Just had to post this:
Yesterday on my way to breakfast at the Original Pancake House, I passed a homeless guy at the corner of the parking lot, with a sign that read “Vote Obama, I need the money.”My waiter was fast, efficient and courteous, but I could not help but notice the “Obama ’08” tee shirt.So then I told him I was going to play the part of a “loving and caring government” [quoting the waiter back at him] and redistribute his $3 tip to someone that I deemed more in need — and I pointed out the window to the homeless guy outside. My waiter stood there in disbelief and angrily stormed away.
Read the whole thing here
From WendyMcElroy.com, via The Young Fogey
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Patriotism Firmly Rooted in Mid-Air
I am like many self-styled American "conservatives" in this regard: I am extremely impatient of bumper stickers and signs that say "God Bless The World." I know what they're trying to say: God's love encompasses the whole world, and we must not presume to think for one moment that God's providential care is limited to one nation. I reply with a hearty, affirmative "Amen" to this. But I'm afraid there is a more sinister side to this position that these well-meaning folk miss, and miss at their peril. They run the risk of falling victim to an abstract sort of "love for humanity," a solidarity with the "human race" which, C.S. Lewis reminds us, can easily turn into an excuse not to love anyone at all. Stalin and Pol Pot were "lovers of humanity," yet had no qualms sending a good number of indivuduals to their deaths simply because they did not conform to their ideal of "humanity." This is the temptation that befalls all "lovers of humanity"-a destructive love of an abstraction. Love of country forms the basic and and necessary chain of affections which tie a person to a family, a community, and a nation, without which love of the human family is, if not impossible, very, very difficult to attain. How can you love "humanity" without loving particular people? You learn this through the complex web of relationships, beginning with family, extending to one's community, city, village, etc., to the love of one's country, and on to the world.
But I must also wonder about the "good American" who plasters his bumper with "God bless America," the Statue of Liberty prominently displayed bearing the "torch of freedom," stars and stripes fluttering everywhere. What, in fact, is this fellow's love and allegiance? Is it to an actual country, with its complex web of communities, history, traditions, local customs, and shared experiences? Or is it to an abstraction? If you ask a typical "patriotic" American why he has a devotion to his country, the usual answer you are likely to get will include the words "liberty," "freedom," "rights," etc. To him, America is an idea, a concept, which encompasses the "ideals" of liberty, freedom and justice for all.
So is it "ideals" to which the typical American patriot locates his devotion? The American patriot's affections become directed not so much to a place, a community, a nation with history and tradition which mark its own uniqueness, but to a set of abstractions. Do you ever hear any mention of his love for the American people? Do you ever hear him express a love for his city? Of his neighbors? Does he even know his neighbors?
The American notion of patriotism, I'm afraid, is closely akin to that of Imperial Rome's notion of itself as something more than a city on the banks of the Tiber. This is captured in the concept of Roma Aeterna, Eternal Rome, a reality that exists in the mind of the gods (it ws usually figured in coins as a lady seated on a throne, holding the sun and the moon-an emblem of Rome's mastery of the world). For the typical Roman Rome meant order, civilization, light, glory, peace, over against the barbaric hordes that hem her in, and which she must subdue. There was a sense of mission associated with this, as Romans were to subdue the world around her, bringing the light of Roman civilization to every tribe and people that was benighted by the darkness of barbarity and lack if civitas. This sense of "Roman-ness" is captured by that indefagitable celebrant of the new Augustan order, Virgil, who, in his Aeneid, has the central hero, Aeneas, sojourn through the Underworld in Book Six, where he meets his dead father, Anchises. Up to this point, Aeneas (often called pius-"dutiful"), he seems to stumble a great deal, at one point being tempted by the love of Dido to stay in what would eventually become Carthage instead of moving on at the gods' insistence to build the city of Rome. Anchises shows him a "parade" of endless prominent Romans that would be the lions of his race: Cato, Marcellus, Quirinus, Fabius Maximus, etc., and gives him this charge: "Roman, remember by your strength to rule Earth's peoples-for your arts are to be these: To pacify, to impose the rule of law, To spare the conquered, battle down the proud." (Aeneid, [trans. Robert Fitzgerald] New York: Vintage Classics, 1990 Book VI:1151-1154) Rome is thus defined as an entity whose divine mandate was to bring peace, "impose the rule of law," thus bringing a settled life among the world's barbarians.
I think Richard Harris' protrayal of Marcus Aurelius captures the essence of what Roma Aeterna was supposed to express. In a private and candid conversation with the central hero, Maximus, he expresses a notion of Rome he calls "something you uttered only in a whisper," a concept, an idea, that if you uttered it above a whisper, it would disappear.There is a problem when a nation becomes nothing more than an idea, no matter how noble or lofty. It is only that-an idea, a phantom with no rootedness in community, history, and culture.
