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My own personal musings, wonderings, thoughts, and results of personal studies. Also, occasional comments on world events. Counter
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Monday, April 28, 2003
I'm a couple of days late, but Paul Cella's comments about the Supreme Court and sexuality is well worth the read. Sunday, April 27, 2003
Chris Regan has put together a time line about Iraq, al Qaeda, the Clinton Administration, and the State Department. It's not a pretty picture. I await the outraged calls about this story Paintings stolen from gallery Now if there was any consistency in the press, we we would soon here outraged calls about how terrible the "looting" was and how this robbery was evidence of anarchy in the streets of English cities. Who knows, perhaps we'll still here people demanding to know why Donald Rumsfeld didn't devote more troops to pacifying England and protecting the English cultural heritage.
Unfortunately, it actually wouldn't surprise me if someone did try to blame this on the Bush administration. Eugene Volokh looks at a newspaper's reasoning for asking one of its writers to kill his blog. As Eugene notes, their reasons don't make a lot of sense. Christopher Johnson argues that making up with France may, and probably should, be a long time off. He's right. Saturday, April 26, 2003
Red Letter Edition Matthew 21:14-17 ESV And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children crying out in the temple, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant, and they said to him, “Do you hear what these are saying?” And Jesus said to them, “Yes; have you never read, All praise and glory is due to Christ. As Christ makes clear here, God will make sure that the honor due to Christ will be paid, even if it has to come from children. Christopher Johnson has a few things to say about missing evil, false prophets, and "Christian leaders" who don't lead. Steven Den Beste makes a persuasive argument that we need to reform the way members of the House of Representatives are replaced. He also gives some good suggestions on how to do so.
I've got to admit that I've been worrying about this for a while and it concerns me that there hasn't been more serious discussion of this in Washington. I think Den Beste's plan is extremely workable. It's certainly one of the best I've seen. Friday, April 25, 2003
I just noticed that I got two Google hits today for the phrase, "the french are not our friends". I only come in third for this search which is actually a little surprising.
Looking at the other results for this term, I found an oddly punctuated poem entitled, "The French are Not Our Friends." (The original link is dead. That one is to the Google cache. Get it while you can.) Thoughts on my sister's graduation A nice change
The chorus at my sister's graduation sang "Battle Hymn of the Republic." I find that song to be one of the most inspiring things I've ever heard. I was gratified today to hear the chorus sing the right words. In the last verse, the song, as written, reads (referring to Christ), "As He died to make men holy, let us die to make them free." That sentiment captures beautifully the sentiment of many Union soldiers during the Civil War. Further, it is the kind of spirit that I would hope our soldiers would be able to take into battle in every war our country ever fights.
Lately, many people have decided that phrasing is to militaristic. (I thought that's why it's called a Battle Hymn, but what do I know?) Anyway, people keep changing the words in that verse. The hymnal at my congregation reads, "As he died to make men holy, let us live to make men free." Less martial, yes, but if you think about it, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Yes, you could say that in some senses we are called to live as Christ died (sacrificially, etc.), but that's not what this song was talking about. The author was drawing a parallel between Christ dying to make me free from sin and the soldier dying to make men free here on Earth. That parallel is obliterated when you change "die" to "live." I've seen other variations of the wording people have made while desperate to remove that ugly word "die" from the song. Every time people try to do this, they rob the song of part of its meaning.
Anyway, it was gratifying to hear the right words for a change. It made me cry
Before the ceremony started, my grandmother spotted some friends and went over to talk to them. As she was walking over there I thought, "I'm sure she's proud. This is the third grandchild of hers whose graduated from college. Then I stopped in my tracks. Yes, it was the third. But that was the wrong number. It was supposed to be the fourth. My other sister died 5 1/2 years ago. It was her junior year in college. She should have graduated by now. Amy, my youngest sister, should have been the fourth, not the third of my grandmother's grandchildren to graduate college.
