Due-Processing Terri's Death
[NB: An updated and rewritten version of a prior post].

"The better the society, the less law there will be. In Heaven there will be no law, and the lion will lie down with the lamb . . . . In Hell there will be nothing but law, and due process will be meticulously observed."

-- Grant Gilmore, "The Ages of American Law."

The federal government's role in the American mythos is the deus ex machina, swooping down onto the stage of corrupt local politics and setting all things right. So it may be mystifying to see that government so quickly and adamantly refusing Terri Schiavo even a day's respite from the Florida court's order condemning her to death by starvation and thirst. I hope to take some of the mystery out of these events by explaining some things about the supposedly "heroic" passage of the federal version of "Terri's law." At worst, that law is a simple bit of electoral window-dressing. At best, it's the tardy reaction of a party of foolish virgins who, despite great promises, have been caught short by events. That Party, I believe, doesn't deserve the support of Christian voters. It does not prevent evil or do good. I sometimes wonder if its only role isn't to distract Christians from conducting the real work of pro-life politics. But whatever its motives, I think it's clear that the Republican Party has done its best to save Terri, and proved that it's best isn't good enough.

The federal version of Terri's Law authorizes the judiciary to address the "violation of any right of Theresa Marie Schiavo under the Constitution or laws of the United States relating to the withholding or withdrawal of food, fluids, or medical treatment necessary to sustain her life." It directs federal courts to:

determine de novo any claim of a violation of any right of Theresa Marie Schiavo within the scope of this Act, notwithstanding any prior State court determination and regardless of whether such a claim has previously been raised, considered, or decided in State court proceedings..

De novo is a legal term of art which, although not a translation of the Latin, means that the court should regard itself as writing on a blank slate, without regard to anything any other court may or may not have done. The law's use of the term has caused a lot confusion and, thereby, undeserved praise for the Republicans.0

While de novo may mean the slate is blank, the list of permitted topics is not. Congress only allowed the federal courts to look "de novo" at Terri's case for the illegal deprivation, of rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States. What rights does Terri actually have under those laws? The fourteenth amendment to the federal constitution says that Terri has a right not to be deprived of the "privileges and immunities" of a U.S. citizen, and the right not to be deprived of her life, liberty, or property "without due process of law." The federal courts threw out the "privileges and immunities" business a long time ago. According to them, the people who wrote and voted for the phrase "privileges and immunities" intended it to mean nothing at all, and must be ignored entirely. So we're left with Terri's rights to "due process."[2] By examining Terri's "due process" rights, we can see not only that the culture of death has a very firm grip on our laws, but also that the Republican effort to "save Terri" was intended to fail. So why did the Republicans move legislative heaven and earth to pass it? I'll address that later, with some concluding thoughts on the Republican Party.

There are two kinds of "due process" -- substantive and procedural. Without putting too fine a point on it, "substantive due process" means "whatever a federal judge thinks is right." It's a "content" phrase, denoting a realm where substantive ideas of right and wrong rule the day. If a federal "right to life" were to have a home in constitutional jurisprudence, it would be built by substantive due process rulings. But when we peer across the threshold of "substantive due process," we find that the last, and most prominent example, of that kind of jurisprudence is Roe v. Wade:[2]

The principal thrust of Appellant's [Roe's] attack on the Texas statutes is that they improperly invade a right, said to be possessed by the pregnant woman, to choose to terminate her pregnancy. Appellant would discover this right in the concept of personal "liberty" embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause; or in personal, marital, familial, and sexual privacy said to be protected by the Bill of Rights or its penumbras . . . .

This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. . . .

We, therefore, conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision . . .[3]

Roe is the high-water mark of pro-death jurisprudence. It enshrines abortion as a constitutional right and introduces "functionality" and "utility" as litmus tests for the legal recognition of human life. But even more significantly, Roe establishes within the fourteenth amendment a false concept of individual autonomy that makes each of us a god among ants. Roe creates a private realm of fantasy where men and women may by a sheer act of will so devalue another person's life that it becomes permissible - or even morally obligatory - to commit murder. This is made perfectly clear in the Supreme Court's discussion in Roe about the value of unborn life. At no point does the Roe Court actually "decide" that unborn children aren't human persons. Instead, the Court threw together a mish-mash of different opinions from the law, philosophy, and religion and concludes that whatever an unborn child may be, the fact of its existence can't justify state control of what happens in the magic kingdom of individual delusion.

Roe's logic is brought to its full development by the pseudo-philosophical drivel of Justices Kennedy, O'Connor, and Souter (all Republican appointees to the Court) in the Supreme Court's opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey:

Our law affords constitutional protection to personal decisions relating to marriage, procreation, contraception, family relationships, child rearing, and education. These matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they formed under compulsion of the State.[4]

Thus, under the philosophy of the Supreme Court, every man is free to decide whether, and if, a child is a human being. More than that, it says every man is free to decide that, even if a child is human, the child may be murdered to serve other ends. This concept of "autonomy" is absolutely incompatible with the "pre-defined" moral universe familiar to Christians, which has a common power to overawe men and keep their desires in check. Rather than being some bold, new statement of enlightened principle, it simply elevates Hobbes' state of nature into the content of "liberty" protected by the fourteenth amendment:

Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man.For war consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of time is to be considered in the nature of war, as it is in the nature of weather. For as the nature of foul weather lieth not in a shower or two of rain, but in an inclination thereto of many days together: so the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary.

Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of war, where every man is enemy to every man, the same consequent to the time wherein men live without other security than what their own strength and their own invention shall furnish them withal. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.[5]

The result has not been as dire as Hobbes' description, but that's only because the Court has -- so far -- confined the principle to matters involving the family. In that area, Hobbes' catalogue of misery, poverty, and base living serves as prophecy for what's happened to the American family in the forty-plus years since the Supreme Court embarked on its lunatic program.

In sexual, domestic and family relations the rule is clear -- justice is the will of the stronger, the best able to conquer in war. Americans disagree about who the stronger may be. Some say men, because of sexism and preferential economic situations. Others say women are the stronger, because of preferential laws and judicial sympathy. Still others find domesticity to be a fluid combat environment in which each side has strategic and tactical advantages over the other. Americans may disagree on these matters, but we all agree that the domestic union of man and woman is the circumstance of war: "For war consisteth not in battle only, or the act of fighting, but in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known . . . For . . . the nature of war consisteth not in actual fighting, but in the known disposition thereto during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary."[6]

In the case of American children, the rule of the stronger is most clear. Those who can murder a child may do so without restraint or cause, save only that the state recognize in them a causal and proprietary nexus with the child's body. Before the Athenians murdered and enslaved the inhabitants of an enemy state, their ambassadors gave the future victims an epitaph which serves equally well for the fate of children under American rule: "[R]ight, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."[7] Over twenty million children have been butchered on this principle.

The philosophy of individual god-hood adopted in Roe and Casey creates a moral and legal framework that permits Americans to abuse or kill ourselves or those to whom we are connected by familial or marital relationships. Casey's bathos about the ontological omnipotence of the American mind has been repeatedly used to legitimize suicide, assisted suicide, partial-birth abortions, homosexual marriages, adoptions by homosexual couples, and now euthenasia. This is as it must be. If every American has the right to create his own moral universe, what right could the government possibly have to define the universe differently? Like any seduction, the process by which this war spreads among our people has taken time. Justices O'Connor, Suiter, and Kennedy may lead the American people to the abyss, but our structure of government and cultural heritage -- indeed, the same weird logic employed by the Court -- still prohibit them from shoving us over the edge.

I believe that time is also drawing to a close, and within decades Americans will slaughter each other without the fine pretences of individual autonomy and consent which presently obscure the nature of our national bloodletting. The culture must be prepared, made ready, to accept holocaust as a normal condition of civic life. I shall explain this more fully below. At this point I mean to depict one phase of the seduction, being played out in the typical American pattern of litigation culimnating in a fresh new right to destroy life.

Defenders of the Republican program with whom I've spoken on life issues like to point out that the Supreme Court has rejected two attempts to legalize physician-assisted suicide.[8] In those cases, however, the challenge was to state laws prohibiting physician-assisted suicide made on the grounds that Casey's right to envision one's own moral universe creates a right to have physicians help build it. The federal Courts of Appeal hearing those challenges agreed, and rightly so: If suicide is a right, then it makes no more sense to prohibit physician-assisted suicide than it does to have a right of free speech while punishing people who print books. But the Supreme Court, unusure about the widsom of moving with such speed in this area, upheld the laws in a very interesting way. Rather than recognize a "right to life," the Supreme Court "assumed" to the contrary, that the Constitution grants a right to commit suicide. The Court upheld the state laws as permissible regulations justified by a number of public-policy reasons which are best decided at the state level.[9] Seduction is not rape; the victim must not be forced, but must freely clamor for defiliment. If the program of death is to advance, America must abandon the pretence of sullenly and reluctantly enduring an imposed evil and eagerly embrace the cause of blood. And so a Court which had no time for democracy when it decided Roe now hesitates in order to invite a democratic sanction for euthenasia.

Nothing in the Supreme Court's euthenasia opinions suggests that government has a duty to prohibit suicide, whether assisted or not. The Court has already held that sates may allow "substitute" or "surrogate" decision-makers like Michael Schiavo to withhold food and water from those in their care.[10] Just this past term, the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal over a state law which affirmatively permits physician-assisted suicide. The pieces are in place to make euthenasia a hallowed American right, one which may be enjoyed in cases like Terri's, where "concerned" family members exercise their "surrogate decision-making" power to effect their own concepts of the universe.[11] (I have no doubt that the presence of this case on the Court's docket helped doom any chance Terri had to Supreme Court review of the federal decisions that refused to save her life. Each justice was thinking about the impact a "Schiavo ruling" would have on their positions, and no justice wanted to rashly expose their thoughts on the issue.) For what it's worth, I predict that either a coalition of the timid will invalidate Oregon's law on some narrow ground which leaves the "Roe / Casey theology" intact but unapplied, or the Court will grant any mentally-competent individual the right to a lethal injection under the banner of "due process."[12]

From this it should be obvious that our Constitutional jurisprudence doesn't recognize a "right to life" in any sense that's meaningfully connected to the Christian tradition. In the Christian tradition, however defined, one's right to life exists independently of the moral imagination. My parents could, if they wished, have defined a moral universe in which I was not a child in the womb, but only a lump of meat floating in amniotic fluid to be dealt with as convenience and ambition would suggest. A Christian legal order, however, would not have allowed such a fantasy any practical effect. One's right to live exists even independently of one's own moral visions. I can imagine a moral universe where, by means of suicide, myself and thirty of my followers will return to the Cosmic Mother Ship and enjoy celestial bliss. A Christian legal order will not sanction that program, and would put me in prison for trying to implement it. American law recognizes no such right. It embraces Casey's deadly solipsism, the individual, autonomous, and unquestionable right to decide if a life is valuable and, if so, how valuable it is.

The only tether between American jurisprudence and moral reality is a clear-but-false commitment to individual choice as the arbiter of moral values. Although it inflates individuality and the exercise of free will far beyond the place they occupy in Christian theology, federal law still demands at least the pretence that a state-sanctioned killing has resulted from a free and voluntary individual choice. By their own terms, Roe and Casey seem to prohibit the outright, "unconsented-to" killing of the mentally incompetent, the disabled, the terminally ill, or the aged. But Roe contains the answer to that problem by adopting "functionality" and "utility" as tests for legal personhood. The Court's opinion speaks with apparent scholarship about the history of philosophy and ideas, ancient legal institutions, and many other learned matters bearing on whether the law recognizes unborn people as people. But in the end, Roe refuses to recognize the unborn as human because the unborn can't vote, pay taxes, or do any of the other useful and beneficial things citizens do:

The Constitution does not define "person" in so many words. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment contains three references to "person." The first, in defining "citizens," speaks of "persons born or naturalized in the United States." The word also appears both in the Due Process Clause and in the Equal Protection Clause. "Person" is used in other places in the Constitution: in the listing of qualifications for Representatives and Senators, Art. I, § 2, cl. 2, and § 3, cl. 3; in the Apportionment Clause, Art. I, § 2, cl. 3; in the Migration and Importation provision, Art. I, § 9, cl. 1; in the Emolument Clause, Art. I, § 9, cl. 8; in the Electors provisions, Art. II, § 1, cl. 2, and the superseded cl. 3; in the provision outlining qualifications for the office of President, Art. II, § 1, cl. 5; in the Extradition provisions, Art. IV, § 2, cl. 2, and the superseded Fugitive Slave Clause 3; and in the Fifth, Twelfth, and Twenty-second Amendments, as well as in §§ 2 and 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. But in nearly all these instances, the use of the word is such that it has application only postnatally. None indicates, with any assurance, that it has any possible pre-natal application. . . . All this, together with our observation, supra, that throughout the major portion of the 19th century prevailing legal abortion practices were far freer than they are today, persuades us that the word "person," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn.[13]

This is the hinge on which the slaughterhouse doors will swing even wider in the decades to come. A national holocaust only requires the genius of an O'Connor, a Kennedy, or a Souter to incorporate Roe's functional definition of "personhood" into the application of Casey's personal right to define the universe in order to authorize killing "unpersons" who, for whatever reason, do not have a "person's" ability to articulate or participate in the cosmic realities of philosophy and citizenship.

