As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

Proverbs 23:7 KJV

For many years now, commentators and historians observing the culture wars have stuck to the terms “conservative” and “liberal” consistently.  The groups themselves have taken these labels to heart, and millions wear them proudly.  They are badges of honor that counts them among in an elite army of political and social warriors who see themselves as either defending the treasured legacy of the past or riding the cutting edge of the transformation into a new, progressive world. Unfortunately, this passion has obscured a simple, troublesome fact about both:  the terms are now meaningless.  Why?  They have effectively switched sides.  The failure of “conservatism” to grasp this fact has hamstrung its efforts at cultural reform and could prove deadly to its resolve in the future.

 In the simplest and purest form, divorced from modern political implications, a “conservative” wants to prevent change from occurring, while a “liberal” is someone who wants to promote change.  This leads us to a simple question:  “Which of the goals of the ‘conservative’ movement actually involve ‘conservation’?”

 Abortion has been legal and enthusiastically practiced for nearly an entire generation.  It long ago ceased to be anything unusual, and is now the norm in every state in the Union.

• It has been forty years since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society officially turned America into a functioning welfare state.
• Liberals have dominated to world of academia since the 1950s.  In fact, they have taken such firm control that finding more than one real conservative in a department of History is the exception.  Trying to find one in places like English departments is nearly akin to looking for a live Brontosaurus in Central Park.
• Though Intelligent Design/Creationism is beginning to make a come back, macro-evolution and secular humanism continues to be taught exclusively in school systems around the country.  Homosexual friendly sex-ed is no longer the exception.
• It has been roughly 100 years since the Constitution, as written, had anything to do with this country.  The norm now is judicial activism and the limitless power of the federal government.
• In many ways, both parties stand on very similar platforms, and have very similar goals, as they reach out for that mythical “middle ground.”  On issues like welfare and abortion, moderate Republicans are best described as “Democrats Light.”
• Religion, often times, is not only separate from the state, its pursuit is prevented and even persecuted by the state.

 Of course, I could go on.

 My point is this:  Literal decades have passed since the “liberal” agenda became the practical status quo for most of the country.  When that happened, the “liberals” became the “conservatives” and the “conservatives” became the ones fighting for change.  Traditionalists have become the radicals, challenging the intact system of belief and government.

 This has enormous implications for how modern advocates of traditional values see themselves in relation to their opponents.  A “conservative” is someone who generally thinks in a defensive mindset.  After all, his or her goal is specifically to defend ground against advancing enemies, and all decisions on tactics and strategy are made with an eye to the preservation of an existing position or state of affairs. 

 In the social and cultural realm, this easily translates into a laid back, “let-them-come-to-us” mentality that promotes inaction.  It is completely ineffective when there is little, if any, worthwhile ground left to hold. The result is not unlike trying to win a football game by playing only red zone defense.

So, it is high time that “conservatives” realize that they are in fact the real “liberals” in this country (if they can say it without choking).  They are trying to retake lost ground and promote meaningful change in the government and society as a whole.  They advocate the protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  This involves not defense, but offense.  Not laid back passive tactics, but active ones.  Arrayed against them, they have the agents of the status quo:  academics, teachers, pop culture icons, and even large portions of a bloated federal government and an artificially secularized court system. 

 No one ever won a war, cultural or otherwise, by simply standing still.  It is time that “conservatives” realized this.

"They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps."

- Shakespeare, Love's Labour Lost

 Britain has just been hit by another wave of bombings.  A natural result of this sort of thing is fear and a desire to make certain attacks don't happen again.  People demand restrictive measures designed with safety in mind.  As a result, liberal activists, university professors, and various lobbies take up a chant that I am certain will sound quite familiar to your ears.  It goes something like this:

Person A:  We need to do something to secure our borders and protect our people.  Perhaps we should start checking people who come into the country, or watching immigration.  If not, we won’t be a free country for long.

 Person B:  You {insert derogatory expletive of choice here} are so hypocritical!  You say you believe in "freedom" and then at the first breath of danger you take it all back.  What's more, you go around forcing your disgusting morality on everyone!  That's the exact opposite of freedom.

 What is very important to note, is that this argument applies to just about any liberal cause under the sun, not just (mostly) unintentionally aiding and abetting terrorists.  The same attack crops up whenever someone brings up a view on homosexuality, abortion, welfare, etc. that a liberal doesn't particularly care to hear. 

 I myself have heard this more times than I care to count.  The point of the exercise, from the liberal perspective, is to a:  make Person A feel guilty over having brought up principles that contradict Person B's, and b: to "demonstrate" that Person A has somehow morally disqualified his or herself from being able to speak on that subject again.  The only way to come out from under this ban is to grovel at the feet of a liberal cause.

Well, I for one have finally had it, and I think its time to clear the philosophical air a bit.  What's actually happening in the above situation is yet another semantic game, one that conservatives and Christians have let liberals get away with for far too long.

 The real issue at hand is what freedom really means. 

In modern America, we have two definitions for the same word, one of them older and more philosophically consistent than the other.    The more respectable and practical definition of freedom is that it is the right to choose between every right--or at least morally neutral--thing.  According to this definition, there is right, there is wrong, and human beings understand morality to the point that they can intelligently choose right over wrong.  If a thing is wrong (such as making child pornography or committing rape or murder), we never have a "right" to choose it (though we may have the power to do so).  In fact, governments and laws are set up to prevent people from choosing wrong things, and to punish those that have.  Everything else, from the morally neutral to the morally good, is fair game for people to exercise their freedom upon.  This covers toothpaste to education to where they live to where they work to where they worship and anything that falls in between.

