Caffeinated Thoughts

True Humility Can Coexist With Moral Certainty
Parents Know Best
Uniting the GOP So We Can Lose Respectably to Obama in the Fall

True Humility Can Coexist With Moral Certainty

Posted: 06 Apr 2012 04:00 AM PDT

Reading something Justin Taylor wrote a few days ago that quote G.K. Chesterton in his book Orthodoxy, reminded me of a blog post I wrote 2 1/2 years ago that I thought I'd rehash with a couple of changes because it's pretty timeless…

Humility is a good thing, a necessary thing. G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) in his classic, Orthodoxy, said that it was "largely meant as a restraint upon the arrogance and infinity of man," (pg. 51). Without humility he notes it is impossible to enjoy anything in life.

He asserts that what society suffers from (back when this was originally published in 1908) is modesty in the wrong place.

Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert – himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt – the Divine Reason.

The new skeptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. . . . There is a real humility typical of our time; but it so happens that it's practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic. . . .

The old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which makes him stop working altogether. . . . We are on the road to producing a race of man too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table, (pg. 51-52).

Our thoughts or ability have been elevated to a level they were never meant to attain, but at the same time many in our society claim we can't know truth. And yet we are assertive in that belief; resting in our knowledge.

This modesty or humility, in reality, is arrogance. True humility recognizes human inability to understand or act apart from Divine Reason. True humility recognizes our place in Divine order:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
   neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
   so are my ways higher than your ways
   and my thoughts than your thoughts," (Isaiah 55:8-9, ESV).

Yet as a society we claim superior knowledge. Science is elevated above theology and is seen as the golden standard of what is true. Without abiding in Christ our knowledge and ability is futile as Jesus pointed out.

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing, (John 15:5, ESV).

This is intuitive knowledge that the Apostle Paul pointed out to the "movers and shakers" in Athens as he addressed them in the Areopagus. Quoting one of their own writers (likely Epimenides of Crete) he said, "for 'In him we live and move and have our being,'" (Acts 17:28, ESV).

It is in God we have our being. It is Jesus who sustains our very life, (Colossians 1:17). Why in the world should we place confidence in ourselves? We can know God not because of any superior knowledge that we have, but because He has made Himself know to us. Let's move modesty back where it belongs from the "organ of conviction" back to the "organ of ambition."

Chesterton certainly must have been looking to today.

Parents Know Best

Posted: 05 Apr 2012 10:30 AM PDT

Debbie Squires "Parents Don't Know What's Best"

WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 5, 2012)—The American Federation for Children—the nation's voice for school choice—today launched a new campaign titled Parents Know Best aimed at engaging parents in the pursuit of better educational options for their children and helping defend them against increased attacks on their judgment from special interest leaders.

The campaign will seek to better integrate the voice of parents into the ongoing education reform debate. While standard rhetoric between politicians, union leaders, media commentators, and educators continues, significant input from parents—the people who know their children best—has been noticeably absent from discussions of education reform and school choice.

The Parents Know Best campaign encourages parents to take a stand against policymakers and interest groups who presume they are better equipped to make decisions about how and where children should be educated than are the families themselves. The campaign is launching with an eye-opening video chronicling a series of recent statements from special interest group leaders on why parents should have less of a role in choosing the best school for their child.

The video can be viewed here or above.

Many of the comments have gained national attention in recent weeks, including one in which Vincent Giordano, the executive director of the New Jersey Education Association, said in a television interview that "life's not always fair" while discussing the plight of New Jersey students trapped in failing schools. The NJEA spent over $11 million last year opposing the Opportunity Scholarship Act—a plan to create a scholarship tax credit program for students in the state's worst districts—and other reforms.

"We believe it is essential to support families in their journey toward figuring out the best educational option for their children, and to make sure that they are not bullied by special interests intent on maintaining the educational status quo," said Kevin P. Chavous, a senior adviser to the American Federation for Children.

The Parents Know Best campaign will also feature inspiring stories from parents who have exercised school choice, as well as provide informational resources to parents seeking better educational options for their children.

To find out more about the Parents Know Best campaign, watch the video, or get involved, visit the website at www.ParentsKnowBest.com.

Uniting the GOP So We Can Lose Respectably to Obama in the Fall

Posted: 05 Apr 2012 06:56 AM PDT

Joe Scarborough revealed some establishment thinking on the way the Presidential race will play out on Morning Joe yesterday:

I yet to meet a single person in the Republican establishment that thinks Mitt Romney is going to win the general election this year.They won’t say it on TV because they’ve got to go on TV and they don’t want people writing them nasty emails. I obviously don’t care. But I have yet to meet anybody in the Republican establishment that worked for George W. Bush, that works in the Republican congress, that worked for Ronald Reagan that thinks Mitt Romney is going to win the general election.

Scarborough isn’t the first to note this sort of thinking among Republican bosses. Michael Medved wrote back in February that many Republicans had resigned themselves to an Obama re-election:

Even for Republicans who assume that any nominee would lose to Obama, it therefore makes sense to fear a Santorum catastrophe (like Goldwater's devastating, across-the-board wipeout in '64) more than a more conventional defeat for Romney (perhaps in the style of Bob Dole in '96, when the GOP retained both houses of Congress).

However, “We’re Going to Go Out and Lose Respectably to Barack Obama” wouldn’t be a real winning message in the Republican Primary, so we’ve heard how Romney’s going to beat Barack Obama in the Fall. But is he? The pessimists have a lot of facts on their side.

First of all, Romney will struggle to unite the GOP because he’s opted for a campaign strategy of winning ugly, bombarding voters with millions of dollars in negative ads and negative robocalls. Many Romney supporters have complained about the negative tone of the campaign when most of the guilt for this lies at the doors of Romney and his Super PAC who have been the biggest perpetrators and they’re continuing to run negative to this day because that’s the only way Romney knows how to win.

Secondly, its very hard to imagine Romney winning the election because it’s very hard to imagine any Republican winning the election without carrying all three of the states of Ohio, Virginia, and Florida. Polls already show Romney trailing in all three states and Obama has barely begun his massive general election spending. Romney’s low favorable ratings make a comeback even more daunting.

If I were to hazard a guess at to how a Romney v. Obama race would turn out, it’d be reasonable to think the map would be quite similar to 2008 with Romney losing Missouri but picking up Indiana, New Hampshire, and Nebraska’s 2nd District. That would put Romney at 185 electoral votes. If we were to look at a best case scenario, Romney could win North Carolina and, through his western strength, snag Colorado and Nevada, and we might hope that Missouri, like Kentucky before it, has been transformed from a swing state to a Red State by Obama. That still leaves Romney at only 225 electoral votes. Even under this sunny scenario, Romney would still need to win both Ohio and Florida to defeat Obama.

Of course, publicly stating this could be seen as treasonous by many Republican leaders who think that Republican establishment favorite candidates are a lot like Tinker Bell. If you don’t believe in their chances, they’ll fade away in the Fall. However, this is reality that many of Romney’s own supporters know but refuse to publicly acknowledge.

Romney is a pick to lose by a reasonable margin in the hope that it won’t have down-ticket impact. This is part of the reason Rick Santorum soldiers on. He and his supporters disagree with the idea of conservatism being a losing proposition. They think that offering a clear contrast is the only hope of challenging the Obama machine and coming away with a win rather than another establishment candidate loss in 2012.

Horoscop

vineri, 6 aprilie 2012

Caffeinated Thoughts

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