Why Civil War?

Mark Noonan37 Comments

Apropos the obvious decline of our nation and increasing polarization, the Civil War has been on a lot of people’s minds of late. But the current spasm of talk about it was generated by Nikki Haley giving an unacceptable answer about the cause of the Civil War. No matter what you might know, the “correct” answer is: slavery. Only slavery. Nothing but slavery. If you are a politician and you are asked what caused the Civil War, you are only permitted to answer, slavery.

Which is true as far as it goes. But it is more true to say that if there hadn’t been slavery, there would have been no Civil War. That is, if the slave system hadn’t produced a class of people running things there would not have been a class of people fearful of losing their position as slavery was shown to be grossly inefficient in addition to being morally wrong. What existed in America prior to, say, the 1840’s was a Ruling Class which was based in the South and had its wealth in land and slaves. Because they had the wealth, they had the power and though Northerners did get into office, the South dominated the Republic. Just take a look at the first 15 Presidents – all Southerners (with a fair number of slave owners) or Northerners dependent upon Southern influence. The reason Lincoln was such a watershed is because he came to power entirely without the South. While Lincoln got just under 40% of the total vote in 1860, his total in the North was a majority and in the upper North, a landslide win.

And therein lies the real reason for secession and Civil War. No matter how you sliced it, the American Republic was going to become ever more Northern in character as time went on. Mass immigration and natural increase was increasing Northern population at a phenomenal rate. But, more than that, the rise of an industrial North was leaving the South economically in the dust. The slave labor economy of the South simply could not compete with the North. There was no way for the Southern Ruling Class to remain in charge in the USA as a Southern Ruling Class. That class, or at least a substantial part of it, would have to make a deal with the rising North and become a subordinate part of a coalition which would ultimately be based on Northern money and political power (votes, eg). And any such deal with the North would mean an eventual extirpation of slavery. The Southern Ruling Class looked upon this and decided: we’re out.

Only in a Southern Confederacy could the Southern Ruling Class remain in charge. Only in such a Confederacy could a slave economy be maintained long term. Only in such a Confederacy could poor whites be kept out of power and wealth and thus dependent upon the Ruling Class. If you take a look at the early proponents of “State’s Rights” and secession what you won’t find is lots of poor, white farmers leading the way. It was an upper class thing marketed to the lower class – mostly by playing on racial fears. The Abolition Hordes were going to force your daughter to marry a black man! Even then, it didn’t really work too well with the poorest whites. Most Confederate soldiers were upper class, middle class or dependents of upper class people. There were large parts of the Confederacy where Confederate officials didn’t dare show their faces (mostly back country areas and especially from 1863 forward).

It is my view that all wars – every last one of them – is the result of someone wanting to steal something. You can look to economic factors, political factors, dynastic factors, etc, etc but what it really comes down to, when you really look at what started the fracas, it was always someone thinking they could steal on the cheap. A bit of fighting, get some loot, live in power and wealth. Nobody enters a conflict thinking its going to be a long, bloody slog with victory bought so dear as to be indistinguishable from defeat. They’re always certain it’ll be short and easy. And, sometimes, it is. Our war with Mexico did entail some hard fighting but in return for about 13,000 dead from all causes (and only about 2,500 battle deaths) the United States obtained 529,000 square miles of territory – and territory which has proven itself exceptionally valuable over time. You can look at this or that reason for the war but the bottom line is that we wanted Mexico’s land. We had our excuses for why it should come to us (most of the land we took only had a theoretical connection to Mexico based on previous Spanish colonial claims, themselves tenuous) but what we did not have was clear title to it. So, we just took it.

That is just how wars are. What the Confederate leaders wanted to do was steal power they couldn’t obtain by legal means – and, of course, to continue to steal the labor of black Americans. The only legal path to national power in the USA was via compromise with Northern interests increasingly hostile to slavery. But, if you could form a Confederacy – sort of steal half of America from itself – you could retain your dominance without any need for compromise. And that is what they did – the ground prepared by a decade of anti-Northern polemics and enacted so fast that Unionist sentiment had no real chance to coalesce in the South before the deed was done.

The crucial lesson here is to learn about people of power and position. Ruling Classes are always most keen about maintaining themselves. The British Ruling Class is probably the most successful – through all changes, it has kept itself in wealth and still exercises a great deal of power officially and unofficially. There will never be another hereditary Lord as Prime Minister (the last was Salisbury early in the 20th century), but they control large swaths of power. The Duke of Westminster is descended from a man who got himself knighted by James I in 1617…and he and his descendants just parlayed that into more and more until the current Duke is worth $9 billion. Think of all the changes over 400 years…and here’s this guy sitting pretty because an ancestor did a service for James Stuart. That’s a first rate self-perpetuating Ruling Class! Most Ruling Classes aren’t that clever. In fact, most of them are very stupid and pigheaded about things and end up destroyed.

