Voting for Trump Despite Tarnished Pro-Life Bona Fides

I have been pondering with some concern Edward Feser’s recent post “Trump has put social conservatives in a dilemma”. Feser is a Catholic philosopher whose analyses on matters from the moral to the metaphysical should not be ignored nor taken lightly, and as such it gave me some pause when considering how to vote in the wake of Trump’s softening on pro-life issues. I am not convinced that the word “betrayal” is appropriate to describe this softening, but certainly his attempts to triangulate a “moderate” stance on abortion (and related matters, like IVF) has been demoralizing.

Nevertheless, I believe we who are pro-life should vote for Trump. Let me explain....

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Review: Amazon's "The Rings of Power"

Customarily I am careful to avoid spoilers, or at least to provide ample warning to protect those who wish to have a pure experience of a work. In this case there is no need, because the work under review is already spoiled. The first half of the first episode of Season 2 of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” put to rest any vestigial notion that there is in it anything worthy of associating with Tolkien, or of consumption for mere entertainment’s sake—even in the idle desperation of severe boredom.

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Nunc Coepi, or: There is a Latin Motto for Everything

Nunc coepi.

Now I begin—again.

After allowing this space to lay fallow following a time of admittedly sporadic and half-hearted attempts at blogging-so-called, I begin again. I, the Minister of Culture, return to the dark and empty Minicult edifice—standing silent and unattended, with a quiet dignity adorned by respectable Corinthian columns—to flick on a solitary light.

In my absence, an entire presidency has come and gone and the nation now stands, once again, on the precipice of the Great Struggle. That trembling anxious moment when half the country plus one or two percentage points of fickle voters here and there exercise their divine democratic right of electing someone to visit misery and terror on the other half of the country.

Shall we have a fascist Dicator who, bloodied and vengeful, roars into office to wreak his vengeance and crush under his boot-heel all non-white, non-cishet, non-male units of humanity? Or shall we have a cackling commie Witch who desires nothing more than to throw all our values and all our traditions—and a great many of our children, too—into the great grinding wood-chipper of Progress?

Ah, Democracy! Come like a driving wind to blow us all away!

The Minister will be here, broadcasting on an obscure emergency frequency, to yell into the storm: “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!”

Culture War Crimes Redux

A few months ago, I commented on the hyperventilating that occurred when Trump threatened to attack Iranian cultural sites. Of course, he never did. It was bluster.

Now, those same people are at best condoning, at worst celebrating, the vandals in our own country actually defacing and tearing down statues all over America—everything from Southern Confederates, to celebrated presidents, Founding Fathers, and Catholic saints, like Junipero Serra and St. King Louis. Some have even advocated tearing down statues, and smashing stained glass windows that depict our Lord as European, since, apparently, that is some kind of “white supremacy”.

It is a sin to destroy the culture of an alien land, but praiseworthy to destroy your own.

Such delicate irony would be amusing, if it weren’t so infuriating.