Veterans day 2019

The First World War nominally ended on November 11th. First celebrated as Armistice Day, it became Remembrance Day for the Commonwealth to honor those who had fallen. In the United States where Memorial Day already commemorated those who died defending our country it became Veteran’s Day to also honor the veterans who came home.

Lord Grey, the British Foreign Minister described the beginning of the war as "The lamps are going out in Europe". The immediate costs in dead and treasure of this ultimately pointless war were horrific. The horror of the trenches scarred the psyche of the Western world. The resulting despair allowed political movements to come to influence and power, which have changed for the worse Western culture, the holocaust and gulag being just the tip of the iceburg. Too many of the lamps are still out.

It is a hard truth that this is an especially appropriate day to remember our veterans living and dead. One of the very few bright spots were the solders and sailors whose dedication, loyalty, and valor shamed the politicians and “statesman” who sent them to war. They should always be remembered.

But also we need to remember that in other wars it was this same dedication and valor that bought our Freedom and Liberty, certainly against the forces released as a result of the First World War.

Enjoy the holiday, but remember to think of and pray for those who served.

In 2007 David Duff objected to the war being called pointless. El Jefe Maximo responded. Their interesting and informative discussion is a must read.

Related posts:

Le Soldat Americain dans Afgaistan

Soldiers are People, too

The Last of the Light Brigade.

The Bivouac of the Dead

Roy Nickerson

11/11/1918 (From Kingdom of Chaos)

Rembrance Day - where They Fell HT:David Duff

Requiem for Tommy HT: Anna Racoon

Labels:WWI and Veterans Day posts

Cardinal von Galen -- "Jesus Weeps for Us"

Seventy years ago today, August 4th 1941, Clemens August von Galen, the Catholic Bishop of Munster, delivered his famous sermon against Acton T4 the Nazi euthanasia program. This was the last stage of a Eugenics program to rid Germany of persons with genetic disabilities. It set the stage for the large scale exterminations of able bodied persons because of their ethnic, notional, or religious background. The publicity forced the Nazi's to officially stop the program though it continued unofficially. Three of his priests were killed in retaliation and von Galen was only spared to prevent him from becoming a martyr.

I previously posted the main part of this sermon. Click here











But a sermon is meant to heard not read. A representation of the sermon

Jesus Weeps for Us

Starts at 4 mintes.

And continues here
and here
and here

Change a few names for context and this sermon could (and should) be delivered in many places today.

Who Goes Nazi

Elizabeth Scilia, of First Things brings us an article by Dorothy Thompson from the August 1941 edition of Harpers Magazine. asking

“Who Goes Nazi?”

Certainly the names are different these days but there are still people who will “go Nazi” if the chance happens though it I possible they will be the loudest denouncing Nazism. .


It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times–in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis.

snip

Sometimes I think there are direct biological factors at work–a type of education, feeding, and physical training which has produced a new kind of human being with an imbalance in his nature. He has been fed vitamins and filled with energies that are beyond the capacity of his intellect to discipline. He has been treated to forms of education which have released him from inhibitions. His body is vigorous. His mind is childish. His soul has been almost completely neglected.

At any rate, let us look round the room.

The gentleman standing beside the fireplace with an almost untouched glass of whiskey beside him on the mantelpiece is Mr. A, a descendant of one of the great American families. There has never been an American Blue Book without several persons of his surname in it. He is poor and earns his living as an editor. He has had a classical education, has a sound and cultivated taste in literature, painting, and music; has not a touch of snobbery in him; is full of humor, courtesy, and wit. He was a lieutenant in the World War, is a Republican in politics, but voted twice for Roosevelt, last time for Willkie. He is modest, not particularly brilliant, a staunch friend, and a man who greatly enjoys the company of pretty and witty women. His wife, whom he adored, is dead, and he will never remarry.

He has never attracted any attention because of outstanding bravery. But I will put my hand in the fire that nothing on earth could ever make him a Nazi. He would greatly dislike fighting them, but they could never convert him…. Why not?

Beside him stands Mr. B, a man of his own class, graduate of the same preparatory school and university, rich, a sportsman, owner of a famous racing stable, vice-president of a bank, married to a well-known society belle. He is a good fellow and extremely popular. But if America were going Nazi he would certainly join up, and early. Why?… Why the one and not the other?


Indeed why? Read the whole article. The names are different but is today the same old story?




From Wikipedia.
Dorothy Thompson (9 July 1893, Lancaster, New York – January 30, 1961, Portugal) was an American journalist and radio broadcaster, who was noted by Time magazine in 1939 as one of the two most influential women in America, the other being Eleanor Roosevelt.

She is notable as the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany (in 1934), one of the few women news commentators on radio during the 1930s, and as the inspiration for Katharine Hepburn's character "Tess Harding" in the film Woman of the Year (1942).



Related: Who is a Fascist?

