The Church of Cut and Run

OR: We Could Sure Use Some Toxic Masculinity Right About Now

Six and a half years ago, in this space, I complained about the effeminacy of the Spirit-of-Vatican-II liturgy and how it is designed, not to fire us up and fortify us for battle, but to make us docile and complacent and fattened up for the slaughter.  Now, fifty-plus years into this project of mushifying the Mass, the Sacraments and doctrine, we are treated to the entirely predictable spectacle of many of our shepherds turning tail and running from the coronavirus.  The same Church that holds the divine promise to prevail even over the gates of hell itself has been taken over by hirelings and turned into the Church of Cut and Run.

The Church of Cut and Run has been ceding all kinds of territory to the devil for years.  48 years ago, William F. Buckley, Jr. commented on how difficult it was for Catholics to oppose abortion while their bishops palled around with pro-abortion legislators.  Catholic bishops have backed down and even defected to the other side on issues like contraceptives, abortion, divorce, adultery, homosexuality, “gender” ideology,  socialism, subsidiarity and the rights of parents.  The result has been a popular culture that is basically a sewer, and a society that is increasingly hostile to the rights of Catholics.  The Church of Cut and Run has proven itself to be all but useless when it comes to defending its flocks against the forces of secularism.  In an age when even good people are brought up to value creature comforts over the spiritual life, it has gotten away with this.

But now we have a new situation.  Now our creature comforts themselves are threatened.  Now we have a contagious disease going around; and we, who failed to feel the sting of God’s wrath in the many spiritual chastisements He has sent us over the years, are now starting to feel it in the threat to our bodily health.  Worse than the disease itself, from which the vast majority of patients recover, is the panicky response to the disease.  Everyday life in many places is interrupted.  Groceries and toilet paper and other supplies are hard to find amid waves of panic-buying, even though there is no evidence that these items are in short supply.  Many of us have just plain gone off our nut.

And how are the bishops responding? Many are using the pandemic as an occasion to strike down beloved traditions and guaranteed rights of the faithful, like receiving Communion on the tongue.  And many are abandoning their flocks altogether by locking up churches and depriving them of the Mass and the Sacraments.  Italy, whose bishops have effectively imposed a self-interdict, is probably the most striking example of this.  Some of these bishops are actually justifying this by pooh-poohing the idea that the pandemic is a sign of God’s wrath.

How fearless, how manly is the Spirit-of-Vatican-II Church!  Fortified by decades of insipid liturgies, solipsistic hymns and effeminate preaching, the kinder, gentler, nicer, welcoming, accompanying Spirit-of-Vatican-II shepherds head for the hills at the first sign of danger, leaving the flocks to foot it as best they can without the consolations that once were offered by the hide-bound, rigid, doctrinaire clergy and stern, habit-wearing nuns they mercifully replaced.  How fortunate we are to have now a diluted faith that no longer pricks our consciences or stirs us to zeal for God and souls.  What great stead that stands us in in the face of every danger, both spiritual and temporal!

And the coronavirus, though dangerous to certain classes of people, like the elderly or those who are already in poor health, is nevertheless not to be compared with the Black Plague, which wiped out at least a third of Europe’s population.  But what if we did get a new Black Plague?  If a relatively mild disease like coronavirus is enough to blow “pastoral accompaniment” all to hell, what would a new Black Plague do?

But for all the efforts of the Church of Cut and Run to destroy every last vestige of the evil, hate-filled, fear-mongering pre-conciliar Church, who is it that is actually stepping forward manfully to take charge of the pandemic, care for the sheep, and, above all, propitiate the wrath of God and bring about repentance and conversion?  That would seem to be the tradition-minded sector of the Church that we have been taught for so many years to execrate.  New generations of hide-bound, rigid, doctrinaire clergy and stern, habit-wearing nuns are rising up, tired of pablum and impotence in the face of spiritual dangers and itching to take the fight to the enemy.  The tradition-minded priests, many of whom have been busy training themselves up in the old rite, are offering votive Masses for deliverance from death in time of pestilence; breaking out the Rituale Romanum and putting real holy water into the hands of as many people as possible; holding Eucharistic processions; opening churches; and making sure their people have access to the Sacraments.

Meanwhile, the bongos-and-tambourines “accompaniment” crowd is nowhere to be seen on the field of battle.  To salve their spotted consciences, they don’t even acknowledge that there is a battle.  And “accompaniment” has been proven to be nothing but a weak-tea, crybaby substitute for the fearless, “toxically masculine” self-sacrifice of a true shepherd.  Have we ever been presented with a starker contrast between who in the Church packs the gear, and who doesn’t?  Have we ever been faced with clearer proof that the aftermath of the Council has been an utter disaster, and that the Barque of Peter desperately needs to change course?

And have we ever been faced with clearer proof that the liberal prelates that have bullied us for so many decades are nothing but paper tigers?  Who says they can’t be beaten?  It’s time to get our own courage up, pick up our rosaries and our Bibles, and play our part to turn the tide.

When Superman Refuses to Fly

So what are our shepherds doing about the coronavirus?  Among other things:

- No Communion from the chalice. (GOOD, should cut down on the use of lay Communion ministers, though certain exceptions are needed)
- Thorough washing of Communion vessels (Rome has previously ruled that this must be done by clerics)
- No hand-holding during Our Father and sign of peace (YAY!)
- Empty out holy water fonts (FAIL)
- No Communion on the tongue (ILLEGAL)

Some of these measures are prudent.  Some are welcome as purges of inane ‘70s accretions in the liturgy.  Some have nothing to do with stopping the spread of disease and are exercises of raw power, with the coronavirus as an obvious pretext for trying to quash traditional devotions and set modernist abuses in concrete.

This set of responses to the coronavirus is a bad sign.  Do our bishops really think these worldly precautions are sufficient?  Some of them don’t address the problem at all; none of them come close to bringing to bear all the powers at a bishop’s disposal.  Why aren’t bishops:

- Organizing processions?
- Using the Rituale Romanum to mass-produce holy water and exorcised salt and get them into the hands of as many people as possible?
- Imposing deprecatory blessings against plagues?
- Offering votive Masses against plagues?

Surely, the worst thing to do in a time of plague is to get rid of holy water!  Since a lot of priests use the Book of Blessings to make holy water, or even just make up their own blessings, maybe the absence of that water isn’t much of a loss; but real holy water, in which some exorcised salt is mixed, is meant to drive away disease!  Look at these passages from the blessings of salt and water out of the Rituale Romanum:

God’s creature, salt, I cast out the demon from you by the living God, by the true God, by the holy God, by God Who ordered you to be thrown into the water-spring by Eliseus to heal it of its barrenness.  May you be a purified salt, a means of health for those who believe, a medicine for body and soul for all who make use of you. 

O God, Who for man’s welfare established the most wonderful mysteries in the substance of water, hearten to our prayer, and pour forth Your blessing on this element now being prepared with various purifying rites.  May this creature of Yours, when used in Your mysteries and endowed with Your grace, serve to cast out demons and to banish disease.  May everything that this water sprinkles in the homes and gatherings of the faithful be delivered from all that is unclean and hurtful; let no breath of contagion hover there, no taint of corruption; let all the wiles of the lurking enemy come to nothing.  By the sprinkling of this water may everything opposed to the safety and peace of the occupants of these homes be banished, so that in calling on Your Holy Name they may know the well-being they desire, and be protected from every peril; through Christ our Lord.

These sacramentals are immensely powerful!  Or don’t we believe that anymore?

In the traditional Mass, there is a votive Mass for Deliverance from Death in Time of Pestilence.  It is founded on the belief, naively abandoned in our time, that plagues and pestilence are the scourges of God’s wrath for our sins.  For some reason, in the middle of the bloodiest century in human history, we came up with the idea that there is no need to appease God’s wrath.  We even got the zany idea that we can treat with God as equals.  How is that working out for us?  Why don’t we go back to praying like we used to in the Introit and the Collect and the Postcommunion for this votive Mass:

Be mindful, O Lord, of Thy covenant and say to the destroying Angel: Now hold thy hand, and let not the land be made desolate, and destroy not every living soul. 

