Christian Morality Is About Individuals, Not Groups

 St. Thomas Aquinas has provided us with the best definition of love.

You've got a decent chance of figuring out what "the good" is for an individual if you really get to know them. At least you can make an educated guess. You can also take steps to make sure your actions don't have destructive secondary effects on others.

You've got just about no chance at all of figuring out what "the good" is for the members of a large group and you can just forget about predicting how you might harm people outside the group.

I've discussed in the past how my middle brother died as a homeless addict and alcoholic. If you had exerted yourself to do "good" for him, you would have locked him away in rehab for the rest of his life and given him some vigorous home truths. I have no idea if such an action would be best for any particular homeless person, I just know it's what he needed.

When the progressive prelates in the Catholic Church talk about "uplifting the marginalized," warehousing the homeless like that is not what they mean. As a result, "uplifting the marginalized" would have been counterproductive for my brother.

If Bishop Pham of San Diego goes out to the tomato fields in Central California and gets to know Jose Hernandez, illegal immigrant, he's got a really good shot at helping poor old Jose without kicking the rest of America in the groin. It's a bit murkier when Bishop Pham and the rest of our moral-pornography-besotted bishops talk about the "migrants" as a group, insisting that we deport none of them.

I recently saw some eye-opening education stats from California. Over 70% of black 4th graders in California are not proficient at reading at the basic level. The basic level. Dittos for black 8th graders. That means "See spot run" is about as far as they can get. They can barely communicate in English, there's zero chance they can communicate at all in Spanish.

Thanks to Bishop Pham and his buddies in the Church, the language of construction, housekeeping and landscape maintenance in California is now Spanish. Those functionally illiterate black kids are shut out from the only careers available to provide them productive, successful lives.

Had our bishop focused on Jose, he'd have been fine and we'd all have applauded. Maybe Jose has a wife and children and he's trying to keep the family together while his wife undergoes complicated treatments for her painful dandruff condition. The bishop would have been able to predict the ripple effects from his actions with a degree of accuracy.

When the bishops lecture us about the migrants, they clearly have no idea what they're talking about. They aren't trying to hurt people on purpose, but they've still managed to absolutely stomp all over young blacks' employment prospects. Even now, they have no clue at all what they're doing to the rest of us.

That's not a criticism of their intentions or intellect, it's a consequence of their decision to take Jesus' teachings and extend them from individuals to groups, which is something He never did for reasons that have become all too obvious.

So help Jose and let the polity take care of the migrants.

On Old Men And Cigars

After my tobacco growing experiments yielded a smokable harvest, I decided to find out if my tobacco was any good by taking up pipe smoking. I'd never smoked prior to that and even now, I smoke about twice a month. I recently decided to see what cigars were like.

Recalling that Roger Moore was partial to Monte Cristo cigars, and Roger being my favorite James Bond, I stopped at our local Total Wine and More and picked up one. It was utterly sublime.

At 62, I took up cigar smoking with about the same regularity as my pipe smoking. Monte Cristos are quite expensive, about $25 apiece, so I tried to find similar cigars that were less expensive. A bit of searching both here in San Diego and in Mobile, Alabama yielded a string of smokes that tasted like I was licking the asphalt out in the street. Horrible.

The last one I tried, highly recommended by the cigar guy at the Tinder Box in Mobile, was a Perdomo Lot 23 Nicaraguan. Again, sublime.

My cigar exploration has produced very few hits, so I think I'm done with that and I'll stick to the Perdomos and the Monte Cristos. Combined with a good Old Fashioned, and I make a good one, the experience is exquisite.

The problem with being a novice at cigar smoking when you're 63 is that you didn't make your truly hideous mistakes at 16 and there are lessons you still need to learn the hard way.

About a week ago, wife kitteh went on a retreat with a friend and, naturally, I threw a stag party. Southern food and Confederate Railroad music was had in great quantities and two of my guests proved to be excellent mixologists. It was a lot of fun until the very end when we brought out smokes.

