With the exception of a very small minority, just about everyone on the planet has an innate sense of right and wrong. Even young people in our post-modern American culture have a finely-honed sense of morality. It’s just a bit skewed, however.

Often when you talk to people today they will insist that a belief in right and wrong is not contingent upon a belief in God. People still have strong moral convictions, but unlike past generations, they do not have any visible basis for why they find some things to be evil and others good. Their moral intuitions are free-floating. They believe in human dignity without the underlying precept that God made all men to be dignified. They understand that it’s okay for non-human animals to hunt one another, but when human animals do it, they call it “murder”. A Christian friend of mine who is a social worker suggested that people really know there is a God, but they are repressing that knowledge.

No one should impose their moral views on others because everyone has a right to find truth inside him or herself?

Hey, that sounds a lot like my father’s view. Though a Christian, he didn’t share his faith with me because of that belief. He died when I was in junior high, leaving me without faith, to stumble around until I found it on my own. I loved my dad, but in this way, he made a big mistake that he is fortunate God rectified by dropping the God hypothesis firmly in my path.

All human beings possess moral feelings; we call it a conscience. There are lines of behavior that we just know we shouldn’t cross. Our moral sense doesn’t stop there, however. We also believe that there are standards existing apart from us by which we evaluate moral feelings. We feel a moral obligation not to do certain things regardless of what our culture says or even what our personal intuition says. For example, ask most people if the Afghanis should honor women’s rights. You betcha! We are taught that moral values are relative to individuals and cultures, but we don’t live like that. We inevitably treat some principles as absolute standards by which we judge the behavior of those around us, even those who don’t share our values. If all moral beliefs are relative, what gives us that right? People who laugh at the claim of a transcendent moral order do not think racial genocide is just impractical or self-defeating; they believe it is wrong.  The Nazis felt they were helping their society toward a better future, but we don’t care. We deem their actions to be evil. We possess a belief that moral standards exist outside of ourselves.  Why?

Of course, the evolutionary biologists will insist that altruistic people were somehow favored in our evolutionary past and so their genes were passed down, so the great majority of us now feel that unselfish behavior is “right”. It’s a flawed theory, but it’s the best they have. Yeah, okay, so I’m kind to my blood relatives and maybe the adoptive ones. That’s a benefit to me. But how is it a benefit to me to be kind to my enemies? From an evolutionary standpoint, hostility to anyone outside of my group should be the standard response. Altruism to those outside of our group makes no sense because it takes resources away from us and gives it to them. Evolution cannot account for the origin of our moral feelings nor the sense that there are standards outside of ourselves.

Western cultures have a strong sense of “human rights”. We affirm that every human has inherent dignity and that it is wrong to violate the equal dignity of others. Why do we believe that? If all cultures are relative, on what do we base our premise of the inherent dignity of all human beings? Some of us say that human rights come from God because we were all created in God’s image, making mankind sacred. Some reject this answer because they are agnostic. Others say human rights come from nature, that if we examine nature will find some kinds of behavior are “fitting” with the way things are. They’re just naturally right. I live in a pretty natural part of the world and the last I looked nature was pretty violent and cruel, based upon survival of the fittest. I don’t think a polar bear cares about the dignity of the seal he’s eating. To me, this speaks against the natural basis for the inherent dignity of any species.

Of course, human rights might have just been created by humans for humans. Some claim it is in the interest of societies to create human rights because honoring individual dignity makes the community better in the long run. So what if the majority decides that it is not in their interest to support human dignity? If human rights are mere products of democratic processes, then they can easily be legislated out of existence. Yet, our founding fathers insisted that rights cannot be created, they must be discovered, or they have no value. Human rights must have a value beyond their usefulness to society or they really have no value.

There is a clear religious basis for human rights, but I think if you are honest, you’ll find there is not really a good secular basis. If there is no God, argued Nietzsche, Sartre and others, there can be no good reason to be kind, loving, or to work for peace. Philippa Foot noted that secular thinkers accepted the idea that there is no God and therefore no real meaning to human life, but we having really confront the basis for morality. We go on making moral judgments as if there was still a basis for morality.

The Founding Fathers gave the answer that human rights were discovered by man. They exist apart from us, whether we like them or not. The problem with this is that if there is nothing above us, higher than our own intellect and choices, then who has the right to impose their subjective, arbitrary moral feelings on someone else? The majority has a right to make laws, but does it have the right to impose those laws upon a minority? How about if the majority decides to exterminate the minority? Who says that’s wrong? Without God, all moral statements are arbitrary, subjective, internal and ultimately without basis. Nietzsche made the famous statement that “the masses blink and say: ‘We are all equal – Man is but man, before God we are all equal.’ Before God! But now this God has died” (Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, part IV). So what is the basis of moral obligation in a world where God is dead?

