Atlantic:"Pro-Lifers Racist"

Tip of the petasus to Father Z of What Does the Prayer Really Say.  Brian Fung of Atlantic Magazine says that the pro-life movement is aimed at harming poor minorities.  Whereas Brian Fung of Atlantic thinks killing the offspring of poor minorities is helping them.  Reminds Estase (as most things do) of Eighteenth Century England.  In his Importance of the Guardian Considered, Tory firebrand and general asshole Jonathan Swift attacked a letter written by Richard Steele.  Steele's crime?  By suggesting that the Harley/Bolingbroke ministry should demolish the port of Dunkirk (which the ministry Swift wrote on behalf of actually wanted to do anyway), Steele was ordering about Queen Anne.  Make sense?  No, me neither.  And this is why Fung's argument is dung.  Just as how Swift was berating someone for insulting the Queen just because they advocated a policy, Fung is implying race animosity based on a policy position.  The only difference is that two hundred years after his death, Jonathan Swift is recognized as a master literary figure and Brian Fung, well, he just writes for a liberal magazine.

Update:  In reviewing election results on MSNBC, Nancy Giles comes to the same erroneous conclusion as Brian Fung.  Giles theorizes that pro-lifers want "to build up the white race," neglecting the fact that it is by and large future black and hispanic voters whom abortion eliminates.

Update:  An education weenie theorizes that the term "PB&J Sandwich" is racist because, get this, non-English speakers don't use the term sandwich to refer to materials between bread.  In a related vein of idiocy, Shiitetown Mayor Rahm Emmanuel is under attack by. . . Salon.com?  Yes, oddly enough, now the salonistas consider the President's former attack dog to be a terrible right-winger for opposing the almighty teacher's unions by asking for, gasp, accountablity for the best paid teachers in America.  By the way, it isn't Chicagoans who will pay the bill for the nonfunctional Mercedes-Benz that is the Chicago Public Schools, it is we benighted downstate Illinoisans who will really subsidize this nonsense.  But then again, an Accuracy in Media story by Mary Grabar details how a friend of Bill Ayers, bomber-educator, named Linda Darling-Hammond is instituting, with the support of the Obama Education Secretary Arnie Duncan, a new national education standard called Common Core.  Contrary to what its name suggests, Common Core is intended to replace the literary tradition with popular culture, replace the founding documents with radical texts, and in general indoctrinate the students of America with Oh Blah Blah's social values.  So perhaps the teacher's unions are unaware of what their mayor really intends for their job to be--Democratic party recruiters.

Lex Christianorum: Stoics: The Chrysippian Synthesis

Lex Christianorum: Stoics: The Chrysippian Synthesis
This quidnunc has admirably tackled the topic of Stoicism.

Creative Minority Report: Pro-Life Dems: None So Blind

Creative Minority Report: Pro-Life Dems: None So Blind
A comment on the NCR version of this piece talks about how the Democrats are still better because they care about "the least among us," etc.  This is Seamless Garment baloney at its worst.  We are to reject the soulless individualism of Republicanism so that we may show our respect for the poor by aborting their young at taxpayer expense.  The fact that so many Catholic Bishops embrace this nonsense is yet another problem.  Many priests prayed for Obamacare to pass in general intercessions, only to watch that program require the Catholic Church to fund contraception and abortion for its employees.  But the Democrats care more about the least among us!

Locke on Abortion

In June 2010, I left a note on Libertas et Memoria, Mark in Spokane's quidnunc, about the pro-choice potential in John Locke.  "In Concerning Human Understanding Book II Chapter Twenty-Seven, Locke defines persons as 'only{. . .}intelligent agents, capable of a law, and happiness, and misery.'  In Book III, Chapter Six, Locke suggests that it would be permissible to kill a misshapen infant of poor intellect.  He questions the meaning of the word 'life' in Book III Chapter Ten.  In Book III Chapter Eleven, Locke says that killing a misshapen infant is permissible only if it has no 'rational soul,' by which Locke means having poor intellect.  Another idea Locke is fascinated with is 'the changeling,' described as an animal and having a narrow, flat, long face (Book IV Chapter Four), and what is most disturbing about this is that it seems apparent to me that Locke is talking about developmentally disabled people when he talks about changelings.  He also uses the term 'monster' to describe them.  It is hard to avoid thinking Locke would enthusiastically support abortion were he alive today."

A Bruno Waterfield article in the London Telegraph www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9520026/Christians should 'leave their beliefs at home or get another job'.html says that British Muslims may wear a headscarf, but British Christians may not wear a crucifix.

What Won't Perdue Do?

With a tip of the petasus to Adrienne's Corner, North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue is apparently a big fan of Planned Parenthood and taxpayer-supported abortion.  Hmmm. . . that name sounds familiar!  Oh yes, this was the same madcap who wanted to suspend the 2012 election (See my previous quidnunc "Septennial Act Redux")!  So, of course, it is no coincidence that Governor Perdue wants to, shall we say, bend the law.  It is all to bolster the abortion party.  The Dems like to use hyperbolic language about how Republicans want to take away everyone's rights, chase liberals out of the country, force women into barefoot kitchen servitude, but never mind when Democrats propose actual violations of law like skipping elections.  I really am surprised Governor Perdue didn't just suggest naming Barack Obama as Maximum Jefe, President-for-Life.

Update:  As of September 6, wife-murdering policeman Drew Peterson is convicted of murder.  No doubt, Governor Perdue will endorse some absurd violation of the law, such as she has done in recommending the suspension of the 2012 election.  Maybe instead of being sent to prison, Peterson will be made the White House Advisor on Wife Disappearance.  The murder czar, I can see it now!  Tip of the petasus to Riehl World View:  Congressman Ellison, who definitely is not an extreme CAIR affiliated Muslim, is irritated with his party's insertion of pro-Israel language into the party platform.

Fixing Catholic Relief Services

When one donates to an organization calling itself "Catholic," they typically expect certain things.  They expect that it serves the needs of the poor in a way typical of Christian Catholic values.  They do not expect it to employ those who abhor those values, or for it to take money or give money to those who support abortion.
      LifeSite News of August 1, 2012 has an article by John-Henry Westen that reports that Catholic Relief Services is accepting money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which supports contraception and abortion in developing countries.  It gave the pro-abortion group CARE International $5.3 million.  Catholic Relief Services is a member of the pro-abortion CORE group, to which it pays $3,000 in membership fees.  CRS employees Mary Hennigan and Shannon Senefeld sit on CORE's board of directors and HIV/AIDS working groups respectively.
      LifeSite News of August 21, 2012 has an article by Patrick B. Craine that is even more explosive, detailing that several employees of Catholic Relief Services have pro-abortion backgrounds.  Daphyne Williams interned at Pro-Choice Resources before joining CRS in 2008.  Dr. Amy Ellis came to CRS after working for Population Services International.  While working for CRS, she gave a presentation at the International Conference on Family Planning.  Dr. Pun Sok came to CRS from CARE, which, as before stated, promotes abortion.  Finally, CRS employee Charisse Espy Glassman was such a dedicated pro-abort that she, while employed by Catholic Relief Services, deliberately drove her car into marchers at the DC March for Life in January 2011.  Clearly, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to reform Catholic Relief Services every bit as much as it needs to reform Campaign for Human Development, so that the faithful are not gulled into funding causes they detest.

The Scapegoats

The Primrose League is trying to disavow social conservatives again.  Riehl World View has a piece about how social conservatives need to figure out which side they're on.  This is a disingenuous statement;  social conservatives know damn well which side they're on.  Either it's Republicans or a party that is openly contemptuous of people of faith.  Either it's Republicans or people who want to force Catholics to bankroll contraception.  I could go on, but you get the point.  The real issue is that the Primrose League knows social conservatives have no where else to go.  This is the reason why they think they are an embarrassment, the country cousins whose votes they need, but whom they wish to disavow and blame for their image problems.  So when an idiot like Todd Akin puts his foot in it, this gives the Primrose League a fit.  They would rather run on pure economic policy, which is rather different than the attitude of Democrats.  Democrats love NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and all the rest of the culture of death.  When the abortion industry is embarrassed, the Democrats don't abandon them the way the Primrose League wants to jettison social conservatives.  So as abominable as the Democratic Party is in what it aims to do, they at least have more loyalty to their own than Republicans show their own.  Maybe Akin should step out of the way, but Republicans are almost buying into the idea the Democrats are fostering that Akin is somehow typical of social conservatives.  It isn't surprising that liberals would think social conservatives are bumpkins, but it is rather disturbing when the Primrose League thinks so.

The Clue Batting Cage: Akin's Achin'

The Clue Batting Cage: Akin's Achin'
A good comment on someone who may not be perfect, but also isn't Claire McCaskill.

