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Daily Blogs for 1/2009
by Christopher Chantrill
Can Obama Stimulate Republicans? | 01/30/09
After the thunder of the Wall Street Journal conservative edit-page folks, now ...
That Stimulus Sickness | 01/29/09
Everybody now knows what happens when the government decides to give everyone ...
Stimulating Democratic Voters | 01/28/09
Here’s a thought for you eternal optimists. Maybe the Democratic stimulus bill ...
When in "Doubt" | 01/27/09
When I saw a trailer for the Meryl Streep movie “Doubt” I was turned off. ...
Liberal Law Takes Freedom Away | 01/26/09
It’s amazing how many people look at the current sue-mad society and wonder ...
Rove Sets Out Bush Legacy | 01/23/09
People haven’t been obsessing about Bush’s legacy the way they obsessed over ...
The Liberal Tipping Point | 01/22/09
I sent this to some liberal friends on January 20:
I think we should ...
After the Bailout | 01/21/09
Many conservatives are skeptical about the bank bailout last fall. All that money ...
Godspeed President Obama | 01/20/09
President Obama issued a strong call to service in his ...
MLK Vision Fulfilled, say Blacks | 01/19/09
On the first Martin Luther King holiday since Barack Obama was elected President of ...
Bush Farewell Address | 01/16/09
Last night President Bush, with one weekend left of his term as President of the ...
China's Cultural Wrench | 01/15/09
If you are willing to read just one thing on China, try ...
Muslims Return to Sacrifice | 01/14/09
What is the meaning of sacrifice? Frederick Turner defines it this way. ...
WattsUp, Pharyngula and Robbers Cave | 01/13/09
It’s a nip and tuck battle today between ...
Joe the Plumber Asks a Question | 01/12/09
Joe the Plumber goes to Israel and insists to a flock of media that he is not the ...
Pelosi's Politics | 01/09/09
I often like to say that the Democrats have learned nothing from the last 30 years of ...
RU Sophisticated? | 01/08/09
Time was, Paul Johnson writes, when “sophisticated” was a ...
If Ann Coulter Didn't Exist... | 01/07/09
Exactly. We’d have to invent her. And if liberals didn’t have such pompous ...
Why the Culture War Matters | 01/06/09
Why is it that performers at cultural events seem to think it is ok to make ...
A Good Year for Climate "Deniers" | 01/05/09
The whole point about being a conservative is to stand against liberal group-think. ...
Voters Think Dems are "Center Right" | 01/02/09
You gotta give President-elect Obama credit. He managed to get the voters to think ...
Chappies
“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie
that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.”
—Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison
Civil Society
“Civil Society”—a complex welter of intermediate institutions, including businesses, voluntary associations, educational institutions, clubs, unions, media, charities, and churches—builds, in turn, on the family, the primary instrument by which people are socialized into their culture and given the skills that allow them to live in broader society and through which the values and knowledge of that society are transmitted across the generations.
Francis Fukuyama, Trust
Hugo on Genius
“Tear down theory, poetic systems… No more rules, no more models… Genius conjures up
rather than learns… ” —Victor Hugo
César Graña, Bohemian versus Bourgeois
Education
“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State
Faith & Purpose
“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990
Conversion
“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh
Postmodernism
A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is ’merely relative’, is asking you not to believe him. So don’t.
Roger Scruton, Modern Philosophy
Faith and Politics
As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable...
[1.] protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death; [2.] recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family... [3.] the protection of the right of parents to educate their children.
Pope Benedict XVI, Speech to European Peoples Party, 2006
China and Christianity
At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing
Religion, Property, and Family
But the only religions that have survived are those which support property and the family.
Thus the outlook for communism, which is both anti-property and anti-family, (and also anti-religion), is not promising.
F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit
Conservatism
Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity
US Life in 1842
Families helped each other putting up homes and barns. Together, they built churches, schools, and common civic buildings. They collaborated to build roads and bridges. They took pride in being free persons, independent, and self-reliant; but the texture of their lives was cooperative and fraternal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism
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