The Logic of the Mob

Cops exist to protect criminals from angry mobs. Cops also protect angry mobs from each other.

The Kenosha rioters don't want cops. 
They got what they wanted - no cops.
As a result, the rioters got shot by someone from the other side.

So, rioters got what they wanted - direct violence.
The guy who shot them got what he wanted - direct violence.
Both sides embrace a different viewpoint about violence than you or I do, but that's America - a melting pot of viewpoints, right? So, why aren't we celebrating diversity here? Angry mobs shooting each other looks like a win-win for anyone involved who isn't a hypocrite.

And, from that point of view, why is it wrong for the cops to get in on the game and shoot whoever they want? I mean, if the rioters TRULY don't want cops, then the cops are just another angry mob willing to go mano-a-mano with them. For people who embrace violence, what's not to like? 

If you don't want cops, then people randomly shooting each other is what you get. If some of the people doing the shooting are wearing cop uniforms, well, is it all that different from people wearing antifa uniforms? If you don't want cops, why can't people in cop uniforms operate like the looters and rioters? 

Seriously, when people in cop uniforms shoot them, why do rioters get upset?
They got what they wanted, good and hard - no cops.

Meditation On the Death of a Friend

Look up into the clear night sky and you will see a beautiful thing. 

Stars. 

Stars are born, grow for billions of years, live for billions of years, then collapse and die. And from their ashes, you and I are born. You and I, we are dead stars. And, you and I, we are more beautiful than stars, for we are not just things, we are persons. We are able to live life with joy that stars never have, we are able to burn with love no star's fire can cool, we are able to form molten memories that even a star's own sun-hot forge can never pour out.

But, in order for us, you and I, to be born, a star had to die. A beautiful thing had to die so that something, someone, even more beautiful could be born. 

And, as it is with stars, so it is with you and with me. Although you and I, and every person, has within us this unutterable beauty of joy and love and memory, we each must die so an even more beautiful being, an even better version of ourselves, can be born.

The star did not choose when it was born. It did not choose when it died. Nor do you and I. We do not choose when we are born, we do not choose when we die. Born from the ashes of a star, we simply live, carrying in our hands the life that is given to us. Each of us is born weak, but we grow strong, fiercely bright, giving light where and when we shine. 

My friend, you did not choose to leave your children. If you could have stayed, you would. You wanted for your children what all parents want for their children. And, just as none of us fully understand the death of a star, so none of us fully understand your death. But some things, we do understand.

So, my friend, for your children, this thought:  she wants you to live long, grow strong, and remember her.

And, my friend, for your children, this promise: the beauty that is to come is even greater than the beauty she gave to you.

And, my friend, for your children, this word: Live.

On Presidential Policies

 Nota bene:

Arguing for or against a policy by the current president (no matter who he is) by saying "But Obama did it!" is an atrociously bad argument.

Liberals don't care if the current White House occupant matches their man's actions, because their man can never do any wrong, while anyone NOT their man is wrong simply by the fact that he isn't their man.

Pointing out their man did something wrong doesn't convince them of anything, because that's not where their difficulty lies. Their difficulty lies in the fact that anyone who is NOT their man is, by that fact, illegitimate. For leftists, the "Obama did it!" argument falls on deaf ears.

For conservatives, anytime the president does something that matches Obama's or Clinton's moves, we should start from a position of deep, deep concern. Obama and Clinton were idiots.

Generally speaking, we never want the current White House occupant to "ditto" an Obama/Clinton policy. If he does, he better have a damned good reason, and I want to know what it is before I approve of it.

Now, sometimes he does have a good reason to continue a policy. For instance, Obama started the removal of USPS mailboxes, and Trump continued it. Given the fall-off in USPS mail, it makes good business sense, I support that activity no matter which president is involved.

But then there is Obama building and stocking cages with illegal immigrant kids, and Trump re-filling the cages. My friend, as a Catholic, nothing about that activity is acceptable to me, and I honestly don't care WHO does it. That has to stop. 

So don't roll out "Obama did it!" as a defense for any policy, ever. Either defend the policy on its merits, or admit the policy, on its merits, sucks rocks. Saying, "Obama did it!" assumes that Obama is the norm that norms all actions, and I reject that notion with lightning and fury.

