Eduardo Verastegui: tolerating what can't be seen?

Hello all,

I was struck this evening by something said in an Eduardo Verastegui video message posted to the Cry Action Blog. I don’t agree with all that is said in the video, at least not as it is put, but this portion conveys important and true food for thought that I would like to help pass on.

Speaking in defense of using graphic images of abortion to defend life, Mr. Verastagui says this:

“Perhaps some of you question whether it is necessary to show a video like this, and my answer is the same that they give in schools about showing movies of the Nazi holocaust. Teachers don’t show these videos in order to emotionally manipulate students. They show them because the Nazi holocaust represents a terrible evil that words alone cannot describe. The holocaust of abortion is no different. We all instinctively know that abortion is something evil and if it is something so terrible that we can’t even see it, shouldn’t we perhaps not tolerate it either?“

If you would like to see the whole video message (it’s about 4:24 long) you can see it on the Cry Action Blog by following this link.

God bless and veritas supra omnis!

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Kevin Bales on fighting modern slavery: the power of small things

Hello all!

Ever wondered how to fight slavery? Ever wondered what young people and/or people with limited resources can do to help? If you have asked yourself these questions then I highly recommend the following video to you. It won't answer all your questions probably, but it will help set you on the path to finding your own answers.



Watching this video, I was flabbergasted by the impact that "small things" can have on a global level. I've always known intellectually that small things could make a big difference but the projected impact that small things could have in fighting slavery simply shocked and convicted me. I was convicted because I see how much impact I have likely been wasting. Take for instance my love of Starbucks Caramel Macchiato's...

I am a frequent patron of the local Starbucks, frequent enough that most of the regular employee's know me by name and all of them know my regular order; a Grande Caramel Macchiato. Nothing can beat a Caramel Macchiato for a bit of relaxation and awesomeness. But, at what cost do I indulge in this treat?

Well, suppose I have 1.5 Caramel Macchiato a week (I try to limit my intake). They've raised the price this year from $4.28 to $4.60 for a GCM, so if I have 1.5 a week that = a total of $6.90. Multiply that by 52 and you get $358.80 a year spent on GCM's. If I get 2 GCM's a week, by no means something unheard of, that total number jumps to $478.40 a year spent on Grande Caramel Macchiato's.

How much does it cost to free a slave? In many parts of the world...$400...for sustainable freedom according to Kevin Bales.

Wow. I am both angry with myself by those calculations and joyfully amazed at the impact I can have!

Now tell me. What does it say of a person who refuses to do small things for God's glory?

God bless and veritas supra omnis!

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These are serious issues, Mr. Linkins

Hello all,

Be warned that this post is a bit of a departure from normal fare on this blog and I’m not bothering with the disclaimers that I normally include. If you are normal reader of this blog, just imagine the balancing (hopefully) disclaimers I usually include.

I read the Huffington Post pretty much daily. I admit that it’s a fun and engaging site, even if I disagree with most of the views and opinions of their writers and bloggers, and I enjoy the intellectual stimulation and insight into opposing views available on Huffington Post. There is also a good deal of content on the site that I am careful to skirt due to appropriateness issues, which is a disclaimer I am throwing in.

Anyway, while reading yesterday, I ran across a story about controversial statements recently made by former Pennsylvania Senator, Rick Santorum. The story includes an imbedded video of the actual comments themselves as well as a brief debate between Santorum and Al Sharpton on the Sean Hannity show. The video is worth listening to if you have 6 minutes and 59 seconds of extra time. The subject of this post though is a different article, this one by Jason Linkins. I should preface this by saying that I have never enjoyed or really read Linkins’ articles as they have never struck me as worthwhile. But this one caught my eye because of its title.

“Santorum Abortion Remark Spurs Incomplete Discussion”

Hmmmm... That got my attention. What could he be referring to?

What I read made me mad. I don’t often get angry by what people write as I accept it as a fact of life that people don’t always agree with me (which is both good and bad) and are sometimes deeply misguided; but Linkins post conveys callousness towards life that is deeply appalling. If you will bear with me, I would like to break down the relevant portions of his article by sentences and paragraphs. The rest of the article, the parts I am not breaking down, is a largely useless and snarky summation of why Santorum would say what he said. You can read it here though if you would like to see the entire context.

