The Liberty Bell

Friday, October 9, 2015

Planned Parenthood & Big Pharma: When Liberals Ignore 'Corporate Influence'

A recent headline from the liberal website Salon.com declares: "GOP's Case Against Planned Parenthood Collapses: Jason Chaffetz Admits He Uncovered No Wrongdoing,"[1]

According to the (also liberal) Huffington Post, "Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Thursday that the GOP's investigation into Planned Parenthood's use of federal funds hasn't turned up anything. 'Did I look at the finances and have a hearing specifically as to the revenue portion and how they spend? Yes. Was there any wrongdoing? I didn't find any,' he said during a Judiciary Committee hearing on the family planning provider."[2]

Conspicuously absent from both presentations was any discussion of the question of what financial backing Rep. Chaffetz enjoys - and whence it issues.

This ought to seem somewhat strange. Those characterized (usefully or not) as politically "left-of-center" often (and not without warrant) lament the disproportionate power exerted in politics by plutocrats. For instance, U.S. President William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton's former Secretary of Labor and American economist, Robert Reich, warns that "[e]conomic and political power can’t be separated because dominant corporations gain political influence over how markets are maintained and enforced...".[3]

The popular "...Occupy Wall Street movement was borne out of outrage against income inequality and corporate influence over government."[4]

Yet, beside receiving money from the usual suspcts (including, without limitation, unspecified "Accountants," "Law Firms" and "Lobbyists"), Chaffetz collected sizeable contributions from donors working in the pharmaceutical industry.[5]

The watchdog website OpenSecrets.org reported that Chaffetz received $28,000 from "Pharmaceuticals" alone. In fact, we read that, except for what he obtained from such other bland sources as those issuing from "Insurance," "Lobbyists" and "Misc Business," Chaffetz accepted more money ($38,500) from the "Health" field than any other listed.[6]

To put these numbers in perspective, roughly stated, Chaffetz - a Republican - received between 6 and 8 times more more from persons working in "pharmaceuticals" and "health" than from donors with declared interests in "Gun Rights" and "Oil & Gas."[7]

It would be interesting to discover more about Chaffetz's connections to Big Pharma. After all, Planned Parenthood certainly advertises itself as involved in the field of "health." One statement reads: "Planned Parenthood health centers around the country offer you the health care you need."[8]

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Planned Parenthood seemingly also gets a "pass" from having to defend itself against the usual liberal, "anti-corporate" scrutiny.[9]

This is the case even though Planned Parenthood is far from a "mom and pop" operation. In its "Annual Report" for 2013-2014, it reported a total revenue stream of $1,303,400,000.[10]

Of course, Planned Parenthood (famously or infamously) claims that abortions comprise only 3% of its "services."[11] This claim has been analyzed and criticized elsewhere.[12]

For present purposes, let us assume that the 3% figure is true. Planned Parenthood further claims that 34% of its services are describable with the term "Contraception."[13]

Given Planned Parenthood's claims to be a "health center" and to have received 34% of its revenue from pharmaceutical "contraceptives," it seems interesting (and possibly highly relevant) that Jason Chaffetz - tasked with "investigating" Planned Parenthood for possible abuses - receives a considerable portion of his contributions from undisclosed persons and agencies operating in the fields of "health" and "pharmaceuticals."

I will give the final word to Rose Holz, professor of "gender studies" at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. In her The Birth Control Clinic in a Marketplace World, in which she discusses "the new collaboration between [abortion and birth control] clinics and [pharmaceutical] manufacturers," she writes: "[I]t is clear that a dramatic new relationship [is] now emerging between Planned Parenthood and the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry... [T]he organization at all its levels saw in pharmaceutical companies an amazing source of power...".[14]

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

A Few Words on the Second Amendment's Historical Meaning

"Another source of power in government is a military force. But this, to be efficient, must be superior to any force that exists among the people, or which they can command: for otherwise this force would be annihilated, on the first exercise of acts of oppression. Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe.

"The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive." [1]

~ Noah Webster, Jr.

On the historic meaning of the Second Amendment: What does "well-regulated" mean?

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed. (U.S. Constitution, Amendment II.)

Samuel Johnson, the famous British lexicographer, simply gives "regulate" as "To adjust by rule or method."[2] Of course, one of the meanings for "rule" is "Canon; precept by which the thoughts or actions are directed."[3]

This is the etymological root of "regulate." According to the standard Lewis and Short lexicon: the Latin "regula" meant "a straight piece of wood, ruler or rule ...a rule, pattern, model, example...".[4]

Clearly, we are not merely interested in the etymology of the word "regulate." We are also interested in documented uses of the phrase "well-regulated." Numerous examples are available from the period ranging from the pre-Revolutionary War 18th century through the late 19th century.

"The Oxford English Dictionary gives the following examples of usage for the term 'well regulated': 1709: 'If a liberal Education has formed in us ...well-regulated Appetites, and worthy Inclinations.' ...1812: 'The equation of time ...is the adjustment of the difference of time, as shown by a well-regulated clock and a true sun dial.' ...1862: 'It appeared to her well-regulated mind, like a clandestine proceeding.' 1894: 'The newspaper, a never wanting adjunct to every well-regulated American embryo city.' One definition of the word 'well' in the Oxford English Dictionary is 'satisfactorily in respect of conduct or action.' One of The Oxford English Dictionary definitions for the term 'regulated' is 'b. Of troops: Properly disciplined.'"[5]

The Oxford English Dictionary gives a contemporary definition for "regulate" as "Control or supervise (something, especially a company or business activity) by means of rules and regulations."[6]

Intuitively, things like "appetites" and "clocks" are not "controlled or supervised" by the ipse dixits of executive or legislative bodies. Rather, they are "well-regulated" insofar as they are self-"ruled" in virtue of having their parts properly fitted and maintained.

That this was a common use for the phrase "well-regulated" is further apparent in the construction "her well-regulated mind." For the workings of one's mind, being limited to "private access," are not susceptible to external "regulation" in the contemporary sense.

We are particularly interested in the phrase "well-regulated" as it occurred in discussions of citzens' militias. As was reported, above, the Oxford gives the sense of being "properly disciplined." How this cashes out becomes a bit clearer when we consult the following commentary, from the early 19th century.

"Trainings, whether by companies or by regiments, are but a part of the drill system, and if it is wise, if it is prudent, to have 'a well regulated militia,' it is ...indispensable, that those composing this force should be well trained to the use of arms—that they should, be familiar, not only with the manual exercise, but with the various and approved evolutions in marching—that they should be trained and exercised in companies and regiments, and in this way they would acquire a confidence in each other, which would be influential and highly beneficial when called to active duty."[7]

In the above text being "well-regulated" is transparently linked to being "well-trained."

When one consults the voluminous writings of the Founding Fathers, the conclusion is inescapable: the contemporary "federal government-control"-reading of "regulation" was simply unknown in the 18th century.

"In recent years it has been suggested that the Second Amendment protects the 'collective' right of states to maintain militias, while it does not protect the right of 'the people' to keep and bear arms. If anyone entertained this notion in the period during which the Constitution and Bill of Rights were debated and ratified, it remains one of the most closely guarded secrets of the eighteenth century, for no known writing surviving from the period between 1787 and 1791 states such a thesis."[8]

This same meaning appears also in one of the oral arguments[9] from the recent Supreme Court case District of Columbia v. Heller.[10]

In questioning a Mr. Walter Dellinger, Justice Antonin Scalia asks of the phrase "well-regulated": "It means 'well-trained,' doesn't it? ...Doesn't 'well-regulated' mean 'well-trained'?" Scalia concludes, saying: "It doesn't mean - it doesn't mean 'massively regulated.' It means 'well trained.'"[11]

In general, the Bill of Rights was a statement written so that the average person could detect, without any intermediary, when his rights had been violated.

