President Obama may be in some trouble. For months, the conservative press, led by Fox News, has been hammering at him over Benghazi. This scandal hasn't really gone anywhere, even though it now seems clear that the administration knew that the attacks were motivated by terrorism. Despite, or rather, because of this unfortunate element, the administration simply lied, pinning the blame on the creator of a YouTube video that was--let's go with critical of Islam.
There are two odd elements to the Benghazi affair. First, it should have been clear immediately that an attack which took place on 9/11 just might have some connection with terrorism. Second, who on earth expects their government to tell them the truth? Conservatives should know better.
This is all very cynical of me, but this is probably the right attitude to take towards leviathan at this stage of the republic. Liberals ought to be more concerned with the propensity of their rulers to lie, since they inexplicably put faith in the government. But since politics is little more team sport, well, this is what we get.
Conservatives will point out that if Benghazi was a story prior to the election, it would have hurt the President. Perhaps, but so what? Republicans lost because they appointed a crony capitalist to crow about tax cuts. Romney's inability to appeal to the base had nothing to do with the President.
Anyway, the Obama has now been embroiled in a much more significant scandal. The broad strokes: the IRS was targeting tea party types, treating them much more harshly than progressive groups. And, someone--we don't yet know who--knew about this prior to the election.
This scandal seems much more serious since: 1) everyone hates the IRS; and 2) this is banana republic type stuff. When the government is interpreting the law in a political manner, that's as illegal as it is unethical.
Now, from the perspective of a cynical libertarian, this is reasonable shorthand for how the government works. For instance, see the story about Congress building tanks that the army insists it does not want. Congress isn't about to eliminate any jobs, even if those jobs represent a total waste of resources.
Conservatives like to claim that government shouldn't pick winners and loser, which is true, but it's still what they do every time they award a contract. This targeting of political groups is much more pernicious, though, because it's not necessary. If it turns out that the Obama administration knew about this, things could get very interesting.
Also on the scandal front, the Justice Department sought and obtained phone records of journalists. Given the extent to which the press has carried the president's water, there's a humorous element to this. Still, if the press turns--and this makes it more likely that they will--things will start to go very badly for Obama,
If Congress can kill off Comprehensive Immigration Reform, it looks like lame duck Obama will spend the rest of his term trying to avoid any association with scandals. This will be both amusing and good for the republic. The best we can hope for at this point is to prevent Congress from passing any idiotic bills. This might do the trick nicely.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Tuesday, May 07, 2013
Brooks plays the fool
One problem with the Narrative is that while it keeps the peace, in the short term, by channelling discontent into tired trenches of something that occasionally resembles thought, on the whole, it tends to make us dumb.
Witness David Brooks, house broken "conservative" over at the New York Times. I actually like Brooks, when he remembers to stick with his light but amusing columns concerning the sociology of contemporary America. But here, as Steve Sailer puts it, he "goes beyond self-parody."
The schlock here is almost too thick to stand, but it will nonetheless receive a rebuttal.
First, immigration opponents are effectively trying to restrict the flow of conservatives into this country... In survey after survey, immigrants are found to have more traditional ideas about family structure and community than comparable Americans... Immigrants go into poor neighborhoods and infuse them with traditional values.
Surveys are amazing things, but you know what's even more amazing? Empirical data.
"[U]nmarried immigrants are significantly more likely than unmarried natives to give birth... Hispanic immigrants have seen the largest increase in out-of-wedlock births — from 19 percent of births in 1980 to 42 percent in 2003. This is important because Hispanics account for nearly 60 percent of all births to immigrants."
Oh so close, David.
This notion that lawbreakers from the south are exemplar conservatives is risible, and doesn't square with the electoral data. Sure, Hispanics tend to frown on buggery more than natives, but they still vote for the party of abortion and handouts.
Second, immigration opponents are trying to restrict assimilation.
Why, just think of Los Angeles, where a home crowd eagerly rooted for the U.S. soccer team against visiting Mexico. Wait, that didn't happen? Well, then, it's obviously the fault of those horrible natives for not helping immigrants assimilate.
If this was 1965, Brooks would still be wrong, but at least he would be guessing. We've had almost fifty years of substantial immigration from the third world, and the results aren't pretty. But it's so much easier just to speculate wildly, so we'll stick with that.
Third, immigration opponents are trying to restrict love affairs... an astonishing 26 percent of Hispanics and 28 percent of Asians married outside their groups.
This is certainly a new one. Presumably, without immigration, all of these people would have died alone. Tragic, really.
Fourth, immigration opponents are trying to restrict social mobility. Generation after generation, the children of immigrants are gradually better educated and more affluent than their parents.
Wrong. As the last link above explains:
"In our book “Generations of Exclusion,” we show that the descendants of Mexicans do not experience the steady progress into the third and fourth generations that has been documented for those of European ancestry."
I guess Brooks doesn't read his own paper.
Moreover, American citizens are no longer seeing their own affluence increase from generation to generation. That's just not a high priority, though, what with all these magical people living in the shadows.
Fifth, immigration opponents are trying to restrict skills. Current reform proposals would increase high-skill immigration. Opponents of reform are trying to restrict an infusion of people most likely to start businesses and invent things.
Apparently Mexico is a really stupid country. They keep kicking out these high-skilled entrepreneurs, but lucky for us, we get them all, and they go on to start all these businesses and... wait, they don't?
Actually, while Mexico has its share of problems, sloughing off its unemployed masses to its norther neighbor while refusing to let in any undesirables from the south is pretty good policy. Since it would be racist to implement Mexico's policy, we've really no choice but to send unemployed to Canada. Take that you hosers!
No one wants to restrict entrepreneurs, but it would be asking too much to let in a handful of bright immigrants without taking in millions of unskilled workers.
Our immigration policy makes us really dumb.
Witness David Brooks, house broken "conservative" over at the New York Times. I actually like Brooks, when he remembers to stick with his light but amusing columns concerning the sociology of contemporary America. But here, as Steve Sailer puts it, he "goes beyond self-parody."
The schlock here is almost too thick to stand, but it will nonetheless receive a rebuttal.
First, immigration opponents are effectively trying to restrict the flow of conservatives into this country... In survey after survey, immigrants are found to have more traditional ideas about family structure and community than comparable Americans... Immigrants go into poor neighborhoods and infuse them with traditional values.
Surveys are amazing things, but you know what's even more amazing? Empirical data.
"[U]nmarried immigrants are significantly more likely than unmarried natives to give birth... Hispanic immigrants have seen the largest increase in out-of-wedlock births — from 19 percent of births in 1980 to 42 percent in 2003. This is important because Hispanics account for nearly 60 percent of all births to immigrants."
Oh so close, David.
This notion that lawbreakers from the south are exemplar conservatives is risible, and doesn't square with the electoral data. Sure, Hispanics tend to frown on buggery more than natives, but they still vote for the party of abortion and handouts.
Second, immigration opponents are trying to restrict assimilation.
Why, just think of Los Angeles, where a home crowd eagerly rooted for the U.S. soccer team against visiting Mexico. Wait, that didn't happen? Well, then, it's obviously the fault of those horrible natives for not helping immigrants assimilate.