That realization stopped me in my tracks. I felt sick, as if someone had punched me in the gut. "She should have been here today!" my heart screamed out. "Why isn't she here?" The sickness grew as I remembered that wherever "here" is and whatever the occasion, she'll never be there again. Yes, today was a happy today, but there was that awful ache sadness. More awful still because I know that every happy occasion for the rest of my life will be tinged with regret at the fact that I cannot share it with my sister. It made me smile
One of the girls in my sister's class, from Japan if I'm not mistaken, stopped as she crossed the stage to pump her hands in the air. Clearly, she was happy at what she had accomplished. Another, after receiving the case for her diploma, turned toward her family and held it up triumphantly. The look on her face just beamed, "I earned this! I did good!" It made me proud to be an American
Periodically I see horrible stories about sanctimonious professors who have already, or are trying to, ban ROTC from their campus. Lately I've even seen stories about members of our armed services being warned not to wear their uniforms off base because spiteful people in the area have been attacking those in uniform. I had all that in mind today because the final portion of the ceremony today was the commissioning of one ROTC candidate into the Army. I thanked God that no matter what's going on elsewhere, I live in a part of the country that looks at one young man, fresh out of college, who is committing the next few years (at least) of his life-to the defense of his country and knows that the only thing you can possibly do is give him a standing ovation. Yes, there were a lot of happy faces at that ceremony, but no single event drew more emotion then seeing this fresh graduate swear an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic. It made me grateful
My family used to live in Amarillo, Texas. At the congregation we attended there was a sweet couple, Ted and Gladys McCutchan. Gladys was always very sweet to my little sister and made a wonderful impression on her. Ted is dead now and Gladys is 90. When my sister was opening cards today, they all had money in them. Several people gave her $25 or $50 to get her started in her new apartment. Gladys sent a card as well with ten dollar inside. She gave the smallest gift of anyone today, but I promise you, she gave the biggest smile. Amy read the card, smiled a big smile, and shouted, "Oh, I love her." It reminded me that financial gifts are fine, but a much better gift is the impact we leave on people's hearts. Gladys McCutchan has, I'm sure, left many people shouting, "Oh, I love her!" in her wake.
Note: This was basically a flow of consciousness post and I didn't do much proofreading. I went back and fixed a grammatical error, but there may be more. I didn't feel like editing it. Sorry about the lack of posting today. I went to my sister's college graduation. Despite the fact that her school is only an hour a way, I ended up being out of town all day. Thursday, April 24, 2003
I'm convinced now that most people don't pay attention to the world. I was flipping by the Family Feud. There first question was, "If America got into a military conflict, name a country we could rely on."
The actual answers of the poll were:
Remarkably, Australia wasn't on the list. (You know, the guys who are always there for us along with Britain. One woman said France. What planet is she from?
Sorry, just had to rant. Naomi Campbell claims she knows where Osama is. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. (Via Ghost of a Flea.) Neil Ferguson argues that America needs to create a new empire. The fascinating part about the article is that he's not an American. I can't say I agree with his position, but he does make interesting points. Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Red Letter Edition Matthew 12-13 ESV And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” I take this as an important reminder that anger is not always bad and there are some things worth fighting for. However, it is important that we are very careful what we fight for and how we express our anger. It was easy for Jesus to know when He was expressing God's views because He is God.
I am not God and I hope I never have the hubris to think I now his will perfectly. I do however pray for guidance and study daily to know his will better.
On another note, there are many people who try to turn Christianity into a money making proposition. I wonder if Jesus would consider them a "den of robbers"? Noemie Emery suggests that media (and other bias) may no longer matter much.
It's an interesting idea. I'm not sure I believe it, but it's interesting. Yeah, I'm having a tough time with this one.
Excuse me! Principles and convictions! Since when do greed and pomposity qualify as principles and convictions? You know, it's a sad that we feel the need to praise people for being honest about what they believe. Ramesh Ponnuru on Colin Powell:
That's rather harsh, but it's mostly true. He's got quite a bit more on Powell and the State Department. It's not all bad, but it's mostly bad. Tuesday, April 22, 2003
Red Letter Edition
It is one of the most bizarre instances in scripture that the city of Jerusalem would welcome Jesus as Messiah at the beginning of the week, and then just a few days later the city would rise up and demand his execution. It should also be a sobering thought. Modern Christians often like to think that if they had been there, they would not have reacted that way. It makes us feel better about ourselves, but lying to yourself generally makes you feel better in the short term. That's because we hate confronting the truth about ourselves. The truth is that we are all sinners. We all hate to be told that we're sinners. Most everyone reacts badly when their sins are pointed out to them. That is why the world rejected Christ and most of us, if we had been there, would have rejected him as well. The same evil inclinations that cause us to sin make us revolt against the one who exposes the sin. For many of us, it takes a great deal of effort, and, ultimately, grace to be able to accept Christ at all. I saw this from Josh Chafetz and just had to comment.
