The Mierdas Touch

Sarah Hoyt: (she's Portuguese by birth) A Case For War --

...
No, I confess I never heard a pre-school teacher say “we don’t have the right to defend our group, our nation or ourselves” – but I think it’s an extension from “you can’t defend yourself, because then you’re being as bad as the other guy.” That they do say. They say it all the time along with “Violence never solved anything.” I found out older son was reading Starship Troopers when in a conference, in front of me, he growled back “Tell it to the city fathers of Carthage.” (So proud.)

But I think that’s it. It’s this internalized good manner stuff. ...

And that’s what I realized in the run up to the Iraq (and Afghanistan) war. It’s apparently the thing of uncouth barbarians to actually defend ourselves and our country ...

Now, we’re seeing the reverse of this coin, foreshadowed by Clinton’s Balkan adventurism. War is good and just when we have absolutely no interests of our own to defend. Hence, Libya. Hence us actually collaborating with Al Quaeda groups. Hence our not avenging the clear casus belli that was the murder of our ambassador ...

And now we’ll go into Syria for the same ill-defined reasons. And probably cack it because this president has the mierdas touch. Everything he touches turns to sh*t.

The problem here is that the left claims to be against war, but they love some of the aspects of war. Remember the whole kindergarten thing? Yep. The aspects they love about war come straight out of there.

They love the uniforms, and having everyone do the same at the same time. They think of war as a sort of synchronized dance. And, you know, war causes support for the president to surge at home, and there’s national unity which they love. (Except they hated it after nine eleven, and a week in they were complaining about all the flags. They also missed that those are the circumstances under which fervor arises spontaneously. When we’ve been attacked. When our president is trying to do good abroad and appear manly? Not so much.)

They long for that imaginary time in WWII when the nation as one sacrificed and worked for victory. If they could they would have a war with rationing “so we’re all equal.” They have the bizarre idea that it was that unity, (and not the fact that most of the world except us was rubble afterwards) that caused the boom afterwards.

Again, war is sort of a synchronized dance crossed with the do-goodism of a particularly blinkered boy-scout troop.
...

Solipsism as a religious experience

Dalrock: Solipsism as a religious experience -- "The UK equivalent of the Girl Scouts recently decided to change their vow, replacing “love my God” with “be true to myself and develop my beliefs”. As the BBC explains this is not the first change for girls to that portion of the oath. In 1910 that portion of the oath was “do my duty to God”. This was changed in 1994 to the “love my God” wording, which has now been replaced with a promise to be true to themselves. ..."



The favorite vice of women -- and of feminized men -- is the anti-rational quest to "follow your feelings". So, this change from "Obey God" to "love *my* (g/G)od" to "be true to *myself* and develop *my* beliefs" couldn't be more perfect ... from the point of view of encouraging feminine vice and anti-rationality. After all, "it's all about *me*" ... and *my* (mercurial) feelings!

'Error has no rights'

Michael Egnor: "Error has no rights"

... Cardinal Ottaviani's aphorism-- "Error has no rights"-- is either true or pernicious, depending on who it is who is granting the "rights". Certainly error has no rights in theology and in church doctrine and governance. The Lord's Church, and the many churches in His Body, should confer no rights on error. Orthodoxy is simply the truth, and with that there can be no compromise.

But "Error has no rights" is, in a different sense-- a secular sense-- true. Only persons have rights. Error-- ideas-- cannot have rights. Both theses assertions are true: error should not be permitted within the Church, and prohibition against error should not be imposed by the state. Persons have rights, vis-a-vi the state, to hold religious beliefs and to live in accordance to those beliefs, regardless of whether secular rulers regard those beliefs and practices as truths or as errors.

Ironically, as Weigel points out, "Error has no rights" was not enforced by the Church, as it should have been, and that has clearly led to doctrinal collapse and manifest sin. On the other hand, the secular state has taken up the doctrine of "Error has no rights" with a vengeance, and is in the process of crushing Christians who live by their faith.

Many Christian churches lack all conviction, while secular Torquemadas ferret out Christian belief and praxis with passionate intensity.

Irony abounds.

Noble Savages

Mail-Online: The truth Johnny Depp wants to hide about the real-life Tontos: How Comanche Indians butchered babies, roasted enemies alive and would ride 1,000 miles to wipe out one family

Three of my four grandparents were of Indian descent (two in the South-east and one in Indiana). The reason that my father's people are not official US government recognized members of the Cherokee Nation is that our *immediate* ancestors escaped the Democrat's dragnet to round-up all the Indians in the South-east and deport them to the Oklahoma wilderness (cousins and siblings of my ancestors made the trip ... or died on the way).

