Posts filed under 'Popular Culture'
With a major Presidential hopeful openly pining for one-world socialism, and the prospect of encroaching socialism moving ever more mainstream, it would appear that John Lennon’s dream in his protest song, Imagine, is much closer to fruition this day and age.
So, with conservatism becoming the new counter-culture, I offer a protest song for the 21st century.
Imagine, for the 21st Century (without apology to John Lennon)
Imagine there’re no Liberals
It’s easy if you try
No welfare state to enslave us
Or taxing us to the sky…
Imagine all the people
Keeping their own wealth…
Imagine we have a country…
It isn’t hard to do
One that we’ll defend and die for..
And secure our borders, too
Imagine all the people
Living life secure…
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And our nation will be as one.
Imagine no class envy…
I wonder if you can
Opportunity for everyone..
From fetus unto man
Imagine all the people
Living the American Dream.. ah-haaa-ah!
You may say that I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll be conservative
And our nation will live as one.
Tags: Conservatism, Obama, taxes
August 14th, 2008
And one does wonder what effect this may have on Presidential voting in November:
ProtectMarriage.com, the campaign favoring Proposition 8, the California initiative that would ban same-sex marriage, on Tuesday announced the launch of the official grassroots effort dedicated to supporting the campaign. The organization Catholics for ProtectMarriage.com is led by the Knights of Columbus, the California Catholic Conference and Catholics for the Common Good.
Catholics for ProtectMarriage.com is chaired by Bill May, who is also chairman of Catholics for the Common Good.
“Our strong Catholic faith teaches us the importance of treating all of God’s children with love and respect, it also teaches us that marriage between a man and a woman is the foundation of the family - the first school of love, peace and justice,” May said in a statement. “The ruling by the California Supreme Court nullifying the legal definition of marriage in state law was a shock to Catholics and other citizens who are concerned about how this will affect their own children’s understanding of marriage.”
California Catholics reportedly played a large role in the passage of Proposition 22 in 2000, which defined marriage as being between one man and one woman. The proposition was approved by more than 60 percent of California voters.
I’ll ask you non-Catholics - especially you liberals out there - to rely on my word here when I say that Catholics in California will vote very heavily in favor of this amendment…and it is a complete question of whether a hispanic Catholic in California will pull the Obama or McCain lever after pulling the lever in favor of traditional marriage? Could split their ticket, as it were, or could decide that while they are voting for preserving marriage they might as well vote in favor of the guy who also wants to preserve marriage, John McCain.
There is a lot up in the air here in 2008, not least being the question as to whether or not “values” will rate as high in 2008 as they did in 2004. The more they do so, the better for McCain - because the GOP owns traditional morality in much the same way Democrats own defeat in Iraq. Both sides have tied themselves too tightly to their positions to triangulate their way out of them - and I think that a least a portion of our 2006 defeat stemmed from the number of GOPers who ran afoul of law and/or morality in direct contravention of established GOP practice. But what worked against us in 2006 can work for us in 2008 - with the Democrats suffering the series of sexual political corruption scandals and a Presidential candidate pledged to very liberal social policies opposed to a GOPer pledged to a vigorous defense of morality in the public square.
Tags: Barack Obama, California, gay marriage, John McCain
August 14th, 2008
Europeans Moslems can’t seem to decide if gays should be executed, or not; rather run of the mill stuff for Moslems these days, but the real problem is how the government of Norway reacts:
For a case in point, I will refer the reader to an episode I’ve mentioned previously in this space — an Oslo debate last November at which the deputy chairman of Norway’s Islamic Council, Asghar Ali, refused to reject the death penalty for gays. When Senaid Kobilica, the head of the Islamic Council (which represents 60,000 Muslims), was asked where he stood on the question, he replied that he couldn’t give a definitive answer until he got a ruling from the European Fatwa Council. This week it was reported that he’s still waiting…
…What’s most chilling about all this, however, is not the positions of these Muslim leaders but the reactions of the Norwegian establishment. Or, one should say, the lack of reaction.
Consider this. After last November’s debate, it emerged that Asghar Ali not only was deputy chairman of the Islamic Council but was also on the board of the Oslo Arbeidersamfunn, the largest and most influential association within Norway’s ruling Labor Party. Asked about Ali’s views, the head of the Oslo Arbeidersamfunn, Anne Cathrine Berger, lamented that some people “can’t see the difference between a board member’s views and the organization’s views.” Despite scattered calls for his dismissal, Ali remained on the board. (When a new board election was held in February, Ali chose not to run again.)
That’s not all: Ali is, in addition, secretary of the 37,000-member Electricians’ and IT Workers’ Union…
…As for the Norwegian government, there has been no serious effort, as far as I know, to rescind from the Islamic Council its half million kroner a year in state support.
