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Hey, you got a Rumination – and a pretty meaty one, at that – a whole day early. So allow me a “tab clearing” morning. The links have been piling up!
1. Democrat Privileges.
It seems that if you’re an elected Democrat, the position comes with privileges Republicans don’t get:
Law scholar and George Washington University professor Jonathan Turley, who testified yesterday at the House Judiciary Committee, is being threatened for not parroting the leftist mantra. His testimony yesterday called for civility and open dialogue between the different factions. He spoke of the rule of law and explained the constitutional problems that would arise from this impeachment — without evidence of a crime.His reward is to have lunatics demand his firing from George Washington.
My call for greater civility and dialogue may have been the least successful argument I made to the committee. Before I finished my testimony, my home and office were inundated with threatening messages and demands that I be fired from GW. https://t.co/X3wsqPTZBj— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) December 5, 2019
Professor Turley talked about the “rancor and rage” and the need to dial it down. He took a lot of abuse during the hearings for merely laying out the problems of impeaching for a non-impeachable offense.
Nancy Pelosi then opined:
“In America, no one is above the law,” Speaker Pelosi said.“The facts are uncontested.” “The president abused his power.”
[Uh, no they’re not uncontested.]
“The president’s actions have severely undermined the Constitution,” she said as she subverts the Constitution to impeach the President without a crime.
“Our democracy is at stake. He wants to corrupt the election for his own benefit. His actions are in defiance of the founders and the oath of office that he takes to preserve and protect the Constitution,” she continued.
And so we have these Democrat privileges on display:
- You get to threaten people who don’t agree with your legal assessments.
- You get to lie – and be outraged about being called on it.
- You get to defame any Republican you like.
Now, some of those privileges are usually effectuated by cat’s-paws. But that doesn’t change the overall situation. Nothing will happen to Pelosi and her co-criminals. Neither will anyone demand that they condemn those who threatened Professor Turley.
2. Alliances.
Mark “Mad Dog” Sherman is explicit:
We need to reform our international institutions from the World Bank and the IMF to the UN and NATO (and many if not all of our other mutual defense treaties).The new order needs to be based in the Anglosphere, and what we know works politically to maximize human thriving, free markets, individual liberty, personal responsibility, property rights, republicanism, and reformed religions.
Time to stop pretending and act.
The question that must be put to any international alliance is a simple one: “All alliances are formed to counterpoise a threat, whether actual or perceived. What threat does NATO counterpoise?”
During the years of the Iron Curtain, NATO was justifiable on the basis of Soviet expansionism. It was a perceptible threat for which there was hard evidence. But the USSR is gone. Does Russia pose a threat to Europe? Of any magnitude whatsoever? And if not, then why should American taxpayers continue to fund the “defense” of Europe?
3. Big Brother Really Wants To Watch!
We might not yet be surrounded by Orwell’s telescreens – emphasis on might — but there are Democrats out there with ambitions:
Illinois state Rep. Daniel Didech has proposed a law that would require police to screen the social media accounts of potential gun buyers.If passed, this bill would allow police to disqualify an individual from purchasing a gun and even revoke a currently valid Firearm Owner’s Identification Card if any information on the social media accounts was found alarming.
I want to see this man indicted, tried, and convicted for violation of his oath of office, and then hanged from a lamppost in whatever district he claims to represent. Moreover, I want the whole thing televised nationally. Pour encourager les autres, don’t y’know.
4. The Democrats’ Media Handmaidens.
It’s been plain from the start that concerning the entirely fact-free “impeachment inquiry” hearings, the media have been cheerleaders for the Democrats’ drive to unseat President Trump. Ace of Spades deposeth and sayeth:
Does the media think there's any coming back from this?I think they don't think there's any coming back from this -- I think they realize that they made it all too obvious three or four years ago.
No one believes them any longer -- not even their progressive customer base actually believes them; their progressive customer base merely supports their lying to others for shared goals -- and they're now just an all-but-admitted propaganda industry, and the only way out is through.
As evidence, Ace presents some “thoughts” from the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan:
How should journalists respond to the stalemate, other than to keep doing exactly what they’ve been doing?The hint of a possible solution appears in the tracking of public opinion on impeachment at Nate Silver’s fivethirtyeight.com, under the headline, "Plenty Of People Are Persuadable On Impeachment."
A paradox arises herein, and a weird one, at that. There’s a group the trackers call "less-certain Republicans"-- about 12 percent of the sample, not huge but given the even split in support for impeachment, mighty important.
Appalling. “Facts? We don’t need no stinking facts! We need an impeachment and trial!”
These “organs of democracy” are headed for the scrap bucket.
5. Annnnddd, It’s Muslims.
The Islamic terrorist attack in Pensacola, Florida came but an eyeblink after one on the London Bridge. But what do we hear from our “protectors?” Once again, it’s: “We cannot be sure of the motive...we may never know what it was.”
On this score, have a little Mark Steyn:
The attack on London Bridge - no, not the 2017 attack, the new one - broke just as I was heading off to guest-host Tucker's show at Fox News. There is a small and rather sad "Christmas market" of pop-up stalls at the corner of Sixth Avenue and 44th Street - surrounded, of course, by large concrete blocks placed there in case any radicalized SUV or extremist mid-size rental car were minded to drive up on the sidewalk and mow down shoppers.In more sophisticated societies such as Angela Merkel's Germany, the so-called "Merkel Lego" barricading Christmas fairs is painted to look like giant, ill-proportioned candy canes or huge misshapen holly leaves, to add a festive gaiety to security measures. But in New York the concrete blocks are unadorned except for the stark blue lettering of "NYPD". I passed them almost every day in the last week, and reflected each time on how we've agreed to let everything get so bloody ugly in order to avoid addressing what we once used to fret over as the "root causes". Mid-town Manhattan traditionally looks beautiful and magical at Yuletide, but that was before it was agreed that, as a young German lady put it to me three years ago, "Christmas will be a target."