First off, I suspect Josh has completely misconstrued Glen's meaning. I don't thing Glen was saying that he hoped France had acted, as Josh puts it, ignobly. I think he was just assuming that as an absolute fact and saying he hoped Washington was putting the screws to them over said behavior. While Josh potentially has a point when he says such information should be made public, I personally have no problem with Washington using such information to pressure France into doing what any decent person would do anyway.
However, that really wasn't what made me want to comment. Josh says that France is, "is still a friend, an ally, and a democracy." While it is certainly true that France is still a democracy, it does not follow that it is a friend an ally. In fact, I believe it to be neither. France engaged in a months long campaign to thwart plans that our government believes to be in the best interest of our national security as well as in the best interest of the world. Not only did it engage in such a plan, but it did so treacherously. (Trying to block defense of a NATO ally, ambushing Powell at a UN meeting, and spending months pretending that they really wanted to disarm Saddam before finally admitting the truth that they would vote for the authorization of force under NO circumstances.) Yes, allies can have differences of opinion and patch things up later, but France's actions were more than disagreeing with U.S. policy; they actively tried to stop U.S. policy using underhanded tactics. These are not the actions of an ally. I'm not saying France is an enemy of the U.S., but they certainly aren't a friend. Chris Regan points out that it isn't a big deal that the Pentagon has plans for attacking North Korea. He's right, of course. That's what the Pentagon does. It comes up with war plans for every conceivable scenario, just in case they're needed. At least I sure HOPE that's what they're doing. Considering the fact that we were able to put together a working war plan in Afghanistan three weeks after the need became evident, I'd say that they are, and that it is a good thing. Martin Devon thinks it would help if UN diplomats at least tried to act serious.
I'll be honest, I've reached the point where I don't really see any benefits to the UN besides certain of the related humanitarian organizations which could truthfully continue to operate without the charade that is the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Human Rights Commission, or any of the other absurd bodies. If we withdrew from the UN tomorrow, I doubt I'd miss it at all. Mark Krikorian argues that only citizens should be allowed to serve in the military. I've got to admit that my gut reaction to this is extremely emotional and just wants to scream, "That's wrong!" On the other hand, he makes some good points. I'm going to have to ponder this. Monday, April 21, 2003
Eugene Volokh has an excellent post on proportionality of sentencing.
One of the issues is concurrent sentences. Personally, I disagree with concurrent sentences in most instances, but that's just me. Two men are being held for questioning after being found with explosives near the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit. This could be very interesting. I suppose it could also be perfectly harmless, but I doubt it. Sunday, April 20, 2003
I'm watching the NBC tribute to Bob Hope and I am reminded once again of how much this man has done for our troops and our nation over the years. It occurs to me that he may have done more for this nation than anyone in the last century. Smooth Move!
Well, not really. Apparently Senator Kerry missed the funeral of a Massachusetts KIA to attend a fundraiser.
Granted, there's nothing that says Senators and Congresscritters must attend KIA funerals. However, quite a few have been. Besides, it's the least our elected leaders can do for the families of those who die for our country. My Lord and My God!
I identify with this story perhaps more than any other in scriptures. I identify with it because I identify with Thomas. Yes, he was the doubter. He needed hard evidence. I'm like that. I'm not the kind of person who goes around saying things are impossible. I do, however, need proof before saying that something has happened.
One of the things that bolsters my faith is the knowledge that the evidence was so compelling that it took Thomas from a position of disbelieving that Jesus was even alive to one of confessing Him as God. All of the sudden, after all that time, Thomas got it. He looked at Jesus, who had been dead, saw the wounds from the crucifixion, and suddenly was able to say, "Oh! You're God!"