We can make the statement that God does not exist, but we do not live as though God does not exist. We still act as if there is something transcendent above us, even as we deny its existence. Moral obligation is a clue to God’s existence.

Remember what I said about nature being cruel. I am not the first one to notice it. Violence would appear to be perfectly natural in the animal kingdom. If humans are merely animals, then why is it not perfectly natural for the strong to trample the weak? There is no basis for moral obligation unless we argue that nature is somehow unnatural, but we can’t make that argument unless we concede there is something supernatural that stands apart from nature and allows us to judge the rightness or wrongness of nature.

The answer out of this conundrum is to look at the Biblical account of history and see if it explains or moral sense any better than a secular view might. If the world was made by a God of peace, justice and love, then that would explain why we believe that violence, oppression and hate are wrong. If you believe human rights are a reality, then it makes much more sense that God exists than that He does not. To insist upon the secular worldview and yet continue to make moral judgments is to live in deep disharmony between the world of your intellectual manipulation and the real work that your heart knows exists. If a premise like “there is no God” leads to a conclusion that you know it untrue (abusing women is culturally relative) then shouldn’t you consider changing the premise?

My goal is not to prove that God exists, but rather to show you that you already know that He exists. You could accept that beauty and love have no meaning and that living as if they do have meaning is delusional and stop living the lie that everything is just fine with you pretending that something has meaning that doesn’t. A good number of the existentialists committed suicide because of that firm conviction and I think The Stranger is the most depressing book I ever read. The alternative is that you release your denial and accept that you know God exists, that you have been living as if He existed through the beauty of nature and art for most of your life, but that you have failed to acknowledge the One Who has given you all this beauty to enjoy.

To understand where Sarah Palin comes from, you have to understand the battle Alaska has had to be treated as an equal state with other states. This is a battle we have largely lost and it is very similar in flavor to the battle many conservatives see looming on the horizon if Barack Obama wins the presidency. If you want to go back to the future, follow along while I tell you about Alaska’s past and present.

Most of us who live in Alaska came here from somewhere else. I was born here, as was my brother and my children, but our parents came from somewhere else. Despite hard winters, limited services, difficult travel and a federally-mandated limited economy they chose to stay here and so do I. The reasons for staying vary with the Alaskan, but for a great many of us it is the land that has us enraptured. I can drive for hundreds of miles and never see someone’s headlights in my rearview mirror. Moose regularly eat my garden. The kids saw a lynx last winter less than a mile from our house. We hike, we fish, and we hunt (which is often more hiking and sitting in the rain than actually killing and butchering anything). All this, however, requires that we be able to feed ourselves, put heat in our homes, and maybe sometimes travel to the Lower 48 so that our relatives who don’t “get it” can see us. That requires jobs.

In most other states, jobs come from industry, which is built on land frequently owned by the owners of that industry. In Alaska – well, not so much. Industries are few and far between and land – that’s as scarce as hen’s teeth.

Whoa! You say what? Alaska is the largest state in land mass in the United States – one-fifth the size of the continental US and more than twice the size of Texas. What do you mean you have a land shortage?

I’ve already explained that a great deal of Alaska is locked up as military land, though it isn’t really used as military land. We’ve never gotten a clear answer as to why this is so, but we keep asking. Then there’s the national parks, preserves, refuges, wildernesses, etc. And, that is my next topic.

The Alaska National Interest Land Conservation Act of 1980 (ANILCA) was the product of an intense four year legislative battle. In 1978, President Jimmy Carter invoked an obscure law called the Antiquities Act of 1906 to administratively lock up 150 million acres of Alaskan land, claiming it was in the "national interest" to protect these lands for "future generations of Americans". Nobody apparently asked what was supposed to happen to present generations of Alaskans without use of most of our state. ANILCA was meant, among other things, to redress this taking. Enacted into law over the opposition of a vast majority of Alaskans, the Act contained dozens of unique provisions specifically designed to address the concerns of Alaskans, protecting traditional uses on millions of acres of public lands. The primary architects of the Act (among them Morris Udall of Utah) made repeated assurances that ANILCA would not adversely affect traditional uses and users and that access to the millions and millions of acres of set-aside lands  would not be curtailed. This is a crucial legal, historical, and political fact: the agreement that underlies ANILCA was that the “national interest” would get its 120 million acres of new Parks, Refuges and Wilderness areas, but Alaska would get unique special rules to enable a wide array of activities to continue in these vast new units.

Unfortunately, promises were apparently made to be broken. The federal agencies and their personnel — not present when the original promises were made — have not always fully appreciated the special provisions designed to fulfill the promises. Personnel with training and experience in the Lower 48 have not readily grasped how unique and different ANILCA can be compared to Park Refuge or Forest administration outside of Alaska.

