Another Dominion Day has come and gone. It is what foolish people tell us we should now call "Canada Day." The folks at The New York Times who wish that Canada would absorb America, and not the reverse, featured statements on their op-ed page from eleven Canadians on what they miss about their country ("Our True North"). Most of it is grumping about America by politically leftist Canadian expats.

Rick Moranis simply despises everything associated with whatever remains of British North America.

David Rakoff, an author, misses all the free stuff from the government. Perhaps I misread him. Perhaps it’s the moral superiority of having a government that treats its citizens like men who still live at home, and whose mothers still cook and clean for them. The generous welfare state. Other than that, he misses a particular mint that you can’t get here. A great nation indeed.

Sarah McNally, a bookstore owner, misses Canadian literature (which of course she can read in the United States). She says there is a national conversation in CanLit that you don’t see in American lit. But that's because Americans know who they are. Canadians are constantly in anguish about their identity. But if you reject your founding principle, i.e. British North America as a unique and noble project, an interminable identity crisis is sure to follow. It is interesting that, despite the superior worth of this literature and its importance to Canadians as a people (supposedly), she says that it “probably wouldn’t exist without government support.” What does that indicate about the sustainability, or even the reality, of Canada as one people? All the same, the government tells Canadians who they are supposed to be and what they’re supposed to like. I don’t miss that.

In a likely unintended political faux pas, Lisa Naftolin, a creative director, expresses her fondness for a Britishism, the “u” in color. She likely understands holding onto that "u" as an act of defying American cultural imperialism. What she doesn't see is that for the last fifty years and into the foreseeable future, Canada has three, and only three, models from which to choose for its identity: America North, British North America, or post-modern Euro-North America. Led by its left-wing intellectuals, Canada has chosen the Euro-model, and so is following (though not mirroring) Europe in its economic, moral, spiritual, and demographic problems.

Musician Melissa Auf der Maur, after mentioning cheese and pâté, recalls fondly the Canadian cultural mosaic in contrast to the evil American melting pot. The concept of the cultural mosaic as a national virtue was invented by the Trudeau government as a way of defusing the French-English conflict. In the 1970s, my high school taught us this like a catechism. They told us that we are not two nations, but a blend of many nations. As result, however, we became no nation. Americans are more of a melting pot because they have noble and ennobling principles worthy of embracing: political, economic, and religious liberty. It has nothing to do with ethnic food, traditional clothing, and folk music all of which people are free to cultivate and, much to everyone's enjoyment, they do.

Sean Cullen, a comedian, misses hockey highlights, “the height of civilization.” It is said that Canadian culture can be summarized in two words: hockey and beer. Perhaps an overstatement.

Malcolm Gladwell of The New Yorker (I should have known that a man named Malcolm could not have been born in the U.S.A.) misses the “true” account of the American regime and it’s founding history. According to this view, George Washington, Patrick Henry, and John Adams were just “ungrateful tax cheats.” The revolution had nothing to do with the principles stated in the Declaration of Independence. Isn't it strange that such a hoax could produce such an energetic and world-transforming nation?

Kim Cattrall’s career as an actress is finished. All she did was remember childhood games on beached logs, and failed to make any political point about global warming, acid rain, American economic imperialism, or anything like that.

Tim Long, a writer for “The Simpsons,” misses Canadian snow, but he has to throw in a jab at American health care (which people travel from around the world to use, by the way). In the end, he has one of the best reflections.

When I was a child, it wasn’t unusual for my 15-minute walk home from school to begin under clear skies and end in a blizzard. I remember once, when I was 8 years old, stumbling into my house, my hair covered in powder and my eyelashes frozen together, and screaming, “Why do we live here?!” My mother took my face in her warm hands and said, “Because it’s where people love you.”

Bruce McCall, a writer and illustrator, and A.C. Newman, a musician, miss certain foods. For Newman, it is Dai Ching bean curd or bean sprout chow mein, unobtainable in their familiar perfection outside Vancouver. McCall misses the Coffee Crisp chocolate bar, and he supplies a delightful appreciation and history of the confection. These are honest men. Aside from friends and family and particular terrains, food is what people really miss from their homelands. The rest is mostly political trumpeting, which in this article is all from the left.

