Pope Francis and Free Markets

Last week, I wrote a controversial post that asked a blunt and provocative question—whether Islam is ultimately compatible with the West,  and led with evidence that Islam has often been hostile to free speech, even violently hostile.  Free speech is an underpinning to Western democracy and enshrined and protected in the U.S. in the 1^st Amendment.  Islam’s compatibility with the West should not be assumed and is an issue that should be discussed and debated on this and other grounds. 

Then the Vatican and the Jesuits immediately came along and said, “Hold my chalice of wine.” 

Catholicism, as it is put forward by the Vatican, and in particular, the Jesuits are also showing themselves to be antithetical to Western democratic capitalism.   Just as I post questions about Islam, the Vatican last week released a 14 page document challenging capitalism and free markets.   Nearly a decade after the Great Recession roiled Europe and America, Pope Francis released a document that condemned “unfettered capitalism” (as if that really existed anywhere on the planet), a “culture of waste,” and fingered income inequality as a prime enemy.  He condemned the pursuit of profit is “amoral” and asserted that  “The markets know neither how to make the assumptions that allow their smooth running—social coexistence, honesty, trust, safety and security, laws, and so on—nor how to correct those effects and forces that are harmful to human society—inequality, asymmetries, environmental damage, social insecurity, and fraud.”

If I didn’t know better, I would have thought that this position paper was a collaborative effort with Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.  The posture of Pope Francis is nothing new.  Francis has been attacking free markets throughout his papacy, often using the language of a populist Latin American dictator, decrying money as “the dung of the devil,” sometimes making statements that are virtually indistinguishable from Hugo Chavez or Daniel Ortega.   But this statement goes much further into the weeds than before.   It goes into particulars on financial instruments such as derivatives, credit default swaps, and the like, calling them “ticking time bombs” and calling for more financial regulation.  He decries the “predatory and speculative tendencies” of the market, and that one of the major reasons for the financial crisis was the “immoral behavior of agents in the financial world.”

How far we have come from a Vatican that was instrumental in the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The detailed position paper is flawed on a number of fronts.   First, its complaints are about eight or nine years too late.   It is written as if it we  were in the throes of the downturn and Dodd-Frank had never been passed.  Dodd-Frank has already addressed many of the issues raised by the Vatican. Sensible moderates such as former Fed member Randy Kroszner  argued that it went too far,  imposing a regulatory burden on smaller financial institutions that lend to small business, and thereby choking off entrepreneurism and job creation.   As I write this, Congress has passed a bill trimming the excess of Dodd Frank, which in turn addressed the excesses of the banking system.   While the meltdown in 2008 was harmful, it had a confluence of causes—flawed government policy, sustained low interest rates, consumers that borrowed too much, a herd psychology.  The proximate causes to the crisis are still being debated and dozens of books have been written about it.  While there were some immoral actors, most worthy economists, including Raghuram Rajan (author of Fault Lines) fingered systemic problems rather than immoral behavior as the primary cause of the crash.  And many of those have been dealt with.

This leads me to my second issue with the Vatican’s pronouncement.  The Vatican should stay in its lane.  I would expect the Vatican to talk about the obligation of INDIVIDUALS to share their wealth, to use it for good, to act in a moral way.  But this document steps into an area in which the authors of it have little or no expertise.   The authors show little or no understanding of how markets actually work -the importance of rewarding risk taking, the innovation, job creation and betterments to everyone by a dynamic, flexible economy.  The Vatican complains about a “culture of waste”  but the U.S. actually has a system that uses assets very efficiently and has a robust bankruptcy code that permits the recycling of underemployed assets very quickly.   While not perfect, capitalism most often puts assets in the hands of managers most equipped to use them efficiently and not waste them.  The Vatican shows no understanding of any of this.

