Robert Romano describes a small victory for freedom, brought to you by the U.S. Supreme Court, which earlier this week overturned a Ninth Circuit Court ruling in Ysura v. Pocatello Education Association.
The Supremes affirmed an Idaho state law that prevents deductions from the paychecks of government employees from funding the political activities of labor unions. The teachers' union had argued (successfully in San Francisco but unsuccessfully in front of the Supremes) that the Idaho ban infringed on its First Amendment rights.
Apparently that was one bailout attempt too many. As Chief Justice John Roberts, writing the majority opinion, patiently explained to the lower-court judges and anyone else who was listening: “The First Amendment prohibits government from ‘abridging the freedom of speech’; it does not confer an affirmative right to use government payroll mechanisms for the purpose of obtaining funds for expression."
Friday, February 27, 2009
The WB network
Cheap gag in the post title, but I couldn't think of a better way to call attention to clever pieces on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher and Roland Burris.
What I read in February
(with thanks to PalmTree Pundit for the tracking idea)
A Coffin for Dimitrios, by Eric Ambler
The Forgotten Man, by Robert Crais
How to Castrate a Bull: Unexpected Lessons on Risk, Growth, and Success in Business,
by Dave Hitz
Sons of Texas, by Elmer Kelton
The Fathers, by Pope Benedict XVI
So far this year: 8 books
Previously in this series:
January
A Coffin for Dimitrios, by Eric Ambler
The Forgotten Man, by Robert Crais
How to Castrate a Bull: Unexpected Lessons on Risk, Growth, and Success in Business,
by Dave Hitz
Sons of Texas, by Elmer Kelton
The Fathers, by Pope Benedict XVI
So far this year: 8 books
Previously in this series:
January
Thursday, February 26, 2009
You mean I missed the bingo game?
I almost always miss the bingo game. And I don't even know who invented bingo (what was his name-o?).
Still, I like my own confusion better than the kind retailed by the New York Times, which is trying to figure out what to make of the new archbishop in town.
Still, I like my own confusion better than the kind retailed by the New York Times, which is trying to figure out what to make of the new archbishop in town.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Kreeft for Ash Wednesday
Peter Kreeft loves Socratic dialog forms, and has written whole books in question-and-answer format. So it's no surprise to find him using the same crutch in a thoughtful essay with a misleading title (The piece is called "How to Win the Culture War," but Kreeft doesn't care a whit about whether the culture war is won, because he's talking about spiritual combat, and looking to Mary and other saints as role models in the fight)
"Q: Is not God a lover rather than a warrior?
A: No, God is a lover who is a warrior. The question fails to understand what love is -- what the love that God is, is. Love is at war with hate, betrayal, selfishness, and all love's enemies. Love fights. Ask any parent. Yuppie-love, like puppy-love, may be merely "compassion" (the fashionable word today), but father-love and mother-love are war.
In fact, every page of the Bible bristles with spears, from Genesis 3 through Revelation 20. The road from Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained is soaked in blood. At the very center of the story is a cross, a symbol of conflict if there ever was one. The theme of spiritual warfare is never absent in scripture, and never absent in the life and writings of a single saint. But it is never present in the religious education of any of my 'Catholic' students at Boston College. Whenever I speak of it, they are stunned and silent, as if they have suddenly entered another world. They have. They have gone past the warm fuzzies, the fur coats of psychology-disguised-as-religion, into a world where they meet Christ the King, not Christ the Kitten."
Related and simpatico from Archbishop Timothy Dolan via The Anchoress:
“Maybe the greatest threat to the church is not heresy, not dissent, not secularism, not even moral relativism, but this sanitized, feel-good, boutique, therapeutic spirituality that makes no demands, calls for no sacrifice, asks for no conversion, entails no battle against sin, but only soothes and affirms.”
"Q: Is not God a lover rather than a warrior?
A: No, God is a lover who is a warrior. The question fails to understand what love is -- what the love that God is, is. Love is at war with hate, betrayal, selfishness, and all love's enemies. Love fights. Ask any parent. Yuppie-love, like puppy-love, may be merely "compassion" (the fashionable word today), but father-love and mother-love are war.
In fact, every page of the Bible bristles with spears, from Genesis 3 through Revelation 20. The road from Paradise Lost to Paradise Regained is soaked in blood. At the very center of the story is a cross, a symbol of conflict if there ever was one. The theme of spiritual warfare is never absent in scripture, and never absent in the life and writings of a single saint. But it is never present in the religious education of any of my 'Catholic' students at Boston College. Whenever I speak of it, they are stunned and silent, as if they have suddenly entered another world. They have. They have gone past the warm fuzzies, the fur coats of psychology-disguised-as-religion, into a world where they meet Christ the King, not Christ the Kitten."
Related and simpatico from Archbishop Timothy Dolan via The Anchoress:
“Maybe the greatest threat to the church is not heresy, not dissent, not secularism, not even moral relativism, but this sanitized, feel-good, boutique, therapeutic spirituality that makes no demands, calls for no sacrifice, asks for no conversion, entails no battle against sin, but only soothes and affirms.”
Mexico is more dangerous than Iraq
USA Today's web site misfiles this story under News > World > Troop Deaths in Iraq, but it's about the epidemic of drug violence in Mexico (about which Nice Deb has more).
Key points:
The death toll from drug-related violence in Mexico last year surpassed 6,000, more than double the previous year, raising questions about whether Calderon's government can prevail against a brutal and often better-armed enemy without additional help from the U.S. government.
"People are scared, and they have reason to be," says Michael Shifter, a Latin America specialist at Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank. "The economic crisis is just going to aggravate the situation. It's very hard to imagine how things will get better in the short term."
That's bad news in broad swaths of the USA, where Mexican drug gangs have extended their operations to at least 230 cities from Texas to Alaska, according to a recent Justice Department report.
Key points:
The death toll from drug-related violence in Mexico last year surpassed 6,000, more than double the previous year, raising questions about whether Calderon's government can prevail against a brutal and often better-armed enemy without additional help from the U.S. government.
"People are scared, and they have reason to be," says Michael Shifter, a Latin America specialist at Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank. "The economic crisis is just going to aggravate the situation. It's very hard to imagine how things will get better in the short term."
That's bad news in broad swaths of the USA, where Mexican drug gangs have extended their operations to at least 230 cities from Texas to Alaska, according to a recent Justice Department report.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
The principle of nonlocality?
It sounds extremely theoretical-- but fascinating, too. Even special relativity makes a cameo in this piece (hat tip to the Brothers Judd):
"But entanglement also appears to entail the deeply spooky and radically counterintuitive phenomenon called nonlocality—the possibility of physically affecting something without touching it or touching any series of entities reaching from here to there. Nonlocality implies that a fist in Des Moines can break a nose in Dallas without affecting any other physical thing (not a molecule of air, not an electron in a wire, not a twinkle of light) anywhere in the heartland.
The greatest worry about nonlocality, aside from its overwhelming intrinsic strangeness, has been that it intimates a profound threat to special relativity as we know it. In the past few years this old worry—finally allowed inside the house of serious thinking about physics—has become the centerpiece of debates that may finally dismantle, distort, reimagine, solidify or seed decay into the very foundations of physics."
"But entanglement also appears to entail the deeply spooky and radically counterintuitive phenomenon called nonlocality—the possibility of physically affecting something without touching it or touching any series of entities reaching from here to there. Nonlocality implies that a fist in Des Moines can break a nose in Dallas without affecting any other physical thing (not a molecule of air, not an electron in a wire, not a twinkle of light) anywhere in the heartland.
