The Mother of Dissolution

“Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution” – St. Thomas Aquinas.

Words matter to the extent they accurately represent the concept for which they were originally intended. When you wish to make a piece of toast, for example, you request a “toaster” not a “philodendron.” Surely some concepts are more abstract than others. This reality, however, is no justification for obfuscation nor does it make holding the loftier terms to their original definition any less important. Indeed, quite often it is more so.

But what with ever-slackening educational standards and minds liquidated from endless hours before the tele, modern man can hardly be expected to prevail in the Herculean task of holding words to their meaning. Thus “freedom” today is synonymous with perversion, “greed” refers to any instance of any creature acting in its own self-interest, and “justice” equates to making sure everyone has the same number of points at the end of the game.

It is this last abomination of explication upon which we wish to focus.

It is our contention that the Obamanon by which America is currently disfiguring herself was made possible by this contemporary misinterpretation of justice. The laughably un-American policies and proposals, the bald-faced contempt for free-market values, the sanctimonious arrogance of apologizing to the world for American greatness, all are made acceptable to the American people to the extent they believe these atrocities to be acts of “justice.”

After all, under the modern definition of justice, the realities of poverty and suffering can only exist as a result of some injustice, and could never be the by-product of human stupidity, fecklessness, impulsiveness, or outright evil. Inequality of circumstance simply IS injustice, and Bob’s your Uncle! Ergo the gains of the rich, clearly ill-gotten, must be redistributed. The ventures of the capitalists, pure wanton profiteering, must be shackled. And American influence in the world, nothing but imperialistic bullying, must cease and desist. Only thus can justice be restored. Yes we can. And the people nod in passive agreement.

But, as has been pointed out so many times before by others nearly as brilliant as ourselves, equality of circumstances for all is not justice. In fact, the key ingredient in establishing equality of circumstances for all is injustice, usually in the form of jack-booted thugs, firing squads, tanks, and secret prisons.

Alas, modern man, in his zeal to demonstrate his compassion, his empathy, his sense of justice for those less fortunate, is in the process of securing the exact opposite of all for all. He has removed actual justice from the equation and need now only sit back and await validation of St. Thomas Aquinas’ supposition, “Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution” i.e. chaos, anarchy, tumult, pestilence, suffering, and death.

Which brings us to Sonia Sotomayor; wise Latina, President Obama’s nominee for Supreme Court justice, and the embodiment of all of the above. By her words and actions this woman has demonstrated her conviction that justice is not the preservation of equality of opportunity, but the establishment of equality of circumstances. It is attainted and maintained not by adherence to a mutually beneficial rule of law, but by quotas, affirmative action, and the intrinsic knowledge that she knows better. She will judge others not by the content of their character, but by the color of their skin. She has been called – and rightly so – a racist, a supremacist, an irresponsible even reckless jurist, and she will win confirmation as a justice on the highest court in the land on or about July13.

In the objective world, a toaster remains distinct from a philodendron, justice remains distinct from empathy and preference, and dissolution is dissolution. But in this era of the new “justice,” we must do everything in our power to pretend otherwise, lest we find ourselves held in contempt.

May God help America.

Cheers,

Charlie

Milking the Cow Dry

“Some regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is - the strong horse that pulls the whole cart.” – Sir Winston Churchill

While virtually all eyes are on the spectacular plane-crash-in-progress that is California, the nauseating reality is that the same cataclysm is playing out in states throughout the land of the decreasingly free. Case in point: the State of Wisconsin.

The background is depressingly familiar. Under the meticulous financial mismanagement of Democratic Governor Jim Doyle since 2003, Wisconsin has ascended through the ranks to become the fifth highest taxed state in the Union. This has resulted, of course, in a vigorous flow of business and brains out of the state to greener pastures. Consequently, with the tax base ever-diminishing and the tax rate ever-increasing, we have Wisconsin face-to-face with its present nightmare: an unprecedented $6.6 billion deficit. Granted other states boast more breathtaking deficit numbers, but when population is factored in – Wisconsin is rather more sparse at roughly six million - she is perhaps the worst off of the fifty United States.

And if she isn’t yet, she soon will be.

Enter the state legislature; majority Democrat as of the Obamanon of November 2008. Full of hope and change and New Left (we’re not Socialists wink, wink) vigor, the Democrats on the legislature’s Joint Finance Committee last week approved – literally in the dead of night - not a spending decrease in light of the leviathan deficit, but an increase of overall spending of roughly 7%. Somewhere Lord John Maynard Keynes is giggling like a school girl.

