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| Ayn Rand |
Walter Hudson at PJ Media has a thoughtful post on the inclusion of objectivists in the Tea Party movement.
Money quote:
The Tea Party’s wise focus on economic and legal concerns ought to exclude religious affiliation as it excludes social issues. The goal of affecting public policy consistent with the principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets is explicitly secular.I agree. I am a passionate social conservative, but I believe that there are very good principles of fiscal responsibility and limited government that the Tea Party embraces that are legitimate aspirations of many conservatives regardless of religious beliefs.
Objectivism has some real strengths, and of course some horrendous weaknesses. I was a Rand admirerer in my younger days (I'll post on it someday), and on some matters she made sense.
Fiscal sanity is so essential to our national survival that we conservatives (i.e. we sane people) need to stick together.
Well, I mostly agree, but I think it won't be possible to fix what's wrong with America unless we send atheists back to North Korea where they belong.
ReplyDeleteI'd give them the choice of NK, Laos, Vietnam, China, or Cuba. Atheist paradises all.
ReplyDeleteGood idea. Let's have a stopover in Rome, so the kids can have their anuses inspected by the pope, the global expert on child sexual satisfaction.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteThe Republicans aren't exactly experts on fiscal responsibility. Reagan with his 'Reagonomics' and the so-called trickle down effect with tax cuts for the rich started the rot. George W Bush's invasion of Iraq, committed for bogus reasons, and hoped to be done on the cheap, turned out to be an expensive fiasco, paid for on the government credit card, while he was simultaneously cutting taxes.
Egnor:
ReplyDelete"But no facts matter to anti-Catholic bigots. Do you hate Jews too?"
No, I don't hate Jews. I'm officially a Jew myself (my mother is Jewish). I don't hate Catholics either. I just hate organized religion.
No, it's not pure bigotry. The pope is guilty of covering up horrible crimes against children. He is the leader of a criminal organization and he should be brought to justice. You should be ashamed that you are a willing member of that organization - not that you are a Christian.
ReplyDeleteIs the teaching profession in the US a criminal organization? Sexual abuse of children by school employees is at least 100 times more common than sexual abuse by priests.
ReplyDeleteHave you called for the indictment of the Secretary of Education?
Answer this: how many allegations of priest sexual abuse in the US were filed for incidents in 2010?
How many incidents occurred in the New York City School system in 2010?
Back up your slander, bigot.
[The pope is guilty of covering up horrible crimes against children.]
ReplyDeleteBullshit. Look at this graph (http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/PriestAbuseScandal.htm) The incidents dropped radically in 1980, which is when Cardinal Ratzinger became prefect of the SCDF. His reforms reduced the alleged incidents dramatically, and that reduction has become even more dramatic under his papacy. The Catholic church in the US has 38,000 active priests. The numbers of allegations have reduced to vanishingly small numbers-- in 2010 there were 7 allegations.
In New York City Schools alone, there were 300 cases of sex abuse of children by school employees last year.
The Catholic Church is one of the safest places for children.
You.are.a.bigot.
Mémé said...
ReplyDeleteHave we ever met?
:-)
If you don't care that your children are raped, bring em to the Catholic church.
ReplyDelete@troy:
ReplyDeleteYou've made my point for me.
You're not interested in facts, nor in the protection of children. If you were, you would be concerned about protecting children in schools and in the home, where their risk of molestation is orders of magnitude higher than it is in a church. The Church is the safest place for children in our society-- much safer than the home or the school or the street.
You're just a bigot.
Why bother answering troy the TROLL?
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Most priests are decent people, and the number of pedophiles within the Church is a small minority.
However, any abuse of children by an adult, particularly one who is in a position of authority, such as a priest or a teacher, is to be strongly deplored and prosecuted under the law.
It is ironic that a very small minority of priests, who are supposed to have a higher morality than everyone else, are pedophiles. What does this do to your claim that morality is 'objective', decreed by God?