This deadly jurisprudence is on full display in Terri's case. As the federal courts have never tired of explaining to the Schindlers, the fourteenth amendment doesn't contain a "right to life." So the 11th Circuit rejected the Schindlers' appeal -- for the second time -- yesterday:

Substantive due process rights are those rights "created by the Constitution," of which "no amount of process can justify [their] infringement. Vinyard v. Wilson, 311 F.3rd 1340, 1356 (11th Cir. 2002). The plain language of the Fourteenth Amendment contemplates that a person can be deprived of life so long as due process is provided. XIV Amend., U.S. Const. ("[n]o State shall . . . deprive any person of life . . . without due process of law") The "right to life" is accordingly protected by Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process. Cf. Cruzan, 497 U.S. at 293 (J. Scalia, concurring) ("The text of the Due Process Clause does not protect individuals against deprivation of liberty simpliciter. It protects them against deprivations of liberty "‘without due process of law.'") . . . Accordingly, Plaintiffs cannot establish a substantial likelihood of success on the merits or a substantial case on the merits of their Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process claim.

There you have it. The fourteenth amendment's "right to life" means only the right to be killed with procedural due process. Because each man has a right to make his own moral universe, a violation of the Constitution only occurs when an outside power like the government oversteps its bounds by doing something besides regulating the process we use to imagine our own private corner of Auschwitz.

Knowing the law, we can quickly realize that the Republicans' version of "Terri's law" holds out, as her best hope of life, the chance that a federal District Court judge will gut the entire line of "privacy" cases established by the Supreme Court over the past forty years.[14] Those cases empower Michael to envision a moral universe in which he can starve Terri to death, and empower Judge Greer to envision with Michael a moral universe in which Terri can legitimately authorize her own murder. But that law remains, controlling every step of this case, and the Republicans know it. What's worse, the Republicans agreed to it. Section Five of "Terri's Law" states: "Nothing in this Act shall be construed to create substantive rights not otherwise secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States or of the several States." Nothing in Terri's law shall be construed to authorize a Christian right to life, and nothing but a Christian right to life can save her. It's difficult to imagine a more cynical instance of political chicanery.

The Republicans authorized the federal courts to investigate violations of Terri's federal rights, knowing that these "rights" were conditioned on Michael's power to envision a moral universe in which she could be killed and Judge Greer's power to supervise the process by which she was put to death. They refused to let federal courts to reconsider the political theology that allows euthenasia. They refused to let federal courts reconsider the facts of Terri's case under Florida law. They intended only to permit litigation under the second type of due process -- procedural due process.

But procedural due process is a very different type of jurisprudence. It doesn't allow inquiries into whether a decision is "just" or "correct." It asks only if the decision was arrived at by steps which comply with some minimum standards about how a decision should be made. Potter Stewart, who served on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1958 to 1981, described it this way:

[D]espite the fact that the right to procedural due process may have an incidental effect on the substance of the actions undertaken by the government, it is clear that the guarantee of procedural due process merely imposes upon the State a duty to follow a fair process of decision making. Thus, a determination that governmental action violated a citizen's right to procedural due process is merely a condemnation of the procedures that attended the action and not an assessment of the constitutionality or propriety of the action itself.[15]

Or, as Justice Brandies put it:

The inexorable safeguard which the due process clause assures is, not that a court may examine whether the findings . . . are correct, but that the trier of the facts shall be an impartial tribunal; that no finding shall be made except upon due notice and opportunity to be heard; that the procedure at the hearing shall be consistent with the essentials of a fair trial; and that it shall be conducted in such a way that there will be opportunity for a court to determine whether the applicable rules of law and procedure were observed.[16]

The procedural due-process inquiry authorized by "Terri's Law" isn't about whether Terri "should" die. It's only about whether Judge Greer dotted all the I's and crossed all the Ts before signing her death warrant.

That's why George Felos constantly rants that this case has been "litigated to death." The more litigation, the less chance that the steps required to make a decision weren't made. And that's what procedural due process is all about -- having one's ‘day in court.' Was Judge Greer wrong to allow Michael to continue serving as Terri's guardian? Under procedural due process, no one cares. The only relevant inquiry is whether Terri's parents had the opportunity to say that Michael Schiavo should not be Terri's guardian. They did. Procedural due process was accorded. Case closed. It's a brutal inquiry, and one of the toughest cases to make.

The law has a hundred devices to avoid overturning cases on procedural due-process grounds. Just about everyone who's applauded the upholding of a criminal conviction against "technicalities" raised by "sleazy" defense attorneys has approved of one or more of those devices. Courts can reject procedural due-process arguments if they believe that a correction of the claimed error isn't likely to result in a different judgment on re-trial. Courts can turn down procedural due-process appeals if their claims weren't "timely" made in the heat of courtroom combat -- few lawyers are savvy enough to anticipate a violation of the law from the Court itself, and even if they do anticipate it, all it gets them is a Hobson's choice between alienating the judge in order to preserve an unlikely argument on appeal and foregoing the challenge in the hopes that the judge will not become antagonistic to their case. And even after all such hurdles are cleared, we're still left with the cold hard fact that a judicial "healer" who's doing a procedural due-process "diagnosis" doesn't care if all he sees a corpse; he only cares that it have the right number of bones.

Is there even an argument that Terri was denied procedural due process? Via the indefatigable and saintly Fr. Johansen of Thrown-Back, we read some items which O. Carter Snead, moonlighting from his job with the Council on Bioethics, claims to be procedural due process violations:

The court's failure to appoint a guardian ad litem (following 1998);

The court's usurpation of the guardian's role (in direct violation of Florida law);

The court's reliance upon insufficient evidence regarding T. Schiavo's wishes (namely, the recollection of her husband that T. Schiavo's had made ambiguous, casual remarks about "not wanting to be a burden" many years prior, in a wholly unrelated context);

The court's refusal to consider probative evidence of T. Schiavo's wishes (namely, witness testimony that Mr. Schiavo was lying and that he had never, in fact, discussed end-of-life care with T. Schiavo); and

On remand, the court's shifting of the burden to the Schindlers to demonstrate that T. Schiavo would have wanted treatment under the present circumstances (inverting the logic of the Florida laws).

These irregularities make it impossible to conclude that T. Schiavo's wishes under the present circumstances were proven by "clear and convincing" evidence, particularly in light of the presumption (under Florida law) that she would have chosen to receive life-sustaining treatment. Any claim, therefore, that re-insertion of the tube is contrary to Terri's wishes (and thus an encroachment upon her right to refuse treatment) is groundless. We simply do not yet know what her wishes would have been.[17]

Note carefully the structure of Mr. Snead's argument, which is deliberately ambivalent about the "rightness" or "wrongness" of Judge Greer's decision. Nowhere does Mr. Snead argue about Terri's "right to life," or the permissibility of state-sanctioned euthanasia; his argument would be just as comfortably made within a legal/moral regime that honored Jack Kevorkian or Mother Theresa. That's as it should be, because the only sort of claims cognizable under procedural due process are claims about the process itself.

Several of Mr. Snead's items involve the "sufficiency" of the evidence to prove one thing or the other, such as Michael Schiavo's fitness to continue as guardian, the nature of Terri's wishes (if any) regarding life in her present condition. Other commentators, including Fr. Johansen, have argued strenuously and (in my opinion) convincingly that Judge Greer's decisions repeatedly refuse to give proper effect to credible and significant evidence on those matters. Those are the strongest arguments for overturning Judge Greer's decision and, paradoxically, they're the weakest ones to make on Terri's behalf under a procedural due-process inquiry. Procedural due process isn't about whether Judge Greer correctly saw what's going on; it's about whether Judge Greer looked long enough before getting it wrong anyhow.

The law has a vigorous preference for decisions to be made at the time, in the courtroom, by a judge or jury who see the evidence face to face. Courts are reluctant, very reluctant, extremely reluctant, to second-guess a judge or jury's decision about who to believe or what the evidence does or does not prove. If I had a nickel for every time an appeals court in my state affirmed a judgment by saying, "We are merely invited to reweigh the evidence and re-judge the credibility of the witnesses. This we will not do," I could retire to St. Kitts. Just start talking about the evidence in an appeal, and you can bet the judges are already jotting that stock phrase down on their notepads. I say this as prologue, for while there is a procedural due-process argument which can ask a court to evaluate the evidence, it doesn't help Terri at all.

I quote the Supreme Court's decision in Jackson v. Virginia which dealt with a court's ability to reverse a criminal conviction on procedural due process grounds if it concluded that the evidence does not support the verdict:

[T]he critical inquiry on review of the sufficiency of the evidence to support a criminal conviction must be . . . to determine whether the record evidence could reasonably support a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But this inquiry does not require a court to "ask itself whether it believes that the evidence at the trial established guilt beyond a reasonable doubt." Instead, the relevant question is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. . . . This familiar standard gives full play to the responsibility of the trier of fact fairly to resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts. Once a defendant has been found guilty of the crime charged, the factfinder's role as weigher of the evidence is preserved through a legal conclusion that upon judicial review all of the evidence is to be considered in the light most favorable to the prosecution. The criterion thus impinges upon "jury" discretion only to the extent necessary to guarantee the fundamental protection of due process of law.[18]

When a litigant claims that the evidence was not rightly weighed, that a "true" view of the case doesn't support the judgment, the only thing the court can do is examine the evidence most favorable to the current result and decide if that evidence can, in principle, justify the decision.

Applied here, Congress' enactment does not allow the federal courts to reweigh the evidence or re-try her case. The federal courts are not allowed to decide if Michael Schiavo is lying about Terri's supposed "wish" to die if she ever became as severely-disabled as she is. Michael's testimony is evidence that supports Judge Greer's decision, and so it is Michael's evidence which the federal court will examine and not the testimony of her parents, friends, or family which claims that Terri expressed no such wish. Congress' act does not let a federal court decide whether "Dr. A's" diagnoses should be accepted over "Dr. B's" diagnoses. If one minimally-qualified expert testified that Terri was brain-dead, in a vegetative state, and incapable of rehabilitation then that testimony is the evidence which supports Judge Greer's decision, and the federal courts are not allowed to second-guess Judge Greer and hold that he ought to have believed "Dr. A" or, indeed, a hundred other doctors who testified to the contrary. When two sets of evidence appear in the record which justify two conclusions, and the choice depends on which set of evidence is more believable, the nod always and inevitably goes to the evidence picked by the jury or the trial judge. In legal parlance, these are the "finders of fact," who have the opportunity to watch the witnesses, experience the "gestalt" of the case, in ways that a court reviewing a paper record cannot.

