religion

Is Tolerance an End, or a Means?

Mark Noonan27 Comments

Lots of continuing commentary going on in the blogosphere, especially the Catholic part of it, regarding the Accepting Abundance “public morality” post we discussed here yesterday.  Over at Little Catholic Bubble, Leila posted an interesting quote:

We need to remember that tolerance is not a Christian virtue. Charity, justice, mercy, prudence, honesty — these are Christian virtues. And obviously, in a diverse community, tolerance is an important working principle. But it’s never an end itself. In fact, tolerating grave evil within a society is itself a form of serious evil. – Archbishop Chaput

The left long ago learned the trick of using a nice-sounding word to cover a wicked agenda.  The key is to find a word that is hard to argue against, claim that the word covers some desired, liberal goal and then say anyone who opposes this goal is opposed to the nice-sounding word.  “Tolerance” is one of those words being misused – like using “choice” for abortion; if you are opposed to abortion you are not opposed to murdering babies, you are opposed to people choosing, you see?  These days, the left uses the word “tolerance” as the nice-sounding word to cover the concept of homosexuality being morally the same as heterosexuality.

Just as the left would never get anywhere advocating for baby killing, so they wouldn’t get anywhere trying to convince common-sense people that gay and straight sex are morally the same…so, “choice” instead of “baby killing” and “tolerance” instead of “gay same as straight”.  And if you oppose the concept of homosexuality being morally the same as heterosexuality, then you are being intolerant…even though you’ve never said anything against gay people and, indeed, strongly advocate that every sign of unjust discrimination against them be removed (as all believing Catholics, for instance, hold).

We need to scrape away the lies which have grown up in our society -the various words and phrases the left has twisted to cover the bad and unpopular things they wish to impose on us.  Tolerance is a means, not an end – it is something we do because we wish to live in a peaceful, civil society…but it must not and cannot mean approval.  I am not being intolerant when I say that homosexual sex is inherently disordered…I am merely stating the truth as I understand it.  If the left wants to persist in using that word, then we have to force them to use it properly…and right now, if “tolerance” is the goal, then they’ve won…gay people are broadly tolerated in the American populace and none but a few kooks would dream of putting the slightest legal disability upon homosexuals (good to keep in mind, liberals, that I and plenty of other conservative Christians are, for instance, not opposed to openly gay people serving in the military…and until you went and tried to judicially impose gay marriage, most of us were in favor of some sort of civil union legislation). But that is as far as we can go – to go beyond that, especially for a Christian, is impossible.  We can’t say that what is wrong is right – we are, indeed, supposed to die rather than do any such thing.

Let us start having debates without lies – no more code words, twisted phrases or rhetorical misdirection.  Words mean what they mean, and we should use them as they were intended.  Truth is not subjective – what is right is not dependent upon the ideological viewpoint of the individual.  There is a truth to adhere to – to discover as best we can and then attempt to apply it as best we can in our lives.  To do otherwise is to sink in to a morass of dishonesty where reason cannot exist…and to play the liberals game of undermining us by the clever tricks of the propagandist.

A Spasm of Liberal-Fascist Hatred

Mark Noonan76 Comments

Stacy Trasancos vented a bit on her blog, Accepting Abundance, the other day – while she mentioned specifically the actions of openly gay people engaging in public displays of affection in the local park, the clear issue was not whether or not two gay men will hold hands, but whether or not any part of the public square will be kept clear of the immorality of our age.  The natural reaction of our loving, tolerant liberals was best encapsulated in this comment:

…Your view of what is sinful, immoral, and the like are because of your own thought processes. YOUR definition of sin and immorality are not the universal definitions and immorality. How dare you be so arrogant as to believe that your opinions are higher than others’. F*** off you ugly Christian slut…

I’d have to say that better than 90% of the comments attacking Mrs. Trasancos are “anonymous”.  Which is probably a good thing because it would embarrass the authors if their names were known – hard to find such a collection of ignorance, hatred and misery in such a small area.  These people don’t understand what the article is about, they don’t know what a Catholic like Mrs. Trasancos believes and they don’t know what “tolerance” and “liberty” mean.  Their comments range from the mildly snarky to the crudely vulgar to the downright blasphemous.  At no point is there any attempt to engage Mrs. Trasancos as a human being – to try and see things from her point of view or show some respect for the fact that a fellow human being courageously put their name to an opinion in the public square.  Just anonymous, ignorant hatred is what she gets.

