Fear is no Excuse There are two types of Christians voting for Trump. One kind loves Donald Trump and believes in him with all of their being. They like what he says, and they like how he sounds when he says it. These people are unreachable. They are either willfully ignorant of scripture and sound government policy, hopelessly gullible, or both. I’m not talking to them. The other type of Christian Trump voter are the ones who are holding their noses and voting for him because they believe that Hillary is worse. While I understand their reasoning, it is hopelessly misguided. Without exception, when I’ve encountered this type of Christian and presented them with a third-party alternative of good moral character who is a proven conservative and is more aligned with their values, they always respond the same way - “he has no chance of winning. If I vote for him, Hillary will win the election.” The current political reality would most likely vindicate that line of thinking, but is it a proper moral rationalization for voting for someone of non-existent moral character, who is perpetually mendacious, and is politically opportunistic? Absolutely not. I say that, confidently, because at the root of this rationalization is one thing, alone - FEAR, and I can prove it. Given the choice between Donald Trump and Evan McMullin, for example, and assuming that both have an equal chance to defeat Hillary Clinton, there are few (if any) of the nose-holding Christians who would choose Trump over McMullin. He is eminently more qualified; he is exceptionally more knowledgable, and he is head, shoulders, torso, and legs above Trump with respect to moral character. However, when you factor in current electablility, practically no one would make the same choice, because they are AFRAID of what will happen if not enough people vote as they do. Without throwing out a panoply of scriptures on the issue, it’s enough to remind my Christian brothers and sisters that God takes a very dim view of fear. He has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind - three things that cannot, in any way, be associated with a vote for Donald Trump. You’re being presented with a choice: you can vote for someone against whom your conscience and your reason have no indictment but who most likely will not win, or you can vote for a man who has a (slightly) better chance of winning but who is a witless, ignorant, misogynistic vulgarian who stands in opposition to every moral value you hold dear. If FEAR is keeping you from voting for the former, you must ask yourself if fear is a moral justification for violating your conscience. If you’re honest, you’ll agree that it is not. God doesn’t demand that we always win - only that we fight with honor and courage and leave the outcome to Him.

Molinism - Quick Example For Newman: Let’s use the example of Christ’s sacrifice to help flesh out some of the finer details of Molinism. God knew from the foundations of the Earth that because of man’s disobedience, a perfect sacrifice would be required to reconcile us back to Him. He also knew that Christ would be that perfect sacrifice. All these things were part of His plan for human beings. Christ would live and teach and be betrayed, but who would betray him? Certainly someone needed to. Who would give the authorization to kill him? God chose Judas and Pilate for these ignominious acts. According to the Calvinist, God moved Judas’ heart and caused him to betray Jesus and moved Pilate’s heart to have him killed. According to the Arminian, God allowed Judas to betray Jesus and Pilate to kill Him but didn’t necessarily ordain it. The problem with the Calvinist view is how can you hold a marionette morally responsible for a movement that the marionettist caused him to perform? The problem with the Arminian view is that it places man’s free will in a position to thwart God’s ultimate will. Sovereignty is destroyed. What if Judas had chosen otherwise? What if Pilate had heeded his wife’s warning? Molinism holds that God knows how each individual human being would FREELY choose, given any set of circumstances. As such, God, before Creation, looked at every possible world that He could possibly create and chose to instantiate the possible world in which His ultimate will could be realized. In the case of Judas and Pilate, God knew that if he had placed you, for instance, in first century Judea, as the Roman procurator, in the exact same circumstances in which Pilate found himself, you would have FREELY CHOSEN to dismiss the charges against Jesus and release Him, thwarting His plan of salvation. So, instead, God chose someone who, when placed in that precise moment in time and in those precise circumstances, would freely choose to wash his hands and turn Christ over to be killed. God has placed every human being in the exact time, place, and set of circumstances so that our FREE WILL choices will bring about His ultimate will. With Calvinism, God’s sovereignty overrides human free will. With Arminianism, God’s sovereignty is held hostage to man’s free will. With Molinism, God’s sovereignty works in concert with man’s free will.

Answering Keely’s Question… Keely asks: What evidence is there for the existence of God? What Evidence are We Looking For? When you ask about the evidence for God’s existence, the first question we have to ask is, “what evidence are we prepared to receive?” If you and I travel to an alien planet, and we find a million stones arranged in a perfect pyramid, even without seeing the cause, firsthand, or finding a plaque or having any idea who arranged them that way, we would quickly conclude that an intelligent agent was the cause. The pyramid, itself, would be the strongest evidence. In order to determine whether it occurred naturally or by intelligent design, there’s very little evidence we would require beyond our common intuition. If you’re looking for evidence that will grab you by your intellectual lapels and force you into belief, there is not such evidence – OF ANYTHING. Even with my pyramid example, anyone can simply assert there is no proof that an intelligent agent created the pyramid and continue their inquiry into purely naturalistic causes. Even in a murder case, there is no evidence that will force jurors into convicting or acquitting. Some evidence is more compelling than others, but since none of them were there when the murder was committed, they are taking the best evidence they have been presented, considering what is most plausible, and making the best judgment they can – but it’s still a leap of faith. What Caused the Universe? There are actually several good arguments for the existence of God, but I’ll take you down the path that makes the most sense to me. Let’s start from the assumption of agnosticism. We have no idea whether or not the universe was created, or what characteristics its creator may have. Consider the following argument: 1) Everything that begins to exist has a cause.

