David Henson at the blog Unorthodoxology posted a terse thought last Friday, “Sin is the beginning of empathy.”  I’ve been reading a bit of Dave’s blog ever since, I believe, Mark linked to something of his.  Dave, and the commenters that frequent there, are of the “many paths lead to truth” school of thought, and are not very much in agreement with my ideas about the exclusivity of Jesus as “the Way, the Truth, the Life”.  (See the comments to this post for examples.)

So this “empathy” post showed up, and I could see what Dave was getting at, and I made short comment about it myself, that perhaps this could also be said of pain.  Pain, whether caused by sin or not, can make us empathetic to others in the same situation as well.  But that thought, too, didn’t seem complete.  After 24 hours of having that roll around in my head, here’s what I came up with.

If sin causes no pain, then it does not bring empathy. If cheating old ladies out of their social security makes me “happy” (or at least doesn’t hurt in the short term), no empathy comes with it. It’s not until the pain that there’s a chance that empathy will develop. And even then, sometimes the consequences don’t quite get things rolling, but without the pain, it won’t happen.

So perhaps “sin is the beginning of pain which is the beginning of empathy.”

Well, ‘cept that you can have pain that leads to empathy but that did not originate with sin. I could say “Getting laid off from your job is the beginning of empathy” and it would be just as true, yet you don’t have to do anything wrong to feel it. But then what if you hated the job and are happy that you got laid off, because you have a back-up plan (or some similar situation)? No pain, and thus you probably can’t empathize with a co-worker who desperately needed that job and has nowhere else to go. So getting laid off, for you, isn’t the beginning of pain.

There are so many things that may or may not lead to pain for you, but until you feel that pain you can’t empathize with someone who has. So perhaps the phrase should be, “Pain is the beginning of empathy.”

Or is even that right? Can we really not empathize with a drug addict until we get high ourselves? Can we really not empathize with a murderer unless we kill someone ourselves? Sympathize, perhaps, but maybe not empathize. Still, is that such a bad thing; not being able to empathize? Granted, a drug addict might be more inclined to accept help from former addict, but many times this happens without dealing with someone who is a peer at that level. Someone who never took one drink can be merciful and helpful and caring to the alcoholic. Sympathy is just as potent.

Additionally, one can have the pain, but refuse to be empathetic to anyone in a similar situation. It isn’t always a given.

So what is beyond pain that would lead to empathy? If you don’t care about your fellow man, you’ll never empathize with him, no matter how much sin you commit or pain you experience or whatever bad circumstances come your way. You can only truly have empathy when you love your neighbor as yourself.

So sin might lead to pain, or it might not. And pain might lead to empathy, or it might not. But neither is necessary for love, and love is the beginning of empathy.

Ed Morrissey notes that…

For the last seven years, the Left has screeched hysterically over the CIA practice of rendition, in which agents turn detainees over to authorities in their home country for interrogation.  Never mind that the practice started in the Clinton administration, and never mind that the other options were Guantanamo Bay, release, or two caps in the back of the head; they pilloried Bush over renditions as if he’d thought them up himself.  Hollywood even made a movie about how awful the process is, apparently matched in awfulness only by the film’s box office.

Obama has signed an executive order to remedy some things he finds wrong with the Bush administration policy, but some things remain as they are.

The CIA’s secret prisons are being shuttered. Harsh interrogation techniques are off-limits. And Guantanamo Bay will eventually go back to being a wind-swept naval base on the southeastern corner of Cuba.

But even while dismantling these programs, President Obama left intact an equally controversial counter-terrorism tool.

Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism — aside from Predator missile strikes — for taking suspected terrorists off the street.

The anti-war Left is surprisingly silent.

The decision to preserve the program did not draw major protests, even among human rights groups. Leaders of such organizations attribute that to a sense that nations need certain tools to combat terrorism.

"Under limited circumstances, there is a legitimate place" for renditions, said Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "What I heard loud and clear from the president’s order was that they want to design a system that doesn’t result in people being sent to foreign dungeons to be tortured — but that designing that system is going to take some time."

But as Moe Lane notes, Human Rights Watch was playing quite a different tune up until a Democrat made it to the Oval Office.  Their web site says, in an article from April 7, 2008:

The US government should:

·Repudiate the use of rendition to torture as a counterterrorism tactic and permanently discontinue the CIA’s rendition program;

That was then.  This is now.  Now, it has "a legitimate place".  Funny how some Bush policies look oh-so-different through the Obama prism.

From Chuck Asay.  (Click for a larger version.)

We punish the fiscally responsible by making them pay for the irresponsible.  Do you think this will bring about more responsibility or less?  Hmmm.

No, Bush did not ban embryonic stem cell research.  Never mind what left-wing talk radio host Ed Schultz keeps saying.  Like the House Republicans, perhaps you, too, should listen to Rush Limbaugh.  Perhaps Ed should, as well, to get his demagoguery straight.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

Ben Stein is not impressed.

I love this. The new kind of politics of hope. Eight hours of debate in the HR to pass a bill spending $820 billion, or roughly $102 billion per hour of debate.

