We bloggers are sometimes sad borrowers. For purposes of this post, I abandon all claim to originality and simply pass on to you two things I have seen recently that deserve a wider audience.
W4 reader Scott W., writing on his own blog, applies a phrase from our own Zippy to a new context. As some of you will recall, Zippy wrote about Captain Sullenberger's feat in landing on the Hudson. In that post, he explained the pilot's rule: "Never stop flying the airplane." Scott applies that to our larger situation:
While guys like Kmiec busy themselves by poking bloggers in the eye with an olive branch, my local parish priest spoke at the end of Mass about FOCA and in the bulletin was a flier from the National Committee for a Human Life Ammendment. He also briefly dismissed the “It’ll never get out of committee” mantra we hear over and over again (as if attempting suicide is acceptable if we don’t believe the one intending it can pull it off.)The more I think about it, the more spine-stiffening it is. I even quoted it on Inauguration Day to someone who was feeling a tad despairing: "Fly the plane," I said. "Just keep on flying the plane."I’ll try my best to keep up my prayers on this. As pilot Zippy reminds us: “Never stop flying the airplane”.
And another Scott, Scott Klusendorf of Life Training Institute, ends a brief post on B.O.'s "above my pay grade" shtick with one of the most succinct statements of the problem with American liberalism that I've ever seen: "That's what's wrong with liberalism. While it pretends not to preach, it quietly decides who lives and dies."
Comments (7)
If I'm reading Scott correctly, he would think that the President has stopped flying the airplane when it comes to the question of when life begins. He doesn't know, and he thinks that either it can't be known, or that the question is not important enough to pursue, since even if the answer is "at conception" it shouldn't affect public policy. He's dead wrong, and his decision is a gravely immoral one, since even the fact of ignorance on the question necessitates refusal to pull the trigger. If I think that rustling in the bushes might be a human being and not a deer, I don't squeeze. I should rather put my gun down altogether, just to be as safe as possible.
Posted by thebyronicman | January 28, 2009 6:18 PM
Of course it was Scott2 who made the comment about the President and "above my pay grade" and Scott1 (as it were) who posted on flying the airplane. The two posts aren't really directly connected, only indirectly via the abortion issue.
I'd say that the real (and rather horrifying) truth is that the President is flying his own airplane very determinedly: The culture of death airplane. His pseudo-humble remark about "above my pay grade" was not really made in good faith. He has even spoken about unborn children in such terms as make it impossible not to know what he is describing, as when he was discussing the Illinois BAIPA and talked about "a situations where the fetus isn't just coming out limp and dead." What sort of person can picture that vividly an abortion-surviving infant and not know what the deal is? But it sounds oh-so-good to say, "I don't know, so let's err on the side of...autonomy." So, as Scott2 says, they pretend not to preach but really force through agenda full speed ahead--funding abortion, forcing us all to pay for it, striking down even the mildest restrictions on it (if FOCA passes), and the like.
Posted by Lydia | January 28, 2009 8:19 PM
What Obama meant to say is that to answer the question of what is a person is three-fifth's above his pay grade.
Posted by Francis Beckwith | January 28, 2009 10:30 PM
Thanks for the nod Lydia. I think I had at the back of my mind good pro-lifers I've encountered suggesting abandoning the fight against legal abortion and opting for a hearts-and-minds. We've always been hearts-and-minds and should certainly continue to be so, but abandoning the legal fight is not an option, and for Catholics, it's explicitly a non-option per Evangelium Vitae.
Posted by Scott W. | January 30, 2009 11:57 AM
I believe that had already occurred when certain members abandoned the political process last year and unwittingly contributed to the rise and ascendancy of the abominable Pro-Abortion administration that we have before us.
Now, the global crusade for the Abortionist Cause is well on the way as well as the aggressive promotion and funding for destructive embryonic stem cell project which has recently resulted in an emboldened campaign by many biotech firms to engage (and even multiply) ongoing efforts in such research for any and all related new product development endeavours.
Great Work!
Posted by aristocles | January 30, 2009 1:05 PM
I have to admit that I'm never quite sure what it means when people suggest that anyway. I wonder, concretely, what actions they are proposing _not taking_ that they presently do take. Lobbying, for example? Or what? I can't help wondering sometimes if what it really is is a plea for voting _for_ openly "pro-choice" politicians. I've certainly seen the "give up the political side" argument used in that way.
Posted by Lydia | January 30, 2009 2:32 PM
Thanks for the cite, Lydia! I remember Frank Beckwith once saying (citing Daniel Callahan)that when liberals say we should have profound respect for something, get ready: Something is about to die.
Posted by Scott Klusendorf | February 3, 2009 6:40 AM