Poor Jimmy Akin

He writes two posts on the question of use of nukes in warfare. The first makes clear that, yes, Harry Truman was a war criminal for nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The second attempts to construct the Mother of All Remote Hypothetical Scenarios in order to try to imagine a way in which the use of nukes might conceivably be licit. (Suffice it to say that, if it takes a scenario *this* remote, then we might as well destroy our nuke arsenal right now.)

It a sample of Jimmy’s typically thoughtful attempt to work through Catholic moral teaching (I disagree with his conclusions, but I respect his use of his brain, rather than simply repeating slogans). But unfortunately for Jimmy, he has violated one of the sacred shibboleths of the increasingly reflexive and unthinking Right: the sanctity of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Immediately, the poor guy is beseiged by the Usual Suspects in the Catholics for War Crimes Brigade, proving once against that when it comes to Consequentialism, a huge number of Catholics are Protestants who go to Mass. The message to Jimmy and his defenders is quite clear: it’s not enough to hypothesize some extremely remote hypothetical situation in which nukes might be licit. They must believe and profess that the Church is in error in CCC 2312-2314 and that America could not possibly have sinned in her slaughter of the citizenry of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Anything less than this profession of faith in the sinlessness of our atomic bombings renders Jimmy and his defenders vehemently suspect of being “sallies” and Leftists, not mention morally smug, etc ad nauseam.

Amazing to watch alleged “faithful conservative Catholics” twist themselves into pretzels trying to deny the bleedin’ obvious. Thought is ossifying into ritual tribal denunciations with amazing rapidity these days. Violate some rightist shibboleth and find yourself immediately exiled from the ever-shrinking Bubble. It reminds me of nothing so much as, well, people trapped inside the Leftist ideological bubble.