Johnny's Corner

On April 26th a group of us protested at the Chinese Embassy over their treatment of North Korean refugees

 

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There is a vast difference between Adult Stem Cell Research (ongoing without the passage of Amendment 2) and Embryonic Stem Cell Research (allowed and funded by the Amendment). The cures to date have come from ASCR, not ESCR.

Also, Amendment 2 is not what it claims to be. While it claims to ban cloning, it bans, not the making of clones, but allowing them to be implanted. The Show Me State citizens need to follow the money; who is advancing this?

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We watched "The Incredibles" last night. It’s about Super Heroes, and their desire to help others. The designer was especially funny, with her common name (Edna) and her dah-ling manner. The movie made clear that sometimes evil must be fought; refusing to fight would have been cowardice.

That’s why the smug remarks about what Terri Schiavo would have wanted never rang true to me. Newsweek said no one knew what she wanted, but that she certainly would not have wanted all this division in her family – parents fighting husband.

This remark clearly demonstrates the perspective of the writers. Had they believed Terri Schiavo wanted to live, and that her parents were fighting for her with every ounce of strength, with their financial resources, and bearing with courage the trouble and harassment that resulted, they would never have seen the family division as the important thing. They would have seen the fight as bravery deserving a medal, the Schindler family as The Incredibles.

But that is not the way they are generally seen. The trouble is not just that an innocent young woman is dead – although she surely is. Compounding the offense, we may not be learning the needed lessons from her death.

Many people have considered end of life issues as a result of this tragedy, and that is good. Those issues deserve consideration.

The plight we want to avoid is excessive dependence on machines – we worry that we might be trapped in our bodies with machines keeping us alive, doing the breathing, eating, and functioning for us. That’s a creepy, freaky thought. No one wants to live like that; we want to protect ourselves.

But what if there is another issue: not just being hooked up to the scary machines, but that we may not receive appropriate care? There is a growing acceptance in U. S. health care for "Futile Care Theory."

Wesley Smith addressed this trend in a 2003 article in National Review http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-smith010603.asp. Mr. Smith asked, "Who should have the right to decide whether you receive life-sustaining medical treatment during a critical or terminal illness? Most would say with great confidence, `Me. Or, if I am unable to decide, then my family.’

"That should be true. Indeed, it used to be true. But in a growing number of hospitals, your right-to-decide is being taken away from you (or your family) by bioethicists and members of the medical intelligentsia who believe that their values and priorities should count more than yours when determining whether you shall receive wanted medical treatment. To put it bluntly, even if you want to live, even if you want medical treatment to enable you to fight for your life, you may be told that the hospital reserves the right to refuse service."

Mr. Smith continues, "It used to be that people were afraid of being hooked up to machines when they wanted nothing more than to go home and die a peaceful, natural death. The early bioethics movement deserves great thanks for helping do away with that form of abuse by pointing out that patient autonomy means the right to say no to unwanted interventions.

"But that was before the bioethics movement largely abandoned the sanctity of life ethic for an express or implicit utilitarianism that views the value of human life through a distorting prism of `quality.’ That was before most bioethicists came to believe that health-care rationing should be imposed.

"Now, a new medical hegemony is arising, one that proclaims the right to declare which of us have lives worth living and therefore worth treating medically, and which of us do not. In essence, what is being created in front of our very eyes (if we would only see) is a duty to die."

Whoa – this article was written over two years ago. Do you think the pressure on health care costs will affect this issue?

Now, that’s a really scary thought.

We know now that values voters won the re-election of our President.

But what, exactly, does that mean? After all, environmentalism is a value. Peace is a value. Social justice is a value.

That is true. Those virtues are all good, all values. There are as many values as there are ticks on a dog.

So what’s the difference? Why were "values voters" aligned on one side?

Joel Belz, in the 11/27 issue of World magazine (www.worldmag.com), asked, "So what makes the debate about abortion, homosexuality, and traditional marriage quite different from the debate about the other issues?

