We Need an Effective, Relocalized Witness and Evangelization

Natural Law Won’t Help, and Neither Will Better Politics by Thomas Storck

But those states that do have cohesive communities and a Christian culture, even if failing, need to be strengthened.

Except Immigration Without Requirements Destroys Community

Post by Ethika Politika.

Thomas Storck, The Catholic Failure to Change America

American Catholics have become good neo-Yankee liberals and support, even if unwillingly, the destruction of local cultures and communities. How can they be given the task of being the leaven of society when they do not understand the society or seek to become a part of it in the first place?

Patrick J. Deneen on Liberty

Saving liberty from liberalism

Also from Professor Deneen: A Catholic Showdown Worth Watching

Stromberg Responds to Storck and Cavanaugh

Polis, State, and the Common Good

I wrote some quick notes here on Storck and Cavanaugh, which need to be fleshed out more fully.

On Aristotelian analysis of accidental unities: the use of form and matter to analyze accidental unities (like the unity of a community) is not problematic, if that sort of unity is understood probably (i.e. not identical to substantial unity).

Otherwise, I agree with Stromberg for the most part.

Thomas Storck Responds to David Deavel

What’s Wrong with Distributism: A Response

Two Responses to William Cavanaugh on the Modern State

Thomas Storck, William Cavanaugh's "Killing For The Telephone Company," A Critique

A response to both Storck and Cavanaugh: Cavanaugh and the Question of the State by Joshua Bowman

The major problem with Storck's critique is that he ignores the problem of scale - perhaps an assumption about scale is implicit in Cavanaugh's critique of the modern state but he should have made it explicit. Aristotle, as I don't cease to point out, certainly had much to stay about scale and we are reminded of the fundamental importance of scale to the health of a community by 20th century thinkers like Leopold Kohr, E.F. Schumacher, and Kirkpatrick Scale.

The consolidation of power, political and economic - facilitated by improvement in communication and cheap energy. Earlier large political units (I would not call them polities) were forced by the limits of energy and communication to be somewhat decentralized, with some empires more decentralized than others (Roman and Chinese and Persian).

What of the managerial state, with the development of bureaucracy which seeks to legislate every tiny detail? What bigger violation of "subsidiarity" could there be at this point, as the bureaucracy serves those who hold power and implements their will?

Even if they claimed to be sovereign would their claim be just or right?

Allan Carlson on Capitalism

Economic Smackdown!: ‘Porchers’ vs. ‘Austrians’

"So, what is the alternative? Here, I lay out the argument of Wilhelm Roepke, advocate of the Humane Economy."

Related:
FEE - The Arena: Capitalism

Anamnesis: William Cavanaugh's "Killing For The Telephone Company," A Critique by Thomas Storck
I will try to respond to this shortly.

Extraenvironmentalist Episode #63: Next US Revolution (hi/low)
With a media ecosystem focused almost entirely the corporate system, burgeoning elements of a new economy revolution escape the mainstream eye. As our political systems stagnate in the face of ecological, energy and social crises, can an alternative to capitalism develop over the next few decades? Do ongoing experiments in money, society and energy have the ability to coalesce into a broader cultural shift?

In Extraenvironmentalist #63 we talk about the growing network of institutions and businesses that are forming the new economic revolution in the United States with historian and political economist Gar Alperovitz. Gar describes the ideas in his new book, What Then Must We Do: Straight Talk About the Next American Revolution. Then we hear from two of Italy’s leading economists Stefano and Vera Zamagni about the civil society model of a market economy.

Two From Ethika Politica

Conjugal Love as a Public Good by Aaron Taylor

It is a familiar argument against same-sex marriage, and why the "state" has an interest in promoting or legislating with regards to marriage, because children are the fruit of the conjugal union and become members of a political community. But when I read this I related it to what I had been thinking about our understanding of human goods - what is desired as an end and how. Good as a [quasi-]habitus versus good as an activity. Good can be used analogously, but does there need to be some clarification as to how it is used within moral and political discourse?

Children are beneficial to the community in so far as they will be come "productive" members one day. But they are also goods in themselves, not only because they are given to us by God but also because they are the community's perpetuating of itself. It has been argued that the community has an interest (that extends to the power of legislating) in marriage (and family-formation) because children do not "belong" wholly to the family, but are members of the community as well. But what is the scope of the authority? Can it not only legislate the provision of adequate nutrition, but define "adequate nutrition"? Can parents be punished for giving their children too much soda? Is that child abuse or neglect? Do we start with an understanding of authority that starts with the community, or do we go from bottom up? Another example: "adequate education" - it is possible for a statist to make an argument that "homeschooling" is insufficient because it fails to meet the goals of education pertaining to communal life) and that all children must attend a public school.

This sort of approach would differ from that which seeks not to micromanage families but to protect the conditions of political and economic freedom which would allow families to exercise responsibility well. (See Thomas Storck, "Capitalism, Famlies, and Fathers" on the need for the government to protect families from those wielding economic power.)