Natural Born Citizen

 The question is simple. Section 1 of Article Two of the United States Constitution sets forth the eligibility requirements for serving as president of the United States, under clause 5 (emphasis added):

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

What does the phrase "natural-born citizen" refer to? Only a natural-born citizen can be president or vice-president, but the Constitution does not define the term. The Supreme Court has never directly addressed the question in reference to the eligibility of a specific presidential or vice-presidential candidate. 

There are different opinions on this matter, none of which are clearly correct. The basis for questioning "natural-born citizenship" is generally founded on theory that the Founding Fathers used Emerich de Vattel's Law of Nation as a basis for the terminology they employed in the Constitution'. According to Vattel, a natural born citizen differs from naturalized citizens in that the natural born citizen fulfills two necessary conditions: 

1. Born on the soil of the country (jus soli) and 
2. Born of at least one parent who is already a citizen (jus sanguinis).

An additional argument has occasionally been used that a candidate may not possess dual citizenship. None of these questions concerning the meaning of the clause have ever been completely settled.  This is, strictly speaking, a question of law, not lineage. Posing the question is not a commentary on separate issues (e.g. the question itself is independent of the candidate's race, culture or worldview).

Below is a list of candidates whose eligibility has been questioned on the basis of the Constitution's "natural-born citizen" eligibility clause. As can be seen, this question has been around for well over a century, with no resolution in sight :

Presidential or VP Candidate	Born on US soil?	Parents capable of passing on birthright citizenship?	Questioned by
Chester A. Arthur  (1881-1886)	Canada???	US mother, Irish father	Democrat opponents, including attorney Arthur Hinman, argue he was born in Canada and thus ineligible.
Christopher Schurmann	Yes	German nationals	New York Tribune
Charles Evans Hughes	Yes	British father made him dual nationality with Britain	Breckinridge Long, one of Woodrow Wilson's campaign workers, Chicago Legal News
Franklin Delano Roosevelt	Yes	US mother,  US Father	Political opponents backed rumor he was born in Canada.
George Romney	Mexico	US mother,  US Father	Various
Barry Goldwater	Arizona territory, not yet a state	US mother,  US Father	Various
Lowell P. Weicker	France	US Father, British mother born in India	Various
Marco Rubio	Yes	Neither were naturalized citizens	Alan Keyes, New Jersey lawyer Mario Apuzzo, St. Petersburg Tmes
Bobby Jindal	Yes	Neither were  naturalized citizens	Charles Kerchner, St. Petersburg Tmes
Ted Cruz	Canada	American mother, Cuban father	CBS News, Washington Post, Mary McManamon, Widener U. Delaware Law school. Newsweek, Laurence Tribe (Harvard), Thomas Lee, (Fordham)
John McCain	??? (Canal Zone)	US mother,  US Father	Peter Williams NBC News
Barack Obama	??? Hawaii??	US Mother, but too young to impart citizenship if birth was not on US soil.	Hillary Clinton
Tammy Duckworth	Thailand	US father,  Thai mother	Joe Biden
Kamala Harris	Yes	Neither were naturalized citizens	Newsweek, John Eastman, former Dean of Chapman University, Fowler School of Law

 

BLM's Marxist Roots

BLM started July, 2013, but did not become nationally recognized until July 2014. In 2015, Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors said she and her fellow organizer, Alicia Garza, are “trained Marxists”. The book publisher Penguin Random House has said Garza, an author, "describes herself as a queer social justice activist and Marxist." Included on its list of beliefs is one consistent with Marxism: 

"We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable."

Marx (and Engels, the man who bankrolled him), was an avowed racist who deeply disliked black people, regularly referring to his own son-in-law and his political enemies with racial slurs. Marx and Engels repeatedly and explicitly said their goal was to destroy the family so that everyone held allegiance only to the state.

Patrisse Cullors and her BLM co-founders, were the protégé of Eric Mann, former agitator of the Weather Underground domestic terror organization, and spent years with him, absorbing the Marxist-Leninist ideology that shaped her worldview. 

In 1968, Mann was a coordinator for Students for a Democratic Society, which eventually became the terrorist organization, the Weather Underground. The Weather Underground was led by Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, who called for terrorism, seeking the overthrow of the US government. Ayers's close friend Terry Robbins, and Ayers's girlfriend, Diana Oughton, famously blew themselves up while making bombs to attack government buildings. Bill Ayers participated in the bombings of New York City Police Department headquarters in 1970, the United States Capitol building in 1971, and the Pentagon in 1972. He dedicated his autobiography to Sirhan Sirhan, the man who assassinated Robert Kennedy.