“Got that? In case it didn't sink in, Klein summarizes it all thusly: "Now, once again, you may not believe that a fetus is a person--but if you do, as Santorum does, this is a perfectly reasonable argument, an argument against limiting the civil rights of anyone according to race or life status."

This portion is basically summing up Joel Klein’s summation of Santorum’s beliefs regarding life. It’s a reasonable and fair summation, for which both Klein and Linkins deserve credit, though I hate to give credit for things I would expect of any decent journalist and/or opinion writer.

“Yes, okay. But I'll tell you what it isn't. It isn't a "reasonable argument" against "limiting the civil rights of anyone according" to gender. To all the people falling all over themselves to assert the fact that Santorum really believes what he says and that there are others that agree with him -- two facts that no one has actually disputed -- I'll remind you that there actually exists a sizable portion of the population who have consistently made a "reasonable argument" that women are neither chattel nor brood-mares, and that Santorum's non-alignment with that argument is what makes him a radical.”

I know something else nobody has disputed – that women are not “broodmares”. What pro-life advocate has ever said anything remotely similar to that? The closest you can get to that is the very, very small portion of the population that believes large families (i.e. as large as possible) are essentially a biblically mandate and even that is more than a considerable stretch reality. But that portion of the population is so small that it barely registers on the radar. Pro-life advocates as a group believe life begins at conception. That’s it. Being pro-life has nothing to do with making women “broodmares” and there is nothing approaching any kind of consensus among pro-life advocates concerning family size. If Linkins does not know that he has no business writing on the subject. Additionally, Linkins’ assertion that Santorum believes women to be broodmares is absurd.

“Additionally, it shouldn't be overlooked that if we're comparing fetuses to slaves, we're equating women with amoral slaveowners, and elevating the rights of the fetus over those of the woman to choose whether to proceed with a pregnancy that has significant medical risks above and beyond the actual act of parenting.”

Actually, we’re comparing slaves’ God given human rights to unborn babies God given human rights and concluding they are the same. Linkins just summed up Klein’s summary of the pro-life belief that “fetuses” are fully human and thus deserving of basic human rights so you would expect him to grasp this nuance. I guess he just doesn’t understand that we are elevating the right of one human (the fetus) to the same level as the rights of another’s (the mother).

I know people like Linkins scoff and rage at this sort of statement, but women do have reproductive rights and freedom – the freedom to reproduce or not to reproduce. To confuse that right with the “right” to terminate the life of a human is the tragic confusion of abortion advocates.

In closing his article, Linkins makes this bold and unyieldingly principled statement.

“I just wanted there to be at least one blog post on the Internet that sort of considered those matters worthy of discussion, okay?”

Wow. What would we do without this courageous cultural crusader?

Look, people can and do (obviously) disagree on such matters as the beginning of life, women’s rights, and the role of government in protecting both. All of these are very serious issues that demand and deserve very serious treatment. Santorum at least treats these issues with the gravity they deserve, while Linkins does anything but, despite his apparent conviction to the contrary. I don’t expect there will ever be strong consensus on the aforementioned issues, but I am fully convinced that voices such as Linkins will only impede good and grave thinking on these crucial life and death issues.

God bless and veritas supra omnis!

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Censor Huckleberry Finn?

Hello all,

Normally I don’t write posts “off the cuff” as I am doing now, but I was dismayed this evening to learn that NewSouth Books’ upcoming edition of Mark Twain’s 'Huckleberry Finn' will be edited to remove the “N-word” and replace it with “slave” and will do the same to an upcoming edition of 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'. The new edition will also remove the word “injun” though I have not heard and am not sure what it will be replaced with (I presume it will be something obvious like “Indian”).

What I don’t want to do is overreact. I realize this may have a limited impact for some time to come if it has a significant impact at all, but at the same time I think this has potential to be very significant in our educational system by promoting and charting a new “course” and means of writing and learning history that would be severely detrimental to learning. In my estimation, it should therefore be treated as significant.

One of the big themes in Huckleberry Finn (if not the primary “take away” lesson/theme) is the silliness, wrongheadedness and moral indefensibility of race based discrimination. Racism imbeds itself into cultures in both subtle and not-subtle ways and in obviously wrong and marginally wrong ways. Terms and labels are often used by a group or groups to demean other people...though such terms and labels in and of themselves might otherwise be harmless. In the case and times of Huckleberry Finn both the terms “nigger” and “injun” were demeaning terms that denoted the slavery, segregation and racism of the times. Jim, the enslaved (runaway slave) Negro friend of Huckleberry Finn represents a class of people who at that time were widely enslaved and treated as less than human physically and - perhaps worse yet - viewed consciously and sub-consciously as inferior beings to their "masters". Terms such as "nigger" are largely born of the conscious and sub-conscious varieties of racism and commonly associated with it...which is why such terms are always a sensitive matter.

