Yep, I'm willing to be a jerk on Memorial Day

However, you'll see that I'm not really as brave as that sounds, because I'm publishing this here rather than at the more heavily trafficked W4. Comments moderation is also turned on here.

On this Memorial Day, I'm not willing to "remember our men and women in the military who have fallen." I'm willing to remember our men who have fallen, especially those who have fallen in just and justified wars (such as WWII). But today we're remembering warriors. And women shouldn't be warriors. If they are, they shouldn't be. Locutions like "our men and women in the military" signal an acceptance of women in the role of warrior, and I will not use them. It signals this even more when one is talking about women who have been killed, because getting killed is one of those things that are especially likely to happen in the military because, y'know, people are fighting.

I'm sure that during the days when men and women were strictly segregated in the armed forces and women had a much, much lesser and strictly ancillary role, there were women who got killed. Probably nurses, especially, were not all that far from the scene of action in many wars and were at some risk, and I'm sure some did get killed. Nonetheless, no one thought in the 1960's that if you remembered "our men in uniform" or "the men who have died for our freedom" you were "disrespecting" some nurse in a field hospital who got killed in WWI. This is because that "remembering" was related to men qua warriors, and no one expected us to talk as if women are also warriors.

Now, it is an unfortunate fact that our government, from the Carter administration on, has increasingly used women in warrior roles. This use was expanded in the Clinton administration, and GWB did not reverse those uses. To all intents and purposes, women are now serving in combat roles. I'm quite sure that someone will argue that to refuse to use the phrase "our men and women in the military" or "our men and women who have died" is to deny reality. But I disagree. Such phrases have more than one function. They do not simply function to acknowledge the present situation but also to fix it in place, to treat it as normal and even normative. They signal acceptance and a refusal to disapprove.

And I won't do that.

So today, I remember the men who have died for our freedom in great and necessary wars of the past.

Come Down O Love Divine

In honor of the Feast of Pentecost, here is the inimitable Fernando Ortega singing "Come Down O Love Divine":

This Pentecost would be a good time to invoke the aid of the Holy Ghost for the Church, on which a spirit of compromise has descended. May the true Spirit of God be poured out upon the Body of Christ and give us boldness and clarity of thought and speech.

"Be Still My Soul"

Here is "Be Still My Soul" to the immortal tune "Finlandia." Performed by a group named Vocal Point of which I had never heard until I began looking for good videos for this particular hymn.



Here are all the words, from the Cyberhymnal. As usual, this includes verses not usually used in hymnals.

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.
Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart,
And all is darkened in the vale of tears,
Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart,
Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears.
Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay
From His own fullness all He takes away.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord.
When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past
All safe and blessèd we shall meet at last.

Be still, my soul: begin the song of praise
On earth, believing, to Thy Lord on high;
Acknowledge Him in all thy words and ways,
So shall He view thee with a well pleased eye.
Be still, my soul: the Sun of life divine
Through passing clouds shall but more brightly shine.

The poem is obviously meditating on the loss of loved ones in death. I have been especially meditating on these lines: "Thy hope, thy confidence, let nothing shake. All now mysterious shall be bright at last." Even those of us who are not experiencing hardship and grief right at the moment have questions. Sometimes these questions become particularly insistent. Why does God allow this or that to happen? Why is it this way? Why do the innocent suffer so grievously at the hands of the evil, all over the world? Why does God allow doctrinal error to continue, even among sincere Christian believers who are doing their best to follow Him and His Word?

Depending on a host of purely human factors--emotions, immediate situation, what one is reading at the moment, even one's physical state--such questions can shake our confidence in God and even allow a "root of bitterness" to creep into our hearts. This hymn is like a direct word from our Father: "My child, you do not have to understand everything now. I do not answer all questions for all people at all times. Be still. All now mysterious shall be bright at last."

Blessed Ascension

A blessed and glorious feast of the Ascension to all my readers, Catholic and Protestant alike. In fact, I have always said that the Feast of the Ascension is one of the most ecumenical of all the feasts in the liturgical year. Good low-church Protestants, such as Baptists, really know their Bibles and especially really know the book of Hebrews. Hebrews says that Jesus sat down at the right hand of God so many times that one can almost complete the line when it comes up again, like something in a routine--"and then he..." "I know," yells the audience, "He sat down."

But the point is completely serious: Jesus, our great High Priest, sacrificed himself for us on the cross, so that the sacrifices for sin in the Old Law are now complete and never need to be repeated. His work done, he was exalted on high and sat down. And now, at the throne of God, he intercedes for us.

The Apostle Paul was into the Ascension, when you come to think of it. I'm writing this post on the fly, so I'll let y'all look up the passages, which I'm also going to quote (mostly) from memory:

"Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name that is above every name..."

"When he ascended on high, he led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men...And he gave some apostles, some prophets...for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry."

"It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us."

And the collect today recalls "Set your affections on things above, not on things on this earth."

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that like as we do believe thy only begotten Son our Lord Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

Booth Brothers music

The Booth Brothers are one of my very favorite Gospel music groups. They have a wonderful smooth sound, gentle humor, and genuine kindness. They're also very talented. The only thing is, it's been a little difficult to share their music on-line, because there are not all that many professional-grade videos of their music on Youtube. Most of them that are there are of them with the Gaither homecoming group. Here is a great one of them singing "Amazing Grace" with Russ Taff. Here is their video that goes with the song "Under God." (Note the allusions to Judge Moore in the latter.) Still, until recently I've been rather frustrated by the relative paucity of good-quality Booth Brothers recordings available on-line. So here are a few that are now available on Grooveshark. "While Ages Roll": This is a big fave of mine. It's classic, and they keep it moving. It took me a while to learn the melody for some reason, but now that I know it I love to sing it.



