VDH, Time For The Big Stick?

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/when-states-go-wild/

I tend to rip the bandage off rather than soak it. I'd rather get Corona now and see if I survive. At some point, avoidance fails -- especially relative to death. One can let the Cold War go on forever, or you can take the big risk and elect Reagan.

You can also try appeasement of the "puppies of war" with their BLM, masks, and "cancel culture" as we have been doing, or you can call their bluff. I'm pretty sure they are not the Wehrmacht, the Confederacy, or even Saddam's army -- but one can never be certain until the band-aid is yanked!

The game of chicken continues with passive or nonexistent local and regional policing and veritable free rein to looting, destruction, and vandalism. In response, Trump only squares his hesitation to call in federal troops, with loud rhetoric about law and order. But until the swing voter himself gets off his fence and decides either ‘enough is enough,’ Trump has put himself into a dilemma of talking loudly with a twig rather than softly with a real club. 

He will soon have to seize the moment with allies in Congress and his cabinet to galvanize the country to squash a veritable revolution that wishes to remake America in its 244th year into something more aligned with the visions of Robespierre and Saint-Just than with Washington and Jefferson — replete with a new foundational myth, a new national anthem, a rebooted constitution without an Electoral College, but with proportionally allotted senators, a huge new Supreme Court, and new array of revolutionary statuary and icons. A cult of the Supreme Green Being and dunce caps for wayward or incorrect intellectuals are not far away.

We haven't been the America of Washington, Lincoln, Grant or even Reagan for a good long while.   It's been time to quit pretending as we have been for a least a decade if not 30 years.

Fierce Patriot, The Tanngled Lives of William Tecumseh Stherman

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2014/07/21/shaper-modern-america/

The linked provides a "normal review" of this excellent book.

A big reason that it speaks to me as a fellow veteran of mental illness is that it really brings home that three of of the men that saved the union ... Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman, struggled with psychological issues.

Lincoln had suffered from deep bouts of depression since early manhood (he called it the “hypo”), and it’s likely he recognized a similar condition lurking behind Sherman’s excessive pessimism.52 He also must have known from his own experience that these bleak episodes eventually passed and so remained open to giving his fellow sufferer additional responsibility once he recovered. Mental illness of any sort carried a tremendous stigma in nineteenth-century America, but not with Lincoln when it came to a general he instinctively liked and believed in.

Sherman was all about the big picture. He had a superb grasp of terrain and a passion for a unified America "From Sea to Shining Sea".

Sherman was a prodigy of geography. During the Civil War, no matter how befuddling the swamp or forest or mountain range, if Sherman had been there, he remembered it exactly.

If Jefferson was the architect of continental expansion, Sherman would become the general contractor.

As I age, I suspect that the tendency to depression is a "gift" that is likely to give you a thirst to gather knowledge as a (false) way to obtain the illusion of security. You will be driven to scratch to see at least what you mistakenly imagine to be THE big picture, when it is of course only YOUR big picture.

His chief problem continued to be his contingent relationship with reality, a complex and ambiguous problem for any military strategist. If the perceptual filters that had allowed him to ignore the coming of secession were in abeyance, there remained those that would exaggerate danger—a potentially paralyzing affliction in warfare, and nearly Sherman’s undoing before he finally learned to effectively balance limited information with an ever-changing reality.

The map is never the territory, plans are invalid when the first shot is fired, etc. Sherman LEARNED ... and one of the things he learned was that the Civil War was maybe more than most wars, a psychological war, because it was largely a guerrilla war. The will of the population had to be broken ...  not just Lee's army. Thus, the often maligned "March to the Sea". As we were never able to do in Vietnam, Sherman broke the spirit of the rebellion -- though not their racism, as a century of Jim Crow would prove.

I have somewhat retreated into the past in this time of crazy that has many parallels to the mid 1800s. Tearing down statues shows that history is repeating itself. Slavery is slavery, often especially if it is not declared as such. When the people who you disagree with are "deplorable". or their very race ("whiteness") is enough to allow you to hate them, or even their not wearing a mask becomes somewhat analogous to "wearing a hood", then you are most certainly a "House Divided".

