What’s Wrong with the World

What's also interesting is that Morning's Minion (in the comments) admits that he didn't even take the time to read the George Weigel book whose "rhetoric" he characterizes as stupid.

It is a legitimate criticism to note that he has not read the book he pans - but how much Weigel does one really want to read? How many times can one read that Just War doctrine really does legitimate the Bush Doctrine, while retaining one's lunch?

I've read plenty of Weigel in the past-- not only is he tedious, but he says the same thing over and over. Thus, when I read the reviews of this book, it all seemed depressingly familiar.

Paul: of course, there will be radical Muslims who define their belief system in terms of subjugating the other. The point I was trying to make is that these people have virtually no support-- it would be like defining Christianity based on the twisted eschatalogical principles of people like Hagee and Parsley.

My problem with the use of "jihadism" on this blog is that it plays into a dualism that is quite dominant in American discourse. It ignores the fact that grace can infuse and tranform nature, and that they are not separate entities. In other words, we need to deal with Islam by radiating the love of Christ, not by opposition. If you want to get into the theology, yes, I think Islam is dubiously voluntarist, and its explicit rejection of the incarnation and the resurrection of Christ lead to some serious errors -- but these views should not guide our dealings in the public square, especially since much of the "jihadist" rhetoric is ultimately paranoid. After all, I have more serious theological disagreements with Hindus, Buddhists, and Mormons.

"The point I was trying to make is that these people have virtually no support..."

A completely, wildly, and ridiculously false statement, one contradicted by such mountains of evidence that is easily accessible, and one that shows that MM is so uninformed, misinformed, or unwilling to be informed on this subject as not to be worth arguing with. IMO.

Lydia, if you had bothered to read the article I linked to, you might see the facts. Or you could just persist in your post-modern relativism where ideology and prior beliefs trump facts any time. I wonder how many Muslims you actually know...

it would be like defining Christianity based on the twisted eschatalogical principles of people like Hagee and Parsley.

Well, that's an interesting comparison. Sure, it would be an error to treat all Christians as followers of Hagee and Parsley. But it wouldn't be true to say that Hagee and Parsley have "virtually no support" -- indeed, the only reason you've heard of them in the first place is because they are popular in part of the Christian community. Moreover, you have certainly shown yourself willing to point the finger at Hagee and Parsley as reason to condemn McCain (e.g., http://vox-nova.com/2008/03/12/john-mccains-dangerous-friends/ ), and even to use Hagee and Parsley to make a much broader condemnation of "American exceptionalism, the Calvinist-Gnostic theology that divides the world into light and darkness, with America on the right side."

So what's wrong with someone who makes your exact same points, except as to radical Muslim clerics?

In other words, we need to deal with Islam by radiating the love of Christ, not by opposition.

If this means in the very same manner in which you've demonstrated such non-opposition with respect to abortion, then I take it that it won't be long before you'll be petitioning on behalf of radical Muslims (and perhaps even suspected & known terrorists, for that matter) to radiate such love of Christ, as you have done so with how you're accommodating pro-abortion candidates to assume even the U.S. presidency in spite of your being "Pro-Life".

I admit, the former sounds a bit far-fetched and risible, but considering the reality of the latter; who knows just how far accommodating you would be given your willingness to compromise in order to "radiate the love of Christ".

My gosh! I've _never read anything_ that tells me _facts_ about Islam and how much (how little) support there is for jihad among Muslims. No, no, I can get _facts_ only by reading _MM's_ link. That will tell me the facts. And if I'm not instantly converted to calling Islam a religion of peace hijacked by a tiny minority of extremists, I'm a "postmodernist" and a "relativist."

MM, you are a piece of work.

Ah, yes, I've read the article MM links. And all I can say is...Well, no, I can't say that in public. Okay, here's a sanitized version: What a joke. Perhaps we should let Robert Spencer and/or Hugh Fitzgerald take out the trash by responding to it. Or not. Why would I wish that on Spencer and Fitzgerald?

As a matter of doctrine, there is nothing in Christianity which compares to Jihad or Dhimma. That is just a fact. Nor is my purpose to engage in abstract theological debate. As a matter of public reason, accessible to all men, these doctrines as false and wicked; as such, it is a duty of Christians to oppose them. We show Muslims no love, Christlike or otherwise, by ignoring this wickedness, by pretending for propriety's sake that they have no antiquity in Islam. I have theological differences with Mormons and Buddhists too; but I am content to leave them to private discussion. (Though there is an obvious parallel in how America reacted to the doctrine of polygamy, namely proscribing it until the Mormon church officially abandoned it.)

But I am not -- we are not -- content to allow these false and wicked doctrines of Jihad and Dhimma grow up and expand in our midst. They are intolerable and should be declared so.

Again I must express my puzzlement at this talk of a dangerous dualism. To speak of a dualism between a true and a false doctrine is hardly an error.

You know, this blog is just another run-of-the-mill Americanist echo chamber, despite is somewhat loftier ambitions.

As for the status of Islam versus Hinduism and Buddhism to Christianity, the official position of the Church is as follows: "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day." (CCC 841)

My God, Linda gets her knowledge of Islam from the David Horowitz people. I suppose she admires Mark Steyn too. Sorry, but these clowns make Weigel look like a great sage. I ask again: how many Muslims do you actually know?

