Murray Rothbard on government medical insurance
From LRC
Don't apologize for things you didn't do, to people who don't believe in forgiveness or redemption.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Friday, June 29, 2012
Predictions that came true
From Cracked, which also said the ‘Star Trek’ shows (pinko but anyway) were good at this: ‘Oh, how corny! Wait... is that an iPad?’ (I don’t have one. I don’t need one.)
From Cracked, which also said the ‘Star Trek’ shows (pinko but anyway) were good at this: ‘Oh, how corny! Wait... is that an iPad?’ (I don’t have one. I don’t need one.)
Thursday, June 28, 2012
From RR
- Do we need an empire to be safe?
- The abdication of adults. The real story of the Greece, NY bus outrage is not the old news that 13-year-olds are often monsters but, as I wrote earlier, that the victim and bus driver, both adults, did nothing to stop it. Well-meant crap like No Place for Hate™ is worthless. (Again, if anything it would cause a backlash from the kids.) Those little brats need the ‘board of education’ or a British rattan cane (the discipline that honed natural talent, which built an empire). One to three strapping men are the only ‘Bullying and Violence Response Team’ you need. (The whiny psychologizing is Christian ethics without Christ so it’s emasculated.)
- Is college an economic imperative? As Paul Fussell pointed out 30 years ago, only about 14% of people are cut out for college.
- Why the Obamacare ruling will matter.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
An anti-John Lennon pieceSome of it’s true and well-known: he lied about being working-class to look cool, he was horrible to his first son (the psychologizing here makes sense: he resented that child), the hypocrisy of his mewling hippie-period lyrics versus his millionaire life, and generally he had a big ego.
Interesting to me: maybe his heroin addiction knocked him out of commission for a few years, which broke up the Beatles. That Yoko Ono stalked him, maybe looking for money for life, which worked. (Howard Stern has a nice side: he’s always defended the wronged Cynthia Lennon, the real peace-loving wife; making fun of Yoko’s part of that.) Maybe his politics were shallow and for show. (The man owed everything he had to capitalism so cut the the commie posing.)
Sure, he did what it took to get rich, including the moptop image Brian Epstein created. I wouldn’t attack him for that. Nor deny his talent. As Frank Sinatra acknowledged by covering George Harrison’s ‘Something’, Harrison, Lennon and McCartney wrote some classics. (A great song can cross genres: Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé once covered Soundgarden’s ‘Black Hole Sun’ and it worked.)
But I tend to agree with an old friend that, ‘by their fruits ye shall know them’, like with Vatican II, the Beatles were a powerful instrument of evil, bigger than the sum of their parts, as one critic said both one of the best and one of the most overrated bands. Went off like a bomb right before society went to hell. Can’t be a coincidence. I’m not pushing censorship.
‘Imagine’ is evil.
Donald Clarke observed that interestingly all the former Beatles stopped leading pop music (weren’t thought cool anymore; Wings for example) after 1974, just a year before their contract as the Beatles would have run out anyway.
From John Boyden.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
In 5-7 years. Or at least make it the next MySpace. I use and don’t hate it (but hate the Timeline and am glad to have been spared it on my own wall). Like newspaper companies don’t know how to make a buck off the Web, mobile threatens Facebook.
From TAC
- Romney’s candidacy’s meaningless. Again, all he has to do is let the Dinkins effect and blame for the depression do the work. He’ll be the next president.
- Philadelphia’s institutional church. With Chaput’s arrival, the hard decisions that ought to have been made a long time ago are finally being made, and a corner has been turned. I remember when I first arrived in Philly, back in 2010, having a conversation with a very well-informed and committed Catholic, who was quite melancholy about the situation in the archdiocese. He told me that most of his fellow Catholics there had no real idea how perilous the situation for the RC church there was. He wasn’t talking at all about the abuse scandal. He was talking rather about the complacency and the belief that all those buildings, and all that history, would protect the archdiocese from decay. I said something like that years ago. Under Paul VI and John Paul II the archdiocese wasn’t a Modernist Ground Zero like other parts of the country but it wasn’t really conservative either, just parochial and complacent. What you’re seeing is partly the self-inflicted damage of getting caught in the Underage Gay Screw-Up but mostly the decline of cultural Catholicism because of Vatican II (the church shooting itself in the foot) and a more hostile larger culture. Around 1950 cultural Catholicism dominated the Northeast US thanks to European immigration and was nearly entirely accepted by a Protestant America still relatively religious and orthodox. Again: in Philly, good riddance to the ’70s-style youth office, newspapers are dead, the schools were long compromised by Vatican II and it’s sad that 50-100-year-old parishes have died. But like I said, this wasn’t AmChurch Central. Pope Benedict’s church in fighting trim can come from this. I just go to Sunday Mass as if the Novus Ordo didn’t exist, with stalwarts who tried to keep the old Mass all these years, young trad families, locals who live in the parish and a few Anglo-Catholic alumni. Keeping my nose in my missal and hoping to cross the finish line in the state of grace.
- Regarding the underage gay cover-up: I spoke to a lawyer friend last week, someone who is intimately familiar with the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. N. told me that it’s widely known among the clergy and insiders that Lynn was the scapegoat for the late Cardinal Bevilacqua. “Just following orders” doesn’t exonerate Lynn, but the idea that the buck stopped with this one guy is wrong. I hate to credit the enemies of the church jumping all over the parallel to Penn State but churchmen brought this on themselves. The cardinal and Paterno came from a generation and culture that were better, and had the power to do the right thing, but didn’t.
Monday, June 25, 2012
A Tea Party at its best
Quick Facts about Tea Parties
By the General Wayne Tea Party
Tea Parties are directed or supported by certain groups or wealthy individuals.
No. Tea Parties have a strong streak of independence and would be wary of anyone outside of their local group who wishes to exert influence. As for financial support, it consists of whatever our members choose to drop into the coffee can at our monthly meetings. Some groups are successful at fundraising events but most operate on thin budgets.
Tea Parties were established because of Obama’s election.
No! The uncontrolled spending of the final years of the Bush administration really set the stage. The final straw came when Americans saw how the new administration is so committed to redistribution, the forcible purchase of health insurance, and even far more destructive spending. It only took a spontaneous remark by a financial expert on TV to ignite people around the country to independently form Tea Parties, beginning in early 2009.
Tea Parties are an arm of the Republican Party, and are racist.