If this was 1965, Brooks would still be wrong, but at least he would be guessing. We've had almost fifty years of substantial immigration from the third world, and the results aren't pretty. But it's so much easier just to speculate wildly, so we'll stick with that.
Third, immigration opponents are trying to restrict love affairs... an astonishing 26 percent of Hispanics and 28 percent of Asians married outside their groups.
This is certainly a new one. Presumably, without immigration, all of these people would have died alone. Tragic, really.
Fourth, immigration opponents are trying to restrict social mobility. Generation after generation, the children of immigrants are gradually better educated and more affluent than their parents.
Wrong. As the last link above explains:
"In our book “Generations of Exclusion,” we show that the descendants of Mexicans do not experience the steady progress into the third and fourth generations that has been documented for those of European ancestry."
I guess Brooks doesn't read his own paper.
Moreover, American citizens are no longer seeing their own affluence increase from generation to generation. That's just not a high priority, though, what with all these magical people living in the shadows.
Fifth, immigration opponents are trying to restrict skills. Current reform proposals would increase high-skill immigration. Opponents of reform are trying to restrict an infusion of people most likely to start businesses and invent things.
Apparently Mexico is a really stupid country. They keep kicking out these high-skilled entrepreneurs, but lucky for us, we get them all, and they go on to start all these businesses and... wait, they don't?
Actually, while Mexico has its share of problems, sloughing off its unemployed masses to its norther neighbor while refusing to let in any undesirables from the south is pretty good policy. Since it would be racist to implement Mexico's policy, we've really no choice but to send unemployed to Canada. Take that you hosers!
No one wants to restrict entrepreneurs, but it would be asking too much to let in a handful of bright immigrants without taking in millions of unskilled workers.
Our immigration policy makes us really dumb.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Controlling the discourse
One of the ways the media controls the discourse is by pitting two ostensibly opposing sides against each other. Person A, let's call him President Obama, wants to drone strike the daylights out of Pakistan. Person B, let's call him Mitt Romney, agrees, but he would also like to bomb Iran. This is the allowable range of respectable opinion when it comes to foreign policy.
When Ron Paul points out that bombing someone's homeland makes them more likely to hate you, if not take up arms against you, the proper response would be: no doubt. But in the context of our discourse, the sensible point is not examined. After all, the Republicans and the Democrats recognize the wisdom of drone strikes, so only an "extremist" would advocate a position so far outside the mainstream.
Once you recognize that this is how things work, it becomes an amusing exercise to look at other media narratives that help undermine common sense.
Take immigration. The Narrative insists that: "our system is broken." Exactly what that means, is unclear; for the purposes of the debate, it means that the Government must Do Something. Some of the Republicans and the Democrats have thus gotten together to try to pitch a bill to enact "Comprehensive Immigration Reform." This will fix our "broken" system. And since the plan is "comprehensive", it will ensure that the problem is completely solved, forever and ever, amen.
The debate is thus framed in determining whether or not the bill is "comprehensive" enough to "fix the problem." Its authors insist that this is because it will "control the borders" and ensure that "undocumented immigrants"--the implication here being that we are dealing, not with lawbreakers, but some sort of bureaucratic oversight--can come "out from the shadows.
As a brief aside, the reasons for the "bipartisan support" should be clear. The Republicans love immigrants because they work cheaper than Americans, and hence help boost corporate profits. The Democrats love immigrants because they vote for the Democratic Party. One would think that the Republicans might have noticed this, but they don't call it the Stupid Party for nothing.
No one bothers to ask some rather pertinent questions. So here are a few.
1) What has been the effect of the last fifty years of immigration on the native population, that forgotten band of citizens who live here and pay taxes?
One would think that we might be interested in the experiment of the last five decades, but we are much more interested in looking Forward.
2) What is the effect of immigration on wages and employment levels of the native population?
Hint for economists: what happens to the price of a good, in this case, labor, when its supply increases? Wages go down, unemployment goes up, and, well, it's not like we're in the middle of a recession or anything, right?
3) What countries tend to produce better immigrants? Are there certain countries that we should be targeting in our search for immigrants?
This question is totally verboten. All races are exactly the same. And even if some immigrants, say, from Chechnya, cause problems, well, that can be no reason to be a "racist". Racism is very, very bad!
A helpful analogy here is to think of the U.S. as a prestigious university. Harvard lets in the best and brightest. Certainly it pays respect to diversity, at least certain types, but it doesn't let in any riffraff. Instead of defending the brand, like Harvard has done, Kennedy's 1965 immigration act decided that it would be wise for the United States to adopt the admissions policy of The University of Phoenix Online.
4) Don't we already have a guest workers program? Does American need another one?
Regarding the first question, John Derbyshire's counts give him either 12--or 20 such programs. Surely the next one will "fix the problem." And the answer to the second, is, no. We have massive unemployment and stagnant wages. When wages continuously go up in an industry, and when businesses in that industry can't find any American help, then it makes sense to look elsewhere. But not until then.
5) Are there any perks to being an American citizen?
Try not to answer this one. If you're part of the underclass, the elites want to replace you with a wonderful Mexican who will work more cheaply. If you're one of the members of our shrinking middle class, the elites want to replace you with an equally amazing Indian or Chinese person who will work more cheaply.
Perhaps if we had a guest worker program for journalists and politicians, they would start to speak for the suckers who actually live and work in this country.
When Ron Paul points out that bombing someone's homeland makes them more likely to hate you, if not take up arms against you, the proper response would be: no doubt. But in the context of our discourse, the sensible point is not examined. After all, the Republicans and the Democrats recognize the wisdom of drone strikes, so only an "extremist" would advocate a position so far outside the mainstream.
Once you recognize that this is how things work, it becomes an amusing exercise to look at other media narratives that help undermine common sense.
Take immigration. The Narrative insists that: "our system is broken." Exactly what that means, is unclear; for the purposes of the debate, it means that the Government must Do Something. Some of the Republicans and the Democrats have thus gotten together to try to pitch a bill to enact "Comprehensive Immigration Reform." This will fix our "broken" system. And since the plan is "comprehensive", it will ensure that the problem is completely solved, forever and ever, amen.
The debate is thus framed in determining whether or not the bill is "comprehensive" enough to "fix the problem." Its authors insist that this is because it will "control the borders" and ensure that "undocumented immigrants"--the implication here being that we are dealing, not with lawbreakers, but some sort of bureaucratic oversight--can come "out from the shadows.
As a brief aside, the reasons for the "bipartisan support" should be clear. The Republicans love immigrants because they work cheaper than Americans, and hence help boost corporate profits. The Democrats love immigrants because they vote for the Democratic Party. One would think that the Republicans might have noticed this, but they don't call it the Stupid Party for nothing.
No one bothers to ask some rather pertinent questions. So here are a few.
1) What has been the effect of the last fifty years of immigration on the native population, that forgotten band of citizens who live here and pay taxes?
