Back to work!
I'm gone early tomorrow and in Fargo, ND, Home of the Coen Bros. Woodchipper, till the weekend. So I'll see you Monday!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Let the Children Who Have Not Been Cannibalized, Aborted or Left to Die in a Closet Come Unto Me
Elsewhere, the Messiah tells his critics, "Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Base, and they will at once send me more than twelve legions of lawyers and cops to silence my opposition?”
Hymns. Brownshirt tactics. Nothing creepy here.
Elsewhere, the Messiah tells his critics, "Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Base, and they will at once send me more than twelve legions of lawyers and cops to silence my opposition?”
Hymns. Brownshirt tactics. Nothing creepy here.
Attention Must be Paid
A reader sends along this sad and moving story about his second cousin's late husband and their mentally disabled son.
Your prayers for them are badly needed in this time of loss. Father, hear our prayer for this family. Grant eternal light to your saint, consolation to his widow, and your tender love for his son. Help others to fill the void created by this loss. Mother Mary, pray for them all. We ask this through Christ our Lord, amen!
A reader sends along this sad and moving story about his second cousin's late husband and their mentally disabled son.
Your prayers for them are badly needed in this time of loss. Father, hear our prayer for this family. Grant eternal light to your saint, consolation to his widow, and your tender love for his son. Help others to fill the void created by this loss. Mother Mary, pray for them all. We ask this through Christ our Lord, amen!
More Happy News!
Dale Ahlquist writes to tell me that season four of "The Apostle of Common Sense" series is now available on DVD. In addition to Dale's smiling mug and Chestertonian wit, you also get a bunch of scenes from his fiction with me, Kevin O'Brien, and various other Chesterton Players acting the parts. You can get a little taste of my Innocent Smith till the Manalive film gets made. Due to budget considerations, we had to leave out all of Chesterton's original spaceship battles, killer CGI dinosaurs, and car chases through San Francisco, but what's there is choice.
I will have it for sale on my website soon.
Dale Ahlquist writes to tell me that season four of "The Apostle of Common Sense" series is now available on DVD. In addition to Dale's smiling mug and Chestertonian wit, you also get a bunch of scenes from his fiction with me, Kevin O'Brien, and various other Chesterton Players acting the parts. You can get a little taste of my Innocent Smith till the Manalive film gets made. Due to budget considerations, we had to leave out all of Chesterton's original spaceship battles, killer CGI dinosaurs, and car chases through San Francisco, but what's there is choice.
I will have it for sale on my website soon.
This is Happy News!
The Tick: The Entire Series (live action with Patrick Warburton) is now available. Warburton is one of those guys who can read from the phone book and crack me up.
"Everybody was a baby once, Arthur. Oh, sure, maybe not today, or even yesterday. But once. Babies, chum: tiny, dimpled, fleshy mirrors of our us-ness, that we parents hurl into the future, like leathery footballs of hope. And you've got to get a good spiral on that baby, or evil will make an interception." - The Tick
The Tick: The Entire Series (live action with Patrick Warburton) is now available. Warburton is one of those guys who can read from the phone book and crack me up.
"Everybody was a baby once, Arthur. Oh, sure, maybe not today, or even yesterday. But once. Babies, chum: tiny, dimpled, fleshy mirrors of our us-ness, that we parents hurl into the future, like leathery footballs of hope. And you've got to get a good spiral on that baby, or evil will make an interception." - The Tick
A liturgical parable
As an adult, I was totally unaware that Mass was boring and repetitive at times. I've also never heard of sex and had no idea that life was difficult sometimes. It's a good thing youth are here to inform me of this or I'd be totally out of touch.
As an adult, I was totally unaware that Mass was boring and repetitive at times. I've also never heard of sex and had no idea that life was difficult sometimes. It's a good thing youth are here to inform me of this or I'd be totally out of touch.
Zippy on the Stock Market
Seems sensible, though it would be more fun if he'd leap around and freak out like that guy on TV.
Seems sensible, though it would be more fun if he'd leap around and freak out like that guy on TV.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Martin Sheen Does Himself Proud
He's done an ad for the Coalition Against Assisted Suicide, calling on people to defeat I-1000 here in Washington.
Your prayers (and, where possible, votes) to defeat that latest assault on innocent human life are deeply appreciated.
He's done an ad for the Coalition Against Assisted Suicide, calling on people to defeat I-1000 here in Washington.
Your prayers (and, where possible, votes) to defeat that latest assault on innocent human life are deeply appreciated.
I've been thinking and praying
And I think I owe all y'all an apology. I have various folk in my life whom I regard as saints. Part of what marks them out is purity of heart, something I conspicuously lack. By purity of heart, I mean a particular posture of reverence for the human person that is often very far from me. My ingrained habit (and habits are always ultimately our responsibility, not somebody else's fault) is to respond with flippancy to things I dislike. It's the first defense of the powerless and I live in a time in which I feel increasingly powerless to change the large-scale and dangerous follies of our culture. Now, I don't think it's an especially bad thing to make fun of folly. But it is a bad thing to begin to speak and act more and more as though people are contemptible. Some of them, to be sure, behave contemptibly. But there has to remain a distinction between the person and the act and I don't think I've always made that clear. And, in the case of the extremely powerful I tend to more or less assume that they have their own interests in mind first and our interests only remotely second. They give me little reason to think otherwise.
All of which leaves me in a puzzle. On the one hand, I think the teaching of the Church is pretty clear: speak of human beings with reverence. That will be, in my case, a learned skill when it comes to humans who happen to be part of our ruling classes, since they so often supply me with reasons not to reverence them. It will also be a learned skill because *I* have made it hard for myself to learn due to the force of habit. As a writer, my obligation to the reader is to be interesting to read and to try to capture my thoughts in way that is truthful, fun and charitable. Down below, a sample of how difficult that is can be seen in my description of the two campaigns "enthusiastic support" for ESCR. Reader SDG disagrees and I can see his point. He thinks McCain is conflicted on the matter, not enthusiastic. So he thinks I'm unfair in my descriptoin.
My problem is this: the whole point of the Obama ads is to charge McCain with being "anti-science" and to scare all those Eve Enslers out there with dire warnings that McCain is allowing those nutty Christianists to sway us from finding cures from medical cannibalism so that aging Baby Boomers can cling to youth by eating their young. That's what the push for ESCR is all about and that's how the Dems routinely package it to appeal to the anti-Christianism of their base and fears of aging Boomers.
But here's the thing: The McCain response ads are *not* done in order to say "Hey! We support adult stem cell research! We want Cher to be forever young just like Dems do! It's just that we don't want to cannibalize anybody". Rather, the ads are done in order to say "Hey! We are not dominated by nutty Christianists! We support cannibalizing babies for the sake of keeping Cher young just as much as Obama does!" That's what the ads are trying to say. And that is a way of saying "I'm just as enthusiastic for ESCR as Obama is!"
It's stuff like that I find despicable and I don't have quick and easy ways to regard the people behind such a sell-out as people I can revere. But the readings yesterday were pretty darn clear:
I've talked in the past about the folly of asking "How close can we get to torturing somebody without technically, precisely, you know, *doing* it?" The real answer of the Tradition to all the fake chin-pulling and phoney puzzlement of those who pretend to have no idea what torture is and who therefore feign moral paralysis in facing our present torture regime is not to waste time fiddling with the perfect definition. It's to say, "Aim to treat your prisoner humanely and you won't accidently torture him."
In the same way, I can waste a lot of time asking where I cross the line into contempt for people or I can aim to treat people reverently. I'm going to try to do the latter. Of course, in commenting on the daily blues, that will still mean laughing at human folly at times. But I will try to laugh at the folly, not presume the worst about the person. That's a building project, not an instantaneous change. But your prayers would be appreciated as I attempt it. My goal here is to build up the body of Christ. For all my failures to do so, mea culpa.
And now, I gotta get back to work. I'm still enmeshed in a monster project and I will be out of town Wednesday through Saturday. If you happen to be in Fargo, ND or environs, here's what I'll be doing:
I'l also be talking with a high school philosophy class! Big fun! Having already gotten the biggest thumbs up an adult speaker can get from high school students I look forward to future conquests and victories!
And I think I owe all y'all an apology. I have various folk in my life whom I regard as saints. Part of what marks them out is purity of heart, something I conspicuously lack. By purity of heart, I mean a particular posture of reverence for the human person that is often very far from me. My ingrained habit (and habits are always ultimately our responsibility, not somebody else's fault) is to respond with flippancy to things I dislike. It's the first defense of the powerless and I live in a time in which I feel increasingly powerless to change the large-scale and dangerous follies of our culture. Now, I don't think it's an especially bad thing to make fun of folly. But it is a bad thing to begin to speak and act more and more as though people are contemptible. Some of them, to be sure, behave contemptibly. But there has to remain a distinction between the person and the act and I don't think I've always made that clear. And, in the case of the extremely powerful I tend to more or less assume that they have their own interests in mind first and our interests only remotely second. They give me little reason to think otherwise.
All of which leaves me in a puzzle. On the one hand, I think the teaching of the Church is pretty clear: speak of human beings with reverence. That will be, in my case, a learned skill when it comes to humans who happen to be part of our ruling classes, since they so often supply me with reasons not to reverence them. It will also be a learned skill because *I* have made it hard for myself to learn due to the force of habit. As a writer, my obligation to the reader is to be interesting to read and to try to capture my thoughts in way that is truthful, fun and charitable. Down below, a sample of how difficult that is can be seen in my description of the two campaigns "enthusiastic support" for ESCR. Reader SDG disagrees and I can see his point. He thinks McCain is conflicted on the matter, not enthusiastic. So he thinks I'm unfair in my descriptoin.
My problem is this: the whole point of the Obama ads is to charge McCain with being "anti-science" and to scare all those Eve Enslers out there with dire warnings that McCain is allowing those nutty Christianists to sway us from finding cures from medical cannibalism so that aging Baby Boomers can cling to youth by eating their young. That's what the push for ESCR is all about and that's how the Dems routinely package it to appeal to the anti-Christianism of their base and fears of aging Boomers.
But here's the thing: The McCain response ads are *not* done in order to say "Hey! We support adult stem cell research! We want Cher to be forever young just like Dems do! It's just that we don't want to cannibalize anybody". Rather, the ads are done in order to say "Hey! We are not dominated by nutty Christianists! We support cannibalizing babies for the sake of keeping Cher young just as much as Obama does!" That's what the ads are trying to say. And that is a way of saying "I'm just as enthusiastic for ESCR as Obama is!"
It's stuff like that I find despicable and I don't have quick and easy ways to regard the people behind such a sell-out as people I can revere. But the readings yesterday were pretty darn clear:
Brothers and sisters: If there is any encouragement in Christ,any solace in love, any participation in the Spirit, any compassion and mercy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing. Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory; rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves, each looking out not for his own interests, but also for those of others. Have in you the same attitude that is also in Christ Jesus.
I've talked in the past about the folly of asking "How close can we get to torturing somebody without technically, precisely, you know, *doing* it?" The real answer of the Tradition to all the fake chin-pulling and phoney puzzlement of those who pretend to have no idea what torture is and who therefore feign moral paralysis in facing our present torture regime is not to waste time fiddling with the perfect definition. It's to say, "Aim to treat your prisoner humanely and you won't accidently torture him."
In the same way, I can waste a lot of time asking where I cross the line into contempt for people or I can aim to treat people reverently. I'm going to try to do the latter. Of course, in commenting on the daily blues, that will still mean laughing at human folly at times. But I will try to laugh at the folly, not presume the worst about the person. That's a building project, not an instantaneous change. But your prayers would be appreciated as I attempt it. My goal here is to build up the body of Christ. For all my failures to do so, mea culpa.
And now, I gotta get back to work. I'm still enmeshed in a monster project and I will be out of town Wednesday through Saturday. If you happen to be in Fargo, ND or environs, here's what I'll be doing:
October 2 Theology on Tap, Fargo, ND. Topic: 101 Reasons Not to Catholic. Contact: Alex Warner.
October 3 5:30 PM Club 1370 Appreciation Event, Grand Forks. Topic: TBA. Contact: Steven J. Splonskowski, 1-877-795-0122
I'l also be talking with a high school philosophy class! Big fun! Having already gotten the biggest thumbs up an adult speaker can get from high school students I look forward to future conquests and victories!
Tom Wright Answers the Musical Question: Can a Scientist Believe in the Resurrection?
I'm still amazed that, at this late date, people still think that science somehow has something to say one way or the other about it.
I'm still amazed that, at this late date, people still think that science somehow has something to say one way or the other about it.
Eve Ensler Lives to Prove that Self-Parody is the Sincerest Form of Parody
The reaction of freakish enemies of the Normal to Palin has has much the same counter-productive effect as their reaction to the Iraq war. There are sound critiques of Palin (Douthat has been making them, for instance) just as there are sound critiques of the justice of the Iraq war. But the Left tends to be dominated by people whose Drama Queen tendencies, narcissism and general loathing of ordinary human existence is so off-putting that they lose the audience they would be appealing to if they were actually interested in the Common Good and not simply in being stylishly leftist and countercultural. One of the things chronic leftism tends to do is destroy the interest in the common good and replace it instead with a sort of parody compounded of simplistic collectivism and simple-minded narcissism. That's because the garden variety leftist is reflexively anti-Christian and, in particular, anti-Catholic. Consequently, they aren't very likely to have actually heard of the Church's teaching on subsidiarity and solidarity. Instead, they've absorbed some trendy Marxism from the dye on their Che Guevara T-shirt, as well as a few slogans about war and abortion, Hope and Change. It's a sort of political theology composed of slogans.
The reaction of freakish enemies of the Normal to Palin has has much the same counter-productive effect as their reaction to the Iraq war. There are sound critiques of Palin (Douthat has been making them, for instance) just as there are sound critiques of the justice of the Iraq war. But the Left tends to be dominated by people whose Drama Queen tendencies, narcissism and general loathing of ordinary human existence is so off-putting that they lose the audience they would be appealing to if they were actually interested in the Common Good and not simply in being stylishly leftist and countercultural. One of the things chronic leftism tends to do is destroy the interest in the common good and replace it instead with a sort of parody compounded of simplistic collectivism and simple-minded narcissism. That's because the garden variety leftist is reflexively anti-Christian and, in particular, anti-Catholic. Consequently, they aren't very likely to have actually heard of the Church's teaching on subsidiarity and solidarity. Instead, they've absorbed some trendy Marxism from the dye on their Che Guevara T-shirt, as well as a few slogans about war and abortion, Hope and Change. It's a sort of political theology composed of slogans.
Peter Kreeft on How to Win the Culture Wars
A war which is, by the by, more important than the war with Radical Islam. "What shall it profit a man to gain the whole Islamosphere and lose his own soul."
A war which is, by the by, more important than the war with Radical Islam. "What shall it profit a man to gain the whole Islamosphere and lose his own soul."
John Granger writes:
The Deathly Hallows Lectures explore the meaning of Harry Potter and, more specifically, what the series finale was really about. If you're a serious reader of the Rowling books, the best selling novels in publishing history, or if you know someone who is (who doesn't?), you'll want to check this out!
It went officially 'on sale' last week at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com -- and you can order it at your local book store through Ingrams, the country's biggest book distributor.
Want to know more? You can hear me talk about what's in the new book in this interview at The Hog's Head with Travis Prinzi.
Please write me with any questions about the book and to let me know what you think!
Cordially,John Granger
http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/
http://www.orthodoxspeakers.com/john-granger/
The Great Thing About This Election...
...is that both candidates can join hands in pledging their enthusiastic support of cannibalizing really small people and lying to the voters.
Obama does it by frankly and openly calling for ESCR and lying that McCain opposes it. McCain does it by lying about being prolife while enthusiastically supporting ESCR and duplicitously courting the prolife vote while peddling what the Catholic key blog calls "snake oil" in the Missouri campaign.
So: on the issue of destroying human life, we have our choice between two parties: one has not budged on its commitment to killing as many unborn children as possible. In fact, it has now progressed to laboring to sanction infanticide beyond the womb and to killing as many inconvenient geezers as possible. Meanwhile, the other party has now nominated as its representative a man who has, in the past, told us he doesn't want to overturn Roe and he does want to cannibalize small people.
Modern thinkers call things like this "progress". I can't help thinking that, apart from grace, all this sort of political evolution will one day deliver us into the hands of a political system in which all these unfortunate disagreements have been ironed out and everybody on both sides of the aisle will finally be free of the pesky Christian revelation with its annoying demands. The powerful will finally be able to agree that abortion, infanticide and euthanasia are part of America's Freedom Agenda for the world and that anybody who disagrees with that is an America-hating religious radical and an illegal combatant who needs to be rounded up and subjected to enhanced interrogation. We're not there yet. But given what the priorities of both parties seem to in fact be, it's seems a rather plausible long-term outcome or present trends.
...is that both candidates can join hands in pledging their enthusiastic support of cannibalizing really small people and lying to the voters.
Obama does it by frankly and openly calling for ESCR and lying that McCain opposes it. McCain does it by lying about being prolife while enthusiastically supporting ESCR and duplicitously courting the prolife vote while peddling what the Catholic key blog calls "snake oil" in the Missouri campaign.
So: on the issue of destroying human life, we have our choice between two parties: one has not budged on its commitment to killing as many unborn children as possible. In fact, it has now progressed to laboring to sanction infanticide beyond the womb and to killing as many inconvenient geezers as possible. Meanwhile, the other party has now nominated as its representative a man who has, in the past, told us he doesn't want to overturn Roe and he does want to cannibalize small people.
Modern thinkers call things like this "progress". I can't help thinking that, apart from grace, all this sort of political evolution will one day deliver us into the hands of a political system in which all these unfortunate disagreements have been ironed out and everybody on both sides of the aisle will finally be free of the pesky Christian revelation with its annoying demands. The powerful will finally be able to agree that abortion, infanticide and euthanasia are part of America's Freedom Agenda for the world and that anybody who disagrees with that is an America-hating religious radical and an illegal combatant who needs to be rounded up and subjected to enhanced interrogation. We're not there yet. But given what the priorities of both parties seem to in fact be, it's seems a rather plausible long-term outcome or present trends.
Feddie sez "Let Palin be Palin!"
One of the many things for which I give thanks in this election year is that I don't have a TV connection to the outside world. However, I gather from watching one-time enthusiasts like Douthat and Dreher cringe about Palin's performances and the way in which the McCain campaign keeps laboring to keep her hermetically sealed from scrutiny is that she is not exactly distinguishing herself as Veep material. It *maaaaaay* be that this is all part of the cunning plan to fake out Biden and then spring her formidible awesomeness on him during the Veep debates as Douthat jokingly suggests. But the best explanation is probably the most obvious one: she's just not ready for this job. That's a pity, because I still really like her and hope that she is ready some day. Unfortunately, however, simply attracting the hatred of freakish enemies of the normal, while certainly speaking well of you, does not automatically make you equipped to run the executive branch of a superpower in a time of a) war, b) economic crisis, c) high international tension and (in her case) d) the aftermath of a presidential stroke, assassination or whatever else might have taken McCain from the Presidency.
I hope that having been chewed up by this campaign, she has a chance to season a bit and try again in the future. I find the Frank Capra narrative highly attractive and still hope that she can do the job someday. But it's looking very much (from what I can gather on the web) like she's not gonna pan out. A real shame.
One of the many things for which I give thanks in this election year is that I don't have a TV connection to the outside world. However, I gather from watching one-time enthusiasts like Douthat and Dreher cringe about Palin's performances and the way in which the McCain campaign keeps laboring to keep her hermetically sealed from scrutiny is that she is not exactly distinguishing herself as Veep material. It *maaaaaay* be that this is all part of the cunning plan to fake out Biden and then spring her formidible awesomeness on him during the Veep debates as Douthat jokingly suggests. But the best explanation is probably the most obvious one: she's just not ready for this job. That's a pity, because I still really like her and hope that she is ready some day. Unfortunately, however, simply attracting the hatred of freakish enemies of the normal, while certainly speaking well of you, does not automatically make you equipped to run the executive branch of a superpower in a time of a) war, b) economic crisis, c) high international tension and (in her case) d) the aftermath of a presidential stroke, assassination or whatever else might have taken McCain from the Presidency.
I hope that having been chewed up by this campaign, she has a chance to season a bit and try again in the future. I find the Frank Capra narrative highly attractive and still hope that she can do the job someday. But it's looking very much (from what I can gather on the web) like she's not gonna pan out. A real shame.
Bishop repeats immemorial teaching of Church. People astonished, offended.
That's because the immemorial teaching he repeated was about marriage and family in front of a group of sexually active gays and lesbians who wanted to be told they were doing anything wrong.
In other news from the World of Gay Tolerance:
Traditional Marriage 'Caravan' Assaulted in CaliforniaDear Mark,
I am writing from California to ask you for prayers because…
Two of my TFP Student Action colleagues were assaulted while distributing literature in support of traditional marriage at Santa Rosa Junior College in California.
I saw it happen.
As Mr. Charles Sulzen peacefully stood by the curbside offering fliers to passersby, a pro-homosexual man in a SUV pulled up and flung a Starbucks mocha coffee in his face and sped away shouting obscenities.
Thank God the coffee was not hot enough to burn his face, but it got in his eye causing prolonged irritation and blurred vision. His white shirt, tie, sports coat, and TFP cape were heavily stained with large splotches of dark sticky coffee. To read more, click here.
