From those crazy kids at Pro-Life New Zealand. Pretty catchy song:
Follow them on Twitter.
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Tuesday, August 31, 2010
PICTURES: Ottawa AntiEco Tax Rally August 28th, 2010
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| Firebrand Shirley Mosley, who helped organize the rally. |
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| Rally Organizer Debbie Jodoin opened the rally with a fiery speech |
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| Two bored cops. Good thing they were there! |
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| "Taxed to Death" |
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| Shirley Mosely ended the rally with a humdinger of a rant. |
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Man Arrested After Trying to Shoot Pro-Life People With Gun at Abortion Center
Albuquerque, NM (LifeNews.com) -- A man was arrested on Saturday outside a late-term abortion facility in New Mexico after he threatened to shoot two pro-life women providing alternatives to women going to the Southwestern Women's Options abortion center. The abortion center is operated by late-term abortion practitioner Curtis Boyd.
The unidentified man and his wife were escorting their daughter to the abortion center when the wife and daughter walked towards the pro-life sidewalk counselors to discuss alternatives to abortion.
The man reportedly became angry and ushered his family towards the abortion clinic.
"When we come out, I'm going to put a bullet in your head if you talk to her," the man told the pro-life women, whose identities pro-life advocates are withholding to protect their security.
Former Operation Rescue intern Bud Shaver said the man then lifted his shirt to reveal a dark object to the two pro-life women that they described as looking like a gun. The women called police who, Shaver said, "responded appropriately and took him away in handcuffs."
Shaver said the man's threat had the opposite effect of allowing abortions as a police SWAT team arrived and shut down the abortion center for two hours, preventing abortions from taking place.
"They cleared Boyd's clinic to search for the gun SWAT style. Everyone, including staff, had to come out with their hands up," Shaver, who witnessed the scene, said.
Shaver said he does not know whether police discovered the man's gun or if charges were filed against him for the threat.
Operation Rescue president Troy Newman notified LifeNews.com of the incident and said threats against pro-lifers have been viewed with greater concern in the wake of the shooting death of pro-life activist Jim Pouillon of Owosso, Michigan, who was gunned down last year as he held a pro-life sign outside a local high school. The killer admitted he murdered Pouillon because he did not agree with his public abortion protests.
Shaver told Operation Rescue he has been threatened a number of times since he has been in Albuquerque, but the police never responded in the way they did on Saturday.
"We are thankful that no one was injured and that the police took appropriate action," said Newman. "Violence against pro-lifers has become something that we have to guard against every day. Those who reach out to women in front of abortion clinics should not be afraid to continue to do so, but should always have security and an awareness of their surroundings in mind."
Related web sites:
See pictures of the incident -
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(Ontario) Public sector wage freeze could lead to strikes: CAW
How long before McGuinty caves?
Why does no one talk about the deficit? It's outrages. Ontario pays 9 billion dollars in interest on the debt alone. Imagine: all the money flushed down the toilet!
That's a discrepancy?
You protect public programs by keeping them affordable. Labour costs take up a huge chunk of government spending.
Translation: we kissed union butt.
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As a second round of talks began at a downtown Toronto hotel, the premier – just back from a week-long canoe trip – reiterated the cupboard is bare as the government faces a $19.3 billion deficit while Ontario digs out of the recession.
Why does no one talk about the deficit? It's outrages. Ontario pays 9 billion dollars in interest on the debt alone. Imagine: all the money flushed down the toilet!
Ignoring a gag order imposed on the talks, he said they were full of “discrepancies,” such as the government’s position it can protect public services while capping wages of workers who perform them.
That's a discrepancy?
You protect public programs by keeping them affordable. Labour costs take up a huge chunk of government spending.
“One of the things I’m proud of over the course of the last five years is that we’ve had the lowest rate of strikes, work stoppages and labour strife since we’ve recorded data and I think that goes back 35 or 40 years,” said McGuinty.
Translation: we kissed union butt.
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Monday, August 30, 2010
VIDEO: Why two teenagers gave up secular music
This is so real for me:
My computer only has songs whose lyrics I consider to be inoffensive to God.
And sometimes I listen to them some more and I decide that they really aren't very moral.
If you want to be faithful to God, you can't fill up your soul with junk. It's as simple as that.
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My computer only has songs whose lyrics I consider to be inoffensive to God.
And sometimes I listen to them some more and I decide that they really aren't very moral.
If you want to be faithful to God, you can't fill up your soul with junk. It's as simple as that.
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VIDEO: TheRightNetwork.com launches September 8th #roft
I'd really like to give this a chance:
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Some sanity in mental health issues in Ontario (pun intended)
It just seems like common sense to me. If you can't reason, you can't consent. If you're a danger to others and to yourself, you should be admitted.
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The all-party committee heard from an anguished family trying to help a son who believed he could stop moving cars just by touching them; and it heard about the suicides of loved ones who did not receive the help they needed. Their report, released last week, concludes that provincial mental health legislation permits “excessive and unnecessary suffering.” That cannot continue.
Current laws place such a high value on consent that people cannot be involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric facility until they are so physically dangerous to themselves or others that they can be arrested for it. Even then, they can still refuse treatment.
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Atheist Sidewalk Counsellor Tells Her Story
Heather says:
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I have been going to this protest movement since my son has been about a month old. My son is the real reason I come on Saturday mornings. It was at this very clinic that I would have ended my little boy's short life on earth. It was back in October of 2008; I was going through a lot of difficult things with my baby's father. Long story short I was living in the local battered women's shelter there in Roanoke, and just got hired at a nursing home as an assistant going into a CNA class. The baby was really getting to be a burden in my eyes since I could not train while big and pregnant and also that I was really sick. After a big fight with his dad, I decided that the baby had to go! It was crippling my whole life it seemed at that time. So I went to Planned Parenthood with out anyone knowing and inquired about birth control and some other services they offered, but I could not bring myself to ask about abortion. It was a sore spot with me and I was also in my second trimester. But on an autumn Wednesday afternoon I drove to the clinic to schedule an appointment for an abortion.
As I was driving in, an older woman was sitting out there with a big pro-life sign which I could not look at! I ignored her and parked in front, got out slamming the door and arguing with my boyfriend. I started to walk in but was convinced by my boyfriend to just talk to her since she was begging us not to go in. Thank goodness I did! After seeing another sonogram of my baby, I could not go through with thinking about an abortion.
I now go as much as I can to the clinic to save another girl from the mental torture I was going through(...).
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Chair Of Public Sector Compensation Restraint Board Nominated #roft
There's a government board for that?
Save money on government bureaucrats by hiring more bureaucrats! That's makes a heckuva lot of sense!
Why don't politicians take responsibility and implement the necessary cuts themselves?
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Save money on government bureaucrats by hiring more bureaucrats! That's makes a heckuva lot of sense!
Why don't politicians take responsibility and implement the necessary cuts themselves?
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Mormon Bishop Shot Dead in California
Do you suppose this MIGHT have something to do with LDS opposition to SSM?
UPDATE:
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Clay Sannar, 42, a lay bishop with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was doing administrative paperwork on Sunday between church services when a man came into the Visalia church and asked for a leader of the church, said church official Ralph Jordan.
After being directed to Sannar, the attacker shot and killed him, said Visalia police chief Colleen Mestas. Visalia is southeast of Fresno, in California's Central Valley.
After the shooting, a caller identified himself to police as the attacker. Police responded, and there was a confrontation with several shots exchanged, said Mestas.
The suspect was hit multiple times. He was taken to nearby Kaweah Delta Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, Mestas said. No police were injured.
UPDATE:
The shooter, Kenneth Ward, was formerly a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who left the church because he felt the church, specifically a bishop (not Clay Sannar), has wronged him.
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The best protection for minorities?
The left does not understand that the best antidote against tyranny of the majority is the protection of individual freedoms, by simplifying the law and by reading what actually is in the constitution.
Hear hear!
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ATTENTION RESIDENT OF #OTTAWA: Canadidates Debate on Spending! Please attend! #roft
I received an email from the Ottawa Taxpayers Advocacy Group about a debate among candidates for mayor and council regarding spending. Please attend!
Please pass on this information to those concerned with spending in Ottawa City Council.
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The objective of this debate is to find out where candidates stand on a number of cost saving initiatives as well as enable residents to ask questions on the efficient spending of hard earned taxpayer dollars. Please invite family and friends to come prepared to ask questions and make comments that could influence the platform of candidates and ensure that after the next election there will be a real change in the spending culture at city hall. With your help the new City of Ottawa will never again spend $300,000 defending one tree that is already damaging the foundation of a home owner. Some of the ideas will be low hanging fruit that can be implemented within the first 6 months of a new Council; others involve radical change and probably require the establishment of a volunteer task force to develop an implementation road map, activity flow charts and Pareto analysis of the ideas.
It is much easier not to rock the boat of a well established spending culture, but the boat needs a sail and rudder to give direction to the rowing of Council and help Ottawa reach the port of long term property tax affordability. For example we often hear “the rate of inflation” or 0 or 2.5 being mentioned as a tool, but inflation from 2001 to 2008 is 16.9%, salary plus benefits up 54%, benefits up 84% or 5 times the rate of inflation within the same time period. We believe "No New Money" is just what we need stir this boat on a course of financial sustainability. It simply means every new spending initiative be accompanied by an equivalent cut in administration or other existing services.
