Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.

-"Iowahawk"

(via Mike Flynn)

"If you want to know who actually has the power in our society and who is actually marginalized, ask which ideas get you sponsorships from Google and Pepsi and which get you fired."

"Love it when a visit from the Jehovah's Witnesses' begins with my opinion on the Four Horsemen,. My answer;,. 'I truly believe that the 2nd incarnation was the best, Flair, Anderson, Barry Windham and Tully Blanchard..' The look on the Witnesses face? Priceless!"

-My friend Marco

"The imposition of P.C. has no logical end because feeling better about one’s self by confessing other people’s sins... is an addictive pleasure the appetite for which grows with each satisfaction. The more fault I find in thee, the holier (or, at least, the trendier) I am than thou."

-Angelo M. Codevilla

(H/T Mike Flynn)

So assiduous have [the media] been in seeking out anything that can pass for wrong-doing ...as the only salient feature of their candidacy that when real wrong-doing comes along it only looks like politics as usual.

-James Bowman (H/T Mike Flynn)

"[T]he existence and prestige of the Church prevented society from being totalitarian, prevented the omnicompetent state, and preserved liberty in the only way that liberty can be preserved, by maintaining in society an organization which could stand up against the state.” 

-A.D. Linsday, The Modern Democratic States

[H/T Mike Flynn]

"Self-control is the control and rightful-ordering of desires and passions by the rational self. Liberation, as promoted by liberals, socialists, and other libertarians, is the setting-free of desires and passions from the command of the rational self, the thraldom of the latter to the former, and the manipulation and control of the desires and passions by outer forces over the vanquished self. This is the “free man” which the libertarians promote: the man without self-control, not a master of his passions, but their thrall in “free expression” — and a thrall also to those who know how to manipulate and control the passions of others."

-Deogolwulf, at Wiþ Endemanndom

[H/T Mike Flynn]

“The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies.”

Robert Conquest

{H/T Mike Flynn)

Second, there is the idea that the universe should contain ‘traces – evidence of His involvement’. Dawkins questions whether the apparent ‘fine – tuning’ of the universe for life is one of those ‘traces’. He also asks what it would be like ‘if God did indeed set things up so that life would evolve, but covered His tracks so brilliantly that no clues remain; if He made the universe look exactly as it would be expected to look if He did not exist’. But Christian theology does not envisage the universe as being different from what it might have been if God did not exist, rather that there would be no universe. It is the whole universe that is the ‘traces’, not some little piece tacked on by way of a signature. To think otherwise bears certain similarities to searching the components of a jet engine for traces of Frank Whittle. The search is in vain; it is the whole engine which owes its being to Whittle’s creativity, rather than any individual part bearing his signature. Furthermore, to expect the existence of God to be open to scientific tests is like trying to treat the existence of Whittle as an engineering question!

Michael Poole

The great enemy of civilization is Monopoly, whether industrial, financial, or political. Big Government is no more lovely than Big Business. In essence, they are the same. Let’s not put all our eggs or all our liberties into one basket. If we do, our children may have neither liberty nor eggs.

-Samuel G. Pettengill

PHILIP II OF MACEDON TO THE LEADERS OF SPARTA: "You are advised to submit without further delay, for if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city."

LEADERS OF SPARTA: "If."

Some folks read dystopian sci-fi to escape. Others apparently read it to get policy ideas.

-Rebecca Fuentes

H/T Mike Flynn

Martyrs

My friend Vicky wrote a beautiful poem, and she gave me permission to post it, so I have included it below. :-)

Martyrs

The Land drank

And drunk became

Pure wine poured 

Into her heart

It sang in joy

It sang in grief

Mysterious water

Into her bosom

It gave her life

It gave her pain

Where did you come from

Wine of victory 

Wine of defeat.

 Rulers of the world

Envied their bodies

Feared their souls

Took their breath

Intact their core

And Earth received 

This precious gift

This blood made white

By the Lamb of God

First born that died 

The Living One...

His death was life...

Their death in Him

The same.

Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. Psalm 116:15

No group is as rigidly conformist as a bunch of college freshmen. They have been introduced into a new society – college – different from and presumed superior to their home. They MUST fit in – it’s a human drive as powerful in most people as sex and hunger. The keepers of this society are largely the professors, and those who can play the professors’ games. So, college freshmen are exceedingly unlikely to question anything their professors and peers tell them – they are painfully aware that they are the provisional junior members of this tribe. So, they not only accept Power Dynamic analysis, deconstruction and relativism without question, they become their staunchest defenders. Problem is, their defense consists entirely of pointing out that any questioner is not a member of their tribe – no argument is made (in fact, it’s difficult to imagine a 19 year old traditionally educated college freshman having the intellectual chops to even make a rudimentary argument about anything at all. Assuming they’d want to, which they don’t). Mockery, insult and presumed intellectual and moral superiority are the tools.

-Ishmael Alighieri

(h/t Mike Flynn)

"Poetic license" is the freedom allowed to writers for achieving literary effects by deviating from facts, conventional logic, or standard grammar and spelling.

"Political license" is the freedom allowed to politicians to make statements deviating from facts, logic, principle, or consistency to achieve electoral effects. Although sanctioned for politicians by long practice, this freedom is denied to ordinary mortals. When they say something silly, they expose themselves to immediate contradiction, derision or rude guffaws.

-John Frary

via John Wright

" 'Slippery Slope fallacy' - the modern term for the act of correctly identifying the logical implications of a proposition."

-Commenter "The Deuce" on Mike Flynn's blog

"One of the best ways to see how to violate all the rules of logic is to examine the arguments – if you can call them arguments at all – of those who try to defend abortion. First of all, the last thing they want to talk about is the very thing they try to defend, namely, abortion. They will talk about choice, freedom, the Constitution, the Church, women’s rights and sometimes, women’s health, but they won’t define or describe abortion itself. The reason is simple: abortion cannot be defended. As soon as it is described, or viewed, the human conscience objects to its obvious violence." -quote shared on a friend's Facbeook

"Socrates gave no diplomas or degrees, and would have subjected any disciple who demanded one to a disconcerting catechism on the nature of true knowledge." -G. M. Trevelyan

"What a strange world we moderns have created, where everything is permissible, and nothing is forgivable"

What a strange world we moderns have created, where everything is permissible, and nothing is forgivable

-commenter on Mark Shea's blog a couple of years ago