The crucial access provisions enshrined in Section 1110 of ANILCA are emblematic of the problems faced by many Alaskans in attempting to us our state for recreational activities, let alone commercial ones. Experience of many Alaskans provides ample evidence of the institutional difficulties the agencies have had in implementing a unique and often radically different law such as ANILCA.

Section 1110 of ANILCA guaranteed access by floatplane, motorboat, and snowmachine to millions of acres within Parks, Refuges, Wilderness Areas, etc. for the purpose of engaging in traditional activities. It established an “open until closed” regime, constituting a substantial departure from Lower 48 management practices. Without this guarantee, there would have been no acceptance of ANILCA among Alaskans. Moreover, without this provision, millions upon millions of acres of public land would be off limits, as a matter of fact, to all U.S. citizens. The language does provide some latitude to the federal agencies. For example, areas can be closed if the access causes adverse impacts on unit resources; a public closure process must be followed. Congress set the “bar” high for closures to ensure that the access guarantee was real and not just a pretention of access that cannot be obtained.  Under the Clinton Administration, the Interior Department attempted to repudiate this Congressional access commitment and acted to systematically lower the standard for closures to the point where the access guarantee of ANILCA was gutted. During the Reagan and both Bush Administrations, Alaskans have had mixed success in making their case for improved access, often resulting in promises without production.

The National Park Service closed two million acres of Alaska to snowmachiners based solely on unquantified effects, conjecture, speculation and Lower 48 studies on species like the whitetail deer, which do not range in the areas that were closed. There is ongoing litigation by Alaskans against the NPS attempting to reopen the area, based on the Section 1110 access provision. In several areas of the state, planes cannot fly over or, if they can, they can’t land. The Fish and Wildlife Service cannot identify any resource impacts, but they say they are studying the impacts and the closures must remain in place until they’re done. ANILCA expressly forbids such studies for the sole purpose of denying access, but the FWS doesn’t seem to know that. Agencies clearly have authority to pursue site-specific closures limited to the smallest practical area or limited to the smallest period of time to solve specific resource problems. However, proceeding with blanket closures (as in Denali) goes far beyond what is needed to solve any specifically identified problems. These actions were emblematic of the complete disregard the Clinton-Gore Administration had for the letter and spirit of ANILCA and for the rights of the Alaskan people.

Section 1110(b) is another pillar of the promises rendered to Alaskans. When the vast conservation system units were established, over 10 million acres of Native, private, and state lands were included within the boundaries. ANILCA assured that they would have the RIGHT to access their lands to pursue both traditional activities and economic development. Section 1110(b) specified that an inholder is ENTITLED to access, including the form of access necessary to assure economic use of the property. The Interior Department regulations in the mid-1980s reflect the strong promise of the statute; regulations that were upheld in federal court. The agencies have found it difficult to honor the Congressional commitment to access, however.

Inholders were repeatedly told by FWS to file for a traditional right-of-way using the Lower 48 law and regulations, completely ignoring ANILCA. Access easements were denied by the National Park Service or, as in at least one case, the inholder was told to pay $10,000 in processing costs for a permit the NPS was obligated to give him. A statutory access guarantee means nothing when it can be ignored or an agency can erect an insurmountable fee barrier. Others have been told they must pay the costs of a full-fledged environmental impact statement in order to realize their access entitlements.

When the agencies have a hard time honoring the legal promises regarding traditional access and access to inholdings, it is no wonder the problems are so much worse when it comes to development activities. ANILCA has created winners and losers during its 20-year tenure. Among the former are the federal agencies. Among the latter, the most conspicuous are small miners and loggers, who essentially are unable to do business in most areas of the state – coincidentally those areas with the greatest mineral and forest potential.

A web of contradictory federal restrictions, requirements and regulations are slowly sucking the life out of the Last Frontier. Development is possible, but only in tight and restricted areas near highways and existing municipalities. The lifestyle many of us came to Alaska to live is inaccessible due to regulatory interference against statutory guarantees that were not as good as the paper they were printed on.

Alaska sometimes gets a rap of being a drain on the nation’s taxpayers. I would argue that much of the federal money that flows into Alaska goes to support an onerous federal regulatory system to prevent Alaskans from using our state. Interestingly, during statehood’s first 25, most of Alaska’s federal land was open to the public for a variety of uses. There were few land-use conflicts back then, and both the state and federal governments wanted Alaska to become self-supporting. Throughout the state, excitement abounded among its citizens for creating new Alaska industries and jobs, bright futures for our children in this grand environment. Never mind that our distance from markets and costs of doing business would deter about any sane person from investing in the Great Land. Numerous development proposals were hoisted up the flagpole, only to plummet back down when the studies were done—without infrastructure, projects could not be made economic. “Cockeyed optimists,” the outsiders called us as we would advance yet another unrealistic idea. Still, our can-do spirit was envied by almost everyone who visited the Last Frontier or who met us on our many self-financed trips to Washington, D.C. Alaskans were definitely different from the folks back home. With the coming of oil wealth, many Alaskans expected that we would now be able to finance the capital infrastructure necessary to build that bright future in the Last Frontier.

