(Display Name not set)February 2007 Archives

If you want to see an apparently drunk Paris Hilton use the N-word, go here, and fast-forward to the 2:35 mark. Knock yourself out. My first thought was: You are such a loser, wasting any time at all watching this moron make an ass of herself yet again. My second thought: What an ass Paris Hilton is.

My third thought: What a frightening world we're creating with this YouTube home video thing. It's a world without privacy, a world in which you have to constantly watch your back and stay in full control, because you never know who might have a camera on you, and how your moral crimes and misdemeanors will be up on the Internet for all the world to see, forever. I shudder to think about the stupid things I said when I was in my early twenties and would go to parties and drink too much. Nothing like Paris Hilton's racist jibe, but I'm quite sure there were plenty of things that would humiliate me if they were broadcast on YouTube. And even today, is there anybody who wouldn't be terrified to think that casual conversation they might be having at a social gathering might be being recorded by a bystander, and placed on YouTube? It wouldn't have to be anything bigoted, really, just a frank observation of the kind that people make all the time, with the reasonable expectation that they're speaking privately. Or even things that aren't even offensive, just embarrassing. I felt bad for poor Hillary Clinton the other day, when her mumbled off-key rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" was recorded and blasted out on YouTube.

In his novel "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," Milan Kundera has a passage in which he contrasts notions of privacy and authenticity. I haven't read the book in at least a decade, and I don't have it near to hand, but as I recall, the character Franz believes that people should live transparently, that it's the only way to live honestly. His lover Sabina, a refugee from communism, believes that only by maintaining a strict barrier between the public self and the private self can people create a space for themselves in which they can live honestly. YouTube-ism does a smash-and-grab on the realm of privacy.

We all thought Big Brother, who kept an eye on us all the time, whose gaze was ever-present, would be the government. Turns out it's potentially everybody you meet.

In a long thread below, readers have been discussing a Catholic priest's rebuke to Nancy Pelosi for presenting herself as a Catholic in good faith while using her power as one of the most powerful legislators in the country to uphold abortion rights. Naturally some readers said that this is an example of the Church trying to impose Catholic values on America. I asked what these readers would call it when Archbishop Rummel of New Orleans excommunicated Louisiana Catholic politicians who tried to use state law to stop him from desegregating the parochial schools? Point being, as Erin Manning expanded on in her combox entry (reproduced below), it's not that the left minds Catholic beliefs influencing public policy; it's that they believe the Church should keep its hands off the left-liberal holy of holies, which is to say, the Sexual Revolution. Here's Erin:

I have some questions for those posters on this thread who think of themselves as liberals:

When I, as a Catholic, tell you that I don't support the death penalty in most cases, do you have a problem with that?

When I, as a Catholic, admit that I've had serious reservations about the war in Iraq from the very beginning, do you think I'm just trying to impose the Vatican's policies on America?

When I, as a Catholic, assert that I am called to be a good steward of the gifts of the earth, meaning that I oppose rampant pollution and wanton destruction of the environment, do you think I'm working toward a theocracy?

When I, as a Catholic, state that any solution to the problem of illegal immigration, while it must be just, should also be merciful to those already here to the extent this is feasible, do you question my attempt to impose my religious beliefs on other Americans?

I suspect the answers to these questions will be in the negative. I think most of you don't really mind most of my Catholic values. But when I apply those same values to the issue of abortion, you want no part of them.

Why is that? Why are my Catholic values just fine, as long as they line up with the Democratic Party platform? Why do you accept my concern for the poor, the oppressed, the victims of war and violence--but not the victims of the violence of abortion? Why is that the one non-negotiable?

I suspect that it's because it clashes with the one liberal principle on which there is no compromise: Sex without Consequences.

Robert Novak writes today about GOP pollster/strategist Frank Luntz, who is so sick of Washington that he's setting out for the West Coast before what is likely to be a Republican collapse in 2008. Excerpt:

Pollster Frank Luntz for the past decade has issued warnings to his fellow Republicans that they did not want to hear, but never has he been so out of touch with them as he is today. "The Republican message machine is a skeleton of its former self," Luntz told me. "These people have no idea how the American people react to them."

