Posted on 06/06/2006 6:45:50 AM PDT by bigsky
In an exclusive interview with HUMAN EVENTS, Ann Coulter explains what motivated her to write her just-released book Godless: The Church of Liberalism (Crown Forum, 2006), how faith played a role, what “virtues” the Church of Liberalism promotes and much more.
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What led you to write Godless: The Church of Liberalism?
It’s the third of a trilogy. Slander was about liberals’ methods, Treason was about the political consequences of liberalism, and Godless is about the underlying mental disease that creates liberalism.
How did your own faith contribute to your book’s premise?
Although my Christianity is somewhat more explicit in this book, Christianity fuels everything I write. Being a Christian means that I am called upon to do battle against lies, injustice, cruelty, hypocrisy—you know, all the virtues in the church of liberalism. As St. Paul said, if Christ is not risen from the dead, then eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
How do you think Godless will be received by conservatives? How about liberals?
Hmmmm, well, I think conservatives will say, “Oh I see. They’re Godless. Now I understand liberals.” Liberals will say, “Who-less”?
In Godless, you mention that a far greater number of children are sexually abused each year by educators than by priests. You also write about the sex-education programs in public schools. What suggestions do you have for parents on dealing with these issues?
As an emergency measure: home school. As a long term solution: encourage your home-schooled children to become public school teachers and destroy the temple of liberalism.
A large portion of the book addresses the left’s contempt for science. Why do you think the left is uneasy with the scientific facts you discuss regarding AIDS, gender differences, IQ and embryonic and adult stem-cell research?
Because science is not susceptible to their crying and hysterics.
Why do you think the left uses mouthpieces like Cindy Sheehan and Max Cleland to advance their message?
So they can engage in crying and hysterics and hope this will prevent us from responding.
George Clooney said that it was difficult making his movie Good Night and Good Luck because so many people had read your book, Treason, which exposed the truth about Soviet agents in the U.S. government and exonerated Sen. Joseph McCarthy. What impact do you hope Godless will have on the political scene and people’s misconceptions about evolution?
I would like evolution to join the roster of other discredited religions, like the Cargo Cult of the South Pacific. Practitioners of Cargo Cult believed that manufactured products were created by ancestral spirits, and if they imitated what they had seen the white man do, they could cause airplanes to appear out of the sky, bringing valuable cargo like radios and TVs. So they constructed “airport towers” out of bamboo and “headphones” out of coconuts and waited for the airplanes to come with the cargo. It may sound silly, but in defense of the Cargo Cult, they did not wait as long for evidence supporting their theory as the Darwinists have waited for evidence supporting theirs.
You frequently write about liberals’ using the courts to advance their agenda. Should conservatives start doing the same by electing and embracing conservative activist judges?
Only long enough to get liberals to admit that judicial activism isn’t so much fun when the rabbit has the gun.
As a popular speaker on college campuses, you’ve become very familiar with the “apple-polishers” and their liberal professors. What can conservative students do to combat liberalism on their campuses?
I recommend bringing a tape-recorder to class, taking lots of notes and then writing a bestselling book like my friend Ben Shapiro’s Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America’s Youth. If every right-wing student reading this wrote a book about his college experience, they would all be bestsellers because normal Americans will not believe what is happening on college campuses across America.
What do you enjoy most about your life as a best-selling author and columnist? What do you enjoy the least?
Enjoy most: the prospect of having an impact on the public debate. Irritating liberals is a close second. Enjoy least: the travel.
In your column following the terrorist attacks on September 11, you revealed that when you wrote your columns, you pictured Ted and Barbara Olson reading them at their breakfast table. How does having such a specific audience help you while writing?
When I was writing High Crimes and Misdemeanors, the magnificent writer Joe Sobran gave me the greatest advice a writer could ever get. I called him in desperation, because I was pulling my hair out trying to write the Whitewater chapter. I explained to him that the reason Whitewater was so hard to write about was that the financial transactions comprising Whitewater were incredibly complicated—and they were complicated for a reason: to hide what was really going on. After I whined for about five minutes about how impossible this made it to explain the scandal, Joe told me to write down exactly what I had just said to him—in fact, to write the entire chapter like I was writing an e-mail to him. I did, and the Economist (written by the only economists on earth who liked Hillary’s health care plan) described it as one of the clearest explanations of the Whitewater scandal out there.
So now I write everything like I’m e-mailing one of my friends—often a friend I’ve been arguing with about whatever I am writing. I think the writing is better, and it’s a lot more fun.
