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August 21, 2009

“Dr. Happy” Brought in to “Toughen Up” Army Troops

By Selwyn Duke

When we hear that the U.S. Army is spending $117 million to toughen
up combat troops mentally, we certainly don’t expect the ancient
Spartan regime of blood soup, reed beds and whippings to inure one to
pain. Yet we might not guess a program of “emotional resiliency
classes,” either. But the money is being used to train 1500 sergeants
to teach precisely that, making them de facto psychologists.
FoxNews.com reports, writing,
“The new $117 million dollar program is based on the research of Dr.
Martin Seligman, chairman of the University of Pennsylvania Positive
Psychology Center, who has been consulting with the Pentagon and whom
the Army calls ‘Dr. Happy.’”

Now, growing up in New York City, “Dr. Happy” has a ring of
familiarity to it. Wasn’t he that undocumented pharmacist who operated
near the corner of 5th Avenue and 125th Street? Could be, it’s just a
short lateral move to academia.

Read the rest here.
August 19, 2009

Democrat Plan: Make the IRS the Internal Medical Service

By Selwyn Duke

You probably don't associate the Internal Revenue Service with
health, unless it's their letterhead's ability to make your heart stop.
Yet, under both the House and Senate
Health, Education, Labor and Pensions healthcare reform bills, the
dreaded tax department will be a major player in making sure you comply
with government healthcare dictates.

And not only do the bills require the providers of health insurance
(e.g., employers) to divulge detailed information about whom they
insure, they also require individual taxpayers who aren't covered by
someone else to provide proof of insurance — under penalty of law.

Read the rest here.
August 19, 2009

Yet another Call to Overhaul Healthcare . . . This Time in Canada

By Selwyn Duke

In his captivating book The Screwtape Letters, the great
philosopher C.S. Lewis noted that change is meant to be a means to an
end and that it is only the destroyers of civilization who try to
convince us that it is an end unto itself.

It is an alluring mantra, that change chant. It helped elect Bill
Clinton in 1992 and, four terms later, Barack Obama. The idea is that
things couldn't possibly be worse than they are now, so the unknown
just must be better than the status quo. Ah, collect the frying pans —
fire all the way around.

Read the rest here.
August 18, 2009

My Liberal Fans Just Can’t Get Enough

By Selwyn Duke

So I see that the deep thinkers over at Sadly, No! picked up on my piece "All the President's Bigoted Men" and have much to say about me. That's right, not the piece — me. Their comments are an interesting read if you'd like some insight into liberal "intellectualism" (yikes, even with the quotation marks it's strikingly oxymoronic). Among the gems you'll be treated to are posts peppered with profanity and one in which the writer wishes there were a Hell so that conservative commentator Robert Novak, who just passed away today, could go there. Very, very classy, guys. I should also point out that such wishing of damnation on political opponents isn't even original, as it echoes the snooty, woefully overestimated anti-theist Christopher Hitchens' remark after Jerry Falwell's death. To wit, "I wish there was a Hell for Falwell."

Wow, being atheistic and liberal just seems so . . . so attractive. They just may win me over.

The little blurb about my article at Sadly, No! was written by someone who didn't want to attach his real name to his musings. Instead, he used the handle "Tintin." Hmm, I didn't think dogs could write.

Oh, yeah, I remember now. They can write.

They just can't reason.

However, I will take the inability to address substantively even one point in a 2500-word piece as an admission of defeat. In debate, I guess you could say that avoidance is the sincerest form of flattery.

Do liberals operate based on emotion? Are their offerings thus without merit and completely visceral? Are they the ones ridden with vice who poison public discourse with mindless ad hominem attacks and ugliness of the tongue?

Sadly, Yes.

© 2009 Selwyn Duke — All Rights Reserved

(Note: some readers have mentioned that the name of the dog I was alluding to in this piece is "Rin-Tin-Tin." I was aware of this, but the handle in question was close enough so that I decided to indulge some artistic license. However, I will admit that I didn't know of the European comic strip character "Tintin," who certain readers assumed I had confused with the dog. I suppose you learn something new every day.)
August 17, 2009

All the President’s Bigoted Men

By Selwyn Duke

When Barack Obama said that the
Henry Louis Gates affair was a teaching moment, he spoke truly. But the key is ensuring that the right things
are taught and the right people learn. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to
happen.