Mind you, Democratic assemblyman assuaged any fears of recklessness on their part by assuring Wisconsinites that the increase in spending is made possible by federal dollars from the economic stimulus package. Then, in order to regain the mantel of fiscal conservatism, they explained that spending of state tax dollars will actually decrease about 3.4% should this proposed budget pass. As the entire state government of Wisconsin is Democrat, there is no reason to believe it will not pass.

We witness here in a very real and intimate way American government transmuting from Keynesian folly to Marxist tragedy. For State representatives to so gleefully exclaim that they have transferred funding authority from local government to central government is to reveal the degree to which they are indeed Marxists. If this reversal of Federalism doesn’t convince you of such a charge, perhaps a quick look at the rest of the proposed budget will.

(Compliments of The MacIver Institute)

* A new income tax bracket for those despicable Wisconsinites earning over $300,000 per year.

*An increase on the capital gains tax.

*An “oil franchise fee” to stick it to those miserable oil companies (which will result in higher prices at the petrol pump).

*Eliminating welfare reforms designed to put welfare recipients to work. The latest proposal expands the benefit eligibility window from two to five years and relaxes education requirements. Welfare queens, pimps, drug dealers, ne’er-do-wells, and gangstas – Wisconsin welcomes you!

*Increasing the brand new tax on Wisconsin hospitals in order to draw down still more federal dollars to fund the ever-swelling Medicaid roles and various state plans which provide health care to pretty much anyone for “free.” In a wholly unrelated development, Wisconsin hospitals are raising their rates. (Think “oil franchise fee.”) Note: If you have insurance and believe in paying your bills, don’t get sick in Wisconsin.

*New mandates on health and auto insurance which will increase premiums and force many to drop coverage altogether.

*Early release for felons to reduce the expense of incarceration of hardened criminals. Brilliant!

*Elimination of moderately expensive GPS monitoring of sex offenders. Again brilliant.

*Relaxing restrictions on teacher’s union benefits (which just may account for 6.3 of the $6.6 billion deficit already.)

*A new cell phone tax. OMG!

*A school district transportation mandate for pregnant students who live within a few blocks from school.

*The ability to sue pretty much any business any time for anything (this only affects those businesses and individuals participating in activities which involve some modicum of risk such as sky-diving, hunting, skiing, horseback riding, camping, fishing, walking on slippery surfaces, or occasionally sitting back a bit too far in folding chairs.)

*Curtailment on the use of private contractors during hiring freeze. In other words, look for the Union Label. If you don’t see it, it doesn’t get done.

*Fees on mutual funds – A tripling of the registration filing fee and increased the annual filing fee by over $5 million dollars over 2 years. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to file mutual fund registrations!

*Increasing spending to give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants.

*Providing tax-payer funded insurance benefits for domestic partners of state employees.

*Doubling the garbage tax from $5.90 per ton to $13.00 per ton; which will cost municipalities $63 million, and likely result in higher property taxes.

There is much, much more. Why not read it for yourself?. And did we mention the millions of dollars of pork-barrel projects in Democratic districts figured into the budget; the icing on the cake, or the insult to the injury depending on your perspective.

“One, sweeping, secretly-negotiated omnibus motion, on which no public hearing was held,” says the MacIver Institute of this proposal. “New taxes. New fees. New fund transfers. New mandates. New policies.” We would summarize it by another quote, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” That’s the American way in 2009.

When California implodes under the strain of its own Leftist asininity it provokes little more than a roll of the eyes and a chortle. But when states in the purported heartland of America demonstrate such unabashed commitment to Marxist economic policy, how is one to react? After all, the people voted for this.

One by one American politicians, business leaders, and individual citizens line up to suck at the teat of private enterprise, despite her ever increasing burden and suffocating environment. When she finally is sucked dry and collapses under the strain, they will point and say, “You see, the free market does not work. Only government can provide for the needs of the people.” And the people will nod passively in agreement and shuffle along to their holding pens to await their next feeding.

Cheers,

Charlie

A Memorial Day Reminder

“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. . .that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. . . and that government of the people. . .by the people. . .for the people. . . shall not perish from the earth. "

- President Abraham Lincoln, November 19, 1863

American Exceptionalism and the Art of Flying Kites

UPDATE: Mr. Mark Steyn chimes in. Brilliant, of course.

Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it.

- Sir Winston Churchill

Sir Winston’s maxim above is so oft cited as to have become cliché. Every parent, teacher, coach, religious instructor, motivational speaker, and supportive friend worth their salt has employed it, or some variation of it, innumerable times. The point – that confronting adversity makes one stronger – is allegedly common knowledge. Indeed it is intrinsic to the ethos of Western man. As Sir Winston declared before the Canadian Parliament in December 1941. “We have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.”

And yet, political winds ore’ those Western oceans, mountains, and prairies blow in a different direction today. Western man is evidently tired and seeks respite from the toil of flying his kite and maintaining his Liberty. Since the end of the Second World War Western European nations, Britain, and Canada have succumbed to the seductions of the Nanny State; accepting her high taxation, high unemployment, low growth, and ever-diminishing liberty in exchange for cradle to grave economic sedation. The exchange has rendered them comfortable, for the most part, and secure, so long as America was willing and able to shoulder their defense.

But now Americans too say they are tired, and seek admission into the Great International Nursery.

Our dear friend Mr. Shane Borgess at Political Vindication.com recently brought to our attention a magnificent presentation by Charles Murray, the W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, about this very phenomenon. Entitled, “The Europe Syndrome and the Challenge to American Exceptionalism” Mr. Murray’s essay examines America’s seemingly increasing conviction that Europe’s regulatory and social welfare systems are the proper model for U.S. governance and economy. Murray confesses some empathy for this infatuation.

“Not only are (European) social democrats intellectually respectable, the European model has worked in many ways… When I get there, the people don’t seem to be groaning under the yoke of an evil system. Quite the contrary. There’s a lot to like—a lot to love—about day-to-day life in Europe.”

But?

“But the European model can’t continue to work much longer. Europe’s catastrophically low birth rates and soaring immigration from cultures with alien values will see to that.”

Mr. Murray then commences his argument as to why the United States must not become more like Europe. He argues, not for economic reasons, (despite Europe’s “sclerotic economies”) but for reasons that could best be described as spiritual.

“My argument is drawn from Federalist Paper No. 62, probably written by James Madison: ‘A good government implies two things: first, fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained.’ Note the word: happiness. Not prosperity. Not security. Not equality. Happiness, which the Founders used in its Aristotelian sense of lasting and justified satisfaction with life as a whole.”

Murray contends that the European model, where the State seeks to provide all for all from birth to death, is fundamentally flawed because, despite its material successes thus far, it is not suited to the way human beings flourish.

“The problem is this: Every time the government takes some of the trouble out of performing the functions of family, community, vocation, and faith (via social policy) it also strips those institutions of some of their vitality—it drains some of the life from them. It’s inevitable. Families are not vital because the day-to-day tasks of raising children and being a good spouse are so much fun, but because the family has responsibility for doing important things that won’t get done unless the family does them. Communities are not vital because it’s so much fun to respond to our neighbors’ needs, but because the community has the responsibility for doing important things that won’t get done unless the community does them. Once that imperative has been met—family and community really do have the action—then an elaborate web of social norms, expectations, rewards, and punishments evolves over time that supports families and communities in performing their functions. When the government says it will take some of the trouble out of doing the things that families and communities evolved to do, it inevitably takes some of the action away from families and communities, and the web frays, and eventually disintegrates.”

To relate back to Sir Winston’s maxim, as government shields against contrary winds, so fall the kites of all.

As evidence of this decline and disintegration, Mr. Murray identifies sundry pan-European paradoxes: meticulously tended churches, subsidized by the government and unattended by the people; “child-friendly” policies for populations with plunging marriage rates and fertility rates far below replacement; jobs carefully protected by government regulation and replete with lavish mandated benefits for work forces who regard work as, at best, a necessary evil, rarely as a vocation, and who are least likely to say they love their jobs.

“What’s happening?” Murray asks. He calls it “the Europe syndrome,” a mentality that has been documented by journalists and scholars alike.

“That mentality goes something like this: Human beings are a collection of chemicals that activate and, after a period of time, deactivate. The purpose of life is to while away the intervening time as pleasantly as possible.

If that’s the purpose of life, then work is not a vocation, but something that interferes with the higher good of leisure. If that’s the purpose of life, why have a child, when children are so much trouble—and, after all, what good are they, really? If that’s the purpose of life, why spend it worrying about neighbors? If that’s the purpose of life, what could possibly be the attraction of a religion that says otherwise?

