Living In A Rape Culture

I’m a feminist. I study rape culture. And I don’t want Al Franken to resign. - The Washington Post:

The column is a worthy read for understanding how minds in power based culture that can't conceive of an alternative MUST operate.

Isn’t that hypocritical? I hear you asking, Because Republicans won’t do the right thing, we shouldn’t, either? But if the short-term “right thing” leads to long-term political catastrophe for American women, I think we need to reconsider our definition of the right thing. I am in no way suggesting that we decline to hold Franken accountable for his offenses — only that we think in terms of consequences that might actually improve women’s lives going forward.

Sentient people in such a culture MUST use the calculus that "sure they are evil terrible guys, BUT there are evil terrible guys on OUR side!".  When POWER is the only thing that counts, that is the tribal calculus that operated for thousands of years prior to the rise of religion, and will continue to operate for pagans now unless religion revives. WE MUST PROTECT OUR TRIBE AND **W I N** THAT IS THE ONLY "MORALITY" THAT MATTERS!

Naturally, this woman is not going to accept Chrisitanity as a source of morals -- her reference to "Atwoodian Dystopia" would be to the show "The Handmaid's Tale" of a sort of Old Testament takeover of "America" by "Christians". Both the fact that this show is on current media, and that this column is being published in the WaPo would give sane people solid information that BOistan is FAR from such a portrayal. The rest of the column makes the author's limited connection with reality even more plain.

Without reference to a transcendent power however, one view is as good as another -- what differentiates them is how much power one can garner in support of your view. By argument, force, subterfuge, mass murder, sexual favors, or any means you can successfully gain power with. You might even want to claim your point of view is "good" and try to be "nice" ... whatever that means in a godless universe.

The author is correct on one thing however; we no longer live in a remotely Chrisitan Culture, so "Rape Culture" is as good a designation as any for BOistan. The Administrative State and media like the WaPo hold the bulk of the power, and they "have their way with" all who fail to kneel to their power. Sexual rape is just one use of power. In a godless world, there are no morals or meaning, so "rape" is simply what one without power might decide happened in a sex act -- the label is up to them, however their power will determine if they can speak it.

In Godly universe, such as the one which created the civilization that preceeded BOistan, discussions of things like "morals, consistency, hypocrisy, right/wrong, good/evil, purpose, calling, honor, agape, family, etc" are all topics which are reified ("made real") by the Grace of God and people living in his service.

Those of us who remember the last days of an America under God have that rememberance. Accepting the rape culture of BOistan has been difficult for us. however one wonders what the author of the column believes will happen, since men actually DO have more physical power than women.

I'd argue that a "Hugh Heffner Culture" is likely the best that women can hope for in BOistan, and I'd also argue that I have FAR more reality evidence on my side that the author does for her "Atwoodian Dystopia".  (see Hugh Heffner, Ted Kennedy, Harvey Weinstein, Al Franken ... they are all actual people, Handmaiden's Tale? Not so much)

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Gelernter’s Trump

Gelernter’s Trump | Power Line:

I have a huge respect for Gelernter and his work. He is a brilliant and world renouned computer scientist who was injured by the unibomber, has written a number of excellent books, and who I have a 2nd hand personal connection with (covered here if you have an interest).

To anyone with intelligence that is left wing, Gelernter is a big problem -- he is brilliant, AND he generally supports Trump, for the simple reason that if you care about freedom, you had and have no rational other choice.

I'll copy the transcript of the Gelernter comments in an interview with Bill Bennet here ... it is self explanatory.

People on the left find Trump not merely objectionable on principle but they hate him as a person. They find him grating and annoying and he drives them crazy. I understand that. He often drives me crazy. Obama had the same properties….He was such a pain. I think there is nothing worse than a combination of patronizing arrogance and insincerity. Whenever he opened his mouth, your stomach turned over. It was painful to hear him talk. Now I understand that people — my friends on the left — have the same reaction to Trump, but the remarkable thing is what this says about the way the country swings and why did we elect Trump? The left and academia [are] too busy hating him to ask why their countrymen were

The American people know perfectly well what is due to the office of the presidency. I think Trump is undignified in a lot of ways. I think Trump falls short in a lot of ways and I think that is absolutely as clear to a farmer in Alabama or a cowboy in Wyoming as it is to the Washington Post.

People were driven to elect Trump not because they deemed him a perfect candidate to be president but because they were angry, they were incensed, they couldn’t stand where the country was going and the analysis that should follow upon that isn’t there. I mean, it goes on in conservative circles but it ought to be the number one topic in the study of American government, in the study of American history all over the world, and it’s not, of course. Needless to say.

I remain absolutely a supporter and a sympathizer of Trump. And you know, no president checks every box. I think his virtues far outweigh his faults. I do wish he would take the office and the history of the office more seriously than he does…

Just the fact of getting elected was an extraordinary accomplishment. I mean, you could say it was the most culturally democratic moment in the history of the world. Never before has a great power spurned everything the elite — the intellectual and the social elite — knows, left and right, about who should be running the country. Never before has a great power said to hell with that. The dignity of the country is important and has a lot to do with the power of the country, but this is an emergency and we’re going to make use of the best candidate who’s out there. And the implications are enormous. The left believes that, since it refuses to report on the right, the right doesn’t really exist, that it’s just a bunch of uncollected morons with no serious thought.

We all know this. We’ve reached a point where the left’s blindness is aiding the collapse of the intellectual structure built up since the rise of Marxism….The left is too arrogant, too complacent, too self-satisfied to notice it or do anything about it — I hope.

And I pray ...



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The Russians, The Party, BOistan

Hillary’s dossier | Power Line:

https://patriotpost.us/articles/52074

There is a good deal of reading in those links, the bottom line is a sad one that we now have a bunch more proof for. "The Party" (TP-D) has been colluding with the "Russians" since WAY back ... even when they were the USSR.

The second link does a good job of some summary ...

• The Hillary Clinton "Russian Reset"
• BO cancelling missile defence for Poland
• BO assuring Medvedev on an open mike about "flexibility" after 2012 election
• BO laughing at Romney about the "1980's want their foreign policy back"
• BO trusting the Russians to enforce his "Red Line"
• Urainium One
• The DNC funded "Trump Dossier" 

As the second link closes with ...

America is facing an existential crisis, one where it appears the same institutions designed to provide law and order and national security are guilty of wholesale corruption — and possible treason. Either the Trump administration will root out the rot, or the electorate will be faced with the undeniable reality we live in a nation where “justice” consists of one set of laws for the rich and powerful, and another for everyone else. A nation where Congress conducts toothless hearings, those who should be investigated conduct the investigations, and utterly corrupt media censoranything inimical to their own interests and those of their ideological allies.

Absolutely no one can justify the sale of the main ingredient used in nuclear weapons to the Russians. Either the swamp gets drained — or the entire nation drowns in it.

Readers of this blog know this already -- 2016 was the Flight 93 Election, wether or not Trump can turn us back from BOistan is highly in doubt. The "double standard" is really TP vs non-TP. It wasn't that Weinstein was wealthy and powerful, Bill Cosby was that at one point too -- it was that although Harvey was safe as long as TP controlled ALL the levers --- Hillary Lost.

We live in such a corrupt tribal state that news that the DNC / Clintons funded the "Dossier" that kicked off the Special Counsel attacking Trump is not front page blaring headline news like Watergate, Iran Contra, or what Scooter Libby did or did not know about a "covert" CIA operative named Valerie Plame who drove into Langley every day and had her husband write Op Eds for major news outlets to maintain her "deep cover".

This ought to be flashing along the bottom of every screen on every network in BOistan!

After much pain — after much lying, Clinton style — the Washington Post reported on Tuesday evening that the Trump Dossier was commissioned by the smear outfit GPS Fusion at the behest of the Clinton campaign. It was funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. 

Tom Perez, the current chairman of the Democratic National Committee wants it to be known that the DNC’s “new [post-election] leadership” (Perez and Minnesota’s own fast-talking hustler Keith Ellison) know nothing. They all sound like Mafia types. Nobody knows anything.

NOTE, the Washington F*ing Post is reporting this! The DNC has ADMITTED IT!

In the last two weeks we have found smoking guns proving that the Clinton Fund and the BO administration knowingly sold 20% of our urainium reserves to Russia for bribes and kickbacks, AND the DNC has ADMITTED that they colluded with the Russians to smear Trump!

