<a href="https://agaperevolution.wordpress.com/" title="AgapeRevolution.com" rel="home">AgapeRevolution.com

Posted in Culture, Current Events, Theology

Value of a Picture to the most vulnerable in society

Posted on June 18, 2007 by summatheologiae | Leave a comment

The story below is a very interesting story in its own right. I would like to draw attention to the very last sentence though. This is a sad story with a happy ending that makes us very proud of our U.S. soldiers. Its also interesting to contrast the gut reaction of the troops to the way the “caretakers” went about their business while the kids lived in such conditions. How could those caretakers allow such things to happen and even when they had food and clothing right there to help “its most vulnerable”? In fact, our society has the most comprehensive and the most vigorously defended arguments that support the horrible treatment of society’s most vulnerable. All one must do is log onto a liberal blog, attend a college, lawschool or medical school class, turn on the TV or listen to 5 of 9 Judges and listen to the justifications for abortion to understand what was going through the heads of the people in the position of caring for those kids. If life has no value other than who we think contributes the most, or deserves to be given priority when we have to choose betweeen killing one and forcing one to be burdened with the responsibility of caring for them, what we saw in Iraq in this story is supported 100% by the same rationale. In fact, I would argue that these kids had more of a fighting chance than the weakest in our society. At least they can be seen. When you click on the link to the story to see the pictures, ask yourself this question. Would it be acceptable for CBS to put pictures of aborted children to illustrate the evil that is abortion? Not a chance. In fact, it is looked at as completely unacceptable. Why do we do it here? Why do we have movies like roots and Schindlers List? It is simply because sometimes we have become so far down the road from morality that words don’t phase us. Sometimes a picture is the last ditch effort to awaken the sense of Good that is inherent in God’s creation.

Another good example of this is the anti-smoking commercials that recently have aired on numerous channels. The two variations involve one where the protestors take enough body bags to equal the amount of people who die each day from smoking, filled with what looks like dead bodies , and piles them in front of a tobacco company and tells them to look at how many people die each day from smoking. The other involves the same number of people who all walk and drop “dead” to the ground in the middle of the street in a performance intended to show the toll on human life that smoking provides. Interesting, I didn’t hear any professors or any of my friends mentioning how they support the message but not the medium of presenting the message. Truth is Truth baby, Pictures a Picture and a Body is a Body.

(CBS News) BAGHDAD: See full Story: It was a scene that shocked battle-hardened soldiers, captured in photographs given to CBS News.

On a daytime patrol in central Baghdad just over than a week ago, a U.S. military advisory team and Iraqi soldiers happened to look over a wall and found something horrific.

“They saw multiple bodies laying on the floor of the facility,” Staff Sgt. Mitchell Gibson of the 82nd Airborne Division told CBS News chief foreign correspondent Lara Logan. “They thought they were all dead, so they threw a basketball (to) try and get some attention, and actually one of the kids lifted up there head, tilted it over and just looked and then went back down. And they said, ‘oh, they’re alive’ and so they went into the building.”

Inside the building, a government-run orphanage for special needs children, the soldiers found emaciated little bodies tied to the cribs, CBS News reports exclusively. They had been kept this way for more than a month, according to the soldiers called in to rescue the dying boys.

“I saw children that you could see literally every bone in their body that were so skinny, they had no energy to move whatsoever, no expression on their face,” Staff Sgt. Michael Beal said.

“The kids were tied up, naked, covered in their own waste — feces — and there were three people that were cooking themselves food, but nothing for the kids,” Lt. Stephen Duperre said.

Logan asked: so there were three people cooking their own food?

“They were in the kitchen, yes ma’am,” Duperre said.

With all these kids starving around them?

“Yes ma’am,” Duperre said.

It didn’t stop there. The soldiers found kitchen shelves packed with food and in the stock room, rows of brand-new clothing still in their plastic wrapping.

Instead of giving it to the boys, the soldiers believe it was being sold to local markets.

The man in charge, the orphanage caretaker, had a well-kept office — a stark contrast to the terrible conditions just outside that room.

“I got extremely angry with the caretaker when I got there,” Capt. Benjamin Morales said. “It took every muscle in my body to restrain myself from not going after that guy. But I did the right thing and I turned him over to the Iraq authorities which were also on the scene.”

He has since disappeared and is believed to be on the run. But the two security guards are in custody, arrested on the orders of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The two women also working there, who posed for pictures in front of the naked boys as if there was nothing wrong, have also disappeared.

“My first thought when I walked in there was shock and then I got a little angry that they were treating kids like that, then that’s when everybody just started getting upset,” Capt. Jim Cook said. “There were people crying. It was definitely a bad emotional scene.”

There was nothing more emotional than finding one boy who Army medics did not expect to survive. For Gibson, that was the hardest part:

Seeing a boy who was at the orphanage, where Logan reported from, “with thousands of flies covering his body, unable to move any part of his body, you know we had to actually hold his head up and tilt his head to make sure that he was OK, and you know the only thing basically that was moving was his eyeballs,” Gibson explained. “Flies in the mouth, in the eyes, in the nose, ears, eating all the open wounds from sleeping on the concrete.”

All that, and the boy was laying in the boiling sun — temperatures of 120 degrees or so, according to Gibson.

Looking at the boy today, as he sits up in his crib without help, it is hard to believe he is the same boy, one week later — now clean and being cared for along with all the other boys in a different orphanage located only a few minutes away from where they suffered their ordeal.

Another little boy shown in the photos was carried out of the orphanage by Beal. He was very emaciated.

“I picked him up and then immediately the kid started smiling, and as I got a little bit closer to the ambulance he just started laughing. It was almost like he completely understood what was going on,” Beal said.

When CBS News visited the orphanage with the soldiers, it was clear the boys had been starved of human contact as much as anything else, Logan said. Some still had marks on their ankles from where they were tied. Since only one boy can talk, it’s impossible to know what terrible memories they might have locked away.

The memory of what he saw when he helped rescue the boys that night haunts Ali Soheil, the local council head, who wept throughout the interview.

Later at the hospital, Lt. Jason Smith brushed teeth and helped clean up the boys. He and his wife are both special education teachers and he was proud to tell her what the soldiers had done.

“She said that one day was worth my entire deployment,” Smith said. “It makes the whole thing worthwhile.”

This is a tough test for the Iraqi government: How a nation cares for its most vulnerable is one of the most important benchmarks for the health of any society.

Posted in Agape Revolution

Fred Thompson Running for President

Posted on May 30, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | Leave a comment

The Politico is reporting that Fred Thompson will announce his presidential bid over the Fourth of July weekend.

Fred Dalton Thompson is planning to enter the presidential race over the Fourth of July holiday, announcing that week that he has already raised several million dollars and is being backed by insiders from the past three Republican administrations, Thompson advisers told The Politico.

Thompson, the “Law and Order” star and former U.S. senator from Tennessee, has been publicly coy, even as people close to him have been furiously preparing for a late entry into the wide-open contest. But the advisers said Thompson dropped all pretenses on Tuesday afternoon during a conference call with more than 100 potential donors, each of whom was urged to raise about $50,000.

Thompson’s formal announcement is planned for Nashville. Organizers say the red pickup truck that was a hallmark of Thompson’s first Senate race will begin showing up in Iowa and New Hampshire as an emblem of what they consider his folksy, populist appeal.

A testing-the-waters committee is to be formed June 4 so Thompson can start raising money, and staffers will go on the payroll in early June, the organizers said. A policy team has been formed, but remains under wraps.