That is just background for this -- it has always pissed me off that "liberals" and other leftists always try to portray Indians as solely innocent nature-children victims of the solely rapacious whites -- as though Indians are not moral agents, as though they are not human beings.

To the leftist mindset -- and "liberals" are just inconsistent leftists: they accept the premises of leftism ... they just don't, yet, want to go to all the places the logic of those premises leads -- there are two kinds of people in the world:
1) whites -- who are moral agents;
2) "our small brown brothers" -- who are not moral agents;
And whites are further divided into:
1) "non-racist" whites, who are "good/moral" -- that is, leftists, who are actually racist, and who tend to hive high incomes (which they mostly get via government confiscation of the income o wealth of the "evil" whites);
2) "racist" whites, who are "evil/immoral" -- that is, those who are not leftist, who don't condescend to "our small brown brothers", holding them to be less than human, who earn their living by doing work that other people value enough to willingly pay them to do.

Besides what Gentle Reader can read about the Comanche in the linked article, consider the Beaver Wars of the Iroquois against all the other peoples of the midwest. "The Ohio Country and the Lower Peninsula of Michigan were virtually emptied of Native people as refugees fled westward to escape Iroquois warriors (much of this region was later repopulated by Native peoples nominally subjected to the Six Nations; see Mingo)." -- when American settlers migrated into what is now western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and lower Michigan, those territories were *still* almost empty of people ... because the Iroquois had systematically murdered (or driven away) all the previous inhabitants.

Indians weren't simply barbarians, they were, most of them, savages. The whites who said, "The only good Injun is a dead Injun" had good reason to say that: it was generally true. While *my* ancestors were among those Indians who quickly gave up savagery -- not that that helped them what the Democrats wanted their land, irrespective of treaty obligations -- most Indians did not give up savagery until the last possible moment.

This kind of merde happens all the time

This kind of merde happens all the time in Britain ... and in the US (though, not *yet* as frequently)

Wintery Knight: Former soldiers arrested by UK police for defending their business from burglar -- this is Your Country on leftism.  Read the excerpts to get an idea of the insanity.

Here is discussion of a recent instance of "liberal" insanity in the US related to self-defence --
Legal Insurrection: Merritt Landry Case: Overview of Louisiana’s Self-Defense Statutes

We’ll be covering the second degree murder trial of Merritt Landry, who was charged with second degree attempted murder for his shooting 14-year-old Marshall Coulter (described as a “professional thief” by his brother in news reports).


Coulter had scaled a spiked metal fence to enter Landry’s property at 2AM, in a Louisiana neighborhood riven by burglaries, home invasions, and car-jackings.

Landry, alerted to the presence of the intruder by his dog, and acting in defense of his pregnant wife and infant child, as well as himself, fired his licensed handgun at Coulter when it appeared the “professional thief” was reaching for a weapon.

Landry’s single shot struck the intruder in the head, severely wounding him. As of this writing, Coulter remains alive, albeit grievously injured. ...

The word you're looking for

Vallicella: Rosenberg's Definition of Scientism and the Problem of Defining 'Scientism' --

So I say, nontrivially,

2. Scientism is the view that the only genuine knowledge is natural-scientific knowledge.

Among the natural sciences we have, in first place, physics. And so a really hard-assed 'scientisticist' (to coin a word as barbarous as what it names) might that hold that

3. Scientism is the view that the only genuine knowledge is physics and whatever can be reduced to physics.

The word you're looking for is 'scientiste' (in the manner of Miss Piggy, the Artiste), which word is silent on whether the person so denoted is employed as a scientist, or even understands, much less cares, what 'science' is and is not, can and cannot tell us.

You're welcome.

Your Order Has Shipped

Skeptical Eye: Your Order Has Shipped -- I really laughed at this one.

Gag me with a maggot

Perhaps Gentle Reader has encountered -- or even used -- the expression, "That would gag a maggot!" (*) Well, I think I witnessed, with at least two of the five senses, that very phenomenon this past Friday afternoon.

Here's how it went down.

Last Sunday, before making my weekly pilgrimage to North Canton (**), I prepaired some chicken for freezing. This involves removing the skin and most of the fat before wrapping it. This left me with a good pound of offal.

