That's how Garrison Keillor feels about those of us who think the present healthcare reform schemes are not the best course of action:

[O]ne starts to wonder if the country wouldn’t be better off without them and if Republicans should be cut out of the health-care system entirely and simply provided with aspirin and hand sanitizer. Thirty-two percent of the population identifies with the Republicans, and if we cut off health care to them, we could probably pay off the deficit in short order.

Garrison Keillor: healthcare nazi.

In the bad old days of private slavery, the overseers used whips to keep those slaves in line. Now in the good old days of public slavery the overseer uses fiat regulation to keep us in line. In the bad old days, if the overseer had wanted a slave to drive less, he'd give the slave a whippin'. Now, when they want us to drive less they give us a regulation.

There is a bit of common ground. In both cases, the overseers know it's all for the slaves' own good. After all, no one (no one in his right mind) can object to a clean energy economy, or saving the planet, or whatever they think is best for us all.

Yes, it will be good for us. Of course it will. Never mind that immigrants -- legal and otherwise -- seem not to share that conviction:

[E]conomic opportunities are universal. If you feel them and sense them, so do others outside the border — and they want to be part of it. If they don't feel them and sense them, maybe it is time to wake up and realize that they don't exist as they used to.

Time was when shelters just across the border, where people lived until they saw an opportunity for safe passage, were filled and overflowing. Now they are empty. Time was when the border-patrol vans and buses hauled people here and there, whereas now they just drive around on day trips, looking for some sign of life.

To have an "immigration problem" is enormously flattering for a country. For that problem to go away is a dark cloud, a bad omen, a sign that something is going terribly wrong. The absence of an immigration problem can quickly turn into an emigration problem.

[...]

Emigration out of the United States has been growing every year since 1991, from 252,000 in 1991 to 311,000 in 2005. I couldn't find data past that point, but can there be any doubt where we are heading with this? Low-skilled employees want nothing to do with us. High-skilled employees are not allowed in. Enterprise is being killed at every turn. It won't be long now before larger and larger numbers of people vote with their feet.

A final insult is how US tax law treats its emigrants from this country. It continues to tax them as if they were lifetime slaves. Wherever you go, the force is with you.

The heck of it is that all of this could be turned around today. A social consensus against tyranny can form and strengthen. It only takes political will to let freedom reign. ~ Lew Rockwell, here.

I wonder if that "jmwtex" guy (whom I mentioned just below) would favor abolishing the expatriation tax law on the grounds that it, like a woman being forced to carry a baby to term, is a form of slavery? I'll have to ask him.

There are some comments on His Beatitude's Notre Dame speech, posted here.

To His Beatitude's certainty that there is some common ground shared by "pro-life" and "pro-choice" position, one "Lou Dignazio" offers this retort:

The trouble with slavery was the idea that Blacks were not "human".
The trouble with abortion is the idea that an unborn baby is not "human"

There is no common ground here...

Slavery is wrong, killing an unborn baby is wrong. The arguments for their acceptance all come from selfish interests. (Here.)

To which a "jmwtex" responds:

Sorry, wrong there. There are seriously valid arguements that unborn babies are not humans. Slaves could breath on their own and survive without a surrogate. Unborn babies do not. Slaves are one single, self sustaining life, unborn babies are not. Slaves do not require the giving of part of another's life to keep them alive.

I do grant that abortion many times is selfish. But there are lots of things in this world that are selfish. The law does not require us to be good and not be selfish. This is the only area were we are arguing that people should not be selfish and make it illegal to be selfish. (Here.)

One "PrincipalDad" also retorts to Gidnazio:

Telling a woman that she is not allowed control of her own body and must carry a baby to term (even if that may kiII her or that pregnancy was not her choice) is a form of slavery. (Here .)

You see a common theme here: slavery, being made to do something against your will.

Bear that in mind as you ponder own of the most amusing of the comments coming from "amiri", here:

One good result of the Obama appearing at the 2009 graduating class of Notre Dame's commencement ceremony protest was the President's opportunity to share his beliefs on the need for us all to assist in ensuring a better quality of life for all Americans from the embryo to the grave.

He so eloquently brings out the hypocrisy of the overemphasis of protecting life in its gestation phase but the failure of society to sustain a protective involvement in every phase of each others lives.

If we could sustain that fervent devotion of ensuring the survival of the seed of life throught all phases of life we would create a just society founded on the value of true brotherly love. Help you neighbor from the infancy of your relationship until it is time for him to lay down his head. Love is sustainable if we allow it to be.

We must all "assist in ensuring a better quality of life for all Americans from the embryo to the grave." We must all help our neighbor from infancy "until it is time for him to lay down his head." Let us note that we shall be made to do this whether we want to or not. We shall also be made to create a "just society" whether we want one or not (or, at the very least, whether we want someone else's conception of a "just" society). That strikes me as very like a woman being made to carry a baby to term whether she wants to or not, which, as "PrincipalDad" informs us, is a form of slavery.

"jmwtex" is actually wrong. It must be illegal to be selfish. That must be why the government takes one's money from him and gives it to another. What was it he said about giving part of another's life to keep someone alive?

My favorite of all comments was this one by "Annieke":

What surprises me in this debate is the fact that the people that are pro-life, are also pro-gun and pro-death penalty. (Here .)

In case you don't know: When the question is, Where do you stand on the abortion issue? "pro-life" means you oppose abortion. It means one has chosen to side with the life in the womb, nothing more. "Pro-life" is the position on abortion, not the reason for the position.

After all, I note that many people who are supposedly "pro-choice" are actually anti-choice. They oppose school vouchers, which would give the poor a real choice about the education of their children. They oppose letting business owners choose whether to permit smoking in their establishments. They oppose letting broadcast station owners decide how much or little conservative and/or liberal content there shall be. They oppose letting gun owners choose whether to own assault weapons. They oppose letting the people paying the wages decide how much to pay in wages. They oppose letting the people who pay the bonuses decide how much to pay in bonuses. They oppose letting people choose for themselves how much of their income they distribute to others, and who, precisely, those others will be.

You know, when it comes to things other than abortion, they're not very "pro-choice". They are "pro-choice" only when they do not care about the choices others may make.

And, of course, they can't be, because, like "pro-life", "pro-choice" isn't a position on everything. It's a position on the abortion question.

Miguel Guanipa, here, describes "a federally sanctioned procedure that is performed on a daily basis in one of the most vibrant democracies on earth, and which has been in place for almost forty years." The procedure he describes is, in fact, part of the required curriculum at medical schools and executed by highly skilled, and highly compensated, professionals. It is also executed solely upon human beings who have committed no crime, a procedure liberals positively love and demand conservatives to embrace:

[I]magine for a moment that you have been assigned a couple of prisoners whom you have been given complete freedom to torture. Neither prisoner is aware of the fate that awaits them. You enter the room of the first prisoner and begin by tearing off one of his limbs. The prisoner -- who is not privy to the reasons why you have committed such a dastardly act against his person -- writhes in agony. You then proceed to systematically sever other vital organs. The prisoner tries to flee in desperation, but you have blocked the only exit through which he may entertain any hopes of escaping his torturer. What the prisoner doesn't know is that prior to the moment you entered the scene you had already planned for him to die before being eventually removed from this chamber.

After the job is finished, you enter the next room in which your next hapless victim waits. He is also unaware that you are about to inflict intolerable pain upon him. But this time you decide to employ a more effective method. You bind this prisoner, and then dip him in a tank full of a corrosive solution that will gradually eat at his flesh, obstruct his breathing, and bring about a slow but certain demise. Within minutes of being submerged in this tank the prisoner expires. You could argue that his death was somewhat more merciful than that of the first prisoner. Now imagine that you had been asked to torture these men, not because they were withholding actionable intelligence that could potentially save the lives of thousands of innocents threatened with imminent peril. It was not because they were active members of an itinerant terrorist organization responsible for wreaking havoc around the world. In fact, both these men were innocent human beings, physically incapable of defending themselves, who had been placed in these rooms through no choice of their own. To make matters worse, their painful deaths were commissioned by and discharged at the full behest of their closest family member.