Three Irreverent Songs, From Worst to Best

Three examples of songs disrespectful of religion immediately come to mind.  The first, and worst, is Joan Osborne's "One of Us," which is a nearly atonal ditty wherein Ms. Osborne opines God might be a "slob" riding a bus, whose only communication is with the Pope.  Thus, "One of Us" is the Rock for Choice anthem of disbelief.  Second, Madonna's "Papa Don't Preach" begins with mock classical instrumentation that leads into a typical 80s pop song.  What is remarkable about the Madonna song to Estase is that the character in the song apparently intends to have her baby.  Given the star's personal life, it is surprising that the song doesn't point to an abortion.  And for all its debatable morality, the Madonna song has more going for it than the Joan Osborne one.  Third is my favorite, the Electric Light Orchestra song "King of the Universe," which is only slightly disrespectful to religion.  As a matter of fact, I have more religious feeling from "King of the Universe" than from such dreadful ecclesiastical offerings as "Gather Us In."  Lyrically, nothing is truly heretical about "King of the Universe," and only the song's grandiosity suggests it is a tongue-in-cheek song about the Almighty.  Appearing on the 1973 album On the Third Day, "King of the Universe" can be seen in its context of songs about death as a reflection on mortality and the meaning of life.

Commentarius de Prognosticis: What Is Wrong with the Roman Jurisdiction in America

Commentarius de Prognosticis: What Is Wrong with the Roman Jurisdiction in America
This says it all.

Sfears of Influence

I wish to introduce a new term.  Political scientists and diplomats have long discussed spheres of influence.  This term means geographical areas which are important to different states, e.g. Afghanistan is in Russia's sphere of influence.  My new term is sfear of influence.  A sfear of influence is a topic which although vitally important to a person or person, is something that circumstances make incredibly uncomfortable to acknowledge.  An example of a sfear of influence would be the issue of homosexuality to the Catholic Church.  Formally condemned by the Church, it is, nevertheless, the orientation of many of its priests.  Another example of a sfear of influence would be taxes on the rich for the Republican Party.  While economic growth requires that capitalists be able to accumulate money without it being sapped by well meaning or not-so-well meaning politicians, tax fairness for the rich is a Republican sfear of influence because the Democrats are all too willing to pretend that Republican tax policy is motivated only by a desire for people like Mitt Romney to avoid paying their "fair share," which according to President Carter meant paying 70% of one's income as taxes.

Restore-DC-Catholicism: CCHD - A Different Sort Of Prostitute

Restore-DC-Catholicism: CCHD - A Different Sort Of Prostitute
Yet another example of why Campaign for Human Development is a bad,bad cause to donate to.
On a different topic, extremists of all stripes are one reason for my retreat to the eighteenth century.  When Estase was a student at UIUC, there was a repellant character in the law school who liked to parade around in a Hitler outfit and hand out anti-Semetic pamphlets.  The College Republicans loathed him because he made our lives Hell.  Every would-be Mao Zedong liked to pretend that Matt Hale was somehow like us.  The fact of the matter is that every time there is some psychiatric case that flips out, the Salon types start talking right-wing terrorism.  Matt Hale ended up going to prison for trying to put a hit out on a Federal Judge.  So, obviously, being high functioning enough to be a law student doesn't exclude acts of utter idiocy.  Debbie Schussel claimed Holmes, the Aurora CO shooter was associated with Occupy, which may account for the media losing interest in the case.  The MSM will do anything to further their goals, even if that means soft-pedalling a story they were excited about a week ago.  The Matt Hales of the world are a boon to leftists, because they distract people from their own lunatics.

An Appeal

I received this letter from my favorite charity, Edmundite Missions www.edmunditemissions.org. Their snail mail address is 1428 Broad Street, Selma, AL  36701.

"Dear Estase,
       'What am I supposed to do?  I can't serve this kind of food to hungry people for lunch.'  Mary Gayle told me.  'The Food Bank sent us chocolate fudge sauce, diapers and gallons of distilled water.  They even sent us bags of charcoal!'  When she described the serious shortage of healthy food at a time when children are out of school, I immediately drove over to the Food Bank to see for myself.
      With temperatures well above 100 degrees and the humidity so high that it fills your lungs, Bosco provides nourishing meals to the sick and working poor with young children, for a brief lunch hour, out of the merciless Alabama sun.  Without a doubt, Bosco saves lives.
     Unfortunately, upon entering the warehouse of the Food Bank, I soon discovered the lack of food was even worse that I thought.  'We're getting less than half the USDA food products we got a year ago,' the Food Bank Director told me.  'Instead, we're receiving truckloads of questionable products and nonfood items.  Sometimes, a delivery will have no food at all,' he said, pointing to the pallets of diapers, dish soap, nondairy creamer and teeth whitening strips.
     Looking around the warehouse, I was shocked by the stacks and stacks of empty pallets, where canned vegetables once stood.  The shelves were stocked with boxes of cookies, chips and snack cakes, all empty calorie foods, not the kinds of food to keep a child or an elder strong and healthy.  Are we to feed snack foods to 320 people who depend on Bosco every day, 365 days a year?
     We walked up to a pallet filled with packages of candies, which made me cringe, as I thought of the drastic results of this food shortage.  For the last few months, I have watched the Bosco Food Kitchen bills stack up and now I wonder how we will ever pay the increasing costs, when we are forced to purchase all our meat, rice and vegetables from commercial grocery stores in Selma, at much higher prices.
     The frail and sick like 80 year-old Mrs. Mae Young, crippled with the painful curled hands of rheumatoid arthritis, spends her days on the front porch of her shack, alone and suffering through the blistering heat, far out in the country.  She tells me that her only smiles come from the sight of the Edmundite Missions truck bringing her a bag of food and a word of encouragement.  I simply cannot turn these impoverished people away and I know you would not want me to.
     Currently, the Food Bank can no longer provide the nourishing food we must have!  And I can't come up with the additional funds to purchase food at full price.  This terrible situation is why I'm humbly coming to you for your help.  Without you, it is now impossible to feed those who turn to the Edmundite Missions for life-sustaining food.  The hamburger, rice and vegetables we need to serve soup at Bosco for a month costs $30,612.  Without help from the Food Bank, it will cost an extra $167 a day, in addition to the amount it already takes to feed these hungry people.
     I join the Edmundites in daily prayers, asking God to bless you abundantly.  My prayers are filled with hope that your generosity to feed the poor, whom God loves, will continue.
                                                              In Christ, I remain,
                                                              Chad McEachern
                                                              Missions Director"

Men of Business v. Men of Genius

"Wit and humour are the dress and ornament of the mind;  but honesty and truth are the soul itself, and the difference in a man's care of his reputation for one and the other is just in proportion that being robbed bears to being murdered."  Richard Steele quoted in Sir Richard Steele by Willard Connely , p.305 (1934)

The kind of elegant prose Estase refers to as Burkean should perhaps be described as Steelesque instead.  Richard Steele was probably not as well educated as Joseph Addison or Jonathan Swift, and his unfavorable qualities included trading on the labor of African slaves in the West Indies, gluttony, lechery, and what would today be seen as alcoholism.  That last characteristic was common to many of the great men of his time, notably Lord Carteret.  His educational deficiencies were the source of much malevolent fun for Dean Swift, who probably would have thought himself one of the first deserving of that title of Liberal aristocracy coined by John Stuart Mill, the "Man of Genius."  While not even seeking the title of a man of genius, Steele preferred to call himself a "Man of Business,"  meaning that though he was unable to make puns in Greek, what he possessed instead was a knowledge of things as they really are.  Even today, the Leftist intelligentsia disdains all forms of practical knowledge, and while precious few of those today could make puns in Greek, they ascribe great weight to such unpractical studies as Sociology or Law, which also explains why a higher percentage of faculty in fields such as Engineering or Economics are conservative.  The phrase "conservative sociologist" is nearly an oxymoron.  Indeed, the ranks of the Occupy movement would be empty but for the large number of college graduates with degrees in Sociology or Gender Studies who find themselves with no productive work, but $40,000 in debt to pay off.

