The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/122355
Opinion C-2 Wednesday, April 17, 2013 The Press-Dispatch Observations by Thomas Sowell 'Proportional' response Since when has it been considered smart to tell your enemies what your plans are? Yet there on the front page of the April 8th New York Times was a story about how unnamed "American officials" were planning a "proportional" response to any North Korean attack. This was spelled in an example: If the North Koreans "shell a South Korean island that had military installations" then the South Koreans would retaliate with "a barrage of artillery of similar intensity." Whatever the merits or demerits of such a plan, what conceivable purpose can be served by telling the North Koreans in advance that they need fear nothing beyond a tit for tat? All that does is lower the prospective cost of aggression. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, should we have simply gone over and bombed a harbor in Japan? Does anyone Taking the 'pulse' of missile defense By Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.D. Almost everyone knows the acronym "EMT." We know that emergency medical technicians will arrive in a hurry if someone calls for an ambulance. Less familiar is the acronym "EMP." But if an electromagnetic pulse were to hit the United States, we would need a lot more than an ambulance to fix the problems that would result. That's because an EMP is a high-intensity burst of electromagnetic energy that causes severe current and voltage surges. The result: All electronic devices within the line of sight would be burned out. Cellphones and microwaves, along with all the other devices we use in our daily lives, would be toast. How big a line of sight are we talking? A single EMP could, in a flash, shut down the entire power grid and transportation systems over a large region of the country. Tens of millions of Americans suddenly would find themselves in an inconvenient situation that also is life-threatening. EMPs have two basic causes: One is natural. They can be generated by geomagnetic storms, or "space weather." A solar flare can cause one. The other cause is man-made nuclear and radio-frequency weapons. A nuclear warhead detonated at the right altitude could put you back about two centuries in a hurry. A lot of people would wind up wishing they had an old-fashioned backyard bomb shelter. Sound overblown? According to some critics, yes. To New York Times reporter William J. Broad, the EMP threat is "science fiction." Tell that to the congressionally mandated Commis- sion to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack. Its members called a high-altitude nuclear EMP one of the few ways an enemy could inflict catastrophic damage on the United States. "The Commission's report is no exercise in science fiction," writes Heritage nuclear analysts James Carafano and Owen Graham. "It presents the consensus view of the defense and intelligence communities, as well as the nuclear weapon labs. These sober national security experts don't use the word 'catastrophic' lightly." They are not alone. A second commission, the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, independently re-examined the EMP threat and reached the same conclusion. No fewer than five bipartisan commissions and independent U.S. government studies have made it clear that an EMP would place our critical infrastructure and by extension, the American people at great risk. What is the most effective way to get a nuclear weapon to a position where it can be detonated to create an EMP? Where it can cause maximum damage to the U.S. electrical grid and other elements of our infrastructure? A ballistic missile. What are rogue nations such as North Korea trying to acquire? Ballistic missiles. This is one of the reasons it's crucial that we get serious about building a comprehensive missile defense. The Obama administration has taken one important step. In the wake of North Korea's most recent (and particularly bellicose) Continued on page 3 The no-spin zone—by Bill O'Reilly Sympathy for the devil As this column has been reporting, there is a growing movement in America to "reform" the nation's tough laws against drug dealing. The pressure is coming primarily from liberal and libertarian groups who see the use of narcotics as a personal choice, something that freedom should allow. That opinion is fallacious in the extreme because of the public safety issue involved. In 2010, more than 38,000 people died in the USA from drug overdoses, far more than have been killed in the Iraq and Afghan wars combined. If you add two years of drug OD's, you get more deaths than occurred during the Vietnam War. The Department of Health estimates that an astounding 22 million Americans, ages 12 and older, currently need rehabilitation for substance abuse. Also, a variety of studies say that up to 70% of all child abuse and neglect cases are caused by parents who are drug-involved. Still think drug abuse is a victimless crime? The pro-drug people often point to alcohol to make their legalization case. Why should one intoxicating agent be legal while another is not? But everybody knows you can have a beer or a glass of wine without losing sobriety, right? The