Wednesday, November 30, 2005

John Lennon - Republican?

Next week sadly will be the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's shocking murder. And as we recall and commemorate the ex-Beatle's all-too-short life, we fondly remember him as a colorful figure, husband and father, standout musician, and international celebrity.

Many mainstream media outlets, though, also remember Lennon the political activist, and assume that if alive today, he would have continued the radical leftist bent he displayed in the late '60s and early '70s. To mark what would have been Lennon's 65th birthday, for example, Beatles biographer Hunter Davies speculates that John would be at the forefront of leftwing activism, protesting against Bush, Blair, and the war in Iraq.

Now certainly Mr. Davies knows plenty about the Beatles, but on this matter I believe he is fully mistaken. Au contraire, I see Lennon becoming a patriotic, pro-America Republican.

Yes, I know this may sound ludicrous to some - this same man, after all, virtually represented all things anti-authority, protested vehemently against Vietnam, and wrote his most famous solo song ("Imagine") as a virtual ode to utopian communism. But perhaps even more strongly, Lennon detested hypocrisy and always remained on the search for the "next big thing." Given this, I doubt he would have stagnated politically like so many of his leftwing brethren; rather, I believe he would have reversed course entirely a la Michael Medved, David Horowitz, and other liberals-turned-conservatives.

Notwithstanding Davies' official group biography, the best Beatle book out there, in my opinion, is the late Ian MacDonald's Revolution In The Head. (For the record, I am a huge Beatles fan who owns all their albums, has read a number of books on the band, and has seen both McCartney and Ringo in concert in recent years.) Not quite a traditional biography, Revolution examines the Beatles and their music in the context of the decade they represented most - the 1960s. (The band formed in 1957, issued their first single in 1962, and broke up in 1970.)

Many of the book's most fascinating sections cover Lennon and his cultural and political views, and far more than being a by-the-numbers leftist, the head Beatle continually explored new avenues of life experiences in an ongoing search for meaning and importance. Never settling on any one phase for long, John led the group through a myriad of '60s hallmarks - tough rock 'n' roll, Bob Dylan-style folk music, psychedelic drugs and the Summer of Love, meditation and Indian mysticism, anti-war protests, and finally a return to their roots (the "Get Back" project which was released as the Let It Be album). This same pattern continued after the Beatles' breakup, as John launched a solo career, explored leftist/communist political activism with wife Yoko Ono, spent an infamous two-year "lost weekend" living the celebrity life in Los Angeles, sought peace and quiet by moving to New York, retired from music in 1975 to become a stay-at-home father, and returned to his career in low-key fashion shortly before his 1980 assassination.

Clearly, Lennon was no career leftwing activist; rather, it was a particular phase in his highly varied and fascinating life, and as he grew older, he certainly appeared to grow more conservative in his cultural and family outlook. At the same time, he always railed against establishment stagnancy, and today, it is the Democrats, particularly those on the far left, who have largely assumed this characteristic. I believe John would have continued these personal trends, and were he alive today, would with sharp moral clarity support America's efforts to achieve freedom around the world. Assuming he would have obtained U.S. citizenship (he was on track, having been granted permanent residency status), I feel he would have become a card-carrying Republican and voted for President Bush in the 2004 election.

Perhaps his latest song would have even been a cover of "G-d Bless The USA."


*note: This essay is adapted from a piece I wrote back in October on the occasion of Mr. Lennon's would-have-been 65th birthday.

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Oil a Renewable Resource?

We have always believed oil to be a finite resource. According to standard geological theory, oil was created millions of years ago by decaying fossils, accumulated in underground pools, and has largely been used up over the last 150 years. Humanity must soon develop alternate energy sources, because when oil runs out, we could be in for a bumpy ride.

But what if all this is wrong, and oil is actually a renewable resource? That's the theory expounded by Dr. Jerome Corsi in his book Black Gold Stranglehold (co-writtten with Craig Smith) and in a series of articles for WorldNetDaily.com.

