March of the Envirohippies

Saw a t-shirt today saying "I Support Wind Power," which gave Estase an idea. Set up a turbine in front of Oh Blah Blah's podium, right next to the teleprompter that feeds him everything focus groups tell him they want to hear.

The Coup de Grace

Fully expect one consequence of the Obama health care plan to be this: The day after the public option becomes the only insurance plan available, a Federal court will rule that Catholic hospitals are unconstitutional. Sorry guys, separation of church and state, cannot do anything about it!

John Yoo and Consequentialism

The debate over whether or not Berkeley law professor John Yoo should be punished for helping shape Bush interrogation policy brings up what I call the "Failsafe Dillemma." In the book/movie "Failsafe," an accidental attack by an American bomber crew brings up a striking philosophical question: Is the deliberate destruction of a city to prevent nuclear war permissible?

A non-consequentialist will say no, even preventing a nuclear war does not justify murdering the people of one city. Doing wrong to prevent something bad from happening is still doing wrong.

A consequentialist will say that destroying one city to save tens of millions from death is moral. Choosing to save that one city means causing additional people to die. John Yoo, by supporting enhanced interrogation, demonstrates himself to be a consequentialist. Estase is not sure that consequentialism is rejected by most people, though he it strikes him as repulsive.

That's Much Better

Thanks to Bela Pelosi, who vowed to "drain the swamp" Republicans created, replacing it with a sustainable Democratic wetland.

Mount Pleasant In Touch With Reality

Since Frank Schaeffer says conservatives are in "la-la-land," the fine folks at Central Michigan University showed their good sense and open-mindedness by revoking the Registered Student Organization for conservatives.

This sanity also existed at Estase's college, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where professors regularly endorsed leftist positions. Conservatives were hunted with dogs. The local avatar of Planned Parenthood was given RSO status, while the pro-life group was divested of its cubicle in the RSO complex.

The prevalent wisdom on college campuses is self-perpetuating. How hostile to religion will the American public university be in thirty years, when today's undergraduates (coerced into athiestic liberalism) are the professors?

I Heart Huckabee, Part Two

Mitt Romney has solidified his position with me by his rude disrespectful action towards Mike Huckabee at the CPAC conference. Romney had already displeased me by his disrespectful and sexist treatment of Sarah Palin, part of his ongoing campaign to be the next unprincipled Republican former governor to become an unprincipled liberal president. Estase will vote for this piece of excrement when hell freezes over.

Christians and the F-Word

One of the most resilient condemnations of Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton is the accusation of the F-Word. FASCISM! In 1937, Chesterton opined that Britain's financial and social problems were so profound that he couldn't exclude fascism as a possible remedy. What exactly does fascism mean? Fascism means a government that gets involved in every aspect of society. Many associate it with the Nazis, although this isn't really honest because the Holocaust, Nazism's worst crime, was not even undertaken until 1940, after Chesterton's death and three years after his comment on fascism.

Fascism is in the eye of the beholder. The NRA Franklin Roosevelt created was fascist in all but its name. Roosevelt was supported by radio priest Father Charles Coughlin. Coughlin was used to promote the leftist melange known as Catholic Social Teaching, and was condemned after he drifted into the anti-Semitism that one would expect from a fascist. Coughlin was used by Roosevelt to promote his New Deal. Most historians would shrink from calling FDR a fascist, but who would expect otherwise from Roosevelt's biggest fans.

In much the same way, few would describe Barack Obama as a fascist. Estase sees signs of fascism in Obama's message. Example One: Obama has nationalized Chrysler and General Motors. Obama has taken over the biggest banks in America. He is using these now-public assets to promote his obsessions- - environmentalism and the redistribution of wealth. Example Two: Obama wants to create even more government control over our health care. Obama intends to punish those of us who don't live on granola and mineral water. If you don't believe me, see the Politico online newsmagazine of Tuesday, June 10. Santa will pay for your health care, but only if you're a good little boy or girl. Example Three: Obama will send you to college, whether you have any brains or not. See also Argentina in the 1950's, where the universities functioned mainly to promote the ideals of fascist dictator Juan Peron. Example Four: Obama is trying to kill private charity. In the coming years, Obama will force Catholic hospitals out of business. He will do this in two ways. He already intends to remove the tax deduction for charitable contributions. In addition, his rewriting of the conscience clause will no doubt force even Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. These two actions will make it impossible for Catholic hospitals to continue as such. Thus, America's poor will depend even more on the beneficience of government for survival.

The time for action is now. The people who have convinced themselves that Obama is merely liberal need to realize that Obama is more than a Carter, more than a Clinton, perhaps even more than an FDR.

St. Patrick's Day 2009

As an Irishman, Estase feels it appropriate to share his lessons from the potato famine of 1844-47. No, it isn't that England is inherently evil. Most countries have done things that were shameful. It would be wrong to treat Germans as pariahs for all time because of the Holocaust. People shouldn't hate America because of what happened to American Indians.

The first lesson of the famine is that even something good can be an excuse for a crime. Capitalism and free trade are generally good things, but Britain used them as excuses for a crime.

The second lesson of the famine is that only a fool gives unconditional trust to their government. As with other examples of genocide, the famine shows that, all too often, politicians just don't care when other people die because of their policies.

Anti-Choice?

"Do you then, you excellent and most admirable parents, read this law and hide your faces, you who are continually plotting the deaths of your children, you who entertain cruel designs against your offspring, so as to expose them the moment that they are born, you unreconcilable enemies of the whole race of mankind; for who is there to whom you ever entertain good will, when you are the murderers of your own children? You who as far as it lies in your power, make cities desolate, beginning with the destruction of your nearest relations; you who overturn all the laws of nature, and pull down all that she builds up; you who are savage and untamable in the barbarity of your souls, raising up destruction against birth, and death against life."

Philo of Alexandria
C.D. Yonge translation
On the Virtues, Chapter Twenty-Five
131-132

Illumination, Not Illuminati

"But the wise and virtuous man is not only a blessing to himself, but he is also a common good to all men, diffusing advantages over all from his own ready store. For as the sun is the light of all those beings who have eyes, so also is the wise man light to all those who partake of a rational nature."
Philo of Alexandria
On Dreams, Book I, Chapter 28

I Heart Huckabee

Rush Limbaugh, whose program ceased to be funny around 2000, has apparently decided to attack Mike Huckabee for the sin of having a campaign worker who called El Rushbo an "entertainer." Heaven forbid someone inject reality into the Republican party! If Rush isn't an entertainer, what is he? Is he a journalist? No. Is he a deep thinker? No. Rush Limbaugh is someone who thinks he can define "conservative" positions, much like Ann Coulter. We're supposed to forget that Limbaugh supported the attempt by the United Arab Emirates to take over port operations. We're supposed to forget that he compares hanging up on callers to the very real evil of abortion. We're supposed to forgive Rush for regularly invoking God as the source of his "talent". Just like Madame Disraeli, Limbaugh seems to think he can tell Republicans what they can and can't support.

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