The Washington Times is characterizing Pat Buchanan somewhat differently than I have read him recently. One of us (the Washington Times or I) is, must be, wrong.[1] Neither of us is necessarily correct, however. In this case, I think this last is true. Perhaps this is hubris on my part, if so, so be it. I have asserted that Mr. Buchanan is proposing and endorsing run-away isolationism. Considering political realities, which I think Mr. Buchanan must be doing, I think I may have taken his argument to an extreme that he might not object to, but would not, in point of fact, attempt to implement. He is quoted here saying that he would allow in immigrants who are here to work, and here to live. It is the flood of migrant workers, migrant in the sense that they are here to work, but intend to leave to live their lives in their native country, that he would stop. He thinks this is necessary to preserve our cohesion as a country.

He is absolutely correct. It is necessary that people feel at home in the United States, that they feel that it is their home, that they join our culture, reshape it certainly, but learn from it also, if we are to remain one country. It is necessary that the melting of separate cultures continue if we are to end the problems of racism. It is the black communities’ insistence on holding on to a separate identity that proves the theory of the civil rights era: you cannot have “separate but equal.”

Further, he is absolutely correct when he says that the conservative movement has fragmented. It has fragmented worse than his examples show. You have people who call themselves conservatives who favor government intervention if it means more security. You have people who call themselves conservatives who would reduce the right to bear arms if it means less chance of terrorism. You have people who advocate federal intervention to end computer viruses and spam, yet call themselves conservatives. You have people who want economic reform without social reform, yet they too are calling themselves conservatives. You have deficit spenders, who are conservative because they are for a strong defense department, and “moral conservatives” who once alone would have been called “conservative.” All these groups, all called “conservative,” all under the republican umbrella, demonstrate why the Republicans fragment under pressure, even pressure from a minority democratic party. Because each has a different agenda, and so each is willing to jettison a different piece of the puzzle to further their special cause. Contrast this to the Democrats who are just as fragmented at primary time, but yet know that the solution they all want is a more powerful government and more powerful democratic party, and so they unify again as each election ends. Thus you see feminists advancing homosexual causes, thus you see both helping the green activists. This also holds true when you look at those who do not re-unify, you see them not in the democratic party, but in the green party, and the other third parties.

But he is wrong in thinking that this union is worth saving, or can be saved. We can, and should try, to save it for a time. We can perhaps preserve it for generations to come, but if we are to survive for long without being Balkanized to meaninglessness, the union that will exist will be a union that we will not recognize, though it may be one that our founding fathers would. What will survive will be the government that a moral people need to curb those who transgress the common morality, one aimed at curbing exceptions, not at suspecting all. It will be a self-policed state, just as we once where, where the pressure of society holds you in check far more than the fear of the law. One where certain acts are unthinkable, and so, when they happen, the justice is swift and sure. It may be a less gentle society, but it will be more civilized for that. Perhaps it will be a republic, perhaps a representative democracy such as we have now. Perhaps it will be a more centralized government, a monarchy or oligarchy. Perhaps it will cover the same territory, or perhaps we will have fragmented beyond repair. Time will tell. Perhaps it will come soon, perhaps there is yet another two or three hundred years before it comes. Perhaps we have reached the lowest depths of depravity, but I think not. The reaction will not come until we do, the reaction will not come until good people are forced to admit they must act to preserve themselves and their children in a world gone mad around them.

[1] http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050517-122418-5719r.htm

ARN’s “The ID Report” web log has isolated simply and easily why fully naturalist evolution, fully dependent on random mutation, natural selection, sexual selection, and similar fully material processes, is not compatible with the teaching of the Church. Naturally ARN does not do so explicitly, but it is there for all to read who are at all familiar with the crucial and central nature that the doctrine of free will holds. It is not incidental to our faith. Some of you will be quick to point out that Pope John Paul the Great, in one of his writings, said that evolution can be compatible with the faith. He is, naturally, correct, it can be. But recall, he said this after stating that there is no single theory of evolution, but rather many. Here also he is accurate. Evolution as simply change within a species[2], what intelligent design proponents would call “microevolution,” is fully compatible with our faith. Evolution understood to allow and be a directed process, directed by God with His goals in mind, is also compatible. In such a theory, God would simply be choosing to hide His hand behind seeming randomness. Scientists who are debating against the inclusion of intelligent design, or even against teaching the flaws and short comings in evolution theory, across the country are not however, open to either of these understandings of evolution. While the Pope was right, science, as it exists institutionally (rather than as a process) is insisting on being wrong.

Returning to the topic at hand, if then, we look at evolution only in its fully materialist forms, you come down to genes, or some super-set largely consisting of genes (there is now, remember, some unknown mechanism by which 2 wrong copies of a gene may be corrected), determining everything about the human person. Taken to its logical extreme by some of the social Darwinists (who, to give biology its due, are mostly not biologists), this would hold true even of human actions and motivations. Evolution, understood in fully material terms, destroys free well. We become simply biological computers responding to stimuli in complex but ultimately (given sufficient computing power) predictable ways. If there is no free will, there is no sin, no sin, no Fall. If there was no Fall, there was no need for a Savior, and our faith is without foundation. Moral relativism, in all its darkness and with all its potential for despair (despair we are seeing today in the high suicide rates), is ushered in.

[1] http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/2/2005/05/17/can_a_gene_really_make_you_fat
[2] “species” is a defined word in biology. The boundry of a species is defined to be the subset of organisms that can produce fertile offspring. Thus while a great dane and a toy poodle are unlikely to ever mate, and perhaps even could not, yet you cannot define them as separate species because each is clearly linked as the same species as other, ever more mid-sized dogs, whose offspring are fertile. On the other hand, the horse and the donkey can and do mate, but as the mule is not fertile, they are separate species. Interestingly, scientists throw out this definition whenever convient, for instance, the wolf is still held separately from the dog, and botany appears to ignore this definition entirely.

It appears that the ecumenical efforts over the years are starting to make progress. It has been announced today that an agreement on the doctrines surrounding Mary has been reached and is being forwarded to the Vatican and the Anglican council.[1] Supposedly something has happened that now Anglicans can admit that the Church’s teaching is compatible with Scripture (of course it is), and can be accepted by them. It remains to be seen if it will be accepted. From the fact that it needs to be forwarded to the Vatican, I take it that it also needs to be determined that those involved accurately preserved the Church’s teaching. This is necessary because, despite the claims of many in the protestant world, and despite the desires of those who would change the Church, who would “modernize” it, the Church does not invent doctrine, does not change it, it only clarifies it to defend it from heresies that once did not exist, and brings it to a wording that will accurately convey the age old truth in language people today can understand. This is wonderful news, and I hope that it can be accepted by the Church (which will mean it is not a change, but simply a better understanding on the part of the Anglicans (you can see why I am not and will not likely ever be part of any ecumenical dialog here)), and is accepted by the Anglicans. I think it will mean an easier path home for those lost in the Anglican heresy/schism. I hope it will mean that more will find their way home than do currently. For while the numbers finding their way home may have increased in the time since the church in England went heretic, not all are home, and so the numbers are necessarily too few.

[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4553951.stm

In science news, we can now grow diamonds relatively fast.[1] I wonder how the diamond industry will respond, and how expensive these diamonds are.

[1] http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/node/7908