I firmly believe that division is the natural state of man, only driven to abeyance by the grace of God. "One nation under GOD" absolutely required GOD! Sherman's goal of unifying America was possible then because at least the North believed  both the God of the Bible, and the Constitution -- and the south at least claimed to believe in that same God as well. It is hard to defend slavery as an act of Christian love, though the South certainly tried!

Perhaps the time has come for those that believe in the God of the Bible, the Constitution, family, community, and such old and tired values as loving your enemies, to finally separate from those that worship only power?

Certainly Sherman, Lincoln and Grant would disagree -- the Union was sacred to them. In an era when nothing but complete adherence to "woke" dogma is acceptable to at least an apparent majority under penalty of violence, how can there be a nation under nothing but mass demands  of conflicting "rights".

Whig History, The "Inevitable Arc"

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/07/the-end-of-whig-history/

A good little article on what most people believe is happening -- generally, they don't KNOW they believe it, because they just see it as a "fact". supposedly and metaphysically truthful. To deny it would make you a "denier", and denying Whig history (even if you have no idea what it is) shows you as gravely stupid -- even though the people labeling you thus, are only doing so because you are not agreeing with what they see as "obvious truth" ("progress") ... though they don't understand what that means. They are "morally certain", the only modern "virtue" -- blindly following "progressivism".

The superstition of a Moore’s Law for social betterment, like the superstitious belief that freedom is the “hope of every human heart” or that certain politicians are “on the right side of History,” is a part of the long tradition sometimes known as “Whig history,” the belief that human society marches inevitably toward progress, enlightenment, and liberty. As Professor Glenn Loury once put it, the essence of conservatism is the idea that human nature has no history. George Will expands on that: “The idea that human nature has a history — that human beings only have a nature contingent on their time and place — is the idea that has animated modern tyrannies.”

Josephus, The Essential Work

https://www.amazon.com/Josephus-Essential-Writings-Flavius/dp/0825429641

A wonderful book for those of us that believe in history in this day in which it is being torn down.

While it does mention Jesus, and Jesus half-brother James, and it is for that reason that Jesephus is somewhat familiar to Christians, I am much more impressed by it's chronicling of Jewish history and relation to the Bible, Torah, and other period works.

Josephus was born in AD 37, so he is a near contemporary of Jesus. He is a Jew that fought with the Romans, but ended up submitting, and becoming a client of Vespasian, which is the reason his works survive (history is told by the winners).

The brutality of those times is reported in maybe more detail than one would desire -- we live in a world where we avert our eyes from the still prevalent human cruelty in order to maintain the modern illusion that "human nature is basically good". One quote from emperor Augustus; "It is better to be Herod's pig than his son". Reporting the killing all the male children from a few years in a small area would be FAR less interest in that time than China killing a few hundred Uighurs today. (some people question the veracity of the Massacre of the Innocents, thinking it would be "big news" if true)

Meyer is a master of using ancient history and archaeology to establish the truth of the Bible, highly recommended to those of us who have inherited the curse of Thomas -- the desire to put our hands into the wounds.

The Book Of Concord

https://www.cph.org/p-11428-concordia-the-lutheran-confessions-a-readers-edition-of-the-book-of-concord-2nd-edition.aspx

I bought the hardcover and HIGHLY recommend it! It is a beautiful book, well printed, well bound -- a physical object that testifies to the critical importance of God being made man in the person of Christ. In this mortal coil, the physical is real to us, so it is critical that Christ came, died, was buried and rose in "the flesh". As man, he lived, breathed, cried, loved, bled, and died.

