[Please click here for part 1, as this just picks up where that left off. Also, another blogger found the article again at a new URL on the same site. I'd searched using their advance search form with no success, but glad that it's back so people can read the whole thing.]

The newborn and the fetus are morally equivalent

The authors, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, start this section with their definition of personhood.

Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’. We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.

Thus, to be a person, you have to know you’re a person and be able to value it. The state of not knowing, however, lasts quite a bit beyond newborn status. The authors, again, fail to address this. More than fail to, actually, they refuse to address it, as we shall see.

Merely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life. Indeed, many humans are not considered subjects of a right to life: spare embryos where research on embryo stem cells is permitted, fetuses where abortion is permitted, criminals where capital punishment is legal.

The equivalence here is somewhat flawed, not the least because they start to blur the moral right to life with the legal right to life. Further, they equate giving up your legal right to life (by, for example, murdering someone else) with a fetus or embryo being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Depending on your morals, all three examples have a moral right to life, it’s just in the last case it was actively forfeited.

Being human, I believe, ascribes you a moral right to life, in and of itself. Having it deprived of you, whether as an embryo being experimented on, a fetus being aborted, or being the victim of a murderer, has moral implications. The legal system has its own concept of “rights” as well, and the murderer (again, actively) gives up his legal right, while the embryo and fetus simply cannot. Therefore, by trying to conflate moral and legal rights, the authors are trying to make their case for their moral definition of personhood by comparing it to legal issues. They are not equivalent.

[I feel it necessary to explain why I, being pro-life, believe that capital punishment is still a valid punishment in certain cases. As noted, there is a great difference between government not ascribing you a legal right to life in the first place (as with an embryo or fetus in our current system of government) and you forfeiting that legal right by actively doing something. Thus, there isn't the equivalence between taking lives in these two cases that critics of pro-lifers assume there is. Further, self-defense is a legitimate cause for killing, both legally and, in many religions including Christianity, morally. I see capital punishment as "societal self-defense" to protect us from the most heinous of criminals and to discourage others from behaving likewise.]

Our point here is that, although it is hard to exactly determine when a subject starts or ceases to be a ‘person’, a necessary condition for a subject to have a right to X is that she is harmed by a decision to deprive her of X.

And this is where we step across the line into vary murky moral and ethical territory. Indeed, the authors admit, “such a condition depends on the level of her mental development, which in turn determines whether or not she is a ‘person’.” If you can justifiably be killed based on your mental capacity to realize what you’re losing, things don’t look so good for that 3-year-old with autism. If a life was not really taken, this could also become a legal defense for murder; this is not such a stretch. If we’re discussing extending the arguments (and their implications) for abortion to include “after-birth” abortion, we can extend them (and their implications) further to legal defenses, can we not?

Those who are only capable of experiencing pain and pleasure (like perhaps fetuses and certainly newborns) have a right not to be inflicted pain. If, in addition to experiencing pain and pleasure, an individual is capable of making any aims (like actual human and non-human persons), she is harmed if she is prevented from accomplishing her aims by being killed.

I find a large gap in their logic here. Let us stipulate that those who can experience pain have a right not to have pain inflicted on them, as the authors are saying. Then it follows that those who can experience life have a right not to have it take from them. Now, a fetus and a newborn may not realize that they are experiencing “life” — they may not be that self-aware — but then, do they realize that they are experiencing “pain”? Are they self-aware enough understand what pain actually is? All they know, when in pain, is that they don’t want the current experience, whatever it is. But they are not aware enough of the concept of “pain” to realize what it is, much the same way the experience of the pleasure of life itself is somewhat lost on them. In neither case are they aware of what it is they are experiencing.

Whether or not you understand what you are experiencing has no bearing on whether or not you have a right to or from it. Similarly, whether or not you understand the future prospects for that experience also have no bearing on your rights. The point is, our experience and understanding has nothing at all to do with our rights.

This even works in the legal sense as well. In America, if I don’t know or understand my “Miranda rights”, it doesn’t mean I don’t have them, nor can they be taken away from me.

This is different from animals (or, as the authors put it, “non-human persons”) because animals do not have the same innate moral rights as humans. (This does not mean it does not matter how animals are treated. God has told man to be a good steward of His creation, and few would deny some inner love for animals, particularly the cuter ones, which I believe, too, was put there by God. But they do not have the same moral rights, and thus their use as beasts of burden, for example, are not moral issues.)

Using this flawed definition of “person”, the authors then put it to use to use in their arguments for “after-birth” abortions. Having fouled up their definition, everything else from here on out fails to convince me at all.

The fetus and the newborn are potential persons

It might be claimed that someone is harmed because she is prevented from becoming a person capable of appreciating her own being alive. Thus, for example, one might say that we would have been harmed if our mothers had chosen to have an abortion while they were pregnant with us or if they had killed us as soon as we were born. However, whereas you can benefit someone by bringing her into existence (if her life is worth living), it makes no sense to say that someone is harmed by being prevented from becoming an actual person. The reason is that, by virtue of our definition of the concept of ‘harm’ in the previous section, in order for a harm to occur, it is necessary that someone is in the condition of experiencing that harm.

With their definitions of “person” and “harm”, this all makes sense. But those definitions are extremely flawed, and thus so it their conclusion that there is no harm in killing a newborn baby. Most of this section launches from these definitions, so there is no real need to dissect it piece by piece. I will note a this passage.

The alleged right of individuals (such as fetuses and newborns) to develop their potentiality, which someone defends, is over-ridden by the interests of actual people (parents, family, society) to pursue their own well-being because, as we have just argued, merely potential people cannot be harmed by not being brought into existence. Actual people’s well-being could be threatened by the new (even if healthy) child requiring energy, money and care which the family might happen to be in short supply of. Sometimes this situation can be prevented through an abortion, but in some other cases this is not possible. In these cases, since non-persons have no moral rights to life, there are no reasons for banning after-birth abortions.

What they argue is that a newborn has no right to life because of, in addition to all the previous arguments, the prevailing economic conditions. I understand that many abortions are done for these reasons, but I don’t consider economics a valid reason to kill a child, before or after birth. Now, I am the first to admit that I’ve never been in as dire a situation, but I hope I would stick with my principles about life over economics when the time came. (Interestingly, people like Sarah Palin, who lived their principles, seem to be castigated more on this than others. Odd, that.)

Whether or not one sticks to one’s principles is, however, not germane to the issue, which is, what moral right to life a newborn may have. And this section of the article does not persuade in the least, because it starts with assumptions that fail its own logic (or fail to be addressed).

Adoption as an alternative to after-birth abortion?

This section is summed up in one sentence from the article.

What we are suggesting is that, if interests of actual people should prevail, then after-birth abortion should be considered a permissible option for women who would be damaged by giving up their newborns for adoption.

That is, if the biological mother might suffer stress or other psychological from letting the baby live, killing it is fine. Not to minimize the psychological health of the mother, but there is a life on the line. The authors and I would not agree on whether the infant’s life is meaningless or meaningful, so we are, again, at a disagreement.

Conclusions

After they restate their position that the criteria for “after-birth” abortions should be the same as those before birth, they point out two considerations that they wish to add.

First, we do not put forward any claim about the moment at which after-birth abortion would no longer be permissible, and we do not think that in fact more than a few days would be necessary for doctors to detect any abnormality in the child. In cases where the after-birth abortion were requested for non-medical reasons, we do not suggest any threshold, as it depends on the neurological development of newborns, which is something neurologists and psychologists would be able to assess.

Here is where they quietly slip out altogether from the question of, having obliterated one fairly bright line, where to draw the new line. I appreciate the fact that they even brought it up, but to say “we do not suggest any threshold” is to play fast and loose with life itself. I go back to that example of a 3-year-old autistic child, and wonder where the line would be drawn. Would there be a line drawn by this society? Living your personal morality is one thing. Inflicting it on a child at the cost of his or her life is another one entirely.