 The newer, less consistent definition of freedom comes to us from the now popularized post modern movement.  The very essence of PM is relativism, an outflow of naturalism where there is no settled norm for anything, especially morals.  Everything is reduced to mere preference and personal opinion.  So, if there is no right or wrong, then freedom means the right choose between all things, regardless of any alleged moral consequences.  Usually there is a "so long as it doesn't hurt anyone" rider attached to it, but anyone who can think past the end of his or her nose will see that there isn't a single reason why an action shouldn't hurt anyone, as long as the perpetrator can get away with it.  After all, who says there’s something wrong about hurting someone else?

What we have in the hypothetical conversation above is a bit of semantical sleight of hand.  The original speaker, Person A, has made a statement that presumes the first, more reliable definition of freedom.  To Person A, there is nothing inherently contradictory about saying that a group of people do not have the freedom to do a thing, so long as that thing is clearly wrong (such as allowing murdering terrorist into a country).  The question for Person A is this:  "Does the action in question stand the test of morality?"  If so, then people are free to pursue it, if not, then it is no more hypocritical to suggest that someone be prevented from "choosing" it than to say that pedophilia should be illegal.  Person B may not like the conclusion that Person A reaches, but Person A isn't being hypocritical in the least.

 The hypocrisy is actually imposed from without, by Person B.  Person B uses exactly the same language as Person A, but surreptitiously (though not always consciously) changes the meaning of the word "freedom" radically, from the old to the new.  If allowed to get away with this substitution, Person B will have "proved" Person A to be both a moron and a hypocrite.

How should one respond in a situation like this?  Don't let the switch take place.  The real question at hand is which definition of "freedom" is right, and why.

 It should be obvious that the modern secularist definition must fall apart at the merest breath of either critical analysis or practical application.  There are some acts, such as those mentioned above, that every sane person believes is wrong.  They also believe that people should be prevented from committing such acts, if at all possible.  Successfully precluding an act means it is no longer a choice.  If we try to preclude all occurrences, we have implicitly acknowledged that act is “wrong” whatever philosophical garbage we may spout. 

 Even the fact that they believe that "no one should be hurt" by an action implies that they believe at least one thing is "right."  And if that is "right," then violating it must be "wrong."  Also, many relativists are quite happy to live with their philosophy, but only until it comes home to roost.  After an “insurgent” has blown their loved ones to tiny bits while making a “political statement,” people tend to see things differently.

 Note that this does not, in itself prove anything beyond the fact that the liberal approach to "freedom," well intentioned though it may be, does not reflect reality.  Everyone should be "free," but some ideologies and causes (such as the ones they champion) are more "free" than others.  Homosexuals are free to do as they like in public, but Christian ministers could face prosecution for saying that homosexuality is wrong.

 No one should take this op-ed to mean that I think any government should be given a blank check to "protect" its citizens by trampling over all of their legitimate, God-given rights.  But we should also be careful to make sure that the "rights" in question have not recently been created using a completely asinine definition of "freedom" that is as meaningless as it is self-refuting.  Given the literal life and death issues we face, sensible people, both in Britain and the United States, must train themselves to take the conversation up a notch or two, to get through guilt trip of smoke and mirrors, and at the real questions behind it all.  It is there that we hold all the aces.

            It is routinely remarked by both intellectuals and pseudo-intellectuals that “those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it.”  It is definitely true that one of the history profession’s greatest tasks is to explain to the current generation how people in the past dealt with their problems, the good and the bad.  We hope that by doing so we might (re)learn some lesson or at least will avoid the same pitfalls our ancestors discovered the hard way.   One area in which a number of strong comparisons may be made might surprise us.  A number of historical similarities present themselves between the arguments antebellum slaveholders used to support slavery and those used to support the modern abortion rights movement.

 At its most basic level, African chattel slavery involved one section of the population declaring other portions of that same population non-persons in order to protect the dominant side’s perceived rights and to reap economic gain, public benefit, and convenience.  In doing so, the slaveholders claimed as a civil right the ability to perpetrate a moral wrong on someone who was not in a position to complain.  This, of course, is nothing more or less than the essence of the “Pro Choice” movement.  Arguments in favor of abortion and slavery are nearly identical, revolving around several similar premises: 

1.      Each person’s “right” to choose to do what he or she would with a life that had been arbitrarily defined as property—slaves or in utero children.

2.      The economic and quality of life benefits both systems offered the rest of the population—massive revenues brought in by slave agriculture or possible health care advances through stem cell research; protection against losing a huge investment in slaves or having to raise and inconvenient baby in less than ideal—or even frankly bad—circumstances.

3.      The tiny minority of cases from both groups that seem on the face of it somewhat morally acceptable—slaves who apparently consented to slavery and pregnancies that threaten the mother’s life which can only be relieved by abortion (which make up less than 5% of the abortions currently performed in America).

4.      An allegedly altruistic case made from the perspective of the victims, arguing that by granting them their rights, we are inevitably causing more harm than good—To keep uneducated slaves in slavery is more human than freeing them to face a harsh world, while to abort unwanted babies to prevent them from facing possible emotional and physical duress in a poor home situation is more humane than allowing them a chance at life.

 Southerners employed, and abortionists still do, sham science to justify both movements, even as honest science makes the reality of their victim’s humanity all the more clear.  Pro-slavery advocates at the time had an even easier time seeing the slaves humanity than modern Americans do in-utero children; they could look black men and women in the eye, talk to them, and get to know them.  Still, they managed to turn to “science” to support their claims.  They even trotted out the discovery of the gorilla as “proof” African-Americans were scientifically sub-human.  Today, while the evidence mounts through better ultrasound technology that children should be considered human months before birth (indeed, looking at DNA evidence, at conception), the modern abortion movement continues to insist that life in bestowed mystically by a child passing through the few inches of the birth canal.  Is the child physiologically different than five minutes before, are such differences measurable and on the scale to suddenly bestow personhood?  Of course not, but the modern abortion movement maintains that this is the “scientific” beginning of life.  Why then?  Not because of evidence, but because, like the pro-slavery use of the gorilla, it is convenient to their position.

