I can’t help but think that America is now like your brother who can’t keep a job, drinks too much, is constantly asking for money, and oh, has a crazy bad addiction that’s destroying his life.
You tried just lending him money every time he promised to go straight but he just ain’t gonna’ do it. At some point you accept that he’s going to have to hit bottom. You don’t know what bottom looks like but you know that he’s racing towards it. It might be jail, death, brain damage. Nobody knows. But at some point he’ll hear the thud and wake up face first in a pool of his own vomit and he’ll have to make the decision to turn over and get back up or just die.
And that’s where America is heading. This country is going to have to go absolutely bankrupt and hit bottom before it starts getting better. This country is borrowing money from children that they’re killing in the womb in record numbers. That, is not a recipe for success.
And of the children that we do have, many of them are being born into single parent homes where their chances of spending some time in jail are increased while their economic outlook is severely diminished.
For too many years we slept. Maybe we saw it coming, maybe we just suspected that everything was going to hell.
Leftists have taken over our education establishment, giving them firm control over what our children learn (unless you homeschool or have a great Catholic or private school). The left has long controlled the media and therefore control what people hear about current events. So think about it, they have control over the teaching of history and the present.
And why didn’t we think we were going to be routed? And what did we do to prevent this? We talked about school choice but got weak kneed when the fight got bloody. We snarked about the media and congratulated ourselves on how many interesting and funny ways we tweeted that Chris Matthews was stupid. Here’s the thing, pretty much everyone in the media agrees with him. It’s an MSNBC media. Some just hide it a little better.
If you want to understand the true power of the media, this election is a prime example. The media propped up a corrupt and egotistical ideologue throughout this entire campaign. They ignored Solyndra. They ignored Benghazi. They covered up the economic ruin we were inviting on ourselves. Sure, FoxNews and the new media have hurt the media establishment but what the MSM showed in this election is that we can snark it up all we want, they’ve got one hand firmly on the levers of power and the other around our throats.
But here’s the thing. I’ve gotten to the point now where I’m thinking about the fact that I have five kids, a wonderful wife, and a good parish. My life is good and full of love. We try to give to charity and work with a home for unwed mothers. We’ll continue with these things. I’m focusing on what I can do in my life. I’ll continue to write and work but I know where this country is heading.
I know where the country is going. I’m not going there and neither is my family. The Church will continue to exist whatever happens to this country. The country’s barreling downwards and when it hits bottom it’s going to explode like shrapnel. My job is to protect my family from the flying pieces. And then we’ll start gathering the pieces.
The only good news in all this is that I think that we’ll hit bottom awfully quick because we’re heading there awfully fast.
November 7, 2012 at 7:33 pm
I'm a Bills fan and that's the same analogy I use for my time.
Hopelessness, ineptitude, bad decision-making. Despair (in the Bills case with Ralph Wilson being old and a great possibility of the team just leaving, the US getting more and more socially liberal and colder to each other) But I love them and I love my country. I just don't like where either are right now.
November 7, 2012 at 7:33 pm
Use for my team I should say
November 7, 2012 at 7:34 pm
Posts like this from you and your brother really do make you both sound like whiney little wimps. I cannot stress this enough: Catholicism is not a religion for wimps. We fight the good fight and we continue to do so regardless of who currently occupies the whitehouse. Nothing has changed between yesterday and today. We still have a Democratic president with a Republican controlled senate and a good number of Catholics on the Supreme Court. Wipe your nose, pull up your panties and either get in the game or stop whining.
November 7, 2012 at 7:45 pm
"a good number of Catholics on the Supreme Court"
But not any number of good Catholics…
Come on, most Catholics in America are too Americanist to be Catholic. Here is a test- The Austro-Hungarian Empire- a Catholic empire- an empire American Catholics should have backed because they were legit- at least as legit as a government could be. Instead most Americans were all for 'democracy', nationalism, and Wilson's silly policies. If you don't understand that one, go read up on it until you figure it out. That area is still experiencing conflict because of that silliness.
We've already bottomed out, it is merely becoming obvious.
November 7, 2012 at 7:49 pm
August I have yet to see how Alito and Scalia are not good Catholics. Can you provide a concrete example to the contrary? Even Sotomayor sided with pro-life groups the one time abortion came under her ruling. More belly-aching without concrete facts is frankly what caused this mess.
November 7, 2012 at 8:06 pm
We have to realize we simply don’t live in the same culture that Americans did 50, or even 20, years ago. In fact, the country has been drifting to the left for the last 100 yrs. 50 years ago conservatives opposed no fault divorce and liberals supported it. Now both groups support it, with liberals pushing for gay “marriage” and conservatives opposing it. 50 yrs ago the fight was over the legalization of abortion. Now both parties (neither McCain nor Romney were staunchly pro-life) accept abortion (at least in cases of rape, incest, and life of the mother) and fight over things like informed consent and mandatory ultrasounds. The same holds true for economic issues. Conservatives in the 1920’s would consider the Republican Party platform of 2012 to be socialist. As things continue to drift leftward “conservatives” stake out positions on the “right” that would have been leftist a generation or two before. The only solution, as far as I can tell, is to evangelize the culture and radically transform it into a republic dedicated to Christ the King. We need to transform the culture, the politics will follow.
