Why We Don't Need Free Birth-Control

In 2008 I was at a Christmas party given my one of my ultra-Catholic friends. These are the kind of people who sing Christmas carols in Latin, say Rosaries for the unborn, and hold prayer vigils outside of Planned Parenthood clinics. These are people who do not use contraception, home-school their kids, and would never wear anything so revealing as a sleeveless dress.

This was right after Obama was elected, but before he was inaugurated and, naturally, there was a good deal of speculation about what he would do. Healthcare was obviously on the table and I would say that two-thirds of the people there favored socialized medicine. That’s right; more than half the people in that room, people as culturally conservative as it is possible to be, favored a Single-Payer System – but with one proviso: you had to keep abortion out of it.

The next day, I wrote President-elect Obama a letter with this simple message: you can sell a single-payer system to conservative Americans if you keep abortion out of it. (I also sent this same letter to David Axelrod, whom I actually know and have done business with.)

Since then, exactly the wrong things have happened.

• Instead of a Single-Payer System, we got a warmed over version of Romneycare. The whole point of healthcare reform was to save money by eliminating the bureaucracy that rationed healthcare, but this system would simply add yet another layer of bureaucracy.
• When push came to shove in Congress, Obama caved in on the Public Option, but went to the wall to defeat the Stupak Amendment which would have kept abortion out of it, thus turning every loyal Catholic (and many other people of faith) against it.
• And now Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has announced that most employers will be required to cover contraception in their health plans. This is hugely problematic for Catholic employers who believe that even paying for someone else’s contraception is immoral.

These developments are just the tail end of a long trend.

Until the McGovern nomination in 1972, the Democrats were the party of Labor. They fought hard for union rights, equitable tax polices, high minimum wages, and government programs like Social Security and Medicare that ensured a reasonable minimum standard of living for retired workers. Sure they were little bit more liberal than the Republicans on social issues, more progressive on civil rights, against prayer in the schools, but these were small issues that only rarely decided an election.

And then along came the Counter-Culture and the Democrats abandoned their working-class base. They became the party of abortion, de-criminalization of drugs, and the normalization of homosexuality. Carter, despite being a social moderate, began the process of deregulation that has wreaked havoc with American finance, causing one speculative bubble after another (S&L, Dot-Com, Housing) and has caused whole industries to collapse (since 1978 every major airline has filed for bankruptcy and the top ten interstate trucking firms are all out of business). And then along came Clinton and they began instituting trade and tax polices that shipped jobs overseas wholesale.

Wages are down 30% since 1972, our trade deficits are super-colossal, and the rich now control more of this country’s wealth than any time since the Gilded Age of the 1870’s.

And where are the Democrats?

Making birth-control coverage mandatory so that people can fornicate on their employer’s dime.

Why not fight for full employment, high wages, and real healthcare so that workers can afford to buy their own damn birth control?

Posted on Craig's List

Stands to reason ...

Well, yeah! No one likes to wear helmets. They're uncomfortable and bulky, it's awkward putting them on when you're in the mood to skate, sometimes you don't have one handy when you need it, and it lessens the feeling of the breeze in your hair. So, can you blame a fellow if he doesn't always wear one of those things?

But condoms — well, who doesn't like the feeling of those? Hardly seems worthwhile to do "that" if you're not wearing a nice snug condom to enhance that feeling intimacy.

All right, we are two nations ...

When I saw this postcard at PostSecret I was really sad for the poor girl:





















But when I read the two comments below, I was just about heart-broken:

-----Email-----
Hi Frank - My husband and I are not able to have children. Or at least I'm not. I had my 2nd ectopic pregnancy the day before Thanksgiving and they took my last fallopian tube. I would love to get my contact info to the poster of the abortion secret in case she changes her mind and considers adoption. We would make amazing parents!...[email removed]...

-----Email-----
Hi Frank - Can you please take down my email? I'm getting hate mail. I guess it wasn't the right thing to do. Thank you!

Can you even begin to imagine what sort of person would send hate mail to someone so desperate and earnest?

all right we are two nations

In reaction to the Occupy Wall Street movement, a group in Minnesota put up this bill-board:



In the past thirty years our tax code has been completely re-written to benefit the rich, our jobs have been sent over-seas, productivity per worker has doubled yet wages have been hammered down by at least 30%, economic inequality has grown to Gilded Age proportions, basic healthcare has become unaffordable for the working classes, millions have lost their homes due to predatory lending practices, bail-outs that were supposed to prop-up "key sectors of the economy" have been paid out as bonuses —
but somehow the people objecting to this are the "covetous" ones?