O God, Who willest not the death of the sinner but that he should repent: welcome with pardon Thy people’s return to Thee: and so long as they are faithful in Thy service, do Thou in Thy clemency withdraw the scourge of Thy wrath. 

Graciously hear us, O God our Savior: deliver Thy people from the terrors of Thy wrath, and assure them of that safety which is the gift of Thy mercy.

These are extremely powerful spiritual weapons that only our priests and bishops can give us.  Why don’t they?  Is it because they don’t believe?

It is as if Superman is refusing to fly.

What the Coronavirus Tells Us About Trump and the Left

What does it take to contain a deadly contagious disease?  Closing the borders and curtailing international flights into the country would seem like an obvious step, which some countries are taking.  But how would safety measures affect the daily lives of those who are already within the country?  In China, the virus has provided the communist government with an excuse to crack down further on churches.  Italy has also forbidden public worship, while leaving markets and sports venues open.  Japan is closing schools.  In a pandemic, or a perceived pandemic, the government might, among other things, forbid all public gatherings, including church services; impose curfews; suspend commerce; curtail the movements of citizens; and generally prevent people from going about their daily business.  These prohibitions and restrictions would of, course, all be backed by the use of the state’s coercive police powers.

The potential for the government to turn tyrannical, under the guise of safeguarding public health and safety, is obvious.  Chaos causes people to start looking around for a savior.  The more we feel threatened by mortal dangers, the more ready we are to support draconian remedies.  A panicky populace is low-hanging fruit for power grabbers.  It follows, then, that before we start surrendering our liberties to the government in the name of dealing with a national health emergency, we should make sure that we are in fact in an emergency.  We need to be skeptical of anyone who tries to whip us up into a frenzy.

Who has been trying to foment panic about the coronavirus?  People are terrified based on what they see in the news.  President Trump has been saying we have it under control, and the Democrats are decrying what they characterize as his non-action.  They are wailing that he is not allocating enough money to the problem.  At his press conference last night, reporters tried to accuse him of hypocrisy for handling the coronavirus in a manner that they implied was consistent with Obama’s handling of ebola, which Trump criticized.  The city of San Francisco has gone as far as to declare a state of emergency, before even a single documented case of the virus was detected there. The media are breathlessly declaring their hope that the coronavirus is Trump’s Benghazi, thus proving that their emphasis is not on alleviating human misery, but capitalizing on it.

Notice that Trump, whom the liberals have declared a threat to democracy and a tyrant in the making, has done none of those things.  He acknowledges that there is a potential threat, but he is encouraging the country to be calm about it, and to take common-sense precautions.  He has formed a team to cope with the disease, and he has stated that he does not believe it is inevitable that it will become a pandemic in this country, where the number of documented cases is in the double digits.  And he’s absolutely right.  It does not need to become a pandemic, if we take the appropriate small steps before larger ones become necessary.

If Trump were the power-mad totalitarian the left accuses him of being, he should be using this coronavirus scare as an opportunity to take over the daily lives of American citizens.  He’s not doing that.  The left, on the other hand, is using the scare as an opportunity to try to whip the American people into enough of a frenzy to demand the takeover of their lives.

I think this tells us everything we need to know.

Hip! Hip! HURRAH! for Brexit!

In June of 2016, I found myself almost wishing — almost — that I was a British subject, so that I too could vote YES for Brexit.  But I was more than compensated by being able to strike a blow against leftist statism in my own country in November of that same year, with a vote for Donald Trump that helped keep Hillary Clinton out of the White House.

Liberalism, socialism, communism — all varying shades of the same red hue — are everywhere being resisted, much to the distress of our ruling classes.  We have now a generation of adults too young to remember the end of the Cold War, when the Great Unwashed, sick of living under totalitarianism, and aided by Divine Providence, suddenly toppled the Berlin Wall and tore down the Iron Curtain.  The communists and socialists then only appeared to lose their taste for power.  They simply regrouped and changed tactics, aiming now to suffocate and despoil us, not with a boot on our necks, but with environmentalism and open borders and secular humanism and overweening paternal solicitude that sought to take over every aspect of our lives, lest we make messes of them.  But, sadly for our Elders and Betters, we of the Great Unwashed aspire to a high standard of living, the preservation of our own cultures, languages, communities and Christianity, and keeping control of our own local and personal affairs. Thus, we push back even against this kinder, gentler despotism.  Brexit is part of this pushback.

And the United Kingdom will be just fine — nay, better than fine — without the European Union, which is just the Soviet Union with velvet upholstery.  It is absurd to wonder how, after having previously lived for century upon century on its own in its various forms and configurations, until less than five decades ago, the UK is to survive without this upstart foreign body.  It will survive.

The best thing the UK could do would be to return to the Catholic faith of its forebears; but every step in the right direction is a good step and worthy of celebration.

On Opinions without Credentials

There is this insidious idea making the rounds to the effect that a lack of credentials is itself a credential.  People opine boldly, vehemently and publicly on matters like theology and canon law with little to no formal training in these fields.  We see this particularly in connection with some of those who give it as their considered opinion that Benedict XVI, not Francis, is the true Pope.  Some advocates of this position acknowledge and even revel in their lack of credentials in the fields relevant to this issue.  Some even go as far as to assert that, since the evidence in support of their conclusions is so blindingly obvious, the rejection of their opinions is tantamount to heresy and blasphemy.

What is the basis for thinking that a lack of credentials is itself a credential?  There seems to be this anti-elitist elitism, a proletarian pride that turns ignorance into a virtue and education into a vice.  It assumes bad faith on the part of the educated, and on the part of educators.  It assumes that the system of acquiring credentials is hidebound, corrupt, and invested in nothing more than furthering its own interests, while the untrained commentator, unspoilt by the taint of any Establishment agenda, is able to see truths that no one inside the Establishment can see.  It allows the anti-elitist elitist to entertain the possibility — indeed, the probability — that, because they are outsiders to the field in which they pronounce judgment, they may well be God’s instruments in bringing about True Reform.  It allows the anti-elitist elitist to dismiss the disagreement of persons with actual credentials as the product of jealousy, self-interest, or a simple unwillingness to face the truth.

I have mentioned previously in this space my frustration with people who will not listen to my legal opinions or take my advice when these don’t chime with what they want to hear.  I will not impute to them the same bad faith and criminal stupidity that they impute to me, to my face and in the most hateful language; but it is clear that they are the ones who suffer from closed minds and blindness to the truth.  They are like the anti-elitist elitists, who, the more wedded they are to their theories, the less likely they are to listen to real experts who disagree with them.

It is true that sometimes God chooses persons who are not expert, educated or even very intelligent to work His purposes; but He doesn’t always.  The Fathers of the early Church were extremely learned men.  Saints Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Alphonsus Liguori, Thomas More — all exceedingly educated, and exceedingly holy.  Alphonsus Liguori and Thomas More were lawyers.  These saints all had their particular genius; but even with all their gifts, they still studied hard and diligently.  In other words, since grace builds on and perfects nature, they still had to gain their expertise the old-fashioned way: by hard work.

What about the persons without credentials that God chooses as His instruments?  There are certainly examples in the history of the Church.  Saints Catherine of Siena and Therese of Lisieux lacked academic credentials, yet today are acclaimed as Doctors of the Church.  The Cure of Ars was a failure as a student, but outstanding in holiness as a priest.  St. Bernadette Soubirous was an ignorant shepherd girl from a dirt-poor family who conveyed heaven’s ratification of the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception, even though she did not understand what it meant.  And there was never anyone less qualified to lead armies in battle than St. Joan of Arc, yet she led the French army to victory and secured the true king of France on his throne.