It is ironic that this moral critique of capitalism and capital markets would be released just a few days before Nicolas Maduro won re-election in Venezuela in their faux democratic elections.  The Vatican has had precious little to say about the morality of Venezuelan socialism and the fruits of its state controlled economy.   People are eating their pets.  Children are dying in hospitals because they don’t have basic medical supplies.   Gangs recruit with food baskets.  Refugees are streaming into neighboring countries.  Inflation is running at 13,000%.  Parents are dumping their children off at orphanages because they cannot feed them.  Venezuela is the biggest and most preventable humanitarian crisis in the Western hemisphere in our lifetime.   Yet the Vatican singles out Western capitalism as amoral.    The Vatican is virtually silent about the sentence of poverty imposed by other authoritarian governments around the world.   Just a few days following the release of its statement, the World Bank announced that the number of people living in abject poverty across the globe is around 10%, down from 30% just a few decades ago.   Free markets are doing there thing, even in places like Africa.  Instead of shooting spitballs at free markets, the Holy See should be celebrating them. 

The sex abuse crisis of the Catholic Church has been well documented and just last week, the bishops of Chile tendered their resignation over the whole ordeal.  In addition to the abuse scandal, the Vatican had its own Vatican bank, money laundering and embezzlement scandal.   The Vatican would do well to remember Matthew 7:3, “Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to notice the beam in your own eye?”

It’s a very sad thing.  Last weekend, I saw the film A Man of his Word, a documentary about Pope Francis.  He has taken the Church in the right direction on several fronts, most notably he has eschewed the trappings of the Vatican, and led by example, living in a modest apartment, giving up the regal clothing and the Lamborghini.   He has recently made comments to be more inclusive of gay Christians.  And he is right to be concerned about the poor.  But his attacks on the economic system that has lifted more people out of poverty than any other and this latest statement shows a lack of understanding and a willingness to take positions that he is ill equipped to prescribe.

Perhaps both Islam and Catholicism have points of friction with democracy and capitalism.  I have faith in Jesus but I have faith in free markets, too.  Francis should not force us to choose.

Jesus Christ Superstar and Free Speech

I attended the Lyric Opera’s performance of Jesus Christ Superstar this weekend.   This rock opera, along with Tommy, are two of my favorites (I plan to attend Roger Daltrey’s performance of Tommy later this summer).   The music score to Jesus Christ Superstar is one of the first albums I ever purchased (Black Sabbath’s Paranoid was one of my other earliest purchases, which may go a long way toward explaining my theological discord).   As a boy, I listened to Jesus Christ Superstar over and over again and a booklet with the lyrics came with the album so I knew all the lyrics.  The rock opera was an innovative, modern way to present that ancient story.   Jesus Christ Superstar was filled with emotion and conveyed the complexities of Christ’s life, the division of the earthly and the divine, the humanity of Jesus and the threat that He posed to the Roman authorities.  The music and the lyrics were masterful and the music had a great beat, reflecting the golden age of rock of the late 60’s and early 70’s.   I also attended a strict Catholic grammar school, and I still have memories of the nuns fussing about it, calling the rock opera “blasphemous,” especially criticizing it for ending with the death of Jesus and completely omitting the resurrection (fair point, I think).   Yet, although the Christian story was incomplete and took a few liberties, it brought the gospel to life for many of us. 

Following Jesus Christ Superstar (turned into a movie in 1973, which was well done), Monty Python did an irreverent parody and satire of Christianity- The Life of Brian in 1979.   The Life of Brian has been heralded as one of the greatest comedies of all times and while it was by definition, blasphemous, and was shunned by the BBC and some local towns in the UK, the film was ingenious and uproariously funny.  Its edginess and Monty Python silliness can still elicit guffaws with Christ and the two thieves singing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” as they hang on the cross and the reference to “Biggus Dickus” by Pontius Pilate.   Despite its outlandishness, there were no riots, no violence, no mass protests opposing the film.  No one died as a result.    More recently, The Book of Mormon, first staged in 2011, took a direct, playful swipe at a particular sect of Christians, the Mormons.  It also was widely acclaimed and I saw it a few years ago with my son.   Rather than howling about how offensive the film was, the Mormons simply rolled with it, and even took out ads in the playbills that read, “You saw the musical, now read the book.”

