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What They've Thought
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What They Thought December 5, 2004 R.A.
Hawkins Click here for columnist bios |
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R.A.
Hawkins I was watching Jon Stewart the other night and he had a very interesting guest. It was a man by the name of Christopher Hitchens. He wrote a book called "Love, Poverty and War." He used to be one of the liberal media darlings right up until 9/11. He parted ways with the left when he endorsed the war Bush is fighting. He describes the war on terrorism quite well. As a matter of fact, he describes it much better than anyone on the left could ever imagine. He describes it the same way as Bush. He describes it as a war within Islam. He was talking about the fact that in Iran you do see a lot of people chanting death to America and all of that. You will also see the kids ranting and raving the same thing as they are in class. But almost all of those kids have an American flag hidden on them somewhere. They like what is happening in Iraq right now. What has happened there has put many of the terrorist and dictatorial regimes on notice that they are no longer allowed to foment hatred and then to sit back and try to look innocent when the people they train go on a rampage. The people in those countries have to be careful what face they show in public however. That is because they do live under the power of dictatorial regimes. The idea of a theocracy is no more palatable to the average Mid-Easterner than it is for us westerners. The Saudi parents in one city got to find out why theocracies are such bad ideas when the girls’ school caught on fire and the girls burnt to death because they couldn’t get to their head coverings. It turned out the religious police wouldn’t allow them to exit the school without the coverings, and rather than save them they closed them in and let them all die. To many of the Mid-Easterners, the morals of the west are a bit lame and they don’t want their daughters raised in our environment. They really want something a little in between. Many of the older people in the Mid-East remember when that place was "the place" to go. It will be again one of these days. That is a long way off, however. Many of the current problems in that region come from the lack of education and jobs. Both of those lacks add up to a bleak future for the young. There is an absence of hope. That alone has made the young willing dupes of the radical Mullahs who, if they really believed what they say they believe, would have blown themselves up years ago. It would have saved us a lot of ammo and lives if they had. This is one book I won’t be taking a pass on. Jon Stewart asked him if he thinks we will win the war on terror. He smiled and said we will most certainly win. But it will take a long time. By the way, that’s exactly what Bush said. In the last election the people remembered that and ignored the leftist media. Bush won a clear mandate. Many say that he didn’t even though they said Clinton had a clear mandate with only forty-six percent of the popular vote. I guess Monica had several "man dates" but that’s as close as the Clinton White House got to one. They praised his invasion of Yugoslavia when there was no real reason to do so unless you count the supposed humanitarian reasons. But since the humanitarian reasons don’t count, are you leftists going to condemn Clinton for his invasion? Hmmmmmm? Iraq was a bigger humanitarian cause than Yugoslavia was. By the way, aren’t you guys against theocracies? Last year when my youngest son was home from Iraq on leave, I asked him what he thought about the people. But I did it in a strange way. I made a comment about how uncivilized and ignorant the people were over there. I didn’t do it that way without a reason, mind you. I was wondering how much he had grown up. Two years before, I would have received an off the cuff sarcastic comment. I’ll leave you with the words of one twenty year-old who is one hell of a lot more mature than the media and most of the leftists: “No, Dad. Those are some really nice people over there. They want us there and are grateful. They just have a few jerks over there mucking it up for everybody else. It’s kind of like living here, only with bombs.” R.A. Hawkins Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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No column this week. Kerry L. Marsala Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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Jonathan David Morris: Supernatural Selection When I was a kid, we would play a game called “Telephone.” Of course, I say “we” as if kids spontaneously sat down and played this game, when, in fact, that was never the case. It was pretty much always imposed upon us by camp counselors. What they’d do was, they’d line up a bunch of kids, side-by-side, and whisper a word or phrase into the first kid’s ear. Then the first kid would whisper it to the second kid, etc., until it reached the kid all the way down at the other end. Then the last kid would say it out loud and it would barely resemble what the counselor had actually said. “What time is it?” became “What lime exhibit?” And so on. Then everyone would giggle and start the game over, repeating the process until one of the kids—often one with an older brother—turned the message into a string of curse words, at which point we’d get up, go to the field, and play kickball, never to speak of what happened again. I’m not sure how Telephone counts as a “game,” exactly. I’ve played games before. Games have winners. Telephone doesn’t. But anyway, I bring this up for a reason—but hold that thought. First, I want to digress and tell you about Dover, Pennsylvania. Dover, Pennsylvania, is a small town south of the state capital, which