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| Monday, February 8, 2010 |
Christianity and Totalitarianism
By Diana Hsieh @ 10:00 AM   
William Stoddard recently posted the following remarks in a comment thread on NoodleFood.
When you say that "If the Church had the weapons of the 20th century, God (metaphor) only knows how many they would have killed," I would go further than this.
We have, shall we say, a Christian myth about how God runs the world and what he intends for it, one that many Christians believed was literally true. And what it says is this:
God is a self-appointed dictator who cannot be voted out of office, and who makes the law by unilateral decree
God constantly watches everything human beings do, both directly and through a secret police corps of angels appointed to watch over us
At any time, we can be taken into God's hands by death and called before him to be judged
Under his law, we are automatically guilty and cannot defend ourselves against his charges
When found guilty, we will be sent to a concentration camp where we will be tortured forever, without hope that death will release us
Those who affirm that these actions are signs of God's justice and love, and plead for mercy, will be let off and assigned to join a propaganda corps that spends eternity praising God, and that is permitted to see the tortures of the damned perfectly in order more fully to enjoy their own salvation
If someone you loved on Earth goes to Hell, your salvation entails rejoicing both at their being in Hell and at your being in Heaven apart from them
In sum, Christianity envisioned all the horrors of totalitarianism, millennia before human dictators achieved the technological capability to realize them on Earth. And said that they were desirable; indeed, it called them the Good News. These striking parallels between the theology of Christianity and the practice of totalitarianism make clear -- yet again -- that political freedom cannot be founded on the Christian faith.Labels: Christianity, Politics, Religion
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| Monday, February 1, 2010 |
Finally: A Victory for Abortion Rights and Church-State Separation
By Gina Liggett @ 10:00 AM
It only took jurors 37 minutes to convict Scott Roeder of murdering physician Dr. George Tiller, who performed late-term abortions. The judge previously was going to allow a defense of voluntary manslaughter, which applies when a defendant thinks his killing is justified (which Roeder claimed). But the judge reversed himself because of the fact that abortion is legal in Kansas, leaving the jury with two alternatives: convict on murder or acquit.
Defense attorney Mark Rudy, in a ludicrous and pathetic appeal to the jury said, “No one should be convicted based on his convictions.” One small detail: a civilian is free to speak their convictions, he just can’t use force against another person because of his beliefs. Beliefs are not sacred. Potential beings (fetuses) are not sacred. But living humans are.
Finally we can celebrate a justice based on the right principles: the rule of law, the right to abortion, and upholding the separation of church and state by not permitting religious beliefs to be a defense for terrorist acts.
Scott Roeder can just sit in his prison cell with his Bible and his convictions and rot the next few decades away.Labels: Abortion, Separation of Church and State, Terrorism
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| Thursday, January 28, 2010 |
The Christian Ideal: Suffering
By Diana Hsieh @ 10:00 AM
I'm simply overwhelmed to read Tony Judt's account of a single night stuck in the prison of his body, ravaged by ALS (a.k.a. Lou Gherig's disease). Here's how he describes his basic condition:
By my present stage of decline, I am thus effectively quadriplegic. With extraordinary effort I can move my right hand a little and can adduct my left arm some six inches across my chest. My legs, although they will lock when upright long enough to allow a nurse to transfer me from one chair to another, cannot bear my weight and only one of them has any autonomous movement left in it. Thus when legs or arms are set in a given position, there they remain until someone moves them for me. The same is true of my torso, with the result that backache from inertia and pressure is a chronic irritation. Having no use of my arms, I cannot scratch an itch, adjust my spectacles, remove food particles from my teeth, or anything else that--as a moment's reflection will confirm--we all do dozens of times a day. To say the least, I am utterly and completely dependent upon the kindness of strangers (and anyone else). Please, go read the whole thing. While I don't know what Mr. Judt's own religious views are, I regard his life as a clear demonstration of the life-hating brutality of Christian doctrine. To wit:
Christianity regards suffering like that of Mr. Judt as not merely noble and elevated, but positively divine. It's not good to live fully, happily, robustly according to Christianity: it's good to suffer and die. That's what Jesus taught -- and then he lived and died by that ideal.
Christianity regards the body as a vile, despicable prison that leads a person's divine soul astray into the dark depths of sin. Mr. Judt is positively lucky, as his body really is a prison: he cannot indulge pleasures of the flesh, not even the seemingly minor ones like scratching his own itches.
Christianity regards Mr. Judt's life as God's property, not as his own. So Mr. Judt must be forbidden by law from ending his own life, if and when it becomes intolerable. If anyone attempts to help him end his life, that person should be imprisoned as a murderer. As a bonus, if Mr. Judt manages to end his own life somehow, the loving Christian God will consign him to the torments of hell for all eternity.
