Happy Bastille Day

I'm not really a friend of revolution, The Revolution, or the Enlightenment, but at a remove of a couple centuries, one can appreciate the good parts, especially the symbolism of liberating prisoners and destroying icons of despotism.

Here are a few articles appropriate for reading on Bastille Day:

• Raise the Crime Rate: argues that the circumstances in America's prisons are so unjust the preferable alternative is to empty the prisons and endure the higher crime rate.
• The sequester is bad for the legal system: don't pay attention to the muppets who tell you that the sequester is not causing any problems. It is painful for many areas and the legal system is one of them. Note also that public defenders are horribly underfunded on the state level as well.
• An op-ed on prison reform: a conservative making the case for prison reform.
• The Fatal Shore: an extremely well-written and captivating history of Australia's founding as a penal colony.

Hope that helps.

Thoughts on a year with the Greeks

It seems that my sojourn with the Greeks has ended, as an OCA mission is being established in my hometown, so I'll debrief a little bit.

It was a pretty good year. The priest was good, we made some friends, and it was probably good to see how other traditions do things. I had spent some time in an Antiochian parish and occasionally attended Greek parishes, but that's not quite the same as really being there, you know? I highly recommend the experience, though it was certainly rough at times.

Really, the roughest part was the commute. It is very nice to be able to have church in town, which, in this case, means a 10 minute commute. I could even walk or ride the bus if I wanted now. The trip made it hard to participate regularly in the full cycle of services.

Anyway, in my "Archbishop-Job-imitating-some-other-guy" voice: "YAY YAY OCA."

A thought on "freedoms", the Constitution, etc.

Perhaps the stability of the American project and its concern for the rights of its (landed, white) citizens has more to do with its foundations in the English common law tradition than the genius of the authors of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

I don't believe in natural rights

At least, not the American conception of them from John Locke et al. They are inimical to the mediaeval conception of natural rights from Aquinas and I'm not convinced Orthodox are forced to believe Aquinas' conception. So that leaves me without natural rights.

LIbertarianism is a joke.

Sorry to be so explicitly political rather than attempting to skirt anything, but it really had to be said.

Paedocommunion is the essence of Christianity

Babies are humans too, after all. They're better Christians than any of us. I mean, when was the last time you openly wept in church?