On April 12, 2006, creators and executive producers of the animated sitcom “South Park”, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, produced an episode of their cartoon featuring the prophet Muhammad. Fearing terrorist retaliation, Comedy Central, the network which airs South Park, censored it.

Two weeks ago they tried again.

The episode began with the South Park boys finding Tom Cruise in a candy factory packing fudge. Incensed when he is called a “Fudge Packer”, he gathers together all of the celebrities ever mocked by South Park into a class action lawsuit against the town.

The South Park residents ask Tom what they can do to get him to drop the suit. Since he only wanted the gay jokes to stop, and since there is only one person in the entire world (above Gandhi, the President of the United States, even Jesus himself) who can not ever be mocked, Tom asks the town to deliver him the Prophet Muhammad, so that he may learn Muhammad’s secret of being above ridicule.

In order to deliver him, however, South Park residents would have to show him. So they struggle with how to do it. Do they put him inside a U-Haul with no windows, is that okay? What about covered with a sheet, or in a bear suit? If he talks, is that okay?

As thy try to figure out how to deliver Muhammad, a group of “Gingers” – red head kids tired of being made fun of, plant bombs throughout South Park and demand the prophet for themselves, or they’ll blow up the town.

Since the threat of getting blown up is scarier than a lawsuit, the town decides to give in to the Gingers. Seeing that the threat of violence works better than legal action, the celebrities decide to attack the town until Muhammad is delivered to them.

The episode was a cliffhanger. By acquiesced to the terrorist demands of the Gingers, South Park has encouraged more demands. If they do not deliver Muhammad to either side, both will destroy them. If they do deliver Muhammad to one side, the other will destroy them (as will Muslim extremists, since in order to deliver him the town must “show” him to prove it’s really him, and doing so is forbidden by Muslims). As the town succumbs to fear, the boys try to protect Muhammad while also argue why the town must not submit to threats of violence.

In a single, genius stroke (common to the Emmy Award winning show), Matt and Trey scripted real life into the show and the show into real life, putting Comedy Central in the very spot the characters of South Park found themselves in, and with the first episode itself an argument for the uncensored airing of the second.

While the FCC does have decency standards of what can and can not air on television, those standards do not apply as strictly to cable channels like Comedy Central, and the airing of Muhammad is not in fact prohibited by either the laws or customs of the United states. None the less, the question became, would they air the second episode completely uncensored.

After airing the first, an extremist Muslim organization in New York published veiled threats against the lives of Trey and Matt, as well as their home addresses and those of the Comedy Central offices in New York and California.

Threats began pouring in, as well as photographs of the assassination of Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch filmmaker murdered for a documentary he made about Muslim women (the writer of the documentary remains in hiding). Hours before the airing of the second episode, the police reported what they called a “credible bomb threat” against the network.

The episode ran, with vast swaths of it censored, not just the images of Muhammad, but even the mentioning of his name (which had previously been uncensored) and even the final “moral of the story” scene (common to south park episodes) where the characters discuss what they’ve learned about the cost of free speech and the tactics of terrorism.

Should the episode have been censored? I don’t know, I’m not even sure there is a “right” answer. Both showing and not showing the image carries significant potential consequences and any choice they make probably can’t be defined in terms of right or wrong, but rather as a choice of character. What does the president of the network tell a single mother working as a receptionist at the front desk, who loves free speech as much as anyone, but is just trying to raise her children, to feed them, and whose office is now under threat of suicide bombing (and Comedy Central doesn’t offer hazard pay, I checked)?

So what do we do?

In the final scenes in “Spartacus”, the Romans have captured the slave army, and offer to let them go free if the leader Spartacus will identify himself so they may torture and kill him. Each of the slaves in turn stands up and shouts “I am Spartacus.”

This is an issue of free speech, and nobody benefits from free speech more than American television networks. Shows like Dateline, 60 Minutes, and Frontline all survive because of free speech. Where are they? Bill O’Reilly, Anderson Cooper, and Keith Olberman consider themselves patriots, standing up for the constitution and for American rights and liberties. They have reported on this very incident, but have not shown (or attempted to show) Muhammad themselves. If every network in the country airs his image (respectfully, in the context of reporting on this story) – it defuses the responsibility, makes all networks – all of whom profit from free speech, equally culpable. Yes, terrorists might then want to bomb all of these networks, but last I checked they already want to do that.

The idea that any one religion, person, or prophet is or should be above critique or scrutiny should always be challenged, and the purpose of the very first amendment to the constitution of these united states is to guarantee that freedom. And in the face of threats to that freedom, it is the responsibility of those who most profit from it to stand up and say “I am Spartacus!”

In America, the land of the free, we have 2.2 million people in prison, roughly 3.1% of our population. This is the highest percentage of any country in the world. Further, 25% of the world’s prisoners are in America, while America represents only 5% of the world’s population. China, with a population of 1 billion, more than three times our own, has only 1.5 million people in prison.

The United States spends roughly $623 billion on military expenses and on 737 foreign military bases in 130 countries. China has the second highest military budget in the world, an estimated $65 billion a year. Russia, the third biggest spender, spends $50 billion a year. The combined military spending of every country in the world other than the US is $500 billion, $123 billion less than US spending.

The richest 1% of the world owns 40% of the wealth, and one half of the world owns, combined, no more than 1% of the wealth.

For the first time in US history 20% of American children born in into poverty.

The UN Estimates that for a total cost of $4 billion a year for 15 years, world hunger can be eliminated. 35,000 people die of starvation every day, roughly 12 times the number of people killed on 9/11. Roughly 75% of them are children.

The West Nile Virus kills an average of 200 people a year.

There were 17,000 murders in this country in 2006.

In 2007 roughly 43,000 people died in car accidents, averaging 118 automobile deaths a day in this country. In two days the number of automobile deaths exceeded West Nile deaths for a year.

In 2007, 14 people died by having a vending machine fall on them. You are 14.2 times more likely to die of West Nile than by having a vending machine land on you.

The leading cause of death for a white American male is heart disease. For a black American male it’s homicide.

In the 15 years since Osama Bin-Laden declared it a Muslim’s obligation to kill any and all Americans there have been a number of attacks and attempted attacks on America, including the first world trade center bombing (designed to knock one tower into the other and resulted in 6 deaths), a plot to blow up 6 airplanes over the Atlantic simultaneously, a plot to assassinate Clinton, the Millennium plots, and multiple bombings in Yemen and South Africa.. In those 15 years they have killed about 3,000 Americans, an average of 157 people a year.

Currently the population of the world is about 9 billion people. This is greater than the sum total of all the human beings ever to have lived. In the year 1930 it was only 2 billion, in 1800 there were only 1 billion, and in the year 1 A.D. there were 300,000 million people alive in the world – roughly the same number of people living in the US today.

Since the dawn of man to roughly the 1800’s, the average human lifespan was about 35 years old. Today, in America, for the first time in history, the average human lifespan is 82 years old.

The worst Polio outbreak in the world was in 1952 in the United States with 58,000 cases, 21,000 people paralyzed and 3,000 people dead – a total of 254,000 people were paralyzed by the disease by 1977. After a vaccine is found in 1955 the World Health Organization vows to eradicate polio from the face of the planet. There were only 1900 polio cases in 2006 and only 922 reported to date for 2007, the vast majority coming from India and Nigeria with less than 100 coming from elsewhere.

90% of people think their driving skills are above average.

26.2 Percent of Americans suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder. One quarter of those have a serious mental disorder. The United States leads the world in mental illness per capita.

Roughly ½ of Americans believe that as of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Saddam Husain did have Weapons of Mass Destruction.

The average presidential primary campaign costs $75 million or more. After that, the average presidential campaign costs an additional $75 million.

Thank you, and have a wonderful 2008

“That’s some nappy-headed hos there”
Don Imus, Radio Host and Shock Jock

“Nothing a white man with a penny hates more than a n***** with a nickel.”
Chris Rock, Comedian

“The Black is a better athlete to begin with, because he’s been bred to be that way”
Jimmy Snyder, Sports Commentator

“White people… I wish that you had my freedom of speech… You think you do?
Please, go into your work and tell my jokes on Monday.”
Carlos Mencia
Latin comedian specializing in racial jokes and satire.

“As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways”
“White folks were in caves while we were building empires. . . . We taught philosophy, astrology, and mathematics before Socrates and those Greek homos”
Rev. Al Sharpton

Perhaps Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s greatest contribution to the civil rights movement was an unwavering sense of respect, for blacks and whites alike. He had a true sense of equality and treated members of both races, not by the color of their skin but by their character. It was infectious, demanding respect and equality from a system that thought he deserved neither. Today there is a want of these virtues. Anger and bitterness have engendered self-righteousness and resentment in both blacks and whites to the point where dialogue on the subject is all but impossible, and true progress against racism is stalled, if not slowly regressing. It has even become all but impossible to know anymore what truly constitutes racism.

Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines racism as a doctrine or teaching, without scientific support, that claims to find racial differences in character, intelligence, etc., that asserts the superiority of one race over another. Snyder’s comments had scientific support, but were none the less considered racist (likely for the derogatory choice of the word “bred”). Imus’s comment doesn’t strictly fit the definition but was widely considered racist also. Rock’s comment, while not strictly fitting the definition either, was closer than Imus’s and was not considered racist. How can we as a society hold people to a set of standards which appears fluid enough that, at a minimum, even Webster’s can’t accurately define it?

A lot of people on the radio say a lot of offensive things about other people (just listen to Rush Limbaugh or Dr. Schlessinger), and a number of whites simply do not understand what propelled Imus’s comments from the realm of offensive to that of racist. They don’t understand why, if it was a joke not meant to harm, was it racist? They believe that racism requires conscious intent. It does not.

Racism is necessarily an unjustified pre-conception about someone based on the color of their skin. But everyone thinks their preconceptions and beliefs are justified. If you knew you were racist (i.e. that you had unjustified beliefs) you would correct it. Even members of the KKK do not think they are racist – they believe the world justifies their views, and believes them correct. A racist never intends racism.

What Imus said may have been a joke, but it was a joke that said to these women that no matter how good they are at anything, no matter how beautiful, intelligent, or athletic, and no matter what they accomplish in life, they can always be reduced to the status of “hos”. Always. That’s where they came from, and that’s where they will always be. It said that theirs is a country where, not just some ignoramus off the street, but a popular cultural icon, can say that to them. That he didn’t mean for it to have that particular effect makes it worse; it demonstrates that this kind of thinking is so ingrained into our culture that he had no idea the effect it would have (he certainly didn’t think he’d be fired for it).

To most blacks this seems like it should be obvious, and when whites don’t see it it’s because they don’t care or because they’re racist. There is a catharsis in thinking that were they (blacks) the majority race in this country they would not be so ignorant or dismissive of racism (a view not considered racist). But that is to underestimate the human heart, and to realize we are truly equal, and anything any race is capable of, the others are as well.