So, it also becomes clear that the hardcore advocates in both groups have made emotional, volitional choices to cling to their beliefs in the face of this mounting evidence.  Their decisions are not made because of the evidence, but rather in spite of it.  In the case of slavery, the humanity of black men and women was completely manifest, but slaveholders chose to deny reality anyway.  It is the same with modern abortionists.  All of the evidence clearly points to a beginning point for life prior to birth, and yet many plainly refuse to acknowledge it.  In both cases, the alleged benefits of the institution cause an emotional reaction that result in a decision in spite of the available evidence.  Such a decision requires effort and a willful disregard of the facts.    

Finally, both movements try to confuse the issue by focusing on the rights and well-being of a single party in what is in reality a complex situation that involves more than one group.  With slavery, it was the rights and comfort (particularly economic) of the slave holder that trumped all others.  The rights of African Americans—as individuals, as mothers, as fathers, as families—could not be considered since doing so would inevitably undermine and destroy the institution of slavery.  In the case of abortion, the rights and comfort of the mother necessarily trump all others.  The child’s rights are not allowed to enter into the equation because doing so could potentially lead to something other than abortion on demand. 

There is only one sure way for both pro-slavery and pro-abortion theorists to prevent the victims’ rights from coming to play:  Deny the humanity of the afflicted party.  If either the slave or the child is human, and therefore due rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” the situation becomes a much more difficult one.  Admitting the potential rights of the victims also results in simple, straight forward judgments against both slavery and abortion.  Slavery cannot be “good” if it deprives another person of his or her rights.  Abortions for convenience cannot be “good” if they are in fact the murder of an innocent child.  Therefore, for the erstwhile defenders of both groups, defining a group of persons out of existence becomes an absolute necessity.  This, of course, brings our comparison full circle. 

This isn’t, of course, to imply that there is a 100% correspondence between the two.  For instance, while slavery stole lives a day at a time, abortion snatches away an entire life when it is most innocent and helpless.  (At least Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey could revolt.)  Slavery caused a Civil War that resulted in 620,000 American deaths, while the violence resulting from abortion (barring that committed upon unborn children) has thus far been negligible.  Slavery dealt with fully functioning, mature, thinking individuals, while abortion involves actions against individuals incapable of communication or complex thought.  Still, the similarities are significant.  Perhaps by dwelling on them, Americans will be able to see both all the more clearly.

“A nation never falls, but by suicide.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson

 Yesterday, people struggled with speculation on what the death of Terri Schiavo would mean to America.  Moments ago, that question moved from the theoretical to the practical.  Terri is dead, and the United States has killed her.  Though there are many individuals who are completely innocent, the simple, unavoidable fact is that our country, yours and mine, allowed the murder of a helpless woman.  There is no way to prove it now, but I believe deep down that most people recognize that her death will one day be looked upon as a watershed event in U.S. history.  

 It would seem that people on both sides of the issue intuitively know its importance.  A flood of articles on the subject, from Cal Thomas to Ann Coulter to Peggy Noonan to even my lowly self has deluged the net.  They seem to have been coming from every side, so much so that a reader of the Rant.us actually remarked, “Damn Kill her already!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”  The news channels bombarded us with articles on Terri’s condition, albeit from a biased perspective.  A Pro-Life protestor actually tried to hold up a gun shop in Florida to get the weapons needed to stage a rescue.  John David Morris found himself “freaked out” by the situation (though apparently not enough so that he would take a stand).  Peggy Noonan noted that

 Everyone who has written in defense of Mrs. Schiavo's right to live has received e-mail blasts full of attacks that appear to have been dictated by the unstable and typed by the unhinged. On Democratic Underground they crowed about having "kicked the sh-- out of the fascists."

 Everyone seemed to realize that our collective decision would somehow affect the future of the country in a very fundamental way.

 Without rehashing the arguments laid out by the many and diverse commentators who have taken up their pens, the “mercy” killing of Terri Schiavo broke new ground.  People can at least pretend that a baby they have not seen is nothing more than a lump of flesh.  Terri did not give us that luxury.  A cancer patient in the advanced stages of a disease clearly has no hope.  Dozens of doctors offered to work with Terri, and many expected improvement.  It is a step beyond anything that we as Americans have ever allowed before.  Now that it has happened, I seriously doubt that we will somehow turn back the clock, or treat it as a special case.  If this proves true, we may well look back on it some day as the final step that sent the United States on a downward spiral the likes of which we have not seen since that other important moment, Dredd Scott (with apologies to James Atticus Bowden, who pointed out the similarities between the cases).

 I know of no earthquake that struck the state of Florida the moment that Terri actually expired.  No bricks marked “Welcome to a new epoch of American History” fell from the sky to clobber us all.  Then again, what do we expect?  Did July 5^th, 1776 feel somehow mystically different for Farmer Joe in Virginia?  Did Frau Jane wake up from visions of the Holocaust in a cold sweat early in the morning after the first handicapped person was euthanized in Germany?  No.  Life will continue, move along, and references to Terri will quickly disappear from the news.  Soon, all that will be left is a lingering, uneasy memory settling in the pit of the stomach (and a new precedent on euthanasia).  If I am right, and I truly hope to be wrong, the significance of the moment will become increasingly and frighteningly clear as we make the slow trudge through the next few generations.

 I also feel there is a spiritual significance to what we have seen, though I understand that not all readers will be able to understand me.  I firmly believe that this nation has been blessed of God, even though we aren’t a “chosen” people as many have used the term.  It was founded as a Christian nation, on Christian principles, and set up a society based on faith in the Almighty.  We have to one extent or another enjoyed His favor, blessing, and protection.  But how far is too far?  How many bridges can we burn to our past before we are that nation in name only?  How much farther can we push our disregard for Him, His creation, and human life before He removes His preserving Hand from us?  I fear that with the death of Terri Schiavo, that time may well have come.  Maybe I’m overreacting to a horrible situation, but it worries me nonetheless.

