A Few Statements Of Conviction For 2019

     WARNING! The following list of non-negotiable Fran Porretto stances will strike many as “extreme.” (You know, like the Knights of Columbus.) And in my supreme arrogance as:

• A man – i.e., a male human being;
• A Catholic Christian;
• And a Certified Galactic Intellect;

     ...I shall unabashedly commend them to you all as worthy of unembarrassed, unswerving defense against all comers in this Year of Our Lord 2019.

     Read on if you dare.

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     Human life is sacred. It is not to be mucked around with before or after conception. On the subject of abortion, nothing more need be said. On the seemingly unrelated subjects of genetic engineering and cloning, I’ll allow one of my characters to say it for me:

     “I’ve been turning it over in my head,” Sokoloff murmured after a moment, “and I can’t think of one morally acceptable reason to clone someone. Living or dead doesn’t matter.” He swept his gaze around the group. “Can anyone else?”
     No one spoke.
     “The people who did this,” he said, “did it to turn out a sex slave. Probably by request and to specification, and I’d bet my house that if they haven’t done it before, they’re trying to do it again right now. For that I’m going to send them all to hell. But think about it. Let’s say they were to clone me—produce a baby version of me. That baby would have no parents or other relatives. The people who produced him would have no reason to care for him, or about him, and only they would know he existed. He would be a product for sale. Why would anyone make that product? Why would anyone want that product? Apart from pure altruism?”
     “Altruism?” Trish said.
     “Yeah,” he said. “The kind that makes people take in stray dogs and cats. Think that’s likely?”
     Well, you did it.
     “The only reason to clone someone, other than the motives Fountain’s creators had, would be to replace him,” he said. “Or parts of him. And that means either murder, or enslavement, or cannibalism by surgeon. It’s evil no matter how you slice it.”
     “That’s if clones were granted the status and rights of people born the...regular way,” Juliette said. “What if they weren’t?”
     Sokoloff gestured at Fountain. Six pairs of eyes swung toward her. She remained still and silent.
     “That’s worse, isn’t it?” he said.
     Trish slid over next to Fountain and took her hand.
     “A lot worse,” she said.
     “Yeah,” Juliette said.

     [From Innocents]

     The same goes for “manufacturing” a child from bits of “selected” DNA.

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     Men are free by natural right. He who desires to coerce you, regardless of his reasons, is evil. In his soul he harbors the embryo of a murderer, for all coercion has its endpoint in the willingness to kill to enforce one’s will.

     Beware do-gooders who demand government action, especially the sort who screech that “we have to act now, there’s no time to lose!” They don’t want you to think: about costs, about incentives, about consequences, or about the high probability that they’re wrong. Most people, after all, are wrong about most things. “Opinions are like assholes; everybody’s gotta have one.”

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     Each individual is responsible for himself and his actions. The modern attempt to shift the burden of individual responsibility onto that eternal chimera “society” is a fraud of the first water. Indeed, it’s a fraud potent enough to bring down a nation. Have a look at any socialist hellhole for evidence.

     Responsibility for a crime lies on the criminal. Responsibility for a murder lies on the man who wielded it, not on his weapon or its maker. Responsibility for a man’s well-being lies on him and no one else – and yes, that includes children. With few exceptions, American children can best ensure their own well-being by listening to their parents and doing as they’re told, when and where they’re told to do it. Contrary to beliefs popular among the young, your parents know more than you about the ways of the world. Besides, they pay the bills.

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     You cannot win agreement through vilification or condemnation. Your adversary in debate is entitled to his convictions, regardless of what you think of them. Only a spineless worm would cow before your epithets...and spineless worms make useless henchmen. Besides, disagreement need not be disagreeable; a pleasantly expressed difference of opinion can get people thinking.

     This “should” be “obvious.” Yet a hefty fraction of the nation acts as if it were a mystery like unto the Trinity: impenetrable by mortal minds. It’s best to distance oneself from such persons, as all they can contribute to your life is agita.

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     Last and most important of all, Christ is the answer. The gentle, undemanding moral-ethical system proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth during His years of ministry in Judea, were it to be accepted widely, would reduce any purely human problem to triviality.

     Don’t confuse His New Covenant with the excrescences layered upon it by mortal men. Stick to what He told the “rich young man:”

     And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. [Matthew19:16-19]

     For these are perfectly consistent with the Two Great Commandments:

     But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. [Matthew 22:34-40]

     And no “commandment” uttered by a man meets that standard.

