Stones Cry Out

Don’t you just hate it when it’s the insurance company making your healthcare decisions rather than you or your doctor?  Well, when it’s the government insuring you, this is what you can expect.

President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don’t stand to gain from the extra care.

In a nationally televised event at the White House, Obama said families need better information so they don’t unthinkingly approve "additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care."

He added: "Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller."

Obama advertises that you’ll be able to choose your own doctor, but if neither of you have a say in your healthcare that’s just a bunch of misdirection.  Indeed, sometimes that happens even now, but if you think that the government option will somehow be fundamentally different, you’re gravely mistaken. 

And after the trillions spent on providing this, the desire to cut costs will be great.

1. Mr Kerry in the news.
2. Posner on foreign law.
3. Rights.
4. Reality strikes liberal foreign policy.
5. Microsoft has a saying “eat your own dog-food”, using your own product, if Congress sics government controlled healthcare on us … they should be required to use it.
6. Booom.
7. Prayer.
8. LOTR hits Iran. More here.
9. Booze.
10. Hypocrisy.
11. To be relevant to sinners.
12. Rugs.
13. Ageless.
14. And so passed into proverb.
15. Why is that the left fails to realize that private insurance is the medical care an individual has paid for with their own money? It’s either ignorance or if not, then it’s perfidy.
16. A book recommended.

Mr Westmoreland-White here offers an “explanation” for why the GOP reacts differently to scandal than the Democrats. One wonders if he knows any conservatives or republicans. He could, you know, ask one or two what their reason for caring about scandal,  unlike the Democrats who apparently don’t. The point is, I’m a conservative. The reason I’ve given and heard from other conservatives why personal scandal matters for politicians is the same every time. And it’s not the reason he gives, to whit:

It seems to me that the difference is the hypocrisy factor.  The Democratic Party in the U.S. has not tried to set itself up as the “morality police.”  Democrats sometimes campaign as “strong family people,” but this is seldom the center of the campaign.  They don’t claim to be morally superior.  They don’t try  to claim that voting for them is the only way to save the American family.  Republicans do make such claims–usually by implication, but sometimes in almost those very words.  Further, Republican politicians loudly call for Democratic politicians to resign if they get caught in sex scandals–and claim that voting for them is a way to restore the moral fabric of the nation.

This is uncharitable. It is not any reason that he, I suspect, or I have ever heard given. So that liberals and progressives get this straight, here is why the GOP (in office and out) call for Democrats caught in sex and other scandals to resign from public office.

Conservatives believe that private dishonest is reflective of personality. That a person who is dishonest in his personal affairs will also be dishonest in public and is not worthy of public trust. Cheating on a spouse affects a number of people, the wife, the children, and the social community in which the person resides. It is at the core, a breaking of trust. Conservatives believe that a person who is dishonest in these things will cannot be trusted in other things. That dishonesty of this sort disqualifies one from public office where great trust over money and power is given to a person for whom integrity is important.

The question then redounds to the liberal side. Why do they for their part feel that a person who lacks personal integrity is worthy of public office? I might suggest reasons why I might think that liberals like Mr Westmoreland-White might feel that personal integrity is unimportant to those in public office, but unlike him I fear that any reason I might sugggest would be uncharitable. So … I’ll await suggestions from him and from other liberal/progressive readers to answer that question defending the notion that personal integrity is unimportant.

…and using the United Nations as the club.

British homeschoolers may no longer be able to teach independently. Children’s Secretary of Britain accepted a report in full last week that could change the face of homeschooling in Britain indefinitely. In the report, the author, Graham Badman, Chair of the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA), argues for an end to homeschool freedom.

"While it’s disgraceful that the British government would even entertain this report it’s particularly troubling for American parents because the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was used as the justification for this action," said Michael Farris, Chairman of HSLDA and President of ParentalRights.org.

The Badman report uses Articles 12 and 29 of the UNCRC to justify registering the estimated 80,000 homeschooling families in Britain, forcing them to provide annual reports regarding their homeschool, granting government officials the right to enter the home and interview the children alone as well as reserving the choice of curriculum to the state.

HSLDA has been warning that the UNCRC could bring an end to homeschool freedom in the U.S., if the treaty was ever ratified by the U.S. Senate because Article VI of the U.S. Constitution says that treaties become the supreme law of the land.