One would think that we might be interested in the experiment of the last five decades, but we are much more interested in looking Forward.
2) What is the effect of immigration on wages and employment levels of the native population?
Hint for economists: what happens to the price of a good, in this case, labor, when its supply increases? Wages go down, unemployment goes up, and, well, it's not like we're in the middle of a recession or anything, right?
3) What countries tend to produce better immigrants? Are there certain countries that we should be targeting in our search for immigrants?
This question is totally verboten. All races are exactly the same. And even if some immigrants, say, from Chechnya, cause problems, well, that can be no reason to be a "racist". Racism is very, very bad!
A helpful analogy here is to think of the U.S. as a prestigious university. Harvard lets in the best and brightest. Certainly it pays respect to diversity, at least certain types, but it doesn't let in any riffraff. Instead of defending the brand, like Harvard has done, Kennedy's 1965 immigration act decided that it would be wise for the United States to adopt the admissions policy of The University of Phoenix Online.
4) Don't we already have a guest workers program? Does American need another one?
Regarding the first question, John Derbyshire's counts give him either 12--or 20 such programs. Surely the next one will "fix the problem." And the answer to the second, is, no. We have massive unemployment and stagnant wages. When wages continuously go up in an industry, and when businesses in that industry can't find any American help, then it makes sense to look elsewhere. But not until then.
5) Are there any perks to being an American citizen?
Try not to answer this one. If you're part of the underclass, the elites want to replace you with a wonderful Mexican who will work more cheaply. If you're one of the members of our shrinking middle class, the elites want to replace you with an equally amazing Indian or Chinese person who will work more cheaply.
Perhaps if we had a guest worker program for journalists and politicians, they would start to speak for the suckers who actually live and work in this country.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Getting Home
G. K. Chesterton once wrote that:
“There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay
there. The other is to walk round the whole world till we come back
to the same place.” In The Little Way of Ruthie Leming, author Rod
Dreher takes the long way home, while his sister, Ruthie, arrives by
the more direct route.
This divergence causes a rift between the siblings, one which isn't fully resolved until the book's final pages. Just as Ruthie was completing her first year leading a classroom as a teacher in their small hometown of St. Francisville, Rod was given a break: an assignment at the Washington Times. Ruthie was distressed, telling their parents: “He's way up there in the big city where we can't help him. What if he gets sick?”
Instead, it was Ruthie who got sick: she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She refused to inquire into the odds of survival; though they were overwhelmingly against her, Ruthie remained upbeat through it all. Her small town, the one Rod had left behind to pursue his dreams, rallied around her. People came from miles away to visit Ruthie, to pray for her, to raise money for her treatment and other family expenses. As an old friend tells Rod, “This is how it's supposed to be. This is what folks are supposed to do for each other.”
It would be difficult to do justice to Rod's tender treatment of his sister's battle with cancer. Suffice it to say that it would take Oscar Wilde's proverbial heart of stone to read this account and not be moved. It is always painful when bad things happen to good people; Ruthie's goodness is so evident that it pains us all the more. Yet despite it all—because of God, because of the way the people of St. Francisville could lean on one another—there is a strange peace, too.
So after a long journey, Rod returns; he and his wife pack up their three kids and move back home. He writes: “My friends and I talked a lot about the fragmentation of the modern family, about the deracinating effects of late capitalism, about mass media and the erosion of localist consciousness, about the consumerization of religions and the leviathan state and every other thing other the sun that undermines our sense of home and permanence.” Yet, “The one thing none of us did was what Ruthie did: stay.”
The Little Way of Ruthie Leming sounds many of the same notes as Charles Murray's recent book, Coming Apart. Through a largely analytical approach, Murray tells the story of small towns like St. Francisville: its best and brightest skip town for the attractions of the city. Murray emphasizes the dark side of small town American, its plight worsened by the flight of so many of its residents. As Rod tells it, his town had its problems, too: “poverty... drunkenness... drugs... meanness, and conformity, and lack of professional opportunity.” But there is something that Murray's statistics fail to capture. In our cities, we may bowl alone, but, in towns like St. Francisville, people come together for one another.
Many of today's books insist that the solution to the problem—whatever it is—involves ten steps, all of which are grandiose and implausible. Instead, Rod admonishes us to “seek reconciliation... and love people”; he recounts how he patched up things with the blogger Andrew Sullivan. There is something else, too. If, like Rod, we have left, we can consider making that journey back home.
UPDATE: Rod has kindly taken an excerpt from my review over at his blog.
This divergence causes a rift between the siblings, one which isn't fully resolved until the book's final pages. Just as Ruthie was completing her first year leading a classroom as a teacher in their small hometown of St. Francisville, Rod was given a break: an assignment at the Washington Times. Ruthie was distressed, telling their parents: “He's way up there in the big city where we can't help him. What if he gets sick?”
Instead, it was Ruthie who got sick: she was diagnosed with lung cancer. She refused to inquire into the odds of survival; though they were overwhelmingly against her, Ruthie remained upbeat through it all. Her small town, the one Rod had left behind to pursue his dreams, rallied around her. People came from miles away to visit Ruthie, to pray for her, to raise money for her treatment and other family expenses. As an old friend tells Rod, “This is how it's supposed to be. This is what folks are supposed to do for each other.”
It would be difficult to do justice to Rod's tender treatment of his sister's battle with cancer. Suffice it to say that it would take Oscar Wilde's proverbial heart of stone to read this account and not be moved. It is always painful when bad things happen to good people; Ruthie's goodness is so evident that it pains us all the more. Yet despite it all—because of God, because of the way the people of St. Francisville could lean on one another—there is a strange peace, too.
So after a long journey, Rod returns; he and his wife pack up their three kids and move back home. He writes: “My friends and I talked a lot about the fragmentation of the modern family, about the deracinating effects of late capitalism, about mass media and the erosion of localist consciousness, about the consumerization of religions and the leviathan state and every other thing other the sun that undermines our sense of home and permanence.” Yet, “The one thing none of us did was what Ruthie did: stay.”
The Little Way of Ruthie Leming sounds many of the same notes as Charles Murray's recent book, Coming Apart. Through a largely analytical approach, Murray tells the story of small towns like St. Francisville: its best and brightest skip town for the attractions of the city. Murray emphasizes the dark side of small town American, its plight worsened by the flight of so many of its residents. As Rod tells it, his town had its problems, too: “poverty... drunkenness... drugs... meanness, and conformity, and lack of professional opportunity.” But there is something that Murray's statistics fail to capture. In our cities, we may bowl alone, but, in towns like St. Francisville, people come together for one another.
Many of today's books insist that the solution to the problem—whatever it is—involves ten steps, all of which are grandiose and implausible. Instead, Rod admonishes us to “seek reconciliation... and love people”; he recounts how he patched up things with the blogger Andrew Sullivan. There is something else, too. If, like Rod, we have left, we can consider making that journey back home.
UPDATE: Rod has kindly taken an excerpt from my review over at his blog.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
The anatomy of a non-story
Although redoubts of conservatism do exist, the media is overwhelmingly leftist. Sometimes, this is merely annoying, but it can be pernicious as well. For instance, while the media occasionally covered Bush's wars, when the reigns of power were handed over to Obama, coverage declined--even as drone strikes increased.
