hat tip (with strong disagreement that there is anything remotely ambiguous about abortion)

By the way, I have no problem with being anti-abortion and pro-war if the alternative is absolute pacifism.  Both involve defending the innocent. But, as I’ve said before, there is no tradition in Christian history of a Just Bombing Theory and Just War Theory is abused until that is admitted.  And America has never used war as a last resort for dire threats.  It has used it as a policy option to teach others to obey us.

when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you… know that your society is doomed.

Read it all at: Ayn Rand On What Dooms Societies | LILA RAJIVA: The Mind-Body Politic.

a certain Levite was sojourning in the remote parts of the hill country of Ephraim, who took to himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah. And his concubine was unfaithful to him, and she went away from him to her father’s house at Bethlehem in Judah, and was there some four months. Then her husband arose and went after her, to speak kindly to her and bring her back. He had with him his servant and a couple of donkeys. And she brought him into her father’s house. And when the girl’s father saw him, he came with joy to meet him. And his father-in-law, the girl’s father, made him stay, and he remained with him three days. So they ate and drank and spent the night there. And on the fourth day they arose early in the morning, and he prepared to go, but the girl’s father said to his son-in-law, “Strengthen your heart with a morsel of bread, and after that you may go.” So the two of them sat and ate and drank together. And the girl’s father said to the man, “Be pleased to spend the night, and let your heart be merry.” And when the man rose up to go, his father-in-law pressed him, till he spent the night there again. And on the fifth day he arose early in the morning to depart. And the girl’s father said, “Strengthen your heart and wait until the day declines.” So they ate, both of them. And when the man and his concubine and his servant rose up to depart, his father-in-law, the girl’s father, said to him, “Behold, now the day has waned toward evening. Please, spend the night. Behold, the day draws to its close. Lodge here and let your heart be merry, and tomorrow you shall arise early in the morning for your journey, and go home.”

But the man would not spend the night. He rose up and departed and arrived opposite the place of the Evangelicals (that is, the Arminians and/or Baptists). He had with him a couple of saddled donkeys, and his concubine was with him. When they were near the place of the Evangelicals, the day was nearly over, and the servant said to his master, “Come now, let us turn aside to this city of the Evangelicals and spend the night in it.” And his master said to him, “We will not turn aside into the city of non-Calvinists, who do not belong to the people of Presbyterians, but we will pass on to the conservative Presbyterian or Reformed denominations.” And he said to his young man, “Come and let us draw near to one of these places and spend the night at the sanctuary of confessional Presbyterians or continental Reformed.” So they passed on and went their way. And the sun went down on them near Gibeah, which belongs to Benjamin…

The Westminster Confession and Catechisms are a lamp to my feet
and a light to my path. –Psalm 119.105

Here is the news story.

Here is some commentary: The Plague of Punitive Populism. Of course the “perps” (the official name for victims of government torture) are being heavily charged.

When the pregnant daughter-in-law of the victim intervenes, she, too, is forced to perform the “electron dance.” The grandfather is charged with disorderly conduct and public intoxication, despite the fact that Virginia state statutes specify that such offenses cannot be committed on one’s own property.

The woman who came to the aid of the first victim was charged with “assaulting an officer,” since her brave effort to protect the grandfather from a criminal assault involved placing her unhallowed hands on the sanctified personage of a “law enforcement officer.” Such presumption simply cannot be tolerated.

I’m deleting my own commentary (that I just wrote) and doing breathing exercises to calm down.  Then I’m singing Psalm 2 (pdf).

Meet the Mob

How to Dress Like an Authentic Grass Roots Activist

I’ve been thinking about some things that I have not yet figured out how to articulate in a way I think is sufficient.  That never stopped me before so here goes:

We all know we (I’m speaking to Christians here) don’t believe in Karma.  We talk about grace all the time as a gift that we never earned.  Ask us any question about grace and merit and we know the answers.

My oldest son has grown taller than I am in the last two years.  He was taller than me even when he wasn’t a teenager.  And we (and others) often spontaneously say to him, “Wow, you are tall!”  And he grins and smiles and is obviously proud of it, like it somehow reflects his efforts.  His character.

I’m not blaming him.  He knows better at one level.  But do any of us know better?  Does anyone who is tall or beautiful or smart not believe at some level that they made themselves that way?

Think about the whole cult of “everyone can be whatever they want.”  Who sells that story?  The people who got what they want, who got to be what they want to be.

And what do they tell others?  That anyone can do it.  That everyone has this potential, but they have to do whatever virtuous deeds the successful people have done in order to get there.

But, obviously, it is completely in the interests of those who have power, privilege, possessions to claim that they somehow acheived these things.  Every society in every different economic system has always had people on top and those people have virtually always claimed that this was due to their own virtue.  It is the ultimate self-justification.

But meet someone whose face was scarred as a child or who didn’t have any number of the myriad of advantages of the few… Or meet the many who tried just as hard or harder than the successful yet never found success.  David Boreanz became a famous actor because someone spotted him walking a dog.  Of course, he did move to Hollywood with hopes.  And he did probably many other things beside look good.  But do you think for a minute there are not thousands who did all the same things and got missed?

For everyone who visibly ends up on top, there are a hundred or more who are commensurate in every way who don’t.

And even worse, for all the “normals” out there with their families and there children there are the (hopefully few) haunted marginalized who didn’t make it.  The ones who couldn’t have children and never could adopt.  The one who married a spouse that became deranged in some way and ended the suburban prosperity dream of the partner.

I have never known anyone well, who went through horrible circumstances, who didn’t somehow blame themselves or feel ashamed for what they were going through.  Like for some reason they shouldn’t look others in the eye.  Maybe some never do this, but I haven’t run into such a person.  It becomes an imperative to say, This isn’t your fault. This doesn’t make you worthless.  You didn’t do this to yourself.

Yes, I’m aware that some people destroy themselves.  They do.  Almost always by doing deeds that others are able to get away with somehow.  And how long does someone have to add to their miseries by flagellating themselves for a sin?  What is the point of denying the need to do penance if someone is led to interpret their poverty or bereavement as penance for what they did?

“Was this man born blind because of his sin or his parents’ sin?”

And what do the normals do?  They attribute their normality to themselves.  But it is, humanly speaking, all statistics.  They have no idea what they would be like, what their personalities would be like, the kind of voice they would have when they talked to themselves late on a sleepless night, if God had put diseases, or job loss, or dead children in their path instead of the health and wealth they have.  Not one realizes the person he or she would be.

No one thinks they’re ambitious for expecting the status quo in their lives.  It is only when they have it taken away from them that they suddenly realize that they are.  No one thinks his posture toward life,  his self-confidence in what he does, his self-respect, is something that could have been obliterated long ago.  And they wonder why other people don’t have that.  And figure that their lack must be the reason they haven’t achieved more.  Reversing cause and effect is the chief strategy for inventing a theory of karma.

The entire situation produces the Leftisms of the world.  Because if the status quo is such a right, then those left out of it, must have been robbed.  And so a theory of injustice is invented. The myth of free market utopia creates the myth of communist justice.

What happens if I am put into normalcy again?  Do I forget everything I’ve learned?  Seems likely since I still don’t think I know how to explain what I’ve learned.  God help me.