Maybe it is time to stop with the talking points

We live in an era where violence and stigmatizing is across the board. We saw seen four policemen shot, one killed, in two days in our neck of the woods. We just witnessed two separate attacks on Jewish Americans, resulting in fatalities. People in every demographic are facing the results of our modern society's insistence that we break apart and hate each other. So why is this particular group somehow uniquely harmed by this so as to take it to the next level? Just saying 'mistreatment or stigmatized' - especially in our age where across our nation the LGBTQ community is almost deified, celebrated, defended and endorsed and supported - just doesn't cut it.  Again, the days of just yelling 'Bigots!' as the all explaining answer to everything is fading, at least if we really care and want to solve the problems.

Liberals and conservatives and the infamous Fact Checkers

THIS IS AN OLDER POST, BUT I BELIEVE IT IS VERY PERTINENT TODAY

Especially since I notice a staggering dearth of Catholics who once screamed against the terrors of lying for Jesus to save innocent babies calling out the coordinated deception and dishonesty of the White House and Press over former President Biden's clear and obvious cognitive decline. That wasn't lying to save babies.  If nothing else, it was lying no matter how many babies and others might be suffering so that the sitting president they supported could dodge any trouble.  Yet go ahead and bring it up and see how far you get.  It shows how far the Christian Left is in their comfortable position of knowing the ones holding the orb, scepter and crown are on their side and will do anything by hook or by crook for their side to win. 

***********************************************************************************

When I consider the reaction conservatives have to what is humorously known as modern fact checkers, and compare it to the reactions of liberals, I think of this scene from the movie Amadeus:

Ah, a classic.  I wonder why that movie has fallen off the radar in recent decades.  In the 80s it was one of the most celebrated and influential movies of its time - bringing back both period costume pieces and kicking off a post-disco classical music renaissance.  Eh. 

Anyway, my point is that Mozart is appalled at such a nakedly stupid and false statement as 'there are only so many notes that an ear can hear in an evening.'  The emperor, looking for validation, turns to Mozart's rival (in the movie) Salieri.  A trained composer and musical genius in his own right, he knows darn well that the idea of too many notes per evening is garbage.  But in an effort to both suck up and stick it to Mozart, he goes along with the stupid.  Much to Mozart's outrage.  Note Salieri's smug smile as Mozart rants.  Salieri knows it's bunk, but he won, and the power of the emperor is on his side in this.

That's conservatives versus liberals when we see the joke-a-minute farce fest that is modern fact checkers.  Unless it really happens to be that liberals and Democrats are almost always right and honest, versus conservatives and Republicans who are almost always wrong and liars, I feel there is more to the fact checkers than bare naked facts. 

I get the gut feeling that, like Salieri, liberals know it too.  Including liberal Christians.  But the nice thing about aligning with a movement that almost flaunts amoral duplicity as a core value?  You get to indulge as well. Even if you aren't actually lying or spreading the lies you can look on smugly as conservatives rant and rave and know there is nothing they can do.  

After all, like Salieri in the film, liberals know they have the power of vast global corporate interests, billion dollar entertainment outlets, pols and judges, world leaders, the military and even a growing number of religious institutions and leaders at their back.  And when that's the case, you can be smug all day - until the final reckoning that is. 

Christopher Lamb and Salieri both know when to sneer

Honesty is hardly ever heard

And we know why.  At least nowadays. 

So the media is exploding over a book written by Krisi Noem.  In it, she describes putting one of her dogs down after it became uncontrollable.  Being in the country, she shot it.  Old Yeller stuff.  Maybe she shouldn't have.  Maybe there were other ways.  Maybe it was all she could think to do at the moment.  I don't know.  I just know the world in which we would have had a discussion - even a heated one - about what she writes in her book is long dead. 

Now it's as if someone is trying to reason with a lynch mob.  Kristi Noem is on the same ranks as Manson.  Her name a byname for cruel, barbarian, savage, killer - all words I've heard applied to her.  And this is driven by that thing I used to call the news media. You'd think she bult gas chambers. Of course animal rights advocates are heavily quoted in the outrage.  It helps lend credibility to the hysteria. 

She lived on a ranch or farm or something similar from what I can tell.  I haven't read the book.  And people who exist in the real world like farms and ranches often have experiences different from what armchair Cliff Clavins on the Internet imagine the world should be.  And the media, hoping to gin up any rage hate against anyone right of center, mixed with the usual suspects with fingers poised over their keyboards in anxious anticipation, charges forth with rage hate, condemnation, and conviction sans trial. 

That's the world the media wants.  That's the world the establishment wants.  One where we don't dare be honest.  We don't dare admit to anything.  We fear any word we say.  Because in our world, anything less than perfection is only worthy of eradication.  And the fools who fall for this new world standard will be the ones who scream the loudest when that principle finally turns back on them.  

David Gushee and damage control

 So I saw this:

Hmmm.  I thought that was pretty tough for Dr. Gushee.  Sure, he avoids like the plague the universal support that Hamas has received from various leftwing activists, Palestinian protesters, and various Muslim and Arab pro-Palestinian advocates.  He doesn't get near the signs with calls to continue the slaughter of Jewish people because they are Jewish.  But at least he says it's bad, no excuses, no qualifiers, no appeals to context or moral equivalency.       

