The Same Coin ... and Change!

Men insisting that they are women -- and using the power of the state to compel the rest of us to pretend as much -- is just the other side of the coin of feminism, which teaches women to insist that they are men -- and to use the power of the state to compel the rest of us to pretend as much.

This

and this

is just the other side of this

==================
Edit 2018/12/30:
Rather than directly link to two recent videos of SJWs in action, I direct Gentle Reader to Shadow to Light: Social Justice Temper Tantrums

Why the West is Doomed!

Language Warning!

America is doomed because America's men are pussy-whipped pussies, who will toss aside *any* principle, without a second thought, if some woman gets the feelz.

Gentle Reader may recall that I recently wrote:

It's not that women are innately more irrational than men; it's that until their irrationality gets to epic proportions, such as, I don't know, murdering their own children, there is always some damned man running interference, making excuses, blaming other men, and so on. And, of course, these days, not even murdering their own children is epic enough irrationality that there won't be some God-damned man making excuses, and blaming other men for her sin and crime.

This post is intended as an illustration of the point --

Recently, on Facebook, one Richard Storey -- who thinks himself a Christian, an American patriot, and a "social conservative" -- linked to this story: Somerville restaurant owner barred from U.S. after immigration interview: “It just went completely wrong”
And Mr Storey asked the sensible questions: "How does one come here illegally, start a business, and keep it going for 18 years?

Has he been paying taxes?"

The first discussion thread is this --

Stance Bingham: "Should have followed the law! He only has himself to blame!"

Richard Storey: "Stance Bingham my thoughts exactly. Also, how in the hell was he able to start a business???"

Stance Bingham: "On this guy, he was probably sending all of the tax money he owed back to Mexico! Saving for a great retirement most Americans will never have! lol I'll be working up till noon on the day they bury me! lol"

Richard Storey: "Stance Bingham yeah, the joke at my house is that the funeral home will wheel my office chair out the door to the hearse...."

Nikki Thompson Massey: "Stance Bingham his wife is legal and he paid taxes. How quick we are to judge"

Gentle Reader, do keep in mind that last sentence from Ms Massey.

Ms Massey started a second thread --

Nikki Thompson Massey: "This is in my town. His wife is legal. He is an amazing man and is so respected in our community. His family and employees and church are devastated. Our town wants him back home. #bringjavihome"

Cristian Zamora Oliverio: "Then they should motivate him to LEGALIZE himself"

Patrick Ryan Benson: "Nikki Thompson Massey to bad! He should have thought abokut that before coming here illegally. Also that makes him a crook! I dont feel the least bit sorry for him! He knew the consequences when he decided to be a crook!"

Nikki Thompson Massey: "Patrick Ryan Benson not a crook. Holy cow. Disgusting and judgmental is what you are. He’s a good man"

Nikki Thompson Massey: "Cristian Zamora Oliverio read the article."

me: "We don't care about you intellectually dishonest virtue signaling and emoting and attempts at shaming us."

Richard Storey: "Everyone just be nice. Let’s don’t get into name calling or degrading. I believe Nikki, is far from liberal, but she has a direct tie to this. There are arguments both ways. This is a tough situation. He may be well liked and a really great person. I’m just curious why it took 18 years to try and do something. Maybe I missed that in the article. The problem I see is that we can’t really start making exceptions. If we are against illegal immigration, then we have to be against all of it’. I think this could have been handled differently, but that was up the human handling his hearing."

me: "And I don't have time for surrender to leftism."

I expect that that is the last interaction I will have with Mr Storey.

Notice, Gentle Reader, it is *only* Ms Massey who is "get[ing] into name calling or degrading".

The other men (one himself with an "Hispanic" name) are responding very mildly to her provocations. I am treating her as the equal she pretends to be ... when it suits her ... and calling her behavior exactly what it is.