How does one balance the interests of the community (or the "state") with the freedom and authority of parents and families? Is the concept of "subsidiarity" in Catholic Social Teaching enough to provide the theoretical basis for reconciling these claims?


The community should promote fecundity (or at least recognize it as a good) and moral preparation of parents-to-be and children is necessary for them to live well, to fulfill their responsibilities as parents and members of the community. But there is a difference between a tolerance for human frailty in order to respect human freedom and initiative and approving license.

Is this too simplistic: the primary purpose of the government is to maintain peace between families? One should avoid giving too much weight to the moral reality of the family - it is not an enclosed, distinct "sphere" of relations, but a part of the community. Still, it is not like the part of a physical or substantial whole. Family does encompass the "natural" duties one has to one's parents and ancestors, relatives, and children. And there is the [limited] authority of the husband and father over the wife and children. But the relations between men not of the same family, and so on? That is under the purview of the community.

The problem is that we are familiar with the modern nation-state as that which governs, rather than with an authentic republican government of men who actively desire to live together and grow in virtue.

The second piece: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of What? Individualism? by Michelle Bridge

"While philosophers from Aristotle to Machiavelli understood the importance of the common good over the importance of the individual, they erred by too far demeaning the individual. Aristotle thought that for the good of the polis, those who could not lead virtuous lives on their own should be slaves (Politics, 1.5); Machiavelli thought that a monarch must not be afraid to do wrong, sacrificing even his own conscience and soul to the common good (The Prince, Chicago, 1998, 15)."

This sounds like the contemporary liberal/Christian apologetic. What should those who can not lead virtuous lives on their own be left to do? Fend for themselves, without any external direction? Or should they be subject to the rule of another? It is that simple. This is not about human dignity, whether those who rule over others can treat them as property or less than human or unjustly.

Does the essay make of the Declaration of Independence a foundational document? Liberals may do so, but did the Founding Fathers view the document in the same way, as a statement of American political and moral philosophy? Or did they instead give the pride of place to tradition and social mores?

"America makes the opposite mistake, holding the good of the individual and his rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as supreme, and since the state must not assert itself over the individual in any way that may compromise these rights, the personal lifestyle preference of any may trump the common good of all, as it does in such issues as the legalization of abortion and gay marriage."

Maybe she is referring instead to what she takes to be majority opinion, which is tied to core liberal beliefs and proposition nation nonsense.

She refers to an essay by Michael Waldstein, "The Person and the Common Good," which is apparently unpublished.

The Assault of the State on Marriage

The Revenge of Religious Liberty by Thomas Storck

I think Mr. Storck attributes too much to [Lockean] liberalism as a cause - rather it is the predicament of an "immigrant" Church (rather than a "missionary" Church) in conflict with a growing, centralized state that is no longer Christian. Mr. Storck still adheres to a nationalist understanding of the founding - the federal government is national government and the ultimate authority in all public matters.

The impossibility of gay marriage and the threat of biopolitical control by John Milbank (Patrick Deneen comments)

Homosexual Activist Admits True Purpose of Battle is to Destroy Marriage | Illinois Family Institute

What Few Deny Gay Marriage Will Do

Related:
UK: 'New law will compel churches to offer same-sex marriages'

Homosexuality: Yes, I Am Surprised

Oz Conservative: Abbott's scheme

Loss of Community Means More Power for the State

Raimondo vs. Rauch: The Marriage Debate You Haven’t Heard Before

Responding to Madison

Thomas Storck, Government, Society, and the Human Good
Patrick Deneen, Beyond Wishful Thinking: A Response to Schlueter

Both contrast James Madison's theory of government with an Aristotelian-Thomistic one. But can Madison be used to represent the Anglo-American political tradition in its entirety (and thus "prove" that the tradition or the American founding was liberal in its "essence")?

If Madison's theory of government is applicable at all "levels" (most importantly, to the sovereign states), then it should rightly be criticized. But to link Madison to those who presently oppose the Federal government from expanding its reach beyond the Constitution? Not all Constitutionalists are principled libertarians.

What's Their Motivation?

We shouldn't be surprised that the loss of a physical structure to community (the compartamentalization of life that finds its culmination in the suburbs) results in the loss of formal structure as well.

James Howard Kunstler's latest, Homeless:

In fact, the heart of our economic predicament is that the American economy came to be based on the construction of ever more suburban stuff, the financing of which, especially the houses, became the fodder for an episode of epic swindles that has left our banking system a hollowed out shell of accounting fraud. In short, we built even more stuff with no future, and ruined our society in the process. How tragic is that?

The behavioral habits, practices, and consequences of being stuck in that living arrangement may end up being at least as problematic as the physical residue of it. It has left the people in a network of alienation, anxiety, and misery that defeats exactly the mentality needed to break free of it. For the truth is we're faced with a massive necessary re-ordering of daily life in this country, and there is no vision or will to get on with job.

