Social Issues

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.

Why Liberals Hate the “Conscience Exemption”

Mark Noonan35 Comments

From Life News:

A new study provides more good news for pro-life advocates, as it shows fewer doctors are willing to perform abortions than before — creating a situation where the lower availability of abortion may be helping to reduce abortions.

The new report, published today in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, finds 97 percent of physicians surveyed say they have encountered patients wanting an abortion while only 14 percent of doctors are willing to do an abortion. That’s lower than the 22 percent of doctors who said they would do an abortion in the last poll, from 2008…

In the main, no doctor who is worthy of the name would perform an elective abortion.  Doctors know better than most that the unborn child is a unique, human life…and anyone committed to healing and saving will have a very hard time getting around this concrete fact.

There has been, over the years, a continual drop in the number of doctors who are willing to perform an elective abortion, greatly cutting in to the availability of the inhuman procedure, even without legislative restrictions.  Because of this, the pro-abortion fanatics are determined to force doctors and other medical professionals to provide abortion and other anti-life medical procedures – these people fought hard to ensure that ObamaCare had no meaningful “conscience” clause for medical providers who feel that things like birth control and abortion are immoral…and the pro-aborts will keep at it.  And here’s the bad news – as long as Roe is recognized as the law of the land, they are in a strong position.

If abortion is a right – and if health care is a right – then no doctor can refuse to perform whatever medical procedure a patient orders.  That, right there, shows that asserting a right to an abortion is absurd – no human right can ever denigrate another human right…you do have a right to choose, but this includes the right to choose “no” when asked to participate in an abortion.  But this bit of common-sense doesn’t matter to the pro-aborts…they just want their anti-life agenda to become absolutely the law of the land, and they’ll use every tool they’ve got…including asinine judicial rulings such as Roe.  And if they have to forcibly conscript our doctors and nurses in to the abortion industry, they’ll do it in the name of a “right” to an abortion.

I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it – the issue of life is the most important issue facing us today.  Next to it, issues such as the debt, the economy, war and all the rest fade to insignificance.  Whether or not we survive as a people depends on what we do about life.  Look around the world today and what do you see?  A dying world.  All of the nations of the Earth are locked in a dance with death.  Only a few nations retain a robust birth rate…while some nations have already entered terminal population decline (meaning that unless there is a massive turn-around in the birth rate, they will die out, as nations, within a bit more than a century).

We here in the United States are barely increasing – and a lot of that increase is due to recent immigrants, who haven’t quite been as poisoned by the Culture of Death as native people.  But even the nations the immigrants come from are now rapidly falling in to death…our illegal immigrant problem from Mexico will shortly solve itself…believe it or not, the Culture of Death has so corrupted Mexico that Mexican women (once know for their fertility) are not having children.  Our source of cheap, imported labor is drying up at the source.

I can’t really explain the motivation of those on the side of death – certainly there is an element of despair in them (likely stemming from some species of non serviam coming from the Enemy), but I’m at a loss to fully explain why they want us to die.  The only thing I know for certain is we must fight and destroy the Culture of Death.  We must not say that Life and anti-life are equal and worthy of respect…the pro-abort position is an illegitimate abomination, which can only be adhered to out of rank ignorance, or simple wickedness.  All our policies must be geared towards encouraging men and women to marry and have children, and providing them with the economic and legal basis to sustain a decent household for the raising of children.  Anything which detracts from this must be hindered, all that advances it must be fostered.

Remember, then, why you are fighting for small government, low taxes, sensible regulations, strong morals, decent education and religious liberty…not for your own self, but for all of those here today, and for those who come after.  All our efforts are not for political victory or so we can make money, or bomb our enemies to smithereens…but just so Joe and Jane Average can get married, have kids and raise them in a decent society.  If you’re not fighting for that, then you’re not fighting for anything worthwhile.

“Ethical Cleansing”

Mark Noonan15 Comments

Have yourself a population which, despite your best efforts, still bitterly clings to old-fashioned morality?  Well, here’s you answer – just get hold of the school system and start brainwashing the kids in to rejecting that old-fashioned morality.  From Life Site News:

Equity policies purporting to combat “homophobia” amount to “ethical cleansing” that aim to eliminate opposing moral views, says the Catholic Civil Rights League of British Columbia.

