Score One for Baker’s Political Prognostication Powers

I said Alito would be confirmed by a comfortable margin with no filibuster.

Correct.

I also said it is the next vacant spot on the court, not O’Connor’s seat, that will provoke the battle royale. With O’Connor’s retirement and replacement you get four strong conservative votes, not five. Our side lost one when White was replaced by Ginsburg. A pretty serious swing, but the GOP wasn’t complaining, now were they?

The next seat will make the Bork battle look like a party provided a Republican is doing the nominating. If not, the GOP will sit politely by while the Democrats appoint pretty much whoever they wish, AS USUAL.

Slamming the Door on Another Counterargument

One of our commenters has repeatedly charged that the followers of Jesus chose to keep soldiering on after the crucifixion because of the desire for some material gain. In other words, they somehow cynically endured persecution in hopes of getting the big score and I don’t mean heaven.

I decided to end the dime store atheist crap by looking a little deeper. Reading Gary Habermas, who is intensively engaged in this issue and famously debated the former atheist (now plain theist) Anthony Flew, I found the following statement which would seem to end this particular line of hazing:

It is the substantially unanimous verdict of contemporary critical scholars that Jesus’ early disciples at least thought that they had seen the risen Jesus.

Since we now have the opinion of people who actually study the matter, rather than that of those who line their parrot cages with the latest issue of Skeptic magazine, we can put the cynical religious charlatans argument to rest.

Justice v. The Resurrection

Michael Simpson posted about the relevance of religion to the academy and I commented that religion is indeed relevant because I have more evidence for the resurrection of Christ than I do for the existence of justice.

After that intentionally provocative comment, I received an email from one Tom Van Dyke encouraging me to be a bit more forthcoming. I was originally hesitant to do so because I haven’t read the latest and the greatest on the subject of the resurrection, which is the treatment of the subject by N.T. Wright. Wright’s work is at least partially responsible for the conversion of the famed horror writer Anne Rice. However, I remembered that William Lane Craig is very strong on the subject and I could probably get a condensed essay from him. I was right.

Here’s a bit of whetting:

So complete has been the turn-about during the second half of this century concerning the resurrection of Jesus that it is no exaggeration to speak of a reversal of scholarship on this issue, such that those who deny the historicity of Jesus’ resurrection now seem to be the ones on the defensive. Perhaps one of the most significant theological developments in this connection is the theological system of Wolfhart Pannenberg, who bases his entire Christology on the historical evidence for Jesus’ ministry and especially the resurrection. This is a development undreamed of in German theology prior to 1950. Equally startling is the declaration of one of the world’s leading Jewish theologians Pinchas Lapid, that he is convinced on the basis of the evidence that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. Lapid twits New Testament critics like Bultmann and Marxsen for their unjustified skepticism and concludes that he believes on the basis of the evidence that the God of Israel raised Jesus from the dead.

I read through the essay and found it quite thorough and informative. If this blog were my sole property, I would paste the whole thing in and monopolize the real estate. Instead I will content myself with providing you with this very large LINK. (Don’t get down on Craig for any typos in the essay, I think some noble person actually typed in the essay from dead tree to get it online.)

Read the essay and see whether I was exaggerating when I made my provocative statement. It’s easy to be correct because the evidence for the existence of justice is weaker than expected, while the evidence for the resurrection is stronger.

Because we are an interfaith blog, I hasten to explain to my Jewish friends that I am not seeking to kick up some kind of battle over Christian history between Jews and Christians. Rather, I am trying to further the point that religion is relevant and not merely because of some psychological reason.

Faith on the Quad

This is interesting: some academic group is calling for universities to engage religion more, both as a part of the curriculum and as part of students’ lives. Who knows what this will mean in practice, but as an emphasis, it seems like a positive move. On one particular note, I think it’s especially promising. In my teaching, I deal a lot of with religion and thorny moral/political issues it often touches on. What I’ve found is that students are very reluctant to engage on those issues, largely because they think that you just can’t argue about religion – and, by extension, the sorts of moral issues it touches. I think they’re making a mistake in equating the truth that we won’t be resolving our moral and religious differences anytime soon with the (erroneous) claim that there’s nothing to be discussed. But that’s how they think. You might suppose that this sort of “method of avoidance” is productive of social comity – but that, too, would be a mistake. Since religion still, perhaps inevitably, shows up in discussions, the fact that people don’t have any experience in discussing religion- related things, they have no idea how to do it reasonably and with some civility. I’m not sure that most universities will do that well in fostering civil dialogue, but it seems worth a shot.

