Not surprisingly MSNBC had a big story on the infidelity promoting site Ashley Madison dot com.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41583762/ns/business-bloomberg_businessweek/?gt1=43001

Unfortunately, the NBC subsidiary is focusing on the symptoms. Infidelity...which goes by several names at several stages of different kinds of relationships...is simply a manifestation of a society where selfishness has been upgraded to something between martyrdom and heroism. That someone in an enterprising country like ours is going to make a profit out of such debased ethics is only logical. We spend billions upon billions of dollars assuring individuals with low ethics that it is not only okay to exploit another's trust but a sign of 'freedom' to do so; I mean we all have only 'one life to live', as the trailer-park sentiment goes (in all fairness, such sentiment is equally found in suburbs too).

At least Ashley Madison should be applauded for being entrepreneurial, open and upfront about the dishonesty that is fastidiously kept under wraps in suburban living rooms, Facebook, and workplace water coolers. I would rather buy a few shares of Ashley Madison stock than give anything but sheer contempt for the amen choir of selfishness populating polite society.

One of the most poignant lessons I learnt during my days in corporate America was that of exiting with class. My former employer's CEO  is a gregarious Cajun who loves a profit as much as, if not more so, than any of his peers. When a big client decided to end its contract and go with a competitor, the CEO asked us to go "above and beyond the normal" to ensure that the transition of the client's platform to its new vendor was handled seamlessly and cause no complaint. We put our best resources to that project-a project designed to lose us money-and ensured that seamless transition. Every company, ruler, or lover can be all impressive and awesome when wooing...that is the nature of the beast. Only those with decency can be classy when time comes to call it quits, especially when the quitting is not made of their own choice.

For all his faults Hosni Mubarak showed class, something that is largely alien to the likes of Libya's Gaddafi and Yemen's Saleh.

Today is the 100^th birth anniversary of the patron saint of this blog and it namesake. A man who epitomized the best traits of American personality-optimism, decency, and civility-Ronald Wilson Reagan also reflected some of America’s most cherished political principles. With liberals largely left as wholly owned subsidiaries of public employee unions, and the most principled conservatives of yore too weak-kneed to confront angry populism, one truly wishes that Reagan’s Republicanism still around in force.

As a college lecturer of the social sciences, I often begin my semester by asking students their views on the concept of American exceptionalism? The idea that the United States holds, and must continue to hold, a uniquely pioneering and exemplary role for human societies is something that I hold dear and can backup with anecdotal and statistical evidence. This belief in the uniqueness of America’s mission is based neither on arrogance nor intransigence. Rather it anchors in deeply held humility which has found its voice through the words of the great exceptionalists throughout history: John Winthrop, Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. The liberal-left has never been comfortable with this exceptionalism thing, dismissing it as merely another expression of jingoism.

Now, the self-styled mavens of modern day conservatism have joined the attack, in deeds if not words, on American exceptionalism. Many conservatives have simply succumbed to the very un-American and alien subterfuge that “ends justify the means” (making the ghosts of Nazis, Communists, and assorted petty tyrants scream with glee ‘we told you so’). Were the nascent democratization movements of the pre-1990 Eastern Europe looking to us today, will they see a robust defense of the values they wanted their own societies to reflect?  The rule of law, freedom from snooping by the government or its private sector buddies, substantive independence of courts whose robust writ runs large, protection of basic human dignity at home and abroad...these are the ideals we exemplified, preached with credibility, and championed with unapologetic gusto.

We still do the championing part.

Today marks the 38th anniversary of a decision of the US Supreme Court that ranks in infamy right there with Dred Scott and Korematsu. With one stroke of belabored analysis born of pseudo-enlightenment, Roe v.Wade eviscerated all the protections of law from the most vulnerable amongst us. The culture thus created has yielded deaths in the millions, such deaths being celebrated as rites of freedom by large sections of otherwise intelligent opinion. It is telling that today, the eggs of many a species of birds have far greater protections in federal law than an unborn human child. Destroy the eggs in the nest of a protected feather species, and you could get a few years in a federal penal institution; murder a human child by severing his/her spinal cord with a sharp knife, and you will be reimbursed by taxpayer dollars for your 'noble deeds'.

It is this culture of coarseness that has made it okay to demean, delegitimize, and dehumanize many of our fellow brothers and sisters on one pretext or another. For what is the ultimate measure of civilization if not the tolerance we show for the most vulnerable and least able amongst us?

Surely America can do better.

