A Cupp of Blessing

There are certain shows that authors pray will invite them to be guests. Oprah etc. The Glenn Beck Show is one of them. If Beck holds up a book and says, "Buy this!," sales shoot to the moon.

Well, thanks to the good offices of my friend Dinesh D'Souza, my co-author and I got onto the show on GBTV, Beck's highly successful Internet-based network. Beck himself was out of town, so SE Cupp hosted, and sales indeed catapulted. We went from #200,000 on the Amazon list to #7,800 just 24 hours later.



They even played the promotional video beforehand.

Lisa says the darnedest things in these situations, and does not realize just how problematic her views are. At the AEI event, she dropped jaws by saying that the Republicans take from the poor and give to the rich, whereas the Democrats take back from the rich and give to the poor. Yes, Robin Hood is the model for good government.

At the book launch we organized at Union Theological Seminary, she claimed that the high rate of single motherhood among black families is because black men are simply unavailable. They are either in prison or we have killed them in our wars because recruiters "target" minority communities. (Hmm. How then are the babies conceived?) That got more than a few people upset and bewildered.

At this event, it was her views on abortion which showcase her contorted attempts to remain in good standing in the Democratic Party and with her Democratic friends.

Here are some responses I have encountered:

1. "Does she always pull that bait and switch on abortion? One minute you are talking about when life begins, the next moment she introduces the “scientific standard” of viability, and then third she equates viability with when life begins."

2. "Fascinating discussion on abortion. I’ve never heard anyone say, essentially, 'I think abortion is murder, but if scientists tell us it’s not…well, what can we do?'"

3. "Some modest philosophical confusion: "Life begins before conception!" Ummm... And, the "legislate according to the lowest common denominator, which is science" argument was a really weird version of it. I have no idea what she was arguing there. She started by explaining how she needed to win the argument...and then ended up saying we ought to leave "religious" premises aside but lose the argument anyway (with life beginning at viability)."

4. "Lisa's "faith committment" in the public square on economic equality but not the protection of life in which she turns to "science" as the lowest common denominator is telling. First, science tells us that the human being is a human being. Second, we all were prevented from making such a case in the public square because the matter was taken out of our hands by robed men in R v. W. Third, would she be willing to use the standard of science on economic matters? No, because science (particularly social science) shows us the devestation brought on by the welfare state."

5. "Lisa Sharon Harper was confused about when life begins? Every medical book or biology book will tell you that life begins at conception. Lisa Sharon Harper said we should look to science when talking about this subject then ignores what science says. Lisa, life begins at conception. Science says so!"

Abortion and the Demographic Disappearance of Women

They say that demographics are destiny. Think of the birth spike after WWII and how, in conjunction with our short-sighted welfare policies and the self-centeredness of that generation, it will bankrupt the country over the course of the next 20 years.

So I occasionally post on demographic issues.

Mara Hvistendahl's startling data in Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men demands the attention of feminists, abortion advocates, economists, and students of international affairs. Jonathan Last reviews it for the Wall Street Journal in "The War Against Girls."

All things being equal, the biological ratio of boy to girl births is always between 104-106:100. Only unnatural intervention can change this. Widespread abortion of baby girls in the womb would shift the birth ratio further in favor of boys.*

What we now know is that if you provide free access to abortion and if people can know the sex of the child ahead of time, the ratio of boys to girls will climb dramatically in favor of boys. People are more inclined to kill their baby girls. Hvistendahl reports that this is most true when women make the decision.

So how do things stand in the world?

> "today in India there are 112 boys born for every 100 girls"

> "In China, the number is 121—though plenty of Chinese towns are over the 150 mark"

> "Azerbaijan stands at 115, Georgia at 118 and Armenia at 120"

> "In 1989, the sex ratio for first births [in South Korea] was 104 boys for every 100 girls—perfectly normal. But couples who had a girl became increasingly desperate to acquire a boy. For second births, the male number climbed to 113; for third, to 185. Among fourth-born children, it was a mind-boggling 209."

So what's the difference between a world remarkably more full of men than women? Men and women are the same, right? It's sexist to make distinctions, right? Or is that an 80s nostrum?

Predictably, it makes for a more violent world. Lots more young men without families to restrain them and turn their energies toward industrious pursuits means crime and social instability. In politically less stable countries, it means pools of manpower from which rising tyrants can draw armies to overthrow existing governments, whether popular governments or other tyrants.

The high concentration of unmarried men in the post-Civil War wild west surely had a lot to do with why it was as wild as it was. "In 1870, for instance, the sex ratio west of the Mississippi was 125 to 100. In California it was 166 to 100. In Nevada it was 320. In western Kansas, it was 768." The author "visits the Nanjing headquarters of the "Patriot Club," an organization of Chinese surplus men who plot war games and play at mock combat."

The economics of this unnatural situation is a fascinating study on its own: sharply increased savings rates, demand for U.S. Treasury bills (and for gold, I would add), increased attraction of prostitution as a way for poor families to turn daughters into income.

The obvious conclusion is that abortion is unnatural and wrong and leads to unhappy consequences as all unnatural behavior does.

Western feminists no doubt will cling to their abortion rights, and advocate banning sex screening or any advance notice of the a child's sex. Or they will push for a worldwide education campaign for the value of little girls. Sadly, Hvistendahl is herself an anti-Christian feminist, and worries that the "Christian right" will use these findings to threaten our precious abortion rights. She chooses rigorous government enforcement of a ban on sex screening. The reviewer notes, "It is telling that Ms. Hvistendahl identifies a ban on abortion—and not the killing of tens of millions of unborn girls—as the 'worst nightmare' of feminism."

Last, who is a senior writer for The Weekly Standard, concludes wisely:

Despite the author's intentions, "Unnatural Selection" might be one of the most consequential books ever written in the campaign against abortion. It is aimed, like a heat-seeking missile, against the entire intellectual framework of "choice." For if "choice" is the moral imperative guiding abortion, then there is no way to take a stand against "gendercide." Aborting a baby because she is a girl is no different from aborting a baby because she has Down syndrome or because the mother's "mental health" requires it. Choice is choice. One Indian abortionist tells Ms. Hvistendahl: "I have patients who come and say 'I want to abort because if this baby is born it will be a Gemini, but I want a Libra.'"