Does anyone in Europe realise that these peoples’ intentions are serious? They do propose to out-breed and out-immigrate non-Moslems and eventually take over and force through Islamic law. While European governments put the final touches on gay marriage the Islamists look forward to the day when they can hang all the gay people - the decision Europe made after World War Two to entirely secularise and welfarise Europe has proven disasterous on all levels, but the worst part of it seems to be that the will to live has gone out of the European population (or is it that during two world wars the best and bravest sacrificed themselves so much that there wasn’t enough physical strength to continue?).
There still is a living remnant in Europe - that small segment of the population which refused to surrender its Christian European identity. What remains to be seen is whether this remnant will be able to take over from dying secularism before the Islamists do. And we’ll also find out whether the United States will have to come to Europe’s rescue, again.
Tags: Europe, Islam
August 10th, 2008
This would be, of course, Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, published on July 25th, 1968. Even for Catholics, this is the most misunderstood, misinterpreted and denigrated encyclical of modern times. It is also, as it turns out, one of the most important, and one which daily proves itself prescient about what we now call the “culture of death” would lead to. In dealing boldy with matters of contraception, abortion and sex in general, Paul VI entered into a hornet’s nest during the so-called “sexual revolution” - a time when a few men, joined by a few rather foolish women, actually convinced most people that its ok for a woman to just have sex with any guy coming down the pike, as there is contraception and abortion to remedy any ill effects. The sexual catastrophe we see around us - massive illegitimacy, increased poverty and crime and, of course, the absolute horror of millions upon millions of murdered unborn children - is the result of that sexual revolution, and all of it would have been averted had people just paid heed to Paul VI.
Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.
Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife…
…We take this opportunity to address those who are engaged in education and all those whose right and duty it is to provide for the common good of human society. We would call their attention to the need to create an atmosphere favorable to the growth of chastity so that true liberty may prevail over license and the norms of the moral law may be fully safeguarded.
Everything therefore in the modern means of social communication which arouses men’s baser passions and encourages low moral standards, as well as every obscenity in the written word and every form of indecency on the stage and screen, should be condemned publicly and unanimously by all those who have at heart the advance of civilization and the safeguarding of the outstanding values of the human spirit. It is quite absurd to defend this kind of depravity in the name of art or culture (25) or by pleading the liberty which may be allowed in this field by the public authorities…
…And now We wish to speak to rulers of nations. To you most of all is committed the responsibility of safeguarding the common good. You can contribute so much to the preservation of morals. We beg of you, never allow the morals of your peoples to be undermined. The family is the primary unit in the state; do not tolerate any legislation which would introduce into the family those practices which are opposed to the natural law of God. For there are other ways by which a government can and should solve the population problem—that is to say by enacting laws which will assist families and by educating the people wisely so that the moral law and the freedom of the citizens are both safeguarded.
There is very much more in it, and I do recommend that anyone with a genuine love of reason to take the time to go through it.
When Paul VI spoke of the evils which will come of making violations of moral laws easy amongst the young, he hit the target dead center. These days, we pass out condoms to kids and dare to say they are “protected” - what would at one time have gotten an adult a jail sentence has been translated into a supposedly decent act! For the love of God, good people, we’re treating children as if they were a legtimate part of extramarital sexual activity! I know we had the terrible scandal in the Church on this very issue - but does anyone think that only some failed priests started viewing children as legitimate sexual prey? How can we say we want to protect our children when we bombard them with direct and indirect appeals to loose the bonds of morality and throw their sexual lives on to the indiscriminate pile of depraved popular culture?
Also well taken to heart must be Paul VI’s assertion that a loosening of sexual bonds via contraception and abortion would lead more and more men to view women as mere objects of sexual gratification. We speak these days of men who won’t commit - why on earth should they? They are getting all the sex they can handle without having to commit to more than dinner and a movie (if even that much). I’m sure that most of us have known or at least known of a man who has several children by several different women - is this respecting women? Is this what sexual liberation was supposed to do? Turn a woman into a sperm bank for a roving man? How is all of this we see in 2008 superior to the old sexual morality we were eagerly casting aside as Paul VI wrote his encyclical?
Also, don’t think for a moment that I am standing on high as some pure man - heck no! I jumped into the sexual revolution feet first as soon as I got the opportunity. I have learned, now, that the only proper place for sex is between a man and a woman who have committed to completely self-donate one to the other. Only by such an act - such a promise - is sex liberated from the animal and partakes of the divine, and becomes far more than just the sex act. It is a terrible thing we’ve done in breaking down the family and instructing our children to be as sexual as possible as soon as possible - millions, literally, are dead because of this…and not just the aborted children. All of those who have died of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases must also be laid at the door of the sexual revolution. Millions of families have been destroyed, almost invariably to the severe detriment of the mothers and children. Never in human history - even during the most depraved periods of the Roman Empire - has a society so diligently sought out the means of its own destruction.
It is time to become true progressives here - understanding that if you’ve taken a wrong turning, the only way to progress is to turn back to where you first went wrong. We can’t add to the sexual revolution and get something good - it was wrong from the start, and we have to ditch the whole thing. Only by so doing will women find that liberation the sexual liberators promised…only by so doing will we recall men to their duty as husbands and fathers. Only by so doing will we rescue the family and thus save our civilization.