Of course, many Christians do not live by such dark principles. They are kind, decent people, loathe to see anyone suffering from such a tragic condition. They might even support stem-cell research, and even assisted suicide. To that extent, their values are more American -- loving science, seeking happiness, and upholding individual rights -- than Christian.
As Leonard Peikoff states in his essay Religion Versus America:
It is time to tell people the unvarnished truth: to stand up for man's mind and this earth, and against any version of mysticism or religion. It is time to tell people: "You must choose between unreason and America. You cannot have both. Take your pick."
If there is to be any chance for the future, this is the only chance there is. Amen, brother!Labels: Christianity, Euthanasia, Religion, Right to Die
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| Tuesday, January 26, 2010 |
Biblical Inscriptions on Gun Sights and Kant Speaks from the Grave
By Gina Liggett @ 10:00 AM
Last week, a story broke about how the gun site manufacturer, Trijicon, has been for years placing subtly-imprinted biblical references on the gun sights of standard issue combat rifles used by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Michael Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), which seeks to preserve the separation of church and state in the military, explained that this practice should be stopped because, "It's wrong, it violates the Constitution, it violates a number of federal laws. It allows the Mujahedeen, the Taliban, al Qaeda and the insurrectionists and jihadists to claim they're being shot by Jesus rifles."
The company has agreed to discontinue this obvious attempt at proselytizing the Christian view to U.S. soldiers, and that it will provide kits to remove the inscriptions---a victory for MRFF and anyone concerned with separation of church and state.
But what is more menacing about this story is the response by an influential member of the American intelligentsia, columnist Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald. In his January, 23 national column he took a superior-attitude pot-shot at the company president's little work for Jesus by asking, "But is that really faith, when you reduce God to a bigger version of you?"
In other words, how dare that company president show a glimmer of self-expression of his beliefs--albeit a misguided and totally inappropriate action violating the separation of church and state.
Pitts shows by comparison what REAL faith should be, best exemplified by nonetheless than the two most saintly figures of the 20th century: Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, Jr. Mother Teresa's faith drove her to foreswear material riches and spend half a century working to uplift the wretched poor of Calcutta. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s faith drove him to gamble his very life in a dangerous campaign to win human and civil rights for African-American people... [T]he point is that truest faith is not seen in a secret code on a gun sight.....Rather, faith is seen in the substance of a life lived in service to others, lived as if God were "not" in fact one's personal echo chamber in the sky. [emphasis mine] Well, my oh my. Isn't 19th century philosopher Immanuel Kant alive and well and speaking to the opinion-makers right from the grave.
In explaining Kant's philosophy, Ayn Rand says, Kant's expressly stated purpose was to save the morality of self-abnegation and self-sacrifice.....As to Kant's version of morality....it consisted of total, abject selflessness. An action is moral, said Kant, only if one has no desire to perform it, but performs it out of a sense of duty and derives no benefit from it of any sort, neither material nor spiritual; a benefit destroys the moral value of an action. Who better than Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, Jr. to demonstrate for us duty of sacrifice without regard to themselves? To Pitts, Trijicon's little slipup with the Constitution to advance the cliche, "there are no atheists in fox holes," is simply a trivial waste of morality. In his view, what society REALLY ought to be striving for is a deeper, broader, truer test of faith: total abnegation of the self in a life dedicated " in service to others."
That is in fact President Barack Obama's mission: to be the next Mr. Mother Teresa as our President.
(Violins, please.)
"His story is the American story -- values from the heartland, a middle-class upbringing in a strong family, hard work and education as the means of getting ahead, and the conviction that a life so blessed should be lived in service to others."
(This is from the White House website, introducing Mr. Obama as our 44th President.)
(Stop the violins, please.)
When a member of the intelligentsia is trying to upstage another Christian, we are having a cultural war. Not only must we continue to fight the puritanical and rights-violating agenda of the Religious Right, we also have a more-focused and committed Religious Left whose altruistic, socialist agenda is already invading our liberties.
Little do these ostensible opposites realize they were already married in a shotgun wedding many decades ago, presided over by preacher Immanuel Kant.Labels: Christianity, Ethics, Separation of Church and State
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| Friday, January 22, 2010 |
Deism in the Declaration
By Diana Hsieh @ 10:00 AM
My husband Paul Hsieh (of Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine) recently pointed me to an essay by Eric Raymond entitled Deism and the Founding Fathers. I'd definitely recommend reading the whole essay, but I wanted to except a few critical passages:
Religious conservatives are fond of replying by pointing excitedly at the references to "Nature's God", "Divine Providence", and the "Creator" in the Declaration of Independence. Raymond then quotes the relevant passages of the Declaration:
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights;
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor. Raymond then cites some other passages in Jefferson's writings where he displays as obvious hostility to Christianity. So Raymond asks, "Of what 'God', if not the Christian one, was Jefferson speaking?" He replies:
The answer to this question -- which also explains the references in the Declaration of Independence -- is that Jefferson, like many intellectuals of his time, was a Deist. The "Creator" and "Nature's God" in the Declaration of Independence, and the God of Jefferson's altar, is not the intervening Christian God but the God of Deism.