But notice that when God uses these little ones, He crowns their efforts with authentic signs and wonders, to prove that they really are working for Him.  Catherine of Siena wielded enormous influence for good with the Pope.  Therese of Lisieux secured her religious vocation at a very early age, against the odds.  The Cure of Ars had to spend many hours a day in the confessional because  everyone recognized him as a holy priest.  Bernadette Soubirous uncovered a spring of miraculous healing.  Joan of Arc had gifts of prophecy and discernment, led armies to victory and confounded her persecutors.  When someone without credentials or qualifications pronounces judgment on subjects  such as who is the true Pope, consider how often he has been right about other things.  One particularly outspoken proponent of the theory that Benedict XVI is still the true Pope, for example, declared that Donald Trump was only running for president in order to dress up his resume, that he wasn’t serious about running, and predicted that he would throw the election.  Then when he didn’t throw the election, she admitted that she had erred but opined that Trump was a dim bulb who was in way over his head and was on his way out.  Three years later, Trump has so successfully confounded his enemies, and has so far advanced the cause of Christian civilization in his administration, that the Democrats have launched a bogus impeachment proceeding to try to remove him from office.

There is nothing wrong with not having credentials.  But there is something wrong with making a lack of credentials into a credential of its own.  There is nothing wrong with the fact that not everyone is qualified to render judgments about everything.  But there is something wrong with not sticking to what you know when it comes to holding forth on a subject that has implications for the well-being of souls.  Credentials are not dispositive all by themselves: it is true that there are idiots out there with degrees and licenses.

But when someone declares an opinion on an important subject, credentials are relevant.  If there is some indication that someone has poured blood, toil, tears and sweat into acquiring credentials in some subject, it may be that that person’s opinion on that subject counts for more than that of someone who did not put that kind of work into it.

Not One Thin Dime

Earlier this month, our bishops and their entourages got together for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ fall meeting at the posh Inner Harbor Marriott in Baltimore where, amid four-star accommodations bristling with armed security, they promoted left-wing politics, ignored the real crises in the Church, produced glossy brochures and documents no one will ever read, lived it up, and generally wasted millions of dollars of our hard-earned donations.  Now we are about to be hit up once again for donations to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. 

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops publishes annual lists of organizations that receive grants from the CCHD.  It reads like a who’s who of lefty, if not communist-front organizations (phrases such as “workers” and “worker’s struggle” are telling, as are pictures of people with upraised fists).  Some of their websites are pretty bare-bones, so that it is hard to see how these organizations could properly be vetted just by checking out their pages; yet the sheer number of grantees is so large that, (assuming the USCCB really cared about aiding only those outfits that are faithful to Catholic teaching) it is hard to believe anyone there could be devoting the time it would take thoroughly to research every one.  The grantees’ webmasters generally appear to be more careful than they used to be about openly declaring their support for blatantly anti-Catholic agendas like abortion and contraception (although many Catholics don’t know or choose to forget that socialism is also condemned by the Catholic Church).  None of the organizations that receive Catholic dollars appear to be devoted to the work of making disciples of all the nations, and baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Ghost.

And so I will not be giving the CCHD one thin dime.  I will not support an organization that supports left-wing agitators committed to the destabilization of American society and the overturning of the institutions and traditions that are the building blocks of that society.  No faithful Catholic should.

But we should make sure our bishops know that we are withholding money from their pet political projects, and why.  

I’m Calling B-arbra S-treisand on These Pre-Election Stunts

Like all the monstrosities allegedly committed by Trump and his supporters against poor delicate liberals, this stuff about the alleged “MAGA Bomber” just doesn’t pass the smell test.  

Look.  These incidents that supposedly target liberals — from the non-existent “hate crimes” right after the 2016 election to these “pipe bombs” — always look more like liberals’ cartoonish ideas of what Trump voters think than what Trump voters actually think.  I don’t recognize myself in these parodies.  Decent, law-abiding citizens are just not out there doing this kind of stuff:  

- We don’t go in for demonstrations, because demonstrations cut into the time we could be spending living our lives.  

- We don’t go in for violence, because we think unjust aggression is wrong, and plus, we don’t want to bloody up the clothes we worked hard to earn the money to buy.  

- We don’t go in for public indecency, because we still believe in modesty, and still think some things should be kept private.  

- We don’t go in for mailing “pipe bombs” to liberal celebrities, because we’re not terrorists, and because being in jail gets in the way of getting up and going to work in the morning — and besides which, we who are busy with life never heard of half the people who got these things anyway.  We certainly don’t have time to make a professional-grade, rolling billboard out of our vehicles, like this “MAGA bomber” is supposed to have done.  

No, it takes LIBERALS to think of these things — just like it took liberals to come up with the idea of Trump, who is a cleanliness fanatic, paying prostitutes to urinate on a bed, or to come up with the idea that Justice Kavanaugh, who is the quintessential Boy Scout, arranged rape parties in college.  That kind of stuff is not how decent people get their kicks, and those aren’t even ideas they’d come up with.  I call B-arbra S-treisand on this whole thing.

One More Thing...

Why is it that my "civil libertarian" colleagues want to do away with or at least vitiate the one civil right that most effectively guarantees our freedom, namely, the right to keep and bear arms?  That is the true purpose of the Second Amendment.  It is not there merely to guarantee our ability to hunt, and the "well-armed militia" clause does not serve as a limitation on the right of individuals to keep and bear arms, as the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed a few years ago.  The Second Amendment is there because tyranny requires an unarmed populace.  Liberals have been working for decades to achieve a citizenry that is helpless and prostrate before those in power.  That is the real purpose of the welfare state -- and it works like a charm, in case anybody cares to take notice.

These same colleagues also like to rag on the police as bean-brained boobs, uniformed thugs or ruthless, scheming charlatans -- which in fact a few are, though most are not.  Yet these colleagues seem not to have noticed that the very gun policies they advocate would give an exclusive monopoly on firearms to these same rotters who, in their view, cannot be trusted to safeguard our constitutional rights.  

But then liberalism is really a sort of religious dogma that its adherents hold to every bit as unthinkingly as they assume I hold to my Catholic faith.  Which is probably why they assume, without investigating, that my Catholic faith makes no sense.

Random Thoughts

- I haven't had much to say lately on any subject, because there is so much that is so depressing going on, both in the world at large and in my own little corner of it, that I have felt like silence is the only response I can muster. Maybe it's time for the choleric side of my personality to reassert itself over the melancholic, which has had the upper hand for the last few years.

- There is indeed a sea change in the world, and the signs include the Brexit vote in June of last year, and the election of Donald Trump in the United States last November.  People are finally beginning to reject and push back against the "Enlightenment" ideology that has so fascinated the West's elites, and held Christendom in thrall, for the last two and a half centuries.  But the corrupt elites are themselves pushing back -- hard.  It remains to be seen whether we have started to regain our senses in enough time to save Christian civilization, and whether enough people are willing to defend it.

- It is easy enough to expose the hypocrisy of the "open borders" crowd by asking them why they don't tear down their own fences and gates and throw open their own real estate holdings to all and sundry, no questions asked.  It is because they know they will be cleaned out and maybe even not escape the experience physically unscathed.  A nation -- which is an extension of the family, which springs from our human nature and has rights in the natural law -- is no different in this respect.  A family has the right to let some people into its home and keep others out, according as its interests dictate; to expect guests and visitors to obey the rules of the house; and to expel those who will not comply.  A nation possesses these same rights.  A national government also has the same duty to look first to the well-being of its own citizens, that parents have to look first to the well-being of their own children.

- It's depressing to think how far we have slid down the sewer of violence in the 21st century, and still more depressing to realize that that is the way our Elders and Betters, including those who run the mass media, want it.  Seven gangsters and gang associates died in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago in 1929, and the nation was aghast.  Eighty-eight years, a world war, multiple regional wars and countless murders, abortions and terror attacks later, the deaths of innocent civilians in European cities at the hands of Muslim extremists are barely making the news anymore.  The leaders of Europe declare their resolve to "carry on" and not be intimidated by terrorists, but they are utterly unwilling to do what it takes to put an end to the predations of terrorists.  Instead, they spend their time coming up with hash tags, and putting up barriers, and telling their people they are just going to have to put up with terrorism as a part of life, and chewing their nails about insoluble and even non-existent problems, like "climate change" and "carbon footprints."  Why is it they think it impossible to keep out of their countries people who want to destroy them, but consider it totally feasible to adjust the earth's temperature by means of legislative enactments?

