Free Speech for Me, Not for Thee

February 24, 2005
Free Speech for Me, Not for Thee
The limits of liberal love for freewheeling debate
by Bruce Thornton
Private Papers

The recent flap over University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, who in an essay after 9/11 called the terrorist victims "little Eichmanns," generated a drama as stylized as a Japanese Noh play. Indignant conservatives railed against leftist professors and demanded that Churchill be fired; equally indignant liberals countered with rousing defenses of the academic freedom and free speech they accused conservatives of undermining. We had seen this same drama before, in the days after 9/11 when numerous academics made equally stupid remarks with precisely the same results. The outrage had little effect then, and this time around has merely resulted in turning an academic mediocrity into a poster-boy for academic freedom, not to mention giving him a media megaphone his tediously predictable ideas could never deliver. Link to rest here.

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Minds Are Changing

February 28, 2005
By Michael Barone

Nearly two years ago, I wrote that the liberation of Iraq was changing minds in the Middle East. Before March 2003, the authoritarian regimes and media elites of the Middle East focused the discontents of their people on the United States and Israel. I thought the downfall of Saddam Hussein's regime was directing their minds to a different question -- how to build a decent government and a decent society. Link to rest here.

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The case for Judeo-Christian values: Part IV

Dennis Prager

Would you first save the dog you love or a stranger if both were drowning? The answer depends on your value system.

One of the most obvious and significant differences between secular and Judeo-Christian values concerns human worth. One of the great ironies of secular humanism is that it devalues the worth of human beings. As ironic as it may sound, the God-based Judeo-Christian value system renders man infinitely more valuable and significant than any humanistic value system. Link to rest here.

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Judeo-Christian values: part III

Dennis Prager

Those who do not believe that moral values must come from the Bible or be based upon God's moral instruction argue that they have a better source for values: human reason.

In fact, the era that began the modern Western assault on Judeo-Christian values is known as the Age of Reason. That age ushered in the modern secular era, a time when the men of "the Enlightenment" hoped they would be liberated from the superstitious shackles of religious faith and rely on reason alone. Reason, without God or the Bible, would guide them into an age of unprecedented moral greatness. Link to rest here.

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The case for Judeo-Christian values: Part II

Dennis Prager

For those who subscribe to Judeo-Christian values, right and wrong, good and evil, are derived from God, not from reason alone, nor from the human heart, the state or through majority rule.

Though most college-educated Westerners never hear the case for the need for God-based morality because of the secular outlook that pervades modern education and the media, the case is both clear and compelling: If there is no transcendent source of morality (morality is the word I use for the standard of good and evil), "good" and "evil" are subjective opinions, not objective realities. Link to rest here.

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Better answers: The case for Judeo-Christian values

It's not often that I devote an entire week to one series of articles. For Dennis Prager, however, I'll make an exception - particularly when he's writing on the values war. What follows is five part series of articles on this subject. Here is the first.

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by Dennis Prager

With this first column of 2005, I inaugurate a periodic series of columns devoted to explaining and making the case for what are called Judeo-Christian values.

There is an epic battle taking place in the world over what value system humanity will embrace. There are essentially three competitors: European secularism, American Judeo-Christianity and Islam. I have described this battle in previous columns. Link to rest here.

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Pet Dog Walks Bride Up the Aisle

The BBC reported recently that Sonia Wilde, 29, will "walk down the aisle in Stockport, Greater Manchester with the Collie cross, Lucy Brown, at her side. The three-year old will even be dressed in a pink frilly dress and bonnet for the service at St. Mathew's Church" (Link).

Chuckles aside, the fact that a bride would want, and the Anglican Church of England support, a canine taking the place of a human, in what is supposed to be a solemn procession, is emblematic of what is actually a serious concern. I personally know several women, (one an executive who speaks several languages and graduated from Yale) that when asked if they had children replied with all seriousness, "no, we have dogs instead". One of these ladies produced a wallet sized picture of "her kids".

Related to this, I recently overheard a telephone conversation of a colleague who became very emotional about the medical condition of "her baby". Her voice quaked as she described the tests that needed to be performed, the hours she was preparing to take off work, and the many arrangements she was making for what I assumed to be her child's welfare. My heart went out to her until, finally, it became apparent that her "baby" was in fact a poodle.

Now don't get me wrong. I love animals. I grieve and admit to even crying when one of my pets dies. But something is amiss when animals are elevated to the stature of human beings, which I see happening more and more. Though anecdotal, when women especially are asked who they would save if they could only choose one, a stranger or their dog, most choose their dog over a fellow human being. There is something gravely wrong with this.

What kind of soul would let another human being perish to save their pet? The answer is a soul that's been treated like and instructed over and over again, in school textbooks, on the university campus, on TV and throughout pop culture, that people are merely the product of evolution, that there's nothing particularly special about us, except perhaps the size of our brains, which arguably causes as many problems as it does benefits. Just look at the way we've ruined the environment and the harm that we inflict on one another. By contrast, animals, and domestic pets particularly, are environmentally friendly, easy to care for, have no emotional baggage, are unconditionally loving, loyal, and ask nothing in return. On the merits, why shouldn't we love and value our pets more than people?

There's only one reason. Because of God. Because He's said we are created in His image, have been afforded a value and nobility far above His other creatures, and are destined for eternity. Reject this and there is no other reason to value humanity over our fellow creatures. Reject God and love is redirected. Correction. It is mis-directed, first away from God, then away from each other. That is why I am not chuckling at Sonia Wilde choosing a dog to be her bridesmaid.