The only time I remember artists getting Christians riled up was the work “Piss Christ,” funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which depicted a crucifix in urine.  That work did provoke the ire of many Christians, but the irritation was mostly over whether the government should pay for this.  The only real threats were directed at cutting off government funding.  

Seeing Jesus Christ Superstar and reflecting on some of the other artistic portrayals of Christianity made me pause and ask some questions about Islam, and ultimately whether Islam is compatible with the West.   But merely asking that question triggers a hysterical accusatory response of “Islamophobia,” a synthetic word designed to cut off discussion and debate.  Given the experience of Europe, it is a question that should be asked. 

I will also not pretend to be a religious scholar, and I acknowledge that my theological depth of knowledge of my own faith—Catholicism is only ankle deep and I do not pretend to know a great deal about Islam and its belief system.  But I do observe things, and have enough knowledge to at least raise questions.   And whether or not Islam is fundamentally compatible with the West is a question that needs to be answered and needs to be subject to debate and grounded in reality.  I also understand that Islam is complex and has sects and gradations and just like Catholicism, there are adherents that are strict about their faith and some that are, like me, looser and prefer a more a la carte menu. 

But I have some reservations about Islam’s ultimate compatibility with the West, and those reservations rest on three components.  First, is that unlike Christianity and Judaism, Islam does not appear to recognize a difference between church and state.   For a great number of Muslims, they are intertwined.  And the two nation states where Islamists have seized the controls of government—Iran and Turkey—those societies and economies have suffered greatly.   Secondly, is the difference between the founders.  Christ was a messenger of peace- love thy neighbor as thyself is a basic precept of Christianity.  Muhammed, in contrast, was a warlord, and was interested in conquest.  The founder’s themes are hard to ignore.  The third aspect, and one the only one that I will address here, is Islam’s aversion to free speech.

The initial provocation from Islam regarding free speech came in 1989 from Ayotollah Khomeini, who put a fatwa on writer Salman Rushdie for his novel The Satanic Verses, published in 1988, forcing Rushdie into hiding for years.  Dutch film make Theo van Gogh was gruesomely murdered in 2004 after producing his film “Submission.”    In 2008, a Danish newspaper was forced to apologize after setting off riots when it published a cartoon depicting Muhammed with a bomb in his turban.   Borders book chain (since defunct) self-censored and pulled copies of magazines and newspapers carrying the cartoon out of concern for the safety of their customers.   In 2015 the offices of Charlie Hebdo were attacked in France resulting in the murder of 11 people and the attackers injured 12 more.

Islam has largely been behind hate speech laws and other institutional curtailment of free speech.  Britain has stepped up enforcement of its hate speech laws, and British police monitor social media to ensure that posts offensive to Muslims are dealt with.  Canada recently passed C-16 which contains language which restricts language that reflects “Islamophobia,” that Jordan Peterson has spoken out against.   There has been a push at the U.N. to curtail “blasphemy,” and even in the U.S., President Obama warned that “the future must not belong to those that slander the prophet of Islam.” 

Recently, the College of the Holy Cross announced that it was going to shelve its mascot—the crusader because Muslims found it offensive.  Can you think of an Islamic institution or organization that changed its symbol or logo because it was offensive to Christians or Jews?

As a sometimes rebellious Catholic, I am free to criticize the Church and the Pope—which I vociferously have on many occasions.    I am free to reject and question doctrine.   I am free to poke fun at my own faith and its practices (I thoroughly enjoyed Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?), and some of its traditions.   I can mock the Catholic Church and even other faiths without threat of violence to me (today, for instance, the Vatican expressed concern over tweeting nuns—really??).  Assume I had a 11 year old boy and assume my local church was sponsoring a weeklong religious retreat for young boys chaperoned only by 10 Catholic priests.  Given the sex abuse scandals, no one in the world would call me Catho-phobic because I expressed reservations about permitting my son to attend unaccompanied.  No one would say, “Gee, it’s only a minority of priests that do that sort of thing.  Why are you worried?” Do the same standards not apply to Islam?

