The mainstream media—mostly–continues to disgrace itself in the wake of the Mueller report, as do others, like the despicable Bill Maher. I can’t wait to see how Stephen “Cockholster” Colbert tries to spin it, while being hilarious, of course. Remember, this was a destructive smear on the character, patriotism and loyalty of a newly elected U.S. President, launched without any justification other than the fact that Democrats , and especially Hillary Clinton, cannot accept the fact that someone like the real estate mogul/ reality TV star could beat the party’s coronated successor to the Great Obama. Surely, some sinister conspiracy had to be at work. Based on this, and nothing else, we have seen a nearly three-year, oppressive inquiry interfering with the President’s ability to govern, while subjected to a non-stop barrage of news reports finding looming impeachment in every leak.
Ethics Alarms flagged it as the coup attempt it was from the beginning. This didn’t require any special acumen. All it required was objectivity, common sense, and a rueful appreciation of how totalitarian the Democratic Party has become in its values and tactics.
Some notable and illuminating reactions, and some heroes and villains….
- Bill Maher scripted the reactions I am reading from the bitter-enders on my Facebook feed: “I don’t need the Mueller report to know Trump is a traitor. I have a TV.” Imagine: Maher considers a confession of blatant bias virtue signaling to his bleating, Trump-hating audience. But saying this after the report is no more evidence of unethical bias than what we heard from the Trump-Deranged commenters here. They just knew he was guilty, and they probably still do. Last year, Maher was certain that Mueller would prove impeachable offenses. For example, he tweeted,he tweeted, “Hey Trump, if Mueller is hunting witches he’s finding them.” No, he wasn’t. “Witches” were Trump agents who colluded on his behalf making quid pro quo deals with Russia. They didn’t exist.
- CBS expatriot-turned truth-teller (she admits that the news media is biased) Lara Logan told Fox News—they’d never let her say this kind of thing on MSNBC—
My question is this: If charges had been brought against the president, then the headlines would all be screaming about, you know, victory, right, for the left. Vindication. This proves that what the left has been saying is right. Now, no charges have been brought but I don’t see screaming headlines that say this vindicates the President….There is something else that bothers me with much of the reporting on this from the beginning is that you keep seeing high-up, featured prominently in many articles, this line that ‘six members of the Trump campaign have been indicted by the Mueller investigation’ — but you don’t read in the same space right there, nobody writes ‘although none of them were charged with conspiracy with Russia,’ the central question of the Mueller investigation. That always comes way, way, way down further in the reporting.
Huh. How odd. Why would they do that, I wonder?
- MSNBC continued to befoul itself by being unable to just report the news and admit that its analysis was dead, dead, wrong. Rachel Maddow appeared to be choking up as she revealed the bad news that the President wasn’t proven to be a traitor, and that Democrats would have to live with the results of a rigged election exploiting the evil Electoral College (Alexander Hamilton didn’t like it, so there) using the votes of racist morons. Chris Matthews furiously demanded to know, “How can Mueller let him off the hook?” and was livid that President Trump was not “interrogated”. He wasn’t “on the hook if he didn’t do anything wrong,” and if no evidence implicated Trump, Mueller had no basis to demand an interview.
Best of all was the incompetent Joy Reid, joined on a panel by Perpetually Angry Elly Mystal, whose increasingly outrageous leftist rants have kept me from touching “Above the Law” with a metaphorical ten foot pole. Mystal:
“Is Trump’s flunky going to release a report that might be damaging to his sugar daddy? I don’t think so. I don’t even know why we think that Barr isn’t the one who stopped the investigation. This is a 22-month-long investigation, Barr’s been on the scene for a month, and now we’re done? That doesn’t strike anybody as odd? No, I have absolutely no confidence that Bill Barr will do anything other than what is in the best interest of Donald Trump.”
What an asshole. There is no justification for calling Trump Barr’s “sugar daddy.” This isn’t journalism and it isn’t punditry. It’s just hateful partisan poison. Then Reid joined in:
“The fact that this investigation takes place within the Justice Department, which Donald Trump essentially controls, and that he got rid of the problem, Jeff Sessions, who––the one decent thing that he did was just recuse himself. This guy is not recused. It feels like the seeds of a cover-up are here.”
Sessions had to recuse himself, you irredeemable idiot, because Sessions was part of the Trump campaign, and might have been subject to investigation himself. Reid didn’t insist that Eric Holder, Obama’s pal AG (unlike Barr, who has no personal relationship with the President)recuse himself from the many investigations, actual and potential, that had possible impact on the President, such as the extremely suspicious IRS scandal.
- CNN distinguished itself from unprofessional and openly “resistance”-allied MSNBC by at least being willing to face reality without spin. Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, was straightforward:
“Let’s be specific .This is really good news for a lot of people around Donald Trump. …There has been a lot of suspicion around certain people. And a lot of negative things have been said and imputation of criminal activity. Mueller has said, I am not proceeding. There is no better news to receive than you are not being indicted by the United States government.”
Eva Perez added,
“After an investigation that has frankly clouded his administration since the beginning of his presidency. The president can begin to probably breathe a little easier that the idea that his vindication is coming. He knows that so far from the Mueller investigation, the public information that’s been released by Robert Mueller, there’s been nothing that comes close to what looks like collusion or conspiracy, which has been at the focus of this investigation, the idea that there was somebody in the president’s campaign who was colluding with the Russians.”
- I guess no one should be surprised that the impeachment-cheerleading New York Times did not take the bad news well, or professionally. It issued an editorial essentially stating, “We don’t need to read the Mueller report” because we know Trump is guilty.
- Down the memory hole, except that so many conservative pundits are revealing in re-surfacing them, are the many irresponsible predictions by talking heads and Democrats that the President’s eventual destruction was inevitable, since they knew he was guilty, and that Mueller would prove it.
