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September 2011 Archives

September 2, 2011

Population Control Chic IV--Not a gaffe but a policy

Last week someone sent me a link to this article about Vice President Biden's outrageous recent remarks in China. J. Bottum asks why we had to send China a "court jester" "dressed in motley."

In case you've forgotten, Biden told the Chinese that he isn't "second-guessing" their brutal one-child policy and that he "understands" it. He suggested that perhaps we (who also have a graying population) and the Chinese might help each other out in dealing with this little demographic problem. Bottum beautifully skewers the silly attempt to defend Biden as "criticizing" China's policy:

As, for instance, one might have criticized the Politburo’s 1930 decision to exterminate the middle-class kulaks as opponents of the Soviet regime by mentioning to Stalin that the policy seemed, well, a trifle counterproductive. Financially speaking.

I couldn't possibly have said it better.

But let's reexamine this "gaffe" motif. My response to the claim that Biden made a gaffe is just this: No, he didn't. He told us where he is really coming from. Recent administration statements to the contrary notwithstanding, Biden voted in 2000 against a Senate resolution condemning China's policy (lest it damage trade relations!), and, of course, one of the earliest actions of the Obama administration was to restore funding to the infamous UNFPA. Nor is there any indication that that will change. Actions, Mr. President and Mr. Vice President, speak louder than words.

Conservatives need to face the fact that liberals are usually not bumblers. They know what they want, and they pursue it. And opposing coercive population control isn't one of the things they want. Far from it. In fact, flirtation with coercive population control is chic among liberals, as I have documented already here, here, and here. And in this post (see the end) I have several links (were any documentation needed) on the gushing, eager support of the left for UNFPA funding. What liberals really want is to cover up the brutal nature of the China policy and to continue to fund it. This is because the policy has something to do with abortion, sterilization, and birth control (which liberals have trouble believing could ever be anything but a benefit to anybody) and because it has now been spun as "green." So they aren't bumblers. They--including Biden--are committed for ideological reasons to aiding and abetting blatant evil.

Today I received the latest sickening installment:

Continue reading "Population Control Chic IV--Not a gaffe but a policy" »

September 3, 2011

Women these days

“Certain fashions will be introduced which will offend my Son very much. More people go to hell because of sins of the flesh than for any other reason.” - Our Lady of Fatima

One of the most obvious signs of cultural degeneration in the West is the ubiquitous immodesty of women and, to our greatest shame, even innocent young girls. From the university campus to the supermarket, contemporary women have decided that the main purpose of clothing is not to conceal, but to reveal as much skin as legally possible to as many strange men as possible, making 19th century harlots look shockingly prudish by comparison. Some of the best-known "conservative" women are the worst offenders, dressing so provocatively that their grandmothers would blush. If you haven't already had the pleasure, consider attending a GOP fund-raising dinner for an eyeful of what passes for "conservative" fashion nowadays. On second thought, don't: custody of the eyes and all of that.

Things are so bad that modest, feminine clothing is almost impossible to find on the racks of clothing stores. Like many traditionalist families, we have been forced into exploring alternatives. Fortunate is the man whose wife is competent with a needle and thread ... and blessed are his daughters, who will be taught a valuable craft. In addition to making clothes, we also haunt the thrift shops and second-hand stores in which some beautiful "little old lady" clothes are reclaimed for a new generation. For others, there is a booming cottage industry of modest clothing online, although going this route can be expensive.

It seems a contradiction, at first, that at precisely the moment of history when feminism is at its peak, women in feminist-drenched societies are dressing with such brazen immodesty. Isn't feminism all about doing without men? Why should women be dressing as though they are desperate for male attention of the lowest kind? But I think if we look deeper, we will see that the correlation has internal coherence.

