Justice and Freedom for the Human Embryo

Editor's NOTE:

In view of the National Health Care debate which is currently raging, this re-worked essay which I wrote several years ago and which was used to help lobby Congress against embryonic stem cell research and human cloning for biomedical research is included in order to counter assertions that some human beings are non-persons and unworthy of life.

--Dr. J. P. Hubert


The Philosophy of the Human Person, the Body/Soul Issue and Ethics

(Personhood cannot be acquired or lost)

By: John P. Hubert Jr. MD FACS

In the past several years, a growing moral and ethical dilemma has presented itself. Largely because of an almost logrhythmic increase in bio-technologic expertise, certain options are now available which would have been unthinkable just a short several decades ago. Two of these as mentioned above are; Destructive Embryonic Stem Cell research (ESCR) and Human Research Cloning (CBR). They are very closely allied in that each involves the destruction of human embryos (DER) at an early stage in human development. The question which has yet to be adequately addressed is; are human embryos deserving of the full respect and protection afforded to any other member of the human species? The 3 positions taken in this review are as follows:

1. The human embryo is a human being, even at the one-celled stage that is; a genetically complete albeit nascent or undeveloped human organism with a complete human genome. This is true beyond all reasonable doubt and has been demonstrated empirically by multiple scientific investigators.[1]

2. Contemporary attempts to justify the intentional destruction of human embryos by maintaining that embryos are human beings but not human persons (and thus not deserving of full moral status and protection) are philosophically untenable and must be repudiated. On the basis of biology, metaphysics and ethics, the human embryo should be accorded full moral status including inviolability, a reality which (justice demands) should be codified in law. This is true irrespective of age, acquired characteristics or the way in which the embryo is regarded by others. It is true because of the inherent nature, being and essence that the embryo has, not because of any externally applied or acquired characteristic or ability.

3. Logic, intellectual honesty, consistency in the history of ethics, as well as justice demand that we treat like things similarly. If the assertions made here are correct, then destructive embryo research (DER) is immoral and its practice should be sanctioned by law. Only then will justice be achieved. This will insure that the human embryo is given the freedom to thrive that it rightly deserves. The right to life is the first of all rights and without it, no other rights follow. Since justice is; giving to another what they are due, it is clear that the human embryo possesses the right to life and the freedom to thrive that any other member of the human species has. This is a basic requirement of justice and is non-negotiable.[2] As such, the Catholic Church of record and most of Christianity rightly teaches that the right to life is fundamental and irrevocable. It is also a touchstone principle which is fundamental to the Judeo-Christian ethic upon which the American experiment was based.

Few topics are as timely and prescient today as that of human personhood (personhood theory) and with it, the continued philosophical debate over the “body/soul” issue. This is predominately displayed in the ongoing public discourse over abortion, destructive embryo research (DER) and euthanasia, in which some human beings are characterized as “non-persons”, non-humans or non-beings in order to justify their manipulation or death. Tragically, many secular bioethicists now advocate for a “quality of life” ethic which utilizes a utilitarian calculus in order to justify the taking of innocent human life.[3] It represents a radical departure from the traditional “sanctity of life” ethic[4] (also referred to as the equality of human life ethic).[5] It has resulted in a growing “culture of death."

One technique presently popular among bioethicists who embrace the “quality of life” (read culture of death) ethic, is to declare some human beings “non-persons” on the basis of their inability to measure up to certain arbitrarily selected characteristics which are alleged to be a requirement for human personhood (from the moral perspective). In their view, a human being does not possess personhood in virtue of the kind of entity or being they are, but on the basis of various “acquired” characteristics which they do or do not actually have and can demonstrate. This view has been popularized by many contemporary secular bioethicists including Fletcher, Tooley, Singer, Beauchamp, Harris and others.[6] Thus, certain heretofore obvious examples of human persons such as newborn babies and severely handicapped and cognitively disabled and or unconscious persons are labeled “non-persons” under this rubric, while some animals can even be considered persons![7] Such a view is outrageous on its face and incompatible with the sanctity of life (equality of life) ethic which has formed the bedrock of the Judeo-Christian ethic for over 3000 years.

Needless to say, this new “quality of life” (culture of death) ethic particularly among secular academic elites, the media and much of the political establishment is also totally incompatible with orthodox Catholicism, a point well made by the directive to politicians and others in public life published by the Vatican.[8] Despite the fact that the “culture of death” ethic is being embraced [9] by the courts in both North America and much of Europe[10], it is fundamentally flawed and based upon an incorrect and incomplete understanding of the human person grounded largely in modern and post-modern philosophical assumptions, and the embracing of philosophical and scientific naturalism (materialism) by the elites who are presently “in control” of the scientific establishment and much of the public discourse. This can be seen in the deliberations of the Presidents Council on Bioethics which has to date been unable and or unwilling as a commission to declare that human personhood is intrinsic to all human beings regardless of age or stage of development.[11] Specifically, a new term (based on subject/object or person/body Dualism) has been “invented” (intermediate or special status) by which embryos are declared to be more than simply human tissue but not human beings in the usual sense of that term and thus not human persons either until some arbitrary point has been reached in development.[12] While this enables them to be sacrificed (read killed) for their parts (embryonic stem cells), it is entirely ad hoc and philosophically untenable when subjected to rigorous analysis.

Multiple and varied philosophical interpretations exist regarding the nature of the human person including whether the human being is entirely a material entity or a material/immaterial composite.[13] This issue lies at the heart of the dilemma with respect to how the human embryo should be regarded. Professor Benedict Ashley recommends the Aristotelian model of the human person in his book[14] and in his lecture series which is quite similar to the much more extensive and thought provoking outline provided by Professor William Wallace, also based on Aristotelian and Thomistic ideas but updated in light of modern biological science.[15] On the basis of all the available data, this ethicist embraces the ideas so persuasively argued for by Professor Wallace as graphically depicted in his Powers Model of Human Nature above referenced on page 159 of his book. In brief it holds that human beings are rational animals that is, extremely complex and integrated body/soul composites or unions made up of protomatter (prime matter) and a unique immaterial “natural form” (the human soul).[16] Under this rubric, the soul is the principle of substantial unity also referred to as the organizing principle. The human soul (which possesses a special form) is unique to human beings among all other living beings. This paradigm is clearly most consistent with all the relevant data from general (nature subjected to empirical observation) and special revelation.

Many contemporary secular bioethicists either deny immaterial reality or contend that since it cannot be measured by empirical (scientific) methods, it can not be considered, (i.e., it does not exist), in effect subscribing to philosophical (metaphysical) naturalism (materialism). This view was held by the ancient Greeks including Democritus and Epicurus. Another philosophical error is to imagine that the soul is infused at some later date well after conception (fertilization). Under this rubric, the soul is reduced to a non-critical “religious” entity which is not required (for biological life to exist) and is not present from the one-celled zygote stage i.e. from conception, thus providing no role as the immaterial agent of substantial unity (organizing principle). This “Delayed Hominization theory/position” is reminiscent of certain Neo-Platonic assumptions in which the soul is “imprisoned” in the material body and cannot possibly be true (as was recognized by Aristotle and Aquinas not to mention all the data which now exists from the life sciences including the testimony of persons who have experienced “near death” experiences).[17] Tragically, not an insignificant number of Catholic moral theologians/secular bioethicists have embraced this view despite it being incompatible with Catholic moral teaching and careful philosophical analysis.[18]

To recapitulate then, the human person, according to Aristotle and Aquinas is a combination of matter and form like all other inorganic and organic beings (entities), where the human soul is the immaterial (spiritual) form of the person. This is the classic substance view of human personhood which best fits with all the available data in light of contemporary science and classical philosophical anthropology. Practically speaking this is denied only by those who subscribe to modern Epicurean materialism (Darwinism).

Unlike all other material entities or beings, the human person is capable of both intellection (including the formation of abstract concepts including universals), and will (which includes the “passions”, emotions and appetitive characteristics). This substance view also holds that there is an essential interdependence and unity between body and soul in each human person, a point well made by Professor William E. May in his book referred to above. He also cites the similar opinion of John Paul II, Jacques Maritain by reference, and the Working Group of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (in discussing the human person from the perspective of the issue of brain death and organ donation).[19] May and others refer to this unity as the principle of substantial unity of the body and indicates that it is the same as the principle of personhood.[20]

In this construct, the brain is the instrument of our intelligence, not its organ that is, the brain is instrumentally utilized by the soul to effect action in the material realm, but the brain is not synonymous with the soul.[21] Intellectual insight and reasoning are spiritual functions which, while requiring processing of sense data, are not merely material brain operations. Thus, the brain is used as a material instrument by which the spiritual soul engages in both intellection and will. Both Ashley and Wallace among many others including Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas successfully establish in this authors view, that it is impossible to account for some of the observable characteristics of human beings without invoking the spiritual (immaterial) dimension.[22] Rabid materialists (scientific naturalists) vehemently disagree, for example Professor Gazzaniga, a member of the President’s Council on Bioethics.[23] However, despite recent neurological research into the subcellular (molecular) level of the thought process including controlled studies utilizing PET scans and other physiologic modalities, the non-material nature of both intellection and will remains unaddressed in solely the natural realm and the scientific process which studies it.[24] This is another way of saying that modern biological science with its materialistic bias, is fundamentally unable to account for man’s ability to be self aware, self conscious, or as Professor Ashley argues; the ability to be “all at one point” not spread out or in parts like a material object, the “I know that I know that I know”.[25]

In addition to self awareness this higher level of human function is most obviously seen in the ability that human beings have for abstract thought and spoken and written language. Higher mathematics and the extreme degrees of abstraction called for in doing metaphysics would be additional examples which defy reduction to electrochemical reactions among the complex networks of integrated circuitry which are present in the human brain. Therefore, any construct with respect to the human person which denies the immaterial dimension or reality of human beings, is fatally flawed as is any ethical system or paradigm which builds upon it, and any biological science involving human behavior for that matter.[26]