This is important to realize because we also have a Ruling Class which cannot sustain itself legally in power any more than the Southern planters could in 1860. The only way out for the Ruling Class is to compromise with the rising power – in this case, the populist Right currently represented by Trump. And like that Southern Ruling class of 1860, the modern Ruling Class is more than willing to go outside the law if it means they remain in power and wealth. This makes for a very dangerous time for our Republic. But keep of good heart: Ruling Classes who don’t give way are always pushed away. Their time is up, and their days are numbered. The only question is how much destruction they’ll cause on their way down.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan25 Comments

A couple of entitled Westerners – from UK and USA – go to a nail salon in Bali, get into an argument…and then forget that they aren’t in the UK or USA where white guilt protects them. Nice to see these sort of people treated as they should. Pro tip: in no civilized society are you allowed to get into a shouting/shoving match with the staff because of a dispute over the price. I think we’re all tired of these savages – and they do come from all ethnic backgrounds in the West. I mean, other than straight, white and male – those guys aren’t Protected. But everyone else is and so go off is the norm.

Until you arrive in a civilized nation. Like Bali.

Given Gaza, we were inundated with “Jesus was a Palestinian” over the Christmas Holiday. Do keep in mind that the lies are almost never meant for you. They are almost always designed for Democrats and the more mindless/ignorant part of the American population. The people who watch those bachelor reality shows and such. The people the lies work on have, at best, only a hazy idea of where Israel even is and have no knowledge of what happened more than a year ago. They just believe what the TV tells them…and so “Jesus was a Palestinian” is said to them and they nod their heads and are thus primed to show up in the streets and in polling calling for a ceasefire.

The next GOP President should take a trip to one of the Nigerian villages attacked by Islamists. Perhaps the one attacked just this Christmas? Any of them will do; there are a lot of them. And when he gets there and he makes himself available to the press, he should ask them: “why haven’t you told the American people what’s been happening here for years?”. The purpose isn’t to get an answer from them – but to start implanting in the low-info people that they are being systemically deceived.

Iranian-backed forces have been targeting American military forces since the Gaza War started – apparently, Pudding Brain’s people told Congress that we’re going to hit a few sites in Iraq over it. This is doing something to make it look like you’re doing something. We’re not going to hit anything serious because these are Iranian assets and our foreign and military establishments abhor doing anything that offends Iran. This is over and above all other considerations – that they kinda hate Israel plays a role, but not decisive here. Our establishment is just convinced that peace in the Middle East is dependent upon us selling the area to Iran. Sure, its stupid – but its what they believe. At least, it is what we must assume they believe considering their actions.

The bad news here is that Iranian-backed forces are threatening to halt seaborne trade in the Red Sea – basically closing the Suez Canal. There was a reason it was built, guys; because transiting via South Africa takes a huge amount of time and money. Already major shippers are rerouting their trade – and this is going to add massive cost to everything humanity does. You really have to understand how much of the world’s goods transit through Suez – either directly or in parts that go to make the whole. Don’t fuss about oil as some are – most of the largest tankers haven’t been able to fit in Suez for ages. Can’t fit through Panama, either. They’ve already been taking the longer route and that was long ago priced it…it is everything else that the problem will come in on. Brace for some bad economic shocks.

Merry Christmas!

Mark Noonan25 Comments

In the beginning was the Word,
        and the Word was with God,
        and the Word was God.
    He was in the beginning with God. 
    All things came to be through him,
        and without him nothing came to be.
    What came to be through him was life,
        and this life was the light of the human race;
    the light shines in the darkness,
        and the darkness has not overcome it.
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
    He was in the world,
        and the world came to be through him,
        but the world did not know him.
    He came to what was his own,
        but his own people did not accept him.

But to those who did accept him
he gave power to become children of God, 
to those who believe in his name, 
who were born not by natural generation 
nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision 
but of God.
    And the Word became flesh
        and made his dwelling among us,
        and we saw his glory,
        the glory as of the Father’s only Son,
        full of grace and truth. – John 1:1-5, 9-14

There is Always Censorship

Mark Noonan1 Comment

I have said many times in the past that all education is indoctrination and all law is the imposition of morality: it is just a debate over what dogmas and morality will be imposed. The Left and the Libertarians reject this with scorn and even most on the Right would be uncomfortable in saying it, but it is nevertheless true. Something will always be imparted to the rising generation. We can see this right before our eyes when we see polls showing something like 25% of youngsters say they are something other than straight. The idea that a fourth of humanity would not be biologically geared towards reproduction is both theologically and biologically absurd, but the kids say they are. And they say this because they’ve been told to say this. Like all young people, they want to know what to say and do in order to be accepted into society and the sure-fire pathway to acceptance these days is to be a weirdo…and so weirdo they are.

