I’m very busy professionally and avocationally at present, so blogging time is precious.
I’ve found a couple of items thought-provoking. From Crisis Magazine, A Voice for the Faithful Catholic Laity, a sober assessment of where faithful Christians now stand:
And here is my point: none of this is a reason for despair. Indeed, knowledge of the dead-end that politics so obviously has become should be liberating for conservatives. It is far beyond time for conservative Americans—and Christians in particular—to put aside the distractions of mass politics for the tactile realities involved in building a decent life. We still need to vote and otherwise get involved, of course, but we need to remember what we are doing: hoping to prevent or mitigate the damage being done to us, not “taking back” a state apparatus that has long been used to reshape our society in unwholesome ways. We must come to recognize that the federal government, to its very core, has become hostile to our very way of life, not a violent oppressor, but nonetheless our adversary as we seek to raise our children, educating them in our faith, our morals, and our traditions. We must build neighborhoods, parishes and other religious and secular communities in which spiritual, intellectual and fundamentally moral lives are possible.
Bruce Frohnen, How Little We Have Lost (H/T James Matthew Wilson)
Kelly Vlahos at the American Conservative notes that it was not a good night for Islamophobia. Some of the most virulent hate-mongers lost or barely eked out victories that should have been easy.
I have long thought, and continue to think, that the GOP has never quite recovered from the end of the Cold War. Left anti-Communism had largely disappeared, leaving the GOP to claim almost 100% credit for Communism’s collapse. They’ve been looking for a new Evil Empire ever since, by opposition to which to define themselves. They really need to figure out something helpful to support, not just enemies to demonize.
Daniel McCarthy at the American Conservative notes that Third Parties were not spoilers in this election. Obama took more than 50% in every state he won.
And I continue to reflect on a novice blogger’s second post, on the real reason Romney won the youth and minority votes. The barbarian “Movement Conservatives” may not get it at all, but there are wholesome impulses there that conservatives should understand and which might be redirected to more productive politics than Obama’s.
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Tipsy Teetotaler ن 