Unfortunately, much of modern physical and biological science is inculcated with both philosophical and scientific naturalism (materialism) in which it is argued that only brute matter exists.[27] That is to say and it is asserted that there is no non-material reality, including the soul or the spiritual realm. This phenomenon flows out of British Empiricism and Continental European Idealism both of which have their roots in Cartesian subject/object dualism including Descartes “man as machine” formulation and the misinterpreted and misunderstood mechanistic cosmology of Newton in the wake of Galileo. In addition it is also now a consequence of Darwinism and post-enlightenment rationalism and atheism. Ironically this has produced a contemporary view of science which is closer to the ancient Greek mechanistic view that Democritus and Epicurus had of science than is often appreciated. It has meant that modern science has often been placed in open opposition to belief in God as the first cause of material reality, leaving the material (natural) realm that science investigates without an adequate foundation or appropriate first cause.[28] Pope John Paul II has written well that such a view, which he calls rigid “scientism”, is a tragic misinterpretation of the scientific data and in fact the promulgation of materialistic philosophy rather than an accurate description of scientific reality. Nevertheless, a great deal of public policy and discourse in the West is founded upon these false materialistic assumptions about reality and the human person as well. Thus the contemporary debate about human personhood really reduces to a profound disagreement about human anthropology and the nature of reality or in other words, metaphysics rather than science or ethics per se.[29]

A detailed discussion of the metaphysical flaws involved in philosophical naturalism or rigid scientism is beyond the scope of this paper, but careful analysis demonstrates that it is incompatible with all the data available from Divine Revelation and the study of nature subjected to the light of human reason. However, one can appreciate that it might seem reasonable to embrace a “quality of life” (culture of death) ethic if one assumes that human beings are only material entities, lacking an immaterial soul as many secular bioethicists do. Under such a construct, it is much easier to declare that some people are “persons” and others are not, in an entirely arbitrary and ad-hoc way. Since there is no non-material or spiritual aspect (that is understood to be common to all human persons) which grounds their dignity, personhood can be defined by those in power to do so, on any basis they choose as is presently being done with great vigor in the West. In that regard, the “Materialists” and “Sophists” of ancient Greece have reappeared on the contemporary scene in the form of secular utilitarian bioethicists who employ sophistry in order to mold public opinion. They have succeeded in making moral Darwinism (Culture of Death) the accepted moral construct in the West.[30]

A second error that underlies the “quality of life” ethic is the assumption of moral relativism. This view, despite the fact that it is self-contradictory, holds that there are no moral absolutes. It is very conveniently combined with Utilitarianism in which the non-moral benefit (which reduces to pleasure, preference or desire) of the community is considered the supreme “good” by which moral decisions are made. Thus, if it is “potentially” beneficial for thousands of patients that hundreds of thousands of embryos are sacrificed (read killed) for their stem cells, the utilitarian bioethical calculus is applied and the embryos are killed in the name of the greater good of society. This works particularly well if embryos are held either to be non-human (a scientific error),[31] or non-persons (a philosophical error).[32] There are many excellent works which demonstrate that moral relativism is an incoherent philosophical system,[33] yet it is held by many of the elites who are presently in control of academia, the media and much of the public policy establishment. Similarly, there are excellent works which either directly or indirectly demonstrate that utilitarianism is insufficiently powerful as a tool for moral decision making, given the demonstrable complexities of the human person.[34] Despite these realities, the “culture of death” ethic continues to advance in the realm of public policy, the courts, and the popular imagination.

It is now common to speak of “death with dignity” and the “right to die” when the “quality” of one’s life is no longer ideal or “tolerable”.[35] We now read about major University Medical Centers in which organs are “harvested” from people who are not yet dead, but in whom their quality of life was deemed inadequate (by ethics committees with a vested interest in obtaining organs for transplantation).[36] For that matter, the entire concept of “brain death” (philosophically questionable in itself) which has made this possible is beyond the scope of this paper. In any case, these developments were impossible a few short decades ago when the “sanctity of life” ethic reigned as part of the common morality. While this very rapid paradigm shift from the equality or sanctity of life ethic to a quality of life ethic is multifactorial, it is predicated in large part on a repudiation of the Aristotelian and Thomistic view of the human person which includes the notion that human beings are body/soul or material/immaterial (spiritual) composites which exist in unity or integration during biological life. As alluded to earlier, this is in large part related to the fact that much of modern science is predicated (philosophically and foundationally) upon Cartesian subject/object or person/body dualism and the metaphysical acceptance of Materialism.

In light of the foregoing, we can see how it is possible to dismiss the lives of some human beings by declaring them non-persons. Fr. Michael Schooyans has written:

“Men cast doubt on the human character of certain beings whenever they sought arguments to exploit or exterminate their fellow human beings. In antiquity slaves were considered as things and barbarians as second class men. In the sixteenth century, some conquerors considered the Indians as “beasts in human appearance.” The Nazis looked upon some men as “non-men”, as Unmenschen. To these arbitrary classifications dictated by the masters corresponded real discrimination and this, in turn, “legitimized” exploitation or extermination.[37]

This phenomenon is much easier to accomplish when philosophical naturalism or materialism (and with it the denial of the soul) and moral relativism are widely embraced as they are today. Materialism removes the soul (spiritual) from consideration, and moral relativism dispenses with any need to consider the individual objective moral act, the intent or the circumstances which classically have defined moral deliberations, at least in the Catholic Aristotelian/Thomistic tradition. Instead, the nonmoral value or practical consequences or benefit(s) is considered in utilitarian (consequentialist or proportionalist) terms only. Thus the entire notion of a just consideration of means vs: ends are eliminated in the name of utility (pleasure) or pragmatism and often unbridled notions of rigid autonomy, (particularly among the heavily financed biomedical research establishment who advocate for little or no restrictions).[38] Taking the lives of some innocent human beings is virtually inconceivable when the Aristotelian/Thomistic view of the human person is embraced as it is articulated by professors Ashley and Wallace. Under such a rubric, all human beings are persons of equal worth and dignity in virtue of the nature and kind of being they are, not because of some ad hoc criteria they meet or some acquired characteristics or abilities they are presently capable of demonstrating. The Catholic convert and English writer Malcolm Muggeridge succinctly summarized the issue as follows: "Either life is always and in all circumstances sacred, or intrinsically of no account; it is inconceivable that it should be in some cases the one, and in some the other."

In conclusion, it is vital to achieve an accurate and complete understanding of the human person, vis a vis the totality of their human being if the human embryo is to be treated justly. The only philosophy of the human person which adequately does so is the one articulated by Aristotle, Aquinas, John Paul II, May, Ashley, Wallace and others in which human beings are correctly identified as body/soul composite persons in substantial unity with the ability of intellection and will, each one of which enjoy an equal worth and human dignity. This worth and dignity exist not because of acquiring or losing some characteristic(s) or abilities, but as part of the substantial unity (unifying principle) which exists in reality, in virtue of the kind of being they are; a being in which matter is united to a very unique and special type of form which we call the human soul. In Christian terms this dignity is afforded on the basis of being created in the image (imago Dei) of an omnibenevolent triune God who creates that soul for its own sake out of Love. If this is not understood and applied, a panoply of disastrous consequences arise, exemplified by the tragedies associated with abortion, in-vitro fertilization (with embryo manipulation/destruction) and destructive embryo research to name only a few. All three demonstrate that a false/limited view of the human person (and the loss of the sanctity of human life ethic that is coincident with it), have brought great tragedy to contemporary Western culture as it has taken freedom and with it justice from the human embryo, and by extension, and as members of the human family, all human beings. Let us work, hope and pray that this “culture of death” ethic can be quickly and effectively reversed.

End Notes:

[1] Bruce Carlson. Human Embryology, (Livingston, New York: Churchill, 1994); C. Ward Kischer, PhD. “When Does Human Life Begin? The Final Answer,” The Linacre Quarterly 70, no. 4 (2003), pp 327-331, “Virtually every human embryologist and every major textbook of human embryology states that fertilization marks the beginning of the life of the new individual human being”; Scott Gilbert. Developmental Biology, 5th edition, (Sunderland Mass.: Sinnauer Associates, 1997; Msgr. Jeremiah J. McCarthy PhD. “Invoking Embryonic Development and the Notion of “Personhood” to Justify Early Abortion: A curious Argument,” The Linacre Quarterly 70, no. 4 (2003), p.348.

[2] Specifically a requirement of both commutative and legal justice.

[3] McCarthy. p. 347.

[4] John Paul II. 1995. Encyclical, Evangelium Vitae, in which the traditional “Inviolability of human life” ethical teaching was again powerfully affirmed.

[5] Wesley J Smith. Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder. (Dallas: Spence Publishing Co. 2003), p. XXVII.

[6] Michael Tooley. Abortion and Infanticide. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), pp. 61-76; Peter Singer. Rethinking Life and Death: The Collapse of Our Traditional Ethics. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994), pp 202-206; Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress. Principles of Biomedical Ethics, Fifth Edition. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); Tom L. Beauchamp, “The Failure of Theories of Personhood,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 9, no. 4 (1999), p. 320; John Harris, “The Concept of the Person and the Value of Life,” Kennedy, Institute of Ethics Journal 9, no. 4 (1999), p. 297; Joseph Fletcher, “Indicators of Personhood,” Hastings Center Report 2 (November 1972) 1-4.

[7] R. G. Frey, “Moral Standing, the Value of Lives, and Speciesism,” Between the Species 4 (1988), pp. 196-197; Peter Singer. Animal Liberation. (New York: Avon Books, 1990), pp. 6, 18, 22.

[8] Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Doctrinal Note on some questions regarding The Participation of Catholics in Political Life, Rome, Nov. 24, 2002, paragraphs 3 & 4.

[9] Paul Nowak, “New Jersey First to Publicly Fund Embryonic Stem Cell Research”
LifeNews.com (June 29, 2004) http://www.lifenews.com/bio364.html “New Jersey has become the first state to use taxpayer dollars to fund human cloning for research purposes. Last week, Governor Jim McGreevey added $3 million to the state budget to fund embryonic stem cell research, only a day before the budget was supposed to be put to a vote.

[10] Kischer. pp. 331-333.

[11] The President’s Council on Bioethics, Human Cloning and Human Dignity.
(New York: Public Affairs, 2002).

[12] Ibid.

[13] James J. Mc Cartney. Unborn Persons: Pope John Paul II and the Abortion Debate. (New York: Peter Lang, 1987).

[14] Benedict M. Ashley and Kevin D. O’Rourke. Health Care Ethics: A Theological Analysis. (Washington D. C.: Georgetown University Press, 1997), pp. 321, p. 357.

[15] William A. Wallace. The Modeling of Nature: Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Nature in Synthesis. (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1996), pp. 157-189, particularly p. 159; William A. Wallace, O P. The Elements of Philosophy: A Compendium for Philosophers and Theologians (New York: Alba House, 1977), pp. 58-64, 80-83, & 145; Thomas Aquinas. Summa theologiae Ia-IIae, q. 94, a.3: “Since the rational soul is man’s proper form, he has a natural tendency (naturalis inclination) to act according to reason that is to say according to virtue”.

[16] Wallace. The Modeling of Nature. pp. 158 & 159.

[17] Patrick Lee. Abortion &Unborn Human Life. (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1997); Stephen Schwarz. The Moral Question of Abortion. (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1990).

[18] Joseph Donceel, “A Liberal Catholic’s View,” in Abortion and Catholicism: The American Debate, pp. 48-53; Joseph Donceel, S.J. “Immediate Animation and Delayed Hominization,” Theological studies 31 (1970). Thomas A Shannon, and Allan B. Wolter, OFM, “Reflections on the Moral Status of the Pre-Embryo,” Theological Studies 51 (1990); Pope John Paul II, encyclical letter, Evangelium Vitae, 1995; Pope John Paul II, encyclical letter, Veritatis Splendor, 1993; Germain Grisez. The Way of the Lord Jesus, Vol. 2, Living a Christian Life. (Quincy, Il: Franciscan Press, 1993).

[19] Karol Wojtyla, Love and Responsibility. Trans. H. Willetts, (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1981), p 4; Jacques Maritain. The Person and the Common Good. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1947), chapter 3; William E. May. Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human Life. (Huntington Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., 2000) p. 200 & 204.

[20] May. Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human Life pp. 286-294.

[21] Or the mind, as argued in; S. Parnia, D.G. Waller, R. Yeates, and P. Fenwick, “A Qualitative and Quantitative Study of the incidence, Features and Aetiology of Near-Death Experience in Cardiac Arrest Survivors,” Resuscitation (February 2001); Sarah Tippit, “Scientist says Mind continues After Brain Dies,” Reuters (June 29, 2001)and Sam Parnia, “Near Death Experiences in Cardiac Arrest and the Mystery of Consciousness,” available at www.datadiwan.de/Sci/MedNet/library/articlesN75/N76+Parnia_nde.htm.

[22] Wallace. The Elements of Philosophy. p. 81, as follows; “The essential unity of man is manifest from the fact that the same concrete man who is experienced in his bodily presence is also a person who thinks. The spiritual activity of thinking and the material givenness of the body are both manifestations of one and the same human reality. Again, the transcendence of the spirit over material reality is manifested by the immateriality of intellection; this means that the human soul, having an activity that is intrinsically independent of material conditions, cannot have a mode of being inferior to its mode of operation, (emphasis mine). In other words, it must be essentially independent of matter. On the other hand, man is really material, and this is not merely accidental; the body belongs essentially to his nature. Now the only way in which one can reconcile all these data is by maintaining that the human soul informs matter as a substantial form; in so doing, however, it is not dependent on matter in the very fact of existing, but, on the contrary, man’s body is dependent on his soul and exists in virtue of the soul’s existence. Such a special and intimate ontological relationship between soul and body alone explains man’s substantial unity, the spiritual character of his soul, and the fact that his body is an essential part of this nature.”

[23] The President’s Council on Bioethics, Human Cloning and Human Dignity. (New York:
Public Affairs, 2002), pp. 290-294 in which he suggests that zygotes are not persons because they lack a nervous system thus ascribing to a form of “acquired personhood”.

[24] Note for example the unexplainable experiences of patients undergoing profound hypothermic circulatory arrest in which no brain waves are present (flat EEG’s) and who later report knowledge of what transpired during that portion of their operations. The fact that the brain was “non-functional” during the time in question, strongly suggests an immaterial (spiritual) explanation. Similar experiences have been reported by victims of “sudden cardiac death" in a non-operating room environment.

See also research by Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz M.D. of UCLA Medical Center including his book The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force, (New York: Harper Collins, 2002) e.g. pp. 24-53 in which he asserts that there is a non-material (spiritual) component to intellection that is in the use of the mind which is separate from the brain. I am indebted to Mr. Joel Gibbons for bringing the material of Dr. Schwartz to my attention. His web site can be reached HERE...

[25] Professor Ashley’s video lecture series, lesson number 6.

[26] A practical example is that no matter how educated a person becomes, no one is ever able to consistently choose only the true good that is, what is in the person’s genuine interest.

[27] This is despite the fact that one is unable to explain phenomena which are common to all human beings by invoking Materialism. It is an inadequately powerful paradigm or “world view” (total philosophical system) by which to explain what we observe in the process of living life. For example, the common experience in which people choose to act against what they understand to be contrary to their interest (good) despite recognizing by reason that the action is not in their interest. This is simply inexplicable in a Materialist paradigm.

[28]Axiomatic is that no action can be greater than its cause. The cause of every action must be greater than itself. An entity (being) can not give what it does not have. This is a matter of first principles of being.

[29] Tragically, as a result of Emmanuel Kant and the post-enlightenment Rationalists/modern analytical philosophy, metaphysics has fallen out of favor and with it much of our understanding of reality and human anthropology. This is particularly true now that Materialism (philosophical naturalism) has become the reigning paradigm.

[30] Benjamin Wiker. Moral Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists. (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2002), especially; 23, 89, 243-54, 301.

[31] Scott Gilbert. Developmental Biology, 5th edition, (Sunderland Mass.: Sinnauer Associates, 1997).

[32] Patrick Lee. Abortion &Unborn Human Life. (Washington D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1997); Stephen Schwarz. The Moral Question of Abortion. (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1990).

[33] Peter Kreeft. A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews with an Absolutist. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999); Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl. Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air. (Grand Rapids, Mi.: Baker Books, 1998).

[34] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, translated, with introduction, notes, and glossary by Terence Irwin, second edition. (Indianapolis, Indiana: Hackett Publishing Co., Inc. 1999); Paul Ramsey. The Patient as Person. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970); Wesley J. Smith. Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America. (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2000); Robert P. George. The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion, and Morality in Crisis. (Wilmington, DE: ISI Books, 2001); Edmund D. Pellegrino, and David C. Thomasma. The Christian Virtues in Medical Practice. (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1996); Leon R. Kass. M.D. Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics. (San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2002); John Finnis. Aquinas: Moral, Political, and Legal Theory. (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); May, William E. Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human Life. (Huntington Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., 2000).

[35] Smith, Culture of Death. pp. 65, 85-87, 109, 124-125.

[36] Ibid. pp 155-187.

[37] Michael Schooyans. Bioethics and Population: The Choice of Life. (St. Louis, MO.: Central Bureau, CCVA, 1996), p. 3.

[38] Classically, ethics (moral philosophy) ultimately reduces to a rational consideration of means vs: ends in which the "ends" are fixed by nature, and the "means" proper to achieving them are chosen by human beings.

The Brain is not the Soul: Aquired Personhood and National Health Insurance

NOTE:

I wrote this piece several years ago and sent a letter to Pope Benedict XVI concerning the role of secular bioethics in furthering the culture of death and the new theory of "acquired personhood" which has made it much easier to take the lives of human beings who have been deemed non-persons. In that letter I described the corrosive effect that the embracing of Darwinian naturalism and the subject/object dualism of Descartes has had on the depersonalizing of the sick, disabled and dying. I received no reply.

Given the current attempt to pass national health insurance in the United States, this piece is provided in order to focus attention on the need to repudiate the ever growing culture of death which has begun to significantly effect medical care and decision making. The perennial philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas as always is best suited for that purpose.

--Dr. J. P. Hubert

The Brain is not the Soul:

The Tragic Error of the Terry Schiavo case

John P. Hubert Jr. MD FACS
Biomedical and Health Care Policy Ethicist

As expected, the elite media in the wake of the Terry Schiavo autopsy have suggested that since Terry had “irreversible” brain damage according to the forensic pathologist, it was morally acceptable to kill her.[1] This betrays an alarming misunderstanding of human anthropology which is based in Darwinian naturalism.[2] It also means that the “elites” equate the human brain with the human “mind” and that when the brain is “irreversibly” damaged; the “person” no longer exists since the “mind” no longer functions.[3] This is not a matter of saying that when there is total brain death (total death of the entire brain) the person as an integrated body/soul composite entity has ceased to exist.[4] The assertion being made here is that since Terry Schiavo was judged to be “mindless” due to a profound purportedly irreversible brain injury, she was “non-human.” In other words, she had a “life” (vegetative existence according to culture of death bioethicists) no longer worthy of living.[5] These notions are demonstrably false when subjected to detailed philosophical analysis.[6] In fact, if it were true, it would mean that no one could ever be secure in their status as a human person since at any moment their personhood could be lost. Elite bioethicists or the courts might decide that because of trauma, disease or the effects of aging, a given human being could be subsequently labeled a non-person and thus not deserving of the usual care, compassion and protection of their human rights (the most fundamental of which is the right to existence).[7] Strange as it may seem, this is precisely what is presently transpiring with regard to the prematurely born, the infirm, retarded and other disabled persons in the West, particularly in the Netherlands, Belgium, the U.K. and progressively the United States.

There now exits the widespread assumption that the soul (referred to as “mind” in contemporary parlance an outgrowth of Descartes and Kant) is synonymous with or at least for practical purposes, analogous to the brain. This concept flows from Cartesian false Dualism, the idealism of Emmanuel Kant; (specifically his notion of complete personal autonomy), and radical Darwinism in which it is assumed that reality is completely confined to the material realm that is, there is no immaterial reality.[8] Secular elite bioethicists have utilized these false post-Enlightenment philosophical concepts as a foundation for their bioethic which has now mutated into a "culture of death" characterized by rabid notions of personal autonomy (read unbridled personal selfishness) without regard for and often in direct opposition to the common good. This new ethic is also associated with a virtual complete moral relativism, something Pope Benedict XVI has repeatedly stressed in public commentary.[9] American Catholics continue to be very confused by the constant public promulgation of the "Culture of Death," even by highly visible Catholic politicians and other Catholic public personages particularly in light of the extremely poor level of catechesis which has been ongoing in the West for over 40 years.