OK, first I have to admit that I snickered a bit when I read the phrase "The Badman report".  But getting beyond that…

I’m wondering if the UNCRC says or implies that children can be used as witnesses against their parents without a lawyer present.  I mean, why would any government official be granted exclusive access to a homeschool child other than to find out what’s really going on?  Somehow, without all this invasiveness, homeschool children are, on the whole, doing better academically than their public-schooled peers.  Part of the reason people homeschool is precisely to avoid the problem with government-chosen one-size-fits-all curriculum.

Do people misuse the opportunity?  Indeed they do, but it is such a small minority that this is akin to burning down the forest to kill the mosquitoes.  Parents, on the whole, are doing just fine thankyouverymuch educating their own children.  (One wonders how we learned anything prior to the 19th century.)

1. The left used to complain of the Mr Bush’s legal advisors assuming too much power on the Presidency. What we didn’t realize the basis of that complaint was that this wasn’t taken far enough.
2. Porn not not safe for work.
3. Coming over to the dark side.
4. Exceptional gals.
5. A climate debate.
6. Bearing witness, a suggestion.
7. National health care advocates already have a test case … which is not doing so well.
8. Buffet not impressed with the Markey-Waxman plan to kick the economy where it hurts.
9. 6 links about Iran.
10. Sanford. Two views, here and here.
11. Gymnastics and perseverance.
12. Flip-flop … or just campaign dishonesty?
13. Why are these guys not being executed?
14. Verse.

I’ve a short question on economics, as I’ve never really studied the subject. Descriptions of economic activity seem that they must fundamentally be non-linear in nature. However all the equations and descriptions I’ve seen seem to be linear. Is that really the case? Are economists all playing with linear descriptions, which may actually be the case near equilibrium. But how often are economies near equilibrium? And when they are not, doesn’t that mean that in those times many if not most rules of thumb developed in times of equilibrium no longer hold true?

Who is saying things like this? What “school” of economics would or does admit to this sort of description?

Betsy Newmark has a great write up on the issue of Iran in the President’s press conference yesterday.  Essentially the toughest two questions were dodged.  When asked if accepting the legitimacy of the election would betray what the demonstrators are trying to achieve, Obama said:

Well, look, we didn’t have international observers on the ground. We can’t say definitively what exactly happened at polling places throughout the country.

What we know is that a sizable percentage of the Iranian people themselves, spanning Iranian society, consider this election illegitimate. It’s not an isolated instance, a little grumbling here or there. There is significant questions about the legitimacy of the election.

And so, ultimately, the most important thing for the Iranian government to consider is legitimacy in the eyes of its own people, not in the eyes of the United States.

And that’s why I’ve been very clear, ultimately, this is up to the Iranian people to decide who their leadership is going to be and the structure of their government.

What we can do is to say, unequivocally, that there are sets of international norms and principles about violence, about dealing with the peaceful dissent, that — that spans cultures, spans borders.

And what we’ve been seeing over the Internet and what we’ve been seeing in news reports violates those norms and violates those principles.

I think it is not too late for the Iranian government to recognize that — that there is a peaceful path that will lead to stability and legitimacy and prosperity for the Iranian people. We hope they take it.

Left unanswered was whether accepting the results of the election would betray what the demonstrators were trying to achieve; demonstrators that Obama appears to have common cause with.  He hopes they take the peaceful path to legitimacy, but the question was, what if they don’t?  Will that have any effect on relations with them?

Perhaps not.  Betsy also notes that another exchange (and another dodge) suggests that it’ll be business as usual, regardless of the election outcome.

Remember that the Obama administration has broken with 30 years of tradition and invited Iranian diplomats to come celebrate the Fourth of July at embassies around the world in what is now being called "hot dog diplomacy." Here is Obama’s response to Fox News’ Major Garrett’s question about the invitation to Iranians diplomats.

QUESTION: Are Iranian diplomats still welcome at the embassy on Fourth of July, sir?

MR. OBAMA: Well, I think as you’re aware, Major, we don’t have formal diplomatic relations with…

(CROSSTALK)

MR. OBAMA: … we don’t have formal — we don’t have formal diplomatic relations with Iran. I think that we have said that if Iran chooses a path that abides by international norms and principles, then we are interested in healing some of the wounds of 30 years in terms of U.S.-Iranian relations.

But that is a choice that the Iranians are going to have to make.

QUESTION: But the offer still stands?

MR. OBAMA: That’s a choice the Iranians are going to have to make.