2008: The Future Comes Not Too Late, But All Too Soon

Not being snarky—between Howard Dean, Kos, and then Ted Kennedy and Chuck Schumer clumsily trying to make respected jurist Sam Alito out as a racist, it’s a genuine confusion as to who the Democratic Party is these days. I dunno if they know, either.

Our friend, gadfly, and SalonPremiumMember and featured letter-writer) James Elliott posits:

There are a lot of Democrats out there who don’t mirror “the Loud Left.” Hillary Clinton. Russ Feingold. John Kerry.

OK, baby. Lock and load.

When all else fails, try principle. Actually, that’s just what the GOP was forced into after Nixon and all those years of Democrat control of Congress. Petty politics, technique, and mealy-mouthing only get you so far.

The GOP made its historic gains on the backs of two visionaries—Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich. (Their successors admittedly, and almost by definition, pale in comparison.)

Shooting spitballs is not a political philosophy. Nominate Russ Feingold instead of guys like the last two weasels, and let America vote up or down. Run on your beliefs instead of from them. In three years, nobody’s going to remember who the hell Jack Abramoff is, or was.

Russ Feingold represents the Democratic Party as I best understand it (ADA lifetime average rating of 96, if we can believe the Wiki).

I disagree with Feingold on virtually everything, but I still trust his character. He conducts himself like a human being, like a statesman. We could do worse, and almost did with Gore and Kerry, who are wack. (Gore, wack. Kerry, trying to lead an unprecendented constitutional revolution via phone from Switzerland, wack.)

(Let’s save Hillary for another day. Too much fun to use up here. Hehe. [sound of knife being sharpened])

Feingold vs. Gingrich in 2008. Now that would be fun. No middle ground there…

Torture(d) Logic

Harry Reid has got to be the most disingenuous member of the Senate. Check him out in this AP story:

Democrats are working to get a large opposition vote to make their points against President Bush.

“I think it sends a message to the American people that this guy is not King George, he’s President George,” said Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Bush should have picked a woman, said Reid, who urged the president last year to pick White House counsel Harriet Miers. “They couldn’t go for her because she was an independent woman,” Reid said of Miers, whose nomination was withdrawn under conservative criticism.

You’ve got to be kidding me, Dusty Harry. Had Bush stuck with Harriet Miers, who was underqualified and tied to Bush like his ranch kerchief, then we might have been able to sustain the King George charge.

Actually, if he looks like a King, it is the King George who suffered the revolution of his American subjects, because it was a revolt that brought Alito in. Quietude was the road to Harriet.

Promoted Back to the Top: The Point of Politics

This post has been attracting a lot of comments, so I thought I’d bring it back up top for convenience’s sake. –Hunter B.

Ross Douthat, newly returned from filling in for Andrew Sullivan, points to an essay on the ol’ question of why those red-staters are voting red. (follow the links)

Now, I think the question is a bit hackneyed, not least because the fact that some state tends conservative or liberal is a long way from being able to say anything about the effects of social conditions on voting behavior. Having 55% of a state’s voters (not citizens, mind you) who vote conservative or liberal and then making snarky comments (a la the NYT’s Frank Rich) about how funny it is that those states have higher divorce rates, watch Desperate Housewives, etc. doesn’t get you very far.

In any case, it seems to me that the whole question is based on a misunderstanding, namely, that politics is primarily about economics and only then about “cultural” issues. That’s just nonsense, mostly dreamed up by people who *want* politics to be all about economics. Politics is, rather, primarily about culture, it is a vehicle for people to decide “who” they are. Economic decisions, the allocation of resources or opportunities, is a part of that “who-ness”, but it does not contain it. Economics does, of course, shape culture, but I think it’s a mistake to think it’s primary.

Things that Don’t Mix: Horror Flicks and Kiddies

I’ve been kind of keeping this to myself, but DP of Rock, Paper, Dynamite and Thomas Hibbs of NRO have rekindled the flicker of a particular thought in my brain.

As he discusses the horror film Hostel, currently a low budget hit eclipsing older releases Narnia and King Kong, Hibbs noted a distressing phenomenon:

Yet, the most depressing and horrifying thing about these sorts of films is, alas, not the explicit gore. It is the fact that at nearly every screening of a gruesome horror film I attend (from Massachusetts to Texas), I see parents in the audience with young children. That strikes me as a serious form of child abuse and a more convincing sign of the impending apocalypse than anything depicted on the screen.

I had the same thought a few years back when I went to see Blade 2 with Wesley Snipes. I was shocked to see several small children in the theatre who had been brought by their “parents” who were engaging in their own mysterious version of “parenting.” It wasn’t quite Kill Bill, but the film had graphic portrayals of bodily mutilation that took tatooing several steps up the cruelty scale and mass murder with blood hosing everywhere.

