Teen Suicide Epidemic Puzzles the Netherlands: It Shouldn’t

From Wesley Smith email:

This is an excellent column by Colleen Carroll Campbell, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC). Apparently, a teenage “suicide craze” has hit the Netherlands and the government wonders why. But Campbell knows. The Dutch do “not seem to grasp the obvious,” she writes. “The law is a teacher and Dutch law has taught its young citizens well. The radical and sweeping embrace of suicide as an answer to the problem of human suffering, and the elevation of euthanasia to the status of a basic human right, has convinced Dutch teenagers that suicide must be a noble act, the kind that wins plaudits, prestige, and even legal protection.

[Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

The Taxman Goes to Church

Wall Street Opinion Journal August 25, 2006

Why is the IRS in the business of reading sermons?

When the Rev. George F. Regas delivered a sermon opposing the Iraq War in All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, Calif., two days before the 2004 presidential election, he expected to upset a few members of the congregation. Instead, he seems to have upset the Internal Revenue Service, which began an investigation that is still under way. All Saints isn’t the only church to fall out of the good graces of the IRS.

[Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Suicide of the West

National Review Online Melanie Phillips August 18, 2006

When America was attacked on 9/11 by Islamic jihadis, it was said that this was a doomsday wake-up call for the West. Within a short while, however, much of Britain decided that 9/11 was actually America’s fault and that Israel was at the core of the problem.

When Britain was attacked last year on 7/7 by Islamic jihadis, it was said that this was a doomsday wake-up call for the U.K. Within a short time, however, much of the country decided that it was Britain’s own fault on account of “Islamophobia” and the war in Iraq.

Now 25 British Muslims have been arrested for an alleged plot to blast up to ten trans-Atlantic airliners out of the sky. This vast alleged conspiracy, thought to encompass many dozens more plotters from Germany to Pakistan, bears all the monstrous hallmarks of a classic al Qaeda operation. In addition, security sources say that dozens more al Qaeda-linked terrorist cells are at large in the U.K.

From the evidence of one opinion poll this week, the British public has at least woken up to the fact that we are in the throes of a world war. Not so, however, the British establishment and chattering classes. Denial is no longer a river in Egypt but a British pathology.
More…

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

The Seven Sacraments of Secularism

New Advent Bishop Thomas Doran August 17, 2006

I want to touch on this matter before we get too close to the November madness. As human beings, as citizens of a “first world country,” as Americans, and as Catholics, most importantly, we have to take count of the circumstances in which we live. We know that the only creatures of God that outlast time are those created having intellect and will. All other things, with the passage of time, break up or break down.

Many of the issues that confront us are serious, and we know by now that the political parties in our country are at loggerheads as to how to solve them. We know, for instance, that adherents of one political party would place us squarely on the road to suicide as a people.

The seven “sacraments” of their secular culture are abortion, buggery, contraception, divorce, euthanasia, feminism of the radical type, and genetic experimentation and mutilation. These things they unabashedly espouse, profess and promote. Their continuance in public office is a clear and present danger to our survival as a nation.
More…

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Why Liberals Refuse to Admit the Reality of Islamic Fascism

Human Events Online Rabbi Aryeh Spero August 16, 2006

Blind animus for President Bush is insufficient to explain liberals’ refusal to acknowledge the reality of a cruel and imperialistic jihadist push worldwide. Nor is it simply liberals’ unwillingness to work with Republicans and conservatives that render them incapable of serious and active participation in the War on Terror. It is that by so doing, liberals would be forced to upend the world view and social philosophies that have animated them since the early ’60s.

[Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Going Beyond Same-Sex Marriage

Ed. Speaking of the moral decline of our culture…

American Spectator Mark Tooley August 15, 2006

WASHINGTON — Advocates of same-sex unions of course argue that they only want equality for homosexual persons. Conservative skeptics surmise that the campaign to redefine marriage is about considerably more than simply legal recognition for same-sex couples. In fact, they suspect, the ultimate goal is to set aside marriage altogether as a repressive and patriarchal anachronism. In its absence, all consensual sexual arrangements will be legitimate.

[Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail

Gore isn’t quite as green as he’s led the world to believe

USA Today Rusty Kennedy August 10, 2006

Al Gore has spoken: The world must embrace a “carbon-neutral lifestyle.” To do otherwise, he says, will result in a cataclysmic catastrophe. “Humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb,” warns the website for his film, An Inconvenient Truth. “We have just 10 years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire planet into a tailspin.”

[Read more…]

Facebooktwitterredditpinterestlinkedintumblrmail