Friday, October 31, 2008

A couple things

First, make sure you're reading American Catholic.

Second, make sure you're reading Culture11.

Third, start Plurking!

Friday, October 24, 2008

Do you Plurk?

(It's like Twitter, although telling you might not help much...)
Make sure...

You're reading American Catholic... I've posted more there in the last 10 days than I have in the last six months here!

Friday, October 10, 2008

New blog!

In light of the fact that my personal blogging at Veritas has fallen dramatically, I accepted an invitation recently to post at a new group blog that launched this week: American Catholic. I highly encourage whatever poor soul who still visits Veritas to check out AC.
March 25th!

That was the date of my last post here!

Wow.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Let me get this straight...

A number of banks, mortgage companies & investment firms give mortgages to people who can't afford them (and shouldn't have been asking for them themselves), and when those people default on said mortgages (surprise!), these companies expect the Fed to bail them out? HUH????

Another thing: the foreclosure "boom" is basically limited to that sub-prime market, yet somehow this leads people -- coughthemediacough -- to wring their hands over the foreclosure crisis we're in. Again, I say, HUH????

If it weren't for the fact that the media (and to some degree the market as well) would blow it out of proportion and probably instigate a "real" banking crisis, I'd say Bear Sterns should've been allowed to sink... that whole responsibility thing.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Barack isn't that different

Just like every other major Democratic contender for the Party's nomination for the Presidency, he makes his ritual observances before Planned Parenthood, sounding very similar to others who have sought the nomination.

Until the hold of the abortion lobby over the Democratic Party is loosened, they're going to have a hard time convincing a majority of Americans to vote for them. Not that it can't happen, but I can confidently say that if Barack was pro-life, he'd probably be a shoe-in for President.

Friday, February 08, 2008

Why conservatism?

(Maybe for Lent I should have given up *not* blogging... hmm....)

One of the big political stories over the last couple of weeks has been the response of conservative talk radio to the ascension of John McCain as the front runner and now presumptive Presidential nominee for the Republican Party. Almost across the board, the leading lights of conservative talk shows have come out against McCain, due to his deviations from conservatism on issues like tax cuts, immigration reform and free speech/campaign finance reform. The father of all conservative talkers, Rush Limbaugh, noted a few weeks ago that if McCain or Huckabee were the GOP nominee, "it's going to destroy the Republican Party." Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, and other conservatives made similar comments.

In almost every case, the general argument has been something along these lines: because of his stance on issue X, McCain isn't a real conservative, and therefore shouldn't be the nominee.

Regardless of whether or not McCain is a real conservative (and I tend to be sympathetic to Limbaugh et al. here), I think many of these critics are missing an important link in their argument: they need to explain why conservatism is the better position. We're twenty years removed from the presidency of Ronald Reagan and 10 years from Gingrich's speakership, and it's no longer sufficient to simply demonstrate that position X is not conservative, because it's not evident to many people (including Republicans) that the conservative position is the better one on any number of issues.

What Limbaugh et al. need to do is go back to the basics -- or do a more thorough job of going back to the basics -- and explain why conservative positions are the stronger positions. Speaking as someone who is generally conservative on political matters, I agree with these talkers that conservatism is the better political philosophy in our day and age, but I don't often hear an extended argument on talk radio demonstrating why conservatism is the better position. This simply needs to happen.

In the meantime, I'll vote for John McCain for president, even if he's not as conservative as I'd like.

Monday, February 04, 2008

What are you giving up for Lent?

I think I'm going to give up blogging...


Hah!

Saturday, January 05, 2008

A fav Lutheran blogger

Taking a timeout from yet another blogging hiatus here at Veritas to plug a blog: Weedon's blog, authored by Lutheran (LCMS) pastor William Weedon. Pastor Weedon exhibits an ability which -- at least in my experience -- is somewhat rare among confessional LCMS bloggers: you get the sense that he defines himself more by what he is (a confessional LCMS Lutheran) than by what he is not (a Catholic, or Reformed, etc.). (Unfortunately, the same tendency can be found among people of any tradition -- including Catholicism -- who are zealous about their orthodoxy; there's something about that zeal that tempts us to identify ourselves by opposition to others.)

Pastor Weedon reminds me of something often said by some Lutheran converts to Catholicism: with the truth at the heart of his view of justification (apart from the errors), Luther might have been able to reform the Church from within, instead of falling into heresy and excommunication. Alas. Why does Weedon's blog remind me of this? Because he offers us (in my opinion) some idea of the best that Lutheranism has to offer.

So: check him out. And be Catholic. :-)