Echoes in Eternity

(HT: Steve G.)

"What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects - with their Christianity latent." - C.S. Lewis

A caller to Hugh Hewitt's radio show this evening made a great comment on the current health care bill. First, some background. As you may know, the bill currently nearing its (hopefully permanent) demise in the Senate has in it the requirement that all health insurance providers would eliminate any pre-condition dis-qualifiers. In other words, it would no longer matter how sick a person was, the law would require that the insurance company to which that person applied would provide full coverage notwithstanding the person's medical condition. So if some terminally ill patient came to ABC Insurance Co., they couldn't be turned away. Now there are some pretty clear problems with this provision.

One, obviously, is that it infringes on the freedom of an insurance provider to reject unwise contracts. If I ran a little insurance company on the side, I would be forced to sign a contractual agreement to pay for the care of anyone who came to my door.

Two, removing the ability to deny coverage means that someone has to foot the bill. Undoubtedly, the insurance company won't ultimately be the one, or they will go out of business. The cost will necessarily be passed down to all of their customers. Ultimately, only the big insurance companies will survive, but not before everyone is paying significantly more in premiums than they are currently paying. Guess who then comes to the rescue and nationalizes saves the entire health insurance world? That's right, the original creators of this Ponzi scheme, the U.S. government. Only then, they'll blame the big bad insurance companies for the high premiums... sound familiar?

So with that in mind, here is the comment from the caller: why do we stop with only eliminating pre-existing conditions for health insurance? Why not get rid of pre-existing conditions for life insurance and auto insurance as well? It shouldn't matter that someone has had a history of accidents and tickets on their driving record. Don't you realize how hard it is to pay for car insurance when your premiums are $500 a month? A lot of people are unable to afford car insurance, which means that legally, they can't drive. Which in turn means that it is very hard for them to hold a job, which means that they can't support their families.

Down with "pre-existing conditions"!

Mark Steyn has an insightful piece in this week's Maclean's on the increasingly ridiculous amount of airport security and its inverse relation to efficiency.

[TSA security officials] never look at you. Because they’re not looking for terrorists. They’re looking for things, and an ever-growing list of them.
...
I wonder how far out the “security” perimeter will eventually be drawn. Just as the micro-regulatory coerciveness of the pre-9/11 airline cabin has now spread to the airport, so eventually post-9/11 airport “security” will spread way beyond—all because the prevailing political culture cannot tell the truth about what’s happening.

"One day, kids, you too will be able to eloquently read someone else's tendentious speeches off teleprompter screens."

Thirty-seven years ago today, the SCOTUS case of Roe v. Wade was decided. Since then, nearly 50 million babies have been murdered in utero. That is more than twice the population of Australia, three times the number of residents of the Netherlands, and five times the number of Haitians currently fighting to survive. The abortion rate in this country skyrocketed during the 70's and peaked in the mid 80's. Since then, the rate has steadily decreased to the point that it is now about 70% of where it stood 25 years ago. The reason: evangelicals and ultrasounds.

At first, the only ones who cared about abortion were Catholics... it wasn't on evangelical Christians' radar. But that changed when the great evangelical Christian, Francis Schaeffer, marched with Catholics at the clinic just down the street from my home here in Minneapolis in the late 70's and wrote several books on the Christian necessity of involvement in the public sphere. Today, many evangelicals probably think that the evangelical Church has always been vehemently pro-life... but it was not so until one man stood up for life.

Another reason for the decline in abortions is the technological advances in ultrasounds and other prenatal equipment which now allows the medical staff and parents of babies to see the life inside the woman. The pro-life crisis pregnancy center across the street from the clinic where Schaeffer marched thirty years ago recently received a 4D ultrasound machine which has helped further open the eyes of the women who visit the clinic.

And such close-up views (and sounds) of unborn babies are not just changing the hearts and minds of women; abortion doctors and nurses are also fleeing their jobs. This article in next week's issue of "The Weekly Standard" details several such wonderful stories.