Thus I have to disagree with Thomas Sowell and Fr. Johansen, both of whom read the "de novo" clause of the federal Terri's law to permit a retrial of the entire guardianship case and any part thereof. As Fr. Johansen says, "The law passed was intended to give Terri a de novo hearing — that is, one which would re-open all the issues of the case for consideration." Congress authorized a de novo hearing, but only as to the due process issues as described here. Congress didn't pass a law obliterating Judge Greer's decision and transferring Terri's case to federal court so that it could start again at square one. Congress passed a law allowing federal courts to see if Judge Greer let people argue their case and present evidence for it, before turning them down by picking and choosing which evidence he would believe so long as the evidence he picked and chose can, standing alone and without reference to the other evidence support his decision as a matter of legal theory. [19]

That's the box the Republicans stuck Terri in last weekend. The only way out it was is to find a federal judge willing to demand that Judge Greer act on behalf of a federal "right to life" that could come into existence only if the same federal judge decided to figuratively burn the "Roe / Casey heretics" at the stake. And that, as everyone who voted for the federal version of "Terri's Law" well knows, is as easy as finding a Republican Congressman who doesn't think about re-election.

***

Pilate's Disciples

At this point a few conclusions about the Republican effort to "save" Terri can be drawn. The Republicans who passed this law carefully, and deliberately, withheld federal jurisdiction from the best and most powerful case to keep Terri alive -- de novo litigation about what actually happened, what she really said or did not say to Michael, and about Michael's fitness to make these decisions for her. Instead they passed a law that allowed a federal judge to conduct a useless "procedural due-process" check into whether Judge Greer let both sides present evidence and arguments about those things. They passed a law that would let a judge save Terri by overruling Roe v. Wade -- and that in a federal judicial district where cases are assigned at random and where less than half of the active judges are Republican appointees -- and which said at the same time that the federal judges were to follow Roe and Casey and not create a right to life.[20] They labored like a volcano and produced a jurisdictional hiccup that offers hope with one hand and snatches it away with the other.

As Pilate sent Jesus to Herod, hoping that Herod would take the blame for whatever happened, so the Republicans have sent Terri to federal court. The Republicans know there's no real punch behind procedural due process arguments, especially not in this case, which has been "litigated to death." They know their law forbids the court to re-try the facts, or recognize a substantive due-process "right to life" in the federal constitution. They also know that saving Terri is popular with a key constituency, and so they sent her to Herod. Soon, during the next election cycle, they will turn to us like Pilate turned, and say their hands are clean.

I used to think Republicans looked favorably on the culture of life, but just didn't "get it" enough to follow through on their good intentions. Now I see them playing games with that culture, treating it with a thinly-disguised contempt as a pawn in the larger game of creating "red America" for the sake of other goals. I remember all the Republican promises, the ones they made in 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004 and in every Congressional election in between. Constitutional amendments overruling Roe v. Wade. Respect for the unborn, the helpless, and lots of quotes from Catholic and Christian thinkers, delivered in the best doe-eyed, teleprompter style by trim, blue-suited, red-tied candidates who always had pictures of their children at hand. Try holding them to all that now, and you'll hear that fighting terrorism is pro-life, just as you'll hear Democrats telling you that fighting poverty is pro-life. Everybody in Washington D.C. is pro-life, except the pro-life activists. They're just "divisive," and "politically foolish."

What would you call a party that brings up, every year, a pro-life amendment to the U.S. Constitution overruling Roe, and forces it to a roll-call vote, even it means disrupting business as usual and putting things like tort and banking reform on hold? What would you call the party of a President who boasts of having a "litmus test" for federal judges who'll respect the right to life under the federal Constitution? What would you call the party of Senators who compel the Senate to abandon the sham filibusters liberals have been using to stall action on those pro-life nominations? What would you call the party of elected Presidents who explain in every state of the union address that we can't tolerate the killing of millions of defenseless children and live up to the high ideals of our founding, and that the right to privacy cannot justify killing an innocent person? What would you call a party where someone who describes herself to the media as "moderately pro-choice" on abortion and who worries about intrusive federal laws that might impinge on a woman's right to choose doesn't stand a snowball's chance in Hell of serving in the cabinet?

You could call that party a lot of things. You could call it "fanatic." You might call it "extremist." You might, given the inroads evil has made into the American mind, call that party "dead on arrival." That can all be argued, depending on your point of view. But two things can't be argued. One: You' d have to call that party "pro-life." Two: You couldn't call it "Republican."

*********************************

Notes


[1] The full text is available here.

[2] The fourteenth amendment also requires "equal protection" of the laws. But I'm not aware of any facts which would implicate this provision in Terri's case.

[3] Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). I confess here to a breach of the rubrics The Supreme Court "officially" rejected "substantive due process" as a basis for Constitutional law in its 1963 ruling, Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U.S. 726 (1963). In order to avoid sacrilege, we lawyers are therefore obliged to speak as though cases like Roe do not rely on "substantive due process." Members of the royal priesthood, unlike us poor acolytes, are not so constrained. Thus Justice Stewart, in his concurring opinion in Roe, admitted that the case was a prime example of using substantive due process, a use he wholeheartedly embraced:

1963, this Court, in Ferguson v. Skrupa . . . . purported to sound the death knell for the doctrine of substantive due process, a doctrine under which many state laws had in the past been held to violate the Fourteenth Amendment. As Mr. Justice Black's opinion for the Court in Skrupa put it: "We have returned to the original constitutional proposition that courts do not substitute their social and economic beliefs for the judgment of legislative bodies, who are elected to pass laws." . . . Barely two years later, in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, the Court held a Connecticut birth control law unconstitutional. In view of what had been so recently said in Skrupa, the Court's opinion in Griswold understandably did its best to avoid reliance on the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as the ground for decision. Yet, the Connecticut law did not violate any provision of the Bill of Rights, nor any other specific provision of the Constitution. So it was clear to me then, and it is equally clear to me now, that the Griswold decision can be rationally understood only as a holding that the Connecticut statute substantively invaded the "liberty" that is protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. As so understood, Griswold stands as one in a long line of pre-Skrupa cases Decided under the doctrine of substantive due process, and I now accept it as such.

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) (Stewart, J. concurring).

[4] Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992).

[5] Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Part I.

[6] Evidence of this perpetual state of war can be found anywhere. For brevity's sake, I located these lyrics from popular, mass-marketed entertainers. In "Love is a Battlefield," Pat Benatar sings:

You're beggin' me to go, you're makin' me stay
Why do you hurt me so bad?
It would help me to know
Do I stand in your way, or am I the best thing you've had?
Believe me, believe me, I can't tell you why
But I'm trapped by your love, and I'm chained to your side

We are young, heartache to heartache we stand
No promises, no demands
Love is a battlefield

In "Independence Day," Martina McBride sings from the point of view of a young girl whose mother burned her father to death:

Well word gets around in a small, small town
They said he was a dangerous man
Mama was proud and she stood her ground
she knew she was on the losin' end
Some folks whispered some folks talked
but everybody looked the other way
when time ran out there was no one about
On Independence Day

[Chorus]
Let Freedom ring,let the white dove sing
Let the whole world know that today is a
Day of reckoning
Let the weak be strong, let the right be wrong
Roll the stone away, let the guilty pay, it's
Independence Day

Well she lit up the sky that fourth of July
By the time that the firemen come
They just put out the flames,
and took down some names
And sent me to the county home
Now I ain't sayin' it's right or it's wrong
but maybe it's the only way
Talk about your revolution
It's Independence Day

Perhaps no one exemplifies the psychotic state of hostility to which I'm referring than the wildly-popular artist who calls himself "Eminem," singing here about raping his mother and hating all women:

When I just a little baby boy,
my momma used to tell me these crazy things
She used to tell me my daddy was an evil man,
she used to tell me he hated me
But then I got a little bit older
and I realized, she was the crazy one
But there was nothin I could do or say to try to change it
cause that's just the way she was

. . . Slut, you think I won't choke no whore
til the vocal cords don't work in her throat no more?!
(AHHH!) These motherfuckers are thinkin I'm playin
Thinkin I'm sayin the shit cause I'm thinkin it just to be sayin it
(AHHH!) Put your hands down bitch, I ain't gon' shoot you
I'ma pull +YOU+ to this bullet, and put it through you
(AHHH!) Shut up slut, you're causin too much chaos
Just bend over and take it slut, okay Ma?
"Oh, now he's raping his own mother, abusing a whore . . .

You god damn right BITCH, and now it's too late
I'm triple platinum and tragedies happen in two states
I invented violence, you vile venomous volatile bitches
vain Vicadin, vrinnn Vrinnn, VRINNN! {*chainsaw revs up*}
Texas Chainsaw, left his brains all
danglin from his neck, while his head barely hangs on
Blood, guts, guns, cuts
Knives, lives, wives, nuns, sluts

Even country music, usually thought to be a bastion of traditional values, has absorbed the motif. In "Goodbye, Earl," one of their more popular songs, the Dixie Chicks praise the murder of an abusive husband:

Well she finally got the nerve to file for divorce
She let the law take it from there
But Earl walked right through that restraining order
And put her in intensive care

Right away Mary Anne flew in from Atlanta
On a red eye midnight flight
She held Wanda's hand as they
Worked out a plan
And it didn't take long to decide

That Earl had to die
Goodbye Earl
Those black-eyed peas
They tasted all right to me Earl!
You're feeling weak
Why don't you lay down
And sleep Earl
Ain't it dark
Wrapped up in that tarp Earl?

The "Chicks" video performance of "Goodbye Earl" is particularly interesting because it depicts the murder as a celebratory rite of womanly passage rather than a desperate necessity. Dennis Franz, the actor from the popular NYPD Blue series, portrays Earl. Lauren Holly and June Krakowski, who've acted in numerous films and television shows, also appear. I mention this to show that the culture of war flows easily through all media, artistic genres, and demographics.

I don't mean to suggest that Roe and Casey created this evil, and that the culture I'm describing arose directly from obedience to those decisions. Quite the contrary; the culture was clamoring for contraception, abortion, and the right to define one's moral universe long before Griswold and Roe began accepting the culture into constitutional jurisprudence. But it's one thing to have a culture and another to have the culture enforced by law. Griswold, Roe and Casey are not passive mirrors of popular desire. They are state programs to empower the American people to habitually commit the sin of pride and love the culture of death. As such, they bear a direct causal responsibility for the moral sewer in which we are quickly sinking.

[7] Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, Chapter XVII.

[8] The cases are, Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997) and Vacco v. Quill, 521 U.S. 793 (1997).

[9] "The Due Process Clause guarantees more than fair process, and the ‘liberty' it protects includes more than the absence of physical restraint. The Clause also provides heightened protection against government interference with certain fundamental rights and liberty interests. In a long line of cases, we have held that, in addition to the specific freedoms protected by the Bill of Rights, the "liberty" specially protected by the Due Process Clause includes the rights to . . contraception . . and to abortion . . .. We have also assumed, and strongly suggested, that the Due Process Clause protects the traditional right to refuse unwanted lifesaving medical treatment." Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702 (1997) (Rhenquist, J.)

[10] Cruzan v. Director, DMH, 497 U.S. 261 (1990).

[11]See, Melanie Hunter, "Supreme Court to Hear Appeal of Oregon's Assisted Suicide Law."

[12] One "narrow" ground available to the Court is the preemption of state laws regulating medical practice by federal laws and regulations dealing with the prescription of lethal drugs. Oregon's "Death with Dignity Act" makes physicians and nurses immune from prosecution or civil penalties for participating in a killing, so long as they do so "in good faith." Federal laws regarding drug use and prescription may conflict with this immunity, and so the Court may strike down the Oregon law on federal preemption grounds without ever referring to the larger issues.

[13] Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). Throughout the major portion of the 19th century prevailing drug practices were far freer than they are today, and thus one wonders what reason the Justices have for upholding federal and state laws criminalizing the use of narcotics and hallucinogens other than a desire to restrict the number of people who can authoritatively interpret our Constitution.

[14] Other challenges to a state law or judicial ruling based on the federal Constitution may exist. For example, one could argue that putting Terri Schiavo to death in a manner that contravenes the tenets of her religion violates her first-amendment rights. Unfortunately, as I understand it, this argument is foreclosed by the Schindlers' position that Terri did not significantly express any intention about how to address her present physical situation. The Schindlers' lawyers have cast desperately and valiantly around the United States Code for other "substantive" rights in the Americans with Disabilities Act, and elsewhere. But the substantive rights protected by those statutes don't conflict with Casey's substantive right to use the moral imagination to devalue human life.