I see my family from time to time. My friends have grown up, become family men, and set off on divergent paths. The familiar places have all changed. Toronto's downtown is more crowded, and the University Theatre where I worked as a blue-jacketed boy is gone. Georgetown isn't 1971 anymore. There's no going back.

But I miss Toronto fish and chips. Tender, flaky Halibut encased in thick, crisp, golden batter. Greasy, floppy fries. Also fresh, baked Whitefish from Lake Huron. Yum. Heaven, though its glory and chief delight is Christ himself, is nonetheless described as a banquet. I pray that the feast involves these Canadian delicacies.

But as for this world, with eyes turned now toward the fourth of July, I am grateful to be in the land of liberty and I would not have it any other way.

When I was in high school, a friend of mine who was distressed about all social and political conflict and human suffering in the world once asked, "Why don't we get six or seven scientists together, figure out what's wrong with the world, and then just do what they say?" Perhaps we could take a trial run at that proposal with something that pertains strictly to natural science. The question of climate change, its nature, direction, and human consequences, should do just fine. Kimberley Strassel in The Wall Street Journal and Paul Krugman in The New York Times both recently summarized what we know about this issue, appealing to the discoveries of esteemed scientists.

So they must agree on the what's what of the matter, right? Uh, no. They could not be more sharply divided. Indeed, Paul Krugman calls opposition to the Waxman-Markey energy bill that the House just passed "treason against the planet" ("Betraying the Planet").

The fact is that the planet is changing faster than even pessimists expected: ice caps are shrinking, arid zones spreading, at a terrifying rate. And according to a number of recent studies, catastrophe — a rise in temperature so large as to be almost unthinkable — can no longer be considered a mere possibility. It is, instead, the most likely outcome if we continue along our present course.

He states our situation in the gravest terms: "we’re facing a clear and present danger to our way of life, perhaps even to civilization itself;" and he asks,"How can anyone justify failing to act?"

Kimberley Strassel is not so unsettled over the matter ("The Climate Change Climate Change"). She denies that this is a conflict between scientists and global patriots on the one side, and opportunists and know-nothings on the other.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)

Scientists have found that climate change has stalled and disasters have not materialized. Political leaders have been sobered by the economic crisis and are reassessing the panic.

The collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by reality. The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02. Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in carbon.

With this much passionate disagreement over climatology, I would not expect much consensus from a commission of scientists studying moral and political matters. Perhaps scientific inquiry is not as separable from moral and political issues and the passions that attend them as we would often like to believe.

Take a second look at Harold's post to which I added a response, "Baby, It's Cold Outside!" We reflect on Australian geologist and mineral economist Viv Forbes' caution, "What we need to fear is a return of the cold, dry, hungry ice ages."

Harold Kildow adds:

It seems the Aussies are far enough out of the way to be safe from the cloud of miasma surrounding the climate debate hussled up by European and Amercian socialists. Two other Australians, Ian Plimmer (a scientist and author) and Senator Steve Fielding are mentioned in a great piece by Robert Tracinski, "Could Australia Blow Apart the Great Global Warming Scare?" .

Plimmers book, Heaven and Earth: Global Warming, The Missing Science, is just about to be published in the US. It looks to be the one to read to get the arguments straight. Fielding was sceptical of the warming science, and decided to take a look for himself. Would that our own legislators had the intellectual curiosity and honesty to follow the actual science.

As to David's rumination, "Perhaps scientific inquiry is not as separable from moral and political issues and the passions that attend them as we would often like to believe" see Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions where he argued strongly for the "sociology of knowledge"--i.e., that scientific inquiry is not in fact seperable from the passions, morals, and politics of the scientists.

Innes adds:


A student has just directed my attention to this at The Heritage Foundation: "An Inconvenient Voice: Dr. Alan Carlin."

Ever hear of Alan Carlin? Probably not, and that is the way the Obama Administration wants to keep it. Dr. Carlin is an Environmental Protection Agency veteran who recently wrote a damaging report, warning that the science behind climate change was questionable at best, and that we shouldn’t pass laws that will hurt American families and hobble the nation’s economy based on incomplete information.

