Monthly Archives: January 2019

BIRDS OF A FEATHER FLOCK TOGETHER

Posted on January 23, 2019 by abyssum

F Pope Francis’s Parade of Embarrassing Friendships Marco Tosatti January 22, 2019 OnePeterFive The least we can say is that the figure of Pope Bergoglio is embarrassing. Perhaps not so much for who he is as a person in himself … Continue reading →

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2018 MARKED THE YEAR MUSLIMS BEGAN TO IMPLEMENT THEIR PLAN TO SUBVERT OUR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC

Posted on January 22, 2019 by abyssum

 Just How Many Muslims Won Political Office In 2018? The Numbers May Surprise You!https://freedomoutpost.com/just-how-many-muslims-won-political-office-in-2018-the-numbers-may-surprise-you/ Many of you are familiar with a couple of congressional seats that were picked up by Muslim women and the first Muslim state attorney general put … Continue reading →

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Covington Catholic student involved in incident at Washington, D.C. march releases statement By Briana Rice | January 20, 2019 at 6:50 PM CST – Updated January 21 at 11:24 AM PARK HILLS, KENTUCKY (FOX19) – The student at the center of the viral videos involving Covington Catholic High School students and Native American marchers issued a statement on Sunday night. [ New video shows more of incident involving Kentucky high school students at Indigenous Peoples March ] Nick Sandmann, a junior, is releasing what he calls the factual account in order to “correct misinformation and outright lies being spread about my family and me.” This is the statement in its entirety: Statement of Nick Sandmann, Covington Catholic High School Junior, Regarding Incident at the Lincoln Memorial I am providing this factual account of what happened on Friday afternoon at the Lincoln Memorial to correct misinformation and outright lies being spread about my family and me. I am the student in the video who was confronted by the Native American protestor. I arrived at the Lincoln Memorial at 4:30 p.m. I was told to be there by 5:30 p.m., when our busses were due to leave Washington for the trip back to Kentucky. We had been attending the March for Life rally, and then had split up into small groups to do sightseeing. When we arrived, we noticed four African American protestors who were also on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. I am not sure what they were protesting, and I did not interact with them. I did hear them direct derogatory insults at our school group. The protestors said hateful things. They called us “racists,” “bigots,” “white crackers,” “f*****s,” and “incest kids.” They also taunted an African American student from my school by telling him that we would “harvest his organs.” I have no idea what that insult means, but it was startling to hear. Because we were being loudly attacked and taunted in public, a student in our group asked one of our teacher chaperones for permission to begin our school spirit chants to counter the hateful things that were being shouted at our group. The chants are commonly used at sporting events. They are all positive in nature and sound like what you would hear at any high school. Our chaperone gave us permission to use our school chants. We would not have done that without obtaining permission from the adults in charge of our group. At no time did I hear any student chant anything other than the school spirit chants. I did not witness or hear any students chant “build that wall” or anything hateful or racist at any time. Assertions to the contrary are simply false. Our chants were loud because we wanted to drown out the hateful comments that were being shouted at us by the protestors. After a few minutes of chanting, the Native American protestors, who I hadn’t previously noticed, approached our group. The Native American protestors had drums and were accompanied by at least one person with a camera. The protestor everyone has seen in the video began playing his drum as he waded into the crowd, which parted for him. I did not see anyone try to block his path. He locked eyes with me and approached me, coming within inches of my face. He played his drum the entire time he was in my face. I never interacted with this protestor. I did not speak to him. I did not make any hand gestures or other aggressive moves. To be honest, I was startled and confused as to why he had approached me. We had already been yelled at by another group of protestors, and when the second group approached I was worried that a situation was getting out of control where adults were attempting to provoke teenagers. I believed that by remaining motionless and calm, I was helping to diffuse the situation. I realized everyone had cameras and that perhaps a group of adults was trying to provoke a group of teenagers into a larger conflict. I said a silent prayer that the situation would not get out of hand. During the period of the drumming, a member of the protestor’s entourage began yelling at a fellow student that we “stole our land” and that we should “go back to Europe.” I heard one of my fellow students begin to respond. I motioned to my classmate and tried to get him to stop engaging with the protestor, as I was still in the mindset that we needed to calm down tensions. I never felt like I was blocking the Native American protestor. He did not make any attempt to go around me. It was clear to me that he had singled me out for a confrontation, although I am not sure why. The engagement ended when one of our teachers told me the busses had arrived and it was time to go. I obeyed my teacher and simply walked to the busses. At that moment, I thought I had diffused the situation by remaining calm, and I was thankful nothing physical had occurred. I never understood why either of the two groups of protestors were engaging with us, or exactly what they were protesting at the Lincoln Memorial. We were simply there to meet a bus, not become central players in a media spectacle. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever encountered any sort of public protest, let alone this kind of confrontation or demonstration. I was not intentionally making faces at the protestor. I did smile at one point because I wanted him to know that I was not going to become angry, intimidated or be provoked into a larger confrontation. I am a faithful Christian and practicing Catholic, and I always try to live up to the ideals my faith teaches me – to remain respectful of others, and to take no action that would lead to conflict or violence. I harbor no ill will for this person. I respect this person’s right to protest and engage in free speech activities, and I support his chanting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial any day of the week. I believe he should re-think his tactics of invading the personal space of others, but that is his choice to make. I am being called every name in the book, including a racist, and I will not stand for this mob-like character assassination of my family’s name. My parents were not on the trip, and I strive to represent my family in a respectful way in all public settings. I have received physical and death threats via social media, as well as hateful insults. One person threatened to harm me at school, and one person claims to live in my neighborhood. My parents are receiving death and professional threats because of the social media mob that has formed over this issue. I love my school, my teachers and my classmates. I work hard to achieve good grades and to participate in several extracurricular activities. I am mortified that so many people have come to believe something that did not happen – that students from my school were chanting or acting in a racist fashion toward African Americans or Native Americans. I did not do that, do not have hateful feelings in my heart, and did not witness any of my classmates doing that. I cannot speak for everyone, only for myself. But I can tell you my experience with Covington Catholic is that students are respectful of all races and cultures. We also support everyone’s right to free speech. I am not going to comment on the words or account of Mr. Phillips, as I don’t know him and would not presume to know what is in his heart or mind. Nor am I going to comment further on the other protestors, as I don’t know their hearts or minds, either. I have read that Mr. Phillips is a veteran of the United States Marines. I thank him for his service and am grateful to anyone who puts on the uniform to defend our nation. If anyone has earned the right to speak freely, it is a U.S. Marine veteran. I can only speak for myself and what I observed and felt at the time. But I would caution everyone passing judgement based on a few seconds of video to watch the longer video clips that are on the internet, as they show a much different story than is being portrayed by people with agendas. I provided this account of events to the Diocese of Covington so they may know exactly what happened, and I stand ready and willing to cooperate with any investigation they are conducting.

