The United States: A Country Without Mercy
The Christmas season is a time to remember the unfortunate, among who are those who have been wrongly convicted.
In the United States, the country with the largest prison population in the world, the number of wrongly convicted is very large. Hardly any felony charges are resolved with trials. The vast majority of defendants, both innocent and guilty, are coerced into plea bargains. Not only are the innocent framed, but the guilty, as well. It is quicker and less expensive to frame the guilty than to convict them on the evidence.
Many Americans are wrongfully convicted because they trust the justice system. They naively believe that police and prosecutors are moved by evidence and have a sense of justice. The trust they have in authorities makes them easy victims of a system that has no moral conscience and is untroubled by the injustice it perpetrates.
Lt. William Strong, son of a military family, tired of his wife's unfaithfulness and filed for divorce. The unfaithful wife retaliated by accusing Strong of rape. There was no evidence of rape, but Strong was deceived into a plea bargain. Once Strong entered a plea, he was double-crossed and given 60 years.
Christophe Gaynor took an adolescent skateboard team to New York City for a competition. One of the kids attempted to buy illicit drugs. Gaynor threatened to tell the boy's parents, and the boy pre-empted Gaynor by accusing him of sexual molestation. Gaynor was openly framed in the Arlington, Va., court system.
Americans, or perhaps more accurately some Americans, were horrified by the photographs showing the torture of Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib by the U.S. military. The Senate Armed Services Committee has issued a report that concludes that the torture policy originated at the highest level of the Bush administration. Those Americans with a moral conscience have reeled under further revelations—the torture of Guantanamo detainees and the transport of people seized by U.S. authorities to Third World countries to be tortured.
We have to ask ourselves why American servicemen and women and CIA operatives delight in torturing people about whom they know nothing. It has been well known since the Stalin era that torture never produces accurate information. Yet, U.S. soldiers and CIA personnel jumped at the green light given to torture by President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and the U.S. Department of Justice. Why weren't our soldiers shocked instead at the immorality of their leaders?
One answer is that the U.S. military no longer operates according to a code of honor. Military discipline in the traditional sense does not exist. The ethos of the U.S. military has degenerated into kick-ass macho. Maj. Gen. Taguba, who, instead of covering up the Abu Ghraib scandal, attempted in his report to hold the U.S. military to its traditional principles, was forced to resign from the U.S. Army.
Another answer is that the work of torture, like police work and prosecutorial work, attracts brutal people who enjoy inflicting harm on others. The two Republican female U.S. attorneys in Alabama who framed Democratic Gov. Seligman enjoyed ruining Seligman and bringing grief to his family.
Deborah Davies of the BBC's Channel 4 undertook a four-month investigation of the torture of American prisoners inside American prisons. Videos taken by sadistic prison guards and videos recovered from surveillance cameras reveal horrible acts of torture and even of murder of prisoners by prison guards.
An American prison reformer told Davies: "We've become immune to the abuse. The brutality has become customary."
Few Americans seem to be disturbed as these inhumane and illegal practices continue unabated. Americans continue to see themselves as the salt of the earth, the "indispensable people."
"Law and order conservatives" have a great responsibility for this evil. Just as "law and order conservatives" created hysteria among the people about crime, they created hysteria about terrorists. Hysterical people condone great evils and arm government with power in the mistaken belief that it will protect them.
What kind of people have we become when we exercise no oversight over a criminal justice (sic) system that destroys the lives of innocent people and locks them away in prisons to be tortured by sadistic guards?
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
Entries(RSS)
Kurt Higdon @ 100
If you had even bothered to give a cavalier perusal of my various posts here over the last few months, you would have seen that I am profoundly anti-neocon, and that I think our mindless adherence to Israeli political interests is slavish and self-destructive.
Killing one's enemies in combat is not murder. Don't Christians make that elemental distinction any longer? Maybe you have a new way of looking at the following Christians: Charlemagne, Alfred the Great, Godfrey of Boulogne, Pope Julius II, Don Juan of Austria, and St. Joan of Arc. I hope you'll explain it to us.
I don't like the Israelis and I don't like what's going on in Gaza right now. But let's not forget that Hamas has been sending rockets into Israel on a non-stop basis, and killing Israeli citizens. ANY sane state strikes back under those circumstances.
Robert @ 99
Are you off your meds or something?
Your post is a mishmash of absurd personal abuse, and doesn't make a single rational point.
Instead of quoting my final paragraph five (!) times, do you think you might actually be able to explain why it has driven you to such hyperbolic venting? Why exactly is that particular paragraph so "outrageous"? Or is that too much for a mere Yankee like me to ask?
Mr. Salemi,
Please be assured there is nothing personal about it. As you have said yourself:
" politics deals with power-relationships. To put it bluntly, it’s about who gets what, and who calls the shots. It’s a hard and sometimes brutal business, like a fierecly contested hockey game. Would you apply your Christian convictions to a hockey game? Would you charitably allow the opposing team to make goals? Would you turn the other cheek when a player hits you with his stick? Would you politely get out of the way as he goes down the ice with the puck?
You’d never win a game if you did. And that is because Christian principles are for individual human lives, not for the rough-and-tumble competition of real-world survival of a nation, a race, a people. For real-world survival you ned H-bombs, machine guns, bayonets, armored divisions, jet fighters, land mines and barbed wire — along with a cold willingness to use them when necessary."
You have unjustly heaped scorn and insults on long time Chronicle posters such as PcH, Red Phillips and others who are "real world Christian survivalist" and folks worthy of our respect. You are acting like a carpet bagger peddling important political theories in a peaceful country, condescending in your explanation of the laws governing such theories and reckless in your responses to local objections. We do not think much of your Yankee mannerisms and therefore will not politely get out of the way as you assume all good Christians should do to allow for the more esteemed sciences of political victory and intrigue.
Any reader with even a modicum of cultural awareness or average powers of observation would be amused by your assertion that in the political arena "we could have wiped the swiving floor with our liberal enemies" even as late as 1994 ? If only as you say, Americans would have weaned themselves from the opium of religion in the ring of real politics. Oh really, Mr. Salemi ?