Despite its promise to put science above politics, the Administration has suppressed Carlin’s report, banned him from writing or speaking about climate change, told him to forget about attending any meetings that addressed his main job function—climate change—and gave him a new assignment: updating a grants database. One supposes that, by dedicating its distinguished scientists to data-entry tasks, Obama’s EPA is able to free up true-believing interns to do its research.

Here is a CBS News report of the suppressed report and gag order.

Dr. Carlin earned a B.Sc. in physics from CalTech and a Ph.D. in economics from M.I.T., and has been working in public policy since 1967.

In the comments section of this Heritage Foundation post, Tim from Australia writes:

Do you think that the alarmists have a good case ? This is the answer you get when you ask them for the evidence:
1) “Your not a scientist, therefore you have no right to ask the question”,
2) “There is something morally wrong with you to even to ask the question. Your putting us all at risk”.
3) “The time for debate is over”.

There never was a debate. The real problem here is poor thinking in the western world. We simply don’t tolerate any debate anymore. Instead governments attempt to outlaw dissenting voices or at least condemn them. That’s what happens when the media becomes the de facto policy makers. It’s really very simple;

1) Media scares public with doomsday stories
2) Political parties assess public mood by focus groups and polls
3) Political parties make policy based on results

I hoped Obama would be a leader but it seems like he just looks like one. Where’s the substance?

If a janitor at the EPA wrote a piece supporting doomsday global warming scenario he would be held up as expert of some repute. No doubt he could be sighted for his/her historical studies of the increasing water levels in the toilet bowl.

These global warming skeptics in scientific academia now know what Christians are suffering who question the frail dogmas of the evolution establishment.

The Congressional wheels are turning to give us a government-run health care system before year's end. Everything the Obama administration is planning seems to threaten to smother what is left of our liberty, squander our prosperity, and lay us prostrate before our enemies abroad. The health care issue is no exception.

George Will argues that the President, like his party, has a "dependency agenda" ("The Stealth Single-Payer Agenda," Washington Post, June 21, 2009).

Why does the president, who says that were America "starting from scratch" he would favor a "single-payer" -- government-run -- system, insist that health-care reform include a government insurance plan that competes with private insurers? The simplest answer is that such a plan will lead to a single-payer system. ... The party of government aims to make Americans more equal by making them equally dependent on government for more and more things.

Will brings out the dishonesty in President Obama's rationale's for this government initiative: competition for a system with 1300 providers competing with each other, and coverage for the 45 million uninsured, almost all of whom are either illegal aliens or could get coverage if they wanted it, whether by enrolling in an existing program or just buying it. Yuval Levin and William Kristol expand on this in "Dare To Defeat ObamaCare." President Obama said recently: " One of the options in the exchange should be a public insurance option...[because] if the private insurance companies have to compete with a public option, it will keep them honest and keep prices down."

Levin and Kristol point out what should be obvious to everyone.

It's an interesting statement. We had thought that the role of government was to set rules for honest private competition, which does keep prices down and improve products. And there are reforms that could improve the important rule-setting role government should play, and could increase private competition and transparency. But Obama wants government to be one of the competitors--in the alleged interest of honesty and price reduction. When has a government alternative produced these results?

Consider where this argument leads. Why not a government bread company to keep food prices down and keep food producers honest? Why not a government construction agency to keep home prices down and home builders honest? Why not as parallel government auto industry? Oh, but we have one of those. And a financial sector too. Obama's deceitfulness is disheartening, but only to those who expected better from him.

The Obama plan is so shrouded in terrors that not only does no Republican support it, but several Democratic Senators have positioned themselves against it, and it is opposed also by the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, and AHIP, the association of insurance providers.

If ObamaCare fails to pass, Levin and Kristol see then a window of opportunity then opening up for a market-based Republican alternative, one this is more consistent with and even supportive of American liberty.

Karl Rove lists many of these criticisms of the government's health care reform proposal in "How to Stop Socialized Health Care: Five arguments Republicans Must Make." Above all, he says, the power grab would be irreversible. In "ObamaCare Isn't Inevitable," he shares the results of a Resurgent Republic poll that shows Americans generally satisfied with their health coverage, and suspicious of a government run health system and the significantly higher government spending that would attend it.

Americans are increasingly concerned about the cost--in money and personal freedom--of Mr. Obama's nanny-state initiatives. To strengthen the emerging coalition of independents and Republicans, the GOP must fight Mr. Obama's agenda with reasoned arguments and attractive alternatives. Health care must actually be an issue that helps resurrect the GOP.

This leads us to Roberta Herzlinger's paradoxically titled article, "Why Republicans Should Back Universal Health Care" (The Atlantic, April 13, 2009). At first glance she seems to be making her peace with some form of government run health plan, but in fact she merely shows how the Republicans can pitch a market based system as universal coverage--and do it truthfully--and save the country at the same time. "With one brilliant foray, Nixon converted the massive threat posed by the isolated China into an asset, secured a favorable mention in history, and stripped the Democrats of a key issue. By embracing their own brand of universal health coverage, Republicans can do the same."

The health insurance system is approaching crisis proportions.

• "millions distort the efficient allocation of labor in our economy by opting for jobs in dying, big companies that offer health insurance, rather than productive ones in small companies that do not."

• "our employer-based health insurance system forces American businesses to pack our massive health care costs ... into the cost of their exports, a huge albatross in a globally competitive economy"

Though most Americans want a better system, and employers would love to be free of the responsibility for providing and paying for employees' health benefits, the public nonetheless has "substantial concern about the Democrats' reliance on universal coverage through a government-controlled system like Medicare." In view of the cost of a government-run, Medicaid style program, the public is also concerned about the inevitable rationing of services. Herzlinger points out that, "the truly sick constitute only 20 percent of health-care users, but account for 80 percent of health-care costs," and so the sick are "a politically vulnerable target for cost control through rationing."

In addition, either doctors will flee the country or people who would otherwise become doctors will choose a more lucrative profession, leading to a doctor shortage and waiting lists for everything from general practitioners to surgery.

There will be far less money for research. "Venture capitalists will find it too risky to invest in markets where one payer controls prices."

So Herzlinger tells the GOP to seize the opportunity to "offer a consumer-controlled universal coverage system, like that in Switzerland."

• "the Swiss choose from about 85 private heath insurers"

• "the Swiss poor shop for health insurance like everyone else, using funds transferred to them by the government"

• In that system, "The sick ... pay the same prices as everyone else in their demographic category"

The bottom line: "This consumer-driven, universal coverage system provides excellent health care for the sick, tops the world in consumer satisfaction, and costs 40 percent less, as a percentage of GDP, than the system in the US."

For more on Herzlinger's efficiency producing, consumer driven, liberty oriented proposal, see my post from February 2008 on Herzlinger's books and her address at The King's College, "Hope for the Health Care Mess."

Harold Kildow writes: In case you haven't heard, the global warming/carbon tax/21st century energy/giant leap forward cap and tax bill passed the House of Reprehensibles tonight, otherwise known as the Waxman Markey bill. If implemented, it will destroy this country's economy.

Chances are slim that it will pass the Senate, but it is a non-zero probability, as the eggheads say. That means we are still very much in danger from the misdirected thinking, false science, ill will, and libido dominande (lust for power) of members of our own government. The Democrats, led by the One, intend to reduce this nation to the level of just one of 191 nations on earth. No manifest Destiny, no American Exceptionalism, and no more status as lone super power. We are on the way to becoming the most populous banana republic on earth, with corruption and demagoguery second to none.

Give Barack and the Nancy Boys that much; they are bringing to their anti-Americanism the American predilection for swinging for the fences, going all-out. If you are shooting for a corrupt regime, pull out all the stops! More is never enough! If some is good, more is better! Like some kind of crazed craps player, they are trying to run the table, jamming into law legislation no one has read. How many time bombs do you think might be hidden in a 1200 page bill that no one has read? Is this outrageous to you?

