Will and Power

"The highest good is proposed equally to good and bad men. Good men seek it by the natural means of the virtues; evil men, however, try to achieve the same goal by a variety of con-cupiscences, and that is surely an unnatural way of seeking the good."
Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy,
Book IV, Richard Green trans.

Open Letter to Bob Norman

Dear Mr. Norman,
I read your blog that talked about Dr. D. James Kennedy in Hell. I didn't think it was funny, although you probably bragged to your friend (I presume there is no more than one in your life) about how you stuck it to a right winger. Do you liberals hate Christians because of your own perverted "lifestyle," or is it just that you think the world revolves around you and your precious secular outlook? I didn't watch Kennedy much, but I know that your vitriol would be directed against anyone who believes in what you call my "mythology," as you so kindly term it. You liberals talk about tolerence, but I have yet to see where you are tolerant.
Estase

Equality?

"I would only wish that equality in politics consisted of everyone being equally free, and not, as one hears so often in our days, of everyone being subjugated to the same master."
Alexis deTocqueville
to Sophie Swetchine September 10, 1856

Not a Hog Roast

One of my favorite bloggers, ELAshley (Serial Extremist) wrote something that I thought I would answer. Ashley said that Mary was a pagan goddess who was equal to Jesus himself. He also said that Catholic Masses are like "a giant pigroast." He may have said more than this, but these were the parts I found most insulting about Ashley's tirade. I am not writing this as a formal representative of the Catholic Church, but as a conservative who usually agrees with Ashley.

Mary is no more a pagan goddess than she is the Queen of England. This old chesnut comes from Chick Publications. Chick prints the most satanic lies about the Catholic faith, but many well-meaning Protestants take these accusations seriously. Ashley said that since Mary was free from sin, that means she could have redeemed mankind. Sorry, that's not true either. Mary is not God. Mary is free from sin because the Redeemer, if born of a woman with original sin, would be in the odd position of being guilty of Adam and Eve's sins. Ashley also thinks Mary was not a virgin. So Joseph really did have reason to think Mary was cheating on him? If you were God the Father, would you choose an ordinary, sexually active woman to carry your divine son? I think not.

Also, Ashley is one of the many Protestants who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, with the exception of the Last Supper part. When I go to the Father at the end of time, I would certainly hate to explain that not only did I not believe in the Eucharist, but chose to call it a hog roast. Jesus is not a hog roast.

I hope that Ashley will avoid offending conservatives like me by half baked religious commentary. I wonder if this is really the best way to discuss serious issues.

The Peacemaker

Upon his will he binds a radiant chain,
For Freedom's sake he is no longer free,
It is his task, the slave of Liberty,
WIth his own blood to wipe away a stain.
THat pain may cease, he yields his flesh to pain.
To banish war, he must a warrior be,
He dwells in Night, eternal Dawn to see,
And gladly dies, abundant life to gain.

What matters Death, if Freedom be not dead?
No flags are furled, if Freedom's flag be furled.
Who fights for freedom, goes with joyful tread
To meet the fires of Hell against him hurled,
And has for captain Him whose thorn-wreathed head
Smiles from the Cross upon a conquered world.

Joyce Kilmer

The Croppy Boy

It was very early in the spring, the birds did whistle and sweetly sing/ Changing their notes from tree to tree, and the song thay sang was old Ireland free.

It was early in the night, the yeoman cavalry gave me a fright; the yeoman cavalry was my downfall, and taken was I by Lord Cornwall.

"Twas in the guard house where I was laid, and in a parlour where I was tried; My sentence passed and my courage low/ When to Dungannon I was forced to go.

As I was passing by my father's door, My brother William stood at the door; My aged father stood at the door / And my tender mother her hair she tore.

As I was walking up Wexford Street, My own first cousin I chanced to meet; My own first cousin did me betray, and for one bare guinea swore my life away.

My sister Mary heard the express, She ran upstairs in her mourning dress- - Five hundred guineas I will lay down, To see my brother through Wexford Town.

As I was walking up Wexford Hill, Who could blame me to cry my fill? I looked behind and I looked before, But my tender mother I shall ne'er see more.

As I was mounted on the platform high, My aged father was standing by; My aged father did me deny, And the name he gave me was the Croppy Boy.

It was in Dungannon this young man died, And in Dungannon his body lies; All you good Christians that do pass by/ Just drop a tear for the Croppy Boy.

This song refers to the Irish Rebellion of 1798, in which Irish rebels wore their hair short, or cropped, in the imitation of the French revolutionaries. A story of betrayal, The Croppy Boy has new relevance.

What's So Funny?