—In December 2017, MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski said the Trump Team was might be going to jail “for the rest of their lives.”
—A year later, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Delaware Sen. Coons if Trump might be facing jail time. Coons said there was a good chance, since “the issues outlined against both Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort, I think, continue to sharpen the ways in which it is clear that the Mueller investigation has produced a whole series of actions not previously exposed to the public. “
—Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who has been the leader of House Furies convinced that Mueller would find impeachable crimes, said Trump could be the first President “to face the prospect of jail time,” saying “My takeaway is there’s a very real prospect that on the day Donald Trump leaves office the Justice Department may indict him, that he may be the first president in quite some time to face the real prospect of jail time. We have been discussing the issue of pardons that the President may offer to people or dangle in front of people. The bigger pardon question may come down the road as the next President has to determine whether to pardon Donald Trump. In March of last year, ABC’s Joy Behar told the audience: “I think they’re all [The Trump family] going to end up together in prison and maybe that’s a good thing.”I
—In March 2018, ABC’s Joy Behar hopefully predicted of the Trump family: “I think they’re all going to end up together in prison and maybe that’s a good thing.”
There are many, many more.
- Rolling Stone editor Matt Taibbi, no Trump-lover he, joined the thin ranks of the journalists willing to accept the sad reality, and wrote
Nobody wants to hear this, but news that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller is headed home without issuing new charges is a death-blow for the reputation of the American news media. As has long been rumored, the former FBI chief’s independent probe will result in multiple indictments and convictions, but no “presidency-wrecking” conspiracy charges, or anything that would meet the layman’s definition of “collusion” with Russia….Nothing Trump is accused of from now on by the press will be believed by huge chunks of the population, a group that (perhaps thanks to this story) is now larger than his original base. As Baker notes, a full 50.3% of respondents in a poll conducted this month said they agree with Trump the Mueller probe is a “witch hunt.”
Ethics Alarms 
It was Lara Logan, not Lara Loomer.
Thanks. Fixed. Duh. Been a long day.
I wonder if the NYT will look back on this story in the days of bankruptcy and wonder if this is what killed them?
I sure hope so…
The Global Elite types would never allow their favorite propaganda tool to fail.
I think this clip sums up the current state of Leftists in regards to the collusion investigation:
Of course, it wasn’t just Leftists, but also elite classist snobs like Bill Kristol and George Will, who were offended that a low class boor like Trump could ever presume to lead their country.
Elite classist snobs need to be reminded of the American propensity to tell our ‘betters’ to take a flying leap.
In the parlance of EA, that translates to ‘Bite Me.’
I can’t imagine how the Democrats, as well as the MSM are ever going to live this one down. Over three years of politicians, pundits, and ‘journalists’ all shouting the same tiresome refrain of “Trump Russia collusion!!!”, and now it seems that for everyone, save the most devout of the ‘Resistance’, the narrative has been shattered, worldviews destroyed, and campaign promises rendered empty.
Yet another huge blow has been dealt to the Left, and yet this revelation brings me no joy, but rather sadness, and a sense that this will only serve to push many Democrats even further to the left, further deepening the political divide in our country.
The Culture War will continue to rage on, progressives will continue to grow more radical, new memes will be manufactured and wielded against their already furious targets, social media companies will grow ever more censorious, new thoughtcrimes will be invented and punished, and political tribes will point fingers across the aisles when they really should be looking into a mirror.
Who will win The Culture War? Will it be those motivated by ideology and lust for power to crush their political enemies, willing to twist the truth and rewrite history to serve their own ends? Or will it be those who seek the truth, however unpleasant that truth may be, and strive to bridge the ever deepening ideological chasm we find dividing our nation?
Decades later, the answer is still very much in doubt.
“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”
-George Orwell
I suspect they won’t even try. They will just ignore the result and focus on the other investigations Congress is pursuing.
In other words, they’ll just pretend it never happened, and that their reports were right all along. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. Move along.
If they go much further left, they are going to fall off the edge of the world. I’m not sure what is “left” of communism, which is where the socialist wing used to be. Anarchy, perhaps?
Anarcho-Communism?
That’s it!
😉
Interesting, you bringing up the term ‘culture war’ (and the Culture Wars is I assume what you mean?)
The Culture Wars were about relatively limited issues, say for example homosexual marriage or homosexual rights. Women’s role and woman’s rights. Abortion. Prayer in the school. Most often, if I recall, the issues were those of the tension between a secular culture and a former religious culture, the religious culture having the frightening sense that it was losing ground, which indeed it had been and is.
Are we dealing now with The Culture Wars? When I saw your use of it (though you might only have meant ‘ongoing cultural battles’) it occurred to me that, whatever is happening, it is at another level. The Culture Wars were more limitedly civic. Now, we seem to be dealing with an expanding civilizational crisis, something spread over the Occident generally. But to be more precise: this is how the various rising right-leaning movements are defining the issue. It may have been previously about local civic issues within a limited Americanism, but now it has expanded tremendously.
I am likely the one on this blog that puts the most energy into studying the Far Right and the Extreme Right. I have gotten the impression that my investigations — simply undertaking them, simply talking about my findings — is perceived as a nefarious act. There are so many synonyms!
It is interesting to bring them all out in the open because it really does, it seems to me, illustrate something important. That the core of the ‘battle’ has to do with Values. How values are defined. How one comes to define value.
But what I more wanted to say is that though the Progressives — really on a world-level — are cranking up their rhetorical engines and funneling in ultra high-octane moral liquid fevers into the volatile fuel that drives those engines, so simultaneously is the developing Right. I need a term that establishes contradistinction to the Established Right and Established Conservatism, and unfortunately that term does not exist (Alt-Right is inadequate).