No and no. We’ve witnessed how the Republican Party behaved in years past, ignoring common-sense policies. Most of our members are very independent in their outlook, with concerns about both parties. In a heavily Democratic section of Philadelphia, a recently formed Tea Party is largely composed of Democrats. And a Tea Party in Delaware County has recently praised a Democratic candidate for a vital county office. We meet with representatives of both parties; they’ve spoken at our meetings and will do so again in the future.
As for the racism smears, we welcome all races, and our minority-outreach program currently has three minorities as advisers; some have participated in our meetings. At our public rallies, we find increasing numbers of black Americans showing agreement with our signs. In St. Louis, black Americans have formed a national group that espouses Tea Party principles, moveonup.ning.com.
People do not like Tea Parties – and we’re anti-government.
By careful count at the weekly rallies held by our own Tea Party in King of Prussia, members of the public who notice our signs signify their agreement at the rate of about 20-25 to 1 in our favor. When the rallies began over two years ago, that ratio was six or eight to one in our favor. You’re invited to attend and observe for yourself.
We’re not anti-government and do not judge government in black-and-white terms; constitutionally-defined functions are properly the role of government. But the power and intrusiveness of government are far out of control. Evidence? With the near-collapse of GM, government violated the rights of bondholders, awarding GM stock to its partisan voter base. It tried to stop Boeing from opening a new plant in order, once again, to favor its radical voter base. And employers across the country are outraged at how they’re being crippled by OSHA, EPA and other bureaucrats, as well as Obamacare. At local levels, we regularly read of little girls’ lemonade stands being shut down by officials. Finally, we reject being bullied to buy health insurance, and we strongly oppose the government assault on religious freedom.
Resistance to government coercion is a hallmark of Americans since before the founding of our republic. We proudly and vigorously uphold that tradition. We’re probably the first mass movement in U.S. history that doesn’t want to get something from government. Instead, we seek to undo the unhealthy control and dependency that big government has been imposing on citizens, institutions, business and industry.
Tea Parties are responsible for the credit downgrade of the U.S.
This is one of more laughable charges leveled against us. For those not aware of it, the downgrade is the result of irresponsible spending by elected politicians who knew but didn’t care that the country could not deliver on what they’d promised, and by the collusion of elected representatives, corrupt government-sponsored enterprises – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – and corrupt private financial institutions that led to the destruction of the housing and credit market and the near-collapse of the economy in 2008.
What is the Tea Party position on gay marriage and abortion? Don’t Tea Parties push religion? And what about immigration?
The first two issues are divisive and are outside the scope of what Tea Parties are about. This does not mean that individual members don’t hold opinions about them. As for religion, our group includes Christians, Jews, agnostics and atheists. The total extent of our religious activities is a short prayer after the Pledge of Allegiance with which we open our meetings.
We’re very welcoming of legal immigrants and have several in our group, namely from Southeast Asia, the Middle East and South America. The U.S. accepts more than 1.2 million legal immigrants each year, more than the rest of the world combined.
What is the “mission” of the Tea Party?
Elect legislators with a working grasp of, and respect for, what makes our economy work, people who are committed to sound economic policies. Those responsible for out-of-control spending must be voted out.
Support a government that respects those who work and create jobs, that doesn’t view businesses simply as milk cows, and taxpayers as sheep to be fleeced.
Regulatory agencies are wildly out of control and are killing jobs. We must impose sensible limits.
Our free-market system is under general assault by big-state radicals who have been turning America into a socialist-style “redistribution” society. We must reduce the size of government and elect people who respect our Constitution, private property and the free-market principles our country was founded on.
Who belongs to your Tea Party, and how big is it?
Our members include: builder; manufacturer; marketing professional; insurance executive; mechanical contractor; office worker; computer specialist; medical doctor; financial adviser; retiree; unemployed; nurse; teacher; architect; salesman; saleswoman; teacher; pharmaceutical worker; retired general manager of a health-care system; accountant; and many others.
We number about 200 people, mostly from within 12 miles of King of Prussia, covering Montgomery and Chester counties. Other Tea Parties in this region range in size from 15 to nearly 2,000. And there are individuals and groups, not Tea Parties, who advocate for smaller government, adherence to our Constitution, and other ideas similar to ours.
What do members actually do?
Partial list: Monitor performance of elected representatives; research issues such as health care and regulations; engage in minority outreach; set up meetings with elected leaders and government officials; attend classes on the Constitution; get out the vote activities; oppose the UN’s Agenda 21/Sustainable Development intrusions within our townships; serve as precinct committeepersons; deal with a generally hostile news media; conduct public awareness activities; serve on school boards.
If you wish to learn more about us, please attend our monthly meetings, usually on the first Tuesday of every month at Michael’s Deli, Valley Forge Shopping Center, 130 Town Center Road off DeKalb Pike, Route 202, King of Prussia, 6 to 8 p.m. You are always welcome to speak up. Give us your e-mail and we’ll alert you of each meeting.
Quick Facts about Tea Parties
By the General Wayne Tea Party
Tea Parties are directed or supported by certain groups or wealthy individuals.
No. Tea Parties have a strong streak of independence and would be wary of anyone outside of their local group who wishes to exert influence. As for financial support, it consists of whatever our members choose to drop into the coffee can at our monthly meetings. Some groups are successful at fundraising events but most operate on thin budgets.
Tea Parties were established because of Obama’s election.
No! The uncontrolled spending of the final years of the Bush administration really set the stage. The final straw came when Americans saw how the new administration is so committed to redistribution, the forcible purchase of health insurance, and even far more destructive spending. It only took a spontaneous remark by a financial expert on TV to ignite people around the country to independently form Tea Parties, beginning in early 2009.
Tea Parties are an arm of the Republican Party, and are racist.
No and no. We’ve witnessed how the Republican Party behaved in years past, ignoring common-sense policies. Most of our members are very independent in their outlook, with concerns about both parties. In a heavily Democratic section of Philadelphia, a recently formed Tea Party is largely composed of Democrats. And a Tea Party in Delaware County has recently praised a Democratic candidate for a vital county office. We meet with representatives of both parties; they’ve spoken at our meetings and will do so again in the future.
As for the racism smears, we welcome all races, and our minority-outreach program currently has three minorities as advisers; some have participated in our meetings. At our public rallies, we find increasing numbers of black Americans showing agreement with our signs. In St. Louis, black Americans have formed a national group that espouses Tea Party principles, moveonup.ning.com.
People do not like Tea Parties – and we’re anti-government.