This is where the charge that they are advocating infanticide comes from, in spite of their previous denial. They say that killing a newborn can be justified, they don’t say at what point it wouldn’t be, but then they protest if you call them to account on it. Whatever it is, they insist, they don’t want to label it “infanticide”. Well, call it what you want. The result is that people who want to kill their child legally will figure out a way to do it, once they get a legal imprimatur. One million abortions per year prove it.

Second, we do not claim that after-birth abortions are good alternatives to abortion. Abortions at an early stage are the best option, for both psychological and physical reasons. However, if a disease has not been detected during the pregnancy, if something went wrong during the delivery, or if economical [sic], social or psychological circumstances change such that taking care of the offspring becomes an unbearable burden on someone, then people should be given the chance of not being forced to do something they cannot afford.

I do not believe that before-birth abortions are a good alternative to adoption, and yet upwards of a million abortions have been done every single year since Roe v Wade. I don’t think that the rate would double if “after-birth” abortions became legal, but what Giubilini and Minerva would release on this society will not at all be curtailed in the least by their personal view of what’s a good alternative. Again, one million abortions per year say otherwise.

This proposal is one that completely ignores essential elements of the history of abortion in this country; namely that, as a political tool used by the Left to supposedly “empower” women, it has become virtually sacrosanct, a sacrament of the Left. It can not be calmly or logically discussed without baseless charges of misogyny or religious fundamentalism getting thrown out and discussion stops before it really starts. The Left simply will not give up the “fundamental right” to abortion-as-birth-control,which, as I’ve noted, the vast majority indeed are. What Giubilini and Minerva would do is simply extend indefinitely the time period in which “abortion” could take place, and expand the culture of death in this country and around the world.

I think they’re proposal is wrong on its face, and when you look at the details, it’s even more wrong. That is why I disagree with it in the strongest terms.

Doug Payton blogs at Considerettes.

Last Friday, I noted in my Friday Link Wrap-up, medical “ethicists” are seriously arguing that post-birth newborns are ‘not persons’ and can ethically be “aborted”. I also posted this article on Facebook, and one of my friends took me to task on it. He said that “sloppy agenda laden journalism” has misinterpreted their intent, and that “the researchers are attempting to provoke debate on the ethics of abortion, not the desirability to kill newborns.”

I’ve read the whole piece by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, and I come to the conclusion that, while their stated intent may not be to suggest that it is desirable to kill newborns, the result will be the same. The main problem I see is that, while they have their personal moral stances regarding how often and in what circumstances what they call “after-birth abortions” would take place, their stances would not be what others use to make their determination. Would they accept a gun manufacturer’s statement that “I don’t intend my product to kill innocent people”? Perhaps not, but it can be used that way, and abortion kills millions upon millions because they are merely inconvenient. The authors’ morals will not be used to put into practice their suggestions. Keep that in mind.

(Note: While putting this blog post together, the article was removed from the Journal of Medical Ethics website. The link takes you to a “Not Found” page, and no amount of searching for title, text, or authors could find it. I’m not sure if it was taken down for some reason, or if, perhaps, only the most recent articles appear on the website. In any event, the article is no longer there. I’ll continue to look to see if it gets posted elsewhere.)

I will not be quoting the entire article, but I will be summarizing as I go along with quotes as needed. Please follow the link for the full text of the article.

First, their abstract:

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus’ health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

Please note that they are invoking morality from the start. Thus, I, too, will make my appeals to it as well. We will see how just that changes things entirely, especially regarding one’s “moral status as actual persons”.

Introduction

Giubilini and Minerva start their introduction by noting various reasons for abortion:

1. Severe abnormalities of the fetus.
2. Physical and/or psychological health of the mother (sometimes in connection with #1; issues that may arise taking care of an abnormal baby).
3. Loss of partner after finding out she is pregnant, and not being able to take care of the child herself.

These situations may not be known, or may change, after birth, and the problem is that at that point there is no possibility of “abortion”. As an example:

However, such rare and severe pathologies are not the only ones that are likely to remain undetected until delivery; even more common congenital diseases that women are usually tested for could fail to be detected. An examination of 18 European registries reveals that between 2005 and 2009 only the 64% of Down’s syndrome cases were diagnosed through prenatal testing.

They acknowledge that a diagnosis of Down’s virtually always results in abortion. “Once these children are born, there is no choice for the parents but to keep the child, which sometimes is exactly what they would not have done if the disease had been diagnosed before birth.”

Abortion rates for diagnoses of Down’s hovers around 95% in the US and Europe. Are we to believe that every one of these mothers were physically or psychologically unable to care for their child, or that their partners left them after finding out the diagnoses? By removing reason #1 (calling Down’s “more common”), they seem to suggest that every diagnosis of Down’s results in #2 or #3. Had either of these situations been determined in those cases of abortion, or, as is more likely the case, the majority of them were a result of not thinking themselves able to handle it (when they quite possibly could have) or, worse, just not wanting to deal with the hassle?

Let’s not forget the percentages we’re talking about here. According to the Guttmacher Institute:

1% of all abortions occur because of rape or incest; 6% of abortions occur because of potential health problems regarding either the mother or child, and 93% of all abortions occur for social reasons (i.e. the child is unwanted or inconvenient).

The vast majority of women just don’t want to deal with the baby, healthy or not. And if Down’s babies are part of the 6%, then (if the percentages hold for unhealthy babies as for healthy ones), 93% (at least) of those with Down’s babies indeed don’t want to deal with the situation vs. those who actually can’t deal with it.

I’m spending a bit of time at the beginning here to deal with the abortion question, and why I find it grossly overused, because the authors intend to make an equivalence with it. My definition of a justified abortion is, however, not shared by much of society. I will note, then, that the authors’ definition of a justified abortion is equally irrelevant to society at large, though they will continue to appeal to it.

So keep in mind that Giubilini and Minerva have a “solution” looking for a problem, considering the actual percentages. This is not to say that there aren’t serious abortion situations that come up like they have described; only that they are very rare and, if the past is any indicator, their solution will be applied in situations far outside of this as well.

Abortion and after-birth abortion

While Giubilini and Minerva agree that life may still be worth living, even if the child has Down’s, they find a reason to suggest that killing it is acceptable.

Nonetheless, to bring up such children might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care. On these grounds, the fact that a fetus has the potential to become a person who will have an (at least) acceptable life is no reason for prohibiting abortion. Therefore, we argue that, when circumstances occur after birth such that they would have justified abortion, what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible.

Let me highlight that first sentence: “Nonetheless, to bring up such children might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care.” The potential, then, for a happy future life is not enough to outweigh the economic factors, in the eyes of the authors, such that an “after-birth abortion” is justified. Deciding that a life is worth taking because of economic considerations is something that you’re only likely to hear in countries where the national government is the ultimate source of health care benefits (whether as a single payer or as one that manipulates private insurance companies to act on its behalf). As the US edges closer to that, I expect to hear more of this sort of justification.

But setting aside the heartlessness of this, again we’re seeing a situation that likely is true in a minority of cases. Further, is economic aid from the state truly a burden, when it provides what those who get a chance live it consider happy? That’s not a burden, as far as I’m concerned, and if we’re going to appeal to morality, I’d say that’s an overall moral good. But to Giubilini and Minerva, it’s just not good enough to provide a happy life for a child who would have otherwise been aborted.

Next, they play with words so as to make what they’re suggesting not sound as bad.

In spite of the oxymoron in the expression, we propose to call this practice ‘after-birth abortion’, rather than ‘infanticide’, to emphasise that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus (on which ‘abortions’ in the traditional sense are performed) rather than to that of a child. Therefore, we claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be.

In order to avoid the term “infanticide”, the authors have to argue that the newborn is not a person. The idea that a newborn baby isn’t a person, on its face, just goes against any bit of common sense one might have. Yes, it is not independent, but this line — birth — has been a line that even pro-abortionists wouldn’t cross. Now, however, we see people trying to push the envelope further out, and, as we’ll see, leave the door open for further redefinition of “person”, beyond what the authors themselves may intend.