This is where choice leads. This is where choice has already led. Ms. Hvistendahl may wish the matter otherwise, but there are only two alternatives: Restrict abortion or accept the slaughter of millions of baby girls and the calamities that are likely to come with it.

Unnatural Selection is published by PublicAffairs (314 pages, $26.99).

*I have changed this paragraph in response to a reader comment.

**********
This article has stirred up a lot of discussion. Here is Ross Douthat in the New York Times: "160 Million and Counting."

Here are the Crises. Where are the Statesmen?

What should we expect of our next president? What is the defining crisis of our times? It would help if we had a History of the Twenty-first Century, but that won’t be available for many years to come.

The remarkable thing about great statesmen is that, as though by intuitive grasp of the relative importance of things, they seem to see the present in the clear light of the future. Churchill, in the political wilderness, saw the monstrous threat of Nazism long before his more respectable contemporaries did. It was not a recent insight that he shared in his “Their Finest Hour” speech when he cast the coming Battle of Britain as a contest for “the survival of Christian civilization” and “the abyss of a new Dark Age.”

When we look for a presidential candidate, we are looking for a statesman.

Mitch Daniels says the great crisis is financial. There is a strong case to be made for this. But statesmen are also able to read and lead the public. Daniels stumbled in this. Last year, he told Andy Ferguson of the Weekly Standard that the next president would have to call a truce on social issues to focus on our nation’s more immediate and existential crisis of crippling debt. "It is just a suggestion I made once," he told World reporter Edward Lee Pitts. Both Pitts and Ferguson demonstrate that Daniels is pro-life to his bones. Ferguson quotes Curt Smith, head of the Indiana Family Institute, saying, “He has a deep faith, he’s totally pro-life, and he walks the talk.” Perhaps it was just a stumble. Perhaps he is a great man, and not the bean counter he appeared to be at that moment.

Newt Gingrich tells us that Islam will swallow us if we do not rally against it. This could be true, and rally we must. But in America, unlike Europe which has already committed moral and demographic suicide, we still have a backbone to stiffen, and our uniquely free society encourages Muslim Americans to moderate and assimilate. As for Newt, he is not a great man. He is strong on insight and analysis, but profoundly deficient in character. No man as morally hollow as Newt Gingrich should be President. We suffered that from 1992-2000. Newt is the Bill Clinton of the right

In yesterday's Worldmag column, I make my case that abortion and the disintegration of the family are the great moral crises that threaten to destroy the nation ("Facing the Crisis of Our Times").

As for abortion in particular, not only does it present serious demographic and workforce challenges, it is a moral blight that invites God's righteous judgment.

We need to repent of our evil, return to the Lord, and reform our ways. George Washington saw the flourishing of our nation as inseparable from our national repentance before God’s righteous majesty and from our trust above all in the strength of his arm on our behalf. He wrote at time when the Lord’s government of the nations was commonly recognized and with a clear political conscience for doing so.

In his General Orders of March 6, 1776, as Commander of the Continental Army, General Washington declared, “a day of fasting, prayer, and humiliation to implore the Lord, the Giver of all victory, to pardon our manifold sins and wickedness’s (sic.), and that it would please him to bless the Continental Arms, with his divine favor and protection.” (I thank Dr. Peter Lillback for sending me this reference.)

Tiller and His Killer

 

I have found that there are two ways to upset my evangelical Christian students (not that I try to do that). I can either question in any way the complete freedom of human will, or question people's right to rebel against the government and take the law into their own hands.

Granted, this is not true of all my students, and perhaps not even most of them, but these topics never fail to stir up a vocal response (though they are always civil and respectful).

Here is an excerpt from my post over at WORLDmag.com on why Scott Roeder was wrong to kill the radical abortionist, George Tiller:

This past Friday, Scott Roeder was sentenced to life in prison for last May’s shooting death of George Tiller, one of the few doctors in the country who performed partial-birth abortions. Tiller was a doctor only in the legal sense of the word. He was not a healer, but a killer—a callous monster who could hold a baby in his hands as the child emerged from the mother, puncture its skull, and suck its brains out. Tiller was a mass murderer, though the unjust laws that govern that practice in America sanctioned his butchery. It does not follow, however, that Roeder was justified in what he did, as almost every Christian opponent of abortion would agree. ...

Read "Leaving Tiller to God."

Piper's Respectful Rebuke on Abortion

In the wake of President Obama's commencement address at University of Notre Dame, controversial because of the university's Roman Catholicism and the President's passionate commitment to killing any unborn baby that anyone suggests killing (and sometimes even born ones), this video-text of John Piper's response to the President's statements on "reproductive freedom" back in January are well worth the three minutes it takes to view it.



(The text graphics are artsy, perhaps post-modern, and I suspect they corrupt us as we watch them appear and move and explode and such.)

Monsters Among Us

Last Friday, an 11-year-old boy in western Pennsylvania shot his father's fiancee in the head with a youth model 20-gauge shotgun while she was sleeping, killing her, and leaving her two daughters, ages 7 and 11, motherless. The victim, 26-year-old Kenzie Marie Houk, was eight months pregnant. As monstrous as it is for a boy of that age to kill someone so close in relationship to him, and at point blank range, having no concern even for her baby, and with no doubt bloody and horrible results, what is even even more monstrous is that he was able then to put away his gun, get on the school bus, and head off to school as though nothing unusual had happened.

Though most people have heard this story, I find it remarkable that two stories I have read report this monstrous act while revealing the monstrosity of their own moral attitudes.

The original AP story I read added this comment concerning the baby: "Houk's fetus died within minutes due to a lack of oxygen, Lawrence County Coroner Russell Noga said." It is at least ironic that while reporting on what is clearly a monstrous act by a child, the reporter uses language which is intended to preserve our emotional comfort with acting monstrously toward our unborn children. No unindoctrinated woman suffering this kind of loss would say that she lost her "fetus" eight months into her pregnancy. Unless you want to kill it, convince someone else to kill it, or speak of it with cold, scientific abstraction for some other reason, it's a baby.

Then the psychologist adds an opinion, and the moral understanding takes a nosedive from its already lamentable depths.

