A couple of surprising things to end the year on

Two things to end the year on--a climate update and a new poll. Both are instructive and, for some, surprising.

First, a climate update. Flash . . . it's cold outside. Why is this a hot item (pardon the pun)? Well, as we have been told endlessly by the global warming "experts," we are heading toward a catastrophe of our own doing, where we expire in heat death. But wait, whether in Los Angeles or London, recent predictions have gone crazily awry. Global warming? Seems more like a new Ice Age. Get the parkas out.
Those stranded travelers stuck in airports across Europe because of an arctic freeze are a bit confused as well as angry. Sadly, they've been told for more than a decade now that such a thing was an impossibility — that global warming was inevitable, and couldn't be reversed.

This is a big problem for those who see human-caused global warming as an irreversible result of the Industrial Revolution's reliance on carbon-based fuels. Based on global warming theory — and according to official weather forecasts made earlier in the year — this winter should be warm and dry. It's anything but. Ice and snow cover vast parts of both Europe and North America, in one of the coldest Decembers in history.

But what have we been hearing from the experts? Those who wrote the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, global warming report in 2007 predicted an inevitable, century-long rise in global temperatures of two degrees or more. Only higher temperatures were foreseen. Moderate or even lower temperatures, as we're experiencing now, weren't even listed as a possibility. I saw an article from a British newspaper a few years ago that said snow would soon become a distant memory for those in England.

Here's the ugly truth for the global warming crowd. Since at least 1998 no significant warming trend has been noticeable. Unfortunately, none of the 24 models used by the IPCC views that as possible. They are at odds with reality.

Will this moderate their views? Will they admit it's extremely difficult to predict global weather? I doubt it. Not even the extraordinarily frigid weather now creating havoc across most of the Northern Hemisphere bothers them. Don't wait for any forthcoming admissions from this set. They want to bring down the Western world's economic base, and this is one way to do it.

And the other item has to do with the findings of a new poll. Muslims have gradually lessened their support for radical Islam over the past several years. Guess when the support lessened the most? During the years Bush was in office. But I thought Obama was reaching out to the Muslims, soothing them and offering praise for all their accomplishments (and other fairy tales). Looks like people respond better to strength than to pablum and weakness. Who's surprised by this? Only lefties who think we just need to sit down and make nice with our enemies to disarm them. Yeah, that worked for Hitler, didn't it?

School choice in developing nations works

As a public educator and a conservative, I have been interested in the ongoing debate over school choice. The teacher unions fear choice and fight against it fiercely. They have various reasons and scare tactics, but mostly they have money to battle against giving parents the chance to put their children into schools that will do the best job educating their young. A recent movie, Waiting for Superman, exposes the unions for their selfishness in this regard and holds out hope that parental choice would be a better option.

I thought about all this as I read an article in World magazine. By the way, you ought to consider getting this magazine because it acts like Time or Newsweek but without the liberal bias as it reports on news, entertainment, and politics. Anyhoo, World had a report on school choice I found interesting.

The magazine told about a professor of education who studied private schools in a dozen developing countries. He was surprised to learn of private schools existing without government money. Instead, they depended upon "$2-per-month fees paid by rickshaw pullers who scrimp and save to give their children a chance not to pull rickshaws." He found all sorts of for-profit schools created by poor but persevering entrepreneurs.

The professor was especially amazed to see the results when he compared these private schools with better-funded government schools. He found high motivation and better results where he least expected it -- in these poorer schools. Parents had genuine choices of a number of competing private schools that were close to their homes and were in competition to keep prices low. Educational entrepreneurs were responding to parental needs and requirements, with the result that their quality was higher than that of government schools provided for the poor.

A large grant allowed him to create research teams that went on to test thousands of schoolchildren in countries like India, China, Nigeria, and Ghana. They found that poor children in private schools scored 75% better than comparable students in government schools. Of course, this did not go over big with government "experts," who saw these schools as a threat to their bureaucracy.

Sound familiar? We encounter the same results and foot dragging here in the United States. The experts don't want to give up their monopoly on education, so they fight school choice whenever they can. But I think choice is the wave of the future, just like we have seen in the rise of for-profit higher education like the University of Phoenix. Competition is good in all fields, especially education.

Stephen Hawking doesn't prove what he thinks he does

I just came across an article by Jay W. Richards, a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute. He is the author of Money, Greed and God as well as editor of the bookGod and Evolution. In his article "Did Physics Kill God?" Richards takes on Stephen Hawking.

Hawking, who holds the chair of mathematics at Cambridge University, announced in his new book The Grand Design that our understanding of physics shows that God did not create the universe. Hawking says because of gravity the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Of course, leading atheists like Richard Dawkins were delighted: "Darwin kicked God out of biology, but physics remained more uncertain. Hawking is now administering the coup de grace."

But Richard says Hawking's arguments are neither new nor compelling. He notes that Hawking is confusing physical laws with causal agents. He has focused on a physical law rather than deal with agents who can use those physical laws to create something that wasn't there before. He believes this is much like someone demanding that we choose between aeronautical engineer Sir Frank Whittle and the laws of physics to explain the origin of the jet engine. Of course, we understand the laws of physics are there, but a person was needed to use those laws in such a way to create the jet engine. Similarly, someone would have to use the law of gravity to produce the universe.

Richards then says Hawking has made a major mistake by claiming the universe created itself from nothing. Actually gravity is something, not nothing. Hawking has clearly not explained why there is something rather than nothing. He has only asserted that something comes from something. No big insight there.

Toward the end of the article, Richards explores how over the last 100 years physics has been making trouble for materialism. In the 19th century, most scientists believed the universe was eternal, so there was no need to worry about a cause or beginning for it. But we now know the universe had a beginning in the finite past, thanks to astronomy and physics. Many scientists hated this idea of a cosmic beginning because they knew that anything that begins to exist must have a separate cause for its existence.

Added to this is the evidence for fine tuning in the universe. We have discovered that the universe has basic laws, constants, and initial conditions which have been precisely calibrated for the existence of complex life. Even someone like Fred Hoyle, a committed atheist, admitted the universe looked like a place where some sort of super intellect had monkeyed with physics.

Richards ends his piece by admitting the issues involved are exquisitely complicated. He cheerfully recognizes that reasonable people can disagree about what these issues mean. But his point is that the case is far from settled. Stephen Hawking's release of his new book is a great time to remind ourselves of the value of critical thinking. Whenever we hear a challenge to our Christian beliefs by a noted scholar, we shouldn't be swayed by the person's credentials. We simply have to ask ourselves what is being said and what proof is offered. In Hawking' case, he has claimed something which he hasn't proved. As Greg Koukl says, smart people can make stupid comments, especially in areas like metaphysics and religion. We don't need to panic at wild claims. Sit back and ask questions to see where the truth really lies. It's back to the drawing board for evolutionists seeking to displace God from His creation.

The Sermon on the Mount--good news for today

In his book The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard spends time discussing the Sermon on the Mount given by Jesus. He sees this as a concise statement of Jesus's teachings on how to actually live in the reality of God's kingdom, which is available to all Christians right here and now. He had a new take on the sermon which made me rethink how I had to interpreted it.

For example, there are the famous words of Jesus: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." I had always thought and heard that this was a reference to people who realize their spiritual needs. They would be blessed because they would be driven to the arms of Jesus due to their spiritual poverty.

However, the author points out something interesting. Jesus did not say, "Blessed are the poor in spirit because they are poor in spirit." According to Willard, Jesus was not saying it was a good thing to be destitute of every spiritual attainment.

Instead, he says people who are poor in spirit are called blessed for another reason. It's not because they are in a meritorious condition, but because the rule of God has moved upon and through them by the grace of Christ. We who are spiritually impoverished are blessed because of the gracious touch of God in heaven which has fallen upon us. So we all can benefit from the reality of God in our lives, even the poorest among us.

This goes back to the bigger picture that Willard has developed in the book. His overall point is that our lives should be better right now as Christians rather than struggling along just waiting for a blessed afterlife. Willard says God can make a huge difference in the life we have here on earth. So, the Sermon on the Mount tells all of us that we are blessed right now because of God's intervention in our lives.

In summary, he says the Sermon on the Mount does not involve teachings on how to be blessed. No one is actually being told that they are better off for being poor, for mourning, for being persecuted, and so on. Nor are people told the negative conditions are recommended ways to well-being before God or man. They are, in Willard's words, "explanations and illustrations, drawn from the immediate setting, of the present availability of the kingdom through personal relationship to Jesus. "

So the author focuses on something hugely important to all Christians. We can live a life far more abundant than we have now. I know in my life it's easy to get caught up in all the things I have to do, with the result that my Christianity seems dry and distant. Sure, it's good to know I have a future with God based on Christ's ultimate sacrifice for me two thousand years ago. But Willard wants me to realize I can have so much more now than I can imagine. I've heard this before, of course, but Willard drives it home so that it becomes fresh and real. I hope that in this Christmas season, where we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we think about the coming of the kingdom to our own lives right now in December 2010.

Exciting times coming up in Washington

I just read a great piece in The Wall Street Journal, which laid out Republican plans for the coming two years in Washington, D.C. When Republicans take over the House of Representatives in January, they'll have a solid majority, 242 to 193. The author, Fred Barnes, says many good things can happen as a result. Let's hope so.

Barnes believes House Republicans intend to take full advantage of the new conservative mood in the country as people saw the Democrats enlarge the government at a frightening pace. Public sentiment now strongly favors cuts in spending, less government, and a shift in power to the states. Even now the House Republicans are ready to join their Senate colleagues to block the spending surge that Democrats are trying to slip through the lame duck Congress this week.

The Republicans' strategy, according to Barnes, is to use the House as a battering ram to force their proposals and ideas to the top of Washington's list of priorities. By passing spending cuts—a new one every week—and curbs on government activism, the goal is to put Democrats and the president on the defensive. Guess who will now be called the party of "no"?

Barnes mentions several committees which will be at the head of the charge. First is the budget committee. Wisconsin's Paul Ryan, the incoming chairman, says he's "stockpiling bills right now" to cut back spending and overhaul the entire budget process. At the Energy and Commerce Committee, the incoming chairman is Michigan's Fred Upton, who is eager to contain the rising cost of Medicaid. He plans to dispatch committee members to investigate federal agencies to "see if they're capable of running their programs." I have a hunch he'll discover many are not.
In addition, Mr. Upton intends to have what he calls "top-flight governors," including Chris Christie of New Jersey, testify on Medicaid at a series of committee hearings. I'm looking forward to that; Christie is my new political hero. Ever see some of his confrontations with liberals on YouTube? That's not all. He also wants to subject the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare, to "heavy-duty oversight." I like that. Of course, parts of it may disappear once the courts get through with it.

Another committee will be looking at financial wrongdoings in our government. The Financial Services Committee, which will be led by incoming Chairman Spencer Bachus of Alabama, is preparing to review the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill enacted this year. More important, he will take up what that law completely ignored, the money-hemorrhaging Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The House Appropriations Committee, where the purse strings are held, will be the first to act. Its task is to offer "rescissions," or cuts, in the current 2011 budget. To prove their seriousness about reining in spending, House Republicans will vote first on a 5% decrease in funding for congressional operations, the speaker's office included. That vote will be followed by one to repeal ObamaCare. Both are expected to pass the House. Won't that be interesting to watch as it unfolds?

So, here's to a new Washington in 2011. The Republicans have to produce or the American people will turn on them. They didn't win because the electorate loved them. They won because Americans didn't like the direction Obama, Pelosi, and Reid were taking them. It's up to these incoming representatives to make things right. The Democrats won't go quietly, so these next two years should provide plenty of fireworks. Keep our elected officials doing what they promised--trimming the excesses of the past two years.

The Divine Conspiracy

I'm currently rereading The Divine Conspiracy, a book by Dallas Willard. His overall point is that belief in Jesus is far more than the key to everlasting life after our time on earth. Instead, he argues God is relevant for every aspect of our existence. We need him now for our life on earth, rather than only as a part of the hereafter. I want to hit a few highlights of this book.

Since I am part of higher education, I found some of his opening comments intriguing. Teachers have been told over the past fifty years that there is no recognized moral knowledge to be used to develop moral understandings among students. Teachers have been told they are not to impose their views on students.

So what has been the outcome of this attitude? Well, if it's true there is now no body of moral knowledge in our culture, then we shouldn't be surprised at what has come about. Listen to what Robert Coles discovered.

Coles is professor of psychiatry and medical humanities at Harvard University. He's also a well-known researcher and commentator on moral and social matters. In 1995 he published an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education called "The Disparity between Intellect and Character."

He came up with this essay due to an encounter he had with one of his students over moral insensitivity of other students. Remember, this is at Harvard, home of some of the best and brightest in our society. The student was a young woman of shaky economic means who had to clean student rooms to help pay her way through the university. She discovered quickly that people who were in classes with her treated her ungraciously because her lower economic position, without simple courtesy and respect, and often were rude and crude to her. One man, for example, repeatedly propositioned her for sex. What was ironic was that he was in two classes with her which focused on moral reasoning. He excelled in these classes and receive the highest grades.

This young woman quit her job and left school. When she talked to Coles, she concluded by saying to him, "I've been taking all these philosophy courses, and we talk about what's true, what's important, what's good. Well, how do you teach people to be good? What's the point of knowing good if you don't keep trying to become a good person?"

So this is the world of intellectuals. They can fill in the blanks, they can answer essay questions, they can discuss ethical issues. But, of course, this seems to have no bearing on their character or behavior.

That's where we are today -- we have a culture that has accepted the view that what is good and right is not a subject of knowledge that can guide action and for which individuals can be held responsible. As Willard says, we are flying upside down and don't know that. We are clever; we are not good.

This is true in so many other fields besides education. But universities have become authority centers of world culture, so this attitude is conveyed to the rest of our society. Notice that The Divine Conspiracy is covering the same ground that Nancy Pearcey covered in her powerful book Total Truth.

I want to cover a few additional points that Dallas Willard makes, so I plan a few more blogs on his book.

The bomb house-- a reflection

This will be an abbreviated blog dealing with a recent mess in Escondido. It ended up being a big inconvenience, but some interesting things came out of it.

A few weeks ago Sharon heard several loud pops but assumed they were from cars and trucks on a nearby freeway. Then, the week before Thanksgiving, we found law enforcement people swarming all over our neighborhood streets. You know why--a gardener stepped on an explosive powder and was hurt badly when it exploded under his feet.

We soon discovered the house where this took place was right behind us; our backyard met his front yard at Via Scott. Of course, that night we had scheduled a party for a Christian apologetics group at our house. The street was teeming with police by then, so it was quite a scene: "Sure, come on in. Don't worry about the police; it's just a bombing next to us. The chips and drinks are on your right."

The days went by, and life here came to an odd standstill. Finally authorities determined there was no safe way to get explosives out of the house, so they decided to burn it. We were forced to evacuate for a night. We gained some interesting insights as the entire episode unfolded:

1. People who have nothing of importance to say can become media stars. One of our neighbors ended up in the television studio on the day of the burn, smiling and replying to silly questions with pointless answers.

2. The media got many of the details wrong as to location, names, and occupations.

3. Dodging the media is an art form I have not perfected. For example, we were back home, trying to unload all our stuff. We had a dog in the back of our Pathfinder. So, there I was trying to get the dog out as news people scurried over to get our reactions. Sharon said we didn't have anything to say, but the cameraman kept his finger on the button. The next day a student in one of my classes said he saw me and my dog. I can only imagine what a graceful figure I must have seemed as our dog lunged for the backyard while I spun around, desperately holding onto the leash.

4. Friends are priceless. So many called and emailed to ask if they could help. Really sweet.

5. Family is a treasure. We stayed with my mom, and our son took the dog for the night. Who else would be willing to let their yard be turned into a dog bathroom?

6. Stuff is just stuff. We couldn't take much with us, but that was fine. Both Sharon and I realized once again that we get too attached to things at times. Who cares if it all goes up in smoke? We have each other.

7. For all our skepticism, government can function well. Many thanks to all the various branches of the government who helped pull this off successfully.

We're glad it's all over, and we thank God for the blessings and insights He gave us over the last several weeks.

Climate change falls flat in Cancun

The United Nations set up a huge conference on global warming in Cancun this past week. Here’s the good news—nobody cared.

But remember Copenhagen last year? It was there the term "climate change" came into being when the delegates realized the globe had begun to cool, as it does from time to time. Some 45,000 delegates, "activists," business representatives and the usual retinue of journalists registered for the party there.

But it’s different for this year’s beach party at Cancun. The U.N. organizers concede that Cancun won't amount to anything, even by U.N. standards, which is saying a lot.

What happened to all the Washington movers and shakers who have supported severe global warming–oops, climate change—legislation to protect us from ourselves? Consider Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California, who wrote and sponsored the cap-and-trade legislation last year He now says he'll be too busy with congressional business even to think about going to Cancun. Last year, he joined Speaker Nancy Pelosi (remember her?) and dozens of other congressmen in taking staffers and spouses to the party in Copenhagen. The junket cost taxpayers $400,000, but Copenhagen is a friendly town and a good time was had by all.

What about California’s great senators? Dianne Feinstein, another firm supporter of the fight against climate change, seems a bit vague about this year’s meeting. "I haven't really thought about [Cancun], to be honest with you," she tells Politico, the Capitol Hill daily. Barbara Boxer, who was proud to make global warming her "signature" issue only last year, would undoubtedly like to be in Cancun, but she's not even sending anyone from her staff, willing as congressional staffers always are to party on the taxpayer dime. "I'm sending a statement to Cancun." Wow, thanks, Barbara. That should deeply impress those of us who are a bit skeptical about the alarmist rants.

So that’s the good news of what isn’t happening. But there’s more good news about what is happening. There was an announcement that the House Select Committee on Global Warming would die with the 111th Congress. Mrs. Pelosi established the committee three years ago to beat the drums of the ravages of climate change. The result was the proposed job-killing national energy tax, but with the Republican sweep, there's no longer an appetite for killing jobs. Gee, imagine that—people didn’t want more jobs ruined.

I read about the final meeting of this committee. It’s hilarious. Rep. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, the chairman of the doomed committee, organized one final event this week, which starred alarmists going on about all the coming global-warming disasters. Wesley Clark was the only former presidential candidate to accept an invitation, and he was a no-show. The star witness of the afternoon session was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an "environmental attorney" who talked about how "clean energy" is nicer than the other kind. Mr. Markey himself, apparently as bored as everyone else, didn't bother to return after lunch.