Freedom, rights, and liberty are great things, but unless they are rooted in natural law, and understood to be mediated through historical and cultural experiences that provide a cohesiveness that binds a people together, then they will forever remian nice ideas that have no relevance to human experience. Edmund Burke's criticism of the French Revolution was precisely directed at its commitment to liberte, egalite, fraternite, having destroyed its existing constitution-the French monarchy, and its institutions-thus cutting itself off from its own history.
I saw two cars last week-on the same day-one bearing the bumper sticker "God Bless the World," and another "God Bless America." The drivers of these two cars have different allegiances, but in the end, I'm afraid, both are equally guilty of a profound allegiance to abstractions.
But I must also wonder about the "good American" who plasters his bumper with "God bless America," the Statue of Liberty prominently displayed bearing the "torch of freedom," stars and stripes fluttering everywhere. What, in fact, is this fellow's love and allegiance? Is it to an actual country, with its complex web of communities, history, traditions, local customs, and shared experiences? Or is it to an abstraction? If you ask a typical "patriotic" American why he has a devotion to his country, the usual answer you are likely to get will include the words "liberty," "freedom," "rights," etc. To him, America is an idea, a concept, which encompasses the "ideals" of liberty, freedom and justice for all.
So is it "ideals" to which the typical American patriot locates his devotion? The American patriot's affections become directed not so much to a place, a community, a nation with history and tradition which mark its own uniqueness, but to a set of abstractions. Do you ever hear any mention of his love for the American people? Do you ever hear him express a love for his city? Of his neighbors? Does he even know his neighbors?
The American notion of patriotism, I'm afraid, is closely akin to that of Imperial Rome's notion of itself as something more than a city on the banks of the Tiber. This is captured in the concept of Roma Aeterna, Eternal Rome, a reality that exists in the mind of the gods (it ws usually figured in coins as a lady seated on a throne, holding the sun and the moon-an emblem of Rome's mastery of the world). For the typical Roman Rome meant order, civilization, light, glory, peace, over against the barbaric hordes that hem her in, and which she must subdue. There was a sense of mission associated with this, as Romans were to subdue the world around her, bringing the light of Roman civilization to every tribe and people that was benighted by the darkness of barbarity and lack if civitas. This sense of "Roman-ness" is captured by that indefagitable celebrant of the new Augustan order, Virgil, who, in his Aeneid, has the central hero, Aeneas, sojourn through the Underworld in Book Six, where he meets his dead father, Anchises. Up to this point, Aeneas (often called pius-"dutiful"), he seems to stumble a great deal, at one point being tempted by the love of Dido to stay in what would eventually become Carthage instead of moving on at the gods' insistence to build the city of Rome. Anchises shows him a "parade" of endless prominent Romans that would be the lions of his race: Cato, Marcellus, Quirinus, Fabius Maximus, etc., and gives him this charge: "Roman, remember by your strength to rule Earth's peoples-for your arts are to be these: To pacify, to impose the rule of law, To spare the conquered, battle down the proud." (Aeneid, [trans. Robert Fitzgerald] New York: Vintage Classics, 1990 Book VI:1151-1154) Rome is thus defined as an entity whose divine mandate was to bring peace, "impose the rule of law," thus bringing a settled life among the world's barbarians.
I think Richard Harris' protrayal of Marcus Aurelius captures the essence of what Roma Aeterna was supposed to express. In a private and candid conversation with the central hero, Maximus, he expresses a notion of Rome he calls "something you uttered only in a whisper," a concept, an idea, that if you uttered it above a whisper, it would disappear.There is a problem when a nation becomes nothing more than an idea, no matter how noble or lofty. It is only that-an idea, a phantom with no rootedness in community, history, and culture.
Freedom, rights, and liberty are great things, but unless they are rooted in natural law, and understood to be mediated through historical and cultural experiences that provide a cohesiveness that binds a people together, then they will forever remian nice ideas that have no relevance to human experience. Edmund Burke's criticism of the French Revolution was precisely directed at its commitment to liberte, egalite, fraternite, having destroyed its existing constitution-the French monarchy, and its institutions-thus cutting itself off from its own history.
I saw two cars last week-on the same day-one bearing the bumper sticker "God Bless the World," and another "God Bless America." The drivers of these two cars have different allegiances, but in the end, I'm afraid, both are equally guilty of a profound allegiance to abstractions.
Lisa Bohm-Mottesi
Of your charity, please keep in your prayers Lisa Bohm-Mottesi, a young wife and mother of three. Her husband, Marcelo Mottesi, is a chidhood friend of mine. On June 21, 2008, she was diagnosed with Acute Leukemia (AML), resistant to traditional chemotherapy.
She desparately neeeds a bone marrow transplant, and a suitable match has not been found in the National Registry. Please storm heaven with your prayers, for her, Marcelo and the three children. If you can help by participating in a marrow drive, call 1-800-Marrow-2.
Thank you!
She desparately neeeds a bone marrow transplant, and a suitable match has not been found in the National Registry. Please storm heaven with your prayers, for her, Marcelo and the three children. If you can help by participating in a marrow drive, call 1-800-Marrow-2.
Thank you!