But there is a follow-on to both my assertions that I’ve only tangentially brought up before: and that is there is always censorship to defend the reigning dogma. I’ve hinted as this before when I’ve discussed things like the Inquisition and pointed out that it wasn’t set up to prevent thought and development, but to ensure that thought and development went in the right direction. Most people these days would condemn such an idea but such it was, and something like it is necessary in any society. These days the reigning orthodoxy is not defended by learned men backed up by the rack but, instead, is defended by ideological gatekeepers backed up by social ostracism. But it all works out the same: heresy is rooted out and those who transgress are punished. With today, in my view, being worse than the Inquisition because our current gatekeepers are not only determined to prevent thought and development but, indeed, to ensure that various obvious falsehoods are asserted by society. At least Torquemada was trying to defend something true; the modern Inquisitors are determined to defend something false. But the main point here is that there is always a mechanism in society to hound those who don’t conform to the reigning orthodoxy.

This is why when I see current debates about free speech I do believe that a lot of people are missing a crucial aspect of it. This is especially true on the Right which almost universally adheres to Voltaire’s “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. Perhaps Voltaire really would have (he was never put to the test), but most people won’t really. It is philosophical boilerplate. But the attitude underlying it has been used to push our civilization to the brink of extinction. Thinking it wise, we’ve allowed all manner of false, evil and downright anti-human speech to be made. And made by people who are bound and determined to exterminate everyone who disagrees with them. Most importantly, those who have imposed the current reigning orthodoxy don’t hold to Voltaire’s dictum for a minute – and they are now busily enforcing their speech codes on us.

There are, after all, things we already can’t say in public. Things we’ll only say in private, quietly and only around people we trust absolutely. And year by year the things we won’t say in public grow – because the new Inquisitors are always listening, always ready to destroy the next person who states a heresy. Don’t be too harsh with them on it. When our views dominated, to even say “damn” in a movie was a shock. Our civilization at its peak had a very strict set of rules of behavior and speech and they were enforced by a mixture of law and custom. We were told (or, actually, mostly told ourselves) that we could dispense, one by one, with these laws and customs and that we would somehow still retain our civilization. We have now found out how false that notion was…and our backs are against the wall as the ideas we let lose are getting ready to destroy us.

To be sure, those who wrote the First Amendment lived during the peak of our civilization. When they wrote those words “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press” they weren’t stupid or naive. They just didn’t realize – couldn’t realize – that later generations would assume that the words meant there were no rules. These were educated, responsible men; they were sure that the First Amendment would only secure the right to say things within the rules. De Sade lived when the Constitution was being written and he was writing his vile works…I am absolutely confident that Madison would have led the charge against anyone advocating de Sade’s ideology. In the end, we allowed de Sade and his heirs free reign. How is that working out for us?

There are certain things which must be in order for a civilization to survive. For instance, the Albigensians of the 13th century held that physical reality is evil. This in stark contrast to the orthodox Christian view which asserts that God called His creation good and, of course, became incarnate. In our modern mind we would allow the Albigensians to propagate their ideas freely on grounds of who are we to say who is truly right? Those back in the 13th century didn’t and this is held as a sin against them. But the reason they exterminated the Albigensians wasn’t to stop people from thinking, but to prevent a monster from growing all powerful. A society based on the belief that matter is evil is a very different society than the Christian. It despises life and seeks only the end of all things. On balance, the people then preferred an explicable world ruled by God and eventually to be redeemed by Him.

Were they right? Well, lets take another case: Islam. Suppose it had totally triumphed instead of being fought tooth and nail for centuries. What then? Well, just take a look at the Muslim world in, say, 1823: no real advancement since it had emerged in the 7th century. Ancient nations of once-great prosperity reduced to poverty. A completely stagnant society; once the scourge of Christendom and now the plaything of European buccaneers. The Muslim worldview is different from the Christian. It is much more gloomy; deterministic and, because of this, greedily materialistic…but it is a greed only of taking and hoarding…not the materialistic greed of the Calvinists who at least asserted that one had to build.

The point here is that if you want what you have, you must defend it. If you don’t defend it, then it will be replaced by something else which will then exterminate what you have. It can’t freely compete with other world views; it must triumph, or die. As much freedom as you want, as much as you, personally, want to think and say what you want, there must be a limit. And an enforced limit. Some things that are just outside the pale and may not be openly advocated for in the public square. In short, no matter how much freedom you want, you’re going to need some censorship…just as you’ll have to use law and custom to ensure your dogmas are transmitted in the schools.

Do keep in mind that there is no correct answer. No Euclidean certainty. You’re dealing with human beings so things don’t work like that. What you will determine tolerable is a prudential judgement and may vary over time. But what must be is the hard and fast rules: what you cannot do, no matter what. To give an example: we know that Nazi ideology is evil and has no merit whatsoever. It should, then, be illegal to propagate it. If not in law, then in custom. And, of course, overt adherence to Nazism is banned in our society – you can almost ensure your social ostracism if you proclaim your adherence to Nazism. You might still have some Nazi friends, but forget a career in most avenues and be prepared for routine harassment. Do you see what I’m saying?