Ideological feminism is not chiefly about doing without men, despite the protests of some feminist leaders: rather, it is ultimately about power over men. And female sexuality is the most effective tool in the feminist toolbox when it comes to exercising this power. Secondarily, feminism is also about the sexual liberation of women, both physically and in the realm of imagination: dressing immodestly is seen as a victory over the the oppressive restrictions of yesterday's patriarchy. Although the preponderance of today's indecently clad females have inherited their situation and are not making any kind of statement - at least not consciously - they have also inherited the attitudes just described. The difference for the latest generation is that these attitudes, which form their only intellectual justification, are combined with their inability to inspire long-term loyalty and commitment from men. And so there is, I think, a real angst and alienation there, manifested in a desperation for male sexual attention alongside an implacable fear of traditional relationships and the loss of "freedom" and power such relationships mean for women. (If you understood that last sentence, you have my sympathies.)

In any case, what is to be done? I don't know what can be done on a grand scale, but certainly the first thing is for men to stop approving. Silence is consent, so drop some discreet words from time to time. Mention the magazine covers to the clerk at the supermarket. And - this seems like a no-brainer - don't keep indecent company yourself. If you have any authority in the workplace, don't hire women who dress indecently. Better yet, institute a dress code and enforce it. Avert your eyes when necessary, and make sure the women notice your discomfort. (Surprisingly, perhaps, many women will take the hint and show up the next day decently covered.) If you're a father, keep a close watch over your daughter's friends and influences. And consider homeschooling, if you can. If you have any doubt about what "modest" means, I recommend the following video:

Continue reading " Women these days" »

September 7, 2011

Where have all the anarchist hippies gone?

During our recent thread on China's one-child policy I caught myself thinking rather wistfully, "Gosh, it would be nice to discuss this with an old-fashioned hippie who wouldn't beat around the bush, would see this totalitarianism for what it is, and would hate it as much as I do and call as loudly as any conservative for the defunding of the UNFPA." I especially thought of this when I made this comment.

It would be nice if occasionally someone on the left started getting a clue that "family planning" programs, funded by international groups, and run through governments in foreign countries, are as a matter of the facts of human nature going to become coercive to one extent or another. I remember mentioning on a previous post (don't have time to look it up now) one of these "family planning programs" presently funded by USAID, IIRC. That program positively brags about how in some African country it is funding mass male sterilization campaigns. I'm sorry, but you're a fool if you think these are fully voluntary. Another of these same groups also brags about how it is "promoting" "family planning" to women in an African country in the course of offering them immunizations for their children. I'm sorry, but you've had your creepiness antennae removed if that doesn't make your skin prickle.

China is by no means the only country in which there is evidence of the coercive nature of family planning programs. Some of this coercion is more subtle; some of it is more overt. The problem is endemic to the genre, and it isn't difficult to see why for those who can see at all and who want to see.

I distinctly remember some years ago reading some sort of hippie manifesto that sounded pro-fertility. I kid you not, it contained the line, "Resist with seed. Breed." Where I saw it remains a mystery, but it left me with the distinct impression of a flower-child contingent that would be appropriately creeped out by government population control programs.

Where did they all go?

There are a number of possibilities, not all mutually exclusive:

Continue reading "Where have all the anarchist hippies gone?" »

To do good, or not, that is the question.

Do not do evil that good may come of it. That’s the principle that protects the correct way to make use of the principle of double effect, or PDE. Alongside of this principle is the moral analysis of cooperation with (moral) evil: that there are some modes of cooperating with evil that are always wrong, and others which are not. This latter moral analysis has been much on my mind recently. I know we have talked about it in various contexts here at W4, such in voting, abortion, and coalitions, but I don’t want to discuss it primarily with respect to abortion or any particular matter. Rather, my intent here is to peer quite steadfastly into the very essence of the distinctions that make up this analysis, and see if the guts of the theory can be laid bare in a sensible manner. And I am enlisting your help, because I am confident that a more complete picture of the truth will come out of a good discussion.

