By Selwyn Duke
The United States may be producing only one-tenth as many scientists as does China, but if California is any guide, Americans may soon excel in at least one area: “sensitivity.”
That is, as defined by modern educational overlords.
It’s all part of the new standards of Common Core, the controversial education program pushed by Barack Obama and the Department of Education.
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By Selwyn Duke
“If not for my faith, I would be barely human.” That was the answer English writer Evelyn Waugh gave when asked, as all Christians will be at some point, how he could call himself a Christian given his behavior. Often rhetorical, the question is sometimes a ploy used to gain leverage and discredit the target by painting him as a hypocrite or to discredit the faith through guilt by association. Yet it can also be sincere, and it is then, especially, that it warrants a response.
The first thing to note about those who honestly ask the question is that they must think very highly of Christianity; if they didn’t, they’d merely assume you were acting wholly in accordance with your faith. This is the only thing that would explain — again, when the question is sincere — the higher standard to which they hold Christians. Others may exhibit the frailties and character flaws plaguing man, but they never hear “Such licentious behavior! How can you lay claim to hedonism?!” or, upon a loss of temper, “You call yourself a communist?!” Yet this raises a question: If Christianity provides this superior model for life, why don’t these secularists embrace it?
Don’t ask me why I’m a terrible Christian. Maybe I’m just a lost soul. Virtues are caught more than taught; actions speak louder than words.
Walk the walk and show me how it’s done.
Continue reading "The Bad Christian and the Good Secularist" »
By Selwyn Duke
ObamaCare conspirator Jonathan Gruber has gotten 15 minutes of fame by being America’s most cheeky liar of the moment. Now he’s getting bonus minutes for being, critics say, a cost-benefit-analysis abortionist — and, perhaps, an advocate for euthanasia.
At issue is a 1997 research paper Gruber co-authored entitled “Abortion Legalization and Child Living Circumstances: Who is the ‘Marginal Child’?” In it, he and his collaborators advance the thesis that abortion saves government money by killing off poor people — though he doesn’t quite put it in those stark terms. Quoting how the paper actually does put it while grilling Gruber during Tuesday’s Committee on Oversight & Government Reform hearing, Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said to the MIT economist, “On page 20 you conclude that ‘abortion legalization appears to be associated with an improvement in the average living circumstances and birth outcomes among a birth cohort.’ And on page 26, you state that your research indicates ‘that the legalization of abortion saved the government over $14 billion in welfare payments through 1994.’” The congressman then asked Gruber, “Is providing more access to abortion, is that a worthy social outcome to achieve cost savings for the government?”
To again put matters in stark terms, Massie was asking if it was good policy to kill certain unborn babies to save money.
Read the rest here.
By Selwyn Duke
Much of the reaction to Barack Obama’s illegal granting of amnesty by executive decree reflects a fundamental misunderstanding about our government’s intended nature. Illustrative of this misunderstanding is pundit Geraldo Rivera, who opined Thursday that “Republicans had it coming” because they “allowed their House Leadership to be rendered irrelevant by anti-immigration radicals” who have “zero intention to do anything on immigration except build higher fences and hire more border guards.” He furthermore states that if Obama “waited for the House GOP” to do something on immigration, “we would have waited forever.”
First note that building higher fences and hiring more border guards — aiding the executive branch in its legitimate role of enforcing the law — is hardly “doing nothing.” Moreover, if the liberals really wanted something done, all Obama had to do was assent to the Republican proposals. Oh, why should he just capitulate and give the opposition what it wants?
Fair enough. But doesn’t my suggestion merely reflect the attitude liberals have taken? The GOP is supposed to give them what they want, and if it doesn’t, it’s to be viewed as some kind of code violation that justifies liberals’ law violation.
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By Selwyn Duke
If a person became convinced that there were no such things as the laws of human health and nutrition, the consequences would be far greater than just Dr. Oz being out of a job. Without such guidance for determining diet, the person would have no yardstick for deciding what to put in his mouth other than taste. Operating by the credo "If it seems good, eat it," he'd likely gravitate toward junk food, whatever food happened to titillate the tongue at the moment. But moments change, and who knows where a palate ever seeking the next adventurous culinary thrill would lead? With the only limit on diet being that of human taste itself, sampling those colorful berries on that bush outside, or that fluid under the sink (as a little child might) may seem appealing. Whatever the case, having fallen victim to this culinary relativism, the person couldn't even understand the link between caloric intake and obesity, or obesity and poor health. I mean, copious consumption of cakes and confections may hurt you, but don't impose your gastronomic values on me, hater.
Of course, such an approach could very well yield constant degradation of the body, but the process wouldn't go on forever. Death would bring it to an end.
By Selwyn Duke
Pro-abortion advocates’ mantra has long been, framed from a woman’s point of view, “My body, my choice.” But the sincerity of this argument is again being called into question, this time by a phenomenon on college campuses whereby increasing numbers of students accept “post-birth abortion.”
Yes, that’s the murder of a child after he is born.
The College Fix’s Mairead McArdle has the story, writing:
Anecdotal evidence by leaders of prolife groups such as Created Equal and Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust said in interviews that not only do they see more college students willing to say they support post-birth abortion, but some students even suggest children up to 4 or 5-years-old can also be killed, because they are not yet “self aware.”
