Growing tired of Democracy

I know, we're technically a republic.  Not a democracy.  And a good thing, too.  For it seems we're growing tired of the once lauded Checks and Balances that were supposed to keep us from spiraling into a police state or dictatorship.  So once again, Barack Obama is moving to make the Executive Order less about naming national Apple Dumpling Day, and more about circumventing Americans with inconvenient ideas about the way the Left should truly be obeyed.  Of course if a Republican becomes president, I don't see them rolling back the clock.  I fear they'll at least keep the pace the same, and worst, begin adding to it even more - much to the celebration of conservatives maybe?  I don't know.  But the trend, for any thinking person who doesn't get their education from Wikipedia, should be alarming. 

When Liberal Democrats say controversial things

Is about as often as when pigs fly.  Think of it.  Can you count three times in the last ten years that the media went 24/7 coverage about a 'controversial' statement made by liberal democrats?  I can't.  Why not?  Well obviously.  Duh.  It's propaganda, not news.  Still, think about it.  So Hillary Clinton supports jailing traditional Christians who haven't been saved by the Blood of the Left, or quitting their jobs and giving up their livelihoods.  Pretty controversial position for a potential president of these here United States of America, at least in my opinion.  And yet nobody has reported it as such.

But then, when President Obama said mass killings are routine, I could see that being controversial, too.  I could see, if I were a journalist, going out and finding the family member of a shooting victim who would say the death of their loved one wasn't routine.  And yet, not only was it not controversial, it has been lauded and celebrated by the same media who have deliberately misrepresented Ben Carson's statements and used them to continue a near week long campaign against the black man who dared to be popular among racists Republicans.  

Of course controversial is one of those media labels that are pretty subjective anyway.  After all, remember when the majority of Americans overwhelmingly opposed gay marriage, yet standing against gay marriage was always reported as 'Controversial'?  

Again, does anyone still believe the media?  About anything?  Anyone?  Anyone at all?  Bueller? 

The Synod of the Family

Is happening.  It's barely been mentioned.  After the press coverage of the Beatles Invasion visit of Pope Francis, why the major event of the Catholic year is all but being ignored, is beyond me.  The press should be running out and telling us that gay marriage is soon to be consecrated and abortion will soon be an officially sanctioned practice.  And yet, silence.

It isn't as if there aren't hints that some changes could be in the future.  But right now, it's been pretty quiet.  Both by detractors and supporters of Pope Francis and his leadership.  I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Hell and the Year of Mercy

An equally interesting article on our modern notions of Salvation and Damnation, of Mercy and Judgement.  As a rule, a large number of Catholics today implicitly - if not explicitly - seem to accept a sort of vague universalism, a 'we'll all go to Heaven since Hell is bogus' mentality.  This is a nice reminder that even though it would be nice if God and love and awesome and just special nice stuff, the reality of reality might be a tad different. 

The culture wars then and now

I couldn't have said it better myself. Except to say that who controls the institutions of communication plays a big role.  So when the majority of Americans opposed gay marriage, gays and gay marriage advocates were popularly and officially portrayed as the courageous crusaders of truth and justice.  Now that the majority of Americans support gay marriage, those who oppose it are portrayed as the bigots and hate mongers who will get what they have coming.  So the role of propaganda can't be downplayed.  Otherwise, excellent article.

How does the Left deal with the slaughter of babies?

Humor.  The Planned Parenthood video debacle continues to plague the Left.  It's done a great job brushing the story aside.  Using the old media trick of enforced silence spell, it's mostly as if it never happened.  When forced to confront the issue, some have argued that the videos are wrong, because, well, yeah.  CNN did point out that the baby parts were not - repeat, NOT! - sold for profit.  They were used for operating expenses!  Or there's nothing illegal in what Planned Parenthood is doing.  Or the videos were edited! So Liars!  

