Three Worth Reading Today

There are several good articles out recently worthy of your attention. At Bookworm Room, the author skillfully weaves together three thoughts, criticism of the left's superficial caricature of the Christianity, the actual purpose of Indiana's RFRA, and the motivations of the left in attacking the RFRA hidden behind the stated goal of protecting gay rights. Jesus Would Have Supported RFRA:

The only thing that the law does is to say, consistent with both Jesus’s teachings and the Constitution, that people of conscience cannot be forced to bring commerce or government diktats into their own inviolable area of faith. Put another way, to the extent marriage is a core sacrament to the faithful, the law cannot force them to sell themselves out — in effect, to become coerced money changers in their own temple.

Incidentally, while I’m on the subject of the gay lobby pushing ever harder on Christians and Christian doctrine, let me say that all of this was predictable. Years and years ago, I warned that gay marriage had nothing to do with marriage and everything to do with toppling religion.

At National Review, Victor Davis Hanson takes a look at the pettiness and malevolence driving Obama's presidency, as well as the lawlessness with which it is being run. Obama's Chicago Presidency

Once that pen-and-phone threshold has been crossed, anything is possible — and even the critics of Obama now belatedly accept that. In brilliantly diabolical fashion, the president of the United States has all but ruined the Democratic party in Congress and the state legislatures, but has also confounded his Republican opponents by not caring a whit about his own nihilism — as if he is supposed to worry about ending the congressional careers of his supposed allies?

After all, if someone is going to ignore the law or what tradition demands, then why does he need a legislative majority to do it? Obama is more powerful in defeat than he ever was in victory. Like a seasoned Chicago pol, he reminds his auditors and critics that not only does he not care about the appearance of his actions, but also that no else does either. He all but says, “Each time I issue an illegal executive order, my polls go up, and the more my enemies howl and my friends cringe.” It becomes more hazardous — ask Senator Menendez or an audited Tea Party group — to object to an Obama abuse than for Obama to commit the abuse, which makes further abuse only more certain.

And also at National Review, Thomas Sowell discusses how the left has turned the liberal arts into a means for indoctrination rather than education. As he points out, the rights criticism is not of the liberal arts education, but rather what the left has made of it. Who Really Trashes The Liberal Arts:

The history of the 20th century shows soft-subject students and their professors among the biggest supporters of extremist movements, both fascist and communist — the former in central and eastern Europe before World War II and the latter in countries around the world, both before and after that war.

Those who want the liberal arts to be what they were supposed to be will have to profoundly change them from what they have become. Doing that will undoubtedly provoke more denunciations of critics for “trashing” the liberal arts by criticizing those who have in fact already trashed the liberal arts in practice.

Good articles. Happy reading.

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