Note what is happening

I have no real opinions about the late Chavez one way or another, but could we at least wait until we find out if he was guilty? 

Go here to read one of a tidal wave of stories all but cheering the same thing.

The same is true of Les Wexner, Ohio's biggest bad boy billionaire.  Founder of that Playboy Mansion version of Woolworth, Victoria's Secret, he shockingly has been implicated in the Jeffery Epstein case.  Granted, there could be more behind Wexner's alleged activity than the accusations behind Chavez.  Nonetheless, note what is happening.  Like Chavez, there has been a push - aided by local media that clearly loves the new messaging - to have Wexner erased from various locations bearing his name.    The biggest being the Wexner Medical Center.  And as far as I know, Wexner hasn't even been charged yet.

It makes me think of the Kavanaugh hearing.  Remember when that batch of inquisition loving Leftists openly declared that we have to get over our obsession with things like presumption of innocence, burden of proof, and all that due process rubbish?  Oh, in dusty old courtrooms those might work.  But in the real world, we'll have no more of it.  

The motto of the whole 'woke' era post-liberal left is 'we judge, we hate, we condemn, we eradicate.'  They almost seem proud to execute judgement and pass out punishments before we even know if anything happened.  We saw that during the Minnesota ICE deflection.  A story would break that something happened, someone was shot, or anything, and those on the Left swarmed social media demanding the ICE officials' heads before we even knew if anything happened, much less what. 

Even when I was in college, there was still a certain amount of 'hurray for the West and the American experiment' sentiments floating about. Even if we were focusing more and more of the sins thereof. And chief among these triumphs was not only our legal system for all its flaws, but the ideals behind it.  Especially such ideals as presumption of innocent (a big one). 

So much so that I recall a CNN broadcast ages ago in which Larry King interviewed John Walsh, of America's Most Wanted fame.  Walsh, whose son Adam was brutally murdered, never held back his anger and contempt for criminals.  Which led Mr. King to sort of chastise him.  King reminded him of the common view I had heard my whole life, the view I learned in school and our greater societal pool: That these things transcend the courts and should be the basis for how we conduct our very lives.  Just like censorship starts in the heart before it ever reaches the State, so it was with all the values we were supposed to embrace.  We embrace them on principle, because it's upon those principles that our blessed way of living is based. 

Well, sorry Mr. King.  That ship sailed years ago.  Kavanaugh was the first time I heard sitting politicians, journalists and other activists (including, but not limited to, Christians) openly and proudly lecture me on the need to get over this whole innocent until proven guilty rubbish.  Apparently your culpability is based upon what group is accusing who and why.  Now it's so engrained that people don't even pretend to pretend.  In fact, people increasingly appear to resent even having to judge.  Just point a finger and execute the sentence.  Yet think on it.  If one of the most universally celebrated values of our civilization - innocent until proven guilty - can be discarded in barely a decade, imagine what other ideals we imagined had passed the 'no turning back' point in history will go the same way.  

Again,  not saying Chavez wasn't guilty. or that Wexner wasn't part of the alleged Epstein sex slave ring.  I'm just saying that it would be nice if we could put the Left's lynch mob and media pitchfork brigade on pause until we at least take steps to determine if there was actual guilt.  But I fear not. 

One by one, we're seeing the post-Western Left dismantle and knock down the pillars and assumptions, values and core ideals of the Christian Western Democratic tradition. Things most of us imagined were locked in and etched in stone no matter how far off the rails we went.  Whatever crazy happened in our society, I think we believed these core values would keep certain pillars of the West intact. Well, not so much apparently.  The staggering thing to see is how many Christians seem to have jumped on this bandwagon of bypassing evidence to execute judgement. But then, it's been shocking to see how many Christians have warmed up to this whole 'boy did we get obsessing about forgiveness all wrong' development in these post-BLM years.  Nonetheless, that's the people of God for you.  Just roll out a golden calf and then grab some popcorn. 

Deportus interruptus

I'm sure you've heard, if you ignore the mainstream media, about the case in Sweden.  Once again, it turns out it isn't some rightwing social media generated hoax.  Though the Left is going so far overboard, you can forgive those who hear about what is going on and conclude it is a hoax. After all, it couldn't possibly be real.

But, alas, it is. A young Swedish girl was raped by an immigrant.  The immigrant was arrested and charged.  However, the harsh penalty of being deported for having raped a young woman was dismissed.  The reason?  Because while he did rape her, for reasons undisclosed the rape proper didn't last long enough.  I know.  It seems like a joke waiting to write itself.  And if it didn't involve what it involves, you might think the SNL team came up with it.

But it's real.  Of course we all know why.  Sweden, like most of the West, is hellbent on its own destruction.  Anyone not European and eager to help with that destruction takes favored status.  Oh, if you're a woman wanting to tear down the Western Patriarchy, that's good.  But if you run afoul of a more important demographic group, then sorry about your luck. Hence to this young woman and young women everywhere - maybe next time.  The next time we want a political opponent taken out, then you'll matter. 

We've seen this already, the idea that there is no human race or individual, merely intersecting demographics whose worth and value are based on the latest intersecting demographics.  Given the number of minority voters who swung toward Trump in 2024, however, there might be a gradual dawning on these groups that they matter insofar as it is convenient for them to matter, and not a minute more. 

But for now, the ever devolving Left is almost boasting that there is nothing so heinous, so evil, so dishonest, so brutal, and so terrible that it won't defend it, condone it, and even enable it  - as long as it furthers the Left's ends, no matter who is harmed in the process.  Those ends, again, being the end of the Western Christian Tradition including, but hardly limited to, the American Experiment.  

Getting it wrong

So October 7th, the anniversary of the worst single day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust, came and went with some minor mention.   A mixed bag.  There were stories of subdued remembrance in Israel. Other stories mixing up the mess of October 7th against Israel's genocide against Gaza.  Still others mentioned that some governments or government leaders took a dim view of protests siding with Hamas.  And, of course, Hamas went full blown celebration two years later. I haven't found if the US Bishops or Pope Leo said anything only addressing the massacre itself. 

