Beullogeo's

Richard Dawkins has been foremost among Darwin's defenders for many years, speaking and writing to popularize and refine the Theory of Evolution. He also coined meme - the idea that ideas are replicated, altered, and selected and thus can evolve.

Not long ago Dawkins was spreading a meme about Brights:

Think about your own worldview to decide if it is free of supernatural or mystical deities, forces, and entities. If you decide that you fit the description above, then you are, by definition, a bright!

No shit? Where I come from calling yourself "bright" is a good way to get your ass kicked. Glibly denying any lacking in your worldview is another.

Dawkins rationalizes his bright idea like so:

I don't know whether gay - meaning homosexual - just happened, or whether it was launched. Either way, it has been a successful meme. The new definition is in the dictionary, and it is used more or less universally by heterosexuals. Did some syndicate deliberately release gay into the memosphere? Or did it spring up spontaneously, then take off as a brush fire? I don't know how, or when, gay got its start, but 2003 is seeing the deliberate launch of a new meme. It is bright, and we are at its birth. The bright meme is intentionally imitating gay's provenance in the explicit hope of copying its success.

The gay meme improved the image and, I dare add, the happiness of a once unpopular minority. Similarly, bright is intended to come to the aid of another beleaguered community in the US: those who, in the most religiose country in the Western world, have no religion, who are variously labeled atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, philosophical naturalists, secularists, or humanists.

Lately Dawkins is pushing a related but more in-your-face strain of the Bright meme. Not content with his own disbelief Dawkins would like all believers to stop. Now preferably. It's called New Atheism:

Richard Dawkins, the leading light of the New Atheism movement, lives and works in a large brick house just 20 minutes away from the Shelley memorial. Dawkins, formerly a fellow at New College, is the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science. He is 65 years old, and the book that made him famous, The Selfish Gene, dates from well back in the last century. The opposition it earned from rival theorizers and popularizers of Charles Darwin, such as Stephen Jay Gould, is fading into history. Gould died in 2002, and Dawkins, while acknowledging their battles, praised his influence on scientific culture. They were allies in the battle against creationism. Dawkins, however, has been far more belligerent in counterattack. His most recent book is called The God Delusion.

Dawkins' style of debate is as maddening as it is reasonable. A few months earlier, in front of an audience of graduate students from around the world, Dawkins took on a famous geneticist and a renowned neurosurgeon on the question of whether God was real. The geneticist and the neurosurgeon advanced their best theistic arguments: Human consciousness is too remarkable to have evolved; our moral sense defies the selfish imperatives of nature; the laws of science themselves display an order divine; the existence of God can never be disproved by purely empirical means.

Dawkins rejected all these claims, but the last one – that science could never disprove God – provoked him to sarcasm. "There's an infinite number of things that we can't disprove," he said. "You might say that because science can explain just about everything but not quite, it's wrong to say therefore we don't need God. It is also, I suppose, wrong to say we don't need the Flying Spaghetti Monster, unicorns, Thor, Wotan, Jupiter, or fairies at the bottom of the garden. There's an infinite number of things that some people at one time or another have believed in, and an infinite number of things that nobody has believed in. If there's not the slightest reason to believe in any of those things, why bother? The onus is on somebody who says, I want to believe in God, Flying Spaghetti Monster, fairies, or whatever it is. It is not up to us to disprove it."

It is ironic that such a prominent man of science and reason can miss the point so badly. Decades ago other great men ruthlessly applied these principles only to discover fundamental, insurmountable limits to what humans can know or understand. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems utterly destroyed the classic basis for atheism: the assumption that man alone can sort everything out without any need to invoke God.

The achievements of science are truly breathtaking but as it turns out the most profound intellectual results of the last century inform us that hard study and cold reason will only go so far. Dawkins impishly focuses on the infinite trees we can't disprove and completely misses the forest. He is unable or unwilling to grasp that God is not Thor, a fairie, or a Flying Spaghetti Monster - God is all of these and the infinite other things we cannot know.

Science, after all, is an empirical endeavor that traffics in probabilities. The probability of God, Dawkins says, while not zero, is vanishingly small. He is confident that no Flying Spaghetti Monster exists. Why should the notion of some deity that we inherited from the Bronze Age get more respectful treatment?

