Category: Culture
From my Twitter feed
You don’t need to believe in God to have good values individually. A society that shuns God is a different story. https://t.co/GSocTbQlui
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 13, 2017
I’m strongly inclined to agree with Shapiro on that.
By analogy, I am pretty confident it’s possible for a couple to, say, marry before one of them is through college, practice contraception to allow that one the best chance to finish college on time, and not buy into the culture of death by so doing. But if Rome is right on this (which I often wonder), they’re still doing a bad thing, and they’re probably creating cognitive dissonance should they wish later to criticize “the contraceptive mentality.”
A society that decides that contraception should make every child Planned® is a different story.
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An interesting question is what the polls would look like if Roy Moore had immediately confessed, begged forgiveness, and placed himself in the hands of voters.
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) November 13, 2017
“Before I was married I was a sinner and a creep. I beg the young woman’s forgiveness. It was decades ago, and I ask you to judge me on the good husband and father and grandfather I’ve become.” Etc.
— Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT) November 13, 2017
I think he’s burned that bridge, but I am regularly amazed at people’s credulity and partisan flip-flopping.
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One thing Roy Moore reax proves: @roddreher totally correct in his #BenOp book to place no hope for Xian cons in the old religious right.
— Niall Gooch (@niall_gooch) November 13, 2017
Let me translate:
One thing the Roy Moore reaction proves: Rod Dreher is totally correct in his Benedict Option book to place no hope for Christian conservatives in the old Religious Right.
He’s got that right. If they’re not uniformly corrupt, politically and morally compromised, the old Religious Right is too full of metastatic corruption and compromise to even hold out hope for them.
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The world according to Pedobart:
Convincing 14-year-old to undress and touch you when you’re a 32-year-old deputy DA: let’s reserve judgment
Convincing the former 14-year-old to talk about it years later: THIS IS AN OUTRAGE
— Customary Popehat Behavior (@Popehat) November 13, 2017
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“Liberal education is concerned with the souls of men, and therefore has little or no use for machines … [it] consists in learning to listen to still and small voices and therefore in becoming deaf to loudspeakers.” (Leo Strauss)
There is no epistemological Switzerland. (Via Mars Hill Audio Journal Volume 134)
Monday, 11/13/17
St. John the Almsgiver, 2017
Saturday of an eventful week
Roy Moore
Conservatives, be careful. Don’t dismiss the claims. While I don’t know if the allegations are true, I’m deeply troubled on a number of grounds.
First, these women didn’t seek out the press …
Second, if you read the report, it includes validation from a number of witnesses who say that they were aware of the relationships at the time …
Third, the youngest accuser’s explanation for her decision not to come forward earlier rings tragically true …
While there is a danger of a witch hunt, the presence of multiple claims of misconduct from multiple sources should always make us pause — regardless of whether the alleged abuser comes from the Left or the Right. It’s a moral imperative that we not determine the veracity of the allegations by the ideology of the accused.
Roy Moore is a dangerous man who never should have received the GOP nomination. Republican primary voters selected as their champion a person who seeks to suppress the civil rights of his fellow citizens and defies the law whenever it suits his ideological and political purposes. Even before today’s allegations, he was unfit to be a United States senator. Now the question is whether he’s dangerous, unfit, and vile.
(David French, National Review)
This is the second damaging revelation about Moore since he won the Republican nomination in the special election to replace Jeff Sessions. The other is that he took a secret $180,000 annual salary for a part-time gig at a charity, despite his denials. There is no doubt that the media and the Democrats are gunning for Moore; there is also, now, no doubt that there is plenty of material for them to mine, beyond his kooky views and ignorance of the law.
The statute of limitations on Moore’s alleged sexual misconduct long ago expired, but there is no such thing as a statute of limitations on standards. Roy Moore is not a worthy standard-bearer for the Republican party, and his vulnerabilities are now endangering what should be a completely safe Senate seat.
(Unsigned National Review Editorial calling on Moore to withdraw)
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“Liberal education is concerned with the souls of men, and therefore has little or no use for machines … [it] consists in learning to listen to still and small voices and therefore in becoming deaf to loudspeakers.” (Leo Strauss)
There is no epistemological Switzerland. (Via Mars Hill Audio Journal Volume 134)
Friday, 11/10/17
Thursday, 11/9/17
Nothing happened
Somehow, a day passed without anything notable happening.
Well, nothing notable and edifying came to my attention.
The sky continued to fall down around Baton Rouge (here endeth my cryptic allusion, which some of you will get), and some Polish Catholics, with the help of a Jesuit priest, did a profane rap nuptial mass (6:23 pm November 1) that sets back the possibility of Orthodox/Catholic ecumenism by about 25 years.
So I’m going to step back to yesterday’s Performance Today, which reminded me of an earlier encounter (via From the Top) with Gateways Music Festival, a concept surpassingly wonderful, which I’ll let you encounter for yourself, without further ado.
Be edified.
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“Liberal education is concerned with the souls of men, and therefore has little or no use for machines … [it] consists in learning to listen to still and small voices and therefore in becoming deaf to loudspeakers.” (Leo Strauss)
There is no epistemological Switzerland. (Via Mars Hill Audio Journal Volume 134)
Some succinct standing advice on recurring themes.
Tipsy Teetotaler ن 