These tendencies and developments undergird the secular atheist elite bioethics rubric which has essentially over-taken the dialogue regarding "life issues" particularly in the developed West. It allows the "culture of death" community to discount the lives of all but the most perfect human beings (as secular elite bioethicists define it) among us. This new bioethic embraces the concept of "acquired" personhood in which it is necessary to demonstrate through various abilities and characteristics (most frequently higher cognitive function) that one is not only a human being but a human person as well. It also means that the “elites” artificially separate “human being” from “human personhood” in direct opposition to the substance view of personhood that the Catholic Church has accepted and promulgated through its support of the Aristotelian/Thomistic synthesis.[10] The very notion of acquired personhood is philosophically untenable and is in direct contradiction to Divine Revelation as consistently taught in Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.[11]

It appears that the time has come to approach the great debates in bioethics and the rapidly declining public morality from the perspective of overall worldview analysis in which the diametrically opposite notions of epistemology (theory of truth), metaphysics (theory of reality) and morality (theory of right and wrong) [between the new post-modern atheistic secularism {neo-paganism} The traditional Comprehensive Catholic World View is the only adequate antidote to the increasingly widespread radical secularization which is presently ongoing particularly in the West since it alone possesses the necessary metaphysical resources.

With respect to the growing interest here in Euthanasia and Physician Assisted Suicide (PAS), the author recently participated in the protests against the court ordered death of Terry Schiavo by demonstrating peacefully outside her hospice. This included holding signs, praying, fasting singing hymns and giving several Television interviews in which he attempted to present the Catholic bioethical position against euthanasia to the mass media. None of those interviews made it to air. Any actual explanation of Catholic teaching regarding the prohibition against Euthanasia was simply either marginalized or dismissed as “religious” that is "subjective" and regarded as simply fundamentalist "opinion" (value) rather than philosophically and theologically demonstrable fact.[12]

This “Value/Fact” dichotomy has become a huge problem in the West along with the specious notion of separation of Church and State understood as the disjunction of morality from the civil law, the institutions of government and society at large. Most distressingly, the pro-life demonstrators on behalf of saving Terry had absolutely no help (in our attempt to stop the court ordered killing of Terry Schiavo)[13] from the bishop of St. Petersburg Florida who apparently instructed his priests not to appear at Terry Schiavo's hospice or to speak in public about what was transpiring. Worse yet, in attending mass on several occasions during his stay during Holy Week, not once did the author hear the issue addressed in any homily; something which under the circumstances was obviously missing. This was a disgrace. The protesters were forced to rely on outside help from several Priests (including Fr. Frank Pavone of "Priests for Life") many of whom traveled great distances in order to provide the last rites and the sacrament of Holy Communion to Ms. Schiavo shortly before her death.

It is incumbent upon orthodox Catholics and all people of good will to reject the Cartesian false dualism and metaphysical naturalism of the cultural “elites” including contemporary secular bioethicists in which human personhood is allowed to be “conferred” upon only certain members of the human species by the Gnostics of our time (secular elite bioethicists and the courts). Their empty sophistry must be totally rejected. All human beings are “persons” by definition from the moment of conception until natural death! This must be proclaimed far and wide! It is also something that can be determined by the light of human reason after subjecting the relevant data to meticulous philosophical analysis. It is not necessary to invoke Divine Revelation in the form of Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition or constant Magisterial teaching in order to establish the truth of this proposition, although all “3” are perfectly consistent with that conclusion as derived from the study of the philosophy of the human person and the philosophy of nature absent a-priori commitment to a materialistic (metaphysical naturalism) bias. As thoughtful Catholics, we can make the case either philosophically or theologically with equal effectiveness, a fact which demonstrates the need for an aggressively promulgated Comprehensive Catholic World View. We know that secularists are simply wrong when they allege that those who demonstrated on behalf of Terry Schiavo’s right to life were engaging in fundamentalist “opinions” which cannot be established in fact. Our task is to obtain a hearing for the truth while we oppose the lie.

NOTES:

[1] While her brain was significantly atrophied in a generalized way which is consistent with a profound hypoxic encephalopathic injury (due to prolonged lack of oxygen), it is not the case that she was “brain dead and deserving of burial! Her heart and lungs were adequate to sustain her life indefinitely. In fact had she not been dehydrated to death, they might have served in another context as organs for human transplantation, something which was impossible due to the court ordered desiccation dehydration.

[2] Radical Darwinists assert that reality is completely confined to the material realm, that there is no spiritual (immaterial) realm and that human nature is only apparent, not real, that is, constantly changing or “evolving” only giving the appearance of stable “forms.” This means that there is no God by definition and no stable “human nature” according to radical Darwinists.

[3] Classically, in the philosophical sense, the mind was called “soul” referring to a spiritual or immaterial reality which utilized the brain as an instrument but was not synonymous with it. See: William A. Wallace, The Modeling of Nature: Philosophy of Science and Philosophy of Nature in Synthesis. Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1996. Descartes changed everything with his Cogito-ergo-sum (I think therefore I am). He placed thinking before being rather than the classical notion, “being comes before thinking.”

[4] A separate assertion which can be philosophically debated in a separate context. Terry Schiavo did not have “brain death” she had a severe brain injury of uncertain etiology (explanation) a situation which still exists despite the performing of an autopsy. For an interesting discussion regarding the issue of “Brain Death” and its use as a criterion for death of the person see: William E. May, Catholic Bioethics and the Gift of Human Life. Huntington Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division Our Sunday Visitor, Inc., 2000, chapter 8, particularly pp. 291-310.

[5] Judge Greer found on the basis of highly questionable testimony at the trial court level that Terry would not have wanted to remain alive under those circumstances. Thus the entire issue of killing her became a matter of supposedly “honoring her wishes” an example of Kantian autonomy “run amuck” where individual preference or desire is seen as being more important than the “common good.” See Wesley J. Smith. Forced Exit: The Slippery Slope from Assisted Suicide to Legalized Murder. Dallas: Spence Publishing Co. 2003 for a discussion of elite secular Bioethicists’ notion of life unworthy of being lived.

[6] See my article: “Justice and Freedom for the Human Embryo in light of The Philosophy of the Human Person, the Body/Soul Issue and Ethics”, Social Justice Review, 95: November-December, 2004. See also my essay: “The Moral Status of the Human Embryo ‘Intermediate’ or ‘Special Status’ for the human embryo is invalid”, available upon request.

[7] How many “non-person human beings” can conceivably be defined under this rubric is open to serious question and is constantly being re-defined by secular elite “culture of death” bioethicists, the U.S. judiciary and foreign courts.

[8] Understand that what is at stake here is a debate about the very nature of reality.

[9] e.g. his homily at the start of the recent conclave and in a prior speech at the meeting of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith with the presidents of the Doctrinal Commissions of the Bishops' Conferences of Latin America, held in Guadalajara, Mexico, in May 1996.

[10] In which human beings during life are complex composite matter/form or body/soul entities where the soul is immaterial and serves as the principle of substantial unity. As a spiritual entity the soul thus considered is indivisible and not confined to any physical location in the body including the brain.

[11] See my article: “Justice and Freedom for the Human Embryo in light of The Philosophy of the Human Person, the Body/Soul Issue and Ethics”, Social Justice Review, 95: November-December, 2004. See also my essay: “The Moral Status of the Human Embryo ‘Intermediate’ or ‘Special Status’ for the human embryo is invalid” available upon request.

[12] Based as it is on a correct understanding of human anthropology including the substance view of personhood which the Church has taught for centuries based on the Aristotelian/Thomistic synthesis.

[13] Note that Judge Greer was not satisfied with simply removing Terry’s feeding tube. It was necessary that she be starved and dehydrated to death by ordering that no one was allowed to attempt feeding her by mouth. He had police guards stationed about her room to insure that not one drop of water was administered. The autopsy as expected, documented that she was dehydrated to death.

This Depression is just beginning

Skip the Happy Talk

By Mike Whitney

August 03, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- Too bad Pulitzer's aren't handed out for blog-entries. This year's award would go to Zero Hedge for its "The 'Money on the Sidelines' Fallacy" post. This short entry shows why the economy will continue its downward slide and why the US consumer will not get off the mat and resume spending as he has in the past. The fact is the Net Wealth of US Households has "declined from a peak of $22 trillion to just under $12 trillion in early March."

Ouch!

The problem is compounded by the fact that Total US Household debt, as of first quarter 2009, amounts to roughly $13 trillion, and has stayed within that range for the last 3 and a half years.

Zero Hedge:

"From the end of 2007 through Q1 of 2009, household equity has declined by 94%. Is it surprising that today's GDP number would have been a complete debacle if the consumer had been left alone to prop the U.S. economy, on whom 70% of the economy is reliant? Obama pulled a Hail Mary with the stimulus: without it there would be no debate America is in a depression right now." MORE...

What does all this mean?

It means the consumer is down-for-the-count. His credit lines have been cut, his home equity eviscerated, and his checking account swimming in red ink. That spells trouble for an economy that's 70% dependent on consumer spending for growth....which brings us to another interesting point. The uptick in GDP last quarter was almost entirely the result of the surge in government spending; ie "fiscal and monetary stimulus". How long can that go on? How long will China keep slurping up US Treasuries rather than let their currency rise? Here's a clip from the Wall Street Journal on Friday:

"Shaky auctions of Treasury notes this week reignited concerns about whether the government can attract buyers from China and elsewhere to soak up trillions in new debt.

A fuse was lit this week when traders noted China's apparent absence from direct participation in two Treasury bond auctions. While China may have bought Treasury's just before the auctions, market participants read the country's actions as a worrying sign that China and other foreign investors may be ratcheting back purchases at a time when the U.S. is seeking to fund a $1.8 trillion budget deficit.

