The Doctor's Diagnosis . . .

Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn is a medical doctor. He knows the medical as well as the economic, political, and moral problems that the administration's health care bill will cause. In my opinion, what he has to say deserves our attention. He writes:

This vote is indeed historic. This Congress will be remembered for its arrogance, corruption and stupidity. In the year of 2009, a Congress ignored the coming economic storm and impending bankruptcy of our entitlement programs and embarked on an ideological crusade to bring our nation as close to single-payer, government-run health care as possible. If this bill becomes law, future generations will rue this day and I will do everything in my power to work toward its repeal. This bill will ration care, cut Medicare, increase premiums, fund abortion and bury our children in debt.

This process was not compromise. This process was corruption. This bill passed because votes were bought and sold using the issue of abortion as a bargaining chip. The abortion provision alone makes this bill the most arrogant piece of legislation I have seen in Congress. Only the most condescending politician can believe it is appropriate to force Americans to pay for other people's abortions and to coerce medical professional to take the lives of unborn children.

... The experience of government-run health care in the United States and around the world shows that access to a government program is not access to health care. Forty percent of doctors restrict access to Medicaid patients. Medicare already rations care and denies medical claims at twice the rate of private insurers. Nations like the United Kingdom with government run health care routinely ration care based on cost, and Canadians flock to the United States to escape waiting lines. Neither nation, incidentally, has managed to control costs as promised.

... like many Americans, I've been disappointed by the lack of civility in this debate. The backers of the Reid bill, in many cases, have been unwilling to argue for what they believe in - a single-payer health care system controlled by Washington. Their hide-the-ball strategy led them to rush this process and ram the bill through on the eve of the most important Christian holiday when they hoped the American people wouldn't be watching.

The rhetoric that will be remembered in this debate was not between elected officials but between elected officials and concerned citizens. The clear will of the public was not only ignored, but concerned citizens were personally attacked by politicians in power. The American people were derided as an angry mob, and were called evil-doers and unpatriotic by the leaders of the House and Senate.

... In my 25 years of practicing medicine I've treated countless patients who would have had their lives cut short had the Reid bill been in effect. I don't need to conjure up scare tactics or rely on talking points written by staff. I've seen cancers that would have gone undiagnosed, treatments that would have been denied, and care that would have been delayed had this bill been in effect.

On the final day of debate, one of my colleagues said my argument about rationing was Exhibit A in their case about scare tactics before ignoring every substantive argument I've made against this bill. I would contend this bill is Exhibit A in the American people's case against Washington. Soon enough, the American people will have the opportunity to ration the terms of the elected officials in Washington who sought to impose their will on the public.

His full remarks can be found here.

Have we lost all commonsense?

The charges against Abdulmutallab will doubtless include 288 counts of attempted murder. But if the jet jockeys terrorist wanted to kill only 288, he could have detonated his bomb over the Atlantic. He waited until final descent because he wanted to bring down that Northwest Airlines jet over the Detroit airport crowded with holiday travelers. The death toll might well have exceeded that of 9/11. On Christmas. Get the point?

Are there more young killers in the skies? Before he was read his Miranda rights, and given a taxpayer-funded lawyer, Abdulmutallab was our best source for information about the nature, extent, and future plans of the worldwide terrorist conspiracy bent on slaughtering Americans.

So says Ken Blackwell, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission.

As it turns out, of course, Abdulmutallab is now enjoying the legal protections which the heroic Navy Seals who captured Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, will not enjoy. For they are being tried in a military court where considerably fewer constitutional protections are accorded defendants. Their crime? -- punching the mastermind of 9/11 in the stomach (or so claims Khalid Shaikh Mohammed) and for roughing him up during his apprehension.

Every time one thinks that political correctness has reached its apogee of absurdity it outdoes itself yet again. Jihadists throughout the world must be doubled over with laughter.

How's the Friendly Dialogue working out?

The Hill is reporting a story which shows what the president has received in return for his obsequiousness and shameless silence on Iranian thuggishness. Iran has decided that the president's naming of Senator John Kerry as his envoy to bilateral discussions is a good opportunity to thumb its nose at him and his administration:

Iranian legislators on Sunday decided to not allow a visit from Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.), according to Iranian media.

"Members of the Iranian parliament's Foreign Relations Committee (a subcommittee of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission) voiced opposition to the request after studying the issue," Hassan Ebrahimi, head of the committee, told the semi-official Fars News Agency. . . .

On Saturday, Iranian legislators stepped up the rhetoric against the news that Kerry was considering traveling to Tehran with the blessing of the White House.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has no plans to negotiate with any American official, unless the country (the U.S.) changes its policies," member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Zohreh Elahian said, according to Fars News Agency.

"Iran-US relations are not under such conditions that could produce results through a number of non-targeted meetings and talks," rapporteur of the parliament's Nationals Security and Foreign Policy Commission Kazzem Jalali told Fars on Saturday in response to a question about Kerry wishing to visit Iran. 


This is PRECISELY the opposite of what should have been the case. The U.S. should have put itself in position to dictate the terms of a dialogue, and by failing to act forthrightly with regard to this mind-bogglingly dangerous regime, we are now -- as we are today in Yemen -- the laughing stock of the world.

Now, as Fouad Ajami said recently in the Wall Street Journal: “No despot fears Mr. Obama, and no blogger in Cairo or Damascus or Tehran, no demonstrator in those cruel Iranian streets, expects Mr. Obama to ride to the rescue.”

Mr. Obama -- who hasn't hesitated to swagger when confronting his domestic political opponents, vowing not to bring a knife to a gunfight -- has chosen to bring a butter-knife to a nuclear showdown with certified madmen.

A sad day for a country that once could be counted on.

Hat Tip: Gateway Pundit

Correction

I'm grateful to "Ignatius" for pointing out my slipshod conflation of Mongol and Muslim in a post that once occupied this space. Like many of my posts, it was written in haste. I apologize for any confusion.

Thanks to Ignatius for pointing out the mistake.

The Mother Church

Among the countless catalogs of the best and the worst, and predictions of what's to come, this struck me as worth sharing:

We do not need a "conservative revolution" in the United States or in the West. We need a "Christian Revolution." It is from the Church that Western civilization was birthed. It is from the Church -- with her vision for the human person, the family, freedom, and a just society -- that the West will be re-birthed. Stay tuned.

Deacon Keith Fournier, Editor-in-Chief of Catholic Online

Turning laxity into a governing philosophy

Charles Krauthammer, as usual, sees through the fog of official verbiage and the predictable ruminations of the commentariat:

Obama may have declared the war over. Unfortunately, al-Qaeda has not. Which gives new meaning to the term “asymmetric warfare.”

And produces linguistic — and logical — oddities that littered Obama’s public pronouncements following the Christmas Day attack. In his first statement, Obama referred to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as “an isolated extremist.” This is the same president who, after the Ford Hood shooting, warned us “against jumping to conclusions” — code for daring to associate Nidal Hasan’s mass murder with his Islamist ideology. Yet, with Abdulmutallab, Obama jumped immediately to the conclusion, against all existing evidence, that the bomber acted alone.