Among the tribulations of this living arrangement is the utter loss of connection between place and purpose often expressed in the phrase "loss of community," which is a little too abstract to me and fails to convey the tragedy of individuals living with no sense of purpose -- and by that I mean duties, obligations, and responsibilities to other human beings.

Obviously, the whole idea of a single-family house by definition dictates a certain disposition of things. It will lack the dimension and social relations of a household composed of multiple generations plus non-family members, helpers, employees, servants. And it should also be obvious that the single-generation, single-family house is a product of mid-20th century industrial dynamism that made even factory worker wage slaves rich by historical standards - Tom Wolfe pointed out years ago that the average GM assembly line drone enjoyed more sheer physical luxury at home than Louis XIV.

Tom Storck has an essay looking at Adam Smith on self-interest: The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker

Was Smith merely reporting (or writing down his own perceptions) the behavior of others in his place and time, and then generalizing and ascribing this motivation as being basic to human behavior? Can we expect economic actors to be motivated by something other than self-interest? Charity, civic friendship (or civic fraternity) and social, or legal, justice (or solidarity)? Let us not forge the destruction of the bonds of a local community and of other associations like the guilds. When one has been raised without being trained to love others, what should one expect, other than the pursuit of self-interest? Natural affections can only encompass so many people, but even love of the group can only cover so many. If the group is too big, then it is only natural and reasonable that people will start making distinctions within that group in the order of love in accordance to proximity, affinity, shared history, reciprocity, and so on.

A Possible New Series on Paleoconservatism

From Thomas Fleming: Back to the Stone Age: a Primer for Palaeoconservatives 1

Paul's typical conversation gambit in those days was to begin every paragraph with, "I am more conservative than you are because…" I occasionally played along, though, in truth, I never cared much for the subject, partly because it was never clear to me what people meant when they used the word conservative. Back in the 1930's and 1940's, "Conservative" had been used as a term of abuse for people who supported the status quo, generally regarded as the rule of the wealthy and powerful. It was also used occasionally as an insulting synonym for the timid or over-cautious. Bill Buckley and his friends had cobbled together a pragmatic ideology they called "fusionism"—equal parts classical liberalism and respect for order and tradition--but I have run into very few people (Donald Devine, most prominently) who believed in it.

The main problem with fusionism was that it is based on a fundamental incoherence that reflects the disparate origins and sources of American (and English) conservatism. The adjective "conservative" implies an attachment to the existing status quo and an antipathy to change. That is why one could speak, in the Brezhnev years, of the conservative hard-liners in the Kremlin. Buckley and his friends were certainly conservative in this sense, opposing, as they certainly did, both revolutionary communism and democratic socialism. Buckley declared that the mission of his magazine was to stand "athwart history yelling stop." In every generation, then, conservatives have tried to slow the pace of revolutionary change without necessarily mounting a principled opposition to the Revolution itself.

Related:
Rod Dreher responds to David Brooks on Russell Kirk: The Rout Of Traditionalist Conservatism. See Lord Karth's responses, here and here.

The quandary of "movement" conservatism, separated from ties to real communities with traditions and history?

Misc.
Thomas Storck, Capitalism, Distributism and the Hierarchy of Human Goods

William Lind, What's So Special About Special Ops

Manifesto for a Post-Growth Economy
Richard Heinberg, Introduction to ENERGY, Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth

Helena Norberg-Hodge at the Degrowth Conference in Venice:

"Engagement" or "Withdrawal"?

Natural Law and Positive Law: A Response to Thomas Storck by Dylan Pahman (Mr. Storck's essay, "Natural Law, Politics, and the Transformation of America")

What has participation in "movement conservatism" yielded for traditional conservatives on the national level? How can one appeal to natural law, or "naturally known" moral truths on a wide scale (through the mass media, no less) to facilitate moral conversion? Has that ever happened in history? The freedom to participate in an extremely degraded version of democracy gives the illusion that Christians have the power to bring about positive change through the National Government; this is coupled with a misunderstanding of the obligations of citizenship, namely, that one has the "duty" to choose the "lesser of two evils" when voting for a candidate for office (which is a consequentialist understanding of voting and not one rooted in distributive justice) if no one meets the "ideal" based on his platform (as opposed to his character). When the national candidates are committed to perpetuating the status quo and not facilitating communal renewal by curbing the forces that threaten community (whether it be the oligarchs and their economic power or their servants in the National Government who seek greater power for themselves), then what exactly do Christians expect to accomplish? Imposing a moral agenda through the Federal Government not only violates the federal character of the U.S. Constitution but is impossible - the electoral power of Christians is too weak and diffuse.

