Useful Fools

The Supreme Court has ruled that the government, in the form of the University of Michigan Law School, can use race as a criteria in its decisions, but only if it counts a little bit. In a simultaneous ruling, race is disallowed if it used too much.

In the process, the Supreme Court defined a “diverse” student body as a “compelling [government] interest” - compelling enough to bypass the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution as extended through the 14th Amendment. If a “diverse student body” is a compelling government interest, what about the War on Terrorism? What about “Protecting our Children [trademark Hillary]?” What isn’t a compelling government interest, to a court so focussed on tangential issues? Setting the bar so low for the compelling interest test opens up a vast range of constitutional abuses.

Many “civil libertarians” will cheer this decision. What will they say if the court finds a compelling interest in the diversity of ideas at a university, and mandates an ideological filter on professors, carefully balancing them between the current political ideas?

What if a state legislature requires the teaching of Biblical Creationism? Violation of First Amendment? Nope… compelling interest trumps - at least for that state government.

Equality under law is arguably the most fundamental principle of America, one motivating many of those who fought and died in the Civil War, and one which has been at the basis of many of the important social justice movements in our history. It has a history of progress, from the end of slavery to women’s sufferage.

But now, it is in retreat. Equality under law, and all other constitutional guarantees, are now subject to a whimsical “compelling government interest” test.

This ruling is a travesty. It is yet another case where the court is choosing to legislate, using the sham of “compelling government interest” to impose its ideological views. The court seeks to provide an advantage to “minority students”, but it dare not say so. Instead it hides behind a trivial and silly idea - diversity.

At a social gathering the other night, I was shocked that most of those present saw a moral equivalence (at least) between the actions of the Palestinian suicide bombers and the Israeli government. In fact, the general atmosphere was hostile to Israel and sympathetic to the Palestinians. This among a group of otherwise intelligent people.

This seems to be either collosal ignorance or moral blindness of the worst kind. To me, it illustrates how our society has fallen.

The suicide bombers intentionally target innocents. They use weapons designed to create maximum suffering (for example, coating the shrapnel with rat poison to cause excess bleeding). They attempt to kill as many women and children as possible.

They are proud of this. How many of their admirers truly believe that combatants should target civilians? These same admirers usually condemn the US for accidently killing civilians in Iraq (even as many of the fondly consider WW-II to be honorable, even though the west killed millions of civilians by bombing their cities). Hypocrisy is the currency of modern moral discourse!

The purpose of these acts of terrorism are either to gain independence from occupation (if you believe the Palestinian Authority) or to drive the Jews from Palestine (the often stated goal of Hamas and Hezbollah, and the actual goal of the PA).

On the other hand, the Israelis are trying to defend themselves, while miniimizing the killing of innocents. They don’t always succeed. However, the intent of their effort is easy to determine - they use precision missiles (usually Hellfires) with small warheads to target their quarry.

If they really want to kill innocent Palestinians, they need only turn loose their artillery batteries or bombers on Palestinian towns… but they don’t - even when the Palestinians use rocket artillery against Israeli civilians. Sometimes the Israelis use telephone bombs that can only kill the target. Today they risked troops in hostile terrority, killing a terrorist leader by accurate gunfire.

Israel’s purpose is self defense - to end terrorism. No serious observer believes that the Israeli government would be killing any Palestinians in the absence of terrorism.

And yet, somehow, the Israelis are condemned.

Of course, the Israelis are condemned as occupiers, as if this justifies the intentional killing of innocents. And indeed, they did conquer the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Golan Heights, but only after having twice been viciously attacked from them by large Arab armies bent on the extinction of Israel. Most Israeli’s, with the exception of some religious groups, do not want to occupy the territories. They rightly view it as a huge economic cost to hold a land full of hostile people. Hardly the goals of a democratic state.

But even if the Israeli’s were imperialist occupiers, would the murder of innocents be justified? Should we support Native Americans if they decide to start blowing up school buses in the US? It is *exactly* equivalent (except for the time period of 55 vs 120 years).

Had the Israelis been prescient, they might have realized that conquering the West Bank would lead to decades of conflict and terrorism. They might have been wiser to throw the Palestinians all the way back to Jordan, or to immediately return the West Bank to Jordan. But they didn’t do that - because they are not that kind of people. They are not imperialists - they just want a safe homeland.

Another excuse is that Israel kills Palestinian civilians. And, of course, they do, but not on purpose. Their targets are the terrorists who hide among the civilians. If a mass murderer hides among a large number of innocent civilians, and is surrounded by a large protective force, what sort of crime is it to target that murderer? The same laws of war which require combatants to minimize harm to innocents recognize that innocents cannot be completely protected.

The Palestinians have chosen to follow various despots. Yassir Arafat, not even a Palestinian, is worshipped like a god, even though he steals vast sums of money from them and sacrifices their lives to his personal interests. Hamas encourages children to strap on bomb vests and kill other children, and Hamas is even more popular than the Palestinian Authority. Both groups, and many others, helped by many Arab governments, continuously broadcast and print the most vile anti-Israeli and anti-American propaganda, ensuring that the hatred is passed on to their children.

By any rational observation, current Palestinian society is violently insane. If it were a person, it would be locked up and kept in restraints! As a people, it should be condemned, not supported. Those who provide support to the Palestinian terrorists, especially the Arab countries and the Europeans, have the blood of many innocents on their hands.