2) The universe began to exist.

3) Therefore, the universe has a cause. All the scientific and logical evidence points to the fact that the universe had a beginning 14 billion years ago. The universe is the sum total of all space, time, matter, and energy. Nothing can give itself what it doesn’t already possess, so the universe could not have created itself out of nothing. That would be absurd. Something outside of the universe had to bring it into existence. We have no idea what that “something” is – it could be a personal agent (with a will and intelligence) or it could be an impersonal set of forces or conditions. An Infinite Regress of Causes Your first objection may be, “sure, something created the universe, but maybe that something was created by something else, and that something was created by something else, and that something…” This is known as an “infinite regress of causes.” The problem with an infinite regress of causes is that it’s logically absurd. The first absurdity arises due to the fact that all of these causes in the chain are contingent beings – they must be given their existence by something else, but this is logically impossible. Think of existence like a gift that must be passed from giver to receiver. As long as someone has it, they can give it to someone else. But, if no one has the gift, no one will ever receive it. There has to be something that doesn’t need to receive existence from something else. There has to be something that has existence as part of its nature, and it is impossible for it NOT to exist. Plato and Aristotle called these things Necessary Beings. The second absurdity arises in the fact that you cannot have an actual infinite of anything. Think about it this way: can an infinite task ever be completed? Of course not. Not even if you had infinite time. Everytime you completed a step, you’d still have an infinite number of steps ahead of you. Imagine that the creation of the universe, 14 billion years ago, was the final step in an infinite chain. But that would be impossible. If you had an infinite number of causes leading to the creation of the universe, every time a cause came into being, you’d still have an infinite number of causes left to come into being before we got to our present universe. In order for our universe to exist, we would have had to traverse an infinite number of steps to get here. But we already concluded that an infinite task can never be completed, no matter how much time you have. So, the bottom line is, we cannot have an infinite regress of causes. The buck must stop somewhere. It must stop at a Necessary Being. Just based on logical deduction, here’s what we know about this Being – it is timeless (since it created time), it is spaceless (since it created space), it is immaterial (since it created matter and energy), and it is eternal (since it has existence as part of its nature). At this point, it doesn’t have to be a god. It could still be an impersonal set of forces or necessary conditions. Personal or Impersonal? I believe it to be a personal, intelligent agent. As an engineer who designs complex systems for a living, the impossibly complex design I see in the universe is enough for me, but there is another argument that I think is even more compelling. We already saw that the universe had a finite beginning 14 billion years ago. We’ve already logically deduced that whatever created the universe is a Necessary Being or set of impersonal conditions that has always existed and will always exist. However, postulating that this First Cause is merely an impersonal set of necessary conditions brings up a subtle problem. An eternal set of impersonal, necessary causes cannot exist apart from its finite, temporal effect. That sounds really complicated, but hang with me – I’ll give you an example. Let’s think about the formation of ice. For the sake of simplicity, let’s say that there are only two necessary conditions for the formation of ice: the existence of liquid water and a temperature below 32 degrees. Whenever you have those two necessary conditions present, you WILL have ice. Always. If you have those two conditions, eternally, then you have ice, eternally. You can never separate the two causes (water and temperature) from their effect (ice). These are impersonal conditions. They have no will or intelligence – they just ARE. Now, think about this message I’m typing. I am the efficient cause of this message, but I have been here since 1972, and this message has only existed for a few minutes. What’s the difference? I am not an impersonal set of necessary conditions – I am a personal, intelligent agent with the will to create this message whenever I choose. I (the cause) CAN be separated from the effect (this message), because I possess a will to delay the effect to a moment of my choosing. Since the universe has not always existed, but the First Cause of the universe has, logic leads me to the conclusion that this creator cannot simply be an impersonal set of necessary conditions. It MUST be a personal Creator with a will and intelligence. Which God? Though I don’t have time to get into a detailed discussion in this post, there are a number of logical arguments from natural theology that will help us discern the nature of this personal Creator (whether there’s one or many, whether it’s good or bad, etc.) However, the strongest evidence to me is the personal testimony of Jesus of Nazareth. His teachings were validated in his death and resurrection, which is not merely a Bible story, but has stronger historical evidence than many other historical events that we have no problem believing. Most people who disagree with the historicity of the resurrection do so on the basis of its miraculous nature. However, once we come to grips with the fact that there really is a personal Creator of the universe who is actively involved in the physical world, there is no good reason to dismiss the miraculous, a priori.



If you have other questions, I would be more than happy to do my best to answer them.