The same self-absorption in whiling away life as pleasantly as possible explains why Europe has become a continent that no longer celebrates greatness. When life is a matter of whiling away the time, the concept of greatness is irritating and threatening. What explains Europe’s military impotence? I am surely simplifying, but this has to be part of it: If the purpose of life is to while away the time as pleasantly as possible, what can be worth dying for?

I stand in awe of Europe’s past. Which makes Europe’s present all the more dispiriting. And should make its present something that concentrates our minds wonderfully, for every element of the Europe Syndrome is infiltrating American life as well.”

Murray traces the source of the American outbreak of European Syndrome to the elite American Left who openly express their accord with the above stated world view. This elite American Left has been in control of American popular culture for some time and is now completely in control of the American government. The trajectory is nauseatingly predictable.

In reading Mr. Murray’s essay, the voices of many echoed in our minds; Tocqueville, Russell Kirk, Pope Benedict the XVI, Churchill of course. But the voice most resonant was that of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, particularly as expressed in his indispensable 1978 graduation address at Harvard, “A World Split Apart.”

Here Solzhenitsyn is highly critical of the very mentality Murray identifies and its effect on the souls of free men.

“When the modern Western States were created, the following principle was proclaimed: governments are meant to serve man, and man lives to be free to pursue happiness. (See, for example, the American Declaration). Now at last during past decades technical and social progress has permitted the realization of such aspirations: the welfare state. Every citizen has been granted the desired freedom and material goods in such quantity and of such quality as to guarantee in theory the achievement of happiness, in the morally inferior sense which has come into being during those same decades. … the majority of people have been granted well-being to an extent their fathers and grandfathers could not even dream about; it has become possible to raise young people according to these ideals, leading them to physical splendor, happiness, possession of material goods, money and leisure, to an almost unlimited freedom of enjoyment. So who should now renounce all this, why and for what should one risk one's precious life in defense of common values, and particularly in such nebulous cases when the security of one's nation must be defended in a distant country?

Even biology knows that habitual extreme safety and well-being are not advantageous for a living organism. Today, well-being in the life of Western society has begun to reveal its pernicious mask.”

(Sir Winston’s kite theorem is again brought to mind.)

But is Solzhenitsyn here suggesting that the vision of the American Founders was to create a welfare state tasked with providing for the material comfort and ease of all the people? Quite the contrary.

“In early democracies, as in American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted because man is God's creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding thousand years. Two hundred or even fifty years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible, in America, that an individual could be granted boundless freedom simply for the satisfaction of his instincts or whims. Subsequently, however, all such limitations were discarded everywhere in the West; a total liberation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice. State systems were becoming increasingly and totally materialistic. The West ended up by truly enforcing human rights, sometimes even excessively, but man's sense of responsibility to God and society grew dimmer and dimmer.”

The consequences of this drift from God are manifest for all with eyes to see.

“A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. … Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?”

“No weapons, no matter how powerful, can help the West until it overcomes its loss of willpower. In a state of psychological weakness, weapons become a burden for the capitulating side. To defend oneself, one must also be ready to die; there is little such readiness in a society raised in the cult of material well-being.”

One might here be tempted to conclude – as is rather the fashion these days - that Solzhenitsyn has declared the death of Western democracy (in particular the American Republic) and is suggesting that only government via strict regulation and economic planning can restore the vitality and direction necessary to bring these nations back to their original greatness. One would be dead wrong.

“I hope that no one present will suspect me of offering my personal criticism of the Western system to present socialism as an alternative. Having experienced applied socialism in a country where the alternative has been realized, I certainly will not speak for it. The well-known Soviet mathematician Shafarevich, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, has written a brilliant book under the title Socialism; it is a profound analysis showing that socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death.”

What then? If all species of socialism and wanton materialism both ultimately lead man to the same state of spiritual and practical ruin, by what system is man to achieve – as Murray describes it - “happiness, which the Founders used in its Aristotelian sense of lasting and justified satisfaction with life as a whole” ?

Solzhenitsyn suggests a return to fundamental spiritual values – sacrifice, restraint, prudence, forbearance, humility - not by force of law, but by voluntary change of heart.

“If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot be unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most out of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. …. Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism.”

Murray agrees.