Dawkins can tear down all the Bronze Age straw men he likes. Rather than delighting in the hyperbole of a Flying Spaghetti Monster Dawkins would be better off soberly considering the implications of Shrödinger's Cat or Maxwell's Demon.

The elephant in the room that he will not and cannot address is the meme that infinity itself is just another name for God. Gödel himself embraced the spiritual and theological components of mathematical philosophy. Reading other explanations of Incompleteness and its implications what is hard to escape, even when put in the most dry and secular terms, is a sense of wonder and delight far superior to Dawkins' ignorant sarcasm.

If memes are like genes then it's fair to see attempts to manipulate ideas as similar to the unnatural selection responsible for such wonderous advances in animal husbandry and cultivation. The very existence of civilization depends upon the free exchange and improvement of ideas. Pushed to the extreme however, whether by activist atheists or Islamofacists, the intentional hunting down and killing off of "unacceptable" or "foolish" ideas is nothing short of eumemics.

I'll take my thinking free, thanks. Without Mr. Dawkins or anybody else telling me what is or isn't allowed.

Who Bears the Burden? Demographic Characteristics of U.S. Military Recruits Before and After 9/11
by Tim Kane, Ph.D. - November 7, 2005

Although Representative Rangel's bill to reinstate the draft failed by a decisive vote of 402–2 in the House of Representatives in 2004, the issue will likely be considered again, especially if there are more terrorist attacks on the U.S.

Some motivations for the draft are entirely patriotic in the sense that they aim to protect America from aggressors. Others see the draft as an instrument of equality, as well as an instrument of pacifism.

Well deja vu all over again. I get it already. Charlie Rangel isn't so much in favor of the draft as he is against war.

I remember he didn't like Gulf War I either and back then he was demagoging race, whining that the over-representation of minorities in the military meant they would necessarily shoulder an unfair burden in casualties. It turned out the predominantly non-minority airmen and special forces were the ones who actually absorbed the disproportionate casualties. Not counting Saddam's military. The way our military cuts through theirs you have to wonder why we stomach any tinpot very long.

At any rate Rangel hasn't changed. These days he's still requesting reports to support his race-based worldview. And as usual they reveal a truth that just the opposite of his expectations.

Unfortunately being wrong hasn't stopped him. His latest angle: We need a draft to ensure that every race class shares the burden of military service equally. Once this is accomplished we will never again see war because no leader will dare face the wrath of a public so united against it.

This is the same old demagoguery with but a subtle change in grievance group. What's remarkable about his thinking is that it is so obviously false in several ways. False in presuming that the draft's random selection is more fair than self selection. False in presuming any deviation of the military population from societal norms is by its very nature unfair. That the balance of support for war would be different with or without the draft. And the ultimate falsity - that all this talk of draft and fairness is nothing but an indirect attack on the President's ability to wage war.

Consensus within the military is against the draft and I'm inclined to agree, but I could be convinced otherwise through reasonable debate with the goal of making them stronger. I cannot be convinced to argue about it with someone whose purpose is to undermine them or our society's ability to defend itself. Not much of what Charlie Rangel says makes sense because fairness is not his true goal. If you didn't already you should watch this to understand my argument why.

His party's rhetoric is obsessed with the fact that the richest 1% own 99% of everything, so he should understand that no matter how biased its sampling of society the military will always have more soldiers from poor families and less from rich. There just aren't very many sons of senators and tycoons. By the way, who decides which biases are bad?

None of the military folk I know are in it for the money. They know the pay is crap and the work dangerous but they volunteer anyway. They like serving their country. They like the way of life. To my eyes they overly represent the cream of our nation.

Charlie doesn't like that the military offers re-up bonuses. Democrats ordinarily champion increases in civil servant compensation but in this case Rangel chooses to decry money going to the military rank and file. Besides actually working the bonuses are mutually beneficial. All of which doesn't appear to matter to Rangel.

Why? Because like John Kerry, Representative-for-life Rangel's view of the military was formed during Vietnam. And it seems stuck there. They and the many that think like them act as though the military is a huge heartless machine, good for nothing but gobbling up young lives, and whose every attempt to grow must be thwarted. In their eyes the military's rightful place is at home where it is safely forbidden by the Constitution from doing anything.

