Outside The Asylum

GK Chesterton, on May 16, 1935, explained to the world why arguing for capitalism just creates more communists- and the solution. Which of these three methods do you prefer, and why? How Not to Do It G.K.'s Weekly May 16, 1935 G.K.C. There are two recognised ways of arguing with a Communist; and they are both wrong. There is also a third way which is right but which is not recognised. Now I have a notion that, for one reason or another, a considerable part of our time will be taken up soon by arguing with Communists. And I should like to sketch very roughly this notion of mine about the right way to do it. Curiously enough, the two commonest ways of contradicting Communism also contradict each other. The first consists of convicting the Bolshevist of all vices. The second, curiously enough, consists of convicting him of all the virtues. It actually consists of pitting all our vices against his virtues; or his supposed virtues. This is very much the more dangerous ...

And when they do, it's a good one. Here's some economic and Occupy myths that are common right now, and while their answers have a definite left wing bent, I think the truth is somewhere between the two. But a challenge. If you are a fiscal conservative, I challenge you to read the ENTIRE bibliography of this article: MYTH #1: The congressional Super Committee failed because both sides refuse to compromise. REALITY: The Super Committee failed because Republicans' number one, non-negotiable priority is to protect millionaires and billionaires from paying even one more penny in taxes.1 Democrats repeatedly offered to make deep spending cuts—far deeper than most progressives would like—in exchange for raising taxes on the wealthy and closing corporate loopholes, only to be refused again and again.2 So even though the vast majority of Americans say they want to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits, and raise taxes on the rich and corporations,3 that wo...

Sorry ladies, I'm leaving you entirely out of this post. Spurred by Newt Gingrich's campaign: I understand the concept of forgiveness. Of second chances. And third chances. And thirteenth chances. *But*- each chance makes trust harder. Each attempt, needs more effort. And when it comes to important stuff like my mortgage or who I vote for- I have to ask why I should trust a man who is paying alimony because he can't stay within his marriage vows. Such a man is simply not worthy of my trust. At all. And he needs to do something truly extraordinary to reverse it. Sorry Newt- you've done nothing making you worthy of being President. Obama hasn't either- but at least he could stay married to one woman.

This is a test of various ways to connect Facebook to Blogspot. This is only a test. Anything else you may have heard is entirely false. But apparently, the connection between RSS feeds and notes in Facebook is going away. I'm using the RSS Grafiti app instead. It's what I use to import blogs for Our Peaceful Place, and I just found out I can set it up to import to my wall as well. With any luck, in the next 24-48 hours I'll see this post on my facebook page twice- once as a note, once as a summary.

Among small-government conservatives, a dream exists. A dream in which instead of paying taxes to Washington DC, we give to our local churches, who in turn take care of the poor, the sick, the troubled. It's an interesting dream. But is it feasible? Mark Grey of CARA , that is the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate crunches the numbers- and finds that we'd have to *significantly* increase collections to even come close. The average registered Catholic Family only gives $10/week through the Church. Maybe $10 billion nationwide. The US Government spends nearly a trillion on social welfare- the Church would be $990 billion short. Only if Charity is a Duty instead of a Choice could this stand any chance of working.

I wasn't going to write this until next year- but finding several excellent articles on Hallowmas, which eventually became Halloween, All Saint's Day, and All Soul's day; I just had to write a blog posting on it. Since today is November 1st, it is appropriate to lead off with this excellent article from UCatholic on the history of the Solemnity of All Saints - how, during the persecution of the Emperor Diocletian. the number of martyrs exceeded the number of days in the calendar- and so diocese began to celebrate common days to remember their local martyrs. In the Fourth Century, as Christians began to clash with Northern European Druids, a bright evangelist recognized the similarity between the Druid Feast of Summer's End- Samhain- and the Communion of Saints, and so Hallowmas was born . It was another 600 years before the feast of All Saints finally removed the Druid death feasts, a remnant being trick-or-treating, which started with the Hallowmas tradition of grou...