Progressives are indeed growing more radical. I need to interject an example as an illustration. I just watched for the second time Black KKKlansman. If this is not a Radical Progressive Statement about the present with more or less specific recommended praxis to confront that present, and thus a perfect example here, I am not sure what else I could mention.
The Progressive Factions are rallying themselves together around the rhetorical construct of their ‘goodness’ in opposition to the wicked, evil, sinful, iniquitous, villainous, criminal, heinous, atrocious, appalling, abhorrent, vile, foul, base, abominable, odious, depraved, corrupt, shameful, scandalous, monstrous, fiendish, diabolical, devilish, unholy, ungodly, infernal, satanic, dark, unspeakable, despicable, outrageous, shocking, disgraceful activities of a rising Opposition which they, in rhetorical overdrive, seek to define.
He who defines first, frames for the long-run.
I would suggest in all this, however, that the reason the so-called Progressives are rising up in rhetorical intensity is precisely relational to an resistance-movement which began to develop to oppose their machinations. Therefore, if this is so, the more there is a counter-movement against ‘them’, the more revved up they will become.
But all of this is actually talking around the issue of Values. I can provide one example as illustration. I believe that Islam should be — must be — expelled from the West. Fairly radical, wouldn’t you say? My idea, my belief, my will, can be defended intellectually and spiritually. Of this I have no doubt. My view is built around specific definitions of Value. It is value-based. But to get to that ‘expulsion’ will involve, as they say, ‘the rubber meeting the road’. What I have just said here, to cowering Occidentals, frightens them down to their socks. The idea is so unbelievably outrageous that it cannot be thought about, must be countered.
Yet, when you examine the issues, when you abstract them and bring them out into the open, you will discover (IMHO) that the issues are, ultimately, value-issues and they are value-questions foundational to notions of civilization. What it is, how it came to be, what made it it, what can maintain it, and what has to happen in our world now.
As I say, these value-issues are no longer merely local. They have to do with how the world is visualized. What is ends and meanings are.
And that’s why I’m switching to Pepsi®
Won’t you join me?
Honestly I can’t think of another way of framing the issue, other than a war between cultures. Perhaps I could refer to it as:
“An Illuminating History of the Ongoing Struggle for World Supremacy Fought Between the Powers of Progressivism and Conservatism”
Though that may be a bit long winded and melodramatic.
Call it Values, Ideology, Tribalism, Political, what have you-at it’s core what we’ve been seeing is (at least in the United States), is a clash between two separate cultures-Urban vs Rural, Progressive vs Conservative, Religious vs Secular, the tags go on and on.
All are cultures in their own right, with their own distinct values, beliefs, ways of life, religions, etc.
I agree that the conflict has moved beyond simple civic matters, and grown into something far greater, as both seem to be convinced that they are fighting for the very soul of civilization, as evidenced by the conservative battle cry “God is on our side!”, and it’s secular equivalent “We’re on the right side of history!”
What I have been seeing emerging on both ends of the political spectrum is a sort of ‘Common Enemy’ type of politics, with various right-wing factions rallying against the so called ‘Cult of Progressive Intersectionslism/Globalism’, and left-wing factions rallying against ‘Rising Right-Wing Nationalism/Fascism/Hegemonic Straight White Male Cis Capitalist Patriarchy’.
And I do not have to point to many historical references about how that system of politics inevitably turns out.
You bring up a sound observation.
It seems unrelated but one thing that interests me a great deal, and I think is an important aspect, is romanticism*. Perhaps in a ever-flattening-out present, where there are no longer real and identifiable cultural and existential purposes that motive people and inspire them, there is desperation of sorts when they face the sheer banality and emptiness of life-that-is-less-than-life?
Myself, I observe this often among my crowd: the seeking out of symbols, or historical moments, extractions our of times when meaning and value seemed more clear. I have definitely observed it in myself, too.
I submit an example of what I feel to be romantic longing. That longing is deeply linked I think to spiritual sentiments, and this particular song is a favorite of a Celtic-minded girl I know who introduced me to this unusual band.
The Circle Is Unbroken
___________________________
*Romanticism: “Romanticism (also known as the Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. Romanticism was characterized by its emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as glorification of all the past and nature, preferring the medieval rather than the classical.
“It seems unrelated but one thing that interests me a great deal, and I think is an important aspect, is romanticism*. Perhaps in a ever-flattening-out present, where there are no longer real and identifiable cultural and existential purposes that motive people and inspire them, there is desperation of sorts when they face the sheer banality and emptiness of life-that-is-less-than-life?”
A certain quote comes to mind,
“Everyday the future looks a little bit darker. But the past, even the grimy parts of it, well, it just keeps on getting brighter all the time.”
-Alan Moore
Romanticism for the past I think is a common trope of the human condition, everything is fondly observed from behind rose tinted glasses. The banality of existence lends itself to escapism, and, as you stated, the need to derive meaning from symbols or historical events. I think it also satisfies the human need to assign order and purpose to an otherwise chaotic and indifferent universe.
And while we’re on the subject of art-I’m more of a neoclassical person myself.
For purposes of interest and study I submit another ‘text’ which has a very very strong romantic message. There are a dozen different messages that are emphasized through it:
Love the image of the lion being tormented by a pack of hyenas-a tad bit on the heavy handed side as far as symbolism is concerned-though the overall message about mass immigration from sub-Sahara Africa into Europe is something worthy of reasonable discussion. Looping it back to the initial discussion, mass immigration and the debates raging from all sides of the political stage can be traced as one of the main causes for the rise in popularity of right-wing political parties in Europe.