So that’s where we stand on global warming, I mean climate change. In a way the poor economy has been a blessing, along with Climategate. They have awakened people to the dangers of turning our economy over to extremists who want to ruin it in the name of an untested, controversial concept. Let’s slow down and consider better alternatives to providing a good earth to our offspring.

Al Gore's admission--more gas from a windbag

Remember Al Gore, leader of the movement to save our planet? Sure, there were inconsistencies and flat-out lies in his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, and sure, he stands to make a lot of money off his advisory role in destroying the economies of the industrialized world. But it’s worth it because he always knows exactly what we should do, right? Oops . . . poor Al has changed his tune when it comes to ethanol.

Just this week he spoke to clean energy financiers in Greece and admitted ethanol is not a cure to our energy problems. "It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol," he said. The benefits of ethanol are "trivial," he added, but "It's hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going." He’s actually on to something here. Ethanol has become a purely political machine: It serves no purpose other than re-electing incumbents and transferring wealth to farm states and ethanol producers

I love the reference to the “lobbies that keep it going,” considering this includes Gore himself. Over the years, he pushed hard for ethanol. The Wall Street Journal had an article that followed the attempts over time to lobby for ethanol. It first came into being amid the 1970s energy crisis, with Jimmy Carter and a Democratic Congress subsidizing anything that claimed to be a substitute for foreign oil. Mr. Gore, in the freshman House class of 1976, was an early proponent of what was then called "gasahol."

The subsidies continued through the 1990s, with the ethanol lobby finding a sympathetic ear in Clinton EPA chief and Gore protege Carol Browner, who in 1994 banned the gasoline additive MTBE and left ethanol as the only option under clean air laws. When the Senate split 50-50 on repealing this de facto mandate, then Vice President Gore cast the deciding vote for . . . ethanol. That served him well in the 2000 Democratic primaries against ethanol critic Bill Bradley.

During the George W. Bush years, Big Ethanol adapted again, attaching itself to the global warming panic that Mr. Gore did as much as anyone to foment. Republicans in Congress formalized the mandate and increased subsidies in the 2005 and 2007 energy bills. Are you seeing a pattern here? It’s Gore, always at the front of this drive to subsidize ethanol. Remember, this is the same Al Gore we are all supposed to look to for truth about global warming and its solution.

So what happened to Gore’s dream? Fellow greens have slowly turned against corn ethanol, thanks to the growing scientific evidence that biofuels increase carbon emissions more than fossil fuels do. But the boondoggle lives on in dreams for so-called advanced fuels like cellulosic ethanol. Note Mr. Gore's objection only to "first generation," though the Wall Street Journal said people have been told for two decades that advanced ethanol is just a year or two away from viability.

Here’s the good news. At least on corn subsidies, there is a growing left-right anti-boondoggle coalition. The Journal article noted that major corn energy subsidies such as the 54-cent-per-gallon blenders credit expire at the end of the year, and Republican Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn are encouraging the new Congress to prove its fiscal restraints by letting them die.

I think this whole affair says a lot about Al Gore. Do we trust him to take our economy in his hands? Do we believe his alarmist rantings? I hope not.

Total truth--three strong arguments for design

In another section of her book Total Truth, Nancy Pearcey gets down to basics in regard to first principles. There are not really many viable options. Either the universe is a closed system of cause and effect, or it is an open system, the product of a personal agent. She notes that everything that follows comes out of that fundamental choice.

Once we understand these two basic categories and their implications, then it becomes far easier to analyze worldviews. If we can show that a non-personal starting point fails to account for the world, we can eliminate a vast variety of philosophical systems that fall within that category -- materialism, determinism, behaviorism, Marxism, utilitarianism, and evolution.

To argue for an open system, in which there is a personal agent involved, Pearcey introduces intelligent design. The heart of design theory is the claim that design can be empirically detected. We do this all the time when we distinguish between products of nature and the products of intelligence. We see ripples on beach sand, but we know it's simply a product of wind and waves. If we see on that same beach a sand castle with walls, turrets and a moat, we intuitively recognize this is a different kind of order that's been imposed upon the sand.

The process of detecting design is thoroughly empirical in many scientific areas. Astronomers do this when they search for extraterrestrial intelligence. They distinguish between radio signals that are encoded messages and ones that are simply natural phenomena. Archaeologists distinguish between chip marks on a stone representing tool design and marks that display simple weathering patterns. Insurance companies take steps when they must decide if the fire was a case of arson (design) or just an accident.

Biologists who believe in evolution say living things only appear to be designed. Proponents of evolution must show that this obvious design is not real but is instead a deceptive illusion produced by natural selection.

Pearcey says there are three main areas where new evidence for design is being uncovered. The first is the world of the cell (biochemistry). There is an almost unbelievable complexity encountered in the tiny space of the living cell. Darwin and others of his time believed the living cell was extremely simple, but now we know it is a world of high-tech like modern machinery but far more complex than anything devised by mere humans. Francis Crick, investigator of DNA, says the cell is an incredible complex factory. Each cell has an automated rapid transit system to whiz cargo around from one area to the other. She brings up the famous example of the bacterial flagellum, which acts like a propeller. It requires dozens of precisely tailored, intricately interacting parts, which could not emerge by any gradual process as evolution would require. Instead, the coordinated parts must somehow appear on the scene all at the same time.

The second area that shows design, according to Pearcey, is the origin of the universe (cosmology). Lately astronomers have been uncovering evidence that the cosmos itself is exquisitely fine-tuned to support life. For example, the force of gravity has to be exactly right to create a universe capable of life. What makes this so puzzling is that there is no physical cause explaining why these values are so finely tuned to support life. One astronomer, Heinz Oberhummer, says, "I am not a religious person, but I could say this universe is designed very well for the existence of life. The basic forces in the universe are tailor-made for the production of... carbon-based life." The Nobel Prize-winner Arno Penzias has a good take on this: "Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with a very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say supernatural) plan. The best data we have are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole." Famous astronomer Fred Hoyle added to this insight when he said," A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests a super-intellect has monkeyed with the physics." The design inference, according to Pearcy, is the simplest, most direct reading of the evidence.

Finally, the author says the structure of DNA shows marks of design (biological information). There is a very close analogy between DNA and a written language. The DNA molecule is built up of four chemical bases that function as chemical letters which combine in various sequences to spell out the message used to create proteins. The discovery of this chemical code means we can now apply the categories of information theory to DNA. Richard Dawkins says that this code is truly digital, in exactly the same way computer codes are. So, the question is simple -- how do we get highly specified, complex biological information? When you see a message, a language, you immediately conclude that it is not the product of natural causes. The sequencing of DNA is not random (tossing dice) nor regular like laws of nature (mix salt into water; it will dissolve). Instead, it exhibits specified complexity, the hallmark of design.

So, Pearcey has laid out three important areas evolutionists have to deal with. So far, they appear to be losing ground to those who see intelligence at the heart of our universe.

Total truth--the philosophy behind Darwinism

In her book Total Truth, Nancy Pearcey focuses on a crucial element in the debate over origins. Darwinists insist on the power of natural selection to create the vast diversity of living things on earth. But their examples as cited in my previous blog are not all that convincing. She says this is a clue that something else is at work – that it is not really the evidence that persuades.

Here is something we all need to realize – the philosophy of naturalism that lurks behind evolution. Should the definition of science restrict inquiry to natural causes alone? Or should inquiry be free to follow the evidence wherever it leads – whether it points to a natural or intelligent cause? These are extremely important questions which she explores.

Pearcey says most ordinary people have an idealized image of science. They see it as impartial, unbiased investigation that sticks strictly to the evidence. That’s what all science textbooks say, but the problem is that in practice, science has been co-opted into the camp of the philosophical naturalists – the idea that nature is a closed system of cause and effect.

She uses quotations from well-known evolutionists as proof of this prior philosophical commitment. Richard Dawkins says, “Even if there were no actual evidence in favor of the Darwinian theory…. we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories.” Why would he say this? Because it is naturalistic. A Kansas State University professor once said in a letter to the prestigious journal Nature, “Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.” In addition, the editor in chief of Scientific American stated that “a central tenet of modern science is methodological naturalism – it seeks to explain the universe purely in terms of observed or testable natural mechanisms.”

Pearcey objects to this definition of science. Who says we have to accept naturalism as a “central tenet” of science? One professor she knew retorted, “Who made up that rule? I don’t remember voting on it.”

We need to confront this definition of science. The only reason for restricting science to methodological naturalism (how science is done) is if we assume from the outset that nature really is a closed system of cause and effect. If, on the other hand, nature is not a closed system, then restricting science to naturalistic theories is not a good strategy for getting at the truth.

The author says our children are encountering this philosophy early in school. She quotes from a typical high school textbook: “Many people believe that a supernatural force or deity created life. That explanation is not within the scope of science.” She points out that the book does not say creation has been proven false or discredited by facts, but only that it falls outside a certain definition of science. It has been ruled out by definition.

