Brain Food (Amazingthing about Godless is the amount of intellectual meat Ann Coulter has packed...)

The American Prowler ^ | 6/30/2006 | Richard Kirk

[nickcarraway]

The most amazing thing about Godless is the amount of intellectual meat Ann Coulter has packed into its pages.

Godless: The Church of Liberalism
by Ann Coulter
(Crown Forum, 310 pages, $27.95)

What's most amazing about Ann Coulter's book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism, is the amount of intellectual meat she packs into 281 breezy, barb-filled pages. Among the topics the blonde bomb-thrower discusses in some depth are the following: liberal jurisprudence, privacy rights and abortion, Joe Wilson's modest career and inflated ego, and the solid record of failure in American public schools. The topics of Intelligent Design and Darwinism, to which the last eighty pages of text are devoted, are analyzed in even greater detail.

As one would expect from an author with a legal background, Supreme Court cases are high on Coulter's hit-list -- especially the idea of a "living Constitution." Citing various cases-in-point, Coulter shows that this popular doctrine is nothing more than a paralegal pretext for making the Constitution say whatever liberal judges want it to say. Though such a philosophy grants to the nation's founding document all the integrity of a bound and gagged assault victim, it at least has the virtue of mirroring liberals' self-referential view of morality.

Another dogma that Coulter skewers is the liberal commandment, "Thou Shalt Not Punish the Perp." This counterintuitive principle not only rejects the link between incarceration and lower crime rates, it also permits benevolent judges (like Clinton federal court nominee Frederica Massiah-Jackson) to shorten the sentence of child rapists so that other innocent children can pay the price for society's sins.

An unexpected bonus in this chapter is the author's extended sidebar on Upton Sinclair, the muckraking author of Boston who, as his own correspondence shows, knew Sacco and Vanzetti were guilty but chose, for ideological and financial reasons, to portray them as innocent victims. In a related chapter, "The Martyr: Willie Horton," Coulter provides detailed information about Horton's crimes, Michael Dukakis' furlough program, and the precise nature of the Horton ads aired in the 1988 presidential campaign

CONTINUING THE RELIGIOUS IMAGERY, Coulter asserts in chapter five that abortion is the "holiest sacrament" of the "church of liberalism." For women this sacrament secures their "right to have sex with men they don't want to have children with." A corollary of this less-than-exalted principle is the right to suck the brains out of partially born infants. How far liberal politicians will go to safeguard this sacrament whose name must not be spoken (euphemisms are "choice," "reproductive freedom," and "family planning") is shown by an amendment offered by Senator Chuck Schumer that would exclude anti-abortion protestors from bankruptcy protection. How low these same pols will go is illustrated by the character assassination of Judge Charles Pickering -- a man honored by the brother of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers but slimed by liberals at his confirmation hearing as racially insensitive. Coulter notes that the unspoken reason for this "Borking" of Pickering was the judge's prior criticism of Roe v. Wade.

The single chapter that Coulter's critics have honed in on is the one that exposes the liberal "Doctrine of Infallibility." This religiously resonant phrase applies to individuals who promote the Left's partisan agenda while immunizing themselves from criticism by touting their victim-status. In addition to the 9/11 "Jersey Girls," Coulter identifies Joe Wilson, Cindy Sheehan, Max Cleland, and John Murtha as persons who possess, at least by Maureen Dowd's lights, "absolute moral authority." Curiously, this exalted status isn't accorded victims who don't push liberal agendas. Perhaps the fact that Republican veterans outnumber their Democrat counterparts in Congress, 87 to 62, has something to do with this inconsistency.

Coulter's next chapter, "The Liberal Priesthood: Spare the Rod, Spoil the Teacher," focuses on the partisanship, compensation, and incompetence level of American teachers. A crucial statistic in these pages concerns the "correlation [that exists] between poor student achievement and time spent in U.S. public schools." In this regard, comments by Thomas Sowell and Al Shanker stand out. Sowell notes that college students with low SAT and ACT scores are more likely to major in education and that "teachers who have the lowest scores are the most likely to remain in the profession." From a different perspective, the late President of the American Federation of Teachers stated, with refreshing bluntness, "When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children." The words of John Dewey, a founder of America's public education system, also fit nicely into Coulter's state-of-the-classroom address: "You can't make Socialists out of individualists -- children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming, where everyone is interdependent." Coulter responds, "You also can't make socialists out of people who can read, which is probably why Democrats think the public schools have nearly achieved Aristotelian perfection."