John makes it perfectly clear at the end of this chapter that he had plenty of material. The stories John told were specifically calculated to bolster peoples faith. He tells us, "these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." I have no doubt that Thomas's story was told especially for people like me. And I'm grateful that the Scriptures provide enough evidence for even a doubter like me. After all, we doubters need life in the name of Jesus just as much as anyone else. I find this interesting.
What part of this progression is out of place? I think most hawks always treated the toppling of Saddam's regime and the subsequent rebuilding as two sides of the same coin. That's why this paragraph in a USA Today story disturbs me.
If this is true, and I have no reason to doubt Sen. Lugar, then the administration needs to be held to account. There are a couple of reasons that this angers me. The first is that people apparently are, and will continue, to suffer because the administration did not adequately plan the post-war phase. The other is that one of the national security justifications for the war is that the invasion of Iraq would enable us to set up a free state which would not pose a threat to us and which would also serve as an example to the people in neighboring countries of what was possible in a free nation.
If it's true that the administration failed to properly follow through on post-war planning then they must bear the responsibility for people's suffering. They also will owe a huge debt to the American people if the rebuilding goes badly and Iraq descends into another Islamic despotism. If that happens, the final state of affairs may be worse than it was before the war.
I think to some extent we do need to give the administration some leniency; there is an extent to which the problems in Iraq are due to "catastrophic success." That is to say that some of the problems we're seeing are due to the fact that Saddam's regime collapsed much faster than expected. However that doesn't completely explain some of the difficulties that seem to be occurring in the post-war administration of Iraq. While I don't yet think the problems are really serious, they are troubling. If these problems are, as Senator Lugar intimates, due to poor planning, then the administration needs to be held to account.
On another note, it is not unreasonable to think that in the next few years this administration, or another, may find the need to repeat this process in another "rogue state." If that happens, those who support the war have a responsibility to demand the President present a comprehensive plan for rebuilding that nation after the war. This war in Iraq was a new experience for many of us and it is somewhat understandable that many of us just assumed that there was a good rebuilding plan in place. In the future we will not be able to plead ignorance. If another war is necessary, it is vital that we peg our support of said war to the existence of a comprehensive and workable rebuilding plan.
(Note: After posting this I found some grammatical errors that I corrected.) An Iranian blogger has been arrested for, "threatening the national security."
This is hardly surprising. There is a growing movement in Iran that threatens to overturn the theocracy there and set up a representative state. I wish them luck. I also hope that our government gives them help.
Link via Glenn Frazier. With many of the stories floating around it's easy to believe that all French and Germans are backstabbers who hate America. Here's an excellent post showing that's not true. (Via the Daily Briefing.) For anyone still not convinced that we did the right thing in Iraq, read this.
Via the Command Post. Aahhh! I have the AFL game on the television. To my great shame and embarrassment, I missed a player being ejected. Why? Because I was too busy reading a post about apostrophes on Samizdata. What's wrong with me? Well Suh-Prise, Suh-Prise! NOW is protesting the decision to charge Scott Peterson with two counts of murder.
I personally like the response of pro-life groups.
Yes indeed. And if, as NOW insists, all they want is for the mother's choice to be inviolate, then they should support this decision.
Everyone once in a while NOW and others have a chance to show if they're really pro-choice or pro-abortion. Over and over again they show that what they are really for is abortion. I posted this story from the PakTribune at the Command Post.
Let me just say that I suspect the chances that none of these countries will attempt to interfere with the development of a democracy in Iraq as miniscule. In fact, I suspect most of them will do so. Truthfully, it's almost certain that Iraq, Syria, and probably Turkey (if they feel they're having Kurdish problems) will do so. Egypt and Kuwait are likely to interfere. Jordan might. Well, Bahrain might as well, but who would notice? key's proposed plan for democracy in Iraq isn't getting much traction with other Islamic countries according to this story at Turks.US.
To the Arab nations, causing trouble for your regimes is considered a feature, not a bug. The long term plan is representative government for all. Of course you know that, which is why you opposed the war in the first place.
To Iraq, I assume you mean, "We are a democracy," in the sense of, "We are NOT a democracy." Style points for trying though. Sometimes the Red Cross drives me nuts
Um, earth to the Red Cross. Yes, we do no people are suffering and yes we are working on it. Thank you for your time.
