The Religion of Peace

Don't Offend Us, Or Else . . .

There have been cultures in the past which have institutionalised dissembling, deception and lies. The West, built upon the foundations of the Christian faith and the Ten Commandments, of which only vestiges now remain, still struggles to come to terms with institutional lying or ideologically driven deception. Almost everyone assumes that in the public square people endeavour to speak the truth.

In some Asian cultures, lying or camouflaging the truth, is very common. Stories abound of Japanese and Chinese (often regarded as inscrutable to Westerners) who manifest excessive politeness, yet inwardly despise the barbarian. The truth tends to come out at 3 am in the bars when the sake has freely flowed. The Japanese, of course, are culturally attuned to the practice of layers of deception (or deflection of the truth); they can "read through" the the dissembling. They understand what is going on.

The Cold War was largely a war fought by the respective intelligence agencies. A polite term was invented for the lies that were deliberately told to lead one's "cold enemy" astray. That term was "disinformation". Using lies as a weapon against the enemy has a long and noble history. It was celebrated and lionized, of course, by that ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu. But the West largely accepts that in warfare such lying is fair play and within the rules of cricket.

But what happens when the West is faced with a foe or a people which is ideologically committed to lying or deceiving the West whilst there is no war in sight? The result is that the West as a whole becomes an easy dupe--or, as Lenin put it, a useful idiot. Islam is the foe. Or, more accurately, Islam sees the West as one of its foes which must be conquered and subdued as the religion of Muhammed spreads over the globe. Its religious teaching and ideology endorses telling untruths and lies to non-Muslims. To the committed Muslim the infidel is not owed the truth. If the infidel is blocking the expansion and influence of Islam he deserves to be misled and deceived in order to be defeated.

In the US Congress, Representative Peter King is about to kick off a series of hearings to explore how US citizens are recruited to become Islamic terrorists who seek to kill US citizens in their own country. It has the Left in apoplectic conniptions--but that's another story. "Moderate" Islamic leaders in the US are also professing outrage. They are warning of the great damage these hearings will cause.



These "moderate" leaders have been busy assuring everyone that Islam is not a violent religion and that Islamic people are, well, just like everyone else. They have condemned terrorism and violence in the name of Islam. Now, however, they are saying something in addition. They are telling the "useful idiots" that if these hearings are held, Islamic people in the US will be radicalised and will become willing terrorist recruits. The proposition appears to be: if you say something to offend us, we will react with retaliatory violence.  Does anyone sense a slight contradiction here? Both cannot be true. But the Islamic leader appears to have no difficulty whatsoever in speaking out of both sides of his mouth with a very straight face probably because prevarication is an acceptable tactic when dealing with an infidel.

The proposition that Samuel Huntingdon provoked Islamic people to terrorism (as some self-styled moderate Muslims argue) or that somehow Huntingdon is responsible for the radicalization and terrorism of Muslims because of his book Clash of Civilizations would be absurd, unless Islamic ideology teaches that criticism and verbal argument should be dealt with by deadly force.

An interesting question is, which is the lie: the proposition that Islam is not intrinsically violent, or the threat that King's hearing will provoke Islamic Americans to violence and terrorism?

In the nineteen sixties, Bobby Kennedy--then US Attorney General--called for a series of hearings into the role and operations of the Mafia in the US. Nobody at the time argued that the hearings were unfairly discriminatory against the Italian minority. Nor did anyone have the chutzpah to argue that as a result of the hearings Italians would be offended and radicalised and that the Mafia would get many more recruits.

But then that was another day and Italian Americans did not have spokesmen for whom lying was a weapon in an ideological and religious war. Nor did Italian Americans have a common ideology of world religious domination by force of arms if necessary.

The End of Education, Part #2

Truth As Endless Circles

State education systems are generally failing throughout the West. This is certainly true in New Zealand where we are told that one in three graduates from the system emerge functionally illiterate and innumerate. They cannot read the labels on goods in supermarkets; nor do they understand prices. One prosaic anecdote illustrates the problem: this from The Veteran who blogs at No Minister.

Had occasion today to drop by the supermarket to replenish the beer frig. I drink Carlsberg and they were offering 12 packs at $18.99. Stacked right beside them were 24 packs of the same brand at $58.

Asked one of the staff standing close by how this could be so. He confirmed the $58 price tag was correct. Said to him that I didn't think they would be selling too many of these. His response ... "I wouldn't want you to bet on that because you would lose".

Can Western state education systems be fixed? Are they redeemable? The prognosis is not good. It is impossible to reform or change in a vacuum. The pagan religious and philosophical foundations are now so overwhelmingly powerful and pervasive in the West that they are not only tearing down the old state education system, they are also making its reform impossible. It is hard to see that there can be any substantial reformation, without a societal rejection of the foundations upon which state education is built.

In the first of this series, we argued that state education is failing because the curriculum has become politicised. This we see as inevitable because in the West the prerogatives of the Living God have been replaced by the state. Overwhelmingly our society looks to the government to providential provider, lawgiver, teacher, redeemer, deliverer and saviour. To answer these calls and in a vain attempt to meet these expectations the state turns to its education system as one of its primary means of achieving its messianic aims. Schools will produce the New Model Man and act as the primary socialisation agent. Education in the truth is replaced by imperatives of socialisation.

As long as the state is regarded by the overwhelming majority of people as having the honour and functions of a secular deity the politicisation of state schools will not abate.

A second reason why the failing state education system appears irredeemable is that there is no longer any societal conviction as to what is truth. Now this has been a long time coming, but it is the inevitable outcome when two conditions emerge: firstly, a denial of the Living God; and, secondly, democratic political systems. Put those two things together and eventually scepticism wins.

The Enlightenment saw the first serious philosophical rejection of the Christian faith. Within a generation Hume was propounding scepticism--the notion that, in the end, we cannot know anything for sure. Kant, arguably the most significant of all European philosophers, professed himself deeply troubled by Hume's scepticism. To avoid the inevitable progeny of atheism--that one can not be certain of anything--Kant agreed with Hume that whilst we cannot know anything as it really is, man can impute or insert meaning into his existence.

Two streams flowed down from Kantianism. The first was authoritarian, centralised statism where the assertion of truth rested with the dictatorial state. Propositions were true because the state said they were. This option flowered under Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler. Under this post-Kantian option truth is true because the government says it is. State school systems thrived because the state defined the truth and could adopt an authoritative curriculum.

The second Kantian stream is one we are more familiar with in the West. Truth is democratised. If man does not receive the truth, but exports it and imparts it to reality, it follows that we can no longer speak of absolute truth in a democratic society, but only opinions and perspectives and framing and narratives and discourse. The upshot is that there is no authoritative tradition to pass on to the next generation any longer. There is no settled truth about anything; therefore, there can be no settled truth tradition to impart. Therefore, there is nothing authoritative to teach. There is only a cluster of perspectives to describe.

According to Professor Furedi,

. . . contemporary pedagogy has lost faith in the importance of knowledge and the search for the truth. Increasingly educators insist that there is no such things as the truth and children are instructed that there are no right or wrong answers. (Robert Whelan ed., The Corruption of the Curriculum, p.7)

Hume would have agreed. Hume has (temporarily) won the religious and philosophical war in the West. His seed is now fully sprouted up in the state education system. Turn away from the Living God and truth which holds man to account and upon which he can build his life dies culturally and institutionally.

When truth becomes nothing more than a discovery and description of multiple "discourses", the impact upon state education systems in time becomes pervasive. It affects everything in the school.

The relativistic turn in pedagogy . . . has profound implications for the way that the curriculum is perceived. If the meaning of the truth and the status of knowledge are negotiable, then so is the curriculum. . . . More importantly, the diminished status assigned to knowledge has encouraged a relativistic orientation towards standards. That is why officials have been so pragmatic about the way they wheel and deal about the content of school subjects.
Ibid., p. 7f.

Does this sound familiar? It is increasingly the norm through all state education systems in the West. It is not without significance that the "new" curriculum adopted by the Ministry of Education in New Zealand is nothing of the sort. It is a listing of broad subject heads, about which motherhood-and-apple-pie statements are made. The implication: each school, teacher, and pupil will make it up as they go along. We kid you not. The new, enhanced, super-dooper state curriculum, with which all state schools and state teachers have to comply, is a mere fifty pages long. Yes, you read that right. Fifty pages only. For everything. For thirteen long years of state education. This means the de-facto state curriculum is really a wax nose to be bent, shaped, and moulded by schools into multi-perspectival irrelevance and confusion. It has become a pedagogical Balel.

The NZ state Curriculum document boasts a motif of the nautilus sea shell. Lest any miss the point, the preface to the Curriculum explains its meaning and significance:

Since it first appeared on the cover of The New Zealand Curriculum Framework in 1993, the nautilus has become a familiar symbol for the New Zealand Curriculum. It reappears in this curriculum with a new look.