Pro-choice advocates like to point out that abortion has existed in all times and places. Yet that observation tends to obscure the radicalism of the present abortion regime in the United States. Until very recently, no one in the history of the world has had the routine job of killing well-developed fetuses quite so up close and personal. It is an experiment that was bound to stir pro-life sentiments even in the hearts of those staunchly devoted to abortion rights. Ultrasound and D&E bring workers closer to the beings they destroy. Hern and Corrigan concluded their study by noting that D&E leaves “no possibility of denying an act of destruction.” As they wrote, “It is before one’s eyes. The sensations of dismemberment run through the forceps like an electric current.”

For those who can make it, there are Marches for Life at every state capitol building in this nation. We're winning the fight, let's not let up with victory ever-increasingly in sight!

This is GREAT news for those in this country who still appreciate free speech.

Didn't someone say these Cowboys were supposed to be good?

As you pray this week for those suffering in the desolation of Haiti (which has now become apocalyptic due to the earthquake), remember also those stuck in the hell of North Korea. They've suffered under communist rule for over 50 years now, which means most North Koreans have never known freedom. This week, the blog covering all of Theodore Dalrymple's work reprinted an old essay by the venerable doctor about a visit he made to North Korea in 1989 under the pretense of being a British communist. What he saw reminds me of a scene right out of the movie "The Truman Show" where everything in the town of Seahaven is an empty set and were one to look behind the elevator, the jig would be up. Dalrymple offers us a look behind the North Korean "elevator"; it is astounding and horrendous:

I went several times during the festival to Pyongyang Department Store Number 1. This is in the very centre of the city. Its shelves and counters were groaning with locally produced goods, piled into impressive pyramids or in fan-like displays, perfectly arranged, throughout the several floors of the building. On the ground floor was a wide variety of tinned foods, hardware and alcoholic drinks, including a strong Korean liqueur with a whole snake pickled or marinated in the bottle, presumably as an aphrodisiac. Everything glittered with perfection, the tidiness was remarkable.

It didn't take long to discover that this was no ordinary department store. It was filled with thousands of people, going up and down the escalators, standing at the corners, going in and out of the front entrance in a constant stream both ways - yet nothing was being bought or sold. I checked this by standing at the entrance for half an hour. The people coming out were carrying no more than the people entering. Their shopping bags contained as much, or as little, when they left as when they entered. In some cases, I recognised people coming out as those who had gone in a few minutes before, only to see them re-entering the store almost immediately. And I watched a hardware counter for fifteen minutes. There were perhaps twenty people standing at it; there were two assistants behind the counter, but they paid no attention to the 'customers'. The latter and the assistants stared past each other in a straight line, neither moving nor speaking.

Eventually, they grew uncomfortably aware that they were under my observation. They began to shuffle their feet and wriggle, as if my regard pinned them like live insects to a board. The assistants too became restless and began to wonder what to do in these unforeseen circumstances. They decided that there was nothing for it but to distribute something under the eyes of this inquisitive foreigner. And so, all of a sudden, they started to hand out plastic wash bowls to the twenty 'customers', who took them (without any pretence of payment). Was it their good luck, then? Had they received something for nothing? No, their problems had just begun. What were they to do with their plastic wash bowls?
...
They milled around the counter in a bewildered fashion, clutching their bowls in one hand as if they were hats they had just doffed in the presence of a master. Some took them to the counter opposite to hand them in; some just waited until I had gone away. I would have taken a photograph, but I remembered just in time that these people were not participating in this charade from choice, that they were victims, and that - despite their expressionless faces and lack of animation - they were men with chajusong, that is to say creativity and consciousness, and to have photographed them would only have added to their degradation. I left the hardware counter, but returned briefly a little later: the same people were standing at it, sans brown plastic bowls, which were neatly re-piled on the shelf.
...
I did not know whether to laugh or explode with anger or weep. But I knew I was seeing one of the most extraordinary sights of the twentieth century.

