Yes, Palin is Evangelical and not a Christian Scientist, and [as certainly has been proven, at the very least, by Mary Baker Eddy’s tenets] Christian Science is a contradiction in terms. It’s also easy to be intellectually consistent when you don’t have much of an intellect to start with. Yet, it’s Palin’s W.-like intellectual incuriosity which may ultimately prove itself to be ultimately less malign than true intellectual dishonesty rampant in more rarefied quarters.
In case you have actually followed my blog history and noticed the absolute 180 I did on Palin—it was because of the Couric interviews, when I realized what Peggy Noonan had intuited: that Palin’s vacuity and absolute enthrallment with her newfound celebrity presented the worst possible public image for conservatives and conservatism, at the worst possible time. Especially for me: I was so depressed by what I saw that I couldn’t write anything for a month and a half, much less bring myself to vote for McCain; I sat out the vote]. So I have no love lost for her—because she made ME look bad just as I was starting out and I blame her for MY loss of credibility.
However, a hybrid of Dan Quayle and Jessica Simpson is an easy sell in today’s US; and, despite the general consensus [with which I agree] that even the perception of Palin as the Republican front-runner is ultimately not good for conservatism [1], the events surrounding a certain series of emails emerging from the University of East Anglia [2] actually indicate how much more dangerous intellectual dishonesty is when individuals that actually possess a certain degree of intellectual acuity misuse it for partisan ends.
In a certain sense it might be hard to fathom why the scientific community has thrown its considerable weight behind the notion that the West—particularly the US—owes reparations to everyone else, and has chosen the vehicle of reducing our reliance on technology and industry so that anyone who hasn’t been as fortunate can benefit. It also isn’t the first time that “hard” science has prostituted itself for blatantly dubious political ends, most notoriously in the first half of this century when the scientific community essentially spearheaded eugenics and was almost directly responsible for widespread racial murder. [Many a Nazi commented that they were simply picking up where Cold Spring Harbor left off.]
One wonders whether this is their convoluted way of making up for it. In the process, however, they’re in danger of becoming just a fundamentalist as Palin, turning science into Christianity. And they don’t have her excuse.
1. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124716984620819351.html
2. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/globalwarming/6636563/University-of-East-Anglia-emails-the-most-contentious-quotes.html
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
The Death Penalty: A Rebirth?
"There won’t be a lot of guilt-innocence maneuverability there."--THOMAS H. DUNN, a former defense lawyer for the Army, on possible defense strategies for Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who is accused in the Nov. 5 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Tex.
Mr. Dunn’s quote was almost somewhat reminiscent of Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ head coach John McKay’s comment about his team’s execution: “I’m all for it.”
Take that comment, the recent execution of John Muhammad in Virginia, and the upcoming decision to try some of the highest-value terror detainees in open court, and we may have to reset the playing field vis-à-vis the death penalty debate in this country.
Just in case, a review: From the “Right”, you hear the usual admonitions to be “tough on crime” and that the death penalty serves as the ultimate deterrent. [Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is no true “religious” consensus, at least in the US, regarding the death penalty; usually, the more Evangelical and Fundamentalist strains are in favor, the “mainline” churches less so, the Catholics inalterably opposed, and most Jewish denominations—even, as will be evidenced below, some very salient Orthodox streams—also opposed.]
From the “Left”, the usual arguments you hear have to do with the inequitable application of the penalty and the impossibility of correcting mistakes; and that’s before you arrive at the pacifist argument that taking a life at anytime for any reason by anyone is immoral.
[The “duty-to-retreat” law--which was the legal default position before the “Castle Doctrine” for all intents and purposes codified the right of self-defense through use of deadly force--while not truly “pacifist”, nevertheless indicates the difficulty of legally formulating a concept of “justifiable homicide” outside of warfare, which was a way of…”life”.]
On the eve of his inauguration as Governor of New York in 1995, George Pataki was the recipient of a unique message from the Jewish sage Rabbi Aaron Soloveichik regarding the death penalty, which Pataki had promised in his campaign to place back on the books in New York State:
“…you have the written law mandating the death penalty and the oral law, saying, in effect, that you can never apply it…Now, the death penalty should be there for use in extraordinary situations, in extraordinary threats to the public order…but if [Pataki] acts on the death penalty, he will be the leader of a bloody government.” [New York Magazine, “The 100 Smartest New Yorkers”, Jan. 30, 1995, p. 52].
