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

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.

I think you're letting your anger at Ann's attack on Darwinism cloud your judgment. Ann's point that liberals have drastically overstated the consequences of Chernobyl is most certainly true. That's essentially what the IAEA concluded last year. Ann did garble one fact from the IAEA report, there were 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer attributable to Chernobyl, not deaths. 99% of the cases were curable.

The fact that you're quoting Greenpeace ought to indicate taking a step back and looking at this fresh is warranted.

This is what we see in all the textbooks, you know, the textbooks that tell us we descended from apes.

This is an ape.

So, how was my "deep, deep misunderstanding of the theory of evolution" so far off?

Yeah, I know your answer. They decended from a common ancestor 3.5 million years ago.

"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.

I hadn't even gotten to her attack on "Darwinism" (as if that was some sort of actual movement) when I wrote the Chernobyl piece. She played fast and loose with the facts of the after affects of Chernobyl, including her takes on the numbers of resultant cancers and birth defects.

Finally, if you notice, I did not take Greenpeace's numbers with anything other than a grain of salt. I included them for completeness sake only. I also included links to resources at the bottom of the article so that others could check my results (something the inestimable Ms. Coulter failed to do).

Nope, that's what you see at the BBC and MSNBC websites. You are basically taking dramatists as your source?

Lucy looked like an australopithecus, not a gorilla. I'm not sure where you've gotten your comic-book view of human evolution, but it's obvious you've come to rely upon that rather than actually going out and doing a lick of research.

Finally, we got "from there to here" (notwithstanding your complete ignorance of where "there" is) by minor modifications to existing structures over generations.

I hadn't even gotten to her attack on "Darwinism" (as if that was some sort of actual movement)

Actually, it is - it traces back to Spencer. It's Social Darwinism and the deterministic philosophies that have sprung from it that most thoughtful conservatives are reacting to in attacking "Darwinism." I'm guessing that's what Ann's mostly reacting to also, but I'm gonna have to read the book and find out fer shure now!

Hate to say this, but your extreme reaction to Ann's book is reminiscent of someone whose religion has been attacked. C'mon, wouldn't you say a woman that smart and that good looking is . . . highly evolved? :-)

We're not discussing "Social Darwinism." We are discussing evolutionary biology. And, my reaction to Ms. Coulter's book is that of someone who does not want the conservative movement tarred with the anti-science brush. You cannot even cite my "extreme reaction" being because my "religion was attacked" because, first off, I believe in God, and secondly my one foray into critiquing her work has been on Chernobyl.

Nope. I just cannot stand to see so many people buying hackneyed, third-rate writing, invective and execreble research as if it were the next edition of the Bible.

Junior's World:

From Here....

This is courtesy of the Sand Diego Museum of Man, supported by the national Science Foundation

So I get from there, to here.....

Charlize Theron

and it only required "minor modifications". Thanks, Junior. That two word explanation convinced me.

Conservative bomb-thrower or not, Ann Coulter's grasp of science and technical topics is about as good as Rush Limbaugh's. Which is to say embarrassingly bad enough that it makes me want to change the channel. Their opinions are sufficiently poorly informed on those matters that they should not be prognosticating in public for the sake of their credibility.

That said, Ann Coulter says whatever she thinks will sell books to the hard right, whether it makes really sense or not. She drives the liberals crazy, but she is not above saying really stupid things if she thinks it will score points.

I hope Ann pointed out that it was Algore, who first brought up Willie Horton against Dukakis during the Democratic primaries.

She does, indeed. But she also takes it one step further. She points out that in the 2000 RAT primaries Bill Bradley also brought up the fact that Algore created the Willie Horton ad but for some strange reason the press was no longer interested in the racist component of the Willie Horton ad.

As a some wise guy once said, "If it wasn't for double-standards, Liberals would have no standards at all."

My significance comes from a source higher than killjoy. I don't derive significance from who I am, where I live, what I wear, where I work, who I marry, what I post on FreeRepublic, whoever posts to me on FreeRepublic.

Why are you so fixated on and transparently obsessed with "significance"? That is just begging for a bad outcome and reeks of classic status-seeking behavior.

Whatever happened to being a decent person and making the most of one's talents?

If we are an accident, the concept of an immoral act simply does not exist. Only fear would keep any INTELLIGENT atheist in line.

What keeps a theist in line? By your argument, the same fear of consequences.

I would also point out that most people are moral in the broad Golden Rule sense because it is beneficial, provably so mathematically. So-called "enlightened self-interest" provides plenty of carrot for the theist and atheist alike -- it isn't all stick.

(As a really high-level argument, our existence NOT being an accident does not imply that any kind of morality exists either. That is a grossly defective inference that is just kind of assumed by many people. We can't convince intelligent atheists to be theists with bad reasoning and poor logic.)

(An aside: the pastor's son, when very young, asked his dad, "If we evolved from monkeys and apes, why are there still monkeys and apes?")

When my sister was asked by one of her seven year old students if she believed that we came from apes, she asked the child if she had ever been to the Zoo. Then she said "did you see the monkeys there?" "Yes" "I guess they haven't turned into humans." The child was satisfied.

"You might as well invalidate chemistry too, it's lead to nerve gas and other nasty things."

Now that is a pathetic statement. You can be the most religious of people in this world and still would accept that adding this chemical to this one makes this potion. Anyone can get a kid's chemistry set and see for themselves.

For Mao, Stalin , Marx etc. evolution theory (scripture) is necessary for the ultimate goal - elimination of all religions minus one - cradle-to-grave-we-know-what-is-best-for-you-nanny-statism.

You can support evolution all you want but if it is to be taught as the only revelation as to the source of life then no thanks. Darwin's Evolutional Theory is just that - theory. As an all-encompassing theory it has so many holes that it leaks like a sieve.

It is irrelevant to me whether Darwin is taught as a theory - it is completely relevant to me if his theory is taught as fact with no alternatives.

"What really scares me" is that you are acting like the most rabid "abortion on demand" lib type.

So you disagree with her view on evolution - fine. But then you do the standard throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater bitchin. Touch my sacred cow and I'll assault your entire flock. Please. That's the kind of thing a kid would do - don't like my rule then I'll take the ball and go home.

Her current work is nothing more than invective...

And your post is not. Ann doesn't always play nice but she always tends to prove her argument.

My belief is you didn't read her book. Why would you buy (or borrow) a book that is authored by a woman that "appears to have simply thrown this book together after a weekend of intensely reading FR"? Wow talk about biting the hand that "hosts" you.

You've been a member of FR long enough to be well versed in Ann's opinions which happen to find alot of sounding boards here. Why would you waste your time reading a book that apparently disagrees with you chapter after chapter? Was it just to read the evolution part so you could bitch about your atheistic world view that allows no questioning?

In the final analysis, just like Andrew Sullivan jumped the shark when he did a 180 after a Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage was suggested, ditto to your rant against the whole book because she stepped on your proverbial baby, Darwin.

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