Justice Scalia on Capital Punishment

I've always thought Justice Scalia a brilliant jurist with a sharp wit and a quick mind, and this article I came across recently did nothing to change my perception. I like how he takes great pains to distinguish his personal views, philosophy, and the history of the evolution of the death penalty as he sees these things completely separate from how he will vote on particular death penalty cases that come before the court. Perhaps my favorite point he makes is that judges are on the bench to enforce and interpret the law, not to impose upon it their own personal belief structure...would that more judges took the same approach.

God’s Justice and Ours
by Antonin Scalia

"Before proceeding to discuss the morality of capital punishment, I want to make clear that my views on the subject have nothing to do with how I vote in capital cases that come before the Supreme Court. That statement would not be true if I subscribed to the conventional fallacy that the Constitution is a “living document”-that is, a text that means from age to age whatever the society (or perhaps the Court) thinks it ought to mean.

In recent years, that philosophy has been particularly well enshrined in our Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, our case law dealing with the prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishments.” Several of our opinions have said that what falls within this prohibition is not static, but changes from generation to generation, to comport with “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” Applying that principle, the Court came close, in 1972, to abolishing the death penalty entirely. It ultimately did not do so, but it has imposed, under color of the Constitution, procedural and substantive limitations that did not exist when the Eighth Amendment was adopted-and some of which had not even been adopted by a majority of the states at the time they were judicially decreed. For example, the Court has prohibited the death penalty for all crimes except murder, and indeed even for what might be called run-of-the-mill murders, as opposed to those that are somehow characterized by a high degree of brutality or depravity. It has prohibited the mandatory imposition of the death penalty for any crime, insisting that in all cases the jury be permitted to consider all mitigating factors and to impose, if it wishes, a lesser sentence. And it has imposed an age limit at the time of the offense (it is currently seventeen) that is well above what existed at common law.

If I subscribed to the proposition that I am authorized (indeed, I suppose compelled) to intuit and impose our “maturing” society’s “evolving standards of decency,” this essay would be a preview of my next vote in a death penalty case. As it is, however, the Constitution that I interpret and apply is not living but dead-or, as I prefer to put it, enduring. It means today not what current society (much less the Court) thinks it ought to mean, but what it meant when it was adopted. For me, therefore, the constitutionality of the death penalty is not a difficult, soul-wrenching question. It was clearly permitted when the Eighth Amendment was adopted (not merely for murder, by the way, but for all felonies-including, for example, horse-thieving, as anyone can verify by watching a western movie). And so it is clearly permitted today. There is plenty of room within this system for “evolving standards of decency,” but the instrument of evolution (or, if you are more tolerant of the Court’s approach, the herald that evolution has occurred) is not the nine lawyers who sit on the Supreme Court of the United States, but the Congress of the United States and the legislatures of the fifty states, who may, within their own jurisdictions, restrict or abolish the death penalty as they wish.

But while my views on the morality of the death penalty have nothing to do with how I vote as a judge, they have a lot to do with whether I can or should be a judge at all. To put the point in the blunt terms employed by Justice Harold Blackmun towards the end of his career on the bench, when he announced that he would henceforth vote (as Justices William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall had previously done) to overturn all death sentences, when I sit on a Court that reviews and affirms capital convictions, I am part of “the machinery of death.” My vote, when joined with at least four others, is, in most cases, the last step that permits an execution to proceed. I could not take part in that process if I believed what was being done to be immoral.

Capital cases are much different from the other life-and-death issues that my Court sometimes faces: abortion, for example, or legalized suicide. There it is not the state (of which I am in a sense the last instrument) that is decreeing death, but rather private individuals whom the state has decided not to restrain. One may argue (as many do) that the society has a moral obligation to restrain. That moral obligation may weigh heavily upon the voter, and upon the legislator who enacts the laws; but a judge, I think, bears no moral guilt for the laws society has failed to enact. Thus, my difficulty with Roe v. Wade is a legal rather than a moral one: I do not believe (and, for two hundred years, no one believed) that the Constitution contains a right to abortion. And if a state were to permit abortion on demand, I would-and could in good conscience-vote against an attempt to invalidate that law for the same reason that I vote against the invalidation of laws that forbid abortion on demand: because the Constitution gives the federal government (and hence me) no power over the matter.

With the death penalty, on the other hand, I am part of the criminal-law machinery that imposes death-which extends from the indictment, to the jury conviction, to rejection of the last appeal. I am aware of the ethical principle that one can give “material cooperation” to the immoral act of another when the evil that would attend failure to cooperate is even greater (for example, helping a burglar tie up a householder where the alternative is that the burglar would kill the householder). I doubt whether that doctrine is even applicable to the trial judges and jurors who must themselves determine that the death sentence will be imposed. It seems to me these individuals are not merely engaged in “material cooperation” with someone else’s action, but are themselves decreeing death on behalf of the state.

The same is true of appellate judges in those states where they are charged with “reweighing” the mitigating and aggravating factors and determining de novo whether the death penalty should be imposed: they are themselves decreeing death. Where (as is the case in the federal system) the appellate judge merely determines that the sentence pronounced by the trial court is in accordance with law, perhaps the principle of material cooperation could be applied. But as I have said, that principle demands that the good deriving from the cooperation exceed the evil which is assisted. I find it hard to see how any appellate judge could find this condition to be met, unless he believes retaining his seat on the bench (rather than resigning) is somehow essential to preservation of the society-which is of course absurd. (As Charles de Gaulle is reputed to have remarked when his aides told him he could not resign as President of France because he was the indispensable man: “Mon ami, the cemeteries are full of indispensable men.”)

I pause here to emphasize the point that in my view the choice for the judge who believes the death penalty to be immoral is resignation, rather than simply ignoring duly enacted, constitutional laws and sabotaging death penalty cases. He has, after all, taken an oath to apply the laws and has been given no power to supplant them with rules of his own. Of course if he feels strongly enough he can go beyond mere resignation and lead a political campaign to abolish the death penalty-and if that fails, lead a revolution. But rewrite the laws he cannot do. This dilemma, of course, need not be confronted by a proponent of the “living Constitution,” who believes that it means what it ought to mean. If the death penalty is (in his view) immoral, then it is (hey, presto!) automatically unconstitutional, and he can continue to sit while nullifying a sanction that has been imposed, with no suggestion of its unconstitutionality, since the beginning of the Republic. (You can see why the “living Constitution” has such attraction for us judges.)

It is a matter of great consequence to me, therefore, whether the death penalty is morally acceptable. As a Roman Catholic-and being unable to jump out of my skin-I cannot discuss that issue without reference to Christian tradition and the Church’s Magisterium.

The death penalty is undoubtedly wrong unless one accords to the state a scope of moral action that goes beyond what is permitted to the individual. In my view, the major impetus behind modern aversion to the death penalty is the equation of private morality with governmental morality. This is a predictable (though I believe erroneous and regrettable) reaction to modern, democratic self-government.

Few doubted the morality of the death penalty in the age that believed in the divine right of kings. Or even in earlier times. St. Paul had this to say (I am quoting, as you might expect, the King James version):


Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. (Romans 13:1-5)

This is not the Old Testament, I emphasize, but St. Paul. One can understand his words as referring only to lawfully constituted authority, or even only to lawfully constituted authority that rules justly. But the core of his message is that government-however you want to limit that concept-derives its moral authority from God. It is the “minister of God” with powers to “revenge,” to “execute wrath,” including even wrath by the sword (which is unmistakably a reference to the death penalty). Paul of course did not believe that the individual possessed any such powers. Only a few lines before this passage, he wrote, “Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” And in this world the Lord repaid-did justice-through His minister, the state.

