Personal Aside: The Mood Last Night was for Unconventionality.

    Feast of St. Margaret of Scotland.*
             Illinois Republicans will take a long time catching up to the turbulent, risky, conventionality-be-damned mood that dominated most of the nation’s elections last night.  

                                          Arkansas. 

             Even Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln who has always been kinda-this-and-that, switching positions in tune to what she thinks is the prevailing nuance made the big out-of-state unions the boogey-men, showing what J. William Fulbright neglected to do in his own defense when he was defeated by Dale Bumpers in the primary of 1974.  The U.S. Chamber which had always backed him because he was against the repeal of Taft Hartley’s 14[b] which allowed states to pass Right to Work. I worked the Hill along with others in the Chamber and we met with Fulbright in prior years where he pledged his support.  He was chairman of Senate Foreign Relations in most of those years but he was very careful about stressing his opposition to a key provision of the Senate Democratic agenda.   

             But in 1974, regarded as the darling of the Left for his opposition to the Vietnam War he didn’t want to becloud his image as an intellectual and internationalist nor nullify his out-of-state support from the Left.  He stuck to his old position against repeal, but… 

            “He won’t let us put up TV and radio ads,” a Chamber operative told me, “because he sees himself as having grown away from conservatism.  He’s a big shot internationalist leader now. He still supports Right-to-Work but isn’t proud of it. He’ll get blown away by Bumpers.” 

              Indeed, he was.  Despite an ADA rating of 80% and ACA of 8% Lincoln wasn’t afraid of doing a kind of right-wing pivot, taking on the huge unions who backed her opponent. She made herself a kind of anti-big-union populist.   But don’t worry: the commissariat can cheer all they want for the little lady…even Fox News was ecstatic last night… but she’s destined to be dead meat when Republican John Boozman (pronounced boz-man) goes after her. He’s far more attuned to the temper of the times that…barring a highly improbable switch of public mood to the Left…will still be in full swing in November. He won’t let Arkansas forget she voted for ObamaCare but then against the reconciliation bill that made it law…that she sponsored “card check” before opposing…that—well let Boozman say it later. 

             Even with Blanche Lincoln in a way, the electorate was simply saying this: As this country rockets toward $13 trillion in debt, it’s time to put many unheard of things on the table.  Indeed, it’s a sign of a late-blooming maturity.   

                                           Nevada. 

            I well remember the Carter forces in 1980 cheering when Reagan won the GOP nomination: that overage actor is so out of synch with the public we’ll gobble him in no time!  They’re doing the same thing in Nevada now that Sharron Angle beat 11 opponents to snatch the GOP nod against Harry Reid.  Hear them talk: why she even wants to cash-in the U. S. Education Department! She wants to abolish Social Security! She talked about “phasing out” Social Security!  

       Her top opponent, the state GOP chairwoman, was more corporate about her conservatism. Sue Lowden raised twice what Angle did and drew far more sexy big name endorsements (Palin didn’t publicly endorse her but praised her which was almost as good) and organizations: Nevada Right to Life Political Action Committee…the Susan B. Anthony List.  But I repeat: the mood is for discussing the undiscuss-able,  I don’t think it’s going to hurt as it did in the past. With the Tea Party people it helps.  And the Tea Party’ers nominated Angle. 

                                                South Carolina. 

             Notwithstanding the charges by two men that they had sexual relations with her, State Rep. Nikki Haley ran first in the four-candidate race and fell short by a tad of being the nominee for South Carolina governor. But there is little doubt she will get the nod over Rep. Gresham Barrett. When do you recall that a woman charged with adultery would overcome such rotten publicity? Palin stood by her as did Jennie Sanford the current governor’s wife he has forsaken for a doll in Argentina.   Haley is opposed by a conservative in Barrett…but wait:  He voted in the House for the TARP bailout despite owning an ACU rating of 97%.  

                                                 And Back Here? 

          I personally like the gutsy statement by Steve Rauschenberger now seeking a return to the State Senate from the 22^nd district of Illinois (Elgin area).  He said something I thought was very powerful and in fact matches some of the no-holds-barred folks listed above. 

          He said—and I paraphrase somewhat—“The legislature impeached the wrong guy a few years ago! We should have impeached Mike Madigan!” 

         I love it because this guy Madigan has contributed more to Illinois’ awful financial condition than anyone else…and the media generally sighs and says when he dismisses them with a wry smile like the cat that ate the canary: Oh he knows so much about government and politics!   

         I’ve heard that garbage for decades but no one…save Rauschenberger…has decided to put the blame where it belongs. 

         This is an unsolicited endorsement but you can help Steve by calling his office at (847) 622-1049.   He’s going to be on my program Political Shootout on WLS at 8 pm Sunday along with journalist Russ Stewart.  

        More about the election tomorrow.  

____________________________________________________________

     *: St. Margaret of Scotland [1046-1093]. Queen of Scotland who spent early years in Hungary where her family lived in exile during the rule of Danish kings of England. As a member of the Anglo-Saxon royalty her life was in danger after the Norman Conquest and took refuge in the court of Malcolm III, King of Scotland. Intelligent, beautiful, well-read  and devout, she caught the King’s fancy and they were married in 1069. Thanks to her and her daughter Matilda she British royal family can trace its lineage from the pre-Conquest kings of England.  

           She was a principal agent in the reform of the Church of Scotland and took a major part in founding monasteries, churches and hostels for pilgrims. She revived the abbey of Iona and built Dunfermline to be a kind of Scottish Westminster Abbey  as a burial place for the royal family.  Her private life was devoted to prayer and reading, great compassion and almsgiving to the poor.  She was a great influence over her husband who, although he could not read, liked to watch her pray and watch her read. He would have her favorite books embellished with gold and silver. She had eight children, two of whom, Alexander and David, became Kings of Scotland.   

           Her husband and one of her sons were killed on a military expedition. She died at 47, worn out from her labors and was buried next to her husband at Dunferline.  At the Reformation, their bodies were removed to a chapel in Madrid, built for the purpose. She was named the patron of Scotland in 1673.  

Personal Asides: Election Views as of 11 Last Night…Rush: How Could You?

     Feast of St. Ephrem of Syria*     
                                       As of 11 Last Night…
                                        Lincoln uber Halter.

      Despite all the media howl that Arkansas’ Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln pulled out a squeaker when she had been consigned to the political grave, her demise has just been forestalled, that’s all.  My personal preference would have been Lt. Governor Bill Halter, so ultra-liberal…supported by Moveon.org and the liberal unions…that he would have been easier for Republicans to beat.  But it’ll be easier running against Lincoln for us than it would have been against Halter since Halter has no voting record and Lincoln has supported bailouts, bailouts, bailouts.  I think we just won in Arkansas. 

