I.  Sunday Reflection

From the works of Nicholas Cabasilas (died in the late 14th century):

When the sunlight enters a house, the lamp no longer attracts the sight of the onlookers, but the brightness of the sunlight overcomes and dims it.  Similarly, when in this life the brightness of the life to come enters through the Mysteries and dwells in our souls, it overcomes the life which is in the flesh and the beauty of this world and conceals their brightness.  This is the life which is in the Spirit, which overcomes every desire of the flesh in accordance with Paul's word, "walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh."

Our modern age provides powerful and nearly incessant reminders of the primacy of our earthly lives and the presumed importance, if not permanence of our material possessions.  There are, of course, compelling reasons for such mundanities as our phones, computers, motor vehicles, and airplanes.  As always, it's their context and our values that either restrict or enable the sway they have over our lives. 

Using a graphic but eloquent metaphor, Cabasilas reminds us not only that the ephemera of this world can never truly satisfy us, but that the life to come offers us a persuasive counter-balance to these earthly--read human--desires, which can help light the way as we stumble along on our moral journey that, we pray, will lead to eternal life.

II.  Syria Wants to Talk?

With its goal of the return of the Golan Heights firmly in view, Syria, one of Hezbollah's main backers, has signaled that it would engage in direct talks with the U.S. 

A plausible argument in favor of such talks was made in Friday's Wall Street Journal by Leslie H. Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.  He outlines his premise thusly:

Mr. Bush needs to use the present crisis to justify new and wide-ranging talks with Syria and Iran, and, if necessary, indirectly with Hamas and Hezbollah.  These rank at the top of the world's nastiest and most untrustworthy negotiating partners, but they also happen to be the ones causing the most trouble--and are, therefore, the ones we have to deal with.

Mr. Gelb also sees this as an opportunity to showcase Western values and to rehabilitate America's tarnished reputation.  'Soft power,' which is the preferred starting point in dealing with problems on the international stage, is only effective when there is a credible chance that one's opponents are willing to compromise.  Of course, if the negotiations were framed in stern and unforgiving language with a clear indication of the adverse impacts for intransigence, they might bear fruit. 

But witness our abject failure with North Korea which should have been predictable because of their renown for bargaining in poor faith.  Since lying and cheating are the very hallmarks of Arab diplomacy what Mr. Gelb thinks we might gain by negotiations with them remains a mystery. 

III.  Lebanon's Charge

Using Sir Winston Churchill's decision in 1940 to sink the French fleet anchored in ports off the coast of North Africa, Wall Street Journal letter writer Elliott Hinkes, M.D. (July 28), asserts that Lebanon's charge is clear:

War is hell.  But today's terrorists must be shown a similar and untempered determination and ferocity by Israel and by what remains of the West.  The Lebanese government must be forcefully reminded of the distinction between cowardice and complicity, and be reminded also of an earlier France which at least had her Resistance.  Thus instructed, perhaps she may be willing to (gasp!) fight for her freedom.

The evidence for the West's nascent timorousness in the face of unalloyed evil is overwhelming.  From its dilatory and effete approach to the genocide in Rwanda to its antiseptic intervention in the Balkans and now its arms-length engagement with the lethality gathering in the Middle East, its willingness to tolerate evil and rogue regimes is astounding.

Perhaps more damning is the fact that history is replete with examples of the efficacy of timely intervention against such barbarism, and, critically, the horrible outcomes when cowardice or indifference reigns. 

We can only hope that President Bush's stated desire for a Middle East that is fundamentally realigned such that the belligerents are defanged and democratic values nurtured, becomes accepted by all nations that profess to be champions of freedom and the rule of law.

IV.  Democrats on Bolton

Always reliable defenders of using agreements and endless talk when dealing with intractable, despotic regimes, and forever incapable of offering viable alternatives, many Democrats this week expressed their disapproval of John Bolton, President Bush's nomination for U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

In a previous post ("John Bolton & American Values") we argued, with persuasive evidence from an editorial  by The Heritage Foundation, that Mr. Bolton has been a staunch defender of American values and the rule of law.  That the results in his diplomatic efforts with tyrannical nations have been less than stellar is more a reflection of the fact that his is the lone voice in the presumably civilized world than of the Democrats' allegations that his approach is flawed. 

But that doesn't prevent Democrats from charging that Mr. Bolton is "paying lip service to diplomacy while alienating U.S. allies and reinforcing tensions with other nations" (as reported by McClatchy Newspapers).  If Mr. Bolton is guilty of anything it's of having the temerity to cut through the U.N.'s rhetorical miasma that is just a front for inaction and a blanket apologia for barbaric behavior by renegade regimes. 

These Democrats would have been very fond of the Vichy government that cozied up to the Nazis during WWII, for they too were reticent to confront evil and preferred interminable chatter to action.  With so much more at stake--cf., a nuclear Korean peninsula, Iranian uranium enrichment, etc.--one might think the Democrats would favor a strong diplomat who forcefully championed American values.

V.  Iranian Sanctions

Speaking of which, the five permanent member of the U.N. Security Council reached agreement on a remarkably sanitized resolution that "requested" that Iran cease its uranium enrichment activities.  Of course, the consequences for non-compliance would not be sanctions, but merely the threat of sanctions.  We can thank China and Russia for that. 

Iran has until August 31st to respond, but the regime has already telegraphed its absolute rejection of the resolution, which should surprise no one.  Mr. Bolton, one of the few--only?--voices for principle, stated:

It would be our intention to move forcefully to get those sanctions adopted.

It's that kind of searing rhetoric that is alienating our presumed allies that must be irritating our Democratic brethren.

VI.  Judicial Update

Two important judicial decisions this week provided meaningful encouragement in the otherwise checkered performance of our courts. 

Gay Marriage.

First was the Washington Supreme Court, which upheld the state's ban on gay marriage. 

In a 5-4 decision, the court wrote that lawmakers have the power to restrict marriage to a man and a woman, and it left intact the state's 1998 Defense of Marriage Act. 

Writing for the controlling opinion, Justice Barbara Madsen, noted that the ban

...is constitutional because the Legislature was entitled to believe that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples furthers procreation, essential to survival.