There are no "arguments both ways". There is American law, and there is the flouting of it. It is a "tough situation" because Javy and Alicia Adin *chose* to violate and flout US law.

And, no, it can't be handled any other way, for any other way would be "making exceptions" to US law.

Society .... and Theocracy!

This post is commentary on this Twitter 'rant', the full text of which can be found here

"In other words, gender is a philosophical/religious concept like the idea of the soul and, perhaps more to the point, soul mates. Can you prove that people have a soul?"

Perhaps he misunderstands what 'to prove' means.

But, yes: depending on what we mean by the term 'soul', I can indeed prove that "people have a soul".

As for "soul mates" ... pffft: that idea is frass for shallow women (and womanly men).

"Not scientifically."

Ah, yes. He has no idea what 'to prove' means.

"If Twitter forces me to do the same, they are engaging in anti-religious bullying--harassing those who reject the new, hip orthodoxy. And if the state hops in, well, that's just flat out theocratic tyranny."

All societies, and all states, are theocracies. The question is not whether, but which --

The question is not "Shall we organize-and-dedicate our society around some religion, aimed (however imperfectly) at some god, and enforce that dedication at some degree or other?" Rather, the question is "Around *which* religion, aimed (however imperfectly) at *which* god, shall we organize-and-dedicate our society; and to what degree shall we enforce that dedication?"

"We normally recognize that organizing society around unprovable philosophical/religious concepts is a recipe for disaster"

All societies, and all states, are "organiz[ed ...] around [allegedly] unprovable philosophical/religious concepts". They are called "unprovable" because many influential people, and perhaps most people, don't want to know the truth about reality.

"But the Selma-envy-riddled youngsters want to play both sides in their civil rights movement LARPing. They want to be the heroes on the right side of history. And they also want to be the guys controlling the firehoses."

That's a good way of putting it.

"All of this is a gentle reminder that:

1. Leftists only value free speech as a tool, not as a concept. Once they've used the free speech tool to assume positions of power, they will burn it lest anyone else use it to take that position away from them."

Until people learn this to their bones, the leftists will always be able to hoodwink them -- with their own cooperation.

"2. When people imagine Christianity to be foolish and cruel, the religions they invent to replace it are a thousand times stupider and more oppressive."

That's because ALL societies, and ALL states are theocracies.

Christianity is a set of sects aimed (however imperfectly) at the One God, the Way, the Truth and the Life, the Sovereign Judge of Mankind. Thus, there are limits to the injustices, and simple social mistakes, that a Christianized society or state can make.

Once a society or state has become Christianized, the organizing religious impulse of that society or state can be replaced only by an explicitly anti-Christian religion. And an anti-Christian religion has *no* limit to the injustice it will impose upon the human beings within its grasp.

As I keep pointing out ...

... this guy is a fool (*): William Vallicella: Are Atheists Vincibly Ignorant?

The answer to his title question is, "Yes". Similarly, the answer to the question, "Is William Vallicella morally culpable for his constant denials that God-deniers are morally culpable for their God-denial?" is also "Yes".

It can be shown, thus *known*, via reason -- and without appeal to any purported divine revelation -- that God is. Therefore, as St Paul says, and Vallicella disputes, God-deniers are "without excuse"; that is, according both to reason-without-revelation and to the Christian Revelation, God-deniers are morally culpable for their refusal to gratefully acknowledge the reality of God.

There is a *reason* that -- when they think is safe-and-expedient to do so -- God-deniers assert such absurdities as:
* no (purported) truth can be known to be true (nor, for that matter, false);
* there is no such thing as 'right' and 'wrong';
* there is no such thing as 'free-will';
* there is no such thing as 'moral responsibility/culpability';
* 'consciousness' is an illusion/delusion;
* the 'self' is an illusion/delusion;

The reason that God-deniers assert the above absurdities, and many others besides, is because they follow, logically and inescapably, from the assertion that "God is not".