Also, I noticed that when I e-mailed my friends asking them to explain some point of law to me so I could put it in my book, I’d get a lot of convoluted jargon that read like an 18th-Century legal brief. But when I sent them an e-mail casually asking, “Hey, what do you think of William Ginsberg [Monica Lewinsky’s attorney]?” I would get back some of the most beautiful prose ever written. So I recommend to all writers that they write like they’re sending an e-mail to a friend—or enemy, for some really punchy writing.
What books do you look forward to reading this summer?
I think I’ll just keep reading Godless over and over again. I love it so!
Everything is so much clearer now!
"THATS the beauty of it.. schere beauty.. almost prose.."
Schere beauty all right. By the way, what are you drinking? I'm looking forward to getting some.
I'll have to cut it a little, but I can deal with that.
LMAO.
(BTW: I think it may be smoked, but I don't know.)
"These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzies. I have never seen people enjoying their husbands' death so much."
I kinda find that disturbing.
I don't have the book so I don't know.
I don't find that quote disturbing, however.
She makes it seem like the widows ("broads") enjoyed the death of their husbands. Even for satire that's a stretch. Coulter revels in the disturbingly acerbic, and that garners attention, but she treads a fine line between satire and opprobrium.
OK, let's review here. Liberals filter thought pervasively in public schools, MSM, and even universities BUT NOT our beloved and hallowed halls of science!!! Does not compute...
Sorry, but they've had over a hundred years to 'play' with the theory of evolution as well as the related 'scientific' publications. The same 'scientific' publications which ignore anything that sounds 'creationist' out of hand. Quite frankly, ToE rests on less science and more religion than the creation theory.
Please try reading some of the anti-evo literature out there. I suggest you start with http://www.creationscience.com/ followed by several books referenced in/by same (i.e. 'Darwin's Black Box', 'Bones of Contention', 'Icons of Evolution', 'Creation Science, etc.). Never have I reviewed more 'science' that is full of lies than the ToE.
I understand.
But, she is making an observation that many have, but were afraid to voice.
The fact that the women to whom she is (supposedly) referring would wave their husbands' corpses for cynical partison political gain and spurious celebrity is far more disturbing than a few words on paper.
"and even universities BUT NOT our beloved and hallowed halls of science!!! Does not compute..."
Never remotely said anything like that.
I'm a petroleum engineer and a geologist AND a fundamentalist Christian --- a convert from Judaism, in fact. Degrees from MIT and A&M. Made and make a very comfortable living (especially nowadays) locating and drilling in ancient fossilized reefs under the desert floor of West Texas and New Mexico (and Saudi and Quatar and various gulfs) that YEC theory say couldn't exist, unless God did it to fool the unwary.
I will not argue evolution here, as it is pointless, but, to say, yes, thousands of transitionary fossils have been located and there is ample DNA evidence (tracking various mutations) that proves out evolutionary theory. Freepmail Patrick Henry and he can point you to the same.
Further, having read both creation versions, in Hebrew, repeatedly, I see no conflict with God creating man via evolution. Indeed, I see the typical YEC reading of the Bible to be well, innaccurate, and non-fundamentalist in the true sense of the Word.
They, like the pharasees of Christ's day before them, have preconceived idea of what they want the scriptures to mean, and interpret them accordingly.
Bit like saying God is a bird, as He is described as such in Psalms.
Reasonable (and unreasonable, such as those that prevail on the issue here in FR) minds differ.
And, no, having seen the futility of discussion on the issue here, I will not respond further on the issue.
The libs are going apesh$t over this book. Read some of the reviews by some of the liberal crackpots who haven't even read the book and don't intend to. One leftie even says, that if we want to know how the world really works then we should read "Chomsky". What a sad pathetic joke the left has become.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/1400054206/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/102-5760945-2463315?%5Fencoding=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155
No need for you to respond. But I am not aware of any YEC theories saying fossilized reefs could not exist.
Also, I have not seen any conclusive evidence for macro-evolution (transitionary fossils). The website I referenced for you (authored by a fellow MIT grad no less www.creationscience.com) discusses both lack of transitionary fossils and DNA evidence supporting creation. And includes numerous references to other evolution and creation literature too.
"Also, I have not seen any conclusive evidence for macro-evolution (transitionary fossils)."
http://www.freerepublic.com/~patrickhenry/#herd
Not everyone thinks so...check out the coulter link on Drudge...he links to a looney lefty website.
