What’s Wrong with the World

The men signed of the cross of Christ go gaily in the dark.

About

What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

Friday miscellaneous link roundup

Readers will have gathered that I am on Facebook. This sometimes presents me with an embarrassment of riches for blogging, yet it's an odd effect that actually I blog less. That's partly explicable by the fact that I do spend some time actually on Facebook, reading my friends' links and making pithy comments and "likes" and what-not, all of which takes time.

It's also a function of the embarrassment of (sad) riches itself. I say to myself, "I should blog about that...and that...and that..." and since there isn't time to write something thoughtful about all of them, I end up writing about none of them. This is unfortunate. So, rather than "saving up" stories for possible later, longer treatment, and to promote them just in case some of you haven't heard about all of them, herewith a link roundup with a sentence or two about each. This is a hodge-podge to end all hodge-podges. It also occurs to me that there is nothing to stop me or any of my esteemed colleagues from writing more about any of the stories later. Comments can be on any of the stories. In no particular order...

More on the zero-sum game: A Christian florist is going to be sued doubly (once by Washington State and once by the ACLU) for refusing to supply flowers for a homosexual "wedding" in Washington. Shades of the Elaine Hugonin case. (She was the wedding photographer in New Mexico similarly fined.) In the threatened civil suit, the ACLU is attempting some pretty blatant extortion, demanding that she write an apology to the two men, promise to supply flowers for homosexual "weddings" in the future, and donate money (!) to a homosexual youth organization. Tell me again, how is homosexual "marriage" all about freedom?

In England, an undercover newswoman discovered that a sharia "court" is advising women to put up with being physically abused, not to call the police (unless the beating was really severe), and to blame themselves for what is happening to them. But anti-sharia laws, of course, are just fear-mongering and bigotry, right?

In Australia, an appeal was allowed for a rape conviction (and yes, this was forcible rape) on the grounds that the rapist, being a Muslim, didn't understand the importance of sexual consent. He was sentenced to jail, but the point is that the appeal was allowed because he was a Muslim and because of odious Muslim views concerning women, sex, and rape, which were (incredibly) considered mitigating.

As I'm sure you're all aware, the horrific facts about the trial of baby-killer Kermit Gosnell are being deep-sixed by the national mainstream media. Many comparisons have been made to other cases which were national news for months on end. Why not this one? I guess we scarcely need to ask. (No link necessary.)

The leftists in our own U.S. Senate have blocked a resolution to honor the late, great Maggie Thatcher, who passed away the other day. Stay classy, Democrats. And stay smart about history, too. I wish I could say more about Maggie, but here are just a couple of her quotations:

Socialists cry “Power to the people”, and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean—power over people, power to the State.
Communist regimes were not some unfortunate aberration, some historical deviation from a socialist ideal. They were the ultimate expression, unconstrained by democratic and electoral pressures, of what socialism is all about. … In short, the state [is] everything and the individual nothing.

And, last but not least, Melissa Harris-Perry of MSNBC thinks kids belong to the collective. I find her "reasoning" interesting: We don't want to insist that children are the responsibility of their parents, because we want to demand more public funding for public schools. Because we don't want to put the responsibility for children on their parents, because we want to blame "society" for not spending enough money on public education if children are not turning out the way we want them to, we need to take the view that parental rights mean nothing. Thus the move, seamlessly and immediately, from an entitlement mindset to a loss of freedom. If you want the collective to bear the responsibility for whether your children are well-educated, you are expected to think of your children as the property of the collective. What's really frightening is that a lot of people will welcome that reasoning, because a) they want to demand more funding for public education (as though throwing more money at it has ever been helpful) and b) they like the idea of blaming other people for the way their children turn out and whether they are educated or not. Privilege implies responsibility, folks. If you want parental rights, you need to take parental responsibility.

Comments (15)

I want to update this post with a comment here. My own piece on Gosnell from over two years ago is even more detailed and, now, timely, than I had remembered:

http://whatswrongwrongwiththeworld.net/2011/01/choice_devours_itselfthe_proch.html

Two points that pro-lifers need to be hammering on as they demand that the media notice this case:

1) Gosnell routinely performed forced abortions, so routinely that he had explicit, written instructions to women to request additional anesthesia if they were being coerced.

2) Pro-choice officials covered up for Gosnell _because_ they were pro-choice and didn't want to put "barriers" in the way of women seeking abortion. A name that should live in infamy: Janice Staloski. She was prominent in the cover-up. I don't understand why she cannot be indicted for some sort of gross negligence or corruption. Her pro-abortion ideology was admitted by her to be her motivation.

Read the old post. It's very useful right now.

How about the adage that there is no such thing as a society.

Now let's play a song as a dirge that celebrates Thatcher's neoliberal paradise: Gun's and Rose "Welcome to the Jungle".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1tj2zJ2Wvg

The leftists in our own U.S. Senate have blocked a resolution to honor the late, great Maggie Thatcher, who passed away the other day. Stay classy, Democrats. And stay smart about history, too. I wish I could say more about Maggie, but here are just a couple of her quotations:

You do not think we leftist are erudite and know our history? Don't underestimate us.

While I am disappointed with Thatcher's record in some regards (she was not pro-life, AFAIK), it's unfair to wrench the society quote from its full context:

"I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation."