                                       Haley in a Runoff.

        In South Carolina where politics is almost always extra-special dirty with the untrue rumor that John McCain fathered a black child stemming from 2000 and the extra-marital affair…no rumor…conducted by the sitting governor with his lady love in Argentina…it was no surprise that the gutter-ball players tried to assassinate Nikki Haley the conservative Sikh-turned evangelical Christian who has the chance of becoming the first woman governor of the state.  Sarah Palin’s support of Haley was decisive and while Haley is ahead of her nearest opponent Rep. Graham Barrett, the two will be in a runoff.  The foul play here should engender a revenge tidal wave for Haley.  No sweat. 

                                     Nevada.

         By the time I went to bed last night results weren’t tallied in sufficient numbers to identify a trend but it still looked like GOP  Gov. Jim Gibbons is history, defeated for re-nomination due to a tumultuous first term that included a messy divorce: good riddance.  I have to say my favorite to run against Harry Reid has been Sharron Angle instead of State GOP Chairwoman Sue Lowden (with a thumbs down on Danny Tarkanian) but I would guess Angle will pull it out. Either Angle or Lowden can easily defeat Harry Reid which would make the November election significant if for no other reason. 

                                      California.

         It’s way too early for California to come in as I wind up the cat and put out the clock for the night but my bet is on Meg Whitman for governor against insurance commissioner Steve Poizner to oppose ex-Gov. Moonbeam, Jerry Brown, in November.  Also I’m rooting for Carly Fiorina over former U. S. Rep. Tom Campbell the son of a vehement Democrat in Chicago, the late Federal Judge William Campbell who was appointed by FDR.  Whoops! As I was writing this I see Meg Whitman has just been nominated.  Good deal!  Now I’ll keep on pulling for Carly.  

                                      Rush…Geez! 

         Eloquent he is, brilliantly polarizing, smart as a whip but there’s some factor there that made him run through three wives. Now Rush Limbaugh has married and who did he pay $1 million to perform at his reception? Elton John!  Elton John was treated for serious cocaine addiction years ago at Lutheran General here.  He’s a very questionable entertainer for a guy who has been stalwart on most conservative issues. Also having those two gargoyles Mary Matalin and old Serpent Head, James Carville as “close friends.” How those two can stay married if, in fact, they believe what the polarizing sides they’ve been pushing is beyond me. I believe they’ve got to be fake. 

       Your choice of Elton John makes me think you, too, are fake, Mr. Limbaugh.  Show me I’m wrong.  

          ______________________________________________________

      *: St. Ephrem of Syria [306-373]. A native of Mesopotamia, he was baptized in 324 at Nisibis and was educated at the cathedral school there of which he later became head. After the Persians captured the city, he became a monk and hermit living in a cave near Edessa.  There he wrote exegetical works and hymns which were later incorporated into the liturgy and translate into several languages. In 370 he visited Gregory of Nuyssa who wrote widely of his praise. In 372 he organized alms to victims of famine and died soon afterward in his cave.  His voluminous works, still extant, earned him the title of Doctor of the Church. 

Personal Asides: Regret Helen Thomas was Shut Up by Hearst….Obama Has Never Spoken—not Once—to the CEO of BP: How that for Hands On?

                                                       Feast of St. Robert of Newminister*
   

                                         Helen Thomas.

        That 90-year-old old crustacean Helen Thomas whom Jan Schakowsky, the Dragon Lady of the Left, finds “awesome” has just pronounced that the Jews “ought to get the hell out of Israel” and go back to Poland or Germany or wherever the hell they originally came from because Palestine is not their country.  But she shouldn’t have been fired by Hearst.  At ninety she is the reincarnation of Estelle Getty, the 4-foot-11-inch actress who played Bea Arthur’s mother in the TV series The Golden Girls(but who in reality was 15 months younger than Arthur and was made up to look older). .  Getty’s charm was that she too was supposed to be 90 and at that age was entitled to say the first thing that popped into her head—before she forgot it. 

        It’s nor their country?  Beginning in 1300 BC after their Exodus led by Moses?   The name Israel springs from the 12 tribes derived from the 12 tribes that formed the nation.  IN modern times the Jews have maintained a constant presence on the land, the land promised by God to the descendents of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Shut up the Lefty Helen Thomas and there might be a counter-move to shut up people on the right who in their senior years want to express themselves after many years of shutting up. That’s right: it includes me!   

                                        Sir Paul McCartney. 

         Don’t shut him up, either but his swipe at George Bush when Paul McCartney was entertaining at the White House should be treasured as vintage continental snobbery by the oh-so-veddy-veddy trendy Europeans who still adore Barack Obama as the Left here is falling off the boat: Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd.McCartney said it is refreshing to have a president who knows what a library is.  Get it?  George W. Bush was an ignoramus, never read a book.  Harvard MBA doesn’t count for anything. This goes in line with the age-old put-down of Republican presidents are dumb:  Dwight Eisenhower who led the greatest invasion in history…Richard Nixon (no, he wasn’t put down as dumb but evil)…Gerald Ford (supposedly dumber than a box of rocks but still a graduate of Yale law school)…Ronald Reagan, dumb actor who emotes only when he has a script and a director—but a successful two-term governor of California screen actor and union president…George H. W. Bush dumb preppie who was congressman, ambassador to the UN, director of the CIA, ambassador to China and vice president of the United States. and his son. 

        The sterling intellectuals were, of course, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter (remember him?), Bill Clinton and…tah-tah!...Barack Obama whom we don’t know much about because his papers are sealed up until the end of his term but of whom we are assured he is really veddy-veddy bright!  At least he has a winning smile.  

                                Obama On Top of it but--.  

           I never thought I would ever say this about a David Axelrod production but this Gulf Oil disaster p. r. campaign is a stinker.  They put out the word early that stemming the flow of oil is Job 1. Now we find out that Obama hasn’t talked to Tony Hayward, BP’s CEO directly since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded last April 20.  

       Hasn’t talked to him directly.  That’s really hands-on management, isn’t it?  And if you think that’s standard operating procedure for a White House involvement in a crisis, think again. This is inexcusable.  Think of John F. Kennedy…not my favorite but the contrast will do nicely here, thank you…in 1962 when a black student, James Meredith enrolled at the University of Mississippi where Governor Ross Barnett tried to block his admission…or in 1963 when Governor George Wallace of Alabama stood at the door of the state university to bar the admission of two black students.  JFK was on the phone, pacing in front of his desk, conferring with his brother, Nick Katzenbach the assistant AG.  