Posted on January 21, 2019 by abyssum
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Ted Cruz NAILS IT !!!

Posted on January 20, 2019 by abyssum

WATCH: Ted Cruz Nails It About Why Pelosi Delayed Trump’s State Of The Union Address By HANK BERRIEN January 17, 2019  On Wednesday, asked about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s stance to postpone President Trump’s State of the Union Address and why she … Continue reading →

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IT IS SMALL CONSOLATION TO KNOW THAT “ES WAR IMMER SO!”

Posted on January 19, 2019 by abyssum

   The nineteenth-century churchman John Henry Newman has shaped many of my views and how to apply them. With the credit of a second miracle to his intercession, it is likely that he will be canonized in short order.    Our … Continue reading →

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WE NEED TO KEEP EVENTS CURRENT AND PAST IN PROPER PERSPECTIVE

Posted on January 17, 2019 by abyssum

•••••• H E The Impact That Wiped Out the Dinosaurs   THE KT-BOUNDARY IMPACT Paintings and text copyright William K. Hartmann Web page design by W. K. Hartmann and Daniel C. Berman What Happened in Brief According to abundant geological evidence, an … Continue reading →

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DO WE NEED A WALL TO PROTECT AMERICA ?????

Posted on January 17, 2019 by abyssum

8 TIME DEPORTEE CAUGHT WITH $850,000 WORTH OF COKE AND METH  STEVEN AHLE JANUARY 17, 2019 Jose Olegario Lopez, a 44-year-old Mexican national from the state of Sinaloa, was traveling with his son when a police officer tried to pull him … Continue reading →

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ALAS POOR OXFORD UNION! I KNEW IT WELL HORATIO !!

