“Someday someone will die and, wall or not, the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain ‘problems’. Let’s hope the [lawyers] stand behind their decisions then…”
- Coleen Rowley, Former FBI Agent
Before 1978, the story goes, agencies involved in domestic security, particularly the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), ran wild, charging after spies and traitors and trampling civil rights. They broke into houses and busted safes; they put down illegal wiretaps, and scrutinized members of fringe political movements without probable cause. In response to these excesses, Congress put strict limits on government agencies’ powers, and specific guidelines for the surveillance on suspected spies and foreign agents, namely: The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA). For the past thirty years FISA has been an essential part of American counter-intelligence operations, and it has had its share of both successes and failures. However, is it a law that is of overall benefit to the security and counter-intelligence efforts of the United States? Has FISA been improved or fixed by the counter-intelligence directives of the Unifying and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (USA PATRIOT)? Do these laws secure us, or leave us more vulnerable to attack?
History of FISA
Domestic security in America has a complicated history. Originally, the task of counter-intelligence fell to the Pinkerton Detective Agency and then, around the turn of the century, to the different branches of the military.[1] The supposed abuses that lead to the creation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act began with operations conducted by Office of Naval Intelligence. “In its enthusiasm to seek out individuals posing a possible threat to national security, ONI could be blamed for periodically engaging in ‘witch hunts’ or using questionable methods that would later be judged an affront to justice.”[2] The “questionable methods” included wire-tapping and physical searches without a warrant.[3]
In 1908, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was founded. While, in the beginning the Bureau made some brief forays into counter-intelligence (most notably with the General Intelligence Division), J. Edgar Hoover’s ascent to the top and his superiors’ hostile attitude towards intelligence gathering resulted in the effective dismantlement of these efforts.[4]
It was not until 1938 that the FBI became the central agency for internal security, especially counterintelligence measures, by the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.[5] The administration was under enormous pressure from the public and Congress to do something about the “spy problem” coming from fascist and communist subversion and espionage.[6] J. Edgar Hoover insisted that such duties should fall to a central civilian agency: “Army and Navy must bend every effort toward winning the war… investigative activities and protective measures [should be] handled by one central agency, the Bureau.”[7]
After World War II, the security apparatus begun by Hoover and Roosevelt was not dismantled; instead it was further consolidated into the Justice Department and the FBI.[8] The threat of Communist subversion and espionage loomed large in post-war America, and in the mind of Hoover. However, conventional attempts at penetrating the Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) and other extremist groups failed because of obstructive legislation and the secretive nature of these groups.[9] In order to adapt to these difficulties, it was decided that “unconventional methods” would be employed. [10] Thus in 1956, the Counterintelligence Programs (COINTELPROs) were born, and within them lay the seeds of disillusionment that would be the catalyst for the creation of FISA.
The purpose of COINTELPROs was to use intelligence and political warfare techniques to neutralize domestic subversive organizations:
COINTELPRO-Communist Party (and COINTELPRO-Socialist Workers Party) involved such dirty tricks (and worse) as distributing anonymous or fictitious material to competing members of groups; selectively leaking information, sometimes false, through new media; directing informants within targeted groups to disrupt the activities of those groups through misinformation or by fermenting factionalism; disrupting the personal lives or careers of subjects; requesting tax audits of targeted individuals and check-ups by police for routine violations; impeaching the credibility of targeted group members by planting materials that suggested they were agents of the bureau; and simple interviewing and re-interviewing of targeted individuals in order to harass and intimidate them. Ultimately, these COINTELPRO techniques were extended to targets other than Communists- including groups that lacked any connection to a foreign power.[11]
In addition to the above, the FBI was involved in such activities as surreptitious entry, mail interception, and extensive electronic eavesdropping.[12] The FBI was extraordinarily successful at fulfilling this mission, and COINTELPRO effectively dismantled from the inside some of the most dangerous groups in the United States, such as CPUSA[13] and The Black Panthers[14]. However, this licentious attitude towards civil liberties was to bear bitter fruit.
On March 8th, 1971 a radical leftist organization (the “Commission to Investigate the FBI”) broke into an FBI office in Media, Pennsylvania, and stole reams of secret documents.[15] The stolen documents had detailed accounts of FBI activity against anti-war and New Left organizations, as well information on COINTELPRO. When the Commission released these documents to the media, it was the first time that COINTELPRO had been disclosed to the public.[16]
The Media break-ins began an avalanche of public attention to the “abuses” of the FBI. This attention included such inquiries as a conference entitled “Investigating the FBI”, jointly held by the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University and the Committee for Public Justice, a civil libertarian watchdog group.[17] Along with the death of J. Edgar Hoover, the Watergate Scandal and the indirect involvement of the FBI in Nixon’s corruption put the Bureau in a very vulnerable position. “With Hoover gone, critics of the Bureau, both within the government and outside it, could conceivably pressure more information out of the FBI concerning such excesses as COINTELPRO.”[18] These events brought about the slow and steady unraveling of the secrets of COINTELPRO, and were ultimately the cause of the Church and Pike Committees, congressional committees that held hearings, investigating FBI abuses.
The Church and Pike Committees did not find anything new, per se, but they brought to full public and political light the activities of the Counterintelligence Programs, and, in the process, thoroughly discredited the Federal Bureau of Investigation:
What was permanently damming to the Bureau, however, was not the Senate’s revelation (once again) of COINTELPRO, bad though that was, but the manner in which the congressional investigators made COINTELPRO into the central exhibit in a brief that purported to prove that the Bureau was, in effect, a permanent conspiracy against dissent in the United States… The Church Committee staff’s Final Report completed the destruction of the Bureau’s history by turning its once glorious history into a plot against the republic.[19]
The legislative branch, supported by the public’s perception of FBI malfeasance, turned the COINTELPRO scandal into a mandate to place heavy restrictions on the Bureau’s ability to conduct domestic security and counterintelligence:
The legislative goal of the Church Committee was a charter for the FBI that would strictly limit its intelligence operations… There were, however, two important consequences for the Bureau directly traceable to the 1975-1976 congressional investigations. Congress established oversight committees for intelligence (the Senate in 1976, the House in 1977) to supervise the FBI (and the CIA). Then it passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978… which assumed that strictly domestic terrorism should be handled in an ex post factum fashion, investigating crimes after they occurred rather than preventing them.[20]
FISA was originally conceived not only to curtail abuses and rein in the FBI, but to neutralize any attempts at preventative counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence.
Overview of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
President Carter signed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act into law on October 25, 1978, and, according to its provisions, it became fully effective on August 16th, 1979.[21] In so doing, Carter radically changed American counterintelligence doctrine and capabilities. The change that FISA instituted has been far-reaching, but there are five main areas where FISA has had the most direct impact: the creation of a secret FISA court, electronic surveillance, physical searches, pen registers and trap and trace devices, and access to confidential business records.
While Congress was determined to limit the FBI’s ability to execute operations and surveillance, it acknowledged that the issues of domestic security and counterintelligence required secrecy.[22] However, it had to balance the need for secrecy with civil liberties, which require that any action taken against a U.S. person have a court order.[23] Therefore, the FISA legislation created its own court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), which hears cases and briefs, and issues orders completely confidentially. The judges, clerks, and lawyers are all required to obtain a security clearance.[24] All sensitive material conducted under the auspices of FISA pass through this court and its cases are classified. Its decisions are subject to appellate review by the FISC Court of Review, whose records are also sealed and whose meetings are secret.[25] The FISA court strikes an elegant, if delicate, balance between the needs of national security and the demands of the citizenry.
FISA empowers the President, through the Attorney General, to authorize electronic surveillance, without a court order for up to one year, in order to acquire “foreign intelligence”. However, in order to do this, the Attorney General must meet two criteria: first, he must certify, in writing and under oath that the surveillance is directed only against foreign targets, and communication between the same, and secondly, he must report to Congress the minimization procedures that he is undertaking in the operation.[26] “Minimization” is a term that refers to a set of protections for American persons which restricts electronic surveillance:
[They are] specific procedures … that are reasonably designed in light of the purpose and technique of the particular surveillance, to minimize the acquisition and retention … of non-publicly available information concerning unconsenting United States persons.[27]
The minimization restriction goes farther than this, however, and forbids the retention or use of incidental information about crimes committed by American citizens, nor can any information about an American person be disseminated, even within the government, without the person’s consent, nor, finally, can any electronic surveillance record be kept about an American person without a FISA warrant, which must be obtained within seventy-two hours.[28]
However, protections go even further than minimization efforts. The most important provision on electronic surveillance as regards domestic counterintelligence is that the Attorney General may not, under any circumstances, order electronic surveillance on an American person without a court order, and, furthermore, he can only order that surveillance if there is “…no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party.”[29] The essential point to all of these restrictions is the complete inviolability of the American person; no matter what his or her crimes, or his or her involvement, or even incidental contact with surveillance, without the long and complicated process of obtaining a court order.
In regard to physical searches, the same basic guidelines apply, including mandatory minimization efforts and the seventy-two hour guideline for retroactive court orders. American intelligence services may execute a physical search on non-United States persons without a court order, provided the Attorney General authorizes it. “While tailored to physical search, the requirements [of FISA] strongly parallel those applicable to electronic surveillance under 50 U.S.C., Section 1804 (a)(7)(B).”[30] Once again, should the search turn about anything that involves or implicates an American person, it must be completely disregarded and can bear no influence on the case.[31] In fact, as far as the courts are concerned, any such evidence or information does not exist.
Title IV of FISA presents the restrictions and guidelines for pen registers and trap and trace devices, or, in other words, the rules governing surveillance directed towards the activity of specific phone lines. Trap and trace devices and pen registers are attached to a single line and, instead of recording conversations, they monitor the phone numbers of both incoming and outgoing phone calls.[32] Pen registers can also be used to monitor internet usage, specifically what websites a person visits, and the people they e-mail.
In the case of pen registers and trap and trace devices FISA is a bit more permissive in allowing their use. The main concern of FISA is that the FBI not utilize these tools against American dissidents. The Attorney General, or a designated attorney for the government, may authorize the use of these devices “for any investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, provided such investigation of United States person is not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution.”[33]
The last major proviso of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is subsection 1861(a)(2), which empowers the government to require businesses to produce any and all of their records for a counter-terrorism or –intelligence operation or investigation. However, they must apply to FISC for authorization to confiscate business records. While pursuing a court order, the government is required specify on its application that the records sought after are for “an authorized investigation conducted in accordance with [FISA] to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a United States person or to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.”[34] Additionally, the Act prohibits “…any person to disclose that the FBI has sought after or obtained tangible things under Section 1862”[35] with the exception of authorized individuals, as well as precluding “… liability for persons who, in good faith, produce tangible things under such a Section 1861 order.”[36]
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is an intricate and complicated piece of legislation that seeks to accomplish much. The two necessities of a free society are freedom and national security, yet one is clearly more important than the other. Freedom cannot long survive if the nation is under constant threat of attack. The traditional conflict between these two values is one that statesman have attempted to reconcile since the beginning of our nation. Yet, by putting paramount importance on civil liberties, legislators have put the people who enjoy those freedoms in danger.
The Consequences of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
FISA has had profound consequences on our country’s ability to protect itself. While it may have set a legal framework that protects civil liberties, it also made any attempt at domestic security progressively more difficult. In fact, it eventually became impossible to conduct and coordinate counterintelligence and counter-terrorism operations due to the legislation’s restrictions. The problems created by FISA are legion, but this paper will consider the most egregious ones.