Deism was an early attempt to reconcile the mechanistic world-view arising from experimental science with religion. Deists believed in a remote sort of clockmaker-God who created the universe but then refrained from meddling in it afterwards. Deists explicitly rejected faith, revelation, religious doctrine, religious authority, and all existing religions. They held that humans could know the mind of God only through the study of nature; in many versions of Deist thinking, the mind of God was explicitly identified with the laws of nature.
Thus "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God"; in Deist thought these concepts blurred together. The phrase "endowed by their Creator" could be rendered accurately as "endowed by Nature". In modern terms, this is an entirely naturalistic account of human rights. That's exactly right. Finally, Raymond notes:
Jefferson’s "altar of God" quote and the references in the Declaration of Independence are easy to misconstrue today because Deism did not long outlive the Founding Fathers. In their time it functioned as a sort of halfway house for intellectuals who rejected traditional religion but were unwilling to declare themselves atheists or agnostics. As the social risk of taking these positions decreased, Deism waned. Given the bravery of the early Americans in opposing the British Empire, I doubt that intellectual cowardice was the reason for their deism. I suspect -- although I've not much researched the subject -- that they accepted some version of the Argument from Design. Absent a solid grasp of the fact that physical laws are the necessary expression of the identity of entities and absent an explanation for the great diversity and complexity of living organisms, the Argument from Design would seem quite plausible. It's still flawed, purely on philosophic grounds, but the mistake was understandable in the 18th century. Deism was the rather benign result of that mistake.
Today, people have far less excuse for believing in God's existence on such grounds, as the scientific and philosophic objections to the Argument from Design are well-known and devastating. They have no excuse for leaping from such arguments to claims about the truth of Christianity. The Argument from Design, even if sound, could not lend the slightest bit of support to the myths and dogmas of Christianity.
For more, see my three podcasts on the Argument from Design: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Part 4 is forthcoming.Labels: Christianity, Founders, Religion
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| Thursday, January 14, 2010 |
A Slap on the Hand for Anti-Abortion Terrorist
By Gina Liggett @ 10:00 AM
Premeditated Murder
You may remember the vicious murder of Wichita, Kansas abortion provider, Dr. George Tiller, in May 2009. He was shot by long-time anti-abortion crusader, Scott Roeder, as Dr. Tiller was ushering at church.
Roeder was charged with first-degree murder and also admitted to the media and in a court filing that he did indeed kill Dr. Tiller, one of the few abortion providers to perform late-term legal abortions.
Roeder argued that killing Dr. Tiller was justifiable because ... the fact preborn children's lives were in imminent danger this was the action I chose. ... I want to make sure that the focus is, of course, obviously on the preborn children and the necessity to defend them… Defending innocent life — that is what prompted me. I mean, it is pretty simple. Sympathy for the Anti-Abortion Terrorist
Now the judge in this case has added to the broader maniacal mission to destroy the right to abortion. Sedgwick Country Judge Warren Wilbert is going to allow Roeder to present a defense for a charge of voluntary manslaughter. Voluntary manslaughter is considered: “Justifiable homicide - That which is committed with the intention to kill or to do a grievous bodily injury, under circumstances which the law holds sufficient to exculpate the person who commits it.”
A Case of Violating Rights
What is more egregious than the potential conviction of a terrorist on a charge that would mean little more than going to bed without supper, is two immoral underlying assumptions of the judge.
The first is a belief (primarily a religious one) that women do not have a right to their own bodies in choosing an abortion. Roeder doesn’t gun down doctors who perform appendectomies, because he probably thinks that people have the right to choose such an operation. The judge would certainly agree with this, and would not allow a ruling of voluntary manslaughter on a premeditated murder of a general surgeon who "kills" appendixes.
The second immoral assumption is that fetuses have rights. There would be no justifiable defense of an entity that does not have rights. And fetuses are only potential beings, and therefore have no rights at all. If Roeder killed someone in cold blood to defend an appendix that had been removed, it would be ludicrous to call that justifiable voluntary manslaughter. Just as an appendix is the bodily property of a person, so a fetus is the bodily property of a woman.
In this country, we still have the constitutional protection of a woman’s right to have an abortion. And all the efforts by religious lunatics and politicians alike to eviscerate that right don't change facts: individual rights apply only to living human beings. Hopefully the jury will care about the rights of Dr. Tiller and send Roeder to bed without supper for a very, very long time.Labels: Abortion, Individual Rights
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| Monday, January 11, 2010 |
Careful! Don't Say the "A" Word!
By Gina Liggett @ 10:00 AM
Okay, here's the story. And I'm not saying a WORD! So get those explosives out of your underwear!