"Just Beyond the River Jordan": If you don't generally like Gospel music but do like "roots" music, you might like this one. I can picture Alison Krauss recording it. It was written by Jim Brady (a member of the Booth Brothers) and his wife Melissa.



"New Shoes": Love the jazzy sound of this. It'll cheer you up on any down day.



"I Still Believe in the Church": If you like jazz and are Catholic and can bear the thought of a song with great jazz chords about the resilience of the church, listen to this. Sure, the Booth Brothers are Protestants and don't really mean the Catholic Church. But I think it can definitely be an ecumenical song.



"Look for Me at Jesus' Feet": There are plenty of videos out there of the inimitable Michael Booth singing this one. It's so beautiful. This just happens to be my favorite recording of the ones I've heard thus far.

This is the face of "organized labor"

In case you were ever wondering, "Why does Lydia McGrew despise unions?" (a thought that I'm sure passes through your minds at least once a week), here's just one small example.

Extra Thoughts--Now with Google Chrome

I have to say that the new Blogger behind-the-scenes look isn't just overly appealing, but I suppose I'll get used to it. More urgent was the fact that Blogger recently decided that IE7 is just too, too ancient and no longer supports it, so I could only blog from Firefox on this site. Do-able (especially after FF fixed the bug whereby links would not go in the proper places on Blogger), but Firefox and my somewhat elderly computer (I've finally decided it is seven or eight years old) don't always get along. Various other IE7 problems were coming up, and I have finally given in and bought a new desktop with Windows 7 and IE9. (In the course of that I lost access to Adblock Pro, which is great for IE 7 but apparently doesn't work with IE9. Rats.) The transition will be somewhat painful, but one compensation: Unlike XP, which often (always?) didn't support Chrome, Windows 7 does. I like it. Super-intuitive, lovely ad blocking software. And Blogger likes it. (Of course.) Not that this means I'll be posting on here particularly more often. But at least I can do it from software that is fully compatible with the blog. Hurrah! Now if I can just get this dad-gummed New Blogger dashboard figured out...

A rant against the Men's Rights attitude

There is an attitude I'm running into occasionally among men, even young men who have not had anything terrible done to them, and I think it's highly, highly unfortunate. It seems to be based on this statistic one hears over and over and over again: "Women initiate x% of divorces." Usually the statistic is 80%.

Now, for some reason, the men who cite this statistic are interpreting it as if it means, "Women initiate 80% of the marital breakups." And even, therefore, "Women initiate 80% of marital breakups for frivolous reason." The idea seems to be that pretty much all women have within them an Inner Buffy who is just waiting for the opportunity to dump her husband one day in fit of hormone-driven pique because he fails to put his socks in the hamper. And then ruin his life, ruin the children's lives, break up his relationship with his children, etc.

So what this turns into is a bitter, misogynistic attitude (and believe me, I don't use the word "misogynistic" lightly) which causes the men who cite this statistic to approach any woman, even the most innocent, wonderful, carefully raised, Christian young woman, with an intention to smoke out her Inner Buffy in order not to be "taken in" and ruined like those many men who have become statistics.

It shouldn't really be too hard to realize that a man can leave his wife for another woman and that his wife may then formally initiate the divorce! In our current no-fault divorce culture, it is quite easy for an erring spouse of either sex to initiate a marital breakup and then put psychological pressure on the other spouse to agree to the subsequent divorce. If the other spouse happens to be the one to file the papers, that doesn't automatically mean the other spouse is the guilty party in the marital breakup. There are, of course, other scenarios as well. In how many of those 80% of cases was the husband using, and unable or unwilling to stop using, p*rn, perhaps even the type which made the wife fear for her own safety and that of her children? How about severe and uncontrolled substance abuse?

Now, am I saying that all of these are definitely reasons for divorce as opposed to separation? No, I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that they are non-trivial and are at least understandable and legitimate reasons for separation. It's also pretty much inevitable in the current cultural milieu where permanent separation isn't taken as an option that this will end up meaning divorce. And in any event, if that is what is happening in many of those 80% of cases, this shouldn't go down in men's minds as proof of the perfidiousness of women. Many of the breakups that go into that 80% statistic may be instances of the perfidiousness of men.

It is just incredibly frivolous and even worryingly bitter-minded to take a statistic about the percent of women who initiate formal divorce proceedings and translate that into, "Women want to break up marriages," "Women are untrustworthy," "Women usually abandon their husbands rather than husbands leaving their wives." Anecdotally, I can't help wondering how many of us find this to be true. I certainly don't. I know personally of quite a few more men who determinedly left their wives than vice versa. If the divorce papers say that the wife "initiated" the divorce (I have no idea) in these cases, that doesn't really matter. I know that it would be ludicrous to put these into the Men's Rights story about all the women out there who deliberately destroy their own marriages.

We're doing a disservice to our young men if we're teaching them to be bitter Fred Reed wannabes. If they really meet a great lady who could be, if they wanted her to be, the Christian woman of their dreams, they may just blow their opportunity if they approach her with a high-handed attitude that assumes she is guilty until proven innocent of harboring an Inner Buffy.

It's certainly true that we want to raise our young ladies, our daughters, to be gracious and loving, not to be feminists, to desire to raise children, to be more than happy to allow their husbands' career to determine where they live, and so forth. But the parallel to this on the other side is that we want to raise young men who honor women, who are grateful for a wife's sacrifices, who are prepared to love and respect a wife. They should therefore begin a relationship with a young woman whom they have reason to believe might be that future wife with the kind of respectful and kind attitude they wouldn't be ashamed to look back on later.

