Archbishop Chaput is good people.

Had a thought: The way to get to Chaput's clueless colleagues is to present the following thought experiment. A billionaire software entrepreneur just bequeathed your diocese his entire fortune, provided that you personally manage all of the enterprises according to the best interests of the shareholders thereof, i.e. according to the profit motive, with the profits won to be distributed to the object of the Church's affections - the poor, sinners and her ministry to the same.

Oh no! Would clueless Chaput colleague hire Barak Obama or Mitt Romney to provide advice on how to pull this off? If the answer (required of all honest men) is Mitt Romney, then why is the U.S. economy any different from the one clueless Chaput colleague or Barak Obama have inherited?

Loved the post. Still, you're talking to lefties about politics? Why? Do you talk to an insurance salesman about insurance when you're not in the market for insurance? No you do not. Nor should you.

The federal government is no longer cosa nostra - our thing. It's their thing, that is, a thing belonging entirely to the wealthy denizens of six of the ten richest counties in the United States, which happen to be located around Washington, D.C. Well, aforesaid wealthy denizens and their useful idiots on the left together with hordes of sympathetic low-information voters.

I know people like the bony-fingered lady - in my own family. One long car ride, my father's second wife self-identified as a libertarian, whereupon she proceeded to hold forth on how "government is us", entitlements are "investments in us", and Dubya was Satan incarnate out-eviled only by Darth Cheney. Sadly, I could believe my ears because even if these weren't her words brewed in the feverish region between her own ears, they were authentic to her. And there was nothing to gain in riposte; the coup de grace had been administered when she spoke.

Stewart's shtick only works if you endow his antics more substantive authority than a grinder's monkey or a vending machine. That anyone would I find supremely depressing.

Stewart's shtick in the appended video draws its substantive authority from libertarian and conservative thought, not his antics. I did, however, enjoy his honesty regarding the liberal narrative-busting that the IRS power abuse worked. This really is the principal damage done because it undermines the doctrinaire lefties' faux moral superiority while demonstrating the tyrant a government undaunted by the people it serves can truly become.

I also admired the numerous messages sent by the "Obama into the Darkness" movie poster. Whatever else Stewart may be, he does know how to communicate through culture to low-information voters. To the extent GOP consultants aren't watching this guy every night, they'll never get better than incompetent.

I'm probably not smart enough to disagree with John Yoo, but I'm also reckless, so here goes: If the DOJ want to investigate possible criminal violations involving the AP and their Obama regime sources, then go for it! March the whole scurvy lot of them out their swanky offices in manacles and chains, frog-walk them in front of Congress, hang them by their big toes from the Tree of Liberty, whatever. The stocks and a liberal pelting with rotten sardines for two weeks, that's my preference.

If AP's partisan hacks facilitate criminal activity to advance the political fortunes of the current regime while undermining national security, then such malfeasances trump any first amendment protections they enjoy or democracy safeguarding function they (dis)serve. Prosecute them to the hilt, and keep in mind that I despise the DOJ as the jackbooted, brown-shirted thugs they tend to behave as when they run amok abroad. You think the federal judiciary are importing too much foreign law, wait to until you learn how much American federal law the DOJ are imposing on the rest of the world by sheer duress.

China will shift domestic energy production and consumption to natural gas from coal so long as natural gas is cheaper than coal, all costs considered (e.g. pollution). Good for China, good for the rest of us, i.e. win-win.

China's meddling in resource-rich countries will continue, as will ours in response. If hydrocarbon fuels become readily available at attractive prices to powerful consumers regardless of what happens in the Middle East, you can expect less meddling in the Middle East, which is bad for them but good for us. What's better - a brutal dictator who oppresses you only if you threaten his power, or a brutal theocrat who oppresses you when you don't abide Sharia?

If you've got to bite your tongue to hang out with someone, sooner or later it's going to get sore. Then one day your control will slip, you'll say what you really think, the object of your affection will see you in an entirely different light, and that will be that. Why bother? Tell the guy what you really think, and if he can't deal with it, then you're better off hitting the dating market for someone who can.

I've got a friend I'm fond of but can't hang out with very much because her anti-Christianity comments grate on me. So I do the odd favor for her and meet her for lunch or coffee or dinner once every quarter, but not more. It's too bad, but that's the way it's got to be. Any more hanging out than that and she'd become intolerable, at which point I'd have to make a scene and tell her why. Who needs that?

I think politician is a perfect career for a guy like Mark Sanford. Most of us peons don't expect politicians to be true to their vows, to tell us the truth, or to do the right thing consistently. In fact, if we'd just admit that the politicians we elect accurately reflect us, we'd be far less inclined to trust them or democracy. What's more, we'd understand that the promises they make and lies they tell reflect our desires rather than our reality.

So SC voters want gubmint to spend less, so they sent Sanford to Congress because that's what he told them he'd do. Will Sanford actually lift a finger to make that happen? Who knows, but everyone who wants less spending feels better for the exercise.

To be honest, I think you Americans living in America and marinating in her toxic culture are bat-excrement insane, and you're well along in the process of destroying the greatest nation ever. I've been watching you do so from abroad these past 12 years, and I can no longer explain to the natives why you're doing what you're doing, other than that you're bat-excrement insane and have a death-wish.

15% unemployment, 105% debt to GDP ratio, an out-of-control political class pillaging the benighted few who actually pay federal taxes, an incoherent foreign policy endangering or estranging allies while encouraging enemies... and you're enraptured by gay athlete openly discussing his sexuality. Drudge reports that 42% of Americans polled by ABC about Obamacare don't know it's law, but I bet this 42% know about Collins, and I bet most of them voted for Obama (assuming they know who he is, what voting is, and how to do it).

