Archive for March, 2011

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Pragmatic Supernaturalism

Posted March 31, 2011 By John C Wright

My name came up in a discussion over at SfSignal. http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2011/03/which-book-should-i-read-first/#comments

Apparently a number of readers are willing to admit some of my books are not bad (humbly I thank you!)  but they want to warn the unwary that I myself, being a Christian and a conservative, a philosopher, newspaperman, attorney and general man of letters, am therefore reprehensible, any my ideas range from insane to silly.

To those readers who regard me as insane, all I can answer is that the voices in my head say I am not. To those who regard me as silly, all I can do point to the sentence prior to this one, and admit the gravity of the charge.
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The Forgotten

Posted March 29, 2011 By John C Wright

An article on Christian persecutions:

http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/the-forgotten-christians-persecuted-in-the-middle-east.html

We live in an age of Christian persecution. Did you think I meant persecutions by Christians of non-Christians? Oh no.

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The Most Improper Job of Any Man is Bossing Other Men

Posted March 25, 2011 By John C Wright

I came across this article from last year only this week: http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2010/11/anarcho-monarchism

In it, David B Hart, Orthodox theologian, muses on the meaning of a passage of a letter by JRR Tolkien, where the maker of Middle-Earth is lamenting the state of politics. Allow me to quote at length:

My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning the abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs)—or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inanimate real of England and its inhabitants, a thing that has neither power, rights nor mind); and after a chance of recantation, execute them if they remained obstinate! If we could go back to personal names, it would do a lot of good. Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so to refer to people. . .

[…] the proper study of Man is anything but Man; and the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men…
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Godless and Pro-Life

Posted March 25, 2011 By John C Wright

I was sent an interesting link (hat tip to Nate Winchester) for Godless Pro-lifers: http://www.godlessprolifers.org/home.html

Boy, this sent me walking down memory lane. The introductory paragraph reads:

A nontheistic and nonreligious opposition to the life-denying horror of abortion

I’m James Matthew (Matt) Wallace, aka The Compleat Heretic. I’m both a Secular Humanist atheist and a pro-life advocate. All too often, I fear that I’m the only nonreligious person who opposes the genocide of abortion used as a birth control substitute. Accordingly, I have created this web site as a virtual rallying point and clearinghouse for all atheists, agnostics, and other “godless” people who call themselves “pro-life.”

Though I am a Republican and a conservative (both social and economic), I intend for this site to be nonpartisan and nondiscriminatory.

My comment: Brother, do I feel your pain. I was exactly in your shoes not long ago.

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Taking Ideas Seriously

Posted March 24, 2011 By John C Wright

The following bit of dialog takes place inside a confessional booth in the opening chapter of the manuscript I am currently writing. In this scene, Father Thucydides is the great-grandnephew of Menelaus, who has woken from suspended animation to make his confession:

“Blessed are the poor, indeed, but taking a man’s things to impose a blessing on him may violate a commandment.”

“Listen, Father, you ain’t worried about your own stuff, are you?”

“Mine? Even the robes on my back belong to the Curial Office, not to me. I am of the Society of Jesus.”

“What is that, like a sewing circle?”

“I had my doubts whether you were truly a Catholic, my son. I see now that you must be. No one knows less of our catechism and orders than one of our flock.”

“It was kind of a — I was unconscious at the time, and your grandpa had me watered down, enlisted, or whatever you call it—”

“Baptism.”

The woeful ignorance of the penitent in that scene No one knows less of our catechism than one of our flock was meant to be a bit of a joke, or perhaps a bit of a rebuke.

Unfortunately, it is not a joke, or, at least, not a funny one. As far as I can see, the Fundamentalists grasp the fundamentals of the Christian religion, but the Catholics do not have a catholic knowledge of the teachings of the Holy Mother Church.

Case in point. This piece from eChurch blog (via First Things) I reprint the whole piece.

