Hillsdale, Faith And The University

 https://blog.hillsdale.edu/online-courses/faith-and-the-university

Excellent podcast from Good Friday on the proper role of the university in culture. I enjoyed the message on Catholics and Protestants getting along especially. 

Ashli Babbitt Memorial?

 It takes awhile to find the video if the moment that Ashli Babitt was murdered. Lots of the sites have removed it, some say it is "offensive" ... you see no blood, it is just "bang you are dead", and I could not make out the officer, although the persistent report is that he is black. 

We still don't know the name of the officer that killed this unarmed military veteran, and it sounds there will be no charges against him. I'm guessing we will never know his name or see his picture. His life will go on.

Here is a picture of Ashli, a person identified by the left media as deserving of death for not obeying a police officer -- a capital offence if you are an unarmed white female veteran with no criminal record, not even a crime at all if you are black. (even if you are armed and shooting)

Here is a link ABC news reporting that George Floyd died of a "cardiopulmonary arrest" - a heart attack. The widely spread media story is now that he died of asphyxiation due to the officers knee on his neck, which was "determined" by an expert who Floyds family contracted. Floyds family received a $27 million settlement from Minneapolis while the jury was being selected for the trial of the officer charged with murder for Floyds drug overdose death. So much for a fair "trial". 

Everyone naturally knows the name of Derek Chauvin. 

UPDATE: We now know. No charges against the officer, and it unlikely we will ever know his/her name.

In contrast to the "insurrection" at the US Capitol, the Floyd death was protested by "mostly peaceful" demonstrations. Here is a photo of the Minneapolis precinct house "peacefully" burning. 

How can you run when you know? 

Muggerich, Holocaust, Death Wish

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-great-liberal-death-wish/ 

Muggerich is yet another author who I would like to read more of. I'm pretty sure he was on "Firing Line" with William F Buckley a number of times. I was lucky enough to see at least one of those, but have no remembrance of which one. 

The link is to a lecture at Hillsdale College, yet another institution which I follow a bit as much as I can manage to find the time. It focuses on "why liberals seem to want to destroy lives"? Through time Communist and Fascist holocausts, through abortion/euthanasia, as well as the somewhat more subtle methods of consumerism, homosexuality, transgender, etc 

Let’s look again at the humane holocaust. What happened in Germany was that long before the Nazis got into power, a great propaganda was undertaken to sterilize people who were considered to be useless or a liability to society, and after that to introduce what they called “mercy killing.” This happened long before the Nazis set up their extermination camps at Auschwitz and elsewhere, and was based upon the highest humanitarian considerations. You see what I’m getting at? On a basis of liberal-humanism, there is no creature in the universe greater than man, and the future of the human race rests only with human beings themselves, which leads infallibly to some sort of suicidal situation. It’s to me quite clear that that is so, the evidence is on every hand. The efforts that men make to bring about their own happiness, their own ease of life, their own self-indulgence, will in due course produce the opposite, leading me to the absolutely inescapable conclusion that human beings cannot live and operate in this world without some concept of a being greater than themselves, and of a purpose which transcends their own egotistic or greedy desires. Once you eliminate the notion of a God, a creator, once you eliminate the notion that the creator has a purpose for us, and that life consists essentially in fulfilling that purpose, then you are bound, as Pascal points out, to induce the megalomania of which we’ve seen so many manifestations in our time—in the crazy dictators, as in the lunacies of people who are rich, or who consider themselves to be important or celebrated in the western world. Alternatively, human beings relapse into mere carnality, into being animals. I see this process going on irresistibly, of which the holocaust is only just one example. If you envisage men as being only men, you are bound to see human society, not in Christian terms as a family, but as a factory-farm in which the only consideration that matters is the well-being of the livestock and the prosperity or productivity of the enterprise. That’s where you land yourself. And it is in that situation that western man is increasingly finding himself.

Muggerich considers this obvious truth of life being devalued through abortion, euthanasia, etc  as a way to see in our time the truth of what Christ told us so clearly. 

... when it’s a question of choosing whether to save your soul or your body, the man who chooses to save his soul gathers strength thereby to go on living, whereas the man who chooses to save his body at the expense of his soul loses both body and soul. In other words, fulfilling exactly what our Lord said, that he who hates his life in this world shall keep his life for all eternity, as those who love their lives in this world will assuredly lose them.

As a Lutheran, we believe that it is not human choice that leads to faith, however those of us not baptized as infants do have the strong illusion of choice -- verses like Joshua  24:15 "But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

It is very worthwhile to read the whole piece -- and to look up Muggerich if you are not familiar with him. 

