Mayor Eric Johnson gets it

Mayor Eric Johnson, Democrat, mayor of Dallas, understands reality.  That is, there are obviously racists in the Democratic Party.  Duh.  Of course there are.  Racism can be anywhere and promoted by anyone, including blacks.  That should be like saying oxygen exists. 

It's a testament to the stupid of our most educated generation that people actually believe good and evil exists along purely Red State/Blue State lines. You can thank the news media for that.  Nobody does 'divide people up into categories and label them accordingly' better than the press.  

I doubt most really believe that.  When my former ethics professor David Gushee said history is divided between the good people on the Left, versus the baddies on the Right, I can't believe he really thought that.  It's just convenient.  We live in an age of truth by convenience.  If it's convenient, it becomes true. Even if we know better.

Likewise, so many Christians who have aligned with the same Left they once openly condemned rest heavily on the premise that liberal Democrats are simply the beautiful people, or at least the better people, unlike Republican Nazis who are always stupid, evil and wrong.  Again, I can't believe they really think something so stupid and demonstrably false.  It's just a convenient excuse to justify aligning with something they once labeled as evil or dangerous.  

The problem is, to keep such a stupid and false narrative - that Blue is beautiful, Red is Satan - one must indulge in some pretty underhanded and duplicitous wrangling. Chief among the tricks to ignore grave evils - such as racism - when it doesn't uphold this little lie of racism on one side of the tracks only.  Sure, the odd minority might be hurt or even killed.  Sure this or that person might suffer.  But the justification for allegiance must be maintained, so turning a blind eye to that inconvenient evil is necessary.

Note, this is not to say there are no racists in the Republican party.  Or that conservatives can't be racist.  Or that we can't sometimes embrace ideas that are prejudiced against others without realizing it.  All of these things are obviously true.   One of the strengths of liberalism has been to point out problems or flaws that obviously exist, but then run forward with solutions that may not be as obvious.  

And it's not to say anyone - conservatives or Republicans or whoever - can't fall into the trap of tribalism and turning blind eyes to the problems in your own camp.  But this is different.  This isn't even willful blindness. It's become a mandatory strategy to immediately downplay, ignore or deny grave evils or human suffering that challenge the stupid idea of Blue Good/Red Bad.  It isn't refusing to admit the evils because we can do that sometimes.   It's having to not only deny, but attack people trying to fix the evils, because the allegiance depends on the lie, and the lie must be upheld at all costs. 

What the Cuomo accusations say about liberal Democrats

Not a damn thing, that's what.  Politics will politic of course.  Whether innocent or not, New York politicians may find it's worth their time to run Cuomo out on a rail.  In fact, the only reason we know of this series of accusations is because earlier in the year stories were emerging of a catastrophic level of deaths in New York nursing homes due to Covid and New York's handling of the crisis.  So out of dumb, blind luck, we suddenly heard about all these accusations and forgot about the whole nursing homes in New York story.  

Remember, a year ago the press was gaga over Cuomo.  Cuomo, as opposed to EvilTrump, was the man.  Some were pushing him for a presidential run.  The guy won an Emmy Award!  Cuomo was the shining star of the party, of America, of the World. 

But there were troubles, including the nagging realization that a massive percentage of those who died of Covid in America died in New York.  True, much of it occurred in actual New York  City, but the two are seldom far apart in the minds of most Americans. 

Most preferred the media narrative, perfectly acceptable to Never Trumpers everywhere, that over 600,000 Americans died because of Donald Trump.  Trump and Trump alone killed all 600,000.  This was an important narrative buttressing last year's post-rules and standards months long silver platter election.  No matter how uninformed he was, the American voter who just received an open ballot in the mail knew it was Trump who was killing Americans by the hundreds of thousands.

So a story that shined light on the fact that there is more to that stat than that stat was troubling to the all important media narrative.  As I've said before, if nature abhors a vacuum, the news media abhors complexity and nuance.  So once more, when things that trouble a liberal agenda or a liberal narrative occur, in a bizarre coincidence, accusations of sexual assault or similar explosive headlines, are usually forthcoming.  

None of this is to say he isn't guilty.  I'll leave that for an actual hearing.  Just like Bill Cosby.  I never said Cosby was innocent or not.  I merely noted that the accusations against America's Favorite Dad didn't come until after he outraged liberals by giving a speech calling on Black America to stop blaming whites and rise up and take responsibility for their lives. 