But even then, a society with soul and morals might still get a little squeamish about hacking up dead babies that were killed by a doctor to keep the electric bill paid.  Or killing them at all for that matter. So now the Left turns to its other arm of defense: the Entertainment Industry.  It will, of course, mock those concerned about murdered and hacked up babies.  It will try to mock the very issue itself.

I don't know if it will work.  Personally, I think the silent treatment was working better.  Perhaps focus on the evils of Christopher Columbus, or find some police brutality video (against African Americans gets you bonus points).  We can always keep focusing on the Civil Rights Movement.  Maybe find some GOP candidate who says something unprecedented in its awfulness.  That seems to be the better move.  But bringing it back into the light and hoping people can just have a good laugh over the whole slaughtered babies, especially because it reinforces our ability to have abortions for more noble things (like more active sex lives), might be hoping against the tide of goodness that might still flicker in the hearts of the dying West.

Remember, once something is funny, it ceases to be a big deal

Celebrate Columbus Day!

Yes, in fighting the tide of anti-Western radicalism egged on by PC Multi-Cultural education, I take a moment to celebrate Christopher Columbus.  Does that mean I celebrate everything the man did?  No.  Just like I don't celebrate what every soldier ever did when I celebrate, or remember, Veterans Day.  Or that I don't celebrate everything America did when I celebrate Independence Day.  Or  I don't celebrate everything done by Native Americans when I celebrate my American Indian heritage.  Or I don't celebrate everything done by the Catholic Church when I celebrate the Church.  OR I don't affirm and celebrate the sins of Martin Luther King, Jr. (if he had any) when I celebrate him.

See how easy it is.  What Christopher Columbus is damned for is the color of his skin, when you get right down to it.  We know that Native Americans enslaved each other.  So did Africans.  Most thinking, educated people know that Muslims had a robust slave trade based on arguments not too dissimilar to the 'Africans are animals' arguments we hear from Europeans.  We know Native Americans fought brutal wars of conquest, genocidal extermination, and could out-Machiavelli the best European princes.

Did Columbus personally kill people?  Did he personally enslaved Natives?  Yep.  It wasn't uncommon in those rough and tumble days (unlike our sophisticated and morally superior age we live in).  Of course that doesn't make it right (see Native American atrocities above).  But the true 'hate' of Columbus that people embrace and advocate is for no other reason than the color of his skin.  He was a white European.  Over the centuries, the Native population would be displaced and even killed by others who were white Europeans.  Therefore, guilty - him and his entire being.

It's racism, of course.  Just like those who defend illegal immigration.  When a case is brought up of Americans being attacked, or even murdered, how often have I seen the response 'Oh yeah!  Well look what your ancestors did!'  Again, racism through and through.  The same racism that heaps the sins of an entire civilization over subsequent centuries on the shoulders of a single explorer.

So while I lament the actions taken by Columbus personally, and wish he had been a better person, I still celebrate him.  Because I still celebrate aspects of the dying West, and therefore celebrate the events that unfolded to bring a Christian founded society to one that was in no way saintly or even close to Christian in its moral standards, I don't need a scapegoat to apologize for the valueless West. For all the flaws of the West, they were flaws because of deviations from its moral grounding.  The flaws of the Native population, like so many other civilizations, were flaws grounded on the adherence to its moral groundings.

And since I don't want to be a racist, even if it's the hip and awesome racism of post-modern hipsters who can't help but be awesome because awesome, I'm not going to condemn a man because over the centuries others who looked like him and shared his skin color did other wrong, even heinous, things.

So here's to you Christopher!  It won't be long before the juggernaut of endless censorship reaches you, as it will no doubt reach others.  But while it lasts, while freedoms and liberties are still around, I'll part way from my moral superiors, and remember the boldness and courage it took for you to do something amazing, especially from the vantage point of an era where so many moral crusaders at best risk the terrors of Carpal Tunnel syndrome, and little more.

