John Ingraham

Government Pirates: The Assault on Private Property Rights and How We Can Fight It, By Don Corace. Harper Collins, 288 pp., $14.95 paper.

This book is exactly what its subtitle declares, and the author has done a fine job. It is well written, concise and direct. In short, succinct chapters he covers each area of concern -- eminent domain, zoning, wetlands preservation, the Endangered Species Act -- first defining the issue and then describing illustrative cases. Mr. Corace knows his subject, and when the reader is done, he will know it, too. An excellent final chapter explains why we should care about these issues, and outlines ways to take action. For those who do not know the full story, this is a very useful account.

There is, however, something missing: history. We are not told if the problem has changed over time, nor do we learn why the assaults seem so determined now (as in the Green cases). Of course, attacks on private property are nothing new; officious bureaucrats, corrupt politicians, and greedy developers are always with us. That is, the problem has an ahistorical dimension. But it has a history, too, and if we don't know it we are apt to think this is the same old story of general injustice. I think, however, the attacks are more widespread and more determined than that, and the answer is to be found in the history of ideas since World War II.

The most significant development, the one that underlies all the subsequent changes, was the favored position of the United States in the world economy after the war as the only unscathed major power, a situation which generated enormous wealth, widely apparent by the latter 1950s. This had subversive consequences for the prevailing American world view, the liberalism that had grown out of pre-World War I Progressivism, reaching its perfected form in the New Deal years, because that view, ripened during the Depression and war years, was Spartan, almost ascetic, happy with Norman Rockwell rustic types at the mythic town meetings, clean-limbed working men in uncorrupt unions, unthreatening patronized Negroes, benign in its smug benevolence, the framing narrative of all right-thinking Americans. The creation of unprecedented prosperity worried those people at the time, with good reason, although the aspects they worried about were the wrong ones -- I recall a college colloquium on "What shall we do with our leisure?" -- they did not see that their sparse world was about to be transformed by a flood of material things. Meanwhile, the Cold War had begun, there was much international tension, and we belatedly discovered Communist subversion in our sunny homeland.

The temptation is to say that the world had become more complex, but that's an illusion. Every period is complex for the people living in it; only when we look back at the past do other times seem simpler than our own. And every new period seems more complex because its outlines are unfamiliar. So the postwar period, with its international challenges and domestic strains seemed much more difficult than the 1930s and 1940s. The important point to grasp is that the picture of America in our minds no longer fits the frame; the benign liberalism of the past is increasingly irrelevant.

It must also be noted that stabilizing and unifying forces, so influential in the middle class, like the mainline Protestant churches, were beginning their steep decline. Nor should we forget that even such a humble thing as popular culture, once a unifier (remember the "Hit Parade"?) was splintering. The liberal American conversation with itself was fading, faltering. In its perplexity the cultural elite turned to the remedy it thought had worked in the 1930s: government. Programs proliferated, culminating in Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, a venture that not only inflated governments but also spawned quasi-governmental agencies of all sorts as well as pseudo-independent bodies supported by grants, multiplying the number of people with officious attitudes, at the same time that they were given more intrusive powers.

The postwar consensus collapsed during the student protests of the late 1960s, not because the movement was so strong, but because everyone vested with authority revealed under pressure that their convictions had been hollowed out over the years. They did not really believe the sonorous phrases they had been mouthing, and suddenly no one else did either. Over the next few years, colleges gave up what had been the reason for being, humanistic learning: it had been discredited along with classical liberalism. To understand what this meant for a generation of students, consider one of the results of postwar affluence: many children of working class or lower middleclass background were able to go to college, and they went at a time when a college education was losing its traditional meaning to become loosely vocational or merely fatuous. These people would eventually find employment largely in government agencies and government-linked offices, an affluent class of time servers in fluff jobs, one of the most densely ignorant (but superficially sophisticated) schooled groups ever to emerge in America, the yuppies. The growing affluence and leisure of this class, combined with the decay and disappearance of authority figures and stabilizing institutions, prepared a fertile soil for the growth of the irrational causes so destructive of our society: feminism, no-fault divorce, unlimited abortion, racial and other preferences, homosexual marriage, Greenism, and so on, all group ideas and group movements.

So the last sixty years have given us a huge intrusive bureaucracy, always inherently suspicious of individuality, now reinforced by groupthink; an ignorant semi-elite dedicated to utterly irrational causes underpinned by groupthink; and the rabid promoters of the causes themselves, intent on marshaling their followers in militant, serried ranks. The reason private property rights take such a beating in this kind of climate is that it is the ultimate refuge of autonomy, feared and hated by group thinkers. That's what we must keep in mind as we read this book: that it's not simply a compilation of outrages, it shows a determined attack against individual autonomy.

There is a hopeful note in this gloomy history. Since the collapse of the postwar consensus "right-thinking" people have been trying to impose a new consensus: America the ogre -- what we might call the Jeremiah Wright vision -- but conservatism has been growing as a counter force, and the growing hysteria of the right-thinkers tells us that they are no longer secure in their hegemony, that they are desperately afraid they have lost control of America's framing narrative. *

"The world has no room for cowards. We must all be ready somehow to toil, to suffer, to die. And yours is not the less noble because no drum beats before you when you go out into your daily battlefields, and no crowds shout about your coming when you return from your daily victory or defeat." --Robert Lewis Stevenson

Robert C. Whitten

The author holds a Ph.D. in physics from Duke University and an M.S. in meteorology from San Jose State University. He is a research scientist, NASA-retired, author or editor of five books, and author or co-author of 117 papers in the archival literature on various aspects of atmospheric science, and is a commander, U.S. Navy Reserve-Retired He is indebted for helpful advice to Dr. Richard Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan, Professor of Meteorology at M.I.T., and Vice Admiral Robert F. Dunn, U.S.N., Retired, President of the U.S. Naval Historical Foundation.

The current conventional wisdom dictates that the world is warming as a result of human activities. Politicians, the public, and those out to profit from any possible change in the way the world is viewed have jumped on the bandwagon. Even the prestigious Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) has added its voice in its favor: "We must do something before it's too late. National security is threatened."1 The truth is that following the recommendations of the CNA study, and falling to the pleas of politicians and others with their "The sky is falling," efforts will, in itself, lead to reduced national security. How might this happen?

First, the conclusions of those who blame the human race for global warming are based on audacious assumptions about the ability of humans to control climate. They are all based on the results, not of observations of actual atmospheric temperatures, sea level changes, etc., but on the predictions of theoretical models, all of which are characterized by severe limitations. The concerns about global warming due to greenhouse gases arose not from observed temperature data but from predictions of so-called "general circulation models." These models are necessarily simplified simulations of atmospheric dynamics. They cannot simulate cloud cover, precipitation and the enormously chaotic behavior of the atmosphere, all of which are essential for realistic predictions. Climate, in fact, is never stable but is subject to more or less periodic cyclical variations (e.g., the 1,500 year cycle2); such variability is caused by factors beyond human control.

The predicted atmospheric temperature rises due to increased greenhouse gas content have actually decreased over the years as models have improved and are now about 2.5 C for a doubling of CO2. More realistic estimates of temperature rise are less than 1¡ C, probably much less than 1¡ C, so that any observed temperature increase can be expected to be lost in the noise of normal measurement variability. Basic greenhouse theory tells us that temperatures in the tropical upper troposphere should rise by about 2.5 times as much as the surface temperature.3 What has been observed by satellites and balloons since the 1970s is less than what is seen at the surface, indeed much less. This implies that most of the surface change is not due to greenhouse warming from any source. Indeed, recent investigations of the influence of solar variability have strongly supported the alternative, that solar variability is the responsible factor.4

Any heating of the atmosphere by greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and water vapor involves an extremely complex set of processes. In short, visible and some ultraviolet radiation from the sun penetrates Earth's atmosphere and is absorbed by the surface although part of it is reflected by clouds. The energy is then reemitted as infrared radiation that corresponds to the temperature of the surface and the lower atmosphere, roughly 20¡ to 30¡ C. Water vapor is by far the dominant greenhouse gas except in extremely cold and dry areas such as the eastern slopes of the Canadian Rockies and central Siberia in winter. Deposition of heat energy in the atmosphere occurs mainly at tropical and subtropical latitudes and is transported poleward by atmospheric circulation, causing a latitudinal temperature difference. Increases in temperature due to greenhouse gases should be apparent not so much at the surface but at altitudes of 4 to 15 km.3, 5 Even so, smaller temperature differences between the tropics and polar regions are expected to lead to less violent weather, not more as cited in the CNA report.

Rather than global warming, a very possible climate catastrophe is global cooling as occurred in the "Little Ice Age," or a major ice age. We have an excellent history of temperature changes over many millennia using various "proxies" such as ratios of oxygen isotopes and tree ring properties. The 1,500 year cycle, which includes the Little Ice Age, became well established quite recently. The latter is attributed at least in part to decrease in solar activity, the so-called "Maunder Minimum" when sunspots vanished from the solar surface. Major ice ages, on the other hand, are believed to be caused principally by changes in the Earth's orbital characteristics such as changes in the tilt of the polar axis to the plane of the Earth's orbit (ecliptic). As for a dangerous rise in atmospheric temperature due to increased greenhouse gases, temperatures during the Medieval Warm Period (about 950 to 1250 AD) were higher than is predicted by the atmospheric models for a doubling of atmospheric CO2.2, 6 No catastrophes occurred during that era which was best characterized by the absence of famine, Viking voyages to North America, the settling of Greenland, wine production in England, and the construction of the great European cathedrals. Despite claims to the contrary,7 we know from records obtained from the Middle East, China and even the southern hemisphere that the warming was world wide. A Little Ice Age occurring from about 100 AD to 600 or 700 AD may have been partially responsible for the collapse of the Roman Empire.

