Notes on A Few Upcoming Blog Threads:

Briefly as time is short...

--A reader wrote me asking about the concept of "implicit faith." I have been working on a thread to post pertaining to that subject which should be ready soon.

--Do to some feedback on yesterday's brief exposition on the hypocrisy of the apologetics oligarchy, I will be responding to at least one piece of email received on that subject within the next week or so.

--The last thing I expected was a criticism of my prayer for the soldiers blogged yesterday but indeed I got some from a former soldier. A response to those criticisms will be forthcoming.

--As several readers have sent me links to the Iraq Study Group recommendations as per yesterday's request, I will be looking them over and considering how to deal with them in the coming days. Right now, I am leaning towards listing them all in bullet form and noting which ones are practical or otherwise achievable and which ones are impractical or otherwise not worth taking seriously.

--I am working on a response to a friend who is critical of women being allowed to vote to be blogged when it is ready.

--Some "points to ponder" threads are planned from Allen Bloom, Herbert Butterfield, Mike Mentzer, Cardinal Ratzinger, Greg Mockeridge, Fr. John Laux, Albert Cipriani, Ayn Rand, and Stephen Hand among others.

--A weblog thread of miscellaneous links with assorted commentary is also in the works to be completed soon. (The hold up here is determining how many links to use and what subject matters to cover.)

--A weblog update is being worked on bit by bit to be posted within a week or so.

--Some administrative fixes are being made to make the weblog easier to operate from this end.

Anyway, while hardly all I have planned, those are some threads which will be focused on in the coming days and weeks for completion.

As today in the liturgical calendar is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, it seems appropriate to revisit a couple of threads from this weblog's archives dealing with that subject matter. Ergo...

On the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Fathers Who "Denied" Her Sinlessness--Parts I-II (circa January 15, 2003)

As it is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor's bombing today, it seems appropriate to recognize it with a prayer for the soldiers -slightly modified from the text here to cover both living and dead...

Father, hold our soldiers in your loving hands. Keep them from spiritual and bodily harm. Place them under the protective mantle of our Blessed Mother Mary and send St. Michael and the holy angels before them in every danger. Give them and their families courage, strength and hope. Remember in your mercy all who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom and security of others both recently and in years past. We have in mind with this petition those who are lost their lives on 9/11 and in the current fight against religious zealotry much as in years past who fought the monsters of totalitarian communism and its twin leftist scourge fascism. With special mention we implore your mercy and the intercession of the entire heavenly cohort for those who died at Pearl Harbour sixty-five years ago today and those who gave their lives in that heroic conflict. In your mercy, grant peace to all your children in every nation on earth. We praise you and thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.

With all the hubbub on the "Iraq Study Group", I am considering analysing all of their proposals. However, I need to find a link that has all of them in order to do that. Anyone who can find the thread and send it to me, it would be most appreciated as I do not have time at the moment to look for it myself.

On the Election, "Lost Causes", and Activism:
("From the Mailbag" Dept.)

This email was sent in response to my election synopsis thread from last month. The emailer's words will be in purple font.

We may have lost our chance for another generation to re-orient the Supreme Court. Again, Bush in his heart is quite comfortable with the Harriet Miers's of the world and he'll be just dandy with a nominee along those lines. So the collapse of a GOP Congress that can counter that is possibly catastrophic.

Well, to start with, we need to avoid activism on our side when it comes to the judges. As one of my friends noted when the Harriet Miers nomination was still feasible, my opposition to it was in part because of activist mentalities. To wit:

Shawn,

Thank you for joining my voice here in the blogosphere by stating you don't really care if she's pro life or an Evangelical. I honestly think as far as the blogopshere goes, the two of us are rare in stating those.

Perhaps so. I have never cared for judicial activism of any kind much the way I do not like liturgical tampering. In both cases the dictum of Fr. Stravinskas comes to mind which is this:

"Never tamper with the liturgy, even under the pretense of making it 'better' because if you can tamper with it on your end, then you give others the right to do so on their end" (cf. Liturgy of the Third Millennium circa 2000).