The essential feature, and necessity of life is to know reality, which means knowing God. Otherwise our mortal existence is, as Saint Teresa of Avila said, no more than a night in a second-class hotel.

WTF Happened In 1971?

 https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

That site will show a bunch of charts that seem to indicate that going off the gold standard was a bad idea. It should be pointed out that 9 out of 10 economists disagree with that assessment.  

OTOH, a visit to "Worst Economic Predictions" will show they are far from always right. My favorite of is this quote from Keynes, the godfather of economists in 1927, who claimed to solved the problem of recessions: “We will not have any more crashes in our time.” Perhaps he meant we will just call them depressions now?

 
I think all economists would agree with Galbraith, who said "Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists." 

We ought not be too hard on them. As the baseball philosopher Yogi Berra informed us; "Predictions are hard to make, especially about the future". 

A look at this site will give you some background on the charts. 

I continue to believe that having "5%" or maybe a bit more of your wealth in metals. I prefer gold and silver coins in a safety deposit box. 

The Culture of Black Guns

 https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/03/in-defense-of-the-ar-15-cult/

Yes, "black guns" look mean. So do chopped, ape hanger, no muffler Harleys. So do lots of muscle cars. Lots of tattoos intentionally look mean. The list could go on.

As an owner of one full sized AR style gun, and one pistol style black .223, I can say that like a lot of "hot/mean" looking objects, these guns are both fun and functional. They are the most popular for a reason ... they are light, accurate, reliable, and maybe most importantly, readily customizeable. They are the "Barbie of the gun world" ... only they are real, and they really work. WELL.

The linked is worth a read.

The AR-15’s versatility and adaptability has made it the rifle of America’s militia, which is nothing more or less than America’s responsible gun owners. It is within the AR-15 cult that gun owners are likeliest to get the best education in gun safety, the best training for being a responsible gun owner at home, traveling, or on a range. It’s there that they may get the best understanding of where the gun fits into America’s tradition of republicanism. A country of determined men who have arms like the AR-15, or even significantly less-capable rifles, is almost impossible to rule without consent. Just take a look over at Afghanistan.

ARs, shotguns, and pistols are the core of America's "gun culture". In order to shoot, most serious gun owners are members of a gun club, which is a social activity. 

One of the fastest growing shooting sports is Practical Shooting, a challenging and fun activity where you will really learn how to safely handle a gun around others. 

American gun ownership is somewhat like golf ... although the adult beverages have to wait until after the shooting is done! 

The True And Only Heaven, Progress And Its Critics

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/01/27/books/where-has-progress-got-us.html 

The linked is a rather good review. The book pulls together MANY threads on the origins and criticisms of the secular religion of "progress". The fact that our modern conception of progress is "more, more, more ... easier, more pleasurable, more choice, etc. An attempt to even sample the underlying material would be a work of a year or more even for a dedicated rapid reader. 

The main assertion of the book is that "more, more, more" doesn't work because of limits ... specifically environmental limits. Curiously, Malthus, the secular god of limits is never mentioned. 

The book does cover the now increasingly well known fact that the destruction of the family, church, community, etc, even with lots of wealth, entertainment and sexual pleasure is a hollow life that often leads to suicide, or addictions that have the same early death effect. (see numerous rock and other "stars" who follow the creed of "Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse"). 

Having seen too many young corpses, I can attest that young corpses are not beautiful. I'm not a mortician, so I really do not know why, but my guess is that the old corpse looks much more natural, since the body was getting close to death anyway. For the young, once the radiance of youth is extinguished, the remaining husk is rendered ugly. 

I tend to disagree with Malthus and Lasch on the material limits. Human ingenuity is rather amazing, and necessity remains the mother of invention. This is covered rather well by Matt Ridley in "The Rational Optimist" which I have read, but for some reason failed to review and blog on. The linked Gilder review seems pretty accurate. I see the earthly limits of the human spirit without God to be much more troubling than material limits. Fusion, nanotech, mining asteroids, and probably much more mundane technological solutions have a way of "cropping up"  ... see Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution. 

The spiritual limits are much more problematic. It seems increasingly obvious that the "God is dead, let's kill the family and community as well, and then we will be free" idea has failed rather miserably, although bad ideas are a bit like zombies ... they often stagger along on momentum long after they should be in the grave. 

Pagan Religion In Schools

https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/03/bonfire-of-the-sanities-californias-deranged-revival-of-the-aztec-gods/ 

The prohibition of teaching religion in in schools doesn't apply to pagan religions. 