The Kyoto Protocol, which became effective with Russia's signing, requires signature nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5.2 percent below a 1990 baseline. The economic costs to the United States of adhering to Kyoto are acknowledged by most economists to be horrendous with no discernable effect on atmospheric temperature. Suggested follow-ons to Kyoto such as proposed at the recent conference in Bali, Indonesia, would wreak much more havoc, again with no likely measurable effect on atmospheric temperature. Moreover, most of the current signatories in the developed world have not met their required cuts in greenhouse gas emissions; the only exceptions are former Communist countries such as Russia that have shut down most of their inefficient industry. Signatories in the developing world (including India, China,8 and Brazil) are not called upon to make any cuts. The damage that would be caused by such treaties, favored by the environmental elite, has been brought into sharp focus by a recent address to the Cato Institute9 by the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, an economist by profession, and by the Heritage Foundation.10

The protagonists of greenhouse gas/global warming often cite the "great consensus" among scientists that the effect is already a serious threat. This claim should be regarded with great skepticism since the great majority of the scientific community has little or no expertise in atmospheric science, and among atmospheric scientists, especially climatologists, there is no such consensus. Science is an extremely authoritarian venture with the authority residing in reproducible experiment and observation. Theory must support the experimental/observational data, not the other way round as climate alarmists would have us believe.

Efforts to stabilize the climate are futile and would very likely reduce national security by requiring drastic reductions in the availability of fossil fuels, especially for the Navy and the Air Force. The present reliance on forward naval deployments and high degrees of training that are the hallmark of the current defense stance of this nation would become impossible because of fuel reductions. In fact, the production of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) by the armed forces due to burning fossil fuels is only about 0.3 percent of the total national output.

Thus strenuous efforts to reduce emissions by the armed services would contribute almost nothing to the national effort. However, it is inconceivable that the American public would accept the enormous reductions in fuel consumption necessary to comply with projected treaties without exacting corresponding reductions in fossil fuel use by the armed services. This is not to say that the armed services should not try to become more energy efficient, which should be done for strategic and economic reasons; but despite the absence of any reality that calls for immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to protect mankind, it is still wise from a national security standpoint to continue efforts toward greater efficiency in energy use and to obtain substitutes for Middle Eastern oil. However, converting the United States into a third world nation by enforcing drastic reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases would be counter-productive with respect to national security, and response to natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina and the Indonesian tsunami11 would be impossible. *

Endquotes: "Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason." --Benjamin Franklin

References

1. Center for Naval Analysis web site: http://www.securityandclimate.cna.org/report/. Nine retired generals and admirals have contributed to this report.

2. Singer, S. F., and Avery, D. T., Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, Plymouth, U.K.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007, pp. 260. Also see Robinson, A. B., N. E. Robinson and W. Soon, "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide," Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, vol. 12, 79-90, 2007.

3. Lindzen, R. S., "Understanding Common Climate Claims," in Proceedings of the 34th International Seminar on Nuclear War and Planetary Emergencies, R. Raigaini, editor, Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co., pp.189-210, 2005.

4. Scafetta, N. and B. J. West, "Is Climate Sensitive to Solar Variability?" Physics Today (American Institute of Physics), vol. 61 (3), 50-51, 2008.

5. The author has made a statistical analysis of the upper air temperatures as recorded by the National Climatic Data Center and found essentially no change between 1979 (when satellite measurements began) and 1998. The data show a high degree of variability.

6. Robinson, A. B., N. E. Robinson and W. Soon, "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide," Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, vol. 12, 79-90, 2007.

7. Mann, M. E., et al., "Global-Scale Temperature Patterns and Climate Forcing over the Past Six Centuries," Nature, vol. 392, 779-787, 1998.

8. China has been rapidly overtaking the U.S. in greenhouse gas emissions and is probably the leading emitter as this article is published.

9. Klaus, Vaclav, "Three Challenges to Freedom," address to the Cato Institute, Washington, D.C., March 9, 2007.

10. The Heritage Foundation web site: http://www.heritage.org/Research/ EnergyandEnvironment/globalwarming.cfm.

11. Elleman, B.A., "Waves of Hope: The U.S. Navy's Response to the Tsunami in Northern Indonesia," Naval War College Paper 28, Naval War College Press, pp.138, 2007.

Thomas Martin

Thomas Martin teaches in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. You may contact Thomas Martin at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Dale Ahlquist asked me last year if I would give a talk at this year's centennial celebration of Orthodoxy. I readily agreed without giving it a moment's thought until I heard from Dale several weeks ago. He reminded me of our conversation and, saving me the trouble of thinking of a topic, assigned Chapter Two, "The Maniac." I was suspicious. Of all the chapters in Orthodoxy, ones having to do with the ethics of elves, the flag of the world, Christian paradoxes, romance, authority and adventure, why was I given the maniac? [Does it take one to know one?] Perhaps Dale knows something of which I am not aware.

Dale, a. k. a. the President of the American Chesterton society, knows I am a ward at a state mental institution where I have been kept for twenty-two years in the position of a college professor by the citizens of Nebraska. It is not as though anyone in my position fears being charged like Socrates for creating false gods, or corrupting the youth, and being condemned to drink hemlock. In fact, Dale knows that as academic doctors at mental institutions we are free to think whatever we wish, even though it may appear disjointed, irrational, and irreverent to ordinary people outside the mental institutions of higher education. [We think ourselves to be quite sane.]

I wonder if I have been set-up. Given the next chapter is "The Suicide of Thought," which reveals the demise of the maniac, whose demented state I have been assigned to elucidate, it might well be the case that what follows is the suicide note for the maniac. Then again, why should I worry? If it takes a maniac to know a maniac, I would be the last to know if I had cracked my head, and surely I will not be held responsible for putting myself back together again. Therefore, if what I present appears to be disjointed, irrational, and irreverent, it is as it should be.

Before opening the door on the maniac, and while I still have my wits about me, I am going to present three pictures of Western civilization. These pictures have evolved like the maps of explorers, thought created by philosophers, authors, poets, or scientists who have brought back news from their journeys throughout the history of the Western world. The first map, the "Great Chain of Being," presents the universe as hierarchical, which was commonly understood from the beginning of time into the 1800s. The chain originates under the reign of God, as seen even in the pagan world of Homer, where Zeus from Olympian height rules over lesser gods and man. Later, with Christianity, everything emanates from God downward in the order of archangels, angels, man, animals, plants and finally the inanimate minerals. An object's place depends on the relative proportion of spirit and matter it contains -- the less "spirit" and the more "matter," the lower its link on the chain. God's understanding [Aquinas] is not distinct from his being; accordingly, intellectual life is more perfect in the angels, whose intellect does not proceed from something extrinsic to acquired self-knowledge, but knows itself by itself. Man's level of being is higher than the animal's but lower than the angel's. The human mind receives knowledge extrinsically and is capable of self-reflection through the knowledge of good and evil. This hierarchical organization of the mental faculties is reflected in the hierarchical order of the family, the state, and the church. When things are properly ordered, reason rules the emotions, just as the parent rules the children, a king rules his subjects, and the shepherd leads his flock. To act against human nature by not allowing reason to rule the emotions is to descend into the dark woods, to the level of the beast.

The second map, "The Great Tree," was founded on the principle of growth, the doctrine of progress, from the 18th to l9th century, when a reordering of the universe occurred. On this map, everything is moving upward from nature; each generation marks an advance over the previous generation, which can be measured by the fruits of scientific research, as seen in medical advancements, as well as an abundance of material goods and gadgets. In government, power emanates from its roots, the people, whose rights are founded in the deist's God of nature, the growth of which culminates in the blossoming of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Man's source of happiness is found in his emotions that are the highest expression of his feelings in the world. Marx cut this tree down, separating it from its root. Now on the horizontal plain, Marx argues that the tree continues to grow in a natural historical progression as man is shaped by the economic environment. The seeds of man's development are in the antithesis to the current economic system, from the destruction of which man will eventually be led into the harmonious communal state of Communism.

The third map is "The Tangled Bank," a picture derived from an analogy Darwin uses at the conclusion of Origins of the Species. In this tangle, there is a selection of the species through interdependence and symbiotic growth, following the laws of growth with reproduction that are in a struggle for life. In the words of Darwin, it is:

. . . the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.

The whole of nature, of which man is a part, is taken as a product of chance and necessity; there is neither meaning nor purpose nor intelligence in this process, but an accidental product of evolution, mutating like a cancerous growth into whatever matters at that moment.

In the chapter preceding The Maniac, "In Defense of Everything Else," Chesterton states, "central Christian theology (sufficiently summarized in the Apostles' Creed) is the best root of energy and sound ethics." Orthodoxy is rooted in the Apostles' Creed:

. . . as understood by everybody calling himself a Christian until a very short time ago and the general historical conduct of those who held such a creed. [Chesterton, Orthodoxy, p. 17]

In other words, we are no longer in the age of:

I believe in One God the Father almighty, Creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord. . . .

