Category: Controversies

Showing their customary tolerance for different ways of life, “protestors” forced two Army recruiters to leave a Seattle community college, but not before destroying recruiting materials.
I thought the Left was against suppressing speech, destroying “hateful” literature, and intimidating one’s opponents. Maybe they should adopt a new slogan: “We’re offering yesterday’s ideas in a new, fascist-style package!”

In was talking to someone today about the Gonzales hearings, I pointed out that Democrats were singling out the nominee for things he didn’t do. My interlocutor said that Gonzales “authorized torture.” I replied that Gonzales had done no such thing: he had merely given a definition of the line where torture begins; also, he repeated the plain-as-day fact that al Qaeda and Taliban detainees are illegal combatants, and cannot be considered legal under any conceivable definition of the Geneva Conventions.
I gave my personal opinion: that we should have extracted whatever information we could from the detainees, then executed them, as customary international law allows. My friend persisted: we should do no such thing. We should always treat the “prisoners,” as he called them, at the highest level of kindness. Furthermore, Judge Gonzales should never, ever have given the opinions he did, because he was “representing the United States.”
I demurred again. No, I said, the man was White House counsel. He was called upon to give legal opinions, not moral treatises. He was asked, “What treatment can these detainees receive without torturing them?” and he answered the question. He was not called up to answer whether the treatments were prudent or even moral.
Sticking to his guns, my friend repeated that Gonzales should not have said such a thing. It was completely wrong for him to do so. I said that was a recipe for either lying or making sure legal advice is delivered orally, so there is no written record of the advice. It would mean that in the back of the counsel’s mind, he would be thinking, “Should I give him my legal opinion, or the legal opinion that would look best if I’m ever up for Senate confirmation?”
My friend proceeded to connect the “condoning” of torture with the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, and that all the officers in the abusers’ chain of command should have been indicted. (Hey, to me those pictures looked like a normal Saturday night party at Andrew Sullivan’s townhouse.) This seemed like a departure from the rule of law that he was just championing — since there is no evidence that the officers authorized the abuse, why should they go to jail? I mean, I’m all for humbling the mighty when they’ve done wrong, and the military should have sacked the abusers’ superiors (which they did). But to throw them in jail on the mere suspicion that they might have participated, in the absence of any proof, did seem a little unfair to me. If the low-level people had been able to implicate their superiors in exchange for lighter sentences, at least some would have. Since none of them have, it’s reasonable to conclude they were acting out their own diseased fantasies.
There are, however, many people who not only want to excuse torture, they want to see it practiced as a matter of course. John Derbyshire on NRO reports that when he wrote a column against torture, “reader response…was overwhelmingly pro-torture.” That comports with my own experience, as I have argued with people that it is inhumane to torture convicted murderers to death, and why it would not be a good idea to allow police officers to summarily execute criminal suspects.
So, on the one hand, you have people to whom cutting off a detainee’s finger is A-okay. On the other, you have people who think that raising one’s voice at a detainee is a war crime. (Don’t tell my kids!) Occasionally, for a flickering moment, I wonder why God bothered to give us an intellect and free will in the first place.

I give you David Frum here and more David Frum here.
And an editorial from the Washington Post from Jan. 3 entitled “Haphazard Charity”.
What’s missing from the WaPo editorial, not surprisingly, is the crucial ingredient for creating wealth: freedom. We can’t just throw money at poor nations, we have to encourage them to become free.
One last thing to consider on the topic of our own attachments and the demands of personal charity, meaning self-sacrificing love, not govermental largesse. In his days as student St. Dominic sold his greatly treasured religious books inscribed on parchment and gave the money to the poor. “I could not bear to prize dead skins when living skins were starving and in need,” he said.

In an attempt to influence Palestinian and Iraqi elections, Osama bin Laden released a tape that…

…makes it clear that Muslims under no circumstances should take part in these elections. Rather, they should fight the concept. He adds that “shedding the blood” of Iraqi military, security and national guardsmen “is permitted.”
Al Qaeda’s leader explains that participating in the elections is apostasy because the Iraqi constitution is “a ‘Jahiliyya,’ one made by man.” And, because “the elections are ordered by America.” Anyone voting in the Iraq or Palestine “commits apostasy against Allah,” warns bin Laden. “Muslims must beware of these kinds of elections. They must unite around the Jihad warriors and those who resist the occupiers.”

As you recall, he released a tape in advance of our election threatening the most dire consequences if Bush was relected. He couldn’t send bombs or planes, famine or pestilence, so he sent a tape. It was tactical and strategic miscalculation of the first order. Read “Osama’s ballot box phobia” in TWT today and see bin Laden is indeed running scared of these elections.
Richard Gere has also made a tape, encouraging Palestinians to get out and vote.

In a transcript obtained by The Associated Press, he said: “Hi, I’m Richard Gere, and I’m speaking for the entire world. We’re with you during this election time. It’s really important: Get out and vote.”

To them Richard Gere might symbolize the decadence and excess of American culture, if they even know who he is.

Other Parents Want Gay Couple’s Kids Out of [Catholic] School
“The teachings of the church seem to have been abandoned,” John R. Nixon told the Times. “We send our children to a Catholic school because we expect and demand that the teachings of our church will be adhered to.”
School officials rejected the demand, and issued a new policy stating that a family’s background “does not constitute an absolute obstacle to enrollment in the school.”
The Rev. Gerald M. Horan, superintendent of diocese schools, said that if Catholic beliefs were strictly adhered to, then children whose parents divorced, used birth control or married outside the church would also have to be banned.
Is it fair for Fr. Horan play the moral equivalence game, or is there something fundamentally different about a child in Catholic school that has two daddies vs. the issues he lists above?
Talk amongst yourselves.