On Genuine Peace and the Role of Force:
(Dialogue With Nate Wildermuth)

The post I am responding to with this thread is viewable here. Nate's words will be in purple colored font and where he quotes my words they will be italicized. Any sources I cite will be in darkblue font and any sources Nate cites will be italicized.

From Rerum [Novarum], what is probably an unintentionally idol-ridden prayer devoted to the anniversary of Pearl Harbor. Let's dig in:

I should note starting off that about half of the prayer was taken from the site I linked to at the start of the thread Nate makes reference to in his posting.

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.

That is the full text of what I posted prayer-wise yes. Probably at this time, it should be best to note that Nate appears to me to be what is called a "conscientious objector" with regards to the subject of war in general. I have not written much on the subject of conscientious objectors on this weblog so my view on them may not be known. For that reason, recourse to the archives to explain my view will be done at this time:

I have respect for conscientious objectors...while having *no* respect for the Moveon.org crowd. The difference between the two is the difference between legitimate difference of opinion and sedition. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa February 5, 2004)]

And though I have erred at times in presuming certain persons were conscientious objectors who ended up later showing their hands as marxist-promoting seditonists, I nonetheless prefer to err on the side of generosity in this area for reasons which hopefully are obvious. For that reason, I want to make it eminently clear at the outset that I see nothing in what I have read of Nate's writings to give me reason to presume that he is anything but what he says he is. Having noted that at the outset, let us interact with his critique of my Pearl Harbour prayer.

Before reading anything I write, you'll probably want to check out Mark Twain’s The War Prayer.

Rather, it is better to stay focused on the issue here and avoid distractions instead. I have a lot of respect for Mark Twain but he was also quite a good rhetoritician and I prefer whenever possible to not default to rhetoric in the absence of actual arguments. Once the latter have been set forth, rhetoric can work as a nice spice but not before.

Let's take a look at the first part of this prayer, "remember in your mercy all who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom and security of others." I come across this idea a lot - that soldiers 'sacrifice' their lives in imitation of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

Soldiers lay down their lives for others -that is part of what it means to be a soldier. Jesus was the one who said that laying down one's life for another was the sign of the greatest love. And many who become soldiers do so because of a love of their homeland and a desire to serve in protection of it. Surely you are not going to claim that it is wrong to love one's homeland right Nate??? Who can claim to love what they would not want to see protected from harm??? And who could claim genuine love for their homeland or for another person if they are not willing to (if necessary) sacrifice their own life for them???

We were often told that to "lay down your life for your friends" was exactly what we were doing as Christian soldiers. It's strange how people speak of this sacrifice as if it were the soldier's mission - to die.

It is the soldier's mission to be willing to die in order to try and protect others from sworn enemies. In other words, death is a casualty of the job itself -potentially more so than any other job there is. Those who are willing to take up that position and have the requisite tools to do it have my respect Nate because the price they are willing to pay is so significant.

But General Patton, one of America's finest fighters in WWII, said it better than I ever could:

Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country… You know, My God, I actually pity those poor bastards we're going up against. My God, I do. We're not just going to shoot the bastards, we're going to cut out their living guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun bastards by the bushel. Now some of you boys, I know, are wondering whether or not you'll chicken out under fire. Don't worry about it. I can assure you that you'll all do your duty. The Nazis are the enemy. Wade into them. Spill their blood, shoot them in the belly. When you put your hand into a bunch of goo, that a moment before was your best friends face, you'll know what to do.

I know that quote well. However, there is more to it context-wise than a simple perusal of the words would indicate. Such statements are not unlike what leaders say to motivate their subordinates and not only in war but even in other endeavours.{1} Presumably you are not saying Patton should have told the boys to retreat and let the Nazis pursue domination of Europe right??? I have no doubt sir that you are well-meaning in your advocated position but unfortunately, it would appear that with all due respect you are a bit naive. Fr. James V. Schall, SJ enunciated the view of a symbiotic balance required between peace and the willingness to use force quite astutely when he noted the following:

No talk of peace, justice, truth, or virtue is complete without a clear understanding that certain individuals, movements, and nations must be met with measured force, however much we might prefer to deal with them peacefully or pleasantly. Without force, many will not talk seriously at all, and some not even then. Human, moral, and economic problems are greater today for the lack of adequate military force or, more often, for the failure to use it when necessary.

In my experience, that statement is 100% accurate. There is nothing wrong with wanting to see peace and wanting to see productive dialogue lead to a cessation of hostilities. Indeed, that is a noble outlook provided that it is properly balanced. The truth is, much as many do not like it, there are enemies who seek to take away the fundamental rights that are God-given and precede all attempts at human legislation. These sorts will use false notions of "dialogue" as a means to take advantage of others whom they see as weak and compromising. For that reason, there will always be a necessity for force to be used in some cases.

I explaned in a brief fashion some time ago what I saw as the inherent danger in the approach that you seem to be advocating:

I cannot help in pondering the subject of war come to any conclusion except that if it was ever outlawed, if those who are the most manic of the so-called "peacemakers" among us were to actually achieve their intended aim, that we will have forever enthroned an unstoppable totalitarianism on the world. We need to always have the option of what Chesterton called "the sacred right of insurrection" if we are to have a modicum of restoring societies from the tyranny of legal perversion by bureaucratic termites and whores who see mankind as clay for their own sociological "moulding." [I. Shawn McElhinney: some private notebook musings (circa June 16, 2005)]

A more developed exposition of those short comments can be read here for those who are interested. To summarize them briefly, these are serious problems of a life and death situation involved in such an outlook as you are conveying Nate.

I see radical pacifistic approaches to solve these kinds of problems to make about as much sense as those Christian sects who pick up poisonous serpents because of what Jesus said in Mark's Gospel and then get bit by the serpents and die from poisoning. I see no difference whatsoever in the approach except the serpents are reacting without capacity for reasoning. The same cannot be said of various cultists who think those who refuse to wear the turban and pray on the coloured rug five times a day to "Allah" should be killed.

The latter may be fanatics but they are capable of doing a lot of damage and have. And few things make them bolder than when they see a foe showing weakness -that is what over a thousand years of history has taught us with regards to the Muslim fanatics. The only thing that has stopped them historically has been the willing use of force and that is the only thing that will stop them today.

All the priests and intellectuals who tell soldiers that it's their goal, mission, and duty to imitate Christ by dying for their friends… they have no idea what it means to be a soldier. This isn't to say that soldiers don't gobble it up, that we don't think to ourselves, "yeah, I'm noble, I'm sacrificing my life for my country!" But when confronted with Patton's words, we know the truth. Because it resounds. It isn't a soldier's job to die. It is a soldier's job to kill. If you die, you've failed, and your friends will die at the hands of the same evildoers who killed you.

First of all, it is an argumentation fallacy to claim that someone's arguments are or are not valid because they may or may not have certain experience. I dealt with this some time back when defining a couple of common argumentation fallacies which are unfortunately common among not a few who advocate particular points of view:

argumentum ad eventus

This is a variation of argumentum ad aevum and involves essentially the idea that an argument is not valid on the basis of lacking experience is what this one entails. It is akin to saying that no one can talk about a subject unless they have experience in it; ergo someone who has never abused heroin can never be credible in talking about heroin usage. Or on the ecclesial front, Pope Benedict XVI can never talk about a subject like sex because he has presumably never had any.

I am shocked that even otherwise intelligent people fall for this kind of "logic" but it happens often. At bottom, either what someone says in presenting an argument for a viewpoint has merits or demerits on the strength or lack thereof of the arguments made. That is where any and all criticisms of someone's arguments should lie. [Excerpt from the Rerum Novarum Miscellaneous BLOG (circa March 7, 2006)]

I would appreciate it if we could avoid argumentation fallacies and focus instead on the positions themselves. I see the whole attempt to dichotomize between the soldier having a "duty to die" and a "duty to kill" as inappropriate. It makes more sense to say that a soldier has a duty to protect and serve -a duty which may call on him to utilize force against another. This use of force could result in the death of the other or in the death of the soldier. And a soldier who dies in duty has not failed sir. To the extent that he has advanced the cause of freedom and protected others, he has succeeded. And for that, the memory of those who have fallen deserves proper honour and remembrance, not contempt.