Haj Amin al-Husseini, Part Three

"Arafat continued the mufti's legacy by recruiting Nazis and neo-Nazis for Fatah and the PLO.  In 1969, the PLO recruited two former Nazi instructors, Erich Altern, a leader of the Gestapo's Jewish affairs section, and Willy Berner, who was an SS officer in the Mauthausen extermination camp.  Another former Nazi, Johann Schuller, was found supplying arms to Fatah.  Belgian Jean Tireault, secretary of the neo-Nazi organization La Nation Europeene, also went on the Fatah payroll.  Another Belgian, neo-Nazi Karl van der Put, recruited volunteers for the PLO.  During the 1970s, German neo-Nazi Otto Albrecht was arrested in West Germany with PLO identity papers after the PLO had given him $1.2 million to buy weapons. 
     Like al-Husseini, Arafat was a ruthless murderer whose career was built on terrorism and violence.  In continuing this tradition, Arafat introduced his longtime PLO associate Hani al-Hassan to Romanian president Nicolae Ceausescu in October 1972, saying:  'This is my brother. . . He is the one who, just a few months ago, prepared our answer to the Olympic Committee's decision not to allow a team of Palestinian athletes to participate in the Munich games.  He is the brain who put our organization's name on the front page of every single newspaper.'
     Arafat was referring to the September 5, 1972, massacre of eleven Israeli athletes by a team of PLO terrorists during the Olympic Games in Munich, a brutal deed that shocked the world.  So did the murder the following year of Cleo A. Noel, U.S. ambassador to Sudan, and his charge d'affaires, George Curtis Moore, another crime executed by Arafat's PLO.  Arafat was directly implicated in the October 1985 seizure by Palestinian terrorists of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro, in which a disabled Jewish passenger, Leon Klinghoffer, was singled out for killing, a terrorist act that Pope John Paul II publicly condemned as 'a grave act of violence against innocent and defenseless persons(p134-35).' 
     In creating Hamas, the organization's founder and spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, a devoted admirer of al-Husseini, formulated the concept that Palestine should 'become the central battlefield' between the forces of radical Islam and Israel and its Western allies, in a radical Islamic jihad against Israel, America, and the pro-Israel West.  Participation in the intifada, argued Yassin, the first stage of this holy war, would bring about Israel's eventual destruction and the establishment of a nationalist pan-Islamic state in Palestine.  The creation of this state, the very type al-Husseini had envisioned, would in turn be the precursor of a global holy war, waged by Hamas and the leaders of radical Islam against Israel's allies in America and the West.  Thirty-two years after his death, the vision of al-Husseini was to be affirmed as Hamas assumed the leadership of the Palestinian people.  Following the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian elections held on January 25, 2006, Khaled Mashaal, the leader of Hamas, gave a speech in Damascus in which he declared:  'I bring good tidings to our beloved Prophet Muhammed:  Allah's promise and the Prophet's prophecy of our victory in Palestine over the Jews and over the oppressive Zionists has begun to come true.'  The leaders of Hamas continue to seek to undermine and reverse the work of the more moderate Palestinian nationalist factions, some of which have reluctantly accepted Israel's right to exist.  The opposition to Israel's existence is much more intransigent in Hamas than it is today among some secular Palestinian nationalists.  This is an intransigence that the mufti would have shared(p139-40)." From Icon of Evil:Hitler's Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam, by David G. Dalin and John F. Rothmann  

Burkean Rhetoric?

The following is the kind of prose Estase would almost associate with Edmund Burke, and how he wishes he wrote.  It is from Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout.  Nero Wolfe gave the kind of dialogue one would associate with Georgian Britain, where his investigator Archie Goodwin speaks like a film noir gumshoe.  It is this juxtaposition that makes the Nero Wolfe mysteries so much fun.

"At least he might have.  Let's say his proposal was that he should, with your consent, remove Caesar and put another bull in his place.  He would take Caesar to the Osgood barns.  You would, during Tuesday, help to guard the substitute so that no one who would be at all likely to notice the deception would be permitted to approach too closely.  With the substitute once butchered, on Wednesday, the danger would of course be over.  On Thursday, Mr. Pratt and his guests, with trumpets of publicity, would eat the barbecued bull.  On Sunday, with the week expired, Clyde would present Mr. Pratt with irrefutable evidence that it was not Caesar who had been sacrificed and that he had therefore won the bet.  Mr. Pratt would of course explode with rage, but in the end he would have to compose himself and admit his helplessness and pay the $10,000, for if the facts were made public the roar of laughter would obliterate him.  Customers in a pratteria would say, 'Do you suppose this is really beef?  It may be woodchuck.'  Mr. Pratt would have to pay and keep his mouth shut.  He couldn't even take Caesar back, for what would he do with him?  Clyde Osgood would get the $10,000, and doubtless a part of his proposal would be that you get Caesar.  I don't know how that would work out, since officially Caesar would be dead, but there might be a way around that difficulty, and as a minimum benefit you could breed his exceptional qualities into your herd.  That, of course, is merely the outline of the proposal.  Clyde had probably developed it in detail, including the time and manner of shuffling the bulls.  The most auspicious time for that would have been after 1 o'clock, when you would be the one on guard, but you might have refused to involve yourself to that extent;  and therefore one possibility is that the shuffling was set for earlier and had actually taken place.  Caesar may be alive at this moment.  The bull who died of anthrax may have been only a substitute.  I offer that only as a conjecture;  obviously it is tenable only on the supposition that you agreed to Clyde's proposal and entered into his scheme. . . and you know more about that than I do.  But leaving that entirely aside, what do you think of the scheme itself?  Do you detect any flaws?" (p160-61)

SCOTUS Observations

Reading the Roberts opinion in the challenge to Obamacare has convinced me of a couple of things.  One, stare decisis is killing the coherence of the law.  Wickard v. Fillburn, like Jason Vorhees of Friday the 13th, refuses to die.  As long as it keeps being propped up, there will exist no practical limit to the abuse of the commerce clause.  Two, Estase is very happy he did not become a lawyer, as the pedantry of these arguments makes one long for the forthright simplicity of medieval metaphysics.  Three, although many commentators have excoriated Justice Roberts for the claim that the government may not force you to buy insurance, but may heavily tax you for not buying insurance, the really scary person in the room was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who not only believes in the broadly constructed commerce clause, but apparently also believes that the Federal Government has the right to coerce the states into expanding Medicaid into an entirely different program than what it originally was.  So, apparently, Justice Ginsburg does not see state governments and the Federal Government as relative equals, which is what federalism suggests, but she thinks that states are merely a dependent appendage of the Federal Government, which can compel the states to do whatever it bids.

Some commentators also act surprised that Roberts is a moderate.  I saw that right away when he was being confirmed, and said he believed in the right to privacy.  Anyone who is over the age of 13 knows that that meant that Roberts was saying by that that he would uphold Roe v. Wade.  So for people to now be surprised that Roberts isn't a Scalia is a little naive.

Catholic Church Conservation: Poacher turned gamekeeper put in charge of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Catholic Church Conservation: Poacher turned gamekeeper put in charge of Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
Not exactly encouraging.

Haj Amin al-Husseini, Part Two

"In consultation with the mufti, the Nazi leadership had created a special Einsatzgruppen Egypt, a mobile SS squad, under the supervision of Adolf Eichmann, which was to carry out the mass murder of Palestinian Jewry.  By the summer of 1942, anticipating a German military victory in the Middle East, the Einsatzgruppen Egypt had been standing by in Athens and was ready to disembark for Palestine, attached to German general Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps, where it would have begun killing the close to half a million Jews then living in Palestine.  This Middle Eastern death squad was led by SS Obersturmbannfuhrer Walter Rauff, one of Eichmann's most trusted deputies and a confidant of al-Husseini's(p60).  The mufti never attempted to disguise his Nazi beliefs or his wartime role as a mouthpiece for Hitler's genocide in the Arab world.  His role in the extermination of the Jews of Bosnia, and his oft proclaimed desire to exterminate all the Jews of Europe and Palestine, cannot be excused simply as anti-Zionism.  It may be a coincidence that the decision to carry out the physical extermination of the Jews of Europe followed soon after his arrival in Germany.  From the mufti's perspective, it was providential.  In fact, only two months after his initial meeting with Hitler on November 28, 1941, the infamous Wannsee Conference took place, in which the Nazi leadership produced their plan to systematically exterminate European Jewry(p62).  So, too, Marshal Tito's government in postwar Yugoslavia did not demand al-Husseini's extradition and indictment as a war criminal at Nuremberg, despite overwhelming evidence of the mufti's collaboration with the Nazis, his role in the murder of thousands of Bosnian Croatians and Serbs, and his recruitment and formation of the Muslim Bosnian Waffen-SS Division that had been instrumental in the extermination of 90 percent of Bosnia's Jews.  Tito understood that if he was to forge a united Yugoslav nation, the Muslims in Bosnia--many of whom had fought under the mufti during the war as members of the Handschar Division of his Bosnian Waffen-SS, and who constituted a not insignificant portion of Marshal Tito's constituency--must not have any excuse to resist his plans.  The Muslim community of Bosnia, Tito recognized, remained unswervingly loyal to the mufti, even after the defeat of Nazi Germany.  Thus, although there was a consensus that Haj Amin al-Husseini was guilty of war crimes, a convergence of political realities in the postwar world prevented him from being brought to justice(p64).  The mufti himself was one of the first to call for a holy war, ordering his 'Muslim brothers to murder the Jews.  Murder them all.'  This same call was made by his friend the sheikh of Al-Azhar.  'The hour of the holy war has struck,' proclaimed the sheikh.  'All Arab fighters must look upon the struggle for Palestine as a religious duty.'  As the Arab League's secretary general, Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam Pasha,  candidly put it:'This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.'  Al-Husseini's spokesman Ahmad Shuqairy, later to become the first chairman of the PLO, announced that the goal of the new Arab war against Israel was 'the elimination of the Jewish state.'  Jerusalem, the mufti told his supporters and friends, would soon become Judenrein(p93).  Much to the anger and outrage of al-Husseini and his allies in the militantly anti-Israel Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's moderate prime minister Mahmoud an-Nukrashi Pasha made it known that he did not want to send Egypt's army into combat against Israel.  For al-Husseini and the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, this was an unforgivable sin.  For this crime, Pasha fell to an assassin's bullet as he left his office in Cairo on December 28, 1948.  A member of the Muslim Brotherhood fired the shot.  Al-Husseini and the Muslim Brotherhood had conspired secretly in his assassination, as they would conspire together in the assassination of King Abdullah(p96).  The impact of the jihadist ideologue Sayyid Qutb on the perpetrators of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon has been well documented.  Qutb had a particularly important influence on terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.  As a student at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah in the late 1970s, bin Laden first became associated with the Muslim Brotherhood while studying religion with Sayyid Qutb's brother Mohammed, one of the university's most prominent teachers of Islamic studies and the chief interpreter of Sayyid Qutb's written works(p98).  Icon of Evil:  Hitler's Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam by David G. Dalin and John F. Rothmann

Update (7 JAN 2013) Tip of the petasus to Daniel Greenfield at FrontPageMag.  An article in the Egyptian newspaper Rose-El-Youssef lists six prominant members of the Obama administration with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of which is Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Policy Development Arif Ali Khan, whom is described by Rose-El-Youssef as being a Qutb-ist.

