Runaway Planet

WELCOME TO 1984

A year ago I complained that nobody was saying anything about the perils of RFID chip implanation. I stand corrected. Read this book. And check out the authors' website here.

JUST THE FACTS?

I think there is general consensus that if Terry Schiavo had left her wishes in writing, there would have been no story here. Either she would have been left without food and water to die without fanfare years ago or she would still be alive, just one anonymous case among among a sea of similarly disabled people in the country.

Even without a living will of some type, the Schiavo case quite possibly  could have remained a relative non-event except for one thing: the court allowed its mission to become implementation of a dark ideology rather than finding of facts and abiding by the law.

In a masterful review and analysis of the case, Eric Cohen of the Weekly Standard explains this and more. Make sure to read the whole thing, but here is a taste:

Part of the problem was simply judicial incompetence--especially the court's decision, in direct violation of Florida law, to act as Terri Schiavo's guardian at key moments of the case rather than appoint an independent guardian to represent her interests, separate from the interests of her husband and her parents. But the problem went deeper than incompetence: It also had to do with ideology--with a set of assumptions about what makes life worth living and thus worth protecting. Procedural liberalism (discerning and respecting the prior wishes of the incompetent person; preserving life when such wishes are not clear) gave way to ideological liberalism (treating incompetence itself as reasonable grounds for assuming that life is not worth living). When the district court's decision to allow Michael Schiavo to remove the feeding tube was challenged, a Florida appeals court framed the question before it as follows:

[W]hether Theresa Marie Schindler Schiavo, not after a few weeks in a coma, but after ten years in a persistent vegetative state that has robbed her of most of her cerebrum and all but the most instinctive of neurological functions, with no hope of a medical cure but with sufficient money and strength of body to live indefinitely, would choose to continue the constant nursing care and the supporting tubes in hopes that a miracle would somehow recreate her missing brain tissue, or whether she would wish to permit a natural death process to take its course and for her family members and loved ones to be free to continue their lives. (emphasis added)

Now, one could surely read this as an effort to get inside Terri's once competent mind. But more likely, it expresses the court's own view of Terri's now incompetent and incapacitated existence as a meaningless burden, a barrier to her husband's freedom. The court's obligation to discern objectively what Terri's wishes were and whether they were clear--a question of fact--morphed into an inquiry as to whether she could ever get better, with the subjective assumption that life in her present condition was not meaningful life.

This, of course, is a very dangerous development and why this case became such a culture war flashpoint. If judges start making decisions about whether or not other persons life is worth living, regardless of what that person may or may not think about the same question, we are  in dire straits indeed.

LIBERTY DEFENDERS OR JUST ANTI-CHRISTIAN?

A lot of issues surround the Ten Commandments case in front of the Supreme Court today and, regardless of what the ACLU would have us believe,  government promotion of religion is not one of the major ones.

For example, a more important issue in the case is the question of why the ACLU continues to attack Christianity exclusively. If they were really interested in banning all religious references from public ground, as Terence Jeffrey points out, they would have to sue to remove the Native American exhibit at the Smithsonian. They won't, however, because they are not interested in banning any non-Christian religious references or symbols. They showed this in the recent flap over the LA County seal, when the ACLU sued to remove a tiny cross in the seal's corner while not mentioning the gigantic image of the goddess Pomona that took up it's entire middle section.

I believe the ACLU is out to remove Christianity from government life because it does not like the  moral standards that come with a Judeo-Christian worldview. Anyone can put up with Native American spiritualism or the Roman goddess Pomona because they don't require anything from us. But if the God of the Bible is true, then we might have to actually live differently and many people just don't want that.

The ironic thing about the ACLU's quest is that the Biblical worldview that traditionally under-girded our public morality has already been abandoned in the very courtroom they are fighting in. Just read the Supreme Court's decision from yesterday regarding capital punishment for juveniles (and check out a great post about this decision from David Limbaugh):

The prohibition against "cruel and unusual punishments," like other expansive language in the Constitution, must be interpreted according to its text, by considering history, tradition, and precedent, and with due regard for its purpose and function in the constitutional design. To implement this framework we have established the propriety and affirmed the necessity of referring to "the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society" to determine which punishments are so disproportionate as to be cruel and unusual.

Evolving standards of decency? It doesn't look like the ACLU has anything to worry about.

ORWELLIAN OVERTONES

Two interesting free speech articles over at Town Hall today: "Rolling back the tide of tyranny" and "Government by propaganda."

FREEDOM OF SPEECH: $500,000

Bill Maher is right to be alarmed today:

A new survey found that a majority of high schoolers think newspapers should not be allowed to publish without government approval. And almost one in five said that Americans should be prohibited from expressing unpopular opinions.

