So what was Pope Francis up to on Holy Thursday?

Get Religion asks: So what was Pope Francis up to on Holy Thursday?

My answer --

What he was up to is demonstrating that he's holier than Christ -- Jesus washed the Disciples' feet, the feet of people he well knew, to rebuke them their childish and sinful one-upsmanship. Francis washed -- and kissed -- the feet of criminals, people he does not and will not know, who were picked out and presented to him for his silly photo-op, to demonstrate to all the world how proudly humble he is! how he can out-do Christ in humility and holiness!

The phenomenon of presenting oneself as being more holy (and/or more moral) than God is very common in Western cultures -- even the anti-Christians do it. Francis' display of it just happens to be a very Catholic way of doing it.

As another example, consider the "liberal" promotion of injustice, which they call opposition to ‘vengeance’ -- this is at root a public display of moral one-upsmanship, not just over you, but over God himself.

Edit (2013/04/28):
Drew has further thoughts

I hadn't realized that the woman whose foot Francis was kissing was a Moslem ... but that detail makes the whole thing perfect, don't you think?

Apparently, the USA is officially at war

Reuters: Full war declaration statement from [North Korea]

'The Case for Revenge'

By way of Kathy Shaidle: Thane Rosenbaum (in 'The Chronicle of Higher Education', no less!): Eye for an Eye: The Case for Revenge

Bob Parks on 'gay' 'marriage'

Bob Parks: In Gay Marriage Debate, Neither Side Is Without Sin

I made two responses:

Bob Parks: "... but from what I’ve read I’m not sure Jesus would’ve refer to gays as “abominations”, shun and condemn them to eternal hellfire. I believe he’d show them love and try to find a way to work with them."
No one is calling "gays" abominations -- however, the behavior (that no one seems to want to talk about) is an abomination.

An unrepentant homosexual has *chosen* eternal death ... you know, the same as an unrepentant "player" has or an unrepentant slut has.

How does one "work with" those who insist that their abominable behavior must not only be tolerated, but must be publically celebrated ... and that they must be given access to groom children ... other than by shunning them?

and

No one is stopping "gays" from marrying. No law prevents it; no one even asks about the sexual preferences the man and woman applying for the marriage license.

The laws on marriage simply require that:
1) there be exactly two and only two parties involved;
2) the two parties be of opposite sex;
3) the two parties be of at least a certain age;
4) the two parties not be related to a prohibited degree.

That's all. And these conditions apply to *everyone* -- thus, the "civil rights" angle is fundamentally and deliberately dishonest.

If requirement 2) can be thrown away for the dishonest rationales being advanced by the "gay" activists, then so can any of the other requirements, and for the same rationales.

"Gay" "marriage" isn't about "equal rights", it's about allowing the leftists to destroy marriage.

Edit 2013/03/27:
Bob Parks: "And for those who say gay marriage degrades the “sanctity of marriage”, tell ya what: if any gay marriage has the power to degrade what you have with the person you’ve wed, your marriage has issues. Should I ever get married again, no gay couple will ever have that kind of power over us."

This is incorrect -- it's also a favorite (dishonest) leftist takling point. And conservatives really need to free their minds of the leftist indoctrination in which we all have been marinated from birth.

Contrary to the claims of the "gay" activists, "gay" "marriage" isn't at all about equality before the law -- I've shown the falseness of that in my prior post. Rather, "gay" "marriage" is about redefining what marriage is. Ultimately, as with so much else of the leftist agenda, "gay" "marriage" is about *destroying* marriage, but that point is what I mean to explore here.

"Gay" "marriage" certainly will have "the power to degrade what you have with the person you’ve wed"; this is because the imposition of it changes what marriage is and means.

At one time, and not all that long ago, it was very difficult to formally end a marriage. This is because, whereas now there are four legal requirements for contracting a marriage, before "no fault" divorce, marriage really was a legally binding contract, of which the requirements for entrance were:
1) there be exactly two and only two parties involved;
2) the two parties be of opposite sex;
3) the two parties be of at least a mimimum age;
4) the two parties not be related to a prohibited degree;
5a) the two parties agree that the marriage relationship is sexually exclusive
5b) and life-long.

With the imposition of "no fault" divorce, everyone's marriage was affected, everyone's marriage changed, everyone's marriage was "degraded".

How can any thinking and honest man imagine that "gay" "marriage" won't "degrade" everyone's marriages, and in wholly unforseen ways?

When the same emotive "arguments" being advanced to justify the fiat imposition of "gay" "marriage" upon society are advanced to justify polygamous "marriages", will you also claim that polygamous "marriages" cannot "degrade" your own hypothetical marriage?

