Zero Tolerance in Palos Verdes

The story rocked the local news like an IED. Little toy soldiers with little plastic guns worn by little boys were declared verboten at a grammar school graduation. The boys at the Cornerstone school were ordered by Principal Denise Leonard to remove the toy soldiers, or cut off the plastic micro-guns, or be held in contempt of the district Zero Tolerance Weapon's policy. Leonard “directed students to not place images of weapons on student-created mortarboards to be used in the promotion ceremony,” according to a PVUSD statement.

Letters to the editor and to the school superintendent accused the principal of violating the student’s free speech, of misguided pedagogy and of an anti-military bias -- not to mention petty behavior.

In my opinion, the free speech argument holds no water. The US Supreme Court ruled this week that students have limited first amendment rights. In a 5-4 decision, the Supremes held that speech promoting illegal drug use (“Bong Hits 4 Jesus,” in this case) may be regarded as “disruptive” to school life, as defined by the Supreme Court in Tinker (1969). However, in my opinion and that of Justice Thomas, the Tinker decision granting free speech rights to minor students was ill advised, has led to a multitude of court case and to “cultural disarray flowing from the schools into society.”

Justice Clarence Thomas attached to the Roberts’ majority decision an essay on the decline and fall of American public education. (see www.supremecourtus.gov )

Thomas showed that from the beginning of the Republic “the schools’ role was most certainly in loco parentis, in that they and parents broadly agreed on what made an adolescent grow into a good person.” Today parents are spending thousands on private schools “to have what American schools had from 1859 to 1959--some basic measure of the Three Ds: decorum, decency and diligence; self-control as a higher common value than out-of-control.”

In a surprising statement about the “Bong” decision, liberal Justice Stephen Breyer wrote: “Students will test the limits of acceptable behavior in myriad ways better known to schoolteachers than to judges; school officials need a degree of flexible authority to respond to disciplinary challenges; and the law has always considered the relationship between teachers and students special. Under these circumstances, the more detailed the Court's supervision becomes, the more likely its law will engender further disputes among teachers and students. Consequently, larger numbers of those disputes will likely make their way from the schoolhouse to the courthouse. Yet no one wishes to substitute courts for school boards, or to turn the judge's chambers into the principal's office.”

Thus, I stand behind the Cornerstone principal’s authority to make decisions about the behavior of students under her jurisdiction, including their speech and other forms of expression. That still leaves, however, the questions of pedagogy, bias and good sense.

My friend Dr. Dave Young wrote to the Superintendent to explain that the decision to treat the weapon on a toy soldier the same as an actual weapon not allowed under the zero tolerance for weapons on campus is bad pedagogy.

“We want, I believe, to teach children the ability to discriminate between examples of desired and undesired behaviors. We want them to learn the difference between the legal and criminal use of weapons. This decision does exactly the opposite. It not only fails to teach the difference between people engaged in the pro-social use of them (police and soldiers) from anti-social use (criminals and terrorists), but it actually implies that they are the same. This is appallingly poor teaching.”

Dr. Young continues: “Not to distinguish between representations of weapons and actual weapons also undermines the development of critical thinking skills. A toy soldier is simply not a weapon, and to argue that it is makes one look foolish.”

Finally Dr. Young asks about the motivation behind the ruling: “Did this decision inadvertently disrespect those who have died for our freedoms? Did the decision reflect either a conscious or unconscious anti-military bias?”

These are legitimate questions that the School Board and administration should address.

The argument that the zero-tolerance policy made her do it is specious at best. PVUSD Board Policy BP 5131.7 Students Weapons and Dangerous Instruments: The Board of Education desires students and staff to be free from the fear and danger presented by firearms and other weapons. The Board therefore prohibits any person other than authorized law enforcement or security personnel from possessing weapons, imitation firearms, or dangerous instruments of any kind in school buildings, on school grounds or buses, or at a school-related or school-sponsored activity away from school.

I’ve heard it said that while the toy soldiers are not covered by the policy, that they can create a hostile environment. Give me a break!

Finally, the Zero Tolerance approach in schools is harmful. A report from Harvard University (Opportunities Suspended: The Devastating Consequences of Zero Tolerance and School Discipline) illustrates that “Zero Tolerance is unfair, is contrary to the developmental needs of children, denies children educational opportunities, and often results in the criminalization of children. Even the common schoolyard scuffle has become a target, regardless of severity and circumstances.” Another report Zero Tolerance, Zero Evidence of the Indiana Education Policy Center states: “There is as yet little evidence that the strategies typically associated with zero tolerance contribute to improved student behavior or overall school safety.”

