Sorry for the comment barrage, but you always write posts that make me think a lot. Another thing I firmly believe is that my judgment should not necessarily overrule my doctor's. For example, a couple of times he has wanted tests that I didn't think were necessary or even morally appropriate. Yet I did it, because he seemed to feel they were necessary. The point is that I am going to him to get his expertise, and if he feels he needs certain information, at that point I think he has a right to it. I don't have his medical background. I can't know what risks he might be worried about, or what he might be afraid of. There are two people in this relationship, and I feel strongly that the consciences and judgments of both should be respected.

SW, you wrote: "the system is designed to marginalize them and prevent adequate treatment. After all, even with reduced fees for social workers, therapy tends to cost more than drugs." That strikes me as being the problem. The insurance industry's priority is getting the cheapest resolution in the short-term, since these days companies shift insurance providers quite often in an attempt to control costs. The paradox is that spending more money in the short term will control the long-term costs to society, the patient and the company. The problem with our insurance system is that it is controlling the doctor/patient relationship in a way that seems to destroy the ethical foundation of that relationship. Many doctors are forced to practice in a way that is against their best judgment, and many patients don't receive care that would really help them. I am convinced that not having an insurance company control the medical care I receive has been a large part of my recovery. For one thing, I have no restriction on the doctor I use, nor on any specialist or test he might recommend. For another, he is freed to use his best judgment. It is a paradox that having medical insurance would ensure that I could not receive the type of medical treatment that I receive.

As far as I'm concerned, you dissected this one and displayed a very clear anatomical drawing of the creature. Reducing women to children is absolutely the core of Eve Ensler's vision. We are always toddlers in her view of the world. Accountability is forever delayed; a woman is to be celebrated for every excited moan of discovery just as we all applaud a toddler's first steps. And you could not be more correct in your observation that this sort of thinking is spreading rapidly in our society. Now, when we are facing very frightening global issues, we need our rationality more than ever. We have to be able to face the utterly destructive drives contained in one form of Islamism. That form is fighting a vicious battle for supremacy in the Islamic world. And I doubt very much that our journalists are even able to recognize the real issues. That means that we are not reading about them, so many of the rationalists in our society have a skewed picture of reality. So what do we do? This matter of the ports is a case in point. If the UAE contracting for control of some terminals is dangerous, it is also dangerous for the Saudis, Asian Muslim nations and the Chinese to be controlling them. Based on that predicate, we should toss all the foreign-based companies out. Alternatively, we can observe that the security issues raised by having Chinese or Saudi firms in charge of shipping terminals are no different than the issues raised by having a Dubai-based firm run them. We could review those measures for adequacy and have a rational debate on the best course of action. Instead, we seemed determined to do neither. This makes no sense. We are substituting magical amulets of wishful thinking for rational risk avoidance. And we cannot ignore the huge rise in anti-Semitism in Europe and its endemic, virulent nature in the ME, because that habit of thought says much about the fundamental thinking of the societies which indulge in it. And what do we see? The poision is spreading. We are unable to respond rationally. But, you know, is ignoring anti-Semitism or terrorism really any different than pretending that promiscuity isn't causing a wave of disease? Is it really any different than promising kids that if they just use condoms, their sex lives will never cause them any harm? Is it really any different than the fact that we have made no plan as to how we are going to provide for the retirement benefits promised to the baby boomers in about 15 years? It isn't. As a society, we have somehow lost the ability to hold a responsible discussion of such matters. Until we recover it, we will be unable to counter terrorism effectively and unable to manage our own society effectively. Wishful thinking cannot be a means to achieve a rational public policy.