Come now, that is hardly the entirety of dogmatic teaching on the scope of redemption outside the bounds of the Church.

What that quotation from the Catechism (a rather unfortunate one which, IIRC, is actually a quotation from a Vatican II document) has to do with the question at hand, which is whether this site, founded in part in explicit opposition to the Jihad, engages in scaremongering and stupid jihadism rhetoric, is unclear to me.

As for being an "Americanist echo-chamber," a quick perusal of this should disabuse the attentive reader of any such nonsense.

Our position is pretty simple, really: that the institution and doctrine of Jihad, whatever its relation to Islam as such, constitutes a totalitarian menace which is growing in influence in the West every day; and that to oppose this institution and doctrine (institutions and doctrines being different from men) is a duty laid upon us as Christians and patriots.

"I ask again: how many Muslims do you actually know?"

How many Muslims do I have to know to have a qualified opinion? Three or more? Does it matter if they are Shi'a or Sunni or Suphi? How actively Muslim do they have to be? Do Muslims that have converted to Christianity count? Or more to the point, what does that have to do with anything?

MM to Lydia:

"I wonder how many Muslims you actually know..."

I can't speak for Lydia, but I've known a few Muslims over the years. In fact I had two Muslim roommates in college - two brothers - along with their mother for a time. They were Jordanians, sons of a wealthy banker, and somewhat worldly. We would consider them "moderates". I enjoyed their company immensely, along with their many friends I got to know as well. It was a pleasure to have friends who took truth and religion seriously. We often stayed up into the early morning hours discussing (and yes, arguing) theology. One of the brothers - his name was Ahmed - told me that I would need to learn Arabic, read the Koran, and convert to Islam or I would burn in hell. I pretty much told him the same thing in reverse with respect to Christianity (sans the language requirement). Everything was good natured and we remained friends.

Then the Gulf War was launched.

Our friendship changed. The boys were furious at President Bush; I defended Bush and the invasion. They toned down their anti-American rhetoric in my presence when they realized I meant business (unusual among their other American friends). But mostly they were furious at Israel and the Jews, for whom President Bush was a puppet. Those who know me know that I'm no friend of Judaism. But the raw, vile, all-consuming hatred for the Jews and all things Jewish that I heard from these brothers was shocking. And disgusting. In their eyes, all Jews were dogs and there was nothing a Jew could possibly do to redeem himself. No punishment was too severe for the Jews. I had encountered racial hatred and malice before, but nothing this political and tribal, nothing so central to the identity of a group.

We didn't talk much about jihad. They usually condemned Islamic terrorists when I brought up the topic, but on some occasions they would defend the actions of terrorists. They made distinctions between terrorist acts that I didn't understand. They hated King Fahd of Saudi Arabia because they thought he was a sellout, a traitor to Islam. Would these boys have supported 9-11? They had very different temperaments. Ahmed would probably have supported it with enthusiasm. His brother, Nassir, perhaps not.

I had other Muslim friends in college as well. The Iranians were the most "moderate" and secular, as they were refugees from Khomeni's Revolution. But the others all seemed to follow the same pattern: virulently anti-Jew, suspiciously silent about Islamic terrorism, and openly anti-American whenever it was safe to be. My sense is that support for terrorism, jihad, and dhimma is not a fringe, extremist aberration among middle-eastern Muslims, but is decidedly mainstream, with adherents differing only on tactics. Mr. Cella is correct: Islam and the West cannot, and will not, "peacefully coexist" unless Islam is powerless.

Islam and the West cannot, and will not, "peacefully coexist" unless Islam is powerless.

Let me qualify that. Islam and the West cannot, and will not, peacefully coexist in the same place unless Islam is powerless.

We can, however, peacefully coexist in different places. I'm opposed to the present conflict for that reason. Let them have their country. We need only contain them.

My wife's father is from Afghanistan; he and his siblings emigrated (mostly to America) decades ago. I've been to a Muslim wedding of (my wife's cousin), and I have dozens of Muslim relatives on the extended side of that family. I couldn't say what most of them would think about jihad, etc. I do know that my father-in-law and his brother both dislike Islam (in part because of what the Taliban did to their country), and say so in terms so harsh that MM would faint dead away.

Again, I ask, what is it about that America that always needs an "other" to demonize? From the Salem witches to Know-Nothing Catholic plots to communism to "jihadism" (even to the recent scapegoating of priests)....it's pervasive in the history of this country. I think you all know what I believe on that matter.

What is it about Europeans that they always need something about America to demonize? Whether its political movements or its (mostly imaginary) Calvinism or the words of its Constitution . . . it's pervasive.

MM -- are you familiar with the history of Catholicism in Britain? Not exactly free from persecution, now was it? Or with the history of witch burnings in Europe? What makes you think that those faults are peculiar to America's history?

You would be wiser to ask, what is it about humanity . . . . Then you wouldn't be in the awkward position of purporting to oppose demonization even in the process of demonizing America for faults that are universal.

"Again, I ask, what is it about that America that always needs an 'other' to demonize?"

I know, it's just embarrassing. Why can't we be more like those peaceful Muslims who never demonize anyone?

Again, I ask, what is it about that America that always needs an "other" to demonize?