By careful count at the weekly rallies held by our own Tea Party in King of Prussia, members of the public who notice our signs signify their agreement at the rate of about 20-25 to 1 in our favor. When the rallies began over two years ago, that ratio was six or eight to one in our favor. You’re invited to attend and observe for yourself.
We’re not anti-government and do not judge government in black-and-white terms; constitutionally-defined functions are properly the role of government. But the power and intrusiveness of government are far out of control. Evidence? With the near-collapse of GM, government violated the rights of bondholders, awarding GM stock to its partisan voter base. It tried to stop Boeing from opening a new plant in order, once again, to favor its radical voter base. And employers across the country are outraged at how they’re being crippled by OSHA, EPA and other bureaucrats, as well as Obamacare. At local levels, we regularly read of little girls’ lemonade stands being shut down by officials. Finally, we reject being bullied to buy health insurance, and we strongly oppose the government assault on religious freedom.
Resistance to government coercion is a hallmark of Americans since before the founding of our republic. We proudly and vigorously uphold that tradition. We’re probably the first mass movement in U.S. history that doesn’t want to get something from government. Instead, we seek to undo the unhealthy control and dependency that big government has been imposing on citizens, institutions, business and industry.
Tea Parties are responsible for the credit downgrade of the U.S.
This is one of more laughable charges leveled against us. For those not aware of it, the downgrade is the result of irresponsible spending by elected politicians who knew but didn’t care that the country could not deliver on what they’d promised, and by the collusion of elected representatives, corrupt government-sponsored enterprises – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – and corrupt private financial institutions that led to the destruction of the housing and credit market and the near-collapse of the economy in 2008.
What is the Tea Party position on gay marriage and abortion? Don’t Tea Parties push religion? And what about immigration?
The first two issues are divisive and are outside the scope of what Tea Parties are about. This does not mean that individual members don’t hold opinions about them. As for religion, our group includes Christians, Jews, agnostics and atheists. The total extent of our religious activities is a short prayer after the Pledge of Allegiance with which we open our meetings.
We’re very welcoming of legal immigrants and have several in our group, namely from Southeast Asia, the Middle East and South America. The U.S. accepts more than 1.2 million legal immigrants each year, more than the rest of the world combined.
What is the “mission” of the Tea Party?
Elect legislators with a working grasp of, and respect for, what makes our economy work, people who are committed to sound economic policies. Those responsible for out-of-control spending must be voted out.
Support a government that respects those who work and create jobs, that doesn’t view businesses simply as milk cows, and taxpayers as sheep to be fleeced.
Regulatory agencies are wildly out of control and are killing jobs. We must impose sensible limits.
Our free-market system is under general assault by big-state radicals who have been turning America into a socialist-style “redistribution” society. We must reduce the size of government and elect people who respect our Constitution, private property and the free-market principles our country was founded on.
Who belongs to your Tea Party, and how big is it?
Our members include: builder; manufacturer; marketing professional; insurance executive; mechanical contractor; office worker; computer specialist; medical doctor; financial adviser; retiree; unemployed; nurse; teacher; architect; salesman; saleswoman; teacher; pharmaceutical worker; retired general manager of a health-care system; accountant; and many others.
We number about 200 people, mostly from within 12 miles of King of Prussia, covering Montgomery and Chester counties. Other Tea Parties in this region range in size from 15 to nearly 2,000. And there are individuals and groups, not Tea Parties, who advocate for smaller government, adherence to our Constitution, and other ideas similar to ours.
What do members actually do?
Partial list: Monitor performance of elected representatives; research issues such as health care and regulations; engage in minority outreach; set up meetings with elected leaders and government officials; attend classes on the Constitution; get out the vote activities; oppose the UN’s Agenda 21/Sustainable Development intrusions within our townships; serve as precinct committeepersons; deal with a generally hostile news media; conduct public awareness activities; serve on school boards.
If you wish to learn more about us, please attend our monthly meetings, usually on the first Tuesday of every month at Michael’s Deli, Valley Forge Shopping Center, 130 Town Center Road off DeKalb Pike, Route 202, King of Prussia, 6 to 8 p.m. You are always welcome to speak up. Give us your e-mail and we’ll alert you of each meeting.
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.– George Washington
Eastern Catholics
Vatican II was sort of good for the Eastern Catholic churches because ecumenism was fashionable 40+ years ago, so it didn’t try to Novus Ordo-fy them but the opposite, telling them to be more traditional like the Orthodox. (But if it cared about that, why’d it trash the Roman Rite? Shows what it really thought.) But they’re still losing people like crazy in America: the old are dying; the young are going to the Roman Rite or to no church. (The Orthodox are similarly losing people.)
Vatican II was sort of good for the Eastern Catholic churches because ecumenism was fashionable 40+ years ago, so it didn’t try to Novus Ordo-fy them but the opposite, telling them to be more traditional like the Orthodox. (But if it cared about that, why’d it trash the Roman Rite? Shows what it really thought.) But they’re still losing people like crazy in America: the old are dying; the young are going to the Roman Rite or to no church. (The Orthodox are similarly losing people.)
From LRC
- Economic history of the world since Christ. The Industrial Revolution changed everything for the better.
- Mass. Romneyites kick out Paul delegates.
- The War of 1812. I would have liked the Sailabration but, while impressment seems worth fighting over, long story short the US wanted to steal Canada and obviously failed.
From Takimag
- Romney’s Russophobia. The Western media has hailed the color revolutions as a blossoming of democracy in former Soviet states. The Russians [rightly] perceive them as hostile American interference in their local affairs.
- Here’s to Ian Smith. Merit not race.
- Pat Buchanan on the crack-up of the right. Ethnic and/or credal nation? Anglo-Americans should be proud of their achievements. But a credal nation is about liberty: play by our rules and you are welcome. Of course I see the connection between a civic religion and liberals/neocons as its evangelists, but I don’t buy that a credal nation inevitably causes jingoism/interventionism.
- Ways things are getting better. In the comments:
In 1969, we were a society of flower children, rioting minorities, and crazy ladies.
No, we weren’t. I agree with Steve Sailer that this stuff wasn’t mainstream middle-class and lower until after about 1972. Before that, it was mostly an affectation of the rich (except the race riots).For some bizarre reason, when people describe the sixties, those who weren’t there think our neighborhoods were jammed with gaudy, barefooted adult-children dancing in the streets while flying high on some herb grown to make one dizzy and hungry.
The vast majority of those kiddies were the spawn of parents, members of ”the greatest generation”, who threw money at their kids in order to keep them quiet and out of the way.