Ottawa could be a beacon of management efficiency that will attract business tourists from within and outside Canada while ensuring employees involved in the implementation of “No New Money” techniques will be viewed by other organizations as highly skilled managers and consultants. Monday September 13, 5pm–9pm Council Chambers, 110 Laurier Avenue, please RSVP online at www.ottawataxpayer.com
Councillors Debate Agenda
5.00 – 5.30 Meet & Greet
5.30 – 6.30 Councillors Debate
Moderator- Ottawa SUN Walter Robinson
Councillor Rick Chiarelli, Councillor Doug Thompson, Harley Collison, Clinton Cowan, Keith Egli, Wade Wallace, GJ Hagenaars, Iain McCallum
Mayoral Debate Agenda
6.30 – 8.45 Mayoral Debate
Moderator- CFRA Steve Madely, (6.30- 7.45)
Moderator- CFRA Rob Snow, (7.45 – 8.45)
Clive Doucete, Jim Watson, Larry O’Brien, Stan Pioro, Robin Lawrence, Jane Scharf, Mike Maguire, Charlie Taylor, Alex Cullen (Awaiting Confirmation),
8.45 – 9.00 Meet & Greet
Please pass on this information to those concerned with spending in Ottawa City Council.
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Sunday, August 29, 2010
Boys may benefit from aggressive play
Schools have become battlegrounds between the adults who are repelled by the play violence they see and the children — primarily boys — who are obsessed with pretending to fight, capture, rescue and kill.
While some educators prohibit this behavior, other educators and researchers claim that banishing violent play from classrooms can be harmful to boys. It's a debate entangled in gender issues, since nearly all early-childhood educators are women, and they may be less comfortable than their male counterparts with boys' impulses.
...
According to Thompson, this reaction often arises from mothers and female teachers who did not grow up playing the way boys play.
"They have a belief — call it an urban myth — that if boys play this way it will desensitize them to violence and they will grow up to be more violent. But it is a misunderstanding of what makes adults violent," Thompson said.
Source.
Personally when I see boys horsing around, my first impulse is to say: stop that.
It's not about gender issues for me. It's just so darned annoying and it's often done at the wrong time. I hate the way boys are always trying to one-up each other and give each other fake punches and stuff like that.
But see, I'm a woman. And I'm supposed to have that civilizing influence on boys.
The problem is that that aggression is natural, part of the masculine identity and can be exercised in a good way.
That's why a boy needs a man in his life. I suspect that among the many reasons men don't become teachers is precisely because masculinity is not very valued in educational circles.
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Unions hire people to protest for them
Wouldn't it be ironic if they decided to unionize?
Eight twenty-five an hour? PEANUTS!
But doesn't it suggest that the union's views are not terribly strong if they have to hire people to protect for them?
Usually when you go to a protest, you assume that the person protesting truly believes in the cause they represent.
If a group uses hired protesters, doesn't that suggest a lack of momentum in the movement?
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Eight twenty-five an hour? PEANUTS!
But doesn't it suggest that the union's views are not terribly strong if they have to hire people to protect for them?
Usually when you go to a protest, you assume that the person protesting truly believes in the cause they represent.
If a group uses hired protesters, doesn't that suggest a lack of momentum in the movement?
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Saturday, August 28, 2010
VIDEO: Anti-EcoTax Rally at Premier McGuinty's Office
Today I went to a rally to protest the EcoTax and McGuinty's regime in general. I wish I had had more film. This is all that I got (except for a few bits and pieces).
In this video, rally organizer Debbie Jodoin tells of an intimidating email she received from McGuinty's executive assistant.
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In this video, rally organizer Debbie Jodoin tells of an intimidating email she received from McGuinty's executive assistant.
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Mahatma Gandhi was pro-life. VERY pro-life
Except for the absence of a theology of the body, you'd think you were reading Pope Paul VI.
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With a remarkable degree of foresight, Gandhi was willing to take the contraceptive mentality to its natural conclusion on another issue as well:
If mutual consent makes a sexual act moral, whether within marriage or without, and, by parity of reasoning, even between members of the same sex, the whole basis of sexual morality is gone and nothing but misery and defect awaits the youth of the country. It is futile to hope that the use of contraceptives will be restricted to the mere regulation of progeny. There is hope for a decent life only so long as the sexual act is definitely related to the conception of precious life. This rules out of court perverted sexuality and, to a lesser degree, promiscuity. Divorce of the sexual act from its natural consequence must lead to hideous promiscuity and condonation, if not endorsement, of unnatural vice.
Gandhi repeatedly made the connection between the spread of artificial birth control and an increase in homosexual behavior, arguing that a sexual ethic based simply on the gratification of passions would make it "the rage among boys and girls to satisfy their urge among members of their own sex.: This was a radical prediction to make at the time, but Gandhi insisted on fundamentally equating sexual gratification, whether hetero- or homosexual, divorced from its procreative aspect.
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Friday, August 27, 2010
Catholic Blogs Aggregator
If you're a blogger who writes from a Catholic perspective, why not sign up at PlanetCatholic.com?
I put The Planet Catholic feed in my bloglist, so my readers and I would be able to see headlines from your blog. :)
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I put The Planet Catholic feed in my bloglist, so my readers and I would be able to see headlines from your blog. :)
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St. Alphonsus Ligouri's 50 Rules for Becoming a Saint
Because we can never be reminded enough.
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VIDEO: World's Tallest Teenager
This is just interesting:
She's fourteen-year-old and six feet nine inches tall. She wants to be a model. Lucky enough, she's pretty enough to be one. I suspect that she might be rebuffed because she's too tall.
The fashion world sucks, doesn't it?
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She's fourteen-year-old and six feet nine inches tall. She wants to be a model. Lucky enough, she's pretty enough to be one. I suspect that she might be rebuffed because she's too tall.
The fashion world sucks, doesn't it?
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Fr. Euteneuer to Return to Diocese
It looks like Fr. Euteneuer is being called away from Human Life International. It leaves me wondering: why? I thought he was fabulous? There's something really mysterious about all this.
Here's the letter I received by email:
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Here's the letter I received by email:
Dear Friends of Life,
Nearly ten years ago I answered the call of the Lord to come to Human Life International and work full-time in pro-life work with the permission of my bishop. I have been utterly privileged to serve this great mission for a decade, and now I am called back to my diocese to continue my priestly service in parish work, which was the original calling of my vocation. A priest is a soldier of Christ and the Church, and obedience is the primary virtue of his state in life, but for my part, my discernment about this decision tells me that this is the right thing for me to do and at the right time. I have great peace about the road that lies ahead and about all that has been accomplished up to this point.
Our international mission remains in good hands with my departure. HLI's Board of Directors has asked Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro of our Rome office to assume my responsibilities until such a time as a permanent replacement is named. Our tremendously competent staff and generous supporters are looking to the future with great hope despite the many challenges of the death peddlers on a global scale which are only increasing. There is more need of our mission now than ever! HLI's network of affiliates and associates is more than 100 countries strong, and our international leaders, so often highlighted in our publications, are literally the best in the world! Our dear founder, Fr. Paul Marx would be extremely proud of what we have accomplished in the past decade. I am sure he is smiling on us from where he is now.
I do not have a parish assignment in my diocese as of yet, but I hope to take some time out before I go back into full-time parish work. I expect that some time of rest and renewal will help me to make the transition. It has been 15 years since I last had any significant time for renewal, and after traveling more than 1.1 million miles, authoring two books, visiting 58 countries and making thousands of public appearances, I am ready for a break! I intend to continue to do pro-life work wherever I may be called to serve, and my bishop agrees that this is a vital charism of my priestly life. A true pro-lifer is not oriented to a job so much as to the daily task of fighting the culture of death and building the culture of life!
I ask for your kind prayers as I move forward and for your continued support of HLI and the new leadership that will come soon. I will not be a stranger to HLI's mission or life but I promise that I will remember each of you every day in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the font of all unity and LIFE!
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer,
President, Human Life International
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Thursday, August 26, 2010
Pro-abort Catholic Lies About Catholic Doctrine
What a shock. Says Frances Kissling:
That is a ridiculous assertion.
There is not one single papal teaching about the soul infusing a girl at 40 days and a boy at 80 days after conception.
That's what Thomas Aquinas THOUGHT. Based on the science of the day.
But Thomas Aquinas is not infallible on matters of faith and morals.
The uncertainty about "when life begins" is far more abstruse: like does it start once the sperm begins to penetrate the ovum, or once it's completely through, or once the cells begin to divide...
The Church assumes that once growth begins, there is life.
We're talking about a debate over an event that takes place in the span of twenty-four hours.
For the purposes of the abortion debate, it's not even relevant. Because the actions take place on such a microscopic level and in such a short period of time, that you can't target such a creature for abortion even if you tried. Like you can't say to yourself "hey, if I get that sperm before it completely penetrates the ovum, maybe I won't be taking a human life."
The truth, as science became more and more certain, so did the Church. We now know that life begins at conception-- that the conceptus is a human being, because they retain a morphological continuity. Animals can go through various stages and change shapes, but nothing in the animal world goes from non-living to living, from one species to another, on its own.
You can't leave it each person to consider what they think of a human being. That's immoral. Nobody has the right to regard a human being as inferior and not worthy of life.
This position is the most condescending of all and the most ridiculous. Many women regard their fetuses as full human beings. Kissling says that they're not human beings, but doesn't have the logic or the courage of her convictions to say that these women are wrong.
No, but a mother has a responsibility to protect her offspring and not take an object and cause his death. There's a huge difference between not wanting to save a life, and wanting to kill him.
Way to deflect the debate.
The debate is this.
Are all human beings equal and deserving of rights?
Yes.
Is the fetus a human being?
Yes.
Pregnancy is another matter.
VISITATION?
Visitation is when a person knocks on your door.
When YOU create the being inside of you through your own actions, that's not visitation. That's YOUR doing.
Did you ever notice that poor choices frame responsibility as "coercion".
Yes, in this society, we coerce people to respect other human beings.
Or maybe a blessing that should be freely accepted AS SUCH.
UPDATE
Just FYI
From the Merck Online Manual:
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The best kept secret about Catholicism and abortion is that the Catholic view of when the fetus becomes a person is precisely the same as that asserted in Roe v. Wade. Whatever definition one wants to posit about fetal personhood, the fact is nobody knows. To paraphrase Roe, the justices declared that science, law, philosophy and theology had not been able to answer this question and neither could the Supreme Court. If you read various Catholic documents, the same opinion emerges. Over the centuries theologians and popes have suggested when they think God might confer personhood on the fetus, and they have come up with different answers. When the fetus first moves, when it is 40 days old if it is a boy or 80 days old if it is a girl, when it is viable, when it can no longer split in two and become twins. But in the end the church says what the court says “We don’t know.”
