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The Thinking Housewife
 

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The Greatest Nations on Earth Have Women Soldiers

April 11, 2013

 

North Korea's awesome, incredibly formidable fighting forces (Reuters)

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In Ohio, More Soon-to-be-Forgotten Victims of Black Crime

April 11, 2013

 

JOHN LEHMAN was a 28-year-old with developmental disabilities who worked at a McDonald’s on West Market Street in Akron, Ohio when he was taking the trash out of the rear exit of the restaurant last Saturday night. A black male in an SUV drove up as he opened the door and gunned him down. Lehman was shot three times and died immediately, leaving his humble existence in a dramatic and gruesome way.

No one has been arrested in the shooting and it is probable that Lehman, who had worked at the McDonalds for ten years, did not know the man who killed him, except perhaps as a customer. Lehman was one of four whites in Akron murdered by blacks over the course of six days, according to the Council of Conservative Citizens. The victims include Jeffrey and Margaret Schobert, an Akron attorney and his wife who were beaten to death with a sledgehammer by the boyfriend of their adopted daughter. Their bodies were discovered in their bed by workers renovating their home. Mrs. Schobert had just returned from the hospital, where her adopted daughter was recovering from stab wounds inflicted by a black male at a party.

This wave of black violence is not uncommon, but you will find no uproar or indignation in the national news. While Trayvon Martin was a hero, John Lehman will probably be remembered by no one but his friends, family and the people who lived in the neighborhood. Are any of these crimes “hate crimes?” Well, let’s just say the assailants did not love their victims.

Of course, anyone who points out these crimes as racial crimes and acts of hatred is inevitably labeled as angry and psychologically sick. Whereas anyone who remembers those blacks lynched by whites many years ago is considered a noble advocate of justice. In reality, those who refuse to decry or even acknowledge these modern-day black crimes are the ones who are psychologically deformed, rejecting at a deep inner level the humane and civilized aversion to depravity and cruelty. We are a nation that routinely overlooks disgusting acts of extreme and barbaric human cruelty. As Lawrence Auster wrote in a 1998 essay, “Multiculturalism and the Demotion of Man,” Americans must participate in a form of “self-hypnosis” to maintain this denial:

This, at its Orwellian core, is the mindset that enables contemporary whites never to entertain a negative conclusion about blacks, while always making whites themselves responsible for blacks’ moral and intellectual failings. This (in Joseph Sobran’s useful coinage) is alienism: “a prejudice in favor of the alien, the marginal, the dispossessed, the eccentric, reaching an extreme in the attempt to ‘build a new society’ by destroying the basic institutions of the native.” This is the intellectual and spiritual environment which, combined with racial diversification, has turned America into the opposite of itself – into the anti-white, anti-Christian, anti-rational, anti-American anti-nation that is Multicultural America.

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A Glimpse of Political Dignity

April 11, 2013

 

WILL G. writes:

Mark Steyn provided this link of Margaret Thatcher that I thought you might appreciate.  Steyn compares her to politicians dancing on Ellen’s talk show.
 

Feminism Destroys Nations

April 10, 2013

 

THE head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Vladimir Kirill, is quoted by Interfax News Agency as saying yesterday:

I consider this phenomenon called feminism very dangerous, because feminist organisations proclaim the pseudo-freedom of women, which, in the first place, must appear outside of marriage and outside of the family.

Man has his gaze turned outward – he must work, make money – and woman must be focused inwards, where her children are, where her home is. If this incredibly important function of women is destroyed then everything will be destroyed – the family and, if you wish, the motherland.

It’s not for nothing that we call Russia the motherland.

 

Home at Last

April 9, 2013

 

ANIBETH writes:

Your writings have had a profound impact on me during the eight months or so I have been visiting your site. I am a traditionalist, married mother. But I have not been confident in this role. I have berated myself for years for not being a “successful” career woman, all the while being an “I-am-my-kid’s-mom” mother. I shuddered at the thought of dumping my child with someone else while I pursued my dream. I loved my child with an intensity that truly did hurt. I protected the innocence which our world tries so hard to steal away. I’ve homeschooled.

Through all this there was always the underlying yearning to be the full me. To do that thing I was meant to do if I could only find the time in the evening, early morning or when it was my off week at homeschool co-op. Read More »

 

April 9, 2013

 

Mrs. Humphrey Devereux, John Singleton Copley; 1771

 

The Future of Marriage in America

April 9, 2013

 

AS THE U.S. Supreme Court ponders Hollingsworth v. Perry and whether states have the authority to prohibit same-sex unions, it’s important to remember that, whatever the outcome of this decision, there is a marriage crisis in this country that will not be resolved by a Supreme Court decision upholding California’s Proposition 8. The states already actively discourage marriage and encourage immense damage to it. Divorce is a full-blown government industry.