In a July 6th letter, CCRL BC Director Sean Murphy criticized the BC Civil Liberties Association’s support for an equity policy that passed in the Burnaby school board in June.  The policy aims to combat “heterosexism,” which it defines as the “assumption that all people are heterosexual and that heterosexuality is superior and more desirable for all people than any other sexual orientation.”…

Which works out, in practice, to a program of telling the kiddies that being gay is just as good (well, better, really) than being straight. As I’ve been saying for many years now, the so-called “gay rights” movement is not about securing tolerance for homosexuals but is instead an effort to legally enforce the notion that homosexuality is morally the same as heterosexuality.  The activists (which are not by any means the same as all gay people – quite a few of whom want no part of the totalitarian nonsense of the gay left) don’t want to be free to live their own lives…they want to grab hold of society and shape it to fit their ideas of what is right and wrong.  It is a legislation of morality they want – their own morality, as opposed to the morality held by the overwhelming majority.

In my view, the ultimate reason for this is that most gay people probably realize, deep down inside, that they are doing things they ought not to.  Understanding that gay people can have a deep-seated attraction to members of the same sex, it still sits there quite starkly – sex is not just for personal pleasure; ultimately, its purpose is children, and sex which is not at least in theory for the creation of children is disordered sex (s0, yes, liberals; older couples past their time and infertile couples can still have sex…because it isn’t absolutely impossible that a child will result, as is the case when two men engage in sex).  But with this realization there is still the very strong desire to do what they do…and whenever someone does something, it is nearly automatic that they will seek to rationalize their action…and also to seek approval of their peers.  Its the difference between a gay person knowing his neighbor resignedly tolerates his behavior and his neighbor actively applauding it.  Gay rights people want the applause.

And, so, “ethical cleansing” – a clearing out of the public square any hint that some where, some how, someone might have an objection to homosexual sex.  Not good enough to be tolerated; not good enough that every sign of unjust discrimination is removed; it must be a societal approval of homosexuality as being the same as heterosexuality.  We must instruct the children, regardless of their parent’s wishes, that if they choose to engage in homosexual sex, it is perfectly ok…great, laudable…something to be proud of.  And anyone who disagrees is a homophobic bigot.

This species of liberal fascism must be stopped – we must not allow liberal ideologues, for whatever reason, to undermine the inculcation of parental morality.  If a parent wishes to teach his child that homosexuality is the same as heterosexuality, that is fine…wrong, but within parental rights.  But if a parent wishes to teach that homosexual sex is inherently disordered and can never be approved, that is also within parental rights…and we can’t have the public school system saying otherwise.  At bottom, if you can’t get a societal consensus on teaching a certain moral precept, then the public school must not teach it.  The issue of homosexuality is not one of those issues we can all agree on (like, say, teaching that stealing is bad) – so it is better for the schools to remain silent on the subject and let each set of parents impart what knowledge they will.  Might lead to a wide variety of opinions and this wouldn’t be conducive to a liberal-fascist world view, but it would be just and workable.

 

Dignified Sluts?

Mark Noonan16 Comments

From the Washington Post:

Women draped sexy lingerie over their street clothes as they marched through Cape Town on Saturday, bringing an international campaign against the notion that a woman’s appearance can excuse attacks to a country where rape is seen as a national crisis…

… “SlutWalks” originated in Toronto, Canada, where they were sparked by a police officer’s remark that women could avoid being raped by not dressing like “sluts.” “It’s very important that women should understand that their dignity should not be taken away from them,” said Tayla Orgill, who was among the Cape Town walkers…

One does wonder – does Ms. Orgill own a dictionary?  Does she know what “dignity” means?

To be sure, a woman dressed like a slut does not excuse rape – but being dignified does require a modicum of modesty in dress.  A woman wearing a miniskirt and a low cut blouse does not deserve to be raped, but she is also by no means dignified while so dressed.  In fact, a woman dressed like that has deliberately decided to present herself to men as a mere object – dressing like that is a to say, “hey, look upon me as a sexual plaything!”.

In contrast to the sheer idiocy of a “slut walk” for female dignity, I offer the words of Mary Lane over at Catholic Exchange:

…I don’t know that I can point to a moment when things changed. All I know is that last summer I was in a bikini, and this summer I’m not. Several months ago, I hardly thought twice about what the effect of what I am wearing will be on the men I meet out in public, and now I never leave the mirror in the morning without thinking about it.

I have come to realize that we live in a world in which guys are virtually expected to objectify women’s bodies. Of course, there is a difference between “appreciating” and “objectifying”—one is natural, the other is sinful. But that line is really thin for a guy, and it’s pretty hard to control—especially when he’s walking down the beach on any given Thursday in August.

