LA’s Inbox, a collection
I’ve gotten more e-mail in the last three days than I have the time at the moment to distribute into their appropriate existing entries or into new entries, so I’m posting it all in one big miscellaneous entry. This will be less than satisfactory, but at least everyone’s comments will get posted. And there is a lot of good stuff here. At least some of the comments here will gradually be put in their appropriate enties. Be sure to see my exchange with Gintas on the Old Covenant and the Jews in the entry on the Deicide charge.
A reader writes:
The Washington Times reports that Giuliani supports birthright citizenship.
“Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, found that out Sunday night at a pizza parlor in Boone, when a woman asked him about birthright citizenship, which means nearly anyone born in the United States is automatically a citizen, even if their parents are here illegally. Mr. Giuliani told the woman that it is in the Constitution so he can’t change it.
“That’s not true,” one man piped up, apparently aware of the debate on this issue. Some Republicans in the U.S. House, using recent scholarship, have introduced a bill that would rescind birthright citizenship. They say the U.S. courts have never ruled specifically on whether illegal aliens’ babies are entitled to citizenship, and they want to force the courts to have to make a final ruling.
Still, Mr. Giuliani had the last word, turning to one of the nation’s foremost constitutional lawyers—Theodore B. Olsen, the former U.S. solicitor general who is backing Mr. Giuliani and traveling with him through Iowa this week.
“Yeah, they’re citizens,” Mr. Olson concluded.
Here is the link.
Simon N. writes:
“a freely voting Muslim population will vote for pro-sharia and pro-jihad candidates and against American-backed candidates”
Yes, but my impression is that they’ll also tend to vote against the candidates of *any* foreign power seen to be interfering in their country/region, just as we would. If the Russians or Chinese were meddling in Arab or Muslim politics to the extent the USA is, I don’t doubt they’d be equally unpopular.
Still, with the world as it is, your substantive point is correct. If the USA was not seen as the enemy of the Arab and Muslim world ten years ago, it certainly is now, just as Al Qaeda intended on 9/11. Any candidate backed by the USA loses legitimacy (as William Lind has also pointed out, re backing for Fatah vs Hamas), is seen as a traitor, and bound to fail.
Re Iraq, Lind recommends allowing Sadr to emerge as the one man who might recreate a State in Iraq (so it doesn’t become a platform for 4GW forces), and that the way to help this along is to do nothing to compromise his status as an implacable foe of the USA!
Charles T. writes:
There have been several incidents lately in the past several months involving the use of deadly force by US Border Patrol agents against illegal aliens. Here is an article at the Free Republic concerning a recent shooting in El Paso. Read the whole article. There are short summations of other conflicts along our Southern border with illegal aliens. The article also reports that a BP agent in another state has been charged with second degree murder after shooting an illegal alien in a dangerous situation.
In the interior of our country, innocent Americans continue to be assaulted by illegal aliens. See the article at Fox News. This illegal alien, now a suspect in a triple murder in NJ, had also been previously charged with the rape of a 5 year old girl.
We are in a full scale war against our territory and our citizens. Yet, Bush will not take the proper actions to protect this country domestically. He is absent while on duty. This is maddening. It defies reason. It is traitorous.
Our president has the blood of many innocent Americans on his hands.
N. writes:
From NRO’s Corner:
1. “Feel heat, see light”. Bush administration actually enforcing immigration law?
2. Attrition is starting to work. Central Americans/Mexicans say it is harder to find work. NY Times doesn’t like what’s going on…
Josh writes:,
Re: the Democratic gay event
I think the more correct analysis would be that homosexuals are at the center of the Democratic order. To claim homosexuality as a genetically based disposition is to accept the consequences of such beliefs. It means that homosexuals are genuinely repelled and repulsed by heterosexuality, procreation and hence survival. This is the very essence of the idea that liberalism is a suicide pact and therefore liberalism reflects the political manifestation of the homosexual nature.
Gintas writes:
“Liberalism doesn’t really believe there is anything immutable about humans (human nature as we understand it), they see no constraints.”
