I Re-Did the Poll

Because some people weren't real thrilled with the way I structured it.  More options, less conflation of Denominations.

Just for my information.

Do You Hear What I See?

It's hard for me to blog right now.  Mostly I'm so appalled at what is going on in the world around us, and so frightened by our Government and the political division in the US that I don't know what to say.  I would really like to blog in depth about our cultural civil war, and perhaps reflect on the idea that it will come to violence in the streets, and possibly a second civil war under arms.  But when I read and study, and reflect, I become discouraged.

Here are some of the things that are bothering me right now.

The War Against Women:   The Left's rhetorical tactic of describing anything they don't like as a war against what ever "victim group" they can conjure up is annoying, but perhaps none as annoying as this.  Let's look at this.  Female white house employees are paid, on average 18% less than their male counterparts.  Yep, that's what the Left would call sexism, except that they don't mention it when they do it.  Add into this some of the crap that gets spouted, and it's worse.  Hilliary Rosen criticized Mrs. Romney--and I am not a fan of Romney--for "never having worked a day in her life".  She said because of this, Mrs. Romney could say nothing about women's concerns. Bullshit.  A mother works her but off, even a rich mother.  But this shows something; the left doesn't believe in choice for women.  Staying home to care for children isn't seen as a valid choice most of the time.  This has been going on for a while.  Teresa Heinz-Kerry said the same thing about Laura Bush.  Hilliary Clinton spoke contemptuously of women "...who stayed home and baked cookies and had teas...", which showed an amazing lack of understanding of what women who choose to be full time wives and mothers actually do, and how hard they work.  These statements reveal not only ignorance, but the contempt in which well to do career women on the left hold traditional women.  The Left isn't pro-choice at all, it's anti-family.  Look at 'The Nordic Plan", as expressed by it's most developed practitioner, Sweden.  The move is to get all kids into day care at the age of one.  Full time mothers are held in contempt, and in fact are leaving Sweden to to to a Swedish speaking area of Finland where they are allowed to be  Moms without being held in contempt, and where they get to be the educators of their children--in Sweden Homeschooling is outlawed, and private schools must follow the social curriculum established by the state.  Sweden has the highest divorce rate in Europe, the highest suicide rate in Europe (which, by the way correlates with the rise of the Statist System of Social Welfare in Sweden) and the most emotionally disturbed and mentally ill Teens and Young Adults in Europe--all predictable if one looks at the statistics of emotional disturbance of kids who spend a lot of time in Day Care by 8th Grade.

In fact, the only time I remember the Left standing up for a traditional family structure was 2008, when pundits from the left wondered how Mrs. Palin could raise her family properly and pursue a public life.  I've always wondered about that--was it simply criticism for the sake of discrediting Mrs. Palin, or was it really an expression of contempt for all women who choose not to enter Government Employment as a career track, or embrace corporate employment?  It's certainly a double standard:  If you do not support the "approved version" of choice and "empowerment" you have no place in the public discourse.

The War on Women is lead by the Left.  The left wishes all women to comply to their ideal of what a woman is supposed to be.  Take State Representative Babette Josephs, (D--Philly) who serves in the Pennsylvania State Legislature.  She has gone so far as to decide pro-life, pro-family, women are...not women. She calls them "men with breasts".  So if you do not agree with the Left on women's issues, you forfeit the right to be a real woman.

Trayvon:  Here's what I know.  An unarmed teenager was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch captain.  That's what I know.  I've heard all kinds of things--from everyone everywhere.  Law professor Alan Dershowitz says the Arrest Affidavit was deeply flawed, and that's why it didn't go before a Grand Jury.  Others say that the arrest was so long in coming because of racial issues.  I don't care what they say--I say a teenage boy, unarmed, was shot to death.  A trial is the place to go, and the thing to do.  The evidence will be presented, and a jury will vote.  If the trial is marred, as seems likely in this climate, it can be appealed.  The rest of the narrative is akin to pigeons strutting about, crapping on everything, pretending they are important.  I'm pretty sure that 96% of those holding forth don't give a damn about Trayvon, they are trying to further an agenda, using him as a flag.