They define personhood rather specifically, so let me quote the relevant paragraphs.

Failing to bring a new person into existence cannot be compared with the wrong caused by procuring the death of an existing person. The reason is that, unlike the case of death of an existing person, failing to bring a new person into existence does not prevent anyone from accomplishing any of her future aims. However, this consideration entails a much stronger idea than the one according to which severely handicapped children should be euthanised. If the death of a newborn is not wrongful to her on the grounds that she cannot have formed any aim that she is prevented from accomplishing, then it should also be permissible to practise an after-birth abortion on a healthy newborn too, given that she has not formed any aim yet.

There are two reasons which, taken together, justify this claim:

The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus, that is, neither can be considered a ‘person’ in a morally relevant sense.

It is not possible to damage a newborn by preventing her from developing the potentiality to become a person in the morally relevant sense.

First, they say that allowing the death (or “failing to bring … into existence”) of someone requires that one be able to form a life goal in one’s mind; “future aims”, as they express it. Now, if they aren’t speaking as sweepingly as this (if “a life goal” is too long a time period and perhaps the future aim could be, for example, their next meal), then even a newborn has a few short-term future aims; to satisfy their hunger, as an example. And they’re more than willing to let you know about their future aim, or at least their lack of something that they want fulfilled. But since a newborn fits this definition, clearly the authors’ intended the timeframe to be longer than the next meal, but less than a life goal; a rather wide range subject to all manner of manipulation and goal-post moving.

Does a 3-year-old who’s autistic have a life goal or future aims far enough out for Giubilini and Minerva? We’ll see later that they find the question — the very heart of the ethics of this — too much to deal with for their medical ethics article. The purpose of this article is to try to erase one one line (birth) but refuse to draw any new one. They only ever say “newborn”, but their own definitions come back to haunt them. Thus, the article, rather than solidifying any ethical conclusion, merely opens wide the floodgates leaving no restraint in place. They say that are not advocating infanticide, while at the same time not being able to ethically curtail it.

I will say this, though. I do agree with part of their first reason: The moral status of an infant is indeed equivalent to that of a fetus, which is what pro-lifers have been saying since there were pro-lifers.

[To be continued.]

The one charity that has the lowest administrative costs (i.e. more of your donation actually gets to the needy) is being boycotted by the Gay Liberation Network. Why? Because it adheres to its religious beliefs. It stands up for what it believes in.

(Ever notice that folks who admire others who “stand up for what they believe in” almost invariably don’t appreciate it when they don’t agree with what’s being stood up for?)

Bil Browning explains his opposition to the Army this way.

As the holidays approach, the Salvation Army bell ringers are out in front of stores dunning shoppers for donations. If you care about gay rights, you’ll skip their bucket in favor of a charity that doesn’t actively discriminate against the LGBT community.

The Salvation Army has a history of active discrimination against gays and lesbians. While you might think you’re helping the hungry and homeless by dropping a few dollars in the bright red buckets, not everyone can share in the donations. Many LGBT people are rejected by the evangelical church charity because they’re “sexually impure.”

While the Army, as a church, does indeed believe that homosexuality goes against God’s plan for us, they most emphatically do not discriminate on who can receive their aid. That charge is entirely false. Everyone can share in the donations.

However, the Army is allowed to decide who represents it to the public. And that’s where the Army will indeed stand up for what it believes in.

And the GLN is free to start its own charity. Light a candle instead of curse the “darkness”, and all that.

In the meantime, consider dropping a little bit more in the kettle this year. And it may not be a bad idea to make that a standard practice. Donations have been going down year-over-year, and which is why the “kettle season” has been moved up to a few days before Thanksgiving, rather than the long tradition of the day after it. It’s a down economy, but especially for the needy.

Doug Payton blogs at Considerettes.

Whenever I try to give credit to Ronald Reagan for participating in the fall of the Soviet Union, I often hear that its fall was an inevitability, and it just so happened to occur on Reagan’s watch. I have to point out to them that Reagan was the first President to come along with an intent to defeat communism, not just contain it. And then to have the Soviet Union defeated “on his watch”, with nary a nuke dropped, is one of those “coincidences” you don’t often see in politics; where the effect so closely mirrors the cause.

Interestingly, some of those who say the fall of communism was inevitable weren’t around when it happened. I was. And so was Lech Walesa.

Lech Walesa said that there would not be a free Poland without Ronald Reagan, during the unveiling of a statue in Warsaw of the late American president on Monday.

The former Solidarity leader said that “as a participant in these events,” it was “inconceivable” that such changes would have come about without the last American president during the post-1945 cold-war era.

Walesa added that thirty years ago, it seemed that the fall of the communist system would not be possible without a nuclear war.

Reagan stood strongly, and very publicly, with Poland against the Soviets. This was not an appeasing President. The Soviet Union was wrong and evil, and Reagan was not afraid to call it that, to the consternation of so many American liberals. (Just ask if, after Reagan walked out of the Reykjavik summit, if they thought nuclear war was a distinct possibility.) Lech Walesa agreed, and understood that history could just as easily played out very differently, if Reagan had not believed that victory was possible.

Let’s give credit where credit is due. Poland certainly is.

Doug Payton blogs at Considerettes.

The state of California takes, out of the hands of minors, some decisions that could have negative repercussions, especially on their health, and gives it to their parents.

A California law recently went into effect that bans minors, defined as anyone under the age of 18, from using a tanning bed. The prohibition is absolute and there is no provision for parental permission.

Lawmakers say the tan ban is necessary in order to protect the health and well-being of young people. California is the only state thus far to have a complete ban on tanning for minors. Other states allow the practice with a parent’s permission.

The Golden State has other laws intended to safeguard the health of young people.

If you are under 18 in California, you are forbidden from getting a tattoo. Like the tan ban, the law is absolute. A minor cannot get inked even with a parent’s permission.

A person under 18 can get his or her ear or ears pierced; however, piercing any other body part will require a parent’s approval. A minor is also allowed to take an aspirin at school but only with a parent’s permission.

But there is one decision that the state does give to minors, even without parental permission. You can’t get an aspirin without permission, but you can kill your child.

California allows a girl under the age of 18 to obtain an abortion without her parents’ permission — and without even notifying them. Additionally, the facility that provides the abortion is forbidden by law from informing the parents about the abortion.

It should be noted that California voters have repeatedly rejected ballot initiatives that would have required parental notification for a minor seeking an abortion.

A 14-year-old girl can obtain an abortion in California and her parents have absolutely no knowledge of the situation — and Californians believe it is acceptable.

So, by “the state of California”, I mean, not just the government, but the people in general. It’s not just the state government that has its priorities inverted; it’s the liberals out there. Absolutely no consistency.

I participated in a comment thread to a blog post suggesting that the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street protestors ought to come together and find common ground. It incorporated a Venn diagram of what the two groups think are the source of the problem and the intersection was what they could agree on.

Unfortunately, the diagram is just too simplistic. It equates corporate power with government post, which ignores the fact that much of the power corporations has comes from the government, because the government is susceptible to corruption. Because that’s true, the protest ought to be Occupy Pennsylvania Avenue. Trying to explain that to folks who agree with OWS was an exercise in futility. While buying power is wrong, selling it is worse, and is in fact the root cause of the problem.

One of the commenters, waynefromnaz, who understood this concept, put together a video showing the problem with the Venn diagram, and introducing one of his own that explains the real problem in a much better way. He highlights the fact that corporations aren’t the only ones who buy power, and thus the problem isn’t just that this or that group can buy it, but the main problem is that anyone can buy it, and thus we should go after the group selling it (i.e. government).

Additionally, this exposes the political motivation behind OWS. Why aren’t they protesting the unions that buy power and get special favors? Noticeably absent from the list of those being protested against are typical Democrat supporters. No, they’re concentrating on groups that many consider Republican constituencies. I don’t think that’s by accident.