That is a ridiculous assertion.
There is not one single papal teaching about the soul infusing a girl at 40 days and a boy at 80 days after conception.
That's what Thomas Aquinas THOUGHT. Based on the science of the day.
But Thomas Aquinas is not infallible on matters of faith and morals.
The uncertainty about "when life begins" is far more abstruse: like does it start once the sperm begins to penetrate the ovum, or once it's completely through, or once the cells begin to divide...
The Church assumes that once growth begins, there is life.
We're talking about a debate over an event that takes place in the span of twenty-four hours.
For the purposes of the abortion debate, it's not even relevant. Because the actions take place on such a microscopic level and in such a short period of time, that you can't target such a creature for abortion even if you tried. Like you can't say to yourself "hey, if I get that sperm before it completely penetrates the ovum, maybe I won't be taking a human life."
The truth, as science became more and more certain, so did the Church. We now know that life begins at conception-- that the conceptus is a human being, because they retain a morphological continuity. Animals can go through various stages and change shapes, but nothing in the animal world goes from non-living to living, from one species to another, on its own.
Of course the similarity stops there. The court says we do know that women are persons and therefore we will leave it to each of them to decide what they think about the fetus and what they think about giving their body over to its development.
You can't leave it each person to consider what they think of a human being. That's immoral. Nobody has the right to regard a human being as inferior and not worthy of life.
This position is the most condescending of all and the most ridiculous. Many women regard their fetuses as full human beings. Kissling says that they're not human beings, but doesn't have the logic or the courage of her convictions to say that these women are wrong.
No other human being is required to risk their life for another. To do so is considered crazy or heroic. A parent need not give a kidney to a dying child.
No, but a mother has a responsibility to protect her offspring and not take an object and cause his death. There's a huge difference between not wanting to save a life, and wanting to kill him.
Is it not time to focus at least to the same extent on what pregnancy means for the person whose body is occupied by the fetus as on the fetus?
Way to deflect the debate.
The debate is this.
Are all human beings equal and deserving of rights?
Yes.
Is the fetus a human being?
Yes.
Pregnancy is another matter.
Is it not time to recognize that the woman gets to consent to this visitation
VISITATION?
Visitation is when a person knocks on your door.
When YOU create the being inside of you through your own actions, that's not visitation. That's YOUR doing.
and that coercing her into providing her body for another “being” is not a routine event,
Did you ever notice that poor choices frame responsibility as "coercion".
Yes, in this society, we coerce people to respect other human beings.
A gift that must be freely offered?
Or maybe a blessing that should be freely accepted AS SUCH.
UPDATE
Just FYI
From the Merck Online Manual:
A baby goes through several stages of development, beginning as a fertilized egg. The egg develops into a blastocyst, an embryo, then a fetus.
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Lawrence Martin whines: where are the Red Tories
This column really bugged me.
First in its assumption that the Conservative Party is a party of the "hard right".
Is there an abortion ban yet? Has the deficit been paid down and the CBC been sold?
No?
Then it's hardly a party of the hard right.
At best, the Conservative Party can be said to centre-right.
Second is the belief that Canada should be governed by two parties that are ideologically indistinguishable. And that the Conservatives should really be run by people who would be comfortable in the other party.
What would be the point?
Maybe the reason why the Conservatives are more right-wing is that Canadians are more right-wing than they used to be. They don't want the Liberals to rule-by-proxy when they are booted out of office.
It seems like Martin just assumes that the left is entitled to govern Canada, without having earned its place by convincing Canadians of their views.
I don't think some of the political and mediatic elites have woken up to the fact. They just want to continue with business as usual, as if nothing has changed. While it's true that Ottawa is still a largely liberal town with a statist mentality, most of the country has shifted right. Don't believe me? Well the proof is in the elections.
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First in its assumption that the Conservative Party is a party of the "hard right".
Is there an abortion ban yet? Has the deficit been paid down and the CBC been sold?
No?
Then it's hardly a party of the hard right.
At best, the Conservative Party can be said to centre-right.
Second is the belief that Canada should be governed by two parties that are ideologically indistinguishable. And that the Conservatives should really be run by people who would be comfortable in the other party.
What would be the point?
Maybe the reason why the Conservatives are more right-wing is that Canadians are more right-wing than they used to be. They don't want the Liberals to rule-by-proxy when they are booted out of office.
It seems like Martin just assumes that the left is entitled to govern Canada, without having earned its place by convincing Canadians of their views.
I don't think some of the political and mediatic elites have woken up to the fact. They just want to continue with business as usual, as if nothing has changed. While it's true that Ottawa is still a largely liberal town with a statist mentality, most of the country has shifted right. Don't believe me? Well the proof is in the elections.
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Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Liberalism is against human nature
Oz Conservative is working on a multi-part series on the nature of Liberalism. He uses a lot of quotes to make his case and I think they are better understood in context.
The main idea is that liberalism is rooted in the belief in individual autonomy, which is, essence the ability to engage in self-creation.
What if you're a liberal who believes in this? What is your political aim?
In the comments, there is a discussion about liberals being "blank statist". In effect, they treat human nature as entirely malleable.
They deny that human beings have, at their core, a hardwired nature.
That's why many thought communism could work. It was believe that if you could only re-shape people's thinking, they'd buy into that. Stalin is quoted as saying that he wanted to become the engineer of men's souls.
Liberals continue that legacy, albeit in less oppressive forms. For now. :)
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The main idea is that liberalism is rooted in the belief in individual autonomy, which is, essence the ability to engage in self-creation.
What if you're a liberal who believes in this? What is your political aim?
Your aim will be to remove impediments to individual autonomy. Whatever defines us in important ways that we do not choose for ourselves will be thought of negatively as something limiting and oppressive that we must be liberated from.
...
What [...] are the impediments to autonomy which liberalism seeks to abolish? They are those aspects of our own self and existence which we do not get to self-determine. And there is a lot that we don’t get to self-determine, including what we inherit as part of a tradition and what is given to us as part of an inborn human nature.
In the comments, there is a discussion about liberals being "blank statist". In effect, they treat human nature as entirely malleable.
They deny that human beings have, at their core, a hardwired nature.
That's why many thought communism could work. It was believe that if you could only re-shape people's thinking, they'd buy into that. Stalin is quoted as saying that he wanted to become the engineer of men's souls.
Liberals continue that legacy, albeit in less oppressive forms. For now. :)
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George Orwell was pro-life
An essay exploring George Orwell's belief and his pro-life novel, Keep the Aspidistra Flying.
QUOTE:
Some people think of conservatism as an elitist ideology. I would suggest that conservatism often (though not always) reflects the views of the working class better than liberalism does.
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QUOTE:
In embracing the stability of middle-class married life, Orwell was also accepting middle-class values -- duty, prudence, honesty. While it didn't mean embracing religion, Orwell felt more respect for and connection with his bourgeois peers than his genteel past. His 1936 novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying was a sign of that relationship: "Keep the Red Flag Flying" was the traditional slogan of the British Labour Party. By substituting the word "red" with aspidistra, a green-leafed plant that survives in harsh climates, he was praising hardiness and thrift, two qualities of the proletarian and bourgeois traditions. It would be in this novel of bourgeois values that Orwell would lay out his humanistic case against abortion.
Gordon Comstock, the 29-year-old protagonist in Aspidistra, is much like Orwell himself at the time. Gordon comes from a shabby genteel family struggling in a money-dominated society and chooses a bohemian lifestyle early on. Chucking his well-paying advertising job, he tries to become a poet, supporting himself as a bookshop assistant. But Gordon has little success. After selling one poem to a magazine, he squanders his money through drinking and debauchery. And three-quarters through the novel, Gordon faces a much bigger problem: His girlfriend, Rosemary, announces unexpectedly that she's pregnant with their child. Both are confused. "He did not think of the baby as a living creature," a horrified Gordon reacts. "[I]t was a disaster, pure and simple."
The same dilemma has confronted other characters in literature before, but what distinguishes Gordon's decision is not simply that he chooses life -- it's the way he does it. After the shock of Rosemary's pregnancy wears off, Gordon consults science and reason to make sense of the situation -- but never religion. Once he recognizes the unborn child's humanity, he consciously identifies with working-class values.
Some people think of conservatism as an elitist ideology. I would suggest that conservatism often (though not always) reflects the views of the working class better than liberalism does.
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Chaput calls for resistance to intolerance of Christianity
Like Communism, he explained, today's secularist ideology envisions “a society apart from God” where “men and women might live wholly sufficient unto themselves,” sharing no higher guiding principle than “satisfying their needs and desires.
This seemingly benign vision, he warned, leaves no place for the Church's work of evangelism, teaching, and activism.
And that's EXACTLY what our opponents want.
Nobody gets to dictate to Catholics how to exercise our religion, and if you try, you'll have to kill us. That is all.
The Denver archbishop also underscored the difference between “freedom of worship” and the “freedom of religion,” noting that the former is a “much smaller and more restrictive idea” in which religion has a place “but only as an individual lifestyle accessory.” On the other hand, “freedom of religion” includes “the right to preach, teach, assemble, organize, and to engage society and its issues publicly, both as individuals and joined together as communities of faith.”
...
A comprehensive attack on religious freedom, and specifically upon Christianity, the archbishop explained, has already begun. He told the Slovakian audience that this attack promotes an “aggressively secular political vision and a consumerist economic model.” Its end goal, he said, is to replace God and the Church with technology and social engineering
I.e. Replace a God-based view of the world with liberalism, which is philosophically incompatible with the natural law.