Oftentimes a failure to act forcefully makes a situation worse than it would have been with proper action being taken. That is something that far too many people of your particular weltanschauung fail to take into account. Or to once again quote Fr. James Schall's astute observations on these matters:

Those who cry "peace, peace" often have unacknowledged blood on their hands because they failed to use adequate force when needed; "To the victors go the spoils" is an ancient principle of fact, not rightness. Cowardice has never been considered a virtue. Nor has "turning the other cheek" served as an acceptable excuse for allowing some evil — one we could have stopped except that our theories or fears prevented us from trying — to continue or conquer. Not a few worthy things have been eradicated forever because a war was lost. Eternal vigilance remains the price of liberty and much else that is worthy.

I am not in noting the above quotes saying that this means every war ever declared is therefore a noble enterprise. Nor am I arguing for the merit or lack thereof of a particular war in doing so. My point is to defend the necessity of what GK Chesterton called "the sacred right of insurrection" hopefully for reasons I have already made adequately clear.

So many people talk about how we've got to fight back these muslim fanatics, otherwise they'll be in our backyard burning Churches and raping women and converting our children.

If you have a proper familiarity with history, you would know this has been what the Muslim fanatics have done every time they had the means to do so. It is a matter of history and is not even debatable. I for one will not stand by and let them do it if I have any say in the matter whatsoever -whether the weapons I wield are my keyboard, my fists, my rifles, or anything else.{2}

And they ask soldiers to go out and kill to stop this Islamic invasion. And so how is this compatible with saying that a soldier's goal is to sacrifice his life?

It is not but then again, I do not make the kind of dichotomous assertions you are noting above. I will not deny that there are some who do this but positions being advanced by weak argumentation is hardly a rarity in the world unfortunately. But briefly: the soldier is offering his life as a potential sacrifice in seeking to preserve the lives and freedoms of others from those who would seek to either deprive them of life or somehow consign them to slavery. Or as I noted in a weblog posting after the death of Nick Berg more than two years ago:

Here is how I see the war on terror in a nutshell:

---We are fighting a group of intellectually and emotionally arrested fanatics who have yet to come out of the seventh century. Arab civilization contrary to the ignorant babblings of the media is hardly some fertile ground for philosophy, mathematics, science, and the like. All of their contributions in those areas -significant though they were- were a millennia ago. One commentator astutely noted that "since they gave us the zero, they have given civilization zero" and that sums it up about as well as can be done in a syllabus style statement.

---We are dealing with people who revel in death who do not hesitate to boast about this. We are dealing with people who view innocent children as "infidel subversives" and who have no scruples about killing them. Likewise non-Muslims are viewed. Essentially if they cannot convert you, then you must die. Hence in the most sadistic of "rituals" I heard chanting to "Allah" while a young man's bloodcurdling screams rang out over the airwaves as those bastards, those rats, those vile pieces of human debris cut his throat slowly in sawing motion with a dull blade.

But I suppose we are still going to hear the hollow paens of "involving the UN" in the Iraq situation - the same UN who cannot even run a simple oil for food program without massive corruption. I suppose we are going to still hear the cheap rhetoric of "give peace a chance" and after all, if we simply reason with these people and if we show them we are nice people that they will be nice too and all will be well. No my friends, you do not deal with a rabid disease infested dog that attacks you with kind words or idle threats. You deal with such an animal by shooting it. Likewise, these vile people need to be dealt with. I think stake burning would be appropriate for them. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa May 12, 2004)]

I stand by every word I said then and always will. But then again, I am firmly anchored in the understanding of the fundamental rights of man -the God-given fundamental rights which precede all legislation by any human whatsoever and whosoever they are. I have written on these factors many times and will do again this year when I feel so inclined to. But briefly for the sake of this point: life, faculties, and production are God-given. While one could argue that they can be deprived after due process in rare instances, generally speaking they are inviolable. That means no pundit, no politician, no philosopher, no pope, no human whatsoever can either give those rights nor take them away. And to give assent to propositions which by implication threaten the very existence of those fundamental rights leads inexorably to not only intellectual but physical suicide: something I cannot possibly countenance and which I will not countenance at any time whatsoever.

No. A soldier's mission is to kill, not to die. He is prepared to die, yes. He is prepared to make that 'sacrifice', but not in a direct sense.

Must all virtuous acts be direct or is an indirect action of value also to be praised??? I am unaware of anyone who is purely altrusitic and no even those who are with specific acts are not this way all the time. That means that there is almost always at least some self-interest in an action that is done. Should we therefore not acknowledge the value of the act itself at all??? I think not.

This sacrifice is not a Christ-like sort of sacrifice. Christ's sacrifice saved people. A soldier dying is only one more step along a road to a lost war that will result in people being destroyed (at least, from the perspective of just-war theorists).

With all due respect, this is a bit rationally muddled Nate. A soldier dying could be one step in a war that was eventually lost or one step in the direction of a war that is won. I am unaware of any war in history involving soldiers where the winning side did not have casualties.

It's a simple idea: if all our soldiers are dying, we will lose the war, and the soldiers will have failed.

You seem to be presuming that in a war all soldiers are dying. In that case, a war can indeed be lost but does that mean it should not have been fought??? Wars are fought for many things -sometimes nobile and sometimes not. Dying in defense of a cause can be a nobile act Nate.

I can understand just-war adherents honoring those who have fallen in a war, after all - it is a sacrifice in some sense. Like the fireman who runs into a burning house, the soldier knows that he can die. But the fireman doesn't run into the house to die. Nor does the soldier go into battle to die.

This is true. It is however recognized as a potential risk of the occupation. And some occupations have greater risk of this than others.

And here we get to the crucial difference between the soldier's sacrifice and Christ's: it is the difference between the fireman's and the soldier's. The fireman goes into a burning house with the direct mission of saving someone. The soldier goes into battle with the direct mission of killing someone. Now indirectly, the soldier's intention is to save someone. That is the whole point of the just-war theory.

A soldier goes into battle with the direct mission of achieving a set objective whatever that set objective in a given circumstance happens to be. That is not the same as going in with the direct mission to kill someone. However, in a military situation, you know that there is a likelihood of opposition to your actions by others with various kinds of weaponry. Depending on the reasons for your involvement in this endeavour, the war may or may not be considered just. I will not at this time go into how the traditional understanding of just war has been arbitrarily arrested in its application in spots by well-meaning but (unfortunately) naive persons as that would be to go off on a tangent. But that is nonetheless a factor in the equation we are speaking of here; ergo my mention of it in brief.

But what if the just-war theory is wrong, as the Pope and others have indicated?

The pope never said the just war theory is wrong. Furthermore, the pope is not the authority responsible for levying the theory and this authority cannot be delegated to others. It is the responsibility of the civil government who has the authority to levy a war. Or as I noted in a previous blog posting:

[There is] a seeming unawareness of what a proper appeal to just war theory actually is. On the latter, I will now briefly touch on so that readers do not think I am merely asserting something without proof...

[I]n medieval times, the term “just war” applied to the authority for levying the war, rather than to the substance of the cause or the complaint. If levied on the authority of an independent prince, the war was considered just, since there was no higher authority to judge the cause, and battle settled the issue. [Encyclopedia Brittanica Fifteenth Edition: Excerpt from War, the Theory and Conduct of Macropaedia Volume XXIX, pg. 643 (c. 1985)]

[XXXX] by trying to apply it to the substance of the cause or the complaint rather than to the authority for levying the war thus misappropriates the principle in no small detail. And lest he object to me quoting a non-Catholic source above on the matter, I will now quote from my copy of the Catholic Encyclopaedic Dictionary on the subject of war:

War. War is waged justly if it be initiated by public authority for a sufficiently grave and just reason. Soldiers enlisted before the outbreak of war can take its justness for granted unless the contrary is apparent; after the outbreak, those who join the army must first be morally certain of its justness. In a just war all means are licit which necessary and suitable for carrying the war to a successful end, provided that they are not contrary to natural or international law; e.g. the killing of any man under arms or of spies but not of non-combatants, the laying of ambushes, the destruction, but not the poisoning, of wells, are lawful acts of war. For a war to be just the motive must be the vindication of a certain right, of proportionate importance, which has been certainly violated, or a just intervention to defend the rights of others, and then only when other means of redress have failed. [Catholic Encyclopaedic Dictionary Tenth Edition: Donald Attwater - General Editor pg. 553 (c. 1941) as quoted in a Rerum Novarum posting (circa September 6, 2005)]

In a nutshell, [t]he evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good (CCC 2309) and this is the civil authority as I have noted before.{3} And for those who assert that my claim of the civil authority as the proper one for determining the parameters of and levying of a just war is erroneous, consider the following section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on who is responsible for the common good of a society (footnotes inserted into the text in italics):

1897 "Human society can be neither well-ordered nor prosperous unless it has some people invested with legitimate authority to preserve its institutions and to devote themselves as far as is necessary to work and care for the good of all."John XXIII, PT 46.