Three Christian churches were attacked January 8th by three young Muslim arsonists outside the capital of Malaysia over a controversy and supreme court ruling surrounding the publication of the word... (I'll whisper it, ... it's the name Muslim's give for God) ... in a local Catholic journal. Four days ago, 13 non-governmental organizations also didn't like the ruling and put up a fuss.
They are all upset because the word, "A," should only be reserved for Muslims, NOT non-Ms. The Catholics reportedly were using the word to signify piety, although I think there are probably better choices since there are some "Ms" in this world that like to blow things up.
These bombers were mad (a common lunatic's excuse for arson) because they wanted the Malaysian high court to annul a ruling allowing the journal to print that particular word. Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak condemned the attacks, which is a good thing (especially since there are other religions besides Islam in that country). He wants to keep the "harmony." But I think a better reason would be upholding that western concept, RULE OF LAW.
What I can't understand about the "thinking" of the arsonists and 13 protesting non-governmentals is: Don't they think "A" can take care of Himself? That is, I think that's pretty dern blasphemous to say that "A" can't deal with what any scrawny, puny, miserable, infidel, scumbag of a human being might say or print.
And another thing! That is mighty arrogant of those fire-bombing "Ms". They are supposed to be "submissive," like "A" demands, but they then go around being "A's" public relations spokesperson... I mean, spokesMAN, if you get my drift.
It appears that the attacking "Ms" were worried that other "Ms" in the country and world would be confused by the cross-fertilization of the use of the word,"A," and quickly convert to "C-ism." I don't mean Communism (they're no fun anyway because they don't serve wine at their Gulags). But the protesters shouldn't have to worry about mass confusion-turned-conversion anyway, because "Ms" are not supposed to utilize their conscious choice. They must simply OBEY!
And another thing! I don't know what's gotten into these Catholics... I mean "Cs"... because in the Netherlands a couple years ago, a retiring bishop thought all of the main monotheistic believers, the "Js", the "Cs" and the "Ms", should all use the "A" word when referring to "G." Well, some other Catholics didn't think that was such a good idea. But Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic relations, thought it would help interfaith understanding. Uh... I don't think so. I don't think we can have a lot of interfaith understanding with all these bombs some people keep carrying around in their pockets!
Well. I could say a LOT more. But I think I won't for now. I'll just give thanks to the entire alphabet that I hold REASON as my absolute!Labels: Catholicism, God, Humor, Islam
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| Monday, January 4, 2010 |
Old Age Tribalism Challenges New Age Barbarism and the Separation of Church and State
By Gina Liggett @ 10:00 AM
Suspend the mind and you get... death
In October of this year, New Age Guru, James Arthur Ray, led about 60 participants on a "Spiritual Warrior Retreat" at the Angel Valley Retreat Center near Sedona, Arizona. The retreat resulted in the deaths of three participants and hospitalizations of several others with severe dehydration and organ damage.
The main purposes of the retreat were to:
- Accelerate the releasing of your limitations and push yourself past your self-imposed and conditioned borders (no more coloring inside the lines)...
- Carve out your own destiny
- Experience a new technologically-enhanced form of meditation that creates new neurological pathways, allowing you to experience powerful whole-brain thinking (this one's gonna knock your socks off)...
- Experience, at the spiritual level, the ancient methodologies of Samurai Warriors.
This was to be achieved by 5 days of fasting, sleep deprivation, journaling, burning the journal pages, mind-altering breathing exercises, and finally by a climactic 2-hour sweat lodge ceremony in a cramped, sweltering, and pitch-dark hot house.
Despite being called "New Age," there is essentially nothing "new" about this example of religiosity: it was led by a guru who claimed special spiritual knowledge that others don't have, it emphasized the suspension of rational faculty, and it was ritualistic.
It was led by James Arthur Ray, someone who claims to have superior spiritual knowledge, just like the Pope, Jim Jones of the People's Temple
or Mohammad. For example, on his website, James Arthur Ray claims to have "the unique and powerful ability to blend the practical and mystical into a usable and easy-to-access formula for achieving true wealth across all aspects of life."
Ayn Rand calls these people "mystics of spirit", who "declare that they possess an extra sense you lack: this special sixth sense consists of contradicting the whole of the knowledge of your five [senses]... and as proof of their superior ability to deal with existence, the fact that they lead you to misery, self-sacrifice, starvation, destruction."
And in fact: the participants willingly underwent deprivation of nutrition, hydration, sleep, and maintenance of body temperature in order to induce a supernatural-like spiritual awakening. But these activities deprive the most critical organ of our body -- the brain and mind -- with the life-essential elements of its survival. The health of the body was quick to deteriorate from hyperthermia and hypovolemic shock, which causes multi-organ failure. This wasn't a life-enhancing journey, but a death trap.