Just as the Nazis would arrest us all if they were given power so, too, will what we currently call the Left. The rising reigning orthodoxy. The thing which is already causing us to self-censor and now increasingly demands we overtly proclaim our support for. They don’t have any truck with the idea that speech should really be free. They believe you should only be free to say what they find acceptable. Spoiler: you aren’t acceptable. Eventually you will be squashed.

Unless you squash them, first.

This is what I mean when I talk of us using power to destroy the Left. It is an effort to place their ideas beyond the pale. When I say things like “confiscate their money” that is just a means to an end – a way to get them to stop saying things which undermine civilization. But do note that I go on to say things like, “use their money to educate the rising generation in our views.” I’m not just trying to switch my power for theirs – I’m really in the business of stamping out heresy. Of getting rid of those who assert things which are at defiance of what I consider basic, human decency.

As we brace ourselves for this battle for our civilization it is important that we start to think about things. To really determine who we are, what we believe and what we want at the end of the fight. Just opposing the Left isn’t good enough. It needs to be replaced. What will we replace it with? What will we do to prevent a repeat? What ideas will have a social and legal ban imposed?

And we must do this; because it is the only way we survive.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan77 Comments

Outside of the mindless realm of the Democrat Party, everyone is condemning the Colorado Supreme Court ruling against Trump – and even a few Democrats are against it. This is because it is just plain and simple stupid. Here is the relevant part of the 14th Amendment:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

What the Democrats are saying is that it is a proven fact that January 6th was an insurrection and it was instigated by Donald Trump. This is just a stupid assertion to make. The purpose of the January 6th participants wasn’t to overthrow the government but to ensure the government followed the law. You can call them mistaken. You can call them the most stupid people the world has ever seen – but it doesn’t change the fact of why they were there. The Confederates of 1861 wanted to leave the nation – the participants of January 6th wanted their nation to obey the law. They are not in the same universe of action. There was no insurrection against lawful authority on January 6th.

It is purely evil what the Democrats are doing. They are all appetite for power, wealth and sex and they will do anything to ensure they get their desire. In making this ruling, the Colorado Supreme Court has struck a body blow against the rule of law in this nation. After all, if this is so, then the Florida Supreme Court can remove Biden from the ballot on grounds that he is not ensuring that the laws are faithfully enforced. This is a far more true assertion than those made about January 6th and as far as due process – Biden hasn’t been convicted of anything – it works out the same: Trump was not given any due process. The Colorado court issued a ruling based on federal law over events that occurred outside of Colorado’s jurisdiction. Point blank: it isn’t for any State or local government to decide if the 14th Amendment applies to any person seeking federal office. It is a federal matter and so reserved for the federal courts.

Now on to another but related thing: over the past few days I have seen some DeSantis supporters firmly state that they will not vote Trump if he’s the nominee. Previously, it had mostly been Trumpsters saying they wouldn’t vote DeSantis. That point is now moot as it looks like Trump will be the nominee – the Colorado ruling is going to cement Trumpster support for their guy. Either position – Never Trump or Only Trump – is stupid. Evil. Asinine. A betrayal of all things decent. We don’t have much time left. The Democrats are ignoring the law on a regular basis. They are pushing ahead with the most radical elements of their program (ie, massive invasion at the border and medical mutilation of kids) in spite of overwhelming majorities being against them on it. They are confident that power is theirs and cannot be taken away. They might be right – but that doesn’t excuse us from our duty. We have a moral responsibility as citizens of the Republic to do what we can to preserve, protect and defend the Republic. In this instance – in 2024 – the strongest effort we can make in service of this moral duty is to vote Republican.

Not because they’re any good – but because they are not objectively evil and engaged in the deliberate and malicious destruction of the Republic. Any power we can take away from Democrats and hand to Republicans is power which can be used to defend the Republic. Any power retained or obtained by Democrats will be used to destroy the Republic – and this is regardless of what the law says. Democrats don’t care what the law says. If they have the power to do a thing, they’ll do it, law be damned. If they can give the order, make the ruling or modify the regulation, they’ll do it and blithely sit back and laugh at anyone who says that is against the law. We probably only have one or two shots left to save a Constitutional Republic. Once they’re gone then our only hope will be in dictatorship by a Franco or Pinochet. This is preferable only as an alternative to Leftist totalitarian tyranny; ie, if our lives are forfeit otherwise. I don’t want us to go down that path. I want us to remain free – and we only do that in the Republic; and we only keep the Republic if the enemies of it are removed from power.

It is, bottom line, a moral obligation to vote Republican in 2024. Any vote for a different party works out to participation in evil.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan40 Comments

Satanist erected a statue in the Iowa capitol and a Christian man knocked it down. We are now solemnly informed that this isn’t the way. That if we don’t allow that speech we won’t be able to speak, ourselves. This is just the sort of Libertarian/Progressive drivel that has nearly destroyed Civilization this past century. It is simply untrue that I am only able to be free when I’m covered in filth.