"[T]he Bill of Rights was designed to inform the people at large of their rights so they could enforce them, not just to trust in and admonish a potentially unresponsive government not to tread on them."[12]

As Stephen Halbrook noted, the Bill of Rights was a public declaration - able to be understood by the meanest yeoman - of the points at which federal powers ended. The "thrust" of the Bill of Rights is a marking out of the domains onto which the government may not trespass. The First Amendment, for instance, is not circumscribing freedom of speech; it is announcing that individual freedom. The Fourth Amendment is not bracing people for police "checkpoints"; it is notifying them of their individual immunity from such molestation. Likewise, the Second Amendment is not laying a foundation for intrusive "regulation" in the modern sense; it is proclaiming the individual right to keep and bear arms.

So much for the question of interpretative issues.

On the historic meaning of the Second Amendment: Is the entire amendment “irrelevant”?

However, another worry with the historic interpretation might be termed "irrelevance." One might ask, for instance: How can the Second Amendment serve as a defense against the rise tyranny in our government in an age in which the "military-industrial complex" provides that government with a wide assortment of weaponry (for example, without limitation, armored vehicles, fully-automatic firearms, lasers, missiles, nanotechnology of various kinds, "Predator"-style drones, sonic weapons and state-of-the-art surveillance) that far outstrips the capabilities of revolvers, rifles and semi-automatics?

There are, in my estimation, really two issues, here. Let me call the first issue "theoretical" and the second "practical."

Theoretically, I have two responses. Number one, suppose that the militia is passé. For example, in his opinion in D.C. v. Heller,[13] Justice Scalia wrote: "Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun violence is a serious problem."[14]

Halbrook: "[A]nother interpretation of the Second Amendment, which opposes any right of 'the people' to have arms, reasons thus: The right to have arms is dependent on a militia being [crucial] for the security of a free state, but despite the clear words of the [second] amendment and the aversions of the framers [to having a standing army],today the standing army allegedly protects freedom.

"This interpretation appears to reduce the amendment to a conditional or hypothetical syllogism, with its first premise as follows: If a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state (p), then the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed (q); that is, p implies q. Standing alone, p and q constitute, respectively, the second premise and the conclusion of the syllogism, which appears thus: [p ⊃ q; p; ∴ q] and is valid by reason of [the logical rule known as] modus ponens.

"Yet the denial of the antecedent, should it be expressed in the second premise, fails to imply the denial of the consequent in [an alternate] conclusion; that is, even if a militia is not necessary for the existence of a free state, [for all that the above reasoning shows] the people still have a right to keep and bear arms. The fallacy of denying the antecedent is committed in this form: [p ⊃ q; -p; ∴ -q.]"[15]

To reiterate: The existence of a well-regulated militia in the 18th century may have been sufficient to justify the widespread bearing of arms. However, even if that sort of militia is outmoded today, such does not show that the right to bear arms is unnecessary.

I myself am not satisfied to leave matters here, though. Number two, I fear that the initial question itself demonstrates the degree to which we have meandered away from the "Spirit of '76."[16] For in 1775, statesman Patrick Henry famously answered a similar question. He was addressing the concern that the colonists faced well-nigh impossible odds in confronting a British army that was better armed, better equipped, better financed and better trained. Henry answered:

"They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed...?"[17]

The "Spirit of '76" was, if anything, arguably the will to oppose tyranny - even in the face of impossible odds. To the extent that the odds faced today are even more lopsided, given the fact that Americans have allowed for the formation of a "standing army" - ignoring the advice of esteemed forefathers such as Thomas Jefferson[18] and Noah Webster[19] – lovers of liberty are "weaker" than were the colonists. This is obvious. But are we on that account obliged to give up the last shreds of liberty? Henry:

"Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?"[20]

I think that the theoretical answer is clear: Insofar as we wish to continue to pass the torch of liberty, delivering it to posterity in at least something of the form in which it was delivered to us, the we are obligated to recognize the importance of an armed citizenry.

As Alexander Hamilton once said: "If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons intrusted [sic] with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair."[21]

Perhaps modernists at once declare, in the words of the character Tank, from the Matrix:[22] "[W]hat you're talking about is suicide."[23]

Patrick Henry gives the rejoinder – the position embraced by our forefathers: "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"[24]

Therefore, it seems that we are left with the practical question: How does a liberty-loving populace prepare itself for the possibility of having to repel an onslaught from an advanced military under the command of a tyrannical government?

This is indeed a difficulty. I should insist, though, that the difficulty is practical and not theoretical. To put it another way, "x is difficult to do" hardly entails that "x ought not be done."

The matter is not hopeless.[25]

As I have written in another place: "If ...the domestic government ...maintain[s] a standing army; and if ...usurpers are in command of that army; then, surely, successful resistance would require, at the very least, some measure of parity with respect to weaponry and training."[26]

However, it is beyond my competence to tease this out in any detail. Perhaps weaponry is not as important as training. Perhaps a genius strategist could turn the tide.[27]

On the other hand, the pressure could be relieved a bit were the United States to see friends of liberty once again populating our legislatures and courts. The disparity between the (hypothetical) well-regulated militias and the military could be lessened in virtue of the reduction of military spending, the defunding of weapons development and the outlawing of various "exotic" tools and surveillance technologies.[28]

On the historic meaning of the Second Amendment: Final thoughts

Let me conclude by evidencing that I am an "equal-opportunity" critic. Whereas I believe that many on "the left" err in their interpretation of words such as "bear," "militia" and "well-regulated," I also believe that many on "the right" err in virtue of their blind support of the standing army. Jefferson, on receiving from James Madison a draft copy of the work of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, wrote back: "...I do not like ...the omission of a bill of rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for ...protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land."[29]

In his "Draft Constitution for Virginia 1776," Jefferson put it directly: "There shall be no standing army but in time of actual war."[30]

Suffice it to say that anyone wishing to defend a robust conception of the Second Amendment ought to resist the disarmament of the people as fervently as she resists the strengthening of the military.

- Matthew J. Bell

Notes:

[1] Noah Webster, "An Examination Into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution by a Citizen of America," Paul Leicester, ed., Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States Published During Its Discussion by the People, 1787-1788, Brooklyn, N.Y.: n.p., 1888, p. 56.

[2] Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd ed., Dublin: W. G. Jones and Thomas Ewing, 1768, n.p.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary, Oxford [U.K.]: Clarendon Press, 1988, p. 1553. In the Christian tradition, the "regula fidei," or "rule of faith," marks out a certain set of beliefs and practices that are held to be essential for Christianity. Historically, these "revealed truths" were not handed from the top-down, as it were, by decree from any ecclesiastical body; they originated from the bottom-up, as inferences from scripture and from the writings of the Apostolic Fathers. The Greek word "kanon" similarly designates a "measuring rod," and is the controlling meaning in phrases such as the "biblical canon." See Frederick William Danker and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon..., Chicago and London: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2000, pp. 507-508.

[5] Daniel J. Schultz, "The Second Amendment: The Framers' Intentions," Lect Law, <http://www.lectlaw.com/files/gun01.htm>; citing The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford [U.K.]: Clarendon Press, 1989.

[6] "Regulate," <http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/regulate>.

[7] Entry, Tues., July 1, 1823, Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of New Hampshire, at Their Session, Holden [sic] at the Capitol in Concord, Commencing on the First Wednesday of June, and Ending the Third Day of July, Anno Domini One Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty-Three, Concord, N.H.: Jacob B. Moore, 1823, p. 271. Note that in this context, the word "evolution" is a tactical term meaning: "The motion made by a body of men in changing their posture, or form of drawing up," according to the fourth entry under "evolution," in Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, London: J. F. C. Rivengton, et al., 1792, n.p. Again, Noah Webster, in his Americanized version of Johnson's esteemed dictionary, defined the verb "bear" in the following terms: "To wear; as, to bear a sword ...; to bear arms in a coat." He furthermore gave the example of having a handgun on one's person as an instance of "bearing arms." An American Dictionary of the English Language, New York: S. Converse, 1828, n.p..