To that end, I saw this story, by journalist Matthew Syed, going to a pro-Palestinian rally in England.  His point is that just asking if Hamas could be partly to blame for what has happened opened up a withering broadside of rage and accusations from those present.  After recounting some of his discussions with people there, he wrote this: 

with two exceptions (including a lovely black guy from North London who conversed intelligently and politely), the motivation for being here was obvious, potent and implacable. The hatred of Jews

No.  Not really.  Not that Jews aren't hated like any other group.  And I have bad news for the poets and dreamers and well meaning Christians in the world: There are Jews who hate Christianity and Christians just the same.  Hatred of others goes back to the beginning.  Just ask Abel. 

But what we're seeing here aimed at a normally protected group, is not the sudden hatred of Jews.  It's the hatred of the West.  It's accepting the Muslim/Palestinian version of history as Israel being the colonizing, imperialist oppressive extension of the Christian Western tradition that swept in and took what was always the Palestinians' part of the world.  That is what has set the hatred of these particular Jews into full swing.  Not hatred because they are Jews per se.  But they are linked to Israel.  Which in turn is linked to the West. 

The boilerplate defense is that you can condemn Israel and not hate Jews.  Perhaps that is true.  I think it is.  But that doesn't mean therefore that everyone who condemns Israel doesn't hate the Jews in question.  And while some have always hated Jews (like those on the Left who have always hated blacks, Hispanics, Asians and others and merely found new ways to live out this bigotry), most do so now because of the view that Israel is a Nazi State, like all of the West since the history of the West.

My oldest son, back when he was an undergraduate, made an interesting observation.  When I was growing up, the two dollar parlor debate was how the German people allowed that to happen.  How did they allow the Nazis to rise to power?  How the Holocaust? What the hell?  

My son said, at least in the view of not a few of his classmates and even professors, the answer was right in front of us all along.  It was because the Germans were Europeans.  It's what Europeans do.  And in the last few generations, many young people believe that Nazi Germany was merely one iteration of the typical history that has always defined all of Europe and the United States.  And that includes anything to do with the West, as in Israel. 

It's the reason why serious and continued support for the murder of Charlie Kirk is not going away. In fact, defending the right to want people like Charlie Kirk murdered has become the basis for the media's sudden obsession with free speech again.  Which speaks volumes.  It's because Kirk is defending, in the view of an ever consolidating movement, the broader Nazi reality of everything West that the Left seeks to undo. 

Remember, to the Left, the West is the enemy.  Like the Bolsheviks tearing down the memory of Tsarist Russia, the Left would throw down as much of the West, its heritage, history, values, religion, and identity as possible.  That includes such tools of oppression and injustice as forgiveness, freedom of speech, religious liberty, equality, and sometimes even democracy itself.  We won't even discuss the long ago discarded idea of the sanctity of human life. 

To that end, the Left allies with anything on the planet to aid in this endeavor.  And that includes the Muslim world.  I mean, we didn't think after almost a millennium of attempting to sweep into Europe and subjugate Europe to Islamic rule, the Muslim world just gave up because, for a couple centuries, Europe and the West got the upper hand, do we?  And this reality is either not known to Western progressives, or well known by them, and hence the alliance.  

No, what we're seeing is not just hatred of Jews.  It's hatred of the West, and that includes Jews that get swept up in identifying with anything to do with the West.  It includes Jews, Asians, Hispanics, women, blacks, and any group that doesn't properly join the cause of the West's eradication.  If we can't see that by now, I doubt even a dead man raised from the dead and telling us will do the trick. 

If you disagree with the Left then they hate you and want you dead

Is the message being defended by the press.  Yes, the press has found an out.  An out, in terms of the news media, is when a story happens that must be covered, but in some ways upends or threatens established media narratives.  Such as a young radical leftwing activist murdering a conservative.  Or a young white woman stabbed to death by a black man.  Or a transgender activist murdering children in a Church that does not officially endorse transgender activism.  

Sure, you can make it about guns.  That worked in Minneapolis as Christians and Christian leaders rushed out to assure the world that trusting in politics to ultimately solve our problems is the smart way to go, as opposed to just thoughts and prayers.  But despite some Church leaders saying Charlie Kirk's assassination was about gun violence, almost anyone beyond paramecium level of intelligence knows that there are few gun laws in history that would have stopped most of history's assassinations.

So look for - anything else in order to deflect attention.  Now we have it.  As leftwing activists have taken to their social media accounts to laugh about his death, rejoice in his murder, insist he had it coming, and call for it to be only the beginning, many have found themselves losing their jobs.  Which would normally happen.  If after the Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting anyone said they had it coming for being gay, that would be the last day that person worked in 99% of our country's institutions and companies.  Most would understand that response from most companies for such a heinous thought.

Heck, if you were found to have dropped the N-word (note I can't say it) in a 20 year old email, the press would happily report on the outrage and stand back while you were chased out of your position.  Or anything regarding feminism, the LGBTQ community, Covid responses and vaccines, Muslims, you name it.  We've watched for 20 years as the cult of George Carlin has faded away and we've recalibrated our approach to free speech in a manner that would make Joe McCarthy quiver. 

But not now.  Now the press has rushed in to defend those rejoicing in the death of Kirk and calling for more of the same, by framing their removals as a potential attack on free speech. You know, the same media that had news anchor Margaret Brennan lecture Marco Rubio on the dangers of free speech.  The same that saw Lesley Stahl's 60 Minutes segment that taught us we sometimes need to rejoice in the government censorship of clearly dangerous and threatening speech.

Now, the press is making it clear: We're once again all about Free Speech full stop.  Which strongly suggests either they were lying before, or they're OK with those who hate non-leftists and want them dead and murdered.  Because apparently that is what free speech is all about.  They certainly shouldn't be punished for merely expressing an opinion (which obviously isn't a deal breaker for those press outlets). 

Insisting that what is clearly happening isn't happening is a bit like Chamberlain flying back to Munich in 1942 and hoping it might work this time.  The emerging Left, utilizing Trump as a living Death Star that must be destroyed at the cost of freedom, democracy, and life itself, is making it as crystal clear as it possibly can: You bow a knee to the Left, or you are the enemy.  And while some Christian leftists have said that still means we love our enemies like Charlie Kirk, even if the hatred and violence against him is understandable, they've made it clear they won't stand up to those who prefer their enemies of the Left dead and buried.

