On this Labor day I talk about a something many who labored hard in the past dreamed of
Only people who have no grasp of history fail to appreciate it.
On this Labor day I talk about a something many who labored hard in the past dreamed of
Only people who have no grasp of history fail to appreciate it.
As a general rule anything John Hawkins writes is worth checking out so when he mentioned that he has a new substack focusing on the culture wars called Cultursidal and asked if I’d mention it I immediately checked it out.
As you might guess there are interesting pieces but what caught my eye the most is this from the
“about” page:
Andrew Breitbart was absolutely right when he said that “politics is downstream from culture.” However, Breitbart didn’t go nearly far enough. In one sense or another, almost everything that matters is downstream from culture. That’s because a non-functional culture produces non-functional people. The sort of people who create disastrous, broken lives for themselves and then demand that the rest of the world change to accommodate their bad decisions. Go look at #BlackLivesMatter, ANTIFA, Incels, transsexuals, drag queens, furries, welfare addicts, modern feminists, Nazis, and any number of other groups and you’ll see people who are losers that want to rewrite the rules of the game to make themselves winners. It would be easy to blame society for their problems, but that’s not quite accurate. They largely created their own problems and society is at fault to the extent that it cruelly caters to their delusions instead of pointing them in the right direction.
As both a cultural warrior who has been told more times than he can count by people supposedly on my side who make their living off of public office & power that my concerns over the last three decades that fighting said wars were overstated and as a practicing Catholic who actually believes in the faith and worried about the salvation of individuals this is one of the best summaries of what is going on.
Why bother to achieve in reality when you can redefine achievement? Why bother struggling against sin when you can redefine sin? It’s literally the oldest trick in the book: you will be like gods and the Devil has been taking people with it for decades?
This alone tells me that John gets it and it’s the reason why I’m happy to interrupt this blog long enough to tell you to head on over and check out Culturcidal today and on a regular basis.
You won’t regret it.
You don’t really understand the costs of a Post Christian society until it arrives here are a few thoughts on the subject.
The scientific community was once one of the most trusted communities in the country, because it was based on the process of observation, theory experimentation and results, that is truth. This is a Christian basic principle:
You will know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
John 8:32.
But once “science” became all about pleasing the money men or advancing an ideology, truth was not a goal and once that was recognized trust in scientific institutions disappeared.
Haven’t you ever wondered why so many totalitarian counties were behind scientifically or needed to steal secrets from the west? When truth is suborned to fear it’s hard to generate accurate results.
One of the most critical principles of Christianity is equality before God and equality before the law You shall not act dishonestly in rendering judgment. Show neither partiality to the weak nor deference to the mighty, but judge your fellow men justly. Leviticus 19:15 That was a radical idea when God gave this law to Moses and it was of the things that Jesus called out the Pharisees for:
The scribes and the Pharisees have taken their seat on the chair of Moses. Therefore, do and observe all things whatsoever they tell you, but do not follow their example. For they preach but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens (hard to carry) and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they will not lift a finger to move them.
Matt 23:2-4
The blatant double standards we have seen from Hunter Biden and his “Art” sales , to official flaunting the lockdown & mask rules they foist on others, to the treatment of rioters who burn cities vs those who sit on desks and take laptops enrages people. Furthermore the unwillingness to allow those who wish to actually enforce the law as written to do so in cities has led to the exodus of police and the turning of parts of those cities into ‘no go” zones.
The idea that an American could not walk safely in an American city is a concept that was so foreign in my youth that the tolerance of such things today completely puzzles me.
One of the basic principles of Judeo-Christian culture is the caring for others as yourself both in the Old Testament:
You shall not go about spreading slander among your kinsmen; nor shall you stand by idly when your neighbor’s life is at stake. I am the LORD.
Leviticus 19:16
And the New
One of the scribes, when he came forward and heard them disputing and saw how well he had answered them, asked him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied, “The first is this: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.“
Mark 12:28-31.
