Catechism Highlights

Some teaching worth reflecting upon as those of us in the United States prepare to vote:

1867 The catechetical tradition also recalls that there are "sins that cry to heaven": the blood of Abel,[139] the sin of the Sodomites,[140] the cry of the people oppressed in Egypt,[141] the cry of the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan,[142] injustice to the wage earner.[143]

1868 Sin is a personal act. Moreover, we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them:
- by participating directly and voluntarily in them;
- by ordering, advising, praising, or approving them;
- by not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so;
- by protecting evil-doers.

Offshore Oil

A word of explanation about my view. Yes, I want to see the development of alternative energy sources. I dearly want to see solar, electric, hybrid, and other sources explored. But those take time; and Nancy Pelosi has stated that she intends to keep prices of oil high deliberately in order to force the development of other energy sources. These measures cannot work to make any real difference, though, because they only harm the poor. The wealthy can afford gas. The middle and low income cannot, and it is they whose house payments depend on being able to afford the tank of gas to drive to work. These punitive methods espoused by Pelosi and her supporters only harm the poor, who are having the hardest time already in this difficult economy. It is rarely the poor who make policy, however. Pelosi herself can undoubtedly afford an alternative energy car. But can those who sell her groceries?

The Democratic party used to stand for compassion. I don't think it does anymore.

Since the MSM only finds it funny when conservatives say things like this...

we're left to spread it around ourselves.


Please share this!

I'll be waiting to hear apologies to the Palins.

I have a feeling I'll be waiting a long time. Even people who did not believe the rumors were very, very quick to spread them just the same. These same people often people who would call it "mean," "uncharitable," or "immature" if similar rumors were spread about a Democrat. Now it's been announced that Bristol Palin is 5 months pregnant, which of course makes it virtually impossible for her to be the mother of her 4 month old sibling.

The evidence was overwhelmingly against the rumors: legal documents, including birth certificates. Announcements of Sarah Palin's pregnancy, the fact that the baby has Down Syndrome, which is much, much more likely in one's 40's than in one's teens. The only evidence I've seen to the contrary is photos that show Sarah covered with bulky clothing, and the comment that no 44 year old with grown children would get pregnant. All of the speculation was spurious, yet those who knew it still spread the rumors.

Now that the rumors are known to be false, I don't really anticipate any apologies from those mean-spirited people who spread them. I hope they prove me wrong.

Why Politics Makes Me Hurt

Many people today put their political labels on such a pedestal that even the "compassionate" learn to harden themselves and even the logical learn not to think for themselves. It doesn't matter whether you are conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, if you let your political persuasion decide your views for you, then you have lost sight of your humanness, at least just a little bit.

Let me give two examples: abortion and the poor.

First, let's examine poverty issues. While I do not think either of the major parties has come up with adequate ideas for how to help the poor, I think the Republican party often forgets to be compassionate. Not having a solution is quite different from not giving a damn because you think they somehow deserve it. And anyone who doesn't want the government to be part of the solution had better be doing something on a private citizen level to help, or he or she is a hypocrite of the most selfish kind.

Now what about abortion? The Democratic party makes such a dogma of it that its members frequently feel that being pro-choice is the litmus test for being a good liberal. Let's put that litmus test to the test. Again, while I do not think either of the major parties has come up with adequate ideas for how to ensure women's full rights, I think the Democratic party has forgotten the very concept of compassion in naming the right to kill a positive step. The Democratic nominee for president has gone so far as to put himself on record -- by legal vote -- as opposing the right of a born baby to remain alive. Even if you believe that a person does not gain legal personhood until birth, and that until then the baby is merely part of the mother's body, the mother is free to walk away once that baby is outside her body; how is killing him after the fact going to affect her right not to be pregnant? How does the death of a born child help the unpregnant birth mother?

I know that few Republicans are going to read this post and say "Oh, man! Now I realize that I can't stay Republican!" And Democrats are unlikely to say "Now I see that the Democratic party doesn't represent my perspective after all!" I am not asking you to change your affiliation, or your self-image as a liberal or a conservative. But I am asking you to take a moment and ask yourself if the things you support are compassionate to all people involved. Nobody can hear your thoughts; you do not have to feel disloyal for asking the question. It is all right to ask; thinking people do stop and consider sometimes.

If you are to be truly human, ask yourself hard questions. Put aside the rhetoric of your people, no matter which "side" they are on, and just face the questions as though you were looking at them for the first time. Then ask yourself "What can I do to help my brothers and sisters to work toward a kinder world, even in the places where compassion and rhetoric disagree?"

Says my daughter:

The pro-abortion people say that denying abortion makes women slaves to their uterus; but abortion makes them slaves to their vaginas.

There's nothing I can add.

Here's a Campaign Promise I Can Believe

Obama promises not to be moderate or act on the needs of the majority of the country.

The Death of Inconvenience

Today I was greeted at the entrance to the store by a man seeking petition signatures to get items on the ballot. One of them was called "Death with dignity." I cringe even thinking about what it means. "If you have any dignity, you'll off yourself when you become inconvenient."

If that sounds cynical, ask yourself what the message of abortion on demand is. Take a refresher course on the Michael Schiavo School of Disability Management. Let's face it, those who are not 100% self-reliant are treated like parasites on society, no thought given to their past or future accomplishments, or to the fact that by the very fact of their life they have dignity.

So we call it "choice" and kill inconvenient babies. We call it "dignity" and hurry the elderly on their way. We call it "right to die," and we decide for the disabled that they can't really want to live. And we pat ourselves on the back for having brought ourselves to this advanced, modern, humanist way of thinking. We value humans so much that we convince ourselves that the ones who don't have any value should be gone to help those who do have value to have a better human existence. Not only that, but we then go on to convince ourselves it's a kindness we have done.