UPDATE: Meanwhile the Left's Ministry of Lies and Propaganda is not only making people wanting conservatives murdered into a Free Speech issue, but are framing the pledge to stop the growing tide of leftists murdering anyone in their way as mere vengeance.  See NBC: 

Of course nowhere in the story was he quoted as saying this was vengeance or revenge or any such thing.  Just treating the growing number of Leftists murdering those deemed evil by the Left as terrorists. 

Again, things are on the move.  Like Trump's first term, the anti-Western revolution is ratcheting it up and making it clear that those who don't bow a knee to the Left are the enemies.  And if people want you dead for your refusal to conform, so be it.  We call these moments in history the chance you had. 

What I've been saying for years

John C. Wright, who sometimes can be a bit gruff for my tastes, nonetheless hits the nail on the head:  

The Left will support whatever causes the most harm to Christian civilization and likewise will oppose whatever most is needed to help it: whatever most degrades the social fabric, whatever spreads vulgarity and ugliness, whatever promotes vice and crime

Because: 

They hate the West and seek to dismantle it, because and solely because the West is Christendom.

Not that he's alone, or that I'm the first to say such a thing.  It's just something I've been saying for years now, especially in the last few years where it takes more blind ignorance to deny the fact than admit it.  

The Left is about the utter destruction of the Christian, Western democratic tradition.  The values, heritage, heroes, principles, manners, attitudes, beliefs, virtues, decency, common sense and base morals of anything vaguely connected to the Western Tradition are at best suspect, at worst in dire need of eradication.  And that includes apparently timeworn assumptions such as liberty, equality, the value of life and the abhorrence of violence.  All thrown upside down, changed or tossed in the trash.  Anything, anywhere or anyone that aids in that mission will be tolerated at worst, lionized at best.  

Whether it can be stopped or we're merely witnessing that next stage in history that moves into a dark age after a period of development and striving for the better remains to be seen.  After all, a growing number of Christian leaders today seem to begin every statement with an explanation that Christianity is best seen through a post-Western set of glasses.  

Nonetheless, know thine enemy, as the old saying goes.  And it's almost impossible to think of the manifold blessings and benefits that the Christian West brought to the world and not see the ones trying to undo it all as the enemy. 

"We are told to love our enemies, but Jesus never once said that in doing so they would cease to be our enemies."  A quote from an old Presbyterian colleague and friend from my ministry days. 

Over at US Catholic

We have an excellent example of chipping away at the Gospel to conform to the Left's narrative of Oppressed v. Oppressor as the only way to understand reality.  Professor Kaye Oaks jumps into the growing post-2020 narrative that we Christians can have forgiveness, like almost everything else, all wrong.  

She employs a tactic very common in modern post-Western thought.  We're told that something generally considered a virtue has actually been a tool for the dreaded oppressor who alone has the power.  People use this virtue badly or wrongly and cause more harm than good.  

By now people trying to be of good will are getting nervous.  This is actually a powerful way to undercut traditional virtue and holiness.  People who want to do the right thing will begin questioning themselves. I thought forgiving someone was a good thing, but could I be causing harm?  Might I be doing it wrong?  Could I be guilty of aiding the oppression of the oppressed?  I ran into that a lot in counseling ministry.  People would tell me that so much was put on not doing or saying the wrong thing, they preferred to avoid the situations altogether.   

I think part of the destruction of basic human interaction we see in our era of loneliness today has been by injecting the fear of a million subtle wrongs done in the name of doing the right thing.  The road to hell and all, an oft quoted phrase in this context.    

Professor Oaks turns to Judaism, which has become an increasingly popular place to run for those who remind us why Christians have been missing the mark all these years (in defending legalized abortion, M. Shea has argued extensively that Jewish Americans aren't  hung up on all abortion being bad, so America shouldn't be either).  Like most non-Christian religions and philosophies, Judaism espouses the idea of forgiveness, but nowhere as broad or absolute as traditional Christianity.  The same goes for Islam.  The same goes for most philosophies and moral systems in the world that speak of the virtues of forgiveness.  Forgiveness is typically seen as a good thing, under particular conditions and within certain parameters.  

But it was Christianity that threw down the gauntlet and elevated it to almost unachievable levels.  For it was Jesus who said 'Father forgive them' as they nailed Him to the cross.  A lofty standard to be sure. And because of that elevation, we've had a civilization that, no matter how often it failed to live up to those loftiest of expectations, still ended up shooting mighty high in the annals of human redemption and reconciliation in the attempts to reach such a high standard.   

Since 2020, however, no small number of those on the Left openly excused and defended violence and harm and death for the worthy cause.  Likewise, they have stood by as the heroes, heritage and history of our civilization have been scorched under the presentism of unforgiving judgmentalism and condemnation.  Thus we're seeing people in the folds of Christianity scramble to tell us that when those in power say it's time to put the brakes on unfettered forgiveness, then clearly Jesus would agree.  And this article is simply one of a growing number of Christian outlets reminding us that forgiveness, like anything else the Church has taught for 2000 years, has been misunderstood and should only be applied when in conjunction with modern leftwing sympathies and agendas.     

Of course I'm not saying that forgiveness, like anything in the world, can't be abused or misused.  Just like care for the poor or the widow and orphan.  People can say they're doing the right thing or that they really care and it's obvious this isn't true.  After all, for four years liberals, including liberal Christians, stood idly by and ignored or outright denied the pain, suffering and misery under Biden because, well, he was their guy with the power, that's why.  Yet they still insist all was well and simply fulfilling the call to reach out to the least of these. 

So it happens.  And of course it can happen on any side of the debate.  But don't be burdened by our busy-body intellectual class.  The ones who endlessly tell parents everything they do will ruin their kids, who tell us everything we eat will kill us, the ones who tell us saying the wrong thing is so bad it's best to stand by and say nothing.  The ones who do it out of intellectual hubris or subtle agendas. Just ignore them.  