Here, then, is the video, showing what the real problem is. (Click the link if embedding has failed.)

One of God’s top 10.

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Contrary to what some think, coveting is not just wanting something. Coveting is wanting something that belongs to someone else. God made it pretty clear about not coveting that which is your neighbor’s. (And of course, Jesus explained to us that our neighbor is essentially anyone else.)

But right now, in cities and countries all over, there are protests going on, getting rave reviews from liberals and the media, where the key ingredient is precisely this; covetousness. Much of what you hear from videos and their own website, even the whole 99% thing, is out of a want, not for money, but for the money of the “1%”. (But, because these things would be paid for by taxes, they’re really aiming for the wealth of the 53%.)

“You, cancel my loans!”

“You, pay me even when I’m not working!”

“You, finance my healthcare!”

And the target of their protests must pony up the cash. No, not “the 1%”, but the 53%, and their children. These protestors want their money; no their own. That is not at all to say that cancelling loans, unemployment benefits or subsidized healthcare are, in and of themselves, a bad thing in moderation, and when circumstances may warrant. But the method these “99%” suggest — more power to a government that got us into this situation in the first place — is both ironic and sad at the same time because they propose we keep digging the hole we’re in rather than get out of it.

(And, by the way, the folks who say they are 99% of the country? Not so much.)

We have some modicum of socialism in this country already — Social Security, Medicare, for examples — but these programs are going bankrupt. Social Security is now paying out more than it is taking in, and has been for a year now, because the socialized method used to pay for it couldn’t handle a Baby Boom. And yet these folks want the 1%/53% to finance yet another iteration of this.

The blame is misplaced, and the solution follows the direction of failed policies. So what’s a country to do?

Brett McCracken writing at his blog The Search sums things up well, both the issues and the solution.

As a “movement,” Occupy Wall Street doesn’t reveal an organized grassroots agenda as much as it represents a general climate of anger, frustration, and antagonism against the “haves”–a suspiciously narrow (1%), heartless, no good very bad group whose entrepreneurial success and capitalistic success apparently oppress the 99% of us have-nots who are being unfairly kept from sharing in the 1 percent’s riches.

Mostly, though, Occupy Wall Street represents the natural discontent of an entitled generation raised on the notion that we deserve things, that the government owes us something, that everything we want should be accessible, and that somehow we are not responsible if we don’t end up quite as successful in life as we’d hoped. It’s a blame-shifting problem. It’s an inability to delay gratification or go without that which we believe is our right or destiny. And it’s a problem both on the micro/individual and macro/government level.

McCracken suggests that the blame is one that we all share, not just some tiny slice of us, from whom we need to extract our pound of flesh.

The thing is, “sharing blame” is hard for us humans to do. We’re infinitely averse to admitting our own culpability. In almost anything. Whether it be our own financial hardships, or those of our communities, or the high taxes under which we suffer… We have to lash out against someone. We have to go occupy something.

As Christians, though, I think we must first and foremost look within for the blame. We must own our share in the mess. Beyond institutions and hegemonies and Wall Street tycoons, how are we responsible for the trouble we’re in? True revolution begins here. True change begins with what we can actually control: our own lives, an awareness of our weaknesses and potentials, and a commitment to working to improve.

If we have to occupy something, let it be the dominion of our own culpable Self, the guiltiest of all institutions and the one we are likeliest to spur toward positive change.

I dare say that should this particular philosophy suddenly grip the Occupy Wall Street crowd, things might disperse rather quickly. Is there injustice in America? Yes, there is. But Jesus didn’t storm the house of Zacchaeus, among the “1%” of his day. Jesus didn’t complain that the government in Rome was unfair and make demands of it. He spoke truths to individuals, even the 1%ers. He changed hearts, which then changed the culture. Let’s follow that example instead.

Doug Payton blogs at Considerettes.

I came across this article yesterday on the Science 2.0 website, with a very honest title; “I confess: I don’t know when human life begins”. Paul Knoepfler, Associate Professor of Cell Biology and Human Anatomy at UC Davis School of Medicine, walks through all the stages of gestation and does, however, come up with his reasons for when life doesn’t begin. Before that, though, he goes through a list of three main authorities on when it begins; those with moral authority, doctors, and scientists. He argues that none of these folks have “the answer” that applies to everyone, but that seems to suggest that we get to define when life begins rather than life defining itself.

Religious commandments or cultural norms really don’t determine when life begins; they only generalize about when people should treat life as having begun. (He touches on that on his own blog.) That is not the same question as when life truly begins, but lacking that knowledge, we do need some sort of dividing line. He argues that science really doesn’t, and perhaps can’t, answer that question. At this point in our scientific knowledge, I tend to agree, especially since the question of what “life” actually is is still quite a mystery. Hence, we can only, at this point, decide when to treat life as having begun. Those aforementioned commandments and norms were instituted long before we knew what we now know about what’s going on in the reproductive cycle, and our new knowledge should inform our decisions, should it not?

In 1998 I wrote an essay, “Just One Question”, which gave my take on the topic, especially as it related to abortion. My personal opinion in that was that life begins at conception, and I set out my arguments for it. (This was the culmination of a debate, 5 years earlier, on a local computer bulletin board system; the internet before there was The Internet.) Some of my points here will come from that.

Knoepfler talks about 6 main possibilities when when life might start: “(1), before conception (yes, you read that right), (2) at conception, (3) at implantation, (4) when distinctively human, organized brain activity begins, (5) when the fetus can survive outside the womb, and (6) at birth. ”

Option 1 refers to parthenogenesis; an egg dividing and growing on its own. This happens in other life forms, but does not naturally occur in humans. Therefore, since we’re questioning specifically human life, I don’t think this plays a part.

Option 2 is conception, where I come down on the issue. Knoepfler agrees that it is a nice, clear dividing line, and a step that must be taken before anything else can. But then he gets lost in his own analogy against this.

However, the case against conception is that a fertilized human egg is not by any stretch of the imagination an actual human being, at least not in my opinion. The fertilized egg, also known as a zygote, has the potential to make a human being, but often it does not. From my perspective, which of course may be wrong, a fertilized egg is very much like a seed. I really like this analogy. Let’s run with it.

OK, picture this in your mind–a small Sequoia seed that just fell out of a cone onto the forest floor in Yosemite. See it? That seed is not the same thing as a 2,000 year old Sequoia Tree, right?

Even if that seed has the potential to become that tree over a period of thousands of years by growing trillions of times in mass and developing leaves and other specialized structures, it does not mean that that seed is a tree.

As much as he really likes it, this is a bad analogy. No, the seed is not a tree any more than a zygote is an adult human being. However, both the seed and the tree are Sequoias — the same species — and both the zygote and the adult are human. He then makes his major point against conception as the dividing line using this bad analogy as the backdrop.

Key idea: Potential does not mean equality. A seed can become a tree, but a seed is not a tree. They are different. A fertilized human egg can become a human being, but that potential does not equate the fertilized egg with a human being. It has to survive, implant, grow trillions of times in mass, etc.

A fertilized human egg (his phrase) is already human. It is not a potential human. It is, however, a potential adult, and lots of things have to happen to realize that potential. But then, a lot of things have to happen for a 1-day-old baby to reach that potential as well, yet we still consider the baby a human life.

Conception is a clear dividing line. Before that point we have an egg and a sperm that, if properly cared for and nurtured, die in hours or days. After that point we have a fertilized egg that, if properly cared for and nurtured, can become an Associate Professor of Cell Biology and Human Anatomy at UC Davis School of Medicine.

Option 3, implantation, is a necessary step in the gestation cycle, but this is simply a change of location with access to nutrition. The cells have already been dividing and this just gives them the ability to divide faster. There is no clear dividing line regarding development.

Option 4, fetal brain activity, is another nebulous stage, and Knoepfler is unimpressed with it, as am I. He comes up with an argument against it that I was unaware of. Random electrical activity occurs quite early in the gestation, but nothing (that he’s seen) related to thought. A dish of human neurons can do that by themselves.