Then again, a lot of these self-absorbed former “flower children” are leading the country now in political office.
Confirming the time frame is one Mike Shropshire, in his book Seasons In Hell (about his stint as the beat reporter covering baseball’s Texas Rangers for one of the Dallas papers in 1973-1974). He notes that while the general impression is that hippie-hippery was in full bloom in 1968, such actually wasn’t the case until about 1973 [on par w/ Sailer]. Just compare high-school yearbooks from ’68 and ’73.
From RR
- Moody’s downgrades 15 major banks.
- Even Jerry Sandusky deserves a fair lawyer. I watched with utter amazement, disgust and disbelief after the verdict last week as Jerry Sandusky’s lead attorney, Joe Amendola, violated, within just a few minutes of TV time, virtually every solemn professional obligation a lawyer owes to his client. Again, so much worship of sports is how Sandusky got away with it for so long, and I’ve come around on Paterno. I feel a little bad for him but, as Elena Maria Vidal said, he was God in the town of State College because of that cult of sports. No matter his place on paper in the chain of command, he had the actual power to stop it, and didn’t. God have mercy on him.
- In praise of consumerism.
- Welcome, immigrants. Conservatives ... proudly champion family values. As such, conservatives especially should welcome immigrants to America – each one of whom, on average, sends annually to his or her family back home roughly $1,600. (These “remittances,” totaling in 2010 $51.6 billion, are about 25 percent larger than Uncle Sam’s foreign-aid budget.) People who care so deeply for their families – and who, contrary to myth, come to America overwhelmingly to work – surely should be applauded for dedication rather than apprehended for deportation.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Last year’s substitute for ‘Mad Men’ (and riffing on the airport scene in Catch Me If You Can) on ABC while Matt Weiner and AMC hashed things out. Another stylish soap opera with great period detail, without the drama the critics and Emmys love about the original. I enjoyed the flight. Thanks.
Best all-round: Kate the spy.
Fun fact: John Travolta is a pilot and plane collector, owning one of the last flying 707s, which the show used.
One of my hats has a picture of one on the lining.
They put real ocean liners out of business.
Friday, June 22, 2012
Better church news abroad
In the British ordinariate, Robert Mercer, Edwin Barnes and David Silk are monsignori (which historically is not unusual for ex-Anglican priests; this is an acknowledgement they are ex-Anglican bishops) and Fr Hunwicke is Fr Hunwicke again!
In the British ordinariate, Robert Mercer, Edwin Barnes and David Silk are monsignori (which historically is not unusual for ex-Anglican priests; this is an acknowledgement they are ex-Anglican bishops) and Fr Hunwicke is Fr Hunwicke again!
Other Philly church news: underage-gay-coverup priest guilty
He moved the pervs from parish to parish. Throw the book at him.
He moved the pervs from parish to parish. Throw the book at him.
Philly Archdiocese’s huge cuts
Wow. The depression and the sharp decline of cultural Catholicism. Good riddance to the youth office, newspapers are dead, the schools long were compromised by Vatican II and sad about the parishes. Pope Benedict’s lean, mean, fighting-machine church (for a hostile environment) is still emerging.
The young trad families in my parish have no use for a ’70s youth office.
Wow. The depression and the sharp decline of cultural Catholicism. Good riddance to the youth office, newspapers are dead, the schools long were compromised by Vatican II and sad about the parishes. Pope Benedict’s lean, mean, fighting-machine church (for a hostile environment) is still emerging.
The young trad families in my parish have no use for a ’70s youth office.
The Greece, NY school-bus outrage
Where are the teachers and parents? Is this what ‘free to be’ child-rearing has wrought? (Yes. Lord of the Flies. Original sin and concupiscence, remember?) Pretty obviously PC moralizing (Christian ethics cut off from Christ) like No Place for Hate™ doesn’t work. If anything you’ll get a backlash. Unsurprisingly it seems to me the right approach is old-school. A commenter at Takimag: with kid-to-kid bullying, look the other way a little bit, then severely punish if they cross the line. Sassing an adult? Crack down hard immediately. (An outnumbered Karen Klein reports it to the principal, who punishes the kids and reports the wrongdoing to the parents.) As much as I don’t like the idea of corporal punishment, I think a paddling (British caning, now outlawed like in the States) from the principal would teach those boys some manners.
Dreher broke the story to me; the link is from Joshua. Dreher’s line: right, send your kids to public schools to socialize them!
By the way, old-school discipline wasn’t just by traditional nuns. All schools did it.
Where are the teachers and parents? Is this what ‘free to be’ child-rearing has wrought? (Yes. Lord of the Flies. Original sin and concupiscence, remember?) Pretty obviously PC moralizing (Christian ethics cut off from Christ) like No Place for Hate™ doesn’t work. If anything you’ll get a backlash. Unsurprisingly it seems to me the right approach is old-school. A commenter at Takimag: with kid-to-kid bullying, look the other way a little bit, then severely punish if they cross the line. Sassing an adult? Crack down hard immediately. (An outnumbered Karen Klein reports it to the principal, who punishes the kids and reports the wrongdoing to the parents.) As much as I don’t like the idea of corporal punishment, I think a paddling (British caning, now outlawed like in the States) from the principal would teach those boys some manners.
Dreher broke the story to me; the link is from Joshua. Dreher’s line: right, send your kids to public schools to socialize them!
By the way, old-school discipline wasn’t just by traditional nuns. All schools did it.
When the Ron Paul revolution works with the local GOP
When’s it discretion, and ferreting out agent provocateurs (‘See? They’re craaaaazy!’), and when’s it selling out? Also, I’m not so sure MLK was as anti-government and pro-liberty as the writer says (like how the white New Left acted like it was against the government but wanted to be the government, which it now sort of is, like they weren’t for peace but cheering for the Communists) but like her I believe in the face value of much of what he said (judging someone by the content of his character, that is, merit, not race).
When’s it discretion, and ferreting out agent provocateurs (‘See? They’re craaaaazy!’), and when’s it selling out? Also, I’m not so sure MLK was as anti-government and pro-liberty as the writer says (like how the white New Left acted like it was against the government but wanted to be the government, which it now sort of is, like they weren’t for peace but cheering for the Communists) but like her I believe in the face value of much of what he said (judging someone by the content of his character, that is, merit, not race).
Thursday, June 21, 2012
How many American ex-Catholics and where do they go?
