This article is deserving of a Fatwa regarding disinginuity...  It shall be put to The Council...

PEGGY NOONAN

Cold Standard

Virginia Tech and the heartlessness of our media and therapy culture.

I saw an old friend on the Acela on the way to Washington, and he told me of the glum, grim faces at the station he'd left, all the commuters with newspapers in their hands and under their arms. This was the day after Virginia Tech. We talked about what was different this time, in this tragedy. I told him I felt people were stricken because they weren't stricken. When Columbine happened, it was weird and terrible, and now there have been some incidents since, and now it's not weird anymore. And that is what's so terrible. It's the difference between "That doesn't happen!" and "That happens."
Actually I thought of Thoreau. He said he didn't have to read newspapers because if you're familiar with a principle you don't have to be familiar with its numerous applications. If you know lightning hits trees, you don't have to know every time a tree is struck by lightning.

In terms of school shootings, we are now familiar with the principle.

Dennis Miller the other night said something compassionate and sensible on TV. Invited to criticize some famous person's stupid response to a past tragedy, he said he sort of applied a 48 hour grace period after a tragedy and didn't hold anyone to the things they'd said. People get rattled and say things that are extreme.

But more than 48 hours have passed. So: some impressions. 

There seems to me a sort of broad national diminution of common sense in our country that we don't notice in the day-to-day but that become obvious after a story like this. Common sense says a person like Cho Seung-hui, who was obviously dangerous and unstable, should have been separated from the college population. Common sense says someone should have stepped in like an adult, like a person in authority, and taken him away. It is only common sense that if a person like Cho leaves a self-aggrandizing, self-celebrating, self-pitying video diary of himself to be played by the mass media, the mass media should not play it and not publicize it, not make it famous. Common sense says that won't help.
And all those big cops, scores of them, hundreds, with the latest, heaviest, most sophisticated gear, all the weapons and helmets and safety vests and belts. It looked like the brute force of the state coming up against uncontrollable human will.

But it also looked muscle bound. And the schools themselves more and more look muscle bound, weighed down with laws and legal assumptions and strange prohibitions.

The school officials I saw, especially the head of the campus psychological services, seemed to me endearing losers. But endearing is too strong. I mean "not obviously and vividly offensive." The school officials who gave all the highly competent, almost smooth and practiced news conferences seemed to me like white, bearded people who were educated in softness. Cho was "troubled"; he clearly had "issues"; it would have been good if someone had "reached out"; it's too bad America doesn't have better "support services." They don't use direct, clear words, because if they're blunt, they're implicated.

The literally white-bearded academic who was head of the campus counseling center was on Paula Zahn Wednesday night suggesting the utter incompetence of officials to stop a man who had stalked two women, set a fire in his room, written morbid and violent plays and poems, been expelled from one class, and been declared by a judge to be "mentally ill" was due to the lack of a government "safety net." In a news conference, he decried inadequate "funding for mental health services in the United States." Way to take responsibility. Way to show the kids how to dodge.

The anxiety of our politicians that there may be an issue that goes unexploited was almost--almost--comic. They mean to seem sensitive, and yet wind up only stroking their supporters. I believe Rep. Jim Moran was first out of the gate with the charge that what Cho did was President Bush's fault. I believe Sen. Barack Obama was second, equating the literal killing of humans with verbal coarseness. Wednesday there was Sen. Barbara Boxer equating the violence of the shootings with the "global warming challenge" and "today's Supreme Court decision" upholding a ban on partial-birth abortion.

One watches all of this and wonders: Where are the grown-ups? 

I wondered about the emptiness of the phrases used by the media and by political figures, and how pro forma and lifeless and cold they are. The formalized language of loss hasn't kept up with the number of tragedies. "A nation mourns." "Our prayers are with you." The latter is both self-complimenting and of dubious believability. Did you really pray? Or is it just a phrase?
And this as opposed to the honest things normal people say: "Oh no." "I am so sorry." "I'm sad." "It's horrible."

With all the therapy in our great therapized nation, with all our devotion to emotions and feelings, one senses we are becoming a colder culture, and a colder country. We purport to be compassionate--we must respect Mr. Cho's privacy rights and personal autonomy--but of course it is cold not to have protected others from him. It is cold not to have protected him from himself. 

The last testament Cho sent to NBC seemed more clear evidence of mental illness--posing with his pistols, big tough gangsta gonna take you out. What is it evidence of when NBC News, a great pillar of the mainstream media, runs the videos and pictures on the nightly news? Brian Williams introduced the Cho collection as "what can only be described as a multi-media manifesto." But it can be described in other ways. "The self-serving meanderings of a crazy, self-indulgent narcissist" is one. But if you called it that, you couldn't lead with it. You couldn't rationalize the decision.
Such pictures are inspiring to the unstable. The minute you saw them, you probably thought what I did: We'll be seeing more of that.

