Last Call - To Stop The Bill...

Now's the time... the only time left to call your member of Congress.

At National Review Online , find a listing of who voted how last time, and how to call them...state by state. Go to it!

"Count This Woman Out"

Kathryn Jean Lopez - NRO :

This morning, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi held a no-boys-allowed session of Democratic congresswomen on “economic advantages to women in the health care bill.” One of the women not invited, Republican congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, tells National Review Online: “It was probably a pretty short meeting, because those advantages do not exist...

Obama's Budget Speech

(The transcript can be found HERE)


Do only the 'rich' donate to charities and buy houses? Is the reduced deduction meant to put more government control on where charitable monies go?

QUESTION: Mr. President, are you -- thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Are you reconsidering your plan to cut the interest rate deduction for mortgages and for charities? And do you regret having proposed that in the first place?


OBAMA: No, I think it's -- I think it's the right thing to do, where we've got to make some difficult choices. Here's what we did with respect to tax policy.


What we said was that, over the last decade, the average worker, the average family have seen their wages and incomes flat. Even in times where supposedly we were in the middle of an economic boom, as a practical matter, their incomes didn't go up. And so, well, we said, "Let's give them a tax cut. Let's give them some relief, some help, 95 percent of American families."


Now, for the top 5 percent, they're the ones who typically saw huge gains in their income. I -- I fall in that category. And what we've said is, for those folks, let's not renew the Bush tax cuts, so let's go back to the rates that existed back in -- during the Clinton era, when wealthy people were still wealthy and doing just fine, and let's look at the -- the level at which people can itemize their deductions.


And what we've said is: Let's go back to the rate that existed under Ronald Reagan. People are still going to be able to make charitable contributions. It just means, if you give $100 and you're in this tax bracket, at a certain point, instead of being able to write off 36 percent or 39 percent, you're writing off 28 percent.


Now, if it's really a charitable contribution, I'm assuming that that shouldn't be the determining factor as to whether you're giving that $100 to the homeless shelter down the street.


And so this provision would affect about 1 percent of the American people. They would still get deductions. It's just that they wouldn't be able to write off 39 percent.


In that sense, what it would do is it would equalize -- when I give $100, I'd get the same amount of deduction as when some -- a bus driver who's making $50,000 a year, or $40,000 a year, gives that same $100. Right now, he gets 28 percent -- he gets to write off 28 percent. I get to write off 39 percent. I don't think that's fair.

Maybe they should be taxed at the same rate too. Wouldn't that be 'fair'?

Hey Doug #6 - Those Stats Aren't Working!

Michael New:

...An August 2008 study released by the group Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good had Obama supporters (and some editorial boards) swooning. Analyzing state level abortion data from 1982 to 2000, it purportedly found evidence that increased spending on various welfare programs resulted in substantial reductions in state abortion rates. The spin given to the results was that many pro-life laws, such as those requiring parental notification for abortions performed on minor girls, had little effect. So the paradoxical message to pro-life voters was that they could best advance their interests by electing pro-choice Democrats instead of pro-life Republicans.

Not surprisingly, this study had a substantial impact on the debate over sanctity of life issues during the 2008 Presidential election. Self proclaimed pro-lifers who support Democratic Presidential nominees can be found in every election cycle. However, this study gave Doug Kmiec, Nicholas Cafardi, and others intellectual legitimacy in arguing that pro-life voters should vote for liberals, even if they favor abortion-on-demand and its public funding, in order to advance the pro-life cause. At last, there was a methodologically sophisticated study which allegedly demonstrated that the welfare policies favored by Democrats were more effective in preventing abortion than the pro-life laws supported by Republicans. It seemed too good to be true.

It was. In November, with no public announcement, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good removed this study from their website. A replacement version was uploaded shortly thereafter...