Sheesh! Saturday, April 19, 2003
The Light It seemed appropriate to post something tonight about the meaning of Christ's death, but I couldn't think of anything new. Consequently, I've decided to rehash an old post. I'm updating it a bit, but it's still basically old. Oh well. I hope anyone reading it for the first time will find it helpful.
Living in the light
A while back, columnist Jay Nordlinger wrote this on National Review Online
Like Nordlinger, the President's word's sent chills down my spine. But his comment about wanting all Koreans to live in the light started me thinking about something else. And my new thoughts also gave me chills.
A long time ago, Someone else was looking down on our planet. But He wasn't a president, a king, or a dictator. His name is Yahweh, and He was looking at our planet because He made it. He too, saw darkness, but unlike President Bush, what he saw was a world almost completely dark. It wasn't always like this.
John tells us that:(John 1:1-4 ISV)
But humanity rejected the light. In order to return light to the world, God decided to send His Son, the Source of the Light to earth in the form of a man. When His Son came, he fulfilled the prophecy:
The Father and the Son though, both knew something about the Light. As much as the world needs light, the world doesn't want it. That is why the Son said: (John 3:19 ESV)
The world LIKES the darkness. The actions of men cause them to live in a world of hunger, barbed wire, and fear. But as long as it's dark, we don't have to admit that our sins have created a prison for us to live in. When Jesus came, He shined a light in the darkness. People could no longer pretend. But people didn't want to change. Instead of accepting the light and repenting, they tried to extinguish the light and go back to pretending. That is what they were trying to do when they put Jesus on a cross. They were trying to put out the light. But, as John says, "the light shines on in the darkness, and the darkness has never put it out." (John 1:5 ISV)
That is why Jesus rose from the grave, because the world is incapable of putting out the Light of God. The interesting thing though, is that Jesus KNEW ahead of time that we would try to extinguish his flame. He knew we would reject Him. He knew that humanity doesn't want to admit its sins. He knew that we would hate Him. He knew all of that, and He came anyway. He came because He loved us. It was His will that we not live in a world of hunger, and barbed wire, and fear. He came because He wanted us to live in the Light.
Living in the light is something special. It also has consequences. John tells us:
But in addition to the faithfulness John calls us too, walking in the light also means remembering that our ability to live in the light was bought at a price. That price was the body and the blood of God's Son. It's vital that we remember that, but God knows that we have a poor memory. That is why, on the night Jesus was betrayed, He,
Every time we participate in the Lord's Supper, we do it in memory of the body that was bruised and the blood that was shed so we could live in the light. I've said before that freedom will be a tough transition for many Iraqis. For a look at hour hard, read this NYT article by Phebe Marr. The column lists in great detail some of the things taught in 5th and 6th grade civics textbooks. The long and short of it is that everything revolves around the state.
There's more of course, and it's quite a read. Excellent read With all the vitriol that comes out of the Arab world, I find it easy to forget that there really are a lot of intelligent people over there trying to make a difference. This article reminded me of that fact.
There's more and it's all good. I fervently hope to see more of this kind of thinking. I've removed a few blogs from blogroll. They're all either blogs that haven't updated in a really long time, or which I simply don't read anymore. Just FYI. I'm not to sure what to make of this.
Link via Bigwig. Every once in a while, I get a Google hit that shows up on my referrer logs for a misspelled word. The reason for that, of course, is that I used the exact same wrong spelling myself. I hate that! John Hawkins has found a guy who threw buckets of water on peace protestors. Now the guy is trying to avoid responsiblity for his actions by wrapping himself in the flag. Here's Johns final thoughts.
Indeed. Okay, this is driving me nuts. It's been over a week and I still can't access the new LGF webhost. If someone can walk me through how to force propagation, or any other way to access the site, I'd appreciate it. I'll freely admit that we haven't done a good job at updating the Theology Department lately. (I've been posting semi-exclusively, and now even I've fallen down on the job.) It would therefore be understandable if people had not been there lately. If you're someone who stopped checking that site, the you missed Bryan Preston's excellent post on Christ and Pilate. Martin Devon argues that the trouble with letting the French help rebuild Iraq is that the French don't really want a succesful rebuilding of Iraq. He's got a point.