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     There’s nothing new in the above, is there? It’s all stuff you’ve heard before, from me or from others. But that’s part of its beauty: with all their stormy rage, the gates of Hell and collectivism have not prevailed against it. They shall not. Consider them mantras for 2019.

     Happy New Year.

The Compromise Canard

     There are people who do many things well. I’m not one of them. But I do notice patterns reliably.

     Remember this clever little cartoon?

     There’s a wealth of information in that modest graphic. Yes, the tactics of the gun controllers have changed over the years. Once they lamented that we Second Amendment types “don’t care about the safety of children.” Today they accuse us of actively wanting people to die. (This, from persons who treat abortion as a sacrament and venerate socialized medicine, which blatantly kills people in the name of “economy.” It is to laugh...hollowly, and with many a tear.)

     I once had a lapel button that said:

Let’s Compromise.
Let’s talk it out like reasonable people,
Then do it my way.

     That is the highest-precision encapsulation of the Left’s attitude, toward guns and much else, that I’ve ever seen. Hearken to The Writer In Black:

     On Facebook, someone was claiming they represented a large “middle ground” that wanted “cooperation” on gun laws.

     “We want cooperation” he said. The problem is, every time people say “we just want this reasonable restriction, this ‘common sense gun control’. That’s it. No more.” They lied. Every. Damn. Time. The ink wasn’t even dry on their “compromise” before they were calling it a “good first step.” Doesn’t matter how many steps went before, it was always a “good first step” and a springboard to yet more.

     We have learned that “cooperation” is to give them a little bit more than they have now for any given now. And once they get it? That becomes the new “now” from which they demand “a little bit more.”

     You can’t cooperate with people like that. You can’t compromise with them. At some point you either have to say “no more” or accept the eventual total loss of your rights.

     Just like the cartoon, eh what? But our tale doesn’t end there. Were that the case, there’d be no point to my writing these interminable tirades.

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     The Left’s strategic method is and has always been attacking principles under a guise of “compromise.” A principle, once “holed,” cannot be maintained. Take the one illustrated in the previous segment: Individuals have a right to keep and bear arms. Once firearms rights proponents had been persuaded to accept the nebulous rationale of “safety” as a premise of equal stature, the Left had won the game, even if checkmate remained fifty or sixty moves away.

     If you can see how that works, Gentle Reader, you could skip the rest of this screed with no loss. If you can’t, I’m not sure how to bring it home to you.

     A principle is a rule of right action. It divides the universe of possible actions into two absolutely separate and distinct zones: one labeled You May, the other labeled You Must Not, Regardless Of Your Reason. Political principles involve the rights of individuals and their voluntary associations.

     Take the right to life as another example of how the Left works. If you have a right to your life – i.e., a right not to be killed, except as the penalty for murdering another – then you have a right to pursue those goods and services you believe will assist you in maintaining your life. Moreover, no one may justly obstruct your pursuit by force. What, then, are we to think of schemes in which the State can tell you what medical treatments you may and may not access? What, then, are we to think of schemes in which the State can decree that you may not leave the country for the treatment you desire? What, then, are we to think of the story of Alfie Evans?

     Yet billions of persons have accepted socialized medicine systems that award the State plenipotentiary power over such things: in effect, the power of life and death over innocent citizens and subjects. The Left succeeded in getting those billions to accept those systems in the name of “efficiency” (don’t laugh), or “compassion” (please don’t laugh), or “universal health care” (stop it, you’ll hurt yourself). They persuaded their intended victims to place “efficiency,” “compassion,” or what have you as a premise of equal significance to the right to life.

     Once the principle had been punctured, the Left knew it had won.

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     I and others have maintained for some time that those who steer the Left have never been interested in “safety,” or “efficiency,” or whatever their Shibboleth of the Month might be. They want total power, unbounded in scope and unlimited in application. That requires the subjugation of those under their heel...and they mean for all of us to be under their heel.

     To achieve that end, the Left must undermine and ultimately destroy any principle that stands in its way. The right to life; the right to do as you please with your peacefully acquired property; the right to express your opinion without fear of punishment...all these must be broken. Their master technique for working their wiles upon free societies is “compromise.”

     You cannot compromise with those who intend your subjugation or destruction. Verbum sat sapienti.