All people, of all races and backgrounds, have great difficulty sympathizing with victims with whom they have little in common, no matter how terrible the crime (just ask the people of Darfur). When Seung-Hui Cho walked into a building at Virginia Tech and killed 32 people, Americans of all races treated it as far more tragic than the record number of people (over 200) killed in four separate car bombings in Iraq that same day.

Whites are phenomenally well insulated from racism. If Imus had been black, and the basketball team white, and in the spirit of good natured ribbing he had said “Those crackers play like they’re cracking a whip on their father’s plantation”, there would have been no debate – he’d have been fired before he finished the sentence. Blacks in this society simply do not have the same power to offend whites.

Fifty percent of blacks in this country are on welfare. The leading cause of death for black males is homicide. If you’re black you have to prove yourself to a white country every day – a country who knows those statistics and use them as justification to make you earn a trust freely given to whites. Your bosses will likely all be white, and they may or may not be racist but you’ll never know for sure. In all 50 states you are far more likely to be turned down for a job, loan, or mortgage than an equally qualified white person, and more likely to get pulled over when doing something as innocuous as driving down the road. Blacks often work harder in this society for lesser compensation, which makes it impossible for them to fairly compete with white colleagues, thereby perpetuating the myth that they are not as competent. A white never learns he’s white but for every black one of his or hers first memories in life is the day he learned he was black – that he was “different” – not worthy to be treated the same.

How can whites in this country understand what that does to the human psyche, the resentment it causes, the self doubt, the frustration? Since only 12% of this country is black the vast majority of white people can spend most of their lives, through no fault of their own, never seeing overt racism or damage it causes. Rather they only hear stories of how bad it “used to be” and look around, knowing they themselves are well intentioned and say “everything must be all right.”

The only way to learn about racism is through dialog. But for a white (particularly male) to express any opinion or engage in discussion about racism is like playing with a loaded gun. Many times they feel that blacks are of the opinion that their lack of experience precludes them from being able to discuss it. So whites (who, being human, abhor injustice no less than blacks) who don’t feel they understood the problem find ways to shrug it off. About Imus they said that blacks were overreacting, or that he’d been saying those things for years and it was hypocritical to start complaining now, none of which they really believe they’re the only opinions they’re allowed to voice.

Whites who do not understand why Imus’s comments were racist despite his lack of intent, or why blacks think racism really is still a problem in this country, can’t get answers. They can’t ask the questions they need to because to do so is offensive. . People assume that everyone should know what made Imus’ comments racist, and that not knowing is in and of itself racist (for if Imus’ comment was racist without his knowledge, then not understanding why is to be guilty of the same ignorance, and thus the same racism). Asking these questions is to suggest (even when not intended) a challenge to the charge of racism, and that too is racist. The label “racist” is almost as bad as any racial epithet (indeed many whites see “racist” as, truly, only a few rungs up the ladder from child molester) and most whites will go to great lengths to avoid being called one (even if the best way to avoid being called racist is to act racist). So when they have honest questions they don’t ask them.

When Imus appeared on Sharpton’s show the “debate” wasn’t about why what he said was wrong as much as it was about why he should be punished, what that punishment should be, and why he felt he didn’t deserve it. Imus found himself in an adversarial situation where he had no clue what the problem was, but admitting that would have been far worse than issuing a mea culpa (which nobody believed) and trying to mitigate the damage. This is a phenomenal problem because equality is reached only when and by people like Imus not saying comments like those because they truly understand the nature of those comments, not when and by people who censor themselves simply to avoid punishment.

This inability to bring whites into the discussion of what racism is also prevents the challenging of beliefs and preconceptions about racism which need challenging – for example the notion that Rock’s comments weren’t racist?

While Don Imus was making fun of black women in his joke, Chris Rock, in reality, was not making fun of whites in his joke. He was trying to make fun of racists (a group of people in desperate need of mocking). He was giving his audience (mostly blacks) a chance to mock something which affects and wounds them deeply, on a daily level. He was speaking a language of common experience whereby they could see that they are not alone – there are other victims of racism – and that even the famous share this with them. He was trying to take the edge off of racism, and he was being cathartic. Rock was trying to heal, trying to bring the black community together, and trying to do his job – be funny, all at the same time. He did a wonderful job.

And it doesn’t matter. Rock’s comment was racist and offensive. Rock was saying that all whites are racist, that all whites hate it when they see blacks excel.

It wasn’t what Rock intended. It was a joke, and Rock wasn’t speaking to whites. Then again, Imus didn’t intend what he said, it was a joke, and he wasn’t speaking to the Rutgers women either. Rock may have helped his community heal but is there no better way of healing than to mock white people and call them racist? How can that not teach members of his audience that it’s okay – in fact it’s a good thing – to insult white people? That it’s a good thing to have, even if just a little, hatred for whites? How can white people who hear this not assume that Rock (and his audience who laughed) believes that all whites are racist? How can that do anything but engender resentment, both for the statement, and for the hypocrisy of it? How can comments like this do anything but increase the divide between us?

And whites do get offended by statements like this, but they can’t say so, they aren’t allowed to be offended. This is a tragedy, because it offers whites a tiny glimpse and understanding into the pain of racism, a glimpse which they won’t discuss or learn from because it demoralizes whites who feel that blacks all think they’re racist no matter what, that they are seen only as part of the problem, not part of the solution.

To say that both sides suffer the same would be both ludicrous and insulting to blacks. But both sides offer significant contributions to the problem and expect the other side to clean up their act first before they are worthy of the effort of tending their own house. Even just 50 years ago it was not the case that blacks contributed to the problem as whites did. But at a time when a black man has an honest chance at holding the highest office in the country, if not the world, we have to acknowledge that it’s not the same world it was 50 years ago. While we are still far from equal, this is a problem which must be owned by both sides. Whites need to be responsible for themselves, take a more pro-active approach, stand up and engage in debate and discussion of racism regardless of their fears. Blacks need to forgive that whites truly don’t and can’t understand, and do their best to engage whites with an open and honest heart and with the same vigilance as whites.

This was what made the Reverend Dr. Martian Luther King so special, and what has not been replicated since – the true, genuine absence of racism. He respected and loved himself and his black and white brothers and sisters. He saw no differences between them, only justice and injustice, and he allowed no double standard. He would have disapproved of Rock’s joke at least as much as Imus’s. And he’d not have sought punishment for Imus, but seen those comments as a chance to educate. He suffered more racism than blacks today, far more than whites, and had less anger towards the people who perpetrated it against him. In the truest Christian sense, he hated the sin, but he loved the sinner. While this country could always use another leader like him, we don’t need it. What we need is for people to take the initiative and follow the example he already set. That this country systematically disenfranchises blacks (and increasingly Hispanics) is not a black (or Hispanic) problem, it’s an American problem, a human problem, and humiliating in the face of countries that don’t (“lesser” countries like Brazil). It is not the country most of us would want, but it is, for the moment, the country we have.

“Killing infidels assures you of Paradise.”
Qur’an, 47:4-6

“Certain Men, the children of Belial, are gone out from among you, and have withdrawn the inhabitants of their city, saying ‘Let us go and serve other gods, which you have not known’; Then shalt thou enquire, and make search and ask diligently, and, behold, if it be truth, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought among you, Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein… and shalt burn with fire the city… for the LORD thy God.”
Deuteronomy 13:13-16

On November 14th CNN’s Glen Beck asked Representative Elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to congress, to prove that he wasn’t a terrorist “working with our enemies”.

The question was answered as best it could be. There were no cries for Beck’s resignation, no major newspaper articles, and no concerns raised over a CNN representative asking such a question.

The first problem, known to journalists, logisticians, philosophers, politicians, and lawyers alike, is that it’s often impossible to prove negative. How would you go about proving that you have never committed murder, robbed a bank, or attended a communist rally? While proving that you have not been caught doing any of these things may be relatively simple, proving you haven’t done them is all but impossible, and any responsible news commentator should know that.

But that Glen Beck could ask such an unfair question is not the most frightening part. What is most frightening is that it’s been five years since 9/11, and members of the mainstream media (and the public at large) still don’t understand who our enemy is or appear to have any interest in making a concerted effort to distinguish between them and us.

While most Americans are cognizant of the fact that not all Muslims hate America or believe in killing infidels, many none the less still, at the very least, hold in the back of their minds some reservations about members of the religion. Many, if they encounter a Muslim who claims not to condone the murder of innocent people, do not believe him. If they believe him, they do so with a nagging sense that he could at any time be converted to the violence of his faith. If they believe he never would, they applaud his courage in standing up to his religion while secretly wondering if they can trust the kind of bankrupt individual would choose a faith and then turn his back on it.

How do we know Islam a violent faith? Because they kill each other, because they kill us, and because their holy book commands that they kill non believers?

While they may be true, none of these facts are even remotely exclusive to Islam.

The Christian bible (their holy book, made up of the Old and the New Testaments) advocates the exact same thing, expanding the definition of “infidels” to include anyone who disagrees with a judge (Deut 17:12), homosexuals (Lev 20:13), people who claim to be psychic (Lev 20:27), people who curse or strike their parents (Prov 20:20, Lev 20:9), adulterers and fornicators (Lev 20:10 – 21:9), and people who work on the Sabbath – all of whom it is one’s obligation to kill.

Most Christians do not follow these commandments, since they are in the Old Testament. Yet the Old Testament is a part of the Christian bible. If there are parts of the bible which Christians feel they are not bound to (and in fact should ignore), why is it so hard to believe that Muslims might feel the same way about parts of the Qur’an? Is it not hypocritical to condone Muslims for violent commandments in the Qur’an but not Christians for violent commandments in the Bible?

The 9/11 hijackers may have been Muslim, as may Al-Qaeda be. But while they are prominent villains in our society, they represent an interpretation of the Qur’an held by less than 1% of 1% of the Muslim population. Over 1.3 billion Muslims live on this planet, the vast majority of them peacefully.

The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan are terrorists (for what is a cross burning if not an act designed solely to terrorize). They fire bomb homes and churches, they murder African Americans and homosexuals, and have even been known to advocate the overthrow of the United States government. They are also Christians, or, at the very least, call themselves Christian and commit their terrorism in the name of the Bible.

While members of the KKK consider themselves Christians, the overwhelming majority of Christians disagree, and vehemently oppose both their views and methods. The same is also true for Al-Qaeda, an organization calling itself Muslim, but denounced by the vast majority of Muslims who shutter at the thought of being associated with these murderers.

Yes, a number of Shiites and Sunnis kill each other. So do Protestants and Catholics, whose violence in Belfast is checked only by the vigilance of military and civilian authorities (who had successfully contained the sectarian violence in Iraq until we disbanded them).

Muslims didn’t cause World Wars I or II. They didn’t cause the Spanish or Medieval Inquisitions, or the Holocaust, and are no more to blame than Christians for the Crusades. They represent the second largest religion in the world, but Islam has been used to justify far fewer atrocities than other religions.