Another point I should make is that your use of the word "rational" is rather intriguing to me as you calmly lay out for consideration your assertion that the art of politics is really much closer to the law of the jungle than a reflection of the underlying culture that sustains it. Well if this is so, and thank God it isn't, you have nothing to whine about when it comes to being heaped with personal abuses or irrational responses to that impecable logic that reduces politics to " power-relationships." It is afterall and in your own words," To put it bluntly, it’s about who gets what, and who calls the shots. It’s a hard and sometimes brutal business" So please spare me your appeals to Christian charity when this "Brutal Business" is brought to a theatre near you.
Joseph Salemi @ 89, 90, 91, & 94
This is a partial disagreement with your argument in the above citations.
First, your idea of politics in 94 is correct, in that politics has for its object the organization of the State in view of the complete common good of the citizens in the natural order, and the means that conduce to it (and this can be applied to the most basic community of society, the family); but it is incomplete, because it ignores the fact that the final end of man is not merely natural, but supernatural, viz., the Beatific Vision of God in Three Divine Persons. Therefore, according to Catholic social doctrine, the State, charged with the temporal social order, must ever act so as not only not to hinder but also to favor the attaining of man's supreme end. Fr. Denis Fahey, in his Mystical Body of Christ in the Modern World, elaborates this teaching: "Political thought and political action...in an ordered State, will respect the jurisdiction and guidance of the Catholic Church, the divinely-instituted guardian of the moral order, remembering that what is morally wrong cannot be politically good. Thus the natural or temporal common good of the State will be always aimed at, in the way best calculated to favor the development of true personality, in and through the Mystical Body of Christ. The civil power will then have a purer and higher notion of its proper end, acquired in the full light of Catholic truth, and political action, both in rulers and ruled, will come fully under the influence of supernatural life" [6].
Pope Leo XIII teaches this doctrine in his encyclical Immortale Dei, where he emphatically condemns the idea of separation of Church and State.
Pope St. Pius X reminded us, "For there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion: it is a proven truth, a historical fact" [Notre Charge Apostolique].
What you seem to suggest in your argument is what Martin Luther declared about any head of state: "Assuredly, [he said], a prince can be a Christian, but it is not as a Christian that he ought to govern. As a ruler, he is not called a Christian, but a prince. The man is Christian, but his function does not concern his religion." This statement shows the decay in the true idea of membership of our Lord's Mystical Body, as noted by Fr. Fahey.
Of course, with the historical erosion of the Catholic idea of politics and the duty of the State by the continuous secularization of western society since the Protestant Revolution into a hodgepodge of materialistic, consumer-oriented, morally feckless national entities, it is understandable that you would describe politics as an exercise of "power-relationships", which have basically become ever more immoral, self-aggrandizing, brutal, and disastrous.
Therefore, it should be seen that we as individuals do not live in a political vacuum. The God who created us, created society, and it is in an ordered society (whether it be the family, the neighborhood, the local village, the province, or the nation) that each man will work out his salvation. Thus, politics is a most important factor in ensuring not only the temporal good of each man, but that it does work with the Catholic Church to enhance the social environment in which we hope to save our souls.
Of course, this does not mean the formation of some sort of earthly utopia, because, as you say, and as most of us admit, we are sinners, and our efforts will always be flawed. But the work of grace does lead to virtue and virtuous lives which should be reflected not only in the home but in the public forum, also. So, as PcH claimed, we do need "to submit ourselves to the moral code of the Creator." Then, and only then, will America become truly great and beautiful.
#101 - Killing one's enemies in combat is certainly murder on the part of one who initiates the combat or even one who carries self-defense beyond legitimate bounds, whether by reacting disproportionately, continuing violence against already defeated enemies or not taking due care to protect the innocent from "collateral damage". Criticizing the right for insufficient willingness to kill is an argument I expect to hear from neo-cons, racialists and social darwinists - not from someone who claims (if I'm not mistaken, Mr. Salemi) to follow the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Your list of Christian warriors is a mixed bag and only one of them is a canonized saint. St. Joan and King Alfred led defensive wars to protect their countries from foreign invaders. Don Juan of Austria is best known for his success in a defensive sea war to protect his country and others from piracy and slave raids. He also participated in counter-insurgency campaigns on behalf of a legitimate sovereign although I am not familiar enough with those campaigns to say if he always acted within the bounds of Christian morality. Charlemagne's wars were a mixture of defense and wars of conquest, but more of the latter. Godfrey was responsible for a horrendous massacre and Pope Julian was and is widely viewed as a disgrace to the Church, no better than his Borgia enemies.
My overall points are two. War and politics are subject to the law of God and the teachings of the Church, just as individual conduct is. And secondly, the problem with the right is not that it is insufficiently lethal. People on the right should aspire to do no harm.
Robert @ 103
Where or when in any of my posts did I ever make any "appeals to Christian charity"? I really don't give a swiving damn how you or anyone else here responds to what I have to say.
The plain fact is you STILL haven't adduced a single reason as to why that particular final paragraph of mine has sent you into neural overdrive. That's a sign that your limbic system is functioning in this argument, not your mind.
I'll answer Meng at length in a day or so.
"The plain fact is you STILL haven’t adduced a single reason as to why that particular final paragraph of mine has sent you into neural overdrive.'
Because it is demonstrably false that american conservatives could have whipped the liberals in the political arena in 1994. The truth is that people like yourself who talk like this are part of the problem and not the solution. Anyone who would write such a thing reveals himself as a crack pot and a spoof which you are and your future posts will continue to demonstrate. As your type likes to say, "bring it on" I look forward to exposing you and your fraudulent brand of "victory."
Robert @ 107
Look -- just take a deep breath, count to ten slowly, and then focus on the following:
Exactly HOW and WHY is what I wrote "demonstrably false"?
Where and when did I ever say "Bring it on"? I'm not even clear as to what you mean by that phrase.
By slipping into personal abuse and billingsgate, you only show the weakness of your position.
Kirt Higdon @ 105
"People on the right should aspire to do no harm."