sole reason for ingesting narcotics is to alter consciousness. It is the apple compared to the booze orange. Comparing drugs to alcohol is an invalid comparison. People who sell drugs like cocaine, meth, heroin and other opiates are certainly committing a violent act. They are delivering an agent of destruction to another person. While all who use hard drugs do not become addicted, millions do. There is a reason certain substances are categorized as "dangerous drugs." But to hear the pro-drug people tell it—the pushers are victims because of some of them are drug addicted themselves. I guess when you become an addict, you get a get out of jail free card. Don't blame drug users for stealing, dealing or mugging. They shouldn't be held accountable for criminal behavior because they have a disease! In one of the most absurd things I've seen in a long time, a list of celebrities including Will Smith, Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx, Kim Kardashian and Jim Carrey signed a letter to President Obama asking him to "address the increased incarceration rates for non-violent crimes." Nonviolent crimes? Are you kidding me? Ask a parent whose son or daughter is in the cemetery because of an overdose if the drug pusher is committing a "nonviolent" crime. Since the nation began sentencing drug dealers to major prison time (circa 1979), the nation's violent crime rate has fallen more than 32%. After vicious crack cocaine traffickers started getting decades in the slammer, cocaine use dropped 71%. But now the Hollywood pinheads and many other Americans want those tough mandatory sentences repealed. That is sympathy for the devil. But we are living in strange times. Let's hope Kim Kardashian isn't appointed Attorney General. Points to ponder—by Ford Bond Christians and Suicide Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church, his wife and family are struggling with the death of their youngest son, Matthew, who took his own life a few weeks ago. The press release from the church states that he had been struggling with depression and issues of life for many years. Many in the Christian community have reached out in support while others upbraid the family for their many conservative stances and consign their son to the flames of hell for this selfish act. Often, Christians fail to comfort the bereaved, and their lack of support becomes a slap across the face, a punch in the ribs, or a kick in the rump; and quoting out-of-context Bible verse only adds to the pain. The concept of suicide as a sin per say is not found in the Old or New Testament. It is inferred from Exodus 20:13: "Thou shall not kill." Since killing is a sin, and one cannot ask for forgiveness when he/she is dead; therefore, the act is unpardonable. This is poor theological gymnastics. This earliest concept of suicide as a sin can be traced to the 4th century AD to St. Augustine, but it was 14th century theologian St. Thomas Aquinas who taught that suicide is "an act against God," which one could not repent. This A woman's perspective—by Mona Charen Of lunatics and asylums We tell ourselves, we parents of college-bound kids (not to mention ordinary citizens), that American campuses really aren't as bad as all that, that students can avoid the most tendentious indoctrinators and that the press tends to exaggerate. And then we read headlines like "Kathy Boudin Teaching at Columbia" and sharp reality once again punctures the comfortable cushion of denial. I'm not speaking personally because I'm among the hyper-vigilant and politically obsessed. I read the newsletters of the National Association of Scholars, a group of academics who bravely battle campus attempts to suppress free speech and free inquiry. I scan the press for news of academia. But most Americans, I'd guess, while knowing that college faculties are dominated by liberals, don't realize quite how extreme or how deeply corrupt our campuses have become. Consider the case of Boudin, a member of the Weather Underground, a left-wing domestic terror group. What kinds of gentle hijinks did the WU engage in? They bombed the U.S. Capitol, the State Department and the Pentagon. They planned to detonate a bomb full of nails at a soldiers' dance in Fort Dix, N.J. The bomb exploded prematurely in a New York townhouse. In 1981, Boudin was at the wheel of the getaway vehicle when the WU held up a Brinks truck and stole $1.6 million. Her colleagues killed the driver and gravely wounded another guard think that this response would have stopped Japanese aggression? Or stop other nations from taking shots at the United States, when the price was a lot lower than facing massive retaliation? Back before the clever new notion of "proportional" response became the vogue, our response to Pearl Harbor was ultimately Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And Japan has not attacked or even threatened anybody since then. Nor has any war broken out anywhere that is at all comparable with World War II. Which policy is better? There was a time when we followed the ancient adage "By their fruits ye shall know them." The track record of massive retaliation easily beats Continued on page 3 in the course of the robbery. They then transferred to the U-Haul