Jeremy

The Second Amendment: A Lesson in Grammar With a new baby and the chaos of the holidays, it’s been a few months since I posted anything, so to avoid a cramp, allow me to ease back into this thing with a quick missive. Thanks for reading. Here we go again. Taking Rahm Emanuel’s advice to never let a good crisis go to waste, liberals are spinning on their eyebrows and are engaged in a full-on assault against firearms, their owners, and the Second Amendment, itself. It doesn’t take a Constitutional historian or a gifted grammarian to understand the meaning and intent of the Second Amendment. Despite the fact that we have scads of external sources from the authors of the Bill of Rights on this very issue, we don’t have to go nearly that far in discerning their intent – it’s right there in the amendment, itself, if you understand the English language. Another progressive in my circle of acquaintances trotted out the militia argument, again, this week, and while I handily dispensed with his warped understanding of how our founders defined “militia” and “well-regulated” using the words of the founders, themselves, it occurred to me that answering this argument is really a waste of time. The fact is, the “well-regulated militia” clause is inconsequential to the “keep and bear arms” clause and actually places no requirements upon it. His argument was that, according to the Second Amendment, the use of arms should be restricted to those in a well regulated militia, but the actual text of the amendment and its structure do not bear this premise out. Let’s examine that text: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Looking purely at sentence structure, leaving all politics aside, the “well regulated militia” clause places no requirements upon the rest of the amendment. In other words, there is no reason to interpret the amendment in such a way that the major premise (the “keep and bear arms” clause) is predicated upon the “well regulated militia” clause, requiring the gun owner to be a part of an organized militia in order to exercise the enumerated right. The easiest way to see this point is to maintain the sentence structure but replace the subjects and objects with other terms and see how the sentence would be interpreted in other circumstances: “A full stomach, being necessary to the physical satiety of a free man, the right of the people to belly up to the buffet at Golden Corral shall not be infringed.” The question must be asked, “what if I don’t want a full stomach?” What if I simply want to drop $12 on a few yeast rolls from the bakery bar? What if I just want to meet my dad there for a cup of coffee? According to the gun-grabbers’ interpretation, I have no right to patronize “The Trough” (as my wife and I call it), unless I’m there to stuff myself. Is this a reasonable interpretation? “A well funded savings account, being necessary to the financial security of a free man, the right of the people to labor and save money shall not be infringed.” Again, does this sentence suggest that in order for me to retain the right to work and save money, I must be doing it for the sole purpose of funding my retirement account? Of course not. What if I want to eliminate accumulated debt? What if I want to buy a home? What if, God forbid, I wanted to purchase a Colt AR-15 carbine with a flat-top upper receiver, collapsible stock, Picatinny tactical rails, and an Aimpoint M68 Close Combat Optic? I wonder how liberals would interpret the following amendment, if it existed: “Having no more than two children in the home, being necessary to the positive mental state of a woman, the right of a woman to seek out and obtain an abortion shall not be infringed.” If we interpreted this sentence the way that liberals interpret the Second Amendment, only women who already had two children living at home would be entitled to have an abortion. Do we honestly believe that liberals would allow such an interpretation? It is clear from the structure of the Second Amendment that the founders, in the “well regulated militia” clause were listing, perhaps, one of the most important reasons as to why the right of the people to keep and bear arms should not be infringed. It strains credulity, however, to assert that the founders believed this to be the only qualifying reason for the people to keep and bear arms. Thomas Jefferson, in November of 1787, said that the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. I find it difficult to believe that he imagined a tyrant’s blood being shed by anything other than a firearm in the hands of a patriot.

Exploding the Myth of Marriage Equality Rights by Jeremy N. Choate Dan Cathy, son of Truett Cathy and CEO of Chick-Fil-A, created a firestorm of controversy, recently, by announcing that he believes marriage to be defined as the union between one man and one woman. Predictably, the oh-so tolerant left has fixed its cannons on Chick-Fil-A and is currently engaged in a boycott against “hateful chicken.” While I do not begrudge the individual American citizen the God-given right to vote with his wallet, I am extremely disturbed by the blatant First Amendment violations that are potentially at hand with mayors of large American cities threatening to use the power of government to interfere in the business plans of a company because of the personal views of its chief executive. I hope that Constitutional principles will prevail, but in these days of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, my faith in judicial review is admittedly shaken. One cannot turn on the television or peruse the internet, now, without being absolutely inundated with the language of marriage equality rights. Either the theories concerning the media echo chamber are correct, or someone is publishing daily talking points, since everyone on the left appears to be using this particular language. In fact, it was reported that the Democratic National Committee will announce marriage equality rights