Mr. Pahman writes:

While I am sensitive to Storck’s insistence that evangelism deserves renewed zeal for the sake of moral progress in society, I feel his opposition of evangelism rather than political action (or, more accurately, evangelism then political action) is ultimately harmful. In particular, there would seem to be no vocation for the Christian as citizen or civil servant today, no vital service that he/she has to offer to the kingdom of God now in his/her civic capacity before such a widespread evangelization has taken place. Whether or not one or the other is “a more hopeful project” is, furthermore, no reason to discourage the theological virtue of hope or the working of divine grace in either evangelization or political activism, especially in a country like the United States where the average citizen has a far greater civic role to play than citizens of an ancient or medieval monarchy. Both are possible duties and essential contributions to the kingdom of heaven and the common good.

And so we see that Mr. Pahman has been beguiled into thinking that the average American has a great "civic role" to play than his ancient or medieval counterparts. This may have been true after independence from Great Britain was obtained, but it has not been true for quite some time.

Civil servant or bureaucrat? If a bureaucrat is enforcing bad laws that destroy freedom (and subsidarity and community), can one continue in good conscience? The lay vocation of the Christian is to build community, starting with his family and church community, then expanding outwards to his non-Christian neighbors and those around him. This has been constant, but we have been blinded because we have been inculturated in radical atomization and an exaggerated notion of the nation-state (which has either knowingly or unknowingly done what it can to destroy any "intermediate" associations or communities) - hence we identify political participation solely with voting and holding political office. (Performing jury duty is an important component, but how many of us would prefer not to do it because it is deemed inconvenient?) Secondly, the theological virtue pertains to God and our salvation, not to the political community as such. The act of building community is a truly political act - it is not "withdrawal" (just as refraining from interventionism is not isolationism). Ruling may be a more noble political political act, but Christians do not exercise it at the national "level" and in many states they do not do so at the state level. If movement conservatism is to have an impact, it should direct its attention to those states which are still Christian in character and seek to educate their citizens about federalism, states' rights, communitarianism, and so on, rather than promoting "free-market capitalism" which hollows out communities. Do you think movement conservates is capable of turning away the money from donors in the oligarchy and putting themselves out of a job?

Mr. Storck has an excellent response to the article. I think he and Dr. Fleming would be in agreement on the proper strategy for American Catholics and other genuine Christians.

Liberalism and Eudaimonia

Liberalism and the Absence of Purpose by Thomas Storck

Is freedom really the ultimate good of liberals? Or is it necessary for an end? I think liberals would concede that freedom is ordered to individual happiness; this is combined with an agnosticism about what happiness entails, and for them, it is not the function of the state to bring it about, nor to "impose" one view on all. Proponents of the New Natural Law Theory recognize a social good, or the good of friendship/associations/community. Liberals probably recognize friendship as a good, but do they understand the civic community to be an instantiation of friendship on a wide scale? Most Uhmericans cannot, because the form of community is absent - what holds is an aggregate of isolate individuals who associate with one another from time to time.

Is it proper to point to Jefferson's modification of Locke in the Declaration of Independence as the guiding ideology of the United States, as Mr. Storck does?

"The United States is firmly committed to the liberal theory. Governments derive “their just Powers from the consent of the Governed” and the purpose of government is simply to “secure” the rights to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Indeed, it would seem to follow from the argument in the Declaration of Independence that if any people did not think a government was necessary in order to safeguard those rights, then it would be perfectly just for it to have no government whatsoever. This seems to fit in very well with the logic of those libertarians who maintain that in actual fact government is not needed to procure the goods usually associated with it."

I am skeptical of the use of the Declaration of Independence as a proof text and unsure of the claim that the United States is firmly committed to the liberal theory. On the part of the elites? Maybe. On the part of average people? When it comes to justifying their moral stances - but the living arrangements in which they find themselves? It's "normal." Liberalism probably has become more and more the dominant ideology, but I do not think that people consciously adhere to it as the theory behind their own code of life. Do they support liberalism because it justifies and enables their own choices in life, and protects that "freedom"? I doubt we can make such a generalization covering all of the United States, though it may be more applicable to those living in a megapolis than older Americans living in small towns.

I am reminded of Jerry Salyer's Freedom is Not the Good and his comment on the Catholic confessional community.

If we were more willing to share land, would we have as much a problem with groups separating or secession? Is Christianity more "successful" in intact communities or in mass urban areas, where political community is no longer possible? What of the difficulty of converting the American aborigines (the story of the French Jesuits and the North American Martyrs)? It may be attributable to ingrained vice, but what about the factor of social cohesion and a strong group identity? And what of the tribes in South America - were the Jesuit reductions, and the American missions in general, a necessary tool of missionary effort and evangelization? How many hunter-gatherer groups have converted and yet remained hunter-gatherers?

The early Christian kingdoms (Armenia, Georgia) might be a sort of counter-example. I don't think conversions happened by force in those areas, unlike what happened with some of the Germanic tribes.