Free speech in the West is our most vital freedom.   In the West, generally, and in America especially, we curtail it only under the narrowest of circumstances, although it is being eroded in Europe and on college campuses in the U.S.   In the nearly 50 years since the initial production of Jesus Christ Superstar and other satires and parodies of Christianity in the West, there has not been a single death or violent incident arising out of them. 

But after seeing Jesus Christ Superstar, it occurred to me that one test as to whether Islam is compatible with the West would be to produce a good natured musical parody of Islam and Muhammed, complete with dancing girls and shortie burkas.    I ask a simple question of whether you would bring your family to opening night?   Would there even be an opening night?  Could you have an opening night, or any other night for that matter without hardened security?  

We should not be afraid to ask those important and complicated questions and not permit others to stop us from asking them.  America is a welcoming and tolerant nation.  But there are two provisos.  First, if your religious creed bumps up against OUR sacred document (the Bill of Rights), yours must yield.  And second, we are a free and open society.   You should be expected to adapt to our social norms and not expect us to adapt to yours.

Jordan Peterson

A fundamental issue plaguing conservatism/libertarianism over the past decade has been almost a complete absence of intellectual heft behind it.  Milton Friedman passed away in 2006 and William F. Buckley departed in 2008.   With the loss of those two giants, conservatism lost its intellectual moorings and no one has emerged to replace them, none that could combine intellectual rigor with an ability to communicate ideas on a mass level.   Friedman wrote his book, Free to Choose and PBS carried the television series with the same name.   Buckley had his writings and Firing Line, also carried on PBS.  Both were witty, charming and could disassemble liberal arguments with aplomb and without personal enmity.   Personal attacks were so rare that they were noteworthy.  Buckley only lost his temper once, with Gore Vidal, documented in the film Best of Enemies.  Otherwise, Buckley and Friedman most often dislodged ideological opponents with reason and witty barbs.

I had brief hopes that Tucker Carlson could be that person, and he does have his moments.   He often picks the right issues, and is generally well-prepared.  But having to perform nightly and perform for ratings doesn’t lend itself to that kind of depth that is required to be a true public intellectual.  Carlson hasn’t published, which is a critical aspect of establishing intellectual bona fides.  He also has too many puffball guests—far left wing whackadoodle idealogues that are too easy to obliterate.  His segments sometimes have the feel of hunting at the zoo.  Buckley and Friedman used PBS as a main platform for their message—an entirely different ballgame.  Still, Carlson has not yet shown that he has the stature to attract and persuade much more than the Fox loyalists.

But an unlikely professor has shown up on the scene and may be one that has the potential to fill the void.  Jordan Peterson, an unlikely figure from the University of Toronto, has suddenly garnered the attention of millions, and he has been especially popular among young people.  His book, 12 Rules for Life has sold over a million copies and the popularity of his YouTube videos and podcasts has blossomed.

Of course, he has drawn the ire of the Left, especially since he voiced opposition to Canadian measures against “offensive speech.”  He has been attacked by the Left as Alt-Right.  The Chronicle of Higher Education recently had an article on Peterson entitled, “What’s So Dangerous About Jordan Peterson?”  

I was attracted to his message after I saw a YouTube video last year in which he discussed the pathology of post-modernism.   Hisis destruction (metaphorically) of reporter Cathy Newman which rendered her speechless convinced me that Peterson is somebody that we should take seriously.   I began to listen to his podcasts and read his book.  His appearance in Chicago was perfectly timed, so I bought a ticket to see and hear him in person.

As I waited in line (which was as long as the one I waited in for the Allman Brothers a few years ago), I noticed that the crowd was younger, primarily late 20’s to early 30’s.   I happened to strike up a conversation with the two young guys in front of me, both of whom had copies of Peterson’s book in hand.  They had just graduated from medical school and were on to their residency.  “You don’t understand,” one of them said, “Universities have become indoctrination centers.”   That set the stage for Dr. Peterson.