From GetReligion. My guess is mostly to no religion with Evangelicalism second. It’s probably true that many drop out and immigration is almost replacing them.
From GetReligion. My guess is mostly to no religion with Evangelicalism second. It’s probably true that many drop out and immigration is almost replacing them.
Libertarianism and abortion
It seems to me the answer is science convincing the left-libertarians that zygotes are people. It’s not opinion or even religion. From RR.
It seems to me the answer is science convincing the left-libertarians that zygotes are people. It’s not opinion or even religion. From RR.
From TAC
- The Bluegrass State extends Ron Paul’s revolution — again. Thomas Massie won the Republican nomination for Congress in Kentucky’s fourth district.
- Dreher: Hollywood Jesus again. I think it would bomb too. It’s like with liberal churches: neither most conservative Christians nor the unchurched are interested. Ironically, some conservative Christians’ reaction gives these things their best advertising.
- Never mind that Romney’s a dick: go to hell, mainstream media.
- Authority and the current crisis.
- The economics of family and culture.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
From RR
- Hundreds of mayors from across the United States this weekend called for new laws letting parents seize control of low-performing public schools and fire the teachers, oust the administrators or turn the schools over to private management.
- Being aware of your surroundings at all times, and paying attention to your gut feelings and instincts, is just as important as the ability to hit what you shoot at — and maybe more.
- Privacy for me but not for thee. Why do we complain about Lib-Con plans to police emails but not their plans to interfere in ‘chaotic families’?
- More on the death of newspapers: independent weeklies. In Philly they always were lefty rags and ‘consumer guides for the young corporate class’. Good riddance.
- How can forcing me to engage in commerce be constitutional? But there’s a deeper question: Why should government be involved in medicine at all?
- What if the federal government passes a ‘law’ and everyone ignores them or actively blocks its enforcement? What if a state said it no longer would comply with the EPA, HUD, DOE, DOT, DHS, etc. etc.? What if multiple states refused to comply with federal rules, regulations and ‘laws’? If they did, what then?
- Greece will take another bailout; the markets can stop panicking; the crisis is averted; the euro is saved. Well, not quite.
Monday, June 18, 2012
From Takimag
- In the shadow of the Yanks. Their resident British soldier learns the best and worst of America from meeting our troops in Iraq: the two sides of ‘we think big’.
- Old news: Romney’s unlikeable. Al Gore’s charm. But all he has to do is coast for the next few months and he’ll be president. The Dinkins effect and the depression will do the work.
- Places White People like. That’s OK. The diverse aren’t really interested in diversity either.
Sunday, June 17, 2012
From LRC
- Watergate plus 40. It wasn’t what you think.
- The coming bank ‘holiday’.
- When the state pushes.
Sunday
- Mass: Cogitationes cordis ejus in generatione et generationem. The External Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus: in short, God loves you.
- The second quotation in the epistle fits American Father’s Day: Ephesians 3:14-19.
- Somebody writes: what’s wrong with the ordinariate. Or if I like it so much, why aren’t I in it? Short answer: because here I don’t need it. Got a Sung Mass every week (my only official tie to the institutional church) with a top-notch, high-church classical-music program. The ordinariate is for 1) Anglo-Catholic alumni who don’t have that (they’re stuck in a liberal diocese of ’70s AmChurch), or 2) married ex-Anglican priests who have long wanted to be Catholic priests (the reason for the British ordinariate), and/or 3) people who are attached to BCP prayers on Sunday (most American ACs). I’m none of those. Basically, most coming in were would-be Catholics for a long time so they weren’t Prayer Booky, except the Americans. The American ordinariate now – Mount Calvary, Baltimore, with its approximation of the American Missal (of course I hope that ordinariate gets to use that missal) – illustrates 1) It’s Not About Latin™ (yeah, I worship in Latin but am all for a vernacular traditional Mass as an option) and 2) even though Cranmer was a heretic, his beautiful prose can work with Catholic worship because he kept the church’s general worldview. I have no jones for the BCP (and its Articles); besides I have Winfred Douglas’ Diurnal: in the best AC tradition, using the BCP idiom but not the BCP. Episcopal hymns (we have them: processional and recessional), Cranmer’s prose and the Canon aloud would have freaked out most of our people in 1960 almost as much as a woman priest: ‘this isn’t home’. Still, a road trip to Fr Catania’s place (Baltimore’s Newest Catholic Church™, founded in 1842) is on my list.
- Still waiting for the Rome/SSPX outcome. You already know what I want: let’s (all Tridentiners) be a personal prelature under Cardinal Fellay. Thanking Archbishop Lefebvre posthumously.
- Has the church’s re-Catholicization turned Hans Küng into a liberal sedevacantist? Word is he’s so mad at Benedict for reconciling with the SSPX he’s declared the see of Peter vacant. If so, hahahahahaha! Also, it shows the libs believe in and want a cartoon version of papal authority where, like a mainline denomination, the Pope can order any change. Not so: he’s only tradition’s caretaker. Pius IX: ‘I can’t. I’m only the Pope.’
- Come home, St Anthony’s. You were founded to be a Catholic parish. Even if your flying bishop believes the creeds and doesn’t believe in same-sex marriage, you never belonged with the Episcopalians. All you wanted was a church you could walk to and do your devotions in peace. Sant’ Antonio da Padova, prega per noi. His feast was on Wednesday.
My take on Bradley Manning
I’m anti-war but if anything pro-military/not a pacifist. I understand the reason for military secrets in order for the military to do its proper job of protecting us. If Manning’s a whistleblower, then the same thing applies to him as to principled deserters (‘I’m not going back to ___ to kill for no good reason’). They’re heroes and part of that heroism is taking the punishment (jail and a bad discharge, not the alleged torture Manning’s gone through) the military must give out to keep its discipline in order to do its job. You signed a contract so if you disobey an order, you pay.
By the way, an ex-serviceman who took a mild version of that route (bad discharge but no jail) after being deployed wrote in LRC that the bad discharge didn’t ruin his life (‘you’ll never get a job’) like the military threatened it would.
I’m anti-war but if anything pro-military/not a pacifist. I understand the reason for military secrets in order for the military to do its proper job of protecting us. If Manning’s a whistleblower, then the same thing applies to him as to principled deserters (‘I’m not going back to ___ to kill for no good reason’). They’re heroes and part of that heroism is taking the punishment (jail and a bad discharge, not the alleged torture Manning’s gone through) the military must give out to keep its discipline in order to do its job. You signed a contract so if you disobey an order, you pay.