Lemme tell you little darlings something: This is my livelihood you're messing with, so either learn the Bill of Rights or you don't deserve Social Security.

As someone else who relies heavily on the right to speak my mind, I am as scared as Bill is about this. I love freedom. Unfortunately, the trend in our country is going the wrong way. For the second time in few days, the government voted for a bill that will undoubtedly hinder it.

The House of Representatives passed a bill yesterday that would raise the maximum fines that could imposed on broadcasters that run indecent material to $500,000 for each violation.

The bill, endorsed by President Bush, would also increase the maximum fines the Federal Communications Commission could levy against individual performers to $500,000 from $11,000, and would make it easier to impose such penalties. Broadcasting companies can now be fined up to $32,500 a violation.

I guess I'll cancel my Ward Churchill and Chris Rock interviews for this week's radio show.

UPDATE: Here is a good piece on censorship and Ward Churchill from Ted Rall.

UPDATE II: Big Brother in a chip at our schools?

 

EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ICE-CREAM LOVERS NEXT?

I said it on yesterday's radio show and I've written about it often in this space, but it bears repeating because the drumbeat continues (see yesterday's Washington Post, for example): homosexuality is not a civil rights issue. Being gay is not the same as being black or having blue eyes. Homosexuality is a desire, not a physical characteristic and as such, must be treated as a moral issue, not a civil rights issue. This is not a "religious" assertion and you don't have to believe in the Bible to accept it. It is just simple logic and good science, as this interview with Jeffery Santinover attests.

What if we were to start treating all desires as identity-defining characteristics? Wouldn't we have to recognize adulterers as a distinct, protected group within society. And pedophiles?  Or ice cream lovers?

"SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS - OR SCAN YOUR CHIP"

Am I the only one that finds the approval of a national chip implanted ID card very scary? As a kid we used to pity the poor people in communist countries who were constantly having to show the authorities their "papers" in order to travel or purchase anything. Now we are setting up exactly the same system, only with more electronic sophistication. And don't think this will end with a card - after all, cards can be stolen or lost. This is heading toward simply implanting the chip - it's already being implanted everywhere else.

I can't figure out why nobody seems worried about this - especially on the right. Perhaps people don't want to sound like whacked out conspiracy theorists. More likely they don't want to say anything against the administration. Either way, it's obviously coming and its obviously bad for freedom and somebody needs to say something.

THE NON-CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE

I was reminded this Martin Luther King Day of a post I wrote last March about what that great man would think of the "Gay Rights" movement. As reported in typical fashion by today's Washington Post, the homosexual lobby has co-opted Kings terminology and tried to make his battle for racial equality equivalent to their struggle for social approval.

The November elections seemed to spell trouble for the gay equal rights movement, what with 11 new state laws banning same-sex marriages and wins for social conservatives in Congress.    

Now, after weeks of soul-searching and much internal, and even public, debate over how to navigate the current political waters, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy organizations, known as LGBT rights groups, have a plan: to advance an ambitious agenda, including marriage rights.

..."We plan on working in a coordinated fashion," said Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest national gay advocacy organization. "The moment that we're in now in our civil rights movement is acknowledging that we play different instruments and have different strengths, but we want to hear from that orchestra together."

However, the gay agenda is clearly not the same as King's civil rights fight. It is different on at least two levels.

First, skin color is a physical characteristic, homosexuality is a sexual desire, most often accompanied by sexual behavior. Fighting for the equal opportunity of people based on things like skin, eye and hair color if far different than fighting for social acceptance of people based on their thoughts and behavior. Thoughts and behavior are moral categories, skin color isn't. Thoughts and behaviors can be right or wrong, skin color can't. And it does not matter if you are born with a  natural tendency toward certain desires or behavior - they still can be judged right or wrong. For instance, most people are born with a natural tendency toward desiring after someone other than their spouse and many act on those impulses. That doesn't make lust and adultery right. In the same way, even if some people are born with homosexual tendencies, that does not exempt them from moral judgment.

This leads to the second big difference between Dr. Kings struggle and the current gay agenda. His civil rights movement, as many before it, was based on the fact that the God of the Bible had made everyone equal and did not like his people mistreated. The base argument against racial prejudice is that it is a sin. There is no deeper reason to fight against it. The gay movement has no such grounding. Not only do they not have theological support for their position, sound theology is loudly against their position. The same God that drove Martin Luther King to act against the sin of prejudice and oppression clearly thinks that homosexuality is a sin as well.

If only Dr. King could take the pulpit today.

