Are you pro-life? A majority of us are now apparently willing to describe ourselves that way in this country. If that is so, then you really need to heed the words and spread the facts I will discuss here. This is something we have to inform people about (because, after all, the Main Stream Media has uttered not a word). There is an alarming pattern developing in the TYPE of person Obama is appointing as his “Czars”. [Glenn Beck, to his credit, has done a lot this week to inform us about who these people are.]

Obama has made noises about “dialogue” with us but actions and associations speak – in this case, scream – louder than mere words.

First of all, even many Democrats are wondering why so very many czars [34? “more than the Romanovs” in Russia] are being appointed and why the extent of their power and the use of our tax dollars are beyond scrutiny; is it constitutional? There had been only a handful of them before in our history. It smacks of ‘shadow government’. (Perhaps, radicals know Americans would not go along with their plans if they were plainly stated.)

But something worries me most of all: the views that these unassailable appointees have expressed on human life. The main point is that many of them seem to be not just standard “liberals” on life issues. Some liberals might actually be authentically described as “pro-choice”, sincerely though ignorantly supporting what they don’t understand. This is not true of these friends of Obama; they are not just ‘fellow travelers’ or dupes of the Far Left Marxists. No, they ARE the Far Left Marxists! Read the rest of this entry »

In the current brouhaha about the Obama health care proposal and the town hall meeting anger expressed in opposition, it seems like proponents of HR3200 want to use the language of “choice”, “freedom” and the like to support it, while, at the same time, they are labeling opponents as “un-American”. In my previous post, I described the phenomenon of accusing your victims of what you’re doing. Now, I want to talk about how those ideologically and radically opposed to traditional American beliefs and practices are actually using the language of that same authentic Americanism in order to destroy it. They, secretly, or not so secretly, hate it! Do you think this is the first time such a thing has happened? Of course not!

In the First Book of Kings in the Bible, there is some of the best historical narrative and story-telling anywhere. In Chapter 16, we first meet Ahab, King of the newly split northern Kingdom of Israel, someone who is a central figure in the story we will tell. We are told “he did evil in the sight of the Lord more than any of his predecessors.” He introduces the worship of fertility gods and goddesses with their obscene rites; he builds temples to Ba’al. As a result, a drought of three and a half years befalls the land as predicted by Elijah. [This is very symbolic: three and a half is exactly half of SEVEN, the number of Covenant with God. The measuring stick of the people’s promise to God has been, as it were, snapped in two.] Ahab even marries the daughter of the King of Sidon, JEZEBEL!

{We should stop to understand the significance of marrying someone from Tyre or Sidon. The Sidonians were Phoenician pagans. Even other pagans, like the Greeks and Romans, tended to look down upon them [such as those famous Phoenicians at Carthage with whom the Romans fought in the Punic Wars]. They looked down on them because they not only engaged in human sacrifice (how awful compared to gladiatorial games!) but they also specialized in killing children; and their fertility rites involved cult prostitution publicly carried out in their temples. The degradation of their culture was unsettling to others, above all what they did in their homeland around Tyre and Sidon.} Read the rest of this entry »

The picture above shows Milada Horakova, a really dangerous-looking elderly lady who was a Czech dissident put to death after a Soviet show trial simply for disagreeing

This is just a short observation on the White House’s campaign against the citizens’ anger expressed at Town Halls this month about Obama-care.  Many have pointed out in the last 48 hours that this is a page right out of the Saul Alinsky ‘community organizing’ book:  attack, mock and marginalize those who might stand in your way.  That’s true enough.  But its similarity to another Marxist tradition rang a bell with me.

In the Soviet Union, they used to have ‘show trials’.  The victim was already doomed to death or gulag.  The purpose was propaganda.  In virtually all cases there was no truth whatsoever to the allegations, but Marxism is never about truth, it is about power.  What was truly ironic about all this was that the secret state, the Comintern and the KGB actually did all the crimes of which the victims were accused and yet were innocent!  The Soviets were the ones conspiring behind the scenes, intimidating, etc.

This knee-jerk reaction on the part of the White House betrays Marxist muscle memory.  The SHOW TRIALS railroaded people by the dictum ‘Accuse the victim of what you’re doing’ and that’s exactly what they’re trying to do in these TOWN HALLS.