The last third of Godless focuses on matters scientific. Chapter seven, "The Left's War on Science," serves as an appetizer for Coulter's evolutionary piece de resistance. Prior to that main course, Coulter provides a litany of examples that illustrate the left's contempt for scientific data that doesn't comport with its worldview. Exhibits include the mendacious marketing of AIDS as an equal opportunity disease, the hysterical use of anecdotal evidence to ban silicon breast implants, and the firestorm arising from Lawrence Summers's heretical speculation about male and female brain differences.

THE REMAINING CHAPTERS OF GODLESS all deal with Darwinism. Nowhere else can one find a tart-tongued compendium of information that not only presents a major argument for Intelligent Design but also exposes the blatant dishonesty of "Darwiniacs" who continue to employ evidence (such as the Miller-Urey experiment, Ernst Haeckel's embryo drawings, and the famous peppered moth experiment) that they know is outdated or fraudulent.

Within this bracing analysis, Coulter employs the observations of such biological and philosophical heavyweights as Stephen Gould, Richard Dawkins, Michael Behe, and Karl Popper. The price of the whole book is worth the information contained in these chapters about the statistical improbability of random evolution, the embarrassing absence of "transitional" fossils, and the inquisitorial attitude that prevails among many scientists (and most liberals) when discussing these matters. Unlike biologist Richard Lewontin, who candidly admits that a prior commitment to materialism informs his allegiance to evolution, most of his colleagues (and certainly most of the liberal scribblers Coulter sets on the road to extinction) won't concede that Darwinism is a corollary, rather than a premise, of their godlessness.

Coulter's final chapter serves as a thought-provoking addendum to her searing cross-examination of evolution's star witnesses. "The Aped Crusader" displays the devastating social consequences that have thus far attended Darwinism. From German and American eugenicists (including Planned Parenthood's Margaret Sanger), to Aryan racists, to the infanticidal musings of Princeton's Peter Singer, Darwinian evolution boasts a political and philosophical heritage that could only be envied by the likes of Charles Manson. Yet it is a history ignored by liberals for whom Darwin's theory provides what they want above all else -- a creation myth that sanctifies their sexual urges, sanctions abortion, and disposes of God.

Coulter's book is clearly not a systematic argument for the idea that liberalism is a godless religion. Indeed, prior to the material on evolution, the concept is treated more as a clever theme for chapter headings than as a serious intellectual proposition. In those final chapters, however, Coulter manages to present a cogent, sustained argument that actually begins to link modern liberalism (or more specifically, leftism) to an atheistic perspective. At the very least Coulter succeeds in raising an important issue -- namely, that American courts currently ignore the religious or quasi-religious character of a philosophy that pervades public institutions and is propagated with public funds. This fact, if honestly recognized, would render contemporary church-state jurisprudence untenable. A Court taking these arguments seriously would have to recognize that all philosophies, including "liberalism," swim in the same intellectual current as religion.

THUS FAR, THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA have focused almost all their attention on Coulter's take-no-prisoners rhetorical style -- and particularly on the "heartless" remarks about those 9/11 widows who seem to be "enjoying their husbands' deaths so much." Clearly, diplomatic language is not Coulter's forte, as one would also gather from this representative zinger: "I don't particularly care if liberals believe in God. In fact, I would be crestfallen to discover any liberals in heaven."

What undercuts the liberals' case against Coulter on this score, however, is their own (not always tacit) endorsement of vile epithets that are regularly directed against President Bush and his supporters by the likes of Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, and a gaggle of celebrity politicos. Coulter employs the same linguistic standard against liberals (with a touch of humor) that they regularly use (with somber faces and dogmatic conviction) when they accuse conservatives of being racist homophobes who gladly send youngsters to war under false pretences to line the pockets of Halliburton executives. Hate-speech of this stripe is old-hat for leftists.