Oh, and as a bonus, we now know for certain the IRS in fact targeted conservative groups for political reasons under BO.  That was always obvious to anyone that was awake though -- and the sleepers are not going to be concerned about it anyway. As long as they get their "free stuff" or stay on the Administrative State gravy train, why in the world would they care if the Administrative State is a weapon against those that disagree with it politically?

"Sauce for the goose" ...

But never mind -- nobody cares in BOistan. We are through the looking glass, down the rabbit hole and LOST IN SPACE! 90% of the public just knows what their tribe is, and "justice" is when their side wins!

We have indicted Manafort for "lying to the FBI and money laundering"? SERIOUSLY? We all know the Clinton Fund (Funds for Clintons) was a direct shakedown operation that amoung other things took 10's of millions DIRECTLY from Russian sources. How about being endicted for not even bothering to TRY to launder your bribes?

Here is Hillary lying under oath 3 times -- I'm sure that if we did a family compilation, we could find at least 10s of examples ... "I never had sex with that woman ..."

BOTH sides either follow the law or THERE IS NO LAW! Which is one of the mottos of BOistan.


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Care Of The Spiritually Disabled

Peter Singer Thinks Intellectually Disabled Less than Pigs | National Review:

Singer is a an easy target for anyone with remote conservative or religious leanings. He is a purely godless materialist philosopher of "ethics", so his "morality" has things like:

• "humanity" is pure intellect, so your "value" is how smart you are. 
• All "life" has the same value ... any other view is "speciesist". 

From these basic premises, he concludes that abortion or infanticide are both fine up until the child  reaches some level of appropriate intellectual capability for Peter to call "human". Sex with animals is fine as long as it is "consensual", but eating meat is morally wrong. Downs children, elders who have lost cognitive function to some level, or any traumatic brain injury that drops the individual below Pete's standards also warrants extermination. Keeping them alive is "immoral". And so it goes. 

As a human with a sinful nature, my first reaction to Peter is not particularly Christian:

I imagine Peter in the wrong bar, a couple large gentlemen hearing him out in his pronouncements, informing him that they are brothers and their other brother is a Downs person. They deck him, drag him outside and tell him that they are giving him a wonderful chance to test his theories. First they will give him a beating he has a chance to recover from, then they will ask him some easy questions -- who is the current title holder in the WWE, who won the last Indy 500, which bourbon is better, Jack, Makers or Jim (and why), and who sings "Bad to the Bone'.

If he wakes up, and gets the answers all right (as any sentient human "should" using their "standards"), then he just got a cheap lesson in getting along with folks. If not, well then he is in for a long night, but his worries will be over by the time the sun rises. Naturally, he MUST agree with them that they are being "moral", because it is "all about intelligence" -- and he is obviously significantly less smart than he had estimated as judged by those with the power he is currently subject to!

My second reaction however is that Peter is clearly Spiritually Disabled -- in the extreme. His condition is more severe than many in our world, but not unusual. It comes from "losing your sense of small".  Loki may think "he is a god" ... he may be immortal even, we really all are after all. Spending eternity in a small cell with the Hulk would likely make him question if immortality was really quite as wonderful as he first thought.

As an aside, I believe that our belief in eternal punishment is a requirement for us being (imperfectly) created in God's image, to believe in God's justice. If we don't see justice as being ultimately certain, we will feel ourselves forced to judge in the here and now.

However, I believe that God cares enough for the Spiritually Disabled (which is ALL of us) that he was willing to sacrifice his Son to give us hope of recovery from our much more serious than Downs disability. Through the gift of Grace, we are to love the fellow Spiritually Disabled and repent of our natural reaction to treat them in a manner similar to the way they would treat us given the chance. Being able to recognize that we are all Spiritually Disabled, immortal, and DESPERATELY in need of Jesus is really all that is important to "get" in this life!

Why have transcendent values rather than human selected ones? Well, because Pete, the bar guys might be the ones deciding who lives and dies rather than you if you leave it up to mere human generated "values" -- the only one that actually counts without God being "Might Is Right"!

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Coming Out Is Hard To Do

Coming Out—This Time for Trump - WSJ:

Worthy of a read. I have no understanding of gayness, but assume it is looking at a man like I look at a woman in "desire mode". There tends to not be lot of deep thought related to that ... looking at a tall cold glass of beer on a hot day comes to mind as a similar sort of non-intellectual endeavor. If the species needed very much intellect for feeding, fighting, fleeing and, er "procreating", we would likely either be a lot smarter or "not" (as in not existing).

Liking beer, scotch, tobacco, chocolate -- or not, never seemed to be hugely intellectual to me either. There is the "addiction factor" of course -- I used to really enjoy smoking a pipe, but I gave that up and it wasn't too hard. I still enjoy the occasional cigar, but it doesn't average out to "weekly", so not much addiction factor. Eating too much for emotional reasons? BIG addiction factor -- really hard to give up eating though -- and it tends to not end well.  Sometimes we have to totally fight STRONG urges to even survive, let alone be "moral". Just ask a "recovered" addict.

I can imagine that the "secrecy factor" can be significant  -- the long term religious person doubting their faith, marital infidelity, being a victim of abuse, and likely an abuser, lots of addictions, etc. It would be interesting to note the percentage of the population that has "no secrets" vs "significant secrets" vs "secrets that are thought to be at an acceptable level"(whatever that means!). It's difficult to even put categories on such things. Having had some personal experience plus experience in talking to others, I'd guess that the totals for "having done or been the victim of something that has or occasionally causes moderate or greater guilt" is well over 50% of the population, possibly close to 90%? Who knows? They are called "secrets" after all! "Redemption" is an idea that doesn't apply if there is no sin -- and it doesn't apply politically. As Hillary reminded us, Trump voters are not merely "deplorable", but "irredeemable".

As the guy in the column says:

Worse than Mr. Trump’s inconsistencies, however, are those of his detractors. They cite his lack of inclusiveness yet discount that tens of millions of Americans voted for him, and he won 30 states. I am as afraid about acknowledging that I voted for Mr. Trump today as I was about being gay yesterday. There seems to be as little understanding of my political views as there was about my sexual orientation.

I suppose there is really no irony there at all, but it feels that way to me. If we take the old "10% gay" number that is thought to be VERY high (1-2% being closer to reality), 30 million out of our 300 million population would be gay. Therefore, that a significant percentage of 60 million Trump voters now feel reticent to "come out" would be considered to be "progress" by the Hillary voters. People feeling uncomfortable because they have desires that go against nature and human mores for thousands of years is "unacceptable" we must love the sin AND love the sinner. (actually, it often seems that the Christian ideal of loving the sinner is not really understood at all by non-Christians -- it is the sin that must really be loved)

However if 2x+ even the inflated the old number of gays have thoughts counter to recently expounded "progressive" positions, then they OUGHT to feel uncomfortable and be "closeted"!!! From the "progressive" POV, all that is required is to increase sanctions against them until they TRUELY "get their minds right" -- the idea that people would CONSIDER a position different from "progressive" orthodoxy is bad enough -- that they would find the gall go "come out" and admit it is totally beyond the "progressive pale"! It is as if the very worst of any sanctions formerly used against gays have suddenly become nearly mandatory from the left if used against Trump voters!

Certainly Trump supporters know that they are a "minority" in any way that counts, the much vaunted Hillary "3 million" more popular vote being the most meaningless part. As I lament to boredom, at this point, Trump support is DEFINITELY counter-cultural. You can lose your job, friends, social standing, etc -- and as "progressives" would say, that is only the beginning -- as evidenced this last weekend, they may want to attack you physically or even attack your kids. Proper thought must be maintained! My guess is that their big worry is that it might actually become acceptable to think differently from them! (the horror!!, I assume this is what they mean by "normalizing")

Is being a "minority" really bad? Women are in fact a MAJORITY, yet a million of them marched yesterday because they don't feel enough like a majority after the inauguration. The Davos crowd is in somewhat of a funk because Brexit and the US election didn't come out as they wanted. Eight of them have as much wealth as the bottom half of the planet, and if we counted the whole 3K attendees, it would likely be 2/3's or even 3/4s, yet they don't quite feel "powerful enough" since not everything is going their way.

My Packers are getting killed while I write this -- yet when Rodgers claimed they could "run the table", I thought he was crazy. They did WAY better than I would have expected getting to this point --- but since they didn't win it all, I feel the pangs of disappointment.