Fort Hood, TX and Greenville, VA brought the penalty renewed credibility, and that was before the decision to move the terror trials to New York. While the Obama Administration’s intent is mainly to demonstrate [forcibly?] that there is no “conflict between our security and our ideals”--[to paraphrase the President’s inaugural address]--these trials, along with the Muhammad execution and upcoming Fort Hood case, may result in finally viewing how our legal system might actually work in cases where a true threat to public order is at stake, one on the level with Rabbi Soloveichik’s admonition.
In other words, these should be the exceptions that prove the rule: on the books for use in extraordinary threats to the public order. If we learn to restrict the use of the penalty to these situations and these situations alone, the country will be better off.
Mr. Dunn’s quote was almost somewhat reminiscent of Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ head coach John McKay’s comment about his team’s execution: “I’m all for it.”
Take that comment, the recent execution of John Muhammad in Virginia, and the upcoming decision to try some of the highest-value terror detainees in open court, and we may have to reset the playing field vis-à-vis the death penalty debate in this country.
Just in case, a review: From the “Right”, you hear the usual admonitions to be “tough on crime” and that the death penalty serves as the ultimate deterrent. [Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is no true “religious” consensus, at least in the US, regarding the death penalty; usually, the more Evangelical and Fundamentalist strains are in favor, the “mainline” churches less so, the Catholics inalterably opposed, and most Jewish denominations—even, as will be evidenced below, some very salient Orthodox streams—also opposed.]
From the “Left”, the usual arguments you hear have to do with the inequitable application of the penalty and the impossibility of correcting mistakes; and that’s before you arrive at the pacifist argument that taking a life at anytime for any reason by anyone is immoral.
[The “duty-to-retreat” law--which was the legal default position before the “Castle Doctrine” for all intents and purposes codified the right of self-defense through use of deadly force--while not truly “pacifist”, nevertheless indicates the difficulty of legally formulating a concept of “justifiable homicide” outside of warfare, which was a way of…”life”.]
On the eve of his inauguration as Governor of New York in 1995, George Pataki was the recipient of a unique message from the Jewish sage Rabbi Aaron Soloveichik regarding the death penalty, which Pataki had promised in his campaign to place back on the books in New York State:
“…you have the written law mandating the death penalty and the oral law, saying, in effect, that you can never apply it…Now, the death penalty should be there for use in extraordinary situations, in extraordinary threats to the public order…but if [Pataki] acts on the death penalty, he will be the leader of a bloody government.” [New York Magazine, “The 100 Smartest New Yorkers”, Jan. 30, 1995, p. 52].
Fort Hood, TX and Greenville, VA brought the penalty renewed credibility, and that was before the decision to move the terror trials to New York. While the Obama Administration’s intent is mainly to demonstrate [forcibly?] that there is no “conflict between our security and our ideals”--[to paraphrase the President’s inaugural address]--these trials, along with the Muhammad execution and upcoming Fort Hood case, may result in finally viewing how our legal system might actually work in cases where a true threat to public order is at stake, one on the level with Rabbi Soloveichik’s admonition.
In other words, these should be the exceptions that prove the rule: on the books for use in extraordinary threats to the public order. If we learn to restrict the use of the penalty to these situations and these situations alone, the country will be better off.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Turning Points?: The Elections and Fort Hood
As a conservative [no matter how reluctant I am to admit it], I was definitely happy with the GOP taking the New Jersey and Virginia statehouses this past Tuesday. I was even more gratified by the fact that such a die-hard conservative as Virginia Governor-Elect Bob McDonnell being smart enough to downplay any ties with his ostensible comrades [sic]-in-arms Ralph Reed and Sarah Palin, realizing that gaining credibility may even be more important than electoral gains.
In contrast, the response to the loss of the the 23rd Congressional district in New York—and the assertion that “we won even thought we lost”—indicates that the Republicans seem to have forgotten even how to deal with any success.
It is to be expected that conservatives may be reluctant to handle any kind of success in the current econo-political climate: already being held responsible for the mess as it is, they’re extremely reluctant to assume any more responsibility than they have to. In a sense, what this indicates is a continuing ideological purge occurring among conservatives and the GOP, which may be more analogous to a Stalinist rather than McCarthyist ideology.
Of course, one might trace this fear of success and the concomitant loss of credibility all the way back to--“Mission Accomplished”. Never mind that the wrong country may have been invaded for either manufactured or misread reasons. The simple notion that the work was done once the Iraqi army was routed may itself have been the root of the former administration’s attitude of entitlement and invincibility, and the surprise and consequent lack of preparation for everything that followed.