as an official plank of the Democratic Party platform at its convention in September. However, before declaring something as a foundational piece of one’s political dogma, it would help to ask if such a thing even exists. Brace yourselves for a shock. Homosexuals enjoy the exact same rights as every other American group. This seems a controversial statement on its face considering that homosexual marriage is not yet legally recognized by the majority of states in the union. To those driven more by passionate emotional appeals than by reason and logic, this statement seems patently, even offensively, incorrect, but this statement is logically airtight based on the definition of what constitutes a right and based on the absurdities that arise when we carry the negation of that statement to its logical conclusion. When I say that homosexuals enjoy the exact same rights as every other American group, I am actively denouncing the manifestly incorrect allegation that there is a ban on homosexual marriage. The truth is, if two homosexual people wish to engage in casual sex with one another, they have the same right to do so as any heterosexual couple; if two homosexual people wish to enter into a long-term, cohabitative relationship, they enjoy the same right to do so as two heterosexual people; moreover, if two homosexual people wish to be married, they have the same right as two heterosexual people to find a minister to consecrate their union and live happily ever after. The only so-called right of which homosexuals are denied is the legal recognition of that union by the state, but the shocking truth is, such a thing can never be construed as a right. This argument does have, perhaps, an unexpected consequence - it nullifies the belief that heterosexuals enjoy a right that homosexuals do not. By the definition of a right, heterosexuals do not have a right to have their marriages recognized, either. While most states have chosen to recognize the union between one man and one woman as the only legal definition of marriage, that recognition is not a right to which heterosexuals are naturally entitled. If the state of Georgia chose to end the legal recognition of all marital unions, which is the position of many libertarians, my marriage to my wife would be unaffected, and none of my rights would be stripped from me in their decision. If that’s true for the scenario where legal recognition is suddenly ended, it is certainly true for the scenario where legal recognition is never given. Next, there is a profound paradox that arises by achieving legal recognition of homosexual marriage by asserting marriage equality rights. In doing so, homosexuals become part of the privileged group whose sexual unions are legally recognized by the state. At that point, it becomes hypocritical and intellectually dishonest to deny the same right to all other alternative unions that may assert their right to be recognized, as well. After all, what would be the limiting principle that would justify the denial of recognition for a brother and sister, a man and two women, two men and one woman, two men and two women, etc., etc., etc.? What would the argument be to prevent them from having their unions recognized, as well? Regardless of one’s position on the issue of marriage, states choose to recognize certain familial configurations in order to promote the health of society within that state. The debate rages on as to whether families with homosexual parents produce children who are as healthy and well-adjusted as those from traditional, heterosexual couples, and future study will undoubtedly bear this question out. Until that happens, the majority of states have determined that highest probability of producing healthy, productive citizens occurs in a family where one man and one woman are the head. Those who support homosexual marriage are absolutely welcome to persuade them otherwise, but appealing to the nonexistent notion of marriage equality rights is ignorant at best and deceitfully manipulative at worst. Author’s Note: I recognize that this is a controversial and emotional issue, but it can be discussed rationally and without vitriol. I welcome a healthy discussion, but I will not tolerate personal attacks. The comments section is moderated by me, and those commenters who resort to ad hominem attacks instead of addressing the arguments, themselves, will be summarily blacklisted. Consider yourself duly notified. Thank you.

Inside the Mind of a Left-Wing Hoplophobe by Jeremy N. Choate

In his 1962 book, To Ride, Shoot Straight, and Speak the Truth, author and Marine Colonel John Dean “Jeff” Cooper coined the term “hoplophobia” to describe a condition “characterized by an irrational aversion to weapons.” While this is not a recognized medical definition, one cannot deny that such a condition exists as a continuum within the minds of many people, especially those on the political left. With all the tumult over the alleged ubiquity of “assault rifles”, high-capacity magazines, and armor piercing cop-killer rounds, the irrational aversion to weapons by the left is once again on full display – or at least that’s how it would appear. Though I greatly admire Colonel Cooper’s contribution to the dialogue and have often been tempted to hurl the term at opponents of the Second Amendment, myself, I have discovered that the term actually applies to far fewer people than I first imagined. While there are certainly people who have an irrational fear of weapons, I have found that the vast majority of Second Amendment opponents have less fear of the weapon, itself, and more fear of the person wielding it. This seems counterintuitive when one considers that most arguments over the Second Amendment consist of the anti-gunner vastly ignoring the killer himself and calling for the banning of some or all types of firearms. The pro-gunner rightly responds, employing the phrase, “Guns don’t kill people; people do.” However, if you pay close