As a member of the Weather Underground, Eric Mann was himself sentenced to two years in prison for conspiracy to commit murder and assault with intent to commit murder. 

So, Marx was an avowed racist, Eric Mann was a Marxist terrorist, and Mann trained the founders of BLM in Marxist ideology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdpIIiBe7Wc

Silverware as Sin

St. Peter Damian: “God in his wisdom has provided man with natural forks – his fingers. Therefore it is an insult to Him to substitute artificial metallic forks for them when eating.”

Have you gone to confession for using silverware?

Augustine's Rule of Magisterial Interpretation

I have learned to yield this respect and honour only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error. And if in these writings I am perplexed by anything which appears to me opposed to truth, I do not hesitate to suppose that either the [manuscript] is faulty, or the translator has not caught the meaning of what was said, or I myself have failed to understand it. (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 1:350)

If you encounter an apparent error or tension in the Bible, check for textual errors or translation difficulties. But be prepared to blame your own (fallen, finite) powers of understanding before blaming the Bible or any other Magisterial document. Remember, the Bible is the foundational Magisterial document, but the saints, the popes, the Fathers and the Doctors are similarly free from error. That's why they are held up for example. 

So, it is simply impossible to take a statement from one pope, even the current pope (whoever he may be), and claim that another part of the Magisterium (another pope, a saint, a Father or Doctor) contradicts him. There are no contradictions in the Magisterium.  Augustine complains about readers who try to wriggle out from under what the Bible is saying by claiming textual corruption:

When these men are beset by clear testimonies of Scripture, and cannot escape from their grasp, they declare that the passage is spurious. The declaration only shows their aversion to the truth, and their obstinacy in error. Unable to answer these statements of Scripture, they deny their genuineness. (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 4:178)

Similarly, a lot of traditionalists and liberals both make the same claim about papal statements, or other Magisterial statements, they don't like. They claim, "Oh, Pope XXX is mis-teaching, because his statement doesn't match the statement of Doctor YYY. Thus, it falls upon me to correct the Pope!" So, unable to bear the idea that they may have a wrong understanding of Catholic Faith, an understanding that has to change, a lifestyle that has to change, these people deny the genuineness of papal teaching by claiming it is erroneous.

Yeah, that's not how it works. I don't look for errors in Scripture because I don't judge Scripture. Scripture judges me. In the same way, don't bother looking for errors in papal teaching because I don't judge papal teaching. Papal teaching judges me.

And it isn't just me who cannot make these judgements. Even ecumenical councils cannot make these judgements. Nobody can. Nobody judges the pope. No one has the authority to do so. 

Now, the next refuge of the scoundrel is to claim that I am advocating some kind of papal idolatry. Ironically, the same people who cheer on Pope Pius IX's statement  “I am the church! I am the tradition!” will immediately deny the principle when anyone points out that this statement applies to every single one of Pius IX's successors. 

But the very denial betrays the fact that these same Catholics, whether liberal or trad, don't actually accept the Magisterium. They aren't actually Catholics, they are actually Protestants, differing from Martin Luther only in the specific papal statement they have chosen to deny. 

Catholics need pay attention to only three people in the world: their parish priest, their diocesan bishop and the Pope. If there is a question about either of the first two, the teachings of the first two are to be weighed against papal teaching.

No priest, no bishop, no parish, no religious order can be trusted to accurately represent the Faith. Ultimately, we can trust only the saints, the Fathers, the Doctors and the popes. When faced with a doctrinal conundrum, we may not have a saint nearby to ask, we are less likely to have a Doctor on call to consult, and all the Fathers of the Church are dead, so that's done. But we always have the pope. He is the one who tells us how to steer course through current problems, how to apply, into any current situation, the principles given by the saints, the Doctors and the Fathers. 

So, in questions of doctrine and dogma, the Pope is always correct. In areas of discipline, his opinion is to be preferred over our own, for we are the children and he is the Holy Father, not the Random Stranger. While he may be wrong on discipline, we start by assuming he is correct, as any child would assume when directed by his father. Augustine had the right of it. Follow his lead.