Final Fantasy XV

Means they lied the first fourteen times.

Sometimes my boys come up with strange observations.

Seems like old times

"In the fifteenth century men cross-examined and tormented a man because he preached some immoral attitude; in the nineteenth century we feted and flattered Oscar Wilde because he preached such an attitude, and then broke his heart in penal servitude because he carried it out. It may be a question which of the two methods was the more cruel; there can be no kind of question which was the more ludicrous.  The age of the Inquisition has not at least the disgrace of having produced a society which made an idol of the very same man for preaching the very same things which it made him a convict for practicing."   Chesterton, Heretics.  

I've been skipping through Chesterton, and that leaped out at me.  Sort of makes you think that the lunacy of our modern age isn't unique to our modern age.   

As I listen to so many leaders, including religious leaders, jumping on the post-evidence, latest morality bandwagon, I'm reminded of something I concluded back in graduate school: There are great scholars who are good at being great scholars, and there are great scholars who are good at being great thinkers.  

You don't hear about the second group as much, because they tend not to think according to bandwagons, one way or another.  That tendency can sometimes limit upward mobility.  But God bless them, they're the ones who help keep us grounded in the real world of God's creation, not the whimsical world of our latest fancies.  

If you accidentally kill someone with a gun

No problem, 'sez' Mark Shea.  Why, you're an innocent man.  Mark, who I believe only now bothered to mention the Kate Steinle case on his blog, declares the shooter a victim' a victim of - what else - right wing racist Nazism.  

For Mark, the guy is innocent.  Period. Read it here.  Remember this the next time there is some news story about someone accidentally killing another person with a gun. Let's see Mark's restraint and clear thoughtfulness and charity in that case, either about the individual or the issue of gun violence, which he does't bother to mention this time. 

As far as east is from the west is Mark Shea from any shred of moral or theological consistency.   Sorry if that's harsh, but there comes a time when someone can become a menace to the Faith and a stumbling block to the Faithful.  

BTW, thank Mark for pointing out that, had it not been for conservative media outlets, we never would have heard of a case where, intentionally or not, an illegal immigrant who had been arrested multiple times was still allowed to be here and eventually ended up killing a young American woman. A woman who, interestingly, Mark chooses not to name, or even allude to.  A woman whose death does not help the cause. A woman whose death can't pass from the modern progressive mind fast enough. 

Christianity and Karl Marx

John C Wright reminds us that, up until recently, Socialism, much less Communism, were as compatible with Christianity as Kosher ham.  All of a sudden however, socialism is practically the only path for salvation.  Even more shocking is the view that maybe Communism, which certainly had a few rough spots in its history, is not so bad.

The almost epic level of dumb required for this turn in events is bind boggling.  The countries that cast longing glances at socialist models of government in Europe are the best of the lot.  And they are mostly aborting themselves out of existence through low birthrates and a general apathy about the future of their own civilization.

Those are the best countries.  In other places that have trended toward socialist/communist, the record is cesspools of poverty, misery, oppression, tyranny, gulags, killing fields, and the suffering and death of endless tens of millions.

Despite it all, our best and brightest continue to move the line inch by inch toward a world where only that leftist dream of a truly socialist mandate can save us.  A world where Marx is the key, and Socialism the dogma.  That's like wanting to bet on the Dodgers for the 2017 World Series - today. Unfortunately, the Catholic Church is doing scant little to resist the urge.  Some could argue it is becoming a willing accomplice. 

Granted, things change and we could always assume that Socialism today doesn't mean it will turn out military tyrannies or spin into Communist nightmares.  But that doesn't mean it will work either.  Given the conditions where it is in practice today, the burden is on those advocating for more of the same.

One of the driving forces behind this lunacy is the myth of progress.  That is, the idea that yesterday the world was fallen because everyone was stupid and evil, but today we're much better now.  Why, unlike everyone yesterday, we're now the intellectual apex of cognitive evolution and the moral and ethical hub of godlike perfection around which the entire history of the universe will spin.

Hence the quick and easy condemnation of people in history based on today's latest standards.  Hence the tendency of going through the lists of men who are guilty of having done what they were told was acceptable up until a few weeks ago.  That was then, when all was wrong.  But today, everything is right because, well, it's today.