The same is the case with activism...allowing it on one side means the other side can do it too. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa October 5, 2005)]

As it was, Kevin Tierney and I were to my knowledge{1} the only Catholic bloggers who took this view. As far as what the new situation is with the incoming Democrat congressional majorities, I am not that pessimistic actually. One vacancy in the Senate on the Democratic side -by death, scandal, or whatever- means the president gets to pick the replacement to serve out the term. That is not all actually as the margin in the Senate is just one and if not for the election of some more conservative Democrats, the Republicans would still be in control. It does not take much for the power to shift in that situation -the Reid's are going to have to practice diplomacy now and if they bag on the conservative Democrats, the situation could become a repeat of the first six years of the 1980's where the "blue dogs" allied themselves with Republicans against their own party. More could be noted but that suffices for now.

Seems to me that this was a combination of a fed-up-with-Iraq vote (thank you, mainstream media) and disgust at corruption, the lack of exciting leadership based on real conviction, and, let's not forget, a somewhat normal swing of the pendelum.

It was in many respects the normal sixth year cycle of a two term president. If not for the Republicans controlling the Congress in 1998, the same would have probably happened with Clinton: the only president since Calvin Coolidge in 1926 to not see loss of seats in at least one legislature by his party in the sixth year midterm election.

Those who think that this means the Republicans are necessarily on the decline as many Democrat supporters seem to think could well be in for a rude awakening in two years. History does not indicate that such presumptions are at all a given though I suppose we all should be thankful that there were no voting machine glitches this election. Of course if the Republicans win in 2008, then we will hear more about election machine glitches because we all know that there are no voting irregularities when the Democrats win elections right??? {the sarcastic undertone of the last two sentences was definitely intended}...

It's hard to tell what it means as far as where the country lies philophically.

I am not so sure this is such a rubix cube. As I noted in my election synopsis thread:

There is also the fact that no conservatives lost their seats and if anything, conservatives were either re-elected amongst the Republicans or elected amongst the Democrats. The reason the Dems will have majorities in both houses is because of southern conservative Democrats being elected. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa November 24, 2006)]

Essentially, the Democrats had to hide their true selves from the electorate to get elected to majorities. This was predicted by yours truly before the election as what they would have to do along with somehow making this a referendum on a national level. To revisit the aforementioned election synopsis thread:

We said they would need to nationalize the election around Bush and they did that. We also said that they would need to shut their traps and not tell people what they really planned to do[...] and they actually did that also. Give them credit for actually learning from past mistakes if nothing else. The question is, will the idiotic Republicans realize why they lost in the election or not. Alas, we cannot say there is much optimism here at Rerum Novarum that they will -at least not in the short term. Maybe it will take handing over the gavels in the chambers on January 20, 2007 for them to realize what happened and start the process of pondering why what happened actually happened. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa November 24, 2006)]

In light of these factors, I do not see how this aligns itself philosophically in favour of the so-called "progressivists" in the Democratic party and their nefarious agendas. If anything, these factors point to this being a standard sixth year cycle pattern and not anything indicating a seismic paradigm shift in the electorate.

The election poses something of the Return of the Blue Dogs Democrats, some more than others.

Precisely and that is not a bad thing.

Almost all the same-sex marriage bans passed.

Yep.

The abortion bill failed in S.D., but that was probably a bridge too far without exceptions for rape or incest--something like 44% voted for it anyway, which surprises me.

Well, this is an issue where the prolifers showed their habitual boneheadedness. I have discussed this problem many times before and this is it in a nutshell:

[W]hile a 100% prolife vote is not necessarily congruent with voting for the candidate who either disallows or will legally plunder you less, if in doubt it is an excellent "tie-breaker" issue when it otherwise appears to be Democans and Republicrats...

At the very least the same Constitutional illogic that allows Roe v. Wade to exist is what allows people to think the government has the right to steal from us in ways that the average person could never do without committing a crime...

[P]ro lifers have a history politically of shooting their movement in the head. And sometimes you have to take part of a loaf and do this a few times before you can get the entire loaf. Forgetting this principle has resulted in the pro lifers politically shooting themselves in the head in the past. (In brief, that is how they lost the Republican controlled Senate to Democrats in 1986 which meant losing control of the Judiciary which meant defeat for Bork in 1987. And as 1990 proved, Bork's replacement was the swing vote that retained Roe v. Wade.) [Excerpts from Rerum Novarum (circa November 5, 2002)]

What I noted in that posting and in many other times over the years was manifested in spades by that referendum in SD failing. As you noted, making exceptions for rape and incest would have resulted in that bill passing and would have outlawed the overwhelming majority of abortions. But rather than try for half a loaf (or in this case, over nine tenths of the loaf) the boneheaded prolifers screwed up again.