And Muslims in this country try to tell us this, that violence in their religion is the exception, not the norm. But we don’t listen to them, because… well… they’re terrorists, they’ll say anything.

If we decry getting drunk and blaming Jews for all the wars in history, or someone throwing the “N-Word” at hecklers during a comedy act, but allow news commentators from respected networks to ask Muslims to prove that they are not terrorists, we become a country, not of freedom and acceptance, but of hypocrisy and ignorance.

And if we become those things, what exactly is it we fighting to defend?

Even before the invasion, a number of Americans did not believe that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction (despite Colin Powell’s presentation to the UN). Since the invasion, evidence has been continuously mounting that the Bush Administration may well have known there were no WMDs in Iraq, and simply doctored intelligence to start the war.

For the most part, however, this “evidence” is hearsay, and in many cases comes from people who had been fired by the administration. However, the most compelling evidence that the United States had no interest in disarming Iraq comes from a little known, undisputed fact; Iraq did, in fact, have weapons of mass destruction.

After operation Desert Storm, the United Nations Security Council passed resolution 687, requiring that Iraq declare and account for all of its WMDs, and either destroy them or turn them over to the UN. On April 18th, 1991, Iraq made its official declaration.

The UN entered Iraq and placed all of the declared WMDs under UN seal. These weapons remained in Iraq (protected by little more than a plastic ring and caution tape) under UN observation at sites like Bouckaert, Muthanna, and Al-Qaqaa. These sights contained illegal, high power explosives (powerful enough to detonate a nuclear weapon), as many as 2,500 warheads armed with sarin gas, and other banned weapons.

Since that time the United States continually asserted that the April 18th declaration was incomplete, that a significant quantity of Iraqi WMDs remained undeclared, and that some of the WMDs reported as destroyed were in fact intact and in the hands of Iraq.

As the invasion began, the UN observers who had been monitoring the declared sites evacuated. This left known Iraqi WMD sites unsecured and in the hands of Iraq. Though the existence of these sites and their contents were already a mater of public record, the UN reminded the US that these sites existed and needed to be secured.

In the first week of the invasion, the 101st Airborne spent a night at the Muthanna WMD site before moving on to Bagdad, though they failed to secure or even inspect the bunkers there. Six months later not one of the declared WMD sites had been secured, and many were not secured for over a year after that.

By contrast, most of the Iraqi oil fields were secured in 4 weeks.

As a result of failing to secure the WMD sites, every building in Muthanna¹ was looted², and while many of the sarin rockets may have been destroyed in Desert Storm, it is now believed that sarin from Muthanna was the source of a Sarin IED attack on our troops in Iraq³. In addition, 377 tons of high explosive HMX⁴ were looted from Al-Qaqaa, and between 500 and 1,000 tons of high explosives from Bouckaert, making up the vast majority of explosives used by the insurgency today.

While the failure to secure these sites is often thought of in terms of a tragedy which armed the insurgency and costs an ever increasing number of American and Iraqi lives, this begs a larger question… If our intent was to remove WMDs from Iraq, thus making the world a safer place, would we not want to remove, not only illegal WMDs which Iraq possessed and had hidden from us, but also those WMDs which were legally declared and in plain sight? Did the fact that these weapons had been declared make them less dangerous? If we had found illegal WMD’s in Iraq, would we have just left them there?

There are many possible reasons for the US invasion of Iraq. It may be that president Bush wanted to establish a friendly country in the Middle East in light of the likelihood that the Saudi Royal Family will be overthrown and we loose Saudi Arabia as a pro-western ally. It may also be that Bush simply wanted to continue the Desert Storm war, to overcome a perceived failure by his father to invade Iraq. Perhaps the Bush administration simply wanted to secure oil for the United States and make money for big business constituents in the rebuilding of Iraq. Or maybe it was revenge for a believed assassination attempt on Bush’s father.

It may be some, all, or none of these reasons. One thing appears clear, however… At no time did the United States have any interest in securing WMDs in Iraq.

As the reality of a protracted war sets in, we tend to forgo questions of how and why we went to war in favor of debate on what to do with the situation we are now in. Yet if we forget to honestly examine why we went there, we not only fail to hold those responsible accountable, but we dishonor those who fight this war for us.

1. Hanley, C. J. (2004, October 30). Looters overran sensitive Iraq desert site; U.N.-sealed chemical arms at risk. Associated Press
2. Hanley, C. J. (2005, March 26). Loose Ends In Iraq Weapons Hunt. Associated Press
3. Branigan, W. & Warrick, J. (2004, May 4). Deadly Nerve Agent Sarin Is Found in Roadside Bomb. The Washington Post, p.A14.
4. Tons of Iraq explosives missing. (2004, October 25). CNN

“[Moral] Indignation… supplies the wise person with the energy… to act virtuously… But most of those who publicly bemoan the plight of women… are moved by more dubious passions and interests. Theirs is a feminism of resentment that rationalizes and fosters a wholesale rancor in women that has little to do with moral indignation”
Christina Hoff Sommers (“The War Against Boys”, “Who Stole Feminism”)

“The New Feminism emphasizes the importance of the ‘women’s point of view,’ the Old Feminism believes in the primary importance of the human being”
Winifred Holtby

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

“The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.”
Gloria Steinem

I believe men are equal to women. Does this make me a feminist?

Sadly, many feminists would say no. If the feminist position is that women are equal to men, then logically it is also the position that men are equal to women. Unfortunately, this is not the case.

The woman’s rights movement was born out of a need to redress severe and genuine inequities between women and men. Though there have been significant improvements, these changes have done the disservice of giving the false impression that the work is done. It isn’t.

Unfortunately, feminism today is not what the woman’s rights movement once was, or what made it great. Many women today genuinely believe, on some level, not in their equality, but in their superiority to their male oppressors. This is a phenomenally serious problem.

Journalist Norah Vincent spent a year living as a man named “Ned”, observing male behavior from the inside. What surprised her most was the treatment she received at the hands of women, particularly while dating. Women all assumed “Ned” to be inferior, a cad, and a jerk. Most of Ned’s social time with women was spent trying to work his way out of a perceived moral and ethical deficit which they imposed upon him- the image of man as oppressor, as sexist and close-minded, unable to cherish women for their individuality.

It never occurred to any of these women that they were the ones being sexist, close-minded, and unable to cherish Ned for his individuality. The women in Vincent’s book saw the stereotypes they imposed as “honesty”, while viewing stereotypes imposed by men as “oppression” – the same argument previously used by males.

Most modern men have resigned themselves to this type of hostility, and the increasing general hostility, debasement, and degradation of men by our society, as a fact of life….

· Television shows (“Everybody Loves Raymond”, “King of Queens” and “The Simpsons”) increasingly place the women in roles where they are smarter and more mature, while the men play the role of “doofus”.

· I know no man personally who hasn’t been struck by a woman at least once. I have been struck three times, each time by a woman who expected me to have greater control over my anger than she over hers.

· Newspapers and television consider the deaths of men to be less important (“The boat sank, killing all 1000 people on board, 600 of them women and children”).

· Men are seen as objects of commitment. As it has historically been thought that women did not enjoy sex, so has it been thought that men fear to commit. Both are false. Women do not enjoy being a sex object any more than men enjoy being a commitment object. Women often see commitment as an opportunity to change a man, to improve him, and to show him off to her friends and family, and that marriage is the first step in molding the man into who the woman wants him to be. I can think of no one who would feel comfortable with the thought of marriage under those conditions. But instead of men’s concerns being thought of as legitimate, they are relegated to the realm of an immature fear of commitment, a failing on their part- as if that could be the only possible reason for a man not throwing himself at a woman.

Most women wouldn’t believe any of this. If this were true, why wouldn’t men speak up? Because to do so isn’t masculine. Because to do so invites ridicule and laughter. Because women don’t want to hear it, or think men are being silly. Because there’s no support system for men. In short, for all the same reasons women didn’t speak up for 150 years.

Suggesting that men also suffer at the hands of sexism tends to evoke rage in women. There are many causes for this. Some feel that it implies an argument that men have suffered as much as, or more than, women. Some because they define themselves as having the monopoly on being victims of modern oppression. Some feel that to argue that men also suffer from sexism belittles their own suffering, as if there were a finite amount of sympathy or justice in our society. None of these is true.

Women above all should realize the detriment to men, living in a culture where they’re constantly being told that they are animals, insensitive, inferior, mature slower, are not as smart or evolved — and are told their concerns are meaningless or even sexist when voiced. I am not allowed to say I’ve been oppressed, or hurt by sexism, because to do so attacks and insults women.

The truth is that the emancipation of women has been one of the greatest things ever to happen to men in this country. Forget that it is a just cause, forget that the subjugation of women has been an incalculable loss for our society (loosing out on valuable contributions women could have made to a diverse number of fields); men should vehemently support equality for women if for no other reason than unadulterated self-interest.

For centuries men have been reinforcing the idea that women cannot survive without them, that women need their guidance. This has caused generations of women to feel they need men to “complete” them. This in turn places an unreasonable burden on men to define not only themselves, but also their spouses. Men become responsible for the entire family, for financial decisions, generating income, disciplining the children, and even their children’s grades. The weight of this responsibility creates in men a fear of failure so overwhelming that any sign of weakness, no matter how small (like admitting you’re lost on a road trip), is an attack on their very manhood. The image of Ward Cleaver as the perfect father is an ideal no person can live up to.

This level of responsibility is unnatural for any group in our species. It is why men suffer the majority of heart attacks, live shorter lives, and are four times more likely to commit suicide.

Men need to relinquish not only the privileges, but also the burdens of their domination. And the rewards for doing so would be not only longer and healthier lives, but also healthier and happier partners to share those lives with, not to mention the genuine contribution brought by the feminine perspective to politics, arts and sciences.

It is easy for one sex to be dismissive of the suffering of the other, overlooking the truth which is that the fate and well-being of each sex is inexorably tied to that of the other. For every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. For anything one gender¹ does to damage the other, it invariably hurts itself by the same amount.

This makes female equality a goal we must all share. Sadly, however, the women’s rights movement has stalled. It has lost sight of its own goal of equality, and in many cases replaced it with anger, prejudice, and even martyrdom. Many women, earning seventy-five cents to the dollar, have become complacent, choosing not to fight for their remaining twenty-five cents so as to not risk the seventy-five they have. Some resent that decision, and take it out on men. Some women don’t want women’s liberation to succeed, if for no other reason than they would no longer have an enemy to fight or loathe – because with a sense of oppression comes a sense of superiority to your oppressors.

It is a feeling natural to all people, but it the antithesis of true liberation and equality. Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. respected his oppressors as “brothers” and recognized that the best weapon against inequality was love; that to degrade, attack, or even blame whites for the oppression of blacks was both counterproductive, and disingenuous. He hated the phrase “White Devil” as he hated all racial epithets.