This doesn’t mean that every guy who sees you in a bikini is objectifying you—it just means that it’s probably really hard for him not to, at least on some level…

I’m building up quite a list of things I’ll keep saying until everyone agrees with me, because I’m right.  Among them is the fact that advertising works.  The reason that literal tens of billions of dollars are spent every year on advertising is because it works – it convinces people to do things they might otherwise not have done.  Not everyone, of course.  Show a car ad to a million people and hardly any of them will head down to the dealership and buy a car…but a few will.  And that is why advertisement is done…not to get everyone to do it, but to get a few who wouldn’t have done it unless presented the offer via advertisement.

In a sense, everything we see is an advertisement.  And one of the things we see all the time in our society is enticements to sexual activity – coupled with, of course, the complete objectification of those who would gratify sexual desire.  You see it everywhere…car ads, beer ads, vacation ads…all of them spice their message with sexual content.  A woman walking down the street dressed like a slut is just another form of this advertisement, and like all advertisement it won’t move most people to act…but it will move some, including some who have been so heavily propagandized by advertising that they’ve lost all sense of decency.  These are the men who won’t take “no” for an answer…men who, indeed, consider it an outrage that any woman would ever dare say “no”.  So, they take what they want.

This is not to say that a reduction in advertising for sex would eliminate rape…but the fewer advertisement, the less it is shoved front and center of public consciousness, the less likely it is that any particular man will be moved to do it.  An additional benefit of this would be an overall improving of the moral tone of the public square…even men who never move towards direct evil are yet corrupted in their hearts by the advertising, becoming less respectful, and also less willing to defend honor when it is attacked.

The most important thing to remember here is that if we want to be people who are respected and treated as dignified human beings, then our duty is to act respectable and dignified.  A well dressed young man or woman of good manners is someone to whom respect and dignity naturally flows…it is asinine to expect a badly dressed man or woman acting like a rutting beast in public should be respected or thought of as dignified.   This “slut walk” is a negation of dignity…and the real pity is that those participating in it have been so hoodwinked by modern lies that they don’t even understand what they are doing.

HAT TIP:  Hot Air

Morality on the Cheap

Mark Noonan31 Comments

Ad Week has the details on MTV’s new campaign to get people to care:

Every day, our global community faces an endless list of serious issues, from famine to poverty to global warming. Now, evidently as part of an MTV campaign, Twilight star Nikki Reed is asking people everywhere to “give a ****”—both figuratively and, ahem, literally.

“I may be famous, but I actually give a ****,” the actress says in the sort-of-mock PSA below. The Give a ****movement, she says, is based on the Dalai Lama’s theory (heavily paraphrased) that “If enough people take the time to simply give a ****about the world’s problems, even if they don’t actually do anything but just give a ****about them, the world’s problems will cease to exist.”…

You know, it could be that merely saying we care is not as important as acting as if we care.  I know that being generous is difficult – it eats up time, money and resources which one can spend on the self.  I, myself, am not nearly as generous as I can be…C. S. Lewis put it best when he judged that if charity doesn’t pinch a bit, then it isn’t enough.  In other words, unless you are giving up something for yourself, then you’ve really given little (see Mark 12:41-44).  While it is at least somewhat of an advance to actually take thought for the sufferings of the world, if there is no follow-through to action, the thoughts tend to moral sterility.

My worry here is that we are falling ever further in to a morality on the cheap.  Sort of like the self-esteem nonsense in public schools where kids are taught to feel great about themselves even if they don’t accomplish anything.  The world is filled with suffering…and no amount of thinking about it and wishing others well will do the trick.  We actually have to get our hands dirty and help the less fortunate.  I am concerned with the lack of challenge here – the stroking of the modern ego where everyone wants to feel that they are swell, even though all of us are sinners – not one of us having the right to feel we’ve ever done enough, loved enough or helped enough.

A better program might have been to show someone getting off the couch, setting aside the video game and going out to find someone who needs help.  They are all around us…right now, probably not a thousand yards from where you sit reading this, there is someone who needs help.  But to ask you to do that requires more than just some sort of nebulous, half-morality…it requires an appeal to conscience; an appeal to the fact that we are all of us creatures; contingent beings who owe every last thing we have to Another, and thus have a moral obligation to do what is right, not just think about what is wrong and feel good about ourselves for so doing.

The Government-Subsidized Riot

Mark Noonan71 Comments

At least one leftist is understanding what is happening in Britain:

…This is not a political rebellion; it is a mollycoddled mob, a riotous expression of carelessness for one’s own community. And as a left-winger, I refuse to celebrate nihilistic behaviour that has a profoundly negative impact on working people’s lives…

…There is one more important part to this story: the reaction of the cops. Their inability to handle the riots effectively reveals the extent to which the British police are far better adapted to consensual policing than conflictual policing. It also demonstrates how far they have been paralysed in our era of the politics of victimhood, where virtually no police activity fails to get followed up by a complaint or a legal case. Their kid-glove approach to the rioters of course only fuels the riots, because as one observer put it, when the rioters ‘see that the police cannot control the situation, [that] leads to a sort of adrenalin-fuelled euphoria’. So this street violence was largely ignited by the excesses of the welfare state and was then intensified by the discombobulation of the police state. In this sense, it reveals something very telling, and quite depressing, about modern Britain.