But that made me wonder.  I don't have Twitter, so I'm a bit hamstrung with looking at various Twitter accounts.  Usually I go with what people send me in copied images.  But sometimes I can dig and find recent Twitter posts.  So after some fenagling, I got to the farthest back of his account I could, and saw this:

Wow.  Note the date.  Two days after the single worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. And this is Mr. "Righteous Gentiles of the Holocaust"! You know, his book that cites those gentiles who rescued Jews from the Nazis while using that to hammer the majority of Christians who didn't.  And what does he do within two days of the most horrible genocidal assault against Israeli Jews in recent memory?  He goes after white nationalists who apparently don't believe in the right to vote? 

What we're witnessing is a mental breakdown among the modern progressive revolution.  That slick and careful and asinine narrative that is the basis for tearing down the Western tradition and its Christian roots has been shaken.  That narrative exists by forever focusing on isolated molehills of facts while ignoring mountain range sized piles of qualifying and contradictory facts.  By doing that, we have the oily Oppressor v. the Oppressed template that is being used now to, well, call for the extermination of Israel and everyone (Jewish) in it. 

As a disclaimer, I should note that I was once a big fan of Gushee.  Even when I could tell he tacked left of center, I saw in him someone trying to be sincere and courageous in standing his ground.  Even though I could detect his sympathies, in a class filled with many liberal Christians, he admitted that for the Bible, homosexuality is typically presented as the ultimate deviancy from sexual morality.  

When he wrote an article defining history as being between the Left (good guys) vs. the Right (bad guys), however, my admiration was shaken to be sure.  That level of ignorance is hard to overcome in the matter or respect. 

But when he wrote, in light of the legalization of gay marriage, that it's time for all to bow before the new dogma or get what they have coming to them, I suddenly realized whoever he was writing his book for, it wasn't himself.  Someone who rose to prominence by brutally eviscerating those Germans who didn't stand up and risk death to oppose the Nazis - who now says get in line with the Left or pay the piper.  Oh, and slaughtering Jews is bad, but let's not lose track of the really bad people who dare buck the Leftist State. 

Once more, I'll repeat my oldest son's observation: With each passing day, it becomes easier and easier to sympathize with those Germans in the 1930s.  And Dr. Gushee is about as good a case study for why this is true as I can imagine. 

Perhaps Dr. Gushee can be reached - if he's paying attention

What if C-A-T spelled Dog?

That's what comes to mind when progressives and the press struggle with counter narrative events.  Take this.  It's a lengthy article that is written because what happened in Israel, and the subsequent reaction around the world, hit like a boxer the dominant leftwing narrative of the day.

That narrative says the problems and dominant evils of history are the result of white, European and American heterosexual Christian men.  Period. They're the baddies.  The racists.  The sexists.  The homophobic bigots.  Their history, heritage and heroes are all worthy of the chopping block because anything and everything they produced was draped in blood, oppression, slavery, genocide, imperialism, colonialism and injustice.  And these things are the motivating factor for anyone to the West of the Urals.  

When something happens that fits the equation of WASC v. non-WASC, then the reactions are swift, the coverage simplistic, the propaganda clear.  Consider Ferguson or George Floyd.  Consider the January 6th riots.  Heck, consider the anti-Asian hate crimes that were discovered to be driven more by black Americans than anyone.  It didn't take progressives long to say that's still the fault of white American racists.  So racist is our country, and so much the fault of white Americans, that when non-whites do racist things it's still the fault of WASCs (I'll assume you get that stands for White Anglo-Saxon Christian). 

You don't find nuance or complex ramblings in journalism.  You don't have professors or advocates come out and speak of context or nuance when George Floyd is dead.  You don't have articles where people call for restraint, or a broader understanding of all parties, or trying to see what might or might not be true given this or that contextual qualifier.  Nope.  Floyd was killed because racism.  All American police were indicted.  All white Americans indicted.  The history of America was indicted.  All of Western Civilization was indicted.  Period.  Let's start tearing down those statues. 

But now, you have decidedly not-WASC people doing something staggeringly heinous.  And going out of their way to make it as bad as it can be, in a way that would make Nazis in the 1940s proud.  And not only that, but around the world you had both non-WASC and leftwing activists sing the praises of Hamas for its enlightened actions.  And even worse, some of the protests and demonstrations have made it clear it's not just the state of Israel they are hating.  You can, in some broad sense, oppose Israel and not be antisemitic (a sin most comfortably placed at the feat of anyone west of the Danube).  But some of these protests have sported signs and rhetoric that make clear they're not just cheering the slaughter of Israeli men, women and children.  They're pining for their deaths for the precise reason that they are Jews.  Gas the Jews is a tough slogan to explain away. 

Of course we know the world was waiting with bated breath for Israel to respond.  For it to respond any way possible.  As soon as it did, and any civilians in Palestine were killed, the moral equivalency would be invoked.  We could call down barbarism on both sides, accuse both of being equally culpable, and bring back the condemnation of Israel as the main perpetrator in this ages old conflict.  

