PM Mid-Term Report Card, Part VI

Stirring the Wasp's Nest

This post is the final in our mid-term report card series on New Zealand's current Prime Minister, John Key. His marks have ranged from A to D: in some things, Key does exceedingly well; in others, he has failed the country badly.

A general theme in our criticisms has been Key's superficiality: he appears not to understand what it at stake in so many issues. He is cheerily optimistic to the point of naivety.  Another possibility is that these broader and deeper issues--particularly those involving constitutional matters--are just not that important to him. Yet, this begs the question: what, then, is important to our PM? Clearly personal ambition and protecting his own patch is not high on his agenda. He appears the most selfless political leader we have seen in a long time--possibly in our collective lifetime.

We suspect that the really important issues for John Key turn around wealth and material prosperity. He appears driven above all else by an ambition to see New Zealand realise its economic potential, grow the economy, and see living standards for all rise. This is Key's version of heaven. He would appear to want his own rags-to-riches redemption be the experience of the nation as a whole. Once again, his instincts as he approaches this challenge appear to be reasonably sound. He knows that the engines of economic prosperity rest not with the government. He does not believe in a command and control economy. He understands that business and labour making free decisions about the allocation of their own resources is the engine of economic growth. He is not stricken with the politics of guilt and pity. These are all positives.

But even here he appears singularly superficial---even simplistic. Take education, for example. Key announced that the single most important component of his "plan" to raise living standards in New Zealand was to revitalise the state education system in New Zealand. His salient initiative to achieve this was the introduction of national standards in reading, writing, and arithmetic ("math" to our American readers). He stated explicitly that this would be the single most important initiative of his administration.

Two years on this initiative lies mired in the mud of the Somme. Key has appeared oblivious to the power structures controlling the state education system. He has naively assumed that all that was required was the introduction of national testing standards, and, hey presto, all would be well. He has appeared both simplistic and naive, not understanding that education is inevitably grounded in religious beliefs and philosophical commitments that touch the fundaments of our culture and belief systems. For over one hundred years secular humanists have shaped, moulded, informed, conditioned, and sculpted the current state education system. Simply putting national standards over the top will not work--they will be spat out faster than a two-year old's pacifier.

Key has shown no apparent understanding of the need to break apart the power structures and the dominant ideologies within the current government education system. He appears ignorant of the need to wage the campaign on ideological grounds. He believes (ostensibly) in the power of the free market as the most efficient allocator of resources known to mankind, but for some reason puts education in a separate category and thinks that the state organs (government departments, education academics, and teacher unions) can allocate resources effectively. He has naively assumed that the state education edifice would deal effectively and efficiently with national standards. All he has succeeded in doing is putting a stick in the wasps' nest, making the little beasties in the government education complex very angry indeed.

Given that this was his self-professed most significant and important initiative to lift New Zealand's economic performance, on his own terms Key must be judged a failure. We expect the national standards "reform" will go the way of all such failed initiatives in the government education system. It will be rejected as soon as the next Labour government comes to power. In this matter, we believe Key has been breathtakingly naive.

We are told that John Key has repeatedly lectured his caucus colleagues about the danger of distraction. Focus on the real issues--which, are, rising living standards for New Zealanders, has been his counsel. If the government succeeds in achieving that then it will enjoy longevity. This materialistic reductionism is nauseating. Life is far more than an abundance of possessions. Seeing one's children make progress, become well educated, for example, normally gives parents a sense of fulfilment and wholeness well beyond the state of their bank balance.

On balance, we believe that John Key is shaping up to be a pretty pedestrian premier. His positive accomplishments will be few and limited. New Zealand will continue to smother itself in its soft-despotic blanket. Gummint will continue to be our big daddy and our cuddling mother. He will continue to predict that "things will come right"--which is rapidly becoming our own Kiwi variant of the cargo cult. His real contribution will be a negative one: that is, the quantum of new damage he will do will be limited. And that, we suppose, is a small accomplishment--but an accomplishment nonetheless--and for which we can be thankful.

For Christians and the churches the huge positive of John Key is that he will leave us alone, unlike his predecessor, Helen Clark whose Unbelief was militant and who aspired to remake the Church into her own socialist, soft-despotic image. When a church was ignorant enough to preach taxation-theft and redistribution, Clark bestowed her "kindness". When a church dared to criticise her statism, even indirectly, they were mocked and ridiculed and legislated against. Let's never forget her government's vitriol and heavy-handed machinations against a handful of Exclusive Brethren citizens.

In John Key and his government we have a very different regime. For that we lift our voices in thanksgiving to our gracious, all governing God. But, we have work to do in His Kingdom, so we had best be about it. Let us continue to look to God, not man for the coming of His Kingdom.

Peace in Our Time?

Not Likely, It Would Appear

The drive for peace at all costs can prove to be a dangerous illusion. British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of the Nazis is a case in point. Before people start glibly talking about peace or longing for its transpiration, it behoves everyone to have a realistic view of what those involved in conflict (or the threat thereof) really think.

Above all else we must reject as hopelessly naive, idealistic, and arrogant the idea that "other people think as we do". The assumptions that people actually want peace and that given a chance they would support cessation of conflict can be utterly wrong and very dangerous.

In the seemingly perpetual conflict between Israel and Palestine the question of whether both protagonists desire peace and a peaceful outcome is moot. Recently some research was undertaken by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies ("FDD") on social media content in Palestine, according to a news report.

"FDD undertook this project with the assumption that online social networks provide important political insights–particularly in the Palestinian online environment–because they grant their users anonymity and freedom of expression,” the authors write.

One finding of the review of expressions of anonymous opinions found on social media sites was the continuing divide between Fatah and Hamas.

Once that was done, Schanzer said, it was time to find the trends. One of the first such trends they noticed, he said, was that “the Palestinian position on violence has absolutely not changed,” especially with regard to Hamas-affiliated authors or discussions taking place on Hamas Web sites, which still encourage violence against Israel.

The representations of Fatah, on the other hand, would not surprise many. “This is a faction that is in utter disarray,” Schanzer said. Additionally, Hamas and Fatah loyalists “sniped at each other incessantly.” There was not much support for rapprochement between the two parties, though Hamas members found a lot of common ground with the more radical Salafist Palestinians. The Salafist Palestinians are relatively low in number but maintain a “persistent, tenacious presence online.”

Secondly, there was a passive acceptance of Iran's influence in Palestinian territories; it was not regarded as nefarious.

On Iran, the trends were just as troubling. There was a noticeable absence of criticism of Iran, which Schanzer said is dangerous because it means Iran is finding at least passive acceptance and generating minimal anger for its meddling among the Palestinian factions. (Or at least not enough anger for Palestinians to “bite the hand that feeds.”)

Thirdly, the social website chatter showed next to no support for genuine political reform. There appears to be little interest in peace.

Discouraging signs could be found in talk of the political reformers as well. “The reform factions are simply not popular,” Schanzer said. He added that there is “not a lot of interest, not a lot of excitement” about peace, but “a lot of suspicion” toward working with the U.S. and Israel.

Insofar as these views are in any way representative--and the research is not yet deep and wide enough to be confident--they do not bode well for any peace process. It behoves the protagonists of that process (US, Europe) to be very clear and realistic about the beliefs, agendas, and aspirations of the parties--and not be guilty of gratuitous assumptions to the effect that "these folk" would think just like us, if they were given half a chance. We fear that this may well be the case.

The Necromancer is Back in Mirkwood

The Hobbit Appears to be Gone

It appears that an Australian union clique has almost singlehandedly (it has had some help from Helen Kelly of the CTU in New Zealand) destroyed New Zealand's film industry. It seems that The Hobbit will be lost to New Zealand and will now be made offshore. But this is not a one-off--New Zealand has now been branded as a risky place to make films.

A press release by Peter Jackson says it all.

"WELLINGTON – Thursday, 21 October 2010

The lifting of the blacklist on The Hobbit does nothing to help the films stay in New Zealand. The damage inflicted on our film industry by NZ Equity/MEAA is long since done.
Next week Warners are coming down to NZ to make arrangements to move the production off-shore. It appears we now cannot make films in our own country - even when substantial financing is available.

The spectacle of NZ Actors’ Equity suddenly cancelling their Wellington meeting, because film workers wanted to express to them their concern at losing The Hobbit, exemplifies the pure gutlessness of this small, self-centred group. They don’t appear to care about the repurcussions (sic) of their actions on others, nor are they prepared to take responsibility for decisions made in their name. NZ Equity constantly refer to ‘good faith’ discussions but they have never acted in good faith towards our film.

Four weeks ago NZ Equity (the local actors' union), represented by the Australian trade union, the MEAA, urged several international actor's unions to gang up on our production in an attempt to bully us into illegal collective bargaining. MEAA's representative, Simon Whipp, admitted in a recent interview with the Hollywood Reporter, that it was his intention to use The Hobbit as a way to 'unionise other productions' in the New Zealand film industry - presumably whether we want it or not. This unilateral decision, made by an off shore union, we assume with Equity's blessing, is the reason why our film industry is now in dire jeopardy.

NZ Equity's unjustified industrial action against The Hobbit has undermined Warner Bro’s confidence in New Zealand as a stable employment environment, and they are now, quite rightly, very concerned about the security of their $500m investment. Unfortunately lifting the blacklist does nothing to help the situation. This will be the start of a domino effect, as word of NZ's unstable employment environment, registers with film investors and studios, world-wide.

Nobody denies Equity's right to represent their group of actors, but incredibly, this industrial action was taken without consultation with their own membership. These clumsy, heavy-handed tactics have put at risk the livelihoods of thousands of workers and jeopardized a potential investment of a billion plus dollars into the NZ economy.Seemingly overnight, NZ Actors’ Equity shredded the reputation of a burgeoning industry, which has been over forty years in the making.