The Washington Post quotes psychologist Patricia Papernow, an expert on blended families, saying, "It looks awful from the outside and sort of unspeakable, but these are the kinds of feelings that are pretty normal in a new stepfamily. You just hope there's not a loaded gun around."

You see, from the point of view of the most advanced thinking in social science, there's nothing wrong with the boy. He's perfectly normal. The problem is the prevalence of guns in that part of the country.

Notice that from her enlightened vantage point, this particular slaying is only "sort of" unspeakable.

It seems that when one monster emerges from the woods, he draws out a few more. When that happens, it's wise to make a note of where they're coming from.

The Unaborted Obama

Today, President Obama lifted the ban on providing federal funds to groups, at home and abroad, that provide abortions or information about abortions.

The BBC reports, "A spokesman for the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) earlier told the BBC that under the Bush administration, the organisation had lost more than $100m (£73m) in funding, affecting its services across 176 countries."

Fox News tells us, "The so-called Mexico City policy requires any non-governmental organization to agree before receiving U.S. funds that they will 'neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.' It is also known as the "global gag rule," because it prohibits taxpayer funding for groups that even talk about abortion if there is an unplanned pregnancy. The policy was first instituted by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 and continued by President George H.W. Bush. The policy was reversed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, and re-instated by President George W. Bush in 2001."

Next up, the Freedom of Choice Act. According to David Freddoso in The Case Against Barack Obama (Regnery, 2008), "This bill would effectively cancel every state, federal, and local regulation of abortion, no matter how modest or reasonable. It would even, according to the National Organization of Women, abolish all state restrictions on government funding for abortions. If Obama becomes president and lives up to this promise, then everyone who pays income tax will be paying an abortionist to perform an abortion."

But as of January 23, 2009, this is still the land of liberty, and so the opponents of abortion have initiated a more vigorous public discussion on this subject, as we see in this video.



Perhaps abortion advocates, in their overreach, will find themselves hoist on their own petard.

For an account of Barack Obama's advocacy of even the most monstrous abortion liberties, see my post, "Obama and Abortion: Radical Again."

The Kennedy and Catholic Roots of Abortion Rights

President John F. Kennedy and Pope Paul VI at the Vatican, 1963

It is no revelation that Caroline Kennedy would be a strong supporter of abortion rights in the U.S. Senate, even their most hideous mutations. But Anne Hendershott has researched the very interesting (and, for the Roman Catholic Church, unflattering) connection between the Kennedy family, a group of prominent Catholic theologians (including Robert Drinan of Boston College and Charles Curran), and the development of the abortion rights establishment in the Democratic Party ("How Support for Abortion Became Kennedy Dogma," Wall Street Journal, Jan. 1, 2009).

Ted Kennedy was on record as defending the life of the unborn in 1971. In a letter to a constituent, he wrote, "When history looks back to this era it should recognize this generation as one which cared about human beings enough to halt the practice of war, to provide a decent living for every family, and to fulfill its responsibility to its children from the very moment of conception." He was not alone in taking that position.

But that all changed in the early '70s, when Democratic politicians first figured out that the powerful abortion lobby could fill their campaign coffers (and attract new liberal voters). Politicians also began to realize that, despite the Catholic Church's teachings to the contrary, its bishops and priests had ended their public role of responding negatively to those who promoted a pro-choice agenda.

In some cases, church leaders actually started providing "cover" for Catholic pro-choice politicians who wanted to vote in favor of abortion rights. At a meeting at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Mass., on a hot summer day in 1964, the Kennedy family and its advisers and allies were coached by leading theologians and Catholic college professors on how to accept and promote abortion with a "clear conscience."

The former Jesuit priest Albert Jonsen, emeritus professor of ethics at the University of Washington, recalls the meeting in his book The Birth of Bioethics (Oxford, 2003). He writes about how he joined with the Rev. Joseph Fuchs, a Catholic moral theologian; the Rev. Robert Drinan, then dean of Boston College Law School; and three academic theologians, the Revs. Giles Milhaven, Richard McCormick and Charles Curran, to enable the Kennedy family to redefine support for abortion.

Mr. Jonsen writes that the Hyannisport colloquium was influenced by the position of another Jesuit, the Rev. John Courtney Murray, a position that "distinguished between the moral aspects of an issue and the feasibility of enacting legislation about that issue." It was the consensus at the Hyannisport conclave that Catholic politicians "might tolerate legislation that would permit abortion under certain circumstances if political efforts to repress this moral error led to greater perils to social peace and order."

Father Milhaven later recalled the Hyannisport meeting during a 1984 breakfast briefing of Catholics for a Free Choice: "The theologians worked for a day and a half among ourselves at a nearby hotel. In the evening we answered questions from the Kennedys and the Shrivers. Though the theologians disagreed on many a point, they all concurred on certain basics . . . and that was that a Catholic politician could in good conscience vote in favor of abortion."

It is an interesting footnote that, despite his open rebellion against his church's fundamental moral teachings, Charles Curran is not only still accepted as a member of his church in good standing, but also still an ordained priest in that church. (See his faculty page at SMU.)

Prof. Anne Hendershott teaches "Introduction to the City" at The King's College in New York City.

Obama Victory Means Joy and Vigilance

Albert Mohler offers a godly and astute Christian response to the results of the presidential election. I am sure he would not mind me reprinting it in its entirety.

America Has Chosen a President

Posted: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 at 5:04 am ET

The election of Sen. Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States came as a bang, not a whimper. The tremors had been perceptible for days, maybe even weeks. On Tuesday, America experienced nothing less than a political and cultural earthquake.

The margin of victory for the Democratic ticket was clear. Americans voted in record numbers and with tangible enthusiasm. By the end of the day, it was clear that Barack Obama would be elected with a majority of the popular vote and a near landslide in the Electoral College. When President-Elect Obama greeted the throngs of his supporters in Chicago's Grant Park, he basked in the glory of electoral energy.

For many of us, the end of the night brought disappointment. In this case, the disappointment is compounded by the sense that the issues that did not allow us to support Sen. Obama are matters of life and death -- not just political issues of heated debate. Furthermore, the margin of victory and sense of a shift in the political landscape point to greater disappointments ahead. We all knew that so much was at stake.