Lastly, I doubt very much whether any Florida law permitting the withholding of care to an ill person could be challenged on federal Constitutional grounds without going straight to the question raised by Roe -- is there a federal Constitutional "right to life" violated by Judge Greer's decision? The same observations apply to any other law used to oppose Judge Greer's decision; only a "right to life" would permit examination of the validity of those laws or the permissibility of Judge Greer's applying them to Terri.

[15] Owen v. Lash, 682 F.2d 648, 651-52 (7th Cir. 1982) (Stewart, J., sitting by designation).

[16] St. Joseph Stock Yards Co. v. United States, 298 U.S. 38, 73 (1936) (Brandies, J., concurring).

[17] Quoted from K. Lopez at National Review Online. Read the full text here.

[18] Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 318-19 (1979), reh'g. den. 444 U.S. 890 (quoting Woodby v. INS, 385 U.S. 276, 282 (1966) (citations omitted).


[19] Since the original version of this post was put up, a reader pointed me to the comments of Robert George at NRO and clamied that they represent an acceptable due process argument for saving Terri's life:

I don't see that any just authority of the state of Florida is being displaced by the effort of Congress to ensure that Terri's right to life is honored and that civil rights claims on her behalf are given a hearing in the federal courts. By "just authority of the state of Florida," I mean the authority of the people of Florida to make laws through their elected representatives, subject to the provisions of the state constitution and the Constitution of the United States. I am not impressed by appeals to "federalism" to protect the decisions of state court judges who usurp the authority of democratically constituted state legislative bodies by interpreting statutes beyond recognition or by invalidating state laws or the actions of state officials in the absence of any remotely plausible argument rooted in the text, logic, structure, or historical understanding of the state or federal constitution. The fact is that, under color of law, Michael Schiavo is seeking to deprive Terri of sustenance because of her disability. Under federal civil-rights statutes, this raises a substantial issue. It cannot be waved away by invoking states' rights.

I note that Professor George was speaking about federalism per se rather than procedural due process. But his comments are inapt in either context.

Professor George's argument, applied to save Terri on federal-question grounds, requires the recognition of a federal right to the correct application of state law to the evidence by a state court. Moroever, he argues for this right as a federal question, which means that such a "right" can be enforced in federal court without any limits on the type or kind of case under consideration. The result would not only be the "de novo" review incorrectly read into Terri's law by commentators such as Thomas Sowell and Fr. Johansen, it would also permit the "de novo" review of any case brought in state court. Anyone on the losing end of a small-claims court case over a $100.00 lawn-care bill could petition the federal courts to "review" his case and decide if the small-claims-court judge made the "correct" decision when it ordered him to pay the lawn-care company. Nothing in the due process clause or the federal scheme suggests this result, and no federal judge would create this "right."

[20] Information on appointments for the Middle District of Florida can be found at the Alliance for Justice website, here.

Disgusting

They're arresting a child who tried to take a bottle of water to Terri Schiavo.

"For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward. And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea." Mark 9:41-42 (KJV).

Brickbats from the Leftist Nationalizers

Feddie at Southern Appeal was kind enough to comment on my post below, "Lies, Damn Lies, and Federalism." It got a few comments, to which I'm replying here because Haloscan won't post the whole reply over there. The fellow I'm replying to is Grover, and his words are in blue. He can comment, if he wants, back over at Southern Appeal, or he can email me at the address above and I'll print it here.

Re this blog entry: What a bunch of garbage--mean, petty, paranoid garbage. You know, as a life-long, self-proclaimed "liberal" I'm willing to take the heat on a lot of things--abortion, welfare, sex education, gun control, whatever else you want to flog me with. But don't you dare point a finger at me and say "It's your fault Terri Schiavo's going to die!" That's pure, unadulterated crap.

I was pointing the finger at liberals who dredge up states' rights and federalism only when it's convenient. I was also pointing the finger conservatives who do the same thing. And what I was blaming them for was the death of federalism. As to whose fault I think it is that Terri Schiavo's going to die, it's primarily the fault of Michael Schiavo and Judge Greer, and secondarily the fault of everyone else, including me. I hope I explained that last part here.

Living wills, death with dignity, patients' rights and medical interventionism are issues that have occupied our society for decades and more, and will continue to do so as long as technology outpaces our ability to make moral and ethical sense of its impact on our lives.

True, except that I'd disagree with you about about technology "outpacing" our ability to make moral and ethical sense. Morals and ethics aren't a subspecies of technology. They're not a derivative science that must await long years of experimentation in a trial-and-error framework before they become apparent. They're the application of eternal truths which are just as much within our grasp today as they will be five hundred years from now. If that makes your blood boil, read below about federalism's ability to keep leftists like you safe from Bible-thumping morons like me.

Seventy years ago, Terri Schiavo wouldn'y have lived for three weeks. Now we can keep her alive for years and years. I suppose that's FDR's fault! What a load of bullshit.

I'm not under the impression that keeping Terri Schiavo alive for years and years is a bad thing, to be blamed on FDR or anyone else. I'm under the impression -- from Nat Henthoff's reporting among others -- that keeping Terri Schiavo alive would be a good thing, and if FDR's responsible for it, then God bless him. The only way I can think of to regard keeping Terri alive as a bad thing we can blame someone for is either to engage in what Henthoff calls ignorance and the denial of facts about her condition, or to have embraced the culture of death so thoroughly that Terri's death becomes a logical extension of Roe.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who attempts to make political hay out of this complicated tragedy deserves every accusation of hypocrisy that has been heaped upon them.

Yes, but they'll all probably get reelected instead. Now if, by "politicizing the issue" and making "political hay" out of it, you mean thinking and writing as though this problem had legal, social and political implications, and exploring those, then you're very naive.

Federalism, schmederalism--that's not the issue here. If you get it thrown back in your face as someone's idea of irony, well boo-hoo! What did you expect?

A recognition that "federalism" (or, if you prefer, "schmederalism") is one of the issues here, which ought to be treated seriously and given hard and sharp consequences. This topic impacts liberals as much as it does conservatives, you know. You can bet a liberal future of "abortion, welfare, sex education, gun control," etc. on control of the federal government's power to impose liberal solutions by fiat, or on what I think is the healthier and more virtuous strategy of actually persuading people to govern themselves wisely. I've always thought it odd that the movement with the more dire and authoritarian outlook on human nature (i.e., conservatism) has traditionally trumpeted states' rights and local decisionmaking, while the movement with a happier and egalitarian outlook on human nature (i.e., liberalism) has traditionally resorted to authoritarianism to achieve its ends. (At least recently, though it's true that Lochner can be read for a different moral, one in which federalism is just the rallying cry of the losing side).

As for Secret Agent Man, let him go back to his tiny little world filled with evil "leftists and nationalizers".

I can't go back to it, because I can't leave it. Besides, they're always flying those damn black helicopters over my house, and over my car when I leave home, so where could I go?

The rest of us will struggle with what Schiavo story means to everyone in this country, regardless of political or religious affiliation, and hopefully draw some meaningful lessons from it.

OK, but I don't think "federalism, schmederalism" is a very auspicious beginning. Or maybe it is, see below. :)

I was commenting on Secret Agent Man, who gleefully blames everyone in sight, except himself.

For what? Killing Terri Schiavo? Only a few people are involved in that enterprise, and the ones I was talking about with regard to federalism aren't among them. I'm certainly not killing her, and I see no reason to pretend otherwise simply because you've made a hollow charge about double standards.

For making a mockery of the federal scheme? Yeah, I suppose I blame pretty much everyone for that, because pretty much everyone has a pet issue that's so important that they can't wait to shred the Constitution and make it a national law. Then they all have the gall to squawk about federalism whenever someone else's pet issue's at stake. Oddly enough, my point is almost the same as yours -- "federalism, schmederalism." Few, if any, people take federalism seriously. It certainly doesn't play a role in important decisions like the ones I wrote about. I think it ought to, but I don't see any good reason to hamstring the good guys with a one-sided idea of federalism that applies only when Democrats and the L.A. Times want to protect the culture of death.

Blame everyone for the culture of death? Well, I already blogged about that one in response to Terri's murder posted awhile ago. As much as I'd like to, I can't really deny supporting the culture of death, because I've done that. So have you, if you've supported abortion rights. So have lots of people. That's why the Pope identified it as a "culture of death," rather than a "fringe movement of death."

Maybe he never welcomed the medical advances that led to a case like Terri Schiavo's, in which case he might have a point.

Ah, I get it, I think. You believe that Terri's brain-dead, or on life-support machines, and that this whole thing's about whether the machines can be unplugged to give her a natural, inevitable and dignified death. Nothing wrong with that, except it's not what's happening here. Terri's alive, aware of what happens to her, and communicates with friends and loved ones. It's easy to get the issues confused, especially since I wrote (perhaps confusingly) about both of them. One issue is whether Terri ought to be starved to death. The other issue, the federalist one, is about who gets to decide that. That's what I was writing about, that's the "wind and the whirlwind," and as to the "be damned to you," it's about a possible future that leftists don't want to, but should, contemplate.

I think this federal intervention is a taste of what you leftists and nationalizers can expect if the Republican / "conservative" dominance in the national government becomes more than just a trend. If the "right" gains the kind of judicial, media, and cultural power it craves, you can expect to see federal courts overruling Roe, and Lawrence, and even creating "penumbras" in the constitution which prohibit state laws allowing gay rights, dope-smoking, abortion, and all the other things that make leftists happy. The conservatives who've gotten their feet in the judicial door, like Scalia, who has a fair amount of integrity when it comes to federalist issues, will neither endure nor predominate. Nationalizing is done by extremists who, by definition, are hostile to enclaves of dissent. Once the conservative variety siezes the levers of complete national power, you can try bargaining with them about federalism, but they'll smell the fear and run over you like a tank in Tianmen Square.

There was once a time when the freedom to choose racism was an unquestionable principle emanating from penumbras in our Constitution. It was taught in all the best law schools, like Harvard's and Yale's. It was upheld repeatedly by the Supreme Court and the federal bench. Powerful national lobbying groups vigilantly maintained its place in the nation's life, diligently combatting any attempt to attack our Constitution with race-mixing nonsense. In other words, there was once a time when the freedom to choose racism was just like the freedom to choose abortion. Does anyone who supports abortion rights really want to make the unchanging, rock-like stability of national consensus and judicial interest the foundation of America's reproductive laws?

So far, the left's done well with nationalism and judicial dictatorship. Given that success I wouldn't blame you (gleefully or otherwise) for assuming that it will always be a friendly strategy. I just think you'd be wrong to assume that, and well advised to consider federalism-with-teeth as a more stable basis for democratically governing a quarter of a billion people who're zealously divided on a lot of significant social issues.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Federalism

Caving in to its pro-life constituents, the Stupid Party finally got off its rear end and did something that would simulatneously protect the culture of life and garner lots of controversy and hostile attention from the culture of death. That culture has, predictably, responded with its usual shotgun-spray of hypocrisy and half-truths. Such as the weekend's editorial from The New York Times:

Congressional leaders are playing a dangerous game with their intrusion into the hotly publicized fight in Florida over maintaining life support for a severely brain-damaged woman. With state legislative and court appeals being exhausted, the House and Senate began some grim one-upsmanship to stop the removal of the feeding tube from Terri Schiavo. She is the 41-year-old woman who has been in a persistent vegetative state for the last 15 years, with her parents contesting that sad diagnosis. They also challenged the careful decisions by Florida's trial and appellate courts, based largely on the testimony of her husband that their daughter would have chosen to die rather than live indefinitely in such condition.

But some types of leftist cant are too rancid for even intelligent liberals to swallow. Thus Nat Henthoff nails the Times's intentional stupidity on the facts of the case:

For 13 years, Terri Schiavo has not been able to speak for herself. But she is not brain-dead, not in a comatose state, not terminal, and not connected to a respirator. If the feeding tube is removed, she will starve to death. Whatever she may or may not have said, did she consider food and water "artificial means?"

