Live-blogging Don Sensing
Donald Sensing is live on the O’Reilly Factor. The topic is the unresolved problem of evil. Don has used the words “eschatological” and “root causes” in the same paragraph– impressive rhetoric.
San Francisco Theology prof Sally Vance-Trembath, Don’s “balance” from the Religious Left, is busy side-stepping the hard facts of murder — by Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler, and Saddam. I’m sorry, professor, defeating Hitler required combat. This is an old line but an important truth: American soldiers liberated Nazi concentration camps, not pacifists. Standing up to Stalin and Stalinism meant prosecuting the Cold War, and it went hot in Korea, Vietnam, and a host of smaller wars. This sounds harsh, but I get the impression her idea of “peace” is when the United States does nothing except ship food and medicine to mass killers. (I wonder if her theology applies when the US is led by a liberal Democrat president? If that’s a cheap shot, it’s one borne of Bosnia and Kosovo, actions I supported. If Vance-Trembath addressed those interventions, I missed it.)
Don takes the Vatican’s theological pronouncements on war and peace issues very seriously, but he does not see a lot of strategic security understanding exhibited by Rome. Paraphrasing Don: “In facing violence the issue for the Christian is not whether violence exists, for the violence is already there. It’s whether responding to violence with violence produces a better or worse situation. We’re not dealing with an enemy who has formulated its strategy out of a Christian theology. John Paul II was trying to build bridges, but the other side lacked a (Christian, non-violent) abutment.” Nice job.
UPDATE: A link to Rev Sensing’s post ” John Paul II and Resisting Terrorism.”
UPDATE 2: Commenter 23 quotes Orwell– a very a propos quote:
?Nourished for hundreds of years on a literature in which Right invariably triumphs in the last chapter, we believe half-instinctively that evil always defeats itself in the long run. Pacifism, for instance, is founded largely on this belief. Don?t resist evil, and it will somehow destroy itself. But why should it? What evidence is there that it does? And what instance is there of a modern industrialized state collapsing unless conquered from the outside by military force??
Bush is Hitler!
Comment by President Bush — 4/4/2005 @ 7:44 pm
Austin, thank you for your kind words and the link!
Comment by Donald Sensing — 4/4/2005 @ 7:49 pm
I am canadian and I gotta say that the more I read the news about things and their going on in your world I’d have to summarize it this way. your second ammendment “the right to bear arms is as stupid a law as one that would permit the dog breed Rottweiller to be the only breed allowed to run leash free in urban centres. not only does that ammendment put your own innocent women men and children in harms way at any given momnet; it has an impact on our own safety here in Canada since 90% of illicit guns in the hands of criminals come from your country. jacques love you folks but your constitution needs some serious study
Comment by Wind Walker — 4/4/2005 @ 8:27 pm
Professor Sally might consider that along with clothing the naked and feeding the hungry, arming the innocents would go a long way toward alleviating the misery one finds in parts of the world. Three years ago Dutch prime minister, Wim Kok, and his cabinet resigned in response to a 7,600-page report that faulted the Dutch government and army for sending a flimsy posse of some 400 Dutch peacekeepers on an “ill-conceived and virtually impossible” mission to protect Bosnian Muslims in the U.N. safe area of Srebrenica. In July 1995 Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic presided over a 10-day killing spree, systematically executing every Muslim man and boy he could lay his hands on — more than 7,000 in all. Kok, who was prime minister at the time of the massacre, reportedly burst into tears when he read the report that neither the Dutch soldiers on the ground nor the NATO bombers in the air did much at all. At least he had the honor to step down. It rather reminds me of Rwanda, where the UN failed. But the then director of U.N. peacekeeping forces, a guy by the name of Kofi Annan, got promoted. Sensing should have worn the T-shirt that reads “Peace through superior firepower.”
