The Legion Of Christ

I haven't quite known what to make of the news, such as it is, regarding the founder of the Legion of Christ, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado. I've been doing some reading on the topic, but this is the post that makes the most sense to me:

Maciel deserves to be reviled by the Legionaries of Christ. By "deserves" I mean his revilement is a debt of justice owed all Catholics by the Legion. This is not on account of Maciel's sin of sexual weakness, nor even on account of the sin of denying his sexual weakness. The fact of the matter is that Maciel was publicly accused of specific sexual crimes, and that out of moral cowardice he enlisted honorable men and women to mortgage their own reputations in defense of his lie. The lie was the lie of Maciel's personal sanctity, which Maciel knew to be a myth, and which the fact of his bastard child (putting aside the more squalid accusations) proves that he knew. To the villainy of sacrificing the reputations of others, Maciel added the grotesque and blasphemous claim that the Holy See's sanctions were an answer to his own prayer to share more deeply in the passion of Christ, as an innocent victim made to bear the burden of false judgment in reparation for the sins of mankind. The Legion cannot share Catholic reverence for the Passion and fail to repudiate Maciel's cynicism in portraying himself as the Suffering Servant.

Yet the LC leadership persists in allotting Maciel a role of (somewhat tarnished) honor: praising with faint damns, and suggesting that his spiritual patrimony remains valuable in spite of his personal life. This won't work.

Many of the greatest saints were repentant sinners. Yet not only did Maciel (as far as is known) go to his death without repenting, but he used wholesome Christian spirituality as a tool in the deception of others...

Or consider a woman whose husband ingeniously hid his infidelities from her for many years. Once she realized she had been deceived, the gifts he brought back from his business trips would be understood to have been instruments in that deception. Far from cherishing the jewelry he gave her, she'd feel that the diamonds now mocked the affection and fidelity they symbolized. By the same token, Maciel's addresses will be spiritually kosher -- he was after all a highly successful deceiver. But those addresses dishonor the very truths they expound, and it's impossible that they can cause anything but distress and confusion in those who attempt to nourish themselves on them.
...

When I speak of the Legion's duty of revilement, I do not mean they should issue so many pages of rhetorical denunciation of Maciel's sexual iniquities. What is required is an unambiguous admission that Maciel deceitfully made use of holy things and holy words in order to dupe honest and pious persons into taking false positions -- sometimes slandering others in the process -- in order to reinforce the legend of his own sanctity. Since Maciel's treachery was sacrilegious in its means and in its effect, he should posthumously be repudiated as a model of priesthood and of Christian life.

What is said above is predicated on the minimalist assumption that Maciel's siring of a bastard daughter is the only canonical lapse that can held against him. Yet he stood accused of sins much more serious, including the sin of absolutio complicis -- i.e., of sacramentally absolving one's own partner in sexual wrongdoing. The Legion's leadership professes improbably comprehensive ignorance of Maciel's misdeeds, but even if they are in fact in the dark about Maciel's guilt in this area, they surely must understand that abuse of the sacrament of confession moves the debate over Maciel's priesthood onto an entirely different level than a failure in sexual continence. True, we don't expect Newsweek or NPR to focus on the gravity of abusing a sacrament, because for them sacraments are simply ceremonies. But we would expect orthodox Catholic priests to grasp the importance of the charge. Knowing what they now claim to know about Maciel's sexual delinquency, can the Legion confidently dismiss the accusation of abuse of the confessional? And if they can't dismiss it out of hand, how can they fail to address it, even obliquely, in their statements? How can they keep up the public patter of his "flawed priesthood" without the certainty -- the certainty -- that there are not souls out there that need concrete sacramental help, souls whose access to the sacraments Maciel may have blocked by his villainy?

The Legion leadership's piecemeal public disclosure broadens rather than narrows the general speculation about the extent of Maciel's crimes. Today and for the foreseeable future they're in the "half of the lies they tell about me aren't true" position. They have only themselves to blame. Whereas St. Augustine said, "God does not need my lie," the Legion's officialdom appears to base its strategy of teaspoon by teaspoon revelations on the contrary conviction: "God needs our falsehood, and yours as well."

Dreher On The Culture War

Rod Dreher has some strong points, but concludes weakly. Here's the best part (H/T:Pro Ecclesia * Pro Familia * Pro Civitate):

Shocking though it may seem, there really are people who believe that unborn children deserve constitutional protection. There really are people who believe that marriage is rightly limited to one man and one woman. There really are people who believe that there is nothing affirmative in discriminating against someone because of the color of their skin.

And there really are people who believe these things are important enough to fight for.

The thing is, cultural liberals believe these issues are important, too. If they weren't equally committed to the culture war, they'd give ground on gay rights, race and gender quotas and abortion policy.
...

Liberals won't give ground, though, because they understand that what's at stake in these cultural conflicts is not mere preference, but principle.

The source of our culture war is conflicting visions of what it means to be free and what it means to be an American - and even what it means to be fully human. More concretely, as Princeton's Robert George has written, they have to do mainly "with sexuality, the transmitting and taking of human life, and the place of religion and religiously informed moral judgment in public life."
...

But we do not live in a libertarian Utopia. We can't have it all. If, for example, courts constitutionalized same-sex marriage, as gay activists seek, that would have a ground-shaking effect on religious liberty, public schooling and other aspects of American life. Without question, it would intensify the culture war, as partisans of the left and right fight for what each considers a sacred principle.

What irritates conservatives is the liberals' groundless conceit that they fight from a values-neutral position, while the right seeks to impose its norms on others. Nonsense. Marriage was a settled issue until liberals began using courts to impose their moral vision on (so far) an unwilling majority. Who fired the first shot there? [Emphasis added.]