I don’t need to see a study to know that the children exposed to this kind of film will become insensitive to violence, killing, etc. To use a more biblical expression, I’d say it hardens hearts. My own experience bears this out. As a teenager, my friends and I took advantage of the combination of video rental privileges and driver’s licenses to rent every horrible thing we could get our hands on. The more a film pushed the border of tastelessness, violence, and sexual priggishness, the more likely we were to give it a viewing. I particularly recall a film that portrayed graphic serial rape of a woman caught in the wilderness Deliverance-style by a group of bad men. The first time I saw it I was shocked and shaken. The fourth time I was laughing.

After years of exercising more personal vigilance in my viewing choices, I’ve managed to recover my sense of shock at the depiction of outrageous behavior onscreen. I can only imagine how warped an individual’s sensibilities can become after dulling the edge of the conscience on reels and reels of bloody, sex and violence-drenched celluloid (or digital media), particularly when the process begins with non-parenting parents initiating their toddlers into onscreen bloodsport.

This damage to the mind’s facility for perceiving moral distinctions is the basic problem with total liberation of entertainment from social constraints. All the barrier-busting and fun-poking at stuffy taboo protectors leads to an arena with no-holds barred. What demons will wrestle in the virtual stadiums of the future? I’m not at all sure we want to know.

A Little Monk Grousing

I wasn’t satisfied with the conclusion of Monk tonight. The writers successfully established that the lab tech was guilty of fiddling with results, but did not reach the same level of certainty with regard to the fashion designer being the murderer.

It was possible that only labels had been changed, but the lab tech could have engaged in more elaborate fraud and disposed of any evidence tying the fashion designer to the original crime. The loop remains open and I don’t like it.

Otherwise a pretty good episode. I’ll annoy the Karnickian by stating for the record that I still miss Bitty Schramm.

Life at the Bottom and How to Get There

This remains one of my favorite pieces of writing, and of social criticism—it’s an excerpt from John Derbyshire’s review of Theodore Dalrymple’s Life at the Bottom: The Worldview that Makes the Underclass:

“The knife went in,” three different stabbers told Dalrymple, when he pressed them, in the prison, to describe the deed that landed them there. Why should a low-IQ barely-literate youth believe in the doctrine of free will, when, for all he can see, his intellectual superiors have given up on it?

Dalrymple is particularly good on the squeaky-wheel syndrome that is so characteristic of modern social services. Defy your circumstances; manage to get some scraps of education; win some decent, if low-level employment; stay out of trouble; stay off the dole; maintain some minimal standards of honesty and chastity; and see what happens to you! If you are lucky, the authorities will ignore you; if not, they will actually harass you. Should your less disciplined neighbors make your life a misery, you will get no help from police or social workers. If, on the other hand, you follow your peers into the world of dysfunction and dependency, all the attentions of England’s extravagant welfare state will be lavished on you. You will be given a free apartment furnished with all modern appliances, a regular supply of money, free medical attention, and the doting ministrations of “health visitors,” “case workers,” “counsellors” and so on.

Americans may find it surprising that most of the people wallowing in this slough of ignorance, illiteracy, promiscuity, bastardy, intoxication, vice, folly, lawlessness and hopelessness are white English people. Much of what is described here is the sort of thing Americans instinctively associate with this country’s own black underclass. There is some satisfaction, I suppose, though of a very melancholy kind, to be drawn from the revelation that sufficiently wrong-headed social policies, persisted in with sufficiently dogged refusal to face simple truths, will visit moral catastrophe on people of any race.

When the Going Gets Tough, the Left Shouts "Racist!"

As Judge Samuel Alito endured his protracted questioning in the Senate Judiciary Committee with the Left still unable to make a plausible case for turning him down, the desperation became evident with some prominent Democrat Senators’ allegation that the nominee is a racist. The charges appear to be utterly unfounded, but it appears that there may well be some unsavory racial activity in the past of one Democrat Senator on the panel:

Charles Schumer trying to tar Samuel Alito as a racist because of membership in some club? Don’t make me laugh. The fact is that Charles Schumer came to power as a New York State Assemblyman in 1974 by virtue of an overtly racist scheme that he created and sold to a naive neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. He convinced them that he would use his power to rid their area of black people. And who is my source for this serious accusation? Me.

Yes, me. I was there.

The article by Reform Clubber Jay Homnick in today’s issue of The American Spectator Online documents the claim. It is a very interesting story indeed, and very revealing of some unsavory truths of modern politics.

How Media Bias Works

Hunter Baker refers below to a recent study alleging liberal media bias in the news. The methodology used was to count citations of outside “experts” to see if there was a partisan balance.