Freedom is not the ability to do anything you want: it is the ability to freely choose to do the right thing. Conservatives used to understand this but after a century of merely Conserving Progressive mistakes, this has been lost. The basic American Conservative of 2023 would fit right in with the Progressives of 1923. The modern American Conservative is in favor of Big Business, of foreign alliances and of allowing the wicked to operate freely – once again, on the stupid theory that if we don’t allow evil, we can’t have good.

This notion must be utterly rejected. There are some ideas so bad that they must be forcibly rejected. That particular Satan statue was just another in a series erected by vulgar nincompoops who do that just to insult Christians (they always seek to erect their garbage at Easter or Christmas; if they were really trying to do something for themselves rather than against Christians, they’d pick a day in June). In truth, such a statue is the least of our worries, but it is of the same species as all the other attacks on decency and logic which we are told we must defend if we’re to have decency and logic. But all of this is like telling a young man or woman that their best chance of remaining chaste is to go work in a brothel. It just doesn’t work like that. To have decency and logic we must defend decency and logic – and condemn, ostracize and punish the indecent and illogical.

Why? Well, that Senate staffer getting it on in a committee room is why. Think about the chain of events – the thought process – which brought those two men to that decision. What was missing in both of them was the least sense of decency or the least appreciation of logic. Their whole being is nothing but unreasonable indecency. This has nothing to do with the particular type of sex – it would have been just as bad had it been a man and woman engaging in the action. The fact that two adults thought it a good idea to have sex in a Senate room is a negation of every last aspect of civilization. Sure, the guy got fired – but do you think there will be further punishment? Do you doubt the man will get a good job somewhere else? He’s already out there attacking those who condemned his action – we’re denying his love, don’t you see? That he and his friend could have got a hotel room and done the same thing and nobody would have a complaint doesn’t even register…he and his friend thought it was a good idea and we’re all supposed to accept that.

How is our civilization supposed to survive with people like that? People who clearly don’t think there was anything wrong with what they did?

We’re hanging by a thread here, guys. A recent poll shows a majority of 18-24 year olds think that the solution to the war in Gaza is to turn Israel over to Hamas. This is insane…but really no more insane than a couple people bumping uglies in a Senate room. We’re getting precisely what we allowed…and now we’ve got a rising generation that would vote for Hitler if he offered to annul student loans. Guys, he was a vegetarian, non-smoking, non-drinking former art student; he’s tailor made for the run of the mill AntiFa activist. He was also a badly educated momma’s boy who thought he had special knowledge. Sound familiar?

Open Thread

Mark Noonan55 Comments

Congressional GOPers are getting set to approve the latest NDAA which fixes the government spying problem by making it easier for government to spy on us.

I wish I was kidding.

They are such useless twits, aren’t they? Gotta be that they are on the take. At least, I hope they are on the take or being blackmailed. I hope they aren’t consciously this stupid and evil. There is no reason for the GOP to do anything right now. Sure, we can’t enact a single law because the Democrat Senate and Pudding Brain will not agree. But this doesn’t mean we have to do anything. Let them stew and complain. Nobody gives a darn about Ukraine or any of the other things the Establishment is on about. All people care about is gas, groceries and our increasingly chaotic border. Just say no. But, they can’t. They have to “do something” or someone who hates them will hate them even more.

Harvard’s President is being kept on. They have to: she is the definition of the Diversity Hire and if they boot her then it will start the whole system crashing down. Do keep in mind that all of the major institutions of the Western world are now run by people just like her: mindless ideologues promoted because they check boxes and obey orders. Start pulling at even one thread of it and it’ll unravel…that is, the rank incompetence of these people will be revealed. So, she gets to stay. Though given that she booted people from Harvard for plagiarism in the past the coming lawsuits will be enormously funny. As will the lawsuits soon to hit CVS as they were just caught on tape talking about how to exclude white people from the hiring process.

Side note: all our laws about civil rights? No longer in effect. They are just there to beat you down. If your rights are violated, nobody is going to do anything about it. You won’t find the DOJ going after CVS.

But it is past time that in our Red States we enact Civil Rights laws and start vigorously enforcing them. We do control some major powerhouses – notably Texas and Florida. We can make corporate and education America feel quite a lot of heat. And all it will be is just enforcing the notion that we are all equal under the law. Nothing radical or new. Nothing hard to explain. Fairness; that’s all we’ll be enforcing.

Word is that Ukraine will raise the age of conscription up to 40 because that’s what all nations on the road to victory do.

What a mess that is turning into. From what I’ve read up to a couple million military-aged males have fled Ukraine. And if they’re getting ready to conscript 40 year olds it means they are at the bottom of the manpower barrel. Today Zelensky was in DC trying to drum up support for even more money. He’ll probably get it but, seriously, what point is it if there’s nobody to give the arms to? It is way past time to wind this up – ask Putin to name his price and then try to make him back off 10 percent of it.