The first division is usually between formal and material cooperation with evil (again, moral evil: in the following discussion, it is to be postulated that the primary agent’s act is already understood to be morally evil). Some here don’t care much for the Aristotelian distinction of form and matter. That would make it harder to take this analysis seriously, but in in this context I believe that the words are used analogously. In natural beings, like humans and trees, the words form and matter have their proper and primary meaning. As used with respect to actions, and the character of those actions, I think we use form and matter in a derivative or extended sense. It would probably be even more so in using "formal" to describe an aspect of cooperation, which is itself an aspect of action but is not the same thing as the action.

Continue reading "To do good, or not, that is the question." »

September 10, 2011

A Sunday Thought for the Victims of 9/11

(I won't have time tomorrow, so I'm putting this up today. For what it's worth, which is probably not much. It is semi-lengthy, so any wishing to pass it over are forgiven in advance.)
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A few days ago I watched a couple of those documentaries that come around each year to commemorate the September 11th, 2001 mass slaughter of American innocents by an enemy so foreign and morally alien that one wonders how God’s good earth could be their home. A few snapshots linger:

Continue reading "A Sunday Thought for the Victims of 9/11" »

September 13, 2011

Infanticide-abortion connection? Nooooo kidding.

Special "infanticide" laws are bad laws. I have blogged about them before here. (See also here.) These are laws that create a special category of crime called "infanticide," separate from murder, for mothers who kill their newborn children, supposedly under special (though vaguely defined) post-partum stress.

This is a classic case of the old adage that hard cases make bad law. In essence, such laws take something that may be a mitigating factor in certain cases--a woman's being partially mentally unhinged by post-partum depression--and use that as a reason to create a presumption that a mother who kills her newborn baby is not to be held responsible or punished. This, in essence, makes it open season on newborns, at least where their mothers are concerned. These are what one commentator in one of my threads called "needs killin'" laws for newborn babies. And that's a bad, bad thing.

It's easy enough to see that we would react differently--at least, we in the West would react differently--if such laws were proposed in other areas. For example, some Middle Eastern countries have special laws for male family members who kill their womenfolk when under the special "stress" of believing that the women have "dishonored" the family. The emotion the men might feel in these cases is considered so severely mitigating that a whole class of crime is created under which the penalties are extremely light. Similarly, while we might feel sorry for a husband with a seriously nasty wife who nagged him day and night, it would be a very bad idea to have a special category of "nagging wife killing," separate from murder, for which a man gets only a light sentence.

But somehow, when it comes to newborn infants, people can't see the problem, and quite a few foreign jurisdictions, including Canada, have this special crime called "infanticide" with a seriously limited sentence attached to it.

Which brings me to the present story: Katrina Effert has been repeatedly convicted by juries of murdering her newborn baby. The crime was apparently premeditated. She hid her pregnancy from her parents, gave birth secretly in their bathroom, strangled her newborn son, and threw his body over a fence. Each time a jury convicts her of murder, a higher court throws out the conviction. Most recently, the Alberta Court of Appeals overturned her conviction and replaced it with a conviction for the lesser crime (!) of "infanticide." On Friday, Justice Joanne Veit of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench gave Effert a three-year suspended sentence, and Effert walked free. Here was what Veit had to say as part of her reasoning:

Canada’s lack of an abortion law indicates that “while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support.”

“Naturally, Canadians are grieved by an infant’s death, especially at the hands of the infant’s mother, but Canadians also grieve for the mother,” she added.

So Effert was just engaging in a little last-minute birth control, using a less-than-ideal method, and Canadians "grieve for" her as the mother. (Why do they grieve for her? Because it was such a pain to have to do such a messy thing as strangling her baby and throwing him over the fence?)

Supposedly
, the special infanticide law requires positive evidence that the mother was mentally disturbed. This requirement turned out to be just as paper-thin as one might have expected. Veit decided that Effert was "without support" (and hence mentally disturbed?) apparently because she chose to hide her pregnancy from her parents and give birth alone! Um, yeah, that makes sense. Wow, what a high evidential standard for mental disturbance. See above on open season on newborns.