The most serious consequence of FISA is what is termed the “wall” between FBI operations conducting domestic security and the rest of the government- including the criminal division of the FBI. The FBI became so concerned about even appearing as though they were engaged in inappropriate domestic security, the same issue that FISA was enacted for, that they erected a wall of isolation around their domestic security operations.[37] This wall was so high that the FBI agents conducting criminal investigations and those conducting intelligence operations on the same (foreign) person could not share any information:
[There] was a prosecution team in New York that began criminal investigation of Usama Bin Laden (sic) in early 1996. The team had access to a number of sources. We could talk to citizens, local police officers, other U.S. government agencies, foreign police officers-even foreign intelligence personnel, and foreign citizens. We did all those things. We could even talk to Al Qaeda members - and we did. But there was one group of people we couldn’t talk to… the FBI agents across the street from us assigned to a parallel intelligence investigation of Usama bin Laden (sic) and al Qaeda. We could not learn what information they had gathered. That was “the wall”.[38]
It is absurd that any law would get in the way of simply sharing information on matters of vital national security because of a public relation concerns.
The isolation that this wall creates is not just damaging to the efforts of the FBI, but also to the government’s efforts against terrorism and foreign intelligence operations worldwide. In the modern age, globalization is taking effect, and the world is growing increasingly interdependent, so that “no ‘affair’ is any longer exclusively ‘foreign’.”[39] Now even more so than in previous years, the counterintelligence, investigative and foreign intelligence apparatus need to be able to communicate with one another in order to perform their essential duties with effectiveness.
Congress, in creating FISA, overreacted to the reports of abuse, and in the process of transforming the FBI into a kinder, gentler agency also hamstrung our ability to protect ourselves from domestic intelligence and terrorist operations. The FBI and the Department of Justice, in their efforts to avoid any stain of real or imagined impropriety, built the wall higher than was required by law:
We believe that it is prudent to establish a set of instructions that will clearly separate the counterintelligence investigation from the more limited, but continued, criminal investigations. These procedures, which go beyond what is legally required, will prevent any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance that FISA is being used to avoid procedural safeguards which would apply in a criminal investigation.[40]
While it is certainly gratifying that the FBI is concerned with observing “procedural safeguards” and protecting citizens’ civil rights, they are primarily a criminal and security agency and the focus should be less on legal niceties and more on actively protecting the country.
The current position of the FBI, and its security apparatus, is a direct result of FISA and the culture it sought, successfully, to create.[41] In a report prepared by the United States General Accounting Office for Senator Fred Thompson, of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, it is reported that the “Criminal Division believes that [Office of Intelligence Policy and Review] and [Federal Bureau of Investigation] concerns are overly cautious” toward the possibility of intelligence corrupting criminal evidence.[42]
While the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court is an elegant solution to the conflicting necessities of secrecy and appellate review, it has a major drawback. Theoretically the court can issue orders quickly enough to accommodate the needs of field operations. However, in reality, the massive amount of paperwork, which needs meticulous attention, and the high case load makes for unacceptably long wait times. On average, it takes over forty-six days for the Justice Department to present an application for a FISA warrant to the FISC.[43] Add this to the 1,228 applications presented to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court annually, and the likelihood of court orders being issued in a timely matter is virtually non-existent. Intelligence operations are by nature dynamic with ephemeral opportunities that require quick action. Intelligence officers do not have the luxury of the time required to submit briefs and applications. Important information and dangerous individuals may be lost because of a slow, overworked court.
The court’s jurisdiction has been expanded far past the borders of the United States. The original intent of FISA was to protect Unites States persons within the nation’s borders, but it has come to mean that no US person anywhere in the world can be targeted for surveillance without the approval of the FISA Court. This requirement would further hamper intelligence officers in their capabilities and options, and generally make the nation less safe:
Unforeseen changes in technology, however, meant that… the government often needed to obtain a court order before vital intelligence collection could begin against a terrorist or other foreign intelligence target located in a foreign country. A mandatory prior court approval process would create delays that could prevent the swift gathering of intelligence necessary to indentify and provide warning of threats to our country.[44]
If the United States desires to be truly committed to her own safety and security, and to that of her citizens, then she should be more careful about to whom she extends her protection, including Americans who associate themselves with terrorists and spies. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was written in 1978, and issued restrictions and guidelines based on the technological capabilities of the time. However, in 2008, this means that the bulk of FISA, even with revisions, is hopelessly out of date.[45]
“Revolutionary advances in telecommunications technology since 1978 upset the careful balance established by Congress to distinguish between surveillance governed by FISA and surveillance directed at targets outside the US.”[46]
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 has very serious problems. Many of its protections are excessive, and were written with a completely different technological frame of reference. FISA makes our intelligence and domestic security apparatus slow and moribund, at the very time when they should be modernizing and revitalizing to face the threats of the twenty-first century.
The Influence of the USA PATRIOT Act on FISA
The Unifying and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 was legislation designed to strengthen the counter-terrorism tools of the United States government. However, the PATRIOT Act amends some very important sections of FISA, which has consequences for all domestic security, counter-terrorism and counterintelligence alike. The PATRIOT Act has been a boon for our domestic security and intelligence because many of the problems of FISA have been addressed and remedied, to varying degrees, by it.
The biggest problem that FISA had was the isolation between the counterintelligence and investigative aspects of government. The wall nurtured a counter-productive and weak culture within the counterintelligence community. One of the main reasons that the PATRIOT Act was written was to help break down this wall, in order to prevent a failure such as September 11th from happening again. [47] This makes breaking down the wall the most significant thing that the PATRIOT Act has accomplished in repairing our domestic intelligence capabilities. “The wall, prior to its partial dismantlement through the operation of the USA PATRIOT Act… had the unintended consequence of depriving counterintelligence operators of some of the basic tools of criminal investigation.” [48]
Despite the major strides made possible by the PATRIOT Act in improving domestic security, an entire culture of timid and over-cautious behavior needs to be transformed. Even more importantly, our domestic security operators need to be able to act on or obtain time-sensitive information, leads, and opportunities, without having to run the legal gamut. The National Security Letter has made quick response to changing circumstances and access to vital information a possibility by allowing the Attorney General to authorize, without a court order, the collection of “sensitive information such as the web sites a person visits, a list of e-mail addresses with which a person has corresponded, or even unmask the identity of a person who has posted anonymous speech on a political website.”[49] The National Security Letters also protect secrecy by “…also allow[ing] the FBI to forbid or ‘gag’ anyone who receives an NSL from telling anyone about the record demand.”[50] The National Security Letter provision of the PATRIOT Act is of great value to domestic intelligence staff, and fixes the overly regulated aspects of information collection in FISA.
One of the major aspects of FISA was the power it granted the Attorney General to compel businesses to share sensitive documents. This gave domestic intelligence agencies a tremendous resource of information. Under the PATRIOT Act, this power has been significantly expanded. Whereas previously FISA stipulated that it could only require “access to certain business records for foreign intelligence and international terrorism investigations”, the PATRIOT Act has increased the scope of documents the government is able access. The Director of the FBI, or a designee, may apply to the FISC for an order that requires:
The production of any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items) for an investigation to obtain foreign intelligence information not concerning a United States person or [sic] to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, provided that such investigation of a United States person in not conducted solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution.[51]
While there was nothing technically wrong with the FISA provision about obtaining business documents, it greatly limited the potential of this resource. The PATRIOT Act increased the effectiveness of this FISA provision.
Before the passage of the PATRIOT Act, virtually no legislation existed that empowered the government to pursue individuals or organizations that funded clandestine intelligence or terrorist activities in the United States. Although FISA allowed for access to private business records, it did not enable the government to stop or slow the flow of money:
Also included in the PATRIOT Act was authority that allowed us [Justice Department] to go after the purse strings of potential terrorists… Somebody finances international terrorism, and some of that money flows through US banks. Prior to 9/11, we could do relatively little to impede or impound funds that were moving through the terrorist financial network. The PATRIOT Act gave us the ability to investigate and prosecute anyone who financially supports terrorism or funnels money to terrorists.[52]
The capacity to trace money, and even stop its flow, especially in American bank systems, is invaluable for any domestic security agency.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court originally had only seven justices. The framers of this law had no conception of the sheer number of cases that the FISC would have to process; as was previously mentioned, over 1,200 cases go before these judges every year. The PATRIOT Act remedied this situation by increasing the number of judges from seven to eleven, at least three of whom must always be within twenty miles of the District of Columbia.[53] Requiring three judges to always be available improves response time for time-sensitive issues, and the augmented number of judges means that they can get through more cases, more quickly.
The two aspects of FISA which have the strictest legal requirements are the ones which deal with physical searches and electronic surveillance, which also happen to be two of the most vital weapons in an internal security’s locker. Minimization restrictions and mandatory FISC court order were brutal obstacles to effective utilization of these tools. On the other hand, they are also some of the most controversial powers with which domestic intelligence is entrusted. The PATRIOT Act’s amendments to the FISA law represent substantial, positive, but restrained change.
The altered physical search provision takes into account the sensitive nature of intelligence operations. In the original rules governing searches in FISA, a court order must be obtained and prior notice given for a search to be legal. However, the PATRIOT act has amended FISA so that “FBI agents may now conduct ‘sneak and peek’ searches when notice of a search would adversely impact a probe.”[54] This is a definite improvement over the previous provisos; however it is still very limited. “This expanded power, however, does not provide authority to seize tangible evidence or intercept communications. FBI field agents are still bedeviled by the need to obtain a warrant.”[55]
In the case of electronic surveillance, the corrected provision adapts FISA to this centuries’ technological situation. Previously, FISA only allowed the government to obtain court orders on particular devices.[56] This was perfectly acceptable when phones could not be carried on a person, and people were forced to use the same phone repeatedly. However, the advent and popularity of the cell phone meant that targets could use a phone once, throw it out, and because wire-tapping court orders take, on average, a week to procure, the target could operate seven days surveillance free.[57] The PATRIOT Act addresses this problem through the introduction of roving wiretaps:
In fact, this aspect of the act simply gives intelligence agents and law enforcement officers the court-ordered ability to change with a suspected terrorist when he or she switches phones, without having to go back to court to get a new warrant. Roving wiretaps still require a court order and still require the supervision of a member of the federal judiciary. But the roving wiretaps allow agents to track continuously terrorism suspects who have become much more adept at camouflaging their telephone communications.[58]
This modification is a vast improvement over the previous requirements of FISA, and one which is very conscious of the current technological situation.
The PATRIOT Act has, in general, been a healthy thing for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It has both expanded its scope to meet with the new dangers the nation faces, as well as modernized it so that domestic security agencies are not fighting a twenty-first century war with twentieth century weapons. It has loosened the obsolete and rigid language of FISA so that intelligence officers can exercise initiative without being shackled to a lawyer.[59] However, the increased capacity of internal security does not come with a price of fewer civil liberties: “[W]ith its detailed statutory structure, it appears intended to protect personal liberties safeguarded by the First and Fourth Amendments while providing a means to ensure national security interests.”[60] The PATRIOT Act is just the type of change that FISA needed.