Enemies And How To Treat Them Part 3: Wine And Sewage

     I was casting about for the source of a statement I’ve always admired (and have quoted more than once) when I remembered this piece:

     Compromise is potentially constructive only when it's strictly about means: i.e., when the two sides angling toward a compromise sincerely agree on the end to be sought, and are both willing to allow that they might be wrong about what means would best serve that end. Under those conditions, everyone involved will be watching the outcome and judging the means applied by that standard alone. When the ends are opposed to one another, compromise must disserve one or the other. It cannot be any other way.

     If your end is political liberty -- the maximum possible freedom from coercion or constraint for peaceable persons -- there's absolutely no reason to "dialogue" with persons whose end is an expansion of State power. Compromising with statists means promoting their end, which is the exact opposite of your end. Yet many a freedom-minded person will feel a tug toward such a "dialogue," and the ideal of compromise, despite the clarity of the above. This is the Nice-Guy Trap in action.

     Of course. But the Left is as relentless as the Sun is regular. It always comes back: perhaps weakened, or under a new disguise, or with dramatically different rhetoric and tactics. But one way or another, it comes back.

     Which means that if lovers of freedom and justice want an enduring victory – not an eternal one, mind you; that’s impossible, in the nature of the game – we must be prepared. The preparations must be of a specific sort.

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     For the umpteenth time – or perhaps the skatey-eighth? – I will repeat a maxim of which I’ve grown fond:

If you pour a cup of wine into a barrel of sewage, it remains a barrel of sewage, but if you pour a cup of sewage into a barrel of wine, it becomes a barrel of sewage.

     There are possible modifications to many a proposed public policy that would improve it in the fundamental sense: i.e., by making it a better step toward its goal. However, there are equally many possible modifications that would corrupt it: i.e., they would alter it away from its goal, perhaps by giving life to an evil whose defeat was the point of the policy initiative.

     This is the heart of the problem of compromise. A parable I first encountered in the writings of mathematician, polymath, and maverick philosopher Raymond Smullyan comes to mind:

     John and Steve, two young boys, are wandering around in a seemingly empty house. They come to its kitchen, where they find a scrumptious-looking cake. John exclaims at once “Excellent! I shall now eat the whole cake.” Steve immediately moves to block John: “No! We found it together, so we should share it: half for you and half for me.” John pays him no mind, and says once again, “I shall eat the whole cake.” The two are quarreling when an adult happens upon the scene, listens briefly, and says “Gentlemen! This is no way to act. You should compromise.” He then addresses Steve: “Give him three-quarters of the cake.”

     [Presented in This Book Needs No Title. NOTE: The above is not an exact quote.]

     Get the idea?

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     Business legend Robert C. Townsend wasn’t fond of compromise either:

     Compromise is usually bad. It should be a last resort. If two departments or divisions have a problem they can’t solve and it comes up to you, listen to both sides and then, unlike Solomon, pick one or the other. This places solid accountability on the winner to make it work....

     When you give in, give in all the way. And when you win, try to win all the way so that the responsibility to make it work rests squarely on you.

     [From Further Up The Organization.]

     In a business context, the desirability of that sort of absolutism can be debated in particular cases: specifically, those in which the “loser” is required to collaborate with the “winner” on the “winner’s” terms, against the “loser’s” best judgment (and possibly his departmental interests). In a public-policy context, the matter is much clearer.

     When the Right is in the ascendant and proposes a policy (or a change to an existing policy), it will almost always be rooted in a fundamental goal of the Right: defending the country, limiting government and its exactions, assuring and protecting individuals’ rights, what-have-you. The Left will usually choose between two tactics:

• Outright denunciation of the proposal as somehow cruel, unjust, or “un-American;”
• A suggestion of “compromise.”

     Clearly, the former stroke must be fought a outrance; no other response is possible. The latter one often sets the Right back on its heels.

     Why is that? Because the word compromise has somehow been imbued with a glamor that fogs minds. It’s treated as good beyond all possibility of argument. And nearly all the time, the exact reverse is the case.

     I submit this brilliant pictorial depiction of what “compromise” has done to the Constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms as Exhibit One.

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     The Left’s goals are absolutely and irremediably in conflict with ours. The “compromises” they suggest to Constitution-respecting, pro-freedom initiatives will oppose the goal of such initiatives. Therefore they must be fought with maximum ferocity.