NW, thank you. A most helpful context to the quote.

Yes, my quote was not out of context; Thatcher most certainly believed in an atomized society and denigrated communitarianism.

Trolls gonna troll... one wonders why they bother.

She denigrated socialism. And a good thing, too. Let's not pretend. Advocates of socialism would do everyone a favor if they just did so openly. Honesty is the best policy.

By the way, kudos to pro-lifers on alternative media who are finally forcing some MSM coverage of the Gosnell trial.

Lydia, you won. You got want you wanted ... celebrate her legacy of neoliberalism, economic "freedom", free movement of capital, atomization, and liberty, economic inequality, and unremitting economic competition. Go give that harridan a panegyric and praise her vision along with your ideological peers from the Heritage Foundation (which is where you liked from).

I wonder how the advocacy of Thatcher's policies and political philosophy and being pro-life can be miscible. Allowing babies to be born in such an economically and socially ruthless and cruel world.

---

Allowing babies to be born in such an economically and socially ruthless and cruel world.

shopworn (adj.):

1. worn or marred, as goods exposed and handled in a store.
2. trite; hackneyed.

Tell me again, how is homosexual "marriage" all about freedom?

It is becoming easier by the day to answer those, like a good fellow at my office, have asked me to explain just what effect recognition of homosexual "marriages" could possibly have on anyone else. Of course it's almost an insane question--what effect does it have on each of us that the state recognizes marriages at all? The impact on innumerable daily interactions is incalculable. Anyway, a surprising number of people are willing to see the point if it is made to them in person.

If you want the collective to bear the responsibility for whether your children are well-educated, you are expected to think of your children as the property of the collective. What's really frightening is that a lot of people will welcome that reasoning, because a) they want to demand more funding for public education (as though throwing more money at it has ever been helpful) and b) they like the idea of blaming other people for the way their children turn out and whether they are educated or not.

This is a topic near to my heart, as my post on the subject makes clear. People will come to accept it in large part because the leftist newswoman on television says they should. Never mind that it is an open and unabashed restatement of the Communist view of children as the property of the state, and of the family as an unrighteous barrier to social thriving. Never mind also the empirical falsity of her whole premise, which is that we don't throw enough money at our public schools. The fact that she is willing to state the case so plainly is an indication of liberals' near-total dominance of the organs of public opinion, and their total confidence in the same.

In short, we are at a point where the President could include her exact words in a public address, and the only people who would find it remarkable at all would be conservative columnists, about half of whom would couch their complaints in such limp-wristed terms as to be worse than useless. Not a single liberal in the country would buck at hearing it, nor would a single leftist public intellectual object.

Black Rose, as a conservative I'm quite doubtful about Thatcher's neo-liberal tendencies. I tend to follow Phillip Blond's appraisal of her, which recognizes some of her economic accomplishments as being necessary, and praises her anti-communism, but also recognizes the negatives that you mention. In short, she was neither devil nor saint. While it's certainly inappropriate for those on the right to genuflect at the mention of her name, it's also classless and goonish of the Dems not to recognize her positive accomplishments, even if they don't like the whole package.

Never mind that it is an open and unabashed restatement of the Communist view of children as the property of the state, and of the family as an unrighteous barrier to social thriving. Never mind also the empirical falsity of her whole premise, which is that we don't throw enough money at our public schools. The fact that she is willing to state the case so plainly is an indication of liberals' near-total dominance of the organs of public opinion, and their total confidence in the same.

I have recently been reading and gaining much from the book Witness, and I was rather struck by the way that Communists in the 30's, as Chambers describes it, were contemptuous of FDR and of the whole liberal change that was taking place in the country, regarding it as only a half-hearted and hence "fake" revolution. One of the things Chambers explains is how he himself came to realize that a _true_ revolution, albeit a bloodless one, was taking place in America. Time has certainly borne out that evaluation. The "C" word ("Communism") is regarded as taboo. One is considered to be foaming at the mouth if one so much as uses it to describe any policy suggestion or concept one hears. Yet various policy suggestions and ideas are *undeniably* Communist in nature, as in this case, and the extent to which they are accepted is frightening.

@Sage:

It is becoming easier by the day to answer those, like a good fellow at my office, have asked me to explain just what effect recognition of homosexual "marriages" could possibly have on anyone else.

Oh, certainly we are now far, far beyond the point at which it was possible to straight-facedly assert that homosexual legitimization would have no repercussions on anyone else. It may be clearer up here in Canada than it is down there, yet, but even down there there's no excuse for failing to see this anymore.

I have already offered a prayer for this woman to remain strong. Alas, it seems like in every story of this sort that you read these days, the good guys always fold in the end. I guess the pressure must be too much.

Post a comment


Bold Italic Underline Quote

Note: In order to limit duplicate comments, please submit a comment only once. A comment may take a few minutes to appear beneath the article.

Although this site does not actively hold comments for moderation, some comments are automatically held by the blog system. For best results, limit the number of links (including links in your signature line to your own website) to under 3 per comment as all comments with a large number of links will be automatically held. If your comment is held for any reason, please be patient and an author or administrator will approve it. Do not resubmit the same comment as subsequent submissions of the same comment will be held as well.