- Let us not kid ourselves that mass murders like the one in Vegas last week are unrelated to the scourge of abortion.  Mother Teresa warned us of this at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994:

But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself.  And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?

- It is worth remembering that in that same speech, Mother Teresa -- who is loved by both conservatives and liberals -- did not fail to draw the line between abortion and contraception:

In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self.  This turns the attention to self and so it destroys the gifts of love in him or her. In loving, the husband and wife must turn the attention to each other as happens in natural family planning, and not to self, as happens in contraception.  Once that living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion follows very easily.

- I'm really getting sick of these NFL demonstrations. I don't watch football, but if I did, it would be for entertainment -- just like going to a movie or watching a TV show. For years, we have been putting up with having leftist propaganda shoved down our throats every time we go to some entertainment venue, and I, for one, am fed up. That's not why I pay to get in.

- Leftists reduce everything to politics. The last time I argued about this taking-a-knee business with a leftist, I was accused of hypocrisy on the grounds that patriotic displays, which I don't object to, are nothing more than a political argument for the side I agree with. This is how the left operates: redefine the terms so nobody else can possibly win.  We have to stop buying into their planted axioms.  In fact, everything is not politics, and displays of patriotism are not political. Patriotism is a virtue, and standing for the anthem with your hand over your heart is a civic ceremony wherein we give expression to that virtue and reaffirm our identity as Americans. These idiotic protests strike at our unity as Americans.  I say, throw the bums out. The First Amendment doesn't apply to players on the field. They are there to work and earn their keep, just like I am whenever I go to court.  Hold them to the same standards as any other employee in any other workplace.  I don't get to do or say anything other than what I get paid for in the course of my employment, and neither should they.

- It would be interesting to know just what Harvey Weinstein -- who looks every inch a disgusting pig -- did to lose him the protection of The Establishment.  Whatever it was, it cannot have been sexually predatory behavior.  Hollywood has been glamorizing sexually predatory behavior for years, and has show itself quick to circle the wagons around sexual predators in its midst.  When, for example, the authorities nabbed Roman Polanski on his way to a film festival in Zurich in 2009 -- more than 30 years after skipping out on his sentencing in Los Angeles for plying a 13-year-old girl with booze and quaaludes, then raping and sodomizing her -- the film community rose in outrage at the authorities.  Harvey Weinstein, incidentally, and not surprisingly, was very vocal in defending Polanski.  So what heresy did Weinstein commit that made his own company throw him out on his ear?  One is tempted to speculate that he might have said something that could, in a certain light, be construed as mildly favorable to Donald Trump.  That would correspond more exactly to the Hollywood Left's idea of high crimes and misdemeanors.

- I suppose the sea change I mentioned above might be taking place in the Church as well as in Western society at large, as witness the filial correctio published recently, several weeks after it had been presented to the Holy Father and gotten no response.  It is refreshing to hear heresies straighforwardly designated as heresies, but I cannot say that I am surprised that the Pope continues not to respond.  If a Pope really does subscribe to heresies, and he cannot bring himself to declare definitively against them, declaring definitively in their favor is not an option: the charism of infallibility that he possesses in virtue of his office prevents this.  The only thing a Pope could do in these circumstances would be to remain silent.  Whatever the case may be, the Church is in a real crisis.  We should be prepared for the possibility that we will not see this crisis resolved during the current pontificate.

- On the other hand, we are just a week way from the 100th anniversary of the culmination of Our Lady's appearances at Fatima, Portugal, when tens of thousands of believers and non-believers within about a 30-mile radius witnessed the miracle she promised to perform to prove that she really had appeared to the three children and called for penance, repentance and conversion.  We are also in the centenary of Red October, when the Soviet Union was born -- the instrument by which Russia has spread her errors throughout the world, as Our Lady warned she would.  One also thinks of the hundred years satan asked God to give him in which to destroy the Church in the vision Pope Leo XIII is said to have had that inspired him to compose the Prayer to St. Michael.  We have certainly seen the fury of hell intensify all over the world over the last several years, and the storm roils every level of Church and state, from the palaces and mansions of the great down to the most humble individual.  Are we now near the end of those hundred years?

I hope we may live to see the promised triumph of her Immaculate Heart, and that soon.

By the Way...

...I just reminded myself.  Earth Day is really Lenin's birthday.  Here is the old bastard in a mugshot from 1895, looking every inch the punk kid brother of Satan.  And here is some first-rate commentary about his spiritual progeny, Ira Einhorn, the murderer who masterminded Earth Day.

Celebrate, if you must, this slithering hell-bait, the fuse that lit the explosion of destruction that was the 20th century.  As for me, I think I'll take the old internal combustion engine for a totally unnecessary trip across town in search of some white cheddar popcorn, the making of which produces greenhouse gas emissions.

Shining All the Lights for Earth Day: The Centennial Bulb

Today seems like a good day to bring back a classic post about a famous incandescent bulb in Livermore, California.  Obviously, a few elements of this post are now out of date: the socialist regime of Barack Obama, and its would-be successor, to have been run by Hillary Clinton, have now been sent packing.  Also, the Newcandescent bulb company discussed below has now apparently gone over to the LED market.  I am compelled to admit that, since this was written, the quality of LED bulbs has improved significantly; but it must be said that a big part of the improvement is the extent to which LED bulbs can now imitate the light of incandescent bulbs.  One thing that is not out of date is the Centennial Light itself which, as this re-post goes up, is still burning after 116 years.  

The Centennial Light, Livermore, California, the world's longest-burning light bulb.  This picture provides a good view of the mechanism of this lamp, as well as its beauty and careful hand-craftsmanship.  (Source.)

This light bulb hangs from the ceiling at Fire Station 6 on East Avenue in Livermore, California, where it serves as a night light over the fire trucks.  Hand-blown with a carbon filament, it was manufactured at the Shelby Electric Company in Shelby, Ohio and first installed at Livermore's fire department horse cart house on L Street in 1901.  It has been moved twice since then; since its most recent move, in 1976, it has been hooked up to its own independent power source, and has burned continuously without being turned off or going out.

Consider this.  The year this light bulb was installed was the same year that Queen Victoria died.  It was the year President William McKinley was assassinated, and Teddy Roosevelt took his place in the White House.  In 1901, Leo XIII was Pope in Rome; Winston Churchill was just beginning his extraordinary career in the House of Commons; the Panama Canal was still under construction; Douglas MacArthur was still a cadet at West Point; radio and motion pictures were still new inventions; the Wright Brothers' first flight at Kitty Hawk was still two years away, and it would be another seven years before Henry Ford's Model T would begin to roll off the assembly line.  Since 1901, two world wars have ravaged the planet; most of the world's monarchies have toppled; the Soviet Union rose and fell; the Cold War raged; man took flight, first across continents and oceans, then to the moon and back; telephones, televisions, and above all computers have brought the entire world right into our homes.  Through it all, this bulb has continued to shine.   True, the Centennial Light is down to only a fraction of its original brightness; yet even its manufacturers, who prided themselves on making the best lamps in the world, could hardly have imagined how long this light's working life would continue.

Nor is the Centennial Light the only bulb possessed of extraordinary longevity.  Others have been documented as having functioned for many decades, including one that has shone since 1908.  Who knows how many other bulbs have worked for decades that nobody has documented?  Truly, the incandescent light bulb is among the most useful devices ever come up with in the history of human innovation.  

So it makes perfect sense that the current socialist administration, whose ultimate goal is the moral and material enslavement of Americans, should make war upon the incandescent bulb and try to cram vastly inferior fluorescent bulbs down our throats.  