"No problem," I thought. "I'll just take this with me and toss it in the dumpster when I get there." So I tied everything up in a plastic grocery-bag and set it in the back of the truck -- and promptly forgot about it. Which it to say, I didn't toss it in the dumpster when I got to the motel, but instead carted it around all week.

Friday, leaving work, I got a (small) whiff and remembered. Fortunately, the motel is near enough the office that I didn't forget again and haul the mess back home,

So, I parked and walk back to get the mess. I swear, the stench had ripened during the short drive there and grew exponentially by my mere act of looking into the truck-bed. What I smelled is indescribable, but here's what I saw -

Between the rain we’d had much of the week (the cool weather - due, no doubt, to “global warming” - had probably slowed the stench-making capacity of my cargo) and the natural process of liquefaction of the organig material, there was a foul “broth” in (and out of) the plastic bag.

And the maggots! It was so foul that even they were trying to run (and swim) away … keeping in mind that as they don’t have legs it was rather difficult for them. But, heroes all, they were making a valiant effort. Now, my eyesight isn’t as sharp as it used to be, but I’m certain that I saw many of those who had braved the fetid waters of Lake Fowl gasping and heaving when they made it safely to the dry “land” of Bed Liner.

I felt rather sorry for the poor fellows … until I grabbed the plastic bag and lifted it over the sidewall. Then I felt very sorry for me. Oh! the stench was even worse, if that's possible.

I made it to the dumpster - I really should have parked closer to it - and disposed of the noisome bundle. Then I had to navigate back to the truck … walking past all the dribblings that leaked out of the bag as I’d carried it. I almost lost it three times getting back to the truck.


(*) In my mind, I always mash-up the expression "That would gag a maggot!" and the Valley Girl exclamation "Gag me with a spoon!" ... into "Gag me with a maggot!"

(**) I work about 75 miles from home. Since I don't want to spend 3+ hours on the road every day, I stay over there during the week; I usually head out on Sunday and come home on Friday.

Cosmic Suicide

Kristor: Cosmic Suicide ...

When we killed Jesus, we killed the perfect material implementation of the Logos of our whole world. We repudiated our own sort of being as it is originally meant to be. Our rejection of the Second Adam was a rejection of the very order of our own being - not just of our being as Man, but that of the whole cosmos, of which we are an integral procedure. Thus the world’s murder of Jesus its own incarnate Logos was the sum of all sins, was the apotheosis and perfection of sin, was the ultimate sin.

As a contravention of being, sin is self-murder. Calvary, then, was the effectual suicide of the cosmos, the beginning of the world’s death. When Jesus died, so did the whole order of the world. At Golgotha, the eschaton was consummated.

The death of Jesus was the death of the cosmos.

And when Jesus triumphed over death, the resurrection of the world began.

These are some of the things one begins to realize when one begins to take seriously, and to explore the meaning of, such statements as "through him [the Logos] were all things made; without him was nothing made that has been made" and "he [the Christ] is the life of the world" and "by him [the Christ], all things were created; ... all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together" and "in Christ we live and move and have our being" and "God is the ground of all being" and so on.

The world lives/exists because it feeds off the life of God, specifically the Second Person, through whom and for whom the world was made: the Son is the Life of the world. You and I live/exist because we consume Christ -- even in the state of sin and rebellion, into which we all are born, we feed off Christ -- so, because Christ is Life Itself, to ultimately refuse Christ is to refuse life/being(existence) itself. To assert (and teach others to assert) that "'nature' is all there is" is to refuse life/being(existence) itself. it is to commit final suicide.

Development of Race-slavery in America

Did Gentle Reader know that from 1607, when Virginia was founded, until 1655, there were no slaves, black or white, in America? Did Gentle Reader know that the first person in colonial America to legally "own" another person as a slave was
a black man? Did Gentle Reader know that it was not until 1670 that whites in colonial America were awarded the legal "right" to "own" blacks as slaves -- between 1655 and 1670, only blacks could "own" other blacks as slaves. Did Gentle Reader know that the legal logic by which that first black slave-owner was enabled to legally "own" another black man as a slave was later the same legal logic by which blacks, in general, were not recognized as subjects/citizens in American society, but rather were accounted as aliens ... starting with that man's own children?

Did Gentle Reader know that the Stuart Restoration (absolute) monarchs, Charles II and James II, had an important hand in fostering slavery in America? Did Gentle Reader know that Thomas Jefferson's calumnies against George III, in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, concerning the King's alleged fostering of slavery weren't total lies (as I myself had long believed until today).

