By Steve Hilton July Fourth is a moment for all of us to reflect on America and what it means – and that’s particularly true this year, as the holiday comes right after a week in politics that revealed the great challenges America’s system of government is facing. …read more
Via:: Fox Opines
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By Jim Daly One of the most consequential decisions of President Trump’s term is coming on July 9, when the president says he will announce his nominee to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. …read more
Via:: Fox Opines
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By Rod Dreher
I was struck by this comment from reader KW, on a previous thread. S/he begins by quoting a previous poster, on the subject of our rapidly changing culture:
..There’s a war being waged out there, baby. Have a nice time at the river. But eventually the hard freakin’ reality is gonna catch up with Kansas too.
KW responds:
I live in Kansas; it’s here. I appreciated the OP’s sentiments and, on one hand, agree with them. On the other hand, the ground has cracked and is splitting beneath our feet. In Kansas, I go to the grocery store and notice the cashier has “preferred pronouns” on her (posing as as a “his”) nametag, a problem if you reflexively address strangers as “sir” or “ma’am.” One local school is having its gym massively renovated in part to accommodate the gender confusion social contagion. My town passed an ordinance to let boys in the girls’ room before it even became a national issue. Yes, it’s in Kansas.
I’ve been playing music here semi-professionally for nearly 3 decades. I used to play at a lot of weddings; I knew I had to quit doing that once the writing on the wall was plain. The current legal standing of not playing same-sex weddings doesn’t enter into it; word travels fast and I would be cast into the outer darkness, so to speak, if I was inevitably offered a job at such a ceremony and begged off taking it.
The ground has cracked. It’s cracked in my own family, my town, my state. Now anyone who is not on board with the state of things has to get out the old maps to chart a new course. I don’t take any joy in realizing that or repeating it.
I appreciate how succinctly the reader has stated a core argument of The Benedict Option: that everything is changing, and changing rapidly — and it’s not the kind of thing that politics can deal with effectively, because the change is cultural.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that a state or federal law is passed that guarantees traditional Christian musicians the right to refuse to play at same-sex weddings without suffering any penalty under law. That will mean very little. Those musicians will be shunned professionally, and pay a heavy penalty for their faith. This is something that’s very, very hard to get Christians to understand — the total nature of this revolution.
To borrow a line from KW, The Benedict Option is about charting a new course. I have a feeling that the book is going to stay in print for years, as reality catches up with the kind of Christians who shunned it as alarmist.
Via:: American Conservative
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By Juan Williams the Fourth isn’t about honoring any particular political party or administration, no matter how much any politicians might try to drape themselves in red, white and blue. …read more
Via:: Fox Opines
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By Suzanne Venker Way, way back in 2002 I wrote a book about the domino effect that occurs when women try to raise children, babies and toddlers in particular, and pursue full-time career simultaneously. …read more
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By Rod Dreher
Since writing last week about Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s sexual predation (see especially here), and how widely known it was, but nobody dared to speak out against it, I’ve had a lot of correspondence, from both laity and priests. The best are the e-mails from priests — usually younger ones — who say that this stuff is true, and it needs to be exposed and rooted out in the Church. I say the “best,” because it confirms to me that those best positioned to know about the situation behind the façade.
I received a long, very detailed e-mail from a priest in administration in an archdiocese. I’m trying to figure out how to help him. It’s a complicated story, but basically he’s trying to help another priest who has been victimized by a cabal of older gay priests with political power within the Church. As my informant frames it, I can genuinely see why he doesn’t have a lot of options (he was reaching out to me for advice, and also to say that it helps to be able to talk to someone who knows he’s not making it up). I said in one of my previous posts that I don’t understand why priests who see this evil stay silent about it. Well, given the circumstances my informant presents — circumstances that he’s trying to overcome to help the victim — I can understand why he’s paralyzed.
Many bishops know this stuff is still going on, and don’t care, either because they are personally compromised, or because they don’t want to upset the system for whatever reason. Even after all that the public has learned since 2002 about what’s behind the façade of the Church, it’s hard to get people to accept that these corrupt, often abusive, structures are still in place (though several of my clerical correspondents say that they have been broken up in some locales). Back in 2002, I interviewed a seminarian who told me that his own parents refused to believe him when he told them about all the open gay sex at his seminary, and how normal it was. It was easier for them to believe their own son was lying than to believe that the Church was so corrupt.