Posted on January 16, 2019 by abyssum

Oxford Union Sponsors Staged Debate January 16, 2019 Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the latest game played by the Oxford Union: Is the Oxford Union committing suicide? It is one thing to lie to me after being disinvited from participating in … Continue reading →

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THE HUMAN PERSON SEXUALITY & FAMILY POLITICS & LAW EDUCATION & CULTURE BUSINESS & ECONOMICS ABORTION Bad (Though Not Entirely Bad) Pro-Life Arguments JANUARY 14, 2019BY FRANCIS J. BECKWITH Good intentions are not enough. Pro-lifers need good arguments too. We should avoid the temptation to make these popular, emotionally compelling, but badly reasoned arguments against abortion. In the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas warned his fellow Christians, “For when anyone in the endeavor to prove the faith brings forward reasons which are not cogent, he falls under the ridicule of the unbelievers: since they suppose that we stand upon such reasons, and that we believe on such grounds.” This is true of moral and political arguments just as much as theological and philosophical ones. For those of us who believe in the sanctity of human life and seek to persuade those with whom we disagree, it is essential that the reasons we give actually support our position. Unfortunately, some well-meaning prolife advocates present arguments that are emotionally moving but shift the focus away from the essence of the sanctity of life ethic: it is always, everywhere, morally wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human person. A shift away from that focus not only gives our critics a mistaken impression about the strength of our position, but also misleads them as to what we actually believe about the nature of unborn human life. What follows are descriptions of some of these bad pro-life arguments—and explanations of why pro-lifers shouldn’t make them. The Argument from Killing Beethoven. There are variations on this argument. They are usually in the form of a dialogue, such as this one, quoted by Garrett Hardin: Two physicians are talking shop. “Doctor,” says one, “I’d like your professional opinion. The question is, should the pregnancy have been terminated or not? The father was syphilitic. The mother was tuberculous. They had already had four children: the first was blind, the second died, the third was deaf and dumb, and the fourth was tuberculous. The woman was pregnant for the fifth time. As the attending physician, what would you have done?” “I would have terminated the pregnancy.” “Then you would have murdered Beethoven.” Imagine, however, all the facts about Beethoven’s parents, siblings, and family life were also true of Adolf Hitler’s. Could not a pro-choice advocate then end the dialogue this way?: “As the attending physician, what would you have done?” “I would have terminated the pregnancy.” “Congratulations, you just saved the lives of six million Jews.” For those who defend the sanctity of life, the wrongness of intentionally killing an innocent human person does not depend on whether or not he or she will become a world class composer or a moral monster. Fetus-Ludwig and Fetus-Adolf are equally human and equally innocent, just as an anonymous homeless person, an asylum-seeking immigrant, and Jeff Bezos each possesses the same inviolable right to life. The dignity of each member of the human family is not affected by what we may think he or she is capable of contributing, whether to the country’s gross domestic product or to the world’s cultural riches. That’s why the Beethoven argument is superfluous at best and misleading at worst. The Argument from Gruesome Abortion Procedures Because the aim of an abortion is to terminate pregnancy in a way that ensures that the fetus dies, the woman is not harmed, and all the fetal parts are evacuated from her womb, abortion procedures involve the intentional dismemberment, poisoning, crushing, and/or stabbing of a living human fetus. For this reason, films like The Silent Scream and photographs of aborted fetuses are sometimes effectively used by pro-life groups in their public presentations. Priests for Life, for example, publishes these words on its website above a gallery of pictures that includes aborted fetuses: “The abortion images below show some of the grim reality of abortion. Only seeing such images of abortion can bring us to the kind of indignation needed to sustain the sacrifices that will be necessary to finally bring an end to this injustice.” But how, precisely, does this show that abortion is gravely wrong? After all, if one believes, as most pro-choice advocates do, that any being’s moral status depends on its having a certain level of conscious existence and self-awareness, and a fetus during most of its gestation has not achieved that level, then virtually no abortions are unjust, regardless of how gruesome the photos of their aftermath may appear. Moreover, there are many events and activities that have been photographed that some would find gruesome, though they are not gravely wrong, such as President John F. Kennedy’s autopsy, the bullet-riddled bodies of Nazi soldiers, the gutting of a deer, or the open-heart surgery of an elderly patient. On the other hand, suppose that a new technology allows a physician to instantly dematerialize the fetus like a Star Trek phaser set on kill. Because this new technology is cheap, efficient, and safe for the pregnant woman, no more gruesome abortions are performed. But if you think that abortion is gravely wrong, would this absence of gruesomeness make any difference to that moral judgment? Would it make the fetus any less a member of the human community? It may be that the post-abortion images are being used by