a few weeks back became the first town in the country to require the teaching of “intelligent design” in high school biology classes. According to the I.D.E.A. Center, intelligent design is a theory suggesting “that life is here as a result of the purposeful action of an intelligent designer,” as opposed to the “blind forces” of Darwinian evolution. So in other words, intelligent design means supernatural selection. It doesn’t stress that the world was whipped together by the God of the Bible, necessarily, but by a god—perhaps the God of the Bible, or perhaps in the case of Dover an omnipotent man named Ben. As you might imagine, this new curriculum requirement is causing a bit of a stir. “The only thing we want to do is provide a balanced playing field for the students,” insists school board member William Buckingham. But Witold Walczak of the Pennsylvania ACLU disagrees. He calls the Dover decision an “attempt to teach religion instead of science.” Eugenie Scott of the National Association for Science Education takes it a step further; she calls intelligent design “creationism in a lab coat.” Now, on the one hand, I can see why intelligent design would make some people—especially scientists—uncomfortable. A lot of time, energy, and money are poured into biological research, and a lot of good things—like enhanced human understanding, or “The Stepford Wives”—come about as a result of it. So if you believe, as many folks do, that evolution and creation are mutually exclusive, then requiring intelligent design in a bio class is sort of like teaching the science of childbirth, followed by the “alternate theory” that babies are dropped off by storks. At that point, it doesn’t really matter if it provides a balanced perspective. It flies in the face of several known facts—not the least of which is the nine-month process we all know goes into having a child. (Also, to my recollection, I’ve never seen a stork in a baby ward. A time or two in the waiting room, yes—but never in the ward.) To that end, intelligent design may seem somewhat disingenuous. While it doesn’t refer to the God of the Bible, necessarily, many of its supporters do believe in said God. That’s why its detractors believe its supporters are being sneaky. They think its supporters are just trying to find a back door to get God into the classroom. Personally, I don’t see the connection; I don’t think a back door is necessary. I mean, even Gumby can walk through walls—Gumby, damn it. And if Gumby can get in a building without our help, surely God can do it, too. But still, we live in a Judeo-Christian country. And in a Judeo-Christian country, even a generic reference to God is more likely to mean the God of the Bible than, say, Zeus. So it’s no wonder some people see this as Creationism Lite. You can’t blame them. It’s an educated guess. But on the other hand, the stork analogy I made a moment ago is incomplete. If intelligent design is creation theory, it’s creation theory through a P.C. filter. It’s like teaching that babies are delivered either by storks or ladies, while swapping out the word “stork” for “some bird” just to make it sound objective. “Which one is it, birds or ladies?” kids will ask. Then they’ll stumble upon the name Lady Bird Johnson one day. They’ll learn that she loved the environment. And then they’ll conclude she was Mother Earth. Where will this get us, I ask you? Soon kids will believe her husband, Lyndon, fathered all of mankind, which I’m sure you’ll agree is mostly untrue. But, by then, it will be too late. The Cult of LBJ will have risen. The damage will be done. All because we didn’t have the balls to tell kids what the hell we were talking about. So maybe the problem with intelligent design isn’t that it’s an unspecific, Trojan Horse-type of introduction to creation theory. Maybe its real flaw is the fact that it isn’t specific enough. Call a stork “a stork” and a robin “a robin,” I mean. And if you’re referring to the God of the Bible, call Him “the God of the Bible”—whatever the setting. Look, I’m not saying we should turn the average biology class into a lesson on theology. It doesn’t need to become a class about religion. There’s plenty enough to learn about religion that it deserves a class all its own. The neat thing about intelligent design is it merely suggests something often thought to be the opposite of what’s taught in the science classroom; then it attempts to back it up through scientific fact. I think that’s pretty cool. If we’re going to teach about the origins of life in public school—indeed, if we’re going to have such a thing as public school to begin with—we ought to be teaching every kind of theory. All of ‘em. Simple and intricate alike. And if we have to name names, let’s name names. The truth will sort itself out. That’s the thing that gets me about the way we teach science. The theory of evolution is just that—a theory. By definition, it’s something that cannot be proven. Yet here we are, treating it like gospel, acting as if it’s absolute fact. I’m not saying there isn’t any merit to the theory of evolution. Things certainly evolve, whether that explains life or not. And I wouldn’t discount the value of science, either. It’s significant stuff. But I fail to see where natural selection has more merit—in a publicly funded setting, no less—than the idea that, maybe, there’s a reason—a higher purpose—for the selections nature makes. Why wouldn’t there be? Because a bunch of guys with Ivy League degrees say so? Well, nine of ten dentists recommend Crest. I like Aquafresh better. And just because nine dentists are on the same page doesn’t make them right. Which brings me back to the game of Telephone. We tend to think people were unsophisticated back in the biblical ages—that they assigned supernatural explanations to natural phenomena, just to cope with their surroundings. The implication here