Invitations to transgender activists, first openly gay U.S. Episcopal bishop and activist nun to White House event prompt pushback

Sure, but does he know economics?

It’s one thing to conclude that markets are immoral after learning how markets work and what life would be like in their absence.  Such a conclusion is intellectually defensible because it would reflect an informed – if, in my view, bizarre – value judgment.  But the conclusion that markets are immoral typically reflects – as it surely does in the case of Pope Francis – utter ignorance of the logic and history of markets (and of the logic and history of governments).

Not hardly.

Freedom rings and people answer the bell.

The greater the economic freedom, the wealthier and happier the people. From minimum-wage laws to higher progressive taxation to greater unionization to larger welfare programs to more regulation, left liberals demand a stronger and more economically active central government.

Advocates of laissez-faire, on the other hand, favor smaller government, less regulation, lower taxes, and greater individual opportunity and property rights.

But which economic policy approach actually yields the best results?

Read on, my friends, read on.

They do his crowds but send you to You Tube for the message,

There is little to no curiosity among our media elite about how a Democratic candidate for president is able to campaign on a shrinking middle class, record highs of unemployment, record lows of workforce participation, record wage stagnation, and record entitlement dependency, while a Democratic president simultaneously travels around the country touting his economic success on all counts. How is it allowed to go unnoticed that this candidate suggests that economic growth was better under Richard Nixon than under Barack Obama?

How indeed?

The aborted ones:

“In New York City, home to the largest black population of any U.S. urban area, more black babies are aborted than born,” writes Jason Riley [in Wall St. Journal]. “In Georgia, where whites outnumber blacks 2 to 1, more than 53% of abortions involve black babies,” he adds. Mr. Riley argues that “if liberal activists and their media allies are going to lecture America about the value of black lives, the staggering disparity in abortion rates ought to be part of the discussion.”

It’s what Margaret Sanger had in mind.

Goes like this, says Maureen Malarkey:

You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just listen to me
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free.
Paul Simon, Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover

The pope, too, has a pen and a phone. Has Francis’ motu proprio trumped the Synod? Or handicapped conservatives? Hard to say. But one thing now is certain: Marriage is indissoluble except when it is not. Put another way, indissolubility is revealed to be more soluble than we had previously understood.

Quick fix is in the mix.

Go neither west nor east nor north nor south, young man. Stay here and get a government job. You’ll be in the majority.

As of June 2015, Illinois had only 574,000 factory workers, compared with nearly 750,000 state and local government workers. That means Illinois had only 3 manufacturing workers for every 4 state and local government workers.

You’ll be in the money too, because govt is where the money is in Illinois.

On the other hand, Illinois’ money is running out . . .

Illinois, paced by Chicago, goes from powerhouse to poorhouse – The Orange County Register

Bible is full of hard sayings, but verse 18 here, from Paul to the Colossians chap. 3, is up there with the hardest, here from the official bishops’ page:

The Christian Family. 18* Wives, be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the Lord.o 19Husbands, love your wives, and avoid any bitterness toward them. 20Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is pleasing to the Lord.p 21Fathers, do not provoke your children, so they may not become discouraged.q

What’s the poor preacher to do?

A, culture differences. We are not first-century middle easterners. We are not 21st-century middle easterners or southeast Asians. In Oak Park and Bryn Mawr-Clark Street areas, I have seen woman walking behind their husbands. Not as a rule, but it happens. The husband and I passed each other first on Catalpa east of Clark, then I passed the wife, whom I expected to be glum and resigned. No. She had the nicest relaxed smile in return for mine. Husband loved her, I speculated, both were content.

Wouldn’t work for most people most of us know. (I have readers in mind.) But seemed to work for her and others I have seen in Oak Park.

B, the form that husbands’ love takes. In our time and place, it includes respect and mutuality and spirit of cooperation. Bingo. Respect, etc. took shapes that both were used to. He was to be kind to her in expected manner.

C, As for children obeying and fathers (and mothers, we add) not provoking their children, we require no explanation at this point — in a homily, that is. People will get it, that is.

The clincher is that (a) culture matters and (b) husbands’ love, or treating their wives lovingly, as Knox has it, is the key to discovering that pearl of great price, domestic tranquility.

More on the refugee problem, and not as humanitarian catastrophe.