If the belief that men are equal to women is not feminism, than Susan B. Anthony and Alice Paul were not feminists. Indeed, they were Quakers – Gender Egalitarians, and believed in the equality of men and women completely and unquestioningly. Like Dr. King they objected to any attempt to blame their oppressors, or to make them feel inferior, or to use suffering as an excuse for emotional hostility or a sense of superiority. They believed that all injustice, even against their oppressors, was to be abhorred and fought. They respected men.

I have found that these prejudices against men have taken a larger toll on me than I had previously realized. I have heard the cries of the oppressed, and I have sat and waved as I honestly wished them luck and then walked away. Why? Because I saw no need to help those who took pleasure in hurting me, no matter how just their cause.

It is that flaw in my character, which I believe is the flaw within the woman’s movement today, that anger, that sense of being wronged, and being unwilling to forgive for a better, common future. It has drained the women’s movement of some of its just voice, and replaced it with bitterness, anger, resentment, and even censorship.

That is not the voice of all those who call themselves feminists, but it is a loud voice in our society today, a growing voice, and the voice men most associate with feminism, and that’s not good. I truly believe that it is the tolerance and legitimizing of that perspective that has turned the women’s rights movement into a feminism that has set men up as “the enemy”, and that has splintered, and taken some of the justice out of, a once great movement.

There can be no justice in a society in which members of any gender, race, or religion are belittled or mitigated, told that their voice does not count. For their own sakes, men must come to a genuine understanding of the justice of the women’s rights movement, and of the true equality of women to men – they must encourage debate and discussion of the issues involved. But the reverse is also true; for their own sakes, women too must be willing to accept that they are not the only ones to suffer injustice, and that they have sometimes caused injustice themselves – that traditional gender roles have been bad for everyone, and that to move past them we need to work together, to love each other, and to push past blame.

Until that is done, we will not have a liberation movement. We will have a gender war.

1. The social sciences differentiate between sex and gender, and rightfully so. The social sciences refer to “sex” as a biological distinction, and “gender” as a sociological one. However, the word “sex” cannot always be distinguished between the physical act of having sex, and the biological differentiation between the sexes.  Therefore, I use the word “gender” when I believe the word “sex” may imply the physical act, as opposed to a biological (or even perceived sociological) distinction. In all cases, “sex” and “gender” in this newsletter refers to the perceived distinction between the male and female sexes.

Why does this topic generate such hatred on all sides of the issue? The pro-life are seen as fascists trying to dominate women, while the pro-choice are wanton murderers. Not to mention that many women take no small measure of satisfaction in arguing that men don’t even have a right to voice an opinion on the subject. This level of loathing makes any attempt at finding a middle ground nearly impossible, to the detriment of two sides who don’t even know what they are arguing for.

There is only one question relevant to abortion: what makes a “person”?

Nearly every culture in history has had a definition of “person”. A person has powerful and enforceable rights. Anything not a “person” (mosquitoes… monkeys… car salesmen) receives varying degrees of that protection based on our perception of their cognitive abilities, economic value, and how cute they are (it’s “worse” to kill a baby seal than a baby cow).

Given the assumption that “people” all have a right to life, both sides of the abortion debate should be able to easily agree on the following:

1) Assuming that a fertilized egg is not a “person” until birth, abortion should be completely legal.

2) Assuming that a fertilized egg is a “person” from conception, abortion can not be allowed in a civilized society.

So at what point, from conception to birth, does a fertilized egg, become a person?

This is difficult to answer because rights are assigned by development (a 5 year old may have a right to life, but he does not yet have the right to drink, smoke, or carry firearms) but development is a process, with no definitive event where we can say “we can conclusively say we have a person after this, but not before it”. Sometimes even death is a process, resulting in similar problems (see Terry Schiavo).

In the absence of an empirical method for defining a “person”, people naturally choose a method which is convenient and comfortable to them, given their previously held beliefs (at conception, at birth, in the second trimester). All of these points are utterly arbitrary, and indefensible (for example, how can one argue that a baby is a person at birth, when developmentally the baby was not measurably different the day before from the day after. How can one argue that a small mass of cells with no central nervous system, is a person either?).

Because we ultimately make a decision on our views based solely on what is most convenient definition for us, any attack on our decision becomes an attack on our entire belief structure. This causes people to defend and argue their positions to ridiculous lengths.

One of many such arguments is that men, unable to bear children, and thus having little or no stake on the outcome of the abortion debate, have no right to express an opinion. The argument demonstrates a complete unwillingness to even begin to examine the topic judiciously, and is ludicrous on its face. It’s also been heard before.

Before the civil war, it was illegal to have slaves in the North. The North attempted to extend this ban to the South, whose entire economy was based on slavery. Thus, the South argued, without a stake in the outcome, the North had no right to attempt to abolish slavery.

If one believes that abortion is murder, men of conscience must stand and voice their objections to the dehumanization and murder of his fellow man. What would you, dear reader, think of a man who watched what he believed to be the mass murder of innocents and said nothing?

If one believes that abortion is not murder, men of conscience must stand and voice their objections to the systematic attempt to interfere with people’s domain over their own body. What would you, dear reader, think of a man who watched what he believed to be the subjugation of half the population of this country and said nothing?

What do I, as a man of conscience, believe?

I believe that debate is good, that people must express themselves. But I believe this debate has lost all sense of reason, and voicing a pro-life or pro-choice opinion at this point contributes to the divisiveness which paralyzes any attempt at a resolution.

Therefore I believe that Reliable contraception (that is, methods or preventing fertilization of an egg) should be completely unrestricted, available inexpensively and without a prescription.

The truth is that Roe v. Wade will not likely be overturned any time soon. Overturning it, despite Alito’s nomination, is actually the lowest man on the Republican totem. The abortion debate is the center of Republican power in this country. Evangelical Christians have chosen it as their defining issue, an issue where the Republicans represent them best. If the issue were “resolved” to Evangelicals’ satisfaction, they might turn to issues of poverty, healthcare, or human rights, issues where they are far more liberal. Further, many Republican women (even within the Bush administration¹) are pro choice. The overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Republicans could galvanize those women (and women previously too apathetic to enter politics) against the party.

Even if Roe v. Wade could be overturned in the next 10 years (highly unlikely), that will not make abortion illegal, it would simple give states the power to decide the legality for themselves. Many states would still allow it. Even if abortion were illegal in all 50 states, it would continue in high numbers, if history is any judge.

Most pro-lifers have a knee-jerk objection to wide availability of contraception. But even Fundamentalist Catholics, who believe that contraception is a violation of God’s edict to “be fruitful and multiply”, may still see this as a solid step forward. By allowing or even encouraging contraception, pro-life groups can make a dramatic and rapid cut in the abortion rate while no way whatsoever impeding their own ability to continue to fight to make abortion illegal.

Wide availability of contraception would, however, increase the rate of pre-marital sex, a significant downside for many pro-lifers. However one must realize that that effect dwindles every year. The abortion rate in this country continues to rise steadily, indicating that fear of pregnancy is loosing effectiveness as a deterrent. Once it is no longer a deterrent, contraception would no longer be an incentive.

Given that most pro-lifers (including Fundamentalist Catholics) find contraception preferable to abortion, this leaves them with a rather simple utilitarian decision.

How many babies should be murdered, before the increase in pre-marital sex caused by the wide availability of contraception, is preferable to abortion? Thousands? Millions? Tens of Millions?

Figure out a number. Before that number, argue against contraception. Afterwards, actively push for contraception, the lesser of two evils, as a means of stemming the tide. The other option is to continue to fight a battle which will remain in a stalemate for decades, while we perform 1.4 million² abortions every year.

Many pro-choicers, while supporting this move, would not give it their full throated support, arguing that it ignores the fundamental issues of a right to choose. This is correct. But it doesn’t impede their ability to argue their case either, and is definitely a step in the right direction.

I have never met a pro-choicer who thought abortion should ever be a primary means of birth control. I have never met a pro-lifer who didn’t think that contraception was preferable. Both sides want to see a reduction in the abortion rate. It is an area all agree on, but few will make a strong push for it, choosing instead to focus on areas of disagreement, rather than where both sides may meet and help each other and themselves. I suspect that once the abortion rate drops dramatically, both sides will see the issue with less urgency, and have an easier time finding an equitable solution.

Until that time, the debate will continue with little reason being shown on either side, and potential gains passed up in the desperate attempt to avoid any compromise.

1. Gerhart, A. (2005, July 19). Women Closest to Bush are Pro-Choice. The Washington Post
2. US Government Census: http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/02statab/vitstat.pdf

The year is drawing to a close, and while we all spend time with friends and family, the political landscape in the country continues, as it always has, to shift.

This was the first year for my newsletter (well, half a year, the newsletter started in June). I would like to sincerely thank all of you who have taken the time to read and reply to some or all of the publications, and to refer them to friends. I see it as a good sign that referrals to friends outstripped referrals to Belleview by just over 6 to 1.

As the year wraps up, the question is… how did we do?

The Recipe for Haggis / The Impeachment of a President:

Last week, Representative John Conyers took the first official step towards impeaching the president. He has introduced three house resolutions.

The first of these would create a select committee charged with determining if Bush and Cheney should be impeached. The committee would investigate whether they had intended to invade Iraq before given the authority (as per the Downing Street Memo), manipulated intelligence, and advocated the use of torture. If the committee recommends impeachment, the HJC will consider and vote on specific charges.

The second and third resolutions call for censure of the president and vice president for, among other things, failing to respond to John Conyers’ letter of May 6th regarding the Downing Street Memo.

God’s Tenure:

Also last week history was made in Pennsylvania.

A Dover area school board had voted to require Intelligent Design (ID) to be taught in science classes as an alternative to Evolution. The ACLU challenged the policy, and on December 23ed a republican judge, appointed by Bush, ruled that ID is not science, and teaching it in science classes violates the separation of church and state.

“We have concluded that it is not [science], and moreover that ID cannot uncouple itself from its creationist, and thus religious, antecedents,” he wrote. “To be sure, Darwin’s theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom.”

—

It is my goal to offer a unique perspective on a wide range of topics, and challenge and educate readers. Given the feedback from articles such as Three Months at N2 and Día de la Resistencia Indigena, as well as the success of The Recipe for Haggis and God’s Tenure, I am hopeful that the newsletter has succeeded.

In the next year, expect to see discussions on how perception influences reality, Chaos Theory, the great psychologist Albert Einstein (who also, as you may know, did some obscure work in physics), freedom of speech, the Kennedy Assassination, Political Action Committees, and deterrence and the criminal mind, just to name a few.

I hope you all enjoyed the year, and hope your next year is even better. Thank you all for your support and feedback, and have a wonderful 2006.

Nicholas Lamar Soutter.

Flashbulb memories are caused by flashbulb events. These events commonly affect a society as a whole. There are many side effects of these events- they tend to bring families closer together, inspire people to follow their dreams, and to start families.