I've already mentioned the Arizona anti-illegals initiatives; whatever you might think of them they ain't liberal, and none of them got less than 70% of the vote (denies bail to illegal immigrants, denies some education services to illegal immigrants; denies the collection of punitive damages to them; adopts English as the official state language). And many if not most of the new Dems are also gun-friendly (again, think what you want, but that ain't liberal). You could only find Pelosi on milk cartons. etc.

All of that is true -the Pelosi absence during the election...well...see further up in this post for how I predicted that one.

Sorry for the long response.

No problems :)

Bottom line: The Arlen Specters (including actually Arlen Specter) are already saying this proves the party should move to left. I don't think so. But one thing that's certain is that our two national parties are not Tweedledum/Tweedledee, Rome/Carthage, or Not/Different. People who say that...are just not paying attention, or scoring points in their own fantastical drama.

Well, there are differences between the two parties but not enough. As I noted in a thread posted on election day before we knew which way the voting winds were blowing:

[W]e do not have very good options right now. It needs to be made clear that any support for the Republicans is done grudgingly and not because people think they are that good a party because they are not. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa November 7, 2006)]

This loss needs to effect a change of mind and approach to the Republicans. The view of the Arlen Specters was actually rebuked by this election when all the factors are taken into consideration. What is needed for the Republicans is to return to the sources (read: being actual conservatives instead of copycat "liberal lite" sorts) and this means recognizing that what was rebuked in this election was not conservatism but party politics.

Conservatives who have supported Republicans for years to get treated like dog turds except around election time finally said (in the words of the great western philosopher Dee Snyder) "we're not gonna take it anymore" and enough of them sat this election out to allow the Republicans to be knocked off of their lofty perch. The war issue served more to galvanize the anti-Bush crowd and while there are enough errors of fact and misperceptions in the "this war is an abomination" crowd to fill a small ocean; nonetheless, perception is often viewed by people as reality.

President Bush was also hurt (even though he was not running) because of the absurd and illogical "amnesty for criminals" issue he has promoted. Throw in the Katrina debacle and a few other areas where the Bush Administration has looked less than adequate and the general six year pattern for voting historically, and the result is not that surprising.

I would advise against being too pessimistic about this and remind you of an old proverb: it is often darkest just before the dawn. That is how I view this situation and believe this makes it more likely to elect a conservative as president in 2008 than it would have been if the Republicans had gotten away with their normal "treat conservatives like crap and then throw them an occasional scrap to shut them up" approach.

Note:

{1} I think Greg Mockeridge agreed with this view at the time too but I cannot recall offhand.

Some Additional Outlining of the Public and Private Double Standards of the Apologetics Oligarchy:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

This is the lions share of text from an email I quoted a previous weblog posting in accordance with my long-manifested approach to private correspondence. I also mentioned in a second posting that I would eventually be putting this thread up in its near-entirety. What made the decision to do so at this time pretty easy is the recent response by a key member of the apologetics oligarchy to yet another attempted snowjob by one of the community's more flagrant violators of basic integrity and ethics as of late. This predicatable brushoff by such a key member of the aforementioned oligarchy basically made my posting of this thread inevitable and I might as well get it out of the way now while the iron is still hot. But first some disclosure as to how the material below came about.

What you are about to read was originally written in response to a friend who vetted a post for this weblog. I was multitasking on a lot of projects at the time and was composing the last part of the text in a rush. For that reason, I was concerned about the flow of the text and wanted to make sure what I wrote was adequate -as I was responding to a dialogual partner with no small degree of intellectual firepower. In light of the circumstances, it seemed appropriate to me to get a second opinion so I asked them to review the piece. The feedback was basically that the text read really well but they were admittedly concerned about some of the "barbs" in the text towards certain parties which were ancillary to the subject being discussed in that thread.

It was in writing a response to that which produced the text you are about to read -though this is a toned down more refined version of what was actually written. I was shocked at the text coming out as it did because it was in structure and content a one take which is very rare for me when writing. I knew I would use it at some point either wholly or in part and this is the lions share of the email material. (I judged some of the text as not prudent to post lest it detract from the purpose of posting this thread to begin with.)