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Forget about Self-Esteem

By John Fischer


February 10, 2005


Had enough of self-esteem? Roy F. Baumeister, professor of psychology at Florida State University seems to think we have. In an article “The Lowdown on High Self-Esteem,” [Los Angeles Times, January 25, 2005, p B11] he reveals how he was on a research team that studied self-esteem in 1973 with a sense of growing optimism that boosting a healthy view of self could solve many personal and social problems. Even though some of the early results were weaker and more ambiguous than he and his colleagues had hoped for, they nonetheless plowed ahead with their positive predictions on the benefits of self-esteem, confident that the data would eventually support their theories.


Now, 32 years later, fresh with data from a recent 5-year review commissioned by the American Psychological Society of all the studies on self-esteem that had accumulated over the last 30 years, Baumeister is ready to give up hope. “After all these years, I’m sorry to say, my recommendation is this: Forget about self-esteem and concentrate more on self-control and self-discipline.” Link to Story

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Shroud of Turin Older Than Originally Thought

By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News


Jan. 25, 2005 — The Shroud of Turin, the piece of linen long believed to have been wrapped around Jesus's body after the crucifixion, is much older than the date suggested by radiocarbon tests, according to new microchemical research.


Published in the current issue of Thermochimica Acta, a chemistry peer- reviewed scientific journal, the study dismisses the results of the 1988 carbon-14 dating. Link to Story

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Psychiatrists confront two sides of the same coin: Narcissism and Evil

For the Worst of Us, the Diagnosis May Be 'Evil'
By BENEDICT CAREY

Published: February 8, 2005



Predatory killers often do far more than commit murder. Some have lured their victims into homemade chambers for prolonged torture. Others have exotic tastes - for vivisection, sexual humiliation, burning. Many perform their grisly rituals as much for pleasure as for any other reason.

Among themselves, a few forensic scientists have taken to thinking of these people as not merely disturbed but evil. Evil in that their deliberate, habitual savagery defies any psychological explanation or attempt at treatment.

Most psychiatrists assiduously avoid the word evil, contending that its use would precipitate a dangerous slide from clinical to moral judgment that could put people on death row unnecessarily and obscure the understanding of violent criminals. Link to Story

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Iraqis Cite Shift in Attitudes Since Vote

By Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, February 7, 2005; Page A01

BAGHDAD, Feb. 6 -- With a hero who gave his life for the elections, a revived national anthem blaring from car stereos and a greater willingness to help police, the public mood appears to be moving more clearly against the insurgency in Iraq, political and security officials said. Get rest of story here

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Breaking The Da Vinci Code

by Collin Hansen


Perhaps you've heard of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. This fictional thriller has captured the coveted number one sales ranking at Amazon.com, camped out for 32 weeks on the New York Times Best-Seller List, and inspired a one-hour ABC News special. Along the way, it has sparked debates about the legitimacy of Western and Christian history. Get more "Breaking Code" Here

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"Your Life Is A Vapor"

LORD, make me to know my end,
And what is the measure of my days,
That I may know how frail I am. Ps 39:4-5

Last Wednesday we learned that an old friend, Dr. Randy Sorensen, died suddenly of a heart attack. Randy was only 51 and left behind a shocked wife and two grieving teenage daughters. A distinguished professor of clinical psychology, he was at the peak of his career and, arguably, his life. In testament to the impact he had on others over a thousand people showed up for his memorial service this last Saturday.

Still pondering how it is that one so young and vibrant could pass away so quickly and without any warning, I received a call one day later informing me that a colleague at work, I'll call her Sharon to protect the family's privacy, died suddenly that afternoon -- also of a heart attack -- while on a leisurely bicycle ride with her husband and fourteen year old son. Like Randy, Sharon too was in her early fifties and at the peak of her life. I had enjoyed a holiday banquet at her home this last December and Sharon was the picture of health and vitality.

Two friends in the same week, both about the same age as I, suddenly cutoff from the living. From what I know, neither Randy nor Sharon had any idea whatever that the day they died would be any different than the one before. To all appearances both were summoned before the Judge of the Universe with absolutely no forewarning, there to give an account of their lives. It is a sober reality.

The Bible says that God fashioned our days for us before we were born (Ps 103:15-17). For some he “fashions’ many days, a long life. But there is no guarantee. Life is a storm. The tempest rises, the veil descends and the end of life on earth is suddenly upon us. As difficult as it is to watch one’s friends see death, it is good to be reminded that eternity knocks. Like Randy and Sharon, our time will come, and may come sooner than we think. I pray I am ready. I pray you are too.

As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
And its place remembers it no more.
But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting
to everlasting on those who fear Him. Ps 103:15-17

But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, "Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame." For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile-the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Rom 10:8-13

May you call on Him today, while you still have time!

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Victory and Defeat

by Thomas Sowell


The defeatists have been defeated.

Remember all the political outcries that the Iraqi elections should be postponed because it would be impossible to hold elections with terrorism rampant throughout the country?

Fortunately, most Iraqis do not see the American media, with its distorted picture of their country, so they went to the polls -- with a higher turnout than in our own elections last November. Over here we worry about whether falling snow will reduce turnout. But the Iraqis braved threats of death in order to take control of Iraq. Get Rest of Story Here

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