Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog

Politics continues to infect every facet of American life, with Major League Baseball now chiming in on the “controversial” Georgia election law by removing its All Star Game and 2022 Draft from Atlanta. This comes just days after MLB announced a partnership with Chinese conglomerate Tencent. Apparently MLB is fine with doing business in China, where they systematically rape Uyghur women, and also fine with punishing fellow Americans in Georgia, where they require you show ID to vote. Just like they do in pretty much every other democracy in the world.

And most other European democracies ban mail-in ballots, too. Will MLB also be boycotting the Toronto Blue Jays? It’s always striking how the Left, which loves little more than to pine for European-style socialism, ignores European levelheadedness.

But that’s the state of things. Corporations continue to choose the woke Left’s call to politicize everything over middle America’s cry to shut up and play ball. Writer Roger Simon argues that it’s time for conservatives to build an alternate world, and there’s something to be said for that.  It’s unfortunate, because it further divides Americans when that’s the last thing we need, but to otherwise surrender to emotional bullying is likewise unacceptable.

Which makes what investor Balaji Srinivasan recently launched sort of interesting.  Srinivasan is the former Chief Technology Officer of major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, and a founder of multiple startups. He also holds a MS in Chemical Engineering and an MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering, all from Stanford University.

One of those guys.

But he recently launched a project called 1729, which he calls “the first newsletter that pays you.” And that’s what it is — a newsletter. Its goal is to create a “cloud community” of “technological progressives” — people interested in “cryptocurrencies, startup cities, mathematics, transhumanism, space travel, reversing aging, and initially-crazy-seeming-but-technologically-feasible ideas.” And with the newsletter, he provides incentives – typically, cryptocurrency, at least so far — for subscribers to achieve goals based around certain concepts, such as new business ideas, health-oriented goals, educational goals (subscribers could earn $100 in crypto by learning some computer coding).

It’s an interesting attempt at creating a unique community, and as the online and virtual worlds make remote or cloud communities possible, there will likely be more of them.

Worth keeping an eye on, perhaps especially as an example for conservatives.

At least, so long as the overlords allow it.

Today is Good Friday the single most solemn day in the Calendar of the church and one of only two days when the Holy Sacrifice of the mass is not celebrated.

It’s also the best example of the importance not making instant judgments.

Consider the situation. On Good Friday what would someday be called “Christianity” found it’s founder under arrest by the Jewish authorities and elders who where in charge of religious worship for the entire Jewish race. The primary officers had all fled, one killed himself and the leader of the group had publicly denied even knowing said leader multiple times. And if that wasn’t enough the single greatest power in the known world publicly had said leader executed and to put an exclamation point on it, had his tomb sealed and put a roman guard on it to make sure it stayed that way.

Any objective observer seeing this situation would naturally conclude that the small sect of followers of Jesus Christ would soon disperse back into the population and to their former lives expect perhaps for Matthew the tax collector , who was unlikely to get his former position back. He and they would be a footnote in history if he was remembered at all.

What a different a few days, and then a few years would make.

Within three days Christ would be alive and the tomb would be empty. Within two months the cowardly apostles of Christ would suddenly become fearless, defying the Jewish elders, escaping from prison and preaching all over the the place. Within several ,month Romans soldiers were being baptized. Within a year one of their greatest foes in Judaism would not only convert after Christ appeared to him but would travel throughout the Roman Empire spreading the faith even to Rome itself. Soon the man who denied Christ in public the day of his arrest would be leading the Church in Rome itself. Even when threatened with execution adherents would suffer death rather than renounce their faith. Within a few centuries the faith would be the official faith of the empire. It would spread education, medicine, and be the basis for western civilization and, in my opinion become, along with British Common Law the single most beneficial social change in the entire world.

No person seeing Christ pierced by a Roman lance with blood and water with his mother wailing at its foot would have anticipated this.

The lesson that is often taught from this is that the glory of Easter is always preceded by the horror of Good Friday.

And that brings us to Coke and Delta.

As you know by now Joe Biden is President of the United States. the Democrats hold, however tenuously the majority in both the house and the senate and are currently pushing their agenda. The left holds the media, the tech giants, people from Steven Crowder to Donald Trump are being pushed off platform after platform and the voices of the woke are being amplified.

So when Georgia which was unwilling to stop the steal in their state decided to pass a laws to make sure that elections are decided by actual votes rather than by magic ballot, the left took a fit and things being how they are they put pressure on companies.

Coke-cola’s CEO, based in Atlanta came out against the law, Delta Airlines spoke against it and now Major league Baseball is considering moving this years All Star Game from Atlanta.

Now if you think of the events of the last two months this might seem a rational move. The left currently has power, the right is being silenced, all the public media and platforms keep proclaiming their strength and power and with the brazen steal of the last election there is every reason to believe that the next one will be stolen as well.

These corporations as well as those on the right who have given into despair would do well to remember the lesson of Holy Week and Good Friday before they associate themselves with the left throwing away the tens of Millions of Trump votes who unlike the mythical Biden voters who cast their magic ballots in the dead of night when no one could see these people actually exist.

They should recall that conventional wisdom is always correct…right up until the moment it isn’t.

On Holy Thursday the first day of the Easter Triduum you might think that in the Catholic church the primary Gospel reading might concerning the Holy Eucharist even that this this is the day in which the Eucharist was inaugurated.

You would be wrong:

This is the Gospel reading on Holy Thursday every year taken directly from the site of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops:

.

Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father.
He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end. The devil had already induced Judas, son of Simon the Iscariot, to hand him over.