...The new version provides evidence that welfare policy has no more than a marginal effect on the incidence of abortion. In fact, the new regression results indicate that none of the three welfare policies which the authors previously argued were effective tools for reducing the incidence of abortion have a substantial abortion reducing effect. Wright clearly states that “WIC payments are not correlated with the abortion rate in the 1990s.” Additionally, the regression results consistently indicate that the presence of family caps has only a marginal effect on state abortion rates. Furthermore, while Wright argues that increased AFDC/TANF spending reduces state abortion rates, his regression results raise serious doubts about the reliability of this finding...

...Unfortunately, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good continues to miss the boat and mislead the public. There exist plenty of peer reviewed studies which find that public funding restrictions and parental involvement laws reduce the incidence of abortion. However, instead of acknowledging the positive impact of pro-life legislation and constructively working with pro-lifers to promote social policies that will further reduce abortion rates, Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good seems primarily interested in providing moral, political, and theological cover for supporters of Barack Obama and other Democrats who support “abortion rights.” Unfortunately, their latest study indicates that their original findings have been unable to withstand serious scrutiny.

Sadly, just weeks into his administration, President Obama has already demonstrated considerable disregard for the sanctity of human life. One of Barack Obama’s first acts as President was to revoke the Mexico City Policy. Now non-governmental organizations receiving funds from the U.S. Government can perform and promote abortions overseas. It is unfortunate that the faulty research of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good was used as political cover to help make such a thing possible...

(emphasis added)

Oh My! Doug Kmiec has some s'plainin to do!

.

"The Cult Of Moloch"

Perspective on the world we live in.

California Catholic:

....Abortion is our god and Obama, Pelosi, Kennedy are his prophets. His sacrifice is the life of infants and the souls of mothers. His priests are doctors who perform abortions. His church is Planned Parenthood and FOCA, (freedom of choice act). His covenant promises rights and freedom for women. It delivers death of infants, permanent damage to the souls of women, of men, of politicians.

Homosexual lust is our god and Obama, Bishop Gene Robinson, and democratic politicians are his prophets. The sacrifice is personal integrity and corruption of the body and spirit. Its priests and priestesses are men who have sex with men (MSM) and women who have sex with women (WSW). Its church is the Human Rights Campaign and other activist organizations, Pride clubs and "gay" and "lesbian" centers. Its covenant offers false promises of equality with those who have normal sexual relations and inner peace. It delivers disease, prolonged adolescent immaturity, and oppression of the church and good people who live upright moral lives.

Money is our god, and the wealthy and the welfare are its prophets. Its sacrifice is hard earned savings and retirement. Its priests are those taking obscene profits by defrauding investors, and those who choose government money over honest work. Its church is a non vigilant Securities and Exchange Commission and congress. Its covenant promises self reliance and security in wealth. It delivers collapse of the economy, unfair distribution of wealth, and a drain on the tax system.

Socialism is our god, and Obama is his prophet. Its sacrifice is personal freedom. Its priests are politicians and communist ideological organizations. Its church are legislatures and executive branches in government. Its covenant promises fairness and sameness for all. It delivers power and wealth those who already possess it and takes away opportunity for those out of power and destroys of the economy and future for others.

Liberalism is our god and the Democratic party is his prophet. Its sacrifice is freedom, integrity, opportunity, and wholeness. Its priests are the fascist elites in government, education, and bureaucracies, who wish to control others' thoughts and actions. Its churches are political parties, universities, and corrupt professional organizations. Its covenant promises unbridled freedom for perversion of the natural law and oppression for all who disagree with it. It delivers the breakdown of society, constitutional government, and true freedom for morally minded people, especially faithful Christians....

Was there ever a greater need for believers to get on their knees and implore the Patroness of the Americas to intercede?

To Our Lady Dark Yet Fair

O hail, thou Virgen de Guadalupe! Unfailing refuge, our solace in days of grief, Radiant Queen so kind, our Mother of sweet relief ¡Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!

Lovely Maid, fairest star above the sea! Advocate e'er gracious of clemency and love, Deign to listen to our pleas, O mother above ¡Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!

Yea, O Lady of Guadalupe; O meek and gentlest One, take heed to our groaning; For oft we stumble and raise to thee our moaning ¡Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!

Golden gate of heav'n, thou radiant portal; Unstained by sin, blissful queen of heav'n and earth, Aid me that I may love Him whom you did give birth ¡Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!