Happens every day. Liberal Democrats and Moderate Republicans love it.

In November 2007 this story raised few few eyebrows on the left. Briefly, the story claimed that a recent experiment could put an end to the embryonic stem cell debate. In this posting, I expressed my doubts.

The thing to remember about the U.S. left is that their greatest commitment is denying any victory to the right. It may be that adult stem cells can do all that is hoped for from embryonic, but if the right is opposed to use of embryonic stem cells, for whatever reason, then the left is going to insist on embryonic stem cell research.

What I said in that post was:

[T]here is a certain prejudice here. You know how you know people whom you so dislike that if they are for something you are just positive you need to be against it? There are some people who, in addition to scientific curiosity, just cannot stand the idea that the pro-life movement might "win" something.

Much of this goes back to Galileo's conflict with the Church over heliocentrism, from which the Church still has a black eye. (Of course, the problem is that the Church had made Aristotelianism synonymous with Christian orthodoxy. But any Church which makes that sort of move deserves the black eye it gets as a result.) If anyone associated with any religious perspective objects to a research program, then it is another "Galileo" moment, with affected scientists in the role of persecuted scholar, in the second-oldest conflict in human history: academic freedom versus religious orthodoxy. (The oldest conflict is good versus evil.) Then, of course, there is the conflict between evolutionism and its opponents. "Which scientific breakthrough have these people not opposed?", one might well ask.

So, if "these people" are against it, then we must be on the right track.

It's very easy for me to understand this. It isn't "religion" versus "science". It's religion versus religion. Only the object of worship is different; the nature of the commitments involved is the same.

[T]his -- not religion versus science -- is where the disagreement lies: To us, species membership is morally relevant, while person-hood (manifested by consciousness) is not. To our opponents species membership is morally irrelevant, and person-hood is morally relevant. (This was the same issue in the Terri Schiavo case.) The two positions are primitive (or axiomatic, if you prefer): I can't think of a way to derive either of them from more primitive assertions. So the two positions are discreet and probably don't share much in the way of significant common ground, and therefore the switch from one position to another really does amount to something like a religious conversion. Both positions are ultimately fairly religious in nature.

The religious nature of the two positions makes debate difficult: each side accuses the other of not being rational in approach. Resolution is impossible. Each side thinks it is being rational. But the more obvious religious connection among the pro-life makes it easier for pro-life opponents to charge us with being irrational, easier for them to characterize the debate as one between "religion" and "science".

It is awfully convenient, however, for those who are conscious to decide that this is the attribute separating those with legal protections from those without. Awfully convenient.

No. I don't think the debate has been quelled. Why should scientists not seek after another method of utilizing stem cells just because this one has been discovered. If there are more roads than one to a panacea, why should we be limited to...one? Just because religious nutters object?

Obama's lifting on the ban on fetal stem cell research is proof positive that denying any victory to the right is the end game.

I've asked several times (e.g., here), in the context of socialized healthcare, if, in the event of a dearth of medical professionals, the un-federal government might have to institute a draft and force people into those professions.

Apparently, there is a dearth of healthcare professionals willing to perform, or be associated with the performance of abortions. Epiphanes and his court intend to remedy that.

H/T: Pro-life blogs

When the novel began to replace the poem in eighteenth century England, cultural elites responded as if it spelled the end of civilization. Matthew Arnold’s father denounced the serialized novel from his pulpit. It was a terrible thing, the serialized novel; poor children (think of the children!) could not concentrate on their studies because all they could think about was what would happen in the next installment. (Sort of like watching Twenty-four.) Other elites worried about the effects of the novel on the working class, who might fritter away time (which should be spent working) on reading novels. The cultural elites so looked down on the novel that many poets who took a turn at novel writing did so under assumed names.

Cultural elites (who are usually a self-selected, self-organized court) always think that anyone who does not share their tastes are cretins. And those who do not share their opinions are “anti-intellectual”, stupid, or insane.

Not surprising that our era’s cultural elites have expressed joy that with the exit from the White House of George W. Bush & Co., the “anti-intellectualism” will be over. One of them, Nicholas D. Kristof, opines:

Barack Obama’s election is a milestone in more than his pigmentation. The second most remarkable thing about his election is that American voters have just picked a president who is an open, out-of-the-closet, practicing intellectual.

Gag me with the quill pen Thomas Jefferson used to write the Declaration of Independence. The American people weren’t looking for an intellectual in this election any more than they’ve ever looked for one.

One just has to wonder: How does Kristof define an intellectual?

An intellectual is a person interested in ideas and comfortable with complexity. Intellectuals read the classics, even when no one is looking, because they appreciate the lessons of Sophocles and Shakespeare that the world abounds in uncertainties and contradictions, and — President Bush, lend me your ears — that leaders self-destruct when they become too rigid and too intoxicated with the fumes of moral clarity.

Maybe he’s right about what makes a person an intellectual. The question ought to be: How much of an intellectual must a leader be? Personally, while I don’t think the man is a genius, I doubt President Bush is utterly uninterested in ideas or complexity. I suspect Kristof’s real problem is the President’s lack of interest in leftist ideas. I don’t blame him.

Adlai Stevenson manages to make Kristof’s list of intellectuals.

Thomas Sowell has a dose of reality to share with Kristof:

It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry.

Adlai Stevenson was certainly regarded as an intellectual by intellectuals in the 1950s. But, half a century later, facts paint a very different picture.

Historian Michael Beschloss, among others, has noted that Stevenson "could go quite happily for months or years without picking up a book." But Stevenson had the airs of an intellectual — the form, rather than the substance

[…]

As for reading the classics, President Harry Truman, whom no one thought of as an intellectual, was a voracious reader of heavyweight stuff like Thucydides and read Cicero in the original Latin. When Chief Justice Carl Vinson quoted in Latin, Truman was able to correct him.

Yet intellectuals tended to think of the unpretentious and plain-spoken Truman as little more than a country bumpkin.

Similarly, no one ever thought of President Calvin Coolidge as an intellectual. Yet Coolidge also read the classics in the White House. He read both Latin and Greek, and read Dante in the original Italian, since he spoke several languages. It was said that the taciturn Coolidge could be silent in five different languages.

The intellectual levels of politicians are just one of the many things that intellectuals have grossly misjudged for years on end.

[…]

How have intellectuals managed to be so wrong, so often? By thinking that because they are knowledgeable— or even expert— within some narrow band out of the vast spectrum of human concerns, that makes them wise guides to the masses and to the rulers of the nation.

But the ignorance of Ph.D.s is still ignorance and high-IQ groupthink is still groupthink, which is the antithesis of real thinking.

I did find something humorous, in Kristof’s column. I hesitate to mention it because, although I fit his definition of an intellectual (you know, someone who reads the classics even when no one is looking, et cetera), he’s won two Pulitzer Prizes. But who cares?

Kristof says “leaders self-destruct when they become too rigid and too intoxicated with the fumes of moral clarity.” I am always amused when I hear or read some leftist pundit make light of anyone’s possession of moral clarity. I find it amusing because the only time the left lack moral clarity is when they are inspecting rightist policies.

There is never any lack of moral clarity when it comes to leftist policies. No leftist I can recall just off hand lacks any moral clarity about the permissibility of a baby’s being ripped limb from limb from a uterus and having his head crushed and sucked out like a bit of garbage.

No leftist I’m familiar with has any lack of moral clarity about taking a man’s money on the grounds that he has “plenty” or, worse, “too much” and giving it to another. No leftist I know has any lack of moral clarity in making the top 1% of income earners pay more than 50% all income taxes paid in this country. No leftist I know has any lack of moral clarity when it comes to leftist morality. None whatsoever.

