If you want to learn something about the Crusades, stay as far away from Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven as you can. There's more historical accuracy in The Lord of the Rings, which took place in a world that never existed. On the other hand, if you just want to see some big medieval battle scenes and eat popcorn while absorbing Scott's obvious message, then this one's for you.

Kingdom of Heaven is the story of Christian zealots inciting a war against the innocent Muslims because their bloodthirsty God wants them to kill infidels. Sound like a familiar lament from the Left? The peace-loving knights (what?!?) who happen to live in Jerusalem value their truce with Saladin's forces. They're horrified by the villainous fanatic Guy de Lusignan, leader of the religious order of the Knights of the Temple (Templars), who schemes to stir up trouble and sieze power.

If you don't want to know any details about the movie, this is as far as you should go. There will be "spoilers" ahead, although there's nothing to spoil... unless you're the type who would have been upset at finding out the ship was going to sink at the end of Titanic, or that the Japanese were going to attack in Pearl Harbor.

Still with me? Good.

The movie is set in the late 12th century (yes, that part's true -- there really was one!), and follows the events that led up to the Third Crusade. Some basic historical facts are used as a framework. Reynald of Chantillon broke a truce by attacking a caravan and taking the sister of Saladin prisoner. King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem was a leper who died young and was eventually succeeded by Guy de Lusignan. Guy sent his forces to fight Saladin (Salah al-Din al-Ayubbi, a Kurdish warlord who preached jihad) without an adequate supply of water; they were slaughtered, leaving Jerusalem defenseless. Balian of Ibelin defended the city with only two knights, and he negotiated the city's surrender to Saladin. The capture of Jerusalem sparked the Third Crusade.

Everything else in the movie is pure Hollywood.

The movie's hero is Balian, a simple village blacksmith until his real father -- a knight named Godfrey -- comes by to claim him. It's difficult to sustain a proper suspension of disbelief while trying to imagine spindly Orlando Bloom wielding a blacksmith's hammer for a full day's work without collapsing of exhaustion. It was even more ridiculous when the simple blacksmith learned to wield a sword like a master in one easy lesson. Upon reaching the Holy Land and finding his home of Ibelin, he astounded the locals -- whose people had lived in the desert for thousands of years -- by showing them how to find water. Apparently, they had never thought to employ a shovel to dig a well. Later, the fictional Balian shows that while shoeing horses (using iron shoes, a bit ahead of his time) in a small French village, he had found the time to master the intricacies of siege warfare and ballistics. Amazing, the things that these peasant blacksmiths thought about while at the forge.

The real Balian of Ibelin was not a knight's bastard suddenly raised to the nobility; he was born and bred a knight. By the time the movie takes place, he had been lord of Ibelin for several decades. He married Maria Comnena, widow of King Amalric I of Jerusalem, in 1177. She and their two sons were very much alive during the Third Crusade; in fact, she died in 1206. His wife was shown as recently dead at the beginning of the film merely to showcase the greedy priest who robbed her corpse of a silver crucifix before taunting Balian about her being a suicide. Just a hint of the omnipresent anti-Christian feeling that suffuses the film like background radiation.

Because King Baldwin IV was a leper, in real life his six-year-old nephew (the son of his sister and her first husband) was crowned co-king with him in 1183. The real Balian supported the candidacy of Raymond of Tripoli to be regent of the young co-king. Guy de Lusignan, married to Baldwin IV's sister, became Baldwin IV's regent as his sickness advanced. Baldwin IV died in 1185. Baldwin V (now eight) became the sole king, but suddenly died a year later. The man Raymond chose to become the new king refused the crown and gave his support to Guy, enabling Guy to take the throne. Raymond was in Tiberias (by the Sea of Galilee) at the time, and was unable to prevent Guy's coronation. Most of this real history, with its political games and power struggles, was ignored to insert a love story between the fictional Balian and the wife of Guy de Lusignan. You just have to love Hollywood.