My current section of study in DBT -- Dialectical Behavior Therapy (a class I'm teaching) is "Distress Tolerance". Life is painful, sometimes very painful (like your spouse or child dying), sometimes ridiculously smallish painful (like your team losing). Even when you are part of an elite that has over half the wealth on the planet and fly around in beautiful private jets, life comes with "distress". The higher our expectations, the greater our distress. For the elite, the election of Trump is like someone dying ... even when discussed on a private jet flying to Davos.

As we have known since Genesis, our nature is to believe that each of us has a right to "be like God" -- or at least like what we assume God is like. When others are not what we want -- they vote for Trump, they cheer for another team, they don't worship as we do, they practice something (typically sexual) that makes our skin crawl, they don't "look like us" (they are way too fat, way too beautiful. the wrong color, smelly, etc), we feel various levels of "discomfort, disgust, hatred, anger, etc".

DBT would tell us that "our feelings are valid" -- they ARE the feelings we have. Claiming that we "shouldn't" have them is counterproductive. Nobody as ever used reason to create love or remove disgust. Most all of us have tried to overcome feelings with logic and reason, and we can often do a darned good job of "faking it" -- or at least we think we can. Usually, everyone pretty much "knows" at some level so we are really ALL just thinking we are faking everyone else out while everyone else actually knows about the faking. We live in an age where "The Emporers New Clothes" is no longer cautionary, but rather "kill the little kid being honest! He is a deploreable!"

In DBT, the idea is to "breath deeply", allow time to pass, "allow the solution to find us". This somewhat mumbo jumbo is called "wise mind" ... we all know what they are reaching for.  (2:50 is the admonition from Obi Wan if you are in a hurry).

Christ went over all this 2K years ago and offered to change us so that our "still small voice" was aligned with good rather than evil. So aligned in fact, that it was just barely possible to see the potential to ACTUALLY love our enemies!

Search your heart -- what do you "know to be true" about the "million woman march" or the protests at the inauguration? Do you feel the love and understanding for the vast majority of those 60 million Trump voters by the marchers/protesters, and a strong encouragement for them to "come out" so they could practice "radical acceptance" of their views of religious freedom, the need to maintain a culture that can somehow be identified as "American", the value of hard work, thrift, as much self determination and responsibility as possible? How about the radical concept of  local and even individual control of who uses a bathroom or even associational freedom as to if you need to bake a cake for a wedding that is against your religious sentiments vs selling a dress to Melania Trump that is against your political sensibilities?

What is "progress"? Having 60 million in the closet vs 30 million? Who decides that is "progress"? Davos Man? The New York Times? Harvard? George Soros? How many people you can get to march or break windows and burn cars? It looks like the left no longer even wants to honor elections? How are things decided when elections are no longer honored?

Will there ever be diversity of thought and love for even our enemies on a broad spectrum, or is "war" either via politics or direct means the lot in life of the failed state of BOistan forever? Reason will never get us out of our pit -- yet Christ created a way.

Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

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How The Russians Did It!

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443000/russia-election-hack-plan-revealed-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-only-pawns-kremlin

We know that Russia is a technologically superior nation since we hitch rides with them to the Space Station so we can pretend like we are still an advanced nation. This article lays out exactly how they managed to elect Trump president. I think the following was their most brilliant move! 

The men from Moscow hacked into Clinton’s teleprompter last September 9. In a fundraising speech that she delivered to donors at Cipriani restaurant, literally on Wall Street, her original reference to half of Trump’s supporters as “hard-working Americans thirsty for economic growth and tired of being lectured to by condescending, out-of-touch elites in Washington” disappeared. Instead, Clinton was amazed to find herself calling them a “basket of deplorables.” She was as stunned as anyone to find her lips forming the words “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it.”

This one is also brilliant ... the whole article is worth reading.

The Russians drilled into the navigation system of Stronger Together, Clinton’s campaign plane, and erased Wisconsin from its map of the USA. This prevented her from landing and stumping even once in that entire state during the fall election campaign.

"Stronger Together" what a lame name for a plane. Why not "Herself"... or just "I'm a woman, Affirmative Action says you HAVE to elect me!"

Since BO openly tried to influence the Brexit vote, the election in Israel, and no doubt a few others that I'm forgetting, I'm surprised he is not pleased to see that BOistan has achieved "not exceptional" -- we are just one more nation whose elections other nations work to influence!

Note, that just because they might have thought that Trump would be easier to influence than Hillary, (who they had already bought and paid for in at least one urainium deal), doesn't mean they are right.

Hillary WANTED to run against Trump -- and look at how well that worked out for her!

Star Whats?

Rogue One review: this is the first Star Wars movie to acknowledge the whole franchise is about war - Vox:

The headline says it all. Vox is a brilliant left wing intellectual site.

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Reality Is Experience

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/the-illusion-of-reality/479559/

A likely important article that I may return to and dig deeper into. Apparently, the physical universe can be replaced with "a conscious entity" and at least this new model "still works".

As a conscious realist, I am postulating conscious experiences as ontological primitives, the most basic ingredients of the world. I’m claiming that experiences are the real coin of the realm. The experiences of everyday life—my real feeling of a headache, my real taste of chocolate—that really is the ultimate nature of reality.

"Ontological" -- being ... what IS.  The territory "real" as opposed to the map ... those being words like virtual, representation, metaphorical. This computer analogy gives a good idea why seeing "what is the most useful to the designer, or random chance" makes more sense than the "most realistic detail".

There’s a metaphor that’s only been available to us in the past 30 or 40 years, and that’s the desktop interface. Suppose there’s a blue rectangular icon on the lower right corner of your computer’s desktop — does that mean that the file itself is blue and rectangular and lives in the lower right corner of your computer? Of course not. But those are the only things that can be asserted about anything on the desktop — it has color, position, and shape. Those are the only categories available to you, and yet none of them are true about the file itself or anything in the computer. 

They couldn’t possibly be true. That’s an interesting thing. You could not form a true description of the innards of the computer if your entire view of reality was confined to the desktop. And yet the desktop is useful. That blue rectangular icon guides my behavior, and it hides a complex reality that I don’t need to know. That’s the key idea. 

Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. They guide adaptive behaviors. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don’t need to know. And that’s pretty much all of reality, whatever reality might be. If you had to spend all that time figuring it out, the tiger would eat you.

It's always intriguing to me that a super intelligent guy, so non-traditional he is willing to question the MOST fundamental aspects of the nature of existence, still finds "evolution " as somehow a worthy explanation for how we came to be (or maybe "not **BE** as in being physical", but rather "be" as experience only) in this non-physical reality. It is always possible that the computer desktop "just evolved" after all. Actually, if you are an evolutionist, the development of the computer and the desktop metaphor is simply evolution still operating in what we have no doubt mistakenly labeled "consciousness", meaning "something special", but in evolutionary "reality", just more evolutionary adaptive algorithms.

 (column author) But if there’s a W, are you saying there is an external world?

Hoffman: Here’s the striking thing about that. I can pull the W out of the model and stick a conscious agent in its place and get a circuit of conscious agents. In fact, you can have whole networks of arbitrary complexity. And that’s the world.

So, a mathematic attempt to understand consciousness replaces "the world" with "a conscious agent" and it all works ... and it doesn't give him any inking that God would fill that "conscious agent" role quite nicely?

The discoveries of quantum mechanics, the mystery of consciousness and things like the insane small amount of information that seems to be coming in through our optic nerves for us to create what we are "seeing" all point to some fundamental misconceptions about what "reality" is -- if it "is" (ontology again) at all! 

"I think, therefore I am" was always tenuous -- perhaps, a universal consciousness is reality, and "I" am an illusion. Perhaps when God speaks to Moses and says "I am that I am" he was really de-referencing the THAT!  (C++ programming, the "this pointer" is the pointer to the object itself) "I'm THAT" I am" ... the ultimate base of existence.  You (Moses) are another "I am", created in my image.

Roger Scruton has covered this philosophically quite well. 

Mission Accomplished, Trump Mocked Disabled Reporter

The True Story: Donald Trump Did Not Mock a Reporter’s Disability – CATHOLICS 4 TRUMP:

We all remember how W put up the big banner "Mission Accomplished" on the aircraft carrier after Saddam was killed and Iraq liberated. Small problem, the banner was the standard banner that the SHIP used when they came home from another deployment, and the deployment they were coming back from was their longest deployment. No problem -- the media was able to bolster the myth of W's "arrogance and stupidity" for putting up the banner that he never put up. It worked for the media and "The Party" (TP-D) , that is all that counts.

So the media "has it on tape" that Trump mocked a disabled reporter. Did he?