Daughter of God, thou queen of royalty, Ave Maria! With joyful hearts we hail thee! Look on us so kindly, O Blessed Virgin Mary! ¡Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!

Unfailing refuge and sweetest Mother; Pearl of grace so fair, fail not thine children to care, E'er our sweetest Advocate who did God once bear ¡Viva la Virgen de Guadalupe!

-- Jeong-Bo Shim

Jeong-Bo is a thirteen year old boy who lives with his family in Corvallis, Oregon. He is home-schooled and enjoys writing poetry. Last year, he was the state winner of the Junior Catholic Daughters of America poetry contest. He also plays the violin and has been invited to play a solo meditation at the Trappist Abbey of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Last year he won second place in the MTNA national competition. He enjoys playing soccer, basketball, tennis, and swimming as well as gardening. He received help on the first verse from Katheryn Atkinson of Tehachipi, California.


(Homeschooled...hmmmm!)

.

Bloggers Battle For Free Speech In Norway

Bloggers have taken up the cause and are prepared to persevere. Where is the traditional media in the battle to prevent gov't curtailment of free speech?

IslamInEurope:

...So how did the Norwegian press respond to having freedom of speech curtailed because it can cause conflicts, and that Norwegian law should be changed because some immigrant groups don't tolerate it like sturdy, Christian and ethnic Norwegians? With almost total silence," writes journalist Jon Hustad in Dag og Tid in his article "fear of criticism of religion", which was published Jan. 22.

One of the few things you could read about the case in the mainstream media was a report from news agency NTB that "the government wants to remove the blasphemy article." the report was reprinted in various media, including TV2, Nettavisen and DagenMagazinet. Then it was quiet.

But it was completely different on the net. The same day that the press release was published, the Islam-critical and conservative site document.no and the net version of Fri Tanke, the Humanist Association newspaper, features big posts.

The next week, the debate raged in blogger newspapers and several bloggers wrote about the case almost daily. The most active was undoubtedly Hans Rudstad, editor of document.no.

"The proposal came like a bomb. But it would take a long time before the bomb exploded," says Rustad to Dagbladet.no.

It took almost a month before the big newspapers and broadcast media took up the case. By then the law had already been described as an attack on democracy in Danish newspapers....

What's In It For Morales?

Watching the Bolivian President 'ratchet up' the tension between the government and the Church, one wonders about the underlying motivation. Relationships between government and Church have historically been tenuous. Why the increase in hostility?

I think it's the company Morales is keeping. He wants to institute repressive measures that increase his power and diminish the voice of the people. This will allow him a free reign to institute new laws which the people would object to....for example, those promoting homosexuality and abortion.( Any guesses where that idea comes from? THE UN!!) What is he getting out of this betrayal of the people? POWER AND MONEY. Unfortunately for him, the Catholic Church insists on continuously pointing out what he's up to, and what the Catholic Church's moral teachings are, just as they did with previous governments. Funny how similarly repressive gov't from the far left and gov't from the far right are. I guess if the main goal is POWER AND MONEY, repression is a given! Fronts for the spread of communism like the 'World Social Forum' are seeing the current economic crisis as an opportunity to gain power throughout South America. They would have an easier time, if they could just shut up those darn Bishops!

Evo Morales sees the Church as a major impediment to the reforms he seeks to institute. (Not the promised land reforms that got him elected...the undemocratic 'repress opposition' and the immoral 'kill off the poor' reforms.)So much so, that he is calling for the 'institution' of a new 'church'. (Sounds a lot like communist China, doesn't it?)

This must be quite a problem for the President of the United States. He personally believes in homosexuality and abortion . He wants to be everybody's friend. Yet, it's obvious that the South American countries flirting with communism are not governed by democracy loving men. How to control the outcome without interfering? How to protect the UN mission to reduce the populations of poor people worldwide through abortion and homosexuality, without increasing the power of uncomfortably close neighbours who are tyrants that hate the US?

Tough one.

FOCA ,Mini FOCA, Faux FOCA...