The words below the cut are those of eChurch. Make of this what you will.

*     *     *

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Bill Whittle and the Austrians

Posted March 23, 2011 By John C Wright

For those of you who do not recognize it by hearing, Bill Whittle in this clip gives as his “practical argument” against elitism, the argument first articulated by the economist of the Austrian school, Ludwig von Mises, that a central controlling panel, no matter how smart or well informed, can not know the minutia of economic interactions in an economy.

I cannot hide that I am delighted that this bit of economic wisdom is slowly making its way into the popular consciousness.

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Armed Beauty Queen Fatally Shoots Intruder

Posted March 22, 2011 By John C Wright

A friend of mine drew my attention to this news story.

When a burly ex-convict forced his way into a posh Florida home last week, he had no idea what awaited him — a 25-year-old beauty queen with a pink .38-caliber handgun.

Meghan Brown, a former Florida pageant queen, shot and killed 42-year-old Albert Franklin Hill during a home invasion March 12 at the 2,732-square-foot house she shares with her fiance in Tierra Verde, Fla.

My comment: The fact that the handgun was pink delights me. The news story reports the size of 2009 Miss Tierra Verde as 110 pounds. You perhaps can see why I do not regard the Left, with their heartless phobia about private gun ownership, as the friend of women.

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Wonder Woman’s New Blue Booties

Posted March 22, 2011 By John C Wright

As a philosopher, attorney, newspaper editor and political pundit, naturally my articles are only concerned with matters of the gravest import, substance, and profundity: such as what make-believe supergirls wear fashion-wise!

No doubt my horde of fan (Hi, Mom!) is wondering what brilliant insights and observations my trained legal mind can bring to bear on the latest fashion controversy that even now swirls like skintight Lycra around the iconic DC superheroine and her wardrobe. No doubt you are aching with curiosity to discover what trenchant insights and observations I, John C. Wright, author and savant, can bring to bear on the issue!

Well, curiositify no longer! We can turn immediately to a piercing yet insightful examination of the topic in its multiple aspects.

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Culture of Death Denied a Victim

Posted March 21, 2011 By John C Wright

I don’t know if any of you have been following this new story, but there is a thirteen month old baby in Canada whom the doctors, and the court order, have decided to baby’s life is not worth saving, so they want to remove his breathing tube, and not to perform a tracheotomy.

The parents object, but the doctors do not work for the patients in Canada, they work for the state and they take their orders from the state:

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/02/23/giving-little-joseph-maraachli-fighting-chance/

An organization called ACLJ, to whom I from time to time contribute, issued a press release: http://www.aclj.org/News/Read.aspx?ID=4135 They give credit to Priests for Life and Glennon Medical center.

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Happy Saint Patrick’s Day

Posted March 17, 2011 By John C Wright

As I sit before my computer, eating my corn beef and boiled cabbage, I would like to take a solemn moment to reflect on the origin and meaning of Saint Patrick’s Day.

Like Saint Valentine’s Day, Saint Patrick’s is, of course, a conspiracy launched by the Pope in Rome to inveigle the slavishly popish ideals, values and rites of the Magisterium, by means of our fanatical Jesuit conspirators and Spanish Inquisitors, onto the American calendar. And, as all Americans know, Ireland (beloved homeland of Bing Crosby) shares in common with us that we don’t like the Redcoats.

Those of you who scoff that Saint Patrick’s Day is an American invention, and that all the old sentimental Irish Ballads were actually written in Tin Pan Alley, I say that Paddy’s Day is as Irish as Chop Suey is Chinese!

To prove it, here is a clip from a famous Irish movie, that was authentically Irish because it was made in America by Walt O’Disney.
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Perverse Reasoning

Posted March 17, 2011 By John C Wright

The basic rule of any philosophy is that, if it leads one to absurd and impossible conclusion, something in the premise must be wrong, or an error made in the line of reasoning.