By the way, an ex-serviceman who took a mild version of that route (bad discharge but no jail) after being deployed wrote in LRC that the bad discharge didn’t ruin his life (‘you’ll never get a job’) like the military threatened it would.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Dreher writes that the New Orleans Times-Picayune fired at least a third of its staff one day recently. The only use I have for the paper is as something to read (if I don’t have a book) if I’m waiting for/on a train or at the lunch counter (reading one left behind or the store’s copy). Of course people don’t pay anymore to read old news (on pages designed and written worse as the biz deathspirals) when they have iPhones etc. (I don’t have that. But you knew that.) Meanwhile nobody in news knows how to make money off the Web.
Used to know a couple who met at the Philadelphia Bulletin 60 years ago (an evening paper; TV eventually killed it 30 years ago), and a fellow who used to own a weekly (they’re dying faster than dailies of course), his Catholic family’s business; I used to talk to him on his walks around town.
From TAC
- Noah Millman: starting from scratch, who would our allies be? More.
- How do you actually stop a war? Lefty street theatre didn’t stop the last half-dozen and besides, the left’s not really about peace or liberty but power. Over you and me. (About Vietnam they were cheering for the other side.)
Friday, June 15, 2012
60 years ago: the SS United States
I’ve seen it up close but have never been aboard: it’s long been docked in South Philly. Fastest liner ever: won the Blue Riband. Then jet planes put them out of business.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Me on Rand Paul
If we in the liberty movement, such as it is, fell for this, even if Rand were VP, we’d be no better than the Tea Party, a sock puppet for the GOP. Well-meaning so-cons are trying to rally me to vote against the great Satan but ‘Usher! I’ve seen this picture before’. (I’d welcome a Bill ‘Surplus’ Clinton, the best functionally conservative president in recent history thanks to a hostile Congress.) It’s still between Gary Johnson (I’d do it if he could win; he’s better than the Dems and GOP), writing in Ron or staying home again (my second time).
I can agree with ‘better a dick who doesn’t care about you than a man and his following who hate everything you stand for’. But the last time I voted that way, against the culture-wars enemy du jour, we got a man who invaded Iraq so we’re paying $3.50+ for gas when it was $1.40-$1.50 before. So the dick won’t get my vote.
Anyway he doesn’t need my help. The Dinkins effect (white voters feel like they’ve done their duty and will move on) and blame for the depression will do the trick.
Never mind what Republicans say; watch what they do.
Finally, thank you to those who were paying attention so they knew Rand would do this and reminded me.
If we in the liberty movement, such as it is, fell for this, even if Rand were VP, we’d be no better than the Tea Party, a sock puppet for the GOP. Well-meaning so-cons are trying to rally me to vote against the great Satan but ‘Usher! I’ve seen this picture before’. (I’d welcome a Bill ‘Surplus’ Clinton, the best functionally conservative president in recent history thanks to a hostile Congress.) It’s still between Gary Johnson (I’d do it if he could win; he’s better than the Dems and GOP), writing in Ron or staying home again (my second time).
I can agree with ‘better a dick who doesn’t care about you than a man and his following who hate everything you stand for’. But the last time I voted that way, against the culture-wars enemy du jour, we got a man who invaded Iraq so we’re paying $3.50+ for gas when it was $1.40-$1.50 before. So the dick won’t get my vote.
Anyway he doesn’t need my help. The Dinkins effect (white voters feel like they’ve done their duty and will move on) and blame for the depression will do the trick.
Never mind what Republicans say; watch what they do.
Finally, thank you to those who were paying attention so they knew Rand would do this and reminded me.
Outsexying Laura Petrie in the musical house-party category.
Fight!
Yes, she did.
RIP.
The actors are signed up for one more year with still one more as an option.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
From Ad Orientem
- Europe braces for Greek exit of euro.
- As far as Catholic/Orthodox ecumenism can go: charity and culture wars. To which you can add devotional things like visiting each other’s churches and venerating saints, icons and relics. Not counting the local intercommunion in Syria for example. On paper it’s a zero-sum game. Sacramentally the same church (Catholics believe) but because of one big difference an inch wide and infinitely deep they’re on parallel tracks. One side would have to change course/give in for union.
- Even a sick @#$% like Sandusky is entitled to his day in court. Also a damning indictment of how so many worship sports, which is how he got away with it for so long.
- 1962: The great escape from Alcatraz.
- Casualty of the depression: people’s net worth. Americans suffered a record decline in wealth between 2007 and 2010 as home values tumbled.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
From TAC
- Rand Paul fallout.
- What it means to the base.
- Larison: A Romney-Rand Paul ticket. Revisited.
- National service. The left sort of misses the golden era too but not for the right reasons and its means of course are awful. While I’d love to see the Greatest Generation again, and I am if anything pro-military, the draft was wrong to begin with and civilian national service is a lousy substitute.
- Going so-con with Dreher: A story about a homosexual. Honest about it. But married. Faithful. With kids. I understand this is how historically people often dealt with this. Without cruel therapy to try to cure it. There aren’t that many homosexuals (what, 3%?) and antiquity didn’t see it as its own thing, even when it tolerated it. Noah Millman chimes in.
- What the left wants. A Scandinavian country is on its way to forcing churches to have same-sex weddings. The window-dressing opt-out clause won’t last. They don’t want liberty. They want power.
- Kids are better off in traditional families.
- Into Roissy and Sailer country: Assortative mating making people worse off.
- Low-trust clannishness, good and bad points.
- He needed killin’. I never will understand why more uncles or men in local Catholic communities didn’t come to a vigorous private understanding with Father Funny Fingers. I am a troglodyte in that way.
Monday, June 11, 2012
From RR
- LRC: what is money? The bits of paper in your wallet used to be stand-ins for real money. (You could trade them at the bank for real money. Why the pound was the pound sterling; I have a silver certificate.) Completely no longer so here since Nixon, worse in my opinion than trying to cheat in an election. Another low: he started affirmative action. Not. A. Conservative. Looking at Republican presidents’ track records increasing government, I’ve long stopped thinking they’re with us. By the way is there any real money still in Fort Knox?
- Are immigration laws like Jim Crow?
- Ray Bradbury was a man of the right.
- Of Krugman and Diocletian.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
God save the Queen’s English
When people doll up declining linguistic standards as ‘cultural diversity’, they’re really making a virtue out of dumbness, turning illiteracy into just a variant form of literacy.From Joshua.