So when the manifold terrors and failures of socialism and Communism are brought up, we're assured that those problems - if they're admitted to at all - where just part of the past.  Sure, there were rough roads, but that's because it wasn't us doing it.  Just as Pope Francis pointed out that the Church's teachings on the Death Penalty were the result of the Church not being as Christian as we are today, so our modern culture assumes that we will make all the changes necessary to ensure a socialist, or even Communist, success story.  After all, the problems were because those old timers weren't as good as we are today.  The evidence shows that when we get our hands on an issue, the result can only be success.  At least until tomorrow that is.

She was only an American

So the verdict is in, and Kate Steinle's killer is free.  This isn't the first time that someone who should have been in jail walked.  It's just interesting the lack of coverage the entire episode warranted. 

I understand that there is plenty of politics behind this.  I also understand that those who feel justice was not served will be reminded of people like George Zimmerman. 

For me, beyond the sad fact that a beautiful young woman has died, the glaring issue is the lack of this being a glaring issue.  I mean, with Zimmerman (which I've already heard it compared to), it was on OJ Simpson level coverage.  It was everywhere. Daily updates, 24/7 coverage, armies of media, protests and rallies and prayer vigils by the millions.

And young Kate Steinle?  That would be a big negatory.  I first heard of the case by an article linking to a FOX story a year or so ago.  Then I remember Trump brought it up during the 2016 campaign, and there was a little talk.  But nothing major.  Big today, old news the next day. 

And why not?  From Pope Francis on down, what happens to citizens in a country appears to be of secondary concern next to the needs of people coming from other countries, whatever their reasons might be.  If it's not admitted to, the harshness with which any restrictions on immigration is met with suggests that's a big foundation upon which progressive immigration theories are based.

Like terrorism, I assume this principled apathy about negative consequences rests on the qualifier that if immigrants hurt anyone, screw over their lives or commit egregious crimes, then it's the sacrifice we're willing to make - as long as the victims are someone else.  As long as it's other Americans I don't identify with who suffer for the cause, it's the price I'm willing to pay.

Somehow this new martyrdom by proxy, whereby people gamble with that mathematical certainty that it will likely be someone else who pays a price for their ideals, is not a comforting thought.  Then again, it isn't anything new that people who live in lofty towers (or middle class ones) can lose track of the real end of their philosophies:

“Spirit,” said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, “tell me if Tiny Tim will live.”
“I see a vacant seat,” replied the Ghost, “in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.”
“No, no,” said Scrooge. “Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared.”
“If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,” returned the Ghost, “will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”
Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.
“Man,” said the Ghost, “if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!”
Scrooge bent before the Ghost’s rebuke, and trembling cast his eyes upon the ground.

Perhaps before we make statements about our willingness to risk the lives of others, put Kate Steinle's face firmly in our minds, and then replace it with someone near and dear to our hearts.  Know just who that surplus of the latest philosophies might just be, and see if those lofty principles sound as appealing, or even as good, if they end up being someone close to home.

God bless her and her loved ones and give them piece. 

Why evidence matters

Because otherwise, Joe Scarborough might be in trouble.  Fact is, there is no evidence of wrong doing, and Mr. Scarborough shouldn't be presumed guilty.  Great.

The problem is, many screaming at Trump for suggesting otherwise when there is no evidence were the ones who, a day after he was accused with no evidence, immediately called Roy Moore a sex perv and demanded he quit the race. 

Post modernity, where nothing is real, anyone else can get hung about it, and we don't care.  Someday we might be a nation that values truth again, but I'm not holding my breath.

The very first thing I ask

Exactly which senator?  At least tell me the party.  The senator's anonymity can remain intact, and we have an idea about who made this claim about what Trump said behind closed doors.  Let's face it, that could make a difference in terms of the accuser's credibility. 

That's just me.  I've not caught up with the new liberalism that says facts, truth, evidence, proof, and data no longer matter.  I'm still stuck in the olden days, when we didn't launch a tirade of racas and fools, or call for immediate executions, based purely on 'somebody I can't name insists it happened secretly behind closed doors, so trust me, it has to be true.' 

This isn't to say I can't see Trump doing it.  I pretty much go into hibernation with Trump and his multi-layered crazy.   Nonetheless, a person who has robbed a hundred banks might not have robbed the last one.  That's just me.

Off the rails lunacy

Over at Catholic and Enjoying It.  Like many, Mark jumped on the Roy Moore accusations, not just to demand Moore's head, but to use the scandal to attack Trump, Trump supporters, conservatives and American conservative Christians.  Like many, Mark said it was time to put aside the need for evidence, proof or due process.  When those icky types are accused, it's enough that they're icky types, and it's time to hie to the gallows.