If you've been wronged, forgive.  Jesus said so. He said seventy times seven when the disciples tried to pin him down on the limits of the teaching.  He said God has forgiven us our tens of billions worth of sin, so it's the least we can do to forgive our neighbors their thousand dollar sins.  Because that's really what the teaching has always been about.  Our sins against God are grievous beyond our ability to understand, compared to what we do to each other in our worst of days, at least when seen from a spiritual, not a secular or atheistic, perspective.  

So trust Him.  Think as God thinks, not as men think.  He has forgiven us, therefore there is nothing anyone else could do to us that that should excuse us not forgiving them.  Forgive them in the same way God forgives us.  Which is a forgiveness far and away removed from articles like this, where if that is what God has in store for us in terms of forgiveness - assuming Ms. Oakes understands that to someone else she may well be the oppressor in power - then my confidence of bliss in the hereafter can't help but be shaken. 

Ken Burns is what we call White Noise

That is, just another annoying blip in the noisy static.  Apparently he produced a docuseries called The United States and the Holocaust.  If the interview in this article is any indicator, it is the same old same old for many, especially young, Americans.

That is, he's gracious enough to say the United States wasn't exactly responsible for the Holocaust per se, but then proceeds to explain how the United States and Nazi Germany were practically salt and pepper.  He trots out the Jim Crow era, genocide, Native Americans, slavery and antisemitism charges, applied to one country as easily as to the other.  

Apparently at least one episode focuses on the rift between FDR and antisemite Charles Lindberg.  I asked my son, who recently graduated college, about that.  He told me that those of his peers who even had heard of Lindberg, only knew him as some Nazi hero in our Nazi country, vaguely aware that he did something with flying. 

In keeping with our era of hyper-judgmentalism, the series seems wrapped in the context of 'sure we beat the Nazis, liberated the camps, and allowed thousands to come into our country ... but we didn't do it perfectly enough.'  Not like it would have been if our generation was there!  When you have the track record we have, I suppose arrogance is all that's left. 

The funny part of this interview is that one of the producers seems to think they've really blown the lid off of something.  The person talks about how 'uncomfortable' the real truth of our nation and its role in those events makes people in the audience feel, once they see the production. Really?  That's like saying people will be uncomfortable when they learn the secret that slavery existed in America's past.  That's as much a lack of awareness as you can get.

Years ago, when I used to comment on the Huffington Post, I ran into people who believed that the whole of the Holocaust was an American conspiracy, as was the entire war.  By then (c. 2004ish), it wasn't uncommon to run into people online who believed the Nazis were lifted up by the American Military Industrial complex for the sole purpose of inciting a war that the US could then exploit, and use to subjugate the world to our racist, imperialist ways. Compared to them, the saner ones back then dismissed such thinking, being content with the notion that America was no better than the Nazis, and didn't really lift them up as much as inspire them (the old 'the Nazis became racist when they studied the Confederacy' storyline).  

That was almost 20 years ago.  Does Mr. Burns really think people like that have gone away as opposed to multiplied exponentially?  Does he really believe they will be uncomfortable with his documentary?  About the only thing that will make them uncomfortable is his insistence that the US isn't solely responsible for the Holocaust.  That might bother them a bit. 

I don't think we realize just how post-Western, and by extension post-American, we already are.  Harkening back to my oldest son, he said a cool 1/3 of his classmates can barely distinguish between the Swastika and the Stars and Stripes.  Had I not seen examples myself of such thinking over the years, I'd almost be inclined to think he exaggerates.  But I have.  

And we have those useful fools like Burns, a historian I've traditionally enjoyed, to thank.  Because instead of seeing the bleeding obvious, they think they are bravely facing the fan club by exclusively focusing on the negative, endlessly criticizing, and so blurring the line between Nazis and America.  

BTW, all of this is made possible by the Left effectively elevating Western-based racism as the only, all defining, most evil, unpardonable sin in the world. And that goes for anything we thought we did well, like win the Second World War.  This is aided by the fact that by now, about 75% of our recollection of WWII is focused on the Holocaust, primarily as it effected Jewish (and sometimes homosexual) victims; about 10% focused on the Japanese interment camps* in the US, another 10% recalling the use of the Atomic Bombs, over 4% (but growing) the segregation in the US military in WWII, and a shrinking less than 1% on D-Day.   

For most youngsters today, that was WWII. The tens of millions of others killed barely make a drop in the bucket where focus is concerned.  The soldiers?  Except for some minority groups, they are barely mentioned at this point.  I subscribe the the National Veterans Memorial and Museum updates.  It's been many moons since a white male veteran was showcased.   You could be forgiven for not knowing white men ever served in our military if you got your info from that museum.  

But then, when mentioned at all, it's increasingly the fact that they were likely racists in their own white supremacist army.  Hence Burns can acknowledge 'a little heroism' from that time, but those were mere specks of light in the overall darkness that is, and always has been, America.  When that's your narrative, it's not hard for young people to conclude the Soviets might have been the good guys all along. 

*In December 2021, I saw on the news that some Asian American activists are wanting 'Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day' to be replaced by the anniversary of the Japanese Internment camps.  Sort of how Juneteenth will assuredly never be used to replace July 4th.  Again, we're seeing the utter destruction of the West and America, and it's likely a bit too late to stop it.  Thanks go brilliant thinkers like Burns. 

If you lose the birdwatchers, you've lost the West

So I saw this.  I had to do a double take. The American Ornithological Society is going to rename birds whose names are associated with Europeans.  That's because of course they are.  European means evil.  Evil cannot be forgiven or allowed to exist.  Evil must be erased and exterminated.  If you're having a hard time getting your head around young leftists cheering Hamas, joining with antisemitic chants, and saying the eradication of Israeli Jews just can't happen fast enough, this should help. 

Remember, there were three fundamental dogmas with the Left, and now there are four:

1) In a five billion year old Utopian world of peace, love, joy and John Lennon songs, the vile Western Christian Tradition alone brought all evil and wickedness to the world, and nothing good.  This is especially true as some of those things we gave credit to the West for changing - like ending infanticide - are increasingly seen as virtues, not vices.

2) All of history is the Oppressed versus the Oppressor.  If you are in that Oppressor class for the moment (depending on the topic at hand), you are seen the way Jews were seen in 1930s Germany.  It can be any two groups - Male v. Female, White v. Black, Straight v. Gay, Sane v. Trans, whatever.  But in all cases the Oppressor is altogether wretched and evil and the cause of all suffering, deserving nothing that he has, but everything he will get.  

