Right Wing Nut House

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher’s Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around… per the Watcher’s instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.
Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

This is a great way for you to get exposure for your blog and your writing.

Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great British man of letters and compiler of the first English language dictionary, once had occasion to remark on the protests in the American colonies against taxation without representation.

“Why is it,” Dr. Johnson wondered, “We hear the loudest yelps for freedom from the drivers of Negro slaves?”

Superhawk circa 2005 wonders “Why is it we hear the loudest yelps for free speech from the ones who wish most to regulate it?”

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors have been famous for their lenient attitude toward all kinds of free “speech” including nude dancing, sexually oriented “performance art”, gay bath houses, adult bookstores, massage parlors, and any number of pornographic and prurient outlets for their extremely broad interpretation of the First Amendment.

But when it comes to blogs, the Board has developed a case of blue nosed puritanism:

Just when you thought the Federal Election Commission had it out for the blogosphere, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors took it up a notch and announced yesterday that it will soon vote on a city ordinance that would require local bloggers to register with the city Ethics Commission and report all blog-related costs that exceed $1,000 in the aggregate.

Blogs that mention candidates for local office that receive more than 500 hits will be forced to pay a registration fee and will be subject to website traffic audits, according to Chad Jacobs, a San Francisco City Attorney.

(HT: Instapundit)

Maybe if bloggers were to lobby for an exemption if they post in the nude…

I suppose the crackdown on blogs had to start somewhere and I find it extremely significant that it’s happening in San Francisco. The fact that the good liberals on the Board of Supervisors think nothing of regulating the free flow of information proves that no bloggers are safe anywhere. The representatives of the nanny state believe we mere children are incapable of differentiating between fact and opinion. Plus, there’s just too much information out there for the average voter to read and digest.

I have no doubt that this ridiculousness will be repeated nationwide by both liberals and conservatives as a way to both intimidate and ride herd on the new media.

Perhaps the way to approach this is for thousands of bloggers outside of San Francisco to post like mad on the city’s primaries and elections. Then send emails to the Board of Supervisors with links to your post telling them if they want their goddamn registration fee they can come and get it!

The email address for the Board can be found in the link above.

Cross-Posted at Blogger News Network

UPDATE:

At the moment, it’s unclear whether this new regulation would apply to all bloggers or just those that accept money from a candidate to promote their campaign. The statement (not quoted) by the City Attorney would seem to indicate otherwise. I’m sure we’ll hear something on this later today at which time any clarifications will be posted here.

UPDATE II:

Bil Quick is also blogging the story and has this to say in a comment about whether or not the law targets all bloggers:

Unfortunately, as we have learned too many times to our dismay, it doesn’t matter what the intent of the law is. It matters what the law permits. And if it permits regulation of blogs, whether that was the intention or not, sooner or later, that’s what we’ll get.

I’ve been observing government for going on 30 years and I have to agree with Bill. If someone wishes to use this law to regulate bloggers in the manner outlined in the post, it won’t be that difficult to do. This is why our Founding Fathers were so adamant about Congress making no law to restrict free speech. Those guys had been in and around government most of their lives and they knew full well what people were capable of.

For a different take, there’s more here and here.

I find it interesting (or perhaps just a coincidence in this case) that those pooh-poohing the idea of blanket blog regulation in this case are liberals. Just as the Democratic appointees to the FEC did when Commissioner Smith came out with his warning (which later turned out to be absolutely true).

Do I detect a trend here?

UPDATE III

Like any decent capitalist, Ace is trying to make a buck off this attack on our constitutional rights:

Take a stand against The Man and buy a t-shirt.

You guys don’t… like tyranny, now do you?

Jeez…What do you think he would have done during the revolution?

Hey! Get your George Washington Tee-Shirts here! Guaranteed worn only once by the General hisself! Get your GW tees right here…!

Other views and updates:

LGF brings out the irony of the birthplace of the free speech movement now regulating it.

Polipundit urges action.

Bill at INDC thinks it’s “wacky overreach.” That just about sums it up.

It took a little doing, but thanks to some good luck (and quick hands) I was able find some discarded notes on the interview done with Senator Robert “Kleagle” Byrd by Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times.

While these notes are pretty raw, they do contain some interesting quotes from the Senate’s iconoclastic parliamentarian and sole remaining ex(?)-member of the Klu Klux Klan.