In fact, when Christians step out of their homes they will find they are not in a world rooted in the Great Chain of Being, but are in a world in which scientists are harnessing nature for man's benefit in order to make as many people's lives as comfortable as possible in the shopping mall of the Global Village.

Chesterton begins his prognosis of the maniac with the following:

Thoroughly worldly people never understand even the world; they rely altogether on a few cynical maxims that are not true. Once I remember walking with a prosperous publisher, who made a remark which I had often heard before; it is, indeed, almost a motto of the modern world . . . "That man will get on; he believes in himself." . . . I said to him, "Shall I tell you where the men are who believe most in themselves? For I can tell you. I know of men who believe in themselves more colossally than Napoleon or Caesar. I know where flames the fixed star of certainty and success. I can guide you to the thrones of the Super-men. The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums. . . ."

Then the publisher asked, "Well, if a man is not to believe in himself, in what is he to believe?"

To which Chesterton responded,

"I will go home and write a book in answer to that question." This is the book that I have written in answer to it. [Orthodoxy, p. 18-19]

The publisher mentioned above as "thoroughly worldly" does not think of himself as a living soul lodged between the angels and the beasts in possession of a mind which is endowed with the faculty of reason breathed into him by God; he is not in the fallen state of being "like a god" with the knowledge of good and evil, praying "Thy will be done," to overcome himself in the redemption of the world. He is cut from the source of reason, and there is a missing link between him and the angels; he has cut his body off from his eternal soul, and he is left alone without any idea beyond himself. He is a man who believes in himself for that is all he has.

"To believe in oneself," Chesterton notes:

. . . is the clearest sign of a "rotter." Actors who cannot act believe in themselves; and debtors who won't pay. It would be much truer to say that a man will certainly fail, because he believes in himself.

The actor who believes in himself, fails as an actor because he does not recognize any talent or authority higher than his own. A creative writing student, with whom I recently spoke, who refuses to read other poets because he does not want them to affect his style, stinks as a creative writer because he refuses to admit his betters.

The thesis of "The Maniac," Chesterton notes:

. . . is purely practical and is concerned with what actually is the chief mark and element of insanity; we say in summary that it is reason used without root. The man who begins to think without the proper first principles goes mad; he begins to think at the wrong end. [Ibid. p. 230]

[The human race, according to religion, fell once, and in falling gained knowledge of good and of evil. Now we have fallen a second time, and only the knowledge of evil remains. p. 51, Heretics].

Given that only evil remains -- though modern man would never it call it such! -- Chesterton strategically begins his argument for orthodoxy "in the neighborhood of the mad-house." In the time of "thoroughly worldly people" you can no longer start an argument, "as our fathers did, with the fact of sin." In the mental institution in which I am lodged, it would be heretical for a teacher to profess something as unscientific as the university was established to use the faculties of reason for the greater glory of God's will on earth. This is because modern man is worldly man, thinking of himself as being lodged in his own creation: whatever he thinks to be good is good. Here are some of the maxims of modern thought which are tied to the man who believes in himself: I did it my way, if it feels good, do it!, the purpose of life is to find yourself, "I Got to Be Me," you have to be true to yourself, overcoming feelings of guilt is an important step to mental wellness.

Be this as it may, modern man has not yet denied "the existence of a lunatic asylum," of the possibility that he might at any moment be suffering from a chemical imbalance, be exhibiting a "behavior" which is indicative of a victim of a dysfunctional relationship, or be "stressing out" and in need of a few hours in a labyrinth to restore his mental health.

The two sources of modern man's madness can be found by using reason either to cut himself off from everything that is known by the senses, or to know only what can be experienced from the senses.

Descartes, the father of modern thought, is an example of the former. He denied any knowledge from experience in order to establish what is certain beyond a reason of a doubt. In the solitary confinement of contemplation, he doubts all knowledge from his senses and finds certitude in the self-evident proposition, "I think, therefore I am." Of this senseless observation Descartes is certain. This leads to, "Whatever I think I am, I am." Here is a man who thought himself into existence and obviously has to believe in himself. What is going to happen if he stops thinking about himself? In this solitary state, Descartes became like god and turned his back on the God of Moses who spoke, "I am who I am." After proving his existence to himself, Descartes then set about trying to figure out what the "I" is that thinks, fearing he might mistake himself for something he was not, a chair, a desk or even a tassel on his dressing gown.

[Is it any wonder why philosophers who are the cutting edge of thought are kept in mental institutions?]

Thomas Paine, in his introduction to The Age of Reason, written in 1794, captures the spirit of a sensible man whose mind is open to each new experience:

I have always strenuously supported the Right of every Man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies to another this right, makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it. [p. 7]

Thomas Paine is a freethinker whose creed is the right not to be held captive by his own opinion, which may change with the next opinion that enters his mind. Thomas is open-minded and will not have his mind fixed to a dogma which would limit his right to change his mind.

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church I know of. My own mind is my own church. [Ibid. p. 8]

You can't tell doubting Thomas what to worship in the church service of his sensible mind!

Chesterton responds that:

The man who cannot believe his senses, and the man who cannot believe anything else, are both insane, but their insanity is proved not by any error in their argument, but by the manifest mistake of their whole lives. They have both locked themselves up in two boxes, painted inside with the sun and stars; they are both unable to get out, the one into the health and happiness of heaven, the other even into the health and happiness of the earth. [Orthodoxy, p. 31-32]

In all of this, it is important to remember the word "lunatic" is from the Latin luna, moon, for it was believed that lunacy fluctuated with the phases of the moon. That the moon is a metaphor for the mad man is fitting as he is a half-wit who is half lit. The moon is a cold and barren satellite that shines by the sun's reflected light as it revolves around the earth. The lunatic is a person without God, the creator of Heaven and Earth, and the Word that reveals the truth of the Logos. There is no light shining in the darkness to guide modern man beyond the revolutions of his mind. As the moon is a fitting symbol for the madman, the sun, Chesterton says, is:

The one created thing which we cannot look at [and] is the one thing in the light of which we look at everything. Like the sun at noonday, mysticism explains everything else by the blaze of it own victorious invisibility. Detached intellectualism is (in the exact sense of a popular phrase) all moonshine, for it is light without heat, and it is secondary light, reflected from a dead world [p. 33].

We now live in the soulless world of the materialist. The scientist is more important than the priest. We are a people captivated by the mentality of scientism, thinking that all our problems can be understood and resolved by science. It is the age of the positivist and the pragmatist. The former holds that valid knowledge is attainable only through the methods employed by the natural and social sciences, so no knowledge is regarded as genuine unless it is based on observable phenomena; the latter holds that the only valid test of truth is that it works: if it can be done, it should be done.

It is a fact that embryonic cells can be harvested from unborn babies and offer the possibility of a cure from dementia, so we baby boomers will not lose our mental health. We are worried about dementia but we are not worried about being demented.

It is a fact that a pregnancy can be terminated, and Barack Obama, standing on the platform of his party, sees abortion as the natural right of a woman who can do what she wants with and to her body.

The California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, recognizing it as a "basic civil right." One supporter succinctly captured the modern "fact" as, "This is a life-affirming moment." That a homosexual union is life-affirming affirms the culture of death, reducing the procreative act of living souls to a sterile performance in the moonlight.

Now, if we are to glance at the philosophy of sanity, the first thing to do in the matter is to blot out one big and common mistake. There is a notion adrift everywhere that imagination, especially mystical imagination, is dangerous to man's mental balance. Poets are commonly spoken of as psychologically unreliable; and generally there is a vague association between wreathing laurels in your hair and sticking straws in it. Facts and history utterly contradict this view. . . . Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad; but chess players do. Mathematicians go mad, and cashiers; but creative artists very seldom. . . . I only say that this danger does lie in logic, not in imagination. [p. 20-21]

It does little good to argue with the maniac. Severed from the divine reason emanating down the Chain of Being, his divining is divine. His mind is not sparked by being in God's creation because he has recreated the world as an object dependent on his own judgment. Alone with his reason, the maniac does not recognize any source of judgment outside of his own. He hears no voices but his own. He is the magnetic point of his own compass beyond the pull of any other magnetic point, beyond the confines of north and south. There is no perfection at which to aim, but he is the perfection at which he points: his arrow is always on target. He is the Alpha and the Omega of his journey.

[This] madman's explanation of a thing is always complete, and often in a purely rational sense satisfactory. Or, to speak more strictly, the insane explanation, if not conclusive, is at least unanswerable. . . .

What do you say to the man who thinks everyone is plotting against him, the man who thinks himself the rightful King of England, or who says he is Jesus Christ? Keep in mind:

It does little good to tell the man who says that he is Jesus Christ that the world denies his divinity; for the world denied Christ's. [p. 24]

One hundred years ago, Chesterton saw a "new man" gaining mastery in Europe, the self-possessed man who believed only in himself. Before the turn of the century, Nietzsche announced that God was dead and that new philosophers were beginning to appear on the horizon whose will to power had not been weakened by the religious neurosis of Christianity because they were beyond good and evil.

He further expounded that it was not the case that God had died, in as much as it was the case that God had never existed. God was the invention of philosophers. In fact, Christianity was simply Platonism for the people, a religious neurosis affected by the misdirection of the will to power which is at the root of man's being.