By "authority" one means the quality by virtue of which persons or institutions make laws and give orders to men and expect obedience from them.

1898 Every human community needs an authority to govern it. Cf. Leo XIII, Immortale Dei; Diuturnum illud. The foundation of such authority lies in human nature. It is necessary for the unity of the state. Its role is to ensure as far as possible the common good of the society.

1899 The authority required by the moral order derives from God: "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore he who resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment."Rom 13:1-2; cf. 1 Pet 2:13-17. [Catechism of the Catholic Church sections 1897-1899 (c. 1994)]

Using the CCC to clarify who is responsible for the common good makes my interpretation of the proper authority for ascertaining whether or not a war is or is not just (as noted later in the CCC) the obviously correct one. This is why whenever people raise the opinion of a pope or curialist on these matters, I roll my eyes. They obviously has as much of a right to their opinion as anyone but their opinion on the matter is no less susceptible to being weighed on the merits of the arguments advanced as anyone else's is.{5} And on the latter point, there is far greater solidity in my position than the converse one -of this I have not a shred of doubt for reasons I have amply outlined in the past.

What if our soldiers have been misled? What if they are killing and dying not for Christ's peace, but for something else?

That is always possible. Mark Twain once said "the rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated." Likewise, the rumours of the president and others "misleading" people have been more than a little exaggerated (to put it nicely). My stance on the war is the same as it was in February of 2003 before the invasion. But then again, I based my position on solid arguments and known facts and not transient speculations and presumed evidences. I have discussed this before and would gladly do so again if you like at some point in the future.

And so we get to the second part of Rerum's prayer:

"Remember in your mercy all who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom and security of others."

That is an accurate quote, yes.

Are soldiers killing and dying for the freedom which Christ's sacrifice has given us? Or are they dying for a different kind of freedom? A different kind of peace? Just-war theories say that these horrific wars can bring 'peace' to the world. But is this the same peace that Christ speaks of? Is this the Peace of Christ or the Peace of America?

Christ's sacrifice has freed us from certain death due to sin. It did not however abolish sin completely. As far as differentiating the freedoms go, all legitimate freedoms are worth fighting for or worth defending. These fall under the umbrella I spoke of earlier about the fundamental rights of man: a subject too complex to do justice to in a short blurb towards the end of a post. As far as peace goes, peace is not the absence of war. Nor is peace the maintenance of the status quo. And peace cannot be accomplished by showing weakness in the face of those who have no interest in a proper dialogue. That means there is a requirement for force for the maintenance of any semblance of peace. Militant Islam has only been checked by the threat of force against them. And they have been given a lease of sorts in recent decades as the west has shown a suspect resolve to hold them at bay by force if necessary

I'll cut this short with Christ’s tears:

As he drew near, he saw the city (Jerusalem) and wept over it, saying, "If this day you only knew what makes for peace -but now it is hidden from your eyes.

For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will raise a palisade against you; they will encircle you and hem you in on all sides. They will smash you to the ground and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another within you because you did not recognize the time of your visitation."

Of course the question is if the words you are citing pertain to what we are discussing or not Nate. Jerusalem was punished for rejecting Jesus and knowing what was coming as he did, it saddened him. I do not see how this relates to what we are discussing except (perhaps) that a similar fate awaits the west if the charade of "playing nice" with the Islamofascists does not come to an end and soon. Again, we have 1400 years of history with these kinds of fanatics and the trackrecord is clear. Let them who can see it pay attention lest Santayana's dictum{4} be vindicated yet again -and not to our benefit as a civilization.

Oh and lest I forget to mention it, thank you for your service to the cause of freedom and security Nate. I have never known a soldier who takes relish in what they had to do in wartime situations and frankly that is the way it should be. But that is a subject for another time perhaps.

Notes:

{1} I remember in my youth playing sports hearing rhetoric about "crushing the opponent" and generally speaking, it did fire me up to do just that.

{2} Sacred Scripture is clear that there are times and seasons for everything:

All things have their season, and in all their times all things pass under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pluck up that which is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to destroy and a time to build...A time to rend and a time to sow; a time to keep silent and a time to speak. A time of love and a time of hatred; a time of war and a time of peace. (Ecclesiastes iii,1-3; 7-9).

In other words, the idea that there is never a time for war, a time to kill, or a time for hatred is false. We are at war with sub-animals and we cannot reason with them. They either want us to convert to their perverted notion of "religion" and worship their perverted notion of "God" or they will kill us. This has been explicitly stated by them and they have been demonstrating this intention for some time now -the latest example of which was Paul Johnson (may he rest in peace).

Wake up you self-anointed "activists" with your blind and irrational hatred of George Walker Bush. Your position is not only illogical but further: it is idiotic and plays Russian roulette with this nation's national security. You would compromise the safety of American citizens for the sake of political advantage in an election. For that, I spit on you!!!...

[I]f the savage beheading of American civilians by rabid infested subhuman debris is not enough to get self-styled "activists" to wake from their pathetic Vietnam-era pretentions and face reality, I have to wonder what it will take. And if they think people like me will wait around for them to finally "get it", I have some ocean front property in Arizona to sell them. [Excerpts from Rerum Novarum (circa June 18, 2004)]

{3} To briefly reference one such example from the archives of this weblog:

[S]ince the authority recognized by the CCC to levy war is the secular authority, it is to this authority where the judgment is levied, not that of the pope. This is easily demonstrated with Catholic sources -indeed I have done so many times already. And as the authority which weighs the assessments for the above critieria is not the pope but the sovereign, that means the executive, president, or prime minister if you will in a republic such as America.

For this reason, XX XXXX's assertions above reveal that he is willing to go against even the boundaries of Catholic just war critieria to advance his agenda...

That is not to say that there remains no role for the church in the matter of course. (A key role for the magisterium is aiding in the formation of conscience.) However, a whole phalanx of factors are involved in the latter formation and at the end of the day the magisterium is as incompetent on political matters as the sovereigns of the world are on theological and moral ones. Each has their own particular competence as the church has always recognized and does to this day. Unfortunately, some who seek to advance particular agendas are interested in blurring these distinctions for some reason or another. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa October 6, 2005)]

{4} In a nutshell it is this: those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

{5} The role of the magisteroum is to outline the principles required for just war theory doctrinally and theologically. They do not hawever have the competence to apply them in concrete situations and their curial underlings likewise are incompetent in this area.

On the Coming New Year, Warmer Climates, Foundational Presuppositions, Personal and Blogging Resolutions, Etc.:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

I went down Virginia, seekin shelter from the storm.
Caught up in the fable, I watched the tower grow.
Five year plans and new deals, wrapped in golden chains.
And I wonder, still I wonder wholl stop the rain.

Just as it was last year at this time, it is raining in Seattle as I put the finishing touches on the present posting. One of the plans for the new year (though not officially a resolution) is to figure out a way to live part of the year in a warmer climate. Seattle is fine about eight months of the year (and great about six of those months -particularly the summer months) but the first two and last two months of the annual cycle are the pits weather-wise. Adjusting my business to being almost completely mobile will help in that way -by the end of the month I should be able to run virtually everything by a laptop, cellphone, and fax machine. But enough griping about the weather and onto the main purposes of this posting.

To start with, there is probably little that I could add to what I noted last year at this time so I will refer the reader first to that thread as what I note here will essentially be more of an addition to that thread and development of some more implicit elements of that thread. Having noted those things, I should say that 2006 was a better year than 2005 overall -even if it did not end as well as the latter year. Nonetheless, I anticipate this coming year to be significantly better than last year overall for reasons too numerous to go over at this time even if I wanted to. And while the normal platter of postings will begin either tomorrow or the day after, at the moment I am content to continue the Christmas truce I mentioned on more than one occasion. Whether I carry this out past the eastern Christmas holiday (January 6th/7th) or not will remain to be seen.