In a separate incident, after shouting obscenities at TFP volunteer Mr. Kenneth Murphy, a supporter of same-sex "marriage" slapped him as he filmed the demonstration. Although he managed to avert the strong blow, the assailant disabled his camera settings.
At UC Berkeley, pro-homosexual activists stole and burned hundreds of TFP fliers. The police called the fire department to put out the fire. Read more here.
So as you can tell, pro-homosexual advocates want to silence the truth and bully Catholics and pro-family Americans into complete silence.
But you and I can't let that happen.
That's why I am traveling the state of California with 12 highly motivated TFP Student Action volunteers. We our goings from city to city, campus to campus – where moral values are desperately needed -- proclaiming the sanctity of marriage.
We've traveled 5,534 miles in 20 days for God's marriage. To visit our campaign blog, click here.
Californians overwhelming support traditional marriage. Families open their homes to us, feed us, and treat us like family.
But to continue this vital campaign on the front lines of the culture war, we need your support today.
Will you help keep us on the road?
Please consider filling our van's gas tank with fuel. When you do, you will be joining a historical campaign to defend traditional marriage in America. Your gift of any size will keep my team of volunteers on the road.
Sponsor 1 tank of gas, 330 miles, for $107.00
Sponsor 2 tanks of gas, 660 miles, for 214.00
Sponsor 3 tanks of gas, 990 miles, for $321.00
Or even 5 tanks of gas, 1650 miles, for $535.00
Friday, September 26, 2008
One other thing:
Carl Olsen and his family really need our prayers.
Christ crucified, hear our prayers for Carl and his family and especially for the safety and ultimate happiness of Elanor.
Carl Olsen and his family really need our prayers.
Christ crucified, hear our prayers for Carl and his family and especially for the safety and ultimate happiness of Elanor.
Sorry I continue to be scarce
I'm still massively under the gun.
A quick word on the way in which I view the machinations of rich and powerful people whose life is devoted to jockeying for more riches and power. Some people were shocked that I could take such a low view of the criminals, thieves and tyrants currently colluding in DC to save themselves at everybody else's expense. To my surprise, this low view is being called "cynicism". I call it "being wise as a serpent".
A cynic is not somebody who looks at a Caesar sleeping on duty or the thief raiding the pantry as he does so and says "These people are bunglers and crooks." A cynic is a person who says "Everybody is a bungler and a crook and there is no good in anybody anywhere." I don't believe the latter. To be sure, we are all sinners and, apart from grace, there is nobody who is good, no, not one. But Grace Happens. Everywhere. So there is plenty of good in the world. There's even good to be found among politicians now and then. So I don't believe in a simple populist narrative of the Virtuous Poor v. the Evil Rich. But I do believe Jesus knew what he was talking about when he said that those to whom much is given, much will be required. So I think it is idle to boast about our nation being the richest and most powerful nation in the history of the world while suggesting that the ruling classes of that nation not be held accountable for the immense wealth and power they are manifestly mishandling.
To be sure, everybody in our consumer culture no doubt bears some degree of responsibility if they are living beyond their means. But lots and lots of people are *not* living beyond their means. They are trying to be responsible citizens. And when the dust has settled they will be forced by Caesar, at gunpoint, to pay massive sums of money to save the derrieres of greedy men and women and their enablers in the state rather than watch these crooks and incompetents go to jail.
St. Paul tells us, "Be angry and sin not." That's easier said than done. Simply sitting around and stewing accomplishes nothing. Merely saying "Put not your trust in princes" doesn't help you know what to do. But saying nothing about gross injustice and incompetence is also not on the table. We are obliged by our baptism to live out the roles of prophet, priest and king. Prophets try to tell the truth of God according to their best lights. Priests offer sacrifice (including the sacrifice of forgiveness and not vengeance) for incompetents. And kings participate in the just rule of the world.
From what I can make out, that obliges me as a baptized Christian citizen of my country to, first of all, live within my means (which we endeavor to do, with the exception of the Standard Issue American Way of Debt known as the mortgage--for which we have never missed a payment). Yesterday, one of my interlocutors over at Inside Catholicswas rattling off a bunch of useless stuff I didn't need to own with a view to issuing the normal tu quoque rebuttal. The thing is, we don't own that stuff (Plasma TVs, SUVs, McMansion, etc.) That's because we can't afford that stuff and have never especially wanted it.
I'm not sure why my interlocutor assumed I would own such baubles. One thing I 've noticed is that some people have this curious notion that if your name turns up in print, you must be rolling in dough. That may be true if you write regularly for the New Yorker or Vanity Fair. But nobody will ever make an edgy TV drama for HBO on the high stakes, livin' large, glamorous, sexily dangerous and lucrative world of Catholic writing. We squeak by and live in our little cinder block house in the burbs with the crappy car we bought in an effort to save some gas and the old van we inherited from my father-in-law in order to get our family to Mass on Sundays. We've never paid a dime in interest to the credit card company because, hey, that would be a stupid waste of money and the *real* purpose of the card is to rack up air miles so we can occasionally get a freebie plane ticket. My wife is the wife of Proverbs, a genius at squeezing a buck and making do. We try to teach our kids the basic Dickensian economics of "Annual income: 20 pounds. Annual expenditure: 19 pounds. Result: Happiness." In short, we live within our means and we know lots and lots and lots of people who basically live the same way. And I freely acknowledge that our ability to do so is due to the grace of God and not to any intrinsic goodness on my part. Do enough stupid things when you are young and bounce a few check and reality is a fine tutor.
But beyond living within my means, it seems to me that the duty of a Christian citizen in a democracy is to speak out, as best I can on how Caesar (and, by the way, "Caesar" here stands for "our elected officials charged with preserving the common good") has failed to preserve the common good, on how the common good is being damaged at present by the sin of Greed, and on how the only real solution is therefore to repent that sin with the help of grace. Hence, my piece on Inside Catholic ends with the only real answer to sin the Tradition has: faith in Christ. Caesar's job is jail the Sith, not join them. At present, Caesar has forgotten that and is now in the process of making sure the robber barons of SithCo (and Caesar himself) don't feel the effects of their sins.
Now it may well be that something has to be done and that Double Effect here means that, in order to preserve the Common Good, Caesar has to rescue these crooks. But I can't help thinking there's something to do between "$700 BN and insane centralization of the economy" on the one hand and "leave the whole thing to come crashing down and take civilization with it" on the other. What should that be? Beats me. I'm just this guy. (Also, I can't help thinking that there should be a way to preserve the system while still jailing the flesh and blood criminals in both the public and private sector who have wrought this ruin. But, of course, I know that can't happen.)
My assumption is that, after some haggling among the rich and powerful, the situation at the end of the day is that the world will continue to be the world: the rich and powerful will look out for Number One and find some way to consolidate their wealth and power. That's what the world does. And to expect that to change in a rapidly de-christianizing culture is just not common sense. But our duty as Christians remains the same: bear witness to Christ. God will take care of the Big Stuff which is beyond, not just my control, but the control of the kings of the earth. Judgment is not external to our sins. It is simply the sin in full flower. The same thing will obtain with the sins of the powerful. We pipsqueaks will bear what responsibility we bear for our contributions to the sum of the world's sin. But in addition to the sins for which we bear responsibility, the Tradition also tells us that Holy Church will, as ever, innocently bear the consequences of sin on behalf of the guilty. As Paul writes:
Though painful at the time, that's very good news, because it means that God is still laboring for our redemption despite everything we do to resist him. Like a divine Pepe le Pew whose persistent love can't be escaped no matter how hard we try, God takes everything--including our world-historical wickedness, greed and negligence--and turns it to his glory and our good.
That's why I'm not a cynic. Oh, sure I take a low view of the stunts and tricks of fallen man. I don't set any store in the promises of politicians or the trustworthiness of the rich or even in the sanctity of the common man (since it was the common man who cried "Give us Barabbas!"). And I emphatically don't set any store in my own shady and ease-loving soul. I think the end result of all our worldly cunning is pretty well laid out in Scripture: "Professing to be wise, they became fools." So, like Tolkien, I regard history in this world as a "long defeat".
But I also believe in eucatastrophe. Indeed, I believe that we are living in one and have been since the beginning. So I profoundly agree with Chesterton:
So, as our Lord says, "In the world you have tribulation" (including economic tribulation). But as he also says, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." (John 16:33). That's why Paul could write (and I believe):
See you Monday!
I'm still massively under the gun.
A quick word on the way in which I view the machinations of rich and powerful people whose life is devoted to jockeying for more riches and power. Some people were shocked that I could take such a low view of the criminals, thieves and tyrants currently colluding in DC to save themselves at everybody else's expense. To my surprise, this low view is being called "cynicism". I call it "being wise as a serpent".
A cynic is not somebody who looks at a Caesar sleeping on duty or the thief raiding the pantry as he does so and says "These people are bunglers and crooks." A cynic is a person who says "Everybody is a bungler and a crook and there is no good in anybody anywhere." I don't believe the latter. To be sure, we are all sinners and, apart from grace, there is nobody who is good, no, not one. But Grace Happens. Everywhere. So there is plenty of good in the world. There's even good to be found among politicians now and then. So I don't believe in a simple populist narrative of the Virtuous Poor v. the Evil Rich. But I do believe Jesus knew what he was talking about when he said that those to whom much is given, much will be required. So I think it is idle to boast about our nation being the richest and most powerful nation in the history of the world while suggesting that the ruling classes of that nation not be held accountable for the immense wealth and power they are manifestly mishandling.
To be sure, everybody in our consumer culture no doubt bears some degree of responsibility if they are living beyond their means. But lots and lots of people are *not* living beyond their means. They are trying to be responsible citizens. And when the dust has settled they will be forced by Caesar, at gunpoint, to pay massive sums of money to save the derrieres of greedy men and women and their enablers in the state rather than watch these crooks and incompetents go to jail.
St. Paul tells us, "Be angry and sin not." That's easier said than done. Simply sitting around and stewing accomplishes nothing. Merely saying "Put not your trust in princes" doesn't help you know what to do. But saying nothing about gross injustice and incompetence is also not on the table. We are obliged by our baptism to live out the roles of prophet, priest and king. Prophets try to tell the truth of God according to their best lights. Priests offer sacrifice (including the sacrifice of forgiveness and not vengeance) for incompetents. And kings participate in the just rule of the world.
From what I can make out, that obliges me as a baptized Christian citizen of my country to, first of all, live within my means (which we endeavor to do, with the exception of the Standard Issue American Way of Debt known as the mortgage--for which we have never missed a payment). Yesterday, one of my interlocutors over at Inside Catholicswas rattling off a bunch of useless stuff I didn't need to own with a view to issuing the normal tu quoque rebuttal. The thing is, we don't own that stuff (Plasma TVs, SUVs, McMansion, etc.) That's because we can't afford that stuff and have never especially wanted it.
I'm not sure why my interlocutor assumed I would own such baubles. One thing I 've noticed is that some people have this curious notion that if your name turns up in print, you must be rolling in dough. That may be true if you write regularly for the New Yorker or Vanity Fair. But nobody will ever make an edgy TV drama for HBO on the high stakes, livin' large, glamorous, sexily dangerous and lucrative world of Catholic writing. We squeak by and live in our little cinder block house in the burbs with the crappy car we bought in an effort to save some gas and the old van we inherited from my father-in-law in order to get our family to Mass on Sundays. We've never paid a dime in interest to the credit card company because, hey, that would be a stupid waste of money and the *real* purpose of the card is to rack up air miles so we can occasionally get a freebie plane ticket. My wife is the wife of Proverbs, a genius at squeezing a buck and making do. We try to teach our kids the basic Dickensian economics of "Annual income: 20 pounds. Annual expenditure: 19 pounds. Result: Happiness." In short, we live within our means and we know lots and lots and lots of people who basically live the same way. And I freely acknowledge that our ability to do so is due to the grace of God and not to any intrinsic goodness on my part. Do enough stupid things when you are young and bounce a few check and reality is a fine tutor.
But beyond living within my means, it seems to me that the duty of a Christian citizen in a democracy is to speak out, as best I can on how Caesar (and, by the way, "Caesar" here stands for "our elected officials charged with preserving the common good") has failed to preserve the common good, on how the common good is being damaged at present by the sin of Greed, and on how the only real solution is therefore to repent that sin with the help of grace. Hence, my piece on Inside Catholic ends with the only real answer to sin the Tradition has: faith in Christ. Caesar's job is jail the Sith, not join them. At present, Caesar has forgotten that and is now in the process of making sure the robber barons of SithCo (and Caesar himself) don't feel the effects of their sins.
Now it may well be that something has to be done and that Double Effect here means that, in order to preserve the Common Good, Caesar has to rescue these crooks. But I can't help thinking there's something to do between "$700 BN and insane centralization of the economy" on the one hand and "leave the whole thing to come crashing down and take civilization with it" on the other. What should that be? Beats me. I'm just this guy. (Also, I can't help thinking that there should be a way to preserve the system while still jailing the flesh and blood criminals in both the public and private sector who have wrought this ruin. But, of course, I know that can't happen.)
My assumption is that, after some haggling among the rich and powerful, the situation at the end of the day is that the world will continue to be the world: the rich and powerful will look out for Number One and find some way to consolidate their wealth and power. That's what the world does. And to expect that to change in a rapidly de-christianizing culture is just not common sense. But our duty as Christians remains the same: bear witness to Christ. God will take care of the Big Stuff which is beyond, not just my control, but the control of the kings of the earth. Judgment is not external to our sins. It is simply the sin in full flower. The same thing will obtain with the sins of the powerful. We pipsqueaks will bear what responsibility we bear for our contributions to the sum of the world's sin. But in addition to the sins for which we bear responsibility, the Tradition also tells us that Holy Church will, as ever, innocently bear the consequences of sin on behalf of the guilty. As Paul writes:
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church, of which I am a minister in accordance with God's stewardship given to me to bring to completion for you the word of God, the mystery hidden from ages and from generations past. But now it has been manifested to his holy ones, to whom God chose to make known the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; it is Christ in you, the hope for glory. (Colossians 1:24-27).
Though painful at the time, that's very good news, because it means that God is still laboring for our redemption despite everything we do to resist him. Like a divine Pepe le Pew whose persistent love can't be escaped no matter how hard we try, God takes everything--including our world-historical wickedness, greed and negligence--and turns it to his glory and our good.
That's why I'm not a cynic. Oh, sure I take a low view of the stunts and tricks of fallen man. I don't set any store in the promises of politicians or the trustworthiness of the rich or even in the sanctity of the common man (since it was the common man who cried "Give us Barabbas!"). And I emphatically don't set any store in my own shady and ease-loving soul. I think the end result of all our worldly cunning is pretty well laid out in Scripture: "Professing to be wise, they became fools." So, like Tolkien, I regard history in this world as a "long defeat".
But I also believe in eucatastrophe. Indeed, I believe that we are living in one and have been since the beginning. So I profoundly agree with Chesterton:
The mass of men have been forced to be gay about the little things, but sad about the big ones. Nevertheless (I offer my last dogma defiantly) it is not native to man to be so. Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial. Melancholy should be an innocent interlude, a tender and fugitive frame of mind; praise should be the permanent pulsation of the soul. Pessimism is at best an emotional half-holiday; joy is the uproarious labour by which all things live. Yet, according to the apparent estate of man as seen by the pagan or the agnostic, this primary need of human nature can never be fulfilled. Joy ought to be expansive; but for the agnostic it must be contracted, it must cling to one comer of the world. Grief ought to be a concentration; but for the agnostic its desolation is spread through an unthinkable eternity. This is what I call being born upside down. The sceptic may truly be said to be topsy-turvy; for his feet are dancing upwards in idle ecstacies, while his brain is in the abyss. To the modern man the heavens are actually below the earth. The explanation is simple; he is standing on his head; which is a very weak pedestal to stand on. But when he has found his feet again he knows it. Christianity satisfies suddenly and perfectly man’s ancestral instinct for being the right way up; satisfies it supremely in this; that by its creed joy becomes something gigantic and sadness something special and small. The vault above us is not deaf because the universe is an idiot; the silence is not the heartless silence of an endless and aimless world. Rather the silence around us is a small and pitiful stillness like the prompt stillness in a sick-room. We are perhaps permitted tragedy as a sort of merciful comedy: because the frantic energy of divine things would knock us down like a drunken farce. We can take our own tears more lightly than we could take the tremendous levities of the angels. So we sit perhaps in a starry chamber of silence, while the laughter of the heavens is too loud for us to hear.
Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian.
So, as our Lord says, "In the world you have tribulation" (including economic tribulation). But as he also says, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." (John 16:33). That's why Paul could write (and I believe):
If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn? Is it Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us? * Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
"For thy sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31-39)
See you Monday!
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Oh! I forgot!
Zmirak and Homestarrunner are way funny. (And is that They Might Be Giants doing the 200th SBEmail anthem?)
That is all.
Zmirak and Homestarrunner are way funny. (And is that They Might Be Giants doing the 200th SBEmail anthem?)
That is all.
Okey doke! Back to slaying the Giant Dragon of Work that is looming over me
If you live in Seattle and are free this evening, do come out to St. Mark's at 7:00 PM in Shoreline, where we will be kicking off my new series of talks on Scripture (generally on the fourth Thursday of the month). Tonight: Introduction to Scripture.
The talks are being done on behalf of Trinity Formation Resources. I guarantee you will learn a ton of stuff and have fun too.
If you live in Seattle and are free this evening, do come out to St. Mark's at 7:00 PM in Shoreline, where we will be kicking off my new series of talks on Scripture (generally on the fourth Thursday of the month). Tonight: Introduction to Scripture.
The talks are being done on behalf of Trinity Formation Resources. I guarantee you will learn a ton of stuff and have fun too.
Caesar and Mammon Sittin' in a Tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!
My latest on Inside Catholic (with special thanks to reader Danby for supplying me with certain salient factoids that demonstrate the corruption and perfidy of our ruling classes in this hour of our history).
What cracks me up most about the commentary is the (to me) astonishing gnat straining/camel swallowing ratio. Biggest most naked grab for dictatorial power in American history? Inconvenient and mildly troubling. Rudeness to rich and powerful thieves and scoundrels? I'm worried about your soul, Mark.
So much for "He hath shewed might in his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart./He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble./He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away." That kind of bitter disrespect for the Kings of the Earth won't do any more. The Blessed Virgin needs to keep a civil tongue in her head.
My latest on Inside Catholic (with special thanks to reader Danby for supplying me with certain salient factoids that demonstrate the corruption and perfidy of our ruling classes in this hour of our history).
What cracks me up most about the commentary is the (to me) astonishing gnat straining/camel swallowing ratio. Biggest most naked grab for dictatorial power in American history? Inconvenient and mildly troubling. Rudeness to rich and powerful thieves and scoundrels? I'm worried about your soul, Mark.
So much for "He hath shewed might in his arm: he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart./He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble./He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away." That kind of bitter disrespect for the Kings of the Earth won't do any more. The Blessed Virgin needs to keep a civil tongue in her head.
Homeland Security Detects Terrorist Threats by Reading Your Mind
I *strongly* suspect that this technology is a load of rubbish that only a government bureaucrat would invest in.
I *strongly* suspect that this technology is a load of rubbish that only a government bureaucrat would invest in.
Heh
HT: Zach Frey
In other Despair.com Poster Child News, the McCain campaign (pictured below)
tries to bail on the debates in order to go pretend to fix the economy. The Keating 5 Candidate, whose boast is that is not quite as deeply in the pockets of Freddie Mac as Obama, has suddenly lurched from self-professed ignorance about the economy to financial wizard whose expertise is so badly needed, he must bail out of the Presidential debates. So he's not an erratic, treacherous and duplicitous loose cannon or anything and you can totally trust him.
One suspects some days that the guy was picked specifically to make *sure* that Obama gets elected.
HT: Zach Frey
In other Despair.com Poster Child News, the McCain campaign (pictured below)
tries to bail on the debates in order to go pretend to fix the economy. The Keating 5 Candidate, whose boast is that is not quite as deeply in the pockets of Freddie Mac as Obama, has suddenly lurched from self-professed ignorance about the economy to financial wizard whose expertise is so badly needed, he must bail out of the Presidential debates. So he's not an erratic, treacherous and duplicitous loose cannon or anything and you can totally trust him.
One suspects some days that the guy was picked specifically to make *sure* that Obama gets elected.
Mr. Bush's Hoped-for Stampede is Encountering Resistance
One world-historical reckless blunder per decade is enough. 1/20/09 can't come soon enough.
One world-historical reckless blunder per decade is enough. 1/20/09 can't come soon enough.
A reader writes me an email he titles "Tired Democracy":
All I ask is for strength to defend my people! If you will but lend me the Ring! It is not yours save by unhappy chance. It could have been mine! It should have been mine! Give it to me!
I saw Thomas Friedman on Glenn Beck last night wishing the US could be China for a day. I found a transcript of him telling Tom Brokaw the same thing. Thought you'd be interested.MR. BROKAW: You have an intriguing proposition in this book. You'd like to be China for a day, just one day.
