Camera of Truth

Pornography and Children

2007-03-08T08:16:00.000-08:00

MSNBC recently reported that “[f]orty-two percent of Internet users aged 10 to 17 surveyed said they had seen online pornography in the past year. Of those, 66 percent said they did not want to view the images and had not sought them out...”[1]

University of Alberta researcher Sonya Thompson found that, in a similar study, “…almost one-quarter of the boys watched pornographic DVDs or videos ‘too many times to count’ and 35 percent said the same about Internet smut.”[2]

Now, a Christian social conservative like me naturally finds these statistics troubling, but to many there is nothing wrong with pornography or masturbation. They consider such things to be simply part of the “sexual exploration” that children go through as they mature. Though many who oppose pornography say that it denigrates women and is responsible for much of the sexual violence against women, these arguments are often scoffed at or brushed aside as groundless by those who find pornography harmless. Regardless, pornography is readily available to children and causes them to think about sex, or even partake in it, at a time when they are emotionally and physically immature, robbing them of their childhood.

Lynn Segal, professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of London, categorized views on pornography in three different ways: Liberal, Moral Right and Feminist (though the feminist view has many factions). In a 1990 article in the Feminist Review entitled “Pornography and Violence: What the ‘Experts’ Really Say”, Segal summarizes each view: the Liberal “…argues that there is no scientific evidence for pornography causing harm in society, and therefore no sound reason for banning it.”[3] The Moral Right “…sees pornography as a threat to traditional family values, arguing that sex exists for procreation and should be confined to marriage.”[4] And the Feminist view disapproves of pornography “[i]n its heterosexual versions, reducing women to flesh—or bits of flesh—[since] it celebrates the idea of men’s insatiable appetite and women’s ubiquitous sexual availability.”[5]

The Liberal view prevails in our current culture, and yet I am more inclined to side with the Moral Right (though I would throw the word “enjoyment” in alongside with “procreation”). The aforementioned feminist view troubles Segal, herself a feminist, and she “…fear[s] that the evolving exploration by women of their own sexuality is put at risk by forming alliances with—instead of combating—the conservative anti-pornography crusade…”[6]

I think that the more important issue is whether or not pornography really does have a negative effect on the viewer, especially the child viewer. If it does, then the Liberal view is invalidated, and the Feminist view should be altered to accommodate all pornography, not just that which makes women appear submissive.

In a 1988 study reported in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers Donnerstein, Linz and Penrod[7] concluded, in Segal’s own words, “…that exposure to violent pornography (for example, depictions of rape) does increase sexual arousal in some men, especially if the victim is shown as ‘enjoying’ the rape.”

A good portion of pornography on the Internet has advanced from relatively tame Playboy centerfolds to more of the shocking and perverse stuff. Since many are no longer excited by bare skin alone, pornography has become increasingly more explicit and taboo, and rape is now a common fantasy realized in pornography—especially Japanese pornography.

“Within Japan itself, the dramatic increase in available pornography and sexually explicit materials is apparent to even a casual observer,” wrote Professor Milton Diamond of the University of Hawaii in 1999 in the International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. “The [pornography] produced caters to every taste and fetish and is typically much more aggressive and violent than that seen in the United States.”[8] Much of Japanese pornography makes its way onto the Internet, and the sheer amount that is dedicated to the genre of rape is certainly disturbing. “Most charges of obscenity presently are related to depictions of group or violent rape,” said Diamond, “or realistic and graphic film or video depictions of sexual behaviors considered deviant and dangerous…”

So when we hear that children have easy access to pornography while online, we would be naïve to think that they do not come into contact with the shocking and violent kind that permeates cyberspace. In an interview with MSNBC, University of Chicago psychiatrist Sharon Hirsch says, “[Children are] seeing things that they’re really not emotionally prepared to see yet, which can cause trauma to them.”

I would argue that children are not emotionally prepared to see any sort of sexual activity, not just the violent kind, which obviously places me in the camp of the Moral Right. Few will be surprised that I believe sex should exist between a husband and wife, not on the Internet, in magazines, or in the classroom. This is not to say, of course, that children should not receive sexual education.

So no, pornography is not harmless—it robs children of innocence. It’s probably not that great for the rest of us, either.

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[1] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16981028/
[2] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17284408/
[3] http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0141-7789%28199023%290%3A36%3C29%3APAVWT%27%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U
[4] http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0141-7789%28199023%290%3A36%3C29%3APAVWT%27%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U
[5] http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0141-7789%28199023%290%3A36%3C29%3APAVWT%27%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U
[6] http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0141-7789%28199023%290%3A36%3C29%3APAVWT%27%3E2.0.CO%3B2-U
[7] http://www.freespeechcoalition.com/dan_linz.htm
[8] http://www.hawaii.edu/PCSS/online_artcls/pornography/prngrphy_rape_jp.html

There is No Marriage Inequality

2007-02-28T19:32:00.000-08:00

The Daily elected not to run this article in their paper. I decided to put it here for those who are interested.

The issue of homosexual marriage seems to inavoidably spiral around children. Take Mary Cheney, for instance. She has become pregnant, and she and her life mate Heather Poe will raise the child together as a lesbian couple. Leonard Pitts Jr., syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald and no conservative, dissaproves of this.

“…[F]athers matter,” he wrote, “something we seem to have forgotten, so busy we are pretending that women and men are interchangable. My problem with Cheney and Poe is the same problem I’d have wth a heterosexual single mom who decided to make herself a baby without benefit of a man in her life.”[1]

For this stance, Pitts was raked over the coals by readers. He was so inundated by hate mail that he felt it necessary to explain his position in an additional column in which he defended his position saying, “I believe that our slide towards a fatherless society, a society where the male parent is considered optional, irrelevant or interchangable, is toxic for our children.”[2]

Pitts’ stance is not outrageous. It is clear that it is best for a child to be raised, not by two mommies or two daddies, but by a mother and a father. In a paper by George A. Rekers, Professor of Neuropsychiatry & Behavioral Science at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, he concludes that the nature of households with homosexual adults “uniquely endangers foster children by exposing them to a substantial level of harmful stress” and “deprives foster children of vitally needed positive contributions.”[3]

As Pitts put it, “…what makes no sense is to pretend that you can remove a father from a child’s life and have the child not notice. …I definitely have something against the idea, whether advanced by straight women or lesbians, that father is unnecessary, that so long as there’s some uncle around to show a boy how to hit the mark in the toilet, everything is hunky dory.”[4]

Even with all of this in mind, an argument about same-sex marriage doesn’t have to completely revolve around children. There are other reasons why homosexual marriage should not exist, children aside. This is not an issue about equality, but is instead an issue about what marriage is and what it is not.

Those who support same-sex marriage vehemently assert that it is blatant inequality for opposite-sex couples to get married while same-sex couples are forbidden to. The problem with this argument is that it does not address what equality means. All adult citizens in the United States of America, regardless of sex, race, religion or orientation, are free to marry an adult of the opposite sex. As the Supreme Court of the State of Washington succinctly put it, “The people of Washington have not had in the past nor, at this time, are they entitled to an expectation that they may choose to marry a person of the same sex,” and again, “DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act] treats both sexes the same; neither a man nor a woman may marry a person of the same sex.”[5]

Some argue that homosexuals should be free to marry the person that they love. This argument fails because no one—regardless of sexual orientation—is free to marry anyone they happen to love. For example, if I was in love with Christina Aguilera, I would not be free to marry her. I could love her sincerely and with all my heart, but that still gives me no right to marry. Similarly, even if she loved me back, we would not be free to marry because she is already married. If one is going to argue that love validates marriage, then he must make way for polygamy, among other things.

Lastly, many same-sex marriage proponents argue that along with marriage come civil rights and benefits that same-sex couples who live together and depend upon each other should have access to. This argument definitely has validity, which is why I am not opposed to civil unions. Unlike marriage, civil unions are purely legal affairs which help those who, regardless of sex or orientation, depend upon each other throughout daily life. And yet civil unions are not enough for some homosexuals; they want to be called married, because they realize that marriage is more than just a legal agreement. In the end, then, it is not about the benefits and rights that heterosexual married couples have. It is about pretending that same-sex couples are exactly the same as opposite-sex couples. They just aren’t.

It is clear that those who support same-sex marriage are not trying to “even the playing field”, but are in reality trying to redefine what marriage fundamentally is. I’m a bit put off by the incredibly small minority of those who are so obsessed with their own radical agenda that they want to redefine marriage for the rest of America, and who throw a tantrum when they don’t get their way, labeling those who do not believe the way they do as homophobic, prejudiced bigots. After all, no one likes a bully.

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[1] http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=pitts11&date=20070211
[2] http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/leonard_pitts/16710167.htm
[3] http://www.narth.com/docs/RationaleBasisFinal0405.pdf
[4] http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/columnists/leonard_pitts/16710167.htm
[5] http://www.courts.wa.gov/newsinfo/content/pdf/759341opn.pdf

Beauty, Truth and Morality

2007-02-22T16:36:00.000-08:00

I received my Associate of Arts degree from Highline Community College. While there, I took a philosophy course in order to fulfill my distribution requirements. On the very first day of class, my teacher stood up and said, “There is no truth and there is no right and wrong.” For the remainder of the quarter I found myself subjected to odd-ball reasoning and wild conclusions. I was to walk away from the course with the following lesson: there is no way to know anything, and morality is the product of culture, so therefore it is best to hold nothing to be true and have no morals, for right and wrong are just ideas. I did not take this lesson very well.

My teacher is not alone in holding this philosophy. Friedrich Nietzsche, who uttered the infamous “God is dead,” thought of morality as an error, and that power, over oneself and others, is all that matters. “What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness.” In his essay, “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense,” says the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Nietzsche rejects the idea of universal constants, and claims that what we call ‘truth’ is only ‘a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms.’” Nietzsche is one among many moral relativists who believe that there are no universal moral truths—a philosophy that has become increasingly popular over the years.[1]

I would like to tie in the concepts of truth and morality with beauty. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” goes the popular maxim. This idea has been challenged recently. In an article in The Washington Post last November[2], David Von Drehle talked about Stephen Marquardt, a reconstructive surgeon who used the Golden Mean to discover what he calls the “beauty mask”. The Golden Mean is a mathematical ratio between one and phi—which is 1.618. Marquardt found that a number of proportions in nature, including the human body, directly correspond to this number, 1.618. “Beauty,” wrote Drehle, “…is the name we give to certain signals processed instinctively by our animal brains. It isn't invented by Hollywood or fashion magazines so much as it is programmed into our DNA.”[3]

The theory goes that beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, but is something that is hard-wired into us, and is something that we all recognize. This is why art throughout the ages—from the bust of an Egyptian queen to Michelangelo’s statue of David—is considered beautiful, regardless of time or culture.

If there is such a thing as absolute beauty, can there not also be absolute truth? Yes, humans interpret all that they see around them in different ways, and these interpretations are often influenced by society, culture, and historical and personal biases. However, even if there were no humans around to interpret that which exists, things would still exist, for reality is not bound by our acknowledgement of it. If there were no more people, the sun would still rise, the wind would still blow, the earth would still shake, and our world would still spin on its great voyage through the universe. These are all truths that remain unchanged regardless of human understanding of them.

Humanity is not the author of truth. All we can do is approach it and try to comprehend it, and our understanding of truth is tainted by our own cultural and personal quirks. Therefore people have different understandings of truth and disagree with each other, but their disagreement has no effect on truth itself. I believe the same is true of right and wrong. All men have their own understandings of right and wrong. Cultures have their own morals and taboos, which sometimes differ from those of their neighbors, but even if there were no humans around to understand morality, right and wrong would still exist.

Let us take, for example, the practice of pederasty. In ancient times, adult men would take adolescent boys under their wing to teach, mentor, and have sex with. It was common in ancient times, took place during the Renaissance[4], and even occurs in some places to this day. It was practiced in ancient Greece and Rome[5], pre-modern Japan and China[6], numerous places throughout Europe[7] and was practiced by the Aztecs and Maya before their conquest.

Our society is repulsed by such behavior. But in order for a moral relativist to remain reputable, he cannot condemn it. To Nietzsche, pederasty must truly be good, for it “heightens the feeling of power” in the man who has sex with a child.

If morality is the result of cultural quirks, then pederasty could never have been evil, for those cultures that practiced it did so because they thought it was good for all parties involved. I must therefore conclude that moral relativism is a load of rubbish. Pederasty, among many other things, is a bad, evil, morally wrong practice, regardless of society, culture and time, for it violates a morality that is not bound by human perception and cannot be manipulated by human interpretation. Like beauty and truth, morality is a constant, universal thing that exists whether or not man exists to understand it.

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[1] http://www.pitt.edu/~wbcurry/nietzsche.html; http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/08/AR2006110801477_pf.html
[3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/08/AR2006110801477_pf.html
[4] Guido Ruggiero, The Boundaries of Eros: Sex Crime and Sexuality in Renaissance Venice, Oxford, 1985
[5] Bruce L. Gerig, "Homosexuality in the Ancient Near East, beyond Egypt", in HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE BIBLE, Supplement 11A, 2005
[6] T. Watanabe & J. Iwata, The Love of the Samurai: A Thousand Years of Japanese Homosexuality, London: GMP Publishers, 1987
[7] Arié, Rachel. España musulmana (Siglos VIII-XV) in Historia de España, ed. Manuel Tuñón de Lara, III. Barcelona: Labor, 1984.

Smoking Lepers

2007-02-14T12:24:00.000-08:00

For my birthday last August, I received one of the best gifts ever—my grandfather’s old tobacco pipe. It is a Kirsten pipe that was invented right here in Washington state by a man who used to work for Boeing, and it has a meerschaum bowl that smokes cool and slowly.

Needless to say, I was pretty excited, and though I had never smoked at all until then, I felt obliged to follow in my grandfather’s footsteps and take up pipe smoking.

I decided to find myself a nice, high-quality tobacco, and so I drove down to the Kirsten pipe shop in Ballard, right at Fisherman’s Terminal. The shop is family run, and I was privileged to meet the granddaughter of the man who invented my inherited pipe. She had a number of different tobaccos to choose from, and I thus spent the following thirty minutes sniffing humidors to find the perfect blend.

The problem is that due to a sinus surgery that I had when I was a child, I can’t smell very well anymore—if at all. When I asked if I could smoke a few to sample, she sighed and told me that, due to the indoor smoking ban that passed in late 2005, I couldn’t smoke in her shop.

Now that surprised me. I was vaguely familiar with the smoking ban, but I thought it only affected places like restaurants and hotels. I was wrong. The ban forbids smoking in all public places and workplaces—even pipe shops.

I was not daunted in my quest to make pipe smoking a hobby, and so I decided to attend one of the monthly meetings of the Seattle Pipe Club. I got directions from their website, and then was on my way.

I managed to drag an old high school buddy of mine along, and together we made our way to the Rainier Club in downtown Seattle for the monthly meeting. When I asked the receptionist on which floor the pipe club was holding their meeting, she stared at me blankly. As it turns out, the pipe club stopped meeting there back in late 2005, when the smoking ban came into effect, and hadn’t bothered to update the webpage.

Despite being foiled twice by that infernal smoking ban, I have some rather mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I believe the public should not be subject to smoke in restaurants, hotels and similar public places. On the other hand, the Draconian nature of the current law prohibits smoking in sensible smoking places like tobacco shops, which is a shame. A happy medium needs to be found.

Defendants of the smoking ban argue that second-hand smoke can harm employees and guests as much as if they were smoking themselves, but it has become clear to me that the dangers of second-hand smoke are greatly exaggerated.

118,094 people participated in a 2003 study by the American Cancer Society. The findings of the study may surprise many. “In a large study of Californians followed for 40 years,” wrote researchers James E. Enstrom of the University of California School of Public Health and Geoffrey C. Kabat of the Department of Preventive Medicine at New York State University, “environmental tobacco smoke was not associated with coronary heart disease or lung cancer mortality at any level of exposure. These findings suggest that the effects of environmental tobacco smoke, particularly for coronary heart disease, are considerably smaller than generally believed.”[1] They go on to defend the study: “None of the other cohort studies on environmental tobacco smoke has more strengths, and none has presented as many detailed results.”

Now, I’m not using the results of this study to suggest that there are no dangers to smoking tobacco. Cigarettes are especially dangerous and, due to their addictive nature, are best not to be smoked by anyone—ever. Cigars are less threatening, but even they, if smoked at all, should be used as a treat on rare occasions. Pipes are by far the safest form of tobacco use because you do not inhale pipe smoke and the pipe acts as a natural filter. From my personal experience, I am convinced that it is well-nigh impossible to get addicted to pipe tobacco, unless you smoke incessantly. Even so, pipes are not completely harmless and shouldn’t be smoked on a daily basis.

Do the unsubstantiated health risks of second-hand smoke justify an outright ban on smoking in public places? Second-hand smoke is surely unpleasant to some people due to its smell and tendency to aggravate allergies and asthma. I think these are reasons enough to regulate smoking in public without pumping the populous full of false fears of getting cancer from second-hand smoke, but shopkeepers should also be free to have places open to the public that are set aside specifically for smokers.

The point is that most things—even tobacco—are harmless when used in moderation. Just as alcohol and sugary-sweets are not dangerous if consumed sparingly as a treat, so are some tobacco products when not used habitually. Seattle’s Initiative 901 which banned smoking in all public and work places had the best of intentions, I’m sure, but in striving to protect the sensitive noses of those who hate tobacco smoke, the ban has effectively transformed even the most casual of smokers into lepers, and this needs to change. There should be places where smokers can smoke—such as at pipe shops and pipe clubs—without fear of persecution or being fined. This is America, after all.

[1] http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7398/1057

Who's Racist?

2007-02-08T12:20:00.000-08:00

If I were to ask you which party—the Democrats or Republicans—is a racist party, how would you respond? Think about it carefully for a moment. Ok, so what’s your answer? File that answer away for just a moment. We’ll get back to it in a bit.

One politician recently announced his candidacy for the White House. He then felt compelled to comment on others who are running, and when he got to Senator Barack Obama, he had this to say: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy ... I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”[1]

Was that a racist comment? It sort of appears to be. After all, it infers that all other mainstream African-Americans are not articulate, are not bright and are not very clean. Ok, so now I want you to consider your answer to my first question. Do you think the author of this sentence is a Democrat or a Republican? Why?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that most of you chose “Republican” as your answer to my first question. Indeed, the concept that Republicans are racist and Democrats are not is a very popular one. “Republicans are supported by whites with prejudice against blacks,” said Jon Krosnick, a psychologist and political scientist at Stanford University.[2] When criticizing the then Republican-run House of Representatives, Senator Hillary Clinton said, “When you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I’m talking about.”[3] It is clear to me that this view of racist Republicans is a well-entrenched one.

For those that don’t keep up with the news, it may be a shock then to discover that the man quoted in my second paragraph was actually a Democrat. It was Democratic Senator Joe Biden, having just announced his bid for the presidency, who was commenting on Barack Obama, calling him the first bright, articulate and clean mainstream African-American.

This isn’t the first time Senator Biden has said something that could be considered racist. In June of 2006 he was caught on film saying, “You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.”[4]

Now, just as then, he has gotten a pass by the media. For a few days after Biden made the comment about Senator Obama, the media dabbled with the story, but always explained it away or approached it as if it were an “oops!” moment on his part. Indeed, in a four-page article, ABCNews.com described it as simply another foot-in-mouth moment for Senator Biden, and then used the remainder of the article to demonstrate why Biden is not really a racist.[5]

The same courtesy was not given to Republican Senator Trent Lott. In December of 2002, Senator Lott made a comment during the birthday party of Senator Strom Thurmond in which he said, “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years, either.”[6] This rather vague statement was interpreted by the media to signify that Lott supported racial segregation. As a direct result of this comment, Lott was forced to resign as Senate Republican Leader.

It is a horrible injustice, in my view, to paint Republicans as racist. Indeed, if you read the unofficial “this is what we do to discredit and combat Republicans” manual for liberals, calling your opponent a racist is first on the list. What might be irksome for some to realize is that Democrats and liberals have often been caught dabbling in racism themselves.

For instance, when the black Maryland Republican Michael S. Steele was campaigning for the Senate, he was pelted by those who were Democratic supporters with Oreos and called “Uncle Tom” during a campaign appearance. This behavior was justified by Democratic Maryland State Senator Lisa A. Gladden: “Party trumps race, especially on the national level. If you are bold enough to run, you have to take whatever the voters are going to give you.”[7]

Or how about when Ted Rall, a left-wing columnist and cartoonist, called Condoleezza Rice a “house nigga”?[8] Or when left-wing[9] radio host Neil Rogers said, “Is you their black-haired answer-mammy who be smart? Does they like how you shine their shoes, Condoleezza? Or the way you wash and park the whitey’s cars?”[10] What about when Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes, when talking about phony insurance policies when he didn’t think the camera was rolling, said, “Blacks and Hispanics were too busy eating watermelons and tacos to read the fine-print…”?

Republicans are not racist simply because they are Republicans. This stereotype perpetuated by some on the Left harms not just the Right but all of American discourse. Senator Biden’s comments were not well thought out, but he apologized for them and insists that he meant no harm by them. What good does it do to rabble about racism and brand him with a scarlet “R”? I am rather inclined to give the Senator the benefit of the doubt. Unlike what happened to Trent Lott, Biden shouldn’t be harangued by the media until he is forced to resign. But of course, this wouldn’t happen anyway. After all, as far as the media are concerned, no Democrat can really be a racist.

[1] http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/01/biden_on_obama_.html
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/29/AR2006012900642_pf.html
[3] http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2006/1/16/211637.shtml
[4] http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2838420&page=3
[5] http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2838420&page=1
[6] http://www.samsloan.com/lottties.htm
[7] http://washingtontimes.com/metro/20051101-104932-4054r.htm
[8] http://thebluesite.com/images/ted_rall_is_an_idiot.gif
[9] http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1571/is_44_16/ai_72272523; http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/7/24/125554.shtml
[10] http://hiphoprepublican.com/2006/08/top-racist-democrat-quotes_30.html; http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/774601/posts; http://www.rbr.com/epaper/pages/nov02/02-90_news.html

Sex Is Marriage

2007-02-03T08:07:00.000-08:00

Most of us will get married someday. This future is distant, however, and right now we are in college, a time for drinking, partying, and casual sex. Oh, right, and education. Almost forgot.

Some of us have no intention of ever getting married. In last Sunday’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Maria Anglin[1] wrote a column about the modern single female. She quoted a number of interesting statistics, including one from a recent New York Times poll which stated that 51 percent of women live without a spouse. She interpreted this as indicating that woman are increasingly “…in control of their own happiness, or unhappiness.”

How much control any of us have over our happiness is, I think, quite debatable, but the notion that being single makes one just as happy as or happier than being married, is false.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with being single, and there are many single people who live happy lives. I think, however, that the majority of us were built with an innate desire for marriage, and that it is often monogamous matrimony, not hedonistic singleness, that can bring us a greater happiness.

“On average,” says Linda J. Waite, Professor of Sociology at the University of Chicago, “…marriage seems to produce substantial benefits for men and women in the form of better health, longer life, more and better sex…greater wealth and better outcomes for children.”[2]

I find additional evidence of this innate desire for marriage in the prevalence of casual sex, which is viewed as a sort of recreational activity. I do not think it is. Rather, I think sex was designed specifically to exist between a husband and wife. It is the widespread desire of men and women to partake in casual sex which betrays, in my view, a deeper desire for a marriage relationship. A fellow and his girlfriend who romp beneath the sheets on a regular basis are not simply seeking sexual pleasure for its own sake but are playing marriage, and doing so in a haphazard way.

“Here,” says Waite, “both married men and married women report more emotional satisfaction with their sex lives than do those who are single or cohabitating… sexual nonmonogamy leads to a less satisfying sexual relationship with any one partner.”[3]

Former groupie Dawn Eden recently wrote an article in The Sunday Times of London entitled “Casual sex is a con: women just aren’t like men”[4] in which she explores the emotional effects of casual sex on women. “It’s in the nature of sex to awaken deep emotions within us,” she said, “emotions that are unwelcome when one is trying to keep it light.”

These emotions are designed to strengthen the bond between spouses. Andrew M. Greeley, Professor of Sociology at the University of Arizona, has come to similar conclusions, believing that sex helps keep marriages healthy by bringing couples closer emotionally and helping them weather life’s troubles together.[5] Thus I do not think that sex can ever be truly recreational, for whenever people have sex, a bond is formed, and if people have sex with multiple partners, they can and do become emotionally confused or hurt, and don’t know why.

The Declaration says that we have the right to pursue happiness. The problem is that a lot of things that we think make us happy, like casual sex, really don’t. They excite us for a time but then we grow bored with them, or they look appealing, but once we have them we are unfulfilled. Marriage is a lot of work—very hard work—but before a clay vessel can be put to good use it must first be cured by the flame. Likewise, those things we work for the hardest are the things we value the most. The difficulty of marriage should not be a roadblock, but should instead be the narrow path that leads to fulfillment and ultimate happiness.

“The misguided, hedonistic philosophy which urges young women into this kind of behaviour harms both men and women,” said Eden; “but it is particularly damaging to women, as it pressures them to subvert their deepest emotional desires.”

This view is echoed by G. W. Jones, Professor and Co-ordinator of the Demography Program at the Australian National University: “The increasing trend towards consensual [sexual] partnering in the West, seen by many as an emancipation from the rigid concepts of marriage, may represent a new enslavement rather than freedom for women.”[6]

It is for these reasons and others that I think sex is marriage. Not a legal marriage, surely, but marriage has existed long before there were governments to hand out certificates, and it is this soulful union that is intrinsically caught up with, and demonstrated by, the physical act of intercourse.

With Valentine’s Day swiftly approaching, it is time for couples to start their meticulous planning—the flowers, the candy, the romantic outings—with the hope of ending the evening with a salacious spree in bed. I therefore urge couples to pause and ask themselves a few questions. What am I really wanting? Is it making me happy? Am I being fulfilled? If not, maybe there really is something to this chastity thing.

[1] http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/301349_woman28.html
[2] “Does Marriage Matter?” Linda J. Waite. Demography, Vol. 32, No. 4, (Nov., 1995), pp. 483-507
[3] “Does Marriage Matter?” Linda J. Waite. Demography, Vol. 32, No. 4, (Nov., 1995), pp. 483-507
[4] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2545852,00.html
[5] Greely, A. 1994. Sex: The Catholic Experience. Allen, TX: Tabor.
[6] (1994:900). Jones, G.W, 1994. Review of William J. Goode, “World Changes in Divorce Patterns.” Population and Development review 20:899-901

The Ashley Treatment

2007-01-28T21:25:00.000-08:00

In early 2004, a six year old child in Seattle named Ashley was given a hysterectomy, had her breast buds removed and was given high-dose estrogen treatments in order to remain perpetually stunted in growth. The reason for this radical treatment is that Ashley has the mind of a three-month-old baby and is unable to speak, move or even eat on her own, the result of a rare condition known as “static encephalopathy of unknown etiology”.[1] Her parents defend their decision because they say that it will improve her overall wellbeing, keeping her from having to deal with menstrual cramps, discomfort and bed sores due to a large body and breasts, making her easier to move around and unable to become pregnant in case of sexual abuse.

People have reacted to the news a number of ways; some supportive, some compassionate but others with fury. “Ashley's parents have committed the ultimate betrayal,” said David, a man who suffers from sever cerebral palsy, on his blog recently. “They have treated their daughter as less than human, not worthy of dignity.... What strikes me about ‘the Ashley treatment’ and has brought me to tears is that the very people in all of society whom this child should trust have betrayed her.”[2] Fox News reported one reader reacting to the story by saying, “I find this offensive if not perverse. Truly a milestone in our convenience-minded society.”[3]

When I first heard about the story, I was also very upset. While science has provided us with uncountable advantages, especially in medicine, scientists are merely human and make their fair share of blunders; misdiagnoses, for instance, being among them. Additionally, some doctors can lie to patients or misrepresent the truth in order to further their own aims, such as the case with David Reimer who was raised as a girl in an experiment by Dr. John Money, who theorized that gender was due to how the child is raised rather than genetic coding (he was wrong, by the way).[4] But after reading everything I could on the issue, I have come to the conclusion that Ashley’s parents made the right decision.

Now, I’m a conservative who was disgusted over the fate of Terry Schiavo. I think that the possibility of “designer babies”[5], where parents manipulate their child’s embryo in order to design their baby with desirable or cosmetic characteristics, is wrong—ethically, legally and morally. But with Ashley, I think her parents made use of technology, not for their own personal benefit, but for the well-being of their child, and I do not believe that Ashley’s womanhood or dignity was violated or betrayed in any way.

Before the operation as done, the case was presented to the ethics committee at Seattle Children’s Hospital, who approved of the procedure.[6] Despite this, feminist groups and disability activists protested outside of the American Medical Association headquarters in Chicago not long ago, demanding that Ashley’s doctors be condemned for the procedure.[7] Some argue that her womanhood was violated and by sterilizing her she will never be free to choose to have children. However, since she has the mind of a three-month-old, she will never have the mental capacity to choose to have a child or not, and just as parents make decisions in the best interests of their infants, so did Ashley’s parents in carrying out the operation.

“If the concern has something to do with the girl’s dignity being violated,” wrote George Dvorsky, member of the Board of Directors for the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, “then I have to protest by arguing that the girl lacks the cognitive capacity to experience any sense of indignity… The estrogen treatment is not what is grotesque here. Rather, it is the prospect of having a full-grown and fertile woman endowed with the mind of a baby.”[8]

Some have looked at this issue as perverse because they think the parents are changing their child’s body simply for their own convenience, desiring to keep Ashley a child forever. Her parents responded to such allegations on their blog[9], saying, “A fundamental and universal misconception about the treatment is that it is intended to convenience the caregiver; rather, the central purpose is to improve Ashley’s quality of life.” We, on the outside, can speculate about the parent’s motives all we want, but none of us can read their minds. It is therefore irresponsible for us to assume the worst of parents who have to deal with so difficult a situation. I think it is better to take them at their word. It is clear to me that Ashley’s parents made the best decision they could, solely for the wellbeing of their child.

This is a tricky and touchy subject, for to tackle it means to tread through water that has been rather untouched. Any science that deals with manipulating the very basics of human existence makes me altogether squeamish, but Ashley’s parents make a rather good point when they point out that, “The objection that this treatment interferes with nature is one of the most ridiculous objections of all; medicine is all about interfering with nature.” People have strong emotions about this and similar issues, and they generally have the best of intentions. I think in this case we should bless Ashley and her parents and pray that Ashley’s treatment ends up bringing her greater happiness.

[1] http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com/
[2] http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/01/11/ashley.outcry/index.html
[3] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,241279,00.html
[4]http://www.canadiancrc.com/articles/Globe_and_Mail_Boy_raised_as_girl_suffered_final_indignity_11MAY04.htm
[5] http://www.bionetonline.org/English/Content/db_cont1.htm
[6] http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com/
[7] http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/01/11/ashley.outcry/index.html
[8] http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com/
[9] http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com/

Church and State

2007-01-18T12:30:00.000-08:00

On January 1st, 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury Baptists in which he first used the expression “separation between Church and State”. Since then, courts have interpreted the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause in a number of ways, and others have sought to abolish such a separation. In the end, this separation is an absolute necessity for any free country and must be maintained.