Watch out for the 'death by a thousand cuts' approach to removing every barrier to abortion on demand.

NCR:

Pro-abortion activists are making plans to pass FOCA in bits and pieces, buried in other bills where it will be unnoticed (and give cover to pro-abortion Catholics afraid of getting called on it). We need to find a moniker to flag these attempts, and draw the full wrath of the anti-FOCA movement to bear against each one.

FOCA fake-outs? FOCA feigns?

Whatever the name, NCHLA.org provides a new e-mail campaign that your whole family can participate in....

Stimulating Sex

The 'stimulus' bill that passed through the House without any Republican support is still supporting illicit sex with millions of dollars.
OneNewsNow:

...Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America (CWA) points out (that)Planned Parenthood and others are still seeking money through the stimulus package to reduce population and promote "safe sex" programs for youth. Wright says it does not make sense. "The economic stimulus bill shifts the burden of the debt onto the next generation; yet if we are spending billions of more dollars in 'family planning,' there won't be much of a next generation to pay this huge debt," she argues.
In a CWA press release, Wright points out the $825-billion stimulus package halts funding for abstinence education programs while including $335 million for sexually transmitted disease (STD) education and prevention programs. She notes that the Centers for Disease Control -- a recipient of STD education funding -- previously has used federal funds for programs that she says "may stimulate some people, but not the economy."
"A transgender beauty pageant in San Francisco that advertised available HIV testing, that funded an event called 'Got Love? – Flirt/Date/Score' that taught participants how to flirt with greater finesse," the family advocate notes, "and also funded events called 'Booty Call' and 'Great Sex' put on by an organization that received nearly $700,000 in government funds."
Simply put, says Wright, the economic stimulus bill still funds programs that "encourage irresponsible sexual activity that increases healthcare costs."

(h/t Catholic Fire)

Hey Doug #5 - RNC Chooses REAL Catholic

A pro-life, devout, Catholic has been chosen as RNC chair!

American Papist:

Former Maryland Lt. Gov. (and former state party chairman) Michael Steele has been elected as the new chair of the Republican National Committee....

Here is an example of a politician who has a chance of affecting REAL 'hope' and 'change'. Talk about LIFE support!!

Due Credit

Kudos to the Canadian government for their stand at the UN.

Lorne Gunter

...On Monday, Canada stood alone at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in opposing a motion that would have condemned Israel -- and not Hamas -- for the current Gaza conflict.

Thirty-three nations voted for the resolution, 13 nations, mostly Western, abstained. Only one nation-- Canada--had the courage to vote "nay."...

I'm praying for the day that courage shows up at home.

.

It's All About Doug

The update on Doug Kmiec's self-absorbed perspective, from The Curt Jester :

...Prof Kmiec managed to turn a Fr. Neuhaus eulogy into a vehicle all about himself. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the Vatican poisoning Kmiec is concerned with was his chances of becoming Vatican Ambassador since the "right wing" Catholic blogosphere frequently fisked his Obamagetics (Oboma Apologetics). Here we are just a couple days away from President Obama putting pen to paper and eliminating the Mexico City Policy and poor Doug is all up in arms about us bloggers...

Sphere Of Deviance

...where many conservative/traditional readers have felt their 'news' has been relegated, especially during the run-up to the recent US election!

PressThink discusses the changes in media relevance in their article "Why The Internet Weakens The Authority Of The Press"

...In the age of mass media, the press was able to define the sphere of legitimate debate with relative ease because the people on the receiving end were atomized-- connected "up" to Big Media but not across to each other. And now that authority is eroding....

(h/t SDA)

"A Creation Myth For The 21st Century"

Did anyone ever ask IVF children whether they wanted to go through life as genetic orphans?

Lea Singh


This month, a court in British Columbia, Canada is expected to certify an important class action that was launched near the end of last year by a gutsy 26-year-old journalist. Her name is Olivia Pratten, and her lawsuit is likely to become a major thorn in the side of the booming fertility industry. Olivia was conceived with the sperm of an anonymous donor, and she is supposed to not care about her genetic origins -- after all, she was wanted and loved by her "intended" parents. But Olivia compares herself to adopted children, and like them, she wants the law to recognize her right to information about her biological parent.