More jarring still were Obama’s references to the terrorist as a “suspect” who “allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device.” You can hear the echo of FDR: “Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — Japanese naval and air force suspects allegedly bombed Pearl Harbor.”

Obama reassured the nation that this “suspect” had been charged. Reassurance? The president should be saying: We have captured an enemy combatant — an illegal combatant under the laws of war: no uniform, direct attack on civilians — and now to prevent future attacks, he is being interrogated regarding information he may have about al-Qaeda in Yemen.

Instead, Abdulmutallab is dispatched to some Detroit-area jail and immediately lawyered up. At which point — surprise! — he stops talking.

This absurdity renders hollow Obama’s declaration that “we will not rest until we find all who were involved.” Once we’ve given Abdulmutallab the right to remain silent, we have gratuitously forfeited our right to find out from him precisely who else was involved, namely those who trained, instructed, armed, and sent him.

This is all quite mad even in Obama’s terms. He sends 30,000 troops to fight terror overseas, yet if any terrorists come to attack us here, they are magically transformed from enemy into defendant.

The logic is perverse. If we find Abdulmutallab in an al-Qaeda training camp in Yemen, where he is merely preparing for a terror attack, we snuff him out with a Predator — no judge, no jury, no qualms. But if we catch him in the United States in the very act of mass murder, he instantly acquires protection not just from execution by drone but even from interrogation.

Read his whole piece here.

Let's be surgeons, Caius . . .

Diogenes again, here, commenting on the November Op-Ed piece in The New York Times by Kate Michelman and Frances Kissling:

Michelman and Kissling take it as obvious that the Democratic Party's cautious inclusion of a few pro-lifers is a cynically contrived political feint and wholly contrary to its “principles”: those who respond are, in the Leninist sense, “useful idiots” momentarily needed to scrape together an electoral majority but of zero long-term consequence. Kissling moreover has repeatedly and convincingly pointed out that ‘reducing abortion by reducing poverty’ is a ruse: handy for electing progressives but entirely without statistical grounding in fact.

Michelman and Kissling are putting the question squarely to the Democratic Party: “Look folks, you have blood on your hands. There’s no denying that fact. So you have to remind yourselves ceaselessly that you are surgeons, and that the blood on your gloves comes from waste tissue in an operation you were proud to perform. If, on the other hand, you should forget yourself, or weaken, or even momentarily feel a pang of regret, that blood will testify against you for the remainder of recorded history. It just can’t happen.”

As Shakespeare's Brutus says to his co-conspirator, Caius Cassius:

Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.
. . . gentle friends,
Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
. . .
And let our hearts, as subtle masters do,
Stir up their servants to an act of rage,
And after seem to chide 'em. This shall make
Our purpose necessary and not envious:
Which so appearing to the common eyes,
We shall be call'd purgers, not murderers.

Just so. It is surgery we're performing here, remember that. Except that Kate Michelman and Frances Kissling emphatically do not what the pro-abortion movement to "seem to chide 'em" -- for, as Diogenes so perceptively recognizes, to chide is to acknowledge that something more ominous that surgery is going on here.

Benedict's New Year's homily

"Gil, I am surprised you haven't mention the Pope's New Year address today. Maybe something about that tomorrow?"

Thus a friend comments on my earlier "Muddling Through" post. He's right, of course. What Benedict XVI said in his New Year's homily is right at the heart of his pastoral concern. In my haste to repair this oversight, here is the London Times Online summary of the pope's message:

Pope Benedict XVI has ushered in the New Year with a plea for peace for the whole "human family" in a world marked by the "dark shadows" of war, violence, poverty and destruction of the environment.

In his homily at New Year's Day mass at St Peter's Basilica he said that the traditional family was the foundation of world peace. He added: "We all aspire to live in peace, but real peace is not the simple conquest of man or the result of political agreements: it is above all a divine gift."

In an indirect but clear attack on civil unions and gay marriages the Pope said "The family is the primary agent of peace, and the negation or even restriction of rights of the family threatens the very foundations of peace." In Spain, one of a number of European countries where gay marriage is sanctioned, hundreds of thousands marched in a "Family Day" demonstration last Sunday to defend traditional family values.

"Everything that serves to weaken the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman, everything that directly or indirectly stands in the way of its openness to the responsible acceptance of a new life, everything that obstructs its right to be primarily responsible for the education of its children, constitutes an obstacle on the road to peace," the Pope said.

Happy New Year again.

Palate cleanser on the subject of freedom

Hans Urs von Balthasar put it this way:

. . . from the true Christian there radiates the kind of freedom that is constantly only being sought after by the non-Christian. In modern times, the freedom of man is a theme which preoccupies both Christian and non-Christian, and a competition is in process as to who can understand this freedom more profoundly, who more effectively put it into practice.

One could argue that the failure to understand the true nature of freedom is at the heart of the contemporary crisis, and, moreover, that the very notion of the "true nature" of anything has been put into question by our confusions about freedom. In that context, Dietrich von Hildebrand has something to offer. For example this:

Ontological freedom is far from excluding the consciousness of being obligated to decide in a certain way; in fact it is never greater than in the case of obedience to a moral imperative.

If at a dinner we we are given the choice between two different dishes, it is left up to us to choose which one we eat. This freedom, involving the absence of any moral imperative or moral call, has to be sharply distinguished [however] from the ontological freedom that ... is present ... when we obey the moral law, when we use our freedom in the way ordained by God, for in these cases we exercise moral freedom as well as ontological freedom.

As Benedict XVI has so often argued, if we leave out God -- and what von Hildebrand calls the inner ordination toward God embedded in our very being -- it is very difficult to keep freedom from dissolving into the vacuous and eventually despairing forms of self-validating license that abound in popular culture today.

Too good not to share . . .

MAID IN AMERICA

Another dead ringer by Glenn Foden who, as his online bio has it, "has been an editorial cartoonist and office curiosity for 25 years and hopes to become computer literate by the end of his career. As of now, he depends upon his wife and twin teen daughters to explain the hard parts to him." My kind of guy.

Muddling Through . . .

The genius of the American system of government is that it was fashioned by men who were cognizant of the fallen condition and who devised a polity that was institutionally wary of both concentrations of power and inordinate political enthusiasms. The system survives by virtue of its prudential exercise of governance, its suspicion of government intrusion into the lives of its citizens, and its aversion for political messianism and grand utopian chimeras.

As exhilarating as messianic and utopian visions might be, they both miss the real value of muddling through. In the retrospective aftermath of the inevitable collapse of these exhilarating projects, muddling through looks pretty appealing.

In my view, muddling as a political attitude can only remain an appealing position when it is accompanied by a culturally fostered sense of an eschatological horizon -- in Christian terms, a sense that the Kingdom for which the heart ultimately longs is not of this world.

Humans are religious creatures, and without the kind of eschatological vision that Christianity presupposes, we tend to invest politics with religious aspirations that are entirely inappropriate to it. Thus arise political messianisms and utopian fantasies that inevitably end in catastrophe.

So here's a political resolution for the New Year: let's return to the realism of the founding fathers and the attenuated Augustinian anthropology on which it was based and be content with muddling through.

As Robert Frost put it in his poem "Mowing":

It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows. . .