is that science is more accurate than religion, simply because scientific ideas are tested and taken apart over time. But just because science was less developed a few thousand years ago doesn’t mean creation theories are inherently inaccurate. Back then, folks were much closer, time-wise, to the very beginning. It’s entirely possible that the Great Big Camp Counselor in the Sky handed them a sensible message about the origins of life, only to have it muffled and made to seem quaint by the science of passing it down. For all we know, that’s why He doesn’t talk to us directly anymore—we’re too far removed to hear what He’s saying now. Hey, it’s a theory. But I suppose it’s another story for another time. Jonathan David Morris Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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My husband and I were just fuming the other day when we both simultaneously read an article about a principal who would not permit a teacher to use The Declaration of Independence in his classroom because God was mentioned in the document. My husband was so mad that he immediately wrote a piece about the incident, in which he suggested that it was treason to force a teacher to exclude our founding documents from the curriculum. My colleague had an interesting take on the situation, as well. He suggested that if we get our divine right to freedom from God, how can we invalidate God in our Constitution, the document that protects that divine right? Well, I don’t really believe that it was ever intended that we exclude God from our schools or public institutions. What leads me to believe this are first source materials from our founders and framers, that typically read like the following passage from the Dec. 3rd American Minute with Bill Federer. “President Thomas Jefferson, author of the phrase "Separation of church and state," asked Congress to ratify a treaty with the Kaskaskia Indians, which they did this day, December 3, 1803. It stated: "And whereas the greater part of the said tribe have been baptized and received into the Catholic Church, to which they are much attached, the United States will give annually, for seven years, one hundred dollars toward the support of a priest of that religion, who will engage to perform for said tribe the duties of his office, and also to instruct as many of their children as possible, in the rudiments of literature." The treaty, signed by Jefferson, concluded: "The United States will further give the sum of three hundred dollars to assist the said tribe” in creating a church." What I believe is
that the founding fathers, (yes I still think of them as founding fathers),
didn’t want one religion to take precedence over any other belief
system. It was more about making sure that there wasn’t a state
denomination that would create favoritism toward those of one particular
religious persuasion. The ACLU, in some circles sarcastically referred to as the American Communist Lawyers Union, works diligently to tear apart the citizens of our country from our Judeo Christian roots. There goal is to erode the connection between our governing principals and a higher power. They are relentless in their fight to undermine the protections guaranteed in our Constitution under the guise that they are fighting for our individual rights. They are promoting a secular global agenda that could eventually erase our history. Worse than that, our citizens are at risk from the overthrow of our Democratic ideals by an ever widening infiltration of Socialist practices. In the worst scenario, we may not be able to repel a physical invasion by those hostile to our culture and ideals; that will stop at nothing to annihilate us. “So long as our borders are unsecured and our enforcement hamstrung by the ACLU, we are in extreme danger,” said another writing colleague, Jud Cox. According to Joseph Farah, the government is actually funding the ACLU court battles to, “end taxpayer support of religious groups” (as they promote their goal) through a section of the United States Code which, “permits judges to award attorney fees to plaintiffs in civil-rights cases brought against local governments, thereby putting the taxpayers on the hook and oftentimes funneling public money to the ACLU.”In other words, “if the municipality loses, the city's taxpayers are often forced to pay ACLU attorneys.” This would explain why so many of these types of cases are filed by ACLU lawyers. It would not be out of line to say that just about every demographic group is awarded preferential treatment in the public domain, except those of Judeo Christian influence. The ACLU even looks out for pedophiles and defends those waging Jihad against our citizens. The time has come to defend ourselves against those who propagate the notion that the separation of church and state is in the Constitution. It’s time to call into question the practice of citing precedents, drawn from precedents, drawn from precedents, when court justices make decisions about something as serious as the majority belief system and instead, they should be required to formulate a decision based on the original intent of those who drafted our system of government. The idea of the document was to protect our freedoms –freedom to worship where and when we please. To erase the existence of religious symbols and ideas in a public institution, based on the separation of church and state (words that don’t exist in the Constitution), is a lot like playing telephone and believing that what the person at the end of the line heard even remotely resembled the original statement. Telephone is a child’s game. This is an adult matter, of our very existence –as we know it. Our Constitution isn’t a fairy tale, subject to the revision of who is telling it. It is the guarantor of our liberty and should be revered as such! Pull plug on ACLU 'Never Give Up!'