What does that mean? That the Iranians have to decide whether or not to accept the invitation or that the invitation is now contingent on whether or not the Iranians are abiding by "international norms and principles." It’s not clear whether or not he is thinking of rescinding the invitation. The State Department spokesman certainly thinks that the invitation stands.

Obama told Iran that "the world is watching".  Well, lemme tell you, Iran is watching, too.  If nothing changes as a result of violent crackdowns after sham elections, they’ll be empowered to just keep on doing it. 

1. “This outfit says everything I ever dreamed of saying about postmodern deconstructive faux-nouveau absurdist organic neoclassicism, and it does it without irony!” Hmm.
2. Of issue ownership.
3. Gosh, why doesn’t he just mandate all cars be diesel?
4. Scrambling to change the message?
5. All without mentioning the crown of martyrdom.
6. Crediting the Cairo speech!? Hmm, I’ve seen that … I wonder when it will occur to them that perhaps more credit is due to two real not-pro-forma and not-faked democratic elections by a neighboring state.
7. Obama, uhm, flip flops on Iran and finally says the right thing. It shouldn’t have taken two weeks … and do you believe he means it?
8. Not a theologian.
9. The pro-life argument, see it’s not patriarchal.
10. A letter to self.
11. Church, state and education.
12. Jefferson on debt.
13. Reality TV and crime.
14. Riding home.
15. Honeymoon, and the origins of the word.
16. On Waxman-Markey … yah, what the economy needs right now is a good hard kick in the crotch.
17. On sexuality, community, and Africa.

Over the next week or so I have to write a short essay for our parish newsletter on the topic “Science and Religion.” I’m going to do the work online here “in public” as it were and see if the comment process can get me a better essay. Anyhow … to start the dread bullet list, i.e., ideas and brainstorming about things I might discuss.

• It might be interesting to mention the two tensions that have historically, especially in the West, influenced some of the reflections of the religious though on science. St. Augustine, as noted by Mr Polanyi, had an overall negative effect on science. Mr Polanyi notes that this was because of some statements by St. Augustine that science should restrict itself to those studies which bring us closer to God. Yet, St. Augustine writes as well in his Confessions that the Nature itself worships the Creator though our understanding of its workings, intracacies, and beauty. It may be that the former statement took a wrong turn because the latter sentiment was forgotten or misplaced.
• Three major revolutions have marked our deepest physical understanding of how to view the underlying nature of the material world. Sometime between the Galilean/Copernican era and Newton’s Principia, the older notion of a geometrical order to the universe was dominant. At that time it was the Pythagorean philosophy of science dominated by geometrical concepts. This was replaced by a algebraic interaction view, with Newton and later Gauss making that explicit with the development of calculus. In the early part of the 20th century this too was replaced in turn by the idea that symmetries (gauge theories) shape the structure of physical interactions and relations. Patristic theology arose in the context of a Pythagorean view of nature. Did and does that theology depend at all on our conception of the underlying structure of nature? How might it have to adapt and change as our notions of the universe change?
• Physical theories of the Universe give us a notion of the large scale structure of space-time, especially dynamical aspects for how to make sense of it. Mathemeticians have solved the Poincare conjecture giving us a classification of all the possible ways in which our three (apparent) spatial dimensions might be constructed. Additionally quantum mechanics yields notions of free-will or indeterminacy at the atomic level. Yet theological discussions, as far as I’m aware, haven’t really confronted the implications of a God existing out of time and what that means with respect to a quantum mechanical relativistic space-time.
• Eugene Wigner penned a paper on the unreasonable nature of the success of mathematics in describing the universe. It isn’t just that we can use math to describe things we already know, it’s that math so used is unreasonably successful. The mathematical ansatze (guesses) that Newton used to describe planetary motion can without change work in regimes many orders of magnitude in precision and scale afield from the scale of the data supporting them. Mr Wigner did not connect the unreasonable success of mathematics to theology, Scripture, or God. However, that connection is an easy one to make, Genesis 1 with its ontological ordering of nature suggests that nature itself is comprehensible by the mind of man. That nature is unreasonably well described by mathematics, which in turn is an essential part of the mind of man, might suggest that this is not unintentional.

Clearly if put in an essay for a newsletter these ideas have to be clarified and expounded. All are things I’ve touched on in prior essays. Suggestions? Comments?

