Tag Archives: responsibilities

A Question

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Pope Francis has renewed an…agreement…between the Vatican and the People’s Republic of China that allows appointment of Catholic Bishops in the PRC, so long as the PRC’s government men approve of the candidates and their appointment. Nominally, the Pope has veto authority over the nominations, but it’s the PRC government men who nominate. Since 2018—when the agreement was signed—there have been six bishops ordained, and 40 dioceses still have no bishop. That’s how well this arrangement is working.

Despite that, the Holy See Press Office had this:

The Vatican Party is committed to continuing a respectful and constructive dialogue with the Chinese Party for a productive implementation of the Accord and further development of bilateral relations, with a view to fostering the mission of the Catholic Church and the good of the Chinese people[.]

Furthermore, Pope Francis views [the agreement] as a necessary compromise to keep Chinese Catholics united. But how is treating Chinese Catholics differently from all other Catholics in any way unifying? How does that continued separation of Chinese Catholics from the Universal Church in any way support either the Church’s mission or the spiritual welfare of ordinary Chinese?

Political Cowardice

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President Joe Biden (D) is desperate to avoid encountering Russian President Vladimir Putin during the upcoming G20 meeting.

The White House is bent on preventing President Biden from having a run-in with Russian President Vladimir Putin while the pair attend the G20 summit next month, according to a new report.
White House aides want to avoid even a hallway meeting between the two, or any other situation that might allow for them to be pictured together[.]

It’s true enough, if “reports” are accurate, that it’s those White House aides who are fronting this shameful avoidance, but those folks work for Biden, not the other way around, and as cowardly as Biden would be to run away from Putin, it’s just as cowardly to hide behind his aides on his retreat rather than speaking for himself on the matter.

After all, goes the pseudo-thought, the barbarian chieftain isn’t doing anything worthy of being publicly confronted over. Nothing going on in Ukraine. No barbarian hordes raping and pillaging. No Russian attacks on civilian housing, hospitals, schools, or water and electricity distribution networks. No Russian attacks threatening nuclear power plants.

No Russian cyber attacks made against our allies and friends—or against us.

Nothing to see here.

Instead of running away from Putin, Biden should seek him out and publicly confront him over his invasion of a sovereign nation and the barbaric behavior of his horde inside that nation. Biden should publicly confront him over his cyber attacks.

Credibility

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CNN‘s ex-boss Jeff Zucker and MSNBC‘s ex-boss Phil Griffin defended their decision to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop news in the runup to the 2020 Presidential election.

Griffin:

The Justice Department was looking into it, never reported it until he [Hunter Biden] is the son of a candidate. I don’t think it’s a main story until that happens.

The son of a major candidate for office misbehaving badly isn’t news. Never mind that Joe Biden had been making Hunter part of his campaign all along, seeking sympathy for his drug-abusing son for having overcome his addiction. Never mind that Hunter Biden already was news for his use of his diseased brother’s widow, his business dealings, and his use of his familial relationships in furthering his deals.

But his laptop and its contents weren’t news?

Zucker:

He was the son of the candidate; he wasn’t the candidate.

And, he said, as cited by Just the News:

CNN “did not know enough about” the story to cover it and “the problem” was that former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was the first to come forward with materials from the laptop….

So the news wasn’t news because one of the early sources regarding the laptop was a man Zucker didn’t like.

This is the editorial “judgment” of the journalism guild.

Who’s in Charge?

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British Prime Minister Liz Truss and her then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng proposed a serious personal and corporate tax reduction for British subjects. The Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey demurred—loudly—and sent the British securities and debt markets into a tailspin.

As a result of the turmoil, Truss folded, fired Kwarteng, and removed the corporate tax reduction.

That wasn’t enough for Bailey and now the TINAs—Tories in Name Alone—and now Truss has virtually quit the game altogether: she’s now withdrawn all of the tax reductions, even those income tax reductions that would have benefitted the ordinary British subject.

Never mind, either, that the tax reductions would have spurred British economic growth and gone a long way toward getting its high inflation back under control and back down.

Elected Truss doesn’t seem to be in charge. Bureaucrat Bailey does. On the other hand, between the two of them, only Bailey seems to have the courage to stay the course he’s set.

One of those TINAs, a carefully unnamed Conservative lawmaker who won his district in 2019 with a 65% majority had this:

One says that he lies awake at night worrying about being kicked out when the country next goes to the polls.
“I’ve got private school fees to pay and my mortgage is going through the roof[.]”

More worried about his elite status and personal welfare than he is about the job his constituents hired him to do.

And isn’t all of that a sad state of affairs for the British people.

A Method of Identifying Acceptable Views

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The Wall Street Journal‘s Thursday Notable & Quotable contains an excerpt from a Times Literary Supplement piece in which the piece’s writer recounted a classroom incident in which he had touted a free market society and the instructor had written on his paper, “Are you Margaret Thatcher?” and left the paper ungraded. The classroom boy was mortified.

[T]he comparison shocked me into a more thoughtful politics and provided an early lesson: if you don’t like the fact that you share a view with someone objectionable, consider revising that view.

And

That doesn’t mean that every person with [fill in that disagreeable person’s identity] views endorses those links, but some soul-searching is surely called for.

Of course. It isn’t the merits of the message that’s important; rather, it’s the merits of the person carrying that message.

This is what has passed for teaching our children for too many years.