Understanding the Epic Divide

The Divide

The very obvious epic divide between right and left in our nation, along with any discussion of unification or bridging of that divide, necessitates defining and understanding the world views projected by the right and by the left, and then searching for common ground.

This article seeks not to malign or denigrate any group.
In fact, we begin here with the presupposition that good Americans on both sides truly want what is best for our country, and are passionate about pursuing that good.

The problem comes in defining what is desirable and what is good.

The key to overcoming the divide is reason and understanding.
Also, the best way to defeat your enemy is to make him your friend.

Surprising Issue Surfaces- a Possible Clue?

One of the major issues that reflect this divide is the hot-button issue of abortion, which, for the first time in this election, took center stage at the Presidential debates. Quite frankly, in this writer’s opinion, the very grisly partial birth abortion may have been the straw that broke Hillary Clinton’s back in the 2016 Presidential Election. Trump deftly showcased to America Hillary’s cold and rigid position on the killing of a partially born human child. Although certainly not the only issue at stake, abortion is certainly a highly charged and very emotional issue on both sides.

Abortion has, after decades of being relegated to an unimportant “social” issue, bubbled up to the top of the conservative’s priority list, and continues to be a big priority for both sides – not only for Progressives like Hillary, who have been vocal all along on the essential nature of abortion to their platform, but also for the future Trump Administration.

In a mind-blowing first, one of the first actions of the 115^th Congress last week was to release a report on the sanctity and dignity of human life, and on the revelations of wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood, particularly in their sale of fetal body parts. To add to the surprise, the report came from a very unexpected source — from the Select Investigative Panel of the Energy and Commerce Committee – from which one would more likely expect reports on fracking or trade, NOT on the sanctity of life or on Planned Parenthood. See the remarkable commentary by John Stonestreet at Breakpoint. Clearly, the Trump administration is prioritizing the issue of abortion from a remarkably different perspective than that favored by Obama and Hillary.

Swept Under the Rug for Decades

The festering, neglected and unspoken problems of the epic divide, including the controversy over abortion, have been brewing now for decades. These issues have been skillfully skirted by politicians and have been side-stepped by American voters, in a well-intentioned effort at tolerance, an effort aimed at absorbing all views into our American melting pot of freedom and protected human rights. The most important issues, which are the moral issues, were long labeled “social” issues, and were swept under the rug, with varying success, until the 2016 Presidential debates.

And therein lies a possible clue to our big divide—reasonable people rarely go ballistic over mundane issues. However, morality, and it’s definition, IS something that both sides of America can get passionate about.

Despite everyone’s desire to tolerate and to include all Americans in our melting pot, problems surface as our population diversifies, as our morality shifts, and as we pass more and more new laws. The problem boils down to the fact that not all human philosophies, beliefs, or religions are compatible, and in our American melting pot these incompatibilities surface, causing inevitable conflict time and again. The definition of what is good and what is evil is not uniform in all societies, and needs to be defined by the entire nation, if evil is to be contained.

Defining Good and Evil

When regulating and protecting human interactions by law, determining what is right or wrong, or defining a person’s “rights” becomes complicated. The “rights” of one person can infringe on the “rights” of another person, and as a society we are forced to choose which “rights” trump which “rights.”

Abortion is one primary place where “rights” of citizens can clash. In abortion, however hard as it might be to imagine that the rights of a child and those of the mother could possibly not be aligned, progressives do insist that the well-being of a mother could be damaged by the existence of a child, and they advocate favoring “rights” for the mother over “rights” for the child.

Another example where the “rights” of citizens can clash is in the treatment of those who have broken the law. The rights of people to be protected from crime must be balanced with the rights of an incarcerated person to be treated decently. Also, the definition of decent treatment, which has to be paid for by the tax payer, is an area of potential disagreement. For example, taxpayers who cannot afford college for their own children could resent paying for college educations for prisoners.

Which brings up the question of defining “rights” altogether. Is a free college tuition a “right?” Does our nation have the budget to provide that? Does going into debt to pay for such “essentials” not steal from future citizens who will have to pay the bills we incur? If free contraception becomes a “right”under ObamaCare, why is free Tylenol not a “right?” Does free food or free housing then become a “right?”

Obviously, rights, and the definition of good and evil become very complicated.
And government gets the job of passing laws to balance those rights fairly, and to enforce the laws that were passed.

Defining Rights

Defining rights to intangible things is easier than tangible things.
We can say a person has a right life – to not being killed.
To liberty – to not being locked up.

To the pursuit of happiness – to choose their path in life.

But defining the right to tangible things is much more dangerous ground, because somebody has to actually pay for the thing that we declared everyone has a “right” to.

Finally, the amount of material things we can have varies tremendously, and depends on what is available. During a war, people ration and semi-starve, and may do it willingly. During a natural disaster, same thing. And people with an unrealistic grasp of economy cannot go around passing laws about what everyone has a “right” to have, if there is simply not enough to go around.

Pie offers a good simplistic example.
One can say that everyone deserves a slice of pie.
But if there is not enough pie, what happens then?

We have to redefine how much pie each person “deserves,” or has a right to.
In this life, there is not always enough of everything to go around, and if you throw away the right of ownership of property, and allow anyone who feels deprived, or feels envy, to demand what belongs to others, you have chaos.

Let the Rich Pay!!

The left frequently advocates shaking down the rich for funds, like the recent story put out by the World Economic Forum about the 8 richest men in the world who own as much as the poorest half of the world (that would be 3.6 billion of us).  A shocking statistic, for sure, but, sadly, this incompetent (or intentionally misleading) reporting would provide NO SOLUTION to the world economic situation, even if we were to repossess all their wealth, send all 8 to Siberia, and divide up all their wealth among the 3.6 billion poorest.

Why? Because, IF the claim is true and is not FAKE NEWS, then the total net worth of the 8 men, $427 billion, divided by the poorest half, 3.6 billion, equals a grand total of $119 per person.  After which the billionaires would be gone, and we would have nobody to fleece next year.

And the jobs they create would be gone, too.
Not mentioned is also the fact that most of these 8 people are Progressives, so why all the hate for conservatives?!?!
AND, the fact the the median American household income, $55,775, would cover 469 poor people if we took this approach.

Nobody mentions that the number of poor in the world is so great, and the number of super-rich is so small, that the rich do not have enough to pay for what progressives want.  To pay for what progressives want, the whole world would have to produce more money, and we would have to fleece not only Bill Gates, the #1 richest guy, but you and me and the Americans receiving unemployment checks as well.

Bottom line, we have to be careful about what we define as a “right,” and if we do, we have to indicate who is responsible for providing that right, particularly if that right involves a material thing.

Balancing People’s Rights

The simplest solution to this balancing act – to the balancing of rights of one citizen against the rights of another citizen, and declaring what is or is not a right—has been provided in the past by religion.
Religion outlined what rights a person had, what infringed on those rights, and what remedies were appropriate when those rights were violated.
The Declaration of Independence of the United States refers to God-given rights which the colonies felt were being violated by the English monarchy, and which colonialists wanted to guarantee for every future American citizen. Those God-given rights included life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

When it comes to defining good and evil, most people in this country used to acknowledge the Ten Commandments, which are actually the foundation and basis of most European and American law.
The moral beliefs of citizens, primarily those of Christian and Jewish citizens, since they were the most numerous, these moral beliefs stemming from their millennia of religious background, were incorporated into the Constitution of the United States and were voted into law via democratic process.

Religion Versus Self as the Boss

But religion has suffered decline in the United States since the 1950’s.
The Ten Commandments went out the window, one after another.

Despite the fact that 90% of Americans still say they believe in God, and 80% say they pray and they feel that their prayers are answered, many Americans have shifted in their definitions of what is right and wrong. They have shifted from looking to religion for guidance on these issues, to looking inwardly to their own thoughts to define what is right and what is wrong. The word for this is relativism. What is right for you may not me right for me, and I have a “right” to decide what is right for me.

One of the problems with looking to ourselves to define what is right or wrong is that most people are not experts in logic, and are very gullible to the first argument they come across that argues a seemingly convenient particular point. They do not realize that a convincing argument can be made for ANY position and for ALL positions, and that some people spend their lives becoming experts in debate, in law, in ethics, and in morality. Yet, despite all this training, the tendency of the human mind is to choose first what we want, then to find the logical construct that justifies what we want. Very few people truly seek truth and fairness, even when that represents a loss of what they wanted for themselves. Simply stated, our minds play tricks on us, and we seek the argument that gives us what we want, fair or not.

Another problem with looking to ourselves to define what is right or wrong is that it is not wise to assume that I myself am more intelligent, capable and informed than the best minds of history, and, if one concedes that there might be a God, that I myself am more intelligent, capable and informed than God Himself. So the very progressives who respect and deify many medical, legal, engineering and scientific experts, and who would not dream of building a house, curing their symptoms, or even making important life decisions without consulting an “expert,” presume to know how to evaluate the rights of all human beings, and to declare what is right and wrong, based on their own instincts and feelings, without training of any kind.

The Essence of the Divide

It makes a great deal of sense to point out that the most fundamental difference between the right and the left, the item that contributes most seriously to the epic national divide, is the disagreement on whether religion, the belief in a bigger super-power, or ourselves are boss.

And before the “Freedom From Religion – Religion is Medieval – Only Stupid Weak People Need Religion” mantra kicks in here, please consider the fact that IF the more religious half (or 80%) of America happens to be right, and there IS a God, and He HAS interacted with humanity and given us some guidelines (such as the Ten Commandments), the idea of following the guidelines of an infinitely vaster intelligence than ours, and of an infinitely kinder heart than ours, might just be a good idea.

An additional point on the Ten Commandments—even in the absence of an all-good and all-intelligent God, there is something to be said for the cumulative wisdom of ages of human beings and societies who have survived by those tried and tested rules for millennia to this day. It would take quite the ego to dismiss the cumulative wisdom of history and presume that I myself have the genius to dismiss and to better the wisdom of humanity with all its faults to date.

So Here Comes the Conservative Spin?

This is NOT an attempt to judge those who are not religious, because those who look inward for the definition of moral values might certainly be very sincere. We are trying not to judge, but to point out the shift in values in the United States that has occurred since around 1950.
And yes, this author IS conservative and religious, but is also trying to work towards communication via reason and with good will.
If nothing else, my writing will help progressives understand the thought processes that operate in the mind of one conservative, and realize that conservatives do not deserve the hateful pigeon-holing they have been subjected to following Election 2016.

People on both sides should find this analysis interesting.
There are religious people on both sides of these issues.
Some of the most ardent progressives claim to be religious – Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Al Sharpton, and others.
So read on, and consider what is being proposed.

Difference Chart

Let’s document some of the differences in beliefs that have surfaced in much of our nation in recent decades:
(Please indulge the introduction of the Ten Commandments to make this point.)

1. I am the LORD your God: you shall not have strange Gods before me.

God is no longer the overriding value superseding all others today.
Many try to ban all mention of God from public life.
The highest value, the top “god” today, is probably MONEY (in Ten Commandments language, the golden calf).

2. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.

Cursing God is now fine. In fact, much of Hollywood glorifies blasphemy, and even the expression “Jesus Christ” is often used as a curse word.
(I personally apologize to God every time I hear someone use the phrase disrespectfully, and I bow my head every time it is used appropriately.)

3. Remember to keep holy the LORD’S Day.

Sunday or the Sabbath is no longer holy, nor is Christmas, Easter, etc. For many, shopping has become a higher priority than attendance at Church

4. Honor your father and your mother.

Government has started to take over the role of father and mother, for example, with Common Core teaching values to children that are in direct conflict with most Christian religions. Government is trying to legislate how our children are to be raised. Many children have no respect for their parents, and even strike them.

5. You shall not kill.

Over 1 million babies are aborted (killed) in the United States each year, and we came very close to electing a woman who supports partial birth abortion, the killing of a full-term baby half-way during birth. Abortion may be a much bigger deal than you think. We are working on legalizing euthanasia, and we are routinely pardoning, tolerating, and releasing numerous violent criminals, particularly if they represent votes.

6. You shall not commit adultery.

Marriage has suffered much, and many citizens no longer value chastity before marriage. Adultery, and any form of sexual transgression is considered to be fine, as long as both adults are willing. Recently, prostitution by underage children has been decriminalized in California. This cripples the efforts of law enforcement to convict pimps who manage child prostitution, because then the children cannot testify against the pimps.

7. You shall not steal.

Property crime is no longer prosecuted in San Francisco. Stealing is often excused and even justified. Government taxation is headed toward stealing as well – demanding larger and larger taxation “rights” on the income of citizens. The right to ownership of property is very much in question.
Some don’t realize that there was a time in the United States when there was no taxation at all.

8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

Lying is no longer considered shameful, but is celebrated by funny and popular TV shows like Seinfeld. Fake News is widespread and seriously maligns many people. Politicians are re-elected by American voters, even following the exposure of numerous lies and manipulations. Truth, which used to be highly valued and venerated, is now discarded and almost despised. See What is Truth? Does Truth Matter? for an interesting analysis of why Truth might be important, after all.

9. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.

Your neighbor’s wife is not off limits, provided you both agree to the liaison. Everybody tries to dress and look “hot,” and there is no attempt whatsoever in fashion to avoid being sexually provocative.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.

Today, covet away!
Most people don’t even know what the word “covet” means.
Hating those who have more than you and automatically labeling them as evil is common. Glorying in the idea of punishing the rich is very popular, and dismisses realities, such as the fact that the combined total assets of all the rich are not enough to impact the quality of life of the masses, and that the rich actually provide many jobs for the poor. Enjoying the idea of punishing the rich even if it does not help you is a serious form of envy.