MR. FRIEDMAN: Well, it comes from actually a dialogue I had with Jeffrey Immelt, the CEO of General Electric, and Jeff was making the point that, you know, really almost out of exasperation of a company that's been trying to be an energy innovative leader, saying, "Look, Tom, we need is"--what Jeff said is we need a president who's going to set the right price for carbon. Set the right standard, set the right regulation. Shape the market so it will be innovative. Everyone will kind of whine and moan for a month and then the whole ecosystem will take off. And I thought about that afterwards and I said to him, "You know, Jeff, what you're really saying is, `If only we could be China for a day. Just one day.'" So I wrote a chapter called "China for a day, but not for two." Really, about what we would do if for one day we could impose, cut through all the lobbyists, all the amendments, all the earmarks, and actually impose the right conditions to get our market to take off.
All I ask is for strength to defend my people! If you will but lend me the Ring! It is not yours save by unhappy chance. It could have been mine! It should have been mine! Give it to me!
Barney "Big Un" Baumgartner of Windblown, Wyo., invited the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury Department to take over his business, The Big Un 24 Hour Tow Service and Trophy Taxidermy
I'm thinking about putting on about 400 lbs, telling the state to pay off my car and dental bills and darkly warning them "I'm too big to be allowed to fail."
I'm thinking about putting on about 400 lbs, telling the state to pay off my car and dental bills and darkly warning them "I'm too big to be allowed to fail."
Remember all those bloodthirsty Passion of the Christ-inspired acts of violence?
The worldwide count still stands at a terrifying "0" and is doubling daily. Meanwhile, some guy in Italy, inspired by The Da Vinci Code, mauls a priest.
No doubt the priest had it coming.
The worldwide count still stands at a terrifying "0" and is doubling daily. Meanwhile, some guy in Italy, inspired by The Da Vinci Code, mauls a priest.
No doubt the priest had it coming.
Pete Vere writes to his fellow Canadians about how free speech in the US defuses conflicts that state-monitored speech in Soviet Canuckistan merely causes to fester
Read the whole thing. Fascinating. I've never thought about free speech as a sort of subsidiarity, but it actually makes perfect sense.
"The government can seal a person’s lips, but it cannot change a person’s heart."
Read the whole thing. Fascinating. I've never thought about free speech as a sort of subsidiarity, but it actually makes perfect sense.
"The government can seal a person’s lips, but it cannot change a person’s heart."
A reader writes:
I reckon YouTube will respond if we ask politely.
An individual put 40 videos on YouTube showing Consecrated Hosts being stepped on, burned, stapled, smoked and nailed to a stick. He even fed the Holy Eucharist to ducks and flushed It down the toilet. Horrific!
On his site, the blasphemer says:
“From now on, one Eucharist desecration a day, and each day a different method. If they want blasphem[y], we'll give 'em blasphem[y].”
Since I know you would like to stop these desecrations, I urge you to send your Stop Host Desecration e-petition to YouTube.
GO HERE NOW to send your email petition.
I reckon YouTube will respond if we ask politely.
Chris Johnson writes about the nutty bishops of the Episcopalian Entity, "It's like I keep saying. People really shouldn't make jokes about these people because they tend to come true."
This week's bizarreness: "Washington Bishop Seeks to Block Aid to Homeless"
Now charity might suggest some reason for this action that don't make the bishop seem like a heartless cur. "Perhaps he's trying to prevent to many mentally ill or criminal types from congregating without supervision and creating all sort of social disturbances?" you might suggest. "Maybe he want to create a system where people don't merely receive charity but actually get out of poverty?" After all, surely a bishop must have *some* sort of reason for doing something that, on the surface, looks like a direct repudiaton of "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat".
Ah, but there you'd be wrong. The bishop's *real* reason for trying to stop help to the homeless?:
Because the most critical thing--more important even than helping the homeless, is to make sure that nobody gets exposed to the gospel.
Episcopalians: Making Catholics Feel Better About Themselves for Over 40 Years
This week's bizarreness: "Washington Bishop Seeks to Block Aid to Homeless"
Now charity might suggest some reason for this action that don't make the bishop seem like a heartless cur. "Perhaps he's trying to prevent to many mentally ill or criminal types from congregating without supervision and creating all sort of social disturbances?" you might suggest. "Maybe he want to create a system where people don't merely receive charity but actually get out of poverty?" After all, surely a bishop must have *some* sort of reason for doing something that, on the surface, looks like a direct repudiaton of "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat".
Ah, but there you'd be wrong. The bishop's *real* reason for trying to stop help to the homeless?:
The plaintiffs claim that the Central Union Mission requires homeless persons seeking to use their services to participate in Christian religious activity, including mandatory attendance at nightly church services. The mission, they say, only employs Christians and also requires volunteers to declare their church affiliation. The plaintiffs contend that grant of cash and property in exchange for a less valuable piece of property will result in an unconstitutional $12 million preferential treatment of one religion.
Because the most critical thing--more important even than helping the homeless, is to make sure that nobody gets exposed to the gospel.
Episcopalians: Making Catholics Feel Better About Themselves for Over 40 Years
No Question Left Behind Answers Various Questions about the Faith for Teens...
...like "How do you do an examination of conscience?"
...like "How do you do an examination of conscience?"
All You Need to Know about Obama...
...is summed up by the fact that this Chicago machine pol has sent out the attack dogs to chew up Gianna Jesson. Utterly, utterly despicable. I've met the woman. She's a total sweetheart.
...is summed up by the fact that this Chicago machine pol has sent out the attack dogs to chew up Gianna Jesson. Utterly, utterly despicable. I've met the woman. She's a total sweetheart.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
I'm still locked in combat with work
...and getting ready to help kick off the Seattle 40 Days for Life this evening. Hey! Western Washington! In the words of Samuel Goldwyn, Don't miss it if you can!
So no blogging today. However, as a sop, here is
a) my latest on Catholic Exchange, in which we look at how the Church affirms what can be affirmed in common with anybody who's there to do some affirmin', and
b) later, today, my latest on Inside Catholic, in which we contemplate Caesar the Bad Cop on the take, his obese cokehead girlfriend Mammon, their fun friends and what it all has to do with basic Catholic social teaching on the State's responsibility for preserving the common good from the assaults of the Seven Deadly Sins. Hint: Sin Makes You Stupid.
Later, dudes!
...and getting ready to help kick off the Seattle 40 Days for Life this evening. Hey! Western Washington! In the words of Samuel Goldwyn, Don't miss it if you can!
So no blogging today. However, as a sop, here is
a) my latest on Catholic Exchange, in which we look at how the Church affirms what can be affirmed in common with anybody who's there to do some affirmin', and
b) later, today, my latest on Inside Catholic, in which we contemplate Caesar the Bad Cop on the take, his obese cokehead girlfriend Mammon, their fun friends and what it all has to do with basic Catholic social teaching on the State's responsibility for preserving the common good from the assaults of the Seven Deadly Sins. Hint: Sin Makes You Stupid.
Later, dudes!
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Heh!
SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR URGENT BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP
DEAR AMERICAN:
I NEED TO ASK YOU TO SUPPORT AN URGENT SECRET BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP WITH A TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF GREAT MAGNITUDE.
I AM MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY OF THE REPUBLIC OF AMERICA. MY COUNTRY HAS HAD CRISIS THAT HAS CAUSED THE NEED FOR LARGE TRANSFER OF FUNDS OF 800 BILLION DOLLARS US. IF YOU WOULD ASSIST ME IN THIS TRANSFER, IT WOULD BE MOST PROFITABLE TO YOU.
I AM WORKING WITH MR. PHIL GRAM, LOBBYIST FOR UBS, WHO WILL BE MY REPLACEMENT AS MINISTRY OF THE TREASURY IN JANUARY. AS A SENATOR, YOU MAY KNOW HIM AS THE LEADER OF THE AMERICAN BANKING DEREGULATION MOVEMENT IN THE 1990S. THIS TRANSACTIN IS 100% SAFE.
THIS IS A MATTER OF GREAT URGENCY. WE NEED A BLANK CHECK. WE NEED THE FUNDS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. WE CANNOT DIRECTLY TRANSFER THESE FUNDS IN THE NAMES OF OUR CLOSE FRIENDS BECAUSE WE ARE CONSTANTLY UNDER SURVEILLANCE. MY FAMILY LAWYER ADVISED ME THAT I SHOULD LOOK FOR A RELIABLE AND TRUSTWORTHY PERSON WHO WILL ACT AS A NEXT OF KIN SO THE FUNDS CAN BE TRANSFERRED.
PLEASE REPLY WITH ALL OF YOUR BANK ACCOUNT, IRA AND COLLEGE FUND ACCOUNT NUMBERS AND THOSE OF YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN TO WALLSTREETBAILOUT@TREASURY.GOV SO THAT WE MAY TRANSFER YOUR COMMISSION FOR THIS TRANSACTION. AFTER I RECEIVE THAT INFORMATION, I WILL RESPOND WITH DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT SAFEGUARDS THAT WILL BE USED TO PROTECT THE FUNDS.
YOURS FAITHFULLY MINISTER OF TREASURY PAULSON
Okay, one more, courtesy of reader Danby down in the comboxes
This is for all the suckers who are still buying the notion that Jesus was just kidding when he said "Those to whom much is given, much will be required":
While we are busy figuring out how to blame the poor, the enormously powerful are doing what they always do: figuring out how to remain enormously powerful and eating one another (and us) in the process. If we continue the way we are going, somebody is going to wind up Caesar in all this--and he is going to have unprecedented dictatorial powers as a result. After that, in a post-Christian culture hostile to God and ruled by its appetites, it's katie-bar-the-door.
As the Prophet Chesterton has said:
This is for all the suckers who are still buying the notion that Jesus was just kidding when he said "Those to whom much is given, much will be required":
The problem isn't sub-prime mortgages. Every single sub-prime mortgage in this country not already owned by the government could be purchased for less than the Fed pungled up to bail out Bear Stearns, about $300 billion.
The problem is leverage. Some of these banks and funds are geared up at 250:1. In other words, they have $250 in outstanding loans for every dollar kept in reserve. At that leverage ratio, a drop in value of your assets of 1/2 of 1% makes you technically bankrupt. And some of theses assets, say houses in Riverside County in CA, have dropped by as much as 40%. God help them if they owned stock in Bear Stearns or Lehman Bros. That money is gone.
They've been hiding it by basically lying on their balance sheets. The whole point of this incredibly brazen act of thievery is to try to force the value of those assets back up. Whether it's Credit Default Swaps or Alt-A mortgages, if they can get the value back up, they can pretend everything's okay.
The problem is that it won't work. Even if they manage to unload the junk off on to Uncle Sucker, they're still horribly over-leveraged. The confidence in the market is shattered, largely because no-one can tell who's on the verge of collapse and who's been honest and prudent. Until they are FORCED to mark the assets on their books to the actual market value, that situation remains. And the proposed bailout doesn't fix the problem.
Tell you what, last year, Goldman Sachs handed out $50 billion in bonuses. I'll pitch in my share if the people who received those bonuses cough up say half that amount. Same goes for all the other financial institutions. Until they do, it's obvious that it's just another case of robbing the poor to ensure the comfort of the obscenely wealthy.
One last thought, this bill would make every company in the US that handles financial instruments an agent of the government, subject to every command of the Treasury Secretary. Any such orders would be absolute, and not subject to review by any outside agency or court.
The next Treasury Secretary could, under this act, order Goldman Sachs to sell $1billion worth of stocks to Morgan Stanley at $1. The order would be lawful under the act, there would be no appeal, and no court could intervene. Consider that just about every medium and large company in the country does such things as issue bonds and offer stock options to it's employees. That's enough to qualify. If that's not straight dictatorship, I don't know what is.
While we are busy figuring out how to blame the poor, the enormously powerful are doing what they always do: figuring out how to remain enormously powerful and eating one another (and us) in the process. If we continue the way we are going, somebody is going to wind up Caesar in all this--and he is going to have unprecedented dictatorial powers as a result. After that, in a post-Christian culture hostile to God and ruled by its appetites, it's katie-bar-the-door.
As the Prophet Chesterton has said:
If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep.
The Curious Incuriosity of Pop Science Writers
If I were to write a piece about the National Science Foundation and declare it a "mysterious network of scientists", most sensible people would say, "What's the mystery? You can visit their headquarters, talk to members, go to their lectures." But when a science writer says exactly this about Opus Dei, New Scientist readers nod thoughtfully. When you have Google at your fingertips, declaring something "mystterious" which is in full view right there on your browser is remarkably incurious, sort of like standing next to Mt. Palomar and wondering what those lights in the sky might be.
The rest of the article is likewise a tissue of, well, remarkably dumb remarks. The translation is this: "Catholics fear science, but have to make it look like they don't. So OD has sunk $44 million into a lab devoted to keeping atheistic materialism from explaining away human consciousness since that would be bad for the religion business what with all that rubbish about the soul. It's the same thing the Vatican was doing a few weeks ago when they said there was no particular problem with extraterrestrial life. *Everybody* knows that this is just Rome arranging the ballast for when science discovers ET. Just as everybody knows that up till pretty recently the Church condemned the notion of any life outside earth. Heh! It sure will be funny when they become Thinking People (such as myself)."
I wonder how
If I were to write a piece about the National Science Foundation and declare it a "mysterious network of scientists", most sensible people would say, "What's the mystery? You can visit their headquarters, talk to members, go to their lectures." But when a science writer says exactly this about Opus Dei, New Scientist readers nod thoughtfully. When you have Google at your fingertips, declaring something "mystterious" which is in full view right there on your browser is remarkably incurious, sort of like standing next to Mt. Palomar and wondering what those lights in the sky might be.
The rest of the article is likewise a tissue of, well, remarkably dumb remarks. The translation is this: "Catholics fear science, but have to make it look like they don't. So OD has sunk $44 million into a lab devoted to keeping atheistic materialism from explaining away human consciousness since that would be bad for the religion business what with all that rubbish about the soul. It's the same thing the Vatican was doing a few weeks ago when they said there was no particular problem with extraterrestrial life. *Everybody* knows that this is just Rome arranging the ballast for when science discovers ET. Just as everybody knows that up till pretty recently the Church condemned the notion of any life outside earth. Heh! It sure will be funny when they become Thinking People (such as myself)."
I wonder how
It's a gigantic crisis (which we caused)! Only sweeping and unaccountable governmental power can save us (and we promise we will use it wisely and justly this time)!
Dennis Dale on the folly of trusting these people.
It's funny. I look around the web and find that people like Ross Douthat are basically saying what I say, "I don't really know all that much about econ. All I know is what I read in the papers." So the national conversation, such as it is, appears to be something that take place in secret government chambers, with news bulletins to us who do not speak or understand the strange heirophantic language in which it is conducted. Those bulletins say, "It's *really* bad. If I were to tell you how bad, you would probably drop dead on the spot. So I won't. But, trust me, it's really bad. (And no, there's no point in trying to tell you how it got that way. Mistakes were made, mostly by poor people. Trust us on that.)
Then our Masters tell us "We are working on a fix for the problem (well, okay, more of a staving off). Meanwhile, continue your normal life. Remember, you are consumers first and citizens second. We have things under control, but we are telling you now that you will need to give us vastly more power, and do it without thinking too much because the need is so urgent!"
Our response: "It says here on the news that these guys are working on it. I don't want to ask too many questions because I feel stupid not understanding this giant problem. And besides, it's a huge scary emergency and what we need is action, not reflection, self-examination, repentance or responsibility, still less a serious look at the people and policies who got us here. All that kumbaya touchy-feely stuff is for the weak, not the consumers of a proud superpower. So I'll just go ahead and support whatever it is they do because they've certainly done a great job up till now."
Broadly speaking, it appears to me that the state (whose function is to preserve the common good against the onslaughts of the various effects of original sin) got it into its head that capitalism was magically immune from the effects of original sin. Possibly this was due to the fact that Caesary and Mammon had been seeing each other, sleeping together, and falling deeper into addiction to coke.
It would appear that Caesar then told people in the grip of one of the capital sins--greed--that they could go ahead and police themselves while he did a line of coke with Mammon up in the penthouse.
Some of these people in the grip of greed were in the private sector and some were in the public sector. All of them behaved like people in the grip of a capital sin. Sin makes you less free. That's why Scripture describes it as "slavery". This slavery we called "the free market". And in the grip of this particular capital sin, we then became very stupid indeed and pissed away trillions we don't actually have. If I were to do this with my family finances we'd be living in our car. When you do it on a titanic scale, you are called a bold entrepeneur by people who are also in the grip of capital sins.
And then the Mighty go to the state which has ceded them oversight of their own folly and tell Caesar, "You can't afford to let me fail. You need to confiscate money from those people over there who still actually have assets and give it to me. This time I will be trustworthy." So Caesar (who was sleeping it off after an all-night coke party with Mammon), dutifully rolls out of bed, dons his police uniform and goes out to declare a state of emergency and order every men woman and child to pony up $2000 a year in perpetuity to "fix" the problem cause by poor people. Being a kind soul, he doesn't mention that the problem isn't so much "fixed" as "delayed" because the central issue--creating an actual system that keeps the capital sin of greed from destroying the common good--is not even on the radar, since almost nobody in our culture even knows what weird Catholic jargon like "common good", "capital sins" or "sin enslaves the will and makes you stupid" means. That's religion encroaching on our majestic secular culture and it's automatically bad.
Sooner or later, we will reach the point reached by the suffering souls in Solzhenitsyn and begin to *seriously* say, "Men have forgotten God; that is why all this has happened." But we are not close to there yet. We still readily believe that the sleazes and crooks who got us here will save us and that we can go on with business as usual, living beyond our means.
The only sound advice in this hour is "Repent! Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and save yourselves from this corrupt generation."
Dennis Dale on the folly of trusting these people.
It's funny. I look around the web and find that people like Ross Douthat are basically saying what I say, "I don't really know all that much about econ. All I know is what I read in the papers." So the national conversation, such as it is, appears to be something that take place in secret government chambers, with news bulletins to us who do not speak or understand the strange heirophantic language in which it is conducted. Those bulletins say, "It's *really* bad. If I were to tell you how bad, you would probably drop dead on the spot. So I won't. But, trust me, it's really bad. (And no, there's no point in trying to tell you how it got that way. Mistakes were made, mostly by poor people. Trust us on that.)
Then our Masters tell us "We are working on a fix for the problem (well, okay, more of a staving off). Meanwhile, continue your normal life. Remember, you are consumers first and citizens second. We have things under control, but we are telling you now that you will need to give us vastly more power, and do it without thinking too much because the need is so urgent!"
Our response: "It says here on the news that these guys are working on it. I don't want to ask too many questions because I feel stupid not understanding this giant problem. And besides, it's a huge scary emergency and what we need is action, not reflection, self-examination, repentance or responsibility, still less a serious look at the people and policies who got us here. All that kumbaya touchy-feely stuff is for the weak, not the consumers of a proud superpower. So I'll just go ahead and support whatever it is they do because they've certainly done a great job up till now."
Broadly speaking, it appears to me that the state (whose function is to preserve the common good against the onslaughts of the various effects of original sin) got it into its head that capitalism was magically immune from the effects of original sin. Possibly this was due to the fact that Caesary and Mammon had been seeing each other, sleeping together, and falling deeper into addiction to coke.
It would appear that Caesar then told people in the grip of one of the capital sins--greed--that they could go ahead and police themselves while he did a line of coke with Mammon up in the penthouse.
Some of these people in the grip of greed were in the private sector and some were in the public sector. All of them behaved like people in the grip of a capital sin. Sin makes you less free. That's why Scripture describes it as "slavery". This slavery we called "the free market". And in the grip of this particular capital sin, we then became very stupid indeed and pissed away trillions we don't actually have. If I were to do this with my family finances we'd be living in our car. When you do it on a titanic scale, you are called a bold entrepeneur by people who are also in the grip of capital sins.
And then the Mighty go to the state which has ceded them oversight of their own folly and tell Caesar, "You can't afford to let me fail. You need to confiscate money from those people over there who still actually have assets and give it to me. This time I will be trustworthy." So Caesar (who was sleeping it off after an all-night coke party with Mammon), dutifully rolls out of bed, dons his police uniform and goes out to declare a state of emergency and order every men woman and child to pony up $2000 a year in perpetuity to "fix" the problem cause by poor people. Being a kind soul, he doesn't mention that the problem isn't so much "fixed" as "delayed" because the central issue--creating an actual system that keeps the capital sin of greed from destroying the common good--is not even on the radar, since almost nobody in our culture even knows what weird Catholic jargon like "common good", "capital sins" or "sin enslaves the will and makes you stupid" means. That's religion encroaching on our majestic secular culture and it's automatically bad.
Sooner or later, we will reach the point reached by the suffering souls in Solzhenitsyn and begin to *seriously* say, "Men have forgotten God; that is why all this has happened." But we are not close to there yet. We still readily believe that the sleazes and crooks who got us here will save us and that we can go on with business as usual, living beyond our means.
The only sound advice in this hour is "Repent! Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and save yourselves from this corrupt generation."
Monday, September 22, 2008
Could Somebody Explain to Me Again Why This Guy is Barking Mad and Our Establishment Class in DC Who Brought Us to This Precipice are Sane and Utterly Reliable?
James "The Ego" White vs. Jesse "The Body" Ventura!
Well, not exactly, but it is actually a photo of Wrestlin' Baptists down the street from Matt Swaim at Trinity Baptist Church's "Fall Brawl 2008," an evangelistic effort to the neighborhood that included Christian wrestling, rap music, and free food. I'm not sure how "Christian" wrestling is distinguished from "wrestling", but then again, I'm not sure how "rap music" is "music". Still, I think this would be a hoot. I'd love to see Dominicans in full capa do this.