However the Marxist left biggest goals have been to divide us. Punish those who protect their neighbor, allow people to rob and steal. The good one one race isn’t the good of another. The law of one race is not the law of another. The damage this has caused is self evident, yet the realization that the reason this has been so easily accomplished has been the withdrawal of Christian principles of society is not. Nothing better illustrates the bankruptcy of a society then when we decided it was licit and even proper to not lift a finger when other is beaten before us.
The audits have been the best example of another Christian Principle that has been completely suborned:
A good tree does not bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit. For every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thornbushes, nor do they gather grapes from brambles.
Luke 6:43-44
Our friends on the left insist that the last election was on the up and up but then do all they can to suppress not only the audits of these count and ballots, audits that would supposedly verify their claims, but suppress any that might question then online, why because the truth is not valued. Their reaction and the “Cancel Culture they promote” is no different than the reaction of the crowd to St. Stephen, the 1st of the Martyrs who called out his accusers by their own history and they killed him for it:
But they cried out in a loud voice, covered their ears, and rushed upon him together. They threw him out of the city, and began to stone him. The witnesses laid down their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul. As they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them”; and when he said this, he fell asleep.
Acts 7:57-60.
They are creating digital Martyrs although we have not yet reached the point where they are killing us, well except for Ashli Babbitt whose name must not be mentioned by media but whose mother got a standing ovation at yesterday’s Trump rally.
I suspect this martyrdom will have the same results on the voting community as the church’s martyrs did on the spread of Christianity.
Finally the most destructive of these things has had it seeds planted for the last several decades, the denial of the value of Fatherhood and of discipline:
Besides this, we have had our earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not (then) submit all the more to the Father of spirits and live? They disciplined us for a short time as seemed right to them, but he does so for our benefit, in order that we may share his holiness. At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it
Hebrews 12:9-11
And instead we gave trophies to those wo did not achieve, we indulged when we should not have and we refused to say no. We were warned of the fruits of this in scripture as well:
He who spoils his son will have wounds to bandage, and will quake inwardly at every outcry. A colt untamed turns out stubborn; a son left to himself grows up unruly. Pamper your child and he will be a terror for you, indulge him and he will bring you grief. Share not in his frivolity lest you share in his sorrow, when finally your teeth are clenched in remorse. Give him not his own way in his youth, and close not your eyes to his follies.
Sirach 30: 7-11
The result, we are not only at the point where are children are unsure of what they are, afraid of everything, led like sheep but even worse we are actually giving these kids the right to decide on destructive surgery that will scar them forever and going after their parents if they object!
All of this comes from the rejection of God, the idea that there is nothing greater than themselves and what they feel at any given moment. This is ironically but not surprisingly the very 1st temptation of the Devil to mankind:
But the serpent said to the woman: “You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad.”
Genesis 3:4-5
It is the primary lie that those who for years told us not to make the cultural fight to protect their own advancement that got us here. Jesus knew these types implicitly & called them out:
Why do you not understand what I am saying? Because you cannot bear to hear my word. You belong to your father the devil and you willingly carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies.
John 8:43-44
The saying goes when you don’t believe in God you’ll believe in anything from people being able to change their sex and gender at will to dark magic as a solution to problems
This was the endgame, and it was always the endgame from the very start, but you couldn’t get to this endgame without creating a post Christian society.
Saw this at Don Surber’s site this morning on the assignation of the president of Haiti:
Why do I get the feeling the Clintons and their fake foundation are entangled in this mess?
Maybe it wasn’t an assassination.
Maybe it was Arkancide.
My best friend at work is a 70 year old Hattian man who is a naturalized citizen. When I asked him about the assassination last week he offered a similar opinion on what happened over there.
My first employer out of college was Raytheon and I worked there with secret clearance for three years during the climax of the cold war (until I opened my comic book store). now I’m thinking that I might want to take that off my resume after this:
ATTENTION EMPLOYEES, MOVE OUT OF THE WAY BY GETTING ANOTHER JOB NOW: Raytheon CRT Training: White Employees “must work on ‘recognizing [their] privilege’ and ‘step aside’ for minorities”.
The company will then go the way of every company that hires for reasons other than competence. And they deserve it.
As this is a defense contractor as long as the left has power their bottom line is not endangered but I’ll bet a lot of 80 year old Russian spies are wishing they had managed to pull this off 30 years earlier.