A truthful way of life, according to Archbishop Chaput, rejects attempts to hide unacceptable realities behind acceptable words: “Living within the truth also means telling the truth and calling things by their right names.” It also requires Christians to expose falsehoods foisted upon the public, “exposing the lies by which some men try to force others to live.”
Like, for example, that the fetus is not a human being. Or that a moral law does not exist.
He explained that human dignity and rights must be understood as God-given personal attributes, according to the dictates of Christian revelation. Otherwise, human rights become merely the “arbitrary conventions of men and women,” which the state can take away at will.
Before he took over as Liberal leader, Michael Ignatieff wrote about human rights. He was a major player in his field. And he wrote that human rights are, in effect, arbitrary.
In this context, Archbishop Chaput explained, the legality of abortion can be understood as an indicator of secular society's deepest contradictions. What began as an unassuming philosophy of “live and let live” becomes warped into a license to kill: “The will to power of the strong is given the force of law to kill the weak.”
So that now we have pro-abortion activists saying it's okay for a woman to kill an unborn child even if the child is a human being because the woman has no moral responsibility to protect that child and respect his right to life.
Such contradictions, according to the archbishop, display “a kind of 'inner logic' that leads relativism to repression.” “The dogma of tolerance,” he explained, “cannot tolerate the Church's belief that some ideas and behaviors should not be tolerated.”
You can't tolerate if you're not willing to live with what is offensive.
Archbishop Chaput warned that when societies forbid the public proclamation and active expression of religious truths, they inevitably end up exalting the power of the state. “A society where faith is prevented from vigorous public expression,” he said, “is a society that has fashioned the state into an idol. And when the state becomes an idol, men and women become the sacrificial offering.”
Kind of makes me think of the age of the Roman Empire. Christians were not hated just because they wouldn't worship the Emperor. They were hated because they preached a divinely revealed absolute truth in a world that did not generally believe in an absolute truth, certainly not a divinely revealed truth. Christians were seen as a threat to the state due to their refusal to go along with the state religion, in spite of their profession of obedience to the Emperor and their continued prayers for him.
Our current situation has a feel of history repeating itself.
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Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Everyone a Bigot?
This column from Victor David Hansen is a few weeks old, but is still relevant:
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One, legitimate public concerns can be attributed to religious, ethnic, or racial prejudice in hopes that the debate will hinge on supposedly bad motives rather than convincing arguments. Ad hominem attacks are always a sign of shaky logic.
Two, in most of these cases, the majority is opposed by a variety of activist groups, government officials, and judges. The charge of bigotry is usually expressed in terms of a sophisticated, liberal-thinking elite reining in the emotional and illogical unwashed masses. [Classist?] We saw proof of that with the release of confidential e-mails from the controversial “JournoList” group, which was comprised largely of influential liberal journalists, one of whom openly advocated defaming their opponents by calling them racists.
Three, these cry-wolf tactics are now stale. A real danger is that when legitimate charges of prejudice are leveled in the future, most will shrug and ignore them.
...
In other words, there is no simple ideological, racial, or religious divide between a monolithic “us” and “them.” We have devolved to the point where promiscuously crying “Bigot!” and “Racist!” signals a failure to convince 51 percent of the people of the merits of an argument.
It is too often that simple — and that sad.
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Monday, August 23, 2010
The Closing of the Muslim Mind
The whole issue with Islam is not really "my bag". It's of passing interest to me.
I believe that certain strains of Islam, certain kinds of Muslims are a threat.
The best predictor of future results is past results. There have been potential terrorists in our midsts and will continue to be so, unless something changes. Sharia is not on our doorstep, but the threat of it is not something we should take lightly either. Once they gain a foothold, Islamists do not give up, and liberals are too wimpy to assert themselves or stand up for basic values.
That being said, Western rhetoric over Islam and Muslims turns me off. It tends to come in two forms. One is the crude and vulgar ("go back to where you came from you bunch of goat-f*ckers!") Or it tends to be in denial about the physical threats and treat all criticism of Islam as racist.
This is why I really liked this interview with Robert R. Reilley about his book The Closing of the Muslim Mind. To me, the discussion over the intellectual problem of Islam goes to the heart of the issue.
I really believe that when it comes to dealing Islamic Fundamentalists who would support or engage in suicide bombing, the only thing they understand is brute force.
Luckily, brute force is not our only solution, nor should it be the primary or first solution.
We just can't win the war of civilizations by bombing the crap out of them.
We have to get to the heart of the matter-- what is it about their thinking that leads them to think that suicide bombing is a viable solution. What is it about their culture that enables and upholds this form of political theatre?
I strongly believe that if we really want a solution, we have to pay attention to thoughtful, examination of Islamic thought and see how we can facilitate a more pacific view of the world.
Reilley says that the roots of the closing of the Muslim mind is the dehellenization of Islamic culture and the promotion of the view of God as pure will and power, as opposed to a God who is justice and reason, which is a traditional Christian view. I want you all to pay attention to the following quote because it applies not just to Islamic culture, but to wide swaths of Western culture, too:
I also suggest this might be why the West's reaction tends to be grossly vulgar or ridiculously servile.
Because the West has the same problem. On the one hand, you have a right that is strongly dominated by a current of Bible-only Christianity that denigrates reason and metaphysics. And by writing this, I'm not saying that Evangelical Christians are dumb. I am saying that Evangelical Christianity was built on the denial of reason to know anything about God. Evangelical Christians do not have the intellectual tools to have this discussion.
On the other hand, we have a secularist left that, like Evangelical Christianity, denies the ability of reason to know something of God or of our ultimate reality. It wasn't always this way of course. The Lumieres and a number of philosophers tried to grasp at the true nature of reality. But enlightenment led to disillusion as we started having more faith in science and less faith in man. We discovered the unconscious, and all its irrational or non-rational tendencies. The mind of man became the measure of everything. Then Mass killing-- in the two World Wars-- extinguished our belief in Progress and Enlightenment. What we got instead was post-modernism and a sick relativism.
Those are two very dominant strains. The group of people who truly believe in reason is very small. They are practically an insignificant minority. But I think they have the key to reforming Islam-- not in terms changing the Koran. But in terms of reframing the Koran.
The good news is that because reality has laws, irrational behaviour is self-defeating. Muslims think that by being jihadis, they will make their world a better place. Human beings eventually do begin to realize the stupidity of their ways, collectively. Why? When your society is violent, when your kids are hungry, when all you know is unhappiness, you do tend to take stock. As Dr. Phil says "people do what works". And while one individual might continue to do the irrational in spite of the evidence that it's not working, as Abraham Lincoln says, you can't fool all of the people all of the time. A culture can't fool itself indefinitely. Just as communists came to realize that communism sucks, eventually, people who support terror will come to the conclusion that it's not doing a thing for them. Palestinians are still under occupation and even if they weren't they wouldn't be getting any richer because of the sick fundamentalism that's pervasive in that area. People would not be any happier in a Free Palestine, because they're just have different set of oppressors.
So the point is to help them give the tools to rethink their strategy.
We're not going to stop Muslims from being Muslims or even from being conservative Muslims. Islam will not undergo a Reformation of the Christian kind. There will not be a major revolt.
What we can envision is a change of perception.
How can we do that if their minds are completely closed to any discussion of changing their religion? How can we change their view of God as completely disconnected from reason?
Pope Benedict XVI suggested one path: Intercultural dialogue. Don't talk about religion. Talk about issues common to our cultures. Talk about issues like human rights, or gender, or marriage, or the environment.
The thing about human mind is that it does not have airtight compartments. If you discuss on the basis of rationality on one subject, that approach tends to influence the way you think about other subjects. It's difficult to be a diehard rationalist and a fundamentalist Christian who thinks that the world was created 6000 years ago. You don't meet too many of those. Rationality is a way of approaching the world. It applies whether you are atheist or a believer.
We just can't leave this issue to politicians. It's not just about the Palestinian question or oil or any of those other things. It's ultimately a question of culture and mindset. If we do not change the Islamic mindset, we will continue to experience acts of terror. We need to reach hearts through reason.
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I believe that certain strains of Islam, certain kinds of Muslims are a threat.
The best predictor of future results is past results. There have been potential terrorists in our midsts and will continue to be so, unless something changes. Sharia is not on our doorstep, but the threat of it is not something we should take lightly either. Once they gain a foothold, Islamists do not give up, and liberals are too wimpy to assert themselves or stand up for basic values.
That being said, Western rhetoric over Islam and Muslims turns me off. It tends to come in two forms. One is the crude and vulgar ("go back to where you came from you bunch of goat-f*ckers!") Or it tends to be in denial about the physical threats and treat all criticism of Islam as racist.
This is why I really liked this interview with Robert R. Reilley about his book The Closing of the Muslim Mind. To me, the discussion over the intellectual problem of Islam goes to the heart of the issue.
I really believe that when it comes to dealing Islamic Fundamentalists who would support or engage in suicide bombing, the only thing they understand is brute force.
Luckily, brute force is not our only solution, nor should it be the primary or first solution.
We just can't win the war of civilizations by bombing the crap out of them.
We have to get to the heart of the matter-- what is it about their thinking that leads them to think that suicide bombing is a viable solution. What is it about their culture that enables and upholds this form of political theatre?
I strongly believe that if we really want a solution, we have to pay attention to thoughtful, examination of Islamic thought and see how we can facilitate a more pacific view of the world.
Reilley says that the roots of the closing of the Muslim mind is the dehellenization of Islamic culture and the promotion of the view of God as pure will and power, as opposed to a God who is justice and reason, which is a traditional Christian view. I want you all to pay attention to the following quote because it applies not just to Islamic culture, but to wide swaths of Western culture, too:
In his Regensburg address, Benedict XVI said something similar. He spoke of dehellenization – meaning the loss of reason, the gift of the Greeks — as one of the West’s main problems. Less well-known is the dehellenization that has afflicted Islam — its denigration of and divorce from reason. (The pope alluded to this only briefly, though it became a source of major controversy.) The dehellenization of Islam is less well known because it was so thorough and effective that few are aware that there was a process of hellenization preceding it — especially during the ninth and tenth centuries. It was a pivotal period for Islam and the world. It was then, toward the end of this period, that the Muslim world took a decisive turn in the wrong direction.