It’s sad, but the first question many scientists ask is not whether a theory is true, but whether it is naturalistic. So, evolution wins the debate by default. Darwin himself indicated evolution was not so much a specific theory as a philosophical stance – a stance that could be described as saying any mechanism is acceptable, as long as it is naturalistic. He said, “I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations.” He was not wedded to his own theory of natural selection as the only mechanism of evolution, but regarded any mechanism as acceptable as long as it got rid of the concept of divine creation. Pearcey’s conclusion? Darwinian evolution is not so much an empirical finding as a deduction from a naturalistic worldview.

She concludes this section with other interesting statements from well-known Darwinians. Richard Lewontin, for example, says “we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.” He says this materialism must be “absolute, for we cannot allow a divine foot in the door.” The famous duo who discovered the double-helix structure of DNA, Francis Crick and James Watson, freely admit that anti-religious motivations drove their scientific work. Steven Weinberg, a well-known physicist, said, “I personally feel that the teaching of modern science is corrosive to religious belief, and I’m all for that.” The hope that science would liberate people from religion is, in his words, “one of the things that in fact has driven me in my life.”

So here is the main idea I hope you take away from all this information. Clearly, the motives driving many evolutionists have as much do with religion as with science. Their prior commitment to a worldview colors what they decide is true. No white lab coat can hide the fact that they have their own prejudices.

Total truth--Darwinism on trial

In the next section of Nancy Pearcey’s book, Total Truth, she deals specifically with Darwinism. She believes that so much of what is wrong today in American society goes back to how we see the beginning of life on earth. The Christian perspective is that God created everything; the Darwinian view says matter randomly assembled itself without any overall design or plan. The crucial thing to realize is what Darwinism does for the concept of truth. If evolution is true, than both religion and philosophical absolutes (goodness, truth, and beauty) are false.

She begins by showing how limited the evidence for Darwinian evolution really is. First, evolutionists trot out the idea of Darwin's finches, showing the beak size differs according to the habitats where they live. However, this is nothing but a cyclical fluctuation; the birds were not evolving into a new kind of bird. Beak size either grew or went back to a smaller size depending on the amount of rainfall. This was cyclical, not heading anywhere. The same thing applies to resistance of bacteria and viruses to antibiotics. Once the drugs are removed, the changes reverse. Then there are fruit flies -- exposed to radiation, they produce many mutations. After fifty years of bombarding fruit flies with radiation, scientists have not managed to turn them into any kind of new insect or even a new and improved fruit fly. The fourth case Pearcey discusses involves peppered moths in England. Supposedly, dark moths survived in England rather than light colored moths because of soot which during the Industrial Revolution darkened tree trunks where the moths perched. The lighter colored moths were easier for birds to pick off. This has been touted as the showcase example of natural selection. Oops – it can now be revealed that the moths don't actually perch on tree trunks in the wild. But what about all the pictures of them doing so in textbooks? Actually, scientists glued those moths onto the tree trunks. Perhaps the most famous fake was a well-known exhibit of vertebrate embryos lined up side-by-side -- fish, amphibian, reptile, bird, and human. The point of the illustration is to show how similar all the embryos are, suggesting common ancestry. It turns out the creator of this, Ernst Haeckel, fudged his sketches, making them look far more similar than they really are. Scientists in his time, more than 100 years ago, already knew these illustrations were fakes, yet only recently have they publicly been talking about them. Strangely enough, these illustrations still show up in biology textbooks.

These examples illustrate a flaw in the standard Darwinian argument. The essence of Darwin's theory is that minor adaptations (microevolution) can be extrapolated over vast periods of time to explain major differences in groups of animals (macroevolution). But small changes simply don't add up the way the theory requires. In 1980 there was a landmark conference on evolution held at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History. Paleontologists reported at the conference that the fossil record does not, and never will, support the Darwinian scenario of a smooth, continuous progress of life forms, nicely graded from simple to complex. What do the rocks show? Forms appear suddenly, with no transitional forms leading to them, followed by long periods of stability where there is little change or none at all. Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard, a popularizer of evolution and science, called this "the trade secret of paleontology."

Something important is going on here, Pearcey says. She believes smart people tout evolution not because of the evidence but because of philosophical reasons. They have already committed themselves to what is called philosophical naturalism -- nature is all that exists, or at least the natural forces are all that may be invoked in science. Once people have made that commitment, they can be persuaded by relatively minor evidence. There’s no good reason science has to be run according to philosophical naturalism. It didn’t used to be—scientists followed the evidence, no matter where it led. Now the playing field has been changed. Only naturalistic answers may be given. So, based on this set of parameters, evolution is the best choice, despite its problems.

Total truth--three key elements

I'm working my way for the seond time through Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey because it is so useful to Christians today. In our western world it is not considered polite to mix public and private (secular and sacred) areas. This division keeps Christianity from having as big an impact as it could have since the truth of Christianity is assumed to be useful only for the private portion of our lives, having nothing to say about our public selves. This is the third blog on the book with more to come because we all need to be reminded of the total truth that Christianity represents--its value for both parts of our lives and for all of society.

Pearcey says the tragedy of the two-story split is that the things that matter most in life (dignity, freedom, personal identity, ultimate purpose) have been cast into the upper story with no grounding in accepted definitions of knowledge. The bottom story is reserved for reason, scientific knowledge, facts, rationality. But no one can live in that lower story because it takes all the joy and beauty out of life.

Pearcey wants all aspects of life to be injected with a Christian worldview perspective. To do this, she says we must ask three sets of questions:

Creation: How was this aspect of the world originally created? What was its original nature and purpose?

Fall: How has it been twisted and distorted by the fall? How has it been corrupted by false worldviews?

Redemption: How can we bring this aspect of the world under the lordship of Christ, restoring it to its original, created purpose?

One example she uses appeals to me since that's where I work everyday as a teacher -- education. Creation says that children are created in the image of God. Education should seek to address all aspects of the human person. Yet the biblical view of human nature is realistic enough because of the fall to remind us that children are prone to sin and in need of moral and intellectual direction. Children are not naturally innocent and shouldn't be allowed to come up with their own morality. Finally, redemption means that education should help equip students to take up vocations to bring about a better world.

Pearcey says we can use the same three-part format to compare worldviews. Creation refers to ultimate origins (where did all come from? how did we get here?). Every worldview will also offer a counterpart to the fall, an explanation of the source of evil and suffering (what has gone wrong with the world? why is there warfare and conflict?). Finally, every worldview has to instill hope by offering a vision of redemption -- a way to reverse the fall and set the world right again.

As an example, she turns to Marxism. Regarding creation, Marxists believe matter itself is the creative power. The fall, according to Marx, was the creation of private property, bringing about all the evils of exploitation and of class struggle. Redemption, for Marxists, involves destroying private ownership of property. This explains why Marxism has such widespread influence today even though it never produces the classless society it claims. It taps into a deep religious hunger for redemption.

The second example comes from New Age thought. The origin of all things is a universal, spiritual essence. The source of evil and suffering is our sense of individuality, and we solve the problem by being reunited with this essence.

This is the first part of Total Truth. Pearcey has shed light on the secular/sacred dichotomy that restricts Christianity to the realm of religious truth, creating double minds and fragmented lives. She tries to overcome this by training Christians to come up with a biblically based worldview using the structural elements of creation, fall, and redemption.
In the next couple of blogs I'll look at Part Two of her book, which zeroes in on creation with a focus on Darwinian evolution. In the meantime, I hope we all think about how we can live whole lives, bringing Christianity into both the public and the private aspects of our society.

Total truth--the split in our lives

Nancy Pearcey wrote an important book a few years ago—Total Truth. It’s the kind of book that can be read more than once. That’s what I’ve been doing lately, and I wanted to share some of her ideas. This is the second blog on the book. She talks about the importance of the secular/sacred dichotomy in our society and how it has been used to push religious faith out of the public arena. We have a unique challenge here in the West if we want to have an impact for Christianity -- we need to learn how to liberate it from the private sphere and present it as total truth, applicable to all of society.

The first step, she says, is to identify the split mentality in our own minds. Evangelicals are highly committed to their faith, according to many surveys. On the other hand, when asked to articulate a Christian worldview perspective on other subjects (such as work, business, and politics), they had little to say. Their faith is almost completely privatized, restricted to areas of personal behavior, values and relationships. They don’t think “Christianly” about the rest of their lives and how their faith has answers for living in this public sphere.

Pearcey says we must understand three parts of the Bible story to fully bring healing and wholeness to our split lives -- creation, fall, and redemption.

Regarding creation, the biblical doctrine says that nothing is preexistent or eternal except God. No part of the creation is inherently evil or bad. We can hate the sin, but we should also exhibit a deep love for this world as God's handiwork. We don't want to lead monkish lives, separating ourselves from life around us.

We must also understand the cosmic scope of the fall. Even the natural world has been affected by human sin. We have to insist that evil and disorder are not intrinsic in the material world but are caused by human sin, which takes God's good creation and distorts it for evil purposes. As in example, Pearcey talks about music, which is good in itself, but popular songs can often be used to glorify moral perversion.

The good news is that all eventually will be redeemed. The material world will participate in this final redemption. Every valid vocation has its counterpart in the new heavens and new earth, which gives our work eternal significance. The early reformers of the church gave work a higher standing than it had held during the middle ages. Now you could glorify God with the most menial tasks.

This comprehensive vision of creation, fall, and redemption allows no room for this secular/sacred split. It’s something we need to think about as we go about our busy days. We are to see all we do and experience as part of the total Christian message. Only Christianity as a worldview can put it all together in a coherent package, bringing total truth to both our private and public halves.

