Safe Haven

A local TV news person, Kevin Steincross, has been pulled off the air here in town, indefinitely. His error? He accidentally (he says) said, "Martin Luther C**n" instead of "King" on Dr. King's birthday. I could easily believe it was an honest mistake. He tripped over his words, and screwed it up. On the other hand... Black America has been forced to endure an unending litany of "honest mistakes," ranging from disrespect, to outright murder. Discrimination in housing, education, agriculture, you name it. Things are less bad perhaps in some ways, but not in others. Just yesterday or the day prior, I read of one young black woman here in Missouri who was repeatedly insulted, demeaned, and discriminated against by her own high school dance coach, and by another adult, and not only did the school administration do nothing, (except reluctantly fire said coach after some heinous, obvious text messages came to light) the parents and other daughters on the...

I have written before about this, and I urge you to consider Dr. Cross' clarifications carefully. As far as I understand the idea of virtue signaling, we are of one mind concerning the dangers of the accusation, offered without evidence. For my part, you may assume that I believe whatever I say to be the truth as I see it. I have no D.C. cocktail circuit invitation waiting; there is no one I intend to impress. I am guilty of being stirred by passion frequently, and I may cause hurt that I may come to regret. I am not at the present time blessed with a superabundance of prudence, by any means. Yet if one definition of "virtue signaling" is to hide or obfuscate one's beliefs to curry favor, I have never been guilty of it, to my knowledge. Certainly not in a huge public forum like Facebook. Some people who accuse others of "virtue signaling" just don't like being told that they are deficient in virtue. The accusation without foundation or proof is on...

Those of you who are Trekkies/Trekkers may well know of the first episode of the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. That episode is called "The Child". In it, Counselor Deanna Troi becomes impregnated without her consent by an alien life-force. The life-form takes her flesh, and the pregnancy proceeds with astonishing rapidity (a couple of days). As you might imagine, the senior officers have a debate early on about what to do. Should the pregnancy be terminated? We see Troi half tuning out the discussion, as the camera solely focuses on her. After about fifteen seconds, she boldly declares, "Captain, do whatever you feel is necessary to protect the ship and the crew, but know this: I'm going to have this baby." The captain dutifully replies, "Then it seems the discussion is over." It's the perfect female-centric sentiment for this issue, even for 1988. Let's pause a moment and think. Do we really intend to say that a baby acquire...

It makes sense to decriminalize all but the murder of children who have been born, if one accepts the premise that the pre-born are not persons. Measured against reality, this premise is false and indefensible, but the logic of abortion must go here. This regime of thought must accept an underlying utilitarianism, because anything other than utilitarianism re-opens the question of the morality of abortion itself. Understand that I do not say it's not horrible, evil, and almost certainly demonic. It is. But truthfully, we must also say that all the "moderate" pro-choice rhetoric of previous years and decades was unprincipled in the strict sense. We may indeed be rightly horrified, but for abortion's most ardent defenders, they believe they are calling the bluff of what they saw as a hopelessly contradictory position. For my part, I don't mind arguments meant to foster consensus for abortion restrictions based upon majority opinion, such as, "Two-thirds of ...

I think it's weird that someone has to say this. On the other hand, there are some perils of excessive emotion, sentimentality, or whatever other negatives you can think of. To be emotionally healthy in one respect is to feel the right things at the right times. We fear a lot of things in expressing emotion as men. We fear being seen as weak, or unmanly. Not tough enough, not strong enough. There is something to admire about stoics, who can set feelings aside to especially accomplish some great task. I have to wonder however if we have glorified stoicism to the detriment of ourselves. One thing that's happened in our culture the last several generations is that we've transmitted these messages: Boys don't cry, girls do. Boys climb and build and break stuff, girls wear dresses, and have tea parties. This isn't necessarily bad; we are what we are. The counter-message of this culture, that biological sex has nothing to do with gender, is equally false. Boys and gir...

[Note: This is a blog post, but do not be surprised to see this in print at some point in the future.] No, this will not be graphic. But I got your attention, didn't I? I had a conversion experience to Jesus at 18, but truthfully, my life up until 21 (my baptism) was pretty sketchy. I drank too much, swore like a sailor, [So, not everything has changed!--ed.] and generally wouldn't have been convicted by the Romans, the Herodians, or anyone else for being a Christian. The only thing I knew about sex in those teen years was that I wanted to have it. Some dudes in the neighborhood had actually schemed to have me lose my virginity when I was 15. She was willing, but I got scared. Then she got mad, which struck me as weird. Then again, there's your "toxic masculinity" right there: We can't admit that we're scared, and young, and this is probably wrong. And think of how broken this is. That young woman--God bless her--had learned the lesson that if you didn...

I appreciate the admonitions from Dr. Cross to reject the "package deal" thinking of the two parties. We should be able to see that numerous assaults on the dignity of the human person are present in the ideology of American politics. I say "ideology" because it's really one: radical individualist amoral expressivism. "My rights, my needs, my wants are all that exist. I have no obligation to others, except that which I take on myself. The government exists to foster my expression of these rights, and the identity I choose to express as a result." It's not Right or Left, if you think about it. It's everywhere. The GOP talks a good game about rights, but in fact, they're individualists, too. They often say rights come from God, but you might get the impression that this god's name is "Market." They aren't really discussing the balance between free exchange as a means of managing scarcity, and the dignity of every person. In ...