And so the Byzantines and the Europeans were 'demonizing' Muslims when they were repelling Muslim invasions? Or is that historical opposition suspect as well?

Jeff Culbreath's comments about anti-semitism are fascinating. And by the way, the anti-semitism in Islam goes far back and deep. In fact, what Jeff says fits extremely well with the (cough, cough) supposedly reassuring encounter reported in that silly article MM cited that was supposed to enlighten me. Here are all these Muslims at a mosque listening with approval to this imam spouting vile anti-semitism and 9/11 conspiracy rhetoric (which they make it clear that they buy), but it was so reassuring to talk to the students into the night afterwards because...because...well, because they were "surprised" at being told that the author personally knew Jews who had died on 9/11, and because they asked how they could come to America by the time the conversation was over. Wow, do I ever feel stupid for having "scare-mongered."

Now, now, don't use the word "anti-semitism" to refer to anti-Jewish sentiment; the resident fools at Vox Nova might be displeased. See the comments here: http://vox-nova.com/2008/03/12/for-what-it-is-worth-videos-of-john-hagee/ and here: http://vox-nova.com/2008/03/10/is-the-bible-anti-semitic/

I say "fools" because I'm being reserved and charitable. In my experience on the Internet, people who are so quick to contest any use of the term "anti-semitism" invariably are bigoted towards Jews, which is precisely why they're unhappy that there exists a term of disapproval for anti-Jewish sentiment.

To Morning's Minion, Pope Pius V was "Americanist", "postmodern", and "relativist"; not to mention that he suffered from a dualism which insists on inventing an Other to oppose where one does not exist in reality.

My one objection to Paul's post is that MM's commentary is not really consistent enough to be ultramontane. An ultramontane would ignore ecclesiology entirely and consistently toady to whatever the Pope says: what the Pope says would be true because the Pope said it. An ultramontane wouldn't pick and choose things based on predetermined ideology, in the by now classic cafeteria style. MM's commentary is frankly more like the sort of thing we hear from Limbaugh or Ann Coulter: it doesn't even rise to the level of being coherently wrong, and serves not an intellectual purpose at all but rather serves as a veneer of Oprahhriffic validation for those whose minds are already made up in a certain mold.

Like Limbaugh or Coulter there are times when MM is more or less accidentally right; but it is a mistake to take any of their commentary seriously on that basis.

The plan of salvation also includes those who...

I have always assumed that when one is talking about God's plan of salvation, one is talking about eschatology and the four last things, viz. death, judgment, heaven and hell. I would only note that, insofar as this is the case, God's plan of salvation includes all of creation, even those who will be damned and cast into everlasting fire.

Being part of God's plan of salvation does not make one incapable of committing gross evils or teaching perfidious falsehoods. The devil and his angels have a part to play in God's plan of salvation. That doesn't make Satan cease to be the father of lies and the prince of darkness.

Just FYI.

Minion,

I've known Muslims in my time. The two ex-Muslims I know very well never want to go back. One of them got beaten into the ground in Azerbaijan by a crowd of Muslim ... oh, gee, I guess they were moderates.

I second Zippy's designation of Vox Nova as "the debate club at Auschwitz." What drivel.

Dhimminitude is alive and thriving where I live - in a suburb of Sydney. Among a population here in Belmore/Lakemba with a falling dominant Greek presence, lots of Buddhist Asians, and a substantial Muslim presence, it is truly frightening to see the future appear around the corner. As a Christian one gives another his way: the Buddhist just carries on; the Greeks smile; but the Muslim takes it for granted that I have honoured him as superior. There is no smile nor recognition of my presence. On the trains, a cleric determinedly reads his Koran and looks up to glare at all those around him.

Almost every car in my area has a religious symbol on the mirror: worry beads, rosary, or black, gold-framed Muslim plaque. Once they see the beads, the driver subtly takes advantage of the traffic situation: no give! People very quickly silently sum up which side you are on. There is a silent war going on - one which no-one in the media, nor in society at large is willing to admit.

And the sheer unity of male presence in the streets around a mosque around the corner, is totally different from the Buddhist private culture and the Greek easy-going nature.

We are dealing here with a very strong decidedly dominant culture with no competition from a dying Christian culture. Our Catholic children just are not there anymore. And there is nowhere else to go because it is becoming the same in many other affordable suburbs.

Globalisation and multiculturism fit well the growth of Muslim culture. We Christians are truly in peril right now.

Again, I ask, what is it about that America that always needs an "other" to demonize? From the Salem witches to Know-Nothing Catholic plots to communism to "jihadism" (even to the recent scapegoating of priests)....it's pervasive in the history of this country. I think you all know what I believe on that matter.

Posted by Morning's Minion |

Yep, that's right: we Americans always generalize. :-) It looks like Self-Refuting Man has a sidekick, sort of like Robin.

BTW, I'd take the know-nothings over the brownshirts any day. Come to think of it, I'd take the Salem Witch Trials over the gulags and the concentration camps. I would take George Bush and Richard Nixon on a bad day over Franco, Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin on a good day. In fact, I would take the red-neck "uneducated" ordinary American monolingual fighting men that saved that wretched continent from another one of its many cigarette-smoking coffee-shop dwelling multilingual utopian despots. It was the hicks from Kansas that made possible the pontificating sophisticates that now spend their time pissing on Kansas. I know it galls you, but deep down you know that the only safe place for a metrosexual pacifist to preach unmolested is one in which he is surrounded by armed and courageous men like John McCain who have his back.