These passages from Romans represent the consensus of Western thought until very recent times. Not just of Christian or religious thought, but of secular thought regarding the powers of the state. That consensus has been upset, I think, by the emergence of democracy. It is easy to see the hand of the Almighty behind rulers whose forebears, in the dim mists of history, were supposedly anointed by God, or who at least obtained their thrones in awful and unpredictable battles whose outcome was determined by the Lord of Hosts, that is, the Lord of Armies. It is much more difficult to see the hand of God-or any higher moral authority-behind the fools and rogues (as the losers would have it) whom we ourselves elect to do our own will. How can their power to avenge-to vindicate the “public order”-be any greater than our own?

So it is no accident, I think, that the modern view that the death penalty is immoral is centered in the West. That has little to do with the fact that the West has a Christian tradition, and everything to do with the fact that the West is the home of democracy. Indeed, it seems to me that the more Christian a country is the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition has taken its firmest hold in post-Christian Europe, and has least support in the church-going United States. I attribute that to the fact that, for the believing Christian, death is no big deal. Intentionally killing an innocent person is a big deal: it is a grave sin, which causes one to lose his soul. But losing this life, in exchange for the next? The Christian attitude is reflected in the words Robert Bolt’s play has Thomas More saying to the headsman: “Friend, be not afraid of your office. You send me to God.” And when Cranmer asks whether he is sure of that, More replies, “He will not refuse one who is so blithe to go to Him.” For the nonbeliever, on the other hand, to deprive a man of his life is to end his existence. What a horrible act!

Besides being less likely to regard death as an utterly cataclysmic punishment, the Christian is also more likely to regard punishment in general as deserved. The doctrine of free will-the ability of man to resist temptations to evil, which God will not permit beyond man’s capacity to resist-is central to the Christian doctrine of salvation and damnation, heaven and hell. The post-Freudian secularist, on the other hand, is more inclined to think that people are what their history and circumstances have made them, and there is little sense in assigning blame.

Of course those who deny the authority of a government to exact vengeance are not entirely logical. Many crimes-for example, domestic murder in the heat of passion-are neither deterred by punishment meted out to others nor likely to be committed a second time by the same offender. Yet opponents of capital punishment do not object to sending such an offender to prison, perhaps for life. Because he deserves punishment. Because it is just.

The mistaken tendency to believe that a democratic government, being nothing more than the composite will of its individual citizens, has no more moral power or authority than they do as individuals has adverse effects in other areas as well. It fosters civil disobedience, for example, which proceeds on the assumption that what the individual citizen considers an unjust law-even if it does not compel him to act unjustly-need not be obeyed. St. Paul would not agree. “Ye must needs be subject,” he said, “not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.” For conscience sake. The reaction of people of faith to this tendency of democracy to obscure the divine authority behind government should not be resignation to it, but the resolution to combat it as effectively as possible. We have done that in this country (and continental Europe has not) by preserving in our public life many visible reminders that-in the words of a Supreme Court opinion from the 1940s-“we are a religious people, whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” These reminders include: “In God we trust” on our coins, “one nation, under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance, the opening of sessions of our legislatures with a prayer, the opening of sessions of my Court with “God save the United States and this Honorable Court,” annual Thanksgiving proclamations issued by our President at the direction of Congress, and constant invocations of divine support in the speeches of our political leaders, which often conclude, “God bless America.” All this, as I say, is most un-European, and helps explain why our people are more inclined to understand, as St. Paul did, that government carries the sword as “the minister of God,” to “execute wrath” upon the evildoer.

A brief story about the aftermath of September 11 nicely illustrates how different things are in secularized Europe. I was at a conference of European and American lawyers and jurists in Rome when the planes struck the twin towers. All in attendance were transfixed by the horror of the event, and listened with rapt attention to the President’s ensuing address to the nation. When the speech had concluded, one of the European conferees-a religious man-confided in me how jealous he was that the leader of my nation could conclude his address with the words “God bless the United States.” Such invocation of the deity, he assured me, was absolutely unthinkable in his country, with its Napoleonic tradition of extirpating religion from public life.

It will come as no surprise from what I have said that I do not agree with the encyclical Evangelium Vitae and the new Catholic catechism (or the very latest version of the new Catholic catechism), according to which the death penalty can only be imposed to protect rather than avenge, and that since it is (in most modern societies) not necessary for the former purpose, it is wrong. That, by the way, is how I read those documents-and not, as Avery Cardinal Dulles would read them, simply as an affirmation of two millennia of Christian teaching that retribution is a proper purpose (indeed, the principal purpose) of criminal punishment, but merely adding the “prudential judgment” that in modern circumstances condign retribution “rarely if ever” justifies death. (See “Catholicism & Capital Punishment,” FT, April 2001.) I cannot square that interpretation with the following passage from the encyclical:


It is clear that, for these [permissible purposes of penal justice] to be achieved, the nature and extent of the punishment must be carefully evaluated and decided upon, and ought not go to the extreme of executing the offender except in cases of absolute necessity: in other words, when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society. Today, however, as a result of steady improvements in the organization of the penal system, such cases are very rare, if not practically nonexistent. (Emphases deleted and added.)

It is true enough that the paragraph of the encyclical that precedes this passage acknowledges (in accord with traditional Catholic teaching) that “the primary purpose of the punishment which society inflicts is ‘to redress the disorder caused by the offense’” by “imposing on the offender an adequate punishment for the crime.” But it seems to me quite impossible to interpret the later passage’s phrase “when it would not be possible otherwise to defend society” as including “defense” through the redress of disorder achieved by adequate punishment. Not only does the word “defense” not readily lend itself to that strange interpretation, but the immediately following explanation of why, in modern times, “defense” rarely if ever requires capital punishment has no bearing whatever upon the adequacy of retribution. In fact, one might say that it has an inverse bearing.

How in the world can modernity’s “steady improvements in the organization of the penal system” render the death penalty less condign for a particularly heinous crime? One might think that commitment to a really horrible penal system (Devil’s Island, for example) might be almost as bad as death. But nice clean cells with television sets, exercise rooms, meals designed by nutritionists, and conjugal visits? That would seem to render the death penalty more, rather than less, necessary. So also would the greatly increased capacity for evil-the greatly increased power to produce moral “disorder”-placed in individual hands by modern technology. Could St. Paul or St. Thomas even have envisioned a crime by an individual (as opposed to one by a ruler, such as Herod’s slaughter of the innocents) as enormous as that of Timothy McVeigh or of the men who destroyed three thousand innocents in the World Trade Center? If just retribution is a legitimate purpose (indeed, the principal legitimate purpose) of capital punishment, can one possibly say with a straight face that nowadays death would “rarely if ever” be appropriate?

So I take the encyclical and the latest, hot-off-the-presses version of the catechism (a supposed encapsulation of the “deposit” of faith and the Church’s teaching regarding a moral order that does not change) to mean that retribution is not a valid purpose of capital punishment. Unlike such other hard Catholic doctrines as the prohibition of birth control and of abortion, this is not a moral position that the Church has always-or indeed ever before-maintained. There have been Christian opponents of the death penalty, just as there have been Christian pacifists, but neither of those positions has ever been that of the Church. The current predominance of opposition to the death penalty is the legacy of Napoleon, Hegel, and Freud rather than St. Paul and St. Augustine. I mentioned earlier Thomas More, who has long been regarded in this country as the patron saint of lawyers, and who has recently been declared by the Vatican the patron saint of politicians (I am not sure that is a promotion). One of the charges leveled by that canonized saint’s detractors was that, as Lord Chancellor, he was too quick to impose the death penalty.

I am therefore happy to learn from the canonical experts I have consulted that the position set forth in Evangelium Vitae and in the latest version of the Catholic catechism does not purport to be binding teaching-that is, it need not be accepted by practicing Catholics, though they must give it thoughtful and respectful consideration. It would be remarkable to think otherwise-that a couple of paragraphs in an encyclical almost entirely devoted not to crime and punishment but to abortion and euthanasia was intended authoritatively to sweep aside (if one could) two thousand years of Christian teaching.

So I have given this new position thoughtful and careful consideration-and I disagree. That is not to say I favor the death penalty (I am judicially and judiciously neutral on that point); it is only to say that I do not find the death penalty immoral. I am happy to have reached that conclusion, because I like my job, and would rather not resign. And I am happy because I do not think it would be a good thing if American Catholics running for legislative office had to oppose the death penalty (most of them would not be elected); if American Catholics running for Governor had to promise commutation of all death sentences (most of them would never reach the Governor’s mansion); if American Catholics were ineligible to go on the bench in all jurisdictions imposing the death penalty; or if American Catholics were subject to recusal when called for jury duty in capital cases.

I find it ironic that the Church’s new (albeit nonbinding) position on the death penalty-which, if accepted, would have these disastrous consequences-is said to rest upon “prudential considerations.” Is it prudent, when one is not certain enough about the point to proclaim it in a binding manner (and with good reason, given the long and consistent Christian tradition to the contrary), to effectively urge the retirement of Catholics from public life in a country where the federal government and thirty-eight of the states (comprising about 85 percent of the population) believe the death penalty is sometimes just and appropriate? Is it prudent to imperil acceptance of the Church’s hard but traditional teachings on birth control and abortion and euthanasia (teachings that have been proclaimed in a binding manner, a distinction that the average Catholic layman is unlikely to grasp) by packaging them-under the wrapper “respect for life”-with another uncongenial doctrine that everyone knows does not represent the traditional Christian view? Perhaps, one is invited to conclude, all four of them are recently made-up. We need some new staffers at the Congregation of Prudence in the Vatican. At least the new doctrine should have been urged only upon secular Europe, where it is at home."

Dial 911 and Die

This article really did teach me something new, although not surprising. Gun control proponents let their mask slip to reveal their socialism almost every time they talk. The argument goes like this: no private citizen should have guns because the police will protect them, BUT when you actually call the police, they may or may not get there. And if they don't, even when they have a sworn, specific duty to protect you, a court will not hold them responsible for their failures...unless, of course, you are an illegal immigrant lawbreaker, in which case the cops and border patrol agents go to jail for doing their jobs. Read the whole sad and utterly predictable thing...just don't have any throwable objects handy.

Just Dial 911? The Myth of Police Protection

By Richard W. Stevens, Esq.

Richard Stevens is a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and author of "Dial 911 and Die".

Underlying all “gun control” ideology is this one belief.” “Private citizens don’t need firearms because the police will protect them from crime.” That belief is both false and dangerous for two reasons.

First, the police cannot and do not protect everyone from crime. Second, the government and the police in most localities owe no legal duty to protect individuals from criminal attack. When it comes to deterring crime and defending against criminals, individuals are ultimately responsible for themselves and their loved ones. Depending solely on police emergency response means relying on the telephone as the only defensive tool. Too often, citizens in trouble dial 911 . . . and die.

Statistics confirm the obvious truth that the police in America cannot prevent violent crime. In 1997 for example, nationwide there were 18,209 murders, 497,950 robberies, and 96,122 rapes. All those crimes were unprevented and undeterred by the police and the criminal justice system.

Many criminals use firearms to commit their crimes. For example, in 1997 criminals did so in 68 percent of murders and 40 percent of robberies. Thus, criminals either have or can obtain firearms. The existing “gun control” laws do not stop serious criminals from getting guns and using them in crimes.

Practically speaking, it makes little sense to disarm the innocent victims while the criminals are armed. It is especially silly to disarm the victims when too often the police are simply unable to protect them. As Richard Mack, former sheriff of Graham County, Arizona, has observed: “Police do very little to prevent violent crime. We investigate crime after the fact.”

Americans increasingly believe, however, that all they need for protection is a telephone. Dial 911 and the police, fire, and ambulance will come straight to the rescue. It’s faster than the pizza man. Faith in a telephone number and the local cops is so strong that Americans dial 911 over 250,000 times per day.

Yet does dialing 911 actually protect crime victims? Researchers found that less than 5 percent of all calls dispatched to police are made quickly enough for officers to stop a crime or arrest a suspect. The 911 bottom line: “cases in which 911 technology makes a substantial difference in the outcome of criminal events are extraordinarily rare.”

No Duty to Protect

It’s not just that the police cannot protect you. They don’t even have to come when you call. In most states the government and police owe no legal duty to protect individual citizens from criminal attack. The District of Columbia’s highest court spelled out plainly the “fundamental principle that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen.”

In the especially gruesome landmark case, the “no-duty” rule got ugly. Just before dawn on March 16, 1975, two men broke down the back door of a three-story home in Washington, D.C., shared by three women and a child. On the second floor one woman was sexually attacked. Her housemates on the third floor heard her screams and called the police.

The women’s first call to D.C. police got assigned a low priority, so the responding officers arrived at the house, got no answer to their knocks on the door, did a quick check around, and left. When the women frantically called the police a second time, the dispatcher promised help would come—but no officers were even dispatched.

The attackers kidnapped, robbed, raped, and beat all three women over 14 hours. When these women later sued the city and its police for negligently failing to protect them or even to answer their second call, the court held that government had no duty to respond to their call or to protect them. Case dismissed.

The law is similar in most states. A Kansas statute precludes citizens from suing the government or the police for negligently failing to enforce the law or for failing to provide police or fire protection. A California law states that “neither a public entity nor a public employee is liable for failure to establish a police department or otherwise provide police protection service.” As one California appellate court wrote, “police officers have no affirmative statutory duty to do anything.”

The state legislatures and courts protect government entities and police departments from civil liability for failing to provide adequate police protection. Some states invoke the “sovereign immunity” defense, a throwback to the days when the subjects were forbidden to sue the king. Other states have statutes that prevent legal challenges to police “discretionary” functions. Courts preclude lawsuits in those states by holding that answering emergency calls or providing police protection are “discretionary” functions.

Many states evade liability by relying on the ironically named “public duty” doctrine. Like a George Orwell slogan, that doctrine says: police owe a duty to protect the public in general, but not to protect any particular individual.

Police Advice: “Get a Gun”

A Massachusetts statute spells out the rule there: the government has no legal duty “to provide adequate police protection, prevent the commission of crimes, investigate, detect or solve crimes, identify or apprehend criminals or suspects, arrest or detain suspects, or enforce any law.” That “no-duty” rule brings tragedy, as one Massachusetts woman learned in the worst way.

