The University of Toledo, a government-run college in Ohio, recently fired Crystal Dixon, associate vice president for human resources, after she wrote a guest column in the Toledo Free Press, in response to an earlier column decrying the state of homosexual rights in Ohio.

This isn’t terribly surprising, as it is pretty well established that there is a Soviet-style orthodoxy in effect at most American universities (even nominally Catholic ones).

Here is the full story:

University of Toledo official fired over column

Here is the email address for Dr. Lloyd A. Jacobs, the president of the University of Toledo:

UTPresident@utoledo.edu

It has always been a bit puzzling that there was no Latin version of the Vatican website available. That has now been remedied, at least partly. Now you can click on “Sancta Sedes” to get to a Latin “mini-site,” which contains a good number of Church documents in Latin.

Hopefully, they will work on bringing the Latin version up to the level of the versions available for other languages.

The GOP primary process is largely over, and months before many Republican voters have an opportunity to cast their votes, John McCain has essentially been crowned the nominee. This is not the beginning of an unraveling of the conservative movement; it is more the culmination of many years of philosophical neglect.

We have heard many conservatives complain that the GOP has “forgetten its principles.” More specifically, the complaint is that Republican officeholders have drifted from Constitutional principles in particular, or from conservative principles in general. If you were to ask such people for examples, it would be a fair assumption you would hear about failure to keep to such orthodoxies as low taxes, reduced government spending, gun rights, etc.

But these are not principles. They are policy statements. Even in the Constitution we find little in the way of principles. Fundamentally, the Constitution is an instruction manual for running the United States of America. It has been largely ignored in many ways, but this is not the same as abandoning principles.

If we seek principles, especially those from the Founding Fathers, in a concise document, we can, however, easily find them. They are in the Declaration of Independence. For anyone looking for a refresher course of what American governance is supposed to be, here it is:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

There are some of the fundamental principles which underlie American conservatism. When we conservatives oppose affirmative action, we do so not out of malice, but because we believe that all men are indeed created equal, and treating them otherwise is unjust. When we oppose burdensome government regulation, we do so because we recognize that such regulations limit the rights of the people to pursue happiness. When we approach the problem of the day optimistically, we do so because of our belief, shared with Thomas Jefferson, in American exceptionalism.

These are the principles forgotten by our elected officials, and by us, from time to time. When we forget what basis we build upon for our policy ideas, we lose sight of the real goal: Jefferson’s “best hope,” or Ronald Reagan’s “shining city upon a hill.” A place where citizens can achieve great accomplishments, not because the government somehow pushes them, but because government gets out of the way, and allows for the necessary liberty as a precondition to greatness.

This may sound overly simplistic, but ask yourselves: when was the last time you heard the GOP leadership speak of such things?

Whether conservatism still has a place in the GOP is debatable, but wherever it resurfaces, these are the values which will return it to its rightful prominence in the American political debate.

The Rockefeller Republicans are celebrating today. They have had their revenge, long in coming.

While John McCain was not their first choice (that would be Rudy Giuilani), he’ll do. He supports enough of the moderate wing’s agenda to be satisfactory. McCain’s chief qualification is that conservatives dislike him.

This is shaping up to be an unusual war; each side is championing a candidate who is somewhat difficult to get behind. McCain’s demeanor does not endear him to the elitists who are now resigned to supporting him. Mitt Romney is an unlikely champion of doctrinaire conservatism. But that is how things have shaped up.

The moderates have had a sour taste in their mouths ever since Ronald Reagan brought what they see as uncouth social conservatives into the party. As recently as the 1960s, the GOP was still the party of progressivists; the Democrats still had their southern base of support. That changed with Reagan, whose appeal broadened the party, and made possible the 1994 takeover of Congress.

The older crowd in the GOP were happy to toil in the minority in perpetuity; changing the country was not really high in their list of priorities. So, the ascendency of conservatives in the party has meant a loss of control for the moderates internally. This has left them bitter towards the people they see as having cynically used social conservatism as a means of gaining power. Never mind that politicians might actually believe that social conservatism is true, and is a necessary component of a conservative political philosophy. The moderates, after all, have never been highly ideological; they prefer to react to the trends of the elite.

The Rockefeller wing have long sought to regain what they see as their birthright to control the GOP. This would seem to be their chance to reclaim it. But what will they win?

As the presidential contest stands today, it is basically a two-man race, and the two sides are now squaring off in what looks like a game of chicken. The moderates are determined to force their will on the conservatives, and vice-versa. Mitt Romney would, in other circumstances, look a lot like a consensus candidate. But in this race, he represents the dwindling hopes of conservatives to retain an important role in the Republican Party. Conservatives, sensing their increasing irrelevancy in the party’s direction, are shrugging their shoulders, losing interest and considering sitting out or forming a third party.