The study found a strong tilt to the left in the reports of most media organizations.

Now is this proof in itself of bias? Let’s look at a recent Washington Post article on the NSA domestic “spying” affair.

Aside from the contentious wording that the administration has “assertions” while the contrary congressional report has “conclusions,” we see that the WaPo quotes two “experts,” both of whom are dismissive of the administration’s position.

I discussed this very article with a lefty pal of mine and he sees no bias. Me, I see not only Congress lined up against the executive branch (little surprise—this tug-of-war over national security authority has been going on since the founding of the republic), but 100% of the outside experts. I would expect the casual reader to conclude that the weight of arguments is against the administration, since they occupy the lion’s share of the volume.

I find this article to be representive of the norm, and certainly my liberal buddy saw nothing unusual about it. Which is precisely the point.

Since I’m feeling magnanimous today, I’ll offer that no Bush-friendly “experts” were consulted because the WaPo simply doesn’t know any. But whatever the reason, the aforementioned study (and it is not the first such) clearly indicates it is the rule rather than the exception in our national news media that among third party commentators, the left get more air than the right.

Put simply, an article or news segment is imbalanced unless it presents both sides in roughly equal proportion, as spoken by third parties, not just the accused and the aggrieved themselves. We all tend to give credence to the views of third parties when making up our minds about things, as we should. For that reason, I find the theory behind the study’s methodology entirely proper, and can think of none better.

The WaPo rounded up two “impartial” witnesses against the Bush administration and none in its defense. Any reasonable person would, based on the evidence presented, be obliged to conclude its guilt.

The WaPo article was biased, whether intentionally or not. I do not know which of those possibilities is more disconcerting.

The Ultimate Refutation of Skepticism

Joe Gibbs.

The Redskins have sucked virtually the entire time since he left after winning yet another Super Bowl. Gibbs, on the other hand, went on to major success as a NASCAR team owner.

Daniel Snyder, the much disliked owner of the team in the post-Gibbs era, tried Norv Turner, Marty Schottenheimer, and Steve Spurrier. Not much luck in any case, despite the fact that the latter two are all-time greats and Norv Turner has twice been a very successful offensive coordinator.

This season the breaks are all falling Washington’s way. I conclude, in reverse Pat Robertson style, that the blessing of the Lord is upon Joe Gibbs and Dan Snyder was smart enough to hire him and get out of the way.

The Pay for Op-Eds Business and My Experience

When I was newly minted with J.D. in hand and some conservative organization experience built-up, I called friends and asked for help finding work. One of the referrals was to a high profile lobbying/public relations firm with a high profile head. I will not name either of the above for fear of getting sued by them. I attended an interview and they explained the nature of some of the work.

One of the things it was proposed I could do was to write op-eds that would later be issued under the name of more famous persons in favor of some public policy initiative or position. At the same time, I’m sure that some of these persons would write their own op-ed, sufficiently proud of their own style and convictions not to turn the job over to the hired gun at firm X. It never occurred to me that anything in that process was wrong. The famous person would be someone who could agree with the stated position. What they would be selling would be their access to the editorial pages of the nation’s newspapers and magazines. This is not bribery, but rather someone paying you to say what you would already say if the opportunity arose.

Now, I’ve heard the Cato Institute’s Doug Bandow is basically done for, having taking significant money from Abramoff for columns he wrote. That is a shame. Doug Bandow is a strong writer and thinker.

On the surface, the problem goes like this: I like cake. I want to eat cake. I’m going to eat cake. Somebody steps up and says, “Hey, why don’t you eat that cake NOW and I’ll pay you for it?” And you do. Wouldn’t seem to be an ethical lapse.

But it is and the real answer is revealed by imagining that everyone had full information. The newspaper or magazine wouldn’t run the piece if they knew about the payment. The think tank you might work for wouldn’t allow you to take the payment because their credibility is even more important than yours. And you haven’t told anyone these things because deep down, you know how they would have reacted.

And that’s why it’s wrong. Take away the self-interest and look at the interests of others and it shines forth bright as day.

Now, I never took that job. Nobody ever slipped me a check in exchange for my promotion of a particular view at their urging. But I might have done it and could have done it without getting as far down the moral analysis as I did in this post.

In the final analysis, I’m sorry for Doug Bandow and damn glad I’ve had this opportunity to think it through before anyone offered me the chance to screw up.

Abramoff! Abramoff!

This guy was supposedly hired for his political and public relations expertise:

If he was going for Johnny Cash, he missed the target. If he was going for Black Bart, the evilest man to occupy either the Longbranch Saloon or Enron, then he nailed it.