It is with deliberate intent that I had not made a comment, yet, on the rampage in Arizona that claimed six lives and injured so many others, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords. As I look at the political aftermath, I cannot help but notice the abject similarity of the reaction from the political conservatives and the political liberals: they both want to restrict liberty more. Such an approach has become par for the course whenever cowardly politicians are faced with an opportunity to help keep their jobs. The liberals, led by one New York member of Congress, want to further pare away the Second Amendment; the conservatives, led by another New York member, want to create larger barriers between the ruling class and the ordinary citizenry, barriers worthy of banana republics.

Unfortunately, such members of Congress only reflect a deeply flawed misunderstanding of liberty within most of us. Somewhere in the course of history we have come to believe that a free society must also be 100 % risk free and 100 % safe society.  Not only is such an assumption not true, but put into motion in the hall of power, such thinking is positively dangerous to the very idea of liberty. An entirely crime free society is one where there is no freedom and everyone lives in fear. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and Iran are places where ordinary crime is the rarest.

Do we really want to become like them? Some members of Congress from New York would seem to think so.

PS: Lest readers misunderstand, I am not a fan of guns and do not own any. Nonetheless, I do support the Second Amendment just like I support the entire Bill of Rights.

After reading the recent political memoir of former President George W. Bush, I am even more convinced that before too many years are out, even liberal Democrats will be missing him (just like what happened with their one time bete noir Richard M. Nixon). Our immediate past president was no saint-personally or politically-but few impartial observers will deny that he is a gentleman with decency and compassion. What is more, as is increasingly obvious with the populist tinge becoming more colorful in the GOP, the former president led in a manner that had some semblance of thought and balance. Pundits often got too distracted by his Texasesque personal to realize that this is a man who, like his father and grandfather, is cognizant of the world and of America's stewardship of certain universal values.

Men like him are becoming rarer and rarer in politics at large; and frighteningly so in his own party where angry populism is fast replacing thoughtful conservatism.

At the risk of promoting a cliché, I have to point out the truthfulness of an adage that so embodies the twenty first century life in North America: commonsense is largely uncommon. Three separate incidents over the past few months cry out for the lack of any commonsense in their provocateurs. In each case, the people behind the incidents have taken shelter under the umbrella of rights that nobody contests. What is within our rights is not, however, within the purview of commonsense or even common decency. The normal, educated, and respectable person knows the difference.

First there is the Park51 mosque project in New York City. Sure, a First Amendment protected good idea to some but an utterly stupid initiative considering the time and place, and considering the many less controversial alternatives available.

Second, the so called pastor who wants to burn the Quran.  Again, a First Amendment right but utterly indecent and probably harmful to our men and women in uniform.

Third, the imbecile reporter who goes into a men’s locker room wearing a nightclub outfit and then is outraged when she hears locker room jokes. Yes, she can wear whatever she wants but commonsense dictates that you dress for the occasion.

Maybe commonsense is not on life support; perhaps it is dead already.

Irrespective of party affiliation and political ideology, a vast majority of Americans wish President Obama the very best as he puts his political capital to work on behalf of a long lasting Middle East peace deal. It is a problem that has bedeviled us and the world for too long and cost too much.

That said, I do hope that the President makes it clear that barring some minor land use arrangement around religious sites, he strongly supports the concept of Jerusalem being the ancient, undivided, and eternal capital of the state of Israel. With all due respect to some members of the Israeli cabinet, I cannot but emphasize that Jerusalem’s integrity should never be negotiated away. I am a firm believer in religious freedom and few rulers of Jerusalem have been so actively tolerant of religious diversity as Israel has been. Hence, all the more reason to keep Jerusalem an undivided Israeli city, a city where Arab and Jew, Muslim and Christian has been able to worship freely under the Israeli flag.

As the psalmist said some millennia ago, If I forget thee O Jersusalem….

Jerusalem: the ancient, undivided, and eternal capital of Israel

Like my hero Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of this blog, I am a firm believer in the freedom of religion enshrined in the First Amendment. The spirit and the words of the Amendment are crystal clear to those who do not fall in the category of politicians trying to keep their jobs or wanting a promotion. It is the culture of ‘anything it takes’ that makes Dr. Newt Gingrich wants us to descend to the level of Saudi Arabia, instead of making the Saudis elevate their shoddy record of human rights to our levels.

The builders of the Park51 mosque have a right to build and worship on private property as long as local ordinances are followed. The right is near absolute, if you believe in the Constitution.

