Congress

"We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex--but Congress can."
~Cullen Hightower

Elections

Anybody qualified to run for office is smart enough not to.

John Opitz on life

Let me again try to begin by defining life and I think there exists a reasonable consensus amongst biologists on this definition, namely that life consists of all of the self-contained units of nature considered primarily of organic matter, autonomously and I stress the autonomously capable of undergoing development, reproduction and evolution. Note that this definition excludes the viruses because they're not autonomously capable of undergoing development and reproduction.

Newman on the papacy

Then, since Newman's chief aim was to portray the measure of loyalty to the one in that Chair, he had to list his prerogatives: "He can judge, and he can acquit; he can pardon, and he can condemn; he can command, and he can permit; he can forbid, and he can punish. He has supreme jurisdiction over the people of God. He can stop the ordinary course of sacramental mercies; he can excommunicate from the ordinary grace of redemption; and he can remove again the ban which he has inflicted. It is the rule of Christ's providence, that what His Vicar does in severity or in mercy upon earth, He Himself confirms in heaven." Newman then could raise the question: "What need I say more to measure our own duty to it and to him who sits in it, than to say that, in his administration of Christ's kingdom, in his religious acts, we must never oppose his will, or dispute his word, or criticize his policy, or shrink from his side?"

God

If there is a God He should speak to man clearly and in three ways: through the evidence of nature (Newman means the cosmological argument), through the voice of conscience, and through revelation.

Moses on dissent

The phrase is from Exodus (23:2) where Moses warns: "Neither shall you allege the example of the many as an excuse for doing wrong."

Rock journalism

Rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read...Frank Zappa

Change

In addition to abortion, there are more issues we should consider before we elect a liberal president:

George Bush has been in office for 7 1/2 years. The first six the economy was fine.


A little over one year ago :


1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon;
3) the unemployment rate was 4.5%.
4) the DOW JONES hit a record high--14,000 +
5) American's were buying new cars, taking cruises, vacations overseas, living large!...

But American's wanted 'CHANGE'! So, in 2006 they voted in a Democratic Congress and yes--we got 'CHANGE' all right. In the PAST YEAR:


1) Consumer confidence has plummeted ;
2) Gasoline is now over $4 a gallon & climbing!;
3) Unemployment is up to 5.5% (a 10% increase);
4) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $12 TRILLION DOLLARS and prices still dropping;
5) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.
6) THE DOW is probing another low~~ $2.5 TRILLION DOLLARS HAS EVAPORATED FROM THEIR STOCKS, BONDS & MUTUAL FUNDS INVESTMENT PORTFOLIOS!


YES, IN 2006 AMERICA VOTED FOR CHANGE...AND WE SURE GOT IT! ...
REMEMBER THE PRESIDENT HAS NO CONTROL OVER ANY OF THESE ISSUES, ONLY CONGRESS.
AND WHAT HAS CONGRESS DONE IN THE LAST TWO YEARS, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
NOW THE DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT CLAIMS HE IS GOING TO REALLY GIVE US CHANGE ALONG WITH A DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS!!!!


JUST HOW MUCH MORE 'CHANGE' DO YOU THINK YOU CAN STAND?

GKC property and wives

According to Chesterton: “It is the negation of property that the Duke of Sutherland should have all the farms in one estate; just as it would be the negation of marriage if he had all our wives in one harem.”

GKC's economic history

“The truth . . . might be stated in many ways; perhaps the shortest statement of it is in the fable of the man who sold razors, and afterwards explained to an indignant customer, with simple dignity, that he had never said the razors would shave. When asked if razors were not made to shave, he replied that they were made to sell. That is A Short History of Trade and Industry During the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries.”

GKC on mediaevalism

“I never said I was a medievalist; and I have only the vaguest idea of what it would mean. But I have a very vivid and definite idea of what I mean. . . . The simple truth, which some people seem to find it difficult to understand or to believe, is that what a reasonable man believes in is not this or that period, with all its ideas, good or bad, but in certain ideas that may happen to have been present in one period and relatively absent from another period.”

GKC on birth control

"The whole business of Birth Control is quite literally a proposal to [throw] out the baby with the bath. The whole structural system of the suburban civilization is based on the case for having bathrooms and the case against having babies".