The only thing left out is my contention that the British people have resigned the right of self defense.  Swaddled in the welfare State, set upon by professional gripe-mongers, oppressed by political correctness and disarmed by law, the British people are just sheep for the slaughter…complete victims whenever the barbarians decide to strike.  If they tried this in the United States, there would be return fire – and in most jurisdictions, the law would back the honest citizens in the use of force.  Can anyone seriously imagine this sort of thing going on in, say, Texas?

This is the perfect storm of welfare and Big Government…some people so mollycoddled (excellent word, that) that they just don’t care how much they destroy; figuring it is their right to take what they want (all that class warfare talk does have an effect, ya dig?) and that the government (which owes them, right?) will fix it all up.  On the other side, people who still retain a sense of decency stand aside and let the rioters destroy because they’ve been conditioned to think that law enforcement is a matter only for the police; they have forgotten that the police are delegated by the people to defend the community, but the actual defense of the community lies with the people.

The only way out of this is for some citizen of Britain to shoot a rioter, and then have a jury refuse to convict.  That would save Britain…anything else will just be a band aid on a dying society.

Wisconsin State Fair Incident

Mark Noonan71 Comments

JS Online has an excellent, detailed report of what happened.  To nutshell it, for reasons unknown a large group of black youths went on a rampage at the State Fair, appearing to single out whites for attack.  This event took place in Wisconsin, a State noted for its liberal efforts at “diversity” (in fact, the State Fair, itself, has been taking great pains to be be more “diverse”), with only a relatively small black community (a bit more than 6% of the population) and no history of racially motivated attacks.  So, why did it happen?

Because we told these kids to do it.  Yes – you, me; all of us.  For more than a generation we have poured filth in to the mind of youth…pornography, violence, glorified gangsters, racialist divisions created by politicians on the make, go ahead and fornicate we’ll get you an abortion, ignorance disguised by self-esteem training, lack of respect for law and tradition.  We’ve shoved this relentlessly in to the youth of our nation…and now we’re going to get all shocked that some of them went on a rampage. I’m not – I’m expecting more of this, and for it to get worse.  We’re supposed to take our youth and civilize it…instead, what we’ve done is barbarize it.  And there is a thing about barbarians – they act barbarically.

It is going to be difficult to deal with this.  It might get so bad that only the crudest and cruelest force will make the most incorrigible in to responsible citizens.  But however we deal with it, this will be a protracted and difficult process.  The cure for it will be found in protecting the current crop of little kids from the filth.  We have to stand up and start acting like adults – start insisting that “free speech” does not include making profits off of selling pornography and violence to kids; start insisting that kids learn in school, not learn to merely think highly of themselves; start teaching kids to respect law and tradition.

Or we can ignore our duty and allow more and worse things to happen.  It will.  You can rely on it.  This was just some kids out on a rampage.  But eventually they or their successors will kill…they will become the tools of those who want to use violence to get what they want, whether it is mafia-like criminals, or budding tyrants who want to destroy our republic.  We have it in our power to call a halt to this and restore decency in our nation…and ensure that the next generation of young people will not do such things as this.

Live for 150 Years? Goodness, Why Would You Want That?

Mark Noonan18 Comments

From Popular Science:

Bill Andrews has spent two decades unlocking the molecular mechanisms of aging. His mission: to extend the human life span to 150 years–or die trying…

…“I want to cure my aging,” Andrews tells me, “my friends’ and family’s aging, my investors’ aging, their friends’ and families’ aging, and make a ton of money. And I want to cure everybody else’s aging too—I put that probably equal to making a ton of money.”…

Andrews is clearly a smart man, and driven by a vision…and, who knows?, maybe he can eventually manage it and get human life spans up to 150.  I hope to be long dead by the time he figures that out.  Andrews is a bit extreme about it, but what he is doing is an apt symbol of our age:  a fear of dying so large that we both never really talk about death, and go about doing everything we can to avoid risk and extend our lives.