As far as resolutions go, as I noted last year,{1} one thing I have not done as a rule is make resolutions similar to what most people do. But this year, there will be at least one that falls into the latter category: the resolution to lose some weight. By this time next year, I will be thirty pounds or more lighter presuming there is no serious injury or some other significant unforeseen development.{2} I intended to do that last year{3} and was on pace to but it did not happen. So unlike last year, the losing of weight will be an official resolution this year and it will happen. Moving on...

I anticipate the following year will involve a greater exploration into the realm of foundational presuppositions than I have done in years past -how much more I am not certain as of this writing. Or as I noted last year when discussing the subject on one particular occasion:

[A]s far as I am concerned, arguing for a position on its intrinsic merits or lack thereof utilizing the tools of reason and logic is a serious business and far too many of a sophistic bent either do not realize this or they fail to take seriously the principle that ideas are serious things. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa June 28, 2006)]

Much more was sketched out on that occasion than what was noted above but that gets to the root and matrix of what I was discussing. Ideas have been fought for and died over and that is and will always be the case as long as there are those who believe passionately that there is such a thing as truth. The problem is, most people do not take the time to attempt to assess whether what they hold as truth actually is or not -operating instead from an intellectual prison of solipsism to varying degrees.

It has been my goal over the years to try and move those I have spoken with towards reassessing their foundational presuppositions or the filter through which they strain all information that comes their way from divers sources. While doing this though, I have rarely done more than mention a few bits in passing about why I go about things this way but the long and short of it is this: it has the potential to save a lot of time and effort by cutting down on the ratio of useless discussion. This alone can help pave the way for much more potentially fruitful dialogue to take place. Plus, I simply loathe talking points approaches to subjects and always have{4} viewing such things as shutting off the thinking mechanism and creating an environment detrimental to the cultivation of one's intellectual capabilities.{5} But I do not want to get offtrack with these musings so I will refer to something written last year where I touched on the subject a bit:

I have not discussed in detail what I mean by the term foundational presuppositions but generally from the context in which I use the term, its general meaning should be evident. Nonetheless, I did find this thread in my archives from earlier this year where I explained the term by virtue of what a change in said foundational presuppositions would inexorably involve. To wit:

[O]ne has to consider from time to time not only if the arguments they use to advance their position are good ones or not but even if their position itself is actually correct. As all of this probably sounds more complicated than it actually is, I will use the analogy of stocks and options to explain it in brief.

Those who are familiar with how stocks and options have a symbiotic relationship know that one of the reasons many investors like options[...] is because a small movement in the stock results in a magnified movement in the underlying option. This is the potential power inherent in dealing with foundational presuppositions of an individual: small shifts there can result in magnified movements in the individual's weltanschauung though sometimes it takes a bit of time for working out the ramifications of such shifts.[Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa June 28, 2006) as quoted in a Rerum Novarum posting (circa December 13, 2006)]

One of my resolutions for the new year is to try and sketch these elements out in greater detail as circumstances may lend themselves to it. Of course that is the key really: events and circumstances have to lend themselves to discussing these matters and the treatment needs to be both contemporary to the subject matter and circumstance at hand as well as contain general principles which are timeless in their validity.

It is not always easy to properly mix the two but we certainly do what we can here at Rerum Novarum as part of an ongoing effort to cultivate reason and logic and help people come to see just how helpful those God-given natural lights really are. So another resolution for 2007 is to focus more on foundational presuppositions behind various philosophies as we run across them in the arena of ideas. Certainly more could be noted on this at the present time but I have neither the time nor the inclination to delve any deeper into these matters at the present time.

Notes:

{1} It has been a long time since I bought into the idea of "resolutions" for the new year...part of the reason I suppose is that they are treated as such a joke by the culture at large. I am not opposed to resolving to do better of course but there is too much making of resolutions by people which are constructed in a way that almost guarantees them failure. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa January 2, 2006)]

{2} I have had some of these in years past which is why I preface every resolution with some kind of "God-willing and the creek does not rise" kind of phrasing.

{3} Though I did not make a formal resolution to do it.

{4} Albeit I have at times put up with it as a bit of a price to pay in order to get along.

{5} Or as I noted when giving out some preliminary advice to neophyte apologists over four years ago:

[M]uch as all musicians have certain riffs or motifs that pop up in their playing you will cultivate certain "riffs" of your own after arguing a particular position enough times.

Try though at all times to find a new phrase if you will in each argument advanced. Meaning: try if possible to find at least one new element to add to the mix when arguing a point. It may be a concept, it may be a new way of phrasing an argument to make it stronger, etc. But try without forcing the issue to avoid a carbon copy of your last time arguing a given point - particularly if you and your dialogue partner have gone over this issue before.

It is not always possible to do this but it often is. I am not saying reinvent the wheel everytime as much as I am saying do not repeat the exact same argument to someone you have previously discussed a given subject matter with. Because if you are listening to them you will receive information that you should take into account before responding. After all, you may have a mea culpa of your own to give *particularly* if you have been using the "boilerplate" approach. Make sure however that to the extent you make the error that you correct it...

By doing these things you will be less likely to resort to "canned" arguments which shut off the thinking mechanism. [Excerpts from Rerum Novarum (circa November 1, 2002)]

Longtime readers who think I have somehow changed --either in my more explicit focusing in recent years on foundational presuppositions or my more recent explicit criticisms of common apologetics methodology-- can view what I wrote in late 2002 and notice that it is quite congruent with more recent developed writings. (Not to mention my approach towards certain parties who have failed in these areas: persons whom due to their experience should have learned this stuff a long time ago.)

"Auld Lang Syne" Dept.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot
And days of auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne.

And surely ye'll be your pint stoop
And surely I'll be mine
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

We twa hae run about the braes
And pou'd the gowans fine
But we've wander'd mony a weary foot
Sin' auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidl'd i' the burn
Frae mornin' sun till dine
But seas between us braid hae roared
Sin' auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

And here's a hand, my trusty fiere
And gi'e's a hand o' thine
And we'll tak a right good willy waught
For auld lang syne. [Attr. Robert Burns]

Points to Ponder:
(On New Year's Eve)

New Year's Eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights. [Hamilton Wright Mabie]

First of all, I hope everyone reading this post has a happy and prosperous new year.

Having noted that, I admittedly did not comment on the passing of Gerald Ford but certainly I hope the Good Lord rests his soul. I am thinking in the new year of addressing some asssertions about the late president which were made by one of the Lew Rockwell contributors. Though I am to some extent hesitant to spend time debunking the nonsense that so frequently permeates that site, occasionally it seems appropriate to deal with some of the stuff as an example of why generally speaking they are not worth taking seriously. That therefore is under consideration for the new year after other projects are completed (of course).

A Long-Overdue Weblog Update:

Well, I mentioned in late November that I was working on a weblog update bit by bit and it is now completed. Sorry for the wait folks but these things take time and I did not have much of it alas. But without further ado, here is what was added section by section (occasional comments interspersed):

Weblog Special Reports, Commemorations, Retrospectives, Miscellaneous Stuff, Etc.


A Tribute to Freddy King

For those who do not know of Freddy King, the thread can perhaps serve as an introduction to the late great "Texas Cannonball." (May he rest in peace.)

Miscellaneous Sports Predictions--An Audio Post

I posted this thread to show that despite being quite accurate with my prognostication overall, with sports subjects it is not there. I want to take this time to reverse my previous prediction and say that the Seahawks are going to lose in the first round of the playoffs...hopefully my streak of wrongness on sports picks can continue with that one ;-)

On Blogging in General, What is Blogged on Subject-Wise and Why, Etc.

Pretty straight forward. I cannot for the life of me figure out how anyone could have "nothing to write about" when it comes to blogging but then again, that is why as a rule{1} refusing to narrow my subjects of discussion is a wise approach to take.

2006 Holy Souls Memorial

"Excerpts From Classic Literature" Dept. (On the Cremation of Sam McGee)

Admittedly I am not sure how "classic" that poem is but it does take me back a long ways so that is good enough for me :)

On the Blues and Painting a Lyrical Picture of Reality (With Albert Cipriani)

I am reminded of Jesus' saying about the Centurion who had more faith than in all of Israel when I think of my friend Albert. As for the rest, it is more indirectly said in the post but presumably some of those I had in mind with the criticism are known to some of the readers of this humble weblog.