As a Risen Saviour, he lives and comes to us as a resurrected perfected body and blood that can eat and drink, yet can walk through walls and be a real presence at multiple communion tables where that resurrected body can nourish our weak and barely there spiritual self. The communion table is where our physical temporary selves have a critical connection with the eternal -- our current reality is physical, we must physically connect with the eternal through regular participation in the Body and Blood of Christ in a corporate worship.

If you have any faith, or no faith, this is a wonderful work. Coming from a Baptist tradition, this book shows the issues that led led to the Reformation, and attaches them to the Bible and the fathers of the Christian Church Universal -- based on the FAITH of Peter, rather than the person of Peter, and also deals with the further thinking that it is possible to enter the Kingdom with no sacraments at all, only "your personal decision". (unless you are a thief hanging on a cross next to Christ)

To be human is to flee God, therefore all our churches are constantly drawn away from "Saved by Grace alone through Faith in Christ alone".  The old Adam is not completely buried until we are.

So we and our churches are constantly tempted to be saved by -- "the church", "our decision for Christ", "our works", "our love", etc

Even if you are certain you will never agree, this book will make you aware of what it really is that you are not agreeing with!

Infinite Jest

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/26/infinite-jest-david-foster-wallace-20th-anniversary-20-things-need-know

A huge and widely acclaimed novel by David Foster Wallace -- deceased by his own hand, or in his terms, "he eliminated his own map". His version of "hope" would seem to be that this life is all there is. The only thing the book makes "clear" is that human life is a maddeningly meaningless "jest", and that the endless search for entertainment, escape, diversion, pleasure, etc is most likely to make it even more nasty.

Somehow, reading "The Secular Age", another gigantic book, led me to Jest ... I first tried a cliff notes version of Secular Age in "How To Not Be Secular", however I felt I needed the "real deal", so ended up jumping off that cliff as I did with Jest.

I started reading Jest because of the Corona lock-down terror -- a surreal time seemed appropriate to take up a surreal, long, difficult work. Then came the BLM riots, "cancel the police", the building of our addition project started, and then my dad died. It was NOT "an appropriate time" ... although the fact that Wallace was plagued by anxiety, depression and panic attacks, as I have been, made the surreal somewhat too real.

Not a book to be recommended unless grotesque, pointless, highly detailed despair is something that appeals to you!

Facebook Alternatives

https://reason.com/2018/10/29/ready-to-get-off-facebook-reason-reviews/

Abortion, The Worship Of Self

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/opinion/abortion-covid.html

The ultimate sacred "right" of the left.

At a time when countless medical procedures have been delayed due to the supposed danger of carrying them out during the time of Corona, one procedure is SO critical that it may not be delayed! Cancer diagnosis? No problem, DELAYED! Heart surgery? Delayed! Oh, and to even question such a thing shows that you are incredibly selfish!

Abortion OTOH? The article closes with; 

"Despots love to pretend they’re rolling back rights to save lives. Don’t believe them."

Got that? Right of to leave your home? Right to assemble? Right to gather to worship? All considered to not be "rights", but "privileges" that the government is free to restrict at will.  Constitution? Suspended when someone says "virus". 

Abortion, the "right" stated nowhere in the Constitution, is so sacred to the left that it is despotic to "use the virus as an excuse" to limit this ultimate "right". Indeed.

"Thou shalt have no other God before me" is the commandment the left (Satan) hates the most -- because it replaces it with the individual, the "self" being the highest authority -- "god", the little god that shits.

The second most hated is "Thou shalt not kill". God is the giver of life, life is sacred -- God gives it and it is his to take. Christ is "The Way, the Truth, and the LIFE".

When the self is "god", the power of life and death MUST be declared by the self as "unalienable". The fact that life is a gift from God must be denied -- the idol of spiritless matter must be worshiped.

And so it is -- the dogma of the Satanic left is made clear. "The self is god ... all shall bow to ME!". 

Ball Of Collusion, Russiagate Hoax Exposed

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/05/exposing-the-hoax.php

1984, George Orwell

I believe this is the 3rd time I've read it ... blogs, Goodreads and Kindle make records for the last "decade" or so much better. It looks like the last time was 2012 (I failed to blog it), and the time before that was likely "late 1970s".

