THE NEW CONSTITUTION

1st Amendment
Congress shall make no law. It is General Zod who gives orders.

2nd Amendment
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, no longer has a purpose.

3rd Amendment
No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, who shall decide “yes, in the name of General Zod”.

4rd Amendment
The right of the people to be secure in the persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated. If my administration has a need to search your belongings, it is reasonable, is it not?

5th Amendment
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous, crime, except to General Zod.

6rd Amendment
The accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial in a proper kangaroo court.

7th Amendment
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy is significant, the property shall be bequeathed to the state in tribute to General Zod.

8th Amendment
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted, unless by the new government.

9th Amendment
The enumeration in the constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage those that serve General Zod.

10th Amendment
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution rest with General Zod.

HT: Zod

It’s about Trig. Always has been.

I’ve been waiting until the new messiah–’scuse me, the new president, took the throne–I mean, the office to post, because I figured by now that there’d be parsnips aplenty and a gold-plated chicken in every platinum pot. Is that the case? Or should we give the messiah–DANGIT!–the president a week or so to whip everything into shape?

From SeattlePi.com:

A contrite Mayor Sam Adams apologized to Portland for lying about a sexual relationship with a male teenager he was mentoring, but asked the city to consider it an anomaly in two decades of public service.

“I screwed up. I blew it. There’s no way to sugarcoat it,” Adams said during a news conference at City Hall Tuesday.

Now, that’s a stimulus plan!

Robert P. George is arguably the most potent conservative in the academic firmament. Through his scholarship and the outstanding programs of the James Madison program at Princeton University, George has contributed powerfully to the philosophical debate over the sanctity of life, marriage, and religion in the public square.

Next month, Union University in Jackson, Tennessee is holding a conference in honor of the 15th anniversary of the publication of George’s outstanding book Making Men Moral. The roster of speakers is quite good. In addition to Professor George, Hadley Arkes, James Stoner, Jean Bethke Elshtain, and many others will be in attendance. I’m not certain of it, but Francis Beckwith may also be there.

Richard John Neuhaus had been slated to attend before his death last week. I imagine most of those attending this conference will be his friends and admirers. Informal tributes may bloom.

For those who don’t remember, Union University is the school that rebounded so admirably from a devastating tornado strike last year.

Check out the website for the conference here.

Many of us remember the U.S. victory over the Soviet Union in the 1980 Olympics at Lake Placid. It came at a good time.

We all know the story. The 1970’s had been hard on America. We were beginning to look like losers buffetted by economic uncertainty, high inflation and unemployment, the loss of prestige on the international stage, the looming threat of nuclear war . . .

We often point to Ronald Reagan’s election as where it all turned around, but that hockey game at the Olympics, a moment when Americans (college kids, no less) rose to the occasion against all expectations, seemed to be part of a comeback in the public consciousness.

I had a little of the same feeling this morning while listening to Mike and Mike on ESPN Radio interview a guy who was seated on the exit row in the US Airways plane that crash-landed in the Hudson River. He described a scene where people didn’t panic, but instead did what they needed to do in an orderly fashion to survive. Everyone, from the pilot to the crew to the passengers to the ferry operators and other rescuers, worked together to bring life out of a deadly situation.

This is a proud moment. It comes at a time when we’ve been smacked around by crisis and negativity. We have had a feeling of looming disaster. We walk around psychically hunched, braced for a hit. The actions of everyone involved in the miracle on the Hudson shows that we may be better suited to weather a storm and to rebuild than we thought.

I didn’t have anything to do with this wonderful story, but these people are my countrymen. I’m standing a little taller on the inside today. This may be the start of our turnaround.

Okay, this is the post I can’t put up at American Spectator. This is the kind of post for which personal blogs were made.

I have long been troubled by the choice of many to be cremated. I far prefer the practice of Christian burial, which leaves the body intact as a sign of the dead person’s hope in resurrection by the Lord.

There are people in my family who are Christians and who prefer to be cremated. This disturbs me. I want to visit those who predecease me at their graves. I want to visit them where they lay, not look at some urn or think about how we scattered an incinerated body over a lake or something like that.

So, I have been trying to think about how to convince people not to be cremated. Some of my Christian relatives and friends are annoyed by my strong preference against the practice of incinerating the dead. They accuse me of having too little faith that God will raise whom he will raise regardless of the state of the body. He will raise even a body that has been burned into ashes.

I suspect they are right. I doubt God would refuse to resurrect or admit to the afterlife someone who requested and received cremation. Still, I think we call it Christian burial for a reason. It is a symbol, just like the wedding ring on a finger. We are signaling the world that we believe God has plans for us. He will resurrect the old body and transform it into an uncorruptible, glorified new body with a future we can only guess about.

