Tomorrow morning at the UN press briefing room, internationally recognized scholar Professor Robert George of Princeton and former US Ambassador Grover Joseph Rees will challenge claims made by UN personnel and others that there exists an international right to abortion in international law.

As recently as a few weeks ago the UN Special Rapporteur on Health, the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Secretary General have all said such a right exists. And, according to Human Rights Watch the CEDAW Committee has directed 93 countries to change their laws on abortion.

Professor George, Ambassador Rees and 30 other international experts are releasing the San Jose Articles to refute these claims and to assert the rights of the unborn child in international law.

Other signatories to the Articles include Professor John Finnis of Oxford, Professor John Haldane of the University of St. Andrews, Francisco Tatad, the former majority leader of the Philippine Senate, Javier Borrego, former Judge of the European Court of Human Rights, and Professor Carter Snead of UNESCO’s international committee on bioethics.

“The San Jose Articles were drafted by a large group of experts in law, medicine, and public policy. The Articles will support and assist those around the world who are coming under pressure from UN personnel and others who say falsely that governments are required by international law to repeal domestic laws protecting human beings in the embryonic and fetal stages of development against the violence of abortion” said Professor George.

Ambassador Grover Joseph Rees, former US Ambassador to East Timor, said, “When I was in Timor I witnessed first-hand a sustained effort by some international civil servants and representatives of foreign NGOs to bully a small developing country into repealing its pro-life laws. The problem is that people on the ground, even government officials, have little with which to refute the extravagant claim that abortion is an internationally recognized human right. The San Jose Articles are intended to help them fight back.”

International efforts to legalize abortion-on-demand has been going on for many years. Planned Parenthood International has been among those lobbying the United Nations since its existence. The goods and services provided by abortion providers like Planned Parenthoods amount to a multi-billion dollar enterprise. Sadly, the United States gives billions of tax payers dollars to such organizations though the USAID program.

Dr. Ligaya Acosta is right: If the billions given by the United States to promote abortion in Asia and throughout the world were used to actually help the poor, there would be no more poverty in the world.

The most recent effort to legalize abortion came from the U.N. Secretariat. In a Human Rights Council policy statement, the Secretariat seeks to make abortion as a unfettered global health right. If adopted, all members nations will be obligated to decriminalize their abortion-related laws. Doing so will enable organizations like Planned Parenthood to sell their goods and abortion-on-demand services without legal hindrance.

Here is the worst example of the bureaucratically instituted form of free enterprise.

Among those expected to participate in the U.N presentation this week are Robert George of Princeton University, Ambassador Grover Rees (Ret.), and Austin Ruse of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute.

(For more information about the U.N. policy report, read C-FAM article titled “UN Official Says Abortion is a Human Right, Secretary General Endorses Report”, visit the blog Turtle Bay, and/or read the UN Report .)

News of Nadler’s plan to introduce the Respect for Marriage Act broke late last week, but ABC, CBS and NBC all failed to report this latest push for forced acceptance of same-sex marriage. Although the health care reform debate has gobbled up media attention for weeks, the networks’ silence on the fundamental issue of how the federal government defines marriage is odd.

Nadler’s bill would overturn the 1996 law signed by President Bill Clinton that defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

A September 15 press release issued by Nadler’s office claimed the bill has 91 original co-sponsors. Nadler stated in the release, “With a President who is committed to repealing DOMA and a broad, diverse coalition of Americans on our side, we now have a real opportunity to remove from the books this obnoxious and ugly law.”

Not all Democrats agreed with Nadler. The Washington Blade reported on September 11 that Rep. Barney Frank, an openly gay Democrat from Massachusetts is not supporting Nadler’s effort to overturn DOMA. “It’s not anything that’s achievable in the near term,” Frank said. The New York Times reported September 15 that Speaker Nancy Pelosi “also indicated this year that repealing the law would not be a top priority.”

ABC, CBS and NBC failed to take interest in the story, even with the added twist of intra-party (and even intra-administration) division over the bill. None of the networks have discussed this issue since President Obama’s inauguration, despite his repeated calls during the 2008 campaign to repeal DOMA and despite a 54-page brief filed in support of DOMA by his Justice Department in June.

The brief, filed in the California case Smelt v. United States that challenged DOMA, outraged gay rights activists because, as reported by the Washington Post, it “appeared to equate same-sex marriage with incest and pedophilia” and the lawyers referred to marriage between a man and a woman as “the traditional and universally recognized form.”