This week alone, the U.S. deluged the bond market with more than $200 billion in record-size sales. The U.S. has had little trouble finding buyers in recent months. But that demand is fading, and the Treasury market has become volatile."

Uncle Sam is goosing the bond market just like he is the stock market. (more on that later) Take a look at Treasury's latest bit of chicanery which appeared in the back pages of the Wall Street Journal in June:

"The sudden increase in demand by foreign buyers for Treasury's, hailed as proof that the world's central banks are still willing to help absorb the avalanche of supply, mightn't be all that it seems.

When the government sells bonds, traders typically look at a group of buyers called indirect bidders, which includes foreign central banks, to divine overseas demand for U.S. debt. That demand has been rising recently, giving comfort to investors that foreign buyers will continue to finance the U.S.'s budget deficit.

But in a little-noticed switch on June 1, the Treasury changed the way it accounts for indirect bids, putting more buyers under that umbrella and boosting the portion of recent Treasury sales that the market perceived were being bought by foreigners." ("Is foreign Demand as solid as it looks, Min zeng)

Hmmmm.

So, someone doesn't want you and me to know that foreign demand has gone to the dogs. That's not encouraging. So, they move the shells around the table and "Presto"---central banks and foreign investors can't get enough of those fetid T-Bills. What a racket.

This is what happens when monetary policy is handed over to bank-vermin and Ponzi-scam artists. Anything goes!

The Zero Hedge article shows that homeowners used the equity in their homes to fuel the soaring stock market.

Zero Hedge: "Most interesting is the correlation between Money Market totals and the listed stock value since the March lows: a $2.7 trillion move in equities was accompanied by a less than $400 billion reduction in Money Market accounts!

Where, may we ask, did the balance of $2.3 trillion in purchasing power come from? Why the Federal Reserve of course, which directly and indirectly subsidized U.S. banks (and foreign ones through liquidity swaps) for roughly that amount. Apparently these banks promptly went on a buying spree to raise the all important equity market, so that the U.S. consumer who net equity was almost negative on March 31, could have some semblance of confidence back and would go ahead and max out his credit card. Alas, as one can see in the money multiplier and velocity of money metrics, U.S. consumers couldn't care less about leveraging themselves any more."

You read that right! Only $400 billion of that fantastic 6 month "green shoots" stock market rally came from money market accounts. The rest ($2.3 trillion) was laundered through the banks and other financial institutions to create the appearance of recovery and to raise equity for underwater banks rather than forcing them into receivership (which is where they belong) Bernanke probably knew that congress wouldn't approve another TARP-type bailout for dodgy mortgage-backed assets, so he settled on this shifty plan instead. The only problem is, the banks are still broke, business investment is at historic lows, consumers are on the ropes, the unemployment lines are swelling, the homeless shelters are bulging, the pawn shops are bustling, tent cities are sprouting up everywhere, and according to MarketWatch, Corporate insiders have recently been selling their companies' shares at a greater pace than at any time since the top of the bull market in the fall of 2007."

Face it; the economy is in the crapper and Bernanke's trickery hasn't done a lick of good.

It's been two years since the crisis began and nothing... NOTHING has been done to fix the banking system or force the banks to write-down their shi**y assets to market. But the losses are real and no amount of Congressionally approved accounting hanky-panky (like suspending mark-to-market) will change a bloody thing.

So, how bad will it get?

Well, it depends on whether the FDIC decides to continue to allow financial institutions like Corus and Guaranty Banks to operate with "negative Tier 1 ratio" hoping that all the green shoots happy talk can turn insolvent institutions into thriving mega-banks. "Abrakadabra".

Karl Denninger explains this latest hoax in a recent entry on his site Market Ticker:

"So what's going on here?

Simple: An enormous number of banks are holding loans at or close to "par" that really aren't. They're holding mortgages at massively-inflated values, even on defaulted properties, and this is why you are not seeing more foreclosure sales - that is, why inventory is being held back. If they sell it the accountants will force recognition of the loss, which will render them instantly insolvent, but so long as they "extend and pretend" they are marking these loans way, way above recovery value. The upshot of this is that these firms' balance sheet claims on asset values are massively inflated, regulators know it, and they're intentionally ignoring it."

Bingo! It's all 100% fakery conducted right under the nose of the Fed, the Treasury and the FDIC.

How many hundreds of banks are being kept on life-support because the FDIC is down to its last few farthings and doesn't want to ignite a panic?

Stay tuned.

The banking system is insolvent and the fact that the politically-connected big banks talked their their friends at the Fed into pumping liquidity into equities so they could access the capital markets, doesn't change matters for the hundreds of local and regional banks that will be caught in next year's downdraft. Prepare for massive consolidation with G-Sax and JPM left to pick up former competitors for pennies on the dollar.


FIRING UP THE PRINTING PRESS

Keep in mind that Wall Street veterans knew from the very beginning that Bernanke's quantitative easing (QE) was a load of malarkey intended to justify keeping toxic asset prices artificially high while pumping trillions into the stock market. Here's former hedge fund manager Andy Kessler's analysis way back in May:

"On March 18, the Federal Reserve announced it would purchase up to $300 billion of long-term bonds as well as $750 billion of mortgage-backed securities. Of all the Fed's moves, this "quantitative easing" gets money into the economy the fastest -- basically by cranking the handle of the printing press and flooding the market with dollars (in reality, with additional bank credit). Since these dollars are not going into home building, coal-fired electric plants or auto factories, they end up in the stock market.

A rising market means that banks are able to raise much-needed equity from private money funds instead of from the feds. .....It's almost as if someone engineered a stock-market rally to entice private investors to fund the banks rather than taxpayers." (Andy Kessler "Was it a Sucker's Rally" Wall Street Journal)

What a swindle.

Bernanke's had a good go-of-it, juicing the market through the backdoor and concealing--as much as possible--who is still buying US Treasuries. (who knows; maybe it's the Fed buying its own paper offshore?!?) But what good will it do? The US consumer is broke; the tank is on empty. Household equity has declined by 94%, jobs are scarce, personal savings are rising, and families are cutting back and hunkering down. It will take a decade or more before household debt is whittled-away to a point where people can consume at pre-crisis levels. Another stock market bubble won't change a damn thing. This Depression is just beginning.

Tell Israel: Cool the Jets!

By Pat Buchanan

July 31, 2009 "Creators Syndicate" - – Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, who is wired into the cabinet of "Bibi" Netanyahu, warns that if Iran's nuclear program is not aborted by December, Israel will strike to obliterate it.

Defense Secretary Gates' mission to Israel this week, says Bolton, to relay Obama's red light, was listened to attentively, but will not be decisive.

Israel will decide.

One trusts Gates got into the face of Defense Minister Ehud Barak. For an Israeli strike on Iran, which Joe Biden foolishly said was Israel's call, would drag this country into a third war in the Middle East and destroy a policy that is visibly succeeding.

The Iranian regime is still reeling from the June 12 election, widely perceived in Iran and worldwide as stolen, and its tumultuous aftermath. Hundreds of thousands poured into the streets to protest the election, and then attack the legitimacy itself of the Islamic regime.

The government is gripped by its worst crisis since the revolution of 1979. Members of Iran's establishment with unimpeachable revolutionary credentials have declared the election a fraud.

Ahmadinejad's selection as first vice president of Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, whose son is married to his daughter, and who has said some kind words about Israel, outraged conservatives.

Ahmadinejad was ordered by Ayatollah Khamenei to rescind the Mashaie appointment. For days he balked, then sent a curt note saying he would comply. Ahmadinejad further affronted the ayatollah by naming Mashaie his chief of staff.

Teheran is now ablaze over reports that scores of street protesters arrested in June may have been beaten to death in prison.

There is talk in Teheran, even before he has been sworn in for a second term, that Ahmadinejad may be impeached or ousted long before he can complete it.

America's policy of patience is working.

And as Ahmadinejad is Israel's bete noire, who Netanyahu cites as the religious fanatic who wants to "wipe Israel off the map" and will launch a nuclear weapon on Tel Aviv as soon as he gets it, why would Israel strike now, and reunite Iranians behind this regime?

Why does Israel insist that America has only five months to halt Iran's nuclear program, or Israel must attack?

Says Bolton: "(W)ith each passing day, Iran's nuclear and ballistic laboratories, production facilities, and military bases are all churning. Israel is focused on these facts, not the illusion of 'tough' diplomacy."

Now, Iran's nuclear "production facilities" may be "churning" out the low-enriched uranium of which it has produced enough for one test bomb. But IAEA inspectors still have their eyes on this pile. None of the LEU has been diverted anywhere.

There is no evidence Iran has built the cascade to raise LEU to highly enriched weapons-grade uranium, or that the facilities even exist to do this. The Iranian regime has declared it has no intention of building nuclear weapons, indeed, that their possession would be a violation of Koranic law.

And the United States has not rescinded its own National Intelligence Estimate of 2007 that Iran, in 2003, abandoned its weapons program.

Israel has been saying for years an Iranian bomb is months away.

Where is the proof? Where is the evidence to justify a new U.S. war in the Middle East to destroy weapons of mass destruction that may not exist in Iran, as they did not exist in Iraq?

Iran may wish to have a nuclear deterrent, considering what happened to neighbor Iraq, which did not. But the idea that the regime, having built a nuclear weapon, would launch it on Tel Aviv and bring massive retaliation by scores of Israeli nukes on Teheran and other cities, killing millions of Iranians and all the leaders and their families of all factions of this disputatious people, seems like total madness.

For Israel to launch a war on such reasoning would seem to meet Bismarck's definition of preemptive war as "committing suicide out of fear of death."

America lived for decades under a threat of nuclear annihilation. We relied on a policy of containment and deterrence, outlasted the Soviet regime in a 40-year Cold War, and are now at peace with Russia.

Ahmadinejad is not so tough a customer as Stalin, Khrushchev or Mao, who talked of accepting 300 million dead in a nuclear exchange. Moreover, Ahmadinejad has no nukes, no authority to take Iran to war, and is looking like a very lame duck before his second term has begun.