HOMOSEXUALITY, SKIN COLOR AND DESIRE

I think one of the reasons for the overwhelming rejection of gay marriage on Tuesday is that people is that most people don't buy the gay movement's argument that homosexuality is a civil rights issue. For years they have been trying to convince the country that being gay is the same as being Black or Hispanic. From today's LA Times, for example

Gay activist Jasmyne Cannick, the spokeswoman for the National Black Justice Coalition, didn't sleep on election night. Instead she and her colleagues cried to one another over the phone. After a year on the road spent lecturing black congregations on tolerance for gay marriage, Cannick was exhausted and overwhelmed by the defeat. "You always would like to think that people are more fair-minded, especially African Americans," says Cannick, who is black and gay. She wondered how blacks "who have been discriminated against for a long time dare even put that same sort of hatred on another group of people."

What she doesn't understand is that most blacks realize that being gay isn't the same as being black. Your skin color is a physical characteristic. Homosexuality is a desire. Not the same.

"But we are born gay," they say - "we didn't have a choice - therefore it is the same as being born black." Nope. Even if you are born with a tendency to desire certain things, it doesn't make those desires right. I think most people are born with a tendency to desire sexual relationships with someone other than their spouse, but that doesn't make it right. It's called lust, and if carried through to physical consummation, its called adultery. Both of these are sin. That is what the homosexual movement needs to understand. Trying to focus the debate on things like whether or not we are born with it misses the point. This is a desire issue and a sin issue. Let's focus on that.

RELIGIOUS PANDERING AND BLIND ALLEGIENCE

Religion continues to be a major theme in this year’s presidential campaign and frankly, I don’t like the position either side has taken.

On one hand John Kerry clearly couldn’t care less about God or the teachings of his supposed Catholicism, so every time he opens his mouth to pander for a religious vote he sounds nuttier. I already wrote about the time he “preached” from the book of James. Well, this time he decided to compare himself to the prophet Isaiah. He recently told an Indianapolis audience:

"Several months ago, President Clinton quoted the Prophet Isaiah in support of my candidacy: 'Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying whom shall I send. And who will go for us. And I said, 'Here I am. Send me.' President Clinton paid me the compliment of telling that audience whenever there was a call to service in war or in peace, I have always answered that call,"

He has got to be kidding. Quoting President Clinton quoting a passage from Isaiah 6 in which Isaiah stands in the presence of a holy God and realizes his sin is his undoing? This is a passage in which God abhors the false piety of mankind and sends Isaiah out to condemn them for it. The incredible irony of having John Kerry, not to mention Clinton, quoting this passage in their own support is almost too much to handle.

On the other hand, I am not heartened by President Bush’s approach to his supposed faith either. He openly panders as well, but he knows the biblical language and culture better (and has speech writers who know it) so it doesn’t sound so crazy. (I don’t think Bush’s handlers would have let him get away with the Isaiah reference, for instance). Add to this more polished religiosity his conservative social positions and Bush has become the darling of the evangelical crowd, in particular. Unfortunately, this adoration has led to an almost robotic acceptance of everything he does. I have seen essentially no criticism of any of Bush’s policies. Instead, conservative religious leaders bend over backwards to support him and explain away any problems that might come up.

This is scary. The last thing we want is a church that has lost its prophetic voice and become a cheerleader for the government (Think Nazi Germany if you need a reminder of what happens.) Just because the man is on the right side of issues like abortion doesn’t mean he should be allowed to gobble up civil rights and freedoms like a dictator without so much as a peep from church leaders. If a Democratic president had installed the Homeland Security act, for instance, Christians would be screaming (at least I hope they would), but since their man put it in, not even a whisper. This is a problem. Unfettered presidential power, be it Republican or Democrat, will only lead to huge, huge problems.

I hope I am wrong, but Bush reminds me a bit of Nixon. Nixon could put on a good front and had the support of many conservative Christians. Billy Graham, for instance, was a friend and big supporter. When all the dirty truth was revealed, these people were shocked. Graham tells in his autobiography how he just couldn’t believe what kind of man Nixon was behind closed doors. And Grahams biggest surprise? All the dirty language – Nixon’s tapes are absolutely full of it. He cussed up, down and sideways. According to Graham this was a sign of a bigger problem and if he had known about it before hand would certainly not have been so supportive.

Well, as good as Bush is at talking shop to the church crowd, it turns out that he too has a filthy mouth when there are no pastors in the room. U.S. News reports that, according to one advisor, "He uses the 'F' word as an adjective, a verb, and a noun," Ditto for the ‘S’ word.

Am I making a mountain out of a molehill? Perhaps, but “out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.” (Matt 12:34). This president is no saint, and he certainly isn’t the Messiah. Christians should be very wary of treating him as such.