Recently, the right has been incensed over the paucity of coverage in the case of Dr. Kermit Gosnell. For a good write-up, albeit a gruesome one, see here. Gosnell was illegally aborting children past the 24-week barrier set by the State of Pennsylvania, but his murderous run only comprises part of the story. Descriptions of his clinic remind one Upton Sinclair's The Jungle or a Civil War hospital tent.
The story itself is fascinating, although so ghastly that I can readily see why some would be reluctant to cover it. Yet the flippancy of the media toward someone whom Terry Moran rightly describes as "probably the most successful serial killer in the history of the world" deserves a more serious investigation. It's also worth contemplating the reasons such a significant story would be given short shrift. So, in no particular order:
1) Unborn children are seen as far less important than babies. Without a name, and a mother who weeps for her, an unborn child does not lay a claim upon at least the pro-abortion among us. Which leads us to...
2) The line of demarcation that separates a child that can be murdered from one that cannot is very thin, often only a few inches. Given that children born early in the third trimester still often survive, it is, at this stage, only the location of the child that makes murder permissible. Shining a light on late-term abortions might cause us to point out this absurdity.
3) The left views abortion as somewhat embarrassing. Smart people know to use their birth control so that this doesn't happen, but if it does, they take care of it quickly, they don't wait until 28 weeks into pregnancy. I doubt that anyone will be so brash as to insist that the lesson here is that women need to be able to dispose of their children more quickly, but that's not to say that this isn't an angle some in the media would like to take.
4) Given the sanctity of abortion, its practitioners can get away with a lot. One of the lessons of the Gosnell case was that the regulators who are meant to keep abortion "safe"--at least for the mother--failed completely. This house of horrors had been running for years, and people knew about it. But Gosnell was doing Moloch's work, and an investigation into his practice would have been the action of a turncoat. Sure, women died in his clinic, but those lives must be balanced against the great good this man did.
5) There was no grounds for a leftist political program. When children get mowed down in schools, it's horrible, but at least it provides an opportunity to talk about taking away guns. Any takeaway here is bound to be bad for the abortion brand. Everyone knows not all abortionists are like this, so let's just move it along.
6) Gosnell is black. Perpetrators should be white, like Zimmerman, I mean the Duke lacrosse team that (practically) raped that stripper.
7) Gosnell was racist--against blacks and Hispanics. This one really irks the media, because if Gosnell was white, we could work the old racist angle. But that dog won't hunt, even if it's another interesting aspect of this remarkable story.
8) A healthy percentage of the left knows that abortion is wrong, and they know that we know. The parallel in terms of death is Nazi Germany, or perhaps Stalin's gulags, but there's a better example in black slavery, in this sense: just as slavery was indispensable to the south, abortion is indispensable in our society. We're certainly not going to give up our illusions of sexual autonomy, and, although birth control is usually effective, we must be given recourse to abortion--just in case. So you'll have to forgive us if we don't examine the issue too closely. It's too important to do away with.
I actually agree with them in this regard, but if the price for maintaining one's lifestyle is millions of dead babies, that's a price I'm not at all willing to pay. Eventually, we will dispense with our lifestyle, as the south did. For now, we must be content to know that while we're not winning the cultural battle, the case against the evils of abortion becomes easier to make by the day--even if the media remains disinterested in that case.
Recently, the right has been incensed over the paucity of coverage in the case of Dr. Kermit Gosnell. For a good write-up, albeit a gruesome one, see here. Gosnell was illegally aborting children past the 24-week barrier set by the State of Pennsylvania, but his murderous run only comprises part of the story. Descriptions of his clinic remind one Upton Sinclair's The Jungle or a Civil War hospital tent.
The story itself is fascinating, although so ghastly that I can readily see why some would be reluctant to cover it. Yet the flippancy of the media toward someone whom Terry Moran rightly describes as "probably the most successful serial killer in the history of the world" deserves a more serious investigation. It's also worth contemplating the reasons such a significant story would be given short shrift. So, in no particular order:
1) Unborn children are seen as far less important than babies. Without a name, and a mother who weeps for her, an unborn child does not lay a claim upon at least the pro-abortion among us. Which leads us to...
2) The line of demarcation that separates a child that can be murdered from one that cannot is very thin, often only a few inches. Given that children born early in the third trimester still often survive, it is, at this stage, only the location of the child that makes murder permissible. Shining a light on late-term abortions might cause us to point out this absurdity.
3) The left views abortion as somewhat embarrassing. Smart people know to use their birth control so that this doesn't happen, but if it does, they take care of it quickly, they don't wait until 28 weeks into pregnancy. I doubt that anyone will be so brash as to insist that the lesson here is that women need to be able to dispose of their children more quickly, but that's not to say that this isn't an angle some in the media would like to take.
4) Given the sanctity of abortion, its practitioners can get away with a lot. One of the lessons of the Gosnell case was that the regulators who are meant to keep abortion "safe"--at least for the mother--failed completely. This house of horrors had been running for years, and people knew about it. But Gosnell was doing Moloch's work, and an investigation into his practice would have been the action of a turncoat. Sure, women died in his clinic, but those lives must be balanced against the great good this man did.
5) There was no grounds for a leftist political program. When children get mowed down in schools, it's horrible, but at least it provides an opportunity to talk about taking away guns. Any takeaway here is bound to be bad for the abortion brand. Everyone knows not all abortionists are like this, so let's just move it along.
6) Gosnell is black. Perpetrators should be white, like Zimmerman, I mean the Duke lacrosse team that (practically) raped that stripper.
7) Gosnell was racist--against blacks and Hispanics. This one really irks the media, because if Gosnell was white, we could work the old racist angle. But that dog won't hunt, even if it's another interesting aspect of this remarkable story.
8) A healthy percentage of the left knows that abortion is wrong, and they know that we know. The parallel in terms of death is Nazi Germany, or perhaps Stalin's gulags, but there's a better example in black slavery, in this sense: just as slavery was indispensable to the south, abortion is indispensable in our society. We're certainly not going to give up our illusions of sexual autonomy, and, although birth control is usually effective, we must be given recourse to abortion--just in case. So you'll have to forgive us if we don't examine the issue too closely. It's too important to do away with.
I actually agree with them in this regard, but if the price for maintaining one's lifestyle is millions of dead babies, that's a price I'm not at all willing to pay. Eventually, we will dispense with our lifestyle, as the south did. For now, we must be content to know that while we're not winning the cultural battle, the case against the evils of abortion becomes easier to make by the day--even if the media remains disinterested in that case.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Sliding down
In our age of unreason, people are quick to point out what they think to be logical fallacies. But while they can name them, they are seldom so good at identifying them correctly.
For instance, when traditionalists who objected to the silly contradiction known as gay marriage pointed out that this would lead to polygamy, the paragons of progressivism protested that this was a slippery slope. And so it was; the kind that we would, sooner or later, be compelled to slide down.