Since the logical entailments of the assertion/proposition that "God is not" are absurd, we *know* that the proposition that "God is not" is itself absurd, which is to say, false. Since we know that the proposition that "God is not" is absurd-and-false, we therefore know that its denial, the proposition that "God is", is true.


(*)Once again, the word 'fool' does not mean "stupid" or "idiot", it means "one who knowingly/willingly acts as though he were stupid" concerning some issue or other; it means "intellectually dishonest".

Sovereignty ... or Not!

FrontPage Mag: THE MIGRANT CARAVAN INVASION

In typical leftist fashion, the leftists and Democrats (but I repeat myself) are using these people's *lives* as fodder for their political agendas of:
1) destroying the Trump Administration in the short-term; and,
2) destroying the USA in the longer-term. As they imagine it, they win no matter what happens.

There are really only two possible responses to this invasion, with three possible outcomes, the first two of which are "wins" for the leftists; the leftists and Democrats have convinced themselves that the third possible outcome cannot happen --

1) The Administration huffs and puffs, and the "migrants" call their bluff, and because it was nothing but huffing and puffing, the Administration does nothing to protect and enforce the sovereignty of the USA; the "migrants" continue their invasion.

The upshot of this is that *as a practical matter* the USA ceases to exist as a sovereign state -- a "win" for the leftists -- and, baring a successful War of Independence 2.0 by the American people themselves, we are swamped by further foreign invasion, until we no longer exist as a people.

2) The Administration is serious about protecting and enforcing the sovereignty of the USA, and so uses lethal force to stop this invasion -- killing as many of the invaders as necessary, irrespective of sex or age; the leftists and Democrats cry crocodile tears over the deaths of people they *intentionally* set up to be killed.

2a) If this is what happens, the Democrats believe that can parley those deaths into mass domestic outrage at the "crime" of killing "defenseless" invaders, and thus bring down the Trump Administration. If they are successful, this also spells the end of the USA, just slower that in scenario 1).

--- The (sub) scenario which the leftists and Democrats believe will not happen is this:

2b) The leftists and Democrats cry their crocodile tears over the deaths of people they *intentionally* set up to be killed ... and, rather than stirring outrage at our own government, the American People reply: "Go to Hell, Commies!" If this (sub) scenario plays out, America may yet survive.

That Guy, Over There!

When you think about it, the Democrats have *always* been the party of "If you vote to give me control of the government, I'll use governmental force-and-violence to take the wealth of that guy over there and give it to you", on the one hand, and "If you promise to use governmental force-and-violence to take the wealth of that guy over there and give it to me, I'll vote to give you control of the government", on the other.

The mordantly amusing thing about Democrat voters is that they *never* figure out that *they* are some other Democrat voter's "that guy over there".

The Senate ... and The Constitution!

O.M.G. ... the US Constitution *forbids* an Amendment to create "proportional representation" in the Senate.

One may recall that the one of the drums the leftists are pounding is about how "unfair" and "undemocratic" it is that North Dakota has equal weight in the Senate with California and New York; and that they seem to imagine that they can "fix" this "problem" by decree. To which many on the right have responded to the effect that, "No, you can't do it by decree ... but you're welcome to try to amend the Constitution to get the result you desire."

Well, it turns out that the US Constitution forbids such an amendment --

ARTICLE V: The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

Again: "The Congress ... [may] propose Amendments to this Constitution, ... Provided ...that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate"

So, it wouldn't be enough that California and New York might agree to deprive North Dakota of its equal vote in the Senate; North Dakota would have to explicitly agree to deprive itself of this fundamental equality as a Sovereign State of the Union.

h/t Francis W. Porretto at Liberty's Torch

The presence of that clause in Article V, the Amendment Article, excludes the equal representation of the [S]tates in the Senate from the possibility of amendment. This is beyond dispute. The Senate, in other words, was created to guarantee that each [S]tate would have a voice in the Senate equal to any other [S]tate. The electoral system for choosing a president reinforces this oft-neglected aspect of the Constitution: it was intended to protect the small [S]tates from abuses perpetrated by the large ones.