Many of us don't see it that way. There are indeed huge heartless machines in the world, the real world, the world where virtually every strongman who comes to power at some point adopts an anti-corporate anti-American stand. Every day such tinpots squelch liberty, democracy, and the rule of law. Which is why we need a strong military. But every day our media mostly ignores all that and focuses instead on the most nitpickety inane non-stories it can find, especially if they feed the storyline of America as villain.

The mainstream media is divided between scaring their addicts witless about bird flu, the environment, meteors, albino Gypsy-Irish terrorists, and spinning great gobs of slick sweet nothings. All of which we are urged to believe is something the government must urgently do something about. While on the other hand the fight against militant Islam, or "Iraq" as they like to pigeonhole it, should never have been started (as if we started it) and should simply be declared stopped (as if that will stop it). This is the conventional wisdom now.

Most of us see the world beyond our small travels only through this distorted and schizophrenic media lens. In the US we're presented a constant drip of frightful stories about the misdeeds of our military, but until recently we heard next to nothing about what Islam and its Jihad are really about. Many people haven't watched what little has been shown. Hands up how many tuned in for The Path to 9/11?

What would public opinion be, on any topic, if the public actually knew what the jihadis want and just how large the "tiny minority" of extremists was before Iraq, Afghanistan, 9/11, Bush, their oil riches or colonialization? Well what the public understands is one thing. What is almost criminal is that to this day Charlie Rangel and many other politicians are still ignorant of the threat.

During Vietnam those who didn't want to fight went to Canada and didn't fight. The argument then was without the draft the military would wither away because nobody would be stupid enough to volunteer. Thus war would be ended and the flower power orgies could begin. Today we still have war. Of course. But nobody has to run to Canada. They just don't join. Those who do volunteer for military service, especially after 9/11, know full well they are putting their asses on the line for the rest of us. Including, they well know, those against war.

One last point. We don't draft garbage, fire, or policemen just because the job is dangerous or attracts the wrong proportions of people. We expect garbage to be picked up, fires fought, and criminals apprehended without having to join the neighborhood brigade. Different people are either happier or more productive doing different things. If the goal is fairness then nothing is more fair than leaving people free to choose, with special glory and appreciation reserved for those who choose to promote and defend the freedom from which the possibility of fairness, among other things, springs.

UPDATE 28 Nov: Rangel Adopts the Logic of Kerry's ‘Joke'.

Fourth time's the charm for the media cheerleaders. Their side is finally back in power. It doesn't matter to them that the senior leadership - Pelosi, Reid, Schumer, Rangel, Murtha, Conyers, Kennedy, Kerry - all reek of scandal strongly enough to have driven any Republican from office. These guys stir up macaca-like goofs once a year just for giggles.

The Alice in Washington wackiness has already begun. Kids in a candy store. Drunk with power. Will they practice what they preach? Listen to what the generals say? End earmarks and the culture of corruption? Protect us from the jihadis and the Norks? Riiiiight. In this Age of Treason we can only count on the Democrats for ever higher levels of partisanship and ever lower standards of conduct. If they follow their principles we can expect things like this:

• Tax rates will go up, revenues will go down.
• Judicial nominees right of Ruth Ginsburg will be rejected.
• The Nuclear Option will be renamed the Getting The People's Work Accomplished Option. It will be used repeatedly.
• The war in Iraq will be defunded. The work and sacrifices of many people will be discarded. But for good reason. Because any part of the Bush Doctrine succeeding would just be too painful for those who truly detest Bush.

A signal has been sent. The reaction of our adversaries was predictable. They are happy. Emboldened by the feebleness of a divided America. To win they see now they don't have to kill US soldiers, they just have to kill each other. The media guilt-trip eventually does the rest. For 30 years this has been the template. It doesn't always work, but that doesn't stop them from trying. In Iraq today as with Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia before the media has convinced nearly everyone the cause is lost. The majority is now officially "unhappy with how things are going in Iraq". They've done a splendid job glossing over the differences between the polar opposite mindsets they've choosen to lump together: Peaceniks who never would have invaded Iraq and hawks who want to redeploy to Iran and NK. Good luck pleasing that "majority".

