There's Oneness, And Then There's Oneness

My deceased friend Kevin Sigurd Johnson, in whose memory I created "Echoes of Mount Carmel," was rather less friendly to Roman Catholicism than I am. I try not to set up any exclusionary barriers which GOD HASN'T required me to set up. Still, if THE OTHER GUY raises needless barriers, I will challenge them.

Just minutes ago, I saw where a Catholic gentleman posted a call for "unity"-- but with the implicit stipulation that it HAD TO BE a unity in which the Vatican called all the shots. This gesture of "friendliness, my way OR ELSE" did not make warm fuzzies in my heart. So I replied as follows:

'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

And guess what? WE CAN BE ONE in the presence of Christ HIMSELF, without any mortal man claiming he holds the authority to have me, for instance, burned at the stake for translating the Bible. We can do without a "unity" enforced by murder.

You say this doesn't happen anymore? The one and only reason why it doesn't happen anymore is because enough people REFUSED TO STAND FOR IT anymore. If you'll pardon the expression, "Once burned, twice shy."

I will GO TO Catholic churches-- now that I know I won't be regarded as charcoal briquets there. In fact, my first wife WAS a Catholic. I went to Masses with her. And I never urge any Catholic to quit the Church of Rome. But I did not, do not, and will not swallow anyone telling me their preferred communion is exclusively coterminous with the whole eternal Body of Jesus. And don't even start with "--upon this rock," because Paul makes it clear in Ephesians two that ALL the apostles AND all the Old Testament prophets, not only Peter, are foundation stones.

It's a sufficient unity if I recognize all believers in Jesus as believers in Jesus. But just you TRY to convince me that I owe it to any mortal MAN to buy his claim to be infallible and indispensable. Not gonna happen.         

Space Expert Spaced Out

There is no sound in the airless vacuum of space, and thus no music can be heard there. It follows that music is of no value.

The universe is large, our home planet is tiny in proportion, and weddings are not performed in outer space. Therefore, marital fidelity is of no value.

The overwhelming majority of planets in our solar system have no poets living on them. Therefore, poetry is of no value.

Very nearly the entire universe is incapable of sustaining life. It follows that life is insignificant.

What's that, are you saying that my above statements make no sense? But, but, but, but I'm highly proficient in Russian-language studies! Doesn't my expertise in ONE field make me an expert in ALL fields?

You say it doesn't?

Well, then, perhaps the scientific expertise of Neil DeGrasse Tyson ALSO does not qualify him to speak with authority on all other subjects.

Near the very end of his book "Astrophysics for People in a Hurry," Tyson expects to be regarded as profound when he says, "The cosmic perspective reminds us that in space, where there is no air, a flag will not wave-- an indication that perhaps flag-waving and space exploration do not mix."

Tyson must have liked the recent revisionist-history movie which tried to convince us that the first manned moon landing WASN'T the achievement of one PARTICULAR nation. But as a doctrinaire atheist, he ought to pay attention to the real universe-- and IN this real universe, it was precisely flag-waving national pride which DID propel America's manned space program.

Yeah, airless space is airless, well duh. But I fail to see how this fact nullifies the value of a society which believes in the rule of law, believes in individual opportunity, and believes in the right to dissent. Quite a few other societies on Earth DON'T believe in any of those principles. Does Doctor Tyson really think that he himself would be just as well off living under a dictatorship as living in a nation which respects his rights?

I really don't care to have Tyson stumbling outside his competence to tell me that my country cannot possibly be morally better than some others.

A Woman Who Wants Women To Be Stupid

Lawyer Craig Silverman of Denver IS NOT any alt-right hardline conservative; he is a political moderate. He has a talk show on KNUS-AM, a conservative radio station which allows diversity of opinion within its ranks. But he doesn't have to be a hardline conservative to understand bedrock legal principles like burden of proof.

Too bad not everyone he encounters is willing to admit that those legal principles EVEN EXIST.