Blessed Clemens August Cardinal von Galen

On August 4th 1941 Clemens August von Galen, the Catholic Bishop of Munster, delivered his famous sermon against Acton T4 the Nazi euthanasia program. This was the last stage of a Eugenics program to rid Germany of persons with genetic disabilities. It set the stage for the large scale exterminations of able bodied persons because of their ethnic, notional, or religious background. The publicity forced the Nazi's to officially stop the program though it continued unofficially. Three of his priests were killed in retaliation and von Galen was only spared to prevent him from becoming a martyr.


The Gospel and Sermon of Bishop von Galen on euthanasia delivered August 4, 1941.

The Gospel for the Ninth Sunday, after Pentecost. Luke 19:41-47

And when he drew near and saw the city he wept over it, saying, "Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side, and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation."

And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, 46 saying to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be a house of prayer'; but you have made it a den of robbers."

And he was teaching daily in the temple. The chief priests and the scribes and the principal men of the people sought to destroy him.


The Sermon.

Excerpts

In today's Gospel we read of an unusual event: Our Saviour weeps. Yes, the Son of God sheds tears. Whoever weeps must be either in physical or mental anguish. At that time Jesus was not yet in bodily pain and yet here were tears. What depth of torment He must have felt in His heart and Soul, if He, the bravest of men, was reduced to tears. Why is He weeping?

snip

My faithful brethren! In the pastoral letter drawn up by the German Hierarchy on the 26th of June at Fulda and appointed to be read in all the churches of Germany on July 6th, it is expressly stated: ‘According to Catholic doctrine, there are doubtless commandments which are not binding when obedience to them requires too great a sacrifice, but there are sacred obligations of conscience from which no one can release us and which we must fulfill even at the price of death itself. At no time, and under no circumstances whatsoever, may a man, except in war and in lawful defence, take the life of an innocent person.’

snip

For the past several months it has been reported that, on instructions from Berlin, patients who have been suffering for a long time from apparently incurable diseases have been forcibly removed from homes and clinics. Their relatives are later informed that the patient has died, that the body has been cremated and that the ashes may be claimed. There is little doubt that these numerous cases of unexpected death in the case of the insane are not natural, but often deliberately caused, and result from the belief that it is lawful to take away life which is unworthy of being lived.

This ghastly doctrine tries to justify the murder of blameless men and would seek to give legal sanction to the forcible killing of invalids, cripples, the incurable and the incapacitated. I have discovered that the practice here in Westphalia is to compile lists of such patients who are to be removed elsewhere as ‘unproductive citizens,’ and after a period of time put to death. This very week, the first group of these patients has been sent from the clinic of Marienthal, near Münster.

Paragraph 21 of the Code of Penal Law is still valid. It states that anyone who deliberately kills a man by a premeditated act will be executed as a murderer. It is in order to protect the murderers of these poor invalids—members of our own families—against this legal punishment, that the patients who are to be killed are transferred from their domicile to some distant institution. Some sort of disease is then given as the cause of death, but as cremation immediately follows it is impossible for either their families or the regular police to ascertain whether death was from natural causes.

snip

No, these are not the reasons why these unfortunate patients are to be put to death. It is simply because that according to some doctor, or because of the decision of some committee, they have no longer a right to live because they are ‘unproductive citizens’. The opinion is that since they can no longer make money, they are obsolete machines, comparable with some old cow that can no longer give milk or some horse that has gone lame. What is the lot of unproductive machines and cattle? They are destroyed. I have no intention of stretching this comparison further. The case here is not one of machines or cattle which exist to serve men and furnish them with plenty. They may be legitimately done away with when they can no longer fulfil their function. Here we are dealing with human beings, with our neighbours, brothers and sisters, the poor and invalids . . . unproductive—perhaps! But have they, therefore, lost the right to live? Have you or I the right to exist only because we are ‘productive’? If the principle is established that unproductive human beings may be killed, then God help all those invalids who, in order to produce wealth, have given their all and sacrificed their strength of body. If all unproductive people may thus be violently eliminated, then woe betide our brave soldiers who return home, wounded, maimed or sick.

Once admit the right to kill unproductive persons . . . then none of us can be sure of his life. We shall be at the mercy of any committee that can put a man on the list of unproductives. There will be no police protection, no court to avenge the murder and inflict punishment upon the murderer. Who can have confidence in any doctor? He has but to certify his patients as unproductive and he receives the command to kill. If this dreadful doctrine is permitted and practised it is impossible to conjure up the degradation to which it will lead. Suspicion and distrust will be sown within the family itself.A curse on men and on the German people if we break the holy commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ which was given us by God on Mount Sinai with thunder and lightning, and which God our Maker imprinted on the human conscience from the beginning of time! Woe to us German people if we not only licence this heinous offence but allow it to be committed with impunity!

Snip

My dearly Beloved, I trust that it is not too late. It is time that we realized today what alone can bring us peace, what alone can save us and avert the divine wrath. We must openly, and without reserve, admit our Catholicism. We must show by our actions that we will live our lives by obeying God's commandments. Our motto must be: Death rather than sin. By pious prayer and penance we can bring down upon us all, our city and our beloved German land, His grace and forgiveness.

snip

O my God, grant to us all now on this very day, before it is too late, a true realization of the things that are for peace. O Sacred Heart of Jesus, oppressed even unto tears by the blindness and sins of men, help us by Thy grace to seek always what is pleasing to Thee and reject what is displeasing, so that we may dwell in Thy Love and find rest in our souls. Amen.