 Many will blame Michael Schiavo, others the media, and still others the courts. The truth is that this country, the United States of America, has killed her.  We had every opportunity to intervene or to disobey illegal, immoral judgments, and we have failed.  We have allowed our culture and nation to degenerate to the point where human life is disregarded, where murder by judge is accepted and even defended by a Christian commentator (Cal Thomas insists that it is wrong for Christians to oppose or disobey “lawful” decisions…and Christians should have supported the Holocaust because the orders inflicting it were “lawful.”). 

 Again the words of Thomas Jefferson ring truer than ever:  “Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.” 

“Why does this prospect so unnerve [the pull the tube people]? Again, if you think Terri Schiavo is a precious human gift of God, your passion is explicable. The passion of the pull-the-tube people is not.”

--Peggy Noonan in “In Love With Death”

 Peggy Noonan recently made this interesting observation and a number of other conservative commentators have echoed it.   I think I can answer her question, though I realize that my scribble will likely never reach Ms. Noonan’s screen.  There is logic that undergirds the passion of many (but not all) of the “pull the tube” people.  It is the dogmatic belief that human beings are the measure of all things, and the pseudo-religious crusading that results from it.

 In their Sauron-like quest to dominate the universe, humans have already laid claim to the prerogative to design and modify life.  They thus view life as merely a commodity to be experimented upon by god-like humanity.  Human cloning, stem cell research, eugenics, and other attempts to control human destiny all testify to our “triumphs” in this respect.  

 With life theoretically tucked under our belt, the next logical step is to take control of death.  American secular humanism has not neglected this.  Abortion on demand is, of course, an important step in this direction.  In a very real sense, humans exercise a twisted imitation of ultimate authority when they arbitrarily decide which babies are “worthy” of life, and which are not.  For our current purposes, it is important to note that the humanity of the “fetus,” if it is considered at all, is automatically a secondary consideration to the wants, whims, and fears of the mother. 

 Euthanasia is a similar concept, but, until Terri Schiavo, in America it generally involved only the practical recognition of a death that had already occurred.  With a few fringe exceptions, these “pull the plug people” (as distinguished from tube) did not actually advocate, cause, or allow the willful death of another human being still capable of living; they only allowed the rest of a person’s body to catch up with an already dead mind by removing extraordinary means of artificial support from it.

 These two facts—humanity’s desire to occupy the throne of God and the relatively undeveloped state of American euthanasia—explain both the passion of the “pull the tube people” and also their callous disregard to calls for further testing for Terri. 

 First, to kill Terri Schiavo, whether she is in a PVS or not, takes euthanasia in America to the next level.  Terri’s case does not involve respirators or heart machines; until her starvation began, she was in no overt pain.  This is a new style of “mercy” killing, and it will be used to further a real precedent.  As a result, Americans, like their European brethren, will have more fully laid claim to the prerogative of death.  I say “more fully” because there is still ground to be taken.  If we follow the European example, as we have thus far, infanticide comes next (and is indeed already on its way).  Beyond that, there are changing definitions of what the slippery terminology “sufficient quality of life” exactly means.

 So, Terri’s death represents a leap forward towards a long established, desperately desired goal:  humankind making themselves the measure of all things.  For anyone to oppose this holy writ seems to one of the priests or priestesses of the new humanity like questioning the virginity of Mary during the Inquisition.

 If we understand this, it shouldn’t be shocking to see why the “pull the tube” people are so desperate that Terri die without delay, and why they aren’t interested in having her re-examined.  Her real medical condition is extraneous to their point.  They want a new, more powerful, sort of “mercy” killing, and whether or not Terri is aware of what is happening (or even human at all) is not an issue.  For the United States’ government and its people to agree to kill her because she allegedly would have wanted it, despite the fact that she suffers from a non-terminal condition, is to implicitly recognize euthanasia on demand.  In that goal, they have unquestionably succeeded.  They have tacitly made euthanasia the philosophical equal of abortion.  This is a battle in the culture wars, and at its heart, it is a question of whether or not America will redefine the meaning of life to allow attacks on “imperfect” adults, as it has on unborn children. 

 Now, as I noted earlier, there are probably many Americans out there who are in favor of Terri’s death simply because they are unacquainted with the facts, but Ms. Noonan’s article speculated about the passionate ones.  And with the help of the courts, these “pull the tube people” are already celebrating a resounding “victory” for humankind.  And while the Hemlock Society pours its celebratory toasts to Judge Greer (and makes donations to his campaign), Terri starves.

In the end, and no matter how much we wish Mrs. Schiavo had never suffered such a horrible accident, we are a nation of laws, and if we are to continue to be so, the pre-existing and well-established federal law…must be applied to her case.

Majority Opinion of the Eleventh United States Circuit Court of Appeals, Page 10

 It is necessary that the prince should know how to color his nature well, and how to be a great hypocrite and dissembler.  For men are so simple, and yield so much in immediate necessity, that the deceiver will never lack dupes.

Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter 18

 It is interesting how quickly governing authorities can develop qualms and second thoughts, especially when it comes to overturning any of the recently “well-established” views on morality and euthanasia, even when Congress gives them the legal opportunity to do so.  While I admit that I am not personally aware of the Eleventh Circuit Court’s particular past on these questions, the Supreme Court’s past is clear.  To see the activist court system refusing to act when it has a case before it of this magnitude may well be tellingly odd. 

 For decades now, the power of judicial activism and legal “realism” (the idea that laws are somewhat arbitrary and that judges are only bound by what they think best) has strangled American jurisprudence.  As far back as the 1920, when Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. gave the Congress the right to violate first amendment rights when a “clear and present danger” threatened the United States, the courts have distinguished themselves for taking full opportunity to dictate issues of morality to the American public.  While this has brought some good results (Civil Rights, desegregation) it has also borne horrific fruit (abortion, religious discrimination).