Conclusions
Many people assume that in order to have security, one must surrender liberty. While this is certainly true in extreme cases, it is not true generally. A society can both uphold its God-given, inalienable rights at the same time as maintaining a security and peace. Laws like FISA come about because people are afraid of those who are ostensibly their protectors, so they seek to weaken them and make themselves vulnerable to attack. However, stricter punishment for officers who abuse the law would both reassure the public, as well as deter others from exploiting their position.[61] Such compromises will allow a democratic society to keep its way of life intact during difficult times.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 was a clear overreaction to over-politicized abuses by the FBI, but it was one that set this country’s security apparatus back decades. The United States has grown increasingly weak and vulnerable due to the culture and climate that FISA has created, both in the agencies and in the courts. FISA did not make the country any safer, but the PATRIOT Act did. The PATRIOT Act amended the more dangerous strictures of FISA, as well as addressing concerns not covered by it. However, the PATRIOT Act is not enough; while many of FISA’s problems have been temporarily alleviated by the PATRIOT Act, no amount of tinkering is going to fix something that is fundamentally broken. The PATRIOT Act does not need to be more extreme, or to expand the powers of the government, in order to make the country more secure. All it needs is a new base work with, something which is not a reaction to abuses, but a prudent, well reasoned, and deliberated piece of legislation. Abolish FISA, and create a law that makes sense.
[1] Frank J. Rafalko, editor, A Counterintelligence Reader: American Revolution to World War II, National Counterintelligence Center, http://www.fas.org/irp/ops/ci/docs/ci1/ch3a.htm (accessed July 23, 2008).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Raymond J. Batvinis, The Origins of FBI Counterintelligence (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2007), pg. 40-51.
[5] Ibid, pg. 54-58.
[6] Ibid, pg. 52-53.
[7] Ibid, pg. 54.
[8] Richard E. Morgan, Domestic Intelligence: Monitoring Dissent In America (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1980), pg. 37.
[9] Ibid, pg. 45.
[10] Ibid, pg. 45-46.
[11] Ibid, pg. 46.
[12] Ibid, pg. 49.
[13] Ibid, pg. 46-48.
[14]United States Senate Intelligence Activities Committee, compiler, “The FBI’s Covert Program to Destroy the Black Panther Party,” Final Report of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities United States Senate, http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIIc.htm (Accessed July 24, 2008).
[15] Richard E. Morgan, Domestic Intelligence: Monitoring Dissent In America (Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1980), pg. 4.
[16] Ibid, pg. 4-5.
[17] Ibid, pg. 4.
[18] Ibid, pg. 5.
[19] Richard Gid Powers, Broken: The Troubled Past and Uncertain Future of the FBI (New York, NY: Free Press, 2004) pg. 310-311.
[20] Ibid, pg. 312-313.
[21] Committee on the Judiciary, compiler, “Oversight Hearings Before The Subcommittee On Courts, Civil Liberties, And The Administration Of Justice of the Committee On The Judiciary House Of Representatives Ninety-Eighth Congress,” First Session on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1985) pg. 158
[22] United States Courts, compiler, “Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the Court of Review,” Understanding Intelligence Surveillance: A FISA Primer, http://www.uscourts.gov/outreach/topics/ fisa/courtofreview.html (accessed 7/18/08)
[23] Ibid.
[24] Thomas M. Franck, “Courts and Foreign Policy,” Foreign Policy (Summer 1991) http://www.foreignpolicy.com/Ning/archive/archive/083/COURTS_AND_FOREIGN_POLICY.PDF (accessed July 18, 2008).
[25] United States Courts, compiler, “Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and the Court of Review,” Understanding Intelligence Surveillance: A FISA Primer, http://www.uscourts.gov/outreach/topics/ fisa/courtofreview.html (accessed 7/18/08).
[26] Elizabeth B. Bazan, The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Hauppauge, NY: Novinka Books, 2002) pg. 11-13.
[27] Ibid, pg. 11.
[28] Ibid, pg. 11.
[29] Ibid, pg. 11.
[30] Ibid, pg. 34.
[31] Ibid, pg. 34.
[32] Ibid, pg. 44.
[33] Ibid, pg. 45.
[34] Ibid, pg. 54.
[35] Ibid, pg. 54.
[36] Ibid, pg. 44.
[37] Richard Gid Powers, Broken: The Troubled Past and Uncertain Future of the FBI (New York, NY: Free Press, 2004) pg. 399.
[38] John Ashcroft, Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (New York, NY: Center Street, 2006) pg. 150.
[39] Thomas M. Franck, “Courts and Foreign Policy,” Foreign Policy (Summer 1991) http://www.foreignpolicy.com/Ning/archive/archive/083/COURTS_AND_FOREIGN_POLICY.PDF (accessed July 18, 2008).
[40] Richard Gid Powers, Broken: The Troubled Past and Uncertain Future of the FBI (New York, NY: Free Press, 2004) pg. 399.
[41] Ibid, pg. 310-311.
[42] United States General Accounting Office, “Coordination Within Justice on Counterintelligence Criminal Matters is Limited,” FBI Intelligence Investigations (July 2001) http://www.fas.org/irp/gao/d01780.pdf (Accessed July 23, 2008).
[43] Richard A. Posner, Remaking Domestic Intelligence (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press Publication, 2005) pg. 44- 45.
[44] Anonymous, “FISA Legislation Necessary To Keep Our Nation Safe,” The White House (December 17, 2007) http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/12/20071217-3.html (Accessed July 23, 2008).
[45] The Protect America Act of 2007, which completely modernized FISA, expired on February 17, 2008 despite staunch White House opposition. The above criticism would be invalid if this were not the case.
[46] Anonymous, “FISA Legislation Necessary To Keep Our Nation Safe,” The White House (December 17, 2007) http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/12/20071217-3.html (Accessed July 23, 2008).
[47] John Ashcroft, Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (New York, NY: Center Street, 2006) pg. 143- 144.
[48] Michael J. Woods, “Access to Transactional Records,” Journal of National Security Law and Policy, Vol. 1:37 (2005): 40.
[49] The American Civil Liberties Union, “National Security Letters,” The American Civil Liberties Union, http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html (accessed July 24, 2008).
[50] Ibid.
[51] Elizabeth B. Bazan, The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Hauppauge, NY: Novinka Books, 2002) pg. 52- 53.
[52] John Ashcroft, Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (New York, NY: Center Street, 2006) pg. 157.
[53] Find Law.com, “115 Stat. 283 Sec. 208,” USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 http://fl1.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/ (Accessed July 24, 2008).
[54] Mark Riebling, “Uncuff the FBI,” The Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2002, pg. A-20.
[55] Ibid.
[56] John Ashcroft, Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (New York, NY: Center Street, 2006) pg. 156.
[57] Ibid.
[58] Ibid.
[59] Elizabeth B. Bazan, The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Hauppauge, NY: Novinka Books, 2002) pg. 57.
[60] Ibid, pg. 57.
[61] Mark Riebling, “Uncuff the FBI,” The Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2002, pg. A-20.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
Cultural Suicide: The Subversive Nature of the Modern American Multicultural Education System
“Multiculturalism was conceived by Western elites not to celebrate all cultures but to deny their own: it is, thus, the real suicide bomb.” - Mark Steyn, America Alone
Civilization requires that the traditions, values, beliefs and the accumulated knowledge of preceding generations are passed on to the next. Without the benefit of this heritage, a people have no identity, they are adrift. Even worse, they lose sight of why it is that they even exist. Why work or fight for something that means nothing to you? Good education is essential to passing civilization on from one generation to the next, and, conversely, bad or pernicious education is responsible for the destruction of culture and society. Unfortunately, education in America has been invaded by ideologues and subversives, who use various tools designed to inculcate their students’ intellects’ with the certain knowledge that America and Western Civilization is not their sacred heritage, but rather a shameful crutch which must be overcome. In so doing, these teachers are eroding the values and strength at the roots of society, and, consequently, are setting themselves up for a tragic collapse. The civil heresy called “Multiculturalism”, and its prominence in the classroom, is a major factor in the corruption of Western Civilization and its citizens.
What is Multiculturalism?
The American Heritage dictionary defines multiculturalism as “a social or educational theory that encourages interest in many cultures within a society rather than in only a mainstream culture.”[1] To a reasonable person, such interest in other cultures seems both health and just. America is a nation in a world full of nations, so it important to understand our neighbors.
However, the pleasant tenor of this definition fails to convey the reality of multiculturalism, its proponents, and its effects. At its heart, it is a theory which is deeply hostile to Western Civilization and America in particular. For instance, proponents of multiculturalism Martin, Lucek, and Fuentes write: “The characteristics of white supremacy, individualism, competitiveness, authoritarianism, sexism, and materialism characterize the traditional Western models...”[2] In a single statement, they have managed to accuse Western civilization of being inherently racist and tyrannical, oppressive and greedy. This sort of statement and, it is far from isolated, does not simply encourage study of sub-cultures, but actively despises and works against the “mainstream” culture.
Multiculturalism values each culture and subculture in the world as all being equal in worth and significance, without regard for that cultures accomplishments or a judgment as to whether or not it is a good culture. “At the heart of multiculturalism is a lie: that all cultures are equally valid.”[3]
In fact, if one attempts to make a decision on the value of another culture, you are labeled as “Eurocentric”. “Euro- centrism [sic] refers to a discursive tendency to interpret the histories and cultures of non-European societies from a European (or Western) perspective… [Leading] toward ignoring, undervaluing, or condemning non-European societies.”[4] Therefore, if an American has been well brought up and has been taught the social mores and beliefs of his civilization, it is a handicap that must be overcome in order to reach the truth.
While proponents of multiculturalism contend they are color-blind, and only concerned with making everyone equal, they are in fact racist. They despise anything to do with what they call European Americans (Caucasians), and constantly criticize his history, culture and beliefs. However, when it comes to “people of color”, the National Education Society goes so far as to urge teachers to buy books from authors because they are colored! “Purchase books for children that are written by and about people of color.”[5] The purpose of multiculturalism is to undermine and slowly disintegrate Western Civilization and it accomplishes this by indoctrinating children in school.
Multiculturalism in School
Children are taught multiculturalism at a young age, and its tenants are relentlessly pressed on them from childhood to young adulthood. It is not in a specific class, or teacher, it permeates everything in a schools curriculum. So when these children enter into the world, they will have never heard a real dissenting opinion, just the drone of an ideology repeated a hundred different ways, by a hundred different teachers.
In elementary school, children are instructed in multiculturalism by the most simple of instruments- books. They are read stories of other cultures’ fairy tales and mythology, while their own goes unexamined and unexplored. As it says on the NEA’s website:
Many of us are familiar with the stories of Anasi the beloved trickster spider from West Africa, and Russia’s Baba Yaga with her traveling house on chicken’s legs, Ishbushka… we might even know Tato Duende, the magical, secretive dwarf who dwells deep within South America’s rainforests. Multiculturalism, though, is so much more.[6]
There is no reference to Western, or, more specifically, American stories and characters. Why should there be when there is nothing of interest or value in Western Civilization?
Children are assigned value not because of their efforts, or the quality of their schoolwork, but due to an accident of nature which has become politically significant. The National Education Association exhorts teachers to spend special effort in nurturing the abilities of minority children. “Encourage children and young people of color to write. With guidance and training they are tomorrow’s authors. Help them dream and write their future into being.”[7]
As children get older, they are made to participate in a variety of events and activities. There is National Multicultural Diversity Day, which was founded to “increase awareness of the tremendous need to celebrate our diversity collectively”[8], or “introduce students to multicultural issues by inviting a local expert to talk about diversity.”[9] They even have songs that celebrate multiculturalism: “You can also sing songs that celebrate diversity.”[10] Students are forced to participate and become immersed, the lessons become holy writ.