Many Europeans have figured out that the Global Elites who rule their countries are looking to replace them… and do not care whether they live or die in the process.
Just like the Swamp in our country intend for American citizens. Refuse to vote the way WE tell you, we simply replace you… and you can get with the program or die out, your choice.
The secular Left and the emerging new secular Right are both ratcheting up the language of morality, shame, and outrage as they rail against one another, but the amusing thing (to me, anyway) is that they DON’T BELIEVE in objective morality. Neither the murderous Communist regime nor the murderous white-indentity terrorist believes that Right or Wrong exist in any real sense, but they’ll both kill for their ideology! It is impossible to make absolute moral statements (Trump’s border wall is evil!) and simultaneously believe that morality is not real and is only determined by society’s consensus (live your truth!) Obviously, people DO hold both positions, but it’s self-defeating. It happens, but it can’t work. It is a recipe for declining sanity, cognitive dissonance and eventual collapse.
They do it because concepts of fairness, while not built into nature, are built into human souls. When someone steals from us, for example, we cannot help but find this UNJUST for some reason, rather than accepting that evolution is proceeding as intended and the fit (the thief) just won a small victory for his genetic progeny over the less fit (you) by gaining some of your resources. Even sociopaths can recognize something is unfair when it’s happening to them.
Most of the people suffering literal nervous breakdowns because of Trump had ancestors (if not parents) who believed in a literal God who both proscribes human morality and judges humans according to His own standard. They were able to say with logical cohesion that something was or was not “right” because “rightness” in their worldview was a real thing that existed independently of our thoughts and feelings. But their moral outrage was limited, in doctrine if not always in practice, by the actual parameters of what was and was not a sin according to Christianity. It was also limited by the doctrine of grace; if you believe that you have been forgiven of a great many awful things, railing too hard against someone else’s sin is a bad look. In Christianity there’s a good amount of internal concern over not being a hypocrite, a pharisee, self-righteous, etc. and a good amount of ink in the gospels is devoted to the topic. This philosophy tempers moral outrage and mobs.
Who guessed that a world that banishes Christianity from polite company would quickly become MORE hypocritical, more controlling, more self-righteous, more pharisaical, more smug, more self-congratulatory, more ignorant, more spiteful, and less self-reflective? It shouldn’t have been too hard to predict, given the above.
It is hard to offer a comment because it is a very general assertion. I do not imagine that the secular left is atheistic on the whole. Probably it has a strong modernist-Christian link if it were looked into. A progressive Protestant and progressive Catholic would likely side with general American Progressivism, don’t you think? That is, Christian love understood as social justice, egalitarianism, and also acceptance of multi-culturalism. To the degree that these sorts of people actually think, and I often have the sense that they are ‘feeing their way along’, they would likely define some mushy post-Christianity or neo-Christianity.
It is very likely that the Antifa-left is atheistic. However, I would also bet that some are tending to the pagan. The strict Communist-Socialist-Marxist left might be ideologically atheistic for obvious reasons.
The newer manifestations of the political and social Right are in some senses more interesting. The right-leaning traditionalists could be and often are dedicatedly Christian, either Evangelical or Catholic. They make up a definite faction. But at the same time there are many who reject Christianity and have taken up paganism in different forms. For example, among those who are dedicatedly Euro-centric are those who reject Christianity in favor of some northern-pagan identification. They see Christianity — Christian universalism — as one of the factors that have weakened Europe.
Their analysis of Christianity and their ‘contempt’ for this weak aspect has been in most all cases influenced by Nietzsche. And because this is so most of the Euro-centric identifications have a somewhat dangerous, warrior-like aggression attached to their ideas.
So, while the warm-heated average Christian stands at the door of Europe with cupcakes and a handful of Euros for the invaders arriving from North and Central Africa, the pagan-minded and warrior-like nationalist and Euro-centric has, at least, some means to hold to self-respect and self-defense. And they have different ethics about what self-defense may entail. The average Christian is, of course, somewhat self-checkmated insofar as he and she finds it very hard to find the ethical and moral ground to establish hard and harsh rules.
Who believes in the ‘objective morality’ you refer to? For example, you are (I gather) an American. Would you say that your nation acts out of a system of ‘objective morality’? Could you say that the Nation of the US is guided by such ‘objective morality’? Who is observing this objective morality? At most you would only be able to say that every notion of objective morality is in total and utter confusion and that this defines our present. What morality should be observed? What ethics?
If by ‘terrorist’ in the singular you mean the most recent one (Christchurch), a comment is in order. I read his ‘manifesto’ and, according to him, he is sitting on the fence when it comes to his relationship to Christianity. But it is not right to say that he has no sense of ‘right and wrong’. He regards it as criminal that Europe and its colonies open up their demographics to what he understands to be an invading culture. As a result of that he defines good ethics as a) establishing opposition to that process, and b) obviously taking action against it in an openly violent way. The ethics that he follows is, in fact, an older version of ethics, but it is not non-ethical. As I have mentioned I am now studying the ethics and life-views of the Northmen. That is, pre-Christian cultures and their values and the basis of European ethics as Christianity became influential. These people — even when they became Christian — would have hacked into tiny pieces an invading culture and they would have done it in defense of honor. And their sense of honor connected them to life itself, through their locality, their family, their community.
The ‘kinnist’ Evangelical-Protestant Christian is trying to recover a similar defensive spirit and to do so they have to redefine their Christian ethics. To sharpen them. To understand the spiritual politics of the ramifications of invasion, or the spiritual politics of Hyper-Liberal Universalism. Similarly, the Traditional Catholic is working in similar territories.
Everyone ‘kills for their ideology’, in one way or another. [And do you suppose that the recent and notorious adventures, invasions and occupations by our own US government were carried out in accord with Christian principles? Could you really make that argument? What about the elite managers of the European Union? Are thise Christian projects?