The phrase “checks and balances” should come to mind at this point. My Gentle Readers have no doubt been muttering that phrase for some time already. Lesser intellects might consider suing their civics teachers.

The Framers knew full well what they were doing. The very last passage of the Constitution emphasizes the importance of the [S]tates as elements in the Constitutional design:

ARTICLE VII: The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

The Constitution was conceived and ratified as a compact among the [S]tates. The [S]tates retained nearly complete internal sovereignty. Their equal representation in the Senate was intended, in part, to preserve that sovereignty, the exclusions in Article I, Section 10 being the sole exceptions. This aspect of the Constitution’s design is sometimes cited as an argument for a [S]tate’s power to nullify federal laws on the grounds of federal overreach.

The federal government has done many unConstitutional and extra-Constitutional things since the Wilson Administration. Some of them have been undeniable encroachments on [S]tate sovereignty. (Where, for example, is Congress given the power to legislate a federal penal code? But that’s a subject for another day.) This latest talk - of amending a part of the Constitution explicitly protected against amendment! - merely indicates how far Americans’ knowledge of the deliberately designed-in features of our Union has slipped.

ps: Repeal the 17th Amendment!

#MeToo and the so-called "complexity" of women

Letters to Hannah: #MeToo and the so-called "complexity" of women

When a woman is "complex" it's because she can't [i.e. "won't"] make a decision. She allows her mind to be clouded with alternate proposals, unsolved problems and the-best-of-both-worlds dreaming; and, incapable of resolving herself to the best real-world possibility, consigns herself to a world of constant frustration -- a state of irrational paralysis which they then call "complexity." ("Does this dress make me look fat?") The man weighs all and picks some. A crazy woman weighs all, gets some, and then wonders why she can't have the rest. She's complex because she hasn't thought it all out. The options she whines about are the ones she forgot [i.e. "refused"] to cross off [as being incompatible with the choice she did make].

This theory, I think, is the best explanation for feminism. That women want to look competitive -- but need quotas to compete with men. That they want to have careers -- and also raise children. That they want to flaunt their sexuality -- but can't handle objectification. That they want to look strong -- but need special defense against rape. That they all want to be sexy -- but can't handle standards on sexiness. That they can't make decisions when drinking -- but should still be allowed to buy drinks. That they need paid maternal leave -- but that everyone should consider them equally efficient. That a woman is trustworthy -- but that contracts and judges and juries are necessary to protect women from the mendacity of women. Each pair of interests proving, on some level, that no matter how many times you tell a child you can't have your cake and eat it too, some of them are too stupid to believe it.

Of course, women are irrational as described above because *men* act as "enablers" for their irrationality. It's not that women are innately more irrational than men; it's that until their irrationality gets to epic proportions, such as, I don't know, murdering their own children, there is always some damned man running interference, making excuses, blaming other men, and so on. And, of course, these days, not even murdering their own children is epic enough irrationality that there won't be some God-damned man making excuses, and blaming other men for her sin and crime ... when, in fact, is is he and his ilk who have taught her that there are never to be any consequences to anything that she does.

The One True Bureaucracy ... and Celibacy!

From the comments of K T Cat's post concerning recent revelations about the Lavender Mafia within the bureaucracy of the Roman denomination (here "Catholic Arguments Against A Celibate Priesthood") --

K T Cat: "Tim, I'm sure the requirement for celibacy is rooted in logic and derived from some solid first principles. Everything in Catholicism is."