Let's face the facts about fluorescent bulbs -- and particularly the spaghetti bulbs meant to be installed in place of incandescent ones.  Like virtually all other things liberals are always trying to force-feed us, fluorescent bulbs stink.  They take forever to reach their full brightness, and their full brightness isn't much to write home about.  They're costly. They're full of mercury, which makes them dangerous.  They're worthless in an Easy-Bake Oven.  And you can't just throw them out when they burn out, like you can incandescent bulbs.  

Fortunately, there is still a company in this country that manufactures incandescent bulbs.  America's entrepreneurial spirit is still alive and well at Newcandescent, which legally manufactures incandescent bulbs.  And they say their bulbs will last 7 years.  

I don't usually plug products on this blog, but I'm glad there's somebody still manufacturing incandescent bulbs in this country.  Still, there is one thing that really sticks in my craw about it.  Even if you are a fan of fluorescent bulbs, if you are a patriotic American and lover of liberty, you must acknowledge that greater principles are at stake than the preferability of incandescent over fluorescent.  The fact that Newcandescent had to (a) redesign incandescent bulbs to comply with new federal requirements, and (b) apply to the Department of Energy for permission to manufacture the newly designed bulbs ought to fill you with rage.     

Did you ever think we'd reach a point in this country when American citizens would have to apply for permission from the federal government to manufacture incandescent bulbs on American soil?  Was this what the Founding Fathers had in mind?  Is there some provision of the Constitution, written, perhaps, in invisible ink, that gives the feds this authority?  Was this what generations of patriots shed their blood in distant lands to protect?

It's a shame to have to admit it, but the America upon which the Centennial Light first shone 111 years ago was a much freer one than the one we live in today.  Our first order of business in this country is to straighten ourselves up as individuals, governing our passions, recovering our Christian morals and living according to right reason.   Without this, nothing else will work.  Our second order of business is to throw out the socialist bums that have seized power in this country at every level of government.  Our third order of business is to reduce the federal government to its original constitutionally mandated functions, and every other level of government to reasonable proportions in accordance with state constitutions, common sense, and the principle of subsidiarity.  And in the meantime, we should support entrepreneurial efforts like Newcandescent that prevent the useful things that improve our lives from being cast into oblivion by socialist elites.

Shining All the Lights for Earth Day: Killing the Planet with Christmas

Since I wrote this nine years ago, I am compelled to confess that the quality of LED Christmas lights -- and indeed, LED lights in general -- has improved.  Nevertheless, my points below still stand.

*     *     *

Remember in Ninotchka, when Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas are at the top of the Eiffel Tower looking out over the city lights of Paris? He asks her if it isn't a beautiful view; after agreeing that it is, she delivers the other shoe, with a perfectly straight face: But it's a wa-a-a-aste of electricity.

Now, the line in question is very funny. It's funny both because of the deadpan delivery, and because the misplaced focus of attention on electrical consumption in the face of so much beauty is absurd. Nowadays, though, you have to wonder how many people would still find this funny. Unfortunately, too many people that are being looked up to as authorities have no sense of the absurd; and, even more unfortunately, too many people who should know better are taking them seriously.

And so it is that the Australian press -- also with a perfectly straight face -- vouchsafes us a story under the following headline: Scientists Warn Christmas Lights Harm the Planet.

"CSIRO [Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation] researchers said householders should know that each bulb turned on in the name of Christmas will increase emissions of greenhouse gases," the story solemnly intones. Since Australia's electricity comes from coal, the evil of using Christmas lights to celebrate the birth of the Redeemer means an increase in "greenhouse gas emissions." Bottom line: Christianity is killing the planet.

But since the planet-destroying plebes are not willing to give up their primitive religious holidays and superstitions -- and the equally primitive desire for illumination during long winter nights -- the CSIRO has come up with helpful hints on how they can minimize their impact on our fragile ecosystem, until such time as they can be made to adopt the enlightened sterility of their betters. Timers, "energy-efficient bulbs," solar-powered lights, or "sourcing your electricity from verified green power suppliers" are all proffered as ways to avoid choking the globe on unnecessary Christmas emissions.

Well. Most people have no problem with timers, since they like to save on their electric bills, especially during tough economic times that are brought on in no small part by the meddling of the global warming people. In fact, WalMart, that citadel of white-trash consumerism and exploitation, sells timers, and even outdoor timers with light sensors, so you can have your lights come on at dusk and set them to stay on for just 2-6 hours. As for solar powered lights, there is frequently not enough sunlight to charge batteries in winter, so the net effect of solar-powered lights is likely to be little or no lights at all, which is what the global warming scaremongers are really after anyway.

And energy-efficient Christmas bulbs are the pits. Back when they used normal Christmas lights on the Idaho State Christmas Tree, you could see the Tree on the Statehouse steps all the way up Capitol Boulevard. Then the state started doling out Christmas cheer by the teaspoon, and switched to energy-efficient bulbs. The tree looks pretty in pictures, but the pictures don't convey the sad reality that you have to practically be standing underneath the tree to see it.

We live in a world that is long on violence, oppression, tyranny, hatred, and coldness, and short on kindness, gentleness, freedom, charity and warmth. It is made more so by the global warming Scrooges of the world, the new Puritans who can never rest easy as long as a spark of joy or innocent pleasure remains unextinguished anywhere on earth. If these sourpusses will not turn away from their perverted disgust with Christmas, then let them at least stop trying to drag the rest of us down into their private hell.

LOL, Episode II

I'm noticing an online petition demanding that Melania Trump either move herself and Barron into the White House forthwith or foot the bill herself for her off-premises security.

Congratulations to the left for finally warming up to the idea of economizing on taxpayer dollars -- although, after eight years of remaining silent about the Secret Service bills the Obamas must have racked up for their constant overseas vacations, the idea is late in coming to them.

But wait: didn't Donald Trump waive his presidential salary?  That's $400K a year, and Trump gets up at 5 every morning and does actual WORK.  I never heard that Barack Obama waived his presidential salary, and he spent most of his time vacationing, playing golf, and taking vacations from vacationing and playing golf.  So over the course of eight years, we the taxpayers paid him $3.2 million just to destroy the country and screw around.  And that doesn't even count the cost of running Air Force One back and forth between D.C. and Hawaii, Secret Service details, military escorts, Michelle's entourage and (ugly) wardrobe and every other damn thing, about which liberals were entirely mum.

The left continues to flail.

LOL

Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the EU Commission, threatens to "promote the independence of Ohio and Austin, Texas" if President Trump does not cut it out with his euroskeptic remarks.

The EU's top supporter of free speech also denies the EU is in any sort of crisis, and says Brexit is the beginning of something stronger and better -- all while threatening Trump over supporting it.

The left is really flailing. 

It Don't Make Sense

Back when the Russians, under the communists, really were conspiring to subvert American democracy, the liberals were (a) all for it; (b) telling everyone else to get over their "inordinate fear of communism; (c) sending guys like Teddy Kennedy to Moscow to serve as communist propaganda tools.  Some of them even went as far as to shift their allegiance to the Soviet Union.  Now, suddenly, the liberals are beside themselves at the (totally unproven) idea that the Russians rooted for and colluded with Trump in the 2016 election -- the only thing, in their version of reality, that could conceivably have caused Hillary to lose.

Have they even stopped to ask themselves why the Russians should prefer Trump to Hillary?  

Because they think Trump is a buffoon?  I don't know that the Russians think Trump is a buffoon.  If they have studied him, and read his books, they might think he is a boor and a vulgarian; but they would also realize that he is a workaholic, a fighter, well-informed, conscientious, and anything but stupid.  Yet even if they do think he's a buffoon, Trump, as a non-politician, would be an unpredictable buffoon who has been very outspoken, for instance, on the need to build up the U.S. military.  It might serve their interests to have a buffoon in the White House, but surely not one who likes armaments and might use them.

