Spurious Hope?

John Zmirak's latest on InsideCatholic is a well crafted picture of the nightmare we can expect from the Democratic takeover. He's predicting much of the same thing I am, albeit more skillfully.

Nevertheless there are some interesting dissenting responses to his post about how serious the threat of FoCA is. Here are some excerpts:

The problem with being my age is that you remember too much. For example, I remember the same kind of talk in 1992, which was also supposed to be The End of Civilization as We Know It. Yet, we seemed to survive the next eight years. Some even think we did better in the 90's than in the ought's. In politics, the end of the world seems to be a quadrennial event.

—John Médaille

No doubt we've been used cynically by the Republicans, as Bush has most manifestly shown by disregarding the unilateral actions he could have taken to promote pro-life.

For instance, why are we hearing about FOCA from Catholic sources, but not from McCain or Palin themselves? Their opponent has made this a priority, why haven't they pressed him on that?

For one thing, McCain's friend Joe Lieberman is a FOCA co-sponsor.

For another, perhaps they too realize it has no chance of passing.

From Catholic News Agency, see Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life on FOCA:

“Moreover, it’s so extreme, I really don’t think it would ever reach his desk, even if the Democrats increased their numbers in Congress,” Fr. Pavone said."

—Kevin J Jones

... Obama is no progressive messiah; he's a standard politician like any other. As such, his primary mission in life is not to pass FOCA, but to ensure his own re-election. If passing the law helps, he'll try to do it; if not, he won't.

With that in mind, if the Congress were to pass -- and Obama sign -- the FOCA, there would be such an explosion among voters (the great majority of whom do NOT support FOCA) that all the gains Democrats made with moderates this year would be for naught. The FOCA is great for rallying the Democratic primary base, but like Obama's other promises to the fringe of his party (like filibustering FISA), it will disappear once he takes office... Only to reappear as a 2012 campaign promise.

FOCA is a boon for direct mail fundraising (on both sides), but it isn't going anywhere as legislation.

—Brian Saint-Paul

I'm not so sanguine that they won't pass the bill. The problem is that unlike the Republican elite, who cynically use social issues to promote themselves, the Dems are true believers. "Science" after all sanctions their worldview. Obama's record and public statements show that abortion is important to him.

A couple years ago the legislature of my state had passed a pro-abortion¹ bill and a same-sex "civil union" bill. I took mail-in cards to churches to help people tell our Democratic governor not to sign them into law. One pastor let me put the anti-abortion cards in the church, but not the anti-civil-union cards; he told me that our governor would sign the former but not the latter: he is a compromiser, the pastor assured me. Wrong: the governor signed both bills into law.

The problem is: compromise with what? These people live in like-minded coteries and never hear any opinion but their own reflected back at them. For them to compromise means to do what they hear "everyone else" say should be done: exactly what they want to do (like Bush, but without the advantage of a disagreeing media).

I can only hope they are right that the Dems aren't serious about passing FoCA. Unfortunately they'll probably restrict themselves to their typical anti-democratic (ironic, isn't it?) stealth routine of legislating through liberal Supreme Court justices—we'll incrementally get the full effect of FoCA for two to three decades at least.

Then again, perhaps it would be best for them to pass it. At least then we'd have an honest fight out in the open.

The REAL Hope

A demagogue takes the highest office in the land. We are witnessing the decline of the republic, not unlike the passing of the Weimar Republic that preceded Germany's fall to National Socialist rule.

But is Obama comparable to everyone's favorite dictator? In his own words to his supporters, "You did it [voted me power] because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead." Does he know what "enormity" means? The first definition according to Miriam-Webster is "an outrageous, improper, vicious, or immoral act." Obama says more than he knows. But honestly I don't think the voters understand the enormities he seems intent on enacting (but neither do his supporters seem to care all that much).