Importance of DOMA

DOMA did not simply define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. It banned the federal recognition of same-sex marriages. It also protects states from being forced to recognize same-sex marriages that took place in other states.

“DOMA is the only federal law that protects marriage as the union of husband and wife, and guarantees voters in Georgia or Wisconsin that a handful of judges in Massachusetts will not be able to impose gay marriage on their state,” noted Maggie Gallagher, president and founder of the National Organization for Marriage.

Bryan Fischer, director of Issues Analysis for the American Family Association, focused his criticism of Nadler’s efforts on the issue of states’ rights.

“People in state after state have made it clear that they do not want either Congress or activist judges tampering with the time-honored institution of marriage,” he stated in a September 15 press release. “People who care about the institution of marriage and care about their own state’s Tenth Amendment right to decide this issue for themselves should be outraged at this frontal assault on the cornerstone of American society and on the democratic process itself.”

Not Ignored in Print

While the networks have ignored DOMA, the editorial boards of The Washington Post and The New York Times urged the administration to overturn the law as soon as possible.

The Justice Department brief filed in June that supported DOMA inspired the Times’ Frank Rich to write on June 28, “Obama’s inaction on gay civil rights is striking. So is his utterly uncharacteristic inarticulateness. The Justice Department brief defending DOMA has spoken louder for this president than any of his own words on the subject.”

James Kirchick, assistant editor of the New Republic and a contributing writer to the Advocate, questioned Obama’s commitment to same-sex marriage. “When it comes to same-sex marriage, the movement can’t count on support from the current president,” Kirchick wrote. “Obama’s stance on gay marriage is virtually indistinguishable from that of John McCain,” he later charged.

The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart gave Obama more cover in his June 21 editorial. “The first substantive comment on gay and lesbian equality since he took office was the Justice Department’s noxious brief in Arthur Smelt and Christopher Hammer v United States of America, and it fueled suspicion that the president was backpedaling on his promises.” Capehart later urged gays and lesbians to look to Congress to achieve their “big victories, such as the repeal of DOMA and the ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy.”

On August 18, the Post reported that “the Obama administration distanced itself” from the Justice Department’s June brief regarding DOMA.

A follow-up brief filed August 17 in the Smelt v. United States case did not contain the language that had inflamed gay rights activists. But as reported by the Post, “Senior trial counsel W. Scott Simpson embraced findings by researchers and prominent medical groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association, in saying ‘that children raised by gay and lesbian parents are as likely to be well-adjusted as children raised by heterosexual parents.”

DOMA, the administration’s defense of it and the subsequent backing away from the defense, were not discussed on ABC, CBS, or NBC..

The networks habitually refused to cover DOMA-related news, as indicated by this year’s lack of coverage and also their refusal to report Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s firm 2008 statement of support for the repeal of DOMA.

This of course, is not to say that the networks refuse to cover news related to gay rights. Networks promoted same-sex marriage through the constant airing of Prop 8 protest footage in the days following the 2008 election.

Networks’ Disservice

ABC, CBS and NBC committed a grave disservice to the American public by refusing to cover the issue of DOMA. The repeal of such a law has serious implications for society and culture.

Networks repeatedly proved their liberal bias. But at least in that, viewers knew something occurred and had the opportunity to seek out supplemental information. In the case of DOMA, viewers most likely haven’t realized the very definition of traditional marriage is at stake.

By Colleen Raezler, Culture & Media Institute

Source: Culture Links e-Newsletter, September 15, 2009

* Provide health insurance coverage for all Americans.

* Enact insurance market reform that expands choice of affordable coverage and eliminates denials for preexisting conditions.

* Assure that health care decisions are made by patients and their physicians, not by insurance companies or government officials.

* Provide investments and incentives for quality improvement, prevention and wellness initiatives.

* Repeal the Medicare physician payment formula that will trigger steep cuts and threaten seniors’ access to care.

* Implement medical liability reforms to reduce the cost of defensive medicine.

* Streamline and standardize insurance claims-processing requirements to eliminate unnecessary costs and administrative burdens.

Several implications stand out in the above points:

1) The lack of any special interest issues like the public option, i.e. guaranteed provision for tax-paid abortions, demonstrates its appeal to the general public.

