Deneen, MacIntyre, Schindler, Dreher? For John Zmirak I’m Ahead of Them All!

Last updated on: March 23, 2015 at 8:36 pm by Artur Rosman

Deneen, MacIntyre, Schindler, Dreher? For John Zmirak I’m Ahead of Them All! 2015-03-23T20:36:14-07:00 Artur Rosman

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The offending tweet. I’ll take it.

John Zmirak is a Catholic intellectual of limited credibility. He has an MFA, surprisingly enough a PhD in English (the sort of thing a libruhl would have, although these days they give diplomas to just about anyone–I’m living proof), and recently became an armchair commando on the fart-right website World Net Daily. If we were talking about anyone else the latter development could be described as a fall from grace, but that’s totally inappropriate here.

Zmirak has wasted the last couple of years of his writing to obfuscating the real legacy of American liberalism. The smokescreen consists of obscuring the real abuses of political (classical) liberalism in the United States and the rest of the world, by arguing that Catholics who criticize liberalism want nothing but theocracy and repression.

His behavior might have something to do with what Fr. Richard John Neuhaus called “The narrow escape syndrome.” Zmirak himself comes from a really goofy Catholic royalist background whose intellectual viability is not taken seriously by anyone. Ergo, somehow, everybody who nowadays is not a totally uncritical lover of America’s civilizing mission abroad must be what Zmirak used to be. This conclusion, to say the least, makes quite a few logical jumps that would make Carl Lewis envious.

Now that you know there is very little reason for you to trust his judgments I’ll go into his tweet: J. Arthur Bloom at the Mitrailleuse alerted me about a tweet where Zmirak named his illiberal Catholic enemy list.

Guess who’s at the head? Yours truly.

It’s difficult to believe that I’m ahead of Patrick Deneen (Democratic Faith), Alasdair MacIntyre (Dependent Rational Animals and After Virtue), David L. Schindler (Ordering Love), and Rod Dreher (How Dante Can Save Your Life; no longer a Catholic, but don’t let that stop Zmirak!). Yet, there is that tweet in its full glory!

I don’t have any major book publications to speak of, so instead I’ll give you some links to my greatest hits in my debates with Zmirak, if you can really call trying to calm down someone who’s always yelling and emoting a debate.

1. Contra Zmirak: In Praise of the Inquisition

2. Apart from… What has Illiberal Catholicism Done for Us?

3. Subversive Orthodoxy Meets the Libertarian Preferential Option for the Rich

4. A True Opium for the People is a Belief in Nothingness After Death!

5. The Cosmos Liberally Stretches Toward Aleteia and Vatican II

Comedy

John Zmirak

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Theological Beliefs Might Be Natural, BUT Are They Rational?

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March 24, 2015 Netanyahu Understands the Inquisition Better than Zmirak (Who is Closer to Cruz)

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