Humans are inclined to live with others, but that does not mean that there is a social good (or, good of community) that can be abstracted from how it is lived out (especially with respect to "higher" goods, like friendship with God). Those who lived together and enjoy debauching themselves - we would not say that this was a healthy community or "good friendship" even though they were enjoying each other's company and pursuing the same pleasures. If the pursuit of hedonism is a part of their group identity, how can they not feel estranged from those who do not participate, or see them as outsiders?

That hedonism may not be "required" by law but it is part of the culture that makes the community what it is, nonetheless.

Items of Interest, 29 June 2012

Thomas Storck, Corporate Personhood and 14th Amendment Rights
World made by hand by Lindsay Curren (EB)
Ruthless extrapolation by Tom Murphy

MATT VIDAL, Apple’s American Workforce And The Service Economy

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS, It Came From Washington

Peak Oil and Energy:
Peak Traffic
John Michael Greer, The Cussedness of Whole Systems
Peak Oil Exhorts Us to Reflect (EB)
Björn Lindahl , Svenska Dagbladet / Aleklett's Energy Mix

Natural Resources:
Waste Not by Jo Homan (EB)
Thirst for power: How coal, nuclear and gas waste our water (EB)
by Wendy Wilson, Travis Leipzig & Bevan Griffiths-Sattenspiel
Drip irrigation expanding worldwide by Sandra Postel
Schools in Transition: mapping watersheds by Isabel Carlisle

Obamacare:
Jerry Salyer on the Fortnight of Freedom Campaign: Freedom is Not the Good
The Day After: A Declaration of War by Christopher Manion
Cardinal Dolan: Freedom is Rooted in Human Dignity

Six Takeaways from the Supreme Court’s Obamacare Ruling

Kevin Carson, The Manufactured Debate Over Obamacare

The Myth of the Free-Market American Health Care System

From the left:
DAVE LINDORFF, Why The ObamaCare Ruling Stinks
MARK DUDZIC, Supreme Court Ruling Means Health Care Remains A Commodity
CLARK NEWHALL, MD, ObamaCare As Corportists United
ANTHONY DIMAGGIO, Health Care And The Hollow Hope
FRANK SMECKER, Why The ObamaCare Ruling Was A Victory For The Corporate Right

Catholic:
Let’s Raise a Glass to the Bad Popes! by Donald Prudlo
Archbishop Fulton Sheen Becomes "Venerable"

Getting a Grip on Envy by Paul Kokoski

Is Nice a Vice?

The Voices of 20th-Century Chinese Martyrs (via Insight Scoop)

Misc:
Wonder Girls _ Like this _ FLASHMOB & MINI EVENT

Items of Interest, 15 June 2012

The Flaw in Jefferson’s Idea of Ward Republics by Will Hoyt

The Baleful Comet of Boston: Samuel Adams and the Puritan Republic by M. E. Bradford

The Moral Imagination & Imaginative Conservatism by Eva Brann

William J. Watkins, Storming the Castle Doctrine

Imperial Dusk by Joseph Fallon

Bradley Birzer, Conservatism is Not an Ideology

Permanent Things: T.S. Eliot's Conservatism

Samuel Gregg, A Necessary Symbiosis
America’s Spiritual Capital
by Nicholas Capaldi and Theodore Roosevelt Malloch
St Augustine’s Press (South Bend, Indiana), 2012.
Paper, 176 pages, $17.

Modern but Not Liberal
A confident Christian faith can absorb and sustain the achievements of modernity
David S. Yeago

Too accepting of liberalism as one of the primary causes of modernity? (Rather than an ideology used by some to justify the consequences of political and economic centralization.)

Rod Dreher, Corruption and Family Structure

The Indian Law That Lets Citizens Shoot Cops
AllGov.com

Ralph Nader, Romney's Inante Campaign
Paul Gottfried, An Echo, Not a Choice

A Trump doing something positive? Ivanka Trump Makes Her Mark (modesty in fashion)

The Perfections of Jane Austen by Eva Brann

Economics and Sustainability:
Elinor Ostrom passed away earlier this week. Slate. Indiana University.

Thomas Storck, Too Few Capitalists or Too Much Capitalism

The Myth of the Free Market American Health Care System

Book review: "Energy and the Wealth of Nations"
by Richard Vodra, JD, CFP

'The End of Growth'… and then what? (review of Heinberg and Rubin) (EB)
Crawford Kilian, The Tyee

END OF GROWTH UPDATE: Neither a borrower nor a lender be by Richard Heinberg (EB)

Bill Rees: Why We're in Denial (EB)
by Justin Ritchie & Seth Moser-Katz



Relocalization:
Making a Local Coat: From Raw Materials to Finished Product

Eating our way to a better world? : A plea to local, fair-trade, organic food enthusiasts by Andrea Brower

Chris Martenson's website has some changes.