I don’t think a group of homosexuals (who have acquired favored aggrieved community status among the left) disrupting a church service shows a lack of moral clarity.

Oh. Wait. I get it. The left have moral clarity; they just aren’t intoxicated by it. I see. It’s a good thing they aren’t intoxicated by moral clarity. Can you imagine what they’d do if they were so?

According to Ron Paul, that's the wrong question.

[I]n light of the election, many are asking: What is the future of the Republican Party?

But that is the wrong question. The proper question should be: Where is our country heading? There's no doubt that a large majority of Americans believe we're on the wrong track. That's why the candidate demanding "change" won the election. It mattered not that the change offered was no change at all, only a change in the engineer of a runaway train.

So, where are we heading?

The march toward a dictatorial powerful state is now in double time.

On his view, the Republicans have lost credibility in the struggle against this outcome by embracing the very ideas that speed it on its way. To have credibility, Republicans should embrace the following:

• Limited government power

• A balanced budget

• Personal liberty

• Strict adherence to the Constitution

• Sound money

• A strong defense while avoiding all undeclared wars

• No nation-building and no policing the world

How can a party that still pretends to be the party of limited government distance itself outright from these views and expect to maintain credibility? Since the credibility of the Republican Party has now been lost, how can it regain credibility without embracing these views, or at least showing respect for them?

Really.

Well, it rhymes anyway.

Hottie? I don’t know about that, but…

According to Fox News.com, Alicia Sacramone is an internet “hottie”. This despite her "screwups”.

Hottie. I’ve never like that word applied to women. It connotes that which is prized for its ability to stimulate, specifically sexually. Think I’m exaggerating?

A commenter at one site, according to Fox, has this to say about her:

SHE'S 20, so she's not jailbait!

Jailbait refers to a girl with whom one can legally have sexual intercourse. Think about what this young lady is able to do, even taking into account her “screwups”. What is most worthy of note for this guy? Her value as the possible source of sexual satisfaction.

Don’t get me wrong. She is beautiful.

My wife thinks so too. We’re both very impressed with Sacramone. But what makes her most attractive is her grace under pressure, grace and poise which she maintained even after her “screwups” – what the British call (or used to call) keeping a stiff upper lip.

Kind of like this:

I grew up in a house in which females out-numbered males almost 2 to 1. I have too much respect for females to think of them – or to have much patience for those who do think of them – primarily in terms of their ability to sexually gratify, even if only as “eye candy”.

I’m perhaps also a bit sensitive here because I have a little girl of my own, who is just three years older than Sacramone. I also have four nieces.

We have an Olympian here, including Olympian in the sense of controlling of her emotions. And what grabs some peoples’ attention is that she isn’t “jailbait”.

Not jailbait.

Enjoy those pictures, pal. You'll get closer to her only in your dreams, and her nightmares.

David L. Bahnsen has a retort to Senator Obama’s Wesleyan University commencement address, here.

An excerpt:

Obama…is hand-delivering…good old-fashioned class warfare, and doing it as a rank hypocrite at the same time. I am not sure what I find more distasteful - hypocrisy, or socialism. Since we have had plenty of Presidents over the years who were guilty of hypocrisy, I think it is the message coming from this hypocrite that bothers me even more.The Obama family had adjusted gross income of $1 million in 2006 ($983k, to be exact). They have not released their 2007 numbers yet, which are expected to be over $1.2 million. In 2005, their adjusted gross income approached $1.7 million. They have not made less than $200,000 in any one calendar year in nearly a decade. Until 2005, they had not so much as given even 1.5% of their income to charity. In 2002, when they made $260,000, they gave $1,050 to charity. With generosity like this, I can see why some may be attracted to the welfare state that he endorses. After all, someone has to help the needy. (Emphasis mine.)

Paradoxically, the senator also told his audience that the selfless devotion to others would actually be self-serving. Of course, that raises the question: If I’m going to be a self-serving bastard, why not skip right over doing things for others and be, well, a self-serving bastard?

Besides, is it hardly an overwhelming concern for others, rather than oneself, which tells mothers it is perfectly acceptable to kill the unborn for the sake of their careers, convenience, whatever. If a woman cannot be prevailed upon to endure hardship (or simple inconvenience) for a baby, no one in the world ought to be induced to endure hardship (or simple inconvenience) for anyone else -- at all, ever.

Or, as I’ve asked before: If one does not have a right to be born into the world, how does one come to have rights simply by virtue of having been born? If you don’t have a right to be here in the first place, what entitles you to those things which make possible your continued presence here?

H/T: Kevin D. Johnson at Reformed Catholicism

Right now, so far as I’m able to discern I don’t pay for anyone’s abortion. Apparently, Senator Obama would like to, well, change that by having prolife Christians pay for them through his healthcare plan.

Not all change is improvement, any more than motion, in and of itself, constitutes progress. And whatever change constitutes improvement depends upon what sorts of things one values. And these values are religious in nature.

Funny how the left believe their (religious) values can be transformed into policy, but object when the right believe they ought to be able to do that also.

We discover ... outside religion and philosophy [that] utilitarianism (socialism, democracy) criticizes the origin of moral evaluations, but it believes them just as much as the Christian does. [It is naivete to believe that] morality could survive when the God who sanctions it is missing. The 'beyond' [is] absolutely necessary if faith in morality is to be maintained. Friedrich Nietzsche, Will to Power, sec. 147.

It is dangerous to rely on it that men will continue indefinitely to pursue their moral ideals within a system of thought which denies reality to them. Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge

One of the many questions Mitt Romney was asked, after his "religion" speech, was whether non-theists (or non-religionists in general) could live moral lives. Naturally, he said yes. But then, we can hardly have expected a presidential candidate to answer the question in the negative and then expect that the media would report his detailed explantation (assuming he might have one) for his reply. Besides, on its face it seems reasonable enough to say yes. Clearly there is a difference between an axe murderer (whether he is a theist or not) and a non-axe murderer (even if he happens to be an atheist). The same goes for rapists versus non-rapists, adulterers and non-adulterers, and so forth. But, on the face of things, the only difference between and axe murderer and a non-axe murderer is that the axe murder has murdered (with an axe, of course) and the non-axe murder has not done. To assert that there is a difference morally is to assert a standard to which all humans must conform their actions. The axe murderer has failed to do this. (I've selected murder rather arbitrarily, I admit. If it bothers you, just choose some other offense and substitute it.)

The question asked of Romney assumes that there is an objective moral standard which it is possible for theist and atheist alike to meet. To say that it's possible for anyone to be moral assumes that there is a set of moral standards and that all humans are obligated to meet these standards. It also assumes knowledge of these standards, both that it is even possible to know this set of obligations and that humans do, in fact, know this set of moral obligations.

According to some we can come to knowledge of the moral law in something like the same way we come to knowledge of the laws of nature. I've always been skeptical (even when I was an atheist myself). A moment's reflection is usually all it has ever taken. Think about how we come to knowledge of the laws of nature, assuming that there are even such laws and that we do know them. These laws of nature are descriptive, not prescriptive. That is, they are descriptions of how nature "behaves" not how nature is obligated to "behave". They are, more or less (sometimes much less) bound to observations, and tell us what usually happens, not what ought to happen. If the moral laws really are discovered in the same way as laws of nature, they also would not really tell us what we must do and what we must not do. They would simply tell us what we, in fact, do. At the very least, they would only tell us what a majority of us do. "Thou shalt not kill" is really not quite the same sort of statement as "For every reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction." The latter is a generalization about observed phenomena. We can hardly say that of the former.