Only ten per cent of the "stimulus" to be spent on 2009.

Close to half goes to entities that sponsor or employ or both members of the Service Employees International Union, federal, state, and municipal employee unions, or other Democrat-controlled unions.

This bill is sent to Congress after Obama has been in office for seven days. It is 680 pages long. According to my calculations, not one member of Congress read the entire bill before this vote. Obviously, it would have been impossible, given his schedule, for President Obama to have read the entire bill.

For the amount spent we could have given every unemployed person in the United States roughly $75,000.

We could give every person who had lost a job and is now passing through long-term unemployment of six months or longer roughly $300,000.

There has been pork barrel politics since there has been politics. The scale of this pork is beyond what had ever been imagined before — and no one can be sure it will actually do much stimulation.

Especially considering Stein’s note that only 10% of this even gets spent in 2009, and that most recessions don’t last more than a year, this is simply a way to push the pork and pretend to "do something".  And then, when the recession ends you can take credit and garner votes for you and your party.

All the House Republicans voted against this.  If you’re a fiscal conservative, you should be glad they listen to Rush Limbaugh.  And if you’re not a fiscal conservative, then perhaps the Senate version of the "economic stimulus" bill might make you one.  What’s in it?  Here’s a sampling:

•    $20 million “for the removal of small- to medium-sized fish passage barriers.” (Pg. 45 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “20,000,000 for the removal of small- to medium-sized fish passage barriers)

•    $400 million for STD prevention (Pg. 60 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “CDC estimates that a proximately 19 million new STD infections occur annually in the United States …The Committee has included $400,000,000 for testing and prevention of these conditions.”)

•    $25 million to rehabilitate off-roading (ATV) trails (Pg. 45 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “$25,000,000 is for recreation maintenance, especially for rehabilitation of off-road vehicle routes, and $20,000,000 is for trail maintenance and restoration”)

•    $34 million to remodel the Department of Commerce HQ (Pg. 15 of Senate Appropriations Committee report:  $34,000,000 for the Department of Commerce renovation and modernization”)

•    $70 million to “Support Supercomputing Activities” for climate research (Pgs. 14-15 of Senate Appropriations Committee Report: $70,000,000 is directed to specifically support supercomputing activities, especially as they relate to climate research)

•    $150 million for honey bee insurance (Pg. 102 of Senate Appropriations Committee report: “The Secretary shall use up to $ 50,000,000 per year, and $150,000,000 in the case of 2009, from the Trust Fund to provide emergency relief to eligible producers of livestock, honey bees, and farm-raised fish to aid in the reduction of losses due to disease, adverse weather, or other conditions, such as blizzards and wildfires, as determined by the Secretary”)

The critical infrastructure spending is well within the purview of the federal government, and frankly is long overdue.  But there’s a huge amount of pork coming out of this that the Democrats seek to sweep under the rug hoping you won’t notice.  It’s apparently too imminent a problem to bother, y’know, debating the bill for too much longer.  This pork, er, stimulus must be passed now.

Here’s a video giving us a timeline of what happened when in the story of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapse.  Take special note of who was for regulation and who was against it. 

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Some more of "change" in the Obama administration that I’ve been saving up for a few weeks.

"Capturing or killing Osama bin Laden" used to be "a critical aspect of stamping out al Qaeda".  Now he just needs to be "pinned down" or just kept "on the run".  Some of this "change" Obama speaks of apparently means change from his campaign rhetoric.  (H/T Don Sensing.)

Two years ago, Obama called the expansion of coal-fired electricity his "worst nightmare".  Two weeks ago, Obama’s choices for both the EPA and the Energy Department described the industry as "vital" and coal as a "great natural resource".  The environmentalists are not happy at this "change".

In spite of Obama’s promise to severely reduce or eliminate the influence of lobbyists in Washington, Harry Reid said that Obama would be meeting with lobbyists and him, where the president would be doing business with them.  Reid said, "And there’s nothing wrong with that."  I happen to agree with Reid (petitioning the government is a right, though it can, like anything, be misused), but Obama’s promises like this keep falling by the wayside.  (H/T Q & O.)

Hmm, wonder if I should rename this feature "StillTheSameWatch"…

Can you be a Republican and a homosexual?  Bruce Carroll and Dan Blatt, who contribute to the blog GayPatriot, would say, "Yes", and I would agree.  Now, I believe that homosexual acts are a sin, I believe the Bible says this, and while I know that not everyone necessarily agrees with that assessment, I do.  Does that mean, ergo, that I hate Bruce and Dan?  No, it does not, and I do not. 

But what about Republicans in general?  We all know what Democrats think of social conservatives, so you’d think that venom against the GayPatriot blog would come mostly from the Right.

You couldn’t possibly be more wrong.

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President Obama took a jab at former President Bush with this phrase from his inaugural speech; "We will restore science to its rightful place….".  This implies that science has been taken down off of some pillar that it should reside on.