How does any of this line up with our constitution, let alone the natural rights philosophy that underpins it? This is tyranny and usurpation, and the direction should be clear to all by now. No good has ever accrued from having a government with this much power. Our constitution was the pathbreaking innovation that formed a turning point in history. Madison's sacred fire of liberty is being systematically smothered under the wet blankets of unconstitutional intrusions and outright power grabs like the energy bill just passed, the upcoming health care legislation, and the fait accompli of government control of the auto and finance industries.




Give a listen to the Heritage Foundation's analysis of this mess, along with Rush Limbaugh's commentary. And then call or write your Congressman.

-- Harold Kildow (Ph.D. Fordham University) is associate blogger at Principalities and Powers.

In an earlier post, "Life Under the Regime of Science," I shared this MasterCard "Priceless" ad to which Jonah Goldberg in The National Review drew my attention. It features a child instructing his father in how to shop in an environmentally responsible way. But the father is not asking for the advice. The cute child is presented as wiser than his young, unshaven, slightly goofy looking father who we are supposed to believe is clueless and careless. "Making dad a better man: priceless."



A reader in Ottawa, Canada, alerts us to a similar ad that was aired in our neighboring country to the north where individual liberty is viewed as a dangerous notion among those who think only politically pure thoughts.



Mr. Glennie shared these insights:

In Canada here, there are `public service announcements' that feature the `scientist' / TV host / environmental nut David Suzuki.

In this spot, Suzuki is seen sitting (in a treehouse, apparently in the middle of the night) with a group of children, who are letting him know how they are `reducing their carbon footprint.'

Then, one of the children whispers to Dear (Leader) David: `Jimmy's parents don't believe in conserving...'

Beyond the obvious question as to why a 70-year-old man would be in a treehouse at night with a group of children unrelated to him, it shows the totalitarian mindset behind present-day `environmentalism'.

After all, the lad isn't informing on "his own" parents, but those of someone else.

It is startling that neither Suzuki, the producers of the spot, nor yet the energy company that subsidizes the production cost, would have stopped to think about these things.

There is an interesting little detail they throw in. When one of the children addresses him respectfully as Dr. Suzuki, he interrupts and insists that she call him "David," and then the conversation continues. Why would Powerwise* take this extra step in undermining adult authority among children? (This "Call me David; Mr. Suzuki is my father" attitude is common enough as it is.)

*According to their website, powerWISE is funded by the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, Ontario Power Authority and local distribution companies.

This is a moving video and musical tribute to the Iranians who are protesting for their democratic rights in Tehran.



People don't invest this level of passion and bloodshed only to call it day and resign themselves to a sham democracy. With the right leadership, this uprising could bring significant change and introduce an enduring spirit of liberty that previously was dormant and unaware of its strength. Notice that the protests involve everyone from university students to middle aged women swinging handbags.

Chatham House and the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland has released an analysis of the disputed (let's say it: "stolen") Iranian election poetically entitled, "Preliminary Analysis of the Voting Figures in Iran’s 2009 Presidential Election." Here is a summary of what they discovered:

• In two conservative provinces, Mazandaran and Yazd, a turnout of more than 100% was recorded.

• If Ahmadinejad's victory was primarily caused by the increase in voter turnout, one would expect the data to show that the provinces where there was the greatest 'swing' in support towards Ahmadinejad would also be the provinces with the greatest increase in voter turnout. This is not the case.

• In a third of all provinces, the official results would require that Ahmadinejad took not only all former conservative voters, all former centrist voters, and all new voters, but also up to 44% of former reformist voters, despite a decade of conflict between these two groups.

• In 2005, as in 2001 and 1997, conservative candidates, and Ahmadinejad in particular, were markedly unpopular in rural areas. That the countryside always votes conservative is a myth. The claim that this year Ahmadinejad swept the board in more rural provinces flies in the face of these trends.

Note: "Whilst it is possible for large numbers of voters to cast their ballots outside their home district (one of 366), the proportion of people who would have cast their votes outside their home province is much smaller, as the 30 provinces are too large for effective commuting across borders. In Yazd, for example, where turnout was above 100% at provincial level, there are no significant population centres near provincial boundaries."