Remarks on television by Helen Kelly of the CTU, demonstrated a total lack of understanding of the film industry. Nothing she had to say about The Hobbit and film financing was remotely factual. Why she has suddenly become the NZ Equity spokesperson is unclear, it appears to be a case of the blind being lead by the even-more-blind.

We will continue the fight to keep the film in NZ, but ultimately this decision belongs to Warner Bro’s. We are however, hugely heartened by the incredible show of support from Wellington actors, technicians and crew. It is a reflection of the terrific pride NZ film workers have in their industry and their very real fear of losing their jobs. " (Hat Tip: Keeping Stock)

Unions would rather destroy every shred of commercial success than relinquish their madcap and destructive marxist class warfare. The Hobbit, and all the thousands of New Zealand working people that would have benefited from it being produced here are just so much cannon fodder. Kelly has shown herself not just to be incompetent, but ignorant of how commerce works in the world. She is so insular it is frightening.

We could not help laughing cynically as her feeble attempt at blameshifting: the reason we are losing The Hobbit, she suggested, was that Warners had found plenty of other jurisdictions where the level of government support was far higher than our own. And therein lies a tale. If only the government would use more tax payers' money subsidising the film, we could have retained it--implied Kelly. In other words, Actors Equity blackmail should be easily offset by government largesse to Warners, with our money. Sub-text: the gummint is to blame.

The tale turns cautionary when we consider that film has been a state subsidised, government picked winner from the get-go. The original idealistic idea was that the government would "seed" the industry; it would build itself into a centre of global excellence, then it would go from strength to strength without state support. Kelly and her ilk want it permanently on the taxpayer teat. They need it there so that the class warfare warriors can continue their fight. The caution in the tale is this: industries that require state subsidisation to get off the ground will never be allowed to stand on their own feet. There will always be too many greedy envious snouts in the trough.

One wonders how long working people will allow themselves to be sacrificed as cannon fodder in unionist ante-diluvian class warfare.

Mad Political Correctness

Is There Any Other Kind?

National Public Radio ("NPR") in the US is similar to national radio stations in New Zealand. Both are funded by the taxpayer's money. Both are media organs that reflect their masters and have a consistent left-wing bias.

Juan Williams has worked as a commentator on NPR for over a decade. His sympathies lie with the prevailing bias operating in NPR, but he strives for objectivity and fairness. Every so often he gets splenetic about things a more objective look would eschew. But due to his gravitas and objectivity he has had a standing spot on Fox News as a commentator on various panels and cable news shows.

He recently was on a show hosted by Bill O'Reilly, and said some things that resulted in NPR firing him. Here is his account, which, given his professionalism, is believable.

Wednesday afternoon I got a message on my cell phone from Ellen Weiss who’s the head of news at NPR asking me to call. When I called back she said, “What did you say? What did you mean to say?” And I said, “I said what I meant to say.” Which is that it’s an honest experience that when I’m in an airport and I see people who are in Muslim garb, who identify themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I do a double take. I have a moment of anxiety or fear given what happened on 9/11. That’s just the reality. And she went on to say, “Well, that crosses the line.” And I said, “What line is that?” And she went on to somehow suggest that I had made a bigoted statement. And I said, “It’s not a bigoted statement.” I, in fact, in the course of this conversation with Bill O’Reilly, said that we have, as Americans, an obligation to be careful to protect the constitutional rights of everyone in the country and to make sure we don’t have any outbreak of bigotry. But that there’s a reality. You cannot ignore what happened on 9/11 and you cannot ignore the connection to Islamic radicalism. And you can’t ignore the fact of what has been recently said in court with regard to this as the first drop of blood in a Muslim war in America. And then she said, “You know, this has been decided up the chain.” I said, “You mean, I don’t even get the chance to come in and we do this eyeball-to-eyeball, person-to-person, have a conversation? I’ve been there for more than ten years. We don’t have that chance to have a conversation about this?” And she said, “There’s nothing you can say that will change my mind. This has been decided above me and we’re terminating your contract.”

Enough said. The question is what possible principled rationale could there be for taxpayers to fund a news media infected with such ideological cant. Come to think of it, what possible rationale could there be for the government to own, fund, and operate any media whatsoever? The one possible exception may be in a state of war when a government owned and operated media organ might be used for propaganda purposes to undermine enemies of the state.

Maybe that is the point. Maybe that is why governments continue to fund National Radio in New Zealand and NRP in the States. Maybe they reason that there are internal enemies of the state and they are anyone and anything with a political orientation not their own. And any political stance which seeks to shrink the power and size of government is regarded as an internal enemy.

From the perspective of fearing the emerging Leviathan, state funded media are a very, very bad idea. The Williams debacle is but a harbinger of the foetid rot within the body politic, and the public health danger it represents.

In the meantime, weep not for Juan Williams. No doubt he will be viewed as a martyr, and most media organisations will want to have a chat. His professionalism and his credibility and his reputation will have only grown through this incident.

On Another Planet

Dem Bones Are Rising

Professor of Maori Studies at Auckland University is on another universe. If anyone disbelieves the existence of parallel universes, we cite Professor Margaret Mutu and rest our case. (Now we must issue a caveat before going further. Our comments are based upon a report in the NZ Herald, entitled Mount Revealed as Cemetery. It is probably gratuitously generous to assume that the NZ Herald has got the facts and story straight, but we will proceed on that basis.)

Some photographic evidence of pre-European Maori bones from burials on Mount Maunganui beach has come to light. Professor Mutu argues that the soon-to-be-voted upon "beach bill" will mean that Maori can restrict beach access at Mount Maunganui and on numerous other parts of the coastline accordingly.

Auckland University head of Maori Studies Margaret Mutu said wherever bodies were buried, the Government's proposed replacement for the controversial Foreshore and Seabed Act lets presiding iwi restrict access. "It makes that beach tapu because you don't want people there digging them up accidentally. Where it's known, it will be," Dr Mutu said.

"The legislation allows it, that wahi tapu must be protected." No one should be fossicking around a beach where bodies had been buried - just like any other cemetery, she said. "This is actually very, very common all around the coast. We bury our dead in sand dunes as a defence mechanism."

So, let's get this straight. Maori historically buried their dead in the sand on the beaches of New Zealand. It makes sense really--since grave digging in the sand would have been relatively easy. Under current Maori cultural revisionism, this makes the beach a sacred site. This, says Mutu, means that the "beach bill" will come into play, since it allowed for Maori to protect such sacred sites. Ergo, Maori will be empowered to restrict public beach access in many places in New Zealand.

Now enter Tauranga MP, Simon Bridges who has actually read the "beach bill".

The National Party's Tauranga MP, Simon Bridges, said he was very clear that public access at the Mount would remain open. It would be "utterly unreasonable" to restrict New Zealanders from the Mount, and local iwi recognised that, Mr Bridges said.

"I'm sure there are cases where wahi tapu is reasonably and legally found to exist, but the fact of the matter is the Mount gets tens of thousands of people walking over the stretches of beach where the bones have been said to be found, and it will be utterly unreasonable to expect Kiwis to stop doing that."

"Local iwi are being exceptionally reasonable about bones of pre-European Maori that have been found, and they recognise that the Mount is for all New Zealanders." Moreover, access could only be restricted where iwi were granted customary title, and they would not meet a requirement to show exclusive use of the beach since 1840. "It's quite clear that it has been enjoyed by all kinds of Kiwis," Mr Bridges said.

Maori, under the "beach bill" would have the right to preserve their "sacred" beach spots if they were granted customary title over that particular piece of land. And the burden of proof is high.

Under the proposed legislation, the Marine and Coastal Areas Bill, iwi will have the ability to prohibit or restrict access to wahi tapu areas. But this is only if they are granted customary title over the coastline, which requires exclusive use since 1840. This is unlikely for a public beach - much less a popular one like the Mount. (Emphasis, ours.)

Professor Mutu is numbered amongst the co-sovereigntists, asserting that Maori must be regarded as co-rulers of New Zealand with the Crown. The "beach bill" for them is a start. It does not go anywhere near where they want to go. And they will not rest until they get it. They are prepared to play a long game. The subtle sub-text of Mutu's argument is that sacred burial grounds trump customary title; Maori bones in the sand give a more weighty title than uninterrupted customary usage.

The end game for these radical revisionists is control of the country. They will keep manufacturing spurious claims and rights until they get there, or until they are confronted and refuted. We suspect that the vast majority of welfare-dependant Maori secretly and inwardly cheer them on. They see it as the mother of all payouts and a path to the true restoration of their mana. They are fools indeed.

The unmitigated sadness is that they are inflicting upon themselves and their children still more generations of welfare dependency and slavery. It is so pervasive that nowadays many Maori have to emigrate to escape its debilitating miasma. Professor Mutu and her ilk are false prophets and unwittingly act to destroy their own people--as Sir Apirana Ngata so presciently foretold seventy years ago.

Is Moderate Islam Real?

People very much want to believe that Islam is an intrinsically moderate religion. The jihad bombers can then be painted as extremists. One can leave Islam in place, tolerate it within the public sphere, whilst excising the extremists. Possible, or naive? Here is Andrew C. McCarthy's take on the question, as published in National Review Online.

Who Says Islam Is Totalitarian?
Not long ago, Bernard Lewis sounded almost like Geert Wilders.
October 19, 2010

 Who says Islam is a totalitarian doctrine? Well, Geert Wilders does, of course. As the editors point out in Monday’s superb National Review Online editorial, the Dutch parliamentarian has even had the temerity to compare Islam with Nazism. Strong stuff indeed, and for speaking it, Wilders has earned the disdain not just of the usual Muslim Brotherhood satellite organizations but even of many on the political right.