On Saturday, Mr. Silverman interviewed a leftist named Lisa Calderon on the subject of Bret Kavanaugh. It didn't take long for Ms. Calderon to demonstrate that, in her mind, Judge Kavanaugh IS guilty solely because SHE WANTS HIM TO BE GUILTY.

Every time Silverman tried to clarify the need for evidence, Calderon instantly took refuge in purely emotional generalizations about "victims needing to be heard." The way she invoked "victims" made it obvious that she was choosing to believe that Christine Ford was ALREADY proven to be telling the truth. Without even acknowledging the CONCEPT of needing evidence, Calderon pontificated about women being treated as property, and about how horrid it was for "a male viewpoint" to be adopted in legal cases.

In short, because women COLLECTIVELY have suffered injustice, this fact by itself is fully suffiicient to "prove" that ONE PARTICULAR MAN, Bret Kavanaugh, IS guilty of three particular acts of sexual assault. Calderon went on to insist that women almost never make false accusations-- on which basis she justified her assertion that automatically believing any woman who accuses any man of anything is THE PROPER STARTING POINT, and to Hell with presumption of innocence for any MALE defendant. But Silverman replied that, in his law career, he has witnessed plenty of instances of women lying under oath.

Calderon is doing no service to her fellow females by dogmatically declaring (1) that operating entirely on blind emotion IS "the female viewpoint," and (2) that this intentional illogic SHOULD BE held as overruling the rule of law. But of course, she DOESN'T really care about the long-term well-being of her fellow females. What she cares about is encouraging women to be irrational, as a tactic to destroy that precious rule of law, so that the hard left can gain more POWER, which is all that the hard left really cares about.

To this end, Calderon was employing classic circular reasoning, as follows:

>> We know that Bret Kavanaugh is guilty, because we have the testimony of a victim, which must ALWAYS be believed.

>> We know that Christine Ford and the other accusers are victims, because THEY SAY they are.

>> We can accept the word of the accusers in this, because we know that Kavanaugh is guilty.

>> And we know that Kavanaugh is guilty, because......

Et circular cetera.

One of the Larger Lies That I've Seen Lately

   "CAPITALISM: The Extraordinary Idea That The Nastiest Of People, For The Nastiest Of Motives, Will Actually Work For The Common Good."

What a wealth (no pun intended) of INTENTIONAL DISHONESTY there is to be refuted in this Marxist bumper sticker! Where to begin??

I'll begin with a word whose use may produce confusion, EVEN IF no one is lying on purpose. The word "capitalism" is used sometimes to mean ALL privately-owned business on any scale, and sometimes to mean only really large corporations. But the very fact that HONEST uncertainty can arise with use of this word, can be to the advantage of leftwing liars. If confronted strongly over their desire to take ALL commerce out of the hands of individual citizens, totalitarian collectivists can look all innocent and croon: "Oh, no, you misunderstand! We don't want to take away neighborhood flower shops and marijuana dispensaries from their mom-and-pop owners; we ONLY wish to bring down those evil giant corporations that want to destroy the world!"

But in reality, Marxists wish to exert such total control that EVEN little street-corner shops can be confiscated from their owners (under the cover of the "You Didn't Build That" lie). They are against all free enterprise, because they are against freedom itself (except for the party elites, of course). This being understood, let us dissect the propaganda message piece by piece.

1) The loaded phrase "extraordinary idea" is used here as a salesmanship device, trying to get the reader or hearer on the side of the propagandist from the outset. "You and I understand how stupid it is to believe in free enterprise, don't we? Of course we do, because we're smart!" This tactic is borrowed FROM FREE ENTERPRISE; door-to-door salesmen refer to it as "assuming the sale." In today's dumbed-down society, a Marxist is often correct in assuming that he can "make the sale" with gullible Americans.

