Survival of the wise, or demise of the stupid?

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Thursday, August 7, 2003 | Craige McMillan

[JohnHuang2]

In my junior year at college, I had a very eccentric professor. We had no papers to write, no tests to take, just a final examination which was entirely verbal. Our professor intensely disliked behavioral psychologists, so he invited the new chair of the psychology department around. We were graded on how well we could destroy his arguments that work with rat behavior applied to human beings.

About midterm, Jonas Salk – inventor of the polio vaccine – came to lecture the medical students at the college. We pleaded to be released from the professor's class to hear him. "It's a talk for the medical students," he told us. "It's nothing to do with you."

"But it's Jonas Salk!" we responded. Five minutes before Salk's lecture, we were released. "He's changed his topic, you know," the professor said as we rushed out the door. "We had a nice chat during the drive up here together. He'll be talking about his new book, 'The Survival of the Wisest.'"

I don't remember his talk today, of course. It was a long time ago. Dr. Salk was a great believer in evolution. But he saw the problem: It takes wisdom to set aside mankind's immediate desires and gratification for the good of those yet to come.

There is a question that haunts me these days. It is especially intense since 9-11. It's not a polite question. But it is important. I wonder: Have we in the West become too stupid to survive?

• I ask because a week ago, I listened to Dr. Jeffrey Burkes, the forensic dentist from New York City whose team identified over 600 victims from the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Center. Some were identified by a single tooth that had been compressed down into their stomach. He began his talk by reminding us that the twin towers were normally occupied by 110,000 people.

• I ask this question because Sandra Day O'Connor and a majority of her fellow Supreme Court justices found an exception to the due process and equal protection amendment to the Constitution. The exception enabled colleges and universities to continue discriminating against white people to advance "diversity" – whatever that is. Shortly thereafter, Mrs. O'Connor found a right to homosexual sodomy tucked away in the Court's archives, perhaps left over from their Roe v. Wade lawmaking. I've looked for those "rights" in the Constitution. They are not there. Now Mrs. O'Connor is traveling the nation promoting her new book, "The Majesty of the Law." Adoring crowds listen to her while she eulogizes the Constitution.

• I ask because 40 years ago homosexuals began infiltrating the Catholic Church priesthood. Today, these evil men have sodomized thousands of young boys to satisfy their sexual lust. They have left broken and self-loathing victims in every major American city. Financial settlements threaten to bankrupt the church. Yet across the aisle in protestantland, members of mainline Christian denominations are doing nothing to prevent their leadership from ordaining homosexual pastors. History is an accurate predictor: These men will most certainly follow in the footsteps of their Catholic brethren. How many young boys will they sodomize in the protestant churches, under the watchful eye of the hierarchy?

• I ask because every year illegal immigrants commit vicious, brutal crimes against citizens in America. Others arrive here to work illegally, bear children who are born and raised at taxpayer expense, receive taxpayer-funded medical care, and displace American citizens from jobs and educational opportunities. Yet many cities and some states have passed laws permitting illegal immigrants to receive identification documents and favorable tuition rates. Local law enforcement are warned not to inquire into the citizenship status of those they stop during the course of their duties, nor to cooperate with the INS.

• I ask because children are suffering from family breakup at record rates. Especially in "diverse" communities many children have no idea who their father is. Taxpayers pay to raise these children, only to put many of them into jail when they grow up angry at the world for lack of a father and two-parent upbringing. Still, multitudes of citizens are favorably inclined toward "homosexual marriage" and adoption as advocated by militant homosexual pressure groups. Yet the essence of the homosexual lifestyle is unrestrained sexual lust: hundreds of other partners while in a "committed relationship." The result is a sexually transmitted disease epidemic and early death from HIV and the opportunistic infections that follow. How does redefining marriage to sanction homosexual lust – and the inevitable expansion of heterosexual extramarital lust that will most certainly follow it – strengthen the family and produce fewer angry children headed for a lifetime of taxpayer-funded incarceration?

• I ask because public education is a mandatory monopoly. And we pay for it whether or not we have children, and whether or not we send those children to public schools. Costs continue to rise and achievement scores remain in the gutter, despite being revised downward to accommodate "diversity." Many public schools are physically dangerous to students. Disrespect and increasingly violent behavior are directed at teachers every day. Yet the solution trumpeted by many parents, teachers, elected officeholders and state and federal bureaucrats is more money lifted from taxpayers and poured down the same public rathole, while voucher and other private initiatives have their throats ripped out by the teachers' unions.

• I ask because the majority of journalists in America today occupy a fortified ivory tower called the First Amendment. It gives them – and, in theory, we the people – the right to learn how our government is conducting itself. On 9-11, I heard the naked fear in newscasters' voices as the towers fell. Today, I hear nothing but contempt and loathing for those trying to defend us from further attacks. Their contempt for America permeates their thinking, writing and talking. There is no commitment to truth – the academic establishment that bred them denies truth's very existence.