Though they support free-speech rights, and thus grudgingly concede that Wilders should be permitted to say such things, they want you to understand they find his sentiments deplorable. Taking the politically correct view, they assure you that Islam is not a problem at all — it’s just those bad extremists and Islamists who have, as the Bush-era refrain went, “hijacked one of the world’s great religions.”

Emblematic is the estimable Charles Krauthammer, who has described Wilders’s views as “extreme, radical, and wrong.” Dr. K.’s complaint, expressed on Fox News back in March (and published on the Corner), was that Wilders conflates “Islam and Islamism.” The latter, Krauthammer insists, is “an ideology of a small minority which holds that the essence of Islam is jihad, conquest, forcing people into accepting a certain very narrow interpretation [of Islam].”

As I take a backseat to no one in my admiration of Dr. K., I wonder what he’d make of Bernard Lewis’s take on this subject. Professor Lewis is the distinguished scholar widely and aptly admired, including by Wilders’s detractors, as the West’s preeminent authority on Islam. At Pajamas Media, Andrew Bostom has unearthed a 1954 International Affairs essay in which Professor Lewis quite matter-of-factly compared Islam with Communism. The essay, in fact, was called, “Communism and Islam.”

In it, Lewis considered “the very nature of Islamic society, tradition, and thought,” and concluded that its principal defining characteristic is the “authoritarianism, perhaps we may even say the totalitarianism, of the Islamic political tradition.” Expanding on this, he wrote:

There are no parliaments or representative assemblies of any kind, no councils or communes, no chambers of nobility or estates, no municipalities in the history of Islam; nothing but the sovereign power, to which the subject owed complete and unwavering obedience as a religious duty imposed by the Holy Law. . . . For the last thousand years, the political thinking of Islam has been dominated by such maxims as “tyranny is better than anarchy,” and “whose power is established, obedience to him is incumbent.”

But what about the conceit that undergirds current American foreign policy, the notion that Islam and Western democracy are perfectly compatible? Lewis dismissed the idea as so much elite wishful thinking:

Many attempts have been made to show that Islam and democracy are identical — attempts usually based on a misunderstanding of Islam or democracy or both. This sort of argument expresses a need of the uprooted Muslim intellectual who is no longer satisfied with or capable of understanding traditional Islamic values, and who tries to justify, or rather, restate, his inherited faith in terms of the fashionable ideology of the day. It is an example of the romantic and apologetic presentation of Islam that is a recognized phase in the reaction of Muslim thought to the impact of the West.

Clearly, the ensuing half-century has found Western intellectuals — regardless of political bent — joining romantic forces with their uprooted Muslim counterparts. Thus the accusation by Dr. Krauthammer, to take a prominent but by no means singular example, that Wilders fails to perceive the distinction — I’d call it a hoped-for distinction — between Islam and Islamism. Yet this accusation itself conflates Islam with Muslims, as well as Islamists with violent jihadists. This confusion leads Krauthammer to surmise both (a) that only a small minority of Muslims believe jihad is “the essence of Islam,” and (b) that because most Muslims in the West are not terrorists, it should be “obvious” that they are not Islamists.

This is wrong on several levels. First, as Robert Spencer explains, “Jihad . . . is a key element of the Islamic faith according to every single Islamic authority on the planet.” To deny that it is the “essence of Islam” — which is how the prophet Mohammed regarded it — is to deny a basic fact. And though, as Spencer acknowledges, jihad is subject to varying interpretations, Lewis is clear on the preponderant construction. As he has recounted several times, most recently in The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years, “The overwhelming majority of early authorities . . . citing relevant passages in the Qur’an and in the tradition, discuss jihad in military terms.” This jibes, to quote Ibn Warraq, with “the celebrated Dictionary of Islam,” which describes jihad as an “incumbent religious duty,” and defines it as “a religious war with those who are unbelievers in the mission of Muhammad.”

Spencer echoes Lewis when he elaborates that “all the mainstream sects and schools of Islamic jurisprudence teach as a matter of faith that Islam is intrinsically political and that Muslims must wage war against unbelievers and subjugate them under the rule of Islamic law.” The fact that most Muslims do not engage in violent jihad, whether out of practicality, indifference, or what have you, does not change what Islamic doctrine says. Nor does it mean these Muslims are “rejecting” that mandate. They are ignoring it.

Moreover, as I’ve noted on several occasions, the point of jihad is to spread sharia, the Islamic legal system whose installation is the necessary precondition to creating an Islamic society. That need not be done by violent means. In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood, the world’s most influential Islamist organization, maintains that America and Europe will be “conquered” not by violence but by dawa­ – the proselytism of Islam by non-violent (or, more accurate, pre-violent) means, such as infiltration of our institutions. Spencer calls this phenomenon “stealth jihad.”

Consequently, one can be an Islamist without engaging in violent jihad, which is precisely the case with the vast majority of Islamists. The fact that they are not terrorists does not mean — as we wish it would mean — that they are not extremists. While they abstain from the use of force (particularly against other Muslims), staggering majorities of Muslims throughout the world favor the implementation and strict application of sharia. Andrew Bostom’s essay demonstrates this, citing polling done in 2009 by World Public Opinion in conjunction with the University of Maryland.

Back in 1954, Lewis recalled “the political history of Islam” as “one of almost unrelieved autocracy” that was “authoritarian, often arbitrary, [and] sometimes tyrannical.” Besides this, the most interesting part of his essay is its focus on “certain uncomfortable resemblances” between “the Ulama of Islam” and “the Communist Party.” Though “very different” in some ways, the two, he stated, “profess a totalitarian doctrine, with complete and final answers to all questions on heaven and earth.”

Those answers, of course, are worlds apart in their particulars. Nonetheless, Lewis saw them as strikingly similar in

their finality and completeness, and in the contrast they offer with the eternal questioning of Western man. Both groups offer to their members and followers the agreeable sensation of belonging to a community of believers, who are always right, as against an outer world of unbelievers, who are always wrong. Both offer an exhilarating feeling of mission, of purpose, of being engaged in a collective adventure to accelerate the historically inevitable victory of the true faith over the infidel evil-doers. The traditional Islamic division of the world into the House of Islam and the House of War, two necessarily opposed groups, of which the first has the collective obligation of perpetual struggle against the second, also has obvious parallels in the Communist view of world affairs. There again, the content of belief is utterly different, but the aggressive fanaticism of the believer is the same. The humorist who summed up the Communist creed as “There is no God and Karl Marx is his Prophet” was laying his finger on a real affinity. The call to a Communist Jihad, a Holy War for the faith — a new faith, but against the self-same Western Christian enemy — might well strike a responsive note.

In light of this scholarly comparison of Islam to Soviet totalitarianism, is it really so outrageous for Geert Wilders to compare Islam to Nazi totalitarianism? One needn’t agree with the analogy — and, agree or not, one needn’t think it a useful analogy — in order to understand why someone who is not intimidated by political correctness might employ it.

In thinking about how to argue the depth of terrorist depravity to the jury while prosecuting a 1995 terrorism trial, I must confess it crossed my mind that jihad literally means “struggle,” the same word found in the title of Hitler’s manifesto, Mein Kampf (“My Struggle”). I quickly dismissed any thought of mentioning this as too explosive — nothing provokes a mistrial motion faster than a prosecutor’s comparison of defendants to Nazis, and when your evidence is damning, it’s always better to let it, rather than your rhetoric, do the talking. But I certainly didn’t think the point was beyond the pale. As noted by Daniel Pipes (who does not agree with Wilders’s analogy), no less a figure than Winston Churchill described Mein Kampf as “the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message.”

In the middle of the 20th century, before suffocating political correctness took hold, it was not all that controversial to say such things. Note that in 1954, Bernard Lewis obviously felt no need to resort to such devices as “Islamism” — a device I adopt myself in The Grand Jihad — to conform to today’s obligatory but unproved assumption that there exists a moderate, tolerant Islam, scripturally based and doctrinally distinguishable from the Islam of the “extremists.”

In those bygone days, the term “Islamist” was usually used to identify a scholar of Islam — akin to a Sinologist or an Arabist. There was another usage, dating back to the 1920s. It was the one coined by Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna to denote a person who urged Islam as a complete way of life and favored installation of the sharia system. For Banna, there was no difference between Islam and Islamism.

That, by the way, is not only the Brotherhood’s view. It is the adamant opinion of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Islamist prime minister of Turkey who continues to be regarded by the U.S. government as a great moderate, just as he was during the Bush administration. “Very ugly” was his take on the term “moderate Islam” in a 2007 interview. As Erdogan fumed at the time, “It is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam, and that’s it.”

Islam is Islam. That is Erdogan’s position, it seems to have been the position of Bernard Lewis a half century ago, and it is Geert Wilders’s position today. Not that Muslims are bad, but that Islam is a dangerous ideology. Wilders summed up his views in a 2009 interview with Jeff Jacoby (also quoted in Andrew Bostom’s piece):

I have nothing against the people. I don’t hate Muslims. But Islam is a totalitarian ideology. It rules every aspect of life — economics, family law, whatever. It has religious symbols, it has a God, it has a book — but it’s not a religion. It can be compared with totalitarian ideologies like Communism or fascism. There is no country where Islam is dominant where you have a real democracy, a real separation between church and state.

