In the Fooststeps of Lincoln...Really?

And so it begins. Barack Obama, who fancies himself a modern day Abraham Lincoln, embarked this morning on the final leg of his journey to the nation's capital for his inauguration. He departed Philadelphia by train following the last leg of Abraham Lincoln's route to Washington for his inauguation.

The President-elect likes drawing upon Lincoln's legacy. He enjoys making comparisons between himself and the Great Emancipator and there are, indeed, some similarities. Like Lincoln, Obama was narrowly elected on the heels of an unpopular presidency held by the opposing party. Like Lincoln, Barack Obama faces a nation deeply divided over issues of momentous import to the future of the nation. One way or the other, the decisions Lincoln would make during his tenure would determine the course of the nation for generations. Likewise with Obama. Lincoln, presented with a nation whose Union was rapidly disintegrating called upon those in the South in vain to refrain from secession; Obama realizing that the hoopla over his election is not nearly so widespread as the media would have the public believe is also calling for unity.

Now for the differences.

Lincoln ascended to the White House at a time marked by States in open rebellion to the authority of the federal government. More were preparing to make similar moves. He took the reins of a government woefully prepared for a physical threat to its existence. In such a situation he had no option but to take unprecedented and perhaps unconstitutional steps to secure to the Executive powers which the Founding Fathers never intended the President to have. He arrested, and even exiled political opponents, suspended the writ of habeas corpus, ignored the opinions of the Supreme Court. He used extraordinary powers to meet the exigencies of an extraordinary situation. Lincoln faced the business of settling issues left unaddressed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution.

Obama seeks another goal. He seeks the recastin gof the Constitution in the light of personal liberty. He seeks the redefinition of Constitutional rights as license, not liberty. He places the attainment of personal wants above the common good. He seems possessed of a view that we need to be protected from our personal resposnibilities and that the federal government is the institution best equipped to shield us from ourselves. Already his supporters clamor to muzzle conservative voices, already he seeks to save us from the responsibility incurred through our misused sexuality.

Lincoln always cast his struggle as one to preserve the Union. The tragedy of the Civil War was not waged, in his estimation, over the issue of slavery, although it played a role in bringing the crisis to a head. The tragedy he was compelled to prevent was the dissolution of the Union. He saw slavery as an intrinsic evil, and if he could save the Union and at the same time eradicate slavery, so be it. Lincoln was, after all, a consummate opportunist.

Abortion is the slavery issue of our time. It marks the great difference between two philosophies of government. On the one hand is government s the enforcer of positive restrictions which reinforce the importance of individual responsibility, on the other the government as savior of those who choose to abrogate individual responsibility. Licoln would have had none of this silliness.

Til next time all the best. Joe

FOCA and Conscience

Traditionally, the new year is greeted with enthusiasm. But for serious Christians, pro-life Christians, this new year, 2009, is being greeted with foreboding and trepidation. The political winds in the nation have shifted and the Culture of Death seems to be in the ascendant. The secularism that has run rampant across Europe spawning the ideals of social democracy seems to have leapt across the moat of the Atlantic and taken root in the United States. Someone has managed to hoodwink America and has convinced us that our hopes can be realized through "freedom of choice". Someone has managed to sell us the idea that real change can be achieved if those of us who act with an informed conscience can be muzzled and made to conform. We are being told that we can hold nothing as non-negotiable, and that if we persist in doing so coercion via the law will be employed.

This is the reasoning behind the "Freedom of Choice Act". Rest assured that it will not end there. After this will come the "Freedom to Die Act". Then perhaps the "Freedom to Choose Unless You Already Have a Child Act", followed by the "Duty to Die Act".

What are we to do? What should our response to this seeming resurgence of the culture of death be?

First, we must heed one of the great messages of the Gospel, we must heed the advice proclaimed by Pope John Paul the Great as the first words of his pontificate. We must "be not afraid". From the time of Abraham to the Ascension of Christ, God tells us seventy three times to banish our fears. We must remember that our God is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. This is the God who led His people out of Egypt; this is the God who brought His people out of Babylon; this is the God who manifested Himself as Man, who died and rose for the salvation of those He loved. The newly named Archbishop of Detroit, Allen Vigneron, has a set of ten rules for disagreeing as a Christian, the last of which is "The victory is won; my job is to run out the clock with style". We have nothing to fear.

This doesn't mean we should shrink or withdraw from public engagement on the issues of dignity and life in which we believe. On the contrary, I think it's time to engage all the more vigorously. Perhaps it's time for the Church to reconsider her traditional reluctance to name names out of fear of the IRS. In the last election, we saw many priests and bishops courageously speak out on the subject of voting our Catholic conscience. We saw many clerics correcting the dubious interpretations cast upon Catholic teaching by so-called Catholic politicians. That was a good start, but not nearly enough. I think it's high time to speak out against outrageous evil and the IRS be damned. Evil sometimes walks and talks and has a name, let's use that name. Let us leave no doubt in the mind of the world as to what this evil is. Yes, this will entail sacrifice on the part of the Church and her members. But was this not what we were promised by her founder, Jesus Christ? Do we not have His guarantee that the "gates of Hell would not prevail" against her? Let's trust in His word and do what is right.

