The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/1436082
D-4 Wednesday, December 8, 2021 The Press-Dispatch OPINION Submit Letters to the Editor: Letters must be signed and received by noon on Mondays. Email: editor@pressdispatch.net or bring in a hard copy: 820 E. Poplar Street, Petersburg In the past year we have repeated- ly heard "trust the science! " People are told to trust scientists because they are scientists. For many people, trusting science has morphed into its own religion. Science has displaced God and long held religious beliefs, which is characterized by some sci- entists as medieval or dark age su- perstitions. How dare anyone question mod- ern science or scientists? When I was in college, they taught students the scientific method of in- quiry. For science to work, there must be phenomena to observe. This phenomenon must be quantified and measurable. Many invisible forces can be measured. For example, wind speed and barometric pressure, as well as its destructive nature, as in tornadoes or hurricanes, can be mea- sured. Geiger counters can measure radiation; and microscopes allow sci- ence to see bacteria, viruses, and mi- crobes. Ask a scientist how they measure the invisible God and you will hear "we can't." The age of science began in the 1500s when Copernicus shattered the age-old belief that the earth was the center of our universe. His her- esy was the planets revolve around the sun, not the earth. Scientific dis- coveries sped up and Galileo and his telescope confirmed Copernicus' theory. Darwin declared evolution can explain creation. No need for God. Freud put the final nail in God's cof- fin by declaring God is a mental neu- rosis. God is a human mental con- struct and does not exist! Science not only swept away old superstitions and beliefs, but they also swept away belief in God. Is God truly dead, as some have declared? An honest scientist will admit sci- ence can neither prove nor disprove the existence of God. There is no da- ta or phenomenon to observe than Abortion is about our core national values The Supreme Court will hear this week Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. At issue is the law in Mississippi that bans abortion after 15 weeks of preg- nancy. A decision finding the Mississippi law constitutional will fundamentally change the abortion regime in our coun- try, defined by Roe v. Wade since 1973. Roe said the mother has a right to abort her child as long as that unborn child cannot survive — is viable — out- side the womb. Generally accepted is 22-24 weeks as the time when viabili- ty occurs. Mississippi's abortion law says that the defining issue should not be viabil- ity but when the child first feels pain. Their claim is that this occurs at 15 weeks. Surveys show the nation evenly split in attitudes toward abortion. Per the most recent poll from Gallup, 47% say abortion is morally acceptable and 46 % say it is morally wrong. Forty-nine percent self-identify as "pro-choice" and 47% as "pro-life." However, if we break down the aver- ages into components, we see a deeply polarized nation. Sixty-four percent of Democrats say abortion is morally acceptable, and 70 % self-identify as pro-choice. Only 26 % of Republicans say abortion is morally acceptable, and 74% self-iden- tify as "pro-life." Abortion is really a bellwether issue that shows the profound split in the na- tion regarding worldview. Are we a nation of moral absolutes, that sees our culture grounded in tra- ditional, biblically sourced standards of good and evil, right and wrong? Or are we a nation defined by secular human- ism and moral relativism, where the center of the world is not God but man? We have moved dramatically in the latter direction over the last half-cen- tury, and the results are out there to evaluate. Since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, the percentage of American adults who have never been married has quadrupled, as has the percentage of babies born to unwed mothers. We are moving to becoming a child- less nation. In a recent Pew Research survey, 44% of nonparents, ages 18 -49, say it is unlikely that they will have children. Among parents ages 18 -49, 74% say it is unlikely they will have more children. U.S. fertility rates have dropped ev- ery year for the last six years and now are at a historic low of 1.64, well below the 2.1 necessary to keep the popula- tion at a steady state. Are women "empowered" by being free of responsibility for bringing into the world the child in their womb? Per blogger Mark Perry, for the last 12 years, women have earned the ma- jority of doctoral degrees in the coun- try. In 2020, 53.1% of doctoral degrees awarded went to women. Of master's degrees awarded, more than 60 % went to women. Is using abortion as birth control nec- essary for women to achieve? There is a certain irony among liber- als, whom we can credit for today's po- litically correct, woke culture. We don't want dehumanizing racial stereotypes, but the same people ob- sessed with racial categories are not at all bothered by a culture in which men and women use each other as sexual objects and women can be free to de- stroy a child that might result from a sexual encounter if its birth could lead to responsibilities that might disturb her career. To get back to the Dobbs decision and Roe v. Wade and the issue of via- bility. In my view, these games with lan- guage really point to the victory thus far of secular humanism. The true issue is if life is sacred. If the answer is yes, it is sacred in and out of the womb. If we conclude it is not, we are on the road to becoming a nation without children, where the only love is self-love and, I am sorry to say, without a future. I say no thanks to this and hope the Supreme Court will make the right de- cision and allow Mississippians to pro- tect sacred life. Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education and host of the weekly television show "Cure America with Star Parker." Fact-blockers I've reported how Facebook cen- sors me. Now I've learned that they also cen- sor environmentalist Michael Shel- lenberger, statistician Bjorn Lombo- rg and former New York Times col- umnist John Tierney. Facebook's "fact-checkers" claim we spread "misinformation." In my new video, Tierney argues that the "people guilty of spreading misinformation are Facebook and its fact-checkers." He's right. Facebook doesn't do its censor- ing alone. It partners with groups ap- proved by something called the Poy- nter Institute, a group that claims "a commitment to nonpartisanship." But Poynter isn't nonpartisan. It promotes progressive jargon like "decolonize the media," and it prais- es left-leaning journalists. Once they even proposed blacklisting conserva- tive news sites. One "fact-checker" Poynter ap- proved is a Paris-based group call- ing itself "Science Feedback." Science Feedback objected to an article Tierney wrote that says forc- ing children to wear masks can be harmful. He cited a study, which lat- er passed peer-review, in which par- ents complained about masks "giving their children headaches and mak- ing it difficult for them to concen- trate." Facebook calls Tierney's ar- ticle "partly false." That "partly false" label is nasty because it leads Facebook to stop showing Tierney's work to many people. But his article was accurate. Sci- ence Feedback censored it because parents' comments are not a random sample. But it's obvious that such comments are not random. Tierney acknowledges that in his article. What should be labeled "false" is Science Feedback's sloppy fact- check. It includes a "key takeaway" that says that masks are fine for chil- dren over 2. But "that's not some- thing that most scientists believe," says Tierney. "Not what the World Health Organization believes." Again, he's right. The World Health Organization says kids under 5 should generally not be required to wear masks. "There are all kinds of well-docu- mented effects of wearing a mask," adds Tierney. "Workers who wear masks for a couple hours in Germa- ny have to stop and take a half-hour break. This shouldn't be a controver- sial thing to say." No, it shouldn't. Facebook often censors things that should be talked about. They banned discussion of the idea of that COVID-19 escaped from a lab, only reversing course when the Biden ad- ministration did. Science Feedback also doesn't like articles questioning the "climate cri- sis." That's what got Shellenberger punished. "They censored me for saying we're not in a sixth mass extinction," Shellenberger complains. "We're not! Lomborg was censored for point- ing out "rising temperatures have ac- tually saved lives." That's because cold weather kills more people than warm weather. No scientific study has yet prov- en that a recent drop in deaths was caused by the temperature rise. But so what? His main point — tempera- ture-related deaths fell while the planet warmed — is true. Yet Science Feedback works with Facebook to keep that out of your Facebook feed. Lomborg says the "fact-check- ers" want people alarmed by climate change. "It makes it a lot easier to get people to donate money." Science Feedback's leader now plans to expand his censorship pow- ers — so he can censor not only Face- book, but other social media. That's frightening. I sympathize with Facebook. Some users spread lies. Politicians blame Facebook and demand the company "do something." But there's no way Facebook can police all the posts, so it does de- structive things like partnering with Poynter Institute "fact-checkers." The fact-checkers "have a mis- sion outside just facts," says Lombo- rg. "They also want you to not know stuff. That's not fact check. That's simply saying, 'We don't want to hear this opinion in the public space.' Frankly, that's terrifying ... The goal is nice ... less misinformation on the internet. But you could very well end When he announced last week that he would release more oil from the American Strategic Petroleum Reserve, President Joe Biden told the American people he is doing ev- erything possible to bring down gas prices at the pump. That's a lie. This administration and the climate change crazies have declared war on American energy. They want high oil and gas prices. The Biden master plan is for Ameri- can oil and gas production and con- sumption to go to zero over the next 15 to 20 years. How do you achieve that goal? By making oil and gas so expensive and so unavailable that Americans are forced to use alter- natives. In other words, the fact that gaso- line is roughly $1.25 more expensive per