Corsi believes instead in abiotic oil theory, the hypothesis that oil is continually created in the ground. This, he explains, is why despite so much consumption during the past century, the world's proven oil reserves have risen today to record levels.

Could Corsi really be onto something? His evidence is quite convincing, based both on observed and mathematical data. (See his articles for some explanations.) At the same time, however, his theory does contradict a century of geological thought, and the rising oil reserve levels could just be a result of better discovery methods.

Nevertheless, Corsi does bring up many valid supporting points, and any scientific theory (even a century-old geologic one) always risks being supplanted by something newer and better.

Persuasive evidence exists both for and against his position, so perhaps the best we can say is that the jury's still out. But this theory should certainly be investigated quickly, as its confirmation would quickly change the balance of power among the world's energy players.

Imagine if the U.S. had abundant, renewable oil right inside its borders. That'd mean an end to energy policies based on oil scarcity, permanently low prices at the pump, no more oil renvenues heading to terrorist-sponsoring nations, and no need to continually appease corrupt and unelected Middle Eastern dictators. If Corsi's theory is correct, all of the above could quickly come to pass.

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Where I Disagree with the GOP

Throughout its brief history, this blog has supported and promoted many entrenched GOP positions, from tax cuts to the war in Iraq to intelligent design theory. But while TheSolidSurfer.com certainly leans Republican, I do disagree with the party's official line (and President Bush's actions) on a number of key issues. Here are some, along with the reasoning behind my stances:


Immigration
President Bush has strongly favored an open immigration policy, offering numerous benefits (including guest-worker status) to illegals and leaving porous borders between the U.S. and both Canada and Mexico. I believe this is a large mistake. Of course, America has been built on immigration (and, in fact, I'm married to an immigrant), and by no means do I propose ending it. Immigration provides new Americans with countless opportunities not present in their birth countries, while giving this nation a fresh supply of skilled workers. But at the same time, we do have finite resources and cannot realistically accept all would-be immigrants without straining ourselves beyond capacity. Therefore, we should more effectively police our borders and ensure that if people wish to immigrate, they do it legally instead of sneaking over the fence (unless, say, it's an emergency refugee situation).

The situation is also all the more urgent, now that we've caught known Al-Qaida members trying to infiltrate America from Mexico. Even beyond immigration issues, we must keep terrorists out of this country. And building a better, well-policed border fence is the way to do it.


Stem Cells
President Bush and leading Republicans have ruled against using embryonic stem cells in medical research, citing a violation against their pro-life principles. Here too, I disagree. Abortion is one thing, but embryonic stem cells come not from fetuses, but from rejected fertility treatment embryos. During such treatments, numerous embryos are created with the hope that one will become a viable fetus able to be implanted in the woman's uterus. When this occurs, the rest are discarded. These embryos are never implanted and never given the chance to develop into an actual person. If you're going to throw them out anyway, you certainly might as well use them to help cure some of humanity's worst diseases.


Israel-Palestinian Conflict
I certainly agree with much of President Bush's and the GOPs actions regarding this situation, particularly their strong support for Israel. But that said, I vehemently disagree with their continuing to reward the Palestinians for doing absolutely nothing to combat terror, extremism, and bad government. Israel has done all it can to try and make peace, and now the ball is completely in the Palestinians' court. And yet the U.S. continues to hold Israel almost entirely responsible for achieving calm in the region. This line of thinking is dangerously wrong, and Bush's policies here will fail just as Clinton's and every other former president's did, unless he acknowledges the Palestinian leadership (and the surrounding Arab countries) as the real cause of the problems and acts accordingly.


Big Government
Traditionally the Democrats have been the party of big government while Republicans preferred a leaner federal structure. But in recent years, Republicans have greatly expanded numerous governmental programs from Medicare to Farm Acts. Even excluding defense and homeland security budgets (which are vital and must remain), President Bush has become the largest spending president in thirty years. Big government is getting out of control and we must find ways to better manage and reduce it.