The federal state, the reins of which have been seized by those who have betrayed the liberal ideal of the equality of all men, is about to attempt to impose a gag upon us. The new majority party in the Congress is about to introduce again legislation under the guise of freedom to choose which will tell us that our conscience is not only irrelevant, but that acting on that conscience is illegal. We must fight that attempt and if we lose the battle to prevent the enactment of that legislation, we must refuse to submit and willingly accept the consequences of that refusal.

I believe that this administration poses the greatest threat to the fight for life and the dignity of life that we have faced thus far in the modern "kulturkampf". I believe that our cause faces serious challenges. But I also believe that the outcome is guaranteed. Running out the clock with style may call for greater sacrifices than we know. Do not be afraid.

Thanks for reading my rant.

Til next time, all the best. Joe

A Hierarchy of Injustice

I make it no secret that I am not a big fan of President-elect Obama. Nor do I conceal the fact that my lack of enthusiasm for the incoming administration is based on the President elect's wholehearted support of the "right" of a woman to terminate her pregnancy at will. In fact, I'm rather outspoken in promoting my view that the right to life is the fundamental right upon which every other right is based.

A man I greatly admire, and whom, in my estimation, ought to know better, recently accused me and pro-lifers in general of being "one issue" voters. This man, my friend, is an ardent Catholic and a member of my parish, St Mary's, in downtown Indianapolis. His particular "hot button" issue is immigration, particularly, the rights of Hispanic immigrants.

A word about St Mary's and my membership there is in order here. St Mary's was founded in 1858 as a parish with a ministry to a particular ethnic group, the Germans. At various times she has hosted different ethnic groups, the Irish and Italians have at various times in her long history called her their own home parish. Currently, St Mary's is approximately 60% Hispanic. I belong to St Mary's by choice, not out of necessity. She is not the nearest parish to me. I am not a native of Indianapolis, so St Mary's is not the home parish of my family, nor does she hold any other emotional attachment for me. I love the pastor there. I love the devotion and enthusiasm of her Hispanic members. The thriving Hispanic culture is actually one of the reasons I selected St Mary's as my home parish.

Now, back to my conversation with my friend. I agree with my friend that there are serious flaws in the immigration system in the United States, particularly where that system is applied with our nearest neighbor to the south, Mexico. I know that the economic disparity between the two nations is remarkable; I know that many children sicken and die for lack of adequate medical attention and the unavailability of basic immunizations just because they live on the wrong side of an imaginary line dividing two nations. I, too, decry these occurrences great social injustices.

But there exists between the issue of immigration and the issue of abortion a gulf. There is a hierarchy of injustice here, with the abortion issue seated above the immigration issue. As such, the abortion issue "trumps" the immigration issue

Abortion is a conscious choice made by an individual to deliberately deprive another of their right to live. Further, the woman seeking an abortion seeks to abrogate her responsibility she incurred by engaging in an act, sex, the consequences of which, pregnancy, she was aware of when she undertook that activity.

My friend argued that a thousand children a day perished as a result of diseases which could easily be prevented via effective immunizations. I have not verified these numbers, but I'll accept them at face value. In the United States, four thousand children a day perish at the hands of the abortionist. You do the math.

The Obama administration proposes to ease or eradicate the restrictions currently imposed by the Mexico City Policy on funds provided to other nations for the purposes of birth control and abortion. More Mexican citizen will have the privilege of dying through abortion due to their efforts. I don't want my tax money to be used for this purpose. On the up side, immunizations may become less of an issue.

Certainly, the Democrats seem to have a better program regarding immigration issues, and when that program benefits the common good I will be rightly supportive of them. I'm an independent politically, affiliated with neither major party. I'd love to be able to be a Democrat, and as soon as I find a Democratic politician who is pro-life and pro-immigration, I will consider supporting that candidate. Until I find that candidate, however, life issues must be my primary consideration.

Until next time, all the best. Joe

Richard John Neuhaus, 1936-2009

Convert, priest, writer. American Catholics have lost a great voice for religion in the public square. Our Babylonian exile has become a bit drearier. Details at http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/?p=1280

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon him. Amen.

Blogging Lessons Learned

This post marks my thirty second attempt at writing something meaningful. This means that over the period of approximately two months, I've managed a month's worth of writing, a milestone of sorts, I think. That's far better than I thought I'd be able to manage. That's my first "lesson learned", I suppose. Here are some more things I've learned.

I've learned not to title posts until I've finished writing. There's an interesting reason for this. What I intend to write, and what actually ends up on the page are never the same...never. I'm not sure how that happens. Truly amazing! "The best laid plans of mice and men..." I guess.

Right alongside that bizarre occurrence, I find that multiple ideas will often find expression on the same page. This is surely a function of my "attention deficit disorder". I find myself scratching the surface in one post of some subject which deserves its own consideration. Maintaining focus on the subject at hand gets difficult. There seems to be so much that needs to be said all at once. Often the distraction is overwhelming.

