With Pope Benedict XVI visiting the United States for the first time in his papacy earlier this week, there has been occasion to reflect upon one of his most famous quotes. In giving a homily during the conclave that would eventually elect him as Pope, then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger made the following statement:

Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be "tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine", seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.

 “Dictatorship of Relativism” has become, lacking a better term for it, a sort of catchphrase defining this Pope. It has also fueled the thoughts of many a Christian – and other – conservative commentators, including yours truly, when dealing with the attacks on traditional morality from the Left. 

What is meant by the “Dictatorship of Relativism” is that they who profess traditional morality are called “intolerant” and accused of trying to impose “their” morality on the rest of the population. Such ideas as moral truth, objective morality, and man’s sinfulness are eschewed as old-fashioned, intolerant, and oppressive. As such, those ideas are quashed by the elite with the goal of enforcing a looser, more individualistic, more internalized version of morality.

Oddly, though, with a little analysis we find that the idea of moral relativism doesn’t exist, even in the minds of the relativists. Moral relativists, almost to a man on the left side of the political spectrum, state that morality is what you make it to be. In theory this means that a five-man homosexual orgy relationship is the functional moral equivalent to a man and a woman married and producing and raising children. A promiscuous lifestyle is no different, morally speaking, than a celibate life, and loads more fun. Taken to its logical extreme, moral relativism puts Adolph Hitler and Osama bin Laden in the same moral realm as Pope John Paul II and Martin Luther. There’s no difference. Both Hitler and bin Laden thought (or think) that mass murder on a grand scale that would produce the desired result for their political doctrines was at least justified. In bin Laden’s case, it’s a belief that violence and murder for his political cause is called for in his beliefs and it is better to murder 3,000 infidels than not to. Under the stated moral relativist theory, Hitler and bin Laden both have a seat reserved in Heaven (if Heaven is believed by the relativist). 

The problem with moral relativism is that it requires caveats and limits. Obviously, given the examples of mass murderers, the most pure definition of moral relativism cannot be used effectively. Otherwise any and all laws that prohibit some sort of action would be “oppressive” and the truest relativist society would be absolute anarchy. Since anarchy is always bad, limits are required on relative morality. The first caveat applied is normally “… so long as you don’t hurt anyone.” Thus we can exclude Hitler and bin Laden. The problem with that caveat is that “hurt” itself can be subjective. So, the caveat is often further modified to “… so long as you don’t hurt anyone directly” which allows things like adultery, promiscuity, pornography, even petty thievery. No one is obviously seriously harmed by these acts in and of themselves, though there may be consequences later. But later consequences rarely enter into the relativists mind.

The concept of direct harm itself can be subjective, and can encompass both physical and psychological harm. Telling someone they are doing something immoral is frequently decried as harmful to that person, because it offends their sensibilities. Offense of sensibilities – hurt feelings in plain, non-psychobabble English – is considered immoral because hurt feelings are harmful to people’s sense of self worth. Harmed self worth can cause depression, anxiety, loss of confidence, and other psychological problems. Because of the lasting effects of psychological problems, causing them causes great harm and, thus, is immoral to the relativist. And this is where the whole idea of “relativism” begins to lose its relative nature.

I assert – and I have said this before – that true moral relativism does not, and cannot, exist. Even those most ardent supporters of the idea have a solid, absolute, and inflexible – albeit warped – sense of morality and become highly agitated when that sense of morality is offended. Even more so, I believe, than a devout Christian. 

Consider this: the supporters of relative morality are, as I said, almost to a man on the political left.  The Left supports policies like abortion, gay “rights”, environmentalism, welfare, gun control, and easy punishments for most crimes. Abortion and gay “rights” – more accurately: gay privileges – are supported solely by the theory of moral relativism: what’s OK to me is OK period. Well, if it is OK to me to say that homosexual acts or abortion are wrong and should be avoided, it should be OK to express that opinion. To the relativist, it is not. I must accept homosexuality and abortion as acceptable behaviors, despite the fact that I find them morally repugnant. Thus we enter the realm where moral relativism is not relative at all. I, a practicing traditional Catholic and staunch conservative, cannot profess my faith where it regards abortion and homosexuality because my “intolerance” is hurtful to others. If I do, I am subject to insult and, in the right environment, some form of discipline. (Consider campus “Hate Speech” codes). While it is OK for pro-abortionists and gays to express their views and their lifestyles publicly without fear of reproach, they who disagree with them are not afforded the same opportunity.