In the university, multiculturalism is pervasive. All of the traditional subjects, except for mathematics and science, have been re-imagined and reorganized so as to reflect the new value system, and whole new subjects have been created:
The decades of the 1980s and the 1990s have generally been associated with the ascendancy of multicultural education in American universities… new disciplinary formations emerged in the form of programs and later departments in field such as women’s studies, African-American studies, Latino studies, or simply “ethnic studies,”… Equally influential were new theoretical discourses that mapped the contours of… areas as diverse as continental philosophy, post colonialism, race theory, feminism, revisionist historiography, queer theory, and media studies, to name a few. Their impact on traditional courses of study such as English, history, and philosophy proved decisive…[11]
Every class that a university student takes had been imbued with multiculturalism, and its attendant progressive philosophies and theories, such as post colonialism and race theory.
Unfortunately, the university is no longer the forum for debate and dialogue that it once was. The academy has replaced the marketplace of ideas with an intellectual bread line. Opposing viewpoints and dissent are not tolerated, as nothing can endanger the promulgation of progressive, multicultural doctrine. Conservative teachers are not hired, and so conservative students are adrift in a sea of progressivism:
Yet while the lack of conservative minds on college campuses is increasingly indisputable, the question remains: Why?The obvious answer, at least in the humanities and social sciences, is that academics shun conservative values and traditions, so their curricula and hiring practices discourage non-leftists from pursuing academic careers. What allows them to do that, while at the same time they deny it, is that the bias takes a subtle form.[12]
The stranglehold of multiculturalism in particular and progressive ideology in general in all levels of education is beyond question. In other words, “we have an academy… committed to multiculturalism.”[13]
The Relationship between Multiculturalism and Communist Subversive Doctrine
The creep of progressive, multicultural thought into the modern academy, and its subsequent stranglehold, may seem benign and spontaneous. However, it is a systematic, albeit decentralized, effort to change the education patterns of the next generation in order to change the future of America, and Western Civilization. The Social Revolution of the sixties may have fizzled, but its children remain alive and well in our universities, seeking to finish the task they started by a more insidious and gradual process. In fact, the purpose and methods of the current crisis in education bears marked similarity to the plans for subversion of the West by the radical leftist and communist Antonio Gramsci.
Modern American schools concentrate less on actual scholarship and more on political correctness under the guise of multiculturalism. As previously stated, essential and traditional subjects like English and History have been changed to fit around progressive ideology. Gramsci writings on education provide the reason why:
Gramsci’s concept of education is, however, only secondarily concerned with schooling. The main goal is the formation of an “intellectual moral bloc” capable of contesting the prevailing common sense and providing in its stead, more or less systematically, a “scientific” understanding of the social world and of politics that can be widely disseminated in the institutions and other spaces of civil society.[14]
In a broad stroke, the essential lesson of Gramsci is to imbue students with a single (progressive) view of the world, which will then be carried to policy making and implementing bodies throughout the country by formally ignorant but ideologically sound individuals. Once in place these clones will slowly but surely move the country towards their political reality.
According to Gramsci, capitalist societies, even dictatorships, are ruled by popular consent, rather than force. Therefore, the best way to subvert, overthrow, and take over these societies is to hijack the terms of debate, or as he puts it, “common sense”.
Gramsci insisted that, since all capitalist societies, even fascist dictatorships, tend to rule primarily by consent rather than force, the key to the rule of capital was its ability to achieve hegemony over “civil society”… It was precisely the to which classes in modern society established their power over “common sense” and, thus, appeared independent from the coercion of economic and State relations that their rule was made possible.[15]
If the key to control of the State is civil society, then the key to civil society is education. If a faction has a monopoly over the educational system of a society, then it has control over that society.
The reason that Gramsci gives for the necessity of taking over the schools is clear- it makes theory true. Or, at least, it makes theory, of which the teacher is certain, common knowledge and steadfast belief in the students. Once the doctrine is taught to the children, they carry it with them into adulthood, and it transforms from merely a personal belief into a collective one. Collective beliefs have a way of becoming political reality. As Gramsci puts it:
The certain becomes true in the child’s consciousness. But the child’s consciousness is not something individual (still less individuated), it reflects the sector of the civil society in which the child participates, and the social relations which are formed within his family, his neighborhood, his village, etc…[16]
Education is the way to seamlessly change the path of a society without most people noticing, because the radical ideas are carried on the backs of the beloved children. In the end, it is the “academies and universities [that are the] organizations of culture and means for its diffusion.”[17]
The Effects of Multicultural Education
Multiculturalism exists in education, and its presence indicates a potential to cause revolutionary change in American society. However, how does multiculturalism affect the character of the next generation, and for what purpose?
Multiculturalism and its adherents castigate students and peers for daring to critique or question another culture. They accuse them of being “Eurocentric”, and narrow-minded. However, there is more than just narrow-mindedness implied in this statement, there is the assertion that you cannot think correctly if you are westernized; that your culture itself is an impediment to knowing the truth. In other words, the greatest of Western Civilization is reduced to the crazed beliefs of a dogmatic faction:
“The literature on educating for diversity often refers to the need to understand one’s own cultural self before it is possible to recognize and understand the culture of others. For white[18], female preservice teachers this often involves first acknowledging that they have “culture”[19]. White students often see “others” as having culture, while they themselves do not.”[20]
Western culture is not civilization- it is a stilted view of reality which must be overcome in order to become a well educated and truly civil person.
Once it is established that Western civilization is really just faction, multiculturalists then label it an evil faction. All products that proceeded from Western civilization can be good as they are tainted by the inherent corruption and injustice that is Western civilization’s core. In regards to Western tradition, and such great works as the Iliad, the Bible, and the works of Plato, Professor Susan Giroux of McMaster University writes:
“…the fruits of Western Civilization 1) appear to require capital growth and investment 2) serve the interests of wealth and whiteness… 3) [are] on the other side of America’s great racial divide.[21]
Multiculturalists criticize and demonize the great works of Western civilization, using progressive rhetoric to liken them more to propaganda then the basis for a great civilization.
Those things which the Multiculturalists are not willing to accuse outright of being evil in Western Civilization, are instead attributed to other cultures. In addition to depriving Western Civilization of some of its greatest achievements, these claims have the added benefit of making Westerners look like thieves and frauds:
Likewise, we’re asked to accept that the United States Constitution was modeled on the principles of the Iroquois Confederation- if a generation of “multiculti” theorists, the ethnic grievance lobby, and even a ludicrous resolution of the United States Congress wills it so.[22]
The purpose of this constant subverting of Western Civilization is clear: Progressives and Multiculturalists want to collapse society and replace it with their utopian dream. By constantly pounding the message that there is nothing of value in Western Civilization and America, they are convincing people that it would be better they, as a culture, as a society, as a civilization, had never existed:
For a country to survive, its citizens must believe that the country deserves to survive, that it is, overall, a decent country whose existence benefits even those who live outside its borders. This conviction is at risk on our campuses, where self-declared “subversive” professors and increasingly their students not only deplore the very existence of their country but also applaud the evils that befall it. [emphasis added][23]
A people who believe that their very identity is inherently wrong are a demoralized people, unwilling to fight for their way of life, or even their very existence. In other words, the type of people who will not object as their civilization is hijacked.
What the multiculturalist may not realize is that, while they weaken their society so their ideas can exert more control over it, they are also making it more vulnerable to takeover by less self-flagellating civilizations- such as Islamic Civilization. When you replace the love and belief a society has for its civilization and replace it with shame and a desire to “make-up” for the “sins” of your society in the past, you get civilization that would rather give up their lives than be politically incorrect in fighting for them. “[The]… governing principle of multicultural society [is] that Western man demonstrates his cultural sensitivity by preemptively surrendering…”[24]
What hope would a multicultural man have against an enemy that actually believes in their cultural identity? What will he say or do against an enemy which calmly and clearly states, “If I go to the jungle, I’m not going to live like the animals, I’m going to propagate a superior way of life. Islam is a superior way of life.”[25]And which belief system will get more followers? “If you’re a teenager… you’ve got a choice between two competing identities- a robust confident Islamic identity or a tentative post-nationalist cringingly apologetic… identity. It would be a mistake to assume the former is only attractive to Arabs and North Africans.”[26]
Conclusions
Look at what the West has given the world, all the great things Western man has accomplished. Great books, great music, great philosophy, but most importantly, despite all of the suffering our conflicts have caused, the West leaves places better than they found them. Most importantly, the West has managed to create a civilization where life is not always struggle, where man is free and comfortable. Western civilization has made, in essence, life good.
“We are the final inheritors of Western tradition. Education founded upon the Iliad, the Bible, Plato and Shakespeare remains, in some strained form, our ideal,…Those who resent all canons suffer from an elitist guilt…”[27] This way of life, our civilization, our culture, and our society, everything we hold dear and believe in, is under attack from both the outside and the inside, from fundamentalist Islam and Progressive Multiculturalism. What the next generation must do is to unashamedly proud of their heritage, and stand up for their civilizations. The next generation of culture warriors must not forget that if they fail, then so does Western Civilization.
Multiculturalism is a culturally bankrupt ideology, which is rotting out Western Civilization from the inside. It proponents use the same methods that the communist subversive Gramsci suggests for taking over a society. It is being taught in schools from youngest age to the most advanced levels of scholarship. It makes a society weak and ashamed of itself, and vulnerable to stronger, less doubting civilizations, and to domestic subversives. Multiculturalism is one of the most significant factors in the corruption of Western Civilization, and should be expunged from the academy.
[1] The Free Dictionary, “Definition of the ‘multiculturalism’,” http://www.thefreedictionary.com/multiculturalism (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[2] Donna J. Martin, Linda E. Lucek, and Sylvia Fuentes, “Issues of Feminism and Multicultural Education for Educational Technology” (Northern Illinois University), http://itech1.coe.uga.edu/itforum/paper38/paper38.html (Accessed April 24th, 2008)
[3] Mark Steyn, America Alone (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2006), 203
[4] Science Encyclopedia, “The History of Ideas, Vol. 2,” Scientific Encyclopedia, http://science.jrank.org/pages/7680/Eurocentrism.html (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[5] National Education Association, “Multiculturalism and children’s literature” http://www.nea.org/readacross/multi.html (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[6] National Education Association, “Multiculturalism and children’s literature” http://www.nea.org/readacross/multi.html (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[7] National Education Association, “Multiculturalism and children’s literature” http://www.nea.org/readacross/multi.html (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[8] National Education Association, “Get Ready for National Multicultural Diversity Day” http://www.nea.org/takenote/nmdd.html (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[9] Ibid
[10] Ibid
[11] Susan Searls Giroux, “Playing in the Dark: Racial Repression and the New Campus Crusade for Diversity,” College Literature 33.4 (Fall 2006): 94-95
[12] Mark Bauerline, “Liberal Groupthink is Anti-Intellectual,” Chronicle of Higher Education (November 12, 2004) http://www.duke.edu/~munger/bc.htm (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[13] Susan Searls Giroux, “Playing in the Dark: Racial Repression and the New Campus Crusade for Diversity,” College Literature 33.4 (Fall 2006): 101
[14] Stanley Aronowitz, “Gramsci’s Theory of Education: Schooling and Beyond” in Gramsci and Education, ed. Carmel Borg, Joseph Buttigieg and Peter Mayo 115 (Lanham, M.D.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.), 115
[15] Stanley Aronowitz, “Gramsci’s Theory of Education: Schooling and Beyond” in Gramsci and Education, ed. Carmel Borg, Joseph Buttigieg and Peter Mayo 115 (Lanham, M.D.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.), 110
[16] Antonio Gramsci, “Observations on the School: In Search of the Educational Principle” in The Gramsci Reader, ed. David Forgacs (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 312-313
[17] Antonio Gramsci, “Observations on the School: In Search of the Educational Principle” in The Gramsci Reader, ed. David Forgacs (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 376
[18] It is clear that when the authors here use the word “culture”, they do not mean “The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought” (American Heritage Dictionary), but rather a stilted and biased view particular to a certain group, ethnic or otherwise. If this were not so, there would be no need to mention race, or use quotations around the word “culture”, as this indicates a different meaning than the generally accepted one.