The connection to abortion is both shocking and predictable. Veit is without shame. She's telling it straight: If a woman can kill her baby right up to birth, because of those "onerous demands" of pregnancy and childbirth, why not immediately after? One might try to answer, "Well, because the onerous demands of pregnancy and childbirth are over at that point, right?" But let's not worry about logic. Let's get to the heart of the matter: Abortion is about being made a non-mother after having become a mother. Abortion is about getting rid of that unwanted baby, er, I mean, unwanted pregnancy. And a woman has a right, darnit, to be made a non-mother if she wants to. If she waits a little extra time to do that and has to strangle the baby after birth, so be it.

This has been coming for a long time. Let's not forget that the President of the United States, while an Illinois Senator, was specially solicitous for those poor abortionists who might be "burdened" by a Born-Alive Infants Protection Act. They might actually have to do something if the baby wasn't just "coming out limp and dead." How onerous. We can't have that.

Infanticide was always the next step. Let's hope Texas never passed that special infanticide law I blogged about here. Anybody know? (A quick Google search leads me to think that the proposal died somewhere along the way. Good thing. If it hadn't, it would definitely have needed to be strangled.)

September 15, 2011

Europe on the brink

I’m just going to highlight a few extraordinary passages in this Der Spiegel report on the machinations in European political economy as usury, dependency and imposition threaten to combine and apply the ruin of the Continent.

Continue reading "Europe on the brink" »

September 16, 2011

Until Alzheimer's Do Us Part

Pat Robertson - former presidential candidate, founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network, and founder of the American Center for Law and Justice - explains how a man who is married to a woman with Alzheimer's should go about divorcing her:

"I know it sounds cruel, but if he's going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her."

And why ever not? Hasn't the Alzheimer's patient effectively left the marriage anyway? Besides, marriage is a contract and this is a contract society, and a person with Alzheimer's disease isn't capable of entering into or keeping the terms of any contract. And doesn't the Bible say that we are "called to peace"? Heaven knows that the spouses of Alzheimer's sufferers don't get much peace! Etc., ad nauseam.

I once worked with a devout Norwegian Lutheran gentleman. He was outwardly respectable in every way. When his wife became ill and permanently bedridden, he divorced her and remarried. He said that she told him she "understood". A man has his needs, you know. I don't want to beat up on Protestants - Newt Gingrich is Catholic and apparently unrepentant - but what do you expect from a religion which has no doctrine of asceticism? In the case of Lutheranism, its doctrine is radically anti-ascetical.

“Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly.” - Martin Luther

So, let's admit this much: we live in the prophesied time, when "iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold". How is it possible that we have fallen so low? Not even the best among us (and I do consider Pat Robertson to be one of the best among us) have the stomach for the fight. Also coming to mind are the words of the poet W.B. Yeats: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

Some years ago I wrote a short essay titled "What Marriage Really Is", to which the talented editor of an obscure blog titled "Cella's Review" kindly linked. I find that it is still online, and that I can still happily affirm every word after all these years.

Continue reading "Until Alzheimer's Do Us Part" »

September 17, 2011

Justin Townes Earle

Midnight%20At.jpg

Harlem%20R%20Blues.jpg


If any reader is interested in hearing some good country-blues, he should get himself a copy of either Midnight at the Movies or Harlem River Blues, by Justin Townes Earle. Memorable albums, both of them; charming in sound and texture, ably composed and executed, alive with all the rich variety of American country-blues. Good stuff. Nashville and New York City (whereto the singer decamped for the latter album) should be proud.

Songs like “Christchurch Woman,” “Working for the MTA,” “Can’t Hardly Wait,” “Halfway to Jackson,” and the title tracks of both albums: I say, if you like country-blues you can’t help but enjoy these numbers.

I am well aware, of course, that few readers here are much interested in country-blues, least of all by some drink- and drug-addled Tennessee punk with less than half clue.

Nevertheless it is, in my judgment, very hard to understand America without understanding country-blues. Shall we amputate New Orleans? Has Nashville produced no music which merits praise and memorial? Is Blind Willie McTell not worthy of remembrance? How do you tell the great story of oppression and liberty for American blacks bereft of their songs, both spiritual and secular?