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Politics

James Dobson: Rudy’s Not the One

Posted on May 18, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | Leave a comment

Dr. James Dobson has an article at WorldNetDaily explaining why he refuses to vote for Rudy Giuliani.

The jig is up. Rudy Giuliani finally admitted in a speech at Houston Baptist University last week that he is an unapologetic supporter of abortion on demand. That revelation came as no great shock to those of us in the pro-life movement. His public pronouncements as mayor of New York, together with his more recent tap dances on the campaign trail, have told a very clear story.

How could Giuliani say with a straight face that he “hates” abortion,” while also seeking public funding for it? How can he hate abortion and contribute to Planned Parenthood in 1993, 1994, 1998 and 1999? And how was he able for many years to defend the horrible procedure by which the brains are sucked from the heads of viable, late-term, un-anesthetized babies? Those beliefs are philosophically and morally incompatible. What kind of man would even try to reconcile them?

. . .

He told the crowd he is “firmly committed” to marriage remaining legally defined as the union of one man and one woman. However, he opposed the Marriage Protection Amendment when it was being considered by Congress. Giuliani must have known then, and surely understands now, that the courts have taken dead aim at the institution of marriage, and that the only way to secure it is with a federal constitutional amendment. But the tap dancing continues.

This self-styled defender of marriage says he is “proud” of having submitted, as New York’s mayor, a bill creating “domestic partnerships” for homosexual couples. Admittedly, many liberal Americans will agree with the social positions espoused by Giuliani.

. . .
There are other moral concerns about Giuliani’s candidacy that conservatives should find troubling. He has been married three times, and his second wife was forced to go to court to keep his mistress out of the mayoral mansion while the Giuliani family still lived there. Talk about tap dancing. Also during that time, the mayor used public funds to provide security services for his girlfriend. The second Mrs. Giuliani finally had enough of his philandering and, as the story goes, forced him to move out. He lived with friends for a while and then married his mistress. Unlike some other Republican presidential candidates, Giuliani appears not to have remorse for cheating on his wife.

Harry Truman asked, “How can I trust a man if his wife can’t?”

. . .

Much has been written in the blogosphere about his three public appearances in drag. In each instance, he tried to be funny by dressing like a woman. Can you imagine Ronald Reagan, who loved a good joke, doing something so ignoble in pursuit of a cheap guffaw? Not on your life.

My conclusion from this closer look at the current GOP front-runner comes down to this: Speaking as a private citizen and not on behalf of any organization or party, I cannot, and will not, vote for Rudy Giuliani in 2008. It is an irrevocable decision.

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Politics

Giuliani vs. Ron Paul

Posted on May 16, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | 5 comments

MR. GOLER: Congressman Paul, I believe you are the only man on the stage who opposes the war in Iraq, who would bring the troops home as quickly as — almost immediately, sir. Are you out of step with your party? Is your party out of step with the rest of the world? If either of those is the case, why are you seeking its nomination?

REP. PAUL: Well, I think the party has lost its way, because the conservative wing of the Republican Party always advocated a noninterventionist foreign policy.

Senator Robert Taft didn’t even want to be in NATO. George Bush won the election in the year 2000 campaigning on a humble foreign policy — no nation-building, no policing of the world. Republicans were elected to end the Korean War. The Republicans were elected to end the Vietnam War. There’s a strong tradition of being anti-war in the Republican party. It is the constitutional position. It is the advice of the Founders to follow a non-interventionist foreign policy, stay out of entangling alliances, be friends with countries, negotiate and talk with them and trade with them.

Just think of the tremendous improvement — relationships with Vietnam. We lost 60,000 men. We came home in defeat. Now we go over there and invest in Vietnam. So there’s a lot of merit to the advice of the Founders and following the Constitution.

And my argument is that we shouldn’t go to war so carelessly. (Bell rings.) When we do, the wars don’t end.

MR. GOLER: Congressman, you don’t think that changed with the 9/11 attacks, sir?

REP. PAUL: What changed?

MR. GOLER: The non-interventionist policies.

REP. PAUL: No. Non-intervention was a major contributing factor. Have you ever read the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we’ve been over there; we’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We’ve been in the Middle East — I think Reagan was right.

We don’t understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. So right now we’re building an embassy in Iraq that’s bigger than the Vatican. We’re building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us. (Applause.)

MR. GOLER: Are you suggesting we invited the 9/11 attack, sir?

REP. PAUL: I’m suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it, and they are delighted that we’re over there because Osama bin Laden has said, “I am glad you’re over on our sand because we can target you so much easier.” They have already now since that time — (bell rings) — have killed 3,400 of our men, and I don’t think it was necessary.

MR. GIULIANI: Wendell, may I comment on that? That’s really an extraordinary statement. That’s an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don’t think I’ve heard that before, and I’ve heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th. (Applause, cheers.)

And I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn’t really mean that. (Applause.)

MR. GOLER: Congressman?

REP. PAUL: I believe very sincerely that the CIA is correct when they teach and talk about blowback. When we went into Iran in 1953 and installed the shah, yes, there was blowback. A reaction to that was the taking of our hostages and that persists. And if we ignore that, we ignore that at our own risk. If we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem.

They don’t come here to attack us because we’re rich and we’re free. They come and they attack us because we’re over there. I mean, what would we think if we were — if other foreign countries were doing that to us?

During the second Republican debate, Ron Paul made an extremely cogent argument against U.S. intervention in the world. He accurately assessed the history of U.S. intervention and noted that interventionist policies have often produced backlash against the U.S. because people in other parts of the world do not want us interfering in their affairs. He also correctly pointed out that it was U.S. interventionist policies in the Middle East that produced the 9/11 attacks since U.S. intervention in the region was basically the stated reason for the terrorist attacks. Rudy Giuliani, seeing an opportunity, accused Ron Paul of stating that we invited the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and he asked Ron Paul to withdrawal the statement. There were three problems with this response.

First, Ron Paul never stated that the U.S. invited the terrorist attacks or that the attacks were justified. All Ron Paul said was that interventionist policies have consequences. It is kind of like a law of nature. When we act in another area of the world, there tends to be an equal and opposite reaction in response. He was simply stating that we need to understand that this is a cost of U.S. intervention, and it is a reason that we should avoid unnecessary intervention.

Second, even if Ron Paul was stating that the U.S. was at fault for the terrorist attacks on 9/11, Giuliani’s response did not properly address such an argument. Giuliani did not make any argument for why the U.S. was not at fault for the attacks on 9/11. He simply asserted that this was somehow an offensive idea on its face that did not even need to be addressed. This type of thinking represents a major problem for conservatives. Conservatives tend to have the opposite problem of liberals. Conservatives believe that it is impossible for the U.S. to do anything bad or wrong. So the second that any person says the U.S. has done something wrong, the response is to declare the person to be un-American without even addressing the substantive claim. This is the opposite problem of the left, which presumptively believes that the U.S. is at fault for anything that goes wrong. Rather than assuming that the U.S. is never at fault or always at fault, perhaps an assessment should be made based on the facts of the specific situation. But this sort of reasoning is too challenging for Giuliani who prefers to just follow the anti-intellectual path of making accusations about Ron Paul’s patriotism without addressing the argument that has been made.

Third, after accusing Ron Paul of stating the the U.S. was at fault for the 9/11 attacks, Giuliani next said that he has never heard of that before. This statement by itself demonstrates Giuliani’s foreign policy incompetence and proves he should not be president. One of the most important debates in the academic literature is whether U.S. military intervention tends to solve problems or make them worst. If Giuliani is unaware of the basic ideas in this debate, he does not deserve to be President.