Note:Yes, I can't sleep. It's not that I'm not tired. I'm so tired that I can't even think of the word that means, "can't sleep." The New York Times has a story about a man who lives in Basra. Many of the things this man says are things I suspect are actually widespread and demonstrate some of the long term difficulties with bringing freedom and democracy to these people. I bring it up not because I think it was a bad thing to do, but because we need to keep our eyes open as we proceed.
Let's think about this for a minute. He has fond memories of Hussein, yet he yearns to be in the U.S. Later in the story we'll find that his family moved tot he U.S. years ago and he hopes to do the same. He says, "I loved Saddam Hussein, and I will love the British." I could be wrong, but I strongly suspect that this is the voice of a man who is used to telling people whatever he think you want to hear so he can stay alive. Saddam's people were in charge, so he loved him. Now the British are in charge, so he loves them. Always a follower. I'm afraid way too many Iraqis have been beat down like this.
He's got fond memories of the Ba'athist party as well.
Nice people unless you make them mad. Indeed. But if you make them mad, they might throw your kids in prison.
He's got good reason for loving Saddam, as you will see.
"I love him because he didn't hurt me"? It's a sad commentary on Iraq indeed that expectations are so low. Well, yes, I know that they're bad men, but they haven't harmed me personally, so I love them.
You'll note, however, that even in this stirring profession of love, our protagonist still portrays Hussein as horribly corrupt.
This is what has happened to the Iraqi people. It didn't happen over night, either. Saddam Hussein has been in power for over 20 years and the Ba'ath party much longer. Independence of spirt was beat out of these people over decades. It won't return over night.
However, there are encouraging signs. I'm virtually certain that I'm not the only one to point this out (though I don't remember who else has said it), but even large anti-US protests in Baghdad are positive signs. The protests are a good thing because it shows that at least some of the people are willing to stand up and speak they're mind, even if what they have to say means speaking out against they guys with the tanks. The fact that some Iraqis are willing to protest shows that (a) they haven't all forgotten how to stand up for dissenting views, (b) they know that no matter how much we dislike what they have to say, we're not going to shoot them for saying it.
Bringing freedom to these people is the right thing to do, but we should not deceive ourselves; it's going to take them awhile to get it right. We've brought the Iraqi people this far. The final steps in creating a functional representative government are ones they must take themselves. However, our government, and our people, have a moral duty to do whatever we can to help. Friday, April 18, 2003
Here's an interesting story.
There's more to the story, but the jist of it was that an inmate had hired his old cell mate to commit an arson. To collect enough evidence to convict him for attempted arson and attempted murder, they had to provide him the evidence he had requested. That evidence was a newspaper article about the fire.
The issue here is that the newspaper did genuine good because they helped catch a pretty nasty criminal attempting to commit more murders from his jail cell. On the other hand, they did lie. It certainly could hurt their journalistic credibility in the future. I'm of two minds on this to some extent. In the final analysis, though, I think they did more good than harm. Besides, journalists have lied for far less noble reasons. Hmm. For some reason nothing I've seen today has generated any thought. I guess we'll see if I come up with anything later. Thursday, April 17, 2003
The World is Ending. For nearly as long as I can remember, my uncle has driven a Suburban. For most of that time, it was the same one. (He had the engine in his first one rebuilt, three times as I recall, before breaking down and buying a new one. Today my dad passed on this e-mail from my uncle.