But you still have those damned 'Gas the Jews' signs. And not from white men with Jesus t-shirts wearing MAGA hats.  Darn it anyway.  So that's why you'll see endless articles, posts, homilies and others making it broadly about hate and racism in the most abstract form.  Or pondering endlessly on the complexity of the details, the nuanced appeal to context, and just the basic question of what we should do, if we should, when we can do, what can we know, and can CAT spell dog?  

Not like George Floyd.  Heck, not like Russia invading Ukraine.  Ah, that was nice.  It was the first time in my lifetime I remember us going full Pearl Harbor on someone in a war.  Up until then, any conflict (the two I recall both occurred in the Middle East) was weighed down with endless appeals to love our enemies, say nothing bad about our enemies, never make it about any people but the ones with the guns, understand the complex histories, see where we might be at fault, and on and on.

But we had no problem calling hellfire down on Russia, Russian soldiers, Russian culture, Russian products, Russian history.  Boycotting Russian.  Erasing Russian names.  Boy oh boy that was fun.  A small dose of what it must have been like in December, 1941.  That's because Russia, on the surface, is White, European and Christian.  

But now, we have inconvenient evidence that challenges that leftwing framework.  Whenever that happens, expect death by a million nuanced ponderings. 

David Carlin at The Catholic Thing goes crazy

And wonders if prayers might actually be effective.  In fact, he doth blaspheme our Secular age by suggesting the problem with mass shootings isn't too many guns, but too few prayers.  

Wow.  I feel like Carlin said he just saw Elvis working on a road crew in Houston.  It's amazing when you see something like that, which is A-B-C level Christian believing, and realize how radical it is, even within our churches.  When so much basic level Christianity is rejected and condemned by so many believers today.  But then you realize something else.  Many believers today are effectively atheistic in all but name.  Save for an hour or two on most Sundays, they increasingly seem to accept perspectives from a decidedly secular/atheistic point of view.  

So much so, that when the godless condemn 'thoughts and prayers', how many religious believers (and, indeed, their leaders) join the chorus of condemnation and mockery?  If we wonder why young people are leaving the Faith, and not a few older ones are joining them, I think the answer is easier than we make it. 

Since so many who grace the doors of the local church today don't appear to believe in the historical Faith in any practical sense, why should anyone?  The constant attempt to reshape the Faith to fit the latest - when on any given day we can be hit with a hundred new latests - mixed with constantly condemning the first 2000 years of believers as the irredeemable reprobates they were, is no doubt a big part of the problem.  

But no less is what a youngster said at a youth group years ago.  When asked why young people are leaving the faith, the answer was to the point: because most adults in churches don't seem to believe it, why should they? When you consider how many 'believers' employ the atheistic contempt for prayer and our relationship to God as a solution to our nation's (and our world's) problems, that sentiment makes sense. It might be tragic, but it's honest and does answer a lot of questions.  

Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as men do.”  Matthew 16.23

I don't think The Babylon Bee is funny

I just don't.  Not because of lack of talent.  But because it's chosen to mock and lampoon the Left, and that's a tall order.  I don't think the best comedic writers could make much out of the Left that the Left doesn't do on its own.  That's my problem with the BB.

Take for instance, this:

It comes from this piece.  Now, I admit that should be worth a chuckle in sane circumstances.  But how is it funny in a world where parents can say their child is multiple different identities and refer to her in the third person plural?  Or a world where some would have you be fired if you suggest men can't have babies?  Where SCOTUS nominees swear they have no clue how to define what a woman is? 

BB isn't alone in this quandary.  Here's a meme that was put up for the same reason:

Again, the absurdity of the humor is lost on the fact that Judge Jackson said she doesn't know how to define a woman.  How do you mock her when what she did was mockery enough? 

Of course we know she knows exactly what a woman is.  This is not about transgender anything or rights or whatever. It's about power and control.  It's O'Brien and his four fingers.  It's knowing Judge Jackson knows full well what a woman is, but also knows full well she doesn't dare say so.  That's when you know you're in a post-free society.

That's what this is all about.  That's why parody or satire fall flat.  Imagine humorous memes showing Winston's answers or O'Brien's demands.  Because absurdity is the gateway drug to tyranny.  Trying to outdo the absurdity through humor is a hopeless endeavor. 

A note about the comment in the second meme.  That has been a feminist standard since whenever.  The more I kick things around, the more I begin to think it was feminism all along that sowed the first seeds of the West's demise.  For feminism all but perfected the right to demand absolute equality for women whenever convenient for women.  

For example, women want equality between the sexes sans differences until differences benefit women.  Then, and only then, are you allowed to act as if there are differences (though note, almost never are you able to say so).  That sort of ham-fisted sleight of hand came to dominate feminist activism, and has since spilled over into most movements today.  Until the essence of our modern age is that there is no Truth, there's only what gets me what I want at the moment.  In five minutes, my truth now is false, because of course it is. 

Peace, Urkaine and America

I'm no expert when it comes to Eastern European political and historical wrangling.  In those years I sojourned with the Orthodox Christians - many from Eastern and Southeastern Europe - I realized just how deficient our modern American understanding of the world has become. I get the impression Americans in the 1910s had a better grasp of the world than we do today.  