There are two fundamental ways to close the mind. One is to deny reason’s capability of knowing anything. The other is to dismiss reality as unknowable. Reason cannot know, or there is nothing to be known. Either approach suffices in making reality irrelevant. [Does any of this sound FAMILIAR to our commenters?] In Sunni Islam, elements of both were employed in the dominant Ash’arite theological school. As a consequence, a fissure opened between man’s reason and reality — and, most importantly, between man’s reason and God. My book contends that the fatal disconnect between the Creator and the mind of his creature is the source of Sunni Islam’s most profound woes. This bifurcation, located not in the Qur’an but in early Islamic theology, ultimately led to the closing of the Muslim mind.
I also suggest this might be why the West's reaction tends to be grossly vulgar or ridiculously servile.
Because the West has the same problem. On the one hand, you have a right that is strongly dominated by a current of Bible-only Christianity that denigrates reason and metaphysics. And by writing this, I'm not saying that Evangelical Christians are dumb. I am saying that Evangelical Christianity was built on the denial of reason to know anything about God. Evangelical Christians do not have the intellectual tools to have this discussion.
On the other hand, we have a secularist left that, like Evangelical Christianity, denies the ability of reason to know something of God or of our ultimate reality. It wasn't always this way of course. The Lumieres and a number of philosophers tried to grasp at the true nature of reality. But enlightenment led to disillusion as we started having more faith in science and less faith in man. We discovered the unconscious, and all its irrational or non-rational tendencies. The mind of man became the measure of everything. Then Mass killing-- in the two World Wars-- extinguished our belief in Progress and Enlightenment. What we got instead was post-modernism and a sick relativism.
Those are two very dominant strains. The group of people who truly believe in reason is very small. They are practically an insignificant minority. But I think they have the key to reforming Islam-- not in terms changing the Koran. But in terms of reframing the Koran.
The good news is that because reality has laws, irrational behaviour is self-defeating. Muslims think that by being jihadis, they will make their world a better place. Human beings eventually do begin to realize the stupidity of their ways, collectively. Why? When your society is violent, when your kids are hungry, when all you know is unhappiness, you do tend to take stock. As Dr. Phil says "people do what works". And while one individual might continue to do the irrational in spite of the evidence that it's not working, as Abraham Lincoln says, you can't fool all of the people all of the time. A culture can't fool itself indefinitely. Just as communists came to realize that communism sucks, eventually, people who support terror will come to the conclusion that it's not doing a thing for them. Palestinians are still under occupation and even if they weren't they wouldn't be getting any richer because of the sick fundamentalism that's pervasive in that area. People would not be any happier in a Free Palestine, because they're just have different set of oppressors.
So the point is to help them give the tools to rethink their strategy.
We're not going to stop Muslims from being Muslims or even from being conservative Muslims. Islam will not undergo a Reformation of the Christian kind. There will not be a major revolt.
What we can envision is a change of perception.
How can we do that if their minds are completely closed to any discussion of changing their religion? How can we change their view of God as completely disconnected from reason?
Pope Benedict XVI suggested one path: Intercultural dialogue. Don't talk about religion. Talk about issues common to our cultures. Talk about issues like human rights, or gender, or marriage, or the environment.
The thing about human mind is that it does not have airtight compartments. If you discuss on the basis of rationality on one subject, that approach tends to influence the way you think about other subjects. It's difficult to be a diehard rationalist and a fundamentalist Christian who thinks that the world was created 6000 years ago. You don't meet too many of those. Rationality is a way of approaching the world. It applies whether you are atheist or a believer.
We just can't leave this issue to politicians. It's not just about the Palestinian question or oil or any of those other things. It's ultimately a question of culture and mindset. If we do not change the Islamic mindset, we will continue to experience acts of terror. We need to reach hearts through reason.
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The Seven Shortest Verses in the Bible
Just interesting trivia: From a heart for god:
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
He (Jesus) must increase; I must decrease. (John 3:30)
Abstain from every form of evil. (1 Thessalonians 5:20)
Do not quench the Spirit. (1 Thessalonians 5:19)
Pray without ceasing. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)
Rejoice always. (1 Thessalonians 5:16)
Jesus wept. (John 11:35)
I wonder if this is true in multiple languages.
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In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)
He (Jesus) must increase; I must decrease. (John 3:30)
Abstain from every form of evil. (1 Thessalonians 5:20)
Do not quench the Spirit. (1 Thessalonians 5:19)
Pray without ceasing. (1 Thessalonians 5:17)
Rejoice always. (1 Thessalonians 5:16)
Jesus wept. (John 11:35)
I wonder if this is true in multiple languages.
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Sunday, August 22, 2010
Test-- Verification done
This feed works.
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Test. Please disregard.
Hope this works!
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UK: Drunk women more likely to have unprotected sex and abortion
Another study tells us what we already know.
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Saturday, August 21, 2010
Kool Kristianity Sux
If the evangelical Christian leadership thinks that "cool Christianity" is a sustainable path forward, they are severely mistaken. As a twentysomething, I can say with confidence that when it comes to church, we don't want cool as much as we want real.
If we are interested in Christianity in any sort of serious way, it is not because it's easy or trendy or popular. It's because Jesus himself is appealing, and what he says rings true. It's because the world we inhabit is utterly phony, ephemeral, narcissistic, image-obsessed and sex-drenched—and we want an alternative. It's not because we want more of the same.
EXACTLY.
One of the reasons people aren't attracted to Christianity is that it's not preached. It's not explained.
You have to have faith. That the author of the soul and faith is God, and they were made for each other, and that faith is intrinsically attractive to the soul. Yes, people reject it all the time. It's not a problem with faith. It's a problem with evil.
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School board won't let brilliant 10-year-old into high school
Must be in age-appropriate grade!
Here's what I don't get.
You mean in the WHOLE SCHOOL BOARD there is no means to accommodate a kid with his profile? There are no classes for gifted kids? There is no possible arrangement that he takes Grade 9 math and English-- core- subjects-- in the morning and maybe be shipped off in the afternoon to Grade six PE and art courses (classes where he could socialize)?
Lasso of Truth suggests homeschooling. But his mom may not have the ability to teach this kid.
Are there no other kids in Windsor who are gifted?
There's something wrong with this story
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Here's what I don't get.
You mean in the WHOLE SCHOOL BOARD there is no means to accommodate a kid with his profile? There are no classes for gifted kids? There is no possible arrangement that he takes Grade 9 math and English-- core- subjects-- in the morning and maybe be shipped off in the afternoon to Grade six PE and art courses (classes where he could socialize)?
Lasso of Truth suggests homeschooling. But his mom may not have the ability to teach this kid.
Are there no other kids in Windsor who are gifted?
There's something wrong with this story
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A Catholic Archbishop priest with REAL guts
Abortion? Gay Marriage? Euthanasia?
No!
A husband's headship in marriage.
One of the biggest problems today in marriage is power struggle. In our modern age we have rejected the biblical teaching of headship in marriage. God establishes a husband in authority in the home. Every organism and organization requires headship. A creature with two heads is a freak. A creature with no head is dead. Having rejected the necessity of headship and the biblical teaching assigning that to the husband (eg Eph 5:19 ff) the result is power struggle between the spouses. Now a husband’s authority is not a worldly, autocratic authority but a Christian, servant based authority (Cf Mark 10:41-45). I have written more on this matter here: An Unpopular Teaching on Marriage. It does not follow that the husband always “gets his way.” Rather, if he is smart, he listens carefully to his wife and her wisdom. Practically speaking women have great authority in the home and its daily running and a smart husband will not seek to micromanage and usurp his wife’s role and her practical authority there and with the children. But in the end, two have to become one. Oneness requires headship, common faith, shared fear of the Lord, and a heartfelt appreciation for the gifts of each.
And as my husband often says "they don't talk about that in marriage prep."
UPDATE: Okay, je me suis plantée as they say in French. Monsignor Pope is not an archbishop but a simple priest (with an honorific title).
It was too good to be true.
Still, it was on the Archdiocese's website.
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Freedom without God paves the road to slavery
Saith teh Binks:
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The new God-lite freedomism pretends to offer liberty– but at the price of making the human will or the will of society absolute. A country or people under God; a justice system accountable to and reflecting the infinite goodness and will of God; a political system that reflects the divine ordering of society, and the last Judgment of souls for their actions? That’s horrible theocraticalism.
What the radicals conceal is that theirs is the irrational blind experiment with who knows what ending and consequences. The hyper-individualist account for freedom and the absolute authority of the individual self– the self as God?
That is the choice before us as liberals use the state against democracy to establish their radically free cult of leviathan– which ends up in our ‘freedom’ becoming perfect slavery.
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Martyrdom: it's not just about being killed
From First Things:
It could also be that these Evangelicals don't have the knowledge and the tools necessary to do it. If you don't have the arguments offhand, why would you risk being called a homophobe?
There's a lack of philosophical tradition among Evangelicals. All they know is the Bible. And that's fine. But if you don't speak to the culture using the common ground of reason, you can't make your case.
And if you can't make your case, why would you risk being called a homophobe? It's easier to say nothing.
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Indeed, I know some young, smart Christians—believers who went to the best evangelical colleges and are thoroughly versed in the Great Works of the faith and Western civilization—who fully understand what is at stake and yet they are willing to give it all up because they fear being called bigots by their peers. The fault for this belongs with the Boomers and us Gen-Xers. We have a raised, as C.S. Lewis might say, a generation of men and women without chests. We should have trained them to have the courage of martyrs. Instead, the tremble at the thought that someone might call them a homophobe.
It could also be that these Evangelicals don't have the knowledge and the tools necessary to do it. If you don't have the arguments offhand, why would you risk being called a homophobe?