How interesting is it that the ‘community-organizer-in-chief’ and his forces are accusing the ordinary citizens at the town hall meetings of organized, disruptive behavior, of trying to achieve political ends by subversive means.  Isn’t it painfully obvious that this behavior is at the very CORE of the identity of ACORN and all the other far-left activists who engage in ‘community organizing’? Read the rest of this entry »

“Have you considered the meaning of that word ‘worthy’? Weigh it well….I had rather you should be worthy possessors of one thousand pounds honestly acquired by your own labor and industry, than of tens of millions by banks and tricks….I had rather you should be worthy makers of brooms and baskets than unworthy presidents of the United States procured by intrigue, factious slander and corruption” - Letter of John Adams to his grandson

“It is an idea of the Christian religion, and ever has been of all believers of the immortality of the soul, that the intellectual part of man is capable of progressive improvement forever. Where then is the sense of calling the ‘perfectibility of man’ an original idea or modern discovery….I consider [this idea] as used by modern philosophers [e.g. French Enlightenment thinkers] to be mere words without meaning, that is mere nonsense.” – Letter of John Adams to Benjamin Rush

The last month or so, I’ve been enjoying the Pulitzer Prize-winning book on John Adams by David McCullough. [It was recently turned into a highly acclaimed HBO miniseries starring Paul Giamatti with McCullough serving as consultant.] It’s pretty LARGE in more ways than one. It’s funny how examining ‘roots’ helps us figure out what feathered ‘wings’ we’ve got fluttering around our ears these days. There are several correlations between then and now I would like to point out.

JOHN ADAMS

Adams:  Clear-sighted & Accurate Predictor

One thing that has become clear to me is just how far ahead of the curve Adams was in several important ways. It is almost breathtaking how much Adams saw and predicted things correctly, but the flip side of that is just how unappreciated this was at the time. He foresaw that Washington would be THE leader because of his character, morality and determination, and his unique circumstances, despite his lack of experience as a general. He foresaw that the Navy would be the critical factor in the coming War and beyond. Almost alone, he sensed that help should be gotten from France, Holland, Prussia and Portugal without becoming entangled in their political battles; just about everyone else wanted to back some horse or another. Looking back, he was almost certainly THE key figure in pushing “independency”, in getting financial help from Holland and in providing the theoretical backdrop for the New Constitution. He saw that human nature demanded the bicameral legislature and strong executive with an independent court system and that the unicameral model was fraught with enormous danger. He was right about the good outcome of the first in America and the violent, chaotic outcome of the French Reign of Terror in the second. He predicted what happened before it did because his analysis was dead on. And yet, he was smeared as being a little crazy, much too old, a closet royalist (!) and hopelessly out of touch! Read the rest of this entry »

I have been rereading the classic tome “Witness” by Whittaker Chambers recently, using the new 50^th anniversary edition with wonderful forewords by the recently deceased Buckley & Novak.  (It has had a foundational influence on American conservatives and traditionalists like Buckley and Novak and justifiably so.)

Although I have read it several times before, this is the first time I’ve read it since the election and the difference for me is astounding and eye-opening.  Things have been leaping out of the pages at me this time.  There is a lot I could talk about but for the purposes of this essay, there is one basic thing I want to mention.  The point I want to make here is just how ‘Communist’ what Obama has said and done in regard to “Change” in the light of Chambers’ definition.  [Is Obama specifically a Marxist or a Communist? That is another question which I cannot and do not presume to know as a fact.  The points of similarity, however, I think, are obvious.]

First, for purposes of information, let me tell you a little bit about the book and the man.  Many today have little idea who Whittaker Chambers is and why his book is so important, so some comment is owed to the reader.

“Witness” is Chambers’ attempt to explain his bearing ‘witness’ against Alger Hiss as a Communist spy in the famous trials and Congressional contests involving him in the late 40’s.  He presents himself as a ‘witness’ but what kind of ‘witness’ is he?  His answer has nothing to do with grudges, politics per se or even ideology.  He even fails to fit into the classic ‘conservative’ mold.  Basically, his answer is an existential one.  He must witness against Communism not Hiss, against the experiential ideas not the Party.  He MUST do it to be true to himself:  “External freedom is only an aspect of interior freedom. Political freedom, as the Western world has known it, is only a political reading of the Bible. Religion and freedom are indivisible. Without freedom the soul dies. Without the soul there is no justification for freedom.… Hence every sincere break with Communism is a religious experience.” Read the rest of this entry »

A rock dove with a pin through his brain, a ‘pinhead pigeon’

This little essay is about a turn of phrase used by the prophet Hosea in regards to some mistakes being made by the leaders of his day; and it is about the similarity of the mistakes being made by our leadership right now.

In the mid-700’s BC, the chickens – or should I say, the pigeons – were coming home to roost for the Northern Kingdom of Israel. They had been warned about the coming destruction by Amos earlier but they hadn’t changed. Hosea arrived on the scene to plead with even greater urgency, because now the horrible threat of the Assyrian Empire was becoming clear to everyone, not just prophets.

