Reliapundit Is Full of Sh**

Astute Bloggers' Instapundit blames European irreligion on celebate Catholic Priests. Baloney! England is a very irreligious country and it has had married clergy for 500 years. If Instapundit were right, England should be the holiest country on Earth. It isn't.

Was reading Jacques Maritain's Moral Philosophy, where it talks about the Hegelian concept that the collective is the source of freedom, meaning, and values. It reminded me a lot of the character we have in the White House right now. Maritain writes,

"As a crowning piece of political hypocrisy, this mythology guaranteed by the dialectic gives complete security to the sovereign power of the State, which, far from exercising restraint upon me, is my freedom, and consequently has a right not only to my obedience, but also to my enthusiasm and to a warm glow in my heart."

This pretty much sums up the Oh Blah Blah philosophy of life. And add this little gem about Hegelian political morality.

"History is the judgment of God. The history of the world is the tribunal which judges the world, Weltgeschichte ist Weltgericht. To cooperate in the victory of the community, which in virtue of its historical success will be absolved at this tribunal, that is the only requirement that the higher ethics makes of the individual, the ethics which has to do with the destiny of peoples. It was when the one-party systems, the organized prophetic Minorities of the totalitarian type appeared, that this implication of the Hegelian Sittlichkeit became fully manifest, an implication more secret but even more deeply rooted than that which has to do with the State. At the same time it became clear that this same Sittlichkeit had opened the doors of the modern world to what can best be called absolute Machiavellianism."

Good Morning! The old God is dead, please face your Post Office and bow for morning prayers!

Unproven Assertions

Yet to be proven, but asserted as fact. . .

1)Republicans had something to do with the housing market crisis and recession

2)Tea Parties attract strange people

3)Human beings only exist after birth

The list could easily expand. These are just three I came up with that are typically treated as though they were facts by CERTAIN people. Such said people are mainly remarkable for holding the reins of power and writing the news stories in this country. I have a counter-list.

1)Government meddling had something to do with the housing market crisis and recession

2)The strangest thing about Tea Parties is the reaction of leftists

3)Human beings exist long before birth, perhaps even (shudder) from conception

My list isn't proven either, but so what?

The Fifth Column: Honor Killing in Islam

The Fifth Column: Honor Killing in Islam
Dhimmitude! Read all about it!

Why Obama Isn't Muslim

Obama's speech to the Hispanic Congressional Caucus uses a verbatim quote from the Declaration of Independence-- minus the words "by their creator!" This is not accidental. Obama is a sixties-style european socialist, whose legal philosophy is positivist. There is no room for God in Oh Blah Blah's equation. This is why he calls middle Americans "bitter people who cling to God and guns." Why is anyone surprised by this? Oh Blah Blah has no attachment to any kind of religion, save Jeremiah Wright type "God damn America."

Steven Givler Online: Bigot

Steven Givler Online: Bigot
Another reason why John Quincy Adams is one of Estase's favorite presidents.

Distributivism

I just read a "conservative" blog that praised the loony-tunes economics of G.K. Chesterton. I am not one of those who call Chesterton a fascist or who compare him with Oswald Moseley. I am willing to forgive someone for misjudgments. I am not, however, eager to embrace his economics just because there were elements of his politics he was right about. By the same token, I am not willing to agree with everything his friend Belloc wrote either. The worst part about the article that the blog linked to was an unwarranted attack on the Acton Institute and the late Father Neuhaus as Calvinists. (See my prior blog "Fake Scottish People".)

I've Been a Bad, Bad Boy

I just found out that several books I have read are on the Index of Forbidden Books. Such works as those of Hobbes, and Descartes are on the list, as is Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke. On the last count, I see why one would think that was a danger to right thinking, as it proposed ethical hedonism and nominalism. I really do think that Concerning Human Understanding has some spooky parts in it.

