Wednesday Morning Ramblings

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(Can "rambling" be a noun?)

The Delicate Center-Right Balance

Hugh has a nice post today responding to an op-ed by former Senator Danforth. I think my blogfather strikes just the right note. On the one hand, as a center-right and deeply religious conservative, I get nervous when people like Randall Terry and absolutists on immigration and right-to-life issues get too closely associated with the GOP on major issues. As William Penn said, "Truth often suffers more from the heat of its defenders than from the arguments of its opposers."

On the other hand, I also get nervous when the Danforths and McCains and George H.W. Bushes of the world want to take the gentlemanly route: Too often they start negotiating too early with lefties who have no interest in compromise, and their opening demand asks for less than even half the loaf. I agree with Hugh:

[P]erhaps the senator ought to have focused on the fact that the courts and the left are setting the agenda, and the center-right coalition, which includes many people for whom faith informs a world view, has decided that the demands of the radicals are not going to be agreed to without a political fight. It is messy stuff, but it is also unavoidable.

Indeed.

And-- I am with Jim of Stones Cry Out on this. If going to church once or twice a year is the mark of being "reasonably religious," then I must be hanging out with a lot of unreasonable religious nuts-- and I must be one myself! Just imagine how horrible things in this country would be if everyone worshipped in a church or synagogue weekly!

Facts about Schiavo

InstaPundit links to this very informative set of FAQ's about the Shiavo case. It appears calm and balanced. I find the Shiavo affair to be astonishingly multi-facted. Surely several writers are already at work on books about it. I hope some of those are serious efforts, not propaganda.

Meanwhile, Doug TenNapel (why can't I have a cool surname like that?) has an excellent and fiery post on both Schiavo and judicial moral hegemony generally. I can't tell if Doug agrees with my post below about the rule of law or not. If what he's saying is that there are just some days when anarchy looks pretty good, then I agree with him. But we must resist that impulse, my brother! So when do we cross the line where we need to resort to Boston Tea Party-type action? Heck , I don't know, but I think we're pretty far from that point right now. I hope so, anyway; God gave us the Constitution; let's use it. Our task is to convince people of the correctness of our positions; if we can't do that we're lost anyway.

Wow, that thought went on longer than I thought it would.

Kofi and Whine

Don't miss Laer at Cheat Seeking Missiles, dissecting Kofi Annan's press conference statements on the oil-for-food scandal. Not much left of old Kofi when Laer is through with him.

The Blogosphere Generally

Good general reading about the new media here at rConversation.