He has pledged that the first thing he will do is pass the Freedom of Choice Act (FoCA). With a solid Democratic majority backing him in Congress, the only thing that would prevent him from carrying out that promise is if he exercised a "politician's prerogative" to change his mind. From his (other?) waffling and equivocations during the campaign, it appears he is well practiced in this art. I wouldn't count on that though: from his voting record, there seems to be no dearer cause to the man than abortion and ensuring that a child slated to die under an abortionist will not see the light of day.

FoCA will sweep away any state restrictions or limitations on abortion, such as parental consent, waiting periods, and mandate federal funding of abortions. Further, in enshrining abortion as a fundamental right, it will eliminate the ability of health-care workers to opt out of participating in abortions for reasons of conscience. It will likewise force religious hospitals to perform abortions or shut down.

The silver lining to these radical actions is that it might wake people up. It's one thing when children are killed invisibly in some minority corner of a city¹, but it's quite another when federal troops are closing down, say, Catholic hospitals. (Don't underestimate Obama's slickness and ability to seduce people into swallowing poison.) The shame of this sight will be the just dessert of those of his supporters with some moral quality; the shameless may know no punishment in this life.

Speaking of the Catholic Church, the bishops were much better in speaking up this election cycle. Perhaps that was because statements by Pelosi and Biden treaded on their proper territory (doctrine). But one gets the feeling that it was too little, too late. We're soon be paying for two generations of subtle dissent (since Humanae Vitae), malforming of consciences, and skullduggery (e.g., Cardinal McCarrick's twisting of then-Cardinal Ratzinger's statement on the excommunication of pro-abortion politicians). I'd like to ask those bishops who haven't taken a decisive stand how what they think history will look on them. In the last few decades the left has been spouting the canard that the Church didn't do enough to prevent the Holocaust. It seems to me that the future will look back with deep disapproval on bishops who refrained from speaking up strongly against the killing of over 40 million innocents in our day. May God help them when they face judgment on the last day!

As far as the coming tyranny is concerned, we can thank the current occupant of the White House for setting us up quite nicely. In expanding beyond bounds the power of the imperial Presidency, Bush (along with Cheney) has handed unprecedented power to his successor. "Conservatives" have only themselves to blame. Perhaps they thought someone as "good" as Bush (read: on "their side"—supposedly) would always hold the Presidency? But just as only Nixon could go to China, only a "conservative" could curtail civil liberties without complaints from "conservatives." Years ago I warned my Bush-boosting parents that whatever powers Bush accumulated to the Presidency would be passed on to whoever, say Hillary Clinton... and now we have a President-elect who's far to the left of Hillary!

Bush and Co. certainly accelerated the centralization of power, but it was a road we've been heading down for quite a while. The whole system is broken. The stakes are so high that both major parties have dispatched hundreds of lawyers² to dispute contested votes. The problem is that the stakes shouldn't be so high: no single man should have so much power. (This, along with the large effort required to campaign, is why we can't get decent, sane men to run for President nowadays.)

Robert Royal has some apt words:

Republicans have also been pandering, to a smaller but large enough swath of the population. What both parties have been doing used to be known as demagoguery and was recognized by the Founding Fathers as one of the reasons that democracy historically has been a very unstable form of government. Once popular passions are loosed from the bounds of law, the people usually demand everything from their rulers. This runs counter to the deepest sources of our civilization. Aristotle once remarked that if man were the highest being, politics would be the highest science. But that wise pagan pointed to heavenly beings and other things above us as normative, i.e., politics is limited and subordinate to higher truths.

But our government reflects its people. The fundamental problem is our impatience: we want it all and we want it now. We don't want to wait to be rescued from the suffering that threatens us, so we hand our self-dominion to a man, or to an institution, we think will save us.

What we really need is Hope. Not the worldly sort that Mr. Obama claims to fulfill, but the theological virtue that points only to God. Were Obama's claims true, he would leave us nothing to hope for. Given that they are hollow, we have all the more reason to put our trust in our Creator.

Put not your trust in princes,
in a son of man, in whom there is no help.³

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Notes

1. Planned Parenthood situates its clinics primarily in minority neighborhoods.

2. If only we could dispatch them in the other sense!

3. Ps 146:3.

His Top Priority

Please consider forwarding the link to this spot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0__ctD48nfQ.