“If we ask what are the institutions through which human beings achieve deep satisfactions in life, the answer is that there are just four: family, community, vocation, and faith…. The stuff of life—the elemental events surrounding birth, death, raising children, fulfilling one’s personal potential, dealing with adversity, intimate relationships—coping with life as it exists around us in all its richness—occurs within those four institutions.”

This spiritual maturity necessary to willingly and enthusiastically accept these duties; the voluntary, inspired self-restraint to which Solzhenitsyn refers, is the essence of American Exceptionalism. Is it not vastly evident in the words and deeds of the Pilgrims who first settled the American coast; the Colonists who established communities and nurtured a passion for self-reliance; the Founders who crafted a brilliant system of government devoted to the maintenance of ordered Liberty; the pioneers who risked all and endured the unendurable in search of greater opportunities and new lands; the ordinary citizens who weathered a Great Depression and two World Wars? It is this Exceptionalism – the American soul – despite all its resurgence in the years since Solzhenitsyn’s 1978 address, that Murray says is today in danger of being lost forever.

"What it comes down to is that America’s elites must once again fall in love with what makes America different. I am not being theoretical. The possibility that irreversible damage will be done to the American project over the next few years is real. The drift toward the European model can be slowed by piecemeal victories on specific items of legislation, but only slowed. It is going to be stopped only when we are all talking again about why America is exceptional, and why it is so important that America remain exceptional. That requires once again seeing the American project for what it is: a different way for people to live together, unique among the nations of the earth, and immeasurably precious."

It is not too late America. Seek not the protection of the Nanny State Nursery, for its shelter is that of a tomb. Instead, step boldly once again into the winds of adversity and set your kites as high as you see fit, living as the Creator decreed and the Founders intended – in sacred freedom.

Cheers,

Charlie

Liberalism’s Bountiful Harvest - Part 3

In our epic “Liberalism’s Bountiful Harvest” parts one and two, we examined the disintegration of the American economy owing to forty years of Marxist handiwork.

In part three of our sadly continuing series, we should like to draw your attention to the disintegration of civil society in Luton, England.

Most of our readers are familiar with Lionheart and his documentation of the Islamic takeover of his hometown of Luton, quite possibly the Anglosphere’s frontline in the war against Islamic Fascism. (If not, best you read up: http://lionheartuk.blogspot.com/ )

Recently the people of Luton have been standing up. On May 5 they began fighting back in earnest: the Islamic centre in Luton was fire bombed .

No one is endorsing this action. It is sad and frightening. It was also avoidable. Undoubtedly culpability will be placed upon “racist” Englanders “intolerant” of immigration and non-whites. This is not the case, nor is it a means of avoiding further violence. Indeed it is the surest method of ensuring the violence escalates.

This incident is the result of multi-culturalist paralysis in the face of the unreasonable demands and growing threats posed by Islamic immigrants flooding into Britain. Had the British government and civil authorities fulfilled their primary duty from the get go - uphold the rule of BRITISH law and protect the rights of BRITISH citizens – the people of Luton would be less compelled to take the matter of their own survival so drastically in hand.

But alas a government deeply enfeebled by decades of multiculturalist dogma, secularism, and social justice poison is in no condition to perform the difficult task of protecting civil society nor civil people. The result? Chaos; precisely what Marxists and Islamists the world over crave.

The people of Luton and all of Britain are waking to the realization that their government cannot and will not defend them against foreign and domestic enemies. Proportionally, those citizens not also castrated by Marxist conditioning will take the job increasingly upon themselves.

This is not Western “civilization” as we would have it. But it may be Western civilization as it must be, if it is to survive at all.

Cheers,

Charlie

The Child in Chief Speaketh

From CNN

Obama also said Wednesday he is "very comfortable" with his decision to ban interrogation techniques like waterboarding, which he called torture.
The president called the practice a recruiting tool for terrorist groups like al Qaeda, citing World War II-era British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who also rejected such "enhanced interrogation" techniques.

"Churchill understood that if you start taking shortcuts, over time that corrodes what's best in a people," Obama said. "It corrodes the character of a country."

- President Barack Obama, 100 Days, April 29, 2009.