Like the overwhelming majority of modern punditry, both right and left, Mark has also been stunningly silent about the myriad accusations against liberal pundits, politicians, activists, entertainers, and high profile personnel.  Like so many who were quick to link Moore to entire swaths of American conservative culture, Mark has said nothing about these accusations against liberals and what it means about American liberalism.  The most Mark did was link to a rather nondescript article that talked of the rock era tendency to sex after teenage girls.  But nothing about rock and liberalism, liberal culture or the ideological similarities in the laundry list of recent accusations.

And that's fine.  I'm OK with this.  I think this says something about our culture as a whole.  Both the accusations, and the fact that we have no clear understanding of what is right or wrong behavior on any given day, or a desire to even sort it out before we destroy lives.  All of those, to me, are symptomatic of a nation that long ago put punditry over principle.  So I have no problem if people aren't saying the list of liberals accused proves X about liberalism.

My problem is that they did just that against conservatives and evangelicals.  Conservatives and liberals alike, never-Trumpers and left wing activists, all were happy to draw a straight line from Roy Moore to anyone and everything Right of center, guilty as accused.

Mark demonstrates this partisanship and, quite frankly, lunacy in spades.  Not only has he avoided anything at all about the multiple accusations post-Moore, including his own folk hero Garrison Keillor, but he has continued to funnel all wrath and hatred at Moore, Trump, Trump supporters, conservatives and American conservative Christians, as if nobody else has been accused. 

Pre-posting update:  Jonah Goldberg, hardly sympathetic to Trump and the gang, nonetheless noticed the same trend.

The only thing worse than ignorant internet trolls

Is brilliant leaders who are ignorant.  So my old classmate Russ Moore has jumped in on the sexual assault purge.  He was quick to call on Roy Moore to be punished, and all Christians abandon their support of Moore.  Not surprising.

Nonetheless, I saw this tweet.

It's in response to a tweet by Geraldo Rivera.  For the record, I put little stock in Mr. Rivera's opinions.  I remember him from the Al Capone's tomb debacle, and never really got over thinking of those empty beer bottles whenever I see him.

But Rivera merely reflected what an increasing number of people (women included) seem to be saying: Where exactly is this going to stop?  I mean, we're having guys taken out based on anonymous women saying that they did some anonymous thing that they decided was assault.  Given that a recent poll found millennials who believe a man asking them for a drink is tantamount to sex harassment, it's a legitimate concern that we've put the cart before the horse in terms of going straight from accusation to sentencing based on standards that have no consistency.

Russ, however, misses it.  So bent on making sure he's on the right side of the prevailing winds, he misses the concern that this, if not tempered by clear standards and an honest appraisal of the accusations and the proof behind them, could lead to some pseudo-puritanism where the only hope to avoid accusations is arranged marriages.  Witch burnings without the fire.

I know he can't be stupid enough to miss this.  In fact, for all he is, Russ is very, very intelligent.  And hard working.  I never begrudge him the time he put into his studies when we were in school together.  But this is the dangerous time, when even intelligent people in a society, who are looked to by millions, appear to miss the obvious.

Let it be known, I'm not jumping on the bandwagon of this or that individual.  Since Harvey Weinstein, I've said we need to wait for confessions, proof, evidence or something.  We can't go about lopping off heads (post-modern version, destroy careers and reputations) based on 'she says so.'  Likewise, we can't act like every man who approaches a woman is now potentially subject to accusations because he approached a woman.  We certainly can find ways to protect women, and perhaps walk back the damage done by the Outback generation*.  But caution is needed, lest innocent lives be wrecked and ruined. 

*No rules, just right.

What Roy Moore should teach us

Never, ever trust modern liberalism.  So let's sort this out.  By now, Roy Moore is a child molester.  We know that because he's called it.  And when someone is called something,  it's always true.

Then, he's apparently raped and molested women by the dozens.  How do we know this? Because dozens of women have come out and said so.  So he's obviously guilty, because there has never been a time in history where multiple witnesses were presented against someone who turned out to be innocent. Besides, if he's not guilty, it's like saying the women are wrong or, worse, lying.  And that never happens.

Now, it's worth noting that some things appear to have been conflated in all this.  First, there are only two accusations that I'm aware of that were considered serious up to a few weeks back.  One is his peddling after a girl who, at the time, was fourteen.  That would be well under the legal age of consent back then.  The other serious charge is that he attempted to rape a sixteen year old.  Both of those are very serious charges, and if guilty, he needs to be held to justice.

