New Zealand Conservative

How did you become interested in learning more about Islamic thought? And what have you learned? Reilly: My background really was in the Cold War and I am a student of political philosophy. Most of that was applied to 19th and 20th century Western ideologies. It was only after 9/11 that I wondered whether what I knew could apply to the situation we were facing. So for more than 10 years now I have been studying mainly Muslim theology—and what passes for philosophy and metaphysics and epistemology—to try to get to the source of why things have gone so wrong there. And I traced it back to an enormous intellectual drama in the 9th century in Baghdad between those who wished to give primacy to reason and those who wished to give primacy to pure will and power. So you had, on one side, the first theological school in Islam that said, “God is rationality and justice,” and the other side which said: “No, God is pure will and power. Rationality has nothing to do with Him and whatever...

Christianity was founded by people who could not have cared less about “Christian civilization.” What interested them was Christ, and the reverberations of his coming on the whole of human existence. Christians believed in Christ, not in Christianity itself; they were Christians, not “Christianists.” Those few sentences articulate what is wrong with the West today - Christ is no longer at our centre. Without Him, everything will fall. Related link: An interview with Rémi Brague ~ University of Chicago Press

I have to say at the outset that I believe, based on what I have heard of this man's story, that he should never have been found guilty of manslaughter, given that he was set upon by a number of men who wouldn't stop attacking him. In any sane jurisdiction he would have been either not charged at all or been found innocent and let go. But not in the Chinese justice system which from what I have read and heard, does not have justice at it's mandate. What was supposed to be a business trip instead became a stint in a Chinese jail for Danny Cancian after a restaurant fight took a lethal turn. He was charged with manslaughter and, although the judge at his trial acknowledged that he did not start the fight, he was deemed to have used excessive force on one of his attackers, who died of a brain bleed. Danny Cancian phoned NewsTalkZB this morning (the Tim Fookes Morning Show) and explained that at that point in the fight, he had been hit in the back of the head with a chai...

On Monday 12 December, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks met with Pope Benedict XVI before going on to deliver a talk at the Pontifical Gregorian University on the European crisis around the Euro, focusing on if Europe has lost it's soul. What I hope to show in this lecture, is first, the religious roots of the market economy and of democratic capitalism . They were produced by a culture saturated in the values of the Judaeo-Christian heritage, and market economics was originally intended to advance those values. Second, the market never reaches stable equilibrium. Instead the market itself tends to undermine the very values that gave rise to it in the first place through the process of “creative destruction.” Third, the future health of Europe, politically, economically and culturally, has a spiritual dimension. Lose that and we will lose much else besides. To paraphrase a famous Christian text: what will it profit Europe if it gains the whole world yet loses its soul? Europe is in da...

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks is the outstanding religious leader in Britain today. Not surprisingly his small piece on the September 11 anniversary was thought provoking. He began by pointing out that some saw the 2001 terrorist attack as marking the end of an epoch. The Cold War with Communism was over and the new war with radical violent Islam had begun. Others believed that terrorist attacks don't change the bases of power, except perhaps by provoking an over-reaction. Robert McNamara, USA Secretary of Defence to President J.F. Kennedy, claimed that the first rule in politics is to understand the psychology of your enemy. Why then did al-Qa'ida attack the West? Sacks claims that Bin Laden believed the U.S.A. was past its prime, overripe and ready to fall off its tree. The collapse of the Communist world in 1989 was not due to free market economics or the superiority of liberal democracy, according to Bin Laden. He believed Russia collapsed because their humiliating retr...

Was the intervention in Libya justified – and if so, does that mean the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was justified? The conditions laid down by the French for their participation in enforcing a no-fly zone over Libyan air space go some way to answering those questions. Before they would join in any military action in Libya, the French were asking for (a) a clear UN resolution for the intervention(b) it had to be a UN operation, not one led by NATO (c) there would have to be some Arab involvement in the force, however token and (d) there would have to be a direct request and support for that intervention from a significant part of the civilian population. What a pile of rubbish. The UN resolution puts it squarely against its own doctrines. The intervention was not about saving civilian lives, it was about offering direct support to one of the two sides in this dispute, something the UN Charter does not allow. And both sides are not interested in Western Democratic Principles, so the li...

