I gave twenty-five bucks to Scott Brown’s senatorial campaign yesterday. I rarely donate to political campaigns, since we usually blow our money on extravagances such as food and chidren’s clothing (can’t they stop growing, at least for a year or so?) I’m quite sure I’ve never given money to a candidate who wasn’t completely pro-life. I don’t think I’ve ever donated to an out-of-state campaign, either.
But this seems important. Brown might be ostensibly “pro-choice,” but on life issues that are likely to come up in the Senate in the near future (the “conscience clause,” Federal funding for abortion, partial-birth abortion) he is on the right side. Even more than that, he has promised — in explicit terms — to fight the monstrous health-care legislation that is oozing its way through Congress.
I’m sure most pro-lifers in Massachusetts are planning to vote for Brown on Tuesday. For those who aren’t, do you honestly think that if the Federal government regulates all aspects of our health care that our country will be more friendly to life? Nonsense. Look at Western Europe — not, as many conservatives do, because of the quality of their health care. No, look at how they treat their own population. Once a national government starts taking care of its citizens like pampered children, it will start regarding its citizenry as a burden, and will take steps to lighten that burden. A look at Europe’s birthrates will help confirm that theory.
President Obama is a committed statist, believing that there is no area of human life outside the government’s regulatory sphere. Statism is the political ideology of the cuture of death, squeezing out the family, religion, businesses, private associations, and all the other institutions of free peoples. Absurdly, he spoke out today in the name of independence, saying that Attorney General Coakley would represent the people of Massachusetts over her party.
This is one of Obama’s favorite verbal ploys: accusing opponents of something he himself is doing, or saying he isn’t doing X, when he is indeed doing X. The whole reason he was in Massachusetts was to support a member of his own party’s senatorial campaign, so she would vote in lockstep with the 59 other members of the Democrat caucus. If he had promised to oppose the health care bill, or any other item on Obama’s agenda — which would signify something like independence — you can bet that he wouldn’t have made the trip.
“…[I]t’s easy to say you’re independent, and you’re going to bring people together, and all that stuff, until you actually have to do it,” said Obama at the 14:50 mark in his speech. He should know, since he’s managed to alienate virtually all Republicans since his inauguration a year ago. But maybe that’s not giving him enough credit. The polls tell us that independent voters across the U.S. oppose Obama by a 2-1 ratio, and that Massachusetts independents are going for Brown by a similar proportion. So it looks like Obama is uniting the country after all, just not in the way he had hoped.
Author: Eric Johnson
The apostle from Cosmopolitanistan
We now have, for the first time in our history, a non-American president. President Obama has stated explicitly that he does not believe that America has a special role in the world. The bedrock premise of his foreign policy is that America’s interactions with the world over the last 100 years have been mostly venal, stupid, and corrupt, and that his task is to repair the damage. His domestic policies assume that, contrary to the explicit proscriptions of the Constitution, the Federal government should make all meaningful decisions in our national life, and that the great flaw in our political history is our collective skepticism toward state power as a means for enacting perfect justice.
Until now, Thomas Jefferson was the closest we have had to a non-American president, with his Francophilia and his deep bows toward the Enlightenment goddesses of Reason and Liberty, he often sounding as if he loved the idea of America more than America herself. But once he was president of the United States, he acted his part vigorously, waging war against the Barbary Pirates, authorizing the Louisiana Purchase, declining to abolish the First Bank of the United States, etc. No one could doubt that by the end of his life he was immensely proud of the nation he helped build.
Patriotic pride was not discernable in the tone or substance of President Obama’s speech to Muslims yesterday in Cairo. Characteristically, any praise for his country was invariably paired with criticism. When he was running for office, he did not always talk this way. Indeed, he professed “a deep and abiding faith in the country that I love”:
As my wife said after watching that commercial, “You’d think he was a conservative.” That material was for the yokels in the swing states, the ones who didn’t like George Bush much, but weren’t too sure about this Barack Obama guy. What was his middle name, again?
Some call President Obama’s perspective “post-American,” but that isn’t quite right. The American project isn’t finished yet, as there are still tens of millions of people — a majority, one hopes — who still believe in its goodness. His speech assumed his favorite persona, that of the calm, reasonable judge sitting far above the squabbling, petty litigants. This is moral equivalence of a very high order, where praise for his country is paired invariably with criticism, and often occurs in the future tense. Its appeal is rooted in our innate desire for transcendance, which is not satisfied by our relentlessly horizontal culture and its human-centered churches.