In real life, the nautilus is a marine animal with a spiral shell. The shell has as many as thirty chambers lined with nacre (mother-of-pearl). The nautilus creates a new chamber as it outgrows each existing one, the successive chambers forming what is known as a logarithmic spiral.

This kind of spiral appears elsewhere in nature, for example, in sunflower and cauliflower heads, cyclones, and spiral galaxies. Physician, writer, and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–94)
saw the spiral shell of the nautilus as a symbol of intellectual and spiritual growth. He suggested that people outgrew their protective shells and discarded them as they became no longer necessary: “One’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”

It is as a metaphor for growth that the nautilus is used as a symbol for the New Zealand Curriculum.

Note how this metaphor fits perfectly into the dominant meta-narrative of relativism. Did you learn a bit of grammar in primary school? Soon you will discard it as no longer necessary as you grow and develop on your personal journey.

Actually, as so often happens in God's world, using the nautilus as the motif and metaphor for state education is profoundly ironic. The real (hidden) message is that the state education system produces people who go around in circles in a system that is forever turning, turning, turning.

With respect to standards we note that a lot of the resistance to the New Zealand government's attempt to introduce knowledge standards into primary schools comes from schools, principals, and teachers who reject the whole notion on the grounds that there are no standards to begin with. They have a point, sadly.

Another disastrous, but perfectly consistent trend in state schools is the "personalisation" of education.

The recent announcement that delivery of education will become more personalised represents the logical outcome of this trend. Personalised learning displaces the idea that there is a coherent body of knowledge that need to be assimilated in favour of the principle of teaching what works for the individual. Ibid. p.8)

Truth and knowledge is replaced by an endless perspectival particulates. The only criterion for choice is "if it works for you . . . ." This is to say that "state education" is now an oxymoron.

Can it be reformed? Is reclamation even a possibility? We do not believe so. As long as Unbelief remains regnant in the culture, scepticism will invariably dominate democratic state education systems. Truth can be nothing more than "as you like it".

Douglas Wilsons' Letter From America

Seven Reasons Why We Can't Water Down the Lake of Fire

Engaging the Culture - Meaning of Judgment
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, March 08, 2011

John Piper and I have been writing about a possible way in which my recent video response to Rob Bell's universalism could be troubling. Near the end of the clip I echo a theological point made by C.S. Lewis about the nature of damnation, and how Hell is in some way "chosen" by all its inhabitants. The concern John expressed is that if we talk too much about how Hell is "locked on the inside," we lose the biblical emphasis that Jesus Himself gave us when He told to fear the one who could throw a man in Hell, both body and soul (Mark 9:47). So here is some additional perspective on that question from John, which I agree with entirely. The only proviso I would add, necessary to all good discussions, is that I be allowed to add just a few "yeah buts."

So, lest there be any mistake on the point, here are seven reasons why we cannot water down the Lake of Fire.

1. It is the Lake of Fire. We don't have enough water.

2. The point about choosing Hell is not at all intended to address (much less minimize) the horrors of it, but rather to address the ongoing justice of it. There are manuscript issues in Mark 3:29, but that is what first put me on this line of reasoning. The damnation is eternal because the refusal to repent is eternal. The sin is on-going. See the English Standard Version.

3. So it is quite correct, as Piper argues, that no one would willingly jump into the Lake of Fire. But that illustration depends upon nothing "worse" (from the sinner's perspective) being at his back. In other words, the choice to be damned is not a choice made for its own sake, as though it were a positive good, or as if fire is now the sinner's natural abode, but rather because God, the sinner's mortal enemy, is right behind him.
God has judicially determined to provide all men with just such a binary choice -- fellowship with Him or continuence in their sin. So the eternal torment is not chosen for its own sake, but the sin is chosen for its own sake. John and I agree that the sinner is choosing the sin, not the fire. The lost have a hatred of God that is so deep and so abiding that they choose their fate in the fire rather than embrace the only alternative. But it was the sovereign good purpose of God to weld the torment to "the precious," such that everyone who refuses to let go of his precious is also deciding, by good and necessary consequence, to stay in torment.
This doesn't make sense, someone might say. Of course it doesn't make sense. This is the mystery of lawlessness. Sin never makes sense. If it made sense it wouldn't be sin. Damnation is the condition of being unable to make sense forever.

4. This is why we should be fully submissive to the scriptural description of God throwing sinners into Hell because, first, it is what Jesus taught, and second, because we recognize that God has arranged the affairs of the lost such that this is the only alternative to fellowship with Him. He could have annihilated them, or elected them, etc. but He did not. Damnation is therefore settled by God by means of judicial fiat. It is the Last Judgment, not the last election. He determines what will happen to each individual. It will not be an instance of "well, they chose to go to Hell. What could I do about it?" The sinner, left to his own devices (by God's inscrutable decree), despises God continually, and God judicially says, "So be it."

5. This does mute the objection of "injustice" from the unbeliever. We say to the unbeliever that Hell is simply God sealing the choice that the unbeliever is making right this very minute. "Do you think it is unjust for God to settle upon you the permanent condition of despising Him?" Etc.

6. The point of citing Lewis was to highlight the fact of the ongoing and eternal sin. It was not to use Lewis as an excuse for sidling out of biblical orthodoxy on this point, as some have no doubt done. In The Problem of Pain, Lewis argues that the damned are "ex-human," just as wood ash after a fire used to be a log. No longer bearing the image of God, but still conscious, the damned are reduced to an eternal and insatiable gnawing. This kind of thing can, if you don't watch it, teeter on the edge of annihilationism.

But I would still like to say a word in defense of Lewis, taking his body of work as a whole. While faithfulness to Scripture does not require us to have etchings from Dante hung around our living rooms, we should maintain the biblical emphasis on Hell as place of horror and everlasting dismay. If we are to keep the biblical emphasis on Hell, the subject will give us the creeps. And despite how his theology of damnation has been used by some, Lewis is one of the few modern writers who continues this emphasis. "I could show you a pretty cageful down here" (The Screwtape Letters). In The Great Divorce, when the night falls "They" will coming, and the damned recoil from the prospect. Lewis says somewhere that if we could see our neighbor now as he will be in eternity, that vision would be either the stuff that nightmares are made of, or it would be a temptation to worship a creature idolatrously. Dante is not the standard, but if he were, Screwtape Proposes a Toast is in the ballpark.

7. I have taught for many years that if the Lake of Fire is literal, then it is unspeakably bad. If it is symbolic -- because realities are always greater than the symbols that represent them -- it is far, far worse than the symbol.

In short, any theology that neglects telling a wicked and adulterous generation that they need to flee from the wrath to come is a theology that is participating in the general iniquity.

The End of Education

Politics and the Curriculum

We hold the view that government education systems are failing in the West, including in New Zealand. Almost invariably when advocates of state education are confronted with system failures the Pavlovian response is to call for "more money." Taxes. Redistribution.

Now conventional wisdom says that when you are in a hole stop digging. But the conventional wisdom is not applied to state education: dig harder, faster, with more money is the inevitable solution. But what if the system itself is now so broken that it cannot be fixed? That thought is rejected outright as inadmissible.

We believe the forces now stacked up against state education systems in the West are so powerful that the system itself is devolving into a vicious cycle of ever increasing desuetude. What are these forces? Can we name them? Yes, we can!--to crib a presidential campaign slogan.

This piece will deal with one of the destructive forces. Subsequent articles will describe others.

The first reason why state education systems are failing in the West is the relentless politicization of the curriculum. By this we mean that politics and achieving political goals becomes the main objective of state schools and the curriculum. Learning is made subordinate to socialisation. This will simply not change any time soon.

Take the recent initiative in New Zealand to introduce national standards in reading, writing, and maths--and test students against those standards. Why is the state system determined to do this? Because the current government believes that these core competencies are essential if the nation is to increase its economic growth. The current Prime Minister has gone on record as saying this was his most important priority, and that national standards testing is an, if not the, essential component in achieving faster rates of economic growth.

This is what we mean by politicisation of the curriculum. Students in the state system must be socialised into being more effective and productive economic contributors. When a new administration inevitably and eventually takes over on the Treasury benches it will have different priorities, different socialisation commitments. Outcome: national standards in English and Maths will go the way of the dodo. Other "educational" priorities will emerge.

Let us be crystal clear: socialisation is not education. Making good citizens is institutionalised propaganda, not education. State schools are failing throughout the West because government wants a new socialised humanity, not an educated one.

To many this will sound an extremist charge. But it is far from it. It is just that most "good citizens" of our day have got used to it.

The dominant statist ideology, which now controls all Western countries, proclaims the omni-competence of the State to solve, in principle, all evils, lacks, faults and meet all social needs. In order to achieve this two things are required. The first is an increasing extension of state powers and controls over citizens. The second is the need to "build" new-model citizens who think, act, speak and contribute in the "right way" to the good of society as a whole. State schools become the primary socialisation agency.