Earlier this month, New York's high court upheld a state law against same-sex marriage.  In other recent rulings, courts reinstated voter-approved bans, including Nebraska and Georgia.

These developments reflect two important judicial facts:  first, when legislation is meticulously crafted state high courts are wont to respect it, which constitutes implicit support for our federalist system; and, second, voter-sanctioned bans have a special judicial resiliency in convincing justices of the unique legal standing they enjoy.

Eminent Domain.

The Ohio Supreme Court ruled unanimously that economic development isn't a sufficient reason under the state constitution to justify taking citizens' homes, which effectively stops a $125 million business expansion project in Cincinnati.

This was a critical case as it was the first to reach a state's Supreme Court since the U.S. Supreme Court's Kelo decision regarding a case in New London Connecticut that cited purely economic reasons as a justification.  There are now 28 states that have taken legislative steps to protect property owners which, in conjunction with this decision, will begin to undermine the high court's egregious abridgement of property rights.

VII.  Lamm vs. Salazar

Former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm's new book about racial politics caused quite a local stir.  Mr. Lamm argues that racism and discrimination have been blamed for poor academic achievement among Hispanics and blacks, but that other minorities have treated discrimination as a hurdle rather than a barrier.

In a speech in Vail, Colorado on the 24th, Mr. Lamm stated:

I'm willing to say that there is racism and discrimination, but that is not an excuse for minority underachievement.  Blacks and Hispanics do half as much work as Asian students, and they get half as much grades.  They have to stop telling people they are not succeeding because they are victims.

Colorado Senator Ken Salazar responded:

I found the comments very unfortunate.  I think they are divisive, and they don't create a way for us to unite our country.  The comments made by former Governor Lamm about African Americans and Hispanics are part of a legacy of hate and division. 

Mr. Salazer also launched the predictable pre-emptive strike invoking the left's favorite catchword, "diversity," as a goal and a value that we should all hold dear.  Mr. Lamm countered that he does but that he is genuinely concerned about disparate graduation rates.  He completed his rebuttal by succinctly observing, "It's not genetics.  It's cultural values."

One of modern liberalism's founding principles is that traditional values were so patriarchal and onerous, so oppressive that they must be fundamentally translated into an egalitarian code that sees every aspect of American life through a prism that embraces diversity even if it means sacrificing performance.

Indeed, we have unwittingly crafted a disparate set of cultural values, one that forgives indolence and failure because it presupposes certain people are incapable of success and another that has established clear expectations that have demonstrated success, regardless of whether they are adopted by Asians or Blacks. 

Mr. Salazer's racial policy is an anachronistic example of those who demand that our standards be handicapped to accommodate presumed ethnic problems in aptitude, while Mr. Lamm believes one size fits all.

VIII.  Saddam Wants to be Shot

Saying he would prefer to be shot like a military officer rather than hang like a "common criminal," Saddam made his wishes clear should his trial result in a conviction. 

Because Iraq has made such important strides to adopt our Western, democratic form of judicial justice, the temptation for many of its citizens to revert to a Saddam-like form of justice would prevent the kind of retribution that many feel is warranted.

Indeed, if Iraqi citizens had their way it's a safe assumption that the options for a death sentence would be far broader that the two noted above. 

There were many such infamous traditions in England under the reign of Henry VIII, from simple beheading to the savagery of being drawn-and-quartered.  After execution, the body, or what remained of it, was often put in a gibbeting cage, which was an iron framework that was hung in a town square as a display to would-be criminals. 

Fortunately, unlike our Muslim extremist enemies, for whom such barbarism is commonplace, the West had advanced to the point that those convicted of heinous crimes and sentenced to death are challenging the most humane form of execution--lethal injection--as "cruel and inhumane." 

It's an irony doubtlessly lost on the likes of Saddam that he has been and will continue to be granted the kind of civil treatment that he so ruthlessly and remorselessly denied his innumerable victims.

The historical confusion and outright distortion of our nation's inextricable bond between God and our laws, not to mention civic fabric, compliments of liberalism, is a damning reflection of their misguided goal of secularizing America.

Michael Medved's editorial on the subject goes far to bring needed perspective and context to the historical record which disabuses the revisionist historians intent on "re-educating" the naive among us.  It's important that we delve deeper and therefore beyond the symptoms of the disease that renders plausible the notion that separating church and state is not only what the Founders intended but would afford us a dramatically improved quality of life.

What began as a fundamental realignment of the philosophical underpinnings of Western thought, in everything from history to art, has ended with the post-modernist signature in evidence in virtually every aspect of our lives.  We can trace this to the liberalism that took root in the 1960s and which has had a stranglehold on the baby boomer generation every since.  It's newly engineered civic and cultural policy stipulated a rigid denial of absolutes and a nascent agnosticism which bloomed into a resilient antagonism against every form of authority, but in particular, those with a paternalistic imprimatur.

Since Western religion stipulates just such a structure and because it makes stern demands of us, morally and civically, it is anathema to the liberal's secular instinct.  Inherent in that disdain is the left's incapacity to judge, to make distinctions, to, in any discernible manner, intimate that another's beliefs are less worthy.

With that caveat we step into the argument that insists that not only should God be proscribed from the public square, we would enjoy a more advanced or, to use the left's favorite catchword, "evolved" quality of life. 

Ironically, implicit in that notion is the very kind of intellectual monopoly that we have historically ascribed to God.  Worship of a deity in private or in churches is fine but by excising it from our public conversations, our institutions and our workplaces, we would express the very quintessence of man perfected. 

Beyond that, we would enjoy a level playing field in that no one's feelings would be bruised--recall that for the left, hurt feelings are a kind of cultural mortal sin--and our civic and government institutions would be free to render decisions and make laws without the dark, onerous, and patriarchal influence of archaic notions of God.

There is so much ignorance and confusion in these arguments that it's difficult to know where to begin.  But one starting point is the question of moral authority, which is not merely implicit in our laws, it's verifiably codified in them.  That authority was not derived from thin rhetorical air, it was, indeed, construed directly from our Judeo-Christian heritage which is so evident in every aspect of our history as to be impossible to avoid or overlook.

