What’s Wrong with the World

Sage, welcome and well met. Thanks very much for joining us!

I too took some courses from George Mason, but that was post-degree to brush up on some material that had passed me by. It is kind of amazing, and I think a feather of distinction in our caps, to see how many of the contributors and/or commenters here at WWWtW are or have been teachers. Here's to hoping you get the opportunity to follow your preferred calling.

Paul, when you say

and its tradition whenever in conflict with the fashions and obsessions of cultural centers;

I think the cultural needs either scare quotes or a "pseudo" in front of it. Just thinking out loud.

Thank you both for the warm welcome and the kind words. I am honored to be a squire among the paladins at WWWtW.

Welcome Sage! I have to admit, I was quite surprised and pleased to see that I'm not the only Catholic one around here who is half-Ashkenazi (my other half is Italian, but on my mother's side). What a small world!

I'm also looking forward to making you use that degree you got from Missouri State -- we haven't had enough crazy foreign policy debates around here lately :-)

Welcome, Sage. It's extremely exciting to have you aboard!

I realize this is a bit random but as a Catholic can you explain the Church's BC position to me. Since the recent pope news I have taken an interest in possibly going back but I would not feel honest about it if I'm in dissent with certain doctrine and wanted to make an effort to better understand it

I feel like I do understand it in a general sense, but not in terms of, say, used by a married couple to prevent disease transmission.

thanks and again I apologize for the randomness

Waaaay off-topic.

Lapsed, Lydia is right that this isn't the thread to get into a long discussion about the Catholic Church's position on birth control (which, it ought always be remembered, was the consensus position of the several Christian denominations before they began to be picked off one by one during the social revolutions of the mid-20th century). And I admit to being curious, if puzzled, at the connection between the recent resignation of Benedict XVI and your renewed interest in the Church.

Still, charity requires at least that I advise you this far: The Church's position is not only rationally defensible, but follows necessarily from a centuries-old Christian understanding of the meaning and purpose of the human person. The most commonly-cited and consequential document is Pope Paul VI's encyclical Humanae Vitae:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

A plain language explanation of the Church's teaching is trivially easy to come by. Catholic Answers as a brief primer here:

http://www.catholic.com/tracts/birth-control

And lots of other, similar works can be obtained on the internet. All of them have to cut some corners and simplify some concepts, but a basic explanation is readily available. That's more of an answer than the topic of the thread would require, but again, I think charity requires I at least point you in the right direction without starting a huge discussion of the subject here.

I'm also looking forward to making you use that degree you got from Missouri State

If you do, it will be the very first time!

By the way, Sage, you don't by any chance have a beard, do you? I have worn a full beard ever since I was teaching classes in graduate school - I was young looking and wanted a visual way to distinguish myself from the average 19-year-old taking calculus. About 10 years ago, eldest daughter bought me a Christmas gift that was (I like to think) only half-ironic: a desk name-plate saying "Bearded Sage". Thank goodness they didn't mess up the spelling and have it come out as "Breaded Sage." Anyway, if someone hadn't stolen it off my desk a while back, I could have passed it on to you, but only if you wear a beard, of course.

Hi Sage,

Can you explain what a "chastened one-time libertarian" is?

I'm inclined favorably toward your emendation, Tony. Much of the filth that pours out of New York and LA (and not infrequently Nashville as well), technically-speaking, is anti-culture.

[opposition to birth control,] it ought always be remembered, was the consensus position of the several Christian denominations before they began to be picked off one by one during the social revolutions of the mid-20th century

Bingo.

Tony, in fact I do wear a beard. So you might say I'm a bearded Sage, but not yet a bearded sage.

Daniel, I refuse to believe you can't puzzle out the meaning of that phrase for yourself, even if you are still a committed libertarian. You might not like that I describe myself that way, but let's please not pretend you need an explanation as to what the words mean, especially just so as to bait this thread (as so many others before it) into a conversation about the merits your pet philosophy.

It doesn't have to do with any issue with Pope Benedict himself, just that I hadn't been thinking about going back to Church until the news recently, which sparked a renewed interest in maybe reconnecting that I have from time to time

anyway lol again I apologize, I'll keep an eye out if there's a thread discussing Catholic issues for a more appropriate time

What kind of competitive card games?

Also, I've been thinking of a humorous test for degrees of "Southerness" based on someone's sweetness preference for tea.
The different choices are: 1) Barely perceptible. 2) Comparable to sodas. 3) The aroma causes cavities. 4) Instant diabetes.

Welcome to the world of wonder Sage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtVyGsDuZqA

Hahaha. Good set of degrees, Step2. Before I read your set, I kind of thought there would be room for something in between "barely perceptible" and "like soda", but now I see that it probably would just be a distinction without a difference.