There's a lack of philosophical tradition among Evangelicals. All they know is the Bible. And that's fine. But if you don't speak to the culture using the common ground of reason, you can't make your case.
And if you can't make your case, why would you risk being called a homophobe? It's easier to say nothing.
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Thursday, August 19, 2010
VIDEO:Marking the conclusion of the third festival of films for families
Why can't we have more movies like that.
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Sarah Palin: Dr. Laura's decision to quit radio
Quoting from her facebook page:
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Does anyone seriously believe that Dr. Laura Schlessinger is a racist? Anyone, I mean, who isn’t already accusing all conservatives, Republicans, Tea Party Americans, etc., etc., etc. of being racists?
Adversaries who have been trying to silence Dr. Laura for years seized on her recent use of the n-word on her show as she subsequently suggested that rap “artists” and other creative types like those producing HBO shows who regularly use the n-word could be questioned for doing so. Her intention in discussing the issue with a caller seeking advice was not to be hateful or bigoted. Though she did not mean to insult the caller, she did, and she apologized for it. Still, those who oppose her seized upon her mistake in using the word (though she didn’t call anyone the derogatory term) to paint her as something that she’s not. I can understand how she could feel “shackled” by those who would parse a single word out of decades of on-air commentary. I understand what she meant when she declared that she was “taking back my First Amendment rights” by turning to a new venue that will not allow others the ability to silence her by going after her stations, sponsors, and supporters.
I, and obviously many others, have been “shackled” too by people who play games with false accusations, threats, frivolous lawsuits, misreporting, etc., in an effort to silence those with whom they disagree. That’s why I tend to defend people who call it like they see it while others stop at nothing to shut them up. I learned this valuable lesson when the partisan obstructionists in my state tried to shackle, bankrupt, and destroy my family and supporters, and my record, with endless frivolous litigation when I returned from the Vice Presidential campaign trail. In order to shake off the shackles they wanted to paralyze us with, I handed the reins to another, much like Dr. Laura is doing, so that these obstructionists who hated a Commonsense Conservative agenda wouldn’t win. I didn’t retreat; I reloaded in order to fight for what is right on a fairer battlefield. So, more power to someone with good intentions who refuses to be shackled by their detractors when they are falsely accused of being racist.
Dr. Laura did not call anyone or any group of people the n-word. Curiously, the same criers over this issue didn’t utter a word when White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel called a group protesting the Obama Administration’s actions, “f***ing retards.” When this presidential spokesman uttered this term I commented that the President would be better off not including Emmanuel in his circle of advisors, and my opinion was based not just on the crude and disrespectful term Emmanuel used to label people, but because he too often gives the President very poor advice. I was called intolerant and narrow-minded by many on the Left for commenting on that issue. Many of these same Leftists are now spinning the Dr. Laura issue into something it is not. As usual, their hypocrisy and double standard applications are glaring.
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Study says school abuse 100 times worse than Church abuse
What could possibly lead to all that pedophilia:
I have another suggestion as to why many people think pedophilia is acceptable.
Consider that there is sexual images and innuendos in all kinds of places.
And no one seems to care.
Like they don't expect literate children to read Cosmo magazine's porno headlines at the check out line.
There's no line in the sand between sex and children in our culture.
Talk about sex! Give them all the details! No boundaries! Let them see what goes on!
Sex scenes on t.v. during prime time? No big deal. If kids happen to surf on the channel, so what?
If we truly want to stop pedophilia, the rule should be this: if a kid can see a sexual image, it's verboten.
On t.v. In the news. In advertising. On the internet, etc.
If kids can see it, there should be no sexual image, no nudity, no suggestiveness, no innuendo, nothing.
You're saying: but you're being such a prude.
Am I? When we make it okay for kids to see sex, it's not such a stretch to allow for kids to have sex.
There should be a wall of separation between kids and sex in our public culture.
What separating kids from sex does is send a message to our culture that kids and sex don't mix. In the cultural world, people like Roman Polanski and Woody Allen get away with sexual abominations, because in their worlds, sexual "rigidity" is taboo.
Well there's where a a lack of strictness gets you.
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Hofstra University researcher Charol Shakeshaft looked into the problem, and the first thing that came to her mind when Education Week reported on the study were the daily headlines about the Catholic Church.
“[T]hink the Catholic Church has a problem?” she said. “The physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests.”
So, in order to better protect children, did media outlets start hounding the worse menace of the school systems, with headlines about a “Nationwide Teacher Molestation Cover-up” and by asking “Are Ed Schools Producing Pedophiles?”
No, they didn’t. That treatment was reserved for the Catholic Church, while the greater problem in the schools was ignored altogether.
...
Yet, during the first half of 2002, the 61 largest newspapers in California ran nearly 2,000 stories about sexual abuse in Catholic institutions, mostly concerning past allegations. During the same period, those newspapers ran four stories about the federal government’s discovery of the much larger — and ongoing — abuse scandal in public schools.
...
The media have left many with the impression that sexual abuse is a Catholic problem — as if Catholic beliefs and customs make sex abuse inevitable. Church teaching for its part is clear: Sexual abuse of minors is always wrong. A more likely culprit would be a non-religious ambivalence about the pedophilia, as seen, for instance, in the media’s refusal to broaden its scope to include teachers when considering the issue.
I have another suggestion as to why many people think pedophilia is acceptable.
Consider that there is sexual images and innuendos in all kinds of places.
And no one seems to care.
Like they don't expect literate children to read Cosmo magazine's porno headlines at the check out line.
There's no line in the sand between sex and children in our culture.
Talk about sex! Give them all the details! No boundaries! Let them see what goes on!
Sex scenes on t.v. during prime time? No big deal. If kids happen to surf on the channel, so what?
If we truly want to stop pedophilia, the rule should be this: if a kid can see a sexual image, it's verboten.
On t.v. In the news. In advertising. On the internet, etc.
If kids can see it, there should be no sexual image, no nudity, no suggestiveness, no innuendo, nothing.
You're saying: but you're being such a prude.
Am I? When we make it okay for kids to see sex, it's not such a stretch to allow for kids to have sex.
There should be a wall of separation between kids and sex in our public culture.
What separating kids from sex does is send a message to our culture that kids and sex don't mix. In the cultural world, people like Roman Polanski and Woody Allen get away with sexual abominations, because in their worlds, sexual "rigidity" is taboo.
Well there's where a a lack of strictness gets you.
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Reminder to people who access my blog using Twitter
To those who click on my blog using their Twitter account...
Please note that the comments system is configured according to the address in your browser.
In order for your comment to appear on the correct comments page, the URL in your browser's address bar MUST be the same as the URL of the post (and not include a bunch of junk at the end re: feedburner, question marks, etc etc)
Otherwise-- your comment will not appear on the correct page.
To correct that problem: CLICK ON THE TITLE OF THE POST.
I wish there were a way to program it otherwise. I suppose I *could* use javascript to correct it, but I'm not that good at it. Right now.
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Please note that the comments system is configured according to the address in your browser.
In order for your comment to appear on the correct comments page, the URL in your browser's address bar MUST be the same as the URL of the post (and not include a bunch of junk at the end re: feedburner, question marks, etc etc)
Otherwise-- your comment will not appear on the correct page.
To correct that problem: CLICK ON THE TITLE OF THE POST.
I wish there were a way to program it otherwise. I suppose I *could* use javascript to correct it, but I'm not that good at it. Right now.
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U of Ottawa Catholic Parish promotes involvement in Gay Pride Parade
From the University of Ottawa's St. Joseph Parish Blog:
QUOTE:
I would like to encourage Catholics to express their concern to Archbishop Prendergast in a charitable manner.
TEST
QUOTE:
The Gay Catholics, Christians and Allies at the University of Ottawa is looking for supporters willing to march with the club in the Capital Pride this year (August 29). The club: i) builds an inclusive community, ii) spreads the message: God’s love is in all people regardless of their sexual orientation, iii) wants gay persons to be welcomed by the official Christian churches.
I would like to encourage Catholics to express their concern to Archbishop Prendergast in a charitable manner.
TEST
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
From the "you can't make this crap up" file....
British Social Services Pays for Prostitutes and Lap Dancing under Labour Gov’t Scheme
LONDON, August 18, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The British social services system is coming under heavy criticism after it was revealed last week that a mentally disabled man is to be provided with the services of a prostitute at public expense. The Sunday Telegraph revealed that the trip is part of a national care program instituted by the former Labour government that also provides funding for lap dancing clubs, holidays abroad and subscriptions to internet dating services to people with disabilities.
The unnamed man’s social worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity, defended the decision, saying that “refusing to offer him this service would be a violation of his human rights.” The social worker told the Telegraph that social services are there to “identify and meet the needs” of clients, and described the young man as “angry and frustrated.”
The 21-year-old man with developmental problems is scheduled to go to the Netherlands next month for the visit to an Amsterdam brothel. The social worker said that the visit to the brothel was only one part of the planned trip: “He’s planning to do more than just have his end away (have sex) – he’s having a holiday,” he said.
The man has attended two “sexual health and sexual awareness courses” and now wants to “try it.” He added, “The girls in Amsterdam are far more protected than those on UK streets. Let him have some fun - I'd want to.”
Fr. Raymond Gravel Celebrates Gay Pride Mass
At a Catholic Parish in Montreal.
On the Feast of the Assumption.
If I find any more details, I'll let you know.
On the Feast of the Assumption.
If I find any more details, I'll let you know.
VIDEO: Hollywood Producer Regrets Lost Fatherhood
From the blurb accompanying the video:
Jonathan Flora, a Hollywood producer, gives his testimony about the pain of participating in an abortion and how he found healing, as he speaks at a gathering of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Now THIS IS MORE LIKE IT!
August 17, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Up to $600,000 will be awarded by the Gerard Health Foundation's during its 2009-2010 Life Prizes awards ceremony on January 22, 2011. The awards will recognize and honor individuals or organizations that have worked to save human lives.