The left is fond of re-creating moral codes that they allege are equally viable and refined, but which ultimately fall back on the ethically prosaic notion of the Golden Rule.  Beyond their fundamental misapplication of that rule in the case of abortion, it is of little utility when we're confronted with decisions that move beyond simple notions of moral utilitarianism.

But since their view that God is but a societal convention used by the narrow-minded to control the masses, any morality derived from it is at best suspect if not an outright and unacceptable exploitation of the common man.

Although we can't expect liberals--who are so thoroughly steeped in their inbred denial of traditional morality--to understand the inestimable value of law informed by God, we can clarify that our Founding Fathers were, in fact, guided by the hand of God and that our laws are the explicit and demonstrable result of their considerable efforts.

In that regard, and because their arguments for an improved quality of civic life--apropos of certain northern European nations where God is but a quaint historical artifact--fail to resonate with any but the intellectually effete, we must agree to adamantly disagree with them. 

What we're ultimately left with when we gaze at their secularized vision for America is nothing more than what W.B. Yeats said the atheists had created:

Monuments to their own magnificence.

The reservoir of white guilt concerning the history of racial injustices is commensurate with many prominent blacks' belief that the political statute of limitations for reparations is virtually infinite.  The latest exhibit in this case is Clarence Page's editorial which uses President Bush's recent NAACP speech as a rhetorical cudgel, arguing that the reason he decided to speak at the conference was that

He hopes everyone will forget how quickly he lost interest in fighting poverty after delivering back-to-back speeches on the subject last September after Hurricane Katrina.

While everyone ought to be concerned about poverty the remedies are quite varied and depend upon one's political perspective.  For fifty years the left believed that providing money and benefits without any accountability was the policy of choice.  Since 1965, the so-called Great Society programs expended approximately $6.6 trillion on social entitlements and the results were, to state it generously, mixed.  The inter-generational transfer of poverty rose, single parenthood sky rocketed as did crime, drugs, etc. 

Then, in 1996 President Clinton was dragged kicking and screaming to the table and signed a sweeping welfare reform bill.  Arch liberals cried that millions would be thrown into poverty, children would starve, and a social disaster would be unleashed.  Of course, not only did none of that happen, a record number of poor and near-poor began working, the rate of those becoming single parents dropped, crime rates declined as well.  In short, the most effective remedy for poverty is work.

Enter Mr. Page for whom one successful program is simply never enough:

The conditions of undereducated and disconnected young black males have worsened by every measure in recent university studies published by the Urban Institute, despite the past decade's economic boom.

Sweeping generalizations about ethnic or racial groups are the liberals' stock and trade.  To perform a detailed study of specific decisions that may have increased or inhibited their ability to advance economically is a far more challenging charge, one that the likes of Page avoids because the outcome would probably be far less politically volatile.

Indeed, we might begin with the question of whose job it is for any of us to feel "connected"?  Second, when does society's obligation to any ethnic or racial group end and when does that group's begin?  Third, there are three simple things that young people of all ethnic backgrounds should do and that will almost guarantee their timely entrance into the middle class:  1) Finish high school; 2) Don't have children out-of-wedlock; 3) Wait until you are married and financially stable to have a family.

That message, which is far more mundane than the social-psychological palaver emanating from Mr. Page has a simplicity to it that not only makes sense, it works.  But that recommendation effectively removes the race card from his hand and exacts an unwanted element of personal responsibility for the young black which is also deemed unreasonable. 

Remember that according to Page's atavistic racial politics, blacks are de facto disadvantaged and so we can't have the same expectations of them that we do for whites--it's what President Bush called "the soft bigotry of low expectations."

Only when we move beyond viewing one another as members of a racial group and stop ascribing values based on ethnic groups will we have made meaningful progress in the war on poverty.  Mr. Page's misplaced concern leads him to demand more federal programs and taxpayer largess.  The proper program is two-parent families that produce well-balanced children who are more likely to stay in school and postpone procreating until they are financially able and sufficiently mature.

It's not racial it's just values.

I.  Politics & the Israeli 'Conundrum'

Fulfilling his role as the international apologist for aggressors and commenting on the unraveling situation in the Middle East, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, asserted:

Israel's disportionate use of force and collective punishment of the Lebanese people must stop.

With his characteristically caustic response, American U.N. Ambassador John Bolton observed:

No one's explained how you conduct a cease-fire with a group of terrorists.  It is not appropriate to talk about a cease-fire as if that is the Alpha and Omega of the situation.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of dealing with Middle East tensions and the inevitable flare-ups vis a vis Israel, is that historical political realities and a nascent global anti-Semitism require us to use a unique vocabulary and peculiar set of rules that create, a priori, special requirements and obligations for Israel. 

In that regard, the U.S. is similarly admonished to act as a proxy for the U.N. and Europe and counsel restraint, not only because they erroneously believe that Israel is the source of the conflict, but because of the adverse downstream complications.  To wit, a Washington Post article quoted "a European official" as saying:

The one thing that is guaranteed to send the Arab world and the Persian world over the edge is for the U.S. to be seen ultimately to be doing what they always believed--to be fully in cahoots with Israel.  The danger of allowing it to continue is that the United States is more and more despised.  It's not like the U.S. had a good reputation within the region to start with.

Here again we're pre-emptively obliged to eschew the traditional rules of defense of a sovereign nation.  Indeed, the issue of Israel's legitimate right of self-defense and of the U.S. to align itself with an ally is conveniently overlooked.  Rather, the proverbial Arab street--a cabal of largely stone-age totalitarian regimes--is provided disproportionate weight and the EU's concern is whether U.S. support will anger them. 

In a rich irony, the official quoted above is suddenly concerned about the U.S.'s reputation in the region.  It never seems to dawn on these mandarin bureaucrats that when a nation such as the U.S. champions democratic principles in a region for whom such Western civic conventions are wholly foreign, we might expect it to be the target of deep hatreds. 

But, what, ultimately are our choices when the only truly democratic nation in the area is under incessant rocket attack by terrorist organizations?  The only time such critics are silent is when Israel suffers losses, and, as such, their true goal, albeit one only expressed in small, closed-door meetings, is for Israel to disappear altogether.  To their undying frustration, the U.S. will never let that happen.