2) Its lack of “granny killing” statement doesn’t mean they don’t approve of it. The most said about counseling the elderly toward an early death (“granny killing, death committees, etc.) is that criticism of it is sad or dishonest. All politicians and abortionists say much the same about any criticism of their agendas.

3) Nevertheless, if the above were the extent of the federal heath care reform, the general public would support it. The proposal bureaucratic reform is far from being beneficial to the general public and the medical profession.

4) The medical profession and medical insurance stand to gain billions of redistributed health care tax dollars. It’s true, many Americans will benefit some, non-workers will benefit more, and the medical establishment and their investors benefit most of all.

To support the last point, consider what the AMA wants in the federal legislation. First, they want the federal government to provide health care insurance to all, which means increasing taxes whether as medical taxes or increases in cost of government-mandated insurance. Besides being a financial problem, it presents a legal problem as well. The federal government has no right or authority to provide health care. China or Cuba may such authority written in their national Constitutions but our Constitution does not. It is a right and authority only citizens in individual states actually possess.

Making health care more profitable underlies market reform (point 2), investment and incentives (point 4), repealing the Medicare physician payment formula (point 5), medical liability reform (point 6), and streamlining and standardizing claims processing (point 7).

Market reform along with taxpayer investment and incentives means more services to more customers for a lot more money.

Charging less than “market” rates or fees is a bad deal to any health care capitalist, even in an increasingly socialist “market.” That is why repealing the government fixed “market” pay rate formula must end. Who cares about the elderly on a fixed income, let the taxpayers pay.

Eliminating frivolous lawsuits is not a bad idea. What is truly bad is when physicians damage lives, lawyers get most of lawsuit claims, and damaged people pursuit of happiness is severely diminished. The type of legal reform needed is better screening and investigation of cases by which unwarranted claims are eliminated and due process in favor of the harm is thoroughly defended. If we have to pay for insurance, let the benefactors of our invested money and taxes pay up. If they would go bankrupt, it would only prove a better system of social insurance is needed maybe one without federal government’s involvement.

Good business practice always results in streamlining and standardization. I won’t hold my breathe for government to produce heath care efficiency or standardization. The tax code alone is proof of the impossible. Heck with tax code, some say Medicare is a bureaucratic mess.

The more positive points of the AMA reform list include:

1) “Eliminat[ing] denials for preexisting conditions.” Although this is mentioned under market reform, it is only marketable under government provided health care system. It is a welfare market reform, which means is marketable only to providers and voters.

2) “Assure that health care decisions are made by patients and their physicians, not by insurance companies or government officials.” This is probably the best part of the special interest proposal of AMA. Humans are not cars and medical insurance appraisers have no legitimate place in medical treatment. They do have a right to predetermine what they will or will not cover generally, but their involvement in medical treatment of patients is unconscionable.

Here again, the issue of insurance company profitable versus payout reveals the flaw in the system.

There are at least two identifiable solutions: (1) Government provided health care. Legally creating such a system requires a Constitutional amendment. It is requires Americans to adopt a more completely national socialism system of governance. The implication here is that federal legislative involvement in health care is illegal because by doing so Washington bureaucrats exceed the limits allowed by the supreme law of the land. Without a constitutional amendment, only the states have any legal authority over health care. (2) Another way to resolve the problem is to reform political economy so that all working Americans and their families could afford to insure themselves. This is a moral or ethical issue that does not require the adoption of national socialism but would require moral application to adjustments of the various markets including wage rates and an end to the myths of capitalism that are used for the benefit of relatively few.

For example, a few large national or international corporations who dominate 80% of any market in the USA tend to eliminate a whole lot of Americans from pursuing the American dream. Because this is the reality of many, if not most markets, the American Dream is more myth than real possibility for a majority of people under such a political economy.

Bonnie Erbe, contributing editor to U.S. News and World report and host of PBS’ “To the Contrary” recently compared conservative Christians to terrorists.

A soon-to-be published study in the journal Reproductive Health that found states with a high level of residents who subscribe to conservative religious beliefs also have high teen birth rates sparked Erbe’s September 18 observation that Christianity and radical Islamic terrorism share distinct similarities.