Marriage, as is understood in sensible eras, is the binding of one man to one woman for life. We have long since abrogated this last condition, as "til death do us part" has become "til one of us has decided we are unhappy." This was lamentable. It was also probably the source of all of our trouble.
Recently, the gays have clamoured for the right to get married. This "right" has been granted in some states; sooner or later it will be granted in all. Which is to say that we have dispensed with the arduous necessity of insisting that a man be married to a woman.
All that remains of this venerable institution, so far as I can see, is that two people, of whatever sex--I mean gender; one must never deign to notice biological reality--are joined together for some indeterminate amount of time.
We wretched conservatives thereupon insisted that the two person requirement was likewise arbitrary and intolerant, and that, therefore, it too would be swept aside. Strictly speaking, this is not polygamy, which actually has a precedent in the annals of human history. It is more of a monstrosity, a twisted triangle of sorts, or, in my own state, a horrid hexagon:
The Legislature’s proposed allowance for up to six adults to claim biological parentage of the same child takes the marriage debate to a new level. No longer will people be asking whether every child has the right to a mom and a dad — or whether same-sex couples can raise children just as well as opposite-sex couples. Now a child can have up to six persons whom the law will recognize as “presumptive biological parents.”
Now, this is not marriage as such, but that is to miss the point. None of this nonsense bears much resemblance to marriage; these pale imitations approach it only, perhaps, by analogy. And while the six "presumptive biological parents" are not entering into a partnership with each other, there is no logical reason why they should be prevented from doing so.
Gay "marriage" could only become a reality in a culture which was hopelessly confused about the subject. In this sense, then, it does not matter: for a nation that seriously contemplates such a thing is already deeply morally confused--at best. The paucity of gays, as I have already pointed out, will ensure that gay marriage remains largely a symbol: a sure sign that those evil reactionaries have been ousted by the progressives.
I only wish they would wipe the smugness off of their faces long enough to properly identify a logical fallacy; or to open a dictionary.
For instance, when traditionalists who objected to the silly contradiction known as gay marriage pointed out that this would lead to polygamy, the paragons of progressivism protested that this was a slippery slope. And so it was; the kind that we would, sooner or later, be compelled to slide down.
Marriage, as is understood in sensible eras, is the binding of one man to one woman for life. We have long since abrogated this last condition, as "til death do us part" has become "til one of us has decided we are unhappy." This was lamentable. It was also probably the source of all of our trouble.
Recently, the gays have clamoured for the right to get married. This "right" has been granted in some states; sooner or later it will be granted in all. Which is to say that we have dispensed with the arduous necessity of insisting that a man be married to a woman.
All that remains of this venerable institution, so far as I can see, is that two people, of whatever sex--I mean gender; one must never deign to notice biological reality--are joined together for some indeterminate amount of time.
We wretched conservatives thereupon insisted that the two person requirement was likewise arbitrary and intolerant, and that, therefore, it too would be swept aside. Strictly speaking, this is not polygamy, which actually has a precedent in the annals of human history. It is more of a monstrosity, a twisted triangle of sorts, or, in my own state, a horrid hexagon:
The Legislature’s proposed allowance for up to six adults to claim biological parentage of the same child takes the marriage debate to a new level. No longer will people be asking whether every child has the right to a mom and a dad — or whether same-sex couples can raise children just as well as opposite-sex couples. Now a child can have up to six persons whom the law will recognize as “presumptive biological parents.”
Now, this is not marriage as such, but that is to miss the point. None of this nonsense bears much resemblance to marriage; these pale imitations approach it only, perhaps, by analogy. And while the six "presumptive biological parents" are not entering into a partnership with each other, there is no logical reason why they should be prevented from doing so.
Gay "marriage" could only become a reality in a culture which was hopelessly confused about the subject. In this sense, then, it does not matter: for a nation that seriously contemplates such a thing is already deeply morally confused--at best. The paucity of gays, as I have already pointed out, will ensure that gay marriage remains largely a symbol: a sure sign that those evil reactionaries have been ousted by the progressives.
I only wish they would wipe the smugness off of their faces long enough to properly identify a logical fallacy; or to open a dictionary.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Missing the point on gay marriage
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world - Yeats
This pretty well sums up the conservative's gloom, at least at the moment. Progressive victories have eroded away much that we esteem. Indeed, at the moment, the Republicans, the closest thing conservatives have by way of representatives, seem to have given up trying to do much besides trying to maintain current tax rates and the military budget. On other issues, they're almost totally useless.
Let's take the issue of gay marriage, both as an illustration of Republican ineffectiveness and anarchy, as per Yeats. The two principle points about gay marriage at this point are that: 1) it is inevitable; and 2) the victory is largely symbolic, given the dearth of homosexuals lining up to tie the knot.
On the first point, gay marriage was made inevitable when marriage was redefined to be exclusively about the happiness of the husband or wife. Happiness here is subjective; we are certainly not talking eudaimonia. So a man may divorce his wife if he can upgrade her with a prettier model; or, what is commoner, a woman can divorce her husband because she is not satisfied--and prefers to eat, pray, love, mostly eat, her way into happiness.
According to this new way of thinking, marriage was solely a contract between two people. This was a mistake, first, because of the disastrous effect divorce can have on children, but also because, even if there aren't any children, the marriage took place in the context of a community. The reason weddings are such grand affairs isn't just so that the bride can have her day. The witnesses consent to the marriage and, implicitly at least, promise to help the married couple keep their promises to one another.
Once this ship had sailed, it's easy to see why gays insisted that they, too, ought to be allowed to marry. It's somewhat amusing to see gays clamouring for the right to be married just as heterosexuals are abandoning the institution en masse. One wonders how long it will be until most marriages are either performed quietly in a small church--or flamboyantly on Bravo.
Anyway, the conservatives lost the case for heterosexual marriage once it became a contractual affair. If we were really concerned for children, divorce, or at least remarriage, ought to have been banned, if not by our State, at least by our churches. This would have been no more effective in the long run, but that is the battlefield on which we should have fought.
As to the second point, there simply aren't enough gays who wish to marry for this to matter all that much. Certainly it matters to homosexuals and their friends and family, but from a societal perspective, the forty percent illegitimacy rate far outweighs a few marrying gays.
I note too, the absence of criticism towards single mothers on behalf of Republicans. Yes, I know, it's very unkind to shame people for anything--except for smoking, perhaps--but raising a child alone is, in most instances, a socially irresponsible thing to do. This is not to say that the children should be aborted, but that adoption should be considered. More importantly, women should be encouraged to be more discerning towards the men they... let's go with date.
As an aside, one might point out that with the illegitimacy rate so high, almost no one can criticize single mothers without running afoul of some acquaintance or family member. This is depressingly true. Once anti-social behaviour becomes so endemic, it become virtually impossible for society to curtail it.
This is all very sexist of me, of course, but since women bear the burden of pregnancy, they will always be the sexual gatekeepers of our species. One can blame men all one likes, but, as the saying goes, why buy a cow if the milk is free? If we cannot depend on women's discretion, we're certainly not going to be able to depend on that of the man. That would be like giving up on building a democracy in Iraq so as to attempt one in Afghanistan.