Alot of people hate Donald Rumsfeld. I don't understand why.

He knows we're at war and acts accordingly. He's frank, arrogant, bossy, mean. He's not a politician. He was one of the early few who realized we faced a new kind of threat. He championed a transformation of the military out of its Cold War sumo posture into a lighter, faster, smarter force more suited for global anti-terrorist whack-a-mole. Swift takedowns of the Taliban and Saddam followed. And since then the US military has done an outstanding job policing and rebuilding, helping locals who have known nothing but war and oppression for decades.

Of course the fighting and dying continues. Why? There are many reasons but the jihadis and their bigoted totalitarian ideology surely eclipse the other factors. If you're going to blame Rumsfeld and not acknowledge the history of Iraq, the goals or actions of the jihadis, or others who are just as much or more to blame, then you'll get an argument from me.

Rumsfeld asserted strong civilian control over the military, challenging entrenched interests of both the military and the defense industry. It surely made him lots of enemies. In spite of his abrupt departure it's hard to imagine him ever betraying his president or his country like so many others have.

What motivates a man in his twilight years to endure the kind of stress it takes to serve at such a level? Imagine your job 24/7 is to outthink the Islamofacists, the Norks, the Chicoms, and a zillion lesser threats, given crappy intel, constantly hounded by a host of pacifists and backseat quarterbacks who harp on costs then decry shortages, and who think we should listen to retired Generals but not the current leadership. Most of us would be curled in a fetal position sucking our thumb within a week.

So for what is Rummy to blame? Every stupid thing subordinates many levels down and thousands of miles do? The failure of Iraqi politicians to rise above petty rivalries and appreciate the values of liberty and democracy more quickly? Implacable religious zealotry?

If any part of the US government has blown it over the last few decades it's intel. From the failure to forsee the Soviet collapse, to Jamie Gorelick's infamous wall, to George Tenet's WMD "slam dunk", to the habitual leaks aimed at undermining their boss. They're probably doing something right, they just can't tell us about it.

Then there's State. Vietnam taught Powell his Doctrine, the key to which is overwhelming force. This surely was a sore point between him and Rumsfeld, whose preference tends toward light and surgical, but Powell's job was State not Defense. It was Powell's job to convince Turkey to let the 4th Infantry enter Iraq from the north. He blew it. As swift and decisive as the invasion was it could have been swifter and more decisive. It was Powell's job to convince Iran and Syria and the Saudis to police their borders.

Powell's celebrated Pottery Barn wisdom - you break it you buy it - overlooks the fact that Iraq and the most of the Middle East has been broken for a very long time. The US and its allies have sent far too much money there for far too long. Mostly to the wrong people.

If Rumsfeld is accountable for the ongoing insurgency in Iraq then those who continue to hold out the juicy carrot of US capitulation redeployment are even more to blame. The jihadis know they can't beat Rumsfeld and his military, but they also know they have powerful allies inside the US who can win the war for them given enough time and a steady stream of violence.

Dynamic as he was Rumsfeld just couldn't transform a well-oiled death-dealing infrastructure-busting machine into a police-training school-building democracy-lifesupport system fast enough. How can any readymix democracy be expected to withstand such an influx of men and money from across the Islamic world intended not to help but to disrupt? Is this Rumsfeld's fault? Please. If George Tenet rates a Medal of Freedom, Rummy rates five.

It's pretty clear by now that the Blue Wave was nothing but the leftist media's code name for this year's effort to boost Democrats. The pattern has become so predictable it's painful watching it unfold yet again.

It starts months before with the slow drumbeat of stories portending an inexorable D victory. The pre-election polls show Ds way ahead. The early election day exit polls show Ds way ahead. The networks call it for the Ds, pretty much everywhere, on average of one hour before the polls close. By evening it has, surprise, become too close to call. The next morning they briefly mention an R landslide and move quickly to video of a bombing in Iraq.

