Echoes in Eternity

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible ...for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted — and you create a nation of law-breakers — and then you cash in on guilt." 'Atlas Shrugged'...Ayn Rand

This story is a sign of the times in which we live, one where the nanny state decides what is bad and what is good. Government always demands worship and obedience. In ancient days, the kings and caesars claimed to be literally gods. Now, our rulers pretend to be de facto gods. Idolatry reigns supreme. A second American revolution would do wonders at stopping that... of course, few people want to bite the hand that feeds them. Meanwhile, God is given a smaller and smaller spot in our lives. Need food? Ask the State. Need healing? The government is here for you. Need to know what is wrong and right? Bingo, the authorities are ready to inform you. Who needs God?

"The plea bargain is the greatest advance in jurisprudence since the invention of the guillotine."

One of my favorite TV shows of all-time finished its last season recently (and no, I'm not talking about Lost). Law & Order, which began its run in 1990 (the same year that saw Home Alone and Dances With Wolves make big splashes in theaters), was unceremoniously canceled a few weeks ago (despite having made NBC billions of dollars after FOX initially passed on it). And because it was canceled after this current season's last episode was already filmed, it wasn't given much of a send-off in that final show. NBC hasn't exactly had a good year, what with one screw-up after another and generally dismal ratings across the board. This writer had a good remedy for the Law & Order shenanigans. On the bright side, the show's creator, Dick Wolf, is attempting to get a different network to pick it up for at least another year.

So stay tuned... but while you're waiting, check out reruns of all twenty seasons on TNT and read this good list of lessons learned over the years of Law & Order watching. And watch the clip below for a tribute to the show.



Bum-Bum.

This is just an awesome story!


[HT: Z]

So a priest in the UK is telling his congregation that if they're struggling financially, they should shoplift. But make sure it's a big chain and not a local small business. Somehow, I don't think the apostle Paul would appreciate what the Western Church has come to.

UPDATE: Joe Carter, a former staff member on Huckabee's election team, weighs in on this issue here.

Almost two years ago, I wrote a series of posts on the Republican candidate Mike Huckabee, excoriating him on many of his political positions. One of my main complaints with the man as a presidential candidate (note: I think he's a nice guy on a personal level, but so is Obama) was his propensity to undermine the judicial system by releasing murderers and other dangerous convicts for no apparent reason than his love of "compassionate conservatism" and clearly no real grasp of a Biblical view of justice (Wayne Dumond was the most (in)famous of his monumental screwups). So it was not too surprising to me when I found out today that the main suspect in the murders of four police officers near Seattle this weekend was released by the Huckster in 2000. What was he released from, you ask? From a 108 year sentence for multiple aggravated robbery convictions. He was paroled on the say of Governor Huckabee TWICE {see comment section for more on this}, the second time after being convicted again of robbery. All because Clemmons wrote a nice letter to Huck telling him how he had been raised in a Christian home and was a changed man.

I don't know what his political aspirations are, but let this be a reminder that Mr. Huckabee is not fit for the office of Commander in Chief!

Dalrymple has an excellent discussion on the subject of crime and the prevention thereof in the New English Review this month.

In Europe, the United States is often used as a trope for all that is bad about the modern world, and in particular as an example of a savage, unsocial world, a kind of Wild West of the soul, where everyone is selfish, concerned only for his own advantage, indifferent to the fate of others, crassly materialistic, and so on and so forth. Although no European visitor ever claims to have seen such a thing for himself, many Europeans conceive of the United States as a land in which, if a person is injured or falls ill in the street, he is left to die there if he is not privately insured.

I am not myself an idolater of the United States. I do not believe that all that is American is best. It is neither a model to be imitated in all things, nor a model at all costs to be avoided. Its manifest failings are exceeded by its manifest virtues: but it requires discrimination to decide what is worthy of emulation and what of avoidance. Generally speaking, we in Europe get things exactly the wrong way round.

For me, the high imprisonment rate in the United States is a sign of social health, not of social disease. Of course, I do not approve of any miscarriages of justice or of incidents of brutality that occur in American prisons: but when I compare the confidence and resolution with which America faces the problem of criminality with the vacillation in most of Europe (some countries excepted), I cannot help but be struck by the difference, which is all to our disadvantage. The American system, for all its faults, is prepared to draw a line; European systems, on the whole, are not. But my view is exactly the opposite of what most Europeans, or at any rate educated Europeans, and no doubt many Americans, think.
...
[S]ocieties such as several western European ones that cannot summon the confidence to set apart those who have persistently shown themselves unwilling to abide by the most elementary rules, and which prevaricate and beat their breast wondering how they and not the law-breakers are really to blame, may truly be described as decadent.