It is understandable that school boards and principals strive to be cautious about anything that could be thought to contribute to a hostile environment. In our litigious society is would be fiscally irresponsible to do otherwise. But it is even more important to teach the truth and to instill in students a sense of thankfulness and respect for the military and police who protect our lives, sometimes through the rightful use of fire-arms.

Rebirth of Western Religion

With the spate of religion-bashing books coming out in the last year (by well known authors including Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Michel Onfray, Victor Stenger) one might be tempted, and some are encouraged, to believe that the prophesy “Gott ist tot” of Nietzsche’s famous madman has finally come to pass in the Western world. Yet all these books have about them “an odd defensiveness -- as though they were not a sign of victory but of desperation.” In Western Europe it appears that the madman was right, but everywhere else on Earth religion is surging.

The secularist story line goes like this. “As people become more educated and more prosperous they find themselves both more skeptical of religion's premises and less needful of its consolations. Hence, in the long run, religion, or more specifically the Christianity so long dominant on the West, will die out.” Indeed, what one sees in Europe today are elderly altar servers in childless churches attended by mere handfuls of pensioners. “If God were to be dead in the Nietzschean sense, one suspects that the wake would look a lot like this.”

Yet two leading secularism theorists (Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide, 2006) have noted that in fact “secularization theory is currently experiencing the most sustained challenge in its long history.” Not only that, but as Robert Royal observes, “three centuries of debunking, skepticism, criticism, revolution, and scorn by secularists not only have failed to defeat religious belief, but have actually enhanced its self-defense.” (The God That Did Not Fail: How Religion Built and Sustains the West, 2006. See also Peter Berger, The Desecularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics, 1999)

Now, in a scholarly piece by Mary Eberstadt of the Hoover Institution (“How the West Really Lost God”) secularist theory is put to the test of reason and empiricism. “What secularization theory assumes is that religious belief comes ontologically first for people and that it goes on to determine or shape other things they do -- including such elemental personal decisions as whether they marry and have children or not.” Hence the plummeting birth rates in Western Europe outside the Muslim communities.

Norris and Inglehart, for example, clearly state the cause and effect.

“Secularization and human development have a powerful negative impact on human fertility rates. Practically all of the countries in which secularization is most advanced show fertility rates far below the replacement level -- while societies with traditional religious orientations have fertility rates that are two or three times the replacement level.” When stated that way the outcome seems inevitable: the death of the West through the inexorable tide of demographics.

However, Mary Eberstadt asks why must the cause-effect vector be as is commonly assumed? Might not the decline of childbearing come first, then driving the decline of religiosity?

The Western European data seem to support that time-reversed point of view. What demographers call the “unprecedented and overall sustained fall in birthrate that characterizes Western Europe today” began in France in the late eighteenth century, but in Britain, which was then richer than France, the decline started a century later. In each case the decline in churchgoing kicked in 1-2 generations later. In Ireland the birthrate decline followed by the religious decline occurred within one generation (from 1970 to 2005). European fertility in general dropped well before the dramatic demise of religious practice seen today.

Eberstadt argues convincingly how the act of creation and child rearing encourage parents into communion with something larger than themselves, in communities of like-minded believers (ie in church). There are even fewer atheists in the nursery than in the foxhole. For the details check out her paper at
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/06/how_the_west_really_lost_god.html

This new perspective goes a long way toward explaining one of the most puzzling aspects of American exceptionalism. Richard Dawkins posed the problem this way: “The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religious country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. I am continually asked why this is, and I do not know.”

The 2007 Princeton Survey found that 91 percent of Americans believe in God, as opposed to 6 percent agnostic and 3 percent atheist. Might it be because we are still having babies? And it is not only Hispanic immigrants who are having babies in America. Birthrates are well above replacement level among well-educated and well-off Orthodox Jews, Mormons, Evangelical Christians and Catholics.

Seen in this light the death of the West is not inevitable. Fertility rates have waxed and waned throughout history. (The low birth rate among Roman patricians was of sufficient concern under the emperor Augustus as to result in the imposition of the family-friendly Julian laws.) Today there are many socio-economic forces (see Social Security) that could well drive a baby boom in the highly secular countries of Western Europe, Canada and Japan. If that happens the appeal of religion will rise and the death of the West, and of God, will be averted.

We should all hope so because the alternative is grim indeed.

Warriors

Lt. Colonel Dave McCarthy, USMC, sent me a photo essay he called “Bagdad Living,” thinking that it might take off in the magazine publishing world as a spin-off of “Country Living.” Please email me if you’d like to see the rest of the photos. Here is part of Dave’s narrative.

Our interpreter is called Ammar. He's Catholic, which means he is a target for al Qaida and other Islamic fundamentalist groups. To give you an idea of what Christians face here in Bagdad, Chaldean patriarchs Bishop Donamarding and Bishop Armanweli appealed to Prime Minister Maliki to intervene to protect Iraqi Christians from Muslim extremists. Pan-Arab and Iraqi media reported that many Baghdad Christians have been told to convert to Islam or be killed. Ammar is a trusted and highly valued asset of ours; I pray every day for his safety and that of his family.

During a tense moment in a bad neighborhood in Bagdad, out of the corner of my eye I noticed an Iraqi women huddled in a shallow ditch trying to shield her two small children. I turned and saw a combat cameraman take their photo, so when we returned to base I asked him to e-mail me a copy, which he did. I decided not to send it because it is too graphic and depressing. I keep the photo on my computer and look at it every so often because it illustrates to me what we're here for -- to protect innocent Iraqis. If you saw the fear on this poor woman's face then you could understand what the average Bagdad resident faces daily; it is absolutely heart-breaking.

I realize that America doesn't have infinite resources, but I wish we could fight every place innocent women and children are attacked. I wish the U.S. government would take volunteers and form up an Expeditionary Force to go to Darfur to protect the innocent people there from the Janjaweed (militia); I'd volunteer to go in a heartbeat.

I'll be in the International Zone (IZ) this week, hopefully for not more than 4 or 5 days, and then I head out West to Fallujah and Ramadi. One of the reasons I love to get out West is because the Marine Corps controls the West. I don't mean to knock the army, and I obviously have a bias towards Marines. It's not just the Warrior Brotherhood among Marines; a Knights of the Round Table sort of thing; it's also the more aggressive war fighting style that I like. I hear from a great many soldiers, sailors and airmen that they feel better, safer, when Marines are around. In 2001 I was in a remote area of Afghanistan when a very young airman, he couldn't have been more than 18 years old, looked at the U.S. MARINES tape on my uniform top and said “Man, I just breath so much easier when Marines are around.”

Greetings from Bagdad, yet again. Well, we were supposed to be wheels-up at 0930. At 0920 we received a radio call with the latest intel and we decided to postpone the mission for a week. So, I'm back at the Forward Operating Base for now. The photo of me above is by the cancelled-south-trip helo.

Today is shaping up to be a REALLY bad day: it's only noon and already we lost seven men. God, that hurts.

My time in the IZ wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. The Iraqis living there are not all good guys; there are good neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods in the IZ. The part of the IZ where the US Embassy is located is like a strange dream: you can have Marines in full Battle Rattle side by side with civilians in suits or in Dockers and polo shirts, and in the evening there will be the occasional lady in a ball gown. One thing about the IZ - they get hit with a lot of indirect fire almost every day (mortars and rockets). Several nights I stayed in the IZ and one evening a 107 mm rocket destroyed a Shower trailer not 50 meters from the trailer where I was staying; yet another close call for yours truly.

Actually, that attack led to something interesting (for lack of a better word). Because that rocket landed so close I thought it wise for me to get into a bunker in case other rockets landed in the vicinity. As I was getting in the bunker another rocket landed close by. To this day I don't know if it was the concussion that threw me into the bunker or if it was that the sound of the explosion was enough for me to jump into the bunker, but in any event I slammed my foot into the concrete. It hurt like heck, but the attack ended and I did as I usually do when I'm injured: I sucked it up and marched on. Unfortunately my foot got worse, turning red and becoming increasingly painful. I could handle the pain, but after 10 days one of the toes and a toe nail had turned black.