Let Us Pray

Father

We ask for:

The end of Euthanasia and all varieties of Demicide and Genocide.
Eternal life for the victims of Euthanasia
True repentance and thus forgiveness of it’s perpetrators.
That all Bishops and persons in authority follow the example Blessed von Galen.
That everyone oppose Euthanasia as there station and opportunity permits.

We ask this with Blessed von Galen, all your saints, and your Son our Savior Jesus Christ, in union with the Holy Spirit.
AMEN



Related

Death by Government

Never Again and Again and Again
Rwanda and Darfur Compared
Cause Not Harm
Abraham Lincoln on Terri Schaivo
Who Needs a White Sheet

Who is a Fascist?

.


[Fill in blank] is a fascist, so don’t listen to what they say.

The argumentum ad hominem is attacking a person rather than the arguemnt they are presenting. It is always invalid on grounds of irrelevance, even if the accusation is true. For example “SoandSo makes that statement because he is a 'gruby worn and a low life'” Even if the accusation is true and SoandSo is a 'gruby worm and a low life', what they said is right or wrong on it’s own merits. SoandSo’s status (true or false) as a 'gruby worm and alow life' is irrelevant to what they are saying.


Since WWII, it seems that everyone’s favorite argumentum ad hominem is the argumentum ad hitlerum. That person is a Nazi or Facist or something similar. It has been used for so long against so many people in so many different situations, unrelated to the historical context, that the term means “someone I don’t like.’ It communcates no real knowledge about the person or what they are saying. Even, on the chance of random probability, it is most likley false. The worst part about this is that there is such a thing as Fascist ideology. Persons supporting this ideology, if they avoid certain keywords, can easly escape recoginiton in all the false claims. The substance of fascist ideas could be presented with differernt terms and not be noticed by the unsuspecting. It would not be surprising for fascists to be loudest in accusing their opponents of being fascists

I went to google to see how wide spread this phenomenon is. I made entries in different comibnations of “Is (was) a fascist (nazi)” to see what I would get. The following is a small sample. This is just items that appeared in the sample text Google displays. To be fair while some are serious, some are humor, and some are defending someone against the accusation, which of course means the accusation was made. Some show much study and thought, some are ignorant and thoughtless.


Dobson is a Fascist
LePen was a fascist
Brigitte Bardot is a fascist!
Hitler was a fascist
To modern-day Leftists anybody they disagree with is a "fascist”

Every Jew-baiter, every Catholic hater, is a fascist
Santa is a fascist!
China is a fascist country
My Tivo is a fascist
Fidel Ramos is a fascist

Peter Singer is a fascist.
Zarqawi is a "fascist"
Heidegger was a professed fascist
Richie Rich is a fascist!
Bill Clinton is A Fascist

Hillary Clinton is a fascist
[Hugo] Chavez is a fascist
Hillary Duff Is A NAZI!
Janie Is A Nazi
Everybody's a Nazi

John F Kennedy was a Nazi
Ted Kennedy is a nazi
[Ward] Churchill is a fascist,
Reno is a fascist,
Castro is a fascist

Saddam was a fascist
Your Dog Is a Fascist
Ezra Pound was a fascist
Bin Ladin is a fascist
Diana Mosley was a fascist

I was a fascist
[Winston] Churchill was a fascist
Roosevelt was a Fascist
Harry Potter is a Nazi
Los Angeles Shooter is a Nazi

Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. was a Nazi
Marx was a Nazi
Stalin was a nazi
Mao was a nazi
Che was a fascist

Heinlein's a fascist idiot
Bobby Fischer is a Nazi
Dean is a Fascist
Al Gore is a fascist
John F. Kerry is a fascist


And Crumpy Blog provides the best comment on the most popular “ is a Fascist (or Nazi)” response


- namely -


“Bush is a Fascist”

. . . I don't like people who pick a political stance because it's in fashion to do so. I saw a person wearing a Bush=fascist shirt. I asked her in a non-confrontational way, "Why do you think Bush is a fascist?" The response was, "Because of the stuff he does". I inquired "what stuff is that?" The response was "the Patriot Act". Playing dumb I asked, "What is the Patriot Act?" She said, "it takes our rights away." When asked what rights does it take away she said, "Freedom of the Press, and religion." OK, at this point I know she didn't know what the hell she was talking about so I simply asked, "What is a fascist?" She again said "Bush." So I said "Besides Bush what is a fascist?" A blank look came over her face. After about 30 seconds I asked her "Well can you give me an example of a fascist other than Bush". Her answer was "the English guy, Mel Gibson, and the guy on the radio". At this point I wanted to see how far I could take it so I asked "How about that guy who lead Italy during World War II....what was his name....Benito Mussolini?" The response I got floored me. "No, he was cool" she said.


I would like to respectfully submit that there seems to be a serious general knowledge problem in the fields of History and Political Science.