1. A film noted.
2. Hasn’t the Israel/Palestine thing shown that “permanent refugee camp” means big big big trouble down the line?
3. Uhm, it might be a way to define themselves as not-Catholic?
4. Car sales and cash-for-clunkers.
5. Political TV shows and its effects (or not).
6. As the Democrats work out how the government will have more influence and oversight over the fed … here’s a point as to why that’s a really bad idea. Remember they weren’t going to “influence” GM with politics. Right.
7. A cartoonist from Canada on health care there.
8. Broken promises by Mr Obama. Say it ain’t so! Oh, wait that’s the norm.
9. How not to show you care for the troops. Hint actually caring a bit would help.
10. Obama, trimming out those pesky philosophers working on, you know, philosophical questions of import.
11. On faith and science.
12. Signs of faith.
13. Poverty and tourism.
14. An explanation of the ice-cream kerfuffle.
15. A feminist on father’s day.
16. Slavery and the Bible.

No.  No, they don’t.

A new three-year study of the Top 25 movies released in 2006-2008 earning the most money overseas shows that international moviegoers prefer clean movies with strong or very strong Christian, moral and/or redemptive content and values.

This study is significant because it matches our annual study of the Top 25 Movies at the Box Office in America and Canada and the top home video sales annually, and because Hollywood now makes more money overseas than it does in the United States.

The Movieguide® study found that 20 of the Top 25 movies overseas in 2006-2008, or 80%, contained strong or very strong Christian, moral, redemptive, and even biblical content, earning $8.39 billion out of $10.59 billion total, or 79.2% of the money among the Top 25.

That’s an average of $419.5 million per movie!

This is just another in a long line of studies showing the same thing.  OK, then, so why do they produce so much junk?

Last week, Mr Dreher noted an essay by Mr Coates a progressive blogger for the New Atlantic. Mr Coates offers his reasons “why I’m a liberal,” which Mr Dreher disputes. This weekend this came up in conversation and a friend offered “why he’s a conservative”, and offered a point on which I agree. In brief:

I’m a conservative because our civilization is fragile.

Liberal/progressives don’t believe that to be the case. Unlike Mr Dreher, who says:

I am not a liberal because I do not share the same view of human nature that most liberals do, and because I think that in my culture and country, our traditions and institutions, broadly speaking, are a wise guide to our life in common. And I believe liberals have such an unrealistic view of human nature that they typically run off to tear down fences without any regard for why the fences were erected, so to speak.

Not that I disagree strongly with that viewpoint, but that the more important thing is the fragility of the order in which we live. They believe they can whack away, merging politics and science strongly regarding climate, futz with marriage, redefine sexual mores and roles, bludgeon our healthcare establishment, and so on. That the structures that drive and which serve as the foundation of our civilization is fundamentally fragile. Our very progressive President has grand plans to restructure society. Progressives forget the disasters they reap. For example it was the progressive movement which brought us Prohibition and the twin progressive reforms of the 60s easing divorce and of welfare which annihilated the inner city family structure so effectively. And don’t examine Europe … the 20th century history is a wrecking yard of progressive ideas which foundered on reality.

How is that they don’t realize that their progressive failures are disappointing failures and disasters most of the time? They use a few mechanisms and repeat as needed. The primary mechanism is to forget that the failures were progressive innovations … they pretend that they were innovations pressed on society by the conservative faction … even though that very idea should resound with cognitive dissonance. The other mechanism is ignorance. For example, Black slavery in the New World was a progressive innovation introduced by a Spanish nobleman in order to allay and ease maltreatment of native central American peoples by the conquering Spanish peoples. And yes, it wasn’t his plan that the evils of the triangle trade might arise … but that’s always how it goes … and this is the third mechanism. Because the “plan didn’t work out” … the massive suffering that entails the enterprise is exonerated. Throughout the 20th century, Western European and American liberal establishment was enthralled with Marxism and the communist bloc. They ignored the suffering and pain because that wasn’t in the plan. It wasn’t intended. Thus it was forgiven and forgotten and ignored.

Take science for example, Mr Polanyi notes in Personal Knowledge that the transmission from master to apprentice is the primary way in which our scientific methodologies are transmitted. He notes that University culture has been transplanted into a variety of cultures and settings and the results by and large have not been as successful as would be expected, in many places it hasn’t worked at all to this point. The key here is that the culture on which our scientific progress depends is fragile. It is hard to construct. It took centuries to arise and … didn’t arise in many other places which were more literate, wealthier, and had more time. Likewise our social customs and practices fit together to form our society … are very fragile. They took centuries, millenia to build up in a way in which they fit. It is a progressive conceit that they have “new ways” of social arrangement untried and unconsidered by anyone in the previous 5000 years. They believe that their scientific knowledge will protect them from error at the same time at which is retreating rapidly from the notions that it has anything to offer in moral and social arenas. Odd that.