Is Your Home Fit? Here’s How to Find Out

John Michael Greer, Collapse Now and Avoid the Rush and The Parting of the Ways

Earth Blood : John Michael Greer (interview) - mp3

Club Orlov: Fragility and Collapse: Slowly at first, then all at once and Our Brave Experiment

10 Ways to Love Where You Live

We should do what we can to be neighborly and sociable, but these steps will not eradicate profound differences in culture and identity.

Farming:
Gene Logsdon, Can garden farming be too successful? (EB)

Soil Survivor: An Interview with Will Allen

Peak Oil and Energy:
Oil and the future: a review of Peeking at Peak Oil (EB)
Kersti Kollberg, Uppsala Nya Tidning (Aleklett's Energy Mix)

Modifying Hubbert’s model of peak oil to account for a rise in production due to higher prices (EB)
James Hamilton, Econbrowser


[ Charles Hall // Energy Returns ]

[ Charles Hall // Energy Returns ] from Extraenvironmentalist on Vimeo.

Energy Return on (Energy) Invested (EROI), Oil Prices, and Energy Transitions

Peak Oil = Slavery?

Education:
U of All People

Catholic:
Why I Wore A Strapless Wedding Dress
(Reminds me of JC and her wedding at the CC chapel.)

Political Withdrawal Reconsidered

James Kalb, In the Middle of the Journey
Catholics need to oppose the movement toward a society that prizes above all else security, efficiency, and the ever-more-demanding liberal version of human rights.


Music:
A review in the SFCV of Jordi Savall's concerts last weekend.

Materialism is Killing Country Music by Charlie Spiering

Items of Interest, 2 June 2012

What Did Americans Inherit from the Ancients?
by Russell Kirk

Homer and the Power of Men That Have Chests

Thomas Fleming, State Failure, Human Success

Thoughts on the Queen's Diamond Jubilee: Sixty Years a Rubber Stamp

Squat, Cough and Spread Your Cheeks! Is This Really Constitutional?

Fantasies of Liberty

A Stasi for America

Send In the Homeland Police Drones, Says Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell

Joel Salatin

Judge Napolitano Reacts to Texas Judge’s Decision to Jail Honor Student

The Homophile Agenda and the Attack on Free Speech


Daniel Larison, Some Strange Christian Nostalgia for Pre-Chrisitan Antiquity
Daniel Larison, American Exceptionalism, Foreign Policy and the Washington Rules

Andrew Bacevich, The Golden Age of Special Operations

Rod Dreher, We Should Be More Pagan and Wodehouse Cures Everything

John O'Callaghan, Pentecost and the Mandate (via MoJ)

The NG moms breastfeeding while in uniform

One Human Heart: Wordsworth’s Old Cumberland Beggar and the Sweetness of Being Human by Anthony Esolen

The Rhetoric of Alexander Hamilton by Forrest McDonald

The Household Gods of Freedom
by M. E. Bradford

A review: James Madison and the Making of America: The real story of the early American republic

Courtship, Etiquette, and the Adolescent Male
by Randall B. Smith

The Urgent Need for The Next Great Idea by Robert Nisbet

Investment and the Common Good, by Christopher Blum

Corporate Personhood and 14th Amendment Rights, by Thomas Storck

Subsidy or Subsidiarity, by Gerald J. Russello

Zeal: The Fourth Lively Virtue, by Anthony Esolen

Chinese Natural Law by Zac Alstin

How Modern Heresies Have Isolated Us and Left Us Unfulfilled

An Introduction to the Social Theories of the Middle Ages

JHK, Ponzi's End
Turn Out The Lights - The Largest U.S. Cities Are Becoming Cesspools Of Filth, Decay And Wretchedness


'Americans don't share global domination policies of their leaders'


Cardinal Wuerl:


EB: Fukushima Update, May 29

Christopher Dawson:
Christopher Dawson on Liberalism, Part I
by Brad Birzer, TIC co-editor

In Defense of Christopher Dawson
by Gerald J. Russello

Sustainability:
The Endangered Waters Beneath Our Feet
Five Questions for Carl Safina

Another documentary about overpopulation...


Relocalization:
BALLE Conference: The Heart and Soul of Local

Slow Money Northern California

6th Annual Building Green Communities Conference



Peak fiction excerpt — Buck: A Survivor of The Shut Down

Project Urban Food Forest

Why We Need to Put the Local Back into Local Enterprise Partnerships

Health Care Reform:
Misunderstanding Subsidiarity
By Peter Brown

Dan Bednarz, Goodbye, Bad Knowledge (EB)

Diet and Health:
Farm Fresh Less Expensive than Junk Food

Under Yellow Light: Mark Sisson


The Paleo Diet Moves From The Gym To The Doctor's Office

Episode 11 – Chris Masterjohn on cholesterol & heart disease (Part 1)

The Truth About Cholesterol With Chris Masterjohn (mp3)

How a Low-Carb Diet Affected My Athletic Performance

Misandry:
Hawaiian Libertarian: Diagnosis: ODD

Education:
David Mulroy, The War Against Grammar

The Beauty of a Christendom College Liberal Arts Education

Sales pitch...