The desire of men and women to practice their religion freely goes way back. After a twelve year sojourn in Holland, the English Separatists came to North America in 1620 to separate themselves from the Church of England.[1] This desire to practice ones religion separate from the government is echoed in the words of the English Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon: “To prevent for ever the possibility of Papists roasting Protestants, Anglicans hanging Romish priests, and Puritans flogging Quakers, let every form of state-churchism be utterly abolished, and the remembrance of the long curse which it has cast upon the world be blotted out for ever.”[2]

This separation is essential and no nation should ever be ruled as a theocracy. Being a Christian, I find vindication of this stance in the Bible. In 1st Samuel the people of Israel come to Samuel and ask for a king, having been ruled by God through his prophets up until that point. Samuel is troubled by this request, and he tells them what will happen to them if they have a king. Their crops will be taken, their flocks will be taken, their sons and daughters will be conscribed to serve the king alone and they themselves will become slaves. But the Israelites don’t care and want to be like the other nations so much that they ignore Samuel and insist on having a king.[3]

Since then it has been up to man to rule man, and sadly we do a poor job of it. In the words of Winston Churchill, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”[4]

Despite my insistence that church and state must be separate, people have used this separation to persecute the religious or restrict their freedoms unnecessarily. The ACLU, for instance, forced Los Angeles County to remove a tiny cross from their municipal seal in 2004,[5] and yet it also filed a lawsuit in 2006 to allow veterans and their families to place pentacles and other Wiccan symbols on headstones in federal cemeteries (a right I incidentally believe Wiccans should have). Both of these were done under the pretence of separating church and state, and while I approve of the latter, the former is unnecessary and outrageous (for it seems that the ACLU overlooked the obvious—Los Angeles, along with San Diego, San Francisco, San Antonio and a host of other cities have religious names, which is no reason for them to be renamed). I do not believe that this separation should be used as an excuse to purge all memory of, or reference to, religion from the public square.

When looking for examples of governments run by religion, we need look no further than the Islamic salafi jihad movement which seeks to restore “authentic” Islam by establishing a great Islamist state that would eliminate present national boundaries and stretch from Morocco to the Philippines.[6] This great state would be a theocracy ruled by Sharia Law which regulates daily life, including sexuality, religion and social issues.[7]

It was in compliance with Sharia Law that a man named Rahman in Afghanistan was sentenced to death in 2006 for converting to Christianity.[8] It was only after a huge outcry from the West that the man was released from prison, whereupon he promptly fled to Italy for asylum. Five hundred or more Afghans gathered at a mosque and demanded that Rahman be forced to convert to Islam or be killed.[9]

When British Muslims were surveyed in the UK, an alarming forty percent of them wanted Sharia Law introduced in Brittan.[10] The framer’s of our constitution understood that any theocracy, whether Christian, Islamic or what have you, would be unacceptable, because men with absolute power claiming to do the bidding of the divine are far too susceptible to corruption and abuse of that power. We must therefore remember what is at stake and contemplate the bigger picture before flying off the handle over a little cross on a county seal.

[1] Rorabaugh, William, et al. America’s Promise Volume I. Pages 44-45.
[2] Spurgeon, Charles H. (August 1988). "The Inquisition". Sword and Trowel.
[3] 1st Samuel 8:1-20
[4] http://jpetrie.myweb.uga.edu/bulldog.html (I used this URL because it is an .edu site; however there are plenty of other sites [some of which are more accurate and reliable] that still assuredly attribute this quote to Winston Churchill.)
[5] http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040913/news_1n13seal.html
[6] http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/warwithoutborders/salafist.html
[7] http://www.answering-islam.org/Sharia/
[8] http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/03/22/afghan.christian/index.html
[9] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,189440,00.html
[10] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/02/19/nsharia19.xml&DCMP=EMC-new_19022006

No Such Thing as 'Unbiased'

2007-01-11T12:53:00.000-08:00

A long time ago, at a community college far, far away, I took a course on journalism and critical analysis. One day my professor split us up into groups and gave us an assignment: find a current political issue and make an argument either for or against it. Our group decided to tackle the Patriot Act, and after reading it we concluded that it really wasn’t the horrible breach in civil rights that we were told it was.
     We gave our presentation to the class and were met with stunned silence. One vocal student responded by asking us if we knew what the acronym USA PATRIOT stood for, as if the answer to this question would completely invalidate the actual content of the Act. Thus we began to argue, and after watching us go back and forth, our teacher interceded and gave us a lengthy lecture.
     I’m not exactly sure how it pertained to the topic, but she told us at that moment in a very blunt, confident manner, that Fox News was the most biased and blatantly partisan media publication in existence. If I do recall correctly, I think I actually laughed out loud, for I was met with harsh stares and evil looks from some of my classmates (most notably by the rather vocal one). Having immersed myself in media of various formats over the past few years, I have had time to reflect upon the words of my former teacher and am obliged to disagree with her.
     Now, I do not disagree with her because I think that Fox News is unbiased. Far from it. I think the fact that they present themselves as “fair and balanced” is silly. Rather, I disagree with her because I think that all news media are equally biased and equally partisan. You see, when a reporter sifts through the news of the day and chooses the story that he is to report on, he doesn’t do so free from bias. It is through a reporter’s (or publication’s) own personal bias, molded by religious or political beliefs, personal experiences or professional expediency, that he chooses a topic, finds a source or otherwise molds his article. When he interviews a source, he crafts his questions in order to illicit responses that either agree with his own viewpoint or make a contrary one look ridiculous. And when he can get neither from a source, he can quote a statement to say whatever he wants it to, for example, turning “I am sure that there is no such thing as a fairy,” into “I am…a fairy.”
     That said, I do not think that bias is necessarily a bad thing. Since we are all biased and since it is impossible to be wholly free from bias, I think it would be better for us to simply admit our bias and get on with things instead of pretending that it isn’t there. It is a good thing that we have so many sources of news out there that report different stories in different ways, for if we had just select stories reported from only one viewpoint we would be left with a very incomplete knowledge of the issues.
I listen to talk radio while I am at work, and I get raked over the coals by friends for doing so. After all, they say, those radio talk show personalities are all biased sell-outs who do not adhere to the same standards as journalists. An argument can be made for this, but the nice thing about talk radio is that many of them admit that they are biased and don’t put up this false venire of pristine journalistic non-partisanship. They instead make purposeful arguments that they are passionate about and leave it to the listener to either accept their argument or do a little fact checking on their own to verify it.
     The problem with the Old Media, as it has come to be known, is that it dresses itself up as a sort of untouchable standard of truthfulness, and this presents many problems, the greatest of which is a misguided sense of infallibility. It is from behind the shield of mainstream professional publications that some journalists, such as Jayson Blair, Jack Kelly and Janet Cooke, have been caught plagiarizing other sources or completely fabricating stories. And let us not forget “Rathergate” and his escapade with the Killian documents. It is only when ones feels sufficiently invulnerable to outside criticism that he can muster the cojones to betray journalistic standards and simply lie.
     It is naïve of us to consider any media source to be unbiased. We cannot rely on one form of media, be it talk radio, newspapers, the internet or news broadcasts, if we want to know what is really going on out there. It is our responsibility to peruse many different forms of media and then make our own informed decisions instead of taking The New York Times, CNN or Fox News at face value. I disagree with my former teacher because she gave the impression that all major news broadcasts are superior to Fox News because Fox is biased by leaning conservative. Instead, we should be glad that Fox leans conservative (and that everything else leans liberal) so that we can familiarize ourselves with different points of view in order to become more informed individuals. Otherwise we just become pawns to those who monopolize the media.

More U.S. Citizens Murdered by Illegals than Killed by War

2007-01-02T12:15:00.000-08:00

More U.S. Citizens Murdered by Illegals than killed by War
By Brandon Dennis

WorldNetDaily reported recently that more U.S. citizens were killed every day by illegal immigrants than U.S. soldiers by the war. Data collected from prisons, news reports and independent research has led a number of groups and researchers to this conclusion, including Rep. Steve King who released numbers determining that 4,380 U.S. citizens are murdered annually by illegal immigrants.
     As of this writing, the total number of deaths of U.S. soldiers in Iraq alone is reported at 2,941 since the beginning of the war, and the total number from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan over the past five years combined comes to 289. Compare this to the estimated 21,900 citizens murdered by illegal immigrants since September 11th, 2001.
     When we hear the story of an impoverished family racing across the border, dodging minutemen and the INS in order to obtain better lives for themselves, our hearts go out to them. Who wouldn’t do the same, if placed in their circumstances? It is from this compassion that we are naturally inclined to a viewpoint that leaves our borders wide open, for after all, this nation is a nation founded by immigrants, and shouldn’t we let anyone inside who wants to be here?
     In the end, no, we should not, and not because we are cruel, evil or otherwise malicious, but because the safety of our own citizens takes the highest priority. There are plenty of reasons why our current immigration laws, which have existed for decades, should be enforced, but the one that has the most immediate effect upon our everyday lives is how greatly our physical wellbeing is compromised with an open border policy.
     In addition to the 4,380 that are murdered by illegals every year, 4,754 are killed by drunken illegal immigrant drivers, as reported by WorldNetDaily. When you do the math, the number of people who have been killed since 9/11 as the direct result of an open border is nearly 8 times greater than the number of U.S. servicemen killed since the beginning of the war.
     We must stop playing political games by cloaking this issue with the mantle of racism because the consequences of an open border are real and deadly. It is true that the majority of illegal immigrants are peaceful, good and honest people who just want to better their lives, but the stark and horrible reality of the matter is that along with them come the miscreants that plague any society. And they come in droves.
     King reported that 2,920 children are molested by illegal immigrants annually. According to Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute of Atlanta, there are an estimated 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States with an average of four victims each. The Government Accountability Office released a report in April of 2005 concluding that, of the 55,322 incarcerated illegal aliens studied, each had an average of 8 arrests and 13 criminal offenses.
     Politicians cry from their podiums to bring the soldiers home, and the war has understandably become a very emotional and politically charged issue. After all, just recently the number of U.S. servicemen lost over the past five years has surpassed the number of civilians killed on one day in September. But I think we need some perspective:

Mexican-American War: Lasted 2 years, 13,283 U.S. servicemen died

Civil War: Lasted 4 years, 562,130 U.S. servicemen died

World War I: Lasted 4 years, 116,708 U.S. servicemen died

World War II: Lasted 6 years, 408,306 U.S. servicemen died

Korean War: Lasted 3 years, 54,246 U.S. servicemen died

Vietnam War: Lasted 14 years, 58,219 U.S. servicemen died

So far the War on Terror has lasted five years at the cost of 3,230 U.S. servicemen. If we care about human life as much as we say we do, then we would at least be equally horrified at the number of deaths that are the direct result of illegal immigration—which over the past five years have amounted to nearly half as much as the total deaths of the 14 year-long Vietnam War—as we are over the deaths of our soldiers overseas. I think it behooves us all to not brush away the topic for fear of being labeled with a scarlet “R”.

The World of Fluffy-things Doesn’t Exist

2006-12-05T15:00:00.000-08:00

The San Francisco school board has voted to discontinue its JROTC program, much to the dismay of the nearly 1,600 students who participate in the program across the district. When the decision was announced at the board meeting, the hundreds of students that rallied outside in protest were crushed and many wept and hid their faces.

“We don't want the military ruining our civilian institutions,” said Sandra Schwartz of the American Friends Service Committee, an active anti-JROTC program. “In a healthy democracy ... you contain the military. You must contain the military.”

Wrong. In a healthy democracy you give students the freedom to choose to participate in JROTC and whatever other school function they want. You do not take away that choice based on a radical political agenda. What the San Francisco school board has done is punished the hundreds of students who participate in JROTC as an extracurricular activity instead of the myriad of other things they could be doing—like using illegal drugs or being involved with gangs, perhaps—for their own partisan purposes.

“This is where the kids feel safe, the one place they feel safe,” said JROTC instructor Robert Powell. “You're going to take that away from them?”

“[The JROTC is] basically a branding program, or a recruiting program for the military,” said Dan Kelly, who helped lead the fight to dismantle the program. The truth is that most students leave the program by their senior year and do not join the military after graduation. But even if every kid who participated in JROTC joined the military right out of high school, so what? What is wrong with joining the military? Citizens should not be scorned or ridiculed for deciding to join the military.

Let’s think about this for a minute. I could say the obvious and cliché—that we have the freedoms we do because of our military, we would not be a nation without it, we are protected from violence by it, and so on and so forth. Instead I’ll pose a rhetorical question: does the San Francisco school board really want the military to disappear?

Nancy Mancias, a former teacher, defended the dismantling of the program by saying, “We need to teach a curriculum of peace.” To say such a thing suggests that the military is bad because its soldiers use force and that it should, optimally, itself be dismantled. Do I really have to spell out the ramifications of such an act? Do we really want to live in a nation that has no armed force and no defense whatsoever from the myriad of nations and powers out there who do not hold the same western sensibilities of democracy and freedom that we do?

It is great to be against violence. That is all fine and dandy. But this is the real world, and in the real world we have to deal with real people who really hate us and really want to slit our throats. This is a fact of life that has always been and will never change. It is because of this fact of life that we must have a military. Even I don’t like the fact that we must have a military. I’d love to live in the world of lollipops and fluffy-things where there is no such thing as violence. But we do not live in that world—it doesn’t exist—and therefore we must have a military. It does no good to be against violence if you don’t have the sense to defend yourself from the violent.

It is clear to me that we are all so obsessed with our own little multi-whateverisms that we have failed to remember that we are all still one nation. If we forget this then we cease to be a nation and instead become a myriad of little nations within a nation that grasp at each other’s throats in order to rise to dominance. If we let our differences control us to the point that we forget our similarities, we will be consumed by those who are united against us and are, by the way, violent. But I’m sure the San Francisco school board has thought long and hard about what to do in a world where there is no military, since they detest it so much. I bet they have a stockpile of smiley-face stickers and feather-dusters, ready to be used in defense of our nation. We can tickle the bad guys to death.

The Right to be Loyal

2006-11-27T01:22:00.000-08:00

It is impossible to deny these days the great divide that splits our nation. We are divided on many things, but one thing that should not divide us is our love of and loyalty to our nation. And yet the sad truth is that even this basic and necessary aspect of American life has become just another partisan issue.

A few days ago, students at Orange Coast College in California banned the Pledge of Allegiance from being recited at their meetings. Something so basic and innocent as a pledge of loyalty to one’s own nation has now become “controversial” and “divisive”. Jason Ball, who proposed the ban, said that the idea for the ban came up because the trustees didn’t want to vow loyalty to the American government. “Loyalty ought to be something the government earns through performance,” said Ball, “not through reciting a pledge.”

Being loyal to your nation need not mean that you agree with everything your nation does or has done, nor that you like the sitting president or his current policies. National loyalty, as I see it, means that you identify yourself as being on the side of your nation, the people that birthed you, raised you and gave you every opportunity. When you introduce the caveat that the government only deserves loyalty through its performance, it begs the question: who judges whether the government’s performance is good or bad? Republicans? Democrats? La Raza? Michael Moore? If so, then the government’s performance will never be up to par, because there will never be a day in this nation where we all agree with the way things are going. Does this therefore mean that we should never be loyal to our nation, simply because we do not all agree? Disagreement is a good thing, for it is through disagreement that we keep each other in check. But despite our disagreements we should still remain loyal to America.

Ball said that one of the reasons they banned the Pledge was because it inspires nationalism. Well… so? What is wrong with nationalism? There are many definitions of the word, but one of them is simply “patriotism”, for not all forms of nationalism are aggressive. Patriotism is not a sin and it is not a chauvinistic ideal of the simple and uniformed. It is the foundation of any nation and is essential to a nation’s existence.

We should be loyal to our nation because it is our nation. Our very survival as a people depends upon it. We can make up as many ideological fairy tales as we want, but in the end the problem is this: because we are the richest, most powerful nation on this earth, some people hate us, and therefore some people wish to destroy us. In order for the insignificant to see themselves as great, they can either do great things or stand as the mortal enemies of those who are already great. Only then can they make names for themselves, and it is this conceit that gives us so many enemies in the world. If we are not loyal to our nation and if we are not patriotic, then we will crumble, and in our place will rise nations whose self-restraint is not so great as our own.

Patriotism is not a dirty word and it is nothing to be ashamed of. It is simply loyalty to our own people. Not at the expense of other peoples in the world, mind you, but we must never let our generosity and “cultural understanding” weaken the foundations of our own sovereignty.

If one doesn’t want to say “under God” while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, fine. If one doesn’t want to say the Pledge at all, fine. No one is being forced to. No one is required by law to say the Pledge. But there are people out there who do love this country, call it home and are loyal to it, and they must have the freedom to express their loyalty by any means that is within the law. To ban the Pledge of Allegiance is to deny people that freedom of speech which so many covet and champion.

It is beyond me how some of our own people can really have such a staunch hatred of our nation, its people and the government, that it leads them to not see themselves as allied with us. It seems to me that we are so caught up with our multi-whateverisms that we have forgotten that we are still one nation; that our loyalties to our cliques, parties and subcultures are stronger than our loyalties to America. But oh well. If some want to hate, that is their choice. Their choice must never, however, interfere with the rights of others, and banning the Pledge restricts the rights of those who wish to recite it. Let’s not forget this as we continue to march under the banners of Tolerance and Diversity.

Borat Vindicates Americans

2006-11-16T09:45:00.000-08:00

Borat: Cultural Learning’s of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, has been in the news an awful lot recently, and it isn’t because it is a feel-good family flick you could take your kids to. Far from it. It is because it is a hilarious movie that is very crude at times and which is purported to give a not-so pleasant view of Americans in their “natural habitat”.

Now, I’m not endorsing the movie. It was funny. Very funny. I laughed my guts out, but all the while I felt ashamed doing so. When the movie ended at the theater where I saw it, the audience just sat there as the credits rolled trying to process what it was they had just seen, and very slowly they all stood, some with eyes wide and other chuckling to themselves, but all clearly both uncomfortable and thoroughly entertained. I personally felt like taking a hot shower afterwards. If you like a clever comedy and are prepared to laugh hysterically and then wash your eyes out with bleach when you get home, then Borat: is right up your alley.

What distinguishes Borat: from all the other vulgar dime-a-dozen explicit comedies out there is its supposed exposé showing Americans as they really are. HBO spokesman Quentin Schaffer has been quoted as saying, “Through [Cohen’s] alter-egos, he delivers an obvious satire that exposes people’s ignorance and prejudice...” and Entertainment Weekly adds, “…the people Borat talks to become the symbolic heart of America - a place where intolerance is worn, increasingly, with pride.” I think that in order to make statements like this, one has to overlook an awful lot of genuine American goodness that was demonstrated in the film.

To be sure, Borat came upon a few rude people. I have read reviews that have tried to vindicate the Americans who were played for chumps in this film, but they have not, I believe, given enough attention to those who certainly fumbled a bit. Cohen, as Borat, was given a ride by drunken frat boys who said, among other things, that they wished slavery still existed and that racial minorities get all the breaks. When at a rodeo he talked with one cowboy who talked about Muslims in a very racist manner and who expressed his desire to hang homosexuals. When interviewing some feminists he mentioned that his country’s scientists have proven that women’s brains are the size of squirrel brains, and the feminists were rude and walked off mid-interview.

But what I believe has been overlooked by any who approach this movie with the idea of placing the spectacle of ridicule upon Americans are the numerous instances of Americans treating Borat kindly and with understanding without falling for Cohen’s specific attempts to bring out racism and bigotry in them.

For instance, there was one time when Borat was invited to a rich dinner party, on Secession Drive, no less. He was treated amicably and with understanding, despite calling a pastor’s wife ugly and bringing a plastic bag of feces to the table. It wasn’t until Borat invited a scantily-clad prostitute into their home that the hosts kicked him out, but up until then they did their best to try and understand this strange foreigner and treat him well.

There was another scene when Cohen took driving lessons from an instructor and did his best to goad the instructor into saying something bigoted. When Borat kissed the instructor, the instructor simply shrugged and said that he wasn’t used to it, but that it was ok. Borat, while driving, began to talk about his view of women and the instructor was so horrified that he had to say that women have a right to choose the person with whom they have sex (to Borat’s utter shock and dismay, of course).

When invited onto a local news station for an interview, Cohen frustrated the station with his inability to understand the procedure and his constant interruption of the weather broadcast, but instead of getting angry, throwing racial slurs and kicking him out, the crew laughed hysterically and continued the interview for a good while before he left.

Even when he was with the racist frat boys, they treated him well. They gave him a free ride, called him “brother”, gave him drinks and showed him movies. They bantered around like chums and gave him sympathy when Borat discovered that the love of his life (Pamela Anderson) was no longer a virgin. They certainly said some controversial remarks, but they treated Borat with kindness.

One of the most uncomfortable scenes for me was when Cohen arrived at the evangelical church near the end of the film. The movie then went on for a long while just filming the church members running around like they were on fire, praying in tongues, shouting from the pulpit and acting rather silly, timed, of course, with comic looks of confusion and wonder from Borat. As a Christian myself, my mind went back 1st Corinthians 14:23, and I had to cringe and ask, “Is this really how the world sees us?” But that is for another article. What I did notice through this entire exchange was how the Christians in that church treated Borat, an unknown foreigner, immediately with kindness and as a brother. Cohen went up there to get his character saved. He was not told to convert or die. Neither was he told to hunt down Muslims and Jews, nor to donate money or become an American citizen. Instead he was surrounded by a bunch of people whom he did not know and who prayed for him and blessed him as if he was their closest friend.

We must also remember that Borat: is a film designed to entertain but also one that has an agenda, and in order to fulfill that agenda it was heavily edited. How many interviews did Cohen do that never made it into the film? How many of them were completely harmless and therefore un-funny, which is why they got the cut? I think that the myriad of reviews that paint Americans as bigots, sexists and altogether simple and hateful folk are not indicative of the egregious behavior of Americans, but rather betray the self-deprecating “blame America first” attitude of those who write them.

Ire over Images

2006-10-31T01:29:00.000-08:00

I passed through Red Square on my way to class the other day. It just so happened to be the day that the anti-abortion and pro-abortion rally and counter rally was taking place. At first I thought it was just another group of ideologues with megaphones, otherwise unconnected with the school, using the campus as a podium for protest. And I was partially right. But these protesters were a little different than the ones I am used to, and at least while I was passing by neither group said a word. Instead the pro-abortion protesters held up huge black signs with slogans advocating their cause and the anti-abortion protesters were holding up giant posters depicting chopped up babies.
     Now when I saw this I was a little startled. After all, my mind was on the Greek exam I was about to take, and my rehearsing of declensions and conjugations in my head was thoroughly interrupted by the sight. The first emotion I felt was disgust. The second emotion I felt was anger. How dare they show such graphic images? Why, someone needs to do something about this! Students shouldn’t be subjected to images of chopped up bleeding babies anymore than they should be to chopped up bleeding adults. I’m going to write about this, I thought, and give them all a piece of my mind!
     As I climbed the hill to Denny Hall those images and the slogans beneath them cycled through my head. Being pro-life myself, I could sympathize with their cause and yet I couldn’t help feel angered over the way they were voicing their opinions. But then it hit me. What was it about those posters that made me mad? After all, it wasn’t the protesters who hurt those babies. So why did I feel like there was something very, very wrong with this whole thing?
     Perhaps the point of using graphic images like that is to startle and offend. We walk this campus and tout the ideals of free speech without censorship and we demand from our government the truth. But the truth of the matter is that this is what happens to aborted fetuses. Maybe the point of using such images is to force us out of our dreamy la-la land of idealistic unreality and to show us that despite what we think and what the organizations and advocates say, that this is what really goes on, this is what really happens, and that these are the leftover remains after we wallow in our own lovely Choice.
     Maybe we react strongly to images like this because we recognize within those diced up fetuses something that is within us, a humanity that is not found elsewhere. Perhaps we consider those images “graphic” because they really are depicting the slaughter of humans. We find images of other cells being destroyed hardly offensive. Why, then, if a fetus is just a collection of cells do we react so strongly to its demise? Could it be that, just maybe, a fetus is more than a mere collection of cells?
     When arguing the topic of abortion the word “choice” is invariably brought forth, when in reality “choice” has nothing to do with abortion—it is simply a red herring. The real issue is whether or not a human fetus is a living human being. If it isn’t then the pro-life crowd has nothing to stand on and the debate simply disappears. Those that I know who advocate life have no desire to tell a woman what she can or cannot do with her own body. It comes down to this: if a woman is not free to choose to murder anyone, let alone her child, then she should not be free to choose to kill her fetus if is a living human being.
     But who can say when life enters a fetus? If we look at life like science does then the fetus is always alive, for when we send our rovers to Mars in order to look for life, are we not seeking single celled organisms—the simplest forms of life? If we insist that a human fetus is not a living human being until long after conception, we are recognizing that there is something more to human life than simply the activity of cells. What, then is it? Does human life enter a fetus when the umbilical cord is cut? Are we therefore free to kill a child, even if it is outside the womb breathing, spitting and crying, so long as the cord is attached? Or does life enter when the fetus begins to look human, growing arms and legs? I don’t think we can hold to this reasoning for if it were true, we would be free to murder amputees. Is it when the child is able to breathe? If so, then those on respirators have suddenly lost their humanity. Or is it when the heart begins to beat (between the 8th and 25th day after conception)? If this were true than those hooked up to artificial hearts must not be human.
As far as I see it, the one unique moment in the development of a fetus upon which all other developments are dependant is conception. Seeing as how we cannot tell when human life enters a fetus (for in order to do so would be to define what distinguishes human life from the mere activity of cells), I think it is rash to assume that a fetus is not human and to kill it. Ah, but what about cases of rape and incest, some may ask. The criminals must be punished and severely, but again it comes down to whether or not a fetus is a living human being, for if it is, no child should be killed for the sins of another.
I think our disgust and anger is a bit misdirected. If images of cut up fetuses offend us, we should not direct our venom at those who brought such images to our attention. Rather, we should direct it towards those who cut up the fetuses to begin with.

Firearms and Yellow Shirts

2006-10-27T00:28:00.001-07:00

In the October 8th issue of The Seattle Times, Andrew Gumbel, in an article entitled, “Can America be weaned off love affair with guns”, takes a very dim view concerning gun ownership. The finger of blame gets pointed all around, from the media to parents to gun shows to violent movies, but the only interesting thing I found was Gumbel’s comments on the Second Amendment. “[The gun culture is] justified, at least by gun-ownership advocates, by the Second Amendment of the constitution…” wrote Gumbel, and at this I was rather perplexed. You see, I figure that the right to bear arms is either in the constitution or it isn’t. If society determines that its citizens should not have the right to bear arms then they should make firearms and other combat weapons illegal. If it isn’t illegal, then those who exercise the Second Amendment should not be persecuted.
The notion that owning a gun is justified by the Second Amendment only to those who own guns is right on par with saying that the right to free speech is only justified by the First Amendment for those who appeal to it in order to speak freely. Unless I am somehow mistaken, citizens of our nation have as much right to the Second Amendment as they do to the First, and anyone who embraces the First and sneers at the Second is being selective of the constitution.
Not that Gumbel was, of course. Although he made some scandalous remarks such as that the National Rifle Association “has the influence to run elected officials out of office if they dare to challenge its agenda” (as if other organizations—the ACLU perhaps—don’t), Gumbel touched on some pertinent and interesting issues. I, for one, am all for gun control. I think that those who run gun shows should be forced to adhere to the same regulations that gun shop owners must follow and should not be able to sell guns using a loophole to whomever flashes some large bills. Background checks should be mandatory, identification and citizenship should be mandatory, and serial numbers should be reported. But when we blame guns as the cause of all the violent deaths out there, I think we are being a little short sighted. Did people not die violently before the invention of the gun? Were men not killed on a daily basis by vagrants and thugs before gunpowder ever made its appearance in the West?
Some who are opposed to guns in general are often, from what I have observed, sympathetic to illegal drugs, especially marijuana. The reasoning goes that it is the illegalization of certain drugs like marijuana that causes trafficking to go underground, become shady and even violent. After all, if people really want the drugs they can still get them, even if it isn’t available in their local shop. While this reasoning is imperfect and selective, it has an interesting correlation with the prospect of making firearms illegal. Guns would not simply disappear if made illegal. Who, then, would own guns? Law abiding citizens or criminals? In whose hands are guns most dangerous?
The gun is a tool to be used by man. Some use it for good, others for evil. The tool need not be blamed, but rather the one who misuses it. It would be a foolish move to make firearms illegal. Because they are underreported, incidents where honest, law-abiding citizens have used guns for good are little known. But one such story did pop up in The Seattle Times recently—in the very same issue as Gumbel’s piece.
Jonathan Martin reported of a man who was killed outside Westlake Center a few weeks ago. A man wearing a yellow shirt approached another man and said, “I am going to kill you,” and then began to attack him, eventually knocking the victim to the ground. The victim, however, had a concealed-weapons permit and shot his attacker once. The attacker later died and the victim was taken into police custody but released when it was determined to be an act of self-defense.
This is a very clear-cut case of justifiable homicide and is a good example of why guns should not be outlawed, for in the right hands they can be used to defend the innocent from the criminal. Criminals will always find ways to obtain weapons, and if guns are outlawed only the law-abiding citizen will be without protection, giving them little defense against the violent men in yellow shirts.

Free Speech is for Some

2006-10-27T00:28:00.000-07:00

I was browsing YouTube this morning when I stumbled upon something rather curious. I watched a movie wherein the first amendment was abandoned. I watched a bunch of radicals storm a stage and assault a guest speaker. I watched bigots throw racial slurs at people who did not look or believe the way that they wanted them to. No, they were not white supremacists or members of the KKK. They were spoon-fed radical students at an Ivy League university.
     On October 4th, representatives from the Minuteman Project gave a talk at Columbia University, having been invited by the College Republicans. When Marvin Stewart, an African American member of the Minuteman Project, began to talk, he was shouted down and called “hypocrite”, “sell-out” and “nigger” by the very people who, moments later, started chanting “Racists, Nazis, KKK! Racists, fascists, go away!” Only moments after Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist began to speak, the audience erupted with a chorus of shouts, jeers and chants. Twenty some-odd protesters stormed the stage and unfurled banners, drowning out the speaker making it impossible for him to continue. The crowd became violent and at least one student walked away bleeding. The security provided by the university stepped aside when the stage was rushed. No arrests were made and no students were taken off the stage, but the invited guest speakers were quickly whisked away by security, unable to finish speaking. Instead of condemning the violent radicals, Columbia University administrators berated the president of the College Republicans for, as The Washington Examiner put it, “allowing the speakers to say anything that would infuriate the crowd.”
     Ward Churchill and Cindy Sheehan have had free reign to say whatever they please. They have never been rushed while onstage. Guards have never escorted them away early from a rally to which they had been invited. We’ve all seen the booths on campus set up by the followers of Lyndon LaRouche and various religious and political organizations which have had free reign of Red Square and the HUB lawn for years. Yet why do we tolerate it when conservatives are silenced? Does free speech only apply to those who adhere to the dogma of political correctness? For the past few weeks the media have been obsessed with the Foley scandal, but the riot at Columbia seems to have largely been overlooked. We must ask ourselves: why? Is it because the media is so upset over this suppression of the Minutemen’s First Amendment rights that they can’t bear to tackle the topic just yet? For some reason, I don’t think that is it.
     “When they brought this speaker,” said Karina Garcia, political chair of Columbia’s Chicano Caucus, as quoted by the Associated Press, “this was an attack on our community and our families. We simply expressed our right to freedom of speech.” By denying the same right to others? You see, I’ve always been told that the first amendment applied to everyone, not just to certain people. I always figured that if illegal immigrants had the freedom to march down the street waving banners and holding signs, as nearly 500,000 did last March in Los Angeles, then those who believe that our laws against illegal immigration must be enforced should also get the freedom to express their thoughts. Have I been mistaken all these years? Is the right to say what is on one’s mind limited to only a certain few?
     Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, at least, thinks that free speech is an egalitarian freedom. “Universities are supposed to be where you can express your views no matter how distasteful they may be to somebody,” he said during his weekly radio show in response to the fracas. “You either believe in free speech or you don’t.” But to some protesters there are just certain people who should not have this right. “The Minutemen are not a legitimate part of the debate on immigration,” one protestor told The Columbia Daily Spectator. Garcia apparently also thinks that the First Amendment doesn’t apply to the Minutemen. “Let tonight be a model for others around the country,” she told the ANSWER Coalition, “and let it be a lesson to the Minutemen: wherever they go, they will be confronted.”
     That isn’t the lesson I learned. Instead I learned that the First Amendment is for some and not for others. Instead I learned that some ideologies are to be lauded and glorified to a fault while others are to be shunned and ridiculed by the “tolerant” and “open-minded”.
Wait a minute. What am I saying? That’s not news at all.