It has fallen to us – private citizens – to defend ourselves. No one else can be counted on to do so. Perhaps that was always the case. So be prepared, and be damned to any law that forbids you carrying whatever weapon makes you feel safer.
6. “Natural” Noise.
A little more from Ace of Spades, this time on two fads popular among persons who simply must get exercised about something but haven’t the intelligence or erudition to choose wisely:
The American media and our popular culture both celebrate a fear of safe, nutritious food if it is not labeled “organic.” To be consistent then, why don’t we also celebrate anti-vaxxers’ fear of safe vaccines, which are also not “organic?” To be clear, I am not an anti-vaxxer. I am strongly pro-vaccine. Everyone in my house is vaccinated, and I am appalled at the outbreaks of contagious diseases due to anti-vaxxers. But let’s be clear, a Venn diagram of those who obsess about organic food and anti-vaxxers will reveal a major overlap. If you know an anti-vaxxer, he is most likely committed to an organic diet.Our culture accepts as a scientific fact that organic food is healthier than non-organic food. You can watch TV, read popular magazines, or listen to healthy-living gurus, and overwhelmingly you will be told that organic food is healthier than non-organic food. Recipes tend to call for organic produce and ingredients. And it goes beyond organic foods. Genetically-modified foods are slandered as “frankenfoods” concocted by mad scientists in a laboratory. Further, we are admonished to avoid anything that is not “natural.”
Slam that last little word: natural. It’s the root of the psychosis. As Man is a part of Nature – he is, you know, unless you’re one of the Scientologist loonies who believe that we were designed and put here by an alien species – nothing Man does can be legitimately called “unnatural.” Yes, we’re engineers and technologists. That means We study and work with the laws of Nature. So leave off with the “natural” BS and look plainly at verifiable sources of measurable harm.
But that would deprive a whole bunch of Cause People of their sacred, life-fulfilling Causes! Can we really do that? Sure! Think of it as a “full employment for psychiatrists” measure. Anyway, they can still get on the “global warming” bandwagon.
7. The Immaculate Conception.
Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, when Catholics commemorate and honor the conception of Mary of Nazareth, chosen by God the Father to be the Mother of Jesus Christ. Its theological significance is considerable, but its importance doesn’t end there: it’s also one of the two subjects that has moved a pope to invoke papal infallibility:
Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church that states that, in virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope is preserved from the possibility of error "When, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church."This doctrine was defined dogmatically in the First Vatican Council of 1869–1870, but had been defended before that, existing already in medieval theology and being the majority opinion at the time of the Counter-Reformation.
Papal infallibility has been a millstone around the neck of the Church ever since it was explicitly proclaimed. It was first used to make the Immaculate Conception a dogma. Its next explicit use was in 1950, when Pope Pius XII declared the Assumption of Mary a dogma.
But the assertion of infallibility, whether or not one accepts it, is plainly a dangerous doctrine. It amounts to a statement that “I cannot be wrong, because I say so.” Popes have been wrong on many occasions; history is riddled with them. They must remain free to admit to error on all but the most vital aspects of the Faith. Infallible proclamations deprive them of that freedom. In recognition of the danger to the authority and prestige of the Church, no pope since Pius XII has dared to employ it.
In a way, this speaks well of the popes of our time. It’s a measure of the humility of the men raised to the Throne of Saint Peter. But that characteristic is irregularly distributed; it is not guaranteed to be present in every Supreme Pontiff. As witness we have the caperings of Jorge Cardinal Bergoglio of Argentina, who at the resignation of the brilliant, greatly missed Pope Benedict XVI was unwisely raised to the papacy as Pope Francis.
8. A Bit More On The Immaculate Conception.
I was once asked whether Mary of Nazareth had the freedom to decline the honor of being the Mother of Jesus Christ. I replied in the affirmative, for God does not coerce. The person who asked was curious for a particular reason. He wanted to know whether God had a “back-up plan:” i.e., another young woman who had been immaculately conceived, and so would be qualified to be Jesus’s mother should Mary opt out.
I had to think about it for a while. After some time, I decided that no, God would not have had an alternative ready. He knew that Mary would accept. But that, my questioner riposted, blows a hole into the concept of free will!
It’s a typical predestinationist argument. I’ve found only one escape from the trap. Hearken to Father Raymond Altomare, the pastor to the Catholics of Onteora County:
“What makes it hard for most people,” Ray said, “is that we tend to think of God as just a very powerful temporal entity, like some sort of super-magician. But He’s not. He created time. He looks down on it from above, the way you or I would read a map. He knows the path we follow because He knows all the paths we might follow, and what might flow from every one of them.” He sat back and reflected for a moment. “So our time-dependent language about ‘choosing’ and ‘knowing’ gets us into trouble when we try to apply it to God.”
Father Ray is, of course, a fictional character...but is there any other possible way divine omniscience can be harmonized with human free will?
I look forward to your thoughts.
That’s all for today, Gentle Reader. I have a novel to complete and one hell of a lot of home maintenance to get through. Enjoy your Sunday.
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