As Huckleberry and Jim grow in friendship throughout the story Huckleberry begins more and more to see and view Jim in his true light - not as a “nigger” - but as a human, as a friend and as an equal. For his part, Jim proves himself to be the deepest and truest sort of friend (John 15:13) and by the end of the story both Huckleberry and the reader are struck by the silliness and wrongness of the term “nigger” and - more precisely - what it represented. To remove the cultural words and connotations of the time would be to remove the essence of Jim and his role in the story.

Huckleberry Finn is a carefully crafted masterpiece that does more than tell a good story. But, if we expunge the terms and cultural context of the time how are we to learn from our past? And, if we don’t learn from our past, how are we not doomed to repeat our mistakes?

All this being said…I haven’t even touched the censorship issue and that issue is deserving of much discussion.

I neither doubt nor question the good intentions of NewSouth Books’. No doubt many will question and analyze them and their motives and cast aspersions on them. I don’t wish to do that though. I believe their decision is wrong irrespective of their good or bad intentions and I hope their reasoning does not become a trend. We must not sugar coat history. It is what it is and we are foolish to take offense by it. We should learn from it, and learn from its fullness, even when it is ugly.

In closing - Anderson Cooper conducted an excellent interview (in my opinion) on his show that I am linking and recommend you watch. I don’t necessarily agree with all that is said, but it is worth viewing nonetheless.

New Edition of 'Huckleberry Finn' to lose the N-word

God bless and veritas supra omnis!

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Abortion is not an option when in doubt

Hello all!

Some of you may recall a post of mine from a while back (relying heavily on an article by E. Christian Brugger) titled “Public Discourse: The Ethics of Fetal Pain”. The most basic premise of my comments and Mr. Brugger’s article could be summed up something like this. “When in doubt don’t kill or torture the fetus, otherwise known as a baby, because there is no justification for abortion in the face of doubt”.

I found another article today, titled “A Chance Worth Fighting For” by Timothy Dalrymple, in which the author cites Erwin Schrödinger’s “Copenhagen" interpretation of quantum mechanics to draw the following conclusion that would affirm mine and Mr. Brugger’s contention:

“I present this thought experiment because my most fundamental question concerning abortion is: whether or when abortion is the destruction of a human life? Yet I cannot find a definitive answer to the question of when human life begins in the womb, and I suspect many on both sides, if honest, would confess the same. What do we mean by human and life? What if human life does not begin at any discrete moment, or when is a life sufficiently human to claim special moral value?

I sympathize with the distraught young woman who stands before the trials of motherhood, and it is difficult to contend that she should face them for a six-week-old fertilized embryo. Yet I cannot see the dismembered bodies of late-aborted fetuses, or the videos of fetal activity in the midst of abortion procedures, without feeling as though we have gone horribly wrong. If no leaf changes without the silent knowledge of the tree (Kahlil Gibran), we are all responsible for the least of these.

Yet the "indeterminacy" of the beginning of life works in favor of pro-lifers. The mere chance that abortion is the destruction of human life, or of nascent human life of high moral worth, is enough to stand against it. Why should we accept in the mysterious confines of the human body what we would not allow in front of our eyes?”

I won’t lie. I find abortion appalling and believe God does as well. However, I don’t view all people who believe abortion as acceptable and/or that it should be legal in the same light. Some people are honestly convinced that a “fetus” is not human, a view particularly common among products of a thoroughly humanist educational system. I believe this view to be horribly misguided scientifically and logically, and I would do my utmost to persuade them of their error. However, this is a human mistake common in our deceived times, and I would be slow to condemn these people too quickly or too harshly.

There is another category though. This one is comprised of people who are not convinced of the soundness of abortion scientifically, morally or logically, but because society allows it and it is convenient they are willing to support abortion. This group is tragically and reprehensibly confused, beguiled and assuaged by a deadly combination of self indulgence and willful ignorance.

Is there a defense for such individuals?