Lord, please send us someone rich in Canada who could do the same thing.
What if various pro-life groups could win $100 000 on a yearly basis. It'd be awesome.
Imagine how much advertizing $100 000 could buy you. Or how many diapers. Or how much legal help.
THIS is the kind of money we need to be working with!
Inconvenience is a relative word
Sometimes supporters or legal abortion shock me. I shouldn't be shocked. But I am.
I am shocked at their superficial knowledge of the abortion debate.
Take for instance this blogpost from The Abortion Gang called "The Inconvenience Myth". Reema complains that antis oppose abortion on the basis that women have them for convenience.
QUOTE:
They always seem to miss one vital point in the whole debate.
And that's the life of the unborn child.
If there was no unborn child involved, then she might have an argument.
But the "abortion of convenience" argument is the fruit of weighing the value of human life, versus whatever motivates the woman to have an abortion.
So yeah, in light of taking human life, which to anyone with a conscience, is a very immoral act, pursuing a career, an education or just not wanting to bother with the expense of a child is a "convenience".
For feminists, the debate is about everything EXCEPT the actual act of abortion and the value of prenatal human life.
It's about a woman's health.
It's about a woman's goals.
It's about a woman's autonomy.
Anything and everything, except ABORTION itself, and the issue of taking human life.
And, unable to mentally assimilate the issue of the fetus, they jump to the conclusion that there is no debate and that pro-lifers are just misogynists.
Not people concerned about the value of human life. They can't be. That would be giving them too much moral credit-- and that would undermine the feminist position.
The abortion/fetal rights debate must not be about what pro-lifers allege it to be. Their motives must be questioned. The facts must be denied even if they're easily provable.
And another thing. Do feminists think that socially conservative are that dumb?
Do they think that social conservative women who support fetal rights DON'T CARE about their own health, their own dreams and aspirations...that they're the only ones?
Of course they care.
So if they care about their own health, then it's not a stretch to think that they care about the health of others.
Name any hard luck situation, and a so-con woman has been pregnant at that point.
And did not choose abortion.
How come?
Maybe because she realizes that taking human life is a graver evil than postponing or foregoing whatever desires she had for herself.
But see, that's all misogynistic. That's caring equally about the rights of one set of human beings as much as those of women.
In the end, it's about feminist supremacy. Feminist rights and concerns reign supreme.
And if someone else has to die because of it, oh well.
I am shocked at their superficial knowledge of the abortion debate.
Take for instance this blogpost from The Abortion Gang called "The Inconvenience Myth". Reema complains that antis oppose abortion on the basis that women have them for convenience.
QUOTE:
Now, if you ask an anti about the inconvenience myth, they usually end up saying something like “most women say that they had their abortions because they didn’t want to interrupt their education, because they want to carry on with their career, or because they just didn’t want to have a child” and they equate this with “inconvenience”. In other words, they’re saying that a woman’s needs never matter. They portray reasons such as a woman’s career or education as trivial, immature reasons for having an abortion, as if the only reason the woman is having an abortion is because she would rather splurge on $1,000 purses from Saks Fifth Avenue (and honestly, even if that is her only reason, who are we to judge her?). They neglect the fact that men are not the only ones who need an education and a job, and that women don’t all want to be (or can be) stay at home moms. They call a woman who is not ready for a child “selfish”, because she is recognizing her own needs and capabilities at the time instead of entering the world of motherhood prematurely. In other words, they’re telling women that they don’t matter, that their mental and physical health does not matter, and that their future does not matter, and sadly, none of this surprises me. The notion that pregnancy is a mere “inconvenience”, like having to take the stairs instead of the elevator or having to wait to be seated at a restaurant, is ridiculous and misogynistic. It’s another way to hold back women and to demonize them for caring about their own health.
They always seem to miss one vital point in the whole debate.
And that's the life of the unborn child.
If there was no unborn child involved, then she might have an argument.
But the "abortion of convenience" argument is the fruit of weighing the value of human life, versus whatever motivates the woman to have an abortion.
So yeah, in light of taking human life, which to anyone with a conscience, is a very immoral act, pursuing a career, an education or just not wanting to bother with the expense of a child is a "convenience".
For feminists, the debate is about everything EXCEPT the actual act of abortion and the value of prenatal human life.
It's about a woman's health.
It's about a woman's goals.
It's about a woman's autonomy.
Anything and everything, except ABORTION itself, and the issue of taking human life.
And, unable to mentally assimilate the issue of the fetus, they jump to the conclusion that there is no debate and that pro-lifers are just misogynists.
Not people concerned about the value of human life. They can't be. That would be giving them too much moral credit-- and that would undermine the feminist position.
The abortion/fetal rights debate must not be about what pro-lifers allege it to be. Their motives must be questioned. The facts must be denied even if they're easily provable.
And another thing. Do feminists think that socially conservative are that dumb?
Do they think that social conservative women who support fetal rights DON'T CARE about their own health, their own dreams and aspirations...that they're the only ones?
Of course they care.
So if they care about their own health, then it's not a stretch to think that they care about the health of others.
Name any hard luck situation, and a so-con woman has been pregnant at that point.
And did not choose abortion.
How come?
Maybe because she realizes that taking human life is a graver evil than postponing or foregoing whatever desires she had for herself.
But see, that's all misogynistic. That's caring equally about the rights of one set of human beings as much as those of women.
In the end, it's about feminist supremacy. Feminist rights and concerns reign supreme.
And if someone else has to die because of it, oh well.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Medical treatment carries possible side effect of limiting homosexuality
Doctors have developed a new treatment that may help prevent congenital adrenal hyperplasia, a condition that leads to ambiguous genitalia and predisposes women to homosexual attraction (note to gay activists-- it didn't say it CAUSED homosexuality-- most women born with the condition are heterosexual).
But...what about reproductive freedom?
If I want to treat my fetus with this drug, then it's my body, my choice, right?
Whatever happened to "trust women"?
Oh right, sometimes they can't be trusted.
But here's the thing that irks me about this made up controversy. While it's true that the whole gay thing makes the story appealing to the masses, the real danger of this condition is not the increased predisposition to homosexuality, but this:
I don't want to downplay the negative consequences of ambiguous genitalia, but the critical illness side of it seems to be the greater concern here. Also, the treatment was developed to prevent the need for future surgery. That seems like a pretty good idea to me.
I think the LA Times is exploiting the minor culture war themes in this development to sell a story.
The treatment might reduce the likelihood that a female with the condition will be homosexual. Further, it seems to increase the chances that she will have what are considered more feminine behavioral traits.
That such a treatment would ever be considered, even to prevent genital abnormalities, has outraged gay and lesbian groups, troubled some doctors and fueled bioethicists' debate about the nature of human sexuality.
The treatment is a step toward "engineering in the womb for sexual orientation," said Alice Dreger, a professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at Northwestern University and an outspoken opponent of the treatment.
But...what about reproductive freedom?
If I want to treat my fetus with this drug, then it's my body, my choice, right?
Whatever happened to "trust women"?
Oh right, sometimes they can't be trusted.
But here's the thing that irks me about this made up controversy. While it's true that the whole gay thing makes the story appealing to the masses, the real danger of this condition is not the increased predisposition to homosexuality, but this:
Congenital adrenal hyperplasia, caused by a defect in an enzyme called 21-hydroxylase, affects about 1 in 15,000 infants, and almost all newborns are screened for it. Undetected, the abnormality can make both male and female infants critically ill within a few weeks of birth because of an associated salt loss through the urine. The defective enzyme also causes a deficiency of the hormone cortisol, which can affect heart function, and an increase in androgens produced by the adrenal glands.
I don't want to downplay the negative consequences of ambiguous genitalia, but the critical illness side of it seems to be the greater concern here. Also, the treatment was developed to prevent the need for future surgery. That seems like a pretty good idea to me.
I think the LA Times is exploiting the minor culture war themes in this development to sell a story.
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Canadian imams issue declaration to combat radical Islam
QUOTE:
Question: Is this council the Muslim version of the United Church?
Just wondering out loud.
I just hope that this condemnation of terrorism extends to Hamas and suicide bombers in Israel.
A council of Canadian imams is issuing a declaration Friday that it says represents the world's first nationwide condemnation of radical Islam by the faith's religious leaders.
"People have done many, many condemnations of terrorism but it has never been done well enough or complete enough to get people to pay attention and to say this is a point of sea change," said David Liepert, a spokesman for the Canadian Council of Imams, which is issuing the statement.
"This is us reclaiming Islam from radicals who want to promote conflict and promote violence," he told CNN.
The Council, which comprises 50 influential imams, says its statement - called the Canadian Council of Imams Declaration– will be read in more than 200 mosques across Canada during Friday's afternoon prayers.
"Islam does not permit the killing of innocent people, regardless of their creed, ethnicity, race or nationality," the statement says.
Question: Is this council the Muslim version of the United Church?
Just wondering out loud.
I just hope that this condemnation of terrorism extends to Hamas and suicide bombers in Israel.
Friday, August 13, 2010
Five things the Vatican must change about its website
This should go viral. I mean really, the Vatican NEEDS to get the message.
Another hint is that it needs to enter the age of Web 2.0 Somebody needs to be in charge of communicating with the outside world on the internet. If not them, then at least the individual dioceses. People have lots of questions and I think they should get answers.
Another hint is that it needs to enter the age of Web 2.0 Somebody needs to be in charge of communicating with the outside world on the internet. If not them, then at least the individual dioceses. People have lots of questions and I think they should get answers.
The pro-life debate: taking it to the next step
Warning: long rambling post ahead in which I think out loud.
Pro-lifers should be happy about the pro-life issue being a recurrent theme in the media.
It means that we've made a small step forward. Questioning abortion is no longer taboo.
Pro-lifers who've blogged, facebooked, twittered, and emailed have all had their hand in making noise.
But I don't want to make noise just to make noise.