James Davidson had been abusing and harassing his wife, Catherine Ford, after their separation. Catherine got a court order against James to stop his misconduct. The Grafton police knew about James, and told her that they couldn’t provide protection around the clock. One officer frankly advised her to “buy a gun because the only way to deal with violence is violence.”

Catherine did not take that advice. Over the next 15 months James continued to harass and stalk Catherine, and he repeatedly threatened to kill her and her family. James terrorized Catherine and her family at their homes. He attacked her at her workplace. James’s own psychiatrist warned Catherine that James had plans to kill her. Despite all of his vicious and unlawful behavior, the police never arrested James for violating the court order.

James issued his final death threat on January 16, 1986. Catherine reported this threat to the police. At about 6 o’clock the next evening, James started kicking down Catherine’s back door. When she ran out the front door, James spotted her and chased her even as she charged through moving traffic on the street. She pounded on a neighbor’s door, but no one would let her inside. As she ran to the next house, James caught her and shot her three times in the face and neck. He then shot himself. Miraculously, Catherine survived, but was totally paralyzed for life.

Catherine sued the town of Grafton for failing to protect her. Her lawyers argued that the police owed a legal duty to stop James, and thus the police owed a legal duty to protect Catherine. A Massachusetts statute required the police to arrest James for his repeated violations of the court order, but the police had failed to arrest him.

The Massachusetts court in Ford v. Town of Grafton held the city was not liable. The court order that was supposed to restrain James and protect Catherine did not amount to an “assurance of safety or assistance” from the police department. According to the court, when the police advised Catherine “to get a gun for protection,” that was a warning to her that the police were unable to assure her safety or protect her. Because she got no assurances of safety from the police, she had no legal right to rely on the police to protect her. Case dismissed.

Catherine Ford might have escaped James’s murderous intentions unharmed if she had taken the police officer’s advice to “get a gun” and had received a basic course in defensive firearms handling and safety. Studies show that Americans use firearms successfully up to two million times each year to stop criminals. Tragically, she chose instead to rely on a court order and the police.

These two cases are not legal oddities. The general rule of law in the United States is that government owes a duty to protect the public in general, but owes no legal duty to protect any particular person from criminal attack. Neither the U.S. Constitution nor the federal civil rights laws require states to protect citizens from crime. As a federal appeals court bluntly put it, ordinary citizens have “no constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen.”

Exceptions to the no-duty rule apply when the police have expressly promised to protect a specific person from an identifiable danger. Informers in a witness protection program, for example, might have an enforceable right to protection. Yet it will make little difference to a dead victim if a court some years later decides that the police did owe a duty but failed to protect him, and then awards damages to next of kin.

Picture the situation: government establishes a police force and installs 911 emergency call service. Then the government announces to the world that “you don’t need a firearm for self-defense,” and so enacts “gun control” laws to make it difficult or impossible legally to get and use a gun. Meanwhile, violent criminals remain illegally armed with guns and other weapons.

Now, imagine you are snapped awake one night by the sounds of your door breaking in. You reach for the telephone to dial 911. The 911 emergency operator never answers. Or the police answer, take your frantic report, but don’t come, or they come too late. In any of these scenarios, the burglar gets in, knifes you, and steals your VCR.

Crouching behind a chair with a telephone in your hand, you were defenseless because the government took away your private defense tools and handed you a telephone number to call for emergency help. You relied on that telephone number, and the help never came. The government’s policy made you a crime statistic.

Government lulls the public into trusting it to provide everything, takes away the people’s means of providing for themselves, and then claims it has no duty to provide after all. Noting the fatal irony in the “gun control” context, James Bovard has written that “government has a specific, concrete obligation to disarm each citizen, but only an abstract obligation to defend the citizen.” “Gun control;” Bovard notes, “is one of the best examples of laws that corner private citizens—forcing them either to put themselves into danger or to be a lawbreaker.”

Laying Bare the State Protection Myth

The drive to prohibit private firearms ownership highlights the statists’ goals in a way everybody can understand. They aim to disarm ordinary nonviolent citizens, even those who face high risk of criminal attack, and substitute police protection in place of self-defense. Meanwhile the police will not be held liable to individual citizens for failing to defend them.

Government “social programs” and various mandatory “insurance” programs operate in the same way. First, the government programs distort the market forces that provide housing, food, medical care, transportation, and other goods and services. People shift to depending on the government programs instead of taking individual decisions and action.

When the government programs fail, however, the people relying on those programs have little or no effective recourse. At best, dissatisfied people can file bureaucratic appeals to the very agencies that harmed or cheated them. There can be judicial review of bureaucratic decisions in some cases also, but the judges are usually part of the same government, and they typically defer to the original government agency’s decision anyway.

In nearly all cases the citizen bears the stress and expense of pursuing appeals of bureaucratic decisions. The cost of appealing a government decision is already high. The effect of high appeal costs is to stop people from appealing—which gives results just like the “no duty,” “sovereign immunity,” and “public duty” rules. Government grabs power but sheds accountability.

The problem with government programs is not just that citizens have only narrow and costly avenues for appeals of decisions. While a government social program is operating, it is likely making worse the very problem it was trying to “solve.” People cannot get out of a government program and return to private action or free-market solutions because of the effects of the program itself. Legislators point to the “failure” of the mar ket, whine about the problems with the government program, and then prescribe more government. The voters reward those legislators by re-electing them.

Government power ratchets up the same way under a “gun control” regime. As laws discourage innocent citizens from defending themselves, the violent criminals remain undeterred. Absent some other, overweening factor, violent crime cannot possibly decrease in that environment; it more likely must increase. The statist response will naturally be to restrict firearms ownership even more, and to enhance the police presence. Greater police presence means more police, more surveillance, more reporting to government what citizens are doing. Nearly 170 million citizens lost their lives to their own governments in the twentieth century. There is little reason to celebrate a police state.

Revealing the lie underlying the “gun control” agenda strengthens the case against socialism and the welfare state on many levels. If the argument advances the cause of individual liberty, then it is an argument worth making.

Feeling Like I Fit In

The feeling of fitting in has always been strange, bordering on foreign, to me. I think that's because it happens so rarely. In school growing up, I was always too much of something or not enough of something else to really fit in with any one group. As such, I just did my own thing athletically, academically, etc. It was lonely sometimes, but I got the job done and the results have been good for the most part. Today at work, I was part of a business lunch with a law firm who sometimes does work for our company. Although we have a Legal Department and I am part of it, sometimes there are cases that are better worked by outside counsel. When that happens in Tennessee, this firm is mostly who we use. The lunch was their way of saying thank you to our company for our business.

As I sat there today amongst a half a dozen other lawyers eating a very nice meal, it dawned on me that I actually do fit in here. To quote Stuart Smalley from Saturday Night Live, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and dog-gone it people like me!" Being treated like a peer, as an equal...man, that's heady stuff. I don't plan to let it go to my head, and that feeling alone isn't enough to make me sure I want to be a lawyer forever, but it really was a nice feeling. It's things like that, rewards which are small yet fulfilling, that make for great return on investment emotionally and psychologically for all the dog days of education and working jobs I hated. It really was good times, and I am glad God allowed me to experience it.