Up the ante: American Indians sue for tribal infringement
Not unexpectedly, the case is being investigated as negligent homicide by the local sheriff's department, and several civil lawsuits are underway against James Arthur Ray and the retreat center.
But the most compelling lawsuit is the one being filed by the Lakota Indian Tribe against the United States Government, the State of Arizona, James Arthur Ray, and the retreat center.
They claim that the incident violates the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868, and that the sweat lodge ceremony (one of several sacred rights) represents a "desecration" by causing the three deaths. The lawsuit also alleges that the retreat leader and center committed fraud by impersonating Indians.
Sam Longblackcat, Lakota spokesman, said: We Lakota people continue to fight for our way of life. The sweat lodge -- we call it Oinikaga or Inipi -- is a purification ceremony, to make life. Our sacred way of life was desecrated by a non-native man. This is our property, and there are laws in the United States and in the United Nations that state that these customs are ours and that they are to be protected. This is a twist on the violation of the separation of church and state
I couldn't even begin to unravel the complex historical legal treaty and welfare-state system in place between the U.S. Government and Native American Tribes. But it raises in my mind concerns about separation of church and state.
The establishment clause of the First Amendment of our Constitution says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." This has been the basis for fighting the Religious Right's actions to pass laws enforcing a biblical morality on society.
But why should the American Government be obligated to protect exclusivity in the practice of religious rituals of a particular religious tribal group? Mr. Ray may have been "borrowing" from Native American traditions as part of his eclectic spiritual retreat, but for the U.S. Government to protect tribal domain of those practices would be tantamount to a government-enforced monopoly of religion.
Freedom of religion means that a person should be free to choose a religion, regardless of its historical background. If Mr. Ray wants to practice his religion, which he says is inspired by many traditions, than he is free to do so by Constitutional protection.
The Pope and his Vatican authorities in American don't like the way many Catholics practice their Catholicism (for example, Catholics who are pro-choice). But the Church is not suing the U.S. Government to enforce "pure" Catholic practice on American Catholics or to prevent non-Catholics from practicing elements of Catholicism (like many Haitians living in the U.S. who practice a religious mix of Catholicism and Voodoo).
It is my view that finding for the Lakota Indians in the lawsuit would be an unconstitutional violation of the freedom of religion and the establishment of religion.
I have no idea how this lawsuit will play out, but the case is fascinating and brings up yet a new challenge in the ongoing battle to not only protect religious freedom but, more importantly, to protect our secular society from religious domination.Labels: First Amendment, New Age, Religion
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| Friday, January 1, 2010 |
In Defense of Secularism
By Diana Hsieh @ 10:00 AM
Fellow OActivist Amesh Adalja recently published this letter in defense of secularism in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review:
Theocrats more harmful
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Despite Brad Tupi's protestations to the contrary in his letter "Secularism harms U.S." (Dec. 25 and TribLIVE.com), secularism is inherent in this nation and it is Christian theocrats like Mr. Tupi who have done more damage to this nation than any secularist.
While it is true that the Founders often uttered conflicting statements regarding religion, they chose to make the U.S. Constitution and the nation's currency entirely devoid of any reference to a deity -- proof of their desire for a separation between government and religion.
It is the religionists who have taken the Christian idolization of sacrifice to new heights by creating a welfare state where each is his brother's keeper, women are castigated for exercising the right to their own bodies and people fear openly expressing their sexual orientation.
As Thomas Paine aptly stated, "mingling religion with politics, may be disavowed and reprobated by every inhabitant of America."
Amesh A. Adalja
Butler Labels: Christianity, Founders
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| Wednesday, December 30, 2009 |
In Praise of Consumerism
By Diana Hsieh @ 10:00 AM
CSG supporter Joseph Kellard published a letter to the editor in USA Today in defense of consumerism -- always under attack during the Christmas season by Christians and their secular humanist offspring. The letter is entitled "Buying is a virtue":
The perennial rants against Christmas consumerism fail to acknowledge man's highest virtue: production -- the virtue that makes consumption possible, sustains his life and uplifts his spirit. ("You can't buy the real gifts of Christmas," The Forum, Dec. 21).
Productive individuals must exercise other virtuous behavior, particularly rationality, honesty, efficiency and love of hard work.
When productive individuals buy cars, computers, iPhones and other material goods, they celebrate their highest virtues. And they develop well-earned self-esteem, happiness and pride.
In contrast, the stereotypical insatiable consumer is essentially a social conformist, motivated to keep up with the Joneses and who has never learned to appreciate the inseparable connection between productivity and virtue.
However, when that connection is made, consumerism is something to celebrate.
Joseph Kellard
East Meadow, N.Y. Labels: Capitalism
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| Monday, December 28, 2009 |
What Have the Personhood Folks Been Up To?
By Gina Liggett @ 10:00 AM
I'm taking a break from my investigation into the Religious Left and have decided to focus on what the Colorado Fertilized Egg Gang has been up to lately.
