INTERESTING reflections by John C. Wright on the demise of rational atheism and the decline of thought: In my youth, it was possible for a man to believe in absolute truth without believing in God. All rational atheists so believe. In the modern climate, it is realized that the belief in absolute truth forces one eventually to recognize absolute standards in moral law, that is, a law unbound by time and space, and the existence of such standards logically imply a law-giver to whom one is morally bound to obey, but the only lawgiver unbound by time and space must be a supernatural one: a god. While it is a logically self-consistent philosophical position to hold, as I did, that moral law can be objective without a God to legislate it, one finds that the intellectual elite of the West cannot maintain that position: because the emotional reason why they wished to escape from God in the first place  was because they wished to escape the moral law. In order to promote and protect sin, even well educated men, once they lose the belief in God, soon find themselves unwilling, or perhaps unable, to articulate any rational reason defending the position. The habit of argumentation falls to one side. Schools no longer teach it, and men can get doctorates these days without ever once, not once, participating in an honest question and answer about any intellectual matter. The ability to entertain an…

IS the familiar conversational rule that one must "never talk politics or religion" the product of a conspiracy? Some reflections at a blog called The Liberty Bell.

  A READER from France sends his tribute to the much-maligned white male.

IT IS no dishonor to those who bravely fought in World War II to recall the arguments on this Veteran’s Day by those who were against American intervention in the war and who at one point represented the vast majority of Americans. Charles Lindbergh was one of the most vocal opponents of American involvement as part of the America First movement.

Here is the full text of his speech on the subject in Des Moines, Iowa on September 11, 1941. Some excerpts:

National polls showed that when England and France declared war on Germany, in 1939, less than 10 percent of our population favored a similar course for America. But there were various groups of people, here and abroad, whose interests and beliefs necessitated the involvement of the United States in the war. I shall point out some of these groups tonight, and outline their methods of procedure. In doing this, I must speak with the utmost frankness, for in order to counteract their efforts, we must know exactly who they are.

The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration.

Behind these groups, but of lesser importance, are a number of capitalists, Anglophiles, and intellectuals who believe that the future of mankind depends upon the domination of the British empire. Add to these the Communistic groups who were opposed to intervention until a few weeks ago, and I believe I have named the major war agitators in this country.

I am speaking here only of war agitators, not of those sincere but misguided men and women who, confused by misinformation and frightened by propaganda, follow the lead of the war agitators. (more…)

SEBASTIAN C. writes:

I was an acquaintance of the late Lawrence Auster here in New York.  Notwithstanding my many contributions to his extraordinary website, Larry eventually banished me because of our irreconcilable differences over 9/11, an event I lived through first-hand at and around 180 Maiden Lane.  I was one of those people covered in white soot, and became a “truther” by the end of the day after seeing the second airplane from my office window, the strange demolition, learning that WTC 7 had been “pulled” (and reported as destroyed prior to its demolition), that Cheney had assumed command of Norad, and that the Pentagon had been hit by…something…anyway.  Poor Larry told me he “refused to believe his government would…”  I am delighted your website has continued.  But I am writing about something possibly worse than 9/11, which was, after all, a one-time event.

Here is a video by the very influential Economist magazine.  It features a depressed and confused 24-year-old “tomboy” girl in Belgium who had decided to avail herself of her country’s assisted suicide laws.  The 20-minute documentary is an overt promotion of suicide, in this case state-administered death for a girl with no physical ailments.  That’s right: this is not a cancer or Leukemia patient but simply a girl who’s depressed.  The state has concluded she will not improve (she’s 24!), and gave her the green light to die.  On Death Day (5:00 p.m. sharp), just before the state’s doctor could inject her, she suddenly felt better and decided to go on living, sort of.  The report’s thesis is succinctly stated near the end:  the availability of state-administered suicide helps many patients by letting them know there is a way out.  Those opposing state-administered death are cruel and inhuman.  Suicide for depression is a Human Right.  (That she could have jumped off a ledge of her own accord is never mentioned in the video).

One could fill a book on this with Bertonneauesque comments on the Sickness Onto Death of the West, but really, the thing speaks for itself.  Remember that The Economist is an enthusiastic promoter of mass Muslim migration into Europe and “gay rights in Latin America.”  Of course they would be. They know what they’re doing.

(more…)

ONE of "Pope" Francis's favorite pastimes is to insult Catholics. Now the Pope Francis Insult Generator instantly produces some of his favorite slurs for Catholics and others. At a loss for words? Strike the fatal blow by calling your enemies "uniformists, alternativists and advantagists" or  "querulous and disillusioned pessimists!"