Even more, though, I'd give just about anything to see James White leap through the air in blue tights and bounce off Jesse Ventura like a ping pong ball. Big fun!
Well, not exactly, but it is actually a photo of Wrestlin' Baptists down the street from Matt Swaim at Trinity Baptist Church's "Fall Brawl 2008," an evangelistic effort to the neighborhood that included Christian wrestling, rap music, and free food. I'm not sure how "Christian" wrestling is distinguished from "wrestling", but then again, I'm not sure how "rap music" is "music". Still, I think this would be a hoot. I'd love to see Dominicans in full capa do this.
Even more, though, I'd give just about anything to see James White leap through the air in blue tights and bounce off Jesse Ventura like a ping pong ball. Big fun!
Speaking of Distrusting the Rich
A reader writes:
A fair amount of this is over my head (as I say, my eyes glaze when economics get much beyond balancing my checkbook), but I think the basic point here is still "Annual income: 20 pounds. Annual expenditure: 19 pounds. Result: Happiness. Annual income: twenty pounds. Annual expenditure: 21 pounds. Result: Misery."
I was not much paying attention to Reaganomics when it was happening (other things, such as major religious conversions, occupied most of my thoughts during the 80s) so I can't speak to that. Nor have I followed the details of how both parties have made themselves tools of extremely rich people. I merely note that, well, everybody in DC in high office somehow manages to do extremely well for themselves and ocassionally, for their constituents who aren't fantastically rich. They do rather better for their constituents who are fantastically rich. Part of the glory of the two party system is that every four years the pigs can lift their snouts from the trough, oink something about how the other party candidate is a rich guy who is out of touch with you and then get back to sucking up the swill. This goes for the guy with the uncertain number of houses and for the guy whose wife imagines the average taxpayer will spend half their rebate on a pair of earrings. And if you notice and remark on the fact that the rich seems to have rather more in common with one another than with the average voter, somebody on the Right can accuse you of class envy or creeping socialism and somebody on the Left can complain that you are trying to silence the Progressive Voice of a George Soros, a Bill Gates or whoever else is trying to cull the herds of the Unfit via vast grants to Planned Parenthood.
Buchanan's right. We are spectators, not participants, in what these people do.
Happily, the real story is not and never has been in what the Kings of the Earth are about. If you want to know where the real story is, Psalm 2 is a good place to start:
A reader writes:
Let me try the economics. Part of the problem is the thought of money. Think of it as anything else one can buy.
The 'housing market' problem is probably better thought of as a banking problem. The little house owner is cast as the evil villain in this mess. Really didn't start with him. It all started with those who declare the 'cost' of money-lets just name him Alan, just for kicks. Money has a cost. I can 'buy' $100 today. Because of lending, this money will cost me as I repay it over time. We call this 'buying' a loan.
When we make money 'cheap'=low lending rates, we make lots of money available to 'buy.' By simple market pressures. Large companies sell this money to the masses (who, in this 'free' market system, can have their behavior modelled by mathematical equations-if the market is truly 'free' how can it be so predictable, free would suggest otherwise-perhaps 'enslaved to greed' is a better term.) This cheap money comes in large supply, hence the large number of 'money products' offered. In order to sell more of their products, these companies penetrated 'riskier' markets. Some of these would be the risky loans. And of course, risk comes with loss and then default.
But the fun didn't stop there. Coupled with this comes the 'deregulation' side of the Reagan Revolution. These loans were sold (like a bunch of promissory notes) to other financial institutions-not banks necessarily, and often the bundles of notes with the highest risks went at the highest price compared with potential yield. And like the junk bonds of the 1980's, often these turned out to be junk. When high stakes bankers do this it is called 'creating new financial instruments enhancing our wealth' and if I did it, my wife would send me to Gamblers anonymous.
And then the economy tilted a little. While 'all' of our costs of living hardly increased, for those in more fragile economic straits, higher gas costs, higher prices for certain essentials, put them over the edge, and more defaults resulted. And the defaulting increased. And the loans that the financial houses were holding started to look like they earned less. And banks and pension houses and insurance companies and investment firms, which had socked lots of cash into the housing markets had their property value decline nationally, all of a sudden these financial institutions had, oh say, half of what they thought they had. And then these folks couldn't meet certain financial obligations like paying the pensions, like paying their own loans, etc. And thus bankruptcy.
Both the 'cheap money' monetary policy and the deregulation policy are Reagan Revolution bits. Like the neocon foreign policy. And we see the beauty of that foreign policy.
This is the dreamland of the 30 year experiment of Reaganism-a 1980's S and L crisis leaving us on the ropes for enormous sums of cash and this mess (thank you Mr. Greenspan) with perhaps an empire-destroying level of loss. This is the gift of Reaganism.
And like the days of the Reagan Presidency when the 1-2% of welfare recipients who were recalcitrant ne'er do wells were held up as the typical 'welfare momma' (and the image of an African American woman in the inner city springs to mind), small home owners are held to blame for this disaster (and many again blame those minority ne'er do wells-and -wait for it-those liberal social engineers for insisting on fair lending practices to these obviosuly undeserving people.) And do we see any pictures of these bankers in the papers? No. How about their enabling accountants and lawyers? No. Do we see the pictures of their incompetent board members? No.
And the religious right (and not you) is oddly silent on this mess. Those great architects of the libertarian views of Catholicism who made it safe to be Scrooges again (I think Novak starts this, Weigel's whines come to mind straight after) seem oddly silent. And in Manhatten the heart of the melt down, First Things is silent on these matters. Perhaps not oddly, the Catholic Worker of New York has written more about this, in fact the Des Moines Catholic Worker has been more articulate on this crisis. You, who claim no economic knowledge, venture better than reputedly grand intellectuals. Michael Novak, that great instructor of John Paul the Great on economic concerns, seems oddly quiet.
This is the consequence of deregulation and monetary policy in which the beasts (that would be the masses) freely, yet oddly predictably (any explanation how 'free' and 'exquisitely predictable' can go together?) were provided 'cheap' money.
And the beasts consumed this 'cheap' money like a swarm of goldfish eating itself to death.
Some thoughts:
How about this as a starting point for the way to frame the current New Depression: this is what happens when a society indulges in the sin of“usury.” This is what Jeremiah talks about when he condemns Jewish society for its prostitution. Many money changers in the temple have wheedled the Church into thinking less of this sin. Or not at all.(Because only pelvic sins are real sins.) Usury was the sin to condemn, too, in addition to communism's godless materialism, back when Reaganism made greed a 'virtue' instead of a vice.
Greed is the vice and usury was the sin. There are more sins than just concerns of lust. Most are actually more important.
A fair amount of this is over my head (as I say, my eyes glaze when economics get much beyond balancing my checkbook), but I think the basic point here is still "Annual income: 20 pounds. Annual expenditure: 19 pounds. Result: Happiness. Annual income: twenty pounds. Annual expenditure: 21 pounds. Result: Misery."
I was not much paying attention to Reaganomics when it was happening (other things, such as major religious conversions, occupied most of my thoughts during the 80s) so I can't speak to that. Nor have I followed the details of how both parties have made themselves tools of extremely rich people. I merely note that, well, everybody in DC in high office somehow manages to do extremely well for themselves and ocassionally, for their constituents who aren't fantastically rich. They do rather better for their constituents who are fantastically rich. Part of the glory of the two party system is that every four years the pigs can lift their snouts from the trough, oink something about how the other party candidate is a rich guy who is out of touch with you and then get back to sucking up the swill. This goes for the guy with the uncertain number of houses and for the guy whose wife imagines the average taxpayer will spend half their rebate on a pair of earrings. And if you notice and remark on the fact that the rich seems to have rather more in common with one another than with the average voter, somebody on the Right can accuse you of class envy or creeping socialism and somebody on the Left can complain that you are trying to silence the Progressive Voice of a George Soros, a Bill Gates or whoever else is trying to cull the herds of the Unfit via vast grants to Planned Parenthood.
Buchanan's right. We are spectators, not participants, in what these people do.
Happily, the real story is not and never has been in what the Kings of the Earth are about. If you want to know where the real story is, Psalm 2 is a good place to start:
Why do the nations conspire, and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and his anointed, saying,
"Let us burst their bonds asunder, and cast their cords from us."
He who sits in the heavens laughs; the LORD has them in derision.
Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury, saying,
"I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill."
I will tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to me, "You are my son, today I have begotten you.
Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel."
Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth.
Serve the LORD with fear, with trembling.
Kiss his feet, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way; for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
Our Ruling Class
Here's a lovely little snapshot:
Fury at $2.5bn bonus for Lehman's New York staff
Of course, 2.5 billion is a trifle, a nothing. But it gives you a sense of how the people who are running things think.
Recall Buchanan's words from last week:
Now Bush has swung into action, making sure that fantastically rich and powerful people (that is, the people who caused this problem) are given more riches and power. Good job, Mr. President!
I'm so glad we voted those Tax-and-Spend Liberals out of Office and Got America Off Welfare!
Best part, limitless power for the Executive to do what he likes for rich cronies!
And our brave and bold candidates? Hey! The Maverick and the Son of God know which side their bread is buttered on. They're fine with it.
Years ago, I remember watching Andy Rooney talking about what it would take for President Reagan or some senator to go to the drug store and buy a Valentine for the wife. Vast motorcades, a Secret Service escort, a perimeter sweep of the store, an elaborate mechanism for keeping crowds and press at bay--and then the President or senator would not have a checkbook, cash or credit cards anyway. Because they have not actually handled any money themselves in years. Somebody else does that for them.
We have a ruling class (in the state) that is radically out of touch with things like "how to balance a checkbook". Every four years they go to a county fair or eat at a diner and pretend they are normal people. But they aren't. They are enmeshed in vast webs of wealth and power. And every four years we convince ourselves they and the rich people they serve are trustworthy.
The Prophet Chesterton speaks:
Virtually our entire present predicament is the fruit of ignoring the bleedin' obvious here and perpetually telling ourselves that people with obscene amounts of money can be trusted to have our best interests in mind and to run the engines of commerce and government wisely and well. It turns out that these assumptions are rather wide of the mark if the Tradition has anything to say about it. And it turns out that operating on these assumptions has produced a massive case of sin making us stupid. And the best part, we are still hoping that these fabulously rich plutocrats and their lackeys in the the state will now have our best interests in mind and are not thinking about how to fleece us and escape the sinking ship, rather like the imps at Lehman.
You can do a lot of things with rich people. Trusting them is not one of them.
Here's a lovely little snapshot:
Fury at $2.5bn bonus for Lehman's New York staff
Of course, 2.5 billion is a trifle, a nothing. But it gives you a sense of how the people who are running things think.
Recall Buchanan's words from last week:
Notice who is managing the crisis. Not our elected leaders. Nancy Pelosi says she had nothing to do with it. Congress is paralyzed and heading home. President Bush is nowhere to be seen.
...
An unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite plunged the nation. We are just spectators.
Now Bush has swung into action, making sure that fantastically rich and powerful people (that is, the people who caused this problem) are given more riches and power. Good job, Mr. President!
The Bush administration on Saturday formally proposed a vast bailout of financial institutions in the United States, requesting unfettered authority for the Treasury Department to buy up to $700 billion in distressed mortgage-related assets from the private firms.
The proposal, not quite three pages long, was stunning for its stark simplicity. It would raise the national debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion. And it would place no restrictions on the administration other than requiring semiannual reports to Congress, granting the Treasury secretary unprecedented power to buy and resell mortgage debt.
I'm so glad we voted those Tax-and-Spend Liberals out of Office and Got America Off Welfare!
Best part, limitless power for the Executive to do what he likes for rich cronies!
Sec. 8. Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
And our brave and bold candidates? Hey! The Maverick and the Son of God know which side their bread is buttered on. They're fine with it.
Years ago, I remember watching Andy Rooney talking about what it would take for President Reagan or some senator to go to the drug store and buy a Valentine for the wife. Vast motorcades, a Secret Service escort, a perimeter sweep of the store, an elaborate mechanism for keeping crowds and press at bay--and then the President or senator would not have a checkbook, cash or credit cards anyway. Because they have not actually handled any money themselves in years. Somebody else does that for them.
We have a ruling class (in the state) that is radically out of touch with things like "how to balance a checkbook". Every four years they go to a county fair or eat at a diner and pretend they are normal people. But they aren't. They are enmeshed in vast webs of wealth and power. And every four years we convince ourselves they and the rich people they serve are trustworthy.
The Prophet Chesterton speaks:
Only the Christian Church can offer any rational objection to a complete confidence in the rich. For she has maintained from the beginning that the danger was not in man’s environment, but in man. Further, she has maintained that if we come to talk of a dangerous environment, the most dangerous environment of all is the commodious environment. I know that the most modern manufacture has been really occupied in trying to produce an abnormally large needle. I know that the most recent biologists have been chiefly anxious to discover a very small camel. But if we diminish the camel to his smallest, or open the eye of the needle to its largest —if, in short, we assume the words of Christ to have meant the very least that they could mean, His words must at the very least mean this—that rich men are not very likely to be morally trustworthy. Christianity even when watered down is hot enough to boil all modern society to rags. The mere minimum of the Church would be a deadly ultimatum to the world. For the whole modern world is absolutely based on the assumption, not that the rich are necessary (which is tenable), but that the rich are trustworthy, which (for a Christian) is not tenable. You will hear everlastingly, in all discussions about newspapers, companies, aristocracies, or party politics, this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man. The whole case for Christianity is that a man who is dependent upon the luxuries of this life is a corrupt man, spiritually corrupt, politically corrupt, financially corrupt. There is one thing that Christ and all the Christian saints have said with a sort of savage monotony. They have said simply that to be rich is to be in peculiar danger of moral wreck. It is not demonstrably un-Christian to kill the rich as violators of definable justice. It is not demonstrably un-Christian to crown the rich as convenient rulers of society. It is not certainly un-Christian to rebel against the rich or to submit to the rich. But it is quite certainly un-Christian to trust the rich, to regard the rich as more morally safe than the poor. A Christian may consistently say, “I respect that man’s rank, although he takes bribes.” But a Christian cannot say, as all modern men are saying at lunch and breakfast, “a man of that rank would not take bribes.” For it is a part of Christian dogma that any man in any rank may take bribes. It is a part of Christian dogma; it also happens by a curious coincidence that it is a part of obvious human history. When people say that a man “in that position” would be incorruptible, there is no need to bring Christianity into the discussion. Was Lord Bacon a bootblack? Was the Duke of Marlborough a crossing sweeper? In the best Utopia, I must be prepared for the moral fall of any man in any position at any moment; especially for my fall from my position at this moment.
Virtually our entire present predicament is the fruit of ignoring the bleedin' obvious here and perpetually telling ourselves that people with obscene amounts of money can be trusted to have our best interests in mind and to run the engines of commerce and government wisely and well. It turns out that these assumptions are rather wide of the mark if the Tradition has anything to say about it. And it turns out that operating on these assumptions has produced a massive case of sin making us stupid. And the best part, we are still hoping that these fabulously rich plutocrats and their lackeys in the the state will now have our best interests in mind and are not thinking about how to fleece us and escape the sinking ship, rather like the imps at Lehman.
You can do a lot of things with rich people. Trusting them is not one of them.
SSPX Singles: Proving that There's a Website for Everything
Reminds me of this old Envoy Top Ten List of Conservative Catholic Pickup Lines:
Reminds me of this old Envoy Top Ten List of Conservative Catholic Pickup Lines:
10. May I offer you a light for that votive candle?
9. Hi there. My buddy and I were wondering if you would settle a dispute we're having. Do you think the word should be pronounced HOMEschooling, or homeSCHOOLing?
8. Sorry, but I couldn't help notice how cute you look in that ankle-length, shapeless, plaid jumper.
7. What's a nice girl like you doing at a First Saturday Rosary Cenacle like this?
6. You don't like the culture of death either? Wow! We have so much in common!
5. Let's get out of here. I know a much cozier little Catholic bookstore downtown.
4. I bet I can guess your confirmation name.
3. You've got stunning scapular-brown eyes.
2. Did you feel what I felt when we reached into the holy water font at the same time?
1. Confess here often?
Psychologists Vote Against Role in Interrogation
Excellent! The Bush/Cheney attempt at turning the medical profession into a mirror of the evil Soviet amalgam of "mental health" and police psycho-torture professionals is receiving the pushback it deserves.
It's a pity this Administration will never be prosecuted for war crimes.
Excellent! The Bush/Cheney attempt at turning the medical profession into a mirror of the evil Soviet amalgam of "mental health" and police psycho-torture professionals is receiving the pushback it deserves.
It's a pity this Administration will never be prosecuted for war crimes.
One of these Pictures is not Like the Other
Can you spot the oh-so-subtle difference between the candidates of mere flesh and blood and the one who is a Being of Light?
Best part: it's from a piece on how our candidates live "in real life".
Can you spot the oh-so-subtle difference between the candidates of mere flesh and blood and the one who is a Being of Light?
Best part: it's from a piece on how our candidates live "in real life".
Here in the Land at the End of History, We are Again Pushing for the "Right" to Kill People
This time it's all those pricey old people. And, as you would expect, the Catholic Church is telling its parishioners that I-1000 (the latest attempt to off the costly and inconvenient) is reckless, sinful and evil and urging us to think lovingly and sacrificially about our aging neighbors and families instead of just bustling them off to Soylent Industries for a dirt nap. All this prompts our local Far-Thinking Green and Recycling Citizenry is getting in touch with its Inner Know-Nothing and shriek with invective worthy of a lobotomized Pharnyngulite.
The nastiness has gotten so loud that even a local columnist for the PI (aka Puget Pravda) notices it and comments, which is an amazing thing for the local press. The hilarious thing is the remarks in the comboxes, in which local anti-catholic fire breathing readers perform such feats as seizing their own feet and tearing themselves in two in order to demonstrate to the rational reader that they are not filled with insane anti-catholic hatred.
I, for one, totally believe them. Anti-catholic? Seattle? Nah! This town hates all Christians without any discrimination whatsoever!
This time it's all those pricey old people. And, as you would expect, the Catholic Church is telling its parishioners that I-1000 (the latest attempt to off the costly and inconvenient) is reckless, sinful and evil and urging us to think lovingly and sacrificially about our aging neighbors and families instead of just bustling them off to Soylent Industries for a dirt nap. All this prompts our local Far-Thinking Green and Recycling Citizenry is getting in touch with its Inner Know-Nothing and shriek with invective worthy of a lobotomized Pharnyngulite.
The nastiness has gotten so loud that even a local columnist for the PI (aka Puget Pravda) notices it and comments, which is an amazing thing for the local press. The hilarious thing is the remarks in the comboxes, in which local anti-catholic fire breathing readers perform such feats as seizing their own feet and tearing themselves in two in order to demonstrate to the rational reader that they are not filled with insane anti-catholic hatred.
I, for one, totally believe them. Anti-catholic? Seattle? Nah! This town hates all Christians without any discrimination whatsoever!
Mary book update
The trilogy is coming along nicely through the editorial and typesetting phase. I've been collecting blurbs from various folks (most recently, a very nice one from Fr. Benedict Groeschel, which is a big thrill for me).
Publishers have their own particular systems for how they do edits and no two are quite alike, though the basic system is pretty similar. At Catholic Answers what happens is the MSS goes through an "apologetics review" where somebody goes over it with an ultra-fine-tune comb for fact-checking. They are utter sticklers for primary sources, which forced me to do my homework and strengthened the book at a number of points. Then the MS come back to me and I get to argue with them about which changes I really want to make (a lot are merely suggestions and a couple are things they want me to make and I think are bad ideas to change). We haggle and finally I or they get their way. Then the edited MS goes to a copy editor who finds all the typos (you may have ntoecid I mkae a lot of tpyos).
Then the MS goes to the typesetter who creates what are called "galleys". The galley's are rough typesetters with lots of little suggested corrections and standarizations which he then sends to me to go over. When you get the galleys, you, as the author, start feeling again the excitement that "This things really gonna see print!" It's sort of the literary equivalent of seeing the baby crown during childbirth (after a four year pregnancy). (Other thrilling moments including seeing the cover art, hearing or seeing the first advertisement for the book, and, of course, getting your first copy of the book.)
Saturday, I got the galleys on Volume One: The Approach to Mary in what is now tentatively titled The Mother of the Son trilogy.
What that mean for youse guys is that I will be blogging less than normal for a bit while I go over the galleys. Also, I'm gonna be yakking a lot this week. Here's the schedule:
Finally, on September 27, I'll speak to the Serra Club Regional Convention, Embassy Suites, 20610 44th Ave West, Lynnwood, WA. Topic: The Vocation of the Layperson. Contact: Ken Requa.
All that, plus several writing projects, spells "less blogging this week". But I'll do my best to get something fun posted each day.
The trilogy is coming along nicely through the editorial and typesetting phase. I've been collecting blurbs from various folks (most recently, a very nice one from Fr. Benedict Groeschel, which is a big thrill for me).