I want to persuade the world that the unborn child is a human being who is deserving of legal protection.
And then I want the Canadian Parliament to pass a law recognizing ALL human beings, even those who are in the womb-- as persons, whose right to life cannot be deprived.
Effectively ending legal abortion in Canada.
In talking about the fetal rights issue in the public sphere, I see a lot of pro-lifers appeal to ideas that are shared by a broad spectrum of Canadians: for instance, that late-term abortions should not be allowed.
While I think this is a useful point to start the conversation, we can't just leave it there.
We have to start using our foothold in the media to make our point: that all human beings are equal.
We can't just be satisfied to talk about late-term abortions, or unborn victims of crime, or the fact that the government pays for abortion.
We have to push the envelope a bit.
To do this, we have to be a bit more creative.
Americans have done a bang up job on the push-back. When I consider the state of affairs that existed thirty years ago, and the state of affairs now, it's like night and day.
But notwithstanding all the wonderful things being done in the US, all the incremental laws, they still don't have significant fetal rights protection.
So just imagine what it will take to establish fetal rights in Canada.
Abortion is still largely supported by the elites. It's supported in the media. It's supported by the health system. It's supported by our economic system. And most importantly, it's supported by the legal system.
The big institutions of our respective societies still support abortion.
Grassroots work is great, and goodness knows we need more of it.
But somehow, we're going to have to make a breakthrough in the big institutions.
There just aren't a lot of rich and influential people who are pro-life, especially in Canada.
No matter how much grassroots support we get, if the elites in our country decide abortion should be legal, it will stay legal, and no amount of petitioning will change that. Lobbies and money will determine the course of our legal future.
Sometimes I think support for the pro-life cause is a little overstated. It's better than it's been, and it's better than what some of our opponents make it out to be.
But let's not view the world with rose-coloured glasses.
Most people still support legal abortion. Most people do not agree that a first trimester fetus is a human being. Most people won't say a word about the immorality of abortion, even if they THINK it's immoral.
We need to ramp up our efforts. I know that that goes without saying, but sometimes I feel like we're always stuck on the same activist routines. We need a pro-life academia. We need a pro-life cultural community. We need to make fetal rights advocacy more credible by developing our own culture around it, on every level.
I get the feeling pro-lifers think that we're all going to win this war by being the disconnected individuals that we are. Oh, I know, a number of pro-lifers are members of groups. But it's like being pro-life means ONLY doing activist things. We come together to pray at the clinic. Then we're gone. We pass on a petition. Then we don't hear from one another for six months.
Do you think that's how it's done on the left?
Lefties are constantly meeting one another. And not just to protest. They get together and make friends with one another. They do projects with one another. They yak about the philosophical ideas behind their cause.
I never see pro-lifers do that.
There's just no glue to this community. There's no togetherness. There's no sticking with each other. There's no intellectual ferment. The camraderie, while not absent, is about an inch deep. We come to the events, we chat with each other, then we leave and don't see each other until the next event.
I know some of the reason why it is, and it's evident in my own life. We're busy taking care of our families. I can't go to another event tomorrow because I have to deal with family.
I know that people say that bearing children and taking care of the family is the most pro-life thing you can do.
Important as it is for the culture of life, taking care of one's family is not going to win the political cause. Sorry. It's just not.
We have to make the struggle for the right to life a lifestyle. Not just an issue we happen to vote on and protest about.
It has to be more than just about right and wrong. This fight for the right to life has to be the very marrow of our existence. Like it's not something you just do on the side when you get a minute. There has to be a core to the pro-life community that is about friendship, connection, networking, patting each other on the back, shooting the breeze, developing ideas and so forth.
It can't just be about the rosaries and the votes.
So like your leisure time is taken up with meeting friends from the pro-life cause. And then plotting the next move. And then having the people in your life that you need to help you accomplish your next coup.
Or it's about being a student in university, and finding the profs and the staff that are supportive, and writing papers about issues that surround the right to life.
Or it's about being an enterprising youngster who starts a line of gift items based on pro-life themes, and having an eager market willing to accessorize their pro-life lifestyle.
The pro-life cause in Canada as I see it, is just so uni-dimensional, almost afraid to take chances on doing something different.
Writing, socializing, selling, buying, these things are not distractions from the cause. These are the things that will bring glue to the cause.
And it's by building up our community that we'll be able to challenge the elites institutions. We'll support our own lawyers, our own doctors, our own businesspeople, our own artists.
I KNOW this is what we need. But I don't think the pro-life community gets it yet, or really wants to do anything about it.
We're not going to win unless we do all this stuff, folks. Learn that lesson and learn that lesson well. If we stay stuck on voting pro-life every election or praying at the clinic, fetal rights will just not happen. Those are all good things-- please don't get me wrong. What we've been doing so far have been necessary steps. We have to crawl before we can run.
But I'm in this to win. I don't want to stay at the crawling stage forever.
Pro-lifers should be happy about the pro-life issue being a recurrent theme in the media.
It means that we've made a small step forward. Questioning abortion is no longer taboo.
Pro-lifers who've blogged, facebooked, twittered, and emailed have all had their hand in making noise.
But I don't want to make noise just to make noise.
I want to persuade the world that the unborn child is a human being who is deserving of legal protection.
And then I want the Canadian Parliament to pass a law recognizing ALL human beings, even those who are in the womb-- as persons, whose right to life cannot be deprived.
Effectively ending legal abortion in Canada.
In talking about the fetal rights issue in the public sphere, I see a lot of pro-lifers appeal to ideas that are shared by a broad spectrum of Canadians: for instance, that late-term abortions should not be allowed.
While I think this is a useful point to start the conversation, we can't just leave it there.
We have to start using our foothold in the media to make our point: that all human beings are equal.
We can't just be satisfied to talk about late-term abortions, or unborn victims of crime, or the fact that the government pays for abortion.
We have to push the envelope a bit.
To do this, we have to be a bit more creative.
Americans have done a bang up job on the push-back. When I consider the state of affairs that existed thirty years ago, and the state of affairs now, it's like night and day.
But notwithstanding all the wonderful things being done in the US, all the incremental laws, they still don't have significant fetal rights protection.
So just imagine what it will take to establish fetal rights in Canada.
Abortion is still largely supported by the elites. It's supported in the media. It's supported by the health system. It's supported by our economic system. And most importantly, it's supported by the legal system.
The big institutions of our respective societies still support abortion.
Grassroots work is great, and goodness knows we need more of it.
But somehow, we're going to have to make a breakthrough in the big institutions.
There just aren't a lot of rich and influential people who are pro-life, especially in Canada.
No matter how much grassroots support we get, if the elites in our country decide abortion should be legal, it will stay legal, and no amount of petitioning will change that. Lobbies and money will determine the course of our legal future.
Sometimes I think support for the pro-life cause is a little overstated. It's better than it's been, and it's better than what some of our opponents make it out to be.
But let's not view the world with rose-coloured glasses.
Most people still support legal abortion. Most people do not agree that a first trimester fetus is a human being. Most people won't say a word about the immorality of abortion, even if they THINK it's immoral.
We need to ramp up our efforts. I know that that goes without saying, but sometimes I feel like we're always stuck on the same activist routines. We need a pro-life academia. We need a pro-life cultural community. We need to make fetal rights advocacy more credible by developing our own culture around it, on every level.
I get the feeling pro-lifers think that we're all going to win this war by being the disconnected individuals that we are. Oh, I know, a number of pro-lifers are members of groups. But it's like being pro-life means ONLY doing activist things. We come together to pray at the clinic. Then we're gone. We pass on a petition. Then we don't hear from one another for six months.
Do you think that's how it's done on the left?
Lefties are constantly meeting one another. And not just to protest. They get together and make friends with one another. They do projects with one another. They yak about the philosophical ideas behind their cause.
I never see pro-lifers do that.
There's just no glue to this community. There's no togetherness. There's no sticking with each other. There's no intellectual ferment. The camraderie, while not absent, is about an inch deep. We come to the events, we chat with each other, then we leave and don't see each other until the next event.
I know some of the reason why it is, and it's evident in my own life. We're busy taking care of our families. I can't go to another event tomorrow because I have to deal with family.
I know that people say that bearing children and taking care of the family is the most pro-life thing you can do.
Important as it is for the culture of life, taking care of one's family is not going to win the political cause. Sorry. It's just not.
We have to make the struggle for the right to life a lifestyle. Not just an issue we happen to vote on and protest about.
It has to be more than just about right and wrong. This fight for the right to life has to be the very marrow of our existence. Like it's not something you just do on the side when you get a minute. There has to be a core to the pro-life community that is about friendship, connection, networking, patting each other on the back, shooting the breeze, developing ideas and so forth.
It can't just be about the rosaries and the votes.
So like your leisure time is taken up with meeting friends from the pro-life cause. And then plotting the next move. And then having the people in your life that you need to help you accomplish your next coup.
Or it's about being a student in university, and finding the profs and the staff that are supportive, and writing papers about issues that surround the right to life.
Or it's about being an enterprising youngster who starts a line of gift items based on pro-life themes, and having an eager market willing to accessorize their pro-life lifestyle.
The pro-life cause in Canada as I see it, is just so uni-dimensional, almost afraid to take chances on doing something different.
Writing, socializing, selling, buying, these things are not distractions from the cause. These are the things that will bring glue to the cause.
And it's by building up our community that we'll be able to challenge the elites institutions. We'll support our own lawyers, our own doctors, our own businesspeople, our own artists.
I KNOW this is what we need. But I don't think the pro-life community gets it yet, or really wants to do anything about it.
We're not going to win unless we do all this stuff, folks. Learn that lesson and learn that lesson well. If we stay stuck on voting pro-life every election or praying at the clinic, fetal rights will just not happen. Those are all good things-- please don't get me wrong. What we've been doing so far have been necessary steps. We have to crawl before we can run.
But I'm in this to win. I don't want to stay at the crawling stage forever.
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