Mr. Obama – a point of clarification. Mr. Churchill’s reference to torture was:

a.) in reference to actual torture, not highly productive interrogation techniques which, while scaring the daylights out of prisoners, do them no actual harm

b.) in reference to downed and captured Nazi pilots, most of whom were drafted against their will and who possessed little to no strategic knowledge outside of the parameters of their particular mission, rendering torture or even harsh interrogation pointless

c.) in recognition that captured British soldiers were largely being treated well by their German captors

Detained Islamic terrorists have demonstrated in word and deed their personal and deeply held conviction that their enemies – all non-Islamics – must convert or die. They have stated their unrepentent allegiance to this conviction. They have abused, tortured, beheaded, and blown to pieces countless innocent people in demonstration of this conviction and vowed to continue doing so long before any American or Allied engagement in the matter. They are in possession of strategies and technologies that make a small band or even just one of them as potentially lethal as an entire squadron of Luftwaffe bombers.

Your assessment of the situation and reference to Mr. Churchill in this instance is yet further proof of your adolescent and disastrous miscalculation of past, present, and future.

That the leader of the free world would publicly renounce a proven and legitimate means of defense in the fight against pure evil is a profound step in the direction of total surrender. And the free press applauds. Breathtaking.

Cheers,

Charlie

Update from the UK Times -Best try that again Barry.

100 Daze: What do we have Dr. Obama?

One hundred days into the Obama administration we are reminded of the oft told exchange between Mrs. Powell and Dr. Benjamin Franklin as he exited Philadelphia’s Independence Hall upon completion of the United States Constitution. “Well Doctor what do we have, a republic or a monarchy,” asked Mrs. Powell. “A Republic,” replied Doctor Franklin, “if you can keep it.”

Sentient Americans find themselves asking a similar question today. “Well Doctor Obama, what do we have, a republic, a monarchy, socialism, crony capitalism, corporatism, fascism, communism … what?” No one seems to know.

Newsweek magazine famously (and gleefully) declared, “We are all Socialists Now” citing the massive expansions of government, first under the Bush administration then accelerated exponentially under Mr. Obama.

Others call it fascism, not as a pejorative Hitlerian reference, but according to the definition of fascism as, “a system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.” Arguably all are applicable at present but the belligerent nationalism and racism. Belligerent Leftist political correctness, however, may yet prove an effective substitute.

Conservative political activist and former diplolmat, Alan Keyes, believes Mr. Obama to be a radical communist.

And economist Larry Kudlow, in a recent column about Obama’s economic interventions, muddied the waters still more.

“It’s not socialism because the government won’t actually own the means of production. It’s not fascism because America is a democracy, not a dictatorship, and Obama’s program doesn’t reach way down through all the sectors, but merely seeks to control certain troubled areas. And in the Obama model, it would appear there’s virtually no room for business failure. So the state props up distressed segments of the economy in some sort of 21st-century copy-cat version of Western Europe’s old social-market economy. So call it corporate capitalism or state capitalism or government-directed capitalism. But it still represents a huge change from the American economic tradition.”

Zounds. And all this in just 100 days.

So please tell us, you Hope & Changers, exactly what was it for which you voted? It would appear they haven’t a clue.

In a recent letter to members, Heritage Foundation President, Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.D. analyzed the “puzzling ambivalence in the America people.”

“Following President Obama’s speech to Congress on February 24, a national poll sought the public’s overall reaction; 68 percent said they found it ‘very positive’; 88 percent said the policies he proposed will take us in the ‘right direction.’ But now consider some other polls. Rasmussen asked people whether Congress knows what it is doing in addressing our economic problems; 69 percent of voters said they didn’t think so. In another poll, Rasmussen asked whether Ronald Reagan was right when he said, ‘Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.’ Surprisingly, 59 percent of all voters (not just Republicans) agreed with that. President Obama is proposing something on the order of $1 trillion in new taxes; yet 57 percent of voters say tax cuts would help the economy.”

Such analysis leads one to the only logical conclusion which is that the American people are on crack. Not all of them. The sober are either attending Tea Parties desperately trying to resuscitate what remains of Dr. Franklin’s Republic, or quietly delighting in the phenomenal progress their Marxist schemes are making in all sectors of society. The masses in the middle, however, are clearly on crack.

Poor timing this. Iran, Russia, North Korea, Islamists the world over, and, last but by no means least, China are all vying for position to be the first to seriously challenge American resolve in the age of hope and change. In public, the rest of the world applauds Mr. Obama’s conciliatory gestures in face of it all. In private, they crave vigorous and unapologetic American protection; for they know that without it, all is lost.