GKC on newspapers

The editors of the big papers “never forget their one great duty to the public; to prevent anything of any importance becoming public at all".

GKC and Orwell

Perhaps the most interesting fact is that Chesterton published [in GK's Weekly] the first essay by a writer named E. A. Blair, who would become better known as George Orwell.

Belloc on Islam

"Even the most cretinous must by now perceive that modern war may be the destruction of all our world. In terror at that prospect men seek remedies for the chaos or defences against it. The most absurd of such experiments was, I suppose, the so-called "League of Nations" which left Islam out of account and yet gave sovereign authority to Abyssinia. It was founded on a silly falsehood and was unworthy of the mighty fruit it has produced---which is no less than the mortal peril wherein we now stand". [ON GKC]

Nationalisation by GKC

"Meanwhile the Labour men talk about the need to ‘nationalise’ the mines or the land, as if it were not the great difficulty in a plutocracy to nationalise the government, or even to nationalise the nation.” G. K. Chesterton, The New Jerusalem, pp. 5-6.

Bumpers

Bumper sticker of the year:
'If you can read this, thank a teacher -and, since it's in English, thank a soldier'

Bush on abortion

Signing the Partial Birth Abortion ban, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, the Unborn Victims of Violence act, reinstating the Mexico City policy, banning the military from performing abortions, banning taxpayer funding of abortions, and appointing two justices who are likely to vote to overturn Roe if given the opportunity, all against vehement Democratic opposition, is just “talking a good game and doing nothing”?

Abortions number

Using AGI [Guttmacher] figures through 2003, estimating 1,287,000 abortions for 2004-06, and factoring in the possible 3% undercount AGI estimates for its own figures, the total number of abortions performed in the U.S. since 1973 equals 48,589,993.

S.B.Anthony on abortionGuilty? Yes, no matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfu

Guilty? Yes, no matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed. It will burden her conscience in life, it will burden her soul in death; but oh! thrice guilty is he who, for selfish gratification, heedless of her prayers, indifferent to her fate, drove her to the desperation which impels her to the crime.

Wealth redistribution

Here is a creative approach to redistribution of wealth as offered in
a local newspaper...

Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that
read 'Vote Obama, I need the money.' I laughed.

Once in the restaurant my server had on a 'Obama 08' tie, again I
laughed as he had given away his political preference--just imagine
the coincidence.

When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to
him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept.
He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to
redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need--the
homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.

I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the
server inside as I've decided he could use the money more. The
homeless guy was grateful.

At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I
realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn,
but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did
earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more.

I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in
concept than in practical application.

Edward Kennedy

I’ve always considered Ted Kennedy to be the poster boy for this lie - claiming equality for women from his political pulpit while using them like toilet paper in real life.

One man, one vote

At the time when Herod murdered John the Baptist because of his promise, Rome practiced the principle "one man, one vote." Whoever the emperor in Rome placed in authority over a subject people, ruled.

Poverty

The society and economy of war, during which everything is subordinated to the urgent, immediate needs of the State, was taken as a blueprint for post-war society and economy. In order to justify this, new enemies like poverty and unemployment had to be found, so that the State could wage war on them by supervising, on behalf of society, the whole of society.

Posner

Carey invalidated a New York law reserving the right to sell contraceptives to licensed pharmacists. However, laws forbidding opticians to replace eyeglass frames without a prescription from an optometrist or ophthalmologist and other similar regulations were upheld by the Court. “Why it should be thought a worse offense against constitutional principle for a state to raise the price of condoms than to raise the price of eyeglasses remains the abiding mystery of the Court’s brush with sexual libertarianism,” says Posner. “The answer the Court would have given if asked – that sexual and reproductive freedom is a ‘fundamental’ right and economic liberty is not – just relabels the question. One might have thought libertarianism indivisible.”

Abortion and the Soviets

The late Soviet Union was the first nation since pagan times to legalise abortion. The date was November 20, 1920, shortly after the consolidation of the Communist Revolution.