Tag is Banned in Boston

2006-10-26T18:19:00.001-07:00

CNN reported recently that an elementary school in Boston has banned the game of tag during recess, following the examples of schools in Wyoming and Washington, for fear that children might get hurt and the school would be held liable. Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe, who approved the ban, said that recess is “a time when accidents can happen,” and therefore the age-old childhood game was banned to prevent possible injuries.
     I must say that I applaud this move by the elementary school. In fact, I don’t think it goes far enough. I was pleased to hear when dodge ball was banned in some schools, for doge ball is such a violent game, and was even more pleased when I heard that teachers were discouraged from using the color red when correcting papers, for red is such a harsh color and might frighten children, thus making them depressed. These are great steps, but I have a few suggestions that might further keep our children from being children.
     Jump rope is a tragedy just waiting to happen. Seriously. I mean, how many times have kids tripped while jumping rope? And you know what, jump ropes can be used as whips, and surely we don’t want to train our children to be sadist. I say we ban jump ropes because there is a possibility that kids could be hurt using them.
     Dirt is filled with germs. Kids are so impressionable that if little Suzie sees little Johnny wallowing in dirt, why, she might very well do the same and in the process ingest some germs. Heaven forbid! I say we ban dirt from schools and build all playgrounds on clean, sterile concrete that is scrubbed with bleach three times a day.
     But wait, what am I saying? Concrete is hard, and if little Suzie falls down she might hurt herself! I therefore propose that we place a three inch layer of rubber on all exposed hard surfaces so that children can’t bang themselves up while exploring the world. In addition, I suggest that we make inflatable suits for our children to wear so that they are protected from the chance falling object or flying projectile. Let’s block up all school windows so that our children are shielded from harmful ultraviolet rays and let’s ban all pencils and pens, for indeed, these pointy objects could be mistakenly lodged in any number of bodily orifices. Our children can write just as good with finger paints (while wearing goggles and masks so that they don’t ingest the paint, of course.)
     If we take these precautions, I am confident that we can protect our children from anything that might possibly happen to them. It is a great alternative solution until we develop the technology necessary to keep them in the womb forever.

A Fun Food Banning

2006-10-26T18:19:00.000-07:00

New York City is contemplating banning trans fats from restaurants within the city limits, and there are talks of banning them from restaurants in other parts of the country as well. These bans would supposedly reinforce the national battle against obesity as a matter of preserving public health.

Other restaurants have taken the initiative and voluntarily discontinued usage of trans fats when cooking. But with mounting pressure from both health and public sectors, I wonder how “voluntary” such moves really are.

KFC just made headlines for voluntarily phasing out trans fats in its foods, pledging to use zero trans fat soybean oil instead. This is all well and good, and since KFC has been able to make the change apparently without changing the cost or taste of its food, then kudos to them.
But was it really a voluntary change? After all, KFC was sued last June by the Center for Science in the Public Interest over the trans fat content of its chicken. It was only until KFC made its recent announcement that the organization withdrew its lawsuit. Can we really call it a “voluntary” change when activist thugs use the law to force people to do their will?

The ban proposal was met with resistance in New York from restaurant owners, saying that the ban would change the cost and taste of their foods. The Board of Health was perplexed when they conducted an unsuccessful campaign, urging restaurants to eliminate trans fatty foods voluntarily, which is why they are considering the forced ban. But perhaps the reason restaurant owners were not persuaded by the campaign and have met this proposed ban with hostility is because such a change would be cost prohibitive, making ingredients more expensive, giving them a shorter shelf life and having customers disappear when their favorite foods do.

The truth is that most people go to fast food and other restaurants because the food tastes good and it is convenient. Fast food patrons know fully well that greasy burgers, fries and fried chicken are not very good for them.

Personal health should be the responsibility of the individual, not the responsibility of vendors or the government. This means that the government shouldn’t ban foods that are perfectly fine when eaten in moderation, and neither should patrons go sue-happy and blame the world for unwanted girth when their choices lead to obesity. The government should be removed from the situation altogether.

Where do we draw the line? Should chocolate be banned because people have a sweet tooth? Should soda companies be unnecessarily regulated for providing a product which is pretty much liquefied sugar? Unless we as a society decide that unhealthy foods, like illegal drugs, are so harmful to the populace that they should be outlawed entirely, it makes no sense to single out particular health risks like trans fats and punish vendors, when there are so many other things we eat that cause health concerns.

I think the origins for this ban and the inclination for people to sue at the drop of a hat stems from our society’s tendency to blame the world before ever taking responsibility for our own troubles. If we are poor, it’s the rich person’s fault. If we are a failure, it’s the successful person’s fault. If we’ve had a hard life, it’s the fault of those who have had easier lives. And if we are fat, it must be the fault of anyone but ourselves.
Rubbish.

Granted, it can be hard and even expensive to eat right. Honestly, I’m not doing so well myself. But I’m not going to blame this on McDonalds, Safeway or By George and start filing lawsuits. I, like all other adults, am responsible for what I put into my own mouth. I should have had a salad, not a bowl of spaghetti. I should have had some humus (ugh) not a ham sandwich.

It is indeed tragic to see children growing up obese, but this is the fault of the parents who feed and raise those children, not the government or restaurants’.

We must also remember that some people are just naturally plump, even when they eat properly and are otherwise healthy. The condescension some have towards the plump and pudgy almost borders on bigotry, which is fascinating to me.

We chastise ourselves for persecuting people based upon race, and rightfully so, but then turn around and treat the obese as if they were lepers, perpetuating the dumb, dirty and lazy stereotypes that in some cases make the obese a separate class of citizen, open to ridicule and pompous condemnation.

Likewise, it is just as unreasonable for overweight individuals to become incensed over harmless comments. MSNBC recently reported that a police chief in Florida was forced to resign after circulating a letter amongst his staff entitled “Are You a Jelly Belly?” which listed ten reasons, as a police officer, to be in shape. “Don’t mean to offend,” he concluded in the memo, “this is just straight talk. I owe it to you.”

Perhaps there were other aspects of the chief’s personality which rubbed his staff the wrong way, justifying his expulsion, but if it was based on the “jelly belly” comment then it was certainly an overreaction.

America does have a problem with obesity, but this is no reason to become zealous about legislation, unfairly prosecute particular food vendors and take away a man’s freedom to make his own dinner decisions. Rather, it is a reason to make healthier food choices more readily available and to better educate people on the importance of good nutrition.

Instead of banning foods, suing restaurants and ostracizing the obese, I believe that it behooves us all to take responsibility for our own girth, make wise decisions about where we decide to eat, and treat those who may look different than us, including around the midsection, with the same sort of respect with which we expect to be treated.

Organs Aplenty

2006-10-26T18:18:00.000-07:00

I have always found interesting (and somewhat humorous) the intense hatred that some have had, not just towards America, the religious or democracy, but primarily towards president Bush. Perhaps this has happened towards every president we have had and the fanatics have always painted Hitler-staches on presidents, burned them in effigy, called the president (and his party along anyone who voted for him) bigots, fascists, imperialists and so forth, and if it has then I’ll just chalk it up to my youth and inexperience, having been a kid during the Regan and Bush Sr. years and a hormonal, psychotic teen during the Clinton years. The reason I find it all so odd is that there are far better targets, for the truly discerning humanitarian, of hatred, slander and venom.
     Let us take, for example, the whole Darfur concoction. The Arab-dominated Sudanese government had been oppressing non-Arabs when in 2003 the local non-Arabs rebelled against the government. The Sudanese quickly attacked from the sky and ground. There have been mass killings and widespread rapes of the non-Arab citizens, with thousands dead and over a million driven from their homes. Are these murdering rapists pretty nasty fellows? Sure. But evidentially not as bad as Bush.
     Well, then there is our good old chap Fidel Castro. The man came to power and has killed thousands of his political opponents in order to remain in command. “Counterrevolutionaries” have been imprisoned without trial, often in abhorrent living conditions, for years or even lifetimes. In 1965 he established labor camps for social deviants (including homosexuals). Is Mr. Castro a naughty, naughty boy? You bet. But evidentially not as bad as Bush.
     And then there are our old chums, the Communist Party of China. A religious cult called Falun Gong is particularly disliked by the CPC due to the cult’s criticism of the party, and the CPC has taken great strides as of late to suppress the cult, imprisoning its members. But recently there have been rumors that the imprisoned Falun Gong have been having their organs harvested, with their kidneys, heart, liver, skin and corneas being removed and sold for incredible profits on the human organ black market, their bodies being incinerated to hide the evidence. The CPC denies this and the US State Department has found no evidence of such crimes, but the rumors are so persuading that Congressman Dana Rohrabacher brought it up in congress last September and the former Canadian Secretary of State David Kilgour, who just coauthored a 45-page investigative report on the issue, is quoted as saying, “I don’t think anyone can have any doubt that this unbelievable practice is continuing.” If these allegations are true, then the CPC is surely a dire bunch. But, evidentially, not as bad as Bush.
     It seems to me that some of us have lost perspective in our ongoing crusade against The Man. Disagreements and criticisms make America the wonderful and free place that it is, but when our indignation turns into abject hatred and fanatical lunacy, I think we may have missed the point. If we want to crusade against the evil, imperialistic, tyrannical, dogmatic fascists in this world, there are much better candidates out there.

One Christian’s Stance on South Park

2006-09-26T22:34:00.000-07:00

Being a Christian, I am often surrounded by friends and family members who abhor South Park. They often expect me to hold the same sentiments they do, and yet I must admit that I like South Park. They think that South Park is a boldfaced attack on Christianity and morality. I don’t, and I do not think that liking South Park is a contradiction of my faith or that enjoying it makes me less of a Christian.

I once got in an argument with some family members about South Park. I was told that South Park was evil and wrong because it is a cartoon aimed at children. But South Park is not aimed at children. It is aimed at adults and has a warning at the beginning of each episode saying that the film should not be viewed by anyone. I was then told that it doesn’t matter whether South Park is aimed at children or not, that because it is an animated program that it therefore falls into the “children’s programming” category, for all cartoons are aimed at children. Again, I had to disagree. After all, some of the earliest cartoons were made for adult audiences. The early Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoons were played in theaters and targeted adults. As Wikipedia says, “…the early thirties cartoons never directly catered to a younger audience… By the late thirties, the series had become edgier, and was more obviously targeted to the adult moviegoers of the time.” It wasn’t until the 1970s that Looney Tunes “…began to be edited to remove scenes featuring innuendos, ethnic stereotypes and extreme violence.” The history of the animated program being targeted towards adults is very clearly established, and one must not restrict a certain type of programming to a certain type of audience.

It is true, however, that many children are naturally drawn to South Park and other animated programs like it because they enjoy cartoons. Many children are raised watching cartoons and gravitate toward animated programs. What, then, should be done? Should South Park be banned, just because some children may watch it even though it isn’t targeted towards them? I say no; if explicit documentaries about violent murders and rapes can be shown on cable television, so should South Park. South Park is already shown in the evenings, around ten o’clock my time, which is an appropriate time slot for an adult cartoon. The truth is that it is up to parents, in my humble opinion, to keep their children from watching shows that were not designed for them. It is their responsibility, not the network or the producers or creators, to regulate what their own children watch.

All of this said, South Park is a vulgar show, which I cannot deny. It is also an interesting and intelligent show (at times). While I do not speak for all Christians, it has become my conviction to not deny myself the good for the sake of avoiding the bad, and I believe that this stance is rooted in scripture. We, as Christians, are to be in the world but not of the world (John 17:14-15). Part of being in the world, I believe, is understanding that we cannot seclude ourselves from the rest of society and make nice little “safe places” for ourselves where we will not be bombarded by the evils of the world. This cuts us off from the people of the world with whom we, as ambassadors on this earth, must associate with. If we never watch the news, never listen to music, never watch movies or television, never read secular books or go to public places, we will become alien wraiths who do not fit into the puzzle of humanity, and this is the last thing we want to be. We are told not to be stumbling blocks (2nd Corinthians 6:3) and yet what do you think we become to non-Christians who see a bunch of stuck up and uptight Christians? If one doesn’t want to watch South Park because he finds it offensive that is fine, but he must realize that there are a lot of offensive things in this world that can harbor a kernel of good, and it would be a shame to miss these things out of fear of being offended.

It is my conviction, therefore, to allow myself to enjoy the good of South Park and ignore the bad of South Park. I find the social commentaries and political allusions down right hilarious. I find some of the jokes and extreme vulgarity (like killing a Kenny look-alike by suffocating him in the “humidor” of the bus driver) unfunny and pointless. But I don’t focus or dwell on that. I find South Park funny for different reasons than others might, and that is fine with me. Now, if a Christian can’t get past the vulgarity and see the ingenuity and wit that are often there, that is fine with me too. And as a brother to them I would never talk about South Park or force them to sit down and watch it if it bothers them, for I should not exercise my freedom to watch it around them if it causes them to stumble (1 Corinthians 8:9). But the same courtesy should be extended to me, and I should not be vilified for finding partial enjoyment in something that happens to be partially vulgar.

What is often brought forth as the gleaming pointed argument against South Park are some of the directly anti-Christian episodes. First, I do not consider the show to be against Christianity. I think it is often against Christians, but so am I at times. One thing modern evangelicals (of whom I consider myself a member, though in a technical sense) is that they can’t seem to separate the Christian from the faith. Just because a man claims to be a Christian doesn’t mean that he is acting like one. Just because a man claims to be representing Christianity properly doesn’t mean that he really is. Just because Christians have their own little cultural quirks doesn’t mean that those cultural quirks should be representative of Christianity. I have no problem with making fun of Christians because some Christians just need to be made fun of. For instance, the Faith +1 episode was downright funny because it pointed out some blatant truths about the Christian music subculture. There is very little Christian music, from my point of view, that is any good at all, and instead of sitting here and getting mad at Matt and Trey for making fun of Christian music, maybe we should just get better. There was also an episode that had a statue of the Virgin Mary shoot blood out of its hindquarters, and when this episode aired there was a huge uproar amongst Catholics (but mind you, there were no riots, no church, mosque, airport or clinic was bombed, and no one was killed via a suicide bomber in response). And it is true; it was a disgusting and vulgar thing to see. But it also raises an interesting point; why is this vulgar and disgusting, but when people think they see blood pouring out of the eyes of a statue it is fine, dandy and even “holy”? In truth it is just ridiculous and gross, and there is absolutely no scriptural foundation for considering blood pouring out of any orifice, let alone that of a statue or painting, to be holy or spiritual in any way. We as Christians have just attached some sort of traditional and spiritual significance to such things when we don’t need to.

And then we come to the direct “mocking” so-called of Jesus himself. South Park has depicted Jesus as a machine-gun wielding Rambo-wannabe, as a vulgar-tongued individual and even as a fool. I can’t see why Christians would be upset by this because the Jesus depicted in South Park is, well, not Jesus. There is a reason why the Old Testament tells us not to depict God with an image, and one of the reasons is that if he has no recognizable form, there is no way he can be mocked with images. But because of the iconophiles we have this idea of what Jesus looks like—a long-haired hippie in a robe—and we attach some sort of significance to this image. In truth, no one knows what he looks like, and the likelihood that a Jewish rabbi from Israel had white skin, blue eyes and long brown hair is not very good.

People have gotten upset with Matt and Trey recently because they said in an interview that it was “open-season on Jesus”. This did not offend me, however, because if you understood the context of the statement you would see that this was actually a criticism of the disparity between how Christianity and Islam are regarded by the secular world. Why is it just fine and dandy to make fun of Christianity and Jesus, but if we make fun of Muslims and Mohammad we are sure to get beheaded or otherwise assassinated? Does it say something about our culture when it is acceptable to make fun of anything Christian, but if we make fun of anything Islamic it is “insensitive”, “intolerant” or not politically correct? This is an injustice and this is not equality. Radical Muslims have a knife to the throat of the entire western world by telling us what we can and cannot do or say, on pain of death. When the Pope said some very innocent remarks the other day in a speech, he was ridiculed by the Muslim world and people were killed. The irony is that the Pope quoted an ancient source who was criticizing Islam’s propensity towards violence. This statement offended Muslims and so they reacted… with violence. It took South Park to show us how blatant this hypocrisy is with their Cartoon Wars episodes, for no one else had the guts (or the will) to highlight this disparity.

Lastly, Matt and Trey are not Christians, so we who are should not expect them to act like ones. How can we get offended and upset at them for making fun of that which they don’t understand? “The story of Jesus makes no sense to me,” said Trey in a recent interview. “God sent his only son. Why could God only have one son and why would he have to die? It’s just bad writing, really. And it’s really terrible in about the second act.” This very clearly demonstrates to me that neither Matt nor Trey understand Christianity, and they can hardly be expected to hold in reverence a faith which makes no sense to them. This was most clearly seen in their episode The Passion of the Jew, which is really one of the only episodes that bothered me, because it made irresponsible conclusions based on ignorance of Christianity.

Father Mackey, the only recurring religious figure aside from Jesus, said that the crucifixion was really a rather small part of the New Testament when in reality it holds an incredibly significant place and was important enough to be repeated in all four gospels. Everything in the gospels leads up to Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Indeed, the entire Old Testament leads up to these moments, for the prophets all predicted the arrival of the messiah who would die and rise again. To Matt and Trey, the Bible is just a good book filled with fantastic stories that should be taken with a grain of salt and not actually believed. How then can we expect them to understand the significance and reason behind the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ if they don’t believe that the Bible is true? Trey said that he didn’t understand why Jesus had to die; well, I will tell you why. If all men sin (Romans 3:23) and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) then those who sin must pay the price of death. This is why the Israelites sacrificed animals in the Old Testament. They were transferring their sin onto the beasts and killing them to pay that price. The problem with this is that men continued to sin, even after sacrificing the animal, and so they would have to sacrifice another, and another, and what if you died before sacrificing an animal to pay for your sin? What then? This is why Jesus had to die. He came to earth and while he was on that cross he took on the penalty for the sins of all of humankind, past, present and future (1 Co 15:1-3, John 1:29, 1st Peter 3:18, 1st Peter 1:18-19). The only being who could have paid the price for all of man’s sins was God; no man could have done it. And because Jesus rose again, he defeated death, Satan and the grave and bridged the gap between man and God so that all who might seek God would find God. That is why Jesus had to die, that is why God had only one son, and that is why it gets “really terrible” around the second act—because sin and death are terrible things.

The Passion of the Christ was just a movie, but it was a good movie and a fair representation of the crucifixion, though it must be stated that the Bible has far more to it than just the crucifixion. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that we are to condemn the Jews for the death of Christ. Jesus and all of his disciples were Jews. The members of the first churches were filled with Jews. The point is that it was man—all of man, not just the Jews—who are responsible for the crucifixion, for it was for all of man that Jesus died. Kyle was incorrect to feel guilty for the death of Christ, because the Bible does not condemn the Jews and neither does Gibson’s movie. This is really my biggest complaint with any of the episodes, because it misrepresents the movie and the Bible.

But how can I expect two men who do not understand Christianity to depict it properly? Matt and Trey said in the interview that Christianity was “superfunny” and a “ridiculous religion” story. We can’t be surprised at such talk, for this very mentality is predicted in scripture. “…but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong…” (1st Corinthians 1:27). Christianity will always sound like silliness to non-Christians, though it might make perfect sense to those who are Christians. That is the way of the world and that is the way it will always be. We need not be surprised.

I like South Park because it picks at those open sores within our culture that the politically correct refuse to acknowledge. Yes, it is often a vulgar show, but I refuse to let this spoil for me that which is funny, witty and intelligent about the show. This is my decision and others need not necessarily take up the same position as me, but I encourage Christians to not “rabble, rabble” against the show when it says something they don’t like, and instead either fix those things within our subculture that are ripe for parody—or ignore it.

Cry-baby Muslims

2006-09-16T19:55:00.000-07:00

Months after the whole Muslim cartoon incident that left many dead, Muslims are again throwing a tantrum, this time over something that Pope Benedict XVI said in a recent lecture. The pope was talking about faith and reason, and during his lecture he made an argument against using violence as a tool of faith, and in doing so he quoted from some ancient sources. The pope quoted Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos as saying, “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached”. He did not agree with this statement and he did not endorse it. He simply quoted the emperor in a scholastic sense to make a point and then explained the quote by saying, “The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. ‘God’, he says, ‘is not pleased by blood — and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death.’”

In addition to Islam, the pope made reference to Protestantism, Judaism, the Greeks and modern atheism, and yet there was no outcry from any of the latter. And yet Muslims around the world have had their sensibilities offended and have demanded for a public apology. As can clearly be seen, the pope’s lecture was a scholastic one and he used history in order to further his argument. He did not attack Muslims and he did not attack Islam; he simply quoted an ancient source who had commented on Islam and even reflected on that source negatively by saying, “He addresses his interlocutor in an astoundingly harsh — to us surprisingly harsh — way”.

Muslim leaders from a round the world have reacted with incredulity. The Organization of the Islamic Conference referred to the pope’s speech as a “campaign” and called it "character assassination of the Prophet Mohammed” and a “smear campaign.” The Turkish Prime Minister demanded a retraction from the pope and the deputy leader of the Turkish Justice and Development Party compared the pope’s remarks to those of Hitler and Mussolini. Morocco recalled its ambassador to the Vatican, Pakistan’s parliament criticized him, Iraq called the pope’s remarks misunderstood and Iran said that the pope was part of “a series of Western conspiracy against Islam”.

Pope Benedict has come forward and expressed his dismay that his remarks were interpreted in such a negative way insisting that they were taken out of context and were in no way meant to be derogatory. But Muslim leaders have rejected his statements as either lies or insufficient and are still demanding an apology. The pope’s speech was against violence and he quoted an ancient source that made mention of historic Muslim violence, and the irony that the very Muslims who are so outraged by the very notion that Muslims act violently are themselves becoming violent over this situation. As of today (September 16th, 2006), Indian Muslims have burned an effigy of the pope, a Muslim cleric of the Islamic Council of Somalia has called for the pope’s assassination, a Greek orthodox and an Anglican church were firebombed in Nablus, five churches in the West Bank and Gaza have been bombed by Palestinians, and an Iraqi militia has claimed that it will destroy the cross in the heart of Rome and hit the Vatican.

When will we learn that there is no appeasing Islam? When will we learn that there is nothing we can ever say or do that will divert their hatred? The pope has been careful ever since he was elected not to step on the toes of Muslims, and yet after all of this, one misunderstood speech has outraged the Muslim community. Muslims do not afford Christianity or Judaism the same courtesy as the west affords Islam. They do not speak of western religions as glowingly as we force ourselves to speak of Islam. They do not look for the positive and completely ignore the great good Christianity in particular has done to fight disease and poverty throughout the world, but instead bring up the crusades time and time again as if the crusades were some evil that was solely the work of Christianity and was waged against Muslims unprovoked, apparently forgetting that it was due to Muslim instigation that the crusades ever were waged (for indeed, how could medieval Christians ever launch a crusade to free the holy land from Muslim occupiers if the holy land was not already occupied by Muslim invaders?)

It is from this that we see that Muslims are childish and stuck in a 15th century frame of mind. Even if the pope’s comments were evil and full of hatred—and they weren’t—Muslims would still have no right to react the way they have. Who are they that they have the right to exist in this world without taking criticism? Are they so childish that they have to wage jihad on the infidel every time they get made fun of? We saw this plainly during the Muslim cartoon controversy. I saw the cartoons as most of us did and they were silly. At the worst they mocked Islam, but Christianity has been mocked far more often and in much more hateful ways for years, such as “artists” dipping a crucifix in a jar of urine and “artists” drawing a painting of the virgin Mary and spearing it with feces, and yet no mosque, nation, church, market, airport or art gallery has ever been bombed by Christians in response. This is why Islam must be reformed if it is to exist in our modern world. Reasonable people just can’t respond this way every time they feel like they have been made fun of. We westerners must not tiptoe around these immature and rage-filled Muslims in fear of offending their sensibilities for no man, nation or religion has the right to exist without criticism. Muslims want to hold the world hostage by threatening violence upon those who mock, criticize or ridicule them which is why they have already bombed churches and called for the pope’s assassination over such an innocent lecture. We must refuse to allow Islam to hold a gun to our heads and censure us for fear of violent retaliation. Such behavior is immature, undemocratic and flat out wrong, and it must be condemned—with gusto.

Forced Acceptance

2006-06-01T13:37:00.000-07:00

In the June 1st, 2006 issue of The Daily, David Nordmark argues in his piece, “A call to accept difference” that those who oppose gay marriage wield arguments that “could be dismantled by a child,” and even says, “I cannot view the opposing side (those against gay marriage) with anything but contempt.” He then rattles off a list of anti-gay marriage arguments that are admittedly weak and concludes that fighting for homosexual “equality” is akin to fighting for racial equality and that “The day will come…when people will look back on those who gave their full-throated support to homophobia with the same disgust with which we look at segregationists…”

This is clear evidence that the Left truly does not understand the anti-gay marriage arguments of the Right, and is much more eager to dumb them down so that they can be easily understood. Yes, it is true that Christians have a moral objection to the practice of homosexuality because of the Bible which clearly says that the act is wrong (rather plainly in Genesis 19:5 and Judges 19:22, and even more plainly in 1st Corinthians 6:9) but their opposition to gay marriage is not based solely on faith or on any of the other arguments Nordmark contrives. Rather simply, one should look at the historical record to see if same sex marriages were ever practiced throughout the whole of human history. The act of homosexuality did indeed exist in antiquity, but it is incredibly hard to find evidence of homosexual marriage in antiquity (with the exception of Nero who is said to have “married” his two homosexual lovers—as well as his own mother) and is more of a modern phenomena. Ancient Greek men did have male lovers (often between a male youth in his teens and an elderly man) but they also had wives, and never do you read about a Greek man desiring another man as a wife or husband. Even Socrates, who was attracted to Alcibiades, had a wife named Xanthippe and possibly another wife as well.

This is not an issue about equality, for homosexuals are already free to be gay, free to live as gay couples and free to do what all other members of this society can do. Rather, proponents of gay marriage want to take an institution that has existed since the dawn of man and turn it into something that it has never been. This is why civil unions, which I do not oppose, are not enough for homosexuals. It isn’t just about the financial goodies that go along with marriage; no, they want their behavior to be accepted by society, even if this is against society’s wish.

We live in a social climate of tolerance, which is indeed good. But there is a stark division between tolerance and acceptance which, given the title of Nordmark’s piece, seems to be misunderstood by the Left. No one should ever be forced to accept something which they do not believe in. Christianity should never be forced onto the unwilling; those who like chocolate ice cream should never be forced to eat vanilla; and those who believe homosexuality is wrong should never be forced to accept it. Yes, we should all tolerate it, but it should never be shoved down our throats. Likewise, society must tolerate the sexual preferences of its citizens (unless it exploits the young or unwilling) but society must never be forced to accept them. Marriage is and always has been between a man and a woman, a husband and wife. It is not submitting to equality to allow gays to marry; rather it is changing the very nature of marriage. And this should never be forced upon society against its will.

Mouthpiece of the Left

2006-06-01T13:36:00.001-07:00

Being the only widely read newspaper on the campus of one of the greatest schools in the nation (*ahem*), one would think that The Daily’s staff would be up to legitimate and proper research. In the case of a fellow named Hunter Kincaid (which reminds me of Bowfinger; “I’m Keith Kincaid! I saved the world!”) it seems not to be the case. I was at first surprised when I began reading his article in the June 1st edition of The Daily (Wait, they’ve read the constitution?) about William Jefferson and his bribery scandal. Lo! and behold! Our good Kincaid did not defend him! Yes, I was shocked too, for certainly, one would reason, Kincaid would defend a fellow lefty to the death. But not, it seems, when the tide of political favor wages against the man (as opposed to reviling him for breaking the law.) But do not despair, my dear Daily readers, for Kincaid fulfills his role as token “Republicans-are-evil-monkeys” commentator, and does not disappoint!

You only have to read to about the middle of the piece before you start hearing the same old, tired, anti-conservative/Republican rhetoric. Kincaid actually accuses Republicans of supporting Jefferson when they shouldn’t, saying, “Republicans, on the other hand, are bouncing off the walls screaming about how horrible an atrocity this is.” Kincaid actually manages to take an article about a corrupt Democrat who hid $90,000 of bribery money in his freezer into a Republican smear piece, even being so condescending as to say “I must admit, I was pretty surprised they (Republicans) had read the Constitution before.” And yet he doesn’t cite a single Republican source—not one—nor does he quote from a single Republican in his entire piece. He instead generalizes all Republicans as “they” and then attributes all sorts of nonsense to them; “they” never read the constitution, “they” are angry with the way Jefferson’s office was stormed, “they” are bouncing off the walls, and so on.

Ah well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Thus is the political climate on such a campus. But, my good Daily, I realize this was an opinion piece, but should not a person’s opinion have at least some sort of foundation in actual research? It seems to me that your Opinion page has exceeded its quota of liberal mouthpieces. Where are the conservative mouthpieces? Ah, that’s right, I almost forgot. “Diversity” only applies to liberal talking points. Gocha.

Hateful Christian Stereotypes

2006-06-01T13:36:00.000-07:00

In the May 31st, 2006 issue of The Daily, Sarah Carr describes Christians who criticize The Da Vinci Code as “rabid” and “react[ing] with such anger and hatred” in her article entitled “The Da Vinci Code and crises of faith”. It is uncanny to her how Christians can get upset over a silly book that is obviously fiction. “Everyone knows what a novel is—” she says, “not to sound condescending, but it’s a story someone made up.”

Reaction opposing the Code has come from many people, many of whom are not Christian. Personally, the book offends me more as a historian than as a Christian. As Professor James Felak said, quoted by The Daily in yesterday’s issue (May 30th, 2006) “Just about everything in it is inaccurate, as far as I can tell.” This would be all fine and dandy if the book was indeed presented as fiction. But what upsets Christians and historians alike is that it is presented as fact. On the first page Brown writes, “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.” When asked on CNN about how much of his book is truth, he responded, “Ninety-nine percent of it is true…all that is fiction, of course, is that there’s a Harvard symbologist named Robert Langdon, and all of his action is fictionalized. But the background is all true.”[1] One quickly realizes that many people believe the Code to be true because Brown repeatedly claims that it is true.

What I find interesting is everyone’s objection to and mischaracterization of the criticisms given to the Code. These criticisms would not be so prominent if so many people did not take Brown’s novel to be fact, as yet again evidenced in yesterday’s issue when Felak was quoted as saying, “...quite a number of students failed their exam question on Renaissance art because they had gotten their knowledge from The Da Vinci Code.” My personal interest in the Code was only perked when guests at my hotel began to educate me on all the horrors of Christianity and the church, due to the knowledge they gleaned from the Code. The sad fact is that some people actually believe that what this book says is true; how then is it “rabid” fanaticism to calmly pick apart the book?

Christians and the “religious right” are constantly represented as hate-filled and angry over this issue, and Carr falls right in step with this stereotype. But by far the majority of criticism of the Code has been done by reasonable, scholastic men and women, both Christian and non-Christian alike, who are interested in the propagation of truth rather than conspiracy laced fantasy. Where are these angry fanatics? Where is the heavy hand of the militant religious right? I find it sad that Carr resorts to stereotypes to describe critics of the Code. And no, it is no excuse that she claims to be a Christian herself. If anything, her faith should make her more understanding of the “religious right” instead of being condescending (yes, condescending, and I am being generous) towards them.

[1] CNN Sunday Morning. Interview with Dan Brown. May 25th, 2003.

Almighty Choice

2006-05-30T12:56:00.000-07:00

As tired and charged as the topic might be, I still find the whole concept of Choice to be very interesting. I was watching Amistad last night and found the film fascinating. One of the most interesting aspects of the film, in my opinion, was the fine legal line drawn between the Africans that were taken on the Spanish ship Amistad and regular African slaves. The theory went that if the Africans had been slaves then they had no rights and therefore did not have the freedom to choose to rebel against their captors and kill them. On the other hand, if they were not slaves before taken by the Spanish ship, they were free men and women and had the right to choose to rebel against their captors and fight for freedom. Of course, the legal line drawn is depraved at best, but the political climate at the time between those who fought for their right to own slaves and those who fought for the slaves’ rights to be free is extraordinarily reminiscent of a certain battle that is being waged in our own time.