[8] Stephen P. Halbrook, That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a Constitutional Right, rev. ed., Albuquerque, N.M.: Univ. of N.M. Press, 2013, p. xi. Halbrook notes that "the Tenth Amendment ...clearly distinguishes between the states and the people." Ibid., p. 93. Amendment X: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." "Tenth Amendment," U.S. Constitution, Cornell Univ. Law School, <https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/tenth_amendment>. "It is unlikely that the framers would have intended to commit blatantly the fallacy of equivocation by shifting the meaning of 'the people' from amendment to amendment, or that they would have risked the fallacy of ambiguity by defining the phrase 'the people' in the Second Amendment in such an unusual manner, that is, as 'those people in a select state militia.'" Halbrook, op. cit., p. 93.

[9] No. 07-290, March 18, 2008.

[10] D.C. v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008).

[11] Argument transcript, op. cit., Alderson Reporting Co., p. 26.

[12] Halbrook, op. cit., p. x.

[13] Loc. cit.

[14] Op. cit., p. 67. On whether the standing army is a boon or a bane, recollect the words of our founders: "That as the colonies possess a right of appropriating their gifts, so are they entitled at all times to enquire into their application, to see that they be not wasted among the venal and corrupt for the purpose of undermining the civil rights of the givers, nor yet be diverted to the support of standing armies, inconsistent with their freedom and subversive of their quiet." John Hancock, "Resolutions of Congress on Lord North's Conciliatory Proposal," Philadelphia, Jul. 31, 1775; archived online at Avalon Project, Yale Law School, <http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/jeffnort.asp>.

[15] Halbrook, op. cit., pp. 93-94.

[16] Another facet of this move away from our founding "Spirit" can be located on the political "right." For example, Thomas Jefferson opined: "The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force." Thomas Jefferson, letter to Chandler Price, Feb. 28, 1807; reproduced by Henry Augustine Washington, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private: Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, From the Original Manuscripts, Deposited in the Department of State, vol. 4, Washington, D.C.: Taylor and Maury, 1858, p. 47.

[17] Patrick Henry, speech, Mar. 23, 1775; posted as "Patrick Henry - Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death," Avalon Project, Yale Univ. Law School, <http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/patrick.asp>.

[18] "There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot but in well-defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army." Thomas Jefferson, letter to David Humphreys, Mar. 18, 1789; quoted in Joyce Appleby and Terence Ball, eds., Jefferson: Political Writings, Cambridge [U.K.]: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999, p. 113.

[19] See the introductory quotation.

[20] Loc. cit.

[21] Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28; archived online at Avalon Project, Yale Univ. Law School, <http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/federal/fed28.htm>.

[22] Warner Bros., 1999.

[23] “The Matrix,” 1999, quotes, Internet Movie Database, <http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/quotes?qt=qt1229257>.

[24] Loc. cit.

[25] I discuss this a bit in my earlier weblog post Matthew J. Bell, "Towards a Jeffersonian Appraisal of the SCOTUS 'D.C. Gun Ban' Decision," Liberty Bell [weblog], Jun. 30, 2008, <http://bellofliberty.blogspot.com/2008/06/towards-jeffersonian-appraisal-of.html>.

[26] Ibid.

[27] For inspiration, if not advice, one might consider Cormac O'Brien's Outnumbered: Incredible Stories of History's Most Surprising Battlefield Upsets (Beverly, Mass.: Fair Winds Press, 2010). For a more theatrical reminder that numbers and weapons do not mean everything, see Zack Snyder's fictionalized retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, in the film 300 (Warner Bros., 2007).

[28] I add, however, that the fact that the U.S. in theory records a massive portion of communications does not imply that these records are meaningfully or usefully archived or accessible - let alone "monitored" in anything like real-time.

[29] Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, Dec. 20, 1787; archived online at Library of Congress, <http://www.loc.gov/item/mtjbib003193/>. I hasten to add that those on "the right" also frequently err in terms of reducing the right to bear arms to mere hunting or personal self-defensive exercises.

[30] Thomas Jefferson, Jun. 1776; archived online at Avalon Project, Yale Univ. Law School, <http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/jeffcons.asp>.

Monday, September 7, 2015

'Rightwing, Conservative Christian Interests' Versus 'Jewish Interests'

Neoconservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh routinely mentions Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a congressperson and the current Chair of the Democratic National Committee. Wasserman Schultz has the distinction of being the first Jewish congresswoman elected from the state of Florida. It is interesting for self-professed “conservative right-wingers” and Republicans to ask themselves: “To what degree is Debbie Wasserman Schultz an aberration?"
Or, to put it slightly differently, "To what degree are Jewish interests antithetical to conservatism?"

It is obvious that American Jews have long been aligned with the Democratic Party. In many ways, the “Jewish community” broadly construed opposes many things that right-wing Christian conservatives champion.

“[T]raditonally[,] ...Jewish voters ...have favored Democrats by 2-to-1 margins.”[1]

This leftward leaning goes back at least to the era of Franklin Roosevelt. “[F]unctioning under the …aegis of the Democratic party, American Jews fortied their reputation as the most dependably progressive ethnic community in the United States. In 1940, no fewer than 90 percent of their votes went to Roosevelt.”[2]

Despite the rightward orientation of a handful of Jewish king-makers (chiefly Sheldon Adelson, but also smaller fry such as Norman Braman, Henry Kravis, Richard Roberts and Mel Sembler, two of whom – by the way, Adelson and Roberts – are said to favor Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker for the [as of this writing] upcoming the 2016 election), “as a group, Jews still endorse the Democratic Party at a rate of around 20 percentage points above most other Americans.”[3]

“Indeed, the Washington Post once estimated that Democratic presidential candidates ‘depend on Jewish supporters to supply as much as 60 percent of the money raised from private sources. Other estimates are lower, but contributions from Jewish Americans form a substantial share - between 20 and 50 percent - of the contributions made to the Democratic party and its presidential candidates.”[4]

“Jews provided at least half the money donated to the DNC [Democratic National Committee] in the 1998 and 2000 election cycles.”[5]

Additionally, “as a matter of comparison they [Jews] are generally found to be the most liberal white ethnoreligious group in the United States.”[6]

To illustrate: At least one benchmark indicates that religious Jews are more likely to be atheists than people of other faiths. This is so prevalent that one journalist writes: “Atheism is entrenched in American Judaism. In researching their book American Grace, authors Robert Putnam and David Campbell found that half of all American Jews doubt God’s existence. In other groups, that number is between 10 and 15 percent.”[7]

Within “rightwing Christian” circles, atheism is lamented. But there is a deafening silence from these supposedly concerned “Conservatives” when it comes to atheism infused American Judaism. As one synagogue-attendee, Maxim Schrogin, put it: “Atheism and Judaism are not contradictory, so to have an atheist in a Jewish congregation isn’t an issue or a challenge or a problem.”[8]

There is a conspicuous case-study. Many Christians bemoan the removal of prayer from public schools. What many people do not know, however, is how this removal came about. It was the result of the landmark Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962) case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court legislated from the bench, decreeing it “unconstitutional” for public schools to adopt or encourage the recitation of “official” prayers in public schools.