So far, however, the only corroborating evidence from those two incidents is a yearbook that Moore signed.  The yearbook has not been given over for study or investigation, and some have pointed out a few issues with it that at least suggest the need to review its authenticity, as often happens when evidence is produced.  Yet it has not been turned over to any authorities, nor have any official charges been made against Moore where an actual investigation can take place.

All of the other accusations that I'm aware of are either from a couple women who said he groped them back in the 90s, with no possible proof to back them up, and others who said that, as teenagers of legal age, he attempted to pick them up.

OK.  In other words, they were just seventeen, and you know what I mean.  Which was all the rage in the sex culture.  So let's assume he's innocent of everything, except going after teenage girls.  Up until a few weeks ago, there was only one moral standard for sex: Where two or more consenting individuals of legal age are involved, there is no wrong.  That's fine.  From Jerry Seinfeld to Beatles songs to every rock star going after teenage groupies, there was no moral objection.  Girls saw it as empowerment or opportunity, men didn't mind the fringe benefits.  And society refused to say anything.  After all, if we objected, we were schooled on how, up until about a century ago, teenage girls often married, and older men could marry young girls without others batting an eye.

But all of this is ancient history.  And in the world of modern liberalism, ancient history includes anything up until five minutes ago when it becomes expedient to turn on a dime and change morality, truth, ethics, values, principles, or anything else.

So overnight, an adult man going after teenage girls is child rape.  Rock stars who sang of or indulged in the pleasures of pre-20 sexual escapades (except The Beatles) have been raised up and crucified.  Though still no word on Jerry Seinfeld either.

Which is a bit vexing, if you think on it.  Men weren't just excused when they acted like this, they were encouraged.  In fact, the only ones mocked and derided were those who suggested that there should be more standards regarding sexuality than just 'two or more individuals of legal age.'  But now, through sheer cosmic coincidence, it's not only wrong today, but it has been wrong all along.  All along we were the society of male predators, seizing on young girls, and hapless women being victimized by the men who forced it on them against their will.  Apparently anything under twenty years old - not just seventeen, if you know what I mean - is molesting children.

I know this because Roy Moore is now officially known as a child molester.  All who refuse to condemn him on the notion that no actual evidence has been produced are defenders of child molesting.  It's the way of postmodern discourse. Agree with today's latest truth, or you rape babies.

I noticed this little trend some time ago when watching a few war movies on Memorial Day.  I noticed that MASH, once the film darling of bold liberal revolutionaries, was apologized for and condemned for its awful treatment of women.  BTW, when MASH came out, it was likely only those religious puritan types who would object.  After all, society was opening its mind and, just like ogling teenage girls in song and substance, treating anyone anyway we wanted was all the rage. Until yesterday.  Or today five minutes ago.  It doesn't really matter.

All of this assumes there is actually a desire to establish a common set of values and a common good for society. By now, we should all know better.  If Liberalism has produced anything good or beneficial in the last half century, it's certainly not the idea that principles or values exist.  They don't exist.  Like arguing with some of the trolls back at Patheos, there is no truth or standard, but only that which gets us what we want at the moment.

Don't hate the trolls, by the way.  They merely reflect, in comments boxes, the gist of modern liberalism.  Who cares about truth or principles? All that matters is scoring points and getting what we want today.  If tomorrow, sexting after young girls becomes advantageous for feminist power or a convenient carrot to dangle before a drugged up, sexed up society, I'm sure it will all be fine again.

So lesson learned.  Just because liberalism says you should paint your room red, don't believe it.  Tomorrow, or even later today, when convenient, it might just determine that red rooms are the equivalent of Hitler, and you will be mercilessly condemned for having listen to what liberalism said back in the dark days of ancient history.  The dark days of ancient history being, for liberalism, any time before now.

Grumpy Note: Just in case anyone is wondering, I'm not defending Moore's practice of hanging at shopping malls, wanting to score with 17 year olds, if you know what I mean.  I merely note that, up until Roy Moore, I spent my entire life seeing at best a few raised eyebrows, but most often just shoulder shrugs and high fives when it came to guys getting young girls, even if the girls were teens.  Or, in recent years, older feline women going after those ripped young guys.  My point is how quickly our progressive culture sans principles can declare X good today, and evil later today purely when convenient.  To me, that's not a good foundation for a society.  But that's just me.

