Isn't it interesting that the progressive movement, once gung-ho for Prohibition, now wants to legalize marijuana?  Progressives want “progress,” but the direction of "progress" keeps changing.

Some people seem to imagine that the danger of AI lies in its becoming conscious or genuinely intelligent.  But a rattlesnake doesn’t need those qualities to be dangerous.  Instead ask how far the AI agent can go to set up secondary goals in order to accomplish the ones programmed into it.  Already there are documented cases of AIs lying to their developers in order to carry out their goals.

Will AI get out of control?  “Don’t be silly,” you say.  “I asked my own AI, and it said no.”

Freud didn’t come up with the notion of an unconscious mind.  Plato did.  The idea that people might be motivated to believe certain things by sheer resentment wasn’t invented by Nietzsche.  It has been known as long as there have been human beings.  My point is tht a lot of supposedly new ideas are really old ones which are forgotten and marketed as new.  Since we forget all the old ideas these days, this is pretty easy.

I wonder how long it will be until activists demand that all the churches which memorialize St. Paul be renamed because he was "homophobic."

“Homophobia,” by the way, is a queer word -- I mean in the older sense of the word, which is “strange.”  Etymologically, what “homophobia” means is “fear of the same,” which is absurd.  The term was invented for one reason only:  To make a moral objection sound like a psychiatric disorder.

A lot has been written lately about “crazy liberal white women,” like those who idealize the assassin Luigi Manzione and those who wear pink and demonstrate to support killer mom Lindsay Clancy.  But I’ve known a lot of crazy men, too, not all of them liberal and not all of them white.  It would be interesting to find out whether the most common political pathologies differ between men and women.  My guess is yes.

Most people say they believe in a heaven, but not so many say they believe in a hell.  Perhaps they assume God grades on a curve.  Seems unlikely.

Differences among interests and points of view are good for a polity, but radical divergence of basic moral outlooks is fatal to it.  As C.S. Lewis said, there are lots of possible melodies, but if we don't agree about scale, rhythm, and harmony, it’s just noise.

I wouldn’t want to be a comedian today.  It’s becoming harder and harder to do parody, because life keeps outdistancing it.  Maybe the would-be comedian could just get on the stage, open up the newspaper, and read.  But then we would have to have newspapers.  Seen any lately?

A common move in arguments against conscientious objection to participation in abortion, euthanasia, and assisted suicide is to treat conscience as a feeling.  Thus from the consequentialist’s view, the only drawback of, say, forcing a doctor whose conscience is opposed to abortion to carry one out anyway is that if he does so, he may feel bad, and he has a subjective “interest” in not feeling bad.  But according to this view, the feelings or “interests” of other people may be more important, because there are more of them.

This sort of argument fails to grasp what conscience is.  A conscientious objection to abortion isn’t just a plea that I will feel bad if I carry it out; it is a claim that I believe abortion to be intrinsically wrong, regardless of my feelings or anyone else’s.  An “intrinsic” wrong is one which cannot be made right by any consideration whatsoever.

True, if I do what I believe to be intrinsically wrong, I may suffer remorse or guilty feelings.  This doesn’t always happen, but even if it did, conscience isn’t ultimately about feelings, but about knowledge.  It doesn’t point inward, to how I feel, but outward, to the objective right or wrong of my act.  It can never be right to do what I believe is intrinsically wrong.

How woke are you?  Find out with this fun and easy quiz!  All of these options are drawn from an actual guaranteed income application from the organizations shown above in partnership with the City and County of San Francisco.  I’ve left off a few of the obvious ones, such as “Woman.”  The answers, with more details about the source, are at the end.

Part I

Which of the following are currently employed as gender pronouns?

1.  It/its/its

2.  Co/co/cos

3.  Zie/zim/zis

4.  Ze/hir/hirs

5.  Xe/xem/xyrs

6.  Ey/em/eirs

7.  E/em/eirs

8.  Fi/fie/fum

9.  Per/per/pers

10.  Fae/faer/faers

11.  Ae/aer/aers

12.  Tey/ter/ters

13.  Ve/ver/vis

Part II

Which of the following are currently considered gender identities?