Frank Furedi, contributor to a recent volume entitled The Corruption of the Curriculum summarizes why the state schools are failing so badly in his introductory chapter entitled, "Politics, politics, politics!" He writes:

Over the past two decades the school curriculum has become estranged from the challenge of educating children. Pedagogic problems still influence official deliberations on the national curriculum, but issues that are integral to education have become subordinate to the imperative of social engineering and political expediency.
Robert Whelan, ed. The Corruption of the Curriculum (London: Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society, 2007), p.1.

He goes on:

The school curriculum has become a battleground for zealous campaigners and entrepreneurs keen to promote their message. Public health officials constantly demand more compulsory classroom discussions on healthy eating and obesity. Professions obsessed with young people's sex lives insist that schools introduce yet more sex education initiatives. Others want schools to focus more on black history or gay history. . . .

The (then current Education Secretary) is a very busy man. Not only is he introducing global warming studies, he has also made the instruction of Britain's involvement in the slave trade a compulsory part of the history curriculum. . . . Johnson is indifferent to the slave trade as part of an academic discipline with its own integrity; rather he sees slave trade studies as a vehicle for promoting his version of a multicultural Britain. "This is about ensuring young people understand what it means to be British today", he said in defence of his reorganisation of the history curriculum."
Ibid, p.2.

Sound familiar? The ideology is exactly the same as that pronounced by our own Prime Minister, John Key in his push for national standards testing in English and maths. The only difference is that multiculturalism as the prime socialization goal has been replaced with the need for improving New Zealand's economic performance. But the wheel will inevitably turn.

Now, some will argue that at least if children are taught to read and write and compute competently and accurately at least they will have tools that will enable them to go on to learn other disciplines and acquire knowledge. We agree. But because national testing has been promulgated for political and socialization objectives--rather than as an essential element of knowledge in its own right, socialisation and political objectives notwithstanding--it will not survive the constant ebb, thrust, change, and whims of political and fashionable fads.

When schools become seen as vehicles for socialisation and achieving political goals, education in its own right flies out the window. In the end the last thing the State will want is an education system that so fills the minds of pupils with knowledge and learning abilities that graduates can think and reason for themselves. Such graduate are likely to be regarded as incorrigibles resisting the moulding of the New Model Man.

Finally, can this parlous situation in Western state education systems be redeemed?  We do not believe so--not while the deeper principle of statism holds.  As long as society agrees that the State is to all intents and purposes our redeemer and saviour, state education systems will subvert the curriculum for political ends.

Is Taxation Lawful?

Like Pirates on the Beach

Political Dualism - Mere Christendom
Written by Douglas Wilson
Monday, March 07, 2011

I received a question from a reader who agreed with my general thinking about government robberies, but wondered if I believed that any taxation whatever amounted to theft. And if I thought that some taxation was, and some was not, then how to tell the difference? Is it simply done on the basis of what I think is prudent?
So there are basically three questions. The first concerns whether or not there is such a thing as taxation which is not theft. And the answer is yes -- there is such a thing as lawful taxation (Num. 3:47; Rom. 13:7). It does exist. To maintain that all taxation is theft by definition is to take a hard libertarian/anarchist view of civil government which is not warranted in Scripture.

The second question is whether, given the lawfulness of taxation as a general question, it is possible for a government to steal. If taxation is can be lawful, it is possible for a government to steal? And again, the answer is yes. If Ahab had gotten Naboth's vineyard by means of "land reform," or "zoning adjustments," or "eminent domain," it would not have made it any less stealing. Or if Ahab had just applied property taxes to the vineyard (total, 5,000 dollars) with the entire vineyard (worth five million) being the collateral for the tax liability, then that would have been another form of stealing.

So some taxes are simply legalized stealing. Jesus tells us that the sons are exempt from taxes, and yet He has Peter pay a tax voluntarily to prevent the giving of offense (Matt. 17:25-26). The principle that can be gathered here is that a government entity claimed that a tax was owed, and Jesus said that it was not really owed. In such a circumstance, if the government takes that amount by force, the only way we could define it would be by the word "stealing."

Take this another way. If a throne can be "unrighteous" in general (Prov. 25:5), then a throne can be unrighteous in the specifics. God's law provides us with the very definition of unrighteousness, and this means that governments can steal.

So the third question is, how do we tell the difference? Before answering, we should note that every Christian who grants that a government can steal is obligated to tell us where he thinks the dividing line is. The only alternative would be to maintain that the civil government has an absolute claim on all property, and that while it might let the peons "use" some of it some of the time, this is just because they are being nice.

If you believe (as I do) that it could be possible for a man to rape his wife, then you have the obligation to be able to distinguish lawful intercourse from unlawful. No human authority is absolute. If you believe (as I do) that governments can (and do) steal, then you have to be able to state where and why you think that.

Boondoggles and redistribution of wealth are clear symptoms that something has gone wrong, just as a drunken band of pirates divvying up the booty around a bonfire on the beach is a similar indication. But the act of piracy occurred earlier. Waste, fraud, and abuse are also symptomatic. That is what happens when pirates spend the money. What is the heart of the thievery? Where is the point when pirates get the money?

I would suggest that Samuel tells us. When he is warning the people of Israel about the coming predations of a king, there are numerous aspects to that warning, but one of them has to do with taxation. Samuel says that if they take a king "like the other nations," then it is conceivable that the tax rate might actually get up to ten percent (1 Sam. 8:15-17). We are so far gone in our folly that we would give anything to get back to ten percent.

And so here is where I would draw the line. Ten percent is significant because that is what Almighty God claims. The tithe of God is a prerogative of God. I don't believe that it is possible for a king, or a congress, or a parliament, or a president, to claim that much or more without setting itself up as a rival to God, which is exactly what our governments have done.

So, in sum, I would be happy with an 8% flat tax. The government may want more than that, for governments always do. But they certainly don't need more than that.

That's Not What We Meant At All

Egypt Rolled Up in a Western Ball

The chattering classes and the commentariate in the West got all excited over "people power" in Egypt. Strutting about like modern Bonapartes they pontificated on how the folk "over there" were just like "us". All along they wanted the same things: justice, freedom, human rights and a big caring government to wipe your nose and tuck you up in bed each night. They pulsated and ululated. This was it. The new world order was coming. Universal peace was breaking out as they spoke.

Now the reality. This from the Assyrian News Agency. (It is being picked up by other outlets, including National Review Online)

Assyrian International News Agency
Nearly 4000 Muslims Attack Christian Homes in Egypt, Torch Church
Posted GMT 3-5-2011 4:20:16

(AINA) -- A mob of nearly four thousand Muslims has attacked Coptic homes this evening in the village of Soul, Atfif in Helwan Governorate, 30 kilometers from Cairo, and torched the Church of St. Mina and St. George. There are conflicting reports about the whereabouts of the Church pastor Father Yosha and three deacons who were at church; some say they died in the fire and some say they are being held captive by the Muslims inside the church.

Witnesses report the mob prevented the fire brigade from entering the village. The army, which has been stationed for the last two days in the village of Bromil, 7 kilometers from Soul, initially refused to go into Soul, according to the officer in charge. When the army finally sent three tanks to the village, Muslim elders sent them away, saying that everything was "in order now."

A curfew has been imposed on the 12,000 Christians in the village.

This incident was triggered by a relationship between 40-year-old Copt Ashraf Iskander and a Muslim woman. Yesterday a "reconciliation" meeting was arranged between the relevant Coptic and Muslim families and together with the Muslim elders it was decided that Ashraf Iskander would have to leave the village because Muslims torched his house.

The father of the Muslim woman was killed by his cousin because he did not kill his daughter to preserve the family's honor, which led the woman's brother to avenge the death of his father by killing the cousin. The village Muslims blamed the Christians.

The Muslim mob attacked the church, exploding 5-6 gas cylinders inside the church, pulled down the cross and the domes and burnt everything inside. Activist Ramy Kamel of Katibatibia Coptic advocacy called US-based Coptic Hope Sat TV and sent an SOS on behalf of the Copts in Soul village, as they are presently being attacked by the mob. He also said that no one is able to contact the priest and the deacons inside the burning church and there is no answer from their mobile phones.

Coptic activist Wagih Yacoub reported the mob has broken into Coptic homes and has called on Copts to leave the village. "Terrorized Copts have fled and some hid in homes of Muslim neighbors," he added.

Witnesses said the mob chanted "Allahu Akbar" and vowed to conduct their morning prayers on the church plot after razing it.  (Hat Tip: NZ Conservative)

This does not appear to be an isolated incident.   Nina Shea writing in National Review Online adds: 

I also received a message from a Coptic friend that this week members of the Muslim Brotherhood, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” stormed a Christian school on Thabit Street in downtown Asyut and attempted to take it over. Egyptian security forces, including an army unit, intervened and routed out the Brotherhood members. The school had been built by Presbyterian missionaries in the early 1900s, and is now directed by Presbyterian Pastor Naji. Christian leaders from this southern area expressed a deepening sense of insecurity as the Muslim Brotherhood emerges from the underground.

