Author: Thomas Fleming

This is the conclusion to my piece from 1985.  The points made include:  1) There is no right of or  justification for “civil disobedience.  Crime is crime, and treason is treason.  2) So-called “liberation theology” is only Marxist revolution with a false Christian gloss, 3) our primary moral obligations to family, community, and  nation take precedence over any imagined obligations to strangers, and, finally 4) the confusion of roles–national government dictating how children are reared while individuals and cities are making foreign policy–is a sign of a profound disorder in American life. Although civil disobedients like to lump their activities...

Fidel Castro is dead, and USA’s official media are are beside themselves with grief over their fallen leader.  I hate to point out the obvious, but there is virtually nothing good to say about this thug, except he was lucky enough to take over Cuba during an American power vacuum, first when an exhausted and ailing Eisenhower was losing control and, then, when he easily fought off a challenge from a feeble-minded womanizing President who could not find the will to squelch this pustulent sore 90 miles off our coastline. Pre-Castro Cuba was no paradise, but there were economic opportunities.  People could get...

This Perspective from January 1986 analyzed the budding sanctuary movement and dissected its entirely bogus spiritual, moral and constitutional foundations.  It infuriated Richard John Neuhaus, who at that time led the movement to silence an irritating political heretic.  I was naive and did not yet realize how much so-called conservatives hate the truth, whenever it conflicts with the short-term goals of their little movement. “Shelter from the Storm” The trial of 12 sanctuary workers in Tucson has heated up an issue which is being hailed in many quarters as the great moral issue of the 1980’s. The movement, whose members...