Is the motive behind these particular US adventures non-ideological? Americanism is, beyond any doubt, an ideology. The notion of ‘bringing democracy to the world’ and using military force to do so is driven by an ideological position.
So, the question is less about killing, since this goes on and will continue to go on, and much more about what end the killing will serve, don’t you think? It is probably best in every sense if Islam were driven out of Europe (and the former British colonies). Or would you make an argument that the doors should be opened? or opened even more? Should the elite managers assist Islam in its soft-conquest? Or, should the whole thing just not be thought about?
I am interested by this sentence:
I would say that you are (based on what you say here and other posts I have read of yours) a good example of one who lives in and acts out of both positions, simply be being an American with no critical position of these strange neo-conservative forms (regimes in fact) that we live under. You live in ideological chaos, and we are all subject to it.
And you are right I think that ‘self-defeat’ will result from cognitive dissonance. I think we would have to stop and really examine not only our present but ourselves to understand the degree that we are compromised with twisted ethical reasonings and justifications.
I will also say that I think your stated position also has a purpose, an intentionality. You wish to define a centrist position where you feel protected and comfortable and you do not want to have to make difficult ethical or moral choices. So, you look to your left and to your right and you ‘punch both ways’. But in the end all that you are doing is bolstering a rather timid centrist position which is likely wedded in the largest degree to a simple progressivism. It neuters you.
Far more difficult (in one is inclined) is to attempt to define — not through universalist abstractions, but through tangible plans — how the confusion of the present in all its senses will be resolved. It will not be without struggle (as everyone seems to recognize).
-The meaning of “progressive” changes as the cultural goalposts shifts. The crazy things modern progressives teach (like a plethora of genders) are not Christian in origin. The fact that there are progressive Christians now is not relevant, as Christianity is just another institution targeted by progressives to be “fixed.” You might as well blame video games for radical feminism because there are radical feminists in the games industry. It would make the same amount of sense.
-“Multiculturalism,” as defined by people from different races and cultural backgrounds living together, is not anti-Christian, and is also not a problem, except to racists. The early church was a genuine, united multiracial entity; possibly the world’s first. Racial mixing is not bad, except to racists. America was, for some time, genuinely enriched by foreigners, up to a point, because we had a shared ethos and there was no group interested in, or capable of, tearing it down. Pentecostal churches in the current day are excellent examples of thriving and beautiful multiculturalism, because they have a shared faith. The “differences” between them consist of fun things like clothing styles and family recipes. It works.
-I have no idea why you think that I must believe that the past and current actions of the U.S. government should be unquestioned or considered “Christian.” Can’t even fathom where you’d get that from. Having a prevailing consensus about an authoritative moral code doesn’t mean you can have a “Christian country” where nobody would dream of being naughty. It means that the moral code has a limiting effect on the excesses of the whole, and removing that authority makes us worse. That’s it. It’s not even a theory anymore; it’s well documented. The founders wanted a tiny government precisely because they didn’t trust rulers to submit to the higher law of Christian ethics (and they haven’t.) Our institutions are crumbling now and no one can agree on how to behave. It’s obfuscation to claim that since so few people adhere to the objective morality we used to have, said objective morality does not exist.
-Politics are downstream from culture and worldview. Both the Left AND Right are both getting nastier as they unmoor from Christianity- not just the half you don’t like. The Right is taking a little longer to get dragged into the gutter simply because there is a larger subset of practicing Christians and traditionalists on the Right.
-Objective Truth isn’t a “middle ground” trying to stay in the exact center. It’s a series of firm propositions that are not beholden to one’s short-sighted political or tribal alliances. Perhaps most tenants of Christianity are considered right wing, and a minority fit comfortably with the Left. But the opposite might have been the case 100 years ago. Cultural consensus moves all over the place, around fixed truth.
-I think it would be better for you to embrace Odin (as either an actual god to be worshiped or a religious symbol to rally your troops around, whichever you prefer) and quit pretending you can give Christianity a KKK makeover. It hasn’t worked in the past because there is always a core of sincere Christians- a Confessing Church- who will reject any clowns trying to appropriate their faith, and that core is more knowledgable about the Bible that the usurpers, and more invested in it, because they are the actual followers of Jesus.
-If you think Western Europeans are so accomplished because of their awesome white genes, then you certainly don’t need that Jewish carpenter whose teachings started in the Middle East and spread to Africa and Asia before they ever reached Germany. Odin is your man. With the Norse gods you can recapture the glory of the uncorrupted White religion, at the true height of pre-Christian Europe. You can sacrifice some children to the war gods, or ritually gang-rape a slave. Maybe throw out your books and scratch some magic runes on a stick instead.
-It is dishonest and shifty to call racism a “sharpening” or “refining” of Christianity. There is no basis for loyalty to clan or bloodline in Christianity. In fact, it is noble to lose one’s family and nation and gain Christ, if necessary. You can’t reconcile the alt right with Jesus.
-Immigration laws are neither racist nor anti-Christian, and the recent glut of immigration in Europe is happening under the auspices of a new, almost completely secularized Europe. So not sure what your point about cupcakes was. Mostly-Christian-Europe knew how to have sensible immigration policy and yet still not be racist.
Thank you for your interesting thoughtful response Isacc! It is much appreciated. Here is my response:
The way that I would go about responding to this, and talking about the larger issue, would be to speak of European culture and the processes of Christianization as they took place over a significant time. I think that you mean that in an ideal sense there is no respect for bloodlines or clan, and I don’t think I would disagree. A strong Christian faith could propel one to abandon one’s family and nation for service to the ideal. Many early Christians, forced by their clan or cultural superiors to deny their faith, chose not to. That is the basis of martyrdom.