Obama Paper Dolls

Well we knew Google had a liberal bias. Here's further evidence.

I searched for "dover books". The first resultant link was to www.doverpublications.com: no surprise, just what I wanted. I clicked the Google link that says

More results from doverpublications.com ».

At the bottom of the first page I find:

Obama Paper Dolls

pad, Dover Home, pad, Store Directory, pad, Customer Service, pad ... Here's a sample of other books in this Dover category pad ...
store.doverpublications.com/0486469786.html - 27k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this

Interesting: what a curiosity! Is Dover campaigning for Obama? I click through and see Dover also has McCain paper dolls.

So it's not that Dover is promoting Obama by printing paper dolls of the Democratic Presidential candidate, but that Google is promoting Obama by selectively linking to the Obama paper dolls over the McCain doll (and "above the fold" so to speak).

Of course, the comeback is "they had to link to one or the other!" My response: no they didn't. Why link to either?¹

Besides it turns out that Dover has a page that lists both products.

Google's personnel are known to be liberal. So what I wonder is: Is this bias the manual result of the human agents involved in selecting which links to present, or is it an automatic result encoded in the software? How systematic is the bias?

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Obama and Abortion

If you're pro-life to any extent and supporting Obama, you might want to think again, as Professor Robert P. George of Princeton explains in this excellent article (h/t Touchstone):

Obama's Abortion Extremism

Here's a good paragraph (and just the tip of the iceberg):

But this barely scratches the surface of Obama's extremism. He has promised that "the first thing I'd do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act" (known as FOCA). This proposed legislation would create a federally guaranteed "fundamental right" to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, including, as Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia has noted in a statement condemning the proposed Act, "a right to abort a fully developed child in the final weeks for undefined 'health' reasons." In essence, FOCA would abolish virtually every existing state and federal limitation on abortion, including parental consent and notification laws for minors, state and federal funding restrictions on abortion, and conscience protections for pro-life citizens working in the health-care industry-protections against being forced to participate in the practice of abortion or else lose their jobs. The pro-abortion National Organization for Women has proclaimed with approval that FOCA would "sweep away hundreds of anti-abortion laws [and] policies."

(And there's MUCH more in the article.) Not that I particularly like McCain, but Obama is simply beyond the pale. Forget the spiel about his associating with terrorists. A friend of mine has a bumper sticker that says

Terrorist have killed 3,000 Americans since 1990.
Abortionists have killed 4,000 Americans since yesterday.²

The most ironic part is that over a third of those abortions are African-American babies. Those number of abortions can only increase (and be funded by your federal tax dollars) if Barak Obama is elected to the White House; he would be backed by the likes of Nancy Pelosi as majority leader in Congress. Here's what Wikipedia says about her abortion stance:

Pelosi supports the legality of abortion. She voted against the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003 and earlier attempts at similar bans. She voted in favor of the 1998 Abortion Funding Amendment, which allowed the use of district funds to promote abortion-related activities.

She has also voted in favor of using federal funds to perform abortions in overseas military facilities, against parental notification when a minor is transported across state lines for an abortion, and in favor of providing funding for organizations working overseas that promote or perform abortions and abortion-related activities.

And as Dr. George makes clear, Obama is even more extreme on this issue!

Paper dolls will never replace those aborted children.

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Note

1. One might also ask where the dolls for the minor-party candidates are. But then it's hard to blame Dover for following demand.

2. The bumper sticker points out the stupidity of prioritizing the fight against terrorism over the fight against abortion. Unfortunately, this is the stupidity (or the major example of stupidity) that Republican Party has come to indulge under the Presidency of George W. Bush (or maybe the Vice Presidency of Dick Cheney?). That McCain is pointing to Obama's Ayers ("terrorist") association instead of his abortion extremism (which goes against the 90% of Americans who think abortion should be restricted in some way) only shows the extent to which McCain is brainwashed by the military-industrial culture of death and blind to the real interest of his country. I'll vote for McCain, but only because I live in a "battleground state" that I don't want Obama to win.