Obama plays to this need, and it is why people call him a “leader” even though his political program is thoroughly unoriginal (all of his ideas are at least 40 years old), and he has neither fought nor sacrificed for an unpopular cause. He sounds like a leader (though his actual words are apparently cribbed from high-school valedictory speeches), with his forceful emphasis on certain words, followed by the…pause…for dramatic effect. Plus, everything is clear to Mr. Obama, even in the murky Middle East:
…let me speak as clearly and as plainly as I can…
In Ankara, I made clear…
But let us be clear…
I have made it clear to the Iraqi people…
…the obligations that the parties have agreed to under the Road Map are clear…
I’ve made it clear to Iran’s leaders…
But it is clear to all concerned…
So let me be clear…
But this much is clear…
Now let me be clear…
Then there are the admonitions, always delivered in the imperative mood, with 32 “musts” in all, e.g.:
And this cycle of suspicion and discord must end….
…we must say openly to each other…
There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other…
…partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is…
So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners to it. Our problems must be dealt with through partnership, our progress must be shared. [hat trick!]
We must face these tensions squarely….
…we must never alter or forget our principles…
Palestinians must abandon violence…
The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern…
Hamas must put an end to violence…
…Israelis must acknowledge…
…Israel must also live up to its obligation…
Obama lectures Muslims on how they “must” behave, not just towards non-Muslims, but toward each other as well: “…fault lines must be closed among Muslims as well, as the divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence, particularly in Iraq.” As if the two great schools of Muslim thought are founded on bigotry, and not differing views of eschatology, the human person, and the constitution of their holy scriptures. But perhaps the divide between Sunni and Shia is easily bridged, and the Islamic world has living with a tragic misconception for the last 13 centuries. Thus, they should be thankful that Barack Obama has finally shown them the “clear” path that they “must” follow.
It might be easier for Muslims to hear these words, because Mr. Obama went beyond politeness toward Islam and flirted with endorsement. Five times he referred to the “holy Quran,” not just “the Quran.” “…I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed,” he said. Not “originated.” Revealed. As in, from God. He (Obama, not God) related “the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed — peace be upon them — joined in prayer,” using the standard Muslim honorific for Mohammad, just like a pious student in a madrassah. Throughout the entire speech, Mr. Obama spoke as if he was a fellow Muslim, or at least a crypto-Muslim.
Why does he adopt this discursive mode? Is he, as some writers murmur on the Internet, a Muslim in disguise trying to take down Christian America from within? No. He is the apostle from Cosmopolitanistan, a realm that exists in the minds of the international, globalized elite. In Cosmopolitanistan, religions, nations, families, corporations, associations, and every other form of human organization lie prostrate beneath the boots of the technocratic state.
The elites who run Cosmopolitanistan are immune to the temptations that come with wielding great power over other men. To them, all disputes can be resolved through talking, never violence. The citizens’ primary duty is to submit completely to their masters. Anyone who disagree will be treated with contempt and shoved aside. Apostles from Cosmopolitanistan dominate the staffs of international organizations, prestigious universities, and large news organizations, and it is no coincidence that Obama is nearly universally admired in those circles.
Many Americans do not want to live in Cosmopolitanistan, and for that matter, neither do many Muslims. That is why President Obama sounds like an American when addressing Americans, and a Muslim when addressing Muslims. He knows he “must” talk on their level to overcome their intransigence. To Obama, the Americans who wish to guard their personal liberties which originate from God, and the Muslims who desire to conduct themselves rightly before God, are indulging in petty, self-indulgent “distractions,” to use one of his other favorite words. His apostolic mission is to get both groups to abandon their beliefs — or, if that proves difficult, to cease agitating for their beliefs, so Cosmopolitanistan’s construction can speedily proceed.
Vote for the Incredibles
Okay, it’s been a long time since I posted anything to Catholic Light. A really long time — seven months, according to the blog software. I guess I got out of the blogging habit, and I’ve been rather disgusted with the state of affairs in the world. That’s something that normally inspires me to write, but this time it’s had the opposite effect. I do plan to write more frequently.
Even though I’ve been gone for a while, I have a request. A couple of offices in my building had a Halloween contest, and several of my colleagues and I dressed accordingly:
(click to enlarge)
Not to pat ourselves on the back, but it takes courage to dress in tights when you’re working for the Nameless Entity. You can encourage this by voting in the American Apparel costume contest. Just go to the page here…
http://store.americanapparel.net/halloweenview.html?e=737
…then click the “Start Scoring” link in the upper right. You’ll have to vote for a bunch of lame costumes before you get to ours. When you vote for ours, I don’t want to tell you what to do — just listen to your conscience. (Hint: your conscience wants to rate the costumes as a “5”.)
The superheroes thank you for your support.
The senseless use of language threatens us all
Some words pour forth automatically whenever a loss of life occurs, especially when it is unexpected. “I’m so sorry,” you tell a colleague whose loved one has just died. “Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.” During those times, you simply reach for the words closest to your mind; anything more complicated would seem insincere or calculated. Heartfelt, lengthy expressions of condolence are for later occasions, when the grieving person can absorb them.