          You’d think for something this drastic, the Obama party circuit would have been canceled…but no.  His second musical party of the week was held yesterday at Ford’s Theatre featuring a host of notables who voted for Obama.  Can you imagine this happening at the Bush White House during Katrina? The Reagan White House during the Challenger Space disaster? 

           __________________________________________________

    *: St. Robert of Newminister [1100-1159]. A Cistercian abbot, born at Gargrave (North Yorkshire) and studied at the University of Paris, was ordained priest and became the rector in his home town. He joined the Benedictines at Whitby but became one of the founders of Fountain Abbey in 1132.  He was later chosen as Abbot of Newminister abbey. As with several holy men, he was charged with excessive familiarity with pious woman but was cleared fully of taint.

Thoughts While Shaving: The Vatican Ought to Keep Its Nose Out of Arizona and Gaza. Doesn’t It Have Enough to Do?

   Feast of St. Francis Caracciolo*  

      

                                        EPA Edict.

       So the Environmental Protection Agency has ordered Chicago to so purify the Chicago River that people can swim in it.   Daley was exactly right to cite the Potomac River in EPA’s backyard.  I don’t think anybody ever wanted or needed to swim in the Chicago River since industrialization took over in the mid-19^th century.  Certainly it’s much cleaner than it was 70 years ago.  Why would anybody want to swim in it now? Lake Michigan is far to be preferred.   

                                         Church and State. 

        A high Vatican source has condemned the Arizona immigration law.  Until the Vatican gets its act together to put a lid on Lavender Priests and Bishops abusing children, it has no credibility with me on issues that do not bear on faith and morals.  

        The same goes for Cardinal Renato Martino’s censure of Israel in the flotilla landing. Martino was right on when he criticized the Terri Schiavo matter…but is seriously intruding in the foreign policy of nations when he goes on like this.   The Israel blockade of Gaza is both legal and rational.  And it is certainly not the province of Martino or the Vatican to take sides on it.  

                                         Mark Kirk. 

        I don’t think the hubbub over Mark Kirk’s service record is going to hurt him.  Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal did the same thing and in checking his popularity, I find he’s 30 points ahead of his Republican rival for U. S. Senator from Connecticut.  

                                        The Obama Aura.  

          I’ve tried to catalog the reasons why I believe Barack Obama is the worst president we’ve had in U. S. history…and the record is far from complete yet.  But one I have ignored is that this man has not run so much as a candy store in his life which has been shown plainly in his failure to put his arms around the tragedy of the oil-drenched Gulf.  A state senator and a U.S. senator where he was absent much of the time running for the presidency.  The White House is obviously in chaos.  It is clear what America bought in him was a smooth drawing room sophistication which charms it because Obama appears to be cultured, suave as well as black.
 

      His drawing room aura hides woeful ignorance…of history and the law.  He is the composite Freddie, the foppish gentleman in “My Fair Lady” with perfect manners but zero ability beyond that of reading from a Teleprompter.   Those who say he is deep and an intellectual have been fooling themselves. There is very good reason why his school papers are hidden from view as well as his other writings…apart from the two autobiographies he is purported to have written.  There are none which can be examined critically because he is a hollow drum.   

         Thus the Obama phenomenon .bears all the earmarks of fraud. The rhetorical flourishes in these books, especially the first one, bear unmistakable flourishes of Bill Ayres’ style.  But the establishment media has so heavily invested in this mythology that they dare not…and will not… allow the truth to be told.  It is a case of willful delusion.    But the truth will be told when this generation of media savants gives way to a new generation.  

             Some day we will find out more when the shroud of mystery is withdrawn which has covered his life.  And we will find that we have been taken…taken by the media which has forsaken its role to examine candidacies—because they have deluded themselves in thinking they have a Sidney Poitier.  It is the same case that happened with John Edwards. CBS’s Bob Schieffer, the pompous liberal lefty establishmentarian media baron, refused to consider the looming Edwards scandal. And at his direction, others followed suit. 

           For which he should be censured and fired for journalistic malpractice. It took a somewhat disreputable publication, The National Enquirer, to run the truth down.  Likewise it will take some media organ…far from establishmentarian…to run the truth down about the glaring fraud that is Barack Obama.

         St. Francis Caracciolo* [1563-1608]. He was born of noble parentage (as many saints have been, have they not?) at Villa Santa Maria, Abruzzi, Italy.  He was cured of a serious ailment as a young man and in fulfillment of a pledge that if cured he would devote his life to God, he studied for the priesthood at Naples and was ordained. He joined the Bianchi della Giustizia, a fraternity devoted to the care of prisoners.  Later he and others founded the Minor Clerks Regular devoting to ministering to the sick in hospitals as well as prisoners. They established a house in Naples and then in Spain. On the way back they were shipwrecked but were picked up by commercial fishermen.

        The Minor Clerks flourished and they were asked to take over Santa Maria Maggiore.  They expanded to Madrid, Valladolid and Alcala.  Francis served as superior, then was allowed to retire and become prior of Santa Maria Maggiore and master of novices. He died in Agnone where he had gone to establish a new monastery. He was canonized in 1807.

                                        

                                          

Personal Asides: Alas Poor Mark Kirk—Accused of Bio Fraud and Being Gay—by Liberals!...Ernie’s Back!

            Feast of St. Clotilde* 

         

                                   Poor Mark Kirk.

       Liberal Democrats seem to have a monopoly on sanctimony…until. Until they see an opening for one of their own, no matter how unworthy, to win.  The  pundit commissariat here has scourged Mark Kirk for stretching the truth on his military service.  At least he’s served in the military: the guy he’s running against hasn’t donethat. None of the commissariat bring that up.  Frankly, they are oh-so-happy to have something to rap Kirk with.  Before, the only thing going was Giannoulias’ mob connections and his family’s failed bank—and the liberals worried that this was all they had to run on against a blemish-free Kirk.  Supposedly.  

          Anything to take the heat off Alexi.  I can almost see in my mind’s eye the Dragon Lady of the Left, Jan Schakowky, beating her tiny fists on her desk with joy.   She along with Pelosi constitute female evil incarnate.  

      Now along comes the wanton blogger who’s dedicated to outing all Republicans who voted against repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell.  Kirk voted against it in the House so he’s named Kirk as gay.  I think: if Kirk is gay, isn’t it logical for him to vote against it to protect his privacy: privacy which since Roe v. Wade and it’s Blackmun-discovered “right” is incardinated among the highest of liberal virtues?  I thought maintenance and protection of privacy was one of the sacred rights and rites in liberaldom.  

