On The Third Way or the Reply to Dave
(Comment to the article by Dave Schmelzer on a Christian and
politics)
Hi, Dave,
let me add couple of comments from this side of The Pond.
First of all, of course, I blame completely confused American
terminology, especially in the political matters. Here Socialists
are not afraid to call themselves such, so they don't have to
misuse a label of Liberal, which doesn't belong to them. Liberals
here are mostly "let us alone" kind of people, mostly middle
class entrepreneurs; small government, small taxes, but strongly
anti-monopoly politics … that slogan is targeted both at
government and at the large supranational business giants. And
what you are saying is exactly what we would call Conservatism
here (represented now for example by the German CDU and Frau
Merkel or in the times when they are not wrecked by the lunacy of
Brexit by the British Conservatives).
Let me here quote my beloved Conservative thinker Michael
Oakshott (he was a professionally philosopher in Oxford, so
sometimes his writing is a bit heavy, but on the other hand he
was a don in Oxford so his writing is always perfect): “In
political activity men sail a boundless and bottomless sea; there
is neither harbor for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither
starting point nor appointed destination.” Which is to say, that
the most important part of Conservatism for me is that it is not
ideology, it doesn't have any Communism or any shining ideal for
which we need to sacrifice today. The biggest goal of politician
is to deal with the current problems, not to drag his/her nation
towards his ideal. (Also read “In Defense of Politics” by
Bernard Crick)
In the same time, it seems to me that people who claim to be this
kind of original Conservatives, tend to share Christian (or even
more Reformed) scepticism towards human nature. Particularly from
the deep distrust of human goodness comes both distrust towards
government (which is in the end created by sinful humans) and
certainly towards the great businessmen (greed may be the best
organizing power of economics, but it is not something to be
celebrated too much). Of course, here I have to mention Russel
Kirk “The Conservative Mind”.
comments
EconTalk, Future of Cars and Telecommuting
(This has been comment on the episode of EconTalk)
It seems to me that however this interview was awesome (and it
was) it is still in the danger of being the same kind as the
prediction about colourful faxes.
I think we are standing on the edge of the end …
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Yet another on the infallibility in the Church
(written originally as yet another comment to the blogpost “How Many
Theologians Does it Take To Define Infallibility?” by Melinda Selyms)
First of all: thank you, these are very good questions, which actually made me
think (doesn’t happen that often on blog comments).
Certainly, some rules are necessary even …
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The Holy Protestant Tradition?
(written originally as a comment to the blogpost “How Many
Theologians Does it Take To Define Infallibility?” by Melinda
Selyms)
I am a Protestant, so I am not entitled to bring much to this
discussion, but we were yesterday with my wife in Wittenberg, so
I cannot resist to add …
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On “A Painfully Familiar Reason for Using NFP”
Record of my comment to another nice article by Melinda Selmys.
This is one of those sad places where I am afraid my voice will
be completely ignored, because exactly the people who will most
dogmatically insist on NFP will be the ones who will be the least
likely to …
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Review of Aftershocks
Some thoughts on the fan fiction Aftershocks.
We need to know without a shadow of a doubt that Padma did not
kill Parvati before we can move on.
I am extremely confused about this whole work. On the one hand
there are some parts which are really trully excellent. Whole …
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What We Were Made For: Gratitude For Normal
(unfortunately, FanFiction.net allows only one review per
chapter, so I was not able to add this to my review of
chapter 90 of The Missing Moments by Ash-and-Vine).
When I was something like fourteen I was in hospital for surgery
which made me for a week unable to move …
comments
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What is racism?
With relation to the current affair of kids running on their
father on live BBC News there was discussion on our the
internal email list of my employer. This is one side comment
I made there:
[…] Yes, it is a wrong idea, slightly racist, perhaps, but
these thoughts happen.
(Someday …
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The Problem of Neil Gaiman
So, it happened. I read “The problem of Susan” by Neil Gaiman and
I am completely disgusted by it. Not because Aslan did the White
Witch proper, or because he ate all those lovely little
children. Serves them well, and it is certainly the author’s
prerogative to decide that …
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1. září 1939
W. H. Auden
Původní překlad anglického originálu vytvořil Ivo A. Benda, upraveno.
Sedím v jedné z putyk
Na Dvaapadesáté ulici
Jsem nejistý a mám strach
Zatímco umírají chytré naděje
Ubohého, nepoctivého desetiletí:
Vlny hněvu a strachu
Cirkulují v jasných
I temných zemích světa
A tíží naše soukromé životy;
Nevyslovitelný pach …
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Láska nebo strach. Vyberte si.