Option 5, when a fetus can survive outside the womb, is also a poor choice. Knoepfler notes that this is different for different fetuses, and I would add that it’s different based on what century you live in. Medical science keeps advancing and making once unviable babies healthy human adults. Still, viability is, in general, a made-up construct to muddy the waters. As I said in my essay:

The issue of viability, when looked at through the lens of this single important abortion question [is it a human life?], is revealed to be nothing but an artificial smoke screen used to make a black and white issue look gray. Something that is “viable” is simply something that can live. In most dictionaries, the additional requirement of living without artificial support is added only as a special instance for fetuses; a special instance that is obviously there solely due to the abortion situation. For every other use of the word, it simply means something that is able to live (a viable company, a viable candidate, etc.). Consider how viable would those researchers on the Antarctic continent be if not for their artificial support (heaters, shelter, etc.)? If something dies when you take it out of it’s natural habitat and place it in a hostile environment, that does not make it non-viable.

And finally option 6, birth, while a well-defined event, really is mostly a change of location rather than anything physically different in the baby. (I say this with regards to the question of life only. The birth, to the parents especially, is far, far more than just a change of location of the baby, speaking as one with 4 children.)

Of all these options, there is really only one that is a clear dividing line creating a fundamental change; conception. If “life” doesn’t really start at that point, then it is at least the point at which a significant corner is turned. Our knowledge of what life actually is may continue to grow, but at this point in time, with what we do know, conception is the unique, best option.

The application of this, of course, is partly political. Knoepfler ends with, “I personally think that everyone has to decide this question, one of the most important we can ponder, for themselves.” The problem with hand-waving away any potential issues associated with it as he does, is that groups like Planned Parenthood make millions convincing women that their babies aren’t life. The possibility that PP is killing human life is worth more than a bland, “Well, decide for yourself.” It’s a literal case of life and death. The problem is, groups like PP and their allies in government and science have introduce viability as some sort of actual distinction. Based on Knoepfler’s poll on the subject, it’s worked too well, unfortunately.

There are consequences — major consequences — to the answer to this question, and it should be a concern of science and government. As a culture, we need to wrestle with this question, but not eternally. We need to determine our collective answer to it at the present time, but be open to new knowledge in the future that changes it. For now, the dividing line is clear, but Big Abortion (if I may call it that) has a vested, monetary interest in keeping it blurry. This should not be the case where life itself is at stake.

Doug Payton blogs at Considerettes.

From the diaries by Jeff

Citing your values to overturn your values; that’s precisely what a court in the UK has done. They’ve cited the values that the country was founded on — Judeo-Christian ones — to rule against holding to those values.

There is no place in British law for Christian beliefs, despite this country’s long history of religious observance and the traditions of the established Church, two High Court judges said on Monday.

Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson made the remarks when ruling on the case of a Christian couple who were told that they could not be foster carers because of their view that homosexuality is wrong.

The judges underlined that, in the case of fostering arrangements at least, the right of homosexuals to equality “should take precedence” over the right of Christians to manifest their beliefs and moral values.

In a ruling with potentially wide-ranging implications, the judges said Britain was a “largely secular”, multi-cultural country in which the laws of the realm “do not include Christianity”.

Is Britain’s government “largely secular”? Yes, it is, as are all Western democracies. Our own founding fathers in the US did not set up a theocracy. But this by no means suggests that the government should take no position that happens to coincide with a religious view. Laws in our country against murder, theft and extortion are rooted in Christian morality; the Biblical ideas of the intrinsic value of each human being, and the values of justice and fairness. Further, we have death penalties, when we do have them, for only the worst offenders, and for the same reasons.

Read More →

If we stay on the same course, budget-wise, in just 5 years the interest on our national debt will approach what we spend to defend the country.  This must be dealt with.

Yesterday, a White House commission put together by President Obama released a draft proposal to do just that.

The leaders of a White House commission laid out a sweeping proposal to cut the federal budget deficit by hundreds of billions a year by targeting sacrosanct areas of U.S. tax and spending policy, such as Social Security benefits, middle-class tax breaks and defense spending.

The preliminary plan in its current form would end or cap a wide range of breaks relied on by the middle class—including the deduction for home-mortgage interest. It would tax capital gains and dividends at the higher rates now levied on wage income. To compensate, one version of the plan would dramatically lower and simplify individual rates, to 9%, 15% and 24%.

For businesses, the controversial plan would significantly lower the corporate tax rate—from a current top rate of 35% to as low as 26%—but also eliminate a number of deductions. It would make permanent the research and development tax credit.

There’s much more; cutting $100 billion from defense, raising gas taxes, raising the Social Security retirement age, cutting federal work force by 10%, and others.  It’s quite a sweeping proposal, and it’ll call on the government and the people alike to share the burden.

But what will it wind up doing?

Overall, the plan would hold down the growth of the federal debt by roughly $3.8 trillion by 2020, or about half of the $7.7 trillion by which the debt would have otherwise grown by that year, according to commission staff. The current national debt is about $13.7 trillion.

The budget deficit, or the amount by which federal expenditures exceed revenues each year, was about $1.3 trillion for fiscal year 2010, which ended on Sept. 30.

Even with all this, it’ll only cut the growth by half, with debt still rising by trillions every year.

This is where we find ourselves; overextended and really unable to do anything about it despite some Herculean efforts.  Our government has made so many promises that it can’t renege on, that the most we can hope for is “only” growing slower. Well, ya’ gotta’ start somewhere, and this is just a draft proposal.  But this is a good start.

Or is it?  How do other politicians see it?  (Warning: Easily anticipated reactions follow.)

Lawmaker reaction was mixed, suggesting any final plan will be weaker than the one released Wednesday. Sen. Judd Gregg (R., N.H.), the top Republican on the Budget Committee and a panel member, called it “a genuine product that deserves very serious attention.”

But liberal panel members were less enthusiastic. Sen. Richard Durbin (D., Ill.) said he wouldn’t vote for it, saying that “there are things in there that I hate like the devil hates holy water.”

And from another article.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, called the proposal “simply unacceptable.”

Republicans cautiously optimistic, Democrats hate it.  Gee, who would have predicted that?

Some important interest groups were sharply critical, particularly over curbs on entitlement spending. The plans authors “just told working Americans to ‘Drop Dead,”‘ said AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka. “Especially in these tough economic times, it is unconscionable to be proposing cuts to the critical economic lifelines for working people, Social Security and Medicare.”

Unions hate it.  Gee, who would have predicted that?

From the second article:

Liberal think tanks pushed the White House to move the deficit commission in a different direction or to condemn it.

“It’s time for the Obama administration to become more engaged in the bipartisan commission it established, or to make it clear that the commission does not represent their viewpoint on these issues,” said John Irons, research and policy director at the Economic Policy Institute, a labor-backed group.

Liberal think tanks hate it.  Gee, who would have predicted that?

(Back to the first article:)

The conservative Americans for Tax Reform also blasted the plan. “It confirms what everyone has known—this commission is merely an excuse to raise net taxes on the American people,” the group said in a written statement. Supporting the plan would violate the group’s no-new-taxes pledge, which many Republicans and some Democrats in Congress have signed, it warned.

Single-issue groups hate it.  Gee, who would have predicted that?  I do understand, however, this particular group’s problem with the proposal.  Seems that in the past, every time there was some belt tightening that needed to be done, the government decided it was the taxpayer, not Washington, that needed to do it.  So Americans for Tax Reform has a point, but it needs to look at the bigger picture, I think.  Besides, it may be that the Feds take the larger hit this time, by quite a bit.

Sen. Gregg said that overall, federal spending takes a bigger hit in the plan than taxpayers do. The plan’s goal is to reduce federal spending and federal revenues to 21% of gross domestic product. Federal revenues currently are projected to be about 19% of GDP in 2015, and outlays about 23%.