The fictional Balian got past Saladin's forces to reach Jerusalem by the intervention of a man whose life he had once spared. The real Balian requested permission from Saladin to get his family out of the city, swearing not to take up arms against Saladin's army. Once he reached the city, however, the Patriarch of Jerusalem absolved him of his oath so he could take over the city's defense. To make up for the shortage of fighting men, Balian knighted fifty sons of noblemen, though they had not yet completed their training. (Some accounts report that he knighted everyone of noble birth who was sixteen years or older.) In the movie, the Patriarch was a narrow-minded bigot who was stunned at Balian's presumption in knighting commoners with no fighting experience. Surrender, as shown in the film, is the preferred, "moral" option -- not something the defenders were forced to do. 

After surrendering the city, the fictional Balian retired into obscurity, returning to the simple life of a village blacksmith. The real Balian, a nobleman who would have been offended at the very idea, became an advisor to Henry II, King of Champagne. After he helped Richard I of England negotiate a new treaty with Saladin in 1192, Balian was rewarded with the lordship of Caymont. He died the next year, but his family went on to wield power and influence for generations.

Someday, Hollywood will make a movie based on real history, which is much more complex and fascinating than made-up history filmed just to send a message could ever be. Well, if nothing else, the movie ought to play as well in the Middle East as Fahrenheit 9/11 did. As historian Jonathan Riley-Smith said, "It's basically Osama bin Laden's version of history... It depicts the Muslims as sophisticated and civilised, and the Crusaders are all brutes and barbarians. It has nothing to do with reality." Maybe Ridley Scott can take a hint from Michael Moore and get Hezballah to help distribute his film, too. 

For more information:
A History of the Crusades, volume II: The Kingdom of Jerusalem by Steven Runciman
Fighting For Christendom: Holy War And The Crusades by Christopher Tyerman
The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades by Jonathan Riley-Smith (editor)
A Concise History of the Crusades by Thomas F. Madden
Timeline of the Third Crusade at About.com

It must be tough to be a Liberal these days. They've been thwarted at every turn over the last several years. Every prediction they've made, every hope they've held has been broken on the Rocks of Reality, sliced by the Razor of Logic, and smashed by the, uh, Potato Masher of Common Sense. Everything was going so smoothly for them through the 1990's, with the slight exception of their pet political party (the Democrats) losing ground in every election since 1994. That didn't matter much, as the Left had plenty of judges ready to legislate from the bench. Now, having lost House, Senate, White House and many governorships, the Left might even lose that, if the Republicans have enough backbone to halt the unconstitutional filibusters on judicial nominations. It's all gone downhill for the Left since 9/11. I'm tempted to be sympathetic towards Liberals -- really, I am -- until I consider that their aims and goals would more or less ruin the social and economic fabric of this country. I'm not very sympathetic to that.

They warned us that it would be impossible to remove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, yet it took less than two months. They predicted doom and gloom if we should dare to set foot in Iraq (including massive American casualties and a general uprising on the "Arab street"). Yet Saddam fled to hide in a "spider hole" only three weeks after the first American boot hit the ground. Liberals told us the Iraqis could never hold elections, form their own government or feel anything but hatred for Americans... yet they were wrong on all counts. Liberals complain that conditions aren't yet perfect in either country, but they're a damn sight closer to it than before we freed 50 million people from two brutal regimes that violated human rights in every way. Liberals also complain because there are terrorists in Iraq. Well, of course there are terrorists in Iraq -- they didn't want that country to become a functioning democracy any more than Liberals did.

Liberals told us, "just you wait until election time!" Well, the leaders of all major Coalition nations that have stood for reelection since Iraq have been returned to office but one. President Bush won in America, Prime Minister Howard in Australia, and Prime Minister Berlusconi in Italy. Now Prime Minister Tony Blair has won reelection in Great Britain. Although Blair's party lost the overwhelming majority they had held, only a few of those seats went to the "anti-war" Liberal Democrat party. The loss was probably due more to domestic than foreign policies. Jose Maria Aznar was expected to win reelection in Spain until a terrorist attack threw many voters into a panic. Score: Coalition leaders 4, terrorists and Liberals 1.