         Not if you support continuation of don’t ask, don’t tell. I can understand…but still have a strong distaste for…social conservatives making the charge that Kirk is gay  as some did in the primary.  I understand it because it  flies in the face of the Judeo-Christian law that reserves sex for marriage.  When those charges flared during the primary, the pundit commissariat went tsk-tsk how awfully narrow-minded these right-wing bigots are. 

         But you see how liberals pounce to the same position when they have a chance to win.  Now the blogger is doing Schakowsky’s work…seeking to strip the veil of “hypocrisy” from those who would deny others the right to be prancing “outies.”  The pundit commissariat is silent. 

          Thus in one election cycle, the pendulum has swung from how awful to make a bigoted charge like that (this is when a conservative may gain the nomination on that issue) …to how awful to lurk behind the heavy curtained windows of personal privacy while voting to ban those who are open, front and above board (this is when a same-sex marriage advocating Democrat may benefit). 

     

                   Ernie Returns for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Part II. 

           [We welcome back my old mentor after a stint in Eternal Life where time does not exist,  discoursing with Aquinas, Tertullian and Augustine on subjects of mutual interest].  

           T.R.  Welcome back, Father!  

           Ernie: I do not wish to be rude but I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to get back to Eternal Life where there is no time. But I do this because it is important.  Where were we? 

           T.R.     You covered the ground pretty well, Father.  I think the Left has conditioned us all to think that homosexuality is irrevocable and unchangeable like one’s race and thus must be accepted  else one is a bigot. Giving rise to proponents who believe that to criticize the condition of concupiscence is itself bigoted.  In the meantime, let me tell you this: Both the Secretary of Defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs support legislation overturning Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  The heads of the military services disagree.  

          Ernie.  But the secretary and the chairman are under the direct command of the president, are they not? The other chiefs of the services are farther down in the pecking order and are more likely to respect the specific needs of their branches rather than risk being replaced by the president.  

           T. R.     Exactly and political pressures are strongest when exerted on those who report directly to the president.  Now let’s consider the nature of homosexuality, whether or not it can be…as they say… “cured.” 

           Ernie.   I have read scientific treatises that say it can.  But I will surprise you that I am bored by this curative or non-curative issue.  Weakness toward homosexual attraction is just like weaknesses that afflict all men in their fallen nature.  All of us have weaknesses and the mission of man on earth is to subordinate them—not to shrug and say they are incurable.  Therefore you won’t find in me an inordinate interest as to whether it can be cured or not.  Immaterial.  The root cause of all concupiscence, all evil, is Original Sin. Original Sin clouds the mind from seeing the purpose of the sexual act: the purpose which is for the procreation and education of children.  There’s entirely too much psychoanalytic garbage contained in the study of homosexuality. 

           Take for instance a young man who is powerfully drawn…more powerfully drawn than most…to women.  He cannot go into a coffee shop where they abound, cannot view television where they abound without experiencing carnal desires.  What does he do?  Go to a psychologist or psychiatrist?  Of course not!  He uses his will to restrain himself, And he follows the precepts that Aquinas himself set forth—precepts on the basic inclinations of man. I will regard myself as having failed if you cannot recall them. 

            TR.  I think I can. The first is to seek the good, the highest good, which is eternal happiness with God. 

             Ernie.  And when you concentrate on that you know by will and reason that this is not to seek illicit sexual pleasure. 

              TR.  The second is to preserve yourself in existence. 

             Ernie. Exactly. Ensuring your good health. Taking care to look both ways when you cross a street.  

              TR.  The third: to preserve the species. 

              Ernie.  That means to unite with a woman in your case so as to continue the generations.  That utterly rules out homosexuality. And don’t give me that rot about the deep and caring love of one man for another.  That can be done without sexual congress.   

               TR.  Then to live in community with other men.   

               Ernie.  That is what Aristotle meant when he said “man is a political animal.” 

               TR.  Finally to use one’s intellect and will—to know the truth and make your own decisions.   

              Ernie.  This means as we have talked so often before to nurture the inclinations to make man achieve his final nature which is eternal happiness. So you see I am impatient about those who give up and say I can’t help myself!  I love drink!  I love another man!  I love another man’s wife!  I love this waitress and wish to have intercourse with her!  That is will and it must be exercised just as one exercises one’s body in a gymnasium.   So you will see that I am not interested in pseudo scientific studies that say men are born homosexual, born hopelessly addicted…all that rot.  The curse of your society, Mr. Roeser, comes with its failure to understand the need for its dependence on God and the reasons he made us.  Added to which is the supine nature of the will.  We say I am drawn to a man; I can not help it!  Nonsense!  You look at the objectives you have just enumerated and by God you will to be different!   

                  TR.  “Don’t ask, don’t tell”? 

                  Ernie. The best rule was the one by which the military service was governed by which was that yielding to homosexuality is a disorder…a disorder of the will and failure to recognize the moral law… and that when one does, he should be expelled. The next best rule was “don’t ask don’t tell.”  The worst of all possible conditions is the rank permissiveness that allows those who practice homosexuality and are proud of it to enter the ranks of the military services. That may well be the dissolution of the once great military services of the United States.  

         TR.  I have the feeling as with all other incentives of the Obama administration, it will be defeated. 

         Ernie. Let us so pray.  This proposed law as with so many others of liberaldom rhapsodizes about secular jurisprudence.  And secular jurisprudence cannot work. Every society has to have a god or an ultimate authority. If it is not the real God then it will be a god of man’s own making. That’s what you have to face with Mr. Obama and his ilk.  May God have mercy on you. 

             TR.  Thank you, Father. 

   ___________________________________________________________

        Saint Clotide [AD 545].  She was Queen of France, the wife of Clovis, King of the Franks. A Burgundian princess, she was spotted by Clovis who was entranced with her beauty and wisdom; they were married in 492. Clotide encouraged Clovis to abandon his idols and become a Catholic.  When their first son died in infancy, Clovis reproached her but she bore him another son, then a second son and a daughter.  Meanwhile Clovis was engaged in a hot war against the Alemanni.  He prayed to “the God of Clotide” for victory, was granted it and was baptized. In those days baptism was often saved until the end of life, but Clovis negated this. 

         Clovis built a church at Paris, his headquarters and died there.  Clotide retired to Tours but exercised a political role through her two sons.  The sons were assassinated and her daughter married to the Visigoth Amalric died at about the same time. Clotide lived a devout life, serving in the basilica at Tours, building churches and monasteries.  She is celebrated as the saintly ancestor to the French Kings.  She built churches at Laon, Andelys and Rouen.  She died on June 3 and was buried at Paris, in the basilica of the apostles, later called St. Genevieve.