The Gimme Generation

It seems that the federal government is getting into the "business" of bailing people out of their troubles. First there were Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, then AIG, then the banking industry $700 billion (which may not be "enough"!). Then the state of California asked for $7 billion to pay for its profligacy. And now it seems the commonwealth of Massachusetts wants its turn at the federal trough.

I guess those initial outlays were like blood in the water. Now everyone wants a bailout.

How bad is the economy? Is it really necessary for the government to step in to "save the day"?

These are complicated questions. There's a lot of psychology involved in economics, and people's expectations are sometimes unreasonable. I suspect that the more answerable question is how we got into this mess in the first place.

The big problem is that the generation in charge, the Boomers, was raised with the expectation that everything would be provided for them.¹ In other words, they were raised to be irresponsible. And indeed, of the two Boomer Presidents this country has had (Clinton and Bush II), both have been disasters.² True to their heritage, the people now in charge of our country (not just the President or the government) have bequeathed to their children an enormous government debt and a profoundly troubled economy.

As the Onion once put it,

"The selfishness that has been a hallmark of the Boomers will continue right up to the very end, as they force millions of younger Americans to devote an inordinate amount of time and resources to their care, bankrupting the Social Security system in the process," Clausewitz said. "In their old age, the Boomers will actually manage to take as much from the next generation as they did the previous one, which fought WWII so that their Boomer children could have Philco TVs and Davy Crockett air rifles."

This means it is up to younger generations to shoulder the additional burden that their selfish forebears have sloughed. The temptation is to envy the material prosperity the Boomers have enjoyed at the expense of others. The Psalmist had a similar experience and began to envy the worldly success of the unjust people of his day:

But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had well nigh slipped.

For I was envious of the arrogant,
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

For they have no pangs;
their bodies are sound and sleek.

They are not in trouble as other men are;
they are not stricken like other men.

Therefore pride is their necklace;
violence covers them as a garment.³

Their eyes swell out with fatness,
their hearts overflow with follies.

They scoff and speak with malice;
loftily they threaten oppression.

They set their mouths against the heavens,
and their tongue struts through the earth.

Therefore the people turn and praise them;
and find no fault in them.

And they say, "How can God know?
Is there knowledge in the Most High?"

Behold, these are the wicked;
always at ease, they increase in riches. (Ps 73:2-12)

The temptation is to view the worldly success of others and one's lack of success with a sense of frustration, as if this failure were some sort of penalty for keeping virtue:

All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence.

For all the day long I have been stricken,
and chastened every morning. (Ps 73:13-14)

But the Psalmist soon recognized his error and sees that the unjust have no lasting happiness in their possessions:

If I had said, "I will speak thus,"
I would have been untrue to the generation of thy children.

But when I thought how to understand this,
it seemed to me a wearisome task,

until I went into the sanctuary of God;
then I perceived their end.

Truly thou dost set them in slippery places;
thou dost make them fall to ruin.

How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors!

They are like a dream when one awakes,
on awaking you despise their phantoms.

The solution is not to emulate those whose success you envy, but to adhere to the Lord and His justice: that is where real happiness lies.

When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,

I was stupid and ignorant,
I was like a beast toward thee.

Nevertheless I am continually with thee;
thou dost hold my right hand.

Thou dost guide me with thy counsel,
and afterward thou wilt receive me to glory.

Whom have I in heaven but thee?
And there is nothing upon earth that I desire besides thee.

My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever.

For lo, those who are far from thee shall perish;
thou dost put an end to those who are false to thee.

But for me it is good to be near God;
I have made the Lord GOD my refuge,
that I may tell of all thy works. (Ps 73:15-28)

For God alone my soul waits in silence,
from him comes my salvation. (Ps 62)

Just because the Boomers are unjust doesn't mean that the rest of us have to be. We should be thankful for this opportunity to display virtue (whose lack got us into this mess). It won't be easy, but no real challenge ever is, and without challenges, how can one grow closer to God?