How So Much Can Change So Quickly

Two months ago today, I talked on the phone for the first time with the woman who is very likely to become my wife. Two days after that first conversation, we had our first date. The rest, as they say, is history. Two short months ago, this woman was a complete stranger, someone I had never met despite growing up less than an hour from where she lives, attending undergraduate school less than half an hour away, and going to the mall for fun, dinner, and even other dates countless times without ever meeting her. In addition to the working of God's eternally mysterious ways, it took a good friend seeing something in both of us individually that she thought would make us a great match. She was right, and I'll forever be in her debt. Two months ago, the love of my life was unknown to me, and today, I can't imagine my life without her. Althea, I love you, and I can't wait to see what amazing adventures God and life have in store for us.

Both Patrias Can't Be Right

You know, I'm all for agreeing to disagree, especially with people who aren't even up to a spirited debate or an honest discussion (those folks make me insane and richly deserve my contempt no matter their political or religious stripe). That said, some things are a zero sum game...such is the case with Kim DuToit's idea of the patria. Loosely translated, this word means "what America stands for", and it's the root word for patriotism. Reality dictates that the socialist appeasement monkeys who inherit most of the blue areas of America and the good folks to whom Bill Whittle refers as the "Silent Majority" can't both be right and can't both have their own way.

For the most part, this is like the beliefs of radical Islam ("convert or die, infidel") and President Bush's words (as opposed to some of his actions) re: terrorists (i.e. "You're either with us or you're against us."). The list of issues that are able to be resolved in a peaceful way that makes even a majority of Americans happy shrinks daily, and I don't know where that scary development of a road leads...perhaps civil war, perhaps revolution, perhaps throwing out the bums of both parties by we the people, or some combination of the three. In any event, I don't have the answer, and unless something changes, I don't think it will be pretty when the two competing patrias come to a head. All I know is that I'm glad I will be on the side that has the guns. With that, take it away Kim!

"I’ve just about had it up to here with Lefties complaining that when we call them on their latest line of crap, we’re “impugning their patriotism” or some such nonsense.

Here’s the intrinsic problem, and it’s why America is so divided as a nation: we conservative/Red Staters and you liberal/Blue Staters have diametrically-opposed visions of what constitutes the Patria.

Our patria is a representative republic, founded on pretty much immutable Constitutional principle; your patria is a popular democracy with a “living” Constitution.

Our patria is a capitalist society with low, limited and broad-based taxation; your patria is a neo-socialist society with embedded wealth redistribution policies (through onerous graduated tax rates, incremental taxes and inheritance taxes).

Our patria values private property ownership; your patria would prefer that most property belong to the State.

Our patria believes in a State welfare policy which offers a helping hand only to those in genuine need; your patria redefines “need” as “anyone who asks for it”.

Our patria values private gun ownership; your patria would prefer that officers of the State be the only armed entity.

Our patria believes in self-reliance; your patria prefers to keep people as wards of the State.

Our patria believes in sovereign nationality; your patria insists that national boundaries are irrelevant.

Our patria believes in devolving political power downward as much as possible; your patria concentrates political power upwards.

Our patria believes in a robust, America-first foreign policy; your patria prefers accommodationism.

Our patria would prefer to fight evil decisively; your patria believes that we have brought most of the evil upon ourselves, and that “evil” is a relative term anyway.

Our patria has a legal system where judges uphold the law; your patria has judges who implement public policy by fiat.

Our patria is a colorblind society; your patria favors tokenism, separatism and affirmative action.

Our patria is a place where personal advancement depends on ability and desire; your patria is envious of the successful and is constantly trying for equality of outcome.

Our patria believes in a strong military; your patria thinks “militarism” is evil.

To make this as succinct as possible:

Our patria is America; your patria is Europe.

But most importantly:

Our patria is the longest-lasting political institution of its kind ever attempted by mankind; your patria has failed miserably in every place ever attempted.

With differences so radical, it’s little wonder that the word “patriotism” has become essentially meaningless. "

Tulsa, a Microcosm of the Illegal Immigrant Invasion

With this MSNBC story, we see why illegal immigration is such a divisive issue. This potential cauldron of conflict is being repeated all over America now, not just in border towns or sanctuary cities, and one day, if left unchecked, it really will boil over in a bad way. Unfortunately, because of the political correctness and race-based politics of today combined with a growing Hispanic population of mostly illegal immigrants (and two illegals hatching a baby on U.S. soil does not make a U.S. citizen, I don't care what the Supreme Court says), illegal immigration is fast becoming a fourth rail of politics, with no one daring to touch it, except in the dark of night or in the interest of giving America away to the invading hordes.

The federal government doesn't want to do its job of enforcing the laws for fear of being called racists, but when cities and states try to do it, the latest alphabet soup open borders group runs to court to find a sympathetic judge of its choosing to get the efforts shut down as stepping on the toes of the federal government...and they usually win. I'm with the secure the borders folks on this one until further notice. Build the damn fence, deport the illegals here en masse as they are beginning to do in Europe, close off the border, find out who is here already and whether they should be...then, and ONLY then, will most Americans even THINK about guest worker programs or mass grants of citizenship. Becoming an American is a privilege, not a right, and anyone with no interest in becoming an American citizen, learning English, and playing by the rules has no place here, not now, not ever, period, end of discussion.

"In our first Gut Check America vote, thousands of readers around the country rated illegal immigration as the issue of most concern for them. Among them was Gary Rutledge, a Tulsa, Okla., college professor who wrote about being involved in a traffic accident with an apparent illegal immigrant. Here is our report on what we found when we traveled to Tulsa to follow up on his story:

TULSA, Okla. - “Our sovereignty is under direct attack,” warns a commanding voice emanating from a pool of light in the corner of an otherwise dark airplane hangar. Dan Howard, an airplane salesman by day, is in the middle of his weekly two-hour radio show titled Outraged Patriots, a nighttime broadcast devoted entirely to the topic of illegal immigration.

Howard, who charges that the U.S. government is failing in its duty to protect the country from a “silent invasion” by illegal immigrants, taps into a deep vein of anger and unease in this conservative south central city, where many longtime residents feel besieged by a recent wave of mostly Hispanic newcomers.

That rising tide of resentment is palpable in the city’s Latino community.

At Plaza Santa Cecilia, a mall filled with Latino shops in East Tulsa, business is down as much as 40 percent, vendors say.

“It’s very quiet,” said Edith, a 17-year-old shopkeeper who didn’t want to give her last name. “Everyone is staying home because of this immigration stuff.”

The tensions of Tulsa mirror those in many other U.S. cities that have experienced sharp increases in Hispanic immigration in recent years. But other factors are at work here as well.

City on the leading edge

Tulsa is on the leading edge of local and state efforts to crack down on illegal immigration following passage by the Oklahoma Legislature of what is arguably the toughest anti-illegal immigration measure in the nation. The Tulsa City Council also embraced the get-tough approach by adopting a resolution calling on police officers to check the immigration status of “all suspected illegal aliens.”

Those actions have sparked a fierce political battle, spread fear among Hispanics — both legal residents and those in the country illegally — and triggered an angry public face-off between demonstrators on either side of the great divide.

Among the longtime residents shaken by the changes engulfing his city is Gary Rutledge, an MSNBC.com reader who said the demographic shift took his family and friends by surprise.

“It’s happened so quickly and our neighborhoods have changed so rapidly,” said Rutledge, a political science professor at nearby Rogers State University.

In East Tulsa, just across the main thoroughfare from his comfortable brick home, the broad avenues are now peppered with signs in Spanish and malls catering to Latino shoppers — offering everything from soccer wear and piñatas to check cashing services and Latin pop music.

