Is this blog ILLEGAL?

Is this a felony?

Just days ago, a horrible tragedy occurred in Tucson, Arizona. Moments after the dust settled on the chaos of the parking lot where lives were lost and changed forever, the media started making up reasons why this horrible event occurred. Much of the rhetoric was blamed on – rhetoric. Nothing was fact, it was all conjecture, scores of writers, reporters, and pundits were formulating stories out of their own twisted ideas as to why a young man went on a shooting spree.

We have all read the accounts of what happened, we have heard the blame that has been tossed around, and by now we have all made up our minds as to why what happened occurred in the way that it did. So I won't waste your time giving you my thoughts on ideas on it, instead I want to talk about how it affects us as Catholics and those of you that read this blog and agree with me from time to time.

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One of the salient points that has come from all of this is that we need to bring back civility to our public discourse. There has been a call for all rhetoric of violence, war, and conflict to go the way of the dinosaur. Many in the media, the very ones who perpetuated things, have called for the talking heads to end the hate. There is a strain of thought amongst some that the reason the tragedy happened in Tucson is because the media, politics, and society has created such a hateful and violent discourse in this country that it drives folks to act out in the way that Jared Loughner did – through violence. I say that this is false, and that it is an attempt to shape the debate into the waiting hands of liberals and modernists to help give them leverage.

Now, just in the fact that I say this I will be accused of spreading more hate. But you see, it isn't that I hate these people. It is that I hate their ideas, and I do hate their ideas. You see, some would have a blog like mine 'outlawed.' In fact, the day after the Tuscon shooting their were Congressman and Elected Officials who were calling for legislation against any speech that could be considered violent against elected officials. There were other random media reports of folks that called for any violent speech to be squelched and considered dangerous. All of this in the moments and days after a horrible event that left hundreds of lives changed forever. All of this effort to ban something that had no cause to the horrible effect. Yet, where was the peace and where was the prayer?

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A kindler gentler battle

In the wake of all of this, people started calling for an end to speech that was violent, aggressive or even discussed conflict. Kind of damaging to a blog where "Battle" is in the title, so I was a little bit concerned. I started thinking of alternate titles right away: 

• Help preserve us, in the wake of alternate ideas.
• Keep us safe, as long as we dont offend anyone else.
• Make sure we are ok, and so is everyone else.
• God - help us all hold hands. 
• Protect us and others, from each others mean words.

None of them rang a bell in my head, so I have gone back to the drawing board on that one. [Combine this with the fact that someone would have to re-write the entire St. Michael prayer and I got a headache.] I realized this effort was futile for now, and that I would have to probably put it to a vote anyways, so I decided to wait for the legislation banning my blog, and its hateful speech, before I made any rash decisions. 

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This was serious though, there are those that think that my blog, and others like it, are violent and hateful. That our words somehow perpetuate violence and hate and do nothing to bring unity or glory to God. In Mass yesterday I heard the priest call for "Christian Unity", and rather than accuse, criticize, or condemn we should instead have patience, understanding and civility. Generally, I would agree with this, but the context in which it was explained made it understood that conflict, criticism, and opposition are almost always wrong. There are those out there that think a blog like this, or any speech for that matter, that calls out the problems in our society, is somehow bad because it is so negative. 

But isn't it Jesus that said that violence exists, and that violent men are the ones that seek Heaven? In fact it was, and it is the bible verse that guides this blog:

From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent are taking it by force. Matthew 11:12

The worst part is that in wanting to remove such rhetoric, as they call it, from society you ending instilling fear and submission. If we think that the cause of violence is violent speech and we offer the solution of squelching all such speech we leave ourselves vulnerable. The vulnerability comes in because we are in constant fear that we are somehow the catalyst of hate, and none of us want to be hateful. Therefore we end up supplanting so called violence with a very real fear. This fear is what those modernists, pacifists, and liberals want; they want to be able to invoke the hate card anytime someone brings to the discourse an aggressive idea against their own. For instance, many who buy into this stop the hate and violence mentality would be playing that card on me right now. And what does it do? It inoculates anything that I have said, it discredits me as a hater and attempts to nullify me and my words as worthy of consideration.

Now this is a very powerful weapon oh wait, I forgot I can't use violent language; it is a very powerful tool. It is the equivalent of using the "Race Card" because the second it is played any attempt to discuss it enters you into a discussion where "explaining is losing." This means there is very little someone can do once they are accused of being violent, hateful, or critical. Their point isn't to be kinder and gentler, in fact it is the opposite – they want to oppress and subjugate. I know this may seem harsh, but it is very true, this isn't about everyone getting along it is about them being right and you being wrong, or in this case this blog, a reporter, a politician, or a priest being hateful and critical.

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The flaming sword isn't for looks

As Catholics this is important to understand this for two reasons. First, because we are often engaging ourselves in social discourse, and we therefore are often found fighting for the principles and teachings of the Church. Therefore we need to understand that there will be an attempt to marginalize our ideas through this method. We will be called hateful, disrespectful, and other names in an attempt to inoculate our Faith. The World hates our Faith and the God that gives us life. So they will do anything to minimize our ideas and desecrate our standing in the world. Be careful, and defend yourselves against this.

The second reason, is because of the internal attacks we will face from such a philosophy. These attacks won't just come from atheists who want to see Christianity crushed under their "open-minded" idealism. The attacks will also come from those inside the Church. There are those that don't want conflict or violence 'rhetoric' because it is contrary to their entire philosophical base, and is a danger to their success. You see, the progressive modernists survive on a 'Love will save us all' mindset. But it isn't love of Truth that they want, they want a love of blind acceptance to reign. Their contrarian beliefs can only be validated through acceptance, because it can not be validated as truth. So as long as there are those of us willing to defend the Faith, to battle against relativism, and to fight for truth; well then blogs like this won't become illegal. So we must not back down, we must continue to fight for the Truth, we must pray and trust in God and we must prepare for battle. We are called to put on the armor of God, to be violent, heaven seeking men, and we are called to be Spiritual Warriors.

Evil exists folks, it exists in the worst of places and its only focus is on the destruction of souls. It will attempt to accomplish this by any means necessary so we must pray that God, all the Angels and Saints - defend us in battle.

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