The genesis of the case was this: “In the fall of 1958, Steven Engel visited his son’s elementary school classroom in Hyde Park, New York. Engel, a Jew, was upset to see his son’s hands clasped and his head bent in prayer. He told his son that this was ‘not the way we say prayers.’”[9]

As George Lincoln Rockwell observed in the late 1960s: “If Israel is a Jewish country and has the right to be Jewish, if Ghana is a black country and has the right to be black, why don’t we have the right to keep a white country white and Christian? Why, how long do you think you people would last if you went over there to Israel and started campaigning in the Jewish schools in Israel against singing Jewish songs? And yet they’re over here campaigning against us singing Christmas carols in ours. …You can’t sing Christmas carols in schools any more. They won’t tolerate it, but we must.”[10]

The Episcopal humorist Gary Edward “Garrison” Keillor has pointed out that Jews have been instrumental in the replacement of Christ-centered Christmas carols, with generic “holiday” ditties. Keillor wrote: “If you don’t believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn ‘Silent Night’ and leave ours alone. This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism, and we Christians have stood for it long enough. And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write ‘Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we’ll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah’? No, we didn’t. Christmas is a Christian holiday – if you’re not in the club, then buzz off. Celebrate Yule instead or dance around in druid robes for the solstice. Go light a big log, go wassailing and falalaing until you fall down, eat figgy pudding until you puke, but don’t mess with the Messiah.”[11],[12]

In another recent news item, we read about the activist goings on of one Michael “Mikey” Weinstein. “...A Pentagon ban on proselytizing has left some conservative activists fearful that Christian soldiers -- and even military chaplains -- could face court martial for sharing their faith.

“The Defense Department said this week that proselytizing -- trying to get someone to change faiths -- is banned. Its statement does not define proselytizing or address the role of military chaplains. It also does not rule out court martial for those whose share their faith too aggressively.

“News of the ban came after an activist met with Air Force officials to demand that soldiers who spend too much time talking about Jesus be booted from the military.

“If superior officers try to convert those under their command, they should face a court martial, said Mikey Weinstein, president of the Albuquerque, N.M.-based Military Religious Freedom Foundation. …”[13]

Are “conservative, rightwing Christians” on board with the outlawing of Evangelism in the American armed forces? If not, then they should understand that their interests run contrary to those of Jews like Mikey Weinstein.[14]

Additional evidence of Jewish left-leaning can be detected from the fact that the overwhelming majority of Jews – “religious” or “secular” – support abortion[15] and “same sex marriage”,[16] both of which are opposed by many “religious Conservatives.”

It is simply a fact that, historically, Jews have been at the forefront of liberalizing and activist politics.

Recently, much was made about Wasserman Schultz’s comments – or rather lack thereof – about the difference between “Democrats and Socialists.” Another important facet of the larger discussion contrasting “Conservative” and “Jewish interests” must therefore be to note the historical point that Jews have long advanced socialism, communism and other radical, leftist ideologies.[17],[18]

From Moses Hess, Karl Marx and Ferdinand Lassalle to Leon Trotsky (born Bronstein) and Vladimir Lenin (scion of the Jewish Blank family), Communist-Bolshevism was a decidedly Jewish – and anti-Christian/anti-Russian peasant – movement.[19]

Combined with the fact, established centuries ago by intrepid researchers like Gustaf Dalman, Johann Eisenmenger, Alexander McCaul, Bernhard Pick and Johann Wagenseil and admitted by honest scholars such as Theodor Keim and Princeton University’s Peter Schaefer, that the Jewish Talmud asserts such filthy scurrilities as that the Blessed Virgin Mary was a whore[20] and that Jesus was a blasphemer who was justly executed for practicing magic and leading Israel astray[21] and is now being punished in hell by being suspended in boiling human excrement;[22] it’s fairly compelling, as Michael Hoffman has argued at length, that the label “Judeo-Christian” is an oxymoron.

This is not a novel idea. Saint Paul indicated: “the Jews ...killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone...”.[23]

Nevertheless, Christians continue to labor under the mistaken belief that Jews have some sort of robust kinship with Christians. The counterpoint can scarcely be better made than it was by Saint John the Evangelist, who wrote in 1 John 2:22-23: “Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist – denying the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.”

According to John, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, any person who denies Jesus also has neither the Son nor the Father. Therefore, on Biblical authority, it seems that whatever God the Jews proclaim, it simply cannot be the Father of Jesus – or else the New Testament is gravely mistaken.

As to the idea that (supposed) Jewish pedigree is salvific in and of itself, Jesus himself dismissed this when He said: “And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.” (Matthew 3:9).

In fact, more strongly, Jesus told the Pharisees - the forerunners of the rabbis: “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”[24]

As Saint Augustine of Hippo once reportedly said: “Judaism, since Christ, is a corruption; indeed Judas is the image of the Jewish people; their understanding of the Scriptures is carnal; they bear the guilt for the death of the Saviour, for through their fathers they killed the Christ.”[25]

The main point to Christians was and is: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, to the degree that she is really spearheading a leftist, anti-Christian crusade in virtue of her political affiliations and sympathies, is really cut out of the same cloth as many of her co-religionists. Whence comes the imaginary camaraderie between Christianity and Judaism? And why are Christians so ignorant – or timid?

Notes:

[1] Ron Kampeas, “Who Are the Republican Candidates’ Jewish Donors?” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Apr. 20, 2015, <http://www.jta.org/2015/04/20/news-opinion/politics/who-are-the-republican-candidates-jewish-donors>.

[2] Howard Morley Sachar, A History of the Jews in America, New York: Random House; Vintage Books, 1993, p. 463; archived online at <https://books.google.com/books?id=DeFsAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA463>.

[3] Geoffrey Brahm Levey, “Jewish Liberalism,” Paul A. Djupe and Laura R. Olson, Encyclopedia of American Religion and Politics, New York: Facts on File; Infobase, 2003, p. 231; archived online at <https://books.google.com/books?id=frt7RDOT1PUC&pg=PA231>.

[4] John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, New York: Ferrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007, p. 163; archived online at <https://books.google.com/books?id=zIrFUBs7G6kC&pg=PA163>.

[5] Laura Blumenfeld, “Terrorism Jars Jewish, Arab Party Loyalties,” Washington Post, Dec. 7, 2003, <http://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/12/07/terrorism-jars-jewish-arab-party-loyalties/b2d1a3c2-fd22-4aff-8532-a3eccc4d28c1/>.

[6] Ibid. Note: “Liberalism is typically measured in this context by political identification with the Democratic Party; electoral support for Democratic candidates, self-identification as ‘liberal’ rather than a ‘conservative’; and support for liberal positions on civil liberties, civil rights, state welfare, and, sometimes, foreign policy issues”, ibid.

[7] Kimberly Winston, “Judaism without God? Yes, Say American Atheists,” Religion News Service via USA Today, Sept. 26, 2011, <http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2011-09-26/jew-atheist-god/50553958/1>.

[8] Quoted in ibid.

[9] “Religion in Public Schools: Engel v. Vitale: Date: 1962,” doc. no. 1197, Digital History Archive, 2014, <http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=1197>.

[10] Rockwell, speech, Brown Univ., 1966; archived as “George Lincoln Rockwell 1966 Speech at Brown University,” YouTube, May 3, 2014, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovyhWgn1B3M>.

[11] Garrison Keillor, “Nonbelievers, Please Leave Christmas Alone,” Baltimore Sun, Dec. 16, 2009, <http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2009-12-16/news/bal-op.keillor16dec16_1_silent-night-unitarian-christmas>.

[12] One Jewish periodical opens with the following paragraph: “‘No wonder I didn’t recognize it. It must be the only Christmas song not written by a Jewish songwriter.’ So said Howard Wolowitz, a lead Jewish character on TV’s ‘Big Bang Theory,’ after hearing his buddy sing ‘Good King Wenceslas,’ a traditional carol. Popular culture outlets are finally catching up with the fact that about half of the most popular modern Christmas or ‘holiday’ songs were written by Jewish songwriters.” Nate Bloom, “All those Holiday/Christmas Songs: So Many Jewish Songwriters!” Jewish world Review, Dec. 22, 2014, <http://jewishworldreview.com/1214/jewz_xmas.php3>.