There are a number of reasons this function hasn't been maintained by women, but that's a separate post entirely.
Instructive here is how strange and uncharitable these arguments sound, partially because of the infrequency with which we hear them, but also because they take for granted that the actions of men and women have ramifications outside of the scope of their temporary union, and that we therefore should judge accordingly.
Yet it is this, and not bigotry, which is the real reason for the disagreement over gay marriage. It is also the conversation we should have been having. It is never too late to start.
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world - Yeats
This pretty well sums up the conservative's gloom, at least at the moment. Progressive victories have eroded away much that we esteem. Indeed, at the moment, the Republicans, the closest thing conservatives have by way of representatives, seem to have given up trying to do much besides trying to maintain current tax rates and the military budget. On other issues, they're almost totally useless.
Let's take the issue of gay marriage, both as an illustration of Republican ineffectiveness and anarchy, as per Yeats. The two principle points about gay marriage at this point are that: 1) it is inevitable; and 2) the victory is largely symbolic, given the dearth of homosexuals lining up to tie the knot.
On the first point, gay marriage was made inevitable when marriage was redefined to be exclusively about the happiness of the husband or wife. Happiness here is subjective; we are certainly not talking eudaimonia. So a man may divorce his wife if he can upgrade her with a prettier model; or, what is commoner, a woman can divorce her husband because she is not satisfied--and prefers to eat, pray, love, mostly eat, her way into happiness.
According to this new way of thinking, marriage was solely a contract between two people. This was a mistake, first, because of the disastrous effect divorce can have on children, but also because, even if there aren't any children, the marriage took place in the context of a community. The reason weddings are such grand affairs isn't just so that the bride can have her day. The witnesses consent to the marriage and, implicitly at least, promise to help the married couple keep their promises to one another.
Once this ship had sailed, it's easy to see why gays insisted that they, too, ought to be allowed to marry. It's somewhat amusing to see gays clamouring for the right to be married just as heterosexuals are abandoning the institution en masse. One wonders how long it will be until most marriages are either performed quietly in a small church--or flamboyantly on Bravo.
Anyway, the conservatives lost the case for heterosexual marriage once it became a contractual affair. If we were really concerned for children, divorce, or at least remarriage, ought to have been banned, if not by our State, at least by our churches. This would have been no more effective in the long run, but that is the battlefield on which we should have fought.
As to the second point, there simply aren't enough gays who wish to marry for this to matter all that much. Certainly it matters to homosexuals and their friends and family, but from a societal perspective, the forty percent illegitimacy rate far outweighs a few marrying gays.
I note too, the absence of criticism towards single mothers on behalf of Republicans. Yes, I know, it's very unkind to shame people for anything--except for smoking, perhaps--but raising a child alone is, in most instances, a socially irresponsible thing to do. This is not to say that the children should be aborted, but that adoption should be considered. More importantly, women should be encouraged to be more discerning towards the men they... let's go with date.
As an aside, one might point out that with the illegitimacy rate so high, almost no one can criticize single mothers without running afoul of some acquaintance or family member. This is depressingly true. Once anti-social behaviour becomes so endemic, it become virtually impossible for society to curtail it.
This is all very sexist of me, of course, but since women bear the burden of pregnancy, they will always be the sexual gatekeepers of our species. One can blame men all one likes, but, as the saying goes, why buy a cow if the milk is free? If we cannot depend on women's discretion, we're certainly not going to be able to depend on that of the man. That would be like giving up on building a democracy in Iraq so as to attempt one in Afghanistan.
There are a number of reasons this function hasn't been maintained by women, but that's a separate post entirely.
Instructive here is how strange and uncharitable these arguments sound, partially because of the infrequency with which we hear them, but also because they take for granted that the actions of men and women have ramifications outside of the scope of their temporary union, and that we therefore should judge accordingly.
Yet it is this, and not bigotry, which is the real reason for the disagreement over gay marriage. It is also the conversation we should have been having. It is never too late to start.
Tuesday, February 05, 2013
Our murderous president
It doesn't seem that long ago that the left was justifiably upset with President George W. Bush, whose toughness on terror meant playing loose with civil liberties. Then President Obama was elected, and since politics is a team sport, we didn't hear much from the left about all those awful things Bush had done because, for the most part, Obama was still doing them.
One noble exception has been Glenn Greenwald, who has done an outstanding job cataloging the bipartisan consensus on violating the civil liberties of the American people. Today's piece is excellent: it concerns a Justice Department memo providing legal justification for Obama's policy of assassinating American citizens using drones. Although he's utilized a similar approach to the Bush administration in running roughshod over American rights, the despicable former president never went this far.
Greenwald highlights six points of emphasis from the memo:
1) "Equating government accusations with guilt": the government asserts that it will only kill terrorists, but the government is the only arbiter to determine if someone is a "terrorist".
2) "Creating a ceiling, not a floor": the government could kill other "terrorists", for other reasons not outlined in the memo.
3) "Relies on the core Bush/Cheney theory of a global battlefield": since "terrorists" could be anywhere, they can be killed anywhere--no matter what other host nations might think about our drone invading their air space.
4) "Expanding the concept of "imminence" beyond recognition": a "terrorist" can be killed even if we have no evidence that he was planning an attack--not that this matters, since all evidence is secret, so every "terrorist" will undoubtedly be in the final stages of planning an attack on U.S. soil.
5) "Converting Obama underlings into objective courts": the justification for these procedures is determined internally by DOJ attorneys; the watchers are watching themselves, don't you worry.
6) "Making a mockery of "due process": these policies apply to citizens, who are being stripped of their fifth amendment rights.
The right is correct that Obama is an awful president, but it's not because he's a Communist; it's because he's taken Bush's horrible policies and expanded them at the expense of our constitutional rights. But on important matters like this, the Republicans and the Democrats agree: if you don't want to be killed in a drone attack, don't be a "terrorist". The U.S. government has never wrongly imprisoned people before, so good citizens have nothing to fear.
One noble exception has been Glenn Greenwald, who has done an outstanding job cataloging the bipartisan consensus on violating the civil liberties of the American people. Today's piece is excellent: it concerns a Justice Department memo providing legal justification for Obama's policy of assassinating American citizens using drones. Although he's utilized a similar approach to the Bush administration in running roughshod over American rights, the despicable former president never went this far.
Greenwald highlights six points of emphasis from the memo:
1) "Equating government accusations with guilt": the government asserts that it will only kill terrorists, but the government is the only arbiter to determine if someone is a "terrorist".
2) "Creating a ceiling, not a floor": the government could kill other "terrorists", for other reasons not outlined in the memo.
3) "Relies on the core Bush/Cheney theory of a global battlefield": since "terrorists" could be anywhere, they can be killed anywhere--no matter what other host nations might think about our drone invading their air space.
4) "Expanding the concept of "imminence" beyond recognition": a "terrorist" can be killed even if we have no evidence that he was planning an attack--not that this matters, since all evidence is secret, so every "terrorist" will undoubtedly be in the final stages of planning an attack on U.S. soil.