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Intelligent Design Part II

Not so surprisingly, my recent article on intelligent design theory has been one of this blog's most controversial posts. Several readers have emailed me to disagree, and most of them have included a recent Charles Krauthammer column in defense of their positions.

I certainly respect Mr. Krauthammer's views, and fully agree with him on many other issues, but like many other opponents of I.D., he too dismisses the theory not on scientific grounds but because of implications.

Says Mr. Krauthammer in the crux of his argument:

Let's be clear. "Intelligent design'' may be interesting as theology, but as science it is a fraud. It is a self-enclosed, tautological "theory'' whose only holding is that when there are gaps in some area of scientific knowledge -- in this case, evolution -- they are to be filled by God. It is a "theory'' that admits that evolution and natural selection explain such things as the development of drug resistance in bacteria and other such evolutionary changes within species, but that every once in a while God steps into this world of constant and accumulating change and says, "I think I'll make me a lemur today.'' A "theory'' that violates the most basic requirement of anything pretending to be science -- that it be empirically disprovable. How does one empirically disprove the proposition that God was behind the lemur, or evolution -- or behind the motion of the tides or the "strong force'' that holds the atom together?

My response, however, is that despite his claims of attacking I.D.'s scientific validity, Krauthammer really only argues against the implication of divine involvement. Intelligent design is not just a filler for gaps in scientific knowledge as he claims; rather, it's a well supported theory backed by mountains of scientific evidence in fields as diverse as chemistry, biology, geology, and astronomy. (See my previous post on I.D. for more on this.)

Krauthammer clearly implies that scientific knowledge alone will ultimately explain everything in the universe, but this is a monumental assumption that is as self enclosed as he claims intelligent design to be. There is no set limitation on what scientific knowledge can or cannot lead to, and if the leading evidence points to a non-scientific outcome (such as anything supernatural), then so be it. Of course this is not empirically disprovable, but neither is Darwinian evolution or anything else theorized to have occurred prior to human civilization. We cannot technically prove or disprove either theory (or any other theory) of human origins; we can only examine the evidence for each position and determine the most likely possibility. Viewed within these appropriate parameters (which rightly leave out implications), intelligent design's scientific merit becomes quite apparent.

Monday, November 14, 2005

Intelligent Design in Schools

Intelligent design theory has been, to say the least, quite a controversy. Support for or opposition to it being taught in school has pitted teachers vs. school board members, scientists vs. religious leaders, Democrats vs. Republicans, and many others. Proponents insist that the theory is valid science, while adversaries dismiss it as a disguised method of injecting creationism into the classroom. In recent days, the clashes have escalated; last week the Kansas Board of Education passed a resolution mandating that I.D. be taught alongside evolution in classrooms, while in Dover, Pennsylvania, voters ousted several supporters of the theory from the local school board.

So where do I stand on this issue? I believe that intelligent design should indeed be taught in classrooms. Why? For one reason only - it truly is good science. This is not to say that Darwinian evolution is entirely wrong. But intelligent design certainly has enough evidence and plausibility to at least be considered a valid theory. I'm not a science writer and won't defend those particular merits here, but many excellent books and websites do just that; some popular ones are PrivilegedPlanet.com, a related blog called ID The Future, and the slightly more religious-based GeraldSchroeder.com.

Now, if intelligent design is indeed true, the implications for humanity are, of course, staggering. This alone is enough for many people to support or oppose the theory. But implications should not be involved when considering whether to teach it in classrooms; only scientific validity matters. And as the above websites demonstrate, intelligent design contains plenty of this.

Teaching I.D., in fact, is far more consistent with the scientific method than banning it. Whenever a substantiated theory arises in any area of science, it should be accepted at minimum as containing the potential of being truly valid. To dismiss this possibility due to implications would simply be poor science. Indeed, if all new theories were discarded as such, evolution itself never would have survived the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. Intelligent design deserves no less consideration.