What Do the Ten Commandments Have to Do With Anything?

Both the Ten Commandments and the Constitution of the United States, which was written by Christians, reflect a Judeo-Christian worldview. For years, the Ten Commandments have been displayed in courtrooms across the United States.

In recent decades we have been passing laws which drift away from that view, and we have been decriminalizing various activities that were previously considered illegal.
These changes have been driven by seeming compassion, and by the drifting away from religious values that has occurred in the United States. The unfortunate result of the drift is that our system of laws now represents a mass of internal contradictions, which require a highly trained lawyer to manipulate, and justice is not always served. The courts can even become a game of manipulation, deception and farce.

At this point we also have people who resent the still obvious Judeo-Christian roots of our Constitution and of our system of laws. The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a testimony to that. Yet the Freedom From Religion Foundation, despite claiming to reject religion, simply promotes religion of a different kind.  Every Christmas the Freedom From Religion Foundation places a plaque at the Wisconsin State Capitol which celebrates the Winter Solstice – a pagan religious celebration. Pagan beliefs are being substituted for Christian beliefs, in the name of eliminating religion.

Some might say that religion should be done away with, but those are unaware that religion is actually a belief system or worldview, and ALL of us have belief systems, whether we have given them a name or not. Even the most progressive atheists evolve a system of beliefs that become as passionate as any religious group, including abortion rights, global warming, and other progressive doctrines that are imposed by ridicule and by force.

Alternative Value Systems

If we were to abandon Judeo-Christian principles and rewrite the Constitution, something that some progressive leaders and Justices are already advocating, it would be hard to create a value system that is internally consistent and does not contain contradictions– contradictions which lead to chaos.

Adopting other common philosophies, such as Atheism, or Islam, would inflame the sensibilities of numerous Americans who still hold fundamental Judeo-Christian beliefs. And it is not trivial to come up with a new system of beliefs with no internal contradictions and with a consistent logical message.

Atheism is not compatible with the Judeo-Christian worldview. In the Judeo-Christian world, God has placed limits on all people, including leaders and powerful people. A king cannot take the property or the wife of another. The leader is accountable to God for his/her actions, and is expected to observe the rules of justice. The Christian worldview values human life above all, and the taking of innocent human life is not permitted, even if the goals are desirable. Even kings must justify the taking of human life according to specific criteria.
Atheism, in contrast to Christianity, places no limits on the power of leaders or of individuals. Atheism frees leaders to impose their will on the nation without justification. Under atheism, the ends justify the means. If the government feels it can accomplish some good by sacrificing me and my family, it is free to do so. My Lithuanian grandparents were sent to Siberia by the atheist/communist Soviet Union, upon its occupation of Lithuania, and they had done absolutely nothing wrong. They were declared to be “capitalists” because they owned a 1-acre farm, one cow and a sewing machine, their possessions were taken away from them, and they were sent to Siberia.

Sharia Law is also incompatible with the Judeo-Christian world view, and with the Constitution of the United States. Sharia law does not acknowledge inviolable human rights for family members, and permits severe corporal punishment, including punishment to the point of death, by the heads of families.

Under Sharia law, there are no limits on the power of heads of families, religious leaders, and heads of state.

The New Morality

A new (experimental) morality has been creeping into our nation, one law at a time, and supplanting the Judeo-Christian values we used to have, without internal consistency. It has not been well planned, is not systematic, or even internally consistent on any new modern moral plane.

For example, the killing of a fetus/baby is permitted even after partial birth, but the killing of a pregnant woman counts as TWO killings by law. Can the murder of a human being, and the jail term of a killer, truly be dependent on what that woman was thinking? Was she walking home or to Planned Parenthood for an abortion? Can the number of crimes committed by a killer be determined by the thoughts that were going through the murdered woman’s mind? Can a murderer go to jail for the same action for which the abortionist is extolled?

Consider another example, sex with underage children, which is, understandably, a crime. Yet teachers are required to illustrate condom use to young children in classrooms, and the very children who are taught to be “Healthy, Happy and Hot” in their classrooms, become felons when one of the young couple turns 18 and becomes guilty of statutory rape of their younger girlfriend or boyfriend. Our sexual standards impose many confusing inconsistencies on young people today.

Numerous such inconsistencies exist in our new and jumbled morality, and many conservative Americans object to the newly introduced (experimental) morality, and have concluded that the experiment has failed.

Science Takes a Back Seat to the New Experimental Morality

As the failings and drawbacks of the new experimental morality surface, those who want that new morality very badly simply ignore truth and science, they sweep the damage done to other people under the rug, and they make sure that facts and science take a back seat to their progressive agenda.

The progressive leadership of our country has misquoted and swept science under the rug habitually, as problems with the new morality surface.

Government-sponsored sex education does not educate children about the data on sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), misleads children into thinking that a condom will take care of everything, and fails to tell children that in 2011 the United States Center for Disease Control pointed out on their website that abstinence is the best form of prevention for STDs (this important fact has since even been removed from the CDC website).

Hiding the Truth

President Obama, a big sponsor of the new morality, withheld release of the results of a government-sponsored survey on abstinence, the results of which did not support Obama’s progressive agenda. The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) performed a study (National Survey of Adolescents and Their Parents) which showed that 70% of parents and 60% of teens favor abstinence before marriage. The study was ready for publication on Feb 26, 2009, but the Obama administration delayed its release for 1-½ years, until August 23, 2010.

The study results were theb released very quietly, and were later buried deeper on the HHS website, in such a way that searching obvious phrases such as “abstinence” did not call up the study, and a knowledge of the study title or project number was needed to access the study. Finally, a warning is posted for those who have succeeded in tracking down the study: This is a historical document. Use for research and reference purposes only.

Yes, the government feels it must clarify that the document is historical, lest it be used to formulate current policy. By no means can we acknowledge that most of America disagrees with the progressive government’s promiscuous agenda for our children.

Where can we see the National Survey of Adolescents and Their Parents?

• Original 2010 HHS link, since removed: pdf
• The study can be accessed now atpdf – now buried on the HHS website and labeled as a historical document.
• If that link disappears, too, there’s a copy of it on my website at National Survey of Adolescents and Their Parents.

Back to the Divide

The two alternatives, Judeo-Christian morality, and self-invented modern morality, are in complete contradiction.

• We cannot simultaneously allow abortion and declare abortion to be murder.
• We cannot encourage sexual experimentation in children, then jail them as soon as they turn 18.
• We cannot pass laws that punish Christian Churches for not placing adopted children with homosexual couples, and allow Christian Churches protection of their religious freedom and beliefs at the same time. (If Christian Churches believe that a healthy life for a child necessitates both a mother and a father, it is not the role of government to force Churches to place adoptive children in homosexual homes. If government wants such placement, government should run adoptive agencies. If homosexuals want such placement, homosexuals should run adoptive agencies. But the idea of government forcing Christian Churches how to direct their charities is a violation not only of religious freedom, but also of “separation of Church and State,” which goes both ways.)
• We cannot give unlimited benefits to various groups of citizens, without considering whether we have the money to hand out, who is paying the bills, or whether the bills are NOT being paid.

(Most people do not have the time to do their own analysis, and media fails to do the analysis for us, but this author HAS done the analysis— spreading 100% of the wealth of the United States today would not solve our financial problems or poverty, and we would then still be faced with zero wealthy people to tax next year. Most of us are not aware of how few really wealthy people and how many poor people there are,)

• We cannot brag that 98% of all published scientists support global warming, when the government makes sure that global warming opponents get no research funds, and therefore cannot publish.

We cannot cater simultaneously to all groups, when their beliefs on what is right and what is wrong are in direct conflict.
We cannot hand out more pie than there is.

Decision Making When Paths are Incompatible

We have to acknowledge that we can’t always have what we want, NOBODY can always have what they want, and sometimes my getting what I want can step on the toes of somebody else not getting what they want.

Decision mechanisms when people cannot all get what they want include:

• Free-for-all fight, and the most powerful win (Anarchy, King of the Mountain, or Chaos)
• An Authority Dictates (Dictatorship)
• Democracy (We all vote)

My preference? Democracy.
Even when my (conservative) side was losing the battle, during the last 8 years of Obama administration, I respected the system and tolerated a government which violated my world view and my view of what is right and what is wrong.
I thought sadly that if I live in a country that rejects my values, I must put up with it, or move elsewhere. Or pray that my fellow citizens see the light, begin to see things my way, and vote to restore my worldview.
I became a blogger, and have spent the last decade trying to persuade people with reason of the validity of my beliefs.

Now the tide of public opinion has turned, and the conservatives must be given a chance at government.
And yes, I have heard that many say the popular vote has NOT given conservatives a majority mandate.

Yes, We All Know that Progressives Think the Election Was Stolen

Most are familiar with the issue of the popular vote versus the electoral votes.

Hillary Clinton got more popular votes, but Donald Trump won the election because he earned more electoral votes. The electoral votes allotted to each State do not correspond directly to the number of voters in that state, so in close elections it is possible for a candidate to win the popular vote, but not the electoral vote, nor the Presidency.

An important point needs to be made about the electoral system.
The founders of this country were actually wise in choosing the electoral college instead of the popular vote as the method for selection of the President.
They did not want the choice of President always to be decided by the largest, most populous State, with little regard for the smaller ones.

The structure of the Electoral College can be traced to the Centurial Assembly system of the Roman Republic, and is similar to that used by classical institutions. The Founding Fathers were well schooled in ancient history and its lessons. See the US Election Atlas for more details on the evolution of the Electoral College plan.
The concept can be simplified by example.
If the colonies wanted more rural, less populated States to join the union (and to provide food for the nation from their farms), they had to offer those States a guarantee that their rights would not be trampled and they would not be dominated by the States which were more populous and which had larger cities.
The same principle applies today—should the population of one State be able to dictate the fate of the the entire United States?
Hillary Clinton won California by such a large margin in 2016 ( 4.6 million votes) that her entire advantage came from just that one State. Should Californian values be permitted to steer the values of the entire United States?

No, even if Hillary did get 2-3 million more popular votes, the election was NOT stolen.
The electoral college system protects all of America from being dominated by one State – in the case of 2016, California.

Reasons Why Trump May Actually HAVE WON the Popular Vote

An added point about the popular vote:
Conservatives are just as unhappy about the closeness of the election as progressives are.
While progressives point out that Hillary won the popular vote by 2-3 million votes, conservatives point out that if we corrected the popular vote totals for frequently demonstrated massive voter fraud and for illegal immigrants with illegal voting cards, Hillary would have had at least 3 million fewer votes.

According to PEW Research, 24 million (one of every eight) voter registrations in the United States are no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate, more than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters, and 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state. That’s almost 30 million votes that are very susceptible to potential fraud.

These figures, combined with the frequently documented voter fraud exercised by “community organizers” and practitioners of “Alinsky tactics” of the left, call into serious question the exact numbers of the 2016 popular vote.

Alinsky Tactics and the Left

It is well documented that Hillary Clinton was a student of Alinsky, and that Barack Obama taught Alinsky tactics in the past. And Alinskyk tactics are Satanist Saul Alinsky’s 13 rules for political warfare, which are described in a book that Alinsky dedicated to Lucifer (Satan).   Needless to say, Alinsky tactics violate all rules of fair Christian behavior, and they describe how a minority can fight, lie, manipulate, and finagle their way against the despised majority, which limits themselves to Judeo-Christian rules of behavior.

Hillary’s recent collection of scandals– Benghazi lies, security breeches to escape accountability for email communications, the Clinton Foundation traitorous pay-for-play allegations, which are being proven just 2 months after the election, as well as the unethical tactics used against Bernie Sanders—this documented track record of “Alinsky” (in Judeo-Christian language “immoral”) behavior on the part of the progressives in the Democrat Party, certainly make election fraud allegations towards the Democrat Party credible.

Although nobody claims that conservatives are free of any misdeeds, it is still more likely that people who support Judeo-Christian morality might have a lower incidence of illegal deceptive tactics than those who actively teach, advocate and employ Alinsky tactics and “community organizing.” Just this week, news surfaced of progressives plotting to disrupt President-Elect Donald Trump’s inauguration by deploying butyric acid at the National Press Club during what they call the “Deploraball” event scheduled for January 19th. These progressives were meeting at the Washington D.C. pizza place that was mentioned in the Hillary-Podesta emails.  Today, the news  holds more on shocking progressive tactics — progressives held a training camp on disrupting the inauguration and how to handle being arrested, and hundreds of the LGBT community held a dance party in the street outside Vice President-Elect Mike Pence’s home.  CNN has even gone so far as to point out that if Donald Trump were to be killed during the Inauguration, an Obama appointee would become President.  The right has never planned and executed such interference and disruption of progressive events, discussed the killing of a progressive opponent, or targeted progressives in their homes.  

Why Can’t We Just Compromise?

Many of the most contentious issues today do not lend themselves to compromise.
Abortion, gay marriage, and sex education (chastity versus promiscuity) are examples of things that cannot go both ways.
A choice has to be made.