3) A growing number of sins, especially bigotry and particularly racism, are irredeemable, all defining monolithic sins that demand the eradication of the sinner.  No forgiveness, no context, no nuance, simply erase. Just ask Columbus, Robert E. Lee, or Thom Jefferson. 

4) Plus, since 2020, the Left has followed its tendency of calling good what it once called evil, and evil what it once called good to the next logical step.  That is, going beyond embracing censorship, judging, dismissing equality to embracing violence for the just cause. Gone is 'violence is never the answer', now it's 'violence can sometimes be a damn good answer.' 

So when you see something like the AOS go all Taliban when it comes to Western history, imagine that in other circles.   I mean, when you think of threats to Western Civilization, birdwatchers aren't exactly what comes to mind.  Yet the easy and calm way in which they say these names must be erased, evil Europeans, scrub evidence of them, replace with appropriate words from not disposable civilizations, should be a wake up call.  That's how ubiquitous and implanted this thinking has become. 

And if that's what the bird watchers are willing to do, then what are those radical activists and zealots in our leftwing indoctrination camps formerly known as universities going to do?  Well, we're seeing what, aren't we.  Even though the press has done yeoman's work trying to sweep it under the carpet, these radical anti-Westerners won't be silenced.  They support the Palestinians, and are happy to see Israel wiped out.  That includes in some circles wanting Israelis wiped out.  That includes, in some quarters, pointing out that it isn't despite the fact that most Israelis are Jews, but precisely because they are Jews.  That's because try as they might, in the minds of the young Left, those Jews just can't sever the ties that exist between them and the West.  And that's all you need to know. 

After all, as the American Ornithological Society demonstrates, there is no room in our modern world for the taint of Western Evil.  And while the AOS may stop at renaming birds, others will happily take it to the next logical level. 

Telling

While watching the OSU game last Saturday (I seldom watch modern TV otherwise), I caught a commercial for Colonial Williamsburg.  Or, should I say, Williamsburg.  The 'Colonial' being conspicuously absent.  I found a commercial for Williamsburg back in 2021 that is pretty much the same (it might be the same, I just caught it once during the game):

Notice there is nothing - no thing - to suggest anything other than some variation on Myrtle Beach or Clearwater Beach or any one of a hundred tourist destinations.  No history.  No Colonial America.  No Revolution.  No historical reenactments. No shot heard 'round the world. No history at all.  If you didn't know, you'd think it was a typical Disney resort, if that.

Compare to this:

That was the type of commercial in the 1990s that I saw when planning our first family vacation.  In 1997 we took our oldest, then only a couple years old, to our first true vacation as a young family.  We went to Colonial Williamsburg, in large part due to the commercials.  It was magical.  It was everything you want your first family vacation to be.  

And the history!  Like the commercial, it was all over the place.  Everyone was in character at all times.  The lessons were broad and detailed, from the ugly and bad, to the more emphasized bravery and the heroism and the sacrifice and the overall debt we owe to our founders.  We went back in August 2001, and it was still good.  A bit hot for my taste (our first time was in late September).  But still fun, and with the three older boys (our third still being a toddler), it was a blast.

The last time we went, however, was in 2014 along with our youngest.  Disappointment doesn't begin to describe our experience.  Many reenactors stood about on their cell phones, paying scant attention to us.  Some were still good, but many didn't seem to care.  The tours were a mixed bag.  The first time we went in 1997 everything was period accurate no matter what the subject. That time?  Some tour guides showed up in jeans and jackets with flashlights.  Much preaching of course.  Naturally the lessons were exclusively negative: focus on persecution of Native Americans, sexism, bigotry and slavery in the 'every plantation and household was a gas chamber' template.  That prompted my second oldest to quip 'how did they have time to fight a revolution, what with all the time spent killing Indians, beating slaves and oppressing women?'.  

Now, to see the commercials, the history isn't even the point.  Ignoring the history, if anything, is the point.  And the newest trigger word 'Colonial' is removed. I have no doubt it's there if you visit.  But if the marketers and advertisers have their way, we'll never know unless we go.   

For decades - perhaps generations - we've been taught to hate the West, Christianity and America, though not necessarily in that order.  There was still enough hold over from olden times to dilute the message, especially for those of us who are around our forties or older.  But for the last couple generations, that is no longer the case.  For many coming into college now, they see Lincoln and Washington the way my generation was taught to see Hitler and Stalin.  And their nation, the United States?  They see it the way we saw the Nazis.   If' we're waiting for them to suddenly turn and start singing God Bless America, I fear we are going to have a long, long, long wait. 

Pope Francis and those rascally Mongolians

So everyone was buzzing about Pope Francis' usual off the cuff remarks.  In this case, praising the history of Imperial Russia, giving high fives to China without qualifiers and, in a shock to many, praising the glories of the Mongol Empire.  

Now, this is standard leftwing boilerplate.  If it's west of the Danube or from North America, then it's a watermarked Swastika.  Otherwise, eh.  It's generally pretty awesome.  In this Washington Post piece, we learn just how cool the Mongols were, as oppose to those backward Europeans and Christians who were all about thinking on how cool the Mongols were. 

When I was in high school and college in the 1980s, the uber-narrative of history was that the world still owed the Western Tradition big time.  Though you could find glimmers of good things here and there throughout the ages, the whole package came together in the West like no other time or place in human history.  The wealth and luxury, the medical and technological breakthroughs, the basic creature comforts we take for granted that would have been science fiction a century before.  Not to mention the full package deal of democracy, equality, human rights, and rule of law. All came together in the West and culminated in the American Experiment like never before.

With that said, in the post-60s and 70s, we were also being called on to revisit the sins of our past.  It wasn't enough to say it was bad we used to own slaves, but isn't it awesome we stopped?  We had to bring back the sins and repent, repent and repent again.  We also had to admit that, at our worst, we were just as bad as any other culture in history.  Likewise, in different ways, those cultures could at times be as good as us.  OK, fair enough.