5) "Converting Obama underlings into objective courts": the justification for these procedures is determined internally by DOJ attorneys; the watchers are watching themselves, don't you worry.
6) "Making a mockery of "due process": these policies apply to citizens, who are being stripped of their fifth amendment rights.
The right is correct that Obama is an awful president, but it's not because he's a Communist; it's because he's taken Bush's horrible policies and expanded them at the expense of our constitutional rights. But on important matters like this, the Republicans and the Democrats agree: if you don't want to be killed in a drone attack, don't be a "terrorist". The U.S. government has never wrongly imprisoned people before, so good citizens have nothing to fear.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Equality or bust
Sometimes a news story is more noteworthy when it comes and goes without drawing a significant reaction. In a small town, murder is huge news; in Chicago, a single murder is a sign of a good day. This was the case with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's decision to lift the ban on women in combat. Sure, there were some pieces celebrating such an historic step, but on the whole, this incident passed without much notice. The forces of reaction, of which I am a proud member, were mostly silent, as if this formality is just something we will have to accept--which, I suppose, it is.
But that doesn't mean it's a good idea. Sending women into combat isn't just questionable desirable, it's manifestly stupid. Let us count the ways.
1) We've already seen what happens when we place men and women in close quarters. The women get pregnant--or sexually assaulted--and the men fight over the women. The Army's reaction has been to create this helpful website.
It's interesting that while this has been going on for years, our rejoinder is to simply insist that it shouldn't happen, and leave it at that. In the eponymous children's television program, Dora the Explorer tells Swiper: "No swiping." Whereupon, he stops. This is, so far as I can tell, our plan to prevent sexual indiscretions in the military. We must not be saying it loudly enough.
Yes, men shouldn't rape women; but men ought not kill people either. The civilizing force that prevents a man from raping a woman is very similar to that which prevents him from killing a man. But the latter is required in war, and... not without reason are war and rape close companions in the annals of conquest.
It might occur to our utopians that if we can wish away all rape, we can probably do away with war, too.
2) The same things might happen at the hands of enemy forces. If we could get Al-Qaeda to read Jezebel, I'm sure the terrorists would promise to play nice with any women soldiers they happen to capture. On the other hand, if the terrorists rape enough of our soldiers, the feminists who comprise part of Obama's base might stop fantasizing about free birth control long enough to remember that President Peace Prize is still fighting Bush's War on Terror.
3) Standards will be lowered to compensate for the physical discrepancies between male and female soldiers. Oh wait, we already did that. In civilian life, standards are often just convenient ways to weed out undesirable candidates, but in combat, it can be important to be able to carry one's pack, or help lift a wounded soldier to safety. Soon we'll be hearing all sorts of heroic stories about our G.I. Janes. And this time the stories won't be complete fabrications.
One could easily satirize women's ineffectualness in combat, but this would require Oscar Wilde's proverbial heart of stone. It might work better if a female firefighter proved unable to rescue a corpulent cat lady. Okay, so that's not much kinder, but it's certainly more humorous.
Actually, the more practical result, comes courtesy of Steve Sailer:
If more co-ed combat degrades American military performance, it's not like the Axis is going to win WWII, it's that a few more brave Americans will get killed in some inconclusive puttering around in Mali or wherever.
One last point. The reason societies don't allow their women to fight in wars--except in desperate circumstances--isn't just because men are stronger than women; it's because women are more valuable. If you send off your men to die, the women will have to have more children to replace those the tribe has lost. If you send your women off to die, it's very difficult to conjure new family members from the remaining bachelors. Of course, a nation, such as ours, that cannot even be bothered to reproduce at levels sufficient to sustain itself isn't likely to appreciate this point. But I like to think that, somewhere, the ancients are laughing at us.
But that doesn't mean it's a good idea. Sending women into combat isn't just questionable desirable, it's manifestly stupid. Let us count the ways.
1) We've already seen what happens when we place men and women in close quarters. The women get pregnant--or sexually assaulted--and the men fight over the women. The Army's reaction has been to create this helpful website.
It's interesting that while this has been going on for years, our rejoinder is to simply insist that it shouldn't happen, and leave it at that. In the eponymous children's television program, Dora the Explorer tells Swiper: "No swiping." Whereupon, he stops. This is, so far as I can tell, our plan to prevent sexual indiscretions in the military. We must not be saying it loudly enough.
Yes, men shouldn't rape women; but men ought not kill people either. The civilizing force that prevents a man from raping a woman is very similar to that which prevents him from killing a man. But the latter is required in war, and... not without reason are war and rape close companions in the annals of conquest.
It might occur to our utopians that if we can wish away all rape, we can probably do away with war, too.
2) The same things might happen at the hands of enemy forces. If we could get Al-Qaeda to read Jezebel, I'm sure the terrorists would promise to play nice with any women soldiers they happen to capture. On the other hand, if the terrorists rape enough of our soldiers, the feminists who comprise part of Obama's base might stop fantasizing about free birth control long enough to remember that President Peace Prize is still fighting Bush's War on Terror.
3) Standards will be lowered to compensate for the physical discrepancies between male and female soldiers. Oh wait, we already did that. In civilian life, standards are often just convenient ways to weed out undesirable candidates, but in combat, it can be important to be able to carry one's pack, or help lift a wounded soldier to safety. Soon we'll be hearing all sorts of heroic stories about our G.I. Janes. And this time the stories won't be complete fabrications.
One could easily satirize women's ineffectualness in combat, but this would require Oscar Wilde's proverbial heart of stone. It might work better if a female firefighter proved unable to rescue a corpulent cat lady. Okay, so that's not much kinder, but it's certainly more humorous.
Actually, the more practical result, comes courtesy of Steve Sailer:
If more co-ed combat degrades American military performance, it's not like the Axis is going to win WWII, it's that a few more brave Americans will get killed in some inconclusive puttering around in Mali or wherever.
One last point. The reason societies don't allow their women to fight in wars--except in desperate circumstances--isn't just because men are stronger than women; it's because women are more valuable. If you send off your men to die, the women will have to have more children to replace those the tribe has lost. If you send your women off to die, it's very difficult to conjure new family members from the remaining bachelors. Of course, a nation, such as ours, that cannot even be bothered to reproduce at levels sufficient to sustain itself isn't likely to appreciate this point. But I like to think that, somewhere, the ancients are laughing at us.
Monday, January 21, 2013
On not thinking clearly
When we stake out a position on a particular issue, we would like to believe that we are drawn to it by the logic that supports the side on which we come down. This is seldom the case, and not simply because humans can be led against reason by emotion. Instead, it is because the positions we take stem from the values we hold. This sounds tautological, but an example should illustrate what I mean.
Recent debates about gun control aren't really about gun control. No appeal to statistics is likely to move minds because people are really arguing about something else. Nor do the sides even really disagree about the final end: a reduction in violence is sought by all. Disagreement concerns the means by which this end will be acheived. So one side believes government can be trusted to regulate firearms, while the other puts its trust in a well-armed populace.