Same here. Without making a judgment, I can still note the timing.  Because at best, much of it is no doubt about politics and agendas and Cuomo.  Nonetheless, his actual behavior, if true, doesn't really say anything about liberal Democrats, New Yorkers, men, or any group to which Cuomo happens to belong.  That should be common sense yet, even as I write this, I ponder just how extreme such a view is in our modern, Internet, American state of affairs. 

I realize it's nothing new.  Throughout history, finding the attitude that a person from Group X did something because they were part of Group X is more common than not.  After WWII, we decided that wasn't healthy thinking and began our move toward that 'one race, the human race' thinking, with not judging someone except for content of individual character. 

When did that began to change back to old time thinking?  I don't know.  I blame feminism for a lot of things, but it seems to my recollections that it was feminists who first turned the clock back by suggesting, rather successfully back in the 80s when I was in college, that a man doesn't rape a woman because he's a bad man.  He rapes her because he's a man and that's always what men are and have done. 

I dunno.  Maybe it wasn't feminists, but that's the first I remember in my life where judging an entire group of humanity based on the actions of an individual in that group seemed quite acceptable and endorsed by our best and brightest.  Today it's practically gospel truth.  The question isn't whether or not Cuomo did this because he was being bad.  The question is which of his identifying group identities can be blamed: a Democrat, a man, a New Yorker, a brother of a CNN host.  The possibilities are endless.

It's also wrong.  To suggest Cuomo behaving badly - assuming the accusations are true - means anything about anyone other than Cuomo is simply stepping backward in time and learning nothing from the past.  I realize the temptation for conservatives is to do it to them, given how often it is done to conservatives.  That if three Mongolians raped a Nigerian woman in Brazil, some will find a way to make it about white conservative Christian men.  I get that.

But as my mom always says - and she's been quoted by many - two wrongs don't make a right.  For now, I suggest letting the Democrats clean their own house, and avoid the temptation to make this about anything other than Cuomo and the parties in question.  So far, that seems to be how conservatives are reacting, and that's good.  Just my two cents worth, which is usually worth about two cents. 

Words fail me

From former Steubenville professor Rebecca Weiss: 

There is nothing I can add to make it worse than it is.  Except perhaps:

So there you go.  Fatima could just be a big hoax; a giant, great big Nazi inspired fascist hoax.  And those who believe in it might just be fascists.   This could be arrived at by pondering the possibilities and then declaring anyone who challenges the possibilities to be fascists.  An air tight argument.

My two cents?  Notice how one of the tweets retweeted suggests "Mary" (note the scare quotes), being Jewish, should have put a special focus on the 6 million Jews killed in the  Holocaust over and beyond the tens of millions of others not Jewish killed in the other horrors of the last century.  

Perhaps it's me, but I find comfort in God and those immediately acquainted with the Almighty not being obsessed with our obsession with post-human worthiness based on demographic labels.  Unlike Fr. James Martin, I can see Jesus not really caring about the skin color of those in churches.  And apparently it's odd t hat I can see the Blessed Mother equally concerned about all of those who would suffer and die in our last century's nod to the latest ideologies and agendas, rather than being most concerned about those closest in demographic identity to her.  

A radical thought about Biden's VP pick

So my family was discussing politics, as they are wont to do.  One of them floated the possibility that Biden - who MUST pick a black woman as VP, black and woman being the only two things that matter - will pick Michelle Obama. 

Hmmm.  I wonder.  The Obamas were all but worshiped by the press during the Obama years.  No human suffering or death was enough for the press to scrutinize Obama.  No scandal got anywhere near Pennsylvania Avenue.  Obama was 90% of the time lauded and praised, and on the rarest of occasion, humbly asked why he wasn't perfect.  More than that, the press all but sanctioned the accusation that anything short of deifying Obama was tantamount to Hitler inspired racism.

Michelle Obama, beyond her husband, received more veneration and adoration than the Blessed Mother.  Every story about her oozed with near religious devotion.   She was, as far as I know, the only First Lady to get 100% positive press from the "news media."  To that end, poll after poll has found her popularity somewhere between The Beatles and God.