All of this reminds me of the quote attributed to Ben Franklin, that democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner. We cannot truly call ourselves enlightened until we start caring about the needs of the sheep.

Here We Go A-Wasl-ing

It's that time of year again: the students in Washington State schools walk through their disrupted school days with the burden of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning on their shoulders. Dire warnings follow them about the need to pass the test and the importance of making their school look good. Every student must pass, but fifty percent will fail.

No, it isn't a failure on the part of the schools that causes this fifty percent failure rate; the failure rate is built in. Only the top half of tests pass.

I find it ironic that while the state is requiring that half of all students fail, and half of all schools fail, at the local level they are still engaging the "self esteem movement" methods. My daughter's school has an awards ceremony every month, where three different students from each class get awards each time... a different three students. And that isn't even counting the perfect attendance awards that are granted not annually but monthly. The awards are geared, essentially, toward ensuring that almost every student be told, at least once in the year, that he is the best.

Both extremes are wrong. To say that every student is the best waters down the honor of genuine accomplishment and recognition; yet to require half of all students to fail sets an impossible standard for those who struggle in school. It seems logical, even obvious, that any contest in which everyone wins doesn't measure much, and any test in which half fail is an indictment on the whole system (in this case, the WASL system).

As a parent of gifted children, I object to both measurements. I don't want to see my kids automatically win, because it takes away the incentive to try. I don't want them rewarded, either, for their intelligence. They did not work for that, and can't take much credit. I want to see them work for acknowledgement, in areas that require effort. To me, a perfect attendance award or an A in homework means a lot more than a "You're Smart" certificate.

I also don't want to see other kids required to fail simply because my kids were born fortunate. If the test were objective, it would be much fairer; but regardless of how objective the WASL promoters claim it is, if children's success is only judged competitively, by how they measure against other children, it isn't objective. The "smart" kids are going to fill the passing percentile ranks, and the kids who struggle are going to get beaten down again and again. I don't think it's fair that hard working kids who are learning should be penalized simply because tests come easier to my kids.

Finally, I think it very short-sighted that we make so much rest upon a single test. It practically ensures that schools will "teach the test," which has multiple harmful results. It means that they are spending more time learning how to test and less time learning how to think. It means that they are spending more time learning the specific types of information teachers expect to see on the test, and omitting other equally necessary information not likely to appear on the test. It implies that only information tested by the WASL matters, and that the writers of the WASL are all-wise and never err in educational judgment.

It also homogenizes learning. Robert Frost said "The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise." If we really believe in the uniqueness of the gifts of each child (as the self esteem movement would have us see), then we should allow children to explore divergent paths of learning. The more we gauge their learning by monolithic tests, and use those tests alone to judge them and their schools, the more we reduce their opportunity to learn independently. Children who must "learn the test" do not have time to learn things like research and logic sufficiently, because those things require independent exploration, and take away from time spent learning the specific topics covered on the test.

The result is that those who are gifted in one area but poor in another will spend a lot of time trying to overcome their difficulty in the area of challenge and very little time developing their giftedness. It means we wind up with a lot of competent students, but fewer and fewer who ever develop their potential for giftedness.

Those schools that have trouble passing the WASL, and those parents whose students perform poorly on the test, will undoubtedly complain that the test is not fair; and undoubtedly, their cries will be ignored as so many sour grapes. So let me go on record, as a parent of gifted children, with my criticism. My children will ace the tests; but I still know that the test still isn't wise. We should be encouraging success, not requiring failure.

This time, conservatives want the state to get out of their bedrooms.

Usually it is the Democrats who cry out over government intrusion into the bedroom. But some democrats, like Washington state representative Maralyn Chase, favor privacy only for liberal causes. The "Two or Fewer" bill she proposed upholds the Democratic and liberal perspective, so that invasion of privacy doesn't count as a genuine invasion.

The truth is that Ms. Chase's perspective doesn't hold up as consistent when more liberal issues are at stake. A defender of gay rights, she gets an A rating from the Snohomish County Elections Committee for Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgendered. Another pro-homosexual group lists her as one of the few Washington state representatives with an "A+" rating, rating her higher than 50% of the openly homosexual or bisexual representatives. Her views on privacy only extend to the privacy of groups represented by liberal causes and groups, apparently. It would be nice if she could represent her constituency more evenhandedly, by holding either a solid moral perspective or an unflinching respect for privacy for all. Some people would still disagree with her views, but at least they could not accuse her of hypocrisy.

Ms. Chase herself claims her bill is not an intrusion at all, because it does not advocate the actual restriction of family size, but only "education." She "She counts that choice among the most private and intimate decisions a couple can make." She speaks as though she is defending the rights of both sides; but it is only the promotion of negative population growth that her bill promotes. That isn't education, but propaganda.

And it is not just a matter of sexual privacy, but of religious freedom.

When she propagandizes against large families, not only is she committing a serious act of bigotry against a number of her own constituents, she is also making a religious statement that those religions that encourage larger families are acting harmfully to society. She is, further, encouraging others to join her in an idealogical crusade against those who have either personal or religious reasons for having larger families.

Then there's the more sinister question: how often does an idealogical crusade succeed without it eventually moving from words to action? It took China about 20 years to move from words to action, instituting a one-birth policy. And "progress" in multiple countries (particularly China and India) has shown that birth restriction, whether legally enforced or idealogically encouraged, tends to lead toward the degradation and even killing of women and girls. This is not a direction I, as a resident of Washington state, want to go.

Fortunately, neither do any other members of the Washington state House of Representatives. Unable to get a co-sponsor, the bill died for the year. I have a feeling that so will Ms. Chase's political career.