Erbe did not find this conclusion “surprising,” and noted that “most of these ‘religious’ states are also so-called red states.” From there she bashed red states as uneducated and poor, and argued that those factors combined with “increased religiosity tend to intertwine and build on each other.” Erbe offered as proof the following example:

It’s been widely reported that Middle Eastern terrorists talk suicide bombers into committing murder by explaining to them that they will be heroes in heaven, their after-life reward will be that they are treated like kings and have all the advantages that elude them here on earth. These promises are believed by people with no money, no education, and nothing to hold onto but their religious beliefs.

So “red state” residents – poor, uneducated and with “nothing to hold onto but their religious beliefs” – are on a par with Islamist terrorists.

What’s not surprising is that Erbe, who has argued in the past that abortion is a “good decision” in a recession and that religiosity “clouds” common sense would look so poorly upon those who ultimately take responsibility for their actions.

I can understand Erbe’s financial need to make a living. Like many of her comrades in journalism, I can also understand why brain in liberally warped. What I cannot understand how she can make such baseless claims while assuming her liberal audience is uneducated and ignorant about terrorists and Christians. One would think a professional media communicator would at least do some research or be honest in her criticism of those groups.

The facts are most modern terrorist and many high-profile mass murderers have college degrees educated people. The father of international terrorism has a degree in engineering. This Egyptian-born murderer was none other than PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat. So his protege, Atta, who led the 9-11 terrorist attacks again. America should not forget the teenage domestic terrorists who mass murdered many of their fellow student at Columbine High School were from home with educated parents of high middle class income. The the father of one was a government official.

Like terrorists waging war against the perceived evil empire that threatens their futures, Christians also fight against the corruption moral relativism promulgated by the secular institutions and those who dominate them.

Christians, however, do not have a religion mandate to do violence, Their weapons are truth, morality, and love. Christian hate the life devastating consequences of the commonplace deception in the service of corrupt special interest and life destroying evil.

Death is not a good thing. It is not good when innocent lives are destroyed by foreign terrorist in their fight against an evil government. It is not good when a nation sanctions the killing of unborn children often to save oneself from the inconvenience of having responsibility of raising a children. That is not to say some women have been confronted the decision to end the life of their unborn in order to live.

It is the secularists who are actually most like the terrorists who kill the innocent without just cause. Collectively, they have produced a culture of corruption and death. While they glory in death, so do Islamic terrorists. They are themselves willing to die for their cause. Secularist like Erbe are more willing for the innocent to die for their glorious cause.

When ignorant secular professionals like Erbe spew their venom against opponents of their standards of injustice, they only reveal how poor, blind, and hopeless they really are. They need to discover the liberty that only our nation’s God and Redeemer gives. Only the Creator could possibly repair such screwed up people. He is an expert in social, psychological, and genetic engineering.

Source: Culture Links

Every time there is a worldwide economic downturn, the Europeans lag the Americans in recovery. Quite simply, the more market-oriented the economy, the quicker the recovery; European-style socialism trails the U.S. is rebounding precisely because government is anything but nimble. So why the attraction?

What drives the Obama administration to mimic the European model is not its record of achievements; rather, it is the belief that private institutions are not to be trusted. From its opposition to school vouchers to its embrace of a public plan for its health care program, the administration prefers the public sector to the private sector, hands down. It does so in large part because it lusts to take command, whether it be in the form of social, sexual or economic engineering.

Father Knows Best has given way to Government Knows Best. And by creating economic public policies that make men and women more and more dependent on government, the engineers control their destiny, as well as their vote. It does so, unfortunately, at the expense of self-reliance and self-government. As Dennis Prager wisely observes, “the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.” Regrettably, government now dwarfs the individual, the result of which is a diminution in our ability to hold the state at bay.

Statist policies naturally incline toward expansion. Make no mistake about it, the encroachment of the state on civil society is real, the result of which is the creation of a precarious situation for all private institutions. That would include, certainly, religious entities. European observers of all political leanings are quick to point out how genuinely secular those societies have become. The pace of this deracination has quickened, the effect of which has been a movement away from religious indifference toward genuine hostility. Atheism hasn’t been so fashionable since the Enlightenment.

Every statist regime in history has been anti-religious. The church, of course, is rightly seen as a bulwark to the reach of the state. This explains the animus: secularists of this hyper-politicized sort cannot settle for neutrality—they are out to sunder religious traditions and institutions. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that these secular saboteurs are busy flexing their muscles in the U.S., as well as in Europe.