Here is Nietzsche in a nutshell:

At the risk of displeasing innocent ears, I submit that egoism belongs to the essence of a noble soul. I mean the unalterable belief that to a being such as "we," other beings must naturally be in subjection, and have to sacrifice themselves. The noble soul accepts the fact of his egoism without question, and also without consciousness of harshness, constraint, or arbitrariness therein, but rather as something that may have its basis in the primary law of things: -- if he sought a designation for it he would say: "It is justice itself. " . . . he enjoys intercourse with himself -- in accordance with an innate heavenly mechanism which all the stars understand . . . every star is a similar egoist; he honours "himself" in them. [Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, p. 240-241]

The "being such as 'we'" to which Nietzsche refers is the noble soul, the man who is beyond good and evil, not hampered by morality. He is a character out of the tangled bank where survival of the fittest reigns as a natural creative force manifested in the will to power that is the catalyst of a higher animal. In the words of Nietzsche:

Let us acknowledge how every higher civilization hitherto has originated! Men with a still terrible natural nature, barbarians in every terrible sense of the word, men of prey, still in possession of unbroken strength of will and desire for power, threw themselves upon weaker, more moral, more peaceful races (perhaps trading or cattle-rearing communities), or upon old mellow civilizations in which the final vital force was flickering out in brilliant fireworks of wit and depravity. At the commencement, the noble caste was always the barbarian caste: their superiority did not consist first of all in their physical, but in their physical power -- they were more complete men (which at every point also implies the same as more complete beasts). [Ibid. p. 224]

The 20th century brought man to a "higher civilization" through the "will to power" founded on the detached intellectualism of men cut off from God. It was the century that belonged to Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, the new rights created by Supreme Court justices and the likes of Dr. Kevorkian, all who demonstrated the price of this "higher civilization." It necessitated the Gulags of the Soviet Union, the Holocaust to purify the Aryan race, one third of American's unborn babies being legally aborted to ensure a woman's freedom of choice after Roe vs. Wade, all culminating in suicide as a death with dignity.

Nietzsche's philosophy was captured for my generation of the 1960s by Jean Paul Sartre, who realized that since God does not exist, "there is at least one being in whom existence precedes essence." It is quite simple. Given there is no human nature, man defines himself. Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself. It would seem that this gives man, more specifically a man, license to do whatever he wills, especially with Mick Jagger and his Rolling Stones, thumping away in the background, "I can't get no satisfaction!" followed by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young's inspirational, "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with!" However, this is not the case. By existence, Sartre means, one's awareness of becoming oneself in the future. In his own words:

Man is at the start a plan which is aware of itself, rather than a patch of moss, a piece of garbage, or cauliflower; nothing exists prior to this plan; there is nothing in heaven; man will be what he will have planned to be. [Sartre, Existentialism and Human Emotions, p. 16]

Man is the creature who has foresight, who can plan and will himself into existence. Man is responsible to himself for what he becomes. Man, in realizing he is responsible for himself, is responsible for all men and for creating what is good. Since there is no moral truth, that you should love your neighbor as yourself -- whatever a man chooses to be affirms the value of what he chooses:

. . . because we can never choose evil. We always choose the good, and nothing can be good for us without being good for all. [Ibid. p. 17]

For Sartre who thinks man is condemned to be free, it is obviously difficult to be man, given that there is nothing a man "ought" to do other than what he "feels" he should do, which is sure to incite a riot amongst the other existentialists who also think they are choosing for all mankind. Given that values are vague, the best a man can do Sartre says, is to, "Trust his instincts [because] in the end it is feeling which counts." [Ibid., p. 26].

There you have it: reason is finally the handmaiden of desire.

Back to the nuthouse, I mean, Nietzsche in a nutshell: the idea that there is a "will to truth" in man which is at odds with his instincts is a fiction which is the creation of Greek philosophers. Philosophers halted at the question of the origin of the Will, assuming that the value of it lies in seeking truth. The moralism of Plato is a "pathological condition." His dogmatic idea is that the soul of man is tri-part: reason, spirit, and desire. Of these three, reason and desire have been blindly accepted as the rational and irrational parts of the soul; the former part "calculates," and the latter part "lusts, hungers, thirsts, and gets excited by other appetites." That man by nature has an end, a telos, at which he may aim if he is to be fulfilled, is a myth. There is no self-evident principle beyond the instincts. That Reason leads man to virtue that in turn restrains the instincts is a prejudice crafted by Socrates' "hallucinations" which he thought to be the voice of conscience within him. Plato turned the natural impulses of man into tyrants, and Socrates' reason became the "counter-tyrant" to the instinct. All morality is anti-natural as it seeks to restrain the instincts. [Portable Nietzsche, p. 478].

In the words of Nietzsche:

[T]he whole improvement-morality, including the Christian, was a misunderstanding. The most blinding daylight; rationality at any price; life, bright, cold, cautious, conscious, without instinct, in opposition to the instincts -- all this too was a mere disease. . . . To have to fight the instinct -- that is the formula of decadence: as long as life is ascending, happiness equals instinct. [Twilight of the Idols, p. 11].

That is worth repeating, "as long as life is ascending, happiness equals instinct." Nietzsche's ascent is the descent of man, known as Darwin's higher animal, into the tangled bank of the modern world. Man is the vital force of nature, Nietzsche's Ubermensch: "the over-man," the crowning achievement of nature, a more complete beast, the manifestation of the "will and desire for power." There is no root to reason beyond man. Reason is rooted in instinct, the barbaric primordial desire that has been weakened by Christianity, the byproduct of Platonism.

Reading Nietzsche is like listening to a character in a novel, a man such as Dostoyevsky created in The Brothers Karamazov in the character of Ivan. Ivan is a thinker; he lives in his thoughts. This is also true of Nietzsche. He is a detached intellectual; his thoughts do not descend into the flesh of his actions. At a gathering of ladies in a parlor over tea, Ivan says that without immortality there is no morality; everything is lawful, even cannibalism. Ivan does not have the will to carry out his thoughts but Smerdyakov has the will. Ivan spoke and wrote that all things are lawful, so Smerdyakov kills their father. Ivan is shocked; ideas have consequences: think murder and your father is murdered, what then? If Ivan's ideas are only a mind game, they would remain entertaining and shocking, and therefore ideas, parlor-talk over tea with the ladies.

Ivan, like Nietzsche, is "nontraditional," a John Lennon of sorts. "Imagine there is no heaven," he sings, and in unison the audience lifts their arms in the air, swaying back and forth, back and forth:

It's easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Imagine all the people

Living for today. . . .

It is a good concert. Mark David Chapman is taken by the lyrics: there is no heaven, no hell: there is no good, there is no evil, nothing matters? He shoots John Lennon. Is John Lennon responsible? No, he is just a singer, like Nietzsche is just a writer. He sings songs that shock people, like Nietzsche writes dynamite that shocks people. He is an incineratory thinker: thoughts afire; he turns God's creation into ashes in his mind. For example:

The noble type of man regards himself as a determiner of values; he does not require to be approved of, he passes the judgment; "What is injurious to me is injurious to itself"; he knows that it is he himself only who confers honour on things; he is the creator of values. [Beyond Good and Evil, p. 228].

As such, Nietzsche sees himself on a height where "he enjoys intercourse with himself," where he sits and composes under the light of the full moon, the world according to Nietzsche. He is, Chesterton sees "in the clean and well-lit prison of one idea," "the will to power" which is actually no will at all but just a thoughtless instinct fighting to be fed in the primordial tangled bank in a world without God.

Nietzsche philosophy "is a tale told by an idiot [lunatic], full of sound and fury/ Signifying nothing."

At this point of the tale, and in conclusion, it is good to remember Chesterton:

A man cannot think himself out of mental evil; for it is actually the organ of thought that has become diseased, ungovernable, and, as it were, independent. He can only be saved by will or faith. . . . Curing a madman is not arguing with a philosopher; it is casting out a devil." [Ibid, 26] *

"We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a nation, which has national objects to promote, and a national character to support." --George Washington

References

1. Chesterton, G. K., Orthodoxy. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1995.

2. Nietzsche, Friedrich, Beyond Good and Evil. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1989.

3. Paine, Thomas, The Age of Reason. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1984.

4. The Portable Nietzsche. Ed. Walter Kaufman. New York, NY: Viking Press, 1968.

5. Sartre, Jean-Paul, Existentialism and Human Emotions. New York, NY: Citadel Press, 1957.

Paul Kengor

Paul Kengor is professor of political science and executive director of the Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. He is author of God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life (2004), and The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism (2007). His latest book is The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan's Top Hand (Ignatius Press, 2007).

Obama Conceives the Inconceivable on Conception

Asked by Rick Warren on August 23rd when he believes "a baby gets human rights," John McCain didn't hesitate to say "at the moment of conception." For Barack Obama, however, this question remains a struggle. "Well, ah, ah, I think that whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective," Obama pondered to Warren, "answering that question with specificity is above my pay grade."

Barack Obama doesn't like this question. And those nit-picky Christians keep springing it upon him during these religious forums.

Obama was asked about conception at the "Compassion Forum" at Messiah College in April, where he likewise dissembled:

This is something that I have not, I think, come to a firm resolution on. I think it's very hard to know what that means, when life begins. Is it when a cell separates? Is it when the soul stirs? So, I don't presume to know the answer to that question. What I know, as I've said before, is that there is something extraordinarily powerful about potential life and that has a moral weight to it that we take into consideration when we're having these debates.

Well, apparently not extraordinarily powerful enough for Obama to seek an answer for these debates.