The only thing more annoying than Giuliani’s incompetent response to Ron Paul’s argument was how the National Review has been practically gushing over the fact that Giuliani took down Ron Paul. Byron York said, “The Ron Paul moment was just one of Giuliani’s strong points in the debate.” Kate O’Beirne said, “His quick, indignant response to Ron Paul on 9/11 was the night’s soundbite that made him America’s Mayor again.” Kathleen Parker said, “Giuliani played daddy tonight and spanked Ron Paul for blaming the U.S. for 9/11.” T.J. Walker said, “In a spirited exchange, Giuliani finally had the opportunity to do what he does best: beat up on bad guys — in this case, those weak on terrorism.” Larry Kudlow said, “Ron Paul ran with the leftwing ‘I hate America’ line and Rudy pounded him for it.” It is just mind boggling to me how this shoddy and irrational grandstanding by Giuliani receives near universal praise from people at the National Review. Giuliani did not even make an argument. How can one say that he defeated Ron Paul when Giuliani said virtually nothing? It is one thing to say that you disagree with Ron Paul. It is quite another to say that Ron Paul lost this argument with Rudy. The truth is that Ron Paul solidly defeated Giuliani and demonstrated Giuliani’s own personal incompetence and lack of any expertise in the foreign policy realm.

(Posted by Trask)

5 Comments

Posted in Politics

Fred Thompson Not Returning to Law and Order

Posted on May 16, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | Leave a comment

The Celebrity Cafe is reporting that Fred Thompson will not be returning to Law and Order, perhaps, further increasing the chances the he will be running for President.

No one knows for sure if “Law & Order” actor and former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson will be running on the republican ticket in the upcoming presidential election, but NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly said it’s “most likely” that he won’t be returning to the show.

“It’s pretty clear that Fred is going to be leaving the cast of the show no matter what,” Reilly said. He added that he has no knowledge of Thompson’s plans for candidacy. He will announce his decision this summer.

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Politics

Evangelical Leaders Backing Thompson and Opposing Giuliani

Posted on May 16, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | 1 comment

The Brody File is reporting that evangelical leaders are impressed with Fred Thompson, and they are hostile to Giuliani who they believe must be stopped.

The Brody File just got off the phone with a prominent Evangelical leader who has come to know Fred Thompson. He told me that he’s very impressed with him and so are other Evangelical leaders. This leader didn’t want to be identified because now is not the time to go public but suffice to say that he seems to be on board with the Fred Thompson campaign.

Let me summarize some other points this person told me. He’s been “plesantly surprised with Thompson’s knowledge on key issues”, issues that are important to Evangelicals. Though he doesn’t believe Thompson will necessarily be a champion on the life issue or others near and dear to their heart, he will be solid. He also told me that Thompson is “better than expected” and Evangelical leaders are looking for an alternative because Romney, Giuliani and McCain simply don’t cut it. As a matter of fact, he told me point blank, “Rudy must be stopped” and there is a conversation underway on how to do that.

Another interesting point here is that this prominent Evangelical leader tells me that he’s been very impressed with Jeri Thompson. He told me that she is a major plus in Thompson’s corner because she is not only a solid conservative but this person told me they believe as first lady, she could very well champion issues that are important to social conservatives like sex trafficking and cracking down on pornography.

Now, as for Mitt Romney, this Evangelical leader who is defintely a mover and a shaker, told me that there is an uncomfortability with Romney. I’m told that certain Evangelical leaders don’t by in to the multiple conversions and that’s why Thompson would get their support instead of Romney. But that decision HAS NOT been made yet.

On Newt Gingrich, this person tells me that Gingrich never really advanced social issues during his time as Speaker of the House so Newt doesn’t excite him. Plus, if Thompson gets in the race he will “take all the air out of the room”.

After this conversation, it’s pretty apparent to me that Fred Thompson could well be on his way to securing key Evangelical leaders on the road to the White House.

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Politics

Giuliani on Abortion in Second Debate

Posted on May 16, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | Leave a comment

Question Number One

MR. WALLACE: Mayor Giuliani, I’m going to give you another 30 seconds to actually answer my question. (Laughter, applause.)

They say that you are pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-gun control; you supported Mario Cuomo for governor over George Pataki.

Are those the stands of a true conservative, sir?

MR. GIULIANI: I, according to George Will, ran the most conservative government in the last 50 years in New York City. I look for ways in which we can come together.

I think we can agree, all of us on this stage, that we should seek reductions in abortion. I ultimately do believe in a woman’s right of choice, but I think that there are ways in which we can reduce abortions. Abortions went down 16 percent when I was the mayor. Adoptions went up 133 percent during the eight years that I was mayor, compared to the prior eight years. So there are ways in which we can work together and achieve results that we all want.

Question Number Two

MR. GOLER: You have said that you personally hate abortion but support a woman’s right to choose. Governor Huckabee says that’s like saying, “I hate slavery, but people can go ahead and practice it.” Tell me why he’s wrong.

MR. GIULIANI: Well, there is no circumstances under which I could possibly imagine anyone choosing slavery or supporting slavery. There are people, millions and millions of Americans, who are as of good conscience as we are, who make a different choice about abortion. And I think in a country where you want to keep government out of people’s lives, or government out of people’s lives from the point of view of coercion, you have to respect that. There are things that you can oppose, things you can be against; and then you can come to the conclusion, in the kind of democracy we have, the kind of society that we have, and the kind of society we have where we want to keep government out of people’s personal lives, that you can respect other people’s view on this. And I think everyone on this stage, including most Democrats, could probably very, very usefully spend a lot of time figuring out how we can reduce abortion.

It’s going to take a while for the courts to figure out what to do about this.

And while we’re looking at that, we should do what I did in New York, which is to try to reduce abortions as much as you can, try to increase adoptions.

Giuliani again openly advanced his pro-abortion views during the second Republican debate. Giuliani continues to argue that abortions decreased during his time as mayor. As I have stated previously, it does not matter if abortions decreased while Giuliani was mayor. It only matters if Giuliani did something while he was mayor that decreased the abortion rate, and there is no evidence that he did any such thing while he was mayor.

Giuliani is next asked about the analogy to slavery. Giuliani demonstrates his own unbelievable incompetence by stating that “there is no circumstances under which I could possibly imagine anyone choosing slavery or supporting slavery.” Did Giuliani perhaps by any chance ever take a class in American History? Did he never read anything about the national leaders of the United States that at one point owned slaves? Did he read nothing about that civil war that was fought over slavery? There obviously were times in American History where massive portions of the United States chose slavery. The fact that a civil war was fought over slavery demonstrates that it was probably even more divisive than abortion as a political issue at the time. If we are going to give individual choice to people about whether to kill their young because it is a controversial issue, then there would have been all the more reason to give people the choice to own slaves because that was apparently an even more controversial issue.

Giuliani must be rejected as a candidate. There is no issue more important than abortion. Every year 1.3 million unborn children are murdered in the United States. That is equivalent to a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon on a U.S. city every year. In fact, abortion is unquestionably the greatest security threat to the United States. Islamic terrorist have only successfully attacked U.S. territory once, and during the same year that the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred, 433 times more people were killed by abortions than by the terrorist attack, and the impact of abortion was not just a one time event but continues constantly from year to year.