Monday, October 20, 2008
Junia: Suppressed Woman Apostle?
Not!
A review of E.J. Epp's Junia-The First Woman Apostle (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2005), by John Hunwicke in Touchstone
Epp is honest-It was the liberals who changed her into a him.
A review of E.J. Epp's Junia-The First Woman Apostle (Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2005), by John Hunwicke in Touchstone
Epp is honest-It was the liberals who changed her into a him.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The Fool in His Heart
Or, Why Atheism is Irrational and Agnosticism is not.
By Father Gregory:
Why Atheism is irrational and Agnosticism is not. Why Theism is established both with reason and beyond reason.My definition of atheism – the categorical denial of the existence of a deity or deities.My definition of agnosticism – the inability to be able to know one way or the other whether or not a deity or deities exist.Under these definitions an atheism committed to positivism will regard an agnostic as a cowardly, misguided or delusional atheist. No matter, I am sticking with these definitions as the claim that positivism is a sufficient description of reality and reality talk is a self defeating position .... bound that is to undermine itself.So why is atheism (thus defined) irrational?What is “irrational” though? ... Irrationality is the absence of rationality. What is rationality? Rationality is the conjunction of logical thinking and evidence by the mapping of the former to the latter in a model building process.Why then is atheism the violation of such conjunctional mapping?Consider the supposed evidences for theism. One might be the adaptation of life to survival in a given environment. Life has tenacity. To what do we attribute this tenacity? An atheist might simply reply that genes are selfish in their programming for survival. A theist might contend that such apparent selfishness is rather indicative of a grander purpose to life and that this purpose is divinely inscribed in this tenacity.
Read the rest here.
By Father Gregory:
Why Atheism is irrational and Agnosticism is not. Why Theism is established both with reason and beyond reason.My definition of atheism – the categorical denial of the existence of a deity or deities.My definition of agnosticism – the inability to be able to know one way or the other whether or not a deity or deities exist.Under these definitions an atheism committed to positivism will regard an agnostic as a cowardly, misguided or delusional atheist. No matter, I am sticking with these definitions as the claim that positivism is a sufficient description of reality and reality talk is a self defeating position .... bound that is to undermine itself.So why is atheism (thus defined) irrational?What is “irrational” though? ... Irrationality is the absence of rationality. What is rationality? Rationality is the conjunction of logical thinking and evidence by the mapping of the former to the latter in a model building process.Why then is atheism the violation of such conjunctional mapping?Consider the supposed evidences for theism. One might be the adaptation of life to survival in a given environment. Life has tenacity. To what do we attribute this tenacity? An atheist might simply reply that genes are selfish in their programming for survival. A theist might contend that such apparent selfishness is rather indicative of a grander purpose to life and that this purpose is divinely inscribed in this tenacity.
Read the rest here.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Stop Blaming the Victim!
I interrupt this blogging hiatus to bring you the following news flash: THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE FREE MARKET!
Dominic Lawson explains that it all went wrong when we left the gold standard: "Mises' followers insist that the present problems in the economies of the West have not been caused by laissez-faire, but by the opposite: politically sensitive central bankers so desperate to prevent any stock market slump that they cut interest rates to a level which turbo-charged the debt markets. So when George Osborne, as he did yesterday, declares that "laissez-faire is dead", the Mises-ites – one of whom is the libertarian Presidential candidate, Congressman Ron Paul – would protest that such a policy was never tried in the first place."
What got us into this mess?
FIAT MONEY
Hat tip: The Young Fogey
Dominic Lawson explains that it all went wrong when we left the gold standard: "Mises' followers insist that the present problems in the economies of the West have not been caused by laissez-faire, but by the opposite: politically sensitive central bankers so desperate to prevent any stock market slump that they cut interest rates to a level which turbo-charged the debt markets. So when George Osborne, as he did yesterday, declares that "laissez-faire is dead", the Mises-ites – one of whom is the libertarian Presidential candidate, Congressman Ron Paul – would protest that such a policy was never tried in the first place."
What got us into this mess?
FIAT MONEY
Hat tip: The Young Fogey
Friday, October 10, 2008
My sincere apologies...
Please forgive this blog's inactivity for the past few months. Dissertation work, plus a full teaching load, has made it rather difficult to maintain a consistent blogging activity.
On the upside, I turned in 93 pages of my dissertation last Friday (10/3), and will turn in the rest (a hundred pages or so) in December. The defense should be some time in the spring semester '09.
In January, I will hopefully take a little break from this madness by going to St. John the Baptist Monastery in Essex, England, and then on to Rome.
Your prayers are coveted as I press on to finish this purgatory of a doctorate.
On the upside, I turned in 93 pages of my dissertation last Friday (10/3), and will turn in the rest (a hundred pages or so) in December. The defense should be some time in the spring semester '09.
In January, I will hopefully take a little break from this madness by going to St. John the Baptist Monastery in Essex, England, and then on to Rome.
Your prayers are coveted as I press on to finish this purgatory of a doctorate.
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