Note on the Revolution

Three things appear to have precipitated the American Revolution.
PATRONAGE
The British entrusted the offices in the American colonies to the highest bidder, not to people who actually knew or cared what they were doing.
MERCANTILISM
The mercantilistic system the British created put the Crown-aligned Companies in the driver's seat--a clear violation of the Parliamentary supremacy that 1689 was supposed to have enshrined.
PARSIMONY
The British hated spending money on the Colonies. They hated the War of Jenkins Ear that Pelham-Holles pushed for when Walpole was Prime Minister. Pelham-Holles later had a rude awakening as to why Walpole felt that way when he had the Seven Years/French and Indian War thrust upon him as Prime Minister. English business may have liked the money they made from the colonies, but they cost the government mightily in military expenditures.

Lisa Graas: Dedicated to the Kentucky Republican Party and @SarahPalinUSA

Lisa Graas: Dedicated to the Kentucky Republican Party and @SarahPalinUSA
I have pretty much the same opinion about the Illinois Republican Party and their candidate for Senate, Mark Kirk. The fact that Obama supports Alexi Ginnoulias is not sufficient to make me vote for a pro-abort, even where the pro-abort is Republican. When will you guys in the GOP get it? A pro-abortion Republican versus a pro-abortion Democrat is a waste of time. I feel like I would be rewarding the Illinois GOP for cowardice if I voted for Mark Kirk. I intend to write in Patrick Hughes, even if that means throwing away my vote.

Bite Me, Liberal Catholics

I unsubscribed to a blog called The Western Confucian, because its purveyor thought something called The Catholic Fascist was a funny parody of conservative Catholics. The characters all had names bespeaking gun-toting and racism. The kind of Catholicism these characters preferred was, of course, pre-Vatican II Latin Mass. It isn't funny. Not even close. We conservatives are getting really tired of hymns like "Gather Us In" and "The Servant Song." We are sick of gimmick Masses, like Masses said on a hay bale instead of an altar. We are sick of being called intolerant for opposing leftist Bishops. And lastly, we are sick of snarky pseudo-Catholic trash calling us fascists. Yeah, I said trash. I am not a fascist, and if this is the Catholic Left's idea of humor I think there are going to be many more Greek Orthodox in fifty years.

Lady Libertas: Marking Names to Remember in November #tcot #ocra #twisters #sgp #imgb

Lady Libertas: Marking Names to Remember in November #tcot #ocra #twisters #sgp #imgb
Wow, Dicky Durbin sure likes illegal immigrants. Ugh!

Irish Anti-Semitism

I am always surprised at what lunatic leftists my cousins across the pond are. I came across a "pro-life" blog called "Thought and Action" that was turgid with anti-Israel, anti- Iraq war propaganda. Need I say again that the Islamic community was extremely friendly to Hitler, and that the fact that the modern left (even in Ireland!) is so friendly to the Islamic world is one of the most damning things about them.

Lisa Graas: Chicago Drops Charges Against First Arrestee Under City’s Abortion Clinic “Bubble Zone” Ordinance

Lisa Graas: Chicago Drops Charges Against First Arrestee Under City’s Abortion Clinic “Bubble Zone” Ordinance
How is a bubble zone not a blatant disregard of the First Amendment? And the very same week that a Federal judge warped the Fourteenth Amendment into mandating gay marriage.

The Fifth Column: Howell is Back In

The Fifth Column: Howell is Back In
See also, in contrast, the case of June Sheldon, a biology teacher in San Jose, California, who was fired for stating that there was no scientific consensus on the genetic nature of homosexual inclinations.

On a different topic, Campaign for Human Development funded the Marxist Chicago Worker's Collaborative,and the pro-abortion San Francisco Organizing Project. CHD funded six organizations associated with Mobilize the Immigrant Vote California, a pro-abortion group that also promotes illegal immigrants. CHD funded thirty-one groups associated with the radical Center for Community Change which promotes legal abortion. A former head of CHD named John Carr has also served as an official with Center for Community Change. Lastly, CHD funded the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, a group of enviro-hippies who condone abortion. Campaign for Human Development is at odds with the teachings of the Catholic Church, and deserves no Catholic support.