Comment by The Kid — 4/4/2005 @ 8:41 pm
We’ll keep our guns thank you
I’ve had the unfortunate experience of learning that a friend’s daughter was mugged at gun point no less than 20 feet from the entrance of a popular mall (The Parks) in Arlington, Tx. The idea that simply outlawing guns would end this sort of behavior from the trash of America’s society is ridiculous in my opinion. Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t the UK have a terrible gun control problem which is further compounded by the fact that their police don’t carry firearms? Even if it WOULD curb this behavior its just too late to even THINK about attempting to round up every gun in America. Not only would in be completely ineffective, it would probably spark a civil war (agree with me or not… but I think that’s the day I renounce my government instead of just calling it an inefficient, beaurocratic waste of the tax payers dollars, military exempted) For every criminal gun owner in America there exists thousands upon thousands of legitimate, law-abiding, and responsible gun owners. Get over it. Its just not going to change. Canada has its own set of problems. Worry about them.
Comment by James R Miller — 4/4/2005 @ 8:55 pm
Jacques – Our constitution has a second amendment to back up the first one, the one which guarantees free speech and religious freedom. We don’t have publication bans or hate speech laws where one can be fined or imprisoned for saying something disgusting about another’s race, religion, creed, sexual preferences, or looks. You can be rude or arrogant or even completely correct in what you say down here and not fear retaliation from the constabulary. As a bonus (?), there are more cable channels and periodicals available down here too because our government doesn’t block them. And I love you folks and recommend that you give our constitution some serious study.
Comment by The Kid — 4/4/2005 @ 8:59 pm
heh, I bet most of the cool stuff in canada comes from the states. I bet most of the discussion about corruption in canada’s government come from the states. I love canada, it is bizarre that such a good people would tolerate such a lack of freedom. I do note that the guns sold illegaly there obviously were not sold by people abiding by our laws anyway.
Comment by Dustin — 4/4/2005 @ 9:25 pm
Jacques — The US constitution acknowledges a government of, by, and for the people. The constitution’s role is to limit the government - not the people. The idea was and is - individual freedom and liberty. The overall death rate in the US is not statistically greater than that of countries with significant controls on individual freedoms - and in some cases it is lower. The UK has 10.2 deaths per 1000 people, while the US is about 8.3 per 1000. For the most part, considering there are hundreds of millions of Americans that do not kill someone with a gun every year, we handle our freedom quite well thank you very much. Freedom is not a guarantee of safety, nor should it be. If you want to be completely safe from your fellow citizens, disavow freedom and live in a totalitarian country. Of course you just might have to worry about the goverment - at which time a second amendment would come in quite handy.
Comment by F15C — 4/4/2005 @ 10:37 pm
Jaques - As a owner of a rottweiler with competitive obedience titles and a therapy certification (I take her into nursing homes and hospitals), the generalizations in your statement are quite misinformed. Bad dog behavior is the result of irresponsible or unsavory people. Likewise, crimes are committed not by weapons but by criminals who carry them. In both cases, the breed doesn’t matter, nor does the type of weapon; be it a gun, a knife, a baseball bat, whatever. Banning a breed makes the unsavory people pick another breed, or mix of breeds. Banning guns just makes the guns more expensive. It doesn’t change the behavior. As a gun dealer in DC once said about the gun ban in DC, “It just makes the guns more expensive, so now I have to mug you first before I can buy the gun.”
Comment by pftoz — 4/5/2005 @ 12:02 am
Canada doesn’t value individual freedom and liberty as much as the US. The US doesn’t value communal government and stability as much as Canada. I mean, quite frankly, that’s why Canada _EXISTS_: They were quite happy to be taxed without representation and remain loyal to the British during the Revolution. It’s just a different sort of culture, of mindset. Besides, Canadians have guns, particularly in the west (where there is more respect for individual liberty and freedom, since they were colonized after the main Loyalist/American split). They just have to register them so when the totalitarians take over it’ll be nice and easy to round them up.
