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Toxic Male's avatar

This is a wonderful article. I’ve long thought these things and I have watched our children struggle in violent public schools that clearly protect certain students while demonizing others. I have watched Charlie Kirk and the United Healthcare murders be celebrated and justified while the GOP and other conservative groups shame own at every misstep. I want to read Beautiful Losers: Essays on the Failure of American Conservatism by Samuel T. Francis to understand more about how conservatism gets its ass kicked 24/7. You certainly provided food for thought. I am especially interested in how the Catholic Church pushed this pacifism onto us.

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Chevalier Mal Fet's avatar

This article is a much needed corrective. The language is a little inflammatory in places, which will give purchase to our enemies. But we are all already exhausted with self-censorship. I think the question of the role of violence comes down to the ordo amoris. If it is true that we owe a greater debt of love to our family than to the stranger, then violence can rightfully be unleashed in protecting our family from the stranger who attacks it, and the Church should promote this. Analogously, the Church promotes sex within marriage, for that is the rightful place for sex. There seems to have been a concerted effort (the question always arises: by whom?) to corrupt Christian morality by replacing the ordo amoris with universal love, and by replacing marriage with free love. The effect of both will be equally devastating for our society. I am always shocked by how many of my friends - intelligent, professional people - reject the ordo amoris in favor of universal love. When I question whether they love their own children more than someone else's children in another country, they always admit that they do, but they seem to consider it a moral failing. Can they not see how perverse this is?

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