I notice that you have started by trying to establish your definition that I am (or must be, to think as I do) be a racist. Here, I suggest, you make an error. And it is the same error that many progressives make: to define your opponent through a term that contains absolute condemnation as a starting point. If I continue to converse with you, I have also agreed to accept your definition of me. But I do accept your definition, and I would turn the conversation around to examine your reductive statements, not only in respect to race and ethnicity, but in other areas too.
You also use a loose term — Alt-Right — in combination with racist and this is also a mistake. The Alt-Right is just a word or a term someone coined. It would be quite hard to pigeonhole me into any particular convenient group. I am not even sure how I would define myself. So, I suggest that you avoid this seduction (which is what it would amount to). If anything, I am part of a European school of thought that originates, in its later form, in a movement in reaction to France 1968. Alain de Benoist is, as I have discerned, one of the primary intellectuals that began the movement I feel most closely associated with. (GRECE). The reaction to that expression of hyper-liberalism or radical liberalism is a complex topic. Some part of the people involved in that are Christians, but some are not. And in any case I can make it plain that there is a great wealth of ideas that are circulated and are talked about. Alain de Benoist, I must say, is not a racist nor even a racialist. Also, a great many of the people that are part of the idea-movement which I am referring to are not the ‘racists’ that your phrase indicates, that is to saycaricatures. They have nuanced and rather complex ideas and feelings.
When you employ reductions in conversations that demand nuance, you corrupt the possibility of communication. That said, however, I am myself completely in favor of allowing the right of people in their given communities, and on their own soil, to make choices about what races, ethnicities and cultures they wish to allow in. So, if that is ‘racism’ to you, so be it.
The larger problem is a Protestant problem: there are dozens and dozens of different Protestant sects and divisions. If there are ‘progressive Christians’, and social-Christians, as indeed there are, this illustrates that there is not a great deal of agreement among the various Protestant branches. Protestantism in this sense encourages personalized interpretation. Indeed it establishes it as a proper value.
For those progressives who have no need for and cannot and do not define a ‘metaphysics’, they show themselves as having no use for the Christian religion in the primary sense that it is a metaphysical religion. So, to understand why they then want to ‘fix it’ will open up into a further conversation about why that necessarily follows from their established predicates. It is VERY relevant that there exist progressive Christians, just as it is relevant that out of Protestantism there arose near-atheistic Christians. When a former religious attitude came to demand of egalitarian-minded social policy that it replace a former, more holistic maybe I can say, general ethics and also metaphysics.
You brought up Pentecostalism — a very interesting reference — and I would suggest that the classic SJW carries on in a way that is comparable (not the same but comparable) to highly emotional Pentecostal forms of worship. I don’t know how to express it except to say that emotionalism infects people down into their bodies and they twitch, writhe, should & dance as ‘the Spirit’ moves through them.
I think that the base issue here would be in defining theology. I would suggest that Catholic social teaching are a more complete definition of theology as it pertains to the social world. That is, one finds there a great deal or thought-through material which could then form the basis of proper social attitude (mores and nomos). Myself, I do not have much attraction to hyper-emotional forms of religious devotion. I have noticed that the African influence is strong there though. And I have many good and solid reasons to resist that form of spirituality. Here is a reference to what I mean (Wiki article on The Origins of Rock’n’Roll):
To examine the causal chain in culture — especially in deranged American culture (I say this not for effect but because, today, you are clearly and undeniably seeing where many currents and trends have led: that is, if you ‘have eyes to see’ — and to begin to understand in greater depth what has happened and why: that is my own area of interest. In a sense it supersedes any political orientation I may have.
In order to speak about *Christianity* one has to have looooonnnnggggg conversations where the thing is defined. It is complex and difficult.
I would not — not necessarily — disagree. Multiculturalism is a sort of social and economic system or organization developed (mostly) in the Postwar. It is a system designed by American planners as they established the different Zones of Influence. If Multiculturalism is to be critiqued it too must be defined before one can start. I regard Multiculturalism of the sort I began to define as a perversity because it is linked to Social Engineering carried out para-democratically by a managerial political, ideological and economic rulering (directing) class.
If I oppose it, I would have to go back to recognizing and valuing ‘the region’ — the state or the county made up of specific people who live their and organize their life. Postwar Multiculturalism of the sort engineered by the Americanopolis is something I definitely oppose, and can do so completely in accord with sound principles and fair, up-front argumentation. And I can definitely — at the very least — take issue with the Ideology of Americanism and its hyper-ideological constructs when America seeks to impose its (perverse) will on the rest of the world.
Any decent, thoughtful person should at least be capable of seeing and respecting the sovereignty of other people! That value — though it is completely disregarded and insulted — is a prime Constitutional value.
A group of people — of mixed race and ethnicity — could in my view come together to worship. That would not mean their forced integration, nor the intervention of the State into their local affairs, not the fashioning of acute ideologies and PR campaigns to attack their sovereign sense.
Do you see how perverse and unfair is your use of reductionist terms like ‘racist’? I can suggest that you *turn around* to examine the ideas that inform your opinions. They have been influenced by social engineering, not by sound reasoning either secular or Christian. I can defend everything I have mentioned here through assertions of Christian values.
Again, notice your use of slanderous terms and phrases. You attempt to apply terms that are part of your own definition-set. If I agree to converse with you I automatically have agreed to your use of these terms and phrases. I do not.
What made Europe Europe can only have to do with their genes, insofar as genes are the base of biological being. So, everyone has biological being and everyone has genes. But it is not ‘genes’ that made Europe. It is the ‘psyche’ of Europeans that made Europe. Now, let us begin to define psyche! It is not at all easy. So, it is not at all easy to define — nor understand — what Europe is and what, then, is referred to if someone talks about ‘defending it’ ‘protecting it’ or ‘renewing it’ (my term is renovation).