Some people claim that Giuliani should be supported because he will appoint strict constructionist judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade. During the past three pro-life administrations, three justices were appointed to the Supreme Court who turned out to be supporters of Roe. If pro-life presidents have this bad of a record appointing judges, what can we expect from a person who openly admits that he supports abortion and does not care about the abortion issue. Although, George W. Bush publicly states that he does not have a litmus test for judges, the fact that he is pro-life gives him more of a motivation to find judges who are going to oppose Roe, and it makes him more willing to fight a political battle for those judges. A person who is pro-abortion has the opposite incentive. Giuliani will have the incentive to find judges who are strict constructionists but who will likely support Roe because of stare decisis.

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Politics

Fred Thompson vs. Michael Moore

Posted on May 15, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | Leave a comment

Fred Thompson and Michael Moore have been having an interesting debate over Moore’s planned documentary in Cuba. To see the debate, including an excellent video by Fred Thompson, visit the Real Clear Politics blog.

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Politics

Jerry Falwell Dies at 73

Posted on May 15, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | Leave a comment

The Washington Post is reporting that Jerry Falwell has died at age 73.

The Rev. Jerry Falwell, the television evangelist who founded the Moral Majority and used it to mold the religious right into a political force, died Tuesday shortly after being found unconscious in his office at Liberty University, a school executive said. He was 73.

Ron Godwin, the university’s executive vice president, said Falwell, 73, was found unresponsive around 10:45 a.m. and taken to Lynchburg General Hospital. “CPR efforts were unsuccessful,” he said.

Godwin said he was not sure what caused the collapse, but he said Falwell “has a history of heart challenges.”

“I had breakfast with him, and he was fine at breakfast,” Godwin said. “He went to his office, I went to mine, and they found him unresponsive.”

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Current Events

Some Christian Conservatives Backing Thompson

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | Leave a comment

The Washington Times is reporting on some Christian conservatives who will back Thompson when he announces his presidential bid.

Several leading Christian conservatives say they will rally to former Sen. Fred Thompson, who they expect to announce “in a matter of weeks” that he will seek the Republican nomination for president next year.

“It’s not ‘if’ but ‘when,’ he will announce,” one Protestant evangelical leader says of the behind-the-scenes maneuvering for position in the 2008 race.

A prominent Roman Catholic social conservative says the three Republicans who have raised the most money and have led the polls — former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — fall short of social conservatives’ expectations, but Mr. Thompson doesn’t. “He’s right on the issues … He’s better than all of the above.”

Both the Protestant and Catholic activist, like other Christian conservatives, spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity.

They say their support for Mr. Thompson is shared by like-minded conservatives, though the sentiment is not unanimous in their circles. Many born-again Christians are said to be skeptical of Mr. Giuliani’s views on abortion and same-sex “marriage,” of Mr. Romney’s change of position on abortion and of his Mormon religious faith, and of Mr. McCain’s advocacy of campaign-finance reforms that restrict speech and issues-advocacy ads.

Mr. Thompson, whose celebrity is based on his television and movie acting roles as well as his tenure as a senator from Tennessee, has consistently opposed abortion rights, but until recently had backed campaign-finance laws unpopular with advocacy groups on both the right and left.

The move toward Mr. Thompson was said to have been afoot before Mr. Giuliani, the Republican front-runner in the early polls, announced last week that he supports abortion rights, restrictions on the ownership of guns, and the legal recognition of same-sex unions with some of the benefits and privileges of marriage.

“It’s the moment of truth for conservatives,” says one of the Christian conservative activists. “Either social conservatives rally to stop a Giuliani nomination and victory for him in November 2008 or our issues — abortion, same-sex marriage, the preservation of the family — are permanently off the Republican Party agenda.”

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Politics

First Things First

Posted on May 14, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | 2 comments

National Review has a copy of the speech that Fred Thompson recently gave on the judiciary.

I want to talk a little about . . . first principles. The principles you have been defending since 1981.

For Americans, these are found in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. They include a recognition of God and the fact there are certain rights that come from Him and not the government. They are based upon a respect for the wisdom of the ages, and a belief that human beings are prone to err; that too much power must never rest in too few hands. The result is a system of checks and balances and a separation of powers that flow from our guiding documents and from the rule of law.

Finally, if we want to change or alter these concepts or any provision in the Constitution, we are given a specific method to do that — by Constitutional Amendment.

So how are we doing as a nation in upholding these first principles? The answer is we could be doing better … a lot better.

. . .

Our nation is based upon the proposition that our statutes, common law and the Constitution will not only be applied fairly between litigants, but will also be observed by the government. People will be able to rely upon the rules, usually long established, and their consistent application. This engenders respect for the law. It is a sad irony that a nation that is so dedicated to the rule of law is doing so much to undermine the respect for it.

Our founders established an independent federal judiciary to decide cases, not social policy. Yet more and more that is exactly what it is doing. Roe v. Wade is a classic example. And nowhere is it more apparent than with regard to the issue of church and state.

Many federal judges seem intent on eliminating God from the public schools and the public square in ways that would astound our founding fathers. We never know when a five to four Supreme Court decision will uphold them. They ignore the fact that the founders were protecting the church from the state and not the other way around. Instead of having the basic rules of society changed in the way clearly set forth in the Constitution by two-thirds votes of both Houses and by three-fourths of the states, the entire process is reversed by the stroke of a pen and supporters of the rule of law have the burden placed upon them, which is usually insurmountable.

We have always held our federal judiciary in high esteem, even at a time when most of our institutions are under assault. However, if judges continue to act like politicians they will get the respect currently given to politicians. It is already rapidly headed in that direction. The antidote for this, of course, is good judges. And presidents who know one when they see one … one like John Roberts.

John Roberts is the first of the individuals I referred to earlier. The President asked me to help Judge Roberts through the Senate confirmation process. Certain things were apparent at the outset — he was a Conservative, he believed deeply in first principles, including the rule of law and, lastly, his opponents would do everything they could to defeat his nomination.

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Law, Politics

Exit (U2)

Posted on May 13, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | 2 comments

U2 – Exit

You know he got the cure
But then he went astray
He used to stay awake
To drive the dreams he had away.
He wanted to believe
In the hands of love.

His head it felt heavy
As he came across the land
A dog started cryin’
Like a broken-hearted man
At the howling wind
At the howling wind.

He went deeper into black
Deeper into white.
He could see the stars shine
Like nails in the night.

He felt the healing
Healing, healing, healing hands of love
Like the stars shiny, shiny from above.
A hand in the pocket
Fingering the steel
The pistol weighed heavy
And his heart he could feel was beating
Beating, beating, beating,
Oh my love, oh my love
Oh my love, oh my love.

So hands that build
Can also pull down
The hands of love.

Doors – Riders on the Storm

Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house were born
Into this world were thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out on loan
Riders on the storm

Theres a killer on the road
His brain is squirmin like a toad
Take a long holiday
Let your children play
If ya give this man a ride
Sweet memory will die
Killer on the road, yeah

Girl ya gotta love your man
Girl ya gotta love your man
Take him by the hand
Make him understand
The world on you depends
Our life will never end
Gotta love your man, yeah

Wow!

Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house were born
Into this world were thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out alone
Riders on the storm

Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm

The song “Exit” is an impressive song on U2’s Joshua Tree album. The song was performed live by U2 in Los Angeles during the Joshua Tree Tour. During the live performance of this song, U2 mixed in two other songs, which were “Riders on the Storm” by the Doors and “Gloria” by Van Morrison. This live performance can be viewed online at You Tube. My commentary will be based on both the lyrics and the live performance.