CNN reports on it here.

The Iranian government could have engineered a squeeker, but not such a close one as to require a recount. However that would have called into question what they see as the obvious superiority of the theocracy as it stands. It should be loved by the people of the Islamic Republic, and so they could not stomach rigging any outcome other than one that clearly expressed that love. But, of course, given the obvious and widespread popular dissatisfaction with the government, their overstatement made the lie utterly transparent, the uprising inevitable, and the ferocity of the uprising deep and sustained.

The video is set to Pat Benatar's "Invincible," the theme song from the film, "The Legend of Billie Jean" (1985). Music and words by Simon Climie and Holly Knight. The song appears on "Seven the Hard Way" (1985) and "Best Shots" (1989), a compilation album, as well as the film's soundtrack. (I have not seen the film and I do not plan to see it.)

These are the lyrics

This bloody road remains a mystery
This sudden darkness fills the air
What are we waiting for?
Won't anybody help us?
What are we waiting for?

We can't afford to be innocent
Stand up and face the enemy
It's a do or die situation
We will be Invincible

This shattered dream you cannot justify
We're gonna scream until we're satisfied
What are we running for?
We've got the right to be angry
What are we running for?
When there's nowhere we can run to anymore

We can't afford to be innocent
Stand up and face the enemy
It's a do or die situation
We will be Invincible
And with the power of conviction
There is no sacrifice
It's a do or die situation
We will be Invincible

Won't anybody help us?
What are we running for?
When there's nowhere,
No where we can run to anymore

The song then repeats itself.

Perhaps thirty years after Komeini's Islamist Revolution history will repeat itself, but more constructively.

Marvin Olasky's* cover article in the recent World, "The Sixth Wind," responds to recent (gleeful) speculation at Newsweek that Christianity in America may be coming to the close of its 400 year history (Jon Meacham, "The End of Christian America," April 4, 2009).

Olasky sees Christianity not as dying but as catching its second wind. More precisely its sixth wind. The first was the pilgrim faith that met our shores in the earliest colonies. The second and third were the First and Second Great Awakenings (1730-55; 1790-1840). The fourth was the revivals emerging from the Civil War and transforming the cities in the late nineteenth century. The fifth he says came when "Billy Graham and others came to the fore amid threats of nuclear war." This is what I would call the Evangelical Awakening. Since the modernist controversy and the Scopes trial in the 1920s, Bible believing Christians had withdrawn. Under the leadership of Carl F.H. Henry (Christianity Today), Harold Ockenga (Fuller Seminary), and Billy Graham, Evangelicals re-emerged, re-engaged, and re-produced (both naturally and evangelistically). I am unaware that it had anything to do with nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, Olasky claims that American Christianity is now getting its "sixth wind."

Meacham cites a decline in religious identification among Americans, but this is simply a function of nominal Christians who were raised in the Eisenhower generation's "comfortable pew" of the old mainline churches finally conceding that, truth be told, they are actually atheists and agnostics. Those who were religious before and now more committedly religious. What Meacham has uncovered is actually a greater religious polarization in society.

The good news is that Christians will stand out more strikingly in Christlikeness. This is what Jon A. Shields found. He is assistant professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and the author of The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right (Princeton University Press, 2009). He confesses, "although my liberal Protestant upbringing initially made me feel out of place hanging out with conservative Christians, I found them disarming, gracious, and more misunderstood than I ever imagined."

John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief at The Economist, and Adrian Wooldridge, the British news magazine's Washington bureau chief, have is co-authored God Is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith Is Changing the World (Penguin Press, 2009). Undistracted by the personal animosity that blinds some to the obvious, they recognize the social utility of Christian faith and the Christian churches. Christianity "helps suburbanites to form communities in the atomized world of the Sunbelt . . . ordinary people all over America to deal with the problems of alcoholism and divorce, wayward children and hopelessness . . . the hard-pressed inhabitants of the inner cities to deal with the chaos that surrounds them."

On a more personal and passionate level, however, Wooldridge objects to atheist dismissal of Christian faith, even though the does not profess the faith personally. "Christians are the people looking after the homeless, the drug-addicted. Where is the atheist homeless shelter? Atheists are only interested in themselves."