Exactly. I thought the prevailing liberal view is that gender is largely a “social construction”, which is why the Swedes, for example, have little boys dress up as girls in school (an article you posted awhile back), presumably in order to break down that prevailing socialization that makes them boys. But then why do liberals all of a sudden argue so strenuously that when it comes to homosexuality, sexuality is purely “nature driven”? By their own world-view, one would think that they would be the biggest advocates for maintaining that homosexuals could be re-socialized away from homosexuality.
(I suppose the converse could also be argued for conservatives. If they believe that sexuality is “nature-driven” and that it is wrong to try to socialize children away from their nature-driven sexual differences, then wouldn’t it make sense for them to be advocates of the idea that sometimes maybe something just goes haywire in nature to produce homosexuality?)
Something I do find amusing is Margaret Carlson’s purported (quoted above) statement: “You and I both had a ‘marriage’ ceremony that made us happy—why not extend the same to these people?”
Having reached adulthood in the late 70’s, and having grown up with the prevailing liberal disparagement of marriage as a sort of prison (as presented by authors like Betty Friedan), I have witnessed the entire modern liberal ethos trashing the sanctity of traditional marriage. But now all of a sudden, we’re to believe that gay people who cannot marry are doomed to a life of unhappiness? And this claim is coming from the same liberal movement that convinced so many heterosexuals that marriage is a prison? I don’t buy it—especially given the source.
On the other hand, (and again paradoxically), I could better buy that argument coming from conservatives, who appear to believe more in nature-driven sex differences (see my point above about possible genetic anomalies there) combined with a more conservative reverence for traditional marital commitment (in terms of producing ultimate happiness). So I could better buy the argument about the need for homosexual marriage for the goal of happiness, coming from conservatives, than I could buy the same argument coming from modern liberals. But of course traditional morality doesn’t allow conservatives to make that argument.
M. Jose writes:
What do you think about Tancredo’s recent appearance before the NAACP?
Do you see it as pandering (as this guy does) or as Tancredo actually trying to attract blacks to the GOP through finding actual common ground rather than through compromising? (And the larger issue, do you think it is a good thing for a conservative to try to appeal to racial minorities through pointing out that there self-interest may be served by his policies)?
(I tend toward viewing Tancredo’s actions in a positive light).
Alan Roebuck writes:
Speaking of “evangelicals contra culture,” I just finished listening to archived audio of a conservative Lutheran radio show featuring an interview with prominent (theologically) conservative theologian John Warwick Montgomery. When he articulated his view of whether America is a Christian nation, I realized that I had heard it many times before: this view has become very common among evangelicals. (To hear it, go to this link and scroll down to the July 3 show. The key quote is around the 10:45 mark.)
The view is as follows: It is a good thing that our government is strictly neutral on the question of supporting religion. Government’s proper role is to provide a “strictly neutral playing field” within which the various religions can compete in the open marketplace of ideas for the allegiance of the population. This nonestablishment of a state religion actually gives Christianity the advantage, because Christianity can make a better case than any other religion that one ought to believe it, and because the Holy Spirit works to make people believers. Nonestablishment has actually been our strength, as compared with Europe, in which every nation had an official state church, which meant that people were forced to be Christians, rather than allowed to choose it freely.
Although this view has some merit, it becomes destructive of our nation if it is taken as the most fundamental truth about the role of religion in public affairs. Combine this view with the unrestricted immigration that most evangelicals do not oppose, and with the pietistic otherworldliness that pervades evangelicalism (and which is most pronounced when it comes to political involvement) and you have a recipe for many evangelicals to simply refuse to protect our nation. But if our cultural integrity is under attack, we have to defend it, and not just say laissez faire.
LA replies:
I lost interest in the Christian Coalition in the mid-90s when I heard Pat Robertson and Ralph Reed talk this “level-playing field” stuff. I thought: if these guys don’t believe in America as a Christian nation, if they are just liberals, who needs them?