Because lying is a sin

It's time the Church take a bold stand against illegal immigration.  After all, what is one major way people here illegally are able to carry on in life, have jobs, send their kids to Harvard, and make a living for them and their relatives back home?  Fraudulent documentation.  That is, in other words, fake or false documents - lies you might say.

Mark Shea builds a strong case for why the Church should say enough is enough.  Not that we shouldn't reform our immigration system.  Something like that should always be reformed, since situations and conditions always change.  But the idea that just because the system is broken, people are free to be fraudulent, lie, present false documentation and any other form of deception.

Lying is a sin, as Mark boldly proclaims.  It's time for the Church and faithful Catholics to stop justifying, excusing and tolerating a culture of lies that justifies law breaking and fraud, even if it's one celebrated and advocated by the modern Left.

Prayers for the hundreds killed at the Egyptian Mosque

Horrible.  Animals and savages to be sure.  God grant peace and strength to those impacted by this, whose lives were lost, who remain behind and are left with the hurt and the pain.  God also soften the hearts of those who embrace this senseless slaughter as a means of righteousness.  Help the nations of the world find a way to eliminate this and no longer tolerate an apathy based on accepting this as some new normal. 

Bwa ha ha!

Sometimes it's just too funny.  The problem liberals have is they still live in a society where everything panders to, and promotes, them and their ideals.  Therefore, Clinton doesn't have anyone calling her out the way they would any Republican.  A Republican would have a library full of stories and publications explaining why he or she was absolutely wrong and to blame.  So I'll cut her some slack for the beer out the nose hilarity and lack of self awareness that comes with a statement like that.

A happy and blessed Thanksgiving to all

Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863
By the President of the United States of America.

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward,
Secretary of State

A Thanksgiving sunrise

As I remember them.  First thing we saw when we woke up this morning. 

Happy Thanksgiving all.

I could watch this every Thanksgiving

There are some things to be thankful for.  A nation with time and resources for a special turkey instruction hotline has to be one of them.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and God's blessings.

Stats and lies and selective stupidity

Michael Flynn is a font of information when it comes to actually looking at the facts, versus the stats and factoids most often used in modern discourse.

There are a few reasons I seldom go into great detail on my blog with appeals to this or that stat, or endless citing of references.  As I learned during my days in that hippy haze of postmodern, millennial level liberalism at Patheos, stats can easily be refuted or ignored.  Just like any appeal to anything on that site. 

More than one of my references was met, not with a counter reference, but with an assurance that it was just dumb or pointless.  No reason, other than it obviously was.  Sometimes, an intrepid troll would find some counter stat, or poll, or survey that said something else.  Which is fair as far as it goes.  But any attempts to break down the down the data would typically be ignored or dismissed in kind.

And why not?  As Mr. Flynn shows, these stats that we love to toss around are often a thin layer of icing on a cake full of nuances that never seem to make their way to the foreground of the discussion. 

Please note, sometimes I will refer to the wacky lunacy that was Patheos.  Understand, a few of my regular readers were quite informative, debated in good will, and brought thoughtful insights, even if we disagreed (I think of Illithid and Bemused as I write this).  Many, however, were nothing but half baked trolls at best, or spewed hyper partisan lunacy at worse.  They are who I think of when I think of Patheos as a living example of the train wreck that is modern leftist discourse.

Why we presume innocence

Both in and out of the courts.  A case study, by Mark Shea. 

Knowing Mark's own political loyalties, is wasn't difficult to believe that Mark would do what he did, and that's join with all of Roy Moore's political opponents and adversaries on both sides of the aisle and demand Moore be removed from his senate race.  Most, like Mark, made this call long before more women were produced from the same part of the town where Moore was living forty years ago, and before Moore made some of his own questionable statements.  Many, like Mark, did it within a day of the WP piece that initially broke the story.

Mark, like Steven Greydanus, has made it clear that Moore's guilt is all but obvious.  There is no room for debate.  If you don't immediately condemn Moore and want him punished, then you support child molesters.  Sort of like what people used to say about the Catholic Church, but I'm sure that's different.  After all, Mark asks why women would make false accusations for no reason?

Which brings us to this little tidbit that came my way.  In it, we have a cry for justice against a vile women who has made an innocent man's life a nightmare with endless false accusations and stalkings.  And who is that man?  It would be Mark Shea's nephew. 