pro-life supporters to rebut the claim by some pro-choice advocates that the fetus is merely a “clump of cells” or is not yet an individual human organism. But virtually all sophisticated pro-choice thinkers do not claim any such thing. They recognize the fetus’s humanity, but they deny that it has moral status. They argue, as I noted above, that because the fetus lacks certain presently exercisable powers, e.g., a certain level of conscious existence and self-awareness, it lacks moral status. This distinction has been defended in differing ways by some notable academics, including Ronald Dworkin, Michael Tooley, and Peter Singer, none of whom denies the fetus’ humanity. Of course, many of us have critiqued this position, arguing that the moral status of the fetus does not depend on what it does, but rather on what it is. For if human ability (or achievement) is the sine qua non of an individual’s right to life, then it is difficult to explain why we shouldn’t abandon the idea of human equality, since all our abilities come in degrees at every stage of human development. As the pro-choice philosopher Jeff McMahan writes: “It is hard to avoid the sense that our egalitarian commitments rest on distressingly insecure foundations” if “the properties on which our moral status appears to supervene are all matters of degree.” Nevertheless, one has to make the argument. Gruesome pictures by themselves won’t do. The Argument from Abortion Regret and Emotional Pain Beginning in the late 1990s, certain segments of the pro-life movement started shifting the focus of their opposition to abortion from the wrongness of taking innocent human life to the emotional and psychic injuries that they claim women suffer as a consequence of procuring an abortion. There is, of course, nothing untoward in drawing people’s attention to collateral harms that may flow from elective abortion. But even a pro-choice advocate could concede that point without ever acquiescing to the pro-life view of unborn human life. Emotional and psychic injuries, by themselves, cannot establish the moral quality of the act that one believes caused them. Suppose you enlist in the Army and are sent off to fight in a just war. While in combat, you kill five enemy combatants, and you know you are morally justified in doing so. Nevertheless, when you return home, you begin to regret your enlistment, since you now suffer from depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and anxiety. Your therapist attributes these mental struggles directly to the violence in which you engaged while in combat, even though you know that the war and the killing were both just. On the other hand, one’s actions do not become right or good just because one has no regrets about them or emotional pain resulting from them. If a sexual predator shows no remorse for his actions, and in fact thinks of his “successes” as romantic conquests that affirm his self-worth, no one would say that his actions are therefore morally just. By overemphasizing stories of abortion regret, the pro-life advocate sets himself up for the obvious counternarratives by his pro-choice critics. They can simply collect and publicize their own stories of women who either do not regret having an abortion or are pleased that they went through with the procedure, which is precisely what has happened. Advocates of the sanctity of life must take concrete actions to care for the wellbeing of both mother and child. But to tightly tether the pro-life cause to the vicissitudes of the social sciences—implying that the wrongness of abortion depends in some way, however modest, on the bad psychological effects of procuring one—teaches the wrong lesson. A Kernel of Truth Is Not Enough In each of these bad prolife arguments, there is a kernel of truth. The killing Beethoven argument appeals to our deep intuition that a human being’s intrinsic worth does not depend on the condition of her parents or the circumstances of her birth, but it fails to acknowledge that her worth doesn’t depend on the prospects of her future either. The argument from gruesome abortion procedures shows us that the unborn child is a human being, but it cannot by itself show us that abortion is the unjust killing of an innocent human person. The argument from abortion regret and emotional pain may tell us that some women who choose abortion suffer psychological injury, but such consequences cannot tell us whether or not abortion is morally wrong. Because these arguments have a kernel of truth in them, they may very well serve as a catalyst for deeper reflection that leads one to truly see the unborn child as one of us. For that reason, they are not entirely bad. Nevertheless, pro-lifers should remember that these arguments by themselves cannot establish the veracity of our position and principles, no matter how rhetorically powerful they may seem. About the Author FRANCIS J. BECKWITH Francis J. Beckwith is Professor of Philosophy & Church-State Studies, and Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Philosophy, at Baylor University. Among his books are Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (2007) and the award-winning Taking Ri..

Posted on January 15, 2019 by abyssum
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THE ONLY PERSONS BENEFITTING FROM THE CONVICTION OF Cardinal Pell ARE FRANCIS THE MERCIFUL AND HIS VATICAN ASSOCIATES WHO GAINED FREE ACCESS TO THE VATICAN’S WEALTH

Posted on January 13, 2019 by abyssum

The inexplicable conviction of Cardinal Pell By Phil Lawler | Dec 17, 2018 Through bitter experience over the years, I have learned never to proclaim that some trusted figure couldn’t possibly be guilty of sexual abuse. I have learned to wait, … Continue reading →

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