Ironically, I don’t see why an abortion advocate from the first category mentioned in this post would disagree with my premise.

Advocates of abortion tout “women’s freedom” and “reproductive rights” as grounds for legalized abortion, but this view is justifiable only if you believe an unborn child is simply a “fetus”. If you are not convinced of this, what justification is there for abortion? Are “reproductive rights” in anyway comparable to life itself when the two are weighed against each other?

I believe they most certainly are not which is why, in part, I so strongly believe that the presence of even the slightest doubt concerning whether or not a fetus is a human should take the “option” of abortion completely off the table for a person with a sound moral compass.

God bless and veritas supra omnis!

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Flaws are no cause for rejection

Hello all,

I came across an excellent “common sense” article today by Thomas Kidd titled “The Tea Party, Fundamentalism, and the Founding”. In it, he responses to several attacks on the Tea Party leveled by Jill Lepore in her new book “The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle over American History”. It’s an interesting read (and not long) so I recommend that you take a few minutes for reading it.

For the purposes of this post I would like to highlight the final paragraph of Mr. Kidd’s article:

“But Lepore wants us to stare the hard facts in the face: the Founders denied the basic rights of citizenship to the majority of Americans, especially slaves. She implies that because the Founders were flawed people, bound by their place and time, we can learn almost nothing from them. "Thank goodness, the eighteenth century is over," Lepore says in her acknowledgements. Surely we all agree that the leaders of our Revolution were products of a culture that was morally faulty, just as our own society is. But entirely dismissing the wisdom of that age throws out the very principles -- especially the notion that "all men are created equal" -- that helped us move past the limitations of the Founding. Thinking that you can learn something from the past does not make you a fundamentalist.”

I think his point is very important. To reject outright the collective and individual wisdom of a world changing generation on the basis that they were immensely flawed human beings is to throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water. People are always products of their times and need to be evaluated in that light.

Our Founding Fathers were extraordinary people in many respects. They are largely (if not primarily) responsible for changing the world for the better by adopting a new philosophy, theology and worldview of government and social structure. However, they were deeply flawed. They did not live out their own ideas and principles as well as they could have or should have. Nonetheless, they laid a foundation and planted seeds that would effectively move future generations in a direction that would more fully realize the noble principles pioneered by our Founding Fathers and Mothers.

For that, we should honor them, and thank them, but we also must realistically evaluate them in light of their imperfections and times. I for one have no problem saying on one hand “Our Founding Fathers planted the tree of freedom and pioneered an unrivaled political and social philosophy and I honor them for that” and on the other hand proclaiming “Our Founding Fathers unjustly enslaved and stripped of their full due dignity thousands upon thousands of their fellow man”. That is no contradiction; that is realistically acknowledging mans capacity to work great good while also engaging in great evil and differentiating between the two.

History is full of such man and women. I marvel at how much good can be accomplished by flawed human beings and take great comfort in knowing that God can use an imperfect vessel to accomplish His good will.

God bless and veritas supra omnis!

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Theodore Roosevelt: The American Boy

Hello all,

Theodore Roosevelt is a man that has much to teach our culture today, especially when it comes to leadership and "manliness". This is not an endorsement of everything he said or did necessarily, but I do think that the good in his life and beliefs far outweigh the bad or not so good.

The Strenuous Life is Roosevelt's previously well known collection of commentaries (essays) and public addresses on "what is necessary for a vital and healthy political, social and individual life" and is specifically addressed to men and young men.

Today, while doing some research, I had occasion to read Chapter X of The Strenuous Life and found it refreshing and challenging. It's not often we hear so boldly and unabashedly declared masculine virtues. But then, it's not often we have a Teddy Roosevelt in our midst. :-)

I won't post the entire address, but I would like to copy a few of my favorite portions of it and highly recommend that you read the rest. It hardly bears mention I would think, but do keep in mind that some of the words and their meanings were used differently today than Roosevelt's day. Just making sure we're clear there. :-P

THE AMERICAN BOY (by Theodore Roosevelt)
PUBLISHED IN "ST. NICHOLAS," MAY, 1900

OF course what we have a right to expect of the American boy is that he shall turn out to be a good American man. Now, the chances are strong that he won't be much of a man unless he is a good deal of a boy. He must not be a coward or a weakling, a bully, a shirk, or a prig. He must work hard and play hard. He must be clean-minded and clean-lived, and able to hold his own under all circumstances and against all comers. It is only on these conditions that he will grow into the kind of American man of whom America can be really proud.