Again, you put into a nutshell our basic attitudinal problem. We aren't doctors, dammit! We don't have to follow the Hippocratic code. Where do you people get these womanish notions?
Let me try to explain my position by way of a historic example.
Between the eighth and eleventh centuries, Viking raiders (called "Danes" or "the Northmen") made forays into English territory. They looted, took captives as slaves, raped women, burned monasteries and churches, and eventually began to settle down in large swaths of Anglo-Saxon land in the north.
Bu the time of the Norman Conquest, these raids had become infrequent and sporadic. The Anglo-Saxons had learned to defend themselves, and had managed to stem the depredations.
(Continued below)
Sorry -- having trouble with the computer at this end.
-- JS
After the accession of William the Conqueror, the first Norman ruler of the land, some Danish raids still went on. But the Danes hadn't reckoned on King William's toughness. He didn't tolerate nonsense from anyone. He ordered his knights to bring the next batch of captured Danish raiders to him.
William then had those Danes flayed alive. And he ordered their skins to be nailed to the doors of St. Clement's Church in London.
To this very day, that little church is known as St. Clement Danes.
I would like to ask all you good Christian folk who have called me "bloodthirsty" and "lethal" and "savage" to imagine going to Mass on a Sunday morning in the year 1070 and seeing those flayed human skins nailed to the church entrance as you went in to partake of Christ's body and blood.
Would you be shocked? Horrified? Sickened? If so, I submit that you lack the intestinal fortitude and robust vigor of King William, and you will never be of any use in defending Western civilization against its enemies, except perhaps in a vaguely intellectual way by having discussions here at the Chronicles website (don't get me wrong -- there's nothing bad about these discussions, but they aren't going to stop the much more hideous and destructive invasions that we as Westerners are about to face from our non-Western enemies.
By the way, King William the Conqueror was a Roman Catholic Christian. In fact, if my memory serves me, he got the blessing of the Pope himslf for his invasion of Anglo-Saxon England.
So by all means, go on jawboning about the Tridentine Mass, and your "faith-based initiatives", and school prayer, and the inerrancy of Scripture. Be my guest.
But remember those skins nailed to the church door.
J. Meng @ 104
Meng, thank you for your courteous and thoughtful reply at the above posting. Let me try to explain why I disagree with you.
The weakness of your position is that you are arguing theoretically, while I am arguing historically. Theories about how the world should be run have been around since Plato's Republic and Campanella's Civitas Solis and More's Utopia, and all the other imagined perfect worlds that intellectuals are prone to create while sitting in their studies.
And revealed religion by its very nature has the same proclivity. Because such religions believe that they have a handle on ultimate, solidly grounded metaphysical truth, there is a strong temptation to insist that such truth be used as a guideline for the running of society.
But in the actual, living, breathing, material world in which we find ourselves, nothing works itself out exactly in accord with what our cherished theories have created ideationally. The word "theory" is from a Greek term meaning "overview" or "spectacle" or "contemplation" or "speculation" -- sort of what you would experience if you climbed a mountain and looked out over the world stretched before you. Standing on that mountain peak, everything seems clear and understandable. But when you climb down and go back into the living landscape, you find yourself swallowed up by context and circumstance once again.
Now it's certainly the job of the Pope and moralists like Father Fahey to give us "theoretical overviews." But a politician in the trenches of social conflict doesn't always have the freedom to check his every move against the Baltimore Cathechism, or the Thirty-Nine Articles, or any other codified list of moral do's and don'ts. That doesn't mean that he should feel free to be totally and unnecessarily amoral, but it does mean that he needs some latitude or "wiggle-room" (as women put it when discussing their pants size).
Recall Shakespeare's play Henry VI. There is a scene where the very devout and religious King Henry is in the midst of a political crisis, with mobs in the streets of London. His advisors and counselors are urging him to immediate, effective ACTION. King Henry, being the typically hesitant and pusillanimous religious type, says "I shall send some holy bishop to entreat with them." His counselors throw their hands up in despair, realizing that this very religious man belongs in a Carthusian monastery, not in politics.
Is that what you think we should do in our political crisis, Meng? Send some holy bishop to entreat with them?
This has nothing to do with the separation of Church and State, something which I happen to think is absolutely necessary to maintain our Holy Mother Church's freedom and independence. When Church and State are united, the State calls the shots. Under modern conditions, society would become as cosmologically totalistic as it was under the Pharaohs.
Just because Martin Luther said something, does that make the statement untrue? Luther was simply echoing the Italian Catholic, Niccolo Machiavelli. IT IS NOT THE JOB OF GOVERNMENT TO SAVE YOUR SOUL FOR YOU.
I really don't get a lot of conservative people. They insist that it's not the government's job to provide welfare, or it's not the government's job to provide universal health care, and it's not the government's job to start wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it's not the government's job to bail out Wall Street and Detroit, and so on and so on.
But all of a sudden, when it comes to morals and religion, it's the government's job to make sure we are saved? Puh-LEEZE!
If trying to do no harm is womanish, then I guess all physicians who adhere to the traditional oath of their profession are womanish. As far as Viking raiders and William the Conqueror are concerned, the latter probably rates as the most successful of all Viking raiders. The Normans, after all, were Vikings who had conquered the French peninsula which bears their name (FYI - Norman derives from Northman) and then used it as a base to conquer England. They had become Christians somewhere in that time, but not given up their murderous habits. The fact that William the Conqueror had papal endorsement does not make him any less of a muderous aggressor and war criminal. The appointment of earthly rulers is one area where Popes emphatically do not enjoy the charism of infallibility.
BTW, Mr Salemi, I don't recall making any comment on the Tridentine Mass, faith based initiatives, school prayer, or the inerrancy of Scripture. Perhaps I did and have forgotten or perhaps you have me confused with some other commentator.
Yes, I know very well that "Norman" comes from "Northman." How that factoid has any bearing on the argument escapes me, however.
By 1066, nevertheless, the Normans were Latinized and Francophone. I take it you don't consider them serious Christians, despite the fact that from England to Sicily they were champions of the Church.