The question about how to know this moral law is related to the first issue above: whether there even is such a law. We are assuming that this moral law "exists" in some form or fashion. It is difficult to see how. I mean the Judeo-Christian moral laws exist by virtue of promulgation, or position, by God. Since we want to know if it is possible for an atheist to live a moral life (where this "moral life" that he lives is a life in accord with some universally applicable moral law) we also want to know if there is -- apart from God -- this moral law which supposedly exists and is binding upon all humans. (We could say, at least provisionally, that the Judeo-Christian law is just a restatement of the moral laws of other human groups. But let's note just three things. First, that fact would tell us nothing about whether there really is a moral law binding upon all humans. Second, the Judeo-Christian view has it that the human race began by knowing God and His moral requirements (see Romans 1.18ff), so it tells us nothing against the Judeo-Christian moral law that it is similar in many respects to the moral laws of other human groups. Third, if the Judeo-Christian view is false, then it's recognition of this moral law may be false, or simply irrelevant; and it certainly tells us nothing about the validity of those moral laws.)

So, if this moral law exists, how does it exist? It certainly is not immaterial, so perhaps it has some sort of material existence somewhere. The initiated will be tempted to think I'm reifying here. I'm not. Probably the only thing we can say about the moral law is that it has its "existence" in the human mind. But, of course, since there isn't a human mind -- only human minds -- we should say that the moral law resides somewhere in the mind of each individual human being. But of course this is more than we can know empirically about every human being since we are hardly able to examine every human being. One surmises that the similarities among human cultures gives evidence of this, but surely there have been humans without those moral laws residing in their minds. Ostensibly those were the minority in their respective cultures and, more than likely, were punished when the differing moral laws in their minds moved them to engage in "unlawful", or "immoral", behavior (i.e., murder, theft, adultery, incest, child molestation, homosexuality, home-schooling, and so forth) -- "lawful" and "moral" behaviors being nothing more than the content of the minds of the majority. And this is entirely justifiable because morality is an evolutionary adaptation given to us by natural selection to ensure our survival.

There is reason to believe that the moral law does somehow reside in the human mind. Michael Ruse used to argue that morality resides in epigenetic rules. ( See his Taking Darwin Seriously [1986].) (He may still argue that. I don't know. I haven't paid him much attention for some years now. I've been busy.) What Ruse meant was that our beliefs about what is right and what is wrong are part of our genetic make-up. It's just wrong to murder or to rape. We can't help thinking otherwise. Now, either some of us have a different set of epigenetic rules or we are able to ignore this "epigenetic morality". Whichever is the case, it still is not clear how we are obligated to this "epigenetic morality". The most likely answer is that the sense of obligation -- for those who have it -- is just part of the equipment of the epigenetic rules. We get both the sense of morality and the sense of obligation from our genetics.

One might wonder: If we don't feel this sense of obligation, are we still obligated? But even if we could know that every human being, equipped with these epigenetic rules, feels this obligation, we could still justifiably ask whether feeling obligated truly means that one is obligated.

But if it is the case that our sense of morality (including the sense of obligation to obey that morality) is a function of our genetics, then it is difficult to see how anyone, including an atheist, can be credited with -- patted on the back for -- living a moral life, with being a "good", "moral" person. He is no more responsible for his “moral” behavior than a homosexual is for his “immoral” behavior. The simple fact is that a "good" atheist is no more -- or less -- "moral" than an axe murderer.

Sounds harsh, I know. But both the "good" atheist and the "evil" axe murderer have this in common: they both act on the basis of their respective autonomous moral notions; and this is not changed by epigenetic rules. (Those rules simply explain the source of the autonomous moral notions.) We are told that morality and ethics are rooted in human values. But human values are simply the values that individual humans possess. Evidently all humans do not possess the same values; or, if they do, they do not give the same priority to some of these values. For example, to some humans sexual chastity is a value; to others it seems not to be. For some of those for whom sexual chastity is a value, this value really only applies after and within marriage. Before marriage (and between consenting adults) anything goes, up to and including the exchange of "benefits" between friends. To some humans human life is a value; to others it seems not to be. For some of these, war involves no conflict because, however paradoxical or loathsome, killing some can save the lives of others. For some others, no killing ought to be permitted, not war, not capital punishment, not even killing in self-defense, except in the case of defenseless babies, of course. Each of these acts on the basis of his autonomous values. So does the atheist. So does the axe murderer.

Now if somehow the values of the atheist are superior to those of the axe murderer, then perhaps the "good" atheist is morally superior to the "evil" axe murderer. But since our sense of these values is genetic then one is hard pressed to see how the atheist's values are superior to the axe murderer's, any more than the atheist's brown hair is superior to the axe murderer's blonde hair. One could assert that what makes the values of the “good” atheist superior to those of the “evil” axe murderer is that the atheist’s values include the valuing of human life. But this only assumes that human life is worthy of being valued. If a human life has no more value than a bug’s life – or if all life is equally valueless – then it may not be worthy of being valued.

One could argue that if an atheist just happens to live in a manner that coincides with what the theist thinks is a moral life, then the theist must concede that atheists live moral lives. I don't think this is the case. The theist has to concede no such thing, unless, perhaps, the atheist is willing to concede that the theist’s moral values are the true values. And this assumes that all theists share the same moral values, which they seem not to do.

The important phrase above is "just happens to live". While I'm not a Kantian I do think one of the many things about which Kant was right is that for any act to be considered an ethical act it is not enough that it be consistent with duty. An act must be performed precisely because it is a duty. (See his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, Ak. 390.) The atheist may not kill, but an important consideration is why. Someone could say it makes no difference why, it only matters that one not kill. But this is to acknowledge that one can choose one's own reasons for not killing, which is to say exactly what I said above about "good" atheist and "evil" axe murderer both acting on the basis of their own autonomous notions of morality. It also acknowledges -- whether or not one likes to admit it -- that one can also choose one's own reasons for killing. There is no true duty involved here. And to be moral means to perform a duty intentionally, not coincidentally.

No, I think we really need to consider why someone does not kill. It does matter why, unless we are admitting that there is no duty not to kill. And in order for the atheist to be credited as living a moral life when he doesn't kill, he must have a duty not to kill, not simply a lack of desire to kill, or the simple fact of not having killed.

How does an atheist come to have a duty not to kill? Perhaps, more importantly: To whom does he have this duty? Not to God, naturally. To his fellow humans? To himself? Surely, it is one or the other. And if it is to be considered an ethical duty, then we really ought to rule out that the duty is to himself. Either way one question remains: How does he come to have this duty? If the duty is to his fellow humans, then how did he come by this duty? How is it that his fellow humans (theist or not) feel no compunction about imposing obligations upon him? Who do they think they are, God? Focus on the Family? The Republican (or the Democrat) Party? Osama bin Ladin? The United Nations?

How does one come to have duties the fulfilling of which means that one is living a good life, being a moral person? My own view -- as an atheist -- was utilitarian. That is to say, I thought that the moral thing for me to do was either to refrain from harming others, or, better, to try to increase the amount of happiness in the world. But then, I didn't really conceive of this as a duty; I really thought of it as a good idea, an approach that would be superior to all of us living in a "state of nature", a way that we could all get along with each other. But a duty? No, not really. Even back then I could not conceive how I could have a duty towards anyone -- not even my parents. (One of my most difficult struggles as a child was just how an accident of birth gave my parents -- or anyone else, for that matter -- any authority over me. My parents, and quite a few teachers, can attest to this difficulty.)

We have to wonder, I think, in just what sort of universe ethics make any sense. I don't think it is the sort of universe which non-theists conceive. Of course, you could say I only say that because I'm a Christian. But the fact of the matter is that I'm a Christian because I say that; I became a Christian (among other reasons) because I first came to believe that only a theistic view of the universe makes ethics intelligible as ethics, things we really have to do or not do, rather than as a survival tool, or a handy set of rules for getting along.