 So, it would seem that this would be a classic opportunity for the courts to exercise their unbridled discretion, and stick up for a person who has manifestly been discriminated against, denied equal rights, and even threatened with death.  A betting man or woman would probably put money down that the courts would intervene quickly with another treatise on the rights of handicapped people. 

 And yet now, suddenly, the courts seem to have developed Constitutional qualms over intervening.  They observe that we are now suddenly a “nation of laws,” implying that somehow the whole fabric of American jurisprudence would somehow come crashing down around our collective ears if they intervene and save Terri’s life, or at least prolong it long enough to allow new tests to be run and further opinions to be sought. 

 Strike down state restrictions on abortion, even though the Constitution gives them no power to do so?  Not a problem.  Interfere with the practice of religious freedom while enforcing a secular humanist creed in the schools?  Absolutely!  Use unratified international opinion and vague elitist moral imperatives to overturn state laws regarding the execution of juvenile murderers?  Go for it!  Save a severely handicapped woman denied proper medical care from a slow death of starvation and dehydration?  Wait a minute!  We’re a “nation of laws”!

 The hypocrisy couldn’t be clearer, and as Machiavelli observed, millions of Americans will fall for the reasoning.  The court quietly neglects to mention that our “laws” are based increasingly on nothing more than mere judicial whim (or a network of whims handed down in the past few decades).  So, when they encounter an opportunity that it pleases them to take advantage of, the court system can rule with abandon (and shaky precedent), while claiming the “intellectual” high ground of recent “advances” in jurisprudence.  If confronted with uncomfortable situations, they can simply lament that we are a “nation of laws,” and the original intent of various laws sadly prevents them from interfering.  Some intents are more original than others, it seems.

 To a certain extent, this should not be surprising.  A judicial system that bases its decisions on what a vague majority of its justices happened to walk out of college thinking or picked up from the New York Times will by definition be arbitrary. 

 The Supreme Court and its brethren have discovered their qualms just in time to conveniently murder Terri Schiavo.  I have a sneaking suspicion that it won’t take long before those qualms are largely forgotten.

I think that you know me well enough, Watson, to understand that I am by no means a nervous man. At the same time, it is stupidity rather than courage to refuse to recognize danger when it is close upon you.

--Sherlock Holmes in The Final Problem

             I do not fancy myself a nervous man.  Still, as Holmes observed, to recognize danger is the beginning of wisdom in a threatening world.   For years, there have been people who have envied and hated the United States.  Some of the greatest empires the world has ever known—Britain, France, Germany, the U.S.S.R., China—have raged against it.  All have failed.  And yet, in the midst of the tumult of history, a small thing may prove more dangerous than all the military might of the Soviet Union.  Barely heeded and hardly opposed, we are seeing the quiet junction of three powerful forces:  Judicial Activism, One World Government, and American Apathy.  America, like Holmes, needs to recognize the threat. 

 While a large number of commentators lament these individual aspects (for instance, see this excellent piece by Lisa Fabrizio), few seem to connect the dots to any further implications. 

             Each one of these parts is threatening enough in its own right, and left completely alone could wreck immeasurable havoc on the rights and freedoms of American citizens:        

• Judicial Activism involves the process of changing the United States from a Republic of elected representatives into an oligarchy of unelected judges who wield absolute power.  In the absence of any real, concrete standards, it threatens to become tool of minority elites (in the ideological, not in the racial sense) to enforce their politics and morality upon hundreds of millions of people with no recourse.
• Movements towards a One World Government, embodied by the current United Nations, would logically mean that America would no longer be the mistress of her own destiny.  What goes on within our borders would not be our business, but subject to the intrusive veto of the rest of the world, even on matters that are purely internal. 
• American Apathy speaks for itself.  As Edmund Burke famously noted, “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”  The more comfortable the average American becomes in his or her surroundings, the less likely they are to be willing to sacrifice them for abstract principles, like “freedom.”

 Together, these three trends could conceivably form a sum greater and more dangerous than the whole of their parts. 

For years the U.N. has complained about U.S. intransigence and independent spirit.  Still, before now it has lacked the military or economic wherewithal to enforce its will, and so had to content itself to clogging the streets of New York City and annoying its citizens.  The emergence of a Russia-China-EU alliance completely aside for a moment, the U.N. has now found a friend in our own Supreme Court.  The Court, long ago having abandoned the Constitution as a legal precedent, has begun to turn to international treaties—agreements that the United States has not ratified—and general international opinion for their guiding light. (Consider the dissenting opinion in the recent Roper v. Simmons and Leah Farish’s excellent commentary)  These guidelines are not based on what is best for the country.  In fact, many of them are anti-American, designed primarily to benefit foreign powers and ideologies at our expense.

This means that while previously America had the option of ignoring the U.N., it now finds itself in a completely different situation.  If the Supreme Court continues to use international treaties and declarations as its guide, having assumed a position of practical absolute authority, the United States will have foreign authority foisted upon it through the back door.  Since any issue could end up before the Court and given that many Americans treat the Court’s decisions with the same deference they do legislative law, it would defacto give the world its long coveted veto over American life and morality.  It would not involve a war or even economic sanctions, simply the good will of a mere five justices. 

What is even more disturbing is that if the court does indeed assume that international law must trump American jurisprudence, the American people are left with no recourse.  There is no court in our land that could overturn international opinion or treaties we have not signed; it could only choose to follow or ignore them.  If the court lacks the will or wisdom for the latter, we are left with the former by default.

This bears specific implications for conservative Americans on issues like abortion on demand.  If the court turns to exterior sources for their opinions, and does not search out either the ultimate truth of the matter or even the wants of the American people, we will find ourselves bound by a radical feminist agenda that we have not even voted on:  An immoral imperative from someone else’s country enforced by a panel of non-representative judges who in practice have never been held accountable for their decisions.  Anyone who thinks this is far fetched need only review the items above, and this one from the new U.N. conference on women’s equality.