You can — and you obviously do — confuse the issue through use of silly reductions. You do, naturally, what is done by the progressive set. You don’t want to hear a sound, responsible definition of what is being talked about when protecting Europe (thus White culture) is referred to. You establish erroneous distortions as primary definitions in your discourse, and at that point you go immediately off the rails.
Jesus was not a ‘Jewish Carpenter’, He was the Incarnation of God. Do you see what you have done here? You have ethnicized Jesus Christ. (Actually, it is a strong form of judaization). If you looked into what you are doing, philosophically and theologically, you are asserting a horrifying error of definition. Jesus Christ is a manifestation of something far larger than a location within a Jewish body and within Judea. You did not even see your error.
The issue of resisting mass immigration from North Africa or Central Africa — and certainly that of encouraging Islam to take root in Europe (and in other Christian lands) — is a serious topic that can be examined from a proper distance. To use the ‘Jesus was Jewish’ argument to support a whole range of bizarre social policies and Heaven forbid state-policy, is an example of how reductionist thinking (the thinking you have engaged in here) is destructive to understanding.
I would suggest that you might need to stop, reconsider, engage in a few years of more careful study, and then come back to the conversation.
[The topic of the former gods and goddesses of Europe, or for that matter the Greek conception of gods and goddesses, is a topic far beyond the possibilities in this post and on this forum. And yet the Greek gods and goddesses, and certainly the pagan European gods and goddesses, have still a certain ‘existence’. Certainly as psychic archetypes but also because, generally, they are associated with natural phenomena.]
Well? How did I do? 🙂
I should have written:
But I do not accept your definition, and I would turn the conversation around to examine your reductive statements, not only in respect to race and ethnicity, but in other areas too.
This is also worthy of a response:
First, and strictly in the spirit of honesty, the term ‘racism’ is a very new one. Some say that Trotsky gave it new life though ‘raciste’ in French had been used. In any case, the usage is modern and it is infused with modern moral and ethical notions.
Just a few years back — I have often referenced Madison Grant (an American intellectual educated at Harvard and a normal and respected researcher) who wrote The Passing of the Great Race in 1916, wrote about the result of his studies and expressed his views that were received as completely normal. There was nearly zero reaction against them. That was 100 years ago.
I would further reference any period of time in European history (up until the 1940s more or less) as a time when race and ethnicity could be openly discussed and without the moral opprobrium now attached to it. Additionally, cultures all over the world, from Japan and China to India for example, had developed ideas about race (which might have been expressed differently but was based on ideas and views).
The laws that restricted immigration — for example in America in the early 19th and early 20th centuries — were beyond any doubt based in what now would be referred to as racist policy and racist view. So, in fact, you are not correct in saying “Mostly-Christian-Europe knew how to have sensible immigration policy and yet still not be racist”. In fact, it took then what you now label as a racist outlook (a set of definitions based out of analysis of racial and ethnic questions) in order to have established a restrictive policy.
The reason the US for example does not now have such a policy, and has a radically different policy that does not restrict immigration to N and S Europe as it once did, resulted from the 1965 policy shift, and from different cultural shifts brought about, in some part, by ‘cultural engineering’.
The view of a man like Grant had to be reengineered, and this came about through sophisticated ideological manipulations and machinations.
A sound and honest and ‘decent’ Christianity could with no problem at all define racial and ethnic differences between people that would not, not necessarily, prohibit friendly conversation between one Christian nation or group and another. It could though take issue with uncontrolled immigration, or an ethic that allowed no one to be refused or for the ‘doors to be open’, on the basis of very simple understandings. One being Christian respect for property rights.
It is not at all impossible, and in no sense morally reprehensible, for a committed Christian to think in terms of ‘good breeding’ on one hand; to eschew racial mixing (for numerous reasons, biological and cultural); and to desire for sound reasons to keep specific communities (or nations and states) culturally homogenous.
I am uncertain why secular Europe is opening its doors. There are different ideas and theories. But one is so that Europe be weakened. You surely know the ‘ethnic replacement theory’. I have looked into this from a meta-political perspective and I think it has validity. I think specific people, and specific groups, have an active interest in weakening culture by infusing multi-culturalism. I could here talk about the ideas of Carl Schmitt (among numerous others) and his idea that liberal democracy tends to create open societies of peoples who are at war and competition with one another for a host of reasons. That must then intervene to protect the interests of subjects. And then becomes semi-totalitarian in this way. How the democratic ideal leads inevitably to conditions which then cause many problems due to the social conflicts of incompatible peoples.
You have obviously never really looked into these things and you, like many on this blog, just spout forth opinion that is based on ill-conceptions and lack of knowledge of the actual topic. You are free to do this of course, but others — this I guarantee you! — are gaining knowledge and seeking to influence discourse and policy.
I found the reaction of Beto The Magnificent rather telling. “We are owed the facts, and if we do not receive them, 243 years in there’s nothing that guarantees a 244th.” I may not be the brightest bulb, but apparent Beto now envisions himself as a Che Guevera from El Paso. Maybe he ate too much dirt?
I have long been dismissive of some of the more ardent posters with what I considered moronic views on gun control with their tinfoil hat suggestions that we may actually need them against our very own government. I may fill out my gun license request, get my son to take me to his rod and gun club, and go to the supermarket and buy some tinfoil.
Bobby O’Roarke really said that? Caramba!
(I wonder when he’s going to release a campaign poster of him looking like Che, like Obama did.)
