Tell Me It Ain’t So
by Clyde N. Wilson
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The federal government has been morphing into an authoritarian state for some time now—uninterruptedly.
Two things stand in the way of the consummation of American dictatorship (in fact if not in name). Certainly not elections, which are predetermined. Certainly not the complicit Republican Party and Big Business and mainstream churches. Certainly not the cowed press and military.
The first barrier to the total state is freedom of speech. Though everywhere threatened, freedom of speech and publication still flourishes in the U.S. to an extent remarkable in today’s world. This makes criticism of government policies and disobedience to rulers possible, as in the recent grassroots defeat of the illegal alien “amnesty.” Second, a large part of the American population is armed, something always frightening to rulers. Our rulers aren’t worried about criminals, jihadists, or Mexican fifth columnists, but armed Americans frighten them. Is there any doubt that the government already has in place arrangements for detention camps for recalcitrants?
Underlying these two factors is a fundamental condition. Freedom of speech and an armed citizenry are still valued by an indeterminate but very large part of the population—generally people who think the country should belong to those who made it rather than to the government and whatever alien population the government chooses to import. That is to say the obstacle is a portion of the population that is still actually American.
Given the recent elections, we can expect soon hate crime legislation that will punish any honest discussion of public policy in regard to minority groups. This legislation can be infinitely expanded in interpretation—for instance, an American who harms a minority criminal while defending himself may be guilty of a hate crime. American law enforcement is already federalised and militarised and a massive gun seizure can easily be imagined. It won’t be easy or a complete success but will provide an excuse for further regimentation of the “citizens.”
You can bet that these policies for “fairness” and “safety” now stand a strong chance of implementation. All the institutions of respectability and a considerable part of the populace can be expected to rally around them, including the Republican Party. There will be a scattering of no votes in Congress from a few sincere old Democratic civil libertarians.
Tell me where I am wrong. Please.
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1 Comment by Brion McClanahan on 6 December 2008:
I think both the 1st and 2nd Amendment will come under assault in a month or two, and many Americans know it; hence, the surge in gun purchases in the last month.
And the centralizers won’t need the police. There will be a full division of uniformed soldiers in place domestically by 2011 to take care of whatever the government wants. Use your imagination.
I think with the collapse of the economy, this may be the closest Americans are to full scale fascism since FDR.
2 Comment by Leon T. Haller on 6 December 2008:
The fundamental problem with real Americans is their higher level of ethics vis a vis their overclass traitors as well as underclass racial competitors-cum-enemies. This problem was identified over three and a half decades ago by the pseudonymous author of THE DISPOSSESSED MAJORITY, a book Sam Francis called ’seminal’ to my face, and arguably even earlier by possibly the first (and to my mind still greatest) paleoconservative, the much reviled Revilo P. Oliver.
More precisely, Western ethics, which some would say have evolved since and in light of the Holocaust, have, in parallel fashion, devolved in the same period. That is, while whites throughout the world have come to accept socialist ethics in the economic sphere, they have embraced a radical moral individualism in matters of behavior, culture, and race. This represents a precise inversion of the Old Ethics, especially in America.
Which ethics was true (in a natural law or cosmological sense)? I believe the older version holds that honor. What is undeniable, however, is that the older version was more consonant with the survival of traditional America, whereas the new version is ineluctably leading to its extinction – and that of Western civilization as a whole, all of whose constituent nations have bought into the fashionable nonsense that we must only judge men by ‘the content of their characters’, a fine bit of advice for interpersonal relations, but totally inadequate in a tribal world in which ethnic groups exhibit meaningful statistically aggregate patterns of thought and behavior (not to mention voting).
What is needed, to paraphrase one of the great social scientific minds of the last century, sometime CHRONICLES contributor Garrett Hardin, is a New (Christian) Ethics for (Racial/Civilizational) Survival. What is available now, even from the most eminent Christian thinkers, including such an erudite and distiguished man as Benedict XVI, is totally inadequate. I continue in my decades old suspicion that, if the West is to survive, Christian ethics must be substantially re-theorized to allow for codified racial aparthied. I am engaged in such a longterm endeavor as I write, though I lack the training and scholarly apparatus to do more than make a few suggestions, and popularize the vital need for the most educated Christian thinkers to start working on this preeminent topic,before it’s too late, and the West is completely mongrelized out of recognition, or demographically colonized into something alien, terrible, and irreversible.
3 Comment by Skepsis on 6 December 2008:
Dr. Wilson,
Although many Americans own weapons, the overwhelming majority is obsequious to the government. Moreover, hardly any read publications such as Chronicles; most are unable to grasp even a sense of history. I would argue that our government does not fear the people at all. The weaponry in her arsenal is more frightening than what Orwell could imagine.
Don’t believe me? What about the revolution we are witnessing right now in the financial sector? Where are the people? Where are the complaints and the dissent?
Who would have ever thought that the 60s liberals were the last generation capable of dissent?
Since I am singing to the choir, I will close by saying that the denouement of our current crisis is something we already know.
I will not even bother to say it.
4 Comment by Sid on 6 December 2008:
Ya ain’t wrong.
5 Comment by Josh Cooney on 6 December 2008:
This brief article is one of the finest I’ve read in recent memory. We can talk all we want about recovering humane education, Aristotelian metaphysics, and historic Christianity, but the immediate danger is the seizure and confiscation of the means necessary for the preservation of what is left of civilization, and the possibility for its future renewal, namely speech and property. I would like to see this article posted in a permanent and visible place on Chronicles and disseminated to any other outlet that is concerned with the issue: VDARE, League of the South, Takimag, ISI, and, perhaps, one’s congressional representative. Yes, we are preaching to the choir, but the choir better know what tune to sing.
6 Comment by Josh Cooney on 6 December 2008:
On the question of whether the Republican party would fight against the curtailment of free speech, I am more optimistic. As stupid and destructive as some of our talk radio hosts can be, I think the talk radio crowd can still be pretty powerful. I don’t have much faith in the American people on most things, but I suspect that an attack on free speech would cause a serious uproar. On the other hand, it might not be a bad idea to consider plans for an “underground” movement should it come to that, God forbid. We have the Russian model to work with. Though the Russians had the advantage of a Western world that still preserved free speech. In our case, there would be no “free world” to which we could speak.
7 Comment by Joseph Salemi on 6 December 2008:
There is no free speech in our northern, politically correct neighbor Canada. There is no free speech in the E.U. Britain is controlled by left-liberal scum, and you have to watch your mouth there.