Reflecting on Chris' Passing One Year Later

God rest your soul Chris.

On the Christmas Season and Giving

The above thread was written to provide a Gospel lesson on giving that many who claim to be "lovers of the poor" do not get.

My Political/Social Musings

On Political/Social Subjects in General

On Another Example of Mainstream Media Lack of Basic Ethics and Other Tidbits

If all I wrote on were media double standards, there would be nothing else to write on. Nonetheless, on occasion a particular double standard interests me enough to write on and I will do it. The above one had to do with the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate dealing with the war in Iraq: a double standard I found of no small interest to put it mildly.

Revisiting and Reissuing the Challenge of Finding the So-Called "Neo-Con"

The challenge is still out there folks: I do not believe these so-called "neo-cons" actually exist!!! Why should I when those who refer to such fabled beings (and blame them for everything except bad breath) are unwilling to actually define their terms and tell me how a so-called "neo-con" is to be identified??? But I honestly do not expect those who prattle on using that term in a kind of cultic deadagenting fashion to explain themselves. The latter after all would require some intellectual fortitude and integrity which all too often the frequent users of that term (in a derogatory fashion) do not possess. Moving on...

On Flags of Our Fathers and the Late Indian Hero Ira Hayes

I really enjoyed the movie Flags of Our Fathers when I saw it at a pre-screening. It dealt well with many of the horrors of war in general and some of the excesses that were involved to keep the homefront focused on the importance of the task at hand. Basically, nothing new under the sun in other words. The post also has lyrics for a Johnny Cash tune about the late great Indian patriot Ira Hayes one of the featured characters in Flags. (May he rest in peace.)


On the US Constitution, the Fundamental Rights of Man, Etc.

Miscellaneous Musings on Rights (Real or Perceived), the Problems a Lot of Non-Theistic Evolutionist Proponents Have With Logical Consistency in Claiming Certain "Rights", Briefly on Bastiat's "Three Fundamental Rights" Theory, Etc.--An Audio Post

Basically, I winged the audio and covered a lot of stuff briefly in one recording.

On Capitalism, Economics, the Fundamental Rights of Man, Free Trade, Etc. (With Kevin Tierney)

One of my chats with Kevin Tierney which was blogged with his concurrence.{2}


On Political Election Topics

On the Election and the Attitudes of Self-Identified Conservatives

Self-explanatory. The above thread was blogged on the day of the election before the polls were closed.

Some Post-Election Humour

Courtesy of the greatest comedy series of all-time in my humble opinion.

A Synopsis of Our Overall Prescience Viz. the 2006 Elections

Yes my friends, we at Rerum Novarum were (as we quite often are) amazingly accurate overall in our prognostications as that dip into the blog archives and a few chat logs well testifies to.

On the Election, "Lost Causes", and Activism

Responding to an emailer after the election who took the results with no small degree of difficulty. For reasons noted in the posting, your host was not melancholy.

On the Incoming Senate Democratic Majority

Boy, it did not take long for one of our post-election observations to come to fruition to some extent.


On the Recent War and War in General

A Pearl Harbour Prayer for the Soldiers

Self-explanatory. I will be responding to a criticism of the prayer in one of the first postings of the upcoming new year.

Bridging Reason and Faith: My Philosophical/Ethical Musings

On Particular Philosophical/Ethical Subjects

Setting the Record Straight on Old Controversies

Much as I loathe historical airbrushing when it happens to the past and to others, I am particularly intolerant when it happens to me. The purpose of the above thread was to correct some attempted historical airbrushing from a party I shall not mention here.

Apologetics Provincialism In a Nutshell

Responding to a criticism of a post from August 5, 2006 dealing with problems of the apologetics methodology.{3} In a nutshell, the critic's modus operandi is that if someone who agrees with them acts unethically that it is okay but not those who disagree with them.

Miscellaneous Musings on Integrity

Continuing a line of thought from the previous posting on provincialism but in a more systematical fashion argumentationally.{4}

On David Armstrong's Tragic Mental Meltdown

The above post was originally supposed to be my bowing out of a drawn out dead-horse-beating but (unfortunately) was not to be.{5}

Miscellaneous Musings on the Importance of Vetting Sources--An Audio Post

The moral of the story: make sure your sources are reliable before you use them lest you be made to look foolish due to your own ignorance/negligence.

Points to Ponder on Apologetics Methodology (David Palm)

While I do not necessarily agree with those whom I quote in this blog feature, on this one David summarizes my view up quite succintly.

Miscellaneous Midnight Musings on Reason, Logic, Consistency, and the Importance of Scholastic and Ethical Integrity in Public Disputation--An Audio Post

Some audio musings on principles which are often sadly neglected today -even amongst those who oughta know better.

Miscellaneous Musings on Reason and Logic Revisited, Pope Benedict XVI, and Islam--An Audio Post

In a nutshell, me and the pope are simpatico on a significant subject matter that seems to be ignored by not a few who consider themselves "Catholic apologists."

On the Subject of "Refutation of a Theory or Thesis" Revisited

I find that the above post needed to be written to be as good a piece of evidence for what is wrong today as anything I can think of offhand. I mean, this is pretty basic stuff really but you would be surprised how many do not grasp what should be as obvious as the sun rising in the east at dawn. In a nutshell what is pointed out in the above thread is this: something is or is not proven false by objective evidences and cogent argumentation not by subjectivist criteria whatsoever it is and whomsoever says it. This is pretty simple stuff which anyone with a normal intact functioning brain can grasp without a problem. That there are many who cannot (or choose not to when it suits their agenda) is no small problem indeed but enough on that for now.

Points to Ponder on Faith and Reason (Pope Benedict XVI)

A healthy excerpt from the controversial Regensburg, Germany speech where His Holiness spoke on faith and reason far more eloquently than most people could.

An Open Note to the Participants on Dave Armstrong's Weblog on the Subjects of Apologetics and General Ethics

Self-explanatory.

Miscellaneous Musings on Basic Ethics Both Public and Private--An Audio Post

Again, how sad is it to have to explain what should be obvious to anyone with even ordinary intelligence.

On Torture and General Norms of Theological Interpretation Contra Certain "Apologist" Fundamentalist Hermeneutics (Parts I-III)

There were four posts on the subject of torture since the last update. The problem was figuring out how to classify them so I decided to put the three part initial posting in the section on ethics and the other three in the section of theological musings. Not sure if that is the best way to categorize them but oh well.

Points to Ponder on Building One's Character (Mike Mentzer)

Highlighting a Key Problem With Common Apologetics Methodology (With Jimmy Akin)

Unfortunately, it seems Jimmy and his oligarch amigos are going to continue to pretend that the Emperor has clothes on. Hopefully that will change in the new year. I would like to leave that issue be but if things do not change, I will write more on this subject including (quite possibly) some stuff that apologist enemies of the Catholic apologetics oligarchy would love to get their hands on for an even further discrediting of the aforementioned oligarchy.


Points to Ponder on Combatting the Herd Mentality (Mike Mentzer)

Self-explanatory.

Some Additional Outlining of the Public and Private Double Standards of the Apologetics Oligarchy

"See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil", and the Double Standard of the Apologetics Oligarchy and Their Fawning Sycophants

Imagine that folks, I actually expect people to act consistent and not allow in their friends what they condemn in those who are not their friends!!! It is called respect for reason and logic and again, this should be something everyone is concerned with. But the nature of positional pundits is to try and defend their view no matter how illogical and inconsistent it happens to be.

We at Rerum Novarum tend to irritate pundits, agenda provocateurs, and apologists of various stripes because of an inherent refusal on our part to accept uncritically any position whatsoever. And in doing this, there is consistency on our part because when the present writer takes the time to set down a position, he expect those who are genuinely interested in ideas to weigh the position set forth by objective criteria and nothing else.

Unlike the lions share of people from various outlooks who set forth opinions in the public square, the present writer does not expect anyone to accept any of his statements as some kind of arbitrary out of context injunction simply because he says it. This would base the veracity or lack thereof of his statements on a subjectivist context and would imply that truth does not objectively exist.

