Monthly Archives: August 2003

It would seem that the most obvious precept in a direct election, such as our recall here in the Golden State, is to get more votes than all your opponents. Yet, this rather elementary principle seems to be lost (as are many concepts) on the Republican leadership and its candidates.

As things now stand, if Governor Davis is removed—and this seems quite likely—Cruz Bustamante, the only Democrat running, will become our next governor. This will surely happen since the Republican vote will be divided among at least three contenders: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom McClintock, and Peter Ueberroth. How much confidence can you have in anyone who does not understand simple arithmetic?

Of course, even if one of these men did get elected by some miracle, nothing would change in California except that there would be a few more vetoes. A new governor, even if he were McClintock, who is the best candidate and the most conservative of the lot, could hardly overcome the unbelievably left-wing state legislature.

I believe that at its roots, California is far more conservative than many people—especially the pundits—think. Look no further than the overwhelmingly approved propositions that cut taxes and proscribed certain benefits to illegal aliens. The problem is that the state Republican organization is so rotten that one can make a credible case that it is merely fronting for the Democrats. How else can you explain the atrocious candidates that it puts up on a regular basis, and the deathly lackluster campaigns that it wages?

Would you believe that in a recent contest for state assembly, in a district that is predominantly upper middle class, the Democratic incumbent championed tax increases and advocated essentially outlawing sport utility vehicles? This, in an area where perhaps 30 percent of the electorate owns an SUV, and where there is located one of the largest concentrations of auto dealers in the state? Despite these seemingly disastrous stands, she garnered nearly 80 percent of the vote.

While California’s Republican party has its own unique brand of world class incompetence, there is plenty of room for criticism on the national level. Put in a nutshell, the Republican party doesn’t stand for anything, save not wanting to offend any potential group of voters, no matter how insignificant. As they would say in football, they are not trying to win, but instead are trying not to lose.

No doubt, individual Republican officeholders and candidates might be pro-life, pro-business, and tough on immigration, but there is simply no general policy on any issue. As hard as this might be to swallow for many conservatives, the Republicans have no principles. The Democrats, on the other hand most clearly DO have principles, even if they are abhorrent to us. They are pro-abortion, extreme gay rights advocates, pro-entitlements, anti-business, and atheist, to name but a few. And let me assure you, they don’t give a rip if this turns off people on our side. They have concluded—correctly—that they will never get our votes, anyway.

Several commentators have shown that had George W. Bush received a scant three percent more of the White vote in the 2000 presidential election, he would have achieved an electoral landslide. Yet, precious resources were wasted, and an election nearly lost, because so much time was spent on pandering, quite pointlessly, to Hispanics and Blacks, who nonetheless voted overwhelmingly Democratic.

The stunning inadequacy of Karl Rove and company reflects not stupidity, but rather the arrogant insularity resulting from a morbid and feckless credentialism, endemic to more than just political institutions. Amazingly enough, the findings of the preceding paragraph could be presented to these fatheads, and mathematically proven beyond all doubt, but still to no avail. Their rejoinder? “Hey, smart guy, how many presidential campaigns have you worked on?”

You know how a candidate can guarantee a victory in the California recall election, that would even overcome the split Republican ticket? Easy. Take a strong stand against illegal immigration.

Want another guarantee? No one will take this position. After all, he might offend someone who wouldn’t vote for him anyway.

If you are in need of a current snapshot as to what’s wrong with America, look no further than the events currently unfolding in Montgomery, Alabama. Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore has been ordered by U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson to remove his Ten Commandments monument from its public site in the Alabama Judicial Building. It takes a perverted and tortured reading of the First Amendment indeed to conjure up the sick notion that displaying these ancient precepts, the fundamental basis of civilization as we know it, would somehow violate the establishment clause.

James Madison might be spinning in his grave, but this it what is wrought when atheist plaintiffs petition their atheist government. And trust me, it is not lost on the citizens of Alabama that the miserable spirit of Dishonest Abe is very much in play, as the Feds once again usurp the state officials. Arguably, during the civil rights struggles of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, such intervention might have been justified, even if the Feds mostly stayed away from Northern segregation, but this time, whose rights are being violated? Those of a few atheist hotheads?

You might ask yourself how things got this screwed up. The massive Federal power grab, of course, originated with Lincoln, and by now is so much an ingrained feature of the United States, and so accepted by so many, that we can do little more than grin and bear it. As to the empowering of the Left, the reasons are much more recent—about 100 years after the Civil War—and are all because of the Vietnam War.

The Rosenberg spy case, the revelation of the terrible deeds of Joseph Stalin, and the election of JFK, an establishment liberal in 1960, effectively put a stake through the heart of the activist/loony Left. They would be energized by the civil rights demonstrations, but after President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964, there was really not much to protest. December, 1964 would see some arrests connected with Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement, but our escalation in Vietnam, starting in 1965, provided the real spark.