Tomorrow, Saddam turns himself in and begs to be executed. Heh I just heard a local sportscaster refer to Eric Dybas, the moron who ran onto the field during a Royals-Whitesox game to attack the referee, as "Eric Dumbass." He quickly corrected himself, but it was certainly a revealing slip. Huh? I've seen comments on various websites the last week or so to the effect that the war in Iraq proves that Rumsfeld's vision of a fast, high tech military is a colossal failure. Huh?!! is about all I can say about that position. We won a war in a little over three weeks while suffering minimal casualties and remarkably little collateral damage. That was done largely using Rumsfeld's vision of a new way of fighting. All that aside, it may be true that in the long run his vision will be disastrous, but people who believe that to be true have a responsibility to explain why they believe. Everyone that I've seen taking that position has presented it as if it was axiomatic. I've got news for them; it's not. The Weekly Standard reports that the Catholic church has informed Tom Daschle he may no longer refer to himself as a Catholic. The reasoning was based on the Church's position that public officials have a duty to be "morally coherent." That would be a good thing in the rest of us as well. Ouch! Martin Roth starts out an article on the Australian Church when it came to war:
Unfortunately, this happened failing wasn't confined to Australia. A couple of months ago, at the Theology Department, I pointed out the need to take advantage of the coming freedom (now much closer at hand) of the Iraqi people to evangelize there. One of the comments on that post said that many "mainstream Christian leaders" would condemn people like me. Jason Steffens has found an example. I find that in my absence, OxBlog has reorganized it's blogroll. I'm now listed in the "Theodore Roosevelt" category. The OxBlog post on the new categories describes this one as:
Moderate on domestic policy, hawkish (and generally knowledgeable about military matters) on foreign policy.
Personally I find this interesting. It would probably be fair to categorize me as hawkish on foreign policy. I believe that the primary purpose of foreign policy (and the military) is to defend the national security of the United States.
In addition to that though, I am becoming increasingly convinced that we should consider another use of American foreign policy and our military might: Ridding the world of tyrannical regimes. That was not the primary reason we invaded Afghanistan or Iraq, but their is this nagging part of me that keeps saying that maybe, just maybe, it should have been. Christ said, "From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more." I find myself wondering more and more if that axiom does not also apply to foreign policy. certainly, my nation has been richly blessed. Is it possible that we, as a nation, are not also morally obligated to do whatever it takes to bring those blessings to others? I don't know for sure. There is certainly much that bothers me about that position. Among those worries is the fact it represents a foreign policy motivated by idealism. As Juan Gato noted before the war, the idealist is potentially much more dangerous than the cynic.
Until they acknowledge, even for a little, that Bush is being honest in his motivations, they will continue to be useless. If for no other reason than that it would be wise for them to realize that the idealist is always far more dangerous than the cynic because he will actually try to do what he professes he is going to do. C.S. Lewis once said something to this effect as well. I don't remember the exact quote or the source and I'm too lazy to look it up right now, but it was something along the lines of the idealist being the most dangerous form of tyrant because he will never tire of forcing his will upon you because he strongly believes he is doing it for your own good. This is the potential danger I see with the idea of proactively attempting to topple tyrants solely because they are tyrants; will we know where to stop?
I don't know the answer to that question, but I'm working on it. Regardless of where I end up in that argument with myself, there is no doubt that I have strongly hawkish tendencies.
The TR category description also says, "generally knowledgeable about military matters." I would hope that I'm the exception to that rule. I don't feel particularly knowledgeable about the military. To the extent that I am, however, it is only because I read many people who genuinely are knowledgeable.
The part that I find to be the worst fit for me is the bit about being moderate on domestic policy. I'm certain there would be many I know who would find that description of me amusing. Personally, I've long since accepted the moniker of "conservative" with a big libertarian streak. (I agree with many libertarian ideas in theory. In practice, I find libertarians have this annoying habit of being overly idealistic, they would rather have all of nothing than part of something.)
I oppose big government, want lower taxes, and pretty much anything else that you would categorize as economically conservative. On social issues I am extremely conservative, however my conservatism in that regard doesn't manifest itself the way it does in most conservatives, or indeed, in my experience, most people. Most conservatives hear about something they find morally offensive and immediately thing, "There ought to be a law." I personally believe that in most instances this is counter productive. You cannot legislate morality. If people are doing morally reprehensible things, that is only a symptom, not the disease itself. The disease is people whose morals are reprehensible. If you want to change that, you need to win their hearts, minds, and (most importantly) their souls.
Only when peoples personal decisions begin to infringe on others rights is their a justifiable reason for the state to intervene. I support laws against abortion because I believe abortion is the taking of a innocent life. I believe that it is, by definition, murder. The state has a clear stake in preventing those under its protection from being murdered, so I believe it should outlaw abortion. (I am not entirely convinced that this is something that should be done at the Federal level, however.) I have similar problems with the idea of so-called therapeutic cloning, and therefore believe it should also be illegal. (With similar issues about federalism. Also, many may find it curious, but I have no problems with so-called reproductive cloning. Well, not moral problems. I think its silly, not unethical.)