I've been pondering ethics -- seriously pondering -- since I was at least twelve. I became convinced by the time I reached twelve that my family had been the victims of great injustices; and I was angry about those injustices. Those injustices formed part of my set of reasons for professing myself an atheist in my mid-teens. Like the writer of Ecclesiastes, the more I looked about the more injustices I saw.

But wherein lay these injustices? What were the duties and obligations which the perpetrators of these injustices failed to perform? Was it that they were not increasing the amount of pleasure in the world, as utilitarianism suggests they should have done? (Especially my pleasure, naturally.) Was it a failure to embrace the categorical imperative?

We are told that the laws of nature govern the operation of the universe. Everything -- and everyone -- is controlled by the laws of nature. One wonders how thoughts, beliefs and feelings are independent of this mechanism. If these things are not independent then it is difficult to hold people responsible for their actions. Our ancestors, pathetic fools, thought, for example, that homosexuals chose to commit sexual acts with other members of the same sex. Now we know better. We know now that biology is what determines this, and must stop asking homosexuals to change their behavior. (Shockingly, those who think homosexuals can change their behavior are not victims of their biology. They are (culpable!) victims of homophobia. They are responsible. Only certain favored groups are victims of their biology.)

Behind biology is chemistry; and behind that is physics. If and when the final theory is discovered it will not (according to Steven Weinberg, at least) leave any special place for ethics. (See his Dreams of a Final Theory [1993].) How could it? A law of nature tells us how things operate, not how they should operate. They suggest no ethical principles, nor can they.

So we have to look elsewhere for ethical standards. But where? If we want to know that it is wrong to murder, how might we find out? You say to someone, "It is wrong to murder." He asks, "How do you know that?"

Well? Do you know it's wrong to murder in the same way that you know George Bush is President of the United States, or that it is (or is not) snowing outside (where you live) right now? Is the proposition, "It is wrong to murder" true by definition in the same way as "2+2=4"? It is difficult to see how it could be.

The proposition, "It is wrong to murder" is not supported by empirical investigation; no amount of experimentation is going tell us how probable the truth of the proposition is. Neither is the proposition really capable of being supported rationally. Forget utilitarianism; apply Kant's categorical imperative: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." In other words: Go ahead and murder, but only if you can honestly will that "Murder is permissible" be a universal law. Now, who wants that? No one, very likely. But all we are saying here is that murder is wrong only because we don’t want to be murdered.

We have to ask, of course, just why we should apply Kant's categorical imperative. We should do so, according to Kant because, rational creatures, which we are, ought to act on principle, not mere desire. (See Critique of Practical Reason [3d ed., Lewis White Beck, trans., Prentice Hall, 1993], pp. 23, 24.)

Perhaps Kant is right. But since we can, even as rational creatures, act upon desire rather than principle, we ought to ask why we should not do so.

So, no. It is not possible for the atheist to live a “good, moral” life. But take heart. It is not possible for him to live a “bad, immoral” life either.

As Hamlet says: “[T]here is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so” (2.2.251-52).

The continued discussion:

Post Script
“Practical Antinomianism” (Post Script II)
“Fear and loathing” (Post Script III)
“Arrogance and Assumption” (Post Script IV)
“Whence is duty?” (Post Script V)

but we don't.

I wish I had a transcript of this sermon by J. Steven Wilkins.

Here's an excerpt, making a connection between our society's hatred of children (despite all the rhetoric and taxes spent proclaiming our love for them), and euthanasia (of the elderly):

You can expect to see euthanasia laws extended.... They will be extended and enforced more brutally.... Do you really think that the children that have been allowed to be born from unbelieving, selfish parents who have killed three others and let one or two live -- do you think those children are going to be real compassionate about their parents? The rule in Europe and the rule here has been, "You can have children as long as they're convenient for you, as long as they don't disrupt your lifestyle, as long as you can afford them, as long as they don't bother you." Okay, so you kill four. You let two live. And they know they lived because they were viewed as convenient and inexpensive and not troublesome. What's going to happen when you get to be inconvenient and expensive and troublesome and disruptive? Those children will say, "Hey the rule is you can live so long as you're not disruptive to my lifestyle. You can live so long as you don't cost me very much. that's the rule. That's the way you viewed babies. Well, that's the way we view old people, because old people are troublesome. They're always getting sick. They always are falling down, and they break things. It's just disgusting. And they're expensive. Look at how much it's costing us to pay for these dead beat old people that don't work." You think I'm exagerrating? Go talk to some young people. Go talk to some American young pepole who are not Christians -- and some Christians. That's exactly the way they're talking. "You don't work," they think, "I'm not paying for you. You starve. And it's not going to cost me...a moment's unrest." And, you see, why should it, from their perspective? Why should it? We've taught them: If you can't conveniently afford children, don't have them. If children disrupt your lifestyle, don't have them. "Okay, [they say], if that's the rule then old people disrupt our lifestyle. They're a big problem and they complain. That's the other thing. They complain. They won't keep quiet. It's one thing if you're a dead beat. It's another thing if you keep complaining, and wanting more money for your dead beat no-work payments every month...." That's what they're saying. You don't think we'll be in favor of euthanasia? You don't think that could happen here? It's already happened in Canada and in Europe. It'll happen here, unless there's repentance, unless we quite hating children.(At about 19:00 minutes in.)

There is something about that penultimate sentence. We have been told that there's something wrong with us for not having universal healtcare because, among other things, Europe and Canada both have it. Europe and Canada both have euthansasia also. And I have no doubt but that the people at the epicenter of the quaking over healthcare want euthanasia also.

Question 134: Which is the sixth commandment?

Answer: The sixth commandment is, Thou shalt not kill.

Question 135: What are the duties required in the sixth commandment?

Answer: The duties required in the sixth commandment are, all careful studies, and lawful endeavors, to preserve the life of ourselves and others by resisting all thoughts and purposes, subduing all passions, and avoiding all occasions, temptations, and practices, which tend to the unjust taking away the life of any; by just defense thereof against violence, patient bearing of the hand of God, quietness of mind, cheerfulness of spirit; a sober use of meat, drink, physic, sleep, labor, and recreations; by charitable thoughts, love, compassion, meekness, gentleness, kindness; peaceable, mild and courteous speeches and behavior; forbearance, readiness to be reconciled, patient bearing and forgiving of injuries, and requiting good for evil; comforting and succoring the distressed, and protecting and defending the innocent.

Question 136: What are the sins forbidden in the sixth commandment?

Answer: The sins forbidden in the sixth commandment are, all taking away the life of ourselves, or of others, except in case of public justice, lawful war, or necessary defense; the neglecting or withdrawing the lawful and necessary means of preservation of life; sinful anger, hatred, envy, desire of revenge;all excessive passions, distracting cares; immoderate use of meat, drink, labor, and recreations; provoking words, oppression, quarreling, striking, wounding, and: Whatsoever else tends to the destruction of the life of any. (Here)

Why do some of us think that the death of Terri Schiavo was tantamount to murder? Because there isn't much, if any difference, between killing with intent and (intentionally) allowing someone to die by "neglect[ing] or withdrawing...necessary means of preservation of life."

But this, from Miguel Guanipa is good:

[C]onvictions rooted in nonnegotiable principles - by virtue of the fact that they transcend mere fashionable moral trends - should remain unchanged. In so far as such principles are missing from the liberal ideology, the conservative ideology - all its imperfections notwithstanding - stands unrivaled. This disparity is often illustrated by the fact that Conservatives are typically chided for being unfaithful to their core principles, whereas Liberals are indicted by the social decay that ensues as a result of strict adherence to theirs.

Today's liberals suffer from a marring decrepitude, manifesting itself in what their forebears would quickly denounce as the rather illiberal ethos of guiltless autonomy, speech codification, thought surveillance, and retroactive gender and ethnic bigotry.

