Relating to the above, one of the priests at my church recently made the point that the abuse of a good does not diminish the good itself. The Catholic Church – so Catholics believe – is the Church established by God. Even so, humans manage the day-to-day operations of God’s One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church. Because humans belong to and manage the Church, and because all humans are inherently flawed, and it takes a lot of effort to work toward perfection, some people will fall, and some of them will fall hard. None of that changes the fact that the Catholic Church is God’s true church, and, therefore, inherently good.
There’s a column in Town Hall today about another abuse by the Anti-Christian Liberties Union. Apparently the ACLU has filed suit on behalf of one individual demanding that a cross that had originally been erected on private land, which land is now public, be removed. Even a transfer of an acre of the land back to private hands – in exchange for five times that amount going back to the government – isn’t enough. The ACLU wants the Government to take back the land and destroy the monument. My take: How is it that people offended by the mention of God take precedence over people offended by the “offence” caused by the mention of God? If God offends you, you need to get your own house in order before you come knocking on my door.
Does the sports media bug you as much as it does me? Does it irritate you that the New York Yankees, a team that hasn’t won the World Series since 2000 are still covered more on ESPN than local teams are covered by their local media? Do you find it funny that the Miami Hurricanes beat two good-but-not-great teams (neither ranked higher than 15th) and jumped from un-ranked to 20th to 9th in two weeks (only to lose decisively to Virginia Tech last week)? Do you notice that media darling Tony Romo has no post-season wins on his résumé and has been playing worse than Jason Campbell (and that’s saying something) this year? Do you even realize that Pittsburgh Penguin forward Sidney Crosby, often hailed as the best player, by far, in the NHL isn’t even the best player on his team? And that if Alexander Ovechkin had Evgeni Malkin on his line, Ovechkin, not Crosby, would have his name on the Stanley Cup? And that almost happened anyway last year? It’s not that the Yankees, the Hurricanes, or Crosby are not very good at what they do (Romo is a separate case), it’s just that the media has tried from day one to make you think they are far better than they actually are. That, by the way, is what is meant by overrated.
Do you notice how disagreement or disparagement of a black man is almost always termed racism? I know I’ve harped on this before, but this is more than just my “it’s racism whenever bad things happen to black people” argument. It’s not just President Obama, either. Go back through the archives and look at any time in the last 20 years when a major black figure has been disagreed with, even mildly. Like when Rush Limbaugh called Donavan McNabb “overrated.” Or during the Michael Jackson trial. Or when the Duke Rape Case started to crumble because it lacked an actual crime having been committed. Such pronouncements used to be limited to the likes of Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. Now it’s the norm, particularly where the President is involved.
Conservatives are at a great disadvantage when it comes to enacting their agenda. Since the primary goal of the conservative is to reduce the size of government, accomplishing that goal usually means having to try to eliminate some government agency, regulation, or entitlement. Government agencies, regulations, and entitlements all defy the adage that it is easier to destroy than create. Once the Left creates some new agency, regulation, or entitlement, getting rid of it will be next to impossible, because all the people who rely on that new agency, regulation or entitlement will have to be accounted for somehow. For example, once Social Security was created, people began to rely on it. Now that millions rely on it, scrapping it completely will mean millions of people not receiving income they expected. The same will be true for Obamacare. The idea that it will be easy to get rid of if it is enacted is naïve, at best, particularly once it succeeds in destroying the competition (private insurance companies). The transition from public back to private will be painful in the best possible scenario. On the other hand, a stroke of the pen is all that is needed to take your rights away “for the common good.”
It’s truly amazing how many people who call themselves “liberals” fail to understand the Constitution, religion, or true liberalism. Tragically, we have laws in this country designed to punish churches for speaking out against the established order. I’m speaking of the provision of the tax code that can be used to remove a church’s non-taxable status if that church preaches politics from the pulpit. Rarely is that provision invoked when the politics is to the Left, such as having then-Senator Obama give a campaign speech at a church, or having Jeremiah Wright give one of his “I hate America” sermons. But we always hear it when a church speaks out against homosexuality, abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, etc. The lack of understanding is three-fold: 1. These issues are first, and foremost, moral issues, long before they are political. Churches have an obligation to teach correctly on moral issues, and those that don’t risk condemning their congregations to hell. (If your church teaches that abortion is OK, and you have an abortion on that premise, using “they said it was OK” as an excuse probably won’t fly.) 2. Freedom of speech is one of the most important in our Constitution, and the abridgement of speech that is politically incorrect by sending tax goons after the speaker flies in the face of the letter and spirit of that law. 3. The freedom of religion clauses in the First Amendment were designed to protect churches from the government, not the other way around. There was never any intent to keep the devoutly religious from having a say in government. Neither was the intent to make the government officially atheist, particularly to satisfy the sensibilities of some small minority of the population. The constitution was written by and for a people guided by Christian moral principles, even if some didn’t specifically consider Jesus Christ their own personal savior. The intent was to avoid what was happening in England (and why many of the colonists came here in the first place) at the time, namely the persecution of churches outside the Church of England (Catholics and Puritans chief among them). The only way to do that is to let religion have a voice in government and not to stamp it out. To see what happens when God is stamped out of Government, look at Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Communist <insert country here>.