Which leads me to wonder exactly how much freedom we, as humans, should have. Societies have dictated the extent of freedoms granted to their citizens since the dawn of man. Our own society values the freedom of the individual nearly above all else. The problem arises when one man’s freedoms clash with another man’s freedoms—take theft, for instance. A man is free to own property, but he is not free to use any means possible to obtain that property. Thus, we, as a society, have declared it wrong and criminal for one man to take the property of another man as his own, and we have labeled this theft. The Choice of the thief is all but disregarded, for we have decided that our citizens must not be allowed to choose to steal.

This flies in the face of some popularly held beliefs—take the case of Robin Hood. The man is generally viewed as a hero because he “robs from the rich and gives to the poor”; the rich, of course, being a symbol of corruption. There is a vein amongst us who believe that the poor are poor because the rich exploit them and make them poor, and these individuals use this mentality to justify theft. “It is ok,” they think, “to steal from someone who is very well off, because he doesn’t need it and wont miss it, whereas I do need it, and I deserve it more than he does.” Despite this popular notion, our society has chosen to trample on the Choice of one aspect of its citizenry in order to says that all theft—regardless of who does the stealing and who is the victim—is wrong and is therefore a crime.

The allegory inevitably leads, as I am sure you all have been predicting, to the concept of abortion. Proponents of abortion invariably defer the moral and ethical problems with abortion to the almighty Choice. They have a right to abortion because they have the freedom to do with their bodies whatever they choose to. Therefore, how dare anyone tell them what they can and cannot do with their own bodies? How dare anyone hamper their Choice in any way? Their unborn baby belongs to them, no one else, and they can do with it what they please.

The Spanish slave trade sued America over the Amistad slaves using the same line of reasoning. The slaves were property that belonged to them. They could tie their property to chains and throw them overboard, if they pleased. They could string them up and whip them for acting badly, if they pleased. How dare the American government deliberate over what the Spanish did with its own property? The Spanish had the right to their property because they were free to do to their slaves whatever they chose to.

One striking difference between abortion and the slave trade is that unborn children are unable to rebel against those who would cut them out of the womb. We will never see a fetus on trial for rebelling against those who would kill him because he does not have the capacity to speak out. But what if he could? What would he say? Maybe he would say that he has the right to be born. Maybe he would say that he should be free to live. Maybe he would say that he should be given a choice, and not have that choice made for him. Should we not, then, give him the ability to make that choice?

In the end, abortion isn’t about choice at all. It is about property and ownership. Some say that a fetus is a woman’s property—therefore she owns it and can do with it as she pleases. It took humanity thousands of years to realize that slavery was wrong and that slaves were human beings, not property. Likewise, infanticide, child exposure and abortion have gone since time immemorial. How long will it take before we extend this revelation to our children?

Statue Discrimination

2006-05-24T16:28:00.000-07:00

When I read an article in the May 24th, 2006 edition of The Daily entitled, “Meet Mr. Jackson, controversial namesake of International Studies” by Jen Ludington, my jaw dropped. I’m sure most of us have seen the bust of the distinguished looking gentleman that has been newly erected outside of Thomson Hall. This is the bust of Senator Henry M. Jackson, the namesake for the Jackson School of International Studies, and it has been exiled to the fourth floor of Thompson Hall since 1983, even though it was intended to be an outdoors statue. “It was moved inside,” said Ludington paraphrasing Anand Yang, the director of the Jackson School, “due to fears that those opponents of Jackson’s neo-conservative political views might vandalize it.”

This, I think, is incredibly telling, for it demonstrates that in 1983, long before Bush was president, long before there was an Iraq war, long before there was widespread outcry against homosexual marriage, and long before there was Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, people had reason to fear that fanatical liberals would vandalize school property in the name of partisan politics. But this isn’t the part that made my jaw drop.

The statue had been scheduled to be moved outdoors a few years ago, but it hadn’t. Yang had agreed to place it outside not realizing that the University was involved in another controversy. “After trying to unveil it,” writes Ludington, “[Yang] learned of an agreement made between minority students and the University not to install any more statues of Caucasians before building one to honor diversity.”

Why this hasn’t been made public before now, I do not know. If it has, it was certainly kept quiet. But this, my friends, is a pure example of modern racism in action. Suppose we were to rephrase this sentence just a bit, reversing it here and there. Suppose the sentence read, “After trying to unveil it, Yang learned of an agreement made between white students and the University not to install any more statues of non-white people before building one to honor whites.” Would this be racist? Would it enrage you? It would enrage me. Why should white people be allowed to tell the University what color of skin can be honored with a statue? Why should white people have a quota of Caucasian statues erected before allowing any others to be? That would be wrong and racist, but it is exactly what we are seeing here.

The minority students that made the agreement with the University evidentially had their demand fulfilled when the Diversity Statue outside Mary Gates Hall was erected. But a statue should never be erected or prevented from being erected based upon the skin color of the depicted. A person should be honored with a bust or statue based on his or her merits, not race. It is racial bullying to prevent a statue from being placed outside until more non-white statues are erected. This is not reverse racism. This is simply racism.

Talking with Heroes

2006-05-24T16:26:00.000-07:00

Hanady Kader bewailed the state of our troops overseas in an article entitled “Whose Politics? Our politics!” which ran in the May 24th, 2006 issue of The Daily. She looks back upon the Vietnam War protests with fondness, and, if we are to follow her line of thinking, perhaps the cruel way in which our troops were received by these same protestors when they returned from Vietnam. She nods her head sagely, reminding us of those students during the Vietnam War who refused to serve the Army (forgetting, evidentially, that there is currently no draft in place) and laments the poor protestors who were shot at Kent State University in 1970 (despite the fact that this has yet to happen to protesters of the current conflicts). She then urges the reader to become more active in protesting the war by striking up political conversations; “Chat with some Marines who have been to Iraq and have seen the occupation firsthand.”

The latter, at least, is good advice, and having the job that I do, I was privileged to talk with a soldier just recently. The soldier was from the Army and was staying the night at my hotel with his girlfriend before flying off to Texas. It was about 11:30 PM and he was hungry, so I offered to take him to Jack in the Box. As we sat in the drive-thru I took the opportunity to ask him all sorts of questions about his stay in Iraq. I can’t remember our conversation word for word, but it went something like this:

I first asked him if he was pleased with the way the military was handling body armor.

“Hell no,” he said. “They force us to wear it.”

“Force you?” I asked, not expecting such an answer.

“Yeah, they give us body armor and force us to wear it. It’s incredibly restrictive and hot. I mean, imagine wearing layers and layers of body armor in the middle of the desert! We walk around like robots. It’s painful.”

“That’s funny,” I said, “because up here we keep hearing stories of parents having to buy their kids body armor because the military won’t provide it.”

“Really? That’s bull****. Most of us take the damn stuff off whenever we can, but if we are caught with it off we get in trouble.”

I then went on to ask him what he did over there. He was part of a team whose job it was to dismantle roadside bombs. They have a special vehicle that was made by Israel that was specifically designed for dismantling bombs.

“They leave them everywhere,” he said. “They plant them in garbage along the side of the road in hidden places, and we have to be really careful. They know that we feed the kids and give them stuff, so they plant the bombs by schools and near houses. We try to get to them before the kids do, but sometimes we aren’t fast enough.”

“How many bombs have you dismantled?”

“What, since I’ve been there? Thousands. We plow through a ton of them a week. Sometimes they go off while we are dismantling them, but our machine keeps us safe.”

“Have you lost any friends over there?”

“A few. I lost a friend when he refused to wear his armor. He got shot and he died. But that’s the way war is, you know. People die. My job is to make those deaths one-sided. The hard ones are the ones where the guy shouldn’t have even been there. My buddy was due to go home but another guy got sick and had to take his spot. The next day, my buddy was killed. He shouldn’t have even been there man. That shouldn’t have happened.”

“Are you looking forward to being done?”

“I’m looking forward to winning the war. This is my second tour of duty, and I plan on signing up again until we get Iraq all fixed up. I can’t leave my friends man, they need me. I’m the only one of them that can think strait. The only reason I’m here is because I wanted to see my girl.”

He met her on Myspace. They have access to email and internet there, which is something I didn’t know. It’s nice to know that they can at least talk with their families on a daily basis. The guy was younger than me, and it really made me think. I almost felt ashamed not being there myself, seeing these 19, 20, 21 year old fellows living in a desert, fending off terrorists and seeing their friends die. I agree with Kader; we should sit down with our soldiers and talk with them about their experiences, when we can. Though I think the outcome of that talk might not be what some would expect.

Bad Desires

2006-05-23T18:55:00.000-07:00

In the May 23rd, 2006 issue of The Daily, Luke Lee approaches the topic of homosexual equality using the X-Men as an allegory of an oppressed minority in an article entitled “The Last Stand”. Unfortunately, Lee is, I think, very much on target as to the purpose behind the recent installment of the X-Men series. There was a time when a story could be told for the sake of the story, where fans of a film could watch it without fear of being bombarded by political propaganda. I’m not saying that there isn’t a time and a place for such allegories through art; indeed, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, a popular children’s book from the Chronicles of Narnia written by C.S. Lewis which was just turned into a major motion picture, is definitely allegorical of Christianity. But such allegories should either be composed as such or not; in my opinion, stories should not be converted into allegories by movie directors if it was not the original intent of the author. Sadly, X-Men is chocked full of such nonsense, and greatly detracts from the enjoyment of the film (since no one likes going to a movie to be preached at).

Our good Mister Lee then went on to bewail the horrible oppression of the GLBT community by the evil conservatives and right-wingers. I suppose I can’t hold him too much to blame, for indeed, such nonsense is pounded into the minds of college students almost on a daily basis and students rarely (read: never) have access to an alternative opinion. So then, I shall take some time to briefly offer an alternate point of view.

“Across America,” says Lee, “so called ‘experts’ are sprouting up claiming to be able to ‘reverse’ or ‘cure’ those of non-heterosexual orientation.” The remainder of the article finds Lee defending the GLBT lifestyle, characterizing any dissenting opinion or objections to that lifestyle as discrimination. I must point out here, however, that Lee considers homosexuality irreversible because he approaches the issue with the mindset that sexual orientation is akin to race; no one can help what race he is and likewise, no one can help his sexual orientation. Those who think along these lines also assume that ones sexual preferences are something that he is born with, and not something that is taught. I have known one homosexual friend of mine to say, “I was born homosexual and I cannot help being homosexual; bisexuals, however, are confused and need counseling so that they can discover their own sexuality.”

What we have here is a bit of a paradox. On one end, the “tolerant” claim that gays cannot help who they love, were born the way they are and that, in the words of Storm from X-Men (so appropriately quoted by Mister Lee), “There is nothing to cure. Nothing’s wrong with any of us.” On the other hand, polygamists, bisexuals and those involved with incest are confused. They have a “problem” that needs to be “cured” because their sexual appetite is not normal. What we seem to have here is a bit of discrimination, and not of the stereotypical conservative kind. How can polygamists and bisexuals need curing, while gays and lesbians do not? Can not a polygamist help who he loves? Can not a bisexual help who he is attracted to? Here we see a philosophy espoused by the GLBT community; that gays are their own breed of person, just like whites and blacks and other flavors of humanity, while those that are not within these clearly defined categories, such as bisexuals, polygamists and those who practice incest, are practicing a kind of “bad love” that is unhealthy and needs to be cured.

Does that sound familiar? It should, since this is the very same argument used by those who think that homosexuality is wrong. The only difference is that it is used by homosexuals—against someone else. This is not equality and, if we follow a homosexual mindset, it is discrimination.

In truth, homosexuals like to spout statistics and research done by scientists that agree with their own beliefs. They like to point to research done by scientists that say that there is a “gay gene” and that this gene is present in homosexuals from birth. But there are just as many scientists out there that say the opposite, and indeed, Lee touched on this in his article when referring to the “experts” that claim that they can “cure” homosexuality. Thus, homosexuals can point to the research that they like and those who believe homosexuality is wrong can point to the research that they like. In the end, a person will believe what he wants to believe whether there is scientific evidence to support his claim or not. And that is cool with me.

What I am not cool with is when members of the GLBT community try to label those who think their behavior is wrong as bigots, racist and discriminators, demonizing them and reviling them. This is not right. Homosexuals should be free to believe the way they want to, and whatever they do in the bedroom should be up to them. Likewise, those who believe homosexuality is wrong should have the same freedoms. I believe that homosexuality is morally wrong. I believe that it is an act, not a genetic condition, that can be changed. Of course a person can’t help who he is attracted to. But he can help who he boinks in the tar-pit. People have many desires, some that are good and some that are bad. The goal is to act on the good desires and not on the bad ones. I know many are screaming right now about my claim that homosexuality is a bad desire. But these are the same people who say that polygamy and incest are bad desires. You can not have it both ways.

You’ve Got Some Racist in Your Eye

2006-05-23T18:54:00.000-07:00

In the May 23rd, 2006 issue of The Daily, Hunter Kincaid writes about the racism of republicans in an article entitled, “Fox News: Whiter than ever.” “According to Fox News,” says Kincaid, “the newest threat is non-white people.” He goes on to say that “Multiculturalism is also outside [Fox News’] comfort zone.” In defense of these arguments, Kincaid recalls the illegal alien issue, referring to such pundits as John Gibson and Bill O’Reilly.

I hate to break it to mister Kincaid, but being opposed to our insecure border is not evidence of racism. I must remind him that it is not just Fox News and republicans that are concerned about the border. Democrats and the liberal media are equally concerned. In fact, Lou Dobbs of CNN has taken up the issue with great gusto, making it the center of his show almost daily. “[I]llegal aliens [are] bringing deadly diseases with them across our borders,” he said during his May 18th show. He then went on to say, “… those millions of illegal aliens the president and the Senate are fond of pointing out have committed only misdemeanors? Well, it turns out they’re committing felonies with forged documents and stealing the identity of American citizens.”

Does this mean that Lou is a racist? Surely if he were a republican on Fox News, Kincaid might respond to his words like so: “Lou Dobbs is a flaming racist, who thinks that illegal aliens are all disease ridden. He is comparing them to rats! He then goes on to criminalize those poor, hard-working immigrants calling them felons, when all they want to do is come here to work. He is a racist! Racist I say!” Rubbish. Nonsense. This is an issue, not about race, but about the security of our nation. The simple fact is that illegal immigrants come here without doing so legally, which means that they make themselves criminals by stepping foot onto American soil without permission. They drain our tax dollars by putting their children into our public schools, clogging our roads and hospitals, getting welfare and free health care, all on the tax payer’s dime—taxes that illegal aliens do not contribute to. This is not a matter of race. Some liberals want to be all politically correct about it and call them “undocumented immigrants” and turn this into a race issue, when it isn’t anything of the sort.

What is even more laughable about Kincaid’s piece is his insistence that all republicans are racists. “Why this new kick in racism among the Republican Party? Prior to this we all kind of assumed that’s how they felt, but they hid it well.” How absurd! And how utterly revealing. Liberals like to pride themselves as being diverse and tolerant, and thus their knee-jerk reaction is to demonize their opponents calling them racists, bigots and intolerant. This label branding is a favorite pastime of the Left, as demonstrated by our good Kincaid. Must I really point out the painfully obvious? Yes, yes I must.

For being a party of racists, republicans sure do have a lot of non-whites; Alberto Gonzales, of course, being the first Hispanic Attorney General. There is also Michael Steele, the lieutenant governor of Maryland, as well as Clarence Thomas (who was called an “Uncle Tom” by leftist commentators), Ward Connerly, Colin Powell, Thomas Sowell, and Condoleezza Rice. Does anyone remember the horrible racism that Rice was subject to by the Left before she was sworn in? Surely I am not the only one. I remember grotesque caricatures of Rice by leftist cartoonists that filled magazines and newspapers—caricatures that were so racially charged that if a republican had drawn one depicting, say, Jesse Jackson, he would have lost his job. One could hardly wade through the tide of racial slurs that she was subject to, being called “Aunt Jemima” and “coon”.

What is most amazing about this phenomenon is the idea that black conservatives are somehow “traitors”. The Black Commentator says, “Condoleezza Rice is the purest expression of the race traitor. No polite description is possible.” Why? Because she actually holds beliefs and opinions that run contrary to the dogma of the Left? Are we not supposed to be a nation of people with diverse beliefs, and are we not supposed to tolerate them? But I am forgetting; diversity only applies to things the Left approves of, and we are only supposed to be tolerant of what the Left tolerates. Therefore it is perfectly fine to discriminate and slander black people who “betray” their own and join the Republican Party.

This is the purest form of racism. A person should be free to believe what he wants to believe and not be subject to prejudice because of his or her race. Black conservatives are constantly bullied by the left for being traitors and are considered not even black. But in my opinion, race shouldn’t even matter. Rice should not be considered a “race traitor” because her race should have nothing to do with her politics. She should be free to believe what she wants to believe regardless of her race, and she should not be condemned and pressured to be something she is not because of her race. To say that white Christians are all racists for being republicans is, in itself, a racist thing to say. My good Kincaid, before wielding the brand of racism against everyone you think is racist because he is white, a Christian or a republican, you might well reflect on your own racial attitudes. First take the “racist” out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the “racist” that is in your brother’s eye.

Churchill the Plagiarist

2006-05-22T20:24:00.000-07:00

It seems that Ward Churchill, who became infamous for comparing the victims of the 9/11 attacks to Nazi Adolf Eichmann, is in a bit of trouble. The man has been accused of extensive plagiarism and an investigative committee by The University of Colorado was commenced to determine the validity of these allegations. The number of Churchill’s accused plagiarisms are staggering. He has been accused of plagiarizing works published by his ex-wife, Annette Jaimes; by Rebecca L. Robbins; by Dam the Dams, a Canadian Activist Group; by Professor Fay G. Cohen of Dalhousie University (who also accused Churchill of telephoning her and threatening her); by Robert T. Coulter; by Professor Brenda Child, who accused him of publishing a photo she took herself and “complains that Churchill’s caption to her photo cites her while estimating that one half of Indian children died at boarding schools” which is a huge exaggeration; by Thomas E. Mails and by Charles M. Bell, who accuses Churchill of selling an ink sketch of a photo that was in the public domain.[1]

In addition to these acts of plagarism, Churchill has been accused of shoddy research and wild exagerations. Churchill has claimed that American soldiers deliberately distributed small-pox infected blankets to Indians killing hundreds of thousands of Indians, while other scholars, most notably Guenter Lewy of the University of Massachusetts and Thomas Brown of Lamar University, deny that there is any evidence that this was deliberate and charge him with exaggerating the death toll and falsifying sources he cites in support of his claims.

The University of Colorado’s investigative committee “determined that Churchill had plagiarized Fay Cohen’s essay” as well as some others. “The University released its investigative committee findings on Churchill for the first seven charges on May 16, 2006. The committee agreed unanimously that Churchill had engaged in academic misconduct on all seven charges, but disagreed on the appropriate sanction.” Additionally, “the committee found him ‘disrespectful of Indian oral traditions.’”

I can’t help but imagine that this is an open and shut case, with a punishment being easy to arrive at—fire the buggar! And yet the University is having trouble deciding what to do. They do not want to appear weak in the face of conservative demands that Churchill be fired, for indeed, Churchill has become an icon of the far-left. It seems, however, that Churchill is becoming more of a burden than he is worth. It was all fine and dandy when Churchill was just an outspoken lefty who was highly critical of the US and compared innocent victims to Nazies. But now he is accused of plagarism, of cultural insensitivity and even of threats and bullying. It seems to me that Churchill is becoming more of a liability to the left than anything. And yet the left is too proud of their idol to let him go.

In the May 18th issue of The Daily, the staff editorial expressed its displeasure with the fact that Churchill is under such scrutiny, saying, “One wishes that Churchill will not become a martyr to the cause of liberal academia…Hopefully misconduct charges against politically active professors will not continue and academic freedom will not be eroded…” Should not the cause of liberal academia be integrity as well as freedom of speech? Should not liberal academia denoucne theft and plagarism, even if it is done by one of their own? Why should liberal academia play favorites and denounce a Harvard college student guilty of plagarism, as did The Daily in an April 28th, 2006 article written by Anna Earnest called “It’s not borrowing, It’s stealing”, but then turn around and poo-poo Churchill for his plagarism, calling him a martyr? This is not equality. This is favoratism and sheds serious doubt upon the impartiality of The Daily and other pieces of liberal propaganda.

[1] Wikipedia. Ward Churchill misconduct allegations. May 22nd, 2006.

Diversely Hypocritical

2006-05-22T20:23:00.000-07:00

Upon reading the May 17th, 2006 issue of The Daily, I stumbled upon a staff editorial that made me almost choke on my tea. On page 4 in an article entitled “Recognizing gay contributions” the editorial board writes, “A work—whether or not the author was gay—should be read because it provides a significant literary contribution. By the same token, authors shouldn’t be given special attention just because they happen to be gay.”

When I read this I almost jumped out of my seat and shouted, “Yes! They get it! The Daily actually gets it!” I wholeheartedly agree; a teacher should be hired because he is a good teacher, not because he is gay, just like a book should be read because it is a good book, not because it was written by a homosexual.

My elation was slightly deflated, however, when I remembered something I had read in the previous day’s paper. In the May 16th issue, an article written by Jen Ludington entitled “Working to define diversity needs” quotes Provost Phyllis Wise as saying, “We really did push to try to increase the number of faculty of color so that the students would be taught by people [they] could identify with.”

When compared to the staff editorial, the irony becomes obvious. How is it right to hire someone simply because he is “of color” and wrong to hire someone because he is gay? I do not see a difference. A person must be hired based upon his merits, not based on his color or his sexual orientation. This is called discrimination. When someone hires a black person in preference to a white person simply because he is black, it is discrimination. When a person hires a gay person in preference to a straight person simply because he is gay, it is discrimination. We must get out of the mindset that a person is owed something because of his race or because of what he does in the bedroom. Students are paying good money to go to this school and are owed the best teachers possible. If this means that everyone hired is white, or Asian, or black, or Hispanic, so be it; should not the goal of a better education be top priority?

Obviously, the world’s talent is not divided on racial or sexual lines. Thus our school will be filled with people of all races, and our libraries will be filled with books written by people of all sexes and preferences, simply because the teachers are good teachers and the books are good books. We must never give preference to someone due to the color of his skin or his sexual identity in order to fulfill a self-imposed quota.

The Eye of the Right

2006-05-22T20:21:00.000-07:00

In the May 17th issue of The Daily, Hunter Kincaid wrote an article called “The Blame game” where he chastised the Bush administration, Fox News and other “mouthpieces” such as Sean Hannity for blaming everything on Clinton. The article addressed the NSA wiretapping controversy and criticized Sean Hannity for comparing it to Echelon, a similar intelligence network used by the Clinton administration. Kincaid defends the Echelon program by claiming that “the program was used effectively to prevent attacks and capture criminals.”

If this defense justifies spying on American citizens, then the NSA wiretapping passes with flying colors. It is, in fact, the NSA (among other organizations such as the UK’s GCH, Canada’s CSE, Australia’s DSD and New Zealand’s GCSB agencies) that is responsible for the operation of the Echelon system. Therefore the attacks that are prevented and the criminals that are captured due to Echelon can be directly attributed to the NSA.[1]

Kincaid also claims that the main difference between the current NSA controversy and the use of the Echelon system during the Clinton administration is that “Clinton obtained the proper warrants.” This claim is, predictably, unsubstantiated, and stands in stark contrast to actual history. It is true that the US is generally prohibited from spying on its own citizens, but a common rule to circumvent this is for the US to have the UK spy on its citizens while the US spies on the UK’s citizens, and then swapping information, a practice that has gone on since World War II.[2]

The NSA’s use of Echelon has gone back decades, as has its methods of obtaining information about people working within the borders of the US to harm civilians. There is no evidence to suggest that the NSA is using its vast array of surveillance equipment to gather information for political purposes or any other purpose than to fight drug trafficking, international and domestic crime or terrorism. Indeed, during the years after Nixon resigned, when information was released that NSA and CIA facilities were being misused, both organizations went out of their way to ensure that these abuses never happened again.
Instead of a knee-jerk reaction against what is perceived to be the omnipresent Eye of the Right penetrating the privacy of the innocent, I suggest that Kincaid set aside partisan politics and approach the issue with a level head, if at all possible.

[1] Wikipedia. National Security Agency. May 22nd, 2006.
[2] Wikipedia. ECHELON. May 22nd, 2006.

The Da Vinci Faux

2006-05-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

The Da Vinci Code, a new movie by Ron Howard starring Tom Hanks and based on Dan Brown’s mystery thriller novel of the same name, is due out May 19th. It has already been shown at the Cannes Film Festival where it did not receive the praise hoped for. Indeed, “[s]everal whistles instead of applause were all that greeted the end of Ron Howard's 125-million-dollar film, and worse than that, the 2,000-strong audience even burst out laughing at the movie’s key moment.”[1] The movie is controversial because of its content, which makes bold claims against the Catholic Church and Christianity itself, shedding doubt upon the divinity of Christ. In order to stave off a potential boycott by Christians around the world, Sony has taken steps to package the movie in appealing wrappings, even going so far as to turn the main character, Robert Langdon, into “a man of some faith”[2], a change from the novel where Langdon is a critic of Christianity and is presumed to have no faith at all. Criticism of the film has caused some Christians to demand that a disclaimer be placed at the beginning of the film saying that it is fiction, prompting Ian McKellen, who plays Leigh Teabing in the film, to quip, “Well, I’ve often thought the Bible should have a disclaimer in the front saying this is fiction.”[3]

To understand the controversy surrounding the film and the strong emotions that it elicits, one must turn to the only reason the film is being made in the first place—the book. Those who have seen the film have said that it differs very slightly from the book (Langdon’s faith being the major deviation) and therefore to analyze the film I must first take the book to task. When I first heard about The Da Vinci Code I wasn’t that interested. I heard that it was a fictional thriller and I don’t read thrillers very often. I had nothing against the book, for I figured that, since it was published as fiction, everyone who read it would approach it as fiction. I was very wrong. I became interested in the book when guests at the hotel where I work began to talk with me about it. They believed that the book was full of facts, despite its being fiction. They are not alone; when polled, one in four French believe that the book is based on fact,[4] Brits twice as likely as Americans, and liberals are more likely to believe it than conservatives and regular churchgoers.[5] Many people do not understand the hubbub over the Code and think that Christians are blowing this thing way out of proportion, as I also thought for a long while. One may wonder how anyone could ever seriously believe the wild claims made in the book, but a little bit of research reveals that the author, Dan Brown, affirms its authenticity.

On the first page Brown writes, “All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.”[6] In an interview Brown said, “The secret behind The Da Vinci Code was too well documented and significant for me to dismiss.”[7] When asked on CNN about how much of his book is truth, he responded, “Ninety-nine percent of it is true…all that is fiction, of course, is that there’s a Harvard symbologist named Robert Langdon, and all of his action is fictionalized. But the background is all true.”[8] One quickly realizes that many people believe the Code to be true because Brown repeatedly claims that it is true.

In preparing this article I bought a used copy of the book and read it. When I finished I had a large list of claims made in the book that were incredibly ridiculous and I was eager to get to work. When I started my research, however, I realized that many people much smarter and more knowledgeable than myself have read the book and debunked it, point by painstaking point.[9] So instead of boring you with a detailed list of everything that is wrong with the book, I will briefly touch on specific topics, chosen to illustrate Brown’s ignorance of history, his shoddy research and his blatant attacks on Christianity.

The Da Vinci Code claims that there is a secret society known as the Priory of Sion. Its purpose is to guard the secret of the Holy Grail and use this secret as leverage against the Catholic Church. The book claims that the Priory was founded in 1099 and that the “grandmasters” of the organization include many famous men, such as Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo and Leonardo da Vinci.[10] In reality, the Priory of Sion mentioned in the Code was founded in May, 1956 by a man named Pierre Plantard as a hoax. There was a real Priory of Sion but it dissolved in 1617 when its members joined the Jesuits. The Les Dossiers Secrets which claim the membership of the men mentioned previously were “discovered” in 1975 and are now determined to be obvious forgeries,[11] based on evidence that the documents were printed on the same press that printed Plantard’s anti-semetic tracts.[12]

Brown claims that Jesus was never considered to be God until the Council of Nicea. Emperor Constantine (a.d. 272-337) held a vote and decided that Jesus would be God. “Until that moment in history,” says the Code, “Jesus was veiwed by his followers as a mortal prophet…a great and powerful man, but a prophet nonetheless. A mortal.”[13] Brown then goes on to claim that “Constantine comissioned and financed a new Bible,” omitting other gospels that spoke of Jesus’ humanity and burned them.[14] In reality, the Old Testament was assembled and recognized as canon by Jewish rabbis at the Council of Yavneh in a.d. 90, 182 years before Constantine’s birth. Twenty of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament were accepted by Christians as canon by the late first or early second century a.d., long before the Council of Nicea in a.d. 325.[15] The final list of books in the New Testament was compiled in a.d. 367 by Athanasius, the bishop of Alexandria, not Emperor Constantine.[16] In addition, manuscripts and fragments of the New Testament have been found and dated as far back as a.d. 125, 147 years before the birth of Constantine.[17] It is therefore impossible for Constantine to have commissioned a new Bible and burned the original one, for our earlierst mansucripts match our current Bible nearly perfectly and predate Constantine. Likewise, it is absurd to claim that no one considered Jesus to be God before the Council of Nicea because one of the greatest criticisms pagan Romans used against Christianity was that Christians worshipped Jesus as God. “We have one common religion with you,” wrote Arnobius, a Roman Christian apologist, in a.d. 311, fourteen years before the Council of Nicea, “and join with you in worshipping the one true God. To which the pagans reply, ‘The gods are hostile to you because you maintain that a man, born of a human being…was God and you believe that he still exists and you worship him in daily prayers.’”[18] Christian authors, writing within the first hundred years after Jesus’ crucifixion, refer to him as God, such as the writings of Ignatius of Antioch who died by about a.d. 107, 165 years before Constantine: “Uncreated, and yet born; God-and-man in One agreed.”[19]

Brown refers to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Coptic Scrolls at Nag Hammadi as being our only record of the “original” version of the Bible that escaped Constantine’s burning, calling them the earliest Christian documents.[20] In reality, the Dead Sea Scrolls contain many different books, none of them mentioning Jesus or Christianity at all. Some are commentaries of biblical texts, and many others are copies of the Old Testament—the same one we use today. Only the books of Esther and Nehamiah are missing, and the ones that are there match our current version, written between 21 b.c. and a.d. 61, long before the birth of Constantine. The Nag Hammadi scrolls are really Gnostic texts, which espouse a mythology that drastically differs from Christianity, many of which have not been dated. Some of the ones that have been dated receive a date between the early 3rd century to the late 4th century, long after the composition of the current New Testament books.

In addition to the Code’s many historical inacuracies, Brown has written a book that is unabashedly anti-Christian, though he denies this. Using various characters, Brown claims that “[u]nbiased science could not possibly be performed by a man who posessed faith in God,”[21] that churchgoers are blind,[22] that the religious should not be trusted,[23] and defines faith as the “acceptance of that which we imagine to be true”.[24] He also attributes many horrific atrocities to Christians or the Church without ever backing them up with a historical reference, let alone a date, such as when he claims that “the church burned at the stake an astounding five million women”[25], that “[t]he male ego ha[s] spent two millenia running unchecked by its female counterpart” (which is absurd; does he really intend to argue that before the advent of Christianity, men did not dominate women?), that the crusades were about gathering and destroying information,[26] and that the early Jewish tradition involved ritualistic sex[27]—all claims unsubstantiated and with no references.