Hey, remember when the Democrats demanded additional investigations into Brett Kavanaugh before they could approve him? And when they got what they wanted, remember when they whined and screamed that the investigation was TOO QUICK and they demanded a LONGER one?
Has anyone heard a peep from those same Democrats NOW? Sure, he made it onto the Supreme Court, but he’s still a sexual assaulter, right? Ford is still a victim, right? You’ve got all the time in the world to do your own investigative work now and expose him to the world. Anybody interested in doing this? Feinstein? Come on, let’s get some justice for Christine! CNN? WaPo? You guys called him a rapist, wouldn’t you like to be proved right? You claim to believe Ford and told us we should too…don’t you believe her? Where’s the expose?
Obviously, there isn’t one and won’t be. They aren’t even trying. There are zero news reports about any new developments (not any that vindicate Ford anyway.)
So Feinstein and everyone else knew they were lying. They went after the man’s family, his kids, and just about ruined his life. Do you see any self-reflection about this? Is there any sign that any of them feel any regret? Maybe not actual guilt, but at least a sense that maybe delegitimizing the #MeToo movement just to get at a Republican was a bad move? They’re STILL going after the guy, trying to paint over history. Notice the multiple “news” orgs trying to compare R. Kelly to Kavanaugh, because they both…didn’t like being accused and stuff. Solid reporting, that.
The Democrats general attitude seems to be, “well at least we made his life miserable,” and then they moved on, without a moment to reflect, to the next insincere moral outrage. You think they’ll learn any kind of lesson when they’re proven equally wrong about Trump? Based on WHAT?
“I have long been dismissive of some of the more ardent posters with what I considered moronic views on gun control with their tinfoil hat suggestions that we may actually need them against our very own government.”
What part of “Pack the court! Eliminate the Electoral College! Let (illegal) immigrants vote! Ban ‘Hate Speech!’ If you did nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide!” did you not understand, Rick? 🙂
Progressives had all of this planned for us today and the Trump election diverted their rightful plans for the deplorables. Do you think after the lunacy of the past three years they would not act to take your guns the first moment they have the power?
Really want some head exploding reads? Get on Twitter or any news agency and watch all the pivoting.
Phenomenal.
The scariest pivots are those trying to find justification in all the other garbage this opening ended and seemingly scope-less investigation “produced”.
If the future that these people want is unlimited digging into citizens’ lives based on what is supposed to be a narrow search, then why don’t we go ahead and return to the Middle Ages and the Star chambers.
The only way to stop this trend is to make those who push for it suffer from the same treatment.
Unethical, but I see no better option.
The Beuhler Report will be ignored. The Clintons have hundreds of millions of dollars to throw around. Adam Schiffless will continue bleating. The House Gerry Nadler, Nadler, Nadler will continue “investigating.” The press will continue lying. The New York AG will continue “investigating.” It’s too large and too well funded a machine to simply grind to a halt.
And Lanny Davis appears to have a limitless retainer to blow through on his old law school buddies’ behalf.
Just a sample from The Manhattan Contrarian on The NYT’s Jumbo-like “coverage” of the report:
“Or to put it another way: Russian “collusion? What Russian “collusion”? We don’t remember ever saying anything about Russian “collusion.” But we’ll find something to get this guy on. Just give us enough time, and enough partisan prosecutors. How about “hush money payments.” We can’t articulate why paying “hush money” is a crime, but it sure sounds bad, so let’s go with it as the next best thing.”
https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2019-3-23-the-five-dumbest-things-in-the-new-york-times-coverage-of-the-issuance-of-the-mueller-report
Ted Talk Cruz:
My point is you asked Congressman Nadler whether the House is going to impeach the president. I’ll answer that for you. Yes. They fully intend to impeach the president and they don’t care about the basis. Twice, Congressman Nadler said something remarkable. He said, listen, the special counsel is focused on crimes. We’re not all that concerned with crimes. Our focus, this is Democrats in the House, is much broader than crimes. What they are basically saying is they are going to impeach the president for being Donald Trump. And they don’t care about the evidence. They don’t care about the substance.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/03/24/ted_cruz_you_can_already_see_democrats_pivoting_away_from_mueller_they_will_impeach_no_matter_what_repport_says.html
I’m curious as to why? With the 2020 elections coming up, and most of then being convinced that they are going to win, why bother? Of course, if Joe Biden is your best hope to win, you’ve got a real problem.
The really stupid thing, from a Democrat perspective, is that it’s likely to be a losing electoral strategy. When more than half the country thought the Mueller investigation was a witch hunt, and then the report comes out basically proving that it was, it’s hard to see how they think even more fruitless investigations will swing middle-ground voters to their side. The likely result is that it will gratify their already Trump-obsessed base, but also galvanize people who see it as waste of time and abuse of process to vote for Trump. I know several people already who didn’t vote for him in 2016, but who say they will in 2020, and this kind of behavior is a large factor. His election in 2016 was a “fuck you” to the establishment, and if they continue to steadfastly refuse to get the message, another, louder “FUCK YOU” is coming in 2020.
Letting Trump cast himself as the victim is the dumbest strategy possible. Just shut up and let Trump be Trump, and his support will dwindle. Let him run his mouth and be an unlikeable narcissistic turd. Give him a way to be the underdog, and he earns sympathy and support from people who don’t care much about party politics, but do have a strong urge to support the underdog that’s so common in Americans.
Taibbis article is quite good and deserves a good read. Perhaps he learned something with Jackie.
(That’s Jackie the imaginary UVA frat gang rape victim)
Good, I was worried people had forgotten that fiasco. It was 4 years ago.
The Internet never forgets….
It is pretty obvious to me that there has been a collusion between Russia and Mueller to make it appear there was no collusion between Russia and Trump. That’s how these people operate, don’t you read the papers?