Blogger Free Speech, Humanae Vitae - UPDATE

:::UPDATE:::
A blogger who is rebuilding finds his Obama-critical posts uncached and unrecoverable. Hmmmmm…:::END UPDATE:::

So, these Obama True-Believers are an insecure bunch.

It seems to me if you are confident in your candidate, you don’t need to run around doing all you can to silence opposition by shutting down blogs that dare to dislike your guy.

When you act like a jack-booted silencer of dissent, you do your candidate no favors. You (and by extension your candidate, even if he doesn’t know you’re doing it) seem more like “liberal fascists” than like champions of free speech and liberty. And the American President needs to be a champion of free speech and liberty, which is why the current American president - unlike some others, does not silence the endless and noisy dissent in books, mainstream media, films, alternative media, whackadoo media or ironic and paranoid plays, and why he liberates people from tyranny and tumult.

You are not helping people believe that your guy will fight for their right to speak freely or rescue the oppressed by stepping on other voices, and that’s just stupid.

But then again, we’ve been seeing for a while that the “chill wind” that tries to shut down speech it does not like has been blowing from the left.

Instead of just shutting down opposition, why not ask your own candidate about this harsh assessment of his “community” building? Or this other harsh assessment? Not allowed to ask questions? Not allowed to make an observation? That’s downright unAmerican-sounding.

The current president has shown he can take many punches. Can Obama handle one?

Oh, here’s an idea - let’s suggest that John McCain’s war record is irrelevant. That won’t make you look too hypocritical, will it, after you spent 2004 suggesting John Kerry’s turn in Vietnam defined his worthiness to sit in the Oval Office? Nah, of course not.

Perhaps these are all meant to be “distractions,” so we won’t notice that Obama has problems on Iraq?. Or that he’s not really telling talking straight on oil?

Well, I am distracted, or - really - just bored.

In other news, Dr Helen has written an important and provocative piece on whether men can be raped by women and what it means under law. If you have sons, you should read it.

They’re not calling it a schism, but a “realignment” in the Church of England - very interesting stuff to watch:

“…the new body will have its own bishops, clergy and theological colleges, and eventually its own structures, within the legal constraints of existing Anglican institutions.”

Gafcon Churches will expressly be out of communion with the US and Canadian Anglicans, who allowed the consecration of an openly gay bishop in 2003 and have authorized same-sex blessings in the teeth of objections from the Anglican Primates.

Forty years later, making a second consideration - after taking a first read - of Paul VI’s prophetic (and actually very short) encyclical, Humanae Vitae.

Glaring omissions at the NY Times. Perhaps as long as they get all the leaks to AlQaeda right, they feel like they’ve done their jobs.

Yesterday was the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. Since we began this post talking about freedom, free speech and liberty, let us see what happens when you lose those gifts. Deacon Greg wrote a particularly good homily for the day, which I urge you to read, if only to familiarize yourself with the astonishing story of Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, the Archbishop of Saigon:

The Communists saw him as a threat. And on the feast of the Assumption, August 15, 1975, he was arrested and sent to prison. Without ever being tried, or sentenced, he was shipped off to a prison in North Vietnam. He stayed there for 13 years, nine of them in solitary confinement.

During his imprisonment, he couldn’t celebrate mass, or even receive the Eucharist. But he held fast to his faith.

He wrote to friends outside prison, saying he needed “his medicine.” They knew what he meant. They sent him small cough medicine bottles, filled with wine, and bits of bread. Sympathetic guards smuggled him some wood and wire, and he made a small cross, which he hid in a bar of soap.
[...]
He would place drops of wine in the palm of his hand, mingled with water, to celebrate mass. He did it every day at three pm, the hour of Christ’s death.
[...]
He was finally freed on November 21, 1988 – the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lady. Nguyen Van Thaun went into exile, finally settling in Rome. During the Jubilee Year, in 2000, he was invited to preach at the Vatican, and Pope John Paul presented him with a chalice – an immeasurable gift for a man whose only chalice, for so many years, had been the palm of his hand. That same year, he was named a cardinal. Two years later, he died. Just last year, officials began a formal investigation to have him beatified.
[...]
“I am happy here, in this cell,” he wrote, “where white mushrooms are growing on my sleeping mat, because You are here with me, because You want me to live here with You. I have spoken much in my lifetime: now I speak no more. It’s Your turn to speak to me, Jesus; I am listening to You.”