I thought it might be interesting to marry up quotes that were printed in the Times story with some additional verbiage that Ms. Stolberg failed to include. After reading some of these quotes, I think you’ll understand why Ms. Stolberg was reluctant to have them make the final edit. (The material in boldface was not included in the story)

“I’ve forgotten more about the rules and procedures,” Mr. Byrd said in an interview this week, “than most senators will ever know. I’ve also forgotten where the bathroom is which is why I miss Senator Daschle. He used to carry a bucket with him so I wouldn’t have to worry about wandering the halls looking for the head.

Christian conservatives and right-wing bloggers are unearthing his past as a one-time member of the Ku Klux Klan who filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964. “I’ve said time and time again that I was wrong about that and I apologize,” Mr. Byrd said. “And I’ve said time and time again I got nothin’ against them darkies jes as long as they knows their place and don’t get too uppity.”

Republicans say Mr. Byrd used procedures to limit debate on three other occasions, though he says he never once “deprived the minority” of “the right to freedom of speech.” “It’s not like ah treated ‘em like nig…like nigg…like commonists or somethin’.”

“These instant constitutional experts want to warp, want to bend, if you will, the Senate’s constitutional purpose with a witch’s brew of half truths, twisted logic and vicious attacks on freedom of speech,” the senator thundered. “I’ve already got the constitution so twisted up it looks like a West Virginia corndodger. Why do they need to get into the act?”

“How sad,” Mr. Byrd declared, lowering his eyes and dragging out his words for dramatic effect, “will be the legacy of those senators who vote to assassinate freedom of speech in the Senate of the United States. What a blotch upon the escutcheon of the great basic liberty of the people. How sad.” “If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a ‘blotchy escutcheon.’ I thought I had most of those removed when I went to see the proctologist.”

For the record, here’s Webster’s definition of “escutcheon”:

1 : a defined area on which armorial bearings are displayed and which usually consists of a shield
2 : a protective or ornamental plate or flange (as around a keyhole)
3 : the part of a ship’s stern on which the name is displayed

If he’s using the word in the context of #3, then we’re talking about “liberty’s ass” which given Senator Kleagle’s past history, explains in graphic imagery just what he’s been doing to his constituents and the Senate for so long.

Well,, so much for the “reality based community.”

What do you say of a group that calls itself that and then enters into a discussion about how psychics are saying that George Bush will be impeached? Or assassinated?

Here are a few gems from that bastion of tolerance and realism, the Democratic Underground:

The psychics were right about the Pope & hopefully will b right about Bush I read on a thread somewhere that the psychics predicted that the Pope wouldn’t live through the month of April and sadly they were right.

What psychics were those? got a link

I remember newsmax or some other con site saying that a psychic predicted a Bush assassination.

Yep, be careful what you wish for!

No. No assassination. Impeachment, yes. Disgrace, yes. A deified St. George W. Bush, NO.

Notice the above commenter opposing assassination not because it would mean killing another human being but because to do so would “deify” the President.

I had a weird vision about * the other night I can’t say it here because even thoughts are watched in this country, but it was in agreement with what your psychic predicted.

Before we get all happy and start dancing…(emoticons smiling and dancing)

Keep these two words in mind: “President Cheney.” Canada, anyone?

Listening to these folks, one would think that assassination can be fun!

I have a strange feeling about an assassination attempt on Bush at the Pope’s funeral. However, that would leave us with Crashcart, so I’m hoping I’m just feeling overly melancholy after Pope John Paul II’s death

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. This moonbat shares his gifts of prophecy with us:

Even though I’m Christian I do have the gifts of empathy and I have had a few flashes and dreams. I had one flash where Bush is leaving the House with that side door that has the white covering over the entrance and he has these really sad eyes. I then had another dream where I was in the future and it was early 2008 and something had happened (don’t know what). I was in a kitchen cleaning and watching CNN and three reporters were on there talking about whatever it was that happened and I remember feeling very worried. One reporter (the main guy of this segment) was blaming Bush (I felt it was his fault), another guy was blaming Clinton (go figure) and another guy was blaming Kerry. That was quite strange. In the beginning of the year I love to sit down and meditate and try to get a sense of how this year will be. I remember getting told that we’ll see more of Kerry and Edwards in the mid to late summer and they really popped out at me. Kerry has been doing a lot in the Senate still and Edwards still pops up here and there. So I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this has been the “reality based community” shining through in all it’s glory. Maybe the next Democratic President will have a “Department of Dreams and Visions.”

Handicapping the upcoming vote for the next pope is fraught with uncertainty. Not only is the College of Cardinals a more secretive group than the CIA, NSA, and FBI put together, but since John Paul II has been in declining health for years, it appears that several leading candidates have had the opportunity to line up support among their colleagues by staffing their own bureaucratic enclaves with Cardinals who could vote for them when the time came.

