Update IV: Another Democratic (Or Demonic) Uprising

Christianity, Democracy, Ethics, Objectivism, Pseudoscience, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, Reason, Sex

In 2008, on this space, I inquired naively, “Ever wonder why the epidemic of allegations that has almost bankrupted the Catholic Church has not caught on in the UK and Europe? I venture that this is because the pop-psychology that undergirds the allegations and the attendant class-action law suits that ensued is American through-and-through.

But, two years hence, Americans can boast of one lucrative EXport, or shall I say SEXport!? The repressed memory mythology, and my priest-did-me syndrome have been adrift at sea, but have finally dropped an anchor across the pond.

My favorite Pope, Benedict XVI, has stood up admirably against the exported $2 billion lawsuit industry:

“Christ guides us towards goodness and does not let us be disarmed by ingratitude.” He also spoke of how man can sometimes “fall to the lowest, vulgar levels” and “sink into the swamp of sin and dishonesty”.

The Pope represents an aristocracy of the mind. The Catholic Church, in its wisdom, has put in place a much-needed hierarchy for the worshiping mass of humanity.

Against this, the religion of Democracy preaches the rule of the mob and the masses—in particular instituting the lowest common denominator in all spheres of life, from morals to aesthetics. The Catholic Church is among the last historical institutions where the masses are ministered to by their betters (mostly). The impetus and instinct to bleed it dry is a manifestation of a democratic—or is it demonic?—uprising. It is driven by those who’ve, in the Pope’s words, “fallen to the lowest, vulgar levels … into the swamp of sin and dishonesty.”

Reread “SEX, GOD & GREED” by Daniel Lyons for a dissection of the veracity of the sexual abuse claims against the Church.

Update I: The “Another” of the post’s title alludes to the health care revolution, ushered in by the Obama coup.

Update II (March 30): What did I miss? Was there a priestly ritual murder? Plain murder? Boer murder? Evidence beyond hearsay of all the rest? You’d thinks so, wouldn’t you, at least from Schmidt’s hyperbole hereunder. I suggest, as I already have, the reading of Daniel Lyons’ “SEX, GOD & GREED.”

Update III: In reply to Hugo: Thanks for your always provocative posts. Still, it’s baffling to see an Objectivist poo-poo standards of evidence and due process—class action suits being but one legal emblem of the abuse of the principle of a case-by case adjudication.
Also perplexing is it to encounter an Objectivist, which I know Hugo to be, blame genocide in Rwanda on anyone other than the barbarians who, with malice aforethought, took machetes to their innocent neighbors (I was just revisiting that for my book).

Update IV (March 31): A discussion on Hardball with Pat Buchanan, a Catholic, of cover-ups and papal culpability. No discussion of the veracity and standards of the evidence, though.

Palin's Polite Politics

Elections, John McCain, Political Philosophy, Sarah Palin

What is National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre doing with the Senator from Nevada, Harry Reid? More importantly, what is Sarah Palin doing campaigning for Sen. John McCain? How like a people-pleasing woman! Isn’t it time Palin stuck to a principled set of political prescriptions, and got over her gratitude to McCain for supposedly turning her into a supernova?

Palin rushed to McMussolini’s rescue in Tuscon, Arizona, mouthing the offal she repeated on their first campaign trail: “‘Before there were protests on Main Street and marches on Capitol Hill, there was the maverick of the Senate, fighting for us.'”

On the other hand, McCain’s primary challenger, J.D. Hayworth, is a run-of-the-mill Republican, only slightly better than McCain is some respects, and worse in others.

Perhaps because there is not much of a philosophical divide between the man she supposedly owes and his challenger that Palin is doing the friendly thing for a friend. Still, the effect of endorsing Rand Paul this year, Doug Hoffman last year, and now McCain again—makes Palin seem a little flaky.

The media loves McCain (and his mindless daughter) too much to fault Palin for stumping for him.

In Memoriam Anika Smit

Crime, Democracy, Race, Racism, South-Africa

As you’ve gleaned by now, my book about South Africa is not an insta-book. By the time Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons For America From Post-Apartheid South Africa is completed (almost there) it will have taken three years to write. The other day, I had to make a sad addition to the book:

When he bid his bonny (and only) child goodbye before leaving the home they shared in north Pretoria, Johan Smit did not imagine that he’d never again see Anika alive. On Wednesday, March 12, 2010, seventeen-year-old Anika Smit was raped, her throat slashed sixteen times and her hands hacked off. Naked and mutilated is how her father found her on returning that day from work.

In South Africa the preying majority is killing off the powerless minority. In America, the demos is drunk on the power of the state to assist it in pilfering from its betters.

Democracy.

The Cost Of Manna From Mount Olympus

Business, Economy, Healthcare, Labor, Regulation

Nancy can be seen in media photo opportunities smooching a gold-embossed copy of the bankrupting healthcare bill. You can’t expect the little woman to grasp that the regulation and confiscation of private property, what’s left of it, has costs.

Caterpillar, “the world’s largest maker of construction and earth-moving equipment, said Wednesday that the new healthcare legislation in the U.S. will cause the company to take a $100 million tax charge in the current quarter,” reported Fox News.

Caterpillar said the additional expense and higher taxes to come could damage the recovery efforts that began after the company lost 75% of its profit in 2009.

According to the Charleston Gazette, “In the first two days after the law was signed, three major companies – Deere & Co., Caterpillar Inc. and Valero Energy – said they expect to take a total hit of $265 million to account for smaller tax deductions in the future.”

“With more than 3,500 companies now getting the tax break as an incentive to keep providing coverage, others are almost certain to announce similar cost increases in the weeks ahead as they sort out the impact of the change.

Figuring out what it will mean for retirees will take longer, but analysts said as many as 2 million could lose the prescription drug coverage provided by their former employers, leaving them to enroll in Medicare’s program.”

The WSJ reports that,

“AT&T Inc. plans to take a noncash $1 billion charge in the first quarter in anticipating the impact of changes brought by the nation’s health-care overhaul.”

The Dallas-based telecommunications giant is the latest—and largest—company to take a charge to account for the increased costs under the new health-care plan. Specifically, the legislation prevents corporations from deducting tax-free subsidies they receive from the government for providing retirees with prescription-drug benefits.

The company will evaluate prospective changes to its active and retiree health-care benefits, according to a filing with Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.

The size of AT&T’s charge is notable. The company employs more union workers than all of the U.S. auto makers combined, and has to support a sizeable retiree base

I FULLY EXPECT to hear shortly from our insurance company as soon as it has figured out how to nudge us over onto ObamaCare.