Consider, also, environmentalism. While environmentalism – that is the desire to keep the world as clean and pollution free as possible – is not, in itself, immoral – and may in fact be the right thing to do – it can easily be exploited by the relativist. Any opposition to leftist environmental pronouncements, no matter how badly presented, is considered immoral. Anthropogenic – human-caused – Global Warming is a perfect example. They who believe that (a) the Earth is warming, (b) that humans are causing it, and (c) that it is necessarily a bad thing, will not accept any statements to contradict any of these three precepts. Challenging the establishment results in ridicule, and even sanction, especially in academia. Purchasing things like large vehicles, energy intensive appliances, and now, even incandescent light bulbs are violations of environmental stewardship. Such violations are considered immoral. Disagreements about taste, comfort, and utility are ignored.

The objections raised by relativists are frequently far stronger and more venomous than those of Christianity against, for example, gays. One of Christianity’s basic tenets is that of forgiveness. Sins can be forgiven if forgiveness is asked for. This only requires that the sinner realize that what they are doing is wrong and intending not to commit the same sin again. Sometimes, people get weak and need forgiveness many times, but they also get it. God alone can forgive sins (Catholics use priests essentially as a conduit to God in this case) but we can also forgive those who wrong us, and we are called to do that by Christ. Even the “Lord’s Prayer” mentions this in the line “dimite nobis debita nostra sicut dimitimus debitoribus nostris,” “[Lord], forgive us our debts as we forgive those indebted to us.”

Moral relativists are short on forgiveness. Intolerance, especially, and other sins against the liberal creed are rarely forgiven. We find this out in election campaigns when a candidate has a statement he made 30 years ago in a private conversation while in college brought out to prove that he is a bigot. An academic not accepting the three precepts of Global Warming is often ridiculed and may find it difficult to publish his work. Those who hold fast to “a version of morality” – specifically traditional Judeo-Christianity – are called bitter, intolerant, backward, or even stupid.

The other major problem of moral relativism is that when traditional morality – that set by God – is taken away something must be put in its place for society to function. That something is always put in place by humans with some vested interest in the definition of moral behavior. Whether it’s a dictator trying to control his population, someone wishing to justify their own aberrant behavior, a political group wishing to exercise control over a nation’s policy, or a group or person simply wishing to become richer and more powerful in the eyes of the masses. The point is that it is always a person or group of people and there is some reason they wish morality redefined. That’s where the “Dictatorship” comes in. To get their “relative” version of morality accepted by the masses, they must quash opposition. As that opposition often comes from Christians, Christianity must be suppressed. This leads to the current climate of antipathy for Christianity held by the Left, so much so that rather than trying simply to argue the Christian message on even ground – where, of course, the relativists message would lose hands down – Christianity is declared “intolerant” and public displays of it are suppressed or eliminated. (For example, nativities on public property during Christmas or the Ten Commandments in public buildings.)

Fortunately, in the US, the Christian faith is as strong as it has ever been, and Christians would not tolerate active oppression of their faith, so I don’t predict that Christianity will be pushed underground in the US. But it is being attacked, harshly and frequently, by people who profess to believe that whatever you believe is OK… so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone.

I wrote, yesterday, about Barack Obama whom I now view as the worst of the three candidates currently in the running for President. Now I’ll go ahead and express my opinion on the other Democrat candidate for President, Hillary Clinton. For a very long time, it was she on the very bottom of my list of people I wanted to see in the White House.  Incidentally, that list includes everyone constitutionally eligible for the Presidency (Born a US Citizen, Lived here 14 years, over 35 years old). Currently, Obama now occupies the bottom rung of that ladder, but Madame Hillary is still a solid second.  

The differences between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are significant. Hillary Clinton has already spent 8 years in the White House, much of it probably making policy for her husband to parrot. She’s also spent nearly 8 years in the Senate. The other thing is that she’s smart enough to not let her elitist side come out during a campaign. She’s still leftist, elitist, welfare-state-loving, and anti-military, but she’s better at hiding it sometimes than Obama. She realizes that she can’t alienate the entire white, middle-class vote and hope to win the election.

My issues with Hillary Clinton are many and varied, but the primary disagreement I have with her is her integrity, more accurately her total and complete lack thereof. Her primary goal in life, now, is to get elected – whereas before it was to get her husband elected. Her lust for power is rivaled in US history only by the likes of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Gen. George McClelland. In the pursuit of that power, she will say or do just about anything. She appears to change her stances more often that most women change clothes. She of the great support for the federal Assault Weapons Ban in the 90s now shows herself to be a gun-toting, whiskey-swilling hick. She supported the war when she thought it was popular and she hated the war when she thought it wasn’t. Since reviews on the war are currently mixed (some, especially on the Left, hate it because we’re oppressing the terrorists; others are on support it because we’re oppressing the terrorists) her stance has been lukewarm recently, neither for continuation or escalation, nor for immediate withdrawal and surrender. It isn’t so much that she waffles. Waffling supposes that a person is indecisive about an issue and changes their opinion based on events at the time. Hillary Clinton has very strong opinions about everything. She simply lies about them when she’s speaking to people who hold a position different from hers. She makes every effort to disguise her true intentions, and as we’ve seen in the past, there’s probably a good reason for that.