Then President Carter invoked the Antiquities Act and suddenly, the mood changed. The 80 million acres of conservation lands called for in ANCSA skyrocketed to 150 million acres, and Alaskans feared we would no longer have any sort of control over our own economic future. I was a senior in high school and I watched friends who had had plans to go to college here in the state or to come back after college mentally pack their bags. The realization dawned that, if the national environmental groups ganged up on our small population, we were in a world of hurt. As it turned out, Alaskans, who represented the view that economic development and environmental protection were both worthwhile human endeavors, lost the effort to keep strategic multiple-use lands open for present and future needs. When the D-2 (named after a section of ANSCA) dust finally settled, our attitude was “let’s make the best of what we have left.” I think most of us truly believed that, if everyone played by the rules, the new law could work.

Had federal agency employees and environmentalists insisted for the past 20 years, that ANILCA be implemented as the 1980 Alaska Lands Act was intended, Alaskans would have few complaints. Today we have many. In most cases, ANILCA’s language was clear. It said valid mining claims would be honored, traditional access and uses would be guaranteed, resource exploration and evaluation would continue, state and local   governments would help draft regulations, Alaskans would not be subjected to unreasonable regulations, and there would be no more land withdrawals.

The ink was hardly dry on the agreement when the Wilderness Society, a leader in the “fight to save wild Alaska,” began drafting its agenda for the 21^st century. The Society’s strategy was, simply, to undo the agreement and go after what it didn’t get in the 1980 withdrawals. It, and other environmental groups in the Alaska Coalition, has achieved considerable success; the act is coming undone. Alaskans have seen a stream of proposals for locking up more land, one lawsuit after another, and an endless list of administrative restrictions, starting with a congressional bill to create “buffer zones” around the huge conservation units. While at first glance it doesn’t seem like such a bag idea to protect conservation units from encroachment by development, a look at a map easily showed that all of Alaskan’s land and coastal waters would be sucked into buffer zones, some of which were five miles deep. Enormous opposition by Alaskans, many of whom began to haunt the halls of Congress like hungry trolls, ended that ill-thought-out piece of legislation (buffer zones had been built into ANILCA), but since then we’ve had to fight against marine sanctuary proposals (18 million acres coincidentally sited where any coastal development might some day occur), illegal wilderness studies, and proposals for establishing world heritage sites, international parks (Beringia anyone?) and biosphere reserves. The last three were United Nations designations to be applied without state or federal approval, ceding jurisdiction to an international body. There is ongoing litigation concerning millions of acres of supposedly critical habitat areas for the Stellar sea lion and beluga whale and an ever-increasing last of about-to-be-endangered species in the precise areas were future projects would best occur. Under the Clinton administration a road-less area plan prohibited road building in most of the Tongass and Chugach National Forests. The Wilderness Society wanted 100 million more acres of Alaska designed “wilderness”, thus virtually untouchable by humans. Other preservation societies have proposed redesignating existing federal and/or conservation lands to more restrictive classifications, insisting this does not violate the “no more” clause of ANILCA. Existing, long-term mining operations within Forest Service boundaries were prohibited, in defiance of ANILCA. There have been number lawsuits by environmentalist groups against subsistence practices, timber harvesting on native and Forest Service land, oil and gas leasing on submerged lands, mining under USGS, land exchanges, navigable rivers, the cumulative impacts of mining claims near (not in) conservation units, commercial fishing in nonwilderness areas, cruise ships, airplane activities and Native allotment claims. Environmentalist groups use lawsuits in Alaska as a major fundraising activity.

Under the Bush 2 administration, Alaska has seen some easing of restrictions, but the fight goes on. This decade, when a wolf was caught on tape hunting/grabbing and almost eating a small child outside the village of McCarthy, Alaska State Fish and Wildlife specialists determined that the moose population of that game unit was too low to support both predators and subsistence hunting and recommended a culling of the wolf population. Environmentalist groups protested, filed lawsuits and sought court injunctions to protect the wolves’ right to eat humans. Just this year, an effort was mounted to shut down mining state-wide by tricking Alaskan voters into addressing a single mine with an initiative vote that turned out to have broad-range implications for every mine in the state.

This is the environment our governor must operate in. It is divisive and brutal. No prisoners are taken. Sarah Palin has been standing up to this for 20 months. As I have always said, we don’t want to lose her as governor, but on the other hand, anyone thinking she’s not up to the rigors of tough politics isn’t aware of the on-the-ground situation in Alaska.