The Friendly Atheist says the craziest things

So after over a decade of the radical anti-religious New Atheists spouting rhetoric against religion that would make a party in the 1930s Reichstag look Kosher by comparison, atheists are dealing with the ugly notion that evidence suggests the killer of nine people at Umpqua College purposefully targeted Christians.  Of course for most atheists, like most liberals and secularists, Christianity is the prime enemy.  So most contempt, disgust, hatred, spite, demagoguery and lies are aimed at Christians and Christianity.  And of course we know that such rhetoric is always behind things like racist hate crimes, and anti-gay hate crimes, and anti-Muslim hate crimes.  

But as Western Liberalism tends to do, once again we have a case where the zealousness of its righteous crusaders turns on itself and seems to expose the movement's hypocrisy and agendas.  So Lauren Nelson, penning for the always ironically titled Friendly Atheist, steps in to say 'not so fast, it may not have anything to do with it after all!'  

That, of course, is a favorite tactic of the leftist propaganda machine.  If a person kills blacks or gays or another minority group adopted by the Left, then hatred is the only motive.  The only focus.  If someone breaks from that, or a member of the approved minority community commits the crime, or a victim is from a non-accepted group, then it's all about anything but the hatred.  Once again, reminding us that we are dealing with a movement that hates us; one that likely doesn't care for the various groups it claims to support, but one that certainly hates certain groups - like Christians.  

Still, it is fun reading. Most normal, sensible people wouldn't buy it.  How college educated post-moderns with access to the Internet will accept it remains to be seen. 

P.S.  If you're unfamiliar with the good Ms. Nelson, here is a post explaining why she is not just pro-choice, but happily and proudly pro-abortion.  She is, in her words, not just pro-choice, but pro-abortion And Proud Of It! 

Where have I been?

Busy, that's where.  Which accounts for the sparsity of my posts.  So much continues to happen: birthdays, soccer season, new jobs, old jobs, school at home and just the general life issues.  Plus, I must admit, we've been in a bit of a funk looking for our lives and where we fit in our post-Protestant days.  I know, we've been Catholic for almost 10 years.  You'd think we'd be settled in.  But we aren't.  Whatever glorious stories of Protestant Clergy Converts coming into the Church and finding a whole blessed ministry and new life in their new tradition you might have heard, it's not been our lives.

I think at this point it might be our bishop, who for some reason has made it clear 'I don't serve their kind.'  I have met with several over the years, including individuals high up in the diocese, only to hit a dead end when it was all over.  The last individual had me ready to sign up.  I would be in charge of multiple parish Religious Education departments.  It would be tough, and I would be traveling from place to place.   Wow!  Like pastoring a church?  I was so excited.  He loved what I had to bring through my experience, even though it's been years.  He was meeting with the bishop that very week, and was going to bring my name up.  After all, he said, they were having trouble finding people to fill such spots for all the parishes. It would be perfect.

And then...silence.  For weeks I waited.  I reached out, and heard nothing.  Just as I have so many times in the past.  And finally he responded: sorry, having' heard anything.  If I do, I'll let you know.  I'll keep you in my prayers.  Bless.'  And that was it,  Once again, we hit a wall and I fear it is our bishop, who isn't going anywhere soon.  But not just him.  As I wrote earlier, another diocese was hiring a person who would be in charge of Evangelical Ecumenical relations.  They needed someone with a religious degree (MDiv preferred), who knows the Bible and has experience with Church history.  I was denied the next day.   They hired a fellow with a degree in communications and web development.  He was a life long Catholic.  He knew some Protestant friends in college.

So that has left us swinging in the breeze.  Tomorrow, my wife and I meet with a priest to lay it out: we lost our lives when we became Catholic.  The lives my wife and I, and our boys, had together as Protestants.  We all took part in the ministry.  My boys and my wife and I were all together.  We all shared in the calling.  And then we became Catholic.  And while we're thankful we have jobs, and even some extra money, they are jobs.  Pushing paper.  Waiting for the departments to move or shut down and scramble for the next thing.