“That whole part of the city has become a miniature Juarez or Tijuana or whatever you want to call it,” said Rutledge.

Like many longtime residents, Rutledge is quick to say that he is not opposed to immigration by legal means. But he says he objects to being unwillingly taken over by another culture as the result of unchecked illegal immigration.

“I’m very concerned that this last wave (of immigrants) has no interest in becoming Americanized,” he said.

Fallout from federal inaction

It was Rutledge’s story of a car crash involving an apparent illegal immigrant that led MSNBC.com to Tulsa. But when we arrived we encountered a bigger pileup: the chaotic fallout of a federal framework that neither prevents illegal immigrants from entering the U.S. to work nor provides a way for them to gain legal status.

That Catch -22 has forced local jurisdictions like Tulsa to seek their own solutions to the explosive and complex issue.

“Increasingly, because there’s no consistent federal law, states and cities are cobbling together immigration laws on their own,” says Sheryl Lovelady, assistant to Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor. In Tulsa, Lovelady said, such laws “have caused a lot of confusion, inconsistency and fear, mainly in the Hispanic community.”

Tulsa, a city built on oil some 500 miles from the Mexican border, has a population of just over 380,000, including about 40,000 Latino or Hispanic residents, according to 2005 Census estimates. The pace of Hispanic immigration has been quickening, and local newspapers and politicians believe the number is now closer to 50,000.

For Rutledge, a car accident personalized the issue. He and his wife were waiting in their pickup at a traffic light one evening when they were hit from behind by a vehicle traveling about 30 miles an hour. They were not badly hurt, only stunned.

More shocking, though, was what they heard from the police officer who responded to the accident: The other driver, a young Hispanic man, did not speak English, did not have a driver’s license or insurance. The officer suspected the man was an illegal immigrant, Rutledge said, but he did not check his immigration status because such inquiries weren’t allowed in misdemeanor cases.

Before taking the other driver to jail, Rutledge said, the officer told him he should just go home and forget about it.

‘There's not much to be done’

“He said, ‘We do a lot of this kind of thing and we can tell you that there's not much to be done about it,’” Rutledge recalled.

It’s not clear what happened to the suspect after that. Tulsa police were not able to locate an accident report on the incident.

But officers said that the maximum penalty the man could have faced for driving without a license, a misdemeanor, would be 30 days in jail. Driving without insurance is only a ticketable offense.

Rutledge said he was floored by the experience. Not only would his own insurance company have to absorb the cost for repairing his truck, but the other driver was soon going to be back on the streets.

“It was … a feeling of helplessness,” he said. “There's no recourse, there's nothing to do.”

Rutledge began comparing notes with friends and family and found that many had a similar story with a similar outcome. That got him thinking about the bigger picture.

“I think that when someone comes in this country illegally, it starts a tradition or culture,” he said. “You come in illegally; everything you do from that point on is illegal. And so it's almost impossible to get a driver’s license or insurance so you just start breaking one law after another. I think it’s seductive. I think after a while ... you don't pay too much attention to rule of law that this country was established on.”

Making way for newcomers

While Rutledge’s eye-opening experience occurred behind the wheel, the immigration surge has had an even more striking impact on the Tulsa school system. With many of the immigrant workers in their child-bearing years, the population of Hispanic kids in the school is growing 3 percent a year and will constitute 25 percent of the student body by 2020, the district projects.

The city started its first programs to teach non-English speakers just five years ago, and now has 6,000 students in remedial English language classes, said Nilda Reyes, director of equity and diversity for Tulsa schools.

The sole mission of Newcomer International School, which opened in 2004, is to help its students — about 250 at any given time — become proficient in English so they can make a transition to mainstream classes. The school district also is making plans to expand remedial English teaching in higher grades, and is offering Spanish courses to teachers and looking to hire additional bilingual staff.

As in other communities, Tulsa’s medical system has taken a hit, too. Hospitals have scrambled to find enough interpreters to handle the crush of non-English speakers descending on emergency rooms, bringing in children and housekeepers in some cases, said Tulsa World immigration reporter Leigh Bell.

One program run by Saint Francis Health System offers prenatal care to women without medical insurance or access to Medicaid — about 500 at any given time — the vast majority of them illegal immigrants from Mexico. Catholic Charities provides interpreters for the program. The early care helps avert later medical problems that put even more pressure on emergency rooms and other medical facilities.

While these pressures are not unique to Tulsa, the response to them is.

Tough new rules target illegals

Local and state governments here have crafted rules to curb illegal immigration that are arguably the toughest in the nation.

In May, Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry signed into law HB 1804, also known as the Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007. The law, which is scheduled to take effect on Nov. 1, makes it a felony to “knowingly transport, move … conceal, shelter or harbor” an illegal immigrant.

The law, which proclaims that “the State of Oklahoma finds that illegal immigration is causing economic hardship and lawlessness in this state,” requires companies that do contract work for the state to conduct stringent background checks to avoid hiring illegal immigrants. Other companies would open themselves to discrimination suits if they hired illegal workers over legal residents.

It also includes tough language requiring government agencies to ensure they are not providing services such as food stamps to those illegally in the country, though those services are already theoretically denied under federal law.

It is unclear how 1804 will be enforced — whether, for instance, nonprofit groups or individuals assisting illegal aliens could be sanctioned for “sheltering or harboring” them.

In the end, the bill might not pack much punch, according to David Blatt, policy director for Tulsa's Community Action Project, who said many of the provisions restate existing federal statutes or may be pre-empted by federal law.

"I liken it to a fiercely growling dog — one that is sending out a purposeful message that illegal immigrants are not welcome in Oklahoma," said Blatt. "... I think the bill will have minimal bite, but that is not to minimize the impact loud growling has on people."

Meantime, activists in the Hispanic community say they plan to mount a legal challenge to 1804 and the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma also is studying the bill to see if it passes constitutional muster.

Whose job is it?

In Tulsa, the battle has focused on the degree to which local law enforcement should be involved in checking immigration status, normally the province of federal immigration agents.

With the strong backing of conservative U.S. Rep. John Sullivan, a Republican who represents the congressional district that includes Tulsa, the Sheriff’s Department in surrounding Tulsa County is seeking training that would essentially deputize its officers to enforce immigration law. Under section 287 (g) of federal immigration law, the Department of Homeland Security can enter into compacts with state and local law enforcement agencies to create a “force multiplier” for the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) service, especially where federal resources are thin in the interior of the country.

Sullivan, among the Republicans strongly opposed to President Bush’s immigration reform bill as too lenient, also was behind the city’s move to crack down on illegal immigrants.

At his urging, Tulsa’s City Council passed a resolution in May that requires police officers to determine immigration status of “all suspected illegal aliens'' encountered in the course of their regular duties — a significant hardening of the current policy under which only those arrested on felony charges are checked.

The police chief is opposed to the measure, as is Tulsa’s Democratic Mayor Kathy Taylor, who is engaged in a bitter political battle with Sullivan.

Sullivan charges that Tulsa has become a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants under Taylor’s watch because they are usually not reported to the federal immigration officials when they commit minor crimes.

He also argues that by getting police involved in reporting immigration violations, the city will be able to demonstrate the need for an ICE office in Tulsa.

Bill's aim: Create fear in criminals, not roofers

“I want to create fear in rapists, drunk drivers, drug dealers and people who conceal weapons,” Sullivan told MSNBC.com. “It doesn’t mean getting the framer down from a roof where he’s working and arresting him."