Haj Amin al-Husseini, Part One

"The Mufti's close working relationship and friendship with Adolf Eichmann, as well as with Heinrich Himmler, is well documented and indisputable.  Following the capture of Eichmann in May 1960, the speculation about the relationship between these two men became a subject of active public discussion.  In a press conference held at the time of the Eichmann trial, on May 4, 1961, al-Husseini denied any connection with Adolf Eichmann during World War II.  Indeed, he claimed at this press conference that he did not even know who Eichmann was until he read about his capture in the newspapers.  In fact, the mufti and Eichmann not only knew each other, but collaborated actively in their years of service to the Third Reich.  At the Nuremberg trials, Dieter Wisliceny, one of Eichmann's senior deputies, would testify that the mufti "was one of Eichmann's best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures.  I heard him say that, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas chamber of Auschwitz."  On this visit to Auschwitz, al-Husseini reportedly urged the guards in charge of the chambers to be more diligent and efficient in their efforts.
     One can only imagine how the mufti must have rejoiced as he toured the Auschwitz death camp complex.  What he witnessed was indeed, in his mind, the final solution to his Jewish problem.  With a sweeping audacity that was almost too bold to grasp, Hitler had determined simply to eliminate his perceived enemies.  As he examined the details of the process that led to extermination, al-Husseini realized that he would not have to transport his Jews anywhere.  The Jews were concentrated in the Tel Aviv/ Jaffa region of Palestine.  No railroad cars would be needed for transport.  No "selection" would be necessary.  No Jew would be needed to work or labor in any way for his Arab state of Palestine.  All that the mufti would need would be the technical assistance of his good friends Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Eichmann to construct factories of death to eliminate the Jews from Palestine once and for all.
     As the mufti left Aushwitz to return to Berlin, he could only marvel at Germany's ruthless efficiency in solving its Jewish problem.  With a smug certainty, he marveled at his good fortune in living at a time when he was blessed with such a superb ally and friend in the person of Adolf Hitler.
     Eichmann and al-Husseini admired each other tremendously.  Eichmann, as Dieter Wisliceny recalled in his testimony at Nuremberg, "was very strongly impressed with the Mufti."  The mufti, in turn, reciprocated this admiration.  When he spoke of Eichmann in the presumed privacy of his diary, al-Husseini observed that he was a "very rare diamond, the best savior of the Arabs(p51-52)." 
     "For the mufti, as for al-Gaylani, however, the common enemy was not just Great Britain, but the entire Allied cause.  The mufti often called upon the Muslims of the world to help Germany in the holy war it was waging against the British and their Western allies, especially the United States.  Some of his radio broadcasts were devoted specifically to condemning American policy in the Middle East.  In a radio broadcast from Berlin in March 1944, he denounced American policy with regard to the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine:  "No one {would have}ever thought," he thundered, "that 140 million Americans would become tools in Jewish hands. . . . How could the Americans dare to Judiaze Palestine?"
     Many of his most passionate radio broadcasts were classically anti-Semetic, designed to incite hatred and violence against radical Islam's greatest enemy, the Jews.  On November 2, 1943, at the public rally to protest the Balfour Declaration, al-Husseini used German radio to broadcast one of his most virulently anti-Semetic messages:  "The overwhelming egoism which lies in the character of Jews, their unworthy belief that they are God's chosen nation and their assertion that all was created for them and that other people are animals," al-Husseini declared, "makes them incapable of being trusted."  In this broadcast, which included an inflammatory tirade against both the Jews and the British, interspersed with citations of Koranic texts against the Jews, the mufti said of the Jews:  "They cannot mix with any other nation but live as parasites among the nations, suck out their blood, embezzle their property, corrupt their morals. . . . The divine anger and curse that the Holy Koran mentions with reference to the Jews is because of this unique character of the Jews(p53-54)."" Icon of Evil:Hitler's Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam by David G. Dalin and John F. Rothmann 

Battle of the Books: Liberty as the Absence of Force

Thus the word {liberty} is either a misleading appeal to passion, or else it embodies or rather hints at an exceedingly complicated assertion, the truth of which can be proved only by elaborate historical investigations.  'The cause of liberty, for which Hampden died on the field and Sydney on the scaffold,' means either that Hampden and Sydney were right in resisting Charles I and Charles II, respectively, or else merely that they did as a fact die in resisting those kings.  The first assertion obviously requires, before it can be accepted, a full account by way of proof.  The second tells us nothing worth knowing except a bare matter of fact, and would be consistent with Hampden's having been shot when trying to rob on the highway and Sydney's being hanged for highway robbery(p121).  Yet this definition of liberty, which is in exact agreement with Mr. Mill's own views as expressed in his chapter on Liberty and Necessity, in the 2nd volume of his Logic,  is the very foundation of my book.  Liberty is a eulogistic word;  substitute for it a neutral word--'leave', for instance, or 'permission'--and it becomes obvious that nothing whatever can be predicated of it, unless you know who is permitted by whom to do what.  I would ask Mr. Morley whether he attaches any absolute sense whatever to the word liberty, and if so, what it is?  If he attaches to it only the relative sense of 'permission' or 'leave,' I ask how he can make any affirmation at all about it unless he specifies the sort of liberty to which he refers?  Of course, liberty may have positive effects.  Give all men leave to steal, and no doubt some men will steal, but this does not show that liberty itself is a definite thing, with properties of its own, like coal or water(p233, James Fitzjames Stephen, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, Liberty Fund ed.) 

Catholic Marxism

Petasus tip to Catholic Herald.UK.  Bishop Reinhard Marx, author of Das Kapital (not to be confused with the Das Kapital written by Karl Marx) says that it is time to abandon capitalism.  The article did not give any specifics about how or where Bishop Marx was educated.  If his education was, as is typical for clergymen, in theology, one wonders why the Bishop is holding forth on a topic he lacks familiarity in.  This is an all too common problem with the Catholic episcopacy, which holds forth strongly held opinions about biology, economics, law, politics, and other topics they really shouldn't specialize in.  A good example of this is the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), who offer an opinion about virtually every topic under the sun, which only means that their emphasis on vital issues like abortion is drowned out by the plentitude of remarks they make about everything else.

Estase actually has something positive to say about an Illinois Democrat.  Dan Lipinski voted to outlaw sex-selection abortions, something that putative pro-life "Republican"  Ron Paul voted against.  While I still consider the Democrats The Abortion Party, at least the idea of targeting little girls for abortion strictly because of their sex gives some people pause.

Mark Kirk Update

And on the topic of Illinois' RINO Senator, with a petasus tip to Andy Martin. . .

www.chicagotribune.com/news/watchdog/ct-met-mark-kirk-20120529,0,46660129,full.story 

Michael Fumento, on an unrelated topic, apparently repents having been a Republican in a Salon.com piece.  Estase has ridiculed the hyperbolic excesses of Ann Coulter for years, but why Fumento decided to praise George Will and air his grievances at the same site that called Will a "hack" who promotes "toxic Republicans" escapes me.  Is the Occupy movement any less crazy and hysterical than the worst right wingers?  Was moveon.org particularly moderate when they called G.W. Bush Hitler?  

Update:  Monday, June 18th is the day the Senate is scheduled to vote on Andrew Hurwitz, architect of Roe v. Wade.  This man must be kept off the Ninth Circuit Court.  Senator Kirk?

Battle of the Books: Persuasion and Force

This quote is also from James Fitzjames Stephen's Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.