But I titled this post “The Secular Case Against Cremation.” Here it is. You aren’t going to have to believe in anything more than the techological progress of man. If you are cremated and your physical body has been destroyed, then how are the incredibly advanced humans of the year 3500 going to reconstitute you by using your DNA? The graveyards are going to be an incredible bonanza of super advanced bio-archaeology. They’ll need a body or at least some old bones to work with! Then, you can hang around telling them about your world until the sun starts going supernova.

Chew on that for a while and see if you’re still so hot about making your final rest as a bunch of ashes in a coffee can. (I hope Heather Mac Donald and the rest of the “secular right” folks enjoy this exciting use of my secular reason.)

Cross-posted at my personal blog (www.hunterbaker.wordpress.com)

This will be ugly.

I reviewed William F. Buckley’s book on Reagan, the one he was writing when he died, for American Spectator. Check it out.

I’m rather pleased by the photo AmSpec used to accompany the article on their front page. See below.

(cross posted from Confirm Them)

I know it’s probably like spitting into the wind, but here I make the case for Obama to renominated Peter Keisler.
Then again, the Bush administration’s utter failure to use its Roger Gregory olive branch to better PR effect was a huge missed opportunity that helped make it more difficult to confirm people like Keisler in the first place.
Comments welcome.

It is a New Year and the time of reflection is greatly upon us.  This reality is especially poignant in the wake of a revolutionary left-liberal presidential victory and the onset of substantial economic challenges.

Under the circumstances, I thought now might be a good time to propose a list of outstanding books for the intellectually curious friend or fellow traveler.

I would not dare attempt to put these in order based on excellence.  Just consider it a series of number ones.

1.  Lancelot by Walker Percy — A southern moderate-liberal is slowly fading out of his own life.  He doesn’t know what his purpose is or where his marriage and family are going.  But then, something strange happens.  He discovers there is such a thing as evil.  Percy won the National Book Award for The Moviegoer, but Lancelot is my favorite.

2.  Witness by Whittaker Chambers — Surely, the greatest memoir of any man of the right.  Possibly, the greatest memoir ever.  I once tried to copy out the passages that meant the most to me and ended up just typing in whole pages at a time.  For those too young to know, Chambers was an American traitor loyal to the Communist cause, who left the Communists for what he felt was the losing side.  He had to do it because of his recovered belief in God.  In the course of his life, he became a senior editor of Time magazine and ultimately defeated Alger Hiss in legal battles over Hiss’s identity as a communist agent.  Since Frost/Nixon is hot, you might also know that Richard Nixon’s presidency would likely never have happened without his championing of Chambers’ cause.

3.  Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand — I can’t resist putting Chambers and Rand together, especially since Chambers was the instrument William F. Buckley used to read Rand out of the conservative movement.  As a Christian, I find Rand’s work antithetical to my own sensibilities, but I have to admit its power.  Besides, this is a conservative-libertarian list and she can’t be left off.  On the other hand, as literature, it cannot rank with the greats.  I still remember the moment when John Galt grabs a microphone to speak to the nation . . . and one hundred pages later is wrapping it up!

4.  After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre — This is arguably the finest and most readable piece of political philosophy I have ever encountered.  Anyone who wonders why our political discourse has become so poisonous and incommensurate should read this work.  So, for that matter, should anyone interested in answering John Rawls.  George W. Bush would have known long ago that “the new tone” was destined to fail, if only he’d read his MacIntyre.

5.  Anarchy, Utopia, and the State by Robert Nozick — I’ll make this one simple.  Robert Nozick provides the most convincing case for a minimalist state that I’ve ever seen.  You can break your head on his symbols and formulas, but bear with it because you WILL get it if you keep reading.  Even if you were only to read the short portion where he tells his “tale of the slave” you will be confirmed in your libertarian instincts.

6.  Man and the State by Jacques Maritain — This collection of lectures about the relationship between the individual, the culture, and the state contains the kind of essential thought we wish every politician understood.  Careful, wise, insightful.  You will understand many things better after reading Maritain. If you would like to read political philosophy, but have been afraid to start, this may be your entry point.

7.  Stained Glass by William F. Buckley — William F. Buckley is dead and I don’t feel so good, myself.  However, I am comforted by reading his best works.  This Blackford Oakes heart of the Cold War novel is one of his strongest entries.  You want to see the kind of chess match the Soviets and Americans were playing?  Then, read this Buckley spy novel.