1. Transgender Woman

2. Woman of Trans experience

3. Woman with a history of gender transition

4. Trans feminine

5. Feminine-of-center

6. MTF (male-to-female)

7. Demigirl

8. T-girl

9. Transgirl

10. Sistergirl

11. Cis-gender man

12. Transgender man

13.  Man of Trans experience

14. Man with a history of gender transition

15. Trans masculine

16. Masculine-of-center

17. FTM (female-to-male)

18. Demiboy

19. T-boy

20. Transguy

21. Brotherboy

22. Trans

23. Transgender

24. Transsexual

25. Non-binary

26. Genderqueer

27. Agender

28. Xenogender

29. Fem

30. Femme

31. Butch

32. Boi

33. Stud

34. Aggressive (AG)

35. Mean girl (MG)

36. Androgyne

37. Tomboy

38. Gender outlaw

39. Gender non-conforming

40. Gender variant

41. Gender fluid

42. Genderfuck

43. Bi-gender

44. Multi-gender

45. Pangender

46. Gender creative

47. Gender expansive

48. Third gender

49. Neutrois

50. Omnigender

51. Polygender

52. Graygender

53.  Intergender

54. Maverique

55. Novigender

56. Two-spirit

57. Hijra

58. Kathoey Muxe

59. Khanith/Xanith

60. X-gender

61. MTX

62. FTX

63. Bakla

64. Mahu

65. Fa’afafine

66. Waria

67. Palao’ana

68. Ashtime

69. Mashoga

70. Mangaiko

71. Chibados

72. Tida wena

73. Bixa’ah

74. Alyha

75. Hwame

76. Lhamana

77. Nadleehi

78. Dilbaa

79. Winkte

80. Ninauposkitzipxpe

81. Mxyzptlk

82. Machi-embra

83. Quariwarmi

84. Chuckchi

85. Whakawahine

86. Fakaleiti

87. Calabai

88. Calalai

89. Bissu

90. Acault

91. Travesti

92. Questioning

Part III

Which of the following are currently considered sexual orientations?

1. Aromantic

2. Asexual

3. BDSM/Kink

4. Bisexual

5. Demisexual

6. Dyke

7. Faggot

8. Gay

9. Lesbian

10. Non-monogamous

11. Adulterosexual (Adulterous)

12. Pansexual

13. Polyamorous

14. Queer

15. Strange

16. Same-Gender Loving

17. Skoliosexual

18. Heterosexual (Straight)

19. T4T (Trans 4 Trans)

Answers:

In Part I, all of the pronoun choices listed are in actual use except Number 8, “Fi/fie/fum.”

In Part II, all of the gender identities listed are considered real except Number 35, “Mean Girl (MG),” and Number 81, "Mxyzptlk."

In Part III, all of the sexual orientations listed are considered real except Numbers 11 and 15, respectively “Adulterosexual (Adulterous) and “Strange.”

Although the quiz is of my own devising, all of the options are taken from the most recent available version of the Guaranteed Income for Trans People (GIFT) Program Application for people in the City and County of San Francisco, California, presented by Lyon-Martin Community Health Services & The Transgender District, in partnership with the Mayor’s Office of Trans Initiatives, the San Francisco Treasury, and the Mayor’s Office of Housing & Community Development.

I can’t image why the GIFT list doesn’t include “Pedophile,” “Ephebophile,” “Coprophile,” “Fictosexual,” “Bestialist,” and “Objectum Sexual,” although each of these has its fans and advocates.  No doubt they’’ll be added to the next edition.

We have all heard it said that searching is better than finding.  One hears this adage not only from everyday folk who haven’t given the matter much thought, but also from those whose business is giving matters thought.  A philosopher I know who is usually more sensible opined in one of his books that the good lies in nothing but searching for the good.

Of course the saying is ridiculous.  The good of a bath doesn’t lie in seeking soap, but in getting clean.  The good of a hamburger doesn’t lie in being hungry, but in having a meal.  Even teenage girls whom we say are “in love with love” want someone to return their love.  To long for something just is to long to have it. 

But there is a pretty deep reason for the saying’s popularity.  The grain of truth it gets wrong has been known for thousands of years:  There is in us one natural longing which is different from all the other natural longings, because nothing in nature can satisfy it.  When we get what thought we always wanted but discover that we still aren’t satisfied, it’s usually a case of mistaken identification.  The thing we wanted wasn’t what we really wanted after all – or not all we really wanted – or not what we wanted most.  If the alternative to the supreme longing is false finding, then we would rather have it, even without fulfillment, than no longer have it at all.

But the actual fulfillment of the supreme longing would be infinitely better.  At last we would have got beyond all those false drinks that left us still thirsty, all those false meals that left us still hungry.  This would be the real thing.  If it didn’t exist, searching for it under the delusion that “searching is better than finding” would be a cruel futility.