For others, the night was magical and momentous. Young and old cried tears of amazement and victory as America elected its first African-American President -- and elected him overwhelmingly. Just forty years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, an African-American stood to claim victory as President-Elect of the nation. As Sen. Obama assured the crowd in Chicago and the watching nation, "We will get there. We will get there." No one hearing those words could fail to hear the refrain of plaintive words spoken in Memphis four decades ago. President-Elect Obama would stand upon the mountaintop that Dr. King had foreseen.

That victory is a hallmark moment in history for all Americans -- not just for those who voted for Sen. Obama. As a nation, we will never think of ourselves the same way again. Americans rich and poor, black and white, old and young, will look to an African-American man and know him as President of the United States. The President. The only President. The elected President. Our President.

Every American should be moved by the sight of young African-Americans who -- for the first time -- now believe that they have a purchase in American democracy. Old men and old women, grandsons and granddaughters of slaves and slaveholders, will look to an African-American as President.

Regardless of politics, could anyone remain unmoved by the sight of Jesse Jackson crying alone amidst the crowd in Chicago? This dimension of Election Day transcends politics and touches the heart of the American people.

Yet, the issues and the politics remain. Given the scale of the Democratic victory, the political landscape will be completely reshaped. The fight for the dignity and sanctity of unborn human beings has been set back by a great loss, and by the election of a President who has announced his intention to sign the Freedom of Choice Act into law. The struggle to protect marriage against its destruction by redefinition is now complicated by the election of a President who has declared his aim to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. On issue after issue, we face a longer, harder, and more protracted struggle than ever before.

Still, we must press on as advocates for the unborn, for the elderly, for the infirm, and for the vulnerable. We must redouble our efforts to defend marriage and the integrity of the family. We must be vigilant to protect religious liberty and the freedom of the pulpit. We face awesome battles ahead.

At the same time, we must be honest and recognize that the political maps are being redrawn before our eyes. Will the Republican Party decide that conservative Christians are just too troublesome for the party and see the pro-life movement as a liability? There is the real danger that the Republicans, stung by this defeat, will adopt a libertarian approach to divisive moral issues and show conservative Christians the door.

Others will declare these struggles over, arguing that the election of Sen. Obama means that Americans in general -- and many younger Evangelicals in particular -- are ready to "move on" to other issues. This is no time for surrender or the abandonment of our core principles. We face a much harder struggle ahead, but we have no right to abandon the struggle.

We should look for opportunities to work with the new President and his administration where we can. We must hope that he will lead and govern as the bridge-builder he claimed to be in his campaign. We must confront and oppose the Obama administration where conscience demands, but work together where conscience allows.

Evangelical Christians face another challenge with the election of Sen. Obama, and a failure to rise to this challenge will bring disrepute upon the Gospel, as well as upon ourselves. There must be absolutely no denial of the legitimacy of President-Elect Obama's election and no failure to accord this new President the respect and honor due to anyone elected to that high office. Failure in this responsibility is disobedience to a clear biblical command.

Beyond this, we must commit ourselves to pray for this new President, for his wife and family, for his administration, and for the nation. We are commanded to pray for rulers, and this new President faces challenges that are not only daunting but potentially disastrous. May God grant him wisdom. He and his family will face new challenges and the pressures of this office. May God protect them, give them joy in their family life, and hold them close together.

We must pray that God will protect this nation even as the new President settles into his role as Commander in Chief, and that God will grant peace as he leads the nation through times of trial and international conflict and tension.

We must pray that God would change President-Elect Obama's mind and heart on issues of our crucial concern. May God change his heart and open his eyes to see abortion as the murder of the innocent unborn, to see marriage as an institution to be defended, and to see a host of issues in a new light. We must pray this from this day until the day he leaves office. God is sovereign, after all.

Without doubt, we face hard days ahead. Realistically, we must expect to be frustrated and disappointed. We may find ourselves to be defeated and discouraged. We must keep ever in mind that it is God who raises up nations and pulls them down, and who judges both nations and rulers. We must not act or think as unbelievers, or as those who do not trust God.

America has chosen a President. President-Elect Barack Obama is that choice, and he faces a breathtaking array of challenges and choices in days ahead. This is the time for Christians to begin praying in earnest for our new President. There is no time to lose.

You may read more from Albert Mohler at www.AlbertMohler.com.

Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr. is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary where he is also professor of theology.

The Simplistic Notion of Liberty

It is interesting when people on the political left in American politics say explicitly the deplorably unjust things they actually believe. We saw this during the campaign when Michelle Obama said that the popular support for her husband made her proud of her country for the first time in her adult life. Or when Barack Obama told Joe the Plumber that the government needs to use the tax system to spread the wealth around.

Here is Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) sharing what is a common notion among the Democrats:

Now in the last seven years we have had the highest corporate profit ever in American history. Highest corporate profit! We’ve had the highest productivity! The American worker has produced more per person at any time, but it hasn’t been shared, and that’s the problem because we have been guided by a Republican administration who believes in this simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it and they have an antipathy towards the means of redistributing wealth.

Is it a "simplistic" notion that people should be secure in their property, and that one of the fundamental purposes of government is to provide that security? To state it more pointedly, is it a simplistic notion that government should protect us against robbers, and not become itself a robber? What is government-enforced redistribution of wealth but the less wealthy majority pillaging the more wealthy minority through the coercive power of the state?

Take it to the next level. Is it a simplistic notion that people who have lives should be able to keep them? Given President-elect Barack Obama's and the Democratic Party's stand and record on abortion, infanticide, the "harvesting" of prenatal human life for medical research--and who knows what else?--it is obvious that the Democrats see that as a "simplistic notion" as well. (This post only begins to summarize Obama's radical commitment to killing the unborn under every imaginable circumstance.)

Consider also the enthusiasm among Democrats for the so-called Fairness Doctrine by which private broadcasters exercising their political free speech in the public square would have to balance conservative expressions with liberal ones. (For background, read this 1993 summary of the issue from the Heritage Foundation.) Is it "simplistic" to think that people who have opinions are entitled to express them? To the Democrats, apparently not. (Hear it from the very powerful New York Senator, Charles Schumer, in The Hill, Nov. 4, 2008.)

