Friday, June 02, 2006

Ann Coulter's New Book: "The Pot Calling the Kettle Black"

As we all know, even those who call themselves fans, Ann Coulter is a harsh person. A friend and mother of three children proudly grinned and nearly cackled that she reads Ann Coulter exactly because she's "so mean". Well, isn't that a sweet and enlightened view.

First off let me say I haven't and won't read Ann Coulter's new book, "Godless: The Church of Liberalism". However, you'll have to instruct my being correct or incorrect about it when it hits bookstore shelves. Below I've taken her press release about the book and listed her comment (red), how/why it's inaccurate (Misconstruence) and the relative 'Parallel' held by the religious right.

Though liberalism rejects the idea of God and reviles people of faith, argues Coulter, it bears all the attributes of a religion itself.

Misconstruence: Liberals support the idea of freedom of religion. All religions not only Christianity.

Parallel: Conservativism "rejects the idea of" any god except their own. Conservatives revile people of the Muslim faith, argues me, "it bears all the attributes of a religion itself."

In Godless, she throws open the doors of the Church of Liberalism, showing us:

  • its sacraments (abortion)
Misconstruence: Believing in rights other than those of the Christian Church
(who also ignores the fact that it's own God committed abortion)


Parallel: War. Bigotry (racial, religious, gender, sexuality, poverty, --take your pick)
  • its holy writ (Roe v. Wade)
Misconstruence: We're no longer to utilize precedent?

Parallel: Patriot Act
  • its clergy (public school teachers)
Misconstruence: Those damn well educated public servants. We should all be bitter, starved, cruel bigots instead?

Parallel: O'reilly, Hannity, Coulter, Limbaugh (oh, how they give of themselves)
  • its churches (government schools, where prayer is prohibited but condoms are free)
Misconstruence: Oh, those lousy constitutionally protected rights!

Parallel: The Presidential Pulpit, Patriot Act, Faith Based Initiative
  • its doctrine of infallibility (as manifest in the "absolute moral authority" of spokesmen from Cindy Sheehan to Max Cleland)
Misconstruence: Not choosing to consider the personal lives of people,
but in the cause for which they stand should be saluted.


Parallel: God. Bush.
  • and its cosmology (in which mankind is an inconsequential accident)
Misconstruence: If someone believes that God said 1+1 equalled 11,
does 1+1 no longer equal 2?


Parallel: Faith based initiative.

Then, of course, there's the liberal creation myth: Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

Misconstruence: The liberal creation 'myth'? Science is a myth,
but an unsupported book is fact. Hmmm...


Parallel: Then, of course, there's the conservative creation myth:
Intelligent Design, literally drawn directly from the
mythology in which Christianity is based.


For liberals, evolution is the touchstone that separates the enlightened from the benighted. But Coulter neatly reverses the pretense that liberals are rationalists guided by the ideals of free inquiry and the scientific method. She exposes the essential truth about Darwinian evolution that liberals refuse to confront: it is bogus science.

Writing with a keen appreciation for genuine science, Coulter reveals that the so-called "gaps" in the theory of evolution are all there is -- Darwinism is nothing but a gap. After 150 years of dedicated searching into the fossil record, evolution's proponents have failed utterly to substantiate its claims.

Here is one of my absolutely favorite links. This shows how creationists have used their 'expertise' to point out which skulls in the fossil record show a human skull and which show an ape since, as we know, they say there is no link, they were created completely independent of one another. The funniest part is that creation scientists all disagree on where the human starts and the apes end. They can't tell which are human and which are ape skulls! Hilarious and poignant.

...And these are the people who say they want to keep faith out of the classroom?

...and this is a point because the Bible is 'genuine science', I presume?

Lack of knowledge and logic. Nice.

Liberals' absolute devotion to Darwinism, Coulter shows, has nothing to do with evolution's scientific validity and everything to do with its refusal to admit the possibility of God as a guiding force.

Darwin is 'bogus science', but God is legitimate science? Interesting how it can be scientifically proven without, um, evidence and the scientific method, yet not be bogus science, isn't it?

Liberals are not necessarily godless, but do support something called the Constitution. I wonder when Coulter will come out with her book, "Godless, the Constitution of America". As our founding document is, just as she purports liberals to be, Godless.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Explaining the war to my son...

My son asked me about the 'war' in Iraq. Ever since he was small and could understand stories he defined the world as right or wrong. There is a good guy and a bad guy in every story. Certainly, there are stories where good guys make mistakes, but they correct these mistakes and make amends. It's generally the point of the story. The lesson. The theme or moral.

"Lots of people have died in the war, haven't they?"

"Yes, a whole lot."

"Iraqi people?"

"Well, yes, mostly Iraqi's, but a lot of American soldiers too."

"Why did they start the war with us?"


"Well, they didn't. We did."

"Why did we start the war?"

"Because we were told that they had a weapon that could hurt us."

"We started the war because they had a weapon to hurt us?"

"They didn't actually have a weapon to hurt us."

"Then why did we start the war?"

"Because our president lied to us."

"But they were bad people."

"No, they were mostly people just like us. Their leader was a bad man."

"We started the war to stop him."

"No, but that would be a possible reason for starting a war. We started the war because of the weapons."

"But you said there weren't weapons."

"That's right, there were no weapons."

"But President Bush said there were."

"Yes, he did."

"Lying is bad."

"Yes it is."

"Will someone attack us because our President is a bad man?"

So, you tell me. What do you suppose might be the
general point of this story? The lesson? The theme or moral?