My personal belief is that the next pope will not come from the pastoral wing of the college. This would seem to leave out several candidates who would make excellent Popes but have had the political misfortune of serving as Archbishop of a diocese while the bureaucrats in the Vatican were free to maneuver for power by appointing allies to key positions in one of the many secretariats.

This is a very old game played best by the Italians. And since 35% of the College is made up Italian Cardinals, chances are pretty good that the papacy will revert to form and once again the Chair of St. Peter will be occupied by an Italian Cardinal.

The big question is will the Italians be able to agree on a single candidate? As a voting bloc, they potentially hold enormous power. But unless they can coalesce around one aspirant, the chances are that a dark horse will emerge.

Here are the rules by which the College will elect a new pope as amended by John Paul II himself in 1996:

1. The voting usually begins about 3 weeks after the pontiff has been laid to rest

2. Votes are held twice in the morning and once in the afternoon

3. If no cardinal has been elected by two-thirds majority after a certain number of ballots (30), the cardinals may agree by absolute majority (half + 1) to elect the Pope by an absolute majority instead of a two-thirds majority

4. Rather than stay in uncomfortable, makeshift quarters in the Papal Palace, the Cardinals will stay in the Domus Sanctae Marthae, hotel-style accommodation in Vatican City

5. The only remaining method of electing the Pope is by scrutiny, ie, silent ballot — the methods of election by acclamation and by committee have been excluded (but were rarely used)

6. The older cardinals are still unable to enter the conclave, but they are invited to take an active role in the preparatory meetings

7. The rules on secrecy are tougher .

Something to watch for: If no candidate has been elected after the first 3 or 4 days, the chances are very good the next pope will be another non-Italian. But the Italians have been pointing toward this election for 26 years. In some ways, they see the papacy has their own private preserve. In my opinion, they’ve already settled on a candidate and will back him unless or until the College makes it known that they wish to go in another direction.

Here’s a rundown of some of the top candidates:

THE ITALIANS

Cardinal Angelo Sodano

Age: 77

Position: Secretary of State

On the plus side: He’s the right age as apparently the College may not wish to elect a pope that will serve longer than a decade or so. And he’s very powerful, occupying the second highest office in the Vatican. And he’s a conservative which almost all the Cardinals are given that 80 of the 120 were appointed by John Paul II.

Minuses: Could be too visible. Plus some of the non-Italians have been upset with his administration. His critics have called him a dry bureaucrat with little sense of humor.

Dionigi Tettamanzi

Age: 71

Position: Archbishop of Milan

On the Plus side: Although from the pastoral wing of the College, he’s held several bureaucratic posts in the Vatican. He’s also supported by the very conservative Opus Dei movement that advocates a “strict constructionist” approach to church dogma.

Minuses: He’s been away from the Vatican for years. He may be too conservative. He may be too young in that the College may be looking for a caretaker pope until one of the very young (early to mid 50’s) Cardinals get a little more seasoning.

Giovanni Battista Re

Age: 72

Position: Prefect for the Congregation of Bishops

On the Plus side: Conservative. Close ally of Pope John Paul II. He’s the dark horse among the Italians but has occupied a very powerful position for nearly 10 years. He may have the support of the curate due to his being able to appoint so many allies to positions of influence.

Minuses: Not been a priest in the pastoral sense in that he’s never run a diocese. And for as many friends as he’s made, he has just as many opponents passed over. Also, may be too conservative.

THE NON-ITALIANS:

Francis Arinze (Nigerian)

Age: 72

Position: Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialog

On the Plus side: If the College wishes to put a third world face on the papacy, Cardinal Arinze is the front-runner. He has been extremely visible as someone who has tried to reach out to Muslims. In this age of Terror, that could be very significant. He’s also extremely well liked personally. And the fact that he’s black could have political advantages despite his conservatism.

Minuses: Many feel the African church, which has grown from 15 million in 1960 to over 120 million today, is too young for a pope. Also, the fact that he’s black may in fact work against him because of racial prejudice in the US and Latin America. And finally, the African church has grown so much because it has incorporated some of the native animist themes into its ceremonies which does not sit well with many more conservative Cardinals.

Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga (Honduras)

Age: 62

Position: Archbishop of Tegucigalpa

On the Plus Side: The second largest voting bloc of Cardinals is from Latin America. He has chaired the Latin American Council of Bishops so would be in a position of knowing most of the Latin American electors. A strong spokesman for the poor (he’s been an outspoken advocate for debt forgiveness in the third world), he supports decentralization of church authority which has been a bone of contention for years between John Paul II and the bishops.