HAPPY NEW YEAR

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

The lectionary readings for the last day of the year included a passage from the First Letter of John which speaks of the "Anti-Christ," an admittedly slippery notion, but one which deserves its honored place as an important Christian topos. One way of explicating that elusive concept is as an unwitting concession to the complete triumph of Christianity's moral vision. In the face of this triumph, the only plausible strategy the despisers of Christianity have for paralyzing or expelling Christianity's cultural influence is to pose, a wolf in sheep's clothing, as the true exemplars of the moral vision Christianity has historically fostered and defended.

This strategy has a long history. When Saint Paul said that sin takes advantage of the Law, what he meant -- among other things -- was that, though the Law exists to keep social order and therefore to avoid the collapse back into the scapegoating and sacrificial rituals of pagan humanity, inasmuch as it gives moral immunity to the scapegoating of the law breaker, it facilitates the perpetuation of the very cultural matrix it strives to eliminate.

Similarly, we could say that sin takes advantage of the prophetic impulse, which is more or less the impulse to turn one's criticism on oneself and one's own culture. This is a prominent feature of the spirit of our age, which habitually seeks out those maladies for which Western culture can at least plausibly be blamed, preferring these offenses -- even when they pale before far more ominous and dangerous moral evils perpetrated by non-Westerners. The impulse to attend to the beam in our own eye before quibbling over the speck in another's is a healthy one, but sometimes the beam is in the other's eye and pretending the speck in one's own to be of equal or greater moral weight is an act of moral evasion. It is sin taking advantage of the prophetic impulse.

And finally, there is the matter of the uniquely Christian focus on the plight of the victim, born as it is of the revelation of the Cross, the revelation of the innocence of the victim. Sin takes advantage even of this paramount Gospel revelation by turning the concern for victims into a pseudo-penitential ritual of self-exoneration on the part of those unable to claim the exalted moral status of a victim and a weapon on the part of those who can assert such a claim which can be turned to great advantage far beyond the modest one of preventing injustice and discrimination.

These various strategies belong to the "Anti-Christ" it seems to me because they are, in G. K. Chesterton's phrase, "Christian virtues gone mad." They lead to exactly the opposite of what they claim to be accomplishing. For once a Gospel-inspired virtue is uprooted from its proper place in the interconnected ensemble of Christian virtues it pathologizes. Cut off from the anthropological roots of a Judeo-Christian worldview, the championing of victims and the downtrodden turns slowly into its very opposite. The "workers' paradise" becomes the Gulag. The restoration of the dignity of women becomes abortion on demand. The respect for nature becomes idolatry compounded by contempt for human nature. And so on.

On the last day of the year, these are the thoughts that came at the Abbey this morning upon hearing the reference to the "Anti-Christ" in the First Letter of John.

The first reading for tomorrow's Mass is from the sixth chapter of Numbers:

The Lord spoke to Moses and said: "Say this to Aaron and his sons: 'This is how you are to bless the children of Israel. You shall say to them:

May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May the Lord let his face shine on you and be gracious to you.
May the Lord uncover his face to you and bring you peace.'

Amen to that. Happy New Year

Back to Catholic Hospitals . . .

In earlier blog posts here and here, I linked to efforts to get to the bottom of the New York Times story about a rift between the American Catholic Bishops' position on the current Health Care bill and the position of the Catholic Health Association and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. The CHA was quick to deny that it had equivocated on the issue of abortion. Like others, I was relieved to hear that the Times' story was overblown.

Alas, it might not have been. This will be my last post on this unpleasant subject. I just don't have the heart to follow the depressing money trail. Since I raised the issue, however, I feel obliged to link to this sad follow-up. This may bounce around for a while before the reality of the situation is finally revealed, but after this you're on your own. I find this kind of thing tremendously disheartening.

Here's the latest I've seen, a piece by Theodore Kettle, entitled "Catholic Hospitals' Pro-Abortion Money Trail":

The New York Times dropped coal in Catholic pro-life stockings on Christmas Day with an article reporting a split on abortion between the U.S. Catholic bishops’ conference and the Catholic Health Association, which represents about 600 Catholic hospitals.

CHA president Sister Carol Keehan had issued a statement that said, “now that a public health insurance option is no longer on the table” in the Senate’s health care reform bill, the CHA is “increasingly confident” that a compromise formulated by Catholic Democratic Sen. Robert Casey of Pennsylvania “can achieve the objective of no federal funding for abortion.”

Pro-life activists call Casey’s proposal phony. National Right to Life legislative director Douglas Johnson, for example, said the Casey language “apparently would make it the default position for the federal government to subsidize plans that cover abortion on demand, and then permit individual citizens to apply for conscientious objector status.”

A year ago, Keehan defended ill-fated Obama HHS nominee Tom Daschle and his choice for deputy health care director Jeanne Lambrew, both abortion rights supporters.

But after last week’s New York Times story, Keehan claimed that the CHA is committed to health care for human life “from conception to natural death,” adding that “There is not a shred of disagreement between CHA and the bishops.”

A look at the campaign contributions of the governing board members of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, however, tells a very different story.

There's more. The rest of the article is here.

Tolerance Alert

The Christian Science Monitor is reporting:

CHRISTIAN SCREENING OF "JESUS" FILM ATTACHED IN PAKISTAN

As many as 50 Muslim villagers armed with clubs and axes recently attacked a showing of the 'Jesus' film near Sargodha, Pakistan, injuring three part-time evangelists and four Christians in attendance.

Two of the evangelists were said to be seriously injured. The Muslim hardliners also damaged a movie projector, burned reels of the film and absconded with the public address system and donations from Christian viewers in Chak village, about 10 kilometers northeast of Sargodha.

Officers at the Saddr police station refused to register a case against the Muslim assailants, sources said.

What might the noun "hardliners" mean in this report?

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

Rocket launcher found in Houston along with Jihadist literature

Rocket launcher? Check. Jihadist writings? Check. But no worries -- the Feds found no ties to terrorism!

Keystone Kops Alert from Houston thanks to Robert Spencer.

According to Houston's Channel 2 News: "Houston police said they did a thorough investigation and did not find any ties to terrorists or a terrorist network."

Happy Coincidence

When I exploit the work of other writers and bloggers, I acknowledge it . But in all honesty I posted the earlier blogpost before I happened to see this cartoon by Glenn Foden. The similarities are purely coincidental.

News: Fox raids the Chicken Coop

While the pom-pom media were sitting on the eggs they laid in 2008, hoping they would not hatch, some did and were dutifully ignored. Had it not been for the blogosphere and the dreaded "conservative" outlets, these stories would have been left for historians to unearth. If you want to know why the mainstream media is hemorrhaging readers and viewers, here is a short list of stories they chose to sit on. Once other outlets broke these stories, the mainstream responded by mocking them.

Kevin Jennings

Popular Resistance

Global Warming "Science"

The "science czar"

ACORN

"Green Jobs" -- Van Jones

Go here for the rogues gallery of ignored stories.

Beauty -- Part VI

On the run-up to the new year, here is Part VI of British philosopher Roger Scruton's exploration of beauty and its decline.

One Tough Democrat . . .