Do both women and men need to be careful? They certainly do. When they don't know one another, they have a lot to find out on both sides. There are all too many men who think using p*rn is perfectly okay and who have already damaged their hearts, minds, and (horrible to realize) sexual tastes by that use. All too many of them even (I fear) among Christians. Young women need to be trying to see whether the man they are getting to know is chaste not only in his actual physical relationships but also in regard to what he deliberately puts into his mind. And of course there are many other things to look for in a prospective husband. Young men are, on their part, perfectly within their rights, when getting to know a young lady, to wonder whether she is chaste as well as loyal, kind, and motherhood-minded. Moreover, it doesn't do for either party to be naive about the number of people out there who meet such a description. But care in relationships is not the same thing as initial anger and arrogance in one's approach to the opposite sex. Let's teach both our girls and our boys to pray earnestly about their possible future spouse and to make their friendships among (what we might call) plausible groups for that purpose, with kindness and hope in their hearts.

Michael D. O'Brien on burdens

"I am a burden to you. I should go away. Please, admit it. I am a burden to you."

"I will not admit such a thing."

"You will not admit it, you say. Such an answer could mean that it is true or untrue."

"You must learn to live with mystery, David."

"My life is nothing but mysteries."

"Then permit me a rabbinical answer. There are burdens, even heavy burdens, that ease the weight of a man's life. And there are burdens that, when they are lifted from a man's life, will crush him."

From Sophia House, by Michael D. O'Brien

Shaken patriotic faith

If you think America's criminal justice system is blind when the issue of race is involved (ahem) and when defense against attack is involved (ahem), think again. And no, I don't mean what liberals might mean when they said this.

This case will, I'm sorry to say, shake your faith in the system. Terrifying. God bless Richard DiGuglielmo Jr. and his family.

Happy Easter!

Herewith, Edmund Spenser's Happy Easter sonnet to Elizabeth, to whom he was to be married. Amoretti 68:

Most glorious Lord of life, that on this day,
Didst make thy triumph over death and sin:
And having harrow'd hell, didst bring away
Captivity thence captive, us to win:
This joyous day, dear Lord, with joy begin,
And grant that we for whom thou diddest die,
Being with thy dear blood clean wash'd from sin,
May live for ever in felicity.
And that thy love we weighing worthily,
May likewise love thee for the same again:
And for thy sake, that all like dear didst buy,
With love may one another entertain.
So let us love, dear love, like as we ought,
Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

A blessed Easter to my friends and readers.

Several more Holy Week collects

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified; Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace, through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O Lord God, whose blessed Son, our Saviour, gave his back to the smiters and hid not his face from shame; Grant us grace to take joyfully the sufferings of the present time, in full assurance of the glory that shall be revealed; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Almighty Father, whose dear Son, on the night before he suffered, did institute the Sacrament of his Body and Blood; Mercifully grant that we may thankfully receive the same in remembrance of him, who in these holy mysteries giveth us a pledge of life eternal; the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit ever, one, God, world without end. Amen.

Almighty God, we beseech thee graciously to behold this thy family, for which our Lord Jesus Christ was contented to be betrayed, and given up into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death upon the cross; who now liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost ever, one God, world without end. Amen.

O merciful God, who hast made all men, and hatest nothing that thou hast made, nor desirest the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live; Have mercy upon all who know thee not as thou art revealed in the Gospel of thy Son. Take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word; and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to thy fold, that they may be made one flock under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.

Thy beauty long-desired, Part II

We sang "O Sacred Head" on Palm Sunday in church, with all the verses. In this post several years ago I meditated a bit on this one:

Thy beauty, long-desirèd,
hath vanished from our sight;
thy power is all expirèd,
and quenched the light of light.
Ah me! for whom thou diest,
hide not so far thy grace:
show me, O Love most highest,
the brightness of thy face.

As I sang it most recently, it seemed to me that the phrase about beauty was not particularly problematic (as it has sometimes seemed to me before). In the earlier post, I reflected on the fact that Mary, Jesus' mother, would have remembered his beauty as her child:

She had seen him laughing, running, studying Torah, intent over work with Joseph, asking the questions at the Passover meal, enjoying his food, seen him grow in strength and, yes, in beauty. So even from a purely literal, human, and historical perspective, there was one person at the foot of the cross who would have had a real meaning for the notion that his beauty had "vanished from our sight." That one person would have that contrast in mind--the face battered almost beyond recognition in contrast to the tiny infant face, the laughing boyish face, the young man with a twinkle in his eye, all those images of peace, joy, and relaxation. That human beauty that every mother's son, made in the image of God, has in the eyes of a woman who loves him.

But now I reflected, too: Is that not true of a man's friends as well? Don't his friends also love the details about him? C.S. Lewis said (I'm paraphrasing, as I don't own a copy of the essay in question) that if he loved a man as a friend he would not give up even the details of his mannerisms and dress. This makes sense to me. I can remember meeting with friends after years apart and thinking, with a feeling almost of joy, "Oh, yes, I remember that she would hold her hands in just that way."

So anyone who loved Jesus and saw him on the cross would have felt that his human beauty had been violated. Moreover, that human beauty was united in the minds of his followers with the idea that Jesus was the Messiah. Hence, it was "long-desired." Even though they had not yet understood everything, maybe did not yet understand that he was God Incarnate, they understood, as Peter said, that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. "The Christ" meant the Messiah, the anointed one, the one God had promised to send. So in all their interactions with him they were thinking, "This is the one. This man talking with me, eating with me, telling a parable, healing the blind, or making a joke. He is the Moshiach, the one God has promised to send. These hands, these eyes. This face is the face of the long-awaited One." It must have been an awesome thing to think of for those who were close to him. And now, look at what had been done to him through the malice of his enemies and the cruelty of the Romans.