“White Christmas” and “Happy Holidays”? Irving Berlin. “Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!”? Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne. “Santa Baby”? Joan Javits and Philip Springer. “Winter Wonderland”? Felix Bernard. “Sleigh Ride”? Mitchell Parish (born Michael Hyman Pashelinsky). “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “A Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Silver and Gold”? Johnny Marks. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”? Walter Kent. “Silver Bells”? Jay Livingston (born Jacob Harold Levison) and Raymond Bernard “Ray” Evans. “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”? Edward “Eddie” Pola (born Sidney Edward Pollacsek) and George Wyle (born Bernard Weissman, best-known for composing having Gilligan’s Island’s theme song). “Do You Hear What I Hear?”? Gloria Shayne Baker (born Gloria Adele Shain). “(There’s No Place Like) Home for the Holidays”? Al Stillman (born Albert Silverman). “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire”? Mel Tormé (a.k.a. Melvin Howard Torma).

[13] Bob Smietana, “Soldiers Inclined to Proselytize May Face Court Martial,” Gannett News Service via The Tennessean, May 2, 2013, p. ARC; accessed via LexisNexis; archived online at <http://archive.tennessean.com/article/20130502/NEWS06/305020063/Soldiers-inclined-proselytize-may-face-court-martial>.

[14] Here and elsewhere throughout this article, the issue of whether many of today’s self-professed “Jews” really are what they claim. For an introduction to the “Khazar hypothesis,” the idea that today’s Ashkenazim are really descendants of an Asiatic clan that converted to Judaism before the 10^th century, see for example Shlomo Sand’s The Invention of the Jewish People.

[15] “That different Jews have disparate views is not news. What is news is when most Jews agree on a particular idea or approach. And so it is with the curious consensus of Jews on abortion. ...Essentially regardless of denominational affiliation or demographics, American Jews think abortion should be legal in all (49%) or almost all (44%) cases. That is, fully 93% of all American Jews support legalized abortion in some fashion. Even political leanings, while influential, are not determinative. Among Jewish Democrats support is 95%, but 77% of Jewish Republicans also favor legalized abortion in all or most cases, far exceeding the rate of other groups studied.” Roger Price, “The Curious Consensus of Jews on Abortion,” Jewish Journal, Feb. 1, 2013, <http://www.jewishjournal.com/judaismandscience/item/the_curious_consensus_of_jews_on_abortion>.)

[16] According to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency dispatch printed in the New York-based Jewish newspaper Forward: “American Jews are among the most supportive religious groups of same-sex marriage. Some 77 percent of American Jews expressed support for same-sex marriage, according to data gathered in 2014 by the Public Religion Research Institute.” “U.S. Jews Among Biggest Backers of Same-Sex Marriage, Data Show,” JTA via Forward, Jun. 28, 2015, <http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/311026/us-jews-among-biggest-backers-of-same-sex-marriage-data-show/>.)

Relatedly, Nation Public Radio reported: “The government of Israel is styling the country as a haven for the gay community. But it’s more than just beaches, parades and clubs. Israel has laws protecting the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, community.” Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, “Israel Presents Itself as Haven for Gay Community,” National Public Radio, Jun. 4, 2012, <http://www.npr.org/2012/06/04/154279534/israel-presents-itself-as-haven-for-gay-community>.

On a darker note, the state of Israel is presently a major hub for sex slavery and human trafficking. See Rabbi Daniel Brenner, “Will Men Stand Up Against the Sex Slave Trade in Israel?” Huffington Post, February, 1, 2012, <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-daniel-brenner/teaching-young-men-end-sex-trafficking_b_1242842.html> and Roni Aloni-Sadovnik, “Israel’s sex slaves,” Yedioth Ahronot, April 3, 2007, <http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3384268,00.html>. Cf. Anya Stone and Martina Vandenberg, “How the Sex Trade Becomes a Slave Trade: The Trafficking of Women to Israel,” Middle East Report, no. 211, Summer, 1999, pp. 36-38.

[17] Of these, Communism is by far the most deadly -ism that the world has ever seen. The Harvard University-published Black Book of Communism observes that “the intransigent facts demonstrate that Communist regimes have victimized approximately 100 million people”. (Stéphane Courtois, “Introduction: The Crimes of Communism,” Stéphane Courtois, Nicholas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrej Paczkowski, Karel Bartošek and Jean-Louis Margolin, Le livre noir du Communisme: Crimes, terreur, repression, Paris: Robert Laffront, 1997, Jonathan Murphy and Mark Kramer, transl., The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1999, p. 15.)

[18] Incidentally, Democrats of the same era were accused of pandering to the black vote. This combined outreach to blacks and Jews earned the opprobrium of some of the old guard from within the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment. “[P]erhaps the most revealing of the caste resentment which characterized so much of the antipathy toward the New Deal was the following bit of doggerel about Franklin and Eleanor: You kiss the negroes | I’ll kiss the Jews, | We’ll stay in the White House | As long as we choose.” Edward Digby Baltzell, The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy & Caste in America, New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1987, pp. 247-248; archived online at <https://books.google.com/books?id=jOCnJpjcjy8C&pg=PA247>.

[19] Other prominent Jewish-Communist thinkers included Eduard Bernstein, Haim Kantorovitch, Rosa Luxemburg, Julius Martov [born Yuliy Osipovich Tsederbaum], Alexander Lvovich Parvus (born Israel Lazarevich Gelfand) and Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev (born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky, a.k.a. Hirsch Apfelbaum). Erstwhile British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once wrote: "From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxemburg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing," Winston Churchill, “Zionism Versus Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People,” Illustrated Sunday Herald, London, Feb. 8, 1920.

[20] According to the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin, folio 106a, <http://www.comeandhear.com/sanhedrin/sanhedrin_106.html>.

[21] See for instance the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin, folio 43a, <http://www.comeandhear.com/sanhedrin/sanhedrin_43.html>.

[22] See the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Gittin, folio 57a, <http://www.comeandhear.com/gittin/gittin_57.html>. Note: in some Talmud editions, the name “Jesus the Nazarene” is replaced by code words such as “Balaam.”

[23] The Holy Bible, 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse14-15.

[24] John 8:44.

[25] Quoted by Benjamin Weintroub, The Chicago Jewish Forum, vol. 25, 1966, p. 52; archived online at <https://books.google.com/books?id=CssMAQAAMAAJ>. However, attributions from Zionist sources ought to be taken with a grain of salt. However, similar sentiments were indisputably expressed by Christians from Saint John Chrysostom to Martin Luther and beyond.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Response to Kai regarding the issue of water fluoridation.

Re: https://www.facebook.com/matthew.bell.925/posts/739544649439897
Thank you for your interest in my initial post.

By my lights, there are two issues.

The first issue is (for lack of a better word) "intuitive." To be more exact, the question, here, is what pre-reflective, pre-investigative position does a given individual take with respect to "water fluoridation"? This is not a matter of "feeling," but a matter of honestly assessing one's tentative starting point.

Ignoring irrational and dogmatic opinions, roughly sketched, the reasonable "options" might be:

(1) antecedent skepticism (that is, being conditionally "against" fluoridation);
(2) antecedent trust (i.e., being caautiously "for" it; or
(3) antecedent agnosticism (where I mean "agnosticism" to designate a sort of provisional "neutrality")

Briefly, I think that antecedent skepticism could be rational in cases where persons begin from positions with some combination of the following features: awareness of the history of the eugenics movement in the U.S. [1]; awareness of the historic use of sodium fluoride as an insecticide [2]; awareness of the history in the U.S. of periodic chemical agent and medical "testing" on unsuspecting (and therefore nonconsenting) persons [3]; and other factors in the vicinity. [4]

Although, I hasten to add that I think much less "exotic" considerations could be determinative. For instance, I think it altogether appropriate to doubt the wisdom of introducing into something as necessary for human life as clean drinking water a compound that, as you put it, "can absolutely hurt (and kill)" a person in such-and-so concentration. The precise harmful or lethal concentration will almost certainly vary from person-to-person, according to such "confounding factors" as genetic proclivity, immune functionality, chemical-cofactors, and much else besides. Thus, remarks to the effect that damaging results should be expected from "levels ...far, far above what we consume" are little more than hand waving (if not wishful thinking).