It is no shame for the the mosque organizers to go the extra mile and be sensitive to the feelings of their neighbors. A house of worship is an edifice; the sanctuary is in the hearts of believers. I know enough Muslims and enough of Islam to know that the location of the mosque is largely irrelevant to the quality of the worship within. Why not show the neighborliness that many authentic Islamic traditions command and move the mosque a few hundred yards, if possible?

This controversy should also be a wake up call for attention to the plight of those non-Muslims persecuted in Muslim lands. Let me be clear: Muslims in America are not responsible for the deplorable policies and customs in many Middle Eastern and South Asian countries vis-à-vis religious liberty. But why not use this teaching moment to raise the issue of global religious liberty? Even in those Muslim countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh where palpable freedom of religion is enshrined in the written law, the fate of converts can range from destitution to extra judicial death; many countries openly disallow building of churches and synagogues; some like Saudi Arabia simply prohibit any public worship of the non-Sunni Islamic kind. These are valid issues to raise by our human rights organizations and our foreign affairs leaders with the Muslim world. 

We should believe in religious liberty here…and abroad.

I disagree with Jean Schodorf on a lot of things: frankly, she is much more liberal than I prefer politicians to be. She is different from her opponents in the Kansas Forth District GOP primary in one key aspect which sets her apart as more conservative than them: Schodorf understands that in a republic, leaders have to lead rather than blindly follow the latest bout of populism. It is a fundamental difference in perspective that often gets lost in anger or despair on both sides of the political divide. It is a perspective that was foundational to the Framers of the Constitution who abhorred mass hysteria on issues of the day, instead preferring thoughtful, cogent, and calm debate amidst educated representatives.

Hence, for my Kansas’ Fourth Congressional District  primary tomorrow, the Reaganesque choice is Dr. Jean Kurtis Schodorf.

It is not often that the emotions and drama of court room trials impress me beyond the mundane. The Santiago case being tried in Dallas this week, however, goes beyond the pale. At an individual, social, and national level, we can draw so many lessons from it. Now that a jury has rendered judgment, I feel comfortable sharing KsReaganite’s perspective on this tale which is evil and noble, all at the same time.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/yahoolatestnews/stories/072710dnmetstarvetrial.24241caa.html

An eleven year old girl-abused, starved, beaten-going without the meager morsels of food she was given, so that her younger brothers may have a little more to eat. I do not know of more nobility, decency, and self-sacrifice than that.  This girl’s example would make most of us hang our heads in shame, especially those who begrudge the very idea of sharing with others a little of the great bounty that God has given them. Selfish and petty doesn’t begin to describe such people, people who are found most often sprouting their mouths off about how so-and-so took ‘their’ piece of the pie.

That such evil could go on is a sad testament to the abject refusal of our family courts-whose judges are often beneficiaries of feminist interest group largesse-to consider the sad fact that the biggest single threat to children comes from live-in unrelated adult males who are sexual partners of the mother. Every day there are scores of horror stories across the country which find the same class of men responsible; a commonsense legislature would have long ago amended child custody laws to have a rebuttable presumption against awarding custody to women who cohabitate with live-in male sexual partners that are not related to the children. Of course legislators being, by nature, a cowardly bunch, this has not happened and won’t do so in the near future either.

It is well said in the Scriptures that heaven and hell are often in our own time and our own world. What the children suffered was pure hell, and in the heart of their sister was a piece of heaven. As for judges, legislators, affirmative actioners, feminists, and Tea Partiers..let us just say that they have a long, long way to go before they will have a fraction of the humanity that this eleven year old girl proved exists amidst the fires of evil.

On the 234^th birthday of the Republic it is well advised to remember what sets America apart: the concept of the totality of liberty as bestowed by the Almighty. Sadly, as others, often spurred by our own example during the World Wars and the Cold War, are moving steadily towards MORE freedom, we are equally purposefully moving in the other direction. In stoking fears to help along their pet projects and empower their specialized constituencies, both Democrats (who frighten us with economic and health insecurity) and Republicans (who frighten us with national and homeland security) have large bags of tricks and tools each to chip away the Bill of Rights and hollow it out to die. While many cheer these movements as necessary in the interest of current times, their children will come to rue the parents and grandparents who gave away a little bit freedom, bit by bit by bit, to gain a little bit of safety and security.

What separates us from Mexico, Russia, China and Europe is the Bill of Rights; without the letter and spirit of the Bill of Rights, America is simply another big country in wide world. Anyone who does not understand that kind of notion of exceptionalism is a fool; someone who thinks that the loss of liberty is needed to safeguard our health and workplaces and borders is doubly a fool.