You are not supposed to inhale cigars. I had heard that, but while smoking my previous cigars, I played with that advice and inhaled a few times. Nothing happened.

I inhaled a complete Perdomo Lot 23 Nicaraguan Churchill. That is one seriously big cigar.

Vomito de gato.

Cigars have a lot more nicotine than cigarettes which is why you only puff them. You get plenty of the stuff through your mouth. No need to take it into your lungs and poison yourself, which is what I did. Blargh.

I don't get a nicotine high. I still don't understand why people smoke cigarettes. I smoke pipes and cigars for the flavor and the experience. Like I said, they go real well with mixed drinks. And so I ended up crawling around on the floor all day Sunday as my body irritably processed the idiotic amount of nicotine I had consumed while not actually enjoying any kind of buzz from it.

I sure wish I had learned that when I was 16.

A happier moment when I'm puffing, not inhaling.

If This Is A Spaniel

 ... then I'm the Queen of France.

That's Buddy. He's probably around 40# by now at 5-6 months old. We were assured he was a spaniel - retriever mix. Doggy DNA testing showed he was exactly what I thought he was when we met him as a puppy at the rescue place - a pit bull.

Fortunately, he's a meek pit bull. Our twin chihuahua sisters dominate him. Thank God for small favors.

The Deeper Meaning Of Charlie Kirk's Death And Memorial

Here are a few clips to get this started.

First, Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.

Marco Rubio summoned his inner Father Mike Schmitz and explained the entire story of salvation history in under 90 seconds.

🙌❤️🔥✝️ pic.twitter.com/W7ZO11CjQ3

— Bree Solstad (@BreeSolstad) September 21, 2025

Second, Vice President J D Vance.

“I’ve been a little uncomfortable talking about my faith in public...I have talked more about Jesus Christ in the past 2 weeks than I have my ENTIRE time in public life!” -JD Vance We are on the right side of history! #christisking #charliekirkmemorial #ajsrantroom pic.twitter.com/HHRofOTbJA

— AJs RANT Room 🇺🇸 (@AJsRantRoom) September 21, 2025

Next, Erika Kirk.

“I forgive him.” @MrsErikaKirk pic.twitter.com/UWTEpAidol

— Margo Martin (@MargoMartin47) September 21, 2025

Now, President Trump.

TRUMP: "He didn't hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them - that's where I disagreed with Charlie. I HATE my opponent and I DON'T want the best for them."💀😂 pic.twitter.com/9X7N1aLWR8

— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) September 21, 2025

Finally, Andrew Klavan.

No one has said it better than @andrewklavan. Don't get angry and avenge Charlie Kirk. Imitate him instead. Go out to the normal people and seek what's best for them. Preach Christianity which naturally leads to conservatism because liberty is required for virtue. pic.twitter.com/IeyWavPAy5

— K T Cat (@ktcat) September 22, 2025

They are not all the same. There is a line running through them, but they are not the same. The Overton Window has shifted dramatically. 

The dominant question on the right, now broadly permissible as a result of Charlie Kirk’s death, is this: How do we best follow Christ in the realm of politics?

It is incredible to me that such a question is now front and center in the Republican party. It would have been unthinkable even 3 weeks ago. As a believing Catholic, I haven't felt comfortable discussing my faith in public in 20 or 30 years. 

I have a friend who teaches natural family planning at marriage preparation classes. She's no dummy, she can see other Catholics wince when she brings up the topic. She shared with me a little of the embarrassment she feels, even among her fellow Catholics, at the subject. She hesitates to discuss it unless required by the classes.

That's the Overton Window in action. What is permissible speech in public? The Overton Window limits what we will discuss with each other, even in private, even among friends. When JD Vance said he had felt uncomfortable discussing his faith in public, he meant even the speeches he gave at red-meat, MAGA events.

The Secretary of State went full Father Mike Schmitz, not just in public, but in front of a memorial service whose size equaled those of JFK and MLK. When have you ever heard that, in such an enormous venue, from the person fourth in line for the Presidency?