Someday the culture war will become a civil war. It's happened here before. There's no reason to believe it couldn't happen again, nor any foreseeable circumstance that will prevent it.

Liberalism Is Not An Evolutionary Survival Trait

Someone made a video of one of my favorite sayings (H/T: Illinois Review):



And all that without mentioning abortion, contraception and euthanasia, which are also not evolutionary survival traits.

Honolulu Bishop Opposes Civil Unions Bill

Bishop Larry Silva of Honolulu writes to oppose state senate approval of a civil unions bill recently approved by the state house (H/T: A Catholic Mom in Hawaii):

Date: February 13, 2009

Subject: Civil Unions

Dear Senator Bunda:

I am writing to express my opposition to HB444, passed yesterday by the Hawaii State House of Representatives. As a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I urge you to put a stop to this travesty to our democratic process.

A decade ago, the people of Hawaii voted their clear intention that marriage is between one man and one woman. The civil unions bill, though it does not call a civil union marriage, in effect ignores the will of the people and simply gives a different name to what is really construed as a marriage between partners of the same sex.

A push for “equality” seems to be the driving force behind this civil unions bill. But the word equality is misused. In the realm of mathematics a “3” certainly has the same qualitative status as a “9”. Both are equal in the fact that both are real numbers. But 3 = 9 is simply not true.

Every human being is equal to every other human being, no matter what the person’s gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or citizenship. But marriage between one man and one woman is NOT equal to marriage (or civil union, or whatever other term we choose to call it). Here is why:

• Society has a stake in marriage. It is not a private affair, or else there would be no need to license it and recognize it civilly.
  
• Society’s stake in marriage is based upon the family and the need for its stability. It is the family that is the bedrock of any civilization and of any community.
  
• One of the obvious purposes of marriage, from time immemorial, is the procreation and formation of children. Such procreation is not possible in a same sex union and therefore should not be given the same dignity or protection as marriage.
  
• Children grow best in a stable environment with a mother and a father. Although this is obviously not always possible, our laws should express the ideal structures that are best for children.
  
• Accepting civil unions as an indication of equality may lead others to seek the same “equality.” Will polygamists be next to demand “equality”? Others whose values will continue to erode the social fabric of our community? If we play out the “logic” behind same sex unions, many such things could be required under the rubric of a false notion of equality.

Of course there are compelling theological reasons for not sanctioning same sex unions, but I will not mention those here.

Once again, I urge you to stop this movement to permit civil unions in the State of Hawaii.

Thank you for all you do and for your attention to this matter.

+ Larry Silva
Most Reverend Clarence (Larry) Silva

The bishop's action is admirable. If this appeal fails, I wonder what other action he'll be prepared to undertake.

Oppressing Christians

I mentioned recently an incident of using public funds to oppress Catholics. Now, the Ignorant Redneck over at Redneck Catholic is raising the warning about oppression of all Christian thought:

Persecution is more than internment camps and interrogation cells. Persecution is most insidious when it takes place at lower levels, when quasi-governmental bodies interfere and harass people for their beliefs, or favor one set of beliefs over another. It's most effective when a group is held up for ridicule, parody and contempt.

And this insidious persecution is alive and well in America today. Take a good look at how Christians and Catholics in particular are depicted in the press, on TV, in movies. It's not often that you see a balanced presentation, let alone a positive one. And it's damned rare that any kind of historical treatment is accurate. (I'm thinking of the History Channels treatment of the Crusades: not so much that they put in things that weren't true, but that they left out major incidents and actions that tended to make Islam look bad, or the Crusades look justified on any grounds.)

And take a look at Academia: A couple of years back, the University of Wisconsin was in court for discriminating against Christian Speech. It excluded Christian groups from campus life because they didn't have non-christian leaders. In the name of "inclusion", they excluded and attempted to silence Christian speech.

Or the University of California's current policy, headed to the courts, of not accepting credits from schools that include a Christian World view, or Christian History in their curricula, essentially excluding students who received an education in Christian schools. It's interesting to see what they do accept, as opposed to what they exclude. UC reviewed books from Christian Publishers, text books, and ruled them unacceptable for perspective students, not because of what they left out, but because they supplemented them with Christian materials. At the same time they approved books written from a Jewish, Islamic, feminist and humanist viewpoints. One book was disallowed because it had Scripture verses at the head of each chapter. The University said the book could be approved if one change was made: The scripture verses were removed. What we have here is a two fold abuse: A university using it's power to censor a world view it doesn't agree with (while "championing" academic freedom) and telling other schools, which it has no real or legal authority over, what books to use, and how to teach.

Then there are things like this: On November 24, at Los Angeles City College a young man was participating in a class assignment. The assignment was a verbal presentation, an informative speech, on any subject. The young man in question delivered his speech on God and Morality. The professor interrupted his speech, called him a "Fascist Bastard", dismissed the class, instituted disciplinary action against the student, and on his evaluation form wrote "Ask God what your Grade is". The student is in fact facing disciplinary action. Now, if the assignment is an informative speech on any subject, that should mean any subject. And, in terms of silencing dissent, who was being the fascist bastard, the student or the prof? In the last century, people were excluded from universities for being Jewish. I guess in this century, it will be for being Christian.

There's more.

We've all heard about incidents like this. But when you put them all together, the trend is not encouraging.

Don't Cross Me

Who Do You Vote For When You Don't Know Who To Vote For?

You know you don't want to be on the wrong side of Father Z. or Father Longnecker, and for that matter, Cardinal Sean might just be the next pope! But the Caveman's got artillery out and the Carolina Cannonball is threatening you with liturgical dance!