Yes- I've read the referenced posting before and re-read it again now. While there may indeed not be a mutation barrier, I do believe there is a species barrier - actually countless barriers from the microbiology area as well as just plain sexual reproductions problems.
Now I know that this leaves plenty of room for argument and I agree, but nothing in PatrickHenry's writing shows conclusive evidence for his claim that lots of micro-evolution = macro-evolution. Lots of micro-evolution should leave lots of transitory fossils imho.
"Lots of micro-evolution should leave lots of transitory fossils imho"
Follow the links in this section of PH's page (scroll above where I linked):
TONS OF EVIDENCE OF EVOLUTION
29+ Evidences for Macroevolution. Yes, macro-evolution.
Ichneumon's legendary post 52. More evidence than you can handle.
Post 661: Ichneumon's stunning post on transitionals.
Plagiarized Errors and Molecular Genetics. Anatomic similarities are confirmed by DNA similarities and copying errors.
Evidence of Evolutionary Transitions. There really is evidence out there.
Macroevolution: Evidence. Great info & links from the U. of Illinois website.
Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ. Yes, transitional fossils exist.
8,000+ papers on vertabrate evolution. National Academy of Sciences.
One gene produces major changes in stickleback fish. Stunning example of evolution.
Fossil whale with legs. Land animal to whale transitional fossil.
NEW Newly found species fills evolutionary gap between fish and land animals. Another transitional fossil.
[Dead link?] Feathered Dinosaurs.
Archaeopteryx. Reptile-to- bird transitional fossil.
Archaeopteryx: FAQS . A true transitional fossil
All About Archaeopteryx.
Evidence for Evolution . Compilation of links.
Human Ancestors.
The Evidence for Human Evolution. For those who claim there isn't any evidence.
Comparison of all Hominid skulls.
Early Human Phylogeny. Relationships among early human species.
NEW Man-chimp evolution. Ichneumon's post 29.
As both a Jew and a Christian, you should follow the command against bearing false witness rather than dredge up strawmen that are a century out-of-date.
Not all YEC, obviously.
But there are plenty of YEC that say such reefs are evidence of Noah's flood. Indeed, you can go to PH's page, follow the link to the list-of-threads, and uncover FReepers who have espoused that very opinnion.
So, no, not a false witness. I wish.
Completely unrelated, but you congregation looks wonderful:
http://www.cbhm.org/
I think it's safe to assume that Liberals flourish anywhere that there is no true accountability, or where an historical predilection has led to their dominance in a particular field.
Thus the beloved and hallowed halls of science often constitute unfriendly or at least unfamiliar territory to them. You have to back up your theories with evidence.
I find it intriguing that this discussion is even taking place, for the basic premise here is a matter of provability.
It is demonstrable that selection of particular characteristcs produces change. Whether that selection is done by a horticulturist, a dog breeder, a farmer, or the cold and ruthless hand of Nature matters little to the end result -- desirable characteristics lead to successful breeding, and undesirable traits lead to extinction.
None of this is theoretical. It is careful, neutral, and repeatable observation.
Darwin's conjecture related to "The Origin of Species" not the origin of life. He deduced, logically enough, that sufficient change would constitute a change in species, especially over the course of innumerable generations. Observation and logic would appear to be unassailable, but here we are.
What constitutes a different species? The definition is clear, and it can easily be reached once sufficient change has been developed in the respective genomes.
What has any of this to do with Creation? Nothing. Nothing at all. Life was created, and then it changed. It changed when Man was ejected from the Garden, and it has changed many, many times before and after that event. And all of those changes served to diffract the existing species into further and further differentiation and specialization.
Creation, and evolution, are not in conflict, and never have been, except by those who appear to not understand the concept of the scale of time.
Time means nothing to God. A billion years could be devoted to a vagrant thought, or a furious productivity could ensue in the blink of an eye. Time is meaningless to God, for He is beyond it. What an awesome God!
But still there are those who wish to belittle Him, by saying that He has to conform to their limited concepts of a sufficiency of time.
Let us forego that discussion for a moment, and consider Space. Unending Space is even more vast than the limitless expanses of Time. The Big Bang is widely thought to have occurred thirteen billion years ago. But no one knows the limits of Space.
In all that limitless Space, then, do you think that God is not operative throughout the Universe?
Why then would you insist on constraining His sphere of influence to only a few thousand years?
Well said.
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