If you learn to think in principles you learn to think logically. Principles make thinking a lot easier and one of the goals of your host is to focus as much on principles themselves and in how those principles are to be fruitfully applied. For that reason, we will continue to press certain parties who do not seem concerned with principles and logic -either wholly or on arbitrary subject matters- to reconsider their positions.

On the Intensity/Duration Equation, Physics, and Trying to Understand Engineering Majors (With Tim Tull)

The moral of this story is either (i) I do not well understand the language and terminology of the advanced physics, (ii) engineering majors who move too quickly to into advanced physics-speak need to get lives of their own, or (iii) some combination of the two.{6}

Of or Pertaining to 'Progressivist' Philosophies (Falsely So-Called)

On Historical Revisionism Surrounding the New Deal, History Since the New Deal, the 1984 Election, Etc. (Parts I-III)

This is a post that frankly is of no small importance because in it I debunk a fair amount of the mythology surrounding The New Deal, history since The New Deal, The Great Society, and the Reagan presidential years. All that is left essentially is to deal with the myth that the middle class was "created out of The New Deal" which is frankly laughable. The middle class as we knew it in twentieth century America was not a result of The New Deal but instead was a result of industry and a specific historical context.{7} But I will deal with that subject in the new year if I remember to. Moving on...

My Theological Musings

On Certain Controverted "Hotpoint" Theological Subjects

On Justification and Catholic Understandings Thereof (With Tim Enloe)

On Justification Revisited (Dialogue With Tim Enloe)

On Torture and General Norms (With Dr. Scott Carson)

More on Torture and the Problems With Trying To Discount the Historical Record Explicitly or Otherwise

On Torture, the Limitations of Dignitatis Humanae, Logic, Etc. (Dialogue With Dr. Michael Liccione)

On "Implicit Faith"

Revisiting the Subjects of Atheism and Rational Thought in General (With Beth Cleaver)

Recommended Articles on Various Subjects

To make it easier to update this weblog in the future -and also to not have to concern myself with adding and removing articles written by others from the side margin with each update- I have decided to inaugurate a new weblog specifically for articles written by others. The two divisions are socio-political and religious-theological. I may also go back at some point and add to that weblog scroll articles deleted from past updates (but left in this weblog's archives) if they were removed due to space constraints.

Anyway, having noted that, I transferred to the new blog the scroll of threads as it previously read and added to it these threads from "miscellaneous threads" installments -most of which were subsequent to August 16, 2006:

U.N. 'Peacekeepers' Rape Women, Children [>>>]

Iraq on the Verge of Nukes in 2002??? [>>>]

WMD's? What WMDs? (Greg Mockeridge) [>>>]

Sr. Benedict's Boxing Club: Join Now and Take Advantage of Summer Discounts--Only $19.95 Per Session (Fumare) [>>>]

Boer Farm Murders (The Right Perspective) [>>>]

Stop the Murders (The Right Perspective) [>>>]

Sr. Benedict's Boxing Club: Join Now and Take Advantage of Summer Discounts--Only $19.95 Per Session (Fumare) [>>>]

Added to the blogroll this time around was the blog called The Outlaw Republican.

Anyway, that brings it current through the end of 2006. Hopefully in 2007 I can do updates every two months because in the past year it has been in four month increments on the average. That is way too much stuff to review and figure out what to add and what to leave in the archives not to mention the formatting involved. At least by the next update I will not have to worry about the articles part of the update --inaugurating a new blog for just that makes those updates independent of the main weblog. And with beta, all updates are immediate rather than waiting five or more minutes for the adjusted template to take as we have had to do for going on two years now.

But anyway, it is done now (all things to the contrary notwithstanding) and I am looking forward to the coming year in more ways than one. Hopefully y'all are too :)

Notes:

{1} Of course it helps to be informed on a whole plethora of subjects also. Nonetheless, there are some subjects which I will discuss in private but do not feel I know enough about to handle in a public forum. Would that all people handled things this way but alas, that is not the case.

{2} I suppose technically I could blog it in accordance with this site's posting protocol but it was not an email correspondence so I decided to not assume in this case.

{3} The principles involved apply to apologetics in any sphere not just the religious one even if some of the particular applications noted are of a more limited basis.

{4} Yeah, that is probably not a real word but oh well.

{5} Basically, I allowed myself to be goaded into responding again about three weeks later.

{6} Just kidding Tim, it was cool to hear from you. (The email subject you chose to cover was refreshingly unexpected which is fine with me.)

{7} Indeed, to go into where the middle class as we knew it in twentieth century America actually came from would not make the proponents of The New Deal or various forms of socialist economics very happy for reasons which will be obvious should I actually discuss this subject in the new year as I would like to. (The handing over of at least the House to the Democrats --the Senate situation in question as per my notes from 12/07 --will provide a convenient historical circumstance with which to delve into this subject.)

"None Dare Call It A Zionist Conspiracy" Dept.
(With no apologies to Gary Allen)

With that title, we have a third installment of a thread started here. Apparently this guy is not going to "go gently into that goodnight" (cf. D. Thomas) as I had hoped he would.

Mr. McElhinney,

I hope you and your family's Christmas was a good one. Having said that, I am growing tired of your neo-connish rhetoric and obtuseness. It would not surprise me one bit if I found that you are connected with the bomb-shell I am soon to reveal. For those "in the know", the name of this Zionist collaborator will come as a shock! This neo-con American apologist has tried to distance himself from Zionism but he can no longer hide from the truth. The evidence is almost completely compiled now and it is ironclad, I assure you. Yet, there is a part of me that still expects denial from the likes of you, living the in the fools paradise that you inhabit.

Soon, all of your snide comments will be exposed for the stupid arrogance that they represent. And whether or not you print the evidence I will supply you with shortly, be certain of this: the evidence of the depth of this apologist's duplicity will come forth and I will not be silenced. I plan to contact two or three Traditionalist publications shortly and I ***know*** they will be interested. Somehow, I think you will suddenly find yourself mute, Mr. McElhinney. And all of those inane little comments will be silenced.

Look for this to be revealed in the new year. And when it is, the Zionist influence in the Catholic Church, the Novus Ordo Church, will be bright to light for all to see. So be prepared to scatter, little cockroaches!

Henrik Hassen

I wonder if this fella got his writing style from Stephen Hand ;-) Oh well, send me your stuff "Henrik" and we shall see.

To be Continued...

As it is now, I am on pace to have the weblog update completed before the end of the year -possibly as early as tomorrow afternoon. Once that is completed, I will resume work on the other projects I noted in this post were to be completed soon.

Points to Ponder:

History has a way of catching up to public liars. [T. Fleming]

On the Christmas Season and Giving:
(Musings of your humble servant at Rerum Novarum)

In lieu of a proposed Christmas truce spoken of earlier, I am not going to talk about a lot of the subjects and mentalities that I would normally discuss. That can be done later and indeed I intend to not resume discussion on those subjects until at least Tuesday of next week possibly later. In the meantime, I wanted to note a few things on Christmas and the subject of helping other people in need.

Too often we hear of those who like to call themselves "peacemakers", "lovers of the poor", or whatever they choose to call themselves who seem to want to raise that concern of theirs in every conversation. Giving to others in various ways is something that should happen everyday of the year in some form or another and for many people, it does even if this does not go reported by themselves or by others. Christmas is certainly a season of more than the normal giving of assistance to others in need -of this there is no question. What is not generally reported is that charitable giving is usually greatest amongst those who do not blow trumpets and call attention to themselves and those who do the latter usually give less. Nonetheless, the Scrooge myth is often perpetuated by the latter sorts who show no small degree of ignorance of (i) the facts of reality{1}, (ii) how an economy actually works{2}, and (iii) ignorance of the very Judeo-Christian tradition on giving to others. Or as Jesus noted in Matthew's Gospel:

Take heed that you do not your justice before men, to be seen by them: otherwise you shall not have a reward of your Father who is in heaven. Therefore when thou dost an alms deed, sound not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be honoured by men. Amen I say to you, they have received their reward. But when thou dost alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth. That thy alms may be in secret, and thy Father who seeth in secret will repay thee. [Matthew vi,1-4]

Take care to remember that the Gospel injunction on giving to others is very clear that it has no reward if you draw attention to yourself in doing it. And remember my friends: those who try to make themselves look the most compassionate among us usually give less than those who give in silence without others knowing about it. And because they draw attention to themselves in doing so, they have already received their reward as Jesus said. Do not be like them. Do not draw attention to yourself when helping other people. Keep it between yourself and God. But by all means, help out however you can in accordance with your means to do so. And have a blessed Christmas my friends -see you sometime next week.