Personally, I have no more vested interest in the case against Mark's nephew than I do the case against Roy Moore.  My thing would be to wait to demand punishment until the cases were heard in an official capacity.  Was Mark's nephew lying to protect himself, or was the woman lying?   I might have my own opinions, but I certainly wouldn't want anyone punished until official inquiries and investigations were conducted that included examining the evidence.

Same with Moore.  But yet, whereas Mark found it easy to accuse a woman who had falsely accused his own nephew, Mark finds it just as easy now to believe every woman accusing Moore and immediately call for Moore, the child molester per Mark, to be punished, no physical evidence or corroborating documentation needed.

And that, kiddies, is why we have the rule of law.  It's to protect us from people who can't quite see the fact that they appear to be playing fast and loose with consistent application of standards, and who seem to be guided more by emotionalism and raw personal bias and prejudice, than an actual quest for truth and justice.

Like betting on last year's Superbowl

Is saying you now think Bill Clinton should have resigned.  It means nothing.  It's like admitting you shouldn't have been drinking and driving after you kill someone, or that you shouldn't have been playing around with that gun after accidentally shooting someone.  The damage is done. 

It was during the 90s that the credibility of the media all but ended.  It was in the 90s that the American left perfected the notion that all truth, morality and principle was malleable for the purpose of political gain. 

With Anita Hill, we learned no woman should ever be told she is lying when accusing a man of sexual misconduct.  Then we spent eight years watching one woman after another ravaged and verbally raped by the same people who made that claim, all in defense of Clinton and his administration.

Then we watched with horror as the press made it clear its job was to back up Clinton and keep him in office at all costs.  First, it made it obvious that the "Right Wing Conspiracy" was its preferred narrative, and continued with that until the Blue Dress.  At that point, after a few weeks of shock and anger at having been played like fools by the Clintons, the press circled the wagons and taught America that it was time to be like other countries, and stop caring about character, morals, values, and truth where presidents and elected officials are concerned.

And so it's been.  In the last eight years, it's become an adventure to see who matters, what is true, and what or isn't good and ethical on any given day.  A single black man might have been killed by a police officer who could have been white, and we spend a month hearing the outrage.  Thousands of black men are killed every year, and we barely hear it mentioned.  Women express concern about the Transgender push, they're told to shut up and stop being stupid bigots.  Two years later, and women say every day is nightmare of terror because of men, and we take their concerns as gospel truth.  Legal age and consent are all that matter.  Ages and age differences suddenly define good and evil.

So now, in the feeding frenzy, lynch mob, witch hunt, and inquisition mentality in which we say that anyone outside of a US court can have their lives ruined on a simple accusation sans evidence, and in light of the fact that the majority of big name culprits in the tidal wave are decidedly to the left of center, we have a growing list of politicians proudly and bravely declaring that the chiefest of all culprits in our last 25 years of being a moral wasteland should have paid for his dalliances.

Sorry, but that doesn't inspire me, it embarrasses me.  It embarrasses me to think that somewhere, Americans became as stupid as we were always told they were, though most old timers would never have bought such rubbish.  It embarrasses me to realize they really think we're that dumb.  It embarrasses me to know that many likely are.  And if we're not that dumb, we're fine with embracing dumb because we still love the great evil of our age, the evil that says there is no truth or morality, only that which is convenient at the moment.

"Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
Confusions of a wasted youth;
Forgive them where they fail in truth,
And in thy wisdom make me wise."

Confusions of a wasted youth indeed.  As my boys said when watching a Volkswagen commercial that still celebrates the moral cesspool that was Woodstock: 'What do we expect?  They're still in charge!' (meaning the ones portrayed in the commercial).  I had no rebuttal.

Charles Manson is dead

A man who, like Hitler, became the epitome of evil during my lifetime.  Growing up, he was everyone's favorite bogeyman.   Donald McClarey has a thoughtful and insightful piece.

I don't wish him ill, but then it's easy for me not to.  As I told my congregation after the 9/11 attacks, I defer all calls for mercy and love to those directly impacted by his evil.  They are the heroes of the faith.  It costs me nothing to say I forgive him.  He didn't do anything to me. I'll leave that to those whose lives he forever destroyed.

Nonetheless, he was a driving force of evil, and symbolized the worst of that generation lost in space.  If nothing else, I work on forgiving the manifold evils and idiocies that came from the era that produced Manson, for those, far more than Manson himself, have had a detrimental impact on me, my generation and my children's generation.