With little stated sense of purpose, no apparent resolve, and nothing quite as spectacular as Pearl Harbor to inflame positive public opinion, the government was clearly losing the propaganda battle, and by 1967, there was significant and growing opposition to the war.

Ironically, the enemy’s Tet offensive of January, 1968 ended in a cataclysmic defeat that should have been exploited by us. However, by March, Johnson, bowing to public opinion that seemed to be influenced by the ferocity of Tet and not the end result, began the de-escalation process. 1970 brought militarily smart, if not good PR incursions into Laos and Cambodia, along with the infamous Kent State protests. The peace talks in Paris, which had started in late 1968, were definitely affected by the enemy’s perception of the deteriorating mood on our home front, and dragged on and on.

A ceasefire was negotiated in January, 1973, and by the end of that year, there were few US troops still deployed in the region. Without US support, South Vietnamese resistance melted away, and by April 30, 1975 it was all over except for the pathetic images of US personnel, including the ambassador, being evacuated by helicopter from the roof of the embassy, along with throngs of people loyal to us trying to storm the embassy to avoid their sad fates at the hands of the new Communist government.

Although we suffered 58,000 deaths, and over 300,000 wounded, the elite media garnered great ratings with up-to-the minute combat footage. Meanwhile, even though it is indisputable (from intelligence briefings following the fall of the Soviet Union) that major antiwar demonstrations were supported by the evil empire, it somehow became quite legitimate, for the first time in American history, for an individual to not only be antiwar, but be virulently anti-American. Thus free of all former restraints, the New Left burst on the scene and gradually took over the Democratic party and the major media.

One can only speculate as to what this country might be like now, absent the criminal mishandling of the Vietnam War.

Maybe you’ve heard about this movie, scheduled for release next year on Ash Wednesday, that former Catholic Mel Gibson promises will be the definitive screen treatment of Christ’s passion and death.

Predictably, most of the elite media are in a frenzy over this, and, just as predictably, are wrong on almost everything. As an informed Catholic layman, allow me to set the record straight on several issues.

LA times media writer and noted Leftie Tim Rutten’s column of August 6th is typical of the media reaction. Most of the commentary in his article is based on reaction to an early script that was circulated by Gibson—a script that was changed before filming. A number of people (referred to by Rutten as “right-wing” commentators) including Peggy Noonan, Kate O’Beirne, Linda Chavez, Matt Drudge, Laura Ingram, and Rush Limbaugh, have actually seen the film. None of them was consulted for the article. One would assume that they liked the movie. As it is, nothing positive about the pic was contained in his article.

The first concern raised is that of “anti-Semitism.” Regardless of how much one sugarcoats the story, and MUCH sugarcoating has gone on in the last 40 years, it is impossible to escape the fact that Jesus ran afoul of the Jewish establishment, which was quite interested in His demise. To be sure, Jesus died for all of us, and had to die as part of the divine plan, but to remove culpability from the Jews—whether this refers to the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, or the Mob—is specious sentimental theology of the worst order.

There is nothing in Vatican II that absolves ALL Jews of ALL guilt. Rather, the point is that Jesus had to die, and died for the sins of all. Still, it must be said that many conciliar documents appear to be written purposely in a manner to promote confusion. If Gibson has problems with certain Vatican II documents, he is in good company, but this is no reason to leave the Church. By leaving the Church, he is not a “devout Catholic,” but is only a heretic.

Rutten then mysteriously ties in Gibson, and other members of splinter groups, with the late Boston Jesuit priest, Fr. Leonard Feeney. Despite a wealth of material that would have been available to Rutten given 15 minutes of Internet research, he repeats the terrible calumny that Feeney was “rabidly anti-Semitic,” and was “excommunicated in 1953 by Pope Pius XII for preaching heresy.” How sad that these lies are still being spread 25 years after Feeney’s death.

In the mid-1940’s, Feeney was regarded as a premier Jesuit theologian, and a star of the order. However, by late in that decade, he got into trouble with the hierarchy of the Boston archdiocese for at least two reasons: He was converting Protestant offspring of Boston Brahmins, and the parents were complaining to then Archbishop Cushing. At the same time, Feeney was openly making a big fuss about the ordination of many gay priests. (You think he was on to something?)

Feeney was never formally excommunicated, and, in fact, late in life was publicly “brought back” into the Church, in an embarrassing episode, that was done mostly to ease the conscience of the miserable Boston chancery, that up until the recent resignation of Cardinal Law, stunk to high heaven. Still, the mere talking about possible excommunication, along with forged or incomplete documents was enough to create the calumny on Feeney. Likewise, the fact that Feeney engaged Jews on the issue of their own salvation, might have been enough to earn him the label “anti-Semitic.”

Gibson is attacked for the views of his father, Hutton, said to be a

“well-known traditionalist theologian,” who also happens to be a Holocaust denier and sedevacantist, (“the seat is empty” in Latin), who believes there has been no pope since the conclave that elected John XXIII was subverted by a Jewish/Masonic conspiracy.