Hidden partisanship

Submitted by Doug Pruner (not verified) on Fri, 10/17/2008 - 06:38.
I wonder how many here are aware of an addition to Dr. Cahill's CV, easily found on the web.
To professor of theology at Boston College and a past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America can be added an advisor to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.
That removes at least some of her freeness of speech in complaining about alleged pro-Republican Catholicism. Jesus himself counseled his followers to be "no part of the world", which should include partisan politics. (John 17)

Positive & negative morals

Submitted by CT (not verified) on Fri, 10/17/2008 - 03:13.
Professor Cahill's reflections miss an essential dimension of Catholic moral analysis, namely, the difference between negative moral norms and positive ones. Negative norms, so-named because of what is "not" to be done, bind on consciences semper et ad semper, that is, at all times and in every instance. Positive norms, by contrast, bind at all times but not in every instance. It is never morally permissible to kill an innocent, but the conditions of what constitutes a just wage, or fair housing, or support for the unwed requires the exercise of prudential reasoning and thus admits a variety of responses.

To suggest that the negative prohibition against the killing of the innocent is to be considered as equally compelling as the positive obligation to provide a liveable wage is to grotesquely confuse the matter. They are not equally binding on consciences in any case and thus not in matters concerning the coming election. Good people can differ on how to meet our positive obligations to meet the needs of the poor. There can be no difference among good people when considering the murder of the innocent, because such people, by willing even indirectly what is objectively grave evil, exclude themselves from the category of the good.

Any political party which deliberately facilitates the killing of innocent life on a routine basis thereby excludes itself from the realm of viable political options concerning the positive obligation to promote the common good.

AIDS in Uganda

"We understand that casual sex is dear to you," said Sam L. Ruteikara, the co-chair of Uganda's National AIDS-Prevention Committee, "but staying alive is dear to us."

"Listen to African wisdom, and we will show you how to prevent AIDS."

Ruteikara wrote that efforts to maintain the world's most successful AIDS prevention program were being "sabotaged" by Western "experts" who insist that only condoms will work.

Cloning

Amid all this, are you still trying to achieve your first dream, harvesting embryonic stem cells from human clones?
We’re continuing this work, but with less urgency since the discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells—adult cells that have been reprogrammed back to an embryonic state. We’re working on new ways to reprogram skin cells that would allow us to safely create a bank of stem cell lines that would closely match the population as a whole. It turns out that only 100 cell lines could give you a complete haplotype, or immune, match for 50 percent of the U.S. population. These reprogrammed cells are not as controversial since you don’t use cloning or embryos.

Independent minds

Harold Rosenberg intended with his phrase “the herd of independent minds”

Plato

Plato’s lesson: Revolutions arise not from the dissatisfaction of the ruled, but from the self-serving, self-destructive rationalizations of their rulers.

Augustine

- "scenes which give us fresh joy as we share others' joy in them" [Instr.17]
- "the sun is always shining on the round earth" [First Meaning of Genesis 1.21]
- "rape does not destroy chastity if the soul withholds consent" [Civ.Dei 1.16-18]
- "what is a political system without justice but organized crime" [Civ.Dei 4.4]
- "society is an agreement on the things one loves" [Civ. Dei 19.24]

Beauty and truth

Pulchrum et verum sunt idem subiecto, sola ratione differunt. Thomas Aquinas

Liberal education

"What am I going to do with my Degree in Philosophy? Open a shop and sell concepts?".

Italian Politics

Of Italy, Ratzinger comments with that same seriousness: "political systems collapse, and then nothing really changes".

Huxley on atheism

"Atheism is, logically speaking, as absurd as polytheism": Thomas Huxley

Liberals

Definition of a liberal as "someone unable to take his own side in a fight".

Change

I must admit that I was certain we were on the right track of legitimate reform until the late summer of 1968, when a returning student asked me altogether too eagerly, 'Father, what are we going to change this year?"

The new liturgy

Someone once commented that it was a terrible thing to contemplate how few liturgists have been hanged.

Newspapers

Grade level: Biden, 7.8; Palin, 9.5 (Newspapers are typically written to a sixth-grade reading level.)

Alice T. Ellis

There is no reciprocity. Men love women, women love children, children love hamsters.

C of E

the C of What's Left of E