attention to the anti-gunner’s argument, you’ll discover that it’s rare for them to actually call for the elimination of weapons, altogether. Instead, you often find them merely wanting to restrict or eliminate access to them by their fellow citizens while enthusiastically heralding a world where only authorized agents of the state are allowed to carry. In light of this observation, I would like to coin a new term: hoplosynanthropophobia – fear of one’s armed neighbor (fellow man). While I have no illusions that my term will ever make the cut at Funk and Wagnall’s, I think it accurately describes the phenomenon that we have witnessed in recent days. The source of this hoplosynanthropophobia is certainly open to speculation, but one cannot help but wonder, especially when perusing the social media rantings of those closer to the far side of the issue, if a type of elitism lies at its root. Take for example, a tweet from conservative author and contributing editor of Newsweek and The Daily Beast, David Frum: For those unfamiliar with the Thurber novel, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, or the Danny Kaye film of the same title, Walter Mitty is a hapless and ineffectual man who often gets lost in fantastic daydreams of personal glory while remaining a cowering buffoon in reality. While Frum claims to be a supporter of the Second Amendment, is this truly how he views his fellow conservatives? Are those of us who are in favor of more privately owned weapons simply daydreamers – impotent little people who are caught up in our own pathetic heroic fantasies? In truth, this characterization is fairly mild compared to some of the epithets that have been slung at those who desire only to preserve their ability to defend themselves, their families, and those around them – even defending the people who despise and ridicule them for it. One doesn’t have to go very far to see gun owners and Second Amendment proponents referred to as hicks, rednecks, knuckle-draggers, and Neanderthals or to see the size of their wedding tackle being called into question. I can see no other foundation for such smug self-righteousness and condescension apart from blind fear and prejudice. Bill Moyers, in his anti-gun missive on Monday, said: “We are after all a country which began with the forced subjugation into slavery of millions of Africans and the reliance on arms against Native Americans for its Westward expansion. In truth, more settlers traveling the Oregon Trail died from accidental, self-inflicted gunshots wounds than Indian attacks - we were not only bloodthirsty but also inept.” Take note, budding journalists – that’s the way you win hearts and minds. Insult your audience by irresponsibly associating them with the sins and blunders of the distant past. In his morally-superior judgment of our apparent gun fetish, he has revealed his apprehension of his fellow American to be that of Joseph Conrad’s Mr. Kurtz and Homer Simpson, all rolled into one. On a side note, I’m not certain where Mr. Moyers obtained his historical data since author and historian John D. Unruh, in his book, The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and Trans-Mississippi West, 1840–1860, lists accidental shootings as a very minor contributor (2% - 5%, generously) to the overall death toll, far below the top two causes – disease and Indian attack. Either Mr. Moyers is being intentionally dishonest, or he is playing fast and loose with the facts. Besides, he is aware that the events of the Oregon Trail happened almost 200 years ago, isn’t he? We’ve come a long way since 1843 – we’ve got automobiles, fancy flying machines, and I’m wagering that he wrote his mendacious screed on one of those new-fangled computers. Considering that we have an estimated 270 million privately-owned firearms in the United States, if gun owners were nearly as “bloodthirsty” and “inept” as Mr. Moyers would have us believe, the laws of probability assure us that we would have a 21st century holocaust on our hands and an awful lot of guys nicknamed, “Stumpy.” It is difficult for the proponent of the individual right to keep and bear arms to understand how any person would wish to outsource their own personal safety to another human being and surrender their right to defend themselves. Law enforcement officers are sheepdogs, standing in defiance of the wolves, but they cannot be everywhere at all times, nor would we want them to be. However, when you delve into the mind of the hoplosynanthropophobe, you encounter two very powerful emotions – denial and crippling fear. While they fire off impassioned epistles about predators using fearsome-looking weapons to destroy the lives of scores of innocent people, they live in abject denial that such a thing could ever happen to them. When their fellow citizens speak of arming themselves in anticipation of such an event, it challenges the false sense of security that their denial has provided, and they lash out in fear. They then fall back on the unjustified gun-toter stereotypes they’ve constructed and gleefully use them to validate their fear. The most fundamental right that all human beings have is the right to protect themselves and their loved ones from those who would seek to destroy them. Conversely, human beings also have the right to waive that privilege, for whatever reason, if they so choose. However, what we cannot do is force another human being to surrender his right to self-defense simply because we are uncomfortable with the possibility that a dangerous weapon might be in our midst. For you hoplosynanthropophobes out there, be a sheep, if you like, but don’t expect the sheepdogs of society to put on a wool coat and join you. You can label gun-owners as Walter Mittys, rednecks, or Neanderthals until your self-importance meter is pegged out, but as civil trial attorney and author Kurt Schlicter advised one of Frum’s Twitter minions, make sure you wait to do it until after they’ve saved your life.