Many people are still surprised to learn of the scale of the donor-gamete business. Louise Brown, the first test tube baby, was only born in 1978. How much could have happened in just 30 years? Let's put it this way – the growth of reproductive technologies has been not linear, but exponential. In 2006, Harvard Business School Professor Deborah Spar estimated the worth of the fertility industry at US$3 billion in the US alone.

IVF has become a beacon of hope for many infertile couples who could not otherwise have their own biological children. What can compete with the powerful pain of infertility, combined with the desperate desire for parenthood? Regardless of its cost, and despite a success rate of only about 30 percent, couples have been willing to pay for IVF, even if it means remortgaging the house or racking up credit card debt. And IVF has opened the door to still other possibilities, especially the use of egg donors and surrogate mothers, the genetic screening of embryos, and recently, the creation of embryos with the sperm of infertile men (ICSI, a technique known to transfer infertility to the resulting male children).

The use of donor sperm was of course possible before IVF, and artificial insemination was practised to some extent even before Louise Brown came along -– but the practice really took off with the IVF boom. It has now become a gigantic industry, where profit-driven sperm banks compete in marketing paid "donors" -– and not just to infertile couples: the world's largest sperm bank, the California Cryobank, reports that over 30 percent of its clients are single women and a growing proportion are lesbian couples. Just visit their website to order from an incredible selection of donors described by physical features, occupation and education, sports inclinations, interests and personality tests, baby photos, personal essays, and even handwriting analysis and audio interviews. And for many fertility businesses, the higher the caliber of the donors, the higher the price.

Like a religion, the whole donor-conception industry is undergirded by a central creation myth. The industry cannot stand without faith in this central tenet: that biological parenthood is irrelevant, and that "social" parenthood is what matters for children's full emotional and psychological development. The theme of every sperm bank and egg donor agency is effectively the Beatles song "All you need is love." Needless to say, many infertile couples are only too happy to sing along and accept this claim at face value. Few reflect on the paradox that they clearly want a biological connection while denying its importance for their children. In effect, the industry heals the parents at the children's expense, by giving them their own genetic children while depriving these children of a biological parent.

Back to Olivia Pratten. According to the creation myth of the fertility industry, Olivia should not give a hoot about her anonymous sperm donor. She is one of those very special donor-conception children who was very deeply wanted and loved by her "intended" parents. For her, the anonymous donor should be on par with a nice blood donor who once donated blood to her parents – barely anything to do with her, right?

And yet, Olivia is disturbing the peace and challenging the creation myth. She insists that her sperm donor is important to her, and she speaks of the "psychological distress" she has suffered at not knowing her biological history, including what race, culture, and religion her biological father may have come from. In 2001, she went to the Canadian Parliament and told the Standing Committee on Health: "the genetic tie that I share with my biological father cannot be minimized or made to disappear. I carry it with me. It is visible in who I am and what I will be…. I'm always left pondering, trying to put the pieces together of who this man was and how this relates to who I am today. If I could somehow know who he was…everything I already know about myself would be put into a different context, and I believe my perception of things would be altered."

Olivia's voice is not the only one speaking out these days. The blogosphere is filling up with young people from around the world, conceived with the aid of reproductive technologies and crying out in pain. One Australian young man writes on his blog, Donated Generation: "Nothing can fix the sorrow I feel for my own loss and the loss experienced by other donor conceived children." A young American woman writes on Confessions of a Cryokid: "One tries to argue that having a social father makes up for the lack of genetic attachment, but it doesn't." And in a powerful cry, a young Australian woman writes on her blog, Umbilically Challenged:

"I am very sad today, with a grief that is not talked about. It is not allowed. Because I had two loving parents. I am not granted asylum. I am not allowed reprieve. Well... what…are you complainin' about ?? You got everything you wanted. You had so many presents at Christmas and your birthday that it was supposed to buy your happiness. You were supposed to forget about your mother. You had everything. Why would you want more? WE GAVE YOU EVERYTHING. I had everything... everything but my mother. You just can't fix that. Sorry."