The most common-sensical thing I heard said came Thursday morning, in a hospital interview with a student who'd been shot and was recovering. Garrett Evans said of the man who'd shot him, "An evil spirit was going through that boy, I could feel it." It was one of the few things I heard the past few days that sounded completely true. Whatever else Cho was, he was also a walking infestation of evil. Too bad nobody stopped him. Too bad nobody moved.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father" (Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Fridays on OpinionJournal.com.

Yesterday a few colleagues were sitting around debating whatever it is that we debate when one piped up with "I'm engaged in an eisegesis..."  To which I commented "and who thought they'd hear that word today?"

With that in mind, I post Mark Alexander's article on Constitutional Eisegesis, which you will find, once you get through the biblical examples, actually is about the Constituion and is worth the read.

Mark Alexander:

"Judge not, lest ye be judged." It's notable that this text from the Bible has replaced John 3:16 as Americans' favorite scriptural quotation -- but what does it actually mean? Is this ageless admonition really a call to unmitigated tolerance over discernment between right and wrong? Is it really a biblical nod of the head to the virtues of postmodern morality and multicultural society?

Of course not. As Christ's imperative against judgment appears in the Gospel accounts, a different picture emerges. With the Pharisees clearly in view, in the Sermon on the Mount account of Matthew 7, and again in Luke 6, "judge not" appears in the context of the proverbial man who perceives the speck that is in his brother's eye, but not the log that is in his own. The context, then, suggests a warning against hypocrisy, not moral discernment. Indeed, the full imperative of the passage encourages righteous judgment: "first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye."

Then, in John 7:24, taking aim at the Pharisees once again, Jesus makes another extraordinary statement: "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment." So, does Jesus really call his followers to "judge not"? Not really. In the vocabulary of theologians, this practice of isolating and thereby misinterpreting a phrase or passage from its context is called eisegesis. 

Other common examples of eisegesis -- which we'll leave to your own exegesis -- include the imperative "care for orphans and widows" (James 1) to sanction a social, and thereby governmental, responsibility; "Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man" (I Corinthians 11) as an affirmation of male chauvinism; and "Love keeps no record of wrongs" (I Corinthians 13) as a get-out-of-jail-free card for habitual sin.

But what, you ask, does this Bible lesson have to do with the Constitution? In truth, the same fallacies that affect biblical interpretation also affect our interpretation of the Constitution.

Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States pose for a 2006 class photo inside the Supreme Court in Washington March 3, 2006. In a major blow for President George W. Bush's war on terrorism, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on June 29, 2006 that the military tribunal system set up to try Guantanamo prisoners violates the Geneva Conventions and U.S. military rules.  REUTERS/Larry Downing/Files (UNITED STATES)

The belief in a Constitution subject to the evolving interpretation of the judiciary has as its origin the 1803 case of Marbury v. Madison, where Chief Justice John Marshall ruled, "It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is." All well and good if the courts would continue to interpret the law exegetically, but as history would soon show, constitutional eisegesis was lurking just around the corner.

In fact, by the early 20th century the eisegetical interpretation of the Constitution had been given a name, courtesy of Howard McBain's 1927 book, The Living Constitution. In the decades that followed, this notion of a "living" Constitution, one subject to all manner of judicial interpretation, took hold in the federal courts. Judicial activists, who legislate from the bench by issuing rulings based on their personal interpretation of the Constitution, or at the behest of like-minded special-interest constituencies, were nominated for the federal bench and confirmed in droves.

This degradation of law was codified by the Warren Court, under the influence of Justice William Brennan, Jr., in Trop v. Dulles (1958). In that ruling, the High Court noted that the Constitution should comport with "evolving standards...that mark the progress of a maturing society." In other words, it had now become a fully pliable document -- one that Jefferson had warned us would be a "mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please."

By 1987, living constitutionalism had become such the norm that Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall delivered a lecture, "The Constitution: A Living Document," in which he argued that the Constitution must be interpreted to the age in which it existed, given prevailing political, moral and cultural norms.

Here's an interesting article from Congressman Duncan Hunter.  In my mind, it illustrates the fact that Congress "simply doesn't get it" regarding the Global War On Terror.  Apparently, the Democrats are willing to hamstring the war effort in order to guarantee defeat, which, of course, serves their political ends, while at the same time increases the risk for our Soldiers, who are the only ones in all of this mess who are actually in harm's way. 

Obstructionists Democrats
by Rep. Duncan Hunter  (More by this author)

Posted: 04/24/2007
While they wrangle over the terms of their surrender legislation, the Democrat leadership has sent the worst of messages to the world.  Speaker Pelosi struck the first wedge into what should be a united American foreign policy on Iraq by introducing a defense bill, which would effectively move the position of Commander in Chief to the U.S. Congress.  Along with timetables for withdrawal from Iraq, the Pelosi bill, on page 72, mandates a 15 day waiting period before an American unit can be moved into the Iraq war theater.  This incredibly obstructive provision would have profound negative effects on our forces’ abilities to fight.  For example, should US hostages be taken and a Delta Force team moved from outside the theater to attempt a rescue, Pelosi’s provision would require a fifteen-day waiting period and a report to Congress before the rescue could be attempted.  Should a Zarqawi level target be located and U.S. fighter aircraft be deployed from outside Iraq, the same fifteen days would elapse before a strike could be executed.  The very nature of the “notice and wait” requirement illustrates how unfamiliar Democrats are with the war against terrorists.  This is a new era involving rapid movement of specialized personnel and equipment across theater boundaries.  “Notice and wait for two weeks” reflects an ultimate misunderstanding of U.S. military operations.