An Open Letter to Jason Alexander by Jeremy N. Choate In response to Today’s Tweet. Before I begin, let me respectfully submit that I believe you to be an extremely talented performer, and I still find myself stopping to watch episodes of “Seinfeld”, regardless of whatever else may be on television at the time. While I admire your passion on this subject, I believe you are misguided in a few areas, and I hope this letter will address some of those ideas. Now, I started to write a lengthy and detailed response to your tweet, but as I wrote, I was dogged by the constant thought that very little of what I was writing (or what you wrote, frankly), gets to the heart of this issue. I won’t bother getting into a detailed rebuttal of your thoughts concerning the intent of the Founding Fathers with respect to the Second Amendment, since smarter men than both of us have exhausted this topic. Let me say only that your “militia-only” interpretation is roundly rejected by most Constitutional scholars, and it doesn’t require a law degree to recognize the speciousness of your argument. Simply put, there are scores of quotes from the Founding Fathers concerning the necessity of individual ownership of arms, completely separate from their function in a well-regulated militia. Furthermore, and most importantly, if the Second Amendment is reserved only to government-approved militia groups, then it is the ONLY right listed in the Bill of Rights that is not an individual right. For that reason alone, it is incredibly dangerous to cast doubt on the individual nature of ANY of the rights listed in the Bill of Rights - even the dreaded Second Amendment. I found it interesting that you chose to single out “assault rifles” to receive the brunt of your wrath. I have no particular affinity for assault rifles and have no interest in defending assault rifles against their, in my opinion, undeserved infamy. As a firearms expert and former Reconnaissance Marine, I can assure you that I am more deadly with my Glock 32 and its ten-round capacity than the average citizen is with the fearful AR-15 and a 30-round magazine - especially under the circumstances and at the ranges that the Aurora shooter encountered. As such, even if those who feel as you do are successful at banning the possession of so-called assault rifles, my ability to defend myself will not be hindered in any way, whatsoever. As an engaged citizen, I’m sure you are aware that thirteen innocent people were killed during the Columbine massacre - one more than in Aurora. Were you also aware that almost three times as many innocent people were killed at Virginia Tech as in Aurora? Did you further know that none of the killers involved in those massacres used assault rifles? Harris and Klebold destroyed 13 lives (not including their own) using two 9mm handguns and two 12-gauge shotguns. Seung-Hui Cho callously murdered 32 people using only a .22 caliber Walther P22 and a 9mm Glock 19. Why do I bring this up? It’s not to exonerate assault rifles; it’s to illustrate the fact that your tweet is a misdirected reaction to an event about which you should rightfully be enraged. The issue is not about the type of weapon James E. Holmes used to end the lives of so many innocent people, and a focus on such an irrelevant issue distracts us from real solutions to the problem. Obviously, the common thread between Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Aurora is NOT the type of weapons the predators used. The common thread was the viciousness of the predators and the helplessness of their prey. In each case, the victims were found in situations where the lawful possession of firearms was prohibited, and these law-abiding victims were the only ones observing the rule. It is natural, at a time like this, to bemoan the existence of firearms, but we may just as well bemoan the existence of Great White Sharks, mosquitoes, and personal injury lawyers. In all the aforementioned cases, all those things exist and will continue to exist for the foreseeable future. It is folly for us to believe that more laws and gun bans will somehow cause all weapons to disappear from our society. Even if we could accomplish the Herculean (and tyrannical) task of confiscating ALL firearms from all 300 million of us, are we naive enough to believe that the possibility of gun violence will be eliminated? I’m sure that you are intelligent enough to deduce the ways in which firearms will find their way back into the hands of those with the highest proclivity for criminal violence. Besides, if a predator has no respect for laws that forbid the cold-blooded murder of another human being, what makes you so confident that he will respect yet another law against the possession of certain types of firearms? Mr. Alexander, there are wolves among us. Pulling the teeth of the sheepdogs will do nothing to protect the sheep. Statistics show that we live in a very violent society, but the violence we see has nothing to do with the implements used to achieve that violence. Until we can transform our society into one that has more respect for human life and human dignity, the best we can do is allow the sheepdogs among us to stand in defiance of the wolves. We’ll never be able to do that if every time a wolf steals a sheep, we de-fang the dog.

What Will You Do When the Wolf Comes? by Jeremy N. Choate Like most of you, I’ve been consuming most any news that I can find concerning the horrible tragedy that befell movie-goers on Thursday night in Colorado. Imagine my surprise that out of all the Aurora Theater shooting survivors they could have interviewed, CNN sought out 25-year old Jamie Rohrs and his fiancee’ Patricia Legaretta. For the ever-increasing millions and millions of you who never, ever watch CNN, a simple Google search will reveal to you that Jamie Rohrs is the “brave” young man who, when the shooting started and he became separated from his then-girlfriend, Patricia, their four-month old son, and their four-year old daughter, he left the theater, drove to the mall across the street, and spent the rest of the crisis frantically calling Patricia’s cellphone. Once they were reunited at the hospital, he suddenly felt the urge to propose to Patricia, knowing now that she must be the one, after her brave efforts in rescuing their children through the hail of teargas and gunfire. She happily accepted his proposal. Well good. At least we can now rest assured that a horrible tragedy will never befall young Jamie as long as Patricia is around. Please reassure me that this is not the generation that is succeeding us. When the Virginia Tech massacre occurred, I was lambasted roundly by the more “open-minded” among us for my vehement denunciation of the 18-22 year old “men” who were leaping out of classroom windows, leaving the young women inside at the mercy of the lunatic, Seung-Hui Cho. While these able-bodied young men were scrambling for safety, the hero who