2) "Nastiest of people" is another presupposition which the propagandist expects the audience to swallow unquestioningly. Anyone who ISN'T enthusiastically in favor of collective farms and workers' self-criticism sessions is "obviously" a flunky of those evil corporations that create evil robots and zombies to kill us all. Hasn't the all-wise oracle of Hollywood been telling us as much for decades?

3) "Nastiest of motives" is a crucial part of the sales pitch. Using their mass-media advantages to define the terms of discussion, leftists try to convince us that "earning a profit" AUTOMATICALLY MEANS "gathering obscene amounts of wealth by means of robbery, fraud, slave labor, mass murder, and destroying the whole environment." (Of course, the propagandist can't afford to let us take notice of the colossal environmental damage done by COMMUNIST nations.)

4) Saying "work for the common good" is intended here to convince us that unless our every action is entirely oriented toward somehow benefitting EVERYONE IN THE WORLD simultaneously and equally, we are INJURING the world by running an independent business or project. We are expected to forget that separate families or separate associations can work for their own interests, yet reconcile separate interests through TRANSACTIONS between one independent group and another independent group.

The last of those components of the lying message is a good place to point out the perpetual self-contradiction practiced by leftists. When they concentrate on race-card playing, leftists POSITIVELY DESIRE to have racial and cultural groups competing with each other and excluding each other. But when faced with the terrible danger of a free-market economy proving its practical and moral superiority over totalitarianism, the same leftists will exclaim: "No! There can't be any competition! Everyone and everything must be united under the global system of oneness, oneness, oneness!"

When One Sam Portrayed Another Sam

I just saw, for the first time, a fairly old TV movie about the historical deeds of Sam Houston. Starring Sam Elliott, the movie was titled "Gone To Texas." I have the strong impression that the writers tried hard to be accurate and even-handed in their portrayal of events.

On one side, they rebutted my own belief that all the Anglos who settled in Texas initially intended to be obedient citizens of Mexico. Houston and James Bowie were depicted discussing their _advance_ intention to take Texas away from Santa Ana's government.

But having shown they were not Gringo chauvinists, the writers _also_ made it clear that Santa Ana still _deserved_ to lose Texas. His courts denied presumption of innocence; he imprisoned dissenters, Fidel Castro style; and he had no qualms about _pretending_ to offer mercy to opponents and then killing them when they surrendered. Texans _weren't_ the only ones who wished to be rid of Santa Ana; the movie makes it plain that _many_ Mexicans hated his tyranny, which was why there _were_ Mexicans fighting on the Texan side in that revolution.

In a sidebar, the movie revealed that Sam Houston also got on well with Native Americans-- much better than Andrew Jackson did!

Whedon's Brown Coat Is, Um, Something Else Brown

   On the day I first conceived of this column, what should I see on the rear window of a pickup truck but a big decal of the Spaceship Serenity from the cult-favorite series "Firefly," which was the brainchild of Joss Whedon. All right, it's time. They can't stop  THIS  signal.

If a director of television and cinema has gone to great effort to convince his audience that prostitution is glamorous fun, and that prostitutes JUST LOVE being prostitutes...he has thoroughly disqualified himself to be taken seriously on any subject pertaining to oppression and enslavement.

Here on Earth, I have in my time been approached by prostitutes in the United States and Portugal. There was NOT A THING GLAMOROUS OR SOPHISTICATED about their exhausted faces, or their bleak resignation (when they weren't drunk) to their lot in life. They certainly didn't have the self-confidence of a vampire-slayer. They were turning tricks either because of desperate poverty, or because a pimp had them enslaved, or both. (Good grief, you just need to watch Les Miz to understand!)

Right at this point, the defenders both of prostitution and of smug Hollywood celebrities will try hard to believe that my distaste for prostitution must be motivated by the same hypocritical self-righteousness, the same haughty contempt for women, which "Firefly" depicted as being THE motivation for anyone who was so bigoted as to disapprove of the flesh trade. But I don't hate prostitutes; I grieve for them as Dostoevsky did. I don't wish to "punish" them, I wish I could liberate them from their servitude. Of  course, Joss Whedon's enablers will have a scripted comeback for this also: "You just have a savior complex!  You don't feel compassion for hookers, only sexist condescension!" Yeah, right; I'm sure that it's a great comfort to any prostitute to know that the pimp who beats her up and humiliates her DOESN'T have  a savior complex.