It is irresponsible in the extreme to refer to a heretic as “traditionalist.” As far as the “Holocaust denier” moniker, one must be very careful. Some, like Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, would use that term to describe anyone as innocent as a reader who noted inconsistencies in the diary of Anne Frank, yet the term implies to the uninitiated that he believes that no Jews were killed by Hitler. In all candor, I have no idea what Hutton Gibson believes on this issue, but given the rest of his statements, would assume the worst.

As to sedevacantism, this is simply nonsense, and, in this context, near atheism, since Jesus promised that the gates of Hell would not prevail over the Church.

Finally, Rutten makes the ridiculous mistake of attributing the doctrine extra ecclesiam nulla salus (outside the church there is no salvation) to Feeney, even though it is an infallibly defined Church doctrine, going back to the beginning of the Church. Admittedly, it is surely soft-pedaled in these times of goopy sentimental theology.

Feeney became inexorably identified with this doctrine, when he tried to justify his evangelizing to Cushing and his Jesuit superiors. Infamously, Cushing and company, ever worried about human respect, and being invited to the right cocktail parties, retreated from this doctrine, at the peril of their souls. Ironically, in the ceremony which supposedly brought Feeney back into the Church, he recited the Athanasian creed, which essentially echoes extra ecclesium nulla salus.

Rutten could have made the point that Gibson is defying this very doctrine by leaving the Church, but that would have interrupted the nonstop mudslinging.

Judging from the pre-release hysteria, I’m almost looking forward to the reviews more than the movie.

With the proliferation of feature films now available on pre-recorded DVD and video cassettes, most of us have a reasonably large home collection of our favorite flicks, ready to be watched at any time. DVD, especially, has allowed us to hone in on specific scenes that we like, and we can skip over the dull parts.

However, this bountiful harvest has been a mixed blessing, for we have also discovered that a goodly number of these movies become a whole lot less “favorite” upon repeated viewing. Simply put, certain of them do not stand up to close scrutiny. Perhaps we have finally noticed a ridiculous continuity error, such as a smashed up car re-emerging without a dent in the next scene, or maybe, once we don’t have to concentrate on the now familiar plot details, we discern that a particular performance is excruciatingly awful. Anyway, you get the idea.

Many examples could be cited, of course, and I love a bad movie as much as the next guy, so feel free to send me your worst. The point of all this is that many films, like so much else we encounter, don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Which brings us to the always current issue of “rights.”

World War II ended with an overwhelming Allied victory, bringing with it greater expectations on behalf of the American populace, especially those who belonged to the traditionally downtrodden racial and ethnic minority groups. It should be noted, in passing, that it was frightfully easy for many Americans to overlook what happened to Eastern Europe and China, and overlook it they most surely did.

By the late 1950’s, the cause of Southern Blacks was taken up by the elite media, even if there was almost no coverage of the appalling ghetto conditions of these same ethnics in the North. 90 years after the Civil War, regional prejudices were still in play, and “civil rights” referred pretty much to the South.

Predictably and sadly, the Movement focused on legal remedies and tokenism (later to be swelled to quotas), but did little then, and does little now, to address economic, social, or cultural issues. Indeed, during the height of the Black Power days, more practical individuals started talking about Green Power—and in those days, “green” meant money. The Movement placed many Black officeholders and media figures, but gave precious little shrift to the common man. Scandalously silent on the issues of broken Black families, and the less than reverent place that education is held in the hood, the Movement should take no credit—but it does—for the developing Black middle class.

The so-called Black leadership sold their souls to the Democratic party, which realized that absent a “rights” struggle, they had nothing whatsoever to offer the American public. To survive, they spawned an ever burgeoning list of oppressed groups, including women, Hispanics, the handicapped, homosexuals (later dubbed “gays”), illegal aliens, criminals, and addicts.

Before long, the Declaration of Independence’s notion that

“…Men are…endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness…”

all but disappeared. Instead, the almighty Government is now the grantor of Rights, even if it does have occasional lapses like Ruby Ridge, Jim Crow, the internment of the Japanese, medical experiments on G.I’s, and a confiscatory taxation system.

While the Creator is already infinite, the Government is not quite there yet, and must grow, so the definition of “rights” can only expand. What started off as the purview of the Democrats has leaked over to the other side of the aisle, and the parties have become the more Socialists and the (slightly) less Socialists.

Caught up in this whirlwind is the magnification of gay rights from assuring administrative non-discrimination, to being granted all the privileges of heterosexual marriage. Few politicians, being craven by nature, have spoken out strongly on this matter, but to its credit, the Vatican has taken the correct and hard stand.

For those of us who live in the USA, though, we can follow the historical time line from July 4, 1776 to the present. In 227 years, we have gone from rebelling against a government that denied us our God-given rights, to living under an atheist government that claims to grant them in the first place.

So, there’s your scrutiny. Only this time, it’s not a movie, it’s real life.