About a week ago Wretchard announced that "Houston, we've got a problem." It was a nice little play on a familiar NASA communications phrase that simultaneously jabbed a less-than-diligent education writer who is described thusly at examiner.com, where she writes:
Unfortunately, Grannan embarrassed herself with the poorly researched write-up that sought to cast aspersions on a gentlemen named Leo Linbeck III. The Belmont Club readers do a good job of setting things right in the post and Leo himself does a great job of defending himself and his work with KIPP:Houston. I invite you to read the full thread.
As for my salute to Linbeck, I'd like to do it this way because it speaks volumes to me about the man. Here 'tis: I don't remember when I first took notice of Linbeck at the Belmont Club but Wretchard's November 2008 post, Which was made of brass, still bounces around in my brain.
They would be locked up there until they gave birth, whereupon they would be forced to give up their babies for a token fee of around 20,000 naira (170 dollars, 135 euros).
The babies would then be sold to buyers for anything between 300,000 and 450,000 naira (2,500 and 3,800 dollars) each, according to a state agency fighting human trafficking in Nigeria, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP).
What is the market for children in Africa? The BBC describes the various uses to which the traffic in humans, which may be as large as 200,000 individuals per year, are put:
They are taken to a witch doctor, sworn to secrecy and end up in effective slavery to the middle men who smuggle them abroad. Other children are trafficked for work inside the country. Girls and boys as young as six are taken from desperately poor homes and placed as domestic workers with strangers in the city.
Those are the lucky ones. The AFP report says “In 2005, a Lagos-based orphanage suspected of ties to child trafficking rings, was shut down. There, charred baby-bones were discovered on the rubbish tip, leading to suspicion the orphanage was involved in the peddling of human body parts, possibly for use in rituals or for organ harvesting.”
In an age where strength has become synonymous with barbarism, it is important to remember that weakness is no virtue in itself. Evil is attracted to the defenseless . . . .
Well, it was a disturbing post and I highlighted Wretchard's comment at the end because so many on the left aggravate me so with their indifference to this truth. Back to my subject, click this link for a quick bio of Linbeck from Rice University. If you read the bio, it will not surprise you that the post on the baby trafficking syndicate also captured the attention of Linbeck, who offered up this compelling comment:
Good stuff. A topic worth engaging.
The philosophical core of “the concentration camp oven, the post-partum dumpster and infant trafficking” is the notion that some human beings have greater value than others. Germans are worth more than Jews, gypsies, gays, and members of the underground. Women are worth more than fetuses. Western babies with a terminal illness are worth more than Nigerian babies with healthy organs.
The Judeo-Christian culture - with elements wonderfully described above by Pascal et. al. - has always had this fundamental notion that each human stands as an equal before God. This does not mean that everyone is equal; that is absurd and clearly contradicted by our personal experience. Rather, God is infinite, and therefore as finite beings we are all equal on a comparative basis (1/infinity = 1,000,000,000,000/infinity).
The practical implications of this cultural norm are extremely important. Without equality before God, all sorts of horrible behavior is easily justified by the perpetrator, who is the only one who needs justification. It is but a small stretch to say that the belief in fundamental inequality has been the source of all the great evils: communism (vanguard>proletariat>bourgeoisie), Nazism (Aryans>everyone), Rwanda (Hutus>Tutsis), apartheid (whites>blacks), slavery (masters>slaves), the Inquisition (Catholics>Protestants), jihadism (Moslems>everyone), materialism (rich>poor), eugenics (beautiful>ugly, smart>dumb, light skin>dark skin, etc.), and so on. Add to the list as you see fit.
In all cases, it’s “Us” vs. “Them,” which always implies Us>Them.
This is why the fight is always so difficult for those of us on the Us=Them team. We’re not really saying we’re better in some ontological sense. We’re saying they’re not better than us. This is, by its nature, a defensive argument, which is why just wars are defensive. But it’s hard to win on defense, a fact that multi-cultis have turned to their advantage. And there is always the fact that the best defense is a good offense, which tempts us into buying into the same Us>Them logic. But we do so at the cost of our own soul.
Population control is an excellent example of an intellectual tradition founded upon Us>Them inequality. When “population” is determined to be a problem in need of solution, the next step is to decide who to control to solve the problem. The world is quickly divided into those who “breed responsibly” and those who need to be spayed or neutered like a dog. Initially, attempts are made to convince people that birth control is in their interest. But when these attempts fail to address the “problem,” birth control is imposed. One couple, one child. Abort or abandon.
Not much of a choice.
L3
Us greater than them inequality. Good stuff, Leo. Us=Them, a defensive argument. What a shame that Caroline Grannan, a former editor for twelve years at a major paper, couldn't be bothered to take the time to read up on you just a little bit more. All the greater is the shame that had she done so, she would still quite likely not have been able to see that Us=Them.
J.B.,
Check out Sarah Palin 2012 and the Nancy Pelosi Poll
http://sarah-palin-2012.blogspot.com/2009/05/liar-liar-pants-suit-on-fire.html
Posted by: Ree | May 15, 2009 at 06:14 PM
I've been an ardent "Belmont Addict" for years, although I've almost never posted anything - the commenters on that blog are, like the host, very engaging, yet very intimidating.
When LL3 showed up, my eyebrows raised up. He stood out as someone worthy of listening to.
Maybe he'll start his own blog some day. And if he does, I'll become a "Linbeck Addict".
It's great that you've written this tribute.
Posted by: DeadButMorallySuperior | May 16, 2009 at 03:14 PM
Thank you, DBMS. Linbeck did have a way of grabbing the attention with many of his posts. In fact, I didn't realize he was posting in his real name until recently and somehow that fact makes him all the more impressive.
Ree, I'm pretty out of the news flow these days and can't graze like I did before. Normally I'd have heard of this but that Leno joke was great:
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that she was misled by the CIA on waterboarding. She spent eight years complaining about how dumb President Bush was and the minute she's in trouble, she says he fooled her." - Jay Leno
So it goes.
Posted by: RattlerGator | May 20, 2009 at 04:22 AM