Here, then, we have storyteller Joss Whedon, who for his own part would probably argue that we just need to get rid of prudish puritanism and legalize prostitution everywere, then all would be well. But if he were to say this, he would be overlooking a fact of the real universe: the fact that, even where prostitution IS legal, women STILL need to be tricked or kidnaped into it, because (golly, what a surprise) most women don't relish having their abdomens treated like an airport terminal.

Here, I say, we have Joss Whedon, who has positively helped to desensitize his viewers to the realities of human trafficking; who has given a free pass to one of the most persistent forms of oppression ever to exist. This man has just had the chutzpah to declare, with fake solemnity, that confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the United  States Supreme Court would "cement" a dictatorship! Talk about straining out gnats and swallowing camels!

Dennis Prager, who has more intellect in his dandruff than Joss Whedon has inside his air-filled head, has transmitted his own signal to Joss Whedon. It's a question worthy to be remembered over the coming months. Mister Whedon: when Brett Kavanaugh joins the Supreme Court, and the United States DOESN'T suddenly turn into the standard-model racist neo-Nazi theocracy that Hollywood loves to depict, will you apologize for slandering the new Justice Kavanaugh?

Of course Whedon won't apologize. He'll cover his tracks by pretending that any slightest thing Kavanaugh does which ISN'T in favor of Marxism and sexual anarchy, IS the dictatorship.

Meanwhile, prostitutes in the real world will continue NOT being happy, sophisticated love-goddesses who delight in being  used.

Same Old Same Old Socialism

Over the weekend, I heard audio of the much-touted Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proving herself to be a liar where her self-description is concerned. She has pretended to be a daring, innovative pioneer of "economic justice;" but there was NOT ONE THING in the speech I heard which was EVEN SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT from the uniform script which totalitarian leftists have been reciting for most of my lifetime. And I was around in the hippie era.

Ocasio-Cortez "daringly" stated that "a modern, moral country" should not have anyone "too poor to live." Absolutely standard rhetoric for Democrats. What, am I so heartless and greedy that I don't care about the poor? No, I am not heartless or greedy; I'm just honest, which is what the Democratic Party really hates. Because I know that their script, the script Ms. Ocasio-Cortez was reciting by rote, is designed TO LIE BY OMISSION.

By the over-simplification of their speeches about "equality" and "compassion," leftists count on producing AN UNEXAMINED EMOTIONAL RESPONSE in their audience. Piling on the drama about wanting to redistribute wealth, without explaining HOW TO CREATE the wealth which they propose to redistribute, hucksters like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez insulate theselves from all objective examination. If persons who live on Planet Earth raise questions of substance, like how America can maintain an industrial base if the most productive people are punished with confiscation for the crime of being successful. Ocasio-Cortez and her ilk don't have to reply with any facts. They can just wave their arms in the air and wail, "You want poor children to starve to death!"

They can't fool me, because I have helped poor children OUT OF MY OWN POCKET, not by demanding that someone else's money be stolen, But after decades of pop culture insisting that only emotion matters, a lot of other Americans HAVE been suckered.

No American citizen under the age of forty has ever lived in an America which WASN'T inundated with empty Marxist rhetoric to the effect of "Just give everything to everybody!" This atmosphere enables grifters like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez to promise us a magic beanstalk, which will take us to the capitalistic giant's castle so we can plunder it. And they have gone for decades without being required to answer hard questions about why Marxism NEVER WORKS.

That's why Democrats are so foaming-at-the-mouth furious now: because now their emotion-manipulating lies ARE being challenged.