Even the Mistress of Disguise has let her mask slip a little. Apparently, according to a Michael Medved column, she wants to start a new Cabinet department to deal with poverty. Anyone who believes that any such department would be anything other than a train wreck – specifically a train wreck in the middle of a major city involving a five-mile long train full of propane tankers and nuclear waste containers, hitting three city busses during rush hour – should stop reading this and return to their first-grade class. A Department of Poverty will only siphon billions out of the economy every year to do millions of studies on what makes people poor. The only lives it will improve are those of the 10,000 people likely to be employed by it. I’d wager that (a) it will be more expensive than the Department of Defense, and (b) it will include a very prominent Office of Health Care Coverage. 

Hillary Clinton, despite the faces she shows in public, is still nothing more than a leftist and a socialist. She is one of the Chief Priests of the Church of Liberalism and believes fervently in the infinite benevolence of Holy Government, and will do everything she can manage to make that the reality for everyone. She loathes the military (to the point that the Marine Guards who worked inside the White House under her husband’s reign were not allowed to wear their uniforms while on duty) and she hates conservatism. She wants everyone dependent upon Holy Government so that they will worship at its altar. But she’ll never show her true colors in public. That just wouldn’t fit “Slick Hilly.”

HJG

I don’t usually write much about a particular candidate in election years. So much ink and pixels are spent on the various candidates, I figure I have very little to add. Such is the case here, but I just want to throw in my two cents’ worth. 

From the right, I’m beginning to hear things like “Barack Obama is the worst candidate, ever.” We didn’t get that for Al Gore, John Kerry, Bill Clinton, John Edwards, or even Hillary Clinton. No, the right didn’t like any of them much (when Bill Clinton is by far and away the most conservative of any group, that’s bad) but I don’t recall them ever being called the “worst ever” by anyone. (Though, I suppose I could be wrong.)

Here’s the history of the Obama campaign as it exists in my own head. He started out as just another candidate. Originally there was talk that is total lack of federal or executive experience would naturally exempt him from running this year. 2012 or 2016, maybe, but not 2008. His entire political resume at the federal level consists of one half of one term in the Senate. He also had almost eight years in the Illinois State Senate, and that just about covers it. Little else was known about him, and his voting record wasn’t particularly extensive.

Once the campaign got going, it was becoming clear that Obama was moving up the ranks very quickly. That he is black (actually more a Tiger-Woods-esque amalgam of races, but since one of them is “black” he’s “black.” And that will do for this discussion.) has probably helped his status in the Party of Tolerance and Diversity. (I realize that’s probably a prejudiced, possibly even racist, statement, but it’s also probably the one point on which Geraldine Ferraro and I see eye-to-eye. A first-term senator who has never been in another major political position, like Governor, Vice President, or First Lady really has no business being in the running for President without (a) having particular notoriety outside politics or (b) having sponsored some landmark legislation that changes the face of the nation for the better. A white, male, first-term senator with no other significant political qualifications would stand little chance of even getting on camera during the campaign.) He shot ahead of Party luminaries like John Edwards and even Hillary Clinton on the way to his presumptive nomination.

Obama moved up the ranks partly due to his charisma (he’s almost as slick a politician as Bill Clinton), partly due to his race, and partly due to his constant demand for and promise of “change.” The word “Change” was the subject of any conversation, speech, sound byte, or interview Obama gave. It got to the point where his speeches could have been “Change change change, change change change change. Change change change… ad nauseum,” and he would have gotten the same point across. So all we knew to start with is that he was for “Change.”

Always worry when a politician touts “Change” without saying precisely what he’s going to change, how, and why.

The wheels started to come off the bus when after Obama had gotten to a comfortable, though still surmountable, lead in the primaries, Michelle Obama, the candidate for First Lady, stated that “for the first time in [her] adult life” she was “proud of this country.” When you look at precisely what she said, it’s somewhat alarming, even taken by itself. The wife of a presumptive nominee for President of the United States has never – repeat never – been proud of her country in her adult life. Taken by itself, that’s not a good sign.

