- Thomas Sowell: Peerless Nerd.
- Why Cats Drink.
- Human Rights.
- Human Lives.
- Why a 10-foot-pole is still too close to Newt.
* Temporarily renamed in honor of the Nativity Fast, about which Mystagogy has some more information.
If a mad scientist were to repair to his laboratory to design a machine that would make white liberals uncomfortable, that machine would be Thomas Sowell, whose input is data and whose output is socioeconomic criticism in several grades ….
(Thomas Sowell: Peerless Nerd)
(HT Sharon Uzelac Abbate on Facebook)
“Human Rights” are human desires that have been baptized by the progressives. And progressives are people who do not believe in human nature or in limits.
That’s reductionist, to be sure. But I believe in (a relatively few) human rights in substantial part because I believe in a common human nature. I don’t believe we’re all “totally unique” one-offs. I struggle with how someone can affirm relativism (“well, that may be true for you, but …”) and also affirm enough common human nature that “human rights” is not just pandering (to those with unsatisfied desires) and cant (to beguile those who might hesitate to recognize some novel right).
Speaking of progressivism, here’s an icon:
(HT Tom Hoopes at Catholicvote.org, where there are other similar “ads”)
The real issue for religious conservatives isn’t whether they can trust Gingrich. It’s whether they can afford to be associated with him.
Conservative Christianity in America, both evangelical and Catholic, faces a looming demographic challenge: A rising generation that is more unchurched than any before it, more liberal on issues like gay marriage, and allergic to the apocalyptic rhetoric of the Pat Robertson-Jerry Falwell era. To many younger Americans, religious conservatism as they know it often seems to stand for a kind of institutionalized hypocrisy — a right-wing Tartufferie that’s incensed by the idea of gay wedlock but tolerant of straight divorce, forgiving of Republican sins but judgmental about Democratic indiscretions, and eager to apply moral litmus tests only on issues that benefit the political right.
Rallying around Newt Gingrich, effectively making him the face of Christian conservatism in this Republican primary season, would ratify all of these impressions ….
(From the New York Times, so it may count toward your freebies.) I’ve bolded the part I think is spot-on accurate.
Rod Dreher liked it. Mark Shea liked it, too:
[C]onservative Christians have demonstrated a sort of anti-charism of discernment over the past decade, not just backing but giving full throated veneration to spectacularly unreliable people and vilifying their critics as enemies of all that is good and holy. It’s the amazing combination of bad calls with repeated, cocksure declarations that the polite critic of a … Gingrich [is] speaking from a deeply evil hatred of God, babies, puppies, and America that keeps making me wonder how many times somebody can be so wrong before they start to develop just a little caution about their utter certitude.
Take home message: Elect Newt and kiss traditional marriage goodbye.
For the reasons Douthat says, Newt’s got a bigger problem than whether you believe him now; he’s a walking billboard, if nominated, for Republicans’ lack of seriousness about the sanctity of marriage – if not their seriousness about anything at all.
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Bon appetit!
Having become tedious even to myself, I’m Tweeting more, blogging less. View this in a browser instead of an RSS feeder to see Tweets at upper right.
I also have some succinct standing advice on recurring themes. Maybe if I link to it, I’ll blog less obsessively about it.
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 