Students first clap and chant to the god Tezkatlipoka — whom the Aztecs traditionally worshipped with human sacrifice and cannibalism — asking him for the power to be “warriors” for “social justice.” Next, the students chant to the gods Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli, and Xipe Totek, seeking “healing epistemologies” and “a revolutionary spirit.” Huitzilopochtli, in particular, is the Aztec deity of war and inspired hundreds of thousands of human sacrifices during Aztec rule. Finally, the chant comes to a climax with a request for “liberation, transformation, [and] decolonization,” after which students shout “Panche beh! Panche beh!” in pursuit of ultimate “critical consciousness.”

In this Easter season, what is wrong with a little human sacrifice and cannibalism? After all, Christ was a willing sacrifice for our sins, and since we take the Body and Blood in Holy Communion, some would accuse us of the same. 

However, some things that seem the same are actually different. A medical student dissecting a cadaver is different from Jeffrey Dahmer hacking up a victim. Although, the way this world is going, who knows? Things that seem "beyond belief" are now daily "news". 

The linked is tragically important to read. If you are still somewhat sanguine about the destruction of Western civilization, perhaps this will at least raise an eyebrow. 

It is interesting to see "epistemology" (the philosophical study of knowing and the knowable) in the context of paganism. The etymology of epistemology is a Scottish philosopher in 1856.

Without Western civilization, the very terminology used to attack it would not exist. 

Trust The Communists

Spectator, Nobody Believes China

... well, except the WHO and the US media.

The linked is worth a look ... the Chinese, and the US media are certain the Wuhan Virus didn't come from Wuhan. Oh, and they believe Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. 

As a former long time listener to NPR, I'm always impressed by how superb and reliable Communist governments are. It used to be the USSR  and Cuba. "Everyone has wonderful free healthcare there! The people are well educated and happy! All they want is peace, the US is so warlike! " 

Why in the world would anyone question these facts? 

Now it is China that can do very little wrong. Clearly it is racist of me to have any questions here. The MSM, the WHO, and the US government bureaucracy are completely reliable. 

At worst, it suggests that media outlets with millions invested into the Chinese media market do not want to jeopardize their bottom lines with even the mere suggestion that China’s COVID conclusions simply do not add up. Beijing has not acted like a government that is interested in transparency.

"At worst?" Compared to their huge military buildup, massive espionage activity, etc, a bit of media Chinese collusion is "the worst"? 

At least we can be certain that the Chinese would never try to influence a US election! That would be TERRIBLE! 

One of my favorite "coincidences" is the poor guy that died in a tragic "weightlifting accident" as he was being investigated for funneling money from China to ??? Well, we don't really know where it was going, but US media assures us it was NOT to the Clintons!  

Anyone who has lifted at all knows you have no need to put the collars on the end of bar unless you are benching over 300lbs, at which point the bar starts to bend and the weights can slide off. From personal experience I can attest that when that bar starts to bend, it is pretty cool. 

Otherwise, the collars are off since there is no reason at all to have them on, and it makes it harder to add or subtract weight, which you do all the time. No collars, no "tragic accident" ... as soon as you start to fail and can't lift the weight, the bar becomes unbalanced and the weights slide off (with lots of noise). 

Of course, "conspiracy theorists" have FALSELY claimed this is somehow related to the Clintons! How could they think such a thing? As "PolitiLie" helpfully points out: 

John Ashe represented Antigua and Barbuda at the United Nations and at one time served as president of the General Assembly. In October 2015, the FBI accused Ashe of receiving at least $500,000 in bribes to benefit a Chinese businessman named Ng Lap Seng.

Ng isn’t a household name today but back in 1998, a Senate report identified him as the source of hundreds of thousands of dollars funneled through an Arkansas restaurant owner to the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton-Gore campaign in the mid 1990s. Ng visited the White House 10 times.

That is the known extent of any Clinton connection.

See, we don't KNOW of any Clinton connection, so there wasn't any! If you don't see a mouse in your house, you KNOW that there aren't any ... well, unless you are some crazy paranoid mouse conspiracy theorist! 

For two years we DID KNOW that there was Russian collusion in the 2016 election with the Trump campaign ... it was a key part of the "news" for two years. Then, after the Dems took the House ... well, never mind.  

The MSM and Communist countries have a sterling reputation. Almost as spotless as the Bidens and the Clintons! 

He Who Has The Gold Makes the Rules

 https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/03/when-the-partys-over/

We all love to remember when we were right, and hate to remember when we were/are wrong. As a moderate depressive, I tend to remember being wrong pretty well, and being right, not as much as your average bear. (being a moose, that is understandable). 