II.  Alan Dershowitz & the Laws of War

That leads us to an argument for a new paradigm of military engagement.  In an enlightened editorial in last Wednesday's Wall Street Journal, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz made the case that as terrorism becomes the most common variety of warfare facing the world, we must redefine both the laws of war and the "rules of morality." 

A confounding variable in the Hezbollah's war against Israel is their despicable tactic of melding in with civilians while they launch missiles into civilian Israeli targets.  As Dershowitz states:

Terrorists must be held legally and morally responsible for the deaths of the civilians, even if the direct physical cause was an Israeli rocket aimed at those targeting Israeli citizens.

Inveterate critics of the Bush Administration's handling of the war against Islamic terrorism will blanch at this suggestion, but when our enemy makes no distinction between legitimate military and innocent civilian targets and when they bastardize the rules governing combat by conducting operations from civilian enclaves, we have no other alternative. 

As Mr. Dershowitz noted:

A democracy is entitled to prefer the lives of its own innocents over the lives of the civilians of an aggressor, especially if the latter group contains many who are complicit in terrorism.

III.  Pelosi Will End Earmarks?

Borrowing against unearned political capital, House Minority Rep. Nancy Pelosi stated that she would "end earmarks" if she becomes Speaker next year.  Would-be Speaker Pelosi has far to go to be given credit for ending earmarks because since June 14th Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), a staunch fiscal conservative, has introduced 14 anti-earmark amendments--Pelosi has voted against every one.

In point of fact, no more than 16 Democrats have voted in favor of any of the Flake amendments; that translates into 97% of Democrats who have voted against eliminating them.

These stealth tax expenditures are a shameful back door approach worthy of the cowards in both parties that exploit them as an alternative to the hard work of passing legislation the old fashioned way--in the light of common day with votes, yea or nay.

To his credit, Rep. Flake is a rare example of an unknown who came to Washington and not only remained untainted by the power mongers and spendthrifts so much in evidence there these days, but is someone who has fought hard for true fiscal conservatism. 

His vision of government is based on a twofold, abiding understanding of the nature of Republican values:  First is that every dollar spent came from a taxpayer's labor, and, second, the role of government should be narrowly construed and as free of regulation, special interest influence, and tax favoritism as possible.

In this age of autonomic spending, both parties should heed his advice and reign in spending.  They should begin with the fiscally embarrassing phenomenon known as earmarks.

IV.  Intellectual Balance at the University of Wisconsin

Colorado has its Ward Churchill and now Wisconsin has Kevin Barrett, its own version of an educational lunatic.  Mr. Barrett has taught that the 9/11 attacks were the result of a government conspiracy to start a war in the Middle East. 

UW-Madison Provost Pat Farrell initiated a review of the situation but concluded that:

I still have every expectation this will be a very positive educational experience for our students.  Some are up upset about Mr. Barrett's viewpoints on 9/11 and don't want to pay much attention to what makes for a quality educational experience.

Sixty-one state lawmakers sent a letter to the university strongly urging that Mr. Barrett be fired and condemning his assertions, but not unlike the Churchill tempest in Colorado the defenders of selective intellectual freedoms on campus will whine about the alleged abridgement of their First Amendment rights, not to mention the proverbially chilling effect it will have on a free exchange of ideas.

It is curious indeed and highly illustrative when the left invokes intellectual freedom only when it's in defense of ultra-leftist, extremist ideas.  If you've never heard them champion the need to bring a modicum of balance to the distorted reporting on stem cell research, the Second Amendment, or the rich history of pre-emptive wars, it's because there is scant evidence it's ever happened.

A corollary argument against Mr. Barrett's is that it's an analog of those who have denied the reality of the holocaust, which in parts of Europe is a crime. 

Implausible arguments based on a close and fair reading of facts ought to be encouraged and explored in the interest of ferreting out uncharted intellectual frontiers.  But when a Churchill calls the 9/11 victims "Little Eichmans" or a Barrett suggests an imponderably broad and sweeping level of conspiracy as he has, or, for that matter, those who would argue that the holocaust is a Zionist fiction, we ought to seriously reconsider rewriting the rules of intellectual inquiry at our universities.

V.  Diversity and Intellectual Balance at Princeton

Princeton's president, Shirley M. Tilghman, was recently interviewed in The Wall Street Journal.  As those familiar with them know, so-called eating clubs are a fixture of ivy league schools, but, as the introduction to the interview noted, "some critics consider them bastions of elitism and discrimination."

It will surprise no one familiar with our halls of presumed higher learning to hear that Ms. Tilghman believes that the clubs "don't for me represent the spirit of Princeton.  They tend to select more homogeneously than I would like [emphasis added]. 

Although elites such as Tilghman are blind to their own inbred and incestuous intellectual rigidity they are never reticent about crying for more diversity in the entire gamut of unquestionably ephemeral and superficial areas of campus life, most recently, the manner in which students choose to eat meals.

Those unfamiliar with the left's unwavering dedication to re-engineering every aspect of our social and cultural lives to comport with their vision of heaven on earth may question their motivations, not to mention their thinking.  Indeed, rather than focusing on providing a truly balanced curriculum, they are completely convinced that people who wish to congregate with like-minded souls must be forced into awkward and arguably unpleasant experiences because they simply aren't aware of the virtues of diversity.

The interview concluded with a delectable irony as Tilghman was asked her thoughts about Congressional consideration of an "academic bill of rights," which is designed to correct a demonstrable lack of conservative perspectives on American campuses.  She responded with marvelously telling naivete:

I have never in five years had a student in my office complaining about this issue.

It's the height of intellectual insularity to believe, as Tilghman apparently does, that a student would bring such a complaint to the president of a seminal university such as Princeton.  There's a 'forest and trees' issue here which belies the presumed sophistication of university executives such as Tilghman because their instinct at once dismisses such charges and--forgive the pun--studiously avoids any encounters or situations which may provide evidence of them.

VI.  U.S. Workers Feel Underpaid

An employment myth born out of the left's socialist past is prospering in our culture, which is clearly in free fall.  The Chicago Tribune, ever faithful to playing its part in this tragi-comedy, reported that

the average worker hasn't seen a meaningful pay increase in three years...according to the U.S. Labor Department...That may explain the finding of a national survey reporting a sharp jump in the number of employees who feel underpaid.