The attack on our expressive liberties here in America will take the form not of gun-control legislation first. That will probably come later. What will happen is the “regulation” (i.e. silencing) of talk radio, followed by the first tentative steps to control what goes on on the Internet. It will begin with something that a lot of the stupid “heartland” and religious conservatives will sign on to: ending the “pornography scourge.” Then it will morph, oh so gently, into the ending of other “hateful” things.
8 Comment by John Seiler on 6 December 2008:
One ray of hope is that the Mainstream Neocon Media (MSNM) are fading quickly, to be replaced by opinion and news sources such as this one.
Cheer yourself up by going to finance.yahoo.com and looking up the stock values for the New York Times (NYT), Gannett (GCI), and McClatchy (MNI). Next to the graph, click on “5y.”
All other newspaper companies are similar. Their power to manipulate public opinion in favor of higher taxes, more government, and abortion, is crashing.
Enjoy the schadenfreude.
9 Comment by Daniel Maxwell on 6 December 2008:
“American law enforcement is already federalised and militarised and a massive gun seizure can easily be imagined.”
Yes, but the elites know this would likely start a revolution. The beauty of the American populace is that we have a bit of liberty in our blood that has not yet been snuffed out. We will not just lay down our arms like they did in Ireland, the UK, and elsewhere – and the elites know it.
“There will be a scattering of no votes in Congress from a few sincere old Democratic civil libertarians.”
And of course, Ron Paul and friends. But those so-called ‘civil libertarian’ Democrats would probably trip over themselves to vote for a country-wide disarmament scheme. During the primary season, I got a chuckle that Dennis Kucinich had a ‘money bomb’ on the anniversary of the Bill of Rights. Too bad he doesnt care about Amendment II. Civil libertarian my foot.
10 Comment by george on 6 December 2008:
@4Josh Cooney
But dissident free speech was only really supported after the USSR broke off relations with Israel after the 6 day war due to Arab nations being stabbed in the back by Soviet double dealings Jack Bernstein references this in his book.
http://www.jackbernstein.org/
That’s when there was a massive increase and high profile Soviet dissidents.
That’s also when these Trotskyite Communists switched allegiances and became Neo-conservatives and staunchly anti-Communist.
Pearle helped draft he Jackson –Pollock amendment which secured grain imports to the USSR in exchange of allowing Jewish immigration to the US.
He also made the cover of the John Birch Society promoted him as the great anti-Communist during the 80’s.
The John Birch Society seems to be stuck in the 80’s today.
That’s the problem when you create a unipolar world there is no opposing force to keep the geo-political equilibrium.
Chertoff US Homeland Security Chief drafted the Patriot act before 9/11 and he himself has financial ties to Islamic terrorists financiers like Magdo Elimar (spelling is probably wrong).
Blackwater goons who slaughter Iraqi civilians were deployed in New Orleans during Katrina. And if there is civil unrest in the US they will be mobilised undr Homeland security.
By indicated with the accounts and videos taken down by YouTube soon you won’t be able to talk about certain aspects about WW2, who was behind Communism, who controls the media, banking, government positions, etc.
11 Comment by Kirt Higdon on 6 December 2008:
#2 – Skepsis is right – the ruling establishment will not initiate a big gun grab because they don’t have to. Any armed militias which start to appear will be heavily infiltrated with government agents to begin with and will be no match in any event for the heavily armed, high tech, US armed forces. Any dissident group, armed or unarmed, which seems to be getting traction, will simply be labelled as “terrorist” or a “cult” or “racist” and will be snuffed out – to the applause of the vast majority of gun owners.
12 Comment by J. Meng on 6 December 2008:
This all sort of reminds me of the condition of mankind painted by Aldous Huxley in his Brave New World. It seems for what we call liberty to survive it has to be taken into the periphery, beyond the reach of the nerd urbanites who rule us now. We’ll have to live simply and heartily and as guerrillas, if we expect to offer any opposition to whomever commands in Washington D.C. If we don’t, then they’ll run us over and smash us with their high tech armies. My Remington 30.06 doesn’t stand a chance against them in a pitched battle, but it could be an equalizer in terms of guerrilla warfare. The U.S. Army, for all its vaunted power, has not been exactly successful against guerrillas. However, if you decide to stay home in your local urban-suburban-exurban home, watching the nightly news or football game, then don’ expect to preserve your liberty or your gun.
13 Comment by PcH on 6 December 2008:
Things will speed up when the new president is seated, since as a black, he is unassailable.
Will critics of the State be subject to Hate laws?
14 Comment by robert m. peters on 6 December 2008:
The framework will, I believe, broad hate-crime legislation which will likely be attached as a rider to some “bailout” bill or some porkish appropriations bill. With a “creative” federal attorney, even this website could be shut down under such legislation.
The next move, likely in similitude with the one supra, will be the “fairness doctrine” in radio and “net neutrality” of the web.
The will come a series of laws aimed at guns: taxing and regulation of ammunition; outlawing of “assault weapons” and the multi-load clips associated with them. I would not be surprised to see a law outlawing the possession of long guns to people under eighteen. I would also anticipate federal law which would initiate the same kinds of law suits against arms companies that were initiated against tobacco companies. If the states sense billions, they will join the federal “cause.”
With his “national service” the tentacles of which will reach into Kindergarten, itself a seed of ideological totalitarianism plated long ago, Obama will have his gun fodder as well as his “mind field” (not mine field) in which he will grow minds to his cause which would be, among other things, full Jacobin equality in gender, life style, etc. Today, I was in a Christmas Parade (yes, not Holiday Parade) in Natchitoches, Louisiana. I marched with the Northwest Brigade of the Louisiana Division of the SCV. One uniformed ROTC unit from a high school in the region was doing an “Obama Chant.” This in the year that a remnant of us have celebrated the birth of Jefferson Davis and on the very day of his death. When I first started marching in the parade, about nine years ago, a roar would go up as we came marching down the street. Over the years, the brief nine years, the generations and types of viewers have shifted such that we get small pockets of cheering. There is little to no animosity. There is simply no objective correlative between us and the youth and young people who came of age in the Clinton/Bush years. The way has been well prepared for the “new order.”
15 Comment by Daniel Maxwell on 6 December 2008:
mr peters @ 12
There is actually a law that prevents the lawsuits against gun makers (not that will stop them). Remember the lawsuits against gun makers done by ‘conservative’ Rudy Guiliani? That law was the only thing that stopped it, finally.