Total Truth

I am currently rereading a powerful and provocative book by Nancy Pearcey called Total Truth (2004). It's a book that deserves at least two readings because it discusses the split between the sacred and the secular in today's society—a major problem. Does God belong in the public square in areas of politics, business, law, and education? Or is religion strictly a private matter? Secular thinkers have ruled Christian principles out of bounds in the public arena. According to Pearcey, we need to unify our fragmented lives and understand there is such a thing as total truth that applies all across society, not just in religious matters.. This is a worldview book, dealing with the importance of how we see and understand the world. In the next few blogs, I would like to mention some of the highlights of this book.

She says the first step to form a Christian worldview is to overcome a sharp divide in our society between the public and private. We are told there is a public sphere which is scientific and value-free. It is made up of facts and scientific knowledge. It is rational and verifiable. It is objective and universally valid. Then we are told that there is a private sphere made up of personal preferences, values, individual choices that are full of subjective feelings. It’s nonrational and noncognitive. This divide is the single most potent weapon to delegitimize the biblical perspective in the public square today. Most secularists consign religion to the value sphere, treating it as if it has no relevance to the public realm.

Pearcey believes Christians have to find a way to overcome this dichotomy. She turns to a classic book called The Christian Mind by Harry Blamires, in which the author claimed there is no longer a Christian mind. He meant there was no shared, biblically based set of assumptions on subjects like law, education, economics, politics, science, or the arts. Christians follow the Bible and pray, but outside of church they succumb to secularism. We need to understand that Christianity gives truth about the whole of reality. She warns of a particular danger here -- if Christians do not consciously develop a biblical approach to all aspects of their lives, they will unconsciously absorb some other philosophical approaches.

Pearcey offers three examples of how Christians need to influence their culture based on a worldview that sees the value of Christianity in all aspects of life. Her first case involves the way Christians are taking over philosophy departments and universities across the country. Why is this happening? Largely because of the work of one Christian philosopher – Alvin Plantinga. He writes well and has shown that Christians are capable of using their work to influence society, in this case academia. Another example is the work of David Larson, who turned around the medical community on the subject of religion and health. His studies found that religious beliefs actually correlate with better mental health, in contrast to Freud, who had said belief in God was a neurosis. The final example is Marvin Olasky, a former Marxist who analyzed American welfare policy. He discovered that churches didn't just hand out money to the poor. Instead, they helped people change their lives, focusing on job training and education. Churches required that the poor do some useful work, giving them a chance to rebuild their dignity by making a worthwhile contribution to society. On the other hand, government aid to the poor actually makes things worse by rewarding antisocial and dysfunctional patterns. It was Olasky who came up with the term "compassionate conservatism." This concept resonated with George W. Bush, who attempted to make changes in dealing with the poor based on this concept. So these three examples illustrate the way people's Christian beliefs can go beyond the private realm to make positive changes in the public sphere.

Good news (at least for some)

Some good news from last week’s election:

1. Republicans added two new African-Americans to the Congress with Allen West in Florida and Tim Scott in South Carolina.

2. Republicans also gained two new Hispanic stars this election: Sen.-elect Marco Rubio from Florida and the new governor of New Mexico, Susanna Martinez. So, how do Democrats portray Republicans as racist now? I’m sure they’ll come up with something. I think they are very worried about Rubio, who has star appeal.

3. But the biggest news (and the one less commonly known or discussed) is that Republicans clobbered the Democrats in the state gubernatorial and legislative races. Next year, state lawmakers draw new congressional districts, determining the congressional map for the next decade. In the past, Democrats have had a 2-1 advantage in congressional redistricting. Not anymore.

The list of governor races won by Republicans is amazing--Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Tennessee, Alabama, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Georgia, South Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, Wyoming, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Alaska, Maine, Iowa and Florida. They also swept the state legislatures.

Now, it’s true that the tidal wave didn’t sweep through all parts of the nation equally. Democrats won governor's races in California, New York, Massachusetts, Arkansas and Maryland. But what’s interesting about these victories is that all the Democrats' states are losing population—not a good sign for the future of liberalism in the nation.

More bad news from California for the Dems—we’re not only losing congressional seats for the first time since the '50s, but (thanks to the passage of Prop 20) we’re also taking the redistricting out of the hands of the California legislators (hugely Democratic) and turning it over to a Citizens Redistricting Commission.

4. The results will probably mean some Dems currently in Washington will abandon the leftist policies pushed so hard by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, making it easier for Republicans to gain some of their goals. No doubt Claire McCaskill, Jim Webb, Sherrod Brown, and Jon Tester of Montana -- all of whom will be facing the voters in two years -- noticed that popular, long-serving Democrat Russ Feingold just lost an election in a much more liberal state than their own.

All in all, it’s going to be an interesting couple of years. The key question is whether Barack Obama will be like Bill Clinton and modify his position to keep in step with the voters. All indications right now tell me he won’t want to compromise. He’s an elitist, leftist ideologue who thinks we are just too stupid to understand what good things he has done and will continue to do for us, as long as we are willing to turn our lives over to him and a giant national government. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want that. Let's keep the pressure on the Republicans to derail Obama's ambitious plans to remake this nation into another European state.

Why I voted the way I did

Well, the election is over. The people voted for change—the biggest increase of one party in the House of Representatives in over sixty years. I voted as a conservative on all issues as well as candidates and wanted to share six reasons for doing so.

I believe in common sense. Look at the Democratic Party. Its leaders are lawyers. In fact every presidential nominee since 1984 went to law school. Every vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Then look at Republicans on the national scene—business leaders, company starters, teachers, blue collar workers. I would trust this group far more to reach a common sense conclusion about how the world really operates, especially in this time of economic concerns. If more conservatives had been in charge, I think they would have seen the stupidity of pouring money into new-car rebates or huge stimulus plans that failed to deliver real improvements.

I believe in the existence of real evil. Barack Obama has downplayed the horrors of Iran, North Korea, China, and other miserable countries where human rights are neglected. He thinks, like so many liberals in the Democratic Party, that tyrants will change their ways if they are accommodated, smiled at, embraced, praised, listened to. That didn’t seem to work with Hitler, Mao, or Stalin, and I don’t see any reason to believe it will work now. Let’s go back to calling terrorism what it really is rather than “man-made disaster,” in the words of the current administration.

I believe in smaller government. A huge bureaucracy cannot respond well to individual needs. As I heard the other day, “A big government means a small citizen.” We are part of America, where freedom from bloated government has allowed for business to thrive, for people to become anything they wish, for self-reliance to flourish. Do we really want to become another Europe? Look at how they have reacted in France when the government has had to reign in all the goodies.

I believe in a strong family. There are way too many who, for the sake of social experimentation, have called for more abortion, same-sex marriage, and other attacks on the family, which is the place where the young learn to become civilized. A traditional family is where the next generation is raised, loved, and sent out into the world as complete individuals.

I believe in American exceptionalism. That’s not popular today in some quarters, including the White House, where Obama can’t bring himself to say there’s anything special about the United States. But it was our country where liberty, equality, the respect for laws, and religious fervor provided inspiration for the entire world. We have done more to make the world a better place than any other country in the history of mankind. I wish this was taught in our schools as it once was.

Finally, I believe in seeing the world realistically. The liberal view is one of wishes, utopias, dreams, and abstractions. They don’t seem to get it-- evil really exists, the world’s climate has changed many times long before the industrial age, business is not a dirty word, the Constitution shouldn’t be twisted out of shape to serve a current fad, school is a place for information rather than indoctrination, hard work needs to be rewarded instead of being penalized, the human heart is twisted so that cleaning up the exterior will not solve the problem, oil is necessary right now while we are switching over to alternative fuels, and the existence of God seems like a reasonable assumption, given all the evidence.

Now that the election is over, the hard part begins. Let’s make sure these new members of Congress carry out the desires of the people who sent them there.

Tuesday--what message will the President receive from the voters?

Tomorrow America votes. It will primarily be a vote of confidence or no confidence in the policies of Barack Obama--whether we are moving the right way as a country. Many pundits believe the nation will hand Obama a stinging repudiation of his big-government policies. I found the following on the internet and thought you all might appreciate it.


Think about the reasons you might have voted for Obama, and it's almost impossible to find any cause for enthusiasm this year:

• You agreed with his policies. Like most politicians, he has fallen short of his promises. Some he has flat-out broken (closing Guantanamo, not raising taxes on anyone making under $250,000 a year), some he has kept in ways that make hardly anyone happy (health care "reform"), some he has carried out in a half-hearted way (escalating the war in Afghanistan), and some he has deferred for the future (the global warming tax). As a practical matter, the last category is indistinguishable from the first, since it's unlikely that the next Congress will pass any liberal initiatives that couldn't get through the current one.

• You liked the intangible aspects of his candidacy. Obama has given way to "Oh, bummer," hope and change and unity and bipartisanship to condescension and bitter attack politics. Maybe you think it's the Republicans' fault. It's still no cause for enthusiasm.

• You wanted to get beyond racism by electing the first black president. Obama's supporters have told us endlessly that racism still thrives in America. Besides, no matter how badly the Democrats do Nov. 2, Obama will still be president, and he will still be black.