So you never know.  Power is clearly not something that the Obamas shrink from.  The humiliating defeat of Obama's Secretary of State, attempting to ride firmly on his coattails, had to have been a major hit.  Ever since 1988, the "news media" and the Left (but I repeat myself) have been trying to elevate a Democratic president to the point where his VP would then sail into the White House with the same ease that Bush did with Reagan.

So we'll see.  It's not out of the ballpark.  Remember, 2020 was the year the Left declared war on America so that Trump would be defeated.  It's willing to turn Democratic strongholds into demilitarized zones of arson, violence, destruction and death.  It's willing to destroy the lives of millions of Americans.  It's willing to throw millions of poor under the bus.  It's willing to turn as many millions of Americans against each other as possible.  I'd say propping Michelle up as the first truly immaculately conceived woman in history that she may also be the first female president - for how long would Biden last as president? - isn't the craziest theory I've heard.

What is wrong with Mitch McConnell's Statement?

So there's this uproar about Mitch McConnell.  Senator Cory Booker has jumped in on it, saying something to the effect of 'that's horrible!' without any real details that I've found. 

Apparently Senator McConnell, who is about as interesting as dry air, pointed out that it's a special form of blood guilt to suggest that white people today owe anything to do with slavery just because they are white.  He even seems to suggest that paying ages old reparations based on sins long ago committed isn't right either.

He then went on to point out that both he and former president Barrack Obama are descended from slave owners.  The last part being based on a report that found slave owners in the ancestry of then President Obama. 

From there, all hell has broken loose, but I don't know why.  It's just reports of outrage, but no clear details about why he is wrong.  If the story about Obama's ancestors is false, then that needs pointed out.  If he isn't descended from slave owners, then McConnell would need to retract his initial statement.  But nobody is saying it is wrong. 

They're just outraged.  Why?   Are they saying slavery is no big deal if you have certain skin colors?  Are they saying only some skin colors are guilty for all sins by others of those skin colors, while others are not?  Do they say Obama is guilty in the same way as whites, and nobody ever denied it, so McConnell is merely making a big issue out of nothing?  What are they saying?  Every story I've seen so far just says everyone is outraged, and quotes people who are upset.  Absolutely nothing about why they are upset. 

So if I could be educated about this, I would appreciate it.

How MLK beat #MeToo

Easy.  The press ignored the story.  Let's face it, if someone - celebrated biographer or not - had published an article finding that Ronald Reagan, or Nixon, or Eisenhower, or Washington, or Teddy Roosevelt, or anyone may have been involved in sexual assault, you can bet your bottom dollar it would be 24/7 coverage.  Heck, it would be 25/8.  We'd see outrage, protests, calls to pull down portraits or statues, demolish Mount Rushmore, pull books, take down art, you name it.  The press would be all over it, with series, special reports, round tables, documentaries.  That would be it.

But MLK?  Aside from a smattering of stories, mostly print, and generally of the 'greedy guy gunning for money' or 'FBI were racists making it up', there was scant little mentioned, if anything at all.  This one was a rare exception.  I've seen nothing on the network news shows.  I don't know if it's been covered on cable news, but I've not heard anything.

This is not, remember, bringing up the almost universally accepted notion that MLK was doing more than just planning marches in those hotel rooms.  This revelation is from a man who wrote one of the celebrated hagiographies of MLK at a time when he was fast becoming the new Jesus for a post-Christian America.  This is a revelation from a man who lamented what he revealed, wished it wasn't true.  Nonetheless he concluded that not only was MLK quite the fraternizer, but he was also involved in what any era would have considered sexual assault, much less our modern #MeToo era.

But no biggie.  The story is more or less fading already.  The press sat on it, as it does anything deemed non-beneficial to The Narrative.  Even Fox and other outlets didn't go there much that I'm aware of.  Perhaps they were afraid that accusations of racism would have abounded.  The rest of the MSM simply swept it under the rug.

Does that hurt the cause of women?  Does it hurt women who have been legitimately assaulted?  Does it matter?  Do we care?  We should know by now that the Left doesn't seem to care about victimized minorities as much as it cares to exploit them.  If their suffering hurts the cause?  Screw'em.