I dont think we’ll see an AWB (in the first term!), but I think we are going to see a gun law that is potentially more deadly – ‘mental health’ screening; perhaps added as a condition to the NICS database. Don’t be surprised if you and I are both ‘flagged’ as ‘neo confederate’ and retroactively banned from further gun ownership.
16 Comment by David Wihowski on 6 December 2008:
OK, I have a beef with the tenor of some of these blogs. Yes, let’s state the guesome truths about our country and our culture; without facing the truth we have no power against it. And let’s state those facts and trends they may imply boldly and without compromise (something which these articles and blogs do quite well). Yet the fact that we know history should make us look to history for not only the gloom and doom but also the successes against the slide down the slope toward the pit.
I have personally survived becoming a partial quadriplegic at the age of 16 and lived for 30-some years with the daily tribulation of that handicap. The only way I continue to survive, and do so productively, is to look for every possible good thing I can do. Yes, I face the facts of paralyzed life, but I choose, on a daily basis, to make small positive moves toward making a good life for myself.
We can grovel in the gloom of our malaise; or we can make many small choices toward a better life. I relish blog entries and responses that give some small ideas of how to change the culture one bit at a time. Let’s look for the triumphs of good (or even evil) in history and use them as sounding boards for how we can make improvements. Saying “amen” a hundred times may make us feel good, but does little to help us when the fire of the sermon has passed and we are on the street among the publicans, sinners and harlots.
Take for instance the Jesus Movement of the 60s and 70s. There were evangelicals who saw the doped, duped, depressed youth of that era and saw them as an opportunity. I am not advocating the theology and its result, which was an insispid evangelicalism that evolved into the dumb mega-churches of our day. I am advocating the possibilty of grabbing the attention of a new generation of rudderless, floundering young, many of whom are looking for a safe harbor. Some of these young people are falling into Islam because it offers something solid.
Let’s talk of real (and probably creative) methods, books, or whatever to lure some of them into the fold that serves up real bread and wine (that’s an allusion to Is. 55:2). I think the current generation of young are tiring of their pseudo-life and virtual-reality-world. Let’s toss out every possible idea of how to make our family and our own local community a better place. Let’s talk of how to wage war, guerilla or otherwise, in some real practical ways. Let’s figure out how to retell the old great stories that made us into a great nation and culture in a way that can give some solid food to the people of our time. We may need to wrap it in tortilla or hide it in some sushi, but we have to do positive things other than preaching to the choir about Armageddon.
OK, I vented. Let me know if it was silly or sensible.
17 Comment by robert m. peters on 6 December 2008:
Mr. Maxwell @ 13
Your points are well made; however, the law which offers gun makers that protection can be changed in a season of “change.”
I have made your final point several times to SCV members, saying, “There may well be a price to pay for being or having been a member of this organization.”
18 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 6 December 2008:
Everybody on this blog needs to apply for concealed-carry permits, whether they own firearms or not. If the bureaucracy can be overwhelmed with paperwork, that should be enough.
If you don’t own a gun, just buy bullets. If you wish to own a firearm, then I highly recommend the new .17 caliber rifle. The ammo is very light and depends on hydro-shock to do its damage. It’s almost a ray gun smashing its target at a whopping 4500 feet per second. It was designed for shooting vermin, and I can think of no vermin worse than Blackwater terrorists.
19 Comment by NGPM on 6 December 2008:
“Given the recent elections, we can expect soon hate crime legislation that will punish any honest discussion of public policy in regard to minority groups. This legislation can be infinitely expanded in interpretation—for instance, an American who harms a minority criminal while defending himself may be guilty of a hate crime.”
I speculated about this before the election. For someone up at the top, it has to be the perfect revenge…
“American law enforcement is already federalised and militarised”
… to be able to send someone who makes an off-color racist remark in a state like Maine to a federal prison to be subject to an unnamed sort of “diversity training.”
20 Comment by Josh Cooney on 6 December 2008:
“And cannot we plainly see, that this is actually the case? The rights of conscience, trial by jury, liberty of the press, all your immunities and franchises, all pretensions to human rights and privileges, are rendered insecure, if not lost, by this change so loudly talked of by some, and inconsiderately by others. Is this same relinquishment of rights worthy of freemen? Is it worthy of that manly fortitude that ought to characterize republicans…You are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and powerful people, but how your liberties can be secured; for liberty ought to be the direct end of your Government.” Patrick Henry to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 5 June, 1788
Mr. Henry and the other Anti-Federalists knew that consolidated government would end in tyranny, but the other half of this analysis is equally profound. Our lack of manliness and preference for wealth and security are not compatible with republicanism. A people that prefers “national greatness” and the paternalism of the government can only deserve tyranny. I think what Mr. Henry means by “manly fortitude” is the guts to accept the risks that come with independence. This could mean the old fashioned rugged individualist, but it could also be the Christian understanding that suffering and death are a natural part of life.
This would especially apply to the health care debate. Plenty of conservatives oppose nationalized health care on economic grounds, but I can only imagine the reaction if a politician argued against it on the moral ground that we’re better off accepting sickness than increasing dependency on the state. The former is healthy for the soul, the latter induces spiritual sloth and servitude.
21 Comment by Leon T. Haller on 7 December 2008:
Some good can come of Obama overreaching in these areas. Assaults on (conservative) free speech will be a rightist unifier; gun control laws are what cost Democrats Congress in ‘94. I think the Right, including even authentic conservatives, went wrong in the 90s and especially this decade in part by overemphasizing social/moral and national security issues (except of course stopping immigration, the most important NATIONAL security issue of all). I have long been an advocate of an American secular Right, one emphasizing non-Christian (esp non-evangelical) as well as anti-neocon concerns like border control, gun rights, state rights, anti-’civil rights’, affirmative action, government spending, crime, etc. Basically, a Middle American nationalism which fights for OUR material interests, as opposed to trying to improve people’s morals, or concerning itself with inner city schoolchildren, abortion rates, Israeli security, etc.
I rooted for Obama to win (wrote in Ron Paul) because I think he will be good as an unintentional recruiter for the Far Right, esp in its secular manifestations. I think he will flummox the ridiculous Religious ‘Right’, composed of race-liberals to a man, who will flounder around not knowing how to respond to a black man of ‘faith’. Indeed, many younger evangelicals are thrilled at the election of Obama, as they believe it helps move the country past its ‘original sin’ of racism. To them I say, go away and good riddance!
