By CHRISTOPHER MANION
In considering the new Democrat House, we recall that the proper title for its members is “Representative.” So it’s fair to ask, just whom are they “representing”? On inspection, the new majority’s vulgarity, their defiance of law and norms, and their dead-end socialist proposals are more representative of the views of their core political and financial supporters than those of their constituents.
It is a classic example of the notion of “factions” that James Madison discusses in Federalist #10.
The party’s hardened core comprises the activists and agitators that create the chaos which the Democrats need to survive. These include the elites who donate to their campaigns, who get rich from their initiatives, who get face-time and ad revenue from their perpetual circus, and who benefit from their authority. Peace and order and freedom are their enemy.
Out front we find the cheerleaders — but they are not the leaders. Take Hillary Clinton, the champion of destroying civility and the Constitution until she gets to win. She and her husband are the classic grifters, always on the take. So are the bevy of hucksters who ruin America’s largest cities in the name of governing them, who destroy the promise of future generations instead of teaching them.
They are all on the take. But who’s in charge?
In order to deter any calm consideration of their record, they sow constant pandemonium. Amidst one of the country’s most striking economic revivals in our lifetimes, they throw constant tantrums. They will soon discover, as the year rolls on, what Republicans discovered for the six years during which they controlled both House and Senate under Obama: For all the glitz, they don’t have very much power.
When one hears gutter language literally screamed by members in the halls of Congress, when one confronts the deliberate ignorance reflected in the radical proposals already introduced, one realizes that these are designed to be code words. We are witnessing a massive campaign of deflection designed to trigger even more vulgar and ultimately violent actions on the streets.
All of this noise, combined with the constant drumbeat to impeach the president, serves an ultimate goal that is rock-solid behind the cascading kaleidoscope of chaos. You won’t be surprised to learn that it’s all focused on one unmentioned but fundamental and unchanging goal: to preserve abortion.
That’s what drives them.
Madame Justice Ginsburg is so sick that she could not even quietly attend arguments before the Supreme Court during the week of January 7. It was her first absence since she first assumed her seat a quarter-century ago. She came to the court via the radically pro-abortion ACLU; she was the cutting edge of the Culture of Death, and yet she was confirmed by a vote of 96 to 3 on August 4, 1993 — just seven months after Bill Clinton took office.
Ginsburg’s successor will enjoy no such unanimity. America’s pro-abortion mob understands that, if President Trump is allowed to appoint another Supreme Court justice, a campaign of the sort that lambasted Justice Kavanaugh won’t work this time around. Republicans have a greater majority in the Senate, and the Arizona semi-Republican twins, John McCain and Jeff Flake, are gone.
The pro-abortion forces know they can’t win a vote. In view of Justice Ginsburg’s illness, they will not take the battle over confirming the next justice to the Senate. Instead, the radical left has in mind a strategy designed not to win, but to evoke violence in the streets, widespread economic turmoil, and a propaganda frenzy designed to persuade the country that the radical left’s attacks on Trump constitute prima facie evidence that this president should not be allowed to name another justice in the first place.
Of course, it is a self-proving assertion: “We’re attacking him, so he must desist.” The “argument from authority” is at the bottom of the rhetorical barrel, of course, and this one all the more because their “authority” has a basis even more dubious than their argument.
As Fr. George W. Rutler would say, “Weak point. Shout.” After all, the House of Representatives has no role in the confirmation process. Hence, while they have no authority, we can nonetheless expect them to speak authoritatively. And loudly.
Tethered To The Party Line
In the Soviet Union, if you wanted to be an engineer, a classical pianist, or a hockey player, you didn’t have to belong to the Communist Party, but you did have to have good grades in Marxism-Leninism.
In the United States today, it is increasingly clear that, in order to have an advanced degree in any academic subject, you must pass the “Politically Correct Test,” an all-consuming game with constantly moving goalposts that extend far beyond the classroom. If you cross the Party Line, you’re branded: You’ll never work in your chosen field.
A similar situation exists in the Catholic hierarchy. If a bishop does not embrace the USCCB’s political agenda, he must at least resonate it. If he doesn’t, he lives in “fear,” as former USCCB senior official Jayd Henricks put it.
So it’s not surprising that no American bishop will support Trump’s call for a wall on the southern border. Instead, bishops support amnesty for illegal aliens, as well as “sanctuary” for the criminals among them. Trumpeting their moral authority, they constantly recycle the worn-out epithets to condemn their critics, but never to criticize the illegals.
On the second Day of Christmas, illegal alien Gustavo Perez Arriaga shot and killed Newman, Calif., policeman Ronil Singh, who had pulled him over for drunk driving. Perez Arriaga fled the scene, but was later arrested as he attempted to flee to Mexico.
According to Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson, Perez Arriaga would have been in custody long ago, but California’s sanctuary law had prevented his incarceration.
California’s Catholic bishops unanimously support that sanctuary law. When asked if any bishop had apologized to Cpl. Singh’s family, or even offered his condolences, spokesmen for San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone and the California Catholic Conference would not say.
On the fifth day of Christmas, 22-year-old Pierce Kennedy Corcoran, of Knoxville, Tenn., was killed by illegal alien Franco Cambrany Francisco-Eduardo, who was charged with criminally negligent homicide and driving without a license or insurance.
On January 5, Wendy Corcoran, Pierce’s mother, issued a moving statement in her son’s memory, ending with this passage:
“We are all aware, as a family, that nothing will bring Pierce back, but don’t tell me my son, who lived in this country and followed its rules, doesn’t deserve better. For God’s sake, out of respect for the men and women who fought and fight to make this country such a desirable place to live, do the right thing and come here legally and become a responsible citizen.”
In the past, Knoxville Bishop Richard Stika has strongly criticized enforcement of U.S. immigration laws. According to his spokesman, the bishop has not made a statement regarding Pierce Corcoran’s death.
The Keller Curse
Shortly after Notre Dame won its last national football championship in 1988, Law Professor Charles E. Rice and Economics Professor Edward M. Keller, CSC, were playing racquetball in the Edmund P. Joyce Athletic Center.
As the left the court, Fr. Keller turned to Charlie and said, “They aren’t going to win it again until they get right with the Church.”
Thirty years and counting, they still haven’t.
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress