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  • Is Pope Francis Liberal or Conservative?

    954801_blogBy Selwyn Duke

    With the election of Pope Francis, there has been an almost
    "catholic" attempt to determine if he is liberal or conservative. CBS
    claims
    he is a "staunch conservative" based on the fact that, as
    correspondent Allen Pizzey put it, he "opposes abortion, supports
    celibacy, and called gay adoption discrimination against children," not to
    mention his opposition to faux marriage. Tingle Central's Chris Matthews said
    that the new pontiff is economically "progressive," which, if we were
    to be informed by actual
    statistics    , should mean he wouldn't give one red cent to anybody. But none
    of these analysts will peg the pope because they're using the provisional to
    understand a man defined by an institution based in the perpetual. And the
    reality is this: the terms "liberal," "conservative," and
    "moderate" are, in the truest sense, meaningless in Catholic circles.
    And understanding why holds a lesson for all of us.

    (more…)

  • Senator Rob Portman’s Homosexual Descent

    By Selwyn Duke

    In another case in the annals of conservative
    "adaptation" to yesterday's liberal innovation, Ohio Republican
    senator Rob Portman has just announced
    that he now supports faux marriage. The change was motivated, he said, by his
    son having come out to him and his wife as a homosexual.

    Well, it's a good thing his son didn't announce that he was
    involved in bestiality.

    Talk about a pandering parent.

    (more…)

  • Mississippi Bloomberg Burning

    Chained RefrigeratorBy Selwyn Duke

    While
    I'm generally no fan of new laws, a law that prohibits stupid laws is a
    definite exception. And that's just what the great state of Mississippi
    is giving us by passing legislation that
    would prohibit localities from limiting food portion sizes, forcing
    restaurants to list calorie counts on menus, and banning the inclusion
    of toys with meals. The bill was inspired by Little Big Gulp (the man
    some still call Mayor Michael Bloomberg), whose current mission is to
    ensure that human life may not be endangered via imprudent use of fat,
    sugar, or bullets, but only through abortion.

    (more…)

  • What the Greatest Catholic Thinker Says about the Latest Catholic Pope

    By Selwyn Duke

    With the election of Pope Francis, there are the usual
    complaints about how the Catholic Church has got to get with the times. The Huffington
    Post     ran the headline,
    “Pope Francis Against [sic] Gay Marriage, Gay Adoption,” which is much like
    thinking it newsworthy to write, “New Pope Believes in the Divinity of Jesus.” Mother Jones laments the “missed
    opportunity to bring the papacy closer to where the people are.” And Forbes’
    John Baldoni  dishes the baloney, writing
    of “a Catholic Church that is resistant
    to change     but one that must certainly adapt (and rather radically) if it is
    going to continue to attract well-intentioned men and women who adhere to its
    faith but also are willing to devote themselves to its perpetuation” (hat tip: Drew
    Belsky    ). Yet this misses the point that it is creatures who must adapt to
    their ecosystem, and the Church is
    the moral ecosystem. Our modernistic culture is simply a pretender to that
    throne.

    (more…)

  • Beppe Grillo, Just the Wacko We Don’t Know

    By Selwyn Duke

    When I see the hand-wringing over the rise of Italian
    politician Beppe Grillo, I can’t help but think of a man complaining about cigarette
    smoke while his own derriere is on fire. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Grillo is a
    wacko, for sure. I can’t even take issue with the claim that he’s a wicked
    wacko. But I also know this: one thing he isn’t is a wacko without company.

    As to the hand-wringing, I’m specifically referring to the
    recent articles co-authored by writer James Lewis. Now, let me preface my
    remarks by saying that, based on what I know of Mr. Lewis, I’ve no reason to
    have anything but the utmost respect for him. Yet his last title, “Dangerous
    Times: Is Italy teetering?” evokes a certain immediate response from me:

    Why wouldn’t it be?

    All of the West is teetering.

    (more…)

  • We Might be Muslim Today if….

    By Selwyn Duke

    The year is 632 A.D., and Muslim hordes have set their
    sights on the Mideast and North Africa — the old Christian world. And the Caliphate,
    as the Islamic realm is called, will not be denied. Syria and Iraq fall in 636.
    Palestine is next in 638. And Byzantine Egypt and North Africa, not even Arab
    lands, are conquered by 642 and 709, respectively. Then, just two years later,
    the Muslims cross the Strait of Gibraltar and enter Iberia (now Spain and
    Portugal). The invasion of Europe has begun.

    And the new continent seems no impediment to Islam. After
    vanquishing much of Visigothic Iberia by 718, the Muslims cross the Pyrenees
    Mountains into Gaul (now France) and move northward. Now it is 732, and they
    are approaching Tours, a mere 126 miles from Paris. The Western world — what’s
    left of Christendom — could very well be on its way to extinction.

    (more…)

  • Hugo Chavez: Sic Semper Tyrannis

    By Selwyn Duke

    At a former workplace many years ago, I learned that a
    certain fellow was cheating the business out of rental fees. So I confronted
    him, but he showed no contrition. Instead he replied, “I deserve it [the extra
    proceeds].” In case you haven’t guessed, he was a devout leftist.