That's a very interesting analogy. It frames society as a whole as a helpless child, which is pretty much the antithesis of the principles of Jeffersonian democracy. I agree with you that people are trying to rewrite history, but I think we only lend power to their lies by making them criminal offenses. My personal feeling is that Holocaust deniers are at best idiots who can't count dead bodies. Sometimes they are people who like the utilitarian/Hegelian line of thought that culminated in the Holocaust and so wish to change the ending of the story. Usually they are evil idiots who want more dead bodies. Nonetheless, society, if it is to be a society of adults, must remain capable of recognizing and combatting idiots. Otherwise we become like the poor fools beating up Ronald McDonald in the ME because of some cartoons published in a newspaper over a thousand miles away. A hundred years from now, only the societies which did not criminalize denying the Holocaust will still believe in the Holocaust. The suppressed lie will have gained the day in the others, because the powerful and reiterated arguments explaining the Holocaust will not have been made in these societies. I bet anti-Semitism is rampant in Austria now. It certainly is in France. The thing is, the Nazi ideology sounds made up. It sounds insane, unbelievable - it sounds like an extremely bad alternate history novel. What they did was absolutely inexplicable in rational terms. There was no reason at all for exterminating Jews, and in fact it really hurt the war effort in Germany. It's hard to believe in the Holocaust because it sounds implausible. Furthermore, Nazi ideology had some roots in a broader western social trend, so confronting the "whys" is a brutally painful process for westerners. So the background story of the Holocaust needs to be told again and again. The reasoning, if you can call it that, of the Nazis needs to be explained again and again. Several chapters of Mein Kampf should be required reading in German and Austrian schools instead of banned. We need to stare the insanity in the face because no one countered Hitler then and if we don't remember our mistakes we are doomed to repeat them. The Holocaust deniers are like a vaccine causing us to to do that, so that our society retains the immune memory against this type of ideology. We absolutely **must** remember the Holocaust, because we must remember what this line of thinking produces. We must remember the killing fields of Cambodia and the gulags of Russia and the re-education camps of China as well. Most of the great social movements of the last century produced death counts in the millions. These truths will be lost if they are not questioned. The theories that sounded good then will sound good again, and millions more will die. There is nothing that gives life to a lie like preventing it from being publicly spoken. Nothing.

Very perceptive, SW. I agree that we have the ability to exercise restraint because we are now directly engaging the enemy. And this is quite some enemy. You are probably right that restraint and reason will not ameliorate the problem, but, at the minimum, they will keep us from becoming as crazed as these rioters. I think we must continue to point out that this behavior is not worthy of respect while pointing out that we do respect Muslims in general, and that they have the same rights in our eyes as adherents of any other religion. The essence of our society is its struggle to maintain the principle that people should be judged individually on the basis of their actions, and not on the basis of accidental characteristics or religious affiliation. The free exercise of human reason is what the Wahabis view as the enemy. We present a strong alternative to the thuggery (your comparison to the Nazi takeover is apt indeed) when we maintain our historical position. The war against terrorism is essentially a war of ideas. We must maintain our own in order to erode the edifice of Wahabism. Like the Nazi quasi-religious identification of the race as God, this ideology contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction. It must both be actively countered and opposed in principle, and our principles must be clearly and effectively stated in order to do that. M. Capulus is right. This is organized and orchestrated, a means to an end. That end is to make the West declare war against the Muslims within the western nations. They know they cannot win without isolating Muslims from the ideas of the west. Like Hitler, they are trying to make the Muslim war an international outlaw in order to advance total war.

That's a very powerful way of putting it, EssEm. "...anxiety about feelings turning into the doctrine that everyone ... has the right to live free of being offended." Stated that way, it's obvious that the desired goal is impossible. You are right about the similarity to totalitarian religious societies (and any type of totalitarian society). I suppose that freedom has to entail individual uneasiness.

You've got an excellent point. I'm hardly an expert on the subject, but I think you must be right about the creation of the 527 groups eroding the level of discussion. What happened is that fanatics will organize, so the most extreme points of view are promoted. The idea that individual speech or the speech of a block-level organization could be restricted is a blinding violation of both the Constitution and common sense. Most Americans are quite moderate. So we have given the fanatics a megaphone and muzzled the largely moderate individuals? What a disastrous prescription for the public square! From reading Alito's cases, I think he will stand his ground for the idea that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances" does mean that Congress can't pass laws infringing on political debate and most especially speech conducted through grassroots political organizations. It's by far my strongest reason for supporting his nomination. The right to privacy is not in the Constitution, but the right to free speech is. As a woman, I might not be happy about a bunch of politicians playing politics with abortion laws, but at least if Alito's originalist approach prevails, I'll be allowed to say what I want and campaign or advocate for the politicians I want. First things first. As for the campuses, TheFire.org really opened my eyes. I could hardly believe what I was reading! On this issue I am passionate. For this principle I would go to jail. I will never, ever vote for McCain because of this one issue. Never. I would vote for Kerry or Al Gore before I'd vote for McCain.

This is so uncomfortably true that I think all your readers will leave in an uneasy state of mind. No doubt that's what you intended. It's better to be uneasily aware than blissfully unconscious. I agree with you that Liberalism's precepts are usually true, but the paradox is that for Liberalism to work, it must be willing to admit that there are some individuals who will respond to a wider freedom with exulting and expanding malignancy. These must be rooted out and quarantined or destroyed for a liberal society to survive. Which takes you right back to the Old Testament/Torah.... Human dilemmas don't seem to really change with the ages, although our additional resources allow us to offer more second chances with less danger. Your point about Darfur is well taken. That situation stands as an indictment of the current international political scene.