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, has this to say in tonight's email:

Rep. Bart Stupak informed Greta Van Susteren of FOX News that the White House told him to keep silent on abortion until the President had a chance to walk him through the pro-abortion Nelson-Reid Amendment.

Stupak responded, "I don't need you to walk me through the amendment. I can read, and this amendment is unacceptable." He went on to explain his objections to the Senate bill:

• It recognizes abortion as a benefit covered under disease prevention (by this logic, the baby must be the disease)
• It forces taxpayers to subsidize health care plans that pay for abortions (in direct violation of the Hyde Amendment)
• It forces every enrollee in the federal exchange to pay a monthly fee to fund "reproductive rights" (abortion)

Here's more:

What will it take?

Jeff Jacoby, who holds the chair of reason and realism at the Boston Globe, has a fine summary of the our long, slow and far from complete recognition of the reality of radical Islamic totalitarianism. I commend his latest to your attention. He begins:

AFTER THE SEPT. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, it was widely asserted at the time, nothing would be the same. What Pearl Harbor had been for our parents and grandparents, 9/11 would be for us: a shattering national wake-up call revealing both the gaping holes in America's homeland security and the reality that we were at war with an implacable enemy whose defeat would require years of sacrifice and resolve.

But it became clear after a while that for many Americans, 9/11 had not marked a break with old ways of thinking. As the near-unanimity of 9/11 receded, Americans divided into what the Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes dubbed September 12 people, for whom 9/11 had changed everything, and September 10 people, who believed the terrorist threat was being exaggerated by the Bush administration and who regarded the fight against Islamist extremism as chiefly a matter of law enforcement.

Would that divide have closed if Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had succeeded in blowing up Northwest Airlines flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas Day? If al-Qaeda, which reportedly trained Abdulmutallab in Yemen and is claiming responsibility for the thwarted attack, had succeeded in carrying out another 9/11, would the short-lived unity and moral clarity of that terrible day in 2001 have returned?

But the column gets better as it goes along. Read it all here.

Women in Gaza: Culture Matters

The Jerusalem Post reporting:

The vast majority of women in Gaza face violence of varying types, a new survey has found.

The study, by the Gaza-based Palestinian Women's Information and Media Center, found that violence against women in Gaza has increased since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in the June 2007 coup and Israel subsequently imposed restrictions on the coastal enclave.

The study found that 77.1% of Gazan women have experienced violence of various sorts, with almost half experiencing violence of more than one type.

A quarter of the women said they do not feel safe in their own homes because of violence and more than a third said they were unable to fight back as they had more urgent priorities to deal with.

67% of the women surveyed said they had encountered verbal violence, 71% mental violence, 52% physical violence and more than 14% sexual violence.

The Post journalist leans over backwards to emphasize that a poor economy is a contributing factor in this violence, which I'm sure it is. But would the same level of economic distress produce the same level of misogyny and violence in, say, North Brookfield, Massachusetts where I live. Let me assure you it wouldn't.

Huda Hamouda, Director of the PWIC was quoted as saying: "laws to combat violence against women were lax and contributed to a culture of impunity for perpetrators, especially in relation to honor killings."

Honor killings are cases in which women accused of bringing dishonor to the family are killed by relatives. Killings often involve women suspected of fraternizing with men who are not their husbands or relatives.

Multiculturalists please call your office.

Full story: here.
Hat Tip: Jihad Watch

Europe

Of Europe, Aidan Nichols, O.P. writes:

... the very word entered the popular vernaculars in the early modern period not just because of the influence of classical humanistic thought but via reaction to the threat from Islam in the shape of the Turks. However, the spiritual capital of the concept of Europe has been squandered. In the Great Revolution of the West, God was dethroned as the public summum bonum and replaced by the nation.

The most salient date for this transition was the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Exactly two hundred years later, the second shoe dropped with the wave of revolutions rippled out from the French Revolution. (Forgive the mixed metaphors.)

After 1848, the socialist tradition replaced the nation here by the proletarian revolution. Meanwhile, its capitalist alternative found yet another idol, creating the consumerist dystopia in which 'their God is their stomach.'

For some clarity on the situation, Nichols turns to Joseph Ratzinger -- now Pope Benedict XVI -- and in doing so touches on a point that should be of supreme interest to us in this critical moment in our society's history:

[Ratzinger] points out the curious tendency of the pursuit of freedom to throw up fresh forms of constriction ... The revolutions of the past transferred power from persons to institutions so as to secure objectivity in the exercise of power but they all too often produce a grey bureaucratic uniformity of the sort described in Kafka's novels.

Robin of Berkeley

A writer who goes by the name "Robin of Berkeley" -- and who is a former liberal (isn't everyone?) living on planet Berkeley and doing her best under the circumstances -- has a touching piece here about her Christmas Eve experiences. She begins:

As a Jewish child, I never celebrated Christmas. I found out what I was missing on Christmas Eve, 1973.

My high school boyfriend Brian invited me to join his family for their celebration. The event floored me. It wasn't just the illuminated tree, the music, and the pleasure of opening gifts. It was the power of the holiday to transform Brian's ordinary family.

Laughing, singing hymns, praying -- they were absolutely radiant. I had never seen them so joyful. And in their presence, I felt joyful, too.

That was my one and only Christmas experience, and it never occurred to have another one. But this year's Christmas felt different.

It's a heartwarming story. Read it all here.

Not that it matters much . . .

In the post below, I left out the not-insignificant word "not" in the last paragraph. It should read, and it now does read:

Personally, I'm not as optimistic nor as comfortable with the Health Care Bill even if it doesn't federally fund abortion. But it is as reassuring to discover that the Catholic Health Association is still Catholic as it is exasperating to discover that the New York Times is still trying to drive a political wedge into the American Church. (emphasis added here)

Beauty -- Part V

On the run-up to the new year, here is Part V of British philosopher Roger Scruton's exploration of beauty and its decline.

Possible Correction . . .

Following up on the earlier post, which began with a reference to the New York Times story mentioned below, this from CatholicCulture.org:

Disputing a December 26 New York Times story, Sister Carol Keehan, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, has denied that her organization has split with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops over federal funding for abortion in health care reform legislation.

“There is not a shred of disagreement between CHA and the bishops,” she said. “We believe there is a great possibility and probability that in conference committee we can work toward a solution that will prevent federal funding of abortion.”

Personally, I'm not as optimistic nor as comfortable with the Health Care Bill even if it doesn't federally fund abortion. But it is as reassuring to discover that the Catholic Health Association is still Catholic as it is exasperating to discover that the New York Times is still trying to drive a political wedge into the American Church.

Apologizing for Our Predecessors' Accomplishments

My friend Eric Gans' latest Chronicles of Love and Resentment is an absolutely "must read." It is his review of Pascal Bruckner's La tyrannie de la pénitence, a critique of the Western self-abnegation. Eric begins this way:

Although the term “white guilt” was inspired by the historically fraught relationship between America’s two principal racial groups, the phenomenon itself is more potent today in Europe than in the United States. Where the US had slavery and Jim Crow, Europe had colonialism and the Holocaust, and it is the last of these that has had the determining effect on the postmodern era. Furthermore, although the US has had its share of European-style penitents, including the last two Democratic presidential candidates, it also has world responsibilities that require it to maintain a dominant military establishment, while Europe, with its limited commitments, reposes comfortably under the American umbrella. Thus whatever one's affinity for the European model in foreign affairs, the United States cannot give itself over to the kind of penitential posturing that Pascal Bruckner examines in his against-the-grain La tyrannie de la pénitence : essai sur le masochisme occidental (Grasset, 2006).