Civil marriage has devolved into an individualistic, cruel and oppressive free-for-all. The solution is not better divorce laws. The solution is to return to an older model, in which marriage is a vow upheld before the non-governmental authorities of God, family, community and church. George Washington didn’t have a state marriage license, and you don’t need one either.

See Jeremy Morris’s excellent and persuasive defense of ecclesiastical marriage in this previous entry. He wrote:

I submit to you that God, and the families of origin for both parties have the only real influence and jurisdiction [over marriage.] If their influence in a particular case is insufficient, no true remedy will be had, at least not immediately. The state is notorious for causing minor problems to escalate. When an offended party cries to the state for help the result is the creation of wedge between husband and wife that in most cases can never be removed. Sole custody and child support are not true remedies. Whereas following God’s plan, conscience and family justice ultimately rule the day, whether it be sooner or later.

As for my wife and I, we have chosen the pure form of ecclesiastical marriage, if anyone considers it a “risk” I simply say to them, “You do not have to take the risk.” Read More »

 

Thatcher Reaction, cont.

April 8, 2013

 

WRITING in Slate, Lionel Shriver says that Margaret Thatcher was a model feminist. British feminist commenters also say, in so many words, “Well, she was a powerful woman so she was one of us.” Liberals can’t conceive of a powerful woman who wasn’t a political narcissist so they rush to say she was really one of them.

The truth is, Thatcher did not see women as her favorite interest group and did not believe in restructuring British society so that women could attain power. She was comfortable with men in charge. Unlike Hillary Clinton, who made women her priority as Secretary of State, and unlike Christine LaGarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund who attributed the financial crisis of recent years to too much testosterone, Thatcher rejected the institutionalized enforced equality that is feminism. Thatcher is quoted as saying:

‘The feminists hate me, don’t they? And I don’t blame them. For I hate feminism. It is poison.’

Not only was Margaret Thatcher not feminist in her policies, but her demeanor was manly. She behaved by the standards of a male dominated world, not a world where the likes of Barbara Walters and Nancy Pelosi are in charge. As such, she was not a role model for most women because most women don’t want to be men. Little girls will never long for Margaret Thatcher dolls.

 

Thatcher’s Conservatism

April 8, 2013

 

AS THE press reacts to the death of Margaret Thatcher, a leader of exceptional talents who stands out among powerful women of the 20th century for her rejection of feminism, which she called “poison,” we will find her identified — and demonized — as an arch conservative. Here are interesting comments to the contrary by Peter Hitchens and Lawrence Auster in 2007.

Hitchens wrote a review in The American Conservative of John O’Sullivan’s celebratory book about Reagan, Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister: Three Who Changed the World. In that review, Hitchens stated:

What did Prime Minister Thatcher and President Reagan do for the institution of marriage, rigor in education, adult authority, or the idea that people are responsible for their own actions? Far too little.

What did they do for the idea of national sovereignty without which no proper conservative positions can be defended? Well, Reagan was less to blame in this matter, but Thatcher repeatedly compromised with the European Union’s aggrandizement, which is actually one of the major instances of real great-power aggression in our age. She began the betrayal—now almost complete—of Britain’s own people in Northern Ireland, and even became involved in the campaign for liberal intervention in Yugoslavia, a foreign-policy impulse that led directly to the Iraq fiasco. Read More »

 

Children in Same-Sex “Marriage” Hell

April 8, 2013

 

SEXUAL predators used to have to go to the trouble of luring children in off the streets. Now all they have to do is marry each other and legally adopt children. George Harasz and Douglas Wirth allegedly did just that in Connecticut. The men adopted three sets of male siblings. They are now facing charges of sexual assault, after they withdrew their initial no-contest pleas to lesser charges in a hearing on Friday. According to the New York Daily News:

One of the victims who spoke during the court hearing said sexual assault began when he was 6. Read More »

 

April 7, 2013

 

Doubting Thomas, Guercino

 

Edith Schaeffer

April 7, 2013

 

Edith and Francis Schaeffer

ALTHOUGH I have read several of her husband’s books, I am embarrassed to say I have never read the works of Edith Schaeffer, wife of Francis Schaeffer, the Evangelical Christian thinker who had a gift for deflating philosophical materialism. Mrs. Schaeffer, who died in Switzerland last week at the age of 98, helped her husband run L’Abri, their famous intellectual hostel in Switzerland. She wrote more than two dozen books and ardently defended the role of women at home. She wrote in The Hidden Art of Homemaking:

If you stop putting off homemaking until your hope of marriage develops into a reality, and start to develop an interesting home right now, it seems to me two things will happen: first, you will develop into the person you could be as you surround yourself with things that express your own tastes and ideas; and second, as you relax and become interested in areas of creativity, you will develop into a more interesting person to be with.

