Rainy Day Linkage

Kinda of a rainy day here, so why not post some links?

If you haven't, you should check out Eric Carpenter's series on homosexuality. Thanks to the politically charged nature of the issue and the sudden cultural collapse we are seeing the debate is often reduced to those who reflexively reject homosexuality and those who are determined to embrace it.

In Michigan is seems that parents taking their 12-17 year old children to the doctor will need to turn their children over to a five minute private discussion where they are not welcome. One need not have an active imagination to figure out what topics are being discussed when parents are banned. This is the latest in a series of small moves with a larger purpose, namely to keep creating a distance between parents and children to keep parents from exposing their children to unacceptable ideas and notions.

There are many people that think they are better able to parent children than the actual parents. There are no doubt a multitude of better parents than I. Regardless these are my children, not the state's. If the state has proven anything throughout history it is a demonstrable incompetence and corruption. The last source of advice on really any topic I would recommend for any situation is the government. I am all for rendering to Caesar what is his but my children clearly fall into the "render unto God" category. More on that topic in an upcoming post.

Ed Stetzer has a good post on the church and mental illness. This is a serious topic and one that makes a lot of Christians uncomfortable because it shatters the "everything is great" illusion we like to portray. We need to be more aware and talk about it because many of us are suffering amidst a culture that sees it as a weakness and a distraction.

Two good posts from National Review on the state of American academia, one from George Will (who seems to have experienced a late in life conversion to common sense), The Fruits of Progressivism, and one from Victor Davis Hanson, America's Medieval Universities.

Richard Mourdock, former GOP candidate for the Senate in Indiana was such a poor candidate that he lost to a Democrat in my state, something that is nearly impossible. He lost largely because of some clumsy comments about rape, a topic is far too emotional and serious for a sound-byte political world. He made a small stir yesterday by comparing the conditions in America to the conditions in German leading to World War II. In our current political culture that is simply not going to fly but I think he is on to something. I have raised the specter of the potential for the rise of a totalitarian government in America for some time now. The combination of a huge military and a debt that we can never pay back plus an increasing population that is taking rather than giving to the economy and you have an explosive mix. No one wants to talk about it but if we don't face it now, we will certainly face it in the

Interfaith prayer alert! Oh dear, Jorge (aka "the pope") is having Muslim prayers and a reading from the Quran in the Vatican today. The end is nigh! Some will see this as another sign that Jorge is a durn lib'ral! Others on the fuzzy ecumenical left will weep tears of joy. Me? My reaction is kinda "so what?". There have been prayers offered to Mary and countless other deceased humans for centuries at the Vatican. This is hardly any worse.

Speaking of Jorge, Ryan McMaken at Mises.org systematically dismantles a statement by the "archbishop" on Honduras, Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, writing to defend the call by Jorge for income redistribution. Ironically Mr. Maradiaga was introduced by union thug AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka which certainly suggests that this is more about forcible seizure of property than legitimate concern about "workers". Anyway, Ryan just mauls the risible speech by Mr. Maradiaga and shows that ignorance at the Vatican goes beyond theology and into economics. I really liked this brief, simple but powerful summary:

Before we begin, let’s first define what libertarianism means. Historically known as classical liberalism, it is simply the position that it is immoral to employ violence to force one’s will on others. That is, it is immoral to steal and kill to obtain goods or services from other people. Libertarians also, to varying degrees, maintain that this same prohibition applies to states and that there is nothing magic that takes place when one becomes a government employee. Therefore, a government job does not give one a right to use violence against others whether it be theft in the form of taxation or murder in the form of war. 

 Thus, when we see people like Maradiaga criticize “free markets” what they are really criticizing is freedom itself. Markets, after all, are nothing more than the phenomenon of persons freely exchanging goods and services. Markets are not an ideology or a sentient being or some sort of planned phenomenon. They are simply what naturally arise in any society in which persons exercise their free will. Markets can exist at any time in any place where freedom is allowed. Markets are not a new invention, and they are not the product of any particular ideology. Unfortunately, the history of humanity is mostly the history of potentates crushing the exercise of free will, and thus throughout history, we see the suppression of markets everywhere we look. 

Give Pope’s Right-Hand Man Joins Anti-Market Crusade a read.