04/17/2004: "Pot harangues kettle, sounds foolish"

Princeton philosophy professor Peter Singer, the world's foremost advocate of infanticide, bestiality, and the elimination of inconvenient people, has heaved forth with a moral judgment on the world's most powerful man:

President George Bush wants to be seen as a good Christian leader but, according to a new book by Australian professor Peter Singer, he actually has the moral development of a 13-year-old boy.

Singer, who has managed to convince uncounted numbers of undergraduates that the life of an infant is the moral equivalent of a snake's, contends that Bush's morality is deficient because the president see things "very simply, in black and white, as good versus evil." And that's true�Bush, not having the intellectual firepower of a Princeton professor, was unable to come up with any description of the murder of 3000 innocent people any more sophisticated than "evil." I'm sure that Singer, moral adult that he is, had no problem finding the good side of September 11.

Professor Singer said Mr. Bush was wrong to go to war in Afghanistan (he suggested that a truly Christian leader would have "turned the other cheek" when America was attacked on September 11, 2001) because it led to the loss of innocent life.

Singer's encyclopedic knowledge of Christian ethics and political theory clearly fail him here. "Turn the other cheek" is from a sermon of Jesus' meant for His disciples, not as political advice to the leaders of secular governments. As for Afghanistan, I guess Singer is saying that no country has the right to defend itself if there is a likelihood that innocent life might be lost in the process. So, because German civilians were bound to die in the invasion of Germany, the Allies had no business taking out Hitler, who was killing innocents at unprecedented rates.

He said Mr. Bush was also wrong to go to war in Iraq, since Saddam Hussein posed no threat to the US. He conceded that all presidents had moral failings, but said Mr Bush's were more serious, because of his power.

Singer's encyclopedic knowledge of American history and government clearly fail him here, as well. Bush has no more power than any other president, at least not any post-World War II president (if you want to talk about military power). And unfortunately, that famous Singer logic fails him, too. If it is wrong to go to war because it will lead to the loss of innocent life, then it would have been wrong to go to war even if Saddam had posed a threat to the US. Conversely, if it isn't wrong to go to war despite the loss of innocent life when one's country is threatened, then how can it have been wrong to take out the Taliban and as much of al-Qaeda as we could before they could attack the US again?

A bit of advice, Pete: stick to dead babies. It's what you know.

(Thanks to Tim Blair for the link.)