It appears that in the ruling Democratic view, it is a simplistic notion that those who have liberty should be entitled to exercise it and live securely in it.

The New World Obama Will Make

Pat Buchanan (quite reasonably) sees this as President Obama leaves the starting blocks ("Obama's First 100 Days").

• Swift amnesty for 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens and a drive to make them citizens and register them, as in the Bill Clinton years. This will mean that Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona will soon move out of reach for GOP presidential candidates, as has California.

• Border security will go on the backburner, and America will have a virtual open border with a Mexico of 110 million.

• Taxes will be raised on the top 5 percent of wage-earners, who now carry 60 percent of the U.S. income tax burden, and tens of millions of checks will be sent out to the 40 percent of wage-earners who pay no federal income tax. Like the man said, redistribute the wealth, spread it around.

• Social Security taxes will be raised on the most successful among us, and capital gains taxes will be raised from 15 percent to 20 percent. The Bush tax cuts will be repealed, and death taxes reimposed.

• Two or three more liberal activists of the Ruth Bader Ginsburg-John Paul Stevens stripe will be named to the Supreme Court. U.S. district and appellate courts will be stacked with "progressives."

• Special protections for homosexuals will be written into all civil rights laws, and gays and lesbians in the military will be invited to come out of the closet. "Don't ask, don't tell" will be dead.

• The homosexual marriages that state judges have forced California, Massachusetts and Connecticut to recognize, an Obama Congress or Obama court will require all 50 states to recognize.

• A "Freedom of Choice Act" nullifying all state restrictions on abortions will be enacted. America will become the most pro-abortion nation on earth.

• Affirmative action – hiring and promotions based on race, sex and sexual orientation until specified quotas are reached – will be rigorously enforced throughout the U.S. government and private sector.

• Universal health insurance will be enacted, covering legal and illegal immigrants, providing another powerful magnet for the world to come to America, if necessary by breaching her borders.

• A federal bailout of states and municipalities to keep state and local governments spending up could come in December or early next year.

• The first trillion-dollar deficit will be run in the first year of an Obama presidency. It will be the first of many.

Your children will grow up (and themselves have children) in a radically different America.

The only hope for some moderation in this Pelosi-Reid supported agenda is ...

(1) Obama has run as a centrist, covering over many of these issues, such as abortion, homosexual marriage and amnesty for illegal aliens;

(2) popular outcry against some of these measures by (oddly) surprised middle America will restrain House and Senate members facing re-election in marginal districts within two years;

(3) his natural concern to maintain his legislative majority by not repeating Clinton's mistakes leading up to the 1994 GOP midterm Congressional victory, and of course to see himself re-elected in 2012.

Obama and Abortion: Radical Again

Prof. Robert George at Princeton has written these articles on Barack Obama's profoundly radical position on abortion. Both articles are posted at an online journal recently established by the Witherspoon Institute called Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and the Common Good.

Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and the Common Good is an online publication of the Witherspoon Institute that seeks to enhance the public understanding of the moral foundations of free societies by making the scholarship of the fellows and affiliated scholars of the Institute available and accessible to a general audience.

"Obama's Abortion Extremism" by Robert George (October 14, 2008)

Sen. Barack Obama's views on life issues ranging from abortion to embryonic stem cell research mark him as not merely a pro-choice politician, but rather as the most extreme pro-abortion candidate to have ever run on a major party ticket.

Barack Obama is the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the office of President of the United States. He is the most extreme pro-abortion member of the United States Senate. Indeed, he is the most extreme pro-abortion legislator ever to serve in either house of the United States Congress. ...

He has promised that "the first thing I'd do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act" (known as FOCA). This proposed legislation would create a federally guaranteed "fundamental right" to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, including, as Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia has noted in a statement condemning the proposed Act, "a right to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks for undefined 'health' reasons." In essence, FOCA would abolish virtually every existing state and federal limitation on abortion, including parental consent and notification laws for minors, state and federal funding restrictions on abortion, and conscience protections for pro-life citizens working in the health-care industry-protections against being forced to participate in the practice of abortion or else lose their jobs. The pro-abortion National Organization for Women has proclaimed with approval that FOCA would "sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws [and] policies."

It gets worse. Obama, unlike even many "pro-choice" legislators, opposed the ban on partial-birth abortions when he served in the Illinois legislature and condemned the Supreme Court decision that upheld legislation banning this heinous practice. He has referred to a baby conceived inadvertently by a young woman as a "punishment" that she should not endure. He has stated that women's equality requires access to abortion on demand. Appallingly, he wishes to strip federal funding from pro-life crisis pregnancy centers that provide alternatives to abortion for pregnant women in need. There is certainly nothing "pro-choice" about that.

But it gets even worse. ... It gets worse yet. ... You may be thinking, it can't get worse than that. But it does. ... Can it get still worse? Yes. ... (Follow the link to read on.)

He opposes legislation to protect babies that are accidentally born alive. He supports the industrial production of embryos for research purposes. He opposes spending any federal money for research into finding the functional equivalent of embryonic stem cells. As Prof. George says, "From any rational vantage point, this is unconscionable."

Read this stirring yet chilling glimpse into "Obama's America." This is not Borking. This is reading Obama's public record and foreseeing Obama's presidency on that basis.

What kind of America do we want our beloved nation to be? Barack Obama's America is one in which being human just isn't enough to warrant care and protection. It is an America where the unborn may legitimately be killed without legal restriction, even by the grisly practice of partial-birth abortion. It is an America where a baby who survives abortion is not even entitled to comfort care as she dies on a stainless steel table or in a soiled linen bin. It is a nation in which some members of the human family are regarded as inferior and others superior in fundamental dignity and rights. In Obama's America, public policy would make a mockery of the great constitutional principle of the equal protection of the law. In perhaps the most telling comment made by any candidate in either party in this election year, Senator Obama, when asked by Rick Warren when a baby gets human rights, replied: "that question is above my pay grade." It was a profoundly disingenuous answer: For even at a state senator's pay grade, Obama presumed to answer that question with blind certainty. His unspoken answer then, as now, is chilling: human beings have no rights until infancy - and if they are unwanted survivors of attempted abortions, not even then. (emphasis mine)

This charming fellow is a monster.