Just listen to your own rhetoric, Kirt Higdon. You say that William the Conqueror was "a murderous aggressor and war criminal." Doesn't that sound EXACTLY like what would come out of the mouth of one of our liberal enemies? The same outraged, moralistic, condemnatory, Sunday-School tone.
I'm sure King William wasn't the sort of person who would fit in at a UN peace conference or a convocation of bishops. And his scorched-earth policy of terror in reducing the north of England to Norman obedience was certainly atrocious. But as long as we echo the moralistic rhetoric of our left-liberal enemies, we aren't going to make any progress politically.
Be reasonable. I'm not suggesting that we nail our enemies' skins to the church door. But this pietistic, prating, Scripture-quoting tone that too many of you are prone to adopt is just silly and irrelevant.
As for my reference to the Tridentine Mass (which I attend whenever I can), faith-based initiatives, school prayer and all the rest, they were generalized examples of what I consider the waste of right-wing poiltical energy in otherworldly issues. I did not suggest that you had brought them up.
So there is no one whom you consider a murderous aggressor or war criminal or at least no one whom you would name as such for fear of sounding like a liberal. Sorry, but between the moralistic, Sunday-school tone of someone like, for example, Paul Craig Roberts and being an apologist for William the Conqueror, I'll have to go with the former.
Chacun a son gout.
"But this pietistic, prating, Scripture-quoting tone that too many of you are prone to adopt is just silly and irrelevant."
Yes, this is my major objection to all that you post. Not only does it reveal your misunderstanding of God's ability to act in history but also a certain effeminate quality in all that you boast of in your post.
Your premise is that everything to do with God is to be relegated to the domain of subjectivity. This is based upon your revulsion to shallow and ignorant Christians." You want the Bible and Bible Christians to be silent so that only the voice of Tarzan and political Janes like yourself can be heard -- afterall you are the realist are you not ? Like the Antichrist described by Vladimer Soloviev, with your air of scholarly excellence, you condescend to offer that any man woman or child who may perhaps read the Bible from the perspective of faith in the living God, in order to listen to what God has to say is fundamentalism. You desire a god for politics created in your own image in which God says
nothing and has nothing to say.
You reveal such an ignorance in your childish references to monks or contemplatives as bleeding hearts and childish critters licking their wounds in wonder while fellows like yourself do the heavy lifting by cutting throats and skinning the enemy. It would never occur to a man of your disposition to know who exactly you are speaking about -- how many have served, how many have killed murdered or maimed in their country's name, how many studied at Oxford or abroad, or how many heard the voice from small towns like Nazarerth or Bethlehem.
And the reason your thesis is demonstrably false is because "When God is regarded as a secondary matter that can be set aside temporarily or permananetly on account of more important matters, it is precisely these more important matters that come to nothing . It is not just the marxist experiment that proves this. " You are restricting the conversation with your banter and shrill rhetoric towards Bible Thumpers and American patriots who are men and women of faith. You are a wordie sumbich as well. I await your next big splash of ink and display of heroic virtue. Bring it on, Professor.
Sigh.
It's hard to know what to say when someone calls you:
1. The Antichrist
2. Tarzan's "Jane"
3. "wordie sumbich" (Is that dialect or something?)
Also, I am apparently "ignorant," "childish," "effeminate," "condescending," and "shrill." OK, Bobby -- have it your way.
I'm just wondering about the words of Jesus: "Whoso saith 'Fool' to his brother is liable to judgment." (I don't remember the exact passage and place... ask one of the Bible-thumpers).
Let me just say this: In the several weeks that I have been here, I NEVER attacked or insulted anyone personally unless and until they went after me first. Go back and look at the transcripts. The persons who started this catfight were the religious types who just couldn't bear to have their basic assumptions questioned. (I don't mean you, Meng -- you have been thoughtful and polite).
Also, could someone PLEASE explain to me what this phrase "Bring it on" is supposed to mean? Is it some code for a secret society that you're all in?
"I’m just wondering about the words of Jesus: “Whoso saith ‘Fool’ to his brother is liable to judgment.”
And who exactly is your brother in "your" world of politics ? The guy in the ditch ? The men who have been posting here for years as unapologetic and quite serious Southern Baptists who you have gone out of your way to insult ?
I would not mind so much about your poor manners and your naive infatuation with "saving western civilization' if were not for the fact that I am a Roman Catholic and embarassed by your posts about political victory in 1994, Baptist cow colleges and a Bible Belt that exists only in your mind. I never called you Antichrist, I compared you to a figure described in the book, by Vladimer Soloviev with that title ! DUHH !The Tarzan and Jane comparisons are from your jungle approach to politics as something for only for real men. Presumably like yourself. Get lost or get better.
Joseph Salemi, @113, No, I am not arguing theoretical principles, because they have been historically applied in Europe during the Middle Ages, when men were Catholic. The Church has ever taught that there are two major spheres of activity that share in the Kingship of Christ, which is both temporal and spiritual. The spiritual Kingship of Christ is shared in by the Pope and the Bishops; the temporal is shared in by the rulers of states and nations. Politics and economics come under the authority of the rulers. Although the Church and the State is supreme within its own sphere, the spiritual Kingship of Christ comprises the right of intervention in temporal affairs, when a ruler has gone awry bringing injustice in his train, for example. This is called indirect jurisdiction. Do you remember the case of Pope St. Gregory VII and Emperor Henry at Canossa in the 11th century? In the main and for a few centuries men accepted this ordered social organization. However, due to the character of fallen man, as each of us knows by our daily battle to conquer the pull of our evil inclinations, this social organization began to crumble. Since the Protestant Revolt, a precipitous decline into secularism has been the hallmark of the last five hundred years. I grant that in this "pluralistic" age, it seems highly improbable to regain what was lost, but that does not mean that the principles are invalid or do not have practical application. Until the reign of Christ is restored in society, which also means the moral law, the "wriggle room" you mentioned will continue the downward path to anarchy or chaos. [Cont.]