Minuses: Too young. Has been outspoken against the media for its coverage of the pedophile scandals. And many Latin American bishops have been tainted with the charge of supporting “liberation theology” which supported Marxist principles to redistribute wealth in the desperately poor countries of Latin America. In short, it’s probably not his turn.

Christoph Schoenborn (Austrian)

Age: 59

Position: Archbishop of Vienna

On the plus side: An intellectual with a first class mind, Schoenborn is the leading non-Italian European candidate. Given the decline of the Church in Europe, this may be a direction the College would wish to go. He’s a conservative who helped write the latest version of the universal catechism. If the college is looking for a genuine thinker, Schoenborn would probably be elected.

Minuses: Too young. May be too closely identified with the pedophile scandals as he had to deal with one involving his predecessor in his own Archdiocese. The fact that the Austrian church is the most divided in Europe between liberals and conservatives could rule him out because of the polarization factor.

Other very dark horses include Cardinal Ratzinger, a German, who has taken strong, conservative stands on matters of faith and Cardinal Claudio Hummes a Brazilian who’s made the transition from advocate of liberation theology to born again conservative. Both men have support but would appear to be too polarizing to gain anything but an absolute majority of Cardinals. if the vote goes more than 2 weeks, one of these dark horses or even a greater unknown could step in “stand in St. Peter’s place.”

Cross-Posted at Blogger News Network

The Pope is dead.

John Paul II died at 9:27 pm Rome time, succumbing at last to inevitable. “Remember thou art but mortal,” they tell him immediately after his election.

Used to be that Popes held political power greater than any king or potentate. They could command Princes to give them armies to punish or conquer. They planned. The plotted. A single word from a pope could cause a recalcitrant prince to be excommunicated; a fate worse than death for someone who lived in the middle ages.

But with the rise of the nation-state, the popes influence waned. Eventually, all they had left was their moral authority over the more than a billion Catholics all over the world.

We’ll hear much about this pope’s long pontificate. We’ll hear how stubborn he was, how anti-women he was, how resistant to modernity he was. But we won’t hear a word spoken against the man. A true mystic, he believed in the miracles and wonders of life. In a way, he was a throwback, a relic from a time when people obeyed what the pope had to say because they believed him to be infallible.

John Paul II may not have been infallible. But when he spoke, people listened. And even in this day and age, a word from him made princes tremble. So much so, that the Soviet Union tried to murder him, so much a threat to their control they believed him to be.

President Bush called him a “hero for the ages.” Well put. We’ll be living in his gigantic shadow for the rest of my years and probably longer.

Abraham Lincoln, when asked what were his plans to win the war, was quoted as saying “I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me.”.

I thought of this quote when pondering what to write about the imminent death of Pope John Paul II. Was Lincoln correct? Are we condemned to simply ride the whirlwind of history, thrown here and there by capricious forces beyond our control? Or do men command this whirlwind through the force of their own personality and wisdom of their decisions?

For me personally, these are the questions that make reading history worthwhile. So when we reflect on the extraordinary life of Karol Wojtyla, a good and holy man, it is impossible to separate him from the times he lived in.

Oh, and what times they were! To have this man, this Pope elected to the Papacy at a time when two of the 20th Century’s most determined foes of tyranny and passionate advocates for liberty - Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher - also came to power in their respective countries would have seemed to the Greeks as nothing less than proof that fate ruled the affairs of men.

John Paul’s alliance with the Anglo-Americans was never set down on paper and coordination was superficial at best. But where Reagan and Thatcher’s hard-headed actions to defeat Soviet Communism stopped, the Pope’s moral authority took root and turned the tide toward people power by giving legitimacy to the aspirations for freedom so longed for by so many in that captive part of the world.

In short, Pope John Paul II gave a final answer to Josef Stalin’s contemptuous question when conflict with the Catholic Church in Russia seemed unavoidable. “How many divisions does the Pope have?” Stalin asked. This Pope could have told him he not only had the heavenly host of angels on his side but the millions of hearts and minds of people that yearned to breathe free, ready to march at his command.

The troika of Reagan, Thatcher, and John Paul at first glance, made strange bedfellows indeed. Reagan, the small town Midwesterner, Hollywood actor, and ideologue, came to politics late in life but made up for it with a burning passion for making a difference and restoring America’s greatness. Thatcher was an almost lifelong politician whose free market ideas transformed socialist Britain and restored respect for British leadership on the continent of Europe and in the world.