Now I'm no medical expert, but I was fairly certain that flesh turning black is not a good thing, so I figured it was time to seek medical attention. The Doc at the Troop Medical Clinic aboard this Forward Operating Base had the medic just take a scalpel and cut off the entire nail. The next day it hurt really bad, and when I took my boot off out poured about 2 cups of blood. Yep, time to seek medical attention yet again. This time a different Doc took one look at it and said that I'd need to see a foot specialist. The podiatrist took one look at my foot and told the Medics to bring me into the Operating Room, where she proceeded to do her medical thing, including amputating half of one of my toes.

So, now I'm grounded for a while, in a soft cast and hobbling around on crutches. The worst part is that I will miss a mission tomorrow, and likely the next few missions. This is like déjà vu from my second tour in Iraq, when I slammed my leg during a direct fire attack and developed a DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) and had to be casevaced out. The funny thing is that with this injury, the guys are telling me that I rate a Purple Heart Medal since the injury was sustained as a result of enemy fire. Gimmee a break! There is NO WAY I would pull a John Kerry and put a Purple Heart medal on my chest for a little owwee and half a toe; not when soldiers and Marines are having limbs blown off in IED explosions.


Well, the stitches in my foot came out this morning, so I've been assigned a mission leaving tomorrow morning and wanted to just shoot off a quick message to say hello - or goodbye as the case may be - before I go. This should be a short one - maybe a few days, but as they say, “the best laid plans . . .” It's been a while since I've recited the chaplain's words to us, so I'll do so now: “You cannot do all the good the world needs, but the world needs all the good you can do.” All the good we can do is chock full of good intentions, and it doesn't sound like a path to hell, does it?

Well, I'd best get going so I can be sure my gear is all in order. Take care and be well.

Semper Fidelis,

DMM

My grandson, Sgt. John Walton, Army 82nd Airborne Division is scheduled to finish his second tour in Iraq next month. He volunteered to stay on until September so that a buddy whose wife had a baby could return home in Johnny’s place. Having spent his time in Iraq repairing helicopters and dodging rockets, I think Johnny wanted to get a taste of battle before his time was up. His offer was refused since it would take too much time to train him for combat. I’m glad and so is his mom.

Sicko

Would you take health care advice from this man?

Pumping away on the elliptical machine at Equinox, I had the choice of fourteen televisions, every third one tuned into The View. While watching ESPN, I noticed a portly sloppy guy walk on The View set and engulf Liz Hasselbeck. Michael Moore was there to plug his new movie, Sicko.

Moore's major point is that the health care system in America is “broken.”

From a film review by James Christopher at the Cannes Film Festival:

“Moore plays the small humble man in this villainous conspiracy against the public. He feels the aches and pains of the wronged, and lambasts company directors and government officials. He travels to London to show off the beauty and brilliance of the British National Health Service. He films empty waiting rooms and happy, care-free health workers.

What he hasn’t done is lie in a corridor all night at the Royal Free watching his severed toe disintegrate in a plastic cup of melted ice. I have. I’ve spent more hours than I care to remember in NHS hospitals vainly waiting for stitches or praying for the arrival of a midwife. There are no such traumas in Moore’s rose-tinted vision of our glorious NHS.”

Coincidentally, the LA Times ran a long article last Sunday titled “Care in need of a cure” that managed to bash the US medical profession while simultaneously promoting Moore’s movie. The story behind the article was a report by the Commonwealth Fund ranking the United States sixth out of six industrialized nations on “measures of safe and coordinated health care” while spending the most per person on that care. The US trailed, in order, Great Britain, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and Canada while spending $6102 per person compared to an average of $2735 for the others.

Examples of our poor showing include the fact that the US life expectancy is 77.2 years compared to the average of 77.8 years (and Japan’s 81.8 years). The US also has higher average potential years of life lost due to diabetes (0.10 year compared to 0.04 year). These dramatic results are blamed squarely on the sad state of US healthcare, while the real causes (largely obesity - see Michael Moore) are discounted.

Fortunately, the article is balanced by other facts about the US healthcare system: We have the best breast cancer treatment and survival rates; the best preventive measures like Pap tests, mammograms and colonoscopies; the best treatment of heart attacks and drug-resistant tuberculosis; the premier medical research institutions; and America leads the world in the development of new drugs. The article admits that wealthy people from around the world come to the US for treatment of major diseases.