Peterson began his two and a half hour talk with a discussion of stories, talking about “getting our story straight,”  and of universal themes that bind a culture together.  He leaned heavily on Carl Jung, Friederich Nietzsche, and Fyodor Dostoevsky in his thinking.    He emphasizes that we are a largely Judeo-Christian culture and a good portion of his talk revolved around the symbolism in Genesis, the Abrahamic stories as well as the importance of “picking up your cross and carrying it up the hill.”  He talked about how universal these stories are and that the Harry Potter books really pick up on biblical themes.   He talked about other symbols that appear in stories—dragons, for instance and the story of Hansel and Gretel and Snow White.  All of these stories have universal themes to them. For Peterson, the Hero Myth is paramount and that we want to live a life of truth, and to strengthen ourselves to be able to take on the dragon—the things we are loathe to face.  He believes that Western civilization’s gift to the world has been to value the individual and that we cannot fix the social order until we fix ourselves (which the modern university often gets backwards).  We need to adopt a stance of ready engagement in the world and categorically reject victimhood. 

He talked about the right being concerned with a hierarchical system that produces winners and losers.  He rejects the notion that hierarchical organizations are a consequence of the capitalist patriarchy, and illustrates that with his description of lobster society in the first chapter of his book.  Hierarchical organizations of our society is hard wired into our being.  The left, he said, is much more concerned with government taking care of the losers.  Peterson is sympathetic to the Left’s desire  to do so--you don’t want to crush these people and you want them to get up and try again.   But he eschews the excesses of the Left and he gets animated when he talks about the likes of Stalin, Mao, and Maduro.   He talked about his anger with the intellectual left complicity in Mao, Stalin, Khymer Rouge, and the millions of deaths and millions more lives shattered—and they have never apologized for it.  

Peterson is most passionate when he is arguing against tribalism and for free speech.  He gets animated, his volume raises and he speaks in categorical terms.   With respect to tribalism.  You. Don’t. Want. To. Go.  There.  Ever.   Bad things happen to societies when they revert to tribalism.  It is clear that he worries about that a lot (as does Victor Davis Hanson).   He regards The Gulag Archipelago as the most important work of the 20^th century as it exposed the lies of the Soviet system.

He would certainly have gotten on well with Buckley and Friedman, but his focus is entirely different.  Friedman was a Nobel prize winning economist, and his message was primarily about the human as an economic actor, making choices that are best for him or her.  Buckley spoke a great deal about politics and the individual’s relationship to the state.  Peterson’s approach is primarily from the psychological and philosophical perspective.  He only spoke about economics in the broadest terms.  He did not even mention the names of Trudeau, Trump or Clinton.  He is concerned with the culture wars, free speech and “social justice.”   He is Canadian, which necessarily implies that he has no skin in the game of U.S. politics.   But as I thought about this, perhaps it is in the culture wars,   where the courageous intellectual firepower is needed as more politicians engage in identity politics, and our universities clamp down on free speech.   Friedman and Buckley largely won the war in economics in a sustainable way.   Even Obama’s signature program, Obamacare, was based on a Heritage Foundation plan.  Flawed as Obamacare was, it was not socialized medicine but a failed attempt at creating a “market.”   It didn’t even contain a public option.   And Obama didn’t raise individual tax rates anywhere near the levels that existed under Roosevelt, Kennedy or Eisenhower (Obama did raise taxes in other ways, however).  But where the battle between right and left is fiercest and where the left has made a great deal of headway is in the media and academics and on social matters, and that is where Peterson comes in.

Peterson is not a garden variety self-help guru.   He blends philosophy and psychology in a powerful way and in a way in which people can understand it.  He is an antidote to the pathology and irrationality of post-modernism.  And he is very, very smart.