They feel no guilt.

I turned on my TV to watch the local news on the NBC stationforgetting to turn it off before NBC nightly “news” came on. Once again I was reminded of how worthless major network “journalism” is.

Many important events are happening in the world. There are many threats to America and our way of life. Americans badly need to be educated about the complexities of these events.

Instead, NBC chose to focus its “investigative reporters” on preventing a General from receiving a promotion, because four years ago a gay serviceman was killed in his command.

Is this is an important issue? The only real issue here was spiked long ago - the question of whether the military should tolerate gay soldiers in the first place! But that is not what NBC is investigating. Instead, they are going after the general for his claim that “homophobia” didn’t exist in his command, and for not adequately teaching “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell!” The article was specifically slanted towards condemning the general. It never addressed the impact of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on the military readiness. It never examined the specific incident, whether it was typical, why it happened, and what to do about the issues of gays in the military.

Once again a major news network, rather than addressing critical issues, is pushing a very narrow leftist agenda (gays in the military) during their main broadcast, and smearing a military leader during a time of war.

Is it any wonder that conservatives distrust the mainstream media!

Thanks goodness for talk radio and Fox News!

[This entry is in response to an article at arcterex.net. I decided to post it here rather than in the comments section of the other blog due to its general interest and the amount of work I put into it!]

It has been argued that Americans have been mislead about the cause of the Iraq war - that the real cause was to justify a war for revenge and/or oil. Examples of misc misbeliefs by Americans were give (1/3 believe we found WMDs, 50% thought Iraqi’s were among 9/11 hijackers).

As far as the other issue: misinformation. It was argued that society’signorance is due to misinformation to justify the war. But a large percentage of Americans believe we never landed on the moon? A large majority have long believed that we have a defense against ICBM’s? A significant percentage of Americans are amazingly ignorant about specific facts behind modern events, and it isn’t simply a result of government disinformation.

On the other hand, Americans have good instincts about more general trends, and understand far more deeply than the leftist elite that we were attacked by a new and virulent force on 9/11. Americans watched 9-11 live - no interpretation - no New York Times or NBC News “interpreting” the event for them. Thus they harbor fewer illusions about that event than many who now oppose the policies of the current Administration.
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Today’s New York Times reports [free subscription required]:

Senator Seeks a Consensus in Replacing Any Justice

Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont has urged President Bush to avoid a traumatic national battle over the Supreme Court by consulting with him and other leading Democrats before choosing a nominee, should a vacancy occur.

How generous of him! From the New York Times piece you would never know that these same Democrats have used an unprecedented filibuster to block several Republican nominees to lower courts - nominees who would win a majority vote of the Senate. You would never know that every vile accusation and lie possible has been used by those Democrats to derail those nominees.

The truth means nothing to modern Democrats. Neither does fairness, long standing process or the Constitution. Only winning counts. And as has been shown by the New York Times, it seems to share the same values… at least as regards the truth.

When Sharon ordered the newly intensified war on Hamas, he so angered their leaders that they blundered. Hamas is now on record vowing to kill every man, woman and child in Israel. This has always been their goal, but now it cannot be denied by their European fellow travelers.

Israel has thus scored a major victory. Many in the world mistakenly see a moral equivalence between Hamas’ intentional targetting of Israel’s children and Israel’s accidental killing of Palestinian civilians during attacks on legitimate targets. This false equivalence has allowed an increasingly anti-semitic Europe to rest easy while funding Hamas’ “political” and “charitable” arms, even as they condemn Israel’s every action.

No longer can they ignore the true nature of their ally. Hamas has been unmasked. As the viciousness of these killers of children becomes understood by Europe, no excuse remains for supporting or failing to combat them. Europe must choose: it is either a supporter of genocide or an enemy of terrorism. There is no middle ground. So far, Europe has supported genocide. Now is their change to avoid their crimes of 60 years ago. The Palestinian people, meanwhile, are clearly in favor of genocide, to their eternal shame.

Israel understand that Hamas will never accept peace, and that the Palestinian leadership fears Hamas to restrain them. The excuses that the Palestinian security structure has been decimated by Israel are laughable, but that is all the PA has to offer in preventing the mass murder of more Israeli children. Israel knows better.

Peace will require a parallel effort on the part of the PA to calm the emotions and rhetoric in its territory, and a ruthless military campaign to destroy those who will never accept peace. Israel is now doing what it must.

Old news for sure, but it is interesting how frequently and subtly editorializing creeps into the “straight news.”

Consider this AP story from today:

JERUSALEM — Israel has decided to target top Hamas leaders, including founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin, Israeli officials and media said Friday, confirming a policy change likely to speed up an attack-revenge cycle that has already claimed 46 lives in four days.

…

The second paragraph is not news. It is not fact. It is simply opinion. It may be true. It may in fact be the opposite of true. The Israeli attacks on Hamas could jeopardize peace, or they might enhance peace. Certainly the reporter doesn’t know. Nobody could know at this time!

The first paragraph likewise carries opinion in addition to fact.

Hidden editorializing is endemic in today’s news, produced by supposedly objective reporters supposedly trained in journalism. A “trained, objective” reporter wrote this, and at least one “trained, objective, experienced” editor approved it.

Is it any wonder that Americans are more frequently turning to alternative news sources?

Shame on AP.