stayed behind and shielded them from the gunman was 76-year old engineering professor and Holocaust survivor, Liviu Librescu, who died protecting those in his charge. I imagine that the parents of the young men who made it out of that Virginia Tech classroom were just thankful that their sons were not counted among the dozens of other young men and women that were ruthlessly gunned down by Cho. I wonder, though, if the joy and relief that any of them felt was tempered by a sense of shame when they discovered that the young men they raised thought only of their own safety while so many of their weaker classmates were being callously murdered. I wonder if any of them asked their sons why they didn’t do more protect their peers. My guess is, that thought never crossed their minds. In a speech to the midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy in 1997, Dr. William J. Bennett said: Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always,even death itself. The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for? Are we raising young men, today, who have no concept of honor? Are we rearing a generation who believes that self-preservation is the noblest of virtues and that death is the greatest evil that we face? If so, then we should all fear for the future of our society. In his paper entitled, On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman explains that there are three types of human creatures in the world. The vast majority of human creatures are sheep – gentle, productive souls who only harm each other, unintentionally. Some human creatures among us are wolves – violent predators who prey on the sheep, knowing that they are defenseless to resist. Finally, there are sheepdogs. Noble men and women who stand in defiance of the wolves and protect the flock, even in the face of their own death. There are few among us who would covet the title of “sheep”. The vast majority of us would like to believe that we are sheepdogs who would aggressively protect ourselves and those around us. The sad reality, however, is that the vast majority of us are sheep, and when the wolf comes, we will act as Jamie Rohrs and the young men at Virginia Tech did. As LTC Grossman explained, the literal sheep, wolf, and sheepdog are powerless to change what they are. God created a sheep to be a sheep, and he’ll never be any other type of animal, but as humans, we have the ability to choose which type of figurative creature we will be. We are not destined to live our lives as sheep if we so choose. What enables us to become a sheepdog or even a wolf? When the Virginia Tech massacre occurred, and I was criticizing the young men who abandoned their peers, I was met with howls of, “you cannot judge these young men, because you wouldn’t know what you’d do unless you were in such a position, yourself!” Without realizing it, those who leveled this charge against me, were sealing their destiny as eternal sheep. The only thing that is required to make the transformation from sheep to sheepdog is the will to do so and the daily decision to be one, when the wolf comes. As Reconnaissance Marines, we lived with the daily realization that we might be placed in situations where we would be required to defend ourselves and our fellow Marines. All of us volunteered for such an assignment, so all of us had made the decision to be sheepdogs. To reinforce this decision, we trained constantly to survive in potentially life-threatening situations, even going so far as to visualize hostile encounters and rehearse, in our minds, what we would do in such a circumstance. The reason the Marine Corps trained us this way is because it is human nature, in crisis situations, to fall back on the training, mindset, and character that you developed in the times of non-crisis. If your mindset, with regard to crisis, is “you don’t know what you’d do unless you were presented with that situation”, that’s exactly how you will respond. You will have no idea how to react, because you will have built no productive mindset to fall back to. You will have developed a “wait and see” mindset, and when you are paralyzed by fear, you will either run from danger or curl up in a fetal position and wait for someone else to rescue you – or to kill you. If, however, you decide that you will be a sheepdog – that you will comport yourself with courage and honor in the time of trial – chances are much greater that you will follow through when the time of testing arrives. Rehearse crisis situations in your mind. When you hear about the events in Aurora, ask yourself how you would’ve responded, and see yourself taking action. Train yourself, physically, as well. Stay physically fit in anticipation of the wolf’s arrival. If you are in a state that permits you to carry a concealed weapon, apply tomorrow, purchase a weapon, and train yourself in its use. Take a self-defense class. Most importantly, come to terms with the fact that sheepdogs sometimes die, but that it is far more honorable to die as a sheepdog in battle with a wolf than it is to die as a defenseless sheep, only to be eaten and forgotten. Some may ridicule and deride you for making this decision. However, they are living in denial, and you will be the one they hide behind when the wolf comes – and he will.

A Crucial Law of the Universe: Conservation of Joy by Jeremy N. Choate When I was in engineering school, one of my favorite professors, the late Dr. Clayton Paul, had a clever phrase that he used on a seemingly daily basis – he often spoke of a notion he called “Conservation of Joy.” It was his own concise expression of the common sense law of the universe that says “there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” Every good thing comes at a price, because, like it or not, we live in a finite universe with finite resources. A old friend of mine with whom I haven’t spoken in over 20 years rang me up, today. As is often the case with friends, we picked back up in conversation as if there was no gulf of time since the last time we spoke. In fact, the resumption of our friendship was so immediate that within literally five minutes, we were discussing politics. The direction of our conversation should actually come as no surprise to me, since he was calling to discuss the answer I gave to a Facebook question he posed concerning Obamacare. It was a very pleasant exchange, but because I was still at work, it was all too brief. I hope, in this blog post, to expound on a recurring theme in my discussion with him – this theme of Conservation of Joy. My friend is a good, ol’ boy. He is every bit as pragmatic as I am ideological, and that makes for an interesting exchange of ideas. He admits that, on a purely practical level and as he understands it, he sees little wrong with the idea of Obamacare (or, ultimately, a single-payer healthcare system) as long as it solves the problems it aims to address. He simply wishes to see improvements made to