Frankly, I confess myself an antecedent skeptic. I concede, however, that some persons could rationally profess antecedent agnosticism, or even antecedent trust. These could occur in cases where persons are unaware of the background information that supports antecedent skepticism, or where persons hold beliefs such as: the idea that such a scenario is unreasonably ascribed to nefarious intentionality [5]; the notion that consumption of sodium fluoride has been "demonstrated" to be innocuous or even "helpful"; and so forth.

This last consideration leads directly to the second issue.

Here we are not concerned with the (highly belief-relative and variable) psychological dispositions of untutored people in a given population, but with the conclusions and opinions of those persons who are, by some measure or other, assigned the label "scientific experts" in the relevant area.

Admittedly, with respect to this issue I - and I presume you, too - can merely gesture towards particular scientific papers.

However, there are two subsidiary issues that arise immediately, one about the philosophy of science, the other about human psychology.

Number one, with the possible exceptions of (certain branches of) logic and mathematics, the epistemic standard of judgment in all areas of human inquiry must be a assessed in terms of the caliber of one's evidence. To be more precise, words like "proof" ("proved," and related cognates), "disproof," "refute," etc. have no application in science. One speaks instead of "corroboration," "dis-corroboration," and so on; and, in some jargon "dialects," "confirmation," "disconfirmation," and related terms.

This is an important consideration, here, since some - perhaps untrained in the philosophy of science - might think that a follow-up study on some topic automatically "supersedes" or "puts to rest" issues raised in previous studies. This is not the case.

That "your" study's "findings do not support the assertion that fluoride in the context of CWF programs is neurotoxic" is certainly not definitive.

Let's not confuse ourselves. It's interesting. It's important. It raises questions like, if fluoride was linked to lower IQs by investigators at the school of public health at Harvard University, why didn't the dental researchers at the University of Otago in New Zealand find the same thing? [6]

However, to echo the words of the article abstract to which you linked, there may be any number of "potential confounding variables" such as water-additive co-factors, methodological variables , definitional variables, etc.; any or all of which might explain the discrepancy between the two studies without resorting to the conclusion that the Harvard study is (either wholly or even partially) incorrect.

I note two concrete examples of such possible variation.

In the first place, the study that you cite says that it was concerned with "fluoride dentifrice and intake of 0.5-milligram fluoride tablets".

In my area of St. Charles County, the "Optimal fluoride concentration" is given at "1.00 mg/L". <http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/MWF/CountyDataV.asp%3FState=MO>. The same number is given for Oak Park. <http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/MWF/CountyDataV.asp%3FState=IL>.

Because you did not link to an entire article, as I did, but only an abstract, it is not possible for me to compare these numbers further. Depending on the amount of water in question, it might be - for all the information we have presently available - that the New Zealand study was concerned with ingested fluoride at half the level of what people in our two counties are exposed to.

In the second place, it might be - again, for all that is available to inspect in the abtract - that the two studies were operating on subtly (or not-so-subtly) divergent definitions of (or standards for measuring) key things such as "neurotoxicity."

Number two, it is simply a predictable matter of psychology that people will gravitate towards findings that tend to "confirm" their presuppositions. This is likely as true for my posting of the initial Harvard article as it is for your post of the allegedly disconfirming Otago abstract.

Since neither of us (I'd wager) is planning on acquiring a degree in chemistry or health or biology - or any other "hard" scientific field possibly relevant to the experimental side of the question of the safety of water fluoridation, I put it to you that we must fall back upon other resources when faced with the prospect of coming to some conclusions.

There is a epistemological considerations known as "methodological conservatism" that is relevant, here (in my opinion). According to methodological conservatism, "we are entitled to maintain beliefs we already have, all other things being equal." [7]

When I consider the point (already articulated, supra.) about the dialectical (and inconclusive) nature of scientific inquiry, in conjunction with my very expansive set of background information (regarding widespread medical and pharmaceutical malfeasance in the country, infra.) - even apart from ancillary factors like the relative university ratings - I must conclude (tentatively, as always) that there is very little reason for me to alter my beliefs in virtue of your citation of an *abstract* asserting conclusions to the contrary.

Conclusion

From a theoretical standpoint, the Otago study abstract, while provocative, is neither (nor could it be) definitive (given the nature of scientific inquiry), nor even persuasive to me (since, for one thing, I cannot even read the entire article). For me, given my background assumptions, the higher credibility of the Harvard study as compared with the (heretofore unknown to me) Otago University, compels me to say that skepticism of water fluoridation (if not outright opposition to it) is, on balance, the far more compelling position.

From a practical standpoint (and whatever else it may be, drinking water is surely a very practical affair), the simple fact is that I would rather drink filtered water and risk tooth decay than drink fluoridated water and risk mental impairment.

Therefore, I believe that the wisest practical step for me and my family would be for me to invest in a water filter and use it. While we are enjoying pure, nutrifying hydration, the scientists can battle it out over fluoride in their respective journals.

~ Matthew J. Bell

Sept. 2, 2014

[1] See, e.g., http://www.cbsnews.com/news/americas-deep-dark-secret/; http://ideas.time.com/2013/07/10/eugenics-are-alive-and-well-in-the-united-states/

[2] To give just one example of this, I quote from Patent No. 5,935,943: "Traditionally, the active ingredient used for exterminating harmful wood eating insects ...has been an inorganic compound (such as ...sodium fluoride...) ...These compounds are frequently used because of their excellent stability and residual effect in wood and their low cost. However, these compounds are highly toxic... They are also very persistent in the human and animal body, and so, once they have entered the food chain, for example in the fat in fish or shellfish, they remain in the ecosystem, where their presence has become a problem. The manufacture, sale, import, and the like of these compounds are restricted in many countries, and most of them are prohibited from being used." <http://www.patentbuddy.com/Patent/5935943>.

[3] The most infamous case, surely, is the Tuskegee syphilis incident. The opening paragraph of Wiki's article reads: "The Tuskegee syphilis experiment ...was an infamous clinical study conducted between 1932 and 1972 by the U.S. Public Health Service to study the natural progression of untreated syphilis in rural African American men **who thought they were receiving free health care from the U.S. government**." <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment>

Put roughly, an antecedent fluoridation skeptic might worry that, at some future time, a similar article might read: "The water fluoridation experiment ...was an infamous clinical study conducted between 1950 (or so - I'm winging it) and 20XX by [persons now unknown] to study the intelligence-reducing effects of sodium fluoride ingesiton across a broad cross-section of the American population who thought that they were reducing their susceptibility to tooth decay."

Of course, this is merely an illustration - not an argument. Nevertheless, the Tuskegee event shows unambiguously that humans are, firstly, not above violating the autonomy of their fellow beings by conducting immoral and illegal "experiments" on them; and, secondly, that such activities can proceed apace for decades.

For other examples of such things, see a previous blog post of mine, here: <http://curveofbell.blogspot.com/2012/12/media-mistakes-as-digital-dye.html>.

[4] One might also cite the conjunction of vaccines with sterilizing agents (or "immunizations" against pregnancy), references concerning with can be found in Catherine Diodati's book Immunization: History, Ethics, Law, and Health (Windsor, Ont.: Integral Aspects, 1999).

[5] And where such persons are unaware of cases - most prominently the Manhattan Project - which involved massive amounts of material resources, money, and man-power and yet were kept secret (by most reasonable - and certainly be official military, standards).

[6] In passing, I note that Harvard University, the institution that produced the study to which I linked, was in 2013 ranked the #2 university in the world, and #1 in the world in terms of academic reputation. See <http://www.topuniversities.com/node/2547/ranking-details/world-university-rankings/2013>.

By contrast, during the same year, the University of Otago was ranked 155 in the world and 164 in the world in terms of academic reputation. <http://www.topuniversities.com/node/4417/ranking-details/world-university-rankings/2013>.

I have put this in an end note in order not to lay upon it undue emphasis.