Comment by Otis Wildflower — 4/5/2005 @ 1:45 am
Jacques: Just an FYI - the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees the people the First and the Third through the Twenty-Seventh Amendments. There has been more people slaughtered in history by rouge governments than by criminals or outlaws. Thanks to communism and people like Stalin, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, etc, etc. 100’s of million of people have been slaughtered. When Hitler came to power in Germany, the first thing he did was make all the Germans registered their guns. The second thing he did was confiscate all of them and the third thing he did was genocide millions of people.
Comment by Marianne — 4/5/2005 @ 7:02 am
Can anyone verify that Canada even had a constitution until sometime in the 1960s ?
Comment by Ben Ellison — 4/5/2005 @ 7:44 am
Jacques, No offense (well actually some offense), but the U.S. taking advice on running a country from Cananda would kind of be like my taking advice from my 5-year-old on finance. Fun and cute in a child-like way, but also not really that well thought out. Our cultural history is built on the premise of allowing individuals the freedom to venture after “the pursuit of happiness” predicated on a restricted government; like not allowing the government to say whether I have a gun (which I don’t). The Canadian cultural history is built on the governance of Mother England (and now one could say Mother America; a history that was driven by authoritian rule. Don’t delude yourself, our current positions in the world are the direct outcomes of these cultural and governmental differences. That’s why when there is genocide somewhere in the world the U.S. has to answer; we are to blame if we don’t stop it and too aggressive if we stop it. Canada’s take on these matters is nearly as important as mine, again fun and cute but not terribly important. The main difference is Canada has the ability to make political hay by voicing its opinion. Thanks for the input, no run a long a play
Comment by Zeke — 4/5/2005 @ 7:58 am
Windy Jacques is just a troll. It’s a shame we’ve no hope of being enlightened with his simplisme explanation for these annoying facts from Ed Friedlander, M.D.’s pathology notes on Violence, Accidents, Poisoning:
/AHM
Comment by Alan H. Martin — 4/5/2005 @ 8:11 am
Canada is not a nation. It is simply an address.
Comment by Tim — 4/5/2005 @ 9:03 am
Prof. Sally wasn’t quite that bad, admitting WW II might have been okay. However, she ended the piece by suggesting things might turn out worse if violence is used than if it isn’t. We are allowed, as I recall her saying, to use our God-given prudential judgment to try to figure that out, which seems only reasonable. My guess is that she is reluctantly, very reluctantly, a Just War Catholic. Given that, she did the best she could to stay on this planet.
Comment by Richard Aubrey — 4/5/2005 @ 9:50 am
In its formative years, the young United States made an abortive attempt or two to conquer Canada, but, regrettably, were unsuccessful. The framers of our constitution had the foresight to take the long view and craft a document guaranteeing the right to keep and bear a colt 45 python that could drop an elephant. Knowing this was way overkill (heh), they figured the criminal element would eventually work their way to Canada and slaughter the uncooperative Canadians the way the pacifist Canadians club to death baby seals. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold.
Comment by digitalbrownshirt — 4/5/2005 @ 9:58 am
This was the first I’d heard of Donald Sensing but, having taken the time to checkout his website, I’ll be reading him more. As a Catholic I was offended by the other side of the debate as well - as far as I could tell there was no one on the program who accurately explained or defended the Church’s actual position on just war. Including Bill O’Reilly who calls himself a Catholic, but appears to be ignorant of the most basic tenets of the faith. Prof Sally’s description of “just war” as “distributing the world’s goods” was just ridiculous. I’ve got more on my blog, but suffice to say that Bill O’Reilly lost me as a viewer a long time ago.