8.  The God Who Is There by Francis Schaeffer — Would you like to know who was the prince of the Christian conservatives?  It wasn’t Falwell or Robertson.  It was Francis Schaeffer.  The missionary who set up a Swiss Chalet spent years arguing with college students in Europe.  Along the way, he formed a convincing apologetic for the existence of God and the reality of values.  (I am almost required to point out that Schaeffer was wrong in his critique of certain figures.  So, I said it.  Still, this book is great stuff.)

9.  Perelandra by C.S. Lewis — I could have chosen almost any title by C.S. Lewis, so I picked the one that had the greatest emotional impact on me.  Perelandra is the second book of Lewis’s space trilogy (underappreciated next to Narnia).  The story centers around the drama of Adam and Eve being replayed on a new planet with an earthman there to witness it.  Utterly compelling and, of course, full to bursting with philosophical and spiritual meaning.

Michael Lind wrote an article at Slate accusing the South of waging an economic civil war against the North and calling for another reconstruction of the South. I have been meaning to comment on this article for some time but have only recently found the time.

First of all, it should be noted that Mr. Lind has made attacking the South and Southern culture his professional calling card. A reoccurring theme in his work is the threat the South posses to the rest of America. Consequently, one should consider the source when reading this article.

With the predatory warning out of the way, let me also say that one could write a book debunking the encyclopedic volume of economic fallacies, hyperbolic silliness, and faulty reasoning on display in Mr. Lind’s article. For instance, Mr. Lind states that:

“Today the division is no longer between slave and free states, or agrarian and industrial states, but between two models of industrial society — the Northern model, based on adequate public service funding and taxation and unionization, and the Southern model, based on low-tax, low-service government and low-wage, non-unionized, easily exploited labor.”

Let’s leave aside the debate on whether “adequate public service funding” or “bloated bureaucracy” is the appropriate term and focus on the underlying premise of this statement. Mr. Lind seems to think that high taxation, bureaucracy, and union domination of labor is a recipe for economic success. If that were the case then he and his fellow blue state liberals would have little to fear from the South and there would be no need for him to offer up such a contradictory argument for increased Federal assistance. Mr. Lind unwittingly concedes that his system can’t succeed on its own in a free market system. Instead of seeking ways to improve Northern industry he has to argue for the destruction of the South’s competitive advantage.

Lind’s retreat from reason is spectacularly on display with this little gem:

“If the industrial North and the industrial South compete for global capital investment, then the industrial South is likely to prevail, because Northern advantages in the form of a skilled workforce and superior public services are unlikely to overcome the South’s advantages of low wages and low taxes and state and local tax subsidies.”

If the North has an advantage in skilled workers benefiting from superior public services than why aren’t they more productive? If they are the recipients of better pay and services shouldn’t they be able to produce more? The disparity between the big three and their Japanese rivals regarding labor costs and productivity has been obvious for awhile (as this June 13th Washington Times Article points out). The Japanese cars produced in the South also happen to be superior products.

The real problem with Mr. Lind’s article is the awful conclusion he comes to. When Lind states that we need to replace state power over services and economic policy with a federal tax revenue sharing program and total federal control over all state economic activity he is arguing for the destruction of our Constitutional form of government. Instead of the federal system enshrined in our Constitution where the states retain the power to direct the bulk of their domestic activities Lind would set up a single government leviathan controlling everything. Mr. Lind wants to replace the diversity of our federal system of government with a one size fits all system with no room for individual state innovation.

Feast your eyes on the incarnation of all that is cool.

You can buy yours here. I did.

Today I showed that conservatives win when they actually try to limit government. Comments welcome.

I once recall hearing an anecdote about Reagan. Apparently, Reagan and his handlers were experts at ensuring that his public appearances — all of them — were carefully managed to project positive qualities. Even the simple act of Reagan exiting Air Force One was done in such a particularly reassuring, presidential fashion.

On one occassion, a major network did a story on Reagan that was extremely negative, but they used stock footage of Reagan throughout. Afterwords, a Reagan staffer called the reporter to thank him for the story. The reporter was aghast, and explained his shock given the negative tone of the piece. The Reagan staffer then explained that most viewers didn’t pay attention to the content, and that the constant montage of commanding Reagan appearances actually played to his benefit. Despite the hostility from the media, Reagan won out.

With Obama, we’re seeing a different dynamic. Obama doesn’t have to go around the media — he can work directly with it, because the mainstream media isn’t hostile to his presidency. This is most pronounced with Time Magazine’s recent decision to name Obama “Man of the Year,” and then use Obama campaign art on the cover. (more…)

Now you know.