Then we hear about his pastor at church. We’ve all heard the sound bytes from the sermons of Jeremiah Wright. Without going into much detail and rehashing old news, the preacher who married the Obamas and whose church they attended for at least 20 years is a racist anti-American who preaches things like unless God’s love includes the damnation of the United States he doesn’t want any part of God’s love. 

Remember, Mrs. Obama has never been proud of her country.

Most recently we hear that Barack Obama has stuck his own foot in his mouth by denigrating the people in small-town America. Obama, an apparent elitist from Chicago, sees the “little people” – whom the Party claims to support – as nothing but a bunch of bitter, racist, religiously fanatical gun nuts. “[T]hey get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment” in Obama’s mind and from his mouth. 

Remember, Mrs. Obama has never been proud of her country, and their Pastor thinks the US is an inherently racist nation that should be damned by God.

In an autobiography, Obama has expressed a deep-seated hatred of white people. He, for example, recounts a tale where, while he was in college, he suggested to a white friend that they go to a party composed primarily of blacks. When the white friend seems less than enthused (having just finished playing a basketball game, and probably physically exhausted) Obama confesses that he had a strong desire to punch his friend in the head. Why? Because it’s obvious that his friend was a racist who didn’t want to be associated with a party full of blacks. He has called his white grandmother racist because she was afraid of being accosted by a homeless man on her way to work. It becomes apparent that Barack Obama is the sort of person who believes that everything bad that happens to black people is a direct result of white racism.

Remember, Mrs. Obama has never been proud of her country, and their Pastor thinks the US is an inherently racist nation that should be damned by God, and he thinks the little people are racist, fanatically religious gun nuts.

He has been declared the most left-wing senator on The Hill based on his voting record, a spot held by John Kerry in 2004. His ideas for foreign policy leave a lot to be desired. He honestly believes that he can reason with people like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, that diplomacy is all it will take to get Iran to stop hating us. He has expressed that he wants to gut the military and, especially, that he will not pay for research and development into new weapons systems. Add to that his worldview vis a vis race and the United States, and you have a man that I wouldn’t want to elect as Chief Dog Catcher.

Barack Obama has been called (by his own staff as much as anyone else) a “uniter.” Well, at the pace he’s going, it’s as likely as not that he will end up uniting nearly the entire country.

Against him.

HJG

It’s bad enough that we have to hear about “Tolerance and Diversity” from the media, from Hollywood, and from Democrat politicians, especially since “Tolerance and Diversity” only apply to Leftist ideals (like abortion, gay privileges, secularism, etc.) It’s much worse when an ostensibly religious institution takes the same position, even though “Tolerance and Diversity” as practiced by the Left are antithetical to Christian theology. Catholic schools should be teaching the Catholic perspective. If students wanted a secular education, they should go to secular schools.

The biggest problem is that Christianity doesn’t preach “Tolerance and Diversity.” We aren’t supposed to tolerate sinful behavior. Forgive each other? Yes. But we need to look to ourselves to live Christian lives an we need to lead others down the right path. It’s OK to say “I forgive you, but don’t do it again” because that’s what God, Himself said many times. “Go forth and sin no more.” Yes, God forgives us and wants us to forgive each other, but God also expects that you will stop doing that for which He forgave you.

We are also not expected to be particularly diverse. Yes, everyone is different, and everyone has their own talents, abilities, backgrounds, and outlooks. But the Church has particular teachings about particular things, and those teachings are considered necessary for ultimate salvation. There is one Church, there is one teaching, there is one way to understand things. We do not leave it to the average Joe on the street to interpret scripture primarily because Shakespeare was right is saying that “the devil can cite scripture for his own purposes” which is precisely what happened in Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13 (the temptation of Jesus in the desert) and frequently, people will interpret scriptures to justify whatever they are doing at the time. Just look at radical Islam.

So we get a story in the Associated Press today about how Chicago kids are being allowed to skip school for an anti-gun rally. We get the obligatory “touching” account where there’s a classroom in Chicago that is empty and that pairs of shoes are on the 20 desks to represent the 20 kids who have fallen to gun violence this school year, compared to 24 in the 2006-2007 year and the 10-15 in previous years. The students – and their enablers (read: teachers and school administration) – are calling for harsher gun laws in a city that already has some of the harshest in the country (similarly to Washington, DC). 

The problem, I think, is not so much the fact that guns are scapegoats for a relatively high murder rate in this country (as compared with other historically First World nations) because firearms are used in the vast majority of murders around the world (whether or not guns are allowed in those countries). They are relatively cheap, easy to procure – even when they are illegal, easy to use, and effective at killing people – for which most were designed. They who want to kill will usually do so with a firearm, and they will find a way to get a firearm with which to kill.