And those Fertilized Eggers have been really boiling and rockin' and rollin'!
They've been working on their public relations campaign to come across as... more, more... well... well... better at expropriating intellectual property rights as well as attempting to violate individual rights. In particular, they have a YouTube announcement of their intent to try to get another constitutional amendment on the Colorado ballot for 2010.
In their attempt to grovify themselves across a broader spectrum of the electorate, they've selected the works of singer/songwriter "Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers" as their rallying really-cool song. Playing loudly in the backgroud, Tom Petty's, "I Won't Back Down" introduces their rejuvenated attack on the culture. They are going to try again in 2010 to get another Personhood Amendment on the ballot in Colorado.
Because I really dig "Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers" and really disagree with the Personhooders, I sent an email to the record company informing them that Mr. Petty's song was being used to advance "Colorado Personhood USA's" agenda to grant full legal rights to fertilized eggs. If the rock group is in agreement with this agenda, then that is their own business and their right, and I acknowledged as much in my email. But I would be very surprised if this Colorado Religious Right activist group had obtained proper permission to propagandize with this incredibly groovy song.
So, who are the players now, and what scrambled eggs get rights in the next election?
Let's be clear: these activists are not to be underestimated.
They have studied very carefully why their amendment failed by about 75% in the last Colorado election. They are not going to make the same mistakes twice.
So they've altered the language of their proposal. Previously, the key wording referred to rights of "any human being from the moment of fertilization." Now, they have altered the wording so it is more palatable to the general electorate:An amendment to the Colorado Constitution applying the term 'person' as used in those provisions of the Colorado Constitution relating to inalienable rights, equality of justice and due process of law, to every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being. The key phrase is: "from the beginning of the biological development," rather than from "from the moment of fertilization," which is easier for many mainstream religious Americans to accept.
The next step is to get enough signatures, around 76,000 registered Colorado voters, to place the measure on the ballot.
Let us not underestimate these people. They may be your next-door neighbor, or the person in line at the supermarket, or your coworker. These are Americans who believe that those "at the beginning of biological development" have rights; and because of their religious beliefs, they maintain that somehow fetuses are people and the right to abortion is wrong.
Let me bring us back to the fundamentals of human existence in a rational way. The right to life only applies to the living, born human being. Ayn Rand, the genius novelist and philosopher of Objectivism cogently writes: Rights do not pertain to a potential, only to an actual being. A child cannot acquire any rights until it is born. The living take precedence over the non-yet-living... Never mind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has "right to life. A piece of protoplasm has no rights--and no life in the human sense of the term... To equate a potential with an actual, is vicious; to advocate sacrifice of the latter to the former, is unspeakable... We must watch these people because they are evil. Our true right to life is at risk.Labels: Abortion, Amendment 48, Christianity
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| Thursday, December 24, 2009 |
Merry Christmas!
By Diana Hsieh @ 2:00 PM
Onkar Ghate published an excellent essay on the joy of Christmas in US News and World Report. It begins:
I'm an atheist, and I love Christmas. If you think that's a contradiction, think again.
Do you remember as a child composing wish lists of things you genuinely valued, thought you deserved, and knew would bring you pleasure? Do you remember eagerly awaiting the arrival of Christmas morning and the new bike, book, or chemistry set you were hoping for? That childhood feeling captures the spirit of Christmas and explains why so many of us look forward to the season each year. That joyful spirit of Christmas, Ghate argues, is part and parcel of a commercial Christmas. It's nowhere to be found in a truly Christian Christmas.
So ... May you enjoy all the delights and pleasures of a secular, capitalist Christmas!Labels: Capitalism, Christianity
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| Wednesday, December 23, 2009 |
The Religious Left: The Audacity of Obama's Anti-Capitalism
By Gina Liggett @ 10:00 AM
Obama's Economic Ideas are Mystical Mumbo-Jumbo
President Obama may have chosen as his official home church the same one attended by his political opposite, the Religious-Right-placating G.W. Bush. But to meet his true spiritual needs, Obama has surrounded himself with spiritual advisers that come straight from the Religious Left, like his former pastor Black Liberation Theology-proponent Jeremiah Wright.
Let's take Bishop Vashti McKenzie of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. This enthralling minister really works the congregation into a lather, preaching in a dramatic, rhythmical, and provocative vocal style. Once listeners are primed like an intoxicated audience at a rock concert with Bible quotes and thanks to Jesus, she begins to screech her circuitous point that "although we have deprivation... and... wounds... nothing can get in the way of God's love." The riveting sermon is tapped off with soulful gospel music that could convert even an agnostic.