We consider Christmas as the encounter, the great encounter, the historical encounter, the decisive encounter, between God and mankind. He who has faith knows this truly; let him rejoice. [Pope Paul VI]

Notes:

{1} We will revisit these themes after Christmas as celebrated in accordance with the Gregorian calendar. (No slight to my eastern brethren who celebrate according to the Julian calendar but I do not intend to hold the truce for three weeks time.)

{2} See footnote one.

On Capitalism, Economics, the Fundamental Rights of Man, Free Trade, Etc:
(With Kevin Tierney)

The following chat is from a fifteen minute block of time yesterday a few days ago when I was taking a break from work. The parties involved will be marked by name, all timestamps removed, and any really egregious spelling goofs on either side fixed. Without further ado...

Kevin: I think what is needed is someone who can criticize the capitalism at all cost mentality without being a marxist or a populist

me: sadly, conservatives are as liable to avoid critical interactions as the liberals they criticize for not allowing them a lot like the apologists in the oligarchy

agreed and without shilling for that illogical drivel known as "distributivism (aka "distributism"). I think a lot of marxist sorts use that as a shield to hide their true views.

Kevin: here's a quick step in the right direction, in free trade agreements, insist on a "no slave labor" clause

me: nice...and insist on the freedom of labour unions to assemble and barter for the workers if the workers want them...why not drive up the cost of labour down there lol

Kevin: hahaha

me: that was a half-serious comment -obviously I do not want people shafted who toil at labour

Kevin: it would be a popular move, those who hate "wallmart slave labor" would support it, unions would support it, protectionists would support it recognizing that unions help out, etc

me: frankly, the only ones who would oppose it are those who believe that business is not requiring of any checks on industryand that would smoke them out

Kevin: since it's a matter of national trade, this is the purpose of the state, one of the areas they do have a right to intervene

me: yes indeed...the problem is, those who want to try and do away with nationalism do not want it

Kevin: and it says that those wishing to trade with America, to acquire her wealth, should also have certain standards

me: oftentimes they are the same people who want to put recourse in faceless bureaucracies who are incapable of getting anything done secularly in the UN...ecclesially those who want to see bishops conferences handle everything...birds of a feather

Kevin: that would do much to help regulate free trade right there, without the need of protectionist tarrifs and the like since we are sending a message that yes we want to trade with the world, but that America will refuse to profit off the exploited

me: yep, amazing how we hash out another major point of civilizational contention in a matter of minutes

Kevin: lol

me: which is why the bureaucracies would not want to hear from us...btw...I am planning to contact Tim Eyman (a major initiative pusher in our state) and suggest to him my rider reform proposal for the Washington legislature... it is almost three years old now but I see nothing in it that needs revising at this time

Kevin: i think people need to also understand the difference between the capitalist mindset and the consumerist mindset...today they are one and the same, but Adam Smith would be abhorred by it

agreed...I just emailed you my rider reform proposal

Kevin: today's economics are rather that of John Stuart Mill than of Adam Smith...Mill believed in liberty absolute

me: yep...

Kevin: whereas the founders and men like Smith believed in a liberty that had it's limits

me: Bastiat believed in liberty constrained only by the fundamental rights of man -and that law's purpose was to safeguard those rights...and that those rights precede all manmade legislation as they are God-given{1}

Kevin: such as Madison's viewpoint that capitalism and America need morality to survive, to them morality was part of that restrainer...probably the only naievete in the founders was thinking that this could be achieved without a strong robust religious body closely monitoring the state

me: well, they had experience of a religious body in that position and it was not a nice situation...and being aware of the historical clashes of church and state probably preferred an environment that was conducive to religious expression without requiring religious profession

Kevin: well the only problem there was the religious body was under the control of the state...a strong independent church is normally within the state's best interest

me: of course the popes have long appreciated the US's approach to religion when it suits their own interests...I have in mind Gregory XVI's famous statement "in no place do I feel more like the pope than in the United States"...Gregory was not a fan of democracy by any stretch but he appreciated I am sure that his encyclicals and other writings were allowed to freely circulate in America in a way other nations did not (even some catholic ones)

Kevin: why for example I would love to have a president one day invite the main religious leaders and remind them that it is their job to clothe the naked and feed the hungry, not Washington's and use the bully pulpit to rally them to that job, secular charities as well Bush's "faith based initiave" was anything but that, rather it used the power of the purse to attempt to make churches move. Many rightly saw that as unconstitutional not to mention dangerous for churches

me: what you propose is very congruent with the Constitution. The Founders did not want a state church but they did want morality and religion to have an important and influential role in the nation...going so far as to view the Constitution as unfit for a people who were not moral and religious. No law can suffice in the absence of a general approach that sets solid public standards regardless of what people do privately: a subject I have discussed before and which bears reiteration at least in link form in lieu of what you just noted.

Note:

{1} Readers can review the side margin of this weblog and peruse the archives for threads I have written on the fundamental rights of man if they are interested. (More will be touched on in this area in the new year.) I have not only merely reiterated Bastiat as several others have or applied it to modern situations but even developed the theory further in light of contemporary realities.

As the aforementioned theory (when properly applied) would fix so much of what is wrong with our society, it is my sincere hope that others can brought to see the wisdom involved and that it may provide them with solid reference points for the cultivation of the natural lights of reason and logic. For people with conservative intuitions, it can put them on a solid and consistent foundation in their arguments to better persuade those of good-will. For those who are espousing various forms of socialism, hopefully it will help them to see where that mentality inexorably leads if they are consistent in their application of it.

To revisit briefly a publicly noted checklist of stuff I wanted to tend to as per earlier this month...

--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.

Done.

--Due 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 text is done but I will wait until after Christmas to blog it.{1}

--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.

About 90% done. I hope to post it after Christmas and before New Years Eve.

--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.

As few people seem to be taking this report as seriously as I initially anticipated, I may well not go ahead with my originally planned project. I mean, how seriously can I actually take a report with a recommendation such as this one:

direct US dialogue with Syria and Iran over Iraq and the Middle East.

If that group is incapable as a whole of realizing that we have already tried this and it has not worked, then I fail to see what more I can say about their "recommendations" other than I respect the humility of Lee Hamilton viz. the recommendations and despise the pompous attitude of James Baker pertaining to them.{2}

--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.

Done.

--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.

Thus far only the one from Ayn Rand was blogged.{3} The others will be gotten to in good time.

--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.)

I will try to finish this between Christmas and New Years Eve. Anyone with links they want me to consider, by all means send them to me.

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

I am significantly behind on this -it will take up whatever freetime I have for this blog in the coming days and in the day or so after Christmas.

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

The beta update feature I had in mind is not available for this blog yet due to the number of posts we have in the archives. Ergo, the next update will be as ponderous as the previous ones to do but my readers are worth the time to get it done.


Notes:

{1} Consider this my own version of a "Christmas truce" if you will.

{2} For those who continue to ignorantly presume I am a shill for Republicans, Lee Hamilton is a Democrat and James Baker is a Republican.

{3} I did blog something from Pope Benedict XVI but the specific passage I have in mind with that series was from his pre-pope days.

On the Intensity/Duration Equation, Physics, and Trying to Understand Engineering Majors:
(With Tim Tull)

I find myself intrigued at times when considering the statements that have crossed my keyboard which receive reader feedback. As it is now, a statement I made in years past which encapsulates one of my own foundational presuppositions -and which has been reiterated a few times since in soem form or another-- was the subject of a recent email from amateur historian (and WW II expert), Guinness lover, onetime-soft-liberal-turned-ardent-conservative, engineering major, and general all-around renaissance man Tim Tull.{1} In responding to my reiteration of what has become practically a proverbial mantra of sorts in one of the blog posts put up on the eve of the November elections, I found an email containing several bits from Tim which included this one (my previous words in blue font, most recent ones in darkgreen font, and Tim's words in darkblue font):

"I remind you of the theories of motion as discovered by Sir Isaac Newton. If an object in motion will remain in motion, then attempts to stop that object will not succeed without a greater or equal force being involved."