The article proceeds to make the case that while employees feel they're underpaid, employers believe they're salary structures are competitive.  Add to this apparent misery the fact that "fewer employees reported being satisfied with their work loads and hours."

Now we move into the subtle landscape where liberalism has successfully bred of a culture of entitlement.  Eric Buntin, Ranstad USA managing director of marketing and operations, observed:

Employers pretty much think their salaries are competitive and they may be.  But pay may not be keeping up with the increasing costs we've been experiencing, especially in the last six months with dramatically higher gas prices.

If you missed the unwittingly deft way that Mr. Buntin reverse engineered the problem you can be forgiven because the argument that drives this has insidiously found its way into our cultural groundwater.  To wit, no longer is it the individual's responsibility to ensure that his skills and education translate into a salary that keeps abreast of rising costs of living; contrariwise, we ought to hold employers responsible for not providing salaries that keep pace with real expenses, which would be an effective abdication of their primary responsibility which is to be profitable.

The left has indeed succeeded in turning economic theory on its head with its anachronistic but effective argument based on wage and labor laws that no longer have a place in the employer-employee relationship.  The more clear thinking employees recognize that the proper way to define those relationships is purely contractual and that when both parties are in agreement there are no legitimate--read substantive--complaints. 

Indeed, how we may "feel" about our level of compensation ought to have no more bearing on the situation than how we may "feel" about our relative guilt in a court case.

VII.  "Language Barriers" and the Culture of Accountability

A USA Today article noted that

Many patients with limited ability to speak English who need a translator in the nation's hospitals don't get one, according to an analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

With a rhetorical straight face, the article further reported that the number of such residents grew from 1990 to 2000 from 7 million to 22 million.  Absent from the article is any hint of the cultural disincentives for immigrants to learn English that we've woven into our civic fabric. 

From that politically muscular starting point the article quoted a university professor who spoke of the "impaired health status" of those who can't adequately communicate.  Add to this culturally toxic mix Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which mandates that medical facilities that receive Medicaid or Medicare must provide language assistance, and the formula is complete.

Therefore, it's the government's and society's obligation to ensure that people without adequate knowledge of our nation's language are afforded translators to ensure adequatae health care coverage and every other service available.  Gone is that quaint notion of individual accountability, of understanding the need to prepare for life in America before coming here. 

Imagine for a moment that you were planning to moving to Italy and that you made absolutely no effort to study Italian but expected every service, from schools to health care facilities, to provide you with interpreters. 

It's a preposterous idea and an unreasonable standard, but not for the U.S. which, because of the infection of entitlements that misguidedly absolves immigrants of any responsibility, embraces every politically correct, nonsensical policy.  The financial, civic, and cultural costs are of no apparent concern to the elected officals and bureaucrats who are merely interim dupes in the perpetuation of a stupidity brought to us courtesy of the left.

The movie critic Joel Siegel reportedly walked out of Kevin Smith's new film "Clerks II" because he was thoroughly disgusted, but no one should be surprised that the Motion Picture Association of America decided the film was fine for children as long as the parents were along.

It's axiomatic that our Hollywood cultural elites have, for several decades, been engaged in a zealous search for the bottom of our cultural cesspool and that their descent continues apace. 

That stated, it's facile and intellectually anemic for them or anyone else to assert that they're merely reflecting societal expectations because the paradox is that it's the G-rated films, not the R-rated that are profitable.  That is, average folks find films that drip with sexuality at least disconcerting if not intolerable, not only because they distort reality but because they reflect some of our basest and most vile instincts.

Finally, their influence on our children is unequivocal because kids are so impressionable and lack the contextual maturity to make accurate moral judgments.  Of course, parents should play a key role in safeguarding and monitoring their children's exposure to these experiences, but that's an argument for another day.

As those more advanced in years or with a more critical eye know, we began this downward trend several decades ago when we were told by our leftist brethren that the absolutes we held in such high esteem were only the product of high-browed moralists.  From there, the champions of amorality led the unwitting down the path to abortion, single parenthood, teenage sex, and a host of other equally corrosive activities.

In the 1940s all it took was a glance or a smile by Cary Grant to Grace Kelly and we implicitly understood the entire gamut of emotions that was being communicated.  Today we're bombarded by a raw sexuality that is at once unimaginative and indifferent to the standards of a civilized society.

Robert D. Kaplan's review of Richard H. Schultz, Jr. Andrea J. Dew's book, "Insurgents, Terrorists, and Militias," brings a desperately needed wisdom to the West's approach to Muslim extremism.  It might also be called "Beyond Asymmetrical Warfare" because of Kaplan's unique emphasis on the organicity of this enemy, melding itself with the battlefield, morphing into other kinds of antagonists, and, critically, defining itself by its religious zealotry.

Kaplan uses the phrase "martial religiosity" to explain the motivations of our modern day warrior, those in the mold of the Islamic extremists, arguing that theirs is a battle paradigm that defies traditional, Western explanations.  Although there is a measure of credibility in his analysis, a deeper and more accurate one takes us back to the abolition of the Ottoman Empire and the Caliphate, which Muslims--and, in particular, the extremists among them--remember as if it was yesterday.  Coupled with the fact that Middle Eastern Muslim states have failed to extricate themselves from the theocratic grasp of their archaic state system which effectively blunts economic growth and stifles their citizenry, it's no wonder they fervently believe the West is responsible.

Most critical for the U.S. to realize is that nothing can appease their misguided instinct and the very notion of negotiation for them is nothing but an opportunity to exploit their adversary's nominal good will with deceit and dissembling.

Our civic sensibilities, resting as they do on our Republican virtues and principles are shocked when confronted with such indifference to the conventions we've come to expect in our presumably civilized world.  Unless we wish to succumb to the Islamic extremists, we must better understand the nature of this despicable enemy.

With his usual polemical verve, George Will takes The Weekly Standard to task for its recommendation that we bomb Iran.  But before we examine that argument, we must first address his habitual pessimism, first presaged in an editorial earlier this year where he demonstrated his propensity to permit the travails of the moment--vis., Iraq--to taint both the potential for a positive outcome and critically, our current ability to wage optimism, which is a lethal force multiplier.