 

• It is not possible to take both roads when you reach a fork, as Yogi Berra can attest.
• We cannot aim for individual freedom and for governmental control of personal life and personal thought at the same time.
• We cannot outlaw and allow abortion simultaneously.
• We cannot both allow and forbid guns.
• We cannot preserve traditional marriage and allow homosexual marriage at the same time.
• We cannot respect religious freedom and require all doctors to perform abortions concurrently.
• We cannot enforce immigration law and simultaneously have open borders.
• We cannot build up military defense and reduce military defense at the same time.
• We cannot base our Constitution and Bill of Rights on God-given rights, yet forbid the public mention of God and of religion.
• We cannot respect Judeo-Christian values and delete Judeo-Christian values from our laws concurrently.
• We cannot have a Supreme Court which decrees national law and policy without regard to the beliefs of the American population- most of the above mentioned issues have involved decrees by Supreme Court and by Executive Action which are in disagreement with the beliefs of most Americans.
• We cannot have a Democratic Republic in which elected Representatives of the people do not represent the wishes of the people and in which politically appointed Supreme Court Justices overrule the will and the religious beliefs of the people.

This is why some advocate leaving these most difficult issues to the States, so that, for example, a progressive State such as California could allow progressive policies, and both liberals and conservatives could live in States which offered the policies that are most important to them.

The idea that the Federal government should not control issues that Americans struggle to agree on is one that Trump has been proposing. On these issues, local control would be local.

Think, dear progressive co-Americans—wouldn’t it be great if we could make room in America for both sides of the ethical and political spectrum?

In Trump’s language, that would be HUGE!

What is the Left So Afraid to Lose?

What are the main issues that the left to panic when considering a conservative or a Trump Presidency?

• Abortion?
• Gay Marriage?
• Welfare?

The Worst Case Scenario and the Most Likely Outcome

Abortion: There is little danger of abortion becoming unavailable in the United States.

I must honestly admit that I would like it if we were forbidden by law to kill inconvenient unborn infants the same as we are not permitted by law to kill inconvenient elders or spouses or children who have already been born.
But I also realize that we live in a democracy, and so long as so many Americans support abortion, abortion is not likely to go away.

The worst case scenario for progressives is that they may have to pay for their abortion themselves, instead of making me pay for it, which is against my ethics (It’s only fair– I have to pay for my own thyroid surgery and my own childbirth!).
They may have to shift to less permissive sexual behavior and more self control—something all of us should strive for constantly.
They may have to travel to a neighboring State for their abortion.

These might not be progressive first choices, but progressives must also realize that it is not the conservative first choice to pay for other people’s children to be aborted, particularly when a disproportionate number of those victims are minority babies.
It is also not the conservative first choice to live in a country where our children cannot be doctors, pharmacists or lawyers, because our Federal laws demand everyone in those professions to participate in abortion-related activities which are against our moral beliefs.

Whose right is more important—the right of a woman to enjoy unlimited sex, including premarital sex and promiscuous sex, or the right of a tiny human being not to be killed by his/her mother?

The job of the government is not to give progressives ALL their wishes, but to balance the rights of all citizens against each other in an ethical way.

We can’t always get what we want – progessives, OR conservatives.
And Christian doctrine always requires that the needs of the weakest be considered first – and who is smaller and weaker than an unborn child?

We appeal to progressives to realize that abortion is advocated only by people who have already been born. The unborn have no voice, other than the voice of conservatives.

Gay Marriage: There is little danger of homosexuality returning to the criminal status it previously held in this country decades ago.

The worst case scenario is that homosexual couples may be limited to civil unions, which do not threaten those of us who believe that marriage is central to the health and security of children and of our future society.
Progressives must realize that their wish for homosexual marriage has some unintended consequences on the rest of us. The moment we allowed homosexual marriage, Catholic adoption agencies had to close their doors, because the federal government requires them by law to do something their faith forbids: to place adoptive children with homosexual couples.
Whose rights are more important—gays to call their union “marriage,” or orphans to get free adoption services that the Catholic Church provides?
See Gay Marriage and Homosexuality for more ways in which the redefinition of marriage hurts the rights of Christian Americans.

Progressives need to realize that their wish to have homosexual unions be called “marriage” impacts the rights of conservative citizens not to have progressive doctrine forced on their Church charitable adoption programs, on public school sex education programs, and on bakeries which prefer not to bake cakes featuring images of homosexual unions.

Welfare: There is no danger of Social Security or Medicare being cancelled by conservatives.

The ObamaCare that is being repealed is a fiasco and failure, and WILL be replaced.

The worst case scenario is that some welfare programs will be streamlined to eliminate fraud and favoritism, and that more efforts will be made to offer jobs to those who are now dependent on welfare.

Two Last Words to the Left- Anarchy and Compassion

Word One about anarchy –

Of those who want to ignore the results of the 2016 election and attempt to delegitimize President-Elect Trump, we ask – what does Anarchy accomplish?

In what ways does the use of Alinsky Tactics such as riots, property damage and butyric acid terrorism accomplish anything?
What is your desired result?

Do progressives think that the Inauguration will be cancelled?
Do they think that Hillary will be given the Presidency?
By what mechanism could that be done?
Even if that was done, is Hillary’s moral history anything to pin our hopes on?

If the progressive goal is to weaken President Trump, so that he would make less progress on the progressive action items we’ve mentioned above, do progressives not realize that a weakened President and administration will not only be weak on abortion, but also in every other area, including our economy and our safety from terrorism? Do you really want to sink the ship you are sitting in?

Word Two about compassion –

Progessives are very admirable in their stated compassion.
But consider the opposite of compassion – heartlessness.

Do progressives not realize that some of their priorities are only compassionate towards one set of people, and only compassionate on the surface?
That some of their priorities become very heartless when the needs and rights of another group of citizens is considered?
Compassion towards a pregnant woman can also be heartless cruelty towards her partially born baby?

All Americans, progressive and conservative want to be compassionate.
We pick different issues on which our compassion focuses, depending our life experience.
We can’t always get what we want, and we can’t be compassionate to all at the same time.
The wishes of citizens and prisoners are opposed to each other and need to be balanced.
The wishes of Christians and Atheists are opposed to each other and need to be balanced.
The wishes of men and women are different, and need to be balanced.
The needs of parents and of children, as well as of teachers, need to be balanced.
Isn’t it time to start realizing that we all intend good, we are all compassionate, and we all have different perspectives that need to have a chance to be tried and to be heard?

Isn’t It Time? 

The Constitution of the United States has set up a framework for this balancing exercise to take place, and has served us reasonably well for centuries.
It is time for progressives to accept a temporary correction and to allow conservatives to have a hand in the game.

Let us all root for each other, pray for each other and, above all, pray for the new President of the United State, Donald Trump.

For the anti-Trumpers, you can always pray for your enemies- prayer helps everyone concerned.

One of the best attributes of conservatives is that they do not have to resort to butyric acid, but can pray.

It’s now time to give conservatives a chance.

 

 

 

Abortion and Homosexuality –So What Did the Pope Actually Say?

or

When Two Jesuits Talk

 

Today, October 4th, the Catholic Church celebrates the Feast of St. Francis of Assissi. Our Pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a Jesuit, made a bold gesture of love in adopting the name of St. Francis, patron of the Franciscans. St. Francis is commonly pictured with animals.  He was renowned for his love, not only of animals, but more importantly, of all human beings.  St. Francis lived his love to the extreme of adopting poverty himself.  This discussion of Pope Francis’ controversial America Magazine interview is dedicated to this unbelievable Pope on his feast day.

St Francis of Assisi (1181 – 1226) (from Universalis) Francis was the son of a prosperous cloth merchant in Assisi. When his father objected to having his goods sold without his consent to pay for the restoration of a church, the bishop commanded Francis to repay the money. He did. He also renounced his father and gave back everything he had ever been given, even his garments. He began a life of perfect evangelical poverty, living by begging and even then only accepting the worst food that people had to give. He preached to all the love of God and the love of the created world; because, having renounced everything, he celebrated everything he received, or saw, or heard, as a gift. A rich man sold everything and joined him in living next to a leper colony; a canon from a neighbouring church gave up his position and joined them also. They looked into the Gospel and saw the story of the rich young man whom Jesus told to sell everything; they saw Jesus telling his disciples to take nothing with them on their journey; they saw Jesus saying that his followers must also carry his cross. And on that basis they founded an order. Francis went to Rome himself and persuaded the Pope to sanction it, though it must have seemed at once impractical and subversive, to set

thousands of holy men wandering penniless round the towns and villages of Europe. Because Francis was wearing an old brown garment begged from a peasant, tied round the middle with string, that became the Franciscan habit. Ten years later 5,000 men were wearing it; a hundred years later Dante was buried in it because it was more glorious than cloth of gold. There is too much to say about Francis to fit here. He tried to convert the Muslims, or at least to attain martyrdom in doing so. He started the practice of setting up a crib in church to celebrate the Nativity. Francis died in 1226, having started a revolution. The Franciscans endure to this day.

 

Is the Pope Reversing the Catholic Church’s Ban on Abortion and Homosexual Marriage?

Recently there has been a media stir reflecting some confusion on Pope Francis’ position on abortion and on homosexuality, based on an interview he recently gave to America magazine.

Some in the media implied that the Pope is directing the Church not  to concern herself with the issues of abortion and homosexuality.
ABC went so far as to say that Pope Francis wants the Church to shake off “small-minded” rules on abortion and homosexuality.
Bloomberg claimed “Pope Says Church Should Stop Obsessing Over Gays, Abortion.”
Reuters reported somewhat more correctly that the Pope is asking for a change in tone.

Apparent Contradictions

And yet, the same Pope Francis, in the same America magazine interview in question, in the same paragraph, two sentences later, stated “The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church,” thus confirming his loyalty to Catholic Church teaching.

Also, the same Pope Francis just excommunicated a dissident priest in Australia the same month, who advocated gay marriage and female priests.

A Pope who just excommunicated someone for their stance on gay marriage is not likely to announce any changes in Church teaching on gay marriage, as liberal media seems to hope. Excommunication by the Vatican is very rare; there have only been 5 since the year 2000, and this is the first one under Pope Francis.

So, What’s the Story?

So is the Pope for abortion and gay marriage, or against?
Is the Church changing age-old teachings, is the Pope a radical progressive, or is the media botching their reporting?
Short answer: the media is botching  their reporting.
Longer answer? Keep reading.

Ignorance, Wishful Thinking or Deceitful Intent?

So the media is botching their reporting, yet again.
Out-of-context quotes from Pope Francis have gone viral a number of times already this year, and it’s hard to guess what the media is thinking by reporting so sloppily.

It’s difficult to determine whether the liberal media’s unprofessional reporting is due to ignorance of religion, to wishful progressive thinking, or to a deceitful intent to recruit more Catholics into the progressive political agenda, by leading them to think that the Pope approves progressive thought.

But far more interesting than speculating on media motivation is to ask what did the Pope actually say, and what is he trying to tell Catholics and the world?

.

What did the Pope actually say?
or
When Two Jesuits Talk

The Pope is a Jesuit, America is a Jesuit magazine, and the interviewer, Antonio Spadaro, is a Jesuit with an impressive Jesuit resume.

Jesuits are not feebleminded.  In fact, Jesuits are renowned for their scholarly talent.
When two Jesuits talk, not everybody can follow.

When two Jesuits talk, the discussion is rarely short.
The conversation in question here, the interview between these two Jesuits  was 12,000 words long.
If we typed that up as a college paper, it would be 50 pages long.

In the age of tweets and texting, that’s TMI (too much information) for most people.
We need an interpreter, and the one-liner produced by the mainstream media might not be very representative of what the Pope was really trying to say.

When two Jesuits talk, the discussion is always quite intellectual.  In addition to using theological references, biblical references, Latin phrases and Italian phrases, Jesuits also use references to the classics, to music, to literature, to history, and to numerous other things that leave most of us in the dust.

Pope Francis’ 50-page interview included references to Puccini, Alessandro Manzoni, Caravaggio, Chagall, Mozart, Beethoven, Prometheus, Bach, Wagner, La Scala, Knappertsbusch, Fellini, Anna Mabnani, Aldo Fabrizi, Cervantes, and El Cid, in addition to his theological and biblical references, and references to saints.

I’ll be up front and admit that I had to do some googling on more than a couple of those!

Bottom Line, When Two Jesuits Talk

When two Jesuits talk,

i.e. when Antonio Spadaro (Editor of the influential Jesuit journal Civiltà Cattolica)  interviews Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis),

we are not on the View with Joy Behar, Whoopi Goldberg, and Barbara Walters. Whoopi might give a brilliant performance in  Sister Act, but in real life, she’s no Jesuit.

When two Jesuits talk, the conversation will be deep, it will be significant, it might take the rest of us some ploughing to get through it, but what we unearth will be worth the effort.

Recommendation

So my recommendation would be to read Pope Francis’ interview in it’s entirety.  Pope Francis is inspired, and he’s delightful.  I enjoyed the experience.  The interview can be found at America Magazine.

Failing that, if you’re looking for some Cliff notes and an interpreter, where better to get that than from Jesuit #3, Madison’s Bishop Robert Morlino?

Bishop Morlino’s synopsis and observations on the Pope’s interview can be found at the Catholic Herald’s Bishop’s Column, September 26^th, 2013.  Bishop Morlino’s got it down to under 2,000 words, or about a 7 page term paper.  Bishop Morlino is always a good read. And he’s very good at bringing it to our level.

Finally, if you want the perspective of one in-the-pew-Catholic like me, read on at your own (spiritual) peril.  It will probably be way longer than Bishop Morlino’s version, and way less accurate.  But here we go… thoughts from the pew…

The Controversial Paragraph

The media had to dig through half of Pope Francis’ 12,000 word interview, or through about 25 pages, before they could find one sentence that could be morphed by media into being “controversial,” albeit out of context. Here is the relevant paragraph (highlighting mine):

We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.