There are always in life countless tendencies for good and for evil, and each succeeding generation sees some of these tendencies strengthened and some weakened; nor is it by any means always, alas! that the tendencies for evil are weakened and those for good strengthened. But during the last few decades there certainly have been some notable changes for good in boy life. The great growth in the love of athletic sports, for instance, while fraught with danger if it becomes one-sided and unhealthy, has beyond all question had an excellent effect in increased manliness. Forty or fifty years ago the writer on American morals was sure to deplore the effeminacy and luxury of young Americans who were born of rich parents. The boy who was well off then, especially in the big Eastern cities, lived too luxuriously, took to billiards as his chief innocent recreation, and felt small shame in his inability to take part in rough pastimes and field-sports. Nowadays, whatever other faults the son of rich parents may tend to develop, he is at least forced by the opinion of all his associates of his own age to bear himself well in manly exercises and to develop his body—and therefore, to a certain extent, his character—in the rough sports which call for pluck, endurance, and physical address.

Of course boys who live under such fortunate conditions that they have to do either a good deal of outdoor work or a good deal of what might be called natural outdoor play do not need this athletic development. In the Civil War the soldiers who came from the prairie and the backwoods and the rugged farms where stumps still dotted the clearings, and who had learned to ride in their infancy, to shoot as soon as they could handle a rifle, and to camp out whenever they got the chance, were better fitted for military work than any set of mere school or college athletes could possibly be. Moreover, to mis-estimate athletics is equally bad whether their importance is magnified or minimized. The Greeks were famous athletes, and as long as their athletic training had a normal place in their lives, it was a good thing. But it was a very bad thing when they kept up their athletic games while letting the stern qualities of soldiership and statesmanship sink into disuse. Some of the younger readers of this book will certainly sometime read the famous letters of the younger Pliny, a Roman who wrote, with what seems to us a curiously modern touch, in the first century of the present era. His correspondence with the Emperor Trajan is particularly interesting; and not the least noteworthy thing in it is the tone of contempt with which he speaks of the Greek athletic sports, treating them as the diversions of an unwarlike people which it was safe to encourage in order to keep the Greeks from turning into anything formidable. So at one time the Persian kings had to forbid polo, because soldiers neglected their proper duties for the fascinations of the game. We cannot expect the best work from soldiers who have carried to an unhealthy extreme the sports and pastimes which would be healthy if indulged in with moderation, and have neglected to learn as they should the business of their profession. A soldier needs to know how to shoot and take cover and shift for himself—not to box or play foot-ball. There is, of course, always the risk of thus mistaking means for ends. Fox-hunting is a first-class sport; but one of the most absurd things in real life is to note the bated breath with which certain excellent fox-hunters, otherwise of quite healthy minds, speak of this admirable but not over-important pastime. They tend to make it almost as much of a fetish as, in the last century, the French and German nobles made the chase of the stag, when they carried hunting and game-preserving to a point which was ruinous to the national life. Fox-hunting is very good as a pastime, but it is about as poor a business as can be followed by any man of intelligence. Certain writers about it are fond of quoting the anecdote of a fox-hunter who, in the days of the English civil war, was discovered pursuing his favorite sport just before a great battle between the Cavaliers and the Puritans, and right between their lines as they came together. These writers apparently consider it a merit in this man that when his country was in a death-grapple, instead of taking arms and hurrying to the defense of the cause he believed right, he should placidly have gone about his usual sports. Of course, in reality the chief serious use of fox-hunting is to encourage manliness and vigor, and to keep men hardy, so that at need they can show themselves fit to take part in work or strife for their native land. When a man so far confuses ends and means as to think that fox-hunting, or polo, or foot-ball, or whatever else the sport may be, is to be itself taken as the end, instead of as the mere means of preparation to do work that counts when the time arises, when the occasion calls—why, that man had better abandon sport altogether.