I'm going out on a limb here, but I suspect that if those 2 planes that hit the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 were hijacked by members of the Christian Coalition and they flew them into abortion clinics that you would NOT ask, "What did we do to make these religious people do this?" No, you would hold them accountable as moral agents and start investigating whether their like-minded nut case friends are thinking about doing the same thing.

All that some of us are suggesting is that you extend the same respect to the moral agents of Islamofascism, for which you make excuses, that you extend to the agents of Christian fanaticism that you rightly loathe.

I note MM's reference to Robert Spencer as "the David Horowitz people." I would imagine that no one is more aware than Horowitz that Spencer knows a lot more about Islam than he does. Spencer speaks of Islam with authority and knowledge, and MM and anyone else would do well to pay attention. Not that I think that likely to happen in the case of MM!

At a time when serious Christians are seeking out the "creative minorities" so as to sustain their faith, Minion revels in entering the catacombs to exploit and inflame the natural fault lines that exist within the community. For reasons known only to him, he sows discord and demoralization through sophomoric taunts and intra-denominational baiting.

Do we have to respond in kind? Hitler,Stalin and Mussolini (Franco outsmarted all 3 and saved his nation in the process) and the "isms" of the last century are no more emblematic of European civilization than Disney World, Planned Parenthood and Guantanamo are the ultimate expressions of American culture. Any Christian who can look at France and not see Louis IX, Joan of Arc, Moliere and Bernanos, or forget the Germany that produced Boniface, Bonhoeffer, Stein and Ratzinger is taking the fatal step of unconsciously turning on one's parents.

I have no idea where Minion comes from ("Anglosphere" is a concept, not a place) as he appears deracinated and without a country. But unless he changes, I fear where he is headed. It falls to us to offer him a better compass and refuse his invitation to mindless food-fights that eviscerate the symbiotic bonds and vital organs of memory and solidarity necessary for civilized life.

I laughed when Zippy had the gall to accuse me of being like Limbaugh and Coulter, and then moved onto the screed written by the other supposed Catholic among this bunch, Francis Beckwith -- honestly, this sounds like something that could come from the mouth of any number of right-wing radio blowhards. The issue is quite clear: Beckwith, and many others among you, think in narrow American ideological terms. Hence the author of this post dubs me a "liberal" without bothering to define his terms, again, like Limbaugh and Coulter. It fits with the "jihadism" and "islamofacism" rhetoric, and the implicit glorification of violence that underpins much of the rhetoric.

"All that some of us are suggesting is that you extend the same respect to the moral agents of Islamofascism, for which you make excuses, that you extend to the agents of Christian fanaticism that you rightly loathe."

This shows quite clearly that you simply have not understood anything I have written. It grieves me greatly that a great many American evangelical converts to the true faith bring their narrow dualistic ways of thinking with them. And if you think Beckwith and Zippy are accurately representing the Catholic faith around here, you are mistaken.

But maybe you are right. The US is not so different. After all, when faced with the grave and evil menace of IRA terrorism, the UK decared a "war of Catholic fascism", bombed west Belfast to smithereens, threatened America for funding terrorism, and started torturing people. Oh no, wait...

I'm still appalled by the Beckwith rant. Not only is he arguing with some strawman who does not share by opinions (I';m not going refute things I never said), a strawman that fits is dualistic view of American politics-- but the whole reasoning is so pagan in nature. It is only through "armed and courageous men" that we can have peace and security.

Well. I do confess that my phrase "ultramontane Liberal" was uttered half in jest -- as a jocular attempt to capture the confusing amalgam of arguments we're heard from MM. I'm open to a better description if anyone has one.

In any case, I use the term Liberal here to designate (a) a reluctance to make important distinctions, like the distinction between Islam and Christianity on the justice of aggressive warfare; and (b) a generalized hostility or least deep-seated ambivalence about the justice of self-defense. If the Jihad threatens us (having already demonstrated its capacity for mayhem far beyond anything ever contemplated by Irish terrorists) and we take steps to defend ourselves -- including, for instance, the deliberate step we at WWwtW have taken in denouncing the doctrines of jihad and dhimma -- why, according to Liberalism it is we who are promoting and glorifying violence.

Referring to "armed and courageous men" is pagan?

And MM wonders why people call him a liberal?

Let's hear it for armed and courageous men. And here I have the democracy of the dead on my side, including many, many good Catholics of many years past. Like, you know, the ones who defended the gates of Vienna.

M.M.:

...the implicit glorification of violence that underpins much of the rhetoric.

This is perhaps the only extent to which I might find the slightest agreement with you.

And if you think Beckwith and Zippy are accurately representing the Catholic faith around here, you are mistaken.

I believe it was Mr. Prejean who stated about Zippy in this regard:

"Fair enough, but the point of the original post is that this is a temptation if you aren't careful and that one ought to be all the more careful about those sorts of temptations. Both rigorism and laxism come from an uncharitable exclusion of the person, and people who aren't even Catholic can detect that sort of thinly-veiled contempt. It's a systematic sort of unkindness to treat a person like a theoretical object rather than a personal moral agent. Reducing actual people and personal situations to "supposals" of your moral theory is the same problem described in the scientific context by Dr. Carson.