But by the time my boys entered public school in the 2000s, that narrative was gone. Two decades of a corrupted view of multi-culturalism, injected with leftwing and Marxist sympathies, threw that narrative out the window.  By the time my sons came along, we had long proved the Mormons had to be wrong.  Jesus never came to the New World.  He wasn't good enough.  The Americas, like anywhere outside of Europe/ North America, were perfect and beautiful and filled with perfect and beautiful people.  Think Dances With Wolves.  

The rest of the world was the same.  I recall seeing a children's book about the Aztecs in a children's book section.  Beautiful people those Aztecs.  Peace loving, gentle, innovative, hard working.  A virtual paradise.  Back in 2011, I posted on a book pitched on CNN about how awesome was the Mongol Empire.  When I read my son's high school world history book, it was pretty much that.  Beautiful empires in beautiful cultures and beautiful societies with beautiful people.  Except the West.  That's where the racism, sexism, phobias and bigotry ran rampant, usually with a boorish and backward people who ate dirt and never bathed.  The only bright spot in the West being shout outs to figures like Lenin, Mao, and Marx. 

So not really sure why the shock here. As typical, Pope Francis is simply repeating leftwing narratives and templates since that's where he abides.  Just like his dig early on in his pontificate about America and the Holocaust.  He apparently accepted the old canard about how we could have stopped the Holocaust by bombing a couple rail lines. Easy-peasy.  But no.  Not America. You know us and our racism.  Which is why he has hated January 6th, but has loved BLM. 

One of the core messages of the Left is that the world was nearly a perfect paradise, especially where knowing the importance of population control and animal pleasures are concerned.  But then came the vile Western Tradition, which visited all the evils of the world upon humanity.  So bad is it presented now, that anything associated with white, European and American Christians can and should be reimagined or outright rejected.  Among such things are ideals like forgiveness, reconciliation, equality and liberties traditionally understood. I expect more will be added to the list at the rate we're going.  And I seriously doubt Pope Francis will stand in the way. 

That might explain things

Deacon Steven Greydanus, who is also a film critic of some note, is now a contributor at RogerEbert.com.  Obviously it is a site born of the late, and often cantankerous, film critic. It has several film critics now who throw in their two cents where movies are concerned.  Here is Deacon Greydanus's debut article.  

When I see things like that, I think of things like this:

Remember him?  He was a young fellow who rose to prominence following the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.  He was one of the few such youth activists who didn't have to be swept under the carpet for embarrassing gun control advocates by going crazy extremist.  

If you recall, it was discovered his college exam scores were a bit sub-par, at least where Ivy League standards are concerned.  But in a surprising turn of events, it was off Harvard he went.  Now he's a Harvard graduate.  

Sometimes it's difficult to fathom how rational human beings could accept the madness being peddled by the modern Left.  But then sometimes it isn't. 

NPR helps celebrate National Indigenous Peoples Day instead of Columbus Day

By posting a silly map that shows who took the land our European ancestors eventually settled on.  Of course that's not the way it's framed.  In the anti-Western narrative, the people who were here had magically appeared and remained in the same places for about 20 thousand years until the first Europeans arrived.  See here for a treatment of that narrative.  

All in all, what we are learning about our past would no doubt have made Joseph Stalin or Nikita Khrushchev very happy.  The shocking thing is how many in the West seem to be made happy with this narrative as well. 

How we lost the West

I recently mused on this, I think the earliest piece I did on the anti-Western narratives becoming common in our nation.  Back then there were plenty of anti-Columbus types.  You had that when I was in college.  I've often said my generation straddles that shift from 'Columbus as brave explorer bringing the bounty of Western benefits to the New World' to 'Columbus, slave owning genocidal racist inflicting Nazi horror on a Utopian paradise..'  

Truth  be told, it wasn't to that second part quite yet when I was in college, or even graduate school in the 1990s.   But the roots were there, and on the fringe of scholarship and sociopolitical activism you could see that narrative taking shape and gaining acceptance. 

Now, of course, Columbus is popularly seen in the same camp as Hitler or Himmler or Billy Graham or any other Euro-American Christian.  Here in central Ohio, there is a small, but vocal and growing, movement to change the name of our capital city.  At least one local news network no longer speaks of Columbus, but uses the name 'C-Bus' instead.  The old Santa Maria replica that was downtown was taken away years ago, long before my youngest was able to visit.  Columbus State Community College joined the city of Columbus and removed its statue of Columbus that once adorned the front of teh main buildings.  And across the country cities and states are celebrating 'Indigenous Peoples Day' in lieu of Columbus Day.  Just as we're hearing calls to replace Thanksgiving with a National Day of Mourning. 

In terms of historical developments, this is pretty fast action.  I think one of the great failures of those guardians of our heritage and values was that we confused not assuming worst motives with assuming no motives.  In any event, it's likely that in a few more years Columbus Day will be a thing of the past, as well positive references of Jefferson, Lincoln, Washington, and anything to do with America's - or Europe's - history. 

Again, I believe the speed with which this has all developed caught most people - even more conservative types - off guard.  Many never believed we'd live to see the end to almost everything to do with the Christian West.  And not only that, but we'd see them increasingly endorsed by all of the institutions that will mandate and determine what future generations learn about reality. 

Why we homeschool

 In its simplest explanation:

Yep.  You read that right.  Our schools have every right to crawl into bed with our children and help them obsess about surgically altering their pelvic regions.  Parents, on the other hand, have no such right to even know what their children are thinking about the subject.  That is a privilege that must be earned.  So says the above facilitator guide from Eua Claire, Wisconsin public schools.

I doubt we will be able to stop the advance, but we can delay the influence of the secular heathen storm heading our way.  We can take what time we have and instill in our sons a sense of God, reality, truth, facts and dignity.  It may not work in the long run, but it's the least we can do.  If we had to crawl on our hands and knees across a thousand miles of broken glass to keep our youngest away from the public school system today, we would do it in a fast heartbeat. 

Pope Francis embraces one of the Left's most important weapons

The weapon of division.  The perpetual 'us vs. them' or 'me vs. you' mentality.  It is part of the anti-Western revolution's primary strategy.  First learn to hate America and the West.  Then learn to hate yourselves.  Finally learn to hate each other. 