We're trying to homeschool, but it is nigh on impossible when both parents have full-time jobs away from home.  Our youngest is barely holding on.  And when all is said and done, our big ministry contribution is being able to make it to church on Sundays.  So where to go now?  That is going to be the question.  Not an ultimatum.  But definitely it will set the stage for where we might go.  At this point, we so desire to bring our family back together as it used to be, we've flirted with going into business!  Which isn't a solution, since neither my wife nor I have the skills needed for that.  But that's the point we've come to.  So we'll see.

There is much to talk about that has happened, as imprisoned state workers and murdered college students give us a portent of things to come for Christians in the coming years under the post-Christian secular leftist tyranny.  But for now, tomorrow is on our minds.  Please pray for us.

Anderson Cooper reminds us of the power of liberalism

The power of liberalism is to assume liberalism and truth are one and the same.  To not embrace a liberal mindset is to, by default, be either stupid, evil, or both.  And of course wrong.  So Anderson Cooper, based completely on a single, liberal and secularized understanding of, well, everything, takes apart Mike Huckabee over Huckabee's opposition to gay marriage and the imprisonment of Kim Davis over her Christian beliefs running afoul of of the non-Christian based laws that Cooper advocates.

As I tell my boys, the difference between conservatives and liberals is simple.  Conservatives believe they are right and everyone else is wrong.  Liberals know they are right and everyone else is either stupid or evil.

Watch and enjoy.  Again, someday it will be illegal to be Christian unless your Christaintiy, like everything else, is brought down to kneel before the gospel of liberalism.  This is only a a warning shot.

No fault annulments

So Pope Francis has streamlined the whole annulment process.  Now I'm no expert in that department.  Few Catholic I know are.  Long and short, the annulment process in the Church is supposed to flush out those rare instances where a marriage was never valid in the first place.  The reasons differed, but generally they should have been grave - it was never consummated, or one of the parties was coerced, or important information was withheld, or similar extreme cases.  

In practice, unfortunately, the process seems to have become a long, cumbersome dodge around the modern no-fault divorce world in which we live.  People married for years who had kids and grandkids were told their marriages were null.  Just what constitutes an invalid marriage if you can be married for years with kids and grandkids?  Isn't that just divorce with a different name?

At least it was such a long, burdensome process that nobody looked forward to it, many chose to dodge it, and at least there was this idea that having gotten a divorce, you weren't where the Church wanted you to be. 

But now Pope Francis has, in the name of mercy, made the process easier.  Naturally, for a significant portion of the Catholic apologetics world, there is no problem.  There never is.  Pope Francis is never wrong.  All is right with the world. In this corner is Jimmy Akin, who does a great job giving some background on what annulments are at least supposed to be, and a very direct take on how Pope Francis will work it out.

There are others, however, who aren't too thrilled with Pope Francis on a variety of topics.  In this corner is Michael Dougherty.  I don't know if he's been critical of Pope Francis in other areas, but he certainly sees a major problem with this.  The biggest problem seems to be that Pope Francis might be making it so impossible for people in the modern world to have an idea of what a real Catholic marriage is, a huge swath of their marriages might well be null anyway.  Sort of no-fault annulments.  You just say you're a victim of modern dumb, and it was never a marriage anyway.  Try again.  Kids and other considerations?  I don't know. 

So there you have it.  Two takes.  Once again either Pope Francis is really awesome and any mix ups or misunderstandings are the result of vast anti-Pope conspiracies or the result of dumb people who are dumb.  Or he is a child of the modern age, with heavy sympathies to the point of views progressive ideals and morals.  Time will tell. 

The face of homosexual tolerance

Yep, expect more of it. We've already learned that, in the name of Gay Tolerance (or Welcoming and Affirming), small business owners will be crushed with heavy fines meant to destroy their livelihoods unless they conform.  Now it's to the prisons, much to the delight of gay onlookers.  I say the last part because in the news clips of her standing her ground against the plaintiffs (that is, the two homosexuals wanting to get "married"),  one of the gentlemen  proudly proclaimed that she should be "taken away in handcuffs!"  Again, in the name of tolerance and diversity.