But the Pope’s experience was very different. Young Karol Wojtyla came of age just as the Nazi’s started their murderous rampage across Europe. His plans to be an actor were scuttled during the Nazi occupation resulting in his hearing the call of service to the Church. Attending an underground seminary (the Nazi’s murdered 100,00 religious in Poland alone), young Karol also started an underground theater group whose performances were noteworthy for the revolutionary use of language and a spirit of defiance.

Ordained after the war, Father Wojtyla had to learn to live with an entirely different form of tyranny. When the communists staged an “election” in 1948 and took control, Father Wojtyla at first, took little notice. He was consumed with the study of theology and philosophy. Blessed with a supple and inquisitive mind, he traveled to Rome where his mentor, the great Vatican theologian Father Reginald Garrigou-LaGrange, opened his mind to the intricacies and subtlety of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Returning to Poland, the young priest carried out several pastoral assignments at various churches in Krakow. But his continued thirst for knowledge drew him to the fine university in that city where he eventually became Chaplain of Students. (Given the Pope’s almost rock star status among the youth of the world, I wonder what it would have been like to have him as an adviser at that time?)

Completing his doctorate in Theology, Father Wojtyla became professor of moral theology and social ethics in the major seminary of Krakow and in the Faculty of Theology of Lublin. From there he was named Axillary Bishop of Krakow (1958), Archbishop (1964), and Cardinal (1967).

We’ll never know what possessed the College of Cardinals to name him to the papacy following the short reign of John Paul I. But here’s a revealing anecdote from a PBS Frontline report on a trip to Rome then Cardinal Wojtyla made in 1976 to give a lecture:

In 1976, Pope Paul VI invited Wojtyla to give the Lenten lectures in Rome. John Cornwell, biographer of Pius XII, wrote about the occasion vividly, describing how in one of Cardinal Wojtyla’s lectures he stunned his audience with his dark apocalyptic vision of the world “as a burial ground….a vast planet of tombs.” His heightened poetic language, filled with images of darkness and light, showed the influence of his early hero, St. John of the Cross. The remainder of these lectures explored themes foreshadowing all the major points of Wojtyla’s Pontificate: the centrality of Christ in the history of salvation; the inviolable dignity of every individual person; the proper relationship between the creator and creation; the dangerous error of living as if God did not exist; the value and salvific meaning of suffering.

During these lectures, Cardinal Wojtyla also surprised his audience by revealing an extremely personal story about his own ‘dark night.’ This story has rarely been remarked on, but clearly it has resonated deeply for Wojtyla and sheds light on intimate corners of his spiritual life. Years ago in Poland, on the Wednesday of Holy Week, Woytyla had a deep religious experience. As he talked about it many years later, Cardinal Wojtyla said, with some sadness, that he tried again and again to recreate this mystical moment but was never able to. His friend Monsignor Albacete finds this story poignant and moving: “This man is telling us that he, too, has had the experience of God’s absence and that when he prays he tries to relive that mystical moment of closeness. But it always goes away from him.” It is a familiar story of mystics who early on in their lives experience a powerful epiphanous moment that they yearn to experience again, but can’t, and must be sustained by the fragments of a memory for the rest of their lives.

Perhaps the Cardinals saw the towering intellect of the man as well as his simple humanity. Whatever they were looking for in a Pope, they apparently found in this man who had battled with authorities for years to build a cathedral in his beloved Krakow as well as ordain more priests than the communists would allow.

I will not attempt to analyze the dogmatic or spiritual nature of his pontificate. But Pope John Paul’s political skills - the ability to get people to act as the sharp end of the stick - were without question on par with both Reagan and Thatcher. He had a flair for the dramatic and could “work a crowd” as well or better than those two legendary figures. Just watching a tape of him recently during his second visit to Poland in 1983 with Communist strongman General Jaruzelski was striking in that it showed the people of his native Poland who was in charge. The Pope was calm, serene even as he stood with Jaruzelski in front of the press while the communist dictator was incredibly ill at ease, shifting his weight from one foot to the other and looking around the room as if seeking the assistance of someone. The Pope, realizing his host’s distress. smiled a mischievous smile and moved even closer to Jaruzelski.

The look of panic on the dictator’s face would have been comical if we didn’t now know that Soviet Premier Andropov had threatened to send in tanks unless Jaruzelski got a handle on the political instability roiling Poland as a result of the Pope’s visit. Poland was under martial law at the time and John Paul’s arrival signaled that it didn’t matter how many divisions of soldiers the Pope could put in the field, he could command the loyalty of the people and Jaruzelski couldn’t. Game. Set. Match.