Tags: abortion, birth control, family issues, Humanae Vitae, Marriage, morality, Paul VI
July 27th, 2008
In the opinion of some, yes:
London, Jul. 21, 2008 (CWNews.com) - A decorated British police officer has filed a complaint before a local employment tribunal, charging that he has been harassed by his superiors because of his Christian beliefs.
Officer Graham Cogman,a 15-year veteran of the Norfolk police force, says that he has been subjected to complaints and investigations because he strongly resisted a campaign to encourage support for Gay History Month among the members of that force. Cogman has already been forced to pay a fine of £1,200 for alleged violations of department regulations, because he encouraged colleagues to resist the department’s pro-homosexual campaign. He now faces further disciplinary hearings on charges that he has promoted “homophobic” viewpoints.
At particular issue was an official e mail encouraging Norfolk officers to wear a pink ribbon on their uniform during gay history month (whatever that is, exactly) - Cogman refused and sent a response e mail quoting biblical passages regarding the sinfulness of homosexual acts. I don’t know what denomination Cogman is, but the basic thrust of officialdom here seems to be that pointing out dissent from reigning liberal orthodoxy is wrong - it isn’t differentiated in the news report, but it would seem that whether you use the gentle Catholic remonstrance against gay sex or the more in-your-face views of Evangelicals it is considered out of bounds to dissent from liberalism on gay issues.. My guess is that Cogman would have been fine had he kept his opinions to himself, though we don’t know what sorts of official pressure might have been indirectly placed on Cogman to toe the secularist, PC line. By daring to go behond passive resistence to what amounts to moral indoctrination (officers wearing pink ribbons on their uniform amounts to government propaganda in favor of the homosexual rights agenda), Cogman got himself in trouble.
It is said that one way to look at the conflicts of the world is to think in terms of there is the Church, and Her enemies. It is well established that any denomination which follows Christian teaching will hold that homosexual acts are disordered and never to be approved - this isn’t central to Christian faith (that would be the cross and events related to it), but it is an important point to be held because alone amongst the religions of the world, Christianity (and its base, Judaism) understand the true worth and use of sexual activity. Over centuries a set of rules were developed in order to regularise sexual activity and turn it more and more towards the act of self-donation it is supposed to be - recently, however, there has been a strong effort to disorder sexual activity and turn it more and more into an act of self-gratification. As part of a genuine respect for the body, love, marriage, sex and a true freedom in these things, Christianity hedged sex about with careful strictures…along comes the secularist to toss that all aside willy-nilly and then the leftist comes up not with the idea of toleration for people’s sins, but an insistence that the sin be called a virtule and that anyone who says otherwise must be punished.
Christianity, of course, can’t become what is wrong - the Church, that is, can’t declare wrong to be right. And so Christianity - as truly understood - will never agree to gay marriages or, indeed, any act which delays the propect of the person in question having a conversion. So to call Christinaity homophobic is to essentially call Christ’s Church an evil upon the face of the earth.
What do you think?
Tags: Christianity, homophobia, homosexuality, religious liberty
July 23rd, 2008
So says Kate Sheppard over at In These Times, by reason of McCain’s pro-life stance - calling a it “war on women”:
McCain’s campaign has been making a clear play for women voters in recent weeks, hosting conference calls with Republican women and touting that his policies on national security, the economy and healthcare appeal to women voters.
But the suggestion that women — and feminist women, at that — will be lining up behind him is a fairytale. At least, it should be. McCain’s record and policies on issues of importance to women are neither moderate nor maverick.
In The Nation, Katha Pollitt put it simply: “[T]o vote for McCain, a feminist would have to be insane.”…
…the number of progressive or even moderate voters who would seriously consider voting for McCain is much smaller than the media would have you believe. Unfortunately, McCain’s propaganda seems to be working, at least on those who aren’t aware of his record on issues of concern to women voters.
A February Planned Parenthood poll of 1,205 women voters in 16 battleground states found that 50 percent of women voters don’t know McCain’s position on abortion, and that 49 percent of women who backed McCain were pro-choice. Forty-six percent of women supporting McCain said they’d like to see Roe v. Wade upheld — though McCain says he supports overturning the decision. When they learned of his position on Roe, 36 percent of women who identified as both pro-choice and likely McCain voters said they would be less likely to vote for him.
These moderate, often suburban, middle-class women could be critical swing voters this election. At the time of the Planned Parenthood poll, Obama held only a 5 percentage-point margin over McCain with its swing-state demographic, 41 percent to 36 percent.
Planned Parenthood concludes that these findings suggest “that just filling in McCain’s actual voting record and his publicly stated positions on a handful of key issues has the potential to diminish his total vote share among battleground women voters by about 17 to 20 percentage points.”
All of that predicated on a theory that women are so in love with abortion that the mere fact of McCain’s opposition will doom him - such theory being a standard on the left every election cycle with the only flaw being that it never comes out that way. We GOPers are always warned that our pro-life stance will destroy us at the polls and yet we manage to win from time to time (like 7 out of the last 10 times - and the times we lost it wasn’t because we’re pro-life). Be that as it may, does McCain’s pro-life view make him a sexist at war with women?