It would seek to achieve the pullbacks through a mix of spending cuts and increasing tax revenues—about 75% in spending reductions and about 25% from the tax side.

This will be a test of the Republican freshmen, especially the Tea Partiers, that will be coming to Washington in January.  Those who voted for them will be watching to see if we can, indeed, make a difference based on who we send to Congress.

My prediction:  No deficit-reduction proposal will go unscathed.  I imagine the commission asked for far more than they knew they could reasonably expect to pass Congress, anticipating that it would be scaled back.  That it will, but I predict the Republicans will push hard for its adoption.  Democrats will have to be bought, er, brought onboard but I think the lion’s share could get passed.  The wildcard is the President.  If Obama wants a second term, I think he’ll have to sign this.  If he doesn’t, no one, except truly blind partisans, will ever again believe his talk about wanting fiscal responsibility, and they’ll remember in 2012.

Doug Payton blogs at Considerettes.

I saw the word “Jesus” on the sleeves of the shirts on the Chilean miners as they came up, one by one, in the capsule.  (Yeah, we had the streaming video going as I worked from home.  What a terrific event.)  But no news organization so much as mentioned the other writings on those shirts.

Thus the citizen investigative journalist kicks in where the major media won’t go.  The scripture verse on the back is Psalm 95:4.

In his hand are the depths of the earth,
and the mountain peaks belong to him.

Yeah.  Wow.

And there’s more at the video on YouTube.

Doug Payton blogs at Considerettes.

It has been said that if you wish to remake a culture, you have to disassociate it from it roots, its foundation.

Having said that, here is John Adams, 2nd President of the United States and signer of the Declaration of Independence, from 1798:

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

And from today’s paper.

Reporting from San Francisco and Los Angeles —

A federal judge declared California’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional Wednesday, saying that no legitimate state interest justified treating gay and lesbian couples differently from others and that “moral disapproval” was not enough to save the voter-passed Proposition 8.

[...]

“The evidence shows conclusively that moral and religious views form the only basis for a belief that same-sex couples are different from opposite-sex couples,” Walker wrote.

What are the reasons we have laws against marrying children?  Are they not, really, almost entirely moral arguments?  Dismissing those types of arguments, and we dismiss our heritage.  Sweep that out of the way, and those in power get to remake society.

Doug Payton blogs at Considerettes.

I’ve come out in favor of the Electoral College before (see here).  Among other things, the EC ensures that Presidents get broad support as opposed to simply the most support, it gives minorities a bigger voice, and it makes vote fraud much more difficult.  See here for an FEC paper on the origins of the EC, and it makes for very informative reading, especially on the reason that the Founders decided not to go with a direct popular vote for the President.  (The paper was last updated in 1992, but the history is what’s important.)

In Wednesday’s “Best of the Web Today” column, James Taranto takes on the National Popular Vote Interstate Coalition.  What they’re trying to do is get enough states, accounting for at least the 270 electoral votes needed to win, to agree to direct their electors to vote for whoever wins the national popular vote, regardless of how the vote in their particular state went.

Taranto notes that the states currently supporting it, or who’s legislatures have at least passed a bill on to their governor, all voted Democratic in at least the last 5 elections, usually by double-digit margins.  Taranto surmises (though, not really having to make a big logical leap):

It’s no mystery why this idea appeals to Democrats. They are still bitter over the disputed 2000 presidential election, in which Al Gore “won” the popular vote but George W. Bush won the actual election. Changing the rules wouldn’t necessarily benefit Democrats, but you can see why trying to do so might make them feel good.

After all, it was after the 2000 election that the NPVIC got it’s start.  Again, not much of a leap.

But there are problems with this, not even related to the question of popular vote vs electoral vote.  While the measure would be indeed constitutional, Taranto contends it would be unenforceable.

Think about that old Philosophy 101 question: If God is omnipotent, can he make a rock so big that he can’t lift it? It seems like a puzzle, but the answer is clearly no. The premise that God is omnipotent leads to the conclusion that he can both make and lift a rock of any size. “A rock so big that he can’t lift it” is a logically incoherent construct, not a limitation on God’s power.

The NPVIC is based on the similarly illogical premise that lawmakers with plenary powers can enact a law so strong that they can’t repeal it. In truth, because a state legislature’s power in this matter is plenary, it would be an entirely legitimate exercise of its authority to drop out of the compact anytime before the deadline for selecting electors–be it July 21 of an election year or Nov. 9.

Call it the problem of faithless lawmakers–somewhat akin to the question of faithless electors. Legal scholars differ on whether state laws requiring electors to vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged are constitutional. But because the power of legislatures to choose the method of selecting electors is plenary, there is no question that the Constitution would permit faithless lawmakers to exit the NPVIC.

If one or more states did so, and it affected the outcome of the election, the result would be a political crisis that would make 2000 look tame. Unlike in that case, the Supreme Court would be unable to review the matter because it would be an exercise in plenary lawmaking authority. Challenges in Congress to the electoral vote count would be almost inevitable. Whatever the outcome, it would result from an assertion of raw political power that the losing side would have good reason to see as illegitimate.

The problem here is that we’d be giving the election of our President over to what amounts to a gentleman’s agreement; an agreement that not even the Supreme Court would be able to work out, since they wouldn’t have jurisdiction.

I’m still entirely behind the Electoral College system, and please read the link for the details (and especially the FEC paper; history is important).  But Taranto winds up with something to think about, should this gentleman’s agreement get put in place.

Since the NPVIC would be legally unenforceable, only political pressure could be brought to bear to ensure that state legislatures stand by their commitments to it. Would this be enough? Let’s put the question in starkly partisan terms: If you’re a Republican, do you trust Massachusetts lawmakers to keep their word, and to defy the will of the voters who elected them, if by doing so they would make Sarah Palin president?

Consider this.

Doug Payton blogs at Considerettes.

In his (always excellent) column yesterday, James Taranto noted that, earlier this month, President Obama was calling small-government conservatives hypocrites for expecting the government to lead in the Gulf oil spill issue.

In an interview with Politico, the president said: “I think it’s fair to say, if six months ago, before this spill had happened, I had gone up to Congress and I had said we need to crack down a lot harder on oil companies and we need to spend more money on technology to respond in case of a catastrophic spill, there are folks up there, who will not be named, who would have said this is classic, big-government overregulation and wasteful spending.”

The president also implied that anti-big government types such as tea party activists were being hypocritical on the issue.

“Some of the same folks who have been hollering and saying ‘do something’ are the same folks who, just two or three months ago, were suggesting that government needs to stop doing so much,” Obama said. “Some of the same people who are saying the president needs to show leadership and solve this problem are some of the same folks who, just a few months ago, were saying this guy is trying to engineer a takeover of our society through the federal government that is going to restrict our freedoms.”

Got that? If you didn’t support Obama’s effort to take over the health-care system, you’re a hypocrite if you expect him to lead in a crisis, and the oil spill is the fault of the minority party in Congress for its hypothetical opposition that hypothetically deterred Obama from taking hypothetical preventive measures.

Obama makes it clear that he has no idea at all what the Tea Partiers are all about (or he does, and feigns ignorance to make some political points).  Small government types are actually more correctly labeled “right-sized government” types.  It just doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as easily.

Our Constitution enumerates the powers of government, and was written with a particular role of government in mind.  Our Founding Fathers, understanding man’s fallen nature as revealed in the Bible and seeking to restrain the inevitable power grab that all governments throughout history had tended towards, tried to restrain the beast while still providing enough power to do the job it was intended to do.

And so the Tea Partiers seek to restore government to that role and restraint.  It so happens that this proper size of government is quite a bit smaller than what we have now, so “smaller government” is a good enough label for now.  And the health care takeover is just the latest and most blatant attempt to “super-size” this beast.