November 7, 2012 at 8:07 pm
To borrow a quote from Jean Luc Picard (STNG):
"I wonder if the Emperor Honorius watching the Visigoths coming over the seventh hill truly realized that the Roman Empire was about to fall. This is just another page in history, isn't it? Will this be the end of *our* civilization? Turn the page."
November 7, 2012 at 8:14 pm
my very smart sixteen year old was optimistic…."great. we can let them contracept themselves out of existence now!" would that it would happen sooner than later!
November 7, 2012 at 8:14 pm
Actually the Democrats control the Senate, the Republicans control the House.
November 7, 2012 at 8:20 pm
Nathan is right- democracy is a failed experiment. Majority rule ends up with everyone looking at maximizing their own pleasure. There is no desire to for greatness when the mob is ruling.
November 7, 2012 at 8:54 pm
To be honest, the republicans, conservatives and 3rd party people should be kinda happy the Democrats won.
Do any of you realize the economic catastrophe that is coming in a few years?
In the end, as with the collapse of Rome in the west, something else, something glorious will come out of it in the end. And, of course, Holy Mother Church will be there, as always.
it's not the end of the world people. It's not even close.
November 7, 2012 at 8:58 pm
Bloggers like Mark Shea, Erin Manning and Tom from "Disputations" cover themselves in no honor when they take the position that voting for either Obama or Romney means "Colluding with Evil." In real life — not in the increasingly esoteric, antiseptic world of Catholic "moral theology" — people have to make choices between unappealing alternatives. Moreover, we have a moral responsibility to make such choices if they are the only ones available to us, or to fight for something better. Mark, Erin and Tom did no such thing. All they did was bellyache. Well, I hope they're satisfied.
November 7, 2012 at 9:14 pm
Joseph, that is your opinion. But it is dismissed. Voting for a pro-abortion candidate of any stripe is colluding with evil.
November 7, 2012 at 9:20 pm
Thank you Matt (Pat?), especially the final few paragraphs.
November 7, 2012 at 9:33 pm
Prayer and Fasting. The only solution we haven't exhausted, is to battle with spiritual means what is a spiritual battle.
November 7, 2012 at 9:39 pm
Joe:
IIRC, you live in California, which has become a de facto one party state. I don't know if I would have voted for Romney if I was a CA resident. Maybe I would have stayed home, or voted Constitution Party in protest. (For the record, I did vote for Romney. I thought he had a chance here in Wisconsin. It turned out otherwise…at least the GOP still has both houses of the state legislature…).
My question to you is this (and this is in a spirit of inquiry, and taking no one's side): how does one fight when the odds are unbelievable stacked against one's favor? You live in a state in which the GOP is a non-factor in Sacramento, and any changes unapproved by the liberal elite are overturned by a rogue judiciary (state and federal). My state has a Republican governor and legislature, but the liberals find judges to stall laws they don't like, and they find ways to stonewall reform on the local level. Also, there's no guarantee that they won't return to the shenanigans of 2011…
Maybe it's the moment, but like our esteemed hose, I'm not seeing any way out of this right now, or even if it's worth fighting…
November 7, 2012 at 10:02 pm
My FB post from this morning:
"236 years ago our fathers attempted to bring "forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." They failed. They left their children to deal with the evil scourge of slavery, sexism, and religious inequalities. And, as we have made the long hard climb out of that failure, we have failed again to stand up for rights of every human being. With plentiful excuses, we allow children to be slaughtered by the millions. We begin, again, to violate individual and religious liberties. We are still on our way down. We have not, yet, begun to climb out of the new hole we have dug for ourselves. I cannot predict whether we ever will. But, like an early abolitionist, I can only stand up at every opportunity for the rights of every human being until they are all protected."
November 7, 2012 at 10:40 pm
The media propped up a corrupt and egotistical ideologue throughout this entire campaign
Campaign?!? More like throughout his entire tenure.
November 7, 2012 at 10:53 pm
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November 8, 2012 at 12:15 am
Sad to see the RCC being torn apart by politics. I voted Obama. I vote Democrat. If you think Republicans are pro-life, you're deluding yourself. They love war, fund war and have made NO ROADS in Roe vs Wade. Poor people have nothing, the rich rob us blind and we are supposed to sit here and argue. It's sad. The pattern of time was finished by Christ long before the world ever heard of Obama, Romney, or even the USA. Defend the unborn? Absolutely. But it DOESN'T end there and sadly, too many Catholics have abandoned the LIVING poor and innocent.