Bruckner accuses Europe in general and France in particular of taking a “masochistic” stance toward the world of its former colonies and dependencies. He detects in this self-flagellation an inverted moral narcissism through which former great powers attempt to retain their place at the center of the world by taking the blame for all its ills. Europe has become, in Bruckner’s view, a Hegelian “beautiful soul” who recoils from any concrete engagement with the world’s problems while pretending that they can all be solved through peaceful “dialogue,” leaving the heavy lifting to the United States.

And here are a few salient passages:

Bruckner’s book provides a welcome occasion for reflection on our civilization’s self-destructive tendencies. Is it implicit in the development of an economically and technologically advanced social order that it will become paralyzed with guilt at its own superiority and succumb to blackmail from its purported victims rather than defend itself as the only conceivable source of benefits for the rest of the world? Can Western firstness sustain itself long enough to transmit its advantages to the rest of the planet, or is the resentment it arouses fated to destroy it from within as well as without?

Bruckner would like guilt-obsessed Westerners to remember their contributions to moral progress. The West may have practiced slavery, but so did every other society capable of profiting from it; yet the West abolished it, while it persists to this day in Africa and the Arab world. The West may have created the twin monstrosities of Nazism and Stalinism, but it also defeated them, while brutal dictatorships continue to flourish elsewhere. But the very need to make such obvious points, or to refute the absurd notion that Western prosperity is a product of the exploitation of the rest of the world, demonstrates the elemental power of the originary moral model, which, in the absence of ideological barriers, reads every unequal configuration as a zero-sum game whose winners can only have stolen from the losers.

Eric's conclusion:

Bruckner’s lucid analysis of European white guilt and its dangers offers finally little reassurance against Mark Steyn’s ominous vision of Europe's failure to resist jihad from without and depopulation from within: America Alone.

Read it all here.

Beauty -- Part IV

On the run-up to the new year, here is Part IV of British philosopher Roger Scruton's exploration of beauty and its decline.

Shooting Ourselves in the Foot?

Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, has written an email to those on her mailing list that begins this way:

Congress is on the verge of authorizing the greatest single expansion of abortion since Roe v. Wade - and your tax dollars will be paying for it.

For years, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and their pro-abortion allies have been quietly developing a formidable grassroots army. In its latest annual report, Planned Parenthood's Action Network claims to have recruited "more than 200,000 new supporters," with "affiliates [that] reach every corner of America." Planned Parenthood has also been amassing a considerable "war chest" to spread its pro-abortion message to vulnerable Americans. Last year, it reported a $1 billion budget and a profit of $85 million!

Dr. Yoest's email is not only informative but it is also pleading for financial contributions to help offset this massively financed push on the part of the pro-abortion forces. All non-profits are today suffering from the economic hard times we all experience, and for one non-profit to call its supporters' attention to the funding needs of another non-profit may not be the most expedient thing to do under the circumstances. As much as the Cornerstone Forum would welcome your tax-deductible donations at this 2009 eleventh hour, I would nevertheless like to direct you to the remarkably fine work Americans United for Life is doing. When the history of the struggle against the "silent holocaust" of abortion is written, AUL will have a place of honor comparable to the one we now rightly accord to the opponents of slavery.

HERE is where you can make your financial donation.

If there's a bit left over after you give AUL a little help, the Cornerstone Forum would be most grateful for your help as well. In any case, keep us in your prayers.

Alinsky: Tell them what they want to hear.

It apparently works quite well on those with stars in the eyes.

From Diogenes,without the irony, which is nevertheless right on target:

The New York Times reports that the Catholic Health Association and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious think the Senate got it right:

In an apparent split with Roman Catholic bishops over the abortion-financing provisions of the proposed health care overhaul, the nation’s Catholic hospitals have signaled that they back the Senate’s compromise on the issue, raising hopes of breaking an impasse in Congress and stirring controversy within the church. …

Just days before the bill passed, the Catholic Health Association, which represents hundreds of Catholic hospitals across the country, said in a statement that it was “encouraged” and “increasingly confident” that such a compromise “can achieve the objective of no federal funding for abortion.” An umbrella group for nuns followed its lead.

As for the "objective of no federal funding for abortion," no serious pro-life organization feels that the present Health Care Bill achieves that objective. To say that it does is to simply repeat the president's strategy of telling people what they want to hear regardless of how poorly it fits the facts. As in this:

Quite to the contrary, here is the actual situation today according to the Americans United for Life:

... insurance plans that cover elective abortions will receive these federal subsidies," Americans United for Life explains.

"Finally, there is an additional limitation on choice in Majority Leader Reid’s amendment that has been largely ignored, and for the first time in U.S. history imposes an abortion tax on unwilling Americans," AUL adds.

"Under Majority Leader Reid’s amendment, ALL individuals who participate in plans in the Exchange that include elective abortion coverage, even if they do so unwittingly, will directly pay part of their own premiums into an account that pays for nothing but elective abortions," the pro-life group says.

"The amendment provides that each and every enrollee in such a plan (or their employer on their behalf) must write a separate check for elective abortion coverage, even if that enrollee never intends to have an abortion. That amount cannot be less than $12.00 per year," it notes.

On this issue, as on others, the watchword is: pay attention to what he does and not what he says.

In case you think this is a recent development:



The thing to remember is that our president spent years employing and refining the political ethics (if that's the word) of Saul Alinsky.

Beauty -- Part III

On the run-up to the new year, here is Part III of British philosopher Roger Scruton's exploration of beauty and its decline.

When dialogue become collaboration

Back in 1985, when the New York Times' columnist E. J. Dionne was rehearsing the liberal Catholicism which has now become so reflexively predictable, he conducted an interview -- via correspondence -- with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in the cardinal's capacity of the prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. In the exchange, Cardinal Ratzinger acknowledged a lesson he had learned in trying to enter into dialogue with the radicals of the May, 1968 uprisings in Europe. It is something that it might be beneficial for our president to think about as he scurries around the world courting the favor of sundry international ideologues and thugs.

Cardinal Ratzinger said: "I learned that it is impossible to discuss with terror and on terror, as there are no premises for a discussion -- and such a discussion becomes collaboration with terror ... I think that in those years, I learned where discussion must stop because it is turning into a lie, and resistance must begin in order to maintain freedom."

Beauty -- Part II

On the run-up to the new year, here is Part II of British philosopher Roger Scruton's exploration of beauty and its decline.

The Second Day of Christmas

My friend "Athos" has a wonderful post -- beautiful image and bracing lines of poetry -- here. Both the poetry and the image are so good that I have copied them both, shamelessly feasting on the crumbs from my friend's table.

Beauty -- Part I

On the run-up to the new year, here is Part I of British philosopher Roger Scruton's exploration of beauty and its decline.