The divisions in our country are a big reason.  Among many pundits, this is all about attacking each other.  To he honest, I don't even know what different pundits want to happen.  All I know is that they're attacking the other ones because of course they are.

As best I can tell, non-leftists and conservatives are split into two groups.  One says we must stand up to Putin, and the other says we have no business getting involved in yet another foreign conflict. The left seems content with attacking group number two as traitors and Tokyo Roses for Putin and Satan and Hitler and everything else.  Whether the Left recognizes group number one is unknown to me. 

Meanwhile, I have watched the Biden administration fail repeatedly to stop Putin from doing what Putin clearly intended to do. Those on the Left seem more focused on defending Biden by ignoring the obvious than they are actually helping anything.  In fact, most who blast those conservatives for not wanting to get involved in Ukraine appear to  offer no clear examples of what we should do while making sure blame falls anywhere but with Biden (or Mr. 'Cold War is Calling' Obama). 

So zealous have they been in attacking those who don't want to get involved, in fact, they come off as fanatical warmongers of the type they've long accused conservatives of being.  To hear some of them scream traitor at those who don't want to get involved in a potential land war in Europe, they come across as jockeys for war in a way that would shame the Marx Brothers:

True, they're not committing to any particular course of action, and seem more concerned about scoring points against conservatives than articulating any clear solutions to the crisis.  Therefore they could always insist they don't mean war while meaning nothing else at all.  That's what comes from a divided and dying nation like ours I suppose.

True across the board

Rod Dreher has been following these developments.  His extensive interactions with those east of the Danube have likely given him insights that seem to help frame things realistically.   Based on what I experienced in my few paltry years with Orthodox Christianity listening to immigrants from Eastern Europe, it's also closer to what I heard than the fictional narrative hoisted on us by many of our warring pundits.  He's also honest about the hot mess the West and America is in - something those on the Left wouldn't understand since they fully support the things that are killing the West.

I abhor what Russia has done today. But this did not come from nowhere. Now Europe faces the prospect of a wider war — unlikely, but not at all unthinkable, which explains the anxiety so many Hungarians I meet have — and the opening of a new Cold War with Russia … and China. The historical period that ended last night, when Russian troops crossed the border, began with the US hoping to integrate China and Russia into a liberal democratic world order. It ended with wealthy China the world’s ascendant power; Russia — an historically Christian nation — having abandoned liberal democracy after the shambles that corrupt Russians and US advisors made of the 1990s, pivoting away from the West, and now firmly in the orbit of China; and the United States, a declining empire weakened and humiliated by twenty years of failed Mideast and Asian war, and sharply divided at home by the culture war American elites have waged on half of their own people, left to figure out what the hell to do with itself and its inheritance.

In all of this, one wonders where China, and even India, will fall.  Also the Middle East.  So far in news reports I've seen, those condemning Putin are either European or African reps to the UN.  I've seen very few allusions to ambassadors from the Middle East or China.  Perhaps I just missed it.  But I can't help but think it's where those cultures and nations fall, rather than the dying West, that will make a difference.  For good or ill. 

Nonetheless, I don't see the rulers of the world beating a path to my door and seeking my insights into the problem.  For now, I can do the one thing I can do, and that's pray for peace.  What happens in the weeks and months to come is the guess of others with more insight than I have. So on behalf of my sons, and the wider world, I'll offer prayers that things can be stopped before death and suffering become the norm. 

The English language can't describe how much I hate this

I saw the headline pop up and wondered what it could be.  Some big case everyone is talking about?  A woman assaulted a 10 year old?  Hmmmm.  So I clicked it to see what it was about.

This is what it was about.

I hate that so much.  It wasn't a woman.  It was a man with the troubled idea that he's a woman who assaulted a 10 year old girl and got a slap on the wrist.  To make the pelvic brigade look even worse, he openly mocked the girl over his sentencing as if the joke was on her.  

Remember, societal madness is a gateway drug for tyranny

Now, that's nasty stuff.  And in a sane world that has nothing to do with the Gospel, much less one that has any familiarity with the Gospel, things would be different. 

As it is, notice the headline.  Woman.  No my dude, it's not a woman.  It's a man.  And it was a 10 year old GIRL.  The headline apparently couldn't say that because, well, you don't want to draw attention to an actual girl when you're trying to insist that man in the photo is a woman because he says so. 

That's barking man insanity./  That our multi-billion dollar a year mental health industry continues to laugh all the way to the bank over this is bad enough.  But it's not the MH industry, or rascally liberals, or the godless, or the Marxists, or whoever else you blame, that bothers me the most. 

What bothers me is the army of Christian Court Prophets who are twisting and turning and torturing common sense, the Gospel, and basic human decency in order to accommodate this madness.  Look at my old buddy Russ Moore and how he frames it under the idea that biblical gender is a complex thing.  Oh, boys and girls and all, but violence against transgenderism is out of the question. As if there are only two options - attack transgenders or cozy up to it all.  Unlike with white conservatives and conservative male Trump supporters, we should reach out to the transgender community with love and joy and inclusion.

Court prophets.  They make up the bulk of Christian leaders nowadays, as they often have over the ages. The problem is that now they're sucking up to a movement that seems driven by the goal of taking everything God ever revealed and turning it on its head.  While millions of Christians will gladly toss the old aside and affirm whatever this movement says, it will be the Court Prophets who really mess things up.  