Step, I'ma afraid you'll have to put me down as a category 3. Probably, it was 4 at one time, but I'm older now, and have more cavities. Great video, too!

Lapsed, no worries. These things will certainly come up over time and I would encourage you to read the site as we have a goodly number of contributors focused on those kinds of issues.

Sage:

Daniel, I refuse to believe you can't puzzle out the meaning of that phrase for yourself, even if you are still a committed libertarian. You might not like that I describe myself that way, but let's please not pretend you need an explanation as to what the words mean, especially just so as to bait this thread (as so many others before it) into a conversation about the merits your pet philosophy.

I would describe myself as a 'fledgling libertarian'. For that reason I'm very interested when someone describes themselves as a former libertarian. It has absolutely nothing to do with whether I "like" it or not. I'm curious (for my own benefit) what you find wrong with the philosophy I am in the process of embracing.

I must point out also that I wasn't the first to mention the word "libertarian" in this thread (it's in your "bio") so please don't accuse me of "baiting".

Now that we're off to such a good start... welcome aboard!

I'm curious (for my own benefit) what you find wrong with the philosophy I am in the process of embracing.

Which is exactly what I said you were doing--rhetorically pretending not to know what I meant by what I said, so as to get me to go into a great exposition about what's wrong with libertarianism, which you naturally would argue against since you embrace that philosophy, etc., etc. In other words, turning this thread into a big back-and-forth about the merits of libertarianism by asking me an innocent question like "What do you mean by X," when you obviously know just what I mean. That's baiting by any reasonable standard, no matter what details about my intellectual past happened to be in my bio (which, believe it or not, wasn't written with you in mind).

This is nothing personal, Daniel, and I'm as sure as I can be that you are not trying to be malicious. I simply don't want to have that argument in this thread (any more than I want to get into the RCC's teaching on birth control), no matter how important that argument might be in the abstract, and you won't through any rhetorical tactic draw me into it.

Daniel, why don't you wait for Sage to put up a thread on libertarianism, hmm?

Which is exactly what I said you were doing--rhetorically pretending not to know what I meant by what I said, so as to get me to go into a great exposition about what's wrong with libertarianism, which you naturally would argue against since you embrace that philosophy, etc., etc.

Well I wasn't "pretending" anything so the rest of your sentence doesn't apply. I honestly have no idea what you find wrong with libertarianism or what the term "chastened one-time libertarian" even means (chastened how? by whom? into what?)

If you don't want to have that discussion, that's really all you had to say. You didn't need to attribute false motives to me or accuse me of things I'm not really doing. I merely brought up something used to describe YOU (something that also interested ME) in the OP. Normally that's how discussions begin. I didn't realize it was off-limits, but now I do (thanks to the very last sentence in your two indictments of my "non-malicious" character).

Anyway, I doubt there will be any threads on libertarianism anytime soon around here, I'm also starting to doubt that I'll ever get a response on the subject that's not accusatory in nature.

I doubt anybody will find these competing counter-claims about your intentions interesting, so I'll allow you the last word on that and let any interested readers (if there are any, which I doubt) to judge for themselves.

A thread on libertarianism may actually happen at W4, and of all the contributors here I might actually be the most likely to add one, since it's a significant part of my own intellectual history. So don't despair--with my addition to the authors list, the odds of such a thread just went up significantly. In my experience, libertarians love to talk about nothing so much as libertarianism, which is, in a certain sense, to their credit. (My first contribution is coming tonight or tomorrow, but it does not deal with the subject at all.)

"Chastened one-time libertarian" means exactly what appears to mean, even if the details are left unstated. A full discourse on my own intellectual history would make for a self-indulgent and uninteresting bio, though, especially since mine is not a fascinating intellect, so I hope you'll forgive for now the opacity of the wording I've used to describe my journey to traditionalism. Leave us say that I was a libertarian, and am one no longer because of thought and experience, the details of which I will no doubt relate at some future time.

By the by, Daniel, you will also note that my bio describes me as cantankerous and argumentative. So at least I have demonstrated that much to your satisfaction, right...?

Welcome, McLaughlin. I am also a bit of a former libertarian. I never got as far as voting for the Libertarian party, but I did tend to believe in libertarianism quite broadly. I finally decided it will just never get off the ground.

By the by, Daniel, you will also note that my bio describes me as cantankerous and argumentative. So at least I have demonstrated that much to your satisfaction, right...?

That I can attest to! (LOL)

Just as a matter of personal disclosure (and clarification); I don't like to be wrong, (which isn't unusual) but I also want to know IF I'm wrong and why (which is probably a little unusual). So I'm generally not here to argue, (though it may seem so at times), I'm here to (hopefully) discover the truth and maybe unmask some untruth (in myself and others).