Clint Heine advances some interesting thoughts around Capitalism in two posts which he attacks Lucia Maria, and to a lesser extent, NZC bloggers for imagined crimes ( covered here ). It's those thoughts on capitalism though that I thought worth discussing further. Clint makes these two claims about capitalism: 1. a fundamental part of capitalism is equality. 2. Capitalists believe in equality and fairness. Now capitalism means many things to many people, and this might be why the conversation gets off track, but I think I'm fairly safe if we agree the core tenets of Capitalism is that (a) it is an economic system and (b) the means of production are privately owned and operated for profit. The profit goes to the business owners, and wages are paid to the workers in exchange for their labour. Clearly, at first glance you can see that Capitalists have no intrinsic reason to believe in fairness and equality. I'd suggest capitalism is more about competition, reward ...

For the historically ignorant: Medieval Monasticism as Preserver of Western Civilization

I've just taken a small part of an incredible speech given by an American Catholic Bishop in Slovakia. He covers alot, and so I would urge everyone to read the whole article. But for those that like their information in small snapshots, here he is on what undergirds the West, and that is Christ. Take away Christ as many want to do, and it will all fall apart. As it is doing. Two of the biggest lies in the world today are these: first, that Christianity was of relatively minor importance in the development of the West; and second, that Western values and institutions can be sustained without a grounding in Christian moral principles. [...] Downplaying the West’s Christian past is sometimes done with the best intentions, from a desire to promote peaceful co-existence in a pluralistic society. But more frequently it’s done to marginalize Christians and to neutralize the Church’s public witness. The Church needs to name and fight this lie. To be a European or an American [or ...

The other week the Dominion Post published a piece by Marie Russell , a "keen user" of Wellington's public libraries, on the future of public libraries in Wellington. Marie was alarmed to discover that "free libraries" appeared to be under threat from council funding cuts, but noticed there was plenty of money for what she called "Rugby World Cup-type circuses". Here are some things the council may not want citizens to know: last year, the long-term plan decided on an increase in net expenditure on libraries to $20.99 million in 2010-11 - a 3.26 per cent increase on the previous year. But the annual plan unilaterally supersedes that, with a massive decline in net expenditure on libraries in the coming year of 8.49 per cent to $19.2m. [...]Tourism promotion spending is up by 10.26 per cent and events attraction and support gets a 6.8 per cent boost in the draft annual plan. Together, these amount to nearly $9m that will chiefly benefit hospitality bu...

Rejection of God leaves society, and our very civilisation, weak and vulnerable. Far from secularism being the great liberator, it is the great enslaver, enslaving societies until their ultimate death or destruction. For that reason, Pope Benedict's vision of what is needed (the restoration of Christendom) is the only way out of this quagmire we've created. Conservatives are searching for a leader. Move over Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney. Pope Benedict XVI has emerged as the great conservative champion. In his recently issued and much anticipated third encyclical, "Caritas in Veritate" ("Love in Truth"), the pope lays out a brilliant blueprint for addressing the seminal problems of our age. Contrary to headlines, the encyclical is not an anti-capitalist tract. The pope is not a red Tory who puts "social justice" and statist economics above free markets. He does not call for big-government liberalism. Instead, he upholds free markets ...

"She lost because people didn't bother voting for her because they thought she was going to win it" lamented 21 year old Gordon. And on that foundation, Gordon then makes the quote of the day: "I didn't vote for her because I thought everyone else would." Seems Gordon is a product of the times. The challenge is not to run our lives that way over the things that matter to us. And for those straying across this blog in three months hence, when this matter in particular is all but forgotten, Gordon refers to the initially derided "matronly" Ms Boyle from Blackburn Scotland coming in a respectable second on "Britain's Got Talent". Although I like the quote because it survives out of context. Title of this blog post courtesy of the Constitutional Peasant sketch from the Holy Grail, of course.