If you're a Liberal, you're probably depressed over the massive Oil-for-Food scandal... and that was only a part of the corruption that has spread through the United Nations like a malignant cancer. The Liberals' great hope of one-world government may someday come to pass, but not under the rotting umbrella of the UN. Everywhere the blue hats go, corruption and scandals follow. Forced prostitution rings run by peacekeepers in Bosnia and sex-for-aid scandals and outright rape perpetrated by UN workers throughout Africa (150 reports in Congo alone!) and paralysis in the face of genocide in Rwanda (and now Sudan) were only the beginning. The so-called "independent inquiry" into the Oil-for-Food scandal has fallen into disrepute, as two of the investigators resigned over Paul Volcker's leniency towards UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The investigators were subpoenaed by Congress, and turned over boxes full of evidence that will show Annan's involvment in the OFF scandal -- and that he lied about his involvement. Volcker angrily demanded that Congress return the evidence and retract their subpoena, after which Volcker promises to allow the investigators to make a single statement. Are those the actions of an investigator trying to expose the truth? And by what right does a UN investigator make such demands on the Congress of the United States? What is Volcker trying to hide?

Even on the economic front, Liberal doom-and-gloom predictions haven't had much luck. Sure, the economy surges and slumps at its own pace in the short term, but it generally trends upward. It looks as though all those small businesses the Liberals kept ignoring when gloating over misleadingly low job creation numbers have caused tax revenues to exceed predictions. "Wall Street analysts reduced their deficit forecasts this week, from around $400 billion to around $370 billion," the Washington Post reported. Liberals and Democrats who sneered at President Bush's stated intention to reduce the deficit by half in five years must not be feeling too enthusiastic about those numbers. To add fuel to the fire, unemployment continues to hold steady at only 5.2%, average hourly wages in the private sector are up, and the consumer spending index looks healthy, according to Deloitte Research. About the worst thing one can say for the moment is that the "positive effects of tax reduction continue to show signs of slowing as economic growth pushes some households into higher income brackets." What a pity -- people are making more money. Well, the best answer to that is to keep cutting taxes. Let them keep what they've earned.

Yes, these are tough times in which to be a Liberal. On the other hand, I predict a boom in the mental health and therapy fields for years to come.

Regardless of our political affiliations or beliefs, we're all plagued by certain scourges of the computer world (besides message board trolls). I wouldn't wish a hard-drive-destroying virus on my worst Liberal opponent... well, not my second-worst, anyway. Having worked with computers since the days of stone knives and bearskins (technologically speaking), I've found there are a few ways you can protect your system without being charged an arm and a leg, even if you're not a computer wizard yourself. The four main types of problems most computer users face are viruses, spyware, spam and hackers.

Viruses are pieces of software that, like their biological namesake, infect a system and attempt to propagate. Most viruses spread by attaching themselves to programs that must be run in order to activate their instructions. One of the best anti-virus programs I've found is AVG Antivirus, a product from an Eastern European company called Grisoft. Thanks to the fall of the Soviet Union, Grisoft has opened offices all over the world to help distribute their product with capitalistic zeal. Fortunately, they offer a free version to home users.

Caution: Before installing a new antivirus program, make sure you a) disconnect from the internet and b) uninstall your previous antivirus product completely. Otherwise, the conflict between programs may slow down your system.

A good way to check your system for viruses is to boot from a clean disk, since many viruses hide in the MBR (master boot record) and cannot be cleaned while the PC's operating system is in use. However, Trend Micro has a free version of their antivirus program HouseCall on the web that can check your PC for hidden viruses.

Cookies are useful bits of code that keep track of your preferences and login status, so you don't have to go through the personalisation process every time you visit the same web site. Spyware, however, is a form of malignant cookie that sends reports back to its distributor. Have you ever surfed the web looking for, say, a new toaster, only to get dozens of emails offering you a new toaster the very next day? Spyware is responsible for tracking your websurfing habits to help unscrupulous companies target you for advertising. Luckily, the nice folks at Lavasoft offer a free version of their product, Ad-Aware Personal, for home use. Their website can be viewed in thirteen languages, to satisfy even the most multiculturally-aware Liberal.