The trouble with sex crimes in general, and sex crimes against children in particular, is that they are very much underreported. The habit of the Catholic Church in the past to hide child sex abuse and transfer offending clergy to other dioceses, where they still have access to children, wasn't good practice.
I'm not certain how you can claim that the church is the safest place for children, more safe than schools, the home or the street. Children don't generally spend hours in every day attending church.
It is ironic that a very small minority of priests, who are supposed to have a higher morality than everyone else, are pedophiles. What does this do to your claim that morality is 'objective', decreed by God?
ReplyDeleteYou know the answer: these priests are not true Scotsmen (I mean, Christians).
@bach:
ReplyDeleteThis debate is not about pedophilia in the Catholic Church. There is pedophilia everywhere. Everywhere. In the US alone, there are an estimated 40 million people who have been sexually abused as children.
This debate is about bigotry-- about using the horror of pedophilia to single out the Catholic church for hate.
Sex assault in public schools is an epidemic. There is one assault each day by a school employee in New York City schools.
There were 7 assaults alleged in the entire county by Catholic priests. 7.
And your point about kids spending little time in church is bullshit. Millions of families spend many hours each week involved in Church activities-- religious education, sports, social events, etc. There are also millions of children in Catholic schools.
Seven. Compared to countless (probably at least hundreds of thousands) of kids in public schools.
And who do you bigots continuously implicate? Priests.
It's no different from anti-semitism or racial hatred.
"There were 7 assaults alleged in the entire county by Catholic priests." in the year 2010.
ReplyDeleteEnrollment in US Catholic schools: 2 million.
ReplyDeleteEnrollment in US public schools: 82 million.
For those of you who can't count, that's a ratio of 41.
Assuming that the same ratio applies to New York, one expects, other things being equal, that the number of sexual-abuse cases in public schools will be greater than the corresponding number in Catholic schools by a factor of 41. 7 times 41 gives 287. So 7 cases of abuse in Catholic schools and 300 in public schools reflects the same degree of badness.
Discuss amongst yourselves.
A rather flattering post on Objectivism, and the responders comments are a set of lurid assertions about sex abuse within the Roman Catholic Church?
ReplyDeleteFirst to the topic: I was never a huge fan of Rand's style of literature, but there was a time I felt she was a brilliant political mind. I did like her stuff. A kind or Orwell. I no longer suffer from those illusions.
I do prefer Objectivism to Communism, at least on paper.
I must also add that I really dig her hat in this picture...and that is after all one of the proposed meanings of life, at least according to the sage minds of Python's crew.
On the abuse of children I have little to say. I feel all people found guilty of such crimes should be punished according to the severity and duration. I will credit Bach's concession that most priests are decent folks, but I do not understand the need to defend Troy's position by Bach or Oleg.
No one here is suggesting that paedophiles, rapists, or even inappropriate relations with teens or married people should be excused in the priesthood or elsewhere. Nobody is saying that.
Oleg's argument reads like a huge category error. He compares the stats of ONE public school board in ONE city for ONE month to the ENTIRE RCC in the USA for the WHOLE YEAR. He reckons that gives him a ratio to prove something? What exactly I am not quite sure, but it no doubt has something to do with moral relativity - his favourite subject.
Instead the 7/300 ratio should be expanded to include some more stats, Oleg.
Mike's data includes the ENTIRE RCC for the USA. You need to include ALL the molestation and paedophilia for EVERY school district in the country, Oleg. My guess is that if NYC was 300, we may need to add a column or two to the ledger. Then you need to add after school programs, and weekend clubs (like scouting maybe?) and THEN you may begin to see the real contrast.
But all these numbers do not reflect the human suffering and the violation of sanctity caused by actions of these people - no matter their licence for authority.
It is GOOD that the RCC is facing this head on.
All such orgs should - INCLUDING the Public School boards. The Pope and the College should be commended for their actions, not smeared with the shameful, bigoted filth that Troy posted in comments.