I decided to buy something - a fountain pen. I went to the counter where pens were displayed like the fan of a peacock's tail. They were no more for sale than the Eiffel Tower. As I handed over my money, a crowd gathered round, for once showing signs of animation. I knew, of course, that I could not be refused: if I were, the game would be given away completely. And so the crowd watched goggle-eyed and disbelieving as this astonishing transaction took place: I gave the assistant a piece of paper and she gave me a pen.

The pen, as it transpired, was of the very worst quality. Its rubber for the ink was so thin that it would have perished immediately on contact with ink. The metal plunger was already rusted; the plastic casing was so brittle that the slightest pressure cracked it. And the box in which it came was of absorbent cardboard, through whose fibres the ink of the printing ran like capillaries on the cheeks of a drunk.
...
Department Store Number 1 was a tacit admission of the desirability of an abundance of material goods, consumption of which was very much a proper goal of mankind. Such an admission of the obvious would not have been in any way remarkable were it not that socialists so frequently deny it, criticising liberal capitalist democracy because of its wastefulness and its inculcation of artificial desires in its citizens, thereby obscuring their 'true' interests. By stocking Department Store Number 1 with as many goods as they could find, in order to impress foreign visitors, the North Koreans admitted that material plenty was morally preferable to shortage, and that scarcity was not a sign of abstemious virtue; rather it was proof of economic inefficiency. Choice, even in small matters, gives meaning to life. However well fed, however comfortable modern man might be without it, he demands choice as a right, not because it is economically superior, but as an end in itself. By pretending to offer it, the North Koreans acknowledged as much; and in doing so, recognised that they were consciously committed to the denial of what everyone wants.

But the most sombre reflection occasioned by Department Store Number 1 is that concerning the nature of the power that can command thousands of citizens to take part in a huge and deceitful performance, not once but day after day, without any of the performers ever indicating by even the faintest sign that he is aware of its deceitfulness, though it is impossible that he should not be aware of it. One might almost ascribe a macabre and sadistic sense of humour to the power, insofar as the performance it commands bears the maximum dissimilarity to the real experience and conditions of life of the performers. It is as if the director of a leper colony commanded the enactment of a beauty contest - something one might expect to see in, say, a psychologically depraved surrealist film. But this is no joke, and the humiliation it visits upon the people who take part in it, far from being a drawback, is an essential benefit to the power; for slaves who must participate in their own enslavement by signalling to others the happiness of their condition are so humiliated that they are unlikely to rebel.

"There is something awfully nice about reading a book again, with all the half-unconscious memories it brings back." - C.S. Lewis

Harry Reid has recently gotten a bit of flack for some private comments he made about Obama awhile back. In the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Ward Connerly wondered if we can learn from this "teachable moment."

What followed [Reid's] public apology was all too predictable. Mr. Reid personally called President Obama and a handful of presumed leaders of the so-called African-American community—Julian Bond, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson among them—to beg forgiveness for his racial sin.

To no one's surprise, all of those to whom apologies were extended responded by accepting Mr. Reid's apology and saying that the nation had more important issues to deal with, such as health care and national security.

As I have observed coverage of this incident by the media and captains of the African-American community, I cannot help but be reminded of former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who made remarks praising Strom Thurmond in 2002. Mr. Lott said of the segregationist: "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we [Mississippians] voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either."

When Mr. Lott's controversy erupted, he apologized repeatedly and sincerely to one and all—even groveling on Black Entertainment Network—all to no avail. Black leaders were unforgiving and persisted in demanding that he either resign from his position or be removed. In the end, they got what they wanted.

When Rush Limbaugh wanted to buy into the St. Louis Rams last year, many of the same individuals who instantly accepted Mr. Reid's apology expressed outrage over allegedly racist statements made by Mr. Limbaugh, despite the fact that zero evidence of these statements existed. They demanded that his participation in the bid be rejected. Ultimately, they got what they wanted.
...
[I]t's hard to avoid the conclusion that the spirit of forgiveness is universal—except when it comes to conservatives.

For my part, I am having a difficult time determining what it was that Mr. Reid said that was so offensive.