The media continually report that Terri is in a persistent vegetative state, and a number of neurologists and bioethicists have more than implied to the press that "persistent" is actually synonymous with "permanent." This is not true, as I shall factually demonstrate in upcoming columns. I will also provide statements from neurologists who say that if Terri were given the proper therapy—denied to her by her husband and guardian after he decided therapy was becoming too expensive despite $750,000 from a malpractice suit—she could learn to eat by herself and become more responsive.

Terri is responsive, beyond mere reflexes. Having this degree of sentience, if she is starved to death, she will not "die in peace" as The New York Times predicts in an uninformed October 23 editorial supporting the husband. What happens to someone who can feel pain during the process of starvation is ghastly.

Increasingly, New York Times editorials are not as indicative of conscious liberal "bias" as they are of ignorance or denial of the facts . . .

Henthoff is too generous. The Times's ignorance and denial of the facts is dictated by its liberal "bias" toward the culture of death. That culture sees human beings as disposable, and just as Bill Clinton let Ricky Ray Rector die to serve the "higher purposes" of ambition and leftist politics, the usual suspects are happy to starve Terri Shaivo to death so that we might all learn a lesson about how disposable we ought to be.

So much for lies. Now we turn to damn lies and federalism. Federalism is the rallying cry of the losing side. Thus the editorial board of the L.A. Times sounds the tocsin to defend state's rats 'ginst them thar' Pro-Lahf Yankee Hordes (feel free to hum "Dixie," or "Bonnie Blue Flag," as you read):

Conservatives are the historical defenders of states' rights, and the supposed proponents of keeping big government out of people's lives, but this case once again shows that some social conservatives are happy to see the federal government acquire Stalinist proportions when imposing their morality on the rest of the country. . . . Congress does act in other extraordinary cases on behalf of a specific individual, such as when it grants someone U.S. citizenship. But here, Congress is breaking new ground, trying to overturn a judicial decision by altering the Constitution's federalist scheme.

What's next? Probably the L.A. Times' editors standing on the steps of the hospice where Terri's being starved to death, Guccis on their feet and bottled mineral water in their hands, doing their best to mimic a southern drawl and shouting, "Denahl of nutrition today! Denahl of nutrition tomorrow! Denahl of nutrition foah-evah!"

The L.A. Times' mockery notwithstanding, the federalist principle is the only one which gave me pause in contemplating the Republican "coup d'etat." I believe in federalism. I believe in states' rights. I believe there are matters which fall under the inherent sovereignty of the states, a sovereignty which does not come from the federal Constitution but which is independent of, and antecedent to, that document. Think I'm a throwback? Go read Heath v. Alabama, 474 U.S. 82 (1985):

"The States are no less sovereign with respect to each other than they are with respect to the Federal Government. Their powers to undertake criminal prosecutions derive from separate and independent sources of power and authority originally belonging to them before admission to the Union and preserved to them by the Tenth Amendment.

My belief in federalism is reinforced by my Catholicism, because the doctrine of federalism finds a congenial analog in Catholicism's teachings on subsidiarity:

The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which "a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co- ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good." -- Catechism, Paragraph 1883.

But, if "federalism" is to mean anything, it must mean the authority of the states to make laws which are unpopular and the authority of state courts to make judgments which are unjust. You can't have a "sovereign" that exists only when its decisions are popular any more than you can have a "right" to free speech that depends on people agreeing with what you say.

I dislike drugs, but I also don't like the federal government stepping in to overturn marijuana-legalization laws; if Arizona or California want to let their people smoke dope then that's a terrible, ridiculous thing, but it's their business and not mine. I'm a fanatic opponent of "gun control," but I don't like the NRA pushing for a national right-to-carry law that supercedes the judgments of all fifty state legislatures. In terms of a more recent controversy dear to conservative hearts, federalism means the right of the states to put juveniles to death for crimes even if most of the other states (not to mention Belgium, Austria, and the Central African Republic) think that's a bad idea. And if Massachusetts wants the social hell that gay marriage will unleash, I won't stand in its way.

There's an old body of jurisprudence that allows states to refuse "full faith and credit" to other states' ridiculous and socially-destructive laws, and I favor reviving that jurisprudence with a vengeance. So far as I'm concerned, if some dope-smoking Californians get so stoned they don't realize they've crossed into my state, they can damn well spend two years paying for their ignorance by detasseling corn on our state farm. If a gay married couple with children moves here from Boston and settles down next door, they'd better be prepared for Child Protective Services to swoop in and do their duty. If the dope-smoking Californians and the gay married couple from Boston want local autonomy, then they can start by respecting it when they're deciding where to do their dope-smoking and gay-marrying.

To put it more bluntly, real federalism requires that everyone tolerate injustice. Gay married couples from Oregon or wherever-the-hell have to tolerate, in some form or other, the injustice of my state's "bigoted, anti-gay" laws. Christian married couples in my state have to tolerate, in some form or other, the injustice of "Sodom-on-Charles." Injustice is part and parcel of government, and one (indispensible) way to define sovereignty is the power to do injustice without let or hindrance.

State courts have put innocent people to death before and, humanity being what it is, will do so again. But only the most ardent collectivists want us to abolish state criminal laws and death-penalty laws on that fact alone. So I ask the hard question: If conservatives have a principled belief in federalism, and are thus committed to ending perpetual federal interference and second-guessing in state judicial matters, then isn't Terri's plight a hard case which will make bad law?

Of course it is. That's why, I suspect, the federal court to which Terri's plea is addressed will spit the thing back out. Oh, the real reason will most likely be sneaky sympathy with the Culture of Death, itself in large measure the creation of federal courts. (Roe v. Wade is only one example among many. And you won't find federal judges dismissing lawsuits against pro-life protestors out of concern for "federalism" and "state's rights," nor will you find anyone who believes what they read in the L.A. Times and New York Times urging them to do so.) But the "good reasons" like federalism, comity, and equal protection will protrude from that opinion like spikes on a mace. We might even be treated to the kind of judicial flippery not seen since Reconstruction as federal judges explain why Terri's right to life is too important, too precious and sacred, to be protected by the Constitution. The bellweather will be the issue of reinstating Terri's feeding tube -- if the federal court hems and haws on that request, or denies it, you'll know what we've gotten with all this midnight legislating. I should note that I'm accustomed to making dire predictions about the federal bench, but then I should also note that I've been mostly right.

But what of federalism, our supposedly-cherished constitutional scheme of limited and nested governments? Is the L.A. Times right? Are social conservatives hypocritically imposing "Stalinism" on the free and happy republics which comprise our federal union? Leftists and nationalizers have been trampling and shredding federalism for over 150 years. Sometimes they've done it in the name of causes which are good, like the end of slavery and institutionalized racism. More often, they've done it for causes which were evil, like abortion and contraception, or for causes which were questionable at best, like economic uniformity and environmental protection. I'll stand by states' rights if everyone else will, but I won't spend time worrying about federalism if all it's come to represent is the chance for degenerates with their own brand of "Stalinism" to fling rhetorical darts at their opponents.

If leftists and nationalizers really think that federalism forbids savimg Terri's life, then let them say that federalism requires the immediate overruling of Roe -- and let them sic their ACLU attack-dogs on that job without delay. Let's see them stop crying for national "Brady Bills" and "Assault-Weapon Bans" and see them rebuke the gun-control lobby with talk of federalism. Let's see them hold hearings on the continued tenure of Supreme Court justices who use Finlandian jurisprudence to interpret the federal Constitution. Let's see the Senate's Democrats shut down the judicial-nominating process over those issues.

Until then, I say let the leftists and nationalizers live in the unitary national system they've so eagerly built. If this illegal, ridiculous mess of a government, created by 150 years of special pleading, moral jerrymandering, brute force, and disregard for the truly-republican vision of citizenship, can produce even one saved life, then more good will have come of it than was ever likely to. So to all the leftists and nationalizers who're crying crocodile tears for federalism and the tenth amendment -- the law-school faculties, the federal bench, the New York Times and the New Republic, ABC, CBS, NBC, and everyone else who's fought for the usurpation of local rights by federal power -- I say, You've sown this wind, folks. Welcome to the whirlwind, and be damned to you.

Terri Shaivo Fast

I am going to fast for so long as Terri Schaivo is being starved. Jimmy Akin provides useful information on this.

"And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out? And he said unto them, ‘This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.'" Mark 9:28-29 (KJV)

All I can think to say . . . .

about the impending murder of Terri Schaivo was said here.

O my Jesus, forgive us our sins. Save us from the fires of Hell. And lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of your mercy.

Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro, Er, Uh Something Mori

This is very sad news -- Otto Hiss Obituary. "Why are you weeping? Did you imagine that his blog was immortal?"

Book Group Report: Week Three

The group met last night. There were 8 of us. We coffee and blackberry pie with real whipped cream. (Thanks, Mom!) Here are the subjects we discussed, phrased in terms of the questions raised by the readings. You can find the readings here.

********

1. Is Gascoyne's "Christ of Revolution and of Poetry" a real person, or a symbol for a non-personal force or aspect of human nature? Gascoyne was a communist, and joined the Party in 1936, one year before he wrote Ecce Homo. (Unfortunately, I didn't know those dates at the time). What is there about Jesus that would move a non-believer to write such a poem? Is Gascoyne's depiction of Jesus ("this horrifying face, this putrid flesh, discoloured, flayed, fed on by the flies) theologically justified? Why is Gascoyne using those images?

2. Do Blake's And Did These Feet in Ancient Time and Kipling's Recessional say things about human society and God's providence? Are their views complementary or opposed?

3. Does Sassoon's The Redeemer have the same literary perspective, the same vantage-point for viewing Jesus, as Gascoyne's, Blake's and Kipling's poems? What is different about Sassoon's viewpoint? Does it speak to anything about Gascoyne's attraction to Jesus?

4. Is there an ambiguity in Sassoon's depiction of Jesus and the soldier? ("He stood before me there; I say that He was Christ . . . an English soldier, white and strong, Who loved his time like any simple chap") Is it intentional? What message does it convey?

5. Where does Hopkins', Plunkett's, and da Todi's poetry fit in? What is their "viewpoint," their point of perspective, from which they view Jesus?

6. What does Shakespeare love so well that the very thought of this love transports him from woe and dissatisfaction to bliss? Is Sonnett XXIX a poetic evocation of St. Augustine's Confessions? ("You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.") Can any love give men what Shakespeare experiences in Sonnett XXIX, even disordered love?

7. Do the Psalms qualify as poetry? How about the litanies? Is there anything different about the "standpoint" of the psalms and litanies? What does it mean for Jesus to quote Psalm 21 in the presence of His mother?

8. What level of relationship do authors like Gascoyne, Sassoon, Blake, etc. and David, Merry del Val, etc. have with their subject? Why are the levels different?

8. Is Merry del Val (author of the Litany of Humility) describing the Blessed Virgin? What does it mean to pray, "That others may become holier than I, provided that I become as holy as I should"? Was the Blessed Virgin tempted by anything? If yes, what does it mean to say she was "tempted"? What does it not mean?

9. Is poetry the ultimate Christian metier? What effect does Christianity have on the arts generally? Is Christianity's impact simply providing "material" for art, or does it have a deeper influence?

Next Week: Selections from Pascal's Penses.

Thanks Everyone!

For voting the Dossier "Most Insightful" in the 2004/05 St. Blog's awards. It means a lot to me that so many people voted, and so think blogging an important part of the Catholic witness. It also means a lot, in a humbling way, to win an award for it.

And thanks to Jimmy Akin and I. Shawn McElhinney for their kind endorsements.

I'd say some things about the other nominees, except I always bungle things like that. Suffice that they're all really good blogs, especially Disputations.

The Definition of Insanity Is Doing the Same Thing . . . . ..

There's a rumor going around that the success of a two-party system depends on having two parties. Somebody ought to clue the Democrats into that one, because they've defaulted to Howard Dean for party chairman. The following's from ABC News via The Curt Jester. My thoughts in blue, everyone else's in black.

A bunch of very stupid Democrats elected Howard Dean chairman of their national party on Saturday, casting their lot with a skilled fund-raiser and organizer whose sometimes caustic, blunt YEEEEAAAAARRGGHHHHHH!!!!! comments can lead to controversy.

