Just because...

It's my blog. I can do whatever I want with it, right?

Yes, and no.

I might use it to vent my often seemingly infinite frustrations over the world's apparently increasing stupidity (it has now got so bad that I am one of the three or four smartest smart people I've ever met, and I get paid for talking to smart people all day long), or to offer witty and insightful critiques of middle school science films; I might transform the blog into an advertisement for, e.g., disposable scissors.

I might not use it to make the Atlantic crossing (I mean use as a means of transport) or to keep my building stable in an earthquake.

So, the original statement, "I can do whatever I want with [the blog]," actually asserts that there exists a set of more or less good and fruitful uses of a blog, to which I, as keeper, might bend my own, and there is not any power on earth that might constrain me to one or another of the possible uses.

There it is, folks, sic et non, one of the greatest book titles ever in the whole entire history of book titles. One of the most important ideas in the whole entire history of thinking.

Let's put it to use, along with its sister, et/et.

Let's get back to thinking like Catholics!

True religion has always inspired the most intellectually gifted among us to dedicate themselves to the task of making subtle and particular distinctions within the unity of truth; to seek and always be in awe of the infinite nuance necessary and possible within the oneness of knowledge; to live in the confidence, which comes from knowing that the world is larger, the Church wiser, and God greater than one's own powers of apprehension, indeed than the sum total of all human powers of mind from Adam's making to the end of days.

True religion has always inspired men and women to think all the good they can of those with whom they find themselves in disagreement; to mark and toe the line between the position and the one who holds it; to pronounce judgment only in the case of gravest necessity, and only for the best of all possible motives - the good of souls.

How can we expect those who hate the Church to come to love her, if we in our dealings with each other give them naught but confirmation of their distorted vision of the Church's hatefulness?

How can we expect those who have fallen away from the Church to hear our entreaties and return to the fold, when our mouths drip with vituperation for the persons who cling to the errors that are theirs?

How can we show the Risen Christ to others, when our souls are filled with rancor and self-righteous sanctimony?

How shall anyone believe us when we tell them to seek Him among the living, so long as we who offer this sage advice are apparently dead inside?