My favorite show when I was seven years old was the Richard Greene series The Adventures of Robin Hood which was televised on WMUR about 30 minutes before I had to wake up for school. While they had it on the air I never was late getting up.
I was reminded of the show or rather a particular line I saw this story out of Boston:
Judge William Young has just announced in court that he is withdrawing the Opinion he issued dismissing the case brought by a Boston parents group over the so-called Boston “Zip Code Quota Plan.” For background see our posts:
The key bit:
“This was my opinion, my signature’s on it, I was misled”
“The opinion is wrong, it’s wrong because the facts on which it was based … an opinion I issued under my signature is factually incorrect”
“I’m inclined to withdraw the opinion, I’ve never done that [before in 35 years]”
“I work very hard on my opinions, and this one’s no good.”
The clerk will enter the note: “The opinion entered in this case is withdrawn on the ground the court is satisfied it is factually inaccurate in certain material effects.”
Any judge appointed in Massachusetts over the last 35 years is likely a liberal but a person of that age might not like the idea of their personal honor being tarnished. In the old days even a villains didn’t want to be seen as breaking their word in public.
Give it a few years more and I’m sure the state with only those brought up woke to choose from will not have to worry about this problem again.
One of the things I constantly argue is that things will not change until there are consequences for the left, like this:
Anthony and Barbara Scarpo noted how the Academy of the Holy Names in Tampa even named its auditorium “Scarpo Family Theatre” after their huge pledge in 2017, saying they were helping it raise $9 million in total.
But now the parents want their money back — including tuition paid for their two daughters — in outrage at how the school turned its back on Catholicism to go “woke,” their 13-count, 45-page lawsuit claims.
The Scarpos claim they were betrayed by the school suddenly “embracing the new, politically correct, divisive and ‘woke’ culture where gender identity, human sexuality, and pregnancy termination among other ‘hot-button issues,’ took center stage,” the lawsuit said.
I couldn’t help but remember when my oldest had been offered a big scholarship at the Anna Maria College but when we visited it it turned out to be “Catholic” in name and fundraising only (although the president in response to my letter to the bishop claimed otherwise. Which thanks to this story turned into yesterday’s lead post twelve years later.
A lot of catholic institutions make a lot of money off of donors who don’t know that their Catholic identity is only visible when asking them for checks.
Finally I just got this link via email concerning Long Haul COVID-19 Syndrome (LHCS) a sample:
The Long Haul COVID-19 Syndrome (LHCS) is an often debilitating syndrome characterized by a multitude of symptoms such as prolonged malaise, headaches, generalized fatigue, sleep difficulties, smell disorder, decreased appetite, painful joints, dyspnea, chest pain and cognitive dysfunction. The incidence of symptoms after COVID-19 varies from as low as 10% to as high as 80%. LHCS is not only seen after the COVID-19 infection but it is being observed in some people that have received vaccines (likely due to monocyte activation by the spike protein from the vaccine). A puzzling feature of the LHCS syndrome is that it is not predicted by initial disease severity; post-COVID-19 frequently affects mild-to-moderate cases and younger adults that did not require respiratory support or intensive care.
The symptom set of LHCS in the majority of cases is very similar to the chronic inflammatory response syndrome (CIRS)/myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, although in LHCS, symptoms tend to improve slowly in the majority of the cases. Furthermore, the similarity between the mast cell activation syndrome and LHCS has been observed, and many consider post-COVID-19 to be a variant of the mast cell activation syndrome. LHCS is highly heterogenous and likely results from a variety of pathogenetic mechanisms. Furthermore, it is likely that delayed treatment (with ivermectin) in the early symptomatic phase will result in a high viral load, which increases the risk and severity of LHCS.
This describes what happened to my wife (who is still out of work since March and things are starting to get tight around here) perfectly. But I note that some people who have gotten this because of the vaccines.
Now I don’t blame the developers, these vaccines were done in a hurry because of the emergency and this was a new disease but it’s one more thing to consider when deciding if you want to get the shot or not.
Having already had COVID I don’t see the need myself, I’ve already got the antibodies.