We need a smaller, harder, less inclusive. but more cohesive conservative movement, focused on the material, and not the spiritual. A Sam Francis Right. I think Obama will move many consrrvatives in such a direction, which in the long run would be worth some legislative losses on health care or stem cell research (which I actually support).
22 Comment by Dan B on 7 December 2008:
You have got to be kidding if you say we have freedom of speech. We live in a country that has an unwritten speech code. The feminists have changed my childhood language and everyone must comply. I have seen it in your articles. Pat Buchanan’s, as well as others on this site. I’m talking about using inclusive language such as spokesperson (instead of spokesman), firefighter (instead of fireman), gender instead of sex (gender must be used as we must not exclude transgendered people, must we?), service members (coined within the last two years or so, but now used by all), etc. You can’t use “man” anywhere in the workplace or public discourse. It has essentially been banned. How about other controlled words such as “African American” instead of black. The American people are sheeples. The media, feminists and others control your speech. That includes the writers on this site. Also, do you really think we can say anything negative about homosexuals (er, gays) or any other minority (minorities defined as anybody but a white male) without the risk of getting fired. Let’s wake up and smell the coffee.
23 Comment by Leo on 7 December 2008:
There are many,many actual and potential sympathizers in the police and military.Be wise enough to cultivate and infiltrate.Your best soldiers often turn out to be…real soldiers.I assume I am not alone in actually knowing people in the security forces?They are increasingly coming from( let’s just say) a potentially sympathetic constituency.I find it productive to establish good relationships with police and military personnel whenever possible.Remember that soldier or cop may well have come from your neighborhood or your family….or one similar to same(!)…and he or she will be open to your ideas if you approach them respectfully and wisely.Many of them have the same concerns and fears we do.If your attitude,however,is that all soldiers and cops are your enemies that you must someday fight in guerilla warfare,please lock yourself and your daydreams up ,because you’re going to screw this up bad.
24 Comment by Rick on 7 December 2008:
Leo,wise words!
25 Comment by J. Meng on 7 December 2008:
@ 18, Leo: When push comes to shove, my friend, law enforcement officers, national guardsmen, and the army will defend the “law” (whatever it may be) when given the command. Yes, there may be some sympathetic members within these groups, but they will not endanger their positions by defending the fading voice of liberty. Do you remember Kent State? Do you remember any of the police actions against Vietnam War protesters? When has the army ever refused to go into action whether it be for a just or unjust cause? Taking it farther back into time, do you have any knowledge of Douglas McArthur ordering his troops to fire on the Bonus Marchers in Washington DC?
All that I’m saying is if one wants to be free of the ever encompassing regimentation of society with all of the concommitant injustices and presesrve his liberty, he will have to opt out of the comfort of his city townhouse, his suburban ranch house, etc., and trek into the wilderness areas of hamlets and villages, mountains and streams, meadows and woods. Of course, this entails much hardship. I can see no other option. But, it is the honest way. Talking about solutions of the constant smothering of liberty by an ever growing, centralized national government within the comfort of one’s own suburban home, over internet blog sites, with the TV flashing its inanities or ipods blaring their raucous noise, and yuppies wrapped around their cell phones giggling to each other is merely academic and is no solution. Maybe its intellectual catharsis, and that may be momentarily comforting. In any case, realize its just drivel and be willing to accept the oncoming oppression.
26 Comment by Daniel on 7 December 2008:
@18 Leo
You are absolutely right. I have recommended this site as well as sites like antiwar.com to many soldier, ex-soldiers, and police officers that I have met. Many of them, white AND black, are seeing what is happening and do not like it. This is what makes me hopeful. Everyone posting here, reach out to your fellow law enforcement officers, don’t alienate them.
27 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 7 December 2008:
20J. Meng:
I respectfully submit that there is a way the population can fight back, at this very time, without endangering life, limb, or family.
And the time to do it is right now.
Consider what the powers-that-be are trying to entice the public to do: spend, Spend, SPEND, and to what purpose?
So that Wall Street Banksters, their hangers-on, and paid political lackeys may enjoy life as usual while the man-in-the-street worries how to feed his family and pay the rent/mortgage because his plant just closed down, there is no money for severance pay left, and his pension plan is down the toilet?
I submit that the most effective way to fight back is to do exactly the opposite of what the politicos bray from every street corner: DO NOT SPEND ANY MONEY except for the bare necessities, locally produced if at all possible.
Think about this. Those that do us harm are financed through banking and international trade; therefore, cut off their funds. BUY ONLY LOCALLY produced goods, through equitable trade in kind, as much as possible.
The key is to LEGALLY upset the apple cart of those that harm us; cutting off their funds is the easiest way.
A further step is to curtail the use of credit and borrowed funds. If money needs to be borrowed consider family, friends, credit unions, life insurance companies, listed in diminishingly useful order for our purposes. Do it on a formal documented basis with friends and family, and pay bank rate for interest. It goes without saying that payments need to be made promptly and completely.
In the final analysis government, business, trade, exist to serve mankind, and not the other way around as banksters and politicos would have us believe.
Let’s show them that they have the cart before the horse!
H.F. Wolff
28 Comment by Josh Cooney on 7 December 2008:
“We cannot continue to relie only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve gotta have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded.” — Barack Obama
Well I feel better now, don’t you?
29 Comment by Josh Cooney on 7 December 2008:
Though I think Obama probably spelled “relie” correctly, unlike myself.
30 Comment by Jon I. on 7 December 2008:
Looking at the bright side of things, if the taskmasters of the superstate are manned by affirmative-action morons and the arrogant egalitarians, a little backbone shown by various dissidents could go a long way in putting a serious wobble on their house of cards. Those in power are not the most determined beings who ever existed, and definitely not the wisest. Though methinks they count on folks like us believing that. They are probably among the greediest though. That’s about the only positive thing I have to say.
31 Comment by J. Meng on 8 December 2008:
@27 – H. F. Wolff, Well, I guess, theoretically or ideally, your recommendation could be a factor in upsetting the apple cart. However, be realistic. You would need approx. 75% of the American people to cooperate; do you really believe Americans will give up their favorite pastime of spending; sacrifice their comfort zones; live without their high tech toys? I don’t. Besides, the regimentation of American society is ideological and that’s where the fight has to be taken. We know from experience that opposition through the political process doesn’t work, or else we wouldn’t have had a slough of liberal ideologues for presidents (no matter what their party button reads), especially, in the last thirty years. We’ve had several non-Liberal candidates for the presidency who have been ignored or ridiculed by party hacks and MSM, i.e., Pat Buchanan and Ron Paul. Congress is no better. That leaves only armed revolution; yeah, well we can forget that one, too. So, I stick to my original argument. If you want to preserve your liberty, then you’ll have to sacrifice your present comfort zone and head for areas where liberalism can’t reach or has no interest. If they should begin to poke around in your mountain retreat, then bit ‘em off.