"The answer is that on the issues of abortion, homosexuality, and marriage, one side is claiming that certain behavior is just plain wrong, while the other claims it is not only right, but to be defended. On the other issues, the debate is not about right and wrong, but about extent and about appropriate methodology.

"Where, for example, among mainstream conservatives or evangelical Christians do you find those who are affirming the moral rightness of racism? Where do you find those who say we should expand oppression of the poor, or withhold justice from them?

"Yet that is precisely what defenders of abortion, homosexual rights, and new forms of marriage are doing. They are saying that the act of killing human babies is behavior that should be defended. They are saying that those committed to homosexual behavior should be encouraged to take pride in that choice. And they are saying that same-sex marriages might well be models of commitment from which heterosexuals might properly learn."

Chuck Colson also shed light on this idea of values v. values in his Breakpoint (2/21/05) " Moral Equivalency," (www.breakpoint.org) Mr. Colson said, "We oppose abortion because we respect the fact that all humans are made in the image of God. How can you be genuinely sympathetic to the poor and the downtrodden if you don't respect their most fundamental right? I would go so far as to say that unless you're consistently pro-life, you're not going to be a reliable defender of the poor.

"Why help the poor if we don't believe all lives are equal in God's sight? If you support ending the life of a child because it will be born into poverty, how can you logically call yourself an advocate for the poor?

"....all issues are not morally equivalent. The first one, the right to life, is non-negotiable. It undergirds all others: Take it away, and the whole house of cards collapses."

That’s why disagreeing about these issues is different from disagreeing about whether you prefer Rocky Road or Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. That is also why "Bush, who touted his support for a constitutional amendment protecting marriage as between a man and a woman and for preserving and honoring the sanctity of life during his campaign, was selected by over 80 percent of voters who chose moral values as their top issue." Talon News (11/4/04 www.talonnews.com)

But "...one in five voters on Nov. 2 cited `moral values’ as the most important issue driving them to the polls. `No one saw that coming. They expected it to be all about jobs and terrorism.’ Because of their religious blind spot, he (Matthew Spalding www.heritage.org) says, the mainstream media `completely missed the larger movement in American politics – that is, that we are seeing a moral alignment of great magnitude for this country.’" (Bob Jones, 11/13/04 World Magazine www.worldmag.com)

Moral values. They are not all the same. And the majority of the American public demonstrated on November 2^nd that it knows the difference between them. Values are not a smorgasbord, where you pick some and reject others; they are the building blocks of families, nations, and life.

May we re-affirm the values on which this nation was founded today, as we celebrate President’s Day.

Merry Christmas! 

On December 3, 1803, the U.S. Congress, following the request of President Jefferson, ratified a treaty with the Kaskaskia Indians. This treaty was significant because Congress, recognizing that most members of the tribe had become Christians, deemed to give an annual subsidy of $100 for the support of a priest during a seven-year period. That priest, as the Congress noted, was to perform "the duties of his office, and... instruct as many... children as possible."

The treaty, signed by President Jefferson, stated: "The United States will further give the sum of three hundred dollars to assist ... in the erection of a church."

You read that right. The U.S. Congress of 1803, at the request of President Thomas Jefferson, allocated federal funds for the salary of a minister and for the construction of a church.

The Congress of 1803 was not hostile to Christianity. The members understood the value of imparting Judeo-Christian values among the Indians. They also recognized the need for advancing biblical values among the citizenry of the young nation.

Congress Agrees to Print Bibles

In 1777, with war plaguing the land, the Rev. Patrick Allison, chaplain of the Continental Congress, petitioned that body for a specific need - the printing of the Holy Bible. After America had declared its independence, the Revolutionary War had interrupted the supply of Bibles. Printed Bibles had previously come to America from England and Holland but at this time of war we were often cut off from the rest of the world. As a result, Bibles were in short supply.