The third and final aspect is of course American Apathy.  As the early colonists knew much better than many today, the time to oppose such moves is now, before they have become a reality.  If the British had actually collected a tax, and people accepted it, the patriot cause would have been lost before it begun.  When the U.N. mandate and Judicial Activism have married themselves into a successful social-political convention and the offspring of that unholy union has been accepted in practice, it will be virtually impossible to turn back the clock.  In a way, this makes the comfortable chair I’m sitting in as deadly a threat to my freedom as the U.S.S.R. ever was, even at the height of the Cold War.

Now, bear in mind that I am not predicting anything, and I am certainly not implying that there is any sort of conscious conspiracy between the U.N. and the Supreme Court.  That’s just silly.  And yet freedoms lost through thoughtless actions are often no more recoverable than those lost to outright conspiracies.  The pieces are in place.  It only remains to be seen whether or not we let them move freely.

"[Increase] the authority of certain physicians to be designated by name in such manner that persons who, according to human judgment, are incurable can, upon a most careful diagnosis of their condition of sickness, be accorded a mercy death."—Adolph Hitler, October, 1939

 “Death is one of the last taboo subjects in our society,” [Felos] said. “One of [Terri’s] legacies may be that we finally have matured as a society and come to grips with this question and start to deal with it in a responsible manner.”—George Felos, March 31, 2005

 In a recent e-mail exchange over one of my op-eds, I made mention of the Holocaust in reference to abortion and euthanasia.  My correspondent quickly responded that any such comparison between the Holocaust and modern America was completely illegitimate, because of the “unique” situation that Germany faced in the 30s.  This seemed to imply that depression era Germany was the only situation in which such atrocities could occur.  Such a thing could never happen in America.  Based on the comments of men like George Felos and on new polls by Fox News, I must humbly disagree. 

 Terri Schiavo herself completely aside, there is something tellingly disturbing in America’s reaction to her plight:  If we are to believe the polls, most Americans not only agreed with Michael, but they want to see it happen again.  Apparently they feel they are ready to deal with euthanasia in a more “responsible manner.”  If nations die by suicide, and we make the not-too-difficult assumption that mass murder implies mass consent (at least at some point in time), then we are seeing a disturbing mix revealed in American culture and politics.

There is a very vital question here that no one is explicitly addressing, but everyone has implicitly answered in forming their opinions of this case.  What does it really mean to be human, and what sorts of responsibilities does such a fact entail?  Is all life precious, or only life that meets certain arbitrary standards?  I have argued elsewhere that Americans are rapidly forgetting what it means to be Human, and in the recent polls, we can see just how much we have forgotten.

 According to even the allegedly conservative constituency of Fox News, being human does not involve a complete dedication to life first and foremost.  It doesn’t involve “erring on the side of life,” as so many put it.  In fact, as a nation we have just settled (un)comfortably into one of Hitler’s own categories of thought.  There is now tacit belief that there is such a thing as “life unworthy of life.”  What is more, society has taken it upon itself to decide which lives are worth living, and to end the “suffering” of those whose lives aren’t.  Forty-five million plus abortions testify to it.  The death of Terri Schiavo, with the clear approval of the American population, demonstrates it.  The Texas baby taken off his respirator against his mother’s wishes exemplifies it.

 This means that the majority of Americans, at least those polled by Fox, now actually accept Hitler’s euthanasia policy on a practical level.  In fact, they have implemented a form that is even more deadly that Hitler’s original formation: Hitler, at least, required careful medical examinations and only gave that power to groups of well trained physicians who must give a unanimous decision before the verdict was carried out.  In America, it only takes an estranged husband, a lawyer from the Hemlock Society, and an activist judge, none with any real medical training.

 Of course, the academic left has done an excellent and thorough job over the years of somehow painting Hitler, leader of the National Socialist Workers’ Party, into a conservative corner.  This is completely understandable, if not justifiable by the facts.  Were I a “progressive liberal” and I found that I had a strong similarity to one of the most notorious mass murderers in history, and even worse, if I found that my own political agenda happened to mirror his own, then I would use every intellectual trick in the liberal playbook to convince myself and others that it wasn’t so. 

 So, at least the Liberals are being consistent; whether they’ll admit it or not is another matter entirely.  I wonder what excuses the conservatives in Fox’s majority will use?

 The simple fact remains that though 1930s Germany clearly faced a “unique” situation, that situation is not the only one where a holocaust type “cleansing” could occur.  Every country or people who have ever killed on a massive scale—from Russia to Cambodia to China to Rwanda—had its own “unique” set of circumstances.  In every case, the groups and ideologies that would eventually begin the purges billed themselves as good and moral causes.  They were the moral progressives.  By the time the killing began in earnest, it was too late.

 A majority of Americans have just given their stamp of approval to a classic Hitlerian definition of human life and euthanasia.  I worry to think what new “mature” stance we will be expected to take next.  No nation should be so morally self righteous as to look at Germany and say “That could never happen here!”  There were many in the Weimar Republic who would have said the same.  Instead, let us remember, “There but for the grace of God, go I.”   

Anyone who is paying attention to the culture wars realizes by now that this country is being pulled simultaneously in opposite directions.  There are any number of polarizing issues before the people:  Abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, social security/welfare, etc.  It is notable that these are issues that neither side can compromise upon, and that different areas of the country are handling them differently.  Or at least they should be.  In reality, we as a nation are neglecting one of the most powerful checks and balances provided by the Founding Fathers, and decisively shutting down the most effective source of pressure relief available to modern America:  States Rights.

             If a poll were to be taken of the average American, it is doubtful that more than one in two hundred could name all ten of the Bill of Rights.  It is even more doubtful that one in one hundred could remember the gist of Amendments Nine and Ten.  And yet, it is these two neglected items that have the ability to provide answers:

• Amendment IX:  The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
• Amendment X:  The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html

 What this simply says is that any power not specifically given to the Federal Congress should be exercised by the people on the state and local levels.  The reasoning was equally simple:  Having just overthrown a powerful, tyrannical government, the Founding Fathers wanted all decisions of questionable moral or personal significance to be left as close to the people as possible.