Democrats, in defending the Pelosi requirement, state that their concern is readiness of  our military forces and that the President’s certification of  ”full mission capability” and Congress’ fifteen day review of said certification is  simply  assertion of normal congressional oversight responsibilities.  This position should be rejected for several reasons.  First, such micro management can never work in a congress, which takes weeks to tee up a hearing.  Second, readiness levels are a complicated thing, often unreflective of real military capability.  For example, if an infantry company does not have its flu shots, it will be rated as “unready.”  In the world of speaker Pelosi, this may justify non-deployment, but to a soldier engaged in combat and awaiting reinforcements, the message that the speaker is worried that the re-enforcements will catch  the flu and will have to “stay home from school” until they get their shots is hardly inspiring.  All this reflects the wisdom of the Constitution’s reserving Commander in Chief responsibilities for the single leader elected by the entire nation.  Even the Washington Post noted the obvious intrusion of the Pelosi bill on the President’s powers.

Senate leader Reid quickly followed Speaker Pelosi with his own mis-guided “missile,” in announcing that the U.S. had “lost” the war in Iraq.  Just as Speaker Pelosi had surprised the Israelis by becoming their ambassador to Syria without portfolio, Senator Reid’s comments must have been a surprise to some.  Consider, for example what effect they might have on an Al-Qaeda leader in Anbar Province.  As he sits in his safe house outside Fallujah, the bad news has been coming in.  His assassinations of Sunni Tribal leaders have turned the region against him.  Sunnis are joining the Iraqi Army in Anbar Province in unprecedented numbers.  The Sunni led national police force is working with the Shiite led Army and the U.S. Marine Corps to push back against Al-Qaeda.  The terrorist leader is interrupted from his “bad news” briefings by ecstatic aides.  “Senator Reid has surrendered,” they shriek.  “He says the U.S. has lost the war.”  The Al-Qaeda leader asks the aides if they are joking, and, assured they are not, turns to the task of redoubling his efforts.  This statement can only have the effect of encouraging the enemy in Iraq. 

Beyond its damaging effect, Senator Reid’s statement also reflects total misunderstanding of the situation in Iraq.  Occupations of foreign nations have always been difficult.  They wear on two parties: the occupier and the occupied.  The bunch of books that have been written on the U.S. operation in Iraq, all critical, have one thing in common:  a long laundry lists of U.S. “mistakes”

Is the implication that a “smooth road” to occupation existed?  In reality, such a smooth road is never attainable given circumstances like Iraq.  For those who recommended that Saddam Hussein’s army be kept intact a brief chuckle should be reserved.  This army contained 11,000 (yes, eleven thousand) Sunni generals.  An Army thus comprised and charged with stabilizing and defending a predominately Shiite nation would only have created a mess.  For those who recommended that the U.S. force be vastly increased early in the occupation, two points come to mind.  First, where were you when Commander in Chief Bill Clinton reduced his Army to ten divisions (from fourteen divisions in 1992)?  Second, how does an increased American force mesh with a goal of liberal senators to “put an Iraqi face” on the security apparatus? 

Today we are in the second phase of the American blueprint for expanding freedom.  A government, elected by its people, has been stood up.  It is clumsy as most new governments are, but it is generally representative of the political will of the Iraqi people.  The U.S. military is now in the process of standing up an Iraqi military capable of protecting the government.  The Iraqi Army consists of 129 battalions.  It is critical that the force be battle-hardened in an expeditious fashion.  Military forces gain competence most rapidly through military operations.  Each Iraqi battalion that has not undertaken extensive operations should be deployed for three to four months in a contentious zone of the Iraq battle space.  They should be assigned a mission which will allow the command to exercise logistics and its chain of command and to demonstrate its combat effectiveness.  These operations will impart to the Iraqi forces the quality most important to a successful turnover of security…military reliability.  The Iraqi government and the U.S. military should ensure that trainers and support forces are available for the newly deployed battalions.

Once reliability is established in the Iraqi military, they will be capable of rotating into the battlefield throughout Iraq, displacing U.S. combat forces, which can be returned to the United States or further assigned to Central Command.  U.S. success in Iraq will ultimately be measured like a cancer operation.  If a dictator more lethal to U.S. interests than Saddam Hussein assumes power over the next decade, the mission will be considered a failure.  If the new nation retains a modicum of freedom and a benign relationship with the U.S., the operation will amount to an unprecedented success in the most difficult region of the new era.