These claims are materially indistinguishable from points Professor Lewis made in 1954 — other than, perhaps, Wilders’s assertion that Islam “is not a religion,” although by that, I take him to mean Islam is not merely a religion or a set of spiritual principles but a comprehensive system controlling all of life.

From those premises, Wilders concluded that “Islam is totally contrary to our values.” That is a bracing conclusion. I think the problem people have with Wilders is that he is bracing. He says out loud what they fear is the case, or what they refuse to examine for fear of discovering that it is the case. That makes him inconvenient. It doesn’t make him wrong.

– Andrew C. McCarthy, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.

PM Report Card, Part V

Plastic Integrity

New Zealand's Prime Minister, John Key has made integrity--or keeping his word with the electorate--a salient principle of his tenure. This has been a commendable change--and it makes him stand out from other politicians. "Honest John" is a sobriquet not unfitting for our current Prime Minister. He has attempted to make his administration a "no surprises" regime. Of course, this commitment was provoked by his political opponents, who, when campaigning against him, constantly attacked his integrity, overtly stating that he was not to be trusted, and that once in office he would pull out a devastating hidden agenda which would wreak terrible damage to all.

There would be few now who would doubt that Key appears to be National initiated bending coalition agreements.

Such integrity would, in time, go a long way to restoring the mana of our highest politicians, were he to start a trend and set a standard which others were committed to emulate. It would also mean that the people would eventually pay a whole lot more attention to electioneering commitments, reducing the general cynicism with which our elected politicians are curently regarded.

Key's electoral integrity represents a remarkable change for which he deserves the strongest commendation.

But electoral commitments blindly kept can be a terrible albatross around the neck. Rash vows which subsequently damage the country, ought to be repented of--publicly and humbly--rather than proceeding with them stubbornly. Key has shown that he is prepared to do that up to a point. For example, National campaigned on a policy of significant and progressive tax cuts. But economic circumstances changed drastically, and quickly. When the full weight of recession hit, and government deficits began to yaw, threatening the nation as a whole, Key cancelled the tax cuts--and explained why. Excellent, mature leadership. As Keynes so acerbically asked, "when the facts conflict with my opinion, I change my opinion. What do you do, sir?"

But on other matters, Key has stubbornly stuck to his "word" despite damage being wrought. His refusal to countenance a simple, clarifying change in the Crimes Act, to ensure that responsible parents are neither investigated nor prosecuted for disciplining their children using reasonable force, despite it subsequently becoming clear that the overwhelming majority (80 percent, plus) of parents wanted the law changed, is reprehensible and irresponsible. (We have already commented on the unconstitutional device employed by Key in his defence--the matter of "instructing" the police not to apply the law--as dangerous and reprehensible and wrong.)

And then there is the matter of the Emissions Trading Scheme. In this instance, Key's stubbornness has locked him into errant foolishness--and that, despite commitments made earlier. Key had stated on numerous occasions that he did not support New Zealand being a "leader" in climate change "mitigation". During his tenure, the global warming edifice has crumbled. The official government climate research bureau, NIWA has been exposed as fabricators of the data and acting in a very sloppy, unscientific manner. The so called UN fabricated "global consensus" has collapsed. The IPCC has finally been exposed as a politicised, unscientific propaganda organ. The US and Australia have backed off establishing emissions trading schemes and the global recession has led to voters all over the world relegating climate change issues to the realms of irrelevance.

But Key has stubbornly gone ahead with our draconian, comprehensive Emissions Trading Scheme, despite it now making us a "world leader"--a position which our small, vulnerable economy cannot bear. Meanwhile, New Zealand teeters on the edge of going back into recession. Things are very, very bad, and our economy is at great risk. One of the worst things--one of the most damaging things--that governments can do in a recession is increase the costs and impediments to producing goods and services--particularly tradable goods and services. The ETS does that--and its taxation dead-weight costs are just beginning.

Key had plenty of facts, a veritable phalanx of changed circumstances, to justify a suspension of the ETS. But no, he has recklessly and stubbornly insisted upon it. He was a man of his word! He will likely go down in history as New Zealand's version of President Hoover, worsening the recession and making our economy even more vulnerable than it was before. And that does not include the wasteful, economically irrational, unsustainable distortions being wreaked upon New Zealand's rural sector as the taxpayer funded gold rush for artificial "carbon credits" gathers momentum. It will prove to be just one more government engineered and created distortionary bubble that will end in a vale of tears.

John Key has some sterling qualities. But, oh, the damage he has wrought. He deserves a big tick for his integrity, but a D minus for his foolish and stubborn refusal to face the emerging facts. Regrettably, it casts a dark pall over his other qualities.

Now a cynic may say that when Key cancelled the promised programme of tax cuts he did so, not just because of the changed circumstances, but political calculations were compelling. After all, the Left could not complain. They were against tax cuts to begin with. And on all the other cases of stubborn refusal to change, the Opposition would have been "outraged" by a change in policy. So, a cynic may say, all along Key has been bending his principles and beliefs to ensure that he hugs "the centre" and gives his political opponents no ammo.

We hope that our Prime Minister is not as superficial, nor venal, nor tawdry as that would suggest. But time will tell all.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

The Machete of Curiosity

Political Dualism - Mere Christendom
Written by Douglas Wilson
Wednesday, October 20, 2010

So, then, the issues are perennial, but the terms are not. Anyone working through the tangled weave of religion and politics may need some help with terms. Anyone whacking away at the thicket of culture and faith with the machete of curiosity could probably use a simple lexicon. It seems only fair to provide some basic definitions.

By mere Christendom, I mean a network of nations bound together by a formal, public, civic acknowledgement of the lordship of Jesus Christ, and the fundamental truth of the Apostles' Creed. I do not mean establishment or tax support for any particular denomination of Christians, but it is possible (and necessary) to avoid such establishment without falling for the myth of religious neutrality. Religious neutrality is impossible. So mere Christendom stands in contrast to sectarian Christendom on the one hand and complete secularism on the other. Approaching these alternatives from the middle distance are the claims of radical Islam, about which more in a minute.

Secularism refers to the idea, popular for the last few centuries, that it is in fact possible for nations to be religiously neutral. This impressive trick is managed by having everyone pretend that secularism does not bring with it its very own set of ultimate commitments. But it does bring them, and so secularism has presented us with its very own salvation narrative, in which story the Enlightened One arose to deliver us all from that sectarian strife and violence. The horse and rider were thrown into the sea, and this is why you can't put that Christmas tree up in the county courthouse. 


American exceptionalism is the idea that America is a more of a creed than a nation. This kind of American exceptionalism makes a certain kind of civic religion possible, a quasi-sacramental approach which all consistent Christians reject as, in equal turns, blasphemous and silly. American exceptionalism in this sense is currently the high church form of secularism.

American exceptionalism is not the grateful recognition that we live in a nation that has been enormously blessed in many ways. What might be called normal patriotism is not idolatrous, but is simply natural affection.

Radical Islam is a Christian heresy, but one of the features that it retained in its departure from the truth was the idea that religious claims are total and absolute. Islam functioned in this way for many centuries, competing head to head with the Christians, before the Enlightenment arrived in order to demote all religious totalism (except for their own). Muslims who have accepted the claims of this secularism are now called "moderate" Muslims, while Muslims who are faithful to the older, all-encompassing claims of Islam are called radical Muslims. The word radical comes from the Latin radix, which means root. Radical Muslims have gone to the root of the matter, and they are the ones who at least understand the nature of the conflict. If Allah is God, then follow him. If he isn't, then we shouldn't.

And I would say the same thing about Jesus. If He is Lord, we should do what He says. If He is not, then we needn't bother.

PM Midterm Report Card, Part IV

Key's Management Style

John Key has been Prime Minister of New Zealand now for just on two years. We are endeavouring to write up a report card on his performance. Whilst still incredibly popular, it is early days. So far, he has proved a teflon premier. He is regarded pretty much universally as a nice guy. Our previous posts on his report card have made clear that he is a far, far better leader of the civil government of New Zealand than his Labour predecessor, Helen Clark. But there are also significant weaknesses, which have equally significant ramifications and risks to our country.

Key's management style is far superior to that of Helen Clark. This is to the country's benefit. Clark was the closest thing to a totalitarian control-freak we have seen in the a long time. She and her chief of staff, Heather Simpson ran a suffocating regime. This is probably due in no small measure to her being heavily influenced by the ethos of Marxist class warfare. Clark clearly believed she was in a war. She looked through a polarised filter upon the world. She despised, even hated her political opponents, regarding them as fundamentally nasty people. Their nastiness was proven by the fact they criticised and opposed her.  She took political conflict personally. She mistrusted her own colleagues, keeping them under a very tight leash. When problems arose they were always someone else's fault. Helen Clark operated on a strewn carpet of very, very thin eggshells. 

Like most warriors faced with the exigencies of a state of war, she was prepared to cut corners and sacrifice casualties to get what she wanted. We believe that she was a really dangerous politician, and that she did much damage to our nation.

Key is at almost every point contra-polar to Clark. He does not take political conflict personally. He reaches out to all sorts of political actors. He clearly sees many issues in non-personal terms, which frees him up to seek common ground. In that sense he is very much a consensus political leader who unites people (however loosely) rather than divides them. He appears as far removed from the ethos and ethics of class warfare as it is possible to be.

In our previous post we pointed out that this approach has significant dangers, and, in our judgment, on constitutional matters, particularly those swirling around Maori, Key has proved incompetent. He has not leveraged his good relationship with the Maori Party into sound and necessary constitutional directions. The tragedy is that he could have done so--and he is ideally placed to do it--more so than any other Premier in living memory. But thus far, he has failed dismally to capitalize. We suspect the reason is that John Key has his own version of Marxism nestled to the breast. He sees the world far too much in materialist terms. Achieving economic prosperity is far more important to him than fundamental constitutional issues. This is a significant weakness in his leadership which we will take up in future posts.