It seems some anti-homosexual posters were found in Shoreditch, Stoke Newington and broader East London, and the local LGBTQ activists wanted to organize a gay pride parade to show they are not intimidated by the hateful posters. Out There is a homosexual activist group, but opposes the parade, worried that the far right would use the pro-gay parade as an opportunity to stir up hatred against the Mohammedans.

Here is the link to the Open Letter by Out East:

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2011/03/14/open-letter-to-the-organisers-of-east-end-gay-pride/

Jessica Geen writing in the same newspaper, presents the opposing point of view, and argues that the parade should not be canceled:

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2011/03/14/east-end-pride-should-be-cancelled-gay-campaigners-say/

I heard about this news from Big Hollywood website, a somewhat sneering article by Greg Gutfield:

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggutfeld/2011/03/16/concerned-with-muslims-gay-activists-cancel-parade-in-england/

Let me quote two paragraphs from the Open Letter by Out East:

Out East believes that our response to homophobia must be political because homophobia is a system which is present everywhere and not only a hate feeling from particular groups or individuals. Homophobia is not caused only by one particular group but is part of broader society and has political roots. It is easy to portray other minorities (even unintentionally) as the cause of homophobia rather than, for example, questioning the lack of means to fight discrimination in a period of cuts in public services. Instead, we want to highlight the intersection between sexuality, gender, race and class oppression. Homophobia is fed by political practices and ideologies which in turn encourage individuals to commit discriminatory acts.

And:

We want both homophobia and islamophobia addressed as a collective problem and not feed one against the other, we do not recognise these as distinct categories. We will refuse any attempt to divide our communities or take the risk that an LGBTQ event is used to oppress other marginalised groups, in particular LGBTQ Muslims who will be the most affected by this rising antagonism.

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Vocabulary!

Posted March 16, 2011 By John C Wright

I was told when I was young by my father that, if you want to have a good vocabulary (1) look up any word you do not know in a dictionary and (2) if you use it correctly at least three times, the word is yours. Because I followed this advice, I have always had a particular love of words and their correct meaning (and a particular horror of their politically correct meaning).

So here are some words I will no doubt try to work into my writing in the future.

Incruental — Unbloody; not attended with blood; as, an incruental sacrifice.

Faineance — laziness; the state of being idle.

Mithridatic — Tolerance or immunity to a poison acquired by taking gradually larger doses of it.

Disquiparant  – An object so related to a second that the latter is in a different relation to it. Thus, a husband is a disquiparant, a spouse an equiparant.

Nitid — bright; lustrous.

Absquatulate — To flee; abscond.

Rebarbative — Serving or tending to irritate or repel.

Apophysis — 1. In anatomy, a natural swelling, projection, or outgrowth of an organ or part, such as the process of a vertebra. 2. In geology, a branch from a dike or vein.

Laicism — 1. the nonclerical, or secular, control of political and social institutions in a society. 2. lay participation in church matters.

Antinopomancy — Divination through the study of women’s or children’s entrails.

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Free Sample from the most recent draft of JUDGE OF AGES

Posted March 15, 2011 By John C Wright

This is to show you, my dear readers, who are also (really) my employers, that I am hard at work.

From a scene I was working on yesterday:

Soorm the Hormagaunt, from AD 6850, is talking with Menelaus Montrose, accidental posthuman, from AD 2401. Both have been thawed circa AD 10515 from long-term hibernation, along with a prison camp full of men from various eras between the near and the far future, apparently by a somewhat ruthless group of archeologists, who have broken into the buried hibernation faculty that Montrose built. What or who they are seeking is unclear.

Menelaus is one of several from the Hermetic Order, who are star travelers, but he broke from them and is now their foe. One of the scientific discoveries the Hermeticists discovered on the alien Monument orbiting V 886 Centauri was a predictive calculus of history (Cliometry, for you fans of Mike Flynn, or Psychohistory, for you fans of Isaac Asimov).