While on the subject of email, spam is perhaps the most annoying and most common feature of modern internet use. Although it can be slightly complicated to set up, Mailgate offers a free version of Spam Weasel for home users. With the help of the Spam Weasel Crash Dummy's Guide, anyone can use the program to set up a virtual proxy that can block most spam. This program, however, requires some maintenance, as spammers deliberately misspell various keywords in increasingly inventive ways so as to slide past such filters. You can even configure the program to block things besides standard spam, such as hate mail from various Liberal groups (although it's often so entertaining, I don't see why anyone would want to).

Hackers may attempt to gain access to your PC remotely. While you may not have your passwords, bank account information and credit cards numbers saved in a convenient text file right on your desktop, there is still information on your PC you might not want hackers to have. Addresses, email lists and pictures from that night in the hot tub are all fair game. What's worse, hackers gaining control of your PC might use it to hack another computer... and the attempt might be traced to you if they get caught trying to bring down Wall Street. While the latest versions of my favorite firewall programs, Tiny Personal Firewall and Zone Alarm, are no longer free for home users, SoftPerfect still offers a free version of their software for users on a tight budget.

Whoever you are, and whatever you believe, you should be able to use the internet without fear. None of these free programs are as protective as the retail versions -- after all, "you get what you pay for" is as good a piece of capitalist advice as "let the buyer beware." However, for the average user, they should provide a safety net... in the literal sense of the word.

Perhaps you're wondering what the Appalachian Fruit Laboratory in Kearneysville WV wants to do with $3,638,000 of your hard-earned tax dollars. Maybe you want to know why animal waste management in Bowling Green KY costs the federal government $2,300,000. (What are those animals eating -- too much of that Appalachian Fruit?) Possibly you just want to know why $100,000 of the money you send to the IRS is going to teach Iowans who want to plant trees in the Trees Forever Program about the injuries snow can do to those trees. I'm more concerned with the damage pork-barrel projects like these are doing to my budget. I'm afraid to say that out loud, however... someone might convince a politician to give him my tax money to study it.

The bottomless money trough in Washington DC is as full to the brim as ever, and so the Citizens Against Government Waste have released the 2005 edition of The Pig Book. Its pages detail all the myriad ways in which excess tax revenue is being misspent, in excruciating detail. Your tax dollars and mine are going to fund projects like Washington State's $250,000 appropriation for "asparagus technology." Is high-tech asparagus your cup of tea? Other examples of blatant waste are $11,450,000 for a Louisiana waterway that carries 0.1% of the nation's water traffic -- while getting 3.4% of all waterway funding -- and $3,973,000 for a multi-state research project on shrimp aquaculture which, according to the USDA, has already met its original objectives... scheduled to be completed in 1987.

Did you know that you donated $70,000 for the Paper Industry Hall of Fame in Appleton WI? Were you aware that you paid $25,000 to the Clark County School District of Nevada so that the students can study mariachi music? Do you like golf enough to pay $100,000 for the Tiger Woods Foundation in Los Alamitos CA? Woods probably makes that much in a relaxing afternoon while playing a game -- can't he fund his own foundation? Were you asked whether you wanted to give $775,000 to the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables FL, which charges customers $350 per night? On the Biltmore's website, taxpayers can see where their money is going. "Coming Spring of 2005, The Biltmore will introduce a brand new, 12,000 sq. ft. destination Spa on the seventh floor of the hotel. Featuring spectacular views of surrounding Coral Gables, the Biltmore Spa will offer a luxurious and sophisticated setting for state-of-the-art treatments and services." Your tax dollars at work! As far as I'm concerned, all this pork spending is a load of fertiliser. If only I could get some of the $1,700,000 you gave to Alaska's International Fertiliser Development Center for saying so.