I'll explain it to you --

1) it is a natural aspect of the psychology of (normal) human males to put the interests of his group ahead of his own interests, even to the point of sacrificing his life for the group;

2) when a (normal) man is married, his primary group naturally becomes his wife and children;

3) the bureaucrats of The One True Bureaucracy -- which base their absurd claim to universal dominion over the souls of mankind upon a deliberate mis-reading of a single verse -- require its priests to be unmarried for much the same reason that generals (and street-gang thugs) would rather their soldiers be young and unattached: it's far easier to turn that natural masculine instinct to serving *your* ends if there isn't a woman (and children) mucking things up.

============
lee: "Having been part of another religion with married clergy, there is no bigger pain in the backside, them and their family."

Yes, there is that, too.

============
============
Please understand, above I am explaining why the Roman denomination settled on a demand of celibacy of its priests; I am neither praising nor condemning the decision.

On 'Morality' absent Biblical religion

K T Cat: Biology, Morality And Religion

It's all horrible, but is it wrong? That's the question I wrestled with as I listened. Putting myself in their shoes, where their gods and goddesses are nothing more than good luck charms and their morality is derived from satisfying biological urges, why is any of it wrong?

Therein lies the problem for those who claim that atheism can produce a moral code equal or superior to Christianity. You might be able to do it in the faculty lounge, which I doubt, but you certainly can't do it with the general public. You can't answer the simple question that all moral codes must address: Why shouldn't I satisfy my biological urges?

Modern 'atheism' -- which is to say, the God-denialism which is grounded in rejection and/or hatred of Christianity -- and the various paganisms of the ancient world share the same foundational metaphysics, so it's to be expected that their 'morality' will be similar.

The One True Bureaucracy rides again

BBC: Pope Francis declares death penalty inadmissible in all cases

To quote Ian Bibby on Facebook: "Pope Francis declares Catholic teaching to be fallible on matters of ancient Catholic doctrine, and therefore denies his own authority and the legitimacy of the Catholic church itself."

For the past few years (and especially since Francis was elected), I've been telling online Catholic friends -- especially the ones who like to blame leftism and related social ills on the Reformation -- that the day was coming when they'd have to choose between fidelity to The One True Bureaucracy and fidelity to Christ. That day has come closer.

Sync

An interesting (and well-made) science fiction movie --

YouTube video: Sync

The concept of the "singularity" is, among other things, an expression of scientism and atheistic religiosity. Which is to say, it's laughable rubbish; nevertheless, and keeping in mind that nothing like this *can* happen, it is an entertaining movie.

It never is ...

YouTube video: It's not about the nail

Two Options Only

Hilary White (What Is Up With The Synod?): The smiling executioner: when death becomes an obligation

And here we are, 20 years later, and a court has ruled that although his parents have permission to take Alfie Evans home, he is still being effectively held prisoner, refused medical care for his still-undiagnosed condition, specifically in order to assure that he doesn’t live. The British medical system and courts have determined that Alfie has to die because of the working assumption that death is preferable to life for disabled people.

When my friends email me to tell me how they feel about it and say things like, “I can’t fathom this,” all I can think or say is, “I can.” For those who are horrified and perplexed and baffled by what is happening to Alfie Evans (and to Charlie Gard before him) I can certainly empathise. But I can say that I’m not perplexed or baffled. This is the only possible destination of the path we’ve been on for a long time. This is where we had to go.

Exactly.

Such things are only the beginning of the horrors to come in the nations formerly known as 'Christendom', because they have collectively turned their backs on Christ.

There is always a "god of the system"; there is *always* an organizing metaphysical basis to a society -- i.e. a "religion" which determines what may and may not be done. And since the nations formerly known as 'Christendom' have collectively turned their backs on Christ, and have rejected the foundation on which they were built, the only alternative "god of the system" is necessarily demonic.

There is no going back to the "innocent paganism" (as CS Lewis once called it) of the ancients. Christ has come, and he has ended that that particular ignorance (and 'ignorance' is, after all, what 'innocence' means): the only options left to our nations are:
1) Christ, and life;
2) the Pit, and death.