In the live performance, Bono introduced the song. He said, “This is a song about a religious man who became a very dangerous man when he could not work out the mystery of the hands of love.” I am fairly confident that this person that Bono is speaking of is described in Isaiah 14. It says, “How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn!” “You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God . . . I will make myself like the Most High.'” “But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit.” This religious man that Bono is describing is the Devil. God created Lucifer as a being with freedom because freedom is the foundation of love. Think about it this way. If you drafted a letter that said “I love you” and sent it to yourself, it would not have the same meaning as it would if another person with an autonomous will freely sent you such a letter. However, the cost of offering an individual the freedom to love is that one must also offer that individual the freedom to hate. If both options are not made available, then it is really not love. The song is named “Exit” because it reflects the choice that Lucifer made. Rather than choosing the path of love, Lucifer chose the path of selfishness and sought to elevate himself to the status of God. The result was that Lucifer and a contingent of fallen angels made an Exit from heaven. They took the freedom that existed for the purpose of love and used it for hate.

The entire song is an attempt to describe the feelings of Lucifer as he moved closer and closer to making his ultimate decision. “You know he got the cure / But then he went astray” This is an introductory summary of what happened to Lucifer. He got the cure, which was freedom that created the possibility of love, and he used that gift of freedom for evil instead of good. “He used to stay awake / To drive the dreams he had away. / He wanted to believe / In the hands of love.” This is a description of the burden that freedom placed on the psyche of Lucifer. At first, he wanted to believe in love, and would do anything he could to drive away his dreams of grandeur and the possibilities that his freedom presented to him.

“His head it felt heavy / As he came across the land” “He went deeper into black / Deeper into white. He could see the stars shine like nails in the night.” As time passed, the burden and temptation created by his freedom became almost insatiable for him and he became obsessed. The reference to the stars shining in the night is not accidental. Isaiah says that Lucifer was a “morning star” that wanted to raise his “throne above the stars of God.” The stars shining in the night symbolize the temptation that is presented to Lucifer whereby he wants to elevate himself to a status above God. The imagery presented throughout this song is that of a slightly deranged man walking outside in the middle of the night as he obsesses over the temptation presented to him by his own freedom. The stars were for Lucifer what the forbidden fruit was for Adam and Eve in the garden. In fact, when Lucifer subsequently tempts Eve in the garden, he presents the same temptation to her that produced his own downfall when he says, “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God . . . .” (Genesis 3:5)

He felt the healing / Healing, healing, healing hands of love / Like the stars shiny, shiny from above. / A hand in the pocket / Fingering the steel / The pistol weighed heavy / And his heart he could feel was beating beating, beating, beating, Oh my love, oh my love, / Oh my love, oh my love.” This is a reference to the moment of decision. Lucifer became consumed and obsessed with both the possibilities created by his freedom and the constraints of love. The hands that he was given by God that were intended to be used for love would now be used for hate. The wording of the lyrics makes it appear as if it is love that is driving him to make his decision, but in reality, this is satirical language because it is actually selfishness or love of self that is driving him to make his fateful decision. There is another reference here to the stars shining above, which is the symbol of his temptation. It is his self love and his desire to elevate himself above the stars of God that is actually the motive for his decision. This is also demonstrated by the thrice repeated used of “oh my love” to convey that it is self love that is truly driving Lucifer. “So hands that build / Can also pull down / The hands of love.” The same freedom that can produce great good can also produce great evil.

During the performance of Exit before Bono reached the last stanza of the song, he added an interlude from the song Riders on the Storm by the Doors. “Riders on the storm / Riders on the storm / Into this house were born / Riders on the storm / Take a holiday / Let your children play / Take a holiday / Let your children play” Riders on the Storm was written about a serial killer that posed as a hitchhiker in order to kill a family. Bono adds the lines from this song in order to provide a specific example of what is being talked about in the song Exit. Both the serial killer and the family had the same hands of love, which meant that they had a freedom, which they were given for the purpose of doing good and loving others. The family used their freedom to come to the aid of the hitchhiker on the side of the road. The hitchhiker used his freedom to kill the family that offered him the loving assistance. So the hands that build . . . can also pull down . . . the hands of love. Freedom creates the possibility of both great good and great evil. Bono uses the specific lines from Riders on the Storm to further convey this idea. People have been born into this world with freedom, and God has allowed his children to play as they choose.

There is also a secondary meaning to the song Exit that is connected to this primary meaning that I have already discussed. This song is also about how religious people in general do evil. Lucifer was the first religious person to use the hands of love for the purpose of evil, but he was far from the last. Throughout human history there have been many people who have done evil and despicable acts claiming that they were acts of love and under order from God. In reality, these people who committed these acts were really following in the tradition of Lucifer. They used the freedom that they were given by God in order to pursue love of self.

Bono then concludes the performance of the song Exit by singing part of the song Gloria (lyrics) by Van Morrison in a liturgical fashion. Bono says “gloria” and then spells it out “g-l-o-r-i-a.” This liturgical ending offers the proper usage for the hands of love. We are to use them for God’s glory by loving God with all of our being and loving our neighbor as ourself.

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Agape Revolution, The Arts

Dividing the Coalition

Posted on May 12, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | Leave a comment

Although the American political system is a two party system on its face, this can be somewhat deceptive. The American political system is more like the multi-party European political system than most people think. Both the Democratic and Republican parties are coalitions of various interests that have different priorities. Like in the European system, it is only possible to maintain a coalition if the interests of all elements of the coalition are adequately advanced. If the interests of a component of the coalition are not advanced, the coalition will not last long because that interest group will have no reason to remain a part of the coalition. There is a major component of the Republican Party that does not care about giving rich people more tax cuts, like eliminating the Estate Tax. But they vote Republican because they care more about issues like abortion and the family. If the Republican Party does not put forward a candidate that represents these interests, the coalition will be divided and the Republican Party will meet its political death. If Giuliani is nominated, there will almost certainly be a pro-life third party candidate, and a major component of the Republican coalition, myself included, will vote for that third party candidate. I want to see Giuliani win the South when there is a credible third party candidate that represents the values of the South and Giuliani does not.

For those who are social conservatives, I want to encourage you not to buy the line of the neo-cons who will want you to sell out your values on the basis of security or economic issues. Every year in the United States 1.3 million innocent children are massacred with state sanction. This is the same amount of people that would die if Islamic terrorists were to detonate a nuclear weapon in a major U.S. city every year. The U.S. is already under attack by nuclear terrorists, but it is Planned Parenthood and not Islamic extremists, which poses the greatest threat to the future of the United States.

(Posted by Trask)

Planned Parenthood Exposed

Posted in Politics

Planned Parenthood Covering Up Statutory Rape

Posted on May 12, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | Leave a comment

Some people have been doing some personal investigative journalism on Planned Parenthood, and they have been posting video of it on You Tube. In the videos, Planned Parenthood actively encouraged an underage girl to cover up the fact that she was statutorily raped.

Planned Parenthood I

Planned Parenthood II

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Culture, Current Events

Abortion: No Room for Compromise

Posted on May 11, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | 1 comment

A recent Zogby poll showed that 50% of Americans believe that life begins at conception. This belief, which is held by half of the population, entails certain implications.