It occurred to me too: At some level they had understood that Jesus had predicted his own resurrection. This comes up in the talk on the road to Emmaus, and even the chief priests knew it, which is why they asked Pilate for a watch on the tomb. So here the followers were, especially the ones like John and the women who had actually seen Jesus crucified. On the one hand, they had Jesus' own statements that this must happen, that he must suffer and die and rise again. It might seem then that his crucifixion was itself a part of a pattern, a necessary thing, a fulfillment of Jesus' own words. Yet on the other hand, how could it not, emotionally and existentially, seem like the final defeat? Who could stand and watch such a thing, who could literally go with him through his Holy Passion, and not be devastated by it? Crucifixion was not, in the normal course of events, significant of anything but the cruelty of man and the degradation of the victim, perhaps even the (as it was thought) deserved degradation of the victim. Hence the publication of their crimes above their crosses. The Roman soldiers were used to this sort of thing. They nailed him up there, sat down to watch him, and callously decided among themselves how to divide up his clothes. Later the apostles knew that even this cruel detail of the division of his clothing was a fulfillment of prophecy (from Psalm 22), but would any of them have been in emotional shape to think that through at the time? I'm inclined to doubt it. And if they did remember the Psalm, what must that have been like, psychologically? Like being torn in two, I should think--hoping and afraid to hope that this was not simply defeat, not simply the end.

This week, let us stand at the foot of the cross with them at earth's darkest hour. Even as our hearts strain forward to move past Good Friday and celebrate the glorious ending of the story, let us remember that if we suffer we shall also reign with him, if we die with him we shall also live with him.

In thy most bitter passion my heart to share doth cry,
With thee for my salvation upon the cross to die.
Ah, keep my heart thus movèd to stand thy cross beneath,
To mourn thee, well-belovèd, yet thank thee for thy death.

Blessed Holy Week

A blessed Holy Week to Extra Thoughts readers.

Assist us mercifully with thy help, O Lord God of our salvation; that we may enter with joy upon the meditation of those mighty acts, whereby thou hast given unto us life and immortality; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!

In which I stick my nose into someone else's business

I am a Protestant, as I have repeatedly said. So in a sense I haven't got much of a right to get involved in the present kerfuffle concerning Fr. Guarnizo's set-up by a lesbian. Tony Esolen's comment here (first comment in the thread) is excellent.

However, as this post shows, I do have an interest in the Sacrament. Besides, since Dr. Peters (see below) has made this a matter of canon law, I should think that an interested outside observer should be able to look at the arguments for himself.

I want to add that the Catholic leaders of Washington, D.C. should consider that their handling of this is a scandal, in the technical sense, to traditionally minded non-Catholics. To be clear, I have many reasons (which I don't intend to go into) for not accepting the claims of the Roman Catholic Church. But this bad treatment of a faithful priest trying to protect the sacrament from profanation by an open and proud lesbian is yet an additional reason. The hierarchy here, so far from preserving truth (which is truth on their own terms) is placing itself on the side of those who wish to destroy the Church and on the side of a woman who set out to persecute a real Catholic priest.

Now, you can read here Dr. Peters's learned disagreement with Fr. Guarnizo's refusal to give Holy Communion to Johnson. The nub of it appears to be that Peters believes that, despite the fact that Johnson lives openly with another woman as a lesbian and bragged about this fact on purpose to the priest ahead of time, Fr. Guarnizo could not really have known that her sin was "obstinate, manifest, and persevering."

Ironically (at least ironically in my opinion) Dr. Peters apparently thinks a priest could be justified in withholding Holy Communion from a person who was in "gravely immodest dress," because that would mean that the person was "objectively indisposed" to receive the Sacrament, but not from Johnson, who was running an obvious sodomite set-up of Fr. G. and bragged about her lifestyle.

That's pretty striking. In this day and age, when gravely immodest dress is so common, a devout Catholic young woman who had received poor guidance concerning her clothing (and I gather there are a lot of these out there) might approach the rail in, comparatively speaking, all innocence to receive the Sacrament, and Dr. Peters's argument would support denying it to her, while Peters supports the punishment of Fr. G. for refusing it to a hardened sexual sinner who boasted ahead of time of her sinful lifestyle and clearly indicated her intent to continue therein!

Without belaboring the point too much, let me just say that if a person who is living in open sexual sin approaches a priest ahead of time and introduces deliberately in conversation the fact that he is living with a mistress (whom he has brought with him), with a male lover, or a woman with a lesbian lover, this seems pretty obviously to count as showing the sin to be obstinate, manifest, and persevering. It should not be necessary for the priest to have known the person for a long time for such an open declaration to be sufficient evidence on this point. This seems only logical.

Finally, here is a thought experiment that I posted at a different blog. I think it says it all. If Dr. Peters or those who agree with him want to maintain his argument, they're going to have to show some relevant differences here, and I think they're going to have a hard time doing that. Or else they could just bite the bullet and say that this priest, too, would be "breaking canon law." Which, to put it mildly, should call either the present state of canon law or their interpretation thereof into question.

Imagine that the U.S. slides further into debauchery and that pedophilia is legalized. Now imagine that a man shows up at his mother’s funeral mass with a 7-year-old boy in tow, whom he introduces with a proud smirk to some target Fr. G., before the service, as, “My boy lover (isn’t he beautiful?).”

Based on this learned analysis of canon law that we are hearing about, is this hypothetical Fr. G. breaking canon law if he refuses to give the Sacrament to this man when he approaches the rail?

Can we be done now?

The left has entered a new level of insanity

Lawrence Auster has had some good posts recently on the contraception mandate. Like any sensible person, Auster is in something like shock at the audacity of the left in presenting these insane ideas, and still more, at the level of acceptance they are receiving:

I cannot get into my head that people are demanding, as a right, as an unquestionable right, that they should be provided with contraceptives totally free.... No one heard of such an idea a couple of months ago. And now it's already a pillar of America which no one may safely challenge.