I didn't watch the whole thing, but I watched much of it and every speaker got up and talked about their Christian faith. It was the central theme of the day. Not MAGA, not Trump, not the political enemies, not even the murder of Charlie Kirk. While Charlie's assassination was the catalyst, the end product of the reaction was this conversation.

How do we serve God in our politics? How do we gain the courage to speak the truth? How can we be more like Charlie Kirk in our daily lives?

I have no doubt that the regime media will focus on Trump's profession of hate. They absolutely should do that. The President of the United States, at a massive event for a Christian preacher, pled allegiance to hate. But you have to see it in context. If you know anything about Trump, you know he's a showman, full of bluster, speaking in hyperbole all the time. He is the greatest, everything he's ever done is the greatest, all of his achievements are like nothing we've ever seen.

Trump's profession of hate had an undercurrent of regret and doubt. It was an admission, not a call to action. When he talked about Erika's forgiveness, he didn't do what he usually does to people who disagree with him, calling her names or saying she was a failure. No, instead of that, he said that she might be able to convince him he was wrong and he needed to wish the best for everyone, even his enemies.

Amazing. Fantastic. Miraculous.

We don't know where this is going to lead, but we do know that it has utterly changed the conversation we are all having with each other, at least on the right. We are now having the correct conversation, as Andrew Klavan has been asserting for years now. The most important questions are about the Truth and both politics and culture are downstream of that. 

Don't get angry and avenge Charlie Kirk. Imitate him instead.

I'll leave you with this one, staggering quote. Imagine a world where Elon converts and uses his platform, his wealth and his powerful persuasion for Christ.

Marginalized Pornography

Within the very progressive Diocese of San Diego, a common theme from the pulpit is how we must lift up the marginalized. It's driven me bonkers, but it's taken me a while to understand why.

There is no such thing as the marginalized. The term comes from social justice and cultural Marxism academic literature. It implies all that you would suspect given that pedigree. Its root is the verb "to marginalize" and it's freighted with the Marxist concepts of oppressors and oppressed. Oppressors marginalize people. The oppressed are the marginalized.

Further, it carries with it the woke hierarchy of victim groups. When you talk about the marginalized, people know you mean blacks, LGBTQWERTY, women, the homeless and so on. The flip side is that straight, white men and their allies are the ones doing the marginalizing. Everything is about power and systems of oppression.

Just taking the homeless as an example, you can see that the term doesn't make sense. My middle brother was an addict and an alcoholic. He was homeless when he died. To our diocese, he was a member of the marginalized. In reality, that man was in no way, shape or form marginalized by anyone. He was an utter sensualist. There was no immediate pleasure he would not forgo whether that was sex, drugs or booze. He slept with anything that wore a skirt and consumed anything that made him high.

Our family tried to "uplift" him many times, but that always ended in theft, betrayal and sometimes violence.

The racially marginalized are equally nonsensical.

Here, the white girl was the oppressor. The black guy who had just stabbed her in the throat was the marginalized. Dittos for the black passengers who walked past her as she bled out on the floor. You can find the full story here if you aren't familiar with this iconic image.

Classifying people as marginalized makes no sense at all. As Solzhenitsyn said, the dividing line between good and evil runs down the middle of every human heart. We're all complex people. Catholics, perhaps not including our clergy here in San Diego, believe that all people are fallible, sinful creatures that cannot perfect or redeem themselves on their own. That includes whoever it is the clergy think they're describing when they used the term "marginalized."

So what's up with all the talk about the marginalized?

When you use the term "marginalized," you put them in the context of the Marxists' oppressor-victim framework. The discussion from that point on forces anyone disagreeing with you to take up the flag of the oppressor. You are airbrushing away the agency of these people the way lingerie models have their flaws airbrushed away in Photoshop. It's porn.