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Some excellent commentary on the financial crisis here.

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Notes

1. Notably raised by the so-called Greatest Generation. Maybe not so great after all!

2. Partially mitigated disasters. What saved Clinton from being an unmitigated disaster was the other party controlling Congress. What that saved Bush from unmitigated disasterhood was the moral debt he owed to social conservatives.

3. "Violence" - when one will not discipline one's self, one has to take it out on others, for example, the unborn, and people in other countries.

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"Long-Awaited Baby Boomer Die-Off To Begin Soon, Experts Say," The Onion 35.02 (January 20, 1999).

Always entertaining: Baby Boomer Death Counter

God Is Not My Opposite

This was in last month's Magnificat (p. 347) and I thought it worth reproducing since it speaks to the fallacy of gnosticism and the need to look to nature to understand God.

A thing is not true just because I need it, for need does not create truth, but only directs us to it. Or am I forbidden to ask whether the miracle of the Incarnation is true? Must I even believe it just because it is not true for my critical thought? And is faith therefore essentially a conflict and contradiction? That could only be if God were not merely something different from me, but something essentially opposite; if my whole being were sin. Then I should in truth possess in myself no means of access to God. I should be darkness unpenetrated by God's light; I should be a corpse, and his life flowing round me. But am I a corpse? Am I only sin? No, I am not. I have sin, but I am not sin. I have death in me, but I am not dead. I have contrariety in me, but not pure negation, not absolute contradiction. Just for that reason my thought, for all its stumbling, can discern the problem of my being; and my will, however much it may waver, can desire the removal of my contrarieties in the God-Man. So faith in the Incarnation is not a miraculous flower growing in me without root; it has its root in my natural capacity for God, in what the theologians call a potentia obedientialis, and it is evoked therein by God. Therefore faith does not come to me without my co-operation. I must hold my soul ready for the living God, and I must hearken to him when he gives testimony of himself.

—Father Karl Adam, Christ Our Brother, trans. Dom Justin McCann (Collier Books, 1959).

The Ideological Subtext to the Financial Crisis

Yesterday I talked to an old libertarian banker friend. He dislikes the whole idea of a bailout, but reluctantly admits that the economy probably needs it in order to slow and contain the crisis. By his estimate, it would take the economy 20-30 years to sort itself out without the bailout. (Reasoning: it took us 3-4 years to get over the tech-bubble bursting, and those were goods that were only to last 3-4 years. In the present crisis, homes are durable goods, lasting 20-30 years. I'm not entirely sure I buy this argument, as it seems that houses resell better than computers, and people don't necessarily own a house for that long.)

Much more interestingly, he observes that some of the economic weakness originates in way that banks were ideologically forced to make loans to people with bad credit. Community groups (including the ACORN group with which Obama worked) sued banks for not making enough loans to racial minorities.¹ The banks weren't singling out these people; it's just that minorities tend not to have as good credit (doesn't make them bad people). Since banks couldn't have special lower standards only for minorities, they had to lower their standards for all loans. Thus they were forced by "community" groups to make bad loans.

My friend estimates that these loans amount to about a tenth of the current economic crisis.

Of course people with bad credit who get a loan they can't handle end up much worse off when they default on the loan than if they had no loan in the first place. Ironically the real victims of this liberal strategy were these people they were ostensibly helping. This is similar to the students who get into a prestigious college, not because they are qualified, but simply because of institutionalized racial preferences. How does it help them when they have to drop out?

Once again we have an affirmative-action type of plan using heavy-handed tactics to ruin things for everyone, but especially for the people they were supposedly helping. For liberals, the motivation seems to be not so much actually helping people, but feeling like they are helping people.

Notes

1. Hopefully this doesn't sound like a white supremacist argument. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and unfortunately liberals seemed to be determined to make them right more often.

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Update (Oct 2): More on the mortgage crisis and the Obama connection here.