Luntz sees a disconnect between Republicans and voters that projects a grim future for the party. That contradicts what House and Senate Republicans are saying to each other in closed party conferences. While Luntz views 2006 election defeats as ominous portents, the party's congressional leaders see only transitory setbacks and now dwell on bashing Democrats.

[snip]

Indeed, Luntz is not alone in his gloomy prognosis. Republican pollster Bill McInturff believes his party "underestimates" the 2006 outcome and thinks the outlook for Republicans is as dangerous as it has been "at any time since Watergate." Sen. Jim DeMint, a reform Republican from South Carolina, says the newly minority Republicans are like the Israelites yearning for the fleshpots of Egypt. The question is whether the party will heed warnings or follow the route of its leaders, who mainly want to trash Nancy Pelosi.

My friend and former boss Rich Lowry said the following over the weekend (video here):

In recent years, we have watched a Republican Congress disgrace itself with its association with scandal, with its willful lack of fiscal discipline, and with its utter disinterest [sic] in the reforms that America needs. And at the same time, we watched a Republican President abet or passively accept the excesses of his Congressional party and, more importantly, fail to take the steps - until perhaps now - fail to take the steps to win a major foreign war ...

So we need to figure out a way how to make conservative policy and principles appealing and relevant again to the American public, and we need to do it together.

Well, yeah, but as Andrew Sullivan "What do you mean we? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall that National Review, nor conservative journalists in general, nor especially Your Faithful Servant -- mea maxima culpa -- rising in any serious and sustained way to stand up to this administration or Congressional Republicans as they did violation to conservative principles back when they were riding high in power. (Here's a notable exception.) Personally, I fell off the Bush wagon with Harriet Miers and Katrina, but until then, I wrote and thought as if the president could do no wrong. And I think you'd have to look pretty hard to find much criticism in my written work of the Republican Congress. I might be mistaken, but I'd guess that's the record of most, though not all, journalists and commentators who identify themselves as conservatives.

Rich is certainly right about the way forward, but I strongly believe that if we conservatives are going to "figure out a way how to make conservative policy and principles appealing and relevant again to the American public," then we are going to have to do some pretty serious soul-searching about how and why we went so seriously off the rails. Now that the president and the GOP in Congress are on the losing side, we can't credibly claim that they betrayed conservatism and us -- as if we had nothing to do with it. Or so it seems to me.

Have you seen the website that allows you to post videos of yourself denying the Holy Spirit, which according to the Christian Bible is the unforgivable sin? There was a Beliefnet column about it in Newsweek last month, but I didn't actually see the site until this past weekend. I was so shocked and saddened by it that I didn't want to link. It was really that disturbing to me, especially the video of the sweet-faced teenage girl risking hell so chirpily. This, from the "Blasphemy Challenge" site:

INSTRUCTIONS:

You may damn yourself to Hell however you would like, but somewhere in your video you must say this phrase: "I deny the Holy Spirit."

Why? Because, according to Mark 3:29 in the Holy Bible, "Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin." Jesus will forgive you for just about anything, but he won't forgive you for denying the existence of the Holy Spirit. Ever. This is a one-way road you're taking here.

Of course the people who upload home videos of themselves blaspheming don't for one second believe they're going to hell, or that there is any such thing as hell or the Holy Spirit. They're just trying to be shocking. And they are. Lord, have mercy, for they know not what they do.

UPDATE: A reader writes:

I watched a few of the videos from the "Blasphemy Challenge" Web site you wrote about on your blog.

What struck me was the number of people who said they were raised Christians. Though many of them claim the reasons they've become atheists are purely rational, many of their non-verbals, their tones of voice, their body postures, suggest there's a lot more going on.

A lot of them seem really mad at their families. What is going on when so many ostensibly Christian families turn out people who behave so glibly about the possibility of damnation?

My guess is lots of these people came from families where Christ-talk (not necessarily Christianity) was woven into what was at times a pretty abusive situation either at home or at church. More than a few them probably have lots to be made about.

As a new parent, these videos serve, more than anything, as a reminder of how much louder actions speak than words, and that the most important part of parenting is lending credibility to the gospel for those who watch us most closely.

Seems that Gavin Newsom, the pretty-boy mayor of San Francisco, was bonking the fabulously named Ruby Rippey-Tourk, who is the wife of his old friend and campaign manager. From the San Fran Chronicle story:Alex Tourk "confronted the mayor on the...