Science is important in the betterment of humankind, but science must be tempered by morality (as must all things).  Dubya, for example, kept federal funding for embryonic stem cell research for those cell lines already existing at the time, but his moral concerns over the issue prevented his allowing it unhindered.  (Private funding is still available and, indeed, the research is continuing.)  Is Obama suggesting he’ll place science above morality?  Is submitting science to the scrutiny of morality robbing the former of it’s "rightful place"?  Is this his worldview?

Ronald Reagan never went into the Oval Office without a suit jacket and tie, and that was his rule for everyone who entered.  He did it out of respect for the position.  We know (unfortunately) how much respect Bill Clinton gave the office.  President Bush also had that dress code as well.  But Obama?  Naah.

Now you can say this is making something out of nothing (as some on the Left have), and admittedly it’s just clothing.  But it exposes an underlying attitude that I think speaks to how Obama treats the position of President of the United States.  I honestly hope he doesn’t take it as casually as he appears to, but his outward appearance says otherwise.

At the same time, I’ll bet he (rightly) expects people to respect his position, but he won’t treat it with the same deference.  A tad hypocritical.

Hanks did he right thing and apologized for calling Mormon supporters of California Proposition 8 "un-American". 

"Last week, I labeled members of the Mormon church who supported California’s Proposition 8 as ‘un-American,’" the actor said in a statement through his publicist. "I believe Proposition 8 is counter to the promise of our Constitution; it is codified discrimination."

"But everyone has a right to vote their conscience; nothing could be more American," the statement continues. "To say members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints who contributed to Proposition 8 are ‘un-American’ creates more division when the time calls for respectful disagreement. No one should use ‘un- American’ lightly or in haste. I did. I should not have."

Fair enough.  I hope the Mormons graciously accept it.

Another one of Obama’s first acts as President is to rescind the "Mexico City Policy" which frees up federal money to pay for abortions in other countries.  Exporting the culture of death seems to be extremely high on the list of Democrats, as this history of the policy, recounted by The Anchoress, lays out.

Interesting history here: President Reagan first put the Mexico City Policy in place and it is named for a population conference that took place in the Mexican capital in 1984 when he introduced it.

President George H.W. Bush continued the pro-life policy, President Clinton overturned it, and President George W. Bush kept it for eight years and threatened to veto any Congressional spending bill reversing it.

Your tax dollars at work.  We may be in debt up to our eyeballs during this financial crisis, but gotta’ save those women from "being punished", dontcha’ know?

Obama listened to the GOP’s criticisms of, and suggestions for, his economic stimulus plan, and included the title of this post as one of his rebuttals.  The Kos Krowd krows about it, but Moe Lane at Redstate takes Obama up on that offer.

So, it’s all yours. Your responsibility, your obligation, your reputation on the line. Not ours: yours.

Because, after all, you won.

Indeed, Obama won, and he can have it any way he wants.  Elections, as the GOP noted during its time, mean things.  But this quip, just days after being seated in the Oval Office, makes it sound like that vaunted bipartisanship that Democrats always say they want is not so highly valued by the Democratic President. 

I know he’ll take credit where credit is due, but will he take the blame where it’s due?  All the blame?  Hey, he won.

President Obama has suspended war crime trials for the Gitmo detainees.  Is this his start to his phase of the War on Terror (or, as Scott Ott hilariously suggests, "The Case Against Terror")?  He’s already peeved family members of 9/11 victims with this first step in the closing of Gitmo, and he has no actual "exit strategy" for the detainees themselves.

How about the European Union, that bloc of countries so against Gitmo?

Across Europe, President Barack Obama’s decision to shut the Guantanamo Bay prison has raised an awkward question: Which EU states that railed against the camp will offer new lives to released prisoners?

The U.S. Defense Department says about 50 of the 245 prisoners awaiting freedom cannot go home again on security or political grounds, raising the need to find an alternative place to send them. But European Union members long critical of Guantanamo shied away on Friday from any firm commitments to help.

Ireland has joined Portugal, France, Germany and Switzerland in saying it probably would participate in an EU-organized plan that might take shape at a summit of foreign ministers starting Monday in Brussels.

But it already appears likely that Europe will leave some of Guantanamo’s inmates in limbo behind a policy of: No terrorists please.

Lots of talk, but little action from those who protested the loudest.  Classic.

And letting them go free is fraught with its own dangers.

A Saudi national released from U.S. detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in September 2007 is believed to be a key leader in al Qaeda’s operations in Yemen, according to a U.S. counterterrorism official.

The Defense Department recently estimated that more than 60 terrorists released from Guantanamo may have returned to the battlefield.

According to the counterterrorism official, freed detainee Ali al-Shiri traveled to Yemen after being released to Saudi Arabia and may have been involved in recent al Qaeda attacks in Yemen, including a car bombing outside the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa last year that killed nearly a dozen people.

"He is one of a handful of al Qaeda deputies in Yemen," the official said. "He is one of the top terrorists."

No, they’re not being railroaded through tribunals.  If anything, we’re apparently giving them quite a lot of benefit of the doubt. 

Not the way to start an administration.

From Chuck Asay:

For the record, I disagreed with Cheney’s remark, and I disagree with Obama’s solution.  Putting the country in massive debt now and kicking the can down the road is completely wrong.