Which brings me back to my original question. Would the events that transpired in the 1980’s occurred without one or all of the “freedom troika” of Reagan, Thatcher, and John Paul? A determinist would say yes, that the undercurrents of history at work in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union would have caused the fall of communism anyway.

I totally reject that notion. Given the alternatives in the United States (Carter and Mondale) as well as Great Britain (James Callaghan and Neil Kinnock) it seems more likely that Soviet communism would have limped along as it had for more than 60 years at that point, being propped up by western defeatism and myopia. And an Italian Pope as an almost certain alternative to Cardinal Wojtyla would not have had the standing in eastern Europe to affect much change at all.

Most determinists reject this kind of counterfactualism for good reason. Such speculation can’t be quantified or measured. At the same time though, given the larger than life personalities of the three, can anyone really imagine the same thing happening at any other time with any other leaders?

Cross-Posted at Blogger News Network

Poor Glenn Reynolds.

It’s tough being the #1 right of center blog. Everyone begging for links. Thousands of emails a day.

And now, this.

It’s the best send up I’ve seen since the National Lampoon did a spoof on the New York Times. Keep scrolling and clicking…you won’t be disappointed.

AND FROM THE “TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION” DEPARTMENT…

When I first saw this, I was sure it was real.

Guess again!

Now…will Paul and the Commissar cut it out so we can go on with our miserable, lonely lives?

The death of Terri Schiavo was an individual tragedy of unknowable proportions for her family. Losing a daughter the way the Schindlers did should never happen to a parent. It came down very simply to the fact that her husband Michael, with the full force and support of the judicial branch of the government of the United States of America decreed that this person - a living, breathing human being who probably had no conscious thought for 15 years but nevertheless existed - would be better off dead.

No amount of sophistry on the part of libertarians can erase the fact that they either stood by in a sort of dazed neutrality or actively supported the idea of Ms. Schiavo’s forced departure from this world. Using a radical objectivism as an intellectual shield, libertarians came up with ever more novel interpretations of federalism and conservative governance for their positions until, like their ideological adversaries on the left, they resorted to name calling and character assassination to get their points across.

There were many things that troubled me about this matter. In fact, many of the same concerns that caused some of these Republican centrists to recoil at the rhetoric and tactics of the religious right also bothered me, a conservative agnostic. But what was never an issue for me or for many of my non-religious socially conservative allies was the cramped, narrow interpretation of life espoused by the libertarians and how that definition led directly to the deliberate starvation of Terri Schiavo.

The fact that libertarians have now resolved one of the greatest scientific questions of our age - what constitutes consciousness - should be a cause for celebration. Couple that with another huge breakthrough in the field of psychic research that allowed these specially gifted people to peer into the mind of Terri Shiavo and assure us that she was no longer human enough to matter, and you have the perfect rationalization for decreeing unequivocally that Ms. Schiavo is an ex-human being and thus, if not a willing participant in her own judicially sanctioned death at least an uncaring bag of water and bones easily discarded.

And what if these super scientific sleuths and soothsayers were wrong? Oh well, we’re assured, she’s in a “better place” or, more honestly, she’s “out of her misery.”

I find it inexplicable that a rational person can say that someone who’s not human any more because she has no conscious thoughts can at one and the same time be in “misery.” As for being in a better place, not believing there’s life after death has its advantages, namely that no one would dare say such a thing as a rationale to kill me.

Perhaps the most troubling and revealing aspect of this entire tragedy has been the dismissive and condescending attitude toward social conservatives on the part of libertarians. Why is this so? The anger of the religious right felt by people like Glenn Reynolds, Ann Althouse, Bill Quick, over their position is, in my opinion, uncalled for but understandable given the emotions that this issue has brought to the surface among social conservatives. If I may be allowed, I’d like to put some of those emotions into an intellectual and historical context that will make some sense to our libertarian brethren.

America has gone beyond being a cultural wasteland. We’re now a full blown toxic waste dump, a veritable cesspool of poisonous images, noxious ideas, and venomous conceits. The corruption of our culture has proceeded willy-nilly without regard for the sensibilities of a huge minority of loyal American citizens - perhaps as many as 20 million Christian Evangelicals - whose rising concern about the inescapable nature of our mass media and the influence it has on their children has caused them to become politically active.

And what do they get for their trouble? Ridicule, hostility, and the back of the hand from some of the same people who come to them every two or four years and ask them for their vote. In addition, the sneering media’s preternatural pretensions regarding their own sophistication and worldliness give them license to portray these individuals as dupes who believe in some kind of primitive superstitious nonsense.