The Privy Council has announced the "Muslim" name is unlawful and offensive. Furthermore, restricting the term "Muslim" to mean only people that are Muslim breaches the right to equality of non-Muslims, who by definition were excluded from sharing the term "Muslim" through no fault of their own. ----- The actual complaints arose from our Commonwealth cousins in Trinidad and Tobago, who have a 30% Muslim population. The stupidity of the Privy Council decision beggars belief. The Trinity Cross can be awarded to ANYONE, if they are judged worthy of the honour. An award that can go to anyone, is by definition not discriminatory. The Privy Council deserve an award. The "Natural Dhimmi" award. It's not given as an offensive religious symbol, but rather as a barcode etched into the subservient forehead of successful candidate. It makes sorting so much easier in the future. Full story here: Crusader Rabbit - Show us your cross

Congratulations to Obama, American's first black president. Truly, a great day for the cause of equality. However, it's just a step. Blacks can't say they are truly equal until a black President is as freely vilified as any corrupt white president. An impeachment would do the trick, not that I hope for one. An assassination would be the worst possible thing to happen, not only from Obama's point of view, but for the cause of equality. He would be made a martyr and America would feel obliged to elect a black women as President to compensate. Perhaps the first lady would step in, or perhaps Hillary Clinton with a tan, I don't know. Even if some fundamentalist Muslim organisation, such as the New York Times, took the credit for the "Dallas 2009" event, it would still inspire too many counter-conspiracy theories. Besides, the New York Times doesn't make news, just misreports it. For some, Obama's reign of evil has commenced. It started in We...

In recent years there has arisen a new atheism that represents a direct attack on Western Christianity . Books such as Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great, and Sam Harris' The End of Faith, all contend that Western society would be better off if we could eradicate from it the last vestiges of Christianity. But Christianity is largely responsible for many of the principles and institutions that even secular people cherish -- chief among them equality and liberty. When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal," he called the proposition "self-evident." But he did not mean that it is immediately evident. It requires a certain kind of learning. And indeed most cultures throughout history, and even today, reject the proposition. At first glance, there is admittedly something absurd about the claim of human equality, when all around us we see dramatic evidence of inequality...

In my latest book buying spree from Amazon, I've acquired How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas E. Woods. I'm looking forward to reading it. However, I was inspired to put this post up due to a comment by Liberty Scott on his blog . Though it has always been like that - ancient Greece was the first great attempt to embrace reason, and it took the Enlightenment to throw off the shackles of oppressive Christianity suppressing science and reason - a process that has yet to be completed against all religions and all philosophies of subjectivist irrationality. Mr Dennis has already made a very good comment refuting this statement, but I thought I'd give him a hand from the synopsis of the aforementioned book. By far the book’s longest chapter is "The Church and Science." We have all heard a great deal about the Church’s alleged hostility toward science. What most people fail to realize is that historians of science have spent the past half-ce...

This blog was created about 4 months ago. The Percipient Internet Society of Standards Authorizing Nobility, Taste and Sophistication (also known as PISSANTS ) have dropped a line that I have failed to demonstrate a suitable appreciation for culture. It is alleged (in polite circles) that I may have also suggested the end of civilisation as we know it is upon us. Obviously, if I were to make such a bold assertion, one would think I could prove that I understand just what cultural bits of said civilisation I was worried about losing. However, I did get marks for mentioning Groove Armada in one of my posts, so one could presume if said PISSANTS had visited my original blog at Swoboda or my other blog at Sir Humphrey's, (both sadly off-line at this time) that references to Pink Floyd and Chee Chee may have counted towards my quota. Meanwhile (for all I know) on another blog somewhere on the internet, I am being chastised for not delving into the details of my sex life becau...

The Catholic Bishop's fight over the Bloody Mary episode of South Park is a fight for civilisation itself. Some see it as an issue of free speech - where the ability to be as offensive and crass as possible is equated to much needed freedom to express unpalatable ideas. This is an example of the type of the confusion that is rampant in society today. Screen "Bloody Mary" to the civilised world of one hundred years ago, and the reaction would be far more aggressive than that of the Catholic Bishops today. The men of hundred years ago would be very aware of the grave insult to women that the "Bloody Mary" episode represents, and would not leave it to Bishops to point out the obvious. That today's cravens cannot see it shows just how much we have degenerated over the years.