Month: November 2012

Will the European Parliament cave-in to intolerance again?

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

Dr. Tonio Borg

Do you remember the notorious case of Rocco Buttiglione, the  Italian Christian Democrat politician and academic whose nomination for a post as a European Commissioner was rejected by the European Parliament because of his Roman Catholic views on homosexuality? This was done despite his assurances that these were only his personal convictions and would not dictate his administration. Did you think that was a once-off event? If you did, you were wrong. Here we go again.

Dr. Tonio Borg, currently Malta’s Foreign Minister, is his country’s nominee for the European Commission’s Health and Consumer Policy portfolio, a post recently vacated by John Dalli. Borg’s academic qualifications are in administrative and human rights law and he has decades of experience in his country’s Justice and Home Affairs Ministries.

But Dr. Borg is also a Catholic and, because of this, a coordinated campaign opposing his nomination is in full force. For weeks, a coalition of special interest groups and NGOs has been mounting an aggressive negative campaign against Dr. Borg.

Déjà vu?

On 13 November, the Commissioner-designate will representatives of the European Parliament (which has a quasi veto on the confirmations of new Commissioners). Under normal circumstances, there would be no reason for Parliament to doubt the nominee’s suitability for the post. But this is liberal Europe – and they do things differently there.

In articles, blog-posts and tweets, European Dignity Watch reports,

….his critics— first and foremost the European Humanist Federation, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, and the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA)—have focused their attacks on Dr. Borg’s Christian faith and his personal views on issues like abortion, same-sex ‘marriage’ and divorce.

None of these fall under EU competence or have anything to do with the portfolio Dr. Borg would inherit if confirmed. And yet, his opponents, disrespectful of the principle of subsidiarity enshrined in the EU treaties, claim that these are not ‘European values’. They even go as far as to assert that he has ‘extremist values’.

In other words, according to these vocal lobby groups, simply holding Christian beliefs on social issues is a sign of ‘extremism’.

If Dr. Borg’s appointment is rejected it will clearly be done in contravention of Annex XVII of the European Parliament’s own Rules of Procedure, which stipulates that European commissioners are to be designated solely on the basis of their competence and knowledge of their prospective portfolio. Dr. Borg’s personal beliefs thus should not and cannot be used to evaluate his suitability for the post.

The dangerous arrogance of victors

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

Is there not something terribly arrogant about this?

“There is no doubt about the fact that the president reflects this country,” David Axelrod, Mr Obama’s senior strategist said. “He put together a broad coalition that reflected the country. At the end of the day, elections are not just about metrics; they’re about people.”

Obama, his campaign and his philosophy is supported by a little over half of the voting electorate of the United States. Yet he is now described as the mirror of his nation. That sounds dangerously totalitarian to me. Éamon de Valera, one of the dominant political figures in twentieth-century Ireland reputedly once said that he could look into his heart and know what the will of the Irish people was. Recollection of this is generally accompanied with a bout of laughter.

But in Obama’s case it is no laughing matter. It is a forewarning of a political campaign of marginalization of 50 percent of the people of the United States. If Obama and his administration proceed to govern on the basis of this “vision” of itself then it could be taken as nothing short of a declaration of a cold civil war – a war he had already started in his first term with policies which trample on the religious freedom of many of the citizens of the US.

American independence from the British Empire came about when the Mother of Parliaments chose to ignore the legitimate rights and liberties of its loyal subjects in the 13 colonies. After about ten years of struggle to find a way of  living freely and peacefully within what they considered their true skin as people of the wider British community, these loyal subjects saw that they could no longer abide the suppression of their rights. Consequently they rose – very reluctantly – in bloody rebellion and won their rights back.

Mr Axelrod said the Republican party “has some soul-searching to do”. On the contrary, it is Mr. Axelrod, Mr. Obama and the Democratic which has to look into its soul and nip in the bud, the totalitarian seed which they will find there.

Exit polls, we are told, showed 56 per cent of self-described moderates voted for Mr Obama; only 41 per cent for Mr Romney. I don’t know what these “metrics” are meant to tell us. They are certainly not telling us very much about people. Every dictator who ever existed thought of himself as a moderate.

Obama – the anti-American’s American?

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

Everyone is now aware that if the rest of the Western world’s electorates had votes in Tuesday’s US election, Barack Obama would be shoe-in. Why? Because that world is still anti-American and it is myth-making to say that Obama has changed that.

Charles Moore, in today’s Daily Telegraph, gives us a very interesting reading of the two opposing cultures represented in next week’s American election. In it he observes how badly a myopic and delusional European media establishment has misread it all in their fascination and adulation of the Obama presidency of the past four years. They do not see that Mr. Obama is not in fact what he appears to be.

In Britain and, even more, in continental Europe, the people who bring their fellow citizens the news do not really see this. To them, Mr Obama’s combination of historically persecuted ethnicity and posh seminar tone is just perfect. It satisfies their mildly Left-wing consciences and fits in with their cultural assumptions. The chief of these is that the excesses of the West, especially of America, are the biggest problem in the world. Mr Obama comes as near to saying this as anyone trying to win American votes ever could. His “apology tour” to the Middle East early in his presidency remains, for the European elites, the best thing he has ever done. He is the anti-Americans’ American.
Mitt Romney is not. Although he is a moderate Republican, it is fascinating how profoundly he clashes culturally with Obama, and, a fortiori, with the European media and political classes.

Read more here.

The first casualty in war, and in elections?

On By Michael KirkeIn Culture MattersLeave a comment

This is one we really need a “fact check” on: like the facts that make up the definition of what a practising Catholic is. This is eligible for the classic example of the half-truth – or even .099 of the truth: In a campaign video released this week, Vice President Joe Biden claims that President Obama shares his belief in the social teachings of the Catholic Church. We have no doubt about that. What is in doubt is the correspondence between what the VP believes and the social teaching of the Catholic Church – or any of its other teachings for that matter.

For the video on YouTube go to LifeSite News here.