As for me, the story should be discussed, but it isn't a deal breaker. I think a person is measured by the sum total of all they are, not a single issue or even a single sin deemed unforgivable by the modern State.  As a Christian, I gladly proclaim that sins are forgivable, and thus we should never elevate one or another to the 'sin that should never be forgiven'.  Whatever MLK did would need to be balanced by the sum total of all he did and all he was.

But that's not even the argument the press made (how could they, since modern Identity Politics is predicated on a growing list of unforgivable sins based on skin color, gender, and other demographic qualifiers?).  The press simply ignored, suppressed, swept under and moved on.  A reminder that we have no clue what is really going on in the world.  Madagascar could sink into the ocean, and we'd only know it if the press decided to say something.  And that means the press would only mention it if it served the purposes of the press to begin with.

Memphis mayhem and Black Lives Madness

Riots and destruction and assaults continue apace in Memphis.

Note now that we're not dealing with cases where an unarmed and non-belligerent citizen has been killed as a result of violations of police procedure.  We're dealing with cases where the ones shot have openly assaulted the police, have resisted arrest, have tried to harm the police, have even brandished weapons and attempted to attack the police.  In some cases those same individuals have committed violent crimes and assaulted innocent citizens or establishments.

Yet what happens?  If the one shot is black, no matter what the police ethnicity, mobs descend on the scene, sometimes bringing violence and destruction to police and innocent bystanders as they do so.

This is not - repeat, Not! - lawful, decent, moral, or Christian.  The idea that 'those people types are default scum, attack!' is as antithetical to anything close to the common good as I can imagine.  In fact, it's merely going back to a Jim Crow mentality, where laws and justice and fairness apply merely based on ethnic identity or some other demographic label, and seeking truth and evidence is no longer needed before executing the accused.

It's as if America is in full reverse, going backward at breakneck speed, with those pushing the peddle to the floor making sure it's new group identities that get it in the neck.  And in response, Christian leaders are at best silent, at worst complicit in another round of human tragedy in the making.

What I know about Lori Lightfoot in our post-human era of identity politics

I know she is black, and I know she is gay.  That's it.  I've seen four stories, and read three, and so far, apart from some bits about her outsider appeal and election tidbits, that's all I know.  Has she fought crime, cured cancer, molested teddy bears?  No clue.  Was she top, bottom, middle of her class?  I don't even know if she went to school.  I know she's black, and she's gay.  That's what the focus has been, that what the stories have covered, that's apparently all I need to know.

Welcome to the era that put to rest the question of human beings once and for all.  There are no humans.  There are only those who are herded into designated demographic identity categories.  And our worth, value and purpose is defined not by what we do or what we accomplish, but to which demographic as designated by the Left we happen to belong.

If everyone cared about Americans who have been hurt by unlawful immigration

How liberals see anything done by non-liberals in America today

As much as we care about the sad spectacle of children being removed from their parents, we probably wouldn't have come to the point where children are being removed from their parents.  The problem would have been fixed long ago.  I thought of that as I was reminded of this old article from January in the National Review.  It's taking a look at the crime stats regarding immigration along the southern border of the US.

Now I'm not going to get into a slug fest over stats.  You know the old saying about statistics and liars.  But the fact is, some Americans died at the hands of immigrants who were here illegally.  That's a fact.  We won't talk about the strain that caring for illegal immigrants put on the monies used for America's least of these, as Democrats said back in the 90s.  Nor will we talk about the bizarre unspoken idea that laws only apply based upon your national origin and skin color.  We won't get into the idea that immigrants might actually take jobs from Americans who are most desperate for the jobs the immigrants have taken, or those DACA recipients who have wowed the critics by living their entire lives outside the law while making it through Ivy League universities and landing corporate level jobs in Silicon Valley, all while home grown Americans can barely digress from a traffic law without having their careers sideswiped.

Nope.  We're just taking Americans killed by immigrants.  And you know what happened when this was brought up over the last decade or so?  Not a damn thing. Sometimes you were mocked or laughed at.  Sometimes a bizarre stat about White Americans killing more people than Muslim Americans would be thrown at you (which is a bit like saying Californians shockingly kill more people than Rhode Islanders).  It was almost always explained away, laughed away, dismissed, mocked or just ignored.  After all, they're only Americans.  Over the last couple decades, they increasingly came last.