Personal Aside: A Week that Will Live in Infamy? Sort Of!

     Feast of St. Erasmus*    

            Note: Fr. Ernie has been called back to moderate a discussion in Eternal Life between Aquinas the Angelic Doctor, Augustine, Terullian and the Dutch humanist Erasmus on “How Consecrated Life is a Tangible Seal of the Trinity.”  He has promised to return but since time does not exist in Eternal Life when is anybody’s guess.   

 

               A week barely goes by without Barack Obama further securing his hold on the title I gave him some months ago—decidedly the worst president of the United States compared to the 43 who preceded him in the 221 year history of the office.   

        Fortunately, he has botched his politics so badly he has increased chances of his defeat in 2012—something I look forward to: if the country can survive until then.  

        Last week he further clinched being the worst and the most politically inept with four baldly partisan acts masquerading as diplomacy which would not have been attempted by any previous U. S. president because of retribution from the electorate. 

     First he brought the president of Mexico. Filipe Calderon, to Washington to blast the state of Arizona for passing an act designed to keep Mexican illegals from flooding Arizona with 500,000 uninvited guests who have made that state second in the world for murders and kidnapping. This says more about the Mexican illegals than it does us. All the while Calderone spoke, Obama nodded vigorously like a $1.35 bobble-head you can buy at WalMart.  

       …Following which Obama’s Squid operatives scheduled a joint meeting of Congress so Calderon could assail Arizona again…which got a standing ovation from Obama’s liberal Democratic lackeys. But by week’s end he was so harmed in public opinion on immigration—with Arizona’s illegal floodtide having swelled 500,000 and up 6% since last October-- that he had to settle for a short-range p. r. device of sending a few thousand federal troops to the border there: a temporary make-do at best since once the troops leave, the problem will erupt again.  

      

         Third he gave Calderon license to lecture us further on our domestic affairs, urging us to pass a severely restrictive…almost unconstitutional…ban on all assault rifles…a rude and egregiously undiplomatic violation of common civility between two nations.  

        Fourth, Obama sent a top immigration pol to come to Chicago, home of The Squid, to announce that the administration just might not enforce the Arizona law at all—even though it squares in every significant part with federal law designed to protect the borders of the United States from infestation and invasion by illegals.  John Morton, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) said, “I don’t think the Arizona law or laws like it are the solution”—ignoring the issue of the federal executive’s obligation to enforce all laws, including states’ which are constitutional.  Nor does the view of a lowly assistant secretary that a law isn’t constitutional cut any ice until the Supreme Court rules, which is unlikely.    

         And Morton’s boss, Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano, agreed saying that ICE is not obligated to process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona authorities—a view that is certainly a vast departure from the tradition that requires enforcement of all constitutional measures.  Obama has threatened that his Justice Department will challenge the Arizona legislation’s constitutionality. But this will be very difficult since the Arizona law follows in almost every particular federal case law on immigration.  The Arizona law bars racial profiling and stipulates that only in case of a person being stopped for another offense would he/she be asked for identification papers which squares with federal law.   

        All this is part of a campaign strategy to ingratiate Obama and the Dems with Hispanic voters—especially illegals who thanks to Squid control of the election process here vote in droves.  But of course it flies in the face of heavy public opinion supporting the Arizona law and the country generally.  What is Obama thinking of to go so contrary to public opinion with his job approval falling into the basement?   The answer: he believes his charisma which he showed in 2008 will carry him through in 2012. 

          Obama’s “charisma” didn’t help him in the special elections for governor in Virginia, New Jersey and the senatorial in Massachusetts.  Nor in his supposed home state of Hawaii where last week voters elected the first Republican congressman to represent them in 20 years.  Besides, Opinion Dynamics polling shows 65% of all U. S. voters think the states should have the right to make their own immigration laws…52% believe their own states should pass laws identical to Arizona’s…76% think immigration laws aren’t strict enough including 56% of midwestern voters believe this…83% are shocked to discover that Attorney General Eric Holder hadn’t read the law…and 73% of all Republicans and 51% of all Democrats urge stricter border enforcement that we have now. 

         But ignoring preponderant public opinion is only one of Obama’s failings.    

                                         Foreign Policy Disasters.        

      Essentially, let it be said that Obama is the first president who, in the words of John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the UN, is “post-American.” Meaning he is not a patriot.

      

       “The first problem,” Bolton said in a speech here last week, “is that he doesn’t care about national security” [italics mine].  “It is not where his attention is focused. The second problem is that he doesn’t see threats to the U.S. overseas.”  That is obvious: for someone purportedly well educated, he is a dunce in foreign and national security affairs. During the campaign he said repeatedly—until corrected—that “Iran is a tiny country.”  

        A far more serious problem than his just being uneducated is this: He believes that America is in irreversible decline. In this he sounds like Pat Buchanan.  Not only that, but unlike Buchanan he gives the unmistakable impression that he thinks it’s a good thing, since its dominance can be supplanted by a global world government.   Beyond that, he and his Squid intimates including Hillary Clinton, are ineducable. They believe that in the past America has been impaired by its refusal to negotiate.

      

       Not so.  If anything, Reagan was adroit at negotiating with the then failing USSR in that in card-player parlance he knew “when to hold `em, when to fold `em.” But history means nothing to Obama or The Squid.   By stressing negotiation but which in reality means capitulation, Obama has failed miserably on Iran, North Korea, the Middle East and elsewhere. 

       A definite clue to the role of Obama the “post-American president” is his cavalier dismissal of the United States as an exceptional country. John Winthrop of  Massachusetts Bay started the view which has carried through 43 presidents that this country is exceptional. When asked about his view on this subject on one of his trips where he was apologizing for this country, Obama said yes, America is exceptional—“but to the Greeks Greece is exceptional, to the Brits Great Britain is exceptional.”  

         That shocking statement pleases only one category of voter: 98% of the blacks, 65% of the Hispanics and the denizens in the Harvard faculty lounge, the editorial boards of major mainstream newspapers, the editors at nearly bankrupt Time and Newsweek and the producers at NBC, CBS and ABC.  Thus convinced that we are unexceptional leads to the contention that we should be managed by a global government—which is high on Obama’s personal agenda for what he hopes will be his second term.  For he wishes to be remembered not just as president but as the visionary architect who designed global government as a reality—in other words, the leading figure of the world. 