If you’re a leftist, it does - because for the left, abortion has become a sacrament in the Church of Secularism. As a Catholic views Annointing of the Sick (”last rites” for you non-Catholics out there), so the leftist views abortion - a thing not done all the time, but vital to the overall health of the organism. To be opposed to abortion on the left is akin to being opposed to forgiveness of sins in Christianity - it just isn’t done. So entrenched is this view that even someone as kooky as Kucinich was forced to drop a lifetime of pro-life views when he made his quixotic run for the White House. Calling McCain a “sexist” is just liberal-speak for saying “he disagrees with us on abortion”.
And thus the real battle is joined - in the end, Iraq, Afghanistan, oil prices, inflation and the rest are all secondary: the dividing line in America is over the issue of Life. The Culture of Life battles the Culture of Death, and eventually America will become all one thing or all the other. That is, all Life or all Death.
The particular issue, abortion, won’t be on the ballot - but the mindset which allows abortion and the mindset which seeks its end will be, and in this year of 2008 the stakes are very crucial as the judges who will either overturn or uphold Roe for another generation are likely to be appointed by the next President. It will be one battle in a long war, but for those of us who fight for Life, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Tags: abortion, culture of death, Culture of Life, Feminism, John McCain, Planned Parenthood
July 23rd, 2008
While I’ve admired President Bush for many reasons, what I could never understand was the President’s reluctance to answer the many unfounded, over-the-top criticisms and out-and-out attacks that were foisted upon him by the left of this nation.
Paul Kengor addresses this in a must-read piece at the American Thinker. For all of the Bush Administration’s successes, most notably his success via perseverance of his Iraq war policy, President Bush’s “new tone” policy set the stage for the relentless, unanswered barrages of assaults by the leftists of this nation and around the world.
The “feel-good” language espoused by many democrats regarding “getting along” and their supposed pining to end the “politics of personal destruction,” in the end, of course, was so much political puffery. On the other hand, George Bush’s “new tone” was not only a buzzword, but S.O.P. for his administration. As with nearly every aspect of his administration (and what those on the left could never fathom nor abide), Bush actually meant what he said and said what he meant when he proclaimed that he would establish “a new tone” in Washington.
Paul Kengor asserts that Bush’s “new tone” was a spinoff of his adherence to his evangelical Christian roots; specifically with regard to the principle of “turning the other cheek (Luke 6:29).”
While a president’s abiding by principle is certainly to be lauded, the application of this principle to Bush’s leftist detractors during his administration yielded disastrous, and yes, even dangerous results. Turning the other cheek allowed the leftists to set the agenda for debate, and allowed them relatively free rein in their efforts to dangerously damage the morale of this country with carte-blanche levels of seditious rhetoric and out-and-out falsehoods. Bush’s “new tone” allowed the leftist elements of this country to give licentious aid and comfort to America’s enemies during a time when our sons and daughters were in harm’s way, giving our enemies encouragement to climb out of their caves and kill another day. Bush’s “new tone” has made it much easier for democrats and other leftist elements to continue relatively unabated on a roll of propaganda based on contrivances that continues to this day, on every issue from energy to foreign policy.
Unfortunately, the Bush Administration’s failure to utilize the bully pulpit to answer unjust criticism and attacks from detractors has left those of us on the right side of the aisle to do all the heavy lifting; which was all well and good, but not enough.
President Bush has many legislative and policy accomplishments for which to be proud. But public opinion and debate in the arena of ideas are also matters of import.
It is my opinion that President Bush’s “new tone” policy is a virtual handbook of how not to play the game.
Tags: Leftwing Alternate Universe, President Bush, The Fifth Column
July 21st, 2008
I saw
The Dark Knight earlier this evening…
it’s breaking all sorts of records… I thought it was really good. Very dark and intense… and I can’t not mention Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker… he brought a whole new element of creepiness to the character..
Anyone else see it this weekend? Feel free to discuss.
Tags: Batman, The Dark Knight
July 20th, 2008
Fr. Neuhaus, in an address to the National Right to Life Committee, lays it out:
Some say it started with the notorious Roe v. Wade decision of 1973 when, by what Justice Byron White called an act of raw judicial power, the Supreme Court wiped from the books of all fifty states every law protecting the unborn child. But it goes back long before that. Some say it started with the agitation for “liberalized abortion law” in the 1960s when the novel doctrine was proposed that a woman cannot be fulfilled unless she has the right to destroy her child. But it goes back long before that. It goes back to the movements for eugenics and racial and ideological cleansing of the last century.