Taylor argues that the congressman’s approach will cause panic among Hispanics and open the door for racial profiling. She also maintains that public safety will suffer if the people in the community don’t report crimes because they are fearful of immigration consequences.

Among those who share her concern is Mark Wollmershauser, a Tulsa police officer who has been on the beat for 30 years.

He said he could easily envision a scenario in which the teen daughter of an illegal immigrant is raped, but the family is afraid to report it, leaving the perpetrator on the street.

“They will not call us,” said Wollmershauser. “It will drive a stake through the community in terms of crime prevention.”

Taylor has refused to sign the council’s resolution and instead issued a “policy clarification” stating that police need only ask about immigration status for felony cases or misdemeanors that result in a trip to jail.

Emergency mode

Though it remains to be seen how these laws will be enforced if they survive expected court challenges, they already have stirred visible anxiety in Tulsa’s Hispanic community.

If the laws are enforced, “It will take us back to front-counterism, vigilantism and just overloading our (legal) system,” predicted Sebastian Lantos, a legal immigrant from Argentina who is spokesman for the Coalition of Hispanic Organizations.

Marcela Frescott, program coordinator of Hispanic services at Catholic Charities in Tulsa, said families with both legal and illegal immigrants are worried about getting split up, referring to parents who are in the U.S. illegally but have children who were born here and therefore are legal citizens.

“We had one person who … has four children born here in the U.S., and now they’re afraid to register the kids in school come August because they’re afraid that at that time they might (be) arrested” and deported, she said.

Howard, the radio show host who also founded an anti-illegal immigration group called Outraged Patriots, is not swayed by such pleas.

“These parents… have ultimate responsibility for their kids,” he said. “I have empathy for them, but I cannot give a waiver on the U.S. Constitution to make way for people who cause their own problem by coming illegally."

He advocates an immediate moratorium on immigration, a clamp down on the border and tough rules that hold employers responsible for checking immigration status.

And he wants Washington to send a message to others contemplating sneaking across the border: “I want to see the administration send … a huge corps to deport tens if not hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens.”

If something is not done, he said darkly, “A lot of people believe there is civil war on the horizon.”

For the moment, Howard is celebrating the defeat of the federal immigration reform bill, which he opposed for offering a legal path to millions of people who entered the U.S. illegally. But he views its defeat in the Senate as merely a temporary success.

“You have got to stay vocal,” Howard told his listeners on a recent Monday night broadcast before going to a commercial break. “This issue is not over.”

Damage control

Hispanic leaders in Tulsa agree. They called an emergency meeting in June to work on ways of countering what they see as rising anti-immigrant sentiment and measures that they see as institutionalizing racism.

Among them is an information campaign to inform Hispanics of their rights if they are pulled over. Through a more ambitious effort called “Alto 1804” (“Stop 1804”), they are pooling legal and political capital to challenge the state law.

With emotions running so high, some residents and officials agree with Howard that violence is a real possibility.

Already, when some 1,500 mostly Hispanic demonstrators marched in East Tulsa on May 5 to protest HB 1804, they encountered an unexpected counterdemonstration, including members of Outraged Patriots and the Tulsa Minuteman Project, one of four organizations in Oklahoma listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “nativist extremist" organizations that target immigrants with their anger, not just immigration policy.

Police were watching the march and counterdemonstration and managed to keep the two sides apart. Only epithets and few eggs were hurled.

“We were able to get it worked out,” said Tulsa Police Capt. Steve Odom, who witnessed the confrontation. “But I do worry about the rhetoric because there’s a lot of information on both sides that’s misunderstood.”

Rutledge, the college professor, is among those who fear that the situation will get worse if nothing is done.

“It’s very serious,” he said. “I don’t know if we’re going to have a revolution. I don’t think America’s going to pick up guns and start marching, but it could be something similar to the breakdown of law and order we had during desegregation and back in MLK era.”

Mox Argon's Step-by-Step Communist Hypocrite Smackdown

I really like this one. The alien geniuses over at MoxArgon get some hate mail from a Kool-Aid drinking member of the Gorebot's Chucrh of Glowball Warming. Said piece of hate mail demonstrates perfectly the complete lack of foundation, evidence, realism, or much of anything else inherent in just about everything a communist/hypocrite (excuse the redundancy please) has to say in a feeble attempt to shut down any semblance of real debate. Ad hominem attacks, straw men, outright insults, and even a personal vested financial interest on the writer's part in keeping the global warming Kool-Aid river flowing. The MoxArgon folks' unmitigated destruction and refutation of this frothing moonbat's idiocy is a joy to behold and not to be missed.

I recently came across a little melodrama going on in the ongoing battle over Global Warming (ht-Small Dead Animals). First a fellow named Marlo Lewis (a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute) wrote this article about economics and Global Warming hysteria. The piece isn't particularly vitriolic and makes a lot of salient and reasoned points about economic growth, warming hysteria, and social development.

However, not everyone decided to simply agree or disagree with the article or its premises. One person, Michael T. Eckhart, the President of the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE) decided that the article required some sort of Ivy League style vendetta.

Take a look at this e-mail sent by Eckhart to Lewis:

Marlo –

You are so full of crap.

You have been proven wrong. The entire world has proven you wrong. You are the last guy on Earth to get it. Take this warning from me, Marlo. It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar. If you produce one more editorial against climate change, I will launch a campaign against your professional integrity. I will call you a liar and charlatan to the Harvard community of which you and I are members. I will call you out as a man who has been bought by Corporate America. Go ahead, guy. Take me on.

Mike

Michael T. Eckhart
President
American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE)

Thank you Michael T. Eckhart, you have convinced me that the Church of Global Warming is a complete and total scam.

But that's not what this little post is about. This is about the Leftist Mind and Comrade Eckhart is the perfect example of it.

First he traditionally opens the message with an insult.

You are so full of crap.

Note, he does not present any evidence of the particular kind of crap that Marlo Lewis is full of, because the beauty of name calling is that you don't have to justify it.

Then he makes a broad declaration about Lewis and his work.

You have been proven wrong. The entire world has proven you wrong. You are the last guy on Earth to get it.

Please note that he declares Lewis as wrong, but presents no evidence of how Lewis is wrong. Because the Leftist Mind knows that presenting evidence is an invitation to debate. Debate is the last thing the Leftist wants, because it causes people to ask questions, and questions inevitably lead to the Leftist being proven wrong.

The Leftist will believe anything declared by their leaders as long as it fits their prejudice (otherwise known as the meta-narrative) of Judeo-Christian capitalist democratic culture (AKA The Western Way) being the font of all evil in the world, from terrorism to crappy weather.

Debate leads to people discovering that the Western Way is not a force for evil, but an often fumbling, but usually positive force in the world.

Debate must be crushed.

To crush debate you must use threats.

Take this warning from me, Marlo. It is my intention to destroy your career as a liar.

Gee, whatever happened to agreeing to disagree on an issue. A reasonable person would present facts and evidence to prove their point, but the Leftist isn't reasonable.

They believe that anyone who does not blindly obey their leaders is more than just wrong, they are evil. Now their belief in evil doesn't extend to the sort of people who set off car bombs in crowded markets or blow up schools, they are just misunderstood products of Judeo-Christians.

To the Leftist the only evil that really exists is anyone who doesn't blindly accept the edicts and declarations of the high priests of Leftism and that evil must be destroyed.