To make a mockery of someone’s deeply held beliefs would ordinarily be frowned on by these very same critics and sages. But since this target of mirth and derision are Christians, a double standard emerges that’s obvious to all except the most willfully self-deluded.

I wouldn’t be the first person to point out that religious conservatives are not well served by the majority of their leaders. But couldn’t the same be said for African Americans, women, and other minorities? I can’t tell you how many times I heard over the last two weeks what a dangerous extremist Randall Terry is. The fact that I also believe him to be a self-promoting charlatan is besides the point. Randall Terry does not speak for the majority of religious conservatives despite the efforts to portray him in such a light.

Other, less radical and more thoughtful leaders of the pro-life and anti-sleaze movements don’t get air time because, let’s face it, they’re not “sexy” enough. Cardinal George here in Chicago is an extremely articulate spokesman for the pro-life position. But because he’s not a shouter nor a polemicist on the issue of abortion, he rarely gets interviewed. This is a man who heads up an Archdiocese of more than 2 million Catholics and yet gets sort shrift in the media.

The same could be said for dozens of protestants, Catholics, and Christian laity who work tirelessly and selflessly to improve the quality of our culture. Being pro-choice, I don’t agree with many of their positions on abortion. But I respect them as advocates. And on issues where we do agree like trying to clean up the toxicity of our culture, I generally sympathize if not support their efforts.

And what are these efforts? Do they lobby the FCC to enforce the law? Why yes they do! It would seem then that our libertarian brethren are very selective on which aspects of the constitution they would like to be strictly construed. I guess the law authorizing the FCC to insure that the airwaves are regulated in the public interest doesn’t fall into the category of strict constructionist but rather individual taste. So when various Christian media watchdogs request that the FCC enforce its own rules against indecency are they just being blue noses or do they have a point?

I can’t tell you how many commenters on this site as well as other blogs have decided that since I supported Terri’s right to live I’m somehow part of this monolithic threat to our liberties known as the Christian right. And I also would have problems telling you how many non-religious social conservatives like myself have been flabbergasted by being lumped into this group, pigeon-holed by intellectually lazy people who are looking so far down their nose at the Christians, they’ve missed the rest of us who are concerned, even frightened by the state of the culture and the direction it’s taking.

If this is a war that’s begun between social conservatives and our more libertarian minded brothers and sisters than so be it. We didn’t start it. We didn’t want it. But because of the stakes involved, we’ll fight with everything we have.

And if it tears the Republican party apart, amen to that too. We were back benchers for 50 years. I kind of like the view.

Cross-Posted at Blogger News Network

UPDATE: 4/6

John Hawkins weighs in on this issue, jumping in with both feet:

On issues where they philosophically agree with conservatives, like taxes, free markets, & shrinking the size of governments, Libertarians tend to be impossible to please purists. On the other hand, in many areas where Libertarians philosophically disagree with conservatives, like open borders, legalizing hard drugs, & legalizing prostitution, their beliefs equal political death for almost any Republican who espouses them at the national level.

I made the point in a comment that the libertarians influence in the blogosphere far exceeds their numbers. And the libertarians current attack on Senator Cornyn, joining their supposed adverseries on the far left, is indicitive of how far the libertarians are now willing to go to attack social conservatives.

Marvin Moonbat is back! After a short spring break hiatus, Marvin is once again in the House!

LEAVING YOUR HEART IN SAN FRANCISCO (By Marvin Moonbat)

Well, I’m back from my vacation and and let me tell you, it was a life changing experience for me and Chloe.

First, we went to Acapulco. Nice place, kind of rowdy with all the kids, but very relaxing nonetheless. Chloe accidentally got sunburned and suffered a panic attack because she figured it was her death warrant what with the hole in the ozone layer and all. So we went to see this Shaman who for the nominal fee of $10 gave Chloe a salve made of…well, we weren’t exactly sure what was in it. It looked like a goat turd, had the consistency of cat vomit, and smelled like donkey piss. Anyway, the guy was nice. He said for another $10 he would do this Indian ritual thing where he would banish the evil spirits and everything. I kind of doubted it, what with my prejudice against religion. But Chloe’s in to this sort of thing and he went ahead.

First, the guy sort of hopped around on one foot then another, chanting some kind of weird incantation that sounded like “The people…united… will never be defeated” or at least that kind of rhythm if you get my drift. Then he started to howl like a wailing banshee and bashing this club about 6 inches from Chloe’s head, who was lying on the ground next to this monster campfire. Chloe looked pretty serene, like she was really diggin’ it. Me? The dude was scaring the crap out of me. Chloe is a very trusting sort having lived a sheltered life in a commune with her mother. But I grew up in Chicago. You tend to be a little more cynical about people if you meet enough of them.