Mere cosmetic attempts at re-inventing themselves by changing their brand name, or taking stock of the aggregate moral decay from decades of civic prerogative will not likely solve their predicament. (Here )

Meanwhile, this, from Randall Hoven, (a conservative case for universal healthcare) is a bit disconcerting. It's a sort of if-you-can't-beat-them-join-them argument. We're already paying, in effect, for universal healthcare, so we should just go there.


Now, it's immediately tempting to say something like, "Hey, Randall: Abusus non tollit usum. ". But one should read his article first.

NOTE: ESCR=Embryonic Stem Cell Research

I really don't think the stem cell debate is over. (But we'll see.)

I don't think this news will really "quell" the stem cell debate. Even if this puts an end to the quest for embryonic stem cells, it really constitutes only an "armistice" , not a true end to the debate. "We're not going to do it this way after all because we found another way," is not the same as "We're not going to do it this way because doing so is unethical."

In reality, I don't think it will be a long-lived armistice, either.

The reprogrammed skin cells may yet prove to have subtle differences from embryonic stem cells that come directly from human embryos, and the new method includes potentially risky steps, like introducing a cancer gene. But stem cell researchers say they are confident that it will not take long to perfect the method and that today’s drawbacks will prove to be temporary.

If the researchers are wrong and cannot perfect the method; if they are wrong and the drawbacks prove not to be temporary -- then the debate will prove not to have been quelled.

Then there is a certain prejudice here. You know how you know people whom you so dislike that if they are for something you are just positive you need to be against it? There are some people who, in addition to scientific curiosity, just cannot stand the idea that the pro-life movement might "win" something.

Much of this goes back to Galileo's conflict with the Church over heliocentrism, from which the Church still has a black eye. (Of course, the problem is that the Church had made Aristotelianism synonymous with Christian orthodoxy. But any Church which makes that sort of move deserves the black eye it gets as a result.) If anyone associated with any religious perspective objects to a research program, then it is another "Galileo" moment, with affected scientists in the role of persecuted scholar, in the second-oldest conflict in human history: academic freedom versus religious orthodoxy. (The oldest conflict is good versus evil.) Then, of course, there is the conflict between evolutionism and its opponents. "Which scientific breakthrough have these people not opposed?", one might well ask.

So, if "these people" are against it, then we must be on the right track.

I wonder, though, if our pro-life scruples are really understood. Because of the religious connection (most pro-lifers are Christians, Jews and Muslims) those scruples are summarily dismissed as primarily religious in nature. Being summarily dismissed, those scruples may not be understood, not because opponents of pro-life positions are stupid, but because those scruples really haven't been contemplated.

Our scruples are rooted in the fact that we think the human embryo is, well, human. Some believe that the humanity of the fetus, though not explicitly asserted, is implicitly asserted by the way Scripture talks about the life in the womb. Others of us believe that the embryo is human because this proposition seems to follow from the proposition that like begets like. The proposition is at least arguable. It is also a philosophical proposition, not a religious one.

That the embryo is human is an important idea for us, with specific regard to scientific research, because most people recognize that scientific research involving human subjects, at least in the U. S., must be guided by four principles:

1. Respect for autonomy of humans
2. Beneficence
3. Justice
4. Non-maleficence

Right there is where we get into difficulty. Respondents usually talk as if we mean by human with respect to the embryo what we mean by human with respect to, say, a neophyte, a toddler or even an adult. Since, on their view, embryos are not human, the principles of bioethics do not guide research involving them. And, of course, they usually do not fail to ridicule our contention about the humanity of the embryo.

The fact is we don't mean that an embryo is human in terms of consciousness, especially as respects the ability to feel pain. We simply mean that, as the offspring of two humans, the result of the union of two gametes, it is human offspring. And, whether conscious or not, humans are entitled to protections.

No, unlike a fetus (arguably) an embryo doesn't feel anything, isn't conscious -- probably. So more than likely it has no awareness of what is happening to it. But to stress this is to make consciousness the essence -- or close thereto -- of being human. Is it? Certainly consciousness is an attribute of being human. But it's only one attribute. How important an attribute is it? Is consciousness the essence of what it is to be human, the most important (or simply just the most relevant) attribute of a human? Perhaps it is, but that is not a scientific question; it is a philosophical one. And people who argue in the negative (i.e., against the proposition that consciousness is the essence, or most important attribute of being human, etc) are not offering a religious answer. (Indeed, I doubt that we shall find in Scripture an assertion -- explicit or tacit -- of the most important attribute of being human.)

And as a philosophical question it's problematic. It may be that of all the attributes which humans possess, consciousness is the most important one. So important that the fact that an embryo is not conscious (right?) means that it may be used for purposes of scientific research. On the other hand, it may be that simply being the offspring (at any stage of development!) of human parents is the most important attribute, perhaps even the essence of what it is to be human. Regardless which of the many attributes humans possess is the most important (for purposes of bio-ethical matters), it is problematic for a member of the human race to say which of all the attributes possessed by members of the race is essential, or at the very least the most important attribute when it comes to legal protections.

We can concede that this probably is not conscious:

In the U.S. it’s okay to kill a harmless baby while its gestating, but never hurt a (tame) duck. Never. Never. Never.


NOTE: In the interests of full disclosure (having made clear my opposition to abortion) I should confess that 19 years ago I paid for an abortion. Not out of the kindness of my heart, but because I did not – then – desire to be a father. My opposition to abortion is clearly not based on my own behavior, but rather on my subsequent conversion and conviction that all human life belongs to God and ought only to be taken for causes which He outlines.

I know: How convenient. But I do not find it at all convenient. For when I was later ready to be a father my wife (not the woman who had the abortion) and I discovered that she could not have children. But God is gracious. He gave me the best step-daughter in the world. Bar none. (I shall be most firm on that point.)

There is, in my personal experience, nothing at all convenient about living with the consequences of one’s sins.

For whatever it’s worth, however, I never hurt a duck. Never. Never. Never.

Under the heading of “Better late than never” this posting is a response to a comment left for me here. This response is pretty long; and I’m not in the habit of leaving long comments at other peoples’ blogs, so I’m posting it here.

Anonymous writes:

…i couldn't agree with you more. the police and fire departments are hardly comparable to our current healthcare system... they actually work while the healthcare system is broken.

Actually, you don’t agree with me. The point of comparison was not the efficient operation of the healthcare “system” with the police and fire departments. The comparison was of the “services” they provide. The services are not comparable. The services of the healthcare “system” are part of the GDP; the “services” of the police and fire departments are not. And as for your contention that the police and fire departments actually work while the healthcare system is broken let me just say, first, that there are those who would argue that their police and/or fire departments don’t work, and, second, that we don’t have a healthcare system any more than we have a police or fire system, or a supermarket system. I would also add that 14.66 percent of our population without healthcare insurance hardly constitutes a national crisis – or a broken “system”. Let me ask you a sort of control question: If 14.66 percent of all crimes were never solved would you assert that our law enforcement “system” was broken?

Anonymous writes:

however, in the united states in which i live, the fire and police departments operate exactly that way: they "take wealth in the form of currency (acquired through taxes)" and transfer "that wealth (in the form of goods and services) to others" (e.g. water, protection, law enforcement, emergency medical treatment, et cetera). so when you say, "this is not what police and fire departments do" are you making the claim that tax dollars don't flow to these departments, or are you making the claim that these departments don't provide services?

