The Ugly Heart of the Left

I recently had a chat with the pastor of our congregation. He made the statement that our church, meaning the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was a "social justice" church. Now, "social" deals with the community. When costs are socialized, that means that they are spread throughout the community, usually in the form of taxes. "Justice" on the other hand is a very individual thing. Only individuals can sin, and only individuals can be judged. Can you imagine an entire community being charged with a crime and put in jail? Thus, social justice is a meaningless term which sounds very noble and high minded, but is actually used to shield a suite of Leftists notions from those who would force the Left to explain them.

Similarly, "sustainability" is such a code word. The article today in the American Thinker today entitled Sustainable Nonsense by Jeffrey Folks provides an good road map of where the Left wants to take us on this journey to "sustainable" energy.

When applied to energy, for example, sustainability has almost nothing to do with the ability of certain fuels to meet the nation's needs over an extended period of time. With the advent of hydraulic fracking, it is obvious to all, including experts at the U.S. Energy Information Administration, that America possesses enough reserves of natural gas to meet our energy needs for at least a century. Our reserves of coal are even greater. Yet neither of these fuels is deemed "truly clean" enough to be a sustainable fuel by environmental groups such as the Sierra Club, nor by Energy Secretary Stephen Chu, judging from his words and actions.

In line with the environmental lobby, the Obama administration has the odd notion that sustainability can be brought about by restricting consumption alone. Driving a full-size Cadillac with a 4.6L V-8 engine, 208" frame, and a cargo capacity of almost 19 cubic feet leaves one with a respectable fuel efficiency of 15 mpg city, 23 mpg highway. That must seem practically criminal, however, to the planet-saving fuel misers in the Obama EPA. A compact hybrid with a reported fuel economy of 51 mpg city, 48 highway may seem to some a better, more sustainable option. But why not a bicycle with no fuel consumption at all? Why not walk and avoid those harmful manufacturing practices necessary to produce a bicycle? Why not walk barefooted and avoid shoes? There is no limit to how far the left will go in stripping us of our liberties and reducing us to Gandhian poverty.

In the 1930s, before much of the South was electrified, and even after for quite a period, most poor farm families used wood stoves to cook their food, and wood or coal stoves to warm their homes. I am amazed that my grandmother was able to bake cakes and breads to perfection without knowing the temperature of the oven.  But, how does burning wood or for that matter, horse dung, fit in with the notion of "sustainability" since these fuels contribute to pollution and global warming?

The ultimate frontier, or "solution," is to legislate the removal of human beings from part or all of the earth's surface. More than a few environmentalist leaders, including our current national science and technology advisor John Holdren, have advocated the reduction of human population to what they consider a "sustainable" level. What the left intends in this regard varies from one policymaker to another (from current global population of nearly 7 billion to somewhere between two billion and a few hundred million, or even none), but in nearly every case the concept of a "sustainable" population involves reductions that cannot be achieved by voluntary means.

One thinks that the real problems of the Left are that they never learned the lessons taught in kindergarten. They never learned to share. Instead, they see the world being utilized by so many, and think how wonderful it would be for them if there were fewer people with whom to share the world's abundance. They are like spoiled children asking their parents why they had to have the other children, and not accepting the answer.  Of course, being adults, they are able to hide behind high minded notions, and noble sounding language, even from themselves.  But at the end of the day, deep in the core of their being, this is the ugly truth of the Left.

Meanwhile, the truth is becoming apparent to almost everyone who pays attention:

"Sustainability," like all pretentious verbiage, is not simply used to suggest a meaning that is not there -- it is also used to hide meanings that would be obvious if not obscured by an impenetrable abstraction. The reality that "sustainable" is meant to mask is simply this: that the earth possesses enough conventional energy resources to supply even an expanding global economy for decades if not centuries to come; that those resources may, over time, become more difficult to exploit, whether for geologic, political, or economic reasons; and that, in time, other sources of energy, some of them now unknown, will supplant fossil fuels, and that those sources will in turn be supplanted by yet other forms.

On American Conservatism

Over at the American Thinker today is an excellent piece on the nature of American Conservatism and its counterpoint, that goes by many names including "liberalism," progressivism, Marxism, Fascism, Socialism, Communism, and whatever they are dreaming up at the moment to try to hoodwink us. The piece, by Joel F. Wade is entitled Yes, in Fact, We Are Radical. It's a theme I have brought up occasionally several times, but I haven't seen an extended article before that makes the point. Conservatives in America are not the same as conservatives in the old world. Old world conservatives are trying to conserve the ancient regime, whether it be the monarchy, or some other autocratic thugocracy. In America, on the other hand, we are trying to conserve a radically new method of governing ourselves.  Yes, the Constitution represents the latest thing in government.  It was such a radical idea, that it was born only because of a fortuitous confluence of men and events, that was never seen before, or will be again.  Indeed, the founders thought of it as Divine Providence.  Almost on its heels, the French revolution fought to replace a monarch with a dictator.  They placed their trust in a man, we placed our trust in God.  But, in Mr. Wade's words:

As conservatives in America today, we seek to conserve our founding principles. This is fundamentally different from, say, a Russian conservative who seeks to conserve the traditional state power of mother Russia, or an Iranian conservative who seeks to conserve his theocracy, or a North Korean conservative who seeks to conserve his communist dictatorship.

In this sense, to be a conservative in America is to be misunderstood. Seeking to conserve our radical founding principles is linguistically confusing. In the same way, to be liberal in America today is philosophically tangled -- they seek to liberalize America by imposing more stringent controls and regulations upon her citizens?