Publishers have their own particular systems for how they do edits and no two are quite alike, though the basic system is pretty similar. At Catholic Answers what happens is the MSS goes through an "apologetics review" where somebody goes over it with an ultra-fine-tune comb for fact-checking. They are utter sticklers for primary sources, which forced me to do my homework and strengthened the book at a number of points. Then the MS come back to me and I get to argue with them about which changes I really want to make (a lot are merely suggestions and a couple are things they want me to make and I think are bad ideas to change). We haggle and finally I or they get their way. Then the edited MS goes to a copy editor who finds all the typos (you may have ntoecid I mkae a lot of tpyos).
Then the MS goes to the typesetter who creates what are called "galleys". The galley's are rough typesetters with lots of little suggested corrections and standarizations which he then sends to me to go over. When you get the galleys, you, as the author, start feeling again the excitement that "This things really gonna see print!" It's sort of the literary equivalent of seeing the baby crown during childbirth (after a four year pregnancy). (Other thrilling moments including seeing the cover art, hearing or seeing the first advertisement for the book, and, of course, getting your first copy of the book.)
Saturday, I got the galleys on Volume One: The Approach to Mary in what is now tentatively titled The Mother of the Son trilogy.
What that mean for youse guys is that I will be blogging less than normal for a bit while I go over the galleys. Also, I'm gonna be yakking a lot this week. Here's the schedule:
Seattle 40 Days 2008 - Kickoff AnnouncementThen, on September 25 7:00 PM I'll be at St. Mark's parish in Shoreline WA. Topic: Introduction to Scripture.
The 40 Days campaign is almost here again! We are excited to announce that the 2008 Kickoff Rally has been scheduled for Wednesday, September 24th at 7pm. It will be held at University Heights Community Center at 5031 University Way NE, Seattle WA 98105.
There will be speakers (Ed. note: this is where I fit in), the opportunity to meet with others who will be involved, and campaign coordinators will be available to answer any questions and sign people up for vigil hours. At the end, we will walk down to the vigil site for a short time of prayer as a group, for those who would like to get an idea of the location (Planned Parenthood on 45th and 9th) and a feel for being out there.
You’ll see a lot more information posted here over the next couple weeks. Also check out our page on the nation site!
This should be the beginning of an amazing 2008 campaign… We are excited to see you all on the 24th!
Finally, on September 27, I'll speak to the Serra Club Regional Convention, Embassy Suites, 20610 44th Ave West, Lynnwood, WA. Topic: The Vocation of the Layperson. Contact: Ken Requa.
All that, plus several writing projects, spells "less blogging this week". But I'll do my best to get something fun posted each day.
Anybody that Reviled by PZ Myers Must be Doing Something Right
From our Fun Coincidence Dept.:
A few days ago, I get an email from Mike Koelzer saying "Matt Swaim suggested I contact you". Who's Mike Koelzer? you ask. He writes:
I meant to post this last week but I let busy-ness get in the way. Mea culpa. Anyway, the other day I looked at Dale Price's invaluable blog and Behold! he's got a little entry on how Mr. Koelzer has stirred the wrath of Quite Possibly the Most Repellent Man on the Internet, PZ Myers.
I'm thinkin', "How can you sit there and be less passionately supportive of this thoroughly Chestertonian guy than Myers is passionately his enemy?"
Answer: I can't! So check thou him him out and do what you can to support this fine witness of conscience! Thanks, Mr. Koelzer and don't let the Evil One get you down! As for Dr. Apoplexy and his slavering horde, well, the prayer of St. Stephen for his murderers is still a pretty good one.
From our Fun Coincidence Dept.:
A few days ago, I get an email from Mike Koelzer saying "Matt Swaim suggested I contact you". Who's Mike Koelzer? you ask. He writes:
I thought you might be interested in seeing the recent coverage on ABC's World News with Charles Gibson of our pharmacy's policy to not sell contraceptives. You will find the link to the ABC video at www.prolifepharmacy.com.
Ours is a very important story on the abortifacient properties of birth control pills and why we no longer carry them in our third-generation, family-owned pharmacy.
I would be honored to have you share my apostolate in your blog. To learn more about my apostolate, please see www.prolifepharmacy.com
I meant to post this last week but I let busy-ness get in the way. Mea culpa. Anyway, the other day I looked at Dale Price's invaluable blog and Behold! he's got a little entry on how Mr. Koelzer has stirred the wrath of Quite Possibly the Most Repellent Man on the Internet, PZ Myers.
I'm thinkin', "How can you sit there and be less passionately supportive of this thoroughly Chestertonian guy than Myers is passionately his enemy?"
Answer: I can't! So check thou him him out and do what you can to support this fine witness of conscience! Thanks, Mr. Koelzer and don't let the Evil One get you down! As for Dr. Apoplexy and his slavering horde, well, the prayer of St. Stephen for his murderers is still a pretty good one.
Friday, September 19, 2008
One of the Most Baffling Things in the Scientific World...
...is the periodic urge some atheist materialists have to try to persuade you that you don't have free will.
Hel-LO? The Prophet Chesterton speaks:
The only thing more incredible to me than denying free will is denying free will--and then immediately trying to persuade people to choose to disbelieve in free will.
...is the periodic urge some atheist materialists have to try to persuade you that you don't have free will.
Hel-LO? The Prophet Chesterton speaks:
Spiritual doctrines do not actually limit the mind as do materialistic denials. Even if I believe in immortality I need not think about it. But if I disbelieve in immortality I must not think about it. In the first case the road is open and I can go as far as I like; in the second the road is shut. But the case is even stronger, and the parallel with madness is yet more strange. For it was our case against the exhaustive and logical theory of the lunatic that, right or wrong, it gradually destroyed his humanity. Now it is the charge against the main deductions of the materialist that, right or wrong, they gradually destroy his humanity; I do not mean only kindness, I mean hope, courage, poetry, initiative, all that is human. For instance, when materialism leads men to complete fatalism (as it generally does), it is quite idle to pretend that it is in any sense a liberating force. It is absurd to say that you are especially advancing freedom when you only use free thought to destroy free will. The determinists come to bind, not to loose. They may well call their law the “chain” of causation. It is the worst chain that ever fettered a human being. You may use the language of liberty, if you like, about materialistic teaching, but it is obvious that this is just as inapplicable to it as a whole as the same language when applied to a man locked up in a mad-house. You may say, if you like, that the man is free to think himself a poached egg. But it is surely a more massive and important fact that if he is a poached egg he is not free to eat, drink, sleep, walk, or smoke a cigarette. Similarly you may say, if you like, that the bold determinist speculator is free to disbelieve in the reality of the will. But it is a much more massive and important fact that he is not free to raise, to curse, to thank, to justify, to urge, to punish, to resist temptations, to incite mobs, to make New Year resolutions, to pardon sinners, to rebuke tyrants, or even to say “thank you” for the mustard.
In passing from this subject I may note that there is a queer fallacy to the effect that materialistic fatalism is in some way favourable to mercy, to the abolition of cruel punishments or punishments of any kind. This is startlingly the reverse of the truth. It is quite tenable that the doctrine of necessity makes no difference at all; that it leaves the flogger flogging and the kind friend exhorting as before. But obviously if it stops either of them it stops the kind exhortation. That the sins are inevitable does not prevent punishment; if it prevents anything it prevents persuasion. Determinism is quite as likely to lead to cruelty as it is certain to lead to cowardice. Determinism is not inconsistent with the cruel treatment of criminals. What it is (perhaps) inconsistent with is the generous treatment of criminals; with any appeal to their better feelings or encouragement in their moral struggle. The determinist does not believe in appealing to the will, but he does believe in changing the environment. He must not say to the sinner, “Go and sin no more,” because the sinner cannot help it. But he can put him in boiling oil; for boiling oil is an environment.
The only thing more incredible to me than denying free will is denying free will--and then immediately trying to persuade people to choose to disbelieve in free will.
He's simply right
This is how Empire's end.
As our sins catch up with us, the Good News, as ever, is that Jesus will remain long after the greedheads, empty suits, and ridiculous pols have ditched us.
The only thing sensible to say right now is "Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."
This is how Empire's end.
The Last Superpower is unable to defend its borders, protect its currency, win its wars or balance its budget. Medicare and Social Security are headed for the cliff with unfunded liabilities in the tens of trillions of dollars.
What we are witnessing today is nothing less than a Katrina-like failure of government, of our political class, and of democracy itself, casting a cloud over the viability and longevity of the system.
Notice who is managing the crisis. Not our elected leaders. Nancy Pelosi says she had nothing to do with it. Congress is paralyzed and heading home. President Bush is nowhere to be seen.
Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs and Ben Bernanke of the Fed chose to bail out Bear Sterns but let Lehman go under. They decided to nationalize Fannie and Freddie at a cost to taxpayers of hundreds of billions, putting the U.S. government behind $5 trillion in mortgages. They decided to buy AIG with $85 billion rather than see the insurance giant sink beneath the waves.
An unelected financial elite is now entrusted with the assignment of getting us out of a disaster into which an unelected financial elite plunged the nation. We are just spectators.
As our sins catch up with us, the Good News, as ever, is that Jesus will remain long after the greedheads, empty suits, and ridiculous pols have ditched us.
The only thing sensible to say right now is "Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."
Biblical Headlines
Heh!
If Biblical Headlines were written by today's print media...
On Red Sea crossing:
WETLANDS TRAMPLED IN LABOR STRIKE
Pursuing Environmentalists Killed
On David vs. Goliath:
HATE CRIME KILLS BELOVED CHAMPION
Psychologist Questions Influence of Rock
On Elijah on Mt. Carmel:
FIRE SENDS RELIGIOUS RIGHT EXTREMIST INTO FRENZY
400 Killed
On the birth of Christ:
HOTELS FULL, ANIMALS LEFT HOMELESS
Animal Rights Activists Enraged by Insensitive Couple
On feeding the 5,000:
PREACHER STEALS CHILD'S LUNCH
Disciples Mystified Over Behavior
On healing the 10 lepers:
LOCAL DOCTOR'S PRACTICE RUINED
"Faith Healer" Causes Bankruptcy
On healing of the Gadarene demoniac:
MADMAN'S FRIEND CAUSES STAMPEDE
Local Farmer's Investment Lost
On raising Lazarus from the dead:
FUNDAMENTALIST PREACHER RAISES A STINK
Will Reading to be Delayed
Heh!
Another Person Discovers How Formidably Well-Educated Scott Hahn is
Having worked with him for several years I can tell you, the dude really knows his stuff. People who read his popular works with the terrible puns can get the wrong idea about just how voraciously well-read he is and mistake him for a Pop Theologian. He's the real deal. I think the world of him. It's a mystery to me why he's so despised by the New Oxford Review crowd. There's something in the conservative soul that likes to bayonet its own best people.
By the way, the rest of the Contrarian's Review is a fun read too.
Having worked with him for several years I can tell you, the dude really knows his stuff. People who read his popular works with the terrible puns can get the wrong idea about just how voraciously well-read he is and mistake him for a Pop Theologian. He's the real deal. I think the world of him. It's a mystery to me why he's so despised by the New Oxford Review crowd. There's something in the conservative soul that likes to bayonet its own best people.
By the way, the rest of the Contrarian's Review is a fun read too.
A Study in Contrast
For the past several days, people have been ringing the changes on various charges that Zippy (and to a lesser degree, I) are "judging" people and even dissenting from the teaching of the bishops because neither of us can see a good proportionality argument for voting for McCain.
Here's how it works.
The bishops do their standard election year thing of articulating the general principles of voting in a time when neither candidate offers you much in the way of interest in Catholic social teaching. Part of what the Church offers as a general guideline is that, if all you have to vote for is two candidates who propose intrinsic moral evil in their platform, it is legitimate to try to find a proportional reason to vote for the lesser of two evils. If you can find it, then go ahead and vote for that guy, even though he is proposing intrinsic evil, because you goal is to limit evil, not support the evil that your chosen candidate wants to do.
All this is fairly straightforward and Zippy and I, despite our constantly being informed we reject it by people who apparently think we either cannot think or cannot tell the truth, agree with the bishops' teaching.
The sticky part is this: Everything hinges on what you think is a proportional reason to vote for a candidate who proposes intrinsic evil. And despite all the sound and fury in my comboxes to the contrary, the fact remains that the bishops have not said one syllable about the specifics of the particular race known to history as "Obama v. McCain". They've given us general principles, but they expect us to do the math. When Zippy and I do our math, we can't for the life of us see a good proportional argument for McCain. And because of this, we are bombarded by people who scream at us for being "judgmental" about McCain voters, even though neither of us has said a thing about a particular voter's personal culpability for what he and I both regard as an objectively evil vote.
Now here's the odd thing. So many of the people who are screaming about judgmentalism for Zippy and I saying, "I don't think a vote for McCain is ultimately able to be justified by proportionality arguments" had no problem at all with me saying exactly the same things about guys like Doug Kmiec and Morning's Minion. For, of course, they too say that the reason they are voting for Obama is not out of some bloodthirsty desire to maximize baby-killing, but because they believe (in my opinion, sincerely but wrongly) that a vote for Obama is justifiable by proportionality arguments. In short, they think McCain will do more evil than Obama and so they are obliged to vote for Obama in order to limit the worse evil McCain will do.
St. Blog's has positively *rung* with condemnations of both these guys. I've criticized their proportionality arguments, of course, in exactly the way I've criticized the proportionality arguments of the McCain folk. But I assume (as I assume with the McCain folk) that they are offered in a sincere desire to limit evil, not with some sotto voce hope that unrestricted abortion on demand will forever reign. I think them good Catholics, albeit it bad moral reasoners.
But not a few people at St. Blog's have had no problem at all declaring guys like Kmiec and MM deserving of excommunication, denial of communion, etc. I've never gone that far, precisely because, as with McCain voters, I think that their remote cooperation with evil is so dependent on all sorts of factors unknowable to me that they may well really believe that they are in compliance with the Church's guidelines on proportionality. I myself can't for the life of me see how, but it's not up to me to judge them, any more than it is up to me to judge the McCain supporter. It is only up to me to say, "I can't for the life of me see how proportionality justifies a vote for either McCain or Obama."
When I say that about Kmiec and Morning's Minion's bad arguments, McCain supporters at St. Blog's cheer me for speaking the TRVTH to people they have repeatedly shown themselves ready, willing and able to condemn as "so-called Catholics", "fake Catholics" "phoney Catholics" and all the rest of it. I myself am extremely wary of using such language about voters, again precisely because we are talking about remote cooperation (though I will apply it to public figures like Pelosi or Frances Kissling). But in my comboxes and elsewhere around St. Blog's I can't count the number of times I have seen people suggest the somebody like Doug Kmiec or Morning's Minion aren't just wrong about their proportionality arguments, but motivated by an evil will and in dire necessity of getting out of the Catholic Church. Judgmentalism abounds and nobody seems to much mind it, even though it is, well, evil.
But when Zippy and I say, "I can't see how a proportionality argument for McCain holds water" people wet themselves and feel all condemned and excommunicated by us, even though neither of us have said one syllable about the culpability of anybody who votes for either McCain or Obama.
Question for St. Blog's McCain supporters: Biased much?
So to recap: The bishops don't speak to the specifics of these candidates, so we have to do the math on proportionality, and not expect the bishops to tell us who to vote for. When I do my math, I don't think a vote for either candidate can be justified by proportionality. I recognize others may get different results and feel bound in conscience to vote for either Obama or McCain. God is their judge, not me. But that doesn't mean I don't think they did their math wrong and don't feel an obligation to say what my conscience tells me. And I would take the cries of McCain supporters more seriously when they scream "Judgmental!" if so many of them were not eager to kick people like Kmiec or Morning's Minion out of the Church for *their* bad proportionality arguments. I leave excommunication matters to the bishops.
For the past several days, people have been ringing the changes on various charges that Zippy (and to a lesser degree, I) are "judging" people and even dissenting from the teaching of the bishops because neither of us can see a good proportionality argument for voting for McCain.
Here's how it works.
The bishops do their standard election year thing of articulating the general principles of voting in a time when neither candidate offers you much in the way of interest in Catholic social teaching. Part of what the Church offers as a general guideline is that, if all you have to vote for is two candidates who propose intrinsic moral evil in their platform, it is legitimate to try to find a proportional reason to vote for the lesser of two evils. If you can find it, then go ahead and vote for that guy, even though he is proposing intrinsic evil, because you goal is to limit evil, not support the evil that your chosen candidate wants to do.
All this is fairly straightforward and Zippy and I, despite our constantly being informed we reject it by people who apparently think we either cannot think or cannot tell the truth, agree with the bishops' teaching.
The sticky part is this: Everything hinges on what you think is a proportional reason to vote for a candidate who proposes intrinsic evil. And despite all the sound and fury in my comboxes to the contrary, the fact remains that the bishops have not said one syllable about the specifics of the particular race known to history as "Obama v. McCain". They've given us general principles, but they expect us to do the math. When Zippy and I do our math, we can't for the life of us see a good proportional argument for McCain. And because of this, we are bombarded by people who scream at us for being "judgmental" about McCain voters, even though neither of us has said a thing about a particular voter's personal culpability for what he and I both regard as an objectively evil vote.
Now here's the odd thing. So many of the people who are screaming about judgmentalism for Zippy and I saying, "I don't think a vote for McCain is ultimately able to be justified by proportionality arguments" had no problem at all with me saying exactly the same things about guys like Doug Kmiec and Morning's Minion. For, of course, they too say that the reason they are voting for Obama is not out of some bloodthirsty desire to maximize baby-killing, but because they believe (in my opinion, sincerely but wrongly) that a vote for Obama is justifiable by proportionality arguments. In short, they think McCain will do more evil than Obama and so they are obliged to vote for Obama in order to limit the worse evil McCain will do.
St. Blog's has positively *rung* with condemnations of both these guys. I've criticized their proportionality arguments, of course, in exactly the way I've criticized the proportionality arguments of the McCain folk. But I assume (as I assume with the McCain folk) that they are offered in a sincere desire to limit evil, not with some sotto voce hope that unrestricted abortion on demand will forever reign. I think them good Catholics, albeit it bad moral reasoners.
But not a few people at St. Blog's have had no problem at all declaring guys like Kmiec and MM deserving of excommunication, denial of communion, etc. I've never gone that far, precisely because, as with McCain voters, I think that their remote cooperation with evil is so dependent on all sorts of factors unknowable to me that they may well really believe that they are in compliance with the Church's guidelines on proportionality. I myself can't for the life of me see how, but it's not up to me to judge them, any more than it is up to me to judge the McCain supporter. It is only up to me to say, "I can't for the life of me see how proportionality justifies a vote for either McCain or Obama."
When I say that about Kmiec and Morning's Minion's bad arguments, McCain supporters at St. Blog's cheer me for speaking the TRVTH to people they have repeatedly shown themselves ready, willing and able to condemn as "so-called Catholics", "fake Catholics" "phoney Catholics" and all the rest of it. I myself am extremely wary of using such language about voters, again precisely because we are talking about remote cooperation (though I will apply it to public figures like Pelosi or Frances Kissling). But in my comboxes and elsewhere around St. Blog's I can't count the number of times I have seen people suggest the somebody like Doug Kmiec or Morning's Minion aren't just wrong about their proportionality arguments, but motivated by an evil will and in dire necessity of getting out of the Catholic Church. Judgmentalism abounds and nobody seems to much mind it, even though it is, well, evil.
But when Zippy and I say, "I can't see how a proportionality argument for McCain holds water" people wet themselves and feel all condemned and excommunicated by us, even though neither of us have said one syllable about the culpability of anybody who votes for either McCain or Obama.
Question for St. Blog's McCain supporters: Biased much?
So to recap: The bishops don't speak to the specifics of these candidates, so we have to do the math on proportionality, and not expect the bishops to tell us who to vote for. When I do my math, I don't think a vote for either candidate can be justified by proportionality. I recognize others may get different results and feel bound in conscience to vote for either Obama or McCain. God is their judge, not me. But that doesn't mean I don't think they did their math wrong and don't feel an obligation to say what my conscience tells me. And I would take the cries of McCain supporters more seriously when they scream "Judgmental!" if so many of them were not eager to kick people like Kmiec or Morning's Minion out of the Church for *their* bad proportionality arguments. I leave excommunication matters to the bishops.
A reader writes:
Works for me!
I recently came across your blog (started reading when people began blogging about the 40 year anniversary of Humanae Vitae), and I love it. Today I came across your post 'Better Than Voting', and I think you should mention 'the other side of the coin.' Why not prayerfully contact pro-abortion Catholic politicians as well? Four years ago, I was in a much different place than I am today... and I voted for John Kerry. To be honest, it wasn't a non-Bush vote, but I was really inspired by him... and I even donated to his campaign. Since then, I've had a spiritual growth spurt and needless to say, I know longer hold the same views I did four years ago.
A couple of weeks ago, I sent John Kerry a personalized letter and a Rosary that I received while in Medjugorje. Here is the content of that letter:Dear Senator Kerry,
I have been reflecting on the past four years of my life, and the election cycle of 2004 immediately comes to mind. At that time, I was inspired by you... I admired your military record, the way you were able to balance a sharp intellect and a soft and welcoming persona. From that campaign, one event stands vividly in my mind: the night that you stood up against the ridiculous smear campaign orchestrated by Rove and company. I remember saying to myself during that Ohio speech under the lights - 'this is my guy.' From that point on I was an ardent supporter of your campaign... and I was eventually heart broken when the election went to president Bush.