The greatest worry about nonlocality, aside from its overwhelming intrinsic strangeness, has been that it intimates a profound threat to special relativity as we know it. In the past few years this old worry—finally allowed inside the house of serious thinking about physics—has become the centerpiece of debates that may finally dismantle, distort, reimagine, solidify or seed decay into the very foundations of physics."
Monday, February 23, 2009
Argument without foundation
Thomas Peters shows how Doug Kmiec misreads a Vatican press release in the misguided hope that Pope Benedict was wrong to lend a strong dose of pastoral guidance to Nancy Pelosi the other day.
We already knew that moral accountability wasn't a strong suit for Professor Kmiec, but it's increasingly clear that he feels the strain of trying to find "Catholic cover" for abortion rights extremism, not least because there ain't no such animal.
We already knew that moral accountability wasn't a strong suit for Professor Kmiec, but it's increasingly clear that he feels the strain of trying to find "Catholic cover" for abortion rights extremism, not least because there ain't no such animal.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
My favorite gospel story
It's Mark 2:1-12, and as Monsignor Tim said today, "it puts a whole new slant on 'when your friends let you down.' "
Press Secretary flummoxed but alternatives exist
Press Secretary Gibbs tries to go after Mr. Rick "Chicago Tea Party" Santelli, but (as Karl Denninger explains in the clip below) fails to land even one punch. Net result: the mortgage bailout plan continues to look bad even to those of us who aren't in finance (in Larry Kudlow's summary, what the plan does is "subsidize bad behavior") . That kind of thing puts reservations about the tea party movement in perspective, doncha think?
Bring on the rabble-rousing economists!
Maybe somebody can talk Governor Schwarzenegger of California into having a chat with an expert like Thomas Sowell before he repeats the silly line about being happy to have other governors' share of the federal "stimulus" paackage. There is a case to be made that California, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and Florida bear a disproportionate share of responsibility for this mess, anyway-- and I say that as one who still loves California and has friends in three of those five states (they're not politicians).
Memo to the strangely jovial Gubernator: the reason some Republican governors say they might reject those funds is because they know it's not their money that the feds are doling out; it's ours.
Bring on the rabble-rousing economists!
Maybe somebody can talk Governor Schwarzenegger of California into having a chat with an expert like Thomas Sowell before he repeats the silly line about being happy to have other governors' share of the federal "stimulus" paackage. There is a case to be made that California, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, and Florida bear a disproportionate share of responsibility for this mess, anyway-- and I say that as one who still loves California and has friends in three of those five states (they're not politicians).
Memo to the strangely jovial Gubernator: the reason some Republican governors say they might reject those funds is because they know it's not their money that the feds are doling out; it's ours.
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Father Damien gets a promotion
The AP plays it straight in this story about Fr. Damien of Molokai (and Belgium), which is good. Obliquely related: the movie "The Third Miracle," also good.
Near the old border
Sergeant Zaragosa rode back to the waiting lieutenant and studiously avoided saluting him. They had ridden together since dawn, and such a gesture seemed superfluous to Zaragosa. He knew it did not seem so to the lieutenant, who frowned over the blatant omisison.
Zaragosa said, "There is no one, sir."
Rodriguez had the blue eyes which marked his descent from a long line of pure Spanish forebears careful in their marital alliances. The lieutenant half closed those blue eyes and growled, "You took so much time that he could have escaped the cabin and gone two miles before you entered the door. A stiffer backbone would do you credit, Sergeant."
Zaragosa felt heat rise into his face, but he was careful not to respond in kind. He suspected the lieutenant was trying to bait him into a moment of foolishness and provoke a pretext for punishment. "The home does not appear to have had a visitor for weeks, perhaps months, sir."
Rodriguez spat, then glared at the cabin. "He has to be somewhere. My informant said Lucero had returned to gather the cattle his family left behind in its flight, and to drive them back to Louisiana."
"The Luceros were poor people," the sergeant said, "like most here. If they owned a dozen cattle I would be much surprised."
"What is important is that he has returned to this district. He has placed himself where I could reach him if I were not saddled with mestizo incompetents and cowards, scum from the jails of Mexico."
"These men have obeyed your every command, as have I."
"With inefficiency and insolence." Rodriguez frowned. "Sometimes, sergeant, I wonder about your loyalty."
Zaragosa stiffened. "I am a soldier, sir. My service proves my loyalty."
"You talk of loyalty, but sometimes I see your eyes saying something else. You should be most cautious not to arouse your superiors to doubt. We are all here to serve Mother Spain."
"My only mission in life, sir."
Zaragosa had never seen Spain, nor, of course, had Rodriguez.
-- from Sons of Texas, by Elmer Kelton
Zaragosa said, "There is no one, sir."
Rodriguez had the blue eyes which marked his descent from a long line of pure Spanish forebears careful in their marital alliances. The lieutenant half closed those blue eyes and growled, "You took so much time that he could have escaped the cabin and gone two miles before you entered the door. A stiffer backbone would do you credit, Sergeant."
Zaragosa felt heat rise into his face, but he was careful not to respond in kind. He suspected the lieutenant was trying to bait him into a moment of foolishness and provoke a pretext for punishment. "The home does not appear to have had a visitor for weeks, perhaps months, sir."
Rodriguez spat, then glared at the cabin. "He has to be somewhere. My informant said Lucero had returned to gather the cattle his family left behind in its flight, and to drive them back to Louisiana."
"The Luceros were poor people," the sergeant said, "like most here. If they owned a dozen cattle I would be much surprised."
"What is important is that he has returned to this district. He has placed himself where I could reach him if I were not saddled with mestizo incompetents and cowards, scum from the jails of Mexico."
"These men have obeyed your every command, as have I."
"With inefficiency and insolence." Rodriguez frowned. "Sometimes, sergeant, I wonder about your loyalty."
Zaragosa stiffened. "I am a soldier, sir. My service proves my loyalty."
"You talk of loyalty, but sometimes I see your eyes saying something else. You should be most cautious not to arouse your superiors to doubt. We are all here to serve Mother Spain."
"My only mission in life, sir."
Zaragosa had never seen Spain, nor, of course, had Rodriguez.
-- from Sons of Texas, by Elmer Kelton
Banana Republic
Not the store. The country.
Related news all over, but this example will do, and Ace has at least two more.
Related news all over, but this example will do, and Ace has at least two more.
They don't like mommies?
I wish Candace Parker well and think her critics should find something else to do with their time.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Spiritual direction
Amy Welborn begins to pick up the pieces of her radically-changed life in the wake of her husband's death.
Watchful eyes behind the coffee and the mustard
The coffee is roasted and distributed by monks. The mustard is made and sold by nuns. But the watchful eyes on the political scene belong to Elizabeth Scalia and a motley crew of bloggers.
Methinks most of them -- most of us -- approve of the idea of a Chicago Tea Party.
Methinks most of them -- most of us -- approve of the idea of a Chicago Tea Party.
A conscious non sequiter?
Saw this in the Washington Post, which likely means that a reporter and several editors either missed the non sequiter completely or blessed its subversive potential:
SEOUL, South Korea -- Hillary Rodham Clinton has a new campaign and message: The United States wants to listen.
To that end, on her first overseas trip as secretary of state, Clinton is talking a lot.