But it must exist, for if it is true that nature makes nothing in vain, then the satisfaction of every natural desire must be possible.  If nothing within nature can satisfy it, then its object must transcend nature.  In fact, it is satisfied only in God.

It is better to find that for which we are longing than merely to search for it; better yet, to be found.

I’ve been reading the reports of discussions at the several sessions of the consistory of cardinals.  Several topics were addressed, but friends of clear thinking will be disappointed by the fuzziness of many of the statements made about the justice of war, both during the discussions and afterward, both in the abstract and in application to Israel’s actions in Gaza.

One fuzzy blur lies in the criterion of “proportionate self-defense.”  In just war doctrine, the meaning of proportionality used to be pretty clear:  That the harms expected from the use of force must not exceed the good to be expected from it, including the prevention of harms.  But many now seem to think it means that the harms expected from one's own use of force must not exceed the harms caused just by the aggressor's most recent use of force.  Notice that the former understanding justifies Israel in wiping out the ability of Hamas to wage continual terror.  The latter, however, would justify only a single raid, causing no more damage and loss of life than Hamas did on October 7.  For decades, Hamas has been lobbing missiles at civilian areas in Israel every day.  Take a long look at the chart at the top of the post.  Remember the children and innocents whom these missiles are targeting.

The second blur concerns the idea of building a “civilization of  love.”  Christians can and should love their enemies, but a civilization of love implies that there aren’t any more enemies.  Such a delusion isn’t the Gospel, but a utopian heresy.  Civilization depends primarily on justice.  Christians can practice love even in an unredeemed world, but since love is an infused virtue, love can become a civilizational principle only if the world is redeemed.  The notion of love as a civilizational principle blurs the distinction between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdoms of this earth.

A third blur lies in the complaint that the use of force against an enemy “does not advance the gospel.”  The purpose of just war is not to advance the gospel, but to achieve justice.  No understanding of love which denies justice can be sound; no such understanding can advance the gospel.  And suppose we did accept the premise that the use force conflicts with the gospel.  Should we then say that police may not use force against criminals who rob, rape, and murder, because that does not advance the gospel either?

A fourth blur concerns the principle of discrimination, which forbids deliberately targeting noncombatants.  Cardinal Fernández has emphasized that “the destruction of entire cities cannot be considered a proportionate defensive action.”  He is right that one must not intend the destruction of cities, and reasonable people can argue about whether Israel has been careful enough in applying the discrimination principle, but no critic should pretend that Israel’s aim is to destroy cities per se.  Its aim is to destroy Hamas.  The difficulty lies in the fact that the terrorists deliberately base themselves in the midst of cities, even in hospitals and schools.  It is like fighting soldiers who have strapped babies to their tanks, or implanted rocket launchers on the roofs of orphanages.  Israel even announces ahead of time where civilians will be in danger and where they should go to be safe, but Hamas does not allow the civilians to go to safe zones.  If the terrorists themselves have made it impossible to eliminate harm to innocents, should the terrorists be allowed to do as they please?  And let us remember the attitude of Hamas itself toward harm.  They have no interest in minimizing harm to innocents.  For them, it is a matter of policy to deliberately bring about harm to innocents, not only on the other side, but even among their own people.  That is how terrorism works.  Its strategy is to make observers view defenders as terrorists, and terrorists as defenders.  As we see from Cardinal Fernández’s remarks, this strategy works disturbingly well.

The final blur is the idea that in Israel’s efforts to put an end to the power of Hamas to commit everyday atrocity, we are witnessing a “normalization of war” and a “disturbing rehabilitation of war as an instrument of international policy,” accompanied by a serious “loss of historical memory.”  In reply, allow me to make just three brief points.

By way of correction:  Just war theory does not “normalize war.”  This is bumper-sticker thinking.  What just war theory tries to normalize is restrictions on war.  Of course even the best principles can be twisted, but Israel seems to be doing the best it can against a malicious, dishonest, and unscrupulous enemy.

By way of inquiry:  What else could war be but an “instrument of international policy”?  The question is whether the instrument will be used to destroy the possibility of a just peace, as Hamas wages war, or used, in the last resort, to remove the obstacles to a just peace, as Israel tries to.

By way of suggestion:  I daresay that the Jewish people have an excellent historical memory.  In particular, they remember the Holocaust very well.  That is why Israel exists.  That is why Jews everywhere say “never again.”

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!

May they prosper who love you!

Peace be within your walls,

and security within your towers!

-- Psalm 122:7-8 (RSV-CE)