As an aside, if you look forward to electing the first black president of the United States one day, as I hope we all do, don't let it be this one.

"Obama and Infanticide" by Robert George and Yuval Levin (October 16, 2008)

Obama's latest excuse for opposing the Illinois Born-Alive Infants Protection Act is that the law was ''unnecessary'' because babies surviving abortions were already protected. It won't fly.

In last night's presidential debate, Sen. John McCain finally found an opportunity to confront Sen. Barack Obama on his vote against protecting children who were born alive after an attempted abortion. Obama's response followed the pattern of his approach to this subject throughout the campaign: deny the facts and confuse the issue. He said:

''There was a bill that was put forward before the Illinois Senate that said you have to provide lifesaving treatment and that would have helped to undermine Roe v. Wade. The fact is that there was already a law on the books in Illinois that required providing lifesaving treatment, which is why not only myself but pro-choice Republicans and Democrats voted against it.''

But the facts of the born-alive debate tell a different story. ... (Follow the link to read on.)

Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. He is a member of the President's Council on Bioethics and previously served on the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He sits on the editorial board of Public Discourse.

Yuval Levin is a Fellow and Director of the Program on Bioethics and American Democracy of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and senior editor of The New Atlantis.

Obama on the the Bible and Civil Law

Is Barack Obama ridiculing the Bible in this video?



Of course, he is. He is not an evangelical Christian. Divine revelation does not inform his understanding of the words "Jesus," "Christian," and "gospel." He has some imaginary notion of what a Christian is. We see here that, like any theological liberal, he thinks the Bible is replete with barbarism, absurdity, mythology, and the traditions of men passing themselves off as the commandments of God. So of course he mocks the civil and ceremonial laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, but more surprisingly he mocks the Sermon on the Mount. I take it that as president he would not abolish the department of defense in obedience to what he takes the Lord's Sermon to be teaching.

Beyond that, what he says about the way we bring the moral injunctions of Scripture to the legislative process in a nation that has lost its Christian consensus is perfectly legitimate. He says that Christians cannot simply cite Scripture as a basis for legislation. They have to translate it into rationally defensible terms that people of any or no religion can accept.

But that is what we do anyway. If not from moral conviction, certainly from political necessity. Communities, when they make laws, make reference to principles and sources of authority they hold in common. So exactly what is he trying to correct?

What is remarkable in connection with Barack Obama personally, however, is that the reasoned argumentation that he advocates appears to have no effect on his own legislative agenda. What could be easier to defend on the basis of natural reason (dare I say natural law or general revelation?) than preserving the life of a baby intended to be killed by abortion but accidentally born alive? Obama voted against this protection deliberately and repeatedly when he was an Illinois state senator. So much for the appeal to reason.

Here is nurse Jill Stanek, who testified before the House of Representatives before it passed the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, describing her experience with live babies tossed in the trash, a practice that State Senator Obama defended, or at least refused steadfastly to outlaw.



Perhaps an appeal to Scripture, a call to repent, and a vivid description of sufferings in hell would have been more effective with Mr. Obama.

Candidates of Life and Death

In light of Barack Obama's voting record, John McCain's selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate puts the abortion issue squarely in the public eye in a way that could not be more flattering to the respect for innocent, unborn life, and could not be more unflattering to the support for legalized and freely available abortion.

God is the author of life. Knowing him in Christ is fullness of life. Where his presence is, there is life. Where he withdraws, there is death. Hell is the second death.

When people deny God, they deny life. The Soviet Communists killed tens of millions of their own citizens. The Communist Chinese force mothers to abort their unborn children. In America, our cultural and political authorities have been explicitly turning away from God and embracing atheism for the last 40 years. As a consequence of this, we have tolerated and even encouraged 40 million abortions since 1973. It is the equivalent of a self-inflicted nuclear strike.

Whereas Sarah Palin, an Evangelical Christian, has five children and refused to abort that last one when she learned he had Downs Syndrome (it's a disgrace that we think of that as heroic because it implies the acceptability of killing difficult children), Barack Obama as Illinois state senator voted against a bill to protect babies who are born alive despite an abortion procedure. An almost identical bill passed the U.S. Senate at the same time by a vote of 98-0.

This juxtaposition of candidates is an interesting providence.

President of a Disappearing Russia

 

The Russians have elected Dmitri Medvedev as their new president on the friendly advice of the (sort of) outgoing Vladimir Putin. If there have been themes in the Putin presidency they would be kleptocracy, (quietly) re-establishing the KGB and restoring the greatness of Russia. Partly on account of rising oil prices and partly through diplomatic obstinacy, Putin is widely credited with returning Russia to the position of major international player. But this illusion cannot be maintain given the alarming trend of Russian demographics over the last 15 years.

Chart: news.bbc.co.uk

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the population of Russia went into remarkable decline. In 2000, President Putin made it a priority to reverse this trend but on it goes. First a growing economy need a growing population. A shrinking population portends economic implosion. Furthermore, a shrinking economy is symptomatic of deeper and profoundly distressing problems.

In 2000, the BBC reported that "Drug use, alcoholism and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are leading reasons for the decline, said Murray Feshbach, a senior scholar at the Smithsonian Institution's Woodrow Wilson Center....About 15% of Russian couples are infertile, he said. And as many as 75% of women experience serious medical problems during pregnancy." In 1999, the fertility rate was 1.17. The replacement rate simply for a stable population is 2.5.

Feshbach said that STDs are a big part of the problem. "'There's syphilis, gonorrhoea, chlamydia, HIV/Aids, prostitution,' he said. He estimates that there are between 450,000 and 500,000 cases of syphilis in Russia, out of a population of 145 million." He also remarked that these diseases affect the health of those who are born, and thus their ability to function (he said their "quality," but we know what he means).

Life expectancy for a man in Russia is 59, and for a woman it is 72. Alcoholism continues to be a huge problem. In 1999, the United Nations Human Development Report ranked Russia 72nd of the 174 countries surveyed.