Until Air America, Helen Thomas, and most Democrat constituencies alter their rhetoric, I see no reason for conservatives to denounce Coulter for using, more truthfully, the same harsh language that leftists have employed, with no regard for accuracy, since the time of Lenin. When liberals denounce communist tyrants as fervently as they do real Nazis, then it will be time for Coulter to cool the rhetoric. Until that time her "verbal reprisals" serve a useful function within an intellectual marketplace that resembles a commodities pit more than a debating society.

Richard Kirk is a freelance writer who lives in Oceanside, California. He is a regular columnist for San Diego's North County Times. His book reviews have also appeared in the American Enterprise Magazine, First Things, and Touchstone.

[RobRoy]

You are being intentionally obtuse. Either that or you have rreally poor reading skills. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and go with the former.

[RobRoy]

>> Try again: what keeps a theist in line that is fundamentally unique to a theist.<<

Belief that he was created for a purpose.

>>Purpose, universal objective morality, etc are all beliefs that can exist without believing in a god.<<

True, but not being absolute, they really are only imagined. They are so flexible as to be, in truth, non-existant.

[RobRoy]

I disagree. In such a case, "moral" is only a word. It is a world of, literally, might makes right.

[churchillbuff]

Sir Fred Hoyle doubted the ability of Abiogenesis to create life on Earth and felt that Earth was seeded from space (Panspermia). ...His views lend nothing to the idea of ID or Creationism."""

Of course, that's not the point. His views support doubts about evolution on Earth. Ann didn't put forward any theory of creationism, she merely said there's good reason to doubt the theory of evolution as an explanation for life on earth. Fred Hoyle's views lend considerable support to the doubt that Ann expresses.

[RobRoy]

Buddhism is not a religion. It is a philosophy. Again, if we are accidental, Buddah is irrelivant.

[OmahaFields]

Belief that he was created for a purpose.

Somehow, Christianity missed that point.

[RobRoy]

>>Again, that's BS.<<

In all seriousness, Why? If a thing happened by pure chance than destroying it has no moral consequences.

[OmahaFields]

Of course, that's not the point. His views support doubts about evolution on Earth.

WRONG. His views support evolution on earth. Read his book.

[RobRoy]

>>Somehow, Christianity missed that point.<<

I think you meant that the other way around. Either that or you forgot your sarcasm tag. :)

[churchillbuff]

So, according to you, you and Ann support the idea that viruses came to earth from comet """

You've committed a logical fallacy by suggesting that Ann and I back Hoyle's alternative theory of human origins. Ann cited Hoyle merely to show that some weighty scientists believe there HAS to be an alternative cause, other than evolution - because they see the holes in the evolution theory. Ann didn't endorse the alternative that Hoyle suggested - - she just said that Hoyle's skepticism about evolution shows that evolution is not a proven scientific fact and has some big weaknesses. Wow, your dishonesty in saying that Ann buys Hoyle's alternative - or you weakness with logic -- makes it easier to understand your uncritical support for evolutionary theory; you're not a rigorous thinker.

[OmahaFields]

Buddhism is not a religion. It is a philosophy.

Perhaps that is why it is possibly superior to Christianity?

[jennyp]

"Lucy" and that ape look just alike, at least comapred to the blonde.

So, I'm waiting on you to tell me how we got from there to here.

"Paging Jenny, paging Ms JennyP. Please pickup the white courtesy phone..."

I believe we have a questionnaire candidate.

Sorry I'm a little late to the party! But just in case there's still a crowd milling about, it is a good time to bring back The Questionnaire:

Which of the following are "just an old ape" and which are "just an old human"? Try it, it's fun!

Fossil hominid skulls. Some of the figures have been modified for ease of comparison
(only left-right mirroring or removal of a jawbone). [CLICK HERE] for larger photo.
(Images © 2000 Smithsonian Institution.)