His leadership style of the government, however, has genuine strength, breadth and depth. Firstly, Key believes in delegation and holding people accountable. Thus, his administration reflects more a team of horses in harness, each pulling their weight, each making a contribution. He has given Simon Power, for example, great latitude in Justice; Ryall in health; Brownlee in Canterbury post the earthquake; English at the Treasury; Steven Joyce in diverse (but big spending) portfolios; Collins in Police and Corrections, Bennett in Social Development, etc. He does not second guess his ministers; he does not often override them.

The confidence these ministers display in public implies that they know they have the support and backing of their Prime Minister. The fact that so few have made major gaffes implies that behind the scenes communication around the Cabinet table is effective and that Key is successfully managing the tension between his expectations of each and giving each sufficient latitude so they really can take the reins of their portfolios. Consequently good, sound government is a far more likely outcome.

Finally, and we believe this is a huge positive, John Key is not a career politician. He has made it clear that he regards his premiership as a "tour of duty", not a lifetime perquisite. Therefore he is free to consider succession planning on the basis of merit as his ministers go about their responsibilities. By contrast, when a political leader is a career politician, they are likely to consider every emerging talent as a threat to their career. Consequently, they tend to favour lapdogs and milktoasts as their natural successors. (One Chris Carter springs to mind, as does one David Cunliffe.) Knives, barbeques, back-stabbing and coups eventually become the order of the day. The country suffers under such the wretchedness of vaunting ambition and pride.

We give John Key an A on his leadership and management style. It benefits the country greatly.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Out of the Mouth of Babes

Dualism Is Bad JuJu
Written by Douglas Wilson
Monday, October 18, 2010

Carl Trueman's Republocrat was a quick and enjoyable read, but there is not a whole lot to say about it. Just three quick comments here, plus one follow up in the next post on another subject.

First, it is clear that Trueman is largely dealing with a spectrum created by MSNBC and Fox News. And as he points out the various foibles and inconsistencies created by Christians arrayed across that spectrum, he has what you might call an easy target. Rebuke a thoughtless Republican Christian for his doting reliance on the bleached blonde punditry of Fox News, that man can just shrug and quote Scripture. "Hey. Out of the mouth of babes . . ."

Second, the book was astonishingly light on the theological and intellectual case for real conservatism. This was a rejection of a sophomoric populism, done by someone who seems largely unaware of the vast library of resources at the disposal of anyone who wants a genuine, well-thought-through, conservatism. There are more options out there, more traditions out there, than Marxism, fascism, and robber baron capitalism.

Third, at the same time, it is also obvious that Trueman's time here in the States has been well spent. Despite his very English exasperation at the Dodge City conservatism he has clearly encountered in many conversations in the fellowship hall after church, it is clear (at least to me) that Trueman is a whole lot more conservative than he thinks he is. What exasperates him ought to, at least for the most part, and it is hard for me to imagine him reading the literature he ought to have read (before writing this book) without seeing his way home. His instincts are right.

Sea Change?

Risible Claims

German Chancellor, Angela Merkel has pronounced the death of multi-culturalism in Germany. Well, maybe not the death, but she has argued for its death penalty.

This may be significant. After all, it is Germany and Germany has been a cesspool of simpering progressivist nonsense ever since the guilt imputed to the nation in the wake of the Nazis. Be welcoming to all. Never, ever discriminate or distinguish. Inclusivity is fundamental to human decency. Soft despotic socialism is necessary to prevent any possibility of alienation by any group so as to foster extremist bitterness--and so on.

One of the secular policies promulgated to ensure inclusivity has been multi-culturalism--the recognition and protection of all cultures and sub-cultures and sub-sub-cultures. All have equal rights to exist and to be protected (and funded and supported). Now Angela has concluded that multi-culturalism is a failure in the reich. Not only that, she has tied Germany to Christian cultural values (choke, choke). She has declared that "if you don't like it, lump it. Leave."

Germany's attempt to create a multi-cultural society has failed completely, Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the weekend, calling on the country's immigrants to learn German and adopt Christian values. Merkel weighed in for the first time in a blistering debate sparked by a central bank board member saying the country was being made "more stupid" by poorly educated and unproductive Muslim migrants.

"Multikulti", the concept that "we are now living side by side and are happy about it," does not work, Merkel told a meeting of younger members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party at Potsdam near Berlin. "This approach has failed, totally," she said, adding that immigrants should integrate and adopt Germany's culture and values. "We feel tied to Christian values. Those who don't accept them don't have a place here," said the chancellor.

It is clear that Islamic immigrants are within in the purview of her remarks.

"Subsidising immigrants" isn't sufficient, Germany has the right to "make demands" on them, she added, such as mastering the language of Goethe and abandoning practices such as forced marriages.

Merkel spoke a week after talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in which they pledged to do more to improve the often poor integration record of Germany's 2.5-million-strong Turkish community.

Even the Turkish Prime Minister reprimanded Islamic immigrants in Germany for forming ghettos.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul, in a weekend interview, also urged the Turkish community living in Germany to master the language of their adopted country. "When one doesn't speak the language of the country in which one lives that doesn't serve anyone, neither the person concerned, the country, nor the society," the Turkish president told the Suedeutsche Zeitung.

"That is why I tell them at every opportunity that they should learn German, and speak it fluently and without an accent. That should start at nurseries."

We agree with Merkel that multi-culturalism will always fail. In effect, multi-culturalism is a paternalistic elitist doctrine that proceeds on a suppressed premise that culture and religion are a superficial phenomenon that, in the final analysis, are unimportant or trivial. All cultures can, therefore, be tolerated and welcomed and accepted because they are irrelevant to one's core being and essential humanity. Culture, therefore, is regarded as being in the same category as race, which it is not. Race and sex do not determine how people think, feel and act.  Culture does.  Culture informs one's behaviour and beliefs: it conditions one's acts and identity in both public and private.  To suggest that race is in the same category as culture is an informal logical fallacy of category confusion.

This is a major blunder and misrepresentation of what makes up a human being. At the driving formative heart of a human being is his intellect, emotions and the will. All three are conditioned and shaped by culture, and culture is nothing more than religion externalised. Race (that is, genetics) makes no distinct formative contribution whatsoever. Race may be skin deep. Culture is definitely not. True multi-culturalism, when applied in the public sphere, leads inevitably to the trivialisation of all cultures, except the culture of progressivism or secular humanism. It is a bold attempt to one set of cultural beliefs and values over all other cultures and beliefs, relegating and trivialising them in the process.

However, we suspect that Merkel is pandering to her political constituency. Her appeals to Christian values are disingenuous. Germany has been at the forefront of a secular humanistic subborning of the Christian faith ever since the Enlightenment. To claim that Germany draws upon and reflects Christian values is risible.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Huh, Sez I 

Culture and Politics - Politics
Written by Douglas Wilson
Sunday, October 17, 2010

Here in Latah County, a fine Christian gentleman named Gresham Bouma is running for the Idaho State Senate. The previous occupant of that seat was a RINO (Republican in Name Only), one whom Gesham bumped off in the primary. Now generally we are kind of a blue dot region in red state Idaho, and so our official representatives in the Idaho legislature are generally libs and RINOs. We send them down to Boise so that they can know what it is like to feel lonely, seated there among all those cattlemen legislators.

That means that ordinarily a guy like Gresham, who is not mathematically challenged, and therefore knows that you can't spend money you don't have on things you don't need, is unelectable here. We are a highly educated university community, and therefore we tend to elect people who can't count. But this year . . .

If ever there was a year when this district could conceivably elect a guy like Gresham, it is this year. I mean, all over the country, voters have looked at what the gummint has been doing, gotten out their calculators, and discovered that a trillion dollars doesn't even fit in the number display bar, unless maybe you hold your iPhone sideways. So if ever there was a year that a guy like Gresham could make it here, it is now.


Apparently some of the local liberal fauna agree with this assessment because they have mailed out a totally gratuitous attack on him. I mean, why would they do this if they weren't worried that he might actually win the election? Huh, sez I.

PM Midterm Report Card, Part III

Flawed Constitutional Instincts

In this report card on the current Prime Minister of New Zealand, John Key we employ the word "instincts" frequently. Instincts can be salutary where they function as early and leading indicators. But instincts, whilst necessary, are never sufficient. They must be buttressed with principled thought. It is here that one of John Key's biggest flaws becomes apparent. He often betrays a want of fundamental principles to inform clear thinking to support his instincts. The upshot is that he ends up as a milk-toast, weak kneed, unprincipled leader who consistently kow tows to the left or the social progressives (aka, the velvet revolutionaries).

This leads people to sense that there is a shallowness to the current Prime Minister. Some have averred that he trades too much on being a "nice guy". Others have complained that he is a weak and plastic man. Whilst they concede he may well be a nice guy, he is clearly not a leader.

So, his constitutional instincts appear sound. He clearly does not regard government as his own personal fiefdom. He has reversed the previous government's deliberate politicising of the public service--a terrible travesty of the constitution. He has stopped dead in its tracks the revolutionary attempt by the Labour Government to override the neutrality and impartiality of the electoral process, which resulted in never-before-seen curtailments of freedom of political speech. It would be hard to imagine John Key stripping away the Privy Council as the highest court in the land, without careful consideration and a broad political consensus. One has not seen deliberate attempts to stack the judiciary with party activists and flunkies that occurred under Justice Minister, Margaret Wilson. The recovery of a neutral Speaker's Chair in Parliament has been immensely gratifying--and to the good of all.