- An Exclusive Interview With Mae and Martin Duggan Nancy Salvato Web Site Contact Back to Top |
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"The general theme of it's-not-a-matter-of-if-but-when is legitimate." Tom Ridge Is Ivan the Terrible now leading the bureaucracy or is Tom Ridge a modern day Rasputin to a failed imperial house? This cenobite is faithful to the regime, but will his efforts bring salvation? More likely he will lay an egg, and not one of a design that would make Fabergé proud. His methods may be subtle compared to the Romanov dynasty, but his office may have more lives than the mad monk. In the end, the results of Homeland Security will copy the Stalinist model, one that would bring cheer to the legacy of that other despot, Churchill. A man’s substance can often be measured when he speaks to his own crowd. During a Town Hall Meeting for Future Employees of the Department of Homeland Security, Governor Tom Ridge, made the following remarks:
The 1984 Stafford
Disaster Relief Act authorizes the president, after proclaiming
a state of emergency, to send active-duty soldiers to respond to a crisis
and serve under the direction of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
In that fine custom of Executive Orders our legitimate heritage is replaced
with fiat decisions for a very simple reason - DICTATORSHIP IS MORE
EFFICIENT THAN "DEMOCRACY"
FEMA has been the primary apparatus structure that would administer the martial law society, dating back from the Reagan era. You have been told that FEMA has as its main role disaster response, but it is also responsible for handling US domestic unrest. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, has long been accepted as prohibiting deployments of army troops for domestic strife. Now, Ridge has just advocated a review of US law regarding the use of the military for law enforcement duties. Looks like the Stafford Act didn’t go far enough for Czar Thomas! Do you remember the history of Ivan’s later years? His mental illness and fear of challenges to his reign turned justice into barbarity, and his religion into a foolish fanatic observance. Suspicious of his nobles and ministers, Ivan set up a secret police force. The force was made up of 6,000 men who dressed in black and rode black horses. Their job was to kill anyone who opposed Ivan’s policies. In the wake of 911 Ridge gets advise from Ashton B. Carter, professor of science and international affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government:
Counsel that proclaims A Neo-Cold War on Terror, that fails to critize and reverse the empire interventionism of U.S. Foreign Policy, resembles the expansionist aspirations of Ivan, and will surely end up with a ‘Terrible’ madness. Consider the Atlantic essay by David Carr - The Futility of "Homeland Defense" .
Since the entire premise for justification of Homeland Defense is based upon public safety, won’t it be in the national interest to establish policies that will lesson the reasons that direct hatred towards America? This country seems incapable of applying the lessons, hard learned from past failed policies. The "War on Drugs" has seen many czars. How well have they done? Eric E. Sterling, of The Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, states: What the war on drugs tells us, "is that people motivated by the most elementary of capitalist motives are constantly testing and finding ways to get in. Terrorists are as motivated as the most avaricious drug importer, if not more—and they are not going to be deterred by whatever barriers are put up." The notion that a pro-active indiscriminate offense will destroy foreign threats is as absurd as the paranoia of Ivan the Terrible, which caused the murders of so many of his innocent countrymen. Do we Americans really want to turn our country into a duplication of the horror that is fortress Israel? Might support for their current political regime have more to do with our hysteria? The entire premise that the major peril to our country is foreign is ludicrous. The adverse consequences of Homeland Defense are real; while the risk to national survival are slim, often imaginary, and sometimes contrived. OUR true terror is one derived from domestic czars, federal bureaucracies and insane emperors - as they make war on their own people. Their only defense is that of their bankrupt policies and their own seats of power. Tom Ridge will leave, but the position of ‘Homeland Czar’ will become embedded into the fabric of our society. He severs the "House of Bush" making plans to use Tsarist troops to subjugate dissent in the name of preserving and widening the reach of the dynasty. His Oprichnina secret police state will use FEMA to herd citizens, when the next manufactured crisis provides the excuse to trigger the Stafford Act. Ridge is no mystic like Rasputin, but his office will follow the excesses of that cleric. The Governor, when given the opportunity, will act like a czar. The role of director of Homeland Security will give unprecedented power over federal agencies. If dictatorship is more efficient than "Democracy", we will experience rule under Ivan. Stalin admired him, the rest of Europe believed he was mad. What is certain is that he was one of the most ruthless tyrants in history. Before Ivan died he claimed the name of Jonah the monk. The paragon of Ridge will be our modern day Jonah. We may well long for the return of Rasputin, when the Department of Homeland Security applies its directives. How easy it has been to sell most Americans on the surrender of their rights, because of a fabricated phantom menace. "Tommy the Terrible" closed his comments to the town hall meeting with this: "Abraham Lincoln said at one time, at his second inaugural, when he told us that "the occasion was piled high with difficulty." But it was under those circumstances that he asked America to think and to act anew. "History will not escape us," said Lincoln." God help the Republic . . .
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