How has the fertility industry responded to these cries of pain? Olivia and others have been accused of being "ungrateful" for their creation. They have been asked, would they rather not have been born? A rather shocking but frank answer was given by 23-year-old Tom Ellis, a donor-conceived man who wrote in a British newspaper: "I have done a Master's degree at Cambridge and am reasonably successful, but it doesn't make me feel any better about not knowing who I am... I don't think I should have been born. I can't compare living under these conditions and not living at all, but nobody should ever be created under these circumstances... I feel like a tree that has half of its roots missing. And without them, I can hardly stand up."

Voices like these will keep on coming, as donor conception becomes ever more popular. In fact, for the first time in history, our society is engaged in a massive re-definition of the family that rejects its most natural and fundamental basis, genetic connection. The Beatles expressed the mantra not only of the fertility industry, but also of our increasingly utilitarian society as a whole. More and more children are being taught that "love" is what makes a family. This is true especially in countries like Canada , which have already legalized same-sex marriage. To ensure that such unions are equal to heterosexual marriages, it is necessary to open up a way for them to create progeny – and when it comes to reproduction, such unions are largely dependent on the fertility industry. But if children are to have two mommies or two daddies, it also means that they will be separated from at least one of their biological parents, who is not part of the same-sex union. The myth requires us to believe that these other parents will not matter to the child.

If love is all you need to create a family, and if two mommies and two daddies are just as good as one of each, then what about other combinations? Today, single women and even single men are increasingly resorting to the fertility industry to have children without waiting for a suitable partner. Having a child is now only as difficult as buying a book on Amazon.com. No father need apply -- just order the sperm online.

On the other end of the scale, the highest court in the Canadian province of Ontario ruled in 2007 that a child can have three legal parents: the lesbian mother, her partner, and the sperm donor father whom the lesbians wanted to keep involved with the child. But if three legal parents, why not four or five? Certainly, a child could now have up to five "parents" of sorts -– the "intended" couple, the egg and sperm donors, and a surrogate to carry the baby to term.

What's happened is that children have become a commodity. Every movie star is entitled to a Chihuahua, and every adult is now entitled to a child. Though perhaps it started with the right not to have a child, by destroying the undesirables through abortion. The other shoe has now dropped, and we have added the right to have a child at almost any cost.

And to fill in the picture, we also increasingly have the right to choose the kind of child we will have. Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) allows parents to select only embryos without genetic predispositions to various genetic diseases. For instance, recently for the first time the UK allowed parents to use PGD to select only embryos that will not carry a genetic predisposition to breast cancer – and to discard embryos that have the gene, even though they have a 20-50 percent chance of never having breast cancer at all. PGD has also been used by midget parents to have midget children, and by deaf parents to have deaf children. And of course, parents have used PGD to select "savior siblings" whose tissues may be used after birth to cure their ill brothers or sisters.

Who will stop the madness? Perhaps only a rising tide of the children themselves. In a "me first" society, adults seem too busy pursuing their own desires to care much for their children's rights and needs. But through lawsuits like the one started by Olivia Pratten, the children are forcing adults and governments to take notice. The myth that "love is all you need" needs to fall, and it might take the children themselves to cut it down, through their own bitter testimony and experience.

(Lea Singh graduated from Harvard Law School in 2003. She works for a nonprofit organization in Ottawa, Canada.)

This article is published by Lea Singh, and MercatorNet.com under a Creative Commons licence.


RELATED

Vatican Condemns IVF

Dignitas Personae

.

Marriage Means Nothing

...in Canada. Under the Liberals, with their approval and government funding, marriage has been reduced to an agreement with financial and legal benefits and a symbol of homosexual power.

William Gairdner fills us in on the repercussions :

...We need to be reminded that marriage in the West has always been an institution based on four requirements, or qualifications that have provided whatever marital-social stability we used to enjoy. Until recently the law said that anyone is permitted to marry as long as they marry someone of the opposite sex, only one such person at a time, who is not beneath a certain age, and not a close blood relative. That is the four-legged matrimonial chair on which Western Judeo-Christian society has always rested.