Continue reading "Justin Townes Earle" »

September 20, 2011

How to lie with statistics, example #4,563,699

Here is a very interesting letter by a researcher named Jokin de Irala (and his co-writers) that is relevant to the "they're going to do it anyway" meme. De Irala et. al. compared statistics in three countries showing the mean and median ages of "first sexual intercourse" with their own findings as to the percentage of teens in those countries who are actually sexually active at those ages. And what strange things we do find. For example, we have the following odd situation in Spain: Mean age of first sexual encounter--16.3 years. Median--16 years. Yet Irala's research found only 21.7% of 16-year-olds were sexually active at all and only 34.8% of 17-year-olds. Other countries Irala checked turned up similar results.

How can these things be?

Irala suggests the following solution to the puzzle:

The mean age of first sexual intercourse was obviously estimated solely using subjects who have already had sexual intercourse whereas the proportion of youth that were sexually initiated use all youth in each age group as the denominator.

Ohhhh. I get it. So when we hear that the "mean age of first sexual encounter" is getting lower and lower, that just means among the young people who aren't remaining chaste during their teen years. That's a very different matter from "they're going to do it anyway." Let me repeat that another way: The data on mean and median age of first sexual encounter apparently do not include chaste teenagers! That's almost incredible.

As Irala calmly notes,

Sentences derived from average data such as this one—“compared with previous generations, young people (16–20 year-olds) were having intercourse for the first time at an earlier age, on average at 16.5 years of age” (Avery & Lazdane, 2008)—leave the facts as to how many from these age groups have, in fact, had sex unspecified. These confusing interpretations of epidemiological data create definite impressions that can be misleading and thus may hinder public health and educational interventions that are trying to delay sexual initiation in youth[.]

No kidding.

I don't know for certain whether researchers who report these mean and median ages were trying deliberately to mislead, but it will be interesting to see whether anything changes in the reportage now that Irala et. al. have issued this cautionary note. My bet: Probably not.

September 23, 2011

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Part II

I've blogged about the alarming nature of organ donation many times. But if this, this, this, this, or this hasn't sufficiently alarmed you, here's more: (HT Secondhand Smoke)

Some of you may recall from some of my other posts linked above the so-called "Pittsburgh Protocol," also known as non-heart-beating donation, in which organs are harvested quite quickly after a patient's heart has stopped beating, during a time period when the patient might plausibly be able to be revived. Of course, if he's been designated as a donor, he isn't revived. His organs are harvested instead. In one hospital infants' hearts were harvested when the babies had ceased to breathe or to have spontaneous heartbeat for only seventy-five seconds, but the usual protocol is that harvesters must wait at least two minutes. It used to be five.

New proposals by the relevant regulatory agency would completely remove all protocols for waiting after the cessation of patient heartbeat. In other words, harvesters could begin to remove organs instantly after any minuscule time period of cessation of heartbeat and breathing (as if two minutes were not minuscule enough) and after a magical declaration of death. This, obviously, means that revivable patients will have their organs harvested. (In fact, as we saw in a previous entry, the re-attachment of machines for the sake of keeping organs oxygenated sometimes already results in the revival of the patient, who must be drugged to prevent this. Really.)

Is that disturbing enough? There's more: Under the new protocols, the evaluation of the patient as a potential organ donor can be made continuously, even before the family has decided to withdraw all life support. Let me repeat this another way: The independence of the decision to withdraw life support from the decision to donate organs is removed from the protocols. This means that families can be pressured at any time, even early on, to agree to donate the organs of a relative and also that the decision to donate will be able to influence decisions about further treatment and care.

An added interesting point: The new protocols specifically draw attention to people with upper spinal cord injury or end-stage musculoskeletal or pulmonary disease as patients who may be "suitable candidates" for non-heart-beating donation. But of course we're not targeting anyone! Not in the slightest.

You might want to reconsider that organ donor indication on your driver's license, now...