                          Meanwhile Back at the Chicago Squid… 

       …the ineptitude that gave the country Obama, has continued---and worsened—apace.  The lowpoint last week was Mayor Richard M. Daley continuing on his campaign of blaming inanimate objects—guns—for the untold human carnage that has wrecked city neighborhoods. Daley has set in motion a program to pay $75 for guns turned in…the thought being that fewer guns on the street, the less chance of random murders.   

         Last week Daley called a news conference where he appeared in front of a pile of guns which were turned in.  The interesting thing is that even to the eye of the non-conversant, the guns appeared old, rickety and most of them unable to be fired. Which means that those who turned them in, pocketed the $75 and probably used to money to buy up-to-date guns.

     

         He called the news conference following the tragic shooting of a young African American policeman, age 30, who was in front of his home in middle-class black Chatham on the South Side.  

       The policeman was just back from two tours of duty in Iraq where he survived handily without being killed or wounded.  He spent his free time at home organizing his neighborhood to clean up a park which has been used as a meeting place for drug dealers and what we call “gang-bangers”—members of violent gangs who because of chaotic households where fathers are absent, reach out to lawless elements as a kind of substitute for family order…bred by illegitimacy and chaos that the churches avoid talking about. Their oracular black pastors plus one white—Fr. Michael Pfleger--pound the pulpits and shout about secular things feel it is smarter to be still about sexual morality since to instruct about marriage might possibly be seen as an insult to the black community and direly lighten their collection plates. 

            While he was inspecting his new motorcycle, the policeman was confronted by two gang members on foot and two in an idling car. The two on foot insisted on taking possession of the vehicle. The young Iraq war veteran announced he was a law enforcement officer but to no avail.   He fired, wounding one, and the people in the car fired an automatic rifle killing the young officer. Meanwhile the officer’s father, a retired policeman, fired at the group killing one.  The other two sped away but were later apprehended where they face the death penalty. 

             To Daley the lesson is that more…always more…guns should be confiscated.   But a whole independent body of studies show that concealed carry laws…where citizens who are trained in firearms and are registered to carry them so they can protect themselves when the need arises…have cut down crime significantly in the 48 states where they have been enacted.  This means nothing to Daley principally because The Squid liberal credo supports gun confiscation. Daley used to be for capital punishment when he was Cook county states attorney but now to please the Squid claque he opposes it. Rudy Giuliani told me two years ago that for all his mistakes as mayor of New York he was popular because he supported the police. Not so Daley.  He  caves in to the ACLU whenever the police are questioned on civil liberties grounds.  These are the accommodations he has made to get elected with the approbation of the Left—something his father never did.  

                               Daley’s Battle with the English Language. 

            While his South Side-raised father had trouble parsing the English language no one in high public office in America has violated the rules of  communication more than the man oldsters still call “young Daley.”  Yes, his father got his rhetorical comparison confused, as when he said “my enemies have crucified me; they’ve even criticized me!” and sputtered incorrectly “the police are there to maintain disorder” when obviously he meant “order.”  But Richard M. Daley is a case apart.  In fact, his terminology is so incoherent that it can be said for him truly English is a second language. 

        Moreover, psychologists might study his weird concern with removing his pants.  Does that have to do with something unfortunate that happened in his childhood, or what?   

      Two examples from the record.  

          Once, when asked about the casual look in dress: “If somebody takes their tie off, I’m not going to take my tie off! If somebody takes his pants off, I’m not going to take my pants off!”  Again, responding to whether he sufficiently supported a Democratic candidate for governor who ultimately lost: “I supported him! I raised money for him!  What else do you want me to do—take my pants off?”

           Moreover, last week there arose a fixation with a bodily orifice.  At the news conference where he showed the press a pile of rusty, old-fashioned guns that have been turned in, a reporter asked how effective the gun ban has been since murder has gone through the roof.   

           Daley: “Oh, it’s been very effective!”  Grabbing a rifle with bayonet (which may have been from World War I) and holding it up:  “If I put this up your butt…ha-ha! You’ll soon find out how effective it is!.” 

         The reporter asked about the gun ban being effective—not the gun.  

         But Daley was on a tear: “If I put a round up your—ha ha!” 

         As he juggled the gun, the room was very, very quiet. 

          Daley: “This gun saved many lives. It could save your life!” –meaning evidently that getting that gun off the streets could save lives and maybe the reporter’s life.  

         Daley: “We save all these guns that the police department seizes. You know how many lives we’ve saved? You don’t realize it. First of all they’re taking these guns out of someone’s hands. They save their own life and they save someone else’s.  You cannot count how many times this gun can be used. Thirty, 40 times in shooting people and discharging a weapon [sic].  I think it’s very important.  Next will be hand grenades, right? [sic]. We’ll say that hand grenades are OK. I mean—how far can you go in regards to mass weapons? To me, any gun taken off saves thousands of lives in America [sic]. I don’t care what people call me [sic]!  You have to thank the police officers for seizing all these weapons. We lead the country in seizing weapons. This is unbelievable!”  

         Sure is.  

          The most astute analyst of Richard M. Daley and The Squid is The Tribune’s ace columnist John Kass. Had he not been born a princeling, the son of a legendary mayor, he would probably be hustling for DUI law clients in the corridors of traffic court right now. Kass has the feeling he was spoiled by his parents, he being the oldest and invested with the name Richard and all.  His siblings speak remarkably good English.  Actually the average guy from the Bridgeport neighborhood doesn’t use images like pants removal, gun thrusts at buttocks.  

          To me, his excitability, the florid face, the sputtering are a defense mechanism when he realizes the futility of comparing him with his father. Old man Daley was a very effective mayor who literally saved Chicago from being turned into canyons of desolation like Detroit.  He supported the cops—unlike his son who is fighting their union and has caved into civil libertarians screaming “police brutality.” .  After the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. when the city seemed up for grabs with riots and burnings, Old Man Daley’s curt order to the police to shoot looters, first to maim and then to kill, reestablished a truce during those times no matter how he was criticized by the editorial boards most of whose members lived in the suburbs. 

         His son…who has capitulated to the left on abortion, gay rights, anti-capital punishment, anti-police…has not shown any of that courage. Instead he has courted the Left so that he has no major electoral opposition.  Because in his heart he knows he’s sold out, it’s the reason for the tantrums—as a spoiled child would do to deflect blame.

      

        _____________________________________________________

    St. Erasmus [circa AD 300]. This is not the Dutch humanist but the martyred bishop of Formulae in the Campagna sector of Italy.  Nothing much is known about him but it is thought he was a Syrian  bishop who fled the persecution of Diocletian to become a hermit on Mount Lebanon where he was discovered, beaten and rolled in pitch which was lighted afire.  He survived, was cast into prison he was released by jailer’s mistake and made his way to Ilyricum and then Formiae where he died.  