The very dumb 447-member Democratic National Committee chose Dean on a voice vote YEEEEEEEAAAAAAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!! to replace outgoing party chief Terry McAuliffe. The former Vermont governor and presidential candidate And abortion doctor. And Planned Parenthood director had promised to press for broader access to abortion and gay marriage rebuild the state parties, press for broader access to abortion and gay marriage take the offensive against Republicans, press for broader access to abortion and gay marriage and better explain party positions on issues like broader access to abortion and gay marriage.

Democrats are eager to renew their campaign to press for broader access to abortion and gay marriage regain political power, though some admit to a bit of anxiety about pressing for broader access to abortion and gay marriage. President Bush just won his second term. Republicans are firmly in control of the House and the Senate. And the GOP is gaining strength in conservative states in the South and West.

"We only have one way to go, and that's up," Georgia delegate Lonnie Platt said.Yeah, they say that in the ninth pit of Hell, too, you pro-abortion fascist.

For Joyce Cusack, a Florida delegate, it's time for Democrats to embrace their party's values like broader access to abortion and gay marriage

"We are trying so hard to be like Republicans and we're not. I think Howard Dean says YEEEEAAARRGGGHHHHH!!!! clearly that we are different," Cusack said. "We are the party of broader access to abortion and gay marriage ordinary citizens and not the elite, we are everyday working folk who want broader access to abortion and gay marriage "

Very dumb Democratic leaders, who were initially wary of a Dean chairmanship, started embracing his leadership after it became apparent he was strong enough to claim the job. Several high-profile Democrats considering a bid for chairman backed out of the race. Yeah, they accepted his candidacy once it became clear that no one else was dumb enough to take responsibility for elections that are starting to look like the drag-race in Rebel Without a Cause. "It was awful," sobbed Nancy Pelosi, "watching poor Terry trying to get his bomber jacket unstuck from the window-lever."

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, not always a Dean supporter, said Friday, "He has used the power of technology, the force of his personality and the depth of his ideals to bring new people into the party." We can rebuild the Party Chairman. We have the technology. We have the capability to make the world's first Bionic Pro-Abortion-and-Gay Marriage-Party Chairman. Howard Dean will be that man. Better than he was before. Better . . . stronger . . . faster. YEEEARRRGHHHH!

Dean speaking very slowly and using emphatic hand gestures told Democratic committee members Friday that it's important to learn to be more comfortable discussing the party's core values like broader access to abortion and gay marriage.

"The way I hope to deal with that problem, is not to abandon our core principles, but talk about them in a different way, so that nobody realizes what they are" he said.

Democrats are not pro-abortion, but "we are the party in favor of allowing women to make up their own minds about their health care," Dean, an abortion physician, said.Yeah, Dean's gonna electrify the Party. The Democrats are going to empower womyn by "allowing" them to make up their own minds. OK, Howard, while you're taking a break from alienating your core base, let's try this. You say "Freedom," and I'll say "to kill a baby." Ready? Good! No, no, you're doing fine. See how it sounds? Fun, huh? Now, let's go fit you for that Honorary Democratic Party Chairman Bomber Jacket. Now Howard, don't get upset. It's a tradition, like the green blazer at Augusta.

Democrats are not for gay marriage, but "we are the party that has always believed in equal rights under the law for all people," he said. Oh yeah, Dean's gotta gift. The Democrats are for equal rights for all people, no matter how disgusting the gay ones are. OK, Howard, after you've evaded the lynch mob who used to be your core base, let's try this. You say "Equal rights" and I say "so Heather can have two mommies." Ready? Good! No, no, you're doing fine. See how it sounds? Fun, huh. Now, let's pick up that Honorary Democratic Party Chairman Stolen Coupe. No, it's a tradition too, like the Indy pace car!

"We are the party of moral values," Dean said. "There is nothing moral about cutting 300 million dollars that is used to feed starving children." Atta boy, Howard! Keep revving those non-sequiturs right up until Nancy Pelosi drops the hankie! YEEEAAAARRRGHHHHHHH!

Book Group, Week 3

**************************************************
David Gascoyne
(1916 - 2001)

Ecce Homo

Whose is this horrifying face,
This putrid flesh, discoloured, flayed,
Fed on by the flies, scorched by the sun?
Whose are these hollow red-filmed eyes
And thorn-spiked head and spear-stuck side?

Forget the legend, tear the decent veil
That cowardice or interest devised
To make their mortal enemy a friend,
To hide the bitter truth all His wounds tell,
Lest the great scandal be no more disguised:
He is in agony till the world's end,

And we must never sleep during that time!
He is suspended on the cross-tree now
And we are onlookers at the crime,
Callous contemporaries of the slow
Torture of God. Here is the hill
Made ghastly by His spattered blood

Whereon He hangs and suffers still:
See, the centurions wear riding-boots,
Black shirts and badges and peaked caps,
Greet one another with raised-arm salutes;
They have cold eyes, unsmiling lips;
Yet these his brothers know not what they do.

And on his either side hang dead
A labourer and a factory hand,
Or one is maybe a lynched Jew
And one a Negro or a Red,
Coolie or Ethiopian, Irishman,
Spaniard or German democrat.

Behind His lolling head the sky
Glares like a fiery cataract
Red with the murders of two thousand years
Committed in His name and by
Crusaders, Christian warriors
Defending faith and property.

Amid the plain beneath His transfixed hands,
Exuding darkness as indelible
As guilty stains, fanned by funeral
And lurid airs, besieged by drifting sands
And clefted landslides our about-to-be
Bombed and abandoned cities stand.

He who wept for Jerusalem
Now sees His prophecy extend
Across the greatest cities of the world,
A guilty panic reason cannot stem
Rising to raze them all as He foretold;
And He must watch this drama to the end.

Though often named, He is unknown
To the dark kingdoms at His feet
Where everything disparages His words,
And each man bears the common guilt alone
And goes blindfolded to his fate,
And fear and greed are sovereign lords.

The turning point of history
Must come. Yet the complacent and the proud
And who exploit and kill, may be denied--
Christ of Revolution and of Poetry--
The resurrection and the life
Wrought by your spirit's blood.

Involved in their own sophistry
The black priest and the upright man
Faced by subversive truth shall be struck dumb,
Christ of Revolution and of Poetry,
While the rejected and condemned become
Agents of the divine.

Not from a monstrance silver-wrought
But from the tree of human pain,
Redeem our sterile misery,
Christ of Revolution and of Poetry,
That man's long journey through the night
May not have been in vain.


Pieta

Stark in the pasture on the skull-shaped hill,
In swollen aura of disaster shrunken and
Unsheltered by the ruin of the sky,
Intensely concentrated in themselves the banded
Saints abandoned kneel.

And under the unburdened tree
Great in their midst, the rigid folds
Of a blue cloak upholding as a text
Her grief-scrawled face for the ensuing world to read,
The Mother, whose dead Son's dear head
Weighs like a precious blood-incrusted stone
On her unfathomable breast:

Holds Him God has forsaken, Word made flesh
Made ransom, to the slow smoulder of her heart
Till the catharsis of the race shall be complete.

**************************************************
William Blake
(1757 - 1827)

And Did Those Feet in Ancient Time

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

**************************************************
Rudyard Kipling
(1865 - 1936)

Recessional

God of our fathers, known of old--
Lord of our far-flung battle line
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe--
Such boasting as the Gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the law--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard--
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard--
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!

**************************************************
Siegfried Sassoon
(1886 - 1967)

The Redeemer

Darkness: the rain sluiced down; the mire was deep;
It was past twelve on a mid-winter night,
When peaceful folk in beds lay snug asleep;
There, with much work to do before the light,
We lugged our clay-sucked boots as best we might
Along the trench; sometimes a bullet sang,
And droning shells burst with a hollow bang;
We were soaked, chilled and wretched, every one;

Darkness; the distant wink of a huge gun.
I turned in the black ditch, loathing the storm;
A rocket fizzed and burned with blanching flare,
And lit the face of what had been a form
Floundering in mirk. He stood before me there;
I say that He was Christ; stiff in the glare,
And leaning forward from His burdening task,
Both arms supporting it; His eyes on mine
Stared from the woeful head that seemed a mask
Of mortal pain in Hell's unholy shine.

No thorny crown, only a woollen cap
He wore—an English soldier, white and strong,
Who loved his time like any simple chap,
Good days of work and sport and homely song;
Now he has learned that nights are very long,
And dawn a watching of the windowed sky.
But to the end, unjudging, he'll endure
Horror and pain, not uncontent to die
That Lancaster on Lune may stand secure.

He faced me, reeling in his weariness,
Shouldering his load of planks, so hard to bear.
I say that He was Christ, who wrought to bless
All groping things with freedom bright as air,
And with His mercy washed and made them fair.
Then the flame sank, and all grew black as pitch,
While we began to struggle along the ditch;
And someone flung his burden in the muck,
Mumbling: ‘O Christ Almighty, now I'm stuck!'

**************************************************
Gerard Manley Hopkins
(1844 - 1889)

Glory be to God for dappled things --
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted & pieced -- fold, fallow, & plough;
And all trades, their gear & tackle & trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled, (who knows how?)
With swíft, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dím;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise hím.

**************************************************
Joseph Mary Plunkett
(1887 - 1916)

I Saw the Sun at Midnight

I saw the Sun at midnight, rising red,
Deep-hued yet glowing, heavy with the stain
Of blood-compassion, and I saw It gain
Swiftly in size and growing till It spread
Over the stars; the heavens bowed their head
As from Its heart slow dripped a crimson rain,
Then a great tremor shook It, as of pain—
The night fell, moaning, as It hung there dead.

O Sun, O Christ, O bleeding Heart of flame!
Thou givest Thine agony as our life's worth,
And makest it infinite, lest we have dearth
Of rights wherewith to call upon Thy Name;
Thou pawnest Heaven as a pledge for Earth
And for our glory sufferest all shame.


I See His Blood Upon the Rose

I see his blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of His eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.

I see his face in every flower;
The thunder and the singing of the birds
Are but His voice -- and carven by His power
Rocks are His written words.

All pathways by His feet are worn,
His strong heart stirs the ever-beating sea,
His crown of thorns is twined with every thorn,
His cross is every tree.

**************************************************
Jacapone da Todi
(1228 - 1306)

Stabat Mater

By the cross of expiation
The Mother stood, and kept her station,
Weeping for her Son and Lord:
With the nails his hands were riven;
Through her heart the sword was driven,
Simeon's dread, predicted sword.

Oh, that blessed one grief-laden,
Blessed Mother, blessed Maiden,
Mother of the All-holy One;
Oh, that silent, ceaseless mourning,
Oh, those dim eyes never turning
From that wondrous, suffering Son.

Who is of nature human
Tearless that could watch the Woman?
Hear unmoved that Mother's moan?
Who, unchanged in shape and colour,
Who could mark that Mother's dolour,
Weeping with her Son alone?

For his people's sins the All-holy
There she saw, a victim lowly,
Bleed in torments, bleed and die:
Saw the Lord's Anointed taken;
Saw her Child in death forsaken;
Heard his last expiring cry.

Fount of love and sacred sorrow,
Mother, may my spirit borrow
Sadness from thy holy woe;
May it love - on fire within me -
Christ, my God, till great love win me
Grace to please him here below.

Those five wounds of Jesus smitten,
Mother, in my heart be written
Deeply as in thine they be;
Thou my Savior's cross who bearest,
Thou my Son's rebuke who sharest,
Let me share them both with thee.

In the passion of my maker
Be my sinful soul partaker;
Let me weep till death with thee;
Unto me this boon be given,
By thy side, like thee bereaven.
To stand beneath the atoning tree.

Virgin holiest, Virgin purest,
Of that anguish thou endurest
Make me bear with thee my part;
Of his passion bear the token
In a spirit bowed and broken,
Bear his death within my heart.

May his wounds both wound and heal me;
His blood enkindle, cleanse, anneal me;
Be his cross my hope and stay:
Virgin, when the mountains quiver,
From that flame which burns for ever,
Shield me on the judgement-day.

