channel. A&E executives said that the eight-part miniseries planned to air this spring was "unfit for the History brand." I found this very strange for several reasons.

            First, A&E executives have never had a problem with historical fiction as an important medium for storytelling. Otherwise, how could they justify spending millions on The Kennedys, which the producers never claimed was anything but a dramatic interpretation of historical events?

            Second, they admitted that the film was produced and acted with the highest quality, and they commended all the hard work and passion that had gone into the making of the series. So quality apparently wasn't the problem.

            Third, they decided in the end that the content was not historically accurate enough for the network's rigorous standards. Yet, this was after the script was approved by the same executives and after the final version had been vetted by experts and had passed muster with the History Channel's own historians. In addition, no advertisers had registered complaints or concerns with the series.

            What happened?

            Liberal protests. That's what happened.

            From what I can gather, it all started when The New York Times did a front-page story last February that included a sharp attack on the series by Ted Sorenson. The former Kennedy adviser called an early version of the script "vindictive" and "malicious." But even after the script was revised to address Sorenson's objections, the project continued to draw fire from the political left. It didn't want any stark portrayal of Camelot to tarnish the image of their beloved icons.

            In the end A&E caved.

            I've seen the trailer. It looks terrific with Greg Kinnear as JFK, Katie Holmes as Jackie, and Tom Wilkinson as Joe Kennedy.

            I want to see this show. But A&E now says I can't because the Left doesn't want me to.

            Question: Why should A&E defer to the Left in deciding what I should and should not see?

            I hope there's another network out there with the intestinal fortitude to stand up to the Left and to air this series.

            The public should demand it.

Good Advice

(originally published in July 2010)          

            I'm sure that most of us were told at some point in our lives that if something is worth doing it is worth doing well. Good advice. But G.K. Chesterton, the British master of the paradox, turned that aphorism on its ear when he said that if something is worth doing it is worth doing badly. Think about it.

            There are many things we do that have intrinsic value even if they are not done well.  Take sports, for instance. When I was growing up, I loved baseball. I was pretty good at it until I realized I couldn't hit a curveball. But that didn't prevent me from enjoying the game in spite of dashed dreams of stardom. Today my game is golf. I get tremendous satisfaction from being outdoors competing against the course and sharing the companionship of fellow golfers. But my scores hardly suggest that I am flirting with excellence. The same goes for many other endeavors.  I play the piano, but only for myself, because I doubt others would be entertained by my musical prowess. Value can be found in any positive activity, even if it isn't perfect.

            I had an uncle who had been rejected by a girl he loved. He was so devastated by this experience, he became a recluse and shunned all relationships outside his immediate family. Similarly, he lost all his money in the stock market crash of 1929, and as a result, he became a miser. He left a small fortune, but never enjoyed any of it while he was alive. He should have listened to Chesterton.

            I'm a great admirer of Bishop John Shelby Spong. His advice to my uncle would have been "Live  fully, love wastefully, and be all that you can be." I suppose that applies to all of us who can't hit a curveball, shoot par, or play a flawless concerto.

Dump the DOE

            Seven of the eighteen members of the Debt Relief Commission voted against sending the commission's recommendations to Congress for an up or down vote on the full package. Dissenters had their reasons, although no two agreed exactly. I would have voted no, too, not because I oppose debt reduction, but because the recommendations didn't go far enough.

            For example, the absence of any recommendations on Obamacare was glaring, in my opinion, but I understand why the commission didn't want to tackle that turkey.

            The recommended reduction in the size of the federal government, on the other hand, was central to the report, but it was pusillanimous, in my view. Why, for instance, should we limit ourselves to an across-the-board reduction of 10% in the federal workforce of over 2,000,000 people by the year 2020? And only through attrition? Go back to the year 2,000 when the number was 1,778,000 and start cutting from there. Do it now.

            The commission recommended the elimination of only a handful of departments among a long list deserving abolition. Let's take just one, the Department of Education. It was made a cabinet-level department by Jimmy Carter in 1979 against the opposition of Republicans who said the involvement of the federal government in education was unconstitutional and an inappropriate intrusion into local, state, and family affairs. Ronald Reagan tried to eliminate the Department of Education, but a Democratic Congress wouldn't let him. Republicans since then have repeatedly made this part of their platform, but to no avail. It deserves to go.

            The Department of Education has over 4,000 staff members and over 6,000 contract employees. Its current budget is 63.7 billion dollars, not including an additional 96.8 billion in stimulus money at its disposal. To do what? To tell school children what they should have for lunch?

            What clause in our Constitution gives the federal government the authority to dictate to teachers what they should teach in their classrooms?

            What bureaucrat sitting on his glorified duff in Washington has a better understanding of the problems and challenges in Hertford Grammar than the administrators and classroom teachers in that school?

            In my younger days I served on a Board of Education for thirteen years, and I railed against the federal government every time it dangled a bag of money at us with long strings attached. Sadly, the government's intrusion into what should be a local matter is worse now than it ever was.

            Want some real debt reduction? Start with the Department of Education.