The first implication is that this portion of the population, which believes that life begins at conception, should also believe that the lives of the unborn deserve the same respect as the lives of the born. It is a foundational principle of the American system of government that all people are created equal. This is why there is a motto on the Supreme Court building that reads “Equal Justice under the Law.” This is why the Declaration of Independence stated that “all men are created equal . . . .” This is why the U.S. Constitution says that “No state shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” This self-evident principle of human equality is rooted in the nature of every human being, and it is the very foundation of our democratic tradition in the United States. If all people are created equal and the unborn are people, then the necessary implication is that the unborn deserve the same legal protection under the law that born persons deserve.

For people who believe that the unborn are human beings with equal rights, there probably should be no other political issue that is as important as legally prohibiting women from seeking abortions. Senator Brownback, a strong pro-life advocate and candidate for the Republican nomination, was asked in the recent Republican debate whether he could support a Republican nominee who was not pro-life. Brownback said, “I could, because I believe in the Ronald Reagan principle, that somebody that’s with you 80 percent of the time is not your enemy, that’s your friend and that’s your ally. And this is a big coalition party.” This answer could not be more incorrect because it bases support for a candidate on a quantitative analysis of the number of issues where a person is in agreement with the candidate. The problem with using this type of analysis alone is that it fails to account for the qualitative importance of the various issues. A person may agree with a candidate on every single issue but one issue, and if the single issue where there is disagreement is by far the most important issue, then the level of quantitative agreement is not necessarily relevant.

Abortion should be the most important issue qualitatively for the half of the population in the United States, which believes that life begins at conception. Since this percentage of the population should believe that all life is equal, this percentage of the population should also believe that taking the life of an unborn person is just as much murder as taking the life of a person who is born. Since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, 48.6 million unborn children have been murdered through abortions. In 2004, 1.3 million unborn children were murdered through abortions. 23.8% of unborn children are murdered through abortions. There is no problem facing the United States that comes even close to this holocaust that is being perpetuated against the unborn. Although there is no moral distinction between early and late term abortions, it is worth noting that since 10% of abortions occur after the first 12 weeks, 127,800 of the abortions in 2004 and 4.86 million of the abortions since Roe v. Wade occurred after the first three months of pregnancy. See unborn at 12 weeks in 4D.

Below is a compilation of the most recent annual death tolls for various causes of death in the United States.

Abortion – 1.3 million

Heart Disease – 654 thousand

Cancer – 550 thousand

Smoking – 400 thousand

Stroke – 150 thousand

Accidental Death – 109 thousand

Alzheimer’s Disease – 66 thousand

Air Pollution – 50 thousand

Terrorism (Worldwide) – 20 thousand

AIDS – 13 thousand

Homicide – 17 thousand

Terrorism (U.S.) – 0

Below is a compilation of the death tolls from major historical events that have caused mass death.

Abortion (U.S. alone since 1973) – 48.6 million

Adolf Hitler (1933-1945) – 42 million

Mao Zedong (1949-1975) – 40 million

Democide of Native Americans – 20 million

Joseph Stalin (1925-1953) – 20 million

Atlantic Slave Trade (15th-19th Centuries) – between 15 and 20 million

Atomic Bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki – 137 thousand

September 11 Terrorist Attacks – 3 thousand

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Agape Revolution, Politics

Romney’s Wife Donated Money to Planned Parenthood

Posted on May 9, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | 1 comment

ABC News is reporting that Romney’s wife contributed to Planned Parenthood.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann, gave an $150 donation to the abortion-rights group Planned Parenthood in 1994, at a time when Romney considered himself effectively “pro-choice,” the Romney campaign confirmed today.

Campaign spokesman Kevin Madden said Ann Romney had no recollection of the circumstances under which she donated the money.

He said an internal review of Romney’s personal records has not turned up any instances in which Romney, a Massachusetts Republican, himself sent money to groups that supported expanded abortion rights.

“The governor has not donated to Planned Parenthood or abortion-rights groups,” Madden said.

Madden said he did not know whether the former governor was aware of the donation, but he noted that Romney had been publicly committed to upholding a woman’s right to an abortion until late 2004.

“This is an issue that the governor has changed his position on, that the governor was wrong on in the past and believes he is right on now,” he said.

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Politics

Giuliani Contributed Money to Planned Parenthood II

Posted on May 9, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | 2 comments

The Washington Post is reporting that Giuliani has just dug himself into an even bigger hole in his response on a talk radio show to news reports that he personally contributed money to Planned Parenthood, the nations largest abortion provider.

That was followed up yesterday by the revival of stories noting that Giuliani had contributed to Planned Parenthood in the 1990s, sparking outrage on conservative blogs and a lengthy, uncomfortable appearance on Laura Ingraham’s radio program.
. . .

On Ingraham’s show, Giuliani forcefully defended his views on abortion, saying he has long been personally opposed to abortion but supports a woman’s right to have one if she chooses.

Under grilling by Ingraham, Giuliani said his financial support for Planned Parenthood — he gave about $900 in the mid-1990s — was driven by a desire to increase adoptions in New York City. Planned Parenthood, one of the largest providers of reproductive services, including abortion, also counsels about adoption and parenting.

“My idea of a choice is that it should be a real choice and that ultimately, then, you have to respect a woman’s consciousness,” Giuliani told Ingraham and listeners on 340 radio stations nationwide. “I think life is enormously important, but so is personal liberty.”

Ingraham pressed Giuliani, asking him whether stories about the birth of a 22-week-old baby affected him. Giuliani said they did, calling the debate about abortion “a deeply personal” issue. He stressed that Americans understand the difference between personal beliefs and public policy.

“So why people think this is such a contradiction, I don’t get. I think it’s entirely consistent,” he said.

When Ingraham ended the segment with a standard line about his returning again, a clearly agitated Giuliani responded: “I would love to come back, but you’re going to have to ask me about the war on terror and what we do about the economy, which is after all what most citizens ask me about.”

“Well, conservatives are citizens, too, Mayor Giuliani!” Ingraham responded. “We’re citizens, too.”

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Politics

Giuliani Contributed Money to Planned Parenthood

Posted on May 8, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | Leave a comment

The Politico is reporting that Rudy Giuliani has personally contributed money to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is a top abortion provider. If you really want to know where a person’s heart is, look where they spend their money. Giuliani’s heart is that of a committed pro-abortion extremist.

Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani in his campaign appearances this year has stated that he personally abhors abortion, even though he supports keeping a legal right to choose. But records show that in the ’90s he contributed money at least six times to Planned Parenthood, one of the country’s leading abortion rights groups and its top provider of abortions.

Federal tax returns made public by the former New York mayor show that he and his then-wife, Donna Hanover, made personal donations to national, state and city chapters of Planned Parenthood totaling $900 in 1993, 1994, 1998 and 1999.

The returns have been on the public record for years, but the detail about Giuliani’s support for Planned Parenthood — along with e-mailed copies of the returns — was provided to The Politico by aides to a rival campaign, who insisted on not being identified.

. . .

Opposition researchers for other candidates hope to make Giuliani’s life more difficult at regular intervals — and to help them out, they have a trove of video clips and quotes from Giuliani’s time in City Hall showing him to be a vocal advocate of abortion rights.

For example, in 2001, appearing at a NARAL/Pro-Choice America luncheon, he voiced the conservative case for abortion rights, arguing that it “might be more consistent with the philosophy of the Republican Party.

“Because the Republican Party stands for the idea that you have to restore more freedom of choice, more opportunity, more opportunity for people to make their own choices rather than the government dictating those choices,” said Giuliani.