Add that to the “Vietnam syndrome” once again rearing its ugly head as the Penatgon dithered as the conflict went on, and the McCarthyism hurt the important cause of anticommunism a lot more than it had helped it, and the conservative attitude problem may be more trenchant than anyone thinks. I can only hope that Virginia and New Jersey would serve as the start of the tides turning. Unfortunately, the GOP is acting as if the tides have been in their favor all along.
Today’s atrocity at Fort Hood, and the media’s—and even possibly the Army’s—response to it may partially be reflected by the aforementioned paralysis and fear of responsibility, which is not restricted to conservatives, but has become an inexorable part of how important parts of the country functions. The first was demonstrated by the conflicting reports coming out of the Army regarding what happened to the shooter and the heroic woman who actually may have stopped the massacre from going too far along; the second was the Army’s reluctance to make any reference to the possible motivation of the shooter, which, when you take the historical forces attributed to Vietnamism, McCarthyism, and the political correctness paralysis that resulted, has kept the Army from even hinting at his possible ethnically and/or religiously driven “grievances”. [That was left to the “fair and balanced” Fox news.]
I’d go a step further: the major reason that Americans can no longer identify their most mortal enemy [remember that even after 9/11 President Bush was referring to the faith of the hijackers as a “religion of peace”] is that we blew our credibility so many times in the past that “bleeding hearts” with any historical consciousness can remind us of our past “sins” often enough that we who know better are either paralyzed by it or motivated to work against our own interests.
One can only hope that Fort Hood might change this particular reluctance and saddle knee-jerk Saidist/Chomskyist progressivism with the same degree of lack of credibility that the GOP currently suffers from. Unfortunately, the forces militating against that go back further than we realize. 9/11 didn’t change it; this probably won’t either.
In contrast, the response to the loss of the the 23rd Congressional district in New York—and the assertion that “we won even thought we lost”—indicates that the Republicans seem to have forgotten even how to deal with any success.
It is to be expected that conservatives may be reluctant to handle any kind of success in the current econo-political climate: already being held responsible for the mess as it is, they’re extremely reluctant to assume any more responsibility than they have to. In a sense, what this indicates is a continuing ideological purge occurring among conservatives and the GOP, which may be more analogous to a Stalinist rather than McCarthyist ideology.
Of course, one might trace this fear of success and the concomitant loss of credibility all the way back to--“Mission Accomplished”. Never mind that the wrong country may have been invaded for either manufactured or misread reasons. The simple notion that the work was done once the Iraqi army was routed may itself have been the root of the former administration’s attitude of entitlement and invincibility, and the surprise and consequent lack of preparation for everything that followed.
Add that to the “Vietnam syndrome” once again rearing its ugly head as the Penatgon dithered as the conflict went on, and the McCarthyism hurt the important cause of anticommunism a lot more than it had helped it, and the conservative attitude problem may be more trenchant than anyone thinks. I can only hope that Virginia and New Jersey would serve as the start of the tides turning. Unfortunately, the GOP is acting as if the tides have been in their favor all along.
Today’s atrocity at Fort Hood, and the media’s—and even possibly the Army’s—response to it may partially be reflected by the aforementioned paralysis and fear of responsibility, which is not restricted to conservatives, but has become an inexorable part of how important parts of the country functions. The first was demonstrated by the conflicting reports coming out of the Army regarding what happened to the shooter and the heroic woman who actually may have stopped the massacre from going too far along; the second was the Army’s reluctance to make any reference to the possible motivation of the shooter, which, when you take the historical forces attributed to Vietnamism, McCarthyism, and the political correctness paralysis that resulted, has kept the Army from even hinting at his possible ethnically and/or religiously driven “grievances”. [That was left to the “fair and balanced” Fox news.]
I’d go a step further: the major reason that Americans can no longer identify their most mortal enemy [remember that even after 9/11 President Bush was referring to the faith of the hijackers as a “religion of peace”] is that we blew our credibility so many times in the past that “bleeding hearts” with any historical consciousness can remind us of our past “sins” often enough that we who know better are either paralyzed by it or motivated to work against our own interests.
One can only hope that Fort Hood might change this particular reluctance and saddle knee-jerk Saidist/Chomskyist progressivism with the same degree of lack of credibility that the GOP currently suffers from. Unfortunately, the forces militating against that go back further than we realize. 9/11 didn’t change it; this probably won’t either.
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