     Will that always be the case? At this point in our sociopolitical devolution, I must answer in the affirmative. The Left wants absolute power over every last aspect of human existence, forever. That is its one and only goal. Leftists’ representations of “compassion” and the like are purely cosmetic. Therefore, in principle – and there’s a word more people should understand for its exact meaning – there can be no “compromise” with them.

     At this time, the Left is in a shrunken minority position, nationwide. Its own machinations have “weaponized” the federal government, such that President Donald Trump can tear away its recent gains by the same methods his predecessor used to accrue them. Preliminary indications, including several surveys of popular opinion, suggest that the denunciation tactic will not serve the Left this time. Therefore, we must expect that their mouthpieces on Capitol Hill will attempt to undermine Republican initiatives with suggestions of “compromise” – cups of sewage to be poured into our pro-freedom, pro-Constitution, pro-American wine – with coordinated PR campaigns designed to paint the GOP as “unreasonable” should those “compromises” be declined.

     The moral should be obvious...and there are those two damnable words again.

     Write your Republican Representatives and Senators. Send them a link to this essay. And remind them that you’ll be watching.

Principles Versus Power

     Perhaps you’ve already seen the following:

     The statement supposedly comes from one of the Dune novels. Wherever it may have originated, it perfectly expresses the overarching methodology of Islam, the American Left, and any number of groups throughout history that began their rise from a minority position but had no real interest in freedom.

     He who asks you to conform to a principle that:

• You hold;
• He doesn’t;
• Which serves him at the moment;
• But which he would not honor were your positions reversed;

     ...is a villain. He deserves no consideration and should get none. Worse, if you concede to him, it won’t be long before your positions are reversed. That’s why Saul Alinsky emphasized that Leftists should “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” He knew that “the enemy” – i.e., freedom loving Americans – would feel pressured to abide by a rule of conscience that could only be used against them.

     Far be it from me to decry rules of conscience. Ultimately, they’re all we have. But if we know, with empirical certainty, that the petulant minority demanding that we give them a privilege – i.e., that a rule that applies only to us shall not bind them – we cannot accommodate them without consigning ourselves to rightlessness.

     This underscores the immense strategic importance of knowing your enemy’s motives. I’ve written about this recently enough that it should not be repeated...yet in dealing with our enemies of today, we forget it all too quickly.

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     Some months ago, Ben Domenech of The Federalist wrote about the fusillades over Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act:

     It’s instructive to observe George Stephanopoulos’s behavior on this topic, given his role as a very public shill for the Democratic Party. He’s not interested in having a debate on the subject or in acknowledging the importance of RFRAs – something he obviously did two decades ago while working for President Clinton. He’s interested in spouting aggressive talking points to frame Republicans as bigots for giving people the ability to defend their religious freedom in the courts. That’s the entire goal here: turn religious liberty into something that lives within the bounds of scare quotes.

     And this goal is motivated not just by the political aims of the left, but by a broad rejection of tolerance as a virtue. It was all well and good when tolerance was about conservatives and religious types swallowing their objections and going along with things – but now that the left is being asked to do the same thing? Forget about it.

     It was (and is) a textbook case, as was made clear by the assaults on Sweet Cakes by Melissa, a bakery owned by a Christian couple; by the underhanded attack on Memories Pizza, a Christian-owned pizzeria that had refused service to no one; and of course by the vicious assault on Brendan Eich, formerly the CEO of Mozilla – who, incidentally, is now spearheading the development of a new and quite exciting Web browser.

     Never forget that the original argument by advocates of same-sex marriage was couched in terms of freedom: a “right to marry.” Never forget that even before the notorious Supreme Court decision, homosexuals could marry one another quite easily – i.e., by presenting themselves to a sect that agreed with them for a religious wedding. What they demanded was government recognition of their marriages, so that they could force those of us who for reasons of conscience refuse to facilitate their behavior to do so against our consciences.

     The kerfuffle had nothing to do with a supposed pent-up desire among homosexuals to marry. It was about overcoming the conscience-based resistances of those whose faiths condemn homosexuality, compelling them to accept, and to service, something they find noxious. That is, it was a drive for power over us – and its principal weapons were verbal: the words rights and “fair.”

     So much for the Left’s tolerance of differences of conscience.