On the other hand, when a priest says,'Vote as I tell you or you will be damned,' he employs force just as much as if he held a pistol to his parishioner's head, though the arguments through which the force is applied are more elaborate than in the other case.  A surgeon tells a patient that he will die unless he submits to a painful operation.  Is this persuasion or force?  No man would lose a limb if he were not forced to do so by the fear of losing what he values even more, but the surgeon would usually be said to persuade his patient, and not to compel him(p77).  There is one other point in Mr. Harrison's article which calls for notice.  He totally misapprehends the object of my chapter on the distinction between the temporal and the spiritual power, and he naturally misrepresents what I have said on the subject.  As to his misrepresentations, I have dealt with them as far as I thought necessary in foot-notes to the passages misrepresented, and I will only say here that they may be summed up in a few words.  Mr. Harrison supposes me to teach 'the paradox' of 'the essential identity of material and moral power,' in order to establish the conclusion that the 'State ought to be the Church,' that it is not to be a Pope-king, but only a King-pope.'  If Mr. Harrison had read the chapter in question with any care, he would have seen that I said nothing of the sort.  I admit as fully as anyone can the difference between temporal and spiritual power.  The one I say is the power which rests upon temporal sanctions, and the other the power which rests upon spiritual sanctions, and I think that when for this expression, Mr. Harrison substitutes the word 'hell,' he does me great injustice.  I mean by spiritual sanctions all the hopes and fears, all the feelings of various kinds which may be excited by the prospect of a future state.  What I deny is the right of positivists, who do not believe in spiritual sanctions at all, and who do not accept the distinction between spirit and matter, to make use of the word 'spiritual,' and I say that their theory becomes nonsense without it.  Again I do not deny, but assert, the distinction between persuasion and force.  What I deny is that this distinction corresponds to the distinction between temporal and spiritual power.  I observe indeed, in passing, that persuasion and force run into each other, as do many dissimilar things, but the whole of my argument shows that I recognise the distinction, as, indeed, Mr. Harrison himself proves from other parts of my book, thinking to catch me in a contradiction.  This, however, is unnecessary to my argument, and the passage which Mr. Harrison refers to as if it conveyed the substance of the whole chapter might have been struck out of the book without interfering with its principal positions.  The whole chapter forms a carefully constructed argument, and it is difficult to answer it without an equally careful consideration of it as a whole(p244-45).

Battle of the Books, Part One

Here is an account, similar to Finnis' Incommensurability thesis, but informed by Hume, thus without a Natural Law potential.  It comes from James Fitzjames Stephen's Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.

To give a specific illustration, Hume's doctrine,'that personal merit consists entirely in the usefulness or agreeableness of qualities to the person himself possessed of them, or to others who have any intercourse with him,' and that,' every man who has any regard to his own happiness and welfare will best find his account in the practice of every moral duty,' is quite independent of religion in my sense of the word.  That up to a certain point 'true self love and social are the same' does not admit of serious dispute(p176).  Happiness has a very different meaning to a fierce pastoral tribe in Central Asia;  to an ignorant husbandman in Bengal;  to a cultivated modern European;  to a naked savage in Central Africa, to say nothing of the different conceptions of happiness which are formed by different individuals similarly situated.  But what does this prove?  Merely that morality is not fixed but varying, that there is no such thing as absolute, unchangeable morality, and that it is hardly possible that there should be moral intuitions, and this is the plain truth and the ultimate result of these speculations.  Bring any considerable number of human beings into relations with each other.  Let them talk, fight, eat, drink, continue their species, make observations, form a society, in short, however rough or however polished, and experience proves that they will form a conception more or less definite of what for them constitutes happiness;  that they will also form a conception of the rules of conduct by which happiness may be increased or diminished;  that they will enforce such rules upon each other by different sanctions, and that such rules and sanctions will produce an influence upon individual conduct varying according to circumstances(p225, Liberty Fund ed.)

Not Because Hume Didn't Try

The last post discussed John Finnis' claim that the Thomistic theory of desirable ends as the source of natural law, vis a vis the later opinion of Suarez that morals are rationally discernable and based on divine command.  It seems to have been the opinion of Finnis that somehow the desirable ends theory of Natural Law was impervious to the Hume's Dictum distinction between the way things are and the way things should be.  Of course, even Suarez was not really saying that Natural Law is simply doing things as they are currently done, he was saying that morals can be rationally inferred from nature, and there is a difference.  Estase sees a huge difference between the theory of Suarez and the theory that morality is somehow what is typically done.  What is typically done is customary, and Suarez would blush at the customary practices of the Jersey Shore.  What Suarez is getting at may be what Cicero implied in his works, a morality of realism based on what is naturally offensive, although Estase admits to little familiarity with Suarez.  Does Thomism survive Hume's Dictum?  If so, it's not because Hume didn't try.

Finnis on Hume's Dictum, etc.

"The substantive differences between the theory of natural law espoused by Vasquez and Suarez (and most Catholic manuals until the other day) and the theory espoused by Aquinas are scarcely less significant and extensive than the better-known differences between Aristotelian and Stoic ethics. . . .We can put Hume's attack on the ethics of his predecessors into perspective by the following summary remarks:(i)Aristotle and Aquinas would readily grant that ought cannot be deduced from is (whether or not Hume really formulated and adhered to that principle).  (ii)Both would go along with Hume's view that the speculative discernment of "eternal relations," even relations of "fitness of human nature," leaves open the question what motive anybody has for regulating his actions accordingly.  (iii) Aquinas would deplore the confusion (shared by Hume and Suarez!) of obligation with impulse or influence, and Hume's failure to see that reason is an "active principle" because one is motivated according to one's understanding of the goodness and desirability of human opportunities, including the opportunity of extending intelligence and reasonableness into one's choice of actions.  (iv)Aquinas would reject the assumption of Clarke, Grotius, Suarez, and Vasquez that the primary and self-evident principles of natural law are moral principles (in the modern sense of "moral"), or that they are initially grasped as principles concerned  with self-evident relations of conformity or dis-conformity to human nature.  (v)Aquinas, like Clarke and Hume, would reject the view that the will or imperative of a superior accounts for obligation;  like Hume he would reject Clarke's view that obligation is essentially a matter of avoiding intellectual inconsistencies;  and finally he would reject both Hume's view that it is a matter of, or intrinsically related to, a peculiar sentiment, and equally, the recent neo-Humean view that statements of obligation are merely prescriptions expressing a certain sort of commitment or decision."  John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights, II.6, p47-48

The Fifth Column: Solidarity... With the USCCB

The Fifth Column: Solidarity... With the USCCB
If anybody wants an example of why I follow Steve Kellmeyer, this article says it all.

Hume's Dictum

"In every system of morality which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary way of reasoning and establishes the being of a God or makes observations concerning human affairs,when of a sudden I am surprised to find that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought or an ought not.  This change is imperceptible, but is, however, of the last consequence.  For as this ought or ought not expresses some new relation or affirmation, it is necessary that it should be observed and explained, and at the same time that a reason should be given for what seems altogether inconcievable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others which are entirely different from it.  But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall presume to recommend it to the readers, and am persuaded that this small attention would subvert all the vulgar systems of morality and let us see that the distinction of vice and virtue is not founded merely on the relation of objects, nor is percieved by reason."  David Hume A Treatise on Human Nature, Section I, pgs. 247-248 Modern Library ed.

Kant's Dictum?

"He who would derive the concept of virtue from experience, and would change what at best could only serve as an example or an imperfect illustration, into a type and source of knowledge (as many have really done)would indeed transform virtue into an equivocal phantom, changing according to times and circumstance, and utterly useless to serve as a rule."  Immanuel Kant Critique of Pure Reason p233

Can You Be Half-Secular?

Salon.com had a strange article by Mary Elizabeth Williams, entitled "Where Are All the Normal Christians," which might have been entitled, "Where Are All the Liberal Christians?"  Williams attacks Rick Santorum by saying something along the lines of, "As a Catholic, most people associate my church with child molesters and Rick Santorum," which sort of implies (I think) that she thinks Santorum is about as reputable as a child molester.  She goes over the moon to say that, even though she claims to be Catholic, she sees nothing wrong with birth control.  But, I have to admit, she did actually make some good points.  She sees grace and forgiveness as important parts of faith.  And she did find fault with those on the left, who with Dr. Dawkins, dismiss all people of faith as ignorant rubes.  The only problem is, Ms. Williams fails to see that people on her ideological side usually do see religious people as ignorant rubes, and they see objecting to birth control as a perfect example of being an ignorant rube.  So she concedes half the point just in the fact that she herself sees contraception as being the mark of sophistication.

Stop Bein' Greedy

Bobby Rush on the floor of the House looked like DMX in the video for "Stop Bein' Greedy."  It is so typical for a Chicago legislator to resort to cheap theatrics.  Which may explain why Illinois is the most broke state in the union.  "Two glowin' red eyes/everything else is black."

A liberal legal blog now bemoans the fact that unelected SC justices are poised to overturn a democratically created law.  Which is a fine objection, had the same liberals been consistant enough to feel the same way about courts overturning laws (pornography, traditional marriage, etc.) that their opponents created.  The fact of the matter is that liberals are fine with courts overturning democratically created laws, so long as those laws are "prudish," "heterosexist," or "patriachal."  The same people that created a constitutional right to privacy out of thin air now object to the Supreme Court they have used to their own ends since the FDR years.  "Y'all have eaten long enough now/stop bein' greedy."

Kicking and Screaming, Part Two

Nicholas Hahn claims that being a good executive won Romney the Catholic vote.  Mr. Hahn also says Santorum caught "Potomac fever," whatever that is.  Well, Mr. Hahn, if being a Catholic means loving good executives, they must be mightily displeased with the ecclesiastical politicians calling themselves bishops.  The bishops put their weight behind Obamacare only to have the Contraceptive Mandate shoved down their throats.  If Santorum has Potomac fever, what disease do the other presidential candidates have?  After all, if wanting public office is wrong, then Mitt the Shit and Newt Gingerich have the same defect.  Estase has already given up on 2012.  He voted for Santorum, and the rest of the Illinois GOP chose someone who forced Catholic hospitals to hand out Plan B.  Mitt then lied about it, claiming that this provision of Romneycare was voluntary when it wasn't.  Like Lisa Graas, I see absolutely no difference between Obama and Romney when it comes to freedom for the Catholic Church, and if the Catholic vote went with Romney, that shows how stupid Catholics are. Petasus tip to Kresta in the Morning.

