Viewpoint

"Started out as a good idea - Let's be nice to people' - and finished up as a humorless, censorious, literal-minded, posturing idiocy,"  John Cleese of Monty Python fame commenting on "Wokeism."

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/john-cleese-mocks-hank-azaria-apology-apu-simpsons

Lying Down with the Dragon

Pope Benedict XVI has been snuggling up to China for some time. Yesterday he approved an expansion of a protocol with the CCP that expands the ability of the Communist government to have a say in the selection of Catholic bishops in China. One wonders if he read the new CCP vision of the Bible before for doing so.

Jack Fowler previewed the new "holey" book in his Weekend Jolt for National Review yesterday, October 3. As he notes, in doing so the CCP "... has taken more liberties than the crew of an aircraft carrier that’s been at sea for a year." Point taken. To illustrate his point, he gives the Red version of the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. 

The moral of the original version is, of course, let he (or she - equal opportunity here) who is without sin throw the first stone. The CCP authorized version of the Bible transmogrifies this message, however, into:

"When the crowd disappeared, Jesus stoned the sinner to death saying, 'I too am a sinner. But if the law could only be executed by men without blemish, the law would be dead.' "

Gonna say close, but no cigar. Well, OK - not even by a country mile. Actually, I think you might agree that they turned the original meaning completely on its head. And that folks is the danger of giving the Red Chinese a bigger "voice" into how the Church does business in China. Will this become the authorized version for the Catholic Church in China. Will this be mandated in dioceses by the new bishops, even though the Vatican knows nothing of it? Who knows, but you can bet they are going to try. 

The Church has always been at its best historically when it lives counter-culturally to the prevailing orthodoxy. That's why the Framers in this country enshrined separation of Church and State in the First Amendment. The purpose was not to protect the State from the Church, but rather the other way around. They were very familiar with the distortions of the Christian faith that occurred in England with the Anglican Church as the official State-sanctioned church, justifying political and evil actions in the same of God. The same distortions and worse will happen in China. That being said, perhaps lying down with the Dragon is not the wisest course for the Pope to follow. 

https://news.yahoo.com/vatican-pope-benedict-xvi-approved-094449838.html

Gems in the Rubble

OK, the first Presidential debate was a goat rodeo. There was a lot of heat and not much light. A number of gems of hard information were present in the rubble, however, including this beauty from Biden about tax policy. He made his point unambiguously:

“That’s why I’m going to eliminate the Trump tax cuts. And I’m going to eliminate those tax cuts.”

That's pretty straightforward, but what is the impact. Good question.

The Trump tax cuts were a boon to the middle class:

"... doubled the standard deduction for singles from $6,350 in 2017 to $12,000 in 2018; nearly doubled the standard deduction for married couples from $12,700 to $24,400, and bumped up the child tax credit up from $1,000 in 2017 to $2,000 in 2018."

The impact of this on the average working couple is a tax INCREASE of $2,300. Do you have $2,300 more  to shell out to the Feds next year ? And at the same time, Biden can still play the shell game and say with a straight face that he wouldn't raise your taxes if elected. Moi? How so Joe? Well, he isn't proposing to raise the tax rate, ergo no new taxes. Oh no, he is just exposing more of your earned income to taxation by eliminating deductions. The net effect is the same and we need to see through the word games and see the reality - something that the Democrats are trying to avoid at all costs.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/09/30/nolte-biden-admits-in-debate-hell-raise-taxes-on-middle-class/

The Great Divide

Dennis Prager admitted that he has been wrong his whole life - the Left's moral compass isn't broken; it never had one. Prager made the mistake that most Americans make, namely that there really is such a thing as right and wrong. Americans have long seen the world from a Judeo-Christian viewpoint, whether or not they are believers in a formal faith. From Karl Marx on the Left, though, has never thought in these terms. 

Instead of seeing the world through the lens of objective right and wrong, the Left sees it through the eyes of class warfare and expressly rejects any external and objective standard of right and wrong. Prager quotes Lenin at a Soviet Party Congress:

"We say that our morality is entirely subordinated to the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat. ... We do not believe in an eternal morality. ... We repudiate all morality derived from non-human (i.e., God) and non-class concepts" (Address to the Third Congress of the Russian Young Communist League, Oct. 2, 1920)."

The only relevant question for a Marxist is whether a statement or action advances (as they see it) or sets back the class struggle. Thus, lying, destroying opponents, or even murder can be justified as "right" if it advances the class struggle. 

What is confusing to many is that the modern Left no longer speaks in terms of the old-fashioned "proletariat" of the USSR, but has added many other categories to the protected class, i.e. - race, women, immigrants, and basically any people group weaker than an opponent. Anything and everything from the New Left's standpoint that is said or done that advances the interests of a protected group in this class is therefore permissible. 

What are some examples of this in the real world? Well, U.S. bad/Communist and socialist countries (by definition) good, white bad/everyone else good, Males bad/females and the gender du jour good, Israel bad/Palestinians good, police bad/rioters good. If you are classified on the "bad" side, then any lie or action that they can get away with is justified. Do you see how it works? 

It is futile to think that any Leftist will ever admit they are wrong in any objective. This is the source of the Great Divide that we see in this country today and indeed in much of the world and the reason that it won't go away. It is a fundamental difference in how the world is seen: one is grounded ultimately in God and in the other,  in power and as vested in whoever is ruthless enough to rise to the top of the heap. We should be prepared to respond accordingly over the long haul. 

https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2020/09/15/the-lefts-moral-compass-isnt-broken-n2576225

The Steelers are Winners

The Pittsburgh Steelers are winners, whether or not they make the playoffs! At a game this weekend they all stood for the national anthem and then unfurled a banner that says "Steelers Against Racism."  What genius - to be "for" the United States and "against" racism - sentiments which I share. Well done Steelers! You would think someone might have figured this out earlier, cough, cough, Roger Goodell. 

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/steelers-players-stand-national-anthem-banner

Never Forget!

 

You Have a Choice

One of the scenes I remember most vividly from the Minneapolis riots was a Black woman who lived in the neighborhood where the rioting took place. It was the day after rioters and looters had moved through and on to other areas of the city like a plague of locusts. She stood there looking at the burned out Target store and others in her area that had been torched and sadly lamented where would she now shop? Victor Davis Hanson apparently saw it too and is noticing a phenomena that is being ignored or suppressed in these urban areas where poor victims of the rioting abound and are shifting toward Trump. He asks a great question of undecideds in the Black community:

Most of the white Antifa mob and its wannabe thousands do not live with minorities and did not grow up with them or go to school with them. Do working-class African Americans enjoy watching white college kids or baristas in knee pads with umbrellas or teachers on full paid sabbaticals or Zoom half-days, ordering their local Target to be torched?

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/09/trump-race-and-class/