University of Illinois students express support for fired professor :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)

University of Illinois students express support for fired professor :: Catholic News Agency (CNA)
This is not an issue Estase intends to let rest.

Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion: What William F. Buckley, Jr. Would Say About The Journolist#links#links

Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion: What William F. Buckley, Jr. Would Say About The Journolist#links#links
Joe Klein and Joe Conason! And Paul Krugman, too! They've whored themselves out to Obama.

Fake Scottish People

The Whig tradition is associated with three things. One is a respect for capitalism--the lending of money at interest. Second is what is known as a "projecting spirit"--the willingness to start new projects and businesses. Third is the Presbyterian faith. Many (though not all) Whigs were low-church protestants such as those of Scotland. Therefore, by the logic of the NAACP, the people such as Rachel Maddow who are latter day Tories are fake Scottish people.

On an entirely unrelated note, the Catholic Church is pressing for the release of prisoners associated with Chile's human rights abuses under General Pinochet for "humanitarian" reasons. This melds nicely with the intercession Estase heard at Mass this morning calling for "banishing the death penalty." It is really too bad that the Catholic Church picks such execrable people to want to show mercy towards.

Limits of Judicial Review

"Nor should it ever be lost sight of, that the government of the United States is one of limited and enumberated powers; and that a departure from the true import and sense of its powers is, pro tanto, the establishment of a new constitution. It is doing for the people what they have not chosen to do for themselves(p144). Constitutions are not designed for metaphysical or logical subtleties, for niceties of expression, for critical propriety, for elaborate shades of meaning, or for the exercise of philosophical acuteness, or juridical research(p157). To resign an exposition so sanctioned, would be to deliver over the country to interminable doubts; and to make the constitution, not a written system of government, but a false and delusive text, upon which every sucessive age of speculatists and statesmen might build any system, suited to their own views and opinions(p378)."
Justice Joseph Story
Commentaries on the Constitution

Fighting Unitary Government

Today it was announced that socialized carmaker GM is buying another car loan lender to enlarge its GMAC branch. So now our government is funding the expansion of a failed corporation.

What liberals and conservatives are fighting about is no longer whether or not we should have a strong federal government, but whether or not we should have a unitary government. A federal government is supposed to make foreign policy, run the courts, and leave most other government to the states. A unitary government runs everything, making uniform laws in every part of its territory. America still has states, but lately all they have been is surrogates bossed around by the federal government. It is disingenuous to invoke federalism regarding Arizona's immigration law. We are not talking nullification of federal law, we are talking enforcement of existing federal law. Most of the pundits who throw around the word federalism know not of what they speak. As long as the federal government continues to dictate what policies each state must live up to on issues of internal interest, federalism is dead. The health care bill has nothing to do with interstate commerce as understood by the framers. This does not stop it from being dealt with at the federal level. The federal government was supposed to provide a currency and prevent fraud crossing state lines, but the present reading of the commerce clause makes nearly everything the purview of the federal government.

Bishop Kicanas, Where Does This Come From?

Our good friends at CACG, the George Soros front group are now trotting out Bishop Kicanas to tell us that amnesty is a matter of "compassion," and that we have to accept unlimited numbers of immigrants out of "justice." What is the Bishop's solution to the problem of illegals? Why, foreign aid, of course! Yes, when we are dying economically, we are now supposed to start pumping money into Mexico. Bishop Kicanas does not get it. If we cannot afford to take care of Mexicans in Los Angeles, then why are we supposed to take care of them in Tijuana? And what are we supposed to do when our economy collapses as a result of these spending sprees that the Catholic hierarchy wants us to engage in? Does it suit the Catholic Church to destroy America by engaging us in a Cloward-Piven nightmare? Maybe my church does not care about America's continued existence.