Sometimes, too, in the interest of timeliness, I find myself writing in haste and I fail to do justice to the subject on which I'm writing. It's difficult to reread a post and realize how much I've managed to leave unsaid on a particular topic because of my haste. On the other hand, I find myself, from time to time, truncating important thoughts in the interests of brevity.

Another problem I have is that I don't seem to be a very original thinker. Not that I plagiarize the work of others, but I do often find myself feeding off of the thoughts of others. Hopefully, I don't simply regurgitate what I've read or heard elsewhere. Ideally, I develop thoughts off the thinking of others.

Oh, and did I mention punctuation? I seem to have fallen in love with the idea of the comma. I'll stick a comma in a sentence at the drop of a hat. Is it possible to disable one's comma key? This is a technical issue which bears some looking into. Either that, or I could marry the comma. That may be a bit much though. But, if a man can marry another man, or a woman another woman; since "love is love", why should I not be allowed to consummate my love affair with the comma and bring it to its full fruition? This may cause problems with my relationship with the semicolon...but what the hell.

While I'm dwelling on technical issues, God bless the inventor of the spellcheck feature! Not that I can't spell, I can, and quite well. But I cannot type worth a tinker's damn. Without spellcheck, I'm quite certain you'd think me a moron (if you don't already). I also have a penchant for hitting the semicolon key instead of the apostrophe key when writing contractions. It must be a common error since my spellcheck seeems to pick up on it. Truly awesome!

Finally, I find it difficult to accept, and I'm sure that you, dear reader, are amazed to hear as well how little the world seems to care about what Henzler thinks. This realization has left me quite flabbergasted. Thirty one posts in approximately two months and only five comments, three of which are mine. Changing the world is going to be much more work, I see now, than I imagined it was going to be when I founded this little corner of the ether. I imagined so much more interaction. Truly, this has been my greatest disappointment. I really need some affirmation.

So, there it is, my friend. That is everything I've managed to learn is a month's worth of posts. If you, dear reader, have any further observations or comments, please feel free to address them here. I'd be delighted to respond.

And, as always, til next time, all the best. Joe

Determinism

I recently took in the movie Valkyrie, the story of the July 1944 plot against Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. The movie was mediocre, the story itself riveting. I don't mean to make this post about the movie, but it did set me to thinking about the idea of free will versus determinism.

There are those who would have us believe that everything that we do, that very decision which we make, is determined beforehand by our past. They would have us believe that our will, our ability to make decisions, our choices are mere illusions. They contend that if we could build a computer with enough capacity and could enter into that computer the pertinent data, then that machine could predict our decisions. For the most part those who hold such views are to be found among the atheist or agnostic intelligentsia, the same intelligentsia who rail against the existence of an all-knowing God who refuses to, or elects to seldom, interfere in the affairs of men, and who, oddly enough, complain at the same time of a God who gives us no choice in our actions a la Adam and Eve, or the hardening of Pharaoh's heart against Moses and the Hebrews.

I contend that such thinking has found its way into atheist circles via Calvinism. I surmise that former adherents of Calvinistic Christian denominations who "deconverted" to atheism carried bits of the idea of predestination with them, and that from this seed the ridiculous concept of determinism has sprouted. Not that its origin really matters all that much. What really matters is that such thought makes possible a great moral dodge, and that is the idea that, since we cannot actually make choices freely, that since we are constrained in our present and future actions by our past, we cannot be held accountable for our present or future actions. The evil choice which we make are simply the product of what we or others have done in the past. Likewise, any positive actions or decisions we make are simply the foregone conclusion of what has transpired in our lives previously.

I do not mean to suggest that our past experiences play no role at all in our decision making. In fact, I believe that such experiences factor greatly into the decisions we make. Pondering the past is the process by which we learn. I do object, however, to the idea that we are inextricably bound to the past, that we are incapable of freeing ourselves from such bonds.

Thus would heroism become one and the same with villainy; the hero would be no more heroic for his courage than would the villain be culpable for his malevolence. Our admiration of the hero for acting out of the ordinary would be as misplaced as our outrage at the villain for his atrocities. The hero would be as unworthy of recognition as the villain would be of punishment. Even now, it seems that nearly every misdeed can be justified through a diagnosis of some sort of mental disorder.

I guess that the point I'm trying to make here is that our society is based entirely upon the idea that we do have a choice and that we are responsible for the choices we make. To deny that is to deny that we possess any shred of dignity; to deny that is to deny that we can be rewarded or punished for our actions. Crime and punishment, heroism and altruism become outmoded concepts to be relegated to the scrap heap of ideas whose usefulness we have outlived.

Til nest time, all the best. Joe

Happy New Year

Just a brief note to wish my vast readership a very happy and blessed New Year!

Let's brace for the challenges ahead, remembering where our hope lies. God bless you all!

Til next time, all the best. Joe