He also makes this point:

This is liberalism taking off into hyperspeed. And if Obamacare is not repealed, we are going to be dealing every day for the rest of our lives with this faster-than-light liberalism.

I've noticed this as well since Obama became President. The left makes new demands at breathtaking speed. The Internet then puts out talking points for defending them as essential, and all the little leftist commentators go about repeating them everywhere until people simply believe that whatever is now being touted is now normal, a right, etc. We've seen a bit of this in the relatively quick speed with which homosexual "marriage" has moved from being a fringe idea to being the only alternative to evil bigotry. But the free contraception mandate sets a speed record.

My own opinion is that the abandonment of democracy and constitutional government is connected to this new speed with which insane liberal ideas become accepted by the public. Someone might argue that it is otherwise, that this shows the pitfalls of democracy, because people are too easily manipulated. But my instinct is that it is otherwise. I believe this contraception mandate would have moved much more slowly if it had instead been proposed as something to be passed individually by Congress. There would then at least have been a debate, with people saying, "What? This is silly," and so forth. As it is, because Sebelius was given dictatorial powers by Obamacare, the left stole a march on us by promulgating the rule as a done deal, as something they already have power to dictate. The debate then automatically takes place in reactionary fashion. Indeed, I've seen commentator after commentator piously declare, "This is now the law." Sebelius and Obama make this thing up out of their heads one fine day, announce it in a press conference, and that makes it "the law," and that is used as a pompous argument for its legitimacy. So real American constitutional representative democracy would have some power in slowing this process down, if it were operating properly. Which it is not.

Auster also makes the point that the left is losing its humanitarian halo in all of this. There are all sorts of people with serious illnesses and very high co-pays, or people who need drugs not on their HMO's formularies and who are in really dire straits as a result. And what does the left decide to declare to be "free" and an entitlement? Birth control pills! So much for their caring about sick people. Auster relates this to feminism:

The situation described by Mr. Zarkov exemplifies how, as Gintas and I wrote in another entry, liberals have launched themselves into some speeded-up liberal dimension of complete irrationality. As we all remember, nationalized health insurance was supposedly absolutely necessary because, as the Democrats kept saying over and over and over, there are so many people in America with terrible medical conditions for which they cannot afford the care. Nationalized health insurance was demanded on the basis that there are seriously suffering people who lack affordable health care and must have it. As flawed as that argument was, it at least made a rational-sounding appeal related to some supposed actual human need.

But now, with this contraceptive business, the Democrats have thrown away their own supposedly irresistibly compelling rationale for nationalized health insurance. Now they want to give free birth control to every woman in America who wants it,--free birth control from puberty to menopause--while people with serious, debilitating conditions must continue paying very large amounts for their care.

Why? What explains this?

What explains it is that the Democrats' sob stories about sick people in need were never their true or highest motivation. Their highest motivation is their ideology of sexual liberation and particularly of female empowerment, all aimed at destroying whatever remains of the traditional family and traditional sex relations.

I certainly agree that there is a connection to feminism. In fact, I've pointed out again and again that the state laws that are somewhat like the present federal law (though, contra the leftists, providing more loopholes for religious organizations) were passed on a wave of feminist ideology. This is for women. If you don't do this you are anti-woman. (A friend asked recently why the left is casting this as a women's issue rather than an issue affecting couples who are allegedly unable to afford contraception. The obvious answer is that neither the left nor the mushy middle gets really teary-eyed over couples. "It's for women" is a battle cry that rouses the public and makes the PC-whipped scurry to obey, so that's what they are using.)

But of course the other aspect, which Auster mentions, of "sexual liberation" is also powerful. There is a kind of frenzy here. Why push free contraception rather than free migraine medication? The only answer I can find is that contraception is not being treated as just another product by the left. If people were treating contraception as just another product, one can imagine their meeting with bemusement the idea that it should be free. Indeed, one can even imagine people who actually purchase contraception being baffled by this new entitlement. "Um, I also purchase many other products. Why is free access to this an entitlement?" I discussed here the selective Marxism of the left, the idea that things are to be "made free" on an ad hoc basis to the extent that they are considered "really important." It can only be that contraception is being treated not simply as important, but as uber-important, as somehow holy--to be worshiped rather than simply used in a matter-of-fact fashion like any other product on the market. And if it is to be worshiped, then evidently everyone has to participate in making it available "for free" to its users.

Now this is utterly crazy. This is sexual liberationist hysteria cojoined with economic stupidity. It is unclear what, if anything, will stop it. See above on the speed with which people start parroting talking points. I would say that perhaps it might be wise to send people suffering from other very serious health maladies to testify before Congress and to point out the bizarre double standard. "Why should contraception be free when my medication for rheumatoid arthritis costs me so much?" If you get enough of such testimonies concerning enough different illnesses, perhaps the sheer arbitrariness and sex-related frenzy of all of this will become more evident. And since hopefully even people without much economic sense can see that you can't make all of these things "free," the drive to make just contraception "free" might lose its oomph. It would be worth a try.

Ultimately, the best thing we can do is to appeal to people's common sense. This mandate is so bizarre that, if there is any common sense left in people, they ought to be able to see that it is insane tyranny, regardless of their position on contraception itself. Then perhaps Congress would wake up and take back some of those super-powers, the power to make laws with a snap of a finger, that they have delegated to The Secretary.

Heroes

Here is a passage from the Brothers of Gwynedd quartet, by Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter):

In the quiet courts of the Cistercian house of Dore, golden indeed that June, under a sky like periwinkle flowers, those two met and joined hands at last.