Since that time I have grown in many ways. Like you, I embrace my Roman Catholic faith. Through Jesus I have become closer to God... and through the Blessed Mother, I have come to know Jesus. Enclosed with this letter is a rosary. I received this rosary while in Medjugorje during the summer of 2007. The rosary has been blessed by a number of very holy priests. By meditating on the 'mysteries' of the rosary, I have found peace... I hope this gift will give you the same.
With this rosary, I pray that you will find strength and courage (in the same way that you did that night in Ohio) to work to transform the Democratic party's stance on abortion. The second decade of the joyous mysteries asks us to contemplate the gospel passage where a pregnant Mary visits Elizabeth, the pregnant mother of John the Baptist (Lk 1:39-45). Scripture tells us, "when Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the infant leaped in her womb." Please take an honest look both logically, and spiritually to what abortion really is - and then use your gifts to protect these innocent infants who are being murdered by the millions.
You will remain in my prayers. May God continue to bless your efforts.
My handwriting sucks beyond belief, and it was painful (literally) to write out the message by hand, but I wanted to personalize it. I really think that if these politicians see the 'personal' side to these issues, they may re-think their positions.
Thank you for sharing your blog.
Works for me!
The Permanent Emergency Leviathan Continues to Condition Its Citizens
What on earth does this crap have to do with the job of the state as envisioned by the Founders?
What on earth does this crap have to do with the job of the state as envisioned by the Founders?
Reader Fred Synk writes:
If you wish to be a sponsor, please contact Fred Synk here.
The Living with Cancer Bike Tour
Hi, I’m Fred Synk. As many of you know, I’m a real estate lawyer, triathlete, Boy Scout Leader, active in my church, and the father of Erin (24), Brendan (22) and Colleen (19).
I’m also a cancer patient. It’s melanoma, which recurred in my lymph nodes this spring. At the same time, I still feel great. I’m in a national clinical trial of some “targeted drugs” at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center and hopes are high.
One of my Boy Scout responsibilities is planning the high adventure trips for the scouts of Troop 1701. About a year ago, prior finding out about the cancer, I started planning a trip for the scouts to go on a 325 mile bike trip from Pittsburgh, PA to Washington D.C. along the Great Allegheny Passage rail-trail and the C & O Canal Towpath. Because of my treatments, I was unable to go on the trip, but the scouts successfully made the trip and had a great time.
While they were on the trip I saw the movie, The Bucket List, which I loved. So now making this bike trip is the first thing on my bucket list. And I am going sooner rather than later.
From October 26- November 1, I’ll be making that bike ride with my fiancée Michele Burns, my sister Margie and her husband Tom, and my brother Mike. We’ll be riding 325 miles in 5 days of riding. That’s right: 65 miles a day for five days. We’re going to have a great time.
THIS IS WHERE YOU COME IN: We decided that we should use this trip as a fundraiser. SO I’m asking you to sponsor me on this bike ride. The proceeds will be donated to support Melanoma Research at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center where I am being treated. All contributions will be fully tax deductible, and will go 100% to research. We’ll cover our own trip expenses. I’ll accept any donation: a dollar per mile, a dime per mile, a nickel a mile and even a penny per mile. Flat amounts are fine too. Group donations are welcome as well. U of M will issue receipts for your charitable contribution.
I would really appreciate the support. Thanks for taking time to listen.
If you wish to be a sponsor, please contact Fred Synk here.
The Invaluable John Zmirak Has Fun with John Derbyshire's Crusty Atheism
The Derb decided to unburden himself about all this theism stuff and nonsense the other day, sort of like a good bout of flatulence. He seems to feel better afterward, even though everybody else in the room didn't find it to be as musical as he did. It was something to the effect that people who believe stuff believe it and that's dishonest, while people like him who don't believe are truly honest and don't try telling him otherwise because he knows what he believes. It was a bit more substantial than "Damn'd wogs and their bloody superstitions. Science is what makes the sun never set on our Empire. Harrumph!", but not much.
Now John Zmirak replies to Derbyshire and has rather a lot of fun.
The Derb decided to unburden himself about all this theism stuff and nonsense the other day, sort of like a good bout of flatulence. He seems to feel better afterward, even though everybody else in the room didn't find it to be as musical as he did. It was something to the effect that people who believe stuff believe it and that's dishonest, while people like him who don't believe are truly honest and don't try telling him otherwise because he knows what he believes. It was a bit more substantial than "Damn'd wogs and their bloody superstitions. Science is what makes the sun never set on our Empire. Harrumph!", but not much.
Now John Zmirak replies to Derbyshire and has rather a lot of fun.
When a Society Abandons Christ, It Has Nothing to Look Forward to But Death
Exhibit A: One of England's leading moral philosophers (so described) has announced that those suffering dementia and other debilitating troubles in their old age probably have a duty to die so that the rest of us - and more importantly, the National Health Service - can get on with things more easily. She wants, in her own astonishing words, for people to be licensed to put other people down.
Exhibit B: Since supernature abhors a vacuum, Islamic law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases. John C. Wright comments here.
By the way, thanks to your prayers and the goodness of modern medicine, my Mom is doing much better and the dementia seems to have passed. In fact, my brother tells me she's doing better than she's done in ages. So may God be praised and may the powers and principalities that would "put her down" go suck eggs.
Exhibit A: One of England's leading moral philosophers (so described) has announced that those suffering dementia and other debilitating troubles in their old age probably have a duty to die so that the rest of us - and more importantly, the National Health Service - can get on with things more easily. She wants, in her own astonishing words, for people to be licensed to put other people down.
Exhibit B: Since supernature abhors a vacuum, Islamic law has been officially adopted in Britain, with sharia courts given powers to rule on Muslim civil cases. John C. Wright comments here.
By the way, thanks to your prayers and the goodness of modern medicine, my Mom is doing much better and the dementia seems to have passed. In fact, my brother tells me she's doing better than she's done in ages. So may God be praised and may the powers and principalities that would "put her down" go suck eggs.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
I'm pretty much outta here today
This morning from 10-12 AM PDT I will be helping out Jerry Usher with the Autumn Fund Drive for Sacred Heart Radio here in Seattle and Spokane. You can listen (and, if the Spirit moves you, donate) here.
After that, I've got various writing projects to do.
See you Friday!
This morning from 10-12 AM PDT I will be helping out Jerry Usher with the Autumn Fund Drive for Sacred Heart Radio here in Seattle and Spokane. You can listen (and, if the Spirit moves you, donate) here.
After that, I've got various writing projects to do.
See you Friday!
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
How Sin Has Made Us Stupid: Gluttony Edition
Patrick Deneen has an outstanding post reflecting on the financial crisis, and as I mentioned earlier in the week Andrew Bacevich has an article adapted from The Limits of Power in the previous issue of TAC that discusses the relationship of the mentality of endless consumption and the pursuit of continued and expanded hegemony. Following on Prof. Bacevich’s article and working from the title of his book, the easiest way to summarize our predicament is the failure to understand our limits. We do not recognize that means are always limited and resources are finite. Rather than treating credit as a sometimes necessary mechanism, we treat it as a way of life, and our institutions are structured around the deferral of responsibility and the demand for instant gratification that credit represents. More than that, credit was once extended to borrowers who possessed some real property, and now it is extended to those who have none.
As the temporary ability to pay increases, restraint recedes and a culture of feeding and exciting appetites grows. As virtue is the moderation or even denial of appetites, moral integrity in society as a whole weakens as this culture gains ground. When limits to our consumption seem to fall away, the desire for acquisition and domination becomes stronger and it begins to be expressed in our relations with the rest of the world. We begin to define our interests to satisfy unbounded desire, and so the scope of what we believe is rightfully ours expands until it encircles most, if not all, of the globe, and we are then violently offended when our claims are challenged. Coupled with this desire is the fantasy that technology will gradually overcome or address every limitation, so that every barrier to growth will fall sooner or later. The expectation of progress makes us impatient when our excesses lead to collapses, and when those collapses happen responsibility is deferred again and pinned on useful scapegoats whose punishment will allow us to return to our previous unrestrained habits.
And so we find ourselves fat, dumb, unhappy, hungover, living beyond our means, trying to fix the whole bloody world via salvation by leviathan by any means necessary--and looking for somebody else to blame for how we got here.
Here's some old but sound advice: "Repent! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
Patrick Deneen has an outstanding post reflecting on the financial crisis, and as I mentioned earlier in the week Andrew Bacevich has an article adapted from The Limits of Power in the previous issue of TAC that discusses the relationship of the mentality of endless consumption and the pursuit of continued and expanded hegemony. Following on Prof. Bacevich’s article and working from the title of his book, the easiest way to summarize our predicament is the failure to understand our limits. We do not recognize that means are always limited and resources are finite. Rather than treating credit as a sometimes necessary mechanism, we treat it as a way of life, and our institutions are structured around the deferral of responsibility and the demand for instant gratification that credit represents. More than that, credit was once extended to borrowers who possessed some real property, and now it is extended to those who have none.
As the temporary ability to pay increases, restraint recedes and a culture of feeding and exciting appetites grows. As virtue is the moderation or even denial of appetites, moral integrity in society as a whole weakens as this culture gains ground. When limits to our consumption seem to fall away, the desire for acquisition and domination becomes stronger and it begins to be expressed in our relations with the rest of the world. We begin to define our interests to satisfy unbounded desire, and so the scope of what we believe is rightfully ours expands until it encircles most, if not all, of the globe, and we are then violently offended when our claims are challenged. Coupled with this desire is the fantasy that technology will gradually overcome or address every limitation, so that every barrier to growth will fall sooner or later. The expectation of progress makes us impatient when our excesses lead to collapses, and when those collapses happen responsibility is deferred again and pinned on useful scapegoats whose punishment will allow us to return to our previous unrestrained habits.
And so we find ourselves fat, dumb, unhappy, hungover, living beyond our means, trying to fix the whole bloody world via salvation by leviathan by any means necessary--and looking for somebody else to blame for how we got here.
Here's some old but sound advice: "Repent! For the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
Dick Cheney: Liar
But then, we already knew Cheney was a liar:
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." - Dick Cheney
Actually, there was plenty of doubt and Cheney knew it. He's as mendacious as Bill Clinton, only about things which involve life and death instead of sex.
A GOP congressional leader who was wavering on giving President Bush the authority to wage war in late 2002 said Vice President Cheney misled him by saying that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had direct personal ties to al-Qaeda terrorists and was making rapid progress toward a suitcase nuclear weapon, according to a new book by Washington Post investigative reporter Barton Gellman.
Cheney's assertions, described by former House majority leader Richard K. Armey (Tex.), came in a highly classified one-on-one briefing in Room H-208, the vice president's hideaway office in the Capitol. The threat Cheney described went far beyond public statements that have been criticized for relying on "cherry-picked" intelligence of unknown reliability. There was no intelligence to support the vice president's private assertions, Gellman reports, and they "crossed so far beyond the known universe of fact that they were simply without foundation."
But then, we already knew Cheney was a liar:
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." - Dick Cheney
Actually, there was plenty of doubt and Cheney knew it. He's as mendacious as Bill Clinton, only about things which involve life and death instead of sex.
A reader writes:
Thanks for writing. Your thinking is pretty much my own. My vote will not influence the outcome of this election at all, but it will influence the outcome of my life. I will have to look in the mirror every morning for the next four years and think "I voted for him. I vote for a cynical, duplicitous cannibal" if McCain wins. I'm tired of being played. So I will vote for somebody who doesn't make me feel guilty for voting. God willing, I might even be lucky enough to vote for somebody I feel honorable in supporting.
I've been reading your discussion of how you refuse to vote for any candidate who advocates intrinsically evil policies, which in this election, means both of the major-party candidates. I've been very torn over this election, because I think both candidates would make disastrous Presidents. I live in Missouri, which is a swing state, and so I have felt an obligation to vote for the "best" candidate, and I've been trying to decide whether I should vote McCain as the "lesser evil" or vote for a third party or abstain.
But I've thought about this more and I realized that even though I live in a swing state, my vote isn't going to tip the election. Nor are the votes of any I may hope to impress. I'm just not that influential. So given that my vote has no practical impact on the outcome of the election, what impact does it have? And the obvious answer is, it has an impact on me. If I vote for McCain, and he wins the election, then every time he does something dangerous or wicked or stupid --- which I'm pretty sure he will --- then I'll get to think back to how I voted and feel like a political whore who sold his soul for the lesser evil. It's not that I'll feel responsible for his election. Maybe if I were a dictator and had to choose a President to run the country, I'd feel responsible, but I'm not. But if I vote for him, I'll have affirmed his election as President. I'll have said 'I believe this is a good choice, this man will be a good President.' And I don't want to say that. I'd be lying. Why should I lie?
So I think I've made my decision, thanks in part to your writing. I refuse to sicken my soul in exchange for a miniscule chance of pushing the election in a slightly less disastrous direction.
God bless, and thanks for your writing and advice, though you may not have realized you had given it,
Thanks for writing. Your thinking is pretty much my own. My vote will not influence the outcome of this election at all, but it will influence the outcome of my life. I will have to look in the mirror every morning for the next four years and think "I voted for him. I vote for a cynical, duplicitous cannibal" if McCain wins. I'm tired of being played. So I will vote for somebody who doesn't make me feel guilty for voting. God willing, I might even be lucky enough to vote for somebody I feel honorable in supporting.
All we *Really* Know from This is that McCain is Treacherously Duplicitous, Which is Not News
Meanwhile, his campaign is busy assuring us that he still eagerly supports ESCR.
I advice voting against treacherously duplicitous candidates.
Funny thing is, most of the GOP base knew this about McCain before campaign mania season began. I remember all the moaning and groaning on Limbaugh about what an untrustworthy candidate McCain was. Now, under the influence of campaign hype, people are starting to forget all that.
Weird.
Meanwhile, his campaign is busy assuring us that he still eagerly supports ESCR.
I advice voting against treacherously duplicitous candidates.
Funny thing is, most of the GOP base knew this about McCain before campaign mania season began. I remember all the moaning and groaning on Limbaugh about what an untrustworthy candidate McCain was. Now, under the influence of campaign hype, people are starting to forget all that.
Weird.
Pretty Dang Funny
By the way, a word about my attitude to things political. Part of the doom of a Chestertonian seems to be that people think you are joking when you are serious and serious when you are joking. I've had people inform me I don't actually believe what I'm saying about not voting for McCain or Obama. I've also had people baffled because of my lighthearted approach to the field of Doomed Quixotic Candidates. A couple of readers couldn't understand what I meant when I said that Baldwin appears to be a 9/11 Truther Kook but I didn't see what that should bar him from consideration as a Doomed Quixotic candidate, even though I wouldn't vote for him.
Such folk need to ratchet down the seriousness level and remember: Doomed Quixotic Candidates Can't Win. So we are, by definition, not engaged in the suggestion that a 9/11 Truther is going to be handed the levers of power. Since we are basically playing with a number of oddballs and eccentrics who have taken it into their heads to run for President, I'm simply approaching the matter in the spirit of good humor I think the occasion demands. Schriner is my preferred oddball. Others make like the Heartquake Guy. Others may like their oddballs even odder and a bit more paranoid. Whatever. The more the merrier so long as they don't endorse intrinsic moral evil. Loosen up! Have some fun!
Eccentrics: Because America Needs Somebody to Ignore!
By the way, a word about my attitude to things political. Part of the doom of a Chestertonian seems to be that people think you are joking when you are serious and serious when you are joking. I've had people inform me I don't actually believe what I'm saying about not voting for McCain or Obama. I've also had people baffled because of my lighthearted approach to the field of Doomed Quixotic Candidates. A couple of readers couldn't understand what I meant when I said that Baldwin appears to be a 9/11 Truther Kook but I didn't see what that should bar him from consideration as a Doomed Quixotic candidate, even though I wouldn't vote for him.
Such folk need to ratchet down the seriousness level and remember: Doomed Quixotic Candidates Can't Win. So we are, by definition, not engaged in the suggestion that a 9/11 Truther is going to be handed the levers of power. Since we are basically playing with a number of oddballs and eccentrics who have taken it into their heads to run for President, I'm simply approaching the matter in the spirit of good humor I think the occasion demands. Schriner is my preferred oddball. Others make like the Heartquake Guy. Others may like their oddballs even odder and a bit more paranoid. Whatever. The more the merrier so long as they don't endorse intrinsic moral evil. Loosen up! Have some fun!
Eccentrics: Because America Needs Somebody to Ignore!
StBlogs.com writes:
Now you know!
We would love if you would mention our service to your readers. StBlogs is now the largest Catholic blog host, globally, and has just relaunched with additional services for our community. Most importantly, any Catholic blogger can now join our community whether they host their blog with us, or elsewhere, such as Blogger or Wordpress. We heavily promote all of our members and help bring additional readers to their blogs.
On a personal note, the way you associate current events with the Faith is always a pleasure to read and discover.
Now you know!
The Media's New Mission: Destroy Gianna Jessen
Classy abortion survivors make you look bad when you are dedicated to the proposition that you wish they were dead. Trig Palin has the same deranging effect on the freakish enemies of the normal.
Classy abortion survivors make you look bad when you are dedicated to the proposition that you wish they were dead. Trig Palin has the same deranging effect on the freakish enemies of the normal.
Darwinist Dolts Demand the Vatican Apologize
For what? For basically standing back and saying, "Let scientists do their jobs and we'll wait and see what they find."
Tell you what, dudes: How about you guys apologize for Social Darwinism, for theories of racial superiority, for crack-brained notions of Higher Aryans that spawned Hitler, and for all the other bloodthirsty nuttiness that your quasi-religious dogmas have created? When you guys can take some responsibility for the millions and millions and millions murdered in the name of the Survival of the Fittest, we'll talk about the apology the Vatican owes Darwin.
For what? For basically standing back and saying, "Let scientists do their jobs and we'll wait and see what they find."
Tell you what, dudes: How about you guys apologize for Social Darwinism, for theories of racial superiority, for crack-brained notions of Higher Aryans that spawned Hitler, and for all the other bloodthirsty nuttiness that your quasi-religious dogmas have created? When you guys can take some responsibility for the millions and millions and millions murdered in the name of the Survival of the Fittest, we'll talk about the apology the Vatican owes Darwin.
Got Soap? On Swearing and Vulgarity
In which we contemplate the distinction between Swearing and Vulgarity and look for the bright side of them both.
In which we contemplate the distinction between Swearing and Vulgarity and look for the bright side of them both.
Sheep Without a Shepherd
In which we contemplate the millstone around the neck of Generation Narcissus and honor the widow's mite of Generation X and Y.
In which we contemplate the millstone around the neck of Generation Narcissus and honor the widow's mite of Generation X and Y.
Objective Evil and Personal Culpability
I guess I need to make some stuff clear here, since a number of people are hearing me say things that I'm not, in fact, saying.
Let's back up from politics to a safer and less volatile subject: religion :).
If I, say, read to you from Mark 16 where it says:
You will, if you are a reasonably educated Catholic, automatically supply all the qualifications this passage needs in order to be understood properly. You will know what the Church teaches about culpability, and how people who are ignorant of Jesus are not judged in the same way as, say, Judas Iscariot. You will understand that merely calling yourself a believer is not a guarantee of Heaven, just as merely imagining somebody else is not making the grade is not a guarantee of Hell. Huge and necessary distinctions between the objective evil of an act and the personal culpability for that evil suddenly loom up and we are quickly confronted with Jesus' command "Do not judge."
In short, we make say that "Rejecting Jesus is an objective moral evil" since Jesus is God and the Savior of the world. However, we cannot say with certainty--ever--that the person who announces that they reject Jesus is fully culpable and acting with complete freedom. It may be the Jesus they are rejecting is a compound of crazy fundamentalist theology, abusive parenting, and mental illness. It may be that they know only what the Koran tells them. It may be that they identify Jesus with the Russian mob that burnt their parents in Tsarist Russia. All sort of things can enter in to mitigate culpability for an objective evil.
Okay: same with all moral decision-making, including politics. I think it is an objective evil to support a candidate who wishes to use his office to commit gravely immoral acts such as sign the Freedom of Choice Act or support stem cell research. I make no distinction between candidates who want to cannibalize babies who are big and candidates who want to cannibalize babies who are small. I think anybody voting for either candidate is committing an objective evil.
But I also (because charity commands it) think almost everybody who is voting is doing so because they *think* they are doing what is right. I make that assumption, not just with McCain supporters, but with Obama supporters as well. Yes, I realize that *some* people are going to act with evil intention. But since I don't know who they are, I have to go with the charitable assumption.
So: my argument here are directed toward the objective evil of the act of supporting Obama or McCain, not toward saying "You are a bad person if you disagree with me" in much the same way that Jesus statement "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned". Jesus is stating the flat truth. But he is only addressing objective good and evil here. He is not addressing mitigating circumstances and culpability (which is why he can also tell the Good Thief who was never baptized that he is saved).
I guess I need to make some stuff clear here, since a number of people are hearing me say things that I'm not, in fact, saying.
Let's back up from politics to a safer and less volatile subject: religion :).
If I, say, read to you from Mark 16 where it says:
And he said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.
You will, if you are a reasonably educated Catholic, automatically supply all the qualifications this passage needs in order to be understood properly. You will know what the Church teaches about culpability, and how people who are ignorant of Jesus are not judged in the same way as, say, Judas Iscariot. You will understand that merely calling yourself a believer is not a guarantee of Heaven, just as merely imagining somebody else is not making the grade is not a guarantee of Hell. Huge and necessary distinctions between the objective evil of an act and the personal culpability for that evil suddenly loom up and we are quickly confronted with Jesus' command "Do not judge."