According to the linked article, he did not. The thesis is the following:

1. The whole deal started with Trump's claim of Muslims celebrating 9-11 in New Jersey -- the media said he was crazy, never happened. 
2. The Trump team found an article in the WaPo talking about Muslims celebrating -- the reporter (the disabled one) tried to back away from his own story when it came to light. 
3. Trump made fun of the reporter backing away from his own story at a campaign event and the media got him on tape. 
4. The linked article found other examples of Trump mocking / impersonating someone on tape, and they all look the same -- apparently he isn't much of a mimic. 

Is this "proof"? No, certainly not, but I think we all understand why it is important for the media to create and maintain such stories. If we assume that Trump DID mock the reporter's disability, was it somehow "important to him" or was it a "slip"? Back when BO said that his bowling was "like the special olympics", he apologized and that was that -- no big deal. But you can't do that from the right -- you will be destroyed by misspelling "potato". So even if it WAS a slip, he can't apologize because he is on the "wrong side". 

What is true and what is false in modern BOistan is completely beside the point. It is what people BELIEVE is true! 60% of the population believes that human caused global warming (AGW) is a greater problem for us and our offspring than $150 trillion in debt and unfunded liabilities. It doesn't really matter what the truth is -- both are predictions about the future, there really isn't any "truth" about future predictions until they are proven true or false. 

We all heard all summer that Trump would lose by a landslide, the Senate would go Democrat and the Republicans would be lucky to keep the house. Those learned predictions didn't turn out to be so correct .. "truthful". 

BO stated in 2012 that anyone that claimed we could drill our way to sub $2 gas was "either lying or didn't know what they were talking about" ... we've been there before, we are there again. Nobody is asking BO "Which was it? Were you lying or are you clueless?". 

We could go on, but you get the pattern. I see the left holding up the "Trump made fun of a disabled person" meme as if it were some magic spell. Let's compare that to Libya and 4 dead including the Ambassador. Hillary famously uttered, "What difference, at this point, does it make?". 

One of those "differences" might be that Trump was elected. It seems pretty clear that "making fun of people with disabilities" was NOT part of the "Trump campaign strategy" (if he had one) ... so if he DID do that, it was a SLIP, like BO calling his bowling "Special Olympics". If we lived in a nation where an opposition candidate could apologize and move on, then apology would be good, but BOistan is not that place. 

While there is no way to KNOW the answer to this, it seems pretty clear that the media and the Democrats are the big winners in creating this meme (just like the "Mission Accomplished" meme). Based on the work done by the linked Catholic site, I think we have pretty good evidence that this is yet another case of a media created 'Fake News".

The difference seems to be that at least part of the country is sick of it. Many of us have simply been told too many lies by the MSM and TP to listen to anything they say anymore. It is certainly true that Trump may be a liar as well -- at this point, I'm very pleased to see some new lies rather than just the same old tired ones! 

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Important Tribal Genius, Wrong Country

How to Get Beyond Our Tribal Politics - WSJ:

As many of you know, I have a lot of respect for Jonathan Haidt (pronounced "height", but considering what he writes on, "hate" is funnier").

If you want a cliff notes version of some of his previous writing see here http://www.moosetracksblog.com/2014/11/a-righteous-haidter.html.

If you want to dig a little deeper, here is the cliff notes on another of his books http://www.moosetracksblog.com/2015/10/the-happiness-hypothesis-jonathan-haidt.html.

I consider Haidt to be a genius, but while he is a "fan" of wisdom, as an atheist he misses the largest spiritual truth in the universe, that the BEGINNING of wisdom is the fear of God. We are all prone to believe that our viewpoint is "special" -- unless we internalize at a deep level that we are special ONLY in deep relation to God, we are pretty much doomed to keep forgetting our place.

Thus Haidt, a more brilliant human than I will ever be, says the following ...

So are we doomed? Will the polarizing trends identified by Pew just keep going until the country splits in two? Maybe John Adams was right in 1814 when he wrote, “Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself.”

This has been a frightening year for many Americans. Questions about the durability, legitimacy and wisdom of our democracy have been raised, both here and abroad. But the true test of our democracy—and our love of country—will come on the day after the election. Starting next Wednesday, each of us must decide what kind of person we want to be and what kind of relationship we want to have with our politically estranged cousins.

Regular readers of this blog know that America WAS NOT founded as a "democracy" but rather as a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC ... BOistan is very close to a "democracy", which is precisely why at least the 10-20% of us remaining that realize that are so concerned about being completely crushed by mob rule.  John Adams was correct when he said that "democracy never lasts long", as he was when he said: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other".

In general, I think the column is EXCELLENT -- I would, the only hope for my dwindling unwilling to be tribal tribe is that enough people of the dominant tribe are willing to follow this advice ...

Second, step back and think about your goals. In the long run, would you rather change people or hate them? If you actually want to persuade or otherwise influence people, you should know that it is nearly impossible to change people’s minds by arguing with them. When there is mutual antipathy, there is mutual motivated reasoning, defensiveness and hypocrisy. 

But anything that opens the heart opens the mind as well, so do what you can to cultivate personal relationships with those on the other side. Spend time together, and let the proximity recommended by Cicero strengthen ties. Familiarity does not breed contempt. Research shows that as things or people become familiar, we like them more.

So if you happen to read this and try spending time with a Burkean Christian that will do their very best to love you even if we disagree, I'm available. If you find yourself leaving groups, shunning friends and family, etc because they are "not of your tribe", then perhaps at least consideration of  Haidt (hate?) is in order?

The set of people that are like myself -- who understand that America was a Constitutional Republic and BOistan is not, is exceedingly small -- I'd guess less than 5% of the population. BO has usurped the most basic of separated powers in spending money on BOcare not approved by congress -- who sued him and it went to the DC court of appeals and BO LOST -- badly. Nobody cares. We are no longer a Constitutional Republic -- so no longer America. (that is just one example, there are a bunch)

The SCOTUS won't take the case because it would be 4 to 4, thus allowing the DC circuit ruling to stand and BO to be guilty of brazenly violating his Constitutional oath, getting caught and adjudicated against. A HUGE percentage of BOistan has no clue what I'm even talking about.

But BOistan does NOT have a Constitution that means anything, so he skates.

So Haidt is wrong on where he lives. If you care about IDEAS -- and if you were American, you had to, because America was founded on IDEAS, not race, religion, territory or ethnic identity, then it is already "the day after". America might well have survived physical destruction, but it could no more survive the loss of shared ideas, than Christianity could survive the loss of Christ being THE WORD, fully God and fully man -- born of a virgin, dying for our sins and rising from the dead. All the churches could be physically destroyed, but as long as THE TRUTH remains, Christianity will live on.

And so it was with America. It could only exist when a supermajority understood what it was.

So Christians, continue to do the best you possibly can to love those that call you names and hate you -- and pray for them, certainly for their souls, but I also think it is OK to pray that they will read Haidt and decide that they would rather "re-educate us" than kill us.

If Hillary wins as we expect, the best thing about that might be that those "re-education camps" will be a great place to lose A LOT of weight!

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MoveOn.org

Trump accuses Clinton and media of trying to 'poison the minds' of voters - POLITICO:

Actually it was BO himself who made the role model remark, but the point is simple. When POWER is your only "morality", hypocrisy is impossible. There is nobody in the elite of TP that has any problem with Trump's behavior, it is all and purely politics.

The memory of the sheep in BOistan is so amazingly short, and the propaganda so thick, that they are scarcely able to remember anything beyond what the media told them to think in the last hour.

The following is from Wikipedia:

The MoveOn.org domain name was registered on September 18, 1998 by computer entrepreneurs Joan Blades and Wes Boyd, the married cofounders of Berkeley Systems, an entertainment software company known for the flying toaster screen saver and the popular video game series You Don’t Know Jack. After selling the company in 1997, Blades and Boyd became concerned about the level of "partisan warfare in Washington" following revelations of President Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky. [2] The MoveOn website was launched initially to oppose the Republican-led effort to impeach Clinton. Initially called "Censure and Move On," it invited visitors to add their names to an online petition stating that "Congress must Immediately Censure President Clinton and Move On to pressing issues facing the country."

So 18 years ago, "The Party" (TP-D) decided that even after "feminism" and countless hours of employees being lectured that "sexual harassment is whatever the woman FEELS is harassment", as with any other law, TP was above it. "The law" is just one more thing for TP to use for it's own political purposes, while it's own members in good standing are able to be completely immune to it. MoveOn was one of the mouthpieces to make this truth clear to the sheeple on the issues of sexual harassment, rape, etc.