Monday, Estase was on campus and there were pro-life protestors near the Union. I walked behind another man, who started laughing. What unbridled arrogance! What indifference to human suffering and death! What is funny about abortion? What is funny about a dead fetus? Is there anyone who can tell me what is funny about people witnessing to the evil of the American equivalent of the Gulag, the abortion clinic?

Expression and Tigger

The ACLU (American Communists Love Us) has sued a school in Redwood California because officials instituted a dress code which would not allow a child to wear socks with cartoon character Tigger on them. Why do I doubt that the ACLU would care if the dress code banned the Veggie Tales characters? You have the right to express any opinion, unless there is religion involved. This kind of nonsense is what results from the Lemon test, which bans "excessive entanglement" with religion. The problem with this is that "excessive entanglement" is in the eye of the beholder. The Supreme Court would have done better to create no test than it did in further muddying the waters of what is and isn't a violation of church and state separation.

Life, Naturally

This leads to the inference that the ultimate Good of man is life in accordance with nature, which we may interpret as meaning life in accordance with nature developed to its own perfection and supplied with all its needs.
Cicero, On Final Good and Evil
Rackham trans. p.421

Jefferson and Paine

Yesterday's George Will column said tht Reagan's religious philosophy owed more to Paine than Burke. That is, Burke believed man was easily corrupted, while Paine felt that man's nature was basically good. This is much like Rousseau- - the idea that it is society, and not nature, that makes men do evil.

The difference between Jefferson and Paine is that Jefferson romanticized the past (like Reagan), where Paine hated what he saw as the objectable story of history. In some sense, this makes Jefferson like Burke. The one hitch to this equation is that Burke saw European history as Christianity's struggle for order and morality. Jefferson clearly hated Christianity, only paying lip service to it in order to conceal his deistic idolatry for science. The lesson of this is that similarities are never so clear cut as to cast Ronald Reagan in either the shoes of Jefferson or of Paine.

Don't Push Me

What are the Democrats up to? A congresswoman is now taking on push-polling, that is, polls designed to inflence people's attitude. She says that push-polling is "immoral." My question is, why is convincing people to vote a certain way immoral? We aren't talking about anything that deprives anyone of their civil rights. On the contrary, it seems to me that the First Amendment protects the right to convince others about issues. The Democrats feel that they have a God-given right to rule America, and anything that interferes with their divine right to rule is thus "immoral." By the way, delivering 2/3 of a living baby, and then sucking its brains out is defended by nice rational Democrats.

Victorian Morality and Choice

If a person thinks cross burning is immoral, he or she should not burn crosses. If a person thinks the genocide against Christians in Darfur is wrong , they should refrain from this killing. Who has the right to say that others cannot do acts just because he or she believes they are immoral? What does "immoral" mean anyway? It was wrong to impose abolition of slavery on southern states, based on judgemental ideas of right and wrong.

Quality of Life

Twenty two disabled children were found in a mass grave in Menden Germany, victims of Nazi attempts at eliminating those who are weakest in society. The Nazis should be commended for being pioneers in the elimination of those who only leach off those in good health. On the same note, the Democratic Party wishes to provide funding for embryonic stem cell research.

A Little Stoicism?

Cicero-From this impulse is developed the sense of mutual attraction which unites human beings as such; this also is bestowed by nature. The mere fact of their common humanity requires that one man should feel another man to be akin to him. For just as some of the parts of the body, such as the eyes and the ears, are created as it were for their own sakes, while others like the legs or the hands also subserve the utility of the rest of the members, so some very large animals are born for themselves alone. (De Finibus, Rackam trans. p 283).

Saint Paul- Now the body is not a single part but many. If a foot should say, "Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body," it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. Or if an ear should say, "Because I am not an eye I do not belong to the body, " it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God placed the parts, each one of them in the body as he intended. (1 COR 14-18).

Welcome to Albania, Circa 1950

A school in Greenbelt, Maryland forced a girl to stop reading the Bible in breaks between classes. Her school apparently has a policy against people taking advantage of the First Amendment guarantee of free exercise of religion. Not to sound like Bill O'Reilly, but this is a sign of just how hostile Liberals (in this case, education establishments) are to any ideas but their own. During the School day, kids are pumped full of anti-drug propaganda, sex ed, multiculturalism, and other ideas that liberals hold dear. Now it has gone so far that a student's free time has to be religion-free too. Maybe our government should just disband, since the thought of Christianity inflenced the Founding Fathers. After all, should anything with the taint of Judeo-Christian beliefs be allowed to continue?

Don't Have Any Opinions, Or Else!