In short, we make say that "Rejecting Jesus is an objective moral evil" since Jesus is God and the Savior of the world. However, we cannot say with certainty--ever--that the person who announces that they reject Jesus is fully culpable and acting with complete freedom. It may be the Jesus they are rejecting is a compound of crazy fundamentalist theology, abusive parenting, and mental illness. It may be that they know only what the Koran tells them. It may be that they identify Jesus with the Russian mob that burnt their parents in Tsarist Russia. All sort of things can enter in to mitigate culpability for an objective evil.
Okay: same with all moral decision-making, including politics. I think it is an objective evil to support a candidate who wishes to use his office to commit gravely immoral acts such as sign the Freedom of Choice Act or support stem cell research. I make no distinction between candidates who want to cannibalize babies who are big and candidates who want to cannibalize babies who are small. I think anybody voting for either candidate is committing an objective evil.
But I also (because charity commands it) think almost everybody who is voting is doing so because they *think* they are doing what is right. I make that assumption, not just with McCain supporters, but with Obama supporters as well. Yes, I realize that *some* people are going to act with evil intention. But since I don't know who they are, I have to go with the charitable assumption.
So: my argument here are directed toward the objective evil of the act of supporting Obama or McCain, not toward saying "You are a bad person if you disagree with me" in much the same way that Jesus statement "He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned". Jesus is stating the flat truth. But he is only addressing objective good and evil here. He is not addressing mitigating circumstances and culpability (which is why he can also tell the Good Thief who was never baptized that he is saved).
Better Than Voting
A reader performs a civic act that is better and more influential by far than voting. He writes to McCain/Palin:
Way to go, dude!
A reader performs a civic act that is better and more influential by far than voting. He writes to McCain/Palin:
Dear Senator McCain and Governor Palin:
I know the odds of this letter reaching you, and the still longer odds that it will make a difference. However, I feel compelled to write.
I took great encouragement from reading parts of the 2008 Republican Platform, specifically the section entitled “Maintaining the Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life”. One element particularly struck me: “Faithful to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence, we assert the inherent dignity and sanctity of all human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.” I saw this as a ringing endorsement, by the highest levels of the GOP leadership, to protect human life from the moment of conception. Senator McCain’s unequivocal statement at Rick Warren’s Faith Forum – that life begins at conception – was a welcome change to the general attitudes of many Washington insiders.
However, it was with a heavy heart that I read the following in today’s online version of The Hill:
"The ad does not specifically refer to embryonic research, which is opposed by most politicians and activists who, like McCain, do not support abortion rights. The omission is not a signal that McCain is backing away from his record in favor of embryonic stem cell research, spokesman Brian Rogers said. 'Clearly, John McCain supports it', he said, emphasizing that the ad is intended to refer to all forms of stem cell research, including experiments using human embryos and those using cells from adults."
If, as your platform states, life begins at conception, then that concept includes even the tiniest of humans. You cannot make a logical distinction between the smallness of a human embryo and the larger human fetus. They are both human.
By the way, did I mention that I am Roman Catholic?
We Catholics are a fickle lot, I will grant you. We span the entire political spectrum, all the while claiming to be consistent with the teachings of our church. Those Catholics on the left are not likely to vote for you anyway, for reasons that I will not enumerate here. Those Catholics on the right will vote for you regardless of your positions, if for no other reason than the "R" after your name. Those of us in the middle are a bit different. We tend to take the term “pro-life” literally and we dream of a politician that will give us a consistently pro-life position to support. The philosophical dance that disconnects abortion from Embrionic Stem Cell Research does not always sit well with us. It often leaves us feeling as though we have no political home.
Whether it is ESCR or abortion, it is still a human being, worthy of the dignity specified in your platform. If life begins at conception for the subject of abortion, it begins at conception for ESCR as well. You cannot escape that logic, and neither can the Catholic voter.
I agree with you on many topics senator, and I had hoped that the stunningly pro-life governor of Alaska would sharpen your opposition to ESCR. However, your most recent ad undercuts my support at a fundamental level. I say this to you with all sincerity, in the hope that you will hear this voice in the wilderness: I will not vote for you so long as you maintain your support of killing very small human beings through ESCR. With this support, you risk loosing the votes of moderate Catholics everywhere.
I implore you, come out with an unequivocal statement against ESCR. Be pro-life!
Way to go, dude!
The Burgeoning Field of Doomed Quixotic Candidates!
Reader Matt Swaim writes:
I'm 100% for Joe!
By the way, I'm also 100% for anybody else who happens to run who does not involve me in intrinsic moral evil.
Somebody suggested Chuck Baldwin to me yesterday. I looked at his site. He is fully pro-life.
Downside: he doesn't appear to have any acquaintance with Just War doctrine (I can't find anything about defense at all on his site) and he's a 9/11 Truther, which radically raises the Kook Factor to levels that the FDA has determined are unsafe for prolonged exposure.
Now, being a Chestertonian, I rather like my candidates to have a certain quality of eccentricity to them. And I note as well that being a 9/11 Truther, while nutty, is not intrinsically immoral. So while I'll add him to the roster of Doomed Quixotic Candidates, I won't be voting for him.
Other readers are sending me other names too. One reader writes:
Great! Add him to the pot! And if youse guys have more Doomed Quixotic Candidates, feel free to send them in. There are lots of options beside having to be roped into playing the GOP mug's game again.
Schriner! Baldwin! Allen! Because Catholics *like* Good Guys Who Are Despised and Rejected of Men!
Reader Matt Swaim writes:
Glad to see you've discovered my good buddy Joe. He's been the recipient of my vote for two consecutive presidential elections.
I even scored an "exclusive" interview with him a couple of years back.
Not that he's that hard to get in touch with...
Anecdote to follow:
After several emails leading up to the 2004 election, I recieved an excited phone call from Joe saying he had a crazy idea that he wanted to share with me. Being that he lives in Ohio, and I lived just across the Kentucky border at the time, and since presidential candidates aren't allowed to pick running mates from their own state, he asked me if I would consider the position. Unfortunately, I was 24 at the time, a fact that until that moment was unknown to him. Thus ended my brief potential career in politics.
An aside:
Joe was being casually courted by the Green party as their candidate, but they couldn't stomach his pro-life views.
I say grab the lance and stab the windmill till it submits.
I'm 100% for Joe!
By the way, I'm also 100% for anybody else who happens to run who does not involve me in intrinsic moral evil.
Somebody suggested Chuck Baldwin to me yesterday. I looked at his site. He is fully pro-life.
Downside: he doesn't appear to have any acquaintance with Just War doctrine (I can't find anything about defense at all on his site) and he's a 9/11 Truther, which radically raises the Kook Factor to levels that the FDA has determined are unsafe for prolonged exposure.
Now, being a Chestertonian, I rather like my candidates to have a certain quality of eccentricity to them. And I note as well that being a 9/11 Truther, while nutty, is not intrinsically immoral. So while I'll add him to the roster of Doomed Quixotic Candidates, I won't be voting for him.
Other readers are sending me other names too. One reader writes:
Here's another candidate (who is actually on the ballot in Colorado) for your consideration: Jonathan Allen
He even addresses your concerns about the hypersexualization of our culture.
I'm hoping you'll look at this, not because I have any special, or parochial, interest in this candidate, but because it has been your arguments that have me seriously considering not voting for the GOP nominee for the first-time ever. The "Heartquake" theme really puts me off, but he seems to be fairly solid on the "non-negotiables".
Great! Add him to the pot! And if youse guys have more Doomed Quixotic Candidates, feel free to send them in. There are lots of options beside having to be roped into playing the GOP mug's game again.
Schriner! Baldwin! Allen! Because Catholics *like* Good Guys Who Are Despised and Rejected of Men!
Wonderful!
12 year old kid invents 3-D solar cell that harvests visible and UV light and absorbs 10 percent more energy from the sun - even when it's cloudy. If it works like he hopes it'll make solar technology useful even here in the Land of the Gray.
The kids started with Legos. How can you not love that? Hope it works! If it does, just give him is Nobel Prize now.
12 year old kid invents 3-D solar cell that harvests visible and UV light and absorbs 10 percent more energy from the sun - even when it's cloudy. If it works like he hopes it'll make solar technology useful even here in the Land of the Gray.
The kids started with Legos. How can you not love that? Hope it works! If it does, just give him is Nobel Prize now.
Christians in India Still Being Brutally Persecuted
It turns out that the whole "Abrahamic believers evil and intolerant/Eastern pagans gentle and earth-affirming" narrative is wanting in accuracy.
It turns out that the whole "Abrahamic believers evil and intolerant/Eastern pagans gentle and earth-affirming" narrative is wanting in accuracy.
Thanks!
...for making the Tin Cup Rattle a success! We here at Chez Shea deeply appreciate it! So does our dentist, homeschool co-op, car repair guy and various others. God bless you all for your kindness and generosity. And especially, thanks for your prayers for us and for my Mom and brothers.
...for making the Tin Cup Rattle a success! We here at Chez Shea deeply appreciate it! So does our dentist, homeschool co-op, car repair guy and various others. God bless you all for your kindness and generosity. And especially, thanks for your prayers for us and for my Mom and brothers.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
And so the sun sets on Day 7 of the CAEI Tin Cup Rattle
Thanks to your wonderful generosity, this site can remain open for another three months! Many thanks to those who contributed/bought stuff or have pledged a donation! Coffers remain open till the end of the day and I remain unabashed in asking for your dough till then. Dough transfers can be achieved either through PayPal on the left rail, or by buying my books and audio materials. In addition, you can write me and send a check if you prefer.
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Hymnody for All Your AmChurch Obama Worship Needs
I, the Lord of sea and sky,
I have heard my people cry.
All the sick and unemployed,
My hand will save.
I, the last, best hope on earth,
I'll increase our nation's worth.
I will make our planet heal
I promise change...
Chorus:
Here I am, folks. It is I, folks
I received your call at 3am.
I'll be your Lord, please elect me.
I will drag your nation to the left.
I, the Lord of "yes, we can",
I am more than just a man.
I would save them from themselves.
They vote McCain.
I will end the oceans' swell,
Keep our planet cool as well.
Keep my teleprompter near.
Just to be safe...
(Chorus)
I, the Lord who fears small towns,
And the thought of kids with Down's.
From religion and from guns.
My hand will save.
I will serve the common good,
Like a twisted Robin Hood.
Put your faith in government,
And vote for me!
(Chorus)
Kudos to Ipsitilla for this minor work of genius.
I, the Lord of sea and sky,
I have heard my people cry.
All the sick and unemployed,
My hand will save.
I, the last, best hope on earth,
I'll increase our nation's worth.
I will make our planet heal
I promise change...
Chorus:
Here I am, folks. It is I, folks
I received your call at 3am.
I'll be your Lord, please elect me.
I will drag your nation to the left.
I, the Lord of "yes, we can",
I am more than just a man.
I would save them from themselves.
They vote McCain.
I will end the oceans' swell,
Keep our planet cool as well.
Keep my teleprompter near.
Just to be safe...
(Chorus)
I, the Lord who fears small towns,
And the thought of kids with Down's.
From religion and from guns.
My hand will save.
I will serve the common good,
Like a twisted Robin Hood.
Put your faith in government,
And vote for me!
(Chorus)
Kudos to Ipsitilla for this minor work of genius.
One Nice Thing about Not Having a TV...
...is that you totally miss all the ads where desperate candidates sink to lying about each other in order to win.
I've seen some of the hysteria about McCain apparently lying over at Andrew Sullivan's blog. However, since Sullivan is not what you would call a disinterested witness in this case, I've basically awaited some sort of independent confirmation. So far, all I've seen have been Sullivan pouncing on some old video of Romney from earlier this year (and then having to post a retraction) and Ross Douthat talking about how politics ain't bean bag.
I take it for granted that pols will not be entirely honest. So, for instance, when Palin tells you she put the plane on eBay (cuz it's a funny line) and then doesn't bother to tell you she didn't sell it there, I just don't have hysterics that she's "lying" any more than I have panic attacks that Obama is not altogether forthcoming about the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Nor do I expect either candidate to fight fair and not spend a lot of time tearing the other guy down. It happens. I will, of course, pay attention to how much they feel they have to destroy the other guy and how flatly dishonest they are in doing so. If that's more or less all they do, it tells you how devoid they are of ideas. But it's always gonna happen.
The impression I'm getting is that McCain is fairly devoid of ideas and Obama is totally devoid of ideas, but not as skilled at being nasty as McCain (though he's trying). I heard the audio of the "Haw! Look at McCain! What a geezer! He can't even use email!" ad and watched the aftermath of that one ("Uh. McCain's injuries from his imprisonment keep him from using any keyboard, doofus! And way to make fun of old people, stupid. You do know that the Boomers are now starting to retire, right?") But I haven't heard or seen any of the McCain ads that have Sullivan's panties in a twist, nor have I been following his obsessive coverage of Palin's alleged lies. Some or all of the allegations could well be true. Several zealous Palin fans on the web have been disappointed with her for various reasons, and her eagerness to be a Team Player for McCain's various duplicities has been rather a let down. But until somebody points me to something that is really what you'd call a "lie" I'm chalking up most of the hysteria to the normal campaign season hype.
Meanwhile:
Schriner! Because He's Not Full of Crap!
...is that you totally miss all the ads where desperate candidates sink to lying about each other in order to win.
I've seen some of the hysteria about McCain apparently lying over at Andrew Sullivan's blog. However, since Sullivan is not what you would call a disinterested witness in this case, I've basically awaited some sort of independent confirmation. So far, all I've seen have been Sullivan pouncing on some old video of Romney from earlier this year (and then having to post a retraction) and Ross Douthat talking about how politics ain't bean bag.
I take it for granted that pols will not be entirely honest. So, for instance, when Palin tells you she put the plane on eBay (cuz it's a funny line) and then doesn't bother to tell you she didn't sell it there, I just don't have hysterics that she's "lying" any more than I have panic attacks that Obama is not altogether forthcoming about the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Nor do I expect either candidate to fight fair and not spend a lot of time tearing the other guy down. It happens. I will, of course, pay attention to how much they feel they have to destroy the other guy and how flatly dishonest they are in doing so. If that's more or less all they do, it tells you how devoid they are of ideas. But it's always gonna happen.
The impression I'm getting is that McCain is fairly devoid of ideas and Obama is totally devoid of ideas, but not as skilled at being nasty as McCain (though he's trying). I heard the audio of the "Haw! Look at McCain! What a geezer! He can't even use email!" ad and watched the aftermath of that one ("Uh. McCain's injuries from his imprisonment keep him from using any keyboard, doofus! And way to make fun of old people, stupid. You do know that the Boomers are now starting to retire, right?") But I haven't heard or seen any of the McCain ads that have Sullivan's panties in a twist, nor have I been following his obsessive coverage of Palin's alleged lies. Some or all of the allegations could well be true. Several zealous Palin fans on the web have been disappointed with her for various reasons, and her eagerness to be a Team Player for McCain's various duplicities has been rather a let down. But until somebody points me to something that is really what you'd call a "lie" I'm chalking up most of the hysteria to the normal campaign season hype.
Meanwhile:
Schriner! Because He's Not Full of Crap!
The "So McCain isn't Perfect" Trope
A reader writes:
It is a curious thing to see Catholics arguing as though basic adherence to fundamentals of natural law is somehow equal to the expectation of supernatural virtue. The point about natural law is that it's natural. "You shall not kill" is not a commandment that informs godless pagans of something they never knew. It is written on every human heart and you don't have to be a Catholic to know it. For that reason, the Church can speak of a "common good" and expect that Caesar--even Nero Caesar--protect it. For the same reason, the Church can say that a public official who is a Marxist, a Swedenborgian, a Jew or a Buddhist and violates a that fundamental demand of the natural law commits grave evil. It's not a matter of revelation and requires no special Catholic credentials. When Stalin butchers millions, the Church doesn't say, "Nobody's perfect. We can't expect Stalin to adhere to Church teaching about the value of human life. And besides, Hitler's worse!" We understand that the natural law condemns the taking of innocent human life.
So why give McCain a pass when he urges us to involve ourselves in supporting the cannibalism of very small babies and tells us, "Hey! At least you're not cannibalizing big babies!"
Schriner: Doomed Quixotic Integrity (with a little eccentricity to make it interesting!)
or else maybe "Schriner! Don't Make Two Evils the Enemy of the Good."
A reader writes:
The expectation that our candidates be saints flies in the face of our actual reality. They are fallen, sinful human beings - all of them: McCain, Obama and Schriner too! We must live in reality. We must choose someone for the job and whomever we choose will f--- things up with great regularity. This desire for the perfect candidate is just wrong. It ain't gonna happen and we must choose anyway.
McCain isn't going to be perfect. It's just as simple as that. And he's not even Catholic so, to expect him to adhere to church teaching is ridiculous and, to expect him to adhere to church teaching that hasn't been determined yet is even more ridiculous. McCain has shown himself open to learning - so let's teach him instead of searching for the perfect candidate who doesn't exist. I don't think we realize the genuine evil that Obama brings with him. And, "Like Pappy used to say, I'd rather have a third rate fireman than a first rate arsonist."
It is a curious thing to see Catholics arguing as though basic adherence to fundamentals of natural law is somehow equal to the expectation of supernatural virtue. The point about natural law is that it's natural. "You shall not kill" is not a commandment that informs godless pagans of something they never knew. It is written on every human heart and you don't have to be a Catholic to know it. For that reason, the Church can speak of a "common good" and expect that Caesar--even Nero Caesar--protect it. For the same reason, the Church can say that a public official who is a Marxist, a Swedenborgian, a Jew or a Buddhist and violates a that fundamental demand of the natural law commits grave evil. It's not a matter of revelation and requires no special Catholic credentials. When Stalin butchers millions, the Church doesn't say, "Nobody's perfect. We can't expect Stalin to adhere to Church teaching about the value of human life. And besides, Hitler's worse!" We understand that the natural law condemns the taking of innocent human life.
So why give McCain a pass when he urges us to involve ourselves in supporting the cannibalism of very small babies and tells us, "Hey! At least you're not cannibalizing big babies!"
Schriner: Doomed Quixotic Integrity (with a little eccentricity to make it interesting!)
or else maybe "Schriner! Don't Make Two Evils the Enemy of the Good."
McCain: Forever Duplicitous
Yesterday, folks were struggling to square McCain's Lesser Cannibalism with the circle of Catholic teaching. Presented with an ad that trumpets his support for stem cell research, some folks grasped at straws and said, "Well, the ad doesn't specifically say embryonic stem cells! Maybe that miraculous conversion we've all been deluding ourselves might happen is under way!"
Ahem:
So: to be clear, every time we are told, as Catholics with a consistent prolife stand, that we are "making the Perfect the Enemy of the Good" just remember that "Good" now means "Cannibalizing Very Small Babies". It's the New Normal. And the reason it's the New Normal is because Catholics allow themselves to be stampeded, yet again, into supporting intrinsic moral evil out of fear. I'm done being stampeded and played. Dale Price looks like he's edging that way too! And you gotta dig that campaign slogan:
McCain/Palin: Because the Alternative Will Make You Vomit!
Dale! Dude! Why not vote walking out of the booth feeling clean for a change?
Schriner!: Doomed! Quixotic! Ethically Sound! Not a Jerk! What's Not to Like?
Yesterday, folks were struggling to square McCain's Lesser Cannibalism with the circle of Catholic teaching. Presented with an ad that trumpets his support for stem cell research, some folks grasped at straws and said, "Well, the ad doesn't specifically say embryonic stem cells! Maybe that miraculous conversion we've all been deluding ourselves might happen is under way!"
Ahem:
The ad does not specifically refer to embryonic research, which is opposed by most politicians and activists who, like McCain, do not support abortion rights.
The omission is not a signal that McCain is backing away from his record in favor of embryonic stem cell research, spokesman Brian Rogers said.
“Clearly, John McCain supports it,” he said, emphasizing that the ad is intended to refer to all forms of stem cell research, including experiments using human embryos and those using cells from adults.
So: to be clear, every time we are told, as Catholics with a consistent prolife stand, that we are "making the Perfect the Enemy of the Good" just remember that "Good" now means "Cannibalizing Very Small Babies". It's the New Normal. And the reason it's the New Normal is because Catholics allow themselves to be stampeded, yet again, into supporting intrinsic moral evil out of fear. I'm done being stampeded and played. Dale Price looks like he's edging that way too! And you gotta dig that campaign slogan:
McCain/Palin: Because the Alternative Will Make You Vomit!
Dale! Dude! Why not vote walking out of the booth feeling clean for a change?
Schriner!: Doomed! Quixotic! Ethically Sound! Not a Jerk! What's Not to Like?
Joe Schriner Seems Like He Might be a Fine Doomed Quixotic Candidate
Hmmm... a candidate who doesn't ask me to support intrinsic grave evil. Works for me!
Life PointsAnd he advocates actually abiding by Just War criteria.
~ No abortion.
~ Many more local safety nets for moms & dads in crisis pregnancy.
~ No death penalty, no euthenasia.
~ No embryonic stem cell research and no cloning.
~ Respect for God's sovereignty and natural order.