Christ, when he that shaped me calls me,
When advancing death appals me,
Through her prayer the storm make calm:
When to dust my dust returneth
Save a soul to thee that yearneth;
Grant it thou the crown and palm.

**************************************************
William Shakespeare

1564 - 1616

Sonnet XXIX

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

**************************************************
David, King of Israel
(circa 1010 - 970 B.C.)

Psalm 50 (Douai)

Unto the end, a psalm of David,
When Nathan the prophet came to him after he had sinned with Bethsabee.

Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy great mercy.
And according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my iniquity.
Wash me yet more from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my iniquity, and my sin is always before me.
To thee only have I sinned, and have done evil before thee: that thou mayst be justified in thy words and mayst overcome when thou art judged.
For behold I was conceived in iniquities; and in sins did my mother conceive me.
For behold thou hast loved truth: the uncertain and hidden things of thy wisdom thou hast made manifest to me.
Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop, and I shall be cleansed: thou shalt wash me, and I shall be made whiter than snow.
To my hearing thou shalt give joy and gladness: and the bones that have been humbled shall rejoice.
Turn away thy face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
Create a clean heart in me, O God: and renew a right spirit within my bowels.
Cast me not away from thy face; and take not thy holy spirit from me.
Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and strengthen me with a perfect spirit.
I will teach the unjust thy ways: and the wicked shall be converted to thee.
Deliver me from blood, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall extol thy justice.
O Lord, thou wilt open my lips: and my mouth shall declare thy praise.
For if thou hadst desired sacrifice, I would indeed have given it: with burnt offerings thou wilt not be delighted.
A sacrifice to God is an afflicted spirit: a contrite and humbled heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
Deal favourably, O Lord, in thy good will with Sion; that the walls of Jerusalem may be built up.
Then shalt thou accept the sacrifice of justice, oblations and whole burnt offerings: then shall they lay calves upon thy altar.

Psalm 21 (Douai)

Unto the end, for the morning protection, a psalm for David.
O God my God, look upon me: why hast thou forsaken me? Far from my salvation are the words of my sins.
O my God, I shall cry by day, and thou wilt not hear: and by night, and it shall not be reputed as folly in me.
But thou dwellest in the holy place, the praise of Israel.
In thee have our fathers hoped: they have hoped, and thou hast delivered them.
They cried to thee, and they were saved: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.
But I am a worm, and no man: the reproach of men, and the outcast of the people.
All they that saw me have laughed me to scorn: they have spoken with the lips, and wagged the head.
He hoped in the Lord, let him deliver him: let him save him, seeing he delighteth in him.
For thou art he that hast drawn me out of the womb: my hope from the breasts of my mother.
I was cast upon thee from the womb. From my mother's womb thou art my God,
Depart not from me. For tribulation is very near: for there is none to help me.
Many calves have surrounded me: fat bulls have besieged me.
They have opened their mouths against me, as a lion ravening and roaring.
I am poured out like water; and all my bones are scattered. My heart is become like wax melting in the midst of my bowels.
My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue hath cleaved to my jaws: and thou hast brought me down into the dust of death.
For many dogs have encompassed me: the council of the malignant hath besieged me. They have dug my hands and feet.
They have numbered all my bones. And they have looked and stared upon me.
They parted my garments amongst them; and upon my vesture they cast lots.
But thou, O Lord, remove not thy help to a distance from me; look towards my defence.
Deliver, O God, my soul from the sword: my only one from the hand of the dog.
Save me from the lion's mouth; and my lowness from the horns of the unicorns.
I will declare thy name to my brethren: in the midst of the church will I praise thee.
Ye that fear the Lord, praise him: all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him.
Let all the seed of Israel fear him: because he hath not slighted nor despised the supplication of the poor man. Neither hath he turned away his face from me: and when I cried to him he heard me.
With thee is my praise in a great church: I will pay my vows in the sight of them that fear him.
The poor shall eat and shall be filled: and they shall praise the Lord that seek him: their hearts shall live for ever and ever.
All the ends of the earth shall remember, and shall be converted to the Lord: And all the kindreds of the Gentiles shall adore in his sight.
For the kingdom is the Lord's; and he shall have dominion over the nations.
All the fat ones of the earth have eaten and have adored: all they that go down to the earth shall fall before him.
And to him my soul shall live: and my seed shall serve him.
There shall be declared to the Lord a generation to come: and the heavens shall shew forth his justice to a people that shall be born, which the Lord hath made.

**************************************************
Raphael Cardinal Merry del Val
(1865 - 1930)

Litany of Humility

O Jesus, meek and humble of heart,
Hear me.

From the desire of being esteemed,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being loved,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being extolled,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being honored,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being praised,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being preferred to others,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being consulted,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being approved,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being humiliated,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being despised,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of suffering rebukes,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being calumniated,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being forgotten,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being ridiculed
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being wronged,
Deliver me, Jesus.

From the fear of being suspected,
Deliver me, Jesus.

That others may be loved more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more than I,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That in the opinion of the world,
others may increase and I may decrease,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be chosen and I set aside,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be praised and I unnoticed,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may be preferred to me in everything,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

That others may become holier than I,
provided that I become as holy as I should,
Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

**************************************************
Unkown

Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus


Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

Jesus, hear us.
Jesus, hear us.

Jesus, graciously hear us. Jesus,
graciously hear us.

God the Father of Heaven,
have mercy on us.

God the Son, Redeemer of the world,
have mercy on us.

God, the Holy Spirit,
have mercy on us.

Holy Trinity, One God,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, Son of the living God,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, Splendor of the Father,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, Brightness of eternal Light,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, King of Glory,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, Sun of Justice,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, Son of the Virgin Mary,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, most amiable,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, most admirable,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, the mighty God,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, Father of the world to come,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, Angel of Great Council,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, most powerful,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, most patient,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, most obedient,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, meek and humble of heart,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, Lover of Chastity,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, our Lover,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, God of Peace,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, Author of Life,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, Model of Virtue,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, zealous for souls,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, our God,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, our Refuge,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, Father of the Poor,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, Treasure of the Faithful,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, good Shepherd,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, true Light,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, eternal Wisdom,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, infinite Goodness,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, our Way and our Life,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, joy of the Angels,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, King of the Patriarchs,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, Master of the Apostles,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, Teacher of the Evangelists,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, Strength of Martyrs,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, Light of Confessors,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, Purity of Virgins,
have mercy on us.

Jesus, Crown of all Saints,
have mercy on us.

Be merciful,
spare us O Jesus.

Be merciful,
graciously hear us, O Jesus.

From all evil,
deliver us, O Jesus.

From all sin,
deliver us, O Jesus.

From Thy wrath,
deliver us, O Jesus.

From the snares of the devil,
deliver us, O Jesus.

From the spirit of fornication,
deliver us, O Jesus.

From everlasting death,
deliver us, O Jesus.

From the neglect of Thy inspirations,
deliver us, O Jesus.

Through the mystery of Thy holy Incarnation,
deliver us, O Jesus.

Through Thy Nativity,
deliver us, O Jesus.

Through Thy Infancy,
deliver us, O Jesus.

Through Thy most divine Life,
deliver us, O Jesus.

Through Thy Labors,
deliver us, O Jesus.

Through Thy Agony and Passion,
deliver us, O Jesus.

Through Thy Cross and Dereliction,
deliver us, O Jesus.

Through Thy Sufferings,
deliver us, O Jesus.

Through Thy Death and Burial,
deliver us, O Jesus.

Through Thy Resurrection,
deliver us, O Jesus.

Through Thy Ascension,
deliver us, O Jesus.

Through Thy Institution of the Most Holy Eucharist,
deliver us, O Jesus.

Through Thy Joys,
deliver us, O Jesus.

Through Thy Glory,
deliver us, O Jesus.

Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world,
spare us, O Jesu.

Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world,
graciously hear us, O Jesus.

Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us, O Jesus.

Jesus hear us.
Jesus, graciously hear us.

Let us pray,

O Lord Jesus Christ, Thou hast said,
"Ask and you shall receive;
seek and you shall find;
knock, and it shall be opened to you";
mercifully attend to our supplications,
and grant us the grace of Thy most divine love,
that we may love Thee with all our hearts,
and in all our words and actions,
and never cease to praise Thee.

Make us, O Lord,
to have a perpetual fear
and love of Thy holy name,
for Thou never failest to govern
those who Thou dost solidly establish in Thy love.

Amen.
**************************************************

A Reminder

Voting for the 2004/05 St Blog's Awards ends on Friday, February 11, at 12:00 noon EST. The Dossier's been nominated for "most insightful." You can vote for it (or any other blog of your choice) here.

"Oh, He's Too Frail to Be Pope! He Should Resign!

Via St. Blog's Parish Hall, we read this story about our frail, hospitalized Pope. (Click the link once you get to St. Blog's).

Fr. Thomas Reese and the staff of America magazine, who've been beating the drums on the BBC, PBS, the Washington Post, and New York Newsday and elsewhere, for some procedure by which our Pope and his successors can be influenced to resign, ought to think again.

As I said before: "Every person is indispensable -- even the pope. Even this pope, no matter how much some folks would like him to be the pontifical equivalent of Terri Schiavo."

When contemplating this campaign, it should be understood that there is nothing in the constitution of the Church which prevents the Pope from having already taken steps to prevent the evils which papal-resignation enthusiasts trot out to justify their cause. There is not, however, a procedure in place which would routinely terminate a papacy whose policies have endured "too long" or provide a pope's opponents with an opportunity to challenge him on a new and more direct level.

Random Movie Notes for Lent

I have a collection of Lenten Films. I like movies. They're America's only original contribution to the world of art. Say whatever you like about Lang, Fellini, and the rest. Mozart and Wagner don't make opera any less an Italian art form. Movies are American. I'm an American Catholic (defined, in my book, as a Catholic who by providence has been set down in America), and so I use them for Lent.

Christians in earlier centuries had a similar "collection" of passion plays, stations of the cross, and works of art by the great masters. The Stations are actually on a higher plane, since they're public devotions which are blessed and indulgenced by the Church. But they serve the same purpose as the rest, and the same purpose movies can serve. They excite the mind, fire the imagination, and focus the mind's attention in ways other forms of contemplation do not.

One of my films is, of course, Mel Gibson's The Passion of The Christ. Last year I blogged about it a good deal. You can read those past blogs here, and my whole take on the "Anti-Semitism" charge here. You can also, if you want, look at some yapping I did at the film's less intelligent critics here. I'm going to see it again tonight. My parish has rented a theater, and is holding eucharistic adoration and confessions afterwards. That's how the Church ought to use movies.

We could say all this is trite. But I don't think anyone's holding up medieval passion and devotional plays as the equal of Shakespeare. Catholic art, like anything else Catholic, has one goal and one goal only -- to get a soul into heaven by any means necessary. (That's not relativism, because the goal dictates the range of acceptable means). God used some science fiction, a boy's novel, an undergraduate-level knowledge of classical history, and a comic book about the life of John Paul II as part of His plan to get me into the Church. We can get all snooty about the quality of Catholic art, but most of us would be amazed at the condescending things God does just to get us to pay attention to Him.

It's true that if I imagine myself as being holier than I am, I can imagine myself as someone who wouldn't need films to excite my contemplation of God's agony. But that road ultimately goes nowhere. I can imagine myself as someone who's so holy that God wouldn't have had to experience that agony. As Frank Sheed says, imagination is useful only when it's subservient to the intellect. The fact, the proveable fact, is that I am the kind of person who is so out of whack with reality and justice as to require God's own death to be set right again. "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8 (KJV). That's me, not just the Romans. Christ knew me, knows me, from all eternity before time and throughout time. That's why He chose to die for me.

So I gladly watch some movies during Lent. If nothing else, it's a way to do penance for all the scandalous television I watch. If you're similarly minded, here's my list. In addition to The Passion, I also watch Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth, The Song of Bernadette, and Ben Hur. I wish they'd made the second half of that novel into a film, because that's where the redemptive action occurs and Ben Hur finally embraces Christ. But it's a good film to contemplate the meaninglessness of human life without Him. If I can, I also watch Prince of Foxes, a 1949 film starring Tyrone Power and Orson Welles. That's the boy's novel I mentioned earlier. It never hurts to reinforce old lessons.