Pretty much everyone knows the jist of it ... Winston Smith, Big Brother, Newspeak, War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength, total lack of privacy, eternal war. "INGSOC" (English Socialism) with its sacred principles -- Newspeak, doublethink, the mutability of the past. It is a classic that all would be well served to read merely so we have a "common framework".

In the time prior to "1950", that was true for the "elite educated" as so well covered by Buckley in "God And Man At Yale". Today, more than in Orwell's time, we see that one of the chief focuses of "The State", "The Party" (TP- Democrat as I like to call it), the media, the mass market, etc is to define that "common framework" ... the "Common Myth" through which the powers that be want to be certain we ALL see as "truth". "Moral Believing Animals" explains how that "World View" is built and accepted by all of us -- what differs is the specifics of our model, and how hard it is to communicate with someone who has a different World View (model). 

Back in 2012 I was assuming that we were quickly headed  for a future somewhat like "1984" ... shortages, being forced to ONLY do things the way the "Politically Correct" state demanded, or to suffer "consequences". There were rumors that my banishment from IBM was partially due to my insufficient celebration of gay "marriage". My comforting thought then was that an armed populace would somehow "head that off". 

Fast forward to today,. and I am utterly amazed by the level of fear and the urge not only to comply with whatever changing directive the state throws out, but to turn in others who fail to sufficiently bow to those orders. Initially, we were "flattening the curve" for "a few weeks" during which masks were NOT ADVISED because we needed those for the "front line". 

Then, no "curve" developed, and even in the hottest of hot spots (NYC), the big navy hospital ship called in to handle the non-existent "curve". left, and healthcare workers around the nation were put on furlough, since every "non-essential" procedure was not being done. 

When we had been advised to NOT wear masks, we were told they did not work every well, and EVERYONE was eventually going to get this virus anyway!  We were not wearing the masks and only going to "safe places" like WalMart, Costco, Home Depot and liquor stores because they were "essential", however churches, corner bars and other small businesses were not! We had to FLATTEN  THAT CURVE, because many/most of us were going to need a ventilator! 

Now it seems that the virus is very non-lethal (like .2-.4 death rate, much less for the young, essentially zero for preteen), and "at some point", it is critical to develop "herd immunity" -- BUT NOT NOW! Oh, and the masks DEFINITELY protect others -- and maybe even you. In any case, they will protect you from dirty looks and online haranguing -- you most probably will feel virtuous wearing one!

How deliciously Orwellian! 

Poor Winston Smith required massive torture to finally learn to love Big Brother. Apparently, for our coddled culture, all that was needed was a little virus fear, media hype, and some Facebook shaming! 

George messed up a bit on sex. He seemed to think that it was too dangerous to allow sexual freedom. Apparently, TOTAL sexual freedom provided through abortion on demand, birth control and abandonment of all sexual morality for pure hedonism is even more effective. My sense is that abortion is key -- one you are willing to celebrate the killing of the most vulnerable, the abandonment of any other thought of morality is a walk in the park.  

It seems that we have proven that the worship of pleasure destroys the family, and as Orwell understood, once the family goes, Big Brother is there! He will provide -- and in much greater level of hedonistic enjoyment and freedom from ANY responsibility or labor than Orwell postulated. 

As we now see, the modern "Big Brother" may well tell you to hunker down at home, wear a mask, send in all your money above a certain "fair income", but he certainly won't restrict any of your sexual proclivities (except possibly chastity). He will just insure that your life a totally meaningless pursuit of earthly pleasure, with an absolute minimum of responsibility beyond increasingly slavish worship of Big Brother, and and regular "Two Minute Hate" (currently of Trump). You are required to signal your "virtue" to your fellow Big Brother believers via posting approved hate memes on social media. 

Orwell's dystopian vision was very dark ... our Fascism comes with a disarming smiley face.