Whether led by enlightened liberals, such as Margaret Sanger, or brutal totalitarians, whose names live in infamy, the doctrine and the practice was that some people stood in the way of progress and were therefore non-persons, living, as it was said, “lives unworthy of life.” But it goes back even before that. It goes back to the institution of slavery in which human beings were declared to be chattel property to be bought and sold and used and discarded at the whim of their masters. It goes way on back…
…The culture of death is an idea before it is a deed. I expect many of us here, perhaps most of us here, can remember when we were first encountered by the idea. For me, it was in the 1960s when I was pastor of a very poor, very black, inner city parish in Brooklyn, New York. I had read that week an article by Ashley Montagu of Princeton University on what he called “A Life Worth Living.” He listed the qualifications for a life worth living: good health, a stable family, economic security, educational opportunity, the prospect of a satisfying career to realize the fullness of one’s potential. These were among the measures of what was called “a life worth living.”
And I remember vividly, as though it were yesterday, looking out the next Sunday morning at the congregation of St. John the Evangelist and seeing all those older faces creased by hardship endured and injustice afflicted, and yet radiating hope undimmed and love unconquered. And I saw that day the younger faces of children deprived of most, if not all, of those qualifications on Prof. Montagu’s list. And it struck me then, like a bolt of lightning, a bolt of lightning that illuminated our moral and cultural moment, that Prof. Montagu and those of like mind believed that the people of St. John the Evangelist—people whom I knew and had come to love as people of faith and kindness and endurance and, by the grace of God, hope unvanquished—it struck me then that, by the criteria of the privileged and enlightened, none of these my people had a life worth living. In that moment, I knew that a great evil was afoot. The culture of death is an idea before it is a deed.
In that moment, I knew that I had been recruited to the cause of the culture of life. To be recruited to the cause of the culture of life is to be recruited for the duration; and there is no end in sight, except to the eyes of faith.
I can’t identify the moment that vividly where I switched from acquiescence to the Culture of Death to opposition…but I do remember the moment when I became a pro-life absolutist, a happy warrior for the Culture of Life: it was when I was honored to listen to some women who had been victimised by abortion, and heard them urge me - a man - to stand tall for life and in the defense of women and their unborn children. It became so entirely clear to me that the issue of life transcended everything else - that there really was no more important issue. If we can’t respect the dignity of our fellow human beings - from conception to natural death - then all talk of “rights” and “liberty” was so much nonsense. People have to be alive for us to be concerned about them.
The title of Fr. Neuhaus’ speech is “We Shall Not Weary, We Shall Not Rest” - speaking to the fact that once recruited to the pro-life cause, one never gives up and never gives in. We are sustained by the knowledge we are backing basic decency - and the knowledge that in spite of all lies designed to throw dust in everyone’s eyes, the basic fact of our nation - the Declaration of Independence - proclaims what we proclaim, that all human beings are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, including - most importantly - the right to life, with no quibbles about whether or not a pregnancy 6 months along or a 96 year old alzheimers patient are really alive. They are. We know it. The Culture of Death knows it, too. We just act on that knowledge, the Culture of Death ignores it because, for humanity, cowardice and evil are the easy course of action - doing wrong or just ignoring wrong is much easier, and seemingly safer, than doing right or opposing wrong.
I, too, shall not weary nor shall I rest in this battle - not only am I not discouraged, there is no way to discourage me on the issue of Life vs Death. As I live so do I battle for Life, and as long as I live - which, after all, is actually forever - I shall fight for Life against all of those who hold that Death is the better alternative.
Tags: abortion, culture of death, Culture of Life, Fr Richard John Neuhaus
July 13th, 2008
…but screaming like a frightened, little girl at the mention of God is the root of, well, groups like Americans United for Separation of Church and State:
The state of South Carolina faces a federal lawsuit seeking to block its plans to issue license plates which feature a bright-yellow Christian cross on a multicolored stained glass window and the words “I Believe.”
The bill permitting the license plates passed the state legislature unanimously, while South Carolina governor Mark Sanford allowed the bill to become law without his signature, CNN reports.
A similar design had been considered in Florida but was rejected because of First Amendment concerns.
“I think it allows people of faith to profess that they believe in a higher calling, they believe in God,” said South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer, who has offered to personally pay a $4,000 deposit required for the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles to begin production of the plates.
The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, is leading the opposition to the law. He claims Bauer’s involvement “more deeply confirms this is a government-sponsored program.”
“I don’t believe that these license plates will ever be on any car in South Carolina, because I think our constitutional claim is so strong,” Lynn said, according to CNN.
Individuals can ask the DMV to print plates for other faiths, for a $4,000 fee, but the request is allegedly subject to significant limits and rules not imposed for the Christian plate. Other tags could feature a religious symbol, but no words would be allowed.
“The state has made believers of non-Christian faiths feel that they are second-class citizens,” Lynn continued. “Under our Constitution, that’s impermissible.”
Andre Bauer responded by arguing that the provision of Christian plates was an issue of freedom of speech.