The Hamas apologists have raised the death toll in Gaza to 18,000. Keep in mind that back in 2002 the Palestinians said that the IDF had killed thousands in Jenin. Turns out it was about 50. They’re lying now as much as then. My guesstimate is about 500 dead…this based upon word that about 100 IDF soldiers have been killed. Figure firepower differential means about 3 Hamas dead to each IDF and then add some more because Hamas uses human shields.

A Revelation

Mark Noonan28 Comments

As it is written in Isaiah the prophet:
Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you;
he will prepare your way.
A voice of one crying out in the desert:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths.”
John the Baptist appeared in the desert
proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
People of the whole Judean countryside
and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem
were going out to him
and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River
as they acknowledged their sins.
John was clothed in camel’s hair,
with a leather belt around his waist.
He fed on locusts and wild honey.
And this is what he proclaimed:
“One mightier than I is coming after me.
I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals.
I have baptized you with water;
he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” – Mark 1: 1-8

That, of course, is today’s reading. You did go to Church, right? Even if you didn’t, if you are Christian you have heard it a thousand times. But today it struck home to me…rolling around in my head through the Homily and then, just before I took communion, it was a blast of light. The world is immersed in lies. All lies…and here was Truth, right before me.

I noticed the altar servers – two fine young men and one little lady. And I pondered that I had once been that young and then, when I got a little older, I was beset by lie after lie after lie and, God forgive me, I fell for a lot of them. I prayed that those youngsters would resist them. If there was one bit of advice I could give them it would be just this: keep going to Church. Never stop. Pray constantly. Yeah, a lot of your friends are going to say, “do this!”; “be cool!”; “come on, its just a bit of fun!”. Ignore them! Go to Church. Pray! Be the odd man out. Rely on it, forty years from now when you look back on it all, you’ll be much happier if you remained steadfast now. Make straight his paths.

Because that is what it means – the path to your heart. Make it straight so God can get on in there and keep you safe and bring you to salvation. I had honestly never looked at it that way before. But I do think that my recent yammering on about how bad lies are has been part of the process which reached its climax just this morning.

Because another part of it happened last night. I was scrolling through X and I came across a post from Jill Stein. You remember her – the Green Party candidate from 2016. I think she’s running again in 2024 because that’s what people like her do; that is, she’s going to save us, guys. Anyways, she had posted that because of our veto of the UN ceasefire resolution, the USA was now the sole obstacle to peace. Get it? It isn’t Hamas. Not the rape/death squads. Not the obvious fact that if Hamas is spared via a ceasefire they will just rebuild their forces and send out more rape/death squads. It is the USA. We’re at fault. We’re stopping peace. What sort of evil upon evil person thinks this way?

Turns out, its the sort of evil that was born of upper class Jewish parents in Chicago and then went on to graduate from Harvard medical. Rich, privileged and sheltered, Jill plied her very profitable trade as a doctor and then decided to “give back”. Not the money, of course. But give back in the form of taking up the standard of Progressive reform. If you look at her views, she checks off every last Progressive box. Her views on the Gaza war are just the latest thing; it is hip in Progressive circles to be for the river to the sea right now. That she’s Jewish makes no matter because Progressives are first and last Progressives…their nationality, ethnicity and religion takes the back seat at all times.

People like Jill are the very worst of the worst. The most evil people in the world. Even more evil than Hamas rape squads or Cartel hitmen. How can I say that??? She’s this nice, even-toned, educated woman who just wants peace, justice and equity! Yeah, whatever. I know what her words are…but her words are just mindless repetitions of lies she’s been told…and as a doctor she should damned well know better. She should investigate things and think about them. She doesn’t. She never has. She just accepts and then quite mindlessly promotes. And it is people like Jill who promote the Progressive policies which create, in turns, Hamas rape squads and Cartel hitmen.

Things don’t happen in a vacuum. On October 6th some Hamas guys didn’t just say, “hey, lets rape some girls” and have at it. No more than Mexican drug cartels just all of a sudden start beheading people. It all built up over time. Decades of time. Decades of time where Progressive ideology has been dominant in the West even when particular Western nations might have had an officially non-Progressive government. Essentially since World War One the Western world has done whatever Progressives told it to. There has been hardly any resistance to it. And it was all sold with the same level of intellectual validity as that guy in high school who urged you to smoke a joint: “come on, man; it’ll be cool!”.

Another passage in the Bible relates how those who lead others astray would be better off having a millstone tied ’round their necks and be tossed into the sea. Hamas and Cartel murderers will have much to atone for at Judgement Day, but people like Jill are those who are leading these little one’s astray and it’ll go a lot harder for them. It is especially incumbent upon those with wealth and power to do the right thing. Some poor SOB born into grinding poverty who gets suckered into a gang or movement is a lot more forgivable than the people who simply ought to know better.