All that sounds pretty darn good. With all those firsts how did we wind up last? The key to that conundrum comes in the article’s twenty-fourth paragraph: “Probably the area in which the US uniquely falters by comparison with developed nations is in assuring that anyone who is sick can receive care.”

The thirty-first paragraph reveals the causal and the cure. Somewhere between 46 and 50 million Americans do not have health insurance. That means, of course, that between 250 and 254 million Americans do have private health insurance and are receiving top notch care. The question is what to do about the rest and the conclusion is obvious: give them health insurance at public expense.

Let’s use the lower number of uninsured for a calculation of how much that would cost at the average expenditure of $6102 per American. The result is $281 Billion – each and every year. That is the Democratic solution. It is not surprising when one remembers that the Dem’s presidential candidate John Edwards proposed that the US educate 100 million children in the third world. All Democratic social programs cost in the $100’s of billions.

Now what about all those who are uninsured? Who are they? One very large group must be the 12 to 20 million illegal aliens. They broke into our country and now use our services, including hospital emergency rooms. If the Democrats have their way, these will be joined by another 50-100 million family members if the absurd immigration bill passes. Another substantial group, probably several million, are homeless bums. Most will not even accept public housing if it comes with any conditions and wouldn’t go to a doctor if you paid them to do so. Perhaps the largest group is unmarried women with several children. Again it is act of faith that the large percent who are addicts are going to take themselves or their children to the doctor.

So what would I do about this issue? My compassionate conservative plan would rely on individual responsibility, low cost insurance and clinics. First, illegal immigrants who are allowed to stay would be required to purchase minimal health insurance policies that would cover catastrophic care and doctor’s visits in clinics. They would not be allowed to use the emergency rooms for non-emergencies.

The immigration bill must not be passed if it allows family members of illegals to come here ahead of immigrants who are standing in line. The bill should favor those immigrants who are able to pay for their health insurance. It should especially recruit doctors who would be encouraged via accelerated citizenship to practice in clinics for the poor. (The US has 20% fewer doctors per capita than the other industrialized nations.)

The homeless should be incarcerated (some) or institutionalized (most). Unmarried mothers on welfare should be allowed (encouraged) to take themselves and their children to the clinics at no cost.

This is a plan that deals with the problem while maintaining the excellent heath care system for the large majority of American who pay their own way. And don’t buy the blather that our health care is too expensive (although the excessive amount going to personal injury lawyers should be reduced by tort reform). When you need a heart bypass operation and your insurance pays for it, you will agree it’s a bargain at twice the price.

Moral Philosophy and the Death Penalty

Philosophy is tough sledding, as I’m finding in the Moral Decisions class at St. John Fisher Church. The word philosophy is Greek and we immediately think of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in the 4th century BC. Socrates asked questions like What is justice? What is poetry? He began the Socratic Method, a questioning dialog without answers. Plato is widely believed to have been a student of Socrates and to have been deeply influenced by his teacher's unjust death. Plato's brilliance can be witnessed by reading his Socratic dialogues.

Aristotle believed that humans know some things inherently (the basic truths about themselves and the world) and that philosophy builds on that knowledge.

In the twelfth century Aristotle’s writings were translated into Latin and St. Thomas Aquinas made a lifelong study of his works. G.K. Chesterton noted that the central theme of St. Thomas’s work was the compatibility and complementarities of faith and reason. When this does not occur, it is because reason has become scrambled.

Modern philosophy began in the sixteenth century with Rene’ Descartes who doubted everything. “I think; therefore I am” was the end result of his search for something that could not be doubted. In contrast to Aristotle, Aquinas and the Catholic Church, Descartes believed that unless some method is first learned, one cannot know anything. To Descartes, the study of philosophy confers on one his first certified grasp of truth. (It is interesting that Descartes has become the patron saint of many non-believers, but he was a zealous Catholic, believing that science is possible only because God exists and God cannot lie.)

Philosophy means the quest for wisdom, and involves the disciplines of logic, mathematics, natural science, ethics and theology. Ethics, or moral philosophy, seeks knowledge in order to help us become good. But what is good? Humans are not essentially individuals, at the most basic level. We are born into a family -- not by choice, but by nature. Thus, human good is communal, the common good.

Thus, it seems to me that when considering any complex moral issue (say immigration, abortion or the death penalty) we should carefully consider the common good.

