Comments on: The Party of Death by Ramesh Ponnuru http://www.kevinholtsberry.com/kh/2006/04/26/the-party-of-death-by-ramesh-ponnuru/ for posterity and whatnot Fri, 27 Jan 2012 03:46:40 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: jg http://www.kevinholtsberry.com/kh/2006/04/26/the-party-of-death-by-ramesh-ponnuru/comment-page-1/#comment-3166 jg Thu, 27 Apr 2006 05:25:17 +0000 http://kevinholtsberry.com/kh/2006/04/26/the-party-of-death-by-ramesh-ponnuru/#comment-3166 Your review is an admirable exposition. This work sounds as if it is significant. I might extend the argument a bit. Most of the blogs I read are Libertarian (neo-conservative) in nature. For them the Enlightenment was profound. They would reason as Mr. Ponnuru. Yet religion, Christianity, must be in the mix somehow. It is Christianity which has endowed men with those certain qualities as created beings which the author chooses to defend. The Roman church makes this Christian argument quite well. So my reservation is this. I prefer the author be honest in acknowledging a main fact about the current dispute. It is not between two sides of equal moral value. Cutting through the fog (I like your phrase) of human prevarication, it is the utopianism of secular materialism which has plagued mankind, engendering genocide on a horrific basis for almost a century. Civilization has barely survived its depradations in 1945 and 1989. Its principles are the basis for one side of this present conflict. Why should we require debate? Do we again allow SM's nightmare thinking the chance to decide who lives and dies? Have we not certainly, finally, seen enough of the death, of the horror it promotes? Your review is an admirable exposition. This work sounds as if it is significant.

I might extend the argument a bit. Most of the blogs I read are Libertarian (neo-conservative) in nature. For them the Enlightenment was profound. They would reason as Mr. Ponnuru. Yet religion, Christianity, must be in the mix somehow. It is Christianity which has endowed men with those certain qualities as created beings which the author chooses to defend. The Roman church makes this Christian argument quite well.
So my reservation is this. I prefer the author be honest in acknowledging a main fact about the current dispute. It is not between two sides of equal moral value.
Cutting through the fog (I like your phrase) of human prevarication, it is the utopianism of secular materialism which has plagued mankind, engendering genocide on a horrific basis for almost a century. Civilization has barely survived its depradations in 1945 and 1989. Its principles are the basis for one side of this present conflict. Why should we require debate?

Do we again allow SM’s nightmare thinking the chance to decide who lives and dies? Have we not certainly, finally, seen enough of the death, of the horror it promotes?

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