Montrose and the Hermeticists, led by Ximen “Blackie” del Azarchel, have artificially augmented their intelligence to superhuman levels, and been using the predictive calculus to create historical trends: but Montrose and the Hermeticists have mutually incompatible visions of future human evolution, and so the two opposing groups interfere with the historical trends introduced by the other. (Imagine Asimov’s FOUNDATION if one rebel psychohistorian had decided to prevent the rise of the Second Empire, and lead history toward democracy instead.)

Naturally, among the mortals, these posthumans have become legendary almost godlike figures. This is the scene where Soorm discovers who Menelaus is. Read the remainder of this entry »

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Counsel for the Defense in the Case of Christ v Nothing

Posted March 14, 2011 By John C Wright

Here is my usual Friday Post, brought to you tardily. This is part of an ongoing conversation.

Previously in this space, I wrote this (quoted in full):

For those of you who think I am exaggerating when I complain about the state of the modern world, or think I mistake exactly to what destination modern philosophy and modern education leads:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chibrknews-northwestern-to-pay-for-live-sex-toy-demonstration-20110302,0,3942305.story

The money quote:

Northwestern University acknowledged that an unusual demonstration was held on campus last week in which students observed a naked woman being penetrated by a sex toy.

The sex act was performed in front of about 100 students in psychology professor John Michael Bailey’s human sexuality class. The demonstration occurred after class, and attendance was optional.

The university will pay several hundred dollars to guest lecturer Ken Melvoin-Berg, co-owner of Weird Chicago Tours. His Feb. 21 discussion of bondage, swinging and other sexual fetishes was arranged by Bailey, who gets extra funding from the university’s College of Arts & Sciences for lectures and other activities he routinely holds after class.

“The students find the events to be quite valuable, typically, because engaging real people in conversation provides useful examples and extensions of concepts students learn about in traditional academic ways,” Bailey said in a prepared statement Wednesday night

My comment: given a choice between women portrayed as objects into which to insert sex toys, and as damsels, brides, wives and mothers to be cherished and protected, which seems to be the more dehumanizing and less in keeping with the dignity and mystique of women?

I ask because the modern age has decided that these two are the only two choices: Victorian Morality, which gave the woman the vote, or Modern Anti-morality, which robs women of the likelihood of finding a serious suitor, a decent & hardworking husband who has kept himself for marriage, raising descent children to maturity without their getting the clap or committing suicide, or enjoying old age with the companionship of a lifelong mate.

A reader with the reader with the world conquering name of Alexander writes in. He has apparently volunteered himself to support the cause that I rather ungenerously refer to as “Nothing.”

The name of “Nothing” I use for the imprudent hedonism of modern philosophy, on the grounds that, having abandoned both the joy of Christ and the pessimistic honor of paganism, hedonism leaves a man with no standards by which to judge what best to do when confronted my moral quandaries.

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Superpresident

Posted March 12, 2011 By John C Wright

In an earlier comment, I retracted a comment I had made that had anyone but Palin been McCain’s running mate, I would not have voted for him. Upon being questioned, I realized that, yes, indeed, had John McCain selected Superman as his running mate, I would have voted for him. However, I pointed out that Superman was not qualified to stand for the Presidency, being an alien dropped onto our soil by spaceship, and not having been born a citizen.

Bibliophile112 writes: I’m fairly certain that is because Kal-El has superpowers and thus is probably not human, let alone American.

Time for a Civics Lesson! The exact wording of the Constitution is: “No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

The Constitution does not say “human being” it says “Person” and by the Dread Scott decision, we know that this means only those persons considered to have legal rights at the time of the drafting. On the other hand, the Civil War sort of unofficially overruled Dread Scott, not to mention that the 14th Amendment says “all persons born” in the United States have the privileges of citizenship, and, again, this might include nonhuman persons provided they are legally persons. The question would be a novel one for the Supreme Court.

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