• He wasn't George W. Bush. If you are the sort who actively despised Bush, this may still be a motivator. But if you were just weary of Bush, by now you're probably weary of Obama, who won't shut up about him.

• You like voting for a winner. Obama and the Democrats don't look like winners now.

• You're a partisan Democrat. This is about the only reason anyone would be enthusiastic about voting Democratic this year.


OK, back to me. I hope you vote tomorrow. When you do, consider what you want from your government. As someone said, "A bigger government makes for a smaller citizen." I trust the American people will vote to keep their government limited, with opportunities for individuals to grow great instead.

A last look at the Crusades

In the past few blogs I've looked at Rodney Stark's book on the Crusades--God's Battalions. It's an important book becuase it tells a far different story than the one we hear from Muslims and critics of our Western world, who have twisted history in an attenmpt to make the West (and Christianity) look as bad as possible. This final blog on the topic is going to be a hodgepodge of various pieces of historical information.

For onething, Stark attacks the idea that Crusaders were interested only in taking more land and money for themselves. He notes that an earlier pope in 1063 A.D. had proposed a crusade to drive infidel Muslims out of Spain. That land, unlike the Holy Land, was extremely wealthy, full of fertile lands, and much closer for crusaders. But the pope interested very few in this request. But just thirty-some years later, tens of thousands of Crusaders set out for faraway Palestine. Why? Spain was not the Holy Land where Christ had walked.

Here's another myth that Stark attacks -- the Crusades were possible only because it was a time of hardship and economic distress. It was not true, he says. The Crusades were possible because it was a boom time of rapid economic growth, which explains why these attempts to re-take the Holy Land were relatively well-funded, not only by participants, but by sympathetic donors.

Another problem has been the way historians claim that Crusaders attacked Jews along the way to Constantinople. Most of the massacres were actually the work of German knights who were not part of the Crusades themselves. In fact, almost everywhere along the route bishops attempted, sometimes even at the peril of their own lives, to protect the Jews.

The next criticism of the Crusaders involves a massacre that took place after they succeeded in their attack on Jerusalem. This is a horror story that has been used many times to vilify the Crusaders. Stark, however, notes that dozens of Muslim massacres had already taken place, so this is not a case of bloodthirsty barbarians in contrast to more civilized and tolerant Muslims. He also notes that a common rule of war concerning siege warfare was that if the city did not surrender before forcing the attackers to take the city by storm, the inhabitants could expect to be massacred as an example to others in the future. So, Muslims could have surrendered the city before the fighting started; if so, they would have been given terms to prevent a massacre. He notes that it was a cruel and bloody age, but that nothing is gained by imposing some sort of modern convention on those times. He believes the sources may have greatly exaggerated the extent of the massacre since the same writers routinely reported armies of one million men. One historian noted that what happened was probably not much different than what happened to any place that resisted. Stark says there is very credible evidence that most of the Jews were spared during this time.

How did Muslims fare under the rule of the Christians in the Holy Land after the initial successes? Most were peasants who reportedly were quite content under Christian dominance. Why? For one thing, no land-hungry Christians were eager to confiscate their fields or animals. For another, Muslims discovered taxes were lower in their kingdom than in neighboring Muslim countries. Perhaps most importantly, the Christian rulers tolerated the Muslims religion and made no effort to convert them.

Stark says there is a tendency to put down the Crusaders as barbaric and bigoted warmongers and to praise the Muslims as great paragons of chivalry. He says the example that is put forth of this positive view of Muslims is the famous leader Saladin. It is true that he let the defenders of Jerusalem go without slaughtering them, but this was an exception to his usual butchery of his enemies. In most other instances he demonstrated unchivalrous behavior. Following one battle, for example, he personally participated in butchering some of the captured Christians and then sat back and enjoyed watching the execution of many others.

One final charge raised against the Crusaders has to do with their sacking of the city of Constantinople. This has been offered as proof that the Crusades were a shameful episode in the greedy history of the West. However, Stark notes that many are not aware that the city was sacked by Byzantines themselves more than once. He also says no one acknowledges the centuries of Byzantine brutalities against Latin Christians. He also says people need to realize how often there was Byzantine treachery that occurred during each of the first three crusades that cost tens of thousands of Crusaders their lives. For example, members of the fourth Crusade in 1204 A.D. were deceived by a Byzantine emperor who, after the Crusaders helped restore him to the throne, broke promises and launched fire ships against the Crusaders' fleet. Latin residents of Constantinople fled the city and took refuge in the Crusader camp, leaving the Crusaders without food or money, stranded on a foreign shore. That's when they attacked Constantinople.

Stark has a powerful conclusion to his book that is worth quoting here:

"The Crusades were not unprovoked. They were not the first round of European colonialism. They were not conducted for land, loot, or converts. The Crusaders were not barbarians who victimize the cultivated Muslims. They sincerely believed that they served in God's battalions."

I hope these blogs have helped set the record straight. Were these Crusades a great example of Christian behavior? No, probably not. But they are certainly not as bad as critics and Muslims have maintained. We need to be careful not to jump to conclusions too quickly when confronted with broad attacks on Christianity. They are often motivated not by truth but by anti-religious sentiments.

A return to conservative principles

The following is a speech recently given by Tom McClintock, a Congressman from California. He ran for governor against Arnold S. a few years ago when the voters tossed Gray Davis out. In hindsight we should have elected Tom, a real conservative. Check out what he says:



What a difference two years makes!

During the debacle two years ago, the generic Republican Congressional candidate trailed the Democrat by 6 points among likely voters in the Gallup poll. Today, Gallup reports that the generic Republican leads the Democrat by 17 points among likely voters. . . .

This year's mid-term election may not be unprecedented – but it could well be something far different than anything we have experienced in our lifetimes.

In fact, when Frank Luntz came to lecture House Republicans about "The Language of Health Care" a full year ago, he began by saying, "Before I talk about the subject today, I need to tell you guys something. I have spent the last three months looking at polling data from Congressional districts across the country. You guys are going to be in the majority next year. This time, for God's sake don't screw it up again."

And that really is the fine point of it all. . .


[When in charge last time, Republicans] increased spending at twice the rate of Bill Clinton. They turned four years of budget surpluses into eight years of budget deficits. They presided over unprecedented government intervention in the housing market that created a catastrophic bubble. They left America's borders wide open and yawned as millions of foreign nationals illegally crossed our borders.

Is it any wonder that the American people threw Republicans out of office? The American people didn't abandon Republican principles. They looked at Republicans and decided that Republicans had abandoned Republican principles.

They looked at John McCain and saw – quite accurately– George W. Bush's third term.

The good news, if you can call it that, is that the American people are now discovering that they got something a lot worse than George W. Bush's third term – they got Jimmy Carter's second term.

Now we are about to be given a precious legacy by the American people, perhaps even more valuable than the others. We're about to be given a second chance. This time, we've got to be worthy of that legacy. . .

During almost all of the 22 years I served in the California legislature, I fought Republican leaders who thought their job was to help the Democrats enact their agenda.

I used to lecture them that, "Sorry, we don't get to govern. That's what the election was all about. Only the majority gets to govern. But we have an equally important task. Our job is to develop a better vision of governance, take that vision to the people and earn their charter to govern." For 22 years, with only a couple of exceptions, that lecture fell on deaf ears.

You can imagine my joy in sitting down at my first House Republican Conference meeting and hearing that very same lecture delivered by the Republican leaders to the rank-and-file.

It was the decision by the House Leadership to rediscover and revive our Republican principles of individual freedom and limited government, that has galvanized House Republicans, united them as a determined voice of opposition to the left, and rallied the American people.

There's a reason there was unanimous Republican opposition to so-called stimulus spending and near-unanimous opposition to Obamacare and Cap-and-Trade. Republicans rediscovered why they were Republicans, and Republican leaders rediscovered Reagan's advice to paint our positions in bold colors and not hide them in pale pastels. . .

People ask, why should we trust Republicans after what they did during the Bush years? I can at least offer this observation: most of the Republicans-in-name-only who produced that debacle were turned out of office in 2006 and 2008 and 2010 – and were replaced by Republicans fiercely determined to restore Republican principles as the foundation of our public policy.

I believe that the debate in the next 18 days and in the next several elections will determine whether the United States of America will fade into history as just another failed socialist state, or whether this generation will rediscover its legacy and resume America's historic rise as the beacon of freedom to all mankind.

The next 18 days – as important as they are – pale in comparison to the challenge of the next two years – to demonstrate Republican principles in action at a moment in history when they are so desperately needed.

That's where Western Conservatives have our work cut out for us. We need to put our time, energy and resources into those candidates who actually share our principles and to reject those – regardless of party – who have proclaimed, through word or deed – their hostility to those principles.

The Democrats accuse us of being the party of "no." When somebody is driving you off a cliff, "no" is a pretty handy word to have in your vocabulary. . .

But that is not the only word in our vocabulary --- not by a long shot. During the last two years, House Republicans have laid out detailed plans to restore the finances of our government and the prosperity of our economy, to return freedom of choice and affordability to health care, to restore the integrity of our borders, and to return to our states their rightful powers and prerogatives.

I know that some conservatives have criticized the Republican Pledge to America for being too long on principles and too short on specific policies.

I would remind them that great parties are built on great principles, and they are judged by their devotion to those principles.