This incident follows separate brutal attacks by armed forces using heavy machine-gun fire against two monasteries, ostensibly for zoning problems, on February 23. Compass Direct, an American-based Christian news agency, reported that one monk and six church workers were shot and wounded when the Egyptian Army attacked the Coptic Orthodox Anba Bishoy Monastery in Wadi Al-Natroun, 110 kilometers north of Cairo, in order to destroy a wall monks had built to defend their property from raiders. On the same day, it reported that, in a similar incident, the army also attacked the Anba Makarious Al Sakandarie Monastery in Al Fayoum, 130 kilometers southwest of Cairo. Under an Egyptian law carried over from Ottoman times, state permission is required to build or repair church property and such permits are rarely issued.

There are growing concerns that Egypt’s 10 million or so Coptic Christians are being targeted under the cloak of political chaos during these uncertain times. A friend reports that the local Egyptian police have abandoned their posts in the provinces and thus many churches no longer have armed guards protecting them as they did following the al-Qaeda-inspired church bombing of New Year’s Day in Alexandria.

Egypt’s army is one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid.
— Nina Shea is director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom.

T.S. Eliot captured so brilliantly the banality of Western civilization in its unbelief.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: 'I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all'--
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: 'That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.'
The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock

The West presumes to tell us all. It has squeezed the universe into a ball and rolled it to the overwhelming question, whether it is "peace in our time" or "justice for all".   It projects its own false image upon humanity, only to find--in great perplexity--that the reality is far different.  The commentariate is left stuttering, "That is not what we meant at all."  

Cutting to the Chase

For Our Good . . .

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."  C.S. Lewis

Napoleon's Modern Descendant

Human Rights Now!

The Obama administration is being hammered by the right wing for the wrong reasons. The right wing remains wedded to the idolatrous notion of American exceptionalism, which elevates a nation-state to the status of a demi-god.

Senator McCain, long an advocate of US military adventures abroad, has been excoriating President Obama for not instituting a "no-fly" zone in Libya. The reason why the US must do this? Gaddafi is acting like a tyrant, killing his own citizens. The US as the world's saviour and avatar of a free, just, secular humanity must do something. Anyone who thinks otherwise is, well, non-patriotic. They do not idolise the US enough.

But this folly is not just the preserve of the right. The left wing also has been calling for US military intervention. Senator John Kerry, one of the most liberal, even radical Progressives, has been urging the President to reconsider and remember the duty and obligation of the United States to establish, protect, and preserve human rights around the globe. This is what we mean by the US being elevated to the position of a demi-god. Meanwhile, He Who sits in the heavens laughs. His glory will not be served by American idolatry.

Full marks to President Obama for circumspection. Not that he has much choice. His Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates has publicly acknowledged that the US military is overcommitted now. It cannot afford to get involved in another conflict. At last the bloody beast has appeared to reach its limitations. For this we are very thankful.

Fortunately there are other voices, on both right and left which have a far less jingoistic cast. They are far more studied, measured, and realistic. One such voice is Bernard Lewis, recently interviewed by David Horowitz. Lewis is arguably the doyen of Western scholars with a profound knowledge of political Islam. His message: don't try to engineer Western style democracies in the Middle East. All that will do is facilitate Islamic fundamentalist power and control. This by Candace de Russy, at Breitbart:

In an extensive conversation with ex-leftist, now prolific conservative writer and consummate activist David Horowitz, the renowned Islamic scholar Lewis, 94, recently expounded on the root cause of the region-wide eruption of protests, and urged the West not to press for a fast and fitful rush by Arab countries toward Western-style elections.

Bernard Lewis

“The Arab masses,” he says, “are not ready for free and fair elections.”
At the heart of the upheaval, according to Lewis – perhaps best known for his history of the Ottoman Empire – is the Arab peoples’ pervasive sense of injustice suffered at the hands of “the sort of authoritarian, even dictatorial regimes, that rule most of the countries in the modern Islamic Middle East.” These regimes “are a modern creation,” whereas “the pre-modern regimes were much more open, much more tolerant.”
He predicts that hastily held, Western-style elections would bring about “a dangerous aggravation” of the abysmally poor peoples’ anger and resentment, which radical Islamic organizations would be well positioned to exploit. In particular, the Muslim Brotherhood “is a very dangerous, radical Islamic movement. If they obtain power, the consequences would be disastrous for [in the case he cites] Egypt.”

As an alternative to such elections, Lewis advocates that the West back the gradual development of local, self-governing institutions, in accord with the Islamic tradition of “consultation,” for which there is a strong tradition in the region. Citing historical events and political literature in the Islamic period, he observes that this pre-modern system was entirely opposed to authoritarian or absolutist rule. Indeed, the sultans had to consult with many groups whose authority sprang from within and not from the state.

Pre-modern or contemporary, women are one group that has not figured in the self-governing formula. Lewis, forceful on this point, quotes a late 19^th century Turkish observer:

We fell behind the West because of the way we treat our women … [Thus] we deprive ourselves of the talents and services of half the population … we submit the early education of the other half to ignorant and downtrodden mothers …[further,] a child who grows up in a traditional Muslim household is accustomed to authoritarian, autocratic rule from the start. I think the position of women is of crucial importance.

In sum, mindlessly pushing for an immediate, Western-style general election is “a dangerous fallacy which can only lead to disaster.” Better to “let them do it their way by consultative groups.”

In the case of Eqypt, the airing of Lewis’s views is especially timely. The country’s military rulers, paving the way for elections to be held in just four-to-six months, have proposed a slew of constitutional changes that are being disputed by various factions.

Is “instant democracy” a viable policy in the Mideast? Odds are, no.

We note in a final thought that the French dictator, believing that his destiny was to free mankind to enjoy "liberty, equality, and fraternity", sought to "liberate" the Middle East. He failed, retreating with desperate measures that involved murdering 800 of his own wounded soldiers that would slow his retreat. Such things happen when you make an idol of human rights. Napoleon's modern heir would do well to be warned.

A New Psychological Syndrome

Sickness or Sin?

An interesting article has appeared in the Guardian on a new Internet phenomenon where people elicit sympathy by feigning illness or trauma. Here is a case history so we all get the picture.

Anyone following her updates online could see that Mandy Wilson had been having a terrible few years. She was diagnosed with leukaemia at 37, shortly after her husband abandoned her to bring up their five-year-old daughter and baby son on her own. Chemotherapy damaged her immune system, liver and heart so badly she eventually had a stroke and went into a coma. She spent weeks recovering in intensive care where nurses treated her roughly, leaving her covered in bruises.

Mandy was frightened and vulnerable, but she wasn't alone. As she suffered at home in Australia, women offered their support throughout America, Britain, New Zealand and Canada. She'd been posting on a website called Connected Moms, a paid online community for mothers, and its members were following every detail of her progress – through updates posted by Mandy herself, and also by Gemma, Sophie, Pete and Janet, Mandy's real-life friends, who'd pass on news whenever she was too weak. The virtual community rallied round through three painful years of surgeries, seizures and life-threatening infections. Until March this year, when one of them discovered Mandy wasn't sick at all. Gemma, Sophie, Pete and Janet had never existed. Mandy had made up the whole story.

Because these people have to work hard over many months, sometimes years to construct their faux conditions psychologists are arguing that this must be a psychological disorder rather than a black joke.  So, to confirm that it is a disorder--an illness--they have coined a name, which makes it official.  "Münchausen by internet" is the illness.  It even has its own abbreviation which makes it officiously official: "MBI".

Some psychiatrists have started using the term Münchausen by internet (MBI) to describe this behaviour. Whereas Münchausen syndrome requires physically acting out symptoms to get attention from doctors, online scammers just have to be able to describe them convincingly. There's a potentially limitless audience of sympathetic ears, and success can be quantified by the number of concerned emails and message board posts generated by your lies. Some even go so far as to fake their own deaths, reading their own obituaries and observing the torrent of grief from the comfort of their living room. If they are rumbled – and they rarely are, conclusively – they just go to another support group, and to a fresh batch of trusting victims. The people they've fooled rarely find it so easy to move on.

The article makes the following points:

1. The elaborate, sympathy extorting hoaxes are not "victimless".  They can do damage to the hoodwinked.  This from the woman who finally twigged to Mandy's duplicity and exposed her:

She began providing the round-the-clock emotional support that Mandy craved. "I could spend an hour with her in the morning, a couple of hours in the afternoon, then I'd be up at night after the kids went to bed, sometimes until one o'clock. Instead of having a glass of wine with my husband in the evening, I was on the computer listening to Mandy talk about her latest infection," she says. "She was always on the verge of death. If I denied her and she died, then how would I feel?" . . . .