Anyway, the holy man finished with his “Out damn Devil” rant and then threw some stuff into the fire that caused this huge shower of sparks. It kinda made me wish we had smoked that killer weed we got on the beach before we came. It would have been even more awesome. Afterward, the Shaman assured Chloe that she’d never get cancer and could he please have $25 for performing the ceremony. When I kind of mentioned that he had said it would be $10 the guy got real animated and said that gringos always come down and try to rip off the brown people. Chloe agreed and made me give the guy $50 just for getting him mad.

Never argue with a woman with a killer sunburn and who smells of donkey piss. You’ll lose every time.

Anyway, Mexico was OK. From there, Chloe decided she wanted to see her mother who lived in this commune outside of San Francisco. I was kind of down on the whole idea. I mean, I may be a progressive with anarchist tendencies, but these people in the commune are out there. They’ve not only rejected modern society, some of them have rejected humanity. They’ve taken on the appearance and characteristics of animals. One guy thought he was a dog and not only barked at strangers, but also pissed on your leg if you weren’t careful. Some woman thought she was an aardvark. She kept sticking a straw in her nose and putting it down the holes of anthills. Then there was this guy who thought he was a porcupine. He had taken the art of body piercing to an extreme that even I didn’t think was possible.

Chloe’s mother was pretty normal, though. She was cool about Chloe and I sleeping together, although since we all slept in the same great big bed I didn’t have much desire to play “hide the kielbasa” what with her mother sleeping right next to us.

The highlight of our vacation was definitely our trip to San Francisco. Walking through the Haight-Asbury district, I felt like weeping. These are my kind of people, I thought. This is where I belong. There were hippies, yippies, punks, whole earthers, greens, goons, gang bangers, rappers, religious nuts, and a whole slew of tourists. It was like these good people were putting on a show, taking us back to a time when progressives were in power and people actually listened to what we had to say.

Ah… those were the days! Days of Rage. Days of Thunder on the Left. Free Love! Cheap Dope! Down with the “Man!” It was so inspiring, I wanted to move out here just to be a part of it all.

Then I realized those days are pretty much gone now. If you looked closely, you could see the grey hair and wrinkles on the faces of the flower children. And the younger folk didn’t seem so committed to the cause as they were to trying to scrounge a living by pan handling the tourists.

This is why I like the anarchists. At least they’re committed to a cause. Just what that cause is I couldn’t tell you. Even after Chloe and I went to the Anarchist Book Fair and sampled a few tracts from some anarchist authors, we still couldn’t quite figure them out. I know what they’re against. They hate government. They loathe technology. They despise modernity. I just couldn’t figure out what they were for…except they were for anything America was against which made perfect sense to me.

To try to learn more, Chloe and I went to hear Ward Churchill speak. When the great man entered the room, the place erupted into a prolonged, heartfelt applause that nearly brought tears to my eyes. Now here was a guy who spoke truth to the man! I found out so much I didn’t know about American history. You know, the good stuff, the stuff they don’t put into the history books. Why if I didn’t know better, I’d say that Professor Churchill was making the stuff up as he went along. He made it clear that when he was talking about “Little Eichmann’s” at the twin towers on 9/11 he wasn’t talking about the “little people” like janitors and food service workers or maintenance people. They were innocent. After all, they’re part of the oppressed masses who don’t even know they’re oppressed.

At least, I think that’s what he was talking about. It was kind of hard to follow what with the Prof jumping from topic to topic talking about killing indians one minute and then talking about killing Arabs the next. Sort of reminded me of this crazy comparative lit teacher I had last year who, after spending an entire class talking about how to make a tin foil hat more effective against government “death rays” that would penetrate your brain if you weren’t careful, was dragged off in a strait jacket by guys in white coats. I didn’t see any white coats coming for Professor Churchill, although there was a rumor going around that his 3rd wife used to call him “Psych Ward.”

Anyway, all in all it was a great experience. Chloe got to see her mother and meet a real live Shaman (I threw the cat vomit salve away the minute her sunburn was better). And I got to see San Francisco and dream of a time when I can go and live there with all the other progressives in perfect love and harmony.

So it’s back to reality. I’m already late to my “History of American Genocide” class. I get to find out how the prof liked my paper I submitted for mid terms called “War on Terror: Showing Terrorists Respect is Better than Killing Them.”

I should get an “A+” for the title alone.