Mark It Zero

A "quote of the day" in honor of my one follower:









"This is not Vietnam, it's bowling - there are rules."

The Ricci Decision

Here is the Supreme Court's decision on the firefighter discrimination case. While the Court clearly came down on the correct side, I'm disappointed (though not terribly surprised) that this was a 5-4 vote. It shows just how politically twisted the idea of "equal justice under the law" has become.

Justice Scalia's concurrence is, as always, spot-on. Laws designed to engineer certain racial outcomes, irrespective of any discriminatory intent, are fundamentally at odds with the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection. This is what Bastiat calls "legal plunder" - taking by force from one to give to another - and it is plainly unjust.

History shows that any legal system commandeered by political powers to actively promote injustice will, in a free society, ultimately collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. I hope our nation can reverse the course of our jurisprudence before that happens, but the nomination of Judge Sotomayor is not a promising sign.

Iranian Options

Differing perspectives on Iran from two intellectual juggernauts of conservatism:

Charles Krauthammer provides the more hawkish, "neoconservative" position.

Pat Buchanan endorses a hands-off, isolationist approach. He offered another defense of this position today.

Which seems best to you?

Foreign Policy Basics

This is a fantastic article from John Bolton. He compares traditional conservative and modern liberal views relating to foreign policy, exposes the weak philosophical foundations of the modern liberal approach, and predicts a dramatic turn away from it in the future.

Here are some excerpts (emphasis added):

Conservative foreign policy is unabashedly pro-American, unashamed of American exceptionalism, unwilling to bend its knee to international organizations, and unapologetic about the need for the fullest range of dominant military capabilities. Its diplomacy is neither unilateralist nor multilateralist, but chooses its strategies, tactics, means and methods based on a hard-headed assessment of U.S. national interests, not on theologies about process. Most especially, conservatives understand that allies are different from adversaries, and that each should be treated accordingly.
...
Defending U.S. interests is neither arrogant nor disrespectful of others, but is instead the basic task of our presidents. Despite the 2008 election, neither the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, nor international terrorism, nor the challenges of geostrategic adversaries have in any way diminished.
...
Conservatives understand that these and numerous other threats are not anomalies in an otherwise peaceful and friendly world, but manifestations of the inevitable international clash of interests and philosophies. Conflict with our interests and values is not some unfortunate exception to normality, it is normality. While harmony is desirable, it is far from inevitable, and the causes of disharmony are just as natural and human as their opposites.
...
In particular, conservatives reject the idea that America's actions are the foundation for most international discord, and that it is our deviation from international "norms" that must be "corrected" for the natural state of harmony to return.
...
The American people actually expect to be defended against international threats and adversaries, and they will undoubtedly punish any American president who does not understand and implement their strong and entirely justifiable views. That is why we may well see the future of conservative foreign policy bloom as early as 2012.

Violence in the World's Major Religions

This is an interesting article by Raymond Ibrahim examining the popular relativist argument that Christianity and Judaism are as violent, if not more violent, than Islam.

Ibrahim readily conceeds that the three major monotheistic religions have all experienced their share of violence and intolerance. So, in light of these realities, can it be said that Islam is unique in its tendency to foster violence among its adherents?

He makes the point that an evaluation of a particular faith's violent proclivities must be undertaken with an eye toward the presence or absence of scriptural exhortations to violence, rather than the presence or absence of violent periods or incidents in a faith's historical tradition. As he puts it, the key question is "whether this violence is ordained by God or whether warlike men merely wished it."

If I claim to be a Christian but occasionally tell a lie, no serious person would see my individual failings as evidence that Christianity promotes dishonesty. The correct conclusion would be that I'm simply an imperfect person - which is, by the way, the fundamental assumption of the Christian faith. In the same way, a religion cannot be honestly described as violent unless it's authoritative texts command violence as a matter of practice.

The article makes a compelling argument that, seen through this lens, any attempt to equate the violent tendencies of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is either misguided or dishonest.