I know.  She is a government employee.  It's part of the job for better or worse.  Maybe it could have been handled differently.  Maybe the governor could have stepped in and found a compromise.  I also know that Ms. Davis is a flawed human being with failings in her own past.  Or so the media told me in the effort to discredit her.  After all, the leftist definition of hypocrisy is anyone taking a non-liberal stand that has failed.  Better to have no morals and avoid the charge of hypocrisy.

Which shows why those who once proclaimed a brotherhood of man persons where all will live in harmony and tolerance and diversity and respect for differing opinions can now use the power of the government to smash any who fail to grovel before the might of their dogmatic moral proclamations.
No doubt there will be Christians who will line up and spew contempt on Ms. Davis, saying she's doing it all wrong, she is a bad witness, she isn't handling this in the proper, Christian way.  But please.  Can someone tell me if there is anyone left so stupid as to think there is any hope in compromising with this new secular modernity juggernaut?  Does anyone now think, when viewing the above picture, that the post-Christian Left is the slightest bit interested in "live and let live"?  Or compromising if Christians will just meet them halfway? Tell me there is no example of such irredeemable idiocy still left in the world.

BTW, FWIW, I think this is not looking as good as many in the media would like.  I've heard several media outlets pulling their collars and suggesting that maybe there could have been some compromise.  I didn't really hear that with the bakers.  Why?  My guess - and my guess only - is that there is still hope that common sense and values are not dead in America.  And seeing a picture of a couple of bakers with things and stuff and things doesn't really resonate.  But seeing a woman thrown in jail, in a mugshot, all because of her Christian beliefs, may just rouse that sleeping giant.  They could be wrong.  But just in case, I think this is an image the press would rather avoid.

A primer in Immigration education

Someone - and I don't know who - seems to have forgotten a little about what we should think of when we think of Immigration and what it means to come to America.  But before continuing, please view the following for a refresher about America's right to be a country with an identity:

I will not politically exploit human suffering

I will not politically exploit human suffering.  I just need to say it, to remind myself.

Attention Gun Control Activists

My request is very simple.  If you are going to rush to the cameras and papers every time there is a shooting to push for gun control, then I want two things. 

First, show me an actual proposal that would prevent the actual shooting you are referencing.  Not just saying we need this, or more of that.  I want you to say 'this is exactly how that shooting happened, and this is exactly how we would prevent that shooting.'  Not just standing on the shooting to propose legislation that wouldn't have changed a thing.  If you want that, then don't use shootings that wouldn't be impacted.  If you are going to use a shooting, then tell me exactly what you propose and exactly how it would have prevented it.

Second, show me how it will prevent the shooting while also assuring me that innocent, law abiding citizens will not be hindered or put in harm's way.  If you aren't using the latest media focused shooting, then you can speak in more general terms, that's fine.  You still have to show me that it will actually solve the problem (which can, admittedly, be tough to say if we haven't tried it yet), and also assure me that the law abiding citizens won't be harmed. 

Other considerations are there of course.  I would appreciate it if we looked at the numbers, the demographics, who is doing the shootings, mental health, and other things like exactly who the number one killers of black Americans actually are.  Things like that would build goodwill and suggest that you actually want to end gun violence, and aren't just exploiting it to advance agendas and political control of our culture.  

Do those things, and I am open to talk.  Continue to avoid doing those things, and I see no reason to trust you or believe you care about anything but advancing preconceived agendas. 

Liberals, Pope Francis and the Torture Debate

So we have another article reflecting the Left's understanding of Pope Francis and how he will ultimately change the Catholic Faith.  Again, most are no longer imagining that Pope Francis will stand on high and personally overthrow Catholic Doctrine.  But they are becoming aware of a Catholic principal that has been crucial to the Catholic Blogosphere and those who defend the here and now of awesomeness without trashing the history of the Church.