"Embattled Christians" on this Christmas Day

Nina Shea had a piece the other day which is worth noting as Christmas day draws to a close. It is about the seemingly gradual -- but in historical terms breathtakingly rapid -- disappearance of Christians and Christianity from the Middle East.

Shea writes:

The lengthy exodus of ancient Christian congregations from the greater Middle East’s last redoubts of religious pluralism is accelerating. Terrorism, conflict, and the rise of intolerant Islamism are to blame, Vatican officials explain. There is a real fear that the light of Christian communities that was enkindled personally by the apostles of Jesus Christ could be extinguished in this vast region that includes the Holy Land. . . .

The disappearance of living Christian communities would signal the disappearance of religious pluralism and a moderating influence from the heart of the Muslim world. . . .

Within our lifetime, the Middle East could be wholly Islamicized for the first time in history. Without the experience of living alongside Christians and other non-Muslims at home, what would prepare it to peacefully coexist with the West? This religious polarization would undoubtedly have geopolitical significance. So far, official Washington has not taken this under consideration.

This last sentence stands as a reminder that the religious freedom of many of our brothers and sisters in other lands -- non-Christians and non-believers as well as Christians -- depends on support from the "west" in general and the U.S. in particular, and that the inculcation of multicultural pieties has dissuaded us as a society from the task of championing the cause of the religious freedom.

Nina Shea's article is here.

Again, I say: Rejoice . . .

The God who chose history’s forgotten people as his own, and who came into the world in obscurity and ignominy, and who thereafter inserts himself into human history by way of a Church as outwardly motley and inwardly magnificent as a Bethlehem cowshed, now enters “the rag and bone shop of the heart” as a little piece of bread.

Could the Good News get any better than this?

Have a Blessed and Joyful Christmas.

"If it is true, it changes everything."

At the "midnight" (10 p.m. this year) Mass at St. Peter's, here are a few things that Pope Benedict XVI had to say in his homily:

Dear Brothers and Sisters! "A child is born for us, a son is given to us" (Is 9:5). What Isaiah prophesied as he gazed into the future from afar, consoling Israel amid its trials and its darkness, is now proclaimed to the shepherds as a present reality by the Angel, from whom a cloud of light streams forth: "To you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord" (Lk 2:11). ... It is a message that cannot leave us indifferent. If it is true, it changes everything. If it is true, it also affects me. Like the shepherds, then, I too must say: Come on, I want to go to Bethlehem to see the Word that has occurred there. The story of the shepherds is included in the Gospel for a reason. They show us the right way to respond to the message that we too have received. What is it that these first witnesses of God's incarnation have to tell us?

[The Gospel] tells us that after listening to the Angel's message, the shepherds said one to another: "'Let us go over to Bethlehem' they went at once" (Lk 2:15f.). "They made haste" is literally what the Greek text says. ... For most people, the things of God are not given priority, they do not impose themselves on us directly And so the great majority of us tend to postpone them. First we do what seems urgent here and now. In the list of priorities God is often more or less at the end. We can always deal with that later, we tend to think. The Gospel tells us: God is the highest priority. If anything in our life deserves haste without delay, then, it is God's work alone. The Rule of Saint Benedict contains this teaching: "Place nothing at all before the work of God (i.e. the divine office)". For monks, the Liturgy is the first priority. Everything else comes later. In its essence, though, this saying applies to everyone. God is important, by far the most important thing in our lives. The shepherds teach us this priority. From them we should learn not to be crushed by all the pressing matters in our daily lives. From them we should learn the inner freedom to put other tasks in second place however important they may be so as to make our way towards God, to allow him into our lives and into our time. Time given to God and, in his name, to our neighbour is never time lost. It is the time when we are most truly alive, when we live our humanity to the full.

Some commentators point out that the shepherds, the simple souls, were the first to come to Jesus in the manger and to encounter the Redeemer of the world. The wise men from the East, representing those with social standing and fame, arrived much later. The commentators go on to say: this is quite natural. The shepherds lived nearby. They only needed to "come over" (cf. Lk 2:15), as we do when we go to visit our neighbours. The wise men, however, lived far away. They had to undertake a long and arduous journey in order to arrive in Bethlehem. And they needed guidance and direction. Today too there are simple and lowly souls who live very close to the Lord. They are, so to speak, his neighbours and they can easily go to see him. But most of us in the world today live far from Jesus Christ, the incarnate God who came to dwell amongst us. We live our lives by philosophies, amid worldly affairs and occupations that totally absorb us and are a great distance from the manger. In all kinds of ways, God has to prod us and reach out to us again and again, so that we can manage to escape from the muddle of our thoughts and activities and discover the way that leads to him. ...

Let us pray that he may come to us each day, that we may be able to say: I live, yet it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me (Gal 2:20)" (in Lk 22:3).

Yes indeed, that is what we should pray for on this Holy Night. Lord Jesus Christ, born in Bethlehem, come to us! Enter within me, within my soul. Transform me. Renew me. Change me, change us all from stone and wood into living people, in whom your love is made present and the world is transformed. Amen

Christmas in the Meantime . . .

Take a look at this website to see which retailers continue to have some reverence for the feast day on which so much of their commercial success depends, and which have chosen to either neglect or mock it.

More importantly, however, is the little video (I hope it's still there, so hurry in case it is replaced) in the upper right hand of the website. (I could not copy the embedded code, so you have to go to the website to see it.)

It's quite beautiful. Again, it's here.

Merry Christmas.

LOVE IN ACTION

A person who has learned to love his enemies doesn't have to spent his whole life trying not to make any or pretending not to have any.

The first act of charity toward one's enemies may well be to thwart their ambitions and, if necessary, bring them to their knees -- figuratively or literally. At which moment, one can fall on one's knees beside them and begin putting the world back together again.

A legislative monstrosity . . .

This from Robert Samuelson, a Newsweek and Washington Post journalist whose area of expertise is economics:

Obama's plan amounts to this: partial coverage of the uninsured; modest improvements (possibly) in their health; sizable budgetary costs worsening a bleak outlook; significant, unpredictable changes in insurance markets; weak spending control. This is a bad bargain. Benefits are overstated, costs understated. This legislation is a monstrosity; the country would be worse for its passage. What it's become is an exercise in political symbolism: Obama's self-indulgent crusade to seize the liberal holy grail of "universal coverage." What it's not is leadership.

The whole piece is here.

Thank who? . . .

Nancy Pelosi praised the Senate Health Care Bill, expressing special delight in the fact that (quoting) the "abortion language that is completely different from the House -- thank God."

"If you do not come too close . . ."

If you do not come too close, if you do not come too close,

On a Summer midnight, you can hear the music

Of the weak pipe and the little drum

And see them dancing around the bonfire.

So wrote T. S. Eliot in East Coker. I read these lines both before and after I became acquainted with the work of René Girard, and, like so many other things in my life, the “before” version required a good deal of updating in light of Girard’s work. The word “bonfire” comes from bone-fire, and it was originally a fire so hot and consuming that it would reduce even bones to unrecognizable ashes. The value of doing this would have greatly enhanced a community’s effort to render a comforting account of the fate of those whose bones – had they survived the fire – might have constituted evidence for a harsher truth than the myth the community is ritually laboring to make plausible. Those familiar with Girard’s work will know where all this comes from and where it leads. I needn’t pursue it further here. I only want to bring into focus the phrase “if you do not come too close.”