In this, I admire my late Uncle Mike – my godfather and a good man.  He was told he could have a surgery which would have extended his life.  His attitude was, “what for?”.  His beloved wife was long deceased, he had no children of his own and he was pushing 80.  He refused the surgery, came ’round to see my father (they got gloriously drunk and sang old songs together in a pub – and that is how you say goodby to those you love, if you get a chance), and then went off to die.  There is a time to live, and there is a time to die…and anyone who hangs too tightly to this world will find that he loses everything, including the next world, for his efforts.

Just the mere thought of living to 150 fills me with dread.  Figuring that I’ll live to my father’s age (general luck and genetics being about the same), I’ll make it until early 2047.   Am I supposed to want to live another 60 0r 7o years after that?  Do I want to live until 2107?  Work, pay taxes, deal with traffic for that long?  For another 96 years be faced with endless temptations to reject God and ruin myself for good?  No, thanks very much…I’ll take my 80 or so and be done with it.  Find me medicines which allow me to keep my eyesight and wits until the end, but don’t try to make me in to someone celebrating his 150th birthday.

And then there’s this – supposed you did find the elixir to make us live to 150 years, what sort of people would we be?  The saints among us wouldn’t avail themselves of it…the people most likely to claw desperately to such expedients are the greedy and the base…cowards and criminals.  Imagine if Stalin had such a medicine…he’d be 133 years old…and still have 17 more left to go under that plan.  Stalinism would still be ruling in Russia…and imagine just how bad that cruel, lunatic man would have become had he been able to live these past 58 years!

We can’t stop people from trying, but we can stand aside and leave them to their own horrors…and hope that wisdom comes to them, including the wisdom which says that, eventually, its time to go.  Don’t stand there forever in the way of those who come after…move on and leave the future to those who will live in it.

A Small Judicial Victory for Common Sense

Mark Noonan6 Comments

A triumph of common sense over political correctness – from CNA:

An Illinois judge’s July 12 order will allow Catholic Charities to continue its foster care work in three dioceses, despite an attempt by state officials and the governor to end the partnership.

“This is a great win for the 2,000 children under the care of Catholic Charities, protecting these kids from the grave disruption that the state’s reckless decision to terminate would have caused,” said Peter Breen, Executive Director and Legal Counsel at the Thomas More Society.

Breen said that Catholic Charities, with the legal assistance of his organization, “will continue this fight” to continue “the high-quality foster and adoption care that the Catholic Church has provided for over a century to Illinois children.”…

As you might have guessed it, liberalism is at the bottom of this – Illinois passed a law last December entitled Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act which, its sponsors said, would allow for civil unions but would not in any way, shape or form interfere with those faith-based groups which were doing charitable work in Illinois.  It was specifically asked, in legislative debate, if this bill would prohibit faith-based institutions from dealing with foster care and adoption – and the answer was “no”.  It was this assertion which may have allowed enough Illinois legislators to swallow “civil unions” – as long as people of faith are protected, who can have an argument against anyone – gay or straight – having a civil union?  Presto, the law was done.  But that was without anyone reckoning on the ultimate desire of leftwing activists…whether or not gay people shall be married, civil-union’d or shot to the Moon is irrelevant…what is relevant is whether or not faith can be attacked…especially the Catholic Church part of it.

Because the Catholic Church will not place a child in a gay or cohabitating home (so, you see, it isn’t about gays for the Church…it is about the Church’s adherence to Christian sexual morality), someone in the Illinois government – clearly with an anti-Christian axe to grind – decided to terminate Illinois’ contracts with Catholic Charities regarding adoption (any gay person with a gripe would be a person just being a jerk – plenty of adoption agencies in Illinois will adopt out to a gay couple…and even Catholic Charities would refer a gay person to such agencies should a gay person happen to wander in to a Catholic adoption agency).  Didn’t matter that Illinois doesn’t have the facilities to take on the thousands of kids under Catholic Charities’ care; doesn’t matter that the Illinois government has proven routinely incompetent in dealing with such social issues, didn’t matter that kids lives would be disrupted…all that mattered was bashing the Church, bashing Christianity, bashing morality.

Fortunately, a judge has seen right through this and put, at least temporarily, a stop to it.  Hopefully now some wiser heads will prevail and some sort of accommodation can be worked out so as to ensure that the kids are taken care of.  But this this what is so wrong about our society – liberal ideology has so infected is that even something as common-place as a Church caring for orphans has become politicized, and the realm of lawsuits.  There is a sickness in liberalism – some sort of disease of the spirit which generates such mean spirited actions.  This should never have happened – in any decent society, it wouldn’t have happened.  A small victory for common sense – but common sense should not have had to take the field of battle; it should have been automatic that no sane person would ever dream of challenging the care of orphans.