FUBAR Catholics:  Everyone knows that the Church is full of "Catholics" who just show up.  One Cardinal described them as people who have long since left the Faith, yet remain physically present in the Church.  Good description.  Eugene Cullen, (I don't believe he's related to Edward... .) a professor emeritus (That means he's to old to teach, so he just hangs out basking in his important record of achievement.) of Psychology at Loyola has just come out against  the New Translation of the Missal.  So, Psychology Professors are authorities on the Liturgy?  They are equipped to make sociological predictions and philosophical criticisms?  Especially as his complaints are predictive in nature, and have been given the lie by actual events. What he doesn't like, is the return of hieratic language, a vertical element and a challenge to the status quo of secular life. Melinda Gates comes to mind as well, with her public profession of Catholicism, used as a preface for her attack on the Churches belief that humans are sacred, by way of supporting Hormonal contraceptives that kill women and have a secondary, or primary, mode of action as an abortaficient.  In Ireland, the Association of Catholic Priests (which represents a small fraction of Irish priests) is saying that the decision to silence and remove from the public eye a dissenting priest will cause a rebellion that they are terming "A Catholic Spring".   You know, I hope so.  I"m so ready for the Schism.  My parish was criticized by the "Multicultural Office" of the Archdiocese for our music--we were told that we should have a hymn from every cultural group at every Mass, despite the directives from the Vatican and the USCCB concerning Liturgical Music--we constantly here from people who say things like "It's OK to sleep around, have abortions etc, as long as we care for the poor, the down trodden and marginalize the mainstream of the Church".  Austria has areas where virtually the entirety of the priesthood and the 'Faithful" are actively opposing the Church--which is the rest of us who are Catholic.  When the Schism becomes open, the narrative in the popular press will be about those poor, devout, spiritual "Catholics' who become refugees of faith from the Evil, Patriarchal Hierarchy that hates women, sex, gays, freedom, love and the poor.  The truth will be rather different:  the situation will be analogous to a physician lancing an abscess, with the pus and corruption shooting out with great force into a dish for disposal.  This infection must be lanced.

The War on Us:  The press is soft selling the Catholic Opposition to the Obama Regime's desire to silence Christianity.  The Bishops have sent another letter to the concerning the attempt to marginalize and restrict the activities of Christians, and Catholics in particular.  In it they enumerated such things as the HHS mandate, the additional requirement that $1 of every insurance premium be earmarked for abortions, State laws that prevent us from giving any assistance to illegal immigrants--assistance that include feeding hungry people or giving them shelter in homeless shelters--basic humanity that Our lord told us to do--,and State laws designed to interfere with the internal structure and authority of the Church.  At the same time we have blatant attempts by Universities to silence, marginalize and banish religious presence from the University.  One UNC campus deliberately rescheduled it's calendar to ensure that as many religious holidays were not given time to allow for participation in religious services, as well as scheduling exams on Saturdays and Sundays.  This attempt didn't fly in it's entirety, the staff objected to the Saturday/Sunday exam thing.  But the attempt was made, and it is now much more difficult for Christians and Jews to attend religious services on holy days and other important times.  Vanderbilt--a private school, IIRC--has ordered that all student groups be open to membership by everybody, and leadership positions must be open to everybody--worded in such a way, and enforced to the end that, religious groups are banned.  Vanderbilt said that they understood, but now is trying to force religious groups that have decided not change their beliefs and rules are facing obstacles off campus as well, to include threats of legal actions for such horrendous things as calling themselves "The Catholic Community at Vanderbilt".  So much for diversity and inclusion--they don't even want people of faith to publicly say they go to school there. 