That's why, despite his vehement protests to the contrary, I think that Zippy is a thoroughgoing modernist and positivist in the moral sphere (he analogized moral acts to software classes, for example) . If that was indeed his past, he hasn't really escaped it.

And I don''t think this is the sort of isolated behavior that one can chalk up to excessive personalization. The theory begets the result: people who disagree with his rigorism are immoral for doing so; therefore, they are condemned of personal fault in the concrete. That's what positivism in the moral sphere produces. So the personalization in this instance was simply a concrete instance of the theory working itself out. Irritation at me might have provoked it, but what he did was just par for the course for someone who disagrees with his theory. There has to be some ethical violation involved in dissenting from his theory; it can't possibly be his fault. Ironically, the whole anonymity schtick is the ultimate depersonalization; he has made himself into a theory, since we cannot create any personal context.

I think he's in a dangerous situation, and as someone holding out himself (albeit anonymously) with the name "Catholic" on several sites, I think he has some responsibility to correct it. I tried my best to remedy that situation and failed. But I don't think we can gloss over the problem as being personal. This sort of thing corrodes discussion among Catholics and creates a bad impression for non-Catholics. If you're going to define yourself by the label "Catholic," you have a greater responsibility not to do those sorts of things, and I certainly consider that with everything I post on my blog. And of course, people know my name, and they can speak to me personally when I deviate from their expectations."

Personally, although there are those unique instances wherein I might disagree with Zippy's p.o.v. as one being genuinely 'Catholic' in perspective, I must say that his views are more align with Catholic Teaching than your own especially given your willingness to compromise certain Catholic beliefs and principles for the sake of polity!

but the whole reasoning is so pagan in nature. It is only through "armed and courageous men" that we can have peace and security.

There are many Christians throughout history who would find such an assertion positively baffling. Clovis I, Charlemagne, the Knights Templar (officially endorsed by the Church, mind you, which is much more significant than a modern American "teaching" re: gun control), etc., etc., etc. You need to break out of your modernist and secularist European blinders, and start to think with the Church as it has functioned throughout history.

Let's not forget the Knights of Malta: http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=091106C. Dirty dualists and romancers of violences, those Catholic men.

There is a strain of utterly pagan reductionism in American geopolitical rhetoric, according to which order is contingent, not upon law and all of the accoutrements of high civilization, but solely or primarily upon the exertion of military force; the metaphysical postulate of such rhetoric is that order is a function of will, power, and violence, and not of law. To be certain, this "passion for the real" has informed some of the Bushian rhetoric, and not a little of a strain of popular (pseudo) conservatism; assuredly, it lies behind the assertion, by the administration, of exorbitant and unconstitutional executive privileges, the institutionalization of torture and illicit surveillance techniques, and the mythos of the president as the Decider, the inviolable Sovereign who determines when, and to whom, the law shall be applicable, and who, by the mystical alchemy of his will, can transmute unlawful and immoral acts into the highest virtues by merely invoking that all-purpose penumbral emanation, "national security".

None of this, however, has any bearing upon the status of jihad in Islamic orthodoxy, upon the imperatives of licit self-defense, or any such thing. Abuse does not invalidate the licit use.

M & M:

You're right, I did not bother to define my terms.

But you did not bother to define "bother," "to," "define," "my," or "terms."

It looks like you're putting Descartes before the horse. :-)

If believing that there are such things as good and evil makes me a dualist, I plead guilty (as opposed to not guilty, which, for us "dualists" pretty much exhausts all the options in the universe).

As I once told my friend Greg Koukl, the world is divided into two types of people, those that divide the world into two types of people and those that don't.

Dualist, heal thyself (which is a hylomorphic whole, if I may be so bold).

FJB

...assuredly, it lies behind the assertion, by the administration, of exorbitant and unconstitutional executive privileges, the institutionalization of torture and illicit surveillance techniques, and the mythos of the president as the Decider, the inviolable Sovereign who determines when, and to whom, the law shall be applicable, and who, by the mystical alchemy of his will, can transmute unlawful and immoral acts into the highest virtues by merely invoking that all-purpose penumbral emanation, "national security".

Interesting how Maximos presents this as an exclusively Bushian fault, neglecting to point out in fairness that in the weeks post-9/11, the democrats themselves (as some even now) were practically agreed upon such exorbitant, unconstitutional actions for the sake of "national security" due to the overwhelming sense of vulnerability and heightened anxiety about terrorism at the time with the possibility of immediate subsequent attack(s) on U.S. soil.

Allow me to state in plain language that certain opinions of a particular website (to remain unmentioned here lest I give them further publicity as the sensationalist media had already granted them in the past) were not always the opinions of the democrats then.

The latter had just started adopting such opinions, presenting them as their own and jumping into this bandwagon in recent years in an attempt to bolster public support for their political party.

Aristocles:

Interesting, I have similar concerns with Zippy. For all the invective he throws my way (Coulter! Limbaugh!), I still respect his sincerity. I just feel that he posesses a rather basic knowledlge of moral philosophy that he pushes to extremes, and there the weakness shows. Rigidity is indeed a problem.