Whether it's because they have lost their faith, or they're cowards, or they don't want to lose their cushy corner offices in Manhattan high rises, I don't know.  I just know they'll appear to be the voices of reason.  But what they are doing is simply putting a down payment on Sunday mornings so the rest of the week can be spent partying with the World like its 2099.  

Then the messenger who went to call Micaiah spoke to him, saying, “Behold, all the prophets, speaking in one accord, are saying good things to the king. Come now, and let your word be as theirs, and speak good things.”  1 Kings 22.13

Alessandra Harris gets it wrong

 

People aren't mad that black people had the nerve to proclaim their lives matter.  Most I know wouldn't have said otherwise.  They simply point out the problem with the usual leftwing duplicity behind it all. That is, insisting they aren't saying only black lives matter, and then watching them suggest anyone who says all lives matter is a racist.  

The Left's favorite tactic of denying having stated the implicit truth they just used to separate the sheep from the greatest of all time, is the problem. And pardon me for noticing, but the only one who seems mad about any of this is Ms. Harris. 

The only thing worse than staging a deceitful stunt at a political rally

Is doubling down when you were caught in the lie.  The hard left anti-Trump group The Lincoln Project now joins the hallowed halls of Project Veritas as 'liars for the truth.'  Now, Project Veritas was heavily maligned in Catholic circles when it was discovered they sent 'actors' into abortion settings to get information.  That was undercover work and all undercover work, it turned out, is lying.  And we all know lying in any form is of Satan, and far more of a big deal than 60 million abortions.  

So I have no doubt that the Lincoln Project, much beloved and cited by New Prolife Catholics everywhere because of the group's anti-Trump rhetoric, will now be hammered by those Catholics because of this dishonest ploy.  After all, doing something in order to falsely attack someone's character - as this clearly was meant to do - is merely a form of dishonesty and lying.  

Or, we might suddenly learn that it wasn't dishonest at all, that's just old pre-post-modern thinking.  In post-modern world, where gender doesn't exist and it's racist not to judge someone by their skin color, deliberately acting a different part in order to malign a politician might not be dishonest at all because of course it isn't.  The joys of the post-modern era. 

If you are shocked by Katie Couric's revelation about the Ginsberg interview

You might be shocked to learn the Earth isn't flat.  Again, I'm not sure when we developed this idea that journalism is some objective source of information.  It's never been that. From the beginning of journalism, journalists were about their own perspectives and designs and agendas.  

Sure, by the 1980s, it was becoming more obvious that the media had axes to grind with certain views and beliefs and agendas.  But according to polls, many Americans still clung to the idea that the press was a reliable source of information.  By the 1990s, however, where the media lined up agenda and bias-wise was pretty clear. If Rush Limbaugh accomplished nothing else, he was able to display the press's increasingly naked partisanship on a national stage for all to see.

Now journalism is not even pretending. During the Trump years, almost every major news outlet could have printed the disclaimer 'Here to defeat Trump at all costs' under their headlines.  They didn't even hide it.  Nor do they report in most cases.  They openly advocate.  

For instance, I didn't see a single news story about BLM in 2020. I saw cheerleading and celebrating and praising and supporting.  I saw no major news outlet actually look to see what BLM was and if it was actually correct in its premises.  Now the press exists to walk that fine line of not letting Biden destroy too much of the country while making sure his disastrous presidency doesn't taint  the Left's reputation.  

But the idea that what Couric and company did with Ginsburg's interview - censoring Ginsburg's criticism of St. Kaepernick's NFL protests - is just business as usual for the press.  Always has been, always will be.  Please don't act like this is some freakish fluke that probably never happens normally.  It's time we are honest about reality, because lying about it has gotten us here.  And the last thing any sane or competent person should ever want is to be here, where we are today. 

Asian Carp are from Asia

For instance, Google where Asian Carp come from and you get this tidy bit of info:

This must be established, or you might miss how stupid it is that scientists are pushing to rename the species because - you guessed it - racist.  The CBS News had a special segment in which some fellow with some parks service said it was named Asian because it was a nuisance - you know, like Asians.  Not because the species originate in  Asia.  A democratic congresswoman was also interviewed who said we need to be sensitive about words and terms used to perpetuate racist stereotypes.. 

The news report didn't mention once in the story that the Carp in question originated in Asia.  It merely said they were imported in an effort to control certain species in the wild.  It never once said where they were brought from.  That made the false assumption above sound more plausible, times being what they are.

Of course the story made efforts to connect it to anti-Asian violence and the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes.  It even went the extra mile to connect it to Trump's racist attempt to link Covid to the Chinese people.  Because being from China or Asia apparently doesn't matter when it comes to finding out where things originate?  It doesn't matter.  The point is to embed in our minds the idea that if it came from any time in the Christian West's past, we can assume it is racist and must be abolished.  This includes such racist ideas as equality, liberty, sanctity of life, the Golden Rule, the rule of law, or the names of insects and fish. 