Vote for the compromise blogger, the blogger who, like you, is just a regular guy.

Pulido For Congress

When President Obama named Congressman Rahm Emmanuel to be his White House Chief of Staff, Emmanuel's House seat was opened up to a special election. In that special election, the primary will be 19 days from day, March 3rd, 2009.

This evening, I had the pleasant opportunity to spend a few minutes in private conversation with well-known Chicago conservative activist Rosanna Pulido, who is one of five Republicans, 13 Democrats, and 5 Green Party members seeking that open House seat.

Pulido is a real, down-to-earth practical person, not a slick, focus-grouped politician. She's an honest-to-God proud social conservative. She's running in a district in which the voters are said to be socially conservative, but the candidates are not.

I had already looked at her website, on which she proudly states her pro-life and pro-traditional-marriage positions (a rare thing for Illinois politicians of either party, to openly admit to being pro-life). In person, she made a very favorable impression on me. This is a person who not only holds the right viewpoints on the issues I think are most important, but she understands why, and can explain why others should as well.

It would be quite a rebuke to President Obama, I think, to have his Chief of Staff's House seat taken by a socially conservative, ethnic, Republican woman. If you agree, if you'd pay to see that happen, check out her website, and consider leaving a donation. Send her a message of support, and tell her the Regular Guy sent you.

Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial

Today is the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States of America.

Since childhood, he has been a hero of mine. I revere his determination to save the Union, and I am inspired by his hatred of slavery. I have no doubt that if he were alive today, he would hate abortion, too.

My favorite book on Lincoln is Carl Sandburg's combined edition of his 6-volumes' work, The Prairie Years and The War Years.

An interesting detail: Lincoln's grandfather, also named Abraham Lincoln, was a captain of militia in Virginia. In 1782, he moved his family into Kentucky, where his grandson, our 16th president, was to be born. He made this move on the advice of his good friend, Daniel Boone, who had explored the area extensively.

A few lines from Lincoln's career as a lawyer in Springfield, as recounted by Sandburg:

They had their fun and stories on the circuit. Once in Champaign County Court Judge Davis absent-mindedly sentenced a young fellow to seven years in the legislature of the State of Illinois. Prosecutor Lamon whispered to the judge, who then changed legislature to penitentiary. Lincoln, one morning in Bloomington, meeting a young lawyer whose case had gone to the jury late the night before, asked what had become of his case; the young layer bemoned, "It's gone to hell," and Lincoln, "Oh, well, then you'll see it again."

...A rich newcomer to Springfield wanted Lincon to bring suit against an unlucky, crackbrained lawyer who owed him $2.50; Lincoln advised the man to hold off; he said he would go to some other lawyer who was more willing. So Lincoln took the case, collected a $10 fee in advance, entered suit, hunted up the defendant and handed him half of the $10 and told him to show up in court and pay the debt. Which was done. All litgants and the lawyer were satisfied...

At a meeting of Replublican editors in Decatur, he said he was a sort of interloper, and told of a woman on horseback meeting a man on a horse on a narrow trail. The woman stopped her horse, looked the man over: "Well for the land's sake, you are the homeliest man I ever saw!" The man excused himself, "Yes, Ma'am, but I can't help that," and the woman: "No I suppose not, but you might stay at home."

And there's this from Sandburg:

Lincoln was 51 years old. With each year since he had become a grown man, his name and ways, and stories about him, had been spreading among plain people and their children. So tall and so bony, with so peculiar a slouch and so easy a saunter, so sad and so haunted-looking, so quizzical and comic, as if hiding a lantern that lighted and went out and that he lighted again -- he was the Strange Friend and the Friendly Stranger. Like something out of a picture book for children -- he was. His form of slumping arches and his face of gaunt sockets were a shape a Great Artist had scrawled from careless clay.

He looked like an original plan for an extra-long horse or a lean tawny buffalo, that a Changer had suddenly whisked into a man-shape. Or he met the eye as a clumsy, mystical giant that had walked out a Chinese or Russian fairy story , or a boy who had sumbled out of an ancient Saxon myth with a handkerchief full of presents he wanted to divide among all the children in the world.

He didn't wear clothes. Rather, clothes hung upon him as if on a rack to dry, or on a loose ladder up a windswept chimney. His clothes, to keep the chill or the sun off, seemed to whisper, "He put us on when he was thinking about something else."

Lincoln gained nationwide -- and even worldwide -- fame in the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858 (not 1860, as many people mistakenly think -- it was a U.S. Senate race, not the presidential race) when Senator Stephen A. Douglas -- another lawyer whom Lincoln had tried cases against and with and (when Douglas was serving as a judge) before, and whom he had previously debated politics on many occasions -- condescended to seven meetings with Lincoln. The format of those debates would test any modern political candidate: the first man would speak for an hour, then the second would rebut for an hour and a half, and then the first would speak again for half an hour.

I recently read the full text of these debates, and they are amazing, in particular as an argument, on Lincoln's part, against slavery. But Douglas, interestingly, was not defending slavery. Douglas was simply arguing that it was the right of any state to choose for itself whether slavery would be legal there. I think Douglas would have been outraged to be called pro-slavery. In modern parlance, Douglas was "pro-choice" on the slavery question -- Douglas' term was "states' rights." (I'm currently reading a biography of Douglas, and hope soon to have some cogent commentary about him, and his modern-day successor to Illinois' U.S. Senate seat and the Democratic Presidential nomination.)

Of course as everyone knows, Lincoln was elected president in 1860, whereupon many of the southern states seceded from the union. As anyone who had read Lincoln's speeches on the topic for several years prior could have predicted, Lincoln employed the military to amend the separation. It was the darkest period in American history, but Lincoln had a clarity of vision that allowed him to see the nation through.