SEOUL, South Korea -- Hillary Rodham Clinton has a new campaign and message: The United States wants to listen.
To that end, on her first overseas trip as secretary of state, Clinton is talking a lot.
Weasel wording watch
This may have to be a recurring post, a "lite" version of the comprehensive tally of political misdeeds that friend Laer at Cheat-Seeking Missiles already maintains so well, except I'm thinking of something with a panoramic lens rather than a zoom lens (metaphorically speaking) .
Entry number one comes from Instapundit, although it's not original to him (he got it from Greg Mankiw).
Entry number one comes from Instapundit, although it's not original to him (he got it from Greg Mankiw).
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Take a letter, Maria
George Wiegel on the "Come to Jesus" meeting that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had with Pope Benedict:
"Though it is apparent that Pelosi is “deeply confused about what her church teaches on the morality of abortion,” Weigel continues, she “has now been informed, and by a world-class intellectual who happens to be the universal pastor of the Catholic Church, that she is, in fact, confused, and that both her spiritual life and her public service are in jeopardy because of that.”
As the Anchoress notes, "it is telling that Pelosi [in her own folowup press release as linked above] did not even acknowledge the pope’s remarks on the sanctity of life -- it suggests that his words hit their mark, and that the loving wound of instruction is too tender for her to touch. The things that singe our consciences are the things we try to dance around, or ignore outright."
Damian Thompson is more succinct: "This is what Popes are for, and what this Pope is particularly good at. The recovery has begun."
Mary Jo Anderson offers informative context for the contretemps.
"Though it is apparent that Pelosi is “deeply confused about what her church teaches on the morality of abortion,” Weigel continues, she “has now been informed, and by a world-class intellectual who happens to be the universal pastor of the Catholic Church, that she is, in fact, confused, and that both her spiritual life and her public service are in jeopardy because of that.”
As the Anchoress notes, "it is telling that Pelosi [in her own folowup press release as linked above] did not even acknowledge the pope’s remarks on the sanctity of life -- it suggests that his words hit their mark, and that the loving wound of instruction is too tender for her to touch. The things that singe our consciences are the things we try to dance around, or ignore outright."
Damian Thompson is more succinct: "This is what Popes are for, and what this Pope is particularly good at. The recovery has begun."
Mary Jo Anderson offers informative context for the contretemps.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Zmirak on the Legionaries
John Zmirak writes as a Catholic for other Catholics, and by taking a hard look at scandal involving the religious order known as the Legionaries of Christ, he's consciously limiting his audience even further.
What keeps his current ("Blood from a Stone") essay from being just a workmanlike example of "inside baseball" -- what elevates the piece into must-read territory for anyone, Catholic or not, who has pondered the mystery of how God writes straight with crooked lines -- is a constellation of virtues independent of the humor with which (in his other job) he explains how to choose a good college:
1. Zmirak writes honestly and well.
2. Knowing the gravity of what he had to work with, he did the rest of us the favor of describing the big picture even though it made for a longer essay.
3. Although the piece is topical and timely, it is also infused with a sense of history that many other pundits never even think to incorporate into their writing.
What keeps his current ("Blood from a Stone") essay from being just a workmanlike example of "inside baseball" -- what elevates the piece into must-read territory for anyone, Catholic or not, who has pondered the mystery of how God writes straight with crooked lines -- is a constellation of virtues independent of the humor with which (in his other job) he explains how to choose a good college:
1. Zmirak writes honestly and well.
2. Knowing the gravity of what he had to work with, he did the rest of us the favor of describing the big picture even though it made for a longer essay.
3. Although the piece is topical and timely, it is also infused with a sense of history that many other pundits never even think to incorporate into their writing.
Quirky but nicely done
"Special Thanks to Spot," by Jonathan Black
"What The Caine Mutiny Can Teach Us About Global Warming Scientists," by Frank J. Tipler
"Rush to Wait," by Thomas Sowell
"Why We Don't Celebrate Historians' Day," by Ann Coulter
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Courting disaster in Denver
I bear no ill will toward the American Heart Association or the good work that it does, but I got an emailed press release from them on Sunday that redlined the tachometer on my BS meter. The heading on the release was "Stimulus Package Re-Energizes Fight Against Heart Disease and Stroke." Its first sentence was "Today we witnessed a historic victory for the health of Americans when Congress approved the economic recovery bill that inclues a number of provisions to help reduce heart disease and stroke."
Nothing in the Congressional Record is going to make anyone exercise, eat right, or get regular checkups, but there you go. Somebody at the AHA believes in federal pixie dust. Heart Association CEO Nancy Brown put her name to a press release that I would have been ashamed to sign.
Me, I'm with the Anchoress on the misbegotten "stimulus" bill signed into law today in the Mile High City.
Nothing in the Congressional Record is going to make anyone exercise, eat right, or get regular checkups, but there you go. Somebody at the AHA believes in federal pixie dust. Heart Association CEO Nancy Brown put her name to a press release that I would have been ashamed to sign.
Me, I'm with the Anchoress on the misbegotten "stimulus" bill signed into law today in the Mile High City.
On names and naming in Exodus
Mark Shea writes a nice column on the Second Commandment and the Book of Exodus (go read the whole thing):
Exodus pauses to tell us the names of the two earliest pro-life heroines in history, Shiphrah and Puah, who saved Moses from the clutches of the population planners of the First Cairo Conference. It tells us how Moses got his name (a pun on the phrase "to draw out," owing to his being drawn out of the Nile, which also prophesies his role in drawing Israel out of Egypt). It even disses the most powerful man on the planet by steadfastly refusing to ever name the villain of the piece by anything other than "Pharaoh."
But the most important name we are given comes in Exodus 3: the Divine Name. When the Voice speaks from the Burning Bush and Moses rather reluctantly answers, a perfectly Jewish conversation full of wordplay, bargaining, and dickering takes place. What is striking about it all is how Moses manages to combine reverence and awe in the Divine Presence with a certain sort of audacity in daring to try to negotiate and not merely cringe before the Power that created him.
Exodus pauses to tell us the names of the two earliest pro-life heroines in history, Shiphrah and Puah, who saved Moses from the clutches of the population planners of the First Cairo Conference. It tells us how Moses got his name (a pun on the phrase "to draw out," owing to his being drawn out of the Nile, which also prophesies his role in drawing Israel out of Egypt). It even disses the most powerful man on the planet by steadfastly refusing to ever name the villain of the piece by anything other than "Pharaoh."
But the most important name we are given comes in Exodus 3: the Divine Name. When the Voice speaks from the Burning Bush and Moses rather reluctantly answers, a perfectly Jewish conversation full of wordplay, bargaining, and dickering takes place. What is striking about it all is how Moses manages to combine reverence and awe in the Divine Presence with a certain sort of audacity in daring to try to negotiate and not merely cringe before the Power that created him.
Our peripatetic president
I'm obviously not privvy to the flight logs for Air Force One or Marine One, but unless my memory of recent news is faulty, President Obama has traveled to Williamsburg, Chicago, Camp David, Springfield, Elkhart, and Peoria. Trips to Denver and Ottawa are either in progress or upcoming.
None of those cities is in Kentucky, where many people are still recovering from the ravages of an ice storm that left thousands without power for weeks.
"Permanent campaign?"
"Style over substance?"
"Showmanship rather than sunlight?"
Methinks Byron York (and others) have a point.
