On Martyrdom.

Years ago, back when I went to the YMI day retreats, one of my group leaders asked us if we knew what it meant to be a martyr. Me, always the over-achiever, raised my arm high and proclaimed that it was someone who died for their faith. The missionaries laughed at me. "Not in America!" they proclaimed.

And I think they are right. The idea of feeding Catholics to lions, or burning them to death as was the fate of the Ugandan martyrs, seems highly unlikely. The American character is too averse to such open persecution, and the evil too blatant, to really grab hold in this country. So what does martyrdom look like in America?

(And you are fooling yourself if you think there aren't American martyrs. The world cannot simultaneously hate the Church and tolerate Her presence. A sinner hates nothing more than the guilt of his sin, and cannot help but harbor a grudge against those who reinforce that guilt by denouncing the sin.)

About once a year, a priest from Vladivostok, Russia, makes the tour of Orange County, preaching at parishes, and asking for support for the missionary work in Russia, undoing the evils of the Communists. He tells the story of what happened to the Church in Vladivostok at the beginning of the Revolution. Most of the city's inhabitants were Orthodox—too many to openly persecute—so the Soviets simply bombed the churches. One Easter Sunday, in front of all the faithful, they simply closed the Orthodox churches, save one, and blew them up, to be rebuilt for The Party's use. The Catholics were not so lucky. They were a small minority, and the Communists saw no reason to try and tolerate them. Catholics were simply rounded up and executed, and the city didn't notice much difference.

So there is strength in numbers. It's hard to imagine a relatively peaceful country killing off a fifth of its inhabitants (or even a twentieth, if we only count those who meet the bare minimum requirement of weekly Mass attendance). 60 million (or 15 million) is a lot of graves to fill. But the tactics of the Soviets may lend an insight. If there are too many to round up, simply keep them out of their churches.

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Delusions of Reality

Do you know what the definition of insanity is? No, it's not doing the same thing expecting different results. That's called practice. I do it every day with the piano and, sure enough, the results are slightly better each day.

No, insanity is when one's perception of reality is different from reality itself. For instance, a man who believes himself Theodore Roosevelt, or thinks himself a cat, or that he hears voices. In each case, the person's idea of what is real is different from what is really real. The man is not Theodore Roosevelt, or a cat, and the voices are mere hallucination.

Increasingly, I've been feeling that the whole world has gone, by this definition, completely insane. Totally loony. Off their rockers. Large swaths of the population seem to be totally given over to ideas that have no bearing in reality. It's like everyone is playing a children's game where we all pretend we're monkeys in the zoo, or astronauts in outer space, or cowboys and Indians. But when I don't play along, or return to reality and stop pretending, everyone gets mad and indignant with me because they really believe they are monkeys or astronauts or cowboys. It's really quite surreal.

What brought on this feeling most recently was an article my Google reader recommended items pointed me towards (it recommends weird things). Apparently a school in Michigan has refused to allow a girl to be homecoming king because she's a girl, not a boy. This is, apparently, a problem because the girl is playing a make-believe game in which she pretends she's a boy. But the weird part is that so many other people are playing along and pretending the same thing. The news item itself refers to her as a "him", despite the fact that it even mentions towards the end that she hasn't even had the cosmetic surgery to add boy-parts. So in no real, objective way is this girl a boy--only in her mind and the minds of those playing along with her. She has no Y-chromosome, or male genitalia, or a prostate, or any of the biological capabilities that set men and women apart, yet many people seem totally willing to give themselves into the fantasy that she is somehow a boy.

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It's Just Too Easy

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine made a MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT! on Wednesday, which was touted as something to EXCITE! Democrats across the country and get them ready for November's elections.

Their big announcement? A new logo!

They make it too easy.

Isn't that exciting? Doesn't that just get you pumped? No? You're weird. It gets me excited. In fact, I was so excited I nearly fell off my chair. It's just an amazingly exciting logo. But perhaps it could stand some improvement. Let's see how we can fix it.

Frank, yet candid.

How about that? Think it gets the point across? In an exciting fashion? No? How about:

When you paint a target on your back....

Bullet holes are exciting, right? But oops! Now we're advertising the wrong organization. Let's try again:

Alternate caption: "Better than an F++."

This will certainly appeal to the teachers' unions, right? Aren't they democrats? Lastly, how about:

Dopey indeed.

So there you have it. An exciting new logo for these exciting times! I wonder how long it took the Democrat Party to come up with that! Good thing they have plenty of time to spend on making silly logos! I mean, it's not like there's anything else they need to be doing. No sir. This country is squared away! No problems here, nosiree.