On your other point, which always seems to come up here: exactly what Catholic beliefs and principles have I repudiated? All I have ever said is that Obama is a far more favorable candidate than McCain, despite the former's support for abortion. As for me personally, I support the whole corpus of Catholic social teaching. I'm not in the cafeteria. Others are, and you know who they are. But again, if you think that an earnest Catholic cannot choose Obama over a man I fear will initiate a devastating war, then you have fallen victim to Zippy's misinformation.

Oh, and a quick response to the references to CHurch support for various wars in the past-- that is not the criterion. The criteria are the just war principles, which remain as valid today as ever. If Americans had bothered to listen to St. Augustine rather than St. George Bush, then the ruinous and evil war in Iraq could have been avoided. And we need to remember that the bar for a just war in the modern day is far higher than ever before. As Cardinal Ratzinger once put it: "given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a "just war.""

Interesting how Maximos presents this as an exclusively Bushian fault...

That was scarcely my intention. The Democrats not only cheered such abuses of office during the Clinton administration, and lent formal cooperation to the extension of such abuses under Bush, but even now, despite the incandescent passion of their base, continue to bestow a bipartisan legitimacy upon such usurpations. Obama, after all, flip-flopped and opted to support the ex-post-facto legitimation of the Bush surveillance regime. Why? Obviously, because they share in the consensus, and hope to utilize the very powers they revile - but consistently authorize - when exercised by Republicans; after all, both wings of the duopoly support the Empire, and the Empire requires a measure of lawlessness for its perpetuation.

Why, then, would I single out the Bushites for opprobrium? Because the Dems have been relatively consistent in the post-Cold War period; the Republicans, by contrast, denounced such extravagant claims of executive power under Clinton, yet hastened to embrace them under Bush. The Dems, in other words, have been consistently wrong; the Republicans, on the other hand, have shown themselves to be cynical and opportunistic: it's bad, bad, bad when the Dems assert such privileges, but Republicans are the saviours of Americanism when they assert the same privileges. The GOP only believes that its functionaries should exercise such powers, not that the powers themselves are abusive and unjust, this, because the GOP considers the Dems' imperial methodologies insufficiently robust.

Paul: that's a rather strange definition of "liberal". I see it as a philosophy based on the individual over the person, private liberty over the common good, and the belief that one can define one's destiny apart from any unchanging moral law. As many have noted, the current US divide that people like Francis Beckwith seem to have bought into so readily is merely a conflict between cousins, two different shades of Enlightenment-era liberalism.

"...the Republicans, by contrast, denounced such extravagant claims of executive power under Clinton, yet hastened to embrace them under Bush."

They used to battle Wilson & Roosevelt tooth and nail and resisted JFK and LBJ until along came Nixon, the neo-cons and a host of purported evils perpetually threatening "our way of life." Thanks to the last 8 years, the screws of the expanded security state will soon turn against pro-lifers*, home-schoolers and other "enemies of the State."

* don't worry, Voxanovas - you're safe.

Morning's Minion -- remember, you're not allowed to criticize the Iraq War. No matter what the result, all that matters is that Bush had good intentions, just as did the New Dealers who tried to institute a form of fascism. See http://vox-nova.com/2007/09/25/laissez-faire-liberalism-then-and-now/#comment-1650

I'm not familiar with that particular quote of someone else talking about me, nor of where it came from. I did send a commenter packing from my blog, not because of his arguments, but because he kept pretending to speak for me while saying all sorts of things I never said. I don't have much patience for that, no matter who is doing it, and no matter who it is done to: it is a particularly pernicious form of calumny. MM did the same kind of thing to the commenter Brendon in a thread here, and if it had been my thread I would have given him one warning with a requirement of explicit retraction, after which he would have been outta here. I'm just that impatient with the practice, plus with my authoritarian streak I am less reluctant to kick out the idiots than some of my colleagues. Consider it a pet peeve.

But everyone should always remain aware of the fact that when I discuss things, I discuss what I think is true. I don't pretend to speak on behalf of the Church, ever. In those places where the Church speaks in my writing, it is only because I actually quote Her.

As for the notion that my views are positivist or modernist or whatever, it is difficult to imagine a more nakedly transparent attempt at tu quoque. Some gratuitous assertions are unworthy of a response.

As a general thing nobody is obligated to agree with me, unless I happen to be right, in which case the obligation still is not to agree with me but rather to agree with what is true.

I suppose I'll briefly address the notion that I am a moral rigorist. Those who think I am a moral rigorist frankly have no idea what they are talking about. "Rigorism" - that is, the heresy rigorism - does not mean "thinking rigorously about morality" or "being overly strict". Rigorism is a probabiliorist notion: roughly, the notion that if it is probable that doing X is wrong according to the opinions of moral theologians, that very fact makes doing X actually wrong.

Rigorism, like its much more popular probabiliorist sibling laxism ("if I don't know that it is wrong it isn't wrong"), is a form of moral relativism. Characterizing my thought as rigorist is like characterizing Plato's thought as nominalist.

Characterizing my "thought" as rigor mortis may be...true.

Zippy,

I'm not familiar with that particular quote of someone else talking about me, nor of where it came from.

It was at S.V. I'm rather surprised you missed it since you actually posted right after him.

