Apparently I'm Scary

Yesterday I was called by a progressive friend, 'scary'. This after being told, when another friend heard I was voting in the recent Michigan Republican primary, that 'You people scare me'.

What's up with that? They've each known me for years, and to be fair to them I don't expect my relationships with either to change. They are each better than their recent speech, and I know it. I know too that there are (as in any group) Republicans and conservatives who might be labeled scary. But I would have thought that decency and charity would have prevented these friends from insulting me so directly.

It leads me ask, why should American conservatism seem scary? We right wingers are not the ones attempting to completely run the lives of others. As I've said before, outside of a handful of critical issues the right, by and large, is live and let live. It's the left who would not allow you to cut down a tree on your own property, to turn into boards to fix your own steps. It is the left who will not allow you the full use of your property if some part of it holds, to them, an environmental value. It is the left who wants to force you onto public transport because they feel it proper, and who want you to send your kids to inadequate public (read that government) schools or join a union merely because they see such things as laudable. Such attitudes do not support true human rights. At least when a Republican argues against abortion, there is arguably an actual human life at stake. To the left it's simply a matter of save the whales, but human beings don't have human children.

In short, I think they have more to fear from the progressives and socialists than from a truly conservative government. At that, I would never have told either that they scared me. But when your rival is a straw man and your goals of good intention, I suppose almost anything else will frighten you.

Detained at the Canadian border

Something happened to me last night that has never happened before. After curling in Canada for about 21 seasons now, I was subjected to a vehicular search as I entered that great nation. And I was not in the least bit perturbed by it.

Nations have the right to secure their borders. Part of that is ensuring that those who cross those borders pose no threat to the nation they are entering. And as I am not a Canadian citizen with a moral right to be in Canada, I have no trouble with even random searches of my vehicle when entering Canada. Canada has the right to know that those who are attempting to cross her boundaries are no threat.

I am not one of those who think that borders are artificial or arbitrary. They exist de facto (by the force of fact) or de jure (by the force of law) and as such have rightful moral existence. I would go so far as to argue that it is absurd, even comical, to believe otherwise.

Yes, I have gotten upset about border delays coming into my own country. That is because, as a citizen of the United States, I have the moral right to be in my own nation. I have no such right to be in Canada. There may well be solid philosophic arguments as to why Canada should let me enter, or even for relatively open borders generally. But I see no imperative that Canada or any other nation should allow me within their borders no questions asked.

I am happy that I was let in. Curling season is drawing to a close, and I want to finish it with my curling friends. Still, it is imperative upon me to recognize and accept the right of Canada to make sure I'm an okay guy who can be safely allowed in. I am at Her mercy in that regard, and that is how it should be.

Easter 2016

On this Easter morning, I am reminded that this great Holy Day seems to play second fiddle to the other greatest Christian feast, Christmas. Not that Christmas is a lowly event, either; far from it! Yet I cannot help but conclude, in reconciling the levels of attention paid to each, that we ought to focus more of our efforts, if even only slightly, on Easter.

I do not pretend to be a theologian, but as wonderful as December 25th is, it is something of a precursor to our salvation: Christ comes into the world as all the rest of us have, as a child. His is the promise: for God so loved the world that He sent His only Son for our redemption. Christmas is hope. The celebration of it demonstrates trust in the future which Our Lord has set before us.

Easter fulfills that hope and promise. Though we grieve so deeply and so rightly at the misery and death which Christ took upon Himself for us, it is not His Death but His glorious Resurrection which redeems us. Who else has come back from the dead? Who else has defeated that last obstacle to secure the possibility of our everlasting joy?

So while I attempt to tread lightly in making such comparisons I have to believe that Easter should be felt more profoundly than any other Christian celebration. He is Risen. Our Heavenly destiny is opened to us should we accept. Let us rise with Him to the level for which we were created, made possible by His love for us. Made possible through the Resurrection.

Good Friday 2016

Today is perhaps the day of greatest irony on our calendar. It is Good Friday, the day we Christians remember the crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It doesn't seem that it should be called good. On the surface, the celebration (perhaps veneration is a better word) of someone's death, particularly a rather gruesome one, seems odd to say the least. Yet that is an interpretation based solely on earthly terms. When you consider that the great Divinity was involved, it casts an entirely different light on the situation.

God sent His only Son to be humiliated, to suffer and die horribly, for us. And He did it, his Son. Willingly. Such humility. Such a great act which cannot be seen except as fantastic. How could a sacrifice of that magnitude be seen in other than a positive light?