"She stole time from my kids and my husband, and I was able to be sucked in for so long because I couldn't fathom anyone making all this up for nothing. Why would someone want to hurt people like that? I'll never know."

2.  The lust for attention and being fawned over is like a drug.  Usually the scam follows a pattern of increasing illnesses, symptoms, emergencies, and degeneration to keep the sympathy flowing.

3. Women predominate--both in the phenomenon of Münchausen itself and its on-line extenuation.

While it's impossible to develop a profile of the typical support-group scammer, there's little doubt that women are disproportionately involved, both as perpetrators and as victims. This is true of both MBI and factitious disorder in general. Online self-help forums tend to attract greater numbers of women than men, so women are more likely to be drawn into such a scenario in the first place, but Feldman offers another explanation. "Jails are full of men who get their needs met in direct, pathological ways, and women tend to resort to behaviour that elicits attention in an indirect way."

4.  Münchausen clearly exists.  It clearly is a disorder.  By "psychologising" it so that it becomes categorized as an illness is a nonsense. Those who have had the "syndrome" and subsequently repent resent the idea that they are called "ill".

Whether feigning illness online or in the real world, fakers are often profoundly disappointed when they're told they may be ill after all. Many appear to prefer the stigma of being labelled cruel to that of being a psychiatric patient. According to Kanaan, this could be a false distinction. "There's confusion about where the line lies between being a bad person and being ill. Someone who's doing this, I'm afraid, could be both."

No, not both.  The dichotomy is not false.  No-one committed to truth and truth telling would be suborned into such behaviour. It is a manifestation of sin, not illness.  Such confusion only occurs in a culture which is naturalistic, where God has been banished from the collective frame of reference.

And then it begs a question: since all Unbelievers are likely evolutionists, why would they not celebrate this "syndrome" as an extremely inventive survival or coping mechanism--a sign of advanced, sophisticated humanity. 

Another Martyr

Shahbaz Bhatti

Shahbaz Bhatti was the only Christian in the Pakistan cabinet. Two days ago he was killed, by gunman. His "crime"--opposing the anti-blasphemy "laws" now being imposed in Pakistan by Muslims against non-Islamic people--with the condign support of the Pakistani government.

He shot a video which he instructed should be released if he were murdered.



Lest we forget. Rest in peace.

Out of the Rubble

The Blessings of Civility

Many of us were raised in post-Depression families where our parents constantly enjoined us to "count our blessings". They had known to an extent some of the hardship and deprivation portrayed so powerfully by John Mulgan in Man Alone. The Apostle Paul said that he had learned to be abased and to abound (Philippians 4:12). He also said that if he had food clothing and shelter, with these he would be content (I Timothy 6:8).

Many people have lost a great deal in Christchurch and their lives have been shaken to the core. One of the most encouraging things amidst it all, however, is to see civil society rise to the surface. By "civil" we mean a society where people are treating each other with respect, care, and concern. Where neighbour is reaching out to neighbour. The news media has been full of such incidents. It has been encouraging. Our parents taught us that these are some of the things that really matter.

Stuff has published an open letter of thanks from a Japanese father who has apparently lost his daughter. It encapsulates the blessings to be counted amidst the tragedy.

To the people of New Zealand and Japan:

My daughter was involved in the earthquake disaster while studying English in Christchurch in order to fulfill her ambition of becoming a medical worker able to work globally. I have come to New Zealand hoping for a slim chance of her survival, but she has not been found and the situation seems desperate. It was such a consolation for me to have met you who helped and co-operated with us, the families of the victims, with such warm hospitality and encouragement. I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to you all.

Here in Christchurch, I have seen how the people and the government of New Zealand have come together to work to rescue the victims immediately after the earthquake occurred and the government proclaimed a state of emergency. Having witnessed your dedication with my own eyes, I now understand why my daughter decided to study in Christchurch, 5600 miles far from my country.

Meanwhile, the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Embassy of Japan in New Zealand, and the Consulate in Christchurch have been coordinating their collective efforts to cope with this situation and supporting the families of the victims. I am impressed and thankful for their painstaking efforts even when the families sometimes become impatient and demanding.

The agent that introduced my daughter to the language school in Christchurch has been supporting us by keeping in touch 24 hours a day, updating news every 1 to 2 hours, and continuously cheering us up. My daughter's friends have also encouraged us by every possible means. Since arriving in Christchurch, many volunteers have been providing us with empathetic care. Staff members dispatched from the agent have been with the families, sympathetically listening to us and supporting us even when we lose ourselves in worry. The media staff members understand the feelings of the families of the victims well, and are reporting the central issues of the disaster. Even though my daughter has not been rescued yet, I think she is really lucky and happy because she is supported by so very many kind-hearted people.

Most of all, I am overwhelmed with gratitude toward the rescue teams from various countries, who have been engaged in the relief activities with their high technical capability and noble-minded motivation. I sincerely hope that those who are engaged in the relief effort will not be involved in secondary disasters.

I thank you all again for your unremitting efforts and unceasing empathy, which we will remember forever.

We ought not to take such civility in Christchurch for granted. There have been plenty of occasions in human history where it has been absent and suffering has been multiplied many, many times over. C. S. Lewis once remarked that Hell will be a collection of starving people seated at a long table with just a knife, each trying to eat peas . No civil society there. There have been times when hell has come on earth as neighbour has turned upon neighbour, and parents have devoured their children, and children their parents.

How thankful we ought to be that Christchurch has been spared this, and that civility and neighbourly love have been so strongly to the fore. We thank God that this has made the tragedy not as bad as it might have been.

To highlight the blessings which we are to count in Christchurch, contrast the following description of daily life in a city amidst tragedy as described by an eye-witness:

By mid-summer, as the blistered and jagged hills sprouted forests of fly-blow crucified cadavers, the city within was tormented by a sense of impending doom, intransigent fanaticism, whimsical sadism, and searing hunger. Armed gangs prowled for food. Children grabbed morsels from their fathers' hands; mothers stole the tidbits of their own babies. Locked doors suggested hidden provisions and the warriors broke in, driving stakes up their victims' rectums to force them to reveal their caches of grain. If they found nothing, they were even more 'barbarously cruel' as if they had been 'defrauded.' Even though the fighters themselves still had food, they killed and tortured out of habit 'to keep their madness in exercise'. (The city) was riven by witch-hunts as people denounced each other as hoarders and traitors. No other city . . . 'did ever allow such miseries, nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, since the beginning of the world.' Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem, The Biography, (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2011), p.4.

The city, Jerusalem. The time, AD70. The occasion, the Roman siege led by Titus. The situation, a people who had lost all civility. The result, hell upon earth.

The Lord said of that time that it would be "a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever shall." (Matthew 24:21).

Given that Jerusalem in AD70 teaches that of which we humans are capable, we thank God for a very, very different spirit manifest in Christchurch in AD2011. It is very beautiful to see--and not to be taken for granted.

Hat Tip: Keeping Stock

Chrestomathy

The Credulity of Unbelief

When people cease to believe in God they do not believe in nothing; they begin to believe in everything.

G. K. Chesterton

The S-Files

Sensible Sentencing

Garth McVicar of Sensible Sentencing Trust will be pleased. His nemesis, Kim Workman of Rethinking Crime and Punishment must be having conniptions.

A Christchurch judge has come down hard on Christchurch offenders who have been caught breaking the law in the midst of a state of civil emergency. Our Award Committee has convened and voted to bestow the Contra Celsum S-Award upon Judge Tony Couch.

Citation:

According to the NZ Herald:

"In the present state of emergency, the police have far, far more important things to do than to check up on whether you are complying with a 24-hour curfew." In refusing bail to 18-year-old Justin Humphreys on a relatively minor bail breach charge, Judge Tony Couch sent a stern message to Christchurch. Behave in this crisis or face the consequences. . . .

One of those was James Kevin Hogan. The house where the 40-year-old lived in Opawa was destroyed during the quake and on March 1 he allegedly assaulted his partner, before resisting arrest when police stepped in.

Duty solicitor Andrew McCormack asked for bail, with stringent conditions, saying Hogan lost his temper while distraught after the earthquake and was unable to buy medicine to help control his depression.

Judge Couch was not moved to release him into the community. . . . "It involves a serious assault, of male upon female, it was then subsequent assaults on police who sought to intervene. The fact that the current emergency does exist aggravates the matter because police have many important duties to perform in the community during this time," said Judge Couch.

"It is totally unacceptable that somebody in Mr Hogan's position should be assaulting them doing their duty."

As all future court dates have been adjourned until May 3, Hogan protested about the two-month stretch behind bars. "So I'm looking at three months away?"