I've said many times that I've seldom known a religious figure to spend so much time constantly calling out the sins of 'those believer over there.'  He has practically based his papacy on that. 

More than that, he has encouraged a generation of Catholics to continually thank God, or at least Pope Francis, that they aren't a bunch of rigid reprobates like those Catholics over there.  Almost as if on cue, when Pope Francis blasts some other Catholics, these Francis Catholics will take to the digital world and rejoice that he has once again called out those other sinful slops who are the problem. 

Thus once again, Pope Francis embraces the 'you ladies and them men fight' call of old feminism and tells nuns to fight when treated unfairly by 'men' of the Church.  Not unfairly by the Church.  But specifically 'men' of the Church.  Those dirty, nasty men.  And the world rejoices there's a pope like Pope Francis. 

Group A vs. Group B is key of course.  Today the number of groups who must be at each others' throats is legion, for they are many.  Pope Francis either misses this fact, or rejoices in it.  And always knowing, apparently, that wherever the groups fall, he will always be among the groups with a star on their bellies. I wager this because he so seldom bothers with the first person plural in his appraisal of the Church's problems, but almost always uses the third person plural. 

Don't shoot the underlings

So I saw this story float by.  A young social media user claiming that there was no such place as Ancient Rome.  Nope.  The whole thing was a giant conspiracy of Spanish Inquisitors. What?  Welcome to 21st Century scholarship. In the end, she's merely an intellectual underling parroting the level of scholarship that has come to dominate academia in our generation. 

For instance, while scholars who are sympathetic to any attempt to tarnish Christianity gave kudos where they could, many still thought that Candida Moss's assertion that there was no real Roman persecution of Christians in ancient Rome was stretching things a bit.  Her claim is that, save for about twelve years of very limited persecution, the whole story of martyrs to Rome was lies and propaganda.  A twist on Holocaust denial aimed at the Christian Faith.  FWIW, critics say she relies on a torture of the historical record that makes Jack Chick's appraisal of Dungeons and Dragons seem spot on. 

Yet these are hardly new.  My whole life I've seen tabloid scholars chasing after this or that headline under the calling that one must publish or perish.  The best way to do this is to insist you've made some bold discovery that nobody has ever thought of before - whether it is true or not.  Never mind the biases and agendas that can be behind such dribble.  In the age of the Internet, however, something like Ms. Moss's book, or even this misguided child in the above story, can suddenly become prophets of revealed truth - because of course they are.   Remember, what passes for scholarship, research and even science can at times have less objectivity than a poetry reading in Greenwich Village.

Nonetheless, we laugh at such things at our own peril.  After all, the young girl in the story is simply a misfired bullet of stupid that went off a little too early.  If she backed up and said there was no Ancient Roman persecution of Christianity, she could be on her way to awards and honors and doctoral degrees in any one of a thousand of our fine institutions of higher learning today. 

And tomorrow the next generation will begin to catch up with her.  After all, if I went back twenty years and told you people today could risk official retaliation for claiming that there is such a thing as boys and girls, you'd likely have laughed me out of the room.  So much for laughter. 

The lie of multiculturalism for Columbus Day

Is best displayed in this, that popped up on a history Facebook page I follow:

You see that?  I hope this is fake and no actual Indian ever said this.  But if it's genuine, then Indians were ... perfect.  Without sin.  Never did anything wrong.  Wonderful.  Fabulous.  Better than Jesus.   Just like those Bushmen in The Gods Must Be Crazy.  There simply was no sin, evil or wrongdoing before Europeans came to the lands. So says this meme that strongly suggests it's the opinion of an American Indian. 

Which is stupid, wrong, a lie and false.  Indian culture was like any and all cultures.  It had plenty of wars, genocide, slavery, imperialism, conquest, thieving, wrong doing and politicking that would make Machiavelli blush.  Just like all tribes and cultures and kingdoms and nations since the beginning of time. 

Multiculturalism was supposed to teach us Western children of Western Imperialism what the world was really like.  It functioned under two basic premises. One, that us Americans (and Westerners in general) never knew Western culture did anything wrong or bad.  Two, our views of the world were skewed because of our racist imperialism imposing our ideas of the world on the world instead of seeing the world from its own vantage point.

Therefore, there were two solutions.  First, emphasize, perhaps over emphasize (can you really overemphasize?), the sins of America and the West to wake people up to our own imperfections and egregious sins.  And second, allow other cultures to tell us just what their cultures and civilizations were really like. 

On the surface, the first solution doesn't appear terrible.  Repentance and admitting to sin is a very Christian, and hence Western virtue, as long as it is done with the correct purpose in mind.  The second was a problem from the beginning.  It should be obvious that simply asking American Indians or Hindus or Africans or Japanese or Muslims or any people in the world about their own culture might actually meet with the same skewed or dishonest picture that Americans were supposed to have.  Especially since cultural repentance and admitting ancestral and cultural sin is not a universal trait. 

But so it was, and so it is.  When my son had a cultural anthropology class, the line was already moved from my anthropology classes in college.  Back then, it was 'who are we to judge?'  In fairness, that was also how we were told to look at our own sins: the Inquisition, the Witch Hunts, Slavery.  We condemn the sins but not the sinners.  

Today, we condemn the sins and sinners of the West, and go beyond simply not judging the sins of the rest of the world to almost embracing them.  In my day, we said human sacrifice or infanticide or child sacrifice were bad, but we don't judge the Aztecs or the Celts or the Native Americans who did such things.  In my son's class, they don't even know why we're fussing.  After all, in their course the question of human sacrifice itself is up for debate.  We know Global Warming is the threat of the ages and too many people are causing the world to die.  Therefore, it's perfectly acceptable to look at those Aztecs or Celts and think they may have been on to something when it comes to population control. So said his class's discussion.  

Because we know from Multiculturalism, if it ain't Western, it's good.  We know this because people from those cultures are happy to say so.  Likewise, the idea that those things like child sacrifice or terminating the weak and sickly were bad comes from old white Western, Christian ideals.  And we know those were always and altogether bad.  Therefore, it's time to give sacrificing the baby to the fires a second look.  After all, if the worst civilization in history - Western that is - said it was bad, there might be something to it after all!