• (A) Pan troglodytes, chimpanzee, modern
  
• (B) Australopithecus africanus, STS 5, 2.6 My
  
• (C) Australopithecus africanus, STS 71, 2.5 My
  
• (D) Homo habilis, KNM-ER 1813, 1.9 My
  
• (E) Homo habilis, OH24, 1.8 My
  
• (F) Homo rudolfensis, KNM-ER 1470, 1.8 My
  
• (G) Homo erectus, Dmanisi cranium D2700, 1.75 My
  
• (H) Homo ergaster (early H. erectus), KNM-ER 3733, 1.75 My
  
• (I) Homo heidelbergensis, "Rhodesia man", 300,000 - 125,000 y
  
• (J) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Ferrassie 1, 70,000 y
  
• (K) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, La Chappelle-aux-Saints, 60,000 y
  
• (L) Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Le Moustier, 45,000 y
  
• (M) Homo sapiens sapiens, Cro-Magnon I, 30,000 y
  
• (N) Homo sapiens sapiens, modern

We know that A) is a modern chimpanzee and N) is a modern human. Everyone agrees that M) was a modern human as well. Your challenge is to fill in these blanks:

Fossil	Just an ape	Ape-like transitional	Human-like transitional	Just a human	Not related at all to apes or humans
B	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
C	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
D	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
E	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
F	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
G	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
H	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
I	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
J	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
K	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]
L	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]	[_]

The Responses So Far:

Person	A Pan troglodytes (modern chimp)	B, C Australopithecus africanus	D Homo habilis	E Homo habilis	F Homo rudolfensis	G Homo erectus	H Homo ergaster	I Homo heidelbergensis	J, K Homo sapiens neanderthalensis	L, M Homo sapiens sapiens (Cro-Magnon, modern human)
Mainstream scientists	ape	ape-like trans	ape-like, human-like trans	ape-like, human-like trans	ape-like, human-like trans	human-like trans	human-like trans	human-like trans	human-like trans, human	human
The responses...
Bowden, Malcolm	ape		human		human		human			human
Brown, Walt	ape	ape	ape	ape				human	human	human
editor-surveyor	ape	ape	ape	ape	ape	ape	ape	ape	human	human
Gish, Duane (1979)	ape		human		human		human			human
Gish, Duane (1985)	ape		ape		human		human			human
Luskin, Casey	ape	ape	ape	ape	ape	human	human	human	human	human
Mehlert, A. W.	ape		ape		human		human			human
Menton, David	ape		human		human		human			human
Michael_Michaelangelo	ape	ape	ape	ape	ape	ape	ape	ape	human	human
MississippiMan	ape							ape		human
Taylor, Paul	ape		human		human		human			human

[OmahaFields]

Ann cited Hoyle merely to show that some weighty scientists believe there HAS to be an alternative cause, other than evolution

But Hoyle wrote a book on how we 'evolved'. How can you cite someone that believes in evolution as a critic of evolution. That is not rational.

[RobRoy]

THAT's gonna leave a mark! ;)

As I have been on the crevo threads and read the posts by educated evolutionists, it suddenly hit me one day"

Of education, knowledge and wisdom, the least of these is education, and the greatest is wisdom.

I have found that many evos are big on education, have some knowledge, and have so little capacity for independent thought that they seemed to miss the wisdom boat alltogether.

[RobRoy]

I believe you have already been accused by someone else here of logical fallacy. You did it again.

You are attempting to connect the wrong dots.

[OmahaFields]

I think you meant that the other way around. Either that or you forgot your sarcasm tag. :)

I don't understand your post. Christianity is not about the purpose of life as previously stated, it is about sucking in sinners with a promise of salvation.

[RobRoy]

>>I don't understand your post. Christianity is not about the purpose of life as previously stated, it is about sucking in sinners with a promise of salvation.<<

No, that is not true. It is also not about giving money to televangelists. It is also not about the Crusades, or the KKK or any of the number of other things men have done in the name of Christ.

The Bible says what it is about.

[OmahaFields]

I believe you have already been accused by someone else here of logical fallacy.

I have also been accused by those types of being a homo-recruiting Nazi that will burn in hell! But the good one was where they said my Buddhist wife will be crispy toast for eternity. I hope you are not associating yourself with those types.

[OmahaFields]

You are being intentionally obtuse. Either that or you have rreally poor reading skills. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and go with the former.

[OmahaFields]

The Bible says what it is about.

Yes.

God (Old Testament): Man is evil and I will keep whacking you till you learn better.

Matthew: God, we are really having a hard time recruiting with all this whacking going on ...

God: You are right, we need a new message. What do you think about 'salvation'? That has a nice ring to it.