I call Gentle Reader's attention to this post by Beastrabban -- and the comments and linked articles -- John Locke and the Origins of British and American Democracy A Reply to Ilion


edit:
(h/t to Katht Shaidle) Today I Found Out
The First Legal Slave Owner in What Would Become the United States was a Black Man -- there are some differences between the information he and I present. For example, he says, "About 7 years later [after Anthony Johnson's court-approved-and-ordered enslavement of John Casor], Virginia made this practice legal for everyone, in 1661, by making it state law for any free white, black, or Indian, to be able to own slaves, ..." whereas the information I'd found says that legislation was in 1670.

Scientism, subtle and not

Shadow to Light: Steven Pinker’s Subtle Attack on Science -- concerning some not-subtle scientism

At the same time, the author of the linked piece (do read it) is likely engaging in a subtle, and unconscious, scientism himself (*). The very way he has titled the piece is indicative of scientism -- consider, were Pinker's misrepresention of reality an attempt to convince people that human use of such tools as, say, hammers, were proof that materialism/atheism is the truth about the nature of reality, would anyone, except in jest, title a take-down of his fallacious reasoning something like "Steven Pinker’s Subtle Attack on Hammers"?

Modern science, like a hammer, is a tool. It can be very useful when and where its use is applicabile; but outside that very limited sphere of applicability it is a positive hindrance … like trying to use a hammer to drive a screw. Modern science is a tool, and it's really not all that important, fot its use cannot help, and its misuse hinders, with regard to the things humans really care about.

People who consistently think in terms of there even being a possibility that any person could "attack science" aren't thinking about science, but rather about 'Science!'

(*) And, after all, most people in our scientistic culture do engage in scientism without realizing it or intending to.

Egnor on 'separation of church and state'

Michael Egnor: Steven Novella on the "separation of church and state" --

...
So, one may ask, how did "separation of church and state" become a part of American jurisprudence, given that it originated in the personal letter of a man who had nothing to do with the Constitution and who believed that our rights were God-given?

Actually, "separation of church and state" had noting at all to do with American jurisprudence until 1870 (in the Supreme Court's Reynolds decision on Mormon polygamy), and there it was used only tangentially.

It remained absent from American law until it was used by Justice Hugo Black in the Everson decision in 1947, which addressed the use of public money to transport children to Catholic schools.

So how could a throw-away phrase written in a private letter by a man who had nothing to do with the Constitution become Constitutional law?

Well, "separation of church and state" was in fact a very popular phrase for several centuries, but not in law. It was a ubiquitous mantra among nativists and bigots. "Separation of church and state" was the desiderata of Catholic-haters beginning just before the Civil War, when Irish Catholic immigration became significant. It was incorporated in the Ku Klux Klan initiation oath.

I repeat: For a century and a half after the ratification of the Constitution, "separation of church and state" had essentially nothing to do with American law, where it was ignored. It was a prime theme of anti-Catholic bigotry, incorporated in the initiation oath of the Ku Klux Klan.

In fact, the insertion of "separation" into Constitutional law took place via the Klan, or more precisely, via a son of the Klan.

Justice Hugo Black, who had been the chief of KKK recruitment in Alabama in the 1920's and who had administered the Klan "separation of church and state" oath to new Alabama klansmen, was later appointed to the Supreme Court by FDR.

It's worth noting how Justice Black first achieved political notoriety. ...

Come to think of it, I knew that about the KKKer, Hugo Black, inserting the KKK mantra of "separation of church and state", into American Constitutional jurisprudence.

If you want to say something nice about Bobby Kennedy ...

Ann Coulter takes Bill O'Reilly down a well-deserved notch for his senseless recycling of false talking-points from the Kennedy hagiography machine. But, her main target is the willful ignorance (of nearly everyone) that allows the false Kennedy-worship to continue ... and, of course, the Democrats and "liberals".

The last line of the piece is utterly hilarious, given "liberal" worship of the Kennedys and loathing of McCarthy.

Ann Colter: O'Reilly: Killing History -- "... If you want to say something nice about Bobby Kennedy, remind everyone that he proudly worked for Sen. Joe McCarthy."


edit:
There is also this ... not-so-nice question/accusation about RFK and JFK: Did Bobby Kennedy Kill Marilyn Monroe?