The Assyrians were the first great world empire, centered in Nineveh in Northern Mesopotamia. Their standard modus operandi was the use of intimidation and terror to cow their subjects; they were universally feared and hated and their cruelty was calculated and legendary. [They would eventually get their comeuppance at the hands of the Babylonians.] They were beginning to bully and hector the Kingdom of Israel. What were the leaders of Israel going to do?

Now, the advice of Amos and Hosea was to ‘turn to the Lord’. The cause of the nation’s problems was their lack of identity and social cohesion. Israel’s unity, uniquely, was not purely racial or ethnic; it was centered on a belief in one God and a moral code not mere genetics. In turning to the worship of the fertility gods and goddesses, they were also engaging in the immoral practices associated with them. Since those primitive religions were divorced from moral requirements and did not involve a sense of a personal relationship with their gods (using a magical or instrumental approach) the Israelites began turning away not just from their unifying belief in one God and their common set of moral values, but also from their personal obligations to the needy among them as emphasized so often in the Law of Moses. If what unifies you is weakened, the result is weakness, disunity and chaos. Read the rest of this entry »

Having endured the shocking spectacle of the first two months of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid debacle, another historical parallel occurred to me. This one might not seem so obvious at first, but there is a real lesson to be learned from the latter parts of the reign of the biblical King Solomon.

We have probably all heard of WISE Solomon and the many references to the wisdom of the third king of Israel, the son of David. True enough, Solomon began with humility and asked for wisdom to serve his people and we are told that he was given it. There is much evidence given in the First Book of Kings for this wisdom of his. He wrote many proverbs and he promoted knowledge and arts. His shrewd insight into human motivations and character was revealed when he judged the case of the two women and the baby. He did oversee the creation of the First Temple, one of the most beautiful edifices ever created. He did build a seeming political peace with those around him. The Queen of Sheba traveled from far away to see this astounding wisdom for herself and was suitably impressed.

But there is more to the story than that. God warned Solomon ahead of time of TWO main dangers to him and thus to his people. He must avoid IDOLATRY and the immoral practices associated with it; and he must not OPPRESS his people or put unreasonable burdens on them. If he did not heed this warning, his kingdom would be split at his death.

You would think he would have studiously avoided any hint of these two dangers. But human nature being what it is, very gradual change can fool us. If you put a frog into boiling water, it jumps out, but if you simply put up the heat slowly by degrees, the frog will boil to death without realizing it. What was it that fooled Solomon into his fatal errors? Faith in the power of Government! Read the rest of this entry »

Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables is a massive tome which has gained massive attention because of the blockbuster musical theatre phenomenon that is based upon it. There have been lessons and parallels aplenty drawn from this story but I have another take of my own here.

Here is a thumbnail sketch of this wonderful tale. Jean Valjean, a woodcutter, is imprisoned for stealing a piece of bread. Because of failed escapes he ends up being imprisoned for nineteen years; he reenters the world in a hell of hatred and desperation until the good Bishop of Digne ‘buys his soul’ back for him and commissions him to live for others the rest of his life. Taking a new identity, he becomes a prosperous business man in Montreuil-sur-mer and becomes a pillar of the community through his factories and private charity. Eventually, his secret identity is discovered by the maniacally legalistic public servant Javert. Javert pursues Valjean relentlessly through much of the rest of the story, but Valjean’s mystical moral depth triumphs in the end over the harsh legalism of Javert.

Hugo himself was a ‘liberal’ Bonapartist and that does come out in some places in his novel. However, I think everyone agrees that’s not really what he was pushing or talking about in his classic. Like Dostoevsky and Dickens in that time, he was making a spiritual and cultural point about our need for God in a secular age and how that affects how we treat each other.

As I was recently reading this great work, this was the thing that struck me quite hard. Jean Valjean in his first new incarnation after his escape is a CAPITALIST HERO! He comes up with a great idea. He reworks a marginal process into a truly useful one and sparks the growth of an industry. He provides jobs and prosperity for his town and the entire area. Far from being the stereotypical greedy magnate, he uses his private charity to build a non-governmental framework of community and social support. He promotes a spirit of solidarity while respecting the subsidiarity of all the small groups. The respect and trust he earns propels him into the office of mayor, where he presents us the ideal ‘public servant’ very much in the traditional American model as opposed to the controlling bureaucrat. Read the rest of this entry »

The story of Immaculee Iligabiza is destined to be, I think, one of the defining stories of our time, like that of Anne Frank or Solzhenitsyn. Her story has been featured on “60 Minutes” and PBS; her books “Left To Tell” and “Led By Faith”, as well as her new book on Our Lady of Kibeho in Rwanda have been international bestsellers. I urge you to read them. They will sweep you away; I read each in one day apiece.

