Inhuman error: to endlessly excuse and remain willingly blind to human evil.

The German baby-formula manufacturer Humana is now admitting that "human errors" led to the vitamin B1 deficiency in its product that killed two Israeli babies and caused neurological damage to many more.

What is a "human error"? According to Humana, a recipe change necessitated bringing down the B1 level in their baby formula, but they accidentally reduced far too much. The new product was then shipped before the full quality-control tests had been completed.

The first error, misestimating the effect of a change in the formula, fits the commonsense idea of a human error: a mistake that normal, even competent, people can be expected to make. The second error - not waiting for the checks that are supposed to protect babies against such human errors - would seem to cross the line between human error and negligence, including the criminal variety.

The distinction between understandable error and punishable negligence is not always a sharp one, though it marks the line between guilt and innocence. A similarly momentous but fine line exists between ideas that are debatable and others that are discredited.

According to a New York Times article this week claiming a general decline in the status of the sciences, two-thirds of Americans believe that alternatives to the theory of evolution should be taught in schools. Scientists retort, as National Academy of Sciences vice president James Langer put it, "I wouldn't want my doctor thinking that intelligent design [the rallying rubric of the anti-Darwinists] was an equally plausible hypothesis to evolution any more than I would want my pilot believing in a flat Earth." Langer cleverly conflates a disproven fact with those who question what even proponents categorize as a theory.

The debate over evolution is fierce because it is the most prominent scientific claim of victory over religion. In physics and cosmology, for example, this is not the case: scientists do not usually claim that they can or will be able to prove that the universe was not created. Evolutionists do claim that they have rendered the need of a creator to explain life in all its forms as retrograde as the positing of a flat Earth.

Ironically, it is the scientists who have in this case slipped over into an unquestioning certainty that is most reminiscent of religious dogma. I agree with Langer that "creationism" should not be taught alongside evolution, but neither should evolutionary theory be taught as a finished book, with no major chapters yet to be written. Perhaps there will be one but, as an amateur student of the subject, I have seen no widely accepted explanation for the Cambrian Explosion. Why was life all but limited to bacteria, plankton, and algae for 3.5 billion years, and then 550 million years ago, almost all the basic life forms seen since emerged in what, in evolutionary terms, was a flash of history?

Whether between human error and negligence, or between scientific fact and dogma, the challenge is to define the realm of the reasonable. Every so often, the limits of this realm must be adjusted.

A discovery can do this, such as when we learned the world was not flat. So can an event; World War II was supposed to have made appeasement a dirty word, along with racism and anti-Semitism.

What about 9/11? Has it caused a similar paradigm shift in which what was reasonable is no longer, and what was unthinkable has become reasonable? On CNN this week anti-war MP George Galloway, a supporter of the massive protests planned against President George W. Bush's upcoming trip to London, said that Bush is the most unpopular visitor since William the Conqueror.

Let us be generous and say that Galloway and the 100,000 or so people who are expected to show up are the radical fringe. And we have to remember that during the Cold War there were similar protests urging America to disarm in the face of the Soviet Union. But does there not come a point in the political sphere when an idea becomes so disproven that it moves into flat-earth territory?

The collapse of the Soviet Union should have discredited the core Left idea, namely, that conflict with an aggressive tyranny is based on misunderstanding and can be dealt with through dialogue, concessions and accommodation. It is now obvious that the Soviet Union had to collapse for the Cold War to end.

Now a new threat has arisen that does not even have the idealistic veneer that blinded the Left to the evils of communism. What attraction can Islamo-fascism have for the Left? Is there any opponent monstrous enough to inspire left-wing support for the West's right of self-defense?

There should be no less certainty and consensus now that Islamo-fascism must be fought than there was during the fight against Hitler. In this day and age, the political equivalent of the members of the Flat Earth Society are those who, deep down, cannot accept the idea that there are evil people in the world, except perhaps those who do think that evil exists and try to act accordingly.

The ultimate human error is to endlessly excuse and remain willingly blind to human evil.

I'll attempt to answer this question without writing a book. "Appeasment" is the watchword of the Left. It is born from a hatred of America and Western culture that blinds the Left to the evils in anything. It is the fuzzy logic that erases the word "evil" unless it is applied to all things conservative (ie individual freedom/responsibility, individual rights vs the state, morality and right vs wrong, limited gov't, equal rights for all, as opposed to special rights for some: ie hate crimes).

The Left is not blinded to evil. Most know, deep down, that when Bin Laden says "kill all non-muslims" he means the Leftists too. The Left IS blinded though. They are blinded by hatred. Hatred for America, hatred for conservatives, hatred for President Bush (who probably did get the popular vote, but the military vote was thrown out by leftists in the election while many dead people voted for Gore..... what idiot dis-enfranchises their military??? Answer: the leftists), hatred for Christianity, and hatred for all things "Western". This hatred exceeds their sense of duty to protect the country, our allies, and confront the true evil of Islamofascism in the world

What could they like in Islamofascism? Well, first, it's not Christianity, so in thier minds that's a big plus. Second, its fascism, which is simply socialism by another name. Since they are mainly of the socialist vein, there is the underlying appeal of a fascist gov't for the left. Think I'm wrong, describe Hitler's gov't leaving out the actual killing of Jews, Christians and "undesirables" (you can still say the gov't would "re-educate" them in camps. Many leftists I went to college with supported this ideal of leftist "tolerance") and you will find a gov't the leftists like.

Finally, and I know this is long, we come to the right of self-defense. When have you known a leftist to stand for this, not counting DiFi's, Rosi O'Donald's, and several other prominant Leftist's CCWs for themselves and their bodyguards? If the Left acknowledges the right of self defense for a country, they slide down the slope of having to acknowledge the right of the INDIVIDUAL to self defense and undue years of their anti-gun/anti-freedom lies and attacks.

And that's my initial take.

I think you nailed it. I would add one more thing - the systematic indoctrination of children in American schools to feel GUILTY for the American heritage, as though every battle we've faught for freedom and liberty was worthless, that we have less right to live than anyone else, and that American lives are simply forfeit to to anyone else who claims them (such claims are usually unashamedly racist based on skin color).

There's a interesting webblog that addresses this idiocy head-on, by a Conservative Native American named Dr. Yeagley (he also occasionally writes articles for Frontpage.com). He says he'd rather be thought of as descended from a tribe of fierce warriors who lost a battle, than as a victim. The Indians were not pacificts, and they made no apologies for their culture.

Liberals are taught to worship a hierarchy of victim status from a young age - the higher up on the victim totem, the less rights the other victims on the totem have, until you get to the bottom, where if someone dares not comport themself as a victim, they must be destroyed. This sick defeatist culture must be transcended if our nation is going to survive.

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