[19] Ibid
[20] Eva Zygmunt-Fillwalk and Patricia Clark, “Becoming Multicultural: Raising Awareness and Supporting Change in Teacher Education,” Childhood Education (2007): 289
[21] Susan Searls Giroux, “Playing in the Dark: Racial Repression and the New Campus Crusade for Diversity,” College Literature 33.4 (Fall 2006): 97
[22] Mark Steyn, America Alone (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2006), 203
[23] Paul Trout, “Demonizing the United State,” Forum on Education and Academics, vol. 82 no. 2 (2002): 3
[24] Mark Steyn, America Alone (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2006), 204
[25] (Attributed to British Muslim Leader Anjem Choudary) Mark Steyn, America Alone (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2006), 90 Attributed to British Muslim Leader Anjem Choudary
[26] Mark Steyn, America Alone (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2006), 90
[27] Harold Bloom, The Western Canon (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994), pg. 31
Civilization requires that the traditions, values, beliefs and the accumulated knowledge of preceding generations are passed on to the next. Without the benefit of this heritage, a people have no identity, they are adrift. Even worse, they lose sight of why it is that they even exist. Why work or fight for something that means nothing to you? Good education is essential to passing civilization on from one generation to the next, and, conversely, bad or pernicious education is responsible for the destruction of culture and society. Unfortunately, education in America has been invaded by ideologues and subversives, who use various tools designed to inculcate their students’ intellects’ with the certain knowledge that America and Western Civilization is not their sacred heritage, but rather a shameful crutch which must be overcome. In so doing, these teachers are eroding the values and strength at the roots of society, and, consequently, are setting themselves up for a tragic collapse. The civil heresy called “Multiculturalism”, and its prominence in the classroom, is a major factor in the corruption of Western Civilization and its citizens.
What is Multiculturalism?
The American Heritage dictionary defines multiculturalism as “a social or educational theory that encourages interest in many cultures within a society rather than in only a mainstream culture.”[1] To a reasonable person, such interest in other cultures seems both health and just. America is a nation in a world full of nations, so it important to understand our neighbors.
However, the pleasant tenor of this definition fails to convey the reality of multiculturalism, its proponents, and its effects. At its heart, it is a theory which is deeply hostile to Western Civilization and America in particular. For instance, proponents of multiculturalism Martin, Lucek, and Fuentes write: “The characteristics of white supremacy, individualism, competitiveness, authoritarianism, sexism, and materialism characterize the traditional Western models...”[2] In a single statement, they have managed to accuse Western civilization of being inherently racist and tyrannical, oppressive and greedy. This sort of statement and, it is far from isolated, does not simply encourage study of sub-cultures, but actively despises and works against the “mainstream” culture.
Multiculturalism values each culture and subculture in the world as all being equal in worth and significance, without regard for that cultures accomplishments or a judgment as to whether or not it is a good culture. “At the heart of multiculturalism is a lie: that all cultures are equally valid.”[3]
In fact, if one attempts to make a decision on the value of another culture, you are labeled as “Eurocentric”. “Euro- centrism [sic] refers to a discursive tendency to interpret the histories and cultures of non-European societies from a European (or Western) perspective… [Leading] toward ignoring, undervaluing, or condemning non-European societies.”[4] Therefore, if an American has been well brought up and has been taught the social mores and beliefs of his civilization, it is a handicap that must be overcome in order to reach the truth.
While proponents of multiculturalism contend they are color-blind, and only concerned with making everyone equal, they are in fact racist. They despise anything to do with what they call European Americans (Caucasians), and constantly criticize his history, culture and beliefs. However, when it comes to “people of color”, the National Education Society goes so far as to urge teachers to buy books from authors because they are colored! “Purchase books for children that are written by and about people of color.”[5] The purpose of multiculturalism is to undermine and slowly disintegrate Western Civilization and it accomplishes this by indoctrinating children in school.
Multiculturalism in School
Children are taught multiculturalism at a young age, and its tenants are relentlessly pressed on them from childhood to young adulthood. It is not in a specific class, or teacher, it permeates everything in a schools curriculum. So when these children enter into the world, they will have never heard a real dissenting opinion, just the drone of an ideology repeated a hundred different ways, by a hundred different teachers.
In elementary school, children are instructed in multiculturalism by the most simple of instruments- books. They are read stories of other cultures’ fairy tales and mythology, while their own goes unexamined and unexplored. As it says on the NEA’s website:
Many of us are familiar with the stories of Anasi the beloved trickster spider from West Africa, and Russia’s Baba Yaga with her traveling house on chicken’s legs, Ishbushka… we might even know Tato Duende, the magical, secretive dwarf who dwells deep within South America’s rainforests. Multiculturalism, though, is so much more.[6]
There is no reference to Western, or, more specifically, American stories and characters. Why should there be when there is nothing of interest or value in Western Civilization?
Children are assigned value not because of their efforts, or the quality of their schoolwork, but due to an accident of nature which has become politically significant. The National Education Association exhorts teachers to spend special effort in nurturing the abilities of minority children. “Encourage children and young people of color to write. With guidance and training they are tomorrow’s authors. Help them dream and write their future into being.”[7]
As children get older, they are made to participate in a variety of events and activities. There is National Multicultural Diversity Day, which was founded to “increase awareness of the tremendous need to celebrate our diversity collectively”[8], or “introduce students to multicultural issues by inviting a local expert to talk about diversity.”[9] They even have songs that celebrate multiculturalism: “You can also sing songs that celebrate diversity.”[10] Students are forced to participate and become immersed, the lessons become holy writ.
In the university, multiculturalism is pervasive. All of the traditional subjects, except for mathematics and science, have been re-imagined and reorganized so as to reflect the new value system, and whole new subjects have been created:
The decades of the 1980s and the 1990s have generally been associated with the ascendancy of multicultural education in American universities… new disciplinary formations emerged in the form of programs and later departments in field such as women’s studies, African-American studies, Latino studies, or simply “ethnic studies,”… Equally influential were new theoretical discourses that mapped the contours of… areas as diverse as continental philosophy, post colonialism, race theory, feminism, revisionist historiography, queer theory, and media studies, to name a few. Their impact on traditional courses of study such as English, history, and philosophy proved decisive…[11]
Every class that a university student takes had been imbued with multiculturalism, and its attendant progressive philosophies and theories, such as post colonialism and race theory.
Unfortunately, the university is no longer the forum for debate and dialogue that it once was. The academy has replaced the marketplace of ideas with an intellectual bread line. Opposing viewpoints and dissent are not tolerated, as nothing can endanger the promulgation of progressive, multicultural doctrine. Conservative teachers are not hired, and so conservative students are adrift in a sea of progressivism:
Yet while the lack of conservative minds on college campuses is increasingly indisputable, the question remains: Why?The obvious answer, at least in the humanities and social sciences, is that academics shun conservative values and traditions, so their curricula and hiring practices discourage non-leftists from pursuing academic careers. What allows them to do that, while at the same time they deny it, is that the bias takes a subtle form.[12]
The stranglehold of multiculturalism in particular and progressive ideology in general in all levels of education is beyond question. In other words, “we have an academy… committed to multiculturalism.”[13]
The Relationship between Multiculturalism and Communist Subversive Doctrine
The creep of progressive, multicultural thought into the modern academy, and its subsequent stranglehold, may seem benign and spontaneous. However, it is a systematic, albeit decentralized, effort to change the education patterns of the next generation in order to change the future of America, and Western Civilization. The Social Revolution of the sixties may have fizzled, but its children remain alive and well in our universities, seeking to finish the task they started by a more insidious and gradual process. In fact, the purpose and methods of the current crisis in education bears marked similarity to the plans for subversion of the West by the radical leftist and communist Antonio Gramsci.
Modern American schools concentrate less on actual scholarship and more on political correctness under the guise of multiculturalism. As previously stated, essential and traditional subjects like English and History have been changed to fit around progressive ideology. Gramsci writings on education provide the reason why:
Gramsci’s concept of education is, however, only secondarily concerned with schooling. The main goal is the formation of an “intellectual moral bloc” capable of contesting the prevailing common sense and providing in its stead, more or less systematically, a “scientific” understanding of the social world and of politics that can be widely disseminated in the institutions and other spaces of civil society.[14]
In a broad stroke, the essential lesson of Gramsci is to imbue students with a single (progressive) view of the world, which will then be carried to policy making and implementing bodies throughout the country by formally ignorant but ideologically sound individuals. Once in place these clones will slowly but surely move the country towards their political reality.
According to Gramsci, capitalist societies, even dictatorships, are ruled by popular consent, rather than force. Therefore, the best way to subvert, overthrow, and take over these societies is to hijack the terms of debate, or as he puts it, “common sense”.
Gramsci insisted that, since all capitalist societies, even fascist dictatorships, tend to rule primarily by consent rather than force, the key to the rule of capital was its ability to achieve hegemony over “civil society”… It was precisely the to which classes in modern society established their power over “common sense” and, thus, appeared independent from the coercion of economic and State relations that their rule was made possible.[15]
If the key to control of the State is civil society, then the key to civil society is education. If a faction has a monopoly over the educational system of a society, then it has control over that society.
The reason that Gramsci gives for the necessity of taking over the schools is clear- it makes theory true. Or, at least, it makes theory, of which the teacher is certain, common knowledge and steadfast belief in the students. Once the doctrine is taught to the children, they carry it with them into adulthood, and it transforms from merely a personal belief into a collective one. Collective beliefs have a way of becoming political reality. As Gramsci puts it:
The certain becomes true in the child’s consciousness. But the child’s consciousness is not something individual (still less individuated), it reflects the sector of the civil society in which the child participates, and the social relations which are formed within his family, his neighborhood, his village, etc…[16]
Education is the way to seamlessly change the path of a society without most people noticing, because the radical ideas are carried on the backs of the beloved children. In the end, it is the “academies and universities [that are the] organizations of culture and means for its diffusion.”[17]
The Effects of Multicultural Education
Multiculturalism exists in education, and its presence indicates a potential to cause revolutionary change in American society. However, how does multiculturalism affect the character of the next generation, and for what purpose?
Multiculturalism and its adherents castigate students and peers for daring to critique or question another culture. They accuse them of being “Eurocentric”, and narrow-minded. However, there is more than just narrow-mindedness implied in this statement, there is the assertion that you cannot think correctly if you are westernized; that your culture itself is an impediment to knowing the truth. In other words, the greatest of Western Civilization is reduced to the crazed beliefs of a dogmatic faction:
“The literature on educating for diversity often refers to the need to understand one’s own cultural self before it is possible to recognize and understand the culture of others. For white[18], female preservice teachers this often involves first acknowledging that they have “culture”[19]. White students often see “others” as having culture, while they themselves do not.”[20]
Western culture is not civilization- it is a stilted view of reality which must be overcome in order to become a well educated and truly civil person.