ERIC writes:

There have been a spate of black protests at universities recently. I am struck by the insolence of the protesters and the trivial nature of their grievances.

At Yale, an administrator wrote a memo coaching members of the community to avoid wearing Halloween costumes that might give offense. A female faculty member piped up by email to say that perhaps the university should not be an arbiter of taste (or something to that effect). This brought scorn upon her head, at which point her husband (also on the faculty) stepped in to verbally defend her.

The outcome was this. The arrogance of this woman is breathtaking. What right has she to charge him with discourtesy?

At Missouri, the student body president, a black man who was elected by his fellow students, claimed that he was the target of a drunk yelling racial slurs, and that such has happened to him on campus on other occasions. Additionally, on two occasions a few weeks apart, a swastika was found painted in feces on the wall of a dormitory bathroom in the early morning hours. When a group of protesters tried to confront the University President by blocking his limousine at a parade, he refused to leave his car and kept driving.  (more…)

FROM The New York Times: Weeks of simmering racial tension at Yale University boiled over in recent days into a debate over whether the administration was sensitive enough to concerns about Halloween costumes seen as culturally offensive, students and adminstrators said. Peter Salovey, the president of Yale, said he had been left “deeply troubled” by a meeting he held with students of color last week who were “in great distress.” Many said they did not believe the university was attuned to the needs of minority students. “The experiences they shared went beyond the incidents of the last few days,” he said in a statement. “Their concerns and cries for help made clear that some students find life on our campus profoundly difficult."

ERIC writes:

File this under ‘Things That Did Not Need To Be Invented’. I think we can foresee the outcome of this. It won’t be pretty.

The Housewife has been largely silent on the pressing issue of tattoos, particularly of women. She would not happen to be a painted lady herself, would she?

Just askin.’ (more…)

A young man who lived in a 400-square-foot studio apartment in San Francisco with his wife and two young children comes away from the experience with valuable insights. He and his wife decided that they would forego two incomes and live in a studio apartment for a few years. Many of the lessons they learned are reminiscent of previous discussions here about life in small spaces. For example, tight private space induces people to rely more on public spaces, such as parks, cafes and libraries. (It probably can be proven that public space declines in some ways to the extent that private square footage increases.) Also, tight space forces one to think carefully about possessions and do away with excess. Greg Kroleski also perceptively analyzes the options for redesigning storage and living space.

He and his wife found that as a one-income family they had a harder time qualifying for available apartments.

My wife and I were 27 when our first son was born. Significantly younger than the median San Francisco birthing age of 33. We also made a decision to have my wife stay at home with the children.

Neither of those things are strange for a family in the United States during the last century. But both of those are strange for a San Franciscan in 2015. (more…)

ROSS DOUTHAT of The New York Times deserves credit for trying to explain Catholic doctrine to a group of arrogant pseudo-theologians. What is that real position? That almost anything Catholic can change when the times require it, and “developing” doctrine just means keeping up with capital-H History, no matter how much of the New Testament is left behind. As I noted earlier, the columnist’s task is to be provocative. So I must tell you, openly and not subtly, that this view sounds like heresy by any reasonable definition of the term.

“Boobus Americanus 1: I read a most fascinating column by George Will today in which he draws disturbing parallels between the irrational anti-Semitism of Hitler’s Germany and that of modern day Iran.

“Boobus Americanus 2: George Will is a rare case of a thoughtful conservative. He is one of the most intelligent contemporary American thinkers.”

EXCEPT for the first paragraph, which facetiously refers to Hitler as the “Great One,” this is an awesome smack-down of the columnist George Will by the writer Mike King. (more…)

A UNIVERSITY student from Germany writes:

Alex S. wrote in his article at (originally posted here) on the disastrous situation in Germany. But it is much worse. We are totally deprived of any civil rights as mobs of Africans and Middle Eastern Muslims settle in our country.

The police, controlled by the government of the states (like your state police), not the local communities, do not interfere in many crimes anymore. Most of the officers are concentrated near the border, to welcome the “refugees.” The remaining few protect the politicians and the wealth. Sometimes they are not able to provide enough officers at refugee shelters, so its inhabitants live in a law-free area. The refugees stroll around the cities in large groups, sometimes thirty or more young men.

But why do some people, like a German commenter below Alex S.’s post, think that this is all made up and not true?