Then come the sour grapes. The Leftard blogs light up with conspiracy theories about the exit polls, Diebold, and any Republicans - especially relatives of powerful Rs - who might work in election-related media or government. For two years we'll hear how the election in <insert random flyover state> was stolen, the pissing and moaning getting more bitter and pathetic right up until the next election, when it's deja vu all over again.

Until John Kerry put his foot in his mouth the Ds were telling anyone who would listen that this election should be all about Iraq. Then Kerry's "botched joke" reminded everyone how they see the military. Oooops.

Kerry will forthwith be knifed in the back, thrown under the bus, and quickly forgotten by the media. Watch now for them to turn attention back in desperation to something the Ds were really scoring points on. Mark Foley.

UPDATE, 2 Nov: Seymour Hersh sums up the leftist opinion of the military and the deeply cynical mindset that produces such beliefs:

If Americans knew the full extent of U.S. criminal conduct, they would receive returning Iraqi veterans as they did Vietnam veterans, Hersh said. "In Vietnam, our soldiers came back and they were reviled as baby killers, in shame and humiliation," he said. "It isn't happening now, but I will tell you - there has never been an [American] army as violent and murderous as our army has been in Iraq."

Hersh came out hard against President Bush for his involvement in the Middle East.

"In Washington, you can't expect any rationality. I don't know if he's in Iraq because God told him to, because his father didn't do it, or because it's the next step in his 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous program," he said. Hersh hinted that the responsibility for the invasion of Iraq lies with eight or nine members of the administration who have a "neo-conservative agenda" and dictate the U.S.'s post-September 11 foreign policy. "You have a collapsed Congress, you have a collapsed press. The military is going to do what the President wants," Hersh said. "How fragile is democracy in America, if a president can come in with an agenda controlled by a few cultists?"

Hersh is apparently fishing for another Pulitzer prize. In front of a foreign audience of course.

If you know nothing of the ongoing Jihad or think it overblown then I can only suggest you make the effort to read a bit more about it. Please.

The Islamic fundamentals of Sharia and Jihad (Islamic law and its universal imposition) are not compatible with the one fundamental of civilization, which is of course Liberty. The 1400 year history of jihad, painfully reinforced by what is unfolding in Europe right now, make it plain enough that the essence of Islam is intolerance. The symptoms are most notable when Muslims near or surpass plurality.

People need to stop looking the other way. Reject the suicidal premises of multicultural political correctness rather than using them to stifle criticism of the principles of Islamic ideology. There are good reasons to believe Islam threatens civilization. Questions must be asked. Lines must be drawn.

In defense of liberty
By Andrew C. McCarthy/Herbert London
October 20, 2006

We believe that being in denial about Islamic militancy profoundly compromises U.S. national security. Our system's toleration of religious belief does not immunize religions from criticisms of the tenets or practices of those belief systems. This is particularly true when the criticized practices, though rhetorically labeled "religion," are actually elements of an imperialistic social system antithetical to equality, liberty, separation of church and state, and other core Western values.

Activist efforts to limit America's free marketplace of ideas -- such as the tactic of slandering commonsense criticism as "Islamophobia" -- are contrary to the very foundation of democratic governance. The West cannot cure Islam's propensity to spawn radicalism; this is a matter only Muslims can address. But we must do whatever is necessary to protect our liberty and security.

Since the United States is in the midst of a long war for the survival of our way of life, the following steps should immediately be taken:

• Congress should enact legislation stating forthrightly that our enemy in the ongoing war is radical Islam.

• Immigration from and aid to Muslim countries should be drastically reduced. Upward adjustments should be contingent on measurable reforms that promote liberty while reducing the role of religion in politics. (Provision should be made for asylum for reformers.)

• Any Muslim foreign national who will not concede under oath that American law must be followed in the U.S. when it conflicts with Islamic law should be subject to exclusion or deportation.

• It should be made clear that a person's status as a Muslim (particularly if he is also a male under age 45 who is a citizen of a country with a substantial Islamic population) is palpably relevant to investigations of terrorist threats. To do otherwise wastes finite investigative resources and challenges the Fourth Amendment's reasonableness requirement by treating all Americans as if they were potential Islamic radicals.