They also have a surprising and long term side effect… They shake people’s faith in their own ability to understand the world so deeply that people tend to actively seek authority figures in whom to place near absolute trust and confidence. Because these events affect large societies, they can cause hundreds of millions of people to abandon reason and critical thought for a sense of security. In psychology, it is a phenomenon unlike any other.

When JFK was assassinated, the public assumed that the Federal Government would do the investigating, that it could naturally do a better job than the police. They assumed that the government would naturally have our best interest in mind, and would never abuse the power placed in their hands in a time of emergency. It never crossed anybody’s mind that they might even have been involved in causing it.

The assassination of a president is not a federal crime. This is intentional, to prevent the possibility that the military, or any other branch of the federal government, would assassinate the president and then cover it up.

In times of crisis, people seek opportunities to abandon their judgment to a higher authority. The civilian doctors, who began the autopsy of JFK, did not question the military illegally taking the body and altering their notes. The Dallas police didn’t hesitate when the FBI took over most of the investigation. The media and police remained largely silent when the new president, Lyndon Johnson, had the bullet-riddled limousine completely rebuilt before any forensic analysis could be done on it.

Forty years later, evidence that the government was involved in JFK’s assassination is pretty conclusive. But most people prefer not to investigate or demand answers from the government. They argue that it was 40 years ago, and answers today would be irrelevant. The truth is it is far easier to leave it at “that was then, this is now” than it is to investigate the matter thoroughly, possibly finding both that the assassination wasn’t particularly difficult, and that it could easily be reproduced in modern times.

On September 11, 2001, America suffered another flashbulb event. Immediately after came the assumption that it was both necessary and wise to make drastic changes to our government, that it should be given broad new powers, and would never abuse the power placed in its hands in a time of emergency.

The first thing we lost was perspective.

We were not fighting a new enemy, and they were not suddenly all that powerful. Al-Qaeda has been at war with us for over 20 years. They’ve made dozens of attempts to bring down the World Trade Center. They planned Millennium attacks, to simultaneously blow up 12 passenger planes over the Atlantic, and probably hundreds more attacks the public doesn’t know about.

2001 was not a banner year for them. They didn’t recruit a new evil genius to lead them, they didn’t increase their dedication to our destruction, and they didn’t grow in numbers by any significant amount.

The only difference was that after 20 years, one of their plans finally, unequivocally, worked.

Well, give Ray Charles 200 darts and stick him in front of a dartboard, and even he will eventually hit the bull’s-eye. Doesn’t mean he can see.

They were willing to die to do us some damage. They were bound to succeed eventually. It was a question of time. And as spectacular as their success was, over 35,000 people die every year on our highways, 100,000 people from smoking. After 20 years of passionate hatred of our country, and a total commitment to destroying us, they have had only one major success, taking a total of 2,000 American lives. This suggests to me that they aren’t the threat we think they are.

Yes, there were failures on our end. Yes, the system could be improved. Improving inter-agency communication, reinforcing cockpit doors, and allowing for fuel dumps mid-air would all prevent the same thing from happening again. But an overhaul of a system which by all appearances has been working quite well seems to defy common sense, as did the assumption that we’d have to lose freedoms and weaken our moral positions to protect ourselves.

The Germans honestly believed that they were liberating Poland. Pinochet believed that the best way to protect his country was to silence dissidents who made his job harder, and to attack countries before they could attack him. Just as each murderer in jail believes himself innocent, that his crimes were justified and not as heinous as his cell mate’s, so do nations.

We should understand crime and punishment. Russia, the former record holder for the greatest percentage of its population in prison at 6%, has lost that title. With just over 7% of its population in prison, the US, the “Land of the Free” holds the world record for the percentage of its own people in jail (beating out China).

For the first time in history, we have changed from an enlightened policy of retaliation to the imperial policy of preemptive strikes against countries which might be a threat- acting in self defense by striking first.

We have used White Phosphorus, which we classified as a chemical weapon when used by other countries, in the war in Iraq (and, after using it, re-classified it as a conventional weapon).

We are rounding up suspects in Iraq¹ and Afghanistan²(including known U.S. allies³) who are detained, sometimes for years, tortured⁴ and raped⁵, then released without charges. Human Rights Watch has called Abu Ghraib the “Tip of the Iceberg”⁶, and calls it a fair sampling of treatment which occurs, to this day, in 25 U.S. detention centers⁷ across Iraq. By the Army’s own accounting, a minimum of 28 to 31 detainees⁸ are suspected to have been murdered⁹ by U.S. officials while in custody (only one of them in Abu Ghraib). These murders are routinely listed as deaths by “natural causes”¹⁰. In some cases, prisoners who are released and speak out about what they experienced in U.S. custody have disappeared¹¹.

The Red Cross estimates that 60-90% of the people currently detained by the U.S. are held by mistake.

According to our own military personnel, children as young as 10 are being captured, raped and tortured by the United States¹². Labeled as “Internees”, they are held indefinitely, without notification of their families, and are denied access to the International Red Cross. It has become common practice for the U.S. Military to detain the families of suspects so that they may be used as leverage. In one case, the ACLU believes a tape exists of a 14-year-old boy being raped in front of his father to elicit a confession. Though ordered by a U.S. Court, the government refuses to turn over the tape on the grounds that to do so would humiliate the boy, and thus violate the Geneva Convention¹³.

The United States refuses to cooperate with UNICEF in regard to its child prisoners, and routinely denies medical access to prisoners from the International Red Cross. Amnesty International¹⁴ has called Guantanamo Bay “the gulag of our time”¹⁵.

It should be noted that Iraq does not present a security risk to the United States, nor was it involved in the 9/11 attacks. It should also be noted that the evidence that torture doesn’t work is overwhelming. People being tortured (both guilty and innocent) simply lie- make up stuff, to get the torture to stop.

Vice President Dick Cheney has said that, in the finest American tradition¹⁶, prisoners are being treated better than they would be by “virtually any other government on the face of the earth”¹⁷. He is also currently lobbying congress to legalize human rights abuses¹⁸ by the United States.

We have more classified documents, unreviewed by civilian authorities, than at any other time in history, including the Cold War and the McCarthy Era.

The Patriot Act appears to be being actively being used against U.S. citizens who are not thought to be, or even associated with, terrorists. Of the over 400 convictions brought about by the Patriot Act, only 39 of the people convicted were convicted of terrorism¹⁹, and of those the average sentence was 11 months. The Patriot Act requires judges to grant FBI warrants, with no oversight, if the FBI simply clams that it is part of a foreign intelligence investigation²⁰. It also empowers the government to declare any US citizen a “Material Witness”, a status which allows indefinite detainment, and denies the detainee the right to counsel and a preliminary hearing²¹. It makes no requirement to notify friends, family, or any civilian organization of a person’s detainment.

In at least one case, a newspaper reporting these facts appears to have had it story misrepresented by, and the target of, the Department of Justice²².

We have gone from being a country so bored with our everyday lives that we impeached our own President for possibly lying under oath in a civil suit (a misdemeanor, by the way) based on the testimony of a single person…

… to a country that watches phenomenal amounts of evidence pile up that multiple members of this administration (including the President²³) have lied before congress (a felony, by the way), deliberately violated the Geneva Convention and international law, endorsed and authorized war crimes²⁴, and ruled over a period in which, for the first time in history, America has been denounced by every major human rights organization in the world ²⁵.

All of this is printed every day in newspapers, and that I can tell, few people have noticed.

The difference between the two (investigating a president for possibly lying about sex, and forgiving a president who may be guilty of multiple felonies) is simple. It is a single flashbulb event.

1. Tanner, A. (2005, January 12). Iraqi Victim Says U.S. Torture Worse Than Saddam. Reuters
2. Sheed, J. (2005, March 21). Guantanamo Abuse ‘Videotaped’. The Australian
3. Bahrain royal family member tortured at Guantanamo prison camp. (2005, August 10). Associated Press
4. White, J. (2005, August 3). Documents Tell of Brutal Improvisation by GIs. Washington Post, p.A01.
5. Buncombe, A. & Morris, N. (2004, August 4). Shocking prisoner abuses are revealed. The Independent
6. Simpson, I. (2005, April 17). Rights Group: Abu Ghraib Abuses ‘Tip of Iceberg’. Reuters
7. Croke, L. A (2004, September 24). Torture and Rape Rampant in Iraq Prisons. The New Standard
8. Jehi, D. (2005, March 26). Pentagon Will Not Try 17 GI’s Implicated in Prisoners’ Deaths. The New York Times
9. Jehi, D. & Schmitt, E. (2005, March 16). U.S. Military Says 26 Inmate Deaths May Be Homicide. The New York Times
10. U.S. Operatives Killed Detainees During Interrogations in Afghanistan and Iraq. (2005, October 24). ACLU
11. Harding, L. (2004, May 12). Focus shifts to jail abuse of women. The Guardian
12. http://www.sundayherald.com/43796
13. ACLU Blames Gov’t for Abu Ghraib Delay. (2005, July 22). Associated Press
14. Rights group leader says U.S. has secret jails. (2005, June 6). CNN
15. Cohn, M. (2005, June 16). Bush Plays Politics with Guantánamo “Gulag”. Truthout
16. Patterns of Abuse. (2005, May 23). The New York Times Editorial
17. Lewis, A. (2005, June 21). Guantánamo’s Long Shadow. The New York Times
18. Vice President for Torture. (2005, October 26). The Washington Post
19. Myths and Realities About the Patriot Act. ACLU,
20. See Above
21. See Above
22. The Editor, (2005, December 5). Washington Post’s Response to DOJ Patriot Act Letter. The Washington Post
23. FBI E-Mail Refers to Presidential Order Authorizing Inhumane Interrogation Techniques. ACLU
24. The Pinochet Principle: Bush Defends Torture in the Name of National Security. (2004, June 9). Democracy Now
25. Lobe, J. (2005, May 26). Give Rumsfeld the Pinochet Treatment, Says US Amnesty Chief. International Press Service

“I do know that it’s true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose — you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down”
Bill Bennett (09/28/05)
“We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it’s not cowardly.”
Bill Maher, Politically Incorrect (09/26/01)

A few years ago I met a psychic. Skeptical at first, I was amazed by the overwhelming proof of her ability to predict the future. She had even predicted the assassination of JFK and called the White House days before his trip to Texas, warning him not to go. If only they had listened to her….

She keeps with her a clipping from a newspaper, where her ominous warning to the president was published, as were her credentials as a psychic.

Unfortunately, as impressive as her abilities are, there are a few things she fails to mention to prospective clients. First of all, the White House receives 600 calls a year from “psychics” warning the president of his impending assassination. At nearly two calls a day, a far more surprising event would be if the president was assassinated and someone hadn’t predicted it.

Secondly, she failed to mention that that particular call was the fourth she had made predicting an assassination. The previous three had all been wrong (as were the next 12 she made for future presidents). Further, as impressive as predicting the assassination was, she has not made any other successful predictions in the last 40 years.

It is true, that she accurately predicted, and even attempted to warn of, the Kennedy assassination. But that fact, without a larger context, is extremely misleading.