I have decided to post the text in purple as what I note below frankly saddens me to no small degree. And while I am sure this will piss off some parties, frankly I do not give a damn. Furthermore, I challenge anyone who disputes my viewing of this matter to present a viable hypothesis of their own to explain the obvious double standards involved here otherwise their kvetching will be without merit to me. Without further ado...

Basically, my lack of respect for Catholic apologists grows by leaps and bounds every day it seems: between these antics and the refusal of people like Akin to publicly rebuke people like Shea and (on other issues) Dave Armstrong I see them as having no credibility whatsoever. When I hear anyone say "lets go after James White" from this crowd, my natural response is "why when y'all criticize in him what you condone in Catholic apologists; ergo, violating the law of non-contradiction and making of this whole enterprise a joke???"

You may be right about the barbs being inappropriate but I have watched this cowardly evasion on Mark's part for over a year now on these subjects. As I see it, he is disgracing Catholics publicly by virtue of having a prominent public profile and refusing to honestly interact with these issues. I cannot show him even an ounce of public respect anymore until he repents for this crap to the same degree he spewed it to begin with: publicly on his blog will suffice. (He made an ass of himself and insulted others repeatedly in that forum on this subject so public repentence in the same forum by him is required in the interest of both consistency as well as out of principle.)

Even worse than his insults and his making an ass of himself is his obvious hypocrisy. Indeed, his attempts to explain away why it is okay for Akin to say what Harrison, McKenna, Mockeridge, Blosser, myself and others{1} have said is sickening and shows just how much this is a matter of personalities instead of issues.I mean why is it okay for Jimmy to say something but for the exact same thing said by others to be not only unacceptable but for such people to be publicly ridiculed and otherwise insulted??? If it is not a matter of $$$ than I have to wonder what it is since a valid opinion is not valid because of the person who holds it but instead its validity or invalidity stands on its own merits. That is where it is at XXXXXXX and I want this bullshit stopped. NOW.

I cannot and will not give any support whatsoever of a financial nature to apologetics organizations like UnCatholic Answers{2} or any of them. I will not write any articles on any subjects whatsoever for either periodicals or for websites, or whatever because I want nothing to do with it anymore. And frankly, I hate to say it because this is a wonderful endeavour in and of itself. I would never have devoted my time over the years to it if I did not see it as being of value. But the value has been sullied and continues to plummet as long as people refuse to recognize that the Emperor has no clothes on.

I have seen this go on for a long time -particularly since 9/11 for reasons I proposed a hypothesis about here- and for a long time, I bit my tongue hoping that things would reverse themselves. For a long time I was willing to believe (against all evidences to the contrary) that what I was seeing was not there -that it was merely me being too overly critical of an enterprise which has its share of frail humans in it and thus will have its chaff along with the wheat. But instead, far from rebounding it is getting worse by the day and I see no end to it in sight.

If not for the obvious and manifested refusal of the apologist community{3}, I would be content to continue to bite my tongue. But when attempts to address this publicly (since private appeals have fallen on deaf ears) result not only in no action taken but indeed result in the apologist oligarchy circling the wagons and protecting one another's idiotic blatherings from legitimate scrutiny, then I cannot and indeed will not play along.

Out of principle I cannot tolerate this anymore XXXXXXX and this is why out of principle I not only have refused the label of Catholic apologist for over five years now but also why I have in the past two to three years in particular come to the point to where I absolutely loathe it. That is why I want it made as clear as possible that I consider applying the term to me in any way whatsoever to be a personal insult. However well intended the person is who does it, that is how I see it and will continue to as long as the garbage spewed by these apologist bigmouths that is condoned by silence or publicly approved of (even tacitly) by the oligarchy continues. That is why I am giving some consideration to removing all apologetics-related material from the side margin of Rerum Novarum. Whether I actually do the latter or not is still uncertain but I am strongly tempted to.

I take principles very seriously XXXXXXX and have an abiding respect for others who do also -even if I disagree with them. But two principles which I cannot compromise are those of integrity and honesty. I expect this in a person's views, in their scholarship, in everything they do. (I also expect an abiding respect for reason and logic though if the attempts in the other areas are tended to, I can overlook lapses here for the sake of getting along.) But I cannot see the value in promoting an enterprise that masquerades as all ethical and moral like Catholic apologetics but which contains every kind of seedy unethical and hypocritical opportunist sort that one finds in secular society.