32 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 8 December 2008:
31J. Meng:
I submit that my proposed method of fighting the powers-that-be as described in #27 above, has a greater likelihood of succeeding than your proposal of uprooting one’s family and moving to the backwoods, because your objections regarding likelihood of implementation apply equally to both our solutions.
Let’s face it, many, many Americans are facing involuntary curtailment in spending anyway; I am merely advocating that this curtailment be extended a few percentage points by those of means, in other words to reinforce the involuntary curtailment of spending.
Most Americans surely have most if not all of the toys one could wish for? All that is required would be to POSTPONE material acquisitions by say 3 years or so, and the corrupt system that finances those that harm us would collapse down around their ears.
Also, curtailment of spending is easily adjusted for particular circumstances. While your proposed “move to the backwoods” sounds romantic (actually my wife and I implemented this on a compromise basis, I wanted acreage and we settled for a place in a small city) most people cannot implement this for a large variety of reasons. Just think what would happen if 30 million Americans tried to move to the hinterland! And then to move back again when things improved.
I suggest that for a much smaller sacrifice my proposal would have a much greater effect. Will it be implemented? Judging by the responses here I would say no.
H.F. Wolff
33 Comment by Michael Hill on 8 December 2008:
Three words: Michael Collins strategy
34 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 8 December 2008:
33Michael Hill:
Well, don’t keep us in suspense! Any references, website???
H.F. wolff
35 Comment by PcH on 8 December 2008:
Wolff-
Google up “League of the South” and “Michael Hill.” Buy a copy of I’ll Take My Stand and the League’s Grey Book. Otherwise, you’ll have no idea what anyone is talking about here.
36 Comment by Joseph Salemi on 8 December 2008:
Wolff is right about one important thing: moving to the hinterlands is just not feasible for millions of modern Americans under current conditions.
My father often quoted a saying that he heard during his service the Second World War: “Do what you can with what you have, where you are.”
We can’t all become survivalists. But we can remain in CONSCIOUS OPPOSITION, ALL THE TIME. Whenever the minions of left-liberalism and cultural Marxism try to impose something, we can make what Dante calls “Il Gran Rifiuto” — that is, The Great Refusal.
The simple refusal to cooperate is a lot more effective in real-world circumstances than you might think. Refusing to spend money in wild ways is today the most revolutionary and subversive act that you can perpetrate against the permanent liberal government. Have you noticed the terrified look on Bush’s face, or Paulson’s, when they speak about “the collapse of consumer confidence”? Or about the “tightness of credit”? These guys are scared merde-less. Well, let’s stoke the fire of their fears.
37 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 8 December 2008:
PcH:
Thank you for the references. I shall check them out and borrow the book somewhere… Must start the curtailment of the $$$ flow right?
I seem to recall that 75% or so of the USA economy is due to consumer spending. While I am not an economist I would think that if discretionary spending were reduced to a bare minimum by, say, 15% to 25% of of the taxpayer this would have a huge negative effect on corporate profitability and thus corporate taxes payable. Ditto for retailers that only sell imported stuff without a decent offset in exports.
The next thing is to propagate this message. The MSM is hopeless and treading water already according to a web news site. That means our friend the www is the answer.
Surely many of us frequent a number of discussion groups on which we could insert a small post, explaining what is being proposed and why, with the likely outcome. In my professional experience the taking of time and trouble to explain things and the reasons why, go a long way towards obtaining consensus.
H.F. Wolff
38 Comment by EE Roberts on 8 December 2008:
“Don’t believe me? What about the revolution we are witnessing right now in the financial sector? Where are the people? Where are the complaints and the dissent?”
I hear the complaints and the dissent daily, everywhere I go, and I go all over this part of the state doing business. Maybe where you live the people are keeping their mouths shut about the federal takeover of the financial industry, but here in Virginia, people talk about it all the time. It’s the current issue that has strangers opening conversations with each other to vent about a resentment that is commonly felt by people of all political persuasions.
Don’t count the American people out, based on the false picture painted by the TV medium.
39 Comment by Observer on 8 December 2008:
I would like to say that Mr. Wolff has an excellent suggestion. A drop of a mere 5% in sales sets off major alarm bells on Wall Street and in corrporate boardrooms. We don’t need 75% of Americans to jump on board, only 5% is a major shot across the bow. Moreover, let’s extend this to foregoing credit. Since the corporatists and the banksters effectively control the US, a mere 5% reduction in purchases and in credit use would send a strong message that may result in political repercussions to our benefit. The middle class vastly outnumbers the elite. 5% of middle class purchases and credit usage represents a very large number. Great idea, Mr. Wolff! It needs to be propagated, and, in my own experience, ordinary middle class white Americans are starting to get quite agitated about current events.
40 Comment by John Lofton, Recovering Republican on 8 December 2008:
Forget “conservatism,” please. It has been Godless and thus irrelevant. As Stonewall Jackson’s Chief of Staff R.L. Dabney said of such a humanistic belief more than 100 years ago:
“[Secular conservatism] is a party which never conserves anything. Its history has been that it demurs to each aggression of the progressive party, and aims to save its credit by a respectable amount of growling, but always acquiesces at last in the innovation. What was the resisted novelty of yesterday is today .one of the accepted principles of conservatism; it is now conservative only in affecting to resist the next innovation, which will tomorrow be forced upon its timidity and will be succeeded by some third revolution; to be denounced and then adopted in its turn. American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition. It remains behind it, but never retards it, and always advances near its leader. This pretended salt bath utterly lost its savor: wherewith shall it be salted? Its impotency is not hard, indeed, to explain. It .is worthless because it is the conservatism of expediency only, and not of sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth.”
Our country is collapsing because we have turned our back on God (Psalm 9:17) and refused to kiss His Son (Psalm 2).
John Lofton, Editor, TheAmericanView.com
Recovering Republican
JLof@aol.com
41 Comment by Joseph Salemi on 9 December 2008:
Dan B @ 22
It’s true that we really don’t have free speech in the U.S. But there is a difference between our situation and that of Canada and the E.U.