    This story is brought to mind by the revelation that the
    late Hugo Chavez had amassed $2 billion during his tenure as president of
    Venezuela. Yes, that’s one of those nine-zeros figures. Now, unfortunately for
    Mr. Heat and Sulfur, the Big Theft technique doesn’t quite work like the Big
    Lie technique: if you steal a sum big enough, people don’t start to believe you
    earned it. But why would this man — a champion of the poor, critic of
    capitalism, and beneficent bestower of charity — steal so much for himself?

    Of course, given that ol’ Hugo should rightfully have ended
    up at the looped at of a rope, perhaps we can’t blame him for having wanted to
    create an exile-facilitating safety net. As to his justification, however, I’d
    bet dollars to doughnuts it was akin to that of my former colleague. His
    “feeling” likely was, “I do so much for the poor, I’ve fed so many people, and
    I’ve given away so much oil that I deserve it.”

    Read the rest here.

  • Raping the Language

    By Selwyn Duke

    Although the creation of the film Idiocracy evidences how
    we’re already halfway to an idiocracy — the work reflects decadent
    modern culture — it’s a good comedic warning about where we’re headed.
    For those too unsophisticated to imbibe such Hollywood fare, know that
    the movie presents a dystopian future America dumbed-down to a
    preposterous degree. One thing portrayed in the film is the degradation
    of language, with, for instance, a doctor character starting an
    interrogative with “why come” instead of “how come.” And it is a perfect
    example of art imitating life.

    Many today will rape the English language, taking pleasure in
    mangling and tangling it, confusing corruption with creativity. What
    follows are examples of such, starting with the relatively innocuous and
    concluding with the more dangerous.

    While journalists are supposed to be word men (those were the days,
    huh?), they often lead the charge toward idiocracy. It’s not just the
    news piece I read a few years back penned in pidgin English — obviously
    by someone to whom English isn’t his first language — but those who try
    to be “cute.” For example, Golf Channel’s Tim Rosaforte recently
    mentioned something that had been revealed and began his sentence with,
    “The big reveal is….” But unless he was about to apprise the audience
    of a large window jamb’s existence,
    “reveal” is a verb, not a noun. The word you’re looking for, Tim, old
    boy, is “revelation.” Likewise, let’s dispense with the new and budding
    practice of writing things such as “The tells are there,” which seems to
    have originated in the poker world. For unless we're talking about a
    raised mound at a Middle Eastern archeological site, “tell” is a verb,
    not a noun. If one wants to “tell” someone about a thing serving as a
    clue, the relevant term is “indication.”

    Read the rest here.

  • The Great Gun Debate: Duke Strikes Back

    By Selwyn Duke

    It’s easy to fall into the trap that ensnares liberals, that
    of thinking we can legislate ourselves to utopia. This occurs to me when pondering
    Mr. Brett Joshpe’s response to my
    last debate piece    . In his response he very graciously states that my
    article contains many reasonable points, yet he also claims it has a
    deficiency: “[I]t never actually proposes measures — whether specific new
    regulations or repeal of specific existing ones — that would improve the
    current system,” he writes.

    Now, I did address remedial measures in an earlier piece,
    ones that would reduce the chances of school shootings without any Second
    Amendment infringement. I’d also suggest having armed guards — or trained,
    armed teachers — on school premises; if we do this to safeguard jewelry stores,
    pawn shops, and armored cars, it’s the least we can do for our children. In the
    same vein, we must eliminate the suicidal and quite moronic “Gun Free Zone”
    signs at schools, which are nothing but an invitation to criminals. Yet all
    this misses the point. For Mr. Joshpe is correct: I didn’t propose specific
    remedial measures in my debate piece. There is, however, an even larger point.

    I didn’t have to.

    (more…)

  • Unmasking the Grim Reaper’s Foot Soldiers

    By Selwyn Duke

    One day back in high school, a very interesting English
    teacher asked our class a moral question: if you could press a button and get a
    million dollars, but a little old man — with no family, friends, or ties of any
    kind — in the backwoods of China would die, would you push that button?

    Approximately a third of the class raised their hands in the
    affirmative.

    This story always comes to mind when I ponder the abortion
    question. The old line of the pro-abortion lobby was that they wanted abortion
    to be “safe, legal, and rare,” implying it’s some sort of necessary evil. Their
    reasoning always was, “Well, we don’t know when human life begins, so whether or
    not to end a pregnancy should be the woman’s choice.” Of course, this position
    was never morally or philosophically sound. After all, if what lies within the
    womb is just an “unviable tissue mass,” why worry about abortion being “rare”? Oh,
    yes, the pro-aborts aren’t sure about the intrauterine being’s status. All
    right, then what they’re essentially saying is that they’ll err on the side of
    recklessness. It may be murder, you know — so we’ll just do it a little bit.

    (more…)

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