No, the problem is that the most ardent of gun-controllers want to put a placebo in place to make it appear as though they are doing something to control violent crime while not actually doing anything of the sort. Guns are easy weapons with which to kill people. They are also easy targets to demonize. As I said, most guns are designed to kill people. And those that aren’t are usually designed to kill things bigger and hardier than people (deer, bears, and other large animals). They are “instruments of violence,” perhaps even “instruments of war,” neither of which are liked by most people. They are not tools that can be used for anything but causing injury or death to a living thing. Other weapons have other uses: hammers, knives, automobiles, even explosives. Guns, generally, do not. The problem is that a gun sitting on a table by itself cannot kill anyone. It only works if someone actively picks it up and pulls the trigger. And what the politicians and gun-controllers do not do is work on the problem: the person who pulls the trigger.

Like Illegal Immigration, violence will never be stopped completely, despite laws intended to stop it. Even countries with draconian gun laws, like Japan, the UK, and Australia, have murders, many of which are from gun violence. However, curing symptoms has never worked, and often lets the root problem get worse. Washington, DC saw that, first hand. In the mid 70s, the District of Columbia implemented the total firearm ban that is being challenged in the Supreme Court. In 1977, when hand guns could no longer be registered within Washington, DC, the murder rate was 27.8 per 100,000. In 1988, 11 years later, it had shot up to 59.5, and in 1989 to 1996 it never fell below 64 and only fell below 70 once (64.98 in 1995). In the 30 years since 1977, only 2 years have seen murder rates below the 27.8 of that year: 27.4 in 1979, and 23.5 in 1985. Comparatively, from 1960 to 1963, the murder rate was a relatively steady 10.6 – 11.9 (though it increased every year) and even in the mid- to late-60s it only increased to 24.1 in 1968. The highest seen in the 17 years from 1960 to 1976 was 38.3 in 1974. In the 17 years following the gun ban, the high was 80.6 in 1990. In the 17 years from 1987 to 2003, the murder rate fell below 40 only in 1987. Short version: the DC gun ban did not stop murders. Similar stories are likely in other areas with gun bans.

To stop murders, you have to stop murderers. You have to figure out why people are killing each other, not just with what. A person intent on killing another person does not care that the weapon he is using is illegal. Murder by knife is a much more serious crime than illegal firearms possession. So, since murder by gun is easier to accomplish than murder by knife, why not use the illegal firearm? There is always talk about re-accomplishing the federal “assault weapons” ban. There are several problems with this. School shootings, except the major ones like the Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University massacres the last couple of years, don’t usually involve rifles of any sort. Also, automatic weapons are already illegal without a federal permit (and they should be), yet criminals still get their hands on them, usually in varieties not used by the government. More criminals use Kalashnikov AK-47s than Colt M16s.  Banning Kalashnikovs won’t keep them away from criminals.

To cure the problem of gun violence, we need to get to the root of the violence, not the tool that is used. Sugar-coating it by attributing criminal behavior to poverty, racism, or other societal factors only exacerbates the problem Crime started going up when the Left started coddling criminals. It is not “cruel and unusual” to deny TV or exercise breaks to convicts. It is not “cruel and unusual” to execute multiple murderers, cop killers, and child murderers. It is not “cruel and unusual” to lock up repeat violent offenders for the rest of their lives. It is not “cruel and unusual” to deny parole and early release to violent criminals. It is idiotic to believe that repeat criminals, especially recidivistic criminals (those who repeat their crimes after having already been punished) can be rehabilitated by simple prison time. Recidivists, especially, tend to commit worse and worse crimes as time goes on. It is idiotic to let an obviously guilty man go on a technicality like not being read his rights. 

If you want to stop violent crime, make the punishment for that crime actual punishment, not just a dormitory with a TV in the common area. Those convicts who will be released eventually should be put through rigorous, harsh (though not torturous, per se) discipline training (a la boot camp) so they can function in the real world when they get out. Forget 3-strikes. Violent felons should be put away for life if they commit a second violent felony after their release from prison. If you want to crack down on gun crime, crack down on gun crime, not gun ownership. Add five years to a sentence, or upgrade the offense’s classification by one step if a gun is used. Take away (and keep away) the rights of felons after they get out (voting, gun ownership, living where they want, etc.) The debt to society is not paid just by prison. The law states the debt to society, and if the law says that after prison other bad things happen to the criminal, so be it.

Stop punishing the innocent for the crimes of the guilty.

HJG