Many people are confused as to why The Da Vinci Code has been so successful, and attribute it to the free promotion given by Christians in their criticisms of it. I do not think this is why the book is popular.[28] Rather, I think it is popular because people want to believe that they hold some sort of secret knowledge. They want to be able to pick up one book and glean all the secrets of history in a day’s worth of reading; they want to be experts without doing the work. In addition, people want reasons to despise Christianity. They want reasons to be able to disregard Christianity and somehow “prove” it incorrect, thus being accountable, not to God, but to themselves only; they want to be their own little gods, and they believe that the Code empowers them in this pursuit. For some, though, the reason is much simpler, and it is something that Brown mentioned in his book, though not in the same context. I’ll quote him here in my conclusion, and I’ll use capitol letters and center it, just as Brown does for all of his great, immense, amazing revelations, which are so earth-shattering that the very foundations of existence are held in the balance. Are you ready? Here it comes! Capitol letters!

EVERYONE LOVES A CONSPIRACY[29]

[1] Critics crucify ‘Da Vinci Code’ in Cannes. Breitbart.com. May 16th, 2006. http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/05/16/060517004155.mxm43ky2.html
[2] USA TODAY, Wednesday, May 17th, 2006. 1D
[3] ‘Da Vinci Code’ Actor: Bible Should Have ‘Fiction’ Disclaimer. NewsBusters.org. May 17th, 2006. http://newsbusters.org/node/5402
[4] One in four French believe Da Vinci Code based on fact: survey. Yahoo! News. May 9th, 2006. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060509/od_afp/sciencereligionfranceoffbeat_060509112129
[5] Liberals Most Likely to Believe Da Vinci Tale. Catholic News Agency. May 21st, 2006. http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=6745
[6] Brown, Dan. 2003. The Da Vinci Code. Hardcover Edition. New York: Doubleday. Page 1
[7] Author Talk. Bookreporter.com. March 20th, 2003. http://www.bookreporter.com/authors/au-brown-dan.asp
[8] CNN Sunday Morning. Interview with Dan Brown. May 25th, 2003. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0305/25/sm.21.html
[9] I refer you to Wikipedia, where you can read everything there is to know about the book and find criticisms of it, as well as references to other websites by Christians and scholars alike who have researched it fully. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
[10] Brown, 1, 113, 157-158
[11] Wikipedia. Priory of Sion. May 15, 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priory_of_sion
[12] Wikipedia. Pierre Plantard. May 21st, 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_plantard
[13] Brown, 233
[14] Brown, 234
[15] Bradley P. Nystrom and David P, Nystrom. The History of Christianity. Mc-Graw Hill. New York: 2004. Pages 89-91; The Truth About Da Vinci. May 15, 2006. http://www.thetruthaboutdavinci.com/
[16] Nystrom, 86
[17] “The New Testament is one of the best attested of all ancient writings with over 5,000 Greek extant manuscripts. Furthermore, discovery of papyrus fragments of the New Testament dating back to the middle of the second century [have been found]. One of the most ancient fragments, the papyrus codex designated Chester Beatty Papyrus No. 2 [P46] is dated prior to a.d. 200 and contains nine of the [A]postle Paul's letters.” Wikipedia. New World Translations of the Holy Scriptures. Accessed May 15, 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_World_Translation_of_the_Holy_Scriptures
[18] Wilken, Robert Louis. 2003. The Christians as the Romans Saw Them. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Page 154.
[19] The Truth About Da Vinci. May 15, 2006 http://www.thetruthaboutdavinci.com/is-jesus-god-article.html
[20] Brown, 234
[21] Brown, 149
[22] Brown, 204
[23] Brown, 340
[24] Brown, 341
[25] Brown, 125
[26] Brown, 254
[27] Brown, 309
[28] Mark Shea has a great article on another reason, that modern American culture is obsessed with sex and celebrity worship, and thus we are inventing a “real” Jesus that had sex with Mary Magdalene and had children in order to justify our own cultural attitudes, which you can read here: http://www.mark-shea.com/real.html
[29] Brown, 169

If Gore Had Been President

2006-05-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

In my reading of the Sunday issue of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (April 23, 2006) I managed to stumble across something that perked my interest. The short article was entitled “Would we be better off with Gore?” (F5) and then went on to describe a few consequences of an Al Gore presidency that “seem certain”, including a world where Osama bin Ladin would have been the primary target (and presumably caught), where there would have been no “invasion of Iraq, no quagmire, no rupture of traditional alliances and, perhaps, a bit of sympathy rather than pathological hatred for Americans among the Muslim masses.” It then goes on to accuse the Bush administration of massive deficits (due to tax cuts), and claims that Gore would have taken the lead in defeating that most malicious of environmental foes, namely, global warming.

All of this is, of course, mere speculation, but I have a secret that may shed some light onto what would have really happened. You see, I have a special little machine called an “alt-o-time-o-later” which I invented in my basement a few years ago. It allows me to bend the fabric of time and space, and I can peer into worlds that are parallel to ours but different due to slight changes in history. I was toying with it one day and managed to discover a world where Gore had won the presidency. I arrived on October 7th, 2001, the day that Bush made an address to the nation in response to the September 11th attacks, but in this parallel world it was Gore who was speaking to the nation instead. I managed to have a tape recorder with me as I viewed this curious spectacle and I recorded his speech. The following is the transcript of Gore’s response to the attacks of September 11th, 2001, in this alternate universe:

1:00 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT AL GORE: “Good afternoon. After long and careful discussion with my top advisors, I have now realized all the terrible atrocities that this great nation has inflicted upon the many smaller nations of this world. It is hard for one to imagine a people who hate America so much, and thus it is a gut instinct of ours to react with horror and a desire for presumed justice upon those whom we think have attacked us without provocation. But I have just recently learned that they were indeed provoked, and the attack on our nation was just as much our fault as theirs.

You see, America has existed for merely a couple hundred years, and in that time we have done so much hurt to the nations around us, especially in the Middle East. We have running water, clean and fresh food, and schools in which to raise our children. Why do we have these things? Because we have taken from those countries that are weaker than us, exploited their resources, killed their children and generally been just nasty people. I like to think of the world as a pie. America started as a small sliver of the pie, but as of late we have gone on to consume a great quantity of that pie. We can only do this by taking from those nations around us, and only now do I see how great a wretch we really are!

And so as I stand here in the White House, I want to make a public apology on behalf of America to the whole world, but particularly to those Islamic nations of the Middle East who have suffered so much under our tyranny. We are sorry. We are sorry for living in this beautiful land. We are sorry for having nice things and eating three times a day. We are sorry that we have the freedom to say whatever we want, even if it is something that you don’t like. We are sorry for our religious freedom, even if that means that people can worship religions other than Islam. We are sorry that we brought you to the point where your only option was to send planes at our buildings, killing thousands of our pampered citizens. We now understand the reasons behind your attack, and can hardly blame you. Do accept our apology.

In an act of good faith towards those Islamic fundamentalists that have so opened our eyes to our own evil ways, I am now declaring September 11th a national holiday. Every year on this day we will dress our women in burkas and play the Muslim call to prayer from our street corners. Three times a day we will stop what we are doing and lie prostrate, facing the east, where the terrorists—er, freedom fighters came from who so alerted us to our inferior morality. In an act of celebration of the Islamic culture, we will round up all Christians and Jews and imprison them, only for the day. We will ban all movies from Hollywood and declare it a day of celebrity hunting, since we certainly can’t have any idols before Allah. All movies and books that are not the Koran will be burned, and we will sing and dance around the fires. On the following day we will put away our costumes and resume our daily lives, being content in our own great diversity, patting ourselves on the back for being so culturally aware. I am sure the victims of the attack would want it this way.

Thank you, O radical Islam, for opening our eyes. As a nation we again apologize, and hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive us. If you will excuse me, I now have an appointment to go sailing with my friend George Clooney on his private yacht. Unless, of course, George Clooney offends Muslims, in which case I do not know him, nor have I ever met him.

Thank you all. May God or Allah or Buddha or the fuzzy bunnies continue to bless America. But not any more than they bless Pakistan.”

END 1:03 P.M., EDT

There, I believe that answers the question as to what the world would be like with a Gore presidency. I found many other interesting alternate universes with my “alt-o-time-o-later”, including a world with Al Sharpton as president, Ted Kennedy as president and Alec Baldwin as president, but those are far too horrible to recount here.

Transspecies

2006-05-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

In the May 10th, 2006 issue of The Daily, Jason Siegel wrote an article entitled “Transgender panel talks of struggle”. He quotes a student as saying, “I think students who need that physical transition [having gender reassignment surgery] should have coverage [by the University of Washington health care plan], especially since gender is included in the university’s non-discrimination policy.” Jason then writes, “Sexual reassignment surgery can be a key step in an individual’s path to contentment…” He goes on to say that it is better for universities to cover gender reassignment surgery in their health plans because it is “cheaper in the long run”. He says that the surgery can help stave off “depression, asthma and migraines, and hospitalization and suicide attempts”. All of these, according to Jason Siegel, are legitimate reasons for allowing students to use university money, some of which is paid by taxpayers, to get gender reassignment surgeries.

I am so glad Jason had the guts to tackle this very sensitive issue. I must admit, though, that an issue similar to this is very near and dear to me. I haven’t told this to anyone yet, so this will be a sort of “coming out” for me, but… I am transspecies. It is true, oh, how it is true! I have been hiding it for so long. It feels so good to finally come out! As long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a duck. I have had this strange desire all my life to fly, float on ponds, eat bread crumbs and frolic. I can’t help it; it is the way God made me! I got so depressed as a child, telling myself that I was somehow wrong, that I shouldn’t have the desires that I have, that I should just be human, like all the other humans, and do what humans do. But when I came to college and heard the messages of equality and diversity, I knew that I could not hide any longer. I am transspecies! I am a duck in a man’s body!

I believe that the university health care plan should cover my limb-reassignment surgery. I am more handicapped than people who were born the wrong gender, because all they have to do is cut something off or sew something on. But me, I will never fit into the body of a duck. It is so sad! What can I do? In order to stave off my depression, asthma and migraines, hospitalization and suicide attempts, I believe I should have a surgery that will get me as close to being a duck as I can—I want wings attached to my back. It will be cheaper in the long run for the school to pay for my surgery than to have to pay for my years of counseling and depression pills.

And don’t you dare persecute me! I can’t help the way I was born! This is not my fault, and I shouldn’t have to change who I really am. If anyone laughs at me, calls me silly or makes fun of me in any way, then I call that person a transspecaphobe. That’s right! I will not be subject to hate and discrimination. I have the right to live my life in whatever manner that makes me happy, and shame on anyone who tries to force me into a man’s body. I hereby announce that I will lead a protest, and my fellow transspecies brothers will march with me onto Red Square, and we will hold signs and banners that say, “I’m a duck! That’s my luck! Get used to it!”

I look forward to the day when I will wake up in the morning and spread my wings. Only then will I be truly happy. Thank you, Jason Diegel, for standing up for all of us who do not like the bodies we were born with and who insist on robbing the tax-payer in order to get an unnecessary surgery so that we will feel better about ourselves. You, my friend, are some kind of hero.

Moving Metal Hurts

2006-05-16T12:04:00.000-07:00

In the May 10th, 2006 issue of The Daily, Hanady Kader remembers Rachel Corrie, a girl who was run over by a bulldozer in the Gaza strip in 2003. She says that Rachel was killed “when an Israel Defense forces Caterpillar bulldozer plowed over her as she engaged in non-violent resistance while defending the home of a Palestinian pharmacist.” Actually, the Israeli bulldozer team was not engaged in destroying houses. It was clearing debris on the roadside, trying to minimize the places where someone would hide explosive devices. Corrie was interfering with an effort by Israel to uncover tunnels used to hide Hamas for smuggling weapons from Egypt. The driver said that he never saw or heard Corrie and that she was standing behind debris that the bulldozer was pushing over. The autopsy revealed that, in fact, it wasn’t even the bulldozer that killed her, but debris that fell on her as it was being pushed aside. HonestReporting.com quotes the Israeli government as saying, “The International Solidarity Movement, to which Corrie belonged, was directly responsible for illegal behavior and conduct in the area of Corrie’s death and their actions directly led to this tragedy.”

It is an incredible shame that such a young, bright girl died so needlessly. She was a native Washington resident, and I hate to see such a promising life snuffed out. But this should be a warning to activists who go off into war zones and expect everything to be peachy-keen. Life around the world is not like life in America. Cars will stop for you in America, police will deal with you non-violently when they can, and when people chain themselves to trees in hopes of saving the tree, people more or less get the person removed before cutting the tree down, not after. But this is not the way it is elsewhere in the world, and people need to understand and appreciate this value of life that we have in America. Accidents happen in America just like the accident in Gaza that killed Corrie, but activists need to realize that terrorists hate America, hate Americans, and target them for destruction, regardles of whether you are a peaceful protester or not; they make no distinction. It is also not very bright to throw yourslef into the way of a moving tractor. Corrie’s blood is not on the heads of Israel but on the heads of those who incited her to act so rashly. Large moving metal vehicles demand respect nomatter who is driving them, in America and elsewhere. All my hippy peace activtist friends out there, please, keep this in mind.

Making Love to your Monitor

2006-05-16T11:59:00.000-07:00

The May 5th, 2006 issue of The Daily ran an article on pornography as an addiction. Megan Peters, who wrote the article, did a good job covering the issue and had a great poll, but she tended to fall on the side of pornography being harmless and steered away from condemning it in any way. She quotes Pepper Shwartz, who teaches a class on the sociology of sexuality, as saying, “I think anything that has to do with children or violence is a very dangerous kind of arousal,” in reference child pornography, which generates $3 billion annually. I agree with Pepper completely; it is a very dangerous kind of arousal. However, I also believe pornography in general is a dangerous form of arousal. To say that violent and child pornography is more dangerous than other forms is to infer that a person who looks at this kind of porn is more likely to act out their desires. I don’t know if this is true or not—perhaps we need to find a survey—but if we follow this out logically, it seems to reason that a person is more likely to act out anything they watch. So then, if a fellow watches bestiality, would he not be more inclined to practice it? The same with a fellow who watches incest, or fantasizes about adultery. People watch this stuff because they are attracted to it. The man who watches lesbians go at it is attracted to it as is the fellow who enjoys downloading Japanese rape. I think that all of these forms of pornography are equally dangerous; some more dangerous to people on the outside, but all equally dangerous to the person involved. Pornography is an addiction, for just like additions, some people want to stop but can’t, want to turn away from the computer screen but can’t, want to leave their John-Thomas alone but can’t. This is unhealthy, and makes a person a slave to his sexual appetite. Sex is not one-sided. It was not meant to exist between a man and his monitor. It was meant to exist between a husband and his wife, and anything that departs from this is an unhealthy form of sexuality.

Spending Other People’s Money

2006-05-16T11:58:00.000-07:00

In the March 5th, 2006 edition of The Daily, the editors rave about Steven Soderbergh, saying, “Steven Soderbergh wants to fix Hollywood with salary caps for actors, banning advertisements before movies and simultaneously releasing films in theaters and on DVD.” The latter two points I agree with, but the first bothers me. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll be the first to say that Hollywood is corrupt, that actors are, more or less, spoiled snobs who make more money than they know what to do with. But the problem with the idea of fixing salary caps for actors is that it interferes with a free economy. The left always talks about freedom to do this and to do that (these freedoms, more often than not, being ones that interfere with others’ freedoms), but isn’t it the opposite of freedom when we tell people how much they can or cannot pay their actors? Shouldn’t we allow them to work it out on their own? Yes, actors make way too much money and do not need it. Yes, they should spend that money on something productive, something other than a $1000 manicure and an eighth Porsche in the garage. But the Left has a tendency to want to decide how to spend everyone else’s money. They want to increase taxes because they want your money because they think they can spend it better than you. I am very sure that I could spend money better than nearly every celebrity, but the money is not mine. It is theirs, and they should be free to make it and spend it.

Raving for Vandals

2006-05-16T11:56:00.000-07:00

In the April 28th edition of The Daily, the editors rave about a vandal, saying, “A graffiti artist has brought suit against New York City over its spray-paint ban, saying it violates the right to free speech,” giving this man the coveted thumbs-up. The editors must never have had their private property vandalized before. Would it be all in the name of free speech for a man to come with a can of spray paint and right “thugz!” on the hood of your car? If not, why is it any different to deface a piece of private property? This reminds me of the vandal that had his fun on University Way. You can still see the word “heroin” written on shops and buildings all up and down the road with spray paint. Is this freedom of speech? Should the first amendment cover the vandalism of private property? I do not think so. Even if it was public property that was written upon, there are millions of other people in New York City who pay their taxes to fund that property and would not appreciate it being defaced. Why should one person get to do whatever he wants to it, to the displeasure of the rest of the city?

Colbert was "Super Depressing"

2006-05-16T11:53:00.000-07:00

In the May 4, 2006 issue of The Daily, the editorial staff congratulated Stephen Colbert for his “biting satire” and for “t[aking] the media to task for not questioning President Bush and his policies”. They applauded the man for comparing the Bush administration to the Hindenburg, saying such “points deserve the same attention as the mainstream media”, concluding that “[t]he media needs to increase its scrutiny of the Bush Administration and the government in general”.

Well, I saw the twenty minute long roast by Colbert. You can find it everywhere online. It is not surprising that the editorial staff of The Daily loved the bit, for the editorial staff of The Daily are firmly rooted in the Left, which colors their perception of the news and makes one wonder exactly how credible or journalistically honest The Daily ever could be. But in all truth, Colbert’s performance as a whole just wasn’t funny. Now to be fair, there were some funny parts. I personally liked the Hindenburg quip, and found it to be one of his funnier comments, another good one being his claim that the media should stop reporting on the NSA wiretapping because it is “super depressing”. But Colbert was obviously nervous. He messed up quite a bit and there were many uncomfortable pauses, including one of his first jokes: “…and a-a-as…as…excited as I am to be here with the president I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America—with the exception of Fox News.” He even had to stop himself after messing up one joke and start again. The crowed laughed rarely, for Colbert’s performance was either under rehearsed or over rehearsed, and he had a complete lack of comedic timing. He read from a sheet of paper for at least a third of the time, and halfway through he played a movie that lasted seven or so minutes. If he could have executed his bit properly it might have been a solid piece, but he paused way too much and was unsure of his own jokes, which is deadly for a comedian.

Each person has his own sense of humor, and apparently the editorial staff of The Daily found Colbert’s bit rip-roaringly hilarious. I personally wonder whether this is simply because he made fun of Republicans. My review is that I was slightly amused, but think Colbert could have done a much better job. Perhaps he should stick with his television show, where he can do a joke over and over again until he gets it right.

Truly Ironic

2006-05-16T11:51:00.000-07:00

In the May 4, 2006 issue of The Daily, David Nordmark reported on the arrangement made between Rush Limbaugh and prosecutors concerning his supposed “doctor shopping” in an article entitled “Limbaugh’s drug use ironic.” He refers to the numerous instances where Rush Limbaugh strictly opposes the selling, pushing, using and importation of illegal drugs, claiming that people who participate in such activity should be punished.

Our good Nordmark apparently fails to see the distinction between pain killers and illegal drugs. Indeed, he considers it a shame that people are incarcerated for the use of illegal drugs and calls the war on drugs an “unmitigated failure.” What is ironic about his piece is that the man thinks that Rush Limbaugh—a “lying demagogue” and “blowhard” in his words—has “[gotten] off so lightly” but then turns around to say that our prisons are too full due to the war on drugs and that treatment is preferable to punishment. Even more amazing is his statement that “one [who uses illegal drugs] is not committing an offense against anyone else”. Can he be serious? Can he seriously bewail the “light” punishment of Limbaugh and then claim that the use if illegal drugs doesn’t hurt others? I beg to differ. What about the mother who watches her son destroy himself on methamphetamine? What about the child who is killed by the inattentive driver who is high on pot? What about the girl who steals from her parents and sells her body in order to pay for her addiction? The use of illegal drugs has consequences that reach much farther than the user. They reach into the hearts and lives of every person who cares about him. It is good that Nordmark believes that addicts should be treated—a notion I very much agree with. But such people are also criminals because they break the law by using the drugs; laws, I might add, that exist because these drugs are destructive, not only to the person, but to society as a whole.

Yes, Limbaugh broke the law and should be punished. He was punished, had to pay over $30,000 in fines and was arrested. Rush has had and still has a hard stance against the use of illegal drugs, as he should, and it is indeed a bit ironic that he ended up becoming addicted to pain killers. But the consequences of using painkillers are drastically different than the consequences of using drugs like cocaine, and thus the punishments should also be different. What is truly ironic, my good Nordmark, is being unable to understand the difference.

Rainbow Rights

2006-04-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

Published in the March issue of Right Turn

On Friday, January 27th, a bill allowing minority rights based on sexual orientation was passed by the Senate with a 25 to 23 vote. The bill will ban discrimination against sexual orientation for housing, lending and employment. Homosexuals have been celebrating, for this ruling has been sought after for nearly 30 years, while critics say that it is just one step closer to same-sex marriage.

This bill is an odd thing. Homosexuals say that it is unfair discrimination to be rejected for housing, loans and employment based on what goes on in the bedroom. And yet this sort of discrimination goes on all the time by all sorts of people—even homosexuals—and they do not consider it discrimination.

For instance, employers have the right to fire someone if the person is a polygamist. Having one or more wives is considered immoral and disgusting by the vast majority of people in this society, and thus we have the right to deny someone housing, a loan or employment if that person partakes in such perverse behavior. Technically, this is discrimination based on sexual preference. Polygamists prefer to have sex with more than one person, and live with each other as if they were married, even though the law only recognizes one wife with one husband. Society has the right to say that such behavior is wrong, and they do. One may think that using polygamy as a comparison is far-fetched, but remember that not long ago, the idea of homosexuality being accepted by mainstream society was far-fetched too. HBO has recently announced its latest series called “Big Love” which tells the story of a man who has three wives and children from each, presenting him as a normal, everyday suburban man who simply made a lifestyle choice. It will debut on March 12th, right after The Sopranos. I do not think it takes much imagination to predict polygamists becoming the next “minority”.

People are rightly concerned that the passing of the new law might be a step closer to same-sex marriages, and society has the right to deem such marriages wrong. Just like polygamy, incest is simply a type of sexual preference. Suppose, for argument’s sake, that two siblings had never met each other until they became adults, negating the possibility of predation during childhood. Both of them were infertile, and neither had any diseases. They meet each other, fall in love, and decide to get married. Would it be wrong? Of course it would, and the majority of people in this society would swiftly condemn such behavior. But it would be no different than polygamy or homosexuality. By saying that incest is wrong, we are saying that people should not practice it and that we will discriminate against those who do. By saying that polygamy is wrong, we are saying that people should not have more than one spouse, and we will discriminate against those who do. And by saying that homosexuality is wrong, we are saying that people should only marry someone of the opposite gender. And we will discriminate against those who don’t.

Those who champion gay rights often approach the issue as if homosexuals are treated unequally. But it is simply not true. All humans have the equal right to fall in love with and marry someone of the opposite gender. What homosexuals want are additional rights, not the same ones everyone else has. They want society to change its opinion about a behavior that it has always deemed perverse. They want society to change what it has always thought of as marriage. They don’t want equality. They want to impose their morality on the majority. If we are to decide that discrimination based on what goes on in the bedroom is wrong, then it is wrong for all activities that go on in the bedroom, not just homosexuality.

At the beginning of February, news came out about gay penguins in Germany. A zoo in Bremerhaven had six male penguins on their hands that, due to the lack of females, had formed strong connections with each other, pairing off and acting like mates. Some of them have even adopted rocks and have been treating them like eggs, sitting on them and guarding them closely. Since the species is endangered, the zoo shipped in four females from Sweden in hopes that the penguins would mate. Last year the females arrived too late for breeding season, and this year the females were too shy.

Gay rights groups around the world have been infuriated by the zoo’s attempt to get the male penguins to mate, calling the female penguins “seductresses”. The zoo has defended itself by saying that the species is in danger of extinction, and that they would be happy to get just one egg to hatch. Heike Kueck, the zoo’s chief executive, said that the behavior of the male penguins has nothing to do with personality but is an oddity that occurs when females are in short supply. The penguins are confused, following instincts that are so ingrained in them that they will improvise when conditions are not perfect, coupling with males instead of females and sitting on rocks instead of eggs.

Homosexuals say that they can’t help who they love, that they were born gay, and so on. I would suggest that, like the penguins, they are simply confused. When we hear of those who practice incest or polygamy, we recognize it as a behavior that is not normal and suggest that the practitioners seek help. A boy will go in for therapy if he is attracted to his sister, because as a society we desire to change the boy and fix the problem. Why is it insensitive discrimination to adopt the same attitude towards homosexuality? Because gays have lobbyists and organizations? Because there are gay celebrities? Because the Greeks practiced it? The Greeks also practiced pedophilia, but that is no reason why we should allow it in our society. Likewise, a bunch of penguins being confused is no validation of homosexuality. Nature is the last place we should go to justify human behavior. After all, some animals, after a rough romp in the bushes, eat each other. Surely no one would point to this as a justification of cannibalism. Or so I hope.

Religious Disparity

2006-02-28T07:33:00.000-08:00

Published in the March issue of Right Turn

The ongoing debate over the Danish cartoons has danced with the topic of free speech since the story first broke. After all, as members of a free, western society, our love for the freedom to say what we want is almost religious in itself, and nothing seems to be a more dearly held right. Therefore one would expect not only Islam but all major religions to be mocked and caricatured in kind. And yet, when going through the pages of papers past, one does not find a great diversity in the number of religions mocked. In fact, one is hard pressed to find any religion mocked at all, except one—Christianity.

Certainly any belief, whether religious or not, has been mocked or ridiculed in some way or fashion by someone at some time. But by far Christianity has been the largest target by satirists. When religions are ridiculed, reputable people would like to say that all religions are mocked equally, or that bigotry against one religion is no less hate-filled than bigotry towards another. However this is simply not true. It is almost expected these days to open up a newspaper, watch a television show or go to the cinema and see Christians or Christianity ridiculed harshly, or mocked in such a mean spirited way as to be more than offensive.

On February 7th, the New York Times ran an article in the Editorials section (A24) denouncing the Danish cartoons that portrayed the image of Mohammad, calling them juvenile. It then went on to say that “The New York Times and much of the nation’s news media have reported on the cartoons but refrained from showing them. That seems a reasonable choice for news organizations that usually refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols, especially since the cartoons are so easy to describe in words.”

On the very next day, February 8th, the New York Times ran an article in the Arts section (B1) calling the cartoons “callous and feeble” but in the same article publishing an image of an artist’s rendition of the virgin Mary, surrounded by cut-outs from pornographic magazines and shellacked clumps of elephant dung. The image of Mary is far more obscene than the Muslim cartoons were. How is it not a gratuitous assault on a religious symbol? Did the New York Times find it harder to describe in words than the Danish cartoons? I don’t see how. I just did.

What we have here is an inclination to offended Christians almost eagerly and a near taboo to offend Islam, or any other religion for that matter, for to do so would be “insensitive.” The fact that Chris Ofili’s portrait entitled “Holy Virgin Mary” that was so smeared in dung was showcased by the Brooklyn Museum in 1999 attests to this fact. When Danes draw silly cartoons of Mohammad with a bomb for a turban, it is “juvenile” and a “gratuitous assault on religious symbols.” But when a man smears Mary with feces, it is art. In 1989, Andres Serrano received $15,000 of taxpayer money from the National Endowment for the Arts for his work entitled “Piss Christ”, which consisted of a crucifix submerged in the artist’s urine. He has also published a work entitled Madonna and Child II, the subjects likewise being submerged in urine.

This bias against Christianity reaches even to this very campus. Our own newspaper, The Daily, is just as guilty of religious prejudice as the New York Times. On August 2nd, 2000, The Daily published a little snippet of fake news, meant to be humorous. Entitled, “The Pope: too famous for his own good”, the author made fun of the age of the pope, portrayed him convulsing in epilepsy, and compared him to an albino monkey. Though hardly God, the pope is a symbol of Catholicism, held dear by millions of people world-wide. Is it any less insensitive to say such things about the pope than to make a cartoon of Mohammad with a sword in his hand? But even more damning was an article in The Daily released on February 8th, 1995 written by Jenn Shreve. On the front page of the issue, at the very top was a picture of a cross and the words, “Jesus should have been aborted – see page 4”. The opinion piece was a page long with an image of Jesus on the right. In it, Jenn Shreve said that she did not have respect for Christ and that Mary should by all means have had an abortion. “…I considered the results of Christ’s life and death and could not fathom one truly good thing accomplished by it… What resulted after [Christ’s crucifixion], however, has turned into the nightmare of western civilization.” She went on to elaborate, “Christ should have been aborted. To begin with, Mary was raped by the Holy Spirit….the Holy Spirit showed up while she was sleeping (so she couldn’t protest) and impregnated her.” She then accused Christ’s followers of rape, murder, torture and the destruction of nations, “up to this very day”.

Such from the mouths of the tolerant. I can hardly imagine anything more hate-filled. One could argue that the piece only reflects the opinions of the author and not that of the paper, except for the fact that at the very end of the article was a note from Kenneth Bogle, the opinion editor, praising her “unique sentience” and “razor-sharp wit”, saying “I can’t think of anyone with whom I’d rather be lynched.”

The double standard in this nation and much of the West is appalling. There is clearly a vigorous bias against anything Christian, and the common ethics of sensitivity seem to apply to every religion except Christianity. This notion is often smirked at, and many excuse this blatant intolerance by noting that Christians are a majority in America. Christians should therefore take it in stride, and be “mature” about the issue and deal with it, for after all, it is free speech. Well then, certainly the same is being said to those irate Muslims over the Danish cartoons. Oh, wait, that’s right, I almost forgot. Many Muslims are burning embassies, beating people and searching hotels and apartments for westerners to kidnap. I guess in order to elicit tolerance and sensitivity from the secular west, Christians would have to do likewise.

© 2005, Brandon M. Dennis

"Insult Us and Die"

2006-02-16T03:04:00.000-08:00

Published in the March issue of Right Turn

In September of last year, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a series of twelve cartoons that depicted the face of the Muslim prophet Mohammad. Islamic law strictly prohibits the picture of Mohammad because it could lead to idolatry, and such images have become taboo in Islamic society. Danish Muslims loudly complained against the newspaper for publishing the images, saying that it had no right to do so. In defiance and as an act of solidarity with the Danish paper, a French newspaper called France Soir republished the images along with the headline, “Yes, We Have the Right to Caricature God.” A German paper, the Welt Daily, published the images on the front page of its paper, saying that the “right to blaspheme” was part of being a democracy. France Soir defended itself for publishing the cartoons, saying “The appearance of the 12 drawings in the Danish press provoked emotions in the Muslim world because the representation of Allah and his prophet is forbidden. But because no religious dogma can impose itself on a democratic and secular society, France Soir is publishing the incriminating caricatures.”

The backlash from the Muslim community has been enormous. In Pakistan some 300 students marched through the streets shouting, “Death to Denmark” and “Death to France.” Palestinian gunmen seized the European Union office in Gaza City and shut it down, spray-painting the walls and writing on the door “Closed until the government apologizes.” Many of the masked men fired their guns into the air and one of them read demands. Militant Muslims have threatened to kidnap European workers if the European Union does not apologize. In Pakistan thousands of protesters burned down a hotel, two banks, a KFC restaurant and the offices of a Norwegian cell phone company. Rioters damaged more than 200 cars, broke the windows of the Holiday Inn, Pizza Hut and McDonalds and damaged dozens of nearby shops. Two movie theaters were torched, eleven people were injured and two rioters were shot and killed as they tried to break into a bank.

Seven thousand Muslim students marched to a Christian university the day before Valentines Day where they broke windows and caused other damage. Police shot the mob with tear gas when they tried to break into the provincial governor’s residence. In Istanbul crowds pelted police with eggs and shouted, “Down with the USA,” “Down with Israel” and “Down with Denmark,” chanting “Vengeance!”