truck that Boudin was driving. When the UHaul was stopped by police, Boudin got out of the cab with her hands up and urged the police to lower their weapons. When they did, six of her heavily armed accomplices jumped out of the back of the truck and gunned down two of the officers. Boudin, a cradle communist (her father was Fidel Castro's lawyer, her uncle was I.F. Stone), was 38 at the time of the Brinks attack — not a youth. She spent the next 22 years in prison after pleading guilty to felony murder and she is now an adjunct professor of social work at Columbia University. Just imagine if someone who had driven the getaway car for a group that attacked and killed an abortion doctor had been offered a place at the Heritage Foundation or Hillsdale College. Of course you cannot imagine that because such a person would be irredeemably tainted in the eyes of Heritage and Hillsdale. But supposing such a hire were possible, can you imagine the outcry? For celebrated academic institutions, a history of terror and murder is no bar to prestige and employment. Bill Ayers was a "Distinguished Professor of Education" at the University of Illinois. His wife, Bernadine Dohrn (who said of the Manson killings "First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into the pig Tate's stomach! Wild!") was appointed adjunct professor of law at Northwestern. From the great halls of our finest universities there is a reverberating silence about Columbia's decision to hire and thereby to honor a murderer, a terrorist and an enemy of the United States who has never expressed remorse. The 5-member Orangetown, N.Y. town board passed a resolution condemning Columbia and calling upon its "neighbor" to sever all ties with the woman who was responsible for the deaths of three men. The nephew of one of the murdered officers told the New York Post "It's easy to forget that ... nine children grew up without their dads because of her actions." Very easy, especially for leftist academics. Veterans of the Weather Underground have a better track record of getting employment at leading universities than do supporters of Mitt Romney. Each year on Oct. 20, the anniversary of the Brinks robbery, the police in Nyack, N.Y. hold a memorial service. The ceremony is attended by survivors, family members of those who were killed, and local, state and federal law enforcement officials. A small scholarship has been endowed to honor policemen Edward O'Grady and Waverly Brown. It's a disgrace that only the police and the families of the deceased seem to honor their memories. One of America's great universities has not just forgotten; it has spit on their graves. is just religious dogma that lacks support from the scriptures. Let us look at the issues surrounding life and being a Christian. Christians accept doctrinally that no one lives a perfect life, while at the same time it does not mean grace gives one a license to sin. Christians fall and stumble; yet they are confident by the scriptures that nothing can separate us from the grace and love of God! Christ desires us to be perfect, but our sin-nature reminds us that we must live a life of repentance and service, which activates our faith, and we act upon it. What occurs when we are unable to act? Would anyone doubt or argue that a person contemplating suicide is not sick? Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus: "For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it. . . ." Why then would Christians destroy themselves and emotionally harm their family? Is there not something amiss? Jesus told the self-righteous: "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick." This is not a theological treatise on grace and suicide; it is about understanding and having compassion on others who are afflicted and tormented. Not any of us are in a position to condemn Matthew Warren, or others who take their own life. These people are in the hands of a just, loving, and forgiving God whom the Psalmist writes extends his mercies forever and forgives unto a thousand generations. Matthew told his dad that he loved the church and Christ, but he didn't know if he could bear the pain of his emotions. The young man had an illness. He was as ill in his mind as many of us are ill in our bodies. Depressed people struggled against their shortcomings and often they can't verbalize what they feel, or why they feel the way they do. Rick Warren, in a letter to the church, wrote about his son's struggles. "But only those closest knew that he struggled from birth with mental illness, dark holes of depression, and even suicidal thoughts. In spite of America's best doctors, meds, counselors, and prayers for healing, the torContinued on page 3 The P Dispatch ress- MR. AND MRS. FRANK HEURING, PUBLISHERS ANDREW G. HEURING, EDITOR JOHN B. HEURING, ADVERTISING MANAGER Wednesday, April 17, 2013 Entered at the Post Office in Petersburg, Indiana for transmission through the mails as Periodical Mail, Postage paid at Petersburg, Indiana. Published weekly. Change of Address—Subscribers changing addresses will please give old address as well as new one along with phone number. We cannot guarantee prompt change unless this is done. 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