No boy can afford to neglect his work, and with a boy work, as a rule, means study. Of course there are occasionally brilliant successes in life where the man has been worthless as a student when a boy. To take these exceptions as examples would be as unsafe as it would be to advocate blindness because some blind men have won undying honor by triumphing over their physical infirmity and accomplishing great results in the world. I am no advocate of senseless and excessive cramming in studies, but a boy should work, and should work hard, at his lessons—in the first place, for the sake of what he will learn, and in the next place, for the sake of the effect upon his own character of resolutely settling down to learn it. Shiftlessness, slackness, indifference in studying, are almost certain to mean inability to get on in other walks of life. Of course, as a boy grows older it is a good thing if he can shape his studies in the direction toward which he has a natural bent; but whether he can do this or not, he must put his whole heart into them. I do not believe in mischief-doing in school hours, or in the kind of animal spirits that results in making bad scholars; and I believe that those boys who take part in rough, hard play outside of school will not find any need for horse-play in school. While they study they should study just as hard as they play foot-ball in a match game. It is wise to obey the homely old adage, "Work while you work; play while you play."

A boy needs both physical and moral courage. Neither can take the place of the other. When boys become men they will find out that there are some soldiers very brave in the field who have proved timid and worthless as politicians, and some politicians who show an entire readiness to take chances and assume responsibilities in civil affairs, but who lack the fighting edge when opposed to physical danger. In each case, with soldiers and politicians alike, there is but half a virtue. The possession of the courage of the soldier does not excuse the lack of courage in the statesman and, even less does the possession of the courage of the statesman excuse shrinking on the field of battle. Now, this is all just as true of boys. A coward who will take a blow without returning it is a contemptible creature; but, after all, he is hardly as contemptible as the boy who dares not stand up for what he deems right against the sneers of his companions who are themselves wrong. Ridicule is one of the favorite weapons of wickedness, and it is sometimes incomprehensible how good and brave boys will be influenced for evil by the jeers of associates who have no one quality that calls for respect, but who affect to laugh at the very traits which ought to be peculiarly the cause for pride.

There is no need to be a prig. There is no need for a boy to preach about his own good conduct and virtue. If he does he will make himself offensive and ridiculous. But there is urgent need that he should practise decency; that he should be clean and straight, honest and truthful, gentle and tender, as well as brave. If he can once get to a proper understanding of things, he will have a far more hearty contempt for the boy who has begun a course of feeble dissipation, or who is untruthful, or mean, or dishonest, or cruel, than this boy and his fellows can possibly, in return, feel for him. The very fact that the boy should be manly and able to hold his own, that he should be ashamed to submit to bullying without instant retaliation, should, in return, make him abhor any form of bullying, cruelty, or brutality.

There are two delightful books, Thomas Hughes's "Tom Brown at Rugby," and Aldrich's "Story of a Bad Boy," which I hope every boy still reads; and I think American boys will always feel more in sympathy with Aldrich's story, because there is in it none of the fagging, and the bullying which goes with fagging, the account of which, and the acceptance of which, always puzzle an American admirer of Tom Brown.

There is the same contrast between two stories of Kipling's. One, called "Captains Courageous," describes in the liveliest way just what a boy should be and do. The hero is painted in the beginning as the spoiled, over-indulged child of wealthy parents, of a type which we do sometimes unfortunately see, and than which there exist few things more objectionable on the face of the broad earth. This boy is afterward thrown on his own resources, amid wholesome surroundings, and is forced to work hard among boys and men who are real boys and real men doing real work. The effect is invaluable. On the other hand, if one wishes to find types of boys to be avoided with utter dislike, one will find them in another story by Kipling, called "Stalky & Co.," a story which ought never to have been written, for there is hardly a single form of meanness which it does not seem to extol, or of school mismanagement which it does not seem to applaud. Bullies do not make brave men; and boys or men of foul life cannot become good citizens, good Americans, until they change; and even after the change scars will be left on their souls.

The boy can best become a good man by being a good boy—not a goody-goody boy, but just a plain good boy. I do not mean that he must love only the negative virtues; I mean he must love the positive virtues also. "Good," in the largest sense, should include whatever is fine, straightforward, clean, brave, and manly. The best boys I know—the best men I know—are good at their studies or their business, fearless and stalwart, hated and feared by all that is wicked and depraved, incapable of submitting to wrong-doing, and equally incapable of being aught but tender to the weak and helpless. A healthy-minded boy should feel hearty contempt for the coward, and even more hearty indignation for the boy who bullies girls or small boys, or tortures animals. One prime reason for abhorring cowards is because every good boy should have it in him to thrash the objectionable boy as the need arises.