The committee which received Rev. Allison's petition then submitted it to Congress on September 11, 1777. The report stated: "The use of the Bible is so universal and in importance so great, that your Committee refer the above to the consideration of Congress, and if Congress shall not think it expedient to order the importation of types and paper, the committee recommends that Congress will order the Committee of Congress to import 20,000 Bibles from Holland, Scotland, or else where, into the different parts of the States of the Union."

That mandate for 20,000 Bibles never went into effect, though, because publisher Robert Aitken printed the New Testament in Philadelphia. After successful print runs of this Bible, in 1781, Mr. Aitken petitioned Congress to aid in the printing of the entire King James Bible.

The Congress responded with this resolution: "Resolved, That the United States in Congress assembled, highly approve the pious and laudable undertaking of Mr. Aitken as subservient to the interest of religion as well as the progress of the arts in this country, and being satisfied from the above report, of his care and accuracy, in the execution of the work, they recommend this edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States, and hereby authorize him to publish this recommendation in the manner he shall think proper."

Mr. Aitken then published the only Bible ever recommended by Congress and it is today a rare treasure.

We couldn't wait until November 2nd, when all the political ads, signs, and vitriol would end. We were cheered that there wasn't another ugly, long fight over Florida or Ohio, with no declared winner until gifts were under the Christmas tree. For the first time in 16 years, the man with the Electoral College votes also won the popular vote. Those 10,000 lawyers assembled by Terry McAuliffe, Democratic National Committee chair, proved unnecessary. What a relief!

But it only lasted a few days. The Nation's David Corn wrote an article entitled, "A Stolen Election?" Mr. Corn said, "Before the vote counting was done, the e-mails started arriving. The election's been stolen! Fraud! John Kerry won! In the following days, these charges flew over the Internet."

Salon asked, "Was the election stolen?" Then the subtitle continued, "The system is clearly broken. But there is no evidence that Bush won because of voter fraud." Farhad Manjoo said, in his 11/10 article, "..even if this particular election wasn't perfect, it was still most likely good enough for us to have faith in the results. Salon has examined some of the most popular Kerry-actually-won theories currently making the rounds online, and none of them hold up under rigorous scrutiny."

I believe one of the reasons liberals can't believe the election results is that the elite thought this election would be theirs: After all, most of Hollywood, and most people at the prestigious universities, were in favor of Kerry. The Wall Street Journal,10/25/04, stated that the percentage of Kerry contributions over Bush was 97% at Darmouth, 93% at Cornell and Yale. These stats were in Ruth R. Wisse's article, "John Kerry U," in which Mr. Wisse said that her conversations led her to believe that the few conservatives find these places downright repressive for people with their views.

Focus on the Family's Steve Jordahl wrote, "Dems Retooling, but Missing the Point." Mr. Jordahl said, "Liberals seem unable to grasp what it was that motivated "values voters."

Voices from all across the Democratic Party are calling for soul-searching and internal reform after last week's devastating election defeats. But for all the talk, none seems to have grasped the message the voters sent them on Election Day: The party is on the wrong side of issues like marriage and abortion."

It was obvious the House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, didn't understand. She sounded amazed when she noted the issues her party stood for, then remarked that the Democrats must have failed to effectively communicate.

No, Nancy. We got your message. It's just that we don't agree.

In fact, World magazine observed, "...one in five voters on Nov. 2 cited -moral values‚ as the most important issue driving them to the polls. No one saw that coming. They expected it to be all about jobs and terrorism. Because of their religious blind spot... the mainstream media completely missed the larger movement in American politics - that is, that we are seeing a moral alignment of great magnitude for this country."

Kerry's forces so couldn't believe the election that they are angry and accusatory. "Liberals Decry Election Results," by Steve Jordahl, warns, "Anti-religious bigotry rears its ugly head in the wake of Tuesday's election." Mr. Jordahl noted, "Some liberal commentators have declared the results of Tuesday's election nothing short of jihad a holy war with left-leaners on the losing end. And that kind of thinking has given the liberal elite a new reason to go after a group they love to hate: values voters."