How often do we hear Democrats crying that tax cuts hurt vital programs like education and Medicare? As long as politicians can spend taxpayer money on bloated pork projects, there's certainly no shortage of money in Washington DC -- and don't let anyone tell you differently. Why don't tax cuts come out of the trough first? No politician from any major party would vote to stop pork altogether -- that's how they buy votes from special interests, and garner good publicity in local papers back home to influence swing voters. No politician is immune -- the top state for pork-barrel projects in 2005 is Alaska, the Republican Senator of which (Ted Stevens) is also the Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman.

It seems there are only two ways to slow down the mad rush to spend all that excess tax money politicians control. A line-item veto would allow a single person -- the President -- to be held accountable for passing pork project costs on to the taxpayers. Not many Presidents would risk falling poll numbers to buy new buses for Disneyland transportation, as one California pork project does with $300,000 of your money.

In 1996, Congress passed the line-item veto, which President Clinton used 82 times in 1997 alone. However, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the line-item veto was unconstitutional in 1998, putting pork back on the menu. Senator Bobby Byrd (D-WV) called the decision, "a great day for the US Constitution." Senator Byrd was named "The King of Pork" in honor of his "fiscal incontinence" by the CAGW in 1999, when he became the first Senator to amass a billion dollars in pork-barrel funding. Byrd has earned a lifetime rating of 17 from the CAGW, on a scale where 0 is considered hostile to taxpayers and 100 labels one a "Taxpayer Hero." As of last year, Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Hillary Clinton (D-NY) tied for the dubious honor of "most taxpayer-hostile Senator," each with a lifetime rating of 7.

The best way, however, to stop the politicians from picking your pocket to buy votes in their home states is: more tax cuts! If they don't have your money in the first place, they can't waste it. And DC politicians obviously have too much money for their own good... or yours.

When some members of Congress violate the Constitution, how can we have any confidence in their leadership? Yet that is precisely the effect these unlawful filibusters of judicial nominees are having -- undermining confidence in the Senate. Instead of voting yes or no on President Bush's picks for certain federal judgeships, Democrats are refusing to allow a vote to even take place, using a Senate rule that no motion may come to a vote while still under discussion.

The filibuster, as it's called, has been used by both sides for over a century and a half to delay votes while opinions are changed by argument and deal-making. Its original intent was somewhat more noble: to make sure all sides had their say during a debate. It was also supposed to mean that the subject at hand was actually being discussed, in an effort to convince some of the majority to change their minds. In reality, filibusters have included Senators reading phone books and even the Bible while simply holding the floor in the effort to prevent a vote from taking place. Senator Huey Long (D-LA) famously regaled the Senate with Shakespeare readings and favorite recipes in the 1930's (your grandpa's tax dollars at work).

This rule created reverse pressure on those doing the talking, since no further Senate business could be transacted while a filibuster was in effect. The only way to end it is to get three-fifths (originally two-thirds) of the Senators to vote, called a cloture vote. In theory, as Senate business piled up, Senators would eventually feel the pressure to vote to allow the process of voting to continue. All a Senator has to do now is announce that a vote will be filibustered, and the Senate moves on to other business. It effectively gives any Senator the power to force any measure to take 60 votes to pass instead of 51, just by saying so.

That's all well and good for bills and motions, since the Constitution deliberately left the Senate free to write its own rules of operation. In general, the less the Senate does, the better off we all are, anyway. The Constitution specifically calls upon the Senate to perform certain functions, however. Using the Senate "house rules" to play political games with those duties subverts the purpose behind calling for Senate participation in the first place. The Senate's role in Presidential nominees to federal courts is one of those functions.

He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.
- Constitution of the United States, Article II, Section 2

The "advice and consent of the Senate" is being withheld by the actions of the Democrat minority. The Senate is not being allowed to vote either for or against some of the President's judicial nominees, by a fake filibuster during which no one is speaking, and while other business comes and goes on the Senate floor. While the Republicans are trying to end this abuse of the filibuster, the Democrats are clinging to their obstructionist ways with all their waning might. Opponents of the proposed rule change, which would prevent judicial nominations being filibustered as though they were common bills or motions, call it the "nuclear option." Its supporters refer to it as the "constitutional option." The nicknames alone pretty much summarise the arguments from each side.