Tolkien understood this and he put it in The Lord of the Rings. Aragorn complains a bit about how those dependent upon his protection scorned him…but he doesn’t grudge it. As he says, if simple people are free to be simple, then he’s done his duty. That is what nobility is for – what it is supposed to do: shield the common people. Instead, our nobility deliberately leads the people astray. They in turns encourage barbarism and then discourage fighting against it. They urge us into moral disintegration and call us racists when moral disintegration breaks down the social contract.

Make straight those paths, guys. We’re in for a long, dark night of suffering. It is coming. Only the very oldest among us are going to be able to skip out on it. But the world must be turned upside down. What is must be destroyed and a new society erected on the ruins. It is Fall of Rome II – and just like the first time, it will be those who have faith in God who will inherit the ruins.

Open Thread

Mark Noonan21 Comments

According to polling nearly a quarter of Americans 18-29 believe that the Holocaust is a myth. Another quarter believe it was exaggerated. I had said some time back that I suspect a lot of people don’t know why the Nazis were bad – they’ve just been told “Nazis bad” and ran with it. But now I’m adjusting that a bit – my bet is that for some time now they’ve been told something along the lines of “Nazis were white, Christian nationalists” and that’s what made them bad. The whole Jew-killing thing has been ignored or downplayed. So, if you suddenly pop up with, “the Nazis killed six million Jews” the kiddies don’t believe it…because if you come at it suddenly and without the lived experience, it does seem way too fantastic to believe. Keep in mind that young Commies simply do not believe that things like Gulag happened, either. As in all generation to generation things, what the current generation believes happened is what the preceding generation told them…and if one generation skips certain details, the next generation just doesn’t have them unless, on their own, they look it up.

You’d think that the Commies who by and large dominate education would want to keep emphasizing the actual reasons Nazis were bad but as soon as you think about it, you know why they wouldn’t. There is, in fact, no real objection to Nazism as it was for a true Leftist. Totalitarian control; destruction of undesirables; rejection of Christian morality…all same/same between Commie and Nazi. And now that Jews have been decreed to be “white settler/colonialists” operating an Apartheid State to keep down “brown” Palestinians (who are no darker than Israels, but details don’t matter), there’s no need to harp upon anti-Semitism as being something bad. The Left needs their bogeyman, of course…but what the bogeyman is bad for is determined by what the Left needs him to be bad for. Right now, the bogeyman has to be white, straight and Christian or at least two of the three at any given time. So, basically, to the Left Nazis are….well, you and me. And anyone Jewish who doesn’t join the Hamas side of things.

We’ve got a real problem, here, guys: we’ve got a rising generation who will vote for Hitler if he promises to annul student debt.

Hunter Biden got indicted – conveniently just in time to make sure no House investigation will be able to call him to testify. Of course, there is a chance the prosecutor – who got burned when Hunter rejected his really sweetheart deal – is now just going to let the process grind out. Hunter, if convicted, is looking at some years in jail even if the judge just slaps him with minimum sentences. It is all pretty much just a drug-fueled orgy – the money almost certainly illegally obtained and what’s tripping Hunter up is that he didn’t declare it on his taxes. And, yes, it is all definitely connected to dear, old Dad. Naturally the Democrats hope that the thing can be kept out of the news (the MSM will cooperate in that) and that it can be dealt with in December of 2024 via pardon – and that is whether or not Joe wins or loses. But the thing about scumbag, drug-addicted degenerates who are protected by indulgent fathers…they tend to be scumbags. I can see Hunter putting massive pressure on Dad to make it all go away long before December of next year…especially as if Dad kicks the bucket, nobody in power is going to give the least damn about Hunter’s problems. This could end up being a major albatross around Pudding Brain’s neck.

Never Trump, Democrats and MSM are all now spending a great deal of time “proving” that the polling is all wrong. We’ve been down this road before, but last time it was GOPers doing it. To be fair, polling is always wrong…but as I’ve also always said, trends are important. What we’re seeing is polls that were favorable to Joe (or at least unfavorable to the GOP) moving strongly the other way. You can always get outliers but they’re easily identified by being out of sync with everyone else…at this moment, even some of the most partisan Democrat polls are showing Trump, RDS or Haley handily beating Biden. And it seems to be fueled by blue collar people moving strongly to the GOP while minority and youth voters are moving a little GOP or expressing total disinterest in voting Biden next year. The only group remaining rock solid for Democrats are college educated white women; as one X friend of mine puts it, to them nothing else matters except their ability to kill their unborn children. What is staring Democrats in the face next year if the polling is even partially right is electoral catastrophe. And all possible GOP contenders are committed to massive reforms and deep investigations of just what the heck has been going on. Meaning: Trump may be revenge on steroids, but any GOPer is going to take a few pounds of flesh. They have to: survival of any future GOP Administration depends on really going after the Administrative State.