But comparing opposition to the health care bill with criticism of the federal government’s handling of the Gulf oil spill is like comparing apples with prime numbers.  One is not what our Constitution intended (and some are making the case that it doesn’t allow it at all), especially requiring all citizens to purchase something and penalize them if they don’t.  The other is an interstate crisis that the federal government is specifically for.

In this case, Obama has been dithering while Louisiana tried to get booms or barrier islands to block the oil.  He didn’t use a well-tested and very effective method to clean things up early on.  He turned down offers of help from 17 countries.  He’s used this disaster to push for ethanol subsidies that have been panned by both Republicans and Democrats alike for, among other things, shrinking the food supply in poor countries.

Are those of us “small government” types hypocritical to suggest we get leadership from our President in a time of crisis?  No, we’re not, and either the President knows this but is willing to use this situation to score political points, or he’s hopelessly ignorant about his critics.

In the meantime, we’re stuck with a community organizer in the Oval Office who won’t or can’t or doesn’t know how to lead.  BP deserves what it gets (and likely more) as the fallout from this spill continues, but President Obama is likely to be protected by his party and what supporters he still has left.  (Hey, when you’ve lost James Carville, you’ve lost a lot of the Left.)  It’s a teachable moment.  Is the President in class?

Doug Payton blogs at Considerettes.

It turns out that how well you know your basic economics principles correlates pretty closely with your spot on the political spectrum.

Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country—liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.

Zogby researcher Zeljka Buturovic and I considered the 4,835 respondents’ (all American adults) answers to eight survey questions about basic economics. We also asked the respondents about their political leanings: progressive/very liberal; liberal; moderate; conservative; very conservative; and libertarian.

They describe the specific questions as well as their methodology, which breaks things down by incorrect answers, and where “not sure” doesn’t count against you.  I can see one of the questions that I might disagree with what they considered the correct answer, but you had to be positively wrong (so to speak), not just unsure, to get marked off.  The results?

How did the six ideological groups do overall? Here they are, best to worst, with an average number of incorrect responses from 0 to 8: Very conservative, 1.30; Libertarian, 1.38; Conservative, 1.67; Moderate, 3.67; Liberal, 4.69; Progressive/very liberal, 5.26.

Ronald Reagan said, “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so.”  This shows how remarkably true that is.

Doug Payton blogs at Considerettes.

This woman and Penn Jillette might have a lot in common to talk about regarding how the Religious Right have been portrayed in our culture.

[Eve] Tushnet entered Yale in 1996 a happy lesbian, out since age 13 or 14 (she can’t quite remember). Her father, a nonobservant Jew, and her mother, a Unitarian, both belonged to progressive traditions, tolerant of her sexuality.

When, as a freshman, she attended a meeting of the Party of the Right, a conservative group affiliated with the Yale Political Union, it was “specifically to laugh at them, to see the zoo animals,” she says.

“But I was really impressed, not only by the weird arguments but the degree to which it was clear that the people making them lived as if what they were saying had actual consequences for their lives, that had required them to make sacrifices.”

In Ms. Tushnet’s time, as in mine — I was four years ahead of her at Yale — the Party of the Right had a benignantly cultish quality. “Have you read ‘The Secret History?’ ” she asks, referring to Donna Tartt’s 1992 novel about a secretive student clique obsessed with Greek literature. “It was like that.”

But she listened to them, sincerely, and came out with a far, far different view of them than the culture had led her to believe.

But she found the Party of the Right students compassionate, intellectual and not terribly exercised about her homosexuality. She was drawn to the Catholics among them, who corrected her misimpression that the existence of sin “means you are bad.” It means “precisely the opposite,” they taught her. “It means you have a chance to come back and repent and be saved,” she says. She began reading books like St. Anselm’s “Why God Became Man.” She began attending church. Her sophomore year, she was baptized.

“By the time it was real enough to be threatening,” she says of her conversion, “things had gone too far. I didn’t see it coming.”

So now she’s a fervent Catholic and against same-sex marriage, but isn’t trying to change her religion to fit her notions of right and wrong.  She really believes in it, and understands what that means for her life.

As the hundred or so daily readers of eve-tushnet.blogspot.com, and a larger audience for her magazine writing, know by now, Ms. Tushnet can seem a paradox: fervently Catholic, proudly gay, happily celibate. She does not see herself as disordered; she does not struggle to be straight, but she insists that her religion forbids her a sex life.

“The sacrifices you want to make aren’t always the only sacrifices God wants,” Ms. Tushnet wrote in a 2007 essay for Commonweal. While gay sex should not be criminalized, she said, gay men and lesbians should abstain. They might instead have passionate friendships, or sublimate their urges into other pursuits. “It turns out I happen to be very good at sublimating,” she says, while acknowledging that that is a lot to ask of others.

Marriage should be reserved for heterosexuals, whose “relationships can be either uniquely dangerous or uniquely fruitful,” she explained in an e-mail message. “Thus it makes sense to have an institution dedicated to structuring and channeling them.”

She has her problems with the ex-gay movement (see here for her very thoughtful NRO piece on the topic), but does understand what the Church teaches on the subject and, rather than practice the a la carte version of Christianity some do, she’s taken Jesus’ advice to count the cost, and decided to apply the teachings rather than ignore that which she holds true.  That’s dedication and commitment.

But she got there by actually listening and giving a fair hearing to what others considered religious nuts.  Don’t believe the press.  Well, in general, but specifically about the Religious Right(tm).  Find out for yourself.

Doug Payton blogs at Considerettes.

In the superb movie “Awakenings”, Leonard Lowe (Robert DeNiro) is woken up from his catatonic state by a drug administered by Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams).  All goes well until Leonard starts to exhibit some side effects.  While this is happening, he insists that Dr. Sayer continue to film him, which Sayer is doing as part of the research.  We see Leonard from the perspective of the movie camera, almost yelling at it, “Learn from me!  Learn from me!”

It’s hard to watch this experiment demonstrating, in the body of Leonard, what could be a huge flaw in what otherwise appears to be a promising treatment for his illness.  It is a turning point in the story.

We are at such a turning point in another medical story, but I wonder if we’ll notice it and learn from it.

Pressured by an aging population and the need to rein in budget deficits, Canada’s provinces are taking tough measures to curb healthcare costs, a trend that could erode the principles of the popular state-funded system.

Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, kicked off a fierce battle with drug companies and pharmacies when it said earlier this year it would halve generic drug prices and eliminate “incentive fees” to generic drug manufacturers.

British Columbia is replacing block grants to hospitals with fee-for-procedure payments and Quebec has a new flat health tax and a proposal for payments on each medical visit — an idea that critics say is an illegal user fee.

And a few provinces are also experimenting with private funding for procedures such as hip, knee and cataract surgery.

It’s likely just a start as the provinces, responsible for delivering healthcare, cope with the demands of a retiring baby-boom generation. Official figures show that senior citizens will make up 25 percent of the population by 2036.

“There’s got to be some change to the status quo whether it happens in three years or 10 years,” said Derek Burleton, senior economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank.

“We can’t continually see health spending growing above and beyond the growth rate in the economy because, at some point, it means crowding out of all the other government services.

“At some stage we’re going to hit a breaking point.”

A government handout (or, really, a redistribution of wealth)  running way over budget?  (See “Stop the ACLU” for a discussion of costs in the Canadian system that the Democrats pretend they can keep at half.)  Why do we keep hearing this tune and yet be surprised when it ends exactly the same way?  Why do politicians say that this kind of system will reduce costs when…

Ontario says healthcare could eat up 70 percent of its budget in 12 years, if all these costs are left unchecked.

The answer for Canada is cut back on benefits, which they’re seriously considering.  But that is fraught with trouble.

Scotia Capital’s Webb said one cost-saving idea may be to make patients aware of how much it costs each time they visit a healthcare professional. “(The public) will use the services more wisely if they know how much it’s costing,” she said.

“If it’s absolutely free with no information on the cost and the information of an alternative that would be have been more practical, then how can we expect the public to wisely use the service?”