Was it because he suggested that lighter-skinned blacks fare better in American life than their darker brothers and sisters? If so, ask blacks whether they find this to be true. Even the lighter-skinned ones, if they are honest with themselves, will agree that there is a different level of acceptance.

Was it because he used the politically incorrect term "negro"? If so, it should be noted that there are many blacks of my generation who continue to embrace this term. In fact, "negro" is an option along with "black" and "African-American" on the 2010 Census.

Was it because he implied that Mr. Obama might be cut some political slack because of his oratorical skills or his looks? If so, that fact was not harmful to Joe Biden, who was elected vice president after praising Mr. Obama as "articulate" and "clean-looking."

Or, finally, could it be viewed as offensive that Mr. Reid suggested that blacks often have a distinctive way of speaking? If that is, indeed, the offense, then I will offend a lot of individuals when I assert that I can tell in probably 90% of the cases whether an individual is black merely by talking to him on the telephone.

In short, this incident does not rise to the level that it prompts me to join the parade of those who urge Mr. Reid to resign because of it. There are far more substantive matters over which the Senate majority leader's performance should be judged—and I find his performance seriously flawed on any number of them.

Still, to quote President Obama, from another race incident, "this is a teachable moment." This one doesn't warrant a beer summit, but it does require serious reflection for the good of our nation.

We are too quick to take offense about race when none was intended. Some are too anxious to manufacture outrage over matters that do not justify the attention that we give them. And we are too quick to politicize race. {emphasis added}

As far as I'm concerned, Messrs. Bond, Sharpton, Jackson and a host of other Americans formerly identified as "negroes" have forever forfeited the right to be outraged whenever a Republican or a talk show host makes an inappropriate or "insensitive" racial comment.

If the health care bill passes, every American will be required to buy health insurance or face jail time. If that comes as a surprise to you, time to WAKE UP! If it doesn't, what may surprise you is that there is a clause in the current bill to allow people (like the Amish) to opt out based on their religious conscience.

The Amish, as well as some other religious sects, are covered by a "religious conscience" exemption, which allows people with religious objections to insurance to opt out of the mandate. It is in both the House and Senate versions of the bill, making its appearance in the final version routine unless there are last-minute objections.

Although the Amish consist of several branches, some more conservative than others, they generally rely upon a community ethic that disdains government assistance. Families rely upon one another, and communities pitch in to help neighbors pay health care expenses.

It seems like the American Church is long overdue in following in the BIBLICAL footsteps of its Amish sister. All Christians should be helping each other pay for health care expenses rather than relying on the teat of state aid. If this bill passes, we should all grow a "religious conscience" and begin co-ops where the local church cares for each other's needs, as the early church did.

"[When I was an atheist] my argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z, so to speak, why did I, who was supposed to be part of the show, find myself in such violent reaction against it?... Thus in the very act of trying to prove that God did not exist - in other words, that the whole of reality was senseless - I found that I was forced to assume that one part of reality - namely my idea of justice - was full of sense. Consequently atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning." - C.S. Lewis

Dr. Dalrymple wrote an excellent column this month for the New English Review discussing the current global economic recession and where the blame should be laid. The version of the crisis here in America had several causes, not least of which was the sub-prime mortgage industry. The government should take a lot of the blame (of course they don't) for supporting the proliferation of bad loans. But perhaps the fault lies not just with some bank execs, mortgage brokers, or politicians. Perhaps we the people need to recognize that the bulk of responsibility falls on us... after all, as Dalrymple points out, "while you can lead a man to a loan, you cannot make him borrow." This whole issue serves as a perfect case study of how dumb legislation and governmental policies can drastically affect the moral behavior of a citizenry. If a policy encourages a certain behavior, no matter how vile that behavior may seem, a society will begin to embrace it. Look at welfare. Welfare encourages laziness, improvidence, and a sense of entitlement... so it is no surprise when those who receive welfare, rather than rise out of their low estate, sink farther down into them and become permanently stuck there. But, as Dalrymple discusses, this doesn't leave the masses innocent in the ordeal just because some self-preening mandarins enabled their vice.