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     The same-sex marriage foofaurauw is useful because it so vividly illustrates the utter consciencelessness of the Left. It will use anyone’s principles against him with no intention of honoring them reciprocally. But the Left isn’t the only community of interest that wields our principles against us like a weapon. Consider Islam, whose devotees demand absolute hands-off latitude from American authorities but would never allow the erection of a Christian church in the nations it dominates. Consider the many cases of asymmetry in international trade, where country X lays heavy restrictions on exported American goods but screams in outrage at any tariff or regulation we apply to its exports. Consider the mess along our southern border: Mexico, which polices its southern border ruthlessly, displays indignant astonishment when we make a gesture toward policing ours. The list could be extended, but I believe the point has been established.

     In all such cases, what’s wielded against us is our conscience, plus one other wholly irrational thing: our desire that others think well of us. Why we should want the good opinion of others who seek to defraud, exploit, or destroy us, I have no idea. But the tactic works. Our enemies may hate us for our virtues, but that troubles them not at all when they wield them against us.

     Among political problems with a moral dimension, this is one of the most painful. Yet it does admit of a solution. I’ll return to it presently.

Quickies: Balances

     Ashe Schow writes today:

     As a matter of principle, innocent people should never be falsely accused, and rapists should always be punished — and hopefully removed from the population rather than simply expelled from a university. That isn't such an extreme idea. But in the current culture surrounding campus sexual assault, it is. Point out the holes in an accuser's story? You're a "rape apologist." Suggest that accused students be granted their constitutional right to due process? Get ready to be accused of being "pro-rape."

     Even the old cliché has its problems, as Jonah Goldberg pointed out in his 2012 book The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas. "If it were an absolute principle, we wouldn't put anyone in prison, lest we punish an innocent in the process," Goldberg wrote in the Washington Post while promoting the book. "Indeed, if punishing the innocent is so terrible, why 10? Why not two? Or, for that matter, 200? Or 2,000?"

     But the basic concept is that it is wrong to destroy the lives of innocent people in the name of progress — perhaps we can debate how much worse it is than letting someone evil continue to harm the public.

     “Progress” is one of those words: the ones that the various sides in our political discourse define differently, according to their respective rhetorical needs. My definition is simple:

Progress is the improvement of the human condition without violating moral or ethical principles.

     In my formulation, the seeming need to balance “progress” against “destroying the lives of innocent people” vanishes: the former absolutely excludes the latter. But this requires a deeper understanding of principle than most people ever acquire:

A principle is a moral or ethical rule – i.e., a rule of right action – from which other rules may be derived with confidence.

     Here are a few principles for you:

• Honor thy father and thy mother.
• Thou shalt not murder.
• Thou shalt not steal.
• Thou shalt not commit adultery.
• Thou shalt not bear false witness.
• Thou shalt not covet.

     Any rule that can be shown to be implied by one of the principles above, without contradicting any of the others, may be relied upon. Inversely, a rule that contradicts one of those principles is faulty and should be distrusted.

     “But why are principles necessary, or even desirable?” rises the cry. “Aren’t yours just a facet of your personal religion?”

     If there are no principles, there are no rights.
     If there are no rights, then the State is made omnipotent.
     That legitimizes slavery, arbitrary executions, and absolute rule by force.

     Argue against these propositions if you please; I find them irrefutable. That fallible Man cannot always be certain to have abided by them in all particulars does not weaken them in the slightest.

Bluenoses On The Attack (Updated)

Apparently a determined sort can turn anything into fuel for his cause celebre. In this op-ed, noted neo-Grundy Donna Rice-Hughes uses Jennifer Lawrence’s recent troubles as a launching pad for a new anti-porn campaign:

In her recent interview with Vanity Fair, actress Jennifer Lawrence addresses her emotions following the widely publicized hack of her and several other actresses’ iCloud accounts, in which privately taken nude photographs were posted on the Internet, saying, “It’s not a scandal; it is a sex crime.”

Miss Lawrence also states she tried to write an apology when news of the hack broke, but expresses she didn’t regret taking the photos, as it was in the context of a “loving, healthy, great relationship” of four years that often took place over long distance; “Either your boyfriend is going to look at porn, or he’s going to look at you.”

Though we cannot (nor should we) know the full context of Lawrence’s relationship, the assumption that one’s boyfriend would turn to pornography in the absence of his romantic partner speaks to how normalized viewing this material has become today. Furthermore, the Internet proliferation of private photos has increasingly become a tool to shame, threaten and blackmail women, as in the numerous instances of “revenge porn.”....