The police and fire departments don’t operate in the same way (i.e., ["take wealth in the form of currency (acquired through taxes)" and transfer "that wealth (in the form of goods and services) to others" (e.g. water, protection, law enforcement, emergency medical treatment, et cetera).] ). The key word is “transfer”; it’s a term of art. The way you’re using it amounts to an illegitimate totality transfer. I was using the term “transfer” in a specific way, specific to economics. The provision of healthcare services, I was saying, is comparable to a transfer payment. In economics a “transfer payment” is a payment of money from one or more individuals to one or more individuals via government, and for which no good or service is required in return. Transfer payments can be thought of as a negative tax, since in the case of a tax, people pay the government without getting any good or service in direct exchange. Examples of transfer payments include welfare, unemployment insurance, social security payments, publicly-funded pensions and public support for students, including scholarships and financial aid and death benefits for parents. What I was getting at was the fact that although (unlike welfare and those other examples) there is no transfer of money, there is yet a transfer of wealth, one might say, in kind. What distinguishes “transfers” from the services of the police and fire departments is the element, if you’ll look back at the brief explanation, of direct exchange. And before you protest too loudly let me remind you that one entity which also makes this distinction is government, the provider of those “services” you speak of and love so much. So, if the government makes a distinction between “transfers” and other “services” I think we can also. And that is what I do. I maintain my claim that the healthcare “system” you envision would constitute a transfer, in kind, of wealth from one to another.

Anonymous writes:

you invalidate your own point, because having a car isn't an attribute of a person's "general welfare". i'm sure that most americans agree that a person's "general welfare" is directly tied to their health. obviously the capitalist system has so clearly failed a growing majority of americans in the area of health care.

There is no such thing as a person’s “general welfare”. There is “general (i.e., public) welfare” and “personal welfare.” A person’s personal welfare may be tied directly to his health, but the general welfare really isn’t tied to anyone’s personal welfare. If you’re going to employ phrases from the Constitution you ought to employ them in the way the Constitution does. (That’s a task called “exegesis”.) And in the Constitution “general welfare” isn’t used the way you use it. But even granting your notion about “general welfare” I doubt too many people will satisfied with you and your ilk being the ones who decide what is or is not required for one’s personal welfare.

But even if all that isn’t true, as long as you’re going arbitrarily to redefine the phrase “general welfare” in the Constitution to include healthcare, nothing prevents anyone redefining “general welfare” to include, as I argued, anything that I may need, including an automobile. My argument, that my neighbor is obligated to provide my anything I need, still stands because “general welfare” is a very broad concept.

Neither has the “capitalist system” failed anyone. The capitalist system is a system of doctrines about how scarce resources are distributed; it’s a scientific (i.e., economic) theory, not an organic distribution system. The capitalist system of economics has no more failed anyone than the Newtonian system of mechanics fails the passengers of a plane that crashes.

Anonymous writes:

you're taking extra liberties to draw the conclusion that you have no right to live. roe v. wade provided mothers the right to choose to whether carry a fetus to term, putting the onus on your mother to decide whether you would be born or not. once born, the constitution does protect your inalienable rights (bill of rights, constitutional amendments) as originally eluded to by thomas jefferson in the declaration of independence, when he included "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" among these rights. so, i suppose you can thank you mother for the decision she made and you can thank roe v. wade for protecting her right to make that choice. as far as i know, the u.s. does not have forced abortions or zero population growth laws.

To look into the logical implications of a proposition is not to take “extra” liberties in drawing conclusions. In fact, it is taking no liberties whatsoever. Let me see if I can make it more explicit for you. Two preliminary remarks: (1) We need not have forced abortions or zero population growth laws in order for it to be true that we have no right to life; the relation between the two is not truth-functional; (2) I don’t think you’ve even read the Roe opinion. Most people, especially lawyers, know there is only the slightest resemblance to a legal opinion in Roe, if even that much. Not only have I done, I’ve also read the early drafts of the opinion as well as the memos exchanged between Justices Brennan and Blackmun (who wrote the majority opinion). These drafts and memos make it very clear that both justices believed there was no such right to be found in the constitution, that they were creating such a right from whole cloth, and that it was only a matter of how to pull it off.

Now, although I mentioned the Supreme Court, my primary reliance was not upon the opinion. In my very first comment, I did not say any government said I had no right to life. What I said was: “I find it odd to live in a land in which many of the very people who tell me I have no right to be here in the first place (i.e., no right to life), also tell me that I have a right to those things which make life possible. And, furthermore, that I have these rights at others' expense.” I did not mention any government; and I wasn’t alluding to any government. I said “people”; and I meant “people”. You mentioned government. When I responded to your comment it was only as if to say, “Well, to the extent any government has said, then the Supreme Court can serve well enough as an answer.” For clarity’s sake, I will set aside the Supreme Court for present purposes.

So then. My conclusion that I have no right to life is not based on taking any liberties. It is, as I said in my second posted comment, what I believe to be a logical implication of the proposition that the fetus has no right to life. If you disagree then simply show me that this is not a logical implication. Simply saying it isn’t a logical implication -- or that I'm taking liberties -- just won’t do. And telling me that the Supreme Court didn’t say won’t do either; legal opinions are irrelevant: I’m talking about a philosophical matter, not a legal matter.

Assuming the fetus is human:

It is argued that a mother has the right to terminate the life of the fetus in her uterus at will. The fetus is human. Therefore, a mother has the right to terminate at will the life of a human (so long, of course, as that human is the one in her uterus). If the life of humans can be terminated at will, then humans do not have a right to life. You could of course continue to press this argument by asserting a relevant distinction between unborn humans and born humans: Born humans have a right to life, but unborn humans do not. (Judith Jarvis Thomson made very close to such an argument in her 1971 Philosophy and Public Affairs article, “A Defense of Abortion” [an article in which she grants, if only for argument’s sake that the fetus is human]). If you do press that argument then I think you should show how the distinction between unborn-human and born-human gives a right to life to the latter but not the former. To sum up then:

Assuming the fetus is human:

1. For all humans, if the life of a human may be taken at will, then a human has no right to life.
2. The life of a human (e.g., a fetus) may be taken at will (even if only by its mother).
3. Therefore, humans have no right to life.

You correctly state that the Constitution protects my “right” to life. But the truth is only that the Constitution prevents the government from taking my life, and even then only without due process of law. I need not truly have a right to my life for the Constitution to limit the government’s power to take my life. Neither must humans have a right to life in order for the law to prohibit murder. We as a society could agree that even though we don’t truly have a right to life we nevertheless want to live and agree together not to take each others’ lives (i.e., social contract, making “right to life” a legal fiction). I maintain that if one accepts the proposition that a mother has the right to take at will the life of her unborn child (a human) then it cannot truly be said that humans have the right to life. We live – at least in utero – by the good graces of our mothers. That hardly counts as a right to life.

Assuming that the fetus is not human:

We need not assume that the fetus is human in order for me to argue that humans truly have no right to life. If I don’t have a right to have been born into the world, then I do not have a right to be in the world. Being in the world means living. I think it quite clear that if I do not have a right to be born, then tautologically I do not have a right to be here, a right to live. That being the case I wonder that there are those who assert both (1) mothers’ right to deny birth to unborn children as well as (2) a right of humans to their lives and those things, like healthcare, which make their lives possible. I don’t think I’m asking too much for an explanation of the difference between an unborn child and a born child such that the born one acquires a right to its life while the unborn child is denied a right to its life. It’s a philosophical question, Anonymous; and such questions are not resolved (at least to my satisfaction) by the Supreme Court. To sum up:

Assuming that “a right to be here” (i.e., in the world) and “a right to live” (i.e., a right to life) are equivalent expressions; and

Whereas, every person living was once a fetus; and

Whereas no human could be here (i.e., be alive) without having been born:

1. If a mother has the right to terminate the life of a fetus then no human has a right to have been born – tautologically, no right to be here, no right to life.
2. A mother has the right to terminate the life of a fetus.
3. Therefore no human has a right to have been born; no human has a right to be here, no right to life.

So then: humans have no right to life. Therefore, they ought not be considered to have a right to the means of preserving their lives, at least not at the expense of others. All you have to do is show me how I have a right to life; then you can show me how I come to have this right to life such that my life is to be maintained at others’ expense, whether they wish to take this burden upon themselves or not.