Which is one of the greatest evils of our age, this postmodern ethic whereby as long as [other] Americans die, it's the sacrifice I'm willing to make.  Add to that the modern racism, where you can always tell a racist who probably got what's coming to him by the color of his skin (and nationality), and you had a very robust disregard for those who died, perhaps by the hundreds, at the hands of illegal immigrants.

Note that the article is just talking about one part of the crime problem.  I know people will say you'll never stop all illegal immigration, so such tragedies are inevitable.  Just remember that the next time Gun Control activists insist that their solutions should be tried, even if they would do almost nothing, since saving even one life is worth everything.  Same here.  But the fact is that the conversation never even came to that.  You just couldn't get anyone to care.  Those who did care were mostly people along the border, who often were portrayed by the press as bigots and racists by default, if they were covered at all.

Of course now we all care.  Now we're in the throes of the new Holocaust.  Literally.  This is being compared to the Gestapo, to the Nazi SS, to Concentration camps and even to Auschwitz.  Trump is Hitler.  All who defend it are Hitler.  They are all wrong.  The Bible is clearly against it.  It's an affront to God.

And in almost every case, the ones screaming Hitler! the loudest today are the ones who stood aside and let the crickets do the talking when the suffering and even death of innocent Americans and their  children was appealed to for all those years.  Somehow I think the point of the Gospel isn't that people only matter when their suffering helps advance a political agenda.  Somehow I think the point is that people matter, and when they are suffering, we should do something to make sure they are helped without hurting other innocent people.  If we do that, maybe others won't suffer down the road, even if their suffering does make for advantageous political exploitation.

BTW, to understand Trump, one need only think on this issue.  Since the end of the Cold War, the Left was pushing us to a post-nation world; a one world global government.  Everything was going global. If Americans were hurt?  Eh.  If you cared about America (or England, Italy, Poland, or any other nation)? Eh.  Get over it.  Increasingly, anyone came before an American.  A stranger before my cousin, my cousin before my brother, and everyone before [other] Americans.  The press was fine with it, the Democrats thrived on it, popular culture embraced it, and many religious leaders were hip to the groove (after all, Jesus didn't come to establish America).   But Trump has thrown that on its head and said 'Nope, in fact my main concern is Americans.'  Perhaps he does it to a fault.  Maybe he goes overboard.  But he is caring for tens of millions of Americans who, up until 2016, were simply not that big of a deal for a growing number of leaders who used to care, at least when it was convenient.

When will Jimmy Kimmel learn?

Kimmel is, of course, a political activist in comedian's garb.  His primary task is to elevate the dogmas and policies of the political Left, while attacking all who fail to conform.  Note that last part there Jimmy.  Conform.

In America's history, there have been few movements more militantly intolerant, judgmental and close minded as the modern Left.  You are either obedient to the Left 100%, or you're 100% the enemy.  That's how the Left keeps everyone, including well meaning liberals who should know better, on the reservation. 

So Mr. Kimmel came out and blasted Roseanne's racist tweet.  Fair enough.  Champagne and caviar and celebrations are in order.   But then he stepped outside the barbed wire fences and suggested compassion is in order.

Compassion, forgiveness, reconciliation, humility, grace? These things are anathema to Identity Politics of the Left.  You hate, you resent, you bear grudges, you condemn, you accuse, you destroy, you do all manner of things, but you never, ever talk of compassion or, worse, forgiveness.  Plenty of Christian leaders, in and out of Protestant traditions, seem to agree, so obviously it's true. Heck, to hear some, you'd think racism or sexism are the sins that even Jesus can't (or won't) forgive.  After all, Roseanne is now A Racist.  Her entire life is forfeit.  Her Tweet is now her  identity.  And we say it without missing a beat: Amen and amen!

But Mr. Kimmel, perhaps leaning on the Golden Rule, decided to throw out a bit of compassion.  No dice Mr. Kimmel.  You are 100% Leftist, or you are 100% the enemy.  Get back to the reservation while you can.  Get back inside the fences.  The guard towers have you spotted, your time is  running out.  Perhaps attack Trump or Conservatives.  That might mitigate the damage.  But whatever you do, don't dig in and insist we need to be compassionate where Identity Politics is concerned. That is merely adding water to the oil.