Like many people, no doubt, I have been reflecting of late on an economic crisis that does not yet appear to me to be quite over, since many of its causes are still in operation, and despite the recovery everywhere of the stock markets. The crisis hardly affected me personally, but no man is an island and all that; besides, crises have a habit of eventually engulfing even those who thought themselves immune from their effects. It would only take a little inflation for me to start feeling some serious anxiety on my own behalf.

In the meantime, the search for people to blame continues. This is hardly surprising, because blaming is so much more fun than the supposedly more fruitful and intellectually mature activity of explaining.
...
There can be no doubt, I think, that bankers and assorted financiers have been amply excoriated, as far as I can see quite rightly, in the press and elsewhere. Nor have governments entirely escaped their share of the blame. Both by acts and omissions they created the circumstances in which crooked, or at least less than scrupulous, practices could escape detection. Moreover, all western governments (as far as I can see) have been operating Madoff schemes for many years, the main difference between Mr Madoff and themselves, apart from the matter of scale, being that governments can coerce contributions while Mr Madoff could merely solicit them. Whether this makes western governments or Mr Madoff the more villainous, I leave to moral philosophers to decide.
...
Having blamed the bankers and the governments, however, it is now time to turn the spotlight of blame onto ourselves: if by ourselves we mean the common or ordinary people. Here, on the whole, criticism has been much more muted or reticent, no doubt because it is not exactly bon ton in our democratic age to suggest that ordinary people are fully as capable of every human vice as those who rule over them.

But the fact is that it is not only governments that have been improvident and have spent well beyond their means; millions, scores of millions, of perfectly ordinary people have done so as well, and have behaved not only as if there were no tomorrow but as if there could be no tomorrow. In so far as they thought about their debts at all, they thought they could merely walk away from them, as if to do so were of no moral or characterological significance. Another day, another default, seems to have been their motto.

It could, I suppose, be said in their defence that almost everything possible has been done to encourage them in their improvidence. In the United States successive governments encouraged, indeed required, banks to lend money to people whom the banks knew to be bad risks.
...
No doubt it was very wrong of banks to offer credit to the uncreditworthy: but while you can lead a man to a loan, you cannot make him borrow. To give a feckless man a credit card is both wrong and feckless; but the man to whom it is given does not cease thereby to be feckless himself when he spends money he is never going to have.

Moreover, the figures for personal indebtedness, in America, Britain and elsewhere, suggest that fecklessness or improvidence are far from being the characteristics of a few individuals but have rather become almost normal, at least in the statistical sense. The idea of cutting one's coat according to one's cloth, or of taking pride in owing nothing (in the financial sense) to anyone, has disappeared among us.
...
How people behave is determined by what they believe; and if they come to believe that slow accretion is the policy of fools and that maximum consumption in the here and now is the only meaning of life, it is hardly surprising if what you get is an orgy of speculation combined with insouciant expenditure.

Of course, there is a wealth of question-begging in the phrase 'if they come to believe,' for how do people come to believe anything? Why do they change their minds, such that those things that once seemed to them good now seem to them bad, and vice versa? Still, enquiry must stop somewhere if we are to hold an opinion about anything; the search for ultimate or final causes of social phenomena often conceals a cowardly refusal to say anything that could possibly be contradicted by anyone or that risks refutation. And it doesn't really matter how people come to believe what they do believe, so long as it is accepted that what they believe is what causes them to behave as they do.

No doubt a twenty-third century revisionist historian will then come along and say that the whole debate is beside the point in any case, since there was no decline in the financial probity and prudence of the population in the years specified. This will be proved by a re-working of the statistics, which will show that the supposedly high levels of personal indebtedness were really nothing of the kind. Everyone layman will end up thoroughly confused and not knowing what to believe.

Really, though, it is all quite simple. Our banks were no good; our government was no good; and we were no good. Apart from that, everything was fine.