And why did she get this?  Because she dared to question the liberal party line on morality.  The liberal party line on morality is essentially negative in character – whatever breaks down the Judeo-Christian morality of Western Civilization is morally good, whatever upholds it is morally bad.  If you step outside those parameters, you are going to be attacked…and as Mrs. Trasancos found, attacked quite cruelly and nauseatingly by people who would never show the courage to stand up in public and actually proclaim their beliefs under their own name.

I greatly sympathize with Mrs. Trasancos as I have been on the receiving end of this sort of thing, too.  I’ve had my past dug in to, my car vandalized, I’ve been stalked at work, my computer has been hacked, people have tried to put a photo of my house in the web (and in their eagerness to harm me they actually put up a photo of a house belonging to a different Mark Noonan; there are several people with my name in Las Vegas).  I’ve had a radio host suggest that people beat me up and one kind liberal opined upon a time that I was a fit subject to be hanged from a lamp post with a meat hook.  And all of that just because I, too, dissent from the liberal orthodoxy.

Make no mistake about it, if the people who filled Mrs. Trasancos’ blog comments with filth and vituperation ever got the chance, they would imprison and kill people like myself and Mrs. Trasancos.  Plenty of liberals scream with anger when I used the term “liberal-fascist”, but I chose that phrase with care.  It is an exact description of that species of person who is liberal and demands that certain views be silenced in the public square – classified as “hate speech” and declared first out of bounds and, eventually, illegal.  Inside of every liberal there is an NKVD agent straining to break free.

Mrs. Trasancos has asserted that the hate won’t stop her – and I applaud her courage.  The one thing the left would really like is to just be able to shout down voices of reason.  It is hard, at times, to stand against the fury of people who will go straight to the lowest gutter hoping that by being vile, they can disgust decent people and convince them to leave the public square.  We dare not let them do this.  Firm in our faith, ready for whatever sacrifice we are called upon to make, we must remain in the world while never being of it.  Our duty – to God, ourselves and our fellows – is to do what is right, even if everyone disagrees and hates us for doing it (and Our Lord did warn us that we would be hated on account of Him).  This is just part of the task of a Christian; indeed, the task of anyone who really believes in God – and if we carry it out faithfully, then even our defeats are victories…but the really good thing is that when we do stand firm, we win far more than we lose.

The time is coming when one side or the other will prevail…and we on our side already know who the Victor is.

Mayor Bloomberg, Numbskull

Mark Noonan30 Comments

Showing just why we GOPers are glad that people like Bloomberg leave the party – from Fox Nation:

Religious leaders are calling on Mayor Michael Bloomberg to reverse course and offer clergy a role in the ceremony commemorating the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

Rudy Washington, a deputy mayor in former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s administration, said he’s outraged. Mr. Washington organized an interfaith ceremony at Yankee Stadium shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

“This is America, and to have a memorial service where there’s no prayer, this appears to be insanity to me,” said Mr. Washington, who has suffered severe medical problems connected to the time he spent at Ground Zero…

This from the guy who defended the “Ground Zero mosque”…just how idiotic do you have to be to get yourself in to that position?  Sure, put a triumphalist, Moslem religious center right next to Ground Zero…but don’t let a Christian or Jew offer so much as a prayer during the memorial ceremony!  That makes sense…if you’re an uber-rich, elitist member of the Ruling Class.