Pat Archbold gets it. And, despite the remarks of a few remaining suckers in his comboxes, most of his readers get it, too. As many people were sickeningly sure would happen, the pro-life cause was betrayed yet again by the Stupid Evil Party, and pro-lifers were, once again, instructed by the Party to talk about the … Read more
America’s founding documents — the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Federalist Papers — are, when read, potentially lethal. Debates about American exceptionalism abound. Writing in the Wall Street Journal before the bombings in Libya, Daniel Henninger brought these currents together in the context of present Arab world turmoil as they relate to Chinese … Read more
Religious belief, and Christianity in particular, has found an unlikely ally in the debate over the proper public place of Europe’s Christian heritage: the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights. In a closely watched decision, the Grand Chamber overruled a 2009 lower court decision, Lautsi v. Italy, and determined that public schools … Read more
It is about this time in Lent, around halfway through, that one begins to wonder what the point is. Of anything, really. One purpose of the season is just that: to bring us up against impossibilities. Today, I’m thinking particularly of impossibilities in the realm I am compelled to stare into in my daily life … Read more
Most conversations in Washington these days end up running down the list of likely GOP candidates who will run for the presidential nomination in 2012. The strengths and weaknesses of Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, and Haley Barbour are quickly calculated; but when it comes to … Read more
Several weeks ago, the Vatican announced that it would not grant the necessary approval for Lesley-Anne Knight’s second, four-year term as secretary general of Caritas International, a global network of 165 Catholic agencies working primarily in the Third World on development and health-care issues. Predictably, the Vatican black ball was deplored by some leaders of … Read more
Judging by the impassioned commentary from some Catholic quarters during recent confrontations between unionized public-sector workers and state governments, you’d think we were back in 1919, with the Church defending the rights of wage slaves laboring in sweat shops under draconian working conditions. That would hardly seem to be the circumstances of, say, unionized American … Read more
Following the Bart Stupak betrayal, several pundits declared the end of the pro-life Democrat. For months, Congressman Stupak and a small group of Catholic House members had held out against Obamacare, insisting it be stripped of funding for abortion. But when the bill returned from the Senate with abortion funding intact, Stupak revealed himself to … Read more
Reading Nietzsche taught me one thing: People can talk about values and really be interested only in getting their way. Case in point: All the talk about political “civility” is more about power than good manners. Specifically, it’s about marginalizing everyone who finds it necessary and appropriate to speak passionately on the subject of abortion. … Read more
Anti-Catholicism has always been a problem in America, although today it is nothing like what existed in an earlier era. Catholics are part of the nation’s economic, political, and cultural establishment, no longer the lesser citizens of a society that was generically Protestant and fairly proud of that fact. But every so often, events conspire … Read more
On April 26, 1783, two weeks after Congress approved a preliminary peace treaty with England, the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey entered into a compact over their shared use of the Delaware River. The waterway was an important shipping route, and any interference in its operation, either from dams or bridges, would harm both … Read more
Last year’s congressional elections turned out better than conservatives deserved. Republicans grabbed back the power of the purse with the House of Representatives, giving them the ability — if they have the strategy and the nerve — to hobble the rest of Barack Obama’s presidency. And on most issues, they should. For instance, Republicans should … Read more
The upheaval in Egypt appears to be a political revolution in its purest form: a united, non-violent effort against a military dictator from across the spectrum of Egyptian people, including leftists, Christians, Muslims, Arab nationalists, Nasserites, and the Muslim Brotherhood. More than 100 Egyptians have been killed, with thousands more injured, and there has been … Read more
It belabors the obvious to say that Haiti is a mess. I was there for the one-year anniversary of the January 12, 2010, earthquake and can verify the reports of how little has been done to put the shattered capital, Port-au-Prince, back together again. The overall look of the downtown area is something akin to … Read more
Everywhere except in the field of jurisprudence, the reductio ad absurdum is accepted as a logical argument. The reductio always takes this form: If you can show that a certain premise leads to an absurd conclusion, then there is something radically wrong with the premise, and you then either have to reject the premise or at least … Read more
The story about President Obama’s support for infanticide as an Illinois state senator came immediately to mind last week when a Philadelphia abortionist was arrested on eight counts of murder. One of the counts faced by Dr. Kermit Gosnell includes the death of a woman following an abortion at his office. The other seven were … Read more
Sargent Shriver, brother-in-law of John, Bobby, and Ted Kennedy, founding director of the Peace Corps, and one-time Democratic vice-presidential nominee (among numerous other accomplishments), passed away this week. I only met him once in person, but we exchanged phone calls and a series of letters regarding our shared interest in Catholic history, and I came to … Read more
On April 12,1963 — Good Friday — Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led a group of about 50 anti-segregation protesters into downtown Birmingham, Alabama. It was a peaceful protest, but they were not naïve: They knew that their message would offend and cause problems. King was not surprised when they were all arrested. Eight white … Read more
Mine was a circuitous route from philosophy to politics, and there are few recent events that better illustrate the difference between my origin and ultimate destination than the tragic event in Tucson last week. Already, the pundits are talking about the “post-Tucson climate” of politics going forward, one where “rancor” and “vitriol” should have no … Read more
The U.S. Treasury announced on its website that, at year end, the national debt topped $14 trillion for the first time. This was an increase from $13 trillion on June 1, 2010, and $12 trillion at year end 2009. When the recession officially began in December 2007, U.S. debt to Gross Domestic Product was about … Read more