But due to the undermining of marriage that results from having removed the gender requirement, the case of open polygamy practiced at Bountiful will not be prosecuted in the confidence that this rational social and moral ground of marriage, this stable structure that has been the very best thing for men, women, children, and for society as a whole for generations, must be upheld. For it as already been trashed.

Instead, polygamy will be prosecuted simply because it is against the current law (Section 293). And polygamy will defended under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a matter of religious right.

When it gets to court, judges will fall back on the question of whether or not one individual right (to religion) does or does not “trump” another individual right (say, a woman’s right). In other words, the process of adjudication in the war over rights will come down, as always, to some judge’s effort to construct a reasonable hierarchy of individual rights. Society, and the greater common good, will be entirely absent from this deliberation...

Related Articles:
Cdn Law Prohibiting Polygamy Faces CHallenge
Cdn Gov't Study Suggests Legalizing Polygamy
Special Report: The Conspiracy To Abolish Marriage In Canada

Neuhaus's Liberalism

Damon Linker of The New Republic, and Ross Douthat of The Atlantic are having a good discussion on the particular view of American liberal tradition that was at the core of Fr. Neuhaus' patriotic defense of religion and his strong voice for the 'culture of life' in America.

Douthat:

...Neuhaus argued that the American constitutional order, and the form of liberalism it embodies, "is premised upon moral truths secured by religion," to quote from his essay on John Paul II and the liberal tradition. Moreover, he believed that the modern left's emphasis on the separation of religion and politics (as opposed to church and state) ran toward illiberalism, and that the left-wing promotion of legalized abortion and euthanasia amounted to a frontal assault on essentially liberal principles - human rights and human dignity and so forth. These are not uncontroversial views, to put it mildly, and they certainly made him a conservative in the modern political landscape. But they are views have deep roots in Anglo-American political history - the notion that liberalism's basic premises depend in some sense upon religion, in particular, is as old as Hobbes and Locke - and as such they properly belong within the big tent of the American liberal tradition, rather than outside it...

Linker:

..This is the great theoconservative shell game...

(h/t Jonah Goldberg)


These are the kinds of discussions that America needs more of.


Meanwhile the tributes to Fr. Neuhaus keep coming....

.

Abortion and Politics

First Things has two excellent abortion/prolife articles in its latest edition:

"Abortion After Obama"

It happens every four years—maybe every two years: Anytime there’s an election in this country, the pundits and political experts take to their soapboxes and proclaim the death of pro-life politics. The unwashed yokels in Utah, Alabama, South Dakota, Oklahoma: They’re an embarrassment, you see, and the sooner we stop paying attention to them, the sooner the nation’s politics will regain its equilibrium....

"The Prolife Movement As The Politics Of The Sixties

Whatever else it is, the pro-life movement of the last thirty-plus years is one of the most massive and sustained expressions of citizen participation in the history of the United States. Since the 1960s, citizen participation and the remoralizing of politics have been central goals of the left. Is it not odd, then, that the pro-life movement is viewed as a right-wing cause?...

Coming Soon To A Gov't Repressing You

Brussels Journal:

Communism seems on the verge of conquering Germany. Individual former Marxist-Leninists already occupy high positions in the Federal Republic of Germany. Now it looks increasingly likely that the Left Party, the successor of the East German Communist Party, might be in government in the foreseeable future.

Dieter Althaus, 50, is the Christian-Democrat prime minister of the German state of Thuringia. Before 1990, when Thuringia was part of Communist East Germany, Herr Althaus was a teacher at a Thuringian high school. Last October the German media published a letter which Herr Althaus sent to the Communist leadership on 9 November 1989, ironically the very day when the Berlin Wall fell, in the evenings. In the letter he advocated that in preparation of their “youth consecration”, a secular coming of age ceremony for 14-year olds in Communist East Germany, the children should be indoctrinated more strictly with Marxist-Leninist ideology. His ardent Marxist-Leninist fervor did not prevent Herr Althaus from becoming the Christian-Democrat leader of his state....(much more)

Anybody wondering why homeschooling is illegal? Read 'Animal Farm' lately? Have any knowledge of recent German history? WAKE UP PEOPLE! (I know, everybody has to suffer first - its human nature to be stupid, and THEN cry.)