And when one looks to U.S. and Iranian interests, they coincide as much as they conflict. Iran detested the Taliban before we took them down, and no more wants them back than do we. Iran is even more pleased with the Shia regime we brought to power in Baghdad than we are.

Iran needs technology to restore its depleted oil and gas fields, and an end to sanctions to restore an economy whose disintegration helped put the regime in crisis and lose it the support of its young.

Obama should tell the Israelis, "Cool the jets!" literally.

NOTE:

Patrick Buchanan has made some excellent practical arguments for why it would be foolish for either Israel and or the United States to attack Iran. These are all without doubt noteworthy. However, the utilitarian case albeit persuasive is of far less significance than the moral one.

As frequent readers of this blog are well-aware, I have written extensively about the absolute moral illicitness of the concept of preventive war (mistakenly termed pre-emptive war by the Neo-Con's and their sympathizer's). Preventive War is totally incompatible with the Just War Doctrinal Corpus as well as being illegal under international and US law.

The radical Zionists of the Israeli right-wing including the Zionist Lobby in America continue to agitate for an aggressive (offensive) war against Iran even though Iran has attacked no one. Ironically it is the Israeli government which should be reigned in--Israel is known to have in excess of 200 nuclear weapons and has demonstrated on more than one occassion that she will resort to offensive war, a war crime under international and humanitarian law as well.

It is immoral to provide billions of dollars of yearly assistance to Israel knowing that it will be routinely used to commit immoral and illegal acts which without our support would be impossible. As American citizens, we are all culpable in the death and destruction that Israel brings to its neighbors.

--Dr. J. P. Hubert

Momentum Builds for Homosexual (Gay) "Marriage"

Moral Anarchy Reins

By: Dr. J. P. Hubert

The momentum has now increased and the pendulum turned nation-wide in favor of homosexual "marriage." Civil Union's short of "marriage" while providing legal survivorship and other protections to same-sex couples have been seen as inadequate by homosexual activists who purport that the ability to marry is a civil right. By that they mean the right to marry whomever they wish--irrespective of the sex of the partners. This of course is a clear violation of the Natural (moral and biological) Law--as I have written elsewhere. While heterosexual simultaneous pleural marriage (bigamy or polygamy) however is not contrary to the natural law (biologically [and morally for several millennia prior to the ministry of Jesus Christ]), there is no hew and cry for the legalization of polygamy. Why? Presumably because bigamists in the US lack an effective lobby and or too few Americans prefer that arrangement--although many more might be interested in it if given the opportunity the way active homosexuals currently are.

The real question of course is to what extent is the ability to marry a civil right vs: a legally valid union in which the government preferentially (for practical reasons involving procreation, proper child-rearing etc.) favors traditional male/female coupling--theoretically for life--the traditional marriage arrangement?

If marriage is in fact a civil "right", then to remain intellectually consistent, the government must accept any arrangement an individual or group of persons wishes to codify as "marriage." That includes of course, polygamy, human/animal pairings and the like. Again if marriage is a "right" not a societal privilege, one can even question to what extent one person has the "right" to marry their child, sister, brother or even a minor provided the other party is willing. Once same-sex "marriage" is legalized, there is no logical way other than by a form of ad-hoc and completely arbitrary and capricious decision-making, to limit marriage to 2 human adults.

As can be seen here the legalization of same-sex "marriage" creates unresolvable philosophical and political problems which cannot be rectified by alterations in the law. Marriage (from a Natural Law and Christian moral perspective) should be limited to a life-long commitment between one man and one woman. Moreover, the fact that divorce is now available on-demand in the US adds to the difficulty of limiting marriage to heterosexual couples only. Widespread liberalization of state divorce laws in the mid 20th century (to the current on-demand status without the requirement of demonstrating adequate "grounds") no doubt prepared the way for the current same-sex "marriage" movement.

The great concern from the perspective of the common good should be that Traditional Marriage (TM) will become inherently weakened as an institution. If virtually any social arrangement among humans is legally to be considered marriage, (the clear direction that current momentum is taking) then what is unique or to be specially valued from a personal or societal standpoint with regard to TM? If males may legally marry males and females-females while both groups are increasingly able to adopt children what is there that is superior about a life-long heterosexual monogamous relationship that anyone should prefer it to any other arrangement including marital or non-marital infidelity? Will not many heterosexual couples simply avoid marriage altogether assuming that the entire concept has become vacuous/meaningless? If the sociological data establish that children benefit from stable heterosexual two parent families--and they do, what are we subjecting our children and grandchildren to while we carry out social experimentation on the institution of Traditional Marriage?

The entire same-sex "marriage" issue stems from an inability of post-modern man to recognize/accept the existence of "essences" that is, "natures" in the classical/scholastic sense. Post-moderns believe that man's basic "quiddity" or "whatness" is evolving and not fixed i.e. human anthropology is a work in progress. Of necessity then, morality is fluid, variable or relative to what the most politically powerful group(s) can inflict upon the majority from time to time. Such a scenario is the very definition of moral anarchy which very quickly devolves to a tyranny of the temporary majority.

Three Good Reasons To Liquidate Our Empire And Ten Steps to Take to Do So

By Chalmers Johnson

July 30, 2009 "TomDispatch" original HERE

However ambitious President Barack Obama's domestic plans, one unacknowledged issue has the potential to destroy any reform efforts he might launch. Think of it as the 800-pound gorilla in the American living room: our longstanding reliance on imperialism and militarism in our relations with other countries and the vast, potentially ruinous global empire of bases that goes with it. The failure to begin to deal with our bloated military establishment and the profligate use of it in missions for which it is hopelessly inappropriate will, sooner rather than later, condemn the United States to a devastating trio of consequences: imperial overstretch, perpetual war, and insolvency, leading to a likely collapse similar to that of the former Soviet Union.

According to the 2008 official Pentagon inventory of our military bases around the world, our empire consists of 865 facilities in more than 40 countries and overseas U.S. territories. We deploy over 190,000 troops in 46 countries and territories. In just one such country, Japan, at the end of March 2008, we still had 99,295 people connected to U.S. military forces living and working there -- 49,364 members of our armed services, 45,753 dependent family members, and 4,178 civilian employees. Some 13,975 of these were crowded into the small island of Okinawa, the largest concentration of foreign troops anywhere in Japan.

These massive concentrations of American military power outside the United States are not needed for our defense. They are, if anything, a prime contributor to our numerous conflicts with other countries. They are also unimaginably expensive. According to Anita Dancs, an analyst for the website Foreign Policy in Focus, the United States spends approximately $250 billion each year maintaining its global military presence. The sole purpose of this is to give us hegemony -- that is, control or dominance -- over as many nations on the planet as possible.

We are like the British at the end of World War II: desperately trying to shore up an empire that we never needed and can no longer afford, using methods that often resemble those of failed empires of the past -- including the Axis powers of World War II and the former Soviet Union. There is an important lesson for us in the British decision, starting in 1945, to liquidate their empire relatively voluntarily, rather than being forced to do so by defeat in war, as were Japan and Germany, or by debilitating colonial conflicts, as were the French and Dutch. We should follow the British example. (Alas, they are currently backsliding and following our example by assisting us in the war in Afghanistan.)

Here are three basic reasons why we must liquidate our empire or else watch it liquidate us.

1. We Can No Longer Afford Our Postwar Expansionism

Shortly after his election as president, Barack Obama, in a speech announcing several members of his new cabinet, stated as fact that "[w]e have to maintain the strongest military on the planet." A few weeks later, on March 12, 2009, in a speech at the National Defense University in Washington DC, the president again insisted, "Now make no mistake, this nation will maintain our military dominance. We will have the strongest armed forces in the history of the world." And in a commencement address to the cadets of the U.S. Naval Academy on May 22nd, Obama stressed that "[w]e will maintain America's military dominance and keep you the finest fighting force the world has ever seen."

What he failed to note is that the United States no longer has the capability to remain a global hegemon, and to pretend otherwise is to invite disaster.

According to a growing consensus of economists and political scientists around the world, it is impossible for the United States to continue in that role while emerging into full view as a crippled economic power. No such configuration has ever persisted in the history of imperialism. The University of Chicago's Robert Pape, author of the important study Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (Random House, 2005), typically writes:

"America is in unprecedented decline. The self-inflicted wounds of the Iraq war, growing government debt, increasingly negative current-account balances and other internal economic weaknesses have cost the United States real power in today's world of rapidly spreading knowledge and technology. If present trends continue, we will look back on the Bush years as the death knell of American hegemony."

There is something absurd, even Kafkaesque, about our military empire. Jay Barr, a bankruptcy attorney, makes this point using an insightful analogy:

"Whether liquidating or reorganizing, a debtor who desires bankruptcy protection must provide a list of expenses, which, if considered reasonable, are offset against income to show that only limited funds are available to repay the bankrupted creditors. Now imagine a person filing for bankruptcy claiming that he could not repay his debts because he had the astronomical expense of maintaining at least 737 facilities overseas that provide exactly zero return on the significant investment required to sustain them… He could not qualify for liquidation without turning over many of his assets for the benefit of creditors, including the valuable foreign real estate on which he placed his bases."

In other words, the United States is not seriously contemplating its own bankruptcy. It is instead ignoring the meaning of its precipitate economic decline and flirting with insolvency.

Nick Turse, author of The Complex: How the Military Invades our Everyday Lives (Metropolitan Books, 2008), calculates that we could clear $2.6 billion if we would sell our base assets at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean and earn another $2.2 billion if we did the same with Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. These are only two of our over 800 overblown military enclaves.

Our unwillingness to retrench, no less liquidate, represents a striking historical failure of the imagination. In his first official visit to China since becoming Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner assured an audience of students at Beijing University, "Chinese assets [invested in the United States] are very safe." According to press reports, the students responded with loud laughter. Well they might.

In May 2009, the Office of Management and Budget predicted that in 2010 the United States will be burdened with a budget deficit of at least $1.75 trillion. This includes neither a projected $640 billion budget for the Pentagon, nor the costs of waging two remarkably expensive wars. The sum is so immense that it will take several generations for American citizens to repay the costs of George W. Bush's imperial adventures -- if they ever can or will. It represents about 13% of our current gross domestic product (that is, the value of everything we produce). It is worth noting that the target demanded of European nations wanting to join the Euro Zone is a deficit no greater than 3% of GDP.