Surely, therefore, the Russians would far rather have had Hillary in the White House.  She has the triple advantage of (a) being a buffoon; (b) being entirely predictable; (c) supporting policies that are bad for us but good for them, such as the disarmament so beloved of Barack Obama.  Even if the Russians didn't think Trump would be able to carry out his agenda if elected, surely they would have much preferred the candidate who would not even make the effort in the first place.  Hillary, not Trump, would surely have been the path of least resistance to the Russians.

The testimony in today's hearings was unequivocal that there is zero evidence to support the cockamamie notions of Russian tampering and collusion with the Trump campaign; and it doesn't even make sense that they should have favored Trump in the first place.  

Reflections on the Last Full Day of Winter, 2017

Boise: where it's sometimes hard to tell which
season it is.

-- This winter we got more snow in the Treasure Valley than we have ever had since I moved down here in 2003.  All the years I lived up in the Idaho panhandle taught me to deal with huge amounts of snow (though winter is still a huge trial for me, even 21 years after leaving southern California); but up there, the local authorities are pretty good at snow removal.  Down here, we are pretty clueless as to how to deal with even a little snow.  Even busy thoroughfares go unplowed and untreated during snowfalls, so if you work in downtown Boise, and it's been snowing, it might take you an hour to an hour and a half to travel the five miles from there to the Bench.  The great winter avalanche of 2017 was such a disaster, and the local highway district was so unprepared to cope, that they had to suspend their red-tape requirements for private snow removal contractors (question: why should we ever have red tape for such a thing?) and even bring in the National Guard to remove snow.  Still, it was days before any residential streets got plowed, and the local schools quickly exhausted their quotas of snow days for the year.  A lot of people ended up getting stuck in various places; I personally had to be rescued twice.

-- In the wake of all of which, the (already-much-despised) local highway district backed a bill in the state legislature that would limit highway districts' snow removal responsibilities.  You have to hand it to them for their sense of timing.

-- I have spent the last couple of weeks of winter battling a viral infection that started in my sinuses and settled into my upper respiratory tract.  It couldn't have come at a worse time from the point of view of my work calendar.  There is not a lot you can do about viral bronchitis except treat the symptoms, get as much rest and fluids as you can, and ride it out.  I have drunk gallons of black tea with honey and lemon (and occasionally rum).  I cut out the rum when I got a prescription for codeine cough syrup, and cut out the lemon when it started to give me a sour stomach.  God bless whoever invented codeine cough syrup.  It is worth all the money in the world not to be up all night coughing your brains out.

-- With the end of winter comes the beginning of Lent (at least this year, when Easter falls a little on the late side).  I am making a terrible Lent.  My whole life has felt like one long Lent for the last couple of years -- especially last year, with the death of my mother, hard on the heels of the death of a dear friend, in turn hard on the heels of the death of my grandfather.  There is nothing messier than life; it does not seem that one can become a saint by avoiding the mess.

-- And there does not seem to be a greater mess than the mess that is currently the Catholic Church.  My own diocese feels like the most God-forsaken one on the planet.  Every parish is so busy doing its own thing that one is reduced to finding the least-offensive Mass possible on Sundays and holy days of obligation.  Long gone are the days when you could attend Mass anywhere in the world and it would always be the same, always Catholic and always familiar.  I have news for priests: idiosyncrasies in the liturgy -- including tinging it with your malodorous personalities -- was never, ever something the laity in the pews clamored for.  This is something you wanted, because you forgot who you are and who God is (hint: you aren't Him) and why you are there at the altar, and you were therefore becoming bored with the whole affair.  Now you have succeeded in making several generations of Catholics forget it, too.  Congratulations.

-- Part of the mess in the Church is the idiotic idea that rules are bad (except of course any rule that prohibits the traditional Mass), and that Jesus did away with rules.  Set aside for the moment the irony of holding this view during the reign of perhaps the most autocratic, authoritarian pope in recent history (who himself ridicules people who pursue private devotions according to rules).  The reality is that if you take away rules, you kick out from under a lot of people a much-needed support for their weakness.  Rules give people clarity and certainty.  Some people need these things, even if you think they're stupid.  And if you think something is stupid that legitimately serves the needs of your fellow man, and you don't care what effect depriving him of it might have, then maybe you have not made as much spiritual progress as you think.

-- On the political front.  I hate to be the bearer of bad news to liberals (well, maybe not so much), but: all the stuff President Trump is doing that you think I should find outrageous, from knocking the media to cutting funding for PBS, I actually enjoy seeing him do.  In fact, these are things I have wanted to see for years and years -- and so have plenty of other Americans.

-- And while we're on the subject of Trump, the media just can't stop lying about him -- like the latest wholly-manufactured firestorm about how he is going to eliminate Meals on Wheels.  But even if Meals on Wheels were a federal program (which it isn't) and Trump was going to abolish it (which he isn't), what is to stop all these reporters from reviving it and funding it on a private basis?

-- In fact, where does the idea come from that, unless the government confiscates our money and does "charity" for us, we in the United States are going to leave old people to starve in ratty, run-down apartments or die in the streets?  It's true that in a lot of ways, we Americans have our heads up our butts; but it's also true that Americans are some of the most generous people in the world.  We have an all-volunteer military, so everybody who joins up -- especially when we have troops committed to various hell-holes around the world -- has demonstrated a willingness to give up creature comforts and even their lives for their fellow Americans.  The same goes for those who voluntarily join police departments and fire departments.  Whenever some disaster strikes on the other side of the globe, we are the ones who rush to the scene with rescue personnel and equipment.  And we Americans contribute substantially to charities.  We even found charities.  We are the ones who gave the world the Red Cross.  The Christian spirit -- which liberals have worked so hard to undermine and destroy -- is nevertheless still so potent that even in its diluted form, it is powerful enough to motivate Americans on behalf of the needy.

-- Back to the seasons.  Now that the end of winter is only about 12 hours away as I write this, we are swiftly approaching another harbinger of the change of season, namely, the roaring back to life of the irrigation works.  We southern Idahoans know spring is well and truly under way when the sluices are opened and the irrigation canals fill up.  Northern Idaho doesn't need irrigation, so they miss out on this minor spectacle.

-- Meanwhile, we look for another sort of spring in a world that seems hopelessly messed up -- a spiritual spring; the real springtime the fathers of the Second Vatican Council thought they were ushering in, though the hopes of those who acted in good faith were cheated.  There have certainly been plenty of changes on the political front, over which all the right people are dismayed.  I hope this represents a real sea change, and more than a mere temporary reprieve from the disasters we had previously been hurtling toward.  

Open Borders: Not a Catholic Doctrine

St. Thomas Aquinas: smarter than the rest of us
put together.

The impression is being created and fostered that, in order to be a truly good and great country, we must, at all costs, take in all who want to come here, no questions asked.  Many bishops and clergy seem to be on board with that view.  For this, and for a whole host of other reasons, it would seem that the Summa Theologiae is no longer required reading in Catholic seminaries.  But despite being a dead white Western male, and a member of the oppressive Catholic hierarchy into the bargain, the Angelic Doctor does have one or two illuminating things to say that are pertinent to the question of open borders.

Before we get to Aquinas, a couple of observations are in order.  First of all, when the rubber meets the road, virtually nobody really believes in open borders.  How many people would like to dissolve the borders of their own real estate holdings?  How many allow all and sundry into their residences?  How many open-borders advocates go so far as to live in gated communities from which most even of their fellow Americans are excluded?  During the last days his administration, Barack Obama, a passionate unbeliever in borders for the rest of us, busied himself with building a big, brick wall around his post-presidential palace.  He also put an end to "wet foot, dry foot" for persons who manage to escape the workers' paradise of Cuba, proving that there are some categories of people that even he thinks we already have enough of in this country.

