Food and Drugs

There has long been a segment of the Left -- let me call them the Fast Food Nation Left -- that considers American eating habits to be at the root of many societal ills. If we all just ate organically-grown fruits and vegetables, and eschewed burgers and fries and Coca-Cola, we would all be healthier and live longer, they say. In making this argument, they often point toward the evils of genetically engineered and/or chemically enhanced food products. Giving cows bovine growth hormone... it's bad. Pesticide to keep the bugs off the fruit trees... bad. Fertilizer to grow more food... bad. Genetically engineering new and better fruits and vegetables and domestic animals (cows, pigs, sheep, chickens).... it's all bad. Don't put that stuff in your body. Organic, natural foods, that's the way to go. Essentially, in other words, the Fast Food Nation left is the Ludditte left, the left that fears and loathes the discoveries of science and engineering.

On the other hand, there is a segment of the Left that has recently made it an article of faith that, if only we could experiment on stem cells drawn from "discarded" human embryos, we could cure all human diseases, i.e., we would be healthier and live longer. Let's call this the Brave New World Left. Here, science is omnipotent, science only enhances our lives, science is a benign force for good in the universe, endlessly inventing wonder drugs we can put into our bodies to make ourselves, if not immortal, close to immortal. What form would this experimentation on human embryos take? Genetic engineering, obviously. And the outcome? People putting genetically engineered products into their bodies.

My question is... how many of the people in the Fast Food Nation left are also in the Brave New World left? That is, how many people out there are there who buy organic fruits and vegetables because they don't want to put genetically engineered foods into their bodies or their children's bodies, but who simultaneously want to experiment on human embryos to create genetically engineered drugs to put into their bodies and their children's bodies? I think it's a lot.

Just another incoherence on the Left that is baffling to observers who think logically.

The Problem of Problem-Solving and the Israel-Hezbollah Conflict

We are a great culture and an affluent culture in large measure because we are what I would call an "engineer culture." Engineers are people who see problems and "work the problem" until they find a solution. Engineers are always trying to refine processes and products to make them better. Engineers, writ-large, looked at the frontier and saw farms, looked at raging streams and saw mills, looked at rivers and, later, oceans, and saw commerce. Engineers looked at the sky and built planes and rockets. Engineers took us to the Moon and back.

[As a complete, unrelated sidebar, does anybody else think it's insane that we haven't made an effort to go back to the Moon in more than 30 years? It's like human beings did the greatest thing they had ever done in the history of man and said, well, that's boring, let's stop funding that. Weird. It's captured in the moment in Apollo 13 when Jim Lovell's wife realizes that the networks aren't carrying his broadcast from space because going to space had become tedious to American viewers. Okay, back to my post.]

Because we are engineers, however, we think that every problem has a solution. Even the math and science illiterate among us -- and there are many -- partake in this aspect of the engineer culture; they think that every problem must have a solution. If only we thought hard enough. If only we considered the problem from the appropriate perspective.

Indeeed, it is among the math-and-science illiterate in America -- the sociologists and journalists and writers and lawyers and politicians and English professors and, well, you get the picture... the chattering classes -- that the engineer culture finds its most common and insidious form. Here, they think... if only we got enough people together and talked through the issues, we would find a solution to the problem. In this manifestation of the engineer culture, experimentation and invention are replaced by committees sitting about in conference rooms around a long table, talking. If only we talked some more. If only we communicated.

But, unlike most engineering issues, there isn't a better mousetrap to build in southern Lebanon. Sometimes there are problems that can't be solved by talking. I do not believe there is a diplomatic "solution" to this problem. Conversely, I do not belive there is a permanent military solution either. If we somehow negotiate a cease-fire, Hezbollah will still hate Israel and Jews and still want to kill them all. Sooner or later, they will try again; perhaps sooner rather than later, they might have the means to do more injury to Israel, via WMDs. If Israel, on the other hand, succeeds in wiping out Hezbollah's capacities now, it will postpone future conflicts, but it won't "solve" the problem.

We cannot escape history, Lincoln said. Exactly so. There is no complete solution to the problem of evil in the world.

Israel, Islamofascism and Decadence

We have the luxury in this country of taking positions on world affairs that sound politically correct and even-handed and, most importantly of all, non-judgmental and anti-racist (read "anti-West") because, generally, we don't have much skin in the game. Yes, 9/11 happened, and yes, 3000 Americans died. But too many of us view that as an historical event, suitable for analysis, but not as something that truly touched us (other than the way lost of tragic events that happen to other people touch us... we dine out on stories of "I knew somebody in the WTC" or "I remember when I saw the WTC come down on television"). Thus, we can expend our energy, not on working to defeat the enemy or even intellectually thinking through exactly who the enemy is, but instead on criticizing ourselves and our leaders. Islamofascists attack America... blame Bush and the Republicans! This is decadence in a nutshell.