Once it is established that Western civilization is really just faction, multiculturalists then label it an evil faction. All products that proceeded from Western civilization can be good as they are tainted by the inherent corruption and injustice that is Western civilization’s core. In regards to Western tradition, and such great works as the Iliad, the Bible, and the works of Plato, Professor Susan Giroux of McMaster University writes:
“…the fruits of Western Civilization 1) appear to require capital growth and investment 2) serve the interests of wealth and whiteness… 3) [are] on the other side of America’s great racial divide.[21]
Multiculturalists criticize and demonize the great works of Western civilization, using progressive rhetoric to liken them more to propaganda then the basis for a great civilization.
Those things which the Multiculturalists are not willing to accuse outright of being evil in Western Civilization, are instead attributed to other cultures. In addition to depriving Western Civilization of some of its greatest achievements, these claims have the added benefit of making Westerners look like thieves and frauds:
Likewise, we’re asked to accept that the United States Constitution was modeled on the principles of the Iroquois Confederation- if a generation of “multiculti” theorists, the ethnic grievance lobby, and even a ludicrous resolution of the United States Congress wills it so.[22]
The purpose of this constant subverting of Western Civilization is clear: Progressives and Multiculturalists want to collapse society and replace it with their utopian dream. By constantly pounding the message that there is nothing of value in Western Civilization and America, they are convincing people that it would be better they, as a culture, as a society, as a civilization, had never existed:
For a country to survive, its citizens must believe that the country deserves to survive, that it is, overall, a decent country whose existence benefits even those who live outside its borders. This conviction is at risk on our campuses, where self-declared “subversive” professors and increasingly their students not only deplore the very existence of their country but also applaud the evils that befall it. [emphasis added][23]
A people who believe that their very identity is inherently wrong are a demoralized people, unwilling to fight for their way of life, or even their very existence. In other words, the type of people who will not object as their civilization is hijacked.
What the multiculturalist may not realize is that, while they weaken their society so their ideas can exert more control over it, they are also making it more vulnerable to takeover by less self-flagellating civilizations- such as Islamic Civilization. When you replace the love and belief a society has for its civilization and replace it with shame and a desire to “make-up” for the “sins” of your society in the past, you get civilization that would rather give up their lives than be politically incorrect in fighting for them. “[The]… governing principle of multicultural society [is] that Western man demonstrates his cultural sensitivity by preemptively surrendering…”[24]
What hope would a multicultural man have against an enemy that actually believes in their cultural identity? What will he say or do against an enemy which calmly and clearly states, “If I go to the jungle, I’m not going to live like the animals, I’m going to propagate a superior way of life. Islam is a superior way of life.”[25]And which belief system will get more followers? “If you’re a teenager… you’ve got a choice between two competing identities- a robust confident Islamic identity or a tentative post-nationalist cringingly apologetic… identity. It would be a mistake to assume the former is only attractive to Arabs and North Africans.”[26]
Conclusions
Look at what the West has given the world, all the great things Western man has accomplished. Great books, great music, great philosophy, but most importantly, despite all of the suffering our conflicts have caused, the West leaves places better than they found them. Most importantly, the West has managed to create a civilization where life is not always struggle, where man is free and comfortable. Western civilization has made, in essence, life good.
“We are the final inheritors of Western tradition. Education founded upon the Iliad, the Bible, Plato and Shakespeare remains, in some strained form, our ideal,…Those who resent all canons suffer from an elitist guilt…”[27] This way of life, our civilization, our culture, and our society, everything we hold dear and believe in, is under attack from both the outside and the inside, from fundamentalist Islam and Progressive Multiculturalism. What the next generation must do is to unashamedly proud of their heritage, and stand up for their civilizations. The next generation of culture warriors must not forget that if they fail, then so does Western Civilization.
Multiculturalism is a culturally bankrupt ideology, which is rotting out Western Civilization from the inside. It proponents use the same methods that the communist subversive Gramsci suggests for taking over a society. It is being taught in schools from youngest age to the most advanced levels of scholarship. It makes a society weak and ashamed of itself, and vulnerable to stronger, less doubting civilizations, and to domestic subversives. Multiculturalism is one of the most significant factors in the corruption of Western Civilization, and should be expunged from the academy.
[1] The Free Dictionary, “Definition of the ‘multiculturalism’,” http://www.thefreedictionary.com/multiculturalism (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[2] Donna J. Martin, Linda E. Lucek, and Sylvia Fuentes, “Issues of Feminism and Multicultural Education for Educational Technology” (Northern Illinois University), http://itech1.coe.uga.edu/itforum/paper38/paper38.html (Accessed April 24th, 2008)
[3] Mark Steyn, America Alone (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2006), 203
[4] Science Encyclopedia, “The History of Ideas, Vol. 2,” Scientific Encyclopedia, http://science.jrank.org/pages/7680/Eurocentrism.html (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[5] National Education Association, “Multiculturalism and children’s literature” http://www.nea.org/readacross/multi.html (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[6] National Education Association, “Multiculturalism and children’s literature” http://www.nea.org/readacross/multi.html (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[7] National Education Association, “Multiculturalism and children’s literature” http://www.nea.org/readacross/multi.html (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[8] National Education Association, “Get Ready for National Multicultural Diversity Day” http://www.nea.org/takenote/nmdd.html (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[9] Ibid
[10] Ibid
[11] Susan Searls Giroux, “Playing in the Dark: Racial Repression and the New Campus Crusade for Diversity,” College Literature 33.4 (Fall 2006): 94-95
[12] Mark Bauerline, “Liberal Groupthink is Anti-Intellectual,” Chronicle of Higher Education (November 12, 2004) http://www.duke.edu/~munger/bc.htm (Accessed May 1st, 2008)
[13] Susan Searls Giroux, “Playing in the Dark: Racial Repression and the New Campus Crusade for Diversity,” College Literature 33.4 (Fall 2006): 101
[14] Stanley Aronowitz, “Gramsci’s Theory of Education: Schooling and Beyond” in Gramsci and Education, ed. Carmel Borg, Joseph Buttigieg and Peter Mayo 115 (Lanham, M.D.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.), 115
[15] Stanley Aronowitz, “Gramsci’s Theory of Education: Schooling and Beyond” in Gramsci and Education, ed. Carmel Borg, Joseph Buttigieg and Peter Mayo 115 (Lanham, M.D.: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc.), 110
[16] Antonio Gramsci, “Observations on the School: In Search of the Educational Principle” in The Gramsci Reader, ed. David Forgacs (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 312-313
[17] Antonio Gramsci, “Observations on the School: In Search of the Educational Principle” in The Gramsci Reader, ed. David Forgacs (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 376
[18] It is clear that when the authors here use the word “culture”, they do not mean “The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought” (American Heritage Dictionary), but rather a stilted and biased view particular to a certain group, ethnic or otherwise. If this were not so, there would be no need to mention race, or use quotations around the word “culture”, as this indicates a different meaning than the generally accepted one.
[19] Ibid
[20] Eva Zygmunt-Fillwalk and Patricia Clark, “Becoming Multicultural: Raising Awareness and Supporting Change in Teacher Education,” Childhood Education (2007): 289
[21] Susan Searls Giroux, “Playing in the Dark: Racial Repression and the New Campus Crusade for Diversity,” College Literature 33.4 (Fall 2006): 97
[22] Mark Steyn, America Alone (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2006), 203
[23] Paul Trout, “Demonizing the United State,” Forum on Education and Academics, vol. 82 no. 2 (2002): 3
[24] Mark Steyn, America Alone (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2006), 204
[25] (Attributed to British Muslim Leader Anjem Choudary) Mark Steyn, America Alone (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2006), 90 Attributed to British Muslim Leader Anjem Choudary
[26] Mark Steyn, America Alone (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2006), 90
[27] Harold Bloom, The Western Canon (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994), pg. 31
Friday, April 25, 2008
Isn't It Great to be Eurocentric?
There are certain beliefs, valid or otherwise, that have led Eurocentric thinkers toward ignoring, undervaluing, or condemning non-European societies. There is a wide range of these, some applying more broadly in chronological terms than others. They include the following:
Non-European societies tend to be despotic and servile, as against the West's freedom and individualism.
Non-European societies are Islamic, or pagan, or believe in strange religions, which are inferior to Christianity, or lack its truth.
Non-European societies are cruel and lack concern for human life. They practice barbaric customs toward women, such as female genital mutilation (north Africa), widow-burning (sati, India) or foot-binding (China).
Non-European societies are inflexible and unchanging. Some European thinkers have attributed this lack of change to topography or climate, for instance extreme dependence on a major river, such as the Nile or the Yellow River, or extreme heat or dryness.
Non-European societies are poor, backward, and underdeveloped, as opposed to the industrialized, progressive, and rich West.
Non-European societies lack rational modes of thinking and scientific approaches.
I would just like to know which one of those things isn't true.
Non-European societies tend to be despotic and servile, as against the West's freedom and individualism.
Non-European societies are Islamic, or pagan, or believe in strange religions, which are inferior to Christianity, or lack its truth.
Non-European societies are cruel and lack concern for human life. They practice barbaric customs toward women, such as female genital mutilation (north Africa), widow-burning (sati, India) or foot-binding (China).
Non-European societies are inflexible and unchanging. Some European thinkers have attributed this lack of change to topography or climate, for instance extreme dependence on a major river, such as the Nile or the Yellow River, or extreme heat or dryness.
Non-European societies are poor, backward, and underdeveloped, as opposed to the industrialized, progressive, and rich West.
Non-European societies lack rational modes of thinking and scientific approaches.
I would just like to know which one of those things isn't true.
Monday, March 17, 2008
An Abortion Debate (In Case You Aren't Sick Of Them Already)
I am not really sure how important it is, but my name is Thomas Ranieri. Just thought I'd clear that up for all you non-existent readers.
In fairness to the morons on the other side, I gave them the (completely irrelevant) last word. The reason I am proud of myself is because I managed to make an argument refuting the absurd, which, as anyone who argue frequently understands, is incredibly difficult.
I feel it important to point out that Jarrett is smug and hate-filled, but, more importantly, completely unable to grasp my argument, instead relying on what he thinks I would say, as opposed to trying to understand exactly what and why I am saying it. Not surprising, I know, when you consider that liberals are fantastic at personal invective and projection.
Without further ado:
An Abortion Debate (Or, How Pro-death People are Steadfastly Convinced of the Most Twisted and Absurd Ideas):
Elizabeth M. Whalen: Chris, I can not tell you enough how sorry I am for you if what you claim is true, but no matter how one conceives, that embryo is still a human life, and it is wrong to kill it. i know, i know, it would be traumatic to "carry your raper’s seed" for nine months, and there is nothing you can do about that, but I would assume that being cut to pieces, and being sucked out of your mothers womb is a pretty traumatic thing for the poor baby. Now, which do you think is more unfair, and traumatic- Being killed, or having to GIVE LIFE to another human.
"Conception is forcing life on an embryo. Your move." Wow! Somebody is desperate for a witty argument! That is BS Laura, and I think you know it. And conception is not forcing life on an embryo, it is creating the embryo.
Then Dave goes "Newsflash genius---kids get decisions forced on them everyday, all day for the first two decades of their life---generally." yes, kids do get decisions forced on them every day, but when people make decisions to KILL the kid, and force that decision on them, they are punished, because it is a crime to take another persons life. Period. No Exceptions. You think we should change that?
Laura Hobbes LeGault: Elizabeth - if conception is not forcing life on an embryo but instead creating the embryo, then abortion is not forcing death on the embryo but instead destroying it. What you're playing here is the semantics game.