Note that the first highlighted item is the primary one reported by the media, while the second one, asserting that Church teaching has not changed and that Pope Francis is faithful to that unchanged teaching, was ignored by the media.

Rather then focusing on this out-of-context media implication that Pope Francis may be open to changing fundamental Catholic Church teaching, which is clearly disproved by the second highlighted sentence and by the recent excommunication, I’d like to focus instead on the title of the Pope’s interview, and on three points that leaped out at me when I read the interview document.  These items illustrate very clearly and succinctly the message the Pope was trying to send us.

The Title

The title of the Interview, approved by Pope Francis, was A Big Heart Open to God.

O.K., the Pope is saying we must have a big heart.  A big heart means love, self-explanatory.  No small hearts in the Church, please. We do everything with love.

The Pope is also saying that we must be Open to God.  What does that mean, to be open to God?  Well, we should be listening and seeking what God wants of us, as opposed to demanding what we want from God.  We should not ordering God, not ranting against God. Open to God means obedience to Christ’s teachings, obedience to the Church.  Our hearts should be open, waiting to be filled.

A Big Heart Open To God.
In six words, the Pope has managed to teach lovingly to both extremes in his unruly Church.  Disciplinarian dogmatists are reminded to have a big heart.  No Pharisees, please.  And liberal progressives are reminded to listen to God, to obey God.  No rebellion against Christ’s Church.

Pope Francis, the good parent, has spoken kindly and gently to his unruly bickering children, calling for unity, and reminding us in six words what we have to do.

 

 The First Question

The first question asked of the Pope was “Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?”

Of all possible answers, Pope Francis chose “I am a sinner.”

Not “I am the grand high exalted holy ruler of 1 billion people.”
Not “I am a holy man.”
Not “I am a priest.”
Not “I am a Jesuit.”
Not “I am an Argentinian.” or “I am an Argentinian-Italian.”
Not “I am the son of Mario and Regina Bergoglio.”

No, instead the Pope said “I am a sinner.”

This Jesuit was not faking humility.  His words were carefully chosen, not to be about him, but to teach us.
The good gentle shepherd is reminding us “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7)    By calling himself a sinner, he is reminding us not to throw stones at each other.

Pope Francis is telling us to treat sinners with mercy, because we are all sinners.
He is teaching gently by example, by announcing that he too is a sinner.
We must all remember that we are sinners, if we want to attract anyone to the Truth.
There is no room in the Catholic Church for holier-than-thou condemnation.
We must start with compassion, and not with condemnation.

In the interview, Pope Francis identifies his own calling with the calling of St. Matthew, the tax collector.  Our Pope says “ I am a sinner whom the Lord has looked upon.”  Pope Francis wants to reach out lovingly to other sinners, and he wants us to do the same.

What Does It Mean for a Jesuit to be Bishop of Rome?

Early in the interview, Pope Francis was also asked “What does it mean for a Jesuit to be Bishop of Rome?”

The Pope’s answer, quoting Pope John XXIII’s philosophy and motto, jumped out at me as illustrating his loving and nurturing approach to exercising authority, and as illustrating what he is asking of us:

The Pope said See everything; turn a blind eye to much; correct a little.

Again, our Pope, like a good shepherd, guides gently and slowly, rather than overwhelming us with condemnation and criticism.  He asks us to extend the same courtesy to each other.

The Pope also emphasized the importance of prioritizing discernment (discernment always done in the presence of the Lord).  This means that time and prayer are the most appropriate means for approaching problems, and we must be wary of impulses and hasty decisions.

This is how Pope Francis sees the role of a Jesuit in the Chair of Peter.

The Church as  a Field Hospital

The Pope gives us a third window into his philosophy in this interview, in his comparison of the Church with a field hospital:

I see clearly, that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds…. And you have to start from the ground up.

It’s pretty clear that the Pope is not advocating or approving high cholesterol, but he recognizes that wounds have to be prioritized over cholesterol concerns.  He’s telling us to examine what we prioritize when we look at each other.  Do we turn a blind eye to much, identify the biggest wounds, and tend to those, before launching into overwhelming criticism?

We are not likely to get our culture on board with giving up abortion and homosexual marriage by condemning them.  It is by offering the love and peace of Christ that we will attract them, and the rest will follow in due course.

Respect for others does dictate kindness and a gentle approach.  Which one of us would like to be approached first with recriminations about our sins?  Who are we to decide that the degree of evil in the sins of others (gay lifestyle, abortion) is greater than the degree of evil in our own sins (pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth?).

Take Home Message

We could go on, quoting from and discussing the Pope’s interview.  But then this article would become longer than the Pope’s interview, and you are much better served reading Pope Francis’ actual interview yourself.

The biggest take home message this Catholic found in reading the Pope’s interview was that when evangelizing, our Church needs to proceed with love, humility, and gentleness, and we need to prioritize humanity’s biggest wounds. We also need to work on obedience and on unity.

And what are humanity’s biggest wounds?
Our Pope, discerning carefully in the presence of the Lord, will help us to identify those.
He’s been remarkable so far, flooding the world with his love, and including all of humanity in his flock.
His outreach to atheists is symbolic of his profound love for all of humanity.

A Club of 1 Billion

The Catholic Church is a global club of of 1 billion people.

Like any other large group, including large nations, we have our  conservatives and we have our liberals.  Some liberals and conservatives make good points.  Others take a good thing too far.

The person in charge of 1 billion people, in this case the Pope, should be a unifier, an educator and a leader, not a divider.  He should not start with criticism, blame and attack.  A good leader observes, waits, and corrects a little at a time; he breaks up job assignments into small manageable parcels.
This is what Pope Francis is doing, and his approach should not be taken to mean that he approves sin or that he has changed Catholic Church teaching.

The Pope has given us our marching orders in the gentlest manner: time for authoritarians to tone it down and to lead with love, and time for rebels to prioritize the will of God over their own will.

What Jesuits Do

What do Jesuits Do?

Jesuits were founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola, and are noted for their educational, missionary, and charitable works.

Then we should not be surprised when Pope Francis, a Jesuit, wants to teach, to teach the faith, and to teach the faith with love.

Pope Francis’s interview illustrates that he is a deep thinker, a compassionate shepherd, and a well-educated intellectual.
He’s made a great start in less than one year, with discernment, with humility, and with love.

The Best is Yet to Come

Few of us are qualified to judge a Pope.
Those of us who think we are probably have an issue with pride.
So when the Pope says something that surprises us, we need to examine what he said with an open heart, and have the humility to admit that his correction may be deserved.

In my judgement, this Pope is remarkable.  As were the previous ones in my lifetime.

Pope Francis’ Global Adoration effort and his day of prayer and fasting for Syria are among his first official actions.
With these actions, the Pope illustrated to us the importance of bringing faith into life, and into public life.
Pope Francis demonstrated the urgency of interconnection between Church and State.  Interconnection not from the top down, but from the bottom up.  The State does not dictate the faith of the citizens, but the citizens must use their faith and their God-given conscience and must stand up for what is right.

The results global prayer and fasting combined with interconnection between Church and State are just beginning to roll in.  The best is yet to come.

Not Just for Catholics

This is not just for Catholics.  Everyone should get on board.
This Pope is reaching out to all of humanity, including atheists.
He seems to be getting a very positive response to his call.

Summing Up

Pope Francis’ interview can be summed up pretty simply-

• Drop the finger-wagging, get out the smiles, treat people with respect, pray hard, pray globally, and correct just a little at a time.
• Remember, respect includes not calling people out publicly for their sins, at least not as the first resort.
• We attract more bees with honey than with vinegar.
• Sin is still sin, what’s wrong is still wrong, but let’s not forget the beam in our own eye when pointing out the splinter in someone else’s eye.

Does that mean that we give up the struggle to eliminate abortion or to preserve marriage?
No.
But those are not our opening efforts, before we break out mercy and love.
We don’t lead with those items while evangelizing.

 

Appendix:  More VIRAL QUOTES from Pope Francis:

From the Washington Post: Pope Francis’ Viral Quotes on Wealth, Abortion, Atheists, War and Gay Catholics. 

We can never serve God and money at the same time. It is not possible: either one or the other. This is not Communism. It is the true Gospel! Pope Francis poses for a photo after meeting with young people in downtown Cagliari, Italy, on Sept. 22, 2013. He spoke of the ‘idol’ of money during a trip to the region, one of the poorest areas in Italy.
Every unborn child, though unjustly condemned to be aborted, has the face of the Lord, who even before his birth, and then as soon as he was born, experienced the rejection of the world. . . . They must not be thrown away! Francis spoke about abortion on Sept. 20, the day after the publication of an interview in which he said that abortion, gay marriage and contraception should not become “obsessions” for faithful Catholics.
We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible, Pope Francis said in an interview that appeared in Jesuit publications around the world on Sept. 19, 2013. “I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear, and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.
If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge? Francis remarked to reporters aboard the papal flight on its way back from Brazil on July 29, 2013. Pope Francis reached out to gays during the news conference on the plane, saying he wouldn’t judge priests for their sexual orientation in a remarkably open and wide-ranging conversation as he returned from his first foreign trip.
War is madness. It is the suicide of humanity. It is an act of faith in money, which for the powerful of the Earth is more important than the human being. Pope Francis celebrates a worldwide Eucharistic adoration ceremony after his comments on war at St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican on June 2, 2013.
Eternity “will not be boring,” Francis declared May 31, 2013. Later that day, nuns held up candles during a ceremony led by Pope Francis in St. Peter’s Square.
The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone. ‘Father, the atheists?’ Even the atheists. Everyone! Pope Francis said during Mass on May 22, 2013. In the photo, Pope Francis delivers a speech during a meeting with young people in September 2013 in Cagliari, Italy.
If the investments in the banks fall slightly . . . [it is] a tragedy . . . what can be done? But if people die of hunger, if they have nothing to eat, if they have poor health, it does not matter! This is our crisis today! Pope Francis speaks after meeting with the faithful of ecclesial movements on the occasion of a Pentecost vigil in St. Peter’s Square on May 18, 2013.

 

 

 

What in the World Happened to Us?

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TV star Phil Robertson is a successful businessman whose family owned company makes duck calls and other products for duck hunters. The Robertson men, Phil, his brother and his three sons, are known for their long beards.  They also star in the  reality TV show Duck Dynasty, the most-watched nonfiction cable telecast in history.

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Here’s what Phil has to say about abortion:

 

What in the World Happened to Us?

More on Abortion:
Abortion- A Much Bigger Deal Than You Think!

 

 

 

Political Puzzle Pieces Falling Into Place

Political Surprises

We’ve been seeing a high
frequency of political surprises in
recent months and years.

Turnarounds that were really not expected.

A number of outcomes that stymied the predictions of political pundits, leaving everyone scratching their heads.

But things happen for a reason, and that reason may not always be immediately clear.
However, in time, with faith, the meaning emerges.

What Political Surprises?

What surprises?
Shocking reversals.
In recent news, apparently enough votes have been obtained in the Republican-dominated House to pass the Immigration Bill, despite the fact that most conservatives oppose any legislation that does not prioritize securing the border first, and despite the fact that a CBS poll

shows that 56% of Americans want the border secured before a path to citizenship is established for illegal immigrants.
Only 37% of Americans want “status of illegal immigrants” addressed before the border is secured.

So Republicans appear to be pushing for what Obama wants in opposition to what voters want.

Conservatives Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan have been pushing the Immigration Bill, despite conservative objections to the Bill, as well.  These are very unexpected and puzzling developments.

These surprises are not the first.
There was Bart Stupak’s catastrophic reversal on abortion in ObamaCare (along with 11 other Democrats) in 2010.
There was Justice Roberts’ unexpected ruling on the Constitutionality of ObamaCare (2013).

There was the chaotic bulldozing of the Republican nomination in August 2012, during which John Boehner made an apparently intentional bad call on a rule change vote, enabling the nomination of Mitt Romney and the elimination of other candidates.  Boehner’s vote call was clearly erroneous, and Boehner was booed.

Aside: American politics ironically begins to resemble the upside-down room from Alice in Wonderland.  Was the White House’s secret 2009 Halloween Costume Ball, held while America sank into recession, actually more of a policy announcement?  The extravagant “over-the-top” Hollywood-created party followed a $4 million Hawaii vacation for the First Family, during a year in which Michelle Obama spent $10 million on vacations.

Back to shocking reversals-

How about the Supreme Court ruling in June of 2013 striking down part of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)?  What was Justice Roberts’ role in that?  What implications will that ruling have?
So many conservatives are falling into scandals and out of office- Herman Cain, General Petraeus, General Powell…
A comprehensive list of recent examples would exhaust my resources and the reader’s patience!

Magic Political Potion?

It’s like there was a virus going around that turned conservatives progressive, or a magic potion that Obama has which makes people do his bidding.
Are Chicago-style persuasion tactics at work?

Putting Together the Pieces

Snowden’s recent  revelations about systematic NSA snooping on citizens without warrant, and IRS involvement in the harassing and suppression of conservative groups, combined with the growing number of other Obama administration scandals, is revealing that the comprehensive amassing of detailed information on American citizens, as well as strong-arming, have become routine practices used by the Obama adminstration.   The pursuit and attack of consevatives by liberals has been implemented to an exhaustive degree, down to small individuals like me, whose conservative website was under D0S (DDoS) attack for the third time this summer by “unknown” sources.