When Bill Bennett said that one could lower the crime rate by aborting black babies, the media went wild. How could he advocate such a position?

The truth is he didn’t. He stated a fact.

It is far easier (and more self satisfying) to adopt a position of anger and moral outrage, than it is to look at his statement in context, and see if the apparently obvious implication of the statement is in fact what he intended to say. It is a case of Attribution Error, assuming that his motives must have been racist.

A listener had called into Mr. Bennett’s show and argued that the “lost revenue from the people who have been aborted in the last 30 years” would have been enough to save Social Security.

Mr. Bennett was immediately skeptical of that statistic, and argued he did not believe it to be accurate, that it painted an incomplete picture of the economic impact of abortion. The caller claimed the statistic to be completely accurate, to which Mr. Bennett replied that it was also true “that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could — if that were your sole purpose — you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down.”

His point? That statistics can often only paint half the picture, that such “far-reaching, extensive extrapolations” (as he put it) were meaningless, and that to argue that abortion should be illegal as a means of saving Social Security was as ludicrous as to argue that abortion should be legal as a means of reducing crime, no matter what the statistics said. His called his own statements “ridiculous, and morally reprehensible”, which is of course why he made them.

For his comment about the 9/11 hijackers, Bill Maher was fired from ABC for being to insensitive (despite the fact that he had held an empty seat on his show for a month for conservative commentator Barbara Olson, who died when her plane hit the pentagon while she was on her way to be on his show). What was Bill Maher’s point? That it’s easy to be dismissive of the terrorists, to call them cowards and say that there is no reason that they hate us, but it isn’t the truth, and it greatly underestimates them.

I once announced to a college class that women generally have smaller brains than men, suffering a politically correct backlash that followed me for four years. Somehow I was sexist. Somehow people thought that I must mean that women aren’t as smart as men. The fact that my statement was scientifically accurate had no bearing on the fact that I was obviously sexist, that I obviously meant to say that women weren’t as smart as men. I was in fact attempting to discuss the differences between men and women, in how the hemispheres of the brain communicate through the corpus callosum.

Women do have smaller brains (if you find that offensive, talk to God, I had nothing to do with it). Why anyone thinks this implies a lower intelligence is beyond me. A five foot person has smaller organs (including the brain) than I do, but can easily be smarter. A blue whale has a significantly larger brain than I do, but it can’t calculate a 15% tip. Intelligence is measured, not by the size of the brain, but by the ratio of brain mass to body mass. This fact, which I had assumed would be obvious given the wide range of human body sizes, was not considered by the people who judged my statement, leading to the erroneous conclusion that I necessarily implied that which I hadn’t.

I have never heard of Bill Bennett. He may be a racist – I have made arguments neither for nor against that claim. His declaration was a stupid thing to say, and I can imagine a hundred better ways to prove the point he was trying to make. But this country has (likely out of boredom) concluded that he stated or implied that blacks are the cause of crime, or that they should be aborted, or that blacks are less important than whites. He implied none of those things. What he said was that statistics can, when extrapolated properly, be used to justify positions which are clearly incorrect. And he’s right.

Effective communication is the basis of civilization. It can not exist without an understanding of what one is trying to say. That understanding comes in part through the sharing of a common vocabulary, but language alone is often ineffective at conveying thoughts. As important as language is, of equal importance is learning how to listen. One can attempt to understand offensive speech without condoning it, but one can never truly object to offensive speech unless they know what was said.

Having just defended him, I do hope he’s not a racist.

For many Native Americans, the name Columbus is synonymous with Adolph Hitler. For many Italian-Americans, the name is synonymous with Neil Armstrong. The remaining 95% of Americans are vastly unaware of the bitter feud between them, and simply think of him as the man who discovered America. None of these is particularly accurate.

Many Italian Americans take great offense at charges of genocide and rape levied against Columbus. They consider him a symbol of their national pride and heritage. All of that would make sense, if Columbus had in fact been Italian. Nobody is quite sure where he was from, but Italy is about the least likely. The strongest evidence suggests that his real name was Salvador Fernandez Zarco, that he was born in Portugal in a town after which he would eventually name one of the islands he discovered… Cuba.

Whoever he was, there were no significant records of him before the 1470’s. Columbus took great pains to hide his true identity, and whatever his name was, he may have found the “New World,” but he did not discover America.

The first people to discover the Americas were of course, the Native Americans. Their decedents likely walked here from eastern Siberia, some 14,000 years ago on the land bridge of Beringia. As the Ice Age ended, the ocean level rose, giving us the world as we know it today. Beringia was submerged, the British Isles trimmed from the European mainland, and Borneo, Sumatra, and Java were cut off from the Asian mainland.

Inaccessible to Europe and Asia except by boat, America was “lost” until re-discovered Leifur Eiriksson, a Viking explorer (and the first European to find the continent). The Vikings settled a colony in Nova Scotia, L’Anse aux Medows, roughly 500 years before Columbus was even born. The settlement didn’t survive very long, and the Vikings then apparently “misplaced” North America, and promptly forgot about it.

Columbus was next, and he never discovered the mainland. In an attempt to sail around the globe to Asia, he traversed the vast ocean and completely missed the continents of North and South America, landing on the only land between America and Spain… the Bahamas. The odds of that are astonishing. Missing the continents themselves for a few tiny islands was like looking for a haystack and coming up with a needle instead.

He named the islands the “Indies”, and made a total of four trips there. In his life, he never saw North America, and went to South America only on his third trip in 1498, by which time North and South America had already been discovered and explored by another man… Amerigo Vespucci. Vespucci found the mainland on April 10, 1497, more than a year before Columbus did. Having correctly calculated the circumference of the earth, Vespucci also recognized the land for what it was, a new continent, and named it “America.”

Contrary to popular belief, it was well understood at the time that the world was round. The only question was, how big was it? The land route to Asia was dangerous, and controlled by the Turks. A sea route would be safer and faster, if Asia were close enough. But boats could only go about 40-45 days without re-supplying, so they couldn’t explore further than about 20 days out (needing half their supplies to get back).

Columbus’ calculations put Asia about 24-28 days away, and he was literally willing to bet his life on it. He was given three ships and was charged with bringing back gold from Asia. In return he would get 10% of the profits, governorship over any new lands, and the title of Admiral.

30 days later, they had not found Asia, and the crew was understandably restless. Though there was a reward (10,000 maravedias a year for life) for the first person to spot land, they were also desperate for supplies. Three days later, a sailor spotted one of the Caribbean islands. This caused considerable jubilation, after which Columbus claimed that he had actually seen it the night before (though he failed to mention it), and took the reward.

Arriving in the Caribbean, Columbus named the land the “Indies”, and the natives he found “Indians”. “I showed them my sword,” he wrote in his journal, “they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance… With fifty men we could subjugate them all.”¹

Many of the natives wore gold jewelry, suggesting to him that gold was plentiful. He enslaved what natives he could, and demanded they take him to the gold. He was led to Haiti and Cuba, but found little of interest. So he loaded his ships with native slaves and returned to Spain.

While the slaves had value, it was small compared to the gold that had been expected. He knew that he could not get a second trip without the promise of a considerable return on Spain’s investment. So he lied, claiming that most of the mountains and rivers he had seen contained vast quantities gold. He was given 17 ships for a second trip.

He was also given explicit instructions by the King and Queen of Spain to maintain friendly relations with the natives (in the hopes of later converting them to Christians). He was there for gold, spices, and silks, not for slaves.

His second trip to the Indies was as fruitless as the first. He ordered all natives over the age of 14 to collect a weekly quota of gold. Any person not meeting his quota would have his hands cut off. Knowing there wasn’t nearly enough gold to make the quotas, the Native Americans fled. Columbus had them hunted down and mutilated for their betrayal. So ferocious were the Spaniards that suicide by poison became preferable to many of the natives. 110,000 of them were slaughtered in just two years, wiping out the entire population on several islands.

Columbus then established a fort in Hispaniola and captured 1600 Arawk “Indians”. Most were kept there and used as slaves. Women and children were raped, and Columbus himself wrote in his journal of using slaves for sex and sword practice. He took 550 of the slaves back with him to Spain. Half of them died on the trip there. Spain, surprisingly, did not consider enslavement within the bounds of “friendly relations,” and freed the surviving slaves.

Even more surprisingly, he was given 6 ships for a third trip. The priest Bartolome de Las Casas was instructed to go with him and keep an eye on him. Bartolome would later publish “A short account of the destruction of the Indies” based on what he saw. He wrote that “from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the mines.”

When Columbus arrived for the third time, he found his fort in near rebellion. While he was away it had become clear to them that the gold Columbus had described to get his second trip did not exist. Faced with mutiny, he began hanging his own men. Finally, he was arrested, striped of his governorship, had his profit sharing deal with Spain revoked, and was sent home in shackles.

Columbus was insulted by suggestions he had found a “New World.” He died vehemently opposing the increasingly popular idea, believing instead that his calculations had been correct, that had found Asia, and that Amerigo Vespucci’s “America” was simply the Asian mainland.

As the governor of the Indies, he was responsible for what many historians consider to be genocide. Bartolome’s figures are likely highly inaccurate- 500,000 being a more realistic number. Does this put Columbus in the same league as Hitler? No. But we are talking the same ball game. One is forced to wonder how many Native Americans would have died had Columbus had Hitler’s technology, had Spain not arrested Columbus, or had there been more people to kill.

Many Native Americans find the name “Indian” offensive. It was the name Columbus gave them. Columbus Day became a national holiday in 1971, though in some South American countries it is called the “Day of Indigenous Resistance” and is a day of mourning.

1. Zinn, H. (1999). A Peoples History of the United States. New York: HarperCollins.

A rough timeline outlining the 1945 bombing is as follows:

July 16th: Trinity Test – first successful atomic bomb test.

August 6th: Hiroshima bombing. 100,000 people killed instantly.

August 9th: Nagasaki bombing. 80,000 people killed instantly.

August 9th: USSR declares war on Japan.

August 14th: Japan surrenders / fighting stops.

September 2nd: USA officially accepts the surrender of Japan.

It is often suggested, knowing that the USSR was going to enter the war, and that Japan could not possibly defeat both enemies, that the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks were un-necessary. There are, however, some problems with that line of reasoning.

The Samurai code had had a strong cultural influence on the Japanese. They had often claimed that to them, dying was preferable to losing the war. What we had seen while taking Okinawa bore that out. The Japanese had begun loading Kamikaze (suicide) planes with explosives and ramming them into the US fleet, and the fighting on land had been the fiercest yet of the entire war.

The fact that the Japanese ultimately surrendered might seem to be proof that death was not in fact preferable. This is a common error in logic. The truth is that even at the moment of surrender, the Japanese likely still would rather have died than loose.

But dying to prevent losing the war was not an option they had. By August 10th it was likely quite clear that they were going to loose. The choice they had was to loose and live, or loose and die. The fact that they were prepared to die to avert loosing was no longer sufficient. Losing had become inevitable.