I wrote Secular Sabotage: How Liberals Are Destroying Religion and Culture in America as a wake-up call. The open assault on our Judeo-Christian ethos has been operative for decades, but never before have we approached a tipping point: we have now reached that stage. The stakes are high as our cultural future hangs in the balance.

From the politically correct programs that mark multiculturalism—a love fest for every civilization save our own—to the sexual libertines who see in Christian sexual ethics a roadblock to genital liberation, we are up against it. Scatological art exhibits are bad enough, but when paired with expressions of Christian bashing, they cross the line many times over. It’s been a long time, of course, since Hollywood found itself capable of portraying Christianity in a positive light, and the fury unleashed against Mel Gibson for making “The Passion of the Christ” underscores the politics involved.

Secular saboteurs show a particular fondness for using the law as a club to stamp out Christianity, torturing out of all recognition the original intent of the Framers; the First Amendment provisions regarding religious liberty have been hit the hardest. Secular elements within the Democratic Party have become bolder and bolder in their disdain for people of faith, driving Catholics out of the party in droves. Perhaps most distressing, the radical secular agenda has penetrated Catholicism, as well as the mainline Protestant denominations, disfiguring them in ways not previously thought imaginable.

In short, Christian bashing is in vogue. That this is happening in a nation which is approximately 80 percent Christian shows the power of a loosely organized, but totally determined, secular minority, and a collapse of will on the part of a sizeable segment of the Christian population. Only a coalition of religious conservatives, across faith lines, can reverse course. Fortunately, as evidenced by the coalition that rallied around Proposition 8 in California, there is reason for optimism.

By Bill Donahue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

In the youth of democracy, when democracy had just overcome monarchy, liberty took precedence over equality. Alas, in the old age of democracy in which we live, equality takes precedence over liberty. In its youth, democracy was “normative,” still influenced by religious and aristocratic values. In its senility, democracy is “normless,” preoccupied with security. The individual’s right to the “pursuit” of happiness has metamorphosed into a right to happiness—now prescribed by government standards or entitlements—a far throw from Jeffersonian democracy.

Jeffersonian democracy was based on self-government. What made self-government possible for Jefferson is the primacy of reason linked to man’s moral sense. What prevails today is the primacy of the emotions, so evident in modern psychology which obscures the difference between noble and base emotions along with the moral sense. Divorced from reason and the moral sense, all lifestyles become equal. Moral preferences are merely matters of taste, like one’s preference for this or that flavor of ice cream. Hence there is no place for honor and deference; all is dissolved to moral equivalence, and this is why statesmanship is not possible in contemporary or normless democracy.

I define statesmanship as the application of philosophy to action. But philosophy in normless democracy has become a household term. There are now competing philosophies of dieting, dating, and interior decorating. What Socrates died for — the love of wisdom — has become the possession of every Jill, Jane, and Jodi. True, universities still boast of “professors of philosophy,” but one should not confuse a professor of philosophy with a philosopher. At a national convention of philosophers I attended there were about one thousand present. The number amazed me. The highlight of the event was a resolution condemning the Vietnam War.

If wisdom means knowledge of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, the quest for such knowledge is short-circuited in a normless democratic era when every college student “knows” that “everything is relative.” Relativism so permeates the mentality of this era that one person’s opinion regarding the True, the Good, and the Beautiful is now deemed as valid as another’s. Since opinion has replaced wisdom, politicians consult opinion polls and manipulators of public opinion.

Actually, opinion polls hardly reach the level of opinion. They record people’s offhand responses — typically a “yes” or a “no” — to simplistic questions concerning complex public issues. Poll are often used by adversarial groups to generate public opinion via the media. The influence of the media has propelled democracy into a post-democratic era. Even the etymological meaning of democracy as the rule of the people is obsolete. To speak of democracy as the rule of the people via their elected representatives no longer fits reality.

Democracy has succumbed to “mediacracy.” The spin doctors of the media, facilitated by enormous fundraising campaigns, recently made an unknown person of dubious background president of the United States. The dominant and most expensive medium is of course television. One no longer needs to be even the shadow a statesman to achieve the highest office.

Television fosters showmanship, not statesmanship, which, to repeat, is the application of philosophy to action. Political philosophers in the past made moral judgments. TV journalists pose as morally neutral. In the old age of democracy, however, moral neutrality has degenerated undergone into moral reversal. This requires a psychological analysis of egalitarianism.