Commentary: The unit of Force in the International System of Units (SI) is the Newton. Units on a Newton are kg-m/sec^2. In other words, it takes one Newton of force to accelerate a 1 kilogram mass 1 meter per second every second. And accordingly Newton's Second Law tells us that force equals mass times acceleration or the famous F=ma.

So if we apply 10 Newtons of force for one second to accelerate a stationary object to 10 meters per second, we can easily demonstrate how to declerate the object back to a stationary state with LESS "force" by applying a 1 Newton force on the object in the opposite direction for a period of 10 seconds or for that matter, any force less than the initial 10 Newtons for a sufficient length of time.

A force balance is only necessary if we are trying to prevent acceleration.

To put it in other terms, a wife can either get a garage cleaned in 3 months by nagging her husband for weeks on end or can achieve the same results in a quick time by clubbing him over the head with his TIVO box.

I am sure this is what George Orwell would have called physics-speak. As I was not sure if the email was a confirmation of my proverb or an attempt at refuting it,{2} I sent the following email to Tim.

In other words, my analogy was flawed???

To which Tim responded as follows:

The analogy was fine. It's basically correct. Essentially, any problem in aerospace engineering essentially can be solved from the equations expressing continuity of mass, momentum or energy. And those three equations all come directly from Newton's Second Law. So literaly, we owe a tremendous amount to that equations and at this stage in my education, we are still evaluating it on a daily basis in it's expanded forms. Its' good stuff.

Of course my approach to these matters were based on my indepth understanding of exercise science and its effects on the human physiology spanning fifteen plus years. Tim's was by the route of advanced physics which is one of the subjects he is studying for his advanced engineering degree. I am sure for those reasons there are differences in language and the usage of terms with our respective points of reference. But both underscore three fundamental factors which need to be accounted for at all times and they are as follows:

--One should never underestimate the importance of reason and logic when it comes to properly apprehending objective reality.

--Different approaches or schools of thought in the sciences will have different terms which may not necessarily mean the same thing; ergo taking this into account to avoid context-switching is important.

--One should make sure they do not rashly walk into a discussion of the natural sciences with an engineering major lest they find themselves confused by the latter's use of terms.

Thankfully in Tim's case, he will be finished with his engineering degree in one more year and can return to speaking normally again ;-)

Notes:

{1} For more information on Tim, see the guest editorial posted here for some tidbits.

{2} I thought it was an attempted refutation and I was all ready to point out by sound rational argumentation why this mantra is based on the laws of nature and thus immutable. But then I got the brilliant idea (since I was at best adequate with complex physics models back in the day) to simply ask Tim what he was saying.

Points to Ponder:
(On God's Existence and Reason)

[E]ither God exists or he doesn’t. There are only two options. Either one recognizes the priority of reason, of the creative Reason that stands at the beginning of everything and is the origin of everything – the priority of reason is also the priority of freedom – or one upholds the priority of the irrational, according to which everything in our world and in our lives is only an accident, marginal, an irrational product, and even reason would be a product of irrationality. In the end, one cannot “prove” either of these views, but Christianity’s great choice is the choice of reason and the priority of reason. This seems like an excellent choice to me, demonstrating how a great Intelligence, to which we can entrust ourselves, stands behind everything. [Pope Benedict XVI]

Revisiting the Subjects of Atheism and Rational Thought in General:
(Aka "'From the Mailbag' Dept.")

Having received a request from Beth over at Vast Right Wing Conspiracy to review a piece she wrote to an atheist, I sent her the following text in response on December 10th:

Hi Beth:

There are some spelling or grammatical glitches in the text but you can find those on a proofread. (As I make them myself at times so I am hardly going to be critical when other do it.)

Now, I don't subscribe to the belief that religion is the only thing that makes people compelled to good behavior (although it's certainly true for some), but it does give people inner peace, serenity, enlightenment, and often things like creativity and clarity in thinking.

I would change "it does" to "it can." I know not a few theists who frankly are lousy thinkers. But yes, if one accepts as a certain foundational presupposition that there is Infinite Intelligence (in some form or another) it can definitely assist with creativity and clarity in thinking because it defines a point of reference from which one can operate from. And as I am wont to say at times "definitions are the tools of thought."

On the whole the piece reads fine except it did not seem to me that you challenged the atheist while trying to defend yourself from his assertions. The following threads from my weblog may be of assistance in this area:

Musings on Atheism (circa August 15, 2003)

Points to Ponder on Atheism By Dr. Art Sippo (circa August 14, 2003)

Ultimately, atheism is arbitrary as both Dr. Sippo and I note in various ways. Because to be an atheist is to have an operative presupposition in your thinking that something was created out of nothing. I remember really pissing off atheists at the infidels board about six to seven years ago with pointing that out in various ways to a whole host of their presumed "arguments against God's existence." The beauty of it is that no matter how they slice it, that is what all of their attempts inexorably boil down to. Hope that helps.

I was considering blogging that email in standard anonymous format but since Beth blogged it to her comboxes, it seems appropriate to blog it as written here without alteration. She appended my email in the combox with this text:

Bingo. I had actually emailed him with a “help?!” after writing this post, because I had actually seen those pieces before, and as I said, he’s one of those people who can debate these issues far more thoroughly and knowledgably than I can. I would ask, encourage, Jeff and others to read those two pieces, at minimum. I assure you, you will have better answers there at his blog (Rerum Novarum) than I could ever supply. And in case you’re thinking you’ll encounter a fire-and-brimstone evangelist there, you’re wrong. I challenge you to read this extraordinarily rational, intellectual man’s work. (Isn’t that what an atheist would prefer hearing? Logic and reason?)

Thanks for your kind words Beth. It sure beats some of the baseless garbage that I have heard from fellow Catholics in recent years but then again, I suppose that is the standard tack taken by those addicted to the herd mentality who have no concern for building and maintaining authentic character.

I make no claims for wisdom beyond the objective validity of the arguments I advance on whatever topic I discuss. Logic and reason are not a special preserve of the self-proclaimed "intellectual class" but unfortunately, many people are content to consign us all to various totalitarian systems. These systems could be physical, intellectual, or whatever whereby only a self-anointed class of "experts" are presumed credible by virtue of something other than the intrinsic validity of their positions as ascertained by objective criteria.

The problem is, a lot of people are quite provincialist in their approaches to issues -judging the worth of an argument not on its merits but on who it is who is making the argument.{1} Certainly it happens in politics all the time and that is one reason I am an Independent voter and have been for ten years now.

In summary, yes I have an abiding respect for reason and logic and those who show an interest in these areas can count on respect from me even if I do not agree with them. Those who do not and who try to play games to skirt the rational faculties have nothing but scorn from me as they contribute not to the building up of civilization but to its tearing down however fine their motives may or may not be.

Note:

{1} This kind of atrocious double standard happens all the time -even in places where one may not suspect it. At bottom it is nothing but solipsism and implicitly undermines objective reality by denying that the latter actually exists or is possible.

"Do Not Count Your Chickens" Dept.
(On the Incoming Senate Democratic Majority)

Readers of this humble weblog are aware that your host recently blogged a response to an emailer who was pessimistic about the majorities in the incoming congress. Among our response to them included these words:

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. [Excerpt from Rerum Novarum (circa December 7, 2006)]

I am unaware of anyone else who made this argument about the Senate{1} but we did so here at Rerum Novarum and at the moment, this observation may have been more prescient than we presumed when it was written. From the AP circa twenty minutes ago:

Sen. Johnson suffers possible stroke

Here is the pertinent part of the article:

WASHINGTON - Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson (news, bio, voting record) of South Dakota suffered a possible stroke Wednesday and was taken to a Washington hospital, his office said. If he should be unable to continue to serve, it could halt the scheduled Democratic takeover of the Senate.

Democrats won a 51-49 majority in the November election. South Dakota's governor, who would appoint any temporary replacement, is a Republican.

For some reason, I was under the assumption that it was the president who filled the congressional vacancy in such situations as I noted. Nonetheless, the substance of my observation remains intact and goes to point out why things are rarely as set in stone politically as many would presume. Senator Johnson being last elected in 2002 would be set to run for election again in 2008 so if I am not mistaken, the appointment to fill his seat would serve out the last two years of the term. Let me be the first to wish Sen. Johnson a solid long-term recovery. However, I cannot say that if in the short term he cannot continue to serve and his state's governor appointed a Republican to take his seat that I would be too disappointed.