The Second Sunday after Pentecost, not the External Solemnity of Corpus Christi. There was a Eucharistic procession at the noon Novus Ordo but it was Novus Ordo so no.
You know you’re at Lourdes, Overbrook, when white-gloved altar boys ring sanctus bells in stereo.
It’s now the long season of green Sundays and Salve, regina.
All Fr K, all the time when I’m in church (except at Mater on the NJ side of the river). Sign we’re winning in the church: the administrator of my territorial parish, a Pope Benedict man, cassock and all, is now the celebrant of my traditional Mass, at the parish I go to.
Absecon, NJ.
South Jersey still has a few Stewart’s-soda drive-ins, grandfathered in (they don’t allow new drive-in restaurants).
Also there: Muscovy ducks.
First saw these caged at a shop (for Italians who want very fresh meat) in South Philly and thought they were something impossible, turkey and duck hybrids. Quacked like they’d just smoked a pack of old Lucky Strikes but maybe that’s because they were South Philly ducks.
Like the randomly crowing roosters but not like the gang of cats who hang out at Historic Smithville when there aren’t many people around, these fellows (maybe one’s a she) seem pretty tame.
A James Dean Rebel Without a Cause tribute ’49 Merc.
Also: firemen doing demonstrations.
Saturday, June 09, 2012
Breaching national security
Leaving aside the wrongness of threatening Iran, I believe it. Obama’s that selfish. Screw the country; get re-elected. It won’t work.
Leaving aside the wrongness of threatening Iran, I believe it. Obama’s that selfish. Screw the country; get re-elected. It won’t work.
‘The American Orthodox Church of tomorrow’From 2008. Fr John agreed right away with my main guesses, much smaller (it was small to begin with) and less exclusively ethnic (residual from the convert boomlet 20 years ago). I can hear Modestinus and the Ochlophobist laughing at some of this. To give Father credit I can see ‘sounder and more serious’ like Pope Benedict’s lean, mean, fighting-machine church in a hostile culture. Back to ‘less exclusively ethnic’. Of course everybody should be welcome. Ethnic Orthodox are great. They’re like ethnic Roman Riters with a better liturgy. Easygoing, naturally conservative, not culture-warriors. Ethnic means big family; natural. Father’s reacting to the jurisdictions’ long cheerfully corrupt, good-old-boy MO. OK, fine. I’d rather bishops and priests didn’t embezzle either. But I fear, for what it’s worth, that ‘less ethnic’ and ‘more serious’ will mean fewer nice cultural conservatives and, probably except for the Greeks, who will always be run by the Greeks, the anti-Catholic convert jerks running most of these little jurisdictions. Juridically united? Nah. No problem. Still around in 50 years? Maybe not.
Priestly families (generations) are normal, but my guess is they’re getting smaller like others so at least among Slavic-Americans, where are the native vocations? Again married clergy aren’t a cure-all. Having that doesn’t bring them in.
I missed posting on the date but John Boyden gave me a heads-up: on May 27, 1962, a trash fire spread to a mine.
From RR
- Both candidates appear to agree with each other on all issues of importance. The ‘differences’ are only shiny objects.
- Fiscal reality wins in Wisconsin.
- The truth behind the vice squad. These guys were in trouble because lots of money was moving around without the government skimming off a portion of the profits. ‘For our own good’, the government taking its cut for the taxpayers’ sake. Sure.
- The concept of the Internet goes back to at least 1934.
- Minimum wage: Before putting more small-company employers out of business, and killing off all entry-level jobs ... put a frickin’ FLOOR on FICA! Voilà ! A 12%+ in-pocket raise for all (not just low-income) workers!
Even though It’s Not About Latin™, I’m happy with high-church Tridentine, but a road trip to Mount Calvary, Baltimore, is on my list.
Sweden’s free-market reform
P.J. O’Rourke:
Americans still think of Sweden as a tightly regulated social-welfare state, but in the last two decades the country has been reformed. Public spending has fallen by no less than one-fifth of gross domestic product, taxes have dropped and markets have opened up.Steve Sailer says what made Sweden great wasn’t that it was long socialist but that they’re Swedish.
The situation is similar in the other Scandinavian countries, the Baltic nations and Poland. But no turnabout has been as dramatic as Sweden’s.
P.J. O’Rourke:
Swedish official: Unemployment is nearly zero in Scandinavia.
Him: It’s nearly zero among Scandinavian-Americans.
Friday, June 08, 2012
From Steve Sailer
- A subject I’m very interested in as I’ve turned it into a livelihood, not a lucrative one right now but one nonetheless: verbal skills or the English often are better at English, fittingly. (Americans often think that’s for sissies, and macho guys famously don’t say or write a lot, but the Brits built an empire before Americans did.) Sounds like I should have gone into non-math tech a long time ago. As newspapers die thanks to the Internet (as old-school as I am, I wouldn’t pay 50-75 cents a copy for old news; they’re still around because selling print ads still makes money short-term, and nobody in the news biz knows how to make a buck off the Web), the writers are getting worse since the good people, such as well-spoken kids out of college, don’t do that work anymore. I remember when some did. It’s not worth it now. I often edit people trying to sound smart, so there are lots of tries at ten-cent words and in doing so taking a pratfall. I weed that out so readers don’t see it.
- Epheb-, epheb-, epheb-, gay.
- The gay mafia’s defense is a good offense. Gay Liberation unleashed a number of Big Gay Screw-Ups, such as AIDS and the Catholic Church scandals. But rather than admit that, it was much easier emotionally to just go on the offensive over some random issue like gay marriage.
- It’s on Sailer’s mind. By the way, the generally accepted storyline is that the war over gay marriage is between a powerless, marginalized, oppressed minority and the well-organized, oppressive majority. An alternative conception is that converts to the cause of gay marriage tend to be the folks who know which way the wind is blowing and sense it is prudent to pay tribute to the rise of gay power by aligning themselves with the better organized side, while the opponents of gay marriage tend to be yokels who don’t have a clue about how things really work.
- One good thing I can say about the next election. The only good thing about the last big one is Americans showed they’re at heart good and fair by not voting against someone because of race. I think Sailer will be proved right and voters will be big enough to vote the president out in spite of race-hustling. (I didn’t include myself because either I’ll stay home for the second time or I know my vote, for Gary Johnson or written in for Ron Paul, wouldn’t matter.)
- One of Sailer’s points is real, unforced diversity before ‘diversity’: before the government and society tried to be charitable, there actually were more non-white tennis and golf stars.