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Politics

Archeologist Discovers King Herod’s Tomb

Posted on May 7, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | Leave a comment

Fox News is reporting that an archaeologist in Israel has discovered the tomb of King Herod.

An Israeli archaeologist has found the tomb of King Herod, the legendary builder of ancient Jerusalem and the Holy Land, Hebrew University said late Monday.

The tomb is at a site called Herodium, a flattened hilltop in the Judean Desert, clearly visible from southern Jerusalem. Herod built a palace on the hill, and researchers discovered his burial site there, the university said.

The university had hoped to keep the find a secret until Tuesday, when it planned a news conference to disclose the find in detail, but the Haaretz newspaper found out about the discovery and published an article on its Web site.

Herod became the ruler of the Holy Land under the Romans around 74 B.C. The wall he built around the Old City of Jerusalem still stands, and he also ordered big construction projects in Caesaria, Jericho, the hilltop fortress of Massada and other sites.

It has long been assumed Herod was buried at Herodium, but decades of excavations had failed to turn up the site. The 1st century historian Josephus Flavius described the tomb and Herod’s funeral procession.

Haaretz said the tomb was found by archaeologist Ehud Netzer, a Hebrew University professor who has been working at Herodium since 1972. The paper said the tomb was in a previously unexplored area between the two palaces Herod built on the site. Herod died in 4 B.C. in Jericho.

Herodium was one of the last strong points held by Jewish rebels fighting against the Romans, and it was conquered and destroyed by Roman troops in A.D. 71, a year after they destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in History

Giuliani Sinking in the Polls (25%)

Posted on May 7, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | 2 comments

According to a CNN poll that was just conducted on May 4-6, Giuliani is at his lowest reported point in the polls so far. The poll shows Rudy Giuliani at 25%, John McCain at 23%, Fred Thompson at 13%, and Mitt Romney at 10%. I previously predicted that Giuliani’s poll numbers are overinflated, and that they will decline into nothingness as people slowly come to realize that he is a pro-abortion extremist. For more information, see the Real Clear Politics blog.

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Politics

Education Vouchers: Free to Choose, and Learn

Posted on May 6, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | Leave a comment

The Economist has an article about the overwhelming empirical evidence demonstrating that school choice is the best way to run an education system.

Voucher schemes are running in several different countries without ill-effects for social cohesion; those that use a lottery to hand out vouchers offer proof that recipients get a better education than those that do not.

Harry Patrinos, an education economist at the World Bank, cites a Colombian programme to broaden access to secondary schooling, known as PACES, a 1990s initiative that provided over 125,000 poor children with vouchers worth around half the cost of private secondary school. Crucially, there were more applicants than vouchers. The programme, which selected children by lottery, provided researchers with an almost perfect experiment, akin to the “pill-placebo” studies used to judge the efficacy of new medicines. The subsequent results show that the children who received vouchers were 15-20% more likely to finish secondary education, five percentage points less likely to repeat a grade, scored a bit better on scholastic tests and were much more likely to take college entrance exams.

Voucher programmes in several American states have been run along similar lines. Greg Forster, a statistician at the Friedman Foundation, a charity advocating universal vouchers, says there have been eight similar studies in America: seven showed statistically significant positive results for the lucky voucher winners; the eighth also showed positive results but was not designed well enough to count.

The voucher pupils did better even though the state spent less than it would have done had the children been educated in normal state schools. American voucher schemes typically offer private schools around half of what the state would spend if the pupils stayed in public schools. The Colombian programme did not even set out to offer better schooling than was available in the state sector; the aim was simply to raise enrolment rates as quickly and cheaply as possible.

These results are important because they strip out other influences. Home, neighbourhood and natural ability all affect results more than which school a child attends. If the pupils who received vouchers differ from those who don’t—perhaps simply by coming from the sort of go-getting family that elbows its way to the front of every queue—any effect might simply be the result of any number of other factors. But assigning the vouchers randomly guarded against this risk.

Opponents still argue that those who exercise choice will be the most able and committed, and by clustering themselves together in better schools they will abandon the weak and voiceless to languish in rotten ones. Some cite the example of Chile, where a universal voucher scheme that allows schools to charge top-up fees seems to have improved the education of the best-off most.

The strongest evidence against this criticism comes from Sweden, where parents are freer than those in almost any other country to spend as they wish the money the government allocates to educating their children. Sweeping education reforms in 1992 not only relaxed enrolment rules in the state sector, allowing students to attend schools outside their own municipality, but also let them take their state funding to private schools, including religious ones and those operating for profit. The only real restrictions imposed on private schools were that they must run their admissions on a first-come-first-served basis and promise not to charge top-up fees (most American voucher schemes impose similar conditions).

The result has been burgeoning variety and a breakneck expansion of the private sector. At the time of the reforms only around 1% of Swedish students were educated privately; now 10% are, and growth in private schooling continues unabated.

Anders Hultin of Kunskapsskolan, a chain of 26 Swedish schools founded by a venture capitalist in 1999 and now running at a profit, says its schools only rarely have to invoke the first-come-first-served rule—the chain has responded to demand by expanding so fast that parents keen to send their children to its schools usually get a place. So the private sector, by increasing the total number of places available, can ease the mad scramble for the best schools in the state sector (bureaucrats, by contrast, dislike paying for extra places in popular schools if there are vacancies in bad ones).

More evidence that choice can raise standards for all comes from Caroline Hoxby, an economist at Harvard University, who has shown that when American public schools must compete for their students with schools that accept vouchers, their performance improves. Swedish researchers say the same. It seems that those who work in state schools are just like everybody else: they do better when confronted by a bit of competition.

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Science

She Is ‘Roe” No More

Posted on May 6, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | Leave a comment

Norma McCorvey, the woman who was the Plaintiff in the infamous abortion case, has an article in the New York Daily News about her pro-life conversion.

As the plaintiff in that infamous Supreme Court case Roe vs. Wade, my life has been inextricably tied to the abortion issue. I once told a reporter, “This issue is the only thing I live for. I live, eat, breathe, think everything about abortion.”

Thirty-four years later, I am 100% pro-life.
. . .

The case of Roe vs. Wade (I took the pseudonym of Jane Roe to protect my identity) took three years to reach the United States Supreme Court, so I never had the abortion. In fact, I have given birth to three children, all of whom were placed for adoption.
. . .
It might bother some that the story of my actual conversion does not mimic the intellectual engagement of Augustine’s “take and read,” Pascal’s wager or C.S. Lewis’ famous motorcycle ride. My disposition is somewhat simple.

I became very close to the young daughter of a friend who had considered abortion and I realized that “my law” (as I once fondly referred to Roe vs. Wade) could have snuffed out the life of this amazing little girl whom I had grown quite fond of. That, to me, was unacceptable.

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Law

Sophie’s Choice without the Guilt

Posted on May 6, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | 2 comments

Dan Neil has a personal testimony in an LA Times editorial about a decision that he and his wife recently made.

MY WIFE AND I just had an abortion. Two, actually. We walked into a doctor’s office in downtown Los Angeles with four thriving fetuses — two girls and two boys — and walked out an hour later with just the girls, whom we will name, if we’re lucky enough to keep them, Rosalind and Vivian. Rosalind is my mother’s name.

We didn’t want to. We didn’t mean to. We didn’t do anything wrong, which is to say, we did everything right. Four years ago, when Tina and I set out on this journey to have children, such a circumstance was unimaginable. And yet there I was, holding her hand, watching the ultrasound as a needle with potassium chloride found its mark, stopping the heart of one male fetus, then the other, hidden in my wife’s suffering belly.