Dr. Burkes said that his team of 175 volunteer dentists worked for a year. Every time remains were identified as a member of service – police or fire – they were placed in an ambulance, not another transport vehicle. The police chief, fire chief, medical examiner and Dr. Burkes were called, often at 3 a.m. Without fail, they took their place in the line a city block long. Men and women of service stood in silence at attention and held their salute as the ambulance brought another fallen comrade home.

Militant Islam declared war on America and the West on 9-11. They targeted our economic system, our democratically elected government and our military defenses. The World Trade Center, Pentagon, the Capitol and the White House were each the targets of civilian airliners hijacked by well-financed political and religious extremists consumed with their vision of the West's destruction. And so I ask again the question that haunts me: Is our generation witness to the survival of the wise, or the demise of the stupid?

[JohnHuang2]

Thursday, August 7, 2003

Quote of the Day by Arthur Wildfire! March

[EggsAckley]

EXCELLENT!!

bttt

[.cnI redruM]

After Alaric burned Rome in 410AD St. Augustine asked a similar question for similar reasons. I hope that WIlliam Gibbon is strictly a historian rather than a profit. I've never been one to strongly champion Plutarch or Thucydides, but there seem to be laws of social interaction that determine whether a society will rise or fall, just like there are laws of physics that determine nature's reaction to any given stimulus.

I'll posit one called Alaric's Law. "When an empire no longer cares enough to determine it's destiny, other's will always be willing to determine that destiny instead."

[ibheath]

Bookmark

[Citizen Tom Paine]

There was a saying current a few years ago' " Death by 10,000 cuts". No cut was sufficient to kill or incapicate you, but the combination was.

I also remember a sermon from when I was a child. One sin could not bind you, but many sins would be strong enough so you couldn't escape.

[LiteKeeper]

SPOTREP

[Junior]

I've looked for those "rights" in the Constitution. They are not there.

The Constitution is not the end-all and be-all of rights. It even explicitly points out that not all rights are delineated therein. So, just because a right "is not found in the Constitution" doesn't mean it's not there.

This worries me about the conservative movement. We're so upset about the legally-iffy Roe vs. Wade decision that we've gone to the opposite extreme and are claiming that "if it ain't in the Constitution, it ain't a right." This is, in my opinion, even worse that the judiciary creating rights from whole cloth as it circumscribes the recognition of any un-iterated rights we may naturally possess.

[VeritatisSplendor]

The issue is not that the rights don't exist, it's that they don't get to be defined and guaranteed by the FEDERAL government. The Constitution leaves everything to the states by default -- Federal powers over the states and the people, and limits to the states' powers over the people, are explicitly defined. So it is perfectly legitimate to complain about O'Connor and some other "Justices" imposing a new "rights" regime nationwide undefined by any legislation. On the other hand, if a STATE court wanted to find such a right in a state constitution, they could do so (though if the state court is extremely outrageous in ignoring the state constitution and state laws, the U.S. Supreme Court may intervene because the U.S. Constitution guarantees the states a republican form of government).

[Dr Warmoose]

ask because 40 years ago homosexuals began infiltrating the Catholic Church priesthood. Today, these evil men have sodomized thousands of young boys to satisfy their sexual lust. They have left broken and self-loathing victims in every major American city. Financial settlements threaten to bankrupt the church. Yet across the aisle in protestantland, members of mainline Christian denominations are doing nothing to prevent their leadership from ordaining homosexual pastors. History is an accurate predictor: These men will most certainly follow in the footsteps of their Catholic brethren. How many young boys will they sodomize in the protestant churches, under the watchful eye of the hierarchy?

Anyone who has debated a homosexual about the Biblical admonitions and prohibitions against it has heard the bogus counter-argument that the KJV's "Sodomite" or "qadesh" in the Hebrew meant homosexual temple prostitute. So the Catholics have their practicing temple homosexuals, and now the Protestants are ordaining theirs.

Eccl 1:9-10 That which has been is what will be, that which is done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, "See, this is new"? It has already been in ancient times before us.

[Salman]

Anyone who has debated a homosexual about the Biblical admonitions and prohibitions against it has heard the bogus counter-argument that the KJV's "Sodomite" or "qadesh" in the Hebrew meant homosexual temple prostitute.

"Qadesh" does indeed mean a temple prostitute. However, "mishkav zakhar" (sodomy) is a still a sin.

[Dr Warmoose]

Qadesh" does indeed mean a temple prostitute.

Exclusively?

[Salman]

I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure that's right. There wasn't any one word that meant a homosexual. You would have to paraphrase "man who lies with a man as with a woman" or something like that. There was no concept of homosexual identity as such, merely that some people commit certain sins.

The 'abomination' in Leviticus 18 is 'mishkav zakhar'.