In debating the award the only contentious issue raised by the Committee was why such thinking and reasoning does not apply all the time. Sure, the offending is exacerbated due to the civil emergency, but we note that none of these offenders were looting or praying upon those hard hit by the quake. The principle stressed by Judge Couch was taking up police time while there were far more important things to do.

We would like to see this principle applied consistently and at all times. Minor offences have consequences--one of which is distracting police from more serious capital crime solving.

Our Committee also appreciated the sub-text: take responsibility for yourself, or face the consequences.

The Committee is pleased to bestow the S-Award, Class I upon Judge Couch, for actions in the application of justice that have been Sound, Salutary, and Sober.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

A Palin Critique

Culture and Politics - Sex and Culture
Written by Douglas Wilson
Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Given the trajectory of events, it looks to me as though Sarah Palin is going to be a significant player in the coming year, leading up to the 2012 presidential elections. I am not saying she is going to run, and I am not saying that she would get the nomination/presidency if she did run -- although everything in that category is certainly a distinct possibility.

That being the case, and since I will no doubt write about aspects of it at the time, and would then have to field questions from baffled friends and cynical foes about being a Palin fan-boy, I thought to do something preemptively now.

So this is what I set out to do. I decided to read both her books (Going Rogue, and America By Heart), and give a brief synopsis of the central place where I think she is missing it. That way, when something comes up down the road and I defend her, nobody can at that point say "why doesn't Wilson see x, y, and z?" Especially y -- y oh y?

This is not really an adjustment of anything I have written before, which all still stands. And I continue to confess that it would be entertaining to see her elected for any number of reasons. One would be the prospect of Andrew Sullivan immolating himself on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Another would be closer to home -- even though Palin would certainly put her presidential library in Alaska, it would be lovely to watch our local officials here at her alma mater, the University of Idaho, having to sweat the possibility that she would ask to put it here. That would be high entertainment as well.

She is an evangelical Christian woman, and an affable person with real convictions and true humility (p. 87). On the central issue relating to our contemporary American heartlessness -- abortion -- she is unassailably pro-life. In many ways she displays a down home wisdom that is more proverbial than conventional. She is least likely to do "business as usual" with most of the regnant corruptions. Having read both her books, and having looked over the field of current contenders, I have to say that we could do a lot worse than elect Palin as president . . . and probably will.

But that just sets the context of these comments, where I want to point to the central problematic element in her worldview. There are three basic problems, all related to feminism and our sexual culture.

The official position of the National Organization of Harpies notwithstanding, Palin really is a feminist. But in order to understand this, you have to understand that in 19th century American feminism, there were two basic currents of thought. One got control of the stage and microphone, and not only assumed the right to speak for all women (which was its very own hoot), but also assumed (much more effectively) the right to speak for all feminists. This particular strand of feminism is characterized by two tenets: 1. men are jerks, and
2. women should strive by all means to become like them.

In contrast, the other stream of feminism has not wanted to disparage feminine identity and distinctiveness, and was therefore ardently pro-life, for example. This form of feminism has been much more likely to support women who want to be stay-at-home moms, and is much more likely to recognize physiological realties and differences between men and women. This second form of feminism is not as obnoxious as the first, but it is still dangerous for reasons I will discuss shortly.

"I didn't subscribe to all the radical mantras of that early feminist era, but reasoned arguments for equal opportunity definitely resonated with me" (GR, p. 29).

The example she uses to buttress this point is Title IX, which shows one of the limitations of "common sense conservatism."

"I grew up in a place and time where women did the same work as men -- but were still allowed to be girls" (ABH, p. 139).

This is the one regnant corruption that a Palin presidency would likely make worse, and it is not a trivial point. She has a strong constitutionalist streak (GR. 143), and another libertarian streak, which, when combined with her feminism, could easily lead to a toxic mix on issues like women in combat, women being susceptible to the draft, DADT in the military, homosexual civil unions, and so on.

Palin herself is an odd mix of feminism and traditionalism. When she got pregnant as governor, she "dreaded the reaction and comments from the Neanderthals who would think of this pregnancy as a distraction" (GR, 172).

She certainly seems to subscribe to the view that a woman "can have it all."

"Society has made women believe that they cannot do both -- pursue career, or education, or anything else, and still carry a baby" (GR, p. 172).

Notice that the limits are adopted by the women, who in turn were taught by society that certain activities are inconsistent, that you cannot successfully do everything you might want to do.

When her daughter Bristol got pregnant out of wedlock, to her credit Palin owned her responsibility in it. She says she was "preoccupied with the enormous job of being governor of the nation's largest state" (ABH, p. 95). Todd's job was 1500 miles away on the North Slope. "I assumed that Bristol was making only wise decisions . . ." (ABH, p. 95). "I kick myself to this day for my selfish assumption" (ABH, p. 96).

But what she does not say is that perhaps some of the Neanderthals mentioned earlier were not actually being Neanderthals. People being what they are, some of them probably were, but it may have been the case that some observers of the Palin family thought (correctly) that the breakpoint was coming a bit sooner than she thought.

At the same time, her common sense on the related issues has a way of popping out. This is just another way of saying that in this area, she does not have a consistent framework for understanding the world. For example, she had a conversation with Todd about his participation in the Iron Dog snowmobile race. The race extends across 2,200 miles of Alaskan territory -- and according to Wolfram Alpha that's more than the distance between Baltimore and Spokane -- and in wind chill conditions that can get to 60 below. Not an activity for the kind of sensitive male wuss that would marry feminist type #1.

"Women have raced too, and someday they'll win. 'I really want to run the Iron Dog,' I cockily told Todd one night as he settled down for a few hours' rest between 120-mph training rides by himself in the middle of the night. 'Can you wrench your own machine?' he asked. 'Nope.' 'Can you get the back end of a six-hundred-pound machine unstuck by yourself with open water up to your thighs, then change out an engine at forty below in the pitch black on a frozen river and replace thrashed shocks and jury-rig a suspension using tree limbs along the trail?' 'Nope.' 'Then go back to sleep, Sarah'" (GR, pp. 187-188)

The second point is related. Some limitations on women do have to do with societal expectations and training. If you were to take an anti-feminist of the late 19th century (and good for him), and show him a picture of a contemporary woman with five kids in an SUV, driving them all from school to their violin lessons, and doing this on a busy six-lane highway, and after that off to home and dinner, the picture that would come to his mind would not be that of domesticity. But it would in fact be domesticity. None of the women he knew would have been up for that kind of thing, and that would have been a function of societal expectation and training. Those sorts of things can change.

But there are built-creational limits as well. This is what we might call the hours in the day problem, and not a function of how many mouthy "Neanderthals" you might have in your life. Some limitations are cultural and can change over time. But some cannot be changed, not without doing violence to the nature of women, and the nature of marriage. It is the part of wisdom to acknowledge the difference between those two categories, and to honor them. Sarah Palin needs to do some more work on where that boundary is, and not be so quick to dismiss those conservatives who are dubious about the ability of even high performance families to surpass the built-in limits.

And last, as has been often noted, only Nixon could have gone to China. And only conservatives can really screw us up when it comes to the issues of sex and culture. Palin has been so identified by leftist hysteria with ultra right wing causes (along with other entities like Fox News), that it is then assumed that anything she does or supports is somehow "conservative." But numerous signs indicate that what radicals succeeded in getting on the agenda, "conservatives" will eventually help to get passed. From CPAC's acceptance of GOProud, to Fox News retail outlets in airports proudly selling their pornography, ostensible conservatives are now doing with sexual issues what they have done with so many, many other issues.

It is a two-step process. In one election cycle, the conservatives respond to an outrageous proposal by the leftists with the taunt that "it will never work." In a subsequent election cycle, the conservatives promise, if elected, "to make it work."

Knowing One's Limitations

Volting Ahead

Overreaching is never a good idea. As Josey Wales once astutely observed, "a man has got to know his limitations". God has established competencies and limits to competence. Move beyond, muscle up, try to take over and the downward spiral commences. Whenever a family sets itself up as church, watch the faith die out in the children. Whenever a church lifts itself up above the authority of husbands over their families, watch a cult gradually emerge.

Of the three fundamental institutions ordained by God to develop and rule over His world, the biggest threat today comes from the state. What ought to be a very limited and focused institution for the punishment of evil doers has become the uber parent and uber church. Its failures are evident on every hand. This is the hand of the Lord, chastening us for our folly and Unbelief.

When government tries to run a business incompetence lies around every corner. Every business enterprise run by government has proved a commercial failure. Its only hope of working is if the state removes its interfering political hands and lets independent directors and managers run the company along commercial lines.

When President Obama was elected, he stupidly promised he would usher in a new way of doing business. America would be revitalised economically by "green jobs". The Federal Government would transform the country. This was the justification in the President's mind for the billions upon billions of "bailout" money. Sure, it was a Republican idea, but Obama was willing to back it. But with a tweak. He would ensure that the money went to the New Age, green economy.