All these can be cited as evidence of Key's sound constitutional instincts--and this soundness is neither inconsequential nor unimportant. We are very thankful for it. So, a bouquet is arguable.

But Key's instincts do not appear to be buttressed by a grasp of principle. Two examples illustrate what we mean. The first is his willingness to play a condign role in the most radical change in the constitution and the rule of law in this country. We refer, of course, to the claim of co-sovereignty by Maori over the country. This is a radical constitutional claim--and by now the soft-revolution is virtually "all over, Rover".

Key initially took a stance that appeared quite principled. He committed himself and his party to the abolition of Maori seats. That was a sound instinct. But underneath it lay an iceberg of broader constitutional issues to which he appears completely oblivious, or, worse, has decided are relatively unimportant in the bigger scheme of things.

Much has been made about the Treaty of Waitangi. Up until about thirty years ago it was universally held that the Treaty was a "vassal treaty" in which Maori ceded sovereignty to the Crown. Now "vassal treaties" or covenants have been around since the beginning of time. But Maori have gradually worked up an argument to re-write history and the exegesis of the Treaty. We believe they have done so dishonestly, using this argument as a pretext for yet more state sanctioned redistribution of others property to Maori.

Maori have argued essentially two things about the Treaty. First, because it was entered into voluntarily and not by subjugation, it can also be exited voluntarily. Like a modern, secular "marriage", whilst the parties freely enter into the arrangement, it can be broken and revoked at by one of the parties at will. Thus, they have argued, Waitangi was not a vassal treaty, and therefore sovereignty by Maori to the Crown was not conceded. It was a Treaty between equals.

Secondly, and following on from this, Maori have argued that they are "Treaty partners" and therefore share co-sovereignty over the nation with the Crown. Just as Maori ceded sovereignty to the Crown when they signed the Treaty, the Crown equally ceded its sovereignty to Maori.

It goes without saying that this is a completely radical and revolutionary conception. It is historicism on a grand scale. But, amazingly--and to our everlasting shame as a nation--it has been widely accepted by default. It remains unchallenged and uncontested. It is a radical reshaping of our Constitution. John Key has failed to grasp this.

So, he has approached the whole Maori political movement (as expressed via the organ of the Maori Party), as a negotiation, a deal to be had. Now a deal to be had in politics is one thing. But when it involves a fundamental change in our constitutional fabric, it is something else entirely.

John Key has failed the country badly here. He has been in an ideal position--he has had an opportunity that will possibly never happen again. Upon going into coalition with the Maori Party, he has had the opportunity to concede the abolition of the Maori parliamentary seats for the time being, whilst reiterating constantly the wider constitutional issues and that are at stake. This he has failed to do. The spurious claims of co-sovereignty, withdrawal from the ceding to the Crown, and of "Treaty partner" have to be named and shamed. Key has defalcated on these responsibilities. Once the Maori Party was in the tent he was in a perfect position, privately and publicly, to press the fundamental constitutional issues at stake, and reject the revolutionary historical revisionism which Maori and progressives have been successfully foisting to date upon the country. On all these matters, Key has gone cacophonously silent. One is left wondering whether he really understands the issues at all.

A second example of egregious constitutional failure has been Key's position over the anti-smacking law. He has stubbornly, in the face of overwhelming public opposition, clung to his maxim that he will not support a law amendment unless damage is done to "ordinary" New Zealand families. He has "assured" the country that despite what the Crimes Act now says, he will ensure that the Police will exercise discretion and not apply the law, at least not in the way it is written. This is a totally untenable position from a principled constitutional perspective. It tacitly and implicitly and in principle undermines the rule of law itself.

And why has he done this? We are told that Tariana Turia made a personal appeal to him not to amend the law because of the "message it would send" to Maori about child abuse. No doubt there was other pressure bought to bear upon Key from inside the Beltway as well. But if Key has been willing to set constitutional principles aside for the sake of maintaining "good guy" status with his coalition partners, he has failed in his duty as Prime Minister. There is no other conclusion that can be drawn.

On the matter of fidelity to the constitutional framework of New Zealand's Westminster democracy, we appreciate Key's instincts, but believe him to be way out of his depth. He is perpetuating recent damage, and has been inflicting his own, new harms.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Theology That Comes Out of Halter Tops

Political Dualism - Dualism Is Bad JuJu
Written by Douglas Wilson
Saturday, October 16, 2010

In the Introduction to Republocrat, Carl Trueman gives us the thesis of his book straight up front -- "that conservative Christianity does not require conservative politics or conservative cultural agendas" (p. xix). When Trueman moved from the UK to the United States, he records that he "suddenly found" himself "to be a man of the left" (p. xxiv). Nevertheless, he remains stoutly opposed to "abortion and gay marriage" (p. xix), and yet he is in favor of "gun control and nationalized health care" (p. xxv). So there you go.

In order to think straight about such things, it is important to say at the outset that Trueman is quite right to insist that conservative Christians ought not to be in thrall to whatever Fox News dubs to be conservative. Everything hinges on what it is you are conserving. Does conservative Christianity conserve theological truths only? Of course not -- there are cultural ramifications in what we believe, as Trueman himself notes on the pro-life issue and the gay marriage issue. But by this I certainly do not want to say that conservative theology requires me to sign up for the Fox News brand of conservatism, the one that wants to protect the right of top-heavy starlets to fall out of their dresses, a regular event that to Fox appears constantly newsworthy. They have a theology that comes out of their halter tops.

But since real theology comes out our fingertips, and whatever it is that is coming out our fingertips reveals our theology, conservative theology does require some form of conservative politics, and does require some form of a conservative cultural agenda. At the same time, because a conservative theology of Scripture will eventually result in a postmillennial eschatology (said the postmillennialist), this progressive aspect of theology will result in some form of progressive politics, and some form of a progressive cultural agenda. But what we conserve, and what we work to institute as progress, must all be governed by Scripture. We don't get to pick and choose from the smorgasbord staffed by from the lefties and righties.


So here is the central thing that we need to conserve (what we have of it), and progress toward (what we have not yet realized). We need to recognize that politics is necessarily coercive, and because coercion is a big deal, a Christian social order should want to strictly limit coercion to remain within the bounds assigned by Scripture. Unless I have a word from God, I don't want to make anybody do anything.

Because of this I am willing for tight abortion laws -- I am willing to make people not kill other people. Because of this I am not willing to allow a nebulous "concern for . . . poverty" (p. xxvii) to require us to throw economic realities overboard in a way that impoverishes a bunch of people. The man who considers the poor is blessed (Ps. 41:1), and the word for "considers" there means a practical, applied wisdom, of the kind that has studied real economics, and not that impulsive sentimentalism that wrecks livelihoods in the name of Jesus. In conserving free markets, we are preserving yesterday's progress, and are making more progress possible. But all of it, whether we are protecting or establishing, must be grounded in the lordship of Jesus Christ, and on His revealed Word.

PM Midterm Report Card, Part II

Limited Efficacy of Government

We continue our series giving our Prime Minister a mid-term report card. We are in the bouquet section; brickbats will come later.

A second tick for our PM is his apparent awareness of the limitations of government power and efficacy. His instincts appear to be that he believes there are limits to what the government can do and accomplish. Now this is not something to be taken for granted. The previous socialist administration, under the aegis of Clark and Cullen, instinctively believed the opposite. Government in their minds was omni-competent. There was no problem, social or economic, which could not be solved by passing more laws and regulations, inseminated with repeated ejaculations of tax-extorted money.

Now, it is true, at times John Key has veered and wavered away from this commendable instinct. (We call it an "instinct" because we do not believe it is philosophically or ideologically grounded in his world-view. Rather, we suspect that his scepticism over government competence probably comes from his practical experience in the real world of commerce. He will have seen plenty of examples of government incompetence and asininity. Unlike Clark and Cullen he has actually lived and succeeded in the real world.) We think, for example, of Key's bombastic "jobs summit", full of promise and wind, signifying nothing or very little in the end. National cycle tracks, anyone? We think also of his decision that tourism was an industry with huge potential to effect New Zealand's economic development and his, insistence, therefore of trying to push it along by selecting it is personal portfolio.

But such peccadilloes we can live with. We don't like them, but we accept that in this fallen world, imperfections will always exist. But, on the whole, Key veers away from acting as if the government must solve every problem. He has commendably been quite candid about it with the country.

Key does not see this as a sign of weakness in his administration--as some kind of political embarrassment that must be kept from the people. Rather, he appears to see limited government competence as a necessary virtue. Thus, he has focused to an extent on getting government "out of the way", reducing regulatory burdens, reducing personal income tax rates, encouraging rather than picking private sector winners. We wish he had done more to reign in Molech, but at least it is a start, and far more healthy that the socialist administration he ousted.

It has been interesting to watch the breathless mainstream media run to Key for comment about this or that scandal, outrage, faux pas, or misdemeanour only to be met with completely relaxed and innocuous responses--almost as if he refuses to be drawn. It must be frustrating for the headline gold-diggers. His response over the Paul Henry scandal is a good example. Contrast this with the way Helen Clark used to wade into court cases and employment disputes, take sides, ignore due process, and thump the table--as if the office required it. It would be tiresome to list the names of all those whom she constructively dismissed. (The media, of course, loved this. Scalps. Scalps. Scalps. Don't worry about the illegality of it all. Don't worry about the contravention of natural justice.) John Key is a far, far better Prime Minister than his predecessor in such things.

Prime Ministerial Bouquet, No 2: a realistic scepticism about the competence of government .

Where Have All the Sceptics Gone?