These surfacing facts paint a picture of an extremely active left wing “culture” very busy implementing illegal and unethical Alinsky tactics in an underground war against democracy and against Judeo-Christian ethics.

Massive amounts of data are being collected about innocent Americans, and are being stored in immense facilities in  Utah, with Obama administration assurances that the information will not be mined or used except for national security.
Yet abuse of this informaion is apparently almost routine, as the NSA breaks privacy rules thousands of times every year.

Meanwhile, all of Obama’s opponents are surprisingly reversing their positions or falling like flies.  scandal
Is there a connection?

In this Benghazi scandal–IRS scandal (Internal Revenue Service)-NSA scandal (National Security Agency)-DOJ scandal (Department of Justice) –DHS scandal (Department of Homeland Security) scandal climate, the picture emerging is one of indiscriminate and unethical abuse of power of historical proportions by members of the Obama administration.

The Ideology

What radical “progressives” cannot achieve by democracy, they seem determined to get by hook or by crook, or by Alinsky tactics.
Left wing ideology is so important and so faultless in the radical narcissistic mind, that it justifies sacrificing law, order and democracy, to achieve desired results.
This radical philosophy espouses “the ends justify the means (consequentialism), a classic error made by narcissists and totalitarians throughout history.
This method is in direct opposition to the teachings of Christ and of Judaism, and is in opposition to any absolute moral code, like the Ten Commandments or the Constitution of the United States.

New Modus Operandi (Method of Operation)

In this Gangster Government climate, it becomes eminently reasonable to  suspect the dishonest Obama administration, with it’s ever-expanding list of agencies and czars,  of simply dipping into the Utah treasury of information every time it needs to “persuade” an opponent.

Most people, even good people, have made a mistake or two in their lives which they do not want publicized, and if they have not, their child or their spouse or their grandmother probably have.  That failing, evidence can be planted, accusations can be manufactured, and lies can be constructed.  All is fair under Alinsky tactics or under totalitarian rule.

What Can an Ethical Population Do to Combat Such Tactics and This Level of Corruption?

One previous challenge of this magnitude and nature was the Soviet Union dominating and abusing its citizens with iron hand and iron curtain, utilizing the KGB as enforcers, and making desperate attempts to eradicate the power of religion in the 20th century.

And it was religion that brought down the Soviet Union.
Religion, plus transparency.

It was Catholic Poland’s Solidarity, Catholic Pope John Paul the Great, and Christian Evangelical Ronald Reagan, who brought down the Soviet empire virtually without violence and without battle through what TIME magazine called a Holy Alliance.

The transparency was provided by communications; in the internet era, real-time video of Soviet government atrocities such as the crushing of 11 Lithuanian citizens by Soviet tanks kept the autocrats accountable for their actions.  Reports of these events echoed across the globe in real time, with reports appearing in local American news.

The Missing Link- Redefining How We Approach Politics describes in more detail a philosophy which brings God into politics, allows good men to tap into the power of religion, and allows battles to be won relatively peacefully.

Point: The battle against the Soviets was not won by using Soviet tactics.

The Solution

The solution, the key to the puzzle, is simple:

• Don’t use the enemy’s tactics
• Use religion and use transparency
• Religion: Aim for justice, stick to the rules, follow your conscience, and ask God for help and for guidance.
• Transparency: Use modern communications to keep your opponents accountable

In 2013, the victory is likely to be surprising, as it was with the Soviet Union:

• It will be a surprise, like many victories in history.
• It could involve a restructuring of the Republican party, to return to true Judeo-Christian conservative values.
• It could involve a third party which suddenly receives surprising support from a nation that has been burnt enough by 8 years of Imperial rule and by several years of unfolding Obama administration scandals and ObamaCare catastrophies.
• It could involve something completely unexpected, like the unorthodox but constitutional use of Article V of the Constitution, to amend the Constitution via state legislatures, circumventing the now-corrupt Senate and Congress, as suggested by Mark Levin, whose  book The Liberty Amendments, just shot to #1 bestseller on Amazon this week.
• And, of course, it most probably will involve an as-yet-unimagined mechanism that exists only in the mind of God, and not in our minds at this point in time.

Already Accomplished

What has already been accomplished?

• America has galvanized and joined to oppose the greatest injustice ever tolerated in this country, which has killed the largest number of people in American history (54 million) – abortion.  Now, through tremendous public involvement and prayer, progress is finally being made toward reversing the killing of 1/3 of our children.  A nation that kills it’s own children cannot prosper. The year 2013 marks 40 years of that killing, and it is time for the killing to end.
• The unraveling of the crooked and imperial Obama administration’s reputation has begun, and continues every day. Obama’s approval rating has slipped from 64% in 2009 to  41% today.
• Even the Republican Party, which gets the main modern issue, abortion, right, but neglects other important Judeo-Christian values, is undergoing an internal struggle which may (or may not) purge it of its recent ineffective spinelessness.

Predicting the Outcome

All predictions are tentative and are subject to the test of history.

But we have great faith in God, and today we see Americans returning increasingly to prayer and to Judeo-Christian values.
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I don’t believe that God will allow Godless progressives who idolize indiscriminate promiscuity and the killing of children, to triumph.
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I believe that God will help good people to win.
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The victory will undoubtedly, like the victory over the Soviet Union, reflect the quiet, surprising, and powerful signature of God’s assistance, who is ever at our side, leading us quietly.
The victory could also, like David’s victory over Goliath, and like the parting of the Red Sea, be spectacular and miraculous.

From the Bible:

Incidentally, today in the United States we have more than the 50 righteous people Abraham refers to in his negotiation with the Lord (Genesis 18:23.)

Excerpts from the Liturgy of the Hours for August 13th, 2013:

Psalm 119

Lord, how I love your law!
It is ever in my mind.
Your command makes me wiser than my foes;
for it is mine for ever.

I have more insight than all who teach me
for I ponder your will.
I have more understanding than the old
for I keep your precepts.

I turn my feet from evil paths
to obey your word.
I have not turned from your decrees;
you yourself have taught me.

Your promise is sweeter to my taste
than honey in the mouth.
I gain understanding from your precepts
and so I hate false ways.

 

Psalm 74

Arise, O Lord, and defend your cause.

Remember this, Lord, and see the enemy scoffing;
a senseless people insults your name.
Do not give Israel, your dove, to the hawk
nor forget the life of your poor ones for ever.

Remember your covenant; every cave in the land
is a place where violence makes its home.
Do not let the oppressed return disappointed;
let the poor and the needy bless your name.

Arise, O God, and defend your cause!
Remember how the senseless revile you all the day.
Do not forget the clamour of your foes,
the daily increasing uproar of your foes.

or

Hey, They’re Shooting at ME Now!

Background: The West Wing

The West Wing was a TV serial drama which aired from 1999 to 2006, during much of George W. Bush’s presidency, depicting a liberal White House administration.  Some speculate that the show’s popularity reflected the wishful  fantasies of liberals, who were frustrated with the somewhat conservative real administration occupying  the White House, and retreated into TV fantasies of a successful liberal White House for entertainment.

“If They’re Shooting at You…”

In one episode of West Wing, the fictional character Charlie Young (Presidential aide), played by Dulé Hill, quotes his father as saying “If They’re Shooting at You, You Know You’re Doing Something Right!”

Charlie’s observation might in fact reflect the projection of a somewhat widespread radical progressive attitude today, an attitude in which passionate progressives feel entitled to use any methods, including morally and legally questionable ones, in combating their political opponents.  When analyzing their own opponents, radicals then project their own attitudes and methods onto them. If radicals might consider shooting their opposition when the opposition becomes too successful, radicals assume that conservatives would do the same.

A Fictional Shooting

The plot of West Wing actually included the shooting of the liberal President by right-wing extremists, who objected to the President’s young black aide (Charlie Young) dating the President’s white daughter.  The shooting was actually targeted at Charlie Young, the young black aide who dares to date the President’s daughter, with the President catching an unintended bullet during the attack.

This slanderous plot reflected unscrupulous progressive attitudes on two levels.  Progressive producers of the show were clearly prepared to smear conservatives with damaging fictional plots implying that conservatives oppose interracial dating, and in fact oppose it so strongly that they shoot people over this issue.  In addition, by inventing such unthinkable plots, the progressives also betrayed their own level of comfort with underhanded and unscrupulous methods.

Imagine the converse.  What Tea Party conservative would have created an imaginary TV show about the Presidency, in which a conservative President like Rand Paul is shot by crazy Democrats who insist that all women work, and who are incensed at the fact that the President’s aide has a wife who does not work outside the home?  This plot would have been equally far-fetched, and slanderous to Democrats.

The use of such unscrupulous methods, like smearing conservatives with fictional TV programs, or shooting your political opposition when they are too successful,  is called Alinsky tactics.   Radical progressives seem to be using Alinsky tactics with a rapidly accelerating frequency today.

Alinsky Tactics Today

Global

Few liberals are aware that Hillary Clinton’s undergraduate senior thesis at Wellesley College focused on an analysis of Alinsky tactics, or that Hillary refrained in that thesis from addressing the morality or legality of such tactics.  Hillary Clinton also seemed to employ some Alinsky’s methods in her recent position as United States Secretary of State.  This included lying to the United Nations to misrepresent Catholic Church teaching, in order to to expand global abortion, and more recently, lying to cover up the Benghazi fiasco.

National

Even the “mainstream media” has acknowledged in recent weeks the increasingly underhanded methods used by the Obama administration to combat their political opponents.  The triple Obama administration scandals which are now surfacing involve the abuse of power by the IRS to undermine conservative organizations, the  abuse of power by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to keep tabs on Associated Press reporters, and lies and manipulations at many levels in the State Department to cover up the Terrorist attack that took place at Benghazi.

As of today, 76% of Americans, and 63% of Democrats, want the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the targeting of conservative groups by the IRS.

It is not surprising to note, in the light of these shocking abuses of power by the Obama administration, that Barack Obama taught Alinksy tactics in Chicago.

The Obama administration, if guilty of governing through the abuse of power and use of intimidation, will be guilty of a scandal that dwarfs President Nixon’s Watergate scandal, which occurred almost exactly 40 years ago .

 State and City Level

A previous summary of the underhanded tactics used by Democrats and by Unions in Wisconsin in 2011-2012 can be found in the article entitled Circus Madison Goes On.., written two years ago in August 2011 to document the unscrupulous goings on in my home town, yet still one of my most popular articles today.

Shooting at the Opposition

Apparently, despite all their anti-gun rhetoric, many “progressives” today, including the present leadership of the Democrat party, advocate “taking out” their opposition by any means available, ethical or unethical, legal or illegal.  Whenever their opponents do something right, progressive radicals get out their big guns!

Whenever conservatives begin to gain the edge, the Obama administration sends out the State Department, Department of Justice and the IRS, Hollywood gets out it’s progressive programming, the Freedom From Religion Foundation gets out their frivolous lawsuits, and intimidation begins, even at small potatoes like me.

Hey, Now They’re Shooting at Me!

If Charlie’s observation is correct, that “If They’re Shooting at You, You Know You’re Doing Something Right!,”then I should be glowing with pride.  I must be doing something right.

My SyteReitz.com website weathered a Denial of Service Attack (DoS) attack just before Memorial Day, a somewhat sophisticated and highly illegal form of cyber attack usually reserved for high-profile organizations such as banking, commerce, and media companies, or government and trade organizations. DoS attacks constitute a serious federal crime in the US, the United Kingdom, and in many other countries.  Violators can be sentenced to prison for up to 10 years.  Somebody must want to shut me down pretty badly, if they are risking 10 years in prison!

Not to worry, my web-guru/guardian angel/son who is also my hosting company, detected, defused and dispatched the offending miscreants, who were hijacking computers as far away as Germany to aim their futile dirty work at my site.

BTW, anybody in need of some outstanding web development and services would do well to check out ReitzInternet.com.

So Who’s Shooting at Me?

So who could be trying to shut down my website’s message?

Investigation has just started, but a search for suspects would logically start with opponents of the most popular blog posts.

This month’s web stats show surprisingly heavy traffic to some older articles, still very apropos today.
At the top of the list:

• Circus Madison Goes On… which documented the radical Circus that occurred in Madison in 2011-2012 during the Madison Capitol occupation by union demonstrators, and the ensuing political battles culminating in the unsuccessful recall attempt on Governor Walker.
• The Presumptive Nominee, or the Secret Insurrection, which argued before the 2012 election that the choice of Romney was foolish, and that a more conservative nominee would have stood a much better chance of defeating Obama in the election.
• The Update on the Catholic Child Abuse Scandals, which documented the fact that Catholic priests are selectively targeted by the media when in fact they are the lowest frequency group of offenders in all of society.
• Freedom From Religion Contracting Leprosy and Dissolving in Shame?or A Double Standard, in which a FindLaw.com article is described, which accuses the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF)  of being “hell-bent on attacking Christians.” (SyteReitz.com has been defending the Catholic Church from attack by the FFRF since January of 2011, when FFRF publicly opposed the rebuilding of a Catholic student center at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.)
• Abortion- a Much Bigger Deal Than You Think – in which the the hidden agenda and the repercussions of liberal abortion policy are discussed.

Not Worried Here

So the radicals are shooting at us; we must be doing something right.
We don’t shoot; we pray.

They prepared a snare for my feet; and they bowed down my soul. They dug a pit before my face, and they are fallen into it.            – Psalm 56:7 -David, when he fled from Saul into a cave.