In the same article, Dr. William Donohue, who heads the New York City-based Catholic League, said, "... the angry liberal elite aren't just sore losers, they're fanatics....For years Christians have been putting up with what amounts to slander. What's good is that record numbers of people are now standing up and saying, 'Look, you want to tinker with the most fundamental social unit in society - marriage and the family? No, we're not going to put up with it any longer.' "

One article I read, explaining the Presidential vote, said that Christianity is a mental disorder, and that those of us with conservative Christian views should be on psychotic medication. It's always good to know what people think. But this is a little scary.

"It ain't over `til the fat lady sings." She made her operatic debut on November 2nd, but it's still not over. It won't be over until the hearts and minds of the cultural elite begin to change, until the bitterness ends in understanding. That may be beginning to happen. I'll tell you why I think so next time.

The last paragraph of my last column was not attached. The space was probably needed for political ads. It said: "But is conservatism mindless? We'll look at that...next week."

I would like to continue that discussion, because I believe there is a lot of misunderstanding. In spite of political wins, conservatives are still considered "rubes and dolts" - backward and dumb - by the intelligentsia. The front page of the Daily Mirror, a widely-red London paper asked, "How can 59,084,057 people (the number who voted for Bush November 2nd) be so DUMB?"

Before we take major offense at the charge (and wonder why liberals and Europeans don't try to understand who we are or how we think), I want to deal with some common misperceptions. Our President said to let the healing begin.

Let's start with the charge that conservatives are mindless. "Dancing in the Streets" (Wall Street Journal 9/3/04) answers that by asking, "And how is it that the party represented by the rubes...is the one credited with most of the innovative thinking in public policy the past 20 years? You don't have to agree with school choice, missile defense, the broken-windows theory of crime control of George Bush's `ownership society‚ of health-care spending accounts, privatized Social Security and the first comprehensive tax reforms since the Reagan presidency."

Whether you agree with the ideas or not, we have to agree these ideas are innovative. Innovative ideas don't usually come from people who are mindless, or, in the words of the Daily Mirror, "dumb." Mr. Henninger also asks, "How is it, then, that political observers generally agree that the Democratic Party lacks fresh political ideas?"

So - could it be the problem isn't with lack of intelligence? I think it's about a fundamental difference in the way we see the world. I think it's about absolute truth and the role religion plays in public life.

So let's address one aspect. Liberals say (and believe) that Fundamentalist Christians are like the terrorists, the people who blow people up, cut off their heads, and fly airplanes into buildings. Because, they say, it's scary to think of someone being willing to die for a religion. Christian Fundamentalists, Islamic Fundamentalists - isn't it all the same?

Well, no. Being willing to die for your religion is different from being willing to kill others for it. Christianity is based on the idea of Jesus‚ sacrifice for us. He died, willingly. He commands us to love others, to forgive them, and to change the world through His example of love and sacrifice, not through violence. There have been, and continue to be, Christian martyrs who follow His example. Islamic martyrs, famously, destroy others while destroying themselves. That's different. A lot different. Because the religions, and their founders, are quite different. Jesus lived a life of peace, and encouraged His followers to do the same. Mohammed was, at times, a man of war.

In fact, one of the problems Muslims have with Christians is that Christians "...destroy the fighting spirit of the children, especially of the Palestinian youth, by teaching them not to fight the Jews, (teaching) the Palestinians to forgive the Jews and leave them Jerusalem."*

It's also a matter of whether acts are approved or not. Muslims danced in the street, celebrating in the aftermath of 9/11. There were few Islamic leaders who decried the celebration or the violence, and many more who approved it.