My thought is that if the water is too poisoned between Romney and Santorum for the latter to be his VP, Romney might gain some creditablity as a pro-lifer (where he has none now) by making Michele Bachmann his VP.  I might actually give a damn about whether or not Romney wins in that case.

Update: Justice Stephen Bryer sees nothing wrong with the government forcing people to buy burial insurance.  The 1930s threw most of the freedom to make contracts out the window--vide Wickard v. Filburn, the Social Security Act.  The 30s also were the decade that killed Common Law, and replaced it with an infinitely flexible constitution.

Reading the Riot Act About Burke

The following is from The House of Commons in the Eighteenth Century by P.D.G. Thomas (Oxford, 1971):

His{Hartley} rising always operated like a Dinner Bell. One day, that he had thus wearied out the Patience of his Audience, having nearly cleared out a very full House which was reduced from three hundred to about eighty persons, half asleep;  just at a time when he was expected to close, he unexpectedly moved that the Riot Act should be read, as a document necessary to elucidate, or to prove some of his foregoing assertions.  Burke, who sat close by him. . . laid hold of Hartley by the coat, "The Riot Act! my dear friend, the Riot Act!  To what purpose!  Don't you see that the mob is already completely dispersed?"(p221)

That Burke was a natural target for interruptions can be seen from Wraxall's pen-portrait of him in action:  'Burke constantly wore spectacles.  His enunciation was vehement, rapid, and never checked by any Embarrassment:  for his Ideas outran his Powers of Utterance, and he drew from an exhaustless Source.  But his Irish Accent, which was as strong as if he had never quitted the Banks of the Shannon, diminished to the Ear, the enchanting Effect of his Eloquence on the Mind.  The dazzling oratory of Edmund Burke, adorned with metaphors and similes, makes magnificent prose:  but it must often have been incomprehensible to a large part of his audience.  He spoke too long as well as too fast, and it was part of his practice to speak late in debates.  He lacked the personal or social stature to command respect.  His views were often predictable, and usually unpopular with the majority of members present.  Attempts to stop him were therefore frequent, and sometimes mentioned by Burke himself.  On 10 December 1770 he made this comment during his speech:  'I must address myself to some gentlemen, and I will do it with humility, that they have a disposition, when any gentleman gets up, they don't choose to hear speak, to endeavor the best they can, to drown him with noise, and clamour.  I never knew it was formed into a regular system till today.' Later in the same session Burke reported to Rockingham that on 13 February 1771 he had 'waited for the general reply, until after twelve;  a detachment of Macaronies endeavored to prevent me from speaking, but they did not succeed.'  During his speech Burke remarked, 'I am very glad that the House is full;  but there is another point not so easy to gain--a patient attendance, a very full and patient House.'  Even age and experience did not give Burke immunity from such treatment.  Carl Moritz noted this incident during a speech by him on 9 July 1782 in praise of the recently deceased Lord Rockingham:  'As he did not meet with sufficient attention, and heard much talking and many murmors, he said, with much vehemence and a sense of injured merit, "this is not treatment for so old a Member of Parliament as I am, and I will be heard!"  On which there was immediately a most profound silence.(p225-226).

Edmund Burke was not always popular with his contemporaries, and it is nearly certain that the superficial over at Fox News would have zero use for an Edmund Burke today.

I Coulda Been a Contender!

First article of illogic:  The claim that if polls show that religious freedom isn't at issue with the Contraceptive Mandate, that no such problem exists.  I am sure that if you ran a poll on racial justice in Mississippi in 1920, the poll would have shown that black people there were treated just fine.  Civil rights by opinion poll, anyone?

Second article of illogic: The other blogger, who supports Ron Paul, who called Rick Santorum a crazy right wing extremist.  OK, people, you need to get your story straight.  Either Santorum is a big government Republican, or he is a right wing extremist.  You cannot have it both ways.  By the way, Ron Paul has an isolationist, Pat Buchanan foreign policy, so I think most people would consider him a strong contender for right wing extremist of the current election cycle.

Gutting the Catholic Church

Gary Gutting, philosophy professor at Notre Dame, says that since Catholics often contracept, the Catholic Church no longer teaches that contraception is wrong.  Which sort of implies that any sin, if practiced commonly enough, ceases to be a sin.  How I long for Ralph McInerny to come back from the dead and beat some sense into this guy!  Petasus tip to Cardinal Newman Society.

ATTENTION WAL-MART!  You need to stop selling Jane Fonda workout videos--now!  Sam Walton would spin in his grave if he knew Hanoi Jane was being peddled in his store.  The following is from Robert Coram's book American Patriot:The Life and Wars of Bud Day,
While near Hanoi, Fonda put on the helmet of a Vietnamese soldier and sang antiwar songs.  She sat in the gunner's seat of a AAA battery to "encourage" North Vietnamese soldiers fighting against "American imperialist air raiders."  She made numerous broadcasts over Radio Hanoi--broadcasts the POWs were forced to listen to over "CBS" {Camp Bull Shit} as she denounced Richard Nixon as a "true killer" and lamented his "crimes" against the Vietnamese and said he was "lying" when he said the war was winding down.  Over "CBS" the guards played a tape of Fonda and a group of women outside an army base in New Jersey singing a song called "Fuck the Army." 

Fonda came to Hoa Lo and met with seven POWs.  One of them, Navy lieutenant commander David Hoffman, was tortured until he agreed to appear.  (McCain says he was "knocked around" in an unsuccessful effort to make him meet with Fonda.)  Among the POWs who showed up voluntarily were Lieutenant Colonel Edison Miller {collaborator of the infamous "Bob and Ed Show" the camp inmates were forced to listen to} of the Marines and Commander Walter Eugene Wilber of the Navy.

The legal definition of "treason" includes a phrase about providing "aid and comfort to the enemy." Bud Day and, for that matter, almost all of the POWs say that Fonda had done just that and should have been tried for treason.

They would never forgive her.

Nor should Wal-Mart.

Petasus tip to Gateway Pundit.  They actually have the temerity to cast Hanoi Jane as Nancy Reagan.  Hollywood is shameless.

BEAR TO THE RIGHT

BEAR TO THE RIGHT
Aminoff really outdid himself here.  I especially liked his comment about the KKK, which also was aligned with labor unions in the Herrin, IL riot in 1924.  The people who act as though the Klan was somehow unlinked with Democrats are revisionists, although it is unfortunately true that Governor Len Small coddled the Klan in those same 1920s.

Fake Issues: 1996 and 2012

State Senator Judy Eason McIntyre poses with a sign saying "If I wanted government in my womb I'd F**k a Senator" at a rally against the Oklahoma personhood bill.  Ha ha. If I wanted government in my church, I would vote for Mitt Romney.

Petasus tip to the Clue Batting Cage.  Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill is now claiming that she is supporting the Contraceptive Mandate and opposing the Blunt Amendment because she wants to reduce the number of abortions.  Hilarious!  And I'm sure that's why Dick Durbin, Kirsten Gillibrand, and all the rest of the pro-aborts want to make the Church violate her own teachings too!  It wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that Obama and the liberals have made birth control the star issue of the 2012 election, and want to pretend that anyone who doesn't want government to force the Catholic Church to pay for contraceptives really wants no one to have contraceptives at all, would it?  Just like how the liberals made cigarettes the fake issue of 1996, and kept acting as though Bob Dole's whole raison d'etre was to make elementary schools hand them out like candy?  No, changing the subject from real to fake issues is never a liberal tactic!

Ask Pepsi to stop contracting with Senomyx!

Restore-DC-Catholicism: Some Thoughts Regarding The Archdiocese's Disgusting Treatment Of Father Guarnizo

Restore-DC-Catholicism: Some Thoughts Regarding The Archdiocese's Disgusting Treatment Of Father Guarnizo
In addition to this link, Estase includes the following quote from Mark Steyn's NR column entitled "The Church of Big Government":   The Catholic hierarchy's fawning indulgence of the Beltway's abortion zealots and serial annullers is not reciprocated:  The Church of Government punishes apostasy ever more zealously.  The state no longer criminalizes a belief in transubstantiation, mainly because most people have no idea what that is.  But they know what sex is, and, if the price of Pierre Trudeau's assertion that "the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation" is that the state has to take an ever larger place in the churches and colleges and hospitals and insurance agencies and small businesses of the nation, they're cool with that.  North of the border, motoring around the once-Catholic bastion of Quebec, you'll pass every couple of miles one of the province's many, many churches, and invariably out front you'll see a prominant billboard bearing the slogan "Notre patrimoine religieux-c'est sacre!"  "Our religious heritage-it's sacred!"  Which translated from the statist code-speak means:"Our religious heritage-it's over!"  But it's left every Quebec community with a lot of big, prominantly positioned buildings, and not all of them can be, as Montreal's Saint-Jean de la Croix and Couvent de Marie Reparatrice were, converted int luxury three-quarter-million-dollar condos.  So to prevent them from decaying into downtown eyesores, there's a government-funded program to preserve them as spiffy-looking husks.