Finally, I offer my favorite quotation from Lincoln, part of his second inaugural address:

It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope--fervently do we pray--that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether"

Over at American Catholic, my fellow Illinoisan Donald R. McClarey has been posting some good stuff about Lincoln for a week or more. Check him out!

(Cross-posted at Southern Appeal.)

Best Stimulus Idea I've Seen

I like this idea a lot. And I just can't find the downside.

News You Won't See At Vox Nova

Where are Morning's Minion, Michael J. Iafrate, M.Z. Forrest, and Radical Catholic Mom on this news now making its way around the Catholic blogosphere?

An August 2008 study released by the group Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good had Obama supporters (and some editorial boards) swooning. Analyzing state level abortion data from 1982 to 2000, it purportedly found evidence that increased spending on various welfare programs resulted in substantial reductions in state abortion rates. The spin given to the results was that many pro-life laws, such as those requiring parental notification for abortions performed on minor girls, had little effect. So the paradoxical message to pro-life voters was that they could best advance their interests by electing pro-choice Democrats instead of pro-life Republicans.

Not surprisingly, this study had a substantial impact on the debate over sanctity of life issues during the 2008 Presidential election. Self proclaimed pro-lifers who support Democratic Presidential nominees can be found in every election cycle. However, this study gave Doug Kmiec, Nicholas Cafardi, and others intellectual legitimacy in arguing that pro-life voters should vote for liberals, even if they favor abortion-on-demand and its public funding, in order to advance the pro-life cause. At last, there was a methodologically sophisticated study which allegedly demonstrated that the welfare policies favored by Democrats were more effective in preventing abortion than the pro-life laws supported by Republicans. It seemed too good to be true.

It was. In November, with no public announcement, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good removed this study from their website. A replacement version was uploaded shortly thereafter. The replacement version differs from its predecessor in a number of interesting ways. First and foremost, one of the authors of the August study, Professor Michael Bailey of Georgetown University, removed his name from the November version. Joseph Wright, a Visiting Fellow at Notre Dame, is the sole author of the current study.

More importantly, the results of the new version fall well short of the original press release. The original study argued that three welfare policies had significant effects on state abortion rates. First, family caps, which deny welfare recipients extra benefits if they have additional children out of wedlock, increased abortion rates. Second, increased spending on the Women Infants Children (WIC) program reduced abortion rates. Third, increased spending on Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) also reduced abortion rates.

However, after the original study was released, the authors discovered that they used incorrect abortion data for the years following 1997. Furthermore, after some dialogue with me, the authors decided that it would be appropriate to eliminate data from states, such as Kansas, where abortion reporting was inconsistent over time. These changes have had a substantial effect on the study’s findings.

The new version provides evidence that welfare policy has no more than a marginal effect on the incidence of abortion. In fact, the new regression results indicate that none of the three welfare policies which the authors previously argued were effective tools for reducing the incidence of abortion have a substantial abortion reducing effect. Wright clearly states that “WIC payments are not correlated with the abortion rate in the 1990s.” ... [Emphasis added.]

It was a lie. The left told a convenient lie, and the Catholic left opted to accept it. As I said at the time, they knew it was a lie.

I was long ago taught never to attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity. So, were the Vox Nova Four stupid enough to believe that liberal social policies would really reduce abortion rates? Were Douglas Kmiec and Nicholas Cafardi so stupid?

I am repeatedly assured that these are all very intelligent, highly qualified people. Stupidity doesn't explain the observed facts.

These people have, as I have often repeated, given up the fight against abortion. They may claim to be pro-life, but they won't even write against abortion. Not one of them has posted a single word to argue a single pro-abort around to a pro-life position.

Oh, they've written about weather, about SUV's, about Israel, about the Legionnairies of Christ, about how no matter what the topic Republicans are worse, and about a host of other -- in my opinion -- trivia, but not one of them has written against abortion in practice or in law in any forum I've been able to find.

They would rather claim to believe lies than vote against abortion. And, having won, they offer nary a keystroke to argue against abortion. They claimed to believe this study. They claimed that Obama's pro-abortion promises were just pandering. They claim to be pro-life. They, like "Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good," are liars. They don't oppose abortion. They've made a negotiated peace on a non-negotiable issue. As I've called them before, they are turncoats in the culture war.

That they continue to be recognized as "Catholic" bloggers in some sense continues to amaze me.

Macro-Evolution?

[guest commentary by Paladin]

Just as a quick saunter into Paul's comments challenging the "secularist-canonical" idea of macro-evolution:

Atheists/agnostics scoff at the idea that we could possibly be descended from Adam and Eve, usually appealing to the "inbreeding problem" (i.e. small gene pools often make for a higher probability of genetic errors). Question: unless you're proposing that life "spontaneously erupted at many different places on earth" (and I'd love to hear reasoning for that!), then wouldn't we have the same difficulty if we're all descended from a common "single-celled organism?" Yes, yes... differences between sexual reproduction and asexual reproduction are noted; but once sexual reproduction began, wouldn't *that* "first couple" yield the same "inbreeding problem"?

Thanks For Shopping

Come On Over...

... and vote for me!

Stimulus Bill Invades Health Decisions

My latest effort at Southern Appeal.

The Face Of Evil

OK, this is just pure evil. England's Steven Kotler has a solution. A final solution (H/T: Dyspeptic Mutterings):

Want to hear an unpopular opinion: I think we should put Nadya Suleman in jail.