Whoosh!

Do you hear that sound? It’s Ralph Reed’s candidacy going up in flames in Georgia. Before the primary, even.

I’m Not Down with the Christian Metrocon Thing

Mark Gauvreau Judge is a good writer, but I think he should have left this one in the unsubmitted file. His basic thesis is that the red state identity basically celebrates cretinism. I disagree with that, despite not really loving NASCAR, Bill O’Reilly, and some of the other targets he picks.

But what is really offensive is that he somehow conflates wearing the right clothes and discriminating consumerism with advanced spirituality in the Christian sense.

I don’t think so.

At the risk of repeating myself, I’ll include my letter to the editor on the piece:

Dear Editor,

I’ve always liked Mark Gauvreau Judge’s work, but I find at least part of his central thesis about the superiority of being a metrocon questionable and maybe even objectionable. While I agree that there is nothing to celebrate about being tacky or willfully ignorant (which I’m not sure his target group really is), I disagree vigorously that the “second growth” of spirituality involves learning how to purchase and wear the right clothing and accessories. Natty apparel has never been a sign of spiritual maturity as far as I can tell. Were it so the fashionistas would be the deepest folk on earth.

It is one thing to argue that many of today’s conservatives don’t hold a candle to William F. Buckley on style points (surely, they do not), but to conflate that point with spiritual maturity and depth evokes a Christianity of which I’m not aware. Certainly, a preference for Brooks Brothers over Wal-Mart does little to inform one about the nobility of a particular soul. In fact, the good book might make the opposite case.

Hunter Baker
Contributor to The Reform Club
Athens, Georgia

What’s Wrong with Socialism?

Mary Katherine Ham is posting over at HughHewitt.com. If he let’s her post a little more often, I might forgive him for the Harriet Miers debacle.

She says something about socialism that resonates deeply with my own thoughts:

So, conversations with socialists. I have them. A lot.

I have them with that special brand of socialist– the 20-something post-collegiate angsty intellectual who has the luxury of saying Fidel Castro “has some pretty good ideas” because, for him, it’s not a national talking point enforced at the muzzle of a gun and the blindfolded brink of a ditch. That kind of socialist.

They’re good folks. They truly do want the best for people. They think “equal” necessarily equals “good.” They, therefore, want equality enforced.

Sometimes during these conversations, my big-government buddies concede, “All right, so maybe it doesn’t always work in practice, but it’s a nice thought.”

I used to concede that point. “Yes, it’s a nice idea in theory,” I’d say, “But it never works in practice. In fact, it’s disastrous, deadly, and scoops out people’s souls like so many cold lumps of cosmic ice cream, splatted on the sidewalks of humanity. But you’re getting the picture.”

In the last couple years, I’ve had to revise that. The truth is that it is not a nice idea, in theory. Well, not if you actually think about what the theory implies.

Socialism is enforced equality. But someone has to enforce. Someone has to take all that a country of dynamic, amazing, different people has produced and slice it up into dull, government-approved parcels that go to each according to his need. So much for diversity, right?

This means that no one owns anything except for the guy doing the enforcing of equality, who without fail, feels a lot less strongly about his own equality with the proletariat than he does about the rabble’s equality with each other. That’s how Fidel Castro ended up on the Forbe’s list of richest people.

This guy inevitably gets a little testy when folks step out of line by wanting to own the things they earn, thereby cutting down on his net worth. And by testy, I mean blood-thirsty and murdery.

Mary Katherine has it exactly right. Beware Chavez-istas. You won’t like the future.

The Ebooks Are Coming! The Ebooks Are Coming! No, Really!

What’s a guy with a carefully developed collection of books to do?  

My father-in-law was a high-level academic librarian for many years.  He always said the book is so good at doing its basic job, there will probably not be a solid replacement for it.

I’m beginning to suspect he might have been wrong about that.

Exhibit A:  I saw a fellow reading a book on some sort of electronic notepad device (possibly a tablet PC) recently.  He also appeared to be able to electronically mark it up.  Looked very good.

Exhibit B:  Michael Hyatt’s weblog keeps mentioning that something like an iPod for readers is coming and it will have a big impact on the market.  Since Hyatt is the president of big publisher Thomas Nelson, I think he knows whereof he speaks.  His latest post really has me sweating it.

Why am I sweating it?  

Because I realize that someday my collection may become quite obsolete and I will be able to do more, faster, better, etc. with a massive collection of books on some tiny media device.

Of course, I’m a Ph.D. student now and can’t wait for even next year.  Still, it hurts a little to know I keep moving all these boxes of books when obsolescence is around the corner.