Obama's responses beg another question: If he's unclear about this fundamental matter, which any embryologist could easily clarify for him, why hasn't he consulted someone? He is also no expert on, say, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, or the newest bill before Congress on tax policy. Senators, like all of us, don't begin from a starting point of expertise on all these issues. They learn; or, their staff learns and advises them.

So, to repeat the question, why, since he first publicly pondered the conception question at Messiah in April, hasn't Obama sought answers? What could be a more important life question?

This prompts an even bigger question. Why in the world is Obama urging embryonic stem-cell research? Why does he promise that if he becomes president, he will reverse President Bush's prohibitions on embryonic research? How can he rush into such actions if he doesn't even know whether an embryo is human life? That's recklessly irresponsible.

I could understand Obama advocating such research if he were convinced that embryos aren't life, and that life doesn't begin at conception. I would disagree, but I would understand.

For those not familiar with embryonic stem-cell research, it works like this: Human embryos are created for the explicit purpose of being dissected and destroyed for medical research. Every human being who has ever lived began as an embryo. In this brave new world, however, there are people who favor raising and exterminating embryos before they become human life.

Since Obama isn't sure whether life begins at conception, he should err on the side of caution -- on the side of life. A demolition crew makes sure there's no one left in the abandoned building before destroying it. The crew chief wouldn't dare say, "I'm not sure if there are human beings in there, but go ahead and blow it up." Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Ted Kennedy would drag that chief in chains before a Congressional committee.

As is often the case with modern liberalism, Obama's stance generates a potpourri of added contradictions. Consider one of the main reasons cited by liberals for opposing capital punishment. They argue that there's always a chance that a condemned individual may be innocent. If we can't know with absolute certainty that an alleged murderer has committed murder, then we should err on the side of caution -- on the side of life. He should be spared execution.

Conversely, then, if Obama isn't sure about the humanity of the embryo, why go ahead and execute it? What could be more innocent than an embryo?

Liberals think they're clever when they ask how conservatives can be pro-life on abortion while supporting capital punishment. Quite the contrary, there's a much more troubling contradiction among liberals who are pro-choice on abortion while opposing capital punishment. Obama's position of "don't-know-but-kill-anyway" on embryos is worse than either.

The truth, of course, is that Barack Obama knows life begins at conception. He isn't stupid. As Bill Clinton has conceded, "everyone knows life begins biologically at conception."

Yes, but not everyone can be honest about it. Barack Obama can't give a truthful answer because doing so would undermine the moral credibility of his position -- from embryonic research to unrestricted abortion.

Like John Kerry, like Al Gore, and like the entire leadership of the modern Democratic Party, Barack Obama has sold his soul to the pro-choice lobby. That's quite sad, because it means a lot of would-be humans will not be permitted to become humans. That is not American leadership -- and it is certainly not "hope."

Obama and Abortion Survivors: Clarifying the Record

We recently posted an article at National Review on the controversy over Barack Obama's votes in the Illinois legislature on a statewide version of the federal Born Alive Infant Protection Act (BAIPA) -- i.e., legislation requiring medical personnel to provide treatment to infants who unexpectedly survive abortion procedures. Our point was to clarify the record and to add a crucial "rest of the story" that is still being missed: how this legislation sailed right through the Illinois legislature once its primary obstacle -- Barack Obama -- left the Illinois Senate for the U.S. Senate. In both senates, Illinois and the United States, the born-alive legislation was passed unanimously, but only in the absence of Senator Barack Obama.

This issue is really heating up now, as Obama addressed the subject over the weekend (August 16-17) in a question from CBN's David Brody. A major witness now being featured on news shows is Jill Stanek, the nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, where babies were aborted and those that survived were left to die. We interviewed Stanek at length for our article.

Obama, hailed for being smooth and articulate, fumbles and bumbles when forced to answer these questions on human life. He is clearly uncomfortable on this terrain, sensing how badly his track record is now hurting him.

Speaking of Evangelicals, Catholics, and the National Right to Life Committee, David Brody noted to Obama that, "they're basically saying they felt like you misrepresented your position on that bill [the Illinois version of BAIPA]." Obama dove right in:

Let me clarify this right now . . . because they have not been telling the truth. And I hate to say that people are lying, but here's a situation where folks are lying.

Obama explained:

I have said repeatedly that I would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported, which was to say that you should provide assistance to any infant that was born, even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion. That was not the bill that was presented at the state level. What that bill also was doing was trying to undermine Roe vs. Wade. . . . So for people to suggest that I . . . [was] somehow in favor of withholding life-saving support from an infant born alive is ridiculous. It defies common sense and it defies imagination, and for people to keep on pushing this is offensive and it's an example of the kind of politics that we have to get beyond.

Obama claimed that these "people" had "misrepresented my positions repeatedly, even after they know that they're wrong. And that's what's been happening."

So, what's the answer here?

First off, the two bills, the federal BAIPA and the Illinois version, were in fact identical. We have read them. They differ only in the words "America" and "Illinois."

To its credit, the Obama campaign quickly came forward the next day to concede that the two bills were identical, acknowledging that Obama had misrepresented his own position.

That said, what Obama stated is partly true, and here is where he and his campaign have dug in: Yes, he believed that the Illinois version of BAIPA would undermine Roe v. Wade. That is the reason why he opposed the legislation. He opposed the legislation not because he wanted to see abortion survivors slowly die on cold tables inside Illinois' "hospitals," like Christ Hospital, but because he feared that passing such legislation would undermine Roe v. Wade. The idea that Obama was motivated first and foremost to champion a form of infanticide, said his campaign yesterday, is "offensive and insulting."

It was Obama's concern over Roe v. Wade that was his driving motivation, as we noted in our National Review article, we quoted Pam Sutherland, the president of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, who defended Obama on this exact point, "The legislation was written to ban abortion, plain and simple. Senator Obama saw the legislation, when he was there, for what it was."

Yet, this is a second mistake by Obama, and a more serious one: Quite the contrary, Obama did not see the legislation for what it was. All alone as the central obstacle blocking the legislation, Obama had fallen for the classic red herring by the abortion industry, which argues that practically any restriction on abortion, no matter how sensible and humane, will undermine Roe v. Wade.

Obama was wrong on that. The obvious proof is that the eventual passage of the legislation, at the state and national level, did not, cannot, and will not undermine Roe v. Wade. The most fanatical pro-choicers in the U.S. Senate, from Barbara Boxer to Hillary Clinton, understood that and thus voted in favor of BAIPA. Obama, however, failed to make the crucial distinction.

That does not mean that Obama is a monster who enjoys killing babies. No one is making that "offensive and insulting" claim. Yet, his actions rightly call into question his judgment, his experience, his decision making, and his blind, often-destructive loyalty to the abortion movement. Obama and his campaign know that, and are thus extremely concerned with what he did on this literally life-death issue -- an issue that isn't going away anytime soon.

Where Are the Bush Democrats? The GOP Leadership Lurch from 2000 to 2008

The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He's the one who gets the people to do the greatest things. And that's what's lacking now. --Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan made that remark in a forgotten 1975 interview with Mike Wallace of "60 Minutes." Observing the uninspiring presidential leadership of moderate Republican Gerald Ford, Reagan communicated to Wallace the need for effective communication. He evoked FDR's fireside chats, not to mention a harbinger of his own presidency: ''[FDR] took his case to the people, and he enlightened the people, and the people made Congress feel the heat."

While the interview has slipped through the cracks of history, these words of political wisdom from the Great Communicator are as timeless as ever. In fact, for Republicans, they have never been so obvious, especially over the past eight years, and going into November.

I'm in an ever-narrowing camp of Republicans who believe that George W. Bush has the potential to be remembered as a leader who did great things -- a stoic, stable presence who stood the course and quietly transformed the Middle East and wider world, laying the groundwork for a much better 21st century. Of course, that's a big "if," depending on whether his extraordinary actions in Iraq and Afghanistan bear fruit over the long run. If they don't, he will be seen as a failed leader.

That said, Bush has not been a "great leader" as defined by Reagan in 1975. Reagan was not only onto something with that remark but was prophetic of his own work. Reagan himself changed people and changed the world. He got people to do great things.

Bush completely lacks the support that Reagan overwhelmingly enjoyed from the vast majority of Americans. Reagan was elected to a second term in a landslide, winning 49 of 50 states. He left office with the highest approval ratings (Gallup) of any president since Eisenhower. Bush spends his final year in office with the lowest approval ratings (Gallup) of any president since Truman.

What's more, Reagan was a towering figure in his own party -- literally Lincolnesque. In an interesting modern political phenomenon, local GOP chapters throughout the country have begun holding Reagan Day Dinners in February instead of their traditional Lincoln Day Dinners. Bush, on the other hand, is unpopular even within his own party. A couple of weeks ago at the website of the Center for Vision & Values, we received a disgruntled email from an excellent editor who frequently publishes our material. He is a conservative Republican. Unhappy with an op-ed I wrote commending George W. Bush, the editor zinged Bush as a "destroyer of the Republican Party." That's a complaint I'm hearing constantly from Republicans, and which I fully understand. Bush will leave the GOP a far weaker party than the pillar of strength he inherited from Reagan.