Peer-reviewed research confirms there is a social cost to today’s extreme forms of Internet pornography we cannot ignore. It harms children, fuels violence against women and leads to addiction in both youth and adults. Moreover, Internet pornography, particularly of a deviant and violent nature, fuels the demand for human trafficking of sex slaves. In 2008, the Internet Watch Foundation found a horrifying 58 percent of Internet child-abuse domains originated in the United States, and the United Nations discovered that between 2007 and 2010, the percentage of global child-trafficking victims had risen to nearly one-third.

Sadly, despite the best efforts of parents and caring adults, we cannot completely protect ourselves and our loved ones in a culture that permits child pornography and obscene content, neither of which are protected under the First Amendment, to flourish. Aggressive law enforcement of such federal laws, combined with certain relatively easily implemented measures, is necessary to effectively curb the tsunami of exploitative Internet pornography.

From the "Right"...and "for the children!" Gentle Reader, words threaten to fail me yet again.

Is Miss Rice-Hughes unaware that there are already federal laws against child pornography, and that they're vigorously enforced, to the extent of ignoring their targets' Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights? Is she unaware that for a "public accommodation" to expose unwitting and unwilling others to such images is also against federal law? Or is she simply of the opinion, pace Rahm Emanuel, that "you should never let a good crisis go to waste?"

Or perhaps she's merely stupid. (As little as I like it, there are some stupid persons on the political Right. No political family is without its unfortunate members.) The Supreme Court has proved, by repeatedly attempting the task and failing miserably, that there is no way to define "pornography." Potter Stewart's "I know it when I see it" approach that characterized the most recent attempts, with the consequent rise of an equally undefined "community standards" regime that had neighbors inspecting one another's underwear, fell into desuetude thirty years ago. The lesson the attempt left us should not be lost on anyone bright enough to read these words:

Banning an undefined practice puts infinite power into the hands of the State.

It would seem that some "on the Right" have forgotten this -- and at a time when the Left is desperately seeking a popularly acceptable rationale for State control over the Internet! -- which puts the task of defending the right to create and publish sexual images, including images so bizarre that virtually anyone would be disturbed by them, on the shoulders of this devout and rather priggish Catholic.

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An image or statement is not "obscene" except by the standards of some evaluator, with whom other evaluators may disagree. In other words, a judgment of "obscenity" is inherently subjective.

Anti-porn crusaders want you to overlook that inconvenient fact. They want you to conflate porn with objective actions such as murder and rape. The evidence is before us, yea, even in Miss Rice-Hughes's own column. Read it over again; you'll find it.

I shouldn't try to diagnose such persons. I have neither the expertise nor the information, and anyway, I have my own troubles. But I am heartily sick of seeing their fire and brimstone expended on a matter that's properly the domain of parents and schoolteachers.

With all the objective threats we face, is a fresh crusade against porn really the best place for them to expend their energies? Why do they think so? Has a sexual image assaulted them personally, perhaps leaping out of the bushes as they passed by? I'd be interested in hearing about it, as such a thing is outside my experience. Or are they of the opinion that all sexual practices are "obscene," and therefore all depictions thereof, or of the naked human body with which we "practice" sex, must be "obscene" also? In which case I'd like to know where they think children come from.

Away with the BS about "peer-reviewed research" and "social costs." Such pseudo-logic, which is always couched in undefined terms, can be used to support or attack any position or practice whatsoever. There is no cause-and-effect linkage between what one sees on a computer monitor and what one does with, to, or for others.

By now we who prize freedom should be aware that any attack on freedom of expression endangers all forms and subjects of expression, regardless of how the attacker strains to narrow it. It was the Left, which was originally "pro-porn," that produced Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon, who attack images even as mild as those in Playboy as crimes against women! Indeed, both women have also attacked a great deal of clothing advertising as "unacceptably sexualized," and "assaults on women's dignity." If they include in that assessment the women who are carefully groomed and trained and handsomely paid to pose for such photos, I have no idea.

If only we'd return to shouting "Mind your own BLEEP!ing business!" at such persons, whether their totem object is "the children," or "women's dignity," or just their tenure on the lecture circuit. But we appear to have forgotten the phrase. Or perhaps what we've forgotten is the immense breadth of the subjects that belong outside the reach of State power. Your Curmudgeon fulminates; you decide.

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UPDATE:

Any subsequent commenters who have such clever things to say as "if you don't want nudie pics of you on the Net, don't put them there" will be permanently banned from commenting here. As they're both moronic and obviously not germane to the subject of this article, persons who make such comments are plainly not bright enough to be Gentle Readers of Liberty's Torch.