Democrats and Liberals are trying to confuse regular filibusters with unconstitutional ones in the minds of the public, suggesting that all filibusters are in danger of being halted. One television commercial "defending the filibuster" shows a clip from Frank Capra's 1939 movie, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." The clip is supposed to remind us how the brave, idealistic and honest Smith used a filibuster to convince the heartless politicians to do the right thing, until he collapsed from exhaustion. Can we afford to let the time-honored tradition of the filibuster be destroyed, the ad asks? In fact, this sort of truth-twisting provides more evidence for the theory that Liberals believe that movies are more realistic than real life -- or that the public can't tell the difference. They don't seem to realise that we're not fooled by their Hollywood depictions of reality anymore... not when we can turn to CSPAN to see the real Senate in "action." The commercial, by the way, neglects to mention that the fictional Mr. Smith was filibustering a bill, not a judicial nominee.

It doesn't matter who sits in the White House, or who holds a majority in the Senate -- violations of the Constitution by those sworn to uphold it cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged. If Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) thinks he has the necessary votes to stop unconstitutional filibusters, he ought to do so without further hesitation. If not, perhaps those who don't want the Constitution violated ought to contact their Senators and tell them to stop these unlawful filibusters.

The sound of the choir's perfect voices faded. A lone bell began to toll. The plain wooden coffin was carried slowly up the steps. The crowd, millions strong, began to cheer even as they wept. And perhaps two billion people watched around the globe...
 
Began to cheer?
 
Why do people believe in religion? I refer to the real believers, not the dabblers and dilettantes who espouse the popular religion du jour. Some of these fly-by-nights change "faith" more often than I rearrange my furniture, and sometimes with less reason (like, for instance, the bike path dispute that sparked Howard Dean's conversion). Most Liberals keep telling us that religion is all about fear and hatred, but that's what makes them tick; that's the lens through which they view everyone else. I saw no evidence of either fear or hatred from the people celebrating John Paul's life and mourning his death this past week -- just the opposite. The love and esteem in which the Pope was so widely held was simply amazing. The number of believers willing to endure what amounted to a pilgrimage to Rome for his funeral was staggering. Who knew, in this day and age, that so many would be so willing to show their faith? Non-religious people around the world wondered, What do they possibly get out of it?

Religion, it seems, gives the believer two things that secularism can't: the hope that there's more to life than what we can see and touch, and the chance to be a part of it. The idea that there's something after death is central to all major religions. The farewell to Pope John Paul II brought out all of the best the Catholic faith has to offer for the entire world to see, in a spectacle lasting over a week. But John Paul was more than just a leader of Catholics -- he was a religious leader in the true sense of the word. Under his guidance, the various divisions of Christianity came closer together than anytime in the last thousand years. The solemn pageantry and unapologetic public display of faith is something that hasn't been seen since... well, since the last Pope died (two of them!) in 1978. And I don't recall representatives of so many countries and religions, including Iranian theocrats, attending those funerals.

Oddly enough, the once stodgy and boring Church has become something new and different to many young people. A generation of creeping secularism has left many with nowhere to turn for moral guidance and principles. Popular hedonistic philosophies like, "if it feels good, do it," and "he who dies with the most toys, wins," become deeply unsatisfying once you pass your teen years. Anyone mature enough to consider his own mortality wonders whether there just might be something more than the physical life. The secularist answer to this question has usually been, "No! Nothing! Shut up and enjoy yourself! Don't waste time!" Could it be that Leftist suppression of religion and morality over the last quarter century might be the main reason Pope John Paul II held such appeal for so many of the world's youth?

Many seemed surprised at the sheer number of people who turned out around the world to mark the passing of the Pope. The real surprise would be if this event doesn't mark the beginning of a low-key religious resurgence, especially among young Europeans disillusioned with the bleakness of secularism. With all the "glories" of demi-Socialism -- including soaring unemployment rates (especially in France and Germany) and the near-death of family life in some places (like Scandinavia) -- Europeans have become mired in a sort of moral quagmire of their own. Ennui has become the national disease of the European Union.