That's not the case with modern-day Christians. I don't know of any major Christian leader who approves killing abortion doctors or acts of violence against homosexuals. When these things are perpetrated by people who call themselves Christian, we do not dance in the streets. We grieve. We do not treat the criminals as heroes. We denounce them.

This idea of false equivalency has been taken to the extreme. When something happens, we are quick to say, "Oh, we do that, too. Just look at ..." and there will be a comparison that's like saying a pile of garbage is just like a butterfly. So if you base your thinking on false analogies, your thinking is going to be unclear and off base. The truth is, Fundamentalist Christians are a far cry from Islamic fundamentalists.

And so, Daily Mirror, maybe it's your conclusions that are "dumb" instead of our citizens. Maybe you're not understanding who we are or how we think. But if you will listen, we will tell you.

* quoted in Ann Coulter's How to Talk to a Liberal

I've been thinking a lot about politics lately, and about the process. It seems to me that many people who believe they are of one party - aren't. The parties have changed. The good news is that the differences between the parties, from the candidates to the platform, are wider than they have been in many years.

But there is another distinction that floats under the surface. It came to light for me when I read a couple of articles. "Bohemian Rhapsody" is subtitled, "A fashionable disdain for middle-class values animates liberalism." Middle-class values have traditionally been ideas like respect for authority, hard work, a belief in God, strong families, and thrift.

Gene Edward Veith, writing for World magazine in their 9/18/04 issue, talks about the two Americas. We've heard a lot about this - the red states and blue states, John Edwards‚ view of the rich and poor. But this is a different divide.

More of us are coming to realize, along with Mr. Veith, that "...the old stereotype of Republicans representing the rich‚ with Democrats representing the little guy‚ is no longer accurate. Evangelicals, ethnics, veterans, rural and small-town Americans -- most of whom have moderate incomes -- have been pouring into the Republican Party due largely to their concern for moral and cultural issues. Also, high-income people have been pouring into the Democratic Party, removing it culturally from its old blue-collar base."

Mr. Veith points to research that the bottom and the top of the ladder, not just in economics but in education, are heavily Democratic. The middle are predominantly Republicans.

That makes for an interesting observation: Mr. Veith notes that "Historically, the upper crust and the proletariat have had one things in common: a despising of the middle class...And yet, America is largely middle-class."

Then why don't the Republicans have the middle class sewn up?

It takes a sociologist to answer that one, with New Class theory. That says "...professions that deal largely with information -- the media (journalists, entertainers), education (professors, teachers), the helping professions (lawyers, counselors, social workers, mainline clergy), information technologists (computer programmers, software engineers) -- tend to be liberal politically. Those whose professions are grounded in solid reality (manufacturing, farming, small businesses) tend to be conservative. The New Class liberals tend to be affluent, at least middle-class economically, and yet they tend to despise middle-class‚ values."

That's because of the '60s. "The '60s counterculture brought bohemian values - nonconformity, a self-conscious concern for coolness, looking down on what is merely normal - into the mainstream. The children of the '60s despise middle-class‚ values, even though they are middle-class. They scorn the establishment‚ even though they have become the establishment."

Mr. Veith summarizes, "This is why liberals not only hate President Bush, the standard-bearer for the bourgeoisie (middle class), they insult him as being stupid. They not only disagree with conservatives, they look down on them. They resist Christianity not so much because they think it is untrue, but because they think it is uncool."

Rock the Vote is trying very hard to make it cool to vote - but in a certain direction. And John Kerry won the "pre-election" on MTV by a landslide.

"Dancing in the Street" in the 9/3/04 Wall Street Journal by Daniel Henninger observes, "Over the years Democrats have gained a certain kind of sophisticated edge over their Republican counterparts. The demonstrators (at the Republican National Convention) surely regard the GOP delegates as rubes and dolts....The children of the '60s who grew up, got jobs and moved out to the suburbs in time became the stolid Republican base, the red states, linked to social tradition and derided by progressives as mindlessly conservative."