Hundreds of Palestinian Muslims attacked an international observer mission in the West Bank on February 8th, throwing stones and smashing windows with dozens of foreigner’s trapped inside. Sixty members of the mission have been forced to leave for fear of their safety.

On February 6th, thousands of Muslims protesters burned a Danish mission in Beirut and ransacked a Christian neighborhood. One person, choking on smoke from the burning building, jumped from a window and later died at the hospital. Thirty people were injured and 200 people were detained

In Afghanistan, two people were killed and thirteen injured when 2,000 rioters tried to break into a U.S. military base on February 7th. That same day a riot broke out in the city of Mihtarlam and two protestors were killed by police when the crowd threw stones and knives and shot at the police. In East Africa, a stampede caused by stone-throwing rioters killed a teenager who was trampled to death. At a Danish embassy in Iran, nine people were injured in an hour long fight by rioters. Two trees inside the embassy were torched by firebombs, the embassy gate was burned as well as a police booth, and the rioters chanted “Allah is great!” while burning a Danish flag.

Iraqis have urged their government to cut off diplomatic ties with Denmark and Norway. Norway has removed its officers in the West Bank town of Ram after receiving threats from angry Muslims. Danish goods have been boycotted throughout the Muslim world. French and Jordanian newspaper editors have been fired for publishing the images, and gunmen in the West Bank city of Nablus entered four hotels searching for Europeans to abduct, warning the hotels owners not to allow Europeans to enter. The gunmen also said they were searching nearby apartment complexes for westerners. Militants in Gaza promised to shut down European news agencies, specifically mentioning France, Norway, Denmark and Germany. A gunman outside the European Union Commission office in Gaza stated, “Any citizens of these countries, who are present in Gaza, will put themselves in danger. If the European governments don’t apologize by Thursday evening, any visitor of these countries will be targeted.” All people of Danish ancestry or affiliation have been urged by the Danish government to leave Gaza and the West Bank. Militants have threatened to attack all offices of the European Union and even churches, demanding that Europeans—especially the French—leave Gaza immediately.

As a Christian, I can understand a Muslim’s frustration with having his religion ridiculed and mocked. After all, in the United States, Christianity is the favorite target of the media, Hollywood and television. There have been times when I have watched a movie or a television show and been deeply insulted by the way they represent Christians, Christianity, or by the way they mock Jesus. But I have never threatened to kill someone for mocking my faith.

Islam isn’t the only faith that does not like images of its prophets or gods. The Bible says that there should be no graven images (Exodus 20:4), for Christians and Jews also do not like the idea of idolatry. In fact, this issue has been a longstanding one, for in the earlier days of the Catholic Church there was a large problem with iconoclasm. Iconoclasts, those who think all icons like statues and stained glass windows should be abolished, and iconophiles, those who think such images are just fine, have clashed with each other on numerous occasions in the past, even leading to bloodshed. But this bloodshed was wrong, and no one today that claims to be a Christian or Jew threatens people with violence for showing a picture of Jesus or Jehovah.

I am not pleased that Mohammad was mocked. Nor am I pleased that his face was drawn and published, only because I think it wise and good to respect the feelings and beliefs of others. But militant Muslims must understand that their faith is not the only one on this earth. In a free society people must be free to say what they want, even if it is immature, inflammatory and insensitive. A country that is run as an Islamic theocracy does not have the right to tell France and Denmark what they can and cannot publish. An Islamic theocracy has no right to threaten such nations with violence simply because a newspaper within the nation published a picture of Mohammad.

What angers me most about this story is the utter hypocrisy of it. For years Christianity and anything related to it has been ridiculed and satirized by cartoons, movies, televisions, books and any other form of media. I have become displeased with the latest season of the television cartoon Family Guy because it mocks Jesus in many episodes. South Park is very funny, but at times it angers me to no end because of the way they depict Jesus and Christians. And yet the Christians who live in this American society live alongside those who mock their faith just fine. People urinate on Christian symbols and it is called art, but if someone were to treat Islam likewise it would be deemed insensitive and hateful. What if Christians resorted to protests and violence every time Christianity was mocked? America would be in constant flames.

Other faiths seem not to matter to militant Muslims. It just so happens that Mohammad was not the only one mocked in the cartoons. The very same Danish paper that published the cartoon of Mohammad also published images of Buddhist, Jewish and Christian deities. Where are the militant Buddhists? Where are the militant Jews and Christians? Where is the outcry from them? In an effort to show that they were not mocking Islam solely but all faiths, in a subsequent issue French Soir came out with specifically Christian cartoons mocking Christ. Lovely.

Militant Muslims have threatened to abduct, vandalize, kill and protest until they receive apologies from Europeans. But many have already apologized, including Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the images. It seems to me that apologies are not exactly what these militants are concerned about, but rather the intimidation of the entire western world. These Islamic fascists want to take over the world installing an Islamic theocracy; we westerner’s aren’t allowed to break their taboos, we aren’t allowed to question the integrity of their holy book, we aren’t allowed to say anything that might shed Islam in a negative light.

For the most part, it seems to be working. Weak governments kneel before Islamic terrorism, as we saw after the Madrid bombings. Nearly all western governments—including ours—goes out of their way to appease Muslims, make them happy, include them and keep from offending them. The problem arises when members of those societies could care less about appeasing Muslims and insult them. Will the next step be to censor speech and thought if it is anti-Muslim, or in any way disrespectful to Islam? Maybe so. Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, is quoted as saying, “The cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad are an attack on our spiritual values. There should be a limit to press freedom.” Where was this man when Christians and Jews were ridiculed? Where was the outrage then? Why must we only ever talk about limiting freedom of speech when Islam is involved? “Any insult to the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) is an insult to more than 1 billion Muslims and an act like this must never be allowed to be repeated,” said Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan. Or what? You’ll blow us all up? An insult to Jesus Christ is an insult to the estimated 2.1 billion Christians in the world, and yet He is defamed, his images are humiliated and He is mocked nearly every day in nearly every free nation on the face of this earth. Though it is distasteful and a disgrace to make a mockery of a person’s religious beliefs, such things will always exist in a secular world and threatening violence should never be an answer to the problem.

It is a pity that we have people in this world that are so callous as to trample the sacred beliefs of others and delight in doing so. It really says something about secular society that they can take pleasure in seeing so many people hurt by such inflammatory insensitivity. The answer is to form a society where such behavior is found to be immature and unacceptable. People only draw hateful cartoons because there are others to look at them. People only make bigoted television shows and movies because there are people who watch them. If we want to change our society we must simply refuse to put food in the mouths of those who make a living slandering others instead of threatening to blow them up. Liberals who cling to freedom of speech like a holy doctrine should do well to keep this story in mind. All this ruckus was over a few silly cartoons. If we do not defeat Islamic fascism and if we allow radical Islam to permeate our society, what do you think will happen when liberals clamor for same-sex marriages, carefree abortions and public pornography? Gallows on every street corner, with the hanging of an infidel just before a call to prayer.

SOURCES:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,183551,00.html; http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/02/01/france.cartoon.ap/index.html; http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/02/02/cartoons.wrap/index.html; http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/02/02/france.cartoon.ap/index.html; http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/01/30/denmark.cartoon.ap/index.html; http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=1570095;
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,183917,00.html

Bustacap

2006-02-16T02:55:00.000-08:00

Published in the February issue of Right Turn

I work at a hotel down by the Sea-Tac airport. It is an old hotel, built in the seventies, and it hasn’t been kept up very well. Ours is one of the cheapest hotels in the area, and because of this we get some of the more disruptive locals. They come during the night, especially on the weekends, and generally make my job much harder.

They tend to have very little regard for the hotel and the other guests within it. They often have loud parties at three in the morning, and we get complaints all through the night. In the morning, the wallpaper may be torn or written on, the ashtrays may be broken or stolen, the televisions ripped from the walls, cigarette holes burned in the carpet, and so forth.

It just so happens that these troublemakers are almost always black. At this point I am sure some are screeching, “Racist!”—but let me finish. The pure and simple reality of the situation is that, at my hotel, during my shift, the thugs that wreck the place and awaken my guests are, more often than not, black kids. I cannot change that. I would like to be able to say that criminal behavior by blacks is unique to my hotel, but statistics say otherwise.

A racist would argue that black people tend to be involved in crime and other forms of anti-social behavior because it is a natural aspect of their race. I, however, believe that such behavior is completely cultural and has nothing to do with race, for all races commit crimes. I will make a distinction between race and culture, race being the biological characteristics of a human being and culture being a set of customs and practices found to be acceptable by a certain group of people that identify themselves with that culture. Every race should and must be appreciated and accepted, for in the end we are all wholly people. But there are some cultures on this earth that must be shunned because they promote crime, violence and hatred.

On this campus of the University of Washington, tolerance, diversity and culture are the three most lauded principles that are pounded into the minds of students. We are expected to tolerate all cultures, we are expected to be exposed to diverse cultures, and we are expected to celebrate all cultures. And yet the same individuals who tout the mantras of diversity will turn around and cite some aspects of distant cultures as “maladaptive”.

The word “maladaptive” has been used by anthropologists as a replacement for the word “wrong”, for they seem to have the idea that nothing is wrong and all things are just misunderstood. For surely, they would argue, we westerners only consider some things wrong because we view them through our small lens of morality that is defined by our own culture, but other cultures do not see them as wrong and, thus, there can be no real “wrong”. But by designating some behaviors as “maladaptive”, anthropologists have come upon a startling discovery. They have discovered that there are indeed certain behaviors, such as female genital mutilation, slavery, torture and the degradation of women, that are destructive to people and societies, take away the freedoms and choices of others and worsen the conditions of human life. These behaviors are therefore maladaptive to the health of that society, regardless of which culture that behavior exists in. It seems that anthropologists have discovered that some behaviors are truly wrong, but they mask the universal declaration of wrongness with the word “maladaptive”. I do not think we need be afraid to use the word “wrong” for some things are simply wrong, and if a culture practices a behavior that is wrong, that culture should change the behavior. Slavery was wrong, not merely maladaptive, and we cut slavery out of our culture because it was the right thing to do. We must not stop there, for there are many more things within our society that should be changed.

There is a certain culture in America that promotes wrong behavior. It advocates substance abuse and glorifies violence. It urges its youth to rebel against law enforcement, applauds bigotry against certain ethnicities and breeds within its practitioners a mentality that desires to take whatever it can. It is a culture that exists within our own nation, and one I am well familiar with, for the troublemakers that haunt my hotel adhere to it religiously.

I do not think I can rightly name it. You see, it goes by many names—gangsta, hip-hop, and probably a slew of others I do not even know—but I do not think any of these names are quite fitting. “Gangsta” doesn’t work, for not everyone within the culture to which I am referring is a gangster (though they are more often than not sympathetic with gang mentality). Hip-hop doesn’t work for there is nothing intrinsically wrong with listening to music performed in the style of hip-hop or rap, or clothing that corresponds to that culture. I will therefore name it, and henceforth dub it “Bustacap” culture, for though they may not all wear their “bling-bling” or get their fizzle shizzle on with the hoes and hizzys, I am pretty sure they would all want to “bust a cap” in my ass. Excuse me now as I remove my tongue from my cheek.

The reason I do not think rap or hip-hop is wrong is because the music and clothing associated can promote good, or at east have some sort of artistic legitimacy in their own right. It is when rap and hip-hop promote violence, illegal drug use, and the abuse of women that they can qualify as Bustacap, and sadly, they more often do than don’t. Of course, rap and hip-hop are not alone in this; although I enjoy rock, some rock is equally guilty of promoting wrong behavior and should likewise change. I must also note that blacks are not the only members of the Bustacap culture, for whites, Hispanics and Asians participate in it as well. But the fact that non-blacks are considered “posers” by blacks is evidence enough how prevalent this culture is amongst black youths.

The reason why this behavior is cultural and not exclusively racial is because there are so many blacks out there who lead lives that benefit society and do not indulge in crime. Black people can be found in all jobs, in all income ranges and positively involved in all aspects of society. Law abiding citizens that contribute to society come in all races and so do criminals. But I strongly affirm that the majority of such criminals associate themselves with a culture that glorifies crime. It isn’t the race that needs to change. Bustacap needs to change.

Those that come looking for a place to throw parties, smoke dope, and solicit prostitution behave in a manner that should not be accepted or excused. It should not be explained away, and we cannot be too timid to speak out against it. When I kick these people out of my hotel, they swear and spit and blow smoke in my face. They call me racist, whitey, bigot, and a slew of other labels that can be filled in by the imagination fairly easily. But I do not kick them out because of their color—many black people stay at my hotel that I would never kick out, for they do not disrupt the sleep of other guests or vandalize property. It is solely the behavior of some individuals, regardless of race, that I cannot tolerate. If I were to ignore it, which most people do to avoid the “bigot” label, I would be negligent in my duty to the other guests.

People say that we shouldn’t use racial profiling to protect ourselves, but few who say such things are ever placed in the position of being responsible for the lives of others. I would agree that we shouldn’t racially profile, only to the extent that I believe the term is used incorrectly. We shouldn’t profile by race; rather, we should profile by attitude and behavior. When I see a man walk into my hotel with his pants to his knees, his bloodshot eyes half closed and acting nervous like he stole something, my internal alarm instantly goes off. I have been doing this job too long to ignore it. I know what goes on in this hotel and I know the kind of people that are up to no good. I know a prostitute when I see one, I know a drug dealer when I see one and I know a troublemaker when I see one. I will not tiptoe around a potential threat when the welfare of my guests is at risk, simply to be politically correct.

Profiling behavior is necessary for the safety of innocent people. Those who protest it do not have the well-being of innocents in mind, only their strict, fascist ideology. I disagree with the idea that all cultures must be tolerated. I would suggest that every culture that does not promote crime or immorality should indeed be tolerated, and all races should not only be tolerated but accepted. However, we must not be afraid as a society to stand up against wrong and call it what it is. Those who do not belong to Bustacap let hoodlums hijack an entire ethnicity in order to excuse their own criminality. Black people do not appreciate it and neither should whites.Those at my hotel who bark the loudest at unruly kids who have no respect for authority and who deface private property are often black men who wish they could slap some sense into them. And yet if I were to do the same, it would be a “hate crime”.

I do not particularly like country music. I detest rodeos and can’t stand cowboy hats. You will never see me wearing a belt buckle the size of a watermelon and I will never wear spurs on my boots. Despite this, I tolerate the stereotypical southern white culture. There is nothing inherently wrong with it. But when a bunch of hicks pull out guns and start robbing people, I’m going to say something. When they spew hatred and racial slurs and beat their wives, I’m going to say something. Likewise, I do not particularly like rap music. I detest basketball and can’t stand sagging pants. You will never see me with a hunk of gold around my neck the size of the Hope Diamond. Despite this, I tolerate the stereotypical urban black culture. There is nothing inherently wrong with it. But when a bunch of thugs call their ladies hoes, cuss at my face and threaten me with violence, I’m going to say something. When they steal light bubs and clocks from rooms and hack at the television cord to try and free it from the wall, I’m going to say something. I can tolerate most cultural customs and behavior, but I will never tolerate behavior that hurts people or is detrimental to society just because it hides under the mask of cultural diversity.

Statistics:

A) Between 1993 and 2003, blacks were involved 4,100 instance of gang violence while Hispanics were involved in 5,700 instances, compared to whites who were involved in 2,600 instances. U.S. Department of Justice. Violence by Gang Members, 1993-2003 [online, cited 31 December 2005]. (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/vgm03.pdf). B) In 2002, blacks consisted of 40.1% of all jail inmates, compared to Hispanics who consisted of 18.5% and whites who consisted of 36.0%. In 1996 it was 40.9%, 18.5% and 37.4% respectively. U.S. Department of Justice. Profile of Jail Inmates, 2002 [online, cited 31 December 2005]. (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/pji02.pdf). C) By the end of 2001, 16.6% of adult black males had served time in a State or Federal prison, compared to 7.7% of adult Hispanic males and 2.6% of adult white males. “An estimated 22% of black males ages 35 to 44 in 2001 had ever been confined in State or Federal prison, compared to 10.0% of Hispanic males and 3.5% of white males in the same age group.” Also: “About 1 in 3 black males, 1 in 6 Hispanic males and 1 in 17 white males are expected to go to prison during their lifetime, if current incarceration rates remain unchanged.” U.S. Department of Justice. Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population, 1974-2001 [online, cited 31 December 2005]. (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/piusp01.pdf). D) Between 1976 and 1998, 5-6% of all homicides between strangers were committed by whites against blacks, compared to 20% of all homicides committed by blacks against whites. Between friends, homicides were 1-2% whites against blacks, 5-6% blacks against whites. U.S. Department of Justice. Violent Victimization and Race, 1993-1998 [online, cited 31 December 2005]. (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/vvr98.pdf). E) Between 1986 and 1997, 24.4% of all black offenders returned to Federal prison within 3 years of release, compared to 17.0% of all Hispanic offenders and 13.4% of all white offenders. U.S. Department of Justice. Offenders returning to federal Prison, 1986-1997 [online, cited 31 December 2005]. (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/orfp97.pdf). F) “The prevalence of imprisonment in 2001 was higher for black males (16.6%) and Hispanic males (7.7%) than for white males (2.6%)[; for] black females (1.7%) and Hispanic females (0.7%) than white females (0.3%).” Also: “Lifetime chances of a person going to prison are higher for… blacks (18.6%) and Hispanics (10%) than for whites (3.4%).” Also: “Based on current rates of first incarceration, an estimated 32% of black males will enter State or Federal prison during their lifetime, compared to 17% of Hispanic males and 5.9% of white males.” U.S. Department of Justice. Criminal Offenders Statistics [online, cited 31 December 2005]. (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/crimoff.htm#prevalence). G) Between 1993 and 1998, 76% of all violent crimes committed by blacks were against other blacks while 17% were against whites, as opposed to 66% of violent crimes by whites against whites and 12% against blacks. U.S. Department of Justice. Violent Victimization and Race, 1993-1998 [online, cited 31 December 2005]. (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/vvr98.pdf)

Porn and Google

2006-02-16T02:51:00.000-08:00

Published in the February issue of Right Turn

The federal government, seeking to revive the Child Online Protection Act of 1998, has asked certain popular online search engines for information about what their users have been searching. The government has asked for a list of keywords and requests entered into search engines during a random week anytime this last year, and it has asked for one-million randomly selected web URLs from search engine databanks.

Yahoo! and MSN have cooperated with the government’s request. America Online has cooperated only partially, providing the government with a list of search requests already publicly available from other sources. Google has refused the government’s request and says that they “intend to resist [the government’s] motion vigorously.”

The spin by the Left has already begun. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports this story but accompanies it with a paranoid concern about “probing into American homes.” Shayana Kadidal, an attorney, calls it “the first step for asking for the content of the e-ails.” An attorney from San Francisco, Thomas Burke, compares the government’s request to wanting to know what a man talks to his mother about over the phone. “When you are looking at that blank search box, you should remember that what you fill [in] can come back to haunt you unless you take precautions,” said Pam Dixon, executive director for the World Privacy Forum.

But the search engines that have been subpoenaed do not consider it an issue of privacy. “We are rigorous defenders of our users’ privacy,” said a Yahoo spokeswoman. “In our opinion, this is not a privacy issue.” MSN responded similarly, saying that it complied with the government’s request “in a way that ensured we also protected the privacy of our customers.” Even Google, who refused the government’s request, explained that they did so in order to keep “crown-jewel trade secrets” secret. “This information would be highly valuable to competitors or miscreants seeking to harm Google's business,” said Google’s attorney Ashok Ramani.

The government has also explained that its request was not for personal, private information about Americans. They have not asked for names or computer IP addresses. The main reason for the request was to enable the government to determine how often pornographic queries turned up in online searches. Their goal is to revive the law that would have required adults to first register before viewing pornography and other objectionable material online.

“We are trying to gather up information in order to help the enforcement of a federal law to ensure the protection, quite frankly, of our nation’s children against pornography,” explained Alberto Gonzales. “We are not asking for the identity of Americans.”

North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado Too

2006-02-16T02:50:00.000-08:00

I recently received a chain letter about a blizzard in North Dakota. The letter recalled horrible details about a storm of “biblical proportions” that dumped tons of snow over the northern plains, stranded and killed motorists, isolated all roads and cut power to thousands of communities. The letter then paralleled this disaster with the Katrina storm in Louisiana, pointing out that no one in North Dakota blamed the storm on Bush, FEMA was not summoned, the Red Cross did not arrive, neither Jesse Jackson nor Al Sharpton gave any speeches, and no one was called a racist on live television.

The story was compelling so I did some research, and discovered that the letter was highly exaggerated. The storm did not reach the devastation that Katrina caused, and the circumstances around each storm were completely different. I think it is a discredit to conservatism to hear about stories like this and exaggerate them—inventing lies—to make a political point, for in the end I believe it is a conservative’s credibility and honesty that is his most powerful weapon, not how compelling his story is. Suppose I were to have repeated the chain letter here without doing some research, taking it at face value. To shut me down, a person would merely have to do a little digging and he would discover many holes in the claim that completely discredited me, the magazine I wrote for and the causes I stood for. It would have done me more harm than good.

The truth of the story is that it was a genuinely bad storm in its own right, but it took place last November. The letter leads one to believe that it happened more recently. Five people died due to the blizzard, and one person died to a tornado spun off by the huge storm. Electricity was cut off for 50,000 homes across eastern South Dakota, in addition to many more communities in North Dakota and Nebraska. As much as 20 inches fell in places, and drifts of up to 8 feet high along with 70 mph winds were recorded. The fire department offered to drive roughly 400 residents to the nearby community center, and a casino hotel housed refugees until it was filled to capacity. In North and South Dakota, 400 miles of road were closed due to the storm; in Colorado and Kansas, over 400 miles of road had been closed as well. Many long stretches of road were closed on Interstates 80, 94, 29, 90 and 70; U.S. Highways 83, 30 and 6; and State Highways 18 and 92. Over 600 travelers were stranded at community shelters in Dawson County alone. Dozens of vehicles were abandoned in ditches along the roads, forcing nearly 1,000 people to spend the night in shelters along I-70 in Kansas, as well as more than 200 on cots and mats at Fort Hays University. [1]

It was certainly no miniscule event. Lives were disrupted and lost, and it was a calamity to remember. The point the chain letter tried to make was a good one: that tragedies—especially weather related—strike indiscriminately. It behooves us to not cry “racism!” whenever calamity arrives. It is no good blaming presidents, governments and agencies, for the best way to get through disaster is to tighten your laces and work to help yourself and your neighbors get through it instead of expecting government handouts. But never distort the truth to push home your point. It will usually bite you in the end.

[1] A) ABC News, Snowstorm Knocks Out Power Across Plains [online, cited January 27, 2006]. (http://abcnews.go.com/US/Weather/wireStory?id=1355481). B) News-Press Online, Wintry weather hits state [online, cited January 27, 2006]. (http://www.ncnewspress.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=891). C) Fox News, Huge Snowstorm Rolls Across Great Plains [online, cited January 27, 2006]. (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,176980,00.html)

The Cult of LaRouche

2005-12-26T14:20:00.000-08:00

There are many types of fanatics on college campuses, from abortion pushers to animal rights activists, anti war protesters to environmentalists. But the one group of fanatics that outmatch all of these combined belong to a man whom I had never heard of, before I started going to college. Evidentially the man has had an inconsequential career and has run for the Democratic presidential nomination in every election since 1980, is wholly unqualified for the presidency, had been sentenced to prison for fifteen years for conspiracy, mail fraud and tax code violations though he only served five, and is a very miniscule figure in serious politics, which may be why I had never heard of him.[1] But now I know the name far too well, for his cronies and servants permeate every campus I have attended and are the most aggressive and fanatical of all activists I have met combined. They belong to a man named Lyndon LaRouche.

I am not exactly sure what his political stance is, and neither is he. He was at one time a Marxist-Leninist and was very fond of Trotskyism, but later turned away from communism and leaned towards fascism. He then switched and pursued a more conservative stance, but some say this was only to get money from conservatives. Despite his more recent attempt to appear liberal, many say he is a closet Marxist with fascist tendencies.[2] I do know that his cronies seem to oppose everything; during the election they opposed Kerry as well as Bush, and during Bush’s presidency they oppose everything that the government does. I have no idea what LaRouche stands for or what he would do differently if he became president. I do know that I will never support the man due to the outrageous actions of his supporters. Out of all the anti-conservative and anti-Bush propaganda that finds its way onto my campus, LaRouche propaganda is the vilest, the most outrageous and the most irresponsible. During the election LaRouche followers used the student body’s hatred of Bush as a tool to promote LaRouche literature, and use contemporary issues on a weekly basis to inflame students. I have posted in this blog the dozens of shameful banners and posters used by LaRouche so that one can see for himself just how far these left-leaning fanatics will go.

I did some research into the type of people LaRouche and his followers are and what I found was very alarming. Stephen Rosenfeld of the Washington Post called them “A duplicitous violence-prone group with fascistic proclivities.” According to Wikipedia, LaRouche was sued by U.S. News and World Report in 1982 when those newspapers discovered that LaRouche supporters had been impersonating their reporters in phone calls, and when LaRouche brought a defamation suit to the New York Supreme court they said in their ruling that it was a “fair statement” to suggest that LaRouche had anti-Semitic tendencies.[3] I already had a sense of the kind of extreme these people represented just from my personal interactions with them, but to hear my impressions parroted by others is disturbing indeed.

They always approach me to talk with me. Even when I do not have my camera with me and don’t linger by their booths taking pictures, they stop me on my way to class to push their savior on me. My first encounter with them was on the campus of Highline Community College, where I got my Associate of Arts degree, before transferring to the University of Washington. One day between classes I was walking towards the cafeteria to read a bit before class, and this woman with a clipboard and a few of her goons stopped me to talk to me. I rarely refuse such an encounter and so I spoke with her, but I saw her later aggressively pursuing other students who didn’t give her the time of day and shouting after them, “Don’t you care about your society!?”

She started a lengthy discussion with me and used some well planned talking points to guide the conversation and try to promote her man LaRouche. She tried to use my faith as a means to convert me to her side, and the conversation disintegrated from there. One thing I do remember about the conversation was how much she detested the “common people”. She would often say that voters are sheep that do not have the intelligence enough to form their own opinions, and so it is LaRouche’s job to tell them what to think. I remarked on how I thought it was a little arrogant to say such things, but she retorted that those who find her words arrogant are merely ignorant. We remained cordial, however, and after I left her I went to read. Later as I was leaving the campus I noticed that she was still there, but some representatives of the school were talking to her. Overhearing the conversation, I discovered that these activists did not have permission to be there, and had been told earlier and on numerous occasions to not approach students on campus. The woman with the clipboard was indignant, said something about being prejudiced against and she promptly left.

I didn’t meet up with the LaRouche crowd again until I came to the U of W, and at that point I saw them every week, and continue to see them roaming the campus with their megaphones and clipboards. Their behavior is very peculiar. When they are not talking with students and passing out literature with images of Dick Cheney wearing demon horns, they are singing opera. They stand with their clipboards and signs and sing opera, or approach students while singing and hand them pamphlets. Students don’t really know how to respond. Do they take the propaganda from the opera-singing activist just so that he will go away? One might as well, for these LaRouche activists are very aggressive, and will follow students from class to class if one makes eye contact with them.

Being the type of fellow that I am, wide in girth and shaggy in appearance, I make a formidable target and often get hit up by these folks for conversation. I suppose my camera doesn’t help me be less conspicuous. When I first started talking with these people I remembered them from Highline, but seeing as how the U of W is a public campus, they have every right to be there. And so I always was very courteous when talking with them and would even give up whole hours of my day just standing there debating with people. I debated with this one man for about an hour one day, and recognized much of the rhetoric he was spewing. It was very similar to the woman I had talked with the year before, and it was then I realized that these propaganda-pushers had been told what to say and how to say it. I get images of LaRouche cronies sitting in a concrete room looking at slides and listening to an energetic man direct them on how to best approach the cattle on campus. Of course, I may be wrong. Anyhow, after a while he decided he no longer wished to talk to me (goodness, I wonder why) and so we parted ways with a hand-shake.

The next week I was again approached by a clipboard-wielding LaRoucheie and he instigated a conversation with me. And, surprise surprise, he had the exact same talking points as the former members I had spoken with. But before I could make any fine quips, the fellow I had talked with a week earlier came up out of nowhere and said, “Do not talk to this guy, he is dishonest.” It was then that the one who had originally approached me gave me a queer glance and walked away without another word. I was taken aback, for I recalled our previous conversation being quite cordial, and since I had certainly tried to be as honest as I could I assumed that he had as well. But if it is one thing I have learned from talking with such people is that honesty is not rewarded in debates. If you concede a point to your opponent or acknowledge that you may not be as knowledgeable on a certain topic as he is, he takes it as a cue to thoroughly bash you and tout his own argument as superior. Not to mention that he will never return the favor and admit that he could possibly be wrong or ignorant on any topic. I asked the man why he thought I was dishonest and he refused to say; he simply said, “You are dishonest and I refuse to talk to you.” He then turned his back to me and ignored me.

I still think it beneficial for a man to be as honest as he can when debating someone who holds an ideology different from his own, for there are still a few out there who desire to be honest themselves, and it is then that progress can be made in a debate. Those who are too prideful or dishonest to ever admit fault, ever admit that they could be wrong or ever admit ignorance on a certain topic are the kind of people you just can’t have a reasonable discussion with. I have found it wiser to talk sensibly with those who are reasonable, and ignore those who are not.

Despite this, I am still approached by those LaRoucheies who do not know me yet. Once when I was walking from Kane to Odegard, a man approached me and began his usual scripted rhetoric. I responded to his conversation for I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt and am more than willing to converse with those who conduct themselves in a mature manner. As we talked, the girl who was standing next to him squinted at me and then her eyes went wide. She interrupted us and said, “I’ve heard of you, I know who you are!” and she turned to her friend and said, “Don’t talk to this guy, he is a Christian.” The man looked at me and said, “Are you really?” to which I nodded, for I have no shame in being a Christian. To the man’s credit he did finish his conversation with me and remained respectful, though he did say, “Ah, well now I know how to go about the conversation.” But the girl continued to stare at me wide-eyed—as if I were some fabled species of animal that she had heard rumor of but had never seen—and cheered her comrade when he made a valid point but laughed, sighed or scoffed when I made one. She eventually walked away before we were done talking.

It was the morning of my Latin midterm and I was a little late for class. I was walking through red square and I passed a LaRouche booth. I didn’t even notice it because I was studying my Latin flash cards, but one of their cronies stopped me and tried to start a conversation. I blinked out of my preoccupations and realized where I was, and sighed when I saw the slanderous and irresponsible signs posted at their booth. I wanted to take pictures of them but I was late for my midterm. The man talking with me was going through the usual rhetoric and I was more than willing to speak with him, so I told him to wait, and said that I would be back in an hour to talk and take pictures. He raised an eyebrow and said, “Take pictures? Oh wait, are you the guy with the camera?” I laughed and said, “Well, I am a guy with a camera, and if you stick around for just an hour I will be back to finish our discussion.” He nodded and said he would be, and so I went to take my midterm (I got a ninety-eight-percent, by the way. I was so happy, since I studied so bloody hard for that test.) But when I returned an hour later, he was gone, the booth was gone, and so were the stacks upon stacks of LaRouche pamphlets and leaflets.

My most recent altercation with the LaRoucheies has been the worst. Those of them that know me ignore me and avert their eyes while I take pictures of their signs and booths. But as I was walking to Odegard one day a fellow with a runny and crusty nose stopped me to talk. He must have been a new recruit for I had never seen him before, and he had that “newbie” zeal. It was during the time when Scooter Libby was indicted for lying under oath, and so I snapped a few pictures of his booth and he began his rhetoric. Since I had no class for another three hours (I usually sit in Odegard studying during my break) I figured I would stay and talk with him as long as he wanted, and present my counter arguments as reasonably as I could. I waited through his prepared speech—the one I was well accustomed to by that time—and then presented my own arguments. He remained docile for a while until a light of recognition flickered behind his eyes, and upon realizing that I was a conservative and not a campus-hippy at all, he snapped.