Secondly, the average person who supports restrictions on immigration is not an ogre who wants to turn our backs on persons in dire distress.  I for one support reinstatement of "wet foot, dry foot," and I deplored the forced repatriation, under Bill Clinton, of Elian Gonzales, whose mother died getting him to our shores.  I think persecuted Christians from Syria and Africa and Asia should be moved to the head of the refugee line.  I welcome persons who believe in what America stands for and want to come here to work hard and be a part of it, like my Italian great-grandparents at the turn of the last century.

But am I wrong?  Is it true that, in order to be a good Catholic, I must support a policy of flinging wide the doors of the country to let in all comers, regardless of who they are or where they came from, or what they believe, or whether they have a criminal history, or contagious diseases, or are violently mentally ill, and to grant them all the privileges and prerogatives of citizenship?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church at paragraph 2241 says (emphases added):

The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens.  

Clearly, (1) the obligation to take in immigrants is not absolute, but must be balanced against the common good, and (2) immigrants owe duties toward their country of adoption.

Let's look at the Summa Theologiae, First Part of the Second Part, Question 105, Article 3 (ST I-II. Q.105 A.3).  Question 105 explains the judicial precepts of the Old Law.  As you read through Question 105, it becomes clear that the preservation of a nation is a good, and the Law was designed in part to effect that good.  In his Reply to Objection 3 in Article 2, Aquinas says, "...the regulation of possessions conduces much to the preservation of a state or nation," and explains that the reason for the law against permanently alienating real property "was to prevent confusion of possessions, and to ensure the continuance of a definite distinction among the tribes."  Article 3 of Question 105 explains the laws pertaining to foreigners.  Aquinas begins by noting that there are two kinds of relations with foreigners: peaceful and hostile, and the Law provided suitably for both kinds.  Then he lists the three opportunities Israel had to carry on peaceful relations with foreigners: when they traveled through the land; when they came to settle as newcomers; and when they wished to join their full fellowship and mode of worship.  In the first two cases, the Law commanded that they not be molested.  Be it noted that you will nowhere find Aquinas suggesting that this precept applied to troublemakers and disturbers of the peace.

In the third case, Aquinas observes, there was a certain order:

For they were not at once admitted to citizenship: just as it was law with some nations that no one was deemed a citizen except after two or three generations, as the Philosopher [Aristotle] says (Polit. iii, 1). The reason for this was that if foreigners were allowed to meddle with the affairs of a nation as soon as they settled down in its midst, many dangers might occur, since the foreigners not yet having the common good firmly at heart might attempt something hurtful to the people. Hence it was that the Law prescribed in respect of certain nations that had close relations with the Jews (viz., the Egyptians among whom they were born and educated, and the Idumeans, the children of Esau, Jacob's brother), that they should be admitted to the fellowship of the people after the third generation; whereas others (with whom their relations had been hostile, such as the Ammonites and Moabites) were never to be admitted to citizenship; while the Amalekites, who were yet more hostile to them, and had no fellowship of kindred with them, were to be held as foes in perpetuity: for it is written (Exodus 17:16): "The war of the Lord shall be against Amalec from generation to generation."  [Emphasis added.]

So peaceful foreigners are not to be molested.  Nor, as Aquinas emphasizes, are men of any nation excluded from the worship of God and the things that pertain to the good of the soul.  The question is to what extent are they admitted into a nation's civil affairs.  Answer: not until they have the common good firmly at heart.  Foreigners, then, especially newly-arrived ones, are not deeply rooted enough in their adoptive country to become involved in its affairs; thus, as Aquinas notes in Article 1 of Question 105, the Law forbade the Israelites to choose a foreigner to be king, "because such kings are wont to take little interest in the people they are set over, and consequently to have no care for their welfare...."

And foreigners have no right to cause injury to their adoptive country or its people, any more than any one else has.  Under the old Law, some nations were to be excluded entirely from citizenship, on account of their hostility.  Aquinas:

But in temporal matters concerning the public life of the people, admission was not granted to everyone at once, for the reason given above: but to some, i.e. the Egyptians and Idumeans, in the third generation; while others were excluded in perpetuity, in detestation of their past offense, i.e. the peoples of Moab, Ammon, and Amalec. For just as one man is punished for a sin committed by him, in order that others seeing this may be deterred and refrain from sinning; so too may one nation or city be punished for a crime, that others may refrain from similar crimes.

From the talk these days about immigration, one gets the impression that the rights are supposed to all be on the immigrant side of the ledger, and the obligations all on the nation side.  But the Catholic Church teaches otherwise.  Nations have rights as well as obligations, and immigrants have obligations as well as rights, and these must all be rightly ordered for the sake of the common good.  A nation has the right to self-preservation, and to grant citizenship only to those who have the common good firmly to heart.  Gratitude imposes on immigrants the obligation to respect the law and the culture of their adoptive country.  If they don't, the state has the duty not to tolerate disorders for the sake of the people's welfare.

Those of us who want strong borders believe that our distinctive American culture (as distinguished from foul, rotten pop culture), founded on Judeo-Christian beliefs, is worth preserving.  We want our lives and our property to be protected from people who mean us harm.  We want to preserve the value of citizenship, and to not have its benefits diluted by conferring them on persons who are not entitled to possess them.  We want to help people in need, to the extent possible, but we want them to be willing to fulfill the duties of immigrants to their adoptive country.

None of which is contrary to the Christian faith, as the Catechism and St. Thomas Aquinas seem to indicate.

Dress Like Women

Melania Trump: dressed like a woman.

Donald Trump's latest ourtage against women, minorities, God, country, truth, justice and the American way: he allegedly requires his female staffers to "dress like women" at work.

You were waiting for the punch line?  That was it.

Believe it or not, dress codes are a staple of American life.  Schools have dress codes.  A lot of work places have dress codes, and not just the places where you have to wear a uniform.  Churches used to have dress codes, back before they started caring about being "relevant."  There are restaurants where they won't let you in if you're not wearing a tie.  There was a time, still within living memory, when people actually dressed up to fly on an airplane.  

I personally hate getting dressed up; but I have to admit, dress codes are a necessity.  Why?  Because an awful lot of people out there are lazy slobs, just like me.  The proof is all around us, especially in a casual state like the one I live in.  I see it at the courthouse every day.  You'd think that, of all places, a courthouse would be a bastion of solemnity and sobriety and formality, and maybe in some places, it is.  You'd think persons who are in trouble with the law would be, well, scared, and wanting to put their best foot forward to convince the judge not to send them to jail.  You'd think that, if you didn't happen to work in the system.  The reality is that many of the people who have business at the courthouse are there so often that they are as comfortable there as they are in their own living room -- or their friend's living room, if they happen to be couch-surfing.  A few people are scared, and do try to put their best foot forward, and do put on a suit and tie.  Others are working stiffs and couldn't get off the construction site or landscaping job early enough to shower and change before court.  But many show up in hooker heels with their boobs popping out of tight, see-through blouses; or looking -- and smelling -- like they just crawled out of a dumpster; or wearing shirts with pictures of marijuana leaves or obscene hand gestures; or -- so help me -- in pajama bottoms.

To return to the Telegraph story: I doubt seriously its suggestion that Trump has greater expectations of his female staffers than his male ones when it comes to appearances, or that he somehow imposes his tastes on the women in ways that he doesn't on the men.  Trump is generally a stickler for cleanliness and neatness.  He's made no bones about the fact that he likes looking at beautiful women.  But he's also commented in his books on the impression well-dressed men have made on him in business dealings.  Donald Trump has written at length about his business dealings and his business philosophies, and it's pretty clear that appearance is not in fact the number one quality he values in other people, particularly when it is not backed up by substance.