[7] Jonathan Vogel, "Can Skepticism Be Refuted? The Refutation of Skepticism," Contemporary Debates in Epistemology, Oxford: Blackwell, 2005, p. 74.

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Canadian Monarchist Advises: Rally 'Round the President'

Response to William Thomas, “America – He’s Your President for Goodness Sake!”[1]

In 1990, the famed M.I.T. Professor Noam Chomsky famously - or, from the opposing perspective, infamously - stated that: “If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.”[2]

There is no reason to think that Chomsky exempts subsequent presidents from this assessment.

For instance, Chomsky notes that Obama is implicated in “a global assassination campaign.”

“There’s a global assassination campaign going on... [T]he New York Times story... is more or less a leak from the White House, because they are apparently proud of how the global assassination campaign works. Basically President Obama and his national security advisor, John Brennan, now head of the CIA, get together in the morning. ...[T]hey decide who is going to be killed today.”[3]

Elsewhere, explaining that “easy suppression of one’s own crimes is virtually ubiquitous among powerful states,” Chomsky asks readers to “consider,” as an example, “Obama’s terror weapons (drones) in Pakistan.”[4]

Despite these facts, one writer urges Americans to “rally around” the president, complaining that Obama is being treated “disrespectfully.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, the blogger in question hails from Canada.

Of course, Canada is part of the “Commonwealth” countries whose head (some say “titular” only) is the woman more commonly designated the “Queen of England.” In reality, she is just as much the Queen of Canada as of “England.”

The “Official Website of the British Monarchy” reports, concerning the Queen’s “unique relationship with Canada”: “The Queen personifies the state and is the personal symbol of allegiance, unity and authority for all Canadians. Legislators, ministers, public services and members of the military and police all swear allegiance to The Queen. It is for this reason that all new Canadian citizens swear allegiance to The Queen of Canada. Elections are called and laws are promulgated in The Queen’s name.”[5]

Given this frame of reference, one can imagine that this unfortunate Canadian is possibly projecting his country’s fascination with “royalty” onto his southern neighbors.

Indeed, there may even be a movement to elevate the “chief executive” to a status whereby he “personifies the state and the personal symbol of allegiance,” etc., etc.

This is not the heritage of the United States, however.

Even today, school children do not “pledge allegiance” to the president. They “pledge allegiance to flag of the United States of American; and to the Republic…”.[6]

Setting aside the questions of whether this is wise or historical, it is surely a far cry from swearing allegiance to the president.

The idea that Americans should fall lockstep into line behind the head of one of the three separate-but-equal branches is first of all ahistorical.

Arguably, the federal-level governmental figure with which the average American might, from a Constitutional point of view, feel close camaraderie, would be his or her Congressional Representative. After all, it is the House of Representatives that is supposed to be the clearest and most direct vehicle for the People’s voice in the corridors of power.

Beside this, it is highly questionable that Obama – alone among presidents – is suffering under some disproportionate level of mockery.

“Comics had mimicked presidents as far back as Theodore Roosevelt’s time…”.[7]

The famed columnist and wit, “H. L. Mencken mocked [Calvin Coolidge’s] daily naps,” seemingly ranking him below the brutal Roman dictator, Nero, who at least “fiddled” while “Coolidge only snored.”[8] In fact, Coolidge was mocked to such a degree that when the president’s death was reported in the press, the satirical writer “Dorothy Parker reportedly asked, ‘How could they tell?’…”[9]

Other presidents have been mocked as well. One thinks immediately of the comedy show Saturday Night Live’s portrayals of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.[10]

Various lists of “most hated presidents” are readily available through easily conducted Google searches. Investigation will show that many of these figures were ridiculed in their lifetimes – and often during their presidential tenures.

It may be suggested that such derision is, collectively, a sign of healthy dissent. As an oft-repeated proverb has it: “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”

The United States is not ruled by a dictator. Or is it? And if it is, should this matter in terms of whether the subjugated peoples express their displeasure about the crimes of “their” leaders?

When repressed populations have a healthy sense of indignation, even genuine kings are not immune from humiliation. During the period before America’s Revolution: “The King himself was pelted with rotten fruit when he appeared.”[11]

“Rally around the leader” is a game of population control.

Speaking of the absurdity of cheering for his high school’s sports teams, Chomsky once stated: “[I]n high school …I suddenly asked myself at one point: ‘Why do I care if my high school team wins the football game? I don’t know anybody on the team. They have nothing to do with me. Why am I cheering for my team? It does not make any sense.’”[12]

Answering his own questions, Chomsky noted: “But the point is, it does make sense: It’s a way of building up irrational attitudes of submission to authority and group cohesion behind leadership elements. In fact it’s training in irrational jingoism.”[13]

I say: Keep mocking the president – any president, every president. Derision, I think, puts a check on blind “submission to authority” and “jingoism.”

[1] <http://kstreet607.com/2013/06/21/a-canadians-view-on-our-disrespect-of-president-obamas-presidency/>.

[2] Noam Chomsky, "If the Nuremberg Laws were Applied...," speech, ca. 1990, reproduced online, Chomsky[dot]info, <http://www.chomsky.info/talks/1990----.htm>.

[3] Steven Garbas, “Noam Chomsky on the era of the drone,” Satellite, Sept., 2013, <http://www.satellitemagazine.ca/2013/09/noam-chomsky-on-the-era-of-the-drone/>.

[4] Noam Chomsky, "There is Much More to Say," ZNet, May, 2011, <http://www.chomsky.info/articles/201105--.htm>.

[5] <http://www.royal.gov.uk/MonarchAndCommonwealth/Canada/TheQueensroleinCanada.aspx>.

[6] “Pledge of Allegiance,” <http://www.ushistory.org/documents/pledge.htm>.

[7] Louis Liebovich, The Press and the Modern Presidency: Myths and Mindsets from Kennedy to Election 2000, Westport, Ct.: Greenwood, 2001, p. 99.

[8] Jacob Heilbrunn, “The Great Refrainer: ‘Coolidge,’ by Amity Shlaes,” New York Times, Feb. 14, 2013, < http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/books/review/coolidge-by-amity-shlaes.html>.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Liebovich, loc. cit.

[11] Daniel P. Mannix, The Hellfire Club, reprint ed., New York: Ibooks, 2001, p. 110.

[12] Quoted in Peter Wintonick and Mark Achbar, Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media, video, 1992, reproduced on YouTube, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO51ahW9JlE>.

[13] Ibid. For the specific quotation, see YouTube, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vz1nIHv6P6Q&t=1m55s>.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

F.B.I. Agents Provocateurs in Ferguson, Missouri?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? - Juvenal

Who (if anyone) is investigating the possibility that there is a link between the FBI and the New Black Panthers group - both of which were supposedly on the ground together in Ferguson, Missouri?

In the late 1960s, partially under the auspices of the now-infamous Cointelpro Operation, the (original) Black Panthers organization was the target of both "Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and police infiltration".

As recently as 2007, Orlando, Florida's flagship newspaper, the Orlando Sentinel, reported that "a neo-Nazi march through the streets ...that triggered a major police mobilization" in that community had, in fact, been "organized by ...[a] paid FBI informant" named David Gletty.

A 2012 New York Times opinion piece rehearsed the litany of ostensible terror-"dramas" that were actually "facilitated by the F.B.I., whose undercover agents and informers posed as terrorists".

No wonder why U.S. Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) once remarked that "The FBI has shown, beyond a shadow of doubt, that it cannot police itself."

Locally, peaceful daytime protests in Ferguson have been hijacked at night by violent elements. An article posted at KMOV's website states: "A spokesman for the Missouri State Highway Patrol says outsiders are to blame for the violent protests that have wrecked the community of Ferguson."

Now, according to Fox News, we discover that militants from the so-called New Black Panthers are organizing in Ferguson.

Given the FBI's sketchy history, and given that the present violence is being incited by mysterious "outsiders," why should the public have any confidence that the violence is not (at least in part) the work of federal agents provocateurs?