When the same emotive "arguments" being advanced to justify the fiat imposition of "gay" "marriage" upon society are advanced to justify polyamorous "marriages", will you also claim that polyamorous "marriages" cannot "degrade" your own hypothetical marriage?

When the same emotive "arguments" being advanced to justify the fiat imposition of "gay" "marriage" upon society are advanced to justify incestuous "marriages", will you also claim that incestuous "marriages" cannot "degrade" your own hypothetical marriage?

When the same emotive "arguments" being advanced to justify the fiat imposition of "gay" "marriage" upon society are advanced to justify beastiality "marriages", will you also claim that beastiality "marriages" cannot "degrade" your own hypothetical marriage?

The reason 'liberals'

The reason that "liberals" lie so easily to you and me is that they lie so readily and constantly to themselves.

Gentle Reader may recall that I had described a "liberal" (female) co-worker's reaction to using the very same logic by which "liberals" intend to eviscerate the Second Amendment to argue for a non-liberal position.

Now, keep in mind, she had trotted out the standard "liberal" talking points -- you know which I mean, I don't really need to repeat any of them here: "We don't want to take away anyone's guns", "We don't want to trample anyone's rights"; "We just want some *reasonable* restrictions on guns".

Yet, the other day, when I asked a (male) co-worker whether he knew anything about this incident, of which I had seen only a headline, she expressed the opinion that there was problem at all with it -- she explicitly said it sounded reasonable to her. And well, after all, even aside from the scary picture of a gun involved, it is merely a man-and-father being trampled upon by "law enforcement".

The barbarian/aggressor is always the "victim"

In "liberal" "logic", whether it's a confrontation between a violent (so-called) woman and a man trying to keep the peace (as in the video here), or a confrontation between a violent and aggressive black and a white just trying to go about his business, or a confrontation between un uncivilized punk and an adult upholding civilization, the violent, aggressive, barbarian is *always* the "victim", while the defender of civilization is *always* the "aggressor", who must be publically slapped down. -- "The security guard who became an internet sensation after posting videos of himself fighting crime at downtown’s Metro Mall was arrested late Thursday afternoon and charged with battery."

No society can survive what our rulers are intentionally doing to us.

Reporting the white ashes would have been gauche

Tony Woodlief: White ashes

Last I checked there were 36,000 mentions of Jimmy Fallon in the news, and 8,820 of Kermit Gosnell.

It’s understandable if you haven’t heard of Gosnell. He’s a Philadelphia abortionist on trial for, among other things, murdering newborns by snipping their spines with scissors. He did this after failing to murder them while some portion of their bodies remained in the birth canal—that practice, of course, being considered humane by organizations like Planned Parenthood, the National Abortion Rights Action League, and the National Organization for Women.

Gosnell ran a slaughterhouse, and sometimes he kept the severed feet of his tiny victims in jars. At least one woman died under his ministrations. His defense alleges that his prosecution is motivated by race.

Not the sight of severed baby feet floating in jars, mind you, but race. How wonderful it would be, were Dr. King still alive, to give him five minutes alone in a room with this man.

There are four times more mentions of Jimmy Fallon not simply because Americans prefer entertainment to real-life horror. Had Gosnell been, say, a self-professed evangelical who murdered seven abortion doctors, instead of a profiteering abortionist who murdered seven babies, then I promise you, there is no way you would avoid hearing about it. There is no question about the morality of abortion for most journalists, only questions about the morality of people who oppose it.

It’s easy to blame journalists, and in this case they deserve blame. But I remember that in his heyday George Tiller, a late-term abortionist operating in Wichita, Kansas, secured from the city council a permit to expand his operations and add an incinerator to his facility. Tiller’s abortuary was located next to a car dealership, and if you talked to the guys working there, they would explain to you how every week they had to get out the hoses and wash white ash off the cars.

One day, a man walked into Tiller’s church and shot him in the head. That made the news, and it should have. But those white ashes? Reporting them would have been gauche. A journalist might get mistaken for some kind of religious nut, talking about those ashes.

History scorns the people who lived outside Auschwitz and Treblinka, with their weak protests of ignorance. How will history treat us, I wonder?

On the moral and legal legitimacy of the Revolution

Douglas Wilson: Resisting the Slavers

... the question of the American War for Independence, and whether or not it was legitimate for our Founders to revolt against "the existing authorities."