In response to Secretary of State Condolezza Rice's assertion that the reason Hezbollah and Hamas have issued their battle cries is because they "determined that it was time now to try and arrest the move towards moderate democratic forces in the Middle East," Mr. Will argues that "there is also a democratic movement towards extremism," telegraphing the obvious obervation that Iraq's skittish entrance into the clan of democratic nations hasn't gone smoothly.

The Achilles heel in Mr. Will's argument is not merely the symptom noted above--i.e., that he sees the dark possibility of a democratic theocracy in Iraq--but, more profoundly, unless one dismisses the notion that we're at war (albeit an unprecedented war, complete with redefined rules) with the Islamic extremists, what other hope have we than to seed a rudimentary form of democracy in the admittedly inhospitable Middle East landscape? 

Indeed, if we don't foster what amounts to democratic beta sites in nations reeling from the abject disaster of decades of abuse at the hands of despots, if we don't give them a taste of the rights we so cavalierly take for granted, where does that leave them--and us?

Mr. Will's rejoinder against The Weekly Standard for its insistence in bombing Iran's nuclear sites begins with an apologia for our hamstrung and under-resourced military, which ought never to be a credible reason for shirking our duty to defend our national interests.  Next he asserts that containment worked with Stalin so why not with Iran?  And, he notes that it would be preferable to a full-scale war with a nation far more "formidable" than Iraq.  He finishes his rhetorical coup de grace by effectively accusing The Weekly Standard of being enamored of war.

First, a series of air strikes would not only incapacitate Iran's nuclear capability, it would send the signal that the U.S. is deadly serious about preventing their acquisition of nuclear weapons.  Mr. Will seems to be obliquely arguing that we shouldn't exercise that option because it might anger them and awaken the proverbially sleeping giant.  So, in his view, it's preferable to sit idly by while Iran acquires a weapon, at which time international black mail would be their tactic of choice?

Second, using Stalin as Exhibit A for containment is ironic since about 20 million souls perished during his heinous reign.  Containment as an alternative to facing a bona fide threat is, most often, an expression of national weakness, and it typically only delays the inevitable need for confrontation.  Such delays, as was demonstrated in WWII, are as needless as they are costly in terms of casualties, not to mention the missed opportunity of dealing with a less powerful foe.

Finally, no one is enamored of war, but when a totalitarian state such as Iran has so unambiguously transmitted its intent to obtain the most lethal weapon on earth, and has stated with equal clarity its intent to eliminate one of our key allies, there is only one option that makes less sense than a military strike, and that's to wait and let the situation coalesce into a problem of such seething magnitude that it can only be subdued with an overwhelming force..

It's peculiar that Mr. Will isn't able to see where this is leading, but that doesn't mean we should subscribe to his strategic myopia, which seems curiously mired in a pre-9/11 world.

I.  Israel and the 'Right to Exist'

As stunned Americans watched the video of Israel's response to incessant terrorist attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah's kidnapping of its soldiers, leaders in Europe and the United Nations expressed outrage at what they characterized as its overreaction.

We must stipulate that the premise of these leaders' response is jaundiced by a well-defined if somewhat guarded anti-Semitism, which has become more pronounced in recent years.  Indeed, unlike any other sovereign, democratic nation, only Israel is subjected to condescending conversations among diplomats and bureaucrats alike, about 'Israel's right to exist.'  Why is it that we even allow the matter to be framed in that manner? 

The Bush Administration should not countenance rhetoric that begins with such discussions, as though we are obligated to convince such barbarians as Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of the incontesibility of Israel's right to exist.  The problem, as always, harkens to our contemporary instinct to appease those who refuse to recognize any conventions or international laws as a pre-requisite to engaging other nations.

The fact that we are discussing who is right and who is wrong is itself a despicable testimony of our incapacity to agree on the fundamentals:  Evil is real and it is manifest in the likes of the Iranian and Syrian regimes, whose leaders have demonstrated an unqualified willingness to murder "infidels," from Israelis to Christians, and anyone who supports Western values and principles.  Until and unless the U.S. takes a strong stand against them they will continue their unjustified war against Israel and, by extension, the U.S., because that's the belligerent's modus operandi.

II.  Bush & Bombay

Although attribution in the aftermath of this week's carnage in Bombay remains unclear, in light of the obvious pattern--i.e., 9/11 in the U.S., 3/11 in Madrid, 7/7 and 7/21 in London, and, now 7/11 in Bombay--we can reasonably conclude that either al-Qaeda itself of one of its splinter, proxy groups is responsible. 

Two key issues ought to be apparent as we begin the political forensic exam.  The first is that although the United States has a fraction of the population, India has been on the Islamic terrorists' radar for many years.  That is, in part, because of its embrace of democratic principles and free markets, but also because of its unabashed affection for the U.S.  As the axiom goes, together, we're the oldest and the largest democracies in the world, and that constitutes a direct threat to al-Qaeda's power.

The second is that we can probably count the days before a more politically charged allegation is made--that the attacks were a direct retribution for India's reciprocation of the Bush Administration's recent overtures.  Cooperation between these two great nations would be tantamount to an encroachment upon Osama bin Laden's deep and sick desire for global hegemony.

We can laugh off such prospects as delusions of grandeur from a marginalized maniac, but that would be naive and dangerous.  Most anti-terrorist experts believe that it's only a matter of time before the U.S. is attacked again.  When that happens the perpetrators may not have any linear connections to al-Qaeda, because, as we've seen from the recent arrests in Canada and other less substantive evidence, the decentralizing movement has bred a new iteration of terrorist, one with sworn allegiances but not even remote connections. 

That expansion, in contrast to those by Hitler in the 1930s, by definition, is at once less quantifiable and more lethal because it requires a more robust and deft intelligence capability to make meaningful inferences from less distinct bits of information.  It's as though our system has new and unprecedented demands to "hear" and "see" warning signs that we're simply not fully able to discern.

We segue to the NSA's wiretap program and the Swift financial filtering program, both of which were inarguably vital tools in our anti-terrorist arsenal--and, now, of course, they've been profoundly compromised by the likes of the liberals at the New York Times, whose loathing of President Bush is far greater than their fear or hatred of the Islamic terrorists, whom they seem to regard as either unsophisticated guerillas or a problem largely, if not exclusively, "over there." 