It was with irony that I saw Peterson speak during the same week the New York Times ran an article celebrating Karl Marx’s birthday and the town in which Marx was born put up a statue commemorating him.  At the same time, American university students are circulating petitions to take down statues of Thomas Jefferson.

Can Peterson provide the intellectual backbone that conservatism has been missing all these years and sustain it?   I sure hope so.   The West badly needs a convincing voice to remind itself that its culture is worth preserving, that individualism, not tribal grievances should guide us, and that attempts to constraint “offensive speech” must be constrained.   No one since Buckley and Friedman has been able to provide the intellectual platform and articulate traditional Western liberalism and free markets need to be defended.  Until Jordan’s arrival, conservatism has been adrift with most American Republican politicians becoming “swamp denizens” instead (which is why Donald Trump was able to seize the nomination in 2016).   That Peterson does not seek political power and cannot because he is Canadian adds to his credibility.

Jordan Peterson is a person worth watching.  I encourage you to listen to his podcasts and YouTube videos and judge for yourself.  He may, if fact, be the right person at the right time, emphasizing the right things.  His popularity among young people gives me hope that he is the kind of intellectual force that will compete for the minds of our youth with a university system that has gone off the rails.

The New Barbarism

Last spring, I wrote a blog post entitled “Our Children” following the Manchester bombing in which 22 girls were killed and 59 injured in a terrorist attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Great Britain.   I asserted that a civilization that cannot or will not protect its children (http://commonsense-mark.blogspot.com/2017/05/our-children.html) is likely doomed.   A year ago, those children were a victim of Islamic terror.

But a new menace has claimed the life of a British child.  I awoke Sunday morning to the news that little Alfie Evans had died, a victim of not only a degenerative brain disease, but a barbaric, cold and bureaucratic national health care system in Great Britain.  Ironically, the cover of The Economist magazine shown above depicts a child’s hand gripping an adult’s hand with the cover story Within Reach:  Universal health care, worldwide.   But this week, the child’s hand lost its grip, in a maddening and awful way.

The bureaucrats at the National Health Service in Great Britain decided that baby Alfie was terminal, and cut off life support to this little, adorable 23 month old baby, setting off a worldwide firestorm.   With all the empathy of a tow truck operator in Lincoln Park in Chicago, the authorities decided not only was in in the best interest of the child to be denied life support but that his parents would be denied permission to remove him from Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool.  The authorities denied his parents permission to remove him even when the Vatican offered to fly him to Italy to receive treatment there.   Worse, the local police posted a message on Twitter, saying that they were surveilling posts about Alfie and threatened action.   Alder Hey had become Hotel California—you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.  And as Ross Douthat pointed out, the Alfie Evans case has powerful implications for end of life treatment as the West ages.

The callousness with which the parents of this child were treated, the inhumaness of it all was reminiscent of the Gulag.   The West fought Soviet encroachment for half a century.  Now we have become a society that itself uses government force to prevent its citizens from leaving and then monitors their communications. 

The MSM mocked Sarah Palin and her reference to “death panels” mercilessly.  But the death panels are now here—maybe not in the U.S. just yet---but we’re seeing a preview of the cold brutality of universal health care.   The whole episode was unnerving to watch unfold.  The callousness with which the parents were treated.  The implied threat to the parents to not permit them to take their baby home unless there was a “sea change” in their attitude.   The stripping away of parental rights by the state at the worst moment for a parent.   Whether or not the “experts” were correct in their assessment is almost irrelevant.  The state inflicted emotional torment on these people in a fashion George Orwell predicted in 1984.  Alfie Evans and Charlie Gard now stand as testaments to Sarah Palin’s warning.

And in the same week as the drama unfolded in the U.K., Planned Parenthood sued the state of Indiana to block the state from implementing a law that would require annual state inspections of abortion clinics and require them to report on complications from those procedures.  The crux of Planned Parenthood’s claim is that it puts an “undue burden” on the clinic, interfering with the Constitutional right to an abortion established under Roe. 