I believe it was legitimate but I believe this because it wasn't over the levels of taxation. Rather, the issue was one of which bodies had the constitutional authority to tax the colonies at all. Living as I do in Idaho, if I were to receive a tax bill levied by the legislature of North Dakota, I would simply round file it. This would not place me in violation of the existing law -- the North Dakota legislature would be the ones violating the law by trying to tax me. I don't live there, and they have no legitimate jurisdiction over me whatever.

The circumstances were similar for the American colonies. There are some variations in all this, but when the colonies were first established, the crown was their executive authority, and they were given their own legislatures. As a result of the Glorious Revolution in England in 1688, the crown lost authority in England, and Parliament gained authority. They gained authority in such a way as to make them assume (wrongly) that their legislature (for England) was now in charge of all the legislatures in other places. But it wasn't -- that was the point of dispute. "No taxation without representation" was an American argument from the law. Parliament had no taxing authority over the colonies because the colonies had no representatives in Parliament.

In short, the Americans were the conservatives, fighting to maintain their rights under the constitution, and the Parliament represented the radical innovation. ...

And the "radical innovation" of the English Parliament was statism ... which, as anyone can see, is *still* the problem in Britain. Of course, since the Progressive Era, that's also the problem in the USA.

Saying it well

Some people with nothing to say at least have the grace to say it very well. More common is to say it at great length ... or simply to say it loudly.

The Unmourned

Mark Steyn (in NRO's 'The Corner'): The Unmourned

...
Instead of my Arizona comparison, what about Sandy Hook? One solitary act of mass infanticide by a mentally-ill loner calls into question the constitutional right to guns, but a sustained conveyor belt of infanticide by an entire cadre of cold-blooded killers apparently has no implications for the constitutional right to abortion. As one commentator wondered two years ago:

Does 30 years of calling babies “blobs of tissue” have no effect on the culture?

For the answer, consider the testimony of “Nurse” Moton - and the clarification by AP writer Maryclaire Dale:

She once had to kill a baby delivered in a toilet, cutting its neck with scissors, she said. Asked if she knew that was wrong, she said, “At first I didn’t.”

Abortions are typically performed in utero.

“Typically.” So, finding oneself called on to “abort” a “viable fetus” in a toilet with a pair of scissors, who wouldn’t be confused as to whether it’s “wrong” or merely marginally atypical?

Two from Kathy Shaidle

Two related posts from Kathy Shaidle concerning "liberal" hypocrisy with respect to marriage --

You mean it reminds you…

You mean it reminds you…

Of how National Review underbussed Derb for writing a sane, candid, factually accurate but “politically incorrect” column about race?

No?

Oh, sorry then.

From the comments:

Paula Ettelbrick is former legal director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund and now executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. Ettelbrick stated, “Being queer is more than setting up house, sleeping with a person of the same gender [sic], and seeking state approval for doing so. … Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality, and family, and in the process, transforming the very fabric of society. … We must keep our eyes on the goal … of radically reordering society’s views of reality.”

I’m wondering if any one out there would like to defend this. Are SoCons really bigoted or are we just reacting to stated goals of the homosexual community?

The same people who told us for decades that ‘marriage is just a piece of paper’…

The same people who told us for decades that ‘marriage is just a piece of paper’…

Now insist that it’s been a “human right” all along.

Literally the same people.

Peculiarities of life under Leftist rule

Bonald at The Orthosphere: Peculiarities of life under Leftist rule -- Bonald discusses the victimization sweapstakes, and that it is unlikely to end anytime soon. -- There is a lot of meat in this essay; Gentle Reader will surely want to read the whole thing.

Building Statues to Benedict Arnold

Thomas Sowell: Budget Politics

Back in my teaching days, many years ago, one of the things I liked to ask the class to consider was this: Imagine a government agency with only two tasks: (1) building statues of Benedict Arnold and (2) providing life-saving medications to children. If this agency's budget were cut, what would it do?

The answer, of course, is that it would cut back on the medications for children. Why? Because that would be what was most likely to get the budget cuts restored. If they cut back on building statues of Benedict Arnold, people might ask why they were building statues of Benedict Arnold in the first place.

The example was deliberately extreme as an illustration. But, in the real world, the same general pattern can be seen in local, state and national government responses to budget cuts.

At the local level, the first response to budget cuts is often to cut the police department and the fire department. There may be all sorts of wasteful boondoggles that could have been cut instead, but that would not produce the public alarm that reducing police protection and fire protection can produce. And public alarm is what can get budget cuts restored.

The Obama administration is following the same pattern. The Department of Homeland Security, for example, released thousands of illegal aliens from prisons to save money -- and create alarm.