Remember the Torture Debates.  This was a major, and I mean major, debate about torture in light of the whole Waterboarding controversies of the Bush administration.  For my part, torture is wrong.  It's what the bad guys do.  Just like removing offensive facts  from the public forum and erasing them from our collective memories.  It's what the Nazis, the Communists, the Indians (yeah, really), the Vietcong and all those other baddies did.  It's not what we should ever have done.

So I was against torture.  But I enjoyed the Catholic debates.  Those Catholics who, for whatever reason, were trying to argue for the Bush policies often looked back to the darker periods of Church history when, to be honest, people were tortured by Church command.  How many were tortured is tough to say.  But one person tortured in the name of Christ by Holy Mother Church is a travesty.  If you want to believe millions were, go ahead.  Given Catholics on the blogosphere who believe the worst about the US or Western Civilization, I'm more willing to accept the inflated numbers.  But that's irrelevant.  People were tortured by the Church.  It's a fact. Let's move on.

And yet opponents of the practice were quick to point out the Church never actually officially doctrinally proclaimed a dogma about torturing people.  Therefore, you can't say the Church actually taught it was OK.  What the Church did was irrelevant to what the Church actually, officially, doctrinally taught.

See where this is going?  The fact that the Church raised armies, launched wars, slaughtered heretical sects, tortured people to death was irrelevant.  That it happened over the course of centuries was irrelevant.  That was just the times.  The Church - Official Church Doctrine - never changed.

Explain how that brings comfort to anyone who died at the hands of the Church during those years.  Tell that to anti-Catholics who bring that back at the Church time and again.  It doesn't matter.  Because if in the old dusty law books, the Church still taught turn the other cheek, in all the world that Catholics and the human race knew, you defended Christendom with the sword.

And that, children, is just what a growing number of liberals are expecting.  Pope Francis won't change Church Doctrine.  Just like the Medieval Church didn't officially alter the whole 'Love your neighbor as yourself' teaching.  It redefined it.  It rethought it.  It turned it on its head to allow armies and inquisitors to do the unthinkable for countless centuries.  And just like that, the growing liberal conclusion is that Pope Francis will do the same.  God will forever have declared that a man should leave his parents and cleave unto this wife and the two shall become one flesh.  But in the day to day living of Catholic life?  In the new understanding of who is awesome, and who simply isn't keeping with the times of where Beautiful Catholics should be? That sign proclaiming the old teaching about marriage between a man and woman will hang right above Ted and Ted as they tie the knot in the corner Parish and Commons.

This growing number of liberals might be wrong.  But we're waiting for some clear indicators from Pope Francis to make it obvious that they are wrong.  And at least as of now, not seeing them.

One reason I still visit Catholic and Enjoying it

Is because of the phenomenal quality that several of the regular readers bring to discussions.  TMLutas still hangs out, bringing economic sense to discussions on the evils of Capitalism.  And in this little piece, in which Mark once again says 'evil gun cult, we must do anything, if you disagree with my non-solutions then Gun Cult!', several great commenters step in to bring sense, reality, and facts to the table.

Particularly compelling is Mike Flynn's point that if you look at certain metropolitan areas in Canada and the US near the Canadian border, it's amazing how the homicide rate fluctuates.  Sometimes, the rates in Canadian cities exceed their US counterparts.  It's amazing.  We're brainwashed by the media and the Left to think that the US is this giant homogeneous thing, where murders are everywhere, white cops are killing everyone, guns are everywhere killing everyone, and all you need to do to avoid this horror is step into any place in any other place in the world and it's John Lennon songs and flowers in the hair.

Such might be Mark's view, though his contribution to the debate is about as incoherent as they come.  It might be I'm just not clever enough to get his solutions, but when he increasingly raves about things outside of actual Catholic doctrine like gun control, it's like some bizarre version of 'You're stupid about guns because Frankenstein never scared me!'  Huh?  That's what I feel like reading Mark's contributions, especially when set in juxtaposition to Mike's, Pete the Greek's, and Stu's contributions to the subject.