I watched them come together, I knew the desire that drew them, and the weight of wonder and thought that made their steps so slow and their eyes so wide as they crossed the few paces of earth that parted them. From the moment they set eyes upon each other they looked neither to left nor right, each taking in the other like breath and food and wine. And it seemed to me, when their hands linked and grew together, that there was in them, for all their differences, for they did not look alike at all, some innermost thing that set up a mirror between them, and showed each his own face...

"My lord of Leicester," [Llewellyn] said, and stopped to touch with his lips the hand he still held, as fittingly and royally he could, with the awareness of destiny upon him, "I rejoice that I see you at last, and I thank you for this kindness. I have long desired your acquaintance, and I wish the times better favoured me, for I know I trespass."

"No," said Earl Simon, and looked at him long and hungrily, and saw, I think, as I saw, the heart's likeness that surely was there, for still the mirror shone between them. "No, you refresh me. I have many times had need of you, and need you still. I had believed it was for a cause. I think it was also for my soul's sake. In my desert now there are not many springs."

He had known deserts in his time, for he had been a crusader.

Peters does a particularly good job in these novels of conveying the importance of friendship. Her narrator and protagonist Samson has committed his entire life to the service of his friend Llewellyn, the last native Prince of Wales. Llewellyn is Samson's raison d'etre. While love between the sexes is also important to Peters and portrayed with great vigor and passion, friendship is almost equally important, though sharply different. Samson understands why Simon de Montfort and Llewellyn mean so much to one another. He understands the need not to be alone and the need for friends who are also heroes and for heroes who are also friends.

One of the things one realizes on the Internet is just how lonely people are. It's almost crushing, the weight of loneliness one encounters on the Internet. A great many people are on the Internet in part looking for kindred spirits, for people who refresh our spirits by being admirable, as Llewellyn and de Montfort refresh one another. Friendship, in both the Aristotelian and the Lewisian formula, involves seeing the same truth. As Peters sees, friends who sees the same truth also see one another, and see one another as enormously valuable because of that kinship.

But there is a danger in this as well. One's heroes and one's friends can let one down. The Internet giveth and the Internet taketh away. The same medium that provides heretofore undreamt-of opportunities for finding kindred spirits also provides a nigh infinite number of pitfalls and opportunities for letting one another down.

The world is longing for heroes. Hence the idolization of sports figures. Hence, among Christians, the temptation to hero-worship Christian musicians. ("Here is finally someone I can really look up to, whom my kids can really look up to.") Probably something like this has always been so. The desire for others to admire and lean upon is no doubt an unchangeable part of human nature. But for some reason it seems especially acute here in the second decade of the twenty-first century. It amounts almost to a hunger and thirst--The world is so dreadful. Where are my heroes? Where is my community? Where are those I can admire?

I counsel caution. And I counsel, too, that we constantly remind ourselves that our Internet acquaintances are no more superhuman than our in-person friends. There will be just as many disagreements--more, in fact. Let us not lean too hard.

Let us look always unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. He is the one hero who can never let us down.

Related post here.

Three different approaches to Lent

There are at least three different ways to approach Lent. More, really, if one considers different degrees of each, but this will do for starters.

First there's what one might call the Rambo Protestant approach. "There is no such thing as Lent. Lent is a papish addition, a teaching of man, and no one should ever so much as think about it or have anything to do with it."

Then there's what we might call the strongly traditional Catholic/Eastern Orthodox approach: "Lent exists for the purpose of mortifying our fleshly nature and participating in Jesus' suffering. We Christians should all fast, preferably sticking to a vegan diet or at least abstaining from meat, except on Sundays if you want to be a wimp. Married couples should abstain from intercourse and from all sexual thoughts about each other (or anyone else, obviously, but that goes without saying). You should give something else up too, not something you need to give up anyway, but something totally innocent that you enjoy, just to toughen up spiritually. You should try to suffer in some way so as to share in Jesus' sufferings. Remember: Lent isn't about self-improvement. Lenten disciplines aren't like New Year's resolutions. It's all much more serious and stern than that. You will be improved by observing Lenten discipline, but that isn't why you should do it."

Then there's the modernized Catholic or doing-Lent-because-it's-kind-of-cool-and-useful Protestant approach: "Lent is an opportunity for self-improvement. You have liberty in Christ as to how you use it, but it's a good opportunity to engage in better self-discipline, to put your spiritual house in order, to draw nearer to the Lord as you prepare for Easter. To that end, giving something up may prove useful, especially if it's something that you've become obsessive about and need to break free of, which can happen with things that are intrinsically innocent. But if you do this, it's between you and the Lord. There aren't pre-set rules about it, and you shouldn't be blabbing about it anyway, because Jesus said not to tell people when you fast."

Readers won't be terribly surprised to learn that I'm inclined toward Approach #3, wimpy, modern, and feel-good though it may sound. I fully realize that it is quite different from Approach #2, and I would not pretend otherwise. For that reason, I think it's rather confusing to talk about "giving up" things one shouldn't be doing anyway, like "giving up bitterness and anger for Lent." Let's get real. Whatever else giving stuff up for Lent has been traditionally, that ain't it. However, I do think Lent can provide a good opportunity to abandon bitterness and anger. So, aside from "giving up" anything, what I would like to do during Lent this year is to be thankful. Gratitude is incompatible with so many bad things. It's like a spiritual cleanser.

Today I'm thankful for so many things, including the beautiful sunshine and blue sky and the snow that looks like diamonds.

Like it or not (you don't have to watch it if you don't want to), here's Veggie Tales to remind us: A thankful heart is a happy heart.

And furthermore...

As a fair number of people know who don't happen to live in my own town (because people who live in my own town never know what I'm actually doing, one of those strange things), I've been rather busy this past week blogging and being interviewed about some statistical strangeness published by the Guttmacher Institute concerning Catholic women's use of contraception.