I don't think Benedict XVI can win for losing, as Estase's mother would say. He has been vilified simply because he was born in the wrong country. He has been characterized as an illiberal bully. The newest attack is even weirder. Because the Holy Father said Islam was spread by the sword (Just ask an Austrian about how they tried to do that as recently as the 1600s. Just ask Hungary why Janos Hunyadi is famous.), which was not only not intended as an insult, but is actually, ahem, true. Now the left wing blogosphere is busy declaring that the Holy Father is a stooge for the Zionist infidel. OK, let me get this straight, Benedict is a Nazi, and works for the Israelis. He's a German, but shows too much deference to Jews? Have the Islamic bloggers lost their minds? The same people who ask us to forgive the Islamic world's more extreme elements have little forgiveness for Christians.

Sex and the Unmarried Man

We are always given sexual messages from the media giving the impression that people are no more than their bodies' sexual dimension. The wisdom of the Christian tradition is to minimize our sexuality. Clement of Alexandria said that a man should be able to sit down next to a woman without even thinking of the fact that she is a woman. Not so with the current media- - they want you to see the opposite sex a mile away. And they particularly want you to believe that people who live without sex are losers. Estase was in a video store today, and saw the prevalence of the "erotic thriller." What is an erotic thriller? Car chases and naked women. Estase's rule of thumb with videos: Avoid any movie whose box has functionally naked women. If a film is called "sexy" it must have a valid story or something constituting cultural value. Estase has a particular aversion for anything involving teenagers looking for sex. Not only is the typical slasher film voyeuristic, it's perverted for grown men to ogle girls in cheerleader outfits. Sorry Charlie Sheen. Clement's words of wisdom go a long way in keeping sex in perspective.

Christians Insulted by Jews

In the hubub over drunken Mel Gibson saying that Jews were out to get him, and that they start wars, we see uncharitable words used against Christians. Charles Krauthammer declared The Passion of the Christ as anti-semetic. In addition, a recent Jewish blog referred to The Passion as sadistic homosexual pornography. Clearly, Jewish people have been out to get Gibson. One can see that the Israeli state has with very little provocation invaded Lebanon. The reader can judge for his or her own self whether Jews start wars.
What Estase feels is that loudmouths on either side need to shut up and worry about the real anti-semites- - Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and anyone else who wishes to force Islamic law on the whole world. Those who want the freedom of Israel defended by American arms had better not call American Christians consumers of homosexual porn. We're here and we vote.

A Fine Romance

The carriage of Penelope de Auge creaked along the road, when it was stopped by a knave on horseback. The knave said, "I am Hez B. Allah, and get out of the carriage, you foul wench!" Penelope shouted, " I will not. I am not the daughter of a servant girl. My trust is in the Almighty and in my suitor, Delbert D. Enyo." Delbert D. Enyo was very wealthy, and found Penelope so charming, he took care of all her material needs. He was not very romantic, and some questioned why he felt such loyalty to the house of de Auge. After all, his friend Brit Tania was the only of D. Enyo's friends who would stand by him if the house of Allah challenged the de Auge family. Only a few years ago, one of the house of Allah had shot Delbert twice, for which reason Delbert called the house of Allah evil, and began to burn the family's lodgings, and try to imprison those of Allah who called for the death of deAuge and Enyo. Because Enyo was very strong, he was able to defend himself, but Delbert's own family questioned the wisdom of imperiling the whole house of Enyo over Delbert's infatuation with Penelope. Others in the house of Enyo questioned the propriety of this conflict because they wished to see the death of the house of deAuge almost as much as they hated Delbert. Delbert was compared to Napoleon because the rebels of Enyo actually admired the daring and cunning of Hez B.Allah. One rebel actually compared Delbert to Hez B. Allah, and others hoped that they could dislodge Delbert from power so they might end the war on the violent men of Allah. Delbert sent his assistant Saccharina to tell Penelope to hold back her men of war, that further violence with the house of Allah, because he knew that the rebels would take away his sword gladly, even if it meant the house of Allah would vanquish the house of Enyo.

The Big Exception

Shame on Cardinal Mahoney for advocating the continued influx of illegal Mexicans into America. Estase is Catholic, but has little use for people who flaut our immigration laws. The blacks and poor whites of America are sick of losing their jobs to people who 1) aren't here legally, and 2) often can't (or worse, don't want to learn to) speak English. There are quotas on how many Asians can enter America, how many Africans can enter America, and how many Europeans can enter America. The Mexicans, right now, are the big exception to our immigration laws. Estase is also Irish, and is aware that there are large numbers of unemployed Irish people. Estase opposes letting an unlimited number of Irish people enter America, and it's not because he hates Irish people, or he mistrusts Catholics. There are only so many jobs for Americans, and they should go to people who are legally here. People like Cardinal Mahoney don't speak for all Catholics.