Cry Havoc! and Let Slip the Dogs of War

Via the Southern Appeal blog, we learn of the furor over recent remarks by Marine Corps Lieutenant General James Mattis. Mattis, who commanded U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, participated in a panel discussion sponsored by something called the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association. Forgetting that the natural virtues of personal combat, which do not include hypocrisy, are not widely held in modern society, General Mattis made the following remarks about the experience of battle:

"Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot. ... It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling."

He added, "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

I'm always behind the news curve, but when I looked around the Internet I wasn't surprised that the General's comments have stirred a slithery nest of morons, frauds, and self-righteous propagandists into a pulsing fit of indignation.

True to its Ratherite nature, the main-stream media spun Mattis' remarks into a story about a knuckle-dragging, blood-crazed redneck who would just as soon shoot up an elementary school as vote Republican. Almost every news outlet went with an identical lead:

"A senior Marine general who commanded forces in Iraq and Afghanistan has been admonished by the commandant of the Marine Corps for saying publicly, ‘It's fun to shoot some people.'" (New York Times

"A three-star Marine general who said it was ‘fun to shoot some people' should have chosen his words more carefully, the Marine Corps commandant said Thursday." (CNN)

"A Marine general who has commanded troops in Afghanistan and Iraq told a forum, ‘It's fun to shoot some people.'" (CBS News)

"A decorated Marine Corps general said, ‘It's fun to shoot some people' as he described the wars U.S. troops are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan." (Baltimore Sun)

"A senior U.S. Marine Corps general who said it was "fun to shoot some people" should have chosen his words more carefully but will not be disciplined, military officials said on Thursday." (Reuters)

"A Marine general who has commanded troops in Afghanistan and Iraq told a forum, ‘It's fun to shoot some people.'" (Union Leader)

So that, according to big media, is what Mattis meant to say -- it's fun to shoot a bunch of people. Not that it's fun to "shoot some people," namely barbarians who, if unrestrained, would plunge the world into a nightmare of hatred, ignorance and unholy power. No, General Mattis said it's fun to "shoot some people," any people, really, just so long as they scream on the way down. Might as well have your fun in a shopping mall as Fallujah. It's true. We got it straight from the New York Times and Dan Rather, who said Mattis' comments "sound downright trigger-happy." Sure, Dan, and you've probably got a downright National Guard memo to prove it.

The other sort of propagandists are playing what may be called the Islamic Variant of the Rather Attack. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said Mattis is a man who enjoys indiscriminately killing Muslims: "[I]t sends a very negative message to the Muslim world that U.S. generals do not care about human life." In a strange coincidence, Al-Jazeera had the same spin: "We do not need generals who treat the grim business of war as a sporting event," said [CAIR's] executive director, Nihad Awad. "These disturbing remarks are indicative of an apparent indifference to the value of human life." Al-Jazeera went Rather one better, reproducing a photo of Lindy England abusing an Iraqi prisoner next to the story on Mattis.

Never mind that Lindy England is looking at hard time. Never mind that Rather's (and CAIR's) "trigger-happy" derision was spewed during the same CBS story which quoted Mattis exhorting U.S. troops during the battle for Fallujah: "If, in order to take out a terrorist, you have to hit, you know, shoot and kill innocent women and children, don't take the shot. Wait for another day." Never mind that Mattis required his staff officers to participate in a reading program intended to give them "a basic understanding of Islam, the region, and the culture." Or that Mattis "has a long record of encouraging Marines in his command to respect Arab culture and make every effort to protect the lives of civilians." Never mind all that, because Mattis is an American. Mattis is a Marine. Mattis is an affront to everything the hypocritically-squeamish culture of the Left holds dear. So Dan gets spastic about Mattis' "downright trigger-happy" remarks, and if a bunch of self-proclaimed victims want to jump on the bandwagon in pursuit of donations from people who ought to know better, that's all right by him. It's fun to ruin some people. The Left will be right up front with you, Dan, because they like brawling.

But Mattis said "fun"! He said it!! How could a decent civilized man say it's fun to kill anyone!!!! Because, in the sense I think Mattis meant, it should jolly well be fun. I remember, years ago, how the Muttawa (Saudi Arabia's official religious police) forced some young girls to burn to death in a fire that had started in a Saudi school. They had to burn, you see, because they didn't have veils on, and it would have been a great offense to allow them onto the streets. Better that they burn. Men like those Muttawa agents -- and the folks who watched and approved -- deserve to be shot. A righteous sense of vengeance demands it, their crime calls out to Heaven for it, and if someone can't take joy from keeping those misogynistic, pseudo-religious thugs from burning more children to death then I don't know what Heaven's for. Now it's true -- and I say this as someone who thinks we weren't justified in invading Iraq -- that there are reasons, good and moral reasons, why we shouldn't invade Saudi Arabia, hunt that scum down, and riddle them with bullets. (There are also good reasons to forego giving the same to our home-grown thugs). But let's not kid ourselves into thinking that such an enterprise, once begun, shouldn't evoke this healthy sense of anger in the men we send to get the job done.

I found it strange to see Dan Rather and others pandering to squeamishness about the nature of war and the souls of warriors. Truly sin makes men ridiculous. There are thousands of "physicians" (and I use the term lightly) who think it's "fun" to provide "reproductive health-care services." To paraphrase Mattis, "if, in order to take out an unwanted addition to the family budget, the cause of unsightly stretch-marks, these men have to hit, you know, slice and dice innocent children, they take the shot. They don't wait for another day." And when they get "downright scalpel-happy," our society applauds them and funds the political interest-groups that watch the "home front" and keep our abortion mills open. Want "disturbing remarks" that are "indicative of an apparent indifference to the value of human life"? You'll get them from William Brennan and Hillary Clinton, not General Mattis. Is there a guilty conscience in men like Rather, and the Americans who will no doubt be as shocked as he is, when they hear of a Marine's love for brawling? Does it cause them to become blind, like mirrors, comfortably condemning in others what really they fear to see in themselves?

I think the revulsion over Mattis' remarks come from the West's taste for dining with panthers, in the culture's hatred of man himself. People who openly praise the unrestricted killing of defenseless children as a brave victory for human rights are likely to have twisted ideas about the morality of combat. For sanity in the matter, I'll rely on soldiers to explain Mattis' words. Soldiers like Ralph Peters, or Robert Scales. For my part, I recall Jean Larteguy writing in The Centurions about having "two armies," one that matches the effete expectations of society and another that fights wars:

I'd like to have two armies: one for display with lovely guns, tanks, little soldiers, staffs, distinguished and doddering generals, and dear little regimental officers who would be deeply concerned over their general's bowel movements or their colonel's piles, an army that would be shown for a modest fee on every fairground in the country.

The other would be the real one, composed entirely of young enthusiasts in camouflage uniforms, who would not be put on display, but from whom impossible efforts would be demanded and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught. That's the army in which I should like to fight."

That's the army in which any sane man would want to fight, or be defended by, because it's the army that gives him the best chance of being victorious and alive at the same time. It's General Mattis' army. I guess it creates as much shock among liberals as it does among the enemy. Thank God for that. And thank you, General Mattis.

Note on St. Blog's Parish Hall

It's no secret that I hope St. Blog's Parish Hall takes off as a message board. I hope it will be a place where anyone who wants to comment on a blog or post does so, provoking conversation. So I was glad to learn that one of St. Blog's most annoying features is easily disabled.

When you register to post on the board, you will receive a gobbledygook password like FGhJk7C. Of course, it's case-sensitive, so if you type "Fghjk7c," the system won't let you log in. Several people have complained that they can't remember this password. I can't remember mine, either. I was always doing "remember me on this computer" and then looking up the bSpeak email that had my password in it whenever I had to log back on.

But there's a better way to make St. Blog's an easy stop on your internet rounds. After you sign up and receive the gobbledygook password, you go to the site and log in using it. Then click on "Account" and change your gobbledygook password for one you can always remember. So you only have to use the gobbledygook password twice -- once to log in, and once to change it into a password that's comfortable and easy to type.

St. Blog Awards and Other Stuff

The nominations are in and voting will end on February 11, 2005. You can vote here. This blog has been nominated as "Most Insightful." There are helpful links to each blog nominated at the bottom of the page.

There's no word yet on whether John Allen will write a book on the nominating/voting process. According to his book on the other nominating/voting process (which I'm reading and will blog about presently), I'm primarily a "Border Patrol" Catholic with some strong "Salt-of-the-Earth" tendencies. Those are two of his three names for the factions that will shape the next conclave. The other faction is the "Reform" party that thinks Vatican II was really just an organizational pep-rally for Vatican III. Since I don't fancy the idea of a Council that would grant the entire membership of Call to Action peritus status, I don't have much in common with the Reform party.

For the readers who've emailed recently, I'm still working on "Notes on the Lumen Gentium Problem." It will probably take a few days more, given the press of work and other matters. My apologies and thanks for your patience.

The Benefits of a Republican President

I remember a few years back when Bill Clinton was president. Social Security, we were frequently told, was on the verge of bankruptcy. Decreasing worker payments and increasing boomer retirements were the cause. Only a dedicated, brilliant, and left-wing social servant like Bill Clinton, Al Gore, or Bill Bradley could possibly save us by reforming the program.

But now that George Bush works in the Oval Office, things are looking up. Social Security is just fine and dandy, thank you very much, and there's no reason to change one iota of the program. Oh we might consider tinkering here and there to make it even better than perfect, but really there's no need for alarmed, hasty, or even prompt action on the matter . . . .

Report from the Book Front

The first meeting of our reading group was last Wednesday. In addition to my father and myself, there were five young fellows between 19 and 24 from the local college. We decided to have weekly meetings on Thursdays (your prayers appreciated). A couple of meetings will be dinner extravaganzas courtesy of myself. Mostly there'll be coffee and light refreshments.

Not having anything to read tonight didn't stop us from talking. We had a lively discussion that lasted about two hours and touched on topics such as Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism, whether man has a natural desire for God, the deleterious impact of the culture on Catholic faith, movies, Aristotle's golden mean, whether a purely-dogmatic conception of the faith is enough, "cafeteria" Catholicism, and why fewer people were eating the ginger cookie bars than the chocolate ones.

Our reading schedule's still a bit haphazard. Because most of our members are feckless college students whose pampered lives manage to coexist with the impression that they have too much work on their hands, we've decided to read a series of short works on a weekly basis and only two longer works to be discussed at intervals. (I've suggested readings from Kung, Schillebeeckx and de Chardin unless a Traditionalist who's interested in the group, but who was absent, starts attending. Think of it as scrawling on a mirror, "Stop Me Before I Modernize Again!" I hope he comes. He knows more about Catholicism than most of us).

For next week, we're reading two chapters from Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson's Paradoxes of Catholicism, "Authority and Liberty," and "Faith and Reason." We're also going to pick two longer novels from the following list of six. Explanatory notes for the selection follow each title. Three are "positive" works, by which I mean they affirm Catholic truth in one way or another. They are:

Canticle for Leibowitz (How does the Church endure? Why does the world hate her?)
The Samurai (What does bearing the imago Dei mean?)
Brideshead Revisited (What's faith? Why are we drawn to it? Why are we repelled by it?)

Three are "negative" stories, either wittingly or (in Rand's case) unwittingly dystopian, which provide an opportunity for examining Catholicism's value by comparison to alternatives. They are:

The Fountainhead (Idolatry, lust and cruelty set within America's civic religion).
1984 (A novel about a future we've avoided).
Brave New World (A novel about a future we're embracing).

We had good suggestions from blog readers. JohnK suggested The Screwtape Letters. I'm hoping he (or anyone else) can help us pick a few favorites from the correspondence to read for one week. The Elinor Dashwood suggested Brideshead Revisited, which is on our novels list. Geoff Horton suggsted Benson's Lord of the World, and since we're reading Benson already I hope he'll be satisfied. Margaret Kalb suggested CS Lewis Till We Have Faces, which I've never read. I hope she can follow JohnK and send in recommended excerpts for us to read. And if anybody wants to send in a "Cliff Notes" on our readings, please feel free and I'll be glad to use ‘em.