It appears likely that they would not have surrendered until victory was truly beyond all hope.

Based on the experience in Okinawa, and given the sacrifices the Japanese were willing to make, conservative estimates suggested that taking the Japanese mainland would cost the lives of 250,000 US troops, 3 Million Japanese troops, and 1 Million Japanese civilians (who had thrown themselves from cliffs rather than be captured).

Roughly 38 Million people had already lost their lives in World War II. The idea of decisively ending the war at a cost of 200,000 enemy lives probably seemed reasonable.

One must also remember that it was a war. Gambling 250,000 American lives on whether or not Japan would surrender when the USSR entered the war would not be particularly good war planning. Not finishing off an enemy because you assume that they will surrender isn’t so smart either. Such assumptions have lost many a country many a war. The Japanese were an industrious people, and assuming they were finished before it was true could have been a huge mistake.

In fact, there is considerable evidence that it would have been a mistake, that the Japanese did have hopes of beating the combined forces of the USA and USSR. Though it seems impossible, there was one way they thought they could…

With nuclear weapons…

A little known fact (even after being published by the AP and the Japan Times¹) is that the Japanese had two active nuclear weapons programs in 1945, with the goal of developing a 20kT bomb nearly 40% larger than the Hiroshima device.

The first program was started by the army in the spring of 1941, and was based in the Rikin Laboratory in Tokyo. Though progress was steady (and possibly assisted in by a US spy from Los Alamos) they suffered continual supply problems. They had hoped to solve these problems with 560kg of uranium from Germany², but the sub carrying the shipment was seized by the Americans before it could get to Japan. The program finally ended in failure when the Rikin lab was destroyed in the fire-bombing of Tokyo on April 14th, 1945.

However the second program, run by the Japanese Navy³, had considerably greater success. Anticipating the possibility of bombing in Tokyo, the project was halted for three months and moved to the N2 lab in Japanese occupied North Korea, where bombing was less likely, and labor and uranium were more plentiful.

On August 12, 1945, the Japanese detonated a nuclear blast off of the coast of Konan⁴, less than a month after the US Trinity test. Japan had become a nuclear power just two days before it surrendered.

On August 5th, the Japanese plan to win the war was not unreasonable⁵. It would take one to three months to make nuclear weapons which could be deployed in the field. They would hold off the invasion of the mainland while they made two bombs. They would then detonate one in the middle of the US Pacific fleet and one in San Francisco. To that end they had built a submarine, which could hold and launch aircraft, to carry a plane and the bomb to the United States. With the US Fleet gone, they would have enough time to make dozens of nuclear bombs.

However, after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it became clear to them that despite the successful nuclear test, by the time they built a deployable nuclear weapon, there would be no Japan left to defend. The US had won a nuclear race it didn’t even know it was in.

Had the moving of the N2 lab taken less than three months (or had the US not attacked Hiroshima and Nagasaki), it is quite possible that Japan would have successfully built and deployed two or more nuclear weapons against the United States. We would likely still have won the war (by all accounts we had more uranium and could build bombs faster than they could), but not without our own deployments. The result would be a nuclear war with a total of 5-8 deployments before the Japanese surrender.

Truman had no idea that the Japanese even had a nuclear weapons program. Fortunately, however, he didn’t take the risk.

1. Hall, K. (2003, March 7). Wartime Documents Set Record Straight. The Japan Times
2. Benke, R. (1997, June 1). New Evidence Tracks Japan’s Efforts to Create Atomic Bomb. ASSOCIATED PRESS
3. Physics Daily
4. Snell, D. (1946, October 2). Japan Developed Atom Bomb; Russia Grabbed Scientists. The Atlanta Constitution
5. Japan’s Atomic Bomb

Why God Never Received Tenure at Any University:
By Ann Landers.
He had only one major publication.
It was in Hebrew.
It had no references.
It wasn’t published in a reference journal.
Some doubt He wrote it Himself.
He may have created the world, but what has he done since?
The scientific community can’t replicate his results.
He never got permission to use human subjects.
When one experiment went awry, He tried to cover it up by drowning the subjects.
He rarely came to class and just told students to “Read the Book.”
He had his son teach the class.
He expelled his first two students.
His office hours were irregular and sometimes held on a mountain top.
Although there were only 10 requirements, most students failed.

On Tuesday, August 2nd, President George W. Bush declared that Intelligent Design should be taught in science classes as a competing theory to evolution.

There is little problem with teaching the theory of Intelligent Design in a Humanities or Philosophy course. But any person arguing that intelligent design (or creationism for that matter) should be taught in a science class has a gross misunderstanding of what science is, how it functions, and the difference between science and religion.

The basic definition of science is quite simple. It is the systematic acquiring of knowledge using the “Scientific Method” – a framework governing what constitutes scientific knowledge and how it is acquired. The Scientific Method was first practiced by Galileo, who, coincidentally, was also the first to discover that religion did not always appreciate the discoveries of science.

Far from perfect, Science cannot prove anything. It can only determine facts to varying degrees of certainty, but not beyond all doubt (which is one reason why a court of law requires only proof beyond a “reasonable” doubt).

Science is also amoral. While there are standards of ethics within the scientific community, the process of science is independent of ethics. It is no harder or easier to make life saving insulin than it is to make deadly VX nerve gas. The ethical ramifications of a given scientific theory have no impact on its validity or accuracy. When Einstein objected to his work being used to create nuclear weapons, his objections weren’t on scientific grounds, but ethical ones.

Ethics (i.e. what constitutes good and moral behavior) is the primary purview of religion. Society, by definition, cannot exist without some system of ethics. For this reason, religion has played a large, if not integral, part in the shaping of nearly every society since the dawn of civilization, from the Greeks and Romans, to the United States (which, despite an “official” separation of church and state, is still greatly influenced by religion).

Religious knowledge is based, not on the Scientific Method, but on faith. Knowledge is gained by reviewing and re-interpreting existing religious texts. The validity of these texts is a matter of faith, as is the existence of, and connection of the ordained to, God.

Faith can only exist in the absence of proof. If there were proof, you wouldn’t need or have faith. Were God to announce his existence to the world on CNN, we would not have faith that he exists, we would have proof.

Both systems, religion and Science, serve critically important functions to both the society and the individual. Neither system plays or works well with the other.

Intelligent Design cannot be taught in science class is because, even if it’s true (and it may well be), the truth of it can not be determined by applying the Scientific Method. This makes the theory unscientific by definition.

Because science cannot prove anything, being able to disprove becomes extremely important. One of the requirements of the Scientific Method is that one can imagine the conditions under which a theory would be disproved. A scientific theory becomes scientific law only after all reasonable efforts to disprove the theory have failed.

But what exactly are the conditions required to disprove Intelligent Design? Or to disprove God, for that matter? The theory that “God exists” can only be scientific if one attaches to it conditions under which the theory could be disproved. About the only way to disprove the existence of God would be if God came down here Himself and claimed that He does not exist… and that would pose its own set of unique problems.

It isn’t fair to exclude a theory because it’s different. But Science has no part in fairness or ethics. Science does not include or exclude by preference or morality, but by the application of the Scientific Method, nothing more or less. That framework is as incompatible with faith, as faith is with proof.

Given both that Intelligent Design may be true, and that it can not fit within the framework of Science, we have a problem. This means that Science, which, at it’s core, is the search for knowledge, can not cope with a theory which may be true. Does this mean that the Scientific Method is imperfect?

Absolutely! That is one of the reasons why every few years, new knowledge comes up which requires us to reconsider old Scientific knowledge.

However, all disciplines are imperfect- Science, Mathematics, Art, Grammar, and History. All have exceptions which can not be applied to the discipline within its framework. If we decided to invalidate a discipline based on these imperfections, no disciplines would exist. We as humans use a limited perspective and a limited mind to try to understand an infinitely large universe. No framework we invent can possibly work perfectly under those conditions.

Religion too, is imperfect. It was religious knowledge that claimed the earth was the center of the universe, and the sun revolved around us. Religious knowledge justified King Richard the Lionhearted’s slaughter of Arabs and sanctioned the work of Torquemada and the Inquisition. It was religious knowledge that allowed nineteen men to crash planes into the world trade center. Had those men not firmly believed that dying while killing infidels would grant them passage to Heaven, flying into a building might have struck them as a bad idea.

Despite its imperfections (and there are many) the Scientific Method has met with phenomenal success. It discovered antibiotics, pasteurization, and sterilization (which helped reduce the infant mortality rate from 30% in the 19th century, to 0.7% in 2002). It discovered insulin, a substance which saves 18 Million lives in the US alone. It made products like steel and electricity, products which make our homes safer, keep us cool in summer and warm in winter, and helps us wash our cloths. Practical application of the Scientific Method is why the average life expectancy is 81 years, more than twice what it has been at any time in history. The Scientific Method put a man on the moon.

But Science can no more teach outside the tenets of the Scientific Method than religion can teach outside the tenets of faith. Asking Science to teach a theory which is unscientific is exactly like asking religion to stop teaching a theory because it can not be proven. You are asking, not for a compromise, but for that discipline to contradict its most basic tenets , the tenets which define it.

It is for that reason alone that scientific theories, no matter how controversial, belong in science class, and unscientific theories, no matter how popular, do not.

Attribution Error is where, given an absence of contradictory information, people will assign positive motives to themselves (or people like them), and negative motives to others (or dissimilar people) for any given act.

The most common example is driving. When we cut someone off, we say we did it accidentally, because we were in a rush, or, in some cases, because they deserved it.

However, when someone cuts us off, we say they did it because they’re a jerk or a bad person. This is opposed to equally probable explanations such as they did it accidentally, because they were in a rush, or because, in some cases, we deserved it.

This is why there are no guilty people in prison. Convicts usually claim that while other prisoners may deserve to be punished, their own crimes (even murder) were justified.

Any “immoral” act (stealing, accepting bribes, lying under oath) by a political figure will be seen by his party in the most sympathetic light possible, as an aberration, mistake, or lapse of judgment. The opposing party will see the same offense as a sign of failed moral character, and a symptom of rampant corruption. That is until a member of that party commits the same act.

Confirmation Bias is the human tendency to only try to prove theory, not disprove it. This is differs from the tendency to try to avoid being proven wrong, as confirmation bias applies even in the genuine search for new knowledge, not just to the testing of established beliefs.

Imagine 4 cards, each with a number on one side, and a letter on the other side:

E 7 4 F

If someone (lets call her “Susan”) says that “Every card which has a vowel on one side has an even number on the other,” which cards would you have to flip over to see if Susan is right?

Think about it before moving on…

The way to determine if Susan is right is to see if every card with a vowel on one side has an even number on the other. If even one vowel has an odd number, then Susan is wrong.

“E” is the most common first card flipped, and indeed is correct. If the number on the other side of “E” is odd, then Susan is wrong. If it is even, that doesn’t mean Susan is right- just that she’s right so far.