The Most Honest Commencement Address You'll Never Hear

Christian:
Pageau Carvings

Evangelization -- One Family at a Time



Who is St Philip Neri according Benedict XVI


Vatican translates rules for assessing apparitions for first time

Music:
NYT obit on Doc Watson

Stetson and Cia Get Married

Misc:
Christina Cha on What Duvet Said Podcast


Top Chef tour - SF, June 16 and 17

The American West 150 Years Ago

How Do You Win a Gunfight

Debunked: 3 Reasons the AR Isn't Reliable

Items of Interest, 27 April 2012

Patrick Buchanan on Uncommon Knowledge


National Review TV: The U.S. & the World with Patrick J. Buchanan: Chapter 5 of 5 (Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4)

Jordan Bloom, Paul Ryan, Thomas Reese and Anti-Subsidiarity

Paul Gottfried, Human Rights, the Useless Fiction

Rod Dreher, How Boomers Ruined Education

Only One Way to End the Indecencies of War

How Highbrows Killed Culture

Insanity: CISPA Just Got Way Worse, And Then Passed On Rushed Vote
Cybersecurity Bill CISPA Broadened Then Passed Through House

As California Collapses, Obama Follows Its Lead

Ross Douthat, Bad Religion: A Response

The Game of Drones

Recognizing Heroes by RALPH NADER

Joel Salatin:
Video of him at Tara Firma Farms



Slideshow: Feeding the Future

Economics:
Economics Can't Explain Everything
Love and money; Why Chrisitianity is incompatible with capitalism

Relocalization:
Fence Post Economics
Festival of Transition
The Hidden Power of Co-Ops (EB)

Sustainability:
Debunking the Myth that Only Industrial Agriculture Can Feed the World

Energy:
DAVE LINDORFF, Relax, It’s Just a Run-of-the-Mill Nuke Spill
Private Empire, Steve Coll's Book on Exxon-Mobil
(The Dark Side)
Can Renewable Energy Sustain Consumer Societies
Breaking Point: The End Of The Cheap Energy Economy

VIDEO: CROSSOVER WITH RICHARD HEINBERG: END OF CHEAP ENERGY ERA


Is the Chinese government already planning for a postcarbon future? Many, including Chris Martenson, seem to think that it is ahead of the US in this respect, even if its transition could be better.

Catholic:
A Perfectly Imperfect Vocation Story: Sr. Juliana Schmitt, O.Cist. (’86)
Guillaume de Machaut’s “Messe de Nostre Dame” in the context of fourteenth-century polyphonic music for the Mass Ordinary

Education:
Thomas Storck, Think Different: A New Model for University Administration

Diet and Health:
How Vegetable Oils Replaced Animal Fats in the American Diet
ERWAN LE CORRE: THE 10 MOVNAT PRINCIPLES
Latest in Paleo 56: Who You Gonna Trust? (mp3)
LCC (Episode 47): Dr. Joe Leonardi And Tara Grant Dig Into The Disconnect Between Medical Care And Chronic Disease (mp3)

Islam:
Islam's Origins: Where Mystery Meets History

Music:
I Shall Be Released - Up On Cripple Creek (tribute to Levon Helm)


Punch Brothers: Sophisticated Strings

Allegri: Motets, Miserere, Missa In lectulo meo & Missa Christus resurgens
Choir of Kings College London, David Trendell

Bourne Vivaldi (Bourne Soundtrack/Vivaldi Double Cello Concerto) - ThePianoGuys

Items of Interest, 20 March 2012

Sights and Sounds from the Abbey of Le Barroux

Mark Mitchell, Patriotism vs. American Exceptionalism

Calhoun, Jefferson, and Popular Rule by Lee Cheek

Daniel Larison, The Short American Century: The Conservatism of George Kennan

Paul Gottfried, Leo Strauss, Immigration, And Israel

PJB, The Glaring Inequality of Obamaville

Fabius Maximus: With a stroke of his pen President Hope and Change erased much of America

America, Rome and the Moral Imagination by Cindy Rollins

The End of the New Deal Coalition and the Transformation of American Politics by Thomas Storck

Something with Dr. Marshner:
Contraception Mandate and Formal Cooperation
Christendom College Theology Professor Explains Moral Implications for Catholics

Some thoughts for John Breen from John O'Callaghan, Thomist, on "health", etc.

David Walker:


Economics:
Making 9 Million Jobless "Vanish": How The Government Manipulates Unemployment Statistics by Daniel R. Amerman, CFA

Land Rent - the Genesis of the British Class System

Relocalization and Sustainability:
Why the Church needs to return to its pastoral roots: permaculture visions of a rural minster by Reverend Rob Brown |

Ralph Nader, How Greece threatens you and how going local offers the only refuge

The Roots of Sprawl: Why We Don't Live Where We Work

This Is The Lexicon Of Sustainability - Douglas Gayeton At Work

This Is The Lexicon Of Sustainability - Douglas Gayeton At Work from lexicon of sustainability on Vimeo.