In the many blog comments that I've read and responded to on this, what I've been perhaps most appalled by and had the least time to talk about is the sheer insanity of the entitlement mindset. My group blog colleague Tony put one aspect of this well, here:

Until a few years ago, lots and lots of employers didn't cover it, and no state mandated it. Now you want to call employer paid coverage "normative access". Just like THAT? What had been only a few years ago a voluntary feature of some employers becomes "normative"...why? Because lots of liberals don't want to have to pay for it out of their pocket. Now that's a compelling reason to violate the consciences of others.

[snip]

It appalls me to see this happen. Liberals rag on conservatives for wanting to preserve customs (usually, good, wholesome, worthwhile, highly integrated customs) because those customs stand in the way of some (usually minority) group's new libertine behavior. They laugh off the whole idea of custom, of tradition, having a bearing on what we ought to do today. But along comes some almost-brand-new practice that they have conned a bare majority into accepting in the last few years, and all of a sudden they LIKE arguments based on "normative" standards, i.e. based on "what people have been doing, and so expect to do". This is Orwellian, or rather Satanic, since he is the father of lies. It is almost too putrid to even speak about without gagging on it.

Commentator Untenured said this in another thread:

It is absurd for the liberals to claim that the Church is trying to "force" or "impose" its morality on people simply because it won't pay for people's pills and rubbers. And I have heard a lot of otherwise intelligent people make this claim. They are either a)deliberately and intentionally using the word "force" in an Orwellian manner so as to gain a rhetorical advantage or b)they are using the word "force" in a loosened Marxist sense that has been drained of all content and is of no moral significance. Either way, the underlying argument is absurd. The government is the one deploying all of the "force" here, and yet we are asked to believe that the Church is "forcing" people not to use contraception simply by not paying for it. Using this same "reasoning", the government is "forcing" poor people to abstain from alcohol because food stamps don't purchase liquor.

I replied thus:

Untenured, I tell you in all solemnity, the insanity of people's whole economic and entitlement approach to this is very nearly as frightening, if not more frightening, in its own way than the religious liberty issue. And indeed, the two are related. When something out of the blue becomes "health care" and then from there becomes an entitlement for full subsidy by the private sector, we really are moving into an extremely strange and politicized version of a communistic society. I say that knowing that it will get ridicule from the word-monitors. "She said a cognate of 'communism'! She's crazy!" Heck, around here I have even been called out for using "socialism" to refer to the notion that all the wealth of a country is the common stock of "the people," so long as that is not accompanied by the explicit assertion that the state should own all the means of production!

But indeed it is true that what we have here is a kind of selective and coercive Marxism. Arbitrarily, a politicized list of goods and services are treated as entitlements and, as the comments in these threads show, as though they have _always_ been entitlements, rather than having been newly minted entitlements in just the past year. From there the step to, "You are coercing me if you don't pay for this for me so that it is free-to-me" is but a small step.

In discussing this further, let's think about one of the most fundamental insights of free market economics: Nothing is free. There is no such thing as a free lunch. And things cannot simply be made free by magic.

I have a lovely illustrated book of fairy tales. In one of the stories a young man is given a rose by a fairy. All he has to do is shake the rose to get as much gold as he needs.

The leftist (and, I'm afraid, some social conservatives') approach to economics is, similarly, a magical thinking approach. In the world of someone who doesn't get the basic No Free Lunch principle, things can simply be made free by declaration, by fiat, and, most importantly, by good will. The only reason that things aren't free is because someone is being permitted to make a profit off of them, and profit is not necessary, so it's always a kind of great favor that the government is doing anyone by not declaring that he has to provide some goods or services for free. However, if something is really imporant, this benevolent permission can be withdrawn and the manufacturer or seller can be ordered to provide some specified thing for free.

Muddle-headed but well-meaning people usually start out on the road to economic magical thinking by looking at something and saying, "It shouldn't cost that much. It should cost less." They really don't know what they mean. Nor do they have anything specific in mind. It isn't that they are looking at the gas taxes that are making their gas more expensive and suggesting that government lower gas taxes. It isn't that they know for a fact that the store owner who puts that price on it is using precisely the difference between what the item "should" cost and what it does cost to drink himself to death. It's just a feeling.

Then, sometimes, they move to, "Why can't that be provided for free?" "That kind of thing should be free."

Usually, the kind of thing about which they say that is something very important, or something they view as very important, such as (legitimate) health care.

It can seem rather insulting to point out to these people that it is not free to manufacture drugs, that doctors have to live and eat too and should not be forced to engage in slave labor, working for free, any more than anyone else should, that medical supplies of all kinds are costly, that the education doctors have received involves other people and resources that do not come out of nowhere, and so on and so forth. Somehow if one points this out, one never gets very far.

Now, if we really tried to apply Rose of Gold economics consistently across the board, we would drive ourselves to economic hell in a handbasket extremely quickly (instead of only medium fast, as we are currently doing). No one actually says, "Well, heck! Everyone needs food, water, clothing, housing, and means of transportation as well as health care. Let's just declare all of it free! All important goods and services in America will now be free."

At some level they retain enough of a bare edge of common sense to know that that would be walking into a propeller. So instead we just cost-shift. We say that the means of living should be free to the poor--which means everyone else has to pay for them for "the poor" or that the cost is shifted down to the future by way of deficit spending.