             Over the course of time, the central government, abusing the “elastic” clause, has assumed dominance over all aspects of American life, whether enumerated in the Constitution or not.  The resulting mess is predictable, and also very useful to various ideologies and political movements.  By using the federal government (whether Congress or the judicial branch), minority movements are able to uniformly impress their will onto majorities with impunity.

             Consider, for a moment, the items and issues that must be left to the states if the Constitution were actually followed.  Prayer in schools, homosexuality, abortion, pornography, environmental issues, social security and welfare are only a few.  It should now be evident why the last thing the political left—or even some on the right—wants is for the American people to realize this.  For instance, given the opportunity, the voters of 19 states would ban abortion.  For the liberal minority in those states—and their brethren in other states—this is unacceptable (Consider the discussion board found here).  For all their talk about defending the right to believe what you will and do what you want, the current Constitutional system allows the left in one state to enforce its views onto conservative majorities in others. 

             If we were to defend and extend States Rights, not developing anything new, simply enforcing the basic Constitutional rights of states as they originally existed, how would we benefit?  As a check and balance, it would allow the different states to pursue matters of the conscience (and pocketbook) according to the will of the people who lived in them, as opposed to a vague moral imperative from the urban population centers in the northeast and on the west coast.  If New Jersey wants to preach secular humanism in its schools, why should that affect Tennessee or Georgia?  From a practical conservative perspective, this would have the immediate effect of banning abortion in nineteen states, restoring fair laws, and giving the chore of revamping education back to the people most concerned with it.  For the liberal, those states preferring that way of life would of course still be able to enforce whatever moral or cultural stance they liked. 

             This would, of course, result in an uncomfortable atmosphere in many states for people of one or the other persuasion.  Hence, another bit of genius built into the Constitution:  People can move from state-to-state freely.  If you are not allowed to home school your children in one state, you can move to one that protects your right.  If you feel like your children are somehow harmed by prayer in school, more to a state that bans it.  This would act as a way to for the country to let off steam by providing an exit for unhappy minorities.  As it stands, if you have any disagreement with the status quo, all you can do is complain and file lawsuits, because the same standard is universally enforced.  If things worked as they should, you could take your family to a more friendly, more sensible pasture somewhere else.

             It would also allow Christians and conservatives to revive John Winthrop’s dream of a City on a Hill.  I, for one, am fully willing to place conservative Christian moral, political, and economic philosophy into practice against most anything liberal.  As time passes, the basic systems will either excel or fall apart.  Let the rubber meet the road, and that will settle many disagreements.

             It is also worth mentioning that there are some practices that the Founding Fathers did not foresee, or did not adequately deal with.  Abortion on demand, for instance, is not a viable moral choice for a state or its people.  The Founders would not have given the Constitution the ability to ban abortion, for the simple reason that the practice is so morally self refuting that it did not bear mentioning any more than murder or rape.  Still, even now were we to include it (inappropriately) in the category of “optional” and allow some states to retain it while letting others ban it, we would save thousands of lives as a result.  It is not the best option, but possibly a step closer to the ultimate goal of a complete ban of abortion on demand.

             Will such “radical” ideas come to pass in modern America, actually taking the Constitution at its word?  Probably not, but even now, our own shortsightedness can do nothing to obscure the wisdom of the Founders, who actually planned and provided a workable answer to the situation we face today. 

“But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that is going to be Human and isn’t yet, or used to be Human once and isn’t now, or ought to be Human and isn’t, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet.”

 
—Mr. Beaver in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

             In an age where our cities and our countries are clogged with people, it would seem to be a simple thing to find a Human.  And yet it is clearly becoming more and more challenging to do so, and in some places (particularly higher academics) Mr. Beaver’s warning can actually be taken in a near literal sense.  The reason is simple:  over the past century increasingly fewer people have really accepted what it means to be Human, to be made in the Image of God.  Others are actively desecrating their Humanity with astonishing zeal, and doing so in numbers too great to be ignored.

             Human beings, in the best sense of the term, are an incredibly complex mesh of contradictions.  They are rational, and yet they feel deeply.  They are physical creatures, and yet they contain a strong element of the supernatural that physics alone cannot explain.  They are bound by a moral law, and yet have the ability to choose to transgress that law.  They turned their backs on their All-Powerful Creator whose Nature includes absolute justice, and yet they can still have a relationship with that Creator through the Cross.  Even more incredibly, they still have the chance to deny Him

             Unfortunately, the Twentieth Century has seen the demotion of Humankind.  The rise of Darwinism and the misuse of genetics and the behavioral “sciences” produced a newly idealized unMan, resulting in an increasing desire on the part of many to believe humans are little more than an animals.  The masses of people logically and progressively came to see themselves as nothing more than a larger evolutionary herd to be managed as one might ranch full of beef cattle.  Though hardwired to search for meaning and Truth, people now found themselves denied a significant existence beyond physical chance, and so turned to subHuman precedents to find a replacement. 

             The sickness is simple, but the symptoms diverse and complex.  When people refuse to believe in Humanity and to act on those beliefs—the way they were meant to act—they and the society they live in begin to ape the lower forms of life with which they now identify themselves.  Let us quickly consider the three excellent categories Mr. Beaver has provided.

             First, there are those who are going to be Human, but aren’t yet.  They promise to be Human, and claim that they will be soon enough, and yet they never seem to follow through.  How many times in the past century have we heard the promises of a “new” sort of man?  How many clarion calls to secular idealism have been broadcast, asking people to give just a little more of their Humanity in order to promote a new and better human race?  Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood consumed the Humanness of the men and women who performed their sterilizations and abortions (not to mention that of their victims), promising in return that such sacrifices laid at the feet of the god of Modernism would result in “better” humans.  Adolf Hitler did the same for Germany, offering them the Aryan “man” and a new dawn of German supremacy in return for the Holocaust.  In reality, anyone who listened to either found themselves becoming less and less Human with each barbarous act they took part in or condoned.  If only the German people had felt for their hatchet.