None of those cities is in Kentucky, where many people are still recovering from the ravages of an ice storm that left thousands without power for weeks.
"Permanent campaign?"
"Style over substance?"
"Showmanship rather than sunlight?"
Methinks Byron York (and others) have a point.
Monday, February 16, 2009
And did I mention baptism as a kind of branding?
The Anchoress is unruffled by the news that Nancy Pelosi will be in a delegation meeting Pope Benedict, and her calm is contagious.
On the importance of branding
I mentioned earlier this weekend that Lincoln and Washington both get a bad rap that neither deserves -- Washington because he is unjustly given a back seat to Lincoln in some presidential rankings, and Lincoln because he is either idolized or villified by people who twist his life and thinking to fit their own agendas.
Art at New Wineskins touches on the idea that agendas affect our reading of history. If you have a few minutes, go read his characteristically thoughtful post about the "genericizing" of formerly specific holidays like the one we observe in the United States today.
Art at New Wineskins touches on the idea that agendas affect our reading of history. If you have a few minutes, go read his characteristically thoughtful post about the "genericizing" of formerly specific holidays like the one we observe in the United States today.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Smelly even from Scotland
Gerald Warner minces no words on the "stimulus" package that President Obama insists will do some good:
Barack Obama's "stimulus" plan will be long remembered as the occasion when political euphemism triggered economic disaster.
There is no terminology available to express adequately the appalling irresponsibility of this naked political banditry. To have squandered a fraction of the near-$1 trillion cost of Obama's pork barrel in days of prosperity would have been more than reprehensible; to do so at a time of financial crisis is unforgivable.
I hope we can fix the economic mess we're in with a firm recourse to old-fashioned concepts like thrift and limited government (Warner went after Republicans in the linked column, as well, and he was right to do so). If we salvage our economic ship, it will be in spite of the federal "stimulus," not because of it.
Barack Obama's "stimulus" plan will be long remembered as the occasion when political euphemism triggered economic disaster.
There is no terminology available to express adequately the appalling irresponsibility of this naked political banditry. To have squandered a fraction of the near-$1 trillion cost of Obama's pork barrel in days of prosperity would have been more than reprehensible; to do so at a time of financial crisis is unforgivable.
I hope we can fix the economic mess we're in with a firm recourse to old-fashioned concepts like thrift and limited government (Warner went after Republicans in the linked column, as well, and he was right to do so). If we salvage our economic ship, it will be in spite of the federal "stimulus," not because of it.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Lawrence Henry crosses over
Mr. Henry was a thoughtful writer and a "stable mate" of sorts in the little fraternity of regular contributors to American Spectator. May he rest in peace, cradled in the arms of God.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Weighing the surveyor and the rail splitter
It's time for that annual parlor game known as "rate our greatest presidents," which gets a little extra oomph this year because a perennial contender for the "greatest" title has been consciously mimicked by the current occupant of the White House, who went so far as to use a bible associated with the sixteenth president to take his own oath of office less than a month ago.
I am not one of those people who thinks Abraham Lincoln was our greatest president. That accolade belongs for all time to George Washington, and I have said so before. What's interesting is how many people think the martyr in the stove pipe hat set a bad example.
As the comments following this review of H.W. Crocker's Poltically Incorrect History of the Civil War illustrate, anyone with Confederate sympathies still stirs controversy, as does Lincoln himself. Tony Horwitz wrote a wonderful book about that -- Confederates in the Attic -- not long ago.
Lew Rockwell and Tom Dilorenzo are among the writers who frequently assert that Lincoln's "federal power grab" changed our country irrevocably for the worse.
The problem with that view is that it romanticizes the virtues of weak government while downplaying the challenges that Lincoln tried manfully to meet.
I've met Harry Crocker, and read three of his books, although not this latest. Everything the man writes is worth reading.
From what I remember, Crocker is sympathetic to Lincoln's opponents but not beholden to them. To his credit, he does not seem to share the visceral contempt for Lincoln that more doctrinaire libertarians cling to as though it were a merit badge that absolves them of the errors to which people at think tanks like the Claremont Institute still fall prey.
What pundits who concentrate their rhetorical fire on Abe seem to forget is that Lincoln was not the first political thinker of his kind or even the most influential. Alexander Hamilton pushed for a strong central government long before Lincoln was elected president. Andrew Jackson was not shy about using the bully pulpit of the presidency, either, and his conduct vexed more than a few "states' rights" people in, for example, South Carolina.
To put the issue another way, Thomas Jefferson's small-r republican views were not as popular as some of his latter-day champions might prefer. With that in mind and luminaries like Hamilton and Jackson in play, it's just not fair to think of mammoth government as one of Lincoln's legacies (his suspension of habeas corpus was a bad thing, but also rationalized specifically as a wartime measure).
Around here, Lincoln takes a back seat to Washington (and perhaps also John Adams) in any accounting of executive greatness because Washington and Adams set more useful precedents. But people who complain that Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was little more than propaganda aimed at states not then under Union control forget that many slaves did indeed look up to our sixteenth president as "Father Abraham," and not without reason.
Many people who frown on Lincoln for his comparatively backward racial views forget that a similar conflict of ideas later played out within the black community itself, where W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, and Booker T. Washington staked out markedly different positions on questions of race, rights, and assimilation. Moreover, Lincoln, in spite of subverting the principle of subsidiarity, managed to get some big things right, not least among them the conviction that the erstwhile Confederacy should be treated with dignity after losing the war.
I know the states' rights and economics arguments that public schools are loathe to explore in any great detail when causes of the war are discussed. But I also know that what Lincoln envisioned as a "war to preserve the Union" was sparked in part by chattel slavery, and not surprisingly morphed over time into a "war for freedom" of the kind that even honorable Southerners like Robert E. Lee could hardly take exception to.
In asking to be left alone and rising to the defense of homes they thought of as bounded by state lines rather than national borders, Confederate thinkers looked back to the oratory of the Revolutionary War for inspiration.
Lincoln, knowing that the first generation of American patriots had punted on the question of slavery, consciously trumped the Southern argument from the Founding Fathers by reaching even further back into first principles (cf. the Gettysburg Address). Freedom was important to both sides in the War Between the States, but Southerners were thinking in terms of "freedom from," while Lincoln -- aided by immigration and industrialization-- almost single-handedly got the North to think in terms of "freedom to."
When comparing Lincoln to Washington, I remember one thing: Washington had everything to lose, and Lincoln had nothing to lose. Each rose to the occasion to the best of his ability, but only the lesser of the two still excites calumny from his ideological opponents.
I am not one of those people who thinks Abraham Lincoln was our greatest president. That accolade belongs for all time to George Washington, and I have said so before. What's interesting is how many people think the martyr in the stove pipe hat set a bad example.
As the comments following this review of H.W. Crocker's Poltically Incorrect History of the Civil War illustrate, anyone with Confederate sympathies still stirs controversy, as does Lincoln himself. Tony Horwitz wrote a wonderful book about that -- Confederates in the Attic -- not long ago.
Lew Rockwell and Tom Dilorenzo are among the writers who frequently assert that Lincoln's "federal power grab" changed our country irrevocably for the worse.
The problem with that view is that it romanticizes the virtues of weak government while downplaying the challenges that Lincoln tried manfully to meet.
I've met Harry Crocker, and read three of his books, although not this latest. Everything the man writes is worth reading.