Or we just try to make certain things free, things that seem really important to us. That means that other goods and services become more expensive so that manufacturers and providers of the "free" items can stay in business. (Also, by the way, making things appear to be free tends to lead to shortages.) Selecting the goods and services on which to exercise the make-believe of "free" can get extremely arbitrary, and that brings us to the Obama administration. Contraception is some kind of holy thing to these leftist extremists. So they declare it free. Free! Free! Free! They even (cough cough) tell us that by this application of the Rose of Gold economic principle, they will save us all money. (Because the existence of people costs money. So the fewer people, the more cost savings to everyone. Isn't that brilliant?) Having once declared it to be free, they work themselves up into a positive lather at anyone who dares to resist this mandate. The mandate itself is now holy, free contraception for all women is an entitlement, and anyone who opposes it is forcing, yes forcing, women not to use contraception.

The ludicrousness of this should be obvious. People do not purchase gasoline or orange juice for me. The world at large does not subsidize the repair of my car for me. I have to purchase those myself, with money which I acquire because I or my bacon-bringing husband have exchanged our own talents for the money with which to purchase gasoline and bacon. No one thinks that the whole surrounding world (or perhaps, especially, my husband's employer, since employers seem somehow to have a special subsidizing responsibility in the eyes of the left) is "coercing" us not to use gasoline or orange juice or not to have our car repaired because they do not purchse them for us and encourage us in the illusion that gasoline, orange juice, and car repair are free.

So the focus on contraceptive products and services is quite arbitrary and could not be extended indefinitely to other goods and services, even other goods and services that most people agree are quite legitimate, that most people use, that many, many people would even say that they need. In fact, the more widespread the use of some item or service, the more economically ruinous it would become to try to apply the Rose of Gold magic to it, because it would burden the rest of the economy tremendously to cost-shift the actual cost of a widely used good or service.

Try to talk this kind of sense to a leftist up in arms that some employers are resisting the Obama mandate, and you will get ab-so-lute-ly nowhere. Try to ask him how it can possibly be that Sally's birth control pills must be free, are an entitlement to her, and that Catholic organizations are thus doing something evil and coercive not to cooperate in buying them for her, and you will not get a sensible answer. You will only get endless repetitions of the same ridiculous claims about theocracy and "forcing everyone to follow the dictates of the Catholic Church" and other nonsense. You simply cannot reason with people.

Part of what has happened is this: The TANSTAAFL principle has been denied for decades and decades in American education, to the point that no one gets it. Even many conservatives, especially many trad-conservatives who don't like to be thought libertarians or libertarian-sympathetic don't get it. So many on both the left and the right accept the pernicious, corrosive, reality-denying principle that if we just really care about something and really recognize its importance and really have good will, we can make it free. In other words, they accept Rose of Gold economics.

Enter the culture wars. The left has its own priorities. It has its own things that it thinks we should really care about, really recognize the importance of, and really show good will by waving the Rose of Gold over. And things that fall into that category are entitlements, you see. And if they are entitlements then you are not a person of good will if you refuse to wave the Rose of Gold over them. You are a bad person. In fact, by withholding the Golden Magic, you are engaging in something like an act of aggression. Hence, you must be punished and squelched out of existence.

Even leftists are not really likely to move us directly to full-bore Communism. So they will just go about arbitrarily engaging in their economic magical thinking, selective Marxism and economic idiocy, on an ad hoc basis for those things that they think are needed exercises in left-wing good will.

The paleo- and distributist and anti-free market social right won't like this, because they won't agree with the socio-sexual goals of the left. I don't say that that is illegitimate. Moral issues certainly come into play here. It would be worse for a leftist regime to make, say, abortions free (or "free") than for it to make orange juice "free." I do say, however, that they should recognize the economic insanity, the reality denial, in the Rose of Gold economics that is at work here.

And they should also recognize that the entitlement mindset encouraged by Rose of Gold economics is a threat to the religious liberty they hold dear.

Nothing is free. Recognize that now, and recalibrate, and try to get a lot of other people to recalibrate, or prepare to have your conscience bulldozed in the name of the entitlement du jour.

The food Nazis are coming

Okay, this is pretty wild and creepy, and I have little more profound than that to say about it.

Public schools now have official Lunch Inspectors. The Lunch Inspector evidently goes around peeking into kids' lunch boxes. If he (or, I wouldn't be surprised, she) decides the lunch isn't "healthy" enough, the child is forced not to eat it, is given a "replacement lunch" instead, and the parents are charged a fee (in this case, $1.25) for the "replacement lunch."

Say, what???

In the story, this meant that a perfectly good turkey sandwich was probably wasted, because it would have sat in the child's lunchbox all day long and then been sent home. Nobody is likely to want to eat it at that point.

The Orwellian nature of this is scary. A turkey sandwich, banana, and apple juice? I'm going to scream. Big Brother is watching your child's turkey sandwich. Oh, I know, maybe the Inspector sniffed the sandwich and decided it wasn't lean, or was honey roasted, or something "unhealthy" like that.

I can sort of understand if Johnny comes to school every day with nothing but cookies for lunch, you pull aside Johnny's mom and have a confab. In an extreme case like that, some gentle discussion would be in order.

But it's beyond that: They have a set of USDA guidelines, detailed, that every lunch must satisfy before the child will be allowed to eat it. This is positively Germanic. Everyone's lunch standardized.

And aren't liberals the ones who are supposed to be concerned about The Poor? So, here they wasted these people's food and added insult to injury (or perhaps injury to insult) by charging them $1.25 they weren't expecting to have to spend. I can tell you one thing: When I was a kid my mother would have had an absolute fit. You Do Not Waste Food. Money Doesn't Grow on Trees. And other bits of working-class wisdom for which these liberal Nanny-Nazis apparently have no time.

Just take your kid out of the public schools. Do it now. Aside from the zillions of other things that could be said on that subject, think of the way this is teaching them to accept totalitarian busybody oversight of every move they make and every bite they take. Setting them up to be good little citizens of the All-Seeing, All-knowing, All-controlling state. Brrrr. What happened to America?