To me, its not so much a freedom of speech issue - though it is that - as its a freedom to not have presumptuous busy-bodies sticking their nose in where it doesn’t belong. Its a license plate, for crying out loud - if you don’t want a cross on yours, then don’t buy one. Do the people of Americans United really think that someone having a plate with a cross on it makes us all less free? Lynn claims to be a reverend - isn’t there something he could do with his time more useful to the nation and more in accordance with the convictions he claims? How many meals for the homeless could be bought with the legal fees this case will generate? And if the plates are nixed, will everyone really feel freer?
We Christians are not supposed to hate - except, of course, a healthy hatred for Hell and all its works…and I’m beginning to perceive the demonic in the absurd lengths some people go to excise all mention of God from the public square. This is just stupid, stupid, stupid - in a rational world Lynn’s case would be laughed out of court and a really wise judge would slap a fine on Lynn’s group for wasting the court’s time. Enough is enough, already.
Tags: Christianity, church and state
July 10th, 2008
Well, some times it is an outsider who can really distill what its all about:
The Founding Fathers of the United States asserted their claim to freedom and independence on the basis of certain “self-evident” truths about the human person: truths which could be discerned in human nature, built into it by “nature’s God.” Thus they meant to bring into being, not just an independent territory, but a great experiment in what George Washington called “ordered liberty”: an experiment in which men and women would enjoy equality of rights and opportunities in the pursuit of happiness and in service to the common good. Reading the founding documents of the United States, one has to be impressed by the concept of freedom they enshrine: a freedom designed to enable people to fulfill their duties and responsibilities toward the family and toward the common good of the community. Their authors clearly understood that there could be no true freedom without moral responsibility and accountability, and no happiness without respect and support for the natural units or groupings through which people exist, develop, and seek the higher purposes of life in concert with others.
The American democratic experiment has been successful in many ways. Millions of people around the world look to the United States as a model in their search for freedom, dignity, and prosperity. But the continuing success of American democracy depends on the degree to which each new generation, native-born and immigrant, makes its own the moral truths on which the Founding Fathers staked the future of your Republic. Their commitment to build a free society with liberty and justice for all must be constantly renewed if the United States is to fulfill the destiny to which the Founders pledged their “lives . . . fortunes . . . and sacred honor.”
I am happy to take note of your words confirming the importance that your government attaches, in its relations with countries around the world, to the promotion of human rights and particularly to the fundamental human right of religious freedom, which is the guarantee of every other human right. Respect for religious conviction played no small part in the birth and early development of the United States. Thus John Dickinson, Chairman of the Committee for the Declaration of Independence, said in 1776: “Our liberties do not come from charters; for these are only the declaration of preexisting rights. They do not depend on parchments or seals; but come from the King of Kings and the Lord of all the earth.” Indeed it may be asked whether the American democratic experiment would have been possible, or how well it will succeed in the future, without a deeply rooted vision of divine providence over the individual and over the fate of nations. - Pope John Paul II, December 16, 1997
Tags: John Paul II, The United States of America
July 6th, 2008
R. R. Reno over at First Things has some interesting insights into the alleged “pregnancy pact”:
…it seems pretty clear that some teenage girls in Gloucester wanted to get pregnant, talked about it with their friends, and succeeded in conceiving. The school offers free pregnancy testing, and the school nurse reported girls celebrating when the tests came back positive. So, official pact or not, there has been an upsurge in Gloucester of something that our oh-so-inclusive age finds alien and threatening: planned teen pregnancies.
One predictable reaction has focused on sex education, or more accurately the bemoaned lack thereof. If only the students had better information about the real consequences of sexual intercourse! If only the school health clinic were permitted to dispense birth control pills! If only Gloucester didn’t suffer from the repressive mentality of a majority Catholic culture!
Hello. We’re talking about girls who wanted to get pregnant. Is it so difficult to notice that girls who want to get pregnant are not victims of supposedly prudish culture that won’t teach children the truth about sex and give them condoms?
Another reaction is less easily dismissed: It’s not about sex but parenting. If only these girls knew the extraordinary difficulties of raising a child, then they never would have done such a silly thing! So the way to prevent teen pregnancies is to dramatize the challenges of motherhood, especially single motherhood.
Mr. Reno says he has to chuckle about these reactions - especially the suggestion of “if they only knew”, that would have stopped them. My reaction is this - given what we teach our children these girls did absolutely nothing wrong.
Now, as a Christian I can say quite properly that what the girls - and the boys who impregnated them - did was wrong. But our society is, at least in popular culture, entirely post-Christian. These girls violated very basic Christian morality, but what they did is entirely in keeping with the morality prevalent in our public square in 2008. To throw up our hands in horror and ask how this could have happened is akin to a drunk asking how he could have passed out on the floor again: We tell the kids how to have sex; we refuse to tell them not to have sex; we refuse to impart to them Judeo-Christian morality; we do impart to them the concept that “right” and “wrong” are mere social constructs subject to our individual will; we place no moral opprobrium on those who engage in extramarital sex and/or have children out of wedlock - and in conjunction with this we propagandise them massively via books, magazines, music, movies and television that sex is just the coolest thing anyone can do. What is surprising is that many of our youngsters still refuse to be drawn into this sort of thing - not at all surprising that large numbers of them get into it.