It is principles that drive policies, and the Pledge to America clearly restores and revives those uniquely American principles of individual freedom and limited government that once produced the most prosperous and successful Republic in the history of the world.

Ronald Reagan was right – the history of the last four centuries tells us plainly that Providence had a purpose in placing this continent where it is, to receive what Lincoln called "the last best hope" of mankind – the American Republic.

I believe, starting in 18 days, it is those principles set forth for mankind in the Declaration of Independence and reaffirmed for this generation in the Pledge to America that will guide our nation into its next great era of expansion, prosperity and influence.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're a decade late, but I believe America has finally arrived at the threshold of her greatest Century.

The Crusades--pilgrimages and persecution

I'm continuing a summary of key parts of a new book by Rodney Stark, God's Battalions. In this book the author presents evidence to suggest our current understanding of the Crusades is incorrect. In fact, he claims much of what we have been taught about these historical events has been manipulated to make the West look bad and to make Islam look much better than it really was. The conclusion we should reach is simple--if history can be twisted, what things are we being told today that are not true? Considering we are in a lengthy war with radical Islam, it's important we consider what we really know about this issue. I would like to continue examining parts of God's Battalions in the hope that we would re-think what the "experts tell us about the past as well as the present.

The next section of Stark's book deals with pilgrimages and persecution: were the crusaders responding to atrocities by Islam in the Holy Land? His answer is yes. He gives a background of the history of pilgrimages to the Holy Land. In 638 A.D. Jerusalem surrendered to Muslim attackers. They immediately set up a ban which refused to allow any Jew to live in the city. Eventually this prohibition was dropped, but Christians and Jews had to accept a subordinate role in the society, known as "dhimmi." They lived with contempt and occasional persecution. Mass murders of Christian monks and pilgrims were common, and Stark gives a lengthy list of specific times when these atrocities happened. Despite such horrors, the number of pilgrims who wished to visit the Holy Land increased over the years.

In the 10th century a new Muslim dynasty was established in Egypt and seized control of the Holy Land. One of the following rulers of this dynasty ordered the burning or confiscation of all Christian churches in the area. He also ordered the stripping and complete destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Word of this outrage sent an enormous wave of anger all across Europe. A later ruler of this dynasty permitted reconstruction of the church although Muslim attacks on Christian pilgrims had become more frequent and bloody. Here again Stark supplies a list of specific attacks.

In the 11th century things changed; unfortunately for Christians, they didn't change for the better. Seljuk Turks began to move west, seized Persia, and set themselves up in Baghdad. Eventually they took over what today is modern Turkey. They were orthodox Sunni Muslims, but the Muslims in Cairo who were in control of the Holy Land were Shi'ites. So the Turks invaded Palestine to punish what they considered as Islamic heretics. These Turkish rulers persecuted pilgrims viciously. This set the scene for the start of the Crusades.

God's Battalions--Western Ignorance and Muslim Enlightenment?

Much of the next section of Rodney Stark’s book God’s Battalions, which deals with the Crusades, looks at Christianity's attempts to stop the onslaught of the Muslims over a thousand years ago. Due to victories at Constantinople, Spain, Sicily, and southern Italy, Islam was beaten back from Europe. I won't spend time on the history that he recounts other than to say it's fascinating. The main purpose for my series of blogs about this book is to highlight the politically correct thinking that has attached itself to the Crusades and to show the true story behind them. For example, Stark has one chapter called "Western Ignorance Versus Eastern Culture."

The author says current thinking claims that while Europe slumbered through the “Dark Ages,” science and learning flourished in Islam. Stark says this story is "at best an illusion."

The key point for this chapter is that whatever sophisticated culture the Arabs picked up, they learned from their subject peoples. So, the sophisticated culture so often attributed to Muslims was actually the culture of the conquered people -- the Judeo-Christian-Greek culture of Byzantium, the remarkable learning of several Christian groups, extensive knowledge in Persia, and mathematical achievements of the Hindus, where Muslim armies had invaded.

He gives many examples of this. In one case, Muslims used ships designed, built, and sailed by conquered peoples within Arab territories. What about highly acclaimed Arab architecture? It too came from captive peoples, this time in Persia and Byzantium. Then there is the supposed contributions of the Arabs to science and engineering. Very little of this can be traced to Arab origins. Their best scholars were Persians, Syrians, Christians, and Jews. People have been misled because these early contributors to science and philosophy were given Arabic names and their works were published in Arabic. In another case, people may think of Arabic numbers, but they were entirely of Hindu origin and brought into the Arabic world due to Muslim attacks into Hindu lands. Then there are those who have credited Arabs with sophisticated medicine. Not so. Their medicine was in fact of Christian origin.

It is true that Arabs possessed much classical writing from the ancients. But this actually had a negative impact on their society. Muslim intellectuals read the ancients and decided these early Greeks must be read without question or contradiction. Greek ideas, such as those of Aristotle, were seen as complete and infallible. In contrast, knowledge of Aristotle's work prompted experimentation and discovery among Christian scholars in the West.

Stark then shows Muslim disregard for education by how they treated libraries. Early Muslims record the fact that it was Arabs who burned the huge library at Alexandria. Saladin, the famous 12-century Muslim hero, closed the official library in Cairo and discarded the books.

After dispelling the idea that the Muslims had a sophisticated culture, Stark turns his attention to those who suggest the West was terribly ignorant during this same time. He says the claim that Muslims possessed the more advance culture rests on an illusion about the cultural backwardness of Christendom in the so-called "Dark Ages." Those who discredited Western learning had a special agenda: they wished to indict Christianity as a backward way of thinking.

The heart of his message here is that these so-called “Dark Ages” were actually a great era of innovation with technology being developed and put into use on a scale not previously known. In fact, it is during these times that Europe began its great technological leap forward to put it way ahead of the rest of the world.

Stark spends the rest of the chapter talking about various innovations that Europeans came up with during this time. For example, they were the first to develop a collar and harness that would allow horses rather than oxen to pull heavy wagons. Their wagons had front axles that swiveled as well as adequate brakes. In addition, food production per capita rose dramatically in this time. Better plows were developed, a three-field system of agriculture was established -- all leading to bigger, healthier, and more energetic people than elsewhere on the globe. Other areas of improvement included armor, crossbows, and ships.

So, it appears that the traditional picture of Western and Muslim advances is far from the truth. Keep that in mind the next time you hear of the enlightened Arab culture of long ago.

Background to the Crusades

This is a second blog covering a fascinating book called God's Battalions, in which the author, Rodney Stark, dismantles incorrect assumptions about the Crusades. In his opening chapter, Stark shows that the history of the Crusades really began in the seventh century when armies of Arabs, newly converted to Islam, seized huge areas that had been Christian.

It all started with Mohammed. In his farewell address he told his followers, "I was ordered to fight all men until they say 'there is no God but Allah.'" Stark says this is consistent with the Koran (9:5): "slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them [captive], and beseige them, and prepare for them each ambush." With this as their marching orders, Arabs set out to conquer the world. So much for the "peaceful" religion of Islam.

The conquests started even before the death of Mohammed. His forces went into Syria and Persia, but much more was to follow. The Arabs attacked their neighbors at this particular time because they finally had the power to do so. The most important reason for expansion was to spread Islam.

Other conquests followed. After taking over Persia, Muslim forces went north to subdue Armenia and also moved east, eventually occupying the area of modern Pakistan. In addition they swept over the Holy Land, Egypt, North Africa, Spain, Sicily, and southern Italy. Their use of camels made the Arabs the equivalent of a mechanized force so that they could travel quickly. On the battlefield they used this mobility to attack an inferior enemy force and destroy it before reinforcements could arrive.

What was life like for the conquered peoples? Stark says much nonsense has been written about Muslim tolerance. This claim probably began with Voltaire, Gibbon, and other 18th-century writers who used it to make Christians look bad. It is true, he states, that the Koran forbids forced conversions. But this didn't mean much in the real world considering that many subject peoples were "free to choose" conversion as an alternative to death or enslavement since that was the usual choice presented to pagans as well as often times to Jews and Christians. In theory, Jews and Christians were supposed to be tolerated and allowed to follow their faiths. But repressive conditions abounded -- death was (and still remains to this day) the faith of anyone who converted to either Judaism or Christianity. In addition, no new church or synagogue could be built. Add to that the fact that Jews and Christians also were prohibited from praying or reading their scriptures aloud even in their homes, churches or synagogues. Then add one more thing. Jews and Christians who refused to convert to Islam (known as dhimmis) were, according to official policy, made to feel inferior and to know their place. This played out in the kind of animals they were allowed to ride, marks they were forced to carry on their clothing, a prohibition from being armed, and an incredibly severe tax rate compared with Muslims.

But it gets worse than that. For example, in 705 the Muslim conquerors of Armenia assembled all the Christian nobles in the church and burned them to death. There were indiscriminate slaughters of Christians as Arabs moved into other lands. Mohammed himself let Arabs know how to treat Jews when he had all the local adult Jewish males in Medina (approximately 700) beheaded after forcing them to dig their own graves. As time went on, massacres of both Christians and Jews became increasingly common. Stark mentions Morocco as one example where more than 6000 Jews were killed in the years 1032-1033. So, efforts to portray Muslims as enlightened supporters of multiculturalism are, in Stark's words, "at best ignorant."