Comment by Wayne — 4/5/2005 @ 11:49 am
Jacques, I am a Canadian. You are the sort of Canadian who foists a kleptocratic sleazy Liberal government on Canada. … Once upon a time, Canada had the equivalent of the Second Amendment. And no-one thought that it was wrong that the people should keep and bear arms. It was part of the Bill of Rights Act of 1688 that the people were so entitled. That Act was (well its obvious that you don’t give a crap about history anyway, so I won’t bother to say more about that, except to point out that the authors of the American Bill of Rights, the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution) knew all about that Act. And to Ben Ellison: Canada’s independent constitution started with the British North America Act of 1867, but prior to that (eg. back to the late 1600’s, England’s Constitution was Canada’s constitution, until the 1830’s (which unfortunately meant that Canada, like the other colonies, was effectively the private fiefdom of what is now the Foreign Office: although the residents enjoyed all of the rights of English citizens (trials, etc.) they had no rights of representation in Parliament…. No taxation without representation… sound familiar? If you really want to know the background of the American constitution, you could do worse than reading Maitland, The Constitutional History of England especially wrt how Mary (and her husband William) succeeded her father (James II), and how the Hanoverian Elector George I ended up succeeding Mary’s sister Anne in 1715… Geoff Geoff NOTE FROM EDITOR: Please Geoff, let’s not call names on this site. Otherwise, fine comment, and thank you.
Comment by R. G. Newbury — 4/5/2005 @ 3:19 pm
Jacques, Further comment: Yes, the American Constitution does require some study. By Canadians. Our Constitution, together with the Charter of Rights is a fuzzy bundle of feel-good mush, constantly being manipulated to produce results which ‘feel right’ not results which ‘are correct’. Want to know how I know? Just try to be a priest preaching that homosexual ‘marriage’ is a sin.. Gee, that’s a human rights act breach.. I prefer the US First Amendment, not the Charter of Rights plus or minus a ‘reasonable restriction prescribed by law’ modified by an Oakes test. And if, as I suspect, you do not know what I am talking about, you should keep your mouth shut and listen for a while. Geoff
Comment by R. G. Newbury — 4/5/2005 @ 3:25 pm
I’ve always liked George Orwell’s comments on the subject, in ‘Looking Back on the Spanish [Civil] War’. (Those writings get a lot less attention than 1984 or Animal Farm, both of which are frequently misapplied by the left in efforts to trash the current administration.) “Nourished for hundreds of years on a literature in which Right invariably triumphs in the last chapter, we believe half-instinctively that evil always defeats itself in the long run. Pacifism, for instance, is founded largely on this belief. Don’t resist evil, and it will somehow destroy itself. But why should it? What evidence is there that it does? And what instance is there of a modern industrialized state collapsing unless conquered from the outside by military force?”
Comment by Kobayashi Maru — 4/5/2005 @ 4:47 pm
Re: Comment #23 & Orwell’s question: “What instance is there of a modern industrialized state collapsing unless conquered from the outside by military force?” The answer is the Soviet Union. What prize do I get for the right answer? The Pollyannas are correct - evil does eventually defeat itself. Regimes such as found in North Korea, Iraq under Saddam, etc. cannot sustain themselves forever - eventually their “internal contradictions” become overwhelming or the people simply starve to death. The problem is that the collapse takes a long time, sometimes many decades, and there is much human suffering and death in the interim. All wars involve suffering and death, but the amount of suffering may be much less in a short bloody war than over the course of decades of totalitarian rule (nuclear weapons shift the balance back in the other direction, which is why having them is such a desired goal of totalitarians). But someone else’s suffering is not our suffering, especially when that suffering goes on beyond the reach of Western TV cameras. And it is human nature to focus on mass casualties (an airplane crash, soldiers killed in a battle) rather than small but repeated events (thousands of car accidents that together kill hundreds of times more than die in the air, children and old people silently starving in hundreds of N. Korean villages).
Comment by Jack Denver — 4/6/2005 @ 11:15 am
Sorry, Mr. Denver, the Soviet Union collapsed because of the military buildup of the Regan Administration. Just because the guns were not used doesn’t mean they didn’t cause the collapse. The Soviets depended on military superiority to keep their whole system afloat. When their moribund command economy was no longer able to support that military they tried a little bit of economic freedom. That was their death knell, a little bit free is like a little bit pregnant. The next couple of decades is going to be a very interesting time for our northern neighbor. Canada seems to be trying the mirror image of what the Soviets tried, they are getting a little bit totalitarian. I suspect that too will be like just a little pregnant.
Comment by Peter — 4/9/2005 @ 10:58 am