This is also what happens when being a righteous crusader is the easiest way to get on the news and be relevant, even if the crusade is brain-dead stupid.  A plea for scientists to stay in science and stop thinking they exceed the bravery of soldiers hitting the beaches by looking for the latest offensive name that needs abolished, whether it's based on reality or not. 

As for the news report, it was lies and falsehoods.  Much selective word choice while ignoring important facts - like the fact that Asian Carp originated from Asia (China specifically), hence the name.  Again, there are fools and liars, and then there are those who know  better than to believe anything the modern news media has to say. 

Now, we have today and tomorrow off owing to our youngest's birthday.  I wasn't going to blog at all, but couldn't pass up the stupid - and the dangerous.  It's stupid as we all know the reality, but its purpose is diabolical.  But that's that, and I'll be back after the festivities.   TTFN. 

Every now and then you see a minor victory for freedom

So a teacher who was fired by one of our fine public education institutions for daring to say boys and girls exist, has been reinstated.  And the ruling come from the courts.   That the courts still maintain the constitutional right to say boys and girls exist is comforting.  That we must appeal to the courts in order to maintain the right to say boys and girls exist, however, shows just how far from sanity and goodness we have fallen as a nation. 

Three Amigos, Internet Trolls and the death of freedom

Huh?  What?  That's the sort of headline I write that can only make sense to me.  So let me 'splain.  

I'm sure we've all been watching with jaws on the floor as a growing number of our nation's leaders make it clear they wish to eliminate the right to oppose them.  Furthermore, we've watched as billionaires in the tech world took it upon themselves to control speech and thought crimes by banning people who disagree with them.  And if that wasn't enough - and by golly it ought to be  -  I'm sure I'm not the only one who stared in disbelief at so many who seem perfectly fine with this and are sure such measures would only be applied to those type of people over there.  As one who has spent my life reading, teaching, studying and lecturing on history, that's the equivalent of an astronomer stumbling across a flat earth conspiracy theorist.  How could we be this stupid?  How could we be this historically illiterate? 

Well, let's start with my blogpost title. Back during my purgatory at the Patheos site, I learned all about internet trolls.  I'm sure I had seen a few in my time before that, but since at Patheos we were expected to keep watch on each others' blogs, I had plenty identity the trolls on my site and what I should do about it.  One incident leapt to mind the other day when I saw an advertisement for the old 1980s comedy The Three Amigos, and it got me thinking of a couple others and the subject at hand.

One frequent troll at Patheos commented under the name Andre B.  He wasn't your typical troll.  He was obviously smart, and when he wasn't trolling he had interesting things to say. But when he trolled, he trolled. I had several readers tell me over the year that he had really nailed them.  They thought he was an insightful, good faith commenter, and he ended up being a troll!  One once wrote in capital letters he was so frustrated.   And Andre could frustrate.   It was nothing to see him gobble up hundreds of comments as people took a long time to figure out they were being trolled by him.

Like all trolls, the point is to hijack debate, derail conversations, and argue ad nauseum to no ultimate point.  So once I posted on something I remembered back when I was in college.  It was an early example I witnessed of 'water cooler talk' on a news cast after a previous night's television program.  Not that I had never experienced talking about television programs.  But this was different because not only did people talk about it the next day, but I actually saw it discussed on the news.  This was in the 80s before news broadcasts were as much about promoting pop culture agendas and corporate interestse as talking about news.

The topic involved an episode of Johnny Carson.  Carson had Chevy Chase on as he was touring about, promoting his latest movie The Three Amigos.  Carson also had film critics Siskel and Ebert on.  At one point Carson asked them what were the best and worst movies they had seen recently.  Roger Ebert, in keeping with his somewhat abrasive personality, said the worst movie he had seen recently was The Three Amigos.  The audience gasped.  And then Carson did something very un-Carson.  He rebuked Ebert.  He said if he had known that would be the answer, he wouldn't have asked the question.

Anyone who grew up with Carson or had spent any time watching him knew that was the equivalent of Carson standing up and smacking Ebert with a medieval mace.  I can't remember the context, but I posted about that at Patheos.  Andre, ever the troll, stepped up to inform me how wrong I was.  He found the clip on Youtube and, to him, it was a love fest.  Nothing to see at all.  Respect and love and admiration from Carson.  Ebert and Carson a love story.  I was obviously wrong.  

I said he was nuts, that Carson was not only upset, but it was talked about the next day.  They even mentioned it on the morning news!  And then Andre said something he had said before.  He said he couldn't trust my memory.  I was possibly lying.  Or maybe mistaken.  But my recollection was entirely irrelevant.  I became frustrated because I remembered the talk that occurred the next day.  It's just one of those things in a person's life that makes an impression.  I had watched Carson for years.  Everyone could tell he was unhappy.  Carson was the king of lifting people up, but on the rarest of occasions, he would put people in their place, and this was such an occasion.

By his own admission, Andre is a millennial.  At best he would have been an infant or young child around this time, if he had been born at all.  How could he tell me what went on when there is no way he could have experienced any of it? 

And then I got to thinking of other trolls I bumped into at my time on Patheos.  Another was a fellow named Rob Lot (IIRC).  Rob's shtick was very simple.  The past is irrelevant.  Bring up what Democrats said in the past or that the Left had once dismissed Bill Clinton's behavior as the irrelevant part of his personal morals, and I was constantly told it was of no value.  Bring up what LGBTQ activists promised would never happen about punishing people over gay marriage, and again it's the past.  It doesn't matter.  That was almost always his response to the references about the past or history in general.