Unpopular? What is he talking about? He'll probably get the Nobel Peace Prize for suggesting that Nadya Suleman should be jailed. With fourteen kids, including eight just born last month, she's a villain to millions. As I've written before, many people hate children, especially large families.

Perhaps you don’t recall the name. Perhaps you don’t even believe a crime has been committed. Perhaps you think I should be locked up along the way. Fine. But someone has to start saying things aloud, so here goes:

STOP HAVING CHILDREN.

Nadya Suleman had 14. And they should all be taken from her and raised by fit parents. Seriously, I could care less about the fact that she’s unmarried, unemployed, unable to convince herself that she’s not Angelina Jolie.

She’s a criminal. She’s a murderer. She’s not only guaranteeing her kids a very hard life, she’s killing all of us.

Jail a mother for having babies? That's hate in my book.

Here’s the truth: we are running out of resources and we are running out of time. The International Committee on Climate Change

And who elected them? Who certified their competency to change the entire world's many ways of life?

has said we have thee to five years to curb our ways or the current environmental disaster is irreversible. Irreversible means that the little economic hiccup we’re feeling today isn’t even the warn up round. It’s T-ball compared to the major leagues.

You think the economy is bad now—wait a few years. Wait until we’re almost completely out of oil and food and water and available land and really I could go on for two more pages listing everything we’re running out of. Why? Because we are quite literally running out of everything.

Well, I'm running out of patience with Mathusian ghouls like this guy, that's for damn sure.

So how long do you have to wait to be starving, thirsty, and all the rest?

Truthfully, it shouldn’t be long now.

And the main reason it shouldn’t be long now is because there are already way too many of us. By now, everyone knows the current population stats. The earth is close to holding 7 billion people. If things don’t stop soon, by 2050, conservative estimates put the number at 9.2 billion.

I’ve written it before and I’ll write it again. Scientists studying the carrying capacity of the earth—that is how many of us can live here sustainably—have fluctuated massively. Wild-eyed optimists believe it’s close to 2 billion. Dour pessimists say 300 million. The point is that—and I’m going by the best of those figures—we need to lose 4.4 billion people and we need to lose them fast.

Really? Didn't I see you protesting against the Iraq war? If we need to lose 4.4 billion living people quickly, it seems to me that a nice-sized world war is a more likely thing to achieve than than your idea!

Not too long ago, one of my readers pointed out that I’m pretty good at pointing out what’s wrong in the world and lousy about pointing out solutions. So here’s my simple solution: Stop Having Children.

I call it the 5 Year Ban. For the next five years let’s not have any kids. All of us. The whole freaking planet.

I don’t think this should be a top down approach. I don’t mean a literal government ban. I mean a grassroots movement of responsible adults behaving like responsible adults. I mean a populist moratorium on childbirth.

Yeah, right, like that's going to work. You're going to get the whole world to sign on to not having babies for five years? You should really looking in to having another World War instead.

Why 5 years? Because it’s a manageable number. Because it would mean a billion less people. Because a billion less people is a good place to start.

Really? Didn't you just say we had to get rid of 4.4 billion? Which is it? 1 billion, or 4.4 billion? If we have to get rid of 4.4 billion people, why is 1 billion enough? This, to me, is the giveaway that proves that this guy is a lying asshole who hates children.

If everyone living on the planet today were really serious about, well, there being a planet left to live on, a planet left for our children to actually occupy, a planet that can actually sustain life. If we were serious then we would all be using birth control. [Emphasis added.]

Like Mr. Kotler's mother ought to have done.

When I suggest that some people are pro-abortion, I am often told that, as President Obama has claimed, "no one is pro-abortion." For a person to be pro-abortion, I'm told, he would have to want every pregnancy to be terminated by abortion. Like this guy. That's what would be required. Liberals assure us that sexual urges cannot be controlled, and we all know that no artificial contraceptive is 100% effective. Even if everyone on earth agreed with this ghoul, that would be a whole lot of abortions.

This lying asshole (remember that line about needing to lose 4.4 billion, but that 1 billion would suffice? One or both of those is a lie) claims that he wants it to be "grassroots" movement. Bullshit. Liberals always say they want their programs to be voluntary, right up until the people reject their conditioning and do what they please, and then liberals start passing laws. And you can always find cops who'll enforce any law or court order -- just ask Terri Schiavo.

Dale Price has a modest proposal:

I suggest that a five year moratorium is nowhere near enough. Instead, thoughtful, responsible men like ourselves need to lead the way and have our testicles surgically removed.

Radical? I think not. Given the Mathusian nightmare our world is facing, it is the only responsible choice. Also, the drop in testosterone will do wonders for reducing wars, violence and the prevalence of professional sports.

So, in short, it's time to shell those nuts! Testes for Gaia! Balls for the biosphere!

Nothing else will do! I will schedule my surgery after yours, Mr. Kotler. Together, we can make a difference.

You tell him, Dale.

This twit needs to re-read Logan's Run if he wants to save the world. Why start at the bottom? Why keep forego the babies while we keep the old folks who'll increasingly be a strain on the worlds' social systems? If you want to get rid of people on a large scale, start with the old folks. Everybody over 80 reports for euthanasia by the end of the month. Over 75 next month. Take it in 5-year increments each month, and you'll have this problem whipped by the end of the year. In Logan's Run it was everybody over 21 (thirty in the movie); but at least in that story, the guy who came up with the idea and sold it to the whole world was also the first to report to be euthanized.

And what's the financial cost of this? Entire industries would be destroyed, not to mention the effect down the line on the revenues to social services programs all around the world. If the government has guaranteed the retirement of its senior citizens, it'll be needing younger taxpayers to continue financing the ponzi scheme.