But is conservatism mindless? We'll look at that, and at the difference in the party's national platforms, next week.

I was born and raised in the Solid South. Through my high school years, Alabama's electors went for the Democratic party. Pictures of Jesus and FDR, thumbtacked to the wall, graced living rooms. On the frayed arms of sofas were crocheted doilies, starched and white or faded with age. People still remembered Reconstruction, but also the Great Depression, and they believed Pres. Roosevelt got us out of hard times and put people to work. Their gratitude went with their ballot, and Republicans were not even part of the picture. They thought: Democrats stick up for the little guy. In 1956, only seven states voted for the Democratic candidate, against Dwight David Eisenhower. Alabama was one of them.

But by 1964, while I was in college, Alabama was one of only six states to go against President Johnson and throw its electors for Barry Goldwater, the Republican challenger. Since 1972, Alabama has been solidly Republican, for Presidential elections.

So when Kevin Engler said, "This is not your father's Democratic party," I knew he was right. I've been thinking about that and wondering, "What changed?"

For one thing, the very idea of who made up the parties changed. We used to think of "Democrats (as) the party of the little guy (and) Republicans (as) the party of the wealthy." Like most stereotypes, Karl Zinmeister said, in a Wall Street Journal editorial, at one time they reflected rough truths. Even though there is less to support these stereotypes now, "Those images of America's two major political wings have been frozen for generations."

"No more. Starting in the 1960s and 70s, whole blocs of - little guys‚ - ethnics, rural residents, evangelicals, cops, construction workers, homemakers, military veterans - began moving into the Republican column. And big chunks of America's rich elite - financiers, academics, heiresses, media barons, software millionaires, entertainers - drifted into the Democratic Party."

In fact, it's "...becoming harder by the day to take the Democrats seriously as the party of the common man." We hear about Republican fat cats but - data show that "...many of the very wealthiest political players are now in the Democratic column. Wealthy lawyers tilt strongly Democratic." So do huge-income brokers and bankers. In fact, "Migration of the rich and powerful to the Democrats has been so pronounced, John Kerry has actually pulled in much more money than sitting President George Bush this spring and summer," by 2 or 3 times as much.

So the idea that the downtrodden middle class are Democrats is no longer supported by fact. If you compare counties won by party and income level, you find that "...in pro-Bush counties only 7% of voters earned at least $100,000, while 38% had household incomes below $30,000. In the pro-Gore counties, fully 14% pulled in $100,000 or more, while 29% earned less than $30,000."

Average Americans don't like elitism. They like everyday people, and they trust the common sense work-a-day people have. It used to be that this distaste for elites meant a distrust for conservatives. "But today, with country-club Republicans having been swept aside by Nascar Republicans, there is nothing undemocratic about American conservatism. Among elites, it is now liberalism that is the dominant creed." And elites have become "...more liberal than the American public." In fact, a study of a dozen different elites, those at the top, including union leaders, top civil servants, lawyers, and media chieftains, found that these elites (except for two groups: businesspeople and the military) are two or three times as liberal as most of us. Those at the top, in most cases, don‚t represent the common man or woman very well.

But there are also Democrats on the bottom rungs of society's ladder. "Democrats dominate at the very upper and lowers rungs, while Republicans find their following in the middle. Conservatism has laid claim to American‚ quiet but multitudinous middle class. And during the same period, the Left has come to dominate among the overclass and underclass that bracket the conservative middle."

The article concludes that the old way of looking at politics - as little-guy Democrats vs. wealthy Republicans - is no longer accurate or relevant today.

There are other ways in which the two major parties have changed. Let's take a look at that next.

All statistics, studies, demographics and unattributed quotes are from The Wall Street Journal, 9/2/04, Dem de la Creme, by Karl Zinmeister.

Mr. Zinmeister is author of Down Over Baghdad and editor in chief of The American Enterprise (TAEmag.com).