Personal Asides: You Mean it Took Them Ten Weeks to Come Up with That?...Ernie on “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

                       Feast of St. Justin.* 

               

                                       Uncreative Lying.

          House Republicans should stop wasting time talking about a special prosecutor because The Sestak Issue is answered…badly but answered.  The marvel is that it took them 10 weeks to come up with such an improbable solution…that Bill Clinton (who as ex-president has no jobs to offer) told Sestak that he could probably land on an unpaid presidential commission if he dropped out of the race against Specter.  In the history of this republic, offering jobs to people before election is a hallowed tradition…but never in the take-no-prisoners way Emanuel tried to shove it down Sestak’s throat.  

          Ergo: Lincoln’s managers cut deals on cabinet posts freely at the Chicago Wigwam convention of 1860 which Lincoln didn’t attend: Seward to secretary of state most notably.  But they did it with panache. No sweat. Gen. Eisenhower’s Herbert Brownell offered Earl Warren ambiguously, decorously, an appointment to the Supreme Court at its next vacancy if Warren would drop his loser’s pout after losing at the Chicago convention that nominated Ike and campaign for him.  Warren did and carried California for the ticket.  

           The problem was the earliest vacancy was the Chief Justiceship.  Ike tried to wriggle out of it Brownell saying he promised “the next available justiceship not the chief justiceship” but Warren held Brownell

to it, saying “no-no-no, you said the first vacancy on the Court.” and so Eisenhower was forced to make what he later confessed was one of the two worst mistakes of his presidency…the second the nomination to the Court of William Brennan.     

         But Lincoln’s managers and Eisenhower’s brokers were gentlemen—delicately suggestive, not remotely like the obscenity-spewing Emanuel. To get away from the heat, Emanuel just decided to go to Israel for his son’s bar mitzvah where, fittingly enough, he has been jeered and fittingly insulted as an enemy (as he’s top staff to the bitterest anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian president in modern times).   Emanuel is one of those Jews who has forsaken the original Torah for Torah II, subordinating religious precepts for the liberal secular agenda cold-turkey.  

          Digression:   As one of my medical specialists, an ultra-reform Jew,  who was working on me smiled when I reminded him that his working overtime was counterbalanced by 47% on welfare plus those who not only don’t pay federal taxes but get a federal stipend (up to $5,000) from the Earned Income Tax Credit which was not Milton Friedman’s finest idea: 

       “I’m glad to do it.” 

       What mindless gruel. That’s misnamed “service to the poor” via Torah II, not remotely like Torah I which argues that basic morality stipulates able bodied people who can work and don’t, don’t eat.

        Back to the subject: Anyhow Congressman Issa can drop the grumbling about law-breaking now that the Obama people have resorted to out-and-out lying which can’t be disproved since Sestak is part of the deal.  Turn to something else.  Enough hay has been made here.  Other issues are a-wasting. 

                         Ernie on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”  Part I.  

        [Once again I have urged the Holy Spirit to temporarily free the spirit of Fr. Ernest Kilzer OSB from the Saint John’s Abbey churchyard to visit me and consult about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”].  

       Fr. Ernie. What’s all this fuss about “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”? In my day, discussions of private sexual matters were confined to the confessional!

When I was a confessor, they told and on occasion I asked for more elucidation.   

        TR. Father it has to do with homosexuals serving in the military. In your day, those in the military who demonstrated a propensity to engage in or importune others to engage in sexual acts, were dishonorably discharged. At that time, indication of homosexual inclination led to discharge—period. With modern culture… 

         Fr. Ernie. …Ah yes, modern cultural decadence you mean.

        TR.  Exactly. With modern cultural decadence the rules were changed. Bill Clinton had campaigned on removing the anti-homosexual bias from the military.  But he was forced to give it up due to the strong opposition of people like Sen. Sam Nunn [D-Ga.], chairman of Senate Armed Services. The compromise was don’t ask, don’t tell a federal law that mandates superiors don’t initiate an investigation of a soldier’s sexual orientation (don’t ask) and the soldier is prevented from disclosing his sexual orientation (don’t tell). I personally think the compromise was reasonable.  So reasonable, in fact, that the gay militants want it repealed so active homosexuals can enter the military…largely composed of men…announcing their gay-ness without discrimination. Which I feel is tantamount to turnng our defense structure into a wholesale sexual bazaar.  

         Fr. Ernie. Let us separate how  you feel from the facts.  And the argument for this change is…? 

          TR.    Militant homosexuals and the predominant secular media have identified those who oppose repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell as homophobic.  An effort to throttle into silence those who need to allow the fullest expression that they are gay. It goes along with the view of victimology. The gay revolution is patterned to the civil rights revolution. Civil rights activists cited victims. As you know, victims of lynching and less evident discrimination abound in civil rights lore so as to enable passage of federal legislation to eliminate discrimination.  This worked with the goal of making society color-blind.  It has not worked when it exceeded that limit and excursioned into affirmative action. 

          There were truly graphic examples: the four small black children who died in the 16^th Avenue Church in Birmingham which was fire bombed by the Klan in 1963; Emmett Till the Chicago boy who was lynched for being “too overly familiar” with a white woman in the South;  the three civil rights workers lynched in 1964: James Chaney, Meridian Ms., Andrew Goodman, N.Y., Michael Schwerner, N.Y. Likewise, to accomplish their goals, gays have to have a victimology.   According to gay rights lore, it started at the Stonewall bar in New York in 1969, marking the first time when patrons of a gay bar decided to react to police interference with their pursuits of enjoying themselves, taken as an invasion of their privacy.  

         In 1992 there was the slaying of a gay Navy petty officer, Allen R. Schindler, Jr. which triggered Clinton’s move. So to be explicit, the argument has been this embodied in Barack Obama’s first State of the Union address: “This year I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are.”  

            Fr. Ernie.  This statement is grossly misleading. Sexual proclivity does not establish who one is.   It presupposes that homosexuality is unchangeable like one’s race or let us say the color of one’s eyes.  That is decidedly not the case: we are not animals to whom the urge to copulate is not controlled by either reason or will.  More of that later.   Moreover it presupposes that sexual expression be affirmatively seen as a right.  Neither is true.  

             T.R. Try saying that in this society!   