Hannon writes:
Subject: Democratic Candidates- Homosexuality forum
Maybe I am not taking in all of this properly, but something doesn’t square here.
You write
“They are saying, not just that man’s nature is created by God, they are saying that the homosexual nature is created by God, and therefore the things that are necessary for the fulfillment of this homosexual nature are God-given rights, and that government is instituted among men to secure those rights.”
How is it that “homosexual nature” is something apart from Man’s nature? Where is there any indication that Man’s nature does not imply and include everyone’s nature, orientation or disposition? Taking the import of just the tiny scrap you have written here, are you saying that some folks believe they are not covered sufficiently by the broad language of the Constitution simply because of their sexual orientation? How is sexual orientation outside the normalized realm of “government instituted among men to secure [their] rights”?
Obviously this could be extended to make special accommodations for the God-given “nature” of any group with any non-orthodox trait that derives from biological causes, whether of a sexual nature or not. A healthy society cannot withstand this sort of special interest fragmentation.
LA replies:
That’s exactly what I meant. The distinctively homosexual nature has its god given qualities, its distinct requirements, and therefore its rights. But this can’t be surprise, can it? We’ve been dealing with the issue of “special rights” for minorities for decades. But now they seem to be taking it deeper.
David Blue writes:
A few minutes ago, I was channel surfing and Larry King’s show has a group of LBGT’s on this very minute until 10pm ET tonight. One of them is a man who has switched gender in order to fulfill his ambition, which is to become a Victoria’s Secret model. I hurriedly switched channels.
King was absolutely gushing. From now on, the LBGT agenda is going to have a BIG push on TV.
KPA writes:
300 is a very well-made film. I think that is really not surprising, since the director chose an apt topic. The topic (intent) always guides the film, or story, or art, I find.
There are many references to the Masters in the film, and some (anachronistically?) refer to Christian themes. Here are some of my observations.
There is the reference to Goya’s “The Third of May” when the brave Spaniard stands with his arms outstretched before the shooting squad. Leonidas does this before the arrows of the Persians—and we see this from behind.
There is the reference to St. Sebatian’s arrow-pierced body upon seeing Leonidas fallen down after the barrage of the Persians’ assault.
There are the charging horses of Delacroix, which the Persians (Arabs in Delacroix’s paintings) ride.
Others have mentioned the Greek vases and their depictions of soldiers, This makes more sense than what appear to be martial arts (although the director did use martial artists to help choreograph his piece).
And there is the tradition of working with fully completed cartoons (mock drawings) before the final painting is attempted. This is pretty much what the director Zach Snyder did, quite faithfully using the already published Frank Miller’s cartoon book (called a graphic novel these days) ) by the same name.
There is of course the ultimate image of all, the golden calf (or calves in this case) which adorn Xerxes’ throne.
There are many more elements, including some beautiful sea imagery, which I think could have come from Turner, and more subtle Christian imagery.
Snyder did say he spent a long time looking at paintings.
The other phenomenal thing about the movie of course is the computerized imagery, which looks half real rather than super real as would straight photography. I think paintings do this. Also, this Computer Graphics is an evolution of traditional art, at its most sublime, doing the same art but in modern times. KPA continues:
I should also add that there is none of that shaky, close-up camera in the faces of the actors that you have previously mentioned. Even the fight scenes (with the blood deliberately made to look fake and flat—2D—to avoid too much “realism”) are from a distance. There are many beautiful tableau-like scenes.
But, having recently watched The Bourne Ultimatum, I can understand where this shaky, in-your-face camera technique can come in handy. With psychological thrillers of characters who are trying to “find out who they are”. A very modern theme, I would say.
And Sparta is no such indulgently introspective film. I don’t even think the people then thought in those terms.
Gintas writes:
Subject: Clearing up a false statement
UBM knows what he’s doing. He has your friend suspecting, and you can bet that lots of other people are already convinced. And he has his toadies trolling the net. I think Mary Jackson has unleashed her lickspittles as well.