Apparently, Cardinal Wuerl wishes for his diocese to be like these Canadian Catholics-- a quaint and accomodating anachronism.  Steve Kellmeyer blogged last week http://www.skellmeyer.blogspot.com/ "Snips and Snails and Rattlesnake Tails" that the only reason American Cardinals are upset about the Contraception Mandate is because it means none of them will have any chance at being Pope now.  The treatment of this parish priest lends support to this theory.

George Neumyer at The American Spectator says Fr. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit (insert joke here) called for Wuerl to send Fr. Guarnizo to the Gulag.  Cardinal Wuerl is influential in Rome, and according to Neumyer, he reports unfavorable press to the Vatican.  Mommy, make the mean people stop saying bad things about me!  Waaah!  This is the kind of guy the Pope gave a red hat to!

Freedom From Religion Foundation Trots Out Bertie

The Freedom From Religion Foundation thinks Contraception is like using an umbrella(?), says liberal Catholics are "better" than their "antidiluvian, ignorant" church, and trots out pacifist commie philosopher Bertie Russell in a vitriolic ad aimed at getting liberal Catholics to leave.  Frankly, any stupid enough to fall for this should have left long before. Petasus tip to Gateway Pundit

McCaskill Rejects Blunt Amendment

Putative moderate, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, joined with radical liberals like Dick Durbin and Kirsten Gillibrand in supporting the Contraception Mandate by rejecting the Blunt Amendment.  Senator McCaskill represents a state which would reject the kind of politics she espouses if she were up front and honest about who she is, which is emphatically not a moderate.

HEK 293:  Pepsi Cola--Now featuring the great taste of aborted baby!

Reliapundit Goes Anti-Catholic

The Astute Bloggers must be the most mis-named pile of garbage on the internet.  The mental state of Reliapundit can be accessed from the fact that he writes everything in capital letters.  I left a comment with him (which I assume they won't allow) complaining about their latest stunt, a graphic which mockingly depicts Rick Santorum as a Catholic Saint, the kind of cheap character assasination usually reserved for Daily Kos.  Reliapundit is deep in the hole for Romney, a pro-choice liberal whose ego seems to be such that he's had the delusion for ten years that he should be the Republican candidate for President.  The current controversy about the Contraception Mandate in Obamacare is a perfect example of why Romney is unsuited for the presidency--Romneycare forced Catholic hospitals to provide abortifacients.  So for Romney to condemn Obama for doing the same thing he himself did is the height of hypocrisy.  Is Santorum perfect?  Did he support earmarks?  Like Romney, he did.  But for a Romney booster to attack Santorum as too far to the left is risable.  Romney is a liberal in conservative's clothes, and no one but Ann Coulter and the rest of the establishment morons thinks anything different.

Joey Fishkin at Balkinization claims that the latest compromise on said Contraception Mandate is that insurance companies will mythically give free contraception to policy holders, and that no Church money will pay for contraception.  That is logically impossible.  If the Church pays for the policy, it necessarily pays for any service offered by that company.  Unless of course pharmaceutical companies intend to produce their product free of cost?  That seems impossible too.  So this "compromise" is nothing but the kind of logical make-believe casuistry that used to give Jesuits a bad name, before they started doing the things that currently give them a bad name.

Sandy Levinson at the same Balkinization questions Santorum's position on onanism, an odd question meant to equivocate between the types of onanism (right hand and contraception).  Of course, the right hand type of onanism costs nothing, and hence Catholic organizations could never be expected to pay for it.  Maybe Ms. Levinson wishes for Oh Blah Blah to now make the Church buy strokers and magazines for their employees?  It seems just the sort of all/nothing red herring that pro-aborts, and secondary liberals in general are so fond of.

Update:  On his site, Reliapundit calls me "an asshole" and "a fucking moron."  This is the mentality of Romney supporters.  The fact that Politico is reportedly the source does not change the fact that The Astute Bloggers used this piece of anti-Catholic mockery.

Just Another Loony Blog

This goes out to the Odd William Oddie, who called Q.E.D. "just another loony blog," and claimed I made up all I said about his hit piece on Rick Santorum.  Mr. Oddie can claim that his claim that Santorum cannot win is based on the political buzz of the mainstream media, which studiously claims that only Romney can be the nominee.  He backtracked on saying that Santorum was "demented" on NHS, retreating to the position of Santorum being grossly uninformed about the wonders of socialized healthcare.  Mr. Oddie used the socialist-speak of calling Santorum a "neo-liberal," something he seems now to have forgotten in his calling Q.E.D. "another loony blog."   No, Mr. Oddie, I don't make it all up.  I can read and I can also remember what you said in your original hit piece.

The problem with Chesterton, who was the inspiration of so many like Oddie, is that it is based on the Tory Radical William Cobbett, and like all Toryism, Cobbettry is odious to those of us who style ourselves Whigs.  Am I making that up too, Mr. Oddie?  You know, Mr. Oddie, you have a much bigger audience of readers than I do, and you probably have better things to do than berate my blog. 

Postscript:  The Navy is going to name a ship after Congresswoman Giffords?  Huh?  Was Ms. Giffords ever even in the Navy?  It would be better to name a ship after M.C. Hammer--at least he was in the Navy.  It says something about the Oh Blah Blah administration that being a crime victim entitles you to having a combat vessel named after you.

Who Will Rid Me of This Meddlesome Priest?

Sarah Posner in Salon.com defends the undefendable by claiming Catholic bishops want "a special deal," and that Obama cannot give a conscience exception to Catholic institutions because that would "harm everybody else."  First of all, how would it harm non-Catholics for Catholics to be excepted from contraception and abortion in Obamacare?  After all, these people love the bumper sticker philosophy of "If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one."  Well, if Catholics don't believe in contraception and abortion, then why do they have to participate in them?  The first argument doesn't hold water either, because Obamacare was created through several "special deals," everything from the Cornhusker Kickback for Ben Nelson to special exemptions for companies like McDonalds, who otherwise would have been liable for health care for their employees.   According to Ms. Posner, the effort to go along and get along with religious leaders was a bad idea, and stabbing liberal bishops in the back simply good politics.

On a different subject, a new Caterpillar plant will not be located in the People's Republic of Illinois, yet another testament to the fiscal management of Governor Pat Quinn, the Chicago machine, and complacent Republican insiders. 

Tip of the petasus to Stop FOI Censorship.  The University of Victoria deestablishes its pro-life group.  Pro-lifers are public enemy one on many university campii, and my own alma mater, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign did much the same thing, ironically while giving Campus for Choice their own room in the SRO complex.

What Did You Expect, Part Two

Irony is a word that comes to mind when I read the nun who writes at Te Deum Laudamus about the deafening silence of the Church on contraception, as she has a sidebar encouraging prayer for Archbishop Viguron of Detroit.  OK, so you're saying that the Church needs to speak out about what it believes vis a vis the Contraceptive Mandate?  But then you are also supporting the Bishop who is trying to silence Michael Voris?  Call me crazy, but if the bishops of the United States would occasionally listen to Voris instead of demanding he stop calling himself Catholic, we might not be faced with a problem like the Contraceptive Mandate.  Follow your bishop, even as he advocates a program that compels you to pay for contraception and abortion!  And then act surprised!

Domine, da mihi hanc aquam!: Anti-Catholic Bigtory: A Rant

Domine, da mihi hanc aquam!: Anti-Catholic Bigtory: A Rant
The motivations of the administration are just as Father Powell so eloquently states.  The Army forbid the reading of the Military Archbishop on the Contraception Mandate, showing that Army chaplains do not even have the right to speak for their own Church anymore.  I think the First Amendment is sick unto dying when it comes to religious freedom.

Hurwitz Nomination to Ninth Circuit

One of the intellectual parents of Roe v. Wade, Andrew Hurwitz, is reportedly being nominated for the Ninth Circuit Court.  ATTENTION MARK KIRK!  I know you think that approving judicial nominees is "a waste of time," but it is also YOUR JOB!  I don't know why the milquetoast RINOs who run the Illinois Republican Party foisted you on us, but you might redeem yourself by keeping this pro-abort extremist from legislating from the bench.  Unless you think it's a waste of time.

Occupy Your Church

Tip of the petasus to LifeSiteNews.  Occupy Providence attacks a pro-life rally in the Rhode Island capital, throwing condoms onto Catholic school girls, shouting down speakers, and refusing to let a priest close the event with a prayer.  OWS is not just about rich people anymore.  Go to Salon.com, those slimeballs have seen fit to devote a whole section of their website to these Stalinists.  They want abortion as much as redistribution of wealth.  I remember reading an article by a priest defending OWS as having legitimate grievances.  I hope the Catholic clergy wakes up on OWS.  It reminds me of a Industrial Workers of the World poster which showed a rich person with the caption "They Eat for You," and then showed a Catholic priest with the caption "They Fool You."  The Wobblies also had a song deriding religion called "Long Haired Preacher Man." 