You liberals are in a trap. You've crafted societies all over the world that are dependent on ever-increasing numbers of younger taxpayers to support the increasing burden that your generation is placing on the social services programs. But by fighting for abortion, contraception and euthanasia, by creating a popular culture that despises children large families, that applauds divorce and infertility, you've caught yourselves in your own Catch-22.

Mr. Kotler says that people will starve if we don't stop having babies? I say they'll starve if we don't support the family and resume rewarding fertility.

To Steven Kotler and the rest of the pro-abortion, pro-contraception, pro-euthanasia Death Eaters, here's a piece of my mind to feast on, and I hope you have a good appetite for it: if you despise human life so much, death, like charity, should begin at home.

Nominated Again

I have two votes. Father Z. has 187 votes.

I don't have a better religion blog than Father Z. But if I can get one more vote, I can beat out The Gay Theist Agenda. With two more votes, I can be ahead of SanteriaReligion101. With three more votes, I can be leading The Anti-Christian Phenomenon. With five more votes, I can be ahead of Rorate Coelie! With seven more votes, I can take a lead over Whispers in the Loggia and Orthometer! And with ten more votes, I can be ahead of His Emminence, Sean Cardinal O'Malley of Boston.

How about it guys? Can I get ten votes today?

Answering A Friend's Question

My bloggin' buddy Jay at Pro Ecclesia * Pro Familia * Pro Civitate asks "Why Does Ashley Judd Hate Baby Caribou?"

It seems that Ms. Judd, who supports abortion, opposes the program supported by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to reduce the excess wolf population in that state. The problem with this position, Jay points out, is that the wolves seem to have a program to reduce the caribou population in Alaska, which Ashley Judd evidently supports.

It's a bit of a switch to see environmentalists opposing a program meant to help caribou; usually the caribou are the reason for opposing all sorts of development in Alaska.

But there's an obvious reason. As the old saying goes, "the enemy of my enemy is also my friend."




Which of these two would you rather see shot? If it's the lady on the left, then you hate baby caribou and, yes, baby humans. And conservatives, no doubt. If it's the predator on the right, then you support sensible wildlife management, regardless of what your other political affiliations may be; if you're not conservative yet, there is hope for you.

Ethical Troubles In The Cabinet

Iowahawk has the story:

WASHINGTON - U.S. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu announced his resignation this morning amid new reports that Alameda County workers had unearthed more than a dozen additional dead hobo bodies at his former home in Berkeley, California. The Nobel Prize-winning physicist had been the subject of a week-long controversy after he amended his White House application form to declare "3 or 4" hobo corpses in his crawl space, but after this morning's discovery, Chu said he felt he could no longer serve as an effective spokesman for Administration energy policy.

"Getting America on the road to energy independence requires a secretary who is focused full time on developing comprehensive strategies for alternative fuels, rather than a political distraction over a handful of decomposing drifters," said Chu. "I'm afraid I am no longer that person."

Chu said he would return to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where he will resume his scientific work investigating particle dynamics and local homeless shelters. President Obama said he would accept the resignation with regret, and expressed hope that a new Secretary could be named within the week.

"It was an honest mistake on Dr. Chu's part," said the President. "The section of the screening questionnaire about dead hobos has been confusing for a lot of nominees. In his defense it only specifies 'basement/crawl space/storage shed,' so I can somewhat understand why he didn't mention the ones discovered by the backhoe yesterday. That said, it's important that we move forward with revitalized American energy leadership. I'd like to thank Dr. Chu for his service and delicious home-made beef jerky, and wish him well in his future endeavors."

There's so much more.

Why I Believe In God

There's been quite a bit of activity in the comboxes, and we've attracted some folks who don't share my faith in God. Fair enough, it's America, to each his own.

But as time goes by I feel less and less obligated to argue various issues like abortion, gay marriage, euthanasia, contraception, and morality in general as if God were not a factor. I've spent a lot of time knocking myself out to make secular arguments over the years on this blog, and I find myself less and less interested to do so.

So here it is: I believe in God.

Let's define God for the moment as the person who created the universe and everything in it, "visible and invisible" as the creed tells us. God is omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent. God is love. God is merciful.

Here's why I believe in God.

There's an old story about Sir Isaac Newton, that one day a visitor to his office at the university saw the beautiful working model of the solar system that had been given to Sir Isaac as a gift. It had the sun in the center, and each of the planets were represented and it was most cleverly constructed so that the planets revolved around the sun.

The visitor exclaimed that it was a beautiful model, and asked Sir Isaac who built it.

Knowing his visitor to be an atheist, Sir Isaac answered, "no one built it."

If it's not possible that that model of the solar system might have occurred spontaneously, how can it be that the real solar system, and the rest of the universe, occurred spontaneously?

And even if you could get planets out of nothing, how do you get life from non-life? Take a look at this video clip:



Where did the first life come from, if not from God? First there is no life, and then there is life. How? Because the scientist doesn't know, he insists that I cannot know either.

And once there's life, how do you explain the diversity of life?

How does something this complex happen? And don't try to tell me evolution. I work with databases; when data is corrupted, data is lost. Corruption never results in additional data. Don't expect me to believe that random mutation results in new survival traits.

If macroevolution were true, if one sort of animal could evolve into another sort of animal, why can't we make it happen in the laboratory? Why does it never happen in nature anymore?

And if humans evolved from lower forms, how is it that we are so unique? How is that we have imagination? How is it that we have morality? Ideals? Imagination?

I've never seen anyone make a watch, but I believe that watchmakers exist because I wear a watch. I believe that the maker of the universe exists because I live in the universe.

If you're not convinced, try Thomas Aquinas for more.