The really sad part of this is that the natural moral sense of Christians and Conservatives can be used against them so transparently. When MoveOn was founded, they were "prudes, scolds and hypocrites" -- ANY sexual  matter that could be dug up on a Republican, was grounds on which their opinion on Slick was totally dismissed as "hypocrisy". People with moral standards are always beset by hypocrisy -- TP has the ultimate solution, no morals ... just POWER!

No matter what charge was brought against Slick, "it had nothing to do with the important job of the presidency" ... and we desperately needed to "Move on". It was shouted from every corner -- "The  French were laughing at us" for our "prudish attitudes on men in power". That always makes me change my positions -- nothing like cheese eating surrender monkeys finding a position "laughable" to turn my thinking around!

The true bottom line here is simple. TP has **NO** other concerns than POWER, and Conservatives and Christians DO. Most likely the charges will work, and in this case even better than the DUI "news" about W, brought out the weekend before the election to manipulate it. There is very little doubt it cost him 5-10% nationally -- especially in states like Florida.

It is hard to really care about BOistan. Things like Slick Willie establishing that the president need not be a person of any character or moral standard is exactly what makes either Hildebeast or Trump fully acceptible candidates for tribal chieftain of BOistan. "The standard" here is simply whatever TP decrees to to be.

The only quote I found worthy from the linked article is how far out of touch Paul Ryan is -- we ALREADY LIVE IN BOISTAN !!! Look around you! America was lost thanks to people like Ryan who failed to stand up and strongly oppose BO. Had the Republican party opposed BO half as hard as they oppose Trump, we might still have a country. They are just stopping at nothing to KEEP IT the way they want now.

“In the America they want… government is taken away from the people, and we are ruled by our betters, by a cold and unfeeling bureaucracy that replaces original thinking,” Ryan told an auditorium of students. “It is a place where the government twists the law — and the Constitution itself — to suit its purposes. A place where liberty is always under assault, where passion — the very stuff of life — is extinguished.” 

“That is the America Hillary Clinton wants,” he continued, adding, “If given control of Washington — if given control of Congress — it is the kind of America she will stop at nothing to have."

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Prosecuting Political Opponents

16 Times Democrats Tried To Prosecute Opponents:

Naturally, "The Party" (TP-D) which controls the entire government bureaucracy, legal system and media is well acquainted with prosecuting their political opponents -- in fact, it has become pretty much their standard operating procedure, as the 16 incidences listed in the article point out.

Equally unsurprising is the fact that they find the idea that any loyal TP member in good standing might face prosecution as COMPLETELY abhorrent and beyond the pale. If such was possible, TP would not be TP -- the totalitarian owner of legal and extra-legal prosecutions for whatever deed or, "rumor" that TP happens to think might gain them something. It really doesn't make any difference what Bill and Hillary have done -- they loyal members of TP, which means that THEY ARE ABOVE THE LAW ... and both they and other TP members are very proud of the fact that they have "never been prosecuted".

They are all one big happy crime family -- move up in TP, and you too can be immune to prosecution. It seems stranger and stranger that everyone doesn't just "get their minds right", and it seems pretty certain that Hildebeast will be sure that a lot more DO learn to kneel before her once she gets her sceptre.

I'd list a few others just to round it out a bit.

• Ray Donovan, "where do I go to get my reputation back". 
• Ted Stevens ... this one was VERY smart of TP, because it got them a 60 vote Senate (along with voter fraud in MN). 
• Tom Delay -- again, they got a powerful opponent out of politics and nearly jailed him. He was forced to spend millions to barely survive -- this can happen to YOU as well if you choose to cross TP. 

If we had the time, we could go on for at least 100's, and probably thousands or even millions. The case of the small time political person that speaks out in the opposition to TP,  and suddenly finds themselves with a very nasty IRS audit, EPA summons, zoning trouble, etc is pretty much a standard in the dwindling Republican ranks. "Keep your head down" is the mantra if you dare oppose TP.

Having Ted Kennedy highly visible for a long time in TP was a big plus. It is IMPORTANT to show the little people that if you have power you can ACTUALLY get away with murder! It is like the Mob roughing up and killing some folks to be certain that everyone understands who the REAL bosses are. TP is the BIG mob -- they need folks like Ted or Bill and Hillary around just to prove that they are above the law and you are not.

It looks grim right now for any opposition to TP. That is the way it has pretty much been since FDR, with a short small glimpse of hope during the Reagan years and the Gingerich House. Death of dreams, people and nations always tends to be dark -- it just goes with the territory. The powerful like to see their opposition TOTALLY removed -- they really don't want to even HEAR an opposing view!

TP is rather comfortable prosecuting their political opponents, and even if Trump should win, they will go on doing so. They own the legal system and the administrative law system -- even if they were to lose the WH, their power is so great as to make any real opposition for at least decades a total impossibility.


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Grooming, Gas-lighting,and Gambits -- Pussygalore

Donald Trump’s remarkably gross comments about women - The Washington Post:

In a nation that drops the F-bomb about every other moment, "pussy" is now a really horrible word -- I think this James Bond was rated X.

The sheep in BOistan are now in the same spot as the typical victim in an abusive relationship. Here we have BO on the now supposedly terminally crude subject of "pussy".  Hey, no harm no foul, he is reading from the BOOK he wrote, where he also uses the "N word".

When you live in a totalitarian state, the state tells you what words are acceptable, what words are not, who can use them with impunity and who can't -- the state decides, get your mind right!

FIRST ... this is planned manipulation by "The Party" (TP-D). They had this this whole time, and they kept it to manipulate the election. If you can't understand that you are MORE blinded than the typical abuse victim.

"Grooming" it is what spouse abusers, child abusers, pimps, and totalitarian regimes do to their victims. They prepare them -- say in a spouse case, they are especially attentive, provide gifts, make sure that they spend LOTS of time with the prospect so that she has no friends and is totally sucked in to the abuser. Then they start with SMALL abuse -- and work up until the victim is so dependent and ashamed that they can't see any way out.

Totalitarians make certain that the bar is set to "anything goes" for the dominant party, and "any infringement is disqualifying" for those that are not loyal party members. In this case, we have Slick Willie ... serial ACTUAL abuser of women, and likely guilty of rape (the support in the link is from a LEFT leaning source), and Trump, guilty of "coarse locker room talk", which is amazingly not actually illegal (yet) for even non-party members!

TP makes it CLEAR that unless you cross "The Party", you too can have your way with women, taxes, words, etc -- Bill Cosby was OK for decades, but apparently didn't realize that his privilege was dependent on party allegiance. Obviously Trump was in the same boat -- on sex and on taxes, but he strayed in the only way that matters. He crossed TP.

On the non-TP side, we had W Bush. HAVING an Honorable Discharge was completely useless -- it needed to be questioned, up to and including using forged documents. If  BO had been a Republican, his producing a valid birth certificate would not have satisfied the media, they would have been running around trying to find out if it was fake,  having Dan Rather lose his job forging documents trying to prove it was a fake.

For Clarence Thomas, the bar was that he MAY have mentioned an X-rated movie and possibly a pubic hair on a coke can to an employee that continued to follow him to multiple jobs for a decade -- but as a conservative, that was "sexual harassment". Yes, he squeaked onto the court, to be a pariah for the rest of his life -- a "win" if you oppose TP. Let that be a lesson to you!

Slick Willie dropping trou in front of employee Paula Jones and asking her to "suck it" either never happened, was politically motivated, or was "acceptable". All manner of ACTUAL groping, staining, and even rape accusations were  just fine for Slick -- but for Trump, the "new standard" is that "crude locker room talk" is now completely disqualifying.

Naturally, "The Republican Party" -- now pretty much another wholly owned subsidiary of TP, has a whole bunch of rats jumping ship. They will do all in their power to hand this to TP -- but as a famous head of a crime family once said; "What difference, at this point, does it make?". Certainly, many Republicans can be excused because they hold moral standards higher than all politics, and feel they can't actually vote for Trump because he is "coarse". They DO need to remember that Jesus said to "render unto Caesar", and Caesar was NOT a "nice guy". He also told us to love our enemies, not to avoid having any.

For the bulk of the sheep, they have been gaslighted so badly that they no longer believe their own minds -- only what TP tells them. BO ended the war in Iraq, but he didn't make the decision to pull the troops out. Bill Clinton says that Obama Care is "crazy", but Hillary supports it.  We get along fine with Russia and Mitt Romney was an idiot for thinking otherwise ... or, Russia is our worst enemy -- or both. Oh, Russia is trying to "manipulate our election" -- and the Washington Post just pulled a tape of Trump out that they have had forever -- and they are trying to? Oh, wait a minute, Wikileaks just pointed out that Hillary told Goldman Sacks what we all thought she would for a $650K bribe  -- BUT TRUMP!

