It’s time for the annual controversy; was the American Revolution a ‘Just’ War according to traditional Christian dogma (best explained by Aquinas)?
Category: History
French and Spanish Colonial Failures in the Americas
The Tyranny of ‘Good’ Intentions
For Statists, whether Left or Right:
“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.
The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult.
To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” {C.S. Lewis} H/T Eric S. Giunta… Read the rest
The Shroud of Turin Seen in 3D
A professor at the University of Padua has created a sculpture of Christ based on a 3D rendering of the Shroud of Turin:
The sculpture is based on precise measurements taken from the Shroud. Christ is depicted as being 5’11”, with a distended right shoulder and more than 300 wounds on his back and legs consistent with the flagellum.
Rob a Man of Everything and You’ve Lost All Power Over Him
It’s the birthday of Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, born in Kislovodsk, Russia in 1918 who was thrown into the gulag as a young man for saying that Stalin wasn’t Marxist enough in one of his personal letters. But the Gulag changed his life, because in a strange way, it was only in the Gulag that Russians spoke freely about their political beliefs. Solzhenitsyn later wrote, “You can have power over people as long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything, he’s no longer in your power.” (Writer’s Almanac)… Read the rest