Now, when people talk of others snapping, one gets the image of a man flailing his arms about wildly and becoming violent. I do not mean this at all. In this instance, he did not become violent and he did not flail his arms; instead he spoke in strings of speech and would not let me get a word in edgewise. Every time I tried to make a point I would be interrupted, and so I found myself stopping and waiting until his three minute speech was done before finishing my point, only to be interrupted again with another speech. What I also noticed was that his words began to make no sense. The words that came out of his mouth were pre-made speeches that did not pertain to the topic we were discussing at all. For instance, I was trying to explain to the man that Libby was indicted for lying under oath,[4] not for lying about the war or committing a crime against humanity, as he claimed, but I was then interrupted by a prepared speech about torture in Abu Ghraib. I was absolutely astonished by the man’s performance and stuck around as long as I did out of sheer amazement and curiosity. After half an hour of listening to the man ramble senselessly and refuse to let me speak—literally refuse to let me open my mouth—I finally shook my head and walked away. It was the first time I have ever had to leave a person in mid-sentence, for while the others were certainly obnoxious at times it was they who would refuse to talk to me and pretend I didn’t exist. There are some people who you can talk to—even if you disagree and even if the person has no intention of ever being honest—and still part ways with a handshake. And yet there are others, like the man aforementioned with whom reason has no influence, leaving your only available option being to walk away. To this day I have never instigated a debate, argument or conversation with any activist on campus, and yet it is I that they are wary of, I that they warn each other about and I who am made to be the Bible-thumping “dishonest” fanatic.

Hypocrisy is something LaRoucheies are very familiar with, even if they do not acknowledge it. All you have to do is talk to them and you get big steaming piles of it. But hypocrisy can also be found in their banners and signs. One of their men called me dishonest, but look at the images I took of their banners and posters and tell me whether a single one often them is honest in any way. One claims that Bush wants to kill your grandmother. This was back near the end of 2004 when there was a reported flu vaccine shortage due to a Britain company backing out and being unable to supply it.[5] A huge panic spread through the nation over these flu vaccines, and these LaRouche cultists used the panic to spread propaganda against Bush. As it turns out, there was no flu crisis and in fact there ended up not being a shortage at all.[6]

This recent indictment of Scooter Libby has the LaRoucheies all in a flutter. From reading their signs and talking to them, one would get the impression that it was Cheney who was indicted, not Libby. Cheney is their target, even a greater one than Bush, and they make him out to be the Hitler of our time. When you talk with them and explain that Libby was indicted merely for lying under oath (which is not excusable and should be punishable by the law regardless) they either deny it or try to convince you that it is really just the first step to uncovering an even deeper, darker scheme by Cheney.

When reports came through about supposed torture by the troops, LaRouche seized upon it as an excuse to simply say that there has always been torture by Cheney and Rumsfield and that they have been covering it up for years. If you ask them—which I have—for evidence or any credible story they simply cannot offer any. It is a complete fabrication and yet the LaRoucheies believe it wholeheartedly because they are programmed to. They call Cheney insane and claim that he is a soldier of Satan, referring oftentimes to the apocalypse. They draw horns on his head and show characters of Cheney being choked to death. They sing creepy songs and write anti-Cheney poetry and make snide remarks about the size of Bush’s penis. Such propaganda is irresponsible to say the least, is outrageous and absolutely shameful.

This kind of rhetoric—though people should be free to make it—can never be respected and should be intolerable by anyone wanting truth or a genuine debate. If LaRouche were a worthy man at all and if he knew what kind of filth his cronies propagate, he would command them to cease in their disgraceful hate-speech, for it gives LaRouche a bad name. But then again, perhaps he does know the extent some of his cultists go to and even lauds it, for certainly he has had a hand in the publication of his literature. This literal demonizing of ones political opposition is what I have always said leads to the worst kind of political hash-slinging and must be resisted whenever possible. I have taken these images and recorded them here for all to see so that honest liberals will know what not to emulate, and conservatives can realize just how extreme some of these people are. Surely one can now understand why I call the Cult of LaRouche the most vile, aggressive and dishonest fanatics that I have ever seen at the University of Washington.

© 2005, Brandon M. Dennis

[1] Wikipedia. Lyndon LaRouche [online, cited 26 December 2005]. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_LaRouche)
[2] ibid
[3] ibid
[4] ABC News. ‘Scooter’ Libby indicted in CIA leak case, resigns [online, cited 26 December 2005]. (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/CIALeak/story?id=1259169)
[5] 1) PBS. U.S. Faces Flu vaccine Shortage [online, cited 26 December 2005]. (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec04/flu_10-11.html). 2) CBS News. Feds: No Need For Flu Shot Panic [online, cited 26 December 2005]. (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/05/health/main647481.shtml)
[6] 1) USA Today. Some states ease flu-shot criteria [online, cited 26 December 2005. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2004-12-12-flu-shots_x.htm). 2) CNN. Health secretary: No flu vaccine crisis [online, cited 26 December 2005]. (http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/10/18/flu/)

Miscellaneous Images of Propaganda from the Left

2005-12-26T11:44:00.000-08:00

I have put as many images as I could into categories, such as abortion and animal rights, and then written articles to accompany them before posting them here. But I have images of so much additional propaganda that, rather than make a new post for each image, I have decided to display their images in this post with a brief comment beside each piece.

I wrote a paper on the patriot act when I was getting my Associate of Arts degree at Highline Community College. I was teamed with a few other students and we decided to argue in favor of the Patriot Act despite the overwhelming popular opinion that the Act was a bad thing. So we each did research and read the Act and came up with a strong argument in its favor. I have since then lost it and so cannot refer to it, but I do remember that there was nothing in the Act that was unconstitutional. In fact, if I remember correctly, the powers granted to the government are no greater than powers that local police already have in order to investigate crimes. These powers were merely adapted to fight terror. One of the biggest argument other students in our class had to our paper was that the senate didn’t know what P.A.T.R.I.O.T. stood for before they voted on it, and didn’t want to seem unpatriotic and so voted for it anyway. That may be, but it has no bearing on whether the Act is constitutional or not, and that is what the argument should be about, not whether the Senators understood what they were signing when they did.

One day outside the HUB I came across a stand with some folks there taking a survey of the political opinions of the students on campus. The student was to fill out a form and then the activist would tally his score and give him a blue sticker to place on a diagram. Each section of the diagram corresponded to a certain political stance. I’ll let you view the image itself to see where most of the students ended up. I’ll just add that when I placed my sticker, the guy doing the survey frowned and turned away from me.

Ah, Wall Mart. Everybody hate Wall Mart, for that is the thing to do! I think it is really silly. I have no ties with Wall Mart and I own none of their stock, but I just think it is silly that people hate a store so much simply for being big. I mean, Wall Mart provides jobs for millions of people in this country. They offer goods at competitive prices. As far as corporations go, I really am not fond of the corruption and greed that often takes place within them, but this happens because it takes so many people to make a company, and where there are many people one will find much corruption. This is a human problem, a moral problem, that does need to be addressed, but the answer is not to get upset at Wall Mart. It is wrong, I believe, for large companies to forcibly take over small mom-and-pop stores, but has Wall Mart ever done this? If so they should be ashamed, but it is silly for folks to get all huffy over Wall Mart without any good reason, simply because they are big.

Particular sub-cultures within our society think the police are corrupt and brutal and unfairly seek them out. The sad truth is that the police do seek them out, but only because statistically members from that sub-culture are more likely to commit a crime. It is anarchistic and maladaptive for people to harass the police and accuse them of crimes, when it is they that are the only shield we have against people who do not care about the law.

I was very upset when I saw these posters on the billboards that line the walkways between buildings. There is nothing wrong with the naked human body at all, but it is my belief that nudity should be regulated to a person’s private quarters. This nudity was sexual as well, and sexuality should be between a husband and his wife and should not be masturbatory fodder for a horny college kid. And while all of these moral and ethical complaints can and often are debated, the reality is that children are constantly on-campus and are subject to seeing this sort of stuff. Yes, it is just a nipple, and an animated nipple at that. But a parent should have the right to decide whether his child can view pornography or hentai. It should not be up to society to decide; it should be up to parents, for the right to make such decisions is what makes them parents.

This image bothered me in that it suggested that one was unable to say what he so desired. The mere fact that the image was allowed to be displayed absolutely refutes such an idea. There is so much freedom of speech going on at my university that one has to wade through it wherever he goes. Many people drown in the tides of free speech on campus, so don’t tell me that you are being censored.

I would like some hard evidence that fossil flues are really all that bad. Do they really contribute to global warming? If so, how? The world is indeed warming but is it because of fossil fuels? Could it not be that it is natural, and that it has happened in the past long before humans ever existed? Nature herself emits more pollution than humans do, via volcanoes, underwater methane vents and the like. “Save the environment, student!” Well all right, but convince me that she is in peril first.

“Bush is bad, Bush is evil! He is the devil reincarnate, and almost as bad as Cheney! Not only is he stupid and illiterate, but, despite his stupidity, he is cunning enough to plot schemes to destroy the world! It is he that blew up the trade center towers on 9/11, and it is he that destroyed the levees in New Orleans! He has ties with big oil companies, which must mean something bad, I am sure! Evil, evil, evil! Rabble, rabble, rabble…”

These following images merely display the prevalence of liberal thought and ideology on campus. I do not think liberals are bad or evil—please do not misunderstand me. I merely think they are incorrect in their beliefs, but I can love them fine the way they are. It is when they spew hatred towards me and my beliefs and refuse to tolerate me as I am (while at the same time telling me to tolerate everything they believe in) that I get upset at liberals. Luckily, I have been blessed enough to have known a handful of liberals who are good people, hard workers and caring individuals, and I am a better person from knowing them. It is the ideology and culture of liberalism that merely gives some humans the fuel they need to be nasty, hateful creatures, and we can’t cure this by debunking liberalism. We can only cure this through love.

Crazy Conservatives and Lunatic Liberals

2005-12-26T10:09:00.000-08:00

When I see Republican booths outside the HUB, I do not take pictures of them. Neither do I take pictures of Democratic booths, nor Libertarian booths, for I do not think it is extreme to have a booth out promoting your political party. What I tend to take pictures of are propaganda that is either outrageous or promotes a social ideal, not simply a party.

On this blog you will find many such pictures, but few of them are ever conservative. The three pictures displayed in this article are images of the only pieces of conservative propaganda that I have seen in my nearly year and a half of attending the University of Washington (and the one about the draft I posted myself, with permission from the author.) Weigh them against the hundreds of pieces of liberal propaganda that flood the campus.

One may ask, why do I bother? Everyone knows that universities—especially universities in Seattle—are incredibly liberal. Well not quite. There are still some people who think that both sides get equal representation on school campuses and in the media. There are still those who deny that there is a bias at all. Parents send their children off to college to further their child’s education, but what they are also doing is placing their children in an environment that is wholly liberal, where liberalism is the thing to do, and where they will be pressured to become a Democrat or a Green. This bias on campuses is not representative of students only, but of the teachers as well, and this bias sometimes comes through in their teaching, leading to students being taught lies by professors with an agenda. As evidence I will refer you to my article on the propaganda that decorates the office doors of professors[1] and my altercations with a few particular professors, calling them on boldface lies that they have said.[2]

Now, everyone has a bias. I do, you do, the pope does. This adds color to arguments and makes for interesting debate. The problem occurs when one is unable to recognize that he has a bias. When one claims that he alone is unbiased he tends to feel high-and-mighty and judgmental, and this leads to demonizing the other side. In addition, when one is surrounded by people who all think the same and who urge the ostracizing of those who believe differently, it leads to a mentality where opponents are dehumanized and free debate is discouraged. I know this very thing goes on in many places throughout the world from many different spheres of thought, but I am focusing on university culture because it is what I am surrounded by on a daily basis. As a conservative, you are treated less-than-human, as a fluke, as some sort of unholy offspring from the human gene pool. You are regarded as a blind simpleton for having the “ignorance” to believe in a God or faith of some sort, and at the same time as a murderous fascist for being a republican, pro-war, pro-life, and pro-second amendment.

I have a cousin who I love to death and she happens to be a liberal. She got her bachelor’s degree from a very small school far away from Seattle, and was one of very few liberals on campus. From listening to her stories, I really get a taste of the worst of conservatives, for she tells tales of bigoted, ill-tempered folk who would harass her and make audacious claims against Democrats and liberals. Such people give a really bad name to conservatives and sadly tend to be a stereotype for all conservatives and Christians. But as I have stated elsewhere on this blog, these horrible actions of people are a human problem, not a conservative one. I believe it is human nature to be scared of and to revile those who think differently than oneself, and this is true whether the person is liberal or conservative. I think one of the greatest insults one could give a liberal is to tell him that he is acting just like the stereotypical conservative that he hates so much, but the simple fact is that it is generally true. There are wacky, crazy conservatives in many places within America, but on college campuses and in blue states, these crazy, wacky people still exist, only they are liberals.

Thus the purpose of Camera of Truth. The stereotypical fanatical, redneck, Bible-thumping, bigoted conservative is perpetuated by the media, whether in written or visual form, by Hollywood, politicians and liberal activists. Seeing as how they have conservatives well covered, I have chosen to display the idiocy from the fanatical Left, but not with silly comics and caricatures, false news stories and stereotypes, but with actual images of their own propaganda.

© 2005, Brandon M. Dennis

[1] Brandon M. Dennis. Camera of Truth – Professor Doors Home to Intolerance [online, cited 26, December 2005]. (http://cameraoftruth.blogspot.com/2005/12/professor-doors-home-to-intolerance.html)
[2] Brandon M. Dennis. Letter to my American History Professor about Christians and Slavery and Letter to my Anthropology Professor [online, cited 26, December 2005]. (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=29487495&blogID=70574690) and (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=29487495&blogID=70569143)

Demands for Campus-wide Walkouts aginst the War

2005-12-26T08:37:00.000-08:00

Just recently there was a walkout on campus against the war on terror.[1] For months in advance, there were people at red square and outside the HUB peddling propaganda and setting up booths to promote their walkout. They called themselves “Youth Against War and Racism”, as if those who are for the war must surely be racist too, and made it their holy crusade to get people to come to their protest. They defaced property on campus, putting stickers on doors and windows which are still there to this day because they cannot be scraped off without harming the structure. And yet less than a hundred people showed up.

I talked to some of these folks as I went from class to class—never from my own instigation but from theirs—and tried to be as polite and honest with them as I could. I took pictures of their booths and joked around with them. There is no sense in having open hostilities with people when you don’t have to. But when pressured into coming to the protest and after my initial response, assuming the whole while that I was a liberal of course, they pressured some more until I simply told them that I was for the war. Each and every time this happened, their faces grew sullen and elongated, as if I were some rare species of demon that they didn’t expect to exist in Seattle. Their smiles faded and became horrified, and they grew silent. Afterwards they would refuse to talk to me, hide their faces from my camera, and tell me to leave. To leave my campus, the one I pay to go to. I always go out of my way to be polite and jovial with them whenever I can. Why could these people not return the same favor? Why must I be demonized for thinking that the war is having a positive effect on the world?

I had hoped to stop by the protest between classes, just to see what it was like and take some pictures. On the day of the protest I went to red square, where I thought it was taking place, but I saw no one. I found out later from reading the campus newspaper that the protest did indeed take place, but only about a hundred people showed up. That is less than everyone who took Greek history with me last quarter. The newspaper was very disappointed, expressing extreme dissatisfaction with the students on campus for not showing up, and saying that it was a sad day for democracy.[2]

First of all, who are these people, that they feel like they can come onto my campus and suddenly expect every card-carrying hippie to drop what they are doing, including attending the classes that they are paying to take, just so they can show up for an hour-long protest? Isn’t that a bit presumptuous? And who are they to condemn the student body for not expressing the same political outrage that they hold?[3] One of the most amazing things I learned from this whole protest is that the pro-liberal stance on college campuses is mostly cultural. Students go to college and get their liberalism by peer pressure. Everyone is a liberal, everyone hates Bush, everyone is against the war and so they are too. But when you ask them to actually go on a hike through the city in the cold waving a banner to protest the war, most of them simply are not that interested. It just doesn’t mean enough to them. They only believe the way that they do because of their friends, and if their friends aren’t going to protest, why should they?

The bad news about this is that it would be very hard to use a reasonable debate to sway someone towards conservatism. Honest debates are a rarity on campus anyway, but if one were to hypothetically ever occur you would think that the logic and reason of the debate (as well as outside research) would be used by a person to formulate his own opinion on the topic. If the results of this protest say anything, it says that arguments and debates do not form a student’s opinion, but that popular culture and peer pressure do. The good news from this is that we find out that the fanatical activist fringe of the Left is a very small minority. Only a hundred people out of thousands of students showed up for this protest, after months of advertising. I have dozens of pictures of their posters, booths and stickers, even though I only have a few here displayed. And yet after all of that, only a hundred showed up. Those hundred, then, must be the core backbone of the fanatic Left on campus, and it is they that hold the school hostage and propagate so much material from red square and outside the HUB. In addition, many of them weren’t even students, but activists in the nearby community that came out for the protest anyway.

It is amazing to me that so few people can have such a huge impact on the culture of an entire campus and, even, an entire city. With so few conservatives on campus, it is no wonder that the conservative voice is strangled in the tide of liberalism.

© 2005, Brandon M. Dennis

[1] The Daily of the University of Washington-Seattle. Students to participate in anti-war walkout [online, cited 26 December 2005]. (http://thedaily.washington.edu/search_results_adv.lasso?-database=DailyWebSQL&-table=Articles&-response=searchpage.lasso&-keyField=__Record_ID__&-keyValue=14284&-search)
[2] The Daily of the University of Washington-Seattle. Students march against the war [online, cited 26 December 2005]. (http://thedaily.washington.edu/search_results_adv.lasso?-database=DailyWebSQL&-table=Articles&-response=searchpage.lasso&-keyField=__Record_ID__&-keyValue=14308&-search &-search)
[3] The Daily of the University of Washington-Seattle. Apathy a concern on college campuses [online, cited 26 December 2005]. (http://thedaily.washington.edu/search_results_adv.lasso?-database=DailyWebSQL&-table=Articles&-response=searchpage.lasso&-keyField=__Record_ID__&-keyValue=14398&-search)

Hurricanes Must Be Racist

2005-12-26T08:18:00.000-08:00

We are all familiar with bullies, for we have all been through elementary school. As adults we generally chalk it up to childhood silliness, but if we were honest with ourselves and tried to remember what it was actually like back then, we would remember how mercilessly cruel bullies can be. Some disagree as to why a bully is a bully; perhaps it is because the bully has deep emotional problems, or perhaps it is just because he enjoys being mean. And yet we would all generally agree that to be a bully is immature and childish, and it is a good thing people abandon such behavior as they mature.

I will suggest that “bullyness” is a human quality that comes naturally to many people, and that while some grow out of it many do not and end up expressing such tendencies as adults through other means. I also propose that those who have been bullied as children sometimes grow up with a chip on their shoulder, and thus look for excuses to be bullies to others. This can be seen today in our society by the special distinction between whites and blacks, homosexuals and heterosexuals. In truth there is really nothing different between these people besides behavior, and so a distinction should not be made on race or person. But in practice, some blacks and homosexuals consider themselves a minority and thus special, and use this as a means to bully others into getting what they want. The ACLU is an excellent tool used to do this.

Laws should not be different for certain people simply because of the color of their skin or because of what they do in the bedroom. Privileges, therefore, should also not be given in preference to one group of people as opposed to another simply because of their heritage or sexual choices. And yet for some odd reason, in this country we have gotten the idea that minorities—classified generally as people in our society who are not white or people who have sexual or romantic relations other than heterosexual ones—are due an added bonus or leniency simply for being what they are. Thus we have hate crime laws which use race to mark a distinction between crimes, and we give homosexuals greater leniency in the workplace.

One of the drawbacks of making certain people a privileged minority is that they get the impression that they are somehow owed this or that for being what they are. If they are not given what they want, they cry racism or prejudice and run to the nearest lawyer for some happy suing. This bullies people into making settlements to avoid lengthy and expensive lawsuits. It makes businesses terrified of being sued for things that occur at the workplace, and so they tend to go out of their way to make minorities happy, even stepping on the liberties and rights of others to do so. It teaches people that in order to get what they want all they have to do is play the racism card. Non-minorities will get scared or feel pressured to cave in and this breeds an environment of fear in our society. If this isn’t fascism, then what is?

In addition, whenever something bad happens to a person who feels like he is a minority, he will again cry racism. This can be best seen, I believe, in the aftermath of the hurricane that hit New Orleans. The sad truth is that America was not as prepared for such a large scale disaster as it should have been. When one does not have to deal with disasters such as hurricanes on a daily basis, it breeds laxity, and laxity equates to a slow response. Due to the inefficiencies of Louisiana’s state and city governments, the levies were not able to withstand the hurricane and they collapsed. Communication fell apart and chaos ensued. The response came but was slow to come, and this is regrettable. But to suggest that a slow response to such a tragedy is an act of racism is irresponsible and racist. To accuse a race of people for being racist simply because they are white and a majority is, in itself, a racist thing to do.

A hurricane struck. Hurricanes are acts of nature and are not thrown into existence by governments or white people. And yet even in the midst of relief for the poor victims of the hurricane we hear celebrities and politicians making fools of themselves and saying things like “George Bush hates black people”[1] just because a majority of the population in New Orleans is black. Is this a serious argument? Hurricanes don’t care whether black people live in Louisiana or whites. They will strike regardless and without prejudice. And yet we have people such as film maker Spike Lee saying that the levees in New Orleans were deliberately destroyed by the government.[2] How absurd! People who say such idiotic things are so used to being able to use race as a foundation for an argument that they don’t even listen to themselves anymore. They just cry racism and expect a reward.

Only a few months later, Texas was struck with a hurricane, only slightly less ferocious than Louisiana’s.[3] Did George Bush send a hurricane after his home state too, just to make things even? If so, what amazing magic or machine did he use to summon the hurricane? Did he have planes fly through the sky and somehow drop seeds for a hurricane to grow? And if so, why would he attack his own home state with a hurricane? Lunacy. It amazes me that such things can even cross into the realm of serious debate, but such is the nature of politics and race-war in our own nation. The government did indeed respond to the hurricane in Texas faster than the one in Louisiana,[4] but could it not be that they were better prepared to simply because they had just finished responding to a hurricane in Louisiana? Does it have to be because George Bush likes Texas better? Circumstances in Louisiana were ripe for absolute disaster if a hurricane struck long before one ever did. [5] This made the hurricane all the more devastating and confusing. Could it not be that these reasons contributed to the slow response time?

When I go onto my campus and see signs and flyers calling the government racist because a hurricane struck a town that was predominantly black, I cannot help but be disgusted. In the midst of my disgust, I will point out the length some liberals will go to in order to blame Bush for something—for anything. The manner of intellectual social debate in this nation has degraded to that of elementary school children, and it is pathetic to watch. I can have respect for any liberal who can make well thought-out arguments and give me a reason for why he believes the way he believes. I cannot respect anyone—regardless of political slant—who uses tragedy and race as cheap weapons to throw into the realm of honest debate.

© 2005, Brandon M. Dennis

[1] ABC News. Newman Sings 'Louisiana 1927' at Benefit [online, cited 26 December 2005]. (http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=1112786)
[2] 1) Outside the Beltway. Spike Lee: Whitey Destroyed New Orleans Levees [online, cited 26 December 2005]. (http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/12410). 2) Independent Conservative. Spike Lee believes the New Orleans levee was blown up! [online, cited 26 December 2005]. (http://www.independentconservative.com/2005/10/12/spike_lee_levee/). 3) NewsBusters. Spike Lee: “Not Far-Fetched” to Say New Orleans Levees Deliberately Destroyed [online, cited 26 December 2005]. (http://newsbusters.org/node/2441)
[3] ABC News. The Day After Rita - Heavy Damage and Flooding, but Not Devastation [online, cited 26 December 2005]. (http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/HurricaneRita/story?id=1157332&page=1)
[4] ABC News. Government Hails Early Response to Rita and Reserve Supplies Said Helped Rita Response [online, cited 26 December 2005]. (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/HurricaneRita/wireStory?id=1158927) and (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/HurricaneRita/wireStory?id=1157624)
[5] ABC News. New Orleans Levees No Match for Katrina [online, cited 26 December 2005]. (http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/HurricaneKatrina/wireStory?id=1084630)

Intolerance from the Tolerant Left

2005-12-21T15:52:00.000-08:00

One would think—in a land that champions free speech above all else, even life—that dissenting opinion would be tolerated by the tolerant Left. It seems that this rule is generally true; that is, unless the opinion aforementioned dissents from that of the Left.

During the election last year I found the campus in a flurry of activity, with liberals and democrats and greens and libertarians posting fliers, erecting booths, standing in red square with megaphones and waving their fingers, making a general ruckus with their objections towards Bush and their eagerness (read: religious zeal) to elect someone—anyone—different. I recorded many of these fliers and activities that went on with my camera of truth, and you can see many of the images I took on this site. But in addition, I made some fliers of my own and posted them on the billboards dotting the campus, for indeed, as a student at the university I felt that it was my privilege and obligation to demonstrate a different viewpoint than that of those who so regularly pervade the campus and harry the students. After all, thought I, surely these fine folks whose opinions differed from my own would find opposition welcome though challenging, for since freedom of expression is their main party line, that privilege they fight so hard for must be extended to those of other political slants.

How wrong I was. As I soon found out, only people whose opinions stayed within the general sphere of their own were allowed to express themselves without being persecuted. I have many images of fliers and booths on this blog, and not a single one of them have ever been defaced by myself or any other conservative on campus, as far as I know. Surely if any had I would have a picture of it by now. And yet as I went about last year posting my fliers between classes, my fliers were torn down or defaced daily. The images on this page attest to some—though not nearly all—of those defacements.

Day after day, I heard stories of republican’s signs being torn down or defaced all over the state. Now to be fair, these were just rumors, and I have no way of verifying them because the news never reported on them. So I suppose I must take such stories, even from eye-witnesses, with a grain of salt. Stories of cars being scratched with keys or spray painted simply for having a pro-republican sticker, stories of signs bring ripped in half or set on fire, stories of cars being honked at and followed for wielding a conservative bumper sticker, all completely unverifiable. And yet, thanks to my trusty camera of truth, I do have evidence of my own signs being defaced, by more than just one person, and so I wonder if this is just a fluke incident by some wayward liberal or something common for someone with a liberal frame of mind.

Of course, I can’t accuse all liberals of acting in such a manner. I know many liberals who are peaceful, non-violent and who tolerate the opinions of other people. So I will choose to assume that the individuals who are intolerant are indeed a fluke and do not represent any party or ideology. And yet I suppose that one could argue that to deface another man’s signs is just another example of expressing free speech. Very well and good, I would say, except for the fact that in so doing one is hampering another man’s free speech. To do such a thing is undemocratic and, really, isn’t very liberal at all. Shout from the rooftops and spread as much paper around as you want to, but when you cross the line and persecute those whose speech differs from your own, you have defied those very ideals of free speech you held so dear.

I was listening to the radio the other day to a fellow named Lars Larson. He was talking about how he had intended to raise a “Christmas Cross” in celebration of Christmas. One would think that, due to his freedom of speech and freedom of religion, he could do such a thing without taking fire from members of the community around him. But alas, it was not so, for as soon as he mentioned his intent he received threats from activists and hate-mongerers in his general area, saying that if he were to erect his Christmas cross the cross would be torn down, mutilated and defiled, and anyone who defended it would be hurt.[1] Because of this he was forced to abandon his plans to erect the Christmas cross. I was so outraged when I heard about it that I sent Lars a letter expressing my frustration.[2]

Such tolerance from the Left. Such open-mindedness. To say things like, “I like the idea of mounting Lars himself on that cross” or calling a man a “local fascist” simply because he wants to express his religion on a religious holiday. But it isn’t even about religion. It is about Christianity. It seems that most religions in the world can be expressed without fear of persecution, unless it happens to be Christianity. Any political train of thought has the right to be expressed on campus—even communism—unless it is conservatism. Surely I am not the only one who sees the sickening face of hypocrisy in all of this.

© 2005, Brandon M. Dennis

[1] Lars Larson. Christmas Cross… [online, cited 21 December 2005]. (http://www.larslarson.com/HotTopics/124569.aspx)
[2] Brandon M. Dennis. Letter to Lars Larson [online, cited 21 December 2005]. (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=29487495&blogID=70889311)

American Communists On Campus

2005-12-21T12:29:00.000-08:00

I had always known that there was something wrong with communism. I remember as a child when the Berlin wall fell and when the Soviet Union crumbled. It was a big deal and I heard about it all over the news, but I was too young at the time to understand what was going on. When I became older I learned more about communism and believed I had a firm grasp on the idea, and that is why I was shocked when I would walk from class to class on my campus and see booths set up by communists in Seattle promoting their ideology and propaganda. It was then I realized that I needed to learn more about communism. So I did.

Last summer I took two five-credit courses on communism, both in the three-hundred level and one being a junior history lecture seminar. While they hardly made me an expert, I did read more about communism and the effects of communism that quarter than I ever wanted to, and I am baffled as to how anyone could ever be pro-communist in this country, especially in a post-Soviet world. I will thus chalk it up to ignorance about communism, for surely if anyone knew the true face of communism they would never promote it.

Communists will argue that communism has never had its fair shake because no nation has ever implemented a “pure” Marxist version of communism. But that isn’t for a lack of trying. When the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia, Lenin and Stalin after him did try to implement a pure form of Marxist communism—but it didn’t work. The reason communism as defined by Marx and Engles will never work is because it places some unreasonable demands on humanity. It calls for, among other things, the abolition of private property[1], and the abolition of the human family unit, for Marx claims that only the bourgeoisie (that is, capitalists, the rich or the middle class) have anything resembling a family and since not everyone can have a family, no one should have one and children should be adopted by the state.[2] It requires the government to take over all aspects of life, and this leads to blatant corruption and incompetence. Throughout the history of communism, in nearly every country that has adopted it, we find famine and mass death. No one has the exact numbers of people who have died to communism, whether by dying in the GULAG, to famine, or to execution, but all credible historians will say that more people have died as a direct result of communism than Jews in the holocaust—a lot more.[3]

Every place where communism has been established—whether it be Russia, the Eastern Bloc, China or Cuba—has seen the squelching of civil liberties and human rights. They have seen corruption to the highest degree, power struggles unlike anything ever seen in a capitalist country because communist rulers are not held in check by the law, and death on a massive scale due to the incompetence of the government or its outright murderousness. Communism has directly led to dozens of famines in Russia, the Eastern Block and China and millions have died as the result. This is why I do not understand how people—especially Americans—can still support communism to this day. How can a modern-day communist possibly promote communist ideals with the notion that freedom will increase and civil liberties will be much more highly regarded? In every instance where communism has been tested, we see that this has not been true. What is even more astonishing to me is the reluctance of communists to talk with someone who knows a thing or two about communism. I have bumped into a few of these sign-holding, pamphlet-waving commies since I took these classes, and after a few minutes into the conversation I have been ignored, each and every time. Once they find out that you know their vocabulary (vanguard, bourgeoisie, proletariat) and actually have historical instances to refer to, they tend to pretend that you aren’t even there, after claiming, of course, that all research done by the scholastic West has been incompetent and corrupt. How can they be so dishonest? Do they not know that if their vision were to see fruition in this nation that countless lives would be at stake? Doesn’t it then make sense that if they really wanted to believe in something so strongly that they would do some research into it and not merely read Marx and Engles? But I guess I am expecting too much from such folk. After all, they come from a line of thinking that wants the government to do everything for them. Maybe they want the government to think for them as well.