Hmmm... a candidate who doesn't ask me to support intrinsic grave evil. Works for me!
Schriner: Because Sooner or Later You Gotta Stop Being Played!
Prayer Request for My Mom
My mom is 82 and is starting to exhibit some signs of serious dementia. Physically, she's still healthy but as the dementia progresses it's placing a real strain, particularly on my brother and his wife, who are taking care of her. In the past, we've had Mom to our house for extended stays, which gave my brother a much-needed break, but the dementia is now, we agree, making that impossible. So your prayers for her healing and for grace and strength for my heroic brother and his wife would be deeply appreciated. Also prayers for wisdom for us Shea boys and our families as we figure out what would be best to do for Mom next would be appreciated.
My mom is 82 and is starting to exhibit some signs of serious dementia. Physically, she's still healthy but as the dementia progresses it's placing a real strain, particularly on my brother and his wife, who are taking care of her. In the past, we've had Mom to our house for extended stays, which gave my brother a much-needed break, but the dementia is now, we agree, making that impossible. So your prayers for her healing and for grace and strength for my heroic brother and his wife would be deeply appreciated. Also prayers for wisdom for us Shea boys and our families as we figure out what would be best to do for Mom next would be appreciated.
Tutor Needed
I have, like, an anti-charism when it comes to understanding stuff like Higher Econ and all that Wall Street stuff. My eyes glaze over, numbers bounce off my skull. I know how to balance my checkbook and I understand the basic principle of Mr. Micawber with regard to all financial things:
But as I watch the various lightning bolt charts and red headlines blazing over Drudge, I basically have no comprehension of what is happening other than "It's bad" and no understanding of how it happened, nor what it all means. I gather it's a major case of sin making Masters of the Universe stupid and I gather that, as usual, the extremely wealthy and powerful will more or less survive while people at the bottom of the food chain will bear the brunt of the suffering.
So could some of you guys who know how all this stuff works help a dummy like me get the basic picture? Thanks!
I have, like, an anti-charism when it comes to understanding stuff like Higher Econ and all that Wall Street stuff. My eyes glaze over, numbers bounce off my skull. I know how to balance my checkbook and I understand the basic principle of Mr. Micawber with regard to all financial things:
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
But as I watch the various lightning bolt charts and red headlines blazing over Drudge, I basically have no comprehension of what is happening other than "It's bad" and no understanding of how it happened, nor what it all means. I gather it's a major case of sin making Masters of the Universe stupid and I gather that, as usual, the extremely wealthy and powerful will more or less survive while people at the bottom of the food chain will bear the brunt of the suffering.
So could some of you guys who know how all this stuff works help a dummy like me get the basic picture? Thanks!
We are apparently now entering the phase of the campaign where everybody lies and everybody calls everybody else a liar
That's one of the reasons I prefer to stick to a few basic salient facts like "Does the candidate advocate grave moral evil?
Answer: Overwhelmingly YES. HE. DOES!
For some background on this video, go here.
I had the honor of meeting Gianna Jessen at EWTN a year ago January when we were shooting the Chesterton stuff. Very impressive woman! Here she is on Hannity and Colmes last night:
That's one of the reasons I prefer to stick to a few basic salient facts like "Does the candidate advocate grave moral evil?
Answer: Overwhelmingly YES. HE. DOES!
For some background on this video, go here.
I had the honor of meeting Gianna Jessen at EWTN a year ago January when we were shooting the Chesterton stuff. Very impressive woman! Here she is on Hannity and Colmes last night:
Nick Milne Wants To Know What I Think of His Meditations on Martyrdom
I think he's basically right, especially this bit:
Something new entered the world with Christian martyrdom: a new sort of heroism that distinguished itself with a different kind of valor fighting a different sort of battle. The military virtues were not dispensed with because grace builds on nature. But they were transformed. Some saints, such as Joan of Arc, displayed both natural military virtue and the grace of martyrdom.
The only thing I'd note is that martyrdom is a grace and a gift--God's most terrible and beautiful gifts in this life. The paradox of the Christian life is that we are forbidden to try to be martyrs while we are to live as though the possibility may someday visit us. The only way to do that is to live the way Jesus says to live: watchfully and with the awareness that today may be Judgment Day.
Am I ready to be a martyr? I seriously doubt it. I get irritated when we run out of milk. It's one of the reasons I'm skeptical about high flown rhetoric of eternal fidelity to vast cosmic themes in times of national emergency. I've lived through personal emergencies with their foxhole conversions that evaporate as soon as the crisis feels (not is) past. The only real way forward is a long obedience to God in the same direction that proceeds from grace. A consumer culture works every single day to counter that.
So: it's one foot after another and pray "deliver us from evil." Someday we all face some sort of death. The key is to do it well when it comes. I hope I don't bungle mine too badly.
I think he's basically right, especially this bit:
There’s a reason that the great martyrs of the Church are not known for going to their deaths with a sword in each hand, bathed in the blood of their tormentors. There are some who went down like this, to be sure, and more power to them, but it is the witness of those who died quiet and uncomplaining deaths before the jeering crowds that is more startling and effective. While it is true that the pagan may look upon the defiant, enemy-killing martyr with admiration and respect, he is not seeing Christ there - only himself, or what he would wish to be.
Something new entered the world with Christian martyrdom: a new sort of heroism that distinguished itself with a different kind of valor fighting a different sort of battle. The military virtues were not dispensed with because grace builds on nature. But they were transformed. Some saints, such as Joan of Arc, displayed both natural military virtue and the grace of martyrdom.
The only thing I'd note is that martyrdom is a grace and a gift--God's most terrible and beautiful gifts in this life. The paradox of the Christian life is that we are forbidden to try to be martyrs while we are to live as though the possibility may someday visit us. The only way to do that is to live the way Jesus says to live: watchfully and with the awareness that today may be Judgment Day.
Am I ready to be a martyr? I seriously doubt it. I get irritated when we run out of milk. It's one of the reasons I'm skeptical about high flown rhetoric of eternal fidelity to vast cosmic themes in times of national emergency. I've lived through personal emergencies with their foxhole conversions that evaporate as soon as the crisis feels (not is) past. The only real way forward is a long obedience to God in the same direction that proceeds from grace. A consumer culture works every single day to counter that.
So: it's one foot after another and pray "deliver us from evil." Someday we all face some sort of death. The key is to do it well when it comes. I hope I don't bungle mine too badly.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Kicking Myself
A couple of days ago, a military reader wrote in to ask prayers for her friend, Capt Jesse Melton, USMC, who was killed in Afghanistan. I replied to the email with a prayer and said I'd post her request on the blog, but stupidly lost track of her request in the kerfuffle last week. My sincerest apologies.
Here's the prayer I wrote to her last week:
Captain Jesse Melton III, USMC
His story is here. Please remember him in your prayers.
A couple of days ago, a military reader wrote in to ask prayers for her friend, Capt Jesse Melton, USMC, who was killed in Afghanistan. I replied to the email with a prayer and said I'd post her request on the blog, but stupidly lost track of her request in the kerfuffle last week. My sincerest apologies.
Here's the prayer I wrote to her last week:
May God, through Jesus Christ, grant eternal light to Captain Melton, who gave the last full measure of devotion. I will mention him on the blog tomorrow. May God console you in your loss too. And thanks for your service. I deeply appreciate it.
Captain Jesse Melton III, USMC
His story is here. Please remember him in your prayers.
McCain's GOP Begins the Process of Digesting Palin
Being a Team Player, Palin begins the process of allowing herself to be digested by the Lesser Cannibal Thinkers:
"No eating babies, unless there are no other sources of meat" is the New Normal.
Everybody going to bat for McCain is saying things like "We must not make the Perfect the Enemy of the Good ("Good" here meaning "advocating cannibalizing really small children"). Invocations of the coming miraculous conversion of the Giver of the Gang of 14 abound.
What nobody seems to contemplate is that Palin could be the convert to GOP business as usual, a conversion she appears to be undergoing with all deliberate speed.
Being a Team Player, Palin begins the process of allowing herself to be digested by the Lesser Cannibal Thinkers:
My personal opinion is we should not create human life, create an embryo and then destroy it for research, if there are other options out there[*]…
"No eating babies, unless there are no other sources of meat" is the New Normal.
Everybody going to bat for McCain is saying things like "We must not make the Perfect the Enemy of the Good ("Good" here meaning "advocating cannibalizing really small children"). Invocations of the coming miraculous conversion of the Giver of the Gang of 14 abound.
What nobody seems to contemplate is that Palin could be the convert to GOP business as usual, a conversion she appears to be undergoing with all deliberate speed.
They. Can't. Stop. Themselves!
KKKlassy!
Freakish Enemies of the Normal continue to win hearts and minds for Palin. Note that the shirt is sold in baby size.
Thanks (I think) to Kathy Shaidle.
KKKlassy!
Freakish Enemies of the Normal continue to win hearts and minds for Palin. Note that the shirt is sold in baby size.
Thanks (I think) to Kathy Shaidle.
Good Afternoon! It's Day 6 of the Quarterly Catholic and Enjoying It! Tin Cup Rattle
We're in the Home Stretch of the Great Autumn Drive. You've done a phenomenal job so far and my dentist, kids and mortgage really appreciate it--though not as much as I do. However, we have two more days to go and can use more oomph as we approach the finish line! Please consider a gift to your humble scribe and click on the PayPal button to the left so that C&EI can stay on the air and you can keep getting, well, whatever it is I do here.
You can either make a straight donation or, if you like to get something for your money (beyond this blog, I mean), you can buy my books and tapes. And if you'd rather not do PayPal, feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead.
Today's your day. Your shoulder angel is saying, "C'mon, do the right thing! You *love* this blog!" Remember, if you are interested in my books, don't buy them from Amazon cuz if you do, they get all the money and I get a piddly amount. Get them from me and I'll happily autograph them!
By the way, congratulations to reader Irenaeus, who won the free Victor Lams song!
Today, the first four tin cup plinkers can have copies of the cool Faith Database software that I got and don't need (I'm keeping one copy for me). Please be sure to include your snail mail address in your PayPal donation so I know where to send the software.
It's a nifty program, as I suspected it would be.
We're in the Home Stretch of the Great Autumn Drive. You've done a phenomenal job so far and my dentist, kids and mortgage really appreciate it--though not as much as I do. However, we have two more days to go and can use more oomph as we approach the finish line! Please consider a gift to your humble scribe and click on the PayPal button to the left so that C&EI can stay on the air and you can keep getting, well, whatever it is I do here.
You can either make a straight donation or, if you like to get something for your money (beyond this blog, I mean), you can buy my books and tapes. And if you'd rather not do PayPal, feel free to email me and ask for my snailmail address. I'll happily take a check instead.
Today's your day. Your shoulder angel is saying, "C'mon, do the right thing! You *love* this blog!" Remember, if you are interested in my books, don't buy them from Amazon cuz if you do, they get all the money and I get a piddly amount. Get them from me and I'll happily autograph them!
By the way, congratulations to reader Irenaeus, who won the free Victor Lams song!
Today, the first four tin cup plinkers can have copies of the cool Faith Database software that I got and don't need (I'm keeping one copy for me). Please be sure to include your snail mail address in your PayPal donation so I know where to send the software.
It's a nifty program, as I suspected it would be.
Jesus Sloganeering
I post this for two reasons. First, just to drive Zippy up the wall and second, in honor of the spectacularly dumb commentary I happened to catch from Rush Limbaugh the other day, who was in turn responding to the incandescently stupid meme that followers of the Lightworker have been spreading to the effect that "Jesus was a community organizer. Pontius Pilate was a governor."
The meme is a minorly clever zing quip which morons on the Left have inflated into a Wise Saying, and idiots on the Right feel the need to counter with vast exhalations of Rebuttal. It's the sort of thing that makes my head hurt.
Limbaugh, perhaps in an attempt to prove that friends don't let friends theologize Republican, held forth with his own vast exhalation last Friday and declared:
Now it could be that the version of Scripture Rush reads doesn't have, as the very first public proclamation of Christ, the words "Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" Perhaps he simply overlooked all that business about being "born again" and "being transformed by the renewing of our minds" and becoming "new creations" and all the rest of it.
But I doubt it. And so, yeah, "change" is indeed part of the gospel and Jesus is therefore indeed an "agent for change" and not merely here to affirm capitalists in the status quo and announce to prosperous Republo-Americans, "Way to go! Don't change a thing!"
That said, precisely what is the change Jesus causes? Well, that's something that neither party is altogether comfortable with. So they should really stop trying to co-opt him and, perhaps, instead think about allowing themselves to be co-opted by him.
I post this for two reasons. First, just to drive Zippy up the wall and second, in honor of the spectacularly dumb commentary I happened to catch from Rush Limbaugh the other day, who was in turn responding to the incandescently stupid meme that followers of the Lightworker have been spreading to the effect that "Jesus was a community organizer. Pontius Pilate was a governor."
The meme is a minorly clever zing quip which morons on the Left have inflated into a Wise Saying, and idiots on the Right feel the need to counter with vast exhalations of Rebuttal. It's the sort of thing that makes my head hurt.
Limbaugh, perhaps in an attempt to prove that friends don't let friends theologize Republican, held forth with his own vast exhalation last Friday and declared:
Now, as I mentioned yesterday, I pray to Jesus Christ often. I have read and studied the Gospels. I know Jesus Christ. It would never occur to me to refer to Jesus Christ as an agent for change.
Now it could be that the version of Scripture Rush reads doesn't have, as the very first public proclamation of Christ, the words "Repent! For the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" Perhaps he simply overlooked all that business about being "born again" and "being transformed by the renewing of our minds" and becoming "new creations" and all the rest of it.
But I doubt it. And so, yeah, "change" is indeed part of the gospel and Jesus is therefore indeed an "agent for change" and not merely here to affirm capitalists in the status quo and announce to prosperous Republo-Americans, "Way to go! Don't change a thing!"
That said, precisely what is the change Jesus causes? Well, that's something that neither party is altogether comfortable with. So they should really stop trying to co-opt him and, perhaps, instead think about allowing themselves to be co-opted by him.
Peg Noonan Nails How the Freakish Enemies of the Normal Totally Blew It
Her advice to the Dems: Ignore Palin, focus on McCain.
Main problem with that advice: I don't think they can. There's a curious spiritual dynamic at work here that outweighs considerations of political prudence. Sin makes you stupid. I just don't think the Freakish Enemies of the Normal will be able to let her go.
Then Mrs. Palin, and the catastrophe of the Democratic and media response to her. Books will be written about this, but because it's so recent, and so known, we're almost not absorbing how huge it was, and is. Here was the central liberal mistake: They used the atom bomb just a few days in. They used it so brutally, and yet so ineptly, in a way so oblivious to the true contours of the field, that the radiation blew back over their own lines. They used it without preliminary diplomatic talks, multilateral meetings or Security Council debate. They just went boom. And it boomeranged.
The atom bomb was personal and sexual perfidy, backwoods knuckle-draggin' ma and pa saying, Tell the neighbors the baby's ours. Then the ritual abuse of the 17-year-old girl. Then the rest of it—bad mother, religious weirdo. (On this latter it must be noted that Mrs. Palin never told a church that the Iraq war was God's will; she asked them to pray that it was God's will. It wasn't the sound of Republican hubris, it was the sound of Christian humility: We can't know the mind of God, we can only pray we are in accord with it.)
All of this was unacceptable to normal Americans. They experienced it as the town gossip spreading rumor and slander before the new neighbor even got to put down her bags. It offended the American sense of fairness. And—it still lives!—gallantry.
Her advice to the Dems: Ignore Palin, focus on McCain.
Main problem with that advice: I don't think they can. There's a curious spiritual dynamic at work here that outweighs considerations of political prudence. Sin makes you stupid. I just don't think the Freakish Enemies of the Normal will be able to let her go.
Puzzle
On the one hand, some of my readers assure me:
On the other hand, another reader (and not the only one) writes me stuff like this:
I'm all for voting for righteous leaders. That's why I'm voting for a third party candidate who does not advocate cannibalizing babies, either big or small. Only if none exists will I not vote for President.
On the one hand, some of my readers assure me:
Nobody ever said "if you vote for a third party candidate who is actually pro-life, you are really voting for Obama, even though you are actually voting for a third party candidate".
On the other hand, another reader (and not the only one) writes me stuff like this:
Dear Mark:
In your "How the Enemies of the Normal Are Destroying Obama", you correctly characterized the hatred and rage of the left as being more than political; - "It's a spiritual and even demonic hatred". I agree whole-heartedly.
Since we are engaged in spiritual warfare, it seems incongruous on your part to say;
"I myself will not be voting for either candidate, so it's no skin off my nose either way."
Indeed it will be skin off your nose. Clearly it is our Christian duty to oppose satanic activity in every way that we can. When we fail to take every opportunity to oppose evil, we become complicit with the evil doers. God graciously granted to Americans the right and duty to select our leaders. That is a sacred trust. Either Obama and Biden or McCain and Palin will be elected to lead America for the next 4 years. Failure to vote for McCain and Sarah Palin can only aid in the election of Obama and Biden.
Obama is so extreme on the issue of abortion that he favors infanticide - killing live babies who survived botched abortions. God hates evil, and as His children, so ought we. It is our sacred duty to fight and vote for righteous leaders.
I'm all for voting for righteous leaders. That's why I'm voting for a third party candidate who does not advocate cannibalizing babies, either big or small. Only if none exists will I not vote for President.
Media Ventures in the Alien Land of... ewwwww! Evangelicals and Tries to Understand How Any Sane Adult Could Belief this Junk
Memo to Media: Get Religion, Now More Than Ever!
Memo to Media: Get Religion, Now More Than Ever!
Some Guy Writes a Jumble of the Usual Stuff About God v. Religion
You've heard it a hundred times before. God is good and beautiful and if we could just get rid of religion then we'd all have free and unfettered access to the Undivided Light.
It's a beautiful dream, sort of an echo of Eden. But that's all it is in a post-Fall world. Sin complicates and boy are things complicated now. The plea for a spirituality with out any religious authority is answered ably by the Prophet Chesterton in St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox.
For another Chestertonian reply to The Usual Article, see his marvelous little essay, creatively entitled "The Usual Article" in The Thing: Why I Am a Catholic. Very funny and very insightful stuff.
You've heard it a hundred times before. God is good and beautiful and if we could just get rid of religion then we'd all have free and unfettered access to the Undivided Light.
It's a beautiful dream, sort of an echo of Eden. But that's all it is in a post-Fall world. Sin complicates and boy are things complicated now. The plea for a spirituality with out any religious authority is answered ably by the Prophet Chesterton in St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox.
The ordinary modern critic, seeing this ascetic ideal in an authoritative Church, and not seeing it in most other inhabitants of Brixton or Brighton, is apt to say, "This is the result of Authority; it would be better to have Religion without Authority." But in truth, a wider experience outside Brixton or Brighton would reveal the mistake. It is rare to find a fasting alderman or a Trappist politician, but it is still more rare to see nuns suspended in the air on hooks or spikes; it is unusual for a Catholic Evidence Guild orator in Hyde Park to begin his speech by gashing himself all over with knives; a stranger calling at an ordinary presbytery will seldom find the parish priest lying on the floor with a fire lighted on his chest and scorching him while he utters spiritual ejaculations. Yet all these things are done all over Asia, for instance, by voluntary enthusiasts acting solely on the great impulse of Religion; of Religion, in their case, not commonly imposed by any immediate Authority; and certainly not imposed by this particular Authority. In short, a real knowledge of mankind will tell anybody that Religion is a very terrible thing; that it is truly a raging fire, and that Authority is often quite as much needed to restrain it as to impose it. Asceticism, or the war with the appetites, is itself an appetite. It can never be eliminated from among the strange ambitions of Man. But it can be kept in some reasonable control; and it is indulged in much saner proportion under Catholic Authority than in Pagan or Puritan anarchy. Meanwhile, the whole of this ideal, though an essential part of Catholic idealism when it is understood, is in some ways entirely a side issue. It is not the primary principle of Catholic philosophy; it is only a particular deduction from Catholic ethics. And when we begin to talk about primary philosophy, we realise the full and flat contradiction between the monk fasting and the fakir hanging himself on hooks.
For another Chestertonian reply to The Usual Article, see his marvelous little essay, creatively entitled "The Usual Article" in The Thing: Why I Am a Catholic. Very funny and very insightful stuff.
Brights Tell Us that Atheons are the Next Big Thing!
But, of course, Brights are Napoleon Dynamite with a mean streak. So when they prophecy the popular emergence of Temples of Reason and Science springing up everywhere, you should take it with a grain of salt.
I look forward to the homilies on improving your bow-hunting skills, nunchuk skills, computer-hacking skills...
But, of course, Brights are Napoleon Dynamite with a mean streak. So when they prophecy the popular emergence of Temples of Reason and Science springing up everywhere, you should take it with a grain of salt.
I look forward to the homilies on improving your bow-hunting skills, nunchuk skills, computer-hacking skills...
The Invaluable Chris Johnson writes:
If you're looking for me, I'm currently having major and probably terminal server issues(long story) so I'll be moving the site to another host soon. In the meantime, I'll be posting exclusively here until I can figure out where the site's going to end up.
Happy Joy Messiah Machine
A reader writes:
A reader writes:
There's something just a bit strange about a computer processor from China that is called the "Godson 3".