Rumor Confirmed: Ramesh Ponnuru To Come in February With Update

Conservative columnist Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review will be coming to speak to the Salvatori Center in early February. The date is as of yet unconfirmed but I will put it up once I know. Update: Ponnuru will be speaking in RN 15 from 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM. His topic is the "Future of Conservatism."

Of course he's not speaking at the Athenaeum because he's a conservative and they are banned by Bonnie Snortum, at least this semester. (Rumor has it that several years ago when Salvatori wanted to bring Ponnuru to the Ath to talk about his book, The Party of Death, Bonnie Snortum nixed the idea unless Ponnuru would consent to a debate. Given her history of vetoing conservative speaker suggestions from the student body and the existence of only one conservative on the Ath advistory committee, I find this rumor entirely plausible -- especially seeing as I have heard it from two different people.)

Anyways, here's a video of Ramesh speaking about the future of the Republican Party in January 2009.

Dinner With Sister Helen Prejean: Is Waterboarding Torture?

There are some rumors floating around about my conversation with Sister Helen Prejean at the Athenaeum. In an effort to dispel them, I thought I would write about what actually happened.

(And lest, I anger my Catholic friends, I do not believe that simply being a nun makes you worthy of some super kind of respect outside of your own humanity -- as many of my religious friends have suggested. All of us put our pants on one leg at a time and besides, Prejean did not even pray before eating her food -- which makes me wonder how much of a nun she actually is.)

On Thursday evening I had dinner with Sister Helen Prejean to talk about the death penalty, the courts, and the state of the courts.

I was among eight students that sat down to have dinner with her in a room of perhaps more than a hundred or so students and members of the community who had turned out to hear her speak.

Sister Prejean assumed when she sat down with us that we were all supporters of a progressive agenda -- that we were all Obamaites, which despite the professed "balance" of CMC, all but one of us sitting at the head table were.

One of the the students said that while Obama was having a tough time, he was trying to undo the "damage" of the Bush years, to which Sister Prejean nodded. Another student said that he doesn't blame President Obama, but the congressional leadership.

I told her at that point that she was talking to a "divided" table, that I was a supporter of Senator-elect Scott Brown, for whom I am trying to work, and that I think President Obama has been rather disastrous for our community because of his recent decision to give terrorist "rights." (Later that evening, after the talk, Obama announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other terrorists would not be tried in NY.)

She replied that President Obama had given a very clear message that we do not torture and ended the awful torture of waterboarding, which as torture, is against the Geneva Convention.

I said that water boarding wasn't torture, that it has been effective in preventing future terrorist attacks, and that as it is not torture, and besides, the Geneva Convention doesn't apply to terrorists picked up on a battlefield as they are not prisoners of war. And every time we have released Gitmo detainees, we have found them on the field of battle.

At which point, Paige Costello replied, "Wouldn't you? I can't believe you think waterboarding is not torture."

[I didn't say this at the time, but probably not Paige. I'd have nothing to do with terrorists or the U.S. military after being at Gitmo.]

Prejean replied that she had spoken with David LeBoeuf, one of the terrorists' attorneys, and that they said that at Gitmo "you could do anything you want" to the inmates.

I replied that defense counsel might have a reason to well, exaggerate the conditions of their clients and that I have known part of the prosecution team.

She replied that we have no way of knowing whether or not these guys are guilty -- and that some of them have just been taxi cab drivers picked up on the street.

She reiterated her disbelief that I thought waterboarding wasn't torture and that people have had their heads dunked into buckets of water.

I replied that that was a "canard" and challenged her to provide any factual evidence for waterboarding being performed that way and that it is not performed that way, but by dripping water on someone's face.

She said that it simulates drowning, and I said yes, but that the U.S. military routinely waterboards its own soldiers. Does the U.S. torture its own soldiers, then?

At that point, David Nahmias, suggested that we lower the heated nature of the discussion. I said do we not now have the right to ask tough questions of our guests? He replied that we do, but that we should let someone else talk.

Helen Prejean replied, "Yes, let someone else talk."

For those interested in the subject matter and why waterboarding is consistent with Catholic teaching, not to mention good U.S. policy, have a look at these videos here with Marc Thiessen.

Later on in the evening after everyone had said their piece about how bad the death penalty was, I continued to ask her some questions.

I asked her, in the wake of Roper v. Simmons, a court case that outlawed the execution of juveniles, whether or not she thought that the Supreme Court would overrule life without parole for juveniles.

She replied, "I hope so." She said that we know from science that the brain is not fully formed so young people cannot have a sense of culpability. When you are fourteen, you aren't thinking right, she said.

Part of the reason the U.S. did not sign the U.N. Convention of the Rights of Children was that we execute children, she explained, and we have had a Supreme Court that for the last twenty-five years has ignored international law.

(Of course that whole process strikes me as foolish. Simmons killed Shirley Cook in part because he knew he could not be executed as a seventeen year old. What does one think would happen with gang related killings if younger members wouldn't spend life in prison for conducting them? We would have child soldiers in our inner-city.)

I asked Prejean if she would support the death penalty if she knew that the person in prison was likely to kill again. For instance, I pointed to the instances of people using cell phones to order hits from their prison cells. She replied that it was unfortunate, but that we should work on making prisons safer. (A good follow up question, and one I did not get to ask because the Ath fellow was giving introduction is, "If the death penalty is really as bad as you say, why should we have prisons? Aren't they a failed institution too?)

Admittedly, this question was deliberate, in order for the death penalty to be impermissible within Catholic tradition Ms. Prejean has to show that the person being detained is incapable of doing further harm and defenseless, which many death penalty inmates are not. Some routinely kill other prisoners, especially if they have a life sentence or want to curry favor with the gangs with which they are affiliated.

Later, she told us her views of the movie based upon her book, Dead Man Walking. She also said that Tim Robbins movie version of her Dead Man Walking isn't anti-death penalty. It "brings you over to both sides, like all good art does."