From what I remember, Crocker is sympathetic to Lincoln's opponents but not beholden to them. To his credit, he does not seem to share the visceral contempt for Lincoln that more doctrinaire libertarians cling to as though it were a merit badge that absolves them of the errors to which people at think tanks like the Claremont Institute still fall prey.
What pundits who concentrate their rhetorical fire on Abe seem to forget is that Lincoln was not the first political thinker of his kind or even the most influential. Alexander Hamilton pushed for a strong central government long before Lincoln was elected president. Andrew Jackson was not shy about using the bully pulpit of the presidency, either, and his conduct vexed more than a few "states' rights" people in, for example, South Carolina.
To put the issue another way, Thomas Jefferson's small-r republican views were not as popular as some of his latter-day champions might prefer. With that in mind and luminaries like Hamilton and Jackson in play, it's just not fair to think of mammoth government as one of Lincoln's legacies (his suspension of habeas corpus was a bad thing, but also rationalized specifically as a wartime measure).
Around here, Lincoln takes a back seat to Washington (and perhaps also John Adams) in any accounting of executive greatness because Washington and Adams set more useful precedents. But people who complain that Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was little more than propaganda aimed at states not then under Union control forget that many slaves did indeed look up to our sixteenth president as "Father Abraham," and not without reason.
Many people who frown on Lincoln for his comparatively backward racial views forget that a similar conflict of ideas later played out within the black community itself, where W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, and Booker T. Washington staked out markedly different positions on questions of race, rights, and assimilation. Moreover, Lincoln, in spite of subverting the principle of subsidiarity, managed to get some big things right, not least among them the conviction that the erstwhile Confederacy should be treated with dignity after losing the war.
I know the states' rights and economics arguments that public schools are loathe to explore in any great detail when causes of the war are discussed. But I also know that what Lincoln envisioned as a "war to preserve the Union" was sparked in part by chattel slavery, and not surprisingly morphed over time into a "war for freedom" of the kind that even honorable Southerners like Robert E. Lee could hardly take exception to.
In asking to be left alone and rising to the defense of homes they thought of as bounded by state lines rather than national borders, Confederate thinkers looked back to the oratory of the Revolutionary War for inspiration.
Lincoln, knowing that the first generation of American patriots had punted on the question of slavery, consciously trumped the Southern argument from the Founding Fathers by reaching even further back into first principles (cf. the Gettysburg Address). Freedom was important to both sides in the War Between the States, but Southerners were thinking in terms of "freedom from," while Lincoln -- aided by immigration and industrialization-- almost single-handedly got the North to think in terms of "freedom to."
When comparing Lincoln to Washington, I remember one thing: Washington had everything to lose, and Lincoln had nothing to lose. Each rose to the occasion to the best of his ability, but only the lesser of the two still excites calumny from his ideological opponents.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Brave enough to work for a Russian newspaper
Kyle-Anne Shiver writes about President Obama and the lessons of his unfortunate upbringing.
Her view is more pessimistic than my own, but her argumentation is solid, and we only part company because I think President Obama might grow into the office he now holds, whereas Shiver seems to have no such hope.
Her view is more pessimistic than my own, but her argumentation is solid, and we only part company because I think President Obama might grow into the office he now holds, whereas Shiver seems to have no such hope.
I see the hand of Dick Cheney in this
They say the wrecked Russian satellite was "out of control" and "believed to be nonfunctioning," but they said the same thing about Joe Pesci's character in Goodfellas.
More hazardous than skydiving
"Some 16 journalists have died in contract-style slayings or under suspicious circumstances in Russia since 2000. Many more have been assaulted or threatened.
Under Vladimir Putin, who became president in 2000 and now is prime minister, the TV networks watched by most Russians were taken over by the state, their news operations highly sanitized. Big-selling newspapers are either sympathetic to the Kremlin or owned by Kremlin-allied business groups."
Under Vladimir Putin, who became president in 2000 and now is prime minister, the TV networks watched by most Russians were taken over by the state, their news operations highly sanitized. Big-selling newspapers are either sympathetic to the Kremlin or owned by Kremlin-allied business groups."
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
The journey of Anne Rice
Patricia Snow has a long, thoughtful post up at the First Things blog that looks again at the curious path traveled by the novelist whose early career was marked by fictional vampires and whose later career has emphasized Christ.
"Twenty-five years and twenty-one books after the death of her daughter, Rice entrusts both herself and the people she loves to God," Snow writes. "Freed from a lonely circle of hell, she comes back to the Church. Four years later, she confirms the choice she has made: Leaving Lestat behind, she consecrates her writing to Christ."
"Twenty-five years and twenty-one books after the death of her daughter, Rice entrusts both herself and the people she loves to God," Snow writes. "Freed from a lonely circle of hell, she comes back to the Church. Four years later, she confirms the choice she has made: Leaving Lestat behind, she consecrates her writing to Christ."
Palpable enthusiasm
Fr. Dwight Longenecker on why he loves the church:
"Yes, its a messy jumble of human frailty, liturgical abuses, glorious strengths and embarrassing weaknesses, but it is just as full of blood and guts and glory and shame as the Old Testament. All of human life is there, not only from the last two thousand years, but also stretching back to the history of God's people the Jews. Furthermore, all of this shame and glory and sin and forgiveness and humanity and divinity is all bundled up and made particular as I enter the confessional and step up to the altar at Mass.
All of it is there, from the martyrs who faced the wild beasts to the priests who said Mass over a scrap of dry bread and a thimbleful of wine huddled in a corner at Auschwitz. It is all there from the greatest baroque churches and the saints of the counter Reformation to the old Italian lady with no teeth who clutches her rosary beads in prayer. It is at once universal and ancient and everywhere and yet here and now and everywhere present."
"Yes, its a messy jumble of human frailty, liturgical abuses, glorious strengths and embarrassing weaknesses, but it is just as full of blood and guts and glory and shame as the Old Testament. All of human life is there, not only from the last two thousand years, but also stretching back to the history of God's people the Jews. Furthermore, all of this shame and glory and sin and forgiveness and humanity and divinity is all bundled up and made particular as I enter the confessional and step up to the altar at Mass.
All of it is there, from the martyrs who faced the wild beasts to the priests who said Mass over a scrap of dry bread and a thimbleful of wine huddled in a corner at Auschwitz. It is all there from the greatest baroque churches and the saints of the counter Reformation to the old Italian lady with no teeth who clutches her rosary beads in prayer. It is at once universal and ancient and everywhere and yet here and now and everywhere present."
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Three cheers for the Czechs
Peter Hitchens writes from Prague about how the Czechs, led by president Vaclav Klaus, are fighting the "marshmallow tyranny" of the European Union.
UPDATE, February 11: The Germans might be rethinking the EU, too.
UPDATE, February 11: The Germans might be rethinking the EU, too.
Saturday, February 07, 2009
My son, the script doctor
"Hey dad, you know how in the third Star Wars movie, it starts with the Battle of Croissant?"
(I'm thinking it was maybe drones versus doughboys)
(I'm thinking it was maybe drones versus doughboys)
Three cheers for the Italians
Anthony Sacramone -- trying to be more like Dave Ramsey than like Suze Orman -- is also proud of his ethnic heritage.
What I want to know is why his 17-item list doesn't include the composer Gioacchino Rossini or the writer Dante Alighieri. In all fairness, however, Sacramone does say that Italy has bestowed 7,400 gifts on the world, so that list -- if it actually exists -- might include those two worhies, not to mention actress Monica Bellucci, film director Sergio Leone, and writers like Orianna Fallaci and Giovanni Guareschi.