Spun, manipulated, gaslighted -- the BOistan sheep run to the fences and cower in confusion. 2008 was sad, 2012 was tragic, but in 2016 it is clear that this is moral and intellectual wasteland that richly deserves just what we are seeing. It is getting more than a bit humorous, and it appears that the clowns are being sent in nationally! How fitting!

BOistan is built on the rotting corpse of America -- and we are really only in the early stages of the stench. Excrement smells badly, but rotting flesh is especially pungent. Remember, it IS BAD, and it is going to STAY BAD for a good long while, but if you decide to not vote for Trump, you are deciding to deepen our loss of free speech, religious freedom and shredding of our already terribly tattered Constitution.

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The Creation Science Oxymoron

I took an hour this past Sunday evening to attend a "Creation Science" presentation -- maybe a bit of nostalgia for my youth as a fundamentalist Baptist.

The speaker was Dr Robert Carter, affiliated with Creation Ministries a business dedicated to the idea that the earth is 6K years old and they can prove it "scientifically".

First of all, let me say that I'm sure that many of the people taking part in this are well meaning and truly believe that they MUST somehow "debunk evolution" in order for people to believe in God, the Bible, and Jesus. I'll refer to them as "Young Earth Creationists" (YEC)

My main concern here is idolatry -- focus on the physical over the spiritual. Thomas could only believe if he thrust his hand into the side of the risen Savior. YECs seem to think that belief in the miracle of God taking human form and dying for our sins requires that we thrust our minds through "science" into the physical world and SEE that it is created via "scientific" knowledge.

My view is that our original sin lies in us seeking knowledge and power in the physical world, rather than relying on "The Word" of God -- meaning Christ ("and the Word was with God")" and the Bible (in that order). Science and thinking in a materialist manner puts the creation ahead of the creator. The choice of the material "fruit" over the WORD of God was the fall.

Science is all about stuff (material), but God didn't create ONLY stuff. He created man "in his image", which is SPIRIT, not "stuff" (matter) ... our consciousness, which science also can't measure, and therefore does not exist to science.  Science deals with what humans are able to perceive, or they create machines to perceive and MEASURE the scientific (materialist) view of "what is". If it can't be measured, it doesn't exist for science. The consciousness of the scientist that is doing the measurement isn't part of science -- which I suspect is part of the reason for "quantum effects". The quantum superposition doesn't "collapse" until a consciousness (spirit) could view it) --  Schroedigers cat is in the superposition of dead AND alive until a consciousness views the result.

Science seeks truth in matter, and has chased matter to the point where it becomes waves, particles, quarks, strings, fields, quanta and all sorts of wispy ghosts that behave more like quantum spirits than "stuff". The search for the "truth" of matter has led to "spooky effects at a distance". Both time and space have become "relative". Perhaps energy is all there is -- or "data", or perhaps, spirit -- dare we say it -- God?

Looking at matter will never provide eternal truth. Matter isn't eternal -- as far science can tell the physical universe will die in cold entropy or a super hot "big crunch" according to physics. Long before either of those happen, physical life will be gone -- in a mere universal heartbeat of a few 10's of billions of years next to the vastness of eternity.

The Bible says that God created the earth. It doesn't say how and it doesn't say when.  Certainly it can be "wired" to give someone the impression that the earth "must" be a certain age, just as the Catholic church once persecuted those who said that the earth orbited the sun, because Joshua 10:13 says "So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.".

They were completely certain that the sun HAD to move, since the Bible "said so", so it was better to kill a heretic who failed to believe this "truth" than to allow such madness to spread. As all of us who share the  beginning of wisdom ought to know each day, their (and our) God is too small! If you follow the link, you will be taken to my review of a small book by that title that has a very large message. It is US who attempts to put an infinite God into a box and explain how he MUST operate.

As I've repeated too often, I'm willing to let God create the world via any mechanism he chooses. He may have created it "during" the time I wrote this sentence -- and it would all look exactly like it does now. Not to "fool" anyone, but because that is how God chose to create it! He is beyond time and space -- and certainly beyond the thoughts of man.

I used to work on the startup code for a large operating system where we created a "boot image" and loaded that into the memory of the computer. If you looked at it when it started running, you could assume that a whole bunch of things had "happened", that really had not. They had been set up so they appeared that way because that is how they needed to be to work with the rest of the operating system -- not to "fool people".

This is but a single possibility. To believe that understanding the MECHANISM of how God may have created somehow helps us understand an eternal God is counterproductive to faith. Becoming mired in a never ending argument over matter, cells and calendars is to miss God -- that he is eternal, spirit, light, love and not of this physical universe (except as Christ).

Western civilization is dying because it has put it's faith in matter rather than spirit and truth. Science is ONLY about measurement and mechanism, and proudly so. It has, nor recognizes,  a soul, nothing at all that is spiritually human. To science, we are all "naked apes", soulless animals living meaningless lives in a meaningless universe. Science is "psychopathic" -- it denies consciousness and values since they are not observable or measureable. Science is a TOOL ... like a hammer, like a computer. (psychopaths don't see others as "conscious")

CREATION -- even the puny human form of a new song, painting, novel, technological innovation or flower arrangement, is outside of science. The divine creation is a gap so large that God needed to become human in the form of Jesus Christ in order to bridge the gulf created by sin -- one of the chief of which is our idolatry of matter over spirit.

"Creation Science" demeans creation and attempts to use "science" in it's own idolatry of the physical -- to say with doubting Thomas, that "faith is NOT enough, I muse SEE the marks of creation"! Our current "Standard Model" of physics is "timeless", defined by mathematics that make time relative -- it says that what is happening now has always been happening and always will be. If you add in quantum mechanics, everything that "could be happening" is  (each "decision" causes a "fork" creating a new universe from that point on.

So "true" evolutionists are turning on physics -- they want a NEW MODEL that shows that what we see "can happen" with no outside intervention or "timeless principles" it may well take 10 to the 400th or 10 the google UNIVERSES, but ANYTHING is more palatable to them than "timeless".

Apparently anything  other than a timeless God is palatable to young earth creationists as well -- no matter how many strange "flood hoops" they have to jump over to have their 6K year cake.

My bottom line concerns with young earth creation are:

1. Idolatry -- the desire to put the physical ahead of the spiritual. The idea that "unless I can physically touch the risen savior, I will not believe", transposed to "unless the physical evidence viewed by science in the world aligns directly with Genesis, I will not believe that God created the earth / universe".
   
2. Moneychangers in the temple. YEC is an opportunity for some to attempt to profit from the creation of a cult like set of followers that feel that their "faith" (actually if it is proven by physical evidence, it is not faith) depends on physical defense of 6K year creation. Which is of course is not faith at all : Hebrews 11:1 11 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
   
3. Loss of spiritual authority and increased loss of youth to paganism.  The modern world has no shortage of idolatry for the physical. The battlefield of the spiritual has been virtually abandoned, and the YEC movement wants to abandon the spiritual in the case of creation and fight on the physical plane as well. It is as if Elijah had joined the pagans in cutting himself to obtain the attention of the true God. 

That being said, I understand their desire. The idea of a "physical slam dunk" that PROVES the existence of the God that many of us love and fervently believe in, tempts our minds like a beautiful woman draws our eyes. When we see our children wooed away by science that is spiritually dead and devoid of even the recognition of humans as conscious, our very souls weep and cry out in pain we cannot begin to voice.

The only "physical matter" that proves the spiritual is the person of Jesus Christ. All other attempts are idolatry -- often well meaning idolatry, but idolatry just the same. At one time I wished it were not so, but I believe I understand more of the reason that God demands we worship him in SPIRIT and Truth.

Being flesh, we are so drawn to the physical that if any form of the physical save the person of Christ, present at Calvary and in Holy Communion was really worthy of our study and adulation, we would be inexorably drawn to that form to the exclusion of Christ, writing books, creating web sites and holding endless discussions on the minutia of this "physical truth", rather than worshiping "The Way, the Truth, and the Life". We might possibly even build a physical "Ark" as a talisman for the spiritual protection of Christ through the waters of this world.

Only the Trinity is eternal, however we share an eternal future though not an eternal past. We will know the HOW, WHEN, WHY, etc of creation -- for now, let us have faith that God Created!