Further, consider Bush's total lack of inroads among Democrats. It is there, perhaps more than anywhere else, where Bush has completely failed. Remember the Reagan Democrats -- the converts who voted Republican because of Reagan? There were literarily tens of millions of them. The combination of Jimmy Carter's disastrous presidency and then the emergence and resounding success of Ronald Reagan transformed the political landscape for a generation. It elected both George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. The Bushes, however, have been poor stewards of the legacy; they have allowed it to crumble. This was not so much policy-wise -- though that's a big part of the failure -- but communication-wise.

In the end, then, where are the Bush Democrats? There are few to none of them.

If all of that isn't depressing enough for Republicans, consider the future: What Reagan lamented to Mike Wallace in 1975 is again lacking -- with no solution in sight -- in 2008. In 1975, there was a solution to the problem identified by Reagan: Reagan. In 2008, George W. Bush's Ford-like failure to inspire is rearing its ugly head as the greatest liability of John McCain; it persists. McCain is not only failing to turn it around but probably will make it worse. He is a terrible communicator -- a painfully clear inability to speak well and to articulate conservatism. McCain's shortcomings in this regard will be made even more manifest by the Democratic presidential nominee, the most radical-left candidate his party has ever nominated but who has the slick ability to look good and speak well -- even when saying nothing -- and woo voters.

To stand a chance in 2008, Republicans need the votes of Bush Democrats. The only problem is that there aren't any. *

"There is a true glory and a true honor; the glory of duty done -- the honor of the integrity of principle." --Robert E. Lee

Harry Neuwirth

Harry Neuwirth writes from Salem, Oregon.

In the 225 years since the Treaty of Paris formalized American Independence, living conditions in the U.S. and those parts of the world that have imitated our success have improved dramatically in material wealth, life expectancy, liberty of expression, freedom from fear, general health, joie de vivre, and every other measure of the human condition that is worth measuring. A cursory reading of history will confirm that assessment beyond any doubt.

Yet we are confronted by the emotionalist party's lament that not everyone is as rich as someone; that, while the poor are living at levels of comfort beyond the expectations of kings and emperors of pre-American days, the entrepreneurialism that has raised us -- in spite of ourselves -- to this level of relative opulence, is evil and to be suppressed by our friend, the government.

But we just came from there 225 years ago, we would be fools to go back by choice. Yet we seem tempted to elect to high office the politicians who intend to impose punitive taxes upon the 21st century successors to the heroes who brought us here. *

"Wish not so much to live long as to live well." --Benjamin Franklin

David J. Bean

David J. Bean is a freelance writer living in California.

In the June, 2008, issue of this magazine we presented a short analysis of the actions by the Fed in trying to stem the Real Estate Mortgage losses that financial organizations were experiencing. With the steep decline in the stock prices for both Freddie Mac, and Fannie Mae the panic was becoming intense and the Treasury Department felt that something had to be done. These two quasi-public/private corporations were created to make housing more affordable for the smaller income buyer. They did this by guaranteeing loans by reason of their being chartered by the Federal Government that meant the loans were viewed as actually being backed by our Treasury. This implied guarantee enabled the two to undercut their competitors in obtaining capital funds to loan.

When it became clear that Fannie and Freddie were in the same distress as other financial institutions because of the repudiation of so many marginal loans, members of the Democrat-controlled Congress got involved. They insisted the Treasury do something. What Treasury did was to lift Freddie and Fannie's portfolio caps and reduced their capital reserve requirements. These two things plus the stimulant bill Congress passed (which demonstrates that Congress has learned nothing from the crisis) nearly doubled the size of the loans the two companies could purchase, package, and guarantee. The result is that the two companies now handle almost 70 percent of all new mortgages. Yet by almost any measure both companies are insolvent. To bail them out the Treasury Deptartment granted them access to the Fed Discount Window (like chartered banks) where they could borrow any amount needed. Previously Freddie and Fannie had to obtain new money to loan by packaging mortgages and selling them on the market. By embracing the obligations of Freddie and Fannie the Treasury has, in effect, increased our National Debt from 7+ trillion to over 10+ trillion dollars. Is there any way to pay off a debt of this magnitude except through inflation?

The illusion that the companies were doing something for the "little guy" made it possible to ward off needed regulation. When their losses were brought up, the two companies always blamed their need to provide their service, even at the ill effect for their stockholders. Now that their debt has been acknowledged by the government there is little wonder that with losses socialized and gains privatized the two have gambled their way into financial catastrophe.

This should have been a perfect time for Republicans to demand real accountability and reform. Dick Armey in a Wall Street Journal article said "Freddie and Fannie are like Enron on steroids." He pointed out that there is a well-documented history of Freddie and Fannie accounting corruption designed to benefit senior management and politicians. It makes no sense that Congress didn't bar Fannie and Freddie from paying dividends if they receive loans from the Fed. Last year Freddie paid $1.6 billion and Fannie paid $2.5 billion in dividends. The government should not be providing money in the front door while the companies pay dividends out the back.

One of the main effects of the liquidity binge was the plunge of the dollar's value worldwide. This was reflected in the spike in all commodities' prices but especially in the price of oil. Only a year ago the price of oil was $70 per barrel but it exploded as the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates to shield Wall Street from the troubles.

To a casual observer the results of the Fed's expansive policies look like they have been a success in light of the recent recovery of the dollar and the lowering of oil prices. It is a sign of how much we have been "conditioned" by the general feeling that $3.50 gas is "cheap." But what has really happened is that currency traders have shifted their concerns to signs that Europe's economy is slowing, as well as worries that Japan is back into a recession. The dollar has strengthened somewhat on the expectation that maybe the Fed's bender is over. This recent gain really shows that with a little more guts displayed by Treasury and the Fed when the crisis began, the commodity spike could have been avoided. And, because of the huge increase in the U.S. debt, the future outlook for our economy is still not very pretty. The inflation component associated with the increased debt has barely started.

The disclosure that the problem is moving to Europe and the euro reminds one of a pan of water sloshing back and forth as the tilt goes from left to right. The problem has not really gone away; it merely has "sloshed" over to the euro side. Perhaps the only reason for optimism is that the low U.S. tax rates are still in place, and polls have shown that people are finally coming around to the proposition of increasing the energy supply.

The U.S. economy is quite resilient but is still a long way from its peak. It has become clear that the job market has declined. New unemployment claims have surged to recessionary levels, and over 3 million people have been drawing claims for a week or more, the most since 2003. Most of the job decline has occurred in manufacturing, construction, and retail that have lost over 650,000 jobs so far this year. What the country needs now is financial and regulatory discipline for charter banks, stable money, lower taxes, and some policy decisions that will result in lower energy prices through increasing supply. Hold onto your hat; we are probably in for a very rocky ride. *

"Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others." --Alexander Hamilton

Editorial -- Barry MacDonald

America's Secular Challenge, The Rise of a New National Religion, by Herbert London. Brief Encounters, New York, London, 2008, ISBN 1-59403-227-0, pp. 105, $18 cloth.

Herbert London has written a wonderful book that is full of learning and wit. His quarry in this book is difficult, because it is abstract. We may loathe the direction Barack Obama wants to take the country, but Herbert London wants to make clear the blob of ideas that animates him and his fellow Leftists. It is the culmination of Rousseau, Thomas Paine, the French Revolution, Darwin, Nietzche, Marx, etc., etc. One doesn't have to become a member of a party to become a believer. A much more subtle process is involved. Our prosperity and the ease of our daily lives, unprecedented in history yet little noted, speeds the progress of the movement. A cresting of ideas and values is absorbed by ordinary and unwitting Americans, and the propagators of the new thinking are themselves often unaware of their complicity. The new thinking is on display on magazine covers in supermarkets, on "Oprah," and the "Tonight Show."

"Radical secularism" is eating away at much that is good in our culture. You can see the difficulty in the awkward words: "secularist," "secularism." The eyes could glaze over at their mention. The opponent is not Stalin or Hitler. Secularism is an intellectual fad that has taken root and run amok.

Herbert London formulates what he believes to be the new faith, a faith without God, in a secularist catechism:

Truth is subjective, relative, or contextual. That there may exist objective spiritual truths is rejected as the product of naive or inflexible minds.

Rationality can solve moral and ontological questions about man's nature. The Thomistic faith that inspires wisdom is rejected as a mere fairy tale. Only science can reveal knowledge.

A rational government is freed from the limits traditionally imposed on its purview through the attainment of technical knowledge. Man's eternal problems, including the plight of the poor, can be solved through a welfare state based on the redistribution of wealth.

Since we are all children of the globe, subject to the same rationality, national loyalty and patriotism are dangerous anachronisms. . . .

The most important goal one can seek is self-transformation, what the psychologist Abraham Maslow called "self-actualization.". . .

Discrimination is the great bugbear of social intercourse. The mandate "judge not, lest ye be judged," stripped of its original meaning as a plea for compassion, is now a justification for closing one's eyes to the difference between right and wrong.

God has been replaced by the modern liberal agenda. Two thousand years of Judeo-Christian philosophy consisting of a humane sense of right and wrong have been discarded. Because there is no measurable proof of God, there can be no God. Because God does not exist He is replaced by scientists and legislators imbued with new and expanded power. The justification is provided to reorder society according to the latest innovations. Global warming is a crisis -- a cap and trade policy is created to limit CO2 emissions. Though the science is unproven, and the solution will likely do more harm than good, there is no time to waste.