Van Wijk writes:
Notice that Mills has replied to your latest post at the NER thread. He seems to be ignoring the questions of several other posters in order to zero in on you. I’ve been meditating on the laundry list of “extremist political ideas” that Mills attributes to you. I’d like to examine each briefly.
1) “banning the Muslim religion” Just yesterday I heard a radio listener call into a show and passionately exclaim that all religions are not made equal, and that the Moslem religion can and should be banned for being a radical political system as well as a religion. I was not hearing these sorts of calls nor reading these sorts of letters to the editor five years ago. People are waking up. It’s a brave new world.
2) “advocating ‘mass removals’ of Mexicans (including legal resident aliens) from America” This one’s almost too easy. Most of these are illegals, and deporting illegals should be a no-brainer by now. As far as legal residents go, the fact is that the vast majority of Americans do not want their hometowns to look like Juarez. Ask a “law and order but definitely not race or culture” conservative what his feelings would be in the following hypothetical situation (I call this my Truth Detector). Let’s say that all illegals have magically gone back to their place of origin. Once they are all out of America, the Congress eliminates all immigration restriction, making every immigrant a legal immigrant. Do we let the same people back into the country? Yes or no?
Legal residents are only here because of treasonous immigration acts passed in the Senate. They do not belong here.
3) “even pondering the possible need for a ‘peaceful separation between the races.’” Speaking for myself, I have no problem with the idea of living only around whites. Minorities, on the other hand, are so vehemently opposed to segregation because they know, down in a very dark place within themselves that recognizes the truth from empirical evidence, that Western whites create prosperity wherever they go. They look to the countries of Africa and Latin America and see countries where they would certainly not want to live. Thus their hatred of us is multiplied by the shame they feel for needing us. Whites, on the other hand, were getting along great for centuries without minorities.
A reader writes:
Undercover Black Man is deceitful and dishonorable, and it will come back to him one day.
Indian living in the West writes:
Re: “a new solution for Iraq”
There is something utterly funny and ridiculous about the whole episode. One can only despair that our age does not have a writer with the wit of a Jonathan Swift to do justice to the truly absurd spectacle that we are forced to witness every day. Liberalism as parody would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic.
David B. writes:
You ask whether anyone has ever won the presidency by boasting about what he’s done in the past. I thought immediately of someone who didn’t win, but made his past the centerpiece of his presidential run. That would be John Kerry. Kerry made his Vietnam experience front and center. Much of 2004 was spent comparing his and GWB’s military records. The Swift Boat Vets made ads and had a website attacking Kerry’s Vietnam war record and post-war protests. I believe that Kerry made a big mistake playing up Vietnam. Most people would prefer to FORGET Vietnam than have to remember it all the time. To me, Giuliani is doing what Kerry did. He says, “I’m strong on the ‘War On Terror’ because of what I did and experienced on 9-11.” Also, Giuliani seems to think of himself as a “star.” If so-called “conservatives” are going to support him, they are even more the “Stupid Party” than was thought.
Alan Wall writes:
Regarding the Democrats’ Gay Celebration, it’s quite a contrast with 1972, when George McGovern (at that time considered a far-leftist) refused a contribution from a “gay rights” organization. I bet today not even George Bush would do that!
David B. writes:
Last night Geraldo Rivera had a segment on the Newark murders. Ann Coulter and Jeanne Pirro both said that illegal aliens with criminal records should be deported, though Coulter was too jocular, as usual. Rivera kept repeating over and over that illegal aliens have low crime rates. “Since 1901,” Rivera said, illegal immigrants have a lower rate of criminal behavior than those born in the United States.” He didn’t say where that statistic comes from.
Mark P. writes:
You wrote: “I keep remembering my interview last year by Alan Colmes, who shocked me when he insisted illegal aliens were no more criminal than legal aliens, and, moreover (as I recall), that it was prejudicial to suggest otherwise.”
It’s really amazing the Colmes would say this. Even if illegal aliens do commit crimes at the same rate as legal ones, they are still adding to the total quantity of crime that would otherwise not exist but for their presence in the US.