Many years ago, when the reality of “partial-birth abortion” – the gruesome procedure Barack Obama would later so vigorously defended in the Illinois legislature – was receiving some media attention, I made the mistake of reading a description of the procedure out loud while my 10-year-old daughter was in the room. She instantly broke into sobbing tears. At that moment, my moral revulsion for this barbarous act became more than that. Aña’s completely visceral reaction made me realize what abortion was doing to everyone. Its presence as a “fact of contemporary life” was causing us all to die inwardly. My daughter had exactly the right reaction. Why, I wondered, didn’t I break down as she had? Rather I read the story as though it were just another outrageous development in a world where many outrages exist.

In his “While We’re At It” commentaries in the current edition of First Things, editor Jody Bottum contrasts the stories of two abortion industry workers, Abby Johnson, who resigned her Planned Parenthood job after assisting at an abortion and seeing up close what an abortion is, and a midwest abortionist who experienced a similar “moment of disillusionment” while dismembering an eighteen week old unborn child at the moment when she herself was eighteen week pregnant. Bottum quotes the woman’s own words:

I felt a kick – a fluttery “thump, thump” in my own uterus. It was one of the first times I felt fetal movement. There was a leg and a foot in my forceps, and a “thump, thump” in my abdomen. Instantly, tears were streaming from my eyes – without me – meaning my conscious brain – even being aware of what was going on. I felt as if my response had come entirely from my body, bypassing my usual cognitive processing completely. A message seemed to travel from my hand and my uterus to my tear ducts. It was an overwhelming feeling – a brutally visceral response – heartfelt and unmediated by my training or my feminist pro-choice politics.”

Astonishingly, Bottum tells us, this woman managed to suppress this anatomical response to the horror of abortion and continue aborting babies for a living. Given, however, that the woman admitted that performing trimester abortions “did not get any easier after my pregnancy” and that “dealing with little infant parts of my born baby only made dealing with dismembered fetal parts sadder,” there is reason to believe that this is not the end of her moral journey.

The reason I have related these two stories is because, for me, they represent the strongest evidence I know for the existence of an immutable moral law, written on the heart of everyone, as St. Paul insisted it is.

If you do not come too close, certain rituals work fine, but beware of coming too close. Once exposed to them more intimately, the spiritual, moral and psychological price to be paid for ignoring their moral reality is considerable. The heart that would have broken, hardens. The heart of flesh becomes a heart of stone, and it does this so incrementally that one might not realize what is actually happening. Ours is today a world where too many of us – and to a degree almost all of us – have allowed our hearts to harden in this way. But, thanks to sonograms and similar technologies, more and more of us are coming too close to be able to suppress the reality.

Compared to the reality which Abby Johnson found so disturbing once she “came too close,” the reality to which my 10-year-old and the midwest abortion doctor reacted with such visceral revulsion, “feminist pro-choice politics” represents little more than the “weak pipe and little drum” accompanying the pagan fertility cult of T. S. Eliot’s poem. These instruments for warding off reality work for a while, but then – more suddenly than one might have expected – they vanish, at which the erstwhile ritual participant sees – not the charming singing and dancing – but “dung and death.” It is at this point, that one’s spiritual revival begins.

EVERYONE will pay for abortion

The Chicago Way

Thanks to Daniel Foster at National Review Online's Doctor! Doctor! here's how the politics of the "Chicago Way" worked for a few of the senators who played hard to get.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.):

—$1.2 billion over ten years for a permanent exemption from Nebraska's share of the Medicaid expansion. The only state so exempted under the bill.

—Exemption for Nebraska from an excise tax on non-profit insurers.

Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.), Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.)

—Exemption from the non-profit excise tax for Michigan insurers. Michigan and Nebraska were the only two states so exempted.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.)

—$10 billion for "community health centers".

—Protections from cuts to Medicare Advantage beneficiaries in Vermont.

—$250 million over six years in expanded federal Medicaid funding.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D., La.)

—$300 million increase in Medicaid funding in Louisiana.

Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.), Sen. Paul Kirk (D., Mass).

—Three years of expanded federal Medicaid funding.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.), Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.), Sen. Arlen Specter (D., Pa.), Sen. Bill Nelson (D., Fla.)

—Special treatment for Medicare Advantage beneficiaries in New York, Pennsylvania, and Florida.

Sen. Daniel Inouye (D., Hawaii), Sen. Daniel Akaka (D., Hawaii)

—billions in new funding for something called “Disproportionate Share Hospital” (DSH) payments (financed, in large part, by $18.5 billion in cuts to DSH payments in other states).

Sen. Max Baucus (D., Mont.), Sen. Jon Tester (D., Mont.), Sen. Kent Conrad (D., N.D.), Sen. Byron Dorgan (D., N.D.), Sen. Tim Johnson (D., S.D.)

—Higher federal Medicare reimbursement rates for low-population “frontier” states (also qualifying under the bill’s definition of frontier states are Utah and Wyoming, represented in the Senate by Republicans).

Even those familiar with the less savory aspects of the legislative process are amazed by the shameless venality of the administration and its congressional allies.

We cannot give up.

I am not a Republican, nor do I carry water for the Republican party, but when the vote in the Senate along strictly partisan lines demonstrates clearly that the Health Care Bill is owned lock, stock and barrel by the Democratic party, one can only turn to those in the opposing party who continue to struggle to prevent the moral, economic, and political damage this terrible piece of legislation would cause.

I don't know what the chances might be of defeating this bill when it goes to conference committee to resolve the differences between the Senate and House language, but that appears to be the last chance to stop it. And so what little hope we have depends on people like Representative John Boehner of Ohio, the minority leader in the House of Representatives:

“The American people have rejected the Democrats’ government-run approach to health care loudly and clearly, and it’s time to scrap Senator Reid’s bill and start over. The bill will fundamentally change something as personal and important as the relationship between a patient and a doctor, and yet Democrats are attempting to sneak the bill through before Christmas in the hopes the American people aren’t watching what they’re doing. Why? Because Senator Reid knows the more the American people find out about this bill, the more they oppose it.

“The Democrats’ government takeover of health care will increase premiums for families and small businesses, raise taxes during a recession, cut seniors’ Medicare benefits, add to our skyrocketing debt, and put bureaucrats in charge of decisions that should be made by patients and doctors. The bill also authorizes government-funded abortions, violating long-standing policies prohibiting federal funding of abortion. That’s not reform. My message to the American people is: now is not the time to give up. Now is the time to fight harder. When the American people are engaged, Washington listens. Now is the time to speak out, more loudly and clearly than ever, against this monstrosity.”

As the Wall Street Journal editors put it:

The rushed, secretive way that a bill this destructive and unpopular is being forced on the country shows that "reform" has devolved into the raw exercise of political power for the single purpose of permanently expanding the American entitlement state. An increasing roll of leaders in health care and business are looking on aghast at a bill that is so large and convoluted that no one can truly understand it, as Finance Chairman Max Baucus admitted on the floor last week. The only goal is to ram it into law while the political window is still open, and clean up the mess later.