I’m conservative because I’m aware our track record at intentional innovations in engineering and fixing our society is very very poor. I’m conservative because the effort to make decent human society was bought at great price. 500 years ago the “Emily Post” etiquette manuals of behavior had to instruct individuals to eschew public defecation in dining areas at mealtime. Our manners, our culture, and the institutions which bind us together took great effort to erect. They are fragile. The first impulse should not be to whack them indiscriminately as they are planning and doing right now.

No, it’s not the title of a new soap opera.  Just some thoughts on the inevitable change all parents go through.

I had a "first" for Father’s Day this year; the first time one of my kids called me for Father’s Day instead of being here for it.  She’s working at summer camp in this time between high school and college, so we’re getting a bit of a trial run of the whole "away at college" thing. 

I remember when I went off to college and my parents wanted me to keep in touch.  No cell phones then, never mind having free nationwide long distance, and they knew how often I wrote letters (almost never), so they gave me a tape recorder and asked me to keep in touch that way.  They knew their son well.  The recorded "letters" started out pretty sedate, but wound up like a radio show with its own theme music, and the tape recorder (about the size of a large paperback book) went with me all over the place and caught some very interesting moments. 

At first, I found the chronicling of my college life for them rather tedious.  When I made it fun for me, then it happened more often, but still; hey, I’m at college and I’m OK, so what’s the big deal about keeping in touch?

Now I know. 

When we’d all come home for Christmas or Spring Break or a week in the summer, my dad would get all dramatic on us.  "Isn’t it great to have the whole gang together again" and/or "How many more times will we be able to do this" would come up now and then.  Early on, I didn’t quite connect with the sentiment.

Now I know.

So now it’s my nest that starts emptying.  Since I was the oldest in my family, I never felt what it was like to have less than the full compliment around the dinner table, so this is going to be new for me, and not just because I’m the dad now.  Family dynamics will change, I’m sure, and actually I’ll be interested to see how.  But after all these years in pretty much the same situation year to year, what’s "normal" is now changing.  This is the new "normal", and there ain’t no going back.

Yeah, I’m a little melancholy at the prospect, but hey, it’s time for a change, and I’m excited to see what’s coming.

1. For father’s day.
2. Why “not nuanced” might be an appropriate response.
3. Moussavi, shaped by events?
4. Tortoise and hare … for further reading I’d suggest The Motion Paradox: The 2,500-Year Old Puzzle Behind All the Mysteries of Time and Space.
5. All “neo-cons”, whatever a neo-con is … on that I have no clear notion. The significant holdout waffles.
6. The reformers have won.
7. Poetry.
8. Those votes.
9. Seminar reflections from Saint Vladimir‘s conference. More Another conference noted here.
10. A stopped clock is right once a day.
11. Cartoon and verse.
12. To re-read, a list of 10.
13. 7 million -> 5 million … while more common assessments less than 2.
14. Moving and prosperity.

There’s a five books (scholars) meme going around, and I’ve been tagged (I noticed it here too). This is to list five scholars/books which influenced your Bible hermeneutic, i.e., how your read and interpret the Bible.

1. N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, which outlines the best of historical way of reading the Bible that I’ve seen.
2. Leon Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom, in which a philosophical method of reading Scripture is outlined. In brief, reading Genesis (and to extend beyond) as you would read Plato.
3. The Orthodox liturgical canon (of the morning Matins or all-night Vigil) which is drenched with the typological method of reading Scripture.
4. Origen and his introduction of the allegorical reading of Scripture. I’m peeking ahead here, I’m not up-to-speed on this yet … but will get a shock introduction shortly in a class I’m taking.
5. Robert Alter and his Introduction to his translation of Genesis (there are more now The Five Books of Moses, The David Story, and The Book of Psalms)… and the subsequent translation in which the sparse economic poetry of the Genesis writers is highlighted.

I’ll tag Matt Anderson (who is blogging somewhere but I’ve lost track of where), Brandon, and Kevin, and Doug one of my co-bloggers at SCO.