Dick Morris, the uncannily inaccurate oracle of Fox News Channel, suggested last night that Florida exit polls show that Republicans are becoming more liberal. The first impulse is to dismiss his analysis, based on his track record. But, he may actually be on to something this time. It is not precisely that Republicans are becoming more liberal, but that the boundaries are moving. Putting aside shenanigans like Florida election officials allowing independents to redeclare as Republican on the spot in order to vote for John McCain, there probably has been some shift in who is a Republican.

All of the GOP elites’ insults to conservatives that have been carried out in recent years, chief among them the failed amnesty plan, have no doubt caused some of the more conservative voters to re-register as independent or third party. At the same time, pro-war liberal and moderate independents may be registering as Republicans. What is emerging are two progressivist parties, separated only by personality and foreign policy.

Where will the conservatives go? The moderates’ efforts may well result in the formation of a third party, which will attract more attention, voters and money than other recent efforts. The Democrats will thus likely win control of Congress and the White House.

And then what will they have won? Exactly what they had.

Regardless of what the “experts” in the media are saying, it is still early in the presidential nomination process. However, perceptions can be hard to reverse, and the MSM are now beginning to spin a three-point John McCain victory in South Carolina as momentum-building.

I understand the need for a willingness to compromise at times, but I can only bend so far before I break. McCain is too much to ask. And while I respect many of Ron Paul’s views, he is just too far on the fringe (and too rigid on rapid troop withdrawal) to be the nominee.

So, with all this in mind, it is with some hesitancy that I throw in with Mitt Romney. I don’t see eye-to-eye with him on a number of issues; I think he’s a bit weak on Second Amendment issues, and his credibility on life issues is not what it could be.

He is, however, at least saying the right things now, for the most part. McCain’s rigidity on granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens (while not calling it amnesty) is not what I consider sticking to one’s principles; rather, it is more sticking his fingers in conservatives’ eyes.

As I see it, McCain and Giuliani are potential party destroyers, and must be defeated as soon as possible. Huckabee is not a credible threat to gain the nomination, in my opinion. Thompson, while attractive to some conservatives, is pretty much done after finishing a distant third in South Carolina, where he should have done well. Ron Paul is on the fringe and will not be the nominee, as he cannot get any support from the establishment.

That leaves Mitt Romney, a reasonably conservative candidate (at least today), whose chief weakness is his religion. In the general election, I don’t think it would hurt him as much as it does in some of the primaries. While I am not especially fond of Mormon theology, I think it is mostly a non-issue, as he has a history of governing in a way that does not promote Mormonism in any particular way.

View this from a distant perspective, if you will:

Imagine a scenario where America is deeply divided over the invasion and occupation of a foreign land. American armed forces find themselves in a guerrilla war, fighting insurgents. Congress finds itself without strong leadership, and legislative strategies are used to try to hamper support for the war. Foreign fighters try to influence American public opinion through acts of brutality. A wealthy New York businessman considers starting a third political party. The Republican nominee supports the occupation; the Democratic nominee opposes it.

Sound familiar? Before you answer, here are some specifics: the year is 1900; the land, the Phillippine Islands; the insurgents, led by Emilio Aguidnaldo; the New York businessman, Andrew Carnegie; the candidates, McKinley and Bryan.

The Anti-Imperialists were caught in an agonizing dilemma. McKinley represented the party of imperialism; Bryan in Carl Schurz’s words was “the evil genius of the anti-imperialist cause,” loathed for his betrayal in the matter of the treaty [of Paris of 1898] and feared for his radicalism. Schurz met with Carnegie, Gamaliel Bradford and Senator Pettigrew at the Plaza Hotel in New York in January, 1900, in an effort to organize a third party so that the American people would not “be forced by the two rotten old party carcasses to choose between two evils.” Carnegie subscribed $25,000 on the spot, while the others made up a matching sum. Shortly afterward, members of the steel trust with whom Carnegie was then negotiating the sale of his company told him that if he opposed McKinley the deal would not go through. Preferring United States Steel to a third party, Carnegie withdrew his support, received his shares and retired from business.

[The Proud Tower, Barbara W. Tuchman, 1966, p. 191]

This was at the dawn of a new era, both in the United States, and around the world. In the years to come, nationalism and socialism would rise, individualism would wane, and a world war triggered by a relatively trivial event would kill millions, only to convince the the world that more of the same was in order.

Are we at such a crossroads again today? Only time will tell. I prefer to take the optimistic view that we are entering a new era, but it will be one which will bode well for humanity as a whole.

I kind of drifted away from blogging over the past year, but I think I will give it another try.

This time, it will be a bit different. Traditional Catholic topics will still be included, but there will be other stuff as well. Politics, NASCAR, tech…pretty much whatever I feel like blogging about.

The old blog is still available at http://oldblog.slappy.org/