These positions are ultimately derived from first principles, but, more importantly, within a tradition that tries to examine the ramifications of such principles.
As the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre points out in his excellent book, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?:
It is a Cartesian error, fostered by a misunderstanding of Euclidean geometry, to suppose that first by an initial act of apprehension we can comprehend the full meaning of the premises of a deductive system and then only secondly proceed to enquire what follows from them. In fact it is only insofar as we understand what follows from those premises that we understand the premises themselves. If and as we begin from the premises, our initial apprehension will characteristically be partial and incomplete, increasing as we understand what it is that these premises do and do not entail. pp. 174-5
With this in mind, let's switch topics; instead of gun control, we're going to focus on the existence of God. These discussions tend to be pretty fruitless; with MacIntrye's insight, we can see why this is the case. After defining his terms, a well-informed theist might pull out his Summa and begin to cover Aquinas's fivefold proof for God's existence. This isn't a terrible way to go about it, but it tends to fall short as the rejoinder to a discussion of an unmoved mover is: "Who moved God?" It's not a ridiculous question, but it is rather unhelpful, in that we're thrust back upon the definitions of terms.
The genius of the Summa is not the fivefold proof, but the systematic way in which St. Thomas builds his system. We shouldn't cede ground to the agnostics and atheists and admit that Thomas's proofs are mere formalities, quick jots to move us along to meatier matters. And yet, if we pretend that this is the case, how many other things become apparent? We can't get to God's simplicity if we don't get past His existence, just as we can't get to the Secundae Partis until we finish the Prima Pars; for one part of his masterpiece depends on another, and Thomas is nothing if not thorough. His thought must be evaluated as a whole, which might not require that one read the entirety of the Summa, but it does require that one do more than reject his proofs and move on to something else.
Back to God's existence. If Thomas--and others; I am a dedicated if hopelessly amateur Thomist, but there are other theistic systems of thought, most notably that of St. Augustine--if theistic philosophers have examined the ramifications of there positions, it's far from clear that atheists and agnostics have done the same. Certainly there were philosophers who tried to do so, most famously Kant, who was not an agnostic, but philosophized like one. He rejected tradition in favor of an attempt to concoct a moral system derived from unaided reason. Yet Kant, for all his brilliance, failed, as MacIntyre pointed out:
In moral philosophy the central question which the participants in those debates had hoped to answer was: What are those principles governing action to which no rational human being can deny his or her assent? Hume's appeal to rational consensus concerning the passions, Kant's formulations of the categorical imperative and the principle of utility were all attempts to supply an answer to this question. Yet each one of these answers turned out to be susceptible of rejection by the adherents of rival answers, whose claims to rational justification were as much and as little contestable as those of its opponents. p. 176
Even more frustrating than the cavalier dismissal of theism is the arrogance of many modern atheists. Richard Dawkins is their pope, but he seems just as oblivious to the failure of the Enlightenment. Granted, they do not like what the Church has to say about sex--and here at least Freud may have a point; it is usually about sex--God must not exist. But they have not explains how we shall be moral--or what being moral will entail. It is unlikely that Dawkins will succeed where Kant failed; in fact, as MacIntrye makes clear, it's impossible. But they seem to have simply glanced over this dilemma, blithely confident that we can just take the good parts of an ethical code without all that awful shame over mild indiscretions. Unfortunately for them, that's not how traditions work.
Recent debates about gun control aren't really about gun control. No appeal to statistics is likely to move minds because people are really arguing about something else. Nor do the sides even really disagree about the final end: a reduction in violence is sought by all. Disagreement concerns the means by which this end will be acheived. So one side believes government can be trusted to regulate firearms, while the other puts its trust in a well-armed populace.
These positions are ultimately derived from first principles, but, more importantly, within a tradition that tries to examine the ramifications of such principles.
As the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre points out in his excellent book, Whose Justice? Which Rationality?:
It is a Cartesian error, fostered by a misunderstanding of Euclidean geometry, to suppose that first by an initial act of apprehension we can comprehend the full meaning of the premises of a deductive system and then only secondly proceed to enquire what follows from them. In fact it is only insofar as we understand what follows from those premises that we understand the premises themselves. If and as we begin from the premises, our initial apprehension will characteristically be partial and incomplete, increasing as we understand what it is that these premises do and do not entail. pp. 174-5
With this in mind, let's switch topics; instead of gun control, we're going to focus on the existence of God. These discussions tend to be pretty fruitless; with MacIntrye's insight, we can see why this is the case. After defining his terms, a well-informed theist might pull out his Summa and begin to cover Aquinas's fivefold proof for God's existence. This isn't a terrible way to go about it, but it tends to fall short as the rejoinder to a discussion of an unmoved mover is: "Who moved God?" It's not a ridiculous question, but it is rather unhelpful, in that we're thrust back upon the definitions of terms.
The genius of the Summa is not the fivefold proof, but the systematic way in which St. Thomas builds his system. We shouldn't cede ground to the agnostics and atheists and admit that Thomas's proofs are mere formalities, quick jots to move us along to meatier matters. And yet, if we pretend that this is the case, how many other things become apparent? We can't get to God's simplicity if we don't get past His existence, just as we can't get to the Secundae Partis until we finish the Prima Pars; for one part of his masterpiece depends on another, and Thomas is nothing if not thorough. His thought must be evaluated as a whole, which might not require that one read the entirety of the Summa, but it does require that one do more than reject his proofs and move on to something else.
Back to God's existence. If Thomas--and others; I am a dedicated if hopelessly amateur Thomist, but there are other theistic systems of thought, most notably that of St. Augustine--if theistic philosophers have examined the ramifications of there positions, it's far from clear that atheists and agnostics have done the same. Certainly there were philosophers who tried to do so, most famously Kant, who was not an agnostic, but philosophized like one. He rejected tradition in favor of an attempt to concoct a moral system derived from unaided reason. Yet Kant, for all his brilliance, failed, as MacIntyre pointed out:
In moral philosophy the central question which the participants in those debates had hoped to answer was: What are those principles governing action to which no rational human being can deny his or her assent? Hume's appeal to rational consensus concerning the passions, Kant's formulations of the categorical imperative and the principle of utility were all attempts to supply an answer to this question. Yet each one of these answers turned out to be susceptible of rejection by the adherents of rival answers, whose claims to rational justification were as much and as little contestable as those of its opponents. p. 176
Even more frustrating than the cavalier dismissal of theism is the arrogance of many modern atheists. Richard Dawkins is their pope, but he seems just as oblivious to the failure of the Enlightenment. Granted, they do not like what the Church has to say about sex--and here at least Freud may have a point; it is usually about sex--God must not exist. But they have not explains how we shall be moral--or what being moral will entail. It is unlikely that Dawkins will succeed where Kant failed; in fact, as MacIntrye makes clear, it's impossible. But they seem to have simply glanced over this dilemma, blithely confident that we can just take the good parts of an ethical code without all that awful shame over mild indiscretions. Unfortunately for them, that's not how traditions work.
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