Time will prove them wrong but, as always, there will be no political or economic price to pay because they are both politically and culturally immunized against criticism.  There is, of course, another level of consequences, in the sphere of morality and ethics, which is a sphere almost entirely foreign to them.

III.  Dealing with Detainees

There was considerable confusion from the Bush Administration regarding how it would like Congress to redress the Supreme Court's astounding rebuke concerning the Administration's handling of detainees in the 'war on terror.'  For instance, early in the week the Pentagon indicated that it would sanction the court's insistence that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions must be observed, which ensures a minimum set of rights.  But questions of whether the CIA would be exempt from such constraints were left unanswered.

Later in the week, Pentagon lawyers argued against allowing tribunals to operate under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which, paradoxically, would satisfy the high Court's legal standard.  Their arguments, all sound, were that such a provision would have tremendous adverse downstream impacts, all of which would confound timely prosecutions.  Finally, late in the week, six high-ranking military judges informed the senate that Congress should not bless the administration's original military commissions.

Where does this leave us?  In a state of needless confusion that, unless it's resolved, will be both an embarrassment and, far worse, an impediment to ensuring the detainees remain in custody and, when appropriate, receive a military-style hearing. 

Once again, we're witnessing the ill-advised intrusion of the criminal justice system into a realm that should be legally quarantined, with the military exclusively in charge.  The Bush Administration should clarify the guidelines, rules, and protocols so that Congress can quickly act to bring needed standards and predictability to the treatment of detainees. 

Critics who argue that the prison at Guantannamo Bay should be closed rarely, if ever, offer suggestions as to where they should be sent.  Their analogies to the Nuremburg trials conveniently or ignorantly forget that those legal proceedings happened after the war was over--and, from all appearances, we're not quite there yet.

IV.  Colorado Immigration Reform

If it becomes law, Colorado's new, bipartisan legislation compromise would be one of the most aggressive approaches to dealing with the problem of illegal immigration in the entire nation.  It's been estimated that there are hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in Colorado who are sapping the welfare system and a variety of other resources such as costly medical care. 

The new law would require about 1 million people a year to show a driver's license, sign an affidavit and undergo a criminal background check to show they are legal residents, eligible for government services such as welfare and Medicaid.  It further prohibits illegals from receiving a college education, housing assistance, business licenses, or unemployment benefits.

With the Democratic leadership controlling the agenda, many Republicans were loath to admit that the bill had merit.  But Republican Governor Bill Owens declared that it was a major move forward and that it would cull 20,000 to 50,000 illegal immigrants from the state's entitlement program in the near term. 

Although the governor has a recently minted reputation for inconstancy to core party values, this is, in fact, a solid bill and one that will make a meaningful difference.  If Republicans are smart they'll admit as much and then, apropos of the Democrats' own strategic game plan, demand more. 

That will amount to a test of not just political courage but of values.  That is, to what extent are the Democrats true champions of the rule of law, which means welcoming legal immigrants but being tough on the illegals who are effectively stealing from taxpayers?

V.  The Triumph of Justice

Major legal victories aren't always rung in with the fanfare they deserve.  For weeks after Rep. William Jefferson's office was searched and evidence of alleged wrongdoing removed, House Democratic leaders smartly distanced themselves from the scandal.  But Democratic pundits and race-baiters across the land disparaged and maligned the search as an unwarranted incursion into an elected official's professional office, which, they sternly admonished, was also unprecedented.

When U.S. District Court Judge Thomas F. Hogan, issued his response, a hush fell over our MSM as it barely found its way into print, much less into the evening news.  Recall that Mr. Jefferson's lawyers argued that the speech and debate clause shielded congressmen from virtually all such searches--the issue of whether a crime had been committed was of little apparent concern for them, of course.  The judge had a refreshing response:

The speech and debate clause doesn't shield members of Congress from the execution of search warrants...this interpretation of the search and debate privilege would have the effect of converting every congressional office into a taxpayer subsidized sanctuary for crime, such a result is not supported by the Constitution or judicial precedent and will not be adopted here.

While Congressional officials deserve our respect, none is or ought to be above the law.  The unalloyed hubris that Mr. Jefferson brought to this scandal only compounded the precariousness of his predicament.  Fair-minded Americans should now let the legal process take its course and if he's found guilty he should be summarily removed from office and made to face charges; contrariwise, if he's exonerated, the headline should be just as large and he should be welcomed back into that august body. 

But because of the fact that the legal facet of this process was stymied by Mr. Jefferson, it does appear as though he's facing an uphill legal battle.  We'll patiently await to see whether or not he becomes part of the "culture of corruption."  The irony and paradox of it all is remarkable.

These columns have argued that many contemporary Americans are burdened with a lack of historical knowledge concerning the countless challenges our nation has faced.  That intellectual vacuum directly contributes to our inability to place our current challenges in Iraq and in our war against the Islamic terrorists in a proper context.  The trenchant military historian, Victor Davis Hanson, performs a great service for us with today's editorial concerning that very issue.

It's an instructive lesson that, as Prof. Hanson notes, the Bush Administration should take to heart.  Although his editorial doesn't address the inbred cultural reticence to adduce history for purposes of pedagogy, there are persuasive reasons that explain, if not justify, that hesitation.

One of our cultural taboos focuses on any comparison--read judgment--that might shed a minimizing light on contemporary sacrifices because, as the argument goes, we're the first generation to confront the problems endemic to adulthood.  Indeed, everything from a challenging job to the death of a loved one is an affront to a generation that feels it has an uncontestable right to a stress- and conflict-free life.  Within that context, having to confront the fact that an estimated 39 million Muslims would like to eliminate the U.S. is particularly discomfiting, since many Americans have been convinced that evil itself is a fiction.

But real life challenges require tough decisions by principled leaders, and President Bush's decisions in fighting the Islamic terrorist threat have been just that:  An unwavering attempt to exploit every advantage we have to degrade their capacity to strike us in every context imaginable.  That means doing things that aren't particularly palatable but that are by no means illegal.