Because they are told so by the media – mostly owned by the state or connected to it – and the officials, who lie straight in our faces. Some people are able to to look through the veil of lies, but most fail to do so. The only independent sources are foreign media and a few German sources, which are persecuted by the state. Official statistics are not given anymore, but you hear everyday of new rapes. They attack women and children of every age. I heard from a police officer, who could no longer bear silence, that in a local park they took a 12-year-old boy. In the media, there was nothing about it. (more…)

WHERE are "take back the night" protests and "slut walks" when you need 'em? Soeren Kern reports at The Gatestone Institute: A growing number of women and young girls housed in refugee shelters in Germany are being raped, sexually assaulted and even forced into prostitution by male asylum seekers, according to German social work organizations with first-hand knowledge of the situation. Many of the rapes are occurring in mixed-gender shelters, where, due to a lack of space, German authorities are forcing thousands of male and female migrants to share the same sleeping areas and restroom facilities. Conditions for women and girls at some shelters are so perilous that females are being described as "wild game" fighting off Muslim male predators. But many victims, fearing reprisals, are keeping silent, social workers say. At the same time, growing numbers of German women in towns and cities across the country are being raped by asylum seekers from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Many of the crimes are being downplayed by German authorities and the national media, apparently to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiments.

THE CATHOLIC English blogger Mundabor promotes the false position that if one doesn't like what the pope teaches and notices that he is a heretic, one can just ignore him or go around calling him an "idiot." Novus Ordo Watch trounces him: First, let’s respond to Mundabor’s thesis that you don’t have to listen to the “Pope” (for such he believes Francis to be) “if he’s an idiot”. We will do so simply by quoting what the Popes themselves have taught on this issue, because, believe it or not, after 2000 years, there have actually been a few cases of true Popes who were not that bright intellectually or unworthy morally speaking. This, however, did not mean they were not genuine Vicars of Christ, or that their authority was in any way diminished, nor, a fortiori, that their teachings or decisions could be dismissed or were optional for the faithful ... Speaking of idiocy, the Argentine Bomber is at it again. More from Novus Ordo Watch: When Jorge Bergoglio speaks, it’s always the same Modernist trash we’ve been hearing for decades, albeit in somewhat recycled fashion. We’ve said before that he could work for Hallmark to write shallow greeting cards full of chicken-soup-for-the-soul spirituality. The homily he gave at the Casa Santa Marta today, November 5, 2015, is a perfect example of this. Vatican Radio just published a summary, with long verbatim quotes, of Francis’ latest homily against “exclusion” and for “inclusion”, in which he goes so far as…

THE coed military is a form of cultural warfare. It’s warfare against masculinity, which ironically constitutes the life force of the military — and against femininity too. The sexual harassment bureaucracy in the Armed Forces is ratcheting up its activities, threatening draconian punishment against men who especially annoy women. Perhaps this is all a way of deflecting the public’s attention from the fact that America has engaged in far too much war, but here is one example: An Air Force sergeant and a veteran photographer of the war in Iraq faces up to 15 years in prison and a dishonorable discharge for allegedly making inappropriate advances toward women in his office. Whether Tech. Sgt. Aaron D. Allmon, who was married at the time, is convicted in felony court or not, the case sends the intended message of intimidation and raises a question that will never be publicly asked: How do women belong in the military environment if they cannot protect themselves against unwanted overtures? World Net Daily reports:

A Washington Times examination shows that, over a 14-month span, the women’s accusations, in total, amount to three kisses and six touches, plus a series of reported inappropriate comments of a sexual nature. If the married Sgt. Allmon did what the women said, he was tastelessly hitting on them.

Sgt. Allmon’s sister, Lisa A. Roper, does not believe the women. The business executive in San Antonio, Texas, is her brother’s fiercest defender. She estimates she will spend $200,000 on his legal defense, which includes a former sheriff’s deputy as investigator, a civilian lawyer and a former Army judge advocate who took the case pro bono. Sgt. Allmon is also represented by an Air Force judge advocate. (more…)

GAIL L. AGGEN writes:

While the mortality rate is rising among middle-aged whites who are less-educated, the more educated ones are having their own problems, as this New York Times article, Stressed, Tired, Rushed: A Portrait of the Modern Family illustrates.

Beyond the obvious answers that the dissolution of the family as it traditionally functioned is the major factor in the misery, we might consider what has led to this decline and devolution. Absolutely, the family and our traditional way of life have been shredded by elitist ideology hammering away at us with its hedonistic, anti-God, perverse agenda. I am also thinking, however, about the economic factors that have been so crucial to the family’s collapse. Who or what caused these factors is beyond my level of expertise, but I would like to share some of my thoughts, based on my own experience. (more…)