If these are supposed to be people who are trying to persuade people of the "better way" of orthodox catholicity then they should not show such obvious lacks of integrity on these matters. Indeed, I have at times seen greater integrity amongst atheists and frankly that is disconcerting. It is both a scandal and a disgrace.

To give a political example, it is like the Republicans who saw their congressional power obliterated overnight because they were not true to conservative principles first and foremost.{4} They were in other words hypocrites for preaching about caring for the Constitution while they spent like drunken sailors in the most foul and unconstitutional fashion ala the Democrats in the old days. They also gave every impression of trying to do just enought to placate the base and get re-elected. Frankly, I can respect the people for throwing the Republicans out because if they are going to govern like Democrats, why go with a pale impressionist of the real thing when you can have the real thing??? But that is not the only analogy I could use.

This one will hit Catholics closer to home because I honestly get the impression that like the US Bishops who twiddled their thumbs and pretended "all is nice" when children were being molested by predator priests that the apologetics "old boys network" will continue to twiddle their thumbs until the whole apologetics structure collapses like ancient Rome. Then what was successfully built over a span of thirty odd years bit by bit will have to start from scratch.

I am proposing a public purgation of sorts which I know the apologists will not like. But frankly, it needs to be done if the tree is to continue to bear fruit. But there is too much ego in that crowd and I am not too optimistic that they will be willing to do it. And as this has to start from the top, I do not expect those in $$$ positions to want to do anything lest they shut down the rolling of the gravy train -though that train will grind to a halt bit by bit until it is no more unless something is done to stop that eroding. And at the moment, what is being done is a big fat zero by the oligarchs.

Sorry for the rant, trust me my friend it is not you. If anything, I wish there were a lot more Catholics like you XXXXXXX. But this issue is a big one and I feel for that reason it is time to not be silent on these matters any longer.

PS While I have been for the most part apart from that crowd for a few years now, I would be willing to eat some crow too: for not being consistent in my own principles and calling this stuff out back when I first noticed it really starting to get out of hand (late 2002). If silence implies consent than I could be said to at least appear to have been complicit and for that I have some regrets.

Notes:

{1} Though he has shown the same problems with other subjects that Mark has shown on the torture subject; nonetheless, I have to recognize (even if personally I would rather not) that Dave Armstrong handled this issue well at least to a macro extent.

{2} Credit for this term goes to Greg Mockeridge.

{3} Professional as well as amateur though the former have far more responsibility IMHO.

{4} I am writing an election analysis thread to be posted later this week time-willing and this is one point I will make in that thread.

As it was, the analysis thread noted in footnote four was not posted for ten days after the email was sent. (Time once again not being my ally in that endeavour but I digress.)

[Update and Retraction: Greg Mockeridge informed me that the use of the above epithet of UnCatholic Answers was too rash on his part noting that it appears to be too blanket of a statement -presuming that everyone involved with Catholic Answers is at fault instead of Jimmy Akin and Karl Keating which is where both he and I view this problem as being. While my trackrecord on this matter should be adequate to make it clear that I do not view things this monolithically; I nonetheless upon further reflection regret my use of that expression and hereby retract it. I do not however retract the view that until the heads of Catholic Answers clean up their act and stop supporting (explicitly or tacitly) the kinds of double standards amply outlined in this and other threads to Rerum Novarum and other places that they do not deserve donations or any other support from Catholics who find such hypocrisy unconscionable. -ISM 3/19/07 7:51 pm]

Points to Ponder:
(On Combatting the "Herd Mentality")

The only way to gain an authentic self-esteem was through one's unswerving commitment to reason and reality...Those who had defaulted on their fundamental philosophic responsibility (namely, thinking) were of no concern to me. They were hapless individuals, who were constantly buffeted about by every chance intellectual trend that came along…When I attempted to politely explain this to the hysterics - the mystics, who were emotionally driven --...they seemed to regard it as heresy and declared me a lunatic. Not only did they not care, it frightened them, as what was most shatteringly terrifying to them was to be regarded as different, to lose approval of the pack. [Mike Mentzer]