Of course the effect that a thoroughly manly, thoroughly straight and upright boy can have upon the companions of his own age, and upon those who are younger, is incalculable. If he is not thoroughly manly, then they will not respect him, and his good qualities will count for but little; while, of course, if he is mean, cruel, or wicked, then his physical strength and force of mind merely make him so much the more objectionable a member of society. He cannot do good work if he is not strong and does not try with his whole heart and soul to count in any contest; and his strength will be a curse to himself and to every one else if he does not have thorough command over himself and over his own evil passions, and if he does not use his strength on the side of decency, justice, and fair dealing.

In short, in life, as in a foot-ball game, the principle to follow is:

Hit the line hard; don't foul and don't shirk, but hit the line hard!

I think the above thoughts are very thought provoking. Our culture has come far since the times of Roosevelt, sometimes progressing for the better and often regressing for the worse, but young men are still basically the same.

Our culture would do well to reconsider how we raise our boys, specifically the sort of "strenuous life" we commend to them. We need to encourage and nurture our young men to do hard things and live a Rebelutionary lifestyle.

God bless and veritas supra omnis!

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Public Discourse: The Ethics of Fetal Pain

Hello all,

As anybody who reads this blog knows, I am strongly pro-life and believe the abortion issues is far and away the single biggest moral and cultural crisis this country is currently facing.

One of the aspects of the abortion debate that doesn't get a whole lot of attention in the large media outlets but does get a good deal of attention in the front lines of the battle, where the rubber meets the road, is the issue of fetal pain. Specifically, whether or not, and when, fetuses feel the pain of the abortion process.

This is an important question for two relatively obvious reasons. 1) If the fetus feels pain it must be a life, and since it is comprised of distinctly human DNA, it would then be a human life and abortion would be murder. 2) If the fetus feels pain then the cruelty and injustice of abortion would be greatly exemplified and amplified by that pain.

A friend on Facebook linked an article today by E. Christian Brugger about the fetal pain issue. It is posted on Public Discourse, titled "The Ethics of Fetal Pain" and I believe it really cuts to the core of the matter. The author’s main/basic premise is that abortion should be unthinkable in the face of uncertainty. He argues that, regardless of where you stand on the issue, the fact that there is scientific uncertainty should dissuade us from condoning and/or allowing abortion.

The following is the portion of the article that is best sums up his larger point[s].

"Let us say for the sake of argument that rigorous data is inconclusive. I am then left with a doubt as to whether or not levonorgestrel might render the uterine lining inhospitable. According to my practical knowledge, informed, let’s say for the sake of argument, by the best available evidence, I might kill an embryo if I use this drug in such and such a way. The possibility that my action will cause a death gives rise to the duty, stemming from the requisites of fairness, to refrain from that action. I would need to be reasonably certain that it will not cause death before purposeful action is justifiable. This reasonable certitude can also be called moral certitude. And reasonable doubt and moral certitude about the same fact are mutually excluding.

Let me propose one more example. If reasonable doubt existed as to whether the new device known as the “Mosquito,” which emits a high-pitched noise to disperse loiterers, not only caused minor auditory discomfort but severe pain, the burden of proof would fall upon the manufacturer to give evidence that it does not before the device should be approved for general use. Proof, of course, would be simple to arrive at: ask those exposed to the “Mosquito.” Since fetuses cannot yet provide self-report in language we cannot simply ask them whether they feel pain.

Yet I think the principle still stands: the burden of proof would fall upon defenders of the “Mosquito” to rule out a reasonable doubt that the device causes severe pain before its common use was approved, or to take action to assure that this possibility is mitigated.

The burden falls on the one who might be doing wrongful harm to rule out reasonable doubt that they are. If you were hunting in the woods and saw something moving in the distance, but were unsure of whether it was a deer or another hunter, you would be bound not to shoot until reasonable doubt was dispelled that what was stirring in the distance was not another hunter. When a doubt of fact bears on settling whether an alternative under consideration is immoral (e.g., it would be immoral to shoot in the face of reasonable doubt), one should withhold choosing till the fact has been settled.

So the question to be settled is whether or not reasonable doubt exists concerning a fetus’s capacity to experience pain. Since empirical certitude is not available, I propose, in light of what I said above, the following principle: that the judgment that fetuses do feel pain need only be a reasonable explanatory hypothesis in light of the settled evidence. Whereas the judgment that they do not requires moral certitude before providing a speculative ground for normative judgments about how to act."