Thus far, President Obama has announced measly cuts of only $8.8 billion in wasteful and worthless weapons spending, including his cancellation of the F-22 fighter aircraft. The actual Pentagon budget for next year will, in fact, be larger, not smaller, than the bloated final budget of the Bush era. Far bolder cuts in our military expenditures will obviously be required in the very near future if we intend to maintain any semblance of fiscal integrity.

2. We Are Going to Lose the War in Afghanistan and It Will Help Bankrupt Us

One of our major strategic blunders in Afghanistan was not to have recognized that both Great Britain and the Soviet Union attempted to pacify Afghanistan using the same military methods as ours and failed disastrously. We seem to have learned nothing from Afghanistan's modern history -- to the extent that we even know what it is. Between 1849 and 1947, Britain sent almost annual expeditions against the Pashtun tribes and sub-tribes living in what was then called the North-West Frontier Territories -- the area along either side of the artificial border between Afghanistan and Pakistan called the Durand Line. This frontier was created in 1893 by Britain's foreign secretary for India, Sir Mortimer Durand.

Neither Britain nor Pakistan has ever managed to establish effective control over the area. As the eminent historian Louis Dupree put it in his book Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 425): "Pashtun tribes, almost genetically expert at guerrilla warfare after resisting centuries of all comers and fighting among themselves when no comers were available, plagued attempts to extend the Pax Britannica into their mountain homeland." An estimated 41 million Pashtuns live in an undemarcated area along the Durand Line and profess no loyalties to the central governments of either Pakistan or Afghanistan.

The region known today as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan is administered directly by Islamabad, which -- just as British imperial officials did -- has divided the territory into seven agencies, each with its own "political agent" who wields much the same powers as his colonial-era predecessor. Then as now, the part of FATA known as Waziristan and the home of Pashtun tribesmen offered the fiercest resistance.

According to Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould, experienced Afghan hands and coauthors of Invisible History: Afghanistan's Untold Story (City Lights, 2009, p. 317):

"If Washington's bureaucrats don't remember the history of the region, the Afghans do. The British used air power to bomb these same Pashtun villages after World War I and were condemned for it. When the Soviets used MiGs and the dreaded Mi-24 Hind helicopter gunships to do it during the 1980s, they were called criminals. For America to use its overwhelming firepower in the same reckless and indiscriminate manner defies the world's sense of justice and morality while turning the Afghan people and the Islamic world even further against the United States."

In 1932, in a series of Guernica-like atrocities, the British used poison gas in Waziristan. The disarmament convention of the same year sought a ban against the aerial bombardment of civilians, but Lloyd George, who had been British prime minister during World War I, gloated: "We insisted on reserving the right to bomb niggers" (Fitzgerald and Gould, p. 65). His view prevailed.

The U.S. continues to act similarly, but with the new excuse that our killing of noncombatants is a result of "collateral damage," or human error. Using pilotless drones guided with only minimal accuracy from computers at military bases in the Arizona and Nevada deserts among other places, we have killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of unarmed bystanders in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Pakistani and Afghan governments have repeatedly warned that we are alienating precisely the people we claim to be saving for democracy.

When in May 2009, General Stanley McChrystal was appointed as the commander in Afghanistan, he ordered new limits on air attacks, including those carried out by the CIA, except when needed to protect allied troops. Unfortunately, as if to illustrate the incompetence of our chain of command, only two days after this order, on June 23, 2009, the United States carried out a drone attack against a funeral procession that killed at least 80 people, the single deadliest U.S. attack on Pakistani soil so far. There was virtually no reporting of these developments by the mainstream American press or on the network television news. (At the time, the media were almost totally preoccupied by the sexual adventures of the governor of South Carolina and the death of pop star Michael Jackson.)

Our military operations in both Pakistan and Afghanistan have long been plagued by inadequate and inaccurate intelligence about both countries, ideological preconceptions about which parties we should support and which ones we should oppose, and myopic understandings of what we could possibly hope to achieve. Fitzgerald and Gould, for example, charge that, contrary to our own intelligence service's focus on Afghanistan, "Pakistan has always been the problem." They add:

"Pakistan's army and its Inter-Services Intelligence branch... from 1973 on, has played the key role in funding and directing first the mujahideen [anti-Soviet fighters during the 1980s]… and then the Taliban. It is Pakistan's army that controls its nuclear weapons, constrains the development of democratic institutions, trains Taliban fighters in suicide attacks and orders them to fight American and NATO soldiers protecting the Afghan government." (p. 322-324)

The Pakistani army and its intelligence arm are staffed, in part, by devout Muslims who fostered the Taliban in Afghanistan to meet the needs of their own agenda, though not necessarily to advance an Islamic jihad. Their purposes have always included: keeping Afghanistan free of Russian or Indian influence, providing a training and recruiting ground for mujahideen guerrillas to be used in places like Kashmir (fought over by both Pakistan and India), containing Islamic radicalism in Afghanistan (and so keeping it out of Pakistan), and extorting huge amounts of money from Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf emirates, and the United States to pay and train "freedom fighters" throughout the Islamic world. Pakistan's consistent policy has been to support the clandestine policies of the Inter-Services Intelligence and thwart the influence of its major enemy and competitor, India.

Colonel Douglas MacGregor, U.S. Army (retired), an adviser to the Center for Defense Information in Washington, summarizes our hopeless project in South Asia this way: "Nothing we do will compel 125 million Muslims in Pakistan to make common cause with a United States in league with the two states that are unambiguously anti-Muslim: Israel and India."

Obama's mid-2009 "surge" of troops into southern Afghanistan and particularly into Helmand Province, a Taliban stronghold, is fast becoming darkly reminiscent of General William Westmoreland's continuous requests in Vietnam for more troops and his promises that if we would ratchet up the violence just a little more and tolerate a few more casualties, we would certainly break the will of the Vietnamese insurgents. This was a total misreading of the nature of the conflict in Vietnam, just as it is in Afghanistan today.

Twenty years after the forces of the Red Army withdrew from Afghanistan in disgrace, the last Russian general to command them, Gen. Boris Gromov, issued his own prediction: Disaster, he insisted, will come to the thousands of new forces Obama is sending there, just as it did to the Soviet Union's, which lost some 15,000 soldiers in its own Afghan war. We should recognize that we are wasting time, lives, and resources in an area where we have never understood the political dynamics and continue to make the wrong choices.

3. We Need to End the Secret Shame of Our Empire of Bases

In March, New York Times op-ed columnist Bob Herbert noted, "Rape and other forms of sexual assault against women is the great shame of the U.S. armed forces, and there is no evidence that this ghastly problem, kept out of sight as much as possible, is diminishing." He continued:

"New data released by the Pentagon showed an almost 9 percent increase in the number of sexual assaults -- 2,923 -- and a 25 percent increase in such assaults reported by women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan [over the past year]. Try to imagine how bizarre it is that women in American uniforms who are enduring all the stresses related to serving in a combat zone have to also worry about defending themselves against rapists wearing the same uniform and lining up in formation right beside them."

The problem is exacerbated by having our troops garrisoned in overseas bases located cheek-by-jowl next to civilian populations and often preying on them like foreign conquerors. For example, sexual violence against women and girls by American GIs has been out of control in Okinawa, Japan's poorest prefecture, ever since it was permanently occupied by our soldiers, Marines, and airmen some 64 years ago.

That island was the scene of the largest anti-American demonstrations since the end of World War II after the 1995 kidnapping, rape, and attempted murder of a 12-year-old schoolgirl by two Marines and a sailor. The problem of rape has been ubiquitous around all of our bases on every continent and has probably contributed as much to our being loathed abroad as the policies of the Bush administration or our economic exploitation of poverty-stricken countries whose raw materials we covet.

The military itself has done next to nothing to protect its own female soldiers or to defend the rights of innocent bystanders forced to live next to our often racially biased and predatory troops. "The military's record of prosecuting rapists is not just lousy, it's atrocious," writes Herbert. In territories occupied by American military forces, the high command and the State Department make strenuous efforts to enact so-called "Status of Forces Agreements" (SOFAs) that will prevent host governments from gaining jurisdiction over our troops who commit crimes overseas. The SOFAs also make it easier for our military to spirit culprits out of a country before they can be apprehended by local authorities.

This issue was well illustrated by the case of an Australian teacher, a long-time resident of Japan, who in April 2002 was raped by a sailor from the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, then based at the big naval base at Yokosuka. She identified her assailant and reported him to both Japanese and U.S. authorities. Instead of his being arrested and effectively prosecuted, the victim herself was harassed and humiliated by the local Japanese police. Meanwhile, the U.S. discharged the suspect from the Navy but allowed him to escape Japanese law by returning him to the U.S., where he lives today.

In the course of trying to obtain justice, the Australian teacher discovered that almost fifty years earlier, in October 1953, the Japanese and American governments signed a secret "understanding" as part of their SOFA in which Japan agreed to waive its jurisdiction if the crime was not of "national importance to Japan." The U.S. argued strenuously for this codicil because it feared that otherwise it would face the likelihood of some 350 servicemen per year being sent to Japanese jails for sex crimes.

Since that time the U.S. has negotiated similar wording in SOFAs with Canada, Ireland, Italy, and Denmark. According to the Handbook of the Law of Visiting Forces (2001), the Japanese practice has become the norm for SOFAs throughout the world, with predictable results. In Japan, of 3,184 U.S. military personnel who committed crimes between 2001 and 2008, 83% were not prosecuted. In Iraq, we have just signed a SOFA that bears a strong resemblance to the first postwar one we had with Japan: namely, military personnel and military contractors accused of off-duty crimes will remain in U.S. custody while Iraqis investigate. This is, of course, a perfect opportunity to spirit the culprits out of the country before they can be charged.

Within the military itself, the journalist Dahr Jamail, author of Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq (Haymarket Books, 2007), speaks of the "culture of unpunished sexual assaults" and the "shockingly low numbers of courts martial" for rapes and other forms of sexual attacks. Helen Benedict, author of The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq (Beacon Press, 2009), quotes this figure in a 2009 Pentagon report on military sexual assaults: 90% of the rapes in the military are never reported at all and, when they are, the consequences for the perpetrator are negligible.