The Silencing of Conscience:  The Wyoming Supreme Court has ruled a Court Order barring Abortion Protestors violated their constitutional rights.  It seems the City Fathers of  Jackson thought their signs were offensive.  I can't imagine the outcry if someone objected to, and got a court order against, signs used at a pro-abortion rally or a gay rights rally because they found them offensive.  Of course, this ruling comes eleven months after the protestors where silenced, so even though the ruling provides some protection, it didn't prevent the silencing of dissent.  This tactic is used a lot.  If you follow the court rulings in pro-life censorship cases, you keep finding the pro-lifers upheld.  Yet you keep seeing these incidents repeated.  The reason is simple--it takes months or years to work these things out in the courts, and you can silence them right now, and the worst consequence is you get overturned in a year or so.  Perhaps, just perhaps, if the officers and officials who did the actual silencing were held responsible in a court of law for violating our civil rights this would stop.  Of course, it's not always the apparatus of the State that does this.  At Northern Kentucky University, a pro-life protest display was repeatedly vandalized.  When the vandals were caught they maintained that vandalism is protected, free speech, and that they had every right to silence those they disagree with.  America, as an exceptional nation, is dying at the hands of those who feel their ability to have sex without consequence trumps every other right. ( By the way, the vandals were male.  Of course they were male--men are the ones who get the most out of abortion.  If abortion is freely available and socially accepted, then it doesn't matter how many Betties they pork on campus--if she get pregnant, they can abort and he doesn't have to face child support, marriage or any other consequence.  Heck, he probably won't even pay for it.  I used to think that abortion removed men's reproductive rights.  I still do.  But more and more it looks to me like violence against women and children, in support of a male privilege of humping everybody without having to worry about kids.)

Obama Flags:  This one cuts me both ways.  I must acknowledge the right of someone to fly one of those defaced National Flags that have the union removed and Obama's face substituted.  The make me want to puke.  First, I never, ever trust a cult of personality.  Ever.  Second, the Union underscores something about our Nation's polity.  We are a federation of States.  STATES: not provinces.  By removing that symbolic reminder of how we work as a nation, and replacing it with the face of a man who thinks constitutional limits on government authority should be removed, the people flying this flag are saying that they no longer wish to live in a Federation,  with the authority of the Central Government carefully circumscribed by law, but wish to submit to a central government that is largely administered by unelected officials in offices that are accountable to no one. 

North Korean Missiles:   Well, it worked out about like I expected--it disintegrated in mid air.  But least we gloat, we need to remember how may of our missiles and rockets did the same thing.  It is Rocket Science.  Their engineers will have learned from this failure, and they will be better at making the next one.  But look at what else this means.  Obama's Korea policy is in a shambles.  He didn't manage to influence the situation one bit, and managed to give substantial aid to a nation that occasionally shoots at us or our ally, South Korea.  It shows the bankruptcy of our Foreign Policy.  It also show something else--we are perceived, under Obama, as a country in decline, so riven with internal divisions and so racked by economic problems that we cannot effectively act in the international sphere.  Way to go, Barry.

A Moderate Democrat Speaks Out:  Chuck Kruger, a Democratic member of the Maine Legislature has spoken out on Twitter, calling for the Execution of Dick Cheney.  I am not a fan of Mr. Cheney, but really!  He doesn't specify what charge Mr. Cheney should be executed on, or specify a trial.  He also opines that he hopes there is a surveillance camera in the cell Cheney would be executed in, so he can watch.  Interestingly, when a conservative speaks out, the Left and the Democrats accuse them of inciting violence, and here we have a Democrat calling for the televised death of a political opponent.  Who's calling for violence?  Kruger is the chair of the "Moderate" Caucus in the Maine Legislature.  I no longer believe in "moderate" Democrats--the socialist core of the party has driven them out.

BATFE and DOJ Lawlessness:  For those of us old enough to remember the 70s and 80s, we can remember the ATF getting into so much trouble for violating the laws of search, seizure and probable cause that they were at one point nearly eviscerated by Congress--the straw that broke the camels back were raids, without warrant or probable cause on Gun Shows, that included such things as arresting on felony charges of trafficking firearms a 16 year old girl selling jewelry.  They're at it again.  We've had the spectacle of ATF engaging in the gun running industry, supposedly to shut it down but with no effect, then lying to Congress about it, along with Attorney General Holder's DOJ.  Now they are hitting guns stores in Alaska, Oklahoma, Arizona, Idaho and other states with illegal searches of their records.  This stuff is forbidden not just by the general laws on search and seizure, but by specific statute. It violates the Firearm owners Protection Act of 1986.  It also violates the Gun Control Act of 1968.  The agents of ATF are illegally taking, or attempting to take the records of gun stores off premises--they cannot do that without a search warrant or a court order, which they are not using.  More than that, they are "checking" the records of gun stores, then going to the homes of people who have purchased firearms.  This is intimidation,illegal, not based in probable cause, and violates habeus corpus--they have proved no crime has been committed for them to investigate.  more fascistic oppression complements of Barack Obama and left wing Fascist thug regime.