When our clergy tell us to uplift the marginalized, what are we going to say, "No, I don't want to uplift the marginalized?" You force us to accept your unspoken premise that these people are helpless victims of an unjust system created by people like us who are privileged at their expense. We are the villains and now we must pay back what we owe.

It's all nonsense, it's all moral pornography. Your frisson of onanistic pleasure that comes from helping the less fortunate by your speech alone becomes all the greater because now you are helping, not just people who are in a bad way, but utterly innocent and helpless people who are in a bad way. You can't hope to find anyone who better fits Jesus' reference of "the least among you" than the "marginalized."

It's like an AI version of the perfect lingerie model, a chick crafted by your prompts to have just the right hair, the right skin, the right measurements, the right pose, the right facial expression and the right garments to arouse you to the very heights of ecstasy.

The marginalized do not exist in real life because Marxism is utterly wrong, but they do exist in your head. Each of the social justice progressives has their own internal image of the marginalized, just like porn addicts each have their own distinct fetishes.

A good way to put an end to this kind of talk is to bring up concrete examples. My brother, for one. Just how do you plan on uplifting him when he's just going to rob you to get another hit? How about the black guy on the train in Charlotte? Are you planning on uplifting him as he stands with the white girl's blood dripping from his knife, muttering, "I got that white girl?"

Or maybe these guys in South Africa. For the social justice crew, black South Africans are prime-grade marginalized beef on the hoof. Go ahead and uplift them as they destroy their own infrastructure in the process of stealing a few dollars worth of scrap metal.

South Africa is a lawless place. pic.twitter.com/desMSmi3Bt

— Catch Up (@CatchUpFeed) September 17, 2025

All Bark, No Blog

The puppy is just killing me. It takes up my every morning which is when my creative juices flow. It's getting bigger and easier to manage, but it's still needy and wife kitteh needs her morning sleep.

Sigh.

Having A Psychotic Boss Leads To The Assassination Of Charlie Kirk

I've been pondering this concept for a while and the shocking assassination of Charlie Kirk yesterday forced it to the surface.

What is the next logical step after this?

How about the radicalization of the Democrats?

The Democrats get a large percent of their money from small donors which means the base. As their popularity declines, so does their pool of donors. As their popularity declines, their base becomes more and more radical because the squishier ones leave. Their popularity is now at historic lows.

As their popularity decreases, they are forced to spiral in towards their far-left base which means their rhetoric has to become more and more frenzied and hateful to keep the money flowing. Hence "the end of Democracy" and "fascists" and all the rest.

If their starting point was that everyone who disagreed with them was a racist, a homophobe, a transphobe, a fascist and more, where else can they go as their base moves farther and farther left?

How do you appeal to psychotics?

Addendum

It is nearly impossible to be a conservative and not understand the left's positions because we marinate in them every day. They permeate our entertainment, schools and news media. We bathe in the water of the left.

It is very common for the progressives to have no idea why conservatives think like they do because people like Charlie Kirk have been edited out of their world. I can't tell you how many news sources and public figures described Charlie as "divisive" and then cherry-picked some of his positions, putting them in the worst light possible. They deliberately removed all neutral reference points. They wanted you to hate him.

As the left spirals down into their base, their base stays whipped into a frenzy of ignorant, self-reinforced hate. That's a recipe for more and more violence.

More than that, Charlie Kirk along with Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh and lots of other thought leaders on the right make it a habit to speak in large, public forums and then make sure the progressives in the audience get an unedited, uninterrupted chance to challenge them in the Q&A.

That dialog was precisely what Charlie was doing when they shot him. 

You punish the things you don't want repeated. If you're going to punish free and open conversations about politics, be prepared for the alternative.

One more thing. Ben Shapiro made a typically brilliant observation about Charlie's assassination. This spells the end of open-air presentations like this. From now on, the venues for these things will be enclosed, tightly controlled and necessarily smaller. If you saw photos of Charlie's event yesterday, you'll see why this is a bad thing for all Americans. That crowd was huge.