What I want to know is why his 17-item list doesn't include the composer Gioacchino Rossini or the writer Dante Alighieri. In all fairness, however, Sacramone does say that Italy has bestowed 7,400 gifts on the world, so that list -- if it actually exists -- might include those two worhies, not to mention actress Monica Bellucci, film director Sergio Leone, and writers like Orianna Fallaci and Giovanni Guareschi.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Why let facts get in the way?
Krauthammer on the "stimulus" package:
"It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It's not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.
It's the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus -- and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress's own budget office says won't be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish."
Or as Ace "moron blogger" Slublog puts it, with trademark pith:
"So let's see if I've got this right. The GOP left Obama with a doubled national debt (wrapped in a big bow, even), and the best way to "change" the country's direction is to triple or quadruple that debt by spending money on the NEA, child-care and 'neighborhood stabilization activities?' "
"It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It's not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.
It's the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus -- and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress's own budget office says won't be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish."
Or as Ace "moron blogger" Slublog puts it, with trademark pith:
"So let's see if I've got this right. The GOP left Obama with a doubled national debt (wrapped in a big bow, even), and the best way to "change" the country's direction is to triple or quadruple that debt by spending money on the NEA, child-care and 'neighborhood stabilization activities?' "
Spectator sports for people who love words
It's fun to read the letters section of Episcopal Life Online if Christopher Johnson is there to provide color commentary whenever some hapless correspondent goes off the deep end.
"Shoguns of Tokugawa," he says. Priceless!
"Shoguns of Tokugawa," he says. Priceless!
The problem with yielding on principle
Frankie Porretto, "curmudgeon emeritus," explains:
"Gun enthusiasts are constantly being challenged with logically absurd rhetorical thrusts such as "Why would you need an [insert targeted weapon, ammunition, or accessory here] for hunting?" To respond to such an insincere query concedes that the Second Amendment is about hunting, when in fact it's about preserving the ability to overthrow the government at need. That's what you get from a compromise on principle.
Americans have failed to defeat statist initiatives, including many that are expressly forbidden by the plain words of the Constitution, in a permanent way, when it appeared that they could more cheaply and easily protect some narrow personal or provincial interest by yielding on principle. Thus, they win a temporary local victory, leaving the high legal ground in the adversary's hands and a more desperate battle to be fought by their descendants.
We face another such possibility from the Democrats' drive to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine."
Think of it this way (per Patrick, notFrankie Dr. Poretto): Woudn't it be odd if Catholic radio broadcasters and conservatives like Laura Ingraham didn't have the same rights as giant inflatable rats in New Jersey?
Let's hope this issue is on the radar for new RNC chairman Michael Steele, by all accounts one of the few "good guys" in varsity-level politics.
"Gun enthusiasts are constantly being challenged with logically absurd rhetorical thrusts such as "Why would you need an [insert targeted weapon, ammunition, or accessory here] for hunting?" To respond to such an insincere query concedes that the Second Amendment is about hunting, when in fact it's about preserving the ability to overthrow the government at need. That's what you get from a compromise on principle.
Americans have failed to defeat statist initiatives, including many that are expressly forbidden by the plain words of the Constitution, in a permanent way, when it appeared that they could more cheaply and easily protect some narrow personal or provincial interest by yielding on principle. Thus, they win a temporary local victory, leaving the high legal ground in the adversary's hands and a more desperate battle to be fought by their descendants.
We face another such possibility from the Democrats' drive to reimpose the Fairness Doctrine."
Think of it this way (per Patrick, not
Let's hope this issue is on the radar for new RNC chairman Michael Steele, by all accounts one of the few "good guys" in varsity-level politics.
Proud winner of a Premio Dardo award
Well, that oughtta spruce up the old Paragraph Farm a little bit. I've won a "Premio Dardo" award, thanks to the generousity of Lars Walker ("literate Lutheran Viking" isn't my tag for him, but boy does it ever fit) at Brandywine Books.
I'm told the Premio Dardo is a recognition reserved for literary blogs (yay!), and it means "First Arrow" in Italian.
Sally Thomas at Fine Old Family, herself a deserving winner of this fabulous bauble, explains that award creator Pentimento (mom, Catholic revert, doctor of music -- what's not to love?) dreamt up the award as a way of showcasing "the effort of a particular blogger to transmit cultural, ethical, literary and personal values in his or her writing."
My hat's off to Pentimento. Those are wonderful criteria. I'll have to think about who else should get a Premio Dardo and update this post accordingly.
I'm told the Premio Dardo is a recognition reserved for literary blogs (yay!), and it means "First Arrow" in Italian.
Sally Thomas at Fine Old Family, herself a deserving winner of this fabulous bauble, explains that award creator Pentimento (mom, Catholic revert, doctor of music -- what's not to love?) dreamt up the award as a way of showcasing "the effort of a particular blogger to transmit cultural, ethical, literary and personal values in his or her writing."
My hat's off to Pentimento. Those are wonderful criteria. I'll have to think about who else should get a Premio Dardo and update this post accordingly.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
President Obama as a writer and speaker
It's hard to be objective about a judgment of writing and speaking competence, but Orrin Judd and Ed Morrissey make a good case that our president is overrated in both cases.
Judd: "This notion that he communicates brilliantly is a function of the emotional connection of his fans to his persona, not of his words. So there's precious little chance that he can change anyone's mind about major questions of the day by giving speeches."
Morrissey: "In reading Obama’s column in today’s Washington Post, all I see is empty sloganeering and cheap fear-mongering instead of substantive cases for the myriad of spending projects in his stimulus bill."
Governor Palin, on the other hand, continues to be underrated by almost everybody (with the notable exception of Camille Paglia). I love this from Palin especially:
"A courageous person is anyone who loses a child and can still get out of bed in the morning."
Judd: "This notion that he communicates brilliantly is a function of the emotional connection of his fans to his persona, not of his words. So there's precious little chance that he can change anyone's mind about major questions of the day by giving speeches."
Morrissey: "In reading Obama’s column in today’s Washington Post, all I see is empty sloganeering and cheap fear-mongering instead of substantive cases for the myriad of spending projects in his stimulus bill."
Governor Palin, on the other hand, continues to be underrated by almost everybody (with the notable exception of Camille Paglia). I love this from Palin especially:
"A courageous person is anyone who loses a child and can still get out of bed in the morning."
It landed foul on the grass
Do you recall what was revealed the day the music died?
Cheerleading from Newsweek notwithstanding, not everyone thinks that forced redistribution of wealth paves the road to prosperity. Naturally, our president "rejects those theories."
Cheerleading from Newsweek notwithstanding, not everyone thinks that forced redistribution of wealth paves the road to prosperity. Naturally, our president "rejects those theories."
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
My libertarian-style angst
Re conversion from analog to digital TV:
Since when is it the federal government's job to alleviate "confusion" in the marketplace, ensure uninterrupted access to TV, subsidize the cost of entertainment technology, smooth the path for people whose work products turn our minds into tapioca pudding, or treat American citizens like doofuses?
Show me a Congresscritter or an Obama flunkie who can answer even one of those five questions satisfactorily.
Joel Johnson tries to make a similar point here, but doesn't go far enough. He is indifferent to the plight of the rabbit-eared holdouts on quality grounds ("For every person that’s watching the news, 20 are watching American Idol.")