Wooldridge is not surprised that "God is back" and that accordingly, atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins are in a publishing panic. In a World interview with the two Economist authors, he says, "The extraordinary thing about American religion is its capacity to reinvent itself and reassert itself."

Terry Eagleton is a distinguished English professor at the University of Lancaster in the UK. He has recently published Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (Yale University Press, 2009) and is scheduled to give the Gifford Lecture in March 2010 entitled "The God Debate."

"Why are the most unlikely people, including myself, suddenly talking about God?" Eagleton's answer: Nothing else—not science, not reason, not liberalism, not economics—works. He concludes, "If ever there was a pious myth and a piece of credulous superstition, it is the liberal-rationalist belief that, a few hiccups apart, we are all steadily en route to a finer world."

Olasky also cites the return of literary critic A.N. Wilson to humble trusting in Christ.

Like most educated people in Britain and Northern Europe (I was born in 1950), I have grown up in a culture that is overwhelmingly secular and anti-religious. The universities, broadcasters and media generally are not merely non-religious, they are positively anti. To my shame, I believe it was this that made me lose faith and heart in my youth. It felt so uncool to be religious. With the mentality of a child in the playground, I felt at some visceral level that being religious was unsexy.

Olasky then concludes eloquently and encouragingly.

Christianity's ride through 2,000 years, and in America for 400, has always been a roller coaster: up and down, slow and fast, sometimes sideways, always planned by God but unpredictable for man. The first time around a roller coaster is terrifying for children. They do not know that a power beyond them is in control. ...

The apostle Paul was not unduly impressed by temporary ascents and descents. His confidence did not depend on which emperor was in power or who the next emperor might be. He knew that a benevolent reign would allow more to hear the gospel, but a hard reign would create inspiring testimonies that would show how the gospel sustained believers amid pressure—so Christ's cause would win either way.

Paul from prison told the Philippians that "what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel." Paul told the Corinthians that "in all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy." What afflictions has the church in America faced that we should be grumpy pessimists?

*Full disclosure: Marvin Olasky is my boss (Provost) at The King's College in New York City. But, really, I could call his article fit only for composting and he wouldn't care.

Lou Pritchett is the renowned former VP at Proctor and Gamble and author of Stop Paddling and Start Rocking the Boat. Here is his open letter to the President. (Both Snopes and Urban Legends say it is authentic.)

AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

Dear President Obama:

You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.

You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.

You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.

You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.

You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.

You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core.

You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming others.

You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail.

You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America' crowd and deliver this message abroad.

You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector.

You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.

You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.

You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.

You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics against certain banks and corporations.

You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.

You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.

You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.

You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.

You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Relllys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.

You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.

Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.

Lou Pritchett

Read Jonah Goldberg's nod of qualified approval here.

1) Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz. "Iran would be risking U.S. attacks on its land-based military."


3) Iran attacks U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. "[D]oing so would risk direct U.S. retaliation against Iran"


5) Iran launches missile attacks on Israel. This would "provoke an even broader Israeli counterstrike, which at some point might well involve Israel's own nuclear capability."

Harold Kildow writes:

"It hath been taught us since the primal state, that he which is was wish'd until he were."

Shakespeare's axiom of popular susceptibility to demagoguery is fleshed out in Stanley Fish's NYT piece on Obama this morning, "Yes I Can." Stanley Fish is one who commands the sort of respect reserved for the likes of the serpent in the garden; towering intellect, competent in the dark arts of persuasion, and capable of making his auditors enjoy their hornswaggling at the hands of an expert sophist. (Fish is very great admirer of Milton's Satan, who he also greatly resembles.) Yet today he lays aside his sophist's hat and, worried lest the One give away the game like some prestidigitator whose trick is showing, gently admonishes Obama while demonstrating to the rest of us the sheer mastery of the upward gyre of demagogic, narcissistic self possession.