A Liberal Thought On Trump

I believe the cartoon captures both the religious and cultural state of the west today. The moderns gleefully want to kill the culture, tradition, Christianity, Capitalism, the family, philosophic and often even scientific truth -- yet in their glee, they fail to realize it leaves them nowhere to stand!

The following is written by a liberal friend on FB. I know him to be intelligent and totally believing of the dominant left narrative taught in US public education, the media and entertainment. He is not an atheist, but has moved to become a modern secularized Christian, denying the Bible on at least sexually related issues like abortion, homosexuality and gender. As with all people of the left,  I certainly do not blame him in a human sense for "following the crowd". Holding the beliefs that I do is often costly in certainly friendships, some family relationships and possibly job and career.

While he as at times "unfriended" me on FB, I believe he attempts to be civil. I certainly have no trouble remaining his friend, FB and otherwise, because I hold this mortal coil to be but the most fleeting of experiences for our true eternal selves. To even consider judging or "unfriending" someone over the merely political would violate my own values, but given life in BOistan today, I fully understand why members of "The Party" (TP-D) feel they have no choice but to do so.

 I'll summarize and give my views on the quoted FB post below.  He titles it: "Leave it Blank?":

Though I am clearly a Democrat, I live in this country, I work with lots of good people, and so I know lots of good people who are Republicans. Honest, moral people with integrity. They think there's a better way to go about governing than what Democrats do. I respect that. 

And in a normal election cycle, I would expect them to support their "team president" because that person, the GOP Presidential Nominee, would represent their conservative values -- and would probably also be an upstanding representative of the kind of personal behavior they prize. Mitt Romney was not a "perfect" Republican for some conservatives and some Evangelicals, but he was/is Conservative, spent a long time as a public servant, and presents himself as an honorable, respectful man. John McCain was even better (the closest I've ever come to supporting a GOP candidate.) When their "team leader" is a person like these two, I can't blame Republican friends for supporting the leader.
What we have this time, though, is a candidate who quite simply does not represent the demeanor of a President, who doesn't have enough respect for the job, or the people with whom and for whom he'll have to work, to truly represent the kind of Republicans I know. 

So, can those people really vote FOR Donald Trump, just because he's on their "team?"
Now, I don't expect most of them would vote FOR Hillary. I can dream, but I do recognize that Secretary Clinton is more liberal than they are. And there are really good reasons a traditional GOP Conservative would not vote for Gary Johnson, and Jill Stein -- well, if Clinton is too far left, Jill is not right for a Conservative either. 

So, what I am wondering is this: Will these true honorable Conservatives just leave the Presidential candidate selection blank? I mean, in the future, whether Trump loses or wins, would these people want to have voted for him? 

Or does some sort of "team loyalty" require them to do what Ted Cruz did --- go against the very morality which matters so much to them and vote Trump? 

Now, I am sure I also know some Republicans who honestly support Trump. I don't get those people, but they are there. But they were not in the majority in the the early days of the GOP primaries, and many of that majority fought against Trump precisely because of the attributes he has continued to display. 

I expected the "politicians" to fall in line -- I had some hope that Cruz would stick to his principles, but even he recognized the future political disadvantage of not being a team player. 

But the average GOP voter does NOT have future politics to consider. They have to decide whether a vote for Trump is something which will weigh on their conscience in the future. 

Now, perhaps Trump would not be another Hitler, as so many of us liberals (and non-US people) worry about. Perhaps the checks and balances in place would keep him from truly taking the US in dangerous directions. Perhaps, once his records are made available, we won't find anything impeachable, and when his financial assets are placed in a blind trust, he'll be unable to try to work the system for his personal benefit, and he'll stop trying. Perhaps the "only" thing he'd do is continually embarrass us until 2020.
But even if a President Trump is only embarrassing, will a typical Republican really want to admit, 20 years from now, "Yes, I voted FOR Trump" or will they just leave that part of the ballot blank? 

That's what I am wondering today.

This post boils down for me to:

1.  Democrats have been saying the Republican nominee is "Hitler" at least since Nixon, with Reagan and W being prime past examples, and this whole straw man has it's own name (Godwin's law). The entire argument is based on the fallacy that "right" is control  and "left" is chaos/freedom, when of course the opposite is true. Whole books are written on this standard piece of TP propaganda, which I cover in summary here.  The charge has been repeated so often that one wonders why anyone would bother to do it yet again.
   
    In my mind, killing over 60 million babies in their mothers wombs is easily comparable with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, or Biblical sacrifice to Moloch ... but that is a world view that radically differs from the approved world view of TP.
   
2. There is the "metaphysical certainty" that Trump is somehow "evil, bad, embarrassing, etc" ... which TP assured us was true of at least Nixon, Reagan and W. In this case, "somehow", one would be "embarrassed" years later to have voted for Trump ... and least at this point, supposedly worse than they would have been for Nixon, Reagan or W. Therefore, they would "leave the space blank", implicitly helping Hillary. 

I voted for Carter, and I'm not "embarrassed". I was young, I had just been fully indoctrinated by 16 years of schooling, my family voted Democrat, so I voted for him. The loss of Iran as an ally certainly caused and continues to cause world problems. The miscalculation on Afghanistan also had far reaching repercussions. Could these had been avoided with a better leader? I firmly believe so,  but as with pretty much anything outside of proven mathematical equations, reasonable people can  and will vary in their opinions. My only claim to wisdom is the fear of God -- I prayerfully consider decisions and study hard -- I don't take credit for Reagan, nor blame for Carter. I doubt that will ever change. 

I have no confidence in Trump as a leader -- as I have commented on the writings of Decius, I see this as the first of likely many Russian Roulette elections. Hillary is roulette with a semi-auto, Trump is a revolver -- at least for people that have nostalgia for the old Constitutional Republic that was America. Best to have an outside chance of a pause in our decent to totalitarianism. A Trump victory would be a chance for the left to revisit how they felt after Reagan, Newt as Speaker, or Ws election. People with a rightward tilt got to feel that way for the past 8 years -- only I suspect we don't feel it as deeply as they do, since politics is WAY below God for us.

BOistan is a territory based on no principles, save possibly the hope that "with more government everything is better".  2008 was the HUGE election, 2012 was the "kill shot" for America. America is dead already, many people are just not aware of it -- and some, (as I suspect the author of the post above) celebrate the "change". 

If Trump wins, as Scott Adams, the writer of "Dilbert" expects him to, it will be a LONG way from any indication that "good things will happen". It will merely be proof that there are still a lot of people out there that oppose the ending of America that BO was able to accomplish. Any road back to a Constitutional Republic is going to be LONG and arduous. The most positive aspect of a Trump win in my mind is the potential for some level of national "dialogue", more likely to be a shouting match, since the majority of the Trump supports merely sense that things are broken really badly, but have no idea at all why America once worked, how it was destroyed, or how to rebuild it.

The left will of course continue to arrogantly dismiss all who disagree, as is covered here. 

As the copied post tells you, loyal members of TP see no reason to even attempt to "reason" or consider any alternative views. Indeed, in BOistan,  POWER is all that counts, and increasingly it is coercive power as in "we will put you in jail if you claim Global Warming isn't gospel" (Exxon, NY).

The smarter TP members (like the post author) vaguely realize that once law has been abandoned, such mechanisms could theoretically be used by the opposition. I think they are wrong ... they forget the power of the administrative state, which only operates for left leadership. 

For people who hold traditional Christian views, own guns,  etc we are left with no rational choice but to vote for the candidate who will be most opposed, which is clearly Trump. 

Most of all, I wish for a renewal, which I believe must be a revival, of acceptance of Christ and Biblical principles as the transcendent values that the vast majority of Americans would be again in agreement on, and thus see government as FAR beneath those principles.

Government would be returned to being a SERVANT of both God and the people.  In America past, and I hope in an America or at least "remnant" of it, future, Christian friendship would FAR outweigh anything political, not only because one is eternal and the other but a tiny temporal moment, but also because God's Wisdom would be what drives the lives of a clear majority of Americans. 

Both Trump and Hillary are so far from decent leaders that such a vision most certainly requires a miraculous intervention from on high. Both are likely to make such a vision less possible, but I see Hillary as certainly continuing on the path to Bible following Christians being directly persecuted -- a threshold we are perilously close to.

Heavenly Father, please forgive this broken country, revive us, restore us. Amen. 