I think the author hits the nail on the head and would encourage my readers to read the rest of the article. Pro-choice advocates would be hard pressed to overcome that reasoning. It's actually very much in line with legal thinking/reasoning concerning standards/burdens of proof.

Hopefully this post was informative for you. Pro-life advocates need to give close attention to these questions of ethics and values. These are the issues that are contested in the trenches and upon which this battle will be decided.

God bless and veritas supra omnis!

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(Book Recommendation) Republocrat: Confessions of a Liberal Conservative

Hello all,

I just finished reading Republocrat: Confessions of a Liberal Conservative and though I don't have time to write a thorough book review, I would like to recommend it to you and include some information and commentary that might pique your interest in reading it.

When I first read about this book, the one word most consistently used to describe it was "provocative". Initially, this description discouraged my interest in reading Republocrat as I have a low estimation of most "provocative" books, articles and essays. In the culture of today, what is passed off and described as provocative more often than not would be better described as poorly reasoned, hyperbolic, leering opinion splats. But reading descriptions of the content and subject of Republocrat piqued my interest in the book and overcame my word association.

I am glad it did. In Republocrat, author Carl Trueman sets out to challenge the thinking of political establishment conservatives, offering pointed insights and critiques of their party, institution, thinking, working and behavior.

Republocrat is indeed pointed and provocative, but it is constructively pointed and genuinely and thoughtfully provocative. This is not to say that it is perfect, not by a long shot. There are several instances in which I believe the author fails his own standard of logic and reasoning. For instance, Trueman's criticisms of Fox News and Bill O'Reilly (his critique of Glenn Beck I agreed with almost entirely) are largely legitimate but often seem disproportionate. All major news networks are a mixed bag, a fact the author acknowledges later in the book but seems to have forgotten when addressing Fox. His critique of what I term "institutional" conservative views and understandings of Marxism, Totalitarianism and Socialism often ignore what shapes their view and instead focuses on the technical incorrectness of common terminology. He views Marxism primarily in socio/economic/contextual terms and his sharp criticisms of institutional conservative views of Marxism seem to miss the fact that conservatives view Marxism in primarily religious/philosophical/productive terms. The point is not to say either view is right or wrong, only to highlight one of my disagreements with the author.

There are other areas and instances where I disagree with the author, but the book is nonetheless worthwhile, and being a relatively short book, would not take much of your while.

I particularly appreciated and agreed with his thoughts on the secularization of America (covered in Chapter 2: "The Slipperiness of Secularization") and his critique of the state of political discourse and communication (covered in Chapter 5: "Rulers of the Queen's Navee").

Peter Lillback, President of the Providence Forum, has this to say of the book and its author:

"What we really have here is a lonely thinker who longs for the truth of a better city that he cannot find on either side of the Atlantic. He lampoons the cherished political idols that dominate our political landscape. I couldn’t suppress chortles of laughter, alongside shocks of disdain and disagreement, all the while admiring Trueman’s unmasking of the well-camouflaged foolishness on all points of the political spectrum. This historian-turned-pundit, with all the force of a prizefighter’s left jab and right hook, leaves the left, right, and center (or centre) reeling on the ropes. Therefore, I heartily recommend that you read this book, but you do so at your own peril. Its intensity, as well as its pointed, provocative, and persuasive prose, will force you to look at the Vanity Fair of politics from a pilgrim’s perspective. It’s just possible that you, too, will begin to yearn for a better city.”

Additional reviews can be found on Republocrat's Amazon page.

Overall, this is a book I highly recommend, especially to my conservative and evangelical friends. :-)

For those interested, here is an interview of Carl Trueman. For those particularly interested in knowing Mr. Trueman's views on abortion, they are explained in the imbedded video at about the 9 minute mark.



God bless and veritas supra omnis!

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(via The Population Research Institute) ObamaCare: The Facts on Abortion

I know this debate is supposed to be settled...but it's not and this is far too an important an issue to be silent on.

I found the following video, produced by The Population Research, Joe Carter's First Thoughts blog. I've posted material before briefly detailing how ObamaCare can/would be used to fund abortion, but this video is the best I've seen in that category, thus, my posting it.



May we never rest while there are still helpless and precious lives to defend!

God bless and veritas supra omnis!

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