We don’t feel guilty. We don’t feel ashamed. We’re not even really sad, because terminating these fetuses — at 15 weeks’ gestation — was a medical imperative. This has been a white-knuckle pregnancy from Day 1, and had it gone on as it was going, Tina’s health would have been in jeopardy, according to her doctor. The fact is, multiple pregnancies are high risk, and they can go bad very suddenly. I wasn’t going to allow that, though the fires of hell might beckon.

. . .

As soon as we found out at about four weeks that we had too many fetuses, we wanted to undergo the reduction procedure. But our doctor told us to wait to see if the number would reduce on its own, as often happens. Then, at about 12 weeks, we underwent a type of genetic testing (chorionic villus sampling, similar to amniocentesis), reasoning that if we had to abort two, it would be better to abort any fetuses with genetic abnormalities. The results took two weeks to get back, and by that time Tina was experiencing complications so severe that we had to put her in the hospital. The whole time, an awful clock was ticking.

It is wonderful that we have become so progressive as a nation today that people can choose which of their children they want to be given a lethal injection without even shedding a tear. Of course, our modern version of Sophie’s Choice is a little different. In the modern situation, we actually put on the Nazi uniform ourselves by making the choice about which child to kill based on his/her utility to society. “Kill the one in the wheel chair. What’s his/her life worth anyway?”

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Culture

America the Fertile

Posted on May 6, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | 1 comment

Henry Wendt has an article in the Washington Post comparing U.S. population demographics to the rest of the world.

Two demographic tendencies separate the United States from virtually all other developed countries in Europe and Asia. The first is childbearing patterns: At a time when most rich countries report markedly low birthrates, fertility levels in the United States are close to long-term population-replacement levels, making the United States peculiarly fecund for a contemporary affluent democracy. The second is immigration patterns: America’s absorption of foreigners continues apace, with high and continuing inflows of immigrants from the Third World, but without (as yet) the symptoms of “cultural indigestion” that have lately troubled much of the European Union.
. . .
The main explanation for the U.S.-European fertility gap may lie not in material factors but in the seemingly ephemeral realm of values, ideals, attitudes and outlook. In striking contrast to Western Europe, which is provocatively (but not unfairly) described as a “post-Christian” territory these days, religion is alive and well in the United States. It is not hard to imagine how the religiosity gap between America and Europe translates into a fertility gap. Unfortunately, the hypothesis is devilishly difficult to explore. There are virtually no official national data for the United States that would permit a rigorous testing of the hypothesis that America’s religiosity is directly related to its childbearing. For the time being, at least, this religion-fertility proposition must be treated as speculation.

For its part, immigration (both legal and illegal) is a central feature of U.S. demographic life. Though Western Europe has experienced its own influx of newcomers over the past generation, the trends do not compare with those in America. No large country today has an immigration rate even close to that of the United States: America accounts for a fourth of the population of “developed regions” but nearly half of its annual net migration. In purely arithmetical terms, America’s high flows of net immigration do explain much of the country’s steady population growth.

As for the future: If American “demographic exceptionalism” continues for another decade or so, the consequences could be profound. Just what such “exceptionalism” would portend may be seen from U.S. Census Bureau projections for the United States and Western Europe for 2025.

By 2025, Western Europe’s total population would be shrinking despite continuing immigration, while America’s would still be growing by about 2.8 million a year. Western Europe, with a median age of 46 years, would be much “grayer” than the United States, with a median age of 39. In this future, Europe would be home to many more septuagenarians and octogenarians than the United States — but for the under-25 population, Americans would outnumber West Europeans.

America’s population profile is set to depart not only from Europe but also from the rest of the developed world. By 2025, according to Census Bureau projections, the U.S. population growth rate would be the highest among the more developed regions, and America’s median age should be among the lowest. The United States would be the only developed country of 5 million-plus people with more children than senior citizens and the only developed country whose working-age population (ages 15 to 64) would be growing.

With its exceptional and robust projected population growth, America is poised to account for an increasing share of the total population of the present developed countries. Whereas the ratio of Americans to Russians today is a little more than 2 to 1, by 2025 that ratio may be almost 3 to 1. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 3.6 Americans for every German today, and there will be 4.4 per German in 2025. There are five Americans for every Italian today, and there will be six per Italian in less than two decades. And so on.

Such trends might reinforce U.S. international predominance — even though the divergence in demographic profiles between the United States and the other developed countries may also portend an era of diminishing affinities between the United States and its historical Western allies.

In short: U.S. demographic exceptionalism is here to stay, as far as the eye can see. Indeed, America’s demographic profile could look even more exceptional a generation hence. Whatever else may be said, if our American “moment” passes or U.S. power in other ways declines in the coming decades, demographics is not likely to be the culprit.

This article does a good job comparing the current status of population growth in the U.S. to the rest of the world. However, I believe that there is a fatal flaw in the conclusion of this article. He says that whatever creates problems for the U.S. in coming decades it is unlikely to be demographics. The U.S. population growth rate is currently on the brink. It is currently right at the replacement rate. So it would be more proper to describe the U.S. as being at a cultural crossroad. The U.S. can either follow the nihilistic postmodern European path or the U.S. can uphold the traditions that are currently distinguishing U.S. demographics from the rest of the world. Phillip Longman made an excellent statement in a recent article on this issue in Foreign Affairs when he said that “it has become clear that no law of nature ensures that human beings, living in free, developed societies, will create enough children to reproduce themselves.” In the modern world, we can no longer simply assume that our population will just replace itself with no effort on our part. It is this flawed logic that has created a demographic crisis in Europe. We as a society have to actively promote the cultural institution of the family, and we also have to remain tied to our religious traditions. The conservative cultural and religious values of religious conservatives in the United States are the only factor that is preventing the U.S. from becoming like Europe. Continued population growth in the United States will not be brought about by some invisible act of nature. It will only be brought about by sustained willful acts of individual Americans who value children.

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Culture

McCain on Abortion

Posted on May 6, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | Leave a comment

McCain is currently claiming to be strong on the pro-life issue. However, during his last race for the 2000 presidency, McCain said that he believed that overturning Roe v. Wade would be a bad idea in the near future because it would force women to get back ally abortions, and he also stated that he believed the Republican platform should be changed in regard to the abortion issue. See You Tube Video. However, McCain said in the most recent Republican debate that he supports overturning Roe v. Wade. See You Tube Video. In addition, McCain also supports embryonic stem cell research, which destroys human lives for medical research. See You Tube Video.

(Posted by Trask)

Posted in Politics

Romney on Abortion

Posted on May 6, 2007 by Hannibal [Steve Trask] | Leave a comment

Mitt Romney is currently trying to play the role of the true conservative in the Republican field. His current positions on pro-life issues are the most conservative among the current top three contenders that are already in the Republican primary field. However, Romney’s current pro-life views are unquestionably a major change from the very strong pro-choice views that he expressed when he was trying to prove that he was as liberal as Sen. Edward Kennedy on abortion during the 1994 election for senator in Massachusetts. See Video on You Tube. In 2002, when running for governor, Romney again strongly expressed his unequivocal belief that abortion should be legal. See Video on You Tube. Romney claims that he had a recent conversion on the abortion issue, but his conversion on this issue has come conveniently close (within two years) to the 2008 Republican primaries. See Video on You Tube.

(Posted by Trask)