Dan Drápal napsal do dnešních (7. února) Lidových novin velice
hezký článek „Co chybí Junckerovým scénářům.“ V zásadě mi
nezbývá, nežli s ním souhlasit, ale přece jenom bych rád přičinil
několik poznámek na jeho okraj.
Jednak je asi třeba zdůraznit, že je velice dobře, že nějaká Bílá
kniha vůbec vznikla …
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Harry Potter … poznámky jako odpověď
Argonantus napsal poměrně rozsáhlou recenzi všech románů Harryho
Pottera. Pokusím se zachovat starověce a dodat dostatečně dlouhé
citace, aby to dávalo smysl.
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Harry Potter as the teacher of DADA
I just want to shout loud agreement with many these negative
reviews of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”. It is really
a bad fan fiction signed off by J. K. Rowling for reasons I don’t
want to speculate about (yes, I guess, most her money go to
Lumos …
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Nezlořeč králi
(původně psáno jako odpověď příteli na podzim 2016, ještě před
zvolením pana Trumpa za amerického prezidenta)
V poslední době mnoho lidí zlořečilo zvláště v Praze panu
presidentu Miloši Zemanovi. A to nikoliv v soukromí, ale na
veřejných shromážděních.
Dovol mi abych se k tomuhle vyslovil, protože si myslím, že tohle …
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Harry Potter and The Jabber Spam
After many many years of happy using XMPP we
were finally awarded with the respect of spammers and suddenly
some of us (especially those who have their JID in their email signature) are getting a lot of spim.
Fortunately, the world of Jabber is not so defenceless, thanks to
XEP-0016 …
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Post-Communist Conservatism
While listening to the episode 30 of the Eastern Border
podcast (a very touching one, thank you, Kristaps), I was touched
by his notion of the post-Communist conservatism. The idea is
that many nations in the former Eastern block seem to be a way
more conservative than people in the …
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Cycles of Christianity
I was just listening to the series of three podcasts by Dave
Schemlzer on the Hero’s Journey and Fresh Christianity (episode
one, two, and three).
I haven’t came with some opinion on the series itself, but Dave
also mentioned on the side a book by Phyllis A. Tickle …
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P. Halík na cestě ke zradě?
(původně komentář k článku P. Halíka k americkým prezidentským volbám)
Pane profesore, jakkoli si Vás velice vážím a jakkoli jsem
naprosto znechucen vítězstvím pana Trumpa v amerických
prezidentských volbách, a jakkoli zbytek příspěvku je naprosto
přesný, přesto Vás musím opravit v jednom bodě. Pan Trump sice
doslova řekl, že miluje …
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Stages of grief
I am just reading an interesting blog post by my Melinda Selmys
reflecting on her reaction to the Mr. Trump’s victory in the US
elections.
I am Czech, so I have a little experience with the similar
situation, which I would like to share. Since 2013, Mr. Miloš
Zeman …
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Missing socialism
While listening to the Decline of the West episode I was told
about this quotation when John Steinbeck was supposed to describe
the political landscape of the US 1930s’:
I guess the trouble was that we didn’t have any self-admitted
proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed
capitalist.
—John Steinbeck …
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On Personal Truth
Our Senior Pastor John Mullen talked one Sunday during communion
about the distance between head and heart and that it is
absolutely crucial to transform the truths which we have only in
our head to those which are in our heart, and which are the only
ones which actually drive …
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Already and not yet
Reading about the Synod of the Bishops of the Catholic church,
and instead of thinking about the important matters of the
remarriage, divorce, and ordination of women, what comes to my
mind is what came through my mind when listening to the past
dialog about the so called “gay marriages …
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The Age of Irresponsibility
I was listening to the story on BBC how the British pensioners
are forced by the fear of Brexit to move from Spain back to UK,
because they are afraid Spanish government would stop paying them
their pension when (and if) UK leaves EU. And that’s just
because two …
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KChO konference 2016: Změním úděl svého lidu
Stále přemýšlím o přednášce „Změním úděl svého lidu“ na Katolické
charismatické konferenci 2016, kterou měli Kateřina Lachmanová
a Pavola Streža. Celou dobu co jsem tu přednášku poslouchal jsem
přemýšlel o Nehemiášovi. Ani Kateřina, ani Pavol, ho v přednášce
nezmínili (pokud se nemýlím, nebo rozhodně to nebylo dominantní
téma), ale myslím …
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Salmon fishing in the Yemen
Most movies are just faint shadows of what the original book was,
but in case of “Salmon fishing in the Yemen“ it is more true than
it is convenient. My story with this story started by reading
the review by Roger Ebert I left the reading of the movie with …
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