The primacy of egalitarianism in normless democracy is actually a manifestation of resentment against noble values. As this resentment develops, it turns into moral reversal: evil becomes good, and good becomes evil. This development leads to stupidity. Here’s an example.

Caroline Glick of The Jerusalem Post addressed some 150 political science students at Tel Aviv University, where she spoke of her experience as an embedded reporter with the U.S. Army’s Third Infantry Division during the Iraq war. Any mind uncorrupted by relativism would favor the U.S. over the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. Yet the general attitude of her audience was expressed by a student who asked, “Who are you to make moral judgments?” Now ponder this exchange between Glick and a student who spoke with a heavy Russian accent:

Student: “How can you say that democracy is better than dictatorial rule?”

Glick: “Because it is better to be free than to be a slave.”

Student: “How can you support America when the U.S. is a totalitarian state?”

Glick: “Did you learn that in Russia?”

Student: “No, here.”

Glick: “Here at Tel Aviv University?”

Student: “Yes, that is what my professors say.”

Ms. Glick spoke at five liberal Israeli universities. She learned that all are dominated by moral relativists. Their relativism, if consistent, would render them neutral in the war waged by Arabs against Israel. But some academics identify with Israel’s enemy. This is a manifestation of moral reversal. How should statesmen deal with this phenomenon? None denounce academics for moral reversal—which is really moral treason. Thus, in the specious name of academic freedom, professors are free to corrupt youth and undermine their own freedom while their country is confronted by the sworn enemies of freedom.

Universities, citadels of reason, now include towers of stupidity. Academic freedom has become a license for professors to sacrifice their intellects. This is Normless Democracy, where nihilism renders statesmanship impossible.

Let’s come back to the surface of politics. Television has a way of thwarting statesmanship. “Live” television compels national leaders to react immediately to international crises or risk public disapproval. A president has little time to reflect, to consult and consider alternatives. While the public is being inundated by live TV coverage of some crisis, he must respond to the importunities of reporters. This encourages spin, really mendacity. Spin diminishes the rationality associated with Jeffersonian democracy.

To appreciate the power of the mediacracy, the mere fact that its mandarins can select which events shall be televised and which shall be ignored determines what people deem “newsworthy” or important. Since the notion of importance implies that some things are more important than other things, the media’s selection of events cannot but shape people’s political and moral attitudes, which in turn will influence the agenda of politicians.

Moreover, how any crisis is portrayed by the media, and who their reporters interview about a crisis, is indicative that we are living in a post-democratic era in which TV mandarins, politically unaccountable to the people, play a decisive role in opinion-making, hence in policy-making. Under such conditions statesmanship is more ardently to be wished for than expected.

Another obstacle to statesmanship in Normless Democracy is hedonism. The democratic preoccupation with immediate gratification hinders statesmanship. Alexis de Tocqueville goes to the heart of problem in his classic Democracy in America. He attributes modern hedonism to democracy’s equality of conditions, which makes it possible for everyone to strive for physical comfort: “The effort to satisfy even the least wants of the body and to provide the little conveniences of life is uppermost in every mind.” This “passion for physical comforts,” he writes, “is essentially a passion of the middle classes; with those classes it grows and spreads … From them it mounts into the higher orders of society and descends into the mass of the people.”

Countering this desire for immediate gratification is religion. “Religions,” he says, “give men a general habit of conducting themselves with a view to eternity.” What thrives in democracy, however, is not religion but skepticism. Hence Tocqueville, actually a friend of democracy, warns its partisans: “In skeptical ages it is always to be feared … that men may perpetually give way to their daily casual desires, and that, wholly renouncing whatever cannot be acquired without protracted effort, they may establish nothing great, permanent, and calm…. [Accordingly], in those countries in which, unhappily, irreligion and democracy coexist, philosophers and those in power ought to be always striving to place the objects of human actions far beyond man’s immediate range.” Unfortunately, Tocqueville’s “philosophers” have disappeared, and the mortals in power are not statesmen.

Now, if statesmanship is virtually impossible in a Normless Democracy or in a post-democratic era, may this not also be said of Jewish statesmanship?

From an August 31, 2009 emailed transcript of the Eidelberg Report aired on Israel National Radio. Prof. Paul Eidelberg is also co-founder and President of the Foundation for Constitutional Democracy.