Matthew J. Bell,

Sources:

Rhonda Y. Williams, "Black Women and Urban Politicis," Peniel E. Joseph, ed., Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era, London & New York: Routledge, 2006, p. 89.

Henry Pierson Curtis, "Neo-Nazi Rally Was Organized By FBI Informant," Orlando Sentinel,

Feb. 15, 2007, <http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2007-02-15/news/MHATE15_1_fbi-white-supremacists-national-socialist-movement>.

David K. Shipler, "Terrorist Plots, Hatched by the FBI," New York Times, Apr. 28, 2012, <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/terrorist-plots-helped-along-by-the-fbi.html>.

Sen. Grassley Quoted by Gary Field, "No Early Release of Crime Lab Report," USA Today, Mar. 18, 1997, p. 3A.

"Highway Patrol: Outsiders are destroying Ferguson," KMOV, Aug. 17, 2014, <http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Highway-Patrol-Outsiders-are-destroying-Ferguson--271621461.html>.

Todd Gitlin, "The Wonderful American World of Informers and Agents Provocateurs," Huffington Post, Jun. 27, 2013, <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/todd-gitlin/agents-provocateurs_b_3509981.html>.

See the article "FBI Warns New Black Panther Leader in Ferguson Inciting Violence," Fox News, Aug. 13, 2014, <http://fox2now.com/2014/08/13/fbi-warns-new-black-panther-leader-in-ferguson-inciting-violence/>.\

Wednesday, August 20, 2014

Response to Frank Steiner

Response to Frank Steiner, "The Philosophers’ War on Israel," The Beacon, Aug. 20, 2014, <http://buckleybeacon.com/2014/08/20/the-philosophers-war-on-israel/>.

The Israel lobby displays a staggering level of disdain for the intelligence of the American people. Whenever Israel is in the news, you can rest assured that the well-heeled coalition of pro-Israeli propagandists are working overtime trying to ensure that vacuous slogans like "the freest state in the Middle East" endlessly circulate to offset the negative PR-value of images documenting the collective punishment of the subjugated Palestinian population.

The self-serving whining of professional pro-Israel lobbyists (like American Israel Public Affairs Committee President Frank Steiner*) belies their pretended contempt for the petitioning efforts of academics that they shamelessly smear as "third rate."

Despite this transparently politically-motivated and sanctimonious lecturing, reasonable people do not consider near-genocidal military reprisals to be "morally praiseworthy" methods for quashing the Palestinian campaign for national autonomy. In fact, as professor Norman Finkelstein points out: "International law prohibits an occupying power from using force to suppress a struggle for self-determination, whereas it does not prohibit a people struggling for self-determination from using force." [1]

Regarding the incessantly repeated Israeli motto "freest state in the Middle East," this - to the extant that it comes out true at all - is of a piece with "complimentary" statements such as "Mickey Spillane was the noblest of the mobsters." Doubtless the gangster Spillane did seem noble in comparison to psychopaths like Meyer Lansky, Louis Lepke, and Bugsy Siegel. But even "gentleman gangsters" are unquestionably criminals.

Israel is an apartheid state that systematically relegates non-"Jews" to the status of second-class citizens (at best). According to the late Professor Israel Shahak:

"Israel 'belongs' to persons who are defined by the Israeli authorities as 'Jewish', irrespective of where they live, and to them alone. On the other hand, Israel doesn't officially 'belong' to its non-Jewish citizens, whose status is considered even officially as inferior. This means in practice that if members of a Peruvian tribe are converted to Judaism, and thus regarded as Jewish, they are entitled at once to become Israeli citizens and benefit from the approximately 70 per cent of the West Bank land (and the 92 per cent of the area of Israel proper), officially designated only for the benefit of Jews. All non-Jews (not only all Palestinians) are prohibited from benefiting from those lands. (The prohibition applies even to Israeli Arabs who served in the Israeli army and reached a high rank.) The case involving Peruvian converts to Judaism actually occurred a few years ago. The newly-created Jews were settled in the West Bank, near Nablus, on land from which non-Jews are officially excluded."[2]

Likewise, it may well be the case, historically speaking, that "no state facing the existential threats on par with those facing the state of Israel has ever demonstrated the level of respect for human dignity and worth as has the government in Jerusalem...".

However, translating this into straightforward English, it is simply a declaration that, in past Empires, rock-throwing protesters exhibiting insufficient obeisance (i.e., committing lèse-majesté "crimes") to the Imperial rulers would be summarily exterminated. The modern manifestation of this is the defiant Palestinians who, despite the futility of their gestures, lob the equivalent of model rockets at the military behemoth that is the American-funded Israeli state.

That Israel does not just wipe out the oppressed Palestinian population is hardly to be credited to Israeli self-restraint. The fact is that there are simply too many eyes on Israel for it to do so.

Israel's "moral superiority" is attested by the declaration of Rabbi Yaacov Perrin, who "eulogized" the mass-murderer Baruch Goldstein (who slaughtered 30 Muslims while they prayed [3]) by saying: "One million Arabs are not worth a Jewish fingernail." [4]

So much for the "singular beacon of freedom."

The notion that "Israel's right to defend itself" - a favorite line for pro-Israeli partisans - is being "violated" by those who insist that Israel not be immune from International Law, was put paid to by the esteemed Professor Noam Chomsky. Chomsky highlighted the seldom-noted (by the aforementioned pro-Israeli propagandists) logical leap obscured by the insipid phrase.

"The mantra that is endlessly repeated is that Israel has the right to use force to defend itself. The thesis is partially defensible. The rocketing is criminal, and it is true that a state has the right to defend itself against criminal attacks. But it does not follow that it has a right to defend itself by force. That goes far beyond any principle that we would or should accept." [5]

"But let’s not bother with rigorous intellectual inquiry."

No, let us deemphasize the sober analyses of philosophers such as Jeff McMahan and Jason Stanley and turn for our moral advice to professional pro-Israel lobbyists from AIPAC. How can we doubt that their caviling is anything but the impassioned entreaties from a disinterested party? I mean, it's not as if AIPAC was "the most important organization affecting America's relationship with Israel." [6] It's not as though AIPAC was playing with hundreds of millions of dollars - and with much to lose, financially and politically, should the tide of American public opinion turn against Israel. Oh, wait.

For more information, see Michael Hoffman's book The Israeli Holocaust Against the Palestinians, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho: Independent History & Research, 2002, .
* "Frank Steiner," C-Span Biographical History, <http://www.c-spanvideo.org/person/27554>.

1. Norman G. Finkelstein, "...The Law Supports Hamas...," normanfinkelstein[dot]com, Jul. 20, 2014, <http://normanfinkelstein.com/.../are-hamas-rocket.../>; citing James Crawford, The Creation of States in International Law, 2nd. ed., Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2006, pp. 135-37, 147; Heather A. Wilson, International Law and the Use of Force by National Liberation Movements, Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1988, pp. 135-36; and A. Rigo Sureda, The Evolution of the Right to Self-Determination: A study of United Nations practice, Leiden: Bril, 1973, pp. 331, 343-44, 354.

2. Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion, London: Pluto, 1994, p. 3; Brooklyn, N.Y.: Baruch Spinoza, p. 4.

3. "1994: Jewish Settler Kills 30 at Holy Site," BBC, <http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/25/newsid_4167000/4167929.stm>.

4. Clyde Haberman, "West Bank Massacre; Israel Orders Tough Measures Against Militant Settlers," New York Times, Feb. 28, 1994, <http://www.nytimes.com/1994/02/28/world/west-bank-massacre-israel-orders-tough-measures-against-militant-settlers.html>.

5. Noam Chomsky, "'Exterminate all the Brutes': Gaza 2009," Chomsky.info, Jan. 19, 2009, rev. Jun. 6, 2009, <chomsky[dot]info/articles/20090119.htm>.

6. Quoted in John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008, p. 154.