In those places, the lack of free speech is specifically ratified in law. There is no Second Amendment protection, no tradition of articulate opposition, and no sense of the value of what is outside mainstream consensus. Canadians and Europeans think it is perfectly OK to silence politically incorrect dissenters. I was appalled at the mindless left-liberal groupthink that dominates people in Germany and Britain.
That sort of silencing can’t really be done legally in the U.S. (at least not up until now). But what DOES happen is what you might call unofficial censorship. There’s no law against using male-only pronouns, or anti-feminist or anti-gay terms. But if you do so you will be shunned and ostracized and isolated. You will be denied promotion and advancement. You may even be fired (with some other reason given by your employers as a pretext, to protect their legal behinds). All sorts of little snubs and insults and disparagement will come your way.
Liberals call this “social sanction,” and they defend it as a perfectly acceptable way to impose ideological uniformity on everyone. They simply cannot see that this is just as tyrannical and coercive as censorship by positive law. But then again, liberals have a lot of problems seeing things.
I have worked as an educator for over forty years. I’ve deal with left-liberal and cultural Marxist scum all of my adult life. And here in America they have arranged things so that censorship of non-liberal ideas is almost as effective as it is in nations without explicit free-speech protections.
42 Comment by Simon Newman on 9 December 2008:
“Though everywhere threatened, freedom of speech and publication still flourishes in the U.S. to an extent remarkable in today’s world”
I teach in a UK University, and I never tire of telling my students this – that in the US, amazingly, there is this thing called Free Speech, that still exists (some of my Muslim students call it a ‘Conspiracy Against Islam’ and reference the Danish cartoons); this thing that we used to have, not so long ago, but lost. Hold tight to it, if you lose it you’ll not likely get it back.
43 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 9 December 2008:
@34 H F Wolff
http://freedomshenanigans.blogspot.com/2007/06/michael-collins-gambit.html
This is a brief summary of the Michael Collins strategy. He seems to have played a big role as shot-caller rather than anarchic, as the website suggests.
44 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 9 December 2008:
@41 Joseph
Canadians and Europeans think it is perfectly OK to silence politically incorrect dissenters.
That’s a pretty sweeping generalization. It is really the elites who get to pick and choose their targets, and they rely on a network of rat finks. But the plebs have to watch their step lest they offend some deignated protected group. I doubt they’d pay much attention to the victim of anti-Catholic vitriol, they would, however, arrest said victim on some misdemeanor charge like trespassing in a police station to file the complaint. Rights indeed!
45 Comment by Joseph Salemi on 9 December 2008:
All I’m saying is that free speeech isn’t meaningful if there’s a price to be paid for exercising it. Whether that price is legal prosecution (as in the E.U.) or “social sanction” (as here in the United States), the consequences are the same: the silencing of opposing viewpoints, and the demonization of unorthodox sociopolitical opinion.
And let me add that it doesn’t help a bit when religious conservatives wax nostalgic for The Legion of Decency, or any of those other stupid, puritanical attempts to regulate private behavior or control public expression. Every time one of our Evangelical brothers starts screaming about “pornography” or the sale of Playboy magazine at the local Seven-Eleven, he plays directly into the hands of the left-liberals.
46 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 9 December 2008:
43Etienne Gervaise:
Thank you for your referral to a most interesting website.
I think that the fiscal boycott discussed above would fit right in:
No organization, no offices, no leaders… Just a common interest in freedom from oppressive governments.
Save your $$$ for a rainy day because things may get much worse.
H.F. Wolff
47 Comment by Caedmon on 10 December 2008:
@23 – Leo.
These authors agree:
http://www.davekopel.com/2A/LawRev/commun1.htm
48 Comment by JE on 10 December 2008:
I strongly second Joseph Salemi @ 41,45. American ’social sanction’ is ridiculously powerful in the academy — to such an extent that any remotely unbiased observer would have difficulty fighting back explosive laughter at its sheer absurdity (that, or indignant, just anger). The academy just exaggerates the already near-universal thought-crushing that Americans — far more than anyone else on earth, as far as I know — regularly impose on non-conformists. The ultimate result is that even the Universal Church becomes a silly social club (this is true on both left and right, among both Catholics and Protestants). The reactionary, principle-conceding counter-reply is immature youth-rebellion, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and self-proclaimed Tridentine ‘Traditionalists’ accusing a priest giving communion to the *standing* faithful of heresy (this has actually happened, in the middle of Communion). These are quite useless because in conceding a false distinction (here, Levi-Straussian structuralism) they grant the enemy the combat-front he wants; and because the enemy is stronger in the world, his side will always win. Of course by granting the enemy his false distinction they themselves proclaim the enemy’s lies.
What I’m not sure of us whether or not fiscal boycotts aren’t merely the same sort of thing — fruitless and pathetic, because fundamentally distinction-conceding. Isn’t the necessary implication of ’systemic error’ that the only escape from error is total exit from the system? Fixing the error would then still be possible, but only from the outside — again supposing that the error is not a mere perturbation in the otherwise homeostatic system.
49 Comment by JE on 10 December 2008:
Also, does anyone seriously think that any private militia, armed with shotguns, or even AK-47s, could successfully fight off the modern American military? If ‘push comes to shove’ — and that is the hypothesis we’re considering, not any symbolic gesture in favor of limited government, weapons-possession and hence non-slavery, or whatever — then this is the situation we must be preparing for.
But — firearms against the US military, really?
(Of course I may be totally underestimating simple firearms, my military-tech-junkie side showing itself unexpectedly.)
50 Comment by Joseph Salemi on 10 December 2008:
JE @ 48
I’m a traditionalist Roman Catholic myself, but I am increasingly impatient with a rather narrow and hidebound attitude of truculence that seems to animate a lot of traditionalist Catholics. They make such a damned silly fuss about utterly indifferent things like altar girls, or reception of Communion in the hand, or whether the late Pope had a photo-op with some Buddhist. I mean really… are THESE the important problems that afflict our Holy Mother Church? Is someone a heretic if he stands while taking Communion? Or is he a Hussite schismatic if he receives under both species? Or was John Paul II a traitor to Catholicism if he had a pleasant chat with a Moslem cleric?
More and more I see that many traditionalist Roman Catholics are really just the Ultramontane branch-office for Evangelical Protestantism. The same freaky, wild-and-woolly need to totalize dominates both groups.