I must admit, Zippy, considering the incident at the time, there were aspects of his comments about you (i.e., strictly speaking with regards to your stance then -- don't know if you still presently hold them) that could be found reasonably valid and true. In that sense, I'm not necessarily surprised should Mike, Scott, and perhaps even M.M. might voice similar concerns reflective of that of our Harvard Law friend here.

Generally, I find your understanding of the Faith reasonably consonant with tenets of Catholic Teaching. However, there are those unique instances when it seems you deviate as in the case mentioned.

I'm rather surprised you missed it since you actually posted right after him.

Could be. My memory is like a sieve when it comes to unreasonable things people say about me. Take a number and step in line.

I don't doubt that there were aspects of his comments that could be found reasonable, valid and true. That wasn't what was at issue -- at all. What was at issue was him pretending to speak for me. Not quoting me and saying "I think it follows that ...", but just stating that I hold positions I don't hold. The former implicitly acknowledges that the assumptions of the commenter himself are built into the inference, and that I might not agree with them. The latter is just a lie, and discussions with liars are unproductive: pigs, wrestling, and all that.

When a commenter persistently and after multiple attempts at correction says that I hold positions that in fact I do not hold, I quickly lose all interest in further discussion with that commenter, and in anything else that commenter might have to say about, well, anything.

"Rigorism is a probabiliorist notion: roughly, the notion that if it is probable that doing X is wrong according to the opinions of moral theologians, that very fact makes doing X actually wrong."

You do this all the time. Example: when you argue that supporting somebody like Obama is an absolute moral bad, when in fact the argument is highly probabilistic. I once brought up the vigorous debate over whether provision of nutrition and hydration to patients in permanent vegetative states was ordinary care, and thus morally obligatory; and extraordinary, and therefore not. Anybody familiar with this literature will tell you this was a huge debate, and people of virtue arrived at different conclusions-- including the bishops of Pennsylvania and Texas. Both sides had good arguments. I once listed some studies that tilted to the extraordinary side (including some top-notch theologians) and your conclusion was pure dismissal: these people are flirting with evil. This is your rigorism in action (aided and abetted by a lack of familiarity with whole areas of moral theology). Now, in an effort to sort this out, the US bishops queried the CDF, and the response was that it was ordinary care. So, you were right-- as you often are-- but almost accidentally (funny how you accuse me of the same, isn't it?)

Here is another definition of rigorism that I rather like: "The moral teaching which holds that when there is a conflict of two opinions, one in favor of the law, the other in favor of liberty, the law must always be observed, even if the opinion in favor of liberty is the more probable or very probable one as compared with its opposite." (New Catholic Dictionary) You don't see yourself in this description?

"...the New Dealers who tried to institute a form of fascism"

Ah, the laissez-faire liberals have come on stage! Poor Msgr. Ryan must be turning in his grave.

You do this all the time.

No, I don't. In order for it to be the case that I assert a heretical form of probabilism, it would have to be the case that I actually do assert some form of probabilism. Those who characterize my positions as rigorist skip over that wee detail for a reason.

You don't see yourself in this description?

Not even slightly. Indeed, I see my anti-self. On countless occasions I've expressly rejected the notion that a conflict of opinion has any bearing whatsoever on the objective moral permissibility of an act in itself. The opinions of theologians and Bayesian constructions therefrom do not alter the objective nature of an act to make it either permissible or impermissible. (It may or may not be objectively prudent to accept certain opinions, of course, which is a legitimate 'probabilistic' discussion to have generally although one I don't find particularly interesting. But the objective prudence in accepting or rejecting an opinion about act X from theologian T is clearly distinct from the objective moral permissibility of act X).

Again, people who see rigorism - or any form of probabilism - in my thought don't understand either rigorism or my thought.

MM is like a broken record, unable to consider the facts or to come up with a good faith response.

We've been through all of this before. As part of the progressive New Deal that MM loves to praise, Roosevelt gave his corporate big-wig friends what the Supreme Court called “virtually unfettered” power to regulate industry throughout the land, and to prevent small competitors from cutting their prices. Thus, for example, Roosevelt and the chicken industry (”Big Chicken,” one might say) came up with an industry code, and a few months later, the administration prosecuted a small seller of chickens, fined him over $7,000, and tried to throw him in jail for, in the Supreme Court’s words, “permitting customers to make selections of individual chickens” rather than forcing customers to pick an entire coop or half-coop.

MM never faces the facts here; he never admits that such a scheme was evil. Instead, he resorts to name-calling (or what he views as name-calling), i.e., calling me a "laissez faire liberal" (as if one would have to be laissez faire to oppose such an anti-competitive fascist scheme).

More to the point, in the Vox Nova post I linked above, MM excuses the evils of the New Deal by saying that its designers had good intentions: "You are confusing the application of the NRA in practice with its original intent. Its intent was in accord with CST, geared towards allowing workers to share in the ownership of productive wealth. There were of course inherent problems with the approach, especially related to attempting to regulate prices (always a disaster)." To which I pointed out, and still point out, that on that ground, MM cannot oppose the Iraq War -- after all, Bush says he had good intentions too.