But, if you accept the notion that the universe is created, how can we know anything about its Creator? What can we do to learn about God?

On our own, nothing. No human power can find God and find out about Him. If God is omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, and omnipresent, and we are not, it is impossible for us to find Him.

But he can find us. And he has. God has revealed Himself to His creatures.

Do you know what I find to be the two most persuasive things about the Bible?

First, it's written by dozens of authors from every walk of life from shepherd to king, over a span of a thousand years or more, but all throughout, there is no place where there is any inconsistency in a matter of morality.

Ask five people about a moral issue today, and you'll get five differing opinions. You don't find that diversity in the authors of the Bible.

And secondly, when read the Old Testament as a history of the Hebrew people, how many of their leaders, heroes, kings and prophets are depicted warts and all? How often are the people unfaithful to God, how often do leaders sin?

They trace their patrimony through Jacob. But Jacob stole that patrimony from his brother Esau! Can you imagine the English admitting something like that about their royalty?

If this is history, it's a sort of history that the world has not seen.

God is. God has revealed Himself to his creation. And God entered human history and was made man. And as a man, he instituted a method for the preservation of what he had revealed. He founded a Church, which he promised to protect from error until the end of the world.

Who was the first president of the United States? How do you know? Who was the King of Spain in 1492? Who first flew a powered airplane? How long is a meter? How do you know?

Ultimately, almost everything we know is based on authority. Which authorities we will choose to accept is an interesting problem. Generally, I find the authority that is in the minority less credible than the one in the majority. It turns out that those things that "everybody knows" are usually true after all.

The other thing I believe about God, and I think that this is the thing that makes most people who hate God do so, is that he's the God of everyone. Everyone owes him faith and obedience. Some people find God terrifying, or just inconvenient. Amusingly, these are the people most likely to tell me that I believe in God because I want to. Not at all: it would be convenient in the extreme to be able to do whatever I want with no moral constraints beyond what the law enforces. But I can't.

Now, atheists will always argue that morality is not dependent on religion, but I've never understood that. I think it's just their opinion. If you're such an atheist, feel free to comment on this point.

I will have less patience in future to argue moral issues without reference to God. Let people who want to order the world as if God doesn't exist convince me of their First Principle.

Go ahead. See if you can prove to me that there is no such thing as an absolute truth.

Chicago Schools' New Boss

My latest effort at Southern Appeal.

Elitism, Populism, and Sarah Palin

An excellent explanation of a recent phenomenon (H/t: Pro Ecclesia, image courtesy of Ori):

In American politics, the distinction between populism and elitism is further subdivided into cultural and economic populism and elitism. And for at least the last forty years, the two parties have broken down distinctly along this double axis.
The Republican party has been the party of cultural populism and economic elitism, and the Democrats have been the party of cultural elitism and economic populism. Republicans tend to identify with the traditional values, unabashedly patriotic, anti-cosmopolitan, non-nuanced Joe Sixpack, even as they pursue an economic policy that aims at elite investor-driven growth. Democrats identify with the mistreated, underpaid, overworked, crushed-by-the-corporation “people against the powerful,” but tend to look down on those people’s religion, education, and way of life. Republicans tend to believe the dynamism of the market is for the best but that cultural change can be dangerously disruptive; Democrats tend to believe dynamic social change stretches the boundaries of inclusion for the better but that economic dynamism is often ruinous and unjust.

Both economic and cultural populism are politically potent, but in America, unlike in Europe, cultural populism has always been much more powerful. Americans do not resent the success of others, but they do resent arrogance, and especially intellectual arrogance. Even the poor in our country tend to be moved more by cultural than by economic appeals. It was this sense, this feeling, that Sarah Palin channeled so effectively. Her appearance on the scene unleashed populist energies that McCain had not tapped, and she both fed them and fed off them. She spent the bulk of her time at Republican rallies assailing the cultural radicalism of Barack Obama and his latte-sipping followers, who, she occasionally suggested, were not part of the “the real America” she saw in the adoring throngs standing before her. Palin channeled these cultural energies more by what she was than by what she said or did, which contributed mightily to the odd disjunction between her professional resume and her campaign presence and impact.
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Palin’s cultural populism put her at odds with the foe that did her the most serious damage: the nation’s intellectual elite, whose initial suspicion of her deepened into outright loathing as the campaign progressed. Her inability in interviews to offer coherent answers about the Bush Doctrine, regulatory reform, and the Supreme Court’s case history, together with her unexceptional academic record and the fact that she had spent almost no time abroad, were offered as evidence that Palin represented a dangerous strain of anti-intellectualism on the Right.

She was, the Left-leaning Christopher Hitchens insisted, “a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus.” The Right-leaning David Brooks called Palin “a fatal cancer to the Republican party” because her inclination “is not only to scorn liberal ideas but to scorn ideas entirely.”

Palin never actually boasted of ignorance or explicitly scorned learning or ideas. Rather, the implicit charge was that Palin’s failure to speak the language and to share the common points of reference of the educated upper tier of American society essentially rendered her unfit for high office.

There's more. And it's all very insightful.

Elitists -- liberal and conservative -- despised, derided, and even committed crimes against Sarah Palin not because of what she did or said, but because of who she was. And regular guys like me supported her for the same reason.

I have three Republican candidates I'd like to see seek the nomination in 2012: South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Any of these, I think, would make a strong showing against President Obama.

Oppression

It is not oppression per se that I must pay taxes to the federal government. It is not even oppression that federal taxation is enforced by the police power, and that if I sufficiently resist paying taxes and efforts to coerce me to pay taxes, I may be jailed or, in extreme circumstances, even shot.

But to take my tax money and contribute it to the making of this video...?