• Mosques in the U.S. have been used by Islamic radicals to spread their ideology, as hubs for terror recruitment and paramilitary training, and even for storage and transfer of weapons. While the war ensues, it should be made clear that the FBI and other authorities do not require a criminal predicate to collect intelligence or conduct investigations. Mosques in which violence or unlawful activity is encouraged should be subject to forfeiture and loss of tax-exempt status.

• Rigorous examination should be required for certification of Islamic chaplains in the military and the federal and state prison systems.

• Congress should create a National Security Court with jurisdiction over terrorism and other national security matters. Alleged alien-terrorists should be designated unlawful enemy combatants (apprehended either inside or outside the U.S.) and be accorded the minimal rights required by American due process standards. Removing their cases from the civilian and military courts will increase the quality of justice in those systems.

• With radical Islamic sentiment gaining traction in oil-rich nations, it is imperative that U.S. energy independence become a national priority. Congressional action must be taken to remove the onerous legal and regulatory barriers to the construction and expansion of refineries, production of oil and gas from offshore wells, construction of gas pipelines and other energy transportation infrastructure, and the building of power plants, including alternative generation sources such as solar stations, wind farms, tar sands, nuclear power plants, etc.

• Treaty obligations, alliances with other countries and membership in international organizations need to be consistent with national goals. Where they have become obsolete or harmful, they must be reshaped or eliminated.

The 20th century was filled with massive assaults on liberty by totalitarian aggressors who questioned the resolve of the defenders of liberty. This flawed assumption of weakness led to vast and unprecedented death and destruction. We make this statement in an attempt to diminish the chances of another such bloody miscalculation, and we pray that the rich benefits of the American model of government will gain a new appreciation around the world.

That would be a damn good start.

The Liberals' War
Why is the left afraid to face up to the threat of radical Islam?
BY BRET STEPHENS
The Wall Street Journal Sunday, September 17, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT

Here's a puzzle: Why is it so frequently the case that the people who have the most at stake in the battle against Islamic extremism and the most to lose when Islamism gains--namely, liberals--are typically the most reluctant to fight it?

It is often said, particularly in the "progressive" precincts of the democratic left, that by aiming at the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and perhaps the Capitol, Mohamed Atta and his cohorts were registering a broader Muslim objection to what those buildings supposedly represented: capitalism and globalization, U.S. military power, support for Israel, oppression of the Palestinians and so on.

But maybe Ms. Newman intuited that Atta's real targets weren't the symbols of American mightiness, but of what that mightiness protected: people like her, bohemian, sexually unorthodox, a minority within a minority. Maybe she understood that those F-16s overhead--likely manned by pilots who went to church on Sunday and voted the straight GOP ticket--were being flown above all for her defense, at the outer cultural perimeter of everything that America's political order permits.

Hmmm, yes I see. And what does Ayaan Hirsi Ali say?

"Many Europeans feel that a confrontation with Islamism will give the Islamists more opportunities to recruit--that confronting evil is counterproductive," says Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born, former Dutch parliamentarian whose outspoken opposition to Islamism (and to Islam itself) forced her repeatedly into hiding and now into exile in the United States. "They think that by appeasing them--allowing them their own ghettoes, their own Muslim schools--they will win their friendship."

A second factor, she says, is the superficial confluence between the bugaboos of the Chomskyite left and modern-day Islamism. "Many social democrats have this stereotype that the corporate world, the U.S. and Israel are the real evil. And [since] Islamists are also against Israel and America, [social democrats] sense an alliance with them."

But the really "lethal mistake," she says, "is the confusion of Islam, which is a body of ideas, with ethnicity." Liberals especially are reluctant to criticize the content of Islam because they fear that it is tantamount to criticizing Muslims as a group, and is therefore almost a species of racism. Yet Muslims, she says, "are responsible for their ideas. If it is written in the Koran that you must kill apostates, kill the unbelievers, kill gays, then it is legitimate and urgent to say, 'If that is what your God tells you, you have to modify it.' "

There's nothing wrong with criticizing an ideology. Like Islam. Or Leftism. If you believe your ideology, then defend it. Responding to criticism with censorship or violence is a sign of either sadism or insecurity, perhaps both.

This poor lady lives in fear for her life because she criticized an ideology. How many bedwetting Bush Police State hallucinators can say that?