There is no need to rehash the
events of July 16 chapter and verse. We
all know about how the Harvard professor flew into a rage of racial accusations
and haughty posturing after Sergeant James Crowley appeared at his Cambridge
home to investigate a report of a possible break-in. We’ve heard that Gates called Crowley a
“racist” and said he was being targeted because “I’m a black man in
America.” We know how Barack Obama
stirred the pot, saying at a press conference that he didn’t know all the facts
but then averring that the police “acted stupidly.” And we also know that it’s a foot-in-mouth
moment Obama wishes he could do a Groundhog Day on, and that he fancies a beer
a substitute for an apology.

(more…)
August 15, 2009

Resurrecting the Right-wing Militia Bogeyman

The Southern Poverty Law Center is up to its old tricks, demonizing conservatives and playing the race card for profit.

By Selwyn Duke

Until a long time after Napoleon's death, English mothers would
admonish their children with, "Be good or Nappy will get you." Well,
now we hear, be vigilant or the "racist" righties will get you. This is
the message of a recent AFP news article oh-so ominously titled
"Right-wing militias on the rise in US: report."

Here's how the piece begins:

Incensed by the election of the first
black US president, right-wing militia groups in the United States are
rising again after a decade of decline . . . .

Ideologically driven by racism and a
virulent anti-government, anti-taxation and anti-immigrant agenda, the
homegrown groups that thrived in the 1990s and spurred numerous deadly
terrorist attacks are expanding, said the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

Read the rest here.
August 13, 2009

Empty Cradles, Demographic Destiny and the Death of the West

By Selwyn Duke

While the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding was good
cinema, it was also a big fat Hollywood fiction. With Greece’s fertility rate of 1.36 children
per woman — well below the replacement level of 2.1 — “big” is not a modifier
demographers would associate with today’s Greek families. In fact, a more accurate film might be called
My Big Fat Muslim Wedding.

(more…)
August 10, 2009

Audio Commentary: The Real Reason Sotomayor is Unqualified

https://selwynduke.typepad.com/files/asc-sotomayor-and-the-role-of-justices-8-10-09-2.wma — The real reason Sotomayor is unqualified – 08/10/09
August 9, 2009

Demographic Sleight-of-hand

Contrary to the conventional narrative about European demographic
decline, a trio of researchers claims that increased prosperity is now
causing Old World birthrates to rise. But what are the statistics
behind the statistics?

By Selwyn Duke

Although there are still some kept awake by Soylent Green nightmares
of overpopulation, many recognize that the developed world has long
experienced a birth dearth. The pattern has been consistent: wherever
societies modernize and attain prosperity — be it Europe, North
America, Asia or elsewhere — a drop in birthrates to below replacement
level (2.1 children per couple) follows. (This doesn’t mean prosperity
necessarily causes demographic decline, only that there has in modern
times been a correlation between the two.)

Read the rest here.
August 7, 2009

Profundity: Chesterton on Philosophy

From G.K. Chesterton's St. Thomas Aquinas (1933):

Since the modern world began in the sixteenth century, nobody’s system of philosophy has really corresponded to everybody’s sense of reality; to what, if left to themselves, common men would call common sense. Each started with a paradox; a peculiar point of view demanding the sacrifice of what they would call a sane point of view. That is the one thing common to Hobbes and Hegel, to Kant and Bergson, to Berkeley and William James. A man had to believe something that no normal man would believe, if it were suddenly propounded to his simplicity; as that law is above right, or right is outside reason, or things are only as we think them, or everything is relative to a reality that is not there. The modern philosopher claims, like a sort of confidence man, that if once we will grant him this, the rest will be easy; he will straighten out the world, if once he is allowed to give this one twist to the mind.