But there's more to Bishop McKenzie than bringing Jesus to life at the pulpit. She's vehemently anti-capitalist, as exemplified by her speech, "Who Benefits," in which she links AIDS in Africa, the war in Iraq, "predatory" lending, and the pharmaceutical industry with purported evils of the profit motive. She never makes a logical argument defining profit in the first place, or why the profit motive is bad, but instead relies on explicit innuendo and her charismatic presentation style to transmit her disgust of American capitalism. She simply says, "if we track the money, we'll find out... Follow the money..."
And THISSSSSZZZZZ-AAAHHH, is one of Obama's closest advisers.
The notion that pursuing wealth for one's own benefit is cold and thoughtless comes from the religion shared by Obama and McKenzie. Obama aligns his ideals for the country with Black Liberation theories of social disorder, in which America is a zero-sum battle between social classes (from his book, "The Audacity of Hope," p. 215): After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten-point plan. They are also rooted in societal indifference and individual callousness -- the desire among those at the top of the social ladder to maintain their wealth and status whatever the cost, as well as the despair and self-destructiveness among those at the bottom of the social ladder. ... I am suggesting that if we [Christian] progressives shed some of our own biases, we might recognize... the call to sacrifice on behalf of the next generation, the need to think in terms of "thou" and not just "I." Obama is appallingly ignorant of business and capitalism, characterizing them as "winner take all." In a March 2008 speech, he chastised companies for their audacity to be profitable: "[T]he real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit."
In his book he at least acknowledges America's economic achievements and the kind of social system that made this progress possible: It takes a trip overseas to fully appreciate just how good Americans have it; even our poor take for granted goods and services -- electricity, clean water, indoor plumbing, telephones, television, and household appliances -- that are still unattainable for most of the world... Our greatest asset has been our system of social organization, a system that for generations has encouraged constant innovation, individual initiative, and the efficient allocation or resources. However, Obama undertakes no philosophical analysis whatsoever to explain how the social system created these life-enhancing things. So, it's easy for him to evade facts, formulate irrational ideas, rattle off lots of data in a clever way, and come up with floating, conflicting, and mystical explanations that conform to his Black Liberation worldview.
As an prime example, in a speech also entitled, "The Audacity of Hope," given at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Obama espouses the contradictory notion that individuals can pursue happiness while living in a society that requires God-inspired sacrifice for the benefit of collectivist categories of people. He said, It is that fundamental belief, it is that fundamental belief, I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family. E pluribus unum. Out of many, one. In the end, that is God's greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead. I believe that we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity. I believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair. Obama Performs a Perfect Marriage of Religion and Leftism
Obama finds the perfect pragmatic model for carrying out his good works: FDR's huge federal government. He says in his book (AOH, p.176): FDR led the nation to a new social compact -- a bargain between government, business, and workers that resulted in widespread prosperity and economic security for more than fifty years...[T]hat security rested on... a job that paid enough... a package of health and retirement benefits from his employer, and a government safety net -- Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, unemployment insurance..... ut his compact also rested on an understanding that a system of sharing risks and rewards can actually improve the workings of the market. Obama Thinks Big Government ROCKS
Obama actually believes that government is better at managing people's lives than individuals themselves in a free market. [A]lthough the benefits of our free-market system have mostly derived from the individual efforts of generations of men and women pursuing their own vision of happiness, in each and every period of great economic upheaval and transition we've depended on government action to open up opportunity, encourage competition, and make the market work better... Retirement and Health Care...
As an example, Obama disparages the "Ownership Society" for legitimately exercising their property rights concerning retirement and health care (AOH, p. 179). His ignorance of economics is also evidenced. Take the [Bush] Administration's attempt to privatize Social Security... that the stock market can provide individuals a better return on investment... But individual investment decisions will always produce winners and losers... What would the Ownership Society do with the losers? Unless we're willing to see seniors starve on the street, we're going to have to cover their retirement expenses... In other words, the Ownership Society doesn't even try to spread the risks and rewards of the new economy among all Americans. Instead it magnifies the uneven risks and rewards of today's winner-take-all economy. And in a July 2009 news conference on health care he rambles on and on, tossing out mind-numbing "this" and poor-Joe-family "that" and how government can somehow sort it all out, because the "American people need some relief." Obama says, "The House suggested a surcharge on wealthy Americans. And my understanding, although I haven't seen the final versions, is that there has been talk about making that basically only apply to families whose joint income is $1 million."
As we know, the House passed in October a multi-billion dollar bill that in fact surcharges "wealthy" Americans to help pay for it.
Economic Recovery...
And you can follow the progress of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, delivered right in the comfort of your own home by Obama and his Congress for a few billions and billions of dollars. Follow how it's going to create jobs, save jobs, spur economic activity and economic growth. To borrow Bishop McKenzie's words, "follow the money."
Financial Reform...
As far as the financial sector goes, Obama doesn't hesitate to place full blame on Wall Street for the financial crisis: We were on the verge of a complete financial meltdown. And the reason was because Wall Street took extraordinary risks with other people's money...(H)ear my words: We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess at the heart of this crisis, where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses.