“The price of greatness is responsibility,” declared Sir Winston Churchill before an audience at Harvard in 1943 regarding America’s role in the world. This is more true now than then. This is not the time for the American people to be smoking crack, or experimenting with Marxist variations of government and economy, or whining for chimeras like risk free loans and free health care.

The United States Constitution and free market principles have served Americans and, consequently, the world quite well. Would that these institutions be shown the respect and attention they deserve.

Cheers,

Charlie

Earth Day: The New Religion’s Holy Day of Obligation

“Only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy.” - President Barack Obama

Mother Gaia has been raped one time too many. Mankind has forfeited any right to liberty he managed to arrogate unto himself. Repent sinners! Judgment is coming. The terrible swift sword of justice shall be leveled upon ye. For mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord, and its name is GOVERNMENT.

GOVERNMENT is all powerful. GOVERNMENT is all knowing. Yet GOVERNMENT is compassionate to those who would truly renounce their sin.

Thus prepare your sacrifice, and with happy heart give freely of your liberty, your wealth, and your way of life, that you may be made worthy in the eyes of GOVERNMENT.

Take ye now the Earth Day Vow of Poverty:

Do you renounce the use of all fossil fuels? (Your answer) I do.

Will you accept all manner of regulations affecting how you work and live?
(Your answer) I will.

Will you accept a global warming tax amounting to nearly $2,000 on every American household annually? (Your answer) I will.

Will you accept a diminishment of disposable income of more than $1,000 per household? (Your answer) I will

Will you accept gross domestic product losses in excess of $600 billion per year? (Your answer) I will.

Will you accept cumulative gross domestic product losses of nearly $7 trillion by 2029? (Your answer) I will.

Will you accept annual job losses exceeding 800,000 for several years? (Your answer) I will.

Then go forth, unburdened by greed and self-interest, of clean spirit into a clean world and sin no more; for thou hast been made worthy in the eyes of GOVERNMENT.

A Blessed Earth Day to all!

Cheers,

Charlie

Sacrifice, the “Common Good”, and Greater Evils

“My Father! If it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not My will, but Thine be done" (Mt. 26: 38-39).

Sacrifice. It is core to the extraordinary teaching of Christ. We are compelled to sacrifice by God’s commandment, love thy neighbor as they self, and the revolutionary insight that it is in giving that we receive.

No where in this transaction is there a role for the State.

The salvific quality of sacrifice – great or small – is in the individual creature surrendering his will to the will of the Creator by free choice. To be compelled to give by force of law is no sacrifice at all.

Herein lies the bitter heresy of the so called Christian Social Justice movement that provides “moral authority” to the rape of human liberty currently being arranged in the halls of government throughout the free world. No thinking free man would willingly sacrifice his hard earned wealth to the corrupt cesspits of waste and ruin that comprise the majority of today’s social justice industrial complex. But force him to fund them through taxation and declare that doing so is necessary in order to ensure justice, eradicate poverty, and save the planet, and what choice does he have?

This is extortion not sacrifice, for the element of choice – Liberty – is wholly absent from it. Entities which identify this process as “sacrifice” reveal the perverted state of their minds and souls. They make virtues of envy and materialism and condemn the exercise of liberty as sin. This they do, they say, in the name of the “common good.” But they are blind to the far greater evil they unloose in supplanting human liberty in the name of “righteousness.”

This is the great sin of our time, for those championing it, know of what they do. It could scarcely be made more plain than in the words of Pope Benedict the XVI in his first Papal Encyclical “Deus Caritas Est” of 2006.

“There is no ordering of the State so just that it can eliminate the need for a service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate man as such. There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbour is indispensable. The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person—every person—needs: namely, loving personal concern.

We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need.

The Church is one of those living forces: she is alive with the love enkindled by the Spirit of Christ. This love does not simply offer people material help, but refreshment and care for their souls, something which often is even more necessary than material support.

In the end, the claim that just social structures would make works of charity superfluous masks a materialist conception of man: the mistaken notion that man can live “by bread alone” (Mt 4:4; cf. Dt 8:3)—a conviction that demeans man and ultimately disregards all that is specifically human.”

This Easter we pray that the Logos – the Word made Flesh, the Communion of Faith and Reason - be raised again in the hearts and minds of men, shedding the light of true freedom, and stirring them, as before, to fight all that would threaten their God given gift of Liberty.

Cheers,

Charlie

No thanks Barry. Already got one of these!