And they make threats like this...

If you produce one more editorial against climate change, I will launch a campaign against your professional integrity. I will call you a liar and charlatan to the Harvard community of which you and I are members.

Loosely translated, practice your right to free speech and the Leftists will socially ostracize and destroy you for your crime of disobedience.

And folks wonder why a lot of academics are scared to criticize the Leftists. While the Right is a pretty diverse group with many facets and internal disagreements, the Left has morphed into a monolithic slab of ideology that threatens to crush anyone who asks it a question.

And then they bring out the Left's favourite bogeyman...

I will call you out as a man who has been bought by Corporate America.

Oooh! Corporate America! The Left's all-purpose villain!

The question I would like to ask the Leftists is why is "Corporate America" considered so evil while most Leftist organizations are funded by a small clique of rich hedge fund billionaires who profit, not by producing and marketing goods or services, but by creating and exploiting economic and social chaos from Eastern Europe, to South America, and even the Bank of England.

Do they honestly think that these people have the best interests of the common man at heart?

They have to because these billionaires, like Al Qaida terrorists, tell them that their prejudices are right. And being told that you are right, is more important than actually being right.

Then the Leftist usually wraps up with yet another declaration, usually something along the lines of "Mine's bigger than yours."

Go ahead, guy. Take me on.

You see Eckhart really doesn't want anyone to take him on. He's hoping that his combination of insults, broad declarations, and threats will cow the insolent rebel, namely Marlo Lewis, into quiet submission.

How does one defeat the Leftist?

You will never convince a Leftist that they are wrong. Their prejudices are essential to their existence, and if they have to give them up, they have to develop an identity as an individual, and that's too much work.

The best bet of reasonable people is to educate the people in what Vox Poplar calls the "militant middle" about the importance of debate and discussion, and the ultimately positive influence of the Western Way.

I wonder how many long rambling combinations of insults, threats, and broad, often prejudiced, declarations will clog my pleas box.

That's all for now, keep watching the skies, because we're watching you.
____________________________

UPDATE: Thanks to our lovely and fragrant commenters, namely Commander0 and B.C. I've learned that not only is Michael T. Eckhart a poor excuse for an enviro-bully, he also is reported as having considerable financial interests in maintaining the level of hysteria over global warming. And he accuses Marlo Lewis of being a slave to Corporate America. Hello Kettle, I got Pot on the phone, he wants to call you something.

Bruce and Evan Almighty Movie Review

Last weekend, I saw the movie "Evan Almighty" in the theater. While the critics were harsh on it, I thought it was very good, containing some hard-hitting truths about life and the way God works.

In "Bruce Almighty", Jim Carrey is a reporter whose career isn't turning out the way he'd hoped. Steve Carrell ultimately lands the anchor role he thought was his, and he is fired for his reaction to this news. Despite the love of a good woman (Jennifer Aniston), he is furious with God. He mocks God mercilessly, blames him for his troubles, and says he could do the job much better than God. So, as God has been known to do, He (Morgan Freeman) takes Bruce at his word, goes on vacation, and turns the world over to him. Bruce learns that being God isn't nearly as easy as he thought, that just because someone prays for something doesn't mean it's the right thing for them to have, and that neither true romantic love nor respect and worship toward God can be forced, rushed, or faked. After nearly losing his lover and his life, Bruce finally figures it all out. Eventually, he learns the right lessons and his life, the very good life God always meant for him to have, the most fulfilling life, is given back to him by God. The big lessons here that I think God is trying to teach are: 1.) appreciation for the blessings we have; 2.) an instruction to take a look around to see what we can learn from where we are; 3.) that being God is not nearly as easy as we might sometimes imagine; and 4.) that living focused only on ourselves might be fun for a while, but it doesn't take us anywhere we want to be or where God wants us to be.

In "Evan Almighty", Steve Carrell parlays his anchor job into a seat in Congress. He moves his family to a huge new home, and he thinks he has really arrived. Evan's biggest problem until God shows up is a credibility problem. Between his journalism career and running for Congress, he's broken so many plans with his family that, while they still love him, they don't believe anything he says anymore. In the middle of all this, God shows up and tells him He has a mission for Evan, a crazy mission that no one would want, that no one in the world would believe if he told them about it, and one that would subject him to scorn and ridicule. Evan spends most of the movie trying to run from God's plan for him, but he ultimately goes along with it. Going along with God's plan nearly cost him his family, sent him into temporary financial ruin, made him a laughingstock of everyone who knew and supported him, BUT it ultimately saved his life, restored his family, and exposed massive corruption in Congress. I think my favorite line in the movie is when Evan is talking to God, and he says rather indignantly, "I had these plans!...", and God cuts him off in a fit of hysterical laughter, and says, "Plans?! That's a good one." A close second is when Evan is still trying to run from God, and God says to him, "Son, how long are you going to keep this up?".

I really feel that's how God sees us sometimes. He wants so badly to bless us beyond anything we can imagine...His word even says so. But here we are, trying our own schemes to get what we think we want, following our own plans to fill our needs, and God sits in heaven lovingly shaking His head, waiting for us to turn to Him, to come around, and to reap the joy of everything He wants to do for us. He never promises it will be easy. In fact, much as with Evan and Bruce, getting where God wants us to be will probably be harder than anything we've ever done. Worse still, in the short term, if most of us had any idea just how hard that road would be, we wouldn't begin to try to walk it, even if we could see the blessings God has for us waiting at the end. Some of the things I have experienced in my journey to God, I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy and sometimes wish I could blot them from my memory. That said, I wouldn't trade them for anything, because they're all part of the tapestry of my life that God and I are weaving together. I don't know exactly what the final picture will look like or what all the answers will be...I just know that the One I am following will look back on it at the end and pronounce my life good, and me his servant with whom He is well pleased.

I won't buy a movie unless I can watch it repeatedly and not get tired of it, and I'm buying both of these. Now, shoo, off with you, go see those movies...they're worth it.

Henry Rollins Hates Dating

Henry Rollins has been many things over his career, musician, TV personality, writer, and now, stand up comedian.

My favorite line of this whole exchange goes like this:

Him: What are you reading?

Her: I'm not really much of a reader.

Him: *SCREEEECH!* I'm not much of a dinner buyer either, get the fu*k out of my car!!

I think that joke just speaks for itself...priceless. Watch the whole thing, it's a riot. I know where he's coming from though. Few things felt as much like Chinese water torture or really awful tooth pain than an excruciatingly long date (or relationship) with a stupid woman.

Great Wisdom from Great Men on the 4th

First off, Happy Birthday to America and my utmost love, respect, and prayers to all the troops serving at home and abroad to keep us able to celebrate national holidays like this in the freedom we sometimes take for granted. For an appetizer, courtesy of Powerline, here are some sage words from President Abraham Lincoln, and more from Calvin Coolidge.

Calvin Coolidge

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

For the main course, I recommend this two part essay from the timeless Bill Whittle, called "Trinity" (links here and here). No matter how many times I read this, just like the parting of the T at a Tennessee Volunteer football game, it still gives me goose bumps, and it probably always will.

And as a tasty topping for this Fourth of July feast of wisdom, read this wonderful testimony from an adopted American, Kim DuToit, of how dearly he loves this country. This love is something native born American citizens take for granted, but we should not. The overuse of this phrase by politicians aside, on this Fourth of July and many others to come, may God Bless the United States of America.