Did the conquered peoples turned to Islam when they found out how wonderful the new religion was? No, answers Stark. It was a very long time before the conquered areas were truly Muslim in anything but name. For a long time very small Muslim elites ruled over non-Muslim populations. He points out this runs contrary to the widespread belief that Muslim conquests were quickly followed by mass conversions to Islam. Despite terrible conditions of second-class citizenship, conquered peoples only slowly converted to Islam.

Here's a key point to remember -- most of what has been regarded as Muslim culture and said to have been superior to that of Christian Europe was actually "the persistence of pre-conquest Judeo-Christian-Greek culture that Muslim elites only slowly assimilated, and very imperfectly." This will be discussed in more depth in a future blog.

Muslim invaders were bitterly resented in Europe as they took over many lands and actually invaded Europe itself. Most Christians believed during this time that war against the Muslims was justified partly because the Arabs had usurped lands by force where once Christians had lived and had abused the Christians over whom they ruled. There was a feeling it was time to strike back.

A new look at the Crusades

Rodney Stark, a professor at Baylor University, has written 30 books on religion, including The Rise of Christianity, For the Glory of God, Discovering God, and The Victory of Reason. Last year his book God's Battalions: The Case for the Crusades was published. Of course, in a period of political correctness regarding the history of Islam, his book created quite a controversy. I read it recently and would like to report on some of his major points. A disclaimer at the beginning--I really like Stark for his clarity and willingness to challenge a leftist academic view of history and religion.

For one thing, the title may be a bit misleading. Yes, he does discuss a defense for the Crusades in an attempt to set the record straight. We hear so much today about the evil West, so Stark wanted to establish a better understanding of what really happened during the Crusades. But there is more to the book than simply a defense for this action of Christendom; he spends a great deal of time discussing the historical and cultural background to this pivotal series of events. I'm not complaining that he spent the time doing this. I just want the reader to understand that the book is more complex than simply a defense of Christian activities then.

The author starts by explaining what has gone on in recent times regarding the Crusades. He notes that shortly after the destruction of the World Trade Center by Muslim terrorists, many people blamed the Crusades as the basis for Islamic fury. The Crusades were explained as the first extremely bloody chapter in a long history of brutal European colonialism. He says people have charged that the crusaders marched east not because of idealism, but to pursue land and treasure. The image is one of power-mad popes seeking to expand Christianity through conversion of Muslim masses and knights of Europe as barbarians brutalizing everyone in their path, leaving an enlightened Muslim culture in ruins. He quotes the chair of Islamic studies at American University in Washington, D. C. as suggesting, "the Crusades created a historical memory which is with us today -- the memory of a long European onslaught." Keep in mind this is a person teaching at a university in our nation's capital. You probably won't be surprised to find out he is giving students an incorrect view of history.

This is where it gets good. Stark challenges these anti-Western beliefs about the Crusades. Here is the heart of his book. He wrote God's Battalions to show the Crusades were precipitated by Islamic provocations -- centuries of bloody attempts to colonize the West and by sudden new attacks on Christian pilgrims and holy places. The pope had no hope or plan of converting Muslims. The Crusades were not organized and led by surplus sons, but by the heads of great families fully aware that they would be spending far more money crusading than any modest material rewards they might gain. In addition, the Crusader kingdoms established in the Holy Land were not colonies sustained by local taxation. In fact, they required immense subsidies from Europe.

He also says a couple of other things that are not very popular today. Stark claims it is utterly unreasonable to impose modern notions about proper military conduct on medieval warfare, which clashes today with the pacifism that is so widespread among academics. In addition, he says that it is nonsense to believe that Muslims have been harboring bitter resentments about the Crusades for over one thousand years. Instead, Muslim antagonism about the Crusades did not appear until about 1900, in reaction to the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the start of actual European colonialism in the Middle East. Anti-Crusader feelings did not become intense until after the state of Israel was founded in 1948.

So, this is the book that I would like to summarize for you in the next few blogs. Rodney Stark has done us a big favor by showing that talking heads on TV shows and academics in ivy-towered universities don't necessarily tell us the true story. We need to be far more critical when we hear academics throw around negative statements about our country's history, its leaders, or Christianity.

Election in November--a peek ahead

Something interesting is being reported regarding the upcoming election. Democrats may be heading toward a disaster.

The Gallup organization is respected for its years of polling. Recent data suggests how bad the election is likely to be for Democrats. In the polling company’s first estimates among likely voters, Republicans have a huge, double-digit advantage in two possible situations. Under Gallup's "lower turnout" scenario, Republicans lead by a whopping 18 points, 56% to 38%. Even under the "higher turnout" scenario, in which more Democrats tend to vote, the GOP lead is 13 points, 53% to 40%.

Those are absolutely horrific numbers for Democrats. If such voting actually happens, it would translate into a gain of 71-86 seats for Republicans. Right now, the GOP needs 39 seats to take a House majority.

But the bad news continues for the Dems in this poll. Another result suggests independent voters, the ones both parties desperately want to win over, seem to be strongly inclined to vote Republican this year.

And the beat goes on. Another finding has to do with Latinos, a significant part of the Democratic strength. The New York Times reports Latino voters are particularly dejected, and many may sit these elections out. Democratic leaders were hoping the federal lawsuit against Arizona over its illegal-immigration law would have positive political benefits, but that’s not the case. The other side is far more energized.

Anything else that represents bad news for Democrats this election year? Yep. Working-class whites have swung sharply toward the GOP. A recent poll discovered that this group favors GOP hopefuls 58 percent to 36 percent--a whopping 22 percentage-point gap.

But maybe ObamaCare will rally voters to vote Democratic. Nah, don’t count on it. Obama’s approval rating among seniors, according to the Wall Street Journal, is just 38%. What was especially interesting to me was the WSJ report that a survey of 12 "battleground districts" finds 1 in 4 Democrats favoring ObamaCare repeal. Now that’s an eye-opener.

Of course, this is all conjecture at this point. But the bottom line is that Democrats came into power two years ago on a flood of hope and dreams. It didn’t take long for the American people to see where the hope and change was taking the country. They appear ready to reject a party so mired in old, tired, repudiated ideas of increased government controls, higher taxes, soaring national debt, and hostility to business.

Name-calling as a tactic

As most of you know, I teach English at a local community college. So I'm sure you're not surprised that I'm very interested in how language is used and abused. One example of the latter is seen in the current charges being leveled at conservatives. Take a look at the language used by the left when conservatives bring up various concerns.


Let's start with the reaction to those who are worried about the growth of government powers. How are Tea Party people and other conservatives described? Why, they are racists opposed to a black president. They are crazy, unhinged, fringe people who don't know what's good for them.


Then there's the response to people upset at the federal government's failure to curb illegal immigration. These folks are painted as nativists with their heads in the sand. They are racists who hate other cultures. They are vigilantes, ready to take the law into their own hands. They are hard-hearted, unwilling to empathise with the plight of the undocumented (another interesting word choice there).


Of course, we can't leave out the slurs directed at those who oppose same-sex marriage. They are homophobes, old-fashioned, religious zealots, closed-minded people who can't understand how love makes the world go around.


We've recently seen the reaction to those who oppose an Islamic center placed close to Ground Zero. It's another phobia, isn't it? This time it's Islamophobia. It seems to be an effective strategy--just add "phobe" at the end of anything when attacking your opponent. No need for rational discussion at that point.


Over the past few months we have seen politicians come to power in opposition from the mass media and their leftist friends. And how are the voters seen? Gee, back in 2008 they were described as wise and mature, having voted Barack Obama into office. Now? they are whiny, neurotic, angry, unthinking, and infantile.


Here's the deal. We need to stick to rational arguments. We should call attention to those who use emotions and name-calling; we must reject their tactics.

"Show me the money" and other leftist dreams

Well, the election is just around the corner. Democrats will now enter the campaign's home stretch with the threat that all of the Bush-era tax rates could expire on January 1. According to The Wall Street Journal, that means the lowest tax bracket would revert to 15% from 10%, the per child tax credit would revert to $500 from $1,000, and millions of middle class families would pay thousands of dollars more in federal taxes. With time running out to plan for 2011, the delay raises uncertainty for small businesses and individual taxpayers over their future liabilities. It also sets up a huge battle over taxes after the election. If returning lawmakers don't pass legislation by Dec. 31, the expiration date of the cuts, tax rates would rise not only on income, but also on estates, capital gains and dividends. Important corporate tax credits and relief from the Alternative Minimum Tax also are up for renewal. This is what the Democrats have given us after two years in charge.

This whole mess reveals a key belief among those on the left. Many of them truly think the country "can't afford" to let Americans keep so much of their own money. Peter Orszag has already admitted this since leaving his post as White House budget director. These Democrats think the only way to pay for their spending plans is by soaking the middle class because that's where the real money is. But they continue talking of taxing just the rich to disguise their hopes of going after the middle class money.

Does “tax the rich” really make fiscal sense? The Journal claims tax data shows that you could have taken 100% of the taxable income of every American who earned more than $500,000 in the boom year of 2006 and still only have raised $1.3 trillion in revenue. That amount would not have closed the budget deficit in either of the last two fiscal years. So why do the liberals keep talking about taxing just the rich if it wouldn’t really solve our budget problems? They know that soaking the middle class is unpopular.

We'll see in November if the American people are truly aware of how hungry the left is for their money.