Riches shall not profit in the day of revenge: but justice shall deliver from death. The justice of the upright shall make his way prosperous: and the wicked man shall fall by his own wickedness. The justice of the righteous shall deliver them: and the unjust shall be caught in their own snares.  -Proverbs 11:4-6

 

Defying God on Stage and in Real Life- and Falling into Traps

Ironically, West Wing featured an episode in which liberal President Bartlet cursed God out in Latin in the cathedral, purposely lighting a cigarette and stomping it out on the cathedral floor in derision.
This reflects a disrespectful attitude toward God that is prevalent among progressives today, and which is very apparent in today’s Obama administration’s disregard for life, for truth, and for religious liberty.

In West Wing, President Bartlet was played by actor Martin Sheen, father of Charlie Sheen. In real life, actor Martin Sheen considers himself a Catholic, despite his continuous support of Democratic pro-choice politicians and his support of same-sex marriage.  His son Charlie Sheen is best known for his role in the morally shocking TV serial Two and a Half Men, and for his substance abuse, felony menacing, third-degree assault and criminal mischief charges that have put him in the news.  Two and a Half Men portrays a hedonistic and dysfunctional household which includes an adolescent boy challenged by his parents’ divorce and witnessing the promiscuous lifestyle of his uncle daily. Aside from the potential influence of such a program on our entire culture, one has to wonder at the involvement of a child actor in such a plot.
The Sheen family, sadly, is living the agony of those who fall for the traps.

Back to Reality – The Obama Administration

We now watch the drama unfold, as the Obama administration, having set so many traps for so many, is starting to step into it’s own traps.

Ironically, ABC news just referred to Obama’s recent scandals as the “Scandal Trident,” writing that “There were developments today on each spear of the scandal trident currently bearing down on the West Wing.”  Wonder what inspired Byron Wolf of ABC to use the trident analogy?  The trident is known as a symbol of Satan. And Satan has no love for humans beings, not even for those who have fallen for his bait. So the mental image presented by secular (non-religious) ABC, of a trident bearing down on the West Wing of the White House, is a very interesting one, indeed.

My guess is that President Obama may soon be squirming and suffering.  We take no pleasure in that, other than the hope that America will see the error of “progressive ways” (Alinsky’s book was dedicated to Lucifer, or Satan), and will return to conservative and ethical government as codified in the Constitution of the United States, which is based on Judeo-Christian values and on the Ten Commandments.

President Obama on Children- ‘Our First Task’

President Obama on protecting our children from violence:

“They had their entire lives ahead of them; birthdays, graduations, weddings (wipes away a tear), kids of their own…
This is our first task – caring for our children.  If we don’t get that right, we don’t get anything right.
That’s how, as a society, we will be judged.
And by that measure, can we honesty say that we are doing enough, to keep our children, all of them, safe from harm?
I’ve been reflecting on this the last few days, and if we’re honest with ourselves, the answer is NO.”

See 2-minute video:

If protecting our children from violence is “Our First Task,” why is Obama not going after the primary causes of child death?

Some Child Death Statistics:

Annual child deaths, U.S.: 10,000
Leading causes of death: Accidents & unintentional injuries: 3,200

Deaths by Motor vehicle accident: 1418
Deaths from assault: 1,000
Deaths from accidental drowning: 726

Deaths from injury by firearms: 380
Deaths by suicide: 274
Deaths by firearms, intentional: 219

Is intentional death by firearms the best place for President Obama to focus if he wants to protect children?
Shouldn’t the focus be accidents, or motor vehicles, or drowning, or suicide?
Why is President Obama focusing on one of the smallest dangers and the least of possibilities?
See graph for comparison:

 

 

Now, let’s add a bit more data: children’s lives lost by abortion:

Annual child death by abortion: 1.2 million

See what the graph looks like now:

President Obama is actually promoting the leading cause of child death in the United States, abortion, which outnumbers the sum of all other child deaths by a factor of more than one hundred!

Abortion kills 120 times more children than all other causes of death combined, and abortion kills 5,500 times more children than intentional firearms do.

 

Obama Should Listen to the Children coming to Washington on January 25th, 2013, for the March for Life –

  -An event ignored annually by the mainstream media, despite attendance by 500,000 Americans who travel to Washington to protest Roe v. Wade each year.

Listen to the 500,000 opposing abortion, Mr. President!
Not your politically hand-picked four:

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Other tyrants who have used children as props(from Infowars.com) :

 

 

 

The Baby

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Reflection for January 2013:
Where would we be without the Baby?

Babies are such an assumed part of life, that few stop to think where we would be without babies.
Yet without babies, civilization would grind to a halt in less than 50 years.
We would all lie around in unstaffed nursing homes, with nobody to take care of us.
Getting rid of babies, even just a portion of them, contributes more to the demise of our civilization than some potential global warming or some imagined asteroid hit.

Babies replenish the human race.
Babies people the planet.
Babies turn into adults, who do the work.
Babies turn into taxpayers, who pay the bills.
Babies have always been around, and there has never been a shortage of them (until now).

God’s Wisdom

God in His wisdom designed the human race as male and female, designed the love between man and woman to be powerful, faithful and fruitful, providing a constant source of babies born out of that love.  God instructed us on how to live out that love in the family, the most basic and most successful method for the perpetuation of the human race.

The success of the family in the continuation of the human race rests in the sacrificial love found only in the family.
The family reflects the same sacrificial love God showed for us on His Cross.
The family reflects Christ’s kind of love, which gives up one’s life for others, as good parents would for the child that they love.

The Importance of the Baby

God, in addition to designing babies into the perpetuation of the human race, chose to come to us himself as a baby.

This says something. On the part of God, it was a very intentional and meaningful choice.

God could have come as a King, a warrior, a wise man, a superman, or even as an alien form of life.  He could have come as a teenager, as a woman, or as someone who is 130 years old.
He could have come as bodiless spirit with super powers (as Himself).

But God chose to come to us as a baby.
God also chose to retain the humility and the lack of worldliness which are characteristic of a baby throughout His life, in order to illustrate to us how we should live, and what is of utmost importance in this life.

We just finished celebrating the Nativity of Christ at Christmas.
In His arrival as a baby, God illustrated to us all the essential elements of a holy and successful family.
One man, one woman, for a lifetime, welcoming children.

Babies in History

God came to earth as a baby.
He survived Herod’s slaughter of baby boys by fleeing to Egypt, guided by his father Joseph, who was guided by God in a dream.
Apparently Herod knew the potential one baby can represent.
Long before that, Pharaoh knew the potential one baby can represent; Pharoah slaughtered all Hebrew babies in an attempt to get rid of Moses.

Today, many have forgotten the importance, the sacredness, and the potential of babies, as well as of all human life.

Today, we contracept and abort away our babies, our  future citizens, out of some misguided and short sighted attempt to avoid inconvenience.

Abortion: Convenience, or Suicidal Act?

Regrettably, in addition to taking away another human being’s right to life, the “convenience” achieved by the elimination of a baby is extremely short lived.  The guilt, the loss and the mourning caused by abortion overwhelms us, and our lives are damaged, not improved.  We deprive ourselves of our own children, and deprive our society of its future citizens.  We also suffer the economic impact of eliminating millions of human beings from future contribution to our nation.

Steve Jobs was almost aborted, but was put up for adoption instead. How fortunate!
President Obama, as the black child of a single mother, would today have faced a 77% probability of abortion. Is he grateful for his gift of life?  Was that gift from God, or was it from his parents, and should parents have the right to dispose of a child?  If disposal before birth is O.K., why not after birth?

One child can change the world, and it is not for us to decide which child lives and which child dies.  When we do that, we try to play God ourselves.

How Many Babies Do We Need?

God used to do a pretty good job of determining how many babies we need.
Now, if want to take over that job, the moral implications of terminating millions of lives aside, it would be wise to figure out how many babies our society needs.

For starters, we need to replace ourselves; an ever-shrinking society cannot maintain its infrastructure or take care of its aged.
It’s obvious that each married couple needs to have 2 children to replace themselves.

Plus another to make up for those who don’t marry?

Catholics used to have a tradition of firstborn sons going into the priesthood, and of encouraging at least one daughter to enter the convent.  The resulting supply of priests and religious who staff the Churches, schools, charitable institutions, orphanages and hospitals, helped families to raise moral and upstanding children, and helped to benefit all of humanity throughout the centuries.  These spiritual servants did not marry, did not have children, and had to be replaced in the society. So married couples should have a third child at least, to allow some of their children to make such saintly and dedicated career choices in life.

Disease, plague and accidents also claim lives. More replacements needed.
Some people are not fertile.  They have to be replaced as well.
Better add child #4 to the family.

So any determination of number of babies needed should account for all of the above factors and needs.  And the number of babies needed from each fertile couple is not going to be, by any calculation zero, nor one or two.  Those of us who do not have at least 4 children, unless we have fertility problems, are not pulling our weight, as far at the perpetuation of the human race is concerned.

And for every married couple with zero children, we need a married couple with 8 children.
May God bless large families and may the rest of us celebrate them and support them!

(BTW, for those looking for an economic motivation to add to moral and loving motivations, large families tend to take care of their elderly themselves, rather than relying on your taxpayer money and on nursing homes to take care of their elderly.  And their elderly are happier and healthier.)

The Job of Raising a Baby

The job of raising a Baby is the most important job in the world.
The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.

Babies raised with sacrificial love, most often found in parental love, can  turn into heroes and saints like Abraham Lincoln and Pope John Paul the Great.
Babies who are neglected or abused can often turn into cruel monsters like Saddam Hussein and Hitler, who were mistreated as children.
Those who rocked the cradles of these babies (or didn’t) are responsible, to some degree, for the deeds of the children.

The raising of a baby is important.  It brings the potential for the greatest joy, the greatest achievement, and the greatest fulfillment in life.
It also requires the greatest sacrifice and work, and brings the potential for the greatest heartache.  The Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Mother of Our Lord attest to that.

Ultimately, no matter what choices we make,  paradise will elude us on earth; our lives will contain both hardships and blessings.
Eradicating babies from our lives will not eliminate hardship from our lives; discarding babies will simply eliminate beauty and love from our lives.

Not a Union Job

The raising of a baby is not a 9 to 5 job.
It’s not accomplished in a few years.
You don’t get summers off.
Other people cannot be paid to perform the sacrificial level of service that a loving mother and father routinely provide for their children.
And, with all due respect to teachers, teachers and their unions do not provide all that is needed by a child; they can only complement, at best, the essential love, care, nurture and training that the parents provide.  You will never find an employee who provides the same level of love and sacrifice for a child that a parent can provide. The likelihood that teachers unions, which look out not for the welfare of the child, but for the comfort and benefits of union bosses and of teachers, the likelihood that these unions will substitute adequately for absentee parents or for working parents, is virtually zero.

A recent attempt to close the racial achievement gap in Madison, Wisconsin, with the establishment of a special school, Madison Prep, failed.  The failure was partially due the the fact that union regulations would not permit teachers to provide the sacrificial levels of time and dedication that would be required when attempting to compensate for reduced family and community involvement in the raising of children.
No union, kibbutz, nor Hillary Clinton’s “village” will compensate for the absence of devoted parents in the raising of a child.
Success in the rearing of quality human beings is always tied to love, to time, to adult involvement and to adult-student ratio, as has been proved repeatedly with “Big Brother” and other programs through  which adults invest time and love in children.

The Hardest, Yet the Most Rewarding

Despite the time-intensive hard work and sacrifice involved in child rearing,  when people are asked, in old age, what had given them the most joy in life,  they inevitably answer that a good marriage and their children provide them with the greatest joy and satisfaction, above all other things in life.

Responsibilities in Life

Most would agree that each of us is not born for the sole purpose of existing and being pampered and served by others.
Honestly, where would these people for serving us come from, anyway?  Who in their right mind would volunteer to be our servants when they could demand to be masters themselves?

So, particularly in democratic societies, we accept the fact that we are not born entitled to servants, and most of us have to work.  We have to do our laundry.  We have to shovel the snow, and we have to pay our taxes.

Neglect of work is even addressed in the Bible:

If anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat” – 2 Thessalonians 3:10.

So why would the perpetuation of the human race be considered optional, if all other work is not optional?

Are we entitled to evade the hard work of parenting, then to demand that the children of others look after us sacrificially and lovingly in our old age?
Will paid employees and union workiers show us the same kind of care we would get from our children?
Is not the raising of children a duty and a responsibility?
A duty which, incidentally, also provides the greatest satisfaction and joy in life?
The raising of a family remains the biggest source of love and satisfaction on earth.

Those who choose to discard their children through contraception and abortion are shortsightedly hurting themselves,  as well as hurting the entire society.

The Irony of Our Situation in 2013

The economic situation we are suffering in the United States at the moment, the staggering debt and the shortage of tax income, is due, in part, to the fact that we are starting to feel the shortage of young people and of babies which started in 1973 with the legalization of abortion by Roe v. Wade on January 21, 1973.

Since then, we have eliminated 54 million citizens from age 0 to 40.  And their potential children are missing. There are probably 100 million citizens, aged 0 to 40, missing from the United States right now.  That would be about 1/4 of the nation missing.
Our national deficit, the amount we are missing from taxes, is also about 1/4; 1/4 of the national budget is missing.
Coincidence?
Or lack of foresight, lack of planning, and cumulative effects of lack of baby-appreciation since 1973?

Baby-Appreciation Deficit

Baby-appreciation is at an all-time low in 2013.
Now we have the most pro-abortion President in U.S. history  in office.  Ironically, this is a man who would probably have been aborted himself, if abortion had been legal at the time of his birth.