P.S. While the Heath Care Bill is the Democratic party's very own Rube Goldberg gargoyle, it is also true that the House Democrat Bart Stupak will be among the heroes of this struggle -- win or lose -- as may others on both sides of the aisle in the House, especially if they manage somehow to finally scuttle the bill. Republicans and independents in their districts will have good reason to remember them fondly next election time.

And you thought it was about economics ...

The same people who so shamelessly bribed Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska in order to get the necessary 60 votes to pass the economically and morally devastating Health Care Bill, have been using the massive pile of stimulus dollars to pay back their political allies for their support.

Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft -- fast becoming one of the finest journalists we have -- has the story here. He quotes the Washington Examiner, which in turn cites a study by the Mercatus Center at George Washington University:

The Mercatus Center analysis also found that Democratic congressional districts received on average almost double the funding of Republican congressional districts. Republican congressional districts received on average $232 million in stimulus funds while Democratic districts received $439 million on average.

“We found that there is a correlation [relating to the partisanship of congressional districts],” de Rugy said. Her regression analysis found that stimulus funds are expected to decrease by 24.19 percent if a district is represented by a Republican.

“During the appropriations process, you're not surprised to see the Democrats are getting more money, but in this case a lot of the money we're looking at is going through HUD [Department of Housing and Urban Development], or Department of Education, Department of Transportation etc. and they're following a formula,” she said. “But the correlation exists, and not only does it exist -- when you look at how much money we're talking about, it's a pretty big deal.”

According to the Washington Examiner:

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia is one of the nation's most respected economic and regulatory think tanks and has a Nobel prize-winning economist on staff. The econometric analysis was done using data provided by Recovery.gov -- the government website devoted to tracking the stimulus data -- as well as a host of other government databases.

So, it's business as usual for the Saul Alinsky Chicago politicians who sit at the controls.

"a date which will live in infamy"

"A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be consoled, since they were no more." - Matthew 2:18

There is all the more reason for weeping, inasmuch as the taking of innocent life has not only become public policy -- the majority party's sacred cause -- but it now requires that every tax-payer to be financially complicit in the slaughter of the innocents that continues day-in and day-out. Herod of old would blush at the scale of the slaughter.

The Obama revolution rolls on.

Writes Dr. Charmaine Yoest, President of Americans United for Life:

“60 U.S. Senators just made history by voting to move forward with a bill that imposes a first-ever mandatory abortion tax on the American people. Majority Leader Reid held this vote in the middle of the night because he knows that the vast majority of Americans don’t want this new tax and don’t want tax dollars bankrolling insurance plans that cover abortion. A ‘yes’ vote is a solid ‘yes’ to the expansion of federal funding for abortion. We will be making this tragic decision clear to those constituents who have been misinformed that their Senator is pro-life.”

It is yet another day that will live in infamy, but this time the president of the United States will congratulate his political allies for bringing it about.

There are many reasons for opposing the Health Care Bill which will now be forced on the American people, and I oppose it for most of them, but the federal funding of abortion is the most morally odious of them all.

The darker strains of the Christmas story are being lived out in our time. The brighter strains of that story must sustain us -- and fortify us for our resistance to the unconscionable -- in the "meantime."

Recycling: Who needs the exegetes?

Thanks to my friend John Meenagh, this definitive definition of Christmas. Oh, for the days ...

It's smoke and mirrors time again.

This from Emily Buchanan, Executive Director, Susan B. Anthony List:

I regret to inform you that this morning the last pro-life Democratic holdout in the Senate, Ben Nelson (D-NE), publicly caved in to a "pro-life compromise" authored by Bob Casey (D-PA) and Harry Reid (D-NV).

This so-called "pro-life compromise" dresses up taxpayer funding of abortions with more fancy language, more conscience protections, and more federal funding for assistance to teenagers who are pregnant. The "compromise" also forces all states to carry a health care plan that does not offer abortion coverage and allows the states to "opt out" of having to carry a plan that covers abortion funding. ...

Unfortunately, the citizens of any state that "opts out" will not be exempt from paying federal taxes, which will be used to fund plans that cover abortions in other states. This compromise forces you and me, no matter what state we live in, to fund abortions, and SBA List utterly rejects it.

There are very few "smoke-filled rooms" anymore, but they've been more than adequately replaced by smoke-and-mirrors charades. This is one of them. The senators lie and babies die. Where have I heard something like that before?

Worse still, the babies don't die, nor are the killed in combat for which they volunteered, they are methodically and clinically murdered by people who make a living doing such things.

Worse still, you and I will be financing their murders.

God help us.

I love stories like this.

New York Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan and Rabbi David Posner

Seven nights after the archbishop of New York lit the Hannukah menorah's first candle (above) for his new Fifth Avenue neighbors -- and a month before B16 makes the second-ever papal visit to Rome's Synagogue -- late yesterday the following announcement came from the Big Apple chancery:

Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan will celebrate the 10:15 a.m. Mass for the Fourth Sunday of Advent on December 20, 2009 at the Cathedral of Saint Patrick in New York.

In a spirit of inter-faith friendship and good will, joining Archbishop Dolan at the Mass will be Rabbi David Posner, who will light the fourth candle on the Advent Wreath, marking the Fourth Sunday of Advent.

Rabbi Posner is the Senior Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, located on Fifth Avenue at 65th Street in Manhattan. In a similar way, Rabbi Posner had Archbishop Dolan light the menorah for the first night of Hanukah on December 11 at Temple Emanu-El.

A member of the national Jewish-Catholic dialogue since 2004, Dolan formally became the US church's lead hand on Jewish relations last month in succession to Cardinal William Keeler, who led the dialogue's Catholic delegation since 1983.

Source: Whispers in the Loggia

Let's get practical ...

Pope John Paul II joked about how to solve the crises swirling around the late 20th century. We had two choices, he insisted: a practical one and a hopelessly naive mystical one. The practical one was to fall on our knees a pray for the intercession of our Lady of Czestochowa. The hopelessly naive one was to organize a meeting of politicians and bureaucrats.

David Warren has contempt for the ideologues and unelected bureaucrats pushing the climate change crisis, but he has solid advice about how to address the real ecological problems we face. He writes:

We could -- I know this sounds a little idealistic, but bear with me -- try to export the best of our old Christian civilization, instead of the worst of our post-Christian one. For my reader may recall that civilization had nothing to do with conspicuous consumption, and put more of its money in cathedrals than into personal and corporate display.

To say this would be "good for the environment" is an understatement: there is so much joyful life we could recover, by simply discarding what is not genuinely useful, and getting on with the root human task of salvation, through the advancement of the good, the beautiful, and the true.

I second his suggestion.

Read his column here.

Inconvenient Facts:

In response to an earlier post, here, a friend assured me that Lord Christopher Monckton was a fool, to which I responded that he might be and that so might I be, but he seemed to have given the kind of attention to the fashionable global warming alarms that few others have. Here he is again at the global warming -- aka, climate change -- conference in Copenhagen:



Now that we have announced that the U.S. will donate 100 billion dollars to the cause of easing the effects of global warming -- the money going often enough and coincidentally enough to the global warming crusaders and to regimes whose history of political corruption is less than inspiring -- why be bothered with facts?