"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."
Devout Christian, Blaise Pascal
I sometimes read the opinions of Jennifer Rubin, a conservative columnist for The Washington Post.
In her recent article, "Why Be Optimistic About Immigration?" Rubin says: "Matt Lewis reports that the Mark Zuckerberg high-tech group has put out a memo containing a raft of helpful pro-immigration data and pushing back on the “conservative” anti-immigration groups that aren’t conservative at all."
I have no interest in Rubin's reference to Zuckerberg's group.
I have no interest in Rubin's reference to Zuckerberg's group.
What does interest me, however, is Rubin's reference to "conservative anti-immigration groups that aren't conservative at all."
Just as The Thinking Housewife anathematizes Pope Francis as a heretic because "he's not Catholic," Rubin dismisses half of American conservatives because "they aren't conservative at all." http://www.thinkinghousewife.com/wp/
In theory I understand this puritanical gambit. But as a practical matter it is essentially irresponsible.
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/04/merton-best-imposed-as-norm-becomes.html
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/04/merton-best-imposed-as-norm-becomes.html
Like it or not, all these "conservatives" cluster under the same "umbrella."
Most notably, Rubin and Laura would disown each other's "conservative criteria."
According to the linguine logic of contemporary "conservatism," both women are certain --- absolutely certain... pontificatingly certain --- that they are unequivocally right.
According to the linguine logic of contemporary "conservatism," both women are certain --- absolutely certain... pontificatingly certain --- that they are unequivocally right.
Although the implications of rigid, self-obsessed rectitude deserve a separate essay, suffice it to say that "conservatism's" inability to acknowledge pluralism --- even within one's own "party"... and whether that party is sacred or secular --- is to establish oneself as the only arbiter of Truth.
Predictably, Laura is not only content but evangelical in her presumptuous catapulting of Pope Francis from St. Peter's Chair. http://www.thinkinghousewife.com/wp/2013/09/jorge-bergoglio-and-the-vacant-throne/
Why? Because she located a passage written by Pope Paul IV in 1559 detailing his criteria for Authentic Papacy.
http://www.thinkinghousewife.com/wp/2014/01/is-there-a-pope-in-rome/
http://www.thinkinghousewife.com/wp/2014/01/is-there-a-pope-in-rome/
Given the radical decontextualization that characterizes contemporary conservative "epistemology," Laura makes no reference to her papal hero's landmark bigotry nor his hobnailed imprisonment of a "liberal" cardinal who was favored to succeed him.
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/09/are-polls-skewed-death-of-epistemology.html
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/09/are-polls-skewed-death-of-epistemology.html
Consider.
"In 1555 Pope Paul IV issued a canon (papal law), Cum Nimis Absurdum, by which the Roman Ghetto was created. Jews were then forced to live in seclusion in a specified area of the rione Sant'Angelo, locked in at night, and he decreed that Jews should wear a distinctive sign, yellow hats for men, and veils or shawls for women.[6] Jewish ghettos existed in Europe for the next 315 years... (In his canon, Cum Nimis Absurdum, Paul IV opined): "As it is completely absurd and improper in the utmost that the Jews, who through their own fault were condemned by God to eternal servitude, can under the pretext that pious Christians must accept them and sustain their habitation, are so ungrateful to Christians, as, instead of thanks for gracious treatment, they return contumely, and among themselves, instead of the slavery, which they deserve..." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Paul_IV
This is the guy on whom Laura bets all her chips?
Pardon my hyperbole but my own view of Pope Paul IV reprises a burlesque British ditty: "If he were on fire, I would not piss on him to put it out."
Objectively, a stronger argument can be made that Yeshua would hold Pope Paul IV in lower regard than Pope Francis. (Perhaps this understatement will compensate my hyperbole above.)
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/08/yeshua-excoriates-fellow-pharisees-woe.html
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/08/yeshua-excoriates-fellow-pharisees-woe.html
In the end, Laura's pretension to be ultra-orthodox distills to her personal preference for a reprehensible racist and Hitlerian harbinger.
Laura's fondness for such slipshod theologizing has nothing to do with Absolute Truth.
It is, in fact, Cafeteria Catholicism at its finest.
Pax tecum
Alan