Thomas Ranieri (me): Laura, Elizabeth may be playing semantics, but you are making a completely irrelevant argument. You see, once the child is conceived, it doesn't matter a bit whether or not it wanted to be conceived. It is, as the French say, a fait accompli. So, you objection may be true, but isn't germane to the issue.
That being said, your argument is completely idiotic. First of all, the species needs to continue to exist. Second of all, there is nothing ethically wrong in any reasonable persons mind with making a child. Third, it isn't as though you can outlaw it. Fourth, it is agreed upon that being is preferable to non-being, so we aren't "forcing" life on anything, we are granting life when we conceive. Believe it or not, personal preference usually very little to do with what is right.
Something else just occurred to me, it's a bit heady, but try and puzzle it out. An embryo, or more precisely an egg, is not an animate or conscious thing before being fertilized. Hence, not only can it not make a decision, but the concept of free will, coercion, and the problems that accompany those things cannot even be applied. For instance, do you ask a rock if it is ok you mine it, or throw it? No, because those concepts and rocks are not compatible. Claro? As the ability to make a decision is contingent on life and consciousness, then life itself is obviously the first, or higher, principle. If you grant this, which you must, because it is inescapable, then you must also grant that the lower principle cannot deny that which gives it existence. Therefore, it is impossible to force life on anything.
Cassandra Marshall: Thomas, I know that you are replying to Laura and I will risk responding rudely if I go too far, however, I really think that the "species" is in no dire straights in terms of continuing to exist. Have you been to Disneyland lately?
Also it really galls me when a male representative of said species likes to discuss the universal notion of how "personal preference" might have little to with what is right for all women in all situations.
Oh, and by whose standards and whose agreement are we deciding that being is better than non-being. I think a non-being in Darfur would be better of than a being if they were in danger of being brutally killed/raped/whatever.
Laura Hobbes LeGault: Thomas, by extension, after abortion, it doesn't matter a bit whether or not the embryo wanted to be destroyed or not. After the fact - be that conception or abortion - what it "wanted" doesn't matter at all.
1) The species has continued to exist quite well over the past 10,000 years or so, and for much of that span, abortion has been practiced.
2) The making of children is not the ethical difficulty - it is the forcible use of another person's body by that embryo that raises the ethical questions.
3) I'm not trying to outlaw conception - though the "abstinence unless you're married" camp is making a valiant attempt at it.
4) Your premise contradicts your conclusion - it is "agreed upon" that being is preferable to non-being but personal preference has nothing to do with it? Then what is it, exactly, that is agreeing that being is preferable to non-being? That sounds like a bunch of people's personal preferences to me.
Tim DeJong: "I think a non-being in Darfur would be better of [sic] than a being if they were in danger of being brutally killed/raped/whatever."I don't even want to get into how poor and self-defeating this attempt at logic is. Just think about it. How, for example, does one rape a non-being?...
Laura Hobbes LeGault: "How, for example, does one rape a non-being?"Necrophilia: Dead girls can't say no.But I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you're not so dense as to think that was the point Cassandra was attempting to make, which is instead non-being and peace vs. being and rape/torture.
Jarrett DeAngelis: I promise you, God is NOT a Republican. (Author’s Note: My profile picture was modified fascist propaganda that said “God is a Republican.” I think it was from Old American Century. I just love perverting their purpose. –T.R.)
Elizabeth M. Whalen: Oh wow Jarrett that is just fantastic to know. Now i am going to quote a friend of mine and say: "It is my opinion that when one analyzes the world around them, they will find that everything is made of cheese curd. Which is my way of saying: That's nice, where's your proof?" (Author’s note: Believe it or not, that is actually something that I said on another group’s site. - T.R.)
Thomas Ranieri: Since you haven't responded to my second post, I will just assume that you concede the point, namely that you cannot force life on anything. This makes all further discussion irrelevant, but, to humor you, I will do it anyway.
Just because the species has continued to exist doesn't mean that it will continue to exist. There is no evidence to support that claim but momentum, and the demographic evidence that the world is in decline is startling. America has a 2.13% birth rate, which means that the population we have now will be the one that we will have fifty years. The startling part is that America has the best birth rate among all the developed nations of the world. The following nations have birth rates that are below replacement rate, which means that there population is diminishing: Russia 1.1%, Spain 1.1%, China 1.1%, France 1.3%, Italy 1.2%, Germany, 1.2%, United Kingdom 1.8%. (Historical Note: No country whose birth rate has hit 1.1% has ever recovered.)
The country with the highest abortion rate is Russia, with each woman on average having seven abortions in her lifetime. While we aren't in imminent danger of species death, if we continue frittering away our children so we can lead selfish lives, then it will inevitably come. That's the thing with actions: they have consequences.
"2) The making of children is not the ethical difficulty - it is the forcible use of another person's body by that embryo that raises the ethical questions." This is truly the height of idiotic, selfish thinking. With the exception of rape, pregnancy is by its very definition not coercive in any sense of the word. First of all, the nature of sex is that it is both unitive and procreative. This means that any act of sex has the potential of creating life. Therefore, it is implicit in the act itself that you are inviting life by engaging in sex. When you make that invitation, you are responsible for its consequences, because of the gravity importance, and sacredness of the life you invited in.
Furthermore, once a life has taken its place inside your body (which, by the way, is the whole purpose of the female design), you are obliged to protect it because it is life. The distinction between this point and the previous is subtle, but quite present. Just because it is inconvenient does not make it ok to kill it.
"3) I'm not trying to outlaw conception - though the "abstinence unless you're married" camp is making a valiant attempt at it." This is a completely factious argument. The "abstinence until your married" camp is trying to the exact opposite of what propose: to put sex back in its proper sphere. Since, as we have previously established, life is an inherent part of the procreative act, there must be stable and loving families to care for the life they created through their own actions.
To have sex is to make a promise of commitment, both emotionally and physiologically. Since marriage is supposed to be a forever thing, making that commitment with your body only belongs in a sphere where it can be true. To not do this causes irrepairable harm to both the man and the women, and makes sex essentially meaningless. The abstinence camp is also unerringly pro-life. Speaking for myself, I am married, have a child and part of that "camp", I can say that we love kids, and all that implies.
Because of the nature of conception, namely that it isn't a decision you can take back, or, in other words, that once the decision to engage in sexual behavior has been made, and conception occurs, it cannot be changed, pregnancy must always either be coercive or invitational, there is no middle ground. By this I am referring to the idea that a woman can change her mind after the fact, and the original invitation to abide in the womb is taken away, and abortion occurs. It is not the child's fault that his or her mom is capricious, nor can a child be faulted for answering the inevitable call of nature in being conceived, nor in accepting his mother's invitation into the womb. Hence, if you truly believe that pregnancy can be coercive, it therefore must always be coercive, and you should be advocating for the outlaw of pregnancy.
"Thomas, by extension, after abortion, it doesn't matter a bit whether or not the embryo wanted to be destroyed or not. After the fact - be that conception or abortion - what it "wanted" doesn't matter at all." Sorry, I should have dealt with this first, but I got distracted by your overwhelming idiocy. This is a very simple issue to deal with, the difference is clear; on the one hand, you bestow life on something which did not have it, which also did not have a will or consciousness. On the other hand, you are taking it away from another human. We have a word for the second case, it is cold blooded murder.
(Murder: To kill brutally or inhumanly; to put an end to; destroy)
Cassandra, personal preference has nothing to do with what is the right thing to do, and what is the wrong thing, regardless of sex. I claim to know what is right because of my understanding of transcendent and absolute principles. If men were systematically killing their children, and the government allowed it, then I would be on their web site arguing against them. This has nothing to do with your supposed womanhood (and I supposed because I am not sure that any true woman would be a proponent for killing her own children), and everything to do with what is right and wrong.
Do you see mass suicides in Darfur? No? Well then, I would say that those people would rather live. This highlights another issue about abortion, namely that the issue whether or not a person should live isn't, or at least it shouldn't, be up to you at all. Abortion essentially makes you a tyrant over one person who you can kill at your whim. Ultimately the only person who should be able to decide whether they want to live is the person themselves. You have no right to decide that death is better than life for another human being.
Jarrett, you're right. The Republicans are too liberal for God.
Laura Hobbes LeGault: Tom, you're new here, so I'm not going to waste much more time explaining things you can read in the threads. Abortion is not murder, China's birth rate is governmentally enforced, it's quite selfish to assume that quantity of life supersedes quality of life, and once again, abortion is not murder. I'm not going to explain it again; we've been over it at least 10 times in the discussions.
Jarett DeAngelis: Hi, Tom.
Why does China enforce the birth rate it has?
"Speaking for myself, I am married, have a child and part of that "camp", I can say that we love kids, and all that implies."
Congratulations. I am not part of that camp at all, love kids, and look forward to being the best father I can should someone consent to marrying me one day. Whoop-tee-do. Any other flags you want to pointlessly wave?
Thomas Ranieri: China's birth rate is critically below replacement rate. Why that is the case isn't really important.
Quality of life isn't improved by abortion; please avail yourself of the studies showing increased depression, suicidal tendencies, lowered ability to conceive and the like in women who have had abortions. Be that as it may, the question is whether or not abortion is wrong in itself.
You know, denying that abortion is murder does not change the fact that it is. I'll read your posts, but they won't convince me because I am right, and you are wrong. I will happily explain this to you in the future.
As you have completely ignored the Herculean effort that I put into all my previous posts, and have not proffered an objection other than "abortion is not murder", I consider you to have conceded on each of them. I think we can safely put to bed the objection that life is forced on an embryo, and that the child is forced on the mother. All that remains, then, is proving that abortion is murder. It shouldn't be too difficult. Yeah, Jarrett, well done seizing on the only portion of my posts that was anecdotal. It makes it much easier to ignore everything else if you can just harp on one thing, isn't it? I merely mentioned that because it helps refute her completely moronic invective that abstinence before marriage people are trying to outlaw conception.
Jarrett DeAngelis: Why does China enforce a negative replacement rate? The answer is that *we do not need a net increase in the number of humans in the world right now*. We in fact need FEWER. The planet is already being stretched beyond its carrying capacity. The human race is not and will likely never be in danger of extinction. Drop that point and move on.
Oh, look! I found SOMETHING ELSE you said that was anecdotal! "To have sex is to make a promise of commitment, both emotionally and physiologically. Since marriage is supposed to be a forever thing, making that commitment with your body only belongs in a sphere where it can be true. To not do this causes irreparable harm to both the man and the women, and makes sex essentially meaningless."
I have had casual sex several times in the past. It got boring fast. I am not "irreparably harmed." Your categorical, unqualified statement is disproved. What else do you have in your "Herculean effort?"
In fairness to the morons on the other side, I gave them the (completely irrelevant) last word. The reason I am proud of myself is because I managed to make an argument refuting the absurd, which, as anyone who argue frequently understands, is incredibly difficult.
I feel it important to point out that Jarrett is smug and hate-filled, but, more importantly, completely unable to grasp my argument, instead relying on what he thinks I would say, as opposed to trying to understand exactly what and why I am saying it. Not surprising, I know, when you consider that liberals are fantastic at personal invective and projection.
Without further ado:
An Abortion Debate (Or, How Pro-death People are Steadfastly Convinced of the Most Twisted and Absurd Ideas):
Elizabeth M. Whalen: Chris, I can not tell you enough how sorry I am for you if what you claim is true, but no matter how one conceives, that embryo is still a human life, and it is wrong to kill it. i know, i know, it would be traumatic to "carry your raper’s seed" for nine months, and there is nothing you can do about that, but I would assume that being cut to pieces, and being sucked out of your mothers womb is a pretty traumatic thing for the poor baby. Now, which do you think is more unfair, and traumatic- Being killed, or having to GIVE LIFE to another human.