Richard Cohen of the Washington Post says the GOP is brain dead, giving as evidence. . . .well, don't worry about why.  But the fact that Republican candidates are different in outlook than Teeth-Clicker means they're yahoos.  I wonder what he thinks of the people who elected Bachmann Congresswoman?  Or the people who elected Santorum Senator?  Bumpkins, dolts, morons all.  The really enlightened people are we Illinoisians, who not only elected Teeth-Clicker to the Congress and Senate, but have proven our mettle with a wide variety of distinguished statesmen.  Jim Thompson, the son of the fabulously corrupt Chicago Mayor Big Bill Thompson.  Paul Simon, who knew about as much about government as the singer of the same name.  George Ryan, he of the bribed DMV workers.  Dick Durbin, the Special Olympian of the Senate.  And last, but not least, Rod Blagogevich, the seller of Teeth-Clicker's Senate seat.  Yes, compared to Illinois, the people of Pennsylvania and Minnesota are indeed bumpkins, dolts and morons.  Thanks for pointing out their anti-intellectualism Mr. Cohen!

What Did You Expect?

At Mass yesterday, a letter was read from Bishop Jenky of the Peoria Diocese strongly condemning the fact that no exemption from Obamacare's contraception mandate would be given the Catholic Church.  The bishop said that destroying Catholic institutions may well have been the intention of this action.  My reaction was something along the lines of "What did you expect?"  I watched with increasing nausea as various bishops welcomed Obamacare, often complaining it didn't go farther by including illegal aliens.  Cardinal Martino from the Vatican praised Obamacare.  And all the while lowly Estase with a blog nobody reads could see the writing on the wall.  Obamacare would necessarily fund contraception and abortion, and anybody who didn't anticipate this was willfully naive.  So for bishops to be entirely surprised by this development strikes me as nearly stupid.

As for the laity, I think the bishops had better give up.  One of the EMEs at my town's parish was a big Obama booster in 2008.  As Bishop Jenky's letter was read, the man in front of me shook his head, not in a "That's terrible!" way, but in a "Give it up!" way.  The days when people would die for the faith probably ended with Edmund Campion and Margaret Clitherow.  Now Catholics want to live the same jaded lives as everyone else.

Harpo Marx Doritos Commercial

The ad men who created the latest Doritos commercials are demented.  The ad shows a man pulling off another man's pants to suck off the cheese residue.  The camera then shows the subject's face in orgasmic glee as he exclaims "Doritos!"  The same man is then shown sucking the cheese residue off another man's fingers, a clear shorthand for oral sex used to great effect in the original "Hellraiser" by Clive Barker.  I haven't seen such an obvious sex joke since Quizno's showed a sub sandwich working up and down in a paper wrapper and an oven ordering "put it in me" with regards to a phallic sandwich.  Does anyone remember Harpo Marx sucking the black hose in "A Night at the Opera?"  Apparently, eating Doritos is like performing Clinton sex.

Of course, it is entirely possible to go to the other extreme, and find things offensive that really shouldn't offend anyone.  I recently saw a comment on the National Catholic Register website where some prude complained about the scene in "Alvin and the Chipmunks" where Simon pretended to eat his brother's bowel movement so Dave wouldn't realize he made it on the couch.  If anyone is on such a holiness and purity kick that that offends them, they need to be medicated.  In my German class in college, my grad assistant brought in a German children's book that makes the Alvin and the Chipmunks joke look restrained and tasteful in comparison.  It is one thing to find oral sex references too much, but a scat joke once in a while is all in good fun.

St. Joseph's College and Abortion

Tip of the petasus to Cardinal Newman Society.  St. Joseph's College in Indiana chooses to celebrate MLK day by bringing in Professor Adia Harvey-Wingfield, a pro-abort who says the Republican Party is racist!  It is no secret most Catholic organizations hate Republicans, but can't they find a Republican hater who isn't also a pro-abort?  Unless St. Joseph's College is unsure of how they feel about abortion.

The Meaning of Estase

Why do I use a pseudonym?  I was reminded again last week when someone commenting on another blog called me a lying bubba Bellarmine.  Ah, the decency and fair-mindedness of liberals!  Where debate fails, use slander and insult, huh?  Catholic bloggers are not above outing a pseudonomous blogger.  The reason I don't blog under my Christian name is because people like this cannot be trusted. At all.  People aren't above lying about a blogger's activities to make them lose their job.  If they could, they would fill your inbox with gay porn.  Because that's just the kind of scum they are.  What does Estase mean?  I'm a stubborn S.O.B. that won't shut up, that's what it means.

Justice Thomas on Natural Law

"Howard Metzenbaum was the other kind of senator, and I already knew how he felt about me.  It would have been charitable to call him unlikeable, though he went through the motions of civility during my visit.  At one point he actually tried to lure me into a discussion of natural law, but I knew he was no philosopher, just another cynical politician looking for a chink in my armor, so all I did was ask him if he would consider having a human-being sandwich for lunch instead of, say, a turkey sandwich.  That's Natural Law 101:  all law is based on some sense of moral principles inherent in the nature of human beings, which explains why cannibalism, even without a written law to proscribe it, strikes every civilized person as naturally wrong.  Any well-read college student would have gotten my point, but Senator Metzenbaum just stared at me awkwardly and changed the subject as fast as he could (p.221-22)." "As for natural law, I knew perfectly well that it was nothing more than a way of tricking me into talking about abortion, since many Catholic moral philosophers saw the two things as intimately related.  But my interest in natural law was different, and I hoped I could quell any anxieties resulting from it.  If some senators found the subject silly or radical, I was prepared to oblige them by discussing the silliness and radicalism of the Founding Fathers who had written natural-law philosophy into the Declaration of Independence.  Why shouldn't a federal judge be interested in what the founders thought about natural law--and why shouldn't a black man be interested in the fact that the philosophical underpinnings of the Constitution had been in direct conflict with the peculiar institution of slavery, thus fueling the earliest efforts to free my forebears (p231)?"  Clarence Thomas,My Grandfather's Son

Neo-Con and Neo-Cath

A Jewish woman in Minnesota used several anti-Catholic phrases in reference to a judge dealing with her litigation, perhaps a result of the old, continuing problem with Catholic anti-semitism, which continues even today, as the representatives of the Vatican were the only ones not to walk out when the Iranian representative addressed a UN conference on colonialism with a tirade about how the Shoah didn't happen and Israel is illegitimate.  For anti-semites, the term Neo-Con refers to Jewish conservatives.  To the merely ignorant, a Neo-Con is anyone who isn't Ron Paul.

Neo-Cath is a term of abuse directed at anyone who is 1)Catholic and Republican,or 2) accepting of other faiths.  Estase isn't the biggest fan of the SVC, but if anything was good about it, it was the end of Catholicism claiming to be the only legitimate religion, something that in and of itself created hatred of Catholicism.  Perhaps Henry Morton Robinson, author of the novel The Cardinal, was the first Neo-Cath.  After all, Robinson's novel depicted a Catholicism that opposed racism and abortion, one that was consistent with democratic government.  The traditionalists haven't accepted the fact that we cannot rely on Hapsburg monarchs to rule us;  that day has come and gone.  Like it or not, democracy is the modern alternative to total authoritarian statism.  The Church should not spend too much time pining for monarchy, after all, Britain's monarchs made priests hide in cellars.

Continuing Deevolution

Bela Pelosi complained that by opposing the contraception coverage in Obamacare, the Catholic bishops are acting as lobbyists.  Which might be a good objection if the same Catholic bishops had been attacked by Mrs. Pelosi for supporting any measures she also happened to support, such as comprehensive immigration reform (amnesty) or Obamacare itself, which to a large extent was supported by Catholic bishops.  

The defense appropriations bill apparently authorizes the military to arrest any American, in America, and hold them without trial, until the GWOT is resolved.  The Constitution is dead, and Dick Cheney had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Endorsement

Mitt Romney for President!  Sure he's wishy-washy, created socialized health care in Massachusetts, and looks like a Ken doll, but he is soo acceptable to the people who write for east coast newspapers.  And you know who should be his veep?  Newt Gingerich!  Yes, Mr. Life-Begins-At-Implantation!  Mr. I-Left-My-Wife-On-Her-Deathbed!  There's a team America can believe in!

Whatever you do, primary voters, stay away from Bachmann and Santorum!  People of principle and integrity have no place in American politics.

Rights Preceeding Constitution?

First Things.com has an excellent Hadley Arkes column called "Natural Rights Trump Obamacare, or Should,"  wherein the excellent Mr. Arkes raises the excellent, and ignored, question of whether conservatives can/should go beyond black letter constitutional law in defending freedom and the right to life.  It is a pressing constitutional and moral question:  do our legal rights start and end with the constitution?  It is even more pressing, as the Balkinization blog offers a new piece of liberal obfuscation-- the term "sail originalism," which seems like living constitution under a different name.  It is a commonplace of conservative and libertarian legal commentary that the commerce clause has been perverted by Supreme Court decisions since the New Deal, but it is probably impossible to return to original intentions of only regulating interstate commerce.