People make rational decisions based upon the information they have - we are, after all is said and done, creatures who have reason at our command…the only thing which can be different from one person to another is the sort of information they have to base their decisions upon. Can anyone out there demonsrate that these girls had information which in any way, shape or form would dissuade them from their actions? Only if its Judeo-Christianity…and we don’t know if they had any of it at all or, if they did, how strongly they had been instructed in it vis a vis how strongly they were instructed in the morality of our public square. If this event in any way disturbs you, then there’s only one thing for you to do - insist upon a greater application of Judeo-Christian values.
Tags: birth control, Judeo-Christian Civilizaiton, pregnancy pact, sex education, teen pregnancy
July 6th, 2008
Interesting discussion of the Holocaust and how much the average German was complicit in it over at First Things - here’s the bit I’d like to discuss:
The Holocaust may be the only universally agreed upon icon of absolute evil, but we deceive ourselves if we insist upon its utter singularity. Kershaw concludes on the sobering note: “So far, with great effort, the combination [that produced the Holocaust], which would be truly dangerous if marshaled by a powerful state entity, has been held in check. Will it continue to be?” Neither divine promise nor our knowledge of the human capacity for good and evil warrants a certain answer in the affirmative.
During the Third Reich, ordinary Germans “had many more things on their minds.” That’s a chilling phrase. We might easily say, and many do all too easily say, that during the era of slavery or during current horrors such as the genocide in Sudan or the daily killing of thousands of unborn children in the abortuaries around the country, most ordinary Americans “had many more things on their minds.” That’s a moralistic cheap shot. The truth is that we all have many more things on our minds, and necessarily so. Such as families, jobs, dealing with sickness, and warding off despair. Not to mention, for many, the distinctly unnecessary hours every day spent surfing and chatting on the blogosphere.
The Third Reich is rightly viewed as an icon of evil. This does not mean, as Ian Kershaw reminds us, that the ordinary Germans of the time are the icon of moral indifference or complicity in great evil. Then it was the Jews, the Slavs, and the gypsies. At other times, it is another class of human beings. Given the requisite mix of circumstances, which is not beyond imagination, it is an idle conceit to think that ordinary Americans would behave more nobly than did the Germans of Hitler’s day. Among any people of any time, moral courage is the exception and not the rule. There are heroes and heroines who contend against the great evils of their time, but even they must be selective. You may be devoting your life to helping the people of Sudan, but what are you doing to help prisoners of conscience in China, or to stop international sex trafficking, or to feed the hungry of Zimbabwe, or to relieve the loneliness of old people in the nursing home within an easy drive from your home? The list goes on and on.
“They had many more things on their minds.” And so do we all. Contemplating monstrous evils, such as the Third Reich, is not an occasion for preening in our supposed moral superiority but for humility, for self-examination, for renewed discernment of our duty, and for more earnest prayer for the coming of the promised Kingdom.
If you read Manchester’s The Arms of Krupp, you’ll find that average Germans slipped easily into the role of slave-master over the Slavs and Jews imported into Germany for drudge labor. While many acts of kindness were done by individual Germans for the captives, the plain fact of the matter is that most Germans didn’t act upon any sense of moral obligation towards their fellow human beings, and a very large number took extreme pleasure in their ability to dominate and harm. The question really boils down to this: do the people, on average, just follow along with their government, or does the government always tend to respond to the basic desires of the people? Did, that is, the Nazis convince the Germans to be evil (or at least turn a blind eye to it) or was the evil done by the Nazis latent in the German people from the start? My view is the latter - the evil was built in, and the Nazis just exploited it.
We all have it in us, you see? Only a routine adherence to first principles prevents any of us from slipping into varied forms of evil - and evil, of course, doesn’t require a death camp. Just to have a cold heart towards another human being is evil - and only by continuing to remind ourselves that the other person is due all the love and respect that we feel is our due prevents us from becoming cold hearted. For far too many people, this necessity of keeping on the proper track is forgotten, or left aside as inconvenient. It is much easier to separate one’s self from the evil than to stand up and be counted against it - faced with someone doing something horrible (like, say, gangsters terrorising a neighborhood) it is much easier to just close one’s eyes and walk past, pretending that it is someone else’s problem and, at any rate, why should I risk my neck for people I don’t know personally? In this attitude, of course, is the forgetfullness that if any one of us were terrorised by gangsters, we’d want the entire community to rise up as one to defend us.
There is also the second part of evil - that human desire to be on the winning side. When someone is despised, it is much easier to join those doing the despising than to join the despised. From large to small, it works the same - the Nazis despised the Jews and as the Nazis seemed to be the winners, many Germans simply wanted to be on the winning team; down at the smaller level, it could be merely joining in on some malicious gossip about someone disliked at the office. The actual effects are different, but the evil is the same.