God Will Supply the Lamb

This post is about a new-to-me insight concerning the Sacrifice of Isaac and the Sacrifice of Christ. I certainly am not saying that no one has ever expressed this thought before, but rather that I have never heard/encountered it before it came to me (due to a phrase in a song).

I expect that most of the one readers of my little blog are familiar with the idea that the Sacrifice of Isaac is a 'type' of the Sacrifice of Christ (which is the 'architype'). Here is another aspect of that --

Recall, after Abraham passes the test God had set him, how his earlier answer to Isaac concerning the sacrifice was fulfilled:

And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

In the ancient Near East, and consequently throughout the Bible, an animal's horns represent strength and power, and by extension, authority and kingship.

So, the ram was able to be made a fitting sacrifice because he was held in the thicket by his strength and power.

Similarly, Christ, the Lamb of God, was able to be made a fitting sacrifice because he was held in the thicket of our sins by his strength and power, by his authority and kingship.

No man taketh it [my life] from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

That's why we have to brick-up the window

Douglas Wilson: Don’t Waste Your White Privilege

To change the metaphor, it does not matter how you rearrange the classroom, whenever you are done, somebody’s desk will be closest to the window.

This is *why* -- when it's not merely camouflage for leftists' own attempted power-grab -- Cultural Marxism (i.e. "social justice") is all about destroying what is, whatever it is that is.

Problem ... Solution

Problem ... Letters to Hannah: The wages of sin

I think I now (finally) understand why Mr Egerer has rejected Christianity; and it turns out to be the most common of reasons.

Solution ... Blog and Mablog: Complicity and the Christ

Pi and Tau interpreted as music

Pi interpreted as music

Tau interpreted as music

Feser on Radical Skepticism

... and as relates to same-sex mirage --

Edward Feser (2015): Marriage and The Matrix

On "a perfect self-aware digital copy of you"

An exchange on Facebook:

Person A: "Black Mirror is a cool series, but at this point I think I can safely say that it is over-reliant on the "What if they could make a perfect self-aware digital copy of you?" plot device."

Person B: "I agree but history will probably see it as a cautionary tale."

Person Me: "How can the impossible be a cautionary tale?"

Person B: "1984 was also thought to be impossible."

And my further response --

There is nothing logically impossible about '1984' -- and, in fact, it was happening under leftist regimes even as the story was being composed. So, if it was "thought impossible", it was thought so only by those who declined to think logically and reasonably about human beings.

On the other hand, it is logically impossible for a computer program to be self-aware, to be a *self* in the first place (*). Further, even if that weren't logically impossible, it would be a further impossibility for such a program to be a self-aware digital copy of a person/self (**). So, if a computer-program-as-a-self is thought to be possible, it is thought so only by those who decline to think logically and reasonably about persons and about computers.

(*) A computer, I mean the physical machine distinct from its programming, is no more capable of "hosting" a self than an abacus is; for, a computer *is* an abacus, very complex to be sure, but an abacus nonetheless, and nothing more. Meanwhile, a computer program is just a physical *representation* of *one* possible set of deterministic cause-and-effect transformations upon some possible data set or sets. If no data input is given to a program, no data output can be generated by the program.

(**) The so-called "perfect self-aware digital copy of you" would merely be *data* for such a program to read and perform operations/transformations upon; that is, it would be mere *representations* of certain facts about your and your history (and not any actual facts at all), used as input to such a program. That program, executing on that computer, reading *your* data, would no more be you (nor a copy of you) than a minute later that some program, executing on that same computer, reading *my* data, would be me (or a copy of me). Put another way, printing that data into a book does not cause the book to be a person (much less to be you). no matter how quickly someone flips the pages.

On "Racial Reconciliation Services"

Rev Sam Murrell of Little Rock, AR: Why I No Longer Participate in Racial Reconciliation Services

Rev Murrell makes a very important point, a very Christian point; it is well worth one's time to read the piece.