That's oppression. That my tax money is spent on such a product oppresses me, and all Catholics.

UPDATE:
It's been taken down at LinkTV, but here it is on YouTube:

Marriage Again

Today's hat trick: Gay "marriage"! An excellent look at gay "marriage" and divorce, over at RedState:

Anyone familiar with the lineaments of the debate over same sex marriage will have encountered what we might call the Libertarian Variation. This is the view that all the commotion surrounding this dispute could be avoided if only we could persuade the state to have done with marriage altogether, leaving it a strictly private affair. Most commonly the it will be advanced with a kind of cry of exasperation: “I just want the government out of the marriage business!” The cry is less one of realistic hope for policy reform than a forlorn utterance of resignation.

Commonly Libertarian Variation will be advanced by someone with enough perception to realize that the standard compromise in favor of tolerance on all sides — gays can have their recognition, but don’t worry, no one will ever be forced to participate — is not now a realistic option, and probably never was. In short, the Libertarian Variation is commonly advanced by someone who realizes, deep down, that, indeed, churches will be forced to open their grounds to gays, that wedding photographers will be forced to accept business for marriages they have a principled opposition to. Coercion has happened, and will happen. Hence our poor libertarian’s exasperated cry of resignation.

Gay Relationships Not The Same As Marriage

Demonstrating once again that a homosexual relationship is a different thing than marriage:

BOSTON -- The lesbian couple who led the fight for gay marriage in Massachusetts are filing for divorce.

Julie and Hillary Goodridge were among seven gay couples whose lawsuit, Goodridge vs. Department of Public Health, thrust Massachusetts into the center of a nationwide debate on gay marriage. The couple became the public face of the debate in the state, the first to legalize same-sex marriages.

The couple was married on May 17, 2004, the first day same-sex marriages became legal under a court ruling. Their daughter served as ring-bearer.

The divorce filing is not unexpected. The couple announced they were separating in 2006.

No, no, they assured us that gays have this deep and abiding love, fully as selfless and committed as straight couples! Well, the poster girls for gay "marriage," having faked their way into history, are calling it quits.

Give it up, kiddies. Gay relationships are about what you get, not what you give.

The Secret Is Out

A UN bureaucrat has let the cat out of the bag! Liberals really do want to destroy the family (H/T: Pro Ecclesia):

Speaking at a colloquium held last month at Colegio Mexico in Mexico City, UNFPA representative Arie Hoekman denounced the idea that high rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births represent a social crisis, claiming that they represent instead the triumph of “human rights” against “patriarchy.”

"In the eyes of conservative forces, these changes mean that the family is in crisis," he said. "In crisis? More than a crisis, we are in the presence of a weakening of the patriarchal structure, as a result of the disappearance of the economic base that sustains it and because of the rise of new values centered in the recognition of fundamental human rights."

The destruction of the traditional family, far from being bad, is a goal to be desired, a Good Thing.

So all you homophiles who keep telling me that gay "marriage" won't affect traditional marriage, your own side has thrown you under the bus. Of course it will, that's the point! All you abortion supporters, all you contraceptive defenders, all you no-fault divorce advocates who claim that you're not hurting the family, you're not only hurting the family, you're trying to! You're knowingly and intentionally sacrificing the traditional family on your demonic altar of warped "rights".

Nowhere, of course, is there found any regard for the rights of children to be raised by their own mothers and fathers.

(Cross-posted at Southern Appeal.)

Paul's Return

I think I'm ready to get back to blogging at last! I do still have some comments in an old post to reply to, but I'm confident I'll get those caught up in a few more days.

A few thoughts on the intervening time:

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Thanks very much to Brian for his posts, which in addition to being thought- (and comment-) provoking and well-written, have served to keep the blog from looking deserted. Thanks also to the commenters, Ori, Karen, Charlotte, Michael, John, Oliver, and even Mike, who have kept the comboxes warm.

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President Obama. President Obama. President Obama. President Obama. Just practicing.

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President Obama has revoked the Mexico City policy (replacing it with the Douglas Kmiec Abortion Export policy), ordered an end to torture by U.S. personnel (but ensured that the CIA will continue its policy of sub-contracting out our torture needs to our allies), appointed several tax cheats and lobbyists to his cabinet, put money for Acorn and "family planning" into his stimulus package, and turned up his office thermostat to 80 degrees. I can believe in this, but it isn't "change".

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President Obama. President Obama. President Obama. This may take some time.

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I would also like to thank the island nation of Barbados, to which I fled for political asylum following the inauguration. Turns out no one was chasing me, so I came back after a few days, but everybody there was very, very nice during my vacation. Well, not so much as a vacation as a short business trip during which I worked by tuchus off, but everybody was still very nice.

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Governor Quinn. Governor Quinn. Governor Quinn. That's much easier.

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Really, the only surprising thing to me about Gov. Blagojevich's arrest was the thought that someone believed that he might not be trying to sell that vacant Senate seat. Of course he was going to sell that seat! Of course he was shaking down anyone and everyone he could put the touch on for favors, jobs and campaign contributions. That's how Illinois has run for decades. If this is the beginning of an end to that culture, I'll applaud. But I think I'll hold my applause to the final act. I still expect to see a "Blagojevich for President" bumper sticker someday.

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Only one of the Vox Nova "pro-life" Obama supporters has offered the barest hint of criticism of the new President's pro-abortion policies, statements, or appointments, and that on her own blog, not at Vox Nova. Still watching.

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I'm pleased to announce that I am now also contributing to the fine blog Southern Appeal. It's a real honor for me to be in that forum with those fellows, and I hope I can make a worthwhile contribution.