We cannot rightly see it any other way. Remember what Aquinas teaches: Christ is either lunatic, liar, or Lord. He Himself gives us no option but to answer the question in that frame. He claimed He could forgive others' sins: sins committed (on the surface) against other people by other people. That itself is effrontery or lunacy or even diabolical if He is not part of the Godhead. If He cannot actually do that, if He does not really have that power, then He lies or is insane. If He lies or is insane, then we cannot trust anything else He may say or teach or do. It's that simple.

Yet if we choose the example which faith recommends, if we see Him as Lord of all based on His actions in life and death as well as through the testimony of his trusted companions, then we see the need for praise and holy fear which His death illustrates to us. We understand what that death means: that the God of all humanity will not forsake humanity to her own selfish desires. He will give us an out, if you will, by living the greatest love of all: to give one's life for one's friends.

When the greatest One does that, what choice do we have but to call it Good?

Conservatives aren't the controllers

As a conservative, I am often accused of trying to run everyone's lives. I quibble with such presumption. To be sure, there are aspects of conservatism which may well seem to dictate to people; abortion and same sex marriage come to mind. But do conservatives try to run the lives of the others so much as their friends on the left do?

We ask: who is telling you how much soda you can drink? Who is on the march against trans fat? Who is telling you that you must get health care insurance? Who is telling you what days you may cut your grass or gas up your car? Who wants you to take the bus rather than drive your own car? Who asserts that the environment is more important than the person? Who wails the loudest over urbanization, or the preservation of rather mundane places as the Arctic Wildlife Refuge? I'll tell you this: it ain't the conservatives.

Yes, the few issues through which the right does try to dictate terms are big ones. Yet they aren't actually about control. They're about preserving the dignity of the person in very important areas, areas which would help to make a better society. What dignity for the person is there within the nanny state?

The government is not our mother. Conservatives know that. Liberals don't. And that may well be the key difference between those broad groups.

Car 54, We need you!

There's a hold up in the Bronx, Brooklyn's broken out in fights.

How many of you are singing, whistling, or humming the tune by now? The theme of Car 54, Where are you?

I've watched several episodes of the classic comedy over the weekend. They were part of this past weekend's Binge watch on the Decades channel. I saw many repeats of The Newhart Show on that channel recently; the promise that the entire next weekend will feature The Fugitive is such a tease. I look forward to more such binges with more such shows.

Cable and satellite TV affords us options we could not have imagined a few short years ago. Hundreds if not thousands of channels are within our grasp. With that come prime opportunities to view old TV shows. And that is a good thing.

Car 54, Where are you? is a great example. Jokes about my age from my dear friends aside (who may not continue to be such dear friends should the jokes not subside), old TV shows demonstrate what good TV is about. TV shows then were mass produced, studio controlled, and yet alarmingly clever. You don't think so? Look for the episode about kleptomania at Christmas. It's a hoot. So too is the one about indecency on stage. I laughed out loud several times during each show.

My point is, you simply do not have to be raw to be funny. Or clever. Fart jokes aren't the best jokes there are. Indeed, they represent the laziest type of humor imaginable.

Palm Sunday 2016

Today is Palm Sunday. The day of the Long Gospel, to those of the Catholic faith. It is also the Sunday where I find myself most often moved to tears during the Mass.

Perhaps it is because today is the start of Holy Week. Yet I think it signifies something deeper. I wonder if maybe today we get to see the Lord, our brother Jesus Christ, at his most human, and we also get to see the great example of how He triumphed over human weakness.

Can anyone understand despair quite so well and so deeply as Christ did? He prayed that the cup be taken away. He didn't want to face what He knew he must face; He knew the horrors of what awaited Him. Still, He said: Thy will and not my will. This despite prayer so fervent that He would sweat blood. Can we really understand that?

He would not answer the Sanhedrin, nor Pilate. He knew the futility of it, so He stood mute. He had faith that that was pointless and even that no answer would speak more profoundly than anything He might utter. Pilate was amazed. One can almost taste the apprehension the Roman felt...and one can certainly sense the human fear which caused him to symbolically wash his hands of the affair.

Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? He cried. Many today believe it nothing but a cry of total despair. But it was not. It was the beginning of the 22nd Psalm, a prayer which ends hopefully and indeed gloriously. You may read it here: http://www.americancatholic.org/Messenger/Apr2004/Feature1.asp#F9

Christ more fully understood human suffering than any one of us. Yet He gave Himself up to it, to show that it was not futile. Let's not fail Him in facing our own despairs.