The problem with his argument is that you don't get any genius points for watching TV news, either. Stack a newcast against Amerian Idol and you have only a difference in degree, not a difference in kind. Sure, there are some very pretty people sitting behind news desks, and it's sometimes fun to watch meteorologists hedge their bets even with thousands of dollars of Doppler radar imagery at their disposal, but the last time I learned anything truly useful from a newscast might have been 9-11-01.
Since when is it the federal government's job to alleviate "confusion" in the marketplace, ensure uninterrupted access to TV, subsidize the cost of entertainment technology, smooth the path for people whose work products turn our minds into tapioca pudding, or treat American citizens like doofuses?
Show me a Congresscritter or an Obama flunkie who can answer even one of those five questions satisfactorily.
Joel Johnson tries to make a similar point here, but doesn't go far enough. He is indifferent to the plight of the rabbit-eared holdouts on quality grounds ("For every person that’s watching the news, 20 are watching American Idol.")
The problem with his argument is that you don't get any genius points for watching TV news, either. Stack a newcast against Amerian Idol and you have only a difference in degree, not a difference in kind. Sure, there are some very pretty people sitting behind news desks, and it's sometimes fun to watch meteorologists hedge their bets even with thousands of dollars of Doppler radar imagery at their disposal, but the last time I learned anything truly useful from a newscast might have been 9-11-01.
Lessons from the Daschle Debacle
Why does it take a San Francisco newspaper to clue the president in to the fact that Chicago politics won't play in D.C. (and shouldn't, as even the New York Times said yesterday)?
Victor Davis Hanson has more (he's downbeat), as does Andrew Malcolm (he's neutral but exasperated). And let's not forget James Taranto, who was on a roll yesterday, and has continued that today.
Victor Davis Hanson has more (he's downbeat), as does Andrew Malcolm (he's neutral but exasperated). And let's not forget James Taranto, who was on a roll yesterday, and has continued that today.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Pray for Amy Welborn
The widely-respected author, speaker, and mainstay of the Catholic blogosphere just lost her husband, Michael Dubruiel. May he rest in peace.
Fr. Solanus Casey, whom Michael considered a friend, is doubtless praying for his soul, and his earthly family, now.
Fr. Solanus Casey, whom Michael considered a friend, is doubtless praying for his soul, and his earthly family, now.
Speaking of positive influences
I like this list from the Brothers Judd of the most influential cultural figures of the 20th century. It seemed to fit with the '57 Chevy (another positive influence) on my favorite tee shirt.
Good advice for and defense of Pope Benedict
Much of the world remains mission territory, and when even the chancellor of Germany intrudes on religious matters to ask for "clarification" from Pope Benedict, it's clear that the unrelenting stupidity of one SSPX bishop's revisionist and minimizing take on the Shoah has become a public relations problem (notwithstanding that bishop's apology to the pope and the way his own superiors promptly told him to shut up about political and historical questions beyond his expertise).
You thought excommunication was controversial? Look what happens when excommunication as applied to an unsympathetic person is lifted!
I wasn't going to blog on this. Per what I told friend Laer, I'm not a church politics kind of guy; I'm more of a Nicene Creed-and-sacraments kind of guy. My peeps over at "Whispers in the Loggia" and "American Papist" do a fine job of filling in blanks that often I don't even see. Moreover, B16 -- our "German Shepherd"-- can take care of himself in any intellectual cage match against all comers.
But when a prominent politician with a little more candlepower than the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden goes after the pope, then it's time to read up on why. Standing around with Miracle Max to say "have fun storming the castle" is not an option for some of us.
Here's the thing: It's a safe bet that most of the people now chastising the pope for lifting (remitting) the excommunication on a group saddled with leadership that includes a loudmouth prelate have never even heard of the Society of Saint Pius X or its argument with the rest of the Catholic church. Neither can they be expected to know that lifting an excommunication (what the pope did) is just the first step to reunification with the wider church, not at all the same as reinstating the formerly disaffected party or parties into full communion with other Catholic bishops throughout the world. Pope Benedict did not and will not endorse Bishop Williamson's crackpot historical revisionism (even the AP noted as much in a story February 4).
With those facts in mind, Chancellor Merkel and other critics now carping about the ignorance of Richard Williamson would do well to remember that stupidity is not a sin (late addition: unless it results from wilful failure to discipline the mind, and in those cases it's usually a symptom of sins like pride or sloth rather than a sin itself). Critics might also read the informative statement on this subject from Sean Cardinal O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston, or console themselves with the thought that even among people most affected by the Shoah, not everyone is having kittens over the pope's action.
Hey, In a just world, Father Patrick Desbois would be getting as much ink as Bishop Williamson.
Certainly Pope Benedict's merciful example (and that's what it was) sent ripples far beyond Jewish and traditionalist Catholic circles. Apart from the under-reported pastoral context for that January decree, which one perceptive friend describes as "at least as momentous as our Holy Father's issuance of Summorum Pontificum" (the edict that restored the right of the faithful to assist at the pre-1965 Mass), there are also legitimate public relations concerns to be addressed, so as not to cause further scandal.
In that respect, British Catholic columnist Damian Thompson has great advice for the pope. Thompson wants Pope Benedict to succeed as much as I do. He saw this brouhaha coming, and the remedies he suggests have to do with staffing. In brief, the Vatican press office needs new blood, because the nuns and bureaucrats who staff it now, however cosmopolitan by European standards, are overmatched sheep among wolves.
Here's Thompson, talking first about the situation facing Pope Benedict, and then about how to fix it from a managerial perspective (Thompson wisely avoids pastoral advice, because B16 has that part of the situation well in hand):
"If he dies before the damage to his reputation caused by the SSPX affair has been repaired, and while so many of his opponents still occupy important episcopal sees, then the next conclave may choose a middle-of-the-road mediocrity who regards the "hermeneutic of continuity" as a failed ideal.
So, what should Pope Benedict do? First, he must thoroughly overhaul the Vatican's communications operation, staffing it with fluent and media-savvy English speakers. Then he must ensure that the heads of Roman dicasteries are fully committed to his policies. What is the point of being theoretically infallible if so many senior curial officials are quietly briefing against you?
And then let him press ahead with a programme of renewal which -- despite the embarrassments of recent weeks -- is rooted in solid theological foundations and enjoys a degree of local support that terrifies the ageing middle-managers who have hijacked diocesan bureaucracies over the past 40 years."
The controversy over Bishop Williamson, in other words, is a distraction, and the Vatican's subsequent damage control has been amateurish (cf this analysis from Sandro Magister, which agrees with the Damian Thompson advice I've already quoted).
A frame of reference concerned with saving souls for Jesus and advancing Christian unity will inevitably collide with a frame of reference that scans headlines with the question "what fresh hell is this?" occupying "top of mind." In short, while the pope does not think in terms of news cycles, and that's a good thing, he needs a few people around him who do.
You thought excommunication was controversial? Look what happens when excommunication as applied to an unsympathetic person is lifted!
I wasn't going to blog on this. Per what I told friend Laer, I'm not a church politics kind of guy; I'm more of a Nicene Creed-and-sacraments kind of guy. My peeps over at "Whispers in the Loggia" and "American Papist" do a fine job of filling in blanks that often I don't even see. Moreover, B16 -- our "German Shepherd"-- can take care of himself in any intellectual cage match against all comers.