It is fair to say that the U.S. military has created a worldwide sexual playground for its personnel and protected them to a large extent from the consequences of their behavior. As a result a group of female veterans in 2006 created the Service Women's Action Network (SWAN). Its agenda is to spread the word that "no woman should join the military."

I believe a better solution would be to radically reduce the size of our standing army, and bring the troops home from countries where they do not understand their environments and have been taught to think of the inhabitants as inferior to themselves.

10 Steps Toward Liquidating the Empire

Dismantling the American empire would, of course, involve many steps. Here are ten key places to begin:

1. We need to put a halt to the serious environmental damage done by our bases planet-wide. We also need to stop writing SOFAs that exempt us from any responsibility for cleaning up after ourselves.

2. Liquidating the empire will end the burden of carrying our empire of bases and so of the "opportunity costs" that go with them -- the things we might otherwise do with our talents and resources but can't or won't.

3. As we already know (but often forget), imperialism breeds the use of torture. In the 1960s and 1970s we helped overthrow the elected governments in Brazil and Chile and underwrote regimes of torture that prefigured our own treatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. (See, for instance, A.J. Langguth, Hidden Terrors [Pantheon, 1979], on how the U.S. spread torture methods to Brazil and Uruguay.) Dismantling the empire would potentially mean a real end to the modern American record of using torture abroad.

4. We need to cut the ever-lengthening train of camp followers, dependents, civilian employees of the Department of Defense, and hucksters -- along with their expensive medical facilities, housing requirements, swimming pools, clubs, golf courses, and so forth -- that follow our military enclaves around the world.

5. We need to discredit the myth promoted by the military-industrial complex that our military establishment is valuable to us in terms of jobs, scientific research, and defense. These alleged advantages have long been discredited by serious economic research. Ending empire would make this happen.

6. As a self-respecting democratic nation, we need to stop being the world's largest exporter of arms and munitions and quit educating Third World militaries in the techniques of torture, military coups, and service as proxies for our imperialism. A prime candidate for immediate closure is the so-called School of the Americas, the U.S. Army's infamous military academy at Fort Benning, Georgia, for Latin American military officers. (See Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire [Metropolitan Books, 2004], pp. 136-40.)

7. Given the growing constraints on the federal budget, we should abolish the Reserve Officers' Training Corps and other long-standing programs that promote militarism in our schools.

8. We need to restore discipline and accountability in our armed forces by radically scaling back our reliance on civilian contractors, private military companies, and agents working for the military outside the chain of command and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (See Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater:The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army [Nation Books, 2007]). Ending empire would make this possible.

9. We need to reduce, not increase, the size of our standing army and deal much more effectively with the wounds our soldiers receive and combat stress they undergo.

10. To repeat the main message of this essay, we must give up our inappropriate reliance on military force as the chief means of attempting to achieve foreign policy objectives.

Unfortunately, few empires of the past voluntarily gave up their dominions in order to remain independent, self-governing polities. The two most important recent examples are the British and Soviet empires. If we do not learn from their examples, our decline and fall is foreordained.

Divorce Damages Health and Remarriage Doesn't Help, New Study Finds

By Patrick B. Craine

CHICAGO, July 27, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Divorce and widowhood have a lingering, detrimental impact on health, even after a person remarries, research at the University of Chicago and Johns Hopkins University has shown.

"Among the currently married, those who have ever been divorced show worse health on all dimensions," said University of Chicago sociologist Linda Waite and co-author of a new study on marriage and health. Further, "Both the divorced and widowed who do not remarry show worse health on all dimensions," she said.

Waite, the Lucy Flower Professor in Sociology and Director of the Center on Aging at the National Opinion Research Center at the University, conducted the study with Mary Elizabeth Hughes, Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health. Their research, which was based on a study of 8,652 people aged 51 to 61, will be published in the September issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior in the article, "Marital Biography and Health Midlife."

The findings are consistent with previous studies, said Dr. Mark Hayward, Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas and an expert in the field of health and marriage, in an interview with LifeSiteNews.com (LSN). In his own work, he said, for example, "We actually found a very, very similar pattern to the findings that were in this study."

But while numerous studies have looked at the effect of marriage and divorce upon health, this is the first to examine both marital transitions and marital status on a wide range of health dimensions.

"Prior to this time, most people have been looking at kind of singular outcomes," Dr. Hayward said. "So in the work I've done, for example, I've looked at cardiovascular disease in particular. Other people have done the same: some people have looked at mortality, some people to depression. This study is probably one of the few studies that looks at a broader array of health, both in terms of physical and mental."

The study found that divorced or widowed people have 20 percent more chronic health conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes, or cancer, than married people. They also have 23 percent more mobility limitations, such as trouble climbing stairs or walking a block. Further, people who remarried have 12 percent more chronic conditions and 19 percent more mobility limitations, but no more depressive symptoms, than those who are continuously married.

The impacts of marriage, divorce and remarriage on health are based on the ways in which the various illnesses develop and heal, study co-author Linda Waite said. "Some health situations, like depression, seem to respond both quickly and strongly to changes in current conditions," she said. "In contrast, conditions such as diabetes and heart disease develop slowly over a substantial period and show the impact of past experiences, which is why health is undermined by divorce or widowhood, even when a person remarries."

Dr. Hayward admitted the importance of helping people through difficult marriages, but emphasized the importance of helping people through divorce and after a divorce. "I think if there's any room for social policy in here," he said, "it's the issue of to what degree should we have a safety net in response to people that are suddenly finding themselves in these precarious positions. ... We do want to help people to pick up the pieces, so to speak, when their marriages go awry."

Divorce, he said, "is an incredibly adversarial situation. ... There may be room for social policy in helping people navigate these kinds of processes in ways that aren't so adversarial, and in that way mute the negative consequences of the divorce experience and what happens after divorce."

Hayward suggested that, on the level of health, divorce should not be discouraged because the health benefits of marriage may decline due to people staying in "bad" marriages.

However, previous research has shown that divorce has a worse impact on the couple's children than staying in a 'bad' marriage. A 2004 study at the University College Dublin discovered that separation even in the case of a 'bad' marriage, is more harmful to children than staying together. The study found that divorce was even more harmful to children than the loss of a parent.

Further, a book released by the Institute for American Values entitled Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce, based on a survey of 1,500 adults ages 18-35, revealed that even 'good' divorce has a negative impact on children. The book's author, Elizabeth Marquardt, commented, "Even when divorced parents behave well, their divorce confronts the child with the monumental task of having to make sense, alone, of the parents' very different beliefs, values, and ways of living - a job the parents are no longer required to do."

"As a consequence, children of both 'good' and 'bad' divorces come to feel like divided selves," she continued. "They lead a wholly separate life in each parent's world, leading over time to a troubling inner division that goes to the heart of their identity."

Fr. Thomas Dufner, a priest at a parish in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, who has been an outspoken defender of the Christian view of marriage (in 2003 he testified at a legislative hearing during Minnesota's debate on a proposed marriage amendment) told LSN that in his view this most recent study provides natural evidence in support of the traditional Christian view that marriage is "for life."

"By faith we know that in the beginning God created marriage for the good of spouses and the procreation of the race," said Fr. Dufner. "Now research confirms that health is also better for people who stay married. No surprise. Faith and reason go together confirming the same truth: What God has joined together, let no man put asunder." (Editor's emphasis throughout) For more information see THIS..., THIS..., THIS..., and THIS...

NOTE:

The sociological data confirm what already is known from the Natural (moral) Law and Divine Revelation that life-long marriage is in the interest of the marital partners, the children thereof and society in general.

No-fault divorce is contrary to the Natural Law, right reason individual/social justice as well as being incompatible with charity. It would be better if people never married and did not have children than to do so and then divorce. If this means maintaining a single life of sexual continence and chastity instead (as taught in Traditional Roman Catholicism), the individual and common good of society would be appreciably enhanced. In the secular neo-pagan West this would no doubt mean instead that single adults would continue to engage in contraceptive sex in order to avoid a more rigorous form of marital union in which morally licit sexual expression is part of a life-long total commitment on the part of the spouses.

Ultimately, it is not in society's interest to allow civil contract marriage which is subject to divorce, whether on the basis of no-fault laws or for just-cause. The former (no-fault divorce) virtually guarantees that over half of all marriages will end in divorce--a situation which is extremely destructive of and costly to society. The latter (divorce for just-cause or grounds only) while historically associated with a much lower overall rate of divorce (at least in the West) is inherently defective because it preserves the fiction that divorce is a reasonable (personal and societal) option if only one of the partners wishes to end the marriage and is able to demonstrate just-cause.

Covenant or life-long marriage as is characteristic of sacramental marriage is the ideal (as well as statistically most successful long-term) and would be far easier to normalize and codify into law in Roman Catholic nation-states or other more traditional forms of government where Natural law and Divine Revelation serve as models for the civil law. Unfortunately, the world is almost totally bereft of any remaining Roman Catholic countries--perhaps Lichtenstein being the only example. I leave it to others to provide further potential examples.

In this day of almost deification of "science" and the "worship of empirical evidence, it would be logically consistent for all governments to reform their marriage and divorce laws by making them compatible with the now indisputable evidence that no-fault divorce and civil contract marriage are harmful. Given that the requisite empirical data is now available, logic dictates that this should mandate a return to or institution of legally binding covenant marriage in which divorce is allowed only for serious "just-cause" (if allowed by mutual consent of the partners in the case where there are no children involved, the adverse health effects for the individuals and society including the cost to the health care system persist).

Under a system of covenant/sacramental marriage, permission would be granted by the appropriate civil authorities only after couples were properly educated about the benefits and responsibilities of the marital state. It should be made impossible to argue after the fact that the couple was 1) not given adequate warning as to their obligations or 2) not supplied with proper and legally binding informed consent. To do otherwise is to engage in a suicidal form of social engineering in the name of a rabid form of individual freedom/liberty absent the required personal and societal responsibility commensurate with the seriousness of the marital state.

--Dr. J. P. Hubert