• He is so pro-abortion that he supports the killing of a baby born accidentally in a botched 9-month term partial-birth abortion.  He voted for that while he was Senator.
• He is so pro-abortion that he supports the abortion of his own grandchildren.
• He is so pro-abortion that he has forced mandates on religious employers, forcing the employers to provide abortifacient drugs to their employees, against their own religious beliefs.  He added this emphasis on abortion after promising his pro-life Democrat colleagues (Stupak and his 11) that ObamaCare would not include abortion.

We now have a President who has forced abortion onto America, against the wishes of 2/3 of the American population, by deception and through lies.

An Ironic Historical Omen?

This first radically pro-abortion President will be re-inaugurated on January 21, 2013.
President Obama’s re-inauguration should have been one day earlier, on January 20, 2013.   But this year January 20th fell on a Sunday, so the date was pushed to Monday, January 21, 2013.
January 21, 2013  is, ironically, the eve of the 40th anniversary of the legalization of abortion in the United States by the Supreme Court Decision Roe v. Wade on January 22, 1973.
Our most radically pro-abortion President will be re-inaugurated on the last day marking 40 years of abortion in  the United States, when the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalized abortion and started the elimination of now 1/4 of the population in the United States.

Christians (80% of us) realize the significance of the number 40 in salvation history:

• The Great Flood – 40 days
• The Exodus – 40 years
• Goliath challenging the Israelites – 40 days
• 40 lashes meted out by the Sanhedrin
• Christ’s fast and prayer in the desert – 40 days
• Resurrection to Ascension – 40 days
• Lent – 40 days

The increased ardor of pro-life prayer and pro-life political activity in recent years, particularly during the time approaching the last November 6, 2012 election, inspired many to believe that the election would displace Barack Obama from the Presidency and that the tide of abortion in the United States would be reversed.
This obviously did not occur.
My faith in God makes me suspect that although we did not guess God’s plan, all the prayers and efforts have not been in vain.  Those who wait and watch patiently will see the hand of God operating quietly in response to our prayers.

A Personal Note

Reflecting on babies in January is a personal pleasure for me, since my two sons were January babies.  They are no longer babies, but still, together with my husband, they are the joy of my life.
The joy and satisfaction of having their freindship does not approach in any way the satisfaction I have enjoyed from any other pursuit, professional or recreational.

Happy Birthday today to one of my January no-longer-babies!
Then Happy Birthday eleven days from now, to the other January no-longer-baby.
What’s my husband’s birthday?  All Saints Day. Really. 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Roe v. Wade Turns 40

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Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion,
was issued on January 22, 1973.

This January 22, 2013, will commemorate
the 40th anniversary of that Supreme Court decision.

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To date, 55 million infants have been aborted in the United States, and are missing from our ranks as a nation.
55 million of us were not born, were not baptized, did not graduate, did not marry, did not have children, and did not contribute to the world in all areas, including philosophy, science, art, and religion.
At least one out of 6 Americans is missing.  If these children, who would now be 40, also had children, as many as one quarter of all Americans could be missing by now.

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One person who escaped abortion very narrowly, yet lived to contribute mind-boggling contributions to our society’s present capabilities, was Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple.  What would our world be now, without Steve Jobs?

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President Obama is another example of a person who might have been aborted, if Roe v. Wade had been legal at the time he was born.  As the black child of a single mother,  his chances of being aborted would have been extremely high. 77% of African-American pregnancies are aborted right now, a black child is 5 times as likely to be aborted as a white child.
Numerous potential Presidents may have been aborted in these past forty years.

Abortion is one of the biggest killers of history, and abortion is a much bigger deal than most people think.

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A Striking Coincidence

President Barack Hussein Obama,
the most radically pro-abortion President in United States history,
will be re-inaugurated on January 21, 2013,
the eve of the 40th anniversary,
of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision.

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The Significance of the number 40 for Christians

The number 40 is a very meaningful number in Judeo Christian history.

• During the Old Testament great flood, rain fell for forty nights and forty days, during which all living beings on earth perished, except those on Noah’s ark.
• Spies explored the land of Israel for forty days (Numbers 13).
• The Old Testament Exodus from Egypt lasted 40 years, with the Jewish people wandering the Sinai desert. This period of years represents the time it takes for a new generation to arise.
• Moses’ life is divided into 40 year segments in the Old Testament.
• Eli, Saul, David, and Solomon, Jewish leaders and kings of the Old Testament, ruled for forty years.
• Goliath challenged the Israelites twice a day for forty days before David defeated him.
• Moses spend three consecutive periods of forty days and forty nights on Mount Sinai.
• 40 lashes is one of the punishments meted out by the Sanhedrin.
• Christ fasted and prayed in the desert for 40 days prior to His Temptation, Ministry, Passion, Death and Resurrection.
• Forty days was the period from the Resurrection of Jesus to His Ascension into Heaven.
• Lent consists of the forty days preceding Easter.

Madison Will Commemorate 40 Years with Prayer

Madison will commemorate the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade on January 12, 2013, by praying the rosary on the steps of the Wisconsin State Capitol. This event is sponsored by Pro-Life Wisconsin, Vigil for Life Madison, and the Diocese of Madison.
Details can be found in the flyer pictured below and the PDF flyer here.

January 12th, 2013
11AM at the State Street Steps of the Wisconsin State Capitol
Madison’s Capitol Square
Put It on Your Calendar
Come and Join Us!

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……

America Chooses…

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From today’s Liturgy of the Hours:

Psalm 84 (85)
Our salvation is very near

Lord, you blessed your land; you forgave the guilt of your people.

O Lord, you once favoured your land
and revived the fortunes of Jacob,
you forgave the guilt of your people
and covered all their sins.
You averted all your rage,
you calmed the heat of your anger.

Revive us now, God, our helper!
Put an end to your grievance against us.
Will you be angry with us for ever,
will your anger never cease?

Will you not restore again our life
that your people may rejoice in you?
Let us see, O Lord, your mercy
and give us your saving help.

I will hear what the Lord God has to say,
a voice that speaks of peace,
peace for his people and his friends
and those who turn to him in their hearts.
His help is near for those who fear him
and his glory will dwell in our land.

Mercy and faithfulness have met;
justice and peace have embraced.
Faithfulness shall spring from the earth
and justice look down from heaven.

The Lord will make us prosper
and our earth shall yield its fruit.
Justice shall march before him
and peace shall follow his steps.

Glory to the Father and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit:
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever. Amen.

Lord, you blessed your land; you forgave the guilt of your people.

 

For Judeo-Christian values and for the Constitution of the United States

Heckling the Rosary

or

Renaming the Wisconsin State Journal

 

Don’t Diss My Church

One of the prime goals of this cultural values blog is to defend my religion, Catholicism, against the regrettably frequent and unjust attacks we suffer, particularly in Madison, WI.
One of this blog’s first blog categories was “Don’t Diss My Church.”
And in Madison, the Wisconsin State Journal has provided more than it’s fair share of imbalanced reporting on Catholics, frequently fueling my blog.

Why Pray the Rosary at Madison’s Capitol Square?

Now that the Obama administration has embarked on restricting the religious freedom of Catholics, Madison Catholics have begun praying the rosary on Thursday evenings on the Madison Capitol steps, to beg God’s help in the restoration of religious freedom to our nation. 

Madison’s Rosary Rally gatherings attract 150-300 quiet, polite people each week.  The crowd includes families with small children, young singles, and many grandparents as well.  The Catholics gather quietly after business hours, do not disrupt Capitol business, leave no litter behind, do no shouting, carry no vuvuzelas, whistles or drums, and don’t even carry signs.  They come, they pray for our nation, and they leave quietly, leaving no damage in their wake.

Who Heckles Children Praying the Rosary?

About 3 to 10 ne’er-do-wells have started showing up at these rosary events, attempting to disrupt them. Their tactics include shouting four letter words from across the street, mocking the rosary, carrying rude signs mentioning private body parts, and all the usual aggressive radical left tactics Wisconsin has witnessed at recent teacher union protests, and at Madison Pro-Life rallies (which radicals have routinely tried to disrupt in recent years, and where they have even been known to get up in pulpits at Library Mall and perform strip-tease dances in front of children with literally only God knows what motivation).
Teacher union protest tactics:

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Is the Wisconsin State Journal Heckling the Rosary?

So, Doug Erickson, the “religion” reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal (WSJ), instead of covering the story from the perspective of the hundreds of Catholics participating in the Capitol Rosary Rally who represent one quarter of America, covered the story instead from the perspective of the handful of rude hecklers.

Doug chose the headline:

Critics: ‘Rosary rallies’ at Capitol thinly disguised GOP pep fests

Better Headlines not considered by WSJ:

• Catholics Pray for Restoration of Religious Freedom
• Families Pray for the Coming Election
• Family Values Defended in Public Prayer
• Prayer Brought to Madison’s Downtown Capitol
• New Peaceful Standard Set for Disagreeing With Government
• Prayer and Civility Replaces Anger and Rage at Madison’s Capitol
• Contrasting Teacher Union Protests and Capitol Rosary in Madison

I have participated in many of the Rallies, and I can attest to the fact that Doug Erickson’s implication that Rosary Rallies are “pep-fests” could not be further from the truth.

A More Accurate Headline:

WSJ  Rosary Rally Article- Thinly Disguised Radical Dem Propaganda

 

Thinly Disguised Radical Dem Propaganda Headline

The Wisconsin State Journal’s misleading headline was amplified by a factor of 118,000 through its State-wide circulation, and the whole of Wisconsin was misinformed.  Not to mention online readers, or readers of spin-off articles such as those at the LaCrosse Tribune, Yahoo News or the Orlando Sentinel.

The Wisconsin State Journal gave voice to a handful of hecklers and dissidents rather than to hundreds of serious Catholics, who represent the beliefs of 25% of the American population  and 25% of Madison’s population.

Who are These Hecklers Favored by the Wisconsin State Journal?

Rosary Heckler Number One

One individual quoted in Doug Erickson’s article is Craig Spaulding, who presumed to know the motivations of the Catholics and declared the prayer rally to be partisan and to be GOP.
Doug Erickson failed to mention who Craig Spaulding was —  he did not mention that Craig Spaulding is a fringe radical Madison activist who was arrested (more than once) during the teacher’s union protests, who had to be carried out of the Senate gallery by ten officers for violating rules, and who is a member of the anarchist International Workers of the World, which favors “direct action,”  in place of using democratic channels. Craig Spaulding is also involved with Occupy Wisconsin,  participates regularly in the frequent Capitol lunch sing-a-long protests, and used to own the most troublesome drinking establishment on Capitol Square, which was famous for it’s “underwear parties.” It is not clear whether Craig Spaulding is a paid union protester . Craig is listed as a delinquent taxpayer owing over $33,000 in taxes.

Here’s a You Tube showing the Capitol lunch protesters with whom Craig Spaulding participated frequently and which forced Capitol Tour Guides to wear ear plugs; the group whose perspective the Wisconsin State Journal favors over the perspective of Catholics praying the Rosary at the Capitol:

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Second Rosary Critic

Second Rosary Critic

Another individual quoted by the WSJ article is one of the co-presidents of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), Annie Laurie Gaylor, who personally protested at the Stand Up For Religious Freedom Rally last June 8^th, and who made no objections while her husband and co-President of FFRF Dan Barker repeatedly heckled praying children and scandalized them by shouting sexually suggestive remarks addressed to the children.

Annie Laurie Gaylor and FFRF are in a minority not only because they are atheists, but particularly because they are a miniscule minority among atheists themselves.  They constitute only 0.1 of 1% of atheists, or one out of a thousand atheists.  That’s right, 999 out of 1,000 atheists, unlike Gaylor and FFRF, are tolerant of 80% Christian America, of 25% Catholic America, and have no problem with our legally established American right to public prayer which President Obama periodically exercises.  Gaylor and her FFRF, whom the Wisconsin State Journal chose to quote in this article, constitute the angry radical fringe, which represents only one out of 33 thousand people, or 0.003 of 1% of the population of America.

Third Rosary Heckler

Another Rosary heckler (not mentioned by the Wisconsin State Journal article) made herself known to me when her braggadocio arrived in my inbox, through an online discussion in which I had participated.  She belatedly joined a discussion which I had previously viewed as a reasonable and constructive conversation with a Madison LGBT activist, and which started when I objected to the activist’s treatment of the first Capitol Rosary Rally and of Bishop Morlino on his blog.

Aside: Since that time, the LGBT activist has begun censoring comments published on his blog, selecting supportive radical comments for publication, and declining to publish further discussion with me.  I guess there are limits to the “Bluebird’s” willingness to discuss truth, after all, particularly when he and his friends start losing the argument.  Turns out, he’s also a regular at the Lunchtime Solidarity Singers at the Capitol, who drive tour guides to wear ear protection.

Back to the third Rosary heckler: her name is Genie Ogden.  Genie bragged in the online discussion that she heckles the Rosary Rally weekly, boos, and sings “Solidarity Forever” at Catholics who are singing hymns.  Genie, like Craig Spaulding, was also a regular member of the Capitol lunchtime “Sing-a-Longs,” the fringe minority who continues to make noise at the Madison Capitol at lunchtime, despite Governor Walker’s re-election by an even larger majority in Wisconsin than he enjoyed in his first election.

Perhaps Genie is looking for new outlets for her anger, now that the recall is over.  The You Tube of “Solidarity” protesters (to which Craig and Genie belonged, the noise of which drove people to wear ear protection) was presented above.