However, he's just wrong when he says that 'races' -- in the sense that that word has been commonly used since the 18th or 19th century to refer to the broad geographical/continental origins of human lineages -- don't exist. If this common claim were true, then he couldn't use the terms 'blacks' and 'American blacks', as he does, and expect to be understood.

Despite that this is the way it is most frequently used anymore, the English word 'race' does not refer primarily to the broad geographical/continental origins of human lineages; often referred to as "skin color", despite that skin tone is but one of the characteristics in the set which distinguishes this 'race' from that 'race'. Rather, 'race' refers to the many and various ways that one may use sets of common characteristics to group entities into groups distinguishable from other similar groups so distinguished. You will notice that I said 'entities' and not 'organisms'; this is because the word 'race', strictly speaking, is not about biology.

Thus, once upon a time (i.e. before race-mongering was "a thing"), people might at times speak of "the race of fish-mongers". The term, "the race of fish-mongers", refers to all those persons (generally girls and women in times past) who sold seafood (generally caught by their own husbands, brothers and sons) to other persons. For the most part, the persons who comprise "the race of fish-mongers" are biologically related to one another only in the broad sense that they are all members of the larger and all-encompassing race of the "human race".

Similarly, when Darwin named his unreadable tome, "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life", while he certainly had biological organisms in mind, he was not speaking of the "skin color" of human beings. That was a different of Darwin's books, "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex", which, incidentally, gave the "scientific" imprimatur to what we now denote as ‘racism’.

Just like the last 17 times

Sultan Knish: Government Shuts Down, Nation Descends into Riots, Looting and Cannibalism

What these "government shutdowns" that the Democrats periodically cause demonstrate is that the only *need* we Americans have for the federal government is that it do the things the Constitutions requires it to do and for which it was created in the first place. You, know, the very things that the Democrats sabotage at every opportunity.

Sinfonity -- Guitar as Classical Orchestra

YouTube video: Johann Sebastian Bach; Toccata & Fugue in Dm, by Sinfonity

It doesn't always work so well as this. For instance, while their rendition of Vivaldi's Four Seasons is perhaps unique, and certainly interesting, it's not quite the same as a performance by an orchestra. At the same time, if I were familiar with this Bach piece, perhaps I'd also think that their rendition sounds a bit ... hollow(?), as the Vivaldi performance does to me.

By way of comparison, here is Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor performed on the organ.

The Road to Hell ...

Or, to be more precise, the road to *your* hell is paved with leftists' intentions.

One 'Yuri Dieujuste' in this Facebook thread --

It gets into the fun question of wether the Anglo settler colonies that became the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand* are extensions of their former motherland and should only be open to those people, or places that once they opened their doors to other people became settler colonies for the entire world to create a new culture from what was left of the aboriginal people, the original settlers, and those that followed.

*You can even open this to say, South American countries that played a similar role such as Chile, Argentina, and Brazil...

Mr Dieujuste is incensed that anyone would describe his ancestral country, Haiti, as a 'shithole', whether or not anyone actually did, and even though it is quite literally that. It's clear to me from exchanges with him over the past few days that whether he was born in America, and whether he holds US citizenship, he is not actually an American, for his loyalty is not to America. And, he subscribes at least to the leftist lie that America is racist and oppressive to "people of color".

He is an ingrate.

On the plus side, he hasn't so far resorted to the spittal-flecked rage that typifies white leftists.

There is *always* a god of the system

Douglas Wilson: A Primer on Theocracies

First, theocracy is inescapable. Every society is theocratic, every society has a god of the system. The ethical expectations governing the members of that society are generated by the god of the system, and dissenters are clubbed in accordance with the divine will. In Islamic republics, this god is Allah, in secular democracies it is Demos, in Alabama it is Football. There is no such thing as a society with the great god Vacuum at the top. Any society that had no arche to hold it together would—for that reason—not hold together. Every society has an ultimate point of cohesion, and that point of cohesion, whatever it is, necessarily has religious value.