- Chinese parents didn’t know ‘urban’ is American code.
Thursday, June 07, 2012
From MoveOn
Or again, how effective in the long run in guerrilla/4GW? Like Vietnam: we win all the battles but lose the war. And of course, why the hell are we fighting? Get out. Go home.
Again, after WWII the newly independent Air Force thought it was king, that nukes and missiles made the Army, Navy and Marines obsolete. Since understandably most people don’t want to blow up the world, that’s not what USAF ended up doing: exactly what conservative generals in the ’20s and ’30s thought, close air support for the ground forces.
Goodbye, good jobs
From Takimag. Our Third Worldification proceeds: goodbye, American dream; hello, few rich and lots of poor. Newspapers are going; I don’t care but just want in on what will replace them.
From Takimag. Our Third Worldification proceeds: goodbye, American dream; hello, few rich and lots of poor. Newspapers are going; I don’t care but just want in on what will replace them.
Bishop Fellay: SSPX doesn’t have to accept all of Vatican II to be regularized in official church
Good and of course. ‘But it’s an ecumenical council!’ the neocaths and libs will say. It didn’t define any doctrine so no problem. I’m fine with religious liberty (of course; I’m a libertarian) and even with ecumenism rightly understood (teach all nations, not indifferentism), the real sticking points (It’s Not About Latin™), but Catholics are better off ignoring/dumping V2. It did a lot of harm.
Again: have the world’s trads under Cardinal Fellay.
Good and of course. ‘But it’s an ecumenical council!’ the neocaths and libs will say. It didn’t define any doctrine so no problem. I’m fine with religious liberty (of course; I’m a libertarian) and even with ecumenism rightly understood (teach all nations, not indifferentism), the real sticking points (It’s Not About Latin™), but Catholics are better off ignoring/dumping V2. It did a lot of harm.
Again: have the world’s trads under Cardinal Fellay.
Wednesday, June 06, 2012
Tuesday, June 05, 2012
From LRC
- Why we won’t transform the Republican Party. When things didn’t go the way the pro-Romney leadership wanted them to go, they simply created a new GOP to replace the old one.
- Syria’s insurrection is not America’s war. It’s a sectarian war because ruler Assad belongs to something not really Muslim, sort of like Mormons are to Christians.
- For years, the macroeconomists told us the current depression wasn’t even possible.
- Goodbye, good men. Reminds me of the conversations with the Anti-Gnostic here about the feminization and homosexualization of the military so it’s not The Sands of Iwo Jima anymore but private companies doing the real fighting. From talking to some retired military, who approved (not our resident naval officer), I’ve seen it: the military is the government so it’s much more PC than you think. Flirting With Disaster author Brian Mitchell, whom I’ve heard in person, quit the Regular Army (he’s a West Pointer) over it and said, in the ’90s, that the generals and admirals knew it was wrecking the military but couldn’t say anything. Anyway, Roissy (a ‘so-trad’ beneath the raunch) answers such well-meant white-knight moralizing from so-cons: porn and video-game addictions are symptoms of the cultural problems Roissy describes, not the problems, or with the deck stacked against them, no wonder young men drop out.
From RR
- US and NATO secure withdrawal route in Afghanistan.
- New Zealand sort of in NATO? Makes some sense even if you don’t like it. They’re not in Europe but they’re British. The empire didn’t go away; it just shifted to DC. Reminds me: aren’t things such as ‘We Are the World’ and Live 8 just ways for the left to try to recolonize Africa?
- Paper Man. 1971 history, computers and Obama’s flimsy backstory: just a little nobody that his mentors—his creators—employed as a wire-frame to hang item after item of false credentials on, credentials so incompetently manufactured that they must now be kept hidden away to avoid expert scrutiny. Like most libertarians I don’t care what country he was born in, or much about him personally, but about rule of law and about peace, on both of which he’s a disaster. This article reminds me of something Obama non-fan Steve Sailer brought up. Obama Sr. wasn’t exactly a commie; he and Obama’s mother were a kind of people the CIA loved, non-Communist lefties. That, more than affirmative action, explains Obama’s success.
- I’ll take ‘The Deck Is Stacked’ for $400, Alex. Reminds me of the railroading of George Zimmerman.
- One nation under surveillance. Yesterday’s LRC had something on Canada being a police state.
- A Clinton-Biden switcheroo? Nah. I can’t see bumbling Biden as Secretary of State. Anyway Obama will lose.
- Damascus feels like a city expecting the worst to happen and seeing no way to avoid it.
- The national budget must be balanced.
- The looming reversal of centralization.
- Ending the US war in Yemen.
- The Elizabeth Warren story illustrates the ridiculousness of racial quotas. She’s part of the wannabe tribe.
- Bloomberg’s soda farce.
Monday, June 04, 2012
Church and state: don’t bargain with Cthulhu
A hard lesson for a lot of well-meaning churchmen who’ve wanted semi-socialism/statism (as long as it’s for peace and family values: not heretical and superficially appealing) for a long time. Here in America, the bishops have wanted nationalized health care since 1919 and soon forgot the reason for Catholic schools (to stop the government from indoctrinating, in this case protestantizing, Catholic kids) so they have long wanted government funding for them. Take money from the state and the state tells you what to do. Meanwhile, a way Vatican II wrecked the church was it upset the delicate balance of a church mostly of non-pious cultural Catholics (naturally the church isn’t a micromanaging cult like some trad groups want to be) so they assimilated, slinking off to join the enemy (from classic Bad Catholics like the veep to snakes like the Kennedys always were to Sebelius for example).
Again the left doesn’t really want liberty even for the people they say they care so much about.
From WWWTW.
A hard lesson for a lot of well-meaning churchmen who’ve wanted semi-socialism/statism (as long as it’s for peace and family values: not heretical and superficially appealing) for a long time. Here in America, the bishops have wanted nationalized health care since 1919 and soon forgot the reason for Catholic schools (to stop the government from indoctrinating, in this case protestantizing, Catholic kids) so they have long wanted government funding for them. Take money from the state and the state tells you what to do. Meanwhile, a way Vatican II wrecked the church was it upset the delicate balance of a church mostly of non-pious cultural Catholics (naturally the church isn’t a micromanaging cult like some trad groups want to be) so they assimilated, slinking off to join the enemy (from classic Bad Catholics like the veep to snakes like the Kennedys always were to Sebelius for example).
Again the left doesn’t really want liberty even for the people they say they care so much about.
From WWWTW.
Sunday, June 03, 2012
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