When the Federal Government bailed out General Motors--which should have been allowed to go to the wall under the discipline of creative destruction for inept managers and investors--Obama told himself and the world that it was OK, because the government would ensure that it led the charge to "green energy". Now "Government Motors" as it has become known has produced its first hybrid: the Volt.

Consumer Reports has had a chance to review it. Note that this is straight commercial stuff--not massaged with political spin. The review was harsh.

Washington — Consumer Reports offered a harsh initial review of the Chevrolet Volt, questioning whether General Motors Co.'s flagship vehicle makes economic "sense."The extended-range plug-in electric vehicle is on the cover of the April issue — the influential magazine's annual survey of vehicles — but the GM vehicle comes in for criticism.

"When you are looking at purely dollars and cents, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. The Volt isn't particularly efficient as an electric vehicle and it's not particularly good as a gas vehicle either in terms of fuel economy," said David Champion, the senior director of Consumer Reports auto testing center at a meeting with reporters here. "This is going to be a tough sell to the average consumer."

It turns out that it twice as expensive as the competitor Prius, and appear to be about half as good. Think Skoda. Thank Trabant. Think of every vehicle made under political directive.

Champion noted the Volt is about twice as expensive as a Prius.

He was said the five hour time to recharge the Volt was "annoying" and was also critical of the power of the Volt heating system.

"You have seat heaters, which keep your body warm, but your feet get cold and your hands get cold," Champion said. . . .

"They (buyers) are going to live with the compromises the vehicle delivers," Champion said. "When you look at it from a purely logical point of view, it doesn't make an awful lot of sense."

As Aaron Worthing at Patterico put it,

So its not very good, but it is very expensive. Okay, show of hands, who was surprised by this? This is what happens when government tries to get involved in business. You get business decisions driven by politics rather than good business.

And when this car fails, will GM need a bailout to pay for this boondoggle?

Political drivers and business drivers just don't mix. Political drivers always win over business sagacity and succeed to commercial incompetence and failure. The reason is that the creation is just not "wired" that way. We either stay within our sphere of competence ordained by Almighty God, or we suffer the consequences.

But as always, we need also be reminded that Western governments have only been able to grow in hubris, power, and incompetence because the citizens demanded that their governments function as god, taking on the attributes and prerogatives of deity. As always, we get the government in our own image, and according to our lusts and desires. We get the government we deserve. It is divine judgment.

Under Authority

What Spirit-Wrought Faith Looks Like

"You are required to believe, to preach, and to teach what the Bible says is true, not what you want the Bible to say is true."

R. C. Sproul, Chosen By God, p. 12.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Fountain Pens and Signing Ceremonies

Political Dualism - Mere Christendom
Written by Douglas Wilson
Tuesday, March 01, 2011

The basic question in politics is this: what is our warrant for making people do things? George Washington once noted that government rests upon force. In the last analysis, however you want to describe it, government makes some people do what they don't want to do. The point of traction in government is therefore coercion.

The fact that most people like the public arrangement and don't need to be coerced doesn't alter this basic fact. The coercion falls on the outliers, true enough, and when the force of coercion begins to fall on everyone that is a prime indicator that the particular government concerned is not long for the world. Nevertheless, the fact that only some people are coerced doesn't make the arrangement "not coercive." Most of the tire isn't touching the road. When a lot of the tire is touching the road you have what is called a flat, and the car won't go.

So if coercion is inescapable, we should ask some tough questions about it. What is our warrant for coercing people? Who should coerced, and in what areas? What should happen to a man if he fights our attempts to make him do something?

My political philosophy is pretty simple. We should want to keep coercion to a minium, and we should want to have ample warrant from God Almighty for whatever coercion we impose. And if we follow the latter principle wisely, the former should take care of itself.

I want the coercive power of the state to fall on thugs and rapists, and not upon the wrong kind of light bulb user. I want force to be applied to the man who would rob a merchant of his earnings, and not applied to the merchant himself, so that the government might rob him of his earnings. I want to restrict the thief with a Saturday night special, and this means I should also want to restrict the thief who does what he does with fountain pens in signing ceremonies. In short, I want coercion to fall on the wicked, and not on the righteous.

"Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law? They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood" (Ps. 94:20-21).

"Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be established in righteousness" (Prov. 25:5).  

I want the warrant for the use of force to come out of Scripture. I don't want it to come out of the frenetic vaporings of global warming screechers, or any other form of officious leftist meddling.

Now some worry about a tight theocratic state, run by scowling exegetes whose shoes are two sizes too small, and they have asked where this leaves citizens whose activities would be proscribed by biblical law -- like enthusiasts for sodomy or sharia. Those who worry about this possible problem envision a dark and dystopic Amerika when, on these two topics it would actually look more like America in 1960. Was America in 1960 a free society? Sodomy was against the law everywhere, and no locales were carving out room for sharia.

Look. Christians who believe the Bible invented free societies. Secularists who worry about fundamentalist Christians sneaking in to spy out their liberties are like a prodigal son, buying drinks for the house, secretly worrying that his father will break into his room that night in order to steal all his money.

Conflicts of Interest on A Grand Scale

Undermining the Body Politic

We were watching recently as one of the more astute analysts on Fox was taking the audience through the conflicts of interest inherent in state sector unions. We have long argued for the de-registration of all state sector unions on the grounds that they are inherently corrupt.

Consider the situation if company law were to require that company employees elect the CEO, HR Manager, the Financial Controller, and the Board. The conflicts of interest would be obvious and palpable. Employees would control who would sit across the table from them to bargain over wages. Naturally, maximising personal utility would result in "worker friendly" candidates being elected, who would then repay the "loyalty" of the staff by ensuring that employee expectations and demands were met.

Question: who would want to invest in such companies? No-one. The real owners would be the employees; if they did not stump up capital, the company would fold. In order to meet higher and higher employee costs, the company would inevitably destroy its balance sheet with excessive borrowing, resulting eventually in insolvency and collapse.

This is precisely the situation that applies, mutatis mutandis, in the state sector. State sector unions here in New Zealand (and to our knowledge everywhere else) overwhelmingly favour politicians and political parties that are "union friendly" and advocate state expropriation via the taxation system from the more wealthy to the less wealthy. The state unions know that if they enable the election of such left-wing politicians when it comes to pay negotiations the negotiator on the other side of the table will be positively disposed to their demands.

At the same time, the left-wing politicians and parties actively court the unions, including the state unions, for electoral support, relying on them for finance, volunteers, and party stalwarts.

During the former left-wing Labour government in New Zealand we saw both rapid rises in state sector wages, well above the rate of inflation, and even state funding to help unions "do their work". Political blogger, David Farrar posted the following in 2009:

Once upon a time public sector staff got paid less than those in the private sector. This was because they didn’t have the challenge of actually generating revenue, had better conditions such as study costs covered etc etc.
The situation in the last few years has reversed. Surveys have shown public sector CEOs now get paid more than private sector ones. And a study has shown that there is now a premium of just over 20% for public sector jobs.

So in 2003, the premium was under 5%. Over the next four years it has increased to a massive 22%. And the study adjusted for other variables.
Now this is not an accident. Part of it was that Labour had no fiscal discipline at all with the state sector. Part of it is a deliberate strategy. Ministers encouraged Departments to sign off on higher wage levels or bonuses if people joined the PSA. So taxpayers would pay higher wages to public servants if they joined the PSA. So of course more people would join the PSA, and then the PSA has more money to spent in election year telling people not to vote National. They were the 2nd largest third party spender last election.

The state sector union--Labour Party conspiracy paid off.  Within a few years, state unions had "negotiated" a 20 percent pay premium to the private sector.  Also they enjoyed government support, "buying" additional union membership.  Very cosy.  

Several months ago we witnessed public disruption, violence, intimidation, anger, and strikes as the governments of Greece, Ireland, the UK, France, and Spain--facing financial collapse--began to rein in spending.  Unions revolted.  Now it is the turn of the US.  In New Jersey, Indiana, Wisconsin the state sector unions are out in force.  In Wisconsin their Democratic Party state legislature lackeys have absconded, fled so that they will not have to vote on the pegging back of state sector union featherbedding.  Meanwhile, Wisconsin is trying to "plug" a $3bn budget deficit.  The state is in the maw of insolvency.  And it is not alone.  California, New York and Illinois are facing similar crises.  The pattern is the same. 

These states have been ridden to the ground substantially by state sector unions teaming up with Democratic politicians to extract entitlements from other taxpayers. 

State sector unions should all be de-registered.  The conflicts of interest are just too great.  The outcome in the end is unsustainable state spending to the damage and hurt of all. 

Postscript: For a thorough, objective, non-partisan analysis of the state of public finance in the United States, this paper is worth a look.