(Of course, the more time they spent working on the logo, the less they spent messing up anything else.)

Got any other ideas for their logo? Post 'em in the comments!

[UPDATE]

Thought of a couple more for ya:

Tilt your head to the right.

A lot of other things could work here "–NIED", "–FEAT", "–UH", "–CIET", "–CEPTION", "–LUSIONAL", "–PRESSION", to name a few.

Must... Obey... Hypnopelosi

Made at the request of a co-worker:

Speaking of The Onion...

One Year Into the Stimulus.

Meant to link that a while ago. People from Smelly Old Virgina will appreciate item #2. People who have the tiniest grasp of basic economics will appreciate the last item on the list.

Courtesy The Murloc's Parents

...who were at the Reagan Library to see Mark Levin live. The video of the speech is below and is a very, very good watch. It's long but I recommend you take a look.

Happy 6th of July!

Boy, it sure is a good thing handguns are illegal in Chicago: http://cbs2chicago.com/local/chicago.area.shooting.2.1072542.html. Heaven forbid I have one.

No, YOU'RE wrong!

[Warning: long rant on religion and politics follows]

So someone recently made the statement that a Catholic who supported the the invasion of Iraq must be just as morally confused as someone who is pro-choice.  Although I provided a clear and concise rebuttal to the originator of the statement ("your stoopid"), I thought I'd explore this statement in a little more detail.

First off, "moral confusion" is an imprecise and ambiguous phrase, so when I use it what I really mean (and what I assume the original commentator meant) is "morally incorrect."  "You're confused" as I usually see it used in this context seems to be intended as a more polite way of saying "you're wrong," except it's not more polite because everyone knows what it means, and condescending because it implies the other person isn't emotionally capable of dealing with someone telling them they're wrong.

Let's summarize why someone might be pro-choice (this has been discussed at length on this blog):

1. Unborn babies aren't human, so abortion is not an act that murders a human.

2. There's nothing inherently wrong with murdering innocent people.

3. Unborn babies are human, but it's okay to murder them because they aren't born (or crossed some arbitrary development threshold).

Note that I am assuming that we all accept that something that is inherently immoral is always morally wrong (i.e., if under some circumstances an act is not wrong, then it was not inherently so: the ends cannot justify the means).  Item #1 represents "moral confusion" by virtue of incorrect facts.  It is morally correct under the premise that unborn babies aren't human, but biology indicates otherwise.  Item #2 represents a point of view that most people do not hold, and I don't honestly think the original commentator believes that all those who support the war hold this view.  Item #3 is only morally correct with the introduction of a new moral principle that specifically excludes humans of some developmental stage or status from the prohibition against murder.  I have never seen a justification, much less a clear statement, of this new principle.  This also requires item #2, although supporters of abortion rarely admit it.  The only other possible position for someone who supports legal abortion is that it is the immoral murder of an innocent human and should not be prohibited by government.  This is an unusual view of the role of government.

In order for supporters of the war to be guilty of the same moral confusion as pro-choicers, then it must be because they believe that fighting a war is not inherently immoral, and possibly that there is some special reason that the invasion of Iraq need not be justified according to traditional just war theory.  But the Church teaches explicitly that waging war is not inherently immoral, and proponents of the war that argue it is justified within the traditional just war theory (whether you agree with their reasoning or not) do not require some new moral principle (example example example).  Therefore, proponents of the war in Iraq (including one singled out by the original commentator) clearly do not suffer the same "moral confusion" as pro-choicers in any meaningful sense.

The only other context given with the original offending comment was that the "morally confused" should have realized, after five years of tragedy, that the original decision was unjust.  This implies that the unintended, undesired, unforeseen consequences can affect whether a decision is just after it has been made, which leads to a ridiculous impossibility of making moral judgments, since all possible effects of a decision cannot be foreseen.

It is a logic error (and perhaps a lack of charity) to assume that those who seem to be wrong on a moral issue must be suffering from deficient moral reasoning.   Anyone can understand how identical logic applied to different premises can lead to different conclusions.

The only other statement by the original commentator I wish to comment on is "it is a reflection of ideology, not considered thought, to think that."  But how can one think that which is not thought?  Please be more clear.  Did you mean, "it is a reflection of belief not based on reason"?  But that is false on the face of it: as I showed above, the position (support for the war) is reasoned from facts and moral principles.  As far as I can tell, this statement means nothing.

Comments are welcome.