             Secondly, we have those who used to be Human, but aren’t anymore.  People may be born with a bent towards evil, but no one is born a murderer.  A murderer has made a choice, destroyed a bit of himself to become what he is.  This of course happens on a less dramatic scale in the lives of millions of people every day.  The nurse who becomes hardened to the baby’s struggles in partial birth abortions, the HIV positive individual who continues to have sex with dozens of people, the wife beater who does it so often he convinces himself that “she deserves it,” the professors who have told lies so often in support of their agendas that they begin to believe them, or even the Average Joe who has become so addicted to his comfort that he won’t even vote on a moral issue.  Each choice eats away at their Humanity a little more, leaving only a husk of dried up self-righteous morality and animal desires. 

             Finally, we have those who ought to be Human and aren’t.  There are certain stations that, frankly, require a Human’s touch.  This includes virtually any position of authority, especially those that involve control over other people.  It is a person’s Humanity that gives him boundaries that he will not transgress, even when no one is looking or when he can get away with it.  This is why Washington insisted in his Farewell Address that Americans must retain their religious principles—their Humanity—if they wished to retain their freedoms.  We see this all too clearly in one who took the worship of the unMan to new levels of depravity:  Chairman Mao.  If not for him, untold millions of Chinese men and women would be bouncing their grandchildren on their knees as you read this.  It is this sort of person, in this sort of position, who historically has done the greatest damage to the very thing they promised to preserve:  Mankind. 

             For decades now we have lamented “man’s inhumanity to man.”  We have observed as millions of a generation of children have been murdered in the name of morality and convenience, while many of those allowed to live fell further into the abyss of relativism and nihilism.  All of civilization, but America in particular, would do well to heed Mr. Beaver’s final injunction, and feel for our collective intellectual hatchets when we encounter such people.  The descent into inHumanity must be arrested.   The more subHuman this country becomes, the more likely it is to begin committing the very atrocities of which it is routinely accused.  Abu Garib will become the rule, not the exception.  So, it is up to those who remember what it means to be Human to stand, and in doing so reach out to and raise up those who have forgotten.

In 2000, Michael Bellesiles published what the nation took to be a groundbreaking work of history. His book, Arming America, argued that Revolutionary Americans disdained gun ownership. He said the idea that individuals had a right to bear arms came from a myth created in the post Civil War era in order to justify the new boom in gun ownership.

The book was an instant hit. Walter Wink of Christian Century flatly stated that the book "debunks this myth [of widespread gun ownership]" (March 21, 2001). In Insight on the News, Phillip Gold called it "a brilliant history with unintended relevance to contemporary debates" (Oct 23, 2000). Yet, when someone finally investigated Bellesiles's claims, his entire argument fell apart, not to mention Wink and Gold's words of praise (see "Fawning Critics Don't say Book was a Fraud" on Fox News.com). This led some to ask why reputable scholars hailed the book in the first place.

One answer illuminates a growing trend inside the field of history: the Rise of Agenda Driven Scholarship.

History is supposed to deliver more than a fanciful tale. The average person who picks up a history book on any topic expects to find within its pages some modicum of truth. That is what sets history apart from fiction. It is a reasoned reconstruction of past events based upon a dispassionate reading of evidence.  As a result, people expect to be able use history to make real time, real world decisions.

Unfortunately, some historians have rejected this approach. For them, the spread of the Postmodern Movement transformed historical inquiry. Every form of Postmodernism is based, at some level, on relativism, the idea that there is no knowable, objective truth. In terms of historical study, this means that there is no evidence that can be called true, nor can historians separate themselves from their work and think objectively.

The result is that these newer historians have stopped trying to do good history, and have moved on to promote personal agendas through their work. Since they believe that no evidence is true, it doesn't matter how they use it. For instance, Bellesiles referenced sources destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Are they bothered by the fact that they approach their subjects with preconceived notions which they refuse to test? Certainly not. According to them, objectivity is impossible to attain. So, many newer histories dealing with race or gender begin with the unchallenged premise that in any given situation, discrimination has already occurred, no matter what the evidence might say.

The trouble comes to a head when these authors deal with the public. Postmodern historians bank on the well-deserved reputation their more sensible colleagues built and maintain. Though postmodernists themselves know that their work is anything but tested and objective, they allow the public to assume it is. The result? Readers devour a book that in reality is nothing more than creative opinion, and then treat it as the gospel truth of history.

It is only a matter of time before Postmodern history collapses under the weight of its own absurdity. Until that happens, how should we approach history tainted with falsehood? Some basic philosophical commonsense will serve admirably:

1. Ask questions about the author(s). Who are they? Have they written other books? How do they approach the topic? Are there any ideas they are presuming that we should know about? For instance, books by vocal political advocates should be taken with stock in a salt mine.
2. Ask questions about the content. How do they support their arguments? Be certain to use known facts to critically examine their claims. Do their conclusions actually follow from their evidence? Is the book internally coherent? An amazing number of sloppy historians never bother to think through their own positions. Book reviews can be very helpful.  Townhall.com maintains a good selection of conservative reviews.
3. Read the footnotes carefully. Are they quoting from firsthand accounts or another historian's book? Do they seem to lean heavily on one particular source? If a book does not provide easy access to sources, it may have something to hide.
4. Read the Preface, Introduction, and Conclusion carefully. Authors are much more open in these sections, and let the readers see a little of their minds (in some cases, a lot). Paying particular attention here will often alert you to danger, as well as reinforcing the point of the entire work.

Of course, the short answer is to read and think carefully about all important truth claims. This habit is more useful now than ever before; when some scholars refuse to think, it is up to the reader to do it for them.