That said, some of the implication-based criticisms do raise valid questions, and I'd like to address the most common ones I've encountered:


Criticism #1: Darwinian evolution has been proven to be correct, so there is no need for any competing theories.

Answer: This may be true on a micro-level, but not on the macro-level necessary to dismiss competing theories. On the micro-level, we certainly have observed that species can both develop new characteristics and undergo natural selection. Among bacteria, for example, genetic mutations occur regularly, and when under attack from an antibiotic, only those bacteria with resistant genes will survive. Our constant need to develop new antibiotics, in fact, is a direct result of this bacterial micro-evolution.

Macro-evolution, however, is an entirely different story. We have never observed one species actually transforming into another (and certainly not doing so randomly), a la Darwin's theory. Darwinists, of course, reply that such change occurs only over many thousands or millions of years. But while this position can certainly be theorized and supported by evidence, it just as certainly cannot be definitively verified. Potential evidence is not the same as proof.


Criticism #2: Intelligent design is dangerous because it represents the imposition of organized religion onto people.

Answer: Certainly many who do wish to impose organized religion believe that intelligent design supports their reasoning. But the theory itself advocates no particular faith, and clearly can be taught without violating our public schools' church-state separation.


Criticism #3: Opposing evolution is akin to the Catholic Church's opposition of Copernicus and Galileo in the 1600s.

Answer: Actually it is quite different, on multiple levels. First of all, the Church persecuted Copernicus and Galileo on religious grounds and forced them to publicly retract their scientific findings (extremely controversial at the time) that the Earth rotates on its axis and revolves around the Sun. Intelligent design demands nothing of the sort with Darwinism, and advocates of I.D. maintain that it be taught alongside, and not in place of, evolution.

Secondly, unlike macro-evolution, Earth's rotations and revolutions can be directly measured. We know factually that these occur because we regularly observe them in action. This quite differs from a technically unproven theory, as discussed above in the answer to Criticism #1.


Criticism #4: Advocates of intelligent design don't seem so intelligent themselves in the eyes of mainstream America.

Answer: In fact, polls indicate that a majority of Americans support the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution.

Even with such support, though, scientific validity and not public opinion should decide the issue. Most people dismissed Einstein's theory of relativity upon its first proposal, but ultimately scientific merit triumphed and today we largely accept it.


Science is all about discovering how the world works. And since intelligent design provides a scientifically plausible and evidence-backed explanation of our planetary and biological origins, it certainly deserves to be taught as such.

Friday, November 11, 2005

Jordan Bombings Show Jihadists' True Face

For anyone who still believes that radical Muslim terrorists act out only in response to U.S. foreign policy, the suicide bombings in Jordan should give you long and hard second thoughts. These people don't care who they attack - be it Jews, Christians, Hindus, or even their fellow Muslims - as long as they somehow advance their goal of jihadism.

Yes, their megalomania is delusional, but they sincerely believe they can conquer the free world through terrorism. Our actions do not provoke them; it is our mere existence as a successful non-Muslim country that they detest.

In order to win (and win we shall), we must take them completely at face value - no more excuses. Poverty and alienation may contribute to a terrorist-friendly atmosphere, but they by no means cause terrorism itself. Rather, as I have pointed out in the past, radical Islam is the initial motivation, with lack of freedom a contributing factor.

It is no coindence that most of the world's current armed conflicts (Iraq, Israel/Palestinians, Russia/Chechnya, India/Pakistan, Thailand, Sudan, Philippines, Syria/Lebanon, etc.) are fueled by radical Islam, as the jihadists refuse to coexist with anyone else, including (and to some degree especially) moderate Muslims. If the Western world wants to end this aggression, we must act decisively against the radicals and defeat them once and for all.