That is the title of an article of mine just published in the Santa Clara Law Review 49.2 (2009). It is the article that I wrote about earlier this year on What’s Wrong With the World and in which I offer, in the footnotes, a clarification of my views on intelligent design that attracted the attention and ire of Bill Dembski on Uncommon Descent. Here’s how the article begins (footnotes omitted):
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From Joseph Bottom at First Things:
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That is the title of a piece I published this morning as the Daily Article in First Thing’s On the Square. Here is an excerpt:
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I am not a Catholic.  I was raised heavily in the Southern Baptist faith, but I would refer to myself these days as “irreligious.”  My views on religion have made it an unimportant grounding point for my personal beliefs in economics, philosophy, or politics, and it can be difficult to engage in debate at times with people who do have strong religious beliefs and who apply those beliefs to the secular world because we are playing by different rules.  There are those on the irreligious side of the wall who don’t understand that divide between themselves and the faithful and are frightened of it.  I’ve been on both sides at certain times in my life, so I think I understand what’s going through the minds of all parties to some degree or another.  Unfortunately, that hasn’t stopped me from forgetting the differences. (more…)

Kathleen Parker has a major case of secular reason sickness and it needs to be cured.  I’ll keep this short and simple.  Here is an offensive line from one of Kat’s latest columns:

How about social conservatives make their arguments without bringing God into it? By all means, let faith inform one’s values, but let reason inform one’s public arguments.

Problem #1:  Social conservatives very rarely argue for their public policy positions on the basis of straight-up revelation.  It is much more common to hear them talk about scientific evidence that life begins from conception (which could be found in an embryology textbook, for example) than to hear a scriptural exegesis of, say, Jeremiah 1.  If anything, American social conservatives have worked quite assiduously to persuade their fellow citizens without direct appeal to revelation.

I think the Yale Law professor Stephen Carter was more correct several years ago when he complained conservative Christians relied on a platform that lacked spiritual distinctives and simply mimicked Republican positions.  See, Kathleen, Mr. Carter is a scholar in the area of law and religion.  His observation runs completely counter to yours, which you have seemingly formed on the fly in response to your personal Sarah Palin fiasco.

And let us not forget that when some Christian leaders hid behind the separation of church and state to avoid addressing topics like Vietnam, the civil rights movement, and nuclear proliferation, their liberal colleagues were applauded for highly public spiritual approaches to those controversies.  When liberals do it, we call it “speaking truth to power” or “speaking prophetically.”  When conservative religionists enter the political process, everyone suddenly frets about impending theocracy.

Problem #2:  Ms. Parker acts as though everything we discuss in politics can be parsed scientifically.  This is the same sort of casual toss-off we get when some self-satisfied personage says, “You can’t legislate morality.”  Really?  Hate crimes?  The illegality of segregation?  A welfare state?  Human rights?

The simple fact is that politics concerns itself with the realm of value as well as the realm of fact.  There are both religious and philosophical approaches to questions of value.  Is there any compelling reason to commit epistemological segregation, Ms. Parker? Must the religious contestants sit at the back of the bus to satisfy you?

67 years ago today the Empire of Japan perpetrated a surprise attack on our naval base at Pearl Harbor. Please remember both the survivors and the families of the American deceased of that terrible day.

My friend, Rob Bowman, at the Institute for Religious Research, provides a nice analysis of the comments by Emergent church leader, Tony Jones, who recently came out in favor of same-sex marriage. Here’s an excerpt:
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I just deactivated my Facebook account. Why? Because the phony intimacy of the whole thing just creeps me out. All these people want to be my “friend.” Plus, once you’re someone’s “friend,” every little stupid thing that the “friend” writes, posts, or photographs and posts is inexorably tied to your page. 

So, I quit.

The multi-talented Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence, Princeton University

While Auburn was unable to achieve its seventh consecutive Iron Bowl victory (Alabama holds the record with nine) Auburn did secure its seventh consecutive loss.

ROLL TIDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Saturday was a productive day for me. The buck pictured above dressed out at 155 pounds. He has a nine point rack with a 20 inch spread.

Looks like the Leggett family will be eating well this year.

Chris Cillizza has an interesting column in the Washington Post today about the 10 Republicans to watch over the next few years. I’m sure that many will have issues with some he left off (hint: pit bulls and lipstick), but I think he does a good job rounding up the future of the party. Of course, there will always be those who rise to the fore rather quickly, but this is the current starting roster. Let the games begin.

A commenter at Right-Wing News provides a nice counter-balance to the “throw the socons under the bus” crowd, and to those who are under the delusion that it is the right that seek to intrude into every nook and cranny of life. (more…)

That is the title of the essay I published this morning in the online magazine, Inside Catholic. Here is how it begins:
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