Happy Columbus Indigenous Peoples Day.  Celebrated not despite the savagery and barbarism of those non-Western cultures, but increasingly because of them. 

Boston celebrates torture, slavery and infanticide

More and more liberals approve this practice

Yep.  Boston has officially replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day.  Now, the logic is that we cannot celebrate anyone who sinned the unforgivable sins, no matter their accomplishments.  That's because apparently there is no way to celebrate a person unless you celebrate everything they did.  You just can't set things apart and say I celebrate this person despite those unforgivable sins over there.  You either condemn or celebrate. 

Therefore, since Boston is celebrating the broad 'Indigenous Peoples Day', it stands to reason it doesn't think things like torture, human sacrifice, matricide, infanticide, patricide, slavery, and wars of tribal conquest are necessarily bad. In fact, apparently they're praiseworthy, since to celebrate Columbus is to celebrate all of his sins. So stands the logic behind eradicating his memory from our history must happen because we can no longer tolerate the unforgiven able sins. 

On the other hand, in a nation where our womenfolk have successfully aborted over 65 million of their pregnancies in a few decades to sustain our modern sex and drugs culture during the AIDS pandemic as suicides, violent crimes and drug overdoses claim our children in unprecedented numbers, it's not hard to see those things aren't especially bad for post-modern values.  Nor is it difficult to see a growing number of Americans warming up to the old practices that were driven out by the rascally West. 

So in a way, it makes perfect sense.  There was a time we felt the pagan peoples of the New World benefited from the civilization of science, democracy, and Christian virtues, if not the Gospel itself.  Today we reject all of those, seeing nothing positive at all brought to these shores from Europe. And yes, that includes science. We no longer cheer the indigenous peoples despite such practices as human sacrifice, slavery and infanticide.  No.  With each passing day, it becomes clear that American liberals and Democrats celebrate the indigenous peoples precisely because they engaged in such practices.  

And the American Catholic Church apparently approves this message.  A prophetic song apparently, as the descendants of pagan Americans effectively paganize America along with all the glories of a pagan society:

The end of the Jedi

In a reminder that science and smart can be as far removed as Kosher and ham, an editorial in the Scientific American reminds you of what it takes to get people dedicated to studying science for the betterment of humanity to turn their skills to nuclear weapons and gas chambers instead.

It's a lot of leftwing bilge and idiocy, racism and ethnic cleansing.  Star Wars is problematic because Jew White people evil!  Oh, and violence when not glorying the Leftist state, as the riots, destruction and death of the BLM protests did.  Of course Vader was also an evil dig at disabled people?  That's a new one.

But the Left is ever interested in finding new ways to prove everyone else was wretched and evil. I'm sure there could be hundreds of clues and triggers proving just how Star Wars makes Himmler seem like a saint. That's the modern Left.  No inquisitor, witch hunter or lynch mob ever came close to the Taliban like self righteous hatred and destruction of - everything and everyone that the Left opposes.

But again, these are scientists. The ones who will be building the computers, medical advances and technology of tomorrow. And given what I'm seeing, the ones who will happily set those aside when the call comes to invent new STEM driven solutions to deal with the new undesirables. 

Remember, we celebrate those scientists, intellectuals, artists, film makers, poets, ministers, doctors, and educators who fled Nazi Germany or stayed to fight the great fight.  And well we should.  But never forget the majority in those professions and others remained in Germany and turned their professions, arts, skills and industry to the service of the Nazi regime.  Never, ever forget that. 

Western Civilization A postmortem in 3 Links

Here is link number one, looking at our demise from the POV of the Taliban and almost any other culture we assume must not be as bad as we are. It's odd, but multiculturalism has brainwashed  so many Westerners into clinging to the idea that only in the Christian West is evil manifested.  No matter what non-Westerners actually do that's evil, that 'West=Evil' framework is still the rock solid basis for modern leftwing thinking.  Let people who may or may not be terrorists fly jets into our skyscrapers, killing thousands in the process, and the almost knee-jerk reaction will be 'what did we do to make them hate us?'.  As we watch the Taliban set up another terror state, don't expect it or the suffering of millions under their rule to do much to stop that suicidal notion in the West that we alone have no right to exist.  Against forces with a strong sense of self and worth, don't expect the West  - with no sense of self or worth - to last much longer. 

Here's number two, in which the long, slow decline of the Western values is kicked around.  The loss of virtue is a key point, with the subsequent loss in real concern for our own civilization .  The Left has almost sanctified hating everything and everyone having to do with the civilization we inherited.  A key feature of this strategy has been to turn as many generations as possible into drugged up, sexed up, narcissistic nihilists.  Who cares?  That's the mantra of so many, unless caring is a way to declare my superiority to my neighbor.  And if someone's grandchildren get what we deserve, all the better.  Compared to that, cultures and movements like the Taliban or Communist China or Islam, or even the still hobbling along former Soviet Union, will have little trouble mopping the floor with what's left of the country once called land of the free and home of the brave. 

Last and by no means least, number three is an interesting reflection on the year in the 1990s that Western culture officially died.  I'm sure people could quibble about the date, but I'm finding more and more recognize that it was some time in the 1990s that the bottom fell out.  

There were still some glimmers I think.  There seemed to be a sort of 'patriotic' renaissance of sorts, with Apollo 13, Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers and similar fare.   You could also see some of that across the ocean in BBC productions.  But it was short lived and all but wiped out a few years after 9/11.  So 1996 as the year it began to die?  You decide. 

At the end of the day, we know the West is dying, and most likely dead.  Even in my pastoring days, we used to say it's no longer a question of if, but of when, Western Civilization will be a thing of the past. That was said particularly of Europe.  By the early 2000s, it looked more and more like America deserved to be added to the list.  Not if but when the West would be gone, that was the only question.

Now, the question is if the West has already died and we didn't notice, or if it's merely in Hospice, counting the hours.  Probably a cool third of those raised in the West will be happy to see it die, since they've bought into the idea that were it not for the Christian West, there likely would be no evil in the world.  Another batch - let's say a third for fun - is like so many former defenders of the West, and that's people wondering when a good time to jump ship will be.  For now, we won't get into those outside of the West who are no doubt happy to see this turn of events.