“We encounter people who think it is morally acceptable to kill babies after birth on a regular basis at almost every campus we visit,” said Mark Harrington, director of Created Equal. “While this viewpoint is still seen as shocking by most people, it is becoming increasingly popular.”
The observation that there’s growing acceptance of infanticide among college students has also been made by Kristina Garza, a spokeswoman for Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, which is involved in pro-life activism at West Coast campuses. And she believes she can explain the phenomenon:
Read the rest here.
By Selwyn Duke
“Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers,” said then-Minnesota governor and ex-professional wrestler Jesse Ventura in 1999. It’s a common idea. Atheism’s point man Richard Dawkins has called even disorganized religion a crutch, author Robert Heinlein expressed this secular tenet through one of his characters, and heavy metal band Iced Earth screamed the thought in a song. In fact, the notion is expressed so much, it could occur to one that the idea religion is a crutch is a crutch.
Now, you could think the world’s Dawkinses should be taken just as seriously as the late Robin Williams was when, expressing a sentiment Iced Earth might agree with, he quipped, “Reality is just a crutch for people who can’t cope with drugs.” But since the issue here is no laughing matter, let us start with a very serious acknowledgment about religion being a crutch: It certainly can be.
Not true, however, is what the religion-as-crutch theory invariably implies and is commonly taken to mean: Since faith’s supposed crutch status would indicate it is embraced out of convenience, religion must be false and destructive and God must not exist. Playwright Tom Stoppard could be correct in saying, “Atheism is a crutch for those who cannot bear the reality of God,” but I doubt this would make unbelievers question the reality of atheism. A young child may instinctively use his father as a crutch — deriving a feeling of security and stability from him — but that is not why he believes his father exists; it just gives him another good reason to be happy his father does. Nothing is a truer crutch than an actual crutch, and it not only exists but is the most necessary thing when needed temporarily to buttress a broken bone. And the same can be said of faith, that it is needed for a broken race and is required only temporarily, during that transitional phase between birth and death.
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By Selwyn Duke
If I pointed out that involvement in every major 20th-century conflict the US was part of occurred on liberals’ watch, it might not be entirely fair. True, there was WWI under Wilson, WWII under FDR, Korea under Truman, and Vietnam under Kennedy and Johnson. But the second Great War needed to be fought, four conflicts aren’t exactly a scientific sample, and some could contend that these men were, to some extent, victims of timing and circumstance. It also should be said that with modernity’s characteristic flaw of relativism causing ever shifting social visions, yesterday’s liberals aren’t like today’s. As to this, some may mention that it’s a tad tendentious to limit the conflict timeframe to the 20th century, with George W. Bush getting us into Iraq and Afghanistan. But like his father, Bush was always a traditional statist, an old-line liberal in the mold of JFK. Moreover, our Middle East adventures weren’t quite like Korea or Vietnam: the wars were won fast. The problem was winning the peace.
But, fair enough, the historical record itself isn’t sufficient to indict liberals as warmongers. No matter, though, because I don’t claim liberals are warmongers. They are ignorance and naïveté mongers.
Continue reading "If You Want to Get into a Really Big War, Elect a Liberal" »
By Selwyn Duke
There is this notion, one we hear more and more, that the Republican Party has to shed the social issues to seize the future. “Social issues are not the business of government!” says thoroughly modern millennial. It’s a seductive cry, one repeated this past Tuesday in an article about how some young libertarians dubbed the “Liberty Kids” are taking over the moribund Los Angeles GOP. Oh, wouldn’t the political landscape be simple if we could just boil things down to fiscal responsibility? But life is seldom simple.
If you would claim to be purely fiscal, or assert that “social issues” should never be government’s domain, I’d ask a simple question: would you have no problem with a movement to legalize pedophilia?
Some responses here won’t go beyond eye-rolling and scoffing. Others will verbalize their incredulity and say that such a movement would never be taken seriously. This is not an answer but a dodge. First, the way to determine if one’s principles are sound is by seeing if they can be consistently applied. For instance, if someone claims he never judges others, it’s legitimate to ask whether he remains uncritical even of Nazis and KKK members; that puts the lie to his self-image. And any thinking person lives an examined life and tries to hone his principles.
Continue reading "Libertarian Folly: Why Everybody is a Social-issues Voter" »
By Selwyn Duke
“I wanted to inflict pain on all young couples.... I was capable of killing them, and I wanted to. I wanted to kill them slowly, to strip the skins off their flesh. They deserve it. The males deserve it for taking the females away from me, and the females deserve it for choosing those males instead of me” — My Twisted World, The Story of Elliot Rodger, page 87.
On the surface, Elliot Rodger had it all. The son of a Hollywood director, he lived a life of opulence and opportunity, able to attend private schools, receiving VIP passes for special events and film premieres, and visiting six different countries by the age of four. He regularly bought expensive designer clothes, wore $300 Armani sunglasses, and could fly first class. And when he killed six people this past Friday in a rampage centered around the University of California, Santa Barbara campus, he was driving a BMW 328I coupe, a car most Americans can scarcely afford.
But it was Rodger’s unfulfilled desires for women’s attention and sex that truly drove him — to despair, jealousy and, ultimately, to murder and suicide.
Read the rest here.
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