gallon today under Biden than it was a year ago under former Pres- ident Donald Trump didn't happen by accident. This was not a result of a natural disaster, such as a hurri- cane, that could knock out our oil fa- cilities. This was by design. The left believes that they can change the temperature of the planet by forcing American energy compa- nies to produce less oil and to force Americans to use less of it. How do you get people to buy less of some- thing? You raise its price. This is ba- sic high-school introductory eco- nomics. Some on the Biden team have inadvertent- ly admitted this. Cor- nell University profes- sor Saule Omarova, a high-ranking Biden nominee for one of the country's leading reg- ulatory agencies, said she wants to "bank- rupt" U.S. oil, gas and coal companies — and apparently has no problem putting roughly five million Americans into unemployment lines. Biden's appoin- tee to be vice chairman of the Feder- al Reserve Board, Lael Brainard, was asked at a congressional hearing re- cently if she thought high gas pric- es were a problem. She hemmed and hawed and refused to answer with a simple "yes." Instead, she explained that this is a "complicated" issue. How is this complicated? U.S. oil production is down rough- ly two million barrels a day from the peak production under Trump prior to COVID, yet Biden recently blamed high oil prices on the Saudis and the OPEC nations for holding back sup- ply. Hello! That is exactly what car- tels do. They use their market pow- er to jack up the prices so they can maximize their profits. Trump broke the back of OPEC by making the U.S. the dominant energy-produc- ing nation in the world. Biden has handed back that power to the Arab oil sheikhs and Vladimir Putin in Russia. Now they are gouging us. What a shock! Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said it well in August that Texas "can easily produce that oil" if Biden "will just stay out of the way." He won't. The Biden administration strategy is to force-feed the American econo- my expensive, unreliable and made- in-China wind and solar energy. His $ 3 trillion Build Back Better bill would dole out more than $500 bil- lion of taxpayer dollars to the wind, solar and electric vehicle industry to break the back of oil and gas produc- tion. If this energy source is so effi- cient, why does it need a half trillion dollars of your and my money? Meanwhile, nearly every Biden policy has been deliberately aimed at killing U.S. oil and gas produc- tion — from killing the Keystone More than one year after the 2020 cease-fire agreement that brought the Second Karabakh War between A zerbaijan and Armenia to an end, tensions remain high between the two. Just like the 1994 cease-fire that brought the first round of fighting to an end, Russia also brokered this cease-fire, and in so doing has dra- matically expanded its presence in the region. However, it does not seem that Russia is willing to enforce the terms of its own deal. As part of the terms of last year's cease-fire agreement, Russia is al- lowed to deploy 1,960 troops as "peacekeepers" inside a small sec- tion of A zerbaijan, which is home to a small ethnic Armenian minori- ty. This means that for the first time since 2012, Russia has troops in all three of the South Caucasus coun- tries—Armenia, A zerbaijan, and Georgia—either by invitation or oc- cupation. The initial mandate allows Rus- sian peacekeepers to stay until Nov. 2025. However, this can be renewed for another five-year mandate if both Baku and Yerevan agree. However, this is not as simple as it might seem. Extending the Russian peacekeep- ing force in the region will not likely face many objections from the Arme- nian camp, but A zerbaijan will sure- ly not favor it. If Russia decides it wants to extend its 2025 deadline, there may not be much A zerbaijan can do to stop this if Moscow puts pressure on Baku as it has in the past on other issues. Looking at Russia's track record in Moldova or Georgia, it is reason- able to assume that Russia will want to make its military presence "de fac- to permanent." This would expand Russia's military influence in the re- gion and beyond. Despite the presence of Russian peacekeepers in A zerbaijan, skir- mishes between A zerbaijani and Armenian soldiers have sporadical- ly broken out in the region. Fight- ing on Oct. 14 resulted in the death of an A zerbaijani soldier and six Ar- menian servicemen being wounded. One of the recent examples of vi- olence, which took place on Nov. 16, left seven A zerbaijani service mem- bers killed and 10 more wounded in clashes with Armenian troops. Ar- menian officials reported one casual- ty and 13 captured soldiers. A cease- fire was agreed upon by both sides but the situation remains tense. These instances show that Rus- sian peacekeepers are not effective- ly quelling violence. Meanwhile, friction between Baku and Moscow has increased with the Race for the Cure By Star Parker Give Me a Break John Stossel Continued on page 5 Continued on page 5 Continued on page 5 Eye on the Economy By Stephen Moore Biden's secret: He wants higher gas prices Heritage Viewpoint By Luke Coffey Points to Ponder By Rev. Curtis Bond Russia's influence in Azerbaijan makes lasting peace unlikely Faith in science? Continued on page 5 Court