The Future of Food


Toward Energy Literacy

Education:
Mathematics Education: Being Outwitted by Stupidity
In long-expected move - legislators, school districts outlaw the children

Diet and Health:
MDA: Dear Mark: Excess Skin After Major Weight Loss?
The LLVLC Show (Episode 557): GAPS Diet Creator Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride Uses Nutrition To Heal Gut Health (mp3)
The LLVLC Show (Episode 558): Matt And Stacy From ‘Paleo Parents’ Encourage Kids To ‘Eat Like A Dinosaur’ (mp3)

Guest Post by Dr. Stephen Gangemi: MovNat and Kids
7 MovNat Lessons from an Uncoordinated Stay-at-Home Mom

NPR: Cameras Follow World's Greatest Sushi Chef

CMT: Sierra Hull, "Easy Come, Easy Go"

Get More: http://www.cmt.com/videos/misc/733739/live-cmt-sierra-hull-easy-come-easy-go.jhtml, Sierra Hull, Sierra Hull Videos

See more from this live performance here:

http://www.cmt.com/videos/misc/733748/live-cmt-sierra-hull-best-buy.jhtml - Sierra Hull - Sierra Hull Videos

An Anonymous 4 Retrospective

BBC Four to broadcast Angelic Voices

Watch the New Josh Turner Video, 'Time Is Love' by Hunter Hauk

Why I Hate The 'Goldberg Variations'

Less turn and burn for special operators
SOCOM task force looks at dwell time, quality of life

The fundamental question..

is not an economic one, but a political one.

Thomas Storck writes in Catholics, Distributism and Occupy Wall Street:

Unfortunately as part of the turmoil and loss of faith that followed the Second Vatican Council and the many changes in Catholic praxis that were instituted in the decade following, many Catholics lost both knowledge of the Church’s social doctrine and the passionate concern for economic justice that previously was fairly widespread among informed Catholics. Today among Catholics who might be said to display interest in the faith and a desire to understand it or to engage in apostolic activity, most are only vaguely aware of the body of Catholic social doctrine, and as a result they take their socio-economic views from the secular culture. Others are indeed aware of Catholic social doctrine, but they do not approach it with the docility that ought to characterize a Catholic. In some cases they make use of selective quotations to try to make the Church’s social teaching fit in with their classical liberal capitalist ideology.

Later, he offers a plan of action:

What, if anything, is the remedy for this? In my opinion, probably the best means for addressing this selective dissent from Catholic teaching is simply a recovery of our Catholic identity, a recovery of a sense that it is more important to be a Catholic than to be a conservative, a liberal, an American, or indeed anything else on the face of the earth. All these other identities are acceptable only if, and to the extent that, they harmonize with our primary identity of being a Catholic. There are many, in fact, who are discovering this. People, for example, who begin by recognizing the beauty of the traditional Latin liturgy, and are led from that to the entire range of traditional Catholic thought on subjects from theology and philosophy to art to history, and not least to economic and social thought. Quite tragic, on the other hand, and in a way ridiculous, is the position of those who passionately adhere to traditional Catholic thought in some few areas, but whose primary identity remains as conservative Americans, whose Catholicism is simply their way of participating in the American Way of Life, as the sociologist Will Herberg noted many years ago.

A call for American Catholics to embrace the Church's teaching with respect to economics and politics, rather than picking and choosing in accordance with their ideological affiliations.

Undoubtedly we need better laws to foster economic freedom, along with commutative and distributive justice. But if a group of individuals lacks a sense of community and identity, what sort of lasting political and economic reform can be undertaken?

Only a few American Catholics realize the pickle they are in. It is not merely a problem with the laws dealing with the marketplace, but with the core of politics - politics presupposes the existence of a single people who live in community with one another. This is what is lacking. How, then, can one legislate for change without first concentrating the power necessary to do so? Like-minded individuals must first band together and commit to one place and to one-another - they must make their stand. Legislative reform is unlikely to be achieved at the federal level, and even if it could, it would probably violate the standard Catholic understanding of subsidiarity. Rather, we have to turn to the local level for a reinvigoration of existing communities (whatever still remains) and the creation of community, if it is still possible. It may be too late for the latter in many places.

The lack of community is the fundamental problem of the United States, especially with respect to the megapoleis, but applicable everywhere the exercise of physical mobility is seen as a proper lifestyle choice. It is also probably present to a lesser degree in Europe, where oversized polities in the form of the nation-state have been in existence for quite some time. We should be advocating for CTS or distributism not just to rectify injustice but as a means of restoring and promoting communal life. Distributism or locaclism cannot be separated from the ordo caritatis and a proper understanding of what community is and what it requires.

Related:
Is Distributism a Form of Capitalism? by David W. Cooney