That's in America. In world news, Belgium is aggressively pursuing the coordination of organ donation with assisted suicide.

September 24, 2011

Mohammedan cab drivers filling the void

This story is both refreshing and infuriating. Refreshing, because it's nice to see progress being made against America's in-your-face smut parade. Infuriating, because it took an offended group of Muslims to get this done while American Christians can barely manage a half-hearted shrug. What an embarrassment!

Continue reading "Mohammedan cab drivers filling the void" »

September 25, 2011

Sally Goodin

The Culbreath family hasn't quite come down from the clouds after last Saturday's fiddle competition in Weaverville, California. Speaking for myself, I'm the proud father of three shy and surprised fiddle champions and the event's first-place accompanist. (Well, Amanda wasn't too surprised, being the oldest of the pee-wees.) But I'm even more delighted, as a non-musician, to have a free ticket to the inside world of traditional American fiddling here in the rural northern counties of the Golden State. From the MC's corny jokes to the gospel music interludes, the culture of these events provides a rare public venue for good clean family fun. The kids have a great time. There are impromptu jamming sessions everywhere. The folks who participate are salt-of-the-earth types from small towns throughout the region. Homeschoolers, too, are well represented.

Anyway, one of the highlights of the day was a mini-concert by Timber Ridge, with Martha Boyle playing a thrilling version of Sally Goodin. Jim French, the lead guitarist, is an unassuming man whose personal contributions to traditional music in this region have been enormous and indispensible. Martha herself is an amazing gal from a musical family with two sisters who also sing and fiddle. She runs a music studio in Cottonwood called Keys and Strings with connections to some prominent musicians (April Verch will be visiting in November). I'll bet you've never heard Sally Goodin played like this before.

Continue reading "Sally Goodin" »

September 26, 2011

An Ungenerous Orthodoxy

I had never heard of Randal Rauser until a week or two ago. Turns out he's a Canadian theologian/philosopher and blogger. Also a Christian of sorts. He signals his place on the evangelical spectrum at the top of his home page by endorsing a "generous orthodoxy"--a reference to Brian McLaren.

I first learned of Rauser's existence through a link to a post criticizing him when he came out in support of Pat Robertson's appalling comments on the subject of ditching your Alzheimer's spouse. Rauser found it in his heart to do this despite being apparently well to the left of Robertson and therefore finding it difficult to say anything positive about him, but hey, when it comes to defending something really important, the time has come to set mere political disagreements aside. A man has to step up to the plate sometimes.

Except, apparently, when it comes to standing by your cognitively disabled spouse. In a follow-up post, Rauser defends his position and explains it further.

A couple of twenty year olds are honeymooning when one of them has a massive stroke and is left in a coma with all higher brain function permanently lost. The one that is in a coma will now live for perhaps the next sixty years in a hospital bed with no conscious life at all. Is the other spouse morally obliged to stay with the spouse that is in a coma? And if not obliged, should we tell the spouse that the higher, truly Christ-like path is to forgo remarriage, companionship, parenthood and all the rest in favor of emptying the bedpan of the comatose spouse?

I think not. To be sure, if anybody chose to remain married to an irreversibly comatose spouse I would count that a noble thing to do. But I wouldn’t count it any nobler than one who divorced the irreversibly comatose spouse in favor of a new life. After all, with all higher brain function lost that spouse is essentially dead, even if the bodily organism still grows toenails and hair.

Continue reading "An Ungenerous Orthodoxy" »

September 28, 2011

So you smothered your wife to death? Shrug.

I have already reported on the United Kingdom's functional legalization of assisted suicide. To recap briefly, prosecutorial "guidelines" broadly hint (without quite promising outright) that those who assist the suicides of certain disfavored classes of people, allegedly at the request of the victim, will not be prosecuted. And indeed these "guidelines" have played out exactly as predicted, including in their ambit not only procuring pills, etc., but also active killing. Michael Bateman suffocated and gassed his wife to death, allegedly at her request, and was not prosecuted.