My guess is that a lot of that hasn’t changed. People can’t bear too much reality.
A reader also sent me this long 2004 piece from The Washington Times (which has a truly terrible website, so good luck with that) about the fate of Father James Haley, a priest of the Diocese of Arlington whose career was ruined when he tried to speak out about sexual corruption in the priesthood. The reader was trying to get me to understand the cost to priests of telling the truth in public. Another reader — a priest, I think; I can’t recall now — told me that priests who want to blow the whistle face the prospect of losing everything, which would be worth it to stop a child abuser, but …read more
Via:: American Conservative
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By Rod Dreher
If you have a serious interest in politics, you should be reading columnist Thomas Edsall in The New York Times. He’s a liberal, but he’s much more interested in deep data analysis than in making ideological points. In his most recent column, he writes about research findings showing that liberals who are quick to call whites racist actually drive them into Trump’s arms.
It’s fascinating stuff. Excerpts:
“Our thing is to throw gasoline on the resistance,” Steve Bannon, former chief strategist to Trump, told Vanity Fair last December. “I love it. When they talk about identity politics, they’re playing into our hands.”
Trump and his allies are capitalizing on a decades-long fight over immigration policy that they believe will galvanize more voters on the right than on the left, generating sufficient enthusiasm among Trump’s supporters to counter an energized Democratic electorate. The unpleasant reality is that a number of recent analyses based on psychological, sociological and political research provide a logical basis for the incendiary Trump-Miller-Bannon strategy.
Here’s the gist of that strategy:
Trump’s rhetoric — migrants “infest” and “invade our country” — is intended not only to intensify the anti-immigrant views of his supporters, but also to encourage liberals and Democrats to accuse him and his supporters of bigotry. Trump’s tactics are based on the conviction of many of his voters that opposition to immigration is not a form of racism. They deeply resent being called racist for anti-immigrant views they consider patriotic and, indeed, principled.
Edsall cites results from a survey done by Eric Kauffman at the University of London. Study this chart:
I was astonished by the data. It confirmed my intuitions, but there it is, in black and white — or rather, in blue and red. To the overwhelming majority of liberals, wanting to limit immigration to preserve the cultural status quo is an act of evil. As racism, along with homophobia, is one of the sins that call out to liberal heaven to be avenged, well, no wonder Democratic candidates are now calling for the abolition of ICE, and open borders (either openly or cagily).
Edsall quotes Kauffman, one of the world’s leading political scientists studying this stuff, further:
Kaufmann contends that the racism charge has been a crucial factor in driving a rise in right-wing populism, in the United States and abroad:
Antiracist overreach on the immigration question arguably underlies the populist western backlash against elites. Cultural conservatives care deeply about the effects of immigration and resent being told their thoughts and voting behavior are racist. They hold elites responsible for enforcing antiracist norms — in the workplace, government and mainstream media — beyond the bounds of what they consider appropriate.
Kaufmann expanded on his views is an email:
I think liberal norm policing on immigration is a major contributing factor to right …read more
Via:: American Conservative
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By Rev. Samuel Rodriguez Republicans in Congress remain divided on immigration reform legislation, and now members of the House and Senate have left Washington for their Fourth of July recess. …read more
Via:: Fox Opines
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The U.N. must act in Yemen. Bruce Riedel reviews the current state of the conflict in Yemen.
Mattis’ last stand is Iran. Mark Perry reports on the potential costs and dangers of a war with Iran.
Saudi Arabia’s deceptive email to Congress after bombing of MSF cholera treatment center. Ryan Goodman dissects the Saudi lie about the coalition attack on a Doctors Without Borders facility in Yemen.
Via:: American Conservative
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By John Fund As Thursday night’s Fox News Republican gubernatorial primary debate between Rep. Ron DeSantis and state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam showed, President Trump is overshadowing other issues in the race. …read more
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