These are the only things I can think of that I oppose on moral grounds that I believe government should forbid. There are a few things that I oppose on moral grounds and already are illegal. Many of these laws I find to be at least questionable.
I suspect that my belief that passing laws against things I find morally objectionable is, at best, unproductive may sometimes cause me to appear to be more "moderate" than I really am. Am I actually "moderate on domestic policy"? It's not how I'd classify myself, but I can see how some might think so.
The only other category that OxBlog uses that I think might fit me is:
It's not a great fit either though. As I explained above, I consider myself a conservative in most senses of the word and I love Reagan. I would not, however, consider myself a stalwart Republican. I am a registered Republican, but only because it is the major party most accepting of conservatives. I don't find my party to actually be terribly conservative, however. Some people are about political parties, others are about political ideas or movements. I suspect most Republicans are party people. I'm a movement guy. If a truly conservative party came along that had a decent chance actually winning elections came along, I'd bolt. If America had a parliamentary system, I probably would have long since left. In our winner take all system, I stick with the party that has the best opportunity to both be elected and possibly do something genuinely conservative once in a while. It's a perverse system, I know. It's just not as perverse as the rest of them. Oh, this is rich:
For those of you who aren't sure, this is a sly ploy to try to convince Israel to give up their nukes. I think this is mostly because Arab nations have had little to no success in building their own nukes. They are therefore hoping to sweet talk Israel into giving up theirs. If you can't keep up with the Jones's, convince the Jones's to come back to your level.
There are many problems with the idea of a "WMD free zone" being imposed by the UN. I'll just look at one. The only way that this could ever be proven to have happened is inspections. Not the ones like in Iraq, but real inspections where the government gives the inspectors all the evidence that they have destroyed their weapons and the inspectors verify the information.
Syria proves itself to be disingenuous by simultaneously demanding that all Middle Eastern nations destroy their WMDs and also refusing to submit to the process by which said destruction can be verified. In fact, the only nations in the Middle East that could plausibly be believed if they claimed to destroy their WMDs would be Israel and Turkey. (More likely, those nations wouldn't lie, they'd just refuse, and I can't blame them.) Depending on the time of day, and the position of the moon, you might be able to take Jordan at their word, but they're pretty much up in the air. Everybody else wouldn't destroy anything, but say they'd destroyed everything. The result would be Arab nations who had chemical weapons, and an Israeli nation with no nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons with which to respond in kind when an Arab nation finally went totally insane and used said weapons on Israel.
Note that I say when, not if. As things stand, I'd be very surprised if at least one Arab nation did not release a WMD attack on Israel. If Israel voluntarily laid down their WMDs, I'd consider it a virtual certainty.
This is a cynical ploy by Syria, and others, to convince Israel to leave itself undefended by using world pressure. The problem with that plan is, as the U.S. has shown, is that the U.N. Security Council is a paper tiger. I'd be very surprised if the U.S. allowed this to get through the U.N. Assuming that happened, I'd be dumbfounded if Israel complied. I'd probably go into cardiac arrest if the U.N. actually attempted more than really stern warnings to force Israeli compliance. An outspoken opponent of Russian President Putin was just murdered. I dearly hope this was not a politically motivated assassination, but let's face facts; when prominent and loud politicians are murdered it usually is politically motivated.
I really hope that this wasn't done by someone with ties to Putin or, especially, his government. I really don't know about that one.
The Russians confuse me. For months at a time they seem to really have their act together and seem to be making great strides. Then they spend months apparently doing all they can to screw things up royally. Lately, they've been screwing up pretty quite a lot. Well, the tax rush is over and the problems with my new medication seem to be subsiding. With any luck, I'll be back at full blogging speed soon. Little did I know when I decided I had to take this little break that I'd end up MISSING A WHOLE WAR!. I knew our forces were good, but I didn't know they were that good. Yes, I know there is still fighting going on, but it certainly seems that organized resistance is at an end. Deaths have been mercifully light on both sides, and that's a good thing. It's something I prayed for and continue to pray for. It's something I thank God for now. I'll let you go for now. The basic point of this post was just to let everyone know that, "I'M BACK!!!!!!!" |