Second, working the other way, every social value has to be grounded (or not), justified (or not), in a worldview. If Christians commend a certain course of action to the larger society, and that larger society stares back at us and asks why, what do we say in response? All the ultimate ethical answers to questions that a society faces are answers that have to answer the two basic worldview questions—why? and who says? Societies don’t get to say, “just because.”

Third, we certainly have to deal with the popular connotations of the word theocracy, the sense of the word that Moore assumes throughout his article. By theocracy he means evil theocracies, with everything being made worse because it is being done in the name of God. ...

And fourth, we must carefully distinguish theocracy, which is inescapable, from ecclesiocracy, rule by clerics, which is entirely escapable, and which should be escaped. In a Christian republic, the church would be a separate and distinct institution from the state. But the separation of church and state (an honored Christian position) is not the same thing as separating God and state, or morality and state, or ultimate questions from state. When you do that, for the sake of combating evil ecclesiocracies, you create a situation where we can no longer ban abortion mills on the basis of something that God said to Moses. This is because Agnosticism is now the official religion, and who’s to say? So when we remove a word from God, we are on our own. And when we go out on our own . . . well, fifty million and counting.

"Agnosticism is now the official religion ..." and the god of Agnosticism appears to be the great god O, and the sacrifice demanded by O is babies.


Edit 2018/01/16 --
Douglas Wilson: Like a Dog Chasing a Firetruck

Edit 2018/01/18 --
Douglas Wilson: Theocracy and the Tijuana Brass

The made-up pronoun game

All the recent made-up pronouns, just like all the recent made-up "genders" -- and the on-going efforts to criminalize the refusal of sane persons to go along with it -- are leftist passive-aggressive assertions, heavy on the aggression, of power over the language, thoughts, and minds of others.

In a recent post, Who needs truth?, Vox Day quotes from a Washington Post article, including this snippet

To Haidt’s point, a scandal erupted in the fall in Canada when Lindsay Shepherd, a graduate teaching assistant for an introductory communications course at Wilfrid Laurier University, played a video clip in which Jordan Peterson, a controversial professor, declared his refusal to address trans students by their preferred gender-neutral pronouns.

The thing to which I wish to draw Gentle Reader's attention is the fact that even if one insanely agrees to go along with the leftist power-play scam, one does not *address* another person by any of these made-up pronouns. In English, the pronouns by which one *addresses* other persons are either the second person singular ('you') or the second person plural ('you') ... both or which are, as one can clearly see, already and intrinsically "gender-neutral pronouns".

Even centuries ago, when English did still have multiple second person pronouns, those pronouns were already "gender-neutral"; the distinctions they drew were not between sex, but between number on the one hand, and social status -- formality vs familiarity -- on the other.

The struggle is real

Wilbur Hassenfus observes at Dalrock's blog:

[UMC] Bishop [sic] Oliveto deserves a lot of credit. In the old days, bishops used to struggle to be more like Christ, but now Christ is apparently struggling — with, to His credit, some qualified success — to be more like her.

These are the kind of improvements you see when you put women in charge of your institution. Very impressive!

The observation is a comment about this -- PJMedia: Lesbian Bishop [sic] Calls Jesus a Bigot

United Methodist Church bishop [sic] Dr. Karen Oliveto is not only a lesbian, she also believes (and publicly teaches) that Jesus was a bigot filled with prejudices. She does say that Jesus grew and changed, and that’s her point. Bishop [sic] Oliveto admonishes, “If Jesus can change, if he can give up his bigotries and prejudices, if he can realize that he had made his life too small, and if, in this realization, he grew closer to others and closer to God, than so can we.”

The struggle which is real is, of course, the same old one it has always been -- to plant one's own ass on God's throne.

Living In A Madhouse

K T Cat: Living In A Madhouse