Principle And Pragmatism

I’d intended to continue from the Moving Lips essay on to various psychological and tactical considerations relevant to political deceit, but this essay by Dr. Ben Carson has diverted my thoughts. Here’s why:

I was asked recently how I could possibly endorse the U.S. Senate candidacy of Monica Wehby, who is running as a Republican from Oregon. She is pro-choice, which in the opinion of many makes her unacceptable as a conservative.

I called her to query her about her stance on this issue. She stated that personally, she is very pro-life, but she feels the government has no business interfering with the relationship between the mother, the baby, the doctor and God. I feel differently, because if abolitionists had taken a similar hands-off approach, I might not have been free to write this column. As someone who has spent a lifetime trying to save the lives of children, even with intrauterine surgery, it is probably not difficult to imagine why I am extremely oriented toward efforts to preserve human life, especially innocent human life that has yet to experience the extrauterine world.

Given this pro-life propensity, one might ask, how could I endorse someone who is pro-choice? The answer is this: I’m not an ideologue who determines a person’s worthiness with a litmus test. I have known Dr. Wehby as a friend and colleague for many years, and she is extremely intelligent and knows how to make decisions based on evidence versus ideology. Also, in a state like Oregon, which is left-leaning, she would not be a viable candidate if she maintained a pro-life stance….

If the ship is about to suffer massive destruction by sailing over Niagara Falls, why devote energy scraping the barnacles off the bottom? There will be plenty of time for that once the ship is saved. Worrying about the barnacles before reversing course detracts from critical action. Enough said.

This rationale will anger some who feel that their important issue, be it homosexual marriage, abortion, illegal immigration or Second Amendment rights should never be anywhere except front and center. I sympathize with those sentiments, but as a pragmatist, I realize that if conservatives continue to be fragmented over issues on which there will never be unanimous agreement, they will never get the chance to address these issues down the road. Principles are very important, but so are wisdom and savvy when building consensus with people with different kinds of principles.

There are two serious problems with Dr. Carson’s thesis. First, a principle isn’t just something which one feels very strongly about; it’s a fundamental rule about right and wrong. Therefore, any compromise on principle is inherently a betrayal of one’s moral-ethical convictions. Second, one cannot evaluate a course as pragmatic -- practical – without first stating what end one hopes to achieve with it and demonstrating, via logic and evidence, that it’s a plausible means toward that end.

In discoursing about such things to a college class, I used the example of the pocket calculator. In the mid-Seventies, when they first became available, they were very expensive: the cheap ones were over $100. By the mid-Eighties, they were very cheap indeed: $10 for a basic unit, and rarely as much as $100 for a highly programmable device with graphic and printing capabilities. I asked the class, “Does that strike you as progress?” The answer was unanimously yes.

Then I threw them a curve ball: “What if the reduction in the cost of a calculator had been achieved by enslaving a million workers to make them at no pay?” The cries of outrage nearly deafened me. “It might be practical, if your whole end were to make calculators cheaper, but would it be progress?” The answer was unanimously no.

Progress is the improvement of the human condition -- the “practical” end to be achieved -- without violating moral-ethical principles. The most glorious imaginable end cannot justify an immoral or unethical means. First, that would completely vitiate what we mean by a principle; second, all too often, the end we seek is unattainable by the means we’ve chosen…or by any other.

Imagine – it will take some effort – that poverty worldwide could be eliminated forever by the simple expedient of once each year, killing every tenth person on Earth, the honorees to be selected by lot, with no exemptions nor deferments. I think we can all agree that the end in view is a good one, but what about the means? How beautiful would a “practical” end have to be to justify mass murder? Could any imaginable end do so? Worse, should the method fail to produce the desired results, what would we say to the souls of those slaughtered? To their relatives? To God?

Some claim that “a woman’s right to choose” is a matter of principle. Others – I’m one – claim that a human being’s right to life, including that of the unborn child, is a matter of principle. There is no way to “chart a course” between those two poles. Nor will any end persuade someone attached to either position as a principle that violating it can be justified.

Compromise is always about means: unless we agree on the end to be sought, we cannot compromise. Stronger still: unless we agree that the means suggested as a compromise is morally acceptable, one or the other of us will rule it out no matter how promising it appears “practically.” When recommending this or that course as “practical” and endeavoring to persuade those opposed to it on principle, I hope Dr. Carson will keep that in mind.