So, during supper, fully aware that the Father had put everything into his power and that he had come from God and was returning to God, he rose from supper and took off his outer garments. He took a towel and tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and dry them with the towel around his waist.

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, 
“Master, are you going to wash my feet?”
Jesus answered and said to him,
“What I am doing, you do not understand now, but you will understand later.”
Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.”
Jesus answered him, “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.”
Simon Peter said to him, 
“Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well.”
Jesus said to him, “Whoever has bathed has no need except to have his feet washed, for he is clean all over; so you are clean, but not all.”
For he knew who would betray him;
for this reason, he said, “Not all of you are clean.”

So when he had washed their feet 
and put his garments back on and reclined at table again, 
he said to them, “Do you realize what I have done for you?
You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’  and rightly so, for indeed I am.
If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, 
you ought to wash one another’s feet.
I have given you a model to follow, 
so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”

John 13 1-15

Notice that the focus of this entire gospel is the idea that it is the job of the disciples to serve. They are the princes of the church but their primary duty is to serve the people who they shall bring to the fold.

One may debate how successful they and their successors have been in this regard but there is no question that the primary job of the clergy from your local parish priest to the Bishop to the Cardinals and to the Holy Father is to be of service to the people to guide them to that narrow path of salvation.

In government this is much the same, particularly in a republic there is the idea that those in office are there to serve the people and not only those but them who are working in government bureaucracy. It is no accident that such people are called “Civil Servants”.

This is one of the reason why Donald Trump was such an effective president because the office actually cost him lots in terms of money and reputation yet the people did better socially and economically under him. As the book of Proverbs says:

By justice a king gives stability to the land; but he who imposes heavy taxes ruins it.

Proverbs 29:4

It’s is also why the deep state of the Bureaucracy and those who seek wealth power and prestige from office opposed him so. We have an administration that seems more concerned with the interested than with even the real people who voted for him or the state of the cities where Biden voters live. And you know what Proverbs talks about that too:

When the wicked prevail, crime increases; but their downfall the just will behold.

Proverbs 29:16

And that’s not even discussing the revolving door of wealth whose return is the main reason why the deep state wanted Trump out.

If one wants to get the idea of how this revolving door works I can’t think of a better example than this exchange from the Christmas Special of Yes Minister which became the pilot for the series “Yes Prime Minister” where the power Cabinet secretary Sir Arnold is talking to Sir Humphrey in a private meeting noting that he has decided to retire and is now considering who will be his successor:

Sir Arnold: You see, in this job, the problem isn’t really finding the answers it’s finding the questions. We need the man who can find the key question.

Sir Humphrey: By the way, Arnold, to change the subject completely, what will you be doing when you retire?

Sir Arnold: Ah, very good question! Very good question.

Sir Humphrey: It’s just that there might be jobs you could pick up, Er, ways you could serve the country, which your successor whoever he might be could put your way, er, persuade you to undertake!

Sir Arnold: Well I had been giving it some thought. Well as you know I’ll be chairman of the Banque Occidentale and there’ll be directorships of IBM and BP and that sort of thing. But I was thinking…

Sir Humphrey: Yes?
Sir Arnold: Well the Chairmanship of the Opera House trust will be coming up next year
Sir Humphrey: Chairman of Covent Garden…

Sir Arnold: And the chancellorship of Oxford.

Sir Humphrey: um hm
Sir Arnold: And then the deputy chairmanship of the Bank of England would be a…
Sir Humphrey: …A challenge?

Sir Arnold: A challenge, exactly. And head of the Security Commission. And the presidency of The Anglo-Caribbean Association would give one…
Sir Humphrey: …a chance to be of service.
Sir Arnold: Precisely! Especially during the winter months.
Sir Humphrey: Well I’m sure that any successor worth his salt could arrange these Arnold.
Sir Arnold: You think so? That’s very reassuring, very reassuring.

As you might guess Sir Humphrey gets the job. Later on in the show the sitting Prime minister also announces his retirement and at lunch Sir Arnold and Sir Humphrey are having lunch and the subject comes up that the two candidates within the party are both problematic as they might interfere by actually wanting to run the government:

Sir Arnold: So, will the new PM be our eminent Chancellor or our distinguished Foreign Secretary?

Sir Humphrey: Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Which do you think it should be?

Sir Arnold: Difficult. Like asking which lunatic should run the asylum.

Sir Humphrey: The Trouble is, they’re both interventionists they both have foolish notions of running the county themselves if they became Prime Minister.

Sir Arnold: Have we any allies?
Sir Humphrey: Quite a few, the Chief Whip particularly. And He’s worried that who gets the job will antagonize the other’s supporters and split the party.

Sir Arnold: So we’re looking for a compromise candidate.
Sir Humphrey: Hmm. Malleable.
Sir Arnold: Flexible.

Sir Humphrey: Likeable.
Sir Arnold: No firm opinions.

Sir Humphrey: No bright ideas.
Sir Arnold: Not intellectually committed.

Sir Humphrey: Without the strength of purpose to change anything.
Sir Arnold: Someone who can be manipulated, professionally guided.
Sir Humphrey: And leave the business of government in the hands of the experts.

At the end of that exchange they look at each other both thinking of the main character of the series: (Jim Hacker the minister of the department of administrative affairs and laugh uncontrollably) before deciding that’s it’s possible.

As I’ve given up Youtube for Lent I can’t imbed the video but I challenge you to find that scene online, watch it and not immediately seeing them thinking of Joe Biden as their man for the White House at that moment.