Anonymous writes:

on the other hand, we do have many states that enforce the death sentence which does say that a jury of people can revoke a person's right to life.

Juries don’t “revoke” anyone’s right to life, depending upon one’s worldview. On a Judeo-Christian view the death penalty is rooted in the Noachide law. See Genesis 9.5-6. On that same view a human’s right to life is a right granted by God against all other humans. But a human doesn’t have that right against God. Human governments have had the requirement from God to take the life of murderers, and act as His agents in doing so. So in maintaining the right of an unborn child to its life, and the permissibility of the state to take the life of a murderer, we maintain that the distinction between the two is that the murderer has murdered and the unborn child hasn’t.

On a secular view it is difficult to see how anyone can have a right to life, or anything else. I suppose it’s just because we want to have it so. Even so, resolution of this seeming contradiction depends at least upon (1) what rights are; (2) which rights we have; (3) how we come to have them; and (4) under what conditions, if any, we can be said to surrender them (i.e., whether they are absolute and irrevocable). (A fifth issue may well be: who has the authority to render a verdict on these questions.) Leaving aside (1) and (3) let’s say that we have a right to life. Saying so need not imply that we have this right irrevocably and absolutely. We might have this right conditionally (e.g., on condition that we not murder other humans). Besides, what’s your point? That since the life of a murderer may be “revoked” so may the life of a fetus? If so then guilt or innocence of wrong-doing must be irrelevant to you.

DISCLAIMER REGARDING CHRISTIANITY AND CAPITALISM:

Nothing about any statements in defense of capitalism are to be taken as evidence that I believe capitalism to be required by or even identified with the Christian faith. I do believe that, unlike macro-evolution, capitalism does not conflict with any tenets of the Christian faith. As I mentioned above, capitalism is a scientific theory. I think I am as free, as a Christian, to believe in capitalism as I am to believe in string theory, or the Big Bang, or even theistic evolution.

Economics is a social science, not a branch of ethics. It studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. And capitalism is a theory within that science. As a theory in economics, capitalism is not a normative economic theory; it is a positivist theory. In other words, it isn’t a theory about what ought to be the case; it is a theory about what is the case. What is the case is that free markets, however paradoxical, more efficiently (though not perfectly) distribute scarce means which have alternative uses than do command economies (i.e., quasi-capitalist or socialistic economies).

That last point is important because most criticisms of capitalism appear rooted in the notion that it must be appraised ethically. Capitalism doesn’t help the poor; therefore people who “like” it don’t care about the poor. It follows then that capitalists are selfish, greedy people – immoral people. That is a silly notion. A similar approach to a different scientific theory is the approach which rejects evolution because of certain ethical considerations. For example, many years ago Tim LaHaye asserted evolution was responsible for, among other things, pornography. That may be true. But it is not an argument against evolution.

It is true that capitalism does nothing for the poor. I freely admit that. But my Christian faith doesn’t demand that I give my assent to scientific theories based on what such theories supposedly “do” for the poor. No scientific theory does anything for the poor. For that matter no scientific theory does anything for the rich.

My faith requires that I do something for the poor. And I do. And the quasi-free market economy that we have helps me to do something for the poor. A truly free market might help me do more. My faith doesn’t require that I construct from whole cloth a scientific theory that benefits – or at least doesn’t “fail” – the poor.

I may, it is true, reject some type of evolutionary theory which conflicts with my Christian faith. But it is logic which forces me to do so. A form of evolutionary theory may be a proposition which in turn implies the proposition, There is no creator. As a Christian, I believe the proposition, There is a creator. I cannot believe both that There is a creator and that There is no creator. Either I reject this form of evolutionary theory, or I renounce my Christian faith. Because I believe Christianity is true, I logically reject that form of evolutionary theory which implies there is no creator.

I am not in this position when it comes to capitalist economic theory. I may as a Christian believe the proposition that I have a duty to the poor and the proposition that Free markets more efficiently distribute goods and services. As a Christian, I believe that as my economic circumstances improve my financial duty to the poor increases as well. So if the operation of the free market improves my economic conditions (and…uh…they do) then I have more means at my disposal with which to assist the poor.

When, however, it comes to a redistributionist government I am in the position of having a conflict with one of the requirements of my faith. I cannot find where the Scriptures teach me to support a government which simply takes one person’s money and gives it to another (even “in kind”) just because the first person has it and the second doesn’t have as much. Stealing doesn’t cease to be stealing just because the government does it. And it doesn’t cease to be stealing just because the stolen money is given to another (well, some anyway: the government gets its “take”; it doesn’t perform that service for free, you know). (Also, this operation corrupts politics more than it is naturally subject to. Politicians of both Right and Left make appeals based on either how much of our money they are going to help us keep, or how much of someone else’s money they are going to transfer to us. In other words, they buy votes. And worse: they do so with other peoples’ money.)

My faith teaches me to be both innocent and wise. I think I’m wise enough to know stealing when I see it, and not fall for it when the thief says, “But it’s for the poor.”

Among other things, Cho rails against rich white kids. I wonder why we are not hearing liberals blame themselves for Cho's anger.

A few years ago when Matthew Shepherd was beaten to death, I watched Katie Couric suggest that James Dobson may have had some responsibility due to his own anti-gay stance.

Liberals have an anti-rich stance, but apparently bear no responsibility for Cho's anger against rich white people.

Dobson 'demonizes' gays, and is responsible for the beating death of a gay male.

The left 'demonize' the rich, but are not responsible for anything that happened at V. Tech.

There is much discussion about whether NBC should have aired clips of Cho’s ‘manifesto’ (not what I would have called it). Some discussion is here.

NBC is being criticized for giving Cho the fame he wanted. Cho wanted fame; now he has it. And it’s NBC’s fault. This sort of thing, some argue, ‘creates’ copycats, or ‘encourages’ their growth (like, one supposes, sunlight, water, fertilizer all encourage the growth of plants). I have a view of causality and human responsibility that logically prohibits my holding media responsible for ‘creating’ copycats.

The scenario goes something like this. John Doe desires fame above all else. He sees the fame that Cho has achieved thanks to NBC. “Wow,” he thinks to himself, “I too want to be famous.” So, encouraged by what he has seen on TV, he is transformed into a copycat. The media, by giving to one murderer the fame he desires, successfully ‘creates’ a copycat murderer. And, of course, by ‘creating’ this copycat media are to some degree responsible for the murders he commits.

Thoroughly ignored is an important question, Why did John Doe select fame for murder, rather than fame for discovering a cure for cancer? Frankly, I wouldn’t mind being famous. But I would not wish for the fame that Cho has achieved. If fame as a murderer is the best I can hope to achieve, I prefer to live and die in obscurity. Why did Cho choose otherwise?

It isn’t enough to say he wanted fame. Many people desire fame but do not commit murder in order to get it.

There is for me one reason for NBC to air Cho’s ‘manifesto’. Ours is an open society; we are all, really, social philosophers. When these things happen we want access to information about why. (Okay, I’ll admit some have a prurient interest in these things.) And one thing is clear to me with respect to why. Let us say that all this ‘hype’ (as some call it) does ‘create’ or ‘encourage’ copycats. The real issue – the why – is not the media. It is the fact that there are people who value themselves more than they value other human lives. The real question for me is not whether ‘hype’ ‘creates’ or ‘encourages’ copycats; the real question for me is why do people like Cho come to have no value, no respect for the lives of others.

Let me pose a question: We all started out as fetuses; we all started out with no right to be born, no right therefore even to exist. Why should Cho have valued the lives of others more than his desire for fame? He isn’t the only person in America who thinks that his desires outweigh the lives of others. Focusing on the media assists us in avoiding a discussion of this matter, I think.

It pains me to find myself at odds with Laura Ingraham on this. Of course, Ingraham neither knows nor cares that I disagree with her, so it’s all good.