“4” is the second most common card flipped. This is wrong, and is our first encounter with confirmation bias. What is on the other side of “4” is irrelevant. If it’s a consonant, that doesn’t make Susan wrong (She didn’t say ONLY vowels had an even number on the other side). If it’s a vowel, that’s consistent with Susan’s statement, but doesn’t prove it, or give us any information we don’t already have.

“F” is, by the same token, irrelevant.

The “7” card is not flipped by most people. This is another mistake. If the other side has a consonant, it means nothing. But if it’s a vowel, then Susan is decidedly wrong. This card must be flipped to determine if Susan is right, but people ignore it because of confirmation bias.

When al-Qa’ida successfully destroyed the world trade center, they saw it as evidence that God was on their side. When they failed to simultaneously blow up 6 airliners over the Atlantic, they didn’t consider it proof that He wasn’t. That is confirmation bias.

Rev. Jerry Falwell claimed that God allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur because of gays and abortion rights. Florida was later hit with the worst series of hurricanes in its history, with Miami-Dade getting disproportionately high damage. Despite this coming on the heels of serious irregularities in Florida’s 2000 election, mostly centered on Miami-Dade, he did not claim that God allowed it as a result of voter fraud. That is attribution error.

One political example where attribution error and confirmation bias combine and confound is in claims of political bias in the media.

Each side of the political spectrum believes that the media is biased against them. The Pew Charitable Trusts Project for Independence in Journalism found that in the 2004 election John Kerry got a higher volume favorable press than George Bush. Most right wing media organizations have cried loud and oft that this is proof of liberal bias in the media.

To assume that favorable press is an indication of bias is an attribution error. Favorable press could just as easily come from a candidate’s charm, his ability to cover up indiscretion, genuine moral superiority, or time in the public eye (4 years in office gave greater opportunity to dig up dirt on Bush), or any number of things. The right simply assumes it must be because the media is biased.

Assuming for a moment that favorability did indicate bias, there is yet another problem with using the 2004 Pew study to show liberal bias. That problem is the 2000 Pew study, which found that in the 2000 election the media gave Bush nearly 50% more favorable coverage than it gave Gore. Pew called the studies mirror images of each other.

The 2004 study references the 2000 study, and they are on the same website. Yet The Washington Times, Fox News, and other right wing news sources are continually claiming that the 2004 study proves a liberal bias. Given the 2000 study, the claim borders on ludicrous.

Are you liberal? Are you reading this right now? Enjoying it? The right wing sucks, don’t they? Knowingly lying about what the 2004 study means… Of course, to say that is to suffer attribution error, when it is far more likely that the right’s oversight is simply confirmation bias.

“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders… All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger.”
– Hermann Goering, Nazi Reich Marshall, at the Nuremberg trials

Ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee (The HJC, a committee of congressmen responsible for governmental ethics), Representative John Conyers, has unknowingly telegraphed his intent to impeach George W. Bush.

Impeachment does not mean to remove from office, but simply to charge with a crime. Webster’s defines it as “to bring before a proper tribunal on charges of wrongdoing”.

Congress has the power to remove the president, “on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”, meaning he must both be impeached, and convicted. To do this, the HJC creates articles of impeachment (charges). Each article is sent to the full House for a vote.

If the House passes one or more charges, the Senate takes over. It (the Senate) has a trial (just like one in any court in the country). The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is the Judge, the Senate is the jury, the House of Representatives are the prosecution, and the president is the defendant.

If more than 2/3 of the members of the Senate finds the president guilty, he is removed from office.

The first presidential impeachment, in 1868, was of a president who had never been elected. Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency after Lincoln’s death. The House impeached him on 11 charges. At his trial he was acquitted, though on the most serious charge (essentially that he declared congress unconstitutional) he won by a margin of only one vote.

One Hundred and six years later President Richard M. Nixon was implicated in the Watergate break-in. The HJC returned 3 charges against him, but he resigned before the House could vote to impeach.

In 1998, William J. Clinton became the second president to be successfully impeached. At trial, the Senate concluded that while he was guilty, his crimes did not rise to the level of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”, and he was acquitted.

Shortly before the Clinton impeachment, HJC Chairman Henry Hide sent the president a letter asking him to confirm or deny charges in the Starr report. Against the advice of his lawyers, Clinton responded, a response which would later be the basis for the most serious of the 4 charges against him, namely lying to Congress.

Hide, of course, did not expect the letter to generate a confession. Rather, the letter was an attempt to get Clinton to lie, in writing, to Congress. It was a trap, and Clinton took the bait.

This is important, because last month the Ranking member of the HJC, John Conyers, sent a letter to George W. Bush asking him to confirm or deny the charges of the “Downing Street Memo”.

Despite massive coverage in England, the US news has barely mentioned the memo. Published by the London Times on May 1st, 2005, it is the record of a meeting, eight months before the start of the Iraq war, in which top British officials discuss the coming war.

The memo states that Bush had made up his mind to invade Iraq since he had taken office. That unprovoked no-fly zone strikes against Saddam have failed to incite him to war. That, baring his starting a war, an excuse would have to be fabricated for an invasion. That, despite having fewer WMD’s than any other nation of concern (like Libya or North Korea), WMD’s would constitute the only legal excuse to invade. That if the invasion had any hope of proceeding, Blair and Bush would need to undermine diplomatic efforts, lest a legitimate diplomatic solution be found before the invasion.

British or American administration officials have denied the authenticity of this memo.

The memo is nothing new. Richard Clarke (Terrorism Czar for 4 administrations) said that Bush had demanded that Iraq be blamed for 9/11, otherwise we might have to invade Afghanistan first. Bob Woodward (one of the key Watergate figures) has made similar claims, as did former treasury secretary Paul O’Neill.

Despite claims to the contrary, most independent studies show that the media is decidedly right wing. Regardless, a vast right wing conspiracy is not the main reason that the American press hasn’t made much of the memo. Consumers dictate news content. If we became obsessed with cooking, the recipe for Haggis would be on the front page of the New York Times.

They are ignoring the memo because we don’t want to hear it. Because when Bush is in trouble, we change the channel.

Most Americans believed that Bush could be lying when we heard him say that Iraq was the enemy. It didn’t make sense… Al Qaeda wasn’t in Iraq. But we were so wounded by 9/11 that we were eager to attack anybody. We secretly enjoyed hearing Bush make even a flimsy connection to Iraq, because it gave us an excuse to hate an enemy we could see. Al Qaeda is an ideal, a concept, a theory. Iraq is a country we can watch burn. We, all of us, wanted to teach the world a lesson.

Criminal presidents are nothing new. Nixon committed bribery and extortion. Lyndon B. Johnson faked the “Gulf of Tonkin” incident to start the Vietnam war. He also likely was behind the murder of a political rival in Texas, and had foreknowledge of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Yet we are offended at the very notion of a bad president. Questioning Bush’s integrity is an indictment of all of us, a brutal charge that we may have sacrificed our judgment to bloodlust.

Clinton was impeached not because he was guilty, but because he might have been, and a fair trial was needed to determine it. With so many credible sources saying that Bush lied to this country and to Congress, we must impeach him. We need a fair trial and to find him either guilty, or innocent.

Despite having the lowest approval rating of his presidency, at this moment an impeachment attempt against Bush would be political suicide, viewed as nothing more than revenge for the Clinton impeachment.

Despite that, Conyers is preparing to take a serious stab at it. His questions to Bush are a prelude to impeachment. They are bait, which, unlike the last president, Bush has not taken.

Conyers will likely wait until after the mid-term elections in 2006, when Democrats should narrow the Republican lead in Congress, and fear of constituent retaliation will be at its lowest.

Rest assured, however, that Conyers will enter the ring with George W. Bush.

In our zeal to spread democracy around the world, people often forget that we ourselves do not live in a democracy. We live in republic.

A republic emphasizes the rule of law.

A democracy emphasizes rule of the majority.

After the Civil War, “Radical” Republicans like Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania and Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, gained control of congress and began passing legislation like the Civil Rights act (which, among other things, gave blacks the right to purchase property) and the 14th Amendment (which grants due process and equal protection to all citizens of the United States).

President Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, believed that this impeded on the freedom of a state to treat its citizens as it chose (in essence, the freedom of the white majority to enact laws against the black minority). He vetoed the Civil Rights Act. One hundred and twenty six republicans overrode his veto, and the act became law.

Interestingly, partisan rancor was alive and well then too. In retaliation of the President’s handling of reconstruction, house republicans passed a law (the Tenure of Office Act) which only applied to Andrew Johnson and which he could not reasonably follow. When he broke it, he was immediately impeached, ultimately holding on to the presidency by a single vote.

As the pendulum swung, “Radical” republicans gave up their liberal thinking and began down a path of restricting freedom in the name of morality (and, more recently, safety) and democrats assumed the title of liberal.

This country was founded on republican principals. The senate structure ensures that the minority – smaller states like Rhode Island, have the same governing power as larger states like Texas. The Electoral College (which seems to defy the laws of democratic mathematics), ensures that the smaller states are well represented.

If you still doubt we are, and were intended to be, a republic, I suggest you recite the pledge of allegiance.

The two greatest threats to a republic are money and religion. Foreseeing the problem of religion (where the violation of religious beliefs becomes a crime against the state), the founding fathers created a strict separation of church and government. While money (in the form of bribes through PAC’s) is the greater threat, religion far more fascinating.

A recent example of where democrats have picked up the republican torch is the issue of gay marriage. Where once Republicans argued that the encouraging of slavery by the bible (Leviticus 25:44-45, among others) didn’t make slavery right, they now argue that the condemnation of homosexuality in the bible makes homosexuality wrong.

The church has every right to make those types of determinations. But it can impose those standards only on the followers of that religion.

Legally recognized marriage in this country is a purely secular institution. One does not need a religious ceremony to get married. When there is a ceremony, ceremonies of all faiths are recognized equally. The legal responsibilities of the marriage, including child custody, income and debt, privileged communication, healthcare, and taxes are all secular.

In a republic, the fact that 80% of the people want to prohibit gay marriage is not sufficient reason to do it. John Stewart Mill proposed that something should be prohibited only if it harms others. Today “Harm” has been watered down to include anything we see or hear which offends the sensibilities.

The compromise of Civil Unions, with all the privileges of marriage under a different name, relegates people (even if in title only) to second class status. It is the principle of “Separate but Equal”, a concept which does not work.

World history is rife with powerful groups using their status as a majority to strip the minorities of rights and privileges enjoyed by others. A democracy is no guarantee of freedom. Hitler was democratically elected. What makes our system the best is that it is a republic.

The fact that we were founded as a republic was no accident. In a world filled with racism, nuanced international policies, nuclear proliferation, and global economics, 80% of the country’s population isn’t expected to make informed decisions. Rather than having the public vote on policy, we elect officials to do it for us, officials whose job it is to protect all Americans, not just the ones who voted for them.