51 Comment by JE on 10 December 2008:
Joseph Salemi @ 50
I realize now that my remark may have sounded like a universal condemnation of everyone who doesn’t think much of Vatican II, or at least its fruits. I didn’t mean this at all — I’m a bit afraid of the word ‘traditionalist’ because, but only because, of the sort of ‘freaky’ people you’re describing. Notwithstanding — ever since leaving New York City I’ve become more and more painfully aware of the inestimable gift of a rightly-said Mass, and am often tempted to endure these clubbish stupidities just to avoid a sung (!) Preface and Consecration set to a pretentiously-named ‘melody’ belonging more to a parody of group therapy than to the Re-enactment. (The altar-rail incident, by the way, occurred at St. Agnes in midtown.) Do you think — as I’ve vaguely hoped — that a massive ex-Romanis flight to the Eastern liturgies might be the liturgical analogue (in this country, anyway) to H. F. Wolff’s fiscal boycott?
52 Comment by Joseph Salemi on 10 December 2008:
Well, it’s possible I suppose. But those of us who are attached to the Old Roman Rite are probably not going to be satisfied with any Byzantine substitute.
As for St. Agnes in midtown Manhattan, of course it’s a magnet for all types of traditionalists, both sane and crazy. When I attended years ago, I recall the brilliant Father George Rutler, a convert from High Anglicanism if I recollect rightly.
And yes, the worst distortions of Catholic liturgy take place in the boondocks. There’s something about localities like Kansas or Iowa or Soth Succotash, Indiana that brings out the worst proclivities of liberal Catholics. And for that reason alone, we put up with the lunatic C.U.F. people.
53 Comment by Allen Wilson on 10 December 2008:
You have a point JE, but consider: the US military is stretched to the limit overseas, not concentrated at home. America is a really big place in which to try to control or put down insurgencies and we cant even do it in relatively tiny Iraq; many recent vets have learnt much from their enemies while serving overseas, and many of them are disgruntled and may join a rebellion; military type weapons can be smuggled in and already have been by petty drug gangs; what is left of national guard or reserve units at home likely will, at the least, be divided in sympathies, or may even join in the rebellion, particularly if a state decides to join in the rebellion and they decide to be loyal to their state.
The only thing keeping the Union together is malaise and inertia in the people, and if they really decide to withdraw consent and refuse to be pushed around, it’s over. The house of cards will collapse.
54 Comment by J. Meng on 11 December 2008:
@50, Joseph Salemi: What is “traditionalist” in being indifferent to “altar girls”, “reception of Communion in the hand”, and photo-ops or “pleasant chats” with enemies of the Catholic Church, such as Buddhists and Muslims or even going so far as kissing the Koran?
55 Comment by Joseph Salemi on 11 December 2008:
J. Meng @ 54
I’m afraid I don’t follow your question. Could you rephrase it more lucidly?
56 Comment by J. Meng on 11 December 2008:
Joseph Salemi: I will rephrase my last. You said that you were a “traditionalist Roman Catholic”. At the same time you classified altar girls, reception of Holy Communion in the hand, and public relations by the Pope with the Catholic Church’s enemies, i.e., Buddhists and Muslims as “utterly indifferent things.” I was just wondering how a Traditionalist would find them as “utterly indifferent things” in light of Church history before Vatican II. It is quite evident that these examples manifest a total departure from Catholic practice and doctrine and reflect deeper theological and philosophical problems in the Church.
57 Comment by Joseph Salemi on 11 December 2008:
J. Meng @ 56
“Practice” and “doctrine” are not the same things. Church practice can and does change, in accordance with the prudential decisions of the Pope and the hierarchy. Church doctrine cannot change, except by clarification and/or addition.
Using altar girls as well as altar boys is a question of practice, and can be decided one way or the other, prudentially. Nothing doctrinal is riding on the matter. The same is true for receiving Holy Communion in the hand. Be reasonable, Meng. Nothing in the Baltimore Catechism concerning the nature and validity of the Eucharistic sacrifice changes just because some people take communion in their hand.
As for talking with Buddhists or Moslems… well, that’s all it is: talk. Would you say that I, as a Roman Catholic, can’t have a polite conversation with a Southern Baptist or a Jew? If that were the case, no Catholic could take part in the discussions here at Chronicles, since many of the participants are from other religious traditions.
The Pope has meetings and photo-ops with all sorts of people. Like it or not, in this modern world the Pope is a public figure, a celebrity, an icon. Saying that he has to sequester himself away from any contact with non-Catholics is silly.
Not all traditionalist Roman Catholics are C.U.F. crackpots.
I have a personal question. Very soon Pope John Paul II will be on the road to canonization. Those thousands of Italians screaming “Santo subito!” at his funeral aren’t going to be denied. When that happens, John Paul II will be in the “Communion of Saints,” the very same Communion of Saints that you profess your belief in at every Mass. So tell me: when that comes about will you have a problem praying to the man who chatted politely with Budhists and Moslems?
58 Comment by J. Meng on 12 December 2008:
@57 Joseph Salemi,
a) You said, “Using altar girls as well as altar boys is a question of practice, and can be decided one way or the other, prudentially. Nothing doctrinal is riding on the matter.” However, the prohibition of female altar servers goes back to the late 4th century in canon 44 of the Collection of Laodicea. In 494 A.D. Pope St. Gelasius denounced this practice as an abuse. He remarked that female service at the altar is “to carry out roles that are not suited to their sex.” Church doctrine is clear on why females are not suited to altar servers: altar service is basicially a stage along the road to the priesthood. Church doctrine is also clear that Holy Orders can never be conferred upon women. As Fr. Brian Harrison notes, this has been the two millennia teaching of the Church and that this tradition “reflects the will of Christ.”
b) Although the reception of Holy Communion in the hand was prevalent in the early Church, because of growing abuses related to this type of reception the Church outlawed it. The Synod of Rouen in the year 650 A.D. condemned the reception of Communion in the hand by the laity as an abuse. The Roman Ordo of the 9th century accepts Communion on the tongue as the normal practice. One of the decisive reasons for this change to reception on the tongue, according to Fr. Jungmann, was the “growing respect for the Eucharist” it fostered. Also, by the mid-thirteenth century, “it was already a firmly established tradition that only what had been consecrated should ever come in contact with the Blessed Sacrament while dispensing It. St. Thomas Aquinas enunciates three reasons why dispensing “Christ’s Body” belongs to the priest (cf. Summa Theologica, III, Q. 82, Art. 13). The Protestant heretic Martin Bucer saw the practice of a priest placing the Host upon the tongue of a communicant as signifying that the Eucharistic bread was not ordinary bread. So, he demanded Communion in the hand, for two reasons: 1. to emphasize that the Eucharistic bread was just bread and not the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ; and 2. to repudiate the “virtue of the oil of consecration” of the Catholic priest. Communion in the hand was re-introduced into the Catholic Church as an act of rebellion soon after Vatican II . It began in Holland. It soon spread to other European countries and to the United States Unfortunately, the revolutionaries in Rome granted permission for legalization of the abuse by May 1969.
c) The Pope is not you or me. He is the Vicar of Christ with the responsibility to preserve the Catholic Faith and to teach it to the world for its salvation. The Pope has always been a public figure, but that does not justify giving scandal by compromising the Catholic Faith with the false ecumenism that has spilled out from Vatican II. You said, “As for talking with Buddhists or Moslems… well, that’s all it is: talk.” Really? The record refutes your claim. In Dec. 1983, Pope John Paul II preached in a Lutheran Church; in Aug. 1985, he took part in Animist rites in the “Sacred Forest” in Togo; in Feb. 1986, JPII had the sacred Tilac put on his forehead by a priestess of Shiva in Bombay; heinvited representatives of the “main religions” to Assisi to pray for peace in Oct. 1986 (by the way, of the 130 reps that showed up, which God were they praying to?); in April 1986, JPII recited psalms with Jews while visiting the synagogue of Rome; two months later, he invited Catholics and Jews to prepare together for the coming of the Messiah; in Feb. 1993, JPII engaged in dialogues with the high priests and witch doctors of Voodoo; and I have a picture of him kissing the Koran, which refers to Christians as “pigs” for their belief in the Holy Trinity and which also says, that a Muslim goes to Heaven if he kills an infidel, i.e., a Christian. Recently, Pope Benedict XVI visited the Jewish Synagogue in Cologne, Germany in Aug. 2005, where he took an active part in the Jewish worship service. Before Vatican II, to take part in a non-Catholic worship was a sin against the Divine Law and the First Commandment. In Dec. 2006, grovelling before the Muslims because of his statement in Germany, earlier, BXVI visited the Blue Mosque in Turkey and prayed with them facing Mecca. BXVI opened a major interfaith conference in Naples in Oct. 2007 where 200 reps of all the false religions had gathered. Lastly, his visit to the New York Synagogue in April 2008 will not be forgotten. These papal actions never occurred before Vatican II. There is a story that St. John the Evangelist while approaching a public bath was told that a particular heretic was inside bathing. St. John turned around and fled declaring that he did not want to be in the same space as a heretic for the roof falling in.
d) As to the personal question you’ve asked me. I will give you an answer when that old revolutionary has been canonized, which I believe highly unlikely.
e) So, again, I ask you, how can you find these things as utterly indifferent, if you are a traditionalist?
59 Comment by Joseph Salemi on 12 December 2008:
J. Meng @ 58
Meng, you have more holes in that long-winded oration than a sieve does.
First off, and most glaringly, you admit that communion in the hand is a PRACTICE, since it was “prevalent in the early Church” (your exact words). If it was indeed practiced, it is not inherently contrary to doctrine. Everything else that you adduce in reference to the matter is just a rehashing of the history of prudential decisions concerning it.
What was PRACTICE in the seventh century is still PRACTICE in the twenty-first. Nothing doctrinal is riding on it. So what if Martin Bucer had some polemical notions about it? Should we make decisions about ecclesiastical practices based on what a non-Catholic thinks? I thought that traditionalist Catholics weren’t supposed to be influenced by the views of heretics.
You say that “Church doctrine is also clear that Holy Orders can never be conferred upon women.” That’s absolutely correct. And Pope John Paul II made it very specific in one of his allocutions. He completely closed the door on the specter of female ordination. Women will NEVER be priests in the Roman Church.
So why the devil are you weeping and wailing about the fact that he left permission for the use of altar girls to the local bishops? This is what I mean by the absurdly fanatical, totalizing mentality of a lot of so-called “traditionalist” Roman Catholics. The Pope handed us a complete victory when he quashed the possibility of female priests. He just threw a few peanuts to the liberals, by allowing altar girls if the bishop says yes. Good grief, Meng — recognize when we’ve won!
Did Pope John Paul II do a number of things that you and I might not have done? Sure. Many of them were spectacularly histrionic. But recall that in his youth this Pope WAS an actor! His entire personality was histrionic. And this is an age of spectacle, of hype, of publicity. None of it has any real meaning.
You fail to see that a great deal of modern life is just a lot of pointless gesturing. Photo-ops, sound-bites, head shots, press releases, flashbulbs, ten-second bulletins, pep talks, pointless committee meetings… it’s all just trivia, and no one really takes it seriously. But many traditionalist Catholics seem to believe that every word out of the Pope’s mouth, and his every off-the-cuff gesture, has to be footnoted to Aquinas or the Council of Trent.
Lighten up, Meng. Pope Benedict XVI has granted a worldwide Indult for the use of the Latin mass. Have you forgotten so quickly that you are winning the war? Don’t sweat the altar girls and the photo-ops.
And lastly, I’ll ask you a question that you can answer right now. Do you believe that Pope John Paul II was the validly elected Vicar of Christ on earth, in apostolic succession from St. Peter? A straight answer, please — just yes or no.
60 Comment by J. Meng on 13 December 2008:
@ 59, Joseph Salemi,
Thanks for participating in a simple demonstration of catechesis in which you demonstrated that you are not truly a traditionalist Roman Catholic. You were unable to make (or God forbid! rejected) the connection between Catholic practice and doctrine. These things which you so blithely accept as utter indifferences are novelties in terms of Catholic Tradition, and consequently, scandalous. They came about since Vatican II. I suspect that you are a victim of a Novus Ordo formation and that you tend toward a liberal Catholicism, such as that which describes the attitude of the ruling hierarchy in Rome. As you should know, Catholic liberalism is a diabolical disorientation. Christ declared that one is either with Him or against Him. There is no middle ground. You should re-evaluate your position.
61 Comment by Joseph Salemi on 13 December 2008:
Notice that Meng refused to answer my question. I’m pretty sure now that he’s a sedevacantist.
What Meng demonstrates his is incapacity to distinguish between the Magisterium and pastoral policy. This is typical of certain wild and woolly traditionalists — they see no difference beween mutable practice and immutable doctrine.