"Conception is forcing life on an embryo. Your move." Wow! Somebody is desperate for a witty argument! That is BS Laura, and I think you know it. And conception is not forcing life on an embryo, it is creating the embryo.
Then Dave goes "Newsflash genius---kids get decisions forced on them everyday, all day for the first two decades of their life---generally." yes, kids do get decisions forced on them every day, but when people make decisions to KILL the kid, and force that decision on them, they are punished, because it is a crime to take another persons life. Period. No Exceptions. You think we should change that?
Laura Hobbes LeGault: Elizabeth - if conception is not forcing life on an embryo but instead creating the embryo, then abortion is not forcing death on the embryo but instead destroying it. What you're playing here is the semantics game.
Thomas Ranieri (me): Laura, Elizabeth may be playing semantics, but you are making a completely irrelevant argument. You see, once the child is conceived, it doesn't matter a bit whether or not it wanted to be conceived. It is, as the French say, a fait accompli. So, you objection may be true, but isn't germane to the issue.
That being said, your argument is completely idiotic. First of all, the species needs to continue to exist. Second of all, there is nothing ethically wrong in any reasonable persons mind with making a child. Third, it isn't as though you can outlaw it. Fourth, it is agreed upon that being is preferable to non-being, so we aren't "forcing" life on anything, we are granting life when we conceive. Believe it or not, personal preference usually very little to do with what is right.
Something else just occurred to me, it's a bit heady, but try and puzzle it out. An embryo, or more precisely an egg, is not an animate or conscious thing before being fertilized. Hence, not only can it not make a decision, but the concept of free will, coercion, and the problems that accompany those things cannot even be applied. For instance, do you ask a rock if it is ok you mine it, or throw it? No, because those concepts and rocks are not compatible. Claro? As the ability to make a decision is contingent on life and consciousness, then life itself is obviously the first, or higher, principle. If you grant this, which you must, because it is inescapable, then you must also grant that the lower principle cannot deny that which gives it existence. Therefore, it is impossible to force life on anything.
Cassandra Marshall: Thomas, I know that you are replying to Laura and I will risk responding rudely if I go too far, however, I really think that the "species" is in no dire straights in terms of continuing to exist. Have you been to Disneyland lately?
Also it really galls me when a male representative of said species likes to discuss the universal notion of how "personal preference" might have little to with what is right for all women in all situations.
Oh, and by whose standards and whose agreement are we deciding that being is better than non-being. I think a non-being in Darfur would be better of than a being if they were in danger of being brutally killed/raped/whatever.
Laura Hobbes LeGault: Thomas, by extension, after abortion, it doesn't matter a bit whether or not the embryo wanted to be destroyed or not. After the fact - be that conception or abortion - what it "wanted" doesn't matter at all.
1) The species has continued to exist quite well over the past 10,000 years or so, and for much of that span, abortion has been practiced.
2) The making of children is not the ethical difficulty - it is the forcible use of another person's body by that embryo that raises the ethical questions.
3) I'm not trying to outlaw conception - though the "abstinence unless you're married" camp is making a valiant attempt at it.
4) Your premise contradicts your conclusion - it is "agreed upon" that being is preferable to non-being but personal preference has nothing to do with it? Then what is it, exactly, that is agreeing that being is preferable to non-being? That sounds like a bunch of people's personal preferences to me.
Tim DeJong: "I think a non-being in Darfur would be better of [sic] than a being if they were in danger of being brutally killed/raped/whatever."I don't even want to get into how poor and self-defeating this attempt at logic is. Just think about it. How, for example, does one rape a non-being?...
Laura Hobbes LeGault: "How, for example, does one rape a non-being?"Necrophilia: Dead girls can't say no.But I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you're not so dense as to think that was the point Cassandra was attempting to make, which is instead non-being and peace vs. being and rape/torture.
Jarrett DeAngelis: I promise you, God is NOT a Republican. (Author’s Note: My profile picture was modified fascist propaganda that said “God is a Republican.” I think it was from Old American Century. I just love perverting their purpose. –T.R.)
Elizabeth M. Whalen: Oh wow Jarrett that is just fantastic to know. Now i am going to quote a friend of mine and say: "It is my opinion that when one analyzes the world around them, they will find that everything is made of cheese curd. Which is my way of saying: That's nice, where's your proof?" (Author’s note: Believe it or not, that is actually something that I said on another group’s site. - T.R.)
Thomas Ranieri: Since you haven't responded to my second post, I will just assume that you concede the point, namely that you cannot force life on anything. This makes all further discussion irrelevant, but, to humor you, I will do it anyway.
Just because the species has continued to exist doesn't mean that it will continue to exist. There is no evidence to support that claim but momentum, and the demographic evidence that the world is in decline is startling. America has a 2.13% birth rate, which means that the population we have now will be the one that we will have fifty years. The startling part is that America has the best birth rate among all the developed nations of the world. The following nations have birth rates that are below replacement rate, which means that there population is diminishing: Russia 1.1%, Spain 1.1%, China 1.1%, France 1.3%, Italy 1.2%, Germany, 1.2%, United Kingdom 1.8%. (Historical Note: No country whose birth rate has hit 1.1% has ever recovered.)
The country with the highest abortion rate is Russia, with each woman on average having seven abortions in her lifetime. While we aren't in imminent danger of species death, if we continue frittering away our children so we can lead selfish lives, then it will inevitably come. That's the thing with actions: they have consequences.
"2) The making of children is not the ethical difficulty - it is the forcible use of another person's body by that embryo that raises the ethical questions." This is truly the height of idiotic, selfish thinking. With the exception of rape, pregnancy is by its very definition not coercive in any sense of the word. First of all, the nature of sex is that it is both unitive and procreative. This means that any act of sex has the potential of creating life. Therefore, it is implicit in the act itself that you are inviting life by engaging in sex. When you make that invitation, you are responsible for its consequences, because of the gravity importance, and sacredness of the life you invited in.
Furthermore, once a life has taken its place inside your body (which, by the way, is the whole purpose of the female design), you are obliged to protect it because it is life. The distinction between this point and the previous is subtle, but quite present. Just because it is inconvenient does not make it ok to kill it.
"3) I'm not trying to outlaw conception - though the "abstinence unless you're married" camp is making a valiant attempt at it." This is a completely factious argument. The "abstinence until your married" camp is trying to the exact opposite of what propose: to put sex back in its proper sphere. Since, as we have previously established, life is an inherent part of the procreative act, there must be stable and loving families to care for the life they created through their own actions.
To have sex is to make a promise of commitment, both emotionally and physiologically. Since marriage is supposed to be a forever thing, making that commitment with your body only belongs in a sphere where it can be true. To not do this causes irrepairable harm to both the man and the women, and makes sex essentially meaningless. The abstinence camp is also unerringly pro-life. Speaking for myself, I am married, have a child and part of that "camp", I can say that we love kids, and all that implies.
Because of the nature of conception, namely that it isn't a decision you can take back, or, in other words, that once the decision to engage in sexual behavior has been made, and conception occurs, it cannot be changed, pregnancy must always either be coercive or invitational, there is no middle ground. By this I am referring to the idea that a woman can change her mind after the fact, and the original invitation to abide in the womb is taken away, and abortion occurs. It is not the child's fault that his or her mom is capricious, nor can a child be faulted for answering the inevitable call of nature in being conceived, nor in accepting his mother's invitation into the womb. Hence, if you truly believe that pregnancy can be coercive, it therefore must always be coercive, and you should be advocating for the outlaw of pregnancy.
"Thomas, by extension, after abortion, it doesn't matter a bit whether or not the embryo wanted to be destroyed or not. After the fact - be that conception or abortion - what it "wanted" doesn't matter at all." Sorry, I should have dealt with this first, but I got distracted by your overwhelming idiocy. This is a very simple issue to deal with, the difference is clear; on the one hand, you bestow life on something which did not have it, which also did not have a will or consciousness. On the other hand, you are taking it away from another human. We have a word for the second case, it is cold blooded murder.
(Murder: To kill brutally or inhumanly; to put an end to; destroy)
Cassandra, personal preference has nothing to do with what is the right thing to do, and what is the wrong thing, regardless of sex. I claim to know what is right because of my understanding of transcendent and absolute principles. If men were systematically killing their children, and the government allowed it, then I would be on their web site arguing against them. This has nothing to do with your supposed womanhood (and I supposed because I am not sure that any true woman would be a proponent for killing her own children), and everything to do with what is right and wrong.
Do you see mass suicides in Darfur? No? Well then, I would say that those people would rather live. This highlights another issue about abortion, namely that the issue whether or not a person should live isn't, or at least it shouldn't, be up to you at all. Abortion essentially makes you a tyrant over one person who you can kill at your whim. Ultimately the only person who should be able to decide whether they want to live is the person themselves. You have no right to decide that death is better than life for another human being.
Jarrett, you're right. The Republicans are too liberal for God.
Laura Hobbes LeGault: Tom, you're new here, so I'm not going to waste much more time explaining things you can read in the threads. Abortion is not murder, China's birth rate is governmentally enforced, it's quite selfish to assume that quantity of life supersedes quality of life, and once again, abortion is not murder. I'm not going to explain it again; we've been over it at least 10 times in the discussions.
Jarett DeAngelis: Hi, Tom.
Why does China enforce the birth rate it has?
"Speaking for myself, I am married, have a child and part of that "camp", I can say that we love kids, and all that implies."
Congratulations. I am not part of that camp at all, love kids, and look forward to being the best father I can should someone consent to marrying me one day. Whoop-tee-do. Any other flags you want to pointlessly wave?
Thomas Ranieri: China's birth rate is critically below replacement rate. Why that is the case isn't really important.
Quality of life isn't improved by abortion; please avail yourself of the studies showing increased depression, suicidal tendencies, lowered ability to conceive and the like in women who have had abortions. Be that as it may, the question is whether or not abortion is wrong in itself.
You know, denying that abortion is murder does not change the fact that it is. I'll read your posts, but they won't convince me because I am right, and you are wrong. I will happily explain this to you in the future.
As you have completely ignored the Herculean effort that I put into all my previous posts, and have not proffered an objection other than "abortion is not murder", I consider you to have conceded on each of them. I think we can safely put to bed the objection that life is forced on an embryo, and that the child is forced on the mother. All that remains, then, is proving that abortion is murder. It shouldn't be too difficult. Yeah, Jarrett, well done seizing on the only portion of my posts that was anecdotal. It makes it much easier to ignore everything else if you can just harp on one thing, isn't it? I merely mentioned that because it helps refute her completely moronic invective that abstinence before marriage people are trying to outlaw conception.
Jarrett DeAngelis: Why does China enforce a negative replacement rate? The answer is that *we do not need a net increase in the number of humans in the world right now*. We in fact need FEWER. The planet is already being stretched beyond its carrying capacity. The human race is not and will likely never be in danger of extinction. Drop that point and move on.
Oh, look! I found SOMETHING ELSE you said that was anecdotal! "To have sex is to make a promise of commitment, both emotionally and physiologically. Since marriage is supposed to be a forever thing, making that commitment with your body only belongs in a sphere where it can be true. To not do this causes irreparable harm to both the man and the women, and makes sex essentially meaningless."
I have had casual sex several times in the past. It got boring fast. I am not "irreparably harmed." Your categorical, unqualified statement is disproved. What else do you have in your "Herculean effort?"
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