Now, with attacks on Israel from Gaza and south Lebanon by the proxies of Syria and Iran, and Israel's justified counterattacks, the Middle East threatens to become the site of a wider war pitting democracies (Israel and, amazingly enough, Iraq) against the forces of Islamofascism. Israel doesn't have the luxury we have of sitting back and blithely mouthing niceties about understanding the "Other" or the plight of Palestinian refugees or the frustration of the "Arab street." Israel is in a fight for its life.

Me, I'm on Israel's side. I think the Bush Doctrine was right all along -- you are either with us against the terrorists or your against us. Israel is with us. Syria and Iran and al Qaeda and Hamas and Hezbollah are all against us, not a little bit, but a lot. They would have us dead if they could make us dead. Israel says it "means business." I think we should too.

It is a truly decadent country that won't take its own side in a fight.

How Leftists Think

On Little Green Footballs I came across an article that captures better than any I have seen the nature of what passes for "thinking" on the left. It has it all -- America as a criminal enterprise, the Bush administration as Nazis, American soldiers as babykillers, the whole nine yards of leftist rant, all, as is typical, without reference to any evidence. This is not a political argument, it's a theological statement of belief, and a particularly Manichaean one at that, with America, Republicans, Bush and the military holding down the Evil side of the equation.

Meanwhile, Bill Crawford at NR Online summarizes the good news from Iraq.

Facts versus theology. Isn't that how liberals always characterize their arguments against the Right? But it's much more true in reverse.

How Liberals Argue

Here is the New York Court of Appeals' decision holding that the state need not sanction same-sex marriages as a matter of constitutional law. Note that the court -- New York's highest -- does not hold that same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, but simply holds that the state's legislature could have a rational basis for limiting marriage to the union of one man and one woman. This is very basic constitutional law, under which courts defer to legislative decisions on matters of social policy where the decision has a "rational basis." In other words, the New York Court of Appeals simply said that what should be obvious -- since no one thought that sanctioning homosexual marriage was a necessary aspect of civil society for, oh, EVER! -- namely, that reasonable people could conclude that marriage should be between one man and one woman.

Here, on the other hand, is the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, lambasting the decision. His statement, in its entirety, reads:

"As Democrats, we believe that every American has a right to equal protection under the law and to live in dignity. And we must respect the right of every family to live in dignity with equal rights, responsibilities and protections under the law. Today's decision by the New York Court of Appeals, which relies on outdated and bigoted notions about families, is deeply disappointing, but it does not end the effort to achieve this goal.

"As that essential process moves forward, it is up to the State legislature to act to protect the equal rights of every New Yorker and for the debate on how to ensure those rights to proceed without the rancor and divisiveness that too often surrounds this issue."

This is the mode of argument that apparently represents the height of leadership and thinking in the Democratic Party ca. 2006. They want a "debate" without "rancor and divisiveness." But if you have the temerity to disagree with them, you are "bigoted." In other words, what he's saying to the New York Court of Appeals -- and, remember, this is New York, not Utah -- is that their conclusion is irrational, i.e., beyond the pale of reasoned debate, unnecessary to meet on the merits. And, if the New York state legislature concludes that marriage should remain between one man and one woman, they will be bigots and homophobes.

Put bluntly, the leadership of the Democratic Party is afraid of democracy. They know that they will lose if things they hold as being beyond debate -- abortion on demand, homosexual marriage, affirmative action, etc. -- are ever put to real voters for democratic decisions.

The Infantile Illogic of the New York Times

The New York Times' latest rationalization of their decision to "out" a classified intelligence gathering operation -- the United States' program of monitoring terrorist financial transactions through the SWIFT clearinghouse in Brussels -- is apparently that it was "no big deal" because "everybody knew about it" anyway.

The illogic of this is patent: if "everybody knew about it," why exactly was it on Page 1 above the fold? If "everybody knew about it," what exactly made it newsworthy? Didn't "news" used to mean telling the public something they didn't already know?

This is infantile, truly. But it is also treason. Is there anything else to call deliberate transmission of classified information during wartime for the purpose -- does anyone doubt it? -- of harming the sitting government?

Hey, New York Times news editors... have I got a tip for you! There are apparently numerous highly-placed individuals in the CIA and State Department who, in violation of their oaths, have revealed classified information about our intelligence-gathering techniques during wartime. There are traitors in our midst. Wouldn't that be a "news" story? Wow, I wish I was the reporter who got that tip, I wish I was the reporter who was contacted by these traitors, man, would I want to break that story!

Naaaahhhhh.

UPDATE: The illogic of the NYTimes' position is being widely noticed. Here, from Patterico. Patterico points out that illogic is not the only problem -- Times' writer Eric Lichtblau is apparently either a baldfaced liar or simply stupid.