Unless they can stabilize their people morally, give them economic hope for the future, and attract immigrants, Russia is headed for the "failed state" category. China is facing similar demographic problems. They have an annual economic growth rate of about 10%, and yet their population is approaching decline. In the last decade, China has seen significant decrease in population under the age of 20. In the next 15 years, they will see a shrinking population of people under 50. China's problem has not been syphilis. Rather, they have been systematically killing off their own children. Sin has natural consequences. Perhaps our own workforce problem, manifesting itself in illegal immigration (the complaint of the right) and outsourcing (the complaint of the left) has something to do with our less systematic killing of our children since Roe v. Wade made abortion a constitutional right.

Letting the Dems in the Door Will Cost Lives

It is tempting to be so distracted with what you dislike and even hate about your party's nominee that you allow it to become all there is to see. In my last post, "Romney is Nice, But No President," I argue that having a President who will protect the lives of people in this country from slaughter by either terrorism or abortion is the chief consideration in the coming election. For others, because the abortion battles have continued for so long with seemingly little benefit having come from them, it is tempting to become discouraged and perhaps even cynical. What difference does it make who is in the White House, a pro-life Republican or a pro-choice Democrat? Abortions continue either way. In response to my abortion concern in choosing the next President, Richie says this in the comments:

With a supposedly pro-life president, a supposedly pro-life congress, and a 5-4 advantage on the Supreme Court, what exactly was done to curtail abortion? The court question is a little dicey (which way would Kennedy or O'Connor go), but the GOP held Congress and the Presidency, and they did nothing. I consider abortion to be the most shameful (ongoing) episode in American history, but it's a little disingenuous to act like the pro-life views of the next President are going to make a difference in overturning Roe v. Wade. I just don't see either party doing much to end (or increase) abortion. It's much safer to keep the status quo, and be "pro-life" or "pro-choice" and not do anything about it....Obama, Clinton, McCain, Romney, or Britney Spears, there will still be babies being murdered in 2012. Abortion is legal because Americans want abortion to be legal. I'm too young to be this cynical, I think....

Well, let me encourage you with this. There are two ways in which it makes a difference who is President and who controls Congress as far as this matter is concerned. First, Republican Presidents since 1981 have passed executive orders forbidding the use of federal funds to pay for abortions. Our economist friends tell us that when you subsidize something, consumption goes up. A Democratic President will open the fire hose of public funding for abortions and little ones will die in significantly greater numbers as a consequence. (Republican Presidents have also cut off funds for abortions overseas.)

My second point goes by two names: John Roberts and Sam Alito. You have not seen a dramatic difference as result of the appointment of these two men to the Supreme Court because one of them replaced a conservative and the other replaced a moderate. The next two retirements are expected to come from the far left end of the bench: John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Replacing these two jurists even with moderates would bring a dramatic change not only on abortion questions, but as increasingly horrific practices (as if partial birth abortion weren't horrific enough) come before the high court for decision. See, for example, "An Entirely New Kind of Social Evil."

The legality of waiting periods makes a practical difference in the number of babies who are allowed to live. The legality of parental consent laws, the legality of requirements that women be informed of the nature and consequences of having an abortion--these make a difference. That is why abortion advocates hate them with such passion.

There is a lot of good that can be accomplished short of overturning Roe v. Wade. But I have hope that we could see even that.

An Entirely New Kind of Social Evil

Last night, in George W. Bush's final State of the Union Address, the President addressed a matter that has been a moral concern for him throughout his presidency: the sanctity of human life, even in its earliest stages and most vulnerable conditions. The only veto he cast in his first term pertained to stem cell research, destroying the lives of some in order to enhance and extend the lives of others. Last night, the President noted recent breakthroughs in stem cell research that will allow us to extend the benefits of scientific research without taking innocent life. So he called on Congress to empower our medical researchers "to discover new treatments while respecting moral boundaries."

On matters of life and science, we must trust in the innovative spirit of medical researchers and empower them to discover new treatments while respecting moral boundaries. In November, we witnessed a landmark achievement when scientists discovered a way to reprogram adult skin cells to act like embryonic stem cells. This breakthrough has the potential to move us beyond the divisive debates of the past by extending the frontiers of medicine without the destruction of human life. So we're expanding funding for this type of ethical medical research. And as we explore promising avenues of research, we must also ensure that all life is treated with the dignity it deserves. And so I call on Congress to pass legislation that bans unethical practices such as the buying, selling, patenting, or cloning of human life.

Source: www.worldmag.com

In November of 2001, President Bush established The President's Council on Bioethics. One of the eighteen members he appointed is Robert George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. WORLD magazine recently interviewed Robert George and Chris Tollefsen ("Little But Alive," Jan. 26/Feb. 2, 2008; also this interview) about heir recent book, Embryo: A Defense of Human Life. They argue that we have turned a terrible corner in the barbarous devaluation of our humanity in our ongoing press to conquer fortune.

Here is the worst case scenario: the creation of millions of human embryos--human beings in the early stages of development--in order to perform scientific experiments on them, and in order to harvest their body parts for medical therapies for others. We have, sadly, seen the destruction of millions of human beings before, in a litany of tragedies of the 20th century. But we have never seen the creation of human beings precisely for the purpose of destruction and use. (WORLD: And we'd all be inextricably linked to that.) The research would be funded with our tax dollars. It would be performed in our public universities. The therapies would be used by doctors for all of us in any number of circumstances. All of modern medicine would be touched by the influence of research that was deeply immoral and corrupting, and it would be nearly impossible for us to avoid being benefited by, or contributing to, this research in some way. So the creation of a massive industry for producing human embryos by cloning for research in which they are killed really does seem to us an entirely new kind of social evil, on a scale of almost unimaginable magnitude.

Fred, Huck and Rudy Part III

Having waited for Fred and given up, having weighed Huck and found him wanting, and having dismissed practitioners of bizarre religion and co-sponsors of McCain-Feingold (am I forgetting anyone important?), I turn to Rudy.