Crazy Trump a Plant? , 2nd Amendment Hints

Why Gun Owners Should Reject Trump’s Call to “Second Amendment People” - The New Yorker:

Remember when that crazy Trump said  "No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms."? Oh, oops, that was that crazy Thomas Jefferson.

Trump is ALWAYS talking violently. Remember when he talked about "bringing a gun to a knife fight"? Oh, wait, that was BO in 2008. 

See Michael Hayden, the director of the NSA from 1999 to 2005 who says that the WMD assessment was all the intelligence agencies fault -- Bush never lied! says Trump is DANGEROUS! The left suddenly finds Hayden a very believable guy saying Trump is a "clear and present danger". "Clear and Present Danger" is a legal definition under which the 1st Amendment can be suspended because the danger outweighs speech rights. In national security circles, a "Clear And Present Danger" is one that literally MUST be "neutralized" ... "terminated". So what are articles that call Trump a "Clear And Present Danger" saying?  Obviously nothing that would encourage anyone to take violent action against Trump, we have seen NONE of that, right?

We live in such a fun house now that no sane person has any idea WHAT to believe about our national government, political process, etc. I attempt to maintain SOME minimal sense of "logic / reason / truth / etc", but given what is happening in BOistan, such is really no longer possible.

Hillary once voted to go into Iraq, then she said it was a mistake and said that "Bush lied" and talked about General Petraeus as "General Betray Us" ... Hayden was head of the CIA at the time of the surge. Now, Hildebeast is back to claiming that W's original decision was reasonable because Trump is saying it wasn't. Does she even have any "real positions" other than  she wants power and money?

Hayden? Who the hell knows -- he is obviously closely connected with the Bush family and the Bush family is at the CORE of the Republican Establishment which obviously hates Trump. I'm convinced that the corruption in in BOTH parties is WELL beyond my ability to comprehend it.

I have no idea what is happening, but in an insane world, you have to start thinking "insanity".

The degree to which the Republican Party lap-dogged it with BO and the degree to which the establishment Republicans have gone raving lunatic against Trump leads me to a few not necessarily mutually exclusive scenarios.

• "The Party" (TP-D) has already totally won on all but collecting the guns. The IRS is being used to reward their friends and punish their enemies. The NSA, FBI, or other intelligence agencies has enough "goods" on EVERYONE that are either real or manufactured to execute blackmail on a massive scale. (How hard do you think it would be for the NSA to provide "proof" that you trafficked in child porn?) In the virtual electronic world you can be set up as a trader in slaves, drugs, weapons ... an embezzler, etc, etc. The temptation to power just became too great, and TP has total control of the Federal Bureaucracy, so it all just "tipped over" and anybody that talks is dead or dishonored. I cover that a bit here.
  
• Trump is either a TP or pure Clinton Foundation plant. There are plenty of photos of the two couples together at weddings and other events, their daughters are best buds. The meeting is easy to envision:
  
• Slick ... Don, the Foundation is doing north of $200 mil a year REPORTED, and DECLARING < 10% going to "charity" (wink, wink, nod, nod) ... we are REPORTING that and getting away with it with no significant public concern! Of course the reality is we are taking 10x that and "giving" 1/10th what is reported. There are BIG investors that have BANKED on Hillary taking over from Barry. We need to insure this election, it is the best thing for everyone.
  
• Don ... I understand, what do you want me to do and what is in it for me?
  
• Slick ... We always play both the top and bottom of the deck, on the bottom, you don't want to be prosecuted on any of items that we have. They are not all factual, but they are all guaranteed to stick -- we own the judges. But I hate to be unfriendly, the upside here is INSANE for you. We know you want to move up the billionaire list, and we can guarantee it. Look at Warren ... just stopping the pipeline alone poured billions into his railroad! I can guarantee you move up the Forbes list from 120 to the top 10 ... Donald Trump, the genius that went from $4.5 Billion to $45 Billion in 4 short years!
  
• (D) So I'm supposed to?
  
• (S) Win the Republican nomination for President.
  
• (D) ... sound of choking, laughter .... that is a good one!
  
• (S) No, we are completely serious. The media will aid you early on -- you will hint that you might go 3rd party and they will be like Pavlov's dogs salivating over the crazy Ross Perot stunt we pulled in '92.  We have enough boughten folks in the Republican Party that will start a #NeverTrump movement and create a civil war in the party. They are a shell anyway after BO did enough deals to pay off the guys at the top to screw the folks that honestly believe in crap like "God, Country, Truth, Honor and shit".
  
• (D) My God, I can't imagine campaigning, it will bore me silly!
  
• (S) You WON'T campaign ... you will entertain! It is "reality politics". Hell, the "average white conservative voter" has been ground down so much they are mostly a bunch of drug addicts and drunks ready to kill themselves! To them, you will look like "Hope and Spare Change" ... hey, you could even make "America" great again! ... not that there IS any America left, but lots of the folks are too stupid to understand we took it from them and sold it to the highest bidder!
  
  You know a lot of people don't like "the beast" (Hillary) ... and hell, I can't say I blame them, but having you out there throwing bombs and crazy shit all over will get PLENTY of votes with the long list of stiffs running. My God, "JEB!" ... they would reject him as a cadaver!
  
  Besides, I like you Don ... I don't want to see you locked up or dead.
  
• (D) $45 B for throwing an election, or I'm a dead man. ... doesn't seem like there is a lot of "art" to this deal, I hope it is at least some fun.
  
• (S) Hell Don, it will be a HOOT, and if you can manage to deliver the House and Senate to TP, we will be talking BONUS ... Warren is old, sanctimonious and not all that bright. I can see you as our "richest man" -- telling everyone that you are all for big tax increases while putting your money in a foundation so none of it is ever touched. I have ALWAYS admired your taste in the ladies!
  
• (D) I appreciate that Bill, pleasure doing business with you ...
  
• Or maybe Trump looked around one day and realized that he knows the game is rigged, he is one of the riggers, but he was NEVER going to be "top dog" because, well, the game is rigged! So he decided that he was going to "change the game" -- he actually COULD run for President and WIN! He understood how he could make the media dance to his tune exactly how he wanted them to, and they would be powerless to figure out that they were going WAY too far and that voters love the rich, the famous, the outlandish, especially when they are UNDERDOGS ... a lone champion fighting a rigged system run by Wall Street and two massively corrupt political parties. He may not have much of an idea what to do with it if he wins, but he understands that winning would change the game in unpredictable ways, and he finds that more interesting.
  
• He may just be having fun. He likes being rich, famous, getting attention, being talked about, being outlandish, jerking people's chains, etc, and he is having A BLAST! He well knows that if Slick Willie and BO can be president, ANYONE can be president -- certainly a guy that runs companies worth billions of dollars rather than a hick that ran a poor southern state, or a failed community organizer that never ran a lemonade stand. He is running for the hell of it -- BOistan is a shambles anyway, the scarecrow from Wizard of Oz would be better than Hildebeast (sans brain). 

So does the New Yorker really think that anyone that remotely knows what the 2nd amendment is cares about their opinion?

For anyone who cares about the future of American politics, the comment represents a dwindling commitment to politics itself, to the notion that, through rhetoric and competition, we might find a common way as a people. Instead, the Republican candidate made a casual nod to the final force of arms. At this stage, so little that Trump says shocks us, but, now and then, it is worth stepping back and regarding the full damage of it all: the wounds to our fading global image of openness and generosity; the stomping on our admiration for intelligence, eloquence, or honesty; and now the blithe contempt for safe and civil government.

 I understand that the New Yorker thinks that BOistan is a super great place, but do they REALLY think that anyone else in the world has a SHRED of respect for BOistan? Red Lines? Ransom Money? Chinese islands, Putin, Syria, ISIS, ... we are a laughing stock. BO defeated us, he succeeded in destroying the colonial powers.

 I can't imagine that the author of that paragraph actually believes any of what he is writing. "through rhetoric and competition we might find a common way" ?? We actually had a CONSTITUTION once and shared values that were supposedly "endowed by a creator". So I assume we can interpret "competition" as POWER and "rhetoric" as false advertising or essentially LIES.

Yes, BOistan is based on POWER AND LIES ... what else would one base tribal corruption on? "Shocked"? It is obvious that both parties and the media are shocked that there seems to be some shred of resistance to the power of the elite, and they are VERY excited to get it stamped out ASAP by ANY MEANS POSSIBLE ... they absolutely DO see Trump as "a clear and present danger", and I hope he DOES have some inside dope on some people in high places as well as some VERY capable people guarding his life. **IF** he is not a plant, he is in GRAVE danger!

'via Blog this'