The death penalty for capital murder has long been debated in the industrialized world. It is outlawed in Europe and is all but non-existent in America. In 2005, there were over 16,000 cases of murder and non-negligent manslaughter in the US. There were 60 executions.

The common good argument is that executing murderers would deter murder and save lives. But the death penalty opponents challenged the veracity of that assertion. Finally, the results of several recent university studies are available.

A series of academic studies over the last half-dozen years analyze the hotly debated argument — whether the death penalty acts as a deterrent to murder. The analyses say yes, counting between 3 and 18 lives that would be saved by the execution of each convicted killer.

One of the studies by Naci Mocan, an economics professor at the University of Colorado, found that each execution results in five fewer homicides, and commuting a death sentence means five more homicides. “The results are robust, they don't really go away,” he said. “I oppose the death penalty. But my results show that the death penalty (deters) — what am I going to do, hide them? The conclusion is there is a deterrent effect.”

Statistical studies like his are among a dozen papers since 2001 showing that capital punishment has deterrent effects. To explore the question, they look at executions and homicides, by year and by state or county, looking at the impact of the death penalty on homicides while accounting for other factors such as unemployment data, per capita income, the probabilities of arrest and conviction, and more.

Among the conclusions:

1. Each execution deters an average of 18 murders, according to a 2003 nationwide study by professors at Emory University.

2. The Illinois moratorium on executions in 2000 led to 150 additional homicides over four years following, according to a 2006 study by professors at the University of Houston.

3. Speeding up executions would strengthen the deterrent effect. For every 2.75 years cut from time spent on death row, one murder would be prevented, according to a 2004 study by an Emory University professor.

The reports have horrified death penalty opponents.

Steven Shavell, a professor at Harvard Law School and editor of the American Law and Economics Review, said that his journal intends to publish several articles on the statistical studies on deterrence in an upcoming issue.

The University of Chicago's Cass Sunstein, a well-known liberal law professor and critic of the death penalty, has begun to question his own strongly held views. “If it's the case that executing murderers prevents the execution of innocents by murderers, then the moral evaluation is not simple,” he told The Associated Press. “Abolitionists or others, like me, who are skeptical about the death penalty haven't given adequate consideration to the possibility that innocent life is saved by the death penalty.”

Moral philosophy says to look to the common good, in this case saving the lives of innocents. To ignore this would be immoral, and the sign of a scrambled mind.

Volunteerism in Palos Verdes

Last month I had the honor of speaking at a luncheon to say “Thank you” to the volunteers of the Palos Verdes Library. On a sunny day at the Los Verdes Country Club, the room was filled with most of the two-hundred-plus volunteers who give over two thousand hours a month to the Library and raise in excess of $250,000 yearly from the book sales and gift shop.

I mentioned that I’ve been reading a wonderful book by Seymour Martin Lipset called American Exceptionalism. When I looked over the sea of volunteers, I knew what Mr. Lipset was talking about.

Volunteerism is one of the traits that set Americans apart.

More than 80% of Americans belong to a volunteer organization and provide financial support. But even more amazing is the fact that 60% of Americans give their time to a volunteer organization. No other nation comes close.

Today I had the chance to thank the teen volunteers. They are a bright group of over 80 teens who work as computer docents, re-shelf books, do craft exercises with the little kids, raise money from the sale of home-made cookies, and do a host of other things that benefit the Library.

I asked one young lady what else she does besides homework and helping the Library and she said her senior project at PV High was helping Downs Syndrome kids with a form of music/dance therapy -- and her mom mentioned that she also volunteered over 1400 hours to the Assist-Teens organization during high school. These kids are not watching much television.

Speaking of that scourge on American society, the Culture and Media Institute just released the results of a new survey of television usage. The Media Assault on American Values report finds that 1) the public believes American values are in decline, 2) the public believes the media are contributing to this decline and 3) people who watch more television have more permissive attitudes about moral issues.

Strong majorities (74%) believe American values are weaker than they were 20 years ago and that the entertainment media have a negative influence on American values (73%).

The survey looked at attitudes and behaviors of heavy television viewers (four hours or more per evening) compared to light television viewers (one hour or less of TV per evening). Here are some interesting results:

1. Light TV users volunteer much more (73%) than heavy TV users (44%).

2. A majority (51%) of light TV viewers describe themselves as pro-life, compared to only 37% of heavy TV viewers.

3. Light TV viewers are more likely (47%) to attend church weekly, compared to just 28% of heavy viewers.

4. Heavy TV viewers are much more likely (64%) to believe the government should be responsible for providing retirement benefits to Americans, compared to only 43% of light TV viewers.