Planned Parenthood has come under pressure since they were caught on camera negotiating the price of fetus parts.  Then at a conference, abortionists from Planned Parenthood were surreptitiously filmed laughing and joking about the procedure—how heads were cracked, spinal cords were snapped and an eyeball rolled on her lap.   Only Edgar Allen Poe could have come up with details as gruesome.   While a judge ordered these tapes sealed, the damage had been done and the public became aware of exactly what goes on in these places and how desensitized some of these abortionists had become. 

Then came the whopper—Kermit Gosnell, the abortionist that evolved into a serial killer.   Gosnell, a Philadelphia abortionist was sentenced to life in prison after it was discovered that, he had operated a clinic in which he killed life babies by snipping their necks with a scissors.  Several jurors had to undergo counseling after seeing and hearing the evidence.  If Gosnell had happened in any other circumstances, there would be hearings, protests and a raft of regulatory measures.    But somehow abortion clinics are exempt from this, and this macabre event has largely been forgotten already.

Beauty salons get inspected.  Your local sandwich shop gets inspected.  Construction projects get inspected.  The U-Haul truck I just rented is required to undergo a federal inspection regimen.  Try developing some property with a bit of marsh on it and deal with your local EPA administrator.  The CFPB has unleashed thousands of pages of regulation and reporting requirements on how mortgage loans and car loans can be made.  But require an abortion clinic to undergo an inspection and report complications that occur in these young women---that’s an undue burden.  Hands off.  Whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, the Gosnell case says that these places need regulatory supervision like every other organization involved in health and safety.

As Cecile Richards ends her term with accolades raining down on her on social media, we have to ask ourselves what kind of culture celebrates a person that snuffed out three times as many lives as Auschwitz and with as much efficiency?  Three and a half million abortions were performed under her tenure at Planned Parenthood.  The cheapening of life and the coarseness of the view of many on the left was highlighted by comedienne (?) Michelle Wolf’s “jokes” about abortion at the White House correspondents dinner, “ Don’t knock it until you try it.  And when you do try it, really knock it, you know, you gotta get that baby out of there. “ A real knee slapper.

Finally, Maine Republicans introduced a bill to criminalize female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice somewhat common among Muslim immigrants.   Somali refugees have settled in towns like Lewiston.  FGM is a barbaric practice designed to deprive women of sexual pleasure and a throwback to the middle ages.   It has no place in this country and should be fought at every turn.  But Democrats and the A.C.L.U. teamed up to defeat the measure, claiming, among other things, that it is illegal under federal law, that it would inhibit girls that have had the procedure from seeking medical attention, that it unfairly singles out a single group of people (Muslims).  The Republican measure would have criminalized FGM at the state level and also made it a crime to send a girl overseas to have the procedure done.

If FGM is part of your culture, you need to leave that at home.   Maine Republicans were correct to make the strongest statement possible that the medieval practice of FGM cannot gain a foothold here.  While exact numbers are not known, two doctors in Detroit have already been prosecuted for it and it is a large problem in Great Britain:

               “Despite being illegal for three decades, and despite more than 130,000 women in Britain having suffered this barbaric treatment, there have still been no successful prosecutions for the crime.  If Western Europe finds it so difficult even to confront something as straightforward as FGM, it seems unlikely it will ever be able to defend some of its subtler values in the years ahead.”

-        --Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe.

That the A.C.L.U. teamed up with Maine Democrats to fight this bill is simply appalling.  As much as anything, the bill sent a message that this practice will not be tolerated here, ever.   But again,  the A.C.L.U. would rather pander to a sector of Islamism than protect children.   

In all of these instances- Alfie Evans, the resistance of Planned Parenthood to “commonsense regulation,” the Left’s fight against criminalizing FGM, we are seeing a new barbarity, a cheapening of life, putting the state and liberal doctrine, including the barbaric practices of FGM, ahead of actually protecting children and family bonds.   It does not bode well for our society.