The Federal Aviation Administration says it is planning to cut back on the number of air traffic controllers, which would, at a minimum, create delays for airline passengers, in addition to fears for safety that can create more public alarm.
...
President Obama has said that he would veto legislation to let him choose what to cut. That should tell us everything we need to know about the utter cynicism of this glib man.
...

'I oppose the death penalty under all circumstances'

Michael Egnor: "... I oppose the death penalty under all circumstances. ..."

Just to start, what you have truly said is that you oppose any laws under all circumstances. For, all law which commands, "Do this" or "Don't do that", is always at least implicitly backed up by the threat of sudden and violent death at the hands of State agents. Moreover, the death meted out in those circumstances tends to be far less judicious than the capital punishment sometimes handed out by a justly functioning court. I have written about this here, and earlier here, so in this post I'll only touch upon my reasoning. Those interested in understanding are free to read the earlier posts.

To say, "I oppose the death penalty under all circumstances", is to say, "I will not concern myself that my policy preferences would make an ordered civil society impossible." I could put the meaning of this much less charitably.

But, there is an even worse thing you have said -- which is that the criminal, the one who deserves death for, as an example, viciously murdering a member of our society, has the moral right and the legal ability to expel his victim from our society, such that we can hold ourselves to be not duty-bound to seek and apply justice on behalf of his victim. I have written about this here.

To say, "I oppose the death penalty under all circumstances", is to say, "I will not concern myself that my policy preferences would make a just civil society impossible." Likewise, this can be stated in even more stark terms.

Forcing a Germanic language into a Latin mould

I've written before about the silliness of trying to force English, a Germanic language, to conform to Latinate grammar rules. Here is a splended example of what can happen when one refuses to budge --

Buchanan's War ... By then – the 1930s – even most French and British pols had concluded that they were too harsh by far, so when Hitler skilfully reclaimed territory occupied mostly by German speakers who desired to live in a restored Germany, there was no wholehearted opposition. Not until Prague, that is, as Pat Buchanan shows; that was the turning point, on March 15th, 1939. Prague was not a Germanic city. Its part of Czechoslovakia was taken as a conquest by Hitler, and that was something up with which British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain did not feel able to put. ...

Adam Carolla owns hopeless liberal California Lt. Governor

Kathy Shaidle: Adam Carolla owns hopeless liberal California Lt. Governor (video) (2:45 minutes)

I don't particularly care for Carolla, but I did enjoy watching him keep pressing that -- redundancy alert -- dishonest "liberal" politician to all-but admit that he was just blathering catch-phrases that are meaningless, however expensive they turn out to be, socially and fiscally.

At the same time -- in a perverse sort of way -- you almost have to admire Gavin Newsom his ability to stay "on message", even in the face of such relentless calling of his bullshit.

Nero is Back

Kristor: Good News: Nero is Back --

...
Thus began a grand tradition of state persecution of Christians. It persisted until 311, when Constantine and his fellow Caesars, whom he eventually superseded, agreed to tolerate us, despite the fact that we had “followed such a caprice and had fallen into such a folly that [we] would not obey the institutes of antiquity.” Constantine’s own conversion to Christianity was, among other things, implicitly a straightforward and utter repudiation of the old Imperial cult. Constantine was indeed officially anointed of the Lord, but was not himself personally a son of God.

That sublime recusal perdured throughout Christendom for 1700 years. It is now over, and the civil cult is once again arrayed against Christianity. The only difference is that nowadays the cult of the cosmopolis is atheist.

What may we expect?

There will come a disaster. It won’t be global warming; our future persecutors have been preparing our culpability for “climate change” for a couple decades now, but the climate isn’t changing, and the hoi polloi seem to be losing interest in the idea. The disaster will be something different; perhaps an economic or fiscal collapse, followed by food riots. Perhaps it will be manufactured, blown up out of all proportion by the press, but really not so bad in reality (when have we ever seen that happen, eh? Eh?). Perhaps our rulers will set the fire themselves.

We will be the scapegoats. ...

But then, did not Our Lord warn us that the world would hate us and murder us, as it did him? Did he not tell us to count the cost before claiming his name?

As I mentioned to Kristor in an email, I myself have always believed that we would see State persecution of Christians, right here in America, within my own lifetime. This, despite having been raised in the sort of churches that explicitly taught that this generation of believers would escape unscathed. I mean that, even as a child, I figured that what I was being taught on that particular matter was just wishful thinking.

Saint Patrick's Day

Congress will never declare Saint Patrick's Day to be an official US holiday, despite its secular association with drunken excess. This is because Patrick is known for driving out the snakes.