So, I've been wrong about the coming massive financial crash since "1990" ... and have forgone a lot of market gains because of that belief. Fortunately not ALL of the gains, and my much more optimistic wife continues to beat me in the market like a rented mule. 

The linked is a pretty good summary of what I've thought would happen for a long time ... but hasn't. I hope it doesn't happen at all. I don't speak Mandarin, I have grandchildren, and while I think I'm pretty well situated for "whatever comes", evidence shows that I'm frequently wrong, although for the last year or so, my TIPs investments have been looking not as wrong as usual. 

Somebody needs to remind President Biden about the Golden Rule — the real Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules, and we are clean out of ducats.

Jim Rogers, the famous investor, offered a version of that golden rule when explaining why he decamped to the Far East and has raised his daughters speaking Mandarin: “You know where the assets are, and you know where the debts are.” President Bill Clinton, enraged at the way the financial markets constrained his grandiose ambitions, observed ruefully that in his next life he wanted to be reincarnated as the bond market so that he would finally know what it’s like to have some real power. Mann Tracht, Un Gott Lacht, goes the Yiddish proverb: Man plans, and God laughs.

The Jim Rogers linked article from  2010 is worth looking at as well. This part resonated with me ...

And that’s where Rogers’s start-a-farm pitch comes in. He pitches farming the same way he pitches Asia, like it ought to be obvious to you, but, because of some intellectual defect on your part, it isn’t: “It sounds radical, but it’s based on simple facts. Food inventories are the lowest they’ve been in decades — not months, not years, decades. And there’s a shortage of farmers. Japan has vast empty fields where all the farms have died, and the kids have all gone to Tokyo and Osaka. Japanese dislike foreigners, particularly Chinese foreigners, but they’ve started importing Chinese farmers to farm the fields in Japan that don’t have anybody to farm them. The farmers are going to have a future. Smart guys on Wall Street are going to learn to drive tractors, because the guys who can drive tractors are going to be driving Lamborghinis.” Foreseeing a unified Korea, he recommends buying now, just south of the DMZ: cheap land for hardy, self-reliant homesteaders looking to make their fortunes in a new world. Sound familiar?

Sitting here in Iowa, considering buying a couple acres of land so at least hunger would not be a problem. I don't fit in a Lamborghini, but I can drive a pretty sophisticated tractor, so there is that.    

Mass Shootings, Whiteness, Media Playbook

https://spectator.us/topic/mass-shootings-colorado-presumption-whiteness-ahmed-al-aliwi-alissa/ 

The outcry of Whiteness, racism, etc was was immediate and loud when it was assumed that the Boulder shooter was "White". "If he had been black, he would be dead" was one of the instant memes. 

When it was discovered he was Syrian, Muslim, and likely mentally ill (not that the mental illness would have mattered if he was white), it was basically "never mind" ... oh, Gun Control! 

Certainly we would not need any sort of AI to replace the MSM. A simple table lookup would do ... I'm not going to do anything extensive here, but enough to get the idea. 

• White police shoot black man ... armed, unarmed, etc it really doesn't matter. (media) GO CRAZY! 
• Back police officer kills black man? (media) We will have to carefully (and quietly) look into this. 
• Police shoot and kill a white unarmed woman veteran when she was not a threat to the officer? (media) Not only is there no outcry, we don't even know the officers name, and no charges are recommended. It appears the officer is black (not that in a sane world, that would matter). 
• White man, shoots and kills a 8 sex workers, 2 of which were  Asian? (media) Not a lot of outrage, little finger pointing because he may be "christian", and a little murmur of "sexism". 
• Comfortably wealthy white man shoots and kills 60 mostly white Country Music fans in Vegas, with no known motive? (media) Short lived coverage (it is a record after all, but in this case it counts for very little. No real interest from MSM ... after all, most of the victims were white, and likely a high percentage of Trump supporters! 
• Black man kills another black person? Crickets. 

Naturally there will be bunch of demands for "Gun Control". If you factor out large Democrat controlled cities, the US would be on par with Switzerland. Even as it is, we just barely make the top 100 (94th). If you want to take the time to look at the rankings, you might just consider cultural difference as a factor. Russia is 56th, Jamaica is 3rd. 

As Solzhenitsyn sadly said, "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being".

Can mass shootings be stopped? Probably, at least private ones if we go totalitarian as we seem to be heading. Then the mass killings will be buried in trenches dug with backhoes, and the victims will just be "disappeared". So no outcry! Progress! 

Humans have always killed each other, and always will until Christ returns. When we broke our culture in the 1960's, the mass killings increased ( although they are still a tiny percentage) ... most likely. as we continue break our culture, they will continue to increase.