In the end, the people are responsible for what is done in their name - there can be excuses for being under duress, but at the end of the day a government can only do what it convinces people to accept, at least in the sense of a tacit acceptance based upon silence. This does not argue in favor of the collective punishment of a nation if its leadership does wrong, but it does educate us on the need to be ever vigilant - an unguarded moment can be the ruin of a person, or of a nation. And so when someone does suggest even the slightest evil is ok because it is more convenient, that is the moment to stand firm against it - when the snake is just out of its shell, that is the easiest time to kill it…wait until it is full grown, and it becomes a much larger problem and a much larger threat.
Tags: Holocaust, morality, Nazi Germany
June 29th, 2008
Our liberals are very much about keeping in balance with nature - which means that they’ll have a hard time figuring out how to respond to this:
A new report by the British charity ActionAid indicates that unborn baby girls are being disproportionately aborted in some areas of India, while significant numbers who live until birth are being deliberately neglected and left to die. In one area in the state of Punjab, there are only 300 girls for every 1,000 boys among high cast families, the report claims.
ActionAid joined Canada’s International Development Research Center (IDRC) to produce the Disappearing Daughters report, the BBC says. After interviewing more than 6,000 households in sites across five states in northwestern India, researchers found that the proportion of girls to boys was noticeably below the natural rate of 950 girls to every 1,000 boys.
In three of the five study sites, the ratio of girls to boys was under 800 per 1,000. Researchers found the ratios of girls to boys were declining fastest in relatively prosperous urban areas, leading ActionAid to suggest that the increased use of ultrasound exams may be a factor.
Though a 1994 law banned selective abortion based on the sex of the unborn child, many families still use ultrasound scans to detect and abort female children.
ActionAid says other outlawed practices, such as allowing newborn girls’ umbilical cords to become infected, have also contributed to the sex imbalance.
“The real horror of the situation is that, for women, avoiding having daughters is a rational choice. But for wider society it’s creating an appalling and desperate state of affairs,” said Laura Turquet, women’s rights policy official at ActionAid, according to the BBC.
According to the British medical journal The Lancet, about 10 million unborn baby girls have been aborted in the past 20 years.
This is what the Culture of Death and its handmaid, “pro-choice” brings - and there is no liberal argument against it, because if abortion is really a fundamental human right, then there is no grounds for arguing against any particular reason for having an abortion - including sex selection. On the other hand, if there is no right to an abortion (and there isn’t), then the whole thing is disgusting and will soon cause a catastrophic drop in population because if there are, say, only 500 girls for 1,000 boys, then there’s no way for even zero population growth to happen - down, down, down it will go (though a lot of liberals will be temporarily happy about this, given that they believe in the concept of “over population”…but once the tax base shrinks and the government can’t support liberals via grants, then they’ll start singing a different tune about lower numbers of people). India isn’t the only place with this problem - from what I’ve read, its even worse in China where China’s brutal and anti-human “one child” policy has cause such an imbalance between numbers of men and women that women are de-facto kidnapped in poor Asian nations and sold into marriage in China.
There is a need for balance and for keeping in tune with nature - but keeping in tune with nature isn’t about donating to Greenpeace and pretending that recycling actually does something for nature…no, its actually about keeping in tune with nature, including human nature. Human nature isn’t about greedily thinking only of our selves and considering unborn children as disposable - human nature is about living in a community and being willing to sacrifice for same, while at the same time having a massive respect for the rights of the individual within the community - including the unborn individual.
Tags: abortion, demographics, India, sex selection
June 25th, 2008
After years of propaganda even more relentless than that we’ve had in the United States, turns out that most Brits still doubt the enviro-whacko global warming narrative:
Ipsos MORI polled 1,039 adults and found that six out of 10 agreed that ‘many scientific experts still question if humans are contributing to climate change’, and that four out of 10 ’sometimes think climate change might not be as bad as people say’. In both cases, another 20 per cent were not convinced either way. Despite this, three quarters still professed to be concerned about climate change.
Those most worried were more likely to have a degree, be in social classes A or B, have a higher income, said Phil Downing, Ipsos MORI’s head of environmental research.
‘People are broadly concerned, but not entirely convinced,’ said Downing. ‘Despite many attempts to broaden the environment movement, it doesn’t seem to have become fully embedded as a mainstream concern,’ he said.
The common sense of the average person just doesn’t swallow this sort of nonsense - as Lincoln said, you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time. Average temperaturs - as far as we know, and to call our data “incomplete” is to over-state our knowledge - have rise, but over the past 10 years they’ve been stable, which is something absolutely impossible if the anthropogenic global warming theory is correct. And yet there go the environmentalists and various cheerleaders saying it is real and we must act fast. Its gotten so bad that even President Bush and John McCain have signed off on this, though I wonder if part of the motivation for this would be a desire to get past an un-winnable debate (we long ago lost the global warming debates to the enviro-whackos - only time and the actual fact that we don’t all die will prove them wrong) and move forward on to environmental clean up on the perfectly reasonable position that its good to clean up messes and, meanwhile, if we GOPers stay in charge of it we won’t get regressive, impoverishing, anti-human laws and regulations as the left fanatically desires.