I have to say I’m grateful to Vox Nova

Last updated on: December 31, 2014 at 2:30 pm by Mark Shea

I have to say I’m grateful to Vox Nova 2014-12-31T14:30:10-07:00 Mark Shea

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After months of being denounced as a closet Obama supporter, an America-hater, a socialist, a vile leftist who should just leave the Catholic Church and go hang out with my communist buddies, a disgusting turncoat both to truly true patriotism *and* truly true Catholic belief, I am greatly relieved to finally be hearing once again that I am, in fact, a blind American jingo super-patriot and zealous right-winger who doesn’t grasp the fact that (I am not making this up) “America is the greatest force for evil in the world in the history of mankind.”

He also helpfully adds:

To get it means to be shell-shocked by the utter depravity of every aspect of the United States, to see that the game is up, that doom is allotted, and that abortion, war, poverty, and every kind of violence will continue unabated until the wrath and judgment of God is poured out upon this proud and blind people.

Now, I hold no brief for the Eternity of the United States, nor for the notion that we are exempt from original sin, nor for the theory that we can go on forever spitting in God’s eye and avoiding judgement. Indeed, I think anybody with an ounce of sense can see we are already knee deep in our own stupid, self-inflicted punishment for our pride.

But the whole Calvinist Prophet schtick doesn’t wash with me. It’s rubbish to say that Every Aspect of the United States (or anything human) is Utterly Depraved. Calvinists believe such BS, not Catholics. We’re fallen. Got it. But grace is here too and God saves even Americans.

Still, it’s a nice change of pace to be denounced for loving my country instead of for being a secret Komminiss. Word up, Nate: the cure for the monstrous sin of nationalistic pride is not hatred of your country but love of it. Also, if you could perhaps bracket that particular discussion so that it doesn’t look like an attempt to divert the conversation from the salient points Thomas Peters was making about Vox Nova’s ideological filters, that would be good too.

Oh, I gotta love this:

“I agree that there is hyperbole going on with Nate’s post.” – The Judicious Henry Karlson, who only reserves strong words like “You are a liar” for people who do something really serious, like making fun of Vox Nova, not for fellow Vox Novans who perpetuate the lie that “Debate Club at Auschwitz” is a suggestion of Nazi sympathies, even when they know perfectly well the origin and intention of the lampoon since Zippy himself made it clear on their own blog:

I have called the blog Vox Nova “debate club at Auschwitz” because the contributors generally take an airy academic inclusive approach to publicly discussing abortion, in this day and age with the mass scale horror all around us, on a blog which specifically advertises itself as Catholic perspectives. One of the contributors publicly stated that subsidiarity justifies the pro-choice position, for example, and other contributors have defended him. The point to the “Debate Club at Auschwitz” label is precisely that ambivalent public airy academic discussion in the presence of an actual moral horror which should be unequivocally rejected is inappropriate, like a debate club airily and academically discussing the Jewish Question at Auschwitz.

It isn’t an accusation that the Debate Club is gassing the Jews, or is in favor of gassing the Jews. Rather, it is an observation that there are times and places where it is simply wicked to engage in airy, public, ambivalent academic discussion of certain kinds of moral horror. One of those times and places is here and now; one of those subjects is abortion. Deliberate engagement in airy ambivalent inclusive public academic discussion is perfectly capable of itself – the discussion – being a form of wickedness, in certain circumstances.

The same thing applies to the Right’s public airy academic ambivalence on torture in the face of the fact that we have tortured prisoners, at least one and probably more of them to death, in the GWOT.

The unwinding of the pro-life movement from the inside by strongly associating it with despicable moral wrongs that appeal to the political Right, the home of the genuine pro-life movement, is Satan’s plan. We get to choose whether we will cooperate with that plan, or not.

That includes not waffling over the supposedly puzzling question of whether waterboarding is torture. Waterboarding prisoners as we have done is torture, without any question or ambiguity. You are either with the torturers, or against them.

MZ, for reasons unclear to me, insists on saying that it is intended to imply Nazi sympathies, sort of like a bureaucrat in need of Insensitivity Training who insists that “niggardly” is a racial slur. My suggestion: grow up.

Also delightful: Morning’s Minion instructing all us utterly depraved and damned souls on civil discourse.

Increasingly, there is a tendency to disparage the name and reputation, the character and life, of a person because he or she holds a different position. The identifying of some people as “bigots” and “hate mongers” simply because they hold a position contrary to another’s has unfortunately become all too commonplace today. Locally, we have witnessed rhetorical hyperbole that, I believe, long since crossed the line between reasoned discourse and irresponsible demagoguery….

Irresponsible blogs, electronic and print media stories, and pulpit and podium people-bashing rhetoric can be likened to many forms of anonymous violence. Spin and extremist language should not be embraced as the best this country is capable of achieving.

Boy, we sure don’t want to have irresponsible demagoguery at Vox Nova. Somebody might say something ridiculous like “America is the greatest force for evil in the world in the history of mankind” or start blathering about the utter depravity of every aspect of his fellow citizens and the civilization that gave him life, food, shelter, an education, a family and countless other gifts he can never repay.

Of course, when Lefties do that, it’s “prophetic”, doncha know. Righties who say ridiculous irresponsible stuff like that are just unhinged and are probably trying to get somebody to shoot a congresswoman.

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