Joseph Salemi, @113, Concerning the purpose of politics and the moral principles it is to exercise in society, I can only draw a practical analogy that might make it more comprehensible. I assume you have a family. As a husband and father and head of the family you have a duty to provide a stable home life for your wife and children within which to live. You provide them all the necessities of life: food, clothing, shelter. You and your wife educate your children; play with them; bring them to a doctor when they are sick, etc., and at times, chastise them for infringement of rules that are held to maintain order in the family. No one member is permitted to be so individualistic as to upset family equilibrium. Also, as the children grow older, you teach them how to be responsible by giving them chores to help mom and dad. You teach them how to behave with themselves and others. When you perceive a talent in any one of them, you go out of your way to help promote it.
Now, your parish priest does not interfere with your role, and you do not put obstacles in the way of him to teach and sanctify your children with Catholic doctrine of faith and morals and the sacraments. You at least take your children to Mass every Sunday; have holy images in your home, especially, the crucifix. You may lead the family rosary in the evening. You keep your children, as well as yourself and your wife, mindful that you are always in the presence of God, even when outside the home. If you are really prudent, the TV will have been thrown out the window. You do these things because you want your children to grow in virtue and to save their souls. This is your highest duty. It is the faithfulness to this duty by which God will judge all fathers.
Now, go to the next level: the man in charge of many households, the village, town, or city. Do all of the things demanded of a father for his family suddenly disappear when it is a matter of civil government? Do they not apply, too? Is the mayor of a town not even more responsible for the common good of his community politically speaking? May he put obstacles in the way of the Church's duty to sanctify and save souls? May he favor some business interests over others for the sake of a little filthy lucre. If they apply at the village level, then they must also apply to higher levels, i.e., counties, states/provinces, and the nation.
There is a social continuity, here, in which men are consonant with the divine and natural law; it can only lead to a happier condition on earth, because God will bless it more abundantly and souls will be saved.
No man, whether he is a father or a civil officer, is above the divine or natural law. Yet, this is what Luther taught, when he said a prince rules as a prince, not as a Christian, and therefore, what he taught is erroneous and false. Today, as a consequence, we get such ludicrous political stances as, "Well, I am personally against abortion, but I don't want to push my religious convictions on to others." Or, "yes, I believe homosexuals have a CIVIL right to marry, even though my church condemns it." How can truth and the law of God be separated from politics without disaster to the family, village, county, state, or nation?
As a last wish, I do wish we had forthright bishops who would confront the outlandish and detrimental politicians who are leading this country to ruin, both morally and physically. For me, personally, it would be a psychological catharsis. However, most of the Catholic bishops in America have co-opted themselves with the system. I have heard that as many as 50% of the Catholic bishops in America voted for Barack Obama, a man who supports abortion and homosexual marriage. What a scandal! What a shame! [end]
Robert @ 121
Now I see why guys in the Army call Marines "jarheads."
You don't like my manners? Well, whoop-de-doo.
I'm embarrassing you in front of your heretical Protestant friends? Oh my God, how horrible! I guess you are one of those Roman Catholics who constitute the ultramontane branch office for Fundamentalism.
It's "naive" to want to save one's culture and civilization? Well then, I don't see why you're even bothering to read Chronicles.
Who is my brother? Everyone is my brother, but even brothers kill and compete with each other. Perhaps you should re-read Genesis.
I'm supposed to "get lost or get better"? You're not giving orders anymore, leatherneck. Get the hell lost yourself.
J. Meng @ 122 and 123
Meng, the above posts are extensive and I'll need some time to go over them more throughly. But thank you for being a rational and intelligent opponent.
"Who is my brother? Everyone is my brother, but even brothers kill and compete with each other. Perhaps you should re-read Genesis."
And perhaps you should reconsider your question to me @120:
"I’m just wondering about the words of Jesus: “Whoso saith ‘Fool’ to his brother is liable to judgment.” (I don’t remember the exact passage and place… ask one of the Bible-thumpers)."
I am not going anywhere, you provide too much enjoyment. Your own arrogance held up to you as in a mirror is starting to charm me. But not as much as I enjoy my heretical brothers who I find more interesting than your bread alone cant of politics. It is especially gratifying to me that the fundamentalist quote you find so ultramontane was indeed from Pope Benedict. Get better.
J. Meng @ 122 and 123
Meng, you have raised many points and I'll try to deal with them all, but some overlap and some inevitably lead into tangents that would make this post overly long. I'll try to be succinct.
First, you're assuming that the authority exercised by a father over his family is the same as the authority exercised by a political ruler over his commonwealth. But that is a recipe for totalitarianism of the most pervasive sort. Whenever a living ruler calls himself "The Great Father" of his people, watch out. It more than likely means that he is going to be an intrusive and tyrannical monster.
Indeed, the authority of a father is rooted in the fact that he is the source and origin of his children, from the root meaning of the Latin term auctoritas. But a political ruler hasn't sired his nation in that physical way. He is simply leading it temporarily, whether as the scion of some royal house or as an elected official. Thinking of him as a "father" may be a harmless metaphor (we'd like him to be fair, kindly, watchful, and prudent, like any good father), but it becomes an evil and totalistic thing when his government turns paternalistic -- i.e. when he starts intruding into our personal lives and habits, as if we were little kids who need Daddy's supervision.
Government's job is to protect us from foreign and domestic enemies, and to LEAVE US ALONE. That was Jefferson's view, and it is mine. I know that many of you here dismiss Jefferson as a Deist or an anti-Christian or an Enlightenment radical, but let's keep in mind that even our enemies have something to say that may be true. Apropos of this point, Meng, I don't klnow why you keep bringing up that quote from Martin Luther. If Luther said that two plus two equals four, would he be incorrect?
Jefferson had a vision of government that left human beings in peace, to lead their lives without some moralistic Big Brother telling them how they should behave or what ideas they should hold. No -- tyhat doesn't mean moral anarchy or utter license. As long as you followed some minimal rules and left others in peace, you were free to pursue your bliss.
(Continued below)
You say that you are "not arguing theoretical principles," but in fact the bulk of your two posts are precisely that. In fact, the one historical example that you adduce is a complete vindication of MY position. The dispute between Pope Gregory and the Emperor Henry is a perfect example of how the religious and the political realms don't mix well. And it shows that, in the medieval period, there was vicious fighting betwqeen the secular power and the ecclesiastical esate.
