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COMMON_ART_OF_LOST_SENSE

                                             June 22, 2008

Upon reading:

"Recovering the Lost Art of Common Sense"
Dale Alquist, a member of the                       [ref]
American Chesterton Society.

                                               CALUMNY
Here we have a Reasonable Man.
Or a fellow who thinks that he is:

  "So, the problem with the reformers is
  that they so often want to do away with
  things they don't understand. They
  apparently regard their lack of
  understanding as proof that the thing
  is not needed. It does not occur to          Closer would be:
  them that the tradition they are trying      they don't
  to destroy may have been put into place      understand they
  for a very good reason."                     lack any
                                               understanding.

                                                             UNCONSTRAINED
  "The successful reforms in
  history have occurred when
  people reconnected with
  their roots and where they      So, do the American people now need
  recovered their lost            to get in touch with their roots
  traditions."                    in the Magna Carta, or does the
                                  Bush regime deserve credit for
                                  getting in touch with their roots
                                  in the Middle Ages?

                                              Perhaps we need to get in
                                              touch with the grand old
                                              tradition of slavery.

                                                    If you claim that
                                                    "the old ways are
                                                    best", the next
                                                    question is *how* old.





  "Chesterton says the only
  glue strong enough to               RELIGIOUS_ORDER
  bind people together is
  religion."                                *Which* religion?  Is
                                            it possible to embrace
    [footnote:                              religious diversity and
    "Illustrated London News,               still have this
    January 13, 1912"]                      powerful glue?

  "If people abandon religion,                       Is there any reason
  they abandon each other. Art                       to assume that
  and culture, sports and games,                     Christianity makes
  political causes and commercial                    a better "social
  ventures all have their place                      glue" than any
  in a society but a very                            other relgion?
  secondary place. None of them
  are broad enough or deep enough
  to be a substitute for
  religion. And when we try to
  make them a substitute for
  religion, our society is in
  decline."

         There was a time when Western Culture
         prized Religion higher than Religious
         Tolerance, and most of us would not         NO_CRUSADES
         want to return to those days.

  "One of the most insidious
  philosophies of the modern world
  is the bland tolerance of every
  other philosophy, the idea that it
  doesn't matter what you do or what
  you believe. Evil rushes in
  through the door of indifference."

So, kill the
unbelievers?     Indifference is
                 far from the
                 only door...


  "The reason that Christianity is at one
  with common sense is that both are all
  about what is good for everybody."                Note: he closes
                                                    the essay with
When Christianity was king, it's reason             what looks like
often seemed much less reasonable than              a casual assumption
that...                                             that Catholicism
                                                    is the one true
                                                    Christianity.

                                                        But you know, I'm
                                                        pretty sure those
                                                        Protestant
                                                        "reformers"
                                                        figured they were
                                                        the ones getting
                                                        in touch with
                                                        lost traditions.


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