Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

The Assault on American Liberty

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We are a nation founded on certain bedrock principles. Among them are the rights guaranteed by our Bill of Rights, which include the free exercise of religion, free speech, free press, the right to keep and bear arms, the right to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the right not to self-incriminate. These liberties, and others like them, are non-negotiable. They are basic human rights, part of what political theorists (and theologians, for that matter) call the ‘natural law.’ A just government must be their guarantor, and I have always believed that our government is, on the whole, just.

For the first time in my life, I am not so sure any more.

I heard a lot of talk in the 2008 Presidential election cycle (and before) about the supposed erosion of civil liberties under President George W. Bush (R), with accusers often pointing to the Patriot Act and similar anti-terror laws that arose in the post-9/11/2001 world. I had concerns about certain aspects of those laws, but I also recognized the magnitude of the threat and the necessity of strong defensive action. Throughout our national history, our courts have recognized that certain encroachments on civil liberties in times of war are acceptable and even necessary.

None of Bush’s policies were particularly out-of-step with those traditions. Warrantless wiretaps of phone calls to or from overseas numbers are perfectly legal, and always have been. Military tribunals have been used to try war criminals in every war we’ve ever fought—most notably under President Franklin D. Roosevelt (D), who used them to try German saboteurs captured on U.S. soil during World War II (which was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in Ex parte Quirin, 317 US 1 (1942)). Guantanamo Bay detention facilities were used to house war criminals who have no standing under our legal system or, in fact, under the Geneva Conventions either (as they do not meet the clearly-stated definition of ‘Prisoner of War’).

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The Grand Unification: Science and Faith

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(courtesy WikiMedia Commons)

One of the greatest yet-unsolved mysteries in the scientific realm is known as the ‘Grand Unified Theory‘—the unification of a number of major theories about the basic structure of our universe. It is an important step on the way to a fully inclusive ‘Theory of Everything.’ We aren’t there yet, but we are inching closer all the time. As interesting as the topic may be, I’m here to discuss a very different kind of grand unification. Though you might not be aware of it, we are quite possibly on the verge of a grand unification of science and faith.

The common presumption these days seems to be that science and faith are somehow intrinsically incompatible with one another. Science rests on empirical evidence, experimentation, and proof. Faith rests on unverifiable (but very real) human intuitions, emotions, and natural law. But I have long argued that they are not, in fact, mutually exclusive. They can, and very often do, coexist peacefully. Those who deny this may want to engage in conversation with any of the the two-thirds of scientists who believe in God. As I have always said, these two disciplines are asking and answering different questions in different ways. We shouldn’t blindly discount either one. Both lead us to greater knowledge and deeper understanding of ourselves and the universe in-which we live.

But while many theists who worship God (in one form or another) and atheists who worship science have been busy condemning each other in the public square, yelling and screaming about how terribly misguided the other must be, a surprising thing has been happening. Much like how the various lines of scientific research into the cosmos are converging, slowly but surely, toward a Grand Unified Theory, we have likewise seen a similar convergence between some of the core doctrines of modern science and modern faith. Today, the leading edge of theoretical physics is looking more and more like what theists of various stripes have been saying all along. Once more we find that honest truth-seekers—even when they approach things in very different ways—tend to end up in nearly the same place.

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We the Jury Find the Defendant . . .

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After many years of waiting, I finally received a jury summons to serve at the Loudoun County Circuit Court. My date was yesterday, Friday February 10.

I was one of about 25 people who actually had to show up at the court house yesterday (many more were dismissed ahead of time and did not have to appear). I arrived well before the required 8am time, went through security, and proceeded to the jury waiting room where I sat reading my Kindle for nearly an hour. We then received an orientation from the jury coordinator who told us how we were all selected (randomly by computer from voter and DMV records) and what we should expect from the day. She also told us that there was only one jury trial on the schedule for the day, so most of us would be sent home.

The judge in the case requested that only 14 of us go back into the courtroom, so the first 14 of us (alphabetically by last name) were lined up while the rest were dismissed and free to leave around 9:15am.

Once in the court room, the charges were read and jury selection began. The judge asked us all a number of questions (as a group), mostly related to basics like, ‘Does anybody have a problem with the legal doctrine that the accused is innocent until proven guilty?’ After that, an assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney asked us a number of her own questions, followed by a third series of questions from one of the defense attorneys. The defense attorney seemed particularly concerned with whether any of us were biased in favor of law-enforcement officers; we were asked if any close friends or relatives worked in law enforcement, and we were also asked if we felt the testimony of a law enforcement officer automatically has more weight than anybody else’s testimony (it doesn’t, in my opinion).

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Medicine Is Restorative, Not Inhibitory

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The purpose of medical care is always restorative . . . or at least it should be. It is meant to treat the sick and restore them to health, at least as much as possible at our current stage of knowledge and development. A severed arm is reattached, if possible. A malfunctioning thyroid is treated with medicine to restore its natural function. We remove cancers, repair lacerations, fuse broken bones. Medicine is about healing the dysfunction, illness, and injury that interrupts our healthy, natural bodily functions. It is never about the inhibition of our healthy bodily functions; that would run counter to what medicine is about.

Yes, occasionally we remove or inhibit something as part of a medical treatment, but only when it is absolutely necessary. A kidney that is badly diseased and cannot be restored to its natural function because it is beyond the limits of modern medicine will be removed, for example. But even in this case, although the function of the kidney itself cannot be restored, the end goal of the treatment is to restore the body’s overall function as much as possible given the circumstances and prevent the spread of the disease to other organs. The fact that the person’s overall kidney function will be halved is a side-effect brought on by necessity; the inhibition of bodily function is not the goal, but the unfortunate consequence.

How curious, then, that contraception (and even abortion) is now being cynically labeled as health care, as if it is no different than pain killers or thyroid drugs. Except in very rare cases, these treatments are not restorative but inhibitory by their very nature. They interrupt and stymie the body’s natural functions as their primary goal. The reproductive cycle and the bearing of children is a perfectly natural and healthy function of the female human body, no different than the function of the kidney or the thyroid. It is part of who we are as human beings. Blocking that natural function, except when there is a restorative need to do so, is not medicine any more than me arbitrarily wanting to turn off my left kidney would be. I think everybody would recognize the absurdity of a demand that my health insurance plan cover my choice to shut down my left kidney, even if I had the right to do it (which I don’t; apparently some choices about inhibiting natural body functions are more equal than others).

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State of the Union Not-Live Blog

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I missed the State of the Union address this past Tuesday because I had a schedule conflict, which was unfortunate since I really enjoyed live-blogging it last year. Well, I finally got around to watching it (and the Republican response) this evening. So here is what would have been in my live blog if I had been live-blogging it. Think of it as a time-delayed live-blog.

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Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.