[1] Karl Marx and Fredrik Engles. Manifesto of the Communist Party [online, cited 21 December 2005] Marx/Engles Internet Archive (marxists.org). Page 13 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/)
[2] Marx 16, 17 and 18
[3] For exact numbers, refer to some research papers I wrote on the subject. This essay is not as in-depth as the papers mentioned here, and if the reader wishes to follow up on the issue he can refer to them at this link: (http://camtruthreferences.blogspot.com/)

Using the Dead as Propaganda

2005-12-20T15:49:00.000-08:00

Many liberals—though admittedly not all—like to somehow try to play both sides. They want to be against the war and against the president and yet for the troops. I do not think it works that way.

To say that our soldiers are in Iraq against their own will is a big assumption. I believe that most of our troops believe in what they are doing and stand behind the president. So to constantly attack the president and the war is to attack what our very troops believe in. It is to discredit the work they are doing in Iraq, and how can this possibly be construed as “support”?

Some organizations have been coming onto my campus and placing flags in the soil, representing the soldiers lives lost during the war. Every life that has been lost, whether American soldier or Iraqi citizen, is a tragedy, but the reason it is a tragedy is because we have to be there in the first place. War is never fun, and war is never good; it is only ever necessary, and we are in Iraq because it is necessary. We take a declaration of war very seriously because we know that lives will be lost; did liberals really not understand the cost of war before going in? Or did they really think that most Americans didn’t understand? I think they do not give Americans enough credit. America knew what it was doing when it declared war on terror. They knew it would take them all over the globe and that it would be a long and tough battle. I remember hearing once that some critics chastised Bush for not watching the news the day America began precision bombing of Iraq. Why? Bush knew what he was doing. He knew what it meant to declare war on terror. Why must he watch the events unfold through the lens of CNN?

It is wrong to take images of the dead and use them to promote ones own ideology. It is wrong to use the images of flag-draped caskets to protest the war because it violates the memory of our dead who died to preserve this very nation. Who are liberals to say that every dead soldier believed like they do, or that those who did not are fools? We already have George Carlin to spout off such nonsense; we don’t need a political faction doing likewise.

Liberals want an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. But to do so would ensure failure and then it would become a second Vietnam. The only reason we lost Vietnam was because of our own nation’s attack on itself. It bolstered the enemy and discouraged our forces. The decision to declare war must be thought out very carefully, but once a decision has been made it must be followed through. We must not back down or else terror wins, and even then we will still never be free from attack. I need not remind people that we were not at war with terror on 9/11, neither were we when the U.S.S. Cole was bombed, nor when our embassies all over the world were attacked. This war is in response to these actions, and if the war were to end today with a U.S. withdrawal, these actions would still continue.

Opponents of the war have, for the most part, never been to Iraq and do not know how the Iraqi’s feel on the issue. I have never been either, but I have had the sense to do some research, and Iraqis say that their life is better since the war has begun and, though they want America to leave someday, think America was right in invading.[1 ] They have optimism for the future and are eager to see their democracy grow, as evident with the huge turnout in the latest election, about 70% of the population[2] (more than the most recent U.S. presidential election).

Americans too are not keen on withdrawing from Iraq, and in a recent poll a majority of Americans want the U.S. to stay the course in Iraq until it is stabilized.[3] It seems as if those who want America out of Iraq are a minority, and are in opposition to not only the majority of their own country but the vast majority of Iraqis themselves. Liberals can shout “Imperialism” all they want, but it doesn’t make it true. If people are to actually claim that America is being imperialistic, then they have no idea what an imperialistic nation is. Japan was, Germany was, Athens was, and we in no way compare to any of these nations. America goes out of its way to not only save the lives of innocents but to feed children, clothe children and give them gifts, and to post propaganda along the walls of the U of W with images of grieving fathers holding their dead sons calling them “Victims of the Iraq War” is cruel and irresponsible. How can anyone say such things and yet be for the troops?

© 2005, Brandon M. Dennis

References:

[1] ABC News. Poll: Most Iraqis Ambivalent About the War, But Not Its Results [online, cited 20 December 2005]. (http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=79272&page=1).
[2] ABC News. Millions of Iraqis Vote in Relative Peace [online, cited 20 December 2005]. (http://abcnews.go.com/International/IraqCoverage/wireStory?id=1411751).
[3] ABC News. Poll: Majority Oppose Immediate Iraq Exit [online, cited 20 December 2005]. (http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1416523)

Professor Doors Home to Intolerance

2005-12-20T13:43:00.000-08:00

Day after day I walk past the newsstands on my way to class and each paper will have a new headline that sounds very similar to the previous days’; “Millions of Iraqis turn up to vote, but…”, “Suspected terrorists found and captured due to the patriot act, but…”, “Another nation pledges its support to the war on terror, but…” Admittedly this is the liberal media, so it is only natural that they search for buts in every story they come across (or invent), but the sad fact is, at least on the campus where I live, their opinions are mirrored by the intellectual community here, going as far up as to the professors themselves.

One day I had a class that was cancelled, so I went around to all the office doors in the history department. These were the doors of professors at the school, not secretaries or graduate students, and I took pictures of all the anti-bush/war/American propaganda I found there. I have posted my findings here in this blog, and I wonder if you will be as shocked as I was.

I’d like to point out that I only managed to go through the history department, and history majors have a tendency to lean conservative. Maybe it has something to do with actually having an historical perspective, I don’t know, but even then I found anti-Americanism rampant. One of these days I will have to hit up the other schools to see what I find. I have a feeling that the doors of professors who teach in anthropology or social politics will be particularly interesting.

The day after the election I came to class and everyone was wearing black. I passed students talking on their cell phones and could hear the words “confusing ballots” and “fixed” and “stole the election” whispered on the lips of nearly everyone. But more shocking than that was when I actually got to class. My teacher at the time wore an all-black dress, black shoes and a very somber expression. She walked into the classroom (which normally resounded with chattering but that day was as quiet as a tomb), stood at the front of the class and said, “I just do not understand the people of this country. So sad, so sad.” She was born in Sweden. She had a house there and a house here, and for some reason had decided that it was preferable to live and teach in the United States than it was to live and teach in overtly socialist Sweden.

While I was attending Highline community college before I came to the U of W, I took a science course with a certain professor. He was a kindly man with gray hair and a crooked nose; kindly, that is, until he started to talk about Christians. Then his mouth would curve up and he would become very unkind. On the very first day of class he stood in front of his table, cleared his throat and said, “Evolution is true. Christianity is false. This is fact, and it must be believed.” The entirety of the following quarter consisted of sermons from this man. He taught from an old textbook, some twenty years outdated that you couldn’t buy anywhere—he had to give us a link to it on his website. But he used it because it fit his particular ideology. He would project a picture of Darwin onto the blackboard and then turn to it, sigh and say, “This man is such a great man. Look at him! Isn’t he marvelous?” He would spend a good portion of the class—not teaching science, you know, the reason we signed up for the class—but teaching that Christians believed fallacies, that their faith did not hold up to reason. One day he was preaching and said, “Christians are so stupid because they can’t logically defend their faith. I mean, think about it. God can’t be good because good things and bad things happen in the world. How can a good God kill thousands of people a day? How can a good God inflict children with diseases?” It was then I interjected. I didn’t raise my and for he was not accustomed to having students contribute to his class, but I felt it necessary being the only Christian in the class. “Isn’t it possible,” I said, “that there is another being at work in this world besides God, like Satan perhaps?” He laughed and looked at me and said, “If you want to believe that, you go on ahead.” Well it was certainly generous for him to give me permission, and I would have loved to point out the flaw in his own reasoning. But he shut me down and went on with his sermon and so I bit my tongue. But if I could, I would have said, “Wait a minute professor, you seem to be missing the point. You just set up an argument against Christianity, and I just gave one example of how the argument doesn’t hold water. If you were to be truly intellectually honest and not simply lauding every argument against Christianity you could find, regardless of whether or not it is a good one, you would admit that you had better rework the argument in order to counter mine.”[1]

A few quarters ago I was taking a class on American history. My teacher was an elderly fellow who wore a crooked grin but he was nice enough and, though distracting, his lectures were entertaining. The textbook he assigned had been written by himself and two other people, and we spent the quarter going from the earliest moments of American history up until the end of communism in the early 90’s.

The man had an obvious liberal bias which came out blatantly in his lectures, but I never made a fuss for by this time I was quite accustomed to it and decided to just finish the class. But one day when he tried to blame Christians for slavery, I had to come out swinging. He said that all of the world’s religions condoned or accepted slavery, particularly Christianity. He even went as far as to say that those Christians who opposed slavery only did so in order to fill their pews with more people, and the slaves were ripe for picking. This outright bigotry sent me over the edge, and so I wrote him a nice little letter. [2]

The issue is not whether professors have a right to say such things. They do have the right. But what if these were conservatives, posting Christian posters on their doors, pro-war posters, pro-bush fliers, or pro-life propaganda? Would they be tolerated by the student body? Wouldn’t their doors be defaced, their posters ripped down, and wouldn’t they be accused of being “fascist”? Would they be tolerated by the faculty at the university, and wouldn’t there be pressure on them to quiet down? I would wager that if such a professor were to be found out, the ACLU would have a field day and find a way to sue him and the school for saying racist or bigoted things during his class, or for being intolerant of other cultures and beliefs.
The reality is that there is a double standard in the scholastic community. Anything anti-government and anti-American is tolerated and lauded, while anything pro-Christian, pro-American or pro-Bush is regarded as hostile and wrong. The “tolerant” left is hypocritical to say the least, and they will have no credibility in my eyes until they tolerate beliefs other than those sympathetic with homosexuality, abortion and liberalism.

Admittedly my pictures are very poor—all hail disposable cameras. Here is what some of the poorer images say:

The third one says, “Let’s talk sense about modern America.” It then quotes Revelations, the verses mentioning Armageddon, the beast, and unclean spirits. It has an image of America saying “Love me or leave me!” Next to America is a man saying “It gives me a headache,” and below America, fleeing from it are people saying “Yeow! Eeek! Scary! Help! It’s gonna get me!” Below that are three frames. The first, titled “America the Cruel Bully” has an image of a tank standing before a person saying, “One side gook!” and the person responding, “No kill please!” Next to that is a picture of a fat lady in a supermarket titled, “America the Glutton.” The last frame is titled “America the Greedy” with an image of a proposed land usage to turn into an oil field or something, and the final frame is of a crowded city titled “America the Ugly.”

The fourth image has a picture of a teacher pointing at a picture of the United States. The United States has written above it, “The United States were made in seven days,” and the teacher is saying to the student, “Franklin Roosevelt is just a theory.”

The final image says, “Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Sri Lanka… Is War Inevitable? Please join us for an urgent discussion to explore Are There Alternatives to War?”

© 2005, Brandon M. Dennis

References:

[1] For those of you wondering, “Well your argument doesn’t make sense either, for God still wouldn’t be good for he made Satan who makes evil, and so thus God makes evil by proxy,” I would respond that God did not make Satan but that He made Lucifer, who was a completely righteous and good creation. It was Lucifer who turned himself into Satan by rebelling against God. Evil did not generate with God; it generated within the mind of Lucifer, of Lucifer’s own volition, and thus Satan, evil and sin were born. It is our fault that evil is now in the world, for through Adam and Eve we followed Satan instead of God, and in doing so gave Satan power and authority over this earth. Thus evil, sin, disease and death.

[2] Brandon M. Dennis. Letter to my American History Professor about Christians and Slavery [online, cited 20, December 2005]. (http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=29487495&blogID=70574690&Mytoken=d929b854-4293-4cc2-88de-4e4ce9b7f401)

Letter to my American History Professor about Christians and Slavery

2005-12-20T13:16:00.000-08:00

Dear Professor,

I am a student in your United States History class and take tremendous exception to your claim that “All the world’s religions have accepted the idea of slavery,” as you said in class today. I take even grater exception to your claims that Christians found no qualms with enslaving non-Christians, and that it was acceptable to enslave Africans because of some notion that the blackness of their skin is equitable to a sinful nature, and that all heathens and non-Christians are fair game to being taken up as slaves. I find these very claims that you spoke in class today offensive and completely unverifiable. Throughout this quarter but particularly in today’s class you have patronized Christians and Christianity and blamed them for many of the ridiculous and horrible things that have occurred in the history of the United States.

I find your anti-Christian prejudice unacceptable. You have also demonstrated your ignorance of Christianity in many of the things that you have said, such as things you said about Calvinism at the beginning of this quarter. Even the text book you are using in this class, American Promise, drips with anti-Christian sentiment and an ignorance of Christianity. I was not surprised, therefore, to see your name under the list of authors of the textbook.

Although I was livid during class today and prepared at any moment to stand up and object to your blatant bigotry, I restrained myself and instead have decided to write you this letter. I have cooled down since then so if I sound too docile in this letter you will have to forgive me; know that I identify very closely with this issue and am incensed with your insensitivity. I will also give you the benefit of the doubt, and choose to believe that you are ignorant of the beliefs of Christianity, rather than you being a persecutor of Christians and an enemy of Christianity. Thus, there are a few things you must know if you are going to continue to teach on the subject you are currently employed in teaching.

No where in the Bible is slavery condoned. You mentioned in class that the Bible spoke of slavery and even inferred in the text book that those Christians who opposed slavery were acting contrary to the commands of the Bible, which is an assertion that is simply untrue. It is true, however, that slavery is mentioned in the Bible, but not once is it ever condoned. I do not think I should have to explain this, but I will in case you fail to recognize this fact. The Bible may indeed mention slavery in a few places—certainly not in the greater majority of the Bible—but this is no reason to assume that slavery is thus condoned by the Bible or Christianity. The Bible also mentions the existence rape, homosexuality and incest, but one does not assume that the Bible is thus condoning rape, homosexuality or incest. The Bible even mentions heresy, but obviously it would be absurd to claim that the Bible promotes heresy. I might add that it would be equally absurd for a man to accuse you and the other writers of American Promise of condoning slavery, simply because you happen to mention the subject often in the book. As I hope you can see, the mere mention of slavery in the Bible gives no man license to promote or condone slavery.

It may be, however, that you are thinking, “Well this snide little upstart may claim that the Bible does not condone slavery, but I can hardly believe him!” Fair enough. Truly, how can you trust me? The only way to know for sure whether the Bible promotes slavery or not is to read the Bible; something I am sure you have never done nor ever will do. Thus, in order to continue this argument and solidify my position, I will show you a few verses where slavery is mentioned. The following are verses that, I believe, give a Christian a good foundation for considering slavery a sin:

RSV Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

RSV Colossians 3:11 “Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.”

Can we not conclude through these verses that Christianity is for all humans, not a “white elite,” a phrase you so fondly love to say in your class and textbook? Can we not conclude that Christianity, itself, is egalitarian?

RSV Ephesians 6:8 “…knowing that whatever good any one does, he will receive the same again from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.”

Do we not see here that God does not discriminate by whether one is a slave of a freeman, but blesses and rewards based on merit alone?

There are numerous verses in the Old Testament that refer to slavery. The vast majority if them hearken back to the time that Israel herself was a nation of slaves, burdened by Egyptians and bound under their whip. The Israelites were themselves slaves, and were freed from this involuntary servitude by God, according to the Bible. How could one possibly use these verses to promote slavery if God himself brought an entire people out from under it?

There are verses, I will add, that speak directly to slaves. Here are a few:

RSV Ephesians 6:5 “Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as to Christ;…”

RSV Colossians 3:22 “Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing the Lord.”

RSV 1 Timothy 6:1 “Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be defamed.”

RSV 1 Peter 2:18 “Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to the kind and gentle but also to the overbearing.”

Also, there are verses especially for slave masters:

RSV Ephesians 6:9 “Masters, do the same to them, and forbear threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.”

RSV Colossians 4:1 “Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.”

None of these verses condone slavery. Rather, they give directions on how to be a better master and a better slave. There is no reasonable way that one can turn these verses into pro-slavery verses. Without them, masters would still own slaves, and slaves would suffer more for it. But with them, masters are encouraged to treat their slaves “justly and fairly” even as they would treat themselves, for they are all servants of God. These scriptures are humanitarian if anything at all.

Why is it strange that we find verses that console slaves and urge them to obey their masters? After all, what is the purpose of a scripture that gives advice if not to improve—and even save—lives? Why, then, should slaves be exempt from such verses? As you yourself know and have mentioned a number of times in class, slaves in the South did rebel against their masters and murdered them on some occasions. You mentioned the occasion of Nat Turner who led a well-organized slave rebellion and murdered a fair number of whites, presumably slave-owners. How, then, did this little episode end up? Nat and all those who followed him, two thousand slaves, if I remember from the textbook correctly, were executed for their rebellion and the murder of the whites.

How was this rebellion helpful? How were any of the rebellions by slaves ever helpful? Is it not true that every slave rebellion only led to death, most of the time the death of the very slaves themselves? It is perfectly reasonable, then, for the Bible to discourage slave rebellions in order to save the lives of those very slaves. One might argue that if the slaves never rebelled they would have never been freed from bondage; but is this true? Can anyone name a single rebellion by slaves that ended in their freedom, of all things? Actually, it was the intervention of the whites that freed the slaves. It took the free, white populace to condemn slavery and seek its abolition before the spotlight was ever focused on slavery. I might remind you that it was the Methodists and other Christian groups that were so abhorred by slavery that they lead abolitionist parties and printed abolitionist newspapers, saying that it was a sin to enslave other fellow men. Blassingame, in his book The Slave Community, recounts time after time when Christians stood up against the slaveholders in the South. I will propose that those who promoted slavery did not do so out of religious obligation but rather financial obligation, whereas Christians opposed it solely because of their Christian conviction.

I have also been irritated by how you and your textbook repeatedly call into question the intentions of the Christians who opposed slavery. You mentioned sarcastically that the result of many Christians opposing slavery was that many slaves became Christians, as if that was the sole purpose of their desire to free the slaves, and that it wasn’t out of a desire to free humans from bondage but a desire to bring more people into the pews that drove this abolitionist movement. I think such a claim is callous and immature. Who are you to assume the intentions of Christians? Is it not entirely possible—if not completely probable—that Christians opposed slavery because they thought slavery was wrong? And even so, does it not proclaim the great egalitarianism of Christianity that Christians would desire and urge Africans to join their churches? Surely if Christianity was merely a religion for the “rich, white elite” they would chafe under the thought of blacks being allowed into their churches; but on the contrary, they encouraged it.

I will end this argument by recognizing that there were indeed Christians who promoted slavery, especially in the South. Just like there were planters that promoted slavery. And atheists. And agnostics. And southerners, and northerners, and the wealthy as well as the poor, and the black as well as the white. It is a matter of fact that there will always be humans that propagate the worst deeds of humanity, and it just so happens that some of these people will be Christians. Does one really think that Christianity will be immune from abuse? Does one really think that the insincere or the bigoted or the prejudice won’t try and further their evil aims under the cloak of Christianity? This is true with many people in all walks of life and in all religions and beliefs. Even scientists tried to argue pro-slavery under the mask of Darwinism, using the “survival of the fittest” mantra as their justification for it. Does this mean that all scientists or even Darwinists were pro-slavery? Of course not. Only some were. It is a terrible injustice to label an entire religion for the sins of a few people. If you or any other historian were to be honest with the issue, he would judge a religion by what the religion says and not by what a few of its people do. Thus, one should go to the Bible, the foundation of all Christianity and a book that all Christians regardless of denomination use to live their lives by. Doing so, one will discover that Christianity is hardly a pro-slavery religion but is in fact one of the most humanitarian religions that has ever existed and was the driving force behind the abolitionist movement in the United States. One might say that if it were not for Christianity and Christians, slavery would still exist in the United States, if not the whole of the civilized world.

To conclude this long-winded but impassioned argument, I will say that despite your blatant prejudiced views towards Christians and their religion, I have thus far enjoyed your class, for I find the topic interesting. You know your topic well and your lectures have been enjoyable. I humbly request, however, that you divorce from yourself, your book and your lectures this bias against Christianity that you can scarcely hide, and if at all possible, tomorrow emphasize the fact that slavery was not a result of Christianity, nor was it ever condoned by Christianity, though some Christians might have wavered from their faith in this respect. I would urge you to state the truth that slavery was the result of human greed and pride gone amok, two things that the Bible explicitly condemns, and in fact urges Christians to be more liberal in their wealth and humble in their pride. I hope you received this letter well and were not too insulted by my language, for I would hate to have to make a big deal of this issue, bringing it up with the school, or worse yet, bring the issue to some “right-wing talk show,” which I am sure would love nothing more than to sink their thirsty teeth into another unabashed Christian-hating professor. Not that you are, of course.

The history professor in question then responded to my email defending his statements and his stance on Christianity. The following is my response to his email.

I do not disagree that “For a very long time a great many people who called themselves Christians did practice slavery, and they did not see the practice of slavery...as inconsistent with Christianity.” What I am saying is that the vast majority of Christians considered slavery wrong, even though some of them may have promoted slavery, and what is more, the vast majority of slaveholders were probably not active Christians. I do recall in your own textbook reading that many slaveholders in the south did not want them to go to church because they thought Christianity was a poor influence on the slaves. This tells me that the majority of slaveholders were in it for the money, and not because they thought it was what a good Christian should do.

What’s more is this: even if, and this is a big IF, the majority of Christians during that time promoted slavery, one cannot assert that Christianity itself condones slavery. Christianity is a religion that exists whether there are people to believe in it or not. If the Bible says “A”, then it will always say “A” even if many of its followers insist that it says “B.” Thus, it is entirely unfair, untrue and historically inaccurate to say in a college level course that, and I will quote you, “All the world’s great religions accepted slavery.” This, as far as Christianity is concerned, is a falsehood, and is a lie. The very fact that the abolitionist movement was driven by Christians should tell you that slavery is not condoned by Christianity. Did you not read the verses I sent you? I do not care if one, two or 50,000 slaveholders in the south used Christianity as a means to justify slavery. All I care about is whether the Bible, the text that outlines Christian belief, justifies slavery. And I tell you, as surely as I am sitting here typing, it does not, and I challenge you or anyone else in the world to prove that it does.

Slavery aside, all quarter you have displayed dislike for Christianity and done nothing but refer to it using snide comments and sarcasm. If you were to treat Islam or any other religion the same way you talk about Christianity, I believe that you would have been reprimanded long ago by whoever it is in charge of you. I do not care if you ever become a Christian or if you ever even like Christians, but for the sake of those Christians who attend your class, do not belittle their religion and do not portray their religion as the instigator of all evils. You are correct; history is about what actually happened, and this history remains either true or untrue regardless of whether or not some biased college professor construes the truth. And so I urge you to look at Christianity with a balanced frame of mind, putting your hatred of it aside, at least during the period in which you are paid to serve students with truth and not bigotry.

© 2005, Brandon M. Dennis

An Honest Argument Against Abortion - Pro-Choice Activists On Campus

2005-12-19T03:05:00.000-08:00

When tackling the subject of abortion, I believe one of the most important steps is to not demonize the other side. It is crucial to remember that people from both points of view—pro-life and pro-choice—only believe the way they do because they think it is right, and consequentially believe their opponents to be not only wrong but often immoral, unethical and, even, evil. I will refrain from using such classifications of individuals as much as possible, and prefer instead to tackle the logic of abortion.

I am pro-life because I believe abortion is murder, and that it is wrong to murder. In order for abortion to be murder, a human fetus must be wholly human, and this I hold to be true. It is, in my opinion, the only reasonable stance to take, for in order for a person to define at which stage of pregnancy a fetus becomes a human baby, he must first point out the moment when life enters that fetus. Most people—pro-choice and pro-life alike—will agree that it is wrong to kill a child after a certain amount development, even if that child is in the womb. It is confusing to hear someone who is pro-choice say such things, for their entire goal is to maintain a woman’s choice. But wouldn’t it be against a woman’s choice to forbid her to kill her child at any stage in his development, as long as he is still attached to the body?

At which point during the growth of a fetus does human life enter? Is it when the fetus begins to look like a baby? When he grows arms and legs and one is able to tell his gender? Or is it earlier, when the brain begins to show activity, or when the heart starts beating? Regardless of the answer to these questions, my response would be to ask how a person can tell. How can one tell when life enters a fetus? What clues does a person look for, and where is this official record of life-entering recorded, so that we have a base to work from? I believe that it is impossible to tell when life enters a fetus at any point during the pregnancy; rather, the pregnancy is, in itself, life. The completely unique, dramatic and crucial event in the growth of a human fetus is the fetus’ conception. Without conception there would be no heart, no brain, no arms and no legs. I believe that it is most reasonable to state that it is conception—the very moment that the unique entity known as Child is formed—where life begins.

On the pro-choice side, the most important thing is the individual choice of the woman. This is incredibly important, for a woman should be allowed to do whatever she wants with her own body, as long as she does not endanger the lives of others. This social rule exists outside of this debate, for a woman has every right to shoot a gun, as long as that gun is not pointed at a person; to wield a knife, as long as that knife is not aimed at a person; to drive a car, as long as that car is not heading towards a person; to ball her hand into a fist and strike at the air, as long as a person is not standing in her way. We can all agree on these things, and as one that is pro-life, I can most readily assert that a woman has the right to cut off any sack of tissue she wants—as long as that sack of tissue is not a person.

On the pro-life side, the most important thing is human life. It is our belief that human life is unique and more precious than any other form of life. It is our belief that the preservation of human life is the reason why we have laws. We have rights and privileges in this country to live our lives as free as we can, because every human life is unique, exceptional and valuable. Women are free to live their lives their way because we believe that their lives are priceless, and their ability to live their lives is just as priceless. It isn’t because they can work or create or entertain; it isn’t because they can produce or enrich our society. It is simply because they are alive, and being alive should remain alive for life is precious. It is this reason we believe children are just as valuable, not because they are cute or entertaining, but because they are alive and therefore priceless.

Just as we disallow adult people from harming each other and taking certain human lives, so should it be wrong to take all human lives, regardless of the age, size, shape, or look of that life. Therefore the abortion issue is not an issue of choice at all, for even pro-choice people believe that people should not be allowed to choose to harm others. The real issue is a matter of life, and thus we come back to the beginning of this argument.

Whether a human fetus is alive or not and at what stage in his development are the most crucial aspects of this debate. If it could be proven that a human fetus is not alive, then I would whole-heartedly side with the pro-choice crowd, for the argument has gone from one about life to one about choice. But since it involves life, and since our society deems that human life is more important that a human’s ability to choose, I therefore must side with those who value a child’s life more than a person’s choice.

Even though it is more reasonable to believe that conception is the moment life begins, it is still impossible to scientifically prove when life enters a fetus. Therefore, people who are pro-choice and who say that it is wrong to abort a child after, oh, let’s say, the third trimester, are merely picking a time out of a hat. And yet people who are pro-life are also picking an arbitrary time, choosing conception. The reasoning that conception is the unique qualifier of life may not be acceptable to some people, and so they can very well disregard it and opt for a timeframe that makes more sense to them. This timeframe is generally picked based on the physical maturity of the fetus, on how much like a child the fetus looks. And yet this is reckless, for the choice is a gamble and human life is at stake.

It is possible that the third trimester is when life enters a fetus. But it is just as possible that life enters at conception. It is possible that life enters at any point during a fetus’ development, and so the most responsible thing to do in order to save a child’s life is to make it illegal to kill a fetus at any time after he is conceived. To chose any other moment in a fetus’ development is to gamble with that life, and life should never be gambled with.

When arguing with people from the pro-choice mentality, the issue of rape is often brought up. Is it all right to abort a child conceived from rape? Rape is an absolutely devastating thing, and if I had things my way, I would make punishment for rapists far more severe, having them “cut-off” from any other opportunity to rape again. A woman should never be shamed for being raped and she should never become an outcast because of it. She should be embraced, loved and cared for during such a horrible and trying moment of her life. But when it comes to abortion, the issue is whether a human fetus is alive or not. It would be hypocritical to say that abortion is wrong unless the mother had been raped, for the method of conception has no bearing on the life of the child. A child brought forth from rape is just as wholly human as a child brought forth from a whole, healthy nuclear family. No child should be killed based on the method by which he was conceived.

Once the topic of rape has been addressed, the next one to pop up is usually incest. Should we abort children that have been conceived from incest? Incest is so horrible because it confuses the ties of the family. The unique relationship between a father and a daughter is wholly different from that between a wife and her husband, and the two should never, ever be confused. The same is true with sibling relationships, and it is a tragedy that sexual perversion can creep so deep into society as to bring forth this unhealthy behavior. The resulting child that is conceived from such unnatural sexual encounters can often be handicapped, both physically and mentally, and this is a physical manifestation of the wrong of incest. And yet it is no crime to be handicapped, and the handicapped are no less human—and no less alive—than healthy humans. Even if a child is conceived through incest, the child is still alive at conception and it is wrong to kill him, even if he will grow up to be handicapped. Some of the best loved children on the face of this earth are children with physical or mental diseases.

What about when the birth of a child jeopardizes the life of the mother? I pity any family that finds themselves in this position. It should be up to the mother to decide whether or not to abort a child to save her own life. There is no good choice—they are both horrible to have to make—but the choice must be made anyhow and it should be the mother’s. If the mother is unable to chose—due to being drugged, passed out or simply unable to decide—it should be the husband’s.

I am comfortable with many different methods of contraception. Sex was designed to conceive children, but it was also designed for intimacy between a husband and his wife, and there is nothing wrong with desiring that intimacy but not necessarily the resulting child. Condoms are great tools to achieve this end, as are many other forms of contraception, but when such things seek out and destroy the conceived fetus within the woman’s body, a line must be drawn. As far as I know, contraception pills such as the so-called “morning after” pill and chemical abortion drugs work by preventing the conceived fetus from growing normally or poisoning the conceived fetus and killing him.[1] These methods are tantamount to abortion and kill human lives.

I do realize that to outlaw abortion would make sex much less recreational. Yet there are many deterrents already from having unprotected sex, such as sexually transmitted diseases, and any responsible person will use protection in order to stave off such diseases and keep from becoming pregnant. Even then, sometimes a little soldier will slip through and an undesired pregnancy will occur. The simple truth is that to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases one-hundred percent of the time, one must abstain from all sexual intercourse. Some claim that to promote abstinence is unhealthy and makes children ignorant about sex. Not at all. Children can be educated about sex and abstinence at the same time; they are not competing ideas. And it is hardly dangerous to promote abstinence as opposed to “free-sex”. Can one seriously argue that it is safer to have sex on a regular basis than to not have any at all? The safest way to avoid diseases and unwanted pregnancies is to abstain from all sex until you get married, and this should be taught as the safest and most accepted form of sexual intercourse.

Despite the best efforts of those who promote abstinence, unwanted children will be conceived for they have always been conceived. The first instinct of a new mother-to-be, however, should not be to kill her unwanted child, for there are other avenues open to her. She can place her child up for adoption, for it is better for a human to grow up in an orphanage than to be killed in his mother’s womb. Sex should not be carefree, for every person engaging in sex should consciously recognize that a child may be conceived, and that person must be ready to accept the responsibilities of being a parent. Orphanages are never a good choice; merely a better choice than death. But sometimes children are conceived by rape or to parents who do not have the means to care for them, and so orphanages are the better alternative to murder. Some ancient peoples used to leave their unwanted children (usually girls) out in the wild to die from exposure. Abortion is just the more modern, efficient way of doing the same thing.

Emotions run high and voices are raised when people gather to debate the abortion issue, and it seems that much of the political strife between parties in America resides over the fault-line of abortion. But when one takes emotion and rage out of the equation and steps back to look at the issue honestly and reasonably, the conclusions outlined here seem to me to be the best ones. Many genuine people will argue the issue from both sides, and their honesty can be equally sincere. But an honest person can be honestly wrong. Instead of shrugging off another’s argument, assuming the evil of the opposite person and demonizing him, it would be best for people to assume the best intentions within each other and tackle the issue, not as enemies, but as those who seek truth. It is then that progress will be made.

© 2005, Brandon M. Dennis

[1] Wikipedia.org. Emergency Contraception [online, accessed 18 December 2005]. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_after_pill). Such pills can prevent the “…implantation of a fertilized egg” into the lining of the uterus, which is necessary for the fetus to grow. Other procedures use chemicals to burn or poison a conceived fetus, killing him. Both are recommended by professionals to be used in emergencies only.