Another individual commented under the name 'Neko.'  She was a regular on M. Shea's blog.  I believe she stopped by mine a couple times.  Once she made a claim about religious people being religious because that's what they've been told by mommy and daddy.  I responded that not only was I quite liberal in my youth, I was also an agnostic.  I became a Christian as an adult, having been seeking the Truth for quite a few years.

Not to be dismayed, she fired back that I was a boldfaced liar.  I was never an agnostic, nor was I a liberal.  What?  I told her I had no reason to doubt she was a mother or an atheist.  Why so difficult accepting my testimony?  Who would call someone a liar on the internet when they're merely posting about themselves?  That would be like calling me a liar for saying I like pepperoni on my pizzas.  But she stuck to it, and what's more, when I pushed back at her, other readers got - on me, rather than her for calling me a liar.

All of this came to my mind when I saw that advertisement.  And it got me to thinking, as I am wont to do.  In each of these cases, we have things that I've discovered are quite common in modern (postmodern) discourse.  Especially on the internet, but I wonder how exclusively on the internet.  In each case an appeal is made to the past, and in each case in different ways, the appeal is smacked down.

In one case, I'm told by someone who wasn't there that just because I was there is irrelevant.   I am told by another that the past itself is entirely irrelevant.  And when all else fails, a third just called me a liar when my own personal experience didn't conform to her broad stereotypes. 

Now we might think this is all just internet trolling. Again, the point of a troll isn't to defend the helpless or aid the starving or seek justice in the world.  The point is to wreck online debate.  To that end they'll write anything.  For quite some time I assumed that such arguments, as annoying as they were, just happened to be tools of the trolling trade.  They didn't believe these things.  They merely wrote them online because they could.  

But what if I'm wrong?  What if they weren't writing these things just to troll?  What if they really believed them?   What if in their real lives in the real world this is how they approach reality?  They will look at someone from the 1940s and say that person knows nothing about growing up in the 1940s, or they will call someone a liar for experiencing or seeing things that stand against their social media informed opinions.  Or, in the end, they just say the past doesn't matter anyway, no history, no anything - anything before yesterday isn't worth worrying about.  What if they really believe these things?  What if we've raised an entire generation - and I believe they were all millennials or younger - who think this about history and the people and events of the past? 

When you see the growing number of 'communists rock', or 'censorship might work', or 'what's wrong with digging into people's teen years to destroy them', or 'America invented racism in 1619', or 'the only way to defeat racism is with new racism', or most recently 'I'm sure they'll just ban them, but never me' comments, editorials and articles, you wonder how the most educated generation in history could actually believe these things.  But then, if the above examples are the rule today, and a general disdain for anything before yesterday is now dogma in terms of buttressing our own righteous superiority over those who came before, it shouldn't be surprising.  Terrifying perhaps, but not surprising. 

Richard Spencer backs Joe Biden

So there you go.  Richard Spencer, according to some the incarnation of Adolf Hitler, Nazi, White Supremacist and Alt-Right racist supremacy, is backing Joe Biden. 

Now, does that mean anything?  No.  Not a thing.  If a person who worshipped aardvarks backed Joe Biden it doesn't mean anything about Biden.  In a vast country with hundreds of millions of citizens, you're going to have all kinds voting this way and that.  

A single person, or even hundreds of people, supporting a national candidate means little.  It is only newsworthy because for the last going on four years, the Left - including good New Pro-Life Catholics - made a huge deal about Spencer backing President Trump as some sort of added proof that Trump is not only a Nazi racist, but attracts Nazi racists, and Spencer's support is proof.

Of course I have no doubt that this will be met with those on the Left with all manner of technical exceptions.  Or they can just play the Left's favorite 'it's different now' card.  Or he can't be supporting Biden for the wrong reasons since Democrats are never wrong.  Or they can deny that anyone ever made a big deal about Spencer at all despite all the evidence to the contrary.  

In the end, it doesn't really matter to sane people because it shouldn't matter to sane people. To the Left it won't matter because it's no longer convenient to matter. 

Portland: Two takes from social media

Because as this shows, the mainstream press is barely mentioning it at all.  Some local outlets are running with stories, but on the national level, as can be expected, almost nothing at all.  So we have this:

And this:

And this is the problem, isn't it. Which is right?  Which is true?  They're both looking at the same events, but the read is polar opposite.  I would say this is why we should ignore social media, since the ability to spin things based on partisan agendas is so easy.

And yet, where else could I go?  Local news is sometimes better, at least it tries to be. I've often thought that's because local news is aimed at a tighter, often more homogeneous audience.  Plus, people are able to access those in local media in ways they can't access national press stars in their wealthy communities behind their ivory walls.  It isn't easy to make sweeping condemnations of people who can get in your face at this year's Arts and Barbecue festival.

But even those can be wanting, and perhaps don't have access to the resources to really unpack the stories.  Another flip side of local news is the lack of resources.  That's why sometimes you'll see the same shot of the same neighborhood when they're covering the latest crime scene that happened somewhere else.  Stock footage, since they can't afford to send a crew out to every story. 