Still, there is no getting around the fact that, while they are not the be-all and end-all, appearances do matter, and how you present to the outside world, and how you represent your organization, does matter.  As a man of business, Trump understands this.  It is undeniable that people do judge you and what you represent based on your appearance.  This is where the word "counselor" in my title of "counselor at law" takes on a special meaning.  I have to counsel my clients on their appearance before the court, and especially before a jury.  I have to remind them that appearances do matter, and that how they present themselves creates an impression how seriously they take their situation.  I have to advise them to show up to their jury trial dressed like a citizen -- and I use the word "citizen," to try to convey something of the civic ceremony and solemnity and seriousness and dignity of the process they are involved in.  They don't need to put on a $2,000 three-piece suit; but they do need to be clean and neat and conservative-looking.  Whether they like it or not, they are testifying every minute they sit in front of the jury, even if they never take the stand.  I have never had a client appear in front of a jury in pajama bottoms; and, with the help of God's grace, I never intend to.

Of course, for purposes of his critics, it really doesn't matter what Trump does or says.  If his female staffers went around looking slovenly and slatternly, the media would be getting on his case for hiring people who didn't get the dignity of their position.  As it is, since there is no greater evidence of male chauvinist piggery than expecting women to meet high standards, Trump is being portrayed as a lout and a boor for allegedly telling his female staffers to "dress like women."  Assuming those are his actual words, I think I get what he's driving at.  All his staffers reflect on him, and he wants them to reflect well on him.  Every boss wants that of his people.  He wants them to look dignified and conservative and to show that they are adults and take their work seriously, women included.  He may very well even want them to project excellence for their own sakes.

And to shine all the brighter by contrast with certain other females.

Not dressed like a woman.  Admit it: you don't
want to have to look at this every day any more
than Donald Trump does.

Questions

To all you women who engaged in such shameful conduct over the weekend in D.C., and any similar conduct elsewhere, a few questions*:

1. Why is Madonna, who has spent decades touting herself as a sex object and who offered to administer blow jobs to anyone who would vote for Hillary, one of your spokespersons against the objectification of women?

2. Why, if you want to be thought of as more than a vagina, did you wear big pink vaginas on your heads and/or dress up in vagina costumes?

3. Why, if you want to be thought of as strong and smart and powerful and made of stern stuff, are you melting down over a man's crude remarks from 20 years ago?  Why, if you want to be noticed for your brains rather than your lady parts, did you cheer so loudly over Ashley Judd's utterly incoherent "nasty woman" rant?

4. How many of you, who are now screaming over Donald Trump talking about grabbing pussy, voted for accused rapist, exploiter of White House interns and actual grabber of pussy Bill Clinton?  How many of you voted for him twice?  How many of you continued to support him even after all the disgusting revelations?

5. Why in God's Name did so many of you expose your young children to the visual and auditory obscenity on display at the march?  Why did you make your young children wear vagina hats?

6. How is it that you have not figured out that it is precisely this kind of behavior, which is fit only for insane asylums, that helped motivate so many of the rest of us to use our votes to remove your party from power?

*Not addressed to the mercenaries who swelled the crowds in exchange for filthy lucre.

Repost: He Made a Wasteland Out of Cuba, But It's Okay: He's Deeply Spiritual

The day after the long-awaited death of Fidel Castro is announced seems a good day to re-publish a post that originally went up on February 26, 2007.  

It also seems like a good day to congratulate ourselves on having elected as president a man who comes up with absolutely the most appropriate response to the death of Castro (after praying for his spotted soul and celebrating with cigars and madeira):

Today, the world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades. Fidel Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights.

While Cuba remains a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve.

Though the tragedies, deaths and pain caused by Fidel Castro cannot be erased, our administration will do all it can to ensure the Cuban people can finally begin their journey toward prosperity and liberty. I join the many Cuban Americans who supported me so greatly in the presidential campaign, including the Brigade 2506 Veterans Association that endorsed me, with the hope of one day soon seeing a free Cuba.

At long last, the Washington Post brings us the news the English-speaking world has been waiting for: a joyous end to its long deprivation of the English language translation of Fidel Castro's Cartas del Presidio, the 21 letters the future Maximum Leader (shown here spooning with Nikita Khruschev) penned from the hoosegow in the early 1950s. Gushes Ann Louise Bardach, co-editor of The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro: "[T]his collection of Castro's writings -- virtually the only unofficial writing he ever did -- has become something of a Rosetta Stone for historians, biographers and journalists seeking to understand the man who would become Cuba's ruler for life." She goes on: "The letters amply illustrate Castro's many gifts: his formidable erudition, strategic thinking and natural leadership. They are also an early indicator of his Machiavellian cunning and his genius for public relations. And they dramatize his resentments and rages....What must this intensely proud and private man have felt about the public disclosures of his recent medical travails, in which every inch of his intestines has become fodder for the world media?"

Coming up for air out of our barf bags, we see what it is that passes for deep spirituality in the insane world of Castro and his fawning minions. Immediately after describing how, in 1969, Castro outlawed the celebration of Christmas in Cuba, Barlach, apparently impervious to irony, rhapsodizes: "And yet the letters suggest that Castro was a man of unusual spiritual depth -- and a fervent believer in God." Exhibit A: a polysyllabic-word-laden excerpt from a letter to the father of a fallen revolutionary thug:

I will not speak of him as if he were absent, he has not been and he will never be. These are not mere words of consolation. Only those of us who feel it truly and permanently in the depths of our souls can comprehend this. Physical life is ephemeral, it passes inexorably. . . . This truth should be taught to every human being -- that the immortal values of the spirit are above physical life. What sense does life have without these values? What then is it to live? Those who understand this and generously sacrifice their physical life for the sake of good and justice -- how can they die? God is the supreme idea of goodness and justice.

Castro certainly ought to know about the ephermeral nature of human life, as a life-long specialist in rendering as ephemeral as possible the lives of anybody who gets in his way. As to God being the "supreme idea" of goodness and justice, somehow Barlach misses this clue to Castro's true belief system, pursuant to which it is held that man created God, instead of the other way around. But no matter: at long last, the Left has found a "fervent believer in God" that it can live with -- one who proves his "unusual spiritual depth" by:

-- Being ruled by pride, as when he flew into a rage upon discovering that his wife, Mirta, accepted a modest government stipend in order to keep body and soul together while Castro rotted in prison: "I never imagined that Rafael [his brother-in-law] could be such a scoundrel and that he had become so corrupted; I cannot conceive how he could have so pitilessly sacrificed the honor and name of his sister, exposing her to eternal shame and humiliation...." Meeting life's basic requirements is counterrevolutionary.

-- Learning the wrong lessons in the School of Suffering: "It is a chore to push away the mortal hatreds that seek to invade my heart. I do not know if there is anyone who has suffered more in these past days. It has been a terrible and decisive test, with the capacity of quashing the last atom of kindness and purity in my soul, but I have made a pledge to myself to persevere until death. . . . After such weeping and sweating of blood, what is left for one to learn in the school of sorrow?" Any number of real martyrs could have supplied him with a few ideas.

-- Getting divorced and waging all-out war from the joint for custody of his son: "I do not care one bit if this battle drags on till the end of the world. If they think they can exhaust my patience and, based on this, that I am going to concede -- they are going to find that I am wrapped in Buddhist tranquility and am prepared to reenact the famous Hundred Years War -- and win it! To these private matters, add my reflection on the political panorama -- and it will not be difficult to imagine that I will leave this prison as the man of iron." A paragon of parental love and self-sacrifice.

-- Taking a mistress, Maria Laborde: "The inscription on your card was so beautifully written, I have set my hope on the pleasure of soon receiving a letter from you, with the only variant that you use 'tu' instead of 'usted.' Could this be too much to hope?" Apparently not, since he went on to father an illegitimate child with Laborde.

This is to say nothing of what Castro would go on to do over the course of an ignominious career:

-- Impose Communism on his hapless people and reducing them to a state of grinding poverty

-- Suppress individual liberty, including freedom of worship

-- Threaten the United States with nuclear war

-- Aggress against neighbors, such as the Carribbean island nation of Grenada

-- Imprison and torture political dissidents for decades without a trial

-- Murder political dissidents and other threats to his regime

It's true: the Castro letters from the joint reveal a great deal about the man -- a great deal too much, if his partisans were not too blind to see it.