Words

Herman Göring is famous for saying, "Whenever I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my revolver," except, of course, that he didn’t say it. (It actually is a line from the play Schlageter, written by Hanns Johst.) But the concept is pretty clear, don’t you think?

There are some words that make us “reach for our revolvers,” and the Liberal/Conservative divide is fairly riven with these words. Of course, there is the controversy over so-called “inclusive language” but there are many more subtle shibboleths such as:

• Liberal parishes refer to themselves as “welcoming parishes” while conservative will admit to being “traditionalist” but prefer to call themselves “authentic Catholics.”

• Welcoming Churches list the times for “liturgy,” while Traditionalist Parishes list the “mass times.”

• While Traditionalists often criticize the behavior of “the bishops,” centering the fault on these individuals personally and by name, Liberals routinely blame “the hierarchy” and thus blame the very existence of an authoritarian structure for the problems.

• “Reconciliation” is usually offered for about half-an-hour on Saturday afternoons in Liberal parishes, while “confessions are heard before each mass” at Traditionalist parishes.

• Liberals often drop the article in front of nouns, speaking of “church,” “community,” or “spirit,” as in “church is community lead by spirit.” Traditionalists would say “The Church is a community lead by the Holy Spirit.” I’m not sure why Liberals drop the other articles, but in the case of “church” it’s because they don’t want to commit to saying that the Catholic Church is “a church” or “the Church.” They also don’t capitalize “Church” nor pronouns referring to the Deity, as in “Christ and His Church.”

• Bonnie Wheeler, in a history of women in the Middle Ages (definitely a liberal undertaking), referred to the popularity of “making journeys to sacred spaces” instead of saying (more accurately) “making pilgrimages to shrines.” I have no idea of what her agenda was, but such bizarre circumlocutions must have some purpose.

• Liberals say “eucharistic minister” instead of “extra-ordinary ministers of the Eucharist” because they don’t want to acknowledge that you’re only supposed to have them in the extra-ordinary circumstance of having an huge congregation and only one priest to give out communion.

• Traditionalist say “Tridentine mass” and “Novus Ordo mass” while liberals say “extra-ordinary form of the mass” to stress that the Tridentine form is not usual and not to be encouraged.

• Liberals say “contemporary music” to make it sound fresh and new, Traditionalist say “folk mass” to make it sound idiotic.

• I once read a piece in the Tribune about a mother whose child was celiac and could not eat wheat without serious medical consequences. She wanted rice-wafers to be consecrated for her daughter (neither valid nor licit), but the priest offered instead to give her communion under the species of wine. (The very same solution Father Phillips offered my celiac daughter.) The woman objected to this, because she “didn’t think children should be drinking alcohol.” Only a Liberal would think of the Blood of Christ as booze.

• Liberals never use the word “sermon,” always “homily.” I don’t know if there is a difference, but I do know that I like it when I am preached to, told that I am wrong/weak/licentious, and told to cut it out. I don’t need anyone to explain the Gospel to me, I need someone to harangue me into living the Gospel.

• Liberals say “abstinence,” Traditionalists say “chastity.”

• What Liberals denounce as the “rhythm method” is referred to by Traditionalists as “periodic abstinence.” Note that this is the correct use of abstinence (i.e. abstaining from something), as a married couple would still be “chaste” (i.e. abstaining from illicit sexuality) even if they were to engage in relations at such a time.

• Though it is a perfectly good term, Traditionalist never say “acolyte,” always “altar boy,” because they ought to be boys. Liberals usually use the “inclusive” term “altar server.”

• Some fool of a retired friar, looking to raise funds for a perfectly worthy missionary effort, gave an homily at Saint John’s that began with the phrase, “You have a beautiful worship space here!” After mass, I took him aside and told him that the phrase “worship space” hit the wrong note with the crowd at Saint John’s. “Really? What should I have said?” he asked. “Church,” I said, “We have a beautiful church here.” I hope he got the message, and was not lynched by the arch-traditional 12:30 crowd.

An Insight Bound to be Unpopular

“The Tridentine Mass has great mystical power and the proof of this is that no Satanist has ever bothered to make fun of the Novus Ordo Mass. Every Black Mass ever said has been based on the Tridentine Model. Our enemy knows where our strength lies better than we do.”

— Scott Apton