Which gets us to why so-called "liberals" can never say what they are thinking or planning in plain, straight forward language. Because if they did, they know we would react in horror. When Glenn Beck exposed Anita Dunn saying that one of her greatest philosophers was Mao, and knowing what Mao did and stood for, did you not react in horror? When Hilary Clinton says she admires Margaret Sanger, (if you don't know who Sanger was, see here and here.) do you not react in horror. Such people were evil, and anyone who admires them is either terribly misguided, which means they should not be near the reigns of power, or they are evil themselves.

Again, in Mr. Wade's words:

So it's true: we are radicals. Our founding principles -- the vision of our Declaration of Independence and the structure of law based on practical idealism contained in our Constitution, ideals which are consistent with human nature and which transformed the ancient principles of human government at the root -- are the most radical political principles in existence today.

Those who have worked for the past hundred-plus years through progressive policies to undermine and replace our radical vision and structure of human governance are not radicals. They are conservatives of the worst sort. In common parlance, they are control freaks. They have brought political ideals from nineteenth-century autocratic Germany to America and fashioned them as some kind of visionary blueprint for bringing out the best in people.

So the next time someone calls you a radical, you now know what to say. Oh, and by the way, if you are a young man looking to become involved in a radical cause, here ya go.  There is none better.

Update:  On the other side of the coin is the Marxist/Progressive/Fascist/Socialist/Communist or liberal ideal of life, Life under communism by Charlotte Cushman. Go read the whole thing. It made my blood run cold.  This is what you get if you go down the "liberal" route.

Abortion = Murder

Yesterday, after Church, Mrs. PolyKahr and I took our grand daughter out to give daughter and son-in-law a break. We went shopping, had lunch, went to the video arcade as a little treat for the grand daughter, and checked out a neighbor who keeps chickens. Despite numerous admonitions not to chase the chickens, I suspect it is an ingrained instinct for all children to do exactly that. In any case, all of that was to explain why I didn't catch Respect for Life: A Sunday Rumination on Eternity Road. For surely I would have immediately alerted you, to this post. A quote:

Yes, I said killing. There is no deontological distinction between a born baby, whose right to life we would automatically concede, and the unborn infant he was in his mother's womb. Killing the latter is just as morally heinous as killing the former, regardless of what the law might say here, there, or anywhere. There is complete continuity between them, and continuity is identity.

Which is a fancy way of saying that abortion is murder. There is no getting around it as Fran points out above. Go read the whole thing.

An argument that is often made in "defense" of abortion is that a woman should have the same choices as a man when it comes to sex. It isn't "fair" that a man has only such consequences as he agrees to take onto himself, while a woman has to bear 20 years of her consequences for all the world to see.

My,my, where to start?

Cosmic fairness, to use Thomas Sowell's term, can not be achieved in this world. The differing roles of the two sexes is an artifact of our evolution, and can not be changed. To discuss "fairness" in the face of obvious realities is to make an emotional appeal while changing the subject. Now, men do have an obligation here, and to the extent that social norms have broken down and allowed them to shirk their responsibilities, the law must step in and enforce the norms requiring financial support for the woman bearing his child. But the woman doesn't get off the hook either. It takes, as the saying goes, two to tango, and she has already had her choice. She doesn't get a "do over" because it isn't fair and besides, all men are pigs, or whatever the latest feminazi arguments say. Once that choice is made, and a child has formed out of the union of a man and a woman, they each have a duty and an obligation to provide parental care, love and support until the child is grown.

We formed a government in order to secure for ourselves life, liberty and property, I would argue in that order. Isn't it about time our government stood up and started defending life instead of engaging in the culture of death? For more reading from Francis Poretto, aka The Curmudgeon, please check out The Death Cults.

British MEP Hannan Warns Against Nationalized Health (VIDEO)

Well, tonight was Hannity’s turn to get an interview with Daniel Hannan, and
apparently the young PEM is truly flummoxed by his appeal since his
parliamentary dress-down of PM Gordon Brown. What he doesn’t realize is that his warnings against socialism, a huge government and nationalized health care are
resonating with a large portion of America...

Following up on my post here is this, which shows more of the British experience with socialized medicine. Hannity talks about a recent story in the British press where women with breast cancer were to be denied drugs and therapy to deal with it because these things were just too expensive. (sardonic)These women just have to accept it and die, for the good of society no less. So that maybe more money would be available for an after school basketball program for instance. I'm sure most women will see the importance of these programs and go to their graves singing "How Glorious Our Revolution, Comrade."(/sardonic)

The decision in Britain is truly monstrous. But one can see the whole slippery slope from a "right" to abortion, to abortion on demand, to a duty to die. We in America, do not want to go there. Stop nationalized social medicine before it's too late.
read more digg story

Life, Liberty...Not so Much

Cal Thomas has an excellent piece over at Townhall.com explaining the effect of the health provisions contained in the new Porkulus bill. He makes a similar point to the one I did several days ago, namely that once a society assumes the right to arbitrarily murder unborn infants, no one remains safe. The next likely candidate will be the elderly and the infirm. Who knows, maybe eventually we will get Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger's dream of eugenics. Only, of course, the ones to decide will be unelected bureaucrats in Washington.

You can see what is wrong with all this, I hope. What is wrong is that God decides who lives and whose work on earth is done. When man interferes to cut short a life that otherwise might serve God's plans, he takes on an awesome responsibility. Traditionally, we have called taking such responsibility murder.

Update: Laura Hollis also pointed out that all of this "steal from us"bill is designed specifically to impose a Marxist takeover of the United States. Hollis can be read here.