Ben W. writes:
One of the assumptions of Bush’s push for democracy in Iraq is that it is a system sustainable over a long period of time. And furthermore that it will serve as a basis for democratization of other middle eastern countries and regimes (outspread). This second assertion depends on the first one.
But given the fragmentation of the Iraq’s parliament, the balkanization of the country into tribal sects, the lack of democratic tradition and history, what indication is there that democracy can survive in the long term? Odds are that in the next twenty years, forces both overt and hidden will continue to battle the state and government structure in Iraq. Under such continuous pressure and battering, can democracy survive over the long haul in Iraq?
And since secular democracy is not a historically or psychologically “innate” attribute of that region, there is the real possibility of reversion to prior modes of government and law—structures more compatible with Islamic culture and law. Just as first and second generation Muslims revert to Islam and sharia in western lands.
Thus there may be lulls in which democracy ostensibly survives in Iraq until the next wave of Islamic reversion.
LA replies:
Precisely.
Mark Jaws writes:
You make an excellent point concerning how large segments of our society laud anti-Christian bigotry while ostracizing those courageous few who dare question the ability of blacks to achieve—no, it is worse than that…to maintain—a highly developed society. I understand the very tight rope upon which you are treading. On one hand there is your crusade (which I share) to air the dirty laundry of our PC society. Yet there is that almost universal desire to be accepted by one’s peers, such as Horowitz. I have read a few of his books and while I have enjoyed them, he only takes me to the other team’s 15 yard line. You, however, push the ball over the goal line.
I am sure you know that Horowitz has mulatto grandchildren and cannot accept the unpleasant truth about the sub-Saharan population group.
Keep on plugging away. Ours is a story that must be told.
Ben W. writes:
I previously sent you an email looking at how Darwinist language betrays itself (two words—Dawkins’ “blind watchmaker”).
Here’s another example. Dawkins arguing against intelligent design and teleology in nature writes, “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”
Taking a close look at this statement, one notes that things have the appearance of having been designed. Isn’t science a study of things themselves and not a metaphysical consideration of things? If these things give the appearance of design, shouldn’t science accept that these things are telling us about themselves (as designed)? Why doubt this appearance of design that emanates from the things themselves?
How could science in fact be science if it doubts the appearance of design and function that the things themselves are telling science? When a science doubts what the things say about themselves, then it is becoming metaphysical (a going beyond the thing itself or its appearance).
Now Dawkins may have a serious problem on his hands. If things give off an appearance of being designed when they are not, then these things are being duplicitous (lying about themselves). Nature than deludes the thinker, the investigator, the researcher. Science then does not have a hope in hell of studying nature rationally because nature is presenting false and misleading surfaces. It lies (poor Al Gore).
I think a rigorous examination of Darwinist language would destroy its credibility.
LA replies:
Dawkins: “Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.”
I laughed out loud when I read this. Fantastic. He’s admitting his whole schtick is to deny what’s evidently true. And he despises as subhumans everyone who accepts that appearance as indicating something true!!!
I’ve been saying for years that Darwinists are like the Wizard of Oz, all puffed up and trying to intimidate everyone while in fact there’s nothing there. This quote shows it further. Coulter’s chapters on evolution were the ultimate in this point of view; mercilessly saying about Darwinism: THERE’S NOTHING THERE.
Ben W. writes:
Moses also had a speech problem (Exodus 4:10-16),
4:10 And Moses said unto the LORD, O my LORD, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant: but I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue. 4:11 And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man’s mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD? 4:12 Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say. 4:13 And he said, O my LORD, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send. 4:14 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses, and he said, Is not Aaron the Levite thy brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, behold, he cometh forth to meet thee: and when he seeth thee, he will be glad in his heart. 4:15 And thou shalt speak unto him, and put words in his mouth: and I will be with thy mouth, and with his mouth, and will teach you what ye shall do. 4:16 And he shall be thy spokesman unto the people: and he shall be, even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth, and thou shalt be to him instead of God. *&*
Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 12, 2007 11:24 PM | Send