It would appear that the New York Times, which I like to think of as the left wing of the White House, cares less for Americans United for Life CEO Charmaine Yoest than they do for jihadists. In a profile of Yoest, the Gray Lady refers to her as engaging in a “cheerful war” on abortion. While the cheerful stance against evil is a mark of saintliness to Christians, the NYTimes invites us to be suspicious of such a soul as this.
Yoest put her arm around her daughter and finessed the slogan a bit. “We’re fighting Planned Parenthood to protect women,” she said. “When those babies aren’t born, that is a loss for their mothers, and that’s part of why they need a chance to live.”
It’s the kind of deft reframing of the abortion debate that has put Yoest (pronounced “yoast”) at the center of anti-abortion politics and enabled her to help push through the greatest number of abortion restrictions since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.
Also this:
Though she has helped usher in hard-hitting changes in women’s health care, Yoest is especially good at sounding reasonable rather than extreme. She never deviates from her talking points, never raises her voice and never forgets to smile.
As a Passionist who has Bipolar Disorder this attitude and commitment of Charmaine Yoest is exactly the kind of thing I aspire to succeed at in life. I know what is right and good and true. It’s the smiling part that I have trouble with. People like Charmaine Yoest provide an example for me to keep the irascible passions in check. They are heroes to me because they can keep their heads while all about them is murder — even murder of innocent babies. To the New York Times, however, the happy and peace-loving person who works diligently to educate people about things like the respect for every innocent human life is problematic. Suspicious. Dangerous. To them, Yoest “sounds reasonable” but is “extreme.” To speak kindly about protection of all life is “extreme?”
Meanwhile, the same newspaper assures us that jihadists may not be as bad as we think they are. After all, they’re not attacking America’s shores. They have “mystique” and “appeal” and walk in the aura of “legend.”
What Al Qaeda retains is a mystique, the legend of a small band of warriors who took on an empire and struck a devastating blow. That mystique still has tremendous appeal, even for insurgents who differ with Al Qaeda’s methods or its focus on attacking America.
As long as they are not attacking American soil, the NYTimes would have us believe that these jihadists are, well, kinda cool, really. Like Rooster Cogburn maybe. Or John Dillinger. Or Charles Manson? Yes, there is a segment of the population who believe Manson, the mass murderer, is “cool.” Speaking again as someone with Bipolar Disorder, whom would you rather I listen to? Charmaine Yoest or the New York Times?
So, what are the jihadists up to these days? Here’s a sample from the same article:
In Nigeria, the radical Islamist group Boko Haram has killed thousands of people in the past few years in its struggle to overthrow the government and establish an Islamic state. There, the struggle is largely sectarian; Boko Haram has struck mostly at Christians and burned churches.
There, see? They’re just killing Christians. That is, Christians like Charmaine Yoest…people the New York Times would have us believe are suspicious with all their kindly belief in the sanctity of life.
The New York Times is a “secular” newspaper. It is, perhaps, the prime example in America of why secularism, which many want to replace the Judeo-Christian ethic of the Founding Fathers of America, is crushed like a daisy in the face of evil precisely because it makes apologies for what is truly evil and condemns that which is good. We see this in the way that Charmaine Yoest is treated contrasted with how jihadists are treated.
We may all disagree on all the specifics of what is evil and what is not evil, but certainly we should all agree that murder is evil. If you don’t get that every human life is sacred, you are not going to get why it’s not a good idea to let jihadists gain power throughout the world, and you are also not going to get why people like Charmaine Yoest are heroes, not villains. The road to secularism for America is ongoing, and it is such that the Yoests in our country are continually marginalized and even condemned, at least proverbially, while apologies are made for those who murder. Secularism becomes a pathway to destruction much as a power vacuum does in a country where evil and organized forces take control of government when the more benevolent monarch is pushed out in the name of “democracy.”
Of course, you have to have a good understanding of human nature to understand that this is how the world works, but I don’t expect any of the leftists at the New York Times to be well-studied in Natural Law. After all, they spend most of their time fighting against the idea that we can “hold truths” to be “self-evident” that we are created by God and have certain basic rights. Who can expect them to understand how a power vacuum works?
To be sure, I don’t expect anyone at the New York Times (nor any Christian-hating leftist) to understand any of this, but if you are a regular reader of that newspaper, hopefully you will take note of this reality about them, that they are okay with murder, as long as they themselves are not the ones being threatened with it. Otherwise, they would not support abortion nor support letting jihadists have their “legendary” Christian-killings in lands outside our shores. They consider some lives to be worthy of death — the unborn, and Christians abroad– provided that this death will allow others (especially them) to live in comfort. That’s evil. If you’re suspicious of me for saying so, so be it.
Hat-tip, Jill Stanek