5. Heavy TV viewers prefer government health care to private health care (63%) compared to only 43% of light TV viewers.

From the Executive Summary of the report, written by Brian Fitzpatrick, Senior Editor, Culture and Media Institute:

“The most telling finding is that increased exposure to television correlates with a decline in acceptance of personal responsibility. According to the survey, the more hours people spend in front of the television, the less likely they are to accept personal responsibility for their own lives and for their obligations to the people around them. They are less likely to conduct themselves honestly, and they are more likely to hold permissive attitudes about moral issues like divorce, extramarital sex, homosexuality and abortion. They are less likely to honor Godly values and religion in public life.”

We need to remember that correlations do not necessarily imply cause and effect. It is possible that TV is contributing to the moral decline or it may be that immoral people tend to watch more TV. It’s probably some of both.

Parents would do well to turn off the TV and send their kids to the Library to study and volunteer. It’s a win-win-win situation.

Incompetence Incorporated

I’m always amazed when the mainstream media do something good for the country. Thus I have to give credit to CNN for hosting the Democrats debate on Sunday (moderated by Wolf Blitzer) and to the New York Times for publishing the entire transcript yesterday. It was a public service to expose the flock of incompetents running for president to the nation. Here are a few choice excerpts.

Senator Obama, you get the first question of the night. It has been nearly six years since 9/11. Since that time, we have not suffered any terrorist attacks on U.S. soil. Just yesterday, the FBI arrested three men for a terror plot at JFK Airport. Could it be that the Bush administration's effort to thwart terror at home has been a success?

SEN. OBAMA: No. Look, all of us are glad that we haven't had a terrorist attack since 9/11, and I think there are some things that the Bush administration has done well. But the fact of the matter is that we live in a more dangerous world, not a less dangerous world, partly as a consequence of this president's actions.

Senator Edwards, you said the war on terror is a bumper sticker, not a plan. With the news yesterday, this alleged plot at JFK which could have done supposedly horrendous damage and caused incredible number of casualties, do you believe the U.S. is not at war with terrorists?

SEN. EDWARDS: I reject this bumper sticker, Wolf. And that's exactly what it is, it's a bumper sticker.

Senator Clinton, do you agree with Senator Edwards that this war on terror is nothing more than a bumper sticker, at least the way it's been described?

SEN. CLINTON: No, I do not. And I believe we are safer than we were.

When Hillary is the most sensible person on the stage, well… but this was the only smart thing she said.

Sen. Biden, you are on the only person standing on this stage tonight to recently vote to continue funding the troops in Iraq. My question is this: why were Senators Obama, Clinton, Dodd and Congressman Kucinich wrong to vote against the funding?

SEN. BIDEN: I don't want to judge them. I mean, these are my friends.

Senator Clinton, do you regret voting to authorize the president to use force against Saddam Hussein in Iraq without actually reading the National Intelligence Estimate, the classified document laying out the best U.S. intelligence at that time?

SEN. CLINTON: Wolf, I was thoroughly briefed.

Governor Richardson, a question on immigration. Despite your doubts about the immigration bill that's now pending in the U.S. Senate, you support granting legal status to about 12 million people who have entered this country illegally. Why is this not an amnesty program?

GOV. RICHARDSON: I would not support legislation that divided families. I would not support legislation that builds a wall, a Berlin-type wall between two countries.

Senator Biden, you voted last year to support this immigration legislation, including the construction of a 700-mile fence along the border. Governor Richardson doesn't think there needs to be such a fence. Why is he wrong?

SEN. BIDEN: Well, he's not wrong. There doesn't need to be a 700-mile fence, but there does need -- look, we got to start as if we -- we all love this phrase, "Start talking truth to power." I voted for the fence related to drugs.

Candidates, I want you to raise your hand if you believe English should be the official language of the United States. The only hand I see is Senator Gravel.

SEN. OBAMA: This is the kind of question that is designed precisely to divide us.

SEN. CLINTON: The problem is that if it becomes official, instead of recognized as national, which indeed it is, if it becomes official, that means in a place like New York City you can't print ballots in any other language.