Like many traditionalist Roman Catholics, you idealize the Middle Ages. How wonderful it was -- we were all united in Catholicism, living in harmony with God's Law and the Church's regulations! Well, it wasn't like that at all. There were constant disputes -- sometimes really ugly -- between Church and State, and between the demands of politics and the requirements of religion. Have you forgotten that, after Canossa, the Emperor Henry invaded Italy and deposed Pope Gregory? Have you forgotten the dispute between Henry of England and Thomas a Beckett, that led to the Archbishop of Canterbury's murder at his own altar in the cathedral? Have you forgottten the horrific story of Count Ugolino and Archbishop Ruggieri, the one that Dante recounts at the end of The Inferno?
The medieval period wasn't some Shangri-La for traditionalist C.U.F. members. It was a brutal, violent, bloody, fratricidal time, with devout Catholics killing each other as readily as Jews and Arabs kill each other in the Middle East today. I'm not saying it was an egregioulsy BAD period. I'm simply saying that, like every period in human history, it was not utopian.
(Continued below)
You say, Meng, that the post-Reformation world has lost its moorings and drifted into chaos. Quite so. I'll give you no argument there. But you fail to see that this is not the consequence of a loss (the breakup of Catholic unity in Europe), but rather the consequence of a new development. That new development was the nightmarish thing called Protestantism, and its bastard child, Liberalism.
It was Protestantism that concocted a new way of thinking that started us on the road to a world where intrusive, meddlesome, dictatorial, and moralistic people would arrogate to themselves the right to tell others how to live. It started that horror-show known as Puritanism. It began the stupidity known as "Moral Uplift" and "Reform." It gave birth to outrageous attempts to control human behavior, with anti-alcohol, anti-prostitution, anti-tobacco, anti-swearing, anti-Christmas celebration, anti-dancing, anti-Sabbath-breaking, anti-every damn thing you can think of. The fundamentalist Protestants are still this way, and the liberals are their direct descendants. This is a real attitudinal condition that has had disastrous consequences politically.
You all hate the neo-cons. So do I. But what exactly are the neo-cons, except moralistic types with a mission to "save the world for liberal democracy"? What are they except persons whose moral animus won't allow them to leave other nations and cultures alone? How do they differ from Methodist missionaries who tell savages to have coitus in one approved position? How do they differ from those pestiferous Jehovah's Witnesses who ring your doorbell at 10 AM, wanting to talk about "God's Word"?
You all hate liberals trying to enforce politically correct speech codes on us. So do I. But how do they differ from a Bible-Belt crackpot trying to boycot the local Seven-Eleven because it carries Playboy or Hustler?
(Continued below)
As for the Catholic bishops, what can you possibly expect them to do? They've condemned abortion and homosexuality. What's next, Meng? Should they go out into the streets and demonstrate? Politics is the art of the possible, and that goes for everybody.
Many people, including conservatives and Catholics, voted for Obama because they were fed up with the absurdity and confusion of the last eight years. After all, he's just the typical Chicago hack, so what's the big deal?
Moreover, McCain was hardly someone to appeal to anyone with a paleoconservative outlook. I voted for McCain purely because of his war record, and the fact that he had endured Communist torture for several years. But his political outlook is stupidly neo-con.
Catholics voted for Obama because of what I have been trying to say in these long and tedious posts to you. Politics CAN'T be controlled solely by religious considerations. It simply can't. It didn't happen in the Middle Ages, and it won't happen now. The power game isn't a Sunday-School.
Satis superque est.
Joseph Salemi, @127, 128, 129, & 130:
Ah, I see that you know your Cicero and Livy.
Per my comparison of a father of a household to the responsibilities of a mayor of a village, town, or city, or even a king or president of a nation (which I didn't specifically mention, but, at least, implied) you seemed to miss the point by getting caught up in labels or titles, i.e., father, "The Great Father". I didn't refer to personality cults, but alluded to authority and where it rested and what its purpose was. Whatever each level of political activity, family, town, county, state, or nation, the governing entity has the same responsibililty: the common good. True, at higher levels of political organization, the task is more comprehensive. At the same time, the civil ruler is to not oppose the Catholic Church's mission, because our ultimate end is not in nature, but in supernature. The implication is, then, that the civil government like the father of a household is informed by the moral law of God which is found in the Catholic Church, and he exercises his authority based on that law.
Yes, there have been, are, and will be abuses within the framework we are discussing. Nevertheless, that in no way refutes or diminishes the truth of the principles I have laid before you.
Paternalism can erode into a vicious tyranny. Again, though, that does not refute the idea of paternalism. I would suggest that it works best and most appropriately within a monarchy, which I prefer far more than a pluralistic mob or party rule known euphemistically as democracy.
You are definitely not getting my point when you insist, without any proof, that Luther is telling the truth how a ruler should govern if he is a Christian. He is saying that the ruler leaves his Christianity at home and rules as a ruler. What the hell does that mean? What guides this type of ruler's exercise of authority for his realm? Vested interest? Expedience? What?This pathetic Lutheran teaching is quite anti-Catholic, because it refutes all that the Church expects from rulers: they have received their authority to rule from God and they are to conform that authority to the Divine Moral Law. This absurd doctrine has resulted in more state tyranny than existed during the Middle Ages. A good example of its application is found in the issues of abortion and sodomy rights. So-called Catholics like Ted Kennedy, Nancy Pelosi, Joseph Biden, and many others, appeal to this Lutheran political principle when they huff and puff that they are personally against abortion, but that they will not force their "personal" religious beliefs on anyone else. Or those dimwit solons who favor "Gay marriage", although their churches condemn it. Some might call this behavior appropriate in a democracy. They might call it political astuteness. But, I call it moral prostitution, rank cowardice, deceit, dereliction of duty, and an insult to Almighty God.
I brought up the example of Henry IV and Pope St. Gregory VII to enforce my argument that the sharing in the spiritual Kingship of Christ has greater authority over the temporal sharing when the temporal intrudes into the domain of the spiritual or when the temporal violates the moral law to the detriment of others. By the way, the issue was over lay investiture, which the Emperor believed he had by right of his temporal authority.