But because these words spring readily to mind, they reveal some disturbing truths about how we view plainly evil deeds — that is, willfully malicious acts committed against innocent people. These words have been ubiquitous in the last two days. The first word is “tragedy,” which is an exceptionally polite term. A tornado destroying a house and killing an entire family is a tragedy, an event beyond human agency. Shooting strangers in their heads is mass murder.
The second word is “senseless,” as in “senseless violence,” “senseless acts,” etc. By this, people cannot mean “unconscious,” as if the Virginia Tech murderer was sleepwalking. And they cannot possibly mean “foolish” or “stupid,” as if the murderer made a careless series of errors. They must be saying that it is meaningless, the third definition of “senseless.” That cannot possibly be true, and if we believe that these murders had no meaning, we will maintain the conditions that produce these “tragedies.”
Right after the “tragic events” of September 11, 2001, an artist — possibly a composer or conductor — commented that the whole thing was a spectacularly effective work of performance art. He was roundly lambasted for his insensitivity, and he publicly apologized for insensitivity. (I’ll be grateful if anyone can identify this man, because my googling skills are failing me.)
But the guy shouldn’t have backed down, because he was onto something. The September 11 hijackers were not collectively insane, and destroying lives and property were the means to an end: they were trying to convey a meaning, or rather a densely packed series of meanings. They hated America and decadent West for its moral decadence; they hated capitalism for undermining religious purity in Muslim countries; they wished to show the American population how vulnerable it was to the holy warriors of Islam.
We can debate whether the hijackers meant all of those things, and how many other things they meant. But we cannot possibly call their actions “senseless,” as they were invested with deeply symbolic meaning. For one thing, al Qaeda’s leadership chose the World Trade Center as a target because it stood for America’s leading role in the global economy. Knocking down the buildings and murdering thousands of workers didn’t stop the U.S. from trading with the rest of the world, and the Islamofascists knew it wouldn’t. What they wanted to do was announce themselves, to force America to listen to their concerns, and show that they were willing to commit seriously “transgressive” acts to shock their audience into reacting. Just like performance artists.
Likewise, the Virginia Tech murderer, Seung-Hui Cho, intended to make some kind of statement. If the initial reports are correct, he murdered a freshman girl out of unrequited love. Like most crimes of passion, he probably saw this as vengence, the righting of an injustice, and it had no larger meaning. (I hope it goes without saying that I do not agree with his reasoning.) But how can one explain his subsequent murder of 30 students whom he probably never knew, except as self-expression run amok? Cho wrote an explanatory note about his killing spree, and we will know what it says in the coming days or weeks. The note might not be coherent or consistent, but it will almost certainly say that he was making a point about…something.
In that, the murders themselves and the national “outpouring of grief” are two sides of the same coin. I don’t mean the families of the victims, nor Virginia Tech students and alumni, nor Blacksburg residents, nor anyone else directly affected. I mean people who see a horrifying news event presented through the mass media, and feel the compulsion to express themselves through MySpace and other social networking sites, as well as other media. Our cultural ethos says that every emotion, no matter how synthetic or contrary to reality, can (and probably should) be broadcast to the world. Respectful silence in the face of devastating loss is no longer acceptable. Now the focus must be shifted from the victims’ families and loved ones — the ones who truly do need comfort and support — to those who merely observe as voyeurs.
Mass murders cannot be entirely attributed to a culture of narcissistic self-expression, as there are other contributing factors, and each killing spree is unique. But the culture plays a catalytic role, when it should be encouraging self-correction and self-restraint. Changing the culture is the only way to diminish if not eliminate these kinds of mass murders, but in a world with YouTube and blogs, self control will be a tough sell.
Anytime a politician does anything for “the children,” keep an eye on your wallet
Anong the more nauseating moments in Nancy Pelosi’s coronation yesterday was this:
“For our daughters and granddaughters, today we have broken the marble ceiling,” she said. “For our daughters and our granddaughters now, the sky is the limit.”
I do not want my daughters to turn out like Nancy Pelosi, or any other liberal female pseudo-Catholic politician. I did not think their future happiness hinged upon the success of any politician.
And even though Pelosi says that Congress will now consider “the children” in all of its business, I’m a little nervous. For our family, the only things I want from any government is to 1) let us raise our kids in the way we see fit; and 2) let us keep as much of our money as possible. Last year, we paid something like $15,000 in Federal, state, and local taxes. That’s more than we spent on groceries, or anything else except our mortgage. Somehow, I don’t think helping “the children” in those two areas will be on Speaker Pelosi’s agenda.