I'll just add that the main two points of my post -- (1) "It will not do to understand Islam and its doctrines of Holy War and Holy Subjugation exclusively through the lens of Western politics." (2) "Nor will it do to conflate warnings about the peril of these doctrines with support for the democratic imperialism that has characterized much of our post-9/11 foreign policy." -- have not yet been addressed by MM.

MM prefers to argue well, virtually everything, in the context of how "it plays into a dualism that is quite dominant in American discourse." Everything through that Western lens. Furthermore, MM constantly argues within the strict confines of another context -- the Iraq war and the Bush administration -- which many of us have emphasized is precisely what we want to set aside as our context, not least because most of us share his opposition to the war.

MM argues, in short, as a kind of Imperial Nominalist, and the rest of us wonder if we have fallen into the narrative of a Bob Dylan song:

Dr. M, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his reckless patients
They're trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have Mercy on His Soul"
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row

Oh, and a quick response to the references to CHurch support for various wars in the past-- that is not the criterion. The criteria are the just war principles, which remain as valid today as ever.

It's worth noting the utter oddity of this "response." MM had claimed that the admiration for "armed and courageous men" is "so pagan in nature." Some of us responded by pointing out that MM is ignoring much of the history of Christianity, and substituting secularist European values instead.

To which MM responds by claiming that there exist "just war principles"? Huh? How is that relevant at all here?

Thank you, SB, I suddenly thought of exactly that last night. Glad someone else said it. It's funny how by mere strength of insistence a completely irrelevant response can be made to sound relevant and can throw one for a little while.

"MM excuses the evils of the New Deal..." Sorry, but I cannot tae seriously anybody who believes yje New Deal was "evil", especially given the Catholic history behind it.

Let me spell it out to SB, who seems a little slow today: war must always be a last resort. As Pope Benedict says, was its alwaysa sign of failure, nothing to be proud of. This is not consistent with an attitude of military glorification, which exists in the US today, and is more similar to pagan Rome than to St. Augustine who tried to fight that very thinking.

"MM prefers to argue well, virtually everything, in the context of how "it plays into a dualism that is quite dominant in American discourse." Everything through that Western lens."

NO, MM argues through the lens of Catholic teaching. I'm tired of having to repeat the same points over and over on the blog because people wilfilly look the other way.

Sorry, but I cannot tae seriously anybody who believes yje New Deal was "evil", especially given the Catholic history behind it.

Sorry, but I cannot take seriously anybody who thinks that anything labeled "New Deal" is therefore blessed by God, and who still doesn't have the intellectual capability to address what actually happened under the National Recovery Act (i.e., Roosevelt and big business collaborating in throwing small businessmen in jail for serving their customers).

And let me spell it out for the functionally illiterate: the phrase "evils of the New Deal" doesn't mean that everything that happened under the New Deal was evil; it means that some things that happened under the New Deal were evil. And lo and behold, I referred to precisely one of those evil things: the fascist system of cooperation between big business and government in order to stifle competition.

Since the people on this site seem to take great umbrage with the morality of supporting Obama, let me ask this question: why is there not similar outrage about McCain (after all, he is also a manisfest supporter of an intrinsically evil act)? Some of you are abstentionists, and that is fine, but others (certainly Francis Beckwith) seem to be supporting McCain. Will you therefore answer these questions: (1) are there contributors who support McCain? (2) If so, will you not condemn their position with the same intensity that you oppose those who support Obama?

For the record, on Vox Nova we have some who abstain, some who support Obama, and some who support McCain.

Sorry, I shouldn't lose my temper. Let's spell it out carefully:

1: I have discussed the facts behind the National Recovery Act at least three times with MM.

2: MM is never willing or able to respond specifically as to those facts -- he isn't willing either to say that the Catholic Church requires big business to throw its small competitors in jail, or that the Catholic Church would frown on such a practice.

3: MM is a reasonably intelligent fellow, with a PhD from Columbia in economics.

4: MM is not uninformed as to this issue; he has seen the facts several times.

5: MM is inventive and clever, and if there's even a half-hearted unconvincing argument to be made in favor of a so-called "progressive" policy, he will make it.

6: Hence, the fact that MM has never been able to respond directly as to the National Recovery Act means that he is conceding that the New Deal was, in fact, evil in this respect.

Point conceded, then, and I shall refer back to this comment when necessary in the future.

...war must always be a last resort. As Pope Benedict says, was its always a sign of failure, nothing to be proud of ...

Open heart surgery is a last resort, and is always a sign of disease. This is not incompatible with admiration for the skilled surgeon.

Jailing a violent criminal is a last resort, and is always a sign of failure. This is not incompatible with admiration for policemen.

Examples can be multiplied, as there is no shortage in this world of last resorts, and responses to last resorts which are always a sign of failure - responses undertaken by admirable men.

The issue is not that we should not admire armed and dangerous men, it is that MM (like most modern progressives) hates armed and dangerous men, and makes false appeals to false principles in an attempt to justify that hatred.

NO, MM argues through the lens of Catholic teaching.

You also do argue as if your opinions and Catholic teaching were coextensive, when they obviously are not. Like it or not, there is no Catholic doctrine on gun control, for example. We are left to make up our tiny little minds ourselves, not told what to do in detail, on a whole host of issues. Catholicism is not similar to Islam in that the Catholic version of Sharia conforms to MM's opinions. There is no Catholic version of Sharia.

If so, will yo