Mrs. Schaeffer apparently understood that domesticity is a state of being, not just a state of doing.

Here are some other quotes (page numbers omitted) from the book: Read More »

 

Lawrence Auster, Requiescat in Pace

April 4, 2013

 

Lawrence Auster, in January in New York City

Before us lies eternity: our souls
are love, and a continual farewell.

— “Ephemera,” W.B. Yeats

LAWRENCE AUSTER, traditionalist writer and culture critic, was buried by friends and family on Tuesday, April 2 in Pennsylvania.

His body was carried at 11:30 a.m. into the vestibule of the Holy Cross Catholic Church in Mount Airy in a simple oak coffin made by Trappist monks in Iowa, a fitting enclosure for a man who lived as austerely as a monk, without many of the basics of modern life, such as cell phone, car or cable television. The church was just two miles from the summer home of one of Mr. Auster’s fondest heroes, George Washington, a figure who always inspired him.

In the foyer, his remains were blessed for the first time. Accompanied by a quiet reverence —  a decision was made to forgo music —  the coffin was taken by his friends to the front of the stone Gothic church. Easter lilies decorated the main marble altar.  Large baskets of snapdragons, white chrysanthemums and other flowers flanked the casket.  Artificial illumination of the altar and the sunlight that filtered through the stained-glass windows evoked the significance of the great feast that gives the Church its meaning. The stone walls and wooden beams, dramatically carved with the faces of angels and their wings, enhanced the prayerful atmosphere.

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Freedom Defined

April 1, 2013

 

CHARLES STEVENS writes:

Some thoughts on this Easter:

“He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.” Matthew 28:6

The Resurrection leads us to an ever-present transcendence and perfect freedom. Earthly “freedom” is not what traditionalists and conservatives should be supporting. Freedom as the primary agenda inevitably morphs into license and narcissism.

What we must champion instead is ordered liberty, i.e., the pursuit of optimality. We live in the reality of an imperfect world, where there are always trade-offs, personal choices, responsibilities, and results. But just like Satan himself, leftists tempt the ignorant and naïve with delusions of pure autonomy. “Demand your rights” they insist, “and you shall be free.” Read More »

 

The Easter Lily

March 30, 2013

 

HANNON writes:

In anticipation of Easter, I sent this photo and text to Lawrence Auster earlier this month:

In the Easter spirit, here is a photo of the true Easter Lily, or Madonna Lily, Lilium candidum. This is not the “Easter Lily” of commerce (Lilium japonicum) that is sold in supermarkets at this time. It is a more refined and elegant plant altogether and ranges from the Holy Land to the Balkans. It is not rare in gardens but neither is it seen commonly. The fragrance is heavenly. This flower symbolizes purity for Roman Catholics.

Happy Easter.

Read More »

 

Goodbye, Beloved Friend and Mentor

March 29, 2013

 

Lawrence Auster, March 18, 2013, standing in front of my family's home

MY ENTRY on the death of Lawrence Auster can be found here at VFR. I am also posting it in its entirety below:

LAWRENCE AUSTER: JANUARY 26, 1949 – MARCH 29, 2013

Lawrence Auster died today at 3:56 a.m., Eastern Daylight Time, at a hospice in West Chester, Pennsylvania. His death came after more than a week of rapidly worsening distress and physical collapse caused by the pancreatic cancer he endured for almost three years.

On Monday evening, after arriving at the hospice in the late afternoon, Mr. Auster read and responded to a few emails. He then closed his battered and medicine-stained Lenovo laptop for the last time. “That’s enough for now,” he said, holding his hands over the computer as if sated by an unfinished meal.

He did not expect that to be the last. Read More »

 

Solomon’s Decision for Modern Times

March 27, 2013

 

ALYSSA writes:

I’ve been thinking about the story of King Solomon and the two women who brought a baby before him and were seeking judgment. While one woman thought it was perfectly fair to split the baby in two, the other would rather give the baby up entirely before she saw any harm done to it. I see a shocking parallel in America today. Read More »

 

A Weak Defense of Marriage

March 27, 2013

 

DON VINCENZO writes:

The clock struck 10:01 A.M. on the clock that sits above the chair of the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday, and the Clerk intoned, “All rise,” and with those words the nine Justices of the Court filed into their respective seats that are bracketed by four Doric granite pillars. There was not an empty seat to be found in the Court, for this case had prompted widespread attention not only in the U.S., but from media outlets all over the world.

Read More »