..and I'm not just talking to the Europeans. The machinations supporting 'global government' are coming from the same place. The 'post democracy' place, where personal freedom is trumped by 'papa gov't', and its spreading like cholera. (They all drink the same water...)

Man of the Year ...Isn't

David Warren:

For my last Sunday column of anno MMVIII, I will announce my selection for “Man of the Year.” It was, as most, a year of thin choices in the public and political realm. Once again, Al Gore did not make my list of finalists.

I didn’t like any of the newly-elected presidents, either: not Asif Ali Zardari, “Mr. Ten Percent” of Pakistan; nor Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian place-holder; nor Ma Ying-jeou, the smooth compromiser of independent Taiwan; nor Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana (if he has indeed won); nor even Morgan Tsvangirai of Zimbabwe (who won the election, but did not become president); or Barack Obama of the United States (who won but is not yet installed).

I have invested no hope in any of them, and thus must hope to be surprised.

Among Time magazine’s rival list of candidates, I was immediately able to eliminate Steve Jobs, Bruce Springsteen, George Clooney, Rem Koolhaas, “Brad and Angelina,” Oprah Winfrey, and even Laura Bush’s library-science nominee, the Afghan novelist Khaled Hosseini—along with several dozen others among the world’s current, media-recognized, “leaders and revolutionaries, heroes and pioneers, scientists and thinkers, artists and entertainers, builders and titans,” to say nothing of their chefs. (I noticed that nobody nominated Bernie Madoff.)

I also consulted the “100 most beautiful people” of People magazine...

Read the rest....I'm not divulging!

Re-Branding Conservatives...Canadian Style

David Warren:

Mr. Harper, we have learned, can be a rather nasty operator in close-order political fighting. So what is he doing, appointing all these nice, not to say vapid people, to whom no one can object, except “on principle”? He is stacking the Senate with reliable Tory votes, to be sure—that is his urgent necessity, and he’s still 20 votes short—but what is the message in his particular choice of Christmas presents?

My reader didn’t think he was going to reward people who had shown great courage in public life, did you? Who had made reckless sacrifices for the Tory party; who had taken innumerable hits for the team, and risen consistently above craven personal interest? No: only a bigger man would take that kind of risk.

To my view, Mr. Harper wants nice ineffectual people, who can be bought without knowing they were ever for sale; and whom everybody likes. He wants people who won’t get in his way, while he is manoeuvring; who don’t have ambitions of their own.

I think this is part of the “re-branding” of conservatism, that Mr. Harper is doing up here; what many urbane Republicans now call for, down south of the border. The idea is to take the “meanness” out of conservatism itself, to strip off the Christian or pro-life or “social-conservative” edge. The focus groups want “nice,” we have heard. Down south, Bush Elder tried to deliver this with “kinder and gentler,” his son with the word “compassionate.” But electoral success may now demand more concessions!

The conservative view is founded in personal (as opposed to collective) responsibility; in actual independence and freedom, against a background of fixed moral principles (not relativism). That is the steel in it: why it works. Take away this steel, and replace it with fluff and padding, and presto, you have a much more saleable, “people-friendly” product. Add a few entitlements the competition hasn’t thought of yet, and you are back on the road.

The product becomes interchangeable with every other off the shelf, to the clients of the Nanny State, but at least it is in the supermarket. It is useless in emergencies (as Bush Junior quickly found), but hey, it gets you through the happy times.

As ever, I argue we should move backwards: return to the old brand. Go out and sell personal responsibility; sell the manly virtues. This is rapidly becoming a survival issue, not a “positioning” thing. And part of the sales pitch is, don’t flinch—just as you wouldn’t flinch in saying, “Merry Christmas!”