              Fr. Ernie. Let us forget how unpopular it is to say it in your society.  I say now as I said to the class in the `40s that what we are seeking is the truth—and we shall handle the immediate difficulties later. The truth is this: Since the dawn of Christianity, Church teaching held that sexual expression was not, was never, perceived as a right. It was specified as a privilege—a gift  that leads one to conjugal life. It stems from the Judeo Christian teaching that the sexual nature of man and the human faculty of procreation are superior to all other lower forms of life.  In a very real sense, sexuality has been bestowed as a gift to those who utilize it exclusively in conjugal life. 

              Likewise, the consecrated life, the life I chose for myself and my colleagues chose for themselves, is not a right either. The consecrated life is a privilege as well. To accept that privilege of both marriage and the consecrated life one must have  a gift. With the consecrated life, not everyone has it-- as Christ Himself stressed when He talked about voluntary celibacy.  Your president grossly misstates it when he speaks irrationally about sexuality “being who we are.”  That is entirely erroneous, springing from a false understanding of man.  Man we are told by Aquinas who improved on Plato and Aristotle,  is composed of body and soul and made in the image and likeness of God. No sexual fandangles about it.  What bosh!  What does your president envision us as: men with perpetually tumescent penises and women with welcoming vaginas all seeking gratification as if we are all little puppy dogs copulating in the streets?  Bosh I tell you! 

              T.R [musing to himself]. Ah that’s the old Ernie. … 

              Ernie.  What?   

               T. R.  I’m sorry. Just talking to myself. 

               Ernie.  You object to my phrasing?   

              T.R.   In just one stance, Father. You call Obama “your president.”  He is not my president. I have repeatedly said he is the worst president in 237 years, by far the worst of all the 43 who preceded him including Franklin Pierce who drank himself into insensibility every night and James Buchanan who frittered away all attempts to ward off the Civil War. 

              Ernie.  Sorry. It is a forensic expression, one I used in classes.  I am appalled that your…er-er…the president of the United States does not understand that homosexuality is contrary to God’s purpose in creating two genders by which He wants men and women to cooperate in the transmission of life by the beautiful mutual giving of one’s self to the other.       

             T. R. He doesn’t because to be forthright about it, he’s not up to the concept intellectually or spiritually. Moreover, he’s a pagan, filled with the insouciant proud paganism in which God if He exists is irrelevant. He is the only president who does not have a church or a unified body of spiritual beliefs which he makes no bones about.  Lincoln was unaffiliated, flirted with agnosticism but in the heat of his trial showed by his writing he was a believing Christian with a distinct sense of orderly theology.  

           FDR may have been duplicitous but he recognized the country’s spiritual needs by delivering a prayer he composed himself in a speech to the nation after Pearl Harbor, It is for that reason he sang “Onward Christian Soldiers” aboard a British warship with Churchill. To shore their countrymen up and to ensure them they—Roosevelt and Churchill—believed in the moral righteousness of their cause. 

       Reagan didn’t go to church but he was a believing Christian. Bill Clinton was a lecher but a weepy, contrite guy who senses his ignobility in his heart and carried a bible with him to church after a scurrilous assignation.  They are all better than this one. Far better. This guy is a creature of a combination of Muslim heritage, Harvard atheism, U of C faculty lounge superciliousness and the essence of Jeremiah Wright who shouted hatred against whitey and god-damned this country while Obama cruised up and down the aisles on the political make heedless of spiritual principle.  

       His disinterest in God shows in his denial that America is exceptional, the one view that bound together all our past presidents. The essence of patriotism is to understand that God in His bounteous goodness gave us an ideal land as John Winthrop expressed it on which we have built the freest, most equitable nation in the world.  It cuts no ice with this nihilistic, a-historical and unlettered egotist who knows not he is a-historical and unlettered.  

        America is exceptional to us, he parses, in the same way that Greece is exceptional to the Greeks, that Britain is excep/tional to the Brits.   Meaning it is not objectively exceptional. In essence, while much of his background is mysterious (his wife tipped it inadvertently not long ago by calling Kenya “his home”) this much is not: He is not a patriot, patriotism being the very minimal requisite one can expect from a president. One cannot be a patriot and not believe in Divine Providence. Love of country presupposes love of God.  Not with this man. 

       Determined to be a supra-internationalist world leader ala Woodrow Wilson, he caters to the noxious elite where patriotism is kaput and global European-style regimented government is the ideal.  That is his make-do for God.  

           Ernie. I see. Greece civilization was not religious but was consumed with thought that imbued religion: what is truth? What is virtue?Questioning however heady was insufficient for it. Rome was not religious but believed in the empire’s destiny of world order that imbued the religion of its own destiny: or patriotism. Lack of faith (not Christianity as Gibbon says) brought down Rome; lack of faith and mere concentration on the abstract doomed Greece.  But at the least those two civilizations had noble ends, Greece with its speculations, Rome with its wish to rule the world and bring to it order.  

          From what you tell me, this man is not religious, unconcerned with thought as were the Greeks, unconcerned with national destiny as were the Romans, is not consumed with American ascendancy—but of a global imperialism that defies religion.  Tell me, how many Catholics voted for him?  

           T.R.     Fifty-seven percent.  Thanks to many insouciant bishops and priests.  

           Ernie [groans]. Ah yes.  Much of which began with my colleague Godfrey Diekmann. I am glad I am not part of your world. Indeed, I will be happy to get back to Eternal Life. Now let us go on to the remainder of the lesson. 

          PART II: TOMORROW.  

            ________________________________________________________

     *: Saint Justin [AD 100-165]. Commonly called “Saint Justin Martyr.” He was born in Flavia Neapolis, the capital of Samaria of Greco-Roman parents who were both pagans.  Never a priest, he studied philosophy, rhetoric, history and poetry lavishly, teaching for a time at Ephesus where he met an old man who advised him to peruse Christian scripture. He did and at age 30 became a Catholic and devoted himself to expounding his faith to his fellows. He loved to debate and traveled around debating with every pagan philosopher he could find. 

      This was bound to get him into trouble as it had earlier with Socrates.  Winning debates consistently is usually fatal.  Justin was the first real Catholic lay apologist who spoke and wrote on the issue for any great length—the first to reconcile faith with reason in his Apologies addressed to the Emperor Antoninus and the first to defend in writing the charges that Catholics were immoral, going from there to define the reasons for belief in the teachings of Christ, immortality, free will and fasting.   

       Enough! said the government.  .  And so Justin incurred the enmity of a debater he had vanquished, a member of the Cynic school named Crescans who reported him to authorities as a Catholic. He was brought to trial with six others and when they refused to sacrifice to the gods they were all scourged and beheaded.  He is particularly remembered for his written Dialogue with Trypho where he records his debates between Christianity and Judaism with Trypho, a Jew.