You’ll want to read the whole thing. Then, perhaps, head over to wish Sr. Mary Martha well as she begins her novitiate, and begins her lifelong work of discovering another sort of freedom.

Amused Cynic pinged back with Hmmm….this is very interesting….
The Thunder Run tracked back with Web Reconnaissance for 07/01/2008...
‘Okie’ on the Lam pinged back with Obamamatons Silence Anti-Obama Democratic Bloggers
The Wide Awake Cafe pinged back with Obama Surrogate, Wesley Clark Attacks McCain’s Military Service

by TheAnchoress @ 1:01 pm. Filed under America, Barack Obama, Blogs and Blogging, Bush Good, Catholic Vocations, Catholicism, Culture of Treason?, Election 2008, Eucharist, Faith, Free Speech?, John McCain, John Paul II, Monasticism, Prayer, Socialism doesn't work, The Fourth Estate, The Perpetual Adolescents

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11 Responses to “Blogger Free Speech, Humanae Vitae - UPDATE”

AngloCathJoi Says:
June 30th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Please keep the Anglican Communion in your prayers, especially for those traditional parishes still left in the US. My parish has recently asked for alternate Episcopal oversight. Though we have 9 vocationers (average for a parish in this diocese is 1), none of them can be ordained in our diocese, over the issue of the ordination of women.
We love our church, and our tradition, and this is a very painful time for many Anglicans/Episcopalians.
Many bloggers, Catholic and non, have taken to indulging in schadenfreude whenever yet another news item about the CoE appears, without realizing that this makes it just that much more painful for those of us who are committed to our church. Thank you for your considerate posting.
orlin Says:
June 30th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Hi Anchoress — yep, I’m wondering what Obama stands for? What kind of change and who does it benefit?
The Wide Awake Cafe » Obama Surrogate, Wesley Clark Attacks McCain’s Military Service Says:
June 30th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
[...] patriotism and character. I know I doubt Obama’s patriotism and character. Me thinks the man doth protest too much about these very important issues. Hence, the Wesley Clark attack. What’s more, this was not [...]
rcareaga Says:
June 30th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Paul XI? Have I missed something? Did that Avignon business go on for longer than I remembered?
MaxedOutMama Says:
June 30th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Anchoress, from Humanae Vitae Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.

That has happened. As contraception became accepted, men look at sexual partners as a matter of convenience to assuage desire. Sexual relationships have become trivialized, and with them, marriage has become a matter of convenience.
TheAnchoress Says:
June 30th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Rand, thanks for the heads up.

MOM - it’s amazing how accurately that “crabby old celibate” got right, isn’t it?
rcareaga Says:
June 30th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
MOM - Speaking as one who came of age at around the time oral contraception reached the “tipping point” (actually a high-water mark—most women I knew were starting to drift away from those early iterations of “the pill” by the early seventies because they did not care for the side effects) I will testify that I never regarded my “sexual partners as a matter of convenience to assuage desire.” I was smitten, and stupefied with gratitude and adoration in each instance (I remain fond friends almost without exception with my inamoratae from that period). Are you certain that you’re not extrapolating from your own experience? —because your conclusion certainly doesn’t map to mine.

cordially,
MaxedOutMama Says:
July 1st, 2008 at 12:34 am
rcareaga - actually, I have led a very quiet life, so no, I’m not speaking from my own experience. I’m speaking from my observations.

It does seem as if younger people have a totally different outlook if raised in a secular setting. And a lot of the women are miserable. I think it took a generation or so for the culture to change. The Anchoress posted some link a while ago to an article a young woman wrote about wanting a longer relationship which I thought was unutterably sad.

Anchoress, it sure is. Particularly the eerie bit about governments forcing this on people if it became culturally accepted. Some government official in the Netherlands proposed forced abortions/sterilizations for women on welfare who got pregnant.
‘Okie’ on the Lam » Blog Archive » Obamamatons Silence Anti-Obama Democratic Bloggers Says:
July 1st, 2008 at 10:22 am
[...] [h/t: The Anchoress] [...]
The Thunder Run Says:
July 1st, 2008 at 1:25 pm
Web Reconnaissance for 07/01/2008…

…
Amused Cynic » Blog Archive » Hmmm….this is very interesting…. Says:
July 1st, 2008 at 3:30 pm
[...] the only one noticing this stuff, so don’t accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist. RELATED: The Anchoress Instapundit Bloggasm Protein Wisdom Category: Uncategorized | Comment (RSS) [...]