I would suggest that the historical record indicates that the breakup of the Catholic social order of the Middle Ages began before the Protestant Revolt (the rise of nationalism, the focus on secular humanism, the challenges to the Church's indirect authority over the State by such astute and malicious men like Marsilio of Padua, the existence of nascent modern capitalism, the Black Plague, the 100 Years War, and the worldliness of Catholic prelates), but that the P.R. itself, as you assert, finished the job and brought in its train incalculable damage politically, economically, philosopically, theologically, and socially. And so, we have been blessed to live in the ruins of what once was Christendom: in the desolateness of secularism and Enlightenment-principled democratism.
As for Thomas Jefferson, I agree with him in one thing only: his idea of an agrarian nation. He was a choleric anti-Catholic, which makes me wonder how you could admire him.
Oh, please Meng. John Milton was a "choleric anti-Catholic," but he was also a brilliant poet. I'm not supposed to admire him? This is what I mean by the insufferable narrowness of a lot of traditionalist Catholics.
Yes, I DO get your point about Luther. I simply happen to think that Luther was right and you are wrong. Is that so hard to follow?
About "rulers receiving their authority to rule from God": you're using a theoretical construct to dictate behavior in the real world. Look -- on the imperial crown of Austria, there are these words: PER ME REGES REGNANT ("through Me kings rule"), under an enamelled miniature of Jesus Christ. This means that whoever has political power has received it from God, and must be obeyed in the temporal realm. That is why Holy Mother Church has always counseled Catholics to be law-abiding and politically obedient, even when they are living in Communist countries or other anti-religious places. Whoever has power has it from God, at least temporarily.
You know what that means, Meng? It means that whoever holds the reigns of government, NO MATTER WHO THEY ARE OR HOW THEY GOT THEM, has divine sanction in temporal matters. Catholics living under the sovereignty of a Protestant monarch like Queen Elizabeth II have to obey her government. Catholics living in Japan have to obey the government of a Shinto Emperor. Do you think that Catholics everywhere should start guerrilla wars against non-Catholic authority? Be reasonable.
You ask what guides a ruler's exercise of authority for his realm. My God, Meng, that's the most elemental question in all of politics. What guides him is the interests of his nation, and its survival! His job is to maintain the existence of his state, and to provide for its welfare and material concerns. And PLEASE don't give me any religious chin-music about how he must provide for its "spiritual" welfare. That is not and has never been the task of government. Read Machiavelli, dammit!
I am as opposed to abortion and to homosexuality as you are. But let's look at the matter dispassionately. Are those two sins ones which you personally will ever commit? No way. Therefore answer this: why is it any concern of yours that some other persons will burn in Purgatory or Hell because of them? Since you are responsible solely for your own moral transgressions, the sins of abortion and homosexuality don't touch you at all. Why get into a moral lather about them?
(More below)
Since you have brought up the issue of the Protestant Revolt, something about that historical event should be cleared up before you and I discuss anything further.
Like most Catholic traditionalists, you misunderstand something about the Protestant split. In fact, all conservative thinkers in the Latin tradition, from De Maistre to Bonald to Donoso Cortes to Belloc to Maurras, have been mistaken on this crucial point. They -- and you, Meng, -- all say that the revolt of Luther and Calvin and the other heresiarchs was the triumph of the individualistic spirit over the unity and cohesion of Catholicism and Christendom. They see Luther as the defiant, authority-snubbing, rebellious angel -- a new German Lucifer who says "Ich kann nicht anders" in place of "Non serviam." It's all very dramatic.
And Catholic traditionalists cherish this historic interpretation right up to the present day. But it is simply not true.
Here's what actually happened. The Protestant split was the triumph of conformism and lockstep thinking. It was the triumph of the moralists and the Scripture-quoting fanatics. It was the triumph of persons who insisted that their religious viewpoints be translated into horrid theocracies like Calvin's Geneva and Puritan New England. It was the triumph of the Synod of Dort and Cromwell's Commonwealth and evangelical ranting. It was the triumph of what Matthew Arnold called "Hebraicism" -- the sick attitude of those pinched, psalm-singing presbyters who wanted to police the world, stamping out "wickedness." That is why I call Protestantism "a nightmarish thing." It is profoundly ANTI-INDIVIDUALISTIC, and always has been.
(Continued below)
And liberalism is its direct descendant. The liberals have dropped the religion, and kept the attitude. But the consuming, accusatory insistence on fighting "wickedness" is still there: the fanatical Abolitionists who fueled the Civil War, the maniacal Prohibitionists who helped turn organized crime into an empire, the Wilsonian idealists who interfered in a European conflict that was none of their swiving business, and the neo-cons who are now devastating Afghanistan and Iraq (and soon Iran and the Balkans again) in order to make sure that everyone there is suitably "progressive."
Have you ever talked to a feminist, Meng? She is the exact clone of a WCTU agitator from 1905. Have you argued with a proponent of affirmative action? He is just like a Salvation Army volunteer out of Shaw's "Major Barbara." Hve you ever debated a liberal vegan or an anti-tobacco activist or an organic-food nut? They are just like a Dry-State Bible-thumper going on about Demon Rum. The religion is gone -- but the lockstep thinking and the moralism are still there, as malignant as ever. These are all people driven by a crazed religious impulse to make the world over in their own prim image. It is what the great Eric Voegelin called "gnosticism."
And when traditionalist Roman Catholics go on about "restoring the reign of Christ in society" or other blather of that type, they are just aping the gnostic do-goodery of our Protestant enemies. There isn't going to be any "reign of Christ" in society. There wasn't one in 1109, and there isn't going to be one in 2009 either. This is an absurd utopian idea, rooted in Protestantism and Liberalism.
In fact, from now on, whenever a traditionalist Roman Catholic starts jawboning about "The Social Kingship of Christ," I'm gong to refer to him as an Ultramontane Utopian, or U.U. for short. It's time we called a spade a spade. Be warned.