Bill Simon is a social conservative who would be happy with America's Mayor as America's Chief. He was the conservative candidate for Governor of California in 2002, and he is now Rudy Giuliani’s policy director. Here is his argument in "Confessions of a Social Conservative: Why Rudy Can Be the Right’s Guy" (National Review Online, October 12, 2007):

Giuliani saved New York City by fighting on the right side of some very important social issues. "Under Rudy, New York City became the safest large city in America. And the one million citizens on welfare? Over 640,000 of them were moved from the public dole to the private sector payroll."


On abortion: "First, the primary battles on the life issue are being fought in the courts, and the ultimate determination regarding our nation’s policy on abortion will come from the nine Justices of the Supreme Court. ...Rudy Giuliani, relying on the advice of such conservative legal stalwarts like Ted Olson, Miguel Estrada, and Steve Calabresi, will appoint strict constructionist judges in the vein of Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas."

On abortion again: "Rudy has also pledged to uphold the Hyde Amendment’s restrictions on the funding of abortions here at home, and the Mexico City Policy, ensuring that taxpayer dollars will not be distributed to non-governmental organizations that perform or promote abortions overseas. He supports parental notification laws and agrees with the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the partial-birth-abortion ban." In his Twelve Commitments to the American People, Rudy pledged, “I will increase adoptions, decrease abortions, and protect the quality of life for our children.” His record supports this claim. Adoptions in New York City rose dramatically under his administration and abortions fell 30% faster than the national average. (That's what we want isn't it? Fewer abortions?)

Michael Medved, who is "unhesitatingly pro-life," similarly sees no reason for Dobson and associates rejecting Giuliani on the basis of his abortion position. ("Abortion's Shades of Gray," USA Today, October 24, 2007)

Consider, for instance, the key differences between Giuliani's platform and those of the leading Democratic candidates. Giuliani has committed to preserve the Hyde Amendment, banning taxpayer money for abortions; the top Democrats urge repeal and favor federal funding. Giuliani applauded the recent Supreme Court decision upholding a ban on partial-birth abortion; all leading Democrats condemned it in harsh terms. The former mayor supports tougher rules requiring parental notification (with a judicial bypass) for underage girls who seek abortions; Clinton and Barack Obama oppose such legislation. Most significant of all, Giuliani has specifically cited strict-constructionists Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and John Roberts as his models for future justices of the Supreme Court — and all three of those jurists have signaled their support for allowing states more leeway in limiting abortions. The top Democrats regularly express contempt for the conservative jurists whom Giuliani admires, and worked against the Alito and Roberts nominations.

He argues that "it's a major distortion to label Giuliani as 'pro-abortion' and indistinguishable from Hillary Clinton or the other Democrats." He says that polls indicatethat most Americans taking Giuliani's position: anti-abortion and yet pro-choice. If we are going to live in America, we need to be able to live with a "President Giuliani," and even be grateful if abortions decrease and adoptions increase under his watch. Indeed, he states that that is his goal, and he can show that that is his record.

Abortion is not just any issue. It is mass murder, and it is dehumanizing to us on a massive scale. But when both nominees are for it--and you know that one of them will be President--it is morally incumbent upon a conscientious voter to examine the subtle, though important differences between the two candidates on the subject, and then vote to make the best of the situation. In a Giuliani versus Rodham Clinton contest, the choice is clear.
Tony Blankley, in "GOP Needs a Survival Instinct" (Oct. 3, 2007), puts it this way. Voting for a third-party candidate over this issue "would assure the election of Hillary, who, notwithstanding anything she might say to get elected, surely will set in motions policies that will kill more unborn humans and will advance more biblically prohibited policies than Rudy ever would." From a simply political perspective, he adds: "Given the grotesque irresponsibility of the national Democrats, keeping them out of the White House should be the first calling of every patriotic conservative."

Common Sense on Immigration Reform

Lou Dobbs has weighed in with the obvious on the illegal immigration issue. On CNN.com, he writes:

This president desperately needs to be reminded that he is the president of all Americans and not just of corporate interests and socio-ethnocentric special interest groups.

In what other country would citizens be treated to the spectacle of the president and the Senate focusing on the desires of 12 million to 20 million people who had crossed the nation's borders illegally, committed document fraud, and in many cases identity theft, overstayed their visas and demanded, not asked, full forgiveness for their trespasses?

Illegal aliens and their advocates, both liberal and conservative, possess such an overwhelming sense of entitlement that they demand not only legal status, but also that the government leave the borders wide open so that other illegals could follow as well, while offering not so much as an "I'm sorry" or a "Thank you."

He then enumerates four steps for solving the problem. I listed the first two in an earlier post, and I included the third one in a broader call for a more generous immigration policy.

First, fully secure our borders and ports. Without that security, there can be no control of immigration and, therefore, no meaningful reform of immigration law.

Second, enforce existing immigration laws, and that includes the prosecution of the employers of illegal aliens. ...

Third, the government should fund, equip and hire the people necessary to man the Citizenship and Immigration Services. To do so will ensure that the agency is capable of fully executing and administering lawful immigration into the United States and eliminating the shameful backlog of millions of people who are seeking legal entry into this country. ...

At the same time, the president and Congress should order exhaustive studies of the economic, social and fiscal effects of the leading proposals to change immigration law, and foremost in their consideration should be the well-being of American workers and their families.

John Mueller of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, in his newly published Redeeming Economics, notes a relationship between the legalization of abortion in 1973 and our current labor shortage. He writes, "Most immigrants are in their twenties, and the annual number of legal and illegal immigrants to the United States is now almost exactly equal to the number of abortions 20 to 25 years earlier: about 1.5 million."

In my June 7th post, I hesitated to add a fourth step to the solution simply because of its complexity, but prodded by Mueller's bold and illuminating book, I will re-enumerate my common sense steps to solving the illegal immigration problem, this time adding a critically important domestic policy change.

1. Secure the border

2. Enforce the immigration laws

3. Open the immigration spigot

4. Change the laws to at least discourage abortion (Rudy, can you do that?), and then to encourage families to have children and stay together. David Brooks broached this subject in his May 15th 2007 New York Times column, "A Human Capital Agenda," saying, "It means increasing child tax credits to reduce economic stress on young families. It means encouraging marriage, the best educational institution we have."

Recognizing the need for these measures and rallying the country and our legislators to support them is the work of a statesman and the measure of a successful presidential candidate in 2008.