If John Paul's death actually helps rescue the next generation from their secular decline, perhaps he deserves the title of "Saint" so many want conferred on him by his Church.

There's something admirable and inspiring about a person who says, "These are the principles and morals by which I will live my life," and then proceeds to do so, right to the very end. Someone like that serves as an example for all of us. Such a person was Pope John Paul II. He learned about dignity and the value of life early, and fought to advance those principles right until the moment he died.

Pope John Paul II, born Karol Wojtyla, was a man with a steadfast belief in a set of solid moral values in a world where morality is frowned upon and values shift with the wind. He studied for the priesthood in secret during the Nazi occupation of his native Poland, while he performed with an underground theater group. (Before entering the Church, he wanted to be an actor.) He began his work as a religious leader under the disapproving atheism of Communist rule, becoming an auxiliary bishop in Krakow in 1958. He was made a cardinal in 1967, and elected to the Papacy in 1978.

The growing cult of death won a victory in the battle to devalue life with the judicial murder of Terri Schiavo. Sentenced to die on hearsay alone, for no crime greater than being brain-damaged and voiceless, Terri slowly starved to death while nutrition and water were withheld from her by court order. Every attempt to reverse the court's decision or alter Terri's state-sanctioned fate was blocked by the judicial system, a system that has lost any right to use the word "justice."

For decades, the pro-death secularist Liberals have been whittling away at the respect for life we once held. They have openly supported anti-life policies, from abortions without parental notification to late-term abortions of viable babies to the "right to die" of people who aren't actually dying. Now, with the death of Terri Schiavo, they have turned the judiciary into a vehicle for killing off the unwanted as well as the unborn. We have been taught to accept death as an easy solution, not an inevitability to be put off as long as possible. Adversity is not something to be faced with courage. Death is merely a "choice," like whether to order chicken or veal.

Once upon a time, before our judicial system decided that unborn children were "nonpersons" with no more right to live than a tapeworm, a judgment like that handed down by Judge Greer would have been impossible. If American culture still had the reverence for life it had just 40 years ago, mercy and reason would have tempered Greer's decision, instead of this soulless strictness about adhering to the letter of the law above all. It wouldn't and shouldn't have been merely a question of who had the right to kill Terri, but whether it was right to do so at all. The slow erosion of our values has coarsened us the to the point where many of us shrug off the deliberate killing of a helpless person by our courts as "probably for the best." This apathetic attitude persists despite the fact that the person in question was in no danger of dying, and had a family willing to care for her for the rest of her life.

In this struggle to weaken our sense of right and wrong, activist judges have taken upon themselves power they were never intended to have. Thomas Jefferson warned us that renegade judges could be a danger to liberty, though even he never imagined they would be a danger to life itself. "To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one that would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy," he wrote in 1820. Time and again we have seen laws written by the elected representatives of the people simply thrown out because they don't suit a particular judge's agenda. Many times judges have dictated to the legislature what laws they should write, as in the case of the Massachusetts Supreme Court ordering the legislature to write a law allowing gay marriage within six months.

Judges tend to support each other to preserve their collective power, as was shown by all the courts involved in the Schiavo case simply ruling that proper procedures were followed without actually looking at the facts and testimony, or calling for up-to-date tests. Even when the Congress of the United States, in a vain attempt to prevent Terri Schiavo's constitutional rights to due process from being violated by the Florida judiciary, passed a law requiring a de novo review of the case, Judge Whittemore of the US District court simply reviewed the procedures again, as had all the judges before him.

Jefferson cautioned that judges would be "constantly working underground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric." The respect our legal system once held for life, the mercy and protection our laws afforded the innocent and helpless were integral to that fabric, now picked apart by judicial activism. We may be a nation of laws, but we are no longer a nation of justice.

By the time you read this, Terri Schindler Schiavo will most likely be dead. Pro-death Liberals and Deathocrats will be dancing in the streets (figuratively speaking), celebrating their great victory over the religious right (and President Bush) in the judicially-sanctioned killing of a brain-damaged woman. The only thing missing will be the AK-47s, since most of the same Liberals are anti-gun. I wonder, though, about the implications of this event, and where it will take us next.