And get ready for this one from September 2009: "We have a host of members of Congress, but there's one that I have to single out because he is going to be helping to shape the agenda going forward to make sure that we have one of the strongest, most dynamic, and most innovative financial markets in the world for many years to come, and that's my good friend, Barney Frank." [emphasis mine]
Just to remind you, despite warnings going back to 2001 that the quasi-governmental lending giants Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac were on the brink of an insolvency that could spread to the whole financial system, the now-Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Barney Frank, said everything was just fiiiinnnnne. Obama ignores this fact and argues instead for sweeping regulatory control over the financial markets.
The Audacity to Take Our Money
Obama contradicts himself again and holds back some love of FDR, and decides to go for a kind of middle-ground way to implement his Religious Leftism. He claims that neither Democratic New Deal policies or Republican Reaganomics will work in today's global economy. He writes, "But our history should give us confidence that we don't have to choose between an oppressive, government-run economy and a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism." (?!) -- [my own facial tic, sorry]...
Blah Blah Blah...
"We should be guided by what works." "(I)nvestment" in education, "provid(ing) many students and parents with more direct help in meeting college expenses... [I]nvest[ing] in our future innovators -- by doubling federal funding of basic research over the next five years... It's hard to overstate the degree to which our addiction to oil undermines our future... It undermines our national security... And then there are the environmental consequences of our fossil fuel-based economy... What we can do is create renewable, cleaner energy sources for the 21st century... [We should] demand that 1 percent of the revenues from oil companies with over $1 billion in quarterly profits go towards financing alternative energy research and the necessary infrastructure."
But What of the Individual?
The Religious Left has big plans to create an egalitarian and "just" America by doing good works of Jesus. Obama and Congress are going to accomplish this by a massive wealth re-distribution scheme and lots of borrowing. And they're going to sell it to America by invoking the power of envy and religious indignation.
If only we could convince them to read Ayn Rand's "Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal" and Andrew Bernstein's, "The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophical Case for Laissez-Faire." They would learn that statism and freedom are mutually exclusive and incompatible.
I like the way Dr. Bernstein puts it: "Is a human being a sovereign individual who owns his life, mind, effort and its products -- or is he a slave to society, who can control his life, dictate his thinking and expropriate his property?"
And the final word on capitalism I take away from Obama and give to Ayn Rand
If there were such a thing as a passion for equality (not equality de jure, but de facto), it would be obvious to its exponents that there are only two ways to achieve it: either by raising all men to the mountaintop--or by razing the mountains. The first method is impossible because it is the faculty of volition that determines a man's stature and action; but the nearest approach to it was demonstrated by the United States and capitalism, which protected the freedom, the rewards and the incentives for every individual's achievement, ... thus raising the intellectual, moral and economic state of the whole society. Labels: Capitalism, Religion
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| Thursday, December 17, 2009 |
Conservative Sees the Light on Pragmatism
By Diana Hsieh @ 10:00 AM
Crossposted with permission from The American Individualist.
Conservative Sees the Light on Pragmatism
By Joseph Kellard
Over at the conservative commentary site townhall.com, I was intrigued to read "Principle vs. Pragmatism," a column by Ken Connor, who is unknown to me.
Halfway through reading this column, I thought that perhaps a conservative has come to see the light about the destructiveness of pragmatism. Heck, he even invokes Aristotle:
"The truth of the matter is that when it comes to the most fundamental questions about human society, culture, and government, the middle ground is not a sensible place to occupy. When it comes down to the fundamentals, things are either right or they are wrong; to suggest that they may be right for me and wrong for you is nonsense. Moral relativism comes into conflict with the Law of Non-Contradiction when operating at the level of fundamental values."
But, alas, the light this conservative was seeing came from Heaven.
"There are, as our forefathers recognized, certain universal and self-evident truths. Human beings, for example, have been endowed by their Creator with an unalienable right to life. It is, therefore, wrong to murder an innocent human being, regardless of whether they are in the womb or in a nursing home. The act of murder is wrong regardless of who makes the decision to carry it out (mother, doctor, family) or how it is denominated (abortion, mercy killing, euthanasia). The character of an act is not changed by the rhetoric that accompanies it or the person who performs it. Such an act cannot be both right and wrong--right for you and wrong for me. It is either right or wrong--period.
"There are certain principles that define the world view of Christian conservatives, principles that we are unwilling to budge on …"
Connor goes on to invoke God and "other principles" that he and other Christians will not compromise on, without noting what those alleged principles are exactly.
Since Connor's basis of morality is God's arbitrary commandments and not the one-and-only reality from which principles are rationally derived, Lord only knows what those "other principles" of his may be, but you can safely bet that they are not a proper foundation for freedom.Labels: Christianity, Politics
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