Since America seems to mean nothing to so many of you, what's the point of going on?

Good post. It helped me understand two things about how Americans think nowadays, namely, that one must avoid offending others, and anecdotal evidence (particularly one's own emotions) is the best kind of evidence. To the extent one believes both propositions are true, one will be unable to effectively argue against the left.

I oppose SSM because once it's granted it can't practically be withdrawn. If the normalization of homosexuality turns out to harm society, and it will, too bad - there's no going back. I read today about a middle school in New York already working to normalize homosexuality (Ricochet Main Feed, Denise McAllister, "Can I kiss you?").

You see, it isn't enough for the left to teach kids not to bully each other; they're going for the Full Monty of normalizing all kinds of sex except sex between spouses, which they seek to de-normalize (it's so yesterday). The left wants to diddle with your kids' minds and perhaps more, and they won't stop until they can and you can't stop them. And where will that leave us traditionals? Amish status, if we're lucky. SSM's not worth that.

Why would the state care about how or what infants are fed? I don't get it. Maybe the state's goal is to introduce and normalize public nudity to further erode sexual morals. Today Denise McAllister posted the following forward to Aldous Huxley'sBrave New World:

As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends compensatingly to increase. And the dictator (unless he needs cannon fodder and families with which to colonize empty or conquered territories) will do well to encourage that freedom. In conjunction with the freedom to daydream under the influence of dope and movies and the radio, it will help to reconcile his subjects to the servitude which is their fate.

Today it doesn't cost much to be a low information voter. The cost of ignorance will have to increase dramatically if this is to change. How dramatically I don't know, although it seems that 15% unemployment and 20% of American households on food stamps isn't enough. Maybe severe inflation and dollar devaluation will provide the tipping point?

This relates to the question us expats have to answer so often, namely, How come most Americans don't learn foreign languages, travel abroad, or seem to know or care much about the rest of the world? My answer: Because they don't have to - ignorance of these things imposes no costs. That will change only when the risks of ignorance are realized. Ditto for LIVs.

Or maybe not: A lot of Jews didn't get the heck out of Europe after Kristallnacht. Sure, some couldn't escape but a lot who could didn't. Why? Maybe there's a percentage of every population who just can't deal with reality.

I'm a Christian conservative married to a liberal atheist, and my wife is a much better person than I in almost every regard. That's why I married her, and things are working out alright. So if you ever get a chance to marry up, take it and sort out the differences later.

"Civilization" in the singular implies objective standards and measures which, if not met, establish that a nation labors in a state of "barbarity". Thus the plural of civilization contemplates a ratio of objective (and probably subjective) standards and measures for establishing whether a nation labors in a state of barbarity or merits study, admiration, and treaty (instead of outright slaughter). Calling the Creek "civilized" implies that they ought not be slaughtered outright should they prove troublesome. Instead, their civilized nature provides some foundation for an entreaty to peaceful coexistence on civilized terms.

This is actually a very important way of thinking because it applies to the question of whether the Islamists are civilized and can be bargained with, or whether they are mere barbarians who must be slaughtered to a man, woman and child if the threat they pose to civilization is to be extinguished for all time. Obviously, the ability and compunction to commit annihilation for the purpose of self-preservation do not disqualify a nation from being classified as civilized, putting paid to the notion that "civilization" is synonymous with "good".

Cutter won't be honest when doing so hurts Democrats. Newt can't be honest when doing so hurts Newt. So with these two hosts, Crossfire will become a series of disconnected rants aimed at elevating Democrats and Newt at the expense of their opponents - the GOP and individual Republicans who stand athwart Newt's ambitions. 

By the way, Newt was a disaster in the debate clip. America can't implement the German model because Americans aren't Germans. Does Newt really believe that he can hand over control of American manufacturing to labor unions and get the same results as the Germans got? If so, the most dangerous man on that stage was Newt, not Howard the Red.

Why is America importing murderous savages who hate her and want to destroy her? Must compassionate nations commit suicide to prove their compassion?

As I've observed and analyzed multiculturalism and diversity policies in action, I've gone from open-border libertarianism to closed-border conservatism.

Multiculturalism is a Trojan Horse ideology. It dissolves the traditional bonds of common sentiment binding polities together to replace them with a new bond - tolerance - containing the recipe for its own destruction - intolerance.

Tolerance cannot tolerate intolerance, and a truly diverse polity is by definition one that generates numerous intolerant ideas, beliefs, and sentiments. To survive intolerance, a diverse, multicultural polity must impose a uniform dogma based on superficial traits and relativism and then ruthlessly enforce it against all dissenters. What emerges is a superficially diverse polity marching in lockstep to an anodyne uniform dogma that utterly fails to inspire the patriotism necessary to resist national decline and submission to rivals who believe in themselves.

This will be America's fate unless we subject our elites to a 70s-style cultural revolution (not Mao-style) that strips them of all power and influence and exiles them to political and cultural insignificance.

The Founders designed the Senate to represent the states' interests. The 17th Amendment complicated that design but did not entirely thwart it.

What do we say to otherwise intelligent and knowledgeable citizens who ignore facts they should and probably do know to argue nonsense? Do we call them liars, cheats and demagogues, or do we patiently remind them of the facts they should and probably do know? 

For my part, I just can't respect someone who denies or ignores federalism or its limiting impact on federal power and politics. Imagine a provocatively clothed female porn star traveling to Saudi Arabia to do a feature on Mecca. So clueless as to be inconceivable, right? So why do we take anyone seriously who argues that the structure of the Senate unjustly thwarts proportional representation of the population, as if the mob were the only stakeholder recognized in the design of our constitutional republic?

We can't have civility in politics until we shun the liars, cheats and demagogues who pollute it.