One result of Terri Schiavo's ordeal has been to prove the unassailable supremacy of the judiciary over the other two branches of government, at both the state and federal level. The legislative and executive branches are each, in theory, equal to the judiciary. On paper, each branch has checks and balances to prevent the other two from becoming too powerful. Many of those on the Right have had their warnings about the increasing power of judicial activists ignored for years. This case has proven beyond a reasonable doubt (to borrow a phrase) that the executive and legislative branches of government combined are powerless to affect decisions made by the judiciary.

Congress even passed a law requiring that the Schiavo case receive a fresh look at the federal level, since there were questions about violations of Terri's Constitutional rights. The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution states, "No person shall be... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." The Fourteenth Amendment reinforces this at the state level, adding that no state shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." When the State takes a life, it is obligated to be as certain as possible of its findings -- and there are too many questions concerning the Schiavo case to simply ignore.

This law might have become a precedent for bringing other disputed cases to the federal courts. But the action of the federal court mirrored those of the Florida court system. Instead of actually reviewing the evidence and testimony, perhaps calling for new tests to determine Terri's true condition, US District Judge James Whittmore simply checked the original court records to see whether proper procedures had been followed. He adhered to the letter but not the intent of the law. In other words, the merits of the original case have never been reviewed, nor have the original medical findings... only the legal procedures. This despite the fact that Terri has never had a PET scan or MRI, nor a lawyer representing her. There is no way to regulate the power of the courts when no one has jurisdiction over them.

The Liberal advocacy of death for the unwanted and unfit has reached a new low with the Schiavo case. It's hard to understand their mania for death, until we consider the fact that they also believe the government should pay for all health care. Liberals have always advocated national health care (or socialised medicine) as the acme of medical guardianship, despite complaints of long waits and endless bureaucracy from countries that have it. It's not too hard to imagine a future in which national health care is a reality, and Liberals justify the deaths of unwanted children and adults who are disabled, deformed, mentally deficient or terminally ill on the grounds that they cost the government too much money to take care of.

In fact, we don't have to imagine it at all. The T-4 Euthanasia program ran along those very same lines in Nazi Germany. Under Phillipp Bouhler (head of the Fuehrer Chancellery) and Dr. Viktor Brack, Hitler's euthanasia program killed approximately 270,000 people. The original order, signed in 1939, gave them the power to "decide whether those who have -- as far as can be humanly determined -- incurable illnesses can, after the most careful evaluation, be granted a mercy death." Handicapped children were given lethal injections or starved to death. Other victims were gassed to death or simply shot.

How did the Nazis justify their wholesale murder of those they considered "unfit" to live? One propaganda poster showing a mental patient had a caption saying, "This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the people 60,000 Reichmarks during his lifetime. People, that is your money." Under the national health system of Nazi Germany, it was easy to justify killing the imperfect on the grounds that they cost the State money in the form of medical care -- money that could be better used for education, to alleviate poverty or to create jobs, some would argue.

That sort of thing could never happen today, could it? Consider the British case in which two doctors performed a late-term abortion on a baby whose only defect was that it had a cleft palate -- a condition that can be corrected by surgery. The CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) decided not to prosecute the case because the abortion was performed "in good faith" by doctors who believed the child would be handicapped for life. A handicapped child would have required government medical care to live or to have the condition corrected. When you've absorbed that, consider the Liberal support for abortion, euthanasia for the disabled and handicapped, the "right to die" movement, and now their celebration of the state-sanctioned starvation of a woman who had a below-standard "quality of life."

That's the direction in which we're headed, if something is not done to prevent it. The default position of the courts as well as doctors should always be to preserve innocent life without a good reason to end it. Hearsay evidence from a "husband" who violated his marriage vows and suddenly remembered the patient's wishes years after the fact should never be a good enough reason to take a life. Yet in this case, it was. What will come next?

Hat tip to HundredPercenter for the collection of DU posts about Terri.