our current system of healthcare delivery and is much less concerned with the ideological issues that such an arrangement might present. There is certainly something admirable in such a no-nonsense, solutions-oriented mindset, and he and I share many common concerns. However, the question that kept arising during our conversation was, “At what cost?” It was the interrogative form of Dr. Paul’s law. In my current re-reading of Hayek’s, The Road to Serfdom , I’m reminded that neither conservatives nor progressives are ignorant of or apathetic toward the societal issues we face – our differences lie in the methods by which we propose to address these issues. Conservatives and libertarians believe that the solutions lie in personal liberty and the free market, while progressives believe that more government intervention is the answer. It seems to me that conservatives and libertarians are keenly aware, even vigilantly aware, of the question, “at what cost?”, while progressives are blissfully and willfully ignorant of such a crass and pedestrian concern. It is a critically important question and is one we employ in our personal and professional lives on a daily basis; we ignore this consideration at our own peril. While I am a Constitutional originalist who believes that the powers of the federal government are few and specifically enumerated, I recognize that am becoming a very frustrated minority. I and my fellow originalists are persuaded that many, many things that the federal government does or seeks to do are misguided, purely on the basis that they are not enumerated in the Constitution. Unfortunately, thanks to a lessened emphasis on critical thinking and civics in public education, very few of our fellow citizens (or officials in our government) are similarly persuaded. While I will continue to carry the banner of Constitutional originalism, I am forced to appeal to other more practical means of inducement in order to change the minds of those on the fence. One of those means is reinforcing the notion of Conservation of Joy and constantly asking the question, “at what cost?” In our lives, there are innumerable goods that we could pursue – good health, good food, a good education, a better car, a bigger house, a closer relationship with our spouse, a higher income, etc., etc. In America, we still have the freedom to vigorously pursue and attain any of these things and more, and the American dream isn’t any one of these singular items; it is the freedom and opportunity that we have to engage in the pursuit of any or all of them, knowing that even with a focused and zealous chase, there are no guarantees, and that all of them come at a price. The progressive is intent on creating a society where as many positive outcomes for as many people are guaranteed as possible. While Platonists through the ages have striven to establish this utopian ideal, their efforts have always been thwarted by Paul’s Law. The greater the joy, the greater the price. Utopians foolishly believe that, simply by force of will, we can achieve greater joys without paying a greater price. Quite often, when we consider pursuing a good, we decide that the price is too high, and we choose to postpone or abandon our pursuit, altogether. This price doesn’t always express itself in the form of money but in time, effort, and sacrifice. While I would love to have my MBA, at the present time, the financial cost and time commitment are prohibitive, and I have postponed my dream, for the time being. If we cannot escape Paul’s law in our individual lives, what makes us so naive as to think that we are less bound to it in our collective lives (society)? We live in the most prosperous nation in the world; because of this distinction and due to our can-do attitude, many Americans suffer under the delusion that we, as a society, can do absolutely anything that we can imagine. This is a pipe-dream, and a sense of hard, cold reality is needed now more than ever. Think about this question: if you could be guaranteed a long, healthy and vibrant life, would you accept it? Only a fool would refuse such an offer. What if the guarantee came at the cost of your eyesight? Suddenly, the choice is not so clear. What if someone approached you on the street and offered you $100 million, would you accept it? Chances are, because you are unconsciously aware of Paul’s Law, you’d be wary of the offer and would demand to know “the catch.” What if the price was both your legs? Many of the societal issues that we are facing evoke similar conundra. If you had the power to, with the stroke of a pen, extend health care to every single American citizen, would you do it? Unless you are some sort of misanthrope, the answer is obviously yes. However, knowing that Paul’s Law is inescapable, what if you were relatively certain that such a decision would decrease economic freedom, place an excessive tax burden on the producers of the nation, dramatically lessen the quality of care, drastically increase wait times, and lead to care rationing, would you still do it? What sort of price are you willing to pay? What if you had the power to force health insurers to cover people with preexisting conditions, would you? Knowing that, in the real world, joy is conserved, you recognize that there will be a price to pay. What if the price was higher insurance premiums due to adverse selection, a loss of fairness to the industry, and most disturbingly, the loss of freedom that results from the federal government forcing a private enterprise to take actions that have a direct and negative effect on their profitability at best and their survivability at worst. After all, if the government can dictate how health insurers will conduct their business, what is the limiting principle that would prevent them from dictating how you conduct yours? Is that a price you’d be willing to pay? What if, in your desire to reduce or eliminate the number of gun deaths, you had the power to outlaw all firearms with a single decree? Would you? Paul’s Law will apply, and the cost would inevitably be a higher number of violent encounters with predators who choose to ignore the law and a robust black market for weapons. Does that change your mind? Sadly, the Constitution has become not merely an afterthought to the modern progressive but also a nuisance and an obstacle to be overcome in their utopian pursuits. No longer can we rely on our Congressmen and Senators to protect us by voting against unconstitutional proposals. No longer can we rely on our Presidents to protect us by vetoing them. No longer can we rely on our judicial branch to protect us by striking them down. We can certainly choose to become angry and complacent and surrender our nation to the shallow thinkers on the left, but as Dr. Paul always reminded us, joy will be conserved. We can be comfortable and choose to keep our mouths shut, but the question that should always haunt us is: “At what cost?”