And now, fffolks, it's time for the next step! Actor Stuart Mungall killed his wife, Joan, who suffered from Pick's Disease. This is evidently not in question. He deliberately smothered her to death with a pillow. Moreover, he doesn't even allege that she asked him to do so. Instead, he alleges (you can't make this stuff up) that he "saw it in her eyes" that she wanted to die. (The day before he killed her she told a nurse that she was "taking it all in [her] stride." I guess the nurse wasn't skilled in eye-reading.)

So the prosecution did prosecute. (Whoo-hoo!) However, the prosecution accepted Mungall's plea bargain to manslaughter (!) on grounds of diminished responsibility from the strain of caring for his wife! Is this starting to sound like satire is dead? "Well, you see, your Honor, it was just such a strain taking care of her, and then I saw it in her eyes that she wanted to die, so I smothered her." The poor, stressed fellow smiled at his supporters and got a thumbs-up sign from them in the courtroom after the judge decided to sentence him to no jail time.

The news story is a bit confusing. It quotes, apparently from the trial, the "Recorder of London" as saying to Mungall that the court has a responsibility to show that "you can't take the life of another as you did." Was this an argument against the judge's suspending the sentence? Was it simply a defense of there having been any prosecution at all? The story doesn't say. In any event, the court certainly didn't even begin to show anybody that you can't take the life of another. To the contrary, Mungall's non-sentence makes fifty lashes with a wet noodle look like cruel and unusual punishment. For that matter, the Recorder of London prefaced his "get tough" bit about "showing that you can't take the life of another" with this gooey slab of glory, laud, and honor: "You have had a praiseworthy life...earning the plaudits of all who knew you, who recognise the devotion you showed your wife in the care you showed her." Um, yeah. Thanks, but no thanks for that kind of devotion and care.

Mungall is happy now. He's off scot free, and Joan? Well, Mungall's solicitor says that the killer is relieved that she is now "at peace and without pain." R.I.P.

Don't be disabled in England. It's open season.

HT Secondhand Smoke

Dual Track Civil Marriage

I can't remember where I heard this idea, but someone once proposed a dual track system of civil marriage: one track would be indissoluable along Catholic lines; the other could be whatever everyone else wants. This could be implemented state-by-state. The result, one hopes, would be an increase in social prestige and incentive for the permanent marriage track.

Anyway, would the liberals have any objection to this? Live and let live, right? What's not to like about it? Or would they see this as horribly unegalitarian, creating "first class" and "second class" marriages?

September 30, 2011

Basta!

In the larger scheme of things, I think that homosexuality is among the least interesting and important topics around. But, somehow, it seems to have emerged as the Big Social Issue of our Day. I can't seem to turn an internet corner - least of all here at my own home on the web - without having it thrust in my face.

Well, if that's the way things are, that's the way things are.

But can we just get something straight, here - so to speak?

What is a homosexual?

Continue reading "Basta!" »

Tell me again why these two women aren't locked up?

I hardly know what to say when I read hideous stories like this. The modern world is obviously bent on creating a perfect hell on earth. We have graduated from boring attacks on morality like divorce, co-habitation, contraception, abortion and euthanasia to the much more exciting abominations of human cloning, scientific experiments on aborted babies, in-vitro fertilization, homosexual "marriage", and - just in case these horrors aren't shocking enough - the maleficent adoption of innocent children by those whose crimes against nature cry out to heaven for vengeance. And now we find, predictably enough, that the legal adoption of children by homosexual couples has led to the unique atrocity in this story.

That an 8-year old boy, on his own supposed initiative, can legally undergo sex-change "hormone therapy" in California is just staggering insanity. The fact that "doctors" in California are free to sexually destroy this child without fear of legal consequences is an unfathomable crime itself. That these two witches are legally free, not only to flout their depravities openly, but also to corrupt a young boy in this way - well, there are no words. Have we no prisons for beastly women like these? Where were the CPS busybodies when Thomas Lobel needed them? Where are they now?