That’s the problem with separating the payment from the service.  It’s not absolutely free; it’s paid for with huge national taxes.  But thinking it’s free, or even just using it more knowing that you won’t be charged more, creates additional demand that the system can’t handle.

But once you’ve made that mistake, there’s no going back.

But change may come slowly. Universal healthcare is central to Canada’s national identity, and decisions are made as much on politics as economics.

“It’s an area that Canadians don’t want to see touched,” said TD’s Burleton. “Essentially it boils down the wishes of the population. But I think, from an economist’s standpoint, we point to the fact that sometimes Canadians in the short term may not realize the cost.”

These economic decisions are now even more political than they ever were, but the thought of damaging something so much identified with Canada is just unthinkable.  So Canada must either go bankrupt, reduce services, or raise taxes.  And all this from a program that was supposed to reduce costs.

This, folks, is the future of ObamaCare(tm) if it gets implemented or, worse, if the removed provisions get implemented piecemeal later on.  Canada is suffering from the experiment.  Learn from it.

Doug Payton blogs at Considerettes.

Moore made some money making the movie “Sicko”, which extolled the virtues of the Cuban health care system, such as it is.  Margaret Chan might be trying to do the same for the North Korean one.

GENEVA (Reuters) – North Korea’s health system would be the envy of many developing countries because of the abundance of medical staff that it has available, the head of the World Health Organization said on Friday.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, speaking a day after returning from a 2-1/2 day visit to the reclusive country, said malnutrition was a problem in North Korea but she had not seen any obvious signs of it in the capital Pyongyang.

No, nothing to see here, as long as you look where we say you can, and only in the “obvious” places.  But it gets better.

North Korea — which does not allow its citizens to leave the country — has no shortage of doctors and nurses, in contrast to other developing countries where skilled healthcare workers often emigrate, she said.

This allows North Korea to provide comprehensive healthcare, with one “household doctor” looking after every 130 families, said the head of the United Nations health agency, praising North Korea’s immunization coverage and mother and child care.

“They have something which most other developing countries would envy,” Chan told a news conference, noting that her visit was a rare sign of the communist state’s willingness to cooperate with outside agencies.

See?  All we really need to do is seal the borders, and we’d have the best healthcare in the world!  We could solve the illegal immigration and health care issues with one stone.  Then we’d be the envy of the developing world, and be complimented during the rare times we talked to anyone on the outside.  (Hey, that solves our “lost our standing in the world” problem, too!)

Chan spent most of her brief visit in Pyongyang, and she said that from what she had seen there most people had the same height and weight as Asians in other countries, while there were no signs of the obesity emerging in some parts of Asia.

But she said conditions could be different in the countryside.

News reports said earlier this year that North Koreans were starving to death and unrest was growing as last year’s currency revaluation caused prices to soar.

And that’s how you solve the obesity problem; centrally control the economy to invoke food shortages and starve your people!  It just seems so simple.  (And I gotta’ wonder if Jonathan Lynn, the Reuters news service writer, had a grin on his face as he deadpanned that last paragraph.)

Chan, who described her visit as “technical and professional” — in other words avoiding politics — said the North Korean government’s readiness to work with international agencies, such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, was encouraging.

The Global Fund requires countries it works with to provide sound data, account for resources contributed and allow access by officials, she noted.

“I can confirm that at least in the area of health the government is receptive to engagement with international partners,” she said.

Which, when translated, means, “They’re ready for their bailout.”

Kim Jong Il (who is a man) has eliminated obesity, stopped illegal immigration, is complimented by world organizations, and has held on to his country’s doctors.  Margaret, you need to emphasize this in your documentary.  I smell Oscar!

Some may argue that South Korea, the wealthier southern capitalist neighbor, is doing better economically, but you know something, Margaret; I bet they have fat kids there.

Doug Payton blogs at Considerettes.

I’ve been mulling this over for quite a while, and I think it’s time to put these thoughts out there and see if I can get other fair-minded folks to back me up on this.  I’ll have to admit it’s not something that’ll be easy to adjust to, but I think that, in the end, you’ll thank me.

On average, every year airline travel kills 1,000 people. Every year. Now, statistics about deaths per passenger or per passenger-mile are used to try to mitigate this, but if one of those 1,000 people is someone you know — friend, family, or perhaps yourself — it doesn’t matter how many others didn’t die.  Those are 1,000 people that aren’t going to be landing at an airport near you ever again.  Consider this; that’s 1/3 of a 9-11-type terrorist attack every year.  Where’s the uproar about that?

And even if you cravenly choose to brush this aside, let’s not forget the death traps that are automobiles.  On an average year, these instruments of death cause 40,000 – 50,000 deaths! Every year! Osama bin Laden doesn’t have to kill us infidels with planes; he can just wait for Detroit to do it for him.

Given the immense human cost of these modes of transportation, I think that any sober individual would agree that these statistics prove that air flight and driving should be outlawed, or at least a moratorium put on their use until such time as they can be made completely harmless to man and beast alike.

This isn’t, or shouldn’t be, a Democrat/Republican, liberal/conservative thing.  All Americans have life, and losing it should be avoided at all costs.  Even one death is too much if we truly value the safety of our people, especially our children.  Children are usually put into these instruments of death without a say in the matter, and so we must speak for them.  Ban transportation for the children.

This may adversely affect our culture, our economy, and our competitiveness in the world market, but again, what is one life worth?  Environmentalists seek to save endangered animals; what about the endangered humans?

In conclusion, instead of moving around so much, we should stay still.  Still, baby, still!

In other news today, with the oil spill from the BP rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico ,which killed 11, heading for land, many on the Left are calling for a stop to off-shore drilling.  Some are invoking an accident from 21 years ago to buttress their point, and asking for at least a moratorium on new drilling.  Perfection, apparently, has not yet been reached.

Doug Payton blogs at Considerettes.

A blog I used to write was just a collection of quotes I liked.  Early one was this one:

“Smokers don’t impose health care costs on society; governments that insist on paying for smokers’ health care impose health care costs on society.” — Sasha Volokh, from The Volokh Conspiracy blog

(This was done while the Volokh Conspiracy was still using Blogspot.  They’ve moved to their own domain and the old one has a completely different kind of blog on it, so sorry, no link to the original post.)

It is, of course, a more wordy version of “Guns don’t kill; people kill” saying, retasked to a new subject.  Sasha’s version was written in 2003.  Seven years later, it takes on a new meaning.

I was reminded of this quote when I read this post from Bruce McQuain.  He talks about the easy slide from Nanny State to Bully State, and how the opposition go the health care bill is and always was based on freedom, and what happens when government is given a bigger and bigger share of the freedom in this country, for whatever the good intention.  He quotes a report from the Institute for Public Affairs that lists a series of assumptions governments make when they take over health decisions.

Most of the health care burden is driven by disease that results from lifestyle decisions.

Most of the health care burden is therefore, in theory, preventable.

The cost of most lifestyle-related disease is not recovered from the individuals with such diseases or from the industries whose products contribute to these diseases.

Individual autonomy cannot be the paramount value in health care.

Individual choice as a basis for health is ‘too simplistic’.

Individual freedoms may have to give way to the coercive power of the State.

Interventions, including coercive actions, to change behaviour may proceed in the absence of evidence of their effectiveness.

Individuals have a clear responsibility to refrain from lifestyle decisions that lead to disease and, consequently, treatment can be denied to those who refuse to change their behaviour.

With the passage of the health care reform bill, we’ve already slipped about halfway down this particular slope.  Never mind smokers, Sasha, the official nationalization of this sector now means that all sorts of bad habits are guaranteed to affect everyone in the country because the government insists on it.

And this is different from insurance companies charging more for smokers or young drivers or people who sky dive.  Insurance companies can’t make these choices illegal; they can only charge you more for the higher risk you are asking them to take on.  The government, however, has far, far more power at hand.

It’s about freedom, and it’s being eroded away.

Doug Payton blogs at Considerettes.