So, when Prof. Hanson reminds us that President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, that President Wilson imprisoned dissenters, and that President Roosevelt gave the executive order to inter thousands of Japanese, the response of many is a slack-jawed silence. 

Add to that historical excerpt the numbers slain in our wars, in particular such horrific displays of savagery as the Bataan Death March, not to mention the tens of thousands who died in the three week hellfire known as the Battle of the Bulge, and you have a picture of human brutality that shocks contemporary sensibilities.

But, in truth, the enemy we're dealing with in our current war is far more daunting and more despicable in its absolute disregard for innocent life.  There is a kind of calculus of disbelief that has descended upon America, in large part because we're a nation that instinctively looks for the good in others, and, despite the horror of 9/11, the five year hiatus we've experienced has unquestionably lulled us into a false sense of security. 

Given our nation's vast size and the oceans that we naively surmised protected us, the vast majority of us live our lives with a kind of insularity that belies the deeply evil nature of the Islamic terrorists who would, with a barbarous glee, hack the heads off of each and every one of us, if only given the chance.

For some of us, President Bush is among them, the acute and intimate sense of pain of 9/11 never faded, and as Prof. Hanson argued, it's their charge to keep that memory alive while providing us with real-time information about the challenges we must face.  And, the rhetoric can't be euphemistic or evasive, it must, indeed, be unvarnished and unadulterated, so that we can once again feel that sense of shock and horror as nearly 3,000 of our fellow Americans were murdered.

It's been widely and correctly asserted that America today suffers from a chronic sense of internal doubt and uncertainty. Some have hypothesized that the cause is a surfeit of material prosperity and a misguided sense of security.  The real cause can be attributed to our post-modern forebears in the 1930s and 1940s who obtusely abdicated our Western legacy of moral absolutes--and their civic offspring--a sense of cultural consensus.

That, in turn, spawned an entire generation of moral agnostics which subsequently created the corrosive by-product, a lethal strain of cultural narcissism erodes our belief in standards of objectivity.  There is, indeed, a cyclical effect at work here insofar as our cultural relativists are, ironically, our modern day absolutists because their polity indulges every form of diversity save that of ideology.

The symptom of this cultural malaise is the collective challenge to our nation's founding values that we've suffered, values that were informed by a tacit but unwavering adherence to principle and an equally uncontested endorsement of American exceptionalism. The blame for our deviation from our Founding Fathers’ vision can be traced to the 1960s which saw the genesis of liberalism’s vision of misguided egalitarianism, distorted social mores, and a cynical disdain of the absolutes that sustained us during perilous and challenging times when the fate of our Republic hung in the balance.

While our choices for a viable remedy seem limited, a beginning would stipulate that we agree on the ground rules, which may itself preclude progress due to the lack of agreement on even the most fundamental elements in our culture.  But the structure and predictability that an
agreement concerning the basics would provide might be seen as a conjoint reward worthy of the risks.

To begin that exercise we might work to remove the cultural stigma against judging aberrant behavior across our social spectrum.  The implicit sense of disapprobation for socially unsavory behavior that was firmly in place some fifty years ago kept much of the incivility in check, and its absence makes painfully clear the vital role it played.  We can't expect to remedy what took decades to create, but neither can we simply concede the argument and let this cultural plague spread any further.

On Monday, marking the 6th anniversary of his highly successful radio show, Hugh Hewitt replayed an interview with Elizabeth Sullivan, the foreign affairs correspondent and editorial writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer.  Unlike most liberals whose understanding of and appreciation for our military is virtually non-existent, Ms. Sullivan has the presumptive mantle of authority because her husband is a career military man and her son is active duty.  But, as she effortlessly demonstrates, even such an intimate understanding of the nature of military conflict has its limits.

Further, rather than taking the typical liberal approach of dismissing outright and maligning President Bush's Iraq policy, she assumes a more Clintonian tack by deftly weaving an argument that sectarian violence a priori renders Mr. Bush's policy of spreading democratic values a wholly unproductive exercise.  That is, intervention in Iraq was wrong not because of principle but because of the intermediate outcome.  Stated in purely operational terms, we're experiencing challenging problems that weren't contemplated at the outset. 

Here we are again, having to reassert for our leftist brethren the common sense corrective that is evident to all but the human Mayflies among us:  No operation, whether in business or in war, has a pre-determined outcome; it's only though our ability to persevere politically while continuously recalibrating our strategy based on events on the ground that we have a chance of prevailing.  Without those two pre-requisites, no undertaking, great or small, is possible.

The question of whether it is prudent to seed democratic values in the Middle East momentarily aside, one must question Ms. Sullivan's assertion that Iraq is not better off than it was four years ago.  Her self-refuting argument betrays the immaturity of her position, and with it that of her fellow liberals:  She concedes that without U.S. intervention Iraq would remain a totalitarian state, and that when the U.N. inspectors left Iraq Saddam Hussein would have resumed his WMD program--but, that our intervention was wrong.

There are only two reasonable conclusions that we can draw from this Looking Glass argument:  First, that intervention, whether pre-emptive or otherwise, is wrong, or, second, that the liberation of 24 million souls and the potential for seeding democratic values in the Middle East is not worth any price whatsoever.

So, has the left abdicated the principles of Wilsonian democracy and moved towards a Buchananesque policy of isolation, or is it the case that Mr. Hewitt cornered Ms. Sullivan in a polemical quandary of her own design?  In particular, that in our age of Islamic terrorism, where we must face the discomfiting but nonetheless unequivocal fact of a savage and omnipresent enemy in our very midst, we ought only to act in a mode of traditional self-defense?

Mr. Hewitt's debate serves a number of important purposes, but paramount among them is a kind of rhetorical litmus test whereby the left's position becomes unwittingly betrayed.  Arguments for and against the Iraq war can be made based on pre-war, contemporaneous evidence, but the left's political hatred of this administration is demonstrated by its insistence that spreading democratic values is universally applicable--except in the case of Iraq. 

Had we hedged our democratic principles in WWII based on the strategically fragile picture of our predicament in 1943 we would have had a similar fear and loathing about having ever entered the war in the first place.  But our leaders at that time--as well as our citizens across the political spectrum--had a far deeper understanding of both the nature of wa