If natural law is discarded, each person is guided by his own internal moral compass, each compass as valid as any other, and beyond restraint. Secularism is seductive because it urges us to be guided by reason, but more often than not it opens the door to the indulgence of selfish passions, passions free from moral check. Vows taken in marriage no longer carry the religious sanction they once did, and disintegrating families, overburdened mothers, and fatherless children have been the result.

The door has been opened to a self-loathing of traditional America that our grandfathers find impossible to comprehend. We are told that we have no right to criticize the Islamic practice of clitoridectomy, or honor killings, because we ourselves have oppressed women by making them mothers and homemakers. It is perfectly proper to banish Christian symbols from the public square because we haven't the right to impose our beliefs on people who disagree. In fact it is good that our comedians and artists lavish ridicule on religious faith because that is the exercise of free expression.

But at the same time we must listen to the complaints of rioters who pillage and murder because a Dutch newspaper published cartoons critical of the prophet Mohammad. We have insulted their religion, you see. The truth is that Western intellectuals are afraid of Islamic extremists, and it is easier to keep quiet. It seems that the new thinking hasn't figured out how to cultivate courage. Courage comes from having strong values, knowing what one believes, and the willingness to defend it.

The lack of courage and self-confidence has dangerous consequences. Terrorism is effective. The people who make videos of a beheading in the name of their God would have no compunction in using nuclear weapons on our cities if they had the means. But the Left, the secularists, will not see it; instead they say we have been imperialist, and have "tortured" the terrorists we have managed to capture. The more brutally the terrorists behave the more the Left criticizes the Bush administration for defending America.

Herbert London is not Christian. He is a Jew who "appreciates the role that Christianity plays in buttressing Western democracies." He quotes President Eisenhower: "Our government makes no sense unless it is founded on deeply religious faith and I don't care what it is." Herbert London quotes Pope Benedict XVI:

The great challenge of our time is secularism. . . . Society creates the illusion that God does not exist, or that God can be restricted to the realm of purely private affairs. Christians cannot accept that attitude. This is the first necessity: that God becomes newly present in our lives.

This journal has always believed in the importance of Judeo-Christian traditions to the foundations of the nation. Protestants and Catholics are not the only faiths under attack, so are all religions (though the militant Islamists stand to gain quite a lot from the emergence of secularism).

As we lose our faith, pride emerges as a force to be reckoned with. Pride has become an American characteristic. We celebrate power, money, self-aggrandizement, fame (earned sometimes without accomplishment). Entertainers, sports figures, and politicians are role models but more often than not they are not moral role models. Herbert London writes that we have "lurched into the 'age of me.'" One has only to turn on the television to see the truth.

Humility is a virtue that religious faith imparts; it steels the soul to endure suffering, hardship, and injustice; and it provides hope and solace to those seeking justice. What does secularism offer in place of humility? Nothing. From whom will we find ultimate justice? Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama? The ancient Greeks have an idea that we Americans, in the midst of our ease and prosperity, should beware of: hubris.

What we are losing with the advent of secularism is a devotion to the welfare of America. Herbert London writes of "civitas," a Roman word referring to the civic consciousness of a citizen:

. . . [that] spontaneous willingness to obey the law, to respect the rights of others, to forgo enrichment at the expense of the public weal. . . . Civitas, by another name, is patriotism: a selfless devotion to one's society and the citizens who constitute it. This respect for law and community had its roots in religion. . . . Today, nearly two centuries on, it is no coincidence that the most generous donors to charities are religious Americans, particularly those who identify themselves as doctrinally conservative, like evangelical Protestants.

Those of us who believe in free market capitalism should also take note that without an under girding of religious faith what is there to prevent the selling of sex and crudeness? Because unfortunately crudeness and sex does sell very well. What is there in secularism to uphold good manners and morals?

Herbert London was in New York City on the morning of 9/11. It was his neighborhood that was attacked, and he dealt with the aftermath, along with so many other fellow New Yorkers. It is astounding to him that seven years later so little impression was made on the direction of our culture by the attacks. We've just had the Democratic National Convention and nary a mention was made of 9/11. The destruction and brutality directed at innocent Americans, and our enemy's glee in our suffering seem overlooked by large numbers of Americans; some believe we deserved the attacks.

It takes knowledge of American history to understand how much we have changed in a few decades. Begun with high ideals and galvanized through hardships we are an exceptional nation, a nation that each of us should be proud of. That we are not proud enough of our country is a shame. Americans should have a passionate attachment to our history, and take pride in the many difficulties we have overcome to be the benevolent and innovative people that we are.

Herbert London is on to something when he warns us about secularism. Secularism is a hydra, animating every liberal position one cares to note. It is all about a weakening sense of the divine. From where do the promptings of conscience come if not from God? A materialist would say that the promptings of conscience are a chemical reaction, and a sense of the divine is an illusion. But he is advancing a theory that he cannot prove despite his bluster.

We must find a way to transmit our most precious American values to the next generation. We must see to it that our children have a conscience. And we must continue to seek guidance from God. *

"It is equally dangerous giving a madman a knife and a villain power" --Socrates

Some of the quotes following each article have been gathered by The Federalist Patriot at: http://FederalistPatriot.US/services.asp.

The following is a summary of the August 2008 issue of the St. Croix Review:

In the Editorial "The National Republican Convention," Angus MacDonald divides people into two categories: pushy bombers and ladies and gentlemen. He believes that progress can be measured by the assumption of individual responsibility, and he thinks that we have become better since the Roman Empire, though he sees cause for concern as the pushy bombers are enjoying a surge at the present.

In a "Letter to the Editor" W. Edward Chynoweth lays the blame for the recent California Supreme Court's normalization of homosexual marriage on California's Proposition 209, passed in 1996. The "non-discrimination principle" embodied in Proposition 209 is a repudiation of natural law and tradition, and it is the people of California, the people of the United States, and conservatives themselves, who are to blame for the acceptance of the "non-discrimination" idea.

Herbert London, in "Obama as President (?)," believes that President Obama would mean higher taxes, inescapable government health care, rapid withdrawal from Iraq, and feckless negotiations with Iran that will lead to a Persian empire with nuclear weapons; in "The Politics of Fear," he writes that radical Islamists have silenced critics in Europe and the U.S. through the threat of retaliation, and that what we need is courage; in "Spreading Islam in the Academy," he reports on the seduction of Western Universities by Prince AlWeleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia by millions donated for the furtherance of Islamic studies; in "The New and Old View of Paternalism," he debunks a new, gentler form of paternalism by showing that paternalism must preclude liberty.

Allan Brownfeld, in "Subsidizing Ethanol: The Unintended Consequences of Interfering with the Market," shows how government mandates for corn ethanol have caused higher carbon emissions, higher food prices for Americans, and an emerging humanitarian crisis in the third world; in "An Examination of the Long Tradition of Conservative Thought in the Black Community," he reveals instincts among black leaders 150 years ago that pointed to respectability, and a healthy, productive lifestyle.

Elizabeth Wright, in "A Black 'Old Right Conservative' On the Black Elite's Immigration Betrayal," asks what will happened to blacks, once whites become a minority, and our Anglo-Euro political traditions go by the wayside? If Chinese, Latinos, and East Indians gain political clout, will they tolerate affirmative action programs, and racial set-asides for Blacks?

Paul Kengor reveals how the Reagan and William Clark prevented Suriname from becoming a Soviet foothold in South America and a strategic base of operations in "Secrets of Suriname: Another Reagan Administration Cold War Success Story."

In "The Case for Terrestrial (Nuclear) Energy," William Tucker considers the drawbacks of our conventional sources of energy -- coal, oil, natural gas, hydroelectricity -- and that of newer "renewables" -- solar and wind. He writes that no source of energy can compare with clean and safe nuclear power, that the American public is unjustifiably frightened of it, and that economically advanced nations are advancing far ahead of us in its use.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, in "How We Can Achieve $2-a-Gallon Gasoline," writes that we should access the rich energy reserves within U.S. territories, and that we should build new oil refineries and nuclear power plants. She castigates current Democratic leadership for imposing a ban on energy exploration, and Congress for inaction going back decades.

In "A Mid-year Economic Status Report," Mark Hendrickson believes that the burst housing bubble will continue to impact the economy for some time, that the fed can no longer raise or lower interest rates without causing harm, and that General Motors and Ford may be mortally wounded because of the energy fix Congress has caused; in "Oil vs. Big Congress: Another Witch Hunt," he shows how Congress hopes to shift the blame from itself, where it properly belongs, to the oil producers by holding hearings in which congressmen scold oil executives; in "The Cynical Politics of Global Warming and Its Hobgoblins," he shows the technique behind Al Gore's campaign to impose "wrenching transformation" on society; in "Signs of Poor Governance: Is America Becoming One of the Worst?" he lists the many ways Congress is mismanaging the economy; in "More or Less," he explains how Democrats succeed in establishing domineering government, and Republicans fail in advancing smaller government: Democrats work incrementally while many Republicans don't believe in smaller government.

Robert M. Thornton, in "Let's Not Worry about the World!" reminds us that we do ourselves no good worrying about weighty matters that we have no power to influence.

In "Party," Harry Neuwirth writes about ways to circumvent the party system under which such poor leadership has evolved.

Jigs Gardner, in "Writers for Conservatives: 16 -- The Great Battle Chronicler," relates how Samuel Marshall came by his method for accurately capturing battlefield events in World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars.

Harry Neuwirth

Harry Neuwirth writes from Salem, Oregon.