But when a prominent politician with a little more candlepower than the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden goes after the pope, then it's time to read up on why. Standing around with Miracle Max to say "have fun storming the castle" is not an option for some of us.
Here's the thing: It's a safe bet that most of the people now chastising the pope for lifting (remitting) the excommunication on a group saddled with leadership that includes a loudmouth prelate have never even heard of the Society of Saint Pius X or its argument with the rest of the Catholic church. Neither can they be expected to know that lifting an excommunication (what the pope did) is just the first step to reunification with the wider church, not at all the same as reinstating the formerly disaffected party or parties into full communion with other Catholic bishops throughout the world. Pope Benedict did not and will not endorse Bishop Williamson's crackpot historical revisionism (even the AP noted as much in a story February 4).
With those facts in mind, Chancellor Merkel and other critics now carping about the ignorance of Richard Williamson would do well to remember that stupidity is not a sin (late addition: unless it results from wilful failure to discipline the mind, and in those cases it's usually a symptom of sins like pride or sloth rather than a sin itself). Critics might also read the informative statement on this subject from Sean Cardinal O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston, or console themselves with the thought that even among people most affected by the Shoah, not everyone is having kittens over the pope's action.
Hey, In a just world, Father Patrick Desbois would be getting as much ink as Bishop Williamson.
Certainly Pope Benedict's merciful example (and that's what it was) sent ripples far beyond Jewish and traditionalist Catholic circles. Apart from the under-reported pastoral context for that January decree, which one perceptive friend describes as "at least as momentous as our Holy Father's issuance of Summorum Pontificum" (the edict that restored the right of the faithful to assist at the pre-1965 Mass), there are also legitimate public relations concerns to be addressed, so as not to cause further scandal.
In that respect, British Catholic columnist Damian Thompson has great advice for the pope. Thompson wants Pope Benedict to succeed as much as I do. He saw this brouhaha coming, and the remedies he suggests have to do with staffing. In brief, the Vatican press office needs new blood, because the nuns and bureaucrats who staff it now, however cosmopolitan by European standards, are overmatched sheep among wolves.
Here's Thompson, talking first about the situation facing Pope Benedict, and then about how to fix it from a managerial perspective (Thompson wisely avoids pastoral advice, because B16 has that part of the situation well in hand):
"If he dies before the damage to his reputation caused by the SSPX affair has been repaired, and while so many of his opponents still occupy important episcopal sees, then the next conclave may choose a middle-of-the-road mediocrity who regards the "hermeneutic of continuity" as a failed ideal.
So, what should Pope Benedict do? First, he must thoroughly overhaul the Vatican's communications operation, staffing it with fluent and media-savvy English speakers. Then he must ensure that the heads of Roman dicasteries are fully committed to his policies. What is the point of being theoretically infallible if so many senior curial officials are quietly briefing against you?
And then let him press ahead with a programme of renewal which -- despite the embarrassments of recent weeks -- is rooted in solid theological foundations and enjoys a degree of local support that terrifies the ageing middle-managers who have hijacked diocesan bureaucracies over the past 40 years."
The controversy over Bishop Williamson, in other words, is a distraction, and the Vatican's subsequent damage control has been amateurish (cf this analysis from Sandro Magister, which agrees with the Damian Thompson advice I've already quoted).
A frame of reference concerned with saving souls for Jesus and advancing Christian unity will inevitably collide with a frame of reference that scans headlines with the question "what fresh hell is this?" occupying "top of mind." In short, while the pope does not think in terms of news cycles, and that's a good thing, he needs a few people around him who do.
Normalizing evil
Daniel Pearl's father looks at the rise of moral equivalence and the malodorous role of former president Jimmy Carter.
Monday, February 02, 2009
Read your Oakes lately?
Edward T. Oakes is no Quaker, but as Wilford Brimley used to say (of oats), he's good for what ails ya:
I myself do not think the Freedom of Choice Act—which would, among other things, mandate that every medical student be trained to perform abortions—will pass in this Congress. But the very fact that it has been proposed is clearly a salvo in what will surely be an epochal battle. The bill is flagrantly unconstitutional; but that is hardly consolation, since the same holds true of Roe vs. Wade. Liberal creep, in other words, means a slow drift toward coercive liberalism.
If you think Father Oakes is kidding about "coercive" liberalism, or suppose that phrase is an oxymoron moved forward like a checker in a sidewalk game played by a wily old theologian, then you may not perhaps be familiar with the suddenly-fashionable hyprocrisy on the subject of "extraordinary rendition" as practiced on occasion by agents of the U.S. government.
That hypocrisy is only one of many, and while some of them (like orchid-growing thermostat settings in the White House for a man who lectured the rest of us against keeping our homes at a constant 72 degrees) can be pinned directly on our new president (Mr. "toughest negotiation of my life was to keep my Blackberry"), other hypocrisies are just ominous signs of the times, as this thought-provoking "bookend" essay by R.R. Reno and Theodore Dalrymple also makes clear.
I myself do not think the Freedom of Choice Act—which would, among other things, mandate that every medical student be trained to perform abortions—will pass in this Congress. But the very fact that it has been proposed is clearly a salvo in what will surely be an epochal battle. The bill is flagrantly unconstitutional; but that is hardly consolation, since the same holds true of Roe vs. Wade. Liberal creep, in other words, means a slow drift toward coercive liberalism.
If you think Father Oakes is kidding about "coercive" liberalism, or suppose that phrase is an oxymoron moved forward like a checker in a sidewalk game played by a wily old theologian, then you may not perhaps be familiar with the suddenly-fashionable hyprocrisy on the subject of "extraordinary rendition" as practiced on occasion by agents of the U.S. government.
That hypocrisy is only one of many, and while some of them (like orchid-growing thermostat settings in the White House for a man who lectured the rest of us against keeping our homes at a constant 72 degrees) can be pinned directly on our new president (Mr. "toughest negotiation of my life was to keep my Blackberry"), other hypocrisies are just ominous signs of the times, as this thought-provoking "bookend" essay by R.R. Reno and Theodore Dalrymple also makes clear.
Perhaps he likes being atop the high horse?
Dorothy Rabinowitz (with an internal link to Sister Toldjah, because her point fits, too):
To hear Mr. Obama speak now on matters like the national defense is to recognize that the leader now in the White House is in every respect the person he seemed on the campaign trail: a man of immense moral certitude, prone to an abstract idealism, and pronouncements that range between the rational and the otherworldly.
My only quibble with the Rabinowitz indictment and its fine corollary from Sister Toldjah is that neither woman expands her critique beyond foreign and defense policies, although both could. Loy reminds us that there is more at stake, because Obama hasn't yet been seared by truth the way Gary Graham was.
UPDATE: Overweening confidence -- noticed even overseas -- appears to be the hallmark of the Obama administration so far.
To hear Mr. Obama speak now on matters like the national defense is to recognize that the leader now in the White House is in every respect the person he seemed on the campaign trail: a man of immense moral certitude, prone to an abstract idealism, and pronouncements that range between the rational and the otherworldly.
My only quibble with the Rabinowitz indictment and its fine corollary from Sister Toldjah is that neither woman expands her critique beyond foreign and defense policies, although both could. Loy reminds us that there is more at stake, because Obama hasn't yet been seared by truth the way Gary Graham was.
UPDATE: Overweening confidence -- noticed even overseas -- appears to be the hallmark of the Obama administration so far.
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