I can feel the shift out there. Can you?

They went too far. Too obviously cheated to get Joe in. Too obviously covering up corruption. Too obviously money laundering in Ukraine. Too obviously race-baiting. And too obviously trying to gaslight us about the economy. It all may very well explode in the Democrats face next year.

What Happens When the Gaza War Ends?

Mark Noonan11 Comments

I know that, personally, I have been bloody-minded of late. The horrific actions of Hamas savages being de-facto endorsed by plenty of my own fellow Americans has got me into a dark mood. But, I must not. God commands me to mercy. And I know it is true – and that if I want to be shown mercy, I must show it. So, we take a breath and calm down. They are savages but they are still my brothers and sisters and I must will what is best for them.

Not that the Israeli government will be calling me for advice, but I think there is a logical outcome to the Gaza War: Trusteeship.

The poison of Hamas has sunk very deeply into the population of Gaza. Keep in mind that the Hamas troops took video of their actions and proudly transmitted that video to friends and family in Gaza. By the time they had got back into Gaza, the people there knew exactly what they had done and they cheered wildly. Naturally, no sane person would leave Hamas in charge of Gaza but neither should the people of Gaza be in charge. Of course not everyone there is Hamas – indeed, we’re starting to see some reports of Gazan’s being furious at Hamas for withholding food and fuel from the people – but it is impossible for outsiders to really separate the sheep from the goats. The remnants of Hamas will attempt to retain power and eventually re-assert control and we can’t be sure who is genuinely anti-Hamas and who is faking. So, no Gazan gets to have a say in what happens in Gaza for a while.

Don’t be too shocked about the concept! Many will be – because we’re so used to universal voting rights and other such Progressive drivel that we can’t imagine denying someone power over their own governance. But self governance is an ideal, not a natural state of affairs. It is something to be aimed for, not really fully achieved. Even in the most educated and civilized society there has to be controls because civilization is not natural to the human condition. We’re naturally barbarians – we are instructed to be civilized and maintained in it by law and custom.

What I’m suggesting is not unprecedented. After World War Two both Germany and Japan were essentially placed under trusteeship and not allowed to resume full sovereignty for a significant period of time. In Japan that can be dated to 1971 when we returned Okinawa to Japanese control. For Germany, because of the peculiarities of the four-power post-war occupation, it didn’t happen until 1991. No matter what, the Allies were determined that there not be a resumption of Japanese and German aggression. The old joke was that NATO was to keep the Germans down, the Russians out and the Americans in and there was much truth to that: especially keeping the Germans down. The Brits massively drew down their military power in the 1950’s to the 1960’s but they kept the British Army of the Rhine at strength until German reunification. The Brits did not propose to have a third round with the Germans.

And it wasn’t just an occupation to keep an eye on them – the Germans and Japanese were instructed in new ways of thinking. Heck, the Japanese constitution was pretty much written by Douglas MacArthur. They were told why they had done wrong and what they had to do to repair it. To be fair, many Japanese and Germans voluntarily joined in the effort because they felt ashamed of what their countries had done, but the fact that to this day there are Germans and Japanese who hanker for the old ways shows the necessity of our efforts to impose new ideas on them. Had we not done that – had we done new Treaties of Versailles with them, then they would have just nursed their grudges and their power and tried again.

So it will have to be with Gaza; the people there must be rated incompetent to hold power. This doesn’t mean we go in and boss them around in their daily lives, but it does mean that the broad direction of national effort are taken out of their hands. They can’t control their government, their military/police or their schools. Someone else has to – someone who is committed to at least an idea of peace and justice.

It can’t be the Israelis. There is too much hatred between Muslims and Jews. If Israelis try to reorder Gazan life the people will reject it. They’ll probably stubbornly resist any such efforts from any quarter, but they’ll be in complete opposition to Israeli overlords.

My view is that a multi-power Trustee government should be imposed – with a commission made up of, say, people from Switzerland, Morocco and India (gotta have a Muslim majority power involved; it won’t work any other way and Morocco has long proved itself of a moderate strain of Islam). It would be better to keep the UN out but that is probably not possible; but full authority should be vested in the Trustees – not a penny gets spent, not a law gets made, without their consent. Their primary job would actually be reforming the education system so that the rising generation of Gazans will be told the truth rather than hate-filled Hamas lies. And after that generation rises, a period of transition can begin, step by step, to allow Gazans to resume sovereignty. But it would be at least a twenty year process. Maybe fifty.

Other people can come up with other ideas but the one thing that is certain is that Hamas has to go. Their actions on 10/7 removed them from human society. They still are people, of course, and must be shown mercy especially if they ask for it – but their entire system of beliefs has to be torn down and made unacceptable. Only that way can a path to peace be forged.

Aside: It is Pearl Harbor Day. God bless the memory of our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.