Old institutions die hard, especially when they stand guard at the gates of law and privilege and the power they confer. Two political parties have long controlled the process of nominating and electing presidential candidates as well as endorsing people to run for lesser office on their ticket. It's clear that such control tends to restrict philosophical insight, thereby failing to attract into elective office persons of high ability who can neither accommodate themselves to party rule nor rise independently to a competitive level in the face of tightly constrained candidacy and election.

The disease of party was diagnosed at the outset by many of our nations Founders -- George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson among them -- and their prognosis has proven keenly accurate. Political parties have had an immensely negative influence upon the political life of the republic that those courageous men planned and fought for. No surprise to students of history, ill-defined parties had always been divisive among the privileged echelons ruling over the repressed people of our Mother Country. James Madison in Federalist Number Thirty Seven, referring to the Constitutional Convention, observed that:

. . . the convention must have enjoyed, in a very singular way, an exemption from the pestilential influence of party animosities -- the disease most incident to deliberative bodies, and most apt to contaminate their proceedings. . . .

Prescience born of informed hindsight.

Powerful evidence of childishness in today's party affiliation is dramatically exposed at the president's annual State of the Union Message to Congress. Television cameras whirring, grown men and women, elected leaders of the mightiest nation on earth, sitting on their hands in choreographed pique over presidential statements that stray from their party line; rising in organized applause in praise of statements that conform. Not to be outdone, the chosen leader of the lower house, elected to provide that august body with maturity and experienced guidance in the momentous affairs that daily confront them, up on the podium echoing the puerile antics of her children on the floor: Sour disapproval, saccharine support.

"Parties," from the French "partir": "to divide," have always done just that. But this was to be a nation of free people coming together as sovereign individuals, not apparatchiks; a gift for generations of descendants to perpetuate and defend. Liberty of thought, not segregation by prejudice.

Yet the party system was already gestating during George Washington's elections, coming to life during the election of John Adams, surviving and growing ever since. The travesties inspired by party domination in the intervening years are compelling evidence in the case for change: Disenfranchised states and Super Delegates are recent examples of "partir," the smoke filled rooms of the good old days wholesome by comparison. But how to implement substantive change in the face of tradition, of established authority? And change to what?

The likelihood of ending the party system in our lifetimes seems unlikely. But there could be hope for a surge of people who have given serious thought to the fundamentals of America willingly dropping their affiliation to become members of an independent, mature middle to rationalize the political life of the nation. Grown-ups, whose objectives include driving the existing parties toward a restructuring of their own in the face of that burgeoning independent force threatening to undermine their dominance. The power of independence unleashed!

But who would draw up the bylaws for independence; who would be its chairman; where would they meet and how often? How would they maintain independence?

Fortunately we have the technical means to circumvent the need for frequent face-to-face meetings, powerful chairmanships, extensive bylaws, and much else that burdens vested interest. We should remember that the party system emerged during horse and buggy days when it took weeks to communicate coast to coast. Now we send messages from Bangor to Honolulu in seconds.

Bylaws?

This organization shall consist of independent, eligible voters of the United States of America who share a desire to improve the political environment of the nation!

Meetings would likely be impromptu, held on the internet, by mail, by cell phone; in parlors and family rooms; in church fellowship rooms and barrooms; in locker rooms and tea rooms with the fundamental purpose of defining concerns and solutions, not necessarily to elevate specific candidates or platforms. Temporary chairmanships would accrue to persons displaying wisdom and a grasp of fundamentals; candidacies devolving upon persons displaying judgment and understanding of the issues of the day along with integrity and the ability to articulate solutions. Raising funds, drawn from a natural constituency having defined itself during the run up to the election, would remain a challenge. The purpose of such activity might be described as an unselfish attempt to push the dynamics of American elections toward greater independence and integrity, election to office being a secondary concern, introduction of a third dynamic a primary one.

Specialty groups would no doubt form around topics such as inflation, domestic energy policy, education, medical care, foreign policy. Such groups might send their findings out to the electorate with self-raised funds, identifying themselves to a constituency who might respond to them not as candidates or office holders but simply as mature fellow citizens.

We have long lived with the endlessly repeated promise of reduced government interference in our lives by existing parties and their candidates as we watched government grow in cost and intrusiveness while the patrons of party prospered at the expense of taxpayers and the small business community.

Once upon a time we fought a ponderous war of independence. We now live in a nimble age when we need only pick up our electronic wands and wave a new independence into existence. Political-party has been a liability for two hundred years, living a charmed life. From the horse-and-buggy on muddy roads to wide-bodied jets and freeways we've watched as aspirants to authority have clawed their way upward in political party hierarchies leaving their convictions in their trail. The solution is not necessarily to eliminate that party system but to energize the ever-growing army of thoughtful independents who have agonized silently in our midst. To join them we have only to change our registration to independent as we heighten our citizenship awareness. Then we need to persuade our state legislators with our independent votes to open state primary elections to allow independents to vote in party primaries wherever that is not already the case.

Perhaps we should reconsider whether our marvelous 21st century electronic devices -- the internet most prominent among them -- are destructive of democracy or might actually become a constructive force for independence; might serve as an educational forum contributing to the well-being of the nation and its citizens. Such an aroused sense of independence might even serve as a challenge to the under-performing public schools to elevate the importance of citizenship in the standard curriculum. *

"Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others." --Alexander Hamilton

Robert M. Thornton

Robert M. Thornton writes from Fort Mitchell, Kentucky.

Vermont Royster, editor of The Wall Street Journal, has recently questioned the idea that it is the mark of a good citizen "to worry about world events. . . . The world's woes number some that aren't worth worrying about at all," he opines, and even if some are "worth worrying about, worrying doesn't get you anywhere." But these are especially terrible times, many will complain, to which Royster replies:

If ours are the worst of times, so were they all, for wars, riots, upheavals, and worrisome matters of all sorts are not new to the world. What's new is the constant dinning of them into our brains. . . . The question is not whether black doubt lies ahead, but how men at different times meet their different doubts, whether with courage and ironic laughter or with whimpering.

Some years ago Albert Jay Nock remarked that there is "sound Christian doctrine" in the old saying:

There are two classes of things one should not worry about: the things one can help, and the things one can't help. If you can help a thing, don't worry about it, help it. If you can't help it, don't worry about it for you do no good, and only wear yourself down below par.

A huge deal of nonsense is talked about "the woes of society, the sorrows of the world," said Nock, but "there's no such thing as the woes of society, and the world has no sorrows. Only individuals have woes and sorrows." Some persons "speak of being overcome by the sorrows of the world" and:

. . . borrow the world's troubles in the conviction that they are great altruists, when in fact they are only bilious and would be benefited by some liver-medicine and hard work in the open air.

While not wishing to "encourage hardness of heart," continued Nock:

. . . one must allow something . . . for a possible light touch of morbidness in one's sentiment toward human sorrows, both individual and social. It is easy to get a bit too much worked up over distresses lying in one's purview; distresses, I mean, which with the best will in the world one cannot possibly alleviate, and with which perhaps one cannot even sympathize intelligently, since one has never experienced the like oneself.

Implicit in the demand that we worry about the woes of the world is a rebuke to those who enjoy good fortune while many do not. Joseph Wood Krutch has ably explained why he does not believe that:

. . . anyone who finds himself fortunate is morally obliged to refuse to enjoy his good fortune because all are not equally fortunate. It might be argued that to refuse to accept happiness if everyone is not equally happy would not be a way of securing, even ultimately, happiness for everybody, but merely a way of making sure that misery becomes universal, since even the lucky will not permit themselves to enjoy their luck. Such perversity may seem a virtue to those who take certain attitudes, but it is perhaps not impertinent to point out that it has not always been so considered; that indeed, to Catholic theology it once was, and for all I know still is, a sin -- the sin of melancholy which has been carefully defined as a stubborn refusal to be grateful for the good gifts of God.

The late Dean Inge was another who reminded us that in Christian doctrine, melancholy -- "a compound of dejection, sloth, and irritability, which makes a man feel that no good is worth doing" -- is a moral fault. Dean Inge writes:

St. Paul warns the Corinthians against "the sorrow of the world," which "worketh death." The sorrow of the world is contrasted with godly sorrow, or repentance for sin.

Then Dean Inge quotes Chaucer:

This rotten sin maketh a man heavy, wrathful, and raw. Thence cometh somnolence, that is, a sluggy slumbering, which maketh a man heavy and dull in body and soul; negligence or recklessness that recketh of nothing whether he do it well or badly; and idleness, that is at the gate of all harms.

Dean Inge recommends the advice of the Psalmist in our attitude toward things which are not in our power:

Fret not thyself, else shalt thou be moved to do evil. . . . We are not responsible . . . where we have no power, and we have the divine promise that all things shall work together for good to those who love God.

The Dean tells a good story about a British Ambassador to the Hague who was:

. . . tossing about through the night in anxiety about the condition of his country. An old servant, lying in the same room, addressed him: "Sir, may I ask you a question?"

"Certainly," replied the ambassador.

"Sir, did God govern the world well before you came into it?"

"Undoubtedly."

"And will He rule the world well when you have gone out of it?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Then, Sir, can you not trust Him to rule the world well while you are in it?"

The tired ambassador turned on his side and fell asleep. *

"The elements of our strength are many. They include our democratic government, our economic system, our great natural resources. But, the basic source of our strength is spiritual. We believe in the dignity of man." --Jeane Kirkpatrick