Her story is a truly amazing one. She came from a fairly well-to-do, religious Catholic family in a small town in Western Rwanda. Her parents were educators, heavily involved in charities and community-minded. Then the horrible genocide of 1994 began. She got home from college just as the maelstrom of killing began. Her father sent her to the local Protestant pastor in hopes he would hide her from the machete-wielding Hutus bent on wiping out the Tutsis. The pastor did hide her with seven other women in a tiny bathroom (see the picture above) where she spent three months praying and becoming transformed in mind and heart. It is a story replete with miracles and palpable evidence of the Providence of God. Her entire family (save one brother) and most of her friends were wiped out and at several times she really should have met their fate, too. But she feels she was saved for the purpose of warning the world at large about the dangers she saw herself. Her remedy?: Faith, Family, Forgiveness, Fortitude. These are the most powerful forces in the world building a Kingdom that is unshakeable. Read the rest of this entry »

Speaker of the House Pelosi clearly thought she was going to walk into the Vatican and dominate Pope Benedict XVI. Predictions were made how the two would get beyond the narrow pro-life issue and that terrible “micro-obsession with abortion” as Jon O’Brien, head of the so-called “Catholic for Choice” liberal front group put it. Well, according to reports, the ENTIRE 15-minute meeting was a lecture from the Successor to St. Peter to Pelosi, solely devoted to what the Church really teaches about the right to life and the DUTY to defend the unborn.

This tack taken by the Pope is in obvious and conscious contradistinction to the very public & loopy statements of ‘theology’ put out by Pelosi on the topic of human life.

Way to go, Pope! This is the sort of things leaders are SUPPOSED to do! Now it’s time for the U.S, Bishops to follow up, because the media will obviously try to hush this result up. Let’s do our best not to let them, too.

And let’s pray for Pelosi or some other unforeseen stalwart to have a change of heart and step forward on this and all the other important issues. Whittaker Chambers was a sold-out undercover Soviet spy who had given up everything to destroy capitalism and democracy, the sort of fanatic who doesn’t get turned from their path. In his classic autobiography, “WITNESS” it was the party’s demand that he and his wife abort their child which began his slow Exodus to sanity. He was forced to think about what he believed. “I felt like I was joining the losing side,” he commented. Yet, he and others like him helped to turn the seemingly inexorable tide of Marxism. Maybe this meeting will be the sort of shock to Pelosi’s moral system that she needs.

This is another time we need to turn the tide. We need more ‘witnesses’. Can I get a witness?

Here is an excerpt from the Catholic News Agency:

He opposed the Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000 as counsel of record for an amicus brief supporting the American Library Association in a case that challenged mandatory anti-obscenity internet filters in public libraries.

In the 1986 case American Council for the Blind v. Boorstin, he successfully sought a court order forcing the Library of Congress to use taxpayer funds to print Playboy Magazine’s articles in Braille.

Ogden also successfully challenged laws requiring pornography producers to personally verify that models were over 18 at the time their materials were made. According to the Fidelis brief, he argued that the decision would “burden too heavily and infringe too deeply on the right to produce First Amendment protected material.”

In other areas, Ogden has argued for homosexuals in the military and an unlimited abortion license. Read the rest of this entry »

On the very first day in office, the new administration announced it would rescind the ‘Mexico City policy’ Thursday. (This banned tax dollars from going to non-governmental agencies that perform abortions.)

Thursday is the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, when thousands of Pro-Lifers annually descend on Washington for the March for Life.

So, it is “above his pay grade” to decide what human life is, but he can use MY TAX DOLLARS to kill human life without bothering his conscience a wit. That is the logic of Goebbels, not Lincoln or anyone else.

Further, how is this any big “change” from the same old confrontation we’ve always had? This is what Clinton did too with the same “in-your-face” timing. Obama had a great opportunity here. What a chance to be truly different. Sad to say, I knew this would happen. Obama tipped his hand early on that his mind and heart are the most radically pro-abortion of anyone who has ever entered the Office.

Poor John Adams! He said: “I pray heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this house and all that shall hereafter inhabit. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.” It seems the noises Obama made about “change” and ‘reaching out’ do not apply to me and so many like me, and, in my opinion, that is neither honest nor wise.

We stand at a crossroads in America. The government seems to be proposing that all citizens basically lose their faith in capitalism and liberty. Let the government take over the wealth and make it fairer and easier for everyone. Hmmm, sounds familiar. Weren’t the liberal press in the Fifties urging us to follow the example of that benign paragon, the “agrarian reformers” of Communist China and the Soviet Union? Well, in my opinion, we need a hero – or two – or more! We need a lot of good people to step forward. We also need good examples to follow. A very proper patron for this pickle comes to mind: St. Laurence (or Lawrence).

Read the rest of this entry »