Joseph,
Let me say I read some of your verse on line and was genuinely amused, as in delighted. Very clever and at times quite true. Also I respect any living soul these days who knows even a smattering of Greek or Latin. Also I am impresssed with your dogged determination to make your point about what Ronald Knox termed Enthusiasm or a more recent writer has termed The New Enthusiasts (read certain popular evangelical ministers who our enemies love to promote as representatives of a collective group, called evagelicals or members of The Bible Belt, which from myown observations they do not.) I must dissent from your views on Belloc and DeMaistre as explaining the Reformation as the triumph of the individual over the collective tranquility and unity of Christendom but that is for another day.
You and Meng are having quite a little debate here so I don't want to intervene with my own invective or observations as I think Meng is holding his own as are you, which may mean that the sentimentality of the CUF folks or the emotionalism of the carpet biters have blinded you to any Catholic interpretation whatsoever of The Kingship of Christ. You are correct in asserting the Catholic's obligation to temporal governments but perhaps overlooking the martyrs who from time to time took historic exception to the exploitation of this rule. Could it be that you and Meng are talking past each other on some of this, or are you all out on the side of freedom in the "Twisted Tree" debate of years ago between libertarians and Catholics like Brent Bozell Sr.?
Robert @ 135
Actually, Robert, when I was a young undergraduate the thing I lived for intellectually was the arrival of the monthly issue of L. Brent Bozell Sr.'s Triumph Magazine. I am probably one of the only persons in America who still has a complete set of that journal, from its first issue in 1966 to its last in 1975.
The magazine was an amazing collection of brilliant stuff. And it opened my mind to a whole new world of religious and cultural history. I'm forever grateful to Bozell for that experience.
But even at that time, I realized that Bozell's political position suffered from a bad dose of what his close friend and brother-in-law William F. Buckley called "angelism." This meant that he expected from politics a kind of moral and religious perfection that is only possible in a contemplative monastic order. Bozell's heart was in the right place, but he didn't really understand the limits of political action. That's also at the core of my dispute with Meng, I believe.
I think it highly symbolic that one of Bozell's sons became a Benedictine monk, while another became the very energetic and indefatigable L. Brent Bozell, who is an active conservative polemicist. It's as if the two sides of the father, irreconcilable in one man, manifested themselves separately in his sons.
Yes, Ronald Knox's seminal book Enthusiasm had a profound effect on my thinking. It's important to note that Msgr. Knox was raised as a Protestant, so what he tells us about enthusiasm carries the authority of an insider, to some degree.
Thank you for your kind words on my poetry. And please forgive me for my very violent Sicilian temper.
"Bozell’s heart was in the right place, but he didn’t really understand the limits of political action. That’s also at the core of my dispute with Meng, I believe."
I think it is, and I error on the side of staying out of it completely or only to agree with the Scilian wisdom that in politics as with capitalism, "it is strictly business." Brent was a good man and tough to the bone. I had lunch with him at Luigis(?) in Washington DC before his death. We drank wine from large bowls, he only as an act of charity towards me, as he was not drinking at all in those days. He was headed to the local jail after lunch to visit the prisoners having discovered, as you say, the limits of political action in Washington. I always regret not having gone with him but I had others obligations at the time.
His son is indeed a monk from the Solemnes congregation of France who now have a foundation in America. He would be proud, and indeed was proud of his sons, the contemplative Monk at one end and the activist who never tires of showing the duplicity of the world at the other. In between are a host of other children doing what he did best -- living life with a certain audacity and conviction inspired by a love that seemed to know no limits.
Kurt Higdon
"The Normans, after all, were Vikings who had conquered the French peninsula which bears their name (FYI - Norman derives from Northman) and then used it as a base to conquer England. They had become Christians somewhere in that time, but not given up their murderous habits."
Out of curiosity (please excuse my ignorance, I want to read more about the Crusades), is this why the Cruaders were successful--I mean when supplies ran out they are said to have engaged in cannibalism, and this was what horrified the Muslims most of all--I wonder if the Crusaders were largely successful because, as you say, most had Viking blood and hence their ferociousness and ability to fight?
Joseph Salemi, @132, 133 & 134:
You know, Joseph, you are an intelligent, articulate fellow, and apparently a talented poet, but you exasperate me by your peevishness and making mountains out of mole hills. You have a very serious fault of belittling and pigeon-holing nearly everyone with whom you may argue or have a discussion. I don't really care if Milton was a great poet, we're not discussing Milton or poets or poetry. The topic concerns whether Christian morality should be the animating force in exercising political authority, and you have said no many times. Thomas Jefferson was certainly against it, too, since he hated Christianity. Are you familiar with his anti-Christian remarks made to John Adams in a letter. "And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope tht the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away [with] all this artificial scaffolding..." How can a man of this ilk be admired by a true Christian? As I said, to my argument, you have said no many times and have given your secular reasons, with which I have disagreed. I have given reasons based on Christian social doctrine for the incorporation of Christian morality in the affairs of men at all levels including politics, and you, a professed Catholic, have disagreed specifically about politics. This is certainly a secular position that is ultimately rooted in Luther's teaching to the rulers of his time and has lead to the fractionating of Christendom into secularized, pluralistic national entities that have led and are leading us to political and economic ruin. As our Lord Jesus Christ once declared, "Without me, you can do nothing." This is quite evident in our day and age as we tumble toward the edge of the abyss. Our Lord also said that it is impossible to love God and Mammon at the same time. But this is what we in this nation have been doing since the beginning and are continuing to do, to the diminishment of God. However, your solution to the problem is to continue prescribing the same medicine: politics without God: more reasonableness and freedom of thought. So, there is really no need to continue this discussion, because it is not fruitful. Nevertheless, I thank you for participating and I wish you and yours a Happy New Year.
#138 - The Crusaders were certainly tough, but not all of them or even most of them were Norman. Two prominent ones who were Norman were Bohemond of Taranto (First Crusade) and Richard the Lionhearted (Third Crusade). Both of these men were brave and intelligent commanders. Richard was descended from the Normans who had conquered England and Bohemond from those who had conquered Sicily and southern Italy.