Last week I was driving home listening to President Obama’s speech on the General Motors bankruptcy, and I heard the full emergence of a note that had been sounded only occasionally in the two-plus years since the announcement of his candidacy. It was the note of imperial possession, the accents and cadences of a man supremely aware of his authority and more than comfortable with its exercise.

Imperial possession, indeed--and it looks like he intends to possess quite a bit more before he's done. Fish's analysis of the progression of Obama's use of the first person singular, which makes Bill Clinton seem a tongue-tied school boy by comparison, is instructive. Indulging in his own form of idolatry, Fish admiringly compares Obama to Don Corleone, who began a patriot and ended by striking the pose of a Roman emperor:

Obama is still idealistic and a patriot, but he is now also an emperor and his speech shows it.

That Fish shows no alarm at the implications of that sentence is telling in itself. Postmodernism is about power--unmasking its surreptitious manifestations in the oppressor class, while drawing its practitioners and acolytes like moths to a flame in their almost desperate willingness to do anything to get and hold power themselves. It is in this sense that Obama is the first postmodern president, although again Bill Clinton made a pretty good run at it. Thus, Fish is an admiring observer (and in time, with the rest of us, a servant) of the new emperor for whom egotism and narcissism are recommendations.

In the beginning, observes Fish, it was about "us". Obama began with sentences like "It’s humbling to see a crowd like this, but in my heart I know you didn’t come here just for me.” “Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy”; “Let us be the generation that ends poverty”; “this campaign can’t only be about me; it must be about us.”

Fish ably shows the transformation as the campaign progressed:

When he wins the Iowa caucus on Jan. 3, 2008, the rhetoric alters as he imagines himself (perhaps for the first time) performing in the office he aspires to. “Let us” is replaced by “I’ll”: “I’ll be a president who harnesses the ingenuity of farmers.” “I’ll be a president who finally makes health care affordable.” “I’ll be a president who ends this war in Iraq.”
[...]
Everything alters in the inaugural address (Jan. 20, 2009). The promises are now made to an America that is asked only to stand by while they are fulfilled. “Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. “But know America” — or, in other words, “hear me” — “…they will be met.” And later, when he says, “We will build the roads and bridges… We will restore science to its rightful place… We will harness the sun and winds,” the “we” is now the royal we: just you watch, “All this we will do.”
[...]
By the time of the address to the Congress on Feb. 24, the royal we has flowered into the naked “I”: “As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress.” “I called for action.” “I pushed for quick action.” “I have told each of my cabinet.” “I’ve appointed a proven and aggressive inspector general.” “I refuse to let that happen.” “I will not spend a single penny.” “I reject the view that says our problems will simply take care of themselves.” “I held a fiscal summit where I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term.” That last is particularly telling: it says, there’s going to be a second term, I’m already moving fast, and if you don’t want to be left in the dust, you’d better fall in line.
[...]

There’s no mistaking what’s going on in the speech delivered last week. No preliminary niceties; just a rehearsal of Obama’s actions and expectations. Eight “I”’s right off the bat...Accompanying the “I”’s are a bevy of “my”’s, which reach out to embrace the universe. The third time he says “my auto task force,” it sounds as if he were referring to a lap dog. Ditto the mention of Karen Mills, “my Small Business Administration” chief. When he thanks Canada and Germany for doing their part, it is as if those sovereign nations were doing him a personal favor to which he was entitled. When he invokes “my administration” you might think he was talking about some prized possession. (My daughter…my ducats.) It is always “I couldn’t in good conscience,” “I became convinced,” “I wanted to ensure,” “I instructed,” “I recognized,” “I want” (three times), “I’m calling on Congress.” At least he doesn’t say “my Congress,” although that is certainly implied.

Fish never indicates directly that there is anything problematic with any of this. His concern is that Obama not offend against taste, or perhaps against the canons of imperial dictatorship:

An occasional passive construction to soften the claim of agency would be a good idea (even though the grammar books warn against it). It’s one thing to be calling the tune; it’s another to proclaim it in every sentence.

So, a little advice from the old professor to the young would-be Caesar: it is better to be feared than loved, but dial back the "naked I" before you take the crown.

-- Harold Kildow (Ph.D. Fordham) is associate blogger at Principalities and Powers.