But the national thing we used to call the press isn't interested in reporting news any more.  It isn't even trying to present itself as objective.  It's goal is the defeat of Donald Trump.  Period.  That is it.  To that end, it puffs whatever will do the job - such as George Floyd as opposed to any one of a dozen other unarmed Americans killed by cops.  Likewise, it ignores things like this, where protesters and rioters opposed to Trump, conservatives and America in general are possibly turning another American city into a demilitarized zone.  

So it's off to social media we go.  It may be biased, but at least it's there. 

NOTE: Keen observers who go through the stories in the link will notice that conservative outlets like Fox focus on the story in a way similar to Walsh, while other liberal outlets like Newsweek or The Washington Post (one of the few national venues I found mentioning this) sound a lot like Burbach's take.  Again, another problem.  Even when the "press" does cover something, is it really any different than social media?  Indeed, one wonders if social media is where they get their information from in the first place. 

Conservatives are speaking out against Euthanasia

And are about the only ones doing so. 

I stopped visiting Mark Shea's outlets at the beginning of the year.  Since then, I've had some I know send me examples of the unhinged rage and hatred that defines his ministry, though their numbers are dwindling.  I've typically avoided posting anything of his since I don't want to give him anymore exposure than he already has.  Though it's worth noting that the worse he gets, the higher his profile seems to go, so what I do or don't do doesn't seem to matter.   Such is Catholic apologetics in the modern Church.

Nonetheless, I felt this post warranted some attention.  The headline suggests there is euthanasia in the air, and Trump supporters who are pro-life are ignoring it.  Presumably because it is euthanasia ordered by Trump and, for political purposes, they are burying their heads in devotion to Trump.

This is not the case.  Mark's screed, which is barely worth the read, simply lashes out at Trump's policy regarding immigration that is, according to reports, causing some immigrants who are receiving medical care in the US to face deportation.  I don't know the details, because for two or three days it was all I heard about, and then suddenly the stories vanished.  Was it another 'Trump nukes Earth' story line?  Were they really removed?  If so, was it as simple as the news reports made it?

I do know that when this was reported, I noticed some Trump supporters express concern and say they did oppose something that could cause harm to people needing medical help.  But again, the story came and went so quickly (don't know why), it didn't seem to get steam in the debate forums.  I'd guess if it still is an issue, or actually is happening as the news reports say, then at least some I saw would not be happy.  And that includes decidedly pro-life conservatives who otherwise support Trump.

Nonetheless, as much as it's a policy that needs dealt with and addressed if it is true, it is not euthanasia.  Euthanasia is garnering more and more support in America, and that is disturbing.  While the definitions can sometimes be slippery on the popular level, the 2018 Gallup Poll found far too many Americans - conservative and liberal - warming up to the idea.  Again, at least warming up based on their understanding of the topic.

It's worth noting, however, that Mark's liberal allies and the Democratic party he now votes for along party-lines are much higher in support for actual euthanasia than Americans in general.  Those most opposed are those rascally conservative Christian Republican types.

Which is why I post this. Mark is clever enough, of course, not to box himself in with specifics.  Terms like 'Trump cult' or 'Gun cult' are Mark's inventions, and he freely applies them or not based upon the moment at hand.  Bring up an example or a hundred examples of people who don't fit what he is saying or show that his characterization is wrong, and he'll merely say they're not who he means.  Who he does mean is in his own head, and open to broad interpretation.

But his post headline was misleading and false enough to debunk.  I suspect I will see less and less of Mark's output as the last couple faithful who do the dirty work and keep me up with his trajectory follow the rest of us and stop polluting their eyes and minds.  But with this I thought it needed corrected and the actual truth pointed out.  Euthanasia and its growing acceptance is a major problem.  But the ones speaking out are almost always - almost mind you - those who are conservative pro-life advocates, Trump supporters or otherwise. Don't be fooled by the false headline.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales blasts Donald Trump's lies

I'll let the irony of that sink in.  The founder of Wikipedia, the existence of which is at the vanguard of the post-Truth era, has little room to speak. Wikipedia, whose very name is synonymous with bias, error and falsehoods, is the last place from which criticisms of Trump can be launched.  In fact, it's the popularity of this 'we're so tired of worrying about facts' resource that allowed many who voted for Trump to hold their noses to his myriad false statements.  If they were forced to live in a wikiworld sans truth, then they were at least going to get the inaccuracies and falsehoods to work for them.

Bonus: A little piece I penned a few years ago about the danger in trusting Wikipedia.  And seasonal, too.

When caught holding a can of beer in your hand

Just deny you're holding a can of beer in your hand.  That seems to be Google's response to the not too shocking video of key Google employees bemoaning the horror and evil of Trump's election and the losers who elected him (aka, Google consumers).  Nowadays, I'd say the strategy has a chance.  The MSM will give it scant coverage if at all possible.  Partisans won't care about the facts anyway.  So insisting that the endless rants against Trump, and all who dared not support the candidate they clearly wanted (and some would say, propped up via selective programming), shows nothing at all about bias might just be the smart move, c. 2018.