Kylie Mole On Steriods

Functionally Inarticulate

We will never forget Kylie Mole, the verbose inarticulate Senior Schooler from the Comedy Company, describing a conversation with a friend, while she chewed gum and twirled her pig tails.

"I go, 'Well, like . . .'  I go, 'You gotta do somfin.'"

"She goes . . . . . she goes . . . . .she goes . . . . Um.  She just went." 

Kylie was a cultural prophet of the late eighties painting a picture of what was coming down the pike.

In our wonderful post-modern government education system we dutifully submit to the extraction of taxes so that over one third of kids can graduate without being able to read or write. They are classified amongst the successful because they have, well, perspectives that are germane to them. Under pomo rules, one does not stand in judgment on another perspective. One passes respectfully, doffing the cap.

The role of the modern pomo teacher is to facilitate perspective discovery and augmentation. The idea that there is a body of knowledge which must be communicated and inculcated into a new generation is an anathema. This is regarded as perspectival imperialism. It is allegedly harming kids because it subjects, nay enslaves, them to an alien discourse.

Now we must hasten to add a qualification here. There remains a core of faithful teachers in our government education system which is too straight and common sensible to have a bar of pomo ideology. They just want to teach, by which they mean impart knowledge. They have both our respect and our sympathy. Ironically this core is bigger in our government secondary schools because the demands and standards of our universities still have some influence. Schools, knowing their graduates will get judged at university by those objective knowledge standards which still remain in our universities, pitch their teaching accordingly. But by then, for many of their students, it is too late. They are locked into pomo cloud cookoo land.

The situation is worse in our government primary schools. A greater number of teachers has been influenced by pomo ideology as taught in the teacher training institutions, without the external restraint of tertiary institutions' demands. The number of cultural fads, fashions, and perspectives they have to be "sensitive" to and "facilitate" is legion. All of this is at the expense of focusing upon a body of normative knowledge which is to be passed on to pupils.

It is not surprising, therefore, that literacy and speech suffers. The problem is not unique to New Zealand. A recent article in City Journal documents an equally parlous situation in New York.

Clark Whelton
What Happens in Vagueness Stays in Vagueness
The decline and fall of American English, and stuff
Winter 2011

I recently watched a television program in which a woman described a baby squirrel that she had found in her yard. “And he was like, you know, ‘Helloooo, what are you looking at?’ and stuff, and I’m like, you know, ‘Can I, like, pick you up?,’ and he goes, like, ‘Brrrp brrrp brrrp,’ and I’m like, you know, ‘Whoa, that is so wow!’ ” She rambled on, speaking in self-quotations, sound effects, and other vocabulary substitutes, punctuating her sentences with facial tics and lateral eye shifts. All the while, however, she never said anything specific about her encounter with the squirrel.

Uh-oh. It was a classic case of Vagueness, the linguistic virus that infected spoken language in the late twentieth century. Squirrel Woman sounded like a high school junior, but she appeared to be in her mid-forties, old enough to have been an early carrier of the contagion. She might even have been a college intern in the days when Vagueness emerged from the shadows of slang and mounted an all-out assault on American English.

My acquaintance with Vagueness began in the 1980s, that distant decade when Edward I. Koch was mayor of New York and I was writing his speeches. The mayor’s speechwriting staff was small, and I welcomed the chance to hire an intern. Applications arrived from NYU, Columbia, Pace, and the senior colleges of the City University of New York. I interviewed four or five candidates and was happily surprised. The students were articulate and well informed on civic affairs. Their writing samples were excellent. The young woman whom I selected was easy to train and a pleasure to work with. Everything went so well that I hired interns at every opportunity.

Then came 1985.

The first applicant was a young man from NYU. During the interview, he spiked his replies so heavily with “like” that I mentioned his frequent use of the word. He seemed confused by my comment and replied, “Well . . . like . . . yeah.” Now, nobody likes a grammar prig. All’s fair in love and language, and the American lingo is in constant motion. “You should,” for example, has been replaced by “you need to.” “No” has faded into “not really.” “I said” is now “I went.” As for “you’re welcome,” that’s long since become “no problem.” Even nasal passages are affected by fashion. Quack-talking, the rasping tones preferred by many young women today, used to be considered a misfortune.

In 1985, I thought of “like” as a trite survivor of the hippie sixties. By itself, a little slang would not have disqualified the junior from NYU. But I was surprised to hear antique argot from a communications major looking for work in a speechwriting office, where job applicants would normally showcase their language skills. I was even more surprised when the next three candidates also laced their conversation with “like.” Most troubling was a puzzling drop in the quality of their writing samples. It took six tries, but eventually I found a student every bit as good as his predecessors. Then came 1986.

As the interviews proceeded, it grew obvious that “like” had strengthened its grip on intern syntax. And something new had been added: “You know” had replaced “Ummm . . .” as the sentence filler of choice. The candidates seemed to be evading the chore of beginning new thoughts. They spoke in run-on sentences, which they padded by adding “and stuff” at the end. Their writing samples were terrible. It took eight tries to find a promising intern. In the spring of 1987 came the all-interrogative interview. I asked a candidate where she went to school.

“Columbia?” she replied. Or asked.

“And you’re majoring in . . .”

“English?”

All her answers sounded like questions. Several other students did the same thing, ending declarative sentences with an interrogative rise. Something odd was happening. Was it guerrilla grammar? Had college kids fallen under the spell of some mad guru of verbal chaos? I began taking notes and mailed a letter to William Safire at the New York Times, urging him to do a column on the devolution of coherent speech. Undergraduates, I said, seemed to be shifting the burden of communication from speaker to listener. Ambiguity, evasion, and body language, such as air quotes—using fingers as quotation marks to indicate clichés—were transforming college English into a coded sign language in which speakers worked hard to avoid saying anything definite. I called it Vagueness.

By autumn 1987, the job interviews revealed that “like” was no longer a mere slang usage. It had mutated from hip preposition into the verbal milfoil that still clogs spoken English today. Vagueness was on the march. Double-clutching (“What I said was, I said . . .”) sprang into the arena. Playbacks, in which a speaker re-creates past events by narrating both sides of a conversation (“So I’m like, ‘Want to, like, see a movie?’ And he goes, ‘No way.’ And I go . . .”), made their entrance.

I was baffled by what seemed to be a reversion to the idioms of childhood. And yet intern candidates were not hesitant or uncomfortable about speaking elementary school dialects in a college-level job interview. I engaged them in conversation and gradually realized that they saw Vagueness not as slang but as mainstream English. At long last, it dawned on me: Vagueness was not a campus fad or just another generational raid on proper locution. It was a coup. Linguistic rabble had stormed the grammar palace. The principles of effective speech had gone up in flames.

In 1988, my elder daughter graduated from Vassar. During a commencement reception, I asked one of her professors if he’d noticed any change in Vassar students’ language skills. “The biggest difference,” he replied, “is that by the time today’s students arrive on campus, they’ve been juvenilized. You can hear it in the way they talk. There seems to be a reduced capacity for abstract thought.” He went on to say that immature speech patterns used to be drummed out of kids in ninth grade. “Today, whatever way kids communicate seems to be fine with their high school teachers.”

Where, I wonder, did Vagueness begin? It must have originated before the 1980s. “Like” has a long and scruffy pedigree: in the 1970s, it was a mainstay of Valspeak, the frequently ridiculed but highly contagious “Valley Girl” dialect of suburban Los Angeles, and even in 1964, the film Paris When It Sizzles lampooned the word’s overuse. All the way back in 1951, Holden Caulfield spoke proto-Vagueness (“I sort of landed on my side . . . my arm sort of hurt”), complete with double-clutching (“Finally, what I decided I’d do, I decided I’d . . .”) and demonstrative adjectives used as indefinite articles (“I felt sort of hungry so I went in this drugstore . . .”).

Is Vagueness simply an unexplainable descent into nonsense? Did Vagueness begin as an antidote to the demands of political correctness in the classroom, a way of sidestepping the danger of speaking forbidden ideas? Does Vagueness offer an undereducated generation a technique for camouflaging a lack of knowledge?

In 1991, I visited the small town of Bridgton, Maine, on the evening that the residents of Cumberland County gathered to welcome their local National Guard unit home from the Gulf War. It was a stirring moment. Escorted by the lights and sirens of two dozen fire engines from surrounding towns, the soldiers marched down Main Street. I was standing near the end of the parade and looked around expectantly for a platform, podium, or microphone. But there were to be no brief remarks of commendation by a mayor or commanding officer. There was to be no pastoral prayer of thanks for the safe return of the troops. Instead, the soldiers quickly dispersed. The fire engines rumbled away. The crowd went home. A few minutes later, Main Street stood empty.

Apparently there was, like, nothing to say.

Clark Whelton was a speechwriter for New York City mayors Ed Koch and Rudy Giuliani.