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Just over a week ago, Genie Ogden was arrested for demonstrating with signs without a permit at the State Capitol.  She routinely protests with her daughter, who publicly approves lawlessness, such as the pouring of beer on conservative legislator’s heads, or throwing rotten fruit at them.

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Do these rosary hecklers/solidarity singers really believe that such actions would be persuasive and would bolster their cause?

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Genie, like Doug Spaulding and FFRF, tried to claim that the Rosary Rallies are political, and that they constitute a violation of separation of Church and State.  What she does not seem to realize is that neither she, nor other liberals, can divine the thoughts of others, and that the mention of Governor Walker and of Paul Ryan once in the course of thirteen Rosary Rallies, in the context of being answers to prayers, reflects a pro-life, not a Republican position.  Democrat Stupak and his 11 Democrat supporters were an equal blessing and an equal answer to prayer when they stood up for the exclusion of abortion from ObamaCare.
The pro-life beliefs of Catholics are not political; they are ethical.

 

.Rosary Hecklers in General

The Rosary Hecklers and critics above exhibit a bigoted and tyrannical attitude, denying to others the rights that the hecklers enjoy themselves.

Solidarity union activists like Craig and Genie, and LGBT activists like the Bluebird, reserve the right to use Madison’s Capitol Square for themselves to promote their own (minority) views and social agendas, but they seem to miss the hypocrisy in denying the use of the Capitol Square to praying Christians, who represent many more people than they do- a fact ignored by WSJ reporters.

The right to public prayer has actually been constitutionally upheld numerous times. Yet the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) continues to attack public prayer wherever they think they can win, through legal intimidation of groups with small budgets, like the town of Marshfield, WI.

The feeble attempts made by Craig, Annie and Genie to label Rosary Rallies events as political

also reflects a judgmental attitude; they claim to know the motivation of others.  After misjudging their target’s motivation, many “progressives” continue by attacking and violating the rights of those with whom they disagree. The Constitution does not guarantee a Right to Hateful Harassment.  Moreover, the effectiveness of such tactics in promoting one’s cause are highly dubious.

I am proud to say that I have never gone to any Madison Capitol Square event to boo, heckle, curse, scream, disrupt or to counter-protest.  I don’t engage in hateful behavior towards those with whom I disagree.  Prayer is a much more civilized (and more productive) response.  My sentiments are representative of those of Rosary Rally attendees.

Ignoring Two Thirds of America

Doug Erickson missed the boat completely by covering the Rosary Rally story from the perspective of a few radical protesters, and by omitting the concerns of two thirds of America.

The Rosary Rallies actually represent the majority of Wisconsin and of America.
The Catholics at the Rally represent all religions in America, which were recently galvanized and united by the religious freedom violations of the HHS Mandate. Numerous religions joined Catholics in opposing these violations of the First Amendment, an amendment which all religions value.  Orthodox Christian Bishops, Protestant Theological Seminary chancellors, Presbyterian Bishops, Southern Baptists, Lutherans Evangelical Lutherans and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America have rallied to support the Catholic Church in upholding the Catholic position on the HHS mandate.  This is what Doug Erickson has failed to cover in his reporting.

The Rosary Rallies are large, peaceful, sustained, and they represent the reasonable Judeo-Christian views and the civilized demeanor of at least two thirds of America.

• Two thirds of America supports the Catholic Church against the HHS Mandate’s violation of our religious freedoms.
• Two thirds of America opposes federal funding of abortion.
• More than two thirds of America (80%) is Christian.
• More than two thirds of America (82%) prays regularly, 47% pray daily.
• More than two thirds of America (83%) say God answers prayers.
• Two Thirds of America supports prayer in public schools.
• 53% of Americans favor repeal of ObamaCare (43% opposed).
• Twice as many American are conservative as liberal
• Numerous religions, including Baptists, Evangelicals and Jews, support the Catholic position in Stand Up for Religious Freedom, the program which gave birth to this Rosary Rally.

In ignoring the perspective of Catholics at the Rosary Rally in favor of the perspective of a couple fringe radicals, Doug Erickson has ignored 2/3 of America.   He has ignored the majority of America’s opposition to federally funded abortion policy, and he has ignored the social consequences of such abortion policy, which has already resulted in shocking coerced abortion rates of 64% .   Abortion is a much bigger deal than most people think .

Ignoring Religious Leaders:
Evangelical Pastors Join Catholics in the Defense of Religious Liberty

The national Religious Liberty debate has been ignored by WSJ, in favor of reporting speculations by a couple of “progressives” on the motivations of Catholics at prayer.

The Catholic Church is not the only group defending religious liberty in the wake of the HHS Mandate.

Evangelical Christian pastors have just organized a bold and courageous protest against the muzzling of moral leaders in America, and in support of religious freedom. On October 7, 2012, “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” will be celebrated.  More than 1,000 pastors will preach sermons from the pulpit talking about the candidates running for office and then making a specific recommendation.  The sermons will be recorded and sent to the IRS.  The pastors expect the IRS to try to enforce a 1954 IRS tax code amendment forbidding tax-exempt organizations from participating in discussion of candidates for public office.  When the IRS tries to revoke tax-exempt status and to impose an excise tax on them, the pastors will welcome the court battle.  They claim that the 1954 IRS tax code amendment is blatantly unconstitutional, and they welcome an official evaluation of the amendment in court.
This effort is sponsored by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal ministry formed 18 years ago for the defense of religious freedom through strategy, training, funding and litigation.

Not the First Time WSJ Has Slanted the News

Slanted reporting in the Wisconsin State Journal is not new, nor surprising. Their coverage of the 2011 Teacher’s Union Protests was equally misleading and predisposed toward the  “progressive” viewpoint. Lawlessness and misconduct was not reported, both on the part of demonstrators who trashed the Capitol, and on the part of Democrat officials who conspired to block the legal process.  WSJ coverage was so slanted and misleading, that this blogger took to reporting what’s really happening in Wisconsin on my blog.

The WSJ also gives the tiny Freedom From Religion Foundation quite a bit of favorable press.  Again, a fringe radical group (0.003 of 1% of Americans) gets favored coverage over mainstream Wisconsin.

Twisting and Misrepresenting Catholicism

Coverage of Catholicism in the WSJ has frequently been unprofessionally imbalanced.

Just this week, Doug Erickson did a “moral analysis” of the Catholic vote.
He gave equal weight and space to dissident national co-chairman of Catholics for Obama, as he did to Bishop Morlino of Madison, who is a legitimate and accurate representative of the Catholic Church.

Catholics for Obama is a group established in 2007, with a website hosted at www.barackobama.com .  Membership numbers are not provided, but are probably a few thousand or less, based on petition signatures quoted at Catholic Democrat. According to Breitbart.com,  Catholics for Obama is dominated by the radical left wing, which promotes Alinsky “social justice” ideology.

So in Doug Erickson’s world, barakobama.com, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and a couple thousand petition signatories carry the same moral authority as a Catholic Bishop and 78 million real American Catholics.  Doug is equating the fringe 0.06 of 1% of Catholics whose theology is steered by Obama, with legitimate Catholic officials and faithful Catholics.  (Bishop Morlino’s education includes a doctorate in Moral Theology from the Gregorian University in Rome, with specialization in fundamental moral theology and bioethics.)

WSJ also recently inflamed a parish conflict with imbalanced reporting, favoring dissidents over the Catholic majority.  The dissident minority was portrayed in a favorable light over the faithful majority.

Another Doug Erickson report focused on pair of previously Catholic nuns at Holy Wisdom Monastery, who appear to be recruiting Catholics to join their feminist Sunday services in place of attending the Mass.  These nuns retain the name Benedictines, despite having rescinded their Benedictine vows and having separated themselves from the Catholic Church.  Doug Erickson reported on this fringe minority group of two very favorably, but relegated input from real Catholics, including from the Diocese of Madison, to a last paragraph entitled “detractors,” where he quoted Catholics minimally, and out of context.  A minority of two dissidents was portrayed in a favored light, while real Catholics were again downplayed.

The misrepresentation of Catholics in the Wisconsin State Journal could fill numerous blog posts (and has in the past), but the above three examples will suffice here.

For a Truthful Report on the Capitol Rosary Rally: see You Tube

The Capitol Rosary Rally,  which the Wisconsin State Journal did not bother to portray accurately, and which reflects the Christian views and the civilized demeanor of the majority of Christian America can be seen here:

Come join Catholics in the 14^th Capitol Rosary Rally tonight, Thursday, Sept 20, 2012, at the State Street steps of the Madison Capitol at 7 PM.  Come watch what real Americans do (they act civilized and pray), stand in solidarity with Christians for religious freedom in America.  All are welcome to watch, to listen, or to pray.

Discussing the Actual Issue

Something else Doug Erickson failed to do in his Capitol Rosary article was to discuss the question that his progressive friends raised; is it legal for Catholics to pray the rosary at Madison’s Capitol Square?

Answer:
Public prayer is legal.
The National Day of Prayer was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals  and President Obama supported prayer in a Presidential Proclamation on the National Day of Prayer, 2012
Congress has also just taken steps to ensure that prayer is supported at School Board Meetings.   President Obama prays and states that “We stand for religious freedom.”

So public prayer is legal, and public gatherings at the Wisconsin State Capitol are legal.

Public gatherings at Madison’s Capitol have included Farmer’s Markets, restaurant showcase events (Taste of Madison), and Wisconsin Capitol Pride, an event promoting LGBTQA acceptance and rights.
Why would Catholic gatherings be forbidden?  Why would promoting prayer for religious freedom be forbidden?

Discussing the Double Standard

WSJ failed to address this double standard of progressive Rosary critics in the article.
The progressive Rosary Hecklers quoted by WSJ demand freedom of belief and freedom of speech for themselves, but not for others.  They want the right to scream four-letter words at others across Capitol Square in the presence of children, but to forbid the words “Our Father, who art in heaven.”

Further Important Issues Omitted by the WSJ report:

• Validity of Christian claims regarding the violation of religious freedom by the HHS mandate
• Evaluation of the position of America’s moral leaders on the religious freedom issue
• Reporting the obvious differences in behavior, lawfulness and respect for the rights of others between the rosary participants and the heckling critics.

• Definition of “separation of Church and State.”
• Discussion of whether a once-in-14-prayer-rallies mention of two pro-life politicians constitutes a “violation of separation of Church and State.”
• Discussion of the very pertinent 1954 IRS code amendment, which has been used by the IRS to silence Christian pastors, but has not been subject to an examination of constitutionality by the courts.
• The effect that restrictions on religious freedom would have on the rights of progressives when in the future conservative Presidents are elected, and the effect on this country’s historical role as the safe haven for the world’s émigrés.

Suggestion: if Doug Erickson is to be the WSJ “religion” reporter, he must examine the serious issues affecting religion, rather than using his status at the WSJ to spread progressive propaganda. He should provide some professional and journalisticly ethical analysis of real religious issues.

Shame on the Wisconsin State Journal for Ethics Violations

The Wisconsin State Journal has violated the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics with this misrepresentation of Madison’s Capitol Rosary Rally.

• WSJ did not seek the truth and report it.
• WSJ did not minimize harm.
• WSJ did not act independently.
• WSJ was not accountable.

Renaming the Wisconsin State Journal

The Wisconsin State Journal should be renamed:

the Wisconsin State Journal Progressive

 

Invitation: Come and Join Us!

Come tonight, and every Thursday night at 7PM through November 1^st.

Join Catholics today in the 14^th Capitol Rosary Rally –  Thursday, Sept 20, 2012, on the State Street steps of the Madison Capitol at 7 PM.
Come watch what most Americans do (they act civilized and they pray).
Stand in solidarity with Christians for religious freedom in America.
All are welcome to watch, to listen, or to pray.

Agnostics welcome.
Atheists welcome.
Baptists welcome.
Buddhists welcome.
Catholics welcome.
Evangelicals welcome.
Jews welcome.
Lutherans welcome.
Muslims welcome
Presbyterians welcome.
All welcome, including any not mentioned above.
Invitation limited to well-behaved people who respect the rights of others.

All of us need, and will benefit from, freedom of religion (of belief), which is guaranteed to us by the First Amendment.  This freedom has been violated by President Obama’s HHS Mandate, a mandate which must be reversed.

Why Even Atheists Should Stand Against Presidential Mandates

If Presidents of the future will be permitted to issue mandates like the HHS Mandate, without popular vote, without Senate or House vote, and without Supreme Court evaluation, what mandate will the NEXT President of the United States, who may not belong to your favorite political affiliation, decree?

I may not like President Obama’s mandates.
But others, including atheists, would not like President Romney’s mandates
or President Rick Santorum’s mandates
or President Ron Paul’s mandates
or President Michelle Bachmann’s mandates.

The next President could issue a Mandate that imposes tax penalties not on Catholics, but on  International Workers Union Members,  FFRF Members, Solidarity Singers, and Madison LGBT activists-  severe, crippling penalties.  Then were would Craig, Annie, Genie and Bluebird be?  The Mandate could include penalties for Wisconsin Sate Journal reporters, too, Doug.

We all benefit from supporting freedom and democracy.
We have to coexist, so progressives should realize that in 46 days the shoe might be on the other foot.
This is still a democracy, and Presidential mandates are thinly disguised despotic edicts.

These are some of the religious, ethical and cultural issues that Doug Erickson and the WSJ should be discussing, rather than spreading the speculations of fringe progressives on the motivation of Catholics.