Pushing the liberal line Catholic style

Again, it's difficult to look at the Catholic Church, c. 2015, and not see that it is lurching, however awkwardly, toward accepting as many as possible of the ideals and values of the post-Christian, Secular Left.  

Pope Francis has been a lightening rod in this movement, as he seems almost joyful in his disregard for things once held in high esteem by traditional Catholics, and equally joyful in reaching out and celebrating and embracing values and perspectives associated with even the more radical elements of the Leftist movement.  

So for instance, yet another children's book aimed at proclaiming the gospel of Gay Normality to kiddies.  It's caused quite a stir in Italy.  Even leading to it being banned.  So what does the Vatican, in the name of Pope Francis do?  Sends a letter to the author of the book - praising the gift of the book.  That's right.  Not just saying that the Church opposes censorship or something like that.  Not just saying 'we're praying for you.'  Nope.  It praises the giving of the book as a gift (remember the Communist Crucifix kerfuffle a while back?). 

Sure, there is still the obligatory 'but the Church still teaches....' part of the release.  But you know what?  As far as I know, the Church still teaches that crossbows are a wicked weapon.  Not that anyone cares.  And more and more, those on the Left who love Francis seem to believe that he is going to do for sins associated with Liberal values what the Church did for crossbow bans: make them entirely irrelevant.  Sure, in some dusty old law book, somewhere in the Vatican archives, it will still say you can't technically be a sexually active homosexual.  

But just like the same dusty book saying that crossbows are a sinful device of the devil, it will be tossed aside and forgotten about when it comes to looking at what defines a beautiful, devout and celebrated Catholic.  Those liberals loving Francis, and I, could be wrong.  But so far, I've seen nothing to suggest so.  

The problem with Conservatives

Is that they are, as often as not, merely yesterday's liberals.  So not quite two decades ago, Conservatives then were shocked at the defenses being made on behalf of Bill Clinton.  The defenders of Clinton, once the truth was known, were reduced to telling us that it didn't matter.  So what if he lied?  It was for sex   So what if he committed perjury in the high court?  It was for sex.  So what if he had an affair?  So what if he played the media, falsely accused his opponents, manipulated the American public?  Everyone does it anyway.  Plus, he gave us the greatest economy in the history of the universe.  What does it matter?  Do values, ethics, and character even matter?  No!

So what are Trump's defenders doing?  Conservatives defending Trump?  Why, sounding just like those who were defending Clinton all those years ago.  Who cares about Trump's background?  His recent past support of liberalism and Democrats?  His voting record?  His character and values?  Who cares period!  It doesn't matter.  He's taking on the press.  He's a rebel.  He speaks his mind.  He's got tons of money and is successful.  That, children, is all that matters.  Do values, ethics, and character even matter?  No!

The problem with Conservatives is that they are, as often as not, merely yesterday's liberals.

Japan to war victims

It's time to move on.  We can't blame future generations for past atrocities.  Mark that opinion well folks.  It's worth noting that most of the hatred, rage, anger and refusal to forgive over the atomic bombings comes not from Japan, but from Americans, Europeans, and others who pretty much hate and despise the US anyway.  Japan, perhaps out of a sense of reality, a sense of honor, or because it doesn't want to stir up too many old memories from others, seems pretty content with trying to learn actual lessons while letting bygones be bygones.  Lessons we can all use, but are only valuable if we learn them all, rather than cherry pick the ones that help advance this agenda or that ideology.

To that end, here is a little piece by a Catholic from a different view on VJ day, and how we've come so far and still don't know the extent to the carnage of those horrible dozen plus years.  With that in mind, I can't conceive of the actual joy and relief felt on that day.  All these years later, it's all just academic and a topic worth debating by a generation whose prime accomplishment is watching the civilization it inherited slowly sink into oblivion.

Almost ancient history at this point