It seems like this guy does with you exactly what he complains you do with others. That is make a general complaint without providing examples of the behaviour. You do do it occasionally but it is pretty hard to make a full response to everyone you link.

I loved the Chesterton quote. It is very timely in the time of lent. I just started reading his biography of Thomas Aquinas. The idea that the church is there to save us from religion just as much as it is there to save us from lust or pride. I find that very interesting.
Randy | 02.27.06 - 1:36 pm | #

I think that most people who charge Mark with this or that are usually guilty of the same offence. I think they call that 'projecting'.
John J. Simmins | Homepage | 02.27.06 - 3:24 pm | #

Mark, I'm one of your biggest fans, but I think that you've misread this fellow's email just a little bit. He doesn't link the mammon thing to the War on Terror.

say, for *example,* matters of economics, or policies the government pursues with regard to the WoT--that you not so *casually* dismiss the viewpoints by simply sneering/scoffing that the author is merely a "worshipper of Mammon" (in discussions of economics) or a "worshipper of caesar" (in discussions of WoT policies).

Mammon on the economy. Caesar on the War on Terror.

So "I don't believe I've ever claimed that proponents of the War on Terror are Mammon-First Conservatives" is a mistake, I think, since the author of the email didn't exactly claim that.
Eileen R | 02.27.06 - 3:52 pm | #

But of course, there will always be differences of opinions. And those differences are going to hurt *somebody's* feelings. Someone or some theory the reader does not see as Mammon-first conservative, you may. But you've a right to that opinion.
Eileen R | 02.27.06 - 4:01 pm | #

Eileen:

I think you've got a point as far as my misreading him. However, I still don't know what he means. I don't recall ever talking about Bushie economic policies and saying supporters were Mammon-first conservatives. Nor do I recall ever saying that supporters of the War worship Caesar. I have said, on occasion, that Mammon-first conservatives favors profit, bigness, and power over God and family, and I have noted that some people are so eager for the State to keep them safe that they will grant it any powers it wants. But I certainly don't think and have never said that any support of Bush economic policy falls into the first category and any supporter of the War falls into the second. It's a silly charge. That's why I asked for documentation.
Mark Shea | Homepage | 02.27.06 - 4:12 pm | #

Minor point of order, in passing:

> "Pagan or Puritan anarchy"

TR's 37th Law: Chesterton's usually pretty goodd, except for paragraphs in which he usses the word "Puritan", in which case he starts frothing at the mouth Hitchens-style. Baptists cut themselves with knives? Presbyterians suspend themselves in the air on hooks and spikes? I thought (Mary C, help me out here) that the problem with Prots is that they don't do enough fasting and other mortifications, not that they are re-enacting Karbala or the Sangre de Cristo (hmmm, I didn't know Spain and Latin America are Pagan lands?) because they lack an infallible Magisterium.

I have posted on this before, but I suppose asking Catholic bloggers to edit the very ipsissima verba of Caesterto himself would seem faintly blasphemous.
Tom R | 02.27.06 - 5:52 pm | #

Chesterton did not write of Baptists cutting themselves with knives or Presbyterians suspending themselves in the air on hooks and spikes. Despite the passing mention of "Pagan or Puritan anarchy" all of his examples were of fakirs and other pagans in Asia.
Marty Helgesen | 02.28.06 - 12:29 am | #

Marty -- that's exactly my point. GKC offers examples of what pagans do, and then can't resist throwing in a jab at "Puritans" in his conclusion when it is utterly unsupported by the evidence he's previously presented. It'd be like Lorraine Boettner writing about devotees of Jaganath crushing themselves under his chariot, and then throwing in a jab like "this is what happens when you pray to statues like Catholics and Hindus do".
Tom R | 02.28.06 - 5:21 pm | #