Robert, you quote in your First Things post today a line from Hassan Nasrallah that epitomizes the mysterious and frustrating thing about dealing with this culture. He’s being blankly honest. They aren’t expecting to win, militarily; they are fighting to achieve “honor” and . . . . Continue Reading »
Beer Blessing From the Rituale Romanum (no 58) Bene+dic, Domine, creaturam istam cerevisae, quam ex adipe frumenti producere dignatus es: ut sit remedium salutare humano generi: et praesta per invocationem nominis tui sancti, ut, quicumque ex ea biberint, sanitatem corporis, et animae tutelam . . . . Continue Reading »
As an Englishman living in America, I keep a watchful and often wistful eye on events in Britain, lamenting the decline of my country as it sinks in sin and cynicism. Take, for example, Tessa Jowell , the UK government’s secretary of "Culture," whose official "Christmas" . . . . Continue Reading »
I generally agree with the comments so far emphasizing Israel’s right to defend itself, the necessity of using force against evil men, and the danger of applying “turn-the-other-cheek” logic to affairs of state. (As Robert T. Miller rightly points out, governments are not human . . . . Continue Reading »
In his posting on First Things earlier today, Ross Douthat writes "justice is rarely served by folly"¯a phrase that gives nice shape to an appealing notion: Israel’s decision to attack Hezbollah, like the U.S. decision to invade Iraq, was morally justifiable, but these wars have . . . . Continue Reading »
For years, critics of the idea of same-sex “marriage” have made the point that accepting the proposition that two persons of the same sex can marry each other entails abandoning any principled basis for understanding marriage as the union of two and only two persons. So far as I am . . . . Continue Reading »
Responding to my doubts about the prudence of recent war making (the United States in Iraq, Israel in Lebanon), Jody points out ¯ quite rightly¯that nobody can know to a precise degree of certainty whether a war will be successful before it is waged, and that blunders in the course of a . . . . Continue Reading »
It strikes me, Ross, that you’re digging yourself into terminological difficulties here , primarily because you’re trying to make the justice of the war match the chronology of your thinking about the war. A person might have thought Israel’s attack on Hezbollah was just when it . . . . Continue Reading »
I appreciate Ross’ comments about war , as well as Robert’s , that love of enemies, and being your brother’s keeper, means setting limits, and that those limits have to, at some point or another, be backed with force. I think that’s the part of the argument that people . . . . Continue Reading »
In the healthily rambunctious spirit of Michael Novak’s posting yesterday (I refer to his "Beer Blessing" in ecclesiastically resplendent Latin), I was reminded of Belloc’s immortal lines in praise of the place of ale in Western civilization. I apologize in advance for the . . . . Continue Reading »
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