The Emperor Is Still Buck Naked


We posted recently on the idolatry of scientism which proceeds on the assumption that empirical reality alone is real. Now the mere existence of scientism proves its provenance in superstition and ignorance. Empiricism long ago was reduced by people like Hume to acute scepticism, where nothing can be known for certain about anything. Scientism has built its modern edifice only by ignoring and wilfully blinding itself to Hume's scathing and acute analysis.

Folk often posit a dichotomy between science and faith as if the two were contra-polar opposites. With the rescue of the miners in Chile has come a fatuous argument purporting that "science" not "God" saved the miners. Once again, wilful ignorance is on display. We Christians know that there is no dichotomy between God and science--which is to say, the material world, for the latter lives and moves and has its being only by the command, will, and faithfulness of God to His creation. Science was only able to serve in the rescue of the Chilean miners because God remains the all conditioning Conditioner of His creation.

Therefore, Christians love natural science as a discipline. We get really excited about it. But as soon as science is elevated into an absolute, it has no foundation upon which to stand, and it collapses into superstition, ignorance, and prejudice. Its rigour dies. Consequently, in our post-Christian world, science has degenerated, more often than not, into mere propaganda.

A modern illustration of this can be found in a recent article in The Atlantic. It is entitled Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science. David H. Freeman reviews the career of Dr. John Ioannidis who has devoted himself to challenging his medical peers by exposing their bad science.

Here is the money-quote:

Though the results of drug studies often make newspaper headlines, you have to wonder whether they prove anything at all. Indeed, given the breadth of the potential problems raised at the meeting, can any medical-research studies be trusted?

That question has been central to Ioannidis’s career. He’s what’s known as a meta-researcher, and he’s become one of the world’s foremost experts on the credibility of medical research. He and his team have shown, again and again, and in many different ways, that much of what biomedical researchers conclude in published studies—conclusions that doctors keep in mind when they prescribe antibiotics or blood-pressure medication, or when they advise us to consume more fiber or less meat, or when they recommend surgery for heart disease or back pain—is misleading, exaggerated, and often flat-out wrong. He charges that as much as 90 percent of the published medical information that doctors rely on is flawed. His work has been widely accepted by the medical community; it has been published in the field’s top journals, where it is heavily cited; and he is a big draw at conferences. Given this exposure, and the fact that his work broadly targets everyone else’s work in medicine, as well as everything that physicians do and all the health advice we get, Ioannidis may be one of the most influential scientists alive. Yet for all his influence, he worries that the field of medical research is so pervasively flawed, and so riddled with conflicts of interest, that it might be chronically resistant to change—or even to publicly admitting that there’s a problem.

Ioannidis has been exercised by the way so much medical research widely accepted, later ends up discredited or falsified. How could this be--because it has been done by scientists, after all?

But beyond the headlines, Ioannidis was shocked at the range and reach of the reversals he was seeing in everyday medical research. “Randomized controlled trials,” which compare how one group responds to a treatment against how an identical group fares without the treatment, had long been considered nearly unshakable evidence, but they, too, ended up being wrong some of the time. “I realized even our gold-standard research had a lot of problems,” he says. Baffled, he started looking for the specific ways in which studies were going wrong. And before long he discovered that the range of errors being committed was astonishing: from what questions researchers posed, to how they set up the studies, to which patients they recruited for the studies, to which measurements they took, to how they analyzed the data, to how they presented their results, to how particular studies came to be published in medical journals.

This array suggested a bigger, underlying dysfunction, and Ioannidis thought he knew what it was. “The studies were biased,” he says. “Sometimes they were overtly biased. Sometimes it was difficult to see the bias, but it was there.” Researchers headed into their studies wanting certain results—and, lo and behold, they were getting them.

The sociology of science and the power structures operating within the scientific establishment persistently bias and skew outcomes. Not necessarily overtly, but insidiously.

We think of the scientific process as being objective, rigorous, and even ruthless in separating out what is true from what we merely wish to be true, but in fact it’s easy to manipulate results, even unintentionally or unconsciously. “At every step in the process, there is room to distort results, a way to make a stronger claim or to select what is going to be concluded,” says Ioannidis. “There is an intellectual conflict of interest that pressures researchers to find whatever it is that is most likely to get them funded.”

Perhaps only a minority of researchers were succumbing to this bias, but their distorted findings were having an outsize effect on published research. To get funding and tenured positions, and often merely to stay afloat, researchers have to get their work published in well-regarded journals, where rejection rates can climb above 90 percent. Not surprisingly, the studies that tend to make the grade are those with eye-catching findings. But while coming up with eye-catching theories is relatively easy, getting reality to bear them out is another matter. The great majority collapse under the weight of contradictory data when studied rigorously. Imagine, though, that five different research teams test an interesting theory that’s making the rounds, and four of the groups correctly prove the idea false, while the one less cautious group incorrectly “proves” it true through some combination of error, fluke, and clever selection of data. Guess whose findings your doctor ends up reading about in the journal, and you end up hearing about on the evening news? Researchers can sometimes win attention by refuting a prominent finding, which can help to at least raise doubts about results, but in general it is far more rewarding to add a new insight or exciting-sounding twist to existing research than to retest its basic premises—after all, simply re-proving someone else’s results is unlikely to get you published, and attempting to undermine the work of respected colleagues can have ugly professional repercussions.

The politicisation of science is an inevitable result. This also helps explain why in almost any modern scientific debate it very quickly descends into ad hominem attacks. Objectivity and truth is no longer the goal or issue: preservation of one's position is. This extends fairly quickly to attempts to control even the peer review process so as to favour one's position.

The article spelled out his belief that researchers were frequently manipulating data analyses, chasing career-advancing findings rather than good science, and even using the peer-review process—in which journals ask researchers to help decide which studies to publish—to suppress opposing views.

It is not just that this happens some time. It is the scale of the problem. Ioannidis focused on 49 articles which were identified as articulating the most significant research findings in recent times. In other words--these were the relatively big breakthroughs.

He zoomed in on 49 of the most highly regarded research findings in medicine over the previous 13 years, as judged by the science community’s two standard measures: the papers had appeared in the journals most widely cited in research articles, and the 49 articles themselves were the most widely cited articles in these journals. These were articles that helped lead to the widespread popularity of treatments such as the use of hormone-replacement therapy for menopausal women, vitamin E to reduce the risk of heart disease, coronary stents to ward off heart attacks, and daily low-dose aspirin to control blood pressure and prevent heart attacks and strokes. Ioannidis was putting his contentions to the test not against run-of-the-mill research, or even merely well-accepted research, but against the absolute tip of the research pyramid. Of the 49 articles, 45 claimed to have uncovered effective interventions. Thirty-four of these claims had been retested, and 14 of these, or 41 percent, had been convincingly shown to be wrong or significantly exaggerated. If between a third and a half of the most acclaimed research in medicine was proving untrustworthy, the scope and impact of the problem were undeniable.

To solve the problem Ioannidis argues that science needs to become, once again, the hand-maiden, not the master. The deification of science into redeemer, saviour, healer, and deliverer of mankind has meant that society in general has vastly unrealistic expectations of science. It is necessary that one's idol work, after all. Ioannidis says that this needs to change.

We could solve much of the wrongness problem, Ioannidis says, if the world simply stopped expecting scientists to be right. That’s because being wrong in science is fine, and even necessary—as long as scientists recognize that they blew it, report their mistake openly instead of disguising it as a success, and then move on to the next thing, until they come up with the very occasional genuine breakthrough. But as long as careers remain contingent on producing a stream of research that’s dressed up to seem more right than it is, scientists will keep delivering exactly that.

“Science is a noble endeavor, but it’s also a low-yield endeavor,” he says. “I’m not sure that more than a very small percentage of medical research is ever likely to lead to major improvements in clinical outcomes and quality of life. We should be very comfortable with that fact.”

Not likely--as long as scientism remains our favorite idol.

NIWA Scientists Dancing Like a Butterfly . . .

About to Get Stung by a Bee

A bunch of ignorant denialist zealots have had the temerity to take our National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research ("NIWA") to court over its fabrication of New Zealand's "official" temperature record. The problem has arisen because the raw, unadjusted temperature data for New Zealand for the past century shows no warming whatsoever. But the fiddled data "shows" strong warming--surprise, surprise.

The background of the case is summarised by Jo Nova:

There’s a litany of excuses. The National Institute for Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) claims NZ has been warming at 0.92°C per 100 years. But when some independent minded chaps in New Zealand graphed the raw NZ data they found the thermometers show NZ has only warmed by a statistically non-significant 0.06°C. They asked for answer and got nowhere until they managed to get the light of legal pressure onto NIWA to force it to reply honestly. Reading between the lines, it’s obvious NIWA can’t explain nor defend the adjustments. (Cited in Watts Up With That)

Under the looming judicial scrutiny, NIWA has backed off the "official" temperature record, crying "mea non culpa". Apparently the adjusted temperature record was the product of one Jim Salinger, who trained incidentally at the Climatic Research Institute in the UK and has been part of the small global clique of scientists engaged in all sorts of dubious practices in an attempt to gild the global warming lily. Salinger made the adjustments upon which to this point NIWA has not only relied, but trumpeted. Now, it disowns Salinger's fabricated temperature series (called the New Zealand Temperature Record).

Richard Treadgold, one of the plaintiffs, describes the case.

For the last ten years, visitors to NIWA’s official website have been greeted by a graph of the “seven-station series” (7SS), under the bold heading “New Zealand Temperature Record”. The graph covers the period from 1853 to the present, and is adorned by a prominent trend-line sloping sharply upwards. Accompanying text informs the world that “New Zealand has experienced a warming trend of approximately 0.9°C over the past 100 years.”

The 7SS has been updated and used in every monthly issue of NIWA’s “Climate Digest” since January 1993. Its 0.9°C (sometimes 1.0°C) of warming has appeared in the Australia/NZ Chapter of the IPCC’s 2001 and 2007 Assessment Reports. It has been offered as sworn evidence in countless tribunals and judicial enquiries, and provides the historical base for all of NIWA’s reports to both Central and Local Governments on climate science issues and future projections.

NIWA has a printed promotional brochure describing its climate activities, which commences with the iconic 7SS graph. No piece of climate lore is more familiar to the public, and it is better known than NIWA’s logo.

But NIWA is now engaged in foot shuffling. It has been dancing like a butterfly.  It has come out to say that in fact there is no official temperature record for New Zealand.

In para 8(b) (of its Statement of Defence to the court) it says the NZ Temperature Record is not a public record for the purposes of the Public Records Act, using the exemption of “special collections” defined (in para 4(b)) as non-public records used for “research purposes”.

Oh, the embarrassment. Once they fired out the NZ Temperature Record like a machine gun mowing down anything that moved. Now, it has magically become a non-public record used only for arcane research purposes. Clearly, NIWA now wants to bury this Salinger fabrication in a deep dark hole. Why?

NIWA had adopted some 34 non-replicable adjustments proposed in 1980 by Salinger, whose calculations had been lost.

Thirty-four non-replicable adjustments! Salinger's calculation are now missing! So much for peer review and quality control.  Red faces and embarrassment all around.

Fortunately, because of the zealots, this has now gone way beyond the bluster and huffing and puffing employed a year ago. The "trust us; we're scientists; we know what we're doing; we're operating under best international peer reviewed best practice . . ." litany has disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Now, with the buzzing bee of the court case drawing near, NIWA is endeavouring to produce a new temperature record. Like the Salinger fiddle, it will contain adjustments. These adjustments will be "peer reviewed".

In its Statement of Defence, NIWA announces that it has now completed a full internal examination of the Salinger adjustments in the 7SS, and has forwarded its “review papers” to its Australian counterpart, the Bureaux of Meteorologists (BOM) for peer review.

From ministerial answers to Parliamentary Questions, we know that this “review” has involved five or six scientists working for about six months, and has received a special grant of about $70,000. It comprises a replacement Schedule of Adjustments for the 7SS with de novo documentation and detailed justification for each adjustment.

We wonder how much warming they will be able to conjure up this time. But one thing is sure. This time there will be serious scrutiny of everything. Genuine peer review will eventuate. And that will be all to the good. Sunlight is the best disinfectant--as always.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Words and Water, Bread and Wine

Political Dualism - Mere Christendom
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Two great Christian heresies -- Marxism and Islam -- borrowed something from the Christian faith which Christians should actually ask to have returned. They borrowed it, used it to great effect, and Christians for some reason let them, neglecting this idea ourselves. That "thing" they borrowed was a sense of inevitabile victory for their cause. But they do not have the promises, and we do. Mainland China and Saudi Arabia will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Marxists sustained themselves by means of a blind faith in the inexorable forces of dialectical materialism. Islam has always depended upon conquest, and so they have never been the same since Lepanto and Malta.

So all the nations of the earth will stream to Christ. It is not unbelief to think this will not happen by this time next week. But it is unbelief to waver, thinking it will never happen at all. It is unbelief to place the fulfillment outside the course of history, to hold that the promises to the nations will only come to fruition when the nations are no more.

Now the revolutionary thinks that his inevitability is within reach. We never see revolutionaries with their agitprop crowds, protesting for the cameras thusly: "What do we want!" "Peace!" (or "Whatever!") "When do we want it?" "In the eschaton!" Revolution is necessarily impatient. One exception, more or less, will be noted later.

The person who locates all transformation outside time and history really has learned how to use the Christian faith within the boundaries contained by Marx's taunt -- as the opiate of the masses. By and by, in the sky, when we die, good things will happen. We gave it a big name to console ourselves, mixed in a little already/not yet, and blam, we were good to go. In this instance, "going" means "sitting here, and maybe taking some seminary classes."

But Reformation faith takes note of Christopher Dawson's wonderful observation -- the Christian church lives in the light of eternity and can afford to be patient. In patience we are to possess our souls. And we can know that our labor in the Lord is not in vain (1 Cor. 15:58)  because there is a direct line of continuity between what we (each of us) do right now, and the conversion of the nations.

What I am trying to do is persuade Christians that we win the race, and that we should run it as those who intend to win it. I am not trying to persuade them that the race is a brief little burst, a hundred yard dash. No, it is a couple marathons, end to end, and we have barely started. But we are running to win, and not to place or show.

So what should we want now? We should want Christians to know this now -- they don't have to do it all now. The martyrs who went to their deaths in the first century were building the Christendom that did not begin to appear for several centuries after that. Patience.

When it comes our secular arrangements, I am not trying to get Christians to vote it out in the next election cycle. That's not going to happen, and fine. What can happen, and what is happening, is a large number of people realizing that secularism is the joke that fell flat. This too shall pass.

One revolutionary, the exception mentioned earlier, who did have a longer view than did Lenin was named Gramsci. He advocated a strategy for the West that has proven -- from the perspective of the revolutionaries -- far more potent than Lenin's impatient violence. He urged what he called "the long march through the institutions." Lenin's approach was taken in the East, and Gramsci's in the West. Lenin did an enormous amount of damage, but Gramsci did more. Like the violent revolutionaries, this slow approach cultivates a sense of inevitability.

That sense of inevitability is potent, even with false faiths, if only for a time. How much more potent will it be when Christians understand that the gospel is all about world conquest, and will be content with nothing less than world conquest. I know that place where I labor -- the Pacific Northwest -- will one day be overwhelmingly Christian. This will happen long after I am dead, and long before Jesus returns. This is reformational transformation, not revolutionary zeal.

This "conquest" will be accomplished by means of God's weakness, not man's strength, for our weapons are not carnal. This thing will be done -- and it will be done -- in the power of the Spirit by means of words and water, bread and wine. What are we doing? We are beseiging strongholds, and the citadels of unbelief will fall. Every sermon is another swing of the battering ram, every baptism is an engine deployed to overthrow the devil, and every administration of the Supper is an inexorable offer of wine for the forgiveness of the world, and bread for the life of the world. And the day is coming, when they will receive it.

Scientism

Yet Another Superstitious Idolatry

Yet another prevalent idol of our age is the belief that naturalistic science--the "rigorous" study of the material world--is the ultimate reality and path to truth. Part of the catechism of scientism is the assertion that rationalistic science alone is rational, that it alone deals in truth, that all else rests on speculation, superstition and myth. This is, of course, itself a myth--part of a carefully woven and desperately protected mythology.

When Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow published their latest book on the origin of the material universe, they were desperate to keep the faith, asserting that the material world was self-created, ex nihilo--out of nothing. This superstition had to be preserved because Hawking has argued for years that the cosmos had a solitary beginning point of existence. Once it was not, then it was. But in trying to fit this into the theology of scientism they descend into the irrational.

J P Moreland explains:

Scientism Makes Scientists Laughable

Posted by: J.P. Moreland

September 22, 2010

In their recent book, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow claim that the laws of nature are consistent with the universe popping into existence from nothing, and in fact, they affirm that this is exactly what happened. Apparently, this desperate move results from the fact that they recognize that the universe had a beginning and they want to deflect the need for a transcendent Cause to explain the universe’s origin.

To my knowledge, they do not argue that the laws of nature themselves created the universe, and that’s a good thing. Why? Because the laws of nature are formal causes that direct the “flow” of causation, but they are not efficient causes that produce anything whatsoever. Thus, this claim, if made, would be a simple category fallacy. However, their actual claim is just as egregious, and that for two reasons.

First, the laws of nature do not apply unless there already is a universe. Those laws govern transitions of state of entities that exist ontologically prior to the laws themselves. Thus, an appeal to the laws of nature to explain how the universe could come from nothing is otiose; those laws presuppose a universe for their applicability and cannot in any sense be employed to explain what they presuppose. And coming-into-existence is not a process that could be governed by laws; it is, rather, an instantaneous occurrence. In general, “e comes-to-be at time t” is to be analyzed as “there is some property P such that e has P at t, and there are no times t’ earlier than t or properties Q such that e had Q at t’.”

Second, the principle “something cannot come from nothing without a cause” is a metaphysically necessary philosophical principle that is known a priori from an analysis of “nothing” which, as it turns out, is the complete absence of anything whatever, including properties, relations, causal powers, and so forth. Thus, “nothing” is not some sort of shadowy thing that could serve as a material or efficient cause. Note carefully, that this principle is not a scientific one; it is not an empirical generalization, but a necessary truth of philosophy.

The fact that many people have been influenced by the claims of Hawking and Mlodinow is sad to me. Here’s why. In previous times when average people knew more philosophy, these claims would simply be laughable because they are philosophical assertions being made by scientists who have little or no philosophical training. Thus, however brilliant they are in their own field, Hawking and Mlodinow are laypersons when it comes to the relevant issue at hand. But we live in a scientistic culture. When a scientist speaks, he is taken to be an authority irrespective of what the topic is. And that attitude reflects poorly on the educational level of the public.

Thus, the deeper issue for me in all this is not whether or not the universe could come into existence from nothing without a cause. It is, rather, the scientism that lies at the heart of Western culture. I have long believed that philosophical naturalism, with its unjustified scientism, has helped to create an intellectually unsophisticated culture, and (the public discourse surrounding Hawking's latest speculations) is one reason why I think this way.