Senator Biden, there are still a lot of military commanders out there, including the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, who say keep the current policy. "Don't ask, don't tell" -- it would be demoralizing, it would be bad for military readiness to change that policy and let gays and lesbians serve openly in the U.S. military.

SEN. BIDEN: Peter Pace is flat wrong. I've been to Afghanistan, I've been to Iraq seven times, I've been in the Balkans, I've been in these foxholes with these kids, literally in bunkers with them. Let me tell you something, nobody asked anybody else whether they're gay in those holes -- those foxholes, number one. Number two, our allies -- the British, the French, all our major allies -- gays openly serve.

Our allies –- the French?

Senator Clinton, if you were president of the United States, the question is, what would you do with former President Bill Clinton?

SEN. CLINTON: This is a fascinating question. And when I become president, Bill Clinton, my dear husband (liar, liar, pants on fire) will be one of the people who will be sent around the world as a roving ambassador to make it very clear to the rest of the world that we're back to a policy of reaching out and working and trying to make friends and allies and stopping the alienation of the rest of the world.

Senator Dodd, gas prices are at record-high levels. Americans are frustrated. What would you do to reduce gas prices?

SEN. DODD: Well, this is a major crisis issue, obviously. Energy-related problems, obviously, are problems with global warming; the dependency on the Middle East for so much of our energy supplies. It's a national security issue. It's a health care issue. The problems are profound here and require some very strong answers. Today we have the solar -- polar caps, rather -- melting.

Rep. Kucinich, what would you do to rebuild the military, which seems to be pretty stretched right now?

REP. KUCINICH: Well, the first thing we need to do is cut -- first of all, there's a couple different dimensions to this. One is, we need to cut military spending overall by about 25 percent.

Senator Biden, you're the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. If you got word from the U.S. intelligence community that Ahmadinejad and his government were on the verge of having a nuclear bomb capable of hitting targets in the region on missiles, what would you do?

SEN. BIDEN: Blah, blah, blah.... blah, blah, blah... but at the end of the day, if they posed the missile, stuck it on a pad, I'd take it out.

Congressman Kucinich, if you were president of the United States and the intelligence community said to you, "We know where Osama bin Laden is, he's in Pakistan. We've got a specific target, but he's only going to be there for 20 minutes. You got to give the order, yes or no, to take him out with a HELLFIRE missile, but it's going to kill some innocent civilians at the same time," what would be your decision?

REP. KUCINICH: I don't think that a president of the United States, who believes in peace and who wants to create peace in the world, is going to be using assassination as a tool.

Candidates, please address the crisis in Darfur. At this time as many as 400,000 people have been killed, millions are without food and shelter. If you were elected president, what role do you think the United States should play in addressing this terrible tragedy?

SEN. BIDEN: You know, we have to stop talking about it. In fact, you have in the capital of Sudan the government saying we're not going to allow that to happen. They have forfeited their sovereignty by engaging in genocide. We should impose a no-fly zone. If the U.N. will not move now, we should impose a no-fly zone, and we should commit 25,000 NATO troops. You could take out the Janjawid tomorrow.

All right candidates, raise your hand if you agree with Senator Biden that the United States should use military force to stop the genocide in Darfur.

SEN. CLINTON: Are we talking about a no-fly zone?

SEN. OBAMA: (Inaudible) -- aren't going to work.

GOV. RICHARDSON: At the U.N.

MR. EDWARDS: If you're talking about American troops, I don't agree with that.

SEN. OBAMA: I don't want to raise hands anymore.

GOV. RICHARDSON: No. I got a very fragile cease-fire put together there three months ago, and we made things a little better. I went with the Save Darfur Coalition. This is what I would do. Number one, more U.N. peacekeepers. The government is refusing to make this happen.

SEN. BIDEN: In the meantime, 50,000 are dead.

SEN. DODD: But the idea that you'd go in and stop the Olympics from happening I don't think gets you there.

SEN. EDWARDS: America no longer has the moral authority